Hero's: Vincent

4/10/2020   Isle Verde   (in process)

They say he was crazy.

He looked at the sun and stars and saw multi-colored explosions.

He looked at  windmills and saw giants.

He looked at cypresses and saw great spears in daytime, moving creatures at night.

He looked at wheat fields and saw old people and children playing and dancing.

He was hypnotized  by flowers and fruit on the table.

He felt his sidewalk cafe, its candlelight, smells, people chatting and laughing and stars above, was heaven.

He seemed to think that potato farmers were in fact made of potatoes.

He painted his bedroom in shades and colors that only he could see and create.

He painted himself and others in such a way that we smell sweat, feel body warmth and sense  joy, fear, angst.

His letters to his brother Theo are masterpieces of loyalty and love.

To be sure his behavior could be bazaar

like when he took the Bible too literally and cut off his earlobe, ??? 

and he had periods of paralyzing depression.

Had great difficulty sustaining relationships. (Gaugin said he was ‘impossible”)

But much of the time he was starving, a time when most don’t think straight. 

And maybe the problem with Vincent was that he was simply too gifted,

too intelligent, 

too creative, 

too imaginative, 

too brilliant,

so much so that most saw him as crazy.

He felt he failed as a son

failed as a friend

failed as a clergyman

failed as a painter.

He lived in abject poverty.

His paintings were stashed in closets, attics and sheds. 

Ultimately he was murdered by local punks.

Vincent.

Was he crazy?

Or was he a rainbow?

Was he a shooting star?