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The myth of Vincent Van Gogh, the mad artist
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has captivated us for over a century now.
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Ignored during his lifetime,
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after his death, his paintings finally surfaced,
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or rather exploded,
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capturing the world in vibrant, vivid colours.
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Today, they are among the most recognisable and valuable works of art in the world �
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My brush goes between my fingers as if it were the bow on a violin,
and absolutely for my pleasure.
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When we think of van Gogh, we see him as a strange, mad genius
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who somehow, through sheer instinct, found a way of pouring out the blaze
of his inner feelings onto canvas.
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Let me quietly continue my work.
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If it's that or the madman, well, then too bad.
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And then I can't do anything about it.
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But his work has often been eclipsed by his reputation as a madman.
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Vincent and I can absolutely not live side by side without trouble.
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There's simply no changing the fact that he's eccentric.
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It is an incredible story,
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but the true story of Vincetn van Gogh is here in the letters he left behind.
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Nothing can be said about van Gogh that he didn't say himself.
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There are 902 letters here,
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the vast majority written to his younger brother Theo,
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who became his confidant and his lifeline.
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This is Vincent thinking aloud, taking us through his life
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step by step, documenting his struggles as an artist and as a man.
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It's from these letters that this film is made.
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Using only van Gogh's words and those of the people around him.
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Nothing is imagined.
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Every word spoken is true.
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On the night of December the 23rd, 1888,
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Vincent van Gogh suffered an acute mental breakdown
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and cut off part of his left ear,
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which he presented to a prostitute in his favourite brothel.
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The police discovered him lying in a pool of blood in his bedroom
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and committed him here, to the local hospital in Arles,
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where he was placed in an isolation cell.
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This is van Gogh's story in his own words.
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'My dear Theo�
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'.. where can I go that's worse than where I've already been?
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'Shut up for long days under lock and key and in the isolation cell. '
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I still have a certain "what's the good of getting better?" feeling,
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however the unbearable,
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unbearable hallucinations have stopped�
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�reducing themselves to simple nightmares.
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Physically, I am well,
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the wound is closing very well
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and the great loss of blood is balancing out.
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The most fearsome thing
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is the insomnia.
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I feel weak,
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a little anxious
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and fearful.
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My dear brother,
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it breaks my heart to know that now you will actually have very bad days.
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I do so wish that you could tell me how you feel.
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For nothing is as distressing as uncertainty.
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I remain your brother who loves you.
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Theo
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A certain number of people from here have addressed a petition to the mayor
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designating me as a man not fit for living at liberty.
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As the managing agent of the house occupied
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by Mr Vincent van Gogh, I had occasion to speak with him yesterday
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and to observe that he is suffering from mental disturbance.
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He insults my customers,
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and is prone to interfering with women from the neighbourhood,
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whom he follows into their residences.
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I was seized round the waist outside Mrs Crevlin's shop by this individual.
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In short, this madman is becoming a threat to public safety,
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and everyone is demanding that he be confined to a special establishment.
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And this is the petition,
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filed in the police records in Arles,
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and signed by 30 of his neighbours.
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The chief of police then gave the order to have me locked up.
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'I won't hide from you that I would prefer to die than cause and bear so much trouble.
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'To suffer without complaining is the only lesson that has to be learned in this life. '
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Vincent�s childhood was the product of a strict Calvinist upbringing.
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His father was a minister in the Dutch Reform Church,
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and he was brought up in Zundert, a small town in the Netherlands.
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He was sent away to boarding school,
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where he was taught the rudiments of drawing,
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and excelled in foreign languages.
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He left at the age of 16,
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when he started an apprenticeship
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with the international art dealers, Goupil.
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Three years later, Theo followed in his footsteps.
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This is when the letters begin.
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Vincent was 19 years old,
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and Theo just 15.
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'My dear Theo,
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'I'm so glad that both of us are now in the same line of business and in the same firm.
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'We must correspond often.
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'The love between two brothers is a great support in life,
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'that's an age-old truth.
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'Let the fire of love between us not be extinguished,
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but let instead the 'experience of life make that bond even stronger -
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'let us remain upright
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'and candid with each other. '
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Let there be no secrets,
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as things stand today.
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In May 1873,
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Vincent was transferred to Goupil�s London office in Covent Garden.
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He moved to Brixton -
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then a prosperous, middle-class neighbourhood.
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I crossed Westminster Bridge every morning and evening
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and know what it looks like
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when the sun's setting behind Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.
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His apprenticeship at Goupil was beginning to train his eye in art,
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and his enthusiasm extended beyond office hours.
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We know that because this visitors' book at the British Museum
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shows that on August 28 1874,
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van Gogh was the fourth visitor of the day,
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and he came to see this drawing
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attributed to Rembrandt.
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The figure of our lord, noble and impressive,
stands out gravely against the window.
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I hope not to forget that drawing,
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nor what it seems to be saying to me.
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Vincent became an ardent visitor
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to London's great museums and galleries.
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And he shared with Theo his growing enthusiasm for the art and literature
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he was becoming increasingly attached to.
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English art didn't appeal to me much at first,
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one has to get used to it.
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But there are some good artists here.
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Millais, who painted Huguenot and Ophelia - they're very beautiful.
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And then there's Turner,
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after whom you'll probably have seen engravings.
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"Where are the songs of spring?
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"Aye, where are they?
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"Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
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"while barred clouds bloom
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"the soft-dying day, and touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue. "
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The last few days I've enjoyed reading the poems of John Keats.
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He's a poet who isn't very well known in Holland, I believe, but
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he's a favourite of the painters here, which is
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how I came to be reading him.
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Vincent developed a passion for English popular art,
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as seen in the black and white prints in The Graphic and Illustrated London News,
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eventually collecting a thousand of them.
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In my view, prints like these together form a kind of Bible
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for an artist, in which he reads now and again to get into a mood.
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It's good not only to know them but to have them in the studio once and for all.
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For me, the English draughtsmen are what Dickens is in the sphere of literature.
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Noble and healthy, and something one always comes back to.
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Amongst his collection was this print of Dickens' empty chair.
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The social realist subject matter of the prints
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and Dickens' writings about London's working class
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living in squalid poverty,
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left a lasting impression on Vincent.
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"The mud lay thick upon the stones
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"and a black mist hung over the streets.
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"The hideous, old man seemed like some loathsome reptile,
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"crawling forth by night,
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"in search of some rich offal for a meal. "
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There's such a yearning for religion among the people in those big cities.
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Many a worker in a factory or shop
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has had a remarkably pious, pure youth.
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George Eliot describes the life of factory workers
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who hold religious services in a chapel in Lantern Yard.
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"The pulpit
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"where the minister delivered unquestioned doctrine, and swayed
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"to and fro�"
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".. and handled the book in a long-accustomed manner.
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"These had been the channel of divine influences
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"for Silas Marner.
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"They were the fostering home of his religious emotions,
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"they were Christianity
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"and God's kingdom upon Earth. "
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Reading George Eliot's novels about English evangelism
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reminded Vincent of his own upbringing in a religious home.
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Wanting now to follow in his father's footsteps,
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he immersed himself in the study of the Bible.
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But his preoccupation with religion
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led him to neglect his duties in the art firm,
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so he was fired.
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He now tried to get a position as a teacher's assistant,
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hoping this would help him reach his goal of entering the church.
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'Dear Theo,
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'I received a letter from a teacher in Ramsgate, who suggested that I come there for a month,
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'without pay, in order to see whether he can use me at the end of that time.
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'It's a beautiful route.
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'The sky was a light blue, with grey and white clouds. '
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'You can imagine, I was looking out of the window for Ramsgate
a long time before I got there. '
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Herewith, a little drawing of the view from the school window.
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Where the boys stand and watch their parents going back
to the station after a visit.
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Determined to make himself useful to those he saw suffering around him,
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Vincent taught Sunday school to children from the London markets and streets.
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And on the 12th November 1876,
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he delivered his first sermon.
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We are pilgrims in the earth and strangers.
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We come from afar and we are going far.
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The journey of our life goes from the
loving breast of our Mother on Earth
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to the arms of our Father in heaven.
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Theo,
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your brother spoke for the first time in God's house last Sunday.
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When I stood up on the pulpit,
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I felt like someone emerging out of a dark,
underground vault into the friendly daylight, and
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it's a wonderful feeling
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to think that from wherever I go from now on, I'll be preaching the gospel.
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Religion came to dominate his letters to his family,
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with his Biblical fanaticism seeping into the language.
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My brother, let us take care.
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Let us ask Him who is above,
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who also maketh intercession for us, that He should keep us from the evil.
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Yea, let us watch and be sober, let us trust in the Lord with all of our heart,
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and lean not unto our own understanding.
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Let us ask that He compel us to come in.
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To be meek,
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longsuffering and lowly,
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sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
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He writes many letters,
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long ones too,
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and when reading them,
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one is inclined to say how can
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a simple clergyman come out of this?
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And then again there is
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nevertheless something good in them as well.
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When Vincent returned to Holland,
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his father agreed to support his preparation to enter the ministry.
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But he struggled with his studies,
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and quit after a year.
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The only option left to him was missionary work,
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and in January 1879
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he was appointed as a lay-preacher in the Borinage,
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a coal-mining district in Belgium.
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Going down in a mine is an unpleasant business,
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in a kind of basket or cage like a bucket in a well,
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so that down there looking upward,
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the daylight appears to be about as big as a star in the sky.
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The workers get used to it, but
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even so, they never shake off an unconquerable feeling of horror and dread.
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Vincent was truly sickened by the plight of the miners' lives.
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Nursing the sick and injured
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became just as important to him as preaching.
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He gave away most of his possessions
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in the hope of alleviating their suffering.
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But once again, after his six month trial,
he failed to make the grade.
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Vincent was jobless once more.
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His father was so concerned about his state of mind
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that he considered having him committed to a psychiatric hospital.
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I, for one,
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am a man of passions,
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capable and liable to do rather foolish things
for which I sometimes feel rather sorry.
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For example, you know well that I've neglected my appearance.
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I admit it's rather shocking.
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Must one consider oneself a dangerous man incapable of anything at all? I don't think so.
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Money troubles - ha!
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And poverty have something to do with it.
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Now you say, from such and such a time you've been going downhill, you've faded away,
248
00:17:31,255 --> 00:17:32,367
you've done nothing.
249
00:17:34,259 --> 00:17:36,017
Now that being so, what's to be done?
250
00:17:40,513 --> 00:17:42,297
Theo worried about his brother,
251
00:17:42,631 --> 00:17:46,147
but recognising a talent in Vincent's sketches of the miners,
252
00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:50,325
encouraged him to apply himself more seriously to art.
