Layers

Starry Night
Originally uploaded by mincaye.

All masterpieces have one thing in common: they are multi-layered, in that an observer can decide how far or how deep he or she would like to go in understanding them.

Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" quite remarkably inspired two works I enjoy, each for different reasons: Chong Kee Yong's orchestral piece, "The Starry Night's Ripples" and Don McLean's song, "Vincent."

Kee Yong painted a musical portrait of the meeting of town and country in the painting, using two motifs, one heavy and bustling, the other lyrical and lightly metallic.

McLean eulogized the artist, depicting the intricate beauty of the painting and the personality and brilliance of van Gogh.

Both succeed in creating an underlying tension, far more obvious in "The Starry Night's Ripples" than "Vincent." They express what I see as Vincent's madness, which drove him to his tragic suicide.

But maybe it's just that Vincent saw more beauty than anyone else could, and would not be fettered by the mundaneness of the world, or the limitations of paint in expressing that beauty.

McLean writes in his song:

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

He saw the dementia in van Gogh, Kee Yong saw the inspiration in the painting; both produced portraits of van Gogh that keep the memory of this genius alive, stubbornly refusing to die to a world that has lost its beauty.