A new version of the death of Vincent van Gogh. The mystery of Van Gogh's madness: what does his last painting say? Theology and missionary activity

Art historians are divided into two camps. Experts from the Amsterdam museum refute the recent statement that the artist was killed by a 16-year-old schoolboy.

Who killed Vincent Van Gogh?

Until two years ago Steven Naifeh And Gregory White-Smith published a comprehensive biography of the artist, it was indisputably believed that during his stay in France he committed suicide. But American authors put forward a sensational theory: Van Gogh was shot by a 16-year-old schoolboy Rene Secretan, although it is unclear whether he did this intentionally. The artist lived for two more days and, according to the authors, “accepted death with satisfaction.” He defended Secretan, claiming it was suicide.

In the July issue Burlington Magazine The Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum joined the controversy. In a detailed biographical article, two of the museum's leading researchers, Louis van Tilborgh And Teyo Medendrop, insist on the version of suicide. What is certain is that he died two days after he received a gunshot wound on July 27, 1890, somewhere in Auvers-sur-Oise. They undertook an investigation based largely on a little-known interview Secretan gave shortly before his death in 1957. Secretan recalled that he had a pistol with which he shot at squirrels. Him and his older brother Gaston knew Van Gogh. Rene Secretant claims that the artist stole his weapon, but does not say anything about the shot. Naifeh and White-Smith considered the interview a dying confession and referred to the late art historian John Rewald, who mentioned rumors circulating in Auvers that the guys accidentally shot the artist. The authors believe that Van Gogh decided to defend Rene and Gaston from accusations.

Conclusions of criminologists

Naifeh and White-Smith paid attention to the nature of the wound and concluded that the shot was fired "from some distance from the body, and not at point-blank range." This is what the doctors who treated Van Gogh testified: his friend Dr. Paul Gachet and local practitioner Jean Mazery. After reviewing the facts, van Tilborgh and Medendrop were convinced that Van Gogh committed suicide. Their article states that Secretan's interview does not "in the slightest degree" support the theory of murder committed intentionally or negligently. All that follows from the interview is that Van Gogh somehow obtained the brothers’ weapons. The authors emphasize that although Revald retold rumors about the Secretans, he did not really believe in them. Van Tilborgh and Medendrop cite new data published last year in a book Alena Roana Vincent Van Gogh: has the suicide weapon been found? Dr. Gachet recalled that the wound was brown with a purple rim. The purple bruise is the result of the impact of the bullet, and the brown mark is a burn from gunpowder: this means that the weapon was close to the chest, under the shirt, and therefore Van Gogh shot himself. In addition, Roan discovered new information about weapons. In the 1950s, a rusty revolver was found buried in a field just outside the Chateau d'Auvers, where Van Gogh is said to have shot himself. Analysis showed that the revolver spent 60 to 80 years in the ground. The weapon was found next to the road, which in 1904 the son of Dr. Gachet depicted in a painting called Over: the place where Vincent committed suicide. The revolver was found just behind the low farmhouses depicted in the center of the painting.

Article in Burlington Magazine also concerns the last weeks of Van Gogh's life. The authors argue with the generally accepted theory that the artist was depressed because he had lost financial support his brother Theo. Van Tilborgh and Medendrop argue that Van Gogh was more concerned that Theo did not allow him to participate in decision-making. Theo had serious problems with his employer, the Busso and Valadon gallery, and he was planning to start his own business: it was supposed to be a gallery, but Theo did not even consult his brother, which made him feel even more lonely. Van Tilborgh and Medendrop conclude that suicide was not an impulsive act, but a carefully considered decision. Although Theo's behavior played a role, key factor the artist became painfully aware that his obsession with art had plunged him into the abyss of mental confusion. The authors look for traces of this confusion in Van Gogh's last works and point out that when he shot himself, he had a farewell note to his brother in his pocket. Traditionally, Van Gogh's last work is considered to be the painting Crows over a wheat field, but it was completed around July 10, more than two weeks before the artist's death. He himself wrote about this painting: “A huge space under a stormy sky, dotted with wheat. I was trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness." Van Tilborgh had already suggested that latest works Van Gogh had two unfinished paintings - Tree roots and farms near Auvers. The article puts forward a hypothesis that the first of them is a programmatic farewell work, showing how elms fight for survival.

