Because geek is cool and clever

Starry night June 14, 2009

Van Gogh’s Starry Night is the most amazing painting I have ever seen.

I have spent hours of my life just looking at this picture, studying every clearly defined pallet knife stroke. It is, in both part, beautiful and spellbinding.

If this is the vision (and by that I mean his feeling, concept and comprehension) of the cosmos that made its way into Van Gogh’s mind when he painted this extraordinary masterpiece, then the man was both blessed and cursed in equal measure.

I would love to see the world around me like this. What would appear to us as a normal ‘starry night’ – sure, a dark sky with bright stars against the local village, appeared to Van Gogh as this scene. Not literally, of course, but this is how his mind was able to interpret it.
The wonders of the cosmos laid bare.

Imagine seeing the world with such beauty. No surprise that it would eventually drive you mad.

That it was painted while Van Gogh was resident in an asylum at Saint-Remy says a lot about the definition of madness.

Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer’s day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they’ll listen now.

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue, morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand.

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they’ll listen now.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget.
Like the strangers that you’ve met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they’re not listening still.
Perhaps they never will…