{"id":11757,"date":"2020-09-20T06:23:42","date_gmt":"2020-09-20T06:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/?p=11757"},"modified":"2020-09-20T06:23:48","modified_gmt":"2020-09-20T06:23:48","slug":"reagan-upshaw-vincent-van-goghs-image-is-cemented-in-our-cultural-memory-his-letters-complicate-the-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/?p=11757","title":{"rendered":"Reagan Upshaw-Vincent Van Gogh\u2019s image is cemented in our cultural memory. His letters complicate the view."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cWheatfield with Crows,\u201d by Vincent van Gogh, 1890. “I\u2019ve painted another three large canvases,\u201d van Gogh wrote to Theo van Gogh and Theo\u2019s wife, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, in 1890. \u201cThey\u2019re immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, and I made a point of trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness. You\u2019ll see this soon, I hope \u2013 for I hope to bring them to you in Paris as soon as possible, since I\u2019d almost believe that these canvases will tell you what I can\u2019t say in words, what I consider healthy and fortifying about the countryside.” (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From \u201cThe Agony and the Ecstasy,\u201d with Charlton Heston as Michelangelo, to \u201cPollock,\u201d starring Ed Harris, Hollywood films on the lives of tortured artists have been catnip to the general public, and no artist has gained a larger share of attention than Vincent van Gogh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirk Douglas, in 1956\u2019s \u201cLust for Life,\u201d cemented the prevailing image of the Dutch artist: a tortured genius, helpless in the grip of a vision that no one else could see. Douglas\u2019s resemblance to van Gogh fixed the artist\u2019s appearance in popular culture, and it is safe to say that today people with only a general knowledge of art can identify van Gogh from one of his self-portraits, thinking of him as the madman who cut off his ear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real man was much more complex, the son of a respectable pastor, well-read, fluent in three languages, who began his artistic career as an art dealer. His personality shines through in his letters, portions of which were being published within a couple years of his death in July 1890, widely believed to have been a suicide.AD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters\u201d is a beautifully produced selection of about a tenth of his surviving letters, culled by Nienke Bakker, Leo Jansen and Hans Luijten of the Van Gogh Museum from a complete collection published a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u2018Young Rembrandt,\u2019 Onno Blom tries to piece together the artist as a young man<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compelling though he may have been, van Gogh was a difficult character to live with, and his appearance mirrored the turmoil within. \u201cHe had a facial tic, and his hands seemed to be in constant motion,\u201d the editors write. \u201cPeople were often afraid of him, because of his wild and unkempt appearance and his intense manner of speaking.\u201d Some of that wild and unkempt appearance may simply have been a result of poverty, but there is no doubt that van Gogh\u2019s conviction that he was always right could make him as tiresome as a half-inebriated and wholly opinionated cousin at a Thanksgiving table. His younger brother Theo performed miracles to support him and undoubtedly, upon dying, ascended to a well-deserved place at the right hand of God for resisting the temptation to strangle the painter on numerous occasions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe correspondence of the great artists and idealists in the history of Western Man is mostly about money,\u201d wrote Kenneth Rexroth, including van Gogh in that number. Even in this brief selection of his letters, money, or the lack thereof, is a constant concern. \u201cOh, Theo,\u201d he writes in 1883 from The Hague, \u201cI could make much more progress if I was a little better off.\u201d A recurring dream throughout the correspondence is a move to the country or, if he\u2019s already in the country, to some other country setting where a studio will be much less expensive and the food nourishing and cheap.AD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But despite such dreams, van Gogh needed the company of other artists, if only to argue with, and the correspondence comes particularly alive in 1886, when he joined his brother in Paris. \u201cThere is but one Paris,\u201d he writes to an English artist friend, \u201cand however hard living may be here and if it became worse and harder even \u2014 the French air clears up the brain and does one good \u2014 a world of good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the influence of the Impressionists whose works he saw in Paris, van Gogh abandoned the earth tones of the Barbizon-inspired Dutch painters who had influenced him in his early career for the vivid colors we now associate with his work. Visiting the studios of artists such as Gauguin, Seurat and \u00c9mile Bernard, he took his place among the radical avant-garde, though he was too independent to pursue a connection with any formal group. By 1888, when he left Paris for Arles in the south of France, seeking brighter light and cheaper lodgings, he knew himself to be one of the leaders of his artistic generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer and fall of 1888 brought forth the masterpieces for which van Gogh is famous today. His letters to Gauguin at last persuaded the artist to join him, but a complete breakdown at the end of the year landed van Gogh in an asylum. The collapse probably had a variety of causes \u2014 poor diet and malnutrition, mild seizures resembling epilepsy, the effects of sexually transmitted diseases he had contracted over the years, and his already high-strung nature. After nine months in the asylum, he wrote to Theo with an uncharacteristic hint of humor, \u201cI\u2019m trying to get better now like someone who, having wanted to commit suicide, finding the water too cold, tries to catch hold of the bank again.\u201d Less than a year after writing that letter, released from the asylum and living in a small village north of Paris, his suffering ended.AD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The now-rusty pistol thought to have been used by van Gogh to shoot himself was sold at auction in Paris a couple of months ago for more than $180,000, an indication of the fascination the artist still holds for us. A visit to almost any museum store today will yield a plethora of van Gogh-inspired items, from jigsaw puzzles and dolls to coffee mugs and silk scarves. It is the enormous popularity of van Gogh\u2019s art that fuels our desire for a connection with the man, a man who still speaks so eloquently in these letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reagan Upshaw<\/strong>\u2009is an art dealer and critic in Beacon, N.Y.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From \u201cThe Agony and the Ecstasy,\u201d with Charlton Heston as Michelangelo, to \u201cPollock,\u201d starring Ed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-letters-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lediemchihue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/10-30.jpg?fit=916%2C439&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7bhGG-33D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11759,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757\/revisions\/11759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}