‘Sunflowers’

Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” has just been sold for $39.8 million.

I yield to none in my love for this painting, but it occurs to me that for that much money a person could buy much of the surviving folk art of Asia. I mean the classic traditional pieces that survive, not the trash produced for tourists.

Surely, if one painting is worth so much, the collective expression of hundreds of millions of people should be worth something--and should attract more attention, before it all rots away or is destroyed in wars.

E.N. ANDERSON

Riverside