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The Tragic Life of Vincent Van Gogh · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:14
Speaker 2: Chuck and Cheers here too, and we all have bandages
0:17
Speaker 2: around our heads out of sympathy for a truly great guy.
0:21
Speaker 2: From what I can tell. Oh, yeah, let's go don
0:24
Speaker 2: this is stuff you should know.
0:25
Speaker 1: Oh yes, hi everyone, Hi, I'm Chuck.
0:30
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm Chuck too.
0:32
Speaker 1: The Deuce, What is going on? I thought you were
0:36
Speaker 1: I thought you were Chuck de Portes.
0:40
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, or the Ocho.
0:42
Speaker 1: Yeah boy, I'm trying to make ESPN jokes and it's
0:45
Speaker 1: just not happening.
0:47
Speaker 2: That worked, Yeah, the Spanish version of esp and I.
0:50
Speaker 1: Got no no, I know, but I'm just saying it's
0:52
Speaker 1: not good.
0:54
Speaker 2: Oh well, I can't argue with that. Should be start over, Hey,
0:59
Speaker 2: and welcome to the pop. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, just
1:03
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
1:06
Speaker 2: should know.
1:07
Speaker 1: That's right, Chuck de Portes.
1:11
Speaker 2: Now we have to start over again. You're ready here,
1:14
Speaker 2: We'll give everybody a little beep beep.
1:17
Speaker 1: Can we talk about Bengo?
1:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I was saying. We have bandages around
1:20
Speaker 2: our heads because we are in are in solidarity. That's
1:25
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to say with a really great guy.
1:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, have you ever seen any of the Van Goo movies?
1:33
Speaker 2: I watched one last night. It was a documentary, but
1:35
Speaker 2: it was the documentary the one where David Bowie plays
1:38
Speaker 2: Andy Warhol?
1:41
Speaker 1: H which one? Did Bowie play Warhol?
1:45
Speaker 2: In Basquiot?
1:46
Speaker 1: Basquiot right? Because he was also played by Crispin Glover
1:51
Speaker 1: in the Doors and the Doors and Van Go was
1:55
Speaker 1: played by Willem Dafoe.
1:58
Speaker 2: That was unwatchable.
2:01
Speaker 1: I never saw that one. It was unwatchable loving Vincent.
2:05
Speaker 2: I think that's what it's called. Yeah, I'm almost positive
2:08
Speaker 2: it's not because it's bad or the Dialogu's bad or
2:10
Speaker 2: anything like that. It's just so shaky and rapid cut
2:15
Speaker 2: and shot from weird angles to I guess represent his
2:19
Speaker 2: mental illness that I couldn't watch it. I watched like
2:23
Speaker 2: ten minutes, so I was like, oh no, I was disappointed.
2:26
Speaker 1: Yeah. I never saw that one. I did see the
2:29
Speaker 1: one from the nineties though, the Robert Altman film.
2:32
Speaker 2: I didn't know he did one on Are you talking
2:34
Speaker 2: about Nashville?
2:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll shoots that's the one. No, Vincent Theo with
2:40
Speaker 1: Tim Rothis Van Go. That was a yeah, nineteen ninety
2:44
Speaker 1: I think it was a good.
2:44
Speaker 2: Movie, no idea. I'll have to go back and check
2:46
Speaker 2: that out.
2:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd like to see it again. I don't think
2:48
Speaker 1: i've seen it since college.
2:51
Speaker 2: I feel like a total shmoke because I don't remember
2:53
Speaker 2: the name of the documentary, But essentially the premise of
2:58
Speaker 2: it is the documentary went from place to place through
3:01
Speaker 2: and just followed Van Go's life because he moved around
3:04
Speaker 2: a lot, as we'll see, and was inspired differently by
3:07
Speaker 2: the different places he lived. And they basically talked about
3:11
Speaker 2: how those places inspired him or how they beat him
3:14
Speaker 2: down or whatever, and then they would show you know,
3:18
Speaker 2: his like paintings morphing into the structures that are still
3:23
Speaker 2: there today or vice versa. It was really good. That's documentary.
3:27
Speaker 2: They talked a lot about his life and it was good.
3:30
Speaker 2: It's very tranquil. I think there was the same thirty
3:33
Speaker 2: seconds of very tranquil string music that they used over
3:37
Speaker 2: and over and over again. And it was not a problem.
3:42
Speaker 1: I think Van Go. I mean, you know, I don't
3:44
Speaker 1: know much about art history. We've talked to we've done
3:46
Speaker 1: quite a few shows about this kind of thing over
3:47
Speaker 1: the years, and my appreciation for art has grown sort
3:51
Speaker 1: of in lockstep. I've always sort of liked Vango's stuff,
3:53
Speaker 1: for sure, but I like him even more now that
3:56
Speaker 1: I kind of understand that, you know, he never well,
4:02
Speaker 1: I mean, most people, if they know anything about van
4:04
Speaker 1: Go know he never gained fame in his lifetime. But
4:07
Speaker 1: he certainly never tried to achieve fame as an artist
4:10
Speaker 1: by like painting what he thought people might want to see.
4:13
Speaker 1: He always painted what he you know, his surroundings and
4:17
Speaker 1: like you said, depending on where he lived, that varied,
4:20
Speaker 1: and also it seems like really from the heart and
4:22
Speaker 1: his deep, deep emotions, which I have a lot of
4:25
Speaker 1: respect for.
4:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, in that sense, he was a pioneer. The same
4:29
Speaker 2: for me too. By the way, I really came to
4:31
Speaker 2: like him even more. I think we both came from
4:33
Speaker 2: the same exact spot and ended up in about the
4:35
Speaker 2: same exact spot too.
4:36
Speaker 1: Look at us.
4:39
Speaker 2: One thing I saw that kind of explained him to me,
4:41
Speaker 2: at least, was that he wanted to share the things
4:45
Speaker 2: he saw, the beauty he saw everywhere with the world,
4:50
Speaker 2: because it was so beautiful. He wanted to provide that
4:52
Speaker 2: to the world, not in any kind of egotistical way
4:55
Speaker 2: or anything like that, but just like, this is so pretty.
4:57
Speaker 2: I'm going to try my best to express how this
5:00
Speaker 2: makes me feel and show the world. And then very
5:04
Speaker 2: sadly the world was like, that's not very good. We
5:06
Speaker 2: don't want now. Thanks for sharing, but keep it to yourself.
5:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's tough, I mean. In fact, in one letter
5:13
Speaker 1: to his brother Theo, he said his allaying anxiety was
5:17
Speaker 1: how can I be of use in the world? And
5:19
Speaker 1: his you know, what he came to was to be
5:21
Speaker 1: an artist, and that he really thought that had and
5:24
Speaker 1: he was right, had a lot of value and that's
5:26
Speaker 1: how he would serve in a way.
5:27
Speaker 2: Right right, kind of cool. But before he became an artist,
5:31
Speaker 2: he pinged around here or there. He's a little aimless
5:35
Speaker 2: for a little while. And he was born in eighteen
5:38
Speaker 2: fifty three in the nether Lens or Dare, near Lenz,
5:43
Speaker 2: say Holland. Sure his father was Theodorus or I guess
5:47
Speaker 2: it'd be Teo Doris van Goch, that's the correct way
5:52
Speaker 2: to say it. And I went back and I didn't
5:53
Speaker 2: listen to it, but I read the transcript from our
5:56
Speaker 2: episode seven No Waight five mysteries of the art world.
5:59
Speaker 2: Were we talked about man go a lot, and you
6:02
Speaker 2: correctly said his name. I think here or there or through.
6:05
Speaker 1: I probably was, Yeah, I think I was probably making
6:09
Speaker 1: a joke from a Woody Allen movie.
6:11
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, you were. That's exactly what
6:13
Speaker 2: you mentioned that.
6:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was a funny part, Ben Goch.
