"Encyclopedia of Death. Chronicles of Charon»

Part 2: Dictionary of Chosen Deaths

The ability to live well and die well is one and the same science.

Epicurus

VAN GOGH Vincent

(1853-1890) Dutch painter

It is known that Van Gogh suffered bouts of insanity, one of which even led to the fact that he cut off part of his ear. A little over a year before his death, Van Gogh voluntarily decided to settle in an asylum for the mentally ill in Saint-Paul-de-Mosole (France). Here he was given a separate room, which at the same time served as a workshop; he had the opportunity, accompanied by a minister, to wander around the neighborhood to paint landscapes. Here, for the first and last time in his life, a painting was bought from him - a certain Anna Bosch paid 400 francs for the painting "Red Vine".

On July 29, 1890, after dinner, Van Gogh left the orphanage alone, without a servant. He wandered around the field a little, then went into the peasant's yard. The owners were not at home. Van Gogh took out a gun and shot himself in the heart. The shot was not as accurate as his strokes. The bullet hit the costal bone, deviated and missed the heart. Clamping the wound with his hand, the artist returned to the shelter and went to bed.

Doctor Mazri was called from the nearest village and the police. Either the wound did not cause Van Gogh great suffering, or he was insensitive to physical pain (recall the story with the cut off ear), but only when the police arrived, he calmly smoked a pipe, lying in bed.

At night he died. Van Gogh's body was placed on a billiard table, and his paintings were hung on the walls. Dr. Gachet, who treated the artist, sketched this scene with a pencil.

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 a mental illness for a year and a half - 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, became the most fruitful stage of his creative life: in 70 days he created 75 paintings and over 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.

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."

According to official documents, the great artist Vincent van Gogh committed suicide while suffering from hallucinations, deep depression and a creative block. "Everything was wrong!" - say the Pulitzer Prize winners, writers Stephen Knyfe and Gregory White Smith, who created the monograph “Van Gogh. Life".

According to their version, ostensibly confirmed by an outstanding criminologist, Dr. Vincent di Maio, the famous painter ... was shot with a revolver. However, here's a riddle within a riddle, or, if you like, a “matryoshka of history”: everything was, most likely, not the way it is, as, at the suggestion of two “star” writers, the world press is now telling. We invite readers of "Secrets of the 20th century" to take part with us in uncovering the secrets of the 19th century. And to draw a conclusion for ourselves about who, most likely, dealt with the Dutch "slave of honor."

Depression before death?

There is nothing surprising in the fact that the famous painter was initially, and posthumously, surrounded by a veil of secrets and rumors. Suffice it to recall the "known fact" according to which the painter cut off his ear. Firstly, not all, but only a piece of the ear, and secondly, according to many historical documents, Vincent's close friend and also a painting legend, Paul Gauguin, is guilty of such self-mutilation. This is also the case with depression, the "creative crisis", they say, which pushed the artist to suicide. Let's compare the rumors with the fact: Van Gogh, having left Paris in May 1890 and moved to the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, 30 kilometers from the French capital, created 80 paintings and 60 sketches three months before his death. Actually, this creative fertility led two Pulitzer Prize winners - Nyfi and Smith - to the idea that it is unlikely that the painter at the very peak of his form suddenly decided to commit suicide.

The writers dug into the archives and were, without any exaggeration, shocked by the results of their search. Van Gogh did not at all "shoot himself in the chest with a gun," as tabloid journalists wrote about it. On that fateful day, July 27, 1890, the artist returned to the Auberge Ravou hotel, where he lived as a guest, from the open air - with a canvas in his hands and ... a gunshot wound in his stomach. He died only 29 hours later, having managed to utter a strange phrase in response to the question of the police about suicide: “Yes, of course!”

So, our researchers - Stephen Nyfi and Gregory White Smith - had a version that, most likely, Van Gogh was mortally wounded by a person (people), whose name (names) he for some reason did not want to name. And really! It is unlikely that the artist went plein air to the fields near Auvers-sur-Oise, shot himself in the stomach, and then did not save himself from torment by making a coupe-de-grace (“a blow of compassion”, in other words, a control shot), and returned to die in the hotel. Moreover, without parting with the easel, which was very difficult for the wounded to drag.

What did Vincent di Maio "confirm"

Vincent di Maio, to whom Knifi and Smith turned with a request to refute or confirm their guesses about the mysterious massacre of Van Gogh, is a high-class criminologist. If you read not reprints of journalistic articles, but di Maio's statements, coupled with a monograph by two Pulitzer Prize winners, you can come to the conclusion that the outstanding criminologist, with his impartial (and highly professional) conclusions, only ... awakened the fantasy of Van Gogh's new biographers.

