The death of van gogh summary. Van Gogh's ingenious madness
The life, death and work of Vincent van Gogh have been studied quite well. Dozens of books and monographs have been written about the great Dutchman, hundreds of dissertations have been defended and several films have been shot. Despite this, researchers are constantly finding new facts from the life of the artist. Recently, researchers have questioned the canonical version of the suicide of a genius and put forward their own version.
Van Gogh biography researchers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith believe that the artist did not commit suicide, but was the victim of an accident. Scientists came to this conclusion after conducting a large-scale search work and studying many documents and memoirs of eyewitnesses and friends of the artist.
Gregory White Smith and Steve Knife
Nyfi and White Smith designed their work in the form of a book called “Van Gogh. Life". Working on a new biography Dutch artist took more than 10 years, despite the fact that scientists were actively assisted by 20 researchers and translators.
Auvers-sur-Oise cherishes the memory of the artist
It is known that Van Gogh died in a hotel in the small town of Auvers-sur-Oise, located 30 km from Paris. It was believed that on July 27, 1890, the artist went for a walk in the picturesque surroundings, during which he shot himself in the heart area. The bullet did not reach the target and went lower, so the wound, although severe, did not lead to immediate death.
Vincent van Gogh "Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun" Saint-Remy, September 1889
Wounded, Van Gogh returned to his room, where the hotel owner called a doctor. The next day, Theo, the brother of the artist, arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise, in whose arms he died on July 29, 1890, at 1.30 am, 29 hours after the fatal shot. Van Gogh's last words were "La tristesse durera toujours" (Sorrow will last forever).
Auvers-sur-Oise. Tavern "Ravu" on the second floor of which the great Dutchman died
But according to research by Stephen Knyfi, Van Gogh did not go for a walk in the wheat fields on the outskirts of Auvers-sur-Oise in order to take his own life.
“People who knew him thought he was accidentally killed by a couple of local teenagers, but he decided to protect them and took the blame.”
This is what Naifi thinks, referring to the numerous references to this strange story eyewitnesses. Did the artist have a weapon? Most likely it was, since Vincent once acquired a revolver to scare away flocks of birds, which often prevented him from drawing from life in nature. But at the same time, no one can say with certainty whether Van Gogh took weapons with him that day.
A tiny closet in which he spent last days Vincent van Gogh, 1890 and now
For the first time, the version of careless murder was put forward back in 1930 by John Renwald, a well-known researcher of the painter's biography. Renwald visited the city of Auvers-sur-Oise and spoke with several residents who still remembered the tragic incident.
Also, John was able to access the medical records of the doctor who examined the wounded man in his room. According to the description of the wound, the bullet entered the abdominal cavity in the upper part along a trajectory close to a tangent, which is not at all typical for cases when a person shoots himself.
The graves of Vincent and his brother Theo, who survived the artist by only six months
Stephen Nyfi in the book puts forward a very convincing version of what happened, in which his young acquaintances became the perpetrators of the death of a genius.
“It was known that these two teenagers often went out for drinks with Vincent at that time of the day. One of them had a cowboy suit and a malfunctioning gun with which he played cowboy."
The scientist believes that careless handling of the weapon, which was also faulty, led to an involuntary shot, with which Van Gogh was mortally wounded in the stomach. It is unlikely that teenagers wanted the death of their older friend - most likely, there was a murder by negligence. The noble artist, not wanting to ruin the life of the young men, took the blame upon himself, and told the guys to keep quiet.
His whole life is a search for himself. He was both an art dealer and a preacher in a remote village. Many times it seemed to him that life was over, that he would never find a job that would be a reflection of his inner needs. When he started painting, he was almost 30 years old.
It would seem, what kind of people XXI century, it's up to some crazy artist? But if you have ever thought about how lonely a person can be in the world, how difficult it is to find your place in life, your business, Van Gogh will be of interest to you not only as “some kind of artist”, but also as an amazing and tragic person.
When a person has a fire inside and has a soul, he is unable to restrain them. Let it burn rather than go out. What's inside will still come out.
Starry night, 1889
I consider life without love to be a sinful immoral state.
Self-portrait with cut off ear, 1889
A man carries a bright flame in his soul, but no one wants to bask near it; passers-by notice only the smoke leaving through the chimney, and pass on their way.
Blossoming almond branch, 1890
As for me, I really don't know anything, but the shining of the stars makes me dream.