253
00:17:52,280 --> 00:17:57,312
Vincent, being his own man, wasn't really interested in following any traditional art education.
254
00:17:58,114 --> 00:18:01,769
Instead, he taught himself using this artist's manual
255
00:18:01,770 --> 00:18:02,713
by Charles Bargue.
256
00:18:05,836 --> 00:18:11,110
'Careful study and constant repeated drawing of Bargue's exercises
257
00:18:11,785 --> 00:18:14,358
'has given me more insight into figure drawing.
258
00:18:18,473 --> 00:18:22,209
'I've learned to measure and to see and to attempt the broad outlines, etc,
259
00:18:22,221 --> 00:18:26,323
'so that what used to seem to me to be desperately impossible is now gradually
260
00:18:27,422 --> 00:18:28,582
'becoming possible.
261
00:18:33,846 --> 00:18:37,171
'Drawing is the root of everything. '
262
00:18:40,204 --> 00:18:41,708
After years in the wilderness,
263
00:18:42,281 --> 00:18:45,453
Vincent had finally found his vocation.
264
00:18:45,903 --> 00:18:48,380
My plan is not to spare myself,
265
00:18:49,253 --> 00:18:52,336
not to avoid a lot of difficulties and emotions.
266
00:18:53,231 --> 00:18:56,798
It's of a relative indifference to me whether I live a long or short time.
267
00:18:57,932 --> 00:19:00,530
I'm concerned with the world only
268
00:19:00,650 --> 00:19:03,802
in that I have a certain...
269
00:19:03,922 --> 00:19:05,140
obligation, or duty,
270
00:19:05,754 --> 00:19:09,053
if you like, having walked the world for 30 years to leave
271
00:19:10,764 --> 00:19:13,515
a souvenir of gratitude in the form
272
00:19:14,144 --> 00:19:15,176
of paintings
273
00:19:15,965 --> 00:19:16,946
or drawings.
274
00:19:21,047 --> 00:19:24,181
Van Gogh was from the very beginning, and would remain,
275
00:19:24,301 --> 00:19:25,417
a man of the people,
276
00:19:25,964 --> 00:19:30,372
identifying with the peasants, the working class,
with the outcasts.
277
00:19:31,374 --> 00:19:36,712
And all his letters from now on document his single-minded immersion in art
278
00:19:36,954 --> 00:19:40,330
- his own and the work of those he most admired.
279
00:19:41,232 --> 00:19:44,570
In particular the French artist Jean Francois Millet,
280
00:19:44,825 --> 00:19:48,430
famous for his realistic scenes of peasant farmers' lives.
281
00:19:49,979 --> 00:19:53,635
I feel the need to study figure drawing from masters like Millet.
282
00:19:54,412 --> 00:19:59,317
"In art, one must give one's heart and soul," he says.
283
00:20:03,831 --> 00:20:09,500
'I have already drawn The Sower five times, and I'm so completely
absorbed in that figure, I will take it up again.
284
00:20:12,052 --> 00:20:12,728
'Nature...
285
00:20:13,492 --> 00:20:16,689
'always begins by resisting the draughtsman.
286
00:20:18,578 --> 00:20:22,693
'It sometimes resembles what Shakespeare calls taming the shrew,
287
00:20:23,330 --> 00:20:27,190
'ie to conquer the opposition through perseverance,
288
00:20:27,903 --> 00:20:28,540
willy-nilly.
289
00:20:32,129 --> 00:20:35,122
'If I succeed in putting some warmth and love into the work,
290
00:20:36,552 --> 00:20:37,750
'then it will find friends. '
291
00:20:43,941 --> 00:20:46,683
Although Vincent was able to put love into his work,
292
00:20:47,244 --> 00:20:49,702
it was proving difficult to find in his life.
293
00:20:51,193 --> 00:20:53,524
He was back home living with his parents.
294
00:20:54,112 --> 00:20:57,399
His widowed cousin Kee Voss came to visit the parsonage,
295
00:20:57,832 --> 00:21:00,278
and Vincent fell madly in love with her.
296
00:21:04,992 --> 00:21:08,661
From the beginning of this love I've felt that unless I threw myself into it
297
00:21:09,706 --> 00:21:11,069
unreservedly,
298
00:21:11,553 --> 00:21:15,340
committing myself to it whole-heartedly, fully and forever, then
299
00:21:16,308 --> 00:21:18,104
there would be absolutely no chance for me.
300
00:21:20,660 --> 00:21:24,329
But does it matter to me if the chance is smaller or larger? I mean,
301
00:21:25,488 --> 00:21:28,112
must I, can I, take that into account
302
00:21:28,877 --> 00:21:29,730
when I love?
303
00:21:32,287 --> 00:21:32,670
No
304
00:21:34,236 --> 00:21:35,549
no thought to the winnings.
305
00:21:38,338 --> 00:21:40,236
One loves because one loves.
306
00:21:42,299 --> 00:21:44,694
But this love was not reciprocated,
307
00:21:45,318 --> 00:21:47,204
and it embarrassed his parents,
308
00:21:47,484 --> 00:21:49,356
who thought he was shaming the family.
309
00:21:50,286 --> 00:21:52,949
His uncle forbade Vincent from seeing Kee.
310
00:21:53,622 --> 00:21:55,482
But he bombarded her with letters,
311
00:21:56,412 --> 00:21:57,036
and then�
312
00:21:57,393 --> 00:21:58,820
I went to Amsterdam.
313
00:22:00,973 --> 00:22:04,222
There I was told "your persistence is sickening. "
314
00:22:08,803 --> 00:22:15,185
I put my fingers in the flame of a lamp and said,
"let me see her for as long as I hold my hand in the flame. "
315
00:22:18,229 --> 00:22:21,057
But they blew out the lamp, and said, you shall not see her.
316
00:22:26,050 --> 00:22:26,700
To love�
317
00:22:29,291 --> 00:22:30,119
�what a business.
318
00:22:39,537 --> 00:22:41,384
Vincent set out for The Hague,
319
00:22:41,754 --> 00:22:43,856
the centre of the Dutch art world.
320
00:22:44,403 --> 00:22:47,359
'I had a rather violent argument with Pa, and
321
00:22:48,352 --> 00:22:51,601
'feelings ran so high that Pa said it would be better if I left home.
322
00:22:53,795 --> 00:22:57,298
'It was said so decisively that I actually left the same day.
323
00:22:59,820 --> 00:23:06,343
'I was angrier than I've ever remembered being in my whole life,
'and I told Pa plainly that I found the whole system of that religion loathsome.
324
00:23:06,929 --> 00:23:08,317
'I want nothing more to do with it,
325
00:23:08,437 --> 00:23:11,591
'and have to guard against it as against something fatal. '
326
00:23:14,967 --> 00:23:18,827
Now without an income or a home, he turned to Theo.
327
00:23:20,146 --> 00:23:24,005
'It goes without saying that I'm asking you, Theo, if you can do it�'
328
00:23:24,006 --> 00:23:27,216
".. to send me now and then what you can without going short yourself.
329
00:23:28,328 --> 00:23:31,258
"Let me send you my work and you take what you want from it�"
330
00:23:31,271 --> 00:23:35,933
'.. but I insist that I may consider the money I would receive from you as money I've earned. '
331
00:23:36,624 --> 00:23:42,446
I hope to do as much as I can to help you until you start earning yourself,
but what I don't like is the way you've contrived to leave Pa and Ma.
332
00:23:43,427 --> 00:23:45,198
What the devil made you so childish
333
00:23:45,458 --> 00:23:47,675
and so shameless as to contrive in this way in this way
334
00:23:47,955 --> 00:23:50,172
to make their life miserable and almost impossible?
335
00:23:51,329 --> 00:23:53,673
It's your duty to set things straight at all costs.
336
00:23:55,584 --> 00:24:00,272
Upon arrival in The Hague, Vincent set himself up in a small studio
337
00:24:00,282 --> 00:24:03,033
and got a commission for a series of cityscapes,
338
00:24:03,153 --> 00:24:06,180
sketching all aspects of the modern metropolis.
339
00:24:08,035 --> 00:24:11,589
And Vincent, wanting to enjoy all the pleasures of city life,
340
00:24:12,035 --> 00:24:14,557
soon found himself in hospital for a few weeks
341
00:24:14,837 --> 00:24:17,067
undergoing treatment for syphilis.
342
00:24:19,342 --> 00:24:19,915
And then�
343
00:24:20,730 --> 00:24:22,692
This winter I met a pregnant woman,
344
00:24:23,291 --> 00:24:24,807
who had been abandoned
345
00:24:25,816 --> 00:24:28,746
by the man whose child she was carrying.
A pregnant woman
346
00:24:29,663 --> 00:24:31,536
wandering the streets in winter,
347
00:24:31,549 --> 00:24:33,561
earning her bread, you can imagine how.
348
00:24:34,813 --> 00:24:36,825
'I took that woman as a model
349
00:24:37,666 --> 00:24:40,036
'and I worked with her the whole of the winter.
350
00:24:40,927 --> 00:24:42,889
'She's learning to pose better every day,
351
00:24:43,979 --> 00:24:45,470
'that's extremely important to me. '
352
00:24:47,266 --> 00:24:49,648
Her name was Clasina Maria Hoornik,
353
00:24:50,247 --> 00:24:53,865
better known as Sien,
a woman older than Vincent.
354
00:24:57,462 --> 00:25:01,755
She was a seamstress who supplemented her income with prostitution.
355
00:25:03,360 --> 00:25:06,637
I couldn't give her a model's full daily wage�
356
00:25:08,841 --> 00:25:11,223
�but all the same, I paid her rent and
357
00:25:11,733 --> 00:25:17,762
until now have been able, thank God, to preserve her and her child
from hunger and cold by sharing my own bread with her.
358
00:25:20,646 --> 00:25:23,996
When I met this woman, she caught my eye because she looked so ill.
359
00:25:25,448 --> 00:25:26,162
To me,
360
00:25:28,073 --> 00:25:29,372
she is beautiful.
361
00:25:33,661 --> 00:25:36,145
And I find in her exactly what I need.
362
00:25:38,278 --> 00:25:40,800
Life has given her a drubbing, and sorrow,
363
00:25:41,985 --> 00:25:44,380
sorrow and adversity have left their mark.
364
00:25:48,124 --> 00:25:50,149
She posed for my very best drawing,
365
00:25:50,799 --> 00:25:51,525
Sorrow.
366
00:25:52,633 --> 00:25:54,773
I want to make drawings that move some people.
367
00:25:56,149 --> 00:25:57,678
Sorrow is a small beginning.
