Life as an expression of oneself

In one of the scenes in Irving Stone’s novel, Lust for Life, Vincent van Gogh walks past the synagogue which excommunicated Baruch Spinoza.  A few blocks away was Rembrandt’s old home.  “He died in poverty and disgrace,” said Van Gogh’s fellow walker, Mendez, about Rembrandt.   

Rembrandt died in poverty and disgrace.  Today his paintings are worth millions of dollars.  His masterpiece is valued by art dealers “in excess of $150 million.” 

“He didn’t die unhappy, though,” said Van Gogh in response to Mendez.

“No,” replied Mendez, “he had expressed himself fully and he knew the worth of what he had done.  He was the only one in his time who did.”

Van Gogh – self portrait

Source: Wikipedia

Some people are like that.  They don’t care what the world thinks of them and of the worth of their work.  Painting is what held Rembrandt together as a man.  It mattered little to him what others thought about his work.  He had to be himself.  There was no other way.  He couldn’t live with masks.  He couldn’t be anything but himself. 

Eventually Van Gogh would face the same dilemma.  He underwent tremendous mental torture in order to hold himself together as a man.  He had to paint in order to be human.  He had to express himself in order to be.  He too lived in poverty and died in disgrace.  Eventually his paintings too went on to sell for millions of dollars.

No one may understand your worth in your lifetime.  Your loyalty to yourself and your perseverance matter more than anything else.  Very few people may understand this.  Most people don’t face this dilemma.  Most people choose a profession for what it pays.  There are some, however, who need to express themselves, who cannot be but an expression of their very being.  Even if life means misery and disgrace, they persist.  They are that persistence.  They are just what they are. 

Rembrandt could not but be Rembrandt.  The excommunication meant little to Baruch Spinoza.  Rembrandt’s paintings justified his life.  Spinoza’s philosophy justified his life.  Van Gogh would have gone to pieces without the activity of painting which he did relentlessly. He killed himself at the age of 37.  In just over a decade he had created about 2100 artworks.  

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Did that lament rise again and again in the souls of these rare men?  It must have.  Van Gogh shot himself in his chest.  The bullet was deflected by a rib and death came very slowly, hitting him 30 hours later.  He was in good spirits as he awaited his end.  “The sadness will last forever,” he is reported to have said in the end.  Was life that sadness? 

“Ah … my work,” says Irving Stone’s Van Gogh at the end of the novel, “I risked my life for it.”