Do you want proof? Please. We read di Maio. He reports that according to the description of the artist’s mortal wound, one can come to the following conclusion: the muzzle of the fatal pistol was at a distance of 30-70 centimeters from the artist’s body, moreover, in order to hit himself in the stomach at exactly this angle, he would have to shoot with his left hand. Although, as the forensicist writes, "using the right hand would be even more absurd." And finally: due to the fact that black powder was used in 1890, it should have left a black mark on the shooter's hand. Experts who examined the body of the late painter did not record such a trace.

So, as we see, di Maio rejects the version of the artist's suicide. Vincent writes about the famous namesake in his article: "He didn't shoot himself."

Now we open the book of Nyfi and Smith. And we read in it that Van Gogh, they say, was accidentally shot dead ... by two drunken village teenagers, with whom he allegedly played Indians! Di Maio has nothing to do with this version. And what's more - there are not only documents confirming the "cowboy" version, but even eyewitness accounts that Vincent van Gogh, in between the creation of "Wheat Field with Crows" (the last work of the painter, he brought it to the hotel) , played with some nameless and, moreover, armed undergrowths.

Bottom line: the famous criminologist confirmed the very fact of the murder of Van Gogh, but has nothing to do with the version of the "village teenagers". Let's leave this version on the conscience of Nyfi and Smith. Let's leave it, thanking them for making public the fact that some writings found in Van Gogh's pocket immediately after his death were not a "suicide note" at all, but a draft of a message to his brother Theo, with whom the "unconditional suicide" ... shared his plans for future. (By the way, shortly before settling accounts with his life, Vincent made a large order for paints.) Let's leave it and venture to name the most likely killer of Van Gogh. And let the reader judge for himself whose version - Nyfi with Smith or ours - deserves a greater right to exist.

Van Gogh's killer name

It cannot be said that in Auvers-sur-Oise the great artist was an object of worship for the locals. He was treated rather cautiously. Moreover, not far from the hotel, where the artist was a guest, there lived a certain drunkard and buzzer named René Secretan. This man literally could not stand the maestro.

The German historian Hannes Wellmann claims that “Monsieur Secretan harassed the painter day after day” and, in addition, possessed an officially registered revolver, a bullet from which could inflict a wound similar to that described by the criminologist di Maio.

However, this is not enough. Working with the archives, the researcher found eyewitness accounts who testified that the last skirmish between Secretan and Van Gogh took place on the fateful day of July 27, 1890 - at the moment when the painter was heading to the open air past the house of his eternal offender.

Of course, a German researcher, brought up in the spirit of European legal consciousness - "no one can be called a criminal without a corresponding court decision" - does not categorically call René Secretan the murderer of Vincent van Gogh. And besides, he delicately bypasses the cause of quarrels between a local reveler and a visiting celebrity. Meanwhile, this reason is extremely important. For, without knowing her, it is difficult to answer the decisive question: why did biographers rush to record Van Gogh as a suicide?

The last mystery of Van Gogh's "suicide"

We follow in the footsteps of a German explorer. We study archives. And we discover an amazing fact. An aborigine from Auvers-sur-Oise accused the stranger of "unnatural interest in underage girls", namely, the daughters of the owner of the hotel in which he lived: 12-year-old Adeline Rava and her younger sister Germaine. A scandalous circumstance: according to a number of data, Rene ... was simply jealous of the “lucky rival”, attributing to him his own not too clean thoughts.

Did the Secretan have grounds to accuse the artist of "partial interest" in Adeline and Germaine and to slander Vincent in the circle of regulars like himself, regulars in the haunts? There were. Rather, not reasons, but reasons that have acquired the status of facts in a brain destroyed by alcohol.

Both Adeline and Germain were Van Gogh's models. And, judging by the written memoirs of Adeline Ravou, at that very young age she felt sympathy for the artist: “You immediately forgot about the lack of charm in him, you barely noticed how admiringly he looks at the children.” Believe me, dear readers: from these indisputable facts, we do not at all want - and we would not allow ourselves - to draw conclusions worthy only of the tabloid press. It's about something else: the completely Platonic sympathy of the young model for the creator was the reason, to put it mildly, for the local resident's dislike for the new artist. And then - we look at the facts, and they add up to a fatal mosaic. On July 14, 1890, Van Gogh finishes work on the portrait of Adeline Ravou, and on July 26 he gives the portrait of the girl to her father, Arthur-Gustav. And a day later - a skirmish with Rene Secretan, recorded by eyewitnesses. Hike to the open air and return with a fatal wound.

