At the age of 37, on July 27, 1890, the amazing and unique artist Vincent Van Gogh committed suicide. In the afternoon, he went out into a wheat field behind the small French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, located a few kilometers from Paris, and shot himself in the chest with a revolver.
Before this, he had suffered from mental disorders for a year and a half, ever since he cut off his own ear in 1888.
The last days of the artist
After that notorious incident of self-harm, Van Gogh was tormented by periodic but debilitating attacks of insanity, which turned him into an embittered and inadequate person. He could remain in this state from several days to several weeks. In the periods between attacks, the artist was calm and thought clearly. These days he loved to draw and, it would seem, was trying to compensate for the time taken from him. In just over ten years of creativity, Van Gogh created several thousand works, including oil paintings, drawings and sketches.
His last creative period, held in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, turned out to be the most productive. After Van Gogh left the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, he settled in picturesque Auvers. In just over two months spent there, he completed 75 oil paintings and drew over a hundred drawings.
Death of Van Gogh
Despite his extraordinary productivity, the artist was constantly tormented by feelings of anxiety and loneliness. Van Gogh became increasingly convinced that his life was worthless and was wasted. Perhaps the reason for this was the lack of recognition of his talent by his contemporaries. Despite the novelty of artistic expression and the unique style of his paintings, Vincent Van Gogh rarely received praise for his work.
Ultimately, the desperate artist found a small pocket revolver that belonged to the owner of the boarding house where Van Gogh lived. He took the weapon into the field and shot himself in the heart. However, due to the small size of the revolver and small caliber, the bullet got stuck in the rib and did not reach the target.
The wounded Van Gogh lost consciousness and fell into a field, dropping his revolver. In the evening, after dark, he came to his senses and tried to finish what he started, but could not find the weapon. He returned with difficulty to the boarding house, where the owners called the doctor and the artist’s brother. Theo arrived the next day and did not leave the wounded man's bed. For some time, Theodore hoped that the artist would recover, but Vincent Van Gogh intended to die, and on the night of July 29, 1890, he died at the age of 37, finally telling his brother: “That’s exactly how I wanted to leave.”
On the verge of madness
Today the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is open new exhibition entitled "On the Threshold of Madness". It reveals in detail, carefully and as objectively as possible the life of the artist in the last year and a half, at that very time darkened by attacks of madness.
Although it does not provide an exact answer to the question of what exactly the artist suffered from, the exhibition presents viewers with previously unexhibited exhibits related to Van Gogh’s life and a number of his last works.
Possible diagnoses
As for the diagnosis, over the years there have been a lot of different theories, some justified and some not, as to what Vincent Van Gogh actually suffered from and what his madness was. Both epilepsy and schizophrenia were considered. In addition, split personality, complications of alcohol addiction and psychopathy were listed as possible illnesses.
Van Gogh's first recorded bout of madness and violence was in December 1988, when, as a result of conflicts with his friend Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh attacked him with a razor. Nothing is known for certain about the causes and course of this particular quarrel, but as a result, in a fit of repentance, Van Gogh cut off his own ear with this very razor.
There are many theories regarding the causes of self-harm and even doubts about the very fact of self-harm. Many believe that Van Gogh thus sheltered Paul Gauguin from responsibility and trial. However, this theory has no practical evidence.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
After an attack of violence, the artist was taken to a psychiatric hospital, where everything continued until Van Gogh was placed in a ward for particularly violent patients. At that time, the diagnosis of psychiatrists was epilepsy.
After the attack ended, Van Gogh asked to be released back to Arles so that he could continue painting. However, on the recommendation of doctors, the artist was transferred to a home for the mentally ill, located near Arles. Van Gogh lived in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence for almost a year. There he painted about 150 paintings, most of which were landscapes and still lifes.
The tension and anxiety that plagued the artist during this period are reflected in the extraordinary dynamism of his canvases and the use of darker tones. One of the most famous works Van Gogh - " Starlight Night" - was created precisely during this period.
Curious exhibits
The exhibition "On the Threshold of Madness", despite the lack of precise diagnoses, provides an unusually visual and emotional account of last stage artist's life. In addition to the paintings, over which last days Van Gogh worked, letters from his brother Theo, notes from the doctor who treated the artist in Arles, and even the revolver from which the artist shot himself in the chest are exhibited here.
The revolver was found in that same field seventy years after Van Gogh's death. Its model and corrosion confirm that this is the same weapon that inflicted the artist's fatal wound.
