Short History Of... - Vincent Van Gogh

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Vincent van Gogh was one of the most important and influential figures in the history of art. Though he created thousands of drawings and paintings, his was a life of commercial failure, instability and unhappiness. But who was Van Gogh before he discovered his passion for art? What caused him so much suffering? And who were the people who supported him right up to his tragic death at the age of just 37? This is a Short History of Vincent van Gogh. Written by David Jackson. With thanks to Steven Naifeh, Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of Van Gogh: The Life and Jackson Pollock: An American Saga. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is July 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small French commune, or municipality, on the northwestern edge of Paris. Strolling along its sun-splashed streets is 16-year-old René Sucreton. Amused, locals stare as he passes, but he's proud of how he looks. A hat, the boots, the buckskin chaps, and even a gun in a holster, just like his hero, Buffalo Bill, the famous American cowboy. As usual, Rene is here with his family at their holiday villa, but he's bored of fishing and walking with them. What he craves is excitement and adventure. Up ahead, he sees a familiar figure leaving an inn. The man is wearing a buttoned-up laborer's jacket, and his vivid, messy red hair is topped

by a wide-brimmed straw hat. Weighed down by an easel, a folding stool, and bags of equipment, the man shambles off into the distance. René knows this man to be Vincent van Gogh, a crazy foreigner. Seeing him gives René an idea for livening things up around here. He rounds up a posse of friends and leads the gang out to the edge of a golden wheat field where Vincent has set up his easel. Oblivious to anything else, he attacks the canvas with thick dashes and whirls of oil paint. Stifling giggles, the gang sneaks up. First to pounce is René, who snatches the artist's hat from his head. Vincent whirls, his gaunt face twisted in shock, his eyes bulging.

Rene points out to his friends the mass of scar tissue where a section of his ear is missing. Encouraged by this first act, the other gang members join in. The hat gets tossed around. One youth picks up a brush and begins to mimic the artist's wild painting actions. Another runs off with his chair. Yelling incoherently, he dashes after each of his tormentors in turn, but it only provokes them to become bolder in their teasing. When he trips and falls to the ground, René goes to Vincent's aid and helps him to his feet. The others gasp when they realize that their leader

has previously dipped his hands into the oil paint and has now spread it all over Vincent's jacket. Staggering to his feet, Vincent pushes the teenager angrily. René has a reputation to protect. He draws his gun from his holster and pretends to shoot the madman, then runs away laughing, his followers close at his heels. Vincent is finally left alone. Writing his easel, he assesses the damage to his work in progress and opens his flask for a drink, but immediately he spits it out. Somehow in the chaos, one of the wicked gang has filled it with salt.

He sighs heavily and looks for his hat. Except when he finds it and picks it up, there is a dead rat underneath it. Shrieks of laughter give his tormentors hiding place away, but they're soon tearing off again. He's just too weary to chase them. Too weary and too sad. He picks up his brush and immerses himself in the only thing he knows that can distract him from the loneliness. Soon all he can think of is the color, the movement of the brush.

He fills the bristles with black and adds crows, a symbol of death. Though this painting may have looked crude to René Sucreton's untrained eye, it will eventually become one of the world's most admired, and the most poignant, too. Because, though he may not yet know it for certain, Wheatfield with Crows will be one of Van Gogh's very last works. Vincent van Gogh was one of the most important and influential figures in the history of art. In the last decade of his short life, he created over 2,000 works. Though he struggled to sell anything during his lifetime, his works now rank among the most expensive in the world,

fetching tens of millions of dollars. To many, though, his name evokes not his art itself, but the image of a tortured artist. His was a life of struggle, financial insecurity, and unhappiness. But how was his work perceived in the art world during his lifetime? What caused this groundbreaking, talented artist so much suffering? And just what were the circumstances that led to his self-mutilation and eventual death at the age of just 37? I'm John Hopkins, and this is a short history of Vincent van Gogh. Vincent Willem van Gogh is born on the 30th of March 1853 in the small village of Zundert in the North Brabant province of the Netherlands. Though the family name is commonly pronounced Van Gogh in the UK and Van Gogh by Americans, in its original Dutch it's Van Gogh.

and Van Gogh by Americans, in its original Dutch it's Van Gogh. Vincent's father, Theodorus, is a respected minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. The prosperous and strictly religious family is soon enlarged by five siblings for Vincent, two brothers and three sisters. But throughout his life, he will always be closest to his brother Theo. As a young child, Vincent is a quiet introvert who hates school. Although his mother encourages him to do some drawing, he initially shows little artistic ability. Stephen Nafee is the Pulitzer Prize winning co-author of Van Gogh, The Life, and Jackson Pollock, An American Saga.

