Van Gogh's Van Goghs - Documentary - 1999 (FULL HD)

[Music] the life of Vincent van Gogh is marked by the same bold strokes and vivid colors that mark his paintings from the dark years in his native Holland to the sunlight of Provence in his final months in ovair the artists struggle encompasses love affairs with prostitutes family scandals romantic obsessions than mental breakdowns it is intensely moving paintings reveal a man far from mad who created a new way of seeing the world [Music] bancos van gogh's was made possible by a generous grant from the Eugene B Cayce foundation though I'm often in the depths of misery they're still calmness pure harmony and music inside me I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages in the dirtiest corners I want to paint men and women with a touch of the eternal whose symbol was once the halo which we tried to convey by the very radiance and vibrancy of our coloring I want to get to the point where people say of my work that man feels deeply that man feels kingly I don't think I'm raising my sights too high I want to do drawings that will touch some people Vincent ha ha ha touch some people indeed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC over a century later hundreds of thousands into your bitter cold to be touched by Van Gogh's work in an exhibition of 70 paintings on loan from the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come see somebody van Gogh paintings at one time van Gogh is just out of this world he's my favorite artist I'm no art critic but it's fabulous it seemed like the only opportunity I'd ever get we had to see it Bango never enjoyed this phenomenal popularity his paintings did not sell and he wrote of his lifelong struggle in hundreds of letters to his brother Theo fortunately Theo's family preserved both his letters and his paintings to tell his story today at the van Gogh Museum we look after the world's largest collection of his works with over 200 of his paintings and some 500 of his drawings we set up our museum just 25 years ago and when it first opened we thought it would be about a hundred thousand visitors last year we had over a million and so the need for a renovation and the refurbishment of the building was really long overdue and that's why closing the museum we had the opportunity to send an exhibition to the United States the possibility of showing the early work the middle work and the late work right up to the very last was of course an opportunity that we really wanted to take the most advantage of we could [Music] the eldest of six Vincent grew up under the strict eye of his father a Calvinist minister he left school at 16 and moved through a series of jobs as an art dealer in London and Paris and as a teacher at a boy school in England his interest in God grew into an obsession always sketching he returned to Holland to study theology he was soon on the move again his time as a missionary to the borinage a Belgian mining district I want to be bound to Christ with unbreakable bones to live in and for Christ to be one of the poor in his kingdom steeped in the leaven filled with his spirit early on one of his careers was as an evangelical preacher in the borinage mining district in Belgium which is a very very poor area and we know that he very much identified with his his miners and he went barefoot and lived in poverty and in fact it was for that reason that he was fired by his superiors they felt he was identifying too closely with the people he was supposed to be converting one of the reasons why I have no record job and why I haven't had a regular job for years is quite simply that my ideas differ from those of the gentleman who hand out jobs [Music] disillusioned rejected by the church itself Vincent finally found his true avocation he shifted his boundless obsessive energy to the creation of art he was 27 dear Theo I should set to work again with my pencil and I shall draw again I've had the feeling that everything has changed for me and now I'm in my stride and my pencil has become slightly more willing and seems to be getting more so by the day Theo had followed in his brothers earliest footsteps was now finally success as an art dealer in Paris throughout Vincent's life he was a source of encouragement more importantly a financial support I'm sure you have saved my life and I shall never forget that I shall always owe you an infinite debt of loyalty because you held out your hand to me money can be repaid not kindness such as yours [Music] in 1881 Benson returned to his parents home they continued to hone his skills painting familiar scenes of everyday life however he became obsessed with a recently widowed cousin refusing to accept her ejection he scandalized the community and created a painful rift in the family I sense what father and mother instinctively I don't say intelligently think about me they shrink from taking me into the house as they might from taking in a large shaggy dog who is sure to come into the room with red paws in short he's a filthy beast very well but the beast has a human history if I go did really nothing by house he was not someone who could stand back and just let things go so whether it was when he was a teacher or whether he was when he was working as as an evangelist with the minors in Belgium he