Van Gogh claimed that he shot himself. His relatives also supported the same version. Nyfe and White-Smith argue that the artist lied, while van Tilborgh and Medendrop believe that he was telling the truth. In all likelihood, we need to more carefully study the testimony of contemporaries about suicide.

Dr. Gachet immediately sent Theo a note saying that Vincent had "injured himself." Adelina Ravu, whose father kept the hotel where the artist lived, later recalled that Van Gogh told a policeman: “I wanted to kill myself.”

Terrible wound

Vincent was very close to his brother. It's hard to believe that he lied to his brother about his horrific injury just to save two teenagers who were teasing him from the police. In the end, suicide was much more difficult for Theo to bear because he felt some of his guilt about it. Sound heartbreaking last words Vincent Van Gogh: “This is exactly how I wanted to go.” In his letter to his wife, Theo says: “A few minutes passed and it was all over: he found the peace that he could not find on earth.”

When 37-year-old Vincent Van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, his work was virtually unknown. Today his paintings are worth eye-popping sums and decorate best museums peace.

125 years after the death of the great Dutch painter, the time has come to learn more about him and dispel some of the myths with which his biography, like the entire history of art, is full.

He changed several jobs before becoming an artist

The son of a minister, Van Gogh began working at age 16. His uncle took him on as a trainee as an art dealer in The Hague. He had occasion to travel to London and Paris, where the company's branches were located. In 1876 he was fired. After that he worked for some time school teacher in England, then as a bookstore salesman. From 1878 he served as a preacher in Belgium. Van Gogh was in need, he had to sleep on the floor, but less than a year later he was fired from this post. Only after this did he finally become an artist and did not change his occupation again. In this field he became famous, however, posthumously.

Van Gogh's career as an artist was short

In 1881, the self-taught Dutch artist returned to the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to painting. He was supported financially and materially by his younger brother Theodore, a successful art dealer. In 1886, the brothers settled in Paris, and these two years in the French capital turned out to be fateful. Van Gogh took part in exhibitions of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists; he began to use a light and bright palette and experiment with brush stroke techniques. The artist spent the last two years of his life in the south of France, where he created a number of his most famous paintings.

In his entire ten-year career, he sold only a few of his more than 850 paintings. His drawings (about 1,300 of them remained) were then unclaimed.

Most likely he didn't cut off his own ear.

In February 1888, after living in Paris for two years, Van Gogh moved to the south of France, to the city of Arles, where he hoped to found a community of artists. He was accompanied by Paul Gauguin, with whom he became friends in Paris. The officially accepted version of events is as follows:

On the night of December 23, 1888, they quarreled and Gauguin left. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, pursued his friend, but, not catching up, returned home and, in frustration, partially cut off his left ear, then wrapped it in newspaper and gave it to some prostitute.

In 2009, two German scientists published a book suggesting that Gauguin, a good swordsman, cut off part of Van Gogh's ear with a saber during a duel. According to this theory, Van Gogh, in the name of friendship, agreed to hide the truth, otherwise Gauguin would have faced prison.

The most famous paintings were painted by him in a psychiatric clinic

In May 1889, Van Gogh asked for help from psychiatric hospital Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, located in a former monastery of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France. The artist was initially diagnosed with epilepsy, but examination also revealed bipolar disorder, alcoholism and metabolic disorders. Treatment consisted mainly of baths. He remained in the hospital for a year and painted a number of landscapes there. Over one hundred paintings from this period include some of his most famous works, such as " Starry night"(acquired by the New York Museum contemporary art in 1941) and “Irises” (purchased by an industrialist from Australia in 1987 for a then-record sum of $53.9 million)

Vincent Van Gogh - Dutch artist, one of the brightest representatives of post-impressionism. He worked a lot and fruitfully: over the course of just over ten years he created such a number of works that none of the famous painters. He painted portraits and self-portraits, landscapes and still lifes, cypress trees, wheat fields and sunflowers.

