He watched him as he stared into the canvas. The hand, numbed by absinthe, dipped the brush into those blotches of sharp yellow on the palette. He didn’t know what was going on in his mind, but he saw how much his brother suffered from his art. Theo believed in his brother’s vision, even if Vincent was perennially broke and always on edge. He kept going to the bank to fill his account. From that deposit, Vincent bought his alcohol (which gave him vision) and his painting materials (which gave him his living).
It wasn’t Vincent who drew the sunflowers or the starry, starry night. Rather, it was his hand and his eyes. No one would bother understanding Vincent except Theo. Some people saw Vincent as a visionary artist forsaken by his own creativity. Still others saw him as a nuisance to society who had one too many glasses of liquor, or took too long of a sniff of the paint and the varnish.
