Tuesday, December 6, 2011

That strange, wild man . . . . .

Yesterday I watched once again the 2010 Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor." The more I see the episode, the more I'm starting to like it. The story has its flaws certainly, but there are moments that are extremely moving. For example, when the Doctor takes a despairing Vincent to a Van Gogh exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay in 2010, Vincent discreetly listens while the curator gives his opinion about the artist:

"To me, Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. 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."