Peasant (June)

'Portrait of a Peasant', 1888

Visiting Van Gogh. The Revolution turned everyone into citizens with rights, turned everyone overnight away from being humans being enabled to learn divinity. Equality, fraternity. June became, briefly, Prairial and, briefly, Messidor. Broad brushstrokes, it’s true, all broad brushstrokes, but that’s the painter’s business, broad brushstrokes. What’s a full-blooded human to do with robots? Holding the microchip of future desire in their artificial digits? When we could be painting sunflowers all over the flat surfaces, handing them back empty-handed. Revolution, you say. Divinity, you say. Brushstrokes, you say. Desire, you say. Sunflowers, you say. Time to get back to work.