In this message we examine the intrinsic value of a human life through the divine image bearing eyes of Vincent Van Gogh.
“I prefer painting people’s eyes to cathedrals, for there is something in the eyes that is not in the cathedral, however solemn and
show more...
and imposing the latter may be— a human soul, be it of a poor beggar, or of a street walker, is more interesting to me.” Vincent van Gogh, Letter 441, December 19, 1885
“Let us make people in our own image, to be like ourselves... So God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:26-7, NLT
“It seems to me the duty of a painter to try to put an idea into his work. In this print I have tried to express (but I cannot do it well, or so strikingly as it is in reality, of which this is but a weak reflection in a dark mirror) what seems to me one of the strongest proofs of the existence of “quelque chose là-haut” [something on high] in which Millet believed, namely, the existence of God and eternity - certainly in the infinitely touching expression of such a little old man, of which he himself is perhaps unconscious, when he is sitting quietly in his corner by the fire. At the same time there is something noble, something great that cannot be destined for the worms…This is far from theology, simply the fact that the poorest little wood-cutter or peasant on the heath or miner can have moments of emotion and inspiration which give him a feeling of an eternal home to which he is near.” From a letter Vincent wrote to his brother Theo, December 1882
“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11, NLT
show less...