Starry night over the Rhone, 1888
Even if I manage to raise my head a little higher in life, I will still do the same thing - drink with the first person I meet and immediately write it.
Van Gogh's chair with his pipe, 1888
In the evening I walked along the deserted seashore. It wasn't funny or sad - it was beautiful.
In the hope that Gauguin and I will have a common workshop, I want to decorate it. Some big sunflowers - nothing else.
Today's generation doesn't want me: well, I don't give a damn about him.
In my opinion, I often, although not every day, am fabulously rich - not in money, but in the fact that I find in my work something that I can devote my soul and heart to, which inspires me and gives meaning to my life.
Road with cypresses and a star, 1890
Vincent van Gogh's last words: "Sorrow will last forever"
According to sociologists, there are three most famous artists in the world: Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso. Leonardo is "responsible" for the art of the old masters, Van Gogh for the impressionists and post-impressionists of the 19th century, and Picasso for the abstract and modernists of the 20th century. At the same time, if Leonardo appears in the eyes of the public not so much as a painter as a universal genius, and Picasso as a fashionable "secular lion" and public figure- a fighter for peace, then Van Gogh embodies precisely the artist. He is considered a crazy lone genius and a martyr who did not think about fame and money. However, this image, to which everyone is accustomed, is nothing more than a myth that was used to “hype” Van Gogh and sell his paintings for a profit.
The legend about the artist is based on a true fact - he took up painting when he was already a mature person, and in just ten years he "ran" the path from a novice artist to a master who turned the idea of fine art upside down. All this, even during the life of Van Gogh, was perceived as a "miracle" that had no real explanation. The artist's biography was not full of adventures, such as the fate of Paul Gauguin, who managed to be both a stock broker and a sailor, and died of leprosy, exotic for a European layman, on the no less exotic Hiva-Oa, one of the Marquesas Islands. Van Gogh was a "boring hard worker", and, apart from the strange mental seizures that appeared in him shortly before his death, and this death itself as a result of a suicide attempt, there was nothing for the myth-makers to cling to. But these few "trump cards" were played by true masters of their craft.
The main creator of the Legend of the Master was the German gallerist and art historian Julius Meyer-Graefe. He quickly realized the scale of the genius of the great Dutchman, and most importantly, the market potential of his paintings. In 1893, a twenty-six-year-old gallery owner bought the painting "Couple in Love" and thought about "advertising" a promising product. Possessing a lively pen, Meyer-Graefe decided to write an attractive biography of the artist for collectors and art lovers. He did not find him alive and therefore was “free” from personal impressions that weighed down the master’s contemporaries. In addition, Van Gogh was born and raised in Holland, but as a painter he finally took shape in France. In Germany, where Meyer-Graefe began to introduce the legend, no one knew anything about the artist, and the gallery owner-art critic began with “ clean slate". He did not immediately “feel” the image of that crazy lone genius that everyone now knows. At first, Meyer's Van Gogh was " a healthy person from the people", and his work - "harmony between art and life" and a herald of a new big style, which Meyer-Graefe considered modern. But Art Nouveau fizzled out in a matter of years, and Van Gogh, under the pen of an enterprising German, "retrained" as an avant-garde rebel who led the fight against mossy realist academics. Van Gogh the anarchist was popular in bohemian artistic circles, but he scared the layman away. And only the "third edition" of the legend satisfied everyone. In the "scientific monograph" of 1921 entitled "Vincent", with an unusual subtitle for literature of this kind, "The Novel of the God-Seeker," Meyer-Graefe introduced the public to the holy madman, whose hand was led by God. The highlight of this "biography" was the story of a severed ear and creative madness, which elevated a small, lonely person, like Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, to the heights of genius.
 Vincent Van Gogh. 1873 |
The real Vincent van Gogh had little in common with "Vincent" Meyer-Graefe. To begin with, he graduated from a prestigious private gymnasium, spoke and wrote fluently in three languages, read a lot, which earned him the nickname Spinoza in Parisian artistic circles. Behind Van Gogh stood big family, which never left him without support, although she was not enthusiastic about his experiments. His grandfather was a famous bookbinder of old manuscripts for several European courts, three of his uncles were successful art dealers, and one was an admiral and harbor master in Antwerp, in his house he lived when he studied in this city. The real Van Gogh was a rather sober and pragmatic person.
