Artists and Spectators

We gawk and stare as the painters slice off their ears and down the booze and act like clowns. But we rely on them to make up for our own timidity, on their courage to dignify our caution. We are spectators in the casino, placing bets; that’s the nature of the collaboration that brings us together, and we can sometimes convince ourselves that having looked is the same as having made, and that the stakes are the same for the ironic spectator and the would-be saint. But they’re not. We all make our wagers, and the cumulative lottery builds museums and lecture halls and revisionist biographies. But the artist does more. He bets his life. ♦

from "Van Gogh's Ear: The Christmas Eve that changed modern art." Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker Jan. 4, 2010

This passage is from a long, wonderful article about Van Gogh: his passion, his suffering, his revolutionary art. It is as true for writers as it is for painters, and it makes me proud to be, in my small way, an artist as well as a spectator.

Submitted by Jan Tarasovic