The artist was born near the southern border of the Netherlands in the village of Grot-Zundert. This event in the family of Pastor Theodore van Gogh and his wife Anna Cornelia Carbentus occurred on March 30, 1853. In total, there were six children in the Van Gogh family. Younger brother Theo helped Vincent throughout his life and took an active part in his difficult fate.

In the family, Vincent was a difficult, disobedient child with some oddities, so he was often punished. Outside the house, on the contrary, he looked thoughtful, serious and quiet. He hardly played with children. His fellow villagers considered him a modest, sweet, friendly and compassionate child. At the age of 7 he is sent to village school, a year later they take him away and teach him at home; in the fall of 1864 the boy is taken to a boarding school in Zevenbergen.

Departure hurts the boy's soul and causes him a lot of suffering. In 1866 he was transferred to another boarding school. Vincent is good at languages, and here he also gains his first drawing skills. In 1868, in the middle of the school year, he left school and went home. His education ends here. He remembers his childhood as something cold and gloomy.

Traditionally, generations of Van Goghs realized themselves in two areas of activity: painting paintings and church activities. Vincent will try himself both as a preacher and as a merchant, giving his all to the work. Having achieved certain successes, he abandons both, consecrating his life and his whole self to painting.

Start of a career

In 1868, a fifteen-year-old boy entered the branch of the art company Gupil and Co. in The Hague. For good job and his curiosity are directed to the London branch. During the two years that Vincent spent in London, he becomes a real businessman and connoisseur of engravings by English masters, quotes Dickens and Eliot, and a gloss appears in him. Van Gogh faced the prospect of a brilliant commission agent in the central branch of Goupil in Paris, where he was supposed to move.

In 1875, events occurred that changed his life. In a letter to Theo, he calls his condition “painful loneliness.” Researchers of the artist's biography suggest that the reason for this state is rejected love. It is not known exactly who the object of this love was. It's possible that this version wrong. A transfer to Paris did not help change the situation. He lost interest in Goupil and was fired.

Theology and missionary activity

In his search for himself, Vincent affirms his religious destiny. In 1877, he moved to his uncle Johannes in Amsterdam and prepared to enter the Faculty of Theology. He gets disappointed in his studies, quits classes and leaves. The desire to serve people leads him to a missionary school. In 1879, he received a position as a preacher in Wham in the south of Belgium.

He teaches the Law of God at the miners' center in Borinage, helps the families of miners, visits the sick, teaches children, reads sermons, and draws maps of Palestine to earn money. He lives in a miserable shack, eats water and bread, sleeps on the floor, physically torturing himself. In addition, it helps workers defend their rights.

Local authorities remove him from his post, as they do not accept vigorous activity and extremes. During this period, he painted a lot of miners, their wives and children.

Becoming an artist

To escape the depression associated with the events in Paturage, Van Gogh turned to painting. Brother Theo befriends him and he attends the Academy fine arts. But after a year he dropped out of school and went to his parents, continuing to study on his own.

Falls in love again. This time to my cousin. His feelings do not find an answer, but he continues his courtship, which irritates his relatives, who asked him to leave. Due to a new shock, he abandons his personal life and leaves for The Hague to take up painting. Here he takes lessons from Anton Mauve, works a lot, observes city life, mainly in poor neighborhoods. Studying “Drawing Course” by Charles Bargue, copying lithographs. Masters mixing various techniques on canvas, achieving interesting works color shades.

Once again he tries to start a family with a pregnant street woman whom he meets on the street. A woman with children moves in with him and becomes a model for the artist. Because of this, he quarrels with relatives and friends. Vincent himself feels happy, but not for long. The difficult character of his cohabitant turned his life into a nightmare, and they separated.

The artist goes to the province of Drenthe in the north of the Netherlands, lives in a hut, which he equipped as a workshop, paints landscapes, peasants, scenes from their work and life. Early works Van Gogh, with reservations, but can be called realistic. The lack of academic education affected his drawings and inaccurate depictions of human figures.

