126 years Van Gogh committed suicide: Deciphering the mystery of the madness of the artist

On July 27, 1890, Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh went to the wheat field behind the castle in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, a few miles north of Paris, France and fired a gun at the chest. . Ever since he cut his ears with a razor on a night in December 1888 in Arles, during the following 18 months, he struggled with a neurological illness.

Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (Netherlands) is hosting the On the Verge of Insanity exhibition, which showcases many pictures and memorabilia to decipher the disease of the painter before he committed suicide.

Feeling more and more lonely

After the "infamous" accident, torturing himself by cutting his ears, Van Gogh continued to suffer from a nervous breakdown that made him often confused, not alert. His condition may last several weeks each time.

However, when he regained consciousness, Van Gogh calmly painted. During Auvers's period of his most " creative " writing in his career, in 70 days, he completed 75 paintings and over 100 drawings and sketches. Van Gogh went to Auvers in May 1890, after leaving a psychiatric hospital in the outskirts of Saint-Remy-de-Provence.

Although writing so much, Van Gogh always feels more lonely and anxious. He always thought that he failed in life. Eventually, he took a small gun from the owner of the inn in Auvers and late afternoon on Saturday in late July 1890. The painter took the gun to the wheat field and shot himself.

However, this was just a pocket pistol with limited firepower, so when squeezing the trigger the bullet only shot into the ribs and not into the heart. Van Gogh collapsed.

Van Gogh's self-portrait portrayed after cutting his ears.

At night, he looked around to find a gun to fire again to finish his life, but could not find it. Van Gogh returned to the inn and the doctor was invited to treat him. The next day, his brother was an art dealer and believed that the artist would recover. But that hope has dissipated. That night, Van Gogh died, at the age of 37.

Visiting the On the Verge of Insanity exhibition at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, visitors can understand the last year and a half of the artist's life. Here, a gun (heavily eroded) was found in the field behind the castle in Auvers around 1960. Analysts said that the gun was underground for about 50-80 years and here. most likely the gun that Van Gogh used.

The exhibition also displays a letter found recently and has been posted on the mass media. This letter was treated by Van Gogh by the doctor after he cut his ear in Arles. The letter includes drawings illustrating the part of the artist's ears.

For years, biographers constantly argued whether Van Gogh cut his ears or only part. Through this letter, people learned that the artist had cut off his left ear.

Decode the mood through the final picture

The exhibition also features an unfinished painting, Tree Roots (1890) of the artist. Van Gogh painted this painting on the morning of July 27, a few hours before he tried to kill himself. This is his last picture.

Tree Roots is an unusual image, the composition in the picture does not have a single highlight. What can the picture in this picture tell us about his neurological condition?

The picture shows that Van Gogh is very excited during the drawing process , full of emotional fluctuations. "This is one of those paintings that, when you see, you can feel the state of Van Gogh's torture," says art historian Martin Bailey.

"Tree Roots" - Van Gogh's last painting was painted a few hours before he committed suicide.

Moreover, the topic in the painting is very meaningful. Years ago, Van Gogh studied tree roots to find out what it meant in expressing emotions. In a letter to his brother shortly before his death, Van Gogh wrote "his life was eroded from the root". Is it possible, Van Gogh painted the Tree Roots painting as a farewell?

According to Nienke Bakker, curator of painting at Van Gogh Museum: "The works painted by Van Gogh in the last weeks of his life contained a lot of emotional confusion, such as Wheatfield with Crows and Wheatfield under Thunderclouds. Clearly, Van Gogh tried to express his emotional state. The Tree Roots painting was also very strong and full of life, it was hard to believe that he had painted the picture in the morning and at the end of the day ended his life. me, it's hard to say that Van Gogh intended to paint the picture and considered it a goodbye, because it was so rational. "

Bakker still follows the idea that Van Gogh's disease arises from the greatness of the artist."The tortured, bony roots of Tree Roots make the picture look very crazy and emotional. But this is not a work created by a crazy mind. Van Gogh knows very well that he is What do you do when you are sick, but not sick, remember that? "