Van Gogh – Tormented Genius | Biographical Documentary

foreign [Music] is almost as well known for cutting off his ear as he is for his paintings he has long been thought of as the classic tormented genius ahead of his time misunderstood and hounded by lesser Mortals who fail to recognize his talent but how much do we really know about van Gogh he's unsettled early years his failed attempts to become a preacher his disastrous love life and he's tortured but frenetically productive final period welcome to insane history I'm Graham Austin and today I'm exploring the life and death of one of the world's greatest artists from my perspective as a psychiatrist [Music] so much has been written about van Gogh it is hard to separate the facts from the myths but I want to challenge some of these to uncover Van Gogh the man rather than Van Gogh The Madman [Music] Vincent Willem Van Gogh was born in 1853 in the parsonage of the small town of zundelt in the Netherlands just a few miles from the border with Belgium his father theodorus by all accounts are handsome and amiable man was a Protestant minister in a predominantly Catholic area but was from a large prosperous family many of whom were art dealers his mother Anna was also from a comfortably middle class background she had painting lessons in her Youth and was a keen watercolorist but she was no Carefree Arty type but a God-fearing deeply conservative woman who was terrified of any deviations from accepted Behavior as several members of her family including her father had been mentally Afflicted in one way or another Vincent was the eldest of their surviving six children born exactly a year after their first child who died at Birth Vincent was quiet and self-contained rather serious by nature and he spent hours wandering the countryside on his own he could be stubborn and grumpy and had temper tantrums in the family records he appears hot tempered and disobedient difficult to handle weird odd-mannered and impertinent at 11 he was sent to a small boarding school which he hated and at 13 he was sent to the prestigious King William II School in tilburg which he also hated despite having the renowned artist constant hoismans as his art teacher one of Van Gogh's drawings survives from this period showing his amazing early Talent for reasons we don't fully understand possibly a family financial crisis he had to leave abruptly and returned home after less than two years in a letter to his brother many years later he said that his youth was austere and cold and sterile everything he did was criticized and he felt estranged and rejected at the age of 16 his uncle Vincent after whom he had been named helped him to get an apprenticeship at the Hague branch of gupilanco international art dealers he started well and enthusiastically threw himself into learning about art and the art business he studied books visited Galleries and read the latest magazines this was the first time he had really shown any interest in the subject at 19 he fell in love with his second cousin the pretty and animated Caroline hanabeek but she wasn't interested and when she announced her engagement to another man Vincent wrote to Theo that if he couldn't have a good woman he would find a bad one and he began frequenting the hague's houses of ill repute this got him into trouble with his employer and with the involvement of his father he was moved to the London branch of the company to keep him out of trouble his sister-in-law later said that this was one of the happiest periods of his life but she didn't know him at this time and nothing could have been further from the truth he found his job dull and unstimulating the London branch of the company dealt in wholesale prints to other dealers so there was no Gallery no meetings with artists no talking to customers and although his understanding of English was good he was less fluent at speaking and joked that his landlady's parrot spoke better English than he he was desperately homesick and visited all the London galleries to seek out Dutch art commenting that contemporary English art was very bad and uninteresting it was completely miserable and so poor he walked for two hours to get to and from work every morning and evening to save a few Pennies on the river steamer he also began writing to the now happily married Caroline hanabeek flirty and suggestive letters encouraging her to read erotic poetry all very bizarre and inappropriate and to make matters worse his kid brother Theo four years as Junior who had taken over his job in The Hague was doing well being described as Charming tactful and attentive words that were never used in connection with Vincent on the plus side he was earning more and he was able to send some money home to his parents who were always struggling financially but he worked long hours and even after moving to lodgings there were only an hour's walk to work he found it difficult to make friends and spent his spare time wandering around the parks of London as well as came back to his old habit of enjoying the nightlife at the time London was the largest city in the world and there was no shortage of entertainment options for lonely young men sometimes he would go into brothels just to have a drink and engage in a bit of a naughty banter sometimes he would just stand outside and watch the comings and goings but at other times he would participate more actively writing to Theo still only 17 in enthusiastic terms about what the city had