368
00:25:57,798 --> 00:26:00,975
At least it contains something straight from my own feelings.
369
00:26:01,956 --> 00:26:05,026
I couldn't draw Sorrow if I didn't feel it myself.
370
00:26:09,392 --> 00:26:13,570
This other one, Roots, is some tree roots in sandy ground.
371
00:26:15,866 --> 00:26:20,312
I've tried to imbue the landscape with the same sentiment as the figure.
372
00:26:22,188 --> 00:26:25,831
In all of nature, trees for instance, I see
373
00:26:26,379 --> 00:26:28,493
expression and soul.
374
00:26:42,185 --> 00:26:44,185
Well, it may be that I felt more passion
375
00:26:44,745 --> 00:26:45,751
for Kee Voss,
376
00:26:47,089 --> 00:26:49,892
and that in certain respects
377
00:26:50,312 --> 00:26:51,025
she was more
378
00:26:51,395 --> 00:26:52,911
charming than Sien.
379
00:26:54,510 --> 00:26:58,128
It is certainly not so that the love for Sien is therefore less sincere.
380
00:27:04,592 --> 00:27:08,350
This relationship generated even more disgust in the family
381
00:27:08,470 --> 00:27:11,197
than Vincent's earlier infatuation with Kee,
382
00:27:12,890 --> 00:27:13,693
and once again
383
00:27:14,355 --> 00:27:15,196
he was penniless.
384
00:27:16,292 --> 00:27:18,737
But, old chap, this has been an anxious fortnight.
385
00:27:21,352 --> 00:27:24,473
When I wrote to you in the middle of May, all I had left was three,
386
00:27:24,706 --> 00:27:26,986
three-and-a-half guilder after paying the baker.
387
00:27:28,353 --> 00:27:32,939
The rent's due on 1st June, and I have nothing, literally
388
00:27:33,490 --> 00:27:33,961
nothing.
389
00:27:36,935 --> 00:27:38,578
I hope you'll be able to send something.
390
00:27:42,234 --> 00:27:44,642
But Theo was just as scandalised
391
00:27:44,938 --> 00:27:46,900
and refused to send any extra money.
392
00:27:47,740 --> 00:27:49,995
With Vincent unable to support a family,
393
00:27:50,342 --> 00:27:52,954
Sien decided to go back to prostitution
394
00:27:53,272 --> 00:27:54,622
once the baby was born.
395
00:27:56,278 --> 00:27:58,737
For Vincent, this was all too much.
396
00:27:59,734 --> 00:28:00,600
Oh, Theo,
397
00:28:01,938 --> 00:28:04,626
I have the most impossible and
398
00:28:05,428 --> 00:28:07,899
highly unsuitable love affairs from which,
399
00:28:08,218 --> 00:28:09,135
as a rule,
400
00:28:09,987 --> 00:28:12,828
I emerge only with shame and disgrace.
401
00:28:20,591 --> 00:28:23,228
But I shall continue to think of her often.
402
00:28:30,305 --> 00:28:31,630
And so Vincent left,
403
00:28:32,305 --> 00:28:34,764
and went deep into rural Holland,
404
00:28:35,266 --> 00:28:37,419
to live and paint among the peasants.
405
00:28:39,076 --> 00:28:42,758
This time I'm writing to you from the very back of beyond in Drenthe.
406
00:28:43,586 --> 00:28:47,777
I see no way of describing the countryside to you as it should be done, because
407
00:28:48,426 --> 00:28:49,586
words fail me.
408
00:28:53,726 --> 00:28:55,374
What I think is the best life
409
00:28:55,641 --> 00:29:00,367
is a life made up of long years of being in touch with nature out of doors.
410
00:29:02,039 --> 00:29:04,294
Here are a couple of evening effects.
411
00:29:04,842 --> 00:29:10,740
I'm still working on that weed burner, whom I've caught better
than before in a painted study as far as the tone is concerned,
412
00:29:10,860 --> 00:29:15,284
so that it conveys more of the vastness
of the plain and the gathering dusk.
413
00:29:17,898 --> 00:29:20,943
And one muddy evening after the rain I found the little hut,
414
00:29:22,334 --> 00:29:25,595
which was very beautiful in its natural setting.
415
00:29:33,108 --> 00:29:39,121
When I say that I'm a peasant painter, that is really so,
and will become clearer to you in future.
416
00:29:53,455 --> 00:29:55,824
But living in such an isolated place,
417
00:29:56,359 --> 00:29:58,334
loneliness soon bore down on him.
418
00:29:58,907 --> 00:30:01,162
Alone, one is sure to perish.
419
00:30:02,914 --> 00:30:05,143
Only with another can one be saved.
420
00:30:08,242 --> 00:30:13,312
The very best and most effective medicine is still love and a home.
421
00:30:16,703 --> 00:30:17,875
So home he went,
422
00:30:18,397 --> 00:30:19,518
depressed and broke,
423
00:30:19,977 --> 00:30:21,722
and with his tail between his legs,
424
00:30:21,964 --> 00:30:23,633
to live with his parents again.
425
00:30:24,357 --> 00:30:27,019
However, the medicine wasn't quite right.
426
00:30:28,268 --> 00:30:29,834
At first it seemed to be hopeless,
427
00:30:31,139 --> 00:30:33,916
but it has gradually got better, particularly
428
00:30:34,286 --> 00:30:38,553
since we agreed that he will stay with us for the time being, to make studies here.
429
00:30:40,151 --> 00:30:42,329
He wanted the out house to be fitted up for him.
430
00:30:43,234 --> 00:30:46,533
We don't think it's a particularly suitable place, but we've had it spruced up.
431
00:30:47,361 --> 00:30:49,641
Now, we shall just make it nice and warm and dry
432
00:30:50,095 --> 00:30:50,898
and then it should do.
433
00:30:53,204 --> 00:30:56,465
There's a similar reluctance about taking me into the house
434
00:30:57,178 --> 00:30:59,892
as there would be about having a large, shaggy dog in the house.
435
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:06,153
He'll come into the room with his wet paws,
and then he's so shaggy. He'll get in everyone's way.
436
00:31:07,473 --> 00:31:09,001
And his bark is so loud.
437
00:31:09,893 --> 00:31:12,441
In short, he's a filthy animal.
Very well�
438
00:31:14,581 --> 00:31:17,014
but the animal has a human history
439
00:31:17,830 --> 00:31:19,957
and, although it's a dog, a human soul,
440
00:31:21,013 --> 00:31:24,223
and one with finer feelings at that - capable of
441
00:31:25,758 --> 00:31:31,236
feeling what people say about him, which an ordinary dog can't do.
442
00:31:33,609 --> 00:31:37,584
We're undertaking this new trial with real good faith.
443
00:31:38,017 --> 00:31:40,361
It's a pity that he isn't a little more accommodating,
444
00:31:40,708 --> 00:31:44,275
but there's simply no changing the fact that he's eccentric.
445
00:31:46,453 --> 00:31:49,803
And I, admitting that I am a sort of dog�
446
00:31:51,899 --> 00:31:52,931
�accept them
447
00:31:54,383 --> 00:31:55,300
for what they are.
448
00:31:57,237 --> 00:31:59,160
Despite the difficulties at home,
449
00:31:59,571 --> 00:32:03,558
it was around this time
that Vincent came into his own as an artist.
450
00:32:03,991 --> 00:32:06,577
Starting with the drawings of local weavers.
451
00:32:09,650 --> 00:32:12,007
Every day, I paint studies of the weavers here.
452
00:32:16,055 --> 00:32:19,750
I think the looms, with that quite complicated machinery,
453
00:32:21,011 --> 00:32:23,291
in the middle of which sits the little figure,
454
00:32:25,226 --> 00:32:28,117
will also lend themselves to pen drawings.
455
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:34,385
I must make sure that I get them so that the colour and tone
match with other Dutch paintings, though.
456
00:32:36,334 --> 00:32:38,844
These Dutch painters he was so impressed by
457
00:32:39,188 --> 00:32:41,825
were Anton Mauve and Jozef Israels,
458
00:32:42,373 --> 00:32:43,981
artists from The Hague School,
459
00:32:44,274 --> 00:32:47,777
celebrated for their rural scenes and peasant subjects.
460
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:50,747
Their palette was grey and brown,
461
00:32:51,078 --> 00:32:53,308
matching the weather conditions of The Netherlands.
462
00:32:53,769 --> 00:32:58,572
Very different from the revolutionary paintings being produced in Paris at that time
463
00:32:58,868 --> 00:33:02,053
by The Impressionists with their bright and colourful paintings,
464
00:33:02,422 --> 00:33:04,843
which Theo had written to Vincent about.
465
00:33:10,628 --> 00:33:12,946
When I hear you talk about a lot of new names,
466
00:33:13,519 --> 00:33:17,902
it's not always possible for me to understand when I've seen absolutely nothing by them.
467
00:33:19,153 --> 00:33:23,853
And from what you say about Impressionism, it's not entirely
clear to me what one should understand by it.
468
00:33:24,461 --> 00:33:29,747
For my part, I find so tremendously much in Israels, for instance, that
469
00:33:30,914 --> 00:33:33,853
I'm not particularly curious about or eager for something
470
00:33:34,839 --> 00:33:36,031
different or newer.
471
00:33:38,925 --> 00:33:42,869
Despite this, Vincent was becoming increasingly interested in colour,
472
00:33:43,808 --> 00:33:46,935
fascinated by what he saw emerging on the looms.
473
00:33:49,319 --> 00:33:52,220
When the weavers weave those fabrics, they try, as you know,
474
00:33:52,221 --> 00:33:55,310
to get the very brightest colours in balance against one another
475
00:33:55,319 --> 00:33:57,197
in the multicoloured tartans,
476
00:33:57,544 --> 00:34:00,682
so that, rather than the fabric clashing, the overall effect is
477
00:34:00,889 --> 00:34:02,682
harmonious from a distance.
478
00:34:04,316 --> 00:34:07,065
You have to go straight to Eugene Delacroix
479
00:34:07,185 --> 00:34:09,328
to find such an orchestration of colours.
480
00:34:09,610 --> 00:34:12,258
I'm talking about the blue, green sketch with
481
00:34:12,378 --> 00:34:15,188
red and purple and touches of lemon yellow.
482
00:34:18,502 --> 00:34:21,516
It speaks a symbolic language through colour itself.
483
00:34:23,663 --> 00:34:28,020
So now Vincent starts to introduce shards of colour into his work,
484
00:34:29,684 --> 00:34:30,689
in landscapes,
485
00:34:31,177 --> 00:34:34,698
and then in a series of portraits of local peasants.