For example, one of the central "god-seeking" episodes of the "going to the people" legend was the fact that in 1879 Van Gogh was a preacher in the Belgian mining region of Borinage. What did Meyer-Graefe and his followers not compose! Here and "a break with the environment" and "the desire to suffer along with the poor and the poor." Everything is explained simply. Vincent decided to follow in his father's footsteps and become a priest. In order to receive the dignity, it was necessary to study at the seminary for five years. Or - to take an accelerated course in three years in an evangelical school according to a simplified program, and even for free. All this was preceded by a mandatory six-month "experience" of missionary work in the outback. Here Van Gogh went to the miners. Of course, he was a humanist, he tried to help these people, but he never thought of getting close to them, always remaining a representative of the middle class. After serving his term in the Borinage, Van Gogh decided to enter an evangelical school, and then it turned out that the rules had changed and the Dutch like him, unlike the Flemings, had to pay tuition. After that, the offended "missionary" left religion and decided to become an artist.
And this choice is not accidental either. Van Gogh was a professional art dealer - an art dealer in the largest company Goupil. The partner in it was his uncle Vincent, after whom the young Dutchman was named. He patronized him. "Goupil" played a leading role in Europe in the trade in old masters and solid modern academic painting, but was not afraid to sell "moderate innovators" like the Barbizons. For 7 years, Van Gogh made a career in a difficult, based on family traditions antique business. From the Amsterdam branch, he moved first to The Hague, then to London, and finally to the company's headquarters in Paris. Over the years, the nephew of the Goupil co-owner went through a serious school, studied the main European museums and many closed private collections, became a real expert in painting not only by Rembrandt and the Little Dutch, but also by the French - from Ingres to Delacroix. “Being surrounded by paintings,” he wrote, “I kindled for them with a frantic, frenzied love.” His idol was french artist Jean Francois Millet, famous at that time for his "peasant" canvases, which "Goupil" sold at prices of tens of thousands of francs.
 The painter's brother Theodor Van Gogh |
Van Gogh was going to become such a successful “life writer of the lower classes”, like Millet, using his knowledge of the life of miners and peasants, gleaned in the Borinage. Contrary to legend, the art dealer Van Gogh was not a brilliant amateur like such "Sunday artists" as the customs officer Rousseau or the conductor Pirosmani. Having behind him a fundamental knowledge of the history and theory of art, as well as the practice of trading it, the stubborn Dutchman at the age of twenty-seven began to systematically study the craft of painting. He began by drawing according to the latest special textbooks, which were sent to him from all over Europe by uncles who were art dealers. Van Gogh's hand was put by his relative, the artist from The Hague Anton Mauve, to whom the grateful student later dedicated one of his paintings. Van Gogh even entered first the Brussels and then the Antwerp Academy of Arts, where he studied for three months until he went to Paris.
There, the newly minted artist was persuaded to leave in 1886 by his younger brother Theodore. This former on the rise successful art dealer played a key role in the fate of the master. Theo advised Vincent to give up "peasant" painting, explaining that it was already a "plowed field". And, besides, "black paintings" like "The Potato Eaters" at all times sold worse than light and joyful art. Another thing is the “light painting” of the Impressionists, literally created for success: solid sun and a holiday. The public will appreciate it sooner or later.
Theo the Seer
So Van Gogh ended up in the capital of the "new art" - Paris, and on Theo's advice, he entered the private studio of Fernand Cormon, which was then the "forge of personnel" of a new generation of experimental artists. There the Dutchman came into close contact with such future pillars of post-impressionism as Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard and Lucien Pissarro. Van Gogh studied anatomy, painted from plaster and literally absorbed all the new ideas that Paris was seething with.
Theo introduces him to leading art critics and his artist clients, who included not only the established Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas, but also the "rising stars" Signac and Gauguin. By the time Vincent arrived in Paris, his brother was the head of the "experimental" branch of Goupil in Montmartre. A man with a keen sense of the new and an excellent businessman, Theo was one of the first to see the offensive. new era in art. He persuaded the conservative leadership of Goupil to allow him to venture into the trade in "light painting". In the gallery, Theo held solo exhibitions of Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and other impressionists, to whom Paris began to get used little by little. One floor above, in his own apartment, he arranged "changing exhibitions" of paintings of impudent youth, which Goupil was afraid to show officially. It was the prototype of the elite "apartment exhibitions" that came into vogue in the 20th century, and Vincent's work became their highlight.