A note in a letter from Dr. Felix Ray, who treated the artist after the sensational razor incident, contains a diagram showing exactly how Van Gogh's ear was cut off. Until now, it has often been mentioned that the artist cut off his earlobe. From the letter it follows that Van Gogh cut off the auricle almost completely, leaving only part of the lower lobe.
The final stage of creativity
The exhibition is of interest not only to those interested in the life and death of the great artist, but also to fans of his work, since the canvases, drawings and sketches presented in it appear before the viewer in a different light.
Against the backdrop of evidence of the artist's practical madness, the latest paintings appear as a kind of visual timeline, demonstrating when the artist experienced periods of clarity and peace, and when he was tormented by anxiety.
Last picture
The last painting that Van Gogh worked on on the morning of that very July day is called “Tree Roots.” The canvas remained unfinished.
At first glance, the painting is an abstract composition, unlike anything the artist has previously depicted on his canvases. However, upon careful study, an image of an unusual landscape emerges, in which the main role reserved for the tightly woven roots of trees.
In many ways, Tree Roots is an innovative composition, even for Van Gogh - there is no single focal point and it does not follow rules. The painting seems to foreshadow the onset of abstract art.
At the same time, considering this painting as part of the exhibition “On the Threshold of Madness,” it is difficult not to evaluate it retrospectively. Is there a secret to it and what is it? One cannot help asking questions: when drawing the intertwined roots of trees, what was the artist thinking about, who in a few hours will try to shoot at his own heart?
His whole life is a search for himself. He was both an art dealer and a preacher in a remote village. Many times it seemed to him that his life was over, that he would never find something to do that would reflect his inner needs. When he started painting, he was almost 30 years old.
It would seem, what do we, people of the 21st century, care about some crazy artist? But if you have ever wondered how lonely a person can be in the world, how difficult it is to find your place in life, your business, Van Gogh will be interesting to you not only as “some kind of artist,” but also as an amazing and tragic person.
When a person has a fire burning inside and a soul, he is unable to contain them. It's better to burn than to go out. What's inside will still come out.
Starry Night, 1889
I consider life without love to be a sinful, immoral state.
Self-portrait with a cut off ear, 1889
A man carries a bright flame in his soul, but no one wants to bask near him; passersby notice only the smoke escaping through the chimney and go on their way.
Blooming almond branch, 1890
As for me, I don’t really know anything, but the shining of the stars makes me dream.
Starry Night over the Rhone, 1888
Even if I manage to raise my head a little higher in life, I will still do the same thing - drink with the first person I meet and immediately write to him.
Van Gogh's chair with his pipe, 1888
In the evening I walked along the deserted seashore. It wasn't funny or sad - it was wonderful.
In the hope that Gauguin and I will have a common workshop, I want to decorate it. Just big sunflowers - nothing more.
Today's generation doesn't want me: well, I don't care about them.
In my opinion, I often, although not every day, am fabulously rich - not in money, but because I find something in my work that I can devote my soul and heart to, that inspires me and gives meaning to my life.
Road with Cypresses and a Star, 1890
Vincent van Gogh's last words: "Sadness will last forever"
When 37-year-old Vincent Van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, his work was virtually unknown. Today his paintings are worth eye-popping sums and decorate best museums peace.
125 years after the death of the great Dutch painter the time has come to learn more about him and dispel some of the myths with which, like the entire history of art, his biography is full.
He changed several jobs before becoming an artist
The son of a minister, Van Gogh began working at age 16. His uncle hired him as an art dealer in The Hague as a trainee. He had occasion to travel to London and Paris, where the company's branches were located. In 1876 he was fired. After that he worked for some time school teacher in England, then as a bookstore salesman. From 1878 he served as a preacher in Belgium. Van Gogh was in need, he had to sleep on the floor, but less than a year later he was fired from this post. Only after this did he finally become an artist and did not change his occupation again. In this field he became famous, however, posthumously.
Van Gogh's career as an artist was short
In 1881, the self-taught Dutch artist returned to the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to painting. He was supported financially and materially by his younger brother Theodore, a successful art dealer. In 1886, the brothers settled in Paris, and these two years in the French capital turned out to be fateful. Van Gogh took part in exhibitions of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists; he began to use a light and bright palette and experiment with brush stroke techniques. The artist spent the last two years of his life in the south of France, where he created a number of his most famous paintings.
In his entire ten-year career, he sold only a few of his more than 850 paintings. His drawings (about 1,300 of them remained) were then unclaimed.
Most likely he didn't cut off his own ear.
