The neat thing about seeing Van Gogh’s paintings live and in-person is that you can clearly see the brush strokes in the texture of the paint. It only takes a little imagination to picture Van Gogh madly dashing and dabbing his way across the canvas.

In June, I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time, and one of their featured exhibitions was Van Gogh’s Irises and Roses. It was the first time the four paintings in the set had been reunited since Van Gogh painted them 125 years ago. An exciting event for sure, but I had come for a different reason. Brian Selznick was taking part in a lecture called “Showing to Tell,” part of Julie Burstein’s “Spark” series of cultural conversations at the museum.

The neat thing about examining a Brian Selznick illustration is that you can clearly see the ghosts of pencil…