to offer hoping to persuade him to join him in London he also fell in love again this time with his landlady's daughter nineteen-year-old Eugene Loya but when she rejected him as well he was heartbroken becoming withdrawn not eating neglecting his appearance and not writing home to his parents for months it was also around this time he started becoming more attracted to religion an interest that grew into an obsession that would dominate his life for several years sensing something was not right his father intervened again and arranged for him to be transferred to the Paris branch of gupil this didn't go very well as he fell out with his seniors and he finally parted company with gupil and Co and left after less than a year in France [Music] foreign Dutchman perhaps surprisingly he returned to England to work as a teacher firstly in the seaside town of Ramsgate and then in isleworth now a suburb of London but then a small town opposite Kew Gardens he met a Methodist Minister who invited him to teach her to Sunday school and we know that he gave at least one sermon at the chapel amazingly the text is survived it is based on Psalm 119 blessed are the undefiled but Van Gogh focuses on the line I am a stranger on the earth mentioning this nine times along with his assertion that our nature is sorrowful which gets 13 mentions after spending Christmas at home he decided to stay in the Netherlands and work for a Bookseller for a few months in dordrecht near Rotterdam all the while getting more and more preoccupied with religion he ate little and abstained from meat and convinced he had a calling to serve his fellow man he set his mind on studying theology in Amsterdam but despite working hard for 15 months he wasn't able to get through the entrance examination so he tried a Protestant missionary course and failed that as well undeterred he managed to find a post doing missionary work in the impoverished coal mining region of Belgium the orionage seeing for himself the hardships of the poor precipitated a spiritual crisis and he gave up the warm and comfortable lodgings that came with the job to those he felt were more in need and moved into a small Hut to sleep on straw what his congregation thought about this we don't know but the church hierarchy did not approve and he was dismissed for undermining the Dignity of the church it was then back home again to his parents now living in the small town of Eton where consumed by self-doubt and a crisis of Faith he sank into Despair and withdrew from everyone they think I'm a Madman he told an acquaintance because I wanted to be a true Christian his parents thought so too and his father tried to get him committed to the asylum in heal but rather than waiting to be carted off Vincent returned to Belgium and as his brother's suggestion began to draw the people around him this lifted his spirits and he decided that his mission from then on will be to bring consolation to humanity through ART and he launched himself into learning about the craft of becoming an artist and rolled at the Academy Royale de bozar in Brussels began with his customary energy and enthusiasm that lasted only a few months and if you think the boomerang generation is a new thing Vincent's life story suggests otherwise yet again he returned home to his parents spending his time drawing and sketching the local people and trying to avoid his father's lectures and his mother's disapproving looks things looked up when his recently widowed cousin Ki Vos Stricker and her eight-year-old son Came To Stay he found himself going on long walks with her and with his characteristic impetuosity he fell in love and proposed marriage and even though she replied unequivocally no nay never and returned to Amsterdam he pursued her to try to change her mind but he was not allowed to see her it was all rather undignified and embarrassing what were his parents going to do with him fortunately another cousin came to the rescue Anton move an established landscape painter who took him on as a student in The Hague and in January 1882 at the age of 28 after several months of working exclusively with charcoal pastels and watercolors visiting museums and talking to other painters he took his first tentative steps in painting with oils move even lent him some money to set up a studio on his own but they soon fill out possibly over his decision to invite a woman and her five-year-old daughter to come and live with him seen was a prostitute with alcohol problems who was pregnant with another man's child and coincidentally or not it was around this time that van Gogh had to spend three weeks in hospital getting treatment for a sexually transmitted disease he wrote to Theo that he had the clap or gonorrhea but differentiating this from syphilis was uncertain at the time as the causative bacteria had not been identified and it is quite possible he could have had both when his father heard what was happening he was disappointed the scandal of having his eldest son living in such circumstances was just too much but Vincent was defiant and stuck with scene and her now two children for over a year before finally bowing to the pressure and leaving this was the only time Van Gogh lived with a woman all of his other encounters were brief furtive or transactional and sadly it didn't end well for seen she moved back into the red light district and eventually threw herself into the Waters of Rotterdam to Get Away Van Gogh headed to drenter an isolated