486
00:34:38,391 --> 00:34:40,203
I have a few of the heads I promised you.
487
00:34:40,804 --> 00:34:43,086
They are studies, in the true meaning of the word.
488
00:34:44,100 --> 00:34:46,438
I've already painted at least 30 or so.
489
00:34:51,916 --> 00:34:55,512
At the same time, I'm working on those peasants around a dish of potatoes again.
490
00:34:57,712 --> 00:35:01,153
I hope that the painting of those potato eaters will progress a bit.
491
00:35:02,336 --> 00:35:05,296
You see, I really wanted to make it so that
492
00:35:06,554 --> 00:35:10,986
people get the idea that these folk,
eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp on the table,
493
00:35:12,826 --> 00:35:20,234
They have tilled the earth themselves with these hands
they are putting in the dish, so the whole speaks of manual labour
494
00:35:20,591 --> 00:35:23,523
and thus they have honestly earned their food.
495
00:35:25,185 --> 00:35:27,570
I wanted to give the idea of
496
00:35:27,914 --> 00:35:31,022
a way of life wholly different from ours.
497
00:35:33,707 --> 00:35:36,458
I certainly don't just want everyone to admire it
498
00:35:37,486 --> 00:35:40,068
or approve of it without knowing why.
499
00:35:42,679 --> 00:35:45,364
Admiration certainly didn't come from Theo,
500
00:35:45,824 --> 00:35:48,359
or from Vincent's friend and fellow artist,
501
00:35:48,720 --> 00:35:50,918
one Anthon van Rappard.
502
00:35:51,979 --> 00:35:52,720
My dear friend!
503
00:35:53,603 --> 00:35:54,749
You can do better than this�
504
00:35:55,575 --> 00:35:56,176
fortunately.
505
00:35:59,918 --> 00:36:02,340
That coquettish little hand of that woman at the back,
506
00:36:02,772 --> 00:36:03,908
how untrue!
507
00:36:06,181 --> 00:36:08,181
And what connection is there between the coffeepot,
508
00:36:08,857 --> 00:36:09,467
the table
509
00:36:09,942 --> 00:36:11,754
and the hand lying on top of the handle?
510
00:36:12,769 --> 00:36:14,506
What's that pot doing, for that matter?
511
00:36:15,501 --> 00:36:16,477
It isn't standing,
512
00:36:17,182 --> 00:36:18,139
it isn't being held,
513
00:36:18,524 --> 00:36:19,313
but what then?
514
00:36:22,041 --> 00:36:23,769
And why may that man on the left not have a knee,
515
00:36:24,746 --> 00:36:26,173
or a belly or lungs?
516
00:36:27,328 --> 00:36:28,455
Or are they in his back?
517
00:36:29,757 --> 00:36:32,048
And why must his arm be a metre too short?
518
00:36:32,583 --> 00:36:34,686
And why must he lack half of his nose?
519
00:36:35,991 --> 00:36:39,588
With such a manner of working, you dare to invoke the name of Millet?
520
00:36:41,203 --> 00:36:41,682
Come on!
521
00:36:42,152 --> 00:36:45,823
Art is too important, it seems to me, to be treated so
522
00:36:46,959 --> 00:36:47,814
cavalierly.
523
00:36:51,277 --> 00:36:54,037
But perhaps van Rappard had missed the point.
524
00:36:55,662 --> 00:36:57,418
I want people to say of my work,
525
00:36:57,718 --> 00:37:02,704
that man feels deeply, that man feels subtly,
526
00:37:02,713 --> 00:37:06,375
despite my so-called coarseness or perhaps precisely because of it.
527
00:37:08,272 --> 00:37:09,004
Do you understand?
528
00:37:10,224 --> 00:37:14,684
It seems pretentious to talk like this now, but that's why I want to push on!
529
00:37:18,581 --> 00:37:23,792
The Potato Eaters demonstrates the level of
accomplishment van Gogh had reached in his art -
530
00:37:24,431 --> 00:37:26,975
and remember, he'd only been painting for four years.
531
00:37:27,654 --> 00:37:31,861
It was also the first and the last time he ever did a group portrait.
532
00:37:33,110 --> 00:37:36,397
But the contemptuous critique of van Gogh's masterpiece
533
00:37:36,753 --> 00:37:39,833
wasn't the only matter featured in van Rappard's letter.
534
00:37:41,573 --> 00:37:44,343
The news of the death of your father came so unexpectedly
535
00:37:45,103 --> 00:37:47,404
that I very much wanted some further message,
536
00:37:48,465 --> 00:37:49,676
which didn't come, however.
537
00:37:52,127 --> 00:37:57,470
Did you think that I had so little interest in your father
that a polite formula to announce something so affecting
538
00:37:58,306 --> 00:37:59,423
was enough for that interest?
539
00:38:02,898 --> 00:38:06,963
Vincent hardly mentions the death of his father in the letters of the time,
540
00:38:07,592 --> 00:38:09,987
but despite the difficulties of their relationship,
541
00:38:10,466 --> 00:38:13,201
he was nevertheless affected by the news.
542
00:38:14,609 --> 00:38:15,445
My dear Theo,
543
00:38:16,947 --> 00:38:19,548
I'm still very much under the impression of what has just happened.
544
00:38:21,205 --> 00:38:23,524
I just kept painting these two Sundays.
545
00:38:25,702 --> 00:38:26,547
And he painted
546
00:38:26,970 --> 00:38:28,200
his father's Bible.
547
00:38:29,911 --> 00:38:34,014
I'm sending you a still life of an open, hence an off-white, Bible,
548
00:38:35,078 --> 00:38:37,434
bound in leather, against a black background.
549
00:38:37,923 --> 00:38:40,082
I painted this one in a single day.
550
00:38:42,534 --> 00:38:45,651
This is to show you that when I say that perhaps I haven't
551
00:38:46,628 --> 00:38:49,078
grafted entirely for nothing,
552
00:38:49,501 --> 00:38:50,036
I mean it.
553
00:38:53,651 --> 00:38:54,459
And, tellingly,
554
00:38:54,750 --> 00:38:57,426
Vincent placed next to his father's Bible
555
00:38:57,546 --> 00:39:00,168
a book by the French novelist Emile Zola,
556
00:39:00,724 --> 00:39:04,865
the supreme chronicler of the oppressed and tormented working class.
557
00:39:06,132 --> 00:39:08,574
Vincent saw in Zola a kindred spirit,
558
00:39:08,987 --> 00:39:11,193
embracing the social purpose of art
559
00:39:11,420 --> 00:39:14,547
as well as the artistic interpretation of reality.
560
00:39:16,265 --> 00:39:20,866
'Zola, in La Joie De Vivre and L'Assommoir, and so many other masterpieces,
561
00:39:20,885 --> 00:39:23,448
'paint life as we feel it ourselves and
562
00:39:23,946 --> 00:39:28,331
'thus satisfies that need which we have, that people tell us the truth. '
563
00:39:28,763 --> 00:39:32,418
Read lots of Zola, it's healthy stuff
564
00:39:33,883 --> 00:39:34,887
and clears the mind.
565
00:39:37,650 --> 00:39:42,101
The next part of his journey would take him to the epicentre of the art world,
566
00:39:43,115 --> 00:39:45,687
leaving the Netherlands far behind him.
567
00:39:51,564 --> 00:39:54,625
Vincent arrived in Paris in February 1886,
568
00:39:54,925 --> 00:39:56,616
when the art scene was in transition.
569
00:39:57,481 --> 00:40:00,833
Impressionism had already been dominant for over a decade,
570
00:40:01,208 --> 00:40:03,415
but now the hunt was on for something new.
571
00:40:04,025 --> 00:40:09,811
Somehow, he finally understood that to be taken seriously as an artist,
he had to come to Paris.
572
00:40:10,874 --> 00:40:14,715
However, he didn't bother to inform Theo until he'd already arrived,
573
00:40:15,287 --> 00:40:19,147
sending him a note to meet him in The Louvre in the Salle Carree,
574
00:40:19,557 --> 00:40:21,669
where the great European masters were hung -
575
00:40:22,251 --> 00:40:23,857
the Rembrandts and Delacroixs.
576
00:40:26,339 --> 00:40:30,470
Vinsent intended to immerse himself in the artistic life of the city,
577
00:40:30,865 --> 00:40:32,742
and moved to Montmartre with Theo,
578
00:40:33,081 --> 00:40:36,066
into this house at 54 Rue Lepic.
579
00:40:36,712 --> 00:40:38,609
Fortunately, we're doing well in our new home.
580
00:40:39,191 --> 00:40:41,472
You'd no longer recognise Vincent, he's changed so much,
581
00:40:41,702 --> 00:40:43,589
and that strikes others even more than me.
582
00:40:46,095 --> 00:40:50,950
He has had a major operation on his mouth, for he had lost almost all
his teeth because of the poor state of his stomach.
583
00:40:52,039 --> 00:40:53,682
The doctor says he is now completely recovered.
584
00:40:55,460 --> 00:40:57,347
He's making tremendous progress with his work,
585
00:40:58,145 --> 00:41:01,544
and proof of that is that he is starting to make a success of it.
586
00:41:03,086 --> 00:41:06,607
Vincent enrolled at the studio of the artist Fernand Cormon,
587
00:41:07,208 --> 00:41:10,326
where he befriended many of the aspiring artists of the day,
588
00:41:10,861 --> 00:41:12,448
including Toulouse Lautrec,
589
00:41:12,685 --> 00:41:14,055
sitting here on the left,
590
00:41:14,487 --> 00:41:17,764
with, reputedly, Vincent beside him holding the palette.
591
00:41:18,628 --> 00:41:24,396
But he became bored and frustrated after three months working from plaster casts, so he left.
592
00:41:27,845 --> 00:41:31,112
What I think about my own work is that the painting
593
00:41:32,042 --> 00:41:37,497
of the peasants eating the potatoes that I did in Nuenen is, after all, the best thing I did.
594
00:41:38,445 --> 00:41:40,041
What I hope to achieve�
595
00:41:42,783 --> 00:41:44,717
�is to paint a good portrait, anyway.
596
00:41:48,908 --> 00:41:52,457
For inspiration, he turned to the Dutch master Rembrandt,
597
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:56,927
who painted more than 90 self portraits from the outset of his career
598
00:41:57,124 --> 00:42:00,025
to the year of his death in 1669.
599
00:42:00,901 --> 00:42:03,117
So, Rembrandt painted angels.
600
00:42:04,357 --> 00:42:06,216
He paints himself as an old man,
601
00:42:07,746 --> 00:42:10,113
wrinkled, toothless, wearing a white cap.