Back in 1884, the Van Gogh brothers entered into an agreement with each other. Theo, in exchange for Vincent's paintings, pays him 220 francs a month and provides him with brushes, canvases and paints. best quality. By the way, thanks to this, Van Gogh's paintings, unlike the works of Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec, who, due to lack of money, wrote on anything, are so well preserved. 220 francs was a quarter of the monthly salary of a doctor or lawyer. The postman Joseph Roulin in Arles, whom the legend made into something like the patron of the "beggar" Van Gogh, received half as much and, unlike the lonely artist, fed a family with three children. Van Gogh even had enough money to create a collection of Japanese prints. In addition, Theo supplied his brother with “overalls”: blouses and famous hats, necessary books and reproductions. He also paid for Vincent's treatment.
All this was not a simple charity. The brothers came up with an ambitious plan to create a market for Post-Impressionist painting, the generation of artists that would replace Monet and his friends. And with Vincent van Gogh as one of the leaders of this generation. To connect the seemingly incompatible - the risky avant-garde art of the world of bohemia and commercial success in the spirit of the respectable Goupil. Here they were almost a century ahead of their time: only Andy Warhol and other American popartists managed to immediately get rich on avant-garde art.
"Unrecognized"
In general, the position of Vincent van Gogh was unique. He worked as an artist on a contract with an art dealer, who was one of the key figures in the "light painting" market. And that art dealer was his brother. The restless vagabond Gauguin, for example, who counts every franc, could only dream of such a situation. In addition, Vincent was not a simple puppet in the hands of businessman Theo. Nor was he an unmercenary who did not want to sell his paintings to the profane, which he handed out for nothing to “kindred souls,” as Meyer-Graefe wrote. Van Gogh, like any normal person, wanted recognition not from distant descendants, but during his lifetime. confessions, an important sign which for him was money. And being himself a former art dealer, he knew how to achieve this.
One of the main topics of his letters to Theo is by no means seeking God, but discussions about what needs to be done in order to profitably sell paintings, and which painting will quickly find its way to the heart of the buyer. To promote the market, he came up with an impeccable formula: "Nothing will help us sell our paintings better than their recognition as a good decoration for middle-class homes." In order to clearly show how the paintings of the post-impressionists would “look” in a bourgeois interior, Van Gogh himself in 1887 arranged two exhibitions in the Tambourine cafe and the La Forche restaurant in Paris and even sold several works from them. Later, the legend played on this fact as an act of desperation by the artist, whom no one wanted to let into normal exhibitions.
Meanwhile, he was a regular participant in exhibitions at the Salon des Indépendants and the Free Theater - the most fashionable places for Parisian intellectuals of that time. His paintings are exhibited by art dealers Arsene Portier, George Thomas, Pierre Martin and Tanguy. The great Cezanne got the opportunity to show his work at a solo exhibition only at the age of 56, after almost four decades of hard labor. Whereas the work of Vincent, an artist with six years of experience, could be seen at any time at Theo's "apartment exhibition", where the entire artistic elite of the capital of the art world - Paris, visited.
The real Van Gogh is the least like the hermit of legend. He is at home among the leading artists of the era, the most convincing evidence of which is several portraits of the Dutchman painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, Roussel, Bernard. Lucien Pissarro portrayed him talking to the most influential art critic of those years, Fenelon. Van Gogh was remembered by Camille Pissarro for the fact that he did not hesitate to stop the person he needed on the street and show his paintings right at the wall of some house. It is simply impossible to imagine a real hermit Cezanne in such a situation.
The legend has firmly established the idea of Van Gogh's unrecognizedness, that during his lifetime only one of his paintings "Red Vineyards in Arles" was sold, which now hangs in the Moscow Museum fine arts named after A.S. Pushkin. In fact, the sale of this canvas from an exhibition in Brussels in 1890 for 400 francs was Van Gogh's breakthrough into the world of serious prices. He sold no worse than his contemporaries Seurat or Gauguin. According to the documents, it is known that fourteen works were bought from the artist. This was first done by a family friend, the Dutch art dealer Terstig, in February 1882, and Vincent wrote to Theo: "The first sheep passed the bridge." In reality, there were more sales; there was simply no accurate evidence of the rest.
