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Van Gogh Painted With Words en
00:00:03	The myth of Vincent Van Gogh, the mad artist
00:00:07	has captivated us for over a century now.
00:00:10	Ignored during his lifetime,
00:00:11	after his death, his paintings finally surfaced,
00:00:15	or rather exploded,
00:00:17	capturing the world in vibrant, vivid colours.
00:00:21	Today, they are among the most recognisable and valuable works of art in the world
00:00:28	My brush goes between my fingers as if it were the bow on a violin,
00:00:37	When we think of van Gogh, we see him as a strange, mad genius
00:00:42	who somehow, through sheer instinct, found a way of pouring out the blaze
00:00:51	Let me quietly continue my work.
00:00:54	If it's that or the madman, well, then too bad.
00:00:57	And then I can't do anything about it.
00:01:00	But his work has often been eclipsed by his reputation as a madman.
00:01:06	Vincent and I can absolutely not live side by side without trouble.
00:01:12	There's simply no changing the fact that he's eccentric.
00:01:19	It is an incredible story,
00:01:21	but the true story of Vincetn van Gogh is here in the letters he left behind.
00:01:44	Nothing can be said about van Gogh that he didn't say himself.
00:01:48	There are 902 letters here,
00:01:50	the vast majority written to his younger brother Theo,
00:01:54	who became his confidant and his lifeline.
00:01:58	This is Vincent thinking aloud, taking us through his life
00:02:02	step by step, documenting his struggles as an artist and as a man.
00:02:08	It's from these letters that this film is made.
00:02:12	Using only van Gogh's words and those of the people around him.
00:02:16	Nothing is imagined.
00:02:18	Every word spoken is true.
00:02:29	On the night of December the 23rd, 1888,
00:02:33	Vincent van Gogh suffered an acute mental breakdown
00:02:36	and cut off part of his left ear,
00:02:39	which he presented to a prostitute in his favourite brothel.
00:02:44	The police discovered him lying in a pool of blood in his bedroom
00:02:48	and committed him here, to the local hospital in Arles,
00:02:51	where he was placed in an isolation cell.
00:02:55	This is van Gogh's story in his own words.
00:03:08	'My dear Theo
00:03:11	'..where can I go that's worse than where I've already been?
00:03:16	'Shut up for long days under lock and key and in the isolation cell.'
00:03:21	I still have a certain "what's the good of getting better?" feeling,
00:03:25	however the unbearable,
00:03:28	unbearable hallucinations have stopped
00:03:34	reducing themselves to simple nightmares.
00:03:41	Physically, I am well,
00:03:43	the wound is closing very well
00:03:45	and the great loss of blood is balancing out.
00:03:51	The most fearsome thing
00:03:53	is the insomnia.
00:04:00	I feel weak,
00:04:02	a little anxious
00:04:05	and fearful.
00:04:08	My dear brother,
00:04:11	it breaks my heart to know that now you will actually have very bad days.
00:04:19	I do so wish that you could tell me how you feel.
00:04:24	For nothing is as distressing as uncertainty.
00:04:30	I remain your brother who loves you.
00:04:32	Theo
00:04:35	A certain number of people from here have addressed a petition to the mayor
00:04:39	designating me as a man not fit for living at liberty.
00:04:46	As the managing agent of the house occupied
00:04:50	by Mr Vincent van Gogh, I had occasion to speak with him yesterday
00:04:54	and to observe that he is suffering from mental disturbance.
00:04:58	He insults my customers,
00:05:00	and is prone to interfering with women from the neighbourhood,
00:05:04	whom he follows into their residences.
00:05:06	I was seized round the waist outside Mrs Crevlin's shop by this individual.
00:05:11	In short, this madman is becoming a threat to public safety,
00:05:14	and everyone is demanding that he be confined to a special establishment.
00:05:23	And this is the petition,
00:05:25	filed in the police records in Arles,
00:05:27	and signed by 30 of his neighbours.
00:05:32	The chief of police then gave the order to have me locked up.
00:05:36	'I won't hide from you that I would prefer to die than cause and bear so much trouble.
00:05:42	'To suffer without complaining is the only lesson that has to be learned in this life.'
00:06:05	Vincents childhood was the product of a strict Calvinist upbringing.
00:06:10	His father was a minister in the Dutch Reform Church,
00:06:13	and he was brought up in Zundert, a small town in the Netherlands.
00:06:21	He was sent away to boarding school,
00:06:24	where he was taught the rudiments of drawing,
00:06:26	and excelled in foreign languages.
00:06:29	He left at the age of 16,
00:06:31	when he started an apprenticeship
00:06:33	with the international art dealers, Goupil.
00:06:37	Three years later, Theo followed in his footsteps.
00:06:42	This is when the letters begin.
00:06:44	Vincent was 19 years old,
00:06:47	and Theo just 15.
00:06:51	'My dear Theo,
00:06:53	'I'm so glad that both of us are now in the same line of business and in the same firm.
00:06:58	'We must correspond often.
00:07:04	'The love between two brothers is a great support in life,
00:07:08	'that's an age-old truth.
00:07:10	'Let the fire of love between us not be extinguished,
00:07:14	but let instead the 'experience of life make that bond even stronger -
00:07:18	'let us remain upright
00:07:20	'and candid with each other.'
00:07:25	Let there be no secrets,
00:07:28	as things stand today.
00:07:34	In May 1873,
00:07:36	Vincent was transferred to Goupils London office in Covent Garden.
00:07:43	He moved to Brixton -
00:07:44	then a prosperous, middle-class neighbourhood.
00:07:48	I crossed Westminster Bridge every morning and evening
00:07:51	and know what it looks like
00:07:52	when the sun's setting behind Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.
00:07:57	His apprenticeship at Goupil was beginning to train his eye in art,
00:08:01	and his enthusiasm extended beyond office hours.
00:08:05	We know that because this visitors' book at the British Museum
00:08:08	shows that on August 28 1874,
00:08:12	van Gogh was the fourth visitor of the day,
00:08:15	and he came to see this drawing
00:08:17	attributed to Rembrandt.
00:08:22	The figure of our lord, noble and impressive,
00:08:28	I hope not to forget that drawing,
00:08:30	nor what it seems to be saying to me.
00:08:35	Vincent became an ardent visitor
00:08:37	to London's great museums and galleries.
00:08:40	And he shared with Theo his growing enthusiasm for the art and literature
00:08:45	he was becoming increasingly attached to.
00:08:47	English art didn't appeal to me much at first,
00:08:50	one has to get used to it.
00:08:53	But there are some good artists here.
00:08:55	Millais, who painted Huguenot and Ophelia - they're very beautiful.
00:09:01	And then there's Turner,
00:09:03	after whom you'll probably have seen engravings.
00:09:10	"Where are the songs of spring?
00:09:13	"Aye, where are they?
00:09:15	"Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
00:09:19	"while barred clouds bloom
00:09:21	"the soft-dying day, and touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue."
00:09:27	The last few days I've enjoyed reading the poems of John Keats.
