Fine Sometimes Rain

So, this week there will only be this single update unfortunately because I got sick. :p I’m going to the doctor today (Monday) so hopefully I will be back in the saddle by the end of the week. I think though that for a single update week, this is a pretty good page to have. :3 At least I like this page, haha. Anyway I feel a little compelled to write some thoughts on Van Gogh so bear with me or just skip the next paragraph and go straight on to the voting if you like, lol. XD

So, when you learn about Van Gogh in K-12, presuming they still teach Art History at all in public school, usually it is always discussed that Van Gogh was poor, didn’t sell any paintings, and he cut off his ear and sent it to a “friend”. If you are told this in elementary or junior high or whatever you may be inclined to think, damn, that’s totally crazy and you might give Van Gogh a side eye or just think he does those “swirly” paintings and forget about him mostly because there are other painters who seem more impressive. For a long time, whereas I enjoyed some of his most famous paintings like Starry Night, I didn’t think much about him as I was preoccupied with Degas, Monet, Redon, Chagall and so on. Anyway when you get a chance to actually dig deeper into Van Gogh’s life and works, usually in art school or doing your own research with Google you can find out a lot more about him and to me he has become a very sympathetic figure. I feel like I understand probably some of what he must have been going through. Here is a man who was plagued with mental illness (most notably depression) and did over 2,000 works of art in his short life despite living in poverty and despite not personally seeing much by way of success in the salons. Eventually as we know though he hit a breaking point which is why he lived to only 37. Either way he was certainly an artist who knew struggle, and it’s a shame they didn’t have the medicines and treatments we have today because imagine if he had lived a life as long as Monet….how many more paintings we would have, and maybe eventually he would have made that breakthrough. Either way this is getting rather long now so I shall digress.