Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - The Truth About Vincent Van Gogh

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

However you pronounce his name, one thing is for certain: Van Gogh made made his mark on the world.But how did he interact with the world around him? From his relationship with a sex worker in the Hague to his time at the asylum in the south of France.Joining Kate today is Teio Meedendorp, Senior Researcher at the Van Gogh Museum, to help us get to know this complex man better.*TW: This episode contains references to self harm and suicide.*This episode was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister, and you are listening to Betwicks the sheets. Hello, welcome back. Thanks for dropping by Lovely to see you. We'll put the kettle on. But before we do, I have to tell you, and any newbies who've wandered in,

this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way covering a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. Oh, God, I feel safer. Do you feel safer? Is everyone less triggered? Excellent. Right. On with the show. I do love an evening stroll betwixters, don't you? And this one just feels extra special. We're strolling through the village of Saint-Ramee de Provence in 1889. The stars are out.

It's a very starry, starry night. And not far from here, one Vincent van Gogh. Actually, how the hell you pronounce this man's name will feature quite prominently. But whatever you call him, he's gazing up at the stars from his asylum room and feeling inspired. to put paint on canvas. What will become Starry Knight is being created and maybe he knows it, maybe he doesn't. I suspect he probably does, but this is going to be a masterpiece. Behind the paintbrush lies a fascinating figure,

as complex and colourful as anything he ever chose to paint. The people that know him and loved him, and there were a few, describe a very volatile person, somebody who, oh, like he's good at doing a painting, but I don't think you want him around for too long, if you know what I mean. He's also a man that was O'Fay with brothels and taverns and, well, quite a bit of absent. So, yeah, a complex person, and I can't wait to find out more about him. Oh, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal and Society with me, Kate Lister.

However it is that you pronounce his name, Van Gogh, Van Gogh, Van Gogh, Van Gogh. Whatever it is, one thing is for certain that Vincent knew a thing. or two about translating his feelings to canvas. We all know about his tragic struggles with mental health, but what else do we know about this man's life? What's the story about his obsession with a sex worker in the Hague? Did he really cut his ear off? And why did he do that? And who were the greatest loves of his life? Well, joining me today is Tayo Meadendorp, senior researcher at the Van Gogh Museum, to help us get to know this man a little bit better. So sunflowers and easels at the red everybody, let's do this.

Hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Tio Meadendorp. How are you doing? I'm good. Thank you. Kate, thanks very much. And thanks for joining in today's program. Oh, no, it's an absolute pleasure. I've been wanting to talk about, well, hang on.

Hang on. How are we going to say this? Because that's the first question that I am going to start with here. I would say Van Gogh. The Americans say Van Gog. And I know. that you as a Dutch person, a Dutch speaker, and he was Dutch, how would he have said his own name?

He would have said his own name as von Choch. Hoch. That's right. These godroll G's that we have in our language. But there is a reason why he always cite to Vincent because he knew that his last name would not exactly work in the art society. And even the first time that he have exhibited is that Fio in the catalogue wrote that the artist was Vincent van Gogh,

and he explicitly wrote to his brother, I said, never mentioned his last name again. It's Vincent, because people can't pronounce my last name. And from the first start, when he signed his first works, it was Vincent. I'm used to saying Van Gogh, because Van Gogh is different. I mean, Van Gogh is more or less international, you might say. So I probably switch between Vincent, Van Gogh. Should we say go?

I'm going to go for go. I don't trust myself with the correct pronunciation. That must have been really irritating for him that people couldn't pronounce his last name. I'm not quite sure. I mean, he had a very good, straightforward first name. It put him on the ranks of Rembrandt, I mean, Michael Angelo, Leonardo. Yes, good point. Yeah, just Vincent. Just Vincent. I don't think he was exactly that conscious about using his name in that sense, as his work would have been known by this simply by his first name. But it did come in handy. Well, one of the most famous artists today has got to be up there, hasn't he? With the ren. I mean, if you say famous artist, it's probably Vincent. is the one most people would be thinking of. I'm afraid it is, yeah.

I mean, I remember from going around the world sometimes, I remember being in a holiday all in the way in most southern points in Europe and in South America on fireland. And we came to where we were tired and everything and we checked into our hotel and it came into the room with what was on the wall, a reproduction of Vincent's orchard, one of one of the only orchards.

You can't escape him. No. It's a bit like Coca-Cola and it's a bit the same with Vincent, yes. Well, you certainly can't escape him because you're a senior researcher at the Van Gogh Museum. Yeah, he's been following me for quite some time. What brought you to study this man, his life and his work? Yeah, weirdly enough, it's more or less by chance.

When I began starting art history, it was in the early 80s, 1980s. When you're young, you're 18, 19 years old, and you think, well, everything's already been written about these famous artists, like Vincent and like Ramble and all the other ones. And then by chance, I was supposed to be having an internship in Amsterdam. that I'm at the film museum because I was also doing something with film history. And that didn't go through. And then somebody arranged for me that I could do an internship in a Van Gogh Museum.

And I hadn't thought about it. But then I was allowed, which was great, for a half years, it was in 1988, I believe. I was allowed to make an exhibition here with Vincent's drawings and the illustrated magazines that he collected, the prints thereof. And in the end, it was such a nice subject in the sense, and not much had been written about it, that I wrote my thesis about it. and I simply graduated then at my university level in Vincent. I've always had this particular liking to work in a sense,

because I didn't immediately have a job here at the Van Gogh Museum or whatever, I had to find my way. You might say, and I worked for university first, and did research on occult movements in late 19th century art for something completely different. But at the same time, I was living in Amsterdam since the early 1990s, I would always do guided tours in the Van Gogh Museum. And then in the end, I got first, I got a job at the another museum, the Krolet

Mullen Museum in the Netherlands, which has the second largest collection of Farahue works, drawings and drawings and drawings and there we made with team two collection catalogues of the Farhoch paintings and the Fargo drawings. And that's when I really went in deep, you might say. Searching after that, as in since of 2009, I'm associated with the Ngo Museum as a research and a senior research, I mean, we've come a little bit older. and all my life is dedicated to the life and work of Vincent Farho. Vincent is one of those artists where the man and his life and his mythology seems to be inextricably tied up with his art.