As for non-recognition, since 1888 notable critics Gustave Kahn and Felix Fénelon, in their reviews of the exhibitions of the “independents,” as the avant-garde artists were then called, single out fresh and bright work Van Gogh. The critic Octave Mirbeau advised Rodin to buy his paintings. They were in the collection of such a discerning connoisseur as Edgar Degas. Even during his lifetime, Vincent read in the Mercure de France newspaper that he great artist, heir to Rembrandt and Hals. He wrote this in his article, in full dedicated to creativity"the amazing Dutchman", the rising star of the "new criticism" Henri Aurier. He intended to create a biography of Van Gogh, but, unfortunately, he died of tuberculosis shortly after the death of the artist himself.
About the mind, free "from the shackles"But the “biography” was published by Meyer-Graefe, and in it he especially painted the “intuitive, free from the fetters of reason” process of Van Gogh’s creativity.
“Vincent painted in a blind, unconscious ecstasy. His temperament spilled onto the canvas. Trees screamed, clouds hunted each other. The sun gaped like a dazzling hole leading into chaos."
The easiest way to refute this idea of Van Gogh is by the words of the artist himself: “Greatness is created not only by impulsive action, but also by the complicity of many things that have been brought into a single whole ... With art, as with everything else: the great is not something sometimes accidental, but must be created by stubborn volitional tension.
The vast majority of Van Gogh's letters are devoted to the "kitchen" of painting: setting goals, materials, technique. An event almost unprecedented in the history of art. The Dutchman was a real workaholic and claimed: "In art, you have to work like a few blacks and take off your skin." At the end of his life, he really wrote very quickly, a picture could be done from beginning to end in two hours. But at the same time he kept repeating favorite expression American artist Whistler: "I did it in two o'clock, but I worked for years to get something worthwhile done in those two hours."
Van Gogh did not write on a whim - he worked long and hard on the same motive. In the city of Arles, where he set up his workshop after leaving Paris, he began a series of 30 works related to the common creative task "Contrast". Contrast color, thematic, compositional. For example, pandan "Cafe in Arles" and "Room in Arles". In the first picture - darkness and tension, in the second - light and harmony. In the same row, there are several variants of his famous "Sunflowers". The whole series was conceived as an example of decorating a "middle-class dwelling". We have a well-thought-out creative and market strategy from beginning to end. After seeing his paintings at an exhibition of "independents", Gauguin wrote: "You are the only thinking artist of all."
The cornerstone of the Van Gogh legend is his madness. Allegedly, only it allowed him to look into such depths that are inaccessible to mere mortals. But the artist was not from his youth a half-madman with flashes of genius. Periods of depression, accompanied by seizures similar to epilepsy, for which he was treated in a psychiatric clinic, began only in the last year and a half of his life. Doctors saw in this the effect of absinthe - alcoholic drink, infused with wormwood, whose destructive effect on nervous system became known only in the 20th century. At the same time, it was precisely during the period of exacerbation of the disease that the artist could not write. So the mental disorder did not "help" Van Gogh's genius, but hindered it.
Very doubtful famous story with ear. It turned out that Van Gogh could not cut him off at the root, he would simply bleed to death, because he was helped only 10 hours after the incident. His only lobe was cut off, as stated in the medical report. And who did it? There is a version that this happened during a quarrel with Gauguin that took place that day. Gauguin, experienced in sailor fights, slashed Van Gogh on the ear, and he had a nervous attack from everything he had experienced. Later, to justify his behavior, Gauguin made up a story that Van Gogh, in a fit of madness, chased him with a razor in his hands, and then crippled himself.
Even the painting “Room at Arles”, whose curved space was considered a fixation of Van Gogh’s insane state, turned out to be surprisingly realistic. Plans have been found for the house where the artist lived in Arles. The walls and ceiling of his dwelling were indeed sloping. Van Gogh never painted by moonlight with candles attached to his hat. But the creators of the legend have always been free with the facts. The ominous picture "Wheat Field", with a road going into the distance, covered with a flock of ravens, they, for example, announced the last canvas of the master, predicting his death. But it is well known that after it he wrote another whole line works where the ill-fated field is depicted compressed.
The "know-how" of the main author of the Van Gogh myth, Julius Meyer-Graefe, is not just a lie, but the presentation of fictitious events mixed with true facts, and even in the form of an impeccable scientific work. For example, a true fact - Van Gogh liked to work under open sky because he did not tolerate the smell of turpentine, which is diluted with paints, - the "biographer" used as the basis for a fantastic version of the reason for the suicide of the master. Allegedly, Van Gogh fell in love with the sun - the source of his inspiration and did not allow himself to cover his head with a hat, standing under its burning rays. All his hair was burned, the sun baked his unprotected skull, he went crazy and committed suicide. Late self-portraits of Van Gogh and images of the dead artist made by his friends show that he did not lose the hair on his head until his death.
