By Bob Barney
This is a story about a famous person, whose life is almost unknown! I’ll call him Vin, for now.
Vin, you see had a remarkable gift for perception – seeing powerfully what most others did not observe at all – "sad but always cheerful" he described himself and he turned to the religious scriptures for solace, secretly harboring the ambition to become a clergyman like his father. However, he did manage to find employment in Ramgate, on the south coast, where he tough French, spelling and arithmetic in a small school – and was able also to linger on the beach and watch the sea!
From there he found employment as assistant to a Methodist preacher, where he came into close contact with the great squalor and poverty of his parishioners, inspiring him to live a life in the service of the most destitute. Unfulfilled in this work, he spent most of his time translating biblical passages into English, French and German, and his free time in the depths of the countryside where he felt at peace. His plan was to study theology and he confided in his brother: "I suppose that for a `sower of God`s words`, as I hope to be, as well as for a sower of the seed in the fields, each day will bring enough of its own evil, and the earth will produce many thorns and thistles". The image of the sower was to become a recurring theme in his work, which he is today known for, but not as you think!
His father finally agreed to let him follow his religious calling and sent him to Amsterdam to study for the entrance examinations to the University Theology course which, after 15 months of study, he failed, finding the work too arid, preferring to contemplate the countryside and the possibility of drawing. But the plan was not altogether abandoned and he went to Laeken, near Brussels to attend an Evangelical training school.
However, he was again refused, being considered too impulsive.Not daunted by this his thoughts returned to the poverty of the London suburbs and his mission to preach in the spiritual desert, like a John the baptist.
He wrote to his brother, "You know how one of the roots or foundations, not only of the Gospel, but of the whole Bible, is `Light that rises in the darkness`. Well, who needs this most, who will be receptive to it ? Experience has shown that the people who walk in the darkness, in the centre of the earth, like the miners in the black coal mines, for instance, are very much impressed by the words of the Gospel, and believe them, too."
Vin set off for Borinage, near Mons, in Belgium, to live among the miners and the poor people that he felt so moved to live with and to help. After being refused a teaching job at the school, he settled in the village of Paturages where he taught the Bible and cared for the miners at his own expense. Vin believed that God wanted him to live in poverty, to experience thay awful conditions of those souls he thought he was ordained to touch. With his father's help he was eventually appointed lay preacher in Wasmes. His great charity at this time, his life often being compared to that of St Francis of Assisi, with such actions as giving up his bed to a poor person and sleeping on the floor, soon brought him into conflict with the established Church. You see, the so-called “Christian” leaders of his church were outraged by his conduct. They thought a minister should not live in such poverty, glorifying what they perceived was a curse from God! Poverty, to these “men of God,” was to be seen as a curse from God, probably a result of laziness and drunkeness, in their own corrupt minds, forgetting what the Lord Jesus had said about he who helped the poor, were really helping Him, Vin’s bosses in the church ordered him to stop giving away all of his money to his poor parishioners, and when he didn’t stop, he was forced to resign! He continued his work for a while at Cuesmes but increasingly turned to drawing. he loved to draw these people who lived such a poor life in poverty. He loved these people, and was sure God did too. More and more, he began depicting these people in his drawing.
In the summer of 1880, at the age of 27, he decided to devote himself entirely to drawing and became a full-time artist. Supported financially by his brother, Theo, Vin went to study at the Academy des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.
He would later never make a living as an artist. He couldn’t make a living selling his paintings of poor people living a hard life. Rich people, at the time were not interested in the poor, or Vins paintings. Vin would die in poverty, taking his own life. Yet today, as his paintings now sell for millions of dollars, few know the real story of Vin. Don Mclean knew the story, and wrote a top rock and roll song about this man. Few understood the lyrics, written about this mad-genius painter, who cut off his ear, killed himself and became immortally remembered as Vincent Van Gogh! Makes you respect the guy now doesn’t it?
Click Here to listen to the song…….
source material came from: http://www.mezzo-mondo.com