part of the northern Netherlands favored by move and other Dutch artists as a place to be alone with nature and to commune with the peasants working the land but he was deeply depressed and saw only death and Decay which is reflected in his Bleak paintings at this time his self-imposed Exile lasted three months before he was back with his parents again now living in Noonan a small town close to Eindhoven this time he stayed for almost two years focusing on his art when he wasn't arguing with his father he painted over 200 pictures in this period still life's Landscapes and the local Farm Workers [Music] [Music] his unique Styles begin to emerge although there were no signs yet of the vibrant color palette he is famous for he also found time to fall in love again this time with Margo bagaman a neighbor's daughter 12 years his senior for once he found someone who reciprocated his affection but after they were caught in flagrante her family insisted on sending her away and dismissed his offer to marry her I think this does a lot about how Van Gogh was regarded by his local community not good marriage material Margot was heartbroken however and went to meet Van Gogh for one last time in a field the day before her departure but rather than a final loving Embrace she fell to the ground mumbling and jerking with muscle spasms from having taken the poison strickening by acting quickly and making her vomit and taking her to a nearby doctor Van Gogh helped her survive living at home wasn't easy for either Vincent or his father Vincent was idiosyncratic passionate and short-tempered and had countless arguments with the more conservative theodorus who did his best to understand support and guide his Wayward Son but he couldn't help worrying about his false starts his overzealous Ministry his own dignified pursuit of kievostrika and scandalous relationship with seen hernik or his fixation on becoming a painter without any evidence of him being able to support himself through this Vincent would have known that as the eldest son much was expected of him and that he had not delivered and that his father's concerns and disappointment were not unreasonable and then in March 1885 at the age of 63 his father died suddenly of a stroke leaving the family without an income Vincent had to sell some pictures foreign Theo now based in Paris was doing his best to promote his work and there was some interest from a dealer he submitted a series of peasant character studies including the extraordinary Potato Eaters but they did not sell as buyers preferred the sunnier tones of the Impressionists Finn one of the women who posed for him became pregnant and he was accused of forcing himself upon her he vehemently denied this but the Scandal meant he had to get out of town so as he liked the 17th century artist Peter Paul Rubens he chose Antwerp in Belgium where many of his works could be seen he rented a room above a paint dealer's shop and surviving on money Theo was sending from Paris he devoted every waking hour to working at his easel he spent almost all his money on painting materials and models and lived on bread coffee and tobacco writing to his brother that he could only remember eating six hot meals in nine months he lost weight he felt faint and his teeth became loose loose teeth my initial thoughts were that his poor diet might have led to a lack of vitamin C or scurvy and that this could have caused his tooth loss but we know he was having regular visits to a doctor and a hospital at this time and the fact that he never told anyone about this not even in his letters to Theo suggests it may have been something to be ashamed of could it have been syphilis as the only Treatment available at this time Mercury often led to gum disease and teeth falling out while in Antwerp he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts but yet again he started clashing with his teachers disagreeing with their insistence on using antique plaster models rather than live models and he had the goal to tell one of them you clearly do not know what a young woman is like unlike Vincent himself judging by his medical history [Music] so after less than three months he left to join Theo in Paris where amongst the other pleasures of the belly pox City he discovered Japanese prints and the Impressionists he met with many of the artists who were pushing the boundaries of what could be done with painting canvas or read it to lose the track Kami Pizarro George Surah and others Fenger absorbed it all and over the two years he was in Paris his own style developed his brushwork became Bolder and he started using colors other than brown gone with a dark Dutch peasants in came the bright lights and the Charming personalities of Montmartre [Music] he was living with his brother and despite their lifelong closeness tensions arose as Vincent was drinking heavily Theo wrote to their mother it's as though there were two beings in him one wonderfully gifted delicate and gentle the other proud selfish and hard after a year they had to part and Vincent moved to the suburb of asnier far enough away but still within walking distance of where the action was later in 1887 Theo and Vincent met Paul golgar who had just arrived in Paris penniless from his travels in Panama and Martinique Theo bought some of his pictures for gupil and Company and this one for himself Vincent was in awe of the handsome and Charming if rather narcissistic go down by February 1888 Van Gogh was