You don’t have to be a frequent art gallery visitor to know Vincent Van Gogh. You’ll know him through social media, or your artsy friend mentioning his name. Or you just read a random post of his story and his life as an artist.
He wasn’t famous when he was alive. He was seen as an average painter throughout his life. Always on poor diet and cigarettes. Somewhere down the line he even had psychotic episodes. What made him extraordinary was his outlet to this condition.
This outlet of his was filled with colors, strokes, easel and a canvas. He painted people,flowers, skies and trees. he painted them as he saw them. Sometimes sad, sometimes happy and sometimes delusional.
Even during the last years of his life, when in an asylum, he drew from memories, he painted for his new born nephew, painted himself, the skies, the fields. I guess that is why people are so drawn towards his art. Maybe we are all sad in someway without an outlet to express it unlike Vincent. Maybe we envy him and we are always drawn towards people we envy.
Something similar was felt by me when I visited the starry nights which he drew from his asylum room after he severed himself. When he was known to be hallucinating. When you see it on your screens it almost looks animated, made probably through an app. When you see the strokes in front of you, it hits you that this is what he saw, this is what he felt, agitation, failure, disappointment.
Sitting here writing this, I can only wonder would his paintings be as successful as they are now if he led a normal life? If he had taken on a wife, children and a farm with three cows and six hens and died at 80. Or is turmoil what is needed to pierce the art through the audience? What would he feel if he was seeing how his art popularised after his death. Would his last words still be:
One story at a time 
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