602
00:42:12,593 --> 00:42:15,400
First, painting from life in the mirror,
603
00:42:17,579 --> 00:42:18,386
he dreams,
604
00:42:19,175 --> 00:42:23,031
dreams, and his brush begins to paint his own portrait again,
605
00:42:23,904 --> 00:42:25,407
but from memory,
606
00:42:26,308 --> 00:42:28,026
and his expression is sadder�
607
00:42:32,923 --> 00:42:34,182
�and more saddening.
608
00:42:43,732 --> 00:42:49,075
For my own part, my fortunes dictate that I'm making
rapid progress in becoming a little old man myself.
609
00:42:51,373 --> 00:42:52,378
But what does that matter?
610
00:42:54,809 --> 00:42:58,115
I have a dirty and difficult occupation -
611
00:42:59,970 --> 00:43:00,543
painting.
612
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:08,693
Vincent started his self portrait series with the dark brown colours he'd been accustomed to.
613
00:43:11,602 --> 00:43:14,767
But gradually, his colour and brushwork changed,
614
00:43:15,152 --> 00:43:18,729
as he came under the influence of the new art that he saw around him.
615
00:43:20,295 --> 00:43:23,243
The paintings become lighter and more colourful.
616
00:43:26,539 --> 00:43:32,058
My intention is to show that a variety of very different portraits
can be made by the same person.
617
00:43:35,488 --> 00:43:39,337
The painter of the future is a colourist as there has never been before.
618
00:43:42,589 --> 00:43:47,575
He hasn't yet sold any paintings for money,
but exchanges his work for other paintings.
619
00:43:48,213 --> 00:43:52,983
He also has acquaintances from whom he receives a beautiful
delivery of flowers every week
620
00:43:53,439 --> 00:43:54,416
that can serve him as a model.
621
00:43:56,202 --> 00:44:00,071
I've made a series of colour studies in painting simply flowers,
622
00:44:01,650 --> 00:44:05,650
seeking oppositions of blue with orange, red and green,
623
00:44:05,688 --> 00:44:09,860
yellow and violet, seeking the broken and neutral tones
624
00:44:09,861 --> 00:44:12,903
to harmonise brutal extremes.
625
00:44:15,206 --> 00:44:17,328
He's also much more cheerful than before,
626
00:44:18,126 --> 00:44:19,826
and he goes down well with the people here.
627
00:44:19,946 --> 00:44:23,141
To give you an example, hardly a day passes without him being
628
00:44:23,261 --> 00:44:26,549
invited to visit the studios of painters of repute,
629
00:44:27,272 --> 00:44:28,568
or people come to him.
630
00:44:33,088 --> 00:44:35,210
Just a few minutes' walk from Rue Lepic,
631
00:44:35,614 --> 00:44:37,482
and from Le Moulin de la Galette,
632
00:44:38,036 --> 00:44:39,201
a bar and dance hall
633
00:44:39,475 --> 00:44:42,414
masquerading as a windmill, which Vincent loved to paint,
634
00:44:42,940 --> 00:44:45,194
was Pere Tanguy's art supply shop.
635
00:44:46,630 --> 00:44:48,153
This place became the hub
636
00:44:48,510 --> 00:44:50,989
for the whole community of Parisian artists,
637
00:44:51,233 --> 00:44:54,116
who would gather and gossip and exchange their pictures
638
00:44:54,447 --> 00:44:56,794
for materials supplied by Pere Tanguy,
639
00:44:57,235 --> 00:45:00,165
the legendary father figure of the avant garde.
640
00:45:01,315 --> 00:45:02,226
Paul Cezanne,
641
00:45:02,470 --> 00:45:03,315
Edgar Degas,
642
00:45:03,690 --> 00:45:04,676
Toulouse Lautrec,
643
00:45:04,958 --> 00:45:05,897
George Seurat.
644
00:45:06,197 --> 00:45:07,305
They all came here.
645
00:45:09,014 --> 00:45:11,108
It's extraordinary to think that this tiny room
646
00:45:11,529 --> 00:45:14,093
was the principal gathering place for what is probably
647
00:45:14,478 --> 00:45:17,013
the most celebrated group of artists in history.
648
00:45:19,265 --> 00:45:25,565
Vincent, who was socially awkward, had little appetite
for these gatherings or for the competitive environment it fostered.
649
00:45:28,013 --> 00:45:31,929
But there was one artist who like him stood out from the crowd.
650
00:45:33,375 --> 00:45:35,462
His name was Paul Gauguin,
651
00:45:35,866 --> 00:45:39,781
and he shared with Vincent a passion for Japanese prints.
652
00:45:41,173 --> 00:45:45,661
This was the art-form that transfixed the western world in the late 19th century.
653
00:45:49,081 --> 00:45:55,898
Japanese prints are certainly the most practical way of
getting to understand the direction that painting has taken at present.
654
00:45:57,682 --> 00:46:00,276
Colourful and bright.
655
00:46:02,792 --> 00:46:04,511
Theo and I have hundreds of them.
656
00:46:15,718 --> 00:46:18,763
At first, he simply started to copy the prints.
657
00:46:25,157 --> 00:46:27,805
Then, he began to experiment with his own work,
658
00:46:28,931 --> 00:46:33,204
cropping objects at the edges and introducing strong diagonals.
659
00:46:35,215 --> 00:46:38,323
And Japanese prints started to appear in the background
660
00:46:38,624 --> 00:46:40,079
in several of his portraits,
661
00:46:41,028 --> 00:46:43,722
including this one of Pere Tanguy.
662
00:46:46,898 --> 00:46:51,452
However, other Parisian indulgences were not so beneficial.
663
00:46:52,898 --> 00:46:55,499
Vincent was drinking large amounts of absinthe.
664
00:46:56,060 --> 00:47:00,078
The bohemian lifestyle was damaging his already fragile health.
665
00:47:00,717 --> 00:47:04,670
And his relationship with Theo was becoming seriously strained.
666
00:47:05,629 --> 00:47:06,765
'It's as if there are two people in him -
667
00:47:07,272 --> 00:47:09,760
'the one, marvellously gifted,
668
00:47:10,361 --> 00:47:11,694
'sensitive and gentle,
669
00:47:12,896 --> 00:47:17,197
'and the other, self-loving and unfeeling. '
670
00:47:19,332 --> 00:47:20,318
There was a time when�
671
00:47:22,092 --> 00:47:25,604
I loved Vincent very much and he was my best friend, but that's over now.
672
00:47:27,550 --> 00:47:31,635
It seems to be even worse, as far as he is concerned,
for he loses no opportunity to let me see
673
00:47:31,653 --> 00:47:34,639
that he despises me and that I inspire aversion in him.
674
00:47:36,266 --> 00:47:38,341
This makes it almost intolerable for me at home.
675
00:47:39,608 --> 00:47:42,313
No-one wants to come by any more because it always leads to rows, and
676
00:47:43,186 --> 00:47:47,282
he's so filthy and slovenly that the household looks anything but inviting.
677
00:48:02,392 --> 00:48:05,031
Vincent had had enough of the quarrels with Theo,
678
00:48:05,613 --> 00:48:08,026
and of the artistic egos of the avant-garde.
679
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:11,218
Longing for the peace of the countryside,
680
00:48:11,793 --> 00:48:12,610
he left Paris
681
00:48:13,014 --> 00:48:14,648
in February 1888
682
00:48:15,343 --> 00:48:18,432
and headed south to Arles, in Provence.
683
00:48:21,035 --> 00:48:24,277
'I want to begin by telling you that this part of the world seems to me
684
00:48:24,286 --> 00:48:28,173
'as beautiful as Japan for the clearness of the atmosphere
685
00:48:28,202 --> 00:48:30,483
'and the charm of the colour effects. '
686
00:48:31,515 --> 00:48:33,731
Pale orange sunsets,
687
00:48:34,501 --> 00:48:37,834
making the fields almost blue.
688
00:48:40,437 --> 00:48:43,545
Glorious yellow suns.
689
00:48:46,822 --> 00:48:48,099
Soon after his arrival,
690
00:48:48,655 --> 00:48:51,904
Vincent moved into The Yellow House on Place Lamartine,
691
00:48:53,380 --> 00:48:58,207
and set to work at once, experimenting with an increasingly vivid palette,
692
00:48:58,761 --> 00:49:01,746
convinced that this would be his artistic legacy.
693
00:49:04,956 --> 00:49:09,144
'Now that I've found my bearings a little more, I'm beginning to see the advantages here.
694
00:49:10,045 --> 00:49:12,937
'For myself, I'm in better health here than in the north.
695
00:49:13,789 --> 00:49:19,366
'I even work in the wheat fields at midday,
'in the full heat of the sun, without any shade whatever,
696
00:49:19,714 --> 00:49:20,549
'and there you are,
697
00:49:20,944 --> 00:49:22,963
I revel in it like a cicada. '
698
00:49:26,716 --> 00:49:32,533
If only I'd known this country at 25, instead of coming here at 35, but
699
00:49:33,331 --> 00:49:34,319
then I was
700
00:49:35,531 --> 00:49:39,446
enthusiastic about grey, or rather, absence of colour.
701
00:49:40,319 --> 00:49:41,643
Ah, but this!
702
00:49:43,864 --> 00:49:45,836
I don't need Japanese prints here,
703
00:49:46,907 --> 00:49:49,648
because I'm always saying to myself I'm in Japan.
704
00:49:54,631 --> 00:49:56,960
I'd like to do drawings in the style of Japanese.
705
00:49:58,115 --> 00:50:00,340
I can't do anything but strike while the iron's hot.
706
00:50:03,272 --> 00:50:07,375
I hope to make real progress this year, which I really need to do.
707
00:50:15,061 --> 00:50:19,070
However, working alone for days on end took its toll,
708
00:50:20,112 --> 00:50:21,483
and depression set in.
709
00:50:26,472 --> 00:50:30,726
From the letters, it's clear that he was suffering from bipolar disorder.
710
00:50:47,361 --> 00:50:51,332
So many days pass without me saying a word to anyone
711
00:50:52,910 --> 00:50:53,811
except to order�
712
00:50:54,867 --> 00:50:56,172
supper or a coffee.
713
00:50:58,745 --> 00:51:00,040
It's been like that from the start.
714
00:51:03,442 --> 00:51:06,531
For my part, it worries me to spend so much time by myself,
715
00:51:09,038 --> 00:51:09,799
alone.