The Van Gogh household was filled with books, but also with painting. In fact, his mother knew two members of one of the leading painting families in Holland, the Backhuysens, and two of the Backhuysens' sisters came to the small village where Van Gogh lived early in his childhood, And so he watched professional artists drawing and making watercolors. And he made at least one drawing that we currently have that he made for his father's birthday of a cat scurrying up a tree. But it showed no particular talent. He was much more interested in reading at that time and in going outdoors. He was constantly on his own, which was considered unusual. When he was out there, he fell in love with both beetles and with bird's nests,

and he collected both. And in a way, the process of distinguishing between one bird's nest and a more beautiful one, or one beetle and a more beautiful beetle, played an important role in developing his eye and developing his sense of discrimination in the world of beauty. Though his own father has a loftier calling, art is part of Vincent's family line. His grandfather was an art dealer, as are three of his uncles. It is one of these uncles, also called Vincent, or Sint for short, who arranges a position for him at the art dealership Goupil et Compagnie in The Hague.

It is while working for Goupil that he begins writing letters to his brother, Theo. The two will correspond regularly, with Vincent sending around 600 letters between 1872 and 1890. Now, though, he is immersed in his work and spends much of his free time reading about art and visiting galleries. But though he gains a thorough grounding in the various artists and their styles, the business side of the art world proves something more of a challenge. Vincent was selected by the uncle basically as his heir. And if Vincent had done well in the gallery, he probably would have ended up being a major art dealer. He was so incompetent in the world of interacting with other people that he failed terribly in the family gallery. But it exposed him constantly to works of art and to

artists because some of art and to artists, because some of the leading Dutch artists of the time would come to that gallery. But he also studied the old masters. There were places in The Hague at the time when you could go see Rembrandt and Vermeer, and that began a lifelong interest in going to museums. At the age of 20, he is transferred to the company's London office. For a while, he is happy and makes good money. In a letter to Theo, he writes,

The country is beautiful here, quite different from Holland or Belgium. Everywhere you see charming parks with high trees and shrubs. Everyone is allowed to walk there. and shrubs. Everyone is allowed to walk there. It is while lodging in London that Vincent falls for his landlady's daughter, but when she fails to reciprocate Vincent's moods hours, he becomes more withdrawn, seeking solace in his religious faith. In 1875, his father and uncle arrange for him to be transferred to Paris, but it does not help his disposition. He becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the way art is treated as a commodity at the

dealership. Seeing them as part of the problem, he is discourteous to the customers as a result, and eventually his rudeness costs him his job. His brother Theo, meanwhile, who joined the Brussels office of the same company, quickly begins to move up through the ranks. Now the 23-year-old Vincent returns to England, teaching in a small boarding school in Ramsgate on the southeast coast. But when that doesn't work out, he becomes an assistant to a Methodist minister.

Then he doubles back to the Netherlands and works in a bookshop. But nothing sticks. His unhappiness grows and he becomes more monastic, eating little and neglecting his well-being. He just couldn't make life work. And then it began to build on itself. I mean, after you've failed once, and then you fail a second time, and then a third time, you begin to wonder whether you're competent to accomplish anything and certainly your family is terribly worried that you'll never accomplish anything so with each failure the next one began to seem more inevitable and it is a string of failures in a variety of areas of employment given the fact that he eventually becomes i would say the most beloved eventually becomes, I would say, the most

