One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. A particular work of art, TV show, book, or experience can come across as the greatest of all time to one, and a boring waste of time to another. Hence, I hesitate to indulge in conversations about the “best film”, “best actor”, “greatest artist”, etc. Such lines of conversation seem like chest-pounding closed-mindedness to me.
But then, that’s not very sportsmanlike, is it?
It’s certainly not very Van Gogh-like, who made it a point in his letters to his brother Theo to always — and I mean, always — express strong opinions. On everything, and everyone.
Fortunately for Charles Dickens, he fell in the camp of People Vincent Likes. Van Gogh reportedly was near-obsessive about his books, drawn in by Dickens’ depictions of the hardships and concerns of the underclass, the poor, the people that Vincent himself was so inspired in his early life to serve — and then, in a perhaps ironic twist, became one of them himself.
Van Gogh even painted his own version of the above — his own figurative self-portrait, entitled “Van Gogh’s Chair” — but apparently I need to travel to London to see it.
All right, no need to twist my arm. It’s officially on the list.
Shot on Pixel 6 Pro, black and white filter.
Muttering Retreats 