Vincent Van Gogh was very much the artist's artist. He was a man who had great faith in the people around him, but also a man who was misunderstood and ignored in his lifetime. In Meeting Van Gogh, I wanted to explore him both as an artist that could empathise with his story and also as a pseudo-psychologist who that sterilised his story with psychological explanations of mental illness. In other words, the artist in me wanted to feel what Vincent felt, but the pseudo-psychologist in me wanted to restrain those emotions.
In many respects, my approach to Vincent as an individual mirrored how Van Gogh has been approached by cultures at large. When I encountered Vincent in art books, the writings showed tension, warmth, uneasyness, and appreciation. Likewise, when I encountered Vincent in music, it was on a level of emotional beauty. However, when I read about Van Gogh in psychology books, the writings showed sterility and coldness. After reading what Vincent wrote about himself, and looking at his self-portraits, I suspect he fluctuated between the two extremes as well. Sometimes he tried to liberate his emotions in all their glory, and sometimes he tried to restrain them. Just as Freud proposed, inside everyone is an eternal conflict between liberation and restraint, and for Vincent, that conflict was particularly strong.
To explore the varied methods of accessing Van Gogh, I used a style I refer to as Geometric Expressionism. I’ve always been fascinated with the psychological power of shape. When I look at Picasso’s weeping women series, I feel emotion, but it is a kind of restrained intensity; almost like looking at a woman crying in an intellectual way. By constraining emotion, the geometry has a way of denying a cathrthic release, which can actually increase emotional tension. When I applied the style to Van Gogh, I achieved the paradox that I was seeking. The flowing lines behind each self-portrait created a sense of liberated emotional intensity, but the geometric forms in the face restrained that intensity to create a feeling of someone on the edge of control. In this way, the paintings mirror how society at large has approached Vincent, and perhaps, how he approached himself.
Understanding Van Gogh
Quotes by Vincent Van Gogh
“One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke rising from the chimney and continue on their way."
“I sometimes make small sketches almost against my will”
“Who is the master, logic or I”
“I should want my work to show what is at the heart of such an eccentric, of such a nobody”
“I can not always keep quiet”
"I am a man of passion, capable and prone to undertake more or less foolish things which I happen to repent more or less"
"If the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass more to stun myself"
“the more ugly, old, vicious, ill, poor I get, the more I want to take my revenge by producing brilliant colour, well arranged, resplendent.”
“Not made to please a certain taste in art, but to express a sincere human feeling."
Van Gogh – Facts
Vincent had an older brother than was still born. The older brother was also called Vincent. Vincent walked past the grave every Sunday on his way to Church.
Praise embarrassed him. He once made a model of elephant, but after being praised by his parents, he destroyed it
Vincent liked artists that dealt with the destitute and the downtrodden
He loved women, but they did not love him
He spent 6 years training as an art dealer, but was fired
During his religious training, Vincent punished himself and flogged himself.
Dismissed as a missionary for taking the bible too literally. Specifically, he tore up his clothes for bandages. Sold what he had and gave it to the poor.
Believed that the “best way to know god is to love many things.”
Was malnourished for most of his adult life. In his 30s, his teeth began to fall out
Fell in love with a woman called Sien – She was an alcoholic, had a scared face from small pox, was cigar smoker, and had gonorrhea.
Felt no grief when his father died, and didn’t pretend to feel grief either
After he shot himself, he took 36 hours to die
Artistic influences on Van Gogh
Unlike other artists, he was unable to abstract from the mind. He always painted from life
Wanted to show Japanese prints in an exhibition. Admired Japanese simplicity of style
Admired Seurat’s use of complimentary colours (blue/orange)
A few self-portraits show him well-dressed, but he preferred to be taken as a labourer
Van Gogh never agreed with Gauguin, but had tremendous respect for him
Milliet said he had no system at all, yet he created a recognisable style
Little of the sin and gaiety of 1880s Paris is reflected in Van Gogh’s art as it is in other artists
Loved Japanese prints. Seems to have been influenced by flat patterns of colour and lack of shadow
Created 40 self-portraits
Paintings defined by colour and warmth
Didn’t have visions of hell, rather a capacity to love
Signed his work Vincent not Van Gogh
Dedication to the heightened expression of life
Put on paint extremely thickly. Some ridges almost half an inch high
No desire to paint antiquities
Talent for drawing but became abnormal when painting
Painted in an erratic manner. No system or routine in the application.
Used colour psychology. Terrible passions of humanity in red and green. In a bar, used clash of colour to express place you can ruin yourself, go mad or commit a crime
Blue sky = infinity
The mental illness of Vincent Van Gogh
80 members of Arles signed a petition to do something about him
Tried to drink turpentine
Had symptoms of epilepsy and hallucinations
Syphilis might have damaged his brain
Alcoholic
A doctor said, “he was an individual in his illness, as well as his art”
Embarrassed by praise after selling a painting
Seemed to fear success. Perhaps feared a punishment would follow
Wrote clear logical letters
Theo Van Gogh “ It is as if he had two persons in him – one marvellously gifted, delicate and tender, the other egotistical and hardhearted.”
Van Gogh self-portraits
Vincent Van Gogh in popular culture
In her series Mutualistic Relationships, Kathrine Piper investigates the recycling and commodification of famous and infamous art. Are we, as Milton Friedman or Friedrich Hayek might lecture us, better off embracing a deluge of products that are simply more efficient to 'manufacture' elsewhere? Or, alternatively, could it lead to a devaluation of the true products of creation? Does it lead to anomie? By "borrowing", re-casting, and re-working the 'borrowed' images, the artist merely participates in this boomerang of cross-cultural feedback. Or does she? Some of the most intriguing art doesn't furnish the answer to the questions it raises, and here the conclusions are strictly in the mind of the beholder. From http://kathrinepiper.com/
Portrait of Van Gogh, 1956
copyright Gihachiro Okuyama
Mr Van Gogh 梵高先生- a Chinese indie folk song by Li Zhi
Vincent (Starry Starry Night) - Don McLean
The Doctor and Vincent - In the museum
The Illness of Vincent van Gogh
Dietrich Blumer, M.D.
Am J Psychiatry 159:519-526, April 2002 American Psychiatric Association
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) had an eccentric personality and unstable moods, suffered from recurrent psychotic episodes during the last 2 years of his extraordinary life, and committed suicide at the age of 37. Despite limited evidence, well over 150 physicians have ventured a perplexing variety of diagnoses of his illness. Henri Gastaut, in a study of the artist’s life and medical history published in 1956, identified van Gogh’s major illness during the last 2 years of his life as temporal lobe epilepsy precipitated by the use of absinthe in the presence of an early limbic lesion. In essence, Gastaut confirmed the diagnosis originally made by the French physicians who had treated van Gogh. However, van Gogh had earlier suffered two distinct episodes of reactive depression, and there are clearly bipolar aspects to his history. Both episodes of depression were followed by sustained periods of increasingly high energy and enthusiasm, first as an evangelist and then as an artist. The highlights of van Gogh’s life and letters are reviewed and discussed in an effort toward better understanding of the complexity of his illness.