6:17
Speaker 2: But the transcription, the AI transcribing it kept saying Van God.
6:21
Speaker 2: So I could tell that you were saying Van Goh.
6:25
Speaker 1: Okay, oh, I thought you were going to say. The
6:26
Speaker 1: AI transcription canceled what I said about Woody Allen. No, No,
6:33
Speaker 1: that'd be useful.
6:34
Speaker 2: Ill it's coming, don't worry.
6:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, born in eighteen fifty three, Like you said,
6:41
Speaker 1: he had a bunch of siblings. He had five younger siblings,
6:44
Speaker 1: Theo the most notable because, as you'll see, they had
6:46
Speaker 1: a very tight relationship and working relationship, which is why
6:50
Speaker 1: Robert Altman made the movie Vincent and Theo. THEO was
6:54
Speaker 1: younger by four years. Vincent was, you know, apparently a
6:58
Speaker 1: pretty moody, tough kid, and as we'll see, he certainly
7:02
Speaker 1: suffered from mental illness throughout his life, but his parents
7:06
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with him. So they sent
7:07
Speaker 1: him to boarding school for about four years from twelve
7:10
Speaker 1: to sixteen, at which point he was like, you know what,
7:13
Speaker 1: I'm going to get involved in the art worlds in
7:16
Speaker 1: the way of being sort of like an apprentice to
7:19
Speaker 1: a dealer, and he learned about the sales side.
7:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get the impression he kind of fell into
7:24
Speaker 2: the art world because it was almost a family business selling.
7:27
Speaker 1: Art, was the impression.
7:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, put that in your pipe and smoke it later, right.
7:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're probably right.
7:36
Speaker 2: So he worked there for I think seven years, yeah,
7:40
Speaker 2: until about age twenty three, and this was it was
7:43
Speaker 2: during this period that he fell into what I think
7:47
Speaker 2: is viewed as his first true episode of depressions, about
7:52
Speaker 2: of real depression, and it followed on the heels of
7:56
Speaker 2: a I didn't see exactly what it was. Livia helped
7:59
Speaker 2: us with. She just describes it as a romantic disappointment.
8:03
Speaker 2: But that seems to be a trend throughout his life
8:06
Speaker 2: where he did not he was not lucky in love.
8:09
Speaker 2: I think the Little River Band would have called him
8:11
Speaker 2: the lonesome loser in that respect, and that would trigger
8:16
Speaker 2: some of his depressive episodes. But as a result, his
8:20
Speaker 2: uncle or whoever ran his uncle's art dealership was like, sorry,
8:25
Speaker 2: you're fired.
8:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we lost that job. But he did learn
8:30
Speaker 1: about the world of art and sort of the business
8:32
Speaker 1: of art, even though he didn't, like I say, kind
8:34
Speaker 1: of cowtow to the business side of things. He got
8:38
Speaker 1: interested in religion for a little while after that job
8:41
Speaker 1: and was a I guess an unordained or unlicensed preacher
8:45
Speaker 1: for about four years. He never got a theology degree
8:48
Speaker 1: or anything, but he did this work, sort of missionary
8:51
Speaker 1: work in Belgium and sort of the poorest parts of
8:55
Speaker 1: Belgium and cold country at the time, and he wanted
8:58
Speaker 1: to you know, very admir didn't want to put on airs,
9:01
Speaker 1: and he lived as the people around him lived, and
9:05
Speaker 1: was very open and shared what he had with his parishioners.
9:09
Speaker 1: But the church wasn't wild about that idea. I think
9:11
Speaker 1: they thought it was sort of beneath the parish. So
9:14
Speaker 1: he got fired from that job as a preacher.
9:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I have the impression that he was taking
9:19
Speaker 2: steps to maybe please his father and just trying to
9:23
Speaker 2: throw himself into religion because he wanted something. He wanted
9:26
Speaker 2: some sort of connection to something bigger than him, and
9:29
Speaker 2: I guess that was just the easiest thing to try.
9:31
Speaker 2: But also his father, remember he was a Dutch minister,
9:35
Speaker 2: so yeah, I could see him doing that, and then
9:38
Speaker 2: he kind of failed at that, So that probably didn't
9:40
Speaker 2: sit all that well.
9:42
Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that kind of the story of a
9:44
Speaker 1: lot of people, like boys trying to please daddy who
9:48
Speaker 1: didn't approve of them.
9:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I became a podcaster. My dad told
9:53
Speaker 2: me when I was like seven, He's like, I will
9:54
Speaker 2: never respect you unless you grow up to be a podcaster.
9:57
Speaker 2: And I was like, I can do that. He said,
9:59
Speaker 2: a good one, and I went.
10:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, right. I remember my dad at one point suggested
10:05
Speaker 1: I've become a mail carrier when I was sort of aimless, just.
10:08
Speaker 2: Like Henry CHENASKI government.
10:11
Speaker 1: Job, good benefits, you could do worse. He was absolutely right,
10:14
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with the job. I just wasn't so
10:18
Speaker 1: interested in that.
10:19
Speaker 2: So yeah, so he failed to please his father, if
10:21
Speaker 2: that's what he was doing, But he kind of we
10:24
Speaker 2: all did exactly right well put. But he he was
10:28
Speaker 2: struck by his time in Belgium coal country and he
10:31
Speaker 2: hopped out of there for a little while. But he
10:34
Speaker 2: would kind of carry with him, as we'll see, once
10:36
Speaker 2: he became an artist, you know, this appreciation or at
10:40
Speaker 2: least kind of this need to shine a spotlight on
10:43
Speaker 2: the toil and the suffering of his fellow humans because
10:46
Speaker 2: he cared about them and he thought other people should
10:48
Speaker 2: care about him too.
10:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean he definitely carried around socialist ideas.
10:55
Speaker 1: He started to actually study painting because, like I said,
10:59
Speaker 1: he had written that letter, THEO saying that he wanted
11:01
Speaker 1: to become an artist to try and serve the world
11:03
Speaker 1: and bring the beautiful art. So he thought, you know,
11:05
Speaker 1: maybe I should study this stuff. Off and on. He
11:08
Speaker 1: lived with his parents, but that never worked out very well,
11:12
Speaker 1: as that happened sometimes in real life. He found them
11:15
Speaker 1: fairly suffocating, and so he would sort of move around
11:18
Speaker 1: in between the Netherlands in Belgium for a period of years.
11:23
Speaker 1: That's not to say his family as a whole didn't
11:26
Speaker 1: support him, because THEO, as we'll see, was always very supportive.
11:29
Speaker 1: He was working in the art world. He worked for
11:31
Speaker 1: a big dealer, and he was very sort of hip
11:35
Speaker 1: to the art scene. THEO was and you know what
11:38
Speaker 1: was moving and he would end up representing not only
11:41
Speaker 1: his brother who was not popular, but other artists who
11:44
Speaker 1: were not popular in critical circles like Monet and Goga
11:48
Speaker 1: and old latrec are to Louse Latrek.
11:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, like his brother had that foresight that was like
11:56
Speaker 2: these new impressionist guys, I like what they're doing.
11:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he knew it up.
12:00
Speaker 2: But he also very importantly saw, like, my brother actually
12:04
Speaker 2: has something here. This is a good decision that he
12:06
Speaker 2: became an artist. It was not at all patronizing, even
12:09
Speaker 2: though Tale THEO was his patron which is kind of confusing.
12:13
Speaker 2: He genuinely believed in his brother's ability, and he very
12:18
Speaker 2: happily was like, I'm going to give you a monthly
12:21
Speaker 2: allowance that I saw was about equal to a minimum
12:25
Speaker 2: wage what somebody would earn minimum wage. And it kept him.
12:28
Speaker 2: It kept Vincent in the art supplies. I think he
12:31
Speaker 2: spent eighty percent of it on art supplies and the
12:33
Speaker 2: other twenty percent on just living. But he was able
12:37
Speaker 2: to live like that and just produce art, and that's
12:40
Speaker 2: what THEO wanted.
12:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Vincent said, don't patronize me. And he said,
12:45
Speaker 1: well that's tricky because technically I am exactly And that
12:49
Speaker 1: was about twenty percent of theo's income, So it was
12:51
Speaker 1: not you know, chicken scratch. Why wasn't making it a
12:54
Speaker 1: ton of money himself. His cousin was also very supportive
12:59
Speaker 1: of him in the way of teaching him. His name
13:01
Speaker 1: was Anton mauv and he literally, quite literally taught him
13:06
Speaker 1: like how to paint with oil, how to paint with watercolors,
13:09
Speaker 1: and he had that. I guess it was that same
13:11
Speaker 1: uncle who he worked for, would commission works and pay
13:15
Speaker 1: him occasionally to like, you know, paint stuff for him.
13:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like in art circles. Van Go was like
13:23
Speaker 2: very frequently cited as like only having sold one painting
13:26
Speaker 2: during his life. Yeah, that's not correct, not exactly, but
13:29
Speaker 2: if you you know, if you want to get technical,
13:32
Speaker 2: he sold several paintings, but they were like family and
13:35
Speaker 2: friends and stuff like that. He did sell one painting
13:37
Speaker 2: to one person he wasn't an acquaintance of. That's true.
13:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, we're gonna be myth busting a little
13:44
Speaker 1: bit along the way because van Go, it seems like,
13:46
Speaker 1: more so than other artists, had a lot of kind
13:49
Speaker 1: of falsehoods bandied about over the years. Is that fair
13:52
Speaker 1: to say I get.
13:53
Speaker 2: To wear the Beret this time.
13:55
Speaker 1: Okay, So, like you said, he never had a whole
13:58
Speaker 1: lot of luck with the lady, had a sort of
14:02
Speaker 1: a series of disappointments there, but eventually he would have
14:07
Speaker 1: about a year and a half relationship with a woman
14:10
Speaker 1: named Cien Hornick. This was in eighteen eighty two. She
14:15
Speaker 1: was pregnant at the time and also had a five
14:17
Speaker 1: year old daughter. Was a former sex worker, which his
14:20
Speaker 1: family didn't like any of this, and his father tried
14:24
Speaker 1: to get him I guess committed to an asylum, but
14:28
Speaker 1: you know, Venko was having none of it. He was
14:30
Speaker 1: in love.
14:30
Speaker 2: No, but it would get easier and easier to have
14:32
Speaker 2: him committed as time went on. I guess this is
14:35
Speaker 2: just the first attempt and it didn't take so. Like
14:40
Speaker 2: I said, he was kind of taken with the idea
14:43
Speaker 2: of peasants, people toiling people growing their own food or
14:47
Speaker 2: making their own living from the land, which he was
14:50
Speaker 2: infatuated with the land in nature in general. He's almost
14:54
Speaker 2: a transcendentalist, I guess, without quite knowing it. And he
15:00
Speaker 2: when he moved back with his parents and then was
15:01
Speaker 2: bouncing back and forth between Belgium and the Netherlands for
15:04
Speaker 2: a little while he was mostly doing studies and paintings
15:08
Speaker 2: of peasants, and one of his most famous paintings came
15:12
Speaker 2: out of this time. One of his first masterpieces, called
15:16
Speaker 2: The Potato Eaters, was a study of I think five
15:19
Speaker 2: peasants sitting around a table eating potatoes, drinking coffee, and
15:25
Speaker 2: it's like in hughes of Brown's. Essentially. He said in
15:29
Speaker 2: a letter to THEO that he wanted it to basically
15:31
Speaker 2: be the color of a potato unpeeled. Of course, it's
15:35
Speaker 2: how we put it, and he nailed it. It's also
15:39
Speaker 2: it's bleak and grim in away but at the same
15:42
Speaker 2: time the people almost appear noble, but they're blocky and
15:46
Speaker 2: cartoonish almost as far as their forms go. And that
15:51
Speaker 2: was all intentional, but everybody was like, this is terrible.
15:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, people didn't love it. He was sending these paintings
15:58
Speaker 1: to THEO to like, hey man, so these and hopefully
16:01
Speaker 1: that can kind of help pay you back, but he
16:03
Speaker 1: couldn't sell any of them at the time, and he
16:07
Speaker 1: took him to the art market in Paris there but
16:09
Speaker 1: no one was into that. You know, his sort of
16:12
Speaker 1: I don't want to say dower, but I guess it
16:13
Speaker 1: was fairly gloomy, just his color palette. At least this
16:16
Speaker 1: would all change though. In eighteen eighty five his father
16:19
Speaker 1: died and he painted you know very much in tribute
16:23
Speaker 1: to his father, something called still Life with Bible, which
16:27
Speaker 1: has showed sort of the contrast between himself and his
16:30
Speaker 1: father and their ideals, because obviously the open Bible on
16:34
Speaker 1: the table was representing his father. But there was also
16:37
Speaker 1: another novel, Lajois de vive, and it was a socialist
16:40
Speaker 1: book by a socialist writer named Emil I guess Zola,
16:45
Speaker 1: and it was like, you know, here's a contrast between
16:47
Speaker 1: my father and I. I paint this in tribute, but
16:51
Speaker 1: I got to get out of here now. Like he
16:53
Speaker 1: needed a change in his life. I think because of
16:56
Speaker 1: his father's passing, he wanted to move.
16:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he definitely did. He moved to Paris and
17:01
Speaker 2: he moved. I don't know if he moved in with THEO,
17:03
Speaker 2: but that would be my great guess. Either way. THEO
17:07
Speaker 2: was living and working there, and he moved to be
17:09
Speaker 2: close to THEO, and THEO introduced him to those artists
17:13
Speaker 2: he was wrapping in his circle, like you said, Monet
17:17
Speaker 2: and Psro, and to loose the Trek like they were,
17:21
Speaker 2: Like Van Goh was hanging out with all of these
17:23
Speaker 2: guys and like learning from them, but at the same
17:26
Speaker 2: time he was also impressing them too, And when he
17:31
Speaker 2: moved to Paris, something changed and he dropped those really
17:36
Speaker 2: gloomy colors in favor for like an increasingly bright, colorful
17:40
Speaker 2: palette that like Paris, somehow triggered that in him.
17:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you can never or it's easy, I guess,
17:50
Speaker 1: rather than to go back after someone has passed and
17:53
Speaker 1: sort of judged their work compared to where they were
17:56
Speaker 1: in their life and think, like you can kind of
17:58
Speaker 1: figure out things. But I guess my armchair psychology degree
18:03
Speaker 1: would point me in the direction of like almost being
18:06
Speaker 1: freed up a little bit by his father's passing as well.
18:10
Speaker 1: I know it upset him, but I think it also
18:11
Speaker 1: freed him up. So maybe that in the move to Paris,
18:14
Speaker 1: even though we'll see he wasn't very much a city guy,
18:17
Speaker 1: I don't think it was it was a coincidence that
18:19
Speaker 1: all of a sudden things kind of brightened in his
18:21
Speaker 1: life a little bit, or it could have just been
18:23
Speaker 1: the ups and downs of his fragile, you know, mental state.
18:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be either, but that's a I think
18:30
Speaker 2: you dug up an equally compelling idea. Where did you
18:34
Speaker 2: get your armchair psychology degree?
18:37
Speaker 1: Just right here on my armchair?
18:39
Speaker 2: Oh okay, well you're a credit to your armchair.
18:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, the right arm.
18:44
Speaker 2: Is it a lazy boy? Is it Ethan Allen?
18:46
Speaker 1: Oh? You know it's a lazy boy buddy?