From Drenthe he moves to his parents in Nuenen and draws a lot. Hundreds of drawings and paintings were created during this period. Along with his creativity, he paints with his students, reads a lot and takes music lessons. The themes of the works of the Dutch period are simple people and scenes, painted in an expressive manner with a predominance of a dark palette, gloomy and dull tones. Masterpieces of this period include the painting “The Potato Eaters” (1885), depicting a scene from the life of peasants.

Parisian period

After much thought, Vincent decides to live and create in Paris, where he moves at the end of February 1886. Here he meets his brother Theo, who rose to the rank of director art gallery. Artistic life The French capital of this period is in full swing.

A significant event is the Impressionist exhibition on Rue Lafitte. For the first time, Signac and Seurat, who led the post-impressionism movement, which marked the final stage of impressionism, are exhibiting there. Impressionism is a revolution in art that changed the approach to painting, displacing academic techniques and subjects. The first impression and pure colors are of paramount importance, and preference is given to plein air painting.

In Paris, Van Gogh's brother Theo takes care of him, settles him in his house, and introduces him to artists. In the studio of the traditionalist artist Fernand Cormon, he met Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard and Louis Anquetin. He is greatly impressed by the paintings of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. In Paris, he became addicted to absinthe and even painted a still life on this topic.

The Parisian period (1886-1888) turned out to be the most fruitful; the collection of his works was replenished with 230 canvases. It was a time of searching for technology, studying innovative trends modern painting. He is forming new look for painting. The realistic approach is replaced by a new manner, gravitating towards impressionism and post-impressionism, which is reflected in his still lifes with flowers and landscapes.

His brother introduces him to the most prominent representatives this direction: Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and others. He often goes out plein air with his artist friends. His palette gradually brightens, becomes brighter, and over time turns into a riot of colors, characteristic of his work in recent years.

In Paris, Van Gogh communicates a lot, visiting the same places where his brothers go. In "Tambourine" he even starts a small affair with its owner Agostina Segatori, who once posed for Degas. From it he paints a portrait at a table in a cafe and several works in the nude style. Another meeting place was Papa Tanga's shop, where paints and other materials for artists were sold. Here, as in many other similar institutions, artists exhibited their works.

A group of Small Boulevards is being formed, which includes Van Gogh and his comrades, who have not reached such heights as the masters of the Grand Boulevards - more famous and recognized. The spirit of competition and tension that reigned in Parisian society at that time became unbearable for the impulsive and uncompromising artist. He gets into arguments, quarrels and decides to leave the capital.

Severed ear

In February 1888, he goes to Provence and becomes attached to it with all his soul. Theo sponsors his brother, sending him 250 francs a month. In gratitude, Vincent sends his paintings to his brother. He rents four rooms in a hotel, eats in a cafe, the owners of which become his friends and pose for pictures.

With the arrival of spring, the artist is captivated by the southern sun, flowering trees. He is delighted with the bright colors and transparency of the air. The ideas of impressionism are gradually disappearing, but loyalty to the light palette and plein air painting remains. The works predominate yellow, acquiring a special radiance coming from the depths.

To work plein air at night, he attaches candles to his hat and sketchbook, illuminating his work in this way. workplace. This is exactly how his paintings “Starry Night over the Rhone” and “Night Cafe” were painted. An important event becomes the arrival of Paul Gauguin, whom Vincent repeatedly invited to Arles. An enthusiastic and fruitful life together ends in quarrel and breakup. Self-confident, pedantic Gauguin was the complete opposite of the disorganized and restless Van Gogh.

The epilogue to this story is the stormy showdown before Christmas 1888, when Vincent cut off his ear. Gauguin, afraid that they were going to attack him, hid in the hotel. Vincent wrapped his bloody earlobe in paper and sent it to their mutual friend, the prostitute Rachelle. His friend Roulen discovered him in a pool of blood. The wound heals quickly, but his mental health returns him to his hospital bed.