beloved artist in history and certainly one of the most accomplished, the story of his life is made all the more profound by the fact that that enormous, you know, world historic accomplishment caps a lifetime of utter and repeated failure. of utter and repeated failure. In an effort to help Vincent again, his family offers its support for his religious interests. He is sent to Amsterdam to live with another of his uncles, a respected theologian. Although Vincent attempts the university entrance exam to study theology, he fails it. To become a preacher in Holland in the 19th century was very difficult. You had to know Latin and Greek and all kinds of other subjects. That kind of application, until he became an artist, was impossible for him. So he had to drop out of his coursework to become a minister. So he

decides to become a missionary, which is sort of one rung down the ladder, and he's complete failure at that. So he ends up becoming what's called a coal porter, which is somebody who simply hands out free copies of the Bible. He couldn't even do that. He was fired from that job. It had to do with application. It had to do with people skills. All those things, even handing free Bibles out, requires a certain amount of ability to interact with people. And he just showed time and again his inability to deal with other people and his difficulty in applying himself in a way that would produce some sort of success at some sort of activity. In January 1879, Vincent becomes a missionary in the coal mining region of Borenage in Belgium, about 90 kilometers southwest of Brussels.

But for him, simply preaching from the pulpit is not sufficient. He wants to live like a local, to truly integrate with the community. It is a commitment he takes to messianic extremes. Giving away all his possessions and even his lodgings to the needy, he moves to a tiny hut where he sleeps on the straw-covered floor. He even goes down one of the mines to help out. It was in the boronage that Vincent's behavior became truly outrageously extreme. On the positive side, when there was a big mine explosion, a lot of people were burned terribly. And Vincent, his desire to help people out, which was one of his most attractive qualities, this explosion gave him an opportunity to help

people. So he literally took the shirt off of his back to help bandage some of the victims of this disaster. And he went to the families and because they were so needy, they didn't mind the fact that it was this crazy Dutchman who was helping them. And in moments like that, he was happiest because he finally was able to participate in the world in an important way. But the mission group that had sent him to the Borenage was increasingly unsatisfied with his efforts there. He turned to areas of self-mortification as a response. So he literally went to a sort of a hut at the back of the property and slept on the ground in the winter. And then he took to beating himself with a board as a way of begging God's forgiveness for his inability to spread God's word. And this only worried his bosses in the mission society even more.

When the church officials discover how Vincent is living, they accuse him of diminishing the dignity of the priesthood. Combined with his lack of oratory skills and ability to organize meetings, it's enough to lose him his job. His family become increasingly concerned about his behavior. There is a history of epilepsy on both sides of the family, and if the truth about Vincent's mental health gets out too, finding husbands for his sisters may become impossible. His parents therefore try to send him to the Belgian city of Gael for psychiatric care. A progressive model of treatment there places patients with host families rather than fully institutionalizing them, but Vincent refuses to go. Since having him committed would involve lengthy legal proceedings that would

expose the family to unfavorable scrutiny, the idea is abandoned. Returning to the mining region in 1880, Vincent decides to pay a visit to Jules Breton, a celebrated artist whom he greatly admires. Without the money to pay for any kind of public transport, Vincent decides to walk the 85 kilometers to Breton's home. It's the first major sign that Vincent was becoming very serious about art. He fell in love with Breton's work,

and that encouraged him to go out and engage in this incredible trek in bad weather to go see Breton. He got to the town, and he actually found Breton's house. But all of a sudden, his lack of social skills hit him in the face. He's sitting there looking at the door to Breton's house. And he's thinking, I'm not able to knock on this door. What am I going to do if he answers the door? What am I going to say? He's going to think I'm sort of a crazy person. So he gives up on this pilgrimage and he walks all the way back to his home in the mining district, dejected, as you can imagine, feeling yet again like he's a complete failure.

Concerned by his older brother's deterioration, Theo comes up with something to keep him occupied. Keep him occupied. Theo sends him some manuals on how to basically teach yourself how to draw. There were a couple of these manuals developed by some of the leading artists of the era that were very popular. And all of a sudden, Vincent, who could become incredibly excited by some new venture, turns all of that early excitement to making art. Only it's the one thing that he stuck with to the last day of his life.

