Beautifying Eden
If you know anything about Vincent van Gogh outside of his art, perhaps you know he was a tortured soul. Vincent suffered from depression, paranoia, and public outbursts so disconcerting that in March 1889 thirty of his neighbors in his little village of Arles, France, petitioned the police to deal with the “fou roux” (the redheaded madman), which the officers did by removing him from his rented flat—The Yellow House made famous in his painting The Bedroom.
Shortly after his eviction notice, Vincent admitted himself into an asylum for the mentally ill—the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Back in those days, most psychological maladies were simply called “madness.” Debilitating depression, bi-polar disorder, paranoia, even acute epilepsy all fell under the umbrella of the diagnosis called madness. Treatment for madness often involved stays in an asylum. Labeled as such by his own community, the “redheaded madman” checked himself in and remained in Saint-Rémy for a year, from May 1889-May 1890.
What did Vincent do with his humiliation as a patient at Saint-Rémy? What did Vincent do while he was recovering during that hospital stay? He painted, and at least two of those 140 works were self-portraits with his bandaged ear showing. He captured the moment of his greatest shame.
It is hard to render an honest self-portrait if we want to conceal what is unattractive and hide what’s broken. We want to appear beautiful. But when we do this we hide what needs redemption—what we trust Christ to redeem. And what’s redeemed is beautiful.
Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear indicts us. How willing are we to lead with the fact that we’ve got a lot of things in us that aren’t right? Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear hangs in my office to remind me that if I’m drawing the self-portrait dishonestly—pretending I’m okay and not in need of any help—I’m concealing from others the fact that I am broken. The truth is my wounds need binding. I need asylum. And if I can’t show that honestly, how will anyone ever see Christ in me? Or worse, what sort of Christ will they see?
In Vincent’s case, there is a sweet bit of irony. Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, in which van Gogh willingly captures the moment of his own spiritual and relational poverty, is now worth millions. That canvas faithfully captures a defining moment of shame and need for rescue by showing the bandaged side, and it has become a priceless treasure.
This is how God sees his people. We are fully exposed in our short-comings, and at the same time we are of unimaginable value to him. Because this is so, this is how we should see others, and it is how we should be willing to be seen by others—broken and of incalculable worth.
In this book, we’ll explore the lives of nine artists in particular, and many others by way of their connection to the nine. Each of them gave the world beautiful works of priceless art, but some of their stories are filled with a surprising measure of brokenness and in some cases, even violence and corruption. Madeleine L’Engle reminds us that God often works through the most seemingly unqualified people to reveal his glory. So does Scripture. There is beauty in the brokenness. That’s what this book seeks to uncover. And beauty matters.
Content taken from Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey, ©2022. Used by permission of Zondervan.
Russ Ramsey grew up in the fields of Indiana. He studied at Taylor University and Covenant Theological Seminary (MDiv, ThM) before becoming a pastor. He and his wife and four children live in Nashville Tennessee. Russ is the author of Struck: One Christians Reflections on Encountering Death (IVP, 2017) and the Retelling the Story Series (IVP, 2018). You see links to all his work at russ-ramsey.com.