716
00:51:12,769 --> 00:51:15,614
Vincent dreamed of establishing an artists' colony,
717
00:51:16,225 --> 00:51:18,318
a "Studio in the South", as he called it,
718
00:51:18,638 --> 00:51:21,483
where artists could work together in a collegiate culture,
719
00:51:22,020 --> 00:51:26,058
unlike the more combustible Parisian artworld he'd left behind.
720
00:51:30,070 --> 00:51:33,816
Gauguin is in Brittany, but has again suffered an attack of his liver complaint.
721
00:51:35,816 --> 00:51:37,600
I wish I were in the same place as him,
722
00:51:38,605 --> 00:51:40,192
or he here with me.
723
00:51:47,435 --> 00:51:48,384
My...
724
00:51:49,334 --> 00:51:50,658
dear�old�
725
00:51:52,057 --> 00:51:52,893
Gauguin.
726
00:51:56,388 --> 00:51:59,515
I've just rented a four-room house here in Arles.
727
00:52:00,510 --> 00:52:01,721
It seems to me that�
728
00:52:02,575 --> 00:52:06,021
if I could find a painter who wanted to make the most out of the south,
729
00:52:06,059 --> 00:52:09,956
and who was sufficiently absorbed in his work like me,
730
00:52:10,866 --> 00:52:12,547
to be inclined to live like a monk,
731
00:52:13,011 --> 00:52:16,776
bound up in his work and not inclined to waste his time, then
732
00:52:16,896 --> 00:52:18,147
the thing would be very good.
733
00:52:18,494 --> 00:52:21,048
"And you would give my brother one painting a month,
734
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:23,511
"while you'd be free to do whatever you liked with the rest. "
735
00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:33,081
In the hope of living in a studio with Gauguin, I'd like to do a decoration for the studio.
736
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:37,290
'Nothing but large sunflowers. '
737
00:52:43,546 --> 00:52:47,132
I also did a canvas of my bedroom with the whitewood furniture that you know.
738
00:52:47,574 --> 00:52:50,259
It amused me enormously doing this bare interior.
739
00:52:51,191 --> 00:52:55,623
My aim was to give it colours like stained glass,
740
00:52:56,402 --> 00:52:58,862
and a design of solid outlines.
741
00:53:02,158 --> 00:53:05,059
Unfortunately, Gauguin procrastinated,
742
00:53:05,407 --> 00:53:07,275
so Vincent bided his time,
743
00:53:07,641 --> 00:53:09,594
determined to focus on his work
744
00:53:09,906 --> 00:53:12,385
in preparation for the great man's arrival -
745
00:53:13,042 --> 00:53:18,611
even prepared, in principal at least, to curtail some of his favourite pursuits.
746
00:53:20,502 --> 00:53:23,957
Painting and screwing around a lot aren't compatible -
747
00:53:25,450 --> 00:53:26,511
it weakens the brain,
748
00:53:27,143 --> 00:53:31,518
and that's what's really so dammed annoying.
I'd prefer to be cloisted up like the monks.
749
00:53:32,598 --> 00:53:34,974
Free to go to the brothel, just like the monks,
750
00:53:36,410 --> 00:53:39,481
or to the wine shop, if my heart chooses to!
751
00:53:44,290 --> 00:53:49,868
In my painting of the night cafe, I've tried to express
the idea that the cafe is the place
752
00:53:50,208 --> 00:53:53,100
where you can ruin yourself, go mad,
753
00:53:54,275 --> 00:53:55,270
commit crimes.
754
00:53:58,463 --> 00:54:02,594
Included here, a square canvas, the starry sky -
755
00:54:04,076 --> 00:54:06,508
actually painted at night, under a gas-lamp.
756
00:54:09,533 --> 00:54:11,129
The fields are mauve.
757
00:54:11,458 --> 00:54:13,608
The town is blue and violet.
758
00:54:14,716 --> 00:54:17,834
Two small coloured figures of lovers in the foreground.
759
00:54:28,834 --> 00:54:30,345
He's an odd fellow, but
760
00:54:31,174 --> 00:54:32,461
what a head he has on him.
761
00:54:35,709 --> 00:54:36,395
It's enviable.
762
00:54:45,569 --> 00:54:50,724
I shall count myself very happy if I manage to work enough to earn my living�
763
00:54:53,840 --> 00:55:00,329
�for it makes me very worried when I tell myself
that I've done so many paintings and drawings without ever selling any.
764
00:55:12,412 --> 00:55:16,976
Gauguin finally arrived on the 23rd October 1888.
765
00:55:18,048 --> 00:55:21,917
Turquoise, a vibrant, alive turquoise, as if the sea was bubbling�
766
00:55:22,037 --> 00:55:26,518
A few days later, the two artists set off for the nearby Roman cemetery
767
00:55:26,536 --> 00:55:31,741
at Les Alyscamps, intent on depicting the same subject, side by side.
768
00:55:35,319 --> 00:55:38,232
Vincent painted what he saw and what he felt,
769
00:55:38,871 --> 00:55:42,514
the industrial scene in the background is framed by the trees.
770
00:55:46,182 --> 00:55:49,534
By contrast, Gauguin had little time for reality.
771
00:55:50,107 --> 00:55:52,172
He painted, as a rule, from memory.
772
00:55:53,248 --> 00:55:56,309
And in the time it took Gauguin to complete this picture,
773
00:55:56,835 --> 00:55:58,271
slowly and methodically,
774
00:55:58,976 --> 00:56:02,487
Vincent, at top speed, had knocked out two more.
775
00:56:04,275 --> 00:56:08,190
Gauguin, in spite of himself and in spite of me�
776
00:56:10,115 --> 00:56:14,340
�has proved to me a little it was time to change things a bit.
777
00:56:15,524 --> 00:56:17,336
I'm now working from memory,
778
00:56:18,529 --> 00:56:22,124
and all my earlier studies will still be useful for that work,
779
00:56:22,125 --> 00:56:24,521
as they will remind me
780
00:56:25,845 --> 00:56:27,610
of former things that I have seen.
781
00:56:31,673 --> 00:56:35,392
And one of these was a subject he painted again and again,
782
00:56:36,490 --> 00:56:37,166
The Sower.
783
00:56:38,070 --> 00:56:41,140
Now, the influence of Gauguin can clearly be seen.
784
00:56:42,971 --> 00:56:45,422
Immense lemon yellow disk for the sun,
785
00:56:46,438 --> 00:56:49,011
green-yellow sky with pink clouds.
786
00:56:50,072 --> 00:56:51,894
The field is violet,
787
00:56:52,298 --> 00:56:54,767
the sower and the tree, Prussian blue.
788
00:56:56,853 --> 00:57:00,045
But Vincent found it difficult painting purely from memory,
789
00:57:00,543 --> 00:57:03,426
and soon returned to subjects directly in front of him.
790
00:57:06,612 --> 00:57:08,978
The last two studies are rather funny canvases,
791
00:57:10,151 --> 00:57:13,889
a wooden and straw chair all yellow on red tiles against a wall.
792
00:57:15,140 --> 00:57:17,412
Then Gauguin's armchair, red and green,
793
00:57:18,097 --> 00:57:18,811
night effect.
794
00:57:20,971 --> 00:57:22,924
On the seat, two novels and a candle.
795
00:57:23,686 --> 00:57:25,912
On sailcloth, in thick impasto.
796
00:57:29,217 --> 00:57:33,039
But it wasn't long before tensions developed between the two artists.
797
00:57:33,905 --> 00:57:36,074
Gauguin's work was selling well in Paris -
798
00:57:36,628 --> 00:57:38,788
Vincent still couldn't find buyers.
799
00:57:39,821 --> 00:57:41,680
He started to drink heavily again.
800
00:57:42,375 --> 00:57:44,534
His behaviour was becoming odder and odder,
801
00:57:45,186 --> 00:57:49,524
and after just eight weeks, Gauguin became increasing exasperated.
802
00:57:50,322 --> 00:57:52,247
I feel completely disorientated in Arles.
803
00:57:53,712 --> 00:57:55,299
I find everything so small
804
00:57:55,561 --> 00:57:56,068
and mean,
805
00:57:57,965 --> 00:57:59,270
both the landscape and the people.
806
00:58:01,786 --> 00:58:05,430
In general, Vincent and myself do not see eye to eye,
807
00:58:05,844 --> 00:58:06,980
particularly on painting.
808
00:58:09,149 --> 00:58:10,689
He likes my pictures very much,
809
00:58:11,656 --> 00:58:12,774
but when I'm painting them,
810
00:58:13,168 --> 00:58:14,736
he criticises me for this and that.
811
00:58:16,332 --> 00:58:21,008
Vincent and I can absolutely not live side by side without trouble.
812
00:58:23,431 --> 00:58:25,046
In December 1888,
813
00:58:25,527 --> 00:58:28,128
Gauguin painted this, Portrait Of Van Gogh
814
00:58:28,466 --> 00:58:29,659
Painting Sunflowers.
815
00:58:30,316 --> 00:58:33,199
Vincent looked at it in silence, then said,
816
00:58:33,978 --> 00:58:36,481
"It's me all right, but me gone mad. "
817
00:58:37,965 --> 00:58:38,594
But is it?
818
00:58:41,285 --> 00:58:44,468
When I look at this picture, I don't see van Gogh at all.
819
00:58:45,116 --> 00:58:46,008
I see Gauguin.
820
00:58:47,144 --> 00:58:50,214
And that seems to me to explain a lot about their relationship.
821
00:58:53,883 --> 00:58:57,630
A few days later, the two artists got into a heated argument.
822
00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:03,202
'It was so bizarre I couldn't take it. '
823
00:59:04,263 --> 00:59:06,592
He even asked me, "Are you going to leave?"
824
00:59:08,329 --> 00:59:10,113
I felt I must go out alone
825
00:59:10,755 --> 00:59:11,618
and take the air
826
00:59:11,881 --> 00:59:12,764
along some paths
827
00:59:13,581 --> 00:59:16,323
when I heard behind me a familiar step
828
00:59:16,614 --> 00:59:18,651
short, quick, irregular.
829
00:59:20,003 --> 00:59:21,365
I turned around on that instant
830
00:59:22,352 --> 00:59:26,155
as Vincent rushed towards me, an open razor in hand.
831
00:59:29,057 --> 00:59:31,113
Vincent returned to the Yellow House,
832
00:59:31,628 --> 00:59:35,440
where, with perhaps the very same knife that he threatened Gauguin with,
833
00:59:36,154 --> 00:59:37,872
he mutilated his left ear.
834
00:59:48,997 --> 00:59:51,457
I wouldn't exactly have chosen madness
835
00:59:52,030 --> 00:59:52,847
had there been a choice,
836
00:59:54,364 --> 00:59:57,688
but once one has something like that, one can't catch it any more.