00:09:31	He's a poet who isn't very well known in Holland, I believe, but
00:09:35	he's a favourite of the painters here, which is
00:09:37	how I came to be reading him.
00:09:42	Vincent developed a passion for English popular art,
00:09:45	as seen in the black and white prints in The Graphic and Illustrated London News,
00:09:51	eventually collecting a thousand of them.
00:09:55	In my view, prints like these together form a kind of Bible
00:09:59	for an artist, in which he reads now and again to get into a mood.
00:10:04	It's good not only to know them but to have them in the studio once and for all.
00:10:09	For me, the English draughtsmen are what Dickens is in the sphere of literature.
00:10:15	Noble and healthy, and something one always comes back to.
00:10:21	Amongst his collection was this print of Dickens' empty chair.
00:10:30	The social realist subject matter of the prints
00:10:33	and Dickens' writings about London's working class
00:10:36	living in squalid poverty,
00:10:38	left a lasting impression on Vincent.
00:10:42	"The mud lay thick upon the stones
00:10:45	"and a black mist hung over the streets.
00:10:48	"The hideous, old man seemed like some loathsome reptile,
00:10:53	"crawling forth by night,
00:10:55	"in search of some rich offal for a meal."
00:11:01	There's such a yearning for religion among the people in those big cities.
00:11:06	Many a worker in a factory or shop
00:11:09	has had a remarkably pious, pure youth.
00:11:12	George Eliot describes the life of factory workers
00:11:15	who hold religious services in a chapel in Lantern Yard.
00:11:22	"The pulpit
00:11:23	"where the minister delivered unquestioned doctrine, and swayed
00:11:27	"to and fro"
00:11:42	"..and handled the book in a long-accustomed manner.
00:11:51	"These had been the channel of divine influences
00:11:54	"for Silas Marner.
00:11:58	"They were the fostering home of his religious emotions,
00:12:02	"they were Christianity
00:12:04	"and God's kingdom upon Earth."
00:12:09	Reading George Eliot's novels about English evangelism
00:12:13	reminded Vincent of his own upbringing in a religious home.
00:12:19	Wanting now to follow in his father's footsteps,
00:12:22	he immersed himself in the study of the Bible.
00:12:26	But his preoccupation with religion
00:12:28	led him to neglect his duties in the art firm,
00:12:32	so he was fired.
00:12:35	He now tried to get a position as a teacher's assistant,
00:12:38	hoping this would help him reach his goal of entering the church.
00:12:43	'Dear Theo,
00:12:45	'I received a letter from a teacher in Ramsgate, who suggested that I come there for a month,
00:12:50	'without pay, in order to see whether he can use me at the end of that time.
00:12:57	'It's a beautiful route.
00:12:59	'The sky was a light blue, with grey and white clouds.'
00:13:06	'You can imagine, I was looking out of the window for Ramsgate
00:13:19	Herewith, a little drawing of the view from the school window.
00:13:22	Where the boys stand and watch their parents going back
00:13:30	Determined to make himself useful to those he saw suffering around him,
00:13:34	Vincent taught Sunday school to children from the London markets and streets.
00:13:39	And on the 12th November 1876,
00:13:42	he delivered his first sermon.
00:13:44	We are pilgrims in the earth and strangers.
00:13:48	We come from afar and we are going far.
00:13:51	The journey of our life goes from the
00:13:56	to the arms of our Father in heaven.
00:13:58	Theo,
00:14:00	your brother spoke for the first time in God's house last Sunday.
00:14:05	When I stood up on the pulpit,
00:14:08	I felt like someone emerging out of a dark,
00:14:15	it's a wonderful feeling
00:14:17	to think that from wherever I go from now on, I'll be preaching the gospel.
00:14:23	Religion came to dominate his letters to his family,
00:14:27	with his Biblical fanaticism seeping into the language.
00:14:31	My brother, let us take care.
00:14:33	Let us ask Him who is above,
00:14:35	who also maketh intercession for us, that He should keep us from the evil.
00:14:39	Yea, let us watch and be sober, let us trust in the Lord with all of our heart,
00:14:44	and lean not unto our own understanding.
00:14:48	Let us ask that He compel us to come in.
00:14:51	To be meek,
00:14:52	longsuffering and lowly,
00:14:54	sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
00:14:59	He writes many letters,
00:15:01	long ones too,
00:15:04	and when reading them,
00:15:06	one is inclined to say how can
00:15:09	a simple clergyman come out of this?
00:15:13	And then again there is
00:15:15	nevertheless something good in them as well.
00:15:20	When Vincent returned to Holland,
00:15:22	his father agreed to support his preparation to enter the ministry.
00:15:27	But he struggled with his studies,
00:15:29	and quit after a year.
00:15:33	The only option left to him was missionary work,
00:15:37	and in January 1879
00:15:39	he was appointed as a lay-preacher in the Borinage,
00:15:43	a coal-mining district in Belgium.
00:15:47	Going down in a mine is an unpleasant business,
00:15:51	in a kind of basket or cage like a bucket in a well,
00:15:56	so that down there looking upward,
00:15:58	the daylight appears to be about as big as a star in the sky.
00:16:05	The workers get used to it, but
00:16:07	even so, they never shake off an unconquerable feeling of horror and dread.
00:16:17	Vincent was truly sickened by the plight of the miners' lives.
00:16:22	Nursing the sick and injured
00:16:24	became just as important to him as preaching.
00:16:27	He gave away most of his possessions
00:16:29	in the hope of alleviating their suffering.
00:16:33	But once again, after his six month trial,
00:16:39	Vincent was jobless once more.
00:16:43	His father was so concerned about his state of mind
00:16:46	that he considered having him committed to a psychiatric hospital.
00:16:52	I, for one,
00:16:55	am a man of passions,
00:16:58	capable and liable to do rather foolish things
00:17:07	For example, you know well that I've neglected my appearance.
00:17:12	I admit it's rather shocking.
00:17:15	Must one consider oneself a dangerous man incapable of anything at all? I don't think so.
00:17:21	Money troubles - ha!
00:17:23	And poverty have something to do with it.
00:17:26	Now you say, from such and such a time you've been going downhill, you've faded away,
00:17:31	you've done nothing.
00:17:34	Now that being so, what's to be done?
00:17:40	Theo worried about his brother,
00:17:42	but recognising a talent in Vincent's sketches of the miners,
00:17:46	encouraged him to apply himself more seriously to art.
00:17:52	Vincent, being his own man, wasn't really interested in following any traditional art education.
00:17:58	Instead, he taught himself using this artist's manual
00:18:01	by Charles Bargue.
00:18:05	'Careful study and constant repeated drawing of Bargue's exercises
00:18:11	'has given me more insight into figure drawing.
00:18:18	'I've learned to measure and to see and to attempt the broad outlines, etc,
00:18:22	'so that what used to seem to me to be desperately impossible is now gradually
00:18:27	'becoming possible.
00:18:33	'Drawing is the root of everything.'
00:18:40	After years in the wilderness,
00:18:42	Vincent had finally found his vocation.