"Insights of the holy fool"
Van Gogh shot himself on July 27, 1890, after his mental crisis seemed to have been overcome. Shortly before that, he was discharged from the clinic with the conclusion: "Recovered." The very fact that the owner of furnished rooms in Auvers, where Van Gogh lived in recent months of his life, entrusted him with a revolver, which the artist needed to scare away crows while working on sketches, suggests that he behaved absolutely normally. Today, doctors agree that the suicide did not occur during a seizure, but was the result of a combination of external circumstances. Theo got married, had a child, and Vincent was oppressed by the thought that his brother would only deal with his family, and not their plan to conquer the art world.
After the fatal shot, Van Gogh lived for two more days, was surprisingly calm and steadfastly endured suffering. He died in the arms of his inconsolable brother, who was never able to recover from this loss and died six months later. The firm "Goupil" for a pittance sold all the works of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, which Theo Van Gogh had accumulated in the gallery in Montmartre, and closed the experiment with "light painting". Vincent van Gogh's paintings were taken by Theo's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger to Holland. Only at the beginning of the 20th century did total fame come to the great Dutchman. According to experts, if it were not for the almost simultaneous early death of both brothers, this would have happened back in the mid-1890s and Van Gogh would have been a very rich man. But fate decreed otherwise. People like Meyer-Graefe began to reap the fruits of the labors of the great painter Vincent and the great gallery owner Theo.
Who has Vincent taken over?
The novel about the god-seeker "Vincent" by an enterprising German came in handy in the situation of the collapse of ideals after the massacre of the First World War. A martyr of art and a madman, whose mystical work appeared under the pen of Meyer-Graefe as something like a new religion, such a Van Gogh captured the imagination of both jaded intellectuals and inexperienced townsfolk. The legend pushed into the background not only the biography of a real artist, but also perverted the idea of \u200b\u200bhis paintings. They saw in them some kind of mess of colors, in which the prophetic "insights" of the holy fool are guessed. Meyer-Graefe turned into the main connoisseur of the "mystical Dutchman" and began not only to trade in Van Gogh's paintings, but also to issue certificates of authenticity for works that appeared under the name of Van Gogh on the art market for a lot of money.
In the mid-1920s, a certain Otto Wacker came to him, performing erotic dances in Berlin cabarets under the pseudonym Olinto Lovel. He showed several paintings signed "Vincent" in the spirit of the legend. Meyer-Graefe was delighted and immediately confirmed their authenticity. In total, Wacker, who opened his own gallery in the trendy Potsdamerplatz district, threw more than 30 Van Goghs on the market before rumors spread that they were fake. Since it was a very large sum, the police intervened. At the trial, the dancer-gallery owner told the “provenance” story, which he “fed” his gullible clients. He allegedly acquired the paintings from a Russian aristocrat, who bought them at the beginning of the century, and during the revolution he managed to take them out of Russia to Switzerland. Wacker did not name his name, arguing that the Bolsheviks, embittered by the loss of the "national treasure", would destroy the family of an aristocrat who remained in Soviet Russia.
In the battle of experts that unfolded in April 1932 in the courtroom of the Berlin district of Moabit, Meyer-Graefe and his supporters stood up for the authenticity of Wacker's Van Goghs. But the police raided the studio of the dancer's brother and father, who were artists, and found 16 fresh Van Goghs. Technological expertise has shown that they are identical to the canvases sold. In addition, chemists found that when creating the “paintings of the Russian aristocrat”, paints were used that appeared only after the death of Van Gogh. Upon learning of this, one of the “experts” who supported Meyer-Graefe and Wacker said to the stunned judge: “How do you know that Vincent did not move into a congenial body after death and still does not create?”
Wacker received three years in prison, and Meyer-Graefe's reputation was destroyed. Soon he died, but the legend, in spite of everything, continues to live to this day. It was on its basis that the American writer Irving Stone wrote his bestseller Lust for Life in 1934, and the Hollywood director Vincente Minnelli made a film about Van Gogh in 1956. The role of the artist there was played by actor Kirk Douglas. The film earned an Oscar and finally confirmed in the minds of millions of people the image of a half-mad genius who took upon himself all the sins of the world. Then the American period in the canonization of Van Gogh was replaced by the Japanese.