Like I know this was supposed to separate the art from the artist and there are artists who are Renaissance artists. We know their works. We know next to nothing about the person who did it, but the work is famous. Vincent has this mythology as, and you can disabuse me of this, but this tortured artist, this madman roving the fields in Provence, raving and shouting and eventually taking his own life. How much of that do you think is tied up with his artwork? Can you separate them? Well, we try to a little bit.

I mean, it's impossible to entirely separate it, but you have to be careful to associate everything he made with it. what we do is in fact make some kind of a distinguishment would be distinguished earlier from the later period and in that which more or less means that the time that he was in the south of France so when he was in Paris which is in his development very important two years that he was there because his work completely changes but also his life changes being in a big city

and he becomes more and more addicted to alcohol so he had an alcohol problem which he developed in Paris and with a situation by himself he was melancholic at heart, which did not mean that he was severely depressive or something like that, but he was like, well, you have these, even as children, they're a bit apart. They can be melancholic, they're more to themselves.

It doesn't necessarily mean that they have some kind of a disease or whatever or matter, but it's their situation in life. And with Vincent, when you start to abuse alcohol and things like that, things can get worse. And it is quite clear from the, when he was in the south of France in Ireland, and when Gogang came and he was hoping that something would flourish, that they would work together, and they would make a next step. Because he was ambitious as well in getting modern art further off the ground,

and that totally collapsed. And when he came to the period that he, in a rage, that he cut out of his ear, inflicted pain on him himself, you might say. From that moment, when he was hospitalized, and he came into hospital, and it was only two, three days when he was in hospital, and he didn't have access to alcohol, that he had probably his first psychosis,

that was in hospital. So it was not a psychosis who led to him cutting off his ear, but it was not getting to the alcohol in the abstination of alcohol that created the problem. And that's a major point

where his life is going to change and how he looks at life in general. So after that period, he's only in hospital for two weeks. And then he comes back to his yellow house, to the studio, and that he has the idea and even the doctors

were quite surprised is that he felt like, well, he had some kind of a flu or whatever or a cold and boy, you can get better from a cold, by him that you can't get better for madness in that respect. Okay.

And he started painting again. But after a couple of weeks, he had another small crisis. And he went back to the hospital for a couple of days, and then he went back to the house, and then he got another crisis. And then the people in the area where he was living in Arne, they signed a petition to get him out of there because this madman, and it was, you might say, created by the people living around him that they didn't trust him with the children. He was chasing after the women.

We don't know exactly now. which is true, but there was a more or less reason to get him out of the area. At first, it was the idea perhaps that he could live somewhere else in Arles. But this petition like that, the mayor has to do something. And at some point it was like, okay, he bent back to hospital and he lived, in fact, in hospital, although he was not really sick. And they tried to look for some other place. But there were only two possibilities.

Either he should go somewhere else or he had to be taken into an asylum or some kind of insidlocked away. That, of course, they didn't want. And then in the end, the pastor who took care of them a little bit in Aral, and he was of the Protestant faith, took care and found this asylum of this institute in Saint-Rémy, the 50 kilometers north of 25, 50 kilometers north of Arles, where it was a private institute. So you were voluntarily hospitalized, and you could also leave if you wanted to, if you were deliberately, I mean, if you were in fact locked away, it would have been very difficult to get out of it again.

And for him it was the most important thing is to get the, back to his stress because he realized that this is not probably going away easily. What he had, these crises, it was crisis. In between the crisis, he was pretty lucid. So he looked back on his crisis of what's going on with me, can I cure from this? And then the big blow came, in fact, in the summer of 8089, so that's a year before he took his own life in the asylum. He suffered a very severe crisis, with a psychosis, with a largest bat for six weeks, in which

could not paint. And when he came out of a crisis, he more or less realized this, okay, my situation is not going to change. I'm going to have to deal with these crises and see what I can make of it. And then it was work, work, work. So he dedicated everything to be able to work as much as possible, as you might say, not to think too much about his problems. Am I right in thinking that he came to art quite, quite well, for the time, quite late in life? He was 27 by the time he decided, I want to be an artist. So what was he doing before that? What was the 27 years leading up to that?

He did a lot of things. Yeah, a lot of things. I get the impression that he's quite a difficult person to know. That, like, if you knew Vincent, you would probably, and like, you know, if you saw his number pop up on your phone, you might be a bit like, oh, God. Not today. No, no, not again.

Was there signs of this as a young man? Or is this something that developed with alcohol and with age? Yeah, well, at the end it developed an age. He only lived to do 37. I mean, his career is not his own, there's only 10 years. It was his entire career as an artist. No, he was a son of a, well, there was a family of six, and he was the eldest.

And family of the, his father was a Protestant minister. And either in the Farhoch family, you became either you would work for an art gallery or you became a minister. So there was the two flavors, you might say. So he had a couple of uncles who had an art gallery, and the most fortunate one was Uncle Vincent. So he's also called Vincent van Gogh, Uncle St. Uncle Vincent. And he had an art gallery in the Hague.