Somehow, this connected with him in a way that art dealing and becoming a minister didn't work. This worked partly because it was an isolated activity. You couldn't be an art dealer without interacting with your customers. You couldn't be a minister without dealing with your parishioners or your flock, whereas you could sit and draw by yourself. And this solitary activity became the absolute focus of Vincent's life, ultimately to the benefit of all the rest of it. absolute focus of Vincent's life, ultimately to the benefit of all the rest of us. Lodging with a miner in the Borenage, Vincent pursues his newfound love of drawing in earnest, producing many pictures of the town and its people. Now receiving financial support from Theo,

he spends some time in Brussels, where he studies art at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. In April 1881, shortly after his 28th birthday, Vincent returns to his family home in Etten, where he continues to draw. But he finds life with his parents anything but easy. Vincent constantly complained, especially to Theo, about the parents and how they couldn't understand him and what terrible people they were. The fact is they were incredibly supportive. Despite the fact that Vincent was bringing them nothing but shame and difficulty and expense, you've turned to the Van Gogh family and the primary subject of their correspondence

is what on earth are we gonna do about Vincent? All the other kids seem to be fine, but Vincent is nothing but trouble. The one child who was the standout was his younger brother, Theo. The parents adored him. They literally would send him letters saying things like, You are our crown. You are like a spring flower to us. At the same time that they're saying that Vincent can't do anything right,

Theo can't do anything right theo can't do anything wrong now vincent's string of failed employments is followed by a sequence of failed romances it begins with a visit by his cousin k who visits the family in ethan Despite the fact that she is seven years older than him and recently widowed with an eight-year-old child, Vincent becomes infatuated. Vincent gets the idea that this is a perfect solution for her and for him. He could become a father to the orphaned children. He could become the husband that she was grieving for so much. could become the husband that she was grieving for so much. So with almost no lead up, when she comes and visits the Van Gogh family, he turns to her and asks her to marry him, completely out of the blue. And to her, he's this crazy cousin that she's a little bit ashamed of and wants nothing

to do with. And she looked at him in horror and said, no, never, no, no, never. Literally those words, because Vincent repeats them angrily in a letter to Theo. So she scurries out of town to get away from him, but he won't give up. So he goes to Amsterdam and demands to see her. Well, her father does not want this. And Vincent, this is at a moment when Vincent is in the parents' house. They've rushed her out of the building. And he says, I just want to speak to her briefly. And the father says, absolutely not, under no circumstances. And there's a candle on the table.

And Vincent says, just let me see her as long as I can keep my hand on this flame. And he burns himself. my hand on this flame and he burns himself. Returning to The Hague, he meets up with his second cousin Anton Mo, one of the leading realist artists in the Netherlands and a prominent member of the country's most influential art societies. Under Mo's tutelage, Vincent learns not only about technique, particularly with oils and watercolors, but what it is to live as an artist. Despite Mauve's advice to make use of plaster models, however, Vincent prefers to use living people. Unable to afford professionals, he hires people from the streets. One of his subjects is Seen Hoenig, an alcoholic prostitute. is Seen Hoenig, an alcoholic prostitute.

Vincent turned that relationship into what he thought of as a real relationship, meaning he brought her into his home, he had her move in, he moved in her mother, her sister, and then when she had a child, which people incorrectly thought might be Vincent's, he outfitted the apartment with a crib and with the furnishings necessary to give this young baby a good start in life. And he treated the baby as

if it was his own child and drew these incredibly adorable drawings of the baby in its crib, the baby with its mother. He thought of C as his wife and in fact proposed to her and tried to convince the family that they should allow him to marry this prostitute, which in Holland in the 19th century, it was unthinkable. But she didn't like the idea either, because as much as she needed Vincent, she found it difficult. So it never happened. But the sad thing is that it was the closest thing that he ever had to a real relationship. Because it had duration and it had affection and it had meaning. Under pressure from his father, Vincent reluctantly agrees to leave Sian and her children.

And when the disagreements with Mauve come to a head, he is thrown out of the studio too. Desperately sad and lonely, he returns yet come to a head, he is thrown out of the studio too. Desperately sad and lonely, he returns yet again to his parents, who have moved to a vicarage near Eindhoven. He will remain there for the next two years. Here, Vincent immerses himself in his art, working mostly outdoors. He paints the vicarage and his father's church, but also local weavers and their cottages. But he also falls in love again, this time with his neighbor's daughter, Margot Begman. Her family own weaving businesses and are quite prosperous in this small town.