00:18:45	My plan is not to spare myself,
00:18:49	not to avoid a lot of difficulties and emotions.
00:18:53	It's of a relative indifference to me whether I live a long or short time.
00:18:57	I'm concerned with the world only
00:19:00	in that I have a certain...
00:19:03	obligation, or duty,
00:19:05	if you like, having walked the world for 30 years to leave
00:19:10	a souvenir of gratitude in the form
00:19:14	of paintings
00:19:15	or drawings.
00:19:21	Van Gogh was from the very beginning, and would remain,
00:19:24	a man of the people,
00:19:25	identifying with the peasants, the working class,
00:19:31	And all his letters from now on document his single-minded immersion in art
00:19:36	- his own and the work of those he most admired.
00:19:41	In particular the French artist Jean Francois Millet,
00:19:44	famous for his realistic scenes of peasant farmers' lives.
00:19:49	I feel the need to study figure drawing from masters like Millet.
00:19:54	"In art, one must give one's heart and soul," he says.
00:20:03	'I have already drawn The Sower five times, and I'm so completely
00:20:12	'Nature...
00:20:13	'always begins by resisting the draughtsman.
00:20:18	'It sometimes resembles what Shakespeare calls taming the shrew,
00:20:23	'ie to conquer the opposition through perseverance,
00:20:27	willy-nilly.
00:20:32	'If I succeed in putting some warmth and love into the work,
00:20:36	'then it will find friends.'
00:20:43	Although Vincent was able to put love into his work,
00:20:47	it was proving difficult to find in his life.
00:20:51	He was back home living with his parents.
00:20:54	His widowed cousin Kee Voss came to visit the parsonage,
00:20:57	and Vincent fell madly in love with her.
00:21:04	From the beginning of this love I've felt that unless I threw myself into it
00:21:09	unreservedly,
00:21:11	committing myself to it whole-heartedly, fully and forever, then
00:21:16	there would be absolutely no chance for me.
00:21:20	But does it matter to me if the chance is smaller or larger? I mean,
00:21:25	must I, can I, take that into account
00:21:28	when I love?
00:21:32	No
00:21:34	no thought to the winnings.
00:21:38	One loves because one loves.
00:21:42	But this love was not reciprocated,
00:21:45	and it embarrassed his parents,
00:21:47	who thought he was shaming the family.
00:21:50	His uncle forbade Vincent from seeing Kee.
00:21:53	But he bombarded her with letters,
00:21:56	and then
00:21:57	I went to Amsterdam.
00:22:00	There I was told "your persistence is sickening."
00:22:08	I put my fingers in the flame of a lamp and said,
00:22:18	But they blew out the lamp, and said, you shall not see her.
00:22:26	To love
00:22:29	what a business.
00:22:39	Vincent set out for The Hague,
00:22:41	the centre of the Dutch art world.
00:22:44	'I had a rather violent argument with Pa, and
00:22:48	'feelings ran so high that Pa said it would be better if I left home.
00:22:53	'It was said so decisively that I actually left the same day.
00:22:59	'I was angrier than I've ever remembered being in my whole life,
00:23:06	'I want nothing more to do with it,
00:23:08	'and have to guard against it as against something fatal.'
00:23:14	Now without an income or a home, he turned to Theo.
00:23:20	'It goes without saying that I'm asking you, Theo, if you can do it'
00:23:24	"..to send me now and then what you can without going short yourself.
00:23:28	"Let me send you my work and you take what you want from it"
00:23:31	'..but I insist that I may consider the money I would receive from you as money I've earned.'
00:23:36	I hope to do as much as I can to help you until you start earning yourself,
00:23:43	What the devil made you so childish
00:23:45	and so shameless as to contrive in this way in this way
00:23:47	to make their life miserable and almost impossible?
00:23:51	It's your duty to set things straight at all costs.
00:23:55	Upon arrival in The Hague, Vincent set himself up in a small studio
00:24:00	and got a commission for a series of cityscapes,
00:24:03	sketching all aspects of the modern metropolis.
00:24:08	And Vincent, wanting to enjoy all the pleasures of city life,
00:24:12	soon found himself in hospital for a few weeks
00:24:14	undergoing treatment for syphilis.
00:24:19	And then
00:24:20	This winter I met a pregnant woman,
00:24:23	who had been abandoned
00:24:25	by the man whose child she was carrying.
00:24:29	wandering the streets in winter,
00:24:31	earning her bread, you can imagine how.
00:24:34	'I took that woman as a model
00:24:37	'and I worked with her the whole of the winter.
00:24:40	'She's learning to pose better every day,
00:24:43	'that's extremely important to me.'
00:24:47	Her name was Clasina Maria Hoornik,
00:24:50	better known as Sien,
00:24:57	She was a seamstress who supplemented her income with prostitution.
00:25:03	I couldn't give her a model's full daily wage
00:25:08	but all the same, I paid her rent and
00:25:11	until now have been able, thank God, to preserve her and her child
00:25:20	When I met this woman, she caught my eye because she looked so ill.
00:25:25	To me,
00:25:28	she is beautiful.
00:25:33	And I find in her exactly what I need.
00:25:38	Life has given her a drubbing, and sorrow,
00:25:41	sorrow and adversity have left their mark.
00:25:48	She posed for my very best drawing,
00:25:50	Sorrow.
00:25:52	I want to make drawings that move some people.
00:25:56	Sorrow is a small beginning.
00:25:57	At least it contains something straight from my own feelings.
00:26:01	I couldn't draw Sorrow if I didn't feel it myself.
00:26:09	This other one, Roots, is some tree roots in sandy ground.
00:26:15	I've tried to imbue the landscape with the same sentiment as the figure.
00:26:22	In all of nature, trees for instance, I see
00:26:26	expression and soul.
00:26:42	Well, it may be that I felt more passion
00:26:44	for Kee Voss,
00:26:47	and that in certain respects
00:26:50	she was more
00:26:51	charming than Sien.
00:26:54	It is certainly not so that the love for Sien is therefore less sincere.
00:27:04	This relationship generated even more disgust in the family
00:27:08	than Vincent's earlier infatuation with Kee,
00:27:12	and once again
00:27:14	he was penniless.
00:27:16	But, old chap, this has been an anxious fortnight.
00:27:21	When I wrote to you in the middle of May, all I had left was three,
00:27:24	three-and-a-half guilder after paying the baker.
00:27:28	The rent's due on 1st June, and I have nothing, literally
00:27:33	nothing.
00:27:36	I hope you'll be able to send something.
00:27:42	But Theo was just as scandalised
00:27:44	and refused to send any extra money.
00:27:47	With Vincent unable to support a family,
00:27:50	Sien decided to go back to prostitution
00:27:53	once the baby was born.
00:27:56	For Vincent, this was all too much.
00:27:59	Oh, Theo,
00:28:01	I have the most impossible and
00:28:05	highly unsuitable love affairs from which,
00:28:08	as a rule,
00:28:09	I emerge only with shame and disgrace.
00:28:20	But I shall continue to think of her often.
