INCENT AND HIS ELIGION

With a preacher for a father, Vincent learned a lot about religion - he learned to despise it. He saw religion as a pitfall of self-justification, a fatal mistake of self-deception. In his early struggles to find meaning in his life, Vincent looked to the preisthood, but his passion for social justice and his zest for self-denial was too much for the established church to bear. In other words, he was making them look bad.

Rejected by the ministry, Vincent turned to the true diviner of meaning - his heart:

Though even then still unsure of his self-worth late in his career, Vincent wrote these words to his brother Theo. But even with the meaning he found in his art, it was still love that Vincent ultimately sought - and never received. And that was what killed him.