But like Vincent, Margot is troubled. When both families condemn the relationship, she attempts to take her own life by swallowing strychnine. Though she survives, the relationship does not. Vincent keeps painting. He sends a number of his artworks to Theo, mostly portraits of peasants, including the work entitled The Potato Eaters, rendered in dark and earthy shades. But Theo has no success in selling them, telling his disappointed brother that they're too somber. But there's a social issue with the work he's producing, too. You know, in a town like Noonan, there were no professional models,

but the town was surrounded by peasants. And it was considered unacceptable for a middle class person to have any interaction whatsoever with peasants. I mean, they were considered literally different kinds of human beings. We have no concept in the 21st century of that kind of division of people into not just different classes, but different worlds. And the family was horrified. into not just different classes, but different worlds. And the family was horrified. Just the idea that Vincent would go and have dinner with a peasant family was considered just inexplicable.

Vincent's relationship with the peasants is so shocking to the townsfolk that the local Catholic priest bans his flock from having anything to do with him. It brings deep shame to the family, and in March 1885, Vincent's father dies of a stroke. Towards the end of that year, Vincent moves to the port city of Antwerp in Belgium.

Though Theo continues to send money, Vincent spends most of it on models and art materials, neglecting his health. At times, he lives only on bread and water, along with his beloved pipe and alcohol. His teeth become so rotten that he has to have several of them removed. But he does heed his brother's advice, and his paintings become much brighter and more colourful. For a while he studies at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts, but refuses to follow the guidance of his tutors. Soon, it's just another endeavor racked up to failure.

In February 1886, he heads off to Paris to live with Theo. Vincent had been talking for some time about moving to Paris to live with Theo. Theo didn't give it a whole lot of attention. As protective and loving and supportive as he was, he didn't really envision rooming together. And Vincent just shows up in town and sends a note saying, I'm here. And to his credit, Theo welcomed him, sort of, and they lived together for about

two years. It is in Paris that things really begin to happen for Vincent in the world of art. Although he still doesn't sell anything, he expands his use of a brighter palette, explores impressionism and other styles, and experiments with new techniques. In two years, in the French capital, he produces over 200 paintings, many of which are exhibited. He also meets and befriends important artists such as Peter Russell, Émile Benard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and notably Paul Gauguin. Less positively, the strain of living cheek by jowl with his brother begins to put cracks in their relationship.

It was an enormous burden for Theo. On top of all the other burdens, Vincent fills the apartment with a clutter of painting activities. In fact, there's a point in the letters where Theo complains to somebody that he can't walk around the apartment without stepping into a pot of paint.

He had had quite a bit of a social life. Theo was every bit as accomplished socially as Vincent was disastrous socially. And Vio is already quite sick himself. He's suffering from all kinds of physical and eventually mental problems himself. For both their sakes, Vincent gives up the hustle and bustle of Paris to move to Arles in the Provence region of southern France. He rents a studio that he refers to as the Yellow House and sets about work on his studies of sunflowers with which to decorate the house and studio. He dreams that his artist friends will join him there and form a collective. In anticipation of this, he buys twelve wicker chairs, plus another,

more ornate one for the artist he hopes will lead the group, Paul Gauguin. Vincent prepares two bedrooms in the yellow house, a small one for himself, meagrely furnished with just a rustic bed, two chairs and a tiny table, and the other for Gauguin, its walls adorned with Vincent's brightly colored paintings. In the end, Gauguin is the only artist who agrees to come down to Arles, and then only because it is financially to his advantage. The only person who shows up is Gauguin, and very sadly, that only happens because Theo's paying him. Theo, who had been sponsoring Vincent and sending him money every month, lets Gauguin know that if he's willing to move to Arles, basically to take care of Vincent, not so much to paint with him as to