tackled everything with this enormous conviction enormous commitment I'm sorry through to when he's an artist the the intensity of his work comes through at all levels Vincent left home and settled in the hague where he found a mentor in his cousin Anton mo a leading figure among Dutch painters mo offered practical advice financial assistance and much needed encouragement it was during this period that Vincent began to work seriously in oils this week I did a painting that I think would remind you a little of evening it as we saw it when we walked there together a large study of sand sea and sky the big sky of delicate grey and warm white with a single small patch of soft blue shimmering through the sand of the sea light so that the whole becomes golden but animated by the boldly and distinctively colored small figures and fishing smacks which tend to set the tonal values the early beach scene comes straight out of Dutch landscape or seascape tradition the color palette the darkness the storminess of it is somewhat traditional but they're all his images he's looking at fishermen not farming peasants but it's the same affective strata of society that interested him the thing I find interesting about that early scene is just the energy of the paint [Music] the dialogue with nature was so important he actually stood on the beach during the storm and painted as much as he could and the sand in fact was blowing up onto the canvas and sticking onto the wet pinned but it's rather this perseverance is absolutely typical of Van Gogh already estranged from his family Vincent isolated himself even further he challenged not only the righteousness of his Calvin his father but the more liberal sensibilities of his own friends I've seen through present-day Christianity only too well that icy coldness mesmerised even me in my youth but I've taken revenge since then how by worshipping the love which they the theologians call sin by respecting awful family and friends including his mentor and Tomo turned against him and he welcomed Seon hornik and her child into his life last winter I met a pregnant woman deserted by the man whose child she was carrying I took that woman Ana's model and have to work with her all winter I couldn't pay a model fool daily wages but I paid her a rental the same and thus far thank God I've been able to save her and her child from hunger and cold by sharing my own bread with her it strikes me that any man worth his salt would have done the same in a case like this life with cn became increasingly difficult especially after the birth of her second child after 18 months together Vincent left her and the financial burden of city life behind alone again he ventured into the Bleak Dutch province of Drent seeking a simpler less expensive way of living imagine a white muddy road black mud with an infinity to the right and an endless Heath to the left a few black triangular silhouettes of sod build huts through the little windows of which shines the red light of the little fire with a few pools of dirty yellowish water that reflect the sky [Music] even in Drent vincent's mega finances were not sufficient he was forced to return home where his family reluctantly took him in again he never stopped painting one must work on ones technique simply to express better more accurately more profoundly what one feels and the less verbage the better in the winter of 1885 Vincent began a series of studies in preparation for a work that he hoped would be shown by the silo in Paris a crucial endorsement if he were to sell his work he was inspired by contemporary writers especially emile zola bratzillaz description of women in a room in the Twilight most of the women aged between 30 to 50 such a somber mysterious place I find it splendid [Music] that spring created his largest canvas to date it incorporated the scales learned during his years of study and reflected his compassion for the poor in a literal sense it's his masterpiece so as to say it's the the work which he painted to demonstrate his mastery after a number of years of apprenticeship so for him it was an important statement on a grand scale comparing himself with the great masters of the past [Music] the point is that I've tried to bring out the idea that these people eating potatoes by the light of their lamp have ducked the earth with the self-same hands they're now putting into the dish and it thus suggests manual labor and a meal honestly don't the very use of the paint directly the the blockiness of it the expressionist quality of it I think offers a much more direct interpretation of his subjects than a traditional romantic artist would he didn't see these as romantic figures he saw them as knowable if a peasant painting smells of bacon smoke potato steam fine that's not unhealthy give a stable reeks of manure all right that's what a stable is all about if a field has the smell of right corner potatoes that's probably healthy especially for city dwellers such pictures might prove helpful to them [Music] the painting was never submitted to the seller [Music] Vincent's father pastor Theodore van Gogh died that spring of 1885 Vincent captured his intense emotions in a painting he completed in a single day his father's Bible large and heavy lies beside Vincent's well-thumbed copy of Emile Zola's