Van Gogh, a life of unrelenting penury

You probably recognized the painting. The Starry Night, if you don’t.

It's a beauty to behold, but the story behind it chills me with a deep sense of what Vincent van Gogh must have been going through at the time of painting it.

The best description of his mental state is given in his own words, in letters he wrote to his brother, Theo, who was perhaps one of his closest confidants, who supported him financially as well as emotionally till the end.

Vincent suffered from severe mental deterioration. He was aware of it as he admitted himself to an asylum nearby Saint-Remy, hoping it might help him. It was there that he painted one of his most iconic paintings, The Starry Night.

He suffered from many relapses, which at most lasted as long as months. The last portrait he painted at the asylum speaks for the state he must have been:

A picture of utter desolation.

The asylum was of no help. In his own words, he “suffered” from his stay in the hospital.

He arrived at Auvers, and in view of his letters, showed improvement in his deplorable health.

But it didn’t last.

On 27th July 1890, Vincent arrived at the inn he was staying in, around 9 pm, holding his stomach. In an account to Adeline Ravoux, the innkeeper’s daughter, her mother asked him if he faced a problem.

“No, but I have…”

 

Vincent trailed off, continuing up the stairs and disappearing into his room.

Adeline’s father thought he heard groans, and rushed to Vincent’s room. He asked if he was ill.

Vincent showed a wound near his chest.

“I tried to kill myself.”

He had been in a wheat field earlier that day, painting, when he pulled the revolver on himself. He passed out. Upon waking from the cool afternoon breeze, he tried to find the revolver to complete the act, but failed to do so. He returned to the inn.

During the night he mostly smoked. Sometimes he groaned from the pain but otherwise, stayed silent. When asked why he did what he did, he simply replied:

"My body is mine and I am free to do what I want with it. Do not accuse anybody, it is I that wished to commit suicide."

Adeline’s father called a physician, who upon addressing his wounds, left, considering it a hopeless case.

In the morning his brother, Theo, arrived. He and Adeline both witnessed as Vincent went into a coma and at about 11o’ clock in the morning, passed away.

In a letter to his sister, Theo told of his brother's feelings just before his death:

“He himself wanted to die. When I sat at his bedside and said that we would try to get him better and that we hoped that he would then be spared this kind of despair, he said:

"La tristesse durera toujours"

(The sadness will last forever).

“I understood what he wanted to say with those words.”

 

I understand too.

Because, for Vincent, no matter how hard he tried, he kept ending up in the same place he so desperately wanted to run away from.

He thought that the sadness he was facing will last forever, no matter how long, or if, he lived.

What he must be going through to think that…

And that saddens me in a way I didn’t know before.

Rest in Peace, Dear Vincent.

ㅇㅅㅇ

P.S: Thanks Brady Smaya for the edit.