tired of City Life he was Ill from drinking too much and not eating properly and he yearned to look at nature under a brighter sky so he left Paris for Al then a small town in the south of France in Al van Gogh's artistic creativity exploded he painted everything people places Landscapes townscapes flowers fruit everything but Al is where his mind started to unravel where he cut off his ear and where he was first hospitalized for mental illness R is where the more familiar Van Gogh begins it is where he painted some of his most familiar canvases and what he suffered his greatest despair [Music] Al is now a beautiful tourist destination with its famous Roman Amphitheater as well as all the van Gogh sites drawing in the crowds [Music] thank you but in 1888 it was a rundown port on the Rhone with Smoky industrial chimneys just beginning to darken its honeyed Stone and why did he choose all you may ask we really don't know but Al was famous for having the most beautiful women in France lizard leslien so perhaps he was hoping to find love as well as better light for his painting he had no problems creating works of art many of his finest paintings date from this period he roamed the countryside capturing the essence of provincial landscapes he painted the town and just about everyone in the town the postman soldiers peasants the people in the cafes anyone who would sit still long enough for him to get his paints out by now he had freed himself from any constricting Art Academy rules and was painting with energy confidence and at great speed with love that was a little harder to find at least the kind you didn't have to pay for he made friends and painted with other artists who were living in the area Christian maurier Peterson a Danish painter a few years his Junior and the American Dodge McKnight but he fell out with both of them and Maria Peterson who studied medicine for a while later told Theo he thought his brother was mad after a few weeks at a cafe where he complained they couldn't even cook potatoes he rented a house in Al with the hope of persuading to lose the track and others to join him in an artist's colony the excitement of the project was all-consuming he went without food to buy paint and canvases and he worked feverishly day and night to make it ready but the only one who came was Paul Goga and that was mainly because of Theo's Financial persuasion for two months they lived and worked together in the yellow house but tensions soon Rose there were just two different in personality and their ideas about painting too dissimilar for it to last Gogan was arrogant and domineering and although Van Gogh admired him he wanted to be treated as an equal even on their so-called hygiene visits together to the local Bordello Van Gogh felt that Gogan got more for his Frank they often quarreled and Van Gogh sensed that Gogan was planning to leave dashing his hopes of establishing a lasting artist's commune and again noted that van Gogh had started having sleepwalking episodes during the night which he had no memory of the next day and Gogan perceived these as threatening the arguments grew more frequent and in one particularly heated spat in a cafe Van Gogh threw a glass of ab South in gogan's face the next day he couldn't remember anything about it and then on the 23rd of December 1888 something happened after days of continuous rain and being cooped up together arguing Gogan announced he was going for a walk Van Gogh perhaps believing he was leaving for good followed him rushing out with an open razor in his hand gergan stared him down and Van Gogh ran back to his room where he cut off his ear with the razor after stemming the blood he wrapped his ear in paper and took it to the broth all around the corner and presented it to a girl saying guard this object carefully he then went home and collapsed at least that's one version but gorganza counts to a friend four days after the event was completely different and he didn't mention anything about eraser until 15 years later foreign suggests he concocted the story about the attack to justify his not terribly compassionate abandonment of his friend by jumping on the first Train to Paris immediately after the incident rather than staying to help another theory suggested in this book by two art historians who examined contemporary police records is that Goga who was a noted swordsman in trying to fend off Van Gogh's attack with a razor actually cut off his ear with his sword the two men are then said to have entered a pact of Silence never to speak about it there are so many theories and explanations about what happened and why that I'd need a whole video focusing on just this to do the more Justice my own thoughts are that it had nothing to do with Gogan but rather the letter he received from Theo that very day announcing he was getting married [Music] um my suspense he no longer wanted to be a burden on his brother assistant poised with the open eraser for a final solution but lost his nerve and took it out on his ear instead whatever occurred that night Van Gogh was found unconscious the next day by a policeman and taken to the local hospital the hotel did you he was so confused he could not remember what had happened his brother rushed down by train arriving on Christmas morning but Vincent was still only semi-loosid rambling about religion and philosophy Theo returned to Paris the same day Van Gogh kept calling out Burger's name but he was long gone and they were