Julie's tumblr. (Note: this is a casual blog, not a portfolio blog.)
◊ Prints of my art are available at www.inprnt.com/gallery/juliedillon/
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www.JulieDillonArt.com
Can I ask your thoughts on something art related? What is everyone's fuss with Vincent Van Gogh? I don't get what is so good about him and you sharing made me think to ask what I've always wondered about. I'm hoping this isn't an embarrassing or offensive thing to ask you. I do like some of his paintings, but I feel like I'm missing something that everyone else understands or appreciates and maybe I wasn't taught to recognize it.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? We have so many ideas and criticisms and conventions about what makes good art, and he seemed to break them all.
I think he understood loneliness. Maybe more than any artist before or since.
When you look at a painting like this—
—you can see it, I think.
There are no faces. No expressions. But it’s a bright, cheerful day on a family farm. Everything is full of life and warmth. A father has thrown down his shovel to catch his child. It’s love.
But his hands are what you notice first. Big, heavy hands. And they’re empty. Maybe they will be filled. We don’t know what will happen. We feel happiness only because of what we expect.
“Humans are inherently selfish–“ Then why do so many cultures value hospitality, to the point of dictating it in their religions? Why is it so common for hosts to offer their visitors their best food, and as much of it as they can? At some point, multiple cultures decided that they knew what it felt like to be alone and vulnerable, and promised each other to never let those who stay with them feel that way. That doesn’t sound very "inherently selfish” to me.
“humans are the plague”
No. Humans are animals as much as the fish and the bear. We are pack animals who have survived by strong bonds and community.
Do not buy the lie that humans are inherently evil. Societies can trick you into believing this, but it’s not the truth of humanity.
Humans crave being together, sharing together, and thriving together.
Capitalism just wants you to believe we’re destined for selfishness.
It took me a solid thirty seconds to realize that Phragmites was probably the genus name of the plants in the picture and not, like, an ancient Greek warrior waiting in the marshes to attack.
You know, as soon as I saw this post I pulled up my DM notes and quietly added a minor NPC antagonist called Phragmites, Scourge of the Wetlands. And woe betide any PC who encounters him within his marshy realm!