18:48
Speaker 2: Okay. So yeah, one of the first paintings that people
18:52
Speaker 2: are like, Look, he came out of this gloom and
18:54
Speaker 2: doom stuff and now he likes color. The Hill of
18:57
Speaker 2: mam mart with stone quarry, Uh is not part of
19:01
Speaker 2: the title. That was just me. But that was painted
19:04
Speaker 2: in eighteen eighty six. And here's the thing that you
19:08
Speaker 2: should know about Van go He was he started painting
19:13
Speaker 2: in twenty age twenty seven. He died at thirty seven.
19:18
Speaker 2: In between that time he painted almost nine hundred paintings,
19:22
Speaker 2: many many, many of them masterpieces. So in a ten
19:25
Speaker 2: year period, everything you know about Van Goh happened. And
19:31
Speaker 2: really you can kind of narrow it down to essentially
19:33
Speaker 2: the last three years of his life that were the
19:36
Speaker 2: most productive, where he really came into his own.
19:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, that website you sent kind of broke down his
19:43
Speaker 1: productivity by location, and his five years in the Netherlands
19:47
Speaker 1: he painted about four paintings a month, so two hundred
19:49
Speaker 1: and forty five. A couple of years in Paris painted
19:52
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty seven, so ten paintings per month.
19:55
Speaker 1: His fourteen months, as we'll see in What would That be? Arless?
19:58
Speaker 1: Is that how you pronounce that?
20:00
Speaker 2: Arl?
20:01
Speaker 1: Arl? Okay?
20:01
Speaker 2: It just sounds like you're choking on a hard boiled egg.
20:06
Speaker 1: About fourteen paintings a month over fourteen months, and then
20:09
Speaker 1: salt rem is that right? Eighteen per month? And then finally, man,
20:14
Speaker 1: he was up to a painting per day by the
20:17
Speaker 1: time he ended up in that last place in France.
20:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, like just a stunning number of painting and complete
20:23
Speaker 2: oil paintings. Not like he half started wine or something
20:26
Speaker 2: like that. These were completed paintings like that usually takes
20:29
Speaker 2: a day and a half, not a day, right.
20:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. I can't paint anything. I can paint a wall.
20:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could probably paint a wall in a day.
20:40
Speaker 1: Yeah you do. You don't have artistic talent like that either,
20:42
Speaker 1: do you No?
20:43
Speaker 2: And it's always bothered me. I wanted to draw for
20:46
Speaker 2: so long and I just can't do it.
20:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't, but we can both write, so sure, yeah,
20:52
Speaker 1: and we could both sing.
20:54
Speaker 2: Right, we just need an extra one thousand words for
20:56
Speaker 2: each picture. We can't both sing. Wait a minute, now,
21:00
Speaker 2: hold on it in a compliment. I can't sing. I'm
21:03
Speaker 2: not taking that one.
21:05
Speaker 1: All right. Well, we'll get you someone singing lessons and
21:07
Speaker 1: we'll be back right after this.
21:08
Speaker 3: Okay.
21:27
Speaker 2: So despite moving to Paris, Chuck, we're back by the way,
21:30
Speaker 2: he was still very much drawn to rural areas. That's
21:35
Speaker 2: where he found his most inspiration. He liked the light
21:37
Speaker 2: and the color out there. Although he did paint a
21:40
Speaker 2: lot of city stuff, like a cafe terrace at night.
21:43
Speaker 2: That's one of my favorites. There was, There were plenty
21:45
Speaker 2: of city paintings, but far and away. He did like landscapes,
21:51
Speaker 2: some seascapes, that kind of stuff, and that there was
21:54
Speaker 2: no different in when he was in Paris. So he
21:58
Speaker 2: really started to kind of pick up painting the land
22:01
Speaker 2: around that time too. And then he was also inspired
22:04
Speaker 2: by Japanese art during this time.
22:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, those woodblock prints, which I didn't even
22:11
Speaker 1: know what woodblock was until probably ten years ago. And
22:14
Speaker 1: I just love the stuff. It's really pretty incredible, especially
22:17
Speaker 1: the process. But he was inspired not to do woodblock,
22:21
Speaker 1: but to kind of recreate that just using you know,
22:24
Speaker 1: paint very you know, contrasting colors and bold outlines. And
22:29
Speaker 1: he started and I don't know how common this is,
22:32
Speaker 1: and you know, I know people are inspired, but he
22:34
Speaker 1: kind of straight up copied some other people at times
22:37
Speaker 1: in his career. And I don't think like suffered in
22:41
Speaker 1: posthumously for that unless I'm wrong. No, okay, that was
22:46
Speaker 1: the case. Here he recreated a Japanese wood block sudden
22:49
Speaker 1: shower over shin Ohashi Bridge and Atake in eighteen eighty seven,
22:54
Speaker 1: but again using brushstrokes.
22:56
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and I mean both of them are pretty impressive.
23:00
Speaker 2: But yeah, the idea that the original by Utagawa Hiroshige
23:04
Speaker 2: is like carved out of wood, inked and then stamped.
23:09
Speaker 1: Is just how you know, Yeah, it's incredible.
23:13
Speaker 2: So also in Paris, we talked about how he suffered
23:16
Speaker 2: his first real depressive episode in his early twenties. Paris
23:21
Speaker 2: was the point where his full blown recurring mental illness
23:25
Speaker 2: really started to take hold. It seems like the more
23:29
Speaker 2: he pushed himself, the more exhausted he got, the more
23:33
Speaker 2: his mental illness was triggered and he could push himself.
23:38
Speaker 2: That guy. I mean, like you said, he was painting
23:40
Speaker 2: a painting a day, day after day after day for
23:44
Speaker 2: a while. So yeah, yeah, he was very capable of
23:47
Speaker 2: working until he was exhausted. So he really started doing
23:50
Speaker 2: that around this time, eighteen eighty seven eighty eight, that
23:54
Speaker 2: kind of thing. And I guess he lived in Paris
23:59
Speaker 2: for two years and moved to Arle, which I know
24:02
Speaker 2: is not exactly how you say it, but it's in Provence.
24:05
Speaker 2: And I mean, dude, if you want to be like
24:07
Speaker 2: inspired by nature, just move to Provence.
24:11
Speaker 1: Never been there.
24:12
Speaker 2: I haven't either, but just from pictures I've seen on
24:15
Speaker 2: the TV, yeah, I'm telling you it's inspiring.
24:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. He wanted a more chill life for sure. So
24:23
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty eight, that's when he split. He was
24:28
Speaker 1: painting a little more intensely at this point, and the
24:31
Speaker 1: colors got even more bold and his brushwork, like I
24:35
Speaker 1: think that's one of the things he was got inspired
24:37
Speaker 1: by from the Impressionists, was really kind of showing the
24:39
Speaker 1: brushwork and all of a sudden you're getting those farm
24:43
Speaker 1: fields and the wheat, a lot of wheat orchard stuff
24:47
Speaker 1: like that. And then eventually he would paint a lot
24:50
Speaker 1: of the Yellow House is what he called it, where
24:52
Speaker 1: he lived. He lived there and he would end up
24:56
Speaker 1: renting out rooms as we'll see, to different painters, and
25:01
Speaker 1: that's where the sunflowers started too. Very famous for his
25:03
Speaker 1: sunflower paintings.
25:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's one that I saw was called the still
25:07
Speaker 2: life version of the Mona Lisa. That's how good it is.
25:11
Speaker 2: Another thing I didn't realize. I've seen much of his work,
25:14
Speaker 2: but from researching this, I kept zooming into paintings that
25:18
Speaker 2: we were talking about, and he was really good. Like
25:23
Speaker 2: when you zoom in and look at the brushwork and
25:26
Speaker 2: see what he's doing with it, it's a whole different painting.
25:29
Speaker 2: I mean, it's Impressionism for you, but it looks so
25:33
Speaker 2: much more childish. And I know his work was described
25:37
Speaker 2: like that during his lifetime, from like zoomed out, like
25:41
Speaker 2: normally how you would look at a painting, but when
25:42
Speaker 2: you go into it, it's like such genius that it
25:46
Speaker 2: almost seems like it would be difficult to make it
25:49
Speaker 2: look childish. It's that good, you know what I mean?
25:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I when I go to museums, I you know,
25:55
Speaker 1: I make sure i'm not obnoxious about it and like
25:57
Speaker 1: black people and stuff. But when I get a chance,
26:00
Speaker 1: I will, I will get in there as close as
26:02
Speaker 1: you know, allowable to really kind of look at what's
26:05
Speaker 1: going on on a close level, and not for any
26:07
Speaker 1: kind of obviously study for myself because they don't paint.
26:10
Speaker 1: But there's something about it that makes it a little
26:12
Speaker 1: more uh real, Like you can actually see like what
26:16
Speaker 1: somebody was doing rather than you know, just looking at
26:19
Speaker 1: the hole from afar.
26:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely connects you more to the painter, for sure,
26:24
Speaker 2: because it sinks in like somebody was standing in front
26:27
Speaker 2: of this canvas like one hundred and fifty years ago
26:30
Speaker 2: putting their brush to it, like that happened at one point,
26:33
Speaker 2: you know.
26:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I love that stuff.
26:35
Speaker 2: Do you get really close and put your finger right
26:37
Speaker 2: over and go, I'm not touching it, I'm not touching
26:39
Speaker 2: it to the security guard.
26:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, sometimes if they're not looking at like to
26:42
Speaker 1: chip a little piece of the paint off and just
26:44
Speaker 1: take it as a soon here, do.
26:47
Speaker 2: You like stick it inside your cheek to smuggle it out?
26:50
Speaker 1: Yeah?
26:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, Sunflowers, that was the one that I
26:55
Speaker 2: first really looked at and was like Oh my god,
26:57
Speaker 2: this is way better than I thought it was. Yeah,
27:00
Speaker 2: he started. He's also obviously very well known for starry nights,
27:04
Speaker 2: and his first one was Starry Night over the Rhone
27:07
Speaker 2: River in eighteen eighty eight, and his starry Nights would
27:12
Speaker 2: be kind of like a gift and a curse, like
27:15
Speaker 2: they became his most beloved works essentially, But he kind
27:21
Speaker 2: of beat himself up about him because he's like, this
27:23
Speaker 2: isn't quite right. But I almost get the impression that
27:26
Speaker 2: to him, they were right, but he just he was
27:29
Speaker 2: kind of adjusting his interpretation of them based on the
27:33
Speaker 2: feedback he was getting from everybody else, Like he was
27:36
Speaker 2: subsuming his feelings about it to everybody else's dislike of it, Like, yeah,
27:40
Speaker 2: you're right, it's not very good kind of thing. It
27:43
Speaker 2: seemed to be specific to those starry knights.
27:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, And just how tough was that, as someone who
27:49
Speaker 1: obviously was extremely talented and producing what would be some
27:53
Speaker 1: of the most beloved works of art after his death,
27:55
Speaker 1: to constantly be getting that feedback from art credit and
28:00
Speaker 1: although he wasn't even on the radar really art critics,
28:03
Speaker 1: but people who he would show to. And then his
28:05
Speaker 1: own brother who was such a supporter, but had to
28:08
Speaker 1: constantly break the news of like nobody wants to buy this.
28:10
Speaker 2: Stuff, right, And Vincent was like, but do you have
28:13
Speaker 2: to tell me, like verbatim, how much they said they
28:16
Speaker 2: hated it every time? Can you just tell me you
28:18
Speaker 2: didn't sell any of this week?
28:20
Speaker 1: This guy said it looked like snot on canvas. I
28:22
Speaker 1: don't know what to tell you, right.
28:25
Speaker 3: Yeah.
28:25
Speaker 2: And also again if you take into account Chuck that
28:28
Speaker 2: he's not just like trying to do a still life
28:30
Speaker 2: photo realistically and not quite getting it. So it's like
28:34
Speaker 2: your expertise isn't that good. He's like putting himself on
28:38
Speaker 2: the canvas and people are rejecting it. So they're rejecting
28:41
Speaker 2: him as a human being as far as he's concerned.
28:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So he's in the Yellow House that
28:48
Speaker 1: said he would rent it out to other artists. One
28:50
Speaker 1: of those, thanks to THEO, ended up being Go Gone
28:53
Speaker 1: because THEO was like, hey, listen, can I pay your
28:57
Speaker 1: expenses and you go move in with my brother because
29:01
Speaker 1: I really think it will. I think the quote was
29:03
Speaker 1: it'll make a big change in your life. And he,
29:07
Speaker 1: you know, he was hoping that one would inspire the
29:09
Speaker 1: other because obviously he was wrapping them both, but he
29:12
Speaker 1: wanted good things for Vincent and that that sort of worked,
29:15
Speaker 1: and it didn't like they were both very productive. They
29:19
Speaker 1: painted each other's portraits very famously, but they also fought
29:23
Speaker 1: a lot. It was just a very volatile relationship to
29:27
Speaker 1: the point where on Christmas Eve eighteen eighty eight, go
29:31
Speaker 1: Gon was already planning on leaving. This wasn't the impetus
29:34
Speaker 1: for him to leave, but Van Go threw a glass
29:37
Speaker 1: of absinthe in his face, which I imagine, I mean, no
29:40
Speaker 1: liquor in your face is great. Imagine absence is probably
29:43
Speaker 1: one of the worst ones to get thrown in your face. Shirt. Yeah,
29:47
Speaker 1: it probably stings, I would imagine. I don't know.
29:49
Speaker 2: So Gogan was like, I'm out of here, and he left,
29:53
Speaker 2: and Van Goh was like, hey, you can't leave. I'm leaving,
29:57
Speaker 2: and he threatened him with a razor. Apparently, as far
30:01
Speaker 2: as the standard story goes, Gogan kept going and Van
30:07
Speaker 2: Go returned to the house, used the razor to cut
30:11
Speaker 2: his ear off, wrapped it up, and took it to
30:13
Speaker 2: a sex worker at a local brothel, and was rejected
30:19
Speaker 2: by her. From this gift was rejected by her that is,
30:25
Speaker 2: there's some problems with that, but it's probably the correct story.
30:31
Speaker 2: But there's another school thought that Gogan actually cut it
30:34
Speaker 2: off and van Go covered for him, because Gogan was
30:37
Speaker 2: apparently a master sword fighter, carried a sword around with him,
30:40
Speaker 2: and it's quite possible he took Vincent's ear off for
30:43
Speaker 2: being threatened with a razor right.
30:46
Speaker 1: Also another version of the story, they believe they found
30:49
Speaker 1: that the woman was actually a maid at the brothel
30:53
Speaker 1: and not a sex worker. But those are sort of
30:55
Speaker 1: nitpicky details. I think certainly cutting off your own ear
30:59
Speaker 1: wouldn't beat nitpicky, because that's a you know, a true
31:04
Speaker 1: sign of a desperate sort of sort of upset that
31:07
Speaker 1: you can only feel if you're suffering from severe mental illness.
31:11
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, self mutilation is super sad. And I
31:16
Speaker 1: think there's also like some interpretations that it might have
31:20
Speaker 1: been influenced by the bullfighting ritual where you cut off
31:23
Speaker 1: the bulls here to present it to a lady, But
31:25
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm not so sure about that.
31:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems like something he would have done on
31:30
Speaker 2: like a calm day. Then if that was the purpose
31:33
Speaker 2: of it, to present it to a lady. That almost
31:35
Speaker 2: seems like it was just some impulsive thing that was
31:41
Speaker 2: tacked on to the end of something that he wasn't planning.