In February 1888, after living in Paris for two years, Van Gogh moved to the south of France, to the city of Arles, where he hoped to found a community of artists. He was accompanied by Paul Gauguin, with whom he became friends in Paris. The officially accepted version of events is as follows:
On the night of December 23, 1888, they quarreled and Gauguin left. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, pursued his friend, but, not catching up, returned home and, in frustration, partially cut off his left ear, then wrapped it in newspaper and gave it to some prostitute.
In 2009, two German scientists published a book in which they suggested that Gauguin, being a good swordsman, cut off part of Van Gogh's ear with a saber during a duel. According to this theory, Van Gogh, in the name of friendship, agreed to hide the truth, otherwise Gauguin would have faced prison.
The most famous paintings were painted by him in a psychiatric clinic
In May 1889, Van Gogh sought help at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric hospital, located in a former monastery in the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France. The artist was initially diagnosed with epilepsy, but examination also revealed bipolar disorder, alcoholism and metabolic disorders. Treatment consisted mainly of baths. He remained in the hospital for a year and painted a number of landscapes there. More than one hundred paintings from this period include some of his most famous works, such as The Starry Night (acquired by the New York Museum contemporary art in 1941) and “Irises” (purchased by an industrialist from Australia in 1987 for a then-record sum of $53.9 million)
The life, death and work of Vincent Van Gogh have been studied quite well. Dozens of books and monographs have been written about the great Dutchman, hundreds of dissertations have been defended and several films have been made. Despite this, researchers are constantly finding new facts from the artist’s life. Recently, researchers have questioned the canonical version of the suicide of a genius and put forward their own version.
Van Gogh biography researchers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith believe that the artist did not commit suicide, but was the victim of an accident. Scientists came to this conclusion after conducting extensive search work and studying many documents and memories of eyewitnesses and friends of the artist.
Gregory White Smith and Steve Knife
Nayfi and White Smith compiled their work in the form of a book called “Van Gogh. Life". Work on new biography Dutch artist took more than 10 years, despite the fact that the scientists were actively assisted by 20 researchers and translators.
In Auvers-sur-Oise the memory of the artist is carefully preserved
It is known that Van Gogh died in a hotel in the small town of Auvers-sur-Oise, located 30 km from Paris. It was believed that on July 27, 1890, the artist went for a walk through the picturesque surroundings, during which he shot himself in the heart area. The bullet did not reach the target and went lower, so the wound, although serious, did not lead to immediate death.
Vincent van Gogh "Wheat field with reaper and sun." Saint-Rémy, September 1889
The wounded Van Gogh returned to his room, where the hotel owner called a doctor. The next day, Theo, the artist’s brother, arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise, in whose arms he died on July 29, 1890, at 1.30 a.m., 29 hours after the fatal shot. Last words uttered by Van Gogh was the phrase “La tristesse durera toujours” (Sadness will last forever).
Auvers-sur-Oise. Tavern "Ravu" on the second floor of which he died the great Dutchman
But according to research by Stephen Knife, Van Gogh did not go for a walk through the wheat fields on the outskirts of Auvers-sur-Oise in order to take his own life.
“People who knew him believed he was accidentally killed by a couple of local teenagers, but he decided to protect them and took the blame.”
Nayfi thinks so, citing numerous references to this strange story eyewitnesses. Did the artist have a weapon? Most likely it was, since Vincent once acquired a revolver to scare away flocks of birds, which often prevented him from drawing from life in nature. But no one can say with certainty whether Van Gogh took a weapon with him that day.
The tiny closet where Vincent van Gogh spent his last days, in 1890 and now
The version of careless murder was first put forward in 1930 by John Renwald, a famous researcher of the painter’s biography. Renwald visited the town of Auvers-sur-Oise and spoke with several residents who still remembered the tragic incident.
John was also able to access the medical records of the doctor who examined the wounded man in his room. According to the description of the wound, the bullet entered the abdominal cavity in the upper part along a trajectory close to a tangent, which is not at all typical for cases when a person shoots himself.
The graves of Vincent and his brother Theo, who outlived the artist by only six months
In the book, Stephen Knife puts forward a very convincing version of what happened, in which his young acquaintances became the culprits in the death of the genius.
“The two teenagers were known to often go drinking with Vincent at that time of day. One of them had a cowboy suit and a faulty pistol with which he played cowboy.”
The scientist believes that careless handling of the weapon, which was also faulty, led to an involuntary shot, which killed Van Gogh in the stomach. It is unlikely that the teenagers wanted the death of their older friend - most likely, it was a murder due to negligence. The noble artist, not wanting to ruin the lives of the young men, took the blame upon himself, and ordered the boys to keep quiet.