In the country rising sun thanks to the legend, the great Dutchman was considered something between a Buddhist monk and a samurai who committed hara-kiri. In 1987, the Yasuda Company bought Van Gogh's Sunflowers at an auction in London for $40 million. Three years later, the eccentric billionaire Ryoto Saito, who identified himself with the Vincent of the legend, paid $82 million for Van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" at an auction in New York. For a whole decade it was the most expensive picture in the world. According to Saito's will, she was to be burned with him after his death, but the creditors of the Japanese who had gone bankrupt by that time did not allow this to be done.
While the world was rocked by scandals around Van Gogh's name, art historians, restorers, archivists and even doctors, step by step, explored the true life and work of the artist. A huge role in this was played by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, created in 1972 on the basis of a collection that was donated to Holland by Theo Van Gogh's son, who bore the name of his great uncle. The museum began to check all the paintings of Van Gogh in the world, weeding out several dozen fakes, and did a great job of preparing scientific publication brothers' correspondence.
But, despite the great efforts of both the museum staff and such luminaries of vango studies as the Canadian Bogomila Velsh-Ovcharova or the Dutchman Jan Halsker, the legend of Van Gogh does not die. She lives her own life, giving rise to regular films, books and performances about the "holy madman Vincent", who has nothing to do with the great worker and pioneer of new paths in art, Vincent van Gogh. This is how a person works: romantic fairy tale for him it is always more attractive than the "prose of life", no matter how great it may be.
Image copyright Van Gogh
On a summer day in 1890, Vincent van Gogh shot himself in a field outside Paris. The reviewer examines the painting he was working on that morning to see what it says about the artist's state of mind.
On July 27, 1890, Vincent van Gogh walked into a wheat field behind a castle in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, a few kilometers from Paris, and shot himself in the chest.
By that time, the artist had been suffering from mental illness- ever since the December evening in 1888, during his life in the city of Arles in French Provence, the unfortunate cut off his left ear with a razor.
After that, he had occasional seizures that undermined his strength and after which he was in a state of clouded consciousness for several days, or even weeks, or lost touch with reality.
However, in the intervals between breakdowns, his mind was calm and clear, and the artist could paint.
Moreover, his stay in Auvers, where he arrived in May 1890 after leaving the psychiatric hospital, was the most fruitful stage of his creative life: in 70 days he created 75 paintings and more than a hundred drawings and sketches.
Dying, Van Gogh said: "That's how I wanted to leave!"
However, despite this, he felt more and more lonely and could not find a place for himself, convincing himself that his life was in vain.
Finally he got hold of a small revolver belonging to the owner of the house he rented in Auvers.
It was the weapon he took with him into the field on that fateful Sunday afternoon at the end of July.
However, only a pocket revolver fell into his hands, not very powerful, so when the artist pulled the trigger, the bullet, instead of piercing the heart, ricocheted off the rib.
Image copyright EPA Image caption The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam displays the weapon believed to have shot the artist.Van Gogh lost consciousness and fell to the ground. When evening came, he came to his senses and began to look for a revolver to bring the matter to an end, but did not find it and trudged back to the hotel, where a doctor was called for him.
The incident was reported to Van Gogh's brother, Theo, who arrived the next day. For some time Theo thought that Vincent would survive - but there was nothing to be done. That same night, at the age of 37, the artist died.
“I didn’t leave his bed until it was all over,” Theo wrote to his wife Johanna. “Dying, he said:“ That’s how I wanted to leave! ”, After which he lived for a few more minutes, and then it was all over, and he found a peace he could not find on earth."
Art historians are divided into two camps. Specialists from the Amsterdam Museum refute the recent statement that the artist was killed by a 16-year-old schoolboy.
Who killed Vincent van Gogh?
Before two years ago Stephen Knife And Gregory White-Smith published an exhaustive biography of the artist, it was indisputably believed that during his stay in France he committed suicide. But American authors put forward a sensational theory: Van Gogh was shot dead by a 16-year-old schoolboy René Secretan, although it is not clear if he did this on purpose. The artist lived for two more days and, according to the authors, "accepted death with satisfaction." He defended Secretan, claiming it was suicide.
