The true causes of Van Gogh's death. Why is Vincent van Gogh famous? Versions of Van Gogh's death

For more than 10 years, British art historians have been studying documents and letters related to the artist Vincent van Gogh, unknown to the general public, and have come to the conclusion that the master, contrary to the official version, was not a suicide. Researchers believe that the great Dutch artist was shot dead, according to the British broadcasting company BBC.

Shortly before his death, Vincent van Gogh settled in one of the hotels in the French city of Auvers-sur-Oise. The master went to work in the nearby field, which is depicted in his last painting, Wheat Field with Crows (1890). It is believed that during one of these walks, the great post-impressionist shot himself in the chest, but the bullet did not hit his heart, so the artist was able to, holding the wound, get to the bed in his room and ask to call a doctor. However, it was not possible to save the great artist.

For a long time, this version of Van Gogh's death was considered official, although many researchers of the artist's work and life noted that there are many white spots in this story. This view is shared by British art critics Stephen Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, whose book "Van Gogh. Life" ("Van Gogh: The Life") was published on Monday.

For more than 10 years, Naifeh and Smith have been studying the little-known letters of the artist, as well as various documents related to him. Including, police protocols of 1890 and the testimony of Van Gogh's acquaintances and neighbors. British art historians have processed over 28,000 documents, most of which have never been translated into English or other languages. Nayfeh and Smith were assisted by four professional Dutch philologists.

In the course of working on the book, British researchers concluded that Van Gogh, who until today was believed to have shot himself, was actually killed. The British note that, according to police protocols, the bullet entered the artist's stomach at an acute, and not at a right angle, which could hardly have happened if Van Gogh had really committed suicide.

According to eyewitnesses, Van Gogh liked to chat and drink with two 16-year-old teenagers from Auvers-sur-Oise, who were seen in the company of the artist and on the last day of his life. Van Gogh's neighbors said that one of the young men was dressed in a cowboy costume and carried a faulty pistol. Naifeh and Smith believe that Van Gogh was accidentally shot from it during the game.

A similar version of the death of the master was expressed by the famous art historian John Renwald back in the 1930s. British researchers believe that the artist made the incident a suicide in order to save young people from punishment. According to Gregory Smith, Van Gogh did not strive for death, however, when faced with it face to face, he did not resist. Smith writes that the master was very worried because he was a burden to his brother Theo, who fully supported the artist, whose work was not for sale. Van Gogh decided that his death would save his brother from hardships, according to the British.

Stephen Naifeh and Gregory White Smith also write that Van Gogh was on such bad terms with his pastor father that when he died, many of the artist's relatives began to accuse Vincent of killing the head of the Van Gogh family. Vincent van Gogh died on July 29, 1890 at the age of 37.

When 37-year-old Vincent van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, his work was almost unknown to anyone. Today, his paintings are worth stunning sums and adorn the best museums in the world.

125 years after the death of the great Dutch painter, it is time to learn more about him and dispel some of the myths that, like all art history, his biography is full of.

He changed several jobs before becoming an artist

The son of a minister, Van Gogh started working at the age of 16. His uncle hired him as an intern for an art dealership in The Hague. He happened to travel to London and Paris, where the firm's branches were located. In 1876 he was fired. After that, he worked briefly as a schoolteacher in England, then as a bookstore clerk. From 1878 he served as a preacher in Belgium. Van Gogh was in need, he had to sleep on the floor, but less than a year later he was fired from this post. Only after that he finally became an artist and did not change his occupation anymore. In this field, he became famous, however, posthumously.

Van Gogh's career as an artist was short

In 1881, the self-taught Dutch artist returned to the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to painting. He was supported financially and materially by his younger brother Theodore, a successful art dealer. In 1886, the brothers settled in Paris, and these two years in the French capital turned out to be crucial. Van Gogh took part in exhibitions of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, he began to use a light and bright palette, experimenting with methods of applying strokes. The artist spent the last two years of his life in the south of France, where he created some of his most famous paintings.

In his entire ten-year career, he sold only a few of over 850 paintings. His drawings (there are about 1300 of them left) were then unclaimed.

He probably didn't cut off his ear.

In February 1888, after living in Paris for two years, Van Gogh moved to the south of France, to the city of Arles, where he hoped to establish a community of artists. He was accompanied by Paul Gauguin, with whom they became friends in Paris. The officially accepted version of events is as follows:

On the night of December 23, 1888, they quarreled, and Gauguin left. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, pursued his friend, but, not catching up, returned home and, in annoyance, partially cut off his left ear, then wrapped it in a newspaper and gave it to some prostitute.

In 2009, two German scientists published a book suggesting that Gauguin, being a good swordsman, cut off part of Van Gogh's ear with a saber during a duel. According to this theory, Van Gogh, in the name of friendship, agreed to hide the truth, otherwise Gauguin would have been threatened with prison.

