Poor Vincent

I love the impressionists. Renoir, van Gogh, and Gaugin are my favorites.

The Starry Night was completed near the mental asylum of Saint-Remy, 13 months before Van Gogh's death at the age of 37. Vincent's mental instability is legend. He attempted to take Paul Gauguin's life and later committed himself to several asylums in hopes of an unrealized cure.

From: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/starry-night/

June 1889 (210 Kb); Oil on Canvas, 72 x 92 cm (29 x 36 1/4 in); The Museum of Modern Art, New York
[...]
Van Gogh painted furiously and The Starry Night vibrates with rockets of burning yellow while planets gyrate like cartwheels. The hills quake and heave, yet the cosmic gold fireworks that swirl against the blue sky are somehow restful.

This painting is probably the most popular of Vincent's works.

Poor van Gogh...

Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)
Language: English / Music and Lyrics by Don McLean

Starry, starry night,
Paint your palette blue and gray,
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,
Reflecting Vincent’s eyes that shine of blue,
Colors changing hue,
Morning fields 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 heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget.
Like the strangers that you’ve met
The ragged men in ragged clothes,
The silver thorn, the 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.