And he took care a little bit of both the boys, Vincent and Theo, of his brother Theodore. And Vincent started working in the gallery in the Hague when he was 16 years old, so in 69. Oh. He had some school training at first in Zundert in the little village where he came from. but was also privately tutored,

so the kind of nanny, somebody who took care of that, and he went to sort of high school, but not finish it in Tilburg. He appeared quite a good student, I mean, when he was at high school, he knew his French, he knew his English, he knew his German,

and when he went to England, well, he worked in the Hague first for three years at the firm of Coupille and Companiers, it was called the Art Gallery, who had several franchises, it comes from Paris, but he also had an office in London,

and he was promoted to go to London, than 8073, so when he was 20 years old. And he worked until 75. And then at that point, 75, 76, some problems occur. As I said, so he was a bit to himself, you might say, at first. But he liked working in the art galleries and his work there. And he learned a lot about art. And he had an incredible memory. I mean, it's like a computer. It's like a database. But he remembered everything he saw. It's amazing that even much later, when he was a an artist that he can remember very vividly, not only paintings, but also passages from literature and everything.

So it is really, really amazing. So he was an avid reader as well. We would go to museums, we'd go to galleries, we'd go to exhibition. So he fueled himself up, you might say. But he came into a crisis and said, we don't know exactly what it started, but probably had something to do with rejected love, that he had around 75 in England. But he was send away when there was a new gallery opening of Coppil in London. took over Holloway and Sons,

the Golden Garden. And he was hoping to be part of that, but he was sent to Paris. So it was likely that he was not allowed there. And that fell as a blow. And when he was in Paris and that he was fired from the art gallery, is that his attention was shifted more or more

towards religion. So he really got something in the idea. So religion was taking the place of art, you might say, in this background. He was trying to find some solace in religion. And in that, of course, he had a father who was a Protestant minister. And he was thinking about, well, I have to do something like father did. I have to make

myself useful for the community, help people. I mean, that part has always been very close to FinC and also as an almost, I'd say, natural inclinationist to help people. So he could be quiet at one time. He could be socially very inept, but this idea was always to help people. And he was looking also for relationships. I mean, he had several relationships during his life. The earliest serious relationship was he once 20 years old, which was still in the Hague. He was incredibly in love with a girl his age, Caroline, also 20 years at the time. But she chose someone else. And he took it greatly, and he realized afterwards when he thought about it, this then,

it wasn't a relationship which on the same level in the sense that he was giving a lot, but it was not getting him while back. Well, Ben there, Vincent. Yeah, exactly. And well, his ideas about relationships and love are very much rooted in partly in the Bible, what he learned from home, I mean, to have a family was very important, but also which he learned from literature, especially Jules Michelet, the French author, who wrote La Famaume, the women, and L'amour on love.

Partly traditionalists, you might say Michel, but also very progressive, in the sense that he gave women in very precise place in society, I mean, that they were actually an active part of society. The highest thing to achieve was a kind of bond between men and women, where one was equal, but the men of the men were. was had to take care of the woman, but the woman had an active part in society in life as well, with children, obviously, but also a part of society. And his ideas were very much influenced by that, you might say.

And so he's always looking for a kind of a relationship like that, but unfortunately he always failed. And that has something to do probably also with his, you might say, stubbornness. I mean, it's a sense, like he just said, when he pops up on your phone with Vincent's... He seems very intense. Yeah, this will take me too. two hours on the phone, do I have the time. Yeah, exactly that.

I'm like, oh, God, he's showing it again. He would go on discussing. And that's also in the relationship. I mean, in the end, his greatest friend and the greatest relation that he maintained was up with his brother, his younger brother, Theo. And he really loved him, didn't he? They loved each other.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's not always like happy times. I mean, it's also the real so serious depressions in their relationship as well. But in the end, they really cling to each other. And together, they are one. And what he was looking for a woman, together they are one.

In fact, he had it with his brother. I'll be back with Tyo after this short break. He doesn't seem to take rejection very well, does Vincent. From what I know of him, is he... I mean, nobody does. Nobody likes being dumped or told no or anything like that. But he seems to take it particularly hard. Would you say that that's true?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Well, if the first love, like Caroline, for instance, okay, but like when he was more than when he was fired from Kupil, well, probably didn't care so much because he wanted to do something in the church. But his rejection with women, the most serious one is the one that he got in 8081 when he was just beginning as an artist, he was living with his parents in Brabant.

And that summer in 1881, the cousin of his came by whose husband had recently died and who was widowed, and she had a son. And he fell in love with her madly. and she didn't want to have anything to do with him. So it was categorically, as he said, no, never, ever. It was like that. But he was harassing him, more or less, you might say, for over two months, writing very, very long letters.

And also to his brother and to other people, I mean, as long as letters are from this period, trying to how he has to gather to fall her emotions in the sense. In the end, it was meant itself for that she lived in Amsterdam. She went back to Amsterdam. that he went to Amsterdam and visited the family and more or less embarked from them just at dinner time. And they opened the door and said, is Kay. Kay was her name is Kayan.

And they said, no, she's not in. And then he entered the room. And he saw that one spot of the table was empty that she had just left. Didn't want to meet him. So he knew she was there. And what he done did is quite an exceptional. He put his hand in the candle and a burning candle. Vincent.

Vincent. And he said, I only want to see her for as long as I can hold my hand in the candle. And that didn't work. That didn't work. No, that didn't work. It took a hand out of the candle. They bandaged him. They took care of him and he slept in a small hotel and they escorted him back to the hotel. Very intense. But that same evening, he went to a prostitute. Let's talk about that because Vincent, his attitude, his relationships with women is fascinating because he will put them on a pedestal and he will become obsessive and devote and do this. I'm going to put my hand in a candle, all of this stuff.

