Starry starry night....

A recent email from a good friend reminded me about one of my favourtite artists - Vincent Van Gogh. However you may choose to pronounce his name, I don't care, but to me, his works have been an inspiration in my humdrum and pathetic existence.

Being the layman, I have absolutely no idea why Vincent's paintings hold me in such fascination. There are indoubtedly other better, and greater painters in existence, and yet every time I see his Sunflowers or his Starry Night, something wierd seems to happen inside me. The paintings are so beautiful, and yet possess such depth and such pathos. I always walk away feeling a poignancy. Every single time.

Such a brilliant and amazing artist, yet he lived the last 10 years of his life in deep dark madness, shut up in an asylum somewhere, and finally shooting himself at the age of 37.

Brilliance has to pay a price. Many say that Vincent's talent was attributed to his worsening mental condition; that it was the cocktail of disease, drugs, and chemicals that influenced his vision and therefore his art form.

Given a choice, would you have chosen brilliance, living and ending life with a burst and a bang? Or would you rather live the long happy life of a simpleton?

Vincent
By Don McLean
Starry starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer’s day
With eyes know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand what you try to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen
They did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now

Starry starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue
Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the aritist’s loving hand

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside on that starry starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you Vincent
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

Starry starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heats on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget
Like the strangers that you ‘ve met
The ragged man in ragged clothes
A silver thorn in a bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know what you try to say to me
That how you suffered for your sanity
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you try to set them free
They would not listen they’ve not listening still
Perhaps they never will