The most famous paintings were painted by him in a psychiatric clinic

In May 1889, Van Gogh sought help from the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric hospital, located in a former convent in the city of Saint-Remy-de-Provence in southern France. Initially, the artist was diagnosed with epilepsy, but the examination also revealed bipolar disorder, alcoholism and metabolic disorders. Treatment consisted mainly of baths. He remained in the hospital for a year and painted a number of landscapes there. Over a hundred paintings from this period include some of his most famous works such as Starry Night (purchased by the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1941) and Irises (purchased by an Australian industrialist in 1987 for a then record-breaking $ 53.9 million)

On March 30, 1853, the famous Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh was born, whose exhibition in his song last year was sung by the well-known group "Leningrad". The editors decided to remind their readers what kind of master he is, what he is famous for and how he lost his ear.

Who is Vincent van Gogh and what did he paint?

Van Gogh is a world famous artist, the author of the famous "Sunflowers", "Irises" and "Starry Night". The master lived only 37 years, of which he devoted no more than ten to painting. Despite the short duration of his career, his legacy is huge: he managed to paint more than 800 paintings and thousands of drawings.

What was Van Gogh like as a child?

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the Dutch village of Grot-Zundert. His father was a Protestant pastor and his mother was the daughter of a bookbinder and bookseller. The future artist received his name in honor of his paternal grandfather, but it was not intended for him, but for the first child of his parents, who was born a year earlier than Van Gogh, but died on the very first day. So, Vincent, being born second, became the eldest in the family.

The household of little Vincent was considered wayward and strange, he was often punished for tricks. Outside the family, on the contrary, he was very quiet and thoughtful, he hardly played with other children. He went to the village school for only a year, after which he was sent to a boarding school 20 km from his home - the boy took this departure as a real nightmare and could not forget about what happened, even as an adult. After that, he was transferred to another boarding school, which he left in the middle of the school year and never recovered. Approximately the same attitude awaited all subsequent places where he tried to get an education.

When and how did you start drawing?

In 1869, Vincent took a job in his uncle's large art and trading firm as a dealer. It was here that he began to understand painting, to learn to appreciate and understand it. After that, he got tired of selling paintings, and he gradually began to draw and sketch himself. As such, Van Gogh did not receive education: in Brussels, he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, but left it a year later. The artist also visited the prestigious private art studio of the famous European teacher Fernand Cormon, studied impressionist painting, Japanese engraving, and the works of Paul Gauguin.

How did his personal life develop?

In the life of Van Gogh there were only unsuccessful relationships. The first time he fell in love while still working for his uncle as a dealer. Regarding this young lady and her name, the artist's biographers are still arguing, without going into details, it is worth saying that the girl rejected Vincent's courtship. After the master fell in love with his cousin, she also refused him, and the persistence of the young man turned all their common relatives against him. His next chosen one was a pregnant street woman Christine, whom Vincent met by chance. She, without hesitation, moved to him. Van Gogh was happy - he had a model, but Christine turned out to have such a severe temper that the lady turned the young man's life into hell. So every love story ended very tragically, and Vincent could not recover from the psychological trauma inflicted on him for a long time.

Is it true that Van Gogh wanted to become a priest?

It really is. Vincent was from a religious family: his father is a pastor, one of the relatives is a recognized theologian. When Van Gogh lost interest in the painting trade, he decided to become a priest. The first thing he did after ending his career as a dealer was to move to London, where he worked as a teacher in several boarding schools. After, however, he returned to his homeland and worked in a bookstore. He spent most of his time sketching and translating passages from the Bible into German, English and French.

At the same time, Vincent expressed a desire to become a pastor, and his family supported him in this and sent him to Amsterdam to prepare for admission to the university in the department of theology. Only his studies, as well as at school, disappointed him. Leaving this institution as well, he took courses at the Protestant missionary school (or maybe he didn’t finish them - there are different versions) and spent six months as a missionary in the mining village of Paturazh in Borinage. The artist worked so zealously that the local population and members of the Evangelical Society appointed him a salary of 50 francs. After a six-month period, Van Gogh intended to enter an evangelical school to continue his education, but considered the introduced tuition fees to be a manifestation of discrimination and abandoned his intentions. At the same time, he decided to fight for the rights of workers and turned to the directorate of mines with a petition to improve working conditions. They did not listen to him and removed him from his post as a preacher. This was a serious blow to the emotional and mental state of the artist.

Why did he cut off his ear and how did he die?

Van Gogh closely communicated with another, no less famous artist, Paul Gauguin. When Vincent settled in the south of France in the town of Arles in 1888, he decided to create the "Workshop of the South", which was supposed to become a special brotherhood of like-minded artists, an important role in the workshop Van Gogh assigned to Gauguin.