But he regularly visited brothels and sex workers and one of his most influential muses, I am going to get this name horribly horribly wrong. Seenhornech? Seenhorneick. Yeah, that's right. Seenhorneic. Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about her, who she was and how he viewed sex workers? Because I think this is quite fascinating. Even already in DeHague, when he was at the Coppil Gallery, he would sometimes visit the sex workers to get some relief as they go. You have something. You have to see it in the perspective as they did in the 19th century.

If a man couldn't get enough satisfaction of his libido, so I'm sure went through a brothel, so to relieve yourself in a certain way, as it was called a hygienic solution. They discuss it almost like they go into the gym, don't they? Almost like, oh, I'll just nip down to the brothel. Exactly. But the way it was kind of is, remember from Italy, for instance,

that when a young boy is about 56 years old, his father takes me to a brothel. It's a bit weird. It was there, and they made use of it, Fio as well. And the thing is, is that when he was to Amsterdam, when he went to Visit Kay, it didn't work out, then he went to the Hague, middle of the Hague, and he moved to the Hague to start his career,

and he had his cousin by marriage. Anton Movo was an artist and a renowned artist at that time, who taught him a little bit the first things about painting and helped him along a little in his drawing. And then quite early on in 8082, he ran into a scene, who he only introduced in the letters, not immediately, although he mentioned that he got a new model.

And in the end, this model appeared to be seen. What I always have found very fascinating is that at first, he doesn't call his scene. He calls her Christine. And Christine is a more typical, probably was that her alloys. I mean, it was probably her working name. And he only later found out what his real name was, because her real name was Klashina, and scene is short for Klazina. But Christine might very well have been her working name.

But she probably also wasn't quite sure what she had with this. And she started as a model. And in fact, she was temporary out of sex work because she was pregnant. For him, in a very important aspect of taking care of, when it was taking care of her, was saving her. It was in the fact is that a woman, and that's partly influenced by what you read about Michelet. A woman should never be abandoned, should never be left alone. She should be taken careful, especially when she's in great misery.

At that time, his life was very difficult as well. I mean, having that much money and trying to work out as an artist. He referred to what as the ground floor of life. I mean, it's like it's the lowest of the base, you might say. And Vipcene, he saw something as, okay, someone to be saved, someone that he could love. So I wasn't quite sure whether he loved her, but in the end he did.

We're pretty sure that he had some special feelings for her, but very much related to that in the idea of indeed saving her and taking care of her. And he did in a very nice way. And it's in a way that they lived together, I mean, in the apartment he had. She had to go to hospital to deliver the baby. And when she came back, she moved in with him. And he had a slightly larger apartment he could arrange next door.

And they lived there for well over a year together. Of course, in those days, you should not live together with unmarried, with a woman who had two children in this respect. So everybody around him was taking his hands of him and was making comments. This is something that you don't do. And in a way, quite rightfully, I believe, is that he was very much a person. to that. And how can you not take care of someone? I mean, he has

these feelings to help this woman. But it was an agreement also that the parents obviously didn't like it. Theo disapproved a bit. And they made an arrangement that he didn't write about it anymore. And it's very typical because up to the summer you might say, he talks about sometimes he rose to us as the woman or seen

and they would go into the dunes and they would have a picnic there and things like that. But then from some moment on he doesn't mention her anymore. But they still live together. So not to affront your as if she's not there in the weird way. Yeah, we just won't mention it. Just don't mention it, yeah.

Were they lovers, Vincent and Singh? Yes, there must have been absolutely afterwards. It's also his first possibility in attempt to get a nude model. It's always been Vincent's several points to study figure and to study figure painting. In his heart, he wanted to be a portrait painter and a figure painter. So not so many of knowing for his landscapes, but he really wanted to be a figure. And there are several times that he tries to do it. And one of the way, of course, to learn how to paint and draw figures is to do nude drawing.

I mean, it's from the academy and everybody practices it. But it was always very difficult for him to kept people available to post room in the nude. He often complained about this. But Bersinni had a model. Though we do not have many of these studies, we know that he made several studies, nude studies of her. But we have a very famous one, which is a drawing called, which he made a lithograph, it's called Sorrow. And that's her pregnant and naked in silhouette sitting and having. having a hands over her head in deep sorrow.

It's a very touching and a very moving drawing. He made a second drawing of it, and he wrote a little caption underneath it, which he took from Michelin, which is exactly fun. A woman should never be left alone, abandoned. And that's what he tried to do in his own life in this case. I mean, what he saw is that if you really wanted to be a true success in life,

you had to have a family, someone to take care for, you had to have children. Well, these children were not his own children, but he took care of the children. And the best thing would be that you also have a successful professional life, that the two work together. Well, in the end, it's appeared, is that art, you might say, took over that other kind of life. He has always been pining all those 10 years, you might say, that he was active as an artist also for some kind of family life. Why didn't they get married? I mean, they lived together for a year.

I don't know if we have anything from seeing that, like, in her own voice, any letters from her or any letters from her or any. to give us a perspective of what she thought of this very intense man trying to save her and nothing at all. They tried to get some contact around 1900 when she was still alive. In the end, she took her own life. Oh, I didn't know that. She drowned herself. And I think it was in 194, 195 in Antwerp. She moved from the Hague, first to Rotterdam.

And in the end it appears that it was impossible for her to get out of the environment that she was in. And Vincent felt in 8083, so at the point before he would go away, the relationship got a bit more tense and he felt that other people were trying to get her away from him. And he said, well, but when I leave her, she will go back to her old profession. And he didn't want it. But in the end, it was simply impossible to stay together. So the idea of marriage, well, as I said, so he didn't write about it anymore. Yes, it was allowed, yeah.