take care of him, Theo will give him a stipend, which was less difficult for Theo to do because Gauguin was already beginning to sell so it wouldn't just be an outlay there would be a return on that investment and gauguin goes to arle finally after vincent pleads with him for months and months and months to do it he shows up and within days decides and we know this because of letters he wrote to friends back in paris he can't do this he can't stay with vincent because of letters he wrote to friends back in Paris. He can't do this. He can't stay with Vincent. Because of the financial arrangement with Theo, he sticks around for a couple of months. But it's a very short-lived experiment,

although one that's really sort of important in the history of modern art. The characters and temperaments of the two artists are polar opposites. Just as Vincent is troubled and severely lacking in self-esteem, Gauguin is supremely confident, to the point of arrogance. Gauguin was a terrible human being. Just as Vincent is ultimately lovable, and the more you know him, the more you can love him, Gauguin, the more you know him, the less you love him. As great as the art was, and it was spectacularly good, you read about the way he treated his wife and the way he treated his children. The story is not a positive one. In addition to painting together and discussing art in great depth,

the two men spend a good deal of time in less edifying pursuits. When Gauguin shows up, they're getting a little bit of money from Theo, both of them are, but it's limited and he thinks they ought to have a budget, something that Vincent would never have considered. So Gauguin makes Vincent work with him to create a list of their expenses, both essential expenses and discretionary expenses. And essential expenses included things like tobacco and prostitutes. Those were not on the discretionary list. Those were on the essential list. Not only are their personalities completely incompatible, but the two men take very different approaches to their art. Whereas Vincent likes to paint directly from nature, usually outdoors, Gauguin prefers to

make extensive use of his imagination. They have heated arguments over which approach is superior. A further complication is Theo. While the disagreements rage in the Yellow House, Theo is having success in selling Gauguin's paintings, but not those of his own brother. Though Theo is Vincent's only real source of finance, he is also now providing support for their mother and one of their sisters, all on one salary. Things come to a head when Theo sends a letter to Vincent announcing his intention to get married. So Theo, he makes a decent salary as an art dealer, but it's not an extravagant salary, is imagining that in addition to Vincent and their mother and their sister, is now going to have to support a family, a wife and presumably children. So he begins to suggest

that Vincent might need to help support himself a little bit and Vincent goes crazy because he knows he really can't without going out and getting a job. The art's not going to sell adequately and it's both a financial crisis for Vincent or potential one and an emotional one and it is definitely far worse than the relationship with Gauguin. The potential for a diminishment in his relationship with Theo is a huge crisis for Vincent. It is December 23, 1888, but Vincent is not filled with Christmas cheer. Yet again he is arguing with Gauguin, but this time the artist he worships so much is threatening to walk out and never come back. It seems to Vincent that everyone is deserting him. The dispute escalates. Furniture and

canvases get tossed around. A glass is smashed on the floor. As Gauguin heads for the door, Vincent pleads with him to stay, but to no avail. Seething and desperate, Vincent spies a cutthroat razor on the table. He picks it up and races after Gauguin. He catches up with him on the street, but when Gauguin turns, he gives him a glare of such intense loathing that he backs down and returns to the house. Alone with his thoughts, Vincent stares at his reflection in the mirror. He hates what he sees there, what he has become. He is a failure, he tells himself, and now he has lost his only friend. He glances down at his hand, realizing he's still holding the razor.

Before he's even thought it through, he takes hold of his left ear and grits his teeth. When Vincent realizes what he has done, he attempts to staunch the flow of blood from where his ear used to be. It seems unceasing. He gets through every towel and rag he can find, worrying that he will lose so much blood he may die here. He staggers to a cupboard and eventually roots out some bandages. Wrapping the wound tightly, he manages to slow the bleeding. He knows he should seek help, but there is another task he feels he needs to perform first. He finds a large beret and pulls it low over his head to conceal the dressings. Picking

up the severed section of ear, he wraps it in newspaper and then steps out into the night. section of ear, he wraps it in a newspaper and then steps out into the night. It doesn't take him long to reach the brothel. They know him well here, and when the door is opened, Vincent asks to speak to Rachel. It's her working name, her real name being Gabby. When she comes to the door, he removes the package from his pocket and hands it to her, telling her to look after it carefully. She's puzzled, but he leaves her and begins walking home. Seconds later, he hears the screams from behind him. Back in the yellow house, Vincent takes the stairs to his bedroom. He is dizzy and desperately needs to rest.

