vincent

 today's flavor: B A S E L I N E
anxiety : 0
agitation : 0
No Benadryl Haze today, thank you, God! 

Over the recent holidays, I marathonned a lot of TV series DVDs, one of which was Doctor Who (2005).  In the fifth season, the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond encounter the artist Vincent Van Gogh.  I realize of course that the producers of Doctor Who value entertainment over accuracy and consistency, so I just switched off the nitpicker in me. 

The first Doctor and companion, painted in the style of Van Gogh.
Image from here.

Nonetheless, watching the Vincent and the Doctor episode reminded me that I had long ago intended to make a post on Van Gogh, and that I might as well do it now. 


Vincent Van Gogh would probably be at the top of people's minds when you ask them to name some of the best painters in history.  Art critics would bullshit about his use of color and texture and expression of emotion and blah, and his unique style and yadda.  Art historians would contrast his acclaim with the fact that he was the archetypal starving, struggling artist.   As it was highlighted - and exaggerated - in Doctor Who S5E10,  Van Gogh's talent was hardly appreciated during his time, and his work was considered rubbish.

That's the sad part about genius, we've been told by history:  it's not uncommon to be celebrated after you're gone.

Van Gogh self-portrait.
Image from here.

Van Gogh was bipolar (and a lot of other things).  Together with his talent, he had horrible mood swings, hallucinations and peculiar habits. I understand why people around him didn't recognize him as a genius.  He was dismissed as a nutcase, and even an idiot.  Some people who didn't know him so well found him unpleasant and disagreeable, but he did have a few good friends who liked him in spite of his weaknesses.

[ Just an interjection: I get why he felt the need to cut off his ear.  I want to do it too sometimes.  Auditory.  Hallucinations. ]

His biography tells us that before pursuing painting, he had trained for ministry.  Though he was passionate about it, he was deemed unfit by religious ethics-police and the doors of destiny were shut in his face. He turned to the only other thing he could do, and he was told he wasn't good at it either. From his own perspective, he would've seemed like a big, fat ginger loser - and that likely just worsened his emotional instability.

He produced his best works in a highly agitated elevated episode that spanned several months, one that followed a deep depression.  After this period of the greatest creativity and productivity, his high began to descend, and then he killed himself.
 

Sure, it was tragic that he was so mentally disturbed.  But I'm pretty certain his art would not have been so intense, and his life-story would not be so interesting if he were not bipolar. 

The more romantically-inclined would say something like he "turned pain into beauty".  No one can be entirely sure of course if Vincent intentionally took his pain and translated it into beautiful images.  What we do know is that pain and beauty coincided in the same unquiet mind.