Sold without haggling

The version that Monsieur Secretan followed the "rival" into the fields, where the fatal shot soon sounded, explains many of the mysteries that remain in the "Van Gogh case" even after the sensational investigation of Nyfi, Smith and di Maio. It becomes clear why the painter did not want to tell the police the name of his executioner - most likely, he was afraid to tarnish the honor of the young Adeline Rava. The conspiracy of silence of the French criminologists of the 19th century around the circumstances of Van Gogh's death becomes clear.

And here is another interesting point, testifying in favor of the fact that Arthur-Gustav, Adeline's father, knew the background of the tragedy, and she was at least unpleasant to Rav. Shortly after the death of the eminent guest, the owner of the Auberge Ravout hotel sold both portraits of his daughter, painted by Van Gogh and given to him as payment for the stay. Sold both, without bargaining, for ... 40 francs. Although, if not in a hurry, I could gain an order of magnitude more ...

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 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 art gallery owner started from a “blank 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 man of the people", and his work was "harmony between art and life" and a forerunner of the new Grand 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 was a large family that never left him without support, although they were 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, family-based antiques 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 the 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 heightened sense of the new and an excellent businessman, Theo was one of the first to see the advent of a 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. Upstairs, in his own apartment, he held "moving exhibitions" of pictures 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 of the 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 bohemian world 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 of 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 of 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 the well-known critics Gustave Kahn and Felix Fénelon, in their reviews of the exhibitions of the "independent", as the avant-garde artists were then called, have singled out Van Gogh's fresh and vibrant works. 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 was a great artist, the heir of Rembrandt and Hals. He wrote this in his article, entirely devoted to the work of 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.

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 the favorite expression of the American artist Whistler: "I did it in two hours, but I worked for years to do something worthwhile in these 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 this as the effect of absinthe, an alcoholic drink infused with wormwood, whose destructive effect on the 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.

The famous story with the ear is very doubtful. 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 a whole series of works, where the ill-fated field is depicted compressed.

The "know-how" of the main author of the Van Gogh myth, Julius Meyer-Gref, is not just a lie, but the presentation of fictional events mixed with true facts, and even in the form of impeccable scientific work. For example, the true fact that Van Gogh liked to work in the open air because he did not tolerate the smell of turpentine, which is diluted with paints, was used by the "biographer" 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 the furnished rooms in Auvers, where Van Gogh lived in the last 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 Land of the Rising Sun, the great Dutchman, thanks to the legend, 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 painting 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 a scientific publication of the 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: a romantic fairy tale is always more attractive for him than the “prose of life”, no matter how great it may be.

At the age of 37, on July 27, 1890, the amazing and unique artist Vincent van Gogh committed suicide. In the afternoon, he went out into a wheat field behind the small French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, located a few kilometers from Paris, and fired a revolver into his chest.

Prior to that, for a year and a half, he had suffered from mental disorders, ever since he cut off his own ear in 1888.

The Last Days of an Artist

After that high-profile incident of self-harm, Van Gogh was tormented by periodic but debilitating attacks of insanity, which turned him into an embittered and inadequate person. He could stay in this state from several days to several weeks. In the periods between attacks, the artist was calm and thought clearly. These days, he loved to draw and seemed to be trying to make up for the time taken from him. For ten and a few years of creativity, Van Gogh created several thousand works, including oil paintings, drawings and sketches.

His last creative period, spent in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, turned out to be the most productive. After Van Gogh left the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, he settled in the picturesque Auvers. In just over two months spent there, he completed 75 oil paintings and drew over a hundred drawings.

Death of Van Gogh

Despite the extraordinary productivity, the artist did not cease to be tormented by feelings of anxiety and loneliness. Van Gogh became more and more convinced that his life was worthless and was wasted. Perhaps the reason for this was the lack of recognition of his talent by his contemporaries. Despite the novelty of artistic expression and the unique style of paintings, Vincent van Gogh rarely received laudatory reviews for his work.

Ultimately, the desperate artist found a small pocket revolver that belonged to the owner of the boarding house where Van Gogh lived. He took a weapon in the field and shot himself in the heart. However, due to the small size of the revolver and the small caliber, the bullet got stuck in the rib and did not reach the target.

