Born March 30th, 1853, Vincent van Gogh would go on to become one of the most legendary figures in all of art history. But there are still many things most people don't know about the troubled painter.
A self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh. Image Source: Wikipedia
One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Vincent Van Gogh sadly did not live long enough to see the extent of his legacy. Only 37 years old when he died, the Impressionist painter lived a brief life, marred by madness — and one which we know a lot about, thanks to the frequency with which he penned letters to his family and few friends.
That said, there are still some interesting facets of van Gogh’s life that are not such common knowledge…
1. There were four Vincent van Goghs.
Vincent van Gogh the artist was named after his older stillborn brother Vincent, who was in turn named after their grandfather. Another of van Gogh’s brothers, Theo, fathered a son – whom he named Vincent Willem van Gogh.
2. Van Gogh likely suffered from multiple mental illnesses.
One of van Gogh’s earlier works, titled The Potato Eaters.
Many modern-day psychiatrists have attempted to diagnose van Gogh’s illness from the symptoms he appeared to have exhibited over his life, including hallucinations, depression, and seizures. The probable diagnoses include schizophrenia, syphilis, manic depression, hypergraphia, Geschwind’s syndrome, and temporal lobe epilepsy.
If family anecdotes are to be relied upon, one could also make a case that he fell somewhere along the autism spectrum. Describing Van Gogh as a child, his sister Elizabeth said he was “intensely serious and uncommunicative, and walked around clumsily and in a daze, with his head hung low.
Not only were his little sisters and brothers like strangers to him, but he was a stranger to himself.” Biographer Charles Moffatt noted that he had an “inability to read the intent and emotions of others.”
3. He didn’t start drawing or painting until age 27.
Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889, National Gallery, London. Image Source: Wikipedia (en)
After being thrown out of his family home following a string of failed career attempts (art dealer, teacher, bookstore clerk, pastor), van Gogh began drawing. A year later, he acquired painting supplies thanks to his brother Theo, who was willing to monetarily support Vincent during this time.
As it happened, Theo would ultimately be responsible for van Gogh’s financial survival for the remaining decade of the troubled artist’s life.
4. He loved, and lived with, a prostitute.
Bedroom in Arles, 1888.
Van Gogh had a few crushes, including both his widowed cousin and a disinterested upper class woman named Eugenia. Once he left his family home in Holland and moved to The Hague, however, he mainly commiserated with prostitutes. Van Gogh had a favorite named Sien, whom he lived with and took care of — he even helped raise her baby for a time.
Van Gogh sketched many portraits of Sien and cared for her a great deal, but she drove a wedge between the artist and his family. At his brother Theo’s urging, van Gogh left her and moved to Drenthe, another province in the Netherlands. Although he had some other unsuccessful relationships, he died alone.
5. The colors we see in his paintings are not as he intended.
Art lovers revel in the rich hues present in van Gogh’s work, but the colors we see are not, in fact, what the artist meant for us to see — specifically the yellow tones. Like many artists of the time, van Gogh used an unstable pigment called chrome yellow that was prone to fading or browning over time. The chemical change is irreversible, so we can only imagine the luminosity the paintings once held.
As for van Gogh’s common usage of the color yellow, biographer Charles Moffatt believes it reflects points of time when van Gogh was on a bi-polar upswing.
6. He was the king of post-impressionistic selfies.
A rare photograph of van Gogh. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
In a period of three years, van Gogh produced over 43 self-portraits. While tempting to consider this an exercise in vanity, it’s more likely that this was a result of poverty, in both an emotional and financial sense. The artist didn’t have the funds to pay for professional models, and given the overall lack of human interaction in his life, finding friends to pose for him would have been just as difficult.
7. His relationship with painter Paul Gauguin was likely homosexual.
A portrait of Vincent van Gogh by Paul Gauguin.
The two lived as roommates for a time in the South of France. An article in Harvard Magazine states that “[van Gogh’s] medical biographers agree that his adulthood included periods of hypersexuality, hyposexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality,” and that “his stormy homosexual affair with the painter Paul Gauguin included endless, often argumentative discussions.”
Van Gogh described their bond as “electric,” and although it may have had its high points, it also saw its fair share of tumult which did not shy away from violence.
8. Scholars speculate that Gauguin actually cut off van Gogh’s ear.
The famed ear-slicing incident is often told this way: van Gogh and Gauguin had a quarrel that escalated to the point that van Gogh threatened Gauguin with a razor. Possibly acting out in a manic fit (as van Gogh was oft known to do), instead of harming Gauguin, van Gogh sliced off part of his own ear – later giving it to a prostitute.
However, a couple of German scholars have written a book promoting the theory that Gauguin, who fenced, severed part of van Gogh’s ear during the argument with his fencing saber. As this theory goes, van Gogh didn’t want to risk Gauguin going to jail, so he said he cut the ear off himself.
Adding substance to this theory, in a subsequent letter to Theo, van Gogh wrote that “Luckily Gauguin…is not yet armed with machine guns and other dangerous war weapons.” He later said he had no recollection of the night in question.
9. He created some of his most iconic work while locked in an asylum.
Starry Night, 1889. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Van Gogh had a mental breakdown in the winter of 1888, and checked himself into an asylum – the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. He painted his most famous work, Starry Night, while there. While the painting is perhaps the one most commonly associated with his name, van Gogh was not pleased with it.
In fact, he considered it to be a complete failure (among the other works he painted at the asylum), saying that neither “Starry Night” nor the other paintings made while there meant anything to him.
10. His death may have been homicide, not suicide.
Press coverage of Vincent Van Gogh’s death, which said that he shot himself.
Though the man was deeply troubled and often depressed, there is some doubt that van Gogh’s death was caused by self-inflicted wounds. It is purported that van Gogh shot himself in the stomach while painting in a field, then walked back to the inn where he was staying (which was a mile away) to die.
However, co-authors of van Gogh’s biography theorize that instead of suicide, he was accidentally shot by a young teen who used to mock him. Feeling that the boy had done him a favor, the authors suggest that van Gogh never attempted to seek help for the wound.
Evidence to support this idea includes the absence of any gun or painting supplies in the field where the shooting supposedly took place, and a man reporting hearing a gunshot closer to the inn where van Gogh was that day, rather than the field.
11. Van Gogh’s sister-in-law made him famous.
Irises, 1889.
Without the insistence of Theo’s wife Johanna, van Gogh’s name would have likely faded into oblivion. Upon inheriting hundreds of paintings after both Vincent and Theo’s deaths, she made it her mission to promote van Gogh’s work, and loaned pieces to various exhibitions. She also had all of van Gogh’s letters published in an effort to have his life story heard.
After Johanna died, her only child with Theo (who you’ll remember was also named Vincent) founded the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 1973. All the paintings, which now officially belonged to him, were eventually moved to this location.
If you enjoyed this look at the life of Vincent van Gogh, don’t forget to check out the ways his legacy lives on, and learn a little bit about the surrealist movement that borrowed elements from van Gogh’s career.