But probably it would have been very, very difficult. The family, for instance, the father, for him it was also like, it was. in the sense very immoral because it was also two different classes. He was a middle class son. She was, of course, lower class. They were always thinking about... They were never going to sign off on that way. No, it's always like they were so much aware of the people around them and how they would look at the family. And that's something that Vincent really hate us. I mean, it's my life and I can do what I want. I'm not taking that all into consideration. I mean, it's what I want. And that makes them always this problem with his family, especially his parents.

there must have been tearing the hair out of Vincent's. But he, like we said that he's a lot of worries. So we said that he's very intense. He writes these epic letters. But in the letters that he's writing, you do kind of get like little bits and pieces of, he wasn't writing to his family about his sex life,

but I understand he wrote to friends about it. And he was quite open and forthright with it, with that kind of, I guess that Dutch honesty that you're very, famous for. Well, up to a certain point. I mean, he is sometimes very open-hearted to his brother, but if it's really getting saucy, you might say, is then, well, we talk about it when I see you next week. So sometimes you'll admit. But in fact, when it was in the South of France, there was no opportunity to meet each other. So it's a bit more into the open and maybe not so much to

Fiel, but more to Emil Bernal, so his colleague in Paris who was younger, who had his own problem with relationships and women as a young adult. And Vincent's this man. And this man, most openly about sex you might say and sex workers and brothels and things in letters with Emily Bernard and Bernard also we had in this very nice exhibition just on

St. Vincent's a whole series of drawings that he had made surrounding around the theme of the brothel which of course was also for artists a new subject. The attention for artists to pay attention to this part of life, of the lower life he might say, of the harsh life and of the yeah, the heart life, like to lose low detected

in the brothels as well. And what society was like was a serious topic within modern art. Yeah. And Vincent Nelson did paint some nudes when he was in Paris. He only painted three nudes. We only know three. And we know a couple of sketches. There was one of a copulating couple even.

I didn't know that. Yeah, it's very unknown. It's in our collection. It's what we described in our collection catalog of the Farhawks in the Paris period. But there was one sex work, cleaning herself, so like De Gaille would do over a small tin bath. And there is one of a copulating couple which you

don't see very often, which is a very, I mean, that's something not meant for public, something private. But what I always keep in mind is that Vincent was, one of his major examples in art was a Rembrandt. And Rembrandt made a beautiful etchings and drawings, and between his etching,

there is also a very, very beautiful etching of a copulating couple in bed. It's very intimate. It's like you're peeping through the bed. Yes. Yes. I remember that now. Yes, he does. You don't see it often in art. No.

And this must have been in his mind as a subject, not for something to make a serious drawing to sell, obviously, but intimate kind of, like a private thing. Yeah, and lots of these. That's fascinating. And especially in prints, you find, well, erotic prints in the 19th century, which were sold not openly, but you could always get the hang of that. There were people collecting them.

There's also this sense of mystery, of course, and secretiveness around it. So it's more in that category, you might say. We have got to talk about the most famous incident that people know about Van Gogh's life and probably the one that as a researcher, Van Gogh, you're like, really? We have to talk about this one again.

The ear. Because sex work is in that story too. The story that is commonly relayed is that he cut his ear off and he went to a local brothel and he gave it to a woman that was working there. And Gaghan was there too. And Gagin was dead.

Well, Gagin was in Arles, obviously. I don't like Gagin. He seems like a real shit to me. But Eve and I would have to concede that Vincent was quite, that he might have had a point when he said that Vincent was too much for him to handle. Well, the thing that Gagin came to Arl in the idea that he was going to some kind of pupil. I mean, we must realize this step, that when they only met very briefly in Paris, because Gagin was away all the time.

It was in Brittany or in Martinique. And he came back from Martinique in November 87. And Vincent was stationed a small exhibition of his own work in a Toulouse-Lot-Trek and in the New Bernard. Gogh visited and then they got into contact. But then already in February next year, Vincent was gone and Gagin would go back to Brittany. So there was only a brief that they met.

But for Vincent, discovering the work that he brought back from Martinique, these tropical works that he loved very much, and he was saying, okay, this is the man who is one of the most important around the world. He has seen those places where nobody hardly ever comes, but maybe the future of art where everything is colorful and nice and bright. And he was influenced by Japanese Prince, for instance, and he was looking for these bright works in a bright society.

And if he had the possibility, he would have gone to Indonesia, maybe even Japan, but the south of France was the closest he could get, you might say, to such an area. And then he wanted, obviously, Gogam to come. And finally, when he had his studio all to himself, that he also could live there, he tried to persuade again, very persistently. And when you read Lutz, it's really like that Gaguer is holding it off a little bit in the sense, I've got no money, I feel ill, things like that.

But then Fio sold one of his paintings, and he had money, so he had no longer that excuse. So he did come. And for the idea to stay there for a year, to work together in this little yellow house, and the idea that he was going to teach someone and then someone he's going to work with, which is very telling, I always thought, is that one of the first letters that Gagin wrote back when he was in Ireland to his French Schufenacker is that, oh, I'm here with FinCenton, if it's going all right. I was here as some kind of a teacher, but he's criticizing everything I make. Oh, no. And it's quite clear that it was a very intense two months and a lot of discussion about art. And it also appears that they don't like the same artists. And they try to make up of going to get a, for a day to Montpellier, to a museum, to look at art and discuss things and try to get together, but in the end, it simply blows.