Wounded, Van Gogh lost consciousness and fell into a field, dropping his revolver. In the evening, after dark, he came to his senses and tried to finish what he started, but could not find a weapon. With difficulty, he returned to the boarding house, where the owners called the doctor and the artist's brother. Theo arrived the next day and did not leave the wounded man's bed. For some time, Theodore hoped that the artist would recover, but Vincent van Gogh intended to die, and on the night of July 29, 1890, he died at the age of 37, saying to his brother in the end: "That's exactly how I wanted to leave."

On the verge of insanity

Today, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam opened a new exhibition called "On the Edge of Madness". It reveals in detail, carefully and as objectively as possible the life of the artist in the last year and a half, at that very time, overshadowed by bouts of madness.

Despite the fact that it does not give an exact answer to the question of what exactly the artist suffered from, the exhibition presents the viewers with still unexhibited exhibits related to the life of Van Gogh, and a number of his latest works.

Possible diagnoses

As for the diagnosis, over the years there have been a lot of different theories, well-founded and not very well-founded, regarding what Vincent van Gogh actually suffered from, what his insanity consisted of. Both epilepsy and schizophrenia were considered. In addition, among the possible ailments were listed a split personality, complications of alcohol dependence and psychopathy.

Van Gogh's first recorded bout of insanity and violence was in December 1988, when, as a result of conflicts with his friend Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh attacked him with a razor. Nothing is known for certain about the causes and course of this particular quarrel, but as a result, in a fit of repentance, Van Gogh cut off his own ear with this very razor.

There are many theories about the causes of self-harm and even doubts about the very fact of self-harm. Many believe that Van Gogh hid Paul Gauguin from responsibility and trial in this way. However, this theory has no practical evidence.

Saint Remy de Provence

After a bout of violence, the artist was taken to a psychiatric hospital, where everything continued until Van Gogh was placed in a ward for especially violent patients. At that time, the diagnosis of psychiatrists was epilepsy.

After the attack ended, Van Gogh asked to be allowed back to Arles so that he could continue painting. However, on the recommendation of doctors, the artist was transferred to a mental hospital located near Arles. Van Gogh lived in Saint-Remy-de-Provence for almost a year. There he painted about 150 paintings, most of which are landscapes and still lifes.

The tension and anxiety that tormented the artist during this period are reflected in the extraordinary dynamism of his canvases and the use of darker tones. One of the most famous works of Van Gogh - "Starry Night" - was created during this period.

Curious exhibits

The exhibition "On the Threshold of Madness", despite the lack of precise diagnoses, gives an unusually visual and emotional account of the last stage of the artist's life. In addition to the paintings that Van Gogh worked on in recent days, there are letters from his brother Theo, notes from a doctor who treated the artist in Arles, and even a revolver from which the artist shot himself in the chest.

The revolver was found in that same field seventy years after Van Gogh's death. Its model and corrosion confirm that this is the same weapon that inflicted a mortal wound on the artist.

A note in a letter from Dr. Felix Rey, who was treating the artist after a sensational razor incident, contains a diagram showing exactly how Van Gogh's ear was cut off. Until now, it has often been mentioned that the artist cut off his earlobe. It follows from the letter that Van Gogh cut off the auricle almost completely, leaving only part of the lower lobe.

The final stage of creativity

The exhibition is interesting not only for those who are interested in the life and death of the great artist, but also for fans of his work, since the canvases, drawings and sketches presented in it appear before the viewer in a different light.

Against the background of evidence of the artist's practical insanity, the latest paintings look like a kind of visual timeline, showing when the artist visited periods of clarity and peace, and when he was tormented by anxiety.

last picture

The last painting that Van Gogh worked on in the morning of that very July day is called “Roots of Trees”. The painting remained unfinished.

At first glance, the painting is an abstract composition, unlike anything the artist has depicted before on his canvases. However, upon closer examination, an image of an unusual landscape emerges, in which the main role is assigned to the closely intertwined tree roots.

In many ways, "Tree Roots" is an innovative composition, even for Van Gogh - there is not a single point of focus in it, and it does not follow the rules. The picture seems to herald the onset of abstractionism.

At the same time, considering this painting as part of the exhibition "On the Threshold of Madness", it is difficult not to evaluate it retrospectively. Is there a secret in it and what is it? Involuntarily, questions are asked: while painting the intertwined tree roots, what was the artist thinking about, who in a few hours will try to shoot at his own heart?