According to sociologists, three artists are the most famous in the world: Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso. Leonardo is “responsible” for the art of the Old Masters, Van Gogh for the impressionists and post-impressionists of the 19th century, and Picasso for the abstract and modernists of the 20th century. Moreover, if Leonardo appears in the eyes of the public not so much as a painter, but as a universal genius, and Picasso as a fashionable “socialite” and public figure- a fighter for peace, then Van Gogh personifies the artist. He is considered a lone crazy genius and a martyr who did not think about fame and money. However, this image, to which everyone is accustomed, is nothing more than a myth that was used to “promote” Van Gogh and sell his paintings at a profit.
The legend about the artist is based on a true fact - he took up painting when he was already a mature man, and in just ten years he “ran” the path from a novice artist to a master who revolutionized the idea of fine art. All this, even during Van Gogh’s lifetime, was perceived as a “miracle” with no real explanation. The artist’s biography was not replete with adventures, such as the fate of Paul Gauguin, who managed to be both a stockbroker and a sailor, and died of leprosy, exotic for the European man in the street, on the no less exotic Hiva Oa, one of the Marquesas Islands. Van Gogh was a “boring worker”, and, except for the strange mental attacks that appeared in him shortly before his death, and this death itself as a result of a suicide attempt, the myth-makers had nothing to cling to. But these few “trump cards” were played by real masters of their craft.
The main creator of the Legend of the Master was the German gallery owner and art critic Julius Meyer-Graefe. He quickly realized the scale of the great Dutchman’s genius, and most importantly, the market potential of his paintings. In 1893, a twenty-six-year-old gallery owner purchased the painting “A Couple in Love” and started thinking about “advertising” a promising product. Possessing a lively pen, Meyer-Graefe decided to write a biography of the artist that would be attractive to collectors and art lovers. He did not find him alive and therefore was “free” from personal impressions that burdened the master’s contemporaries. In addition, Van Gogh was born and raised in Holland, and finally developed as a painter in France. In Germany, where Meyer-Graefe began to introduce the legend, no one knew anything about the artist, and the gallery owner and art critic began with “ clean slate" He did not immediately “find” the image of that crazy lone genius that everyone now knows. At first, Meyer's Van Gogh was a “healthy man of the people,” and his work was “harmony between art and life” and a herald of a new Big style, which Meyer-Graefe considered modernity. But modernism fizzled out in a matter of years, and Van Gogh, under the pen of an enterprising German, “retrained” as an avant-garde rebel who led the fight against mossy academic realists. Van Gogh the anarchist was popular in the circles of artistic bohemia, but scared off the average person. And only the “third edition” of the legend satisfied everyone. In a 1921 “scientific monograph” entitled “Vincent,” with the subtitle, unusual for literature of this kind, “The Novel of the God-Seeker,” Meyer-Graefe presented to the public a holy madman whose hand was guided by God. The highlight of this “biography” was the story of a severed ear and creative madness that elevated a small, lonely man like Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin to the heights of genius.
 Vincent Van Gogh. 1873 |
The real Vincent van Gogh had little in common with "Vincent" Meyer-Graefe. To begin with, he graduated from a prestigious private gymnasium, spoke and wrote fluently in three languages, read a lot, which earned him the nickname Spinoza in Parisian artistic circles. Behind Van Gogh stood big family, who never left him without support, although she was not happy with his experiments. His grandfather was a renowned bookbinder of ancient manuscripts, working for several European courts, three of his uncles were successful art dealers, and one was an admiral and port master in Antwerp, in his house he lived while studying in that city. The real Van Gogh was a rather sober and pragmatic person.
For example, one of the central “God-seeking” episodes of the “going to the people” legend was the fact that in 1879 Van Gogh was a preacher in the Belgian mining district of Borinage. What Meyer-Graefe and his followers didn’t come up with! Here there is a “break with the environment” and “the desire to suffer along with the wretched and the poor.” Everything is explained simply. Vincent decided to follow in his father's footsteps and become a priest. In order to be ordained, it was necessary to study at the seminary for five years. Or - take an accelerated course in three years at an evangelical school using a simplified program, and even for free. All this was preceded by a mandatory six-month “experience” as a missionary in the outback. So Van Gogh went to the miners. Of course, he was a humanist, tried to help these people, but he did not even think about getting close to them, always remaining a member of the middle class. After serving his sentence in Borinage, Van Gogh decided to enroll in an evangelical school, and then it turned out that the rules had changed and Dutch people like him, unlike the Flemings, had to pay tuition. After this, the offended “missionary” left religion and decided to become an artist.