And Vincent, what he does see at that moment is that his dream of working together, of creating a space for him and other artists, but they can work together, not that they had to be there all together at the same time, but that there was a space in the South of France, but in Brittany, in other places where people with the same ideas could work together was endangered. Because Vincent really believed, didn't he, that he would go down, there and then together they would forge this creative movement that would take over the world. And Gagam's turned up thinking, oh, all right, I'll go and do a bit of teaching.

Yeah, but it's a bit like that. But also in the same time, Gaghan, also very much respecting what Vincent is doing. It's a reflection in the sense of that both know from each other that they have something to say in art. It's very different. The main difference between the two is that, and that's the criticism of Gagin on Vincent, and that's the reason why Vincent wanted Gorgand to come over, is that he wanted to learn better to paint by heart for memory. Vincent is an artist who is always very much in the realist tradition,

but very much dependent of the motive in front of him. But one of the highest thing in art is that you can also sit in your studio and compose a painting just with the sketches that you have, just creating something in your mind. And Gagin was much more of an artist like that, so he would sketch in nature, but then he would go back to the studio and then make his painting. He hardly ever painted in that sense outside life, you might say.

If he had a motive. And Vincent did try his hand at some of works at that time from memory, but those are not really his best works. I mean, it's quite telling you that if he doesn't have a model and if he doesn't have the motive in front of him, he is more or less lost. And that's the reason why he came so late in art only at 27, because he had been drawing all the time before that. But there was no idea that he would ever turn it to in kind of profession

because he realized that his drawing was not very good. It was only that he learned something about when he, well, when Theo more or less suggested to him, because after so many things went wrong, he was even a preacher in the mining works district in Belgium. He tried to become a minister of the church and things. And that all failed. And he had this horrible year of not knowing what to do.

And then this brother said, well, you always have art in your head. You always talk about art. Why don't you become an artist, a draw, an illustrator or something for magazines? He never really thought about it because his drawing was no good. But then he said, okay, then I try my hand to that, and then like the other things, he goes through it all the way. And it's drawing, drawing, drawing. But he realized, indeed, is that he needed tools to get a grip on the world around him.

Because if he would paint a church or whatever or a landscape just by heart, he had no really idea of what's closer by, what's further away. Perspective. Yeah, perspective. So he had all these cans of equipment that would help him with that. He would square and he would look through a grid to get the right proportions. and then work from it, and he used that grid for a very, very long time. And with that, he could get a grip on nature. And he obviously learned, and then after what he could do without the grid.

But then the shaky feeling for perspective comes, but then he becomes an expressive force. And it becomes something which is undeniable part of what makes Vincent's work so unique. So it's never a photograph. Although you can recognize all kinds of things within the vered is, and you can see details in church in the background, things like that, but he plays with it. I mean, what is in front of paint is to be entangled onto painting,

but he has to have it in front of him. And that's where I've been wrong with Gagin, you might say. And at some point he felt threatened that he drank too much. And at some point Gagin felt threatened by Vincent's rageous probably. Didn't Gagin say that he would wake up in the middle of the night and Vincent was just standing there looking at him? That would freak anybody out. Exactly.

That was the reason that he decided not to stay in. the yellow house anymore, but he went to a hotel in the city. And that evening, Vincent Cardavisier, and indeed went to the brothel, they usually go to, went to every two weeks, and presented to one of the sex workers, Rachel, which is the working name. And of course, she fainted. And he went back to the yellow house, and he was found the next morning, and he was brought to hospital.

And he was unconscious because he lost a lot of blood. But they even, they also retrieved the ear. And at some point, we know the doctor, Dr. Ray, who, he was brought to hospital. who treated him in the hospital, look at the possibility of perhaps sewing the ear back on, but it was too long, I mean, it was too long,

the separation was been too long. And he even said later that he had the ear on alcohol on his desk for quite some time. Oh, wow. Yeah, that it's a bit of a silly story, but you get all kinds of the weird anecdotes when you mean you...

Why? I know that we'll never know the answer to this because you would need Vincent here. Why the ear? I mean, from what you've been saying, he does have a history of self-harm. The putting your hand in a candle for dramatic effect is quite worrying. Why the ear and why the... I mean, maybe it was just...

He was in a mania, he wasn't making sense, but why did he do that? I think you can compare it with the idea of the hand in the candle. And what he also did when he was in Amsterdam and when he was working, trying to become a minister of the church, that he had to learn algebra and Latin and things like that. He didn't do his lessons. and he would flog himself and he would, like the Franciscan would do,

or he would lock himself out of his house so that he couldn't get back in and spend a night in the wintery cold to punish himself. So this, when you're in some kind of intense mental pain, you inflict some physical pain to relieve that pain and that anxiety that you have. And then cutting off an ear, a nose or whatever,

a finger, or cutting yourself in generally is a way to, find some kind of relief in this. It must be explained that kind of thing. It's been explained in all kinds of ways in the sense that also the other that the Gogh have chopped it off with one of his swords, which is quite hilarious. I heard that he'd visited a bullfight in Spain where they cut the ear off

or something like that. No, they visited the bull, in Ireland were bullfights. Oh, right, in France. Yeah, but they didn't kind of ears. I mean, it was because there was the provincial bullfights, and they had these people had to get roses of things and flowers from the horns of the bull, but the bull was not killed. But obviously he knew from bullfights that indeed the air is cut off and you present the air to the beautiful lady in the audience.

So it looks like this symbolic chair of presenting your ear. It's the thing that he said with, here's something to remember me by. To the woman from the brothel? To the woman, yeah, in brothel. Wow. Then probably one of the women he knew and maybe who have made fun of him or whatever or that she didn't see him and that he wanted her. And that he gave her something, well, she probably will remember the rest of her life. I remember that, won't she?

