Love many things for therein lies the true strength and whomever loves much performs much and can accomplish much and what is done in love is done well - Van Gogh
What gives your restless mind true solace is the inner voice of your being that leads you on the path of love and self-making. And Van Gogh sought to fill this emptiness inside him with the fullness of art. He struggled with mental illness, poverty and his art was only recognized and admired after his death. How cruel can be the truth to the honest who choose to speak to silences of solitude and with the language of color and melody?
Van Gogh did fall in love with many things. At 15, he was forced to leave school as his family suffered financial crisis and took a jon at an art dealers firm in Hague. Five years later, he was sent to London where he fell in love with the land lady's daughter, Eugenie Loyer and when she rejected his marriage proposal, it broke hum down. He was an admirer of the writings of Charles Dickens and George Elliot but at this point of life, he turned towards the Bible. He hopes to become a minister but refused to take the Latin exams calling Latin a 'dead language.' He was enthusiastic in preaching and tending to the sick in an impoverished coal mine in the south of Belgium where he himself volunteered to go to. There he was called 'Christ of the Coal Mines.' When God writes your story, he knows your uses. The evangelical committees refused to renew Van Gogh's contract and Van Gogh decided to move to Brussels and become and artist.
He was impressed with the 'Impressionistic' style and also Japanese art and in the meanwhile fell in love with an alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria, who became his model, mistress and companion. He sought love as well as he wanted to give love to those who were troubled. When Clasina went back to prostitution he became all the more depressed.
This troubled personality of his is seen in his paintings. Bold, expressive and vibrant as they are, they show powerful, directional brush strokes with impasto. His exaggerated, beaming stars in 'The Starry Night' are not merely dots as we see them; the swirling breeze are an interlocking clasp of hands depicting his oneness with nature and love which he shall never let loose; the dark flame like cypress tree shall ever burn like endless desire,; the calm night listening to his whispers alone--a whispering lullaby.
Van Gogh completed more than 2100 works including 'Trees', 'Sunflowers', self-portraits, etc.
The swirling breeze are an interlocking clasp of hands depicting his oneness with nature and love which he shall never let loose; the dark flame like cypress tree shall ever burn like endless desire,; the calm night listening to his whispers alone--a whispering lullaby.
The year after he finished 'The Starry Night', Van Gogh shot himself in the chest. The bullet did not kill. Two days later, he died in the hands of his little brother, Theo van Gogh. Perhaps he painted himself in one of the stars of 'The Starry Night'.
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