Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Vincent Van Gogh - Victim of a Gun Accident

Robert Porath writing for the Daily Camera
Again following a mass shooting, gun sales are on the rise. As a warning it should be noted that the death of Vincent Van Gogh, long thought to be a suicide, is now considered an accidental shooting, that he carried along a gun hoping to frighten away a group of children who were harassing him as he tried to paint in the fields around Arles, and that in a scuffle he was shot in the stomach, certainly not a likely target in suicide.

 The negative potential of a gun should never be underestimated. The tragedy of Van Gogh is that at the peak of his artistic powers, creating paintings that are still so beautifully alive today, his life was ended by the power of a gun. The tragedy of America is that the power of the gun is so accepted as positive.
I'll betcha old Vincent had a few strikes on him before that accident with the gun. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

15 comments:

  1. There is an alternate shooting scenario that involves a couple of brothers who stole their uncle's gun and that they shot him.

    What is clear is that he did not commit suicide.

    Gun violence cost the world the creativity of an exceptional artist.

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    1. What is clear is that you're accepting without study a wild claim made about an incident that happened over a hundred years ago. Dog Gone, you have heard of confirmation bias, no? Your hatred of guns blinds any intellectual abilities you may have.

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    2. It would be interesting to note that Van Gogh was shot with a revolver, a rare item in the French countryside of the late 19th century.

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    3. Gunsucks like Greg get very nervous when the holy Gun is mentioned even as a possible cause of death. The Holy Gun can only do good, and if a person link the Holy Gun to evil, that person be evil. Thanks be to you, O Holy Gun, for Your Beneficience this day. Give us this day our Daily Massacre, that we may praise your work, O Holy Gun!

      Sickening and perverted. Gunsucks and their gun worship. Disgusting.

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    4. Anonymous, quoting Zardoz only makes you look foolish.

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    5. Have either of you ever left the basement?

      Only one of it's own kind would know the meaning behind anything named "Zardoz".

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  2. Mikeb, this is a stretch, even for you--a death in 1890 is supposed to convince us that we shouldn't have guns today?

    But consider this. What if the film director Theo van Gogh, descendent of Vincent's brother, had been armed when he was attacked by a terrorist and killed? Dog Gone will explain to you how carrying a handgun is a good idea for someone who is being stalked.

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    1. Greg, did I say this shows that you shouldn't have guns today? No. The only point I made was about the "one strike you're out" philosophy. It would save lives.

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    2. Mikeb, do you understand what an implication is? You imply a lot without explicitly saying it. But are you aware that this new twist on van Gogh's death is controversial? It was proposed by two authors, but most scholars reject it.

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    3. Greg, why do you try so hard to defend the gun. You know it's an inanimate object, right?

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    4. The gun is an object. I'm defending the right of people to own and carry said object. You're trying to infringe on those rights.

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  3. Wow, he lost the gun in a STRUGGLE and the trigger accidentally got pulled. That happens. Is that the fault of the gun or the "poor misunderstood children" that were attacking him?

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  4. Those tin foil hats look good on DG & Mikeb.

    orlin sellers

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  5. I had never heard this before. I really am influenced by Van Gogh's drawing style. I have to go and read some of this stuff...thanks...for the theoretical art history update.

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