31:43
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, for sure. But the cops found him
31:46
Speaker 1: the next day. I think he was unconscious. They obviously
31:50
Speaker 1: went to the hospital and he was in a state
31:53
Speaker 1: of psychosis for a few days in the hospital, and
31:56
Speaker 1: a doctor there said, you think you have epilepsy. So
31:59
Speaker 1: and I don't think we mentioned you know, he's suffering
32:01
Speaker 1: from from bouts of mental illness off and on throughout
32:05
Speaker 1: his life to this point, but also physical manifestations are
32:08
Speaker 1: happening that in retrospect people are like, yeah, it wasn't
32:12
Speaker 1: just mental illness coming out physically, Like, it seems like
32:16
Speaker 1: he probably really did have epilepsy. So they gave him
32:19
Speaker 1: potassium bromide, which he said, Vincent said, curled or stopped
32:24
Speaker 1: his intolerable hallucinations, but he was still fainting a lot.
32:30
Speaker 1: And he apparently didn't have any memory of what happened
32:33
Speaker 1: with Gogon or the ear.
32:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was in that hospital for a little while.
32:39
Speaker 2: This wasn't a psychiatric hospital, this is like a hospital hospital.
32:43
Speaker 2: I also saw a check in that documentary that as
32:46
Speaker 2: a gift to the doctor who cared for him, he
32:49
Speaker 2: presented him with a painting of one of the wards
32:51
Speaker 2: in the hospital. When doctor was like, no, thanks, it's
32:54
Speaker 2: not very good.
32:55
Speaker 1: So didn't even accept it.
32:57
Speaker 2: Did not even accept it. Oh boy, So he was
33:00
Speaker 2: released from the hospital. He pretended he was scratching its temple,
33:05
Speaker 2: but it was with his middle finger as he was
33:07
Speaker 2: saying bye to the doctor. Yeah, and he started painting again.
33:13
Speaker 2: But the hospital visit helped his epilepsy, it did not
33:18
Speaker 2: help the bouts of mental illness that he just kept
33:21
Speaker 2: suffering over and over and over again. In between he
33:24
Speaker 2: would just work at like a breakneck pace and then
33:27
Speaker 2: exhaust himself, have another episode of mental illness and go
33:31
Speaker 2: to the hospital, get out work until he exhausted himself
33:35
Speaker 2: again and again, and so finally that the hospital was like, look, man,
33:40
Speaker 2: you're in the wrong place now, like you need a
33:43
Speaker 2: different kind of care than we could offer. And so
33:46
Speaker 2: he checked himself into a sanitarium at Saint Remi and
33:51
Speaker 2: he was there for a year being treated and that
33:54
Speaker 2: actually helped him quite a bit being there.
33:58
Speaker 1: I think that's a good place for a break. Because
34:00
Speaker 1: something very interesting happened while he was there. Is that
34:02
Speaker 1: a good time?
34:03
Speaker 2: I think?
34:03
Speaker 1: So? All right, we'll be right back everybody. All right, everyone,
34:24
Speaker 1: we're back in. I said, something very interesting happened while
34:27
Speaker 1: he was in the sanitarium. And one thing I mentioned
34:29
Speaker 1: earlier was he painted about eighteen paintings per month. He
34:32
Speaker 1: produced one hundred and forty three paintings while he was
34:35
Speaker 1: staying in this sanitarium, and one of which was not
34:41
Speaker 1: a starry Night, but the Starry Night or just storry night.
34:45
Speaker 2: Sure pretty impressive, huh.
34:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:49
Speaker 2: He said that he wrote in a letter I guess
34:53
Speaker 2: that to his sister Wilhelmina, about him wanting to make
34:58
Speaker 2: a starry night, and then in the the next breath,
35:01
Speaker 2: he recommends she read Walt Whitman's poetry. And people went
35:05
Speaker 2: and read song to myself and said, there's like two
35:08
Speaker 2: stanzas in here that basically describe what starry Night looks like.
35:12
Speaker 2: We think that Walt women essentially inspired this painting, and
35:16
Speaker 2: that seems to be the consensus.
35:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you've never seen Starry Night, you should.
35:22
Speaker 1: All you have to do is go to the Museum
35:24
Speaker 1: of Modern Art in New York City and walk around
35:27
Speaker 1: until you see crowds of people.
35:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, they said it's their most visited painting in their
35:31
Speaker 2: whole collection.
35:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, that one's you can't get close anyway,
35:35
Speaker 1: but it's tough to even to get a great view period.
35:38
Speaker 1: It's just there's a lot, a lot of folks around
35:40
Speaker 1: that one.
35:40
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow, Yeah, I would love to see that one.
35:44
Speaker 2: I don't believe I ever have them.
35:46
Speaker 3: Have you not seen that one?
35:47
Speaker 2: I don't believe. So I've been to MoMA, But that
35:49
Speaker 2: seems like weird that I wouldn't have seen it. But
35:52
Speaker 2: then again, why didn't I form a memory of seeing it?
35:54
Speaker 1: Well, you also don't like crowds of people, so maybe
35:56
Speaker 1: you were like, I don't know what's going on over there,
35:58
Speaker 1: but no, thanks.
35:59
Speaker 2: Well that is possible. But yeah, so I have seen
36:03
Speaker 2: it on the internet at very least, if not in person.
36:05
Speaker 2: And it's got swirls in it that represent the wind,
36:09
Speaker 2: like the stars are huge and out of proportion and glowing.
36:12
Speaker 2: The moon is all odd and it's like a landscape
36:16
Speaker 2: at night. But he just captured all of it so perfectly,
36:19
Speaker 2: and it's all a very it's the backgrounds very dark,
36:22
Speaker 2: dark blues and stuff like that, but it's a very
36:25
Speaker 2: soothing like happy painting. And this was what I was
36:30
Speaker 2: talking about earlier that even THEO is like this, I
36:34
Speaker 2: don't like this man, and I guess Vincent wrote that
36:38
Speaker 2: he was once again allowing myself to do stars too big.
36:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, the search for style takes away the
36:45
Speaker 1: real sentiment of things, which sounds a little bit like
36:48
Speaker 1: a not form over fashion fashion over form or something
36:54
Speaker 1: I don't know, like like just trying to make something
36:56
Speaker 1: super stylistic, but it doesn't really mean anything, which I'm
36:59
Speaker 1: sure cut pretty deeply. So while this is going on,
37:04
Speaker 1: he you know, is continuing to kind of slip up
37:07
Speaker 1: and down on his as far as his mental illness
37:10
Speaker 1: is concerned. At some point he started to like eat paint.
37:14
Speaker 1: Some people thought it might have been a suicidal thing,
37:18
Speaker 1: but it might have also been pika as part of
37:21
Speaker 1: his mental illness, which is interesting.
37:23
Speaker 2: There's a legend that it was yellow paint that he
37:25
Speaker 2: wanted to be happy inside, which doesn't I don't think.
37:27
Speaker 1: Hold up, Yeah, Okay, Well, he because partially because of
37:32
Speaker 1: that he stayed away from paint altogether for a little while,
37:34
Speaker 1: because he also had a lot of like many many
37:37
Speaker 1: drawings throughout his career and this is his drawing period.
37:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like, way more drawings than paintings.
37:43
Speaker 1: Right, Oh, I think so. Yeah.
37:46
Speaker 2: So THEO and he got married I think in eighteen
37:51
Speaker 2: eighty nine.
37:52
Speaker 1: Maybe that sounds right to a woman named.
37:55
Speaker 2: Joe Bonger or Boninger, who would eventually play a really
38:00
Speaker 2: pivotal role in Vincent van Go's posthumous life. And they
38:05
Speaker 2: honored him by naming their son, their only child, Vincent,
38:10
Speaker 2: after the kid's uncle. And van Go was very, very
38:13
Speaker 2: touched by this, and he painted one of my I
38:16
Speaker 2: think one of the most beautiful paintings he ever did,
38:18
Speaker 2: Almond Blossom.
38:19
Speaker 1: I agree, buddy, it's great.
38:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, just go look it up. It's very much in
38:23
Speaker 2: like the Japanese style for sure. Yeah. And he painted
38:27
Speaker 2: it for the baby, and like, despite you know, years
38:29
Speaker 2: and decades of van Go paintings being sold by the family,
38:33
Speaker 2: that one did not go up for sale, and it's
38:35
Speaker 2: even in the van Go Museum still today.
38:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. The baby didn't want it either though.
38:42
Speaker 2: He said, this is not very good.
38:44
Speaker 1: Give up, spit up on it. I always hated bit term.
38:50
Speaker 2: It's a pretty bad term.
38:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. So THEO officially said, you know what, I'm gonna,
38:56
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start really submitting your paintings, like I think
38:58
Speaker 1: you are good and nobody knows it. So he started
39:02
Speaker 1: really submitting at a more sort of serious rapid pace
39:06
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty eight, specifically at the annual Cilon de Independent.
39:13
Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety, and this is just a few months
39:16
Speaker 1: before Van Gowit would die. He was still not getting
39:21
Speaker 1: any almost any attention, but finally in January that year
39:25
Speaker 1: he started to get a little bit of not critical
39:28
Speaker 1: like praise, but just people like critics looking at his
39:32
Speaker 1: stuff and writing about his stuff. The first one, I
39:35
Speaker 1: think was an art critic name Albert Aurier who published
39:39
Speaker 1: I think the very first man Go Review, and he
39:42
Speaker 1: said they initially appear strange, intense and feverish, but reflected
39:45
Speaker 1: the continual search for the most essential sign of each thing.
39:50
Speaker 1: So he was kind of getting it.
39:51
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, he was digging him. Yes. And then
39:55
Speaker 2: in eighteen so I think eighteen eighty eight, eighteen eighty nine,
39:58
Speaker 2: and eighteen ninety his work thanks to Theo, appeared in
40:02
Speaker 2: the Salon in Paris. He was also featured in a
40:07
Speaker 2: Belgian salon called le vent the twenty and this is
40:12
Speaker 2: where he sold his first, his or his one and
40:16
Speaker 2: only painting to somebody he didn't really.
40:17
Speaker 1: Know, right, Yeah, it was a painter, another painter named
40:22
Speaker 1: Anna Bach, and she bought the Red Vineyard, and that
40:27
Speaker 1: I think maybe, well, I don't know if that was
40:29
Speaker 1: the impetus, but that's when things started to pick up
40:32
Speaker 1: a little bit. I think later that spring, the salon
40:35
Speaker 1: showed ten of his paintings, which was a big deal.
40:39
Speaker 1: May of that year, May of eighteen ninety and this
40:42
Speaker 1: was after a year being in the sanitarium. He finally
40:45
Speaker 1: was discharged and that's where he moved to a pretty
40:49
Speaker 1: quiet place not too far from Paris, where he had
40:52
Speaker 1: a good doctor on hand who was able to kind
40:54
Speaker 1: of keep up with them. And that doctor was like, hey, man,
40:57
Speaker 1: you know what you need to do is paint like
41:00
Speaker 1: you seem to be doing best when you're really concentrating
41:02
Speaker 1: on the painting, so you should do that. And he did.
41:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, he threw himself into it again. Like you were saying,
41:08
Speaker 2: that last few months or the last year, he was
41:11
Speaker 2: painting about a painting a day, and I've seen it,
41:14
Speaker 2: like people say, almost as if he knew like his
41:17
Speaker 2: time was running out and he wanted to get as
41:18
Speaker 2: much out as he could. He focused a lot on
41:20
Speaker 2: wheat fields, which he said earlier was one of his
41:23
Speaker 2: favorite subjects. Apparently that represented like the sewing and the
41:28
Speaker 2: reaping of it was like renewal and death and life
41:31
Speaker 2: and birth and all that to him. And he was,
41:35
Speaker 2: I guess pretty close to Paris and over and he
41:40
Speaker 2: went and traveled once to visit THEO, and he found
41:44
Speaker 2: that THEO was talking about going out, striking out on
41:47
Speaker 2: his own, setting up his own art dealership, and Vincent
41:50
Speaker 2: was like, man, that is to himself, he thought, this
41:54
Speaker 2: is quite a risky gamble. You know what's going to
41:58
Speaker 2: happen to my monthly stipend is that in jeopardy. But
42:00
Speaker 2: also that will automatically make me a burden to my brother, Like,
42:05
Speaker 2: even if he becomes successful, it's not going to be overnight.
42:08
Speaker 2: And in that time between him taking this big risk
42:11
Speaker 2: and becoming a success, I'm going to be an even
42:14
Speaker 2: bigger burden than I am. That was something he.
42:16
Speaker 1: Concluded, Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that was in July
42:18
Speaker 1: of eighteen ninety and later that month, on July twenty seventh,
42:21
Speaker 1: he shot himself in the chest and took his own life.
42:26
Speaker 1: We covered that in more detail in the what was
42:30
Speaker 1: it Mysteries of the Art world?
42:31
Speaker 2: Yeah seven, no, wait five Mysteries of the Art twenty
42:35
Speaker 2: twenty white.
42:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can go get that full story there.
42:39
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was I think they He didn't die immediately,
42:44
Speaker 1: and THEO made it from Paris to be there with
42:48
Speaker 1: him when he died a couple of days later.
42:49
Speaker 2: Which is so sweet. I mean they were so tight.
42:52
Speaker 2: They're actually buried next to one another in that town.
42:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. Tight, but also fraud. You know, there a lot
42:58
Speaker 1: of arguing stuff too, but.
42:59
Speaker 2: That's brother but that was mostly from Vincent's side, right.
43:03
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I just you know, saw it could
43:06
Speaker 1: be a rough relationship, but again as brothers and also
43:10
Speaker 1: business partners, and one had a real tough time with
43:13
Speaker 1: mental illness, so none of it is unexpected.
43:17
Speaker 2: So again, it's very much bandied about that Van Goh
43:21
Speaker 2: was unknown and unappreciated in his time, and generally that's true.
43:25
Speaker 2: But like when he was showing at the salons, other
43:28
Speaker 2: painters like Monet would say to Theo, like, tell your
43:33
Speaker 2: brother that his was the best work at the salon,
43:35
Speaker 2: like he's great. He had a claim with people who
43:38
Speaker 2: knew what they were talking about, but generally he didn't.
43:43
Speaker 2: The reason why we know of him today and the
43:45
Speaker 2: reason why his genius is seen and valued is because
43:50
Speaker 2: of Joe Bonger, his sister in law, who very shortly,
43:55
Speaker 2: I think six months after Vincent died. THEO died. Some
43:58
Speaker 2: say of a broken heart, some say of siphus, some
44:00
Speaker 2: say of both, and she inherited like all of essentially
44:05
Speaker 2: all of Vincent van Gogo's paintings.
44:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is kind of the h in
44:13
Speaker 1: a way, sort of the hero of the story here,
44:15
Speaker 1: because now with THEO gone and Vincent still having not
44:19
Speaker 1: achieved great fame, you're left with Joe to do something.
44:24
Speaker 1: And you know, she was like, listen, I don't have
44:27
Speaker 1: a background in this. This was my husband's line. So
44:30
Speaker 1: she taught herself. She devoted to herself to studying art.
44:34
Speaker 1: She devoted herself to studying the business of art, and
44:38
Speaker 1: she really worked tirelessly to after his death, raise his profile.
44:44
Speaker 1: And I get the impression that wasn't like, oh, I
44:47
Speaker 1: got all these paintings so I can get a lot
44:48
Speaker 1: of money. It was like to honor someone she thought
44:51
Speaker 1: was really talented.
44:53
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, Yeah, she wanted to make sure that he
44:56
Speaker 2: was appreciated finally, even if it wasn't in his lifetime.
