Name an admired historical figure.Explain why.

[Jasmine Princess]

It's still kinda creepy.

What is creepy? knowledge, my choice on person, facts?

[Sephiroth X]

I'm going to have to go with H.P. Lovecraft. With a crazy father and a messed up life, he produced some of the most influential writings that have inspired me today. His creativity and massive depth in his writing have given me hope that no matter what people around me may disagree with, there is always someone out there that will understand. It's simply beautiful and scary. Seductive and killer. So many of his passages will make your brain explode while making you beg for more. RIP Mr. Lovecraft. You're truly a pioneer in my eyes.

Does he write vampire books or something of the like? I don't read much...

[King Solomon]

you guys might want to stop spamming.

If you go to roman eras then Julius Caesar. He really made the roman republic fall and made it an empire. No i could go on about him, but won't if you want i could, but not now.

In Greek era i would have to say Aristotle, Plato. i can;t choose becuase i can't remember which was the apprentice and which one was killed by his believes and was poisoned.

I think for now those are the eras i can think of, but really stop spamming you two.

[Sephiroth X]

you guys might want to stop spamming.

If you go to roman eras then Julius Caesar. He really made the roman republic fall and made it an empire. No i could go on about him, but won't if you want i could, but not now.

In Greek era i would have to say Aristotle, Plato. i can;t choose becuase i can't remember which was the apprentice and which one was killed by his believes and was poisoned.

I think for now those are the eras i can think of, but really stop spamming you two.

Am I spamming?

[King Solomon]

no the other two.

[Sephiroth X]

no the other two.

Oh, I see.

[Cyhort]

Nobunaga Oda. He went from being considered a worthless fool to almost conquering Japan. He also changed the way war was fought in Japan and was one of the most modernized forces in the world at the time.

[King Solomon]

you could say Attila the Hun. he conquered many tribes which then untied and fought him, but he conquered the vandals who had no where else to go and get into Rome and destroyed it from the inside out. Attila was also heading for Rome but died before he could get there and destroy it, but he scared the Romans so much that lead to chaos. Once the roman Empire fall the middle ages started and then history continued. See why i said it is hard to pick one person there are so many and each period has its own people.

[Edu]

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 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.

Wildor,

A few things, Vincent wasn't as poor as you want us to believe right now. He sold his paintings for enough money to provide in his means. Certainly in the time he lived in Arles. Before that, when he lived in Zundert & Nuenen with his parents he didn't need anything of course. It is a common story that his brother would send him money, but that is far beyond the truth.

Having lived in Nuenen myself, Vincent's family was of reasonable wealth, not rich, but certainly not poor. I also don't believe that Vincent was as deluded as you state. Of late there are historians who question if Vincent actually cut of his own ear in a mentally deluded state or that his friend Renoir cut it off to make sure Vincent would be able to get some sort of a state pension. I wasn't there, so I don't know.

Two other things, his name is not van-gogh as you state, but van Gogh, without the '-' and with a small v and capital G, that's the way the Dutch write their last names.
As last thing, not really to do with Vincent, but with Arles, the world's oldest ever woman, who was aged 129 when she died remembered Vincent as a friendly, somewhat weird painter, who always got his painting stuff from the store of her father. She died in the 90s I believe of last century, could be 2000. When she was 60something a rich lawyer from Marseilles saw her house and bought it, he gave her right to live in her own house, free of rent, for the rest of her life. The lawyer died when he was 85, she outlived him for another 40 years.

[Sephiroth X]

Nobunaga Oda. He went from being considered a worthless fool to almost conquering Japan. He also changed the way war was fought in Japan and was one of the most modernized forces in the world at the time.

He is awesome.

Another notable person is Genghis Kahn. He conquered most of Asia.