Artfully insane
Vincent van Gogh was certainly skilled... and possibly a little psychotic too
by JACKIE ROSENHEK • May 2008
It's been nearly 120 years since
Vincent van Gogh painted his iconic
Sunflower series. The canvases, reminiscent of the late days of summer,
examine the blooms in various
stages of life and decay. The artist's
revolutionary use of colour, yellow in particular, may be the defining
feature of his life's work, though his ability to evoke intense emotion
using the simplest of subjects is perhaps just as significant. Like his
beloved blossoms, Van Gogh's mind was in a perpetual state of change.
Van Gogh once wrote, "the sunflower is mine in a
way." If only he had felt so strongly about his ear, part of which he
so famously lopped off after an argument with Gauguin in 1888. What
would prompt someone to do such a thing? Since his death in 1890,
literally hundreds of medical historians and psychiatrists have posited
theories as to what drove the brilliant artist insane. Whatever it was
that pushed him over the edge, Van Gogh has become the archetype for the
mad artist, whose genius was too great for his mind to bear.
THE MAN BEFORE THE MADNESS
Vincent was born on March 30, 1853 to Anna Cornelia Carbentus and
Reverend Theodorus van Gogh in Groot-Zundert, the Netherlands. Little is
known about his interest in art or his propensity for painting as a
child, but his first official foray into the art world occurred at the
age of 16 when he was apprenticed at the Hague gallery run by the
Paris-based international art dealers, Goupil & Cie. After being
shuffled around to various galleries for the next seven years, Vincent
finally decided to quit art sales and enter the clergy, motivated by his
love of the Bible and his desire to do some good. However, his
obsessive tendencies soon became clear; the young preacher was a bit too
zealous, prematurely starting his own ministry, rejecting all worldly
possessions and living like his poor parishioners. Eventually, he was
fired by the church.
The year was 1881 and he was already 27 years
old. With few employment prospects and encouraged by his brother and
best friend Theo, who also worked for Goupil & Cie., Vincent decided
to try his hand at art, despite his lack of formal training. He moved
to Brussels and, supported by his family, began taking
classes
at the Royal Academy of Art. Their trust in him was soon rewarded:
Vincent showed remarkable promise. He painted with an undeniably unique
style, achieving striking effects from average subjects. He travelled
some and found peasant life to be his greatest inspiration.
The Potato Eaters (1885) is universally
acknowledged as his first major work, but at the time it wasn't exactly
received as a success. In his personal life, too, the veneer was
beginning to crack. Though always prone to drama and intensity,
Vincent's behaviour became more and more erratic. He allegedly fathered a
child or two with a notorious alcoholic prostitute and argued
constantly with his parents (who were less than thrilled about the
prospect of supporting his unseemly girlfriend and her illegitimate
offspring). Eventually, Vincent left her and moved to Brabant in the
Netherlands in 1883, where his parents were living. He became incredibly
prolific during this time, churning out dozens of canvases and
seemingly endless drawings and sketches.
SILLINESS AND SYPHILIS
A couple of years later Vincent moved to Antwerp in Belgium, where big
city life lifted his spirits somewhat, but also introduced him to a new
problem: absinthe. Van Gogh drank heavily during this time, smoked like a
fiend and led a generally debauched lifestyle, enjoying the company of
prostitutes and badly neglecting his
health.
Though in Antwerp he received inspiration and further training, his
time in the city also left him with syphilis.
In 1886, he moved to Paris
to be with his brother. Guided by Theo, who tried to sell Van Gogh's
canvases in his Montmartre gallery, Van Gogh began to leave the darker
colours he favoured for the brighter hues of the popular Impressionists.
In Paris, he came into his own, developing his
new palette, refining his personal style and technique, meeting friends
like Gauguin and Toulouse-Lau¡trec, and painting many famous canvases,
including his self-portraits. He moved to Arles in the south of France
in 1888, hoping to establish an artists' community there. As a gift to
welcome Gauguin, Van Gogh painted his Sunflowers to decorate his
friend's bedroom. In Provence, Van Gogh produced some of his most
beloved and brightest work. He painted obsessively for months on end,
inspired by the light and beauty of the country.
