Vincent van Gogh: Endgame in Auvers (Part 4)

Stories of Art

This final episode of the four-part series on Vincent van Gogh explores his last 18 months, focusing on his mental health struggles, artisti

Key takeaways

• Van Gogh's most iconic works were created during periods of intense mental distress, demonstrating that creativity and suffering can coexist.
• The Starry Night was painted from memory and imagination rather than direct observation, reflecting Van Gogh's inner world more than the physical landscape.

Main topics

• Van Gogh's final years and mental health
• The creation of The Starry Night

Notable quotes

"Without Theo, and indeed without his wife, Jo, there would be no Vincent van Gogh as we know him today."

Conclusion

Vincent van Gogh's legacy is not just a testament to artistic genius but also to the profound impact of familial love and

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) Welcome to Stories of Art. I'm James Fox. And I'm Alastair Souk. In the darkness before dawn, a small French village curls up among the olive groves. The cottages are still, the bell tower silent. But above them, the sky is very much awake. Nocturnal currents hurl themselves across the firmament like crashing waves. Eleven golden stars and one enormous moon. detonate the darkness into a giant firework show, thick brushstrokes dancing around each other in psychedelic circles. Has anyone on the ground noticed this spectacular display? Only, it seems, the man who painted it. Now that, Alistair, is my description of Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night, an intensely romantic image of joy and wonder that's adored all over the world. But it's not quite what it seems, is it? Speaker 1 (0:59) No. I mean, as you say, this is, do you think this is the most famous painting? I think it probably is, alongside the sunflowers. Yeah. It's so popular. It's in New York, in MoMA. And as you say, if you didn't know the context, it would be very hard to predict or imagine what it is. Because Vincent van Gogh painted this image in the summer of 1889 when he was in... A psychiatric clinic, not in Arles, which is where we left him at the end of last episode, but nearby, just outside a village called Saint-Rémy. And he was there for about a year. And one of the fascinating things is that it was this feverish period, wasn't it, of creativity where he was just knocking it out of the park again and again in terms of canvases. Yeah. And it's a sort of strange... Speaker 1 (1:50) because, as you say, it feels like a very romantic image. Here's this big, epic sky, that sort of whirling, turbulent, agitated sky. And yet he was probably inspired when he was just in this very small bedroom on the second floor with terracotta tiles and a window with iron bars. And looking out of that window, he would have seen, well, we know he would have seen... Speaker 1 (2:13) some of the stars clearly up in the night sky. We know that as he was waiting for the sun to rise, he also saw the so-called morning star, which I think is one of the 11 stars you mentioned. It's in fact Venus. Venus, yes. As well as that crescent moon. I remember talking once, this is a slight random detour, but to an astrophysicist about the picture. And the first thing she said was like, well, of course, that's Venus. I thought, well, that's how, you know, someone with real expertise is involved. But he couldn't have painted it, obviously, at night. Speaker 1 (2:41) And he would have painted it in his studio in a separate part of this asylum, which was on the ground floor looking out on a completely different vista, which was an internal walled garden. So this is an image of immense imagination as much as anything else. But painted really very close towards the end of his life. He would be dead within a year or so of painting this picture. So let's do a little recap before we get into the episode proper. Listeners last time, Alistair, will remember that we ended the previous episode of Christmas of 1888, six months before he painted Starry Night, in a clinic in Arles. Speaker 1 (3:16) in the south of France, where Vincent was recovering after cutting off his, did you call it at one point a facial appendage? Is that right? I think you did. We'll call it such elegance with words. Let's go old fashioned and call it his ear. It was probably Vincent's first psychotic episode, but it would not be his last. And in this part, we're going to focus on the final 18 months of Vincent's life, which was marked, as you have suggested, by ever greater artistic achievement. but also ever-worsening mental health, concluding, of course, with his tragically premature death the following year in 1890. So this, then, is the devastating final episode in our four-part series on the life and work of Vincent van Gogh. Speaker 1 (4:06) Alistair, let's begin this episode on Christmas Day, 1888. Vincent, of course, has chopped off his ear. His brother Theo has come down to see him on the overnight train from Paris. And he walks in, he finds him in the hospital, and he discovers that Vincent is actually in pretty good state. He's sane, he's lucid, he's sitting up in his bed. They chat. There's a lovely moment when Theo actually climbs into bed with Vincent and they hold each other and they reminisce about their childhood. Speaker 1 (4:35) But Theo is, it seems, sufficiently reassured about Vincent's condition that that evening, I think on Christmas Day evening, he gets on a train with Paul Gauguin. The big betrayal. The big betrayal. And they travel back up to Paris. And this coincides with and probably actually precipitates a massive and very rapid decline from Vincent. As soon as Theo leaves, really, he plunges into anguish again. He's tormented by these regrets. He's not eating. He's not sleeping. I think he goes to the hospital, doesn't he, in Arles. And this is according to Gauguin. He was describing Vincent's behaviour. He said that he wants to sleep with the patients. He chases the nurses and washes himself in the coal bucket. So