00:28:30	And so Vincent left,
00:28:32	and went deep into rural Holland,
00:28:35	to live and paint among the peasants.
00:28:39	This time I'm writing to you from the very back of beyond in Drenthe.
00:28:43	I see no way of describing the countryside to you as it should be done, because
00:28:48	words fail me.
00:28:53	What I think is the best life
00:28:55	is a life made up of long years of being in touch with nature out of doors.
00:29:02	Here are a couple of evening effects.
00:29:04	I'm still working on that weed burner, whom I've caught better
00:29:10	so that it conveys more of the vastness
00:29:17	And one muddy evening after the rain I found the little hut,
00:29:22	which was very beautiful in its natural setting.
00:29:33	When I say that I'm a peasant painter, that is really so,
00:29:53	But living in such an isolated place,
00:29:56	loneliness soon bore down on him.
00:29:58	Alone, one is sure to perish.
00:30:02	Only with another can one be saved.
00:30:08	The very best and most effective medicine is still love and a home.
00:30:16	So home he went,
00:30:18	depressed and broke,
00:30:19	and with his tail between his legs,
00:30:21	to live with his parents again.
00:30:24	However, the medicine wasn't quite right.
00:30:28	At first it seemed to be hopeless,
00:30:31	but it has gradually got better, particularly
00:30:34	since we agreed that he will stay with us for the time being, to make studies here.
00:30:40	He wanted the out house to be fitted up for him.
00:30:43	We don't think it's a particularly suitable place, but we've had it spruced up.
00:30:47	Now, we shall just make it nice and warm and dry
00:30:50	and then it should do.
00:30:53	There's a similar reluctance about taking me into the house
00:30:57	as there would be about having a large, shaggy dog in the house.
00:31:02	He'll come into the room with his wet paws,
00:31:07	And his bark is so loud.
00:31:09	In short, he's a filthy animal.
00:31:14	but the animal has a human history
00:31:17	and, although it's a dog, a human soul,
00:31:21	and one with finer feelings at that - capable of
00:31:25	feeling what people say about him, which an ordinary dog can't do.
00:31:33	We're undertaking this new trial with real good faith.
00:31:38	It's a pity that he isn't a little more accommodating,
00:31:40	but there's simply no changing the fact that he's eccentric.
00:31:46	And I, admitting that I am a sort of dog
00:31:51	accept them
00:31:54	for what they are.
00:31:57	Despite the difficulties at home,
00:31:59	it was around this time
00:32:03	Starting with the drawings of local weavers.
00:32:09	Every day, I paint studies of the weavers here.
00:32:16	I think the looms, with that quite complicated machinery,
00:32:21	in the middle of which sits the little figure,
00:32:25	will also lend themselves to pen drawings.
00:32:29	I must make sure that I get them so that the colour and tone
00:32:36	These Dutch painters he was so impressed by
00:32:39	were Anton Mauve and Jozef Israels,
00:32:42	artists from The Hague School,
00:32:44	celebrated for their rural scenes and peasant subjects.
00:32:48	Their palette was grey and brown,
00:32:51	matching the weather conditions of The Netherlands.
00:32:53	Very different from the revolutionary paintings being produced in Paris at that time
00:32:58	by The Impressionists with their bright and colourful paintings,
00:33:02	which Theo had written to Vincent about.
00:33:10	When I hear you talk about a lot of new names,
00:33:13	it's not always possible for me to understand when I've seen absolutely nothing by them.
00:33:19	And from what you say about Impressionism, it's not entirely
00:33:24	For my part, I find so tremendously much in Israels, for instance, that
00:33:30	I'm not particularly curious about or eager for something
00:33:34	different or newer.
00:33:38	Despite this, Vincent was becoming increasingly interested in colour,
00:33:43	fascinated by what he saw emerging on the looms.
00:33:49	When the weavers weave those fabrics, they try, as you know,
00:33:52	to get the very brightest colours in balance against one another
00:33:55	in the multicoloured tartans,
00:33:57	so that, rather than the fabric clashing, the overall effect is
00:34:00	harmonious from a distance.
00:34:04	You have to go straight to Eugene Delacroix
00:34:07	to find such an orchestration of colours.
00:34:09	I'm talking about the blue, green sketch with
00:34:12	red and purple and touches of lemon yellow.
00:34:18	It speaks a symbolic language through colour itself.
00:34:23	So now Vincent starts to introduce shards of colour into his work,
00:34:29	in landscapes,
00:34:31	and then in a series of portraits of local peasants.
00:34:38	I have a few of the heads I promised you.
00:34:40	They are studies, in the true meaning of the word.
00:34:44	I've already painted at least 30 or so.
00:34:51	At the same time, I'm working on those peasants around a dish of potatoes again.
00:34:57	I hope that the painting of those potato eaters will progress a bit.
00:35:02	You see, I really wanted to make it so that
00:35:06	people get the idea that these folk,
00:35:12	They have tilled the earth themselves with these hands
00:35:20	and thus they have honestly earned their food.
00:35:25	I wanted to give the idea of
00:35:27	a way of life wholly different from ours.
00:35:33	I certainly don't just want everyone to admire it
00:35:37	or approve of it without knowing why.
00:35:42	Admiration certainly didn't come from Theo,
00:35:45	or from Vincent's friend and fellow artist,
00:35:48	one Anthon van Rappard.
00:35:51	My dear friend!
00:35:53	You can do better than this
00:35:55	fortunately.
00:35:59	That coquettish little hand of that woman at the back,
00:36:02	how untrue!
00:36:06	And what connection is there between the coffeepot,
00:36:08	the table
00:36:09	and the hand lying on top of the handle?
00:36:12	What's that pot doing, for that matter?
00:36:15	It isn't standing,
00:36:17	it isn't being held,
00:36:18	but what then?
00:36:22	And why may that man on the left not have a knee,
00:36:24	or a belly or lungs?
00:36:27	Or are they in his back?
00:36:29	And why must his arm be a metre too short?
00:36:32	And why must he lack half of his nose?
00:36:35	With such a manner of working, you dare to invoke the name of Millet?
00:36:41	Come on!
00:36:42	Art is too important, it seems to me, to be treated so
00:36:46	cavalierly.
00:36:51	But perhaps van Rappard had missed the point.
00:36:55	I want people to say of my work,
00:36:57	that man feels deeply, that man feels subtly,
00:37:02	despite my so-called coarseness or perhaps precisely because of it.
00:37:08	Do you understand?
00:37:10	It seems pretentious to talk like this now, but that's why I want to push on!
00:37:18	The Potato Eaters demonstrates the level of
00:37:24	and remember, he'd only been painting for four years.
00:37:27	It was also the first and the last time he ever did a group portrait.
00:37:33	But the contemptuous critique of van Gogh's masterpiece
00:37:36	wasn't the only matter featured in van Rappard's letter.
00:37:41	The news of the death of your father came so unexpectedly
00:37:45	that I very much wanted some further message,
00:37:48	which didn't come, however.
00:37:52	Did you think that I had so little interest in your father
00:37:58	was enough for that interest?