never to meet again Van Gogh remained confused and his level of Consciousness fluctuated he was anxious and agitated one minute and then in tears or mute the next he had Vivid hallucinations and intense paranoia he shouted out at imaginary voices accusing him of terrible crimes of being a miserable deplorable wretch lashing out at his persecutors and he had to be put into a padded cell and Shackled to the bed for his own safety his daughters diagnosed him with acute Mania Mani ague with generalized delirium delir generalization [Music] so it was Mania does this mean he was bipolar like so many other creative artists is this what made him cut off his ear unfortunately no it's not quite as simple as that it would be wrong to think that Mania in the 19th century equates to the modern diagnosis of Mania in bipolar disorder Mania was simply a term used for anyone who presented with symptoms of over-excitement the leading French textbook of Psychiatry at this time written by Jean etiel esciro lists the common causes of Mania in this translation of his treaties on insanity some of these we might recognize today such as abuse of wine but others are more obscure such as a suppressed ulcer perhaps even more interesting are the moral causes of mania Esquire lists as you can see it is a heavily gendered list with only men being triggered by anger and excessive study whereas fright and disappointment in love were mainly women's issues so Mania is more symptom than a diagnosis and if Van Gogh presented at an emergency department today in the same way I don't think he would be diagnosed with Mania at all [Music] the clinical profile is more suggestive of delirium or mental confusion caused by a physical condition and nowadays you would have a full diagnostic workup to identify the cause in order to treat it in 1888 there were no blood tests or brain Imaging techniques his doctor would have patched up his ear allowed him to rest prescribed some sedatives such as potassium bromide or dog grass and waited for him to recover naturally or not because then as now delirium is a serious medical condition with a significant mortality and not everyone survives [Music] the hospital in Al was not equipped to deal with mental cases so his doctors began the process of having him committed to a public Asylum but fortunately after a week or so he became calmer and started to improve after another week he had recovered his senses and was allowed to return home to the yellow house but despite being advised to rest he immediately started painting again [Music] worrying about the cost of his medical care and feeling guilty about being a drain on his brother's resources as Theo Was preparing to get married Vincent's mental state started to deteriorate he didn't eat and was wrapped by reproachful hallucinatory Voices and terrifying images he was convinced he was being poisoned and over excited one minute and mute the next he was clearly not well on the 7th of February gendarms came to the yellow house and took him back to the hospital in Earl he was in the same terrible state of turmoil and confusion as before he was placed in the isolation room and tied down to his bed when at his most agitated and talk of an asylum started again but more quickly this time he calmed down and recovered his senses well enough to be allowed home after 10 days but the townsfolk did not want him home neighbors muttered insults as he passed in the street and children threw stones at the Mad Or red-headed stranger it got to the point where he felt he could not leave the house after only 10 days he was dragged back into hospital again by the police after a petition was submitted signed by 30 concerned locals demanding he'd be taken to an asylum or returned to his family they complained that he was always drunk that he chased children made lewd comments to women in shops and followed women home to their houses and fondled them this is one of the enduring stories about van Gogh the tormented artist hated and hounded by his neighbors who did not would not could not understand him but it is only partly true as most of the signatories on the petition were not from Al at all but were acquaintances of his landlord who wanted the Troublesome Dutchman out of his property back in the hotel did you Vanguard spent most of the next month in the isolation cell he was not allowed to smoke his pipe his boot laces were removed he was not allowed any books or even to go out for fresh air one attempt was made to give him his paints but he became over excited and they were quickly taken away but this episode of illness was less severe than the previous two and although he had periods of unashtrable anxiety and despair he also had moments of calm and optimism once again he slowly improved and was ready to leave his landlord however had used the opportunity to evict him from the yellow house so he needed somewhere to live in his karma periods in hospital he had become friendly with Felix Ray the young doctor looking after him and on discharge he moved into rooms owned by the sympathetic Dr Ray paying him with a portrait in April Theo got married in Amsterdam Vincent was genuinely happy for him but at the same time worried that his only source of funds would dry up and even more guilty than usual at being so dependent on his brother but he continued working whenever he had money for paints and cleared out his belongings from the yellow house this had been locked up and unheated for weeks and