And this choice is also not accidental. Van Gogh was a professional art dealer - an art dealer in the largest company "Goupil". His partner in it was his uncle Vincent, after whom the young Dutchman was named. He patronized him. Goupil played a leading role in Europe in the trade of old masters and solid modern academic paintings, but was not afraid to sell “moderate innovators” like the Barbizons. For 7 years Van Gogh made a difficult career based on family traditions antique business. From the Amsterdam branch he moved first to The Hague, then to London and finally to the firm's headquarters in Paris. Over the years, the nephew of the co-owner of Goupil went through a serious school, studied the main European museums and many closed private collections, and became a real expert in painting not only by Rembrandt and the small Dutch, but also by the French - from Ingres to Delacroix. “Being surrounded by paintings,” he wrote, “I was inflamed with a frantic love for them, reaching the point of frenzy.” His idol was French artist Jean François Millet, who became famous at that time for his “peasant” paintings, which Goupil sold at prices of tens of thousands of francs.
 The artist's brother Theodore Van Gogh |
Van Gogh was going to become such a successful “writer of the everyday life of the lower classes” like Millet, using his knowledge of the life of miners and peasants, gleaned from the Borinage. Contrary to legend, art dealer Van Gogh was not a brilliant amateur like such “artists Sunday", like customs officer Russo or conductor Pirosmani. Having behind him a fundamental acquaintance with the history and theory of art, as well as with the practice of trading in it, the persistent Dutchman, at the age of twenty-seven, began a systematic study of the craft of painting. He began by drawing using the latest special textbooks, which were sent to him by art dealers from all over Europe. Van Gogh's hand was placed by his relative, the artist from The Hague Anton Mauwe, to whom the grateful student later dedicated one of his paintings. Van Gogh even entered first the Brussels and then the Antwerp Academy of Arts, where he studied for three months until he went to Paris.
The newly-minted artist was persuaded to go there in 1886 by his younger brother Theodore. This successful art dealer, who was on the rise, played a key role in the fate of the master. Theo advised Vincent to give up “peasant” painting, explaining that it was already a “plowed field.” And, besides, “black paintings” like “The Potato Eaters” have always sold worse than light and joyful art. Another thing is the “light painting” of the Impressionists, literally created for success: all sunshine and celebration. The public will definitely appreciate it sooner or later.
Theo Seer
So Van Gogh ended up in the capital of the “new art” - Paris and, on Theo’s advice, he entered the private studio of Fernand Cormon, which was then a “training ground” for a new generation of experimental artists. There, the Dutchman became close friends with such future pillars of post-impressionism as Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard and Lucien Pissarro. Van Gogh studied anatomy, painted from plaster casts and literally absorbed all the new ideas that were seething in Paris.
Theo introduces him to leading art critics and his artist clients, among whom were not only the established Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas, but also the “rising stars” Signac and Gauguin. By the time Vincent arrived in Paris, his brother was the head of the “experimental” branch of Goupil in Montmartre. A man with a keen sense of new things and an excellent businessman, Theo was one of the first to see the advance new era in art. He persuaded the conservative leadership of Gupil to allow him to take the risk of engaging in trade." light painting" In the gallery, Theo held personal exhibitions of Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and other impressionists, to whom Paris began to gradually get used to. One floor above, in his own apartment, he arranged “changing exhibitions” of paintings by daring youth, which “Goupil” was afraid to show officially. This was the prototype of the elite “apartment exhibitions” that became fashionable in the 20th century, and Vincent’s works became their highlight.
Back in 1884, the Van Gogh brothers entered into an agreement among themselves. Theo, in exchange for Vincent's paintings, pays him 220 francs a month and provides him with brushes, canvases and paints best quality. By the way, thanks to this, Van Gogh’s paintings, unlike the works of Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec, who painted on anything due to lack of money, were so well preserved. 220 francs was a quarter of the monthly salary of a doctor or lawyer. Postman Joseph Roulin in Arles, whom legend made something of a patron of the “beggar” Van Gogh, received half as much and, unlike the lonely artist, fed a family with three children. Van Gogh even had enough money to create a collection of Japanese prints. In addition, Theo supplied his brother with “overall clothes”: blouses and famous hats, necessary books and reproductions. He also paid for Vincent's treatment.
None of this was simple charity. The brothers drew up an ambitious plan - to create a market for paintings by the Post-Impressionists, the generation of artists that replaced Monet and his friends. Moreover, with Vincent Van Gogh as one of the leaders of this generation. To combine the seemingly incompatible - the risky avant-garde art of the bohemian world and commercial success in the spirit of the respectable Goupil. Here they were almost a century ahead of their time: only Andy Warhol and other American pop-partyists managed to immediately get rich from avant-garde art.