His mind, however, was not as sharp as his
artistic eye. Drinking and smoking incessantly, he began to experience
delusions and seizures, in what many at the time attributed to epilepsy.
His friendship with Gauguin ended on December 23, 1888 when Vincent
threatened him with a knife, the culmination of months of arguing about
art and Vincent's fears that Gauguin would abandon him, which he
promptly did. Destitute and alone, Vincent sliced off part of his own
left ear, wrapped it in newspaper and offered it as a macabre gift to a
prostitute named Rachel.
Pretty soon, Vincent was institutionalized back
in Arles so his brother could keep a closer eye on him. He was plagued
by manic episodes, disturbing visions and paranoia, believing he was
being poisoned.
ARTISTIC ASYLUM
Van Gogh would be in and out of mental institutions for the rest of his
life, alternating between bouts of psychosis and relative normalcy. In
1889, he committed himself to one such asylum in Saint Rémy, back in
Provence. Here, he painted mostly in a very distinct swirling, tremulous
style, one characterized by his masterpiece from this time,
The Starry Night.
He was permitted to use an empty cell as an atelier and painted what he
could see out the window and what he could remember, sometimes copying
other painters' works for lack of visual inspiration of his own. When he
was well, he was allowed to walk the grounds and paint outside. At one
time, however, after he tried to kill himself by eating paint, his
doctors restricted him to drawing. Despite these adverse conditions, Van
Gogh arguably created his best works at Saint Rémy.
Although he left the institution in 1890, he was
obviously still not well. He entrusted himself to the care of a doctor
in Auvers-sur-Oise recommended to him by Camille Pissarro, Dr Paul
Gachet. Gachet was a bit of a lunatic and an ama¡teur painter himself,
and despite the fact that Van Gogh cared for him deeply, the man was not
able to do much to improve his patient's condition. During the two
months he spent with the doctor and despite enjoying a brief period of calm, Van Gogh suffered from increasing alcoholism, depression and delusions.
Though he had lived and painted in relative
poverty and obscurity for many years, Van Gogh's work was finally
garnering serious attention. Monet himself praised him and several
critics hailed him as a genius. But it was too little, too late. Of the
900 or so canvases (and 1100 drawings and sketches) he is known to have
created, Van Gogh sold only one painting in his life -- The Red Vineyard -- even though his brother tried his best for years. It would have been enough to push a far lesser man over the edge.
One afternoon, Van Gogh walked into a field in
Auvers-sur-Oise, shot himself in the chest and died two days later on
July 29, 1890. He was only 37 years old and believed he was a failure as
an artist and a man. The field was one he had painted earlier in the
month in the foreboding Wheatfield with Crows, in which three separate paths diverge into the wheat under a sky of brooding black birds.
MEDICAL MYSTERY
So many theories have been put forth to explain the madness of the man,
including porphyria, schizophrenia, tertiary syphilis, lead poisoning
from eating paint chips and that psychiatric catch-all, bipolar
disorder. Of them, one of the favourites is absinthe toxicity since it
could explain his predilection for yellow and his deteriorating mental
state.
Absinthe, taken in great quantities (which was
certainly the case with Van Gogh) may result in xanthopsia -- an optic
condition which imparts a yellowish-greenish tinge to the vision.
Xanthopsia is also caused by too much digitalis, the active ingredient
in the digoxin Van Gogh may have been prescribed to treat his purported
epilepsy.
Indeed, many believe that Van Gogh's physical
and mental problems altered his perception and therefore were at least
partially responsible for his painting style. The stylized rings and
swirls characteristic of his technique in The Starry Night, for
example, which he painted in 1889 while in Saint Rémy, could have been
influenced by the visual halo effects of Van Gogh's drinking and
drugging.
It is unlikely, though, that the exact nature of
Van Gogh's madness will ever be known. He believed that without his
work, he would have gone completely insane, having once said, "It is
only too true that a lot of artists are mentally ill -- it's a life
which, to put it mildly, makes one an outsider. I'm all right when I
completely immerse myself in work, but I'll always remain half crazy."
Thankfully, despite his colourful personality, the true legacy he leaves
is on canvas.
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