If ONE MORE PERSON says “What if they’d medicated Van Gogh!?” I think I’m permitted to set things on fire.  If they’d medicated Van Gogh, he’d either have painted twice as much, or he’d have been happy and unproductive.  And you know what? Starry Night wasn’t worth a terrible price in human misery. It’s neat. It wasn’t worth it.

Sometimes I wonder if being an artist makes me jaded to ART. Because it’s not magic and it’s not mystical, it’s just paint or pixels.  And it can do amazing things! But you don’t owe humanity to be miserable just so you can move paint around in interesting shapes. Jesus.  Art is not some kind of Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas bargain where you agree to be miserable so everybody can go “oh! Neat!” for 5 minutes.

Ursula Vernon, dropping the mic.  [x] (via magdaliny)

“Art is not some kind of Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas bargain where you agree to be miserable so everybody can go ‘oh! Neat!’ for 5 minutes.”

QFT

(via infinitemachine)

“What if they’d medicated Van Gogh?” is an unsettling phrasing.

What if they’d offered Van Gogh medication, and let him decide whether he wanted it?

(via pervocracy)