"Unrecognized"
Overall, Vincent van Gogh's position was unique. He worked as a contract artist for an art dealer, who was one of the key figures in the “light painting” market. And this art dealer was his brother. The restless tramp Gauguin, for example, who counted every franc, could only dream of such a situation. Moreover, Vincent was not a simple puppet in the hands of businessman Theo. He was also not unmercenary, who did not want to sell his paintings to profane people, which he gave away freely to “kindred souls,” as Meyer-Graefe wrote. Van Gogh, like everyone else normal person, wanted recognition not from distant descendants, but during his lifetime. Confessions, an important sign of which for him was money. And being a former art dealer himself, he knew how to achieve this.
One of the main themes of his letters to Theo is not at all God-seeking, but discussions about what needs to be done in order to profitably sell paintings, and which paintings will quickly find their way to the heart of the buyer. To promote himself in the market, he came up with an impeccable formula: “Nothing will help us sell our paintings better than their recognition as a good decoration for middle-class homes.” To clearly show how Post-Impressionist paintings would “look” in a bourgeois interior, Van Gogh himself organized two exhibitions in the Tambourine cafe and the La Forche restaurant in Paris in 1887 and even sold several works from them. Later, the legend played up this fact as an act of despair of the artist, whom no one wanted to let into normal exhibitions.
Meanwhile, he is a regular participant in exhibitions at the Salon des Indépendants and the Free Theater - the most fashionable places for Parisian intellectuals of that time. His paintings are exhibited by art dealers Arsene Portier, George Thomas, Pierre Martin and Tanguy. The great Cezanne got the opportunity to show his work at a personal exhibition only at the age of 56, after almost four decades of hard labor. While the works of Vincent, an artist with six years of experience, could be seen at any time at Theo’s “apartment exhibition”, where the entire artistic elite of the capital of the art world, Paris, visited.
The real Van Gogh is least like the hermit from the legend. He belongs among the leading artists of the era, the most convincing evidence of which is several portraits of the Dutchman painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, Roussel, and Bernard. Lucien Pissarro depicted him talking with the most influential art critic those years by Fenelon. Camille Pissarro remembered Van Gogh for the fact that he did not hesitate to stop the person he needed on the street and show his paintings right next to the wall of some house. It is simply impossible to imagine the real hermit Cezanne in such a situation.
The legend firmly established the idea that Van Gogh was unrecognized, that during his lifetime only one of his paintings, “Red Vineyards in Arles,” was sold, which now hangs in the Moscow Museum fine arts named after A.S. Pushkin. In fact, the sale of this painting from an exhibition in Brussels in 1890 for 400 francs was Van Gogh's breakthrough into the world of serious prices. He sold no worse than his contemporaries Seurat or Gauguin. According to documents, it is known that fourteen works were bought from the artist. The first to do so was a family friend, the Dutch art dealer Tersteeg, in February 1882, and Vincent wrote to Theo: “The first sheep has crossed the bridge.” In reality, there were more sales; there is simply no accurate evidence of the rest.
As for unrecognized status, since 1888 famous critics Gustave Kahn and Felix Fenelon, in their reviews of “independent” exhibitions, as the avant-garde artists were called then, highlight the fresh and vibrant works of Van Gogh. The critic Octave Mirbeau advised Rodin to buy his paintings. They were in the collection of such a discerning connoisseur as Edgar Degas. During his lifetime, Vincent read in the Mercure de France newspaper that he great artist, heir to Rembrandt and Hals. I wrote this in my entire article dedicated to creativity"The Amazing Dutchman" rising star"New Criticism" Henri Aurier. He intended to create a biography of Van Gogh, but unfortunately died of tuberculosis shortly after the death of the artist himself.
About the mind free “from shackles”But Meyer-Graefe published a “biography”, and in it he especially described the “intuitive, free from the shackles of reason” process of Van Gogh’s creativity.
“Vincent painted in a blind, unconscious rapture. His temperament spilled out onto the canvas. The trees screamed, the clouds hunted each other. The sun gaped like a blinding hole leading to chaos.”
The easiest way to refute this idea of Van Gogh is in the words of the artist himself: “Great is created not only by impulsive action, but also by the complicity of many things that were brought to a single whole... With art, as with everything else: great is not something sometimes random, but must be created by persistent willpower.”