novel la soie reveal the painting which he dedicated to his father was a clear statement of their conflicted relationship [Music] Vincent moved on left the muddy lanes of his home for the paved streets of antwa [Music] I've worked in many different directions along the dog several times already the contrast is particularly marked for one who has just arrived from the sand and Heath and a tranquility of a country village and has been in a quiet surrounding for a long time is all an impenetrable confusion amid the bustle of the city Vincent compared his work with that of his contemporaries and began to focus on the effects of light it's odd that my painted studies looked darker here in the city than in the country is that because the light isn't as bright in the city I'm not sure but it might matter more than one might think at first sight [Music] he painted live models wherever he could and briefly attended art classes [Music] this is a pen here as a the painting exercise in the Academy in Antwerp and like medical students with a cadaver I'm sure someone stuck a cigarette in its mouth and it was a little student joke [Music] after only three months Vincent was ready for Paris in fact he arrived at Theo's apartment without warning don't be angry with me for arriving out of the booth I've given it so much thought and I'm sure we'll gain time this way in Antwerp I didn't even know what the Impressionists were now I've seen them not much that might certain impression speeches stimulated by his arrival in Paris Vincent painted everything from still lifes to architecture landscapes and portraiture [Music] yet even in the urban sophistication of the French capital he retained his ties to the working man the wonderful painting of the shoes is one of his most famous early pictures and I think it's extraordinary because it's a portrait of a pair of shoes he managed to take one of the most humble subjects and make it into something as interesting as a portrait he really expresses though the character unaware and that if you like the history of the shoes the flying fox is an extraordinary image it's a study it's something he must have seen in a taxidermy shop or in a museum we shouldn't forget that van Gogh read a lot he was certainly familiar with Edgar Allen Poe and there's a kind of a polite mystery about it so there are many resonances have come from that picture [Music] self-portraits rendered between Vincent's arrival in March 1886 and his departure for pavo's in february 1888 show the transformation not only of the artist but of his subject we know it was difficult for him to find models I think he used himself literally as a model in order to try out different styles but of course there is also a degree of psychic exploration in them I mean he clearly was fascinated by how his physiognomy expressed his different states of mind different stages of his life the pinkish gray face with green eyes Nash collets head wrinkles on the forehead and around the mouth stiff wooden the very red beard considerably neglected and mournful but the lips are full you will say that this resembles the face of death it isn't an easy job to paint oneself if it is to be different from photograph he's clearly making a formal statement about his standing as an artist and then go to the others and see how they are much more sketchy and more experimental there's the little one done in grayish colors is very sketchy there he looks rather hunted or or haunted as a person there's another one done in the rather brown manner of his Dutch works he looks rather kind of avuncular and studious there's another one way he's dressed up I'm sure he borrowed Theo's suit and gray Fedora to dress himself up as a city slicker [Music] my favorite of the group is the one in the straw hats please dressed up as a plein air painter going out into the country that's a very remarkable picture because if you look at the painting of the eyes they're painted red outlined with green shadows looks forward to Fauvism extraordinarily advanced so there's a whole world of different pictures just in those stuffed portraits [Music] Vincente plunged headlong into one of the most exciting moments in the history of art Claude Monet Pierre Auguste Renoir and their impressionist colleagues had introduced a radically new style of painting their work was only beginning to be accepted by the public he's experimenting with the style of pizarro then you see him playing around with Shiraz pointillism we'd seem looking at Cezanne still lives he's really exploring all the different options of young artists had at this time [Music] working in the Atelier of thermacore Moe Vincent corrupt elbows with the likes of only Tuzla Trek paulsen yak and of Emile Bella who had become his friend and confidant bana wrote of van Gogh I can see him again at commis in the afternoon when the Atelier empty of students became for him a sort of cell he copies the beautiful forms with angelic patience he corrects himself starts over with passion erases and finally wears a hole in his sheet of paper from rubbing it with an eraser Emilia now [Music] he began using a perspective frame which is a wooden frame about two feet high by three feet wide with strings or wires drawn across it to create a kind of grid you look through the grid and you copy what you