Vincent is discovered unconscious the following day by a policeman and is taken to hospital. Meanwhile, Gauguin flees Arles and the two will never see each other again. Vincent returns to the Yellow House early in January 1889, but he continues to suffer greatly with his mental health. Concerned for their own safety, his neighbors petition to have him evicted. They claim he's insane and accuse him of touching women and making lewd comments. Vincent leaves the town and voluntarily enters

an asylum. Before departing, he makes a portrait of his physician and voluntarily enters an asylum. Before departing, he makes a portrait of his physician and presents it to him. Unimpressed by the painting, the doctor uses it to cover a hole in his chicken coop, and then sells it for a negligible sum. Many years later, it will end up in a museum valued at over 50 million dollars. The asylum is in the south of France, surrounded by cornfields, vineyards, and olive trees. As ever, it's Theo who foots the bill here, even arranging for his brother to have an additional cell to use as a studio. Despite the setting, life in the asylum is grim.

Its inmates get little clinical care and poor food. Vincent writes in one of his letters that at nights he hears shouts and terrible howls as of animals in a menagerie. Though frightening, there is some solace in the realization that he is not alone in his suffering. In a letter to Theo he writes, I observe in others that, like me, they too have heard sounds and strange voices during their crises, that things also appeared to change before their eyes, and that softens the horror. Had I not seen other mad people at close hand, I wouldn't have been able to rid myself of thinking about it all the time. Still, Vincent paints.

He paints the clinic, the views from his barred windows, the gardens, and even a few of the other inmates. Some of his most brilliant works are produced here, including The Starry Night. It is also at this time that he starts to gain recognition. In the first half of 1890, his work is included in several exhibitions and receives praise from artists and critics alike. And yet for Vincent, this year in the asylum is one of the loneliest he has ever experienced. Theo, because he was an art dealer, was constantly going to other cities to deal with clients and to deal with the other houses that were part of the same art dealing empire that Theo worked for. But he couldn't find the time or the energy to visit his brother in the insane asylum,

nor could any of the other members of the family. His mother never visited, which gives you a sense of the terrible loneliness that Vincent lived in in the last years of his life. In May 1890, Vincent is released from the clinic and relocates one final time to the northwestern edge of Paris. It brings him nearer to his beloved brother, but also to a physician named Dr. Paul Gachet, who has treated other artists. Vincent refuses to follow the doctor's advice to cut down on smoking and drinking. As before, Vincent goes on long treks to paint from nature. He becomes particularly fond of the surrounding wheat fields and writes to Theo that they As before, Vincent goes on long treks to paint from nature. He becomes particularly fond of the surrounding wheat fields and writes to Theo that they represent his sadness and extreme loneliness.

Here, as before, he is shunned by much of the community. On June 5th, Theo relays a message from Dr. Gachet that he considers the artist cured of his illness. The discharge of his patient will, however, prove to be tragically premature. It is July 27, 1890, and it's late in the evening by the time Vincent van Gogh pushes open the door of the Auberge Ravoux where he rents a room. As he crosses the room, all eyes turn to him. He had hoped to conceal what has happened, but the pain is too great. He walks with a stoop, his hands clutched to his stomach.

He glances at the owners of the inn, Arthur Ravoux and his daughter Adeline. Though he registers the concern on their faces, all he wants is to be alone. He staggers to the staircase and makes his way up to room five, a tiny attic space barely big enough for his bed, table and chair. As the pain becomes unbearable, he collapses onto the bed and pulls his knees up to his stomach. Arthur Ravoux knocks and enters. He asks his guest if he is ill, and Vincent decides he can hide it no longer. He raises his shirt and shows Albert the bullet wound. The innkeeper is horrified and asks him what happened.

Vincent replies simply that he has tried to kill himself. The hours that follow are a blur to Vincent. Two doctors attend, they dress his wound and administer painkillers, but explain to him that the bullet is still lodged inside him and that he will need emergency surgery. Vincent declines their offer, he asks only for his favorite pipe. The police are next to arrive, they are surly and officious. In this largely Catholic community, suicide is treated with contempt.