Remed Medvede. So it's in that, you might say. It's only that he had no full recollection of what he had done. No, he doesn't sound like he was well. No, and of course, when he was hospitalized and he got his psychosis slightly afterwards, is that his memory, it's a bit between two things. He didn't want to talk about it anymore and write about it anymore,

and he didn't remember much of it anymore. I'll be back with Tyo after this short break. I'm going to continue along the rather grim theme here, because I have only just recently learned that there is some debate around whether or not he did shoot himself or whether somebody else shot him or whether it was an accident. I was just wondering what your take was on that. Because until recently, I'd never heard that. I thought that it was just he did it to himself. It's something that started with biography, which was provision 2011, I believe, of Nifane Smith, a new biography.

And they had an appendix in the back of the book as the possibility that the Finston did not take his own life, but was shot. by two young boys, one or two young boys, accidentally or perfectly in Oversuva. But this is a new myth, you might say. Yeah, it's not true. It is quite clear from Vincent, as a discussion in the beginning, is that once he cut up his ear and got into this crisis, I mean, the idea of suicide was lurking on him.

It's even shortly before he went into hospital in Saint-Rémy's. I mean, he voluntarily hospitalized himself for a year in a mental institution. I mean, thinking about it only, because he was not mad. He had this crisis and he could think about this crisis. But you read his letters from Save Me. I mean, it's incredible how he thinks about his own personal melancholic situation. He has insight into it.

Yeah, and how he finds his anxieties and tries to get out of that. But one thing is, of course, is what is playing in his mind. He's, yeah, one solution is taking your own life. He writes to Theo when he goes to the hospital, he says, well, if it wasn't for you, I'll probably turn to suicide, but I'd probably too coward to do it. But together we are a bulwark against society. I mean, together we can go on.

And what's going on in the other? Then we have this whole series that he is, well, trying to get back his grip on life in the asylum, where he has this major crisis in the summer. We have another one at the end. And also realizing, I'm not going to get better here, so I'd better leave because this doesn't work. And in the end, so he's trying to live.

looking for stuff for else and fear in the meantime found a place for him in Oversuvae. So it's not good for him to go back to Paris because it's too busy. I mean, there's too much going around. He needs quiet to work and quiet. And he finds this place in Overseuazzo, which in Camille Pizarro, who was living a bit further away, emphasized that Overe, because there was a doctor, Dr. Koshier, who might keep an eye on him. And he was a patron of the art, you might say.

He was an amateur, he was etching. and he knew Pizarro very well, and so that was okay, so he went to Oversubas and he was born as taking care of. But in the meantime, in those past time, Fia went married. Fio had something that Vincent never realized

that was a family. I mean, having met a woman, men's in love, two as one, as Vincent always wanted, and they had this baby, Vincent Willem, was named after him, was born in January 1890. And Vincent met his nephew

when he came to Paris, when he was from Céremie, Paris, a month to Orver. He first saw the wife of Theo, Yo Foghoch, Yo Bunger, and the little nephew. And then he went to Overseu-Au-Aza. But what he also realized is that the bond that two brothers had, there was somebody knew there. There was a wife as well and a boy. There was a family.

And Vincent loved that. I mean, that was good for his brother, but it also changed his situation a little bit because before that it was them together. And he realized when he was in Oversu-Souvae-Souvae, there was a point after a month when he was there, He was thinking, also looking for something permanent to stay, he was staying in a cafe with something permanent, that maybe something permanent that Fio and his wife could also use in the summer to stay there because, I mean, the city is bad to grow up for a little boy

and have a boss to be in the countryside. But Fio at some point had his own problems that appeared. And in July, this is the month that Vincent took his life. In the beginning of July, there was a serious crisis in the relationship because Theo was thinking about leaving the art gallery where he was working, starred because he didn't like his bosses anymore because they were keeping him short. And he was overreacted a little bit, but he gave an ultimatum to his bosses in the sense that if I don't get a race, I will quit winning and I start my own business.

And so it was discussed with Yo and Vincent and you were clearly opposed to this. But Theo, in a way, as being a fan girl, I mean, was just as stubborn sometimes, as his brother could be, and their father could be for that matter. he pushed through, so he did give an ultimatum to his bosses. In the end, Vincent went back to Oversuwaza, and really came in a very melancholic mood. That's when he painted the wheatfield with crows. He made three big paintings to get back on his feet again,

and he wrote afterwards that the brushes were almost falling from his hands, from emotion when he was painting them. And he made free painting, which is interested in look at, because they say something, and that's when his personal life says something about what his artwork is. So he realizes, of course, that an artwork is not an illustration of an artist's personal life. I mean, it has to do its way on its own in the world, but it has to reflect the emotions that the artist put into it, which resists, this resonance with people looking at it. When the resonance is right, that's something the artist did.

But, of course, there was the wheatfield with crow, which is very dramatic. These crows, I mean, it's anxiety, it's fear. And then he painted another very wide landscape of thunderclads going away and the sun is breaking through. So it's a very peaceful landscape, you might say, so with the thunderstorms going away, because nature itself is also healthy, and it's something that consoles you as well, consolation as well. And then he made a third painting, and that's remarkable because that third painting, also in a very white format, was the house of Chardotubigny, another painter, the French painter,

a very successful painter from the earlier generation who had died in 76, but who lived in Auver. and the widow of Domiye was still living in that house and that painting of the house of Dauingyi with a cat in the yard and the widow of Domeni itself that was what an artistic life really should be one with the countryside being an artist and have a family and raise a family there and that's what Daubeji succeeded in doing that

so it's that sequence of terror in the wheatfield with crows of well nature is consoling and in the end and this is what it should be. It's almost a triptych in the sense of... But it's also a realization that he would never have this. And in the end, Fio, who gave in and did not quit the job and stayed working at the firm. He never wrote this to Vincent.