On October 25 of the same year, Paul Gauguin arrived in Arles to discuss the idea of ​​creating a workshop. But peaceful communication did not work out, conflicts arose between the masters. In the end, Gauguin decided to leave. After another dispute on December 23, Van Gogh attacked a friend with a razor in his hands, but Gauguin managed to stop him. How this quarrel happened, under what circumstances and what caused it is unknown, but on the same night Vincent did not cut off his entire ear, as many used to believe, but only his lobe. Whether he expressed his remorse in this way, or whether it was a manifestation of illness is unclear. The next day, December 24, Van Gogh was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where the attack recurred, and the master was diagnosed with epilepsy of the temporal lobes.

The tendency to hurt himself was also the cause of Van Gogh's death, although there are many legends regarding this too. The main version is that the artist went for a walk with drawing materials and shot himself in the heart area from a revolver bought to scare away birds while working in the open air. But the bullet went down. So the master independently reached the hotel in which he lived, he was given first aid, but it was not possible to save Vincent van Gogh. On July 29, 1890, he died from blood loss.

How much are Van Gogh paintings worth now?

Vincent van Gogh by the middle of the 20th century began to be regarded as one of the greatest and most recognizable artists. His work, according to auction houses, is considered one of the most expensive. A myth spread that the master sold only one painting in his life - "Red Vineyards in Arles", but this is not entirely true. This picture was the first for which they paid a substantial amount - 400 francs. At the same time, documents have been preserved on the lifetime sale of at least 14 more works by Van Gogh. How many real transactions he made is unknown, but do not forget that he started as a dealer after all and was able to trade his paintings.

In 1990, at a Christie's auction in New York, Van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. clouds", "Wheat field with cypresses" are estimated at about $ 50 million to $ 60 million. Still life "Vase with daisies and poppies" in 2014 was bought for $ 61.8 million.

The main cause of Vincent van Gogh's death was considered suicide. However, Pulitzer Prize winners Stephen Nyfeh and Gregory White Smith conducted a study and offered the public an alternative version of the death of the Dutch artist - murder.

Naifeh and White Smith spent 10 years writing a biography of the outstanding artist, beginning with a 2001 visit to the Van Gogh Foundation archives in Amsterdam. The more information about the death of the artist was able to study, the less believed in his suicide.

The main creator of the version of Van Gogh's suicide is recognized as a friend of the artist - Emile Bernard, who considered the artist crazy.

A few facts that cast doubt on this version:

• A local policeman, who was interviewing a wounded van Gogh, asked the artist a question: “Did you commit suicide?” To which the confused artist replied: “I think so ...”;

• Residents of the town of Auvers, where the artist spent the last days of his life, did not hear the shot on the fateful day of Van Gogh's death. No one saw the artist on his death walk, did not know where the artist got a gun, and the weapons were never found after the incident;

• Presumably in 1953, the testimony of Paul Gachet's son, a doctor who was depicted in the famous impressionist portrait, appeared. It was Paul Jr. who put forward the idea that the shooting took place in the wheat fields outside of Auvers. This theory was later dismissed as "unlikely";

• In 1890, René Secretan, the 16-year-old son of a Parisian pharmacist, found an easy target for ridicule in the strange Dutchman, by then surrounded by all sorts of rumors. The son of a pharmacist sat down with the artist in a cafe, mocked him to amuse his friends. Later, René Secretan broke his silence by giving some unknown details of the artist's death. However, the banker denied any involvement in the shooting, claiming that "only provided a gun that fired every other time". The secretary was sure that Van Gogh's death was the will of chance. Nobody expected the weapon to fire.

In the course of the investigation, Dr. Vincent Di Maio, an eminent forensic scientist with worldwide practice, came to the aid of Naifeh and Smith. Di Maio studied archival documents on the testimony of the doctor Paul Gachet, who described in detail the appearance ran by Vincent Wang Goga. The doctor noted that the purple halo of the wound had nothing to do with the proximity of the gun barrel to the artist's body. “In fact, this is subcutaneous bleeding from the vessels, and the“ brownish ring ”occurs around almost all entry wounds. It would also be possible to find powder burns on the artist's palm, since smokeless powder was only recently developed and used in only a few military rifles. And the black powder used everywhere would have left obvious traces on the wounds.

Di Maio's conclusion is: “In all medical probability, Vincent van Gogh could not inflict wounds like himself on his own. In other words, he didn't shoot himself."

During the research conducted by Nayfeh and Smith, the curator of the Van Gogh Museum expressed his opinion on the tragic events from the artist's biography. “I think that Vincent van Gogh did it to protect the boys, he accepted the “accident” as a way out of a life burdened with difficulties. But I think the biggest problem you will feel after the publication of your theory. Suicide became kind of self-evident truth is final stories of a martyr for art. This is Vincent van Gogh's crown of thorns."