--Vincent van Gogh 30 March 1853 ~29 July 1890 (aged 37)--

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art for its vivid colors and emotional impact. He suffered from anxiety and increasingly frequent bouts of mental illness throughout his life, and died largely unknown, at the age of 37, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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Little appreciated during his lifetime, his fame grew in the years after his death. Today, he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest painters and an important contributor to the foundations of modern art. Van Gogh did not begin painting until his late twenties, and most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years. He produced more than 2,000 artworks, consisting of around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches. Although he was little known during his lifetime, his work was a strong influence on the Modernist art that followed. Today many of his pieces—including his numerous self portraits, landscapes, portraits and sunflowers—are among the world's most recognizable and expensive works of art.
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Van Gogh spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers and traveled between The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught in England. An early vocational aspiration was to become a pastor and preach the gospel, and from 1879 he worked as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium. During this time he began to sketch people from the local community, and in 1885 painted his first major work The Potato Eaters. His palette at the time consisted mainly of sombre earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later work. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later he moved to the south of France and was taken by the strong sunlight he found there. His work grew brighter in color and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style which became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.
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The extent to which his mental illness affected his painting has been a subject of speculation since his death. Despite a widespread tendency to romanticise his ill health, modern critics see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence brought about by his bouts of sickness. According to art critic Robert Hughes, Van Gogh's late works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and "longing for concision and grace".
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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

--Major depressive disorder--

Vincent van Gogh's 1890 painting At Eternity's Gate

Major depressive disorder (also known as clinical depression, major depression, unipolar depression, or unipolar disorder) is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. The term "major depressive disorder" was selected by the American Psychiatric Association to designate this symptom cluster as a mood disorder in the 1980 version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) classification, and has become widely used since. The general term depression is often used to denote the disorder, but as it can also be used in reference to other types of psychological depression, more precise terminology is preferred for the disorder in clinical and research use. Major depression is a disabling condition which adversely affects a person's family, work or school life, sleeping and eating habits, and general health. In the United States, approximately 3.4% of people with major depression commit suicide, and up to 60% of people who commit suicide have depression or another mood disorder.
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The diagnosis of major depressive disorder is based on the patient's self-reported experiences, behavior reported by relatives or friends, and a mental status exam. There is no laboratory test for major depression, although physicians generally request tests for physical conditions that may cause similar symptoms. The most common time of onset is between the ages of 30 and 40 years, with a later peak between 50 and 60 years. Major depression is reported about twice as frequently in women as in men, and women attempt suicide more often, although men are at higher risk for completing suicide.
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Most patients are treated in the community with antidepressant medication and some with psychotherapy or counselling. Hospitalization may be necessary in cases with associated self-neglect or a significant risk of harm to self or others. A minority are treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), under a short-acting general anaesthetic. The course of the disorder varies widely, from one episode lasting months to a lifelong disorder with recurrent major depressive episodes. Depressed individuals have shorter life expectancies than those without depression, in part because of greater susceptibility to medical illnesses and suicide. Current and former patients may be stigmatized.
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The understanding of the nature and causes of depression has evolved over the centuries, though this understanding is incomplete and many aspects of depression are still the subject of discussion and research. Psychological, psycho-social, hereditary, evolutionary and biological causes have been proposed. Psychological treatments are based on theories of personality, interpersonal communication, and learning. Most biological theories focus on the monoamine chemicals serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine, which are naturally present in the brain and assist communication between nerve cells. Monoamines have been implicated in depression, and most antidepressants work to increase the active levels of at least one.
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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder

--Death--

Death is the termination of the biological functions that define a living organism. It refers both to a particular event and to the condition that results thereby. The true nature of the latter has, for millennia, been a central concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical enquiry. Belief in some kind of afterlife or rebirth is a central aspect of many religious traditions.
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Humans and the vast majority of other animals die in due course from senescence. Remarkable exceptions include the hydra, and the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula, which is thought to possess in effect biological immortality.

