Personal #2

I wrote last year about living with depression. It was well received and I've not had the need to write about the subject again in this blog.

And then I came across this picture and it struck me as a perfect addition to my attempts to describe the depressive state.

Why so?

At first sight the subject is unremarkable. A man sits on a chair, in front of a fire, with his head in his hands. There is detail in the hands, pain and age; the room is plain and apart from a poorly realised fire the painting has little energy. It's pretty ordinary.

But then consider the artist, Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853 - 1890), brilliant, troubled, mad and a poster-boy for depressive illness. Consider the date of the painting - 1890 - the year of his death (he shot himself on July 27th) and wonder if this is another self-portrait but this time a portrait of the inner state not the outer man. And lastly, consider the title "On the Threshold of Eternity" which, for me, is a description of mental illness that echoes long and deep.

And then look at the painting again

Knowing that the artist shot himself not long afterwards, try to imagine an inner world, behind the hands and the balding pate, for which the best description is "On The Threshold of Eternity": teetering on the edge of a dark, never ending, joyless, hope-less future. Just take a moment and imagine. It becomes a painting of huge depth and terrifying, hidden, energy.

I hope you can begin to see why I stopped in my tracks the moment I saw this for the first time, just half an hour ago.