But I– A couple years ago, a man came up to me after… my show. He had an opinion. Now, in the show, I’d spoken about taking antidepressant medication, and he had an opinion on that.
Now, interestingly, I’d also spoken about how unhelpful unsolicited advice is in a… mental health plan, but he mustn’t have heard that bit. He said,
“You shouldn’t take medication because you’re an artist. It’s important that you feel.”
He said, “If Vincent van Gogh had have taken medication, we wouldn’t have the sunflowers.”
I never, ever, ever thought that my art history degree would ever come in handy. I tore that man a college debt-sized new arsehole. I said,
“Good opinion, mate. Except that he did medicate. He self-medicated a lot. He drank a lot. He even nibbled on his own paints. He didn’t just paint sunflowers, he did quite a few portraits of psychiatrists. Not even random ones. Psychiatrists who were treating him. And medicating him
“And there’s one particular portrait of one particular psychiatrist, and he’s holding a flower, and it isn’t a sunflower. It’s a foxglove. And that foxglove forms part of a medication that Van Gogh… took for epilepsy. And that derivative of the foxglove plant medi-fucking-cation-”
I must’ve skipped a dose today ‘cause I was feeling. “-The derivative of the foxglove, if you overdose it a bit, you know what happens? You can experience the color yellow a little two intensely.
“So perhaps… we have the sunflowers precisely because… Van Gogh medicated. What do honestly think, mate?” I said. “That creativity means you must suffer? That is the burden of creativity? Just so you can enjoy it? Fuck you, mate. If you like sunflowers so much, buy a bunch and jerk off into a geranium.”
[ID: a painting by presumedly Van Gogh depicting a man sitting with his elbow propped on a table and his face against the hand of that elbow. With his other hand he is holding a plant, presumedly foxglove. /end ID]
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