it's not good, is it? It's not good at all. And actually, Vincent is in a terrible state for another fortnight or so. It's not until the 6th or 7th of January. Speaker 1 (5:26) 1889 that he is finally considered fit and healthy enough to leave the clinic and to return to the yellow house and one of the first things he does when he gets to the yellow house in january 1889 is he paints two self-portraits. Now, you, Alistair, have been badgering me for several weeks about these self-portraits with the bandaged ear. We actually discussed one at the very start of this series. This is finally your opportunity to discuss these two paintings. Quids in. What do you want to say? So, yes, as you point out, one of them... We began this whole series with, and it's the one that is now at the Courtauld Gallery in London. And do you remember we described he's in this kind of beautiful big green great coat and he has this furry hat and you can see his left ear. Speaker 1 (6:11) which, because it's a mirror image, it appears in the painting as if it's his right ear, but it was painted in a mirror. It has this big bandage on it. He looks slightly, to me, haunted and quite sort of yellow, sickly. He's clean-shaven, very rare for self-portraits of Van Gogh, which you really don't see in the 30, 35-odd self-portraits. And I went to see that painting again recently. And one of the things I forgot to mention last time, but was really struck by, is when you look at it up close, it has so much thick texture to the way it's painted. And that helps to describe the form. So all of the bristles of the fur hat, you know, they're 3D. They're actually bristly. They kind of are. He's using that thick impasto paint to create a sense of the fur hat. But this time... Speaker 1 (6:55) I wanted to talk about the lesser known second self-portrait with a bandaged ear, which is in a private collection. It has sometimes been exhibited, but it's very similar but slightly different. And I think it might interest listeners because it's not probably quite as famous. You see him in the same sort of pose. He's got that big... Speaker 1 (7:19) green greatcoat. It's buttoned up to the neck and he's wearing that same bluish, blue-black bristly fur cap. And you can see again the bandage, which, didn't you call it like an errant scarf? It's kind of leapt up his face. But this time there are some differences. There's a background where you don't see, in the Courtauld version, there's that Japanese print with its heron, do you remember, that seemed to be pecking at the ear? Love that observation. And a sort of easel, which is showing that he's back and he's painting again. But this time you just have... A two-tone colourful background of, in the upper third, a scorching orange and then a deep red beneath, which complements or contrasts with his green coat. And interestingly, the line where these colours meet. Speaker 1 (8:04) seems to bisect, if you continued it through his face, right through his eyes, which has been suggested helps to accentuate that gaze as he's looking out. He's also smoking a pipe. He loved his pipe. He did. And the smoke of it creates a great sense of animation to the picture because you have the puffs of smoke which seem to move up one side of the painting. He looks slightly to me, I always think, this is a very trivial, flippant observation, but something of George W. you Bush? Yes, because the eyes are very close set, aren't they? It's very different to the Courtauld. And so I wonder what you think both of these paintings are really saying. Speaker 1 (8:43) about his state of mind, how he's feeling at this moment. Because bear in mind, he's just come back from the hospital. This is post that catastrophe that we examined and interrogated in some detail last time. He doesn't have to paint himself in this way. And he doesn't have to present his bandaged ear. And the more I've been sort of thinking about Van Gogh during this series, the revelation for me has been how religious in a sense, and religion is so important for him. And I just wonder whether here he is self-consciously presenting himself almost like someone in a classical religious painting presenting their stigmata, the wounds of Christ. I don't know. Very interesting. I mean, I think, with all due respect to The Courtauld, I think this other version is even better. Speaker 1 (9:27) And the Coulter one is great, obviously. But this one is tighter. It's more intense. It's got that wonderful background you've described. I love the motif of the smoke rising up through the canvas. And you mentioned that it's in a private collection. Can you imagine if and probably when this comes to auction? Yes. I mean, a self-portrait by Van Gogh. With a bandage, it will break all auction records. So I think the current record is 2022, Orchard with Cypresses, which was painted in April 1888. He's arrived in Arles and we spoke about that moment where he's really excited by springtime in the south of France. That sold for... Speaker 1 (10:05) used British currency, £103 million. Now we do know with the pipe self-portrait with the bandaged ear that it was bought, I think in the 70s, by the Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos. And the detail I love about this is that apparently he had his chalet in St. Moritz in Switzerland and he used to chopper this painting in so he could enjoy it when he was there, supposedly. This is what I read in one of Martin Bailey's excellent blogs in the art newspaper, which I may have mentioned once or twice. Well, I think this will blow that record out of the water. Yeah, it would. I think both of these paintings are probably trying to do the same thing. I think he is trying to prove to his doctors. I think he is trying to prove to his brother. I think, above all, he is trying to prove to himself that he's up and running again. Speaker 1 (10:53) You know, he's had this episode, he's lost his facial appendage, but he's now back in the studio, back in the yellow house. He's painting, he's dressed up