Death

The residents of Arles begin to fear a city dweller who is unlike them. In 1889, they wrote a petition demanding that they be rid of the “red-haired madman.” Vincent realizes the danger of his condition and voluntarily goes to the hospital of St. Paul of Mausoleum in Saint-Rémy. During treatment, he is allowed to pee outside under the supervision of medical staff. This is how his works with characteristic wavy lines and swirls appeared (“Starry Night”, “Road with Cypress Trees and a Star”, etc.).

In Saint-Rémy, periods of intense activity are followed by long breaks caused by depression. At the moment of one of the crises, he swallows paint. Despite the increasing exacerbations of the disease, brother Theo promotes his participation in the September Salon of Independents in Paris. In January 1890, Vincent exhibited “Red Vineyards in Arles” and sold them for four hundred francs, which is quite a decent amount. This was the only painting sold during his lifetime.

His joy was immeasurable. The artist did not stop working. His brother Theo is also inspired by the success of Vineyards. He supplies Vincent with paints, but he begins to eat them. In May 1890, the brother negotiated with the homeopathic therapist Dr. Gachet to treat Vincent in his clinic. The doctor himself is fond of drawing, so he happily takes on the artist’s treatment. Vincent is also attracted to Gasha and sees him as a kind-hearted and optimistic person.

A month later, Van Gogh was allowed to travel to Paris. His brother does not greet him very kindly. He has financial problems and his daughter is very sick. This technique unbalanced Vincent; he realizes that he is becoming, perhaps, and has always been a burden for his brother. Shocked, he returns to the clinic.

On July 27, as usual, he goes out into the open air, but returns not with sketches, but with a bullet in his chest. The bullet he fired from the pistol hit the rib and went away from the heart. The artist himself returned to the shelter and went to bed. Lying in bed, he calmly smoked his pipe. It seemed that the wound did not cause him pain.

Gachet summoned Theo by telegram. He immediately arrived and began to reassure his brother that they would help him, that he did not need to give in to despair. The response was the phrase: “Sadness will last forever.” The artist died on July 29, 1890 at half past one in the morning. He was buried in the town of Mary on July 30.

Many of his artist friends came to say goodbye to the artist. The walls of the room were hung with his latest paintings. Doctor Gachet wanted to make a speech, but he cried so much that he managed to utter only a few words, the essence of which boiled down to the fact that Vincent was a great artist and an honest man that art, which was above all for him, will repay him and perpetuate his name.

The artist's brother Theo Van Gogh died six months later. He did not forgive himself for the quarrel with his brother. His despair, which he shares with his mother, becomes unbearable, and he suffers from a nervous breakdown. This is what he wrote in a letter to his mother after his brother’s death:

“It is impossible to describe my grief, just as it is impossible to find consolation. This is a grief that will last and from which I will certainly never be freed as long as I live. The only thing that can be said is that he himself found the peace he was striving for... Life was such a heavy burden for him, but now, as often happens, everyone praises his talents... Oh, mom! He was so mine, my own brother.”

And this is Vincent's last letter, written after a quarrel:

“It seems to me that since everyone is a little on edge and also too busy, there is no need to fully clarify all the relationships. I was a little surprised that you seemed to want to rush things. How can I help, or rather, what can I do to make you happy with this? One way or another, I mentally shake your hands tightly again and, in spite of everything, I was glad to see you all. Don't doubt it."

In 1914, Theo's remains were reburied by his widow next to Vincent's grave.

Personal life

One of the reasons for Van Gogh's mental illness could have been his failed personal life, he never found a life partner. The first attack of despair occurred after the refusal of the daughter of his housewife Ursula Loyer, in whom he for a long time was secretly in love. The proposal came unexpectedly, shocked the girl, and she rudely refused.

History repeated itself with widowed cousin Key Stricker Voe, but this time Vincent decides not to give up. The woman does not accept advances. On his third visit to his beloved’s relatives, he puts his hand into the flame of a candle, promising to hold it there until she gives her consent to become his wife. With this act, he finally convinced the girl’s father that he was dealing with a mentally ill person. They did not stand on ceremony with him anymore and simply escorted him out of the house.