00:38:02	Vincent hardly mentions the death of his father in the letters of the time,
00:38:07	but despite the difficulties of their relationship,
00:38:10	he was nevertheless affected by the news.
00:38:14	My dear Theo,
00:38:16	I'm still very much under the impression of what has just happened.
00:38:21	I just kept painting these two Sundays.
00:38:25	And he painted
00:38:26	his father's Bible.
00:38:29	I'm sending you a still life of an open, hence an off-white, Bible,
00:38:35	bound in leather, against a black background.
00:38:37	I painted this one in a single day.
00:38:42	This is to show you that when I say that perhaps I haven't
00:38:46	grafted entirely for nothing,
00:38:49	I mean it.
00:38:53	And, tellingly,
00:38:54	Vincent placed next to his father's Bible
00:38:57	a book by the French novelist Emile Zola,
00:39:00	the supreme chronicler of the oppressed and tormented working class.
00:39:06	Vincent saw in Zola a kindred spirit,
00:39:08	embracing the social purpose of art
00:39:11	as well as the artistic interpretation of reality.
00:39:16	'Zola, in La Joie De Vivre and L'Assommoir, and so many other masterpieces,
00:39:20	'paint life as we feel it ourselves and
00:39:23	'thus satisfies that need which we have, that people tell us the truth.'
00:39:28	Read lots of Zola, it's healthy stuff
00:39:33	and clears the mind.
00:39:37	The next part of his journey would take him to the epicentre of the art world,
00:39:43	leaving the Netherlands far behind him.
00:39:51	Vincent arrived in Paris in February 1886,
00:39:54	when the art scene was in transition.
00:39:57	Impressionism had already been dominant for over a decade,
00:40:01	but now the hunt was on for something new.
00:40:04	Somehow, he finally understood that to be taken seriously as an artist,
00:40:10	However, he didn't bother to inform Theo until he'd already arrived,
00:40:15	sending him a note to meet him in The Louvre in the Salle Carree,
00:40:19	where the great European masters were hung -
00:40:22	the Rembrandts and Delacroixs.
00:40:26	Vinsent intended to immerse himself in the artistic life of the city,
00:40:30	and moved to Montmartre with Theo,
00:40:33	into this house at 54 Rue Lepic.
00:40:36	Fortunately, we're doing well in our new home.
00:40:39	You'd no longer recognise Vincent, he's changed so much,
00:40:41	and that strikes others even more than me.
00:40:46	He has had a major operation on his mouth, for he had lost almost all
00:40:52	The doctor says he is now completely recovered.
00:40:55	He's making tremendous progress with his work,
00:40:58	and proof of that is that he is starting to make a success of it.
00:41:03	Vincent enrolled at the studio of the artist Fernand Cormon,
00:41:07	where he befriended many of the aspiring artists of the day,
00:41:10	including Toulouse Lautrec,
00:41:12	sitting here on the left,
00:41:14	with, reputedly, Vincent beside him holding the palette.
00:41:18	But he became bored and frustrated after three months working from plaster casts, so he left.
00:41:27	What I think about my own work is that the painting
00:41:32	of the peasants eating the potatoes that I did in Nuenen is, after all, the best thing I did.
00:41:38	What I hope to achieve
00:41:42	is to paint a good portrait, anyway.
00:41:48	For inspiration, he turned to the Dutch master Rembrandt,
00:41:52	who painted more than 90 self portraits from the outset of his career
00:41:57	to the year of his death in 1669.
00:42:00	So, Rembrandt painted angels.
00:42:04	He paints himself as an old man,
00:42:07	wrinkled, toothless, wearing a white cap.
00:42:12	First, painting from life in the mirror,
00:42:17	he dreams,
00:42:19	dreams, and his brush begins to paint his own portrait again,
00:42:23	but from memory,
00:42:26	and his expression is sadder
00:42:32	and more saddening.
00:42:43	For my own part, my fortunes dictate that I'm making
00:42:51	But what does that matter?
00:42:54	I have a dirty and difficult occupation -
00:42:59	painting.
00:43:03	Vincent started his self portrait series with the dark brown colours he'd been accustomed to.
00:43:11	But gradually, his colour and brushwork changed,
00:43:15	as he came under the influence of the new art that he saw around him.
00:43:20	The paintings become lighter and more colourful.
00:43:26	My intention is to show that a variety of very different portraits
00:43:35	The painter of the future is a colourist as there has never been before.
00:43:42	He hasn't yet sold any paintings for money,
00:43:48	He also has acquaintances from whom he receives a beautiful
00:43:53	that can serve him as a model.
00:43:56	I've made a series of colour studies in painting simply flowers,
00:44:01	seeking oppositions of blue with orange, red and green,
00:44:05	yellow and violet, seeking the broken and neutral tones
00:44:09	to harmonise brutal extremes.
00:44:15	He's also much more cheerful than before,
00:44:18	and he goes down well with the people here.
00:44:19	To give you an example, hardly a day passes without him being
00:44:23	invited to visit the studios of painters of repute,
00:44:27	or people come to him.
00:44:33	Just a few minutes' walk from Rue Lepic,
00:44:35	and from Le Moulin de la Galette,
00:44:38	a bar and dance hall
00:44:39	masquerading as a windmill, which Vincent loved to paint,
00:44:42	was Pere Tanguy's art supply shop.
00:44:46	This place became the hub
00:44:48	for the whole community of Parisian artists,
00:44:51	who would gather and gossip and exchange their pictures
00:44:54	for materials supplied by Pere Tanguy,
00:44:57	the legendary father figure of the avant garde.
00:45:01	Paul Cezanne,
00:45:02	Edgar Degas,
00:45:03	Toulouse Lautrec,
00:45:04	George Seurat.
00:45:06	They all came here.
00:45:09	It's extraordinary to think that this tiny room
00:45:11	was the principal gathering place for what is probably
00:45:14	the most celebrated group of artists in history.
00:45:19	Vincent, who was socially awkward, had little appetite
00:45:28	But there was one artist who like him stood out from the crowd.
00:45:33	His name was Paul Gauguin,
00:45:35	and he shared with Vincent a passion for Japanese prints.
00:45:41	This was the art-form that transfixed the western world in the late 19th century.
00:45:49	Japanese prints are certainly the most practical way of
00:45:57	Colourful and bright.
00:46:02	Theo and I have hundreds of them.
00:46:15	At first, he simply started to copy the prints.
00:46:25	Then, he began to experiment with his own work,
00:46:28	cropping objects at the edges and introducing strong diagonals.
00:46:35	And Japanese prints started to appear in the background
00:46:38	in several of his portraits,
00:46:41	including this one of Pere Tanguy.
00:46:46	However, other Parisian indulgences were not so beneficial.
00:46:52	Vincent was drinking large amounts of absinthe.
00:46:56	The bohemian lifestyle was damaging his already fragile health.
00:47:00	And his relationship with Theo was becoming seriously strained.