see through the grid onto the paper using the grid as a guidance if you look very carefully at vegetable gardens in more Matra it's quite a thinly painted picture and underneath the paint layer you can see the grey charcoal lines where he'd sketched out the grid on the canvas so it's a fascinating work because if you look carefully you can really see his working process [Music] he's moving from the darkness of the north the dark palette into the French capital where Impressionism is evolving as as a revolutionary movement against the French Academy [Music] the progress of colorism undeniable fact precisely because of the Impressionists [Music] they're painted almost nothing but flowers so as to get used to colors other than gray such as pink softer Brad green light blue violet yellow orange glorious red [Music] I'm trying to render intense color in color seeking life to express the love of two lovers but a marriage of two complementary colors they're blending and that contrasts the mysterious vibrations of related tones [Music] Vincente absorbed the French landscape he painted momart with its stone quarry gardens and outbuildings he visited the ile de la grande jatte trying his hand at Impressionism in order to write a book - a deed make a picture with some life in it one has to be a life oneself and so enjoy yourself as much as you can and remember that what people demand in art nowadays is something very much alive with strong color and intensity every study Japanese art we discover a man who is undeniably wise philosophical any intelligence who spends his time bloom Wat studying the distance from the earth to the moon no he studies a single blade of grass but this blade of grass leads him to draw all the plants than the seasons the grand spectacle of landscapes finally animals than the human figure japanese art was very vocal in paris at this time many artists and collectors collected japanese prints not least Vincent and Thea in this case van Gogh found a magazine called peri illustrate and on the cover there was a reproduction of a print of a courtesan from the pleasure quarters and van Gogh himself traced the magazine cover and then he squared at the tracing in order to transfer it to the larger format of the painting what is done is to take the idea of the Japanese print and to develop even further the strong colors the flat areas of color and in fact surrounding the image of the courtesan you will see a number of other images taken from other Japanese prints a bullfrog in the foreground some cranes in the background bamboo canes rethinking the Japanese print in his own terms yellow is the color for him that he he takes in it and it to a level that I don't think any other artists did they talk about Spanish artists using black in the way no one else could well then go I think yellow is his color he loved the Colorado a still life with citruses and lemons he did as a gift for his brother Theo it's inscribed to his brother Theo and I think it was intended to show Theo how much Vincent had learned in his couple of years living with him and studying with many of the artists who were their mutual friends it's absolutely an explosion of different shades of yellow framed of course in his own wonderful yellow painted frame so in a way he's making a statement I think about his simulation of Impressionism but also the way he's setting off into a new sunny world in the South expressed through yellow paint [Music] after two years in Paris Vincent was eager to escape to the bright sunlight of Havas in the winter of 1888 he moved to our everything has old gold bronze and copper in it and this together with a green issuer of the right watt sky imparts a delicious exceptionally harmonious color it obviously had a profound effect on him and on his art he began to take the easel out put it in the landscape and work and have these transforming canvases from that period [Music] the air is definitely doing me good I wish you could fill your lungs with it one of its effects on me is quite amusing the single small glass of cognac here goes to my head so my Constitution is on the less strain I'm using up an enormous amount of cannabis and pains but I hope it's not a waste of money for all that [Music] in a letter to his friend Emil Bella Vincent explained how free his work had become now it was possible to be so prolific an artist [Music] I hit the canvas with irregular touches of the brush which I leave as they are patches of thick inlaid and color spots of canvas left uncovered here in their portions that are left absolutely unfinished repetitions and savageries I try to grasp what is essential in the drawing later I fill in the spaces which are bounded by contours either expressed or not but in any case felt with tones which are also simplified to his brother he was even more effusive I'm up to my ears in word for the trees are in blossom and I went to paint a Provencal orchard of astounding gaiety [Music] Vincent traveled the short distance to LaSalle married la Mer in June in a few days he had painted three canvases and filled in numerous with sketches the Mediterranean has a colossal mackerel you don't always know if it is green or violet you can't even say it's blue because the next moment a changing light has taken on a tinge of pink or gray [Music] his