But,to me,Van Goph is the finest painter of them all.Certainly,the most popular,great painterof all time,the most beloved.His commmand of colour the most magnificent.He transformed t--he pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty.Pain is easy to portray,but to use your pas-sion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world.No one had eve-r done it before.perhaps no one ever will again.To my mind that strange,wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist,but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.