everything had been affected by damp and mold Van Gogh worked carefully and methodically to remove canvases from stretches to dry them between sheets of newspaper and traces of print can still be seen on some but many of his drawings were unsalvageable although functioning he was far from well and Vincent himself agreed he needed time to convalesce [Music] there was further discussion about public asylums but Vincent's chose a smaller private institution in Salome de Provence 20 or so miles from Al private meant more expensive and Theo urged him to reconsider the public hospitals but in the end he agreed to pay the higher fees on condition that Vincent made do with third class accommodation so in May 1889 Van Gogh began his stay at the sample asylum in sarumi based in a former Monastery overlooked by the LPL mountains the Asylum which can still visit today is a beautiful place with cool Cloisters surrounded by fragrant Lavender Fields and Olive Groves Van Gogh painted so many of his iconic features here that a visit is like diving into one of his campuses he was provided with two rooms one of which he was allowed to use as a studio but however pleasant the surroundings it was not a hotel his windows were barred and his privileges were dependent on him being calm and cooperative in time he was given permission to go on unsupervised walks into the local Countryside he described asylum in a letter to Theo's new wife although there are a few people here who are seriously ill the fear the horror that I had of Madness before has already been greatly softened and although one continually hears shouts and terrible howls as though of animals in a menagerie despite this the people here know each other very well and help each other when they suffer crises he also described his mental turmoil sometimes moods of indescribable anguish sometimes moments when the veil of time and fatality of circumstances seems to be torn apart for an instant after two months of being relatively calm he suffered another month-long crisis [Music] it began with a contraction in one hand and a Blank Stare and then he fell to the ground and for several days his mind was Disturbed he was absolutely distraught and unable to eat due to a swollen throat foreign he picked up filth from the floor and was confused at one point he was found unconscious and foaming at the mouth after trying to eat paint at times his paranoia made him aggressive kicking out at the attendance and threw out at all his mood was deeply melancholic Theo's Hope was that Vincent would be ready to leave after a month three at the most but every time things seemed to be going well he would have another episode of psychosis and confusion after several months of being calm unable to work he had a fifth episode beginning on December 23rd a year to the day after cutting off his ear during this episode it was noted that he would be working perfectly calmly on one of his canvases and then all at once without any reason he would leap up and run around the hospital grounds crashing into trees and Howling in Terror and then just as suddenly find peace and return to his painting again he became more settled in the new year but towards the end of January he had a sixth episode he was unable to do any work and replied incoherently to any questions put to him he did not know where he was and his mind wandered fortunately this one was relatively brief and settled after a week in February he was doing so well that he was allowed to spend a day in Al by himself but he got drunk and was found in a ditch this triggered another episode that went on for two months complete prostration alternated with extreme agitation he couldn't bring himself to write to his family but was still able to paint and draw a little consoling himself or perhaps torturing himself with scenes of his Northern childhood he tried to work out what caused his crises but found no answers instead he threw himself into his work in good spells writing I work like a man possessed I have a dull Fury of work more than ever he was determined to produce as much as he could while there was still time as he believed that permanent Madness was closing in and that he would be reduced to the state of the worst cases in the Asylum and unable to work at times he was more optimistic believing he was on the path to recovery and he worked energetically convinced that his work alone could save him foreign for 12 months sometimes calm sometimes confused agitated and violent during Karma periods he painted the hospital grounds his room the other patients the surrounding landscapes and when he ran out of things he could see he would reproduce his memories of the paintings of Rembrandt delaqua and Mia and alternative versions of his own works finally in May 1890 calm at last he wrote to his brother that it was over and the fits were unlikely to strike again he felt ready to leave after a few days in Paris to see Theo his wife and his new son he went to overarzur was a village some 18 miles north of Paris where a doctor with artistic inclinations lived Paul gashe he was a friend of Pizarro and Cezanne and the plan was that gashe would keep a watchful eye on Vincent but Van Gogh's first impression of him was that he was sicker than he was as time went by however and he got to know him he felt he had a complete friend even something like a new brother in his final two months Van Gogh seemed well he was painting a picture a day and was more positive about the