The vast majority of Van Gogh’s letters are devoted to issues of the “kitchen” of painting: setting tasks, materials, technique. The case is almost unprecedented in the history of art. The Dutchman was a real workaholic and argued: “In art you have to work like several blacks and peel off your skin.” At the end of his life, he really painted very quickly; he could complete a painting from start to finish in two hours. But at the same time he kept repeating favorite expression American artist Whistler: “I did it in two hours, but I worked for years to do something worthwhile in those two hours.”
Van Gogh did not write on a whim - he worked long and hard on the same motif. In the city of Arles, where he set up his workshop after leaving Paris, he began a series of 30 works connected by the common creative task of “Contrast”. Contrast in color, thematic, composition. For example, pandan "Cafe in Arles" and "Room in Arles". In the first picture there is darkness and tension, in the second there is light and harmony. In the same row there are several variants of his famous “Sunflowers”. The entire series was conceived as an example of decorating a “middle class home.” We have thoughtful creative and market strategies from start to finish. After looking at his paintings at the “independent” exhibition, Gauguin wrote: “You are the only thinking artist of all.”
The cornerstone of the Van Gogh legend is his madness. Allegedly, only it allowed him to look into such depths that are inaccessible to mere mortals. But the artist was not half-mad with flashes of genius from his youth. Periods of depression, accompanied by seizures similar to epilepsy, for which he was treated in a psychiatric clinic, began only in the last year and a half of his life. Doctors saw this as the effect of absinthe, an alcoholic drink infused with wormwood, whose destructive effect on nervous system became known only in the 20th century. Moreover, it was precisely during the period of exacerbation of the disease that the artist could not write. So mental disorder did not “help” Van Gogh’s genius, but hindered it.
Very doubtful famous story with an ear. It turned out that Van Gogh could not cut it off at the root; he would simply bleed to death, because he was given help only 10 hours after the incident. Only his lobe was cut off, as stated in the medical report. And who did it? There is a version that this happened during a quarrel with Gauguin that took place that day. Experienced in sailor fights, Gauguin slashed Van Gogh in the ear, and he had a nervous attack from the whole experience. Later, to justify his behavior, Gauguin made up a story that Van Gogh, in a fit of madness, chased him with a razor in his hands, and then injured himself.
Even the painting “Room in Arles,” whose curved space was considered to capture Van Gogh’s insane state, turned out to be surprisingly realistic. Plans were found for the house in which the artist lived in Arles. The walls and ceiling of his home were indeed sloping. Van Gogh never painted by moonlight with candles attached to his hat. But the creators of the legend always handled facts freely. For example, they announced the ominous picture “Wheat Field”, with a road stretching into the distance, covered with a flock of ravens. the last canvas master predicting his death. But it is well known that after it he wrote more whole line works where the ill-fated field is depicted as compressed.
The “know-how” of the main author of the Van Gogh myth, Julius Meyer-Graeff, is not just a lie, but a presentation of fictitious events mixed with genuine facts, and even in the form of an impeccable scientific work. For example, a true fact - Van Gogh loved to work under open air because he could not stand the smell of turpentine, which is used to dilute paints, - the “biographer” used it as the basis for a fantastic version of the reason for the master’s suicide. Allegedly, Van Gogh fell in love with the sun, the source of his inspiration, and did not allow himself to cover his head with a hat while standing under its burning rays. All his hair burned off, the sun burned his unprotected skull, he went crazy and committed suicide. In Van Gogh's late self-portraits and images of the dead by the artist, made by his friends, it is clear that he did not lose any hair on his head until his death.
"Epiphanies of the Holy Fool"
Van Gogh shot himself on July 27, 1890, after his mental crisis seemed to have been overcome. Shortly before this, he was discharged from the clinic with the conclusion: “Recovered.” The very fact that the owner of the furnished rooms in Auvers, where Van Gogh lived in the last months of his life, entrusted him with a revolver, which the artist needed to scare away crows while working on sketches, suggests that he behaved absolutely normally. Today, doctors agree that suicide did not occur during a seizure, but was the result of a confluence of external circumstances. Theo got married, had a child, and Vincent was depressed by the thought that his brother would only be concerned with his family, and not with their plan to conquer the art world.
After the fatal shot, Van Gogh lived for two more days, was surprisingly calm and steadfastly endured suffering. He died in the arms of his inconsolable brother, who was never able to recover from this loss and died six months later. The Goupil company sold for next to nothing all the works of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists that Theo Van Gogh had accumulated in a gallery in Montmartre, and closed the experiment with “light painting.” Theo's widow Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger took Vincent van Gogh's paintings to Holland. Only at the beginning of the 20th century did the great Dutchman achieve total fame. According to experts, if not for the almost simultaneous early death both brothers, this would have happened back in the mid-1890s and Van Gogh would have been a very rich man. But fate decreed otherwise. People like Meyer-Graefe began to reap the fruits of the labors of the great painter Vincent and the great gallery owner Theo.
