Much is written about artists and madness. I'm reading about Alice Neel's breakdown and her time spent in a psychiatric hospital in Collecting Souls, Gathering Dust, by Gerald and Margaret Belcher, and I am about to start reading The Unknown Night: The Genius and Madness of R.A.Blakelock by Glyn Vincent. And speaking of Vincent, and Madness, here are the lyrics to Joni Mitchell's Turbulent Indigo, title track from her 1994 CD.
(Evidently the phrase "turbulent indigo" was how Van Gogh described his madness).
You wanna make Van Goghs
Raise 'em up like sheep
Make 'em out of Eskimos
And women if you please
Make 'em nice and normal
Make 'em nice and neat
You see him with his shotgun there?
Bloodied in the wheat?
Oh what do you know about
Living in Turbulent Indigo?
Brash fields, crude crows
In a scary sky...
In a golden frame
Roped off
Tourists guided by ...
Tourists talking about the madhouse
Talking about the ear
The madman hangs in fancy homes
They wouldn't let him near!
He'd piss in their fireplace!
He'd drag them through Turbulent Indigo
"I'm a burning hearth," he said
"People see the smoke
But no one comes to warm themselves
Sloughing off a coat
And all my little landscapes
All my yellow afternoons
Stack up around this vacancy
Like dirty cups and spoons
No mercy Sweet Jesus!
No mercy from Turbulent Indigo."
top 3 pics:
Tim Roth as Van Gogh in Robert Altman's 1990 film, Vincent and Theo.
bottom 3 pics:
Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh in Vincent Minnelli's 1956 film, Lust for Life.
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