"You learn more from your failures than your success", said someone wiser and smarter than me and I had a buttload of those. What I learnt from my years of building muscles before I lost them is, "to form a muscle, first you have to break it". What I learnt from my years in studying engineering is, "the hardness of steel increases when you put it under stress" and "a diamond is formed only when it is broken, cut, grinded". In this post I'll be sharing how artists make something out of nothing and comment below if you find something interesting!
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 -Don McLean
Vincent Van Gogh, as millions of people would consider the finest artists of all time and countless artists have gained inspiration from his works and continue to do so, even till today. If "Fall Out Boy" released the song "Centuries" in his time, Van Gogh would not have sung along with it because he didn't know that he will be remembered for centuries.
Now, you may think that his paintings are just dashes spinning right round, right round and what's so great about that. What made Van Gogh so unique? His personality. That made all the difference. His personality type in the Myers-Briggs Type indicator was INFP (Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceiving). One of the rarest personalities in the world. INFPs don't feel like they belong with people, since they know that they're unique and people are afraid of them. INFPs usually imagine the world in their mind as a real one because the real one is often quite disappointing. They do try and fit in with people but they soon realise that it'll never satisfy them, so they spend most of their time within their minds.
Society didn't accept Vincent as he was, different in his ways. He viewed the world with a different lens. He wanted the world to look at everything as he viewed it and he picked up that brush and painted his way on to the canvas. There's something an artist usually keeps with himself which is the fact that every time he is in the process of creation, a part of him is damaged. Let me explain. Every time you make a marble sculpture, the tool needed to remove the marble gets eroded. As David Bowie said in an interview once, "Making art is dysfunctional" As a result, Vincent was often depressed and that was all he knew in the world, so he kept creating and that made him dysfunctional.
It's quite ironic that the beautiful "Starry night" came from a dysfunctionality and Vincent made something out of nothing. I don't watch the show, "Dr Who", but there was a scene in it where Vincent Van Gogh was transported to the future, to show how meaningful was his existence and his reaction was touching.
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 - Don McLean
- PratDesigns