00:47:05	'It's as if there are two people in him -
00:47:07	'the one, marvellously gifted,
00:47:10	'sensitive and gentle,
00:47:12	'and the other, self-loving and unfeeling.'
00:47:19	There was a time when
00:47:22	I loved Vincent very much and he was my best friend, but that's over now.
00:47:27	It seems to be even worse, as far as he is concerned,
00:47:31	that he despises me and that I inspire aversion in him.
00:47:36	This makes it almost intolerable for me at home.
00:47:39	No-one wants to come by any more because it always leads to rows, and
00:47:43	he's so filthy and slovenly that the household looks anything but inviting.
00:48:02	Vincent had had enough of the quarrels with Theo,
00:48:05	and of the artistic egos of the avant-garde.
00:48:09	Longing for the peace of the countryside,
00:48:11	he left Paris
00:48:13	in February 1888
00:48:15	and headed south to Arles, in Provence.
00:48:21	'I want to begin by telling you that this part of the world seems to me
00:48:24	'as beautiful as Japan for the clearness of the atmosphere
00:48:28	'and the charm of the colour effects.'
00:48:31	Pale orange sunsets,
00:48:34	making the fields almost blue.
00:48:40	Glorious yellow suns.
00:48:46	Soon after his arrival,
00:48:48	Vincent moved into The Yellow House on Place Lamartine,
00:48:53	and set to work at once, experimenting with an increasingly vivid palette,
00:48:58	convinced that this would be his artistic legacy.
00:49:04	'Now that I've found my bearings a little more, I'm beginning to see the advantages here.
00:49:10	'For myself, I'm in better health here than in the north.
00:49:13	'I even work in the wheat fields at midday,
00:49:19	'and there you are,
00:49:20	I revel in it like a cicada.'
00:49:26	If only I'd known this country at 25, instead of coming here at 35, but
00:49:33	then I was
00:49:35	enthusiastic about grey, or rather, absence of colour.
00:49:40	Ah, but this!
00:49:43	I don't need Japanese prints here,
00:49:46	because I'm always saying to myself I'm in Japan.
00:49:54	I'd like to do drawings in the style of Japanese.
00:49:58	I can't do anything but strike while the iron's hot.
00:50:03	I hope to make real progress this year, which I really need to do.
00:50:15	However, working alone for days on end took its toll,
00:50:20	and depression set in.
00:50:26	From the letters, it's clear that he was suffering from bipolar disorder.
00:50:47	So many days pass without me saying a word to anyone
00:50:52	except to order
00:50:54	supper or a coffee.
00:50:58	It's been like that from the start.
00:51:03	For my part, it worries me to spend so much time by myself,
00:51:09	alone.
00:51:12	Vincent dreamed of establishing an artists' colony,
00:51:16	a "Studio in the South", as he called it,
00:51:18	where artists could work together in a collegiate culture,
00:51:22	unlike the more combustible Parisian artworld he'd left behind.
00:51:30	Gauguin is in Brittany, but has again suffered an attack of his liver complaint.
00:51:35	I wish I were in the same place as him,
00:51:38	or he here with me.
00:51:47	My...
00:51:49	dearold
00:51:52	Gauguin.
00:51:56	I've just rented a four-room house here in Arles.
00:52:00	It seems to me that
00:52:02	if I could find a painter who wanted to make the most out of the south,
00:52:06	and who was sufficiently absorbed in his work like me,
00:52:10	to be inclined to live like a monk,
00:52:13	bound up in his work and not inclined to waste his time, then
00:52:16	the thing would be very good.
00:52:18	"And you would give my brother one painting a month,
00:52:21	"while you'd be free to do whatever you liked with the rest."
00:52:28	In the hope of living in a studio with Gauguin, I'd like to do a decoration for the studio.
00:52:34	'Nothing but large sunflowers.'
00:52:43	I also did a canvas of my bedroom with the whitewood furniture that you know.
00:52:47	It amused me enormously doing this bare interior.
00:52:51	My aim was to give it colours like stained glass,
00:52:56	and a design of solid outlines.
00:53:02	Unfortunately, Gauguin procrastinated,
00:53:05	so Vincent bided his time,
00:53:07	determined to focus on his work
00:53:09	in preparation for the great man's arrival -
00:53:13	even prepared, in principal at least, to curtail some of his favourite pursuits.
00:53:20	Painting and screwing around a lot aren't compatible -
00:53:25	it weakens the brain,
00:53:27	and that's what's really so dammed annoying.
00:53:32	Free to go to the brothel, just like the monks,
00:53:36	or to the wine shop, if my heart chooses to!
00:53:44	In my painting of the night cafe, I've tried to express
00:53:50	where you can ruin yourself, go mad,
00:53:54	commit crimes.
00:53:58	Included here, a square canvas, the starry sky -
00:54:04	actually painted at night, under a gas-lamp.
00:54:09	The fields are mauve.
00:54:11	The town is blue and violet.
00:54:14	Two small coloured figures of lovers in the foreground.
00:54:28	He's an odd fellow, but
00:54:31	what a head he has on him.
00:54:35	It's enviable.
00:54:45	I shall count myself very happy if I manage to work enough to earn my living
00:54:53	for it makes me very worried when I tell myself
00:55:12	Gauguin finally arrived on the 23rd October 1888.
00:55:18	Turquoise, a vibrant, alive turquoise, as if the sea was bubbling
00:55:22	A few days later, the two artists set off for the nearby Roman cemetery
00:55:26	at Les Alyscamps, intent on depicting the same subject, side by side.
00:55:35	Vincent painted what he saw and what he felt,
00:55:38	the industrial scene in the background is framed by the trees.
00:55:46	By contrast, Gauguin had little time for reality.
00:55:50	He painted, as a rule, from memory.
00:55:53	And in the time it took Gauguin to complete this picture,
00:55:56	slowly and methodically,
00:55:58	Vincent, at top speed, had knocked out two more.
00:56:04	Gauguin, in spite of himself and in spite of me
00:56:10	has proved to me a little it was time to change things a bit.
00:56:15	I'm now working from memory,
00:56:18	and all my earlier studies will still be useful for that work,
00:56:22	as they will remind me
00:56:25	of former things that I have seen.
00:56:31	And one of these was a subject he painted again and again,
00:56:36	The Sower.
00:56:38	Now, the influence of Gauguin can clearly be seen.
00:56:42	Immense lemon yellow disk for the sun,
00:56:46	green-yellow sky with pink clouds.
00:56:50	The field is violet,
00:56:52	the sower and the tree, Prussian blue.
00:56:56	But Vincent found it difficult painting purely from memory,
00:57:00	and soon returned to subjects directly in front of him.
00:57:06	The last two studies are rather funny canvases,
00:57:10	a wooden and straw chair all yellow on red tiles against a wall.
00:57:15	Then Gauguin's armchair, red and green,
00:57:18	night effect.
00:57:20	On the seat, two novels and a candle.
00:57:23	On sailcloth, in thick impasto.
00:57:29	But it wasn't long before tensions developed between the two artists.
00:57:33	Gauguin's work was selling well in Paris -
00:57:36	Vincent still couldn't find buyers.
