Patricia Nicole Cruz

1BSA-5
GECAAP-18 (M1A1)

Watch this video clip Vincent. Then do the following:

1. Answer the ff. questions: As you listen to the song, how do you interpret
it? What is the message? What is the songwriter trying to say about him? Why do
you think he wrote a song for him? For you, what makes him great as an artist? (15
pts)

The song 'Vincent,' is all about Don McLean's understanding of the difficulties that
artists face. He is claiming that culture does not understand why artists paint or compose,
and he has dealt with this issue himself. Don McLean has seen Vincent's paintings and
understands what he was trying to say through them. Don McLean is trying to persuade
us (the listeners) that no one can pay attention to what Vincent was trying to say, that
people did not understand the true meaning of Vincent's paintings, and that people think
of him as strange. The most important point made by Don McLean is that we as a society
need to become more understanding.

The phrase 'starry, starry night' is used many times to emphasize the importance
of the heavens; Vincent appreciated nighttime and would paint night skies with many
stars. Don McLean uses positive connotation in the song before switching to negative
connotation. This is to demonstrate how Vincent felt sadness and grief even on his best
days.

I'm blown away by the way he gathered words and put them together in such a
way that they seamlessly rhyme and align with the work of a well-known poet. The
majority of the songs are presented using deliberately selected vocabulary and facts
about the artist's life. However, the stanza "Frameless heads on nameless walls with eyes
that watch the world and can't forget" is not well represented. This particular line, in my
opinion, is more or less insightful about his entire life from the artist's point of view, where
a portrait hangs on an empty wall, the portrait being none other than Vincent himself at
the time he was sent to asylum. “A frameless head on nameless walls” It refers to the
people that surrounded him when he was in asylum, people who were abandoned by the
world due to their insanity; they are frameless because they are unfit for the outside world;
they are nameless because they are losing their lives in silence, just as Vincent was living
at that time with eyes that watched the world and couldn't forget- he couldn't forget the
world outside and the shows in a frame. The sky's swirling lines may be a sign of his
emotional condition. During his time in the asylum, he used the same tenuous style in all
of his work.

I think, Don Mclean wrote this song because he saw (at the time) how humanity
was blinded by all of the lies, arrogance, and so on. He believed that no matter how hard
he wanted to reform society, society would never see it, and that in the end, he would
struggle as a result of his efforts to purge society of the many horrors that existed at the
time. People didn't know him, so he couldn't tell them what to do. We can see that he was
trying to do what he thought was necessary in the first and second choruses. However,
in the song's final verse, he declares that people can never improve and that he has given
up. McLean clearly understands Vincent's suffering. That he wasn't insane, is just that he
was suffering from a disease. 'Now I understand what you're trying to say to me, and how
you had suffered for your sanity.' If you listen closely, you'll realize that McLean sings not
just about Starry Night, but also about other Vincent van Gogh artworks.
2. In response, give your message to Vincent through a drawing. Then below the
drawing write the meaning/explanation. Use coloring materials. (15 pts)

What I want to tell Van Gogh is "love yourself". A typical advice but it is very crucial
to his life since he loved his arts more than anything else, even more than his own life. In
this illustration, I draw Van Gogh's self-portrait and also including an imitation of his art
style to send this message. If he can love his arts that much, what if he painted himself
and saw how great and valuable, he is.