Sexual dissatisfaction was reflected in his nervous state. Vincent begins to like prostitutes, especially those who are not very young and not very beautiful, whom he could raise. Soon he chooses a pregnant prostitute, who moves in with his 5-year-old daughter. After the birth of his son, Vincent becomes attached to the children and considers getting married.

The woman posed for the artist and lived with him for about a year. Because of her, he had to be treated for gonorrhea. The relationship deteriorated completely when the artist saw how cynical, cruel, sloppy and unbridled she was. After the separation, the lady indulged in her previous activities, and Van Gogh left The Hague.

IN recent years Vincent was being stalked by a 41-year-old woman named Margot Begemann. She was the artist's neighbor in Nuenen and really wanted to get married. Van Gogh, rather out of pity, agrees to marry her. The parents did not give consent to this marriage. Margot almost committed suicide, but Van Gogh saved her. In the subsequent period he has many promiscuous relationships, he visits brothels and is occasionally treated for sexually transmitted diseases.

(Vincent Willem Van Gogh) was born on March 30, 1853 in the village of Groot Zundert in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands in the family of a Protestant pastor.

In 1868, Van Gogh dropped out of school, after which he went to work at a branch of the large Parisian art company Goupil & Cie. He worked successfully in the gallery, first in The Hague, then in branches in London and Paris.

By 1876, Vincent had completely lost interest in the painting trade and decided to follow in the footsteps of his father. In Great Britain, he found work as a teacher at a boarding school in a small town in the suburbs of London, where he also served as an assistant pastor. On October 29, 1876, he preached his first sermon. In 1877 he moved to Amsterdam, where he began studying theology at the university.

Van Gogh "Poppies"

In 1879, Van Gogh received a position as a secular preacher in Wham, a mining center in the Borinage, in southern Belgium. He then continued his preaching mission in the nearby village of Kem.

During this same period, Van Gogh developed a desire to paint.

In 1880, in Brussels, he entered the Royal Academy of Arts (Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles). However, due to his unbalanced character, he soon abandoned the course and continued art education yourself, using reproductions.

In 1881, in Holland, under the guidance of his relative, landscape artist Anton Mauwe, Van Gogh created his first paintings: “Still Life with Cabbage and Wooden Shoes” and “Still Life with Beer Glass and Fruit.”

In the Dutch period, starting with the painting “Harvesting Potatoes” (1883), the main motif of the artist’s paintings became the theme ordinary people and their work, the emphasis was on the expressiveness of scenes and figures, the palette was dominated by dark, gloomy colors and shades, sharp changes in light and shadow. The canvas “The Potato Eaters” (April-May 1885) is considered a masterpiece of this period.

In 1885, Van Gogh continued his studies in Belgium. In Antwerp he entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. In 1886, Vincent moved to Paris to join his younger brother Theo, who by then had taken over as leading manager of the Goupil gallery in Montmartre. Here Van Gogh took lessons from the French realist artist Fernand Cormon for about four months, met the impressionists Camille Pizarro, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, from whom he adopted their style of painting.

© Public Domain "Portrait of Doctor Gachet" by Van Gogh

© Public Domain

In Paris, Van Gogh developed an interest in creating images human faces. Without the funds to pay for the work of models, he turned to self-portraiture, creating about 20 paintings in this genre in two years.

The Parisian period (1886-1888) became one of the most productive creative periods artist.

In February 1888, Van Gogh traveled to the south of France to Arles, where he dreamed of creating a creative community of artists.

In December mental health Vincent was very shaken. During one of the uncontrolled outbreaks aggression, he threatened Paul Gauguin, who came to see him in the open air, with an open razor, and then cut off a piece of his earlobe, sending it as a gift to one of his female acquaintances. After this incident, Van Gogh was first placed in a psychiatric hospital in Arles, and then voluntarily went for treatment at the specialized clinic of St. Paul of the Mausoleum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The hospital's chief physician, Théophile Peyron, diagnosed his patient with "acute manic disorder." However, the artist was given a certain freedom: he could paint in the open air under the supervision of staff.