44:59
Speaker 2: She she had a hard time going at first, like
45:01
Speaker 2: she still couldn't quite convince people. I guess she was
45:04
Speaker 2: just being like, look see it's good, it's good, and
45:07
Speaker 2: that wasn't taking. So she went through the letters between
45:10
Speaker 2: THEO and Vincent that THEO had kept and realized, like
45:14
Speaker 2: he talks van Goh talks a lot about like his
45:18
Speaker 2: style is technique, his inspiration, his mental health struggles in
45:21
Speaker 2: these letters and she was like, this is how you
45:24
Speaker 2: interpret Vincent Vango's work. You understand his background, his biography,
45:28
Speaker 2: his struggles, and that now is just so commonplace and ubiquitous.
45:32
Speaker 2: That's just part of learning about art. And this is
45:36
Speaker 2: where it came from. It came from Joe Bonger trying
45:39
Speaker 2: to get people to understand Vincent van Gogh.
45:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is I never knew that. It's a super
45:44
Speaker 1: cool kind of cherry on this story that when you
45:47
Speaker 1: go and you read about the artists and that just
45:49
Speaker 1: adds so much more to it. That came from her idea,
45:52
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. She got up initially a critic
45:55
Speaker 1: named Jan Veth who did not love the pay. But
46:00
Speaker 1: then after the letters, that's when Yan came around and
46:04
Speaker 1: was swayed and was like, he really quote seeks the
46:07
Speaker 1: raw root of things. And I think, you know, once
46:09
Speaker 1: they knew this story, they were like, oh my gosh,
46:11
Speaker 1: this is this tortured human that put everything into these
46:14
Speaker 1: paintings and now I'm seeing them in a different light.
46:16
Speaker 1: And that was that was it. I think. Since her
46:19
Speaker 1: death in nineteen twenty five, you know, his paintings have
46:23
Speaker 1: sold to the tune of about one hundred and seventeen
46:25
Speaker 1: million dollars. The bang Go Museum there in Amsterdam, which
46:30
Speaker 1: I have been to, it's well worth a trip, opened
46:33
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three, gets a couple of million visitors
46:36
Speaker 1: every year, and he's one of the most famous painters
46:39
Speaker 1: of all time. Now.
46:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of the reasons why I saw was
46:42
Speaker 2: because he wore his heart on his sleeve. He did
46:45
Speaker 2: the same thing with his painting, and people just connect
46:48
Speaker 2: with that. And I mean, just from listening to this Chuck,
46:51
Speaker 2: I imagine a lot of people were like, yeah, he
46:54
Speaker 2: really was kind of a neat guy. Yeah, a tortured
46:57
Speaker 2: artist too. And that's another place where this kind of
46:59
Speaker 2: came from. The idea of somebody suffering for their art
47:05
Speaker 2: and their art being great because of their struggles with
47:07
Speaker 2: mental illness. That also kind of came from the profile
47:12
Speaker 2: of van Go being raised at the same time. And
47:14
Speaker 2: over time people have been like, well, what did he
47:17
Speaker 2: suffer from? Specifically? We don't really know, but there are
47:22
Speaker 2: some clues here there that kind of point in a
47:25
Speaker 2: couple of directions.
47:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I think everyone agrees, like I said earlier,
47:30
Speaker 1: that he was epileptic, but you know, probably bipolar disorder
47:36
Speaker 1: is what a lot of people agree on. Possibly schizophrenia.
47:40
Speaker 1: You know, he talked about hallucinations and stuff like that.
47:43
Speaker 1: He also drank a lot, which definitely did not help
47:46
Speaker 1: along the way. He did not in his like previous
47:50
Speaker 1: family history at least as far as anyone knows, have
47:53
Speaker 1: a long documented history of mental illness, but one of
47:56
Speaker 1: his sisters was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was in an
48:01
Speaker 1: asylum I think a few years after Vincent died. And
48:05
Speaker 1: he had a brother named Cornelius who died in South
48:09
Speaker 1: Africa while serving in the army, and it is speculated
48:13
Speaker 1: that he may have taken his own life as well.
48:15
Speaker 2: Right, you have a ten percent chance of having schizophrenia
48:18
Speaker 2: if one of your siblings doesn't. For people in general population,
48:21
Speaker 2: it's just one percent, So that definitely increased the possibility.
48:26
Speaker 2: Before we finished, Chuck, I just want to briefly mention
48:29
Speaker 2: that anecdote that was in that one article I sent
48:32
Speaker 2: you about that cafe being foreclosed on with all of
48:36
Speaker 2: his paintings trapped inside. Oh yeah, so he was showing
48:40
Speaker 2: like I think they said, one hundred paintings or something
48:43
Speaker 2: in this cafe. It was like an exhibit of van
48:45
Speaker 2: Go like early van Go stuff when he first moved
48:47
Speaker 2: to Paris, and the cafe owner like wasn't making their payments,
48:51
Speaker 2: so the cafe got foreclosed on, locked up, and everything inside,
48:55
Speaker 2: including Vango's paintings, which were not owned by the cafe,
48:58
Speaker 2: were auctioned off, and they were so disliked that they
49:02
Speaker 2: were bundled together in bunches of ten so that people
49:06
Speaker 2: who bought them could go and scrape the paintings off
49:08
Speaker 2: and sell them at a higher price than they bought
49:11
Speaker 2: the ten van Goes for as blank canvases. Wow, And
49:16
Speaker 2: he still was just like, well, I guess I needed
49:19
Speaker 2: to just get up and dust myself up. Yeah, he
49:21
Speaker 2: was like the Joe Dirt of the nineteenth century French
49:24
Speaker 2: and Dutch art world. I never saw that same thing.
49:29
Speaker 2: He was essentially a van Go. Okay, all right, okay,
49:34
Speaker 2: thanks for humoring me with that one.
49:35
Speaker 1: Because that's just I love it. Good story.
49:37
Speaker 2: All right, Well, Chuck said that was a good story,
49:39
Speaker 2: So I think we should end this on a high
49:41
Speaker 2: note and go straight to listener mail.
49:45
Speaker 1: This is about the seven thirty seven macs. Hey, guys,
49:48
Speaker 1: love the show. Been listening for a few years. I'm
49:51
Speaker 1: an embedded control software engineer, not for Boeing, but in
49:55
Speaker 1: another industry where mistakes could kill people. For me, Boeing
49:59
Speaker 1: was allway an aspirational company, so watching the news on
50:03
Speaker 1: mcast was like meaning a disappointing drunk hero. At the time,
50:07
Speaker 1: my peers and I were following the news and doing
50:09
Speaker 1: our best to read between the lines. We were frankly
50:11
Speaker 1: disgusted to see that they actually deployed a single point
50:14
Speaker 1: of failure all the way to production. It was baffling
50:17
Speaker 1: to us because we knew our internal processes would have
50:20
Speaker 1: stopped a program dead with that much risk. Surely Boeing
50:23
Speaker 1: held even higher standards. It was clear that a complete
50:26
Speaker 1: cultural and ethical breakdown occurred to allow the mcast to
50:29
Speaker 1: exist without redundancy and sensor voting or rationality checks and
50:35
Speaker 1: voting as in quotes. Even worse, they allowed a helper
50:39
Speaker 1: system enough control authority to destabilize the vehicle. It's antithetical
50:44
Speaker 1: to the control's engineering title anyway. Certainly didn't expect to
50:49
Speaker 1: reignite professional rage on my commute today. Guys. So that
50:52
Speaker 1: was a ten out of ten episode, and that is
50:56
Speaker 1: from Travis. Last name withheld nice.
50:58
Speaker 2: Travis, somebody who knows that they're talking about gave us
51:01
Speaker 2: a ten out of ten.
51:02
Speaker 1: Chuck, Yeah, that always feels nice.
51:04
Speaker 2: I assume there's a would recommend after that, I hope.
51:07
Speaker 2: So I'm going to assume that Travis works in the
51:11
Speaker 2: law and dart industry.
51:12
Speaker 1: Right there you go.
51:15
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Travis and send us
51:16
Speaker 2: an awesome email because you're an expert and something we
51:19
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51:26
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51:33
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