work had come a long ways since Steven Oken beach in stormy weather [Music] now that I've seen the see here I'm absolutely convinced of the importance of positively piling it on accelerating the color after a while once sight changes [Music] that made a start in the south I can hardly conceive of going anywhere else I'm working on a landscape with wheat fields it has changed entirely from what it was in the spring but certainly my love for the countryside which is already beginning to appear scorched has grown no less perhaps perhaps I'm on the right track it's just amazing how he weaves these in tents tapestries of color with his brushwork me really makes the one oil color play off against another to give the paintings a life that somehow different from nature you're seeing it if you like filtered through his temperament [Music] in our Vincent also found a wealth of new faces ordinary people who as always he was eager to paint he befriended a soldier who posed for several portraits I have a model at last the half length I did of him was horribly harsh that bronzed feline head of his with a reddish cap against a green door and the orange brakes of a wall so it's a savage combination of incongruous tones not easy to manage I learned from it which is what I want most for my work [Music] for Vincent Havas was more than a place to pursue his solitary ambition he dreamed of starting an artists colony with Paul Gauguin well Gurgaon had rather successfully founded a community of artists in pont-aven in Brittany and Van Gogh I think to some extent imitating him wanted to found a studio of the south as he called it he hoped that Gurgaon email banner and other artists friends would come down and work with him if Gauguin we're willing to join me I think it would be a step forward for us it would establish as squarely as the explorers of the south and nobody could complain or that as autumn waned and he waited for Gaga's arrival vincent focused his efforts on preparing the building that would house their new brotherhood the Dome of the sky is a wonderful blue the Sun has rays of the pale sulfur is a soft and the light first a combination of heavenly blues and yellows in Vermeer I can't paint it as beautifully but it absorbs me so much that I let myself go without giving thought to a single room the yellow house turns out to be kind of an extraordinary painting in many ways the yellow itself high noon flat no shadows if you know almost feel the Sun in that I think it's a wonderful painting that meant a great deal to him as a place yesterday I was busy with the furnishing of the house my bedroom I want to keep extremely simple but with large solid furniture bed chairs table the orange yellow of the bed the lilac blue of the wall the pink of the floorboards with the green drawing on them the yellow chairs Goggan was a specialist in applying large flat areas of color and I think van Gogh here's some extend technology and kurgans influence everything depends on the color and by simplifying it I'm blending it more style creating an overall impression of rest or sleep in fact a look at the picture ought to rest mind or rather the imagination [Music] Paul googa arrived at last on October the 23rd Vincent was ecstatic Gragas seems to be in better health than I am he is very interesting as a man and I have every confidence that we shall achieve a great deal with him I must tell you that he knows how to cook perfectly it's very convenient Guga also was at first optimistic in my yellow room some flowers with purple eyes stand out on a yellow background they bear their stamps in a yellow pad and a yellow table in the morning upon awakening from my bed imagine that all this smells very good Paul Gauguin [Music] van Gogh and Gaga entered into their work with renewed passion cougar painted van Gogh at his easel Vincent painted a series of portraits of his neighbors purple our family however it didn't take long for philosophical differences to emerge Goga and I discussed alikoya remembrance and so on a great deal the debate is exceedingly electric and sometimes when we finish our minds are restrained as an electric battery after discharge one of the differences between Van Gogh and Google was the fact that Vincent captured the essence of actual landscapes and real people while Goga often painted from memory even adding mystical elements to the canvas vengo is an artist who very much wanted to paint directly from nature and on the other hand you had Gauguin saying now close your eyes the natural world and concentrate on what's inside your head bring out emotions bring out ideas use your colors to do that because I think and I think that was rather uncomfortable for Van Gogh I think that Gaga was a little disenchanted with the guitarra viral the little yellow house where we were and above all with me in fact Vincent was suffering from sudden debilitating attacks his behavior becoming increasingly erratic on a December night after another volatile argument Guga stormed out of the yellow house [Music] I heard behind me a familiar short footstep rapid and irregular I turned just at the moment when the Sun rushed towards me an open razor in his hand my look must have been powerful indeed for I stopped and lowering his head took off running in direction of the house Goga return to the