And it was a time of emotional things because the young boy was born, they had not been to Holland. They had only a holiday in the summer, so they were going to Holland. Vincent was hoping that Fia would come to him again and they would visit him. And Fio never did.

His mind was somewhere else. Was with his family. went to Holland and Finson felt alone. And he never wrote to Vincent that he did stay to his job. So the last letter that Vincent wrote actually begins with, I don't know what the gentleman said to you. So clearly not knowing what was going on. And well, that's the last thing we know.

And it was at a point indeed that he could also not have done it. That's the thing. Well, we had an exhibition and we wrote a book about this in 2016, on the virtue of insanity, where we really focused, As a reaction on a murder theory, so we went back to the sources, okay, what exactly did happen? And to spell it out, you might say.

And it's quite clear that he was going in a downward spiral in a certain way. And then there is this moment that you decide that you're going to do it. And even when we talked about experts in suicides, and I say, yeah, I mean, in the end, it was also possible he didn't do it. But he did it.

He did it. And he shut himself. He meant to shot himself in the heart. The bullets ricocheted on the rib and was located close to a rib. But it was a small caliber gun. And so it didn't kill him immediately. And he managed to walk back.

He did it in the fields nowhere. Yeah, he walked back to the inn where he was staying. But I was born in, one of the most tragic things is that when Emil Bernard wrote very shortly afterwards because he was at the funeral at the time. And then when he heard from Dr. Cashier, is that one cashier tried to help in this. I will do everything to help you.

And then Vincent, this reportedly you have said, is that then I'll have to do it all over again. Oh. So it is quite clear that he was, in a way, sadly enough, he was, it was the only solution he saw is that he, to be no longer a burden to anyone, in the sense you might say. So it's a really tragic.

But as a final question to you, I want you to imagine that the Van Gogh Museum, where you work, has caught fire and it's terrible, it's burned into the ground, and you have enough time to get in there and get one item from your collection to help the world remember who this man was. What are you going to go for? Is it a painting? Is it a letter? Is it what? What would you go for? This is an impossible question. I mean, well, the things that people usually also always ask you, what? your favorite painting, and that usually tends to shift a little bit. But one which has always been very, very dear to me from the beginning, which I only, even before I studied Van Gogh intensely. And at that moment when I worked into Van Gogh, it was always unknown to the museum next door, the Stelik Museum.

It's a painting we have studied afterwards intensely, from our collection, obviously, and it is his last painting. And it is the painting that has to do with the superfluous. and with his death. And that's a painting of tree roots. It's a closer. He painted it the morning that he killed himself. And we know that he had on his body, in his pocket, he had a letter. It was not a real letter to fear, but it was the concept of a letter that Vincent sent to Fia. And the concept of the letter was slightly even more personal to Fia himself. And he put it in his pocket, obviously, so that he knew that Fia would found it when he was dead. So it was not

lying around somewhere, but it was some kind of message for afterlife, which is also that the suicide was planned in that respect. Even then it could not happen and then nobody knew about this, but that's what we know about it. And the painting in a way is perhaps a painted adieu, because what we see is a close-up of tree roots, bare tree-roots in a chalky ground, getting loose, erosion going on, it's clinging to life. It's amidst the forces of nature and nature trying to survive. And sometimes you have to give in. And that's the last painting he made. So that has a special connection.

It's impossible to choose one. And it's always in the top of the museum. So, I mean, if you have got all the way to the top two, save that one, would be difficult. And there is another one I would like to say, but it's not in our collection. But if some kind of disaster would happen. And that's a painting that we discovered in 2013. A painting from the era period, which was unknown till then, and which came to us for authentication

and which was presented to us, this is a Van Gogh. And it turned out to be a real thing, oh, it's a sunset at Mont Majurur since it's a landscape painting that he did in Arles. It's perhaps not the most famous painting because it's only known since the last 10, 10, 15 years.

But the discovery was quite incredible because a painting like that would not be out there still. I mean, we know so much about him. And it is a very insightful painting artistically in the sense that it's one of the first painting with very heavy,

pasta that he did outdoors. So there are areas which are, well, quite okay, but there are areas which are not so okay. And he even wrote about the painting in his letters. So that's a painting. If that was ever endangered, I would love to save. That's the one. Oh, Taya, you have been so wonderful to talk to. Thank you so much. And if people want to know more about you and your work and Van Gogh's work as well, where can they find you? They can help me at the Van Gogh Museum. Obviously, I'm a boy. There's a senior researcher. Come to our museum, see the the works. We have this year a wonderful exhibition at the end of the year on

Roulin, which you'd probably probably familiar with the postman Roulin that he painted the portrait. Well, we're going to have an exhibition which we make together with Boston Museum of Fine Arts on the Roulin family. So what we tried to do is get as many of all the portraits that he did together. It's never been done. So first in Boston in March

and in the end it's called Fahogogne the Rulans together again at last. And in the fall it will be. in Amsterdam. For people coming out from England, it will be perhaps a little bit cheaper to come over to Amsterdam instead of Boston. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us today. You've been marvelous. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Tio for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like review and follow along whatever it is. You get your podcasts. Coming up, we have got episodes on the sex lives of medieval royals and

the truth about Roll Dahl all coming your way. And if you would like us to explore a subject or me just wanted to say hello or perhaps send us some Van Gogh paintings, then you can do so at betwixt at history hit.com. This podcast was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again on Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.