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Intervening phenomena which commonly bring about death earlier include malnutrition, disease, or accidents resulting in terminal physical injury. Predation is a cause of death for many species. Intentional human activity causing death includes suicide, homicide, and war. Roughly 150,000 people die each day across the globe. Death in the natural world can also occur as an indirect result of human activity: an increasing cause of species depletion in recent times has been destruction of ecosystems as a consequence of the widening spread of industrial technology.

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Physiological death is now seen as less an event than a process: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible. Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. Precise medical definition of death, in other words, becomes more problematic, paradoxically, as scientific knowledge and technology advance.

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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death

--Sadness--

Sadness is an emotion characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, and helplessness. When sad, people often become quiet, less energetic, and withdrawn.
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Sad is the negation of happy. Its synonyms are sorrow, grief, misery, and melancholy. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza defined sadness as the transfer of a person from a large perfection to a smaller one.
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Sadness can be viewed as a temporary lowering of mood, whereas depression is characterized by a persistent and intense lowered mood, as well as disruption to one's ability to function in day to day matters. When sad we often go through a process called crying where we shed tears.
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Studies have shown that when someone says they are angry or filled with hate that they are actually deeply sad or disappointed. Hate and anger are often ways emotionally disturbed individuals express sadness or disappointment, due to an inability or refusal to express their true feelings of sadness and disappointment.
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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadness

--Alone (Bee Gees)(1996)--

"Alone" is a song by the Bee Gees. It is the opening track on the multi-platinum Still Waters album released by the Bee Gees in 1997, and the first single from the album. The song is a pop ballad written by Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb and recorded in 1996. The track was a big hit worldwide, peaking at #5 in the UK and dominating the charts in Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia at #1. This was also their last Top 10 single in MTV Asia Hitlist chart until their song This Is Where I Came In in 2001. In the U.S. the single peaked at #28, making it their final Top 40 hit in that country.
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Maurice Gibb explained about the track:
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"That was one of the first ones we wrote for the album. I really remember having a good time writing it. We were sort of set up in the studio here with the three of us just together and I got some bagpipe sounds. We were just screwing around. And BG programmed this groove on the computer. We thought it was cool. We don't actually go in and plan to write a ballad or an R&B song. We just say, 'Let's go that route.' And we'll follow it. And Alone came out of that. I love the line 'I'm on a 'Wheel of fortune with a twist of fate.' Because of the harmony and that chorus, it was like a bit of '50s as well. And I like the idea of being that sort of Beatlesque type of song. I wanted that rambling. That sort of Byrds type, the twelve string thing going, but we just did it with the bagpipes instead and made it all connect. It was a very exciting demo. We weren't too sure about the bagpipes, but Robin actually persisted. He said, 'They're great; you gotta keep the bagpipes."
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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alone_%28Bee_Gees_song%29

--Bee Gees - Tragedy (1979)--

"Tragedy" is a song recorded by the Bee Gees, included on their 1979 album Spirits Having Flown. The single reached number one in the UK in February 1979 and repeated the feat the following month on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Though not originally in Saturday Night Fever, it has subsequently been added to the musical score of the West End version of the movie-musical.
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The song knocked "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor off the top spot in the U.S. for two weeks before that song again returned to number one for an additional week.
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In 1979, NBC aired The Bee Gees Special which showed how the sound effect for the explosion was created. Barry cupped his hands over a microphone and made an exploding sound. Several of these sounds were then mixed together creating one large boom heard on the record.
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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_%28song%29

--Aftermath: Population Zero--

Aftermath: Population Zero (also titled Aftermath: The World After Humans) is a two-hour American special documentary film that premiered on Sunday, March 9, 2008 (at 8:00 PM ET/PT) on the National Geographic Channel. The program was produced by Cream Productions.
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Similar to the History Channel's special Life After People, Aftermath features what scientists and others speculate the earth, animal life, and plant life might be like if humanity no longer existed, as well as the effect that humanity's disappearance would have on the artifacts of civilization.
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~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath:_Population_Zero