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Writer's pictureAndy McIlvain

We Need Sad Stories by Russ Ramsey

Updated: Nov 4

In this excellent article by Russ Ramsy from The Gospel Coalition we are reminded of how as fallen humans prone to sin and forgetfulness we need sad stories to contrast with the good that God gracefully provides.


The Trinquetoille Bridge, 1888 by Vincent van Gogh
The Trinquetoille Bridge, 1888 by Vincent van Gogh


We Need Sad Stories by Russ Ramsey

"Art shows us back to ourselves, and the best art doesn’t flinch or look away. It tells us our story, and what story doesn’t have some measure of sorrow? What great story doesn’t contain great sorrow?

I’ve loved Vincent van Gogh since I was a kid. In those early years, I couldn’t have told you what drew me to his work, but now three decades later I know; it’s the mix of splendor and sorrow. His paintings aren’t mere pictures of rivers, sunflowers, or night skies; they’re his attempt to capture the wonder and struggle of being alive. Everything Van Gogh saw was full of beauty and sadness—an increasingly familiar tension for him. They were present even in the way he talked about the ordinary scenes he wanted to paint, like this description of a bridge in Arles, France:

I have a view of the Rhône—the iron bridge at Trinquetaille, where the sky and the river are the colour of absinthe—the quays a lilac tone, the people leaning on the parapet almost black, the iron bridge an intense blue—with a bright orange note in the blue background and an intense Veronese green note. One more effort that’s far from finished—but I am trying to get at something utterly heartbroken and therefore utterly heartbreaking.

Much of the world’s great art comes from places of sadness, and I believe that’s often why we connect with it. It isn’t that the works themselves are of a sorrowful subject matter; it’s that the artists bring their personal experience to their work to say something meaningful about the world to the viewer.


Art Tells a Story

We want what we say to matter. We want it to connect. We want it to help people.

Much of the world’s great art comes from places of sadness.

So artists create, not just to show us a picture of a bridge but to show us something of this world where bridges are needed and used by people to get from one bank to the other without going under. Some cross alone, while others walk hand in hand as the sun dances on the water and casts those leaning on the rail as silhouettes.

But there we are, each living out our unfolding story filled with all kinds of joy and difficulty..." from the article: We Need Sad Stories by Russ Ramsey



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