The Forgotten Masterpiece

I didn't know much about Vincent Van Gogh until I watched this episode of Doctor Who, entitled "Vincent and the Doctor." The information that had found a way into my memory stores was simply that he was a painter, he was crazy, and he cut off his ear.

New evidence suggests that Vincent was not the one who cut off his ear, by the way. But the way the actual story might go does not shed any more noble light on the man, so I digress.

Why go on about Vincent Van Gogh on a Wednesday afternoon when I should be committed to the task of rewriting a young adult time travel story that a small part of my psyche wants to believe will be the next Harry Potter or Hunger Games? Because I get this guy. 

I realize that I am comparing myself with a great artist and that sounds a little self-aggrandizing. I am not saying I'm the artist he was. But Vincent, in his own time and place, was little more than a joke. No one took him seriously. A quote of Vincent's sheds light on his inward reaction to the abuse:

"What I am in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. 

"That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum."

Human nature hasn't changed a whole lot since Vincent's time. Artists are treated as poorly today as Vincent was. It's easy to feel invisible, ashamed. Sometimes I feel like there is no one else in this world like me. No one that shares my interests, my passions. No one else that sees stories in the poorest dwellings and the dirtiest corners. No one else that has a mind driven toward those things with irresistible momentum. I struggle with guilt over giving up so much of my life to something that so far has been largely a solitary experience. It's easy to think it doesn't matter and I shouldn't annoy people with it.

I know it isn't true. The world hosts as many great thinkers, painters, writers and musicians as it ever did. Sometimes they are fortunate enough to be noticed on a greater scale in their lifetime, sometimes they walk silently through life and to their grave without a soul ever taking notice of the beauty that they left as a treasure map for the next generation.

I realize my last post was somewhat whiny and a bit of a rant. I don't feel that agents and book publishers are necessarily the enemy of my soul, as I may have made it sound. That post was frustration based on a year-long experience with one example of that breed that did not go well, leaving me back at the beginning and feeling like no one wants what I have to offer.

I suppose that's my point. I have to be willing to fling my soul on the canvas and reach down deep within me and find some version of the infinitely greater masterpiece God has revealed to me in secret places and quiet moments. I have to give my all, devote my energy and days to the creation of what he put within me, not because it will impress people, it will make money, or it will validate my passion to a scoffing, disinterested world.

Because it gives him glory. Because whatever I come up with will be placed in eternity's art museum as my best offering to my Savior.

That's enough.