The gun in the wheat field rang, the madman in the eyes of the villagers died, and his departure was silent, like ripples on the water, fleeting.
He completed more than 65,438+0,000 works before his death, of which only one was sold for 400 francs. After death, he became a genius admired by thousands of people, and a painting was worth 54 million dollars.
This kind of great sadness and joy beyond drama seems to be the fate of artistic genius.
0 1
British writer Mao Mu once said: Only a few people in the world can finally achieve their ideals.
Strickland, a cold and eccentric genius in Mao Mu's The Moon and Sixpence, is the best proof of this sentence.
The Moon and Sixpence, written in 19 19, recalls Strickland's short, difficult but great life from the first-person perspective.
The prototype of the hero in the book is the French impressionist painter paul gauguin. Although his story is not as well-known as Van Gogh's, his 55-year life has been no less painful than Van Gogh's, but he abandoned his family and children, was poor and sick, and committed suicide by taking poison.
Some people say that genius is a group of marginal people who can't integrate into society, a group of cowards who don't want to change themselves. But in the eyes of genius, being submerged in the general public is a shame of birth.
While surviving in public, the geniuses have discovered a new soul. In order to solve the ultimate mystery, they endure ridicule, insult, slander and even pay the price of their lives.
02
"He is just an honest and boring ordinary man. He is a humble person. He may be an admirable member of society, an honest broker, a conscientious husband and father, but you don't have to waste any time on him. "
This is the first time I saw Strickland's impression, but it is such a seemingly insignificant person who has done an incredible thing.
At the age of forty, he gave up his stable job as a securities broker, abandoned the life that others thought was rich and happy, and was notorious for abandoning his wife and children. He was fascinated by painting as if by magic.
In his eyes, painting is not to make money, not to be famous, but to be human: "I told you I wanted to paint." I can't help myself. If a person falls into the water, it doesn't matter whether he swims well or not. In any case, he either struggled out or drowned. "
In order to unlock the secrets of the heart, Strickland's world has only a shocking vulgar personality, without a trace of regret!
He can't stand any shackles imposed on him by the outside world. Speaking of his wife, he said, "I have supported her for seventeen years. Why can't she support herself for a change? "
Speaking of children, he said, "I really like children when I was young. But now that they are all grown up, I have no special feelings for them. " In order to get his wife to agree to divorce, he is even willing to give her an excuse for divorce.
As an artist, his life is more difficult than that of any other artist. He didn't want anything from other people, just asked them not to disturb him.
He pursued his goal wholeheartedly. In order to achieve this goal, he is willing to sacrifice not only himself but also others.
This kind of disregard for secular ethics and reckless behavior makes people despise, hate and shudder.
03
"In fact, love is a trivial part of life. I only know desire. This is normal and healthy. Love is a disease. Women are my tools for pleasure. I hate my demands on them, such as career assistants and life partners.
This is Strickland's true view on women and love.
Mrs crane, who has lived with crane for seventeen years, has a different view. Crane doesn't like publicity and hates taking part in accidental amusement, but Mrs Crane is vain and likes to make friends with celebrities.
She is very dissatisfied with her husband and thinks that he "has no literary accomplishment at all and is an out-and-out ordinary citizen".
After the crane left, in order to gain sympathy, he made up his husband's departure to elope with a woman.
Mrs. Crane's hypocrisy and selfishness, to some extent, catalyzed Crane's unremitting pursuit of self.
Blanche, the second woman in the crane's life, also has the most tragic ending.
She is a tutor. She was kicked out and aborted because she was pregnant with her employer's child. Fortunately, she met the kind Stroeve and took her in. Because of her bad reputation, she married honest Stroeve.
However, this woman who believes in love fell in love with the crane who went home to recuperate. Like all women who fall in love, she naively wants to domesticate this cold man into a prisoner of love.
But the crane has already seen through everything and only regards her as a tool to vent her desires. In the end, she endured humiliation and chose to end her life.
What Blanche didn't know was that his appearance inspired Crane's creative inspiration and contributed to the sublimation of his creative life again. And her death, in crane's view, is "stupid and worthless"
Family, love and responsibility, which are cherished by the world, are worthless in the eyes of cranes. The world can never understand the inhumanity of genius, just as genius can never understand the grievances of the world.
04
The greatest misfortune of genius is not that no one understands it, because spiritual loneliness can be comforted through creation. Their misfortune is that they can't get the warmth of ordinary people, and when they are alive, they become lonely ghosts abandoned by the crowd.
Crane is undoubtedly lucky. God let him meet 17-year-old indigenous girl Aita in Tahiti.
Crane enjoyed being with this woman: "She doesn't bother me, cooks for me and takes care of the children. She does whatever I tell her to do. She gave me everything I wanted from a woman. "
Aita's love for cranes is sacred. She regards cranes as her life. Even though he was infected with a bad disease and festered all over, she was full of joy when she saw him: "He is my man!" " "She said this, her eyes shining with the light of love.
Accompanied by Aita, Crane created his own world: "He looked at his works with a pair of blind eyes, maybe he saw more than he had ever seen in his life."
In the end, with satisfaction, pride and contempt, he took away the world he created and left the world with a mystery that could never be solved.
This seemingly cruel and sad ending makes people feel a little relieved and warm unexpectedly.
05
If Crane is an artistic genius, then Stroeve, another character in the book, is a genius who appreciates art.
When he first saw Crane's paintings, he predicted that he was a great genius. He tried his best to help the crane. Even though he was despised and humiliated by the crane, he still had no complaints until he lost his beloved wife and happy family.
This character is in sharp contrast with Crane. Crane is self-centered, hates human nature and stays away from the hubbub; Stroeve always thinks of others and tries to cater to and blend in with the crowd.
God gave him a unique soul, but also gave him the same need for human warmth as ordinary people. This is Stroeve's tragedy.
Crane represents a refined artistic genius, and Stroeve represents a secular person who follows the rules. His admiration for crane corresponds to crane's disgust for him. The gap between genius and the world can only be described as "summer insects are beyond words".
The loneliness of genius is a kind of loneliness of "one person shines on a thousand peaks with the bright moon". Although it is self-sufficient in the spirit of "everyone is drunk, I wake up alone", few people in the world are willing to bear this cruel loneliness.
Secular people just long for an orderly happiness, deviant, and become "different" in the eyes of others, which is a forbidden area that they dare not and cannot try all their lives.
Therefore, loneliness is the normal state of genius. It can also be said that loneliness makes genius.
However, compared with the hardships and loneliness of geniuses, their endings are too confusing. Because the world will never regard a madman as a genius, but a genius is a madman in the eyes of the world before becoming a genius!