Looming over Vincent in his bed, the gendarme demand to know what he was thinking of when he shot himself. Vincent retorts angrily that his body is his own and he will do what he wishes with it. When they challenge his version of events, he has to repeat that nobody else was involved and that he is entirely to blame. Finally, Arthur rescues him, telling the officers that Vincent cannot endure further interrogation. The men leave, but the pain persists, and people come and go as he grows weaker. Then a hand touches his, and he hears a familiar voice. He opens his eyes and cries at the sight of his dear, younger brother at his bedside. Theo is distraught, but Vincent does his utmost to settle him. Fighting the pain,

Vincent takes care to express his gratitude for the kindness Theo has always shown him throughout his troubled life. When his time finally comes to an end, Vincent pulls Theo to him. He whispers that the sadness will last forever. Vincent van Gogh dies of infection from his gunshot wound in the early hours of July 29, 1890. In the back room of the inn, he is laid out in a simple coffin, strewn with golden sunflowers, his easel and folding stool placed at its head. The following day, he is buried in a cemetery close to his much-loved wheat fields. He is just 37. The numbers attending are small, but include a few eminent

artists such as Pizarro and Bernard. The loss greatly affects his brother Theo, whose health deteriorates rapidly. Diagnosed with paralytica dementia, a brain disease associated with syphilis, Theo dies only six months later, at the age of 33. associated with syphilis, Theo dies only six months later, at the age of 33. The cause of death is listed as heredity, chronic disease, overwork, sadness. His wife, understanding the strength of their bond, has Theo laid to rest beside his beloved older brother. The circumstances surrounding Van Gogh's death are debated to this day. While most believe Vincent's assertion that he shot himself, Stephen Nafee has suggested in his biography of the artist that he may have been protecting another, possibly the Buffalo Bill

inspired teenager René Secreta, who tormented Vincent mercilessly towards the end of his life. René Sucretin, who tormented Vincent mercilessly towards the end of his life. Sucretin's role has been depicted in the films Loving Vincent and At Eternity's Gate. Whatever the truth of his final hours, Van Gogh's legacy is profound. Although he made next to no money in his lifetime, his paintings are now among the most recognizable and treasured in the world. His portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold by Christie's in 1990 for $82.5 million, which was then the most ever paid at auction for a work by any artist. Today that figure would equate to something like 180 million dollars. There is a whole museum

in Amsterdam devoted to his works. Countless books, movies, documentaries, and songs have explored his life and his art. And if you look up into the night sky, with its burning stars depicted so beautifully in his iconic painting, The Starry Night, you may find yourself looking in the direction of Minor Planet 4457, Van Gogh. You don't have to know a lot about Vincent Van Gogh to know that the life was tragic. Just the ear incident alone is enough to let us know that he was an unhappy person. And yet you walk into a museum or into an exhibition and look at his art, and it just overwhelms you with the joy that it takes in life. And I think people, without even being necessarily consciously aware of it,

come away from it with an almost religious feeling about how somebody can transmute pain and sorrow into joy. And Vincent was very much aware of this. He read the Bible a lot, and his favorite passage was from St. Paul, and the passage is sorrowful, but always rejoicing. So this mechanism of turning sorrow into joy was very much a conscious one on Vincent's part and became, in some ways, I think, the ultimate defining characteristic of Van Gogh as a human being and as an artist. In the next episode of Short History Of, we'll bring you a short history of Easter Island.

Some Rapa Nui people see statues in museums as ambassadors of culture. Others see them as absolutely stolen objects that were acquired from desperate people who would take a pack of cigarettes for a statue or a cup of milk for their children for a statue. And that is true. That happened. And then there's a third group which sees their statues as spiritually inhabited by their ancestors still. And they see them as they look at them in foreign countries, in foreign environments, at the mercy of the eyes of many, many people whom they don't know. They see these statues as endangered spiritually and want them home where they're safe and cared for. So that's kind of, you know,

scientific grave robbing. On the other hand, researchers, good researchers, need that material for lots of reasons that can shed light on the rapid way past. That's next time on Short History Of. you