warm, which is what his doctors told him to do on a cold January day. He's wearing his bandage, as he's supposed to be, and he's on the road again. The thing is, he doesn't really look totally balanced and well. which you might expect given what he's just been through in terms of the facial expression. It sort of betrays some sense of unease as well. It wouldn't fill you with confidence necessarily. And indeed, if you know the story of Vincent van Gogh, you wouldn't be confident because indeed within a few weeks of painting this picture, within a month, I guess, he suffers a relapse and then another relapse. And his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. So erratic, in fact, that 30 of his neighbours actually petition. Speaker 1 (11:44) the police to have him arrested. They don't feel safe on the Place Lamartine. Now, there are lots of hagiographies of Vincent out there. I hope we haven't been producing one ourselves. I think we've been pretty balanced in the way we've described him. But some of the accounts from the witnesses are pretty worrying and concerning. So they describe, for instance, Vincent drinking too much. They say he's chasing children. Speaker 1 (12:07) on the street, that he's grabbing and touching women, that he's being obscene, that he's following women into their homes. Now, some of those accounts may be exaggerated, some may be invented, but it's not good. It's not good. And like a kind of celebrity who gets caught for sexual harassment and then quickly checks themselves into the priory to avoid any scrutiny, it seems that Vincent very quickly decided, perhaps for his own safety, or perhaps to reassure Theo and the community in Arles, that he would commit himself to a psychiatric hospital. Speaker 1 (12:36) And that is what he does. On the 8th of May, 1889, he goes to this small, I think it's a church-affiliated psychiatric hospital, an asylum as it would be called back then, in a place called Sao Remy, which is, I think, about 15 miles or so away from Arles. It must be something like that. I mean, I'm only pausing because I have actually been there. As a patient? As a patient. It perhaps would be very beneficial for my state of mind. I was on a press trip. Speaker 1 (13:04) I was lucky enough to be on a press trip which was run by the National Gallery ahead of their big Van Gogh exhibition a couple of years ago. And we went to Arles, didn't see the Yellow House because as we established it no longer exists. But we did go to what was the asylum at Saint-Rémy where Van Gogh spent a year of his life. It is still a psychiatric clinic. Oh, is it? But parts of it are open to tourists. And it was quite a special, I mean, you don't get to see the patients clearly. separated um it was it was an odd experience i can say looking back i was thinking about it i sort of hadn't thought about it for a while but obviously ahead of today i was thinking about it um Speaker 1 (13:43) As a sense of place, you're plunged into his paintings immediately. So as you approach, you see all these olive trees. There are the Alpil Mountain Range, which often features in the background of the paintings. You can see them. The building itself, which was originally this 12th century monastery. It's a very beautiful building, quite low slung, big thick walls. And you go in and there is a wing. where you go upstairs and there's a little sign on a door and it says Vincent's Bedroom. Right. And in you go, and actually, hang on, I found the picture that I took on my phone. There are these terracotta tile floors. There's this iron bedstead with a tasseled white bedspread on it. There's an easel there, as if you've just stepped out of the room with a painting on the go and a paint-smattered artist's smock. Speaker 1 (14:27) It's possible this has gone in the two years since I've been there. And a window. But the thing that became quite plain quite quickly is that although on the way in you saw the sign and there was a little reproduction of Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh on the wall, someone pointed out, possibly even Martin Bailey, someone pointed out... This wasn't his bedroom at all. Oh, really? And I thought I'd better check this. And so I did email Martin, who's the guru in all of this stuff, and he said, yep, you're absolutely right. In fact, his bedroom was in a different wing, which runs north from the cloisters, and it was on the upper level. And that interior of that wing has been remodelled some time ago. Right. So that's slightly odd. What was really special was the director of the current institution allowed us, when there were no patients around, to go into the walled garden. Speaker 1 (15:12) where there were no current patients and we could go in, which tourists don't normally get to do, and there were these undulating tree trunks and irises just springing up from the grass and winding paths and that low yellowish building in the background, which you often see in his paintings. This is where Vincent spent a huge amount of time. And I think actually, this is my impression, seemed to find for a period... Speaker 1 (15:37) quite a lot of peace because I think he recognised that he was potentially a danger to others. That's partly what all of that petition was about, that really sort of difficult behaviour you've just outlined. And when he was in the asylum, which, as you say, he took himself to voluntarily, he was not going to be a threat unto others. He did suffer attacks, didn't he? Yeah, but he loved it initially. He wrote, I think I've done well to come here. I have never been so peaceful as here. And I think, I mean, it sounds like bliss to me. And personally, just being up in the mountains, away from everything, lots of time, time to write, time to read, time to paint. He took these very long baths. The one thing he complained about, he said, the one really bad thing about being there is... Speaker 1 (16:19) All the patients were eating so many beans that they were farting non-stop. So that was the big setback for him. But he was