Who did Vincent possess?
The novel about the God-seeker “Vincent” by an enterprising German came in handy in the context of the collapse of ideals after the massacre of the First World War. A martyr to art and a madman, whose mystical creativity appeared under the pen of Meyer-Graefe as something like a new religion, this Van Gogh captured the imagination of both jaded intellectuals and unsophisticated ordinary people. The legend pushed into the background not only the biography of the real artist, but also distorted the idea of his paintings. They were seen as some kind of mishmash of colors, in which the prophetic “insights” of the holy fool were discerned. Meyer-Graefe turned into the main connoisseur of the “mystical Dutchman” and began not only to trade in Van Gogh’s paintings, but also to issue certificates of authenticity for large sums of money for works that appeared under Van Gogh’s name on the art market.
In the mid-1920s, a certain Otto Wacker came to him, performing erotic dances in Berlin cabarets under the pseudonym Olinto Lovel. He showed several paintings signed "Vincent", painted in the spirit of the legend. Meyer-Graefe was delighted and immediately confirmed their authenticity. In total, Wacker, who opened his own gallery in the fashionable Potsdamerplatz district, put more than 30 Van Goghs on the market until rumors spread that they were fake. Since the amount involved was very large, the police intervened in the matter. At the trial, the dancer-gallery owner told a tale of “provenance”, which he “fed” his gullible clients. He allegedly purchased the paintings from a Russian aristocrat, who bought them at the beginning of the century, and during the revolution managed to take them from Russia to Switzerland. Wacker did not name, claiming that the Bolsheviks, embittered by the loss of the “national treasure,” would destroy the aristocrat’s family remaining in Soviet Russia.
In the battle of experts that unfolded in April 1932 in the courtroom of the Berlin district of Moabit, Meyer-Graefe and his supporters stood strongly for the authenticity of the Wacker Van Goghs. But the police raided the studio of the dancer’s brother and father, who were artists, and found 16 brand-new Van Goghs. Technological examination showed that they are identical to the sold paintings. In addition, chemists found that when creating the “paintings of the Russian aristocrat,” paints were used that appeared only after Van Gogh’s death. Upon learning of this, one of the “experts” who supported Meyer-Graefe and Wacker said to the stunned judge: “How do you know that after his death Vincent did not inhabit a congenial body and is not still creating?”
Wacker received three years in prison, and Meyer-Graefe's reputation was destroyed. He soon died, but the legend, despite everything, continues to live to this day. It is on this basis American writer Irving Stone wrote his best-selling book Lust for Life in 1934, and Hollywood director Vincente Minnelli made a film about Van Gogh in 1956. The role of the artist was played by actor Kirk Douglas. The film earned an Oscar and finally established in the minds of millions of people the image of a half-mad genius who took upon himself all the sins of the world. Then the American period in the canonization of Van Gogh was replaced by the Japanese.
In the country rising sun Thanks to legend, the great Dutchman began to be considered something between a Buddhist monk and a samurai who committed hara-kiri. In 1987, Yasuda bought Van Gogh's Sunflowers at an auction in London for $40 million. Three years later, eccentric billionaire Ryoto Saito, who associated himself with the Vincent of legend, paid $82 million at an auction in New York for Van Gogh's Portrait of Doctor Gachet. For a whole decade it was the most expensive painting in the world. According to Saito’s will, she was supposed to be burned with him after his death, but the creditors of the Japanese man, who was bankrupt by that time, did not allow this to happen.
While the world was rocked by scandals surrounding the name of Van Gogh, art historians, restorers, archivists and even doctors, step by step, explored the true life and work of the artist. A huge role in this was played by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, created in 1972 on the basis of the collection that was given to Holland by Theo Van Gogh’s son, who bore the name of his great uncle. The museum began checking all Van Gogh's paintings in the world, weeding out several dozen fakes, and did a great job of preparing scientific publication correspondence between brothers.
But, despite the enormous efforts of both the museum staff and such luminaries of Van Gogh studies as the Canadian Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharova or the Dutchman Jan Halsker, the legend of Van Gogh does not die. It lives its own life, giving rise to new films, books and performances about the “mad saint Vincent”, who has nothing in common with the great worker and pioneer of new paths in art, Vincent Van Gogh. This is how man is made: romantic fairy tale For him, the “prose of life” is always more attractive, no matter how great it may be.