Prison Bird

Prison Bird

Last month, I bought a book named Van Gogh's Letter which was quite value for money because it's fully illustrated and had paintings of Van Gogh accompanied with the letters nicely typed out beside them.

I've always find Van Gogh a very intriguing person. His life and his mentality. A little insane yet contained some sorrows which he seemed to be hiding. I guess Vincent's lyrics made me felt sad for him. He is the kind of artist who chose to draw the most ordinary things. But reading the book, tells you how much thoughts and ideas were running behind those simple drawings. I remembered my friends telling me that actually Van Gogh's paints don't really have a very high value of art. I've no knowledge as to how one should decide the value of a painting, I merely like the feeling his painting gives me; and I'm happy enough.

There is this letter in the book which kinda show Van Gogh's emotional distress which is sad I think:

“Then there is the other kind of idler, who is idle despite himself, who is consumed inwardly by a great desire for action, but who does nothing, because it is impossible to do anything, because it is as if he were imprisoned in some way, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because inevitable circumstances have reduced him to this. Such a man does not always know himself what he could do, but he feels instinctively: nevertheless I am good at something, I can sense a reason for my exsistence! I know that I could be quite a different man! How could I be useful, what could I do? There is something within me, but what is it?”

A bird in a cage in spring knows quite well that there is something he would be good at, he feels strongly that there is something to be done, but he can't do it. What is it? He cant quite remember, then he gets some vague ideas, and says to himself," The others are building their nests and producing their young, and raising their brood." Then he bangs his head against the bars of his cage. And the cage is still there, and the bird is mad with grief.

"There's a lazybones," says another bird who is passing. "He's comfortably off." However, the prisoner lives and does not die, nothing shoes on the outside of what is going on inside him. He is in good health, he is more or less cheerful while the sun shines. Then the migration seasons comes, and a bout of melancholy."But," say the children who look after him in his cage,"he has everything he needs." Yet for him it means looking out at the swollen, stormy skies and feeling the revolt against his fate within himself. "I am in a cage, I am in a cage, and so I lack nothing, fools! I have everything I need! Oh, for pity's sake, give me freedom, to be a bird like other birds."

Mad with grief.

Isn't that what Van Gogh's entire life was like?

Who is to judge one who is sane insane?