837
01:00:01,444 --> 01:00:03,397
I find that his condition has improved a little.
838
01:00:03,803 --> 01:00:06,939
I don't believe his life is in danger - for the moment at least.
839
01:00:08,817 --> 01:00:10,056
He's eating quite well
840
01:00:10,535 --> 01:00:13,728
and his physical strength enables him to withstand his crises.
841
01:00:14,618 --> 01:00:18,008
My assessment is that he'll be able to recover in a short time,
842
01:00:18,280 --> 01:00:23,191
while retaining the extreme excitability that must form the essence of his character.
843
01:00:29,573 --> 01:00:30,644
From his hospital room,
844
01:00:31,207 --> 01:00:33,376
Vincent painted this self-portrait,
845
01:00:33,846 --> 01:00:35,835
one of the most arresting works of art
846
01:00:36,229 --> 01:00:36,774
in the world.
847
01:00:42,389 --> 01:00:45,910
The advantages I have here are that they are all sick�
848
01:00:49,075 --> 01:00:50,389
�and so at least I don't feel...
849
01:00:51,028 --> 01:00:51,460
alone.
850
01:00:54,889 --> 01:00:56,729
I'm quite absorbed in reading Shakespeare.
851
01:00:57,311 --> 01:00:59,170
I've first taken the kings series�
852
01:01:01,518 --> 01:01:03,452
�of which I've already read Richard II,
853
01:01:03,572 --> 01:01:05,443
Henry IV, Henry V,
854
01:01:05,892 --> 01:01:07,000
parts of Henry VI.
855
01:01:07,761 --> 01:01:08,878
Have you ever read King Lear?
856
01:01:09,629 --> 01:01:13,648
But anyway, I think I shan't urge you too much to read such
857
01:01:14,869 --> 01:01:16,174
dramatic stories�.
858
01:01:18,492 --> 01:01:20,070
when after reading them myself I�
859
01:01:22,981 --> 01:01:25,957
�I'm always obliged to go and gaze at a blade of grass�
860
01:01:28,668 --> 01:01:29,692
�a pine tree branch,
861
01:01:31,363 --> 01:01:32,358
an ear of wheat�
862
01:01:34,781 --> 01:01:35,720
�to calm myself.
863
01:01:40,298 --> 01:01:43,604
Vincent suffered repeated episodes of mental instability
864
01:01:43,923 --> 01:01:45,700
whilst in the hospital here in Arles.
865
01:01:46,489 --> 01:01:50,263
But in between these fits, he was well enough to find comfort in his art,
866
01:01:50,819 --> 01:01:52,678
painting the grounds here and the ward.
867
01:01:58,436 --> 01:02:00,164
After five months in hospital,
868
01:02:00,530 --> 01:02:03,235
mindful perhaps of his precarious mental state,
869
01:02:03,793 --> 01:02:06,891
he was reluctant to return home alone to the Yellow House.
870
01:02:07,774 --> 01:02:08,638
And with Theo's help,
871
01:02:09,182 --> 01:02:13,436
he voluntarily admitted himself to the nearby asylum at Saint-Remy.
872
01:02:15,492 --> 01:02:19,370
Dear Director, with the agreement of the person involved, who is my brother,
873
01:02:19,859 --> 01:02:24,206
I am writing to request the admission into your institution of Vincent Willem van Gogh.
874
01:02:25,270 --> 01:02:27,890
I ask you to admit him with your third-class residents.
875
01:02:28,662 --> 01:02:31,854
I hope you will have no objection to allowing him the freedom to paint
876
01:02:31,974 --> 01:02:34,962
outside your institution whenever he wishes to do so.
877
01:02:36,230 --> 01:02:36,831
Further,
878
01:02:38,749 --> 01:02:41,641
without elaborating on the attention he will require,
879
01:02:41,660 --> 01:02:44,749
but which I assume is given with the same care to all your residents,
880
01:02:45,803 --> 01:02:49,333
I hope you will be so kind as to allow him to have at least
881
01:02:49,453 --> 01:02:51,596
half a litre of wine with his meals.
882
01:02:56,622 --> 01:03:01,496
Vincent arrived here at Saint-Remy on 8th May 1889,
883
01:03:01,862 --> 01:03:03,355
where he would remain for a year.
884
01:03:04,728 --> 01:03:06,728
The letters he wrote during that time
885
01:03:07,254 --> 01:03:08,906
are a heart-wrenching confession
886
01:03:09,329 --> 01:03:11,451
of his coming to terms with his condition.
887
01:03:16,276 --> 01:03:17,394
I wanted to tell you that�
888
01:03:20,483 --> 01:03:21,666
�I've done well to come here.
889
01:03:24,129 --> 01:03:26,796
First, in seeing the reality of the lives of the
890
01:03:27,706 --> 01:03:30,364
mad, cracked people in this menagerie�
891
01:03:32,686 --> 01:03:35,418
�I'm losing the vague dread, the fear of the thing. And...
892
01:03:37,296 --> 01:03:41,474
little by little, I can come to consider madness as being an illness like any other.
893
01:03:43,503 --> 01:03:46,076
As far as I know, the doctor here is inclined to
894
01:03:46,376 --> 01:03:48,057
consider what I've had as an attack of
895
01:03:48,376 --> 01:03:49,597
an epileptic nature.
896
01:03:52,111 --> 01:03:54,843
It's quite odd perhaps that the result of this terrible attack is
897
01:03:55,688 --> 01:04:00,157
that in my mind there's hardly any really clear desire or hope left.
898
01:04:02,817 --> 01:04:06,376
I'm thinking of squarely accepting my profession as a madman.
899
01:04:13,769 --> 01:04:17,468
There were days, sometimes weeks, when Vincent was unable to work,
900
01:04:17,891 --> 01:04:20,116
tormented by spells of mental illness.
901
01:04:20,832 --> 01:04:24,156
But these alternated with periods of amazing creativity
902
01:04:24,635 --> 01:04:26,391
in which he was extremely productive.
903
01:04:36,634 --> 01:04:39,639
He was given permission to paint in the surrounding countryside
904
01:04:40,157 --> 01:04:43,040
and sent dozens of paintings to Theo in Paris.
905
01:04:57,629 --> 01:05:02,897
"Thanks very much for the consignment of canvases, colours, brushes, tobacco and chocolate,
906
01:05:03,601 --> 01:05:04,888
"which reached me in good order.
907
01:05:07,750 --> 01:05:08,839
"I was very glad of it,
908
01:05:10,032 --> 01:05:11,722
"for I was pining for work a little. "
909
01:05:15,564 --> 01:05:18,888
Also, for a few days now I've been going outside to work in the neighbourhood.
910
01:05:19,752 --> 01:05:23,611
What a beautiful land and what beautiful blue and what a sun.
911
01:05:26,591 --> 01:05:30,403
So then my brush goes between my fingers as if it were the bow on a violin and
912
01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:32,657
absolutely for my pleasure.
913
01:05:37,649 --> 01:05:38,297
I'm struggling
914
01:05:39,217 --> 01:05:42,560
with a canvas begun a few days before my indisposition.
915
01:05:44,913 --> 01:05:47,486
A reaper, the study is all in yellow,
916
01:05:48,509 --> 01:05:52,500
terribly thickly impasted, but the subject was beautiful and simple.
917
01:05:55,334 --> 01:06:00,442
A vague figure struggling like a devil in the
full heat of the day to reach the end of his toil.
918
01:06:04,125 --> 01:06:05,656
And then saw the image of death in it�
919
01:06:08,369 --> 01:06:11,524
�in the sense that humanity would be like the wheat being reaped.
920
01:06:15,893 --> 01:06:18,785
So, if you like, it's the opposite of that sower I tried before. But
921
01:06:19,386 --> 01:06:23,893
in this death, nothing's sad, it takes place in broad daylight with a sun that
922
01:06:25,033 --> 01:06:28,498
floods everything with a light of fine gold.
923
01:06:34,713 --> 01:06:39,831
Your latest paintings have given me a great deal to think about
as regards your state of mind when you made them.
924
01:06:40,666 --> 01:06:41,755
All of them have
925
01:06:43,192 --> 01:06:44,647
a power of colour
926
01:06:45,524 --> 01:06:47,233
which you hadn't attained before,
927
01:06:47,439 --> 01:06:48,716
which in itself is
928
01:06:49,627 --> 01:06:50,716
a rare quality,
929
01:06:52,031 --> 01:06:53,158
but you've gone further.
930
01:06:57,156 --> 01:07:00,038
But how hard your mind must have worked and how you endangered yourself to the extreme point
931
01:07:00,921 --> 01:07:03,804
endangered yourself to the extreme point where
932
01:07:05,372 --> 01:07:07,945
vertigo is inevitable.
933
01:07:09,823 --> 01:07:11,428
Let me quietly continue my work.
934
01:07:12,940 --> 01:07:14,884
If it's that of a madman, well then, too bad.
935
01:07:16,383 --> 01:07:17,716
Then I can't do anything about it.
936
01:07:23,378 --> 01:07:24,580
And around this time,
937
01:07:24,977 --> 01:07:28,489
Vincent got the only review ever to appear in his lifetime,
938
01:07:29,033 --> 01:07:31,268
by the young critic, Albert Aurier.
939
01:07:31,850 --> 01:07:33,982
What characterises his works as a whole
940
01:07:34,388 --> 01:07:37,205
is its excess of strength,
941
01:07:38,350 --> 01:07:39,345
of nervousness,
942
01:07:41,233 --> 01:07:43,590
its violence of expression.
943
01:07:46,092 --> 01:07:47,819
His colour we know already,
944
01:07:48,749 --> 01:07:50,129
unbelievably dazzling
945
01:07:51,754 --> 01:07:54,880
with this metallic, jewel-like quality.
946
01:07:57,204 --> 01:08:02,613
In his categorical affirmation of character of things,
a powerful figure is revealed -
947
01:08:04,218 --> 01:08:04,838
masculine�
948
01:08:06,863 --> 01:08:07,652
�daring,
949
01:08:09,708 --> 01:08:11,248
very often brutal�
950
01:08:17,413 --> 01:08:19,028
�yet sometimes
951
01:08:20,314 --> 01:08:21,817
ingeniously delicate.
952
01:08:24,119 --> 01:08:26,523
Vincent stayed at St Remy for over a year,
953
01:08:27,293 --> 01:08:30,626
but he began to fear being labelled the mad artist,
954
01:08:31,546 --> 01:08:32,513
so once again,
955
01:08:33,283 --> 01:08:34,410
he asked Theo for help.
