Vincent Van Gogh: ‘Will he remain insane?’ (Sarah Fleming phs)

Even when alive, he was largely characterised by his erratic behaviour, particularly in his later years.

To the extent, that those closest to him, such as his brother, were prompted to raise the question, “Will he remain insane?” And so, upon visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, I too ask the question: in our documentation of history and perception of his work, “will he remain insane?”

Over the years, historians and medical practitioners alike, have been able to gauge a rough impression of his mental state, through analysing the collection of letters written by Van Gogh. This, alongside what we know of his life, has lead to the general consensus that he suffered from comorbid mental illnesses, the combined impact of which had a profound consequences. However, I maintain that in this context, ‘profound’ refers to the intensity of these impacts, and does not seek to suggest that their magnitude was in some way destined or a symptom of his creative genius. In fact, the exhibition in Amsterdam strived to distinguish Van Gogh’s artwork from his personal struggles, debunking beliefs that his art was symbiotic with, or even a product of, his mental illness.

For example, in 1889, after the infamous ‘ear incident,’ Van Gogh spent brief stints in and out of hospital, before being admitted to an asylum in Saint-Rémy. During his year spent there, Van Gogh was far from idle and produced around 150 paintings. However, hospitalisation invariably tore him away from the community of artists, that he had sought to create in the South of France. Thus also further removing him from the Parisian society, of which he had once been apart. Ultimately, his struggle with mental illness did not serve to catalyse his success, but instead barred him from realising the full extent of his ambitions.

The question of ‘separating the art from the artist’ is often used in relation to artist who have committed heinous acts, yet who’s work we still regard as highly influential and admirable. However, in Van Gogh’s case, we are prompted to question this relationship for an entirely different reason.

There is no doubt that Van Gogh was a truly remarkable artist, but some would argue that his position as one of the most highly regarded painters of all time is somewhat surprising, after all he only sold one painting while alive. Instead, you could consider the public’s fascination to stem from his status as the stereotypical ‘tortured artist,’ and his turbulent life story.

Upon visiting the gallery, I found that an understanding of his personal life is only accessible as a result of his artwork’s unique ability to elicit empathy from modern audiences. Therefore, when walking towards the exhibition’s final painting, the knowledge that it was also his final painting, was made all the more emotive by his striking use of colour and brushwork. The painting, named ‘Tree Roots,’ remains unfinished to this day, as, on a July evening in 1890, Van Gogh walked out into a wheat-field and shot himself in the chest.

In his 10 short years of painting, he produced (on average) a painting every 36 hours. However, such was the extent of his distress in his final days, that suicide overrode any possibility of finishing this painting. In a letter to his brother, Van Gogh described a desire for the roots to “express something of life’s struggle,” with expert, Wouter Van der Veen, concluding that ‘Tree Roots’ can be regarded as a “suicide note in colour.” This painting is undeniably beautiful, but it was formed as a result of Gogh’s emotional distress and pales in comparison to the hundreds of paintings that he theoretically would have gone on to create, had he not been so sorely impacted by mental illness. This unfortunate truth was made evident in the Van Gogh museum’s exhibition, which took pains to emphasise the enormity of his success, in spite of mental illness, as opposed to, because of it.