Dear reader, Have you ever, in a fleeting moment, seen the stars in the night sky swirling around? Or perhaps, have you ever seen a single sunflower blooming by the roadside, as if it were burning with passion and crying out? Today, I’d like to tell you a little about a man who “saw too much.” Vincent van Gogh. It would be a great shame to dismiss this name and simply think, “Oh, that madman who cut off his ear.” He wasn’t mad. He simply loved the beauty and cruelty of this world too much, with too much sincerity.
In the latter half of the 19th century, Europe was in the midst of great transformation. The soot of the Industrial Revolution covered the sky, and old values were crumbling with a clatter. On the streets of Paris, Impressionist painters were clamoring about light and color. But Van Gogh, amidst this glamorous frenzy, remained utterly alone. He wasn’t a genius from the start. Rather, he was the epitome of clumsiness. He tried to become a missionary, but his enthusiasm was so great that he was ostracized; he tried to become an art dealer, but his lack of business acumen was met with disbelief. Nothing seemed to work for him. In the end, the only thing he could cling to was his paintbrush.
Just look at his early paintings. There’s a masterpiece called “The Potato Eaters,” but there’s not a trace of the bright light of southern France in it. All you see is the scent of the hardy yet sad lives of muddy farmers. He loved the truth of poor people who lived diligently more than the ostentation of the rich. He probably couldn’t stand the neatly arranged, false paintings that the academy members of the time were creating. This “grittiness” is the kindness at the root of Van Gogh’s character.
Eventually, he headed to Arles in southern France in search of the sun. This is where the true essence of the “Van Gogh” we know comes into play. Yellow, just yellow. He poured the sunlight directly onto the canvas. Those famous sunflowers—they are not merely sketches of flowers. His passion itself has been transformed into a burning yellow paint. However, passion can sometimes consume oneself. His cohabitation with his idol, the painter Gauguin, contrary to its idealistic beginning, turned into a tragedy where their pride and loneliness clashed.
He suffered a mental breakdown, had his ear cut off, and entered a sanatorium. The world called him a “madman,” but it was in that darkness that he saw the most beautiful starry sky. Look at “Starry Night.” The night sky undulates as if it were alive. That was the depth of the despair he saw, and at the same time, the light of salvation that lay beyond it. Instead of resenting the fate that tormented him, he sublimated all that suffering into vivid colors that no one had ever seen before.
The traces of his brushstrokes, those thick, undulating impastos, are the very heartbeat of his. For him, painting a single picture was a life-or-death process. In the end, he brought his life to an end in a wheat field, but I think it would be a mistake to feel only tragedy there. He painted it all. His soul, the light of this world, the unadulterated truth.
If you, my friend, are lost and feeling like crying at your own clumsiness at night, please remember Van Gogh’s paintings. The colors left behind by that clumsy man, misunderstood by everyone, still resonate with our hearts more than a hundred years later. Isn’t that his heartfelt gift, a message that no matter how cold this world may be, passion never lies?