Van Gogh brought a new world to the world. He painted, but no paintings were ever sold – but that was not the point, he was never depressed about it. If he had come across Lao Tzu he would have said: If people purchase them then they are not real paintings. Because nobody purchases them.
there must be something in them. Nobody can make head or tail of them.
His brother used to give him enough money to meet just his bare necessities, food, clothing, shelter, not even a single paisa more. So he would eat for four days and for three days he would fast because he had to purchase color and canvas to paint with. This was the pattern for his whole life, and he didn’t live long.
This world is not for people like that. They simply remain outsiders and strangers, they simply don’t feel at home. He painted madly because he knew that life was ebbing soon. How can you live for a long life on just four days of eating – and not even efficient food – and then three days of fasting? But he painted and he was happy.
His brother, Theo Van Gogh, was very, very depressed because no painting could be sold. He himself was a great critic of paintings, and he supported Van Gogh, he tried to sell his paintings,but no painting could be sold. Just to make Van Gogh happy he once sent a friend with money to purchase at least one painting. The man came and Van Gogh was very happy that at least somebody had come to appreciate. He showed him all his paintings, almost two hundred paintings, his whole life’s effort. But the more he showed, the more he understood that the man did not understand. He was in a hurry to purchase just anything, so he said: I’m not going to sell. I suspect that my brother has given you money. He turned him out of the house, that was the last straw. He said: Never again am I going to sell anything. He simply gave his paintings to anybody and everybody – to the tea-house on the corner of the street he would go and give his paintings – and after his death the hunting started.
He had created the criteria for himself – this is really something. A man like Van Gogh has to paint, and also create the criteria for the paintings to be judged because there existed no other criteria.
A man like Lao Tzu has to create his truth and then the methods of how that truth can be seen and realized.
After Van Gogh’s death his paintings became so famous that they were hunted all over Europe, wherever he had lived – in small villages, in hotels, in tea-houses, in coffee-houses. People had thrown them away as rubbish, they had completely forgotten about them. Now there exist almost one hundred rediscovered paintings and each painting costs almost ten lakh rupees, that is the minimum – and the man lived like a beggar, nobody ever purchased anything.
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