00:57:39	He started to drink heavily again.
00:57:42	His behaviour was becoming odder and odder,
00:57:45	and after just eight weeks, Gauguin became increasing exasperated.
00:57:50	I feel completely disorientated in Arles.
00:57:53	I find everything so small
00:57:55	and mean,
00:57:57	both the landscape and the people.
00:58:01	In general, Vincent and myself do not see eye to eye,
00:58:05	particularly on painting.
00:58:09	He likes my pictures very much,
00:58:11	but when I'm painting them,
00:58:13	he criticises me for this and that.
00:58:16	Vincent and I can absolutely not live side by side without trouble.
00:58:23	In December 1888,
00:58:25	Gauguin painted this, Portrait Of Van Gogh
00:58:28	Painting Sunflowers.
00:58:30	Vincent looked at it in silence, then said,
00:58:33	"It's me all right, but me gone mad."
00:58:37	But is it?
00:58:41	When I look at this picture, I don't see van Gogh at all.
00:58:45	I see Gauguin.
00:58:47	And that seems to me to explain a lot about their relationship.
00:58:53	A few days later, the two artists got into a heated argument.
00:59:01	'It was so bizarre I couldn't take it.'
00:59:04	He even asked me, "Are you going to leave?"
00:59:08	I felt I must go out alone
00:59:10	and take the air
00:59:11	along some paths
00:59:13	when I heard behind me a familiar step
00:59:16	short, quick, irregular.
00:59:20	I turned around on that instant
00:59:22	as Vincent rushed towards me, an open razor in hand.
00:59:29	Vincent returned to the Yellow House,
00:59:31	where, with perhaps the very same knife that he threatened Gauguin with,
00:59:36	he mutilated his left ear.
00:59:48	I wouldn't exactly have chosen madness
00:59:52	had there been a choice,
00:59:54	but once one has something like that, one can't catch it any more.
01:00:01	I find that his condition has improved a little.
01:00:03	I don't believe his life is in danger - for the moment at least.
01:00:08	He's eating quite well
01:00:10	and his physical strength enables him to withstand his crises.
01:00:14	My assessment is that he'll be able to recover in a short time,
01:00:18	while retaining the extreme excitability that must form the essence of his character.
01:00:29	From his hospital room,
01:00:31	Vincent painted this self-portrait,
01:00:33	one of the most arresting works of art
01:00:36	in the world.
01:00:42	The advantages I have here are that they are all sick
01:00:49	and so at least I don't feel...
01:00:51	alone.
01:00:54	I'm quite absorbed in reading Shakespeare.
01:00:57	I've first taken the kings series
01:01:01	of which I've already read Richard II,
01:01:03	Henry IV, Henry V,
01:01:05	parts of Henry VI.
01:01:07	Have you ever read King Lear?
01:01:09	But anyway, I think I shan't urge you too much to read such
01:01:14	dramatic stories.
01:01:18	when after reading them myself I
01:01:22	I'm always obliged to go and gaze at a blade of grass
01:01:28	a pine tree branch,
01:01:31	an ear of wheat
01:01:34	to calm myself.
01:01:40	Vincent suffered repeated episodes of mental instability
01:01:43	whilst in the hospital here in Arles.
01:01:46	But in between these fits, he was well enough to find comfort in his art,
01:01:50	painting the grounds here and the ward.
01:01:58	After five months in hospital,
01:02:00	mindful perhaps of his precarious mental state,
01:02:03	he was reluctant to return home alone to the Yellow House.
01:02:07	And with Theo's help,
01:02:09	he voluntarily admitted himself to the nearby asylum at Saint-Remy.
01:02:15	Dear Director, with the agreement of the person involved, who is my brother,
01:02:19	I am writing to request the admission into your institution of Vincent Willem van Gogh.
01:02:25	I ask you to admit him with your third-class residents.
01:02:28	I hope you will have no objection to allowing him the freedom to paint
01:02:31	outside your institution whenever he wishes to do so.
01:02:36	Further,
01:02:38	without elaborating on the attention he will require,
01:02:41	but which I assume is given with the same care to all your residents,
01:02:45	I hope you will be so kind as to allow him to have at least
01:02:49	half a litre of wine with his meals.
01:02:56	Vincent arrived here at Saint-Remy on 8th May 1889,
01:03:01	where he would remain for a year.
01:03:04	The letters he wrote during that time
01:03:07	are a heart-wrenching confession
01:03:09	of his coming to terms with his condition.
01:03:16	I wanted to tell you that
01:03:20	I've done well to come here.
01:03:24	First, in seeing the reality of the lives of the
01:03:27	mad, cracked people in this menagerie
01:03:32	I'm losing the vague dread, the fear of the thing. And...
01:03:37	little by little, I can come to consider madness as being an illness like any other.
01:03:43	As far as I know, the doctor here is inclined to
01:03:46	consider what I've had as an attack of
01:03:48	an epileptic nature.
01:03:52	It's quite odd perhaps that the result of this terrible attack is
01:03:55	that in my mind there's hardly any really clear desire or hope left.
01:04:02	I'm thinking of squarely accepting my profession as a madman.
01:04:13	There were days, sometimes weeks, when Vincent was unable to work,
01:04:17	tormented by spells of mental illness.
01:04:20	But these alternated with periods of amazing creativity
01:04:24	in which he was extremely productive.
01:04:36	He was given permission to paint in the surrounding countryside
01:04:40	and sent dozens of paintings to Theo in Paris.
01:04:57	"Thanks very much for the consignment of canvases, colours, brushes, tobacco and chocolate,
01:05:03	"which reached me in good order.
01:05:07	"I was very glad of it,
01:05:10	"for I was pining for work a little."
01:05:15	Also, for a few days now I've been going outside to work in the neighbourhood.
01:05:19	What a beautiful land and what beautiful blue and what a sun.
01:05:26	So then my brush goes between my fingers as if it were the bow on a violin and
01:05:30	absolutely for my pleasure.
01:05:37	I'm struggling
01:05:39	with a canvas begun a few days before my indisposition.
01:05:44	A reaper, the study is all in yellow,
01:05:48	terribly thickly impasted, but the subject was beautiful and simple.
01:05:55	A vague figure struggling like a devil in the
01:06:04	And then saw the image of death in it
01:06:08	in the sense that humanity would be like the wheat being reaped.
01:06:15	So, if you like, it's the opposite of that sower I tried before. But
01:06:19	in this death, nothing's sad, it takes place in broad daylight with a sun that
01:06:25	floods everything with a light of fine gold.
01:06:34	Your latest paintings have given me a great deal to think about
01:06:40	All of them have
01:06:43	a power of colour
01:06:45	which you hadn't attained before,
01:06:47	which in itself is
01:06:49	a rare quality,
01:06:52	but you've gone further.
01:06:57	But how hard your mind must have worked and how you endangered yourself to the extreme point
01:07:00	endangered yourself to the extreme point where
01:07:05	vertigo is inevitable.
01:07:09	Let me quietly continue my work.
