Gearing up to go on the road

About this episode

Garrison Keillor reflects on the contrast between art and madness, using Van Gogh and Shakespeare's King Lear as focal points.

Some days I glance at the front page and see the name RUMP in three or four places so I flip back to the Lifestyle section and maybe find a wine review, “Fresh and vivacious with chewy tannins and bursts of flowers and fruits.” The deranged man with cognitive problems is a passing phenom, but bursts of flowers and fruits have been with us forever and even in January here in Manhattan one can find shops to walk into and feel flowers bursting around you and markets where you inhale the freshness of mounds of apples and pears and oranges.The old king who goes mad is a character out of Shakespeare, he has no place in America, you walk out of a performance of King Lear and buy a bouquet of tulips and a bag of apples and you’re back to reality. When Van Gogh admitted himself to the asylum for the insane at Saint-Rémy in Provence, he spent the last years of his life painting the gardens and woods, the trees and flowers, paintings that were the finest of his life. He could’ve been destructive, set fires, broken windows, preyed on the weak and helpless, but he did not, he found solace in painting. This is the difference between an artist and a creep. This is a public episode. If you'd…

People in this episode

Host: Garrison Keillor

Topics covered

• art
• mental health
• nature
• literature
• flowers
• reality

Keywords

• Van Gogh
• King Lear
• flowers
• apples
• mental health
• art
• reality

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Prairie Home Productions

Books & works: King Lear

Places: Manhattan, Saint-Rémy in Provence

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