In Saint-Rémy, Vincent alternated between periods of intense activity and long breaks caused by deep depression. In just one year of his stay at the clinic, Van Gogh painted about 150 paintings. Some of the most outstanding paintings of this period were: “Starry Night”, “Irises”, “Road with Cypresses and a Star”, “Olive Trees, Blue Sky and White Cloud”, “Pieta”.

In September 1889, with the active assistance of his brother Theo, Van Gogh's paintings took part in the Salon des Indépendants, an exhibition of modern art organized by the Society of Independent Artists in Paris.

In January 1890, Van Gogh's paintings were exhibited at the eighth Group of Twenty exhibition in Brussels, where they were enthusiastically received by critics.

In May 1890 in mental state Van Gogh improved, he left the hospital and settled in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise in the suburbs of Paris under the supervision of Dr. Paul Gachet.

Vincent actively took up painting; almost every day he finished painting. During this period, he painted several outstanding portraits of Dr. Gachet and 13-year-old Adeline Ravoux, the daughter of the owner of the hotel where he stayed.

July 27, 1890 Van Gogh in usual time left the house and went to draw. Upon his return, after persistent questioning by the couple, Ravu admitted that he had shot himself with a pistol. All attempts by Dr. Gachet to save the wounded were in vain; Vincent fell into a coma and died on the night of July 29 at the age of thirty-seven. He was buried in the Auvers cemetery.

American biographers of the artist Steven Nayfeh and Gregory White Smith in their study “The Life of Van Gogh” (Van Gogh: The Life) Vincent's death, according to which he died not from his own bullet, but from an accidental shot committed by two drunk young men.

Over the course of ten years creative activity Van Gogh managed to paint 864 paintings and almost 1200 drawings and engravings. During his lifetime, only one painting by the artist was sold - the landscape "Red Vineyards in Arles". The cost of the painting was 400 francs.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Illustration copyright Van Gogh

On a summer day in 1890, Vincent Van Gogh shot himself in a field outside Paris. The columnist examines the painting he was working on that morning to see what it says about the artist's state of mind.

On July 27, 1890, Vincent Van Gogh walked out into a wheat field behind a castle in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, a few kilometers from Paris, and shot himself in the chest.

By that time, the artist had already been suffering from mental illness for a year and a half - ever since, on a December evening in 1888, during his life in the city of Arles in French Provence, the unfortunate man cut off his left ear with a razor.

After this, he periodically had attacks that undermined his strength and after which he was in a state of clouded consciousness for several days, or even weeks, or lost touch with reality.

However, in the intervals between breakdowns his mind was calm and clear, and the artist could paint pictures.

Moreover, his stay in Auvers, where he arrived in May 1890 after leaving a psychiatric hospital, became the most fruitful stage of his creative life: in 70 days he created 75 paintings and more than a hundred drawings and sketches.

Dying, Van Gogh said: “That’s how I wanted to leave!”

However, despite this, he felt increasingly lonely and could not find a place for himself, convincing himself that his life was in vain.

Eventually he got hold of a small revolver that belonged to the owner of the house he was renting in Auvers.

It was this weapon that he took with him into the field on that fateful Sunday afternoon at the end of July.

However, he only got his hands on a pocket revolver, not very powerful, so when the artist pulled the trigger, the bullet, instead of piercing the heart, ricocheted off the rib.

Van Gogh lost consciousness and fell to the ground. When evening came, he came to his senses and began to look for a revolver to finish the job, but did not find it and trudged back to the hotel, where a doctor was called for him.

The incident was reported to Van Gogh's brother, Theo, who arrived the next day. For some time, Theo thought that Vincent would survive - but nothing could be done. That same night, at the age of 37, the artist died.

“I didn’t leave his bedside until it was all over,” Theo wrote to his wife Johanna. “As he died, he said: “That’s how I wanted to go!”, After which he lived for a few more minutes, and then it was all over, and he found peace that he could not find on earth."