As you must have guessed from the title, this article is about the great Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, specifically focused on the great mysteries of his existence.
When we think about the controversial painter, the first thing that comes up in our minds is the story about Van Gogh cutting his left ear, but let’s go deeper into the reasons and consequences of that shocking event. At the age of 35, despite being an artistic genius, Van Gogh had a nervous, difficult personality and struggled with severe depression, leading to him cutting his ear, a day before Christmas Eve. The incident happened in a house in the town of Arles, in France. Having an intense dispute with another artist, Paul Gauguin, who came to live with Vincent, the latter threatened his friend with a knife. Then, in an act of dementia, he turned the knife to himself and mutilated his ear lobe.
Afterward, he presumably wrapped up the ear and gave it to a prostitute at a nearby brothel, like it was the most insignificant thing in the world. Other theories suggest that it was Gauguin who cut his ear, but this is still a bit of a gray area. During his stay in Saint-Remy’s mental institution where he had checked himself, Van Gogh oscillated between periods of madness and intense creativity, in which he produced some of his best and most well-known works, including Starry Night and Irises.
In Saint-Remy, he frequently suffered from dementia attacks, during which he had multiple attempts to kill himself. While there is a rumor that Van Gogh ate yellow paint to become more cheerful, it is quite the contrary, the artist tried to swallow paint and substances like turpentine to poison himself. That is why he wasn’t allowed into his studio while he was suffering from his attacks.
If we got to this point, let’s talk a bit about Van Gogh’s most famous painting, Starry Night. Presently located at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the painting is inspired by the view from his window at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum. The Starry Night (made in mid-June) is both an exercise in observation and a clear departure from it. The vision took place at night, yet the painting, among hundreds of artworks van Gogh, made that year, was created in several sessions during the day, under entirely different atmospheric conditions. The picturesque village nestled below the hills was based on other views—it could not be seen from his window. When Van Gogh painted Starry Night, he didn’t even think it was any good, considering him and many of his paintings to be failures. It is also rumored that he had sold just one painting during his lifetime, due to his fear of failure and judgment.
But the most asked question is why did Van Gogh commit suicide? After leaving the mental institute where he spent a year of his life, he returned to his house in Arles to live with his brother Theo and his wife. Theo is bursting with ambition and was planning on starting his art dealership. Vincent was still completely financially dependent on Theo and perhaps felt like a millstone around his brother’s neck. Slowly but surely, his mental health continued to deteriorate, leading to Van Gogh shooting himself two times in the chest, in a field near Auvers. He managed to crawl back to his brother and died two days later, with Theo by his bedside. Even from his last words, it is obvious his life was marked by suffering: “the sadness will last forever”.
Editor
Melissa Parv
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