If there’s one thing you could say about Vincent van Gogh with great certainty, it’s that he was not a happy man. During his life, the lack of recognition and the overwhelming loneliness took a huge toll on him, culminating in the great artist’s suicide. His famous last words will hit you hard:”La tristesse durera toujours” – The solitude will prevail forever.
But at the beginning, before the sadness took over, van Gogh faced his grief in a rather bizarre way: he ate the colour yellow. Through the eyes of an artist, yellow is a warm bright colour; it’s the colour of happiness. He wanted so badly to be happy, he ate yellow paint so that he could consume happiness, so that it might flood his body and shine from within.
Unfortunately, all it did was poison him. The world lost a great man to his own powerful mind. But a man is not dead while his name is still spoken – and I believe van Gogh will live on beyond the best of us.