956
01:08:35,331 --> 01:08:38,270
I don't feel competent enough to judge the way they treat patients here,
957
01:08:38,289 --> 01:08:40,984
and nor do I have any desire to enter into the detail,
958
01:08:41,104 --> 01:08:42,959
but please remember
959
01:08:42,978 --> 01:08:47,138
that around six months ago I warned you that if I was seized
960
01:08:47,400 --> 01:08:51,731
by a crisis of a similar nature, that I would wish to change asylums.
961
01:08:52,841 --> 01:08:55,931
And I've delayed too long already, having allowed an attack to go by in the meantime.
962
01:08:56,597 --> 01:09:02,190
I was then in the middle of work, and I wanted to finish canvases in progress,
otherwise I would no longer be here by now.
963
01:09:03,148 --> 01:09:04,232
Right, so
964
01:09:05,575 --> 01:09:06,298
I'm going to tell you�
965
01:09:07,312 --> 01:09:10,965
that it seems to me that a fortnight, though a week would please me more,
966
01:09:12,103 --> 01:09:15,699
should be enough to take the necessary steps to move.
967
01:09:17,671 --> 01:09:22,084
During his stay in the home, this patient, During his stay in the home, this patient,
968
01:09:22,734 --> 01:09:27,598
has had several attacks lasting for between two weeks and a month.
969
01:09:28,199 --> 01:09:32,556
During these attacks, he is subject to terrifying terrors,
970
01:09:33,664 --> 01:09:37,166
and has on several occasions attempted to poison himself,
971
01:09:37,659 --> 01:09:42,739
either by swallowing colours that he used for painting, or by ingesting paraffin,
972
01:09:43,190 --> 01:09:45,875
which he had taken from the boy when he was filling his lamps.
973
01:09:50,481 --> 01:09:56,931
In the interval between attacks, the patient is perfectly calm and lucid,
and passionately devotes himself to painting.
974
01:09:58,593 --> 01:10:03,212
He is asking to be discharged today in order to go to live in the north of France,
975
01:10:04,433 --> 01:10:06,724
hoping that climate will suit him better.
976
01:10:12,398 --> 01:10:16,483
In May 1890, he moved to Auvers, close to Paris,
977
01:10:17,121 --> 01:10:21,208
with a letter of introduction from Theo to a Dr Paul Gachet.
978
01:10:24,976 --> 01:10:28,741
And he rented an attic room here at the Auberge Ravoux.
979
01:10:34,619 --> 01:10:38,450
Once settled in Auvers, Vincent set himself a punishing schedule,
980
01:10:39,051 --> 01:10:41,089
leaving his room at five in the morning
981
01:10:41,417 --> 01:10:42,976
to go out and paint in fields
982
01:10:43,540 --> 01:10:45,680
and not returning till nine at night.
983
01:10:46,685 --> 01:10:51,192
It was a period of intense activity in which he produced a canvas a day.
984
01:10:57,135 --> 01:10:58,111
Being back north,
985
01:10:59,407 --> 01:11:01,059
I am very distracted.
986
01:11:01,623 --> 01:11:04,158
I did a portrait of Dr Gachet the other day.
987
01:11:06,083 --> 01:11:08,289
You have a face, the colour�
988
01:11:10,205 --> 01:11:12,721
of over-heated and sun-drenched
989
01:11:13,426 --> 01:11:15,773
brick, with reddish hair,
990
01:11:16,688 --> 01:11:18,828
a white cap, blue background.
991
01:11:20,772 --> 01:11:22,406
He's very nervous and
992
01:11:22,969 --> 01:11:23,561
very bizarre.
993
01:11:26,455 --> 01:11:28,990
My portrait of myself is almost like this too -
994
01:11:29,666 --> 01:11:33,084
so similar are we physically, and morally.
995
01:11:35,670 --> 01:11:37,614
"I think he is sicker than I am, or
996
01:11:38,243 --> 01:11:39,670
shall we say, just as much?
997
01:11:43,222 --> 01:11:47,748
"When one blind man leads another, don't they both fall into the ditch?"
998
01:11:52,370 --> 01:11:55,562
Although Vincent doubted Dr Gachet's ability to help him,
999
01:11:56,201 --> 01:11:57,741
they did become good friends.
1000
01:11:59,783 --> 01:12:02,018
He dined at his house and painted his daughter.
1001
01:12:02,618 --> 01:12:03,595
They had much in common.
1002
01:12:04,103 --> 01:12:07,399
Gachet was not only a physician but also an amateur artist,
1003
01:12:07,793 --> 01:12:10,817
and deeply involved in the treatment of mental malaise.
1004
01:12:11,670 --> 01:12:14,083
But despite the doctor's sympathetic ear,
1005
01:12:14,571 --> 01:12:16,106
Vincent is still alone.
1006
01:12:25,119 --> 01:12:26,950
Since my illness, the feelings
1007
01:12:28,461 --> 01:12:30,987
of loneliness takes hold of me in the fields
1008
01:12:33,043 --> 01:12:35,700
in such a fearsome way that I hesitate to go out.
1009
01:12:40,952 --> 01:12:42,474
with time, though, that will change.
1010
01:12:45,112 --> 01:12:47,431
It's only in front of the easel while painting that
1011
01:12:48,943 --> 01:12:50,577
I feel a little of life.
1012
01:12:55,665 --> 01:12:56,266
I feel�
1013
01:13:00,613 --> 01:13:01,308
�a failure�
1014
01:13:04,265 --> 01:13:05,476
�that's it as regards me.
1015
01:13:08,603 --> 01:13:10,884
I feel that that's the fate I'm accepting�
1016
01:13:14,468 --> 01:13:15,848
�and which won't change any more.
1017
01:13:32,409 --> 01:13:36,550
In July 1890, he returned to Paris to visit Theo
1018
01:13:36,935 --> 01:13:38,400
and his sister-in-law, Jo,
1019
01:13:39,057 --> 01:13:42,787
and to see for the first time his recently-born nephew,
1020
01:13:43,200 --> 01:13:43,735
Vincent.
1021
01:13:45,604 --> 01:13:48,965
Theo explained to him that he now had responsibilities,
1022
01:13:49,334 --> 01:13:51,062
with a young family to support.
1023
01:13:52,085 --> 01:13:55,747
Vincent now feared that he was becoming a liability.
1024
01:13:57,384 --> 01:14:00,830
Distressed, he returned to Auvers that same evening.
1025
01:14:05,112 --> 01:14:05,722
I feared,
1026
01:14:06,557 --> 01:14:08,463
not completely but a little nonetheless,
1027
01:14:10,266 --> 01:14:13,214
that I was a danger to you�
1028
01:14:16,507 --> 01:14:17,728
�living at your expense.
1029
01:14:22,235 --> 01:14:25,071
I'd perhaps like to write to you about many things.
1030
01:14:29,367 --> 01:14:34,158
I profess the desire has passed to such a degree that I feel the pointlessness of it.
1031
01:14:49,848 --> 01:14:52,609
"I'm applying myself to my canvases with all my attention.
1032
01:14:55,106 --> 01:14:57,369
"They're immense stretches of wheat fields
1033
01:14:58,130 --> 01:14:59,689
under turbulent skies�
1034
01:15:03,304 --> 01:15:05,642
".. and I made a point of trying to express sadness,
1035
01:15:07,304 --> 01:15:08,403
"extreme loneliness. "
1036
01:15:13,677 --> 01:15:14,851
Look after yourself
1037
01:15:16,194 --> 01:15:18,109
and handshakes in thought.
1038
01:15:24,563 --> 01:15:25,371
Yours truly�
1039
01:15:28,103 --> 01:15:28,723
Vincent.
1040
01:15:40,531 --> 01:15:43,629
Four days after writing his final letter to Theo,
1041
01:15:44,446 --> 01:15:45,798
he went into the wheatfields
1042
01:15:46,315 --> 01:15:47,864
and shot himself in the chest.
1043
01:15:50,496 --> 01:15:55,013
He managed to crawl back here and climb these stairs to his attic room.
1044
01:16:01,384 --> 01:16:06,539
Two days later, he died here, in this room, at the age of 37,
1045
01:16:07,384 --> 01:16:08,529
with Theo at his side.
1046
01:16:19,879 --> 01:16:21,156
Dr Gachet and the other doctor were
1047
01:16:22,377 --> 01:16:24,246
excellent and looked after him very well, but�
1048
01:16:25,748 --> 01:16:28,349
realised from the very first moment there was nothing anyone could do.
1049
01:16:33,921 --> 01:16:35,686
Vincent said, "This is the way I would like to go. "
1050
01:16:39,100 --> 01:16:40,546
And half an hour later, he had his way.
1051
01:16:49,237 --> 01:16:51,406
Life weighed so heavily upon him�
1052
01:16:55,040 --> 01:16:58,345
�but as always happens, everyone is now full of praise for his talent.
1053
01:17:28,881 --> 01:17:31,633
Vincent wanted everyone to understand his art,
1054
01:17:32,657 --> 01:17:36,187
he wanted it, he said, "To say something consoling, like music. "
1055
01:17:37,474 --> 01:17:40,479
Perhaps the only person who really understood him in his lifetime
1056
01:17:40,967 --> 01:17:41,953
was his brother, Theo,
1057
01:17:42,726 --> 01:17:46,858
who died just six months later of syphilis, at the age of 33.
1058
01:17:49,468 --> 01:17:50,670
They're now buried here,
1059
01:17:51,149 --> 01:17:52,754
side by side, in Auvers.
1060
01:17:54,155 --> 01:17:56,746
The ivy which seems to overwhelm their graves
1061
01:17:57,084 --> 01:17:58,850
also serves to bind them together.
1062
01:17:59,620 --> 01:18:02,061
It was once a cutting from Dr Gachet's garden.
1063
01:18:03,333 --> 01:18:06,225
Van Gogh only sold a few artworks in his life.
1064
01:18:06,657 --> 01:18:08,291
Today, they're worth millions -
1065
01:18:09,005 --> 01:18:10,301
ironic, maybe,
1066
01:18:10,798 --> 01:18:12,939
but Vincent seemed to know all along
1067
01:18:13,230 --> 01:18:13,944
what would happen.
1068
01:18:22,713 --> 01:18:25,060
We're now living here in a world of painting,
1069
01:18:26,421 --> 01:18:30,308
where everything is occupied by people,
1070
01:18:31,012 --> 01:18:32,637
who all intercept money.
1071
01:18:34,199 --> 01:18:36,217
And you mustn't think that I'm imagining things.
1072
01:18:38,894 --> 01:18:41,748
People pay a lot for the work when the painter himself is dead.
91441
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