yellow house in the morning where he was greeted by the sight of Vincent in a blood-soaked bed gently very gently I touched the body whose warmth surely enhanced life almost in a whisper I said to the Commissioner of Police be so kind sir as to awaken this man with great care and if he asked for me tell him that I have left for Paris the sight of me could be fatal to him Vincent had sliced away part of his ear and presented it to one of the girls at the local brothel alerted by telegram Theo arrived to find Vincent in the hospital there have been very many attempts to diagnose Van Gogh's illness the perhaps the most important thing is not to concentrate on the illness itself but on just how lucid he was in the periods in between his attacks there's no doubt that whatever the exact nature of the illness was it took the form of periods of hallucination and when appears when he just couldn't work or act or do anything but in between he was in full command and very eager to make the best use of those times [Music] my dear friend go again left behind alone on board my little yellow house I reproach myself now that it was I who was perhaps to cause a new departure unless of course that departure was planned beforehand the imagination of the South makes for friendship believe me and the two of us will always be friends [Music] Vincente soon suffered another attack and was again hospitalized disoriented he returned to the yellow house only to be confronted by his neighbors petition to have him locked up we the undersigned have the honor of informing you that the painter has on several occasions furnished proof that he is not in full possession of his mental faculties his instability causes fear for all the residents of the neighborhood particularly for women and children Vincent was placed in isolation but by the end of March he was painting again spending his days in the orchards that had so entranced him in the previous spring in May a sporadic attacks continued to frustrate his work he admitted himself to the asylum at Savi meter province confined it first to the hospital grounds Vincent used the rooms the windows and his fellow patients of the asylum for his subjects [Music] I'm working on a portrait of one of the patients here is curious that after one has been with him for some time and got used to them one doesn't think of them as being mad anymore soon he was allowed back out into the fields under supervision the olive trees are very characteristic and I'm struggling to catch them they are old silver sometimes with more blue in them sometimes greenish bronzed fading white above a soil which is yellow pink violet tinted or orange to dull red ochre very difficult though very difficult [Music] enjoying the security of Sammy Vincent entered one of his most productive periods in the summer of 1889 he experimented freely painting intimate details bright sunshine and dense shadow the study is all yellow extremely thickly painted but a subject was beautiful and simple for I see in this repr a vague figure toiling away for all his worth in the midst of the heat to finish his task I see in him the image of death in the sense that humanity might be the wheat he is reaping but there's no sadness in his death this one takes place in broad daylight with the Sun flooding everything with a light of pure gold [Music] Vincent's work was beginning to be shown Theo's new wife saw one painting at the Paris exhibit of the independence she wrote to Vincent I sat there for a whole 15 minutes enjoying the delicious coolness and freshness of the undergrowth it's as though I knew this spot Johanna van Gogh Banga and Theo's wife is a very important figure in all this you have to remember us quite a while till she actually met Vincent to begin with I think there was some resentment that Thea was sending this money to this weird artistic brother-in-law living in France and it was really only after Theo's death I believe that Johanna began to realize the importance of Van Gogh's era and the importance of Vincent to Thea the fact that Vincent sent his paintings to Theo and Theo kept them that's the origins of the van Gogh Museum Vincent suffered another attack in mid-july I had a bad piece of luck this last time during my illness that led the graph of De La Crosse la Pieta along with some other sheets fell into some aurélie paint and was ruined I was very sad about it so I've been busy painting it then you will see it one day on a size five or six canvas attacks occurred again in December and then in January of 1890 oddly enough I've been working quite calmly on campus as you will shortly be seen and suddenly without reason I once again became confused the attacks were sometimes accompanied by attempts to eat his paints and doctors insisted that Vincent work only on sketches but by the time Johanna gave birth to a baby boy named Vincent after him the proud uncle was again able to return to oils it's a painting all about spring new birth which he then sent to them as a gift and say like very much they hung on their bedroom wall we're looking at almond blossom from below radiant blue sky behind it's extremely positive image and we might remember this was done while he was in the asylum at surimi by the end of January Vincent's work was attracting notice critic Albert Rea wrote