"Boys don't cry" and lately girls are also being mocked when feel like crying. Adults are not supposed to cry and whenever someone starts crying people often say: "Don't cry."
I would like to say "Don't laugh" when people are happy... I digress.There are many paintings of people crying and this is the first post I am doing about this theme.
This is the story of the boy and the painter that I found here:
"On a hot, dusty day in Madrid in 1969 Amadio was finishing a portrait when from the streets below he heard sobbing. Looking down from his balcony he saw an urchin dressed in rags sat outside the local tavern weeping uncontrollably. He called down to the boy asking him what the matter was. The boy, still sobbing, looked up but didn't reply. Taking pity on the lad Amadio took him to his studio, fed him and then painted his portrait. The boy visited him many times after this and he painted his portrait on many occasions but the boy never stopped weeping and he never uttered a word. A short time after his first encounter with the boy Amadio was visited by the local priest who was in a state of great anxiety. The priest had seen the boy's picture and told him that the boy's name was Don Bonillo and that he had ran away after he had witnessed his parents being burnt to death in a house fire. He went on to say that Amadio should have no more to do with the child because wherever he went fires would mysteriously break out. Amadio was appalled that a man of god should tell him to turn his back on a vulnerable orphan. Ignoring the advice of the clergyman he adopted the boy soon after.This decision seemed to be validated in the coming months by the fact that copies of his portrait of the boy sold far and wide across the whole of Europe and he became quite wealthy. The painter and his ward were now living comfortably off the success of the painting and all was going well until one day on returning from a trip to a gallery Amadio came home to find his house and studio razed to the ground. The artist was ruined. The finger of suspicion pointed at Don Bonillo and the painter accused him of arson. In floods of tears young Bonillo fled the house, never to be seen again. Amadio didn't hear of the boy again. Then one day in 1976 news came of a horrendous car crash on the outskirts of Barcelona. It seems that the vehicle had smashed into a wall at high speed and had turned into a ball of fire. Inside the twisted wreckage the driver's corpse had been burnt beyond identification. His driver's licence in the glove compartment, however, was only partially burnt. The driver was a 19 year old youth by the name of Don Bonillo. Soon after the crash reports of mysterious house fires from all over Europe started to appear in news items. The houses all had one thing in common, amongst the smouldering rubble were undamaged portraits of a crying boy."
At the site I took this excerpt they have other paintings of the boy crying and the text approaches other issues. So go here for further explanations because I am just focusing on the crying. The story above is bogus. I don't care. I am focusing on the crying.
Cry when you feel like! This is normal and part of being human even if the reason is not very clear.
