Unfortunately, the mythology of his behavior often outshines his art. For years I thought his art was OK and sorta interesting until I saw it up close and personal in a museum in Europe. Walking into a room full of Van Goghs is like your brain finally waking up from a life-long coma. BAM! Shockingly bright and lots texture and movement. Fascinating. I remember thinking how different his style was from any other artist I've ever seen, and I had seen a lot of art in my life. I do tend to like patterns and color so I should have been drawn to him long before this personal encounter, but seeing it in person was a whole different experience. I also remember adding a footnote to my admiration, he must have been a little off his rocker to paint like that...or just a rebel at a time when modern art was just getting started.
Oil paints are incredibly toxic and their pigment mixtures may include ingredients such as lead, titanium, and cadmium. Turpentine, mineral spirits and linseed oil are used for thinners and washes. Varnishes and lacquers may contain ethyl alcohol, toluene, xylene, acetates, alcohols and petroleum distillates. Today there are far more health and safety guidelines for handling such poisons. I doubt if in the 1800s many people understood the health ramifications of exposure, but in a book from 1713 called Diseases of Workers paint was clearly recognized as the cause of artists' illnesses so the dangers weren't totally unknown back then.
Van Gogh was known for his amazing output of work in a very short time. According to Wikipedia, in ten years he produced 2,100 artworks including 860 oil paintings. That's a whole lotta poison on a daily basis!
I'm currently reading a book called Becoming Van Gogh about his development as an artist. Most of what anyone knows about Van Gogh's life is through the letters he wrote to his friends and brother. This book doesn't deal with his health or unusual behaviors, but there is a timeline in the back based his correspondences. It features each year of his art career broken down into seasons or months with events of his life. He wasn't ill early in his career when he was working with drawing media and watercolor. When he starts using oils, it's hard to ignore the patterns of exposure and illness.
In 1888-1889, one year before his death, the timeline reads like this:
May Vincent spends two more weeks concentrating on drawing before taking up painting again....
July "...But you should know that I'm in the middle of a complicated calculation that results in canvases done quickly one after another..." [Working a lot in oils.]
Late Summer "...It's a rather sad prospect to have to say to myself that the painting I do will perhaps never have any value." [Within a month, he's sounding depressed.]
Winter-Spring Vincent falls ill... [Hmmm..winter months he's probably working indoors.]
May Repeated breakdowns force Vincent to enter the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum... [Too much exposure.]
September After a month lost to illness, Vincent resumes work in his room at full speed. [Feeling better after a month of no poison exposure.]
Granted, I need to read more about his life and find a book on the letters to read them myself to get a full picture, but reading these little excerpts makes me very sad for him. He was such a dedicated and prolific artist who died too young. Was he chemically sensitive? No one really knows for sure, but he seems to have all the symptoms.
In July 1890, he died from what some think was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. There is some speculation that someone else shot him. It is kind of strange he shot himself in the chest which would be difficult to do, and he lived for another day so you'd think he would have told someone who shot him if that were the case. I think the suicide theory fits with the insanity mythology that surrounds him. People prefer the drama as a conclusion. He was only thirty-seven years old. How sad.
Van Gogh's art is awesome!
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