In the July issue Burlington Magazine the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam joined the controversy. In a detailed biographical article, two of the museum's leading researchers, Louis van Tilborg And Teyo Medendrop, insist on the version of suicide. There is no doubt only that he died two days after he received a gunshot wound on July 27, 1890, somewhere in Auvers-sur-Oise. They undertook an investigation based largely on an obscure interview given by Secretan shortly before his death in 1957. The secretary recalled that he had a pistol with which he shot at squirrels. He and his older brother Gaston knew Van Gogh. René Secretan claims that the artist stole the weapon from him, but says nothing about the shot. Nyfe and White-Smith considered the interview a dying confession and referred to the late art historian John Rewald, who mentioned the rumors that circulated in Auvers that the guys had accidentally shot the artist. The authors believe that Van Gogh decided to defend René and Gaston from the accusations.
The conclusions of criminologists
Nayfe and White-Smith drew attention to the nature of the wound and concluded that the shot was fired "from some distance from the body, and not point-blank." This is what the doctors who treated Van Gogh testified: his friend Dr. Paul Gachet and local practitioner Jean Mazeri. After reviewing the facts, van Tilborg and Medendrop were convinced that Van Gogh had committed suicide. Their article says that Secretan's interview "in no way" supports the case of a murder committed intentionally or by negligence. From the interview it follows only that Van Gogh somehow got the weapons of the brothers. The authors emphasize that although Rewald retold the rumors about the Secretans, he did not really believe in them. Van Tilborg and Medendrop cite new data published last year in a book Alena Roana Vincent van Gogh: Has the suicide weapon been found? Dr. Gachet recalled that the wound was brown with a purple rim. The purple bruise is the result of a bullet hit, and the brown mark is a gunpowder burn: it means that the weapon was close to the chest, under the shirt, and therefore Van Gogh shot himself. In addition, Roan discovered new information about weapons. In the 1950s, a rusty revolver was found buried in a field just behind the Château d'Auver, where Van Gogh is said to have shot himself. Analysis showed that the revolver spent 60 to 80 years in the ground. The weapon was found next to the road, which in 1904 the son of Dr. Gachet depicted in a painting called Auvers: the place where Vincent committed suicide. The revolver was found just behind the low farmhouses shown in the center of the painting.
Article in Burlington Magazine also applies recent weeks Van Gogh's life. The authors argue with the generally accepted theory that the artist was depressed due to the fact that he lost the financial support of his brother Theo. Van Tilborg and Medendrop argue that Van Gogh was more concerned that Theo did not allow him to participate in decision making. Theo had serious problems with an employer, the gallery "Busso and Valadon", and he was going to start his own business: it was supposed to be a gallery, but Theo did not even consult with his brother, which made him feel even more alone. Van Tilborg and Medendrop conclude that the suicide was not an impulsive act, but a carefully considered decision. Although Theo's behavior played a role, the key factor was the painful thought of the artist that his obsession with art plunged him into the abyss of mental turmoil. The authors look for traces of this confusion in the last works of Van Gogh and point out that when he shot himself, he had in his pocket farewell note brother. Traditionally, Van Gogh's last work is considered to be the painting Crows over wheat field, but it was completed around July 10, more than two weeks before the artist's death. He himself wrote about this canvas: “A huge space under a stormy sky, dotted with wheat. I was trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness.” Van Tilborg has already suggested that recent works Van Gogh had two unfinished paintings - Tree Roots and Farms near Auvers. The article hypothesizes that the first of them is a program farewell work showing how elms fight for survival.
Van Gogh claimed that he shot himself. The same version was supported by his relatives. Nayfe and White-Smith argue that the artist was lying, while van Tilborg and Medendrop believe that he was telling the truth. In all likelihood, we need to carefully study the evidence of contemporaries about suicide.
Dr. Gachet immediately sent Theo a note with the message that Vincent had "injured himself". Adeline Ravu, whose father kept the hotel where the artist lived, later recalled that Van Gogh told the policeman: "I wanted to kill myself."
Terrible injury
Vincent was very close to his brother. It's hard to believe that he lied to his brother about his horrific injury just to save two teenagers who were poking fun at him from the police. In the end, it was much more difficult for Theo to endure suicide, since he felt part of his guilt in it. The last words of Vincent van Gogh sound heartbreaking: "That's how I wanted to leave." In his letter to his wife, Theo says: "A few minutes passed, and it was all over: he found peace, which he could not find on earth."