future after his first sale he had been getting some interest from art critics and his work started to be included in exhibitions and Claude Monet praised his work as the best in the show at one of these there is a theory that he fell in love with Dr gashe's daughter Marguerite and that this was somehow connected to his death but although he painted her twice there is nothing in his letters to suggest any kind of infatuation [Music] and although there were some darker pictures mostly he painted bright sunny cornfields peasants Cottages the church and local views he wrote to Theo that the canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words that is how healthy and invigorating I find the countryside but gradually hints crept into his letters that he feared his illness might be returning I feel like a failure and the prospect grows darker I see no happy future at all other letters after this were more positive but it was the beginning of the end on the 27th of July 1890 he left his Inn after breakfast with his easel and paints everything seemed normal but he returned much later than usual holding his stomach and he staggered upstairs to his room hearing him groaning The Innkeeper went in to find him curled up in his bed with a gunshot wound self-inflicted Dr cachet was called but from his War experience he could immediately see it was hopeless [Music] the following morning two gendarms questioned Van Gogh but he declared my body is mine and I am free to do what I want with it his brother rushed to his bedside and tried to talk about getting him better but Vincent knew it was too late he gradually faded and slipped away in the small hours he was 37. [Music] why end it all when things seem to be going well I suspect he feared that his illness was returning and that he would not recover [Music] but as with everything else with Bangkok there is an alternative Theory that he did not shoot himself but was accidentally shot by two teenage boys who were drinking messing about and making fun of him and Vincent covered it up to prevent them getting into trouble there isn't any positive evidence for this just doubts about the wound being self-inflicted based on the angle of Entry of the bullet but it all seems rather speculative to me and far more likely that sadly he was the one who pulled the trigger he was buried the next day in a simple grave attended by friends family and a few local people and sadly Theo's own health was in serious decline from neurosyphilis he too was admitted to a psychiatric hospital just a few months later in October 1890. where he succumbed to his illness in January the following year he was originally buried in Utrecht but in 1914 his widow moved his remains so that he could lie beside his beloved brother for eternity so that was Van Gogh's life a life filled with dreams and passions and color but to life also of thwarted loves and the pain and despair of mental illness but what was the illness that tormented Van Gogh what drove him to take his own life I wish I could answer that simply but the nature of Van Gogh's mental disorder has been the subject of more academic speculation and debate than perhaps any other comparable figure with a multitude of theories but as yet no consensus these are the mental disorders that have been proposed schizophrenia emotionally unstable personality disorder narcissistic personality disorder cyclathymic personality anxiety disorder neuroticism bipolar disorder schizoaffective disorder cycloid psychosis some of these I think we can dismiss quite quickly the course of his illness just doesn't fit with schizophrenia and whilst he may have exhibited signs of neuroticism and anxiety his illness was far more than either of these terms would encompass similarly although he had features of at least one personality disorder earlier in his life these alone could not explain his episodes of psychosis a closer match would be bipolar disorder as Van Gogh certainly had periods of depression throughout his adult life but it is not clear whether his phases of excitement amounted a Mania in the modern sense or were just periods of artistic creativity and this would not explain the very organic feel of his illness there have been many suggestions about possible organic or physical causes for his illness lead poisoning Meniere's disease vestibular migraine up South intoxication temporal lobe epilepsy digitalis intoxication acute intermittent porphyria terpene intoxication syndrome vernica Korsakoff syndrome due to alcohol use autoimmune encephalitis brain tumor meningoencephalitis syphilis even sunstroke [Music] I won't go through all of these but some of the more interesting ones are worth exploring lead poisoning for example there are references to Van Gogh trying to eat his Paints in hospital and Lead was certainly present in some of these it is also true that for many years Van Gogh suffered from gastrointestinal complaints which are common in lead toxicity but he didn't start using oils until his late twenties and his psychological problems started long before this so although it is possible that lead contributed to his complex physical and mental symptoms in his final two years it cannot be the only cause I think the same is true of the theories about Meniere's disease and vestibular migraine he may have suffered from these but he did not have vertigo nausea or any balance problems during his psychotic episodes so these cannot explain his Madness what about AB South