Name an admired historical figure.Explain why.

[Wildor]

The title is self-explanatory.

To keep this controversy-free however, we should limit our choices to pre-1950.

A brief discussion on our different choices could be interesting.

Let me start...




It is always very easy to talk about VINCENT VAN-GOGH in a humorous vein. The man WAS mentally unstable.
However, I can never discuss him and his work seriously without being moved. In my opinion, very few have given so much. For having received so little.

We have no real idea of what it was to be poor in the late nineteenth century. The appalling living conditions, the dreadful diet when indeed there was food to be had, the untreated diseases...
VAN-GOGH was poor. In the last years of his life, very poor. I certainly believe that the life he had contributed in no small measure to his mental instability.
We all know the story... His brother, owning an art gallery and being of the middle-class, would send him a little money every month and was the only person to buy one of his paintings in his lifetime. Cheap. Because he thought he MIGHT be able to find a buyer for it. It was not so ugly as the rest his works...
To live not only so poor and sick, but misunderstood as well, made his life an ordeal I would not wish on my worst enemy.

That's what he received.

When PICASSO and BRAQUE started the cubist movement, giving modern art the impetus it needed to fully develop, they were the talk of the Paris elite art scene. To their eternal credit, when critics and "connaisseurs" were waxing lyrical about a "new approach" and a "revolution in art", both acknowledged that, yes indeed, this WAS a revolution, and that what they were doing would change art forever. But no... they weren't the two who started this.
Both PICASSO and BRAQUE would tell fans and interviewers: " We're only following in the footsteps of VAN-GOGH. His late works taught us."
Considering the impact of the cubists in the decades to follow, evaluate if you will the rippling influence of VAN-GOGH on the modern world. Many serious art academics state unequivocally that all modern art start with him. A contribution of this magnitude is in itself enough to elevate his name the ranks of the greatest artists of all time.

But that is only the beginning of what VINCENT gave.

When you have seen his works, really SEEN them, then you begin to understand...
VAN-GOGH is walking home, late at night, to the little village where he stays, in the south of France. He feels the beauty, the serenity and this "homecoming" feeling, all wrapped around this scene, this place at this very moment... A candlelit little village... A moonless night sky filled with stars...the promise of a warm bed...

That feeling, that MOMENT, he gives it to you.

VAN-GOGH is walking along a road of ripe wheat fields all around on a gorgeous, sunny day. And he can't help himself, he just DIVES in, dives in the golden wheat. And the wind is playing, and the sun is bouncing all around, and the colors overwhelm, AND THIS IS GLORIOUS.... Just glorious! He feels blessed for having known this moment.

And he gives it to you.

And to all those to come after.

Even as I am writing this, I am moved (again!!) by such generosity.