01:07:12	If it's that of a madman, well then, too bad.
01:07:16	Then I can't do anything about it.
01:07:23	And around this time,
01:07:24	Vincent got the only review ever to appear in his lifetime,
01:07:29	by the young critic, Albert Aurier.
01:07:31	What characterises his works as a whole
01:07:34	is its excess of strength,
01:07:38	of nervousness,
01:07:41	its violence of expression.
01:07:46	His colour we know already,
01:07:48	unbelievably dazzling
01:07:51	with this metallic, jewel-like quality.
01:07:57	In his categorical affirmation of character of things,
01:08:04	masculine
01:08:06	daring,
01:08:09	very often brutal
01:08:17	yet sometimes
01:08:20	ingeniously delicate.
01:08:24	Vincent stayed at St Remy for over a year,
01:08:27	but he began to fear being labelled the mad artist,
01:08:31	so once again,
01:08:33	he asked Theo for help.
01:08:35	I don't feel competent enough to judge the way they treat patients here,
01:08:38	and nor do I have any desire to enter into the detail,
01:08:41	but please remember
01:08:42	that around six months ago I warned you that if I was seized
01:08:47	by a crisis of a similar nature, that I would wish to change asylums.
01:08:52	And I've delayed too long already, having allowed an attack to go by in the meantime.
01:08:56	I was then in the middle of work, and I wanted to finish canvases in progress,
01:09:03	Right, so
01:09:05	I'm going to tell you
01:09:07	that it seems to me that a fortnight, though a week would please me more,
01:09:12	should be enough to take the necessary steps to move.
01:09:17	During his stay in the home, this patient, During his stay in the home, this patient,
01:09:22	has had several attacks lasting for between two weeks and a month.
01:09:28	During these attacks, he is subject to terrifying terrors,
01:09:33	and has on several occasions attempted to poison himself,
01:09:37	either by swallowing colours that he used for painting, or by ingesting paraffin,
01:09:43	which he had taken from the boy when he was filling his lamps.
01:09:50	In the interval between attacks, the patient is perfectly calm and lucid,
01:09:58	He is asking to be discharged today in order to go to live in the north of France,
01:10:04	hoping that climate will suit him better.
01:10:12	In May 1890, he moved to Auvers, close to Paris,
01:10:17	with a letter of introduction from Theo to a Dr Paul Gachet.
01:10:24	And he rented an attic room here at the Auberge Ravoux.
01:10:34	Once settled in Auvers, Vincent set himself a punishing schedule,
01:10:39	leaving his room at five in the morning
01:10:41	to go out and paint in fields
01:10:43	and not returning till nine at night.
01:10:46	It was a period of intense activity in which he produced a canvas a day.
01:10:57	Being back north,
01:10:59	I am very distracted.
01:11:01	I did a portrait of Dr Gachet the other day.
01:11:06	You have a face, the colour
01:11:10	of over-heated and sun-drenched
01:11:13	brick, with reddish hair,
01:11:16	a white cap, blue background.
01:11:20	He's very nervous and
01:11:22	very bizarre.
01:11:26	My portrait of myself is almost like this too -
01:11:29	so similar are we physically, and morally.
01:11:35	"I think he is sicker than I am, or
01:11:38	shall we say, just as much?
01:11:43	"When one blind man leads another, don't they both fall into the ditch?"
01:11:52	Although Vincent doubted Dr Gachet's ability to help him,
01:11:56	they did become good friends.
01:11:59	He dined at his house and painted his daughter.
01:12:02	They had much in common.
01:12:04	Gachet was not only a physician but also an amateur artist,
01:12:07	and deeply involved in the treatment of mental malaise.
01:12:11	But despite the doctor's sympathetic ear,
01:12:14	Vincent is still alone.
01:12:25	Since my illness, the feelings
01:12:28	of loneliness takes hold of me in the fields
01:12:33	in such a fearsome way that I hesitate to go out.
01:12:40	with time, though, that will change.
01:12:45	It's only in front of the easel while painting that
01:12:48	I feel a little of life.
01:12:55	I feel
01:13:00	a failure
01:13:04	that's it as regards me.
01:13:08	I feel that that's the fate I'm accepting
01:13:14	and which won't change any more.
01:13:32	In July 1890, he returned to Paris to visit Theo
01:13:36	and his sister-in-law, Jo,
01:13:39	and to see for the first time his recently-born nephew,
01:13:43	Vincent.
01:13:45	Theo explained to him that he now had responsibilities,
01:13:49	with a young family to support.
01:13:52	Vincent now feared that he was becoming a liability.
01:13:57	Distressed, he returned to Auvers that same evening.
01:14:05	I feared,
01:14:06	not completely but a little nonetheless,
01:14:10	that I was a danger to you
01:14:16	living at your expense.
01:14:22	I'd perhaps like to write to you about many things.
01:14:29	I profess the desire has passed to such a degree that I feel the pointlessness of it.
01:14:49	"I'm applying myself to my canvases with all my attention.
01:14:55	"They're immense stretches of wheat fields
01:14:58	under turbulent skies
01:15:03	"..and I made a point of trying to express sadness,
01:15:07	"extreme loneliness."
01:15:13	Look after yourself
01:15:16	and handshakes in thought.
01:15:24	Yours truly
01:15:28	Vincent.
01:15:40	Four days after writing his final letter to Theo,
01:15:44	he went into the wheatfields
01:15:46	and shot himself in the chest.
01:15:50	He managed to crawl back here and climb these stairs to his attic room.
01:16:01	Two days later, he died here, in this room, at the age of 37,
01:16:07	with Theo at his side.
01:16:19	Dr Gachet and the other doctor were
01:16:22	excellent and looked after him very well, but
01:16:25	realised from the very first moment there was nothing anyone could do.
01:16:33	Vincent said, "This is the way I would like to go."
01:16:39	And half an hour later, he had his way.
01:16:49	Life weighed so heavily upon him
01:16:55	but as always happens, everyone is now full of praise for his talent.
01:17:28	Vincent wanted everyone to understand his art,
01:17:32	he wanted it, he said, "To say something consoling, like music."
01:17:37	Perhaps the only person who really understood him in his lifetime
01:17:40	was his brother, Theo,
01:17:42	who died just six months later of syphilis, at the age of 33.
01:17:49	They're now buried here,
01:17:51	side by side, in Auvers.
01:17:54	The ivy which seems to overwhelm their graves
01:17:57	also serves to bind them together.
01:17:59	It was once a cutting from Dr Gachet's garden.
01:18:03	Van Gogh only sold a few artworks in his life.
01:18:06	Today, they're worth millions -
01:18:09	ironic, maybe,
01:18:10	but Vincent seemed to know all along
01:18:13	what would happen.
01:18:22	We're now living here in a world of painting,
01:18:26	where everything is occupied by people,
01:18:31	who all intercept money.
01:18:34	And you mustn't think that I'm imagining things.
01:18:38	People pay a lot for the work when the painter himself is dead.
01:18:42	Caption: Channelography

Van Gogh Painted With Words