Someone once asked me how I feel about Starry Night and, at first, I wasn't sure how to answer that question. Sure, the painting is magnificent and it takes you to a place beyond your own life here but what I truly see? It's a means of escape. Now, for years, we've been toning down mental illness whether it be because we don't understand exactly how crippling it is or the fact we've been desensitized by the pain of our own lives that we look past the suffering of others. "It could be worse. " We're raised to tell our selves even though sometimes it's a struggle just to do the simplest task such as getting out of bed. We've been conditioned to believe that our life is fine so what's there truly to be upset about? From someone who's depressed, it's much deeper than just a feeling of melancholy. For instance it's a lack of motivation, a lack of fulfillment, the nagging of your brain saying "Is this really it for me?" And you question your own purpose on this earth. Now to say Van Gogh was simply depressed is an ignorant statement that I'm not here to say. In modern times he would've been diagnosed as bipolar with frequent highs and lows which he self medicated with absinthe and some say that's the reason he used so much yellow in his paintings. Unfortunately his disorder would claim his life in 1890, shortly after his 37th birthday.
"This is my ambition, which is founded less on anger than on love, founded more on serenity than on passion. It is true that I am often in the greatest misery, but still there is within me a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest huts, in the dirtiest corner, I see drawings and pictures. And with irresistible force my mind is drawn towards these things. Believe me that sometimes I laugh heartily because people suspect me of all kinds of malignity and absurdity, of which not a hair of my head is guilty โ I, who am really no one but a friend of nature, of study, of work, and especially of people."
Vulnerable and forthcoming about the inner turmoil he experienced through his life, we see such beautiful art being brought to existence through vibrant colors with a precise stroke of the paintbrush and it brings a sense of bittersweet appreciation. He accepted it as his artistic truth yet at the same time it allows future generations to realize the importance of how a mental illness can affect your day to day life and maybe remind us that while we might feel such disconnection from everyone, we are, in fact, not alone in our suffering.