beneath skies that sometimes dazzle beneath the incessant and formidable streaming of every conceivable effect of light there is the disquieting and disturbing display of a strange nature that is at once entirely realistic and yet almost supernatural where everything rears and rises up with a raging will to howl its own essential song [Music] that spring Vincent battled another series of attacks he became anxious to travel north to oversee awaaz outside Paris to be closer to CEOs new family if I wait I shall be letting the favourable period of calm between two attacks go by then if the illness does come back we could see if I can continue to be at liberty bar if I must settle down in a lunatic asylum for good [Music] Vincent left province that may stopping in Paris to meet Joanna and his young nephew for the first time their journey and everything else have gone well so far and coming back north as taking my mind or things great deal [Music] I found a perfect friends in dr. Gachet so alike are we physically and mentally he's very nervous and most all himself he certainly seems as ill and distraught as you or me under dr. gachet's care vincent immediately began painting the people and places around him I'm trying to do some studies nothing but ears or wheat with green blue stalks long leaves like ribbons of green shot with pink ears that are just turning yellow I plan to paint some portraits against a very vivid yet tranquil background which by vibration will make you think of the gentle rustle of the ear swaying in the breeze oh there was a favorite with artists and once home to the late painter Shah Francois daubeny whose work Vincent admired dear Theo perhaps you'll take a look at the sketch of dama nice garden is one of my most carefully thought-out canvases [Music] Vincent was increasingly worried about remaining dependent on Theo who now had a family to support visits to and from Paris did little to ease his mind I was afraid that my being a burden to you was something you found intolerable but you do realize that I'm working and making an effort just as much as you are or although the brush is nearly falling from my hands vengo was indeed plumbing new depths combining the bright palette of Provence with the darker shadows of his earlier work [Music] I've painted three more large canvases there are vast stretches of wheat under troubled skies and I didn't have to put myself out very much in order to try and express sadness and extreme loneliness I try to be reasonably good humoured in general but my life is also under attack at its very root [Music] Adaline Rahul the innkeeper's daughter would never forget the night of July the 27th 1890 when Vincent returned from the fields it must have been about nine o'clock he was walking bent over holding his stomach mother asked him Monsieur Vachon we were worried did you run into some trouble he answered in a suffering voice no but I he did not finish but climbed the staircase to his room father went upstairs where he found where so lying on his bed curled up his knees by his chin that's our show Dimas more wound in the area of his heart father exclaimed you poor man what did you do I wanted to kill myself on sale Bongo they arrived by train in the middle of the afternoon I remember seeing him arrive running he immediately went up to his brother who we embraced while speaking to him in their native language after the emotional experience upon seeing his brother the saw fell into a coma Te'o and my father watched over the wounded man until his death which occurred at one o'clock in the morning [Music] Vincent's last letter to Theo was still in his pocket the truth is we can only make our pictures speak but yet my dear brother I shall always consider you to be something more than a simple dealer that through my mediation you have your part in the actual production of some canvases which will retain their calm even in the catastrophe my own work I'm risking my life right and my reason has half founded because of it that's all right the funeral was held on July the 30th 1890 sunflowers were placed on the casket Vincent's palette and brushes lay at the foot Amil Velma wrote the eulogy let us exalt before his biblical harvests at Twilight where sheaves heavily laden with spikes stack into mountains where blades are laid like golden banners let us dream under these beds of flowers that twinkle like fallen stars on the peaceful banks of this river that flows without a ripple at the fruit of the suffering Hills and after these successive emotions let us read in the eyes of his portraits the confessions of those existences sad or shameful good or evil then we will begin to understand fathom and to admire him I can visualize the vague possibility of one day doing paintings with some joy and freshness in them even though my own youth is one of the things I've lost and the doctrine I preach my friends let us give our souls to the cause let us work with our heart and truly love what we love Vincent van Hoff [Music] [Music] van Gogh's van gogh's was made possible by a generous grant from the Eugene B Cayce foundation

Channel: HDTV Archive

Views: 259,692

Keywords: HDTV, Vincent, Van Gogh, 1080p, Documentary, D-VHS

Id: VefL3LCoq10

Length: 59min 54sec (3594 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 08 2020