it was long thought that this French Spirit flavored with wormwood had a particular propensity for causing hallucinations epilepsy and a malignant form of alcoholism which influential French psychiatrist valenton Manuel termed absaothism however rather than deterring people his warnings about the evils of the green fairy increased its popularity amongst Bohemian artists and writers hoping to expand their Consciousness and Van Gogh was undoubtedly one of these but Recent research suggests that the dangers of absalth were exaggerated and that it was no more toxic than any other spirit in the 1950s French neurologist Ori gasto proposed that van Gogh had a lifelong temporal labor epilepsy and Associated personality changes between seizures including hyper-religiosity reduced sexuality hypergraphia or a compulsion to write or Draw circumstantiality and an intensified mental life this has been termed the gastro geschwin syndrome and although it seems to fit with Van Gogh's life story the nature of the disorder and whether it exists at all are still debated in neurology turning to porphyria you may know that The Madness of King George III has been put down to acute intermittent porphyria and this same inherited liver enzyme abnormality has been suggested to explain Van Gogh's illness whilst this is a distinct possibility there is no positive evidence for it such as references to rashes or discolored urine or confirmed cases in his family tree this can also be said for neurosyphilis and many of the other Neuropsychiatric disorders that cannot be ruled out but there is little positive evidence for them so to try to clarify what was wrong with Van Gogh a symposium of medical and psychiatric experts was convened in 2016. but after much deliberation and debate they were still unable to agree on a diagnosis anyone who has worked house will know that doctors love to find a single cause for their patients symptoms but I wonder whether there has been too great an emphasis on trying to find one clever all-encompassing diagnosis and that it might make more sense to think of a combination of factors that could have combined to produce Van Gogh's symptoms we know he had a terrible diet that he drank too much that he was treated for a sexually transmitted disease possibly syphilis 80s paints and overused camphor to help him sleep some or all of these may have affected the precise symptomatology that he presented within later life but for his whole life he had major difficulties in his interactions with other people most noticeable in his awkward and ill-judged relationships with women and his tendency to fall out with people including his own family and from childhood he was regarded as self-contained solitary serious weird odd-mannered and difficult to handle with a tendency towards stubbornness angry outbursts and temper tantrums if thwarted thank you [Music] for me this raises the possibility of an autistic Spectrum Disorder or what used to be called Asperger's Syndrome I know many people find it a challenge to think of their Heroes as possibly being autistic but this is in part due to outdated ideas of autism being a type of learning disability modern thinking views autism more as a different way of seeing and interacting with the world than as an abnormality or deficiency and there can be no doubt that van Gogh saw the world differently and that he managed to capture his vision in paint like no one else we now recognize and celebrate his genius but to his parents he was a failure his father despaired of him and his mother blamed him for causing the family so much worry and she didn't visit him in hospital and she threw away many of the pictures he sent her as worthless the only one who really stood by him was his brother Theo it was Theo who supported him emotionally and financially Theo who never gave up believing in his greatness Theo who rushed to his side when he was ill without Theo we would probably never have heard of the name Van Gogh I suspect there will never be complete agreement on what illness Van Gogh had I'm not sure it really matters what does matter is how much he achieved in spite of his troubles this is a reminder that mental health problems however serious don't have to Define us that we can still find Value and meaning in what we do whatever the challenges sadly Van Gogh never experienced the validation of more than one person buying his work and we can only wonder whether a few more sales might have stayed his finger on the trigger on that fateful day thank you for watching I hope this has helped you understand Van Gogh more as a man rather than just the guy who cut off his ear and it has inspired you to go and have a fresh look at his paintings the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has the largest collection of course and is a must for any Van Gogh fan but I found my trip to Isle and San remita Provence brought me closer to him than any gallery or biography could please let me know about any other artists with mental health issues you'd like me to discuss there are plenty of them and remember to subscribe and click for notifications if you haven't already done so so you don't miss out on any future videos otherwise I'll say goodbye for now and I hope to see you again soon goodbye

Channel: Professor Graeme Yorston

Views: 472,363

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Id: p7-v3RvNjWw

Length: 53min 27sec (3207 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 06 2023