God Speaks to Me in TV Quotes
This we know. A friend gave me some episodes of Doctor Who, the BBC television show. It's very fun. I just watched an episode where the Doctor goes back in time to visit Vincent Van Gogh, probably my favorite artist ever. LIke most artists, he died unappreciated and considered a failure. At the end of the episode the Doctor takes Vincent to the year 2010 and Musee D'Orsay to see his own exhibit. The Doctor asks the curator of the exhibit (played by the ridiculously good Bill Nighy) to talk about where Vincent ranks in art. This is what he says (with Vincent listening):
"[Vincent Van Gogh is] Certainly, the most popular, great painter of all time, the most beloved. His command of colour, the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world - no-one had ever done it before. Perhaps no-one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived." (emphasis mine)
OK so this has nothing to do with Brazil or travel or adventure. Or even about TV or art. Just something I'm mulling over recently. How easy it is to sit in our pain and share/inflict pain on others and how remarkable it is to transform that pain into "ecstatic beauty". That cheeky little thing on the side of my blog, "Dare to be Remarkable"; it's a great magnet to give your self esteem a boost. But what about when you want to sulk and pout and be snarky and mean and scream and yell at the injustices visited upon you in this place! How do you find the way to ecstatic beauty? That is very hard. Daring to be remarkable costs you something.
"[Vincent Van Gogh is] Certainly, the most popular, great painter of all time, the most beloved. His command of colour, the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world - no-one had ever done it before. Perhaps no-one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived." (emphasis mine)
OK so this has nothing to do with Brazil or travel or adventure. Or even about TV or art. Just something I'm mulling over recently. How easy it is to sit in our pain and share/inflict pain on others and how remarkable it is to transform that pain into "ecstatic beauty". That cheeky little thing on the side of my blog, "Dare to be Remarkable"; it's a great magnet to give your self esteem a boost. But what about when you want to sulk and pout and be snarky and mean and scream and yell at the injustices visited upon you in this place! How do you find the way to ecstatic beauty? That is very hard. Daring to be remarkable costs you something.
Irises - Vincent Van Gogh
I love this. And not only because that was a great episode. :)
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