[00:00:00] He is alive. He's working, and almost no one is watching. Vincent Van Gogh is described with the same small set of words, difficult, unstable, strange, not gifted, not important, and not worth listening to. He paints rooms he cannot afford. Towns that barely tolerate him faces that stare back as if they already know something. He doesn't. He writes constantly to his brother, to himself, to a world that does not answer.

[00:00:34] There is a version of genius we prefer. Quiet contained, easy to ignore until it's convenient to remember. Vincent is not that kind.

[00:00:45] His work is urgent. His grief is constant and his isolation is mistaken for madness. He is not painting for fame. He is painting because stopping feels worse than exhaustion.

[00:00:58] This is not a story about beauty born from suffering. It is a story about suffering dismissed until it becomes useful. Before the legend, before the myth, before anyone thought his pain was worth keeping. Welcome to the House of six. Tonight we present genius, guise and grief.

[00:01:17] This is the life and death of Vincent Van Gogh.

[00:01:32] Jared: Hey everybody. Welcome to the house of six.

[00:01:35] Jenn: I'm Jen.

[00:01:35] Jared: I'm Jared.

[00:01:37] Jenn: I made him start this time.

[00:01:38] Jared: Yeah, I'm out for a participation award.

[00:01:41] Jenn: Ooh, that's exciting. So I have a pop quiz for you. This time we're gonna start it out. And I'm pretty sure you are going to ace this one.

[00:01:52] Like, I don't know if it's possible that you get it wrong.

[00:01:55] Jared: I haven't aced anything since probably eighth grade.

[00:01:59] Jenn: I was gonna try to think of something Woody and just I think came to me in time. So what is my favorite work of art? You don't have to know the name, but like,

[00:02:13] Jared: um, I've got it in my head. Okay. But I don't know if that's the one I'm thinking.

[00:02:18] Does it look like the moons Moon and Stars? Thank you. I just went, I knew you

[00:02:21] Jenn: would know name. I just went brain dead

[00:02:22] Jared: though. But I went, I did know it and I just went brain to it's

[00:02:25] Jenn: Vincent Van Gogh. Starry Night.

[00:02:27] Jared: Starry Night.

[00:02:27] Jenn: Yeah. I, I knew you would know it, but you, I'm disappointed

[00:02:31] Jared: in myself that I didn't remember the name of it though.

[00:02:33] I'm truly disappointed. Yeah. Participation award right out the door.

[00:02:36] Jenn: No, no, no, no. You still win it. Okay. If you were right, you just didn't know its name.

[00:02:40] Jared: Okay. Okay.

[00:02:41] Jenn: Um, I made everybody, my whole family go to the Van Gogh immersion thing when it came to Atlanta. And I think everybody kind of hated it but me.

[00:02:54] 'cause it was kind of corny. Like it had, it had all of his artwork and they did it in a really unique way, but it wasn't museum quality artwork because it was like these big,

[00:03:07] Jared: that was the only thing that bothered me. Well, but it was like going, they can't bring

[00:03:10] Jenn: all of his artwork. No. Understood. But it was just,

[00:03:13] Jared: it was, I mean, we've both worked in technology over our careers and it was too technical.

[00:03:20] It's the way I felt when we went to the Guinness. Uh, the real Guinness factory in uh, commercial. In commercial. There you go in, in Ireland. Yeah. It's just too all digital screens and flashiness. Yeah. Which

[00:03:31] Jenn: really is not what you think of when you think about Vincent Van Gogh.

[00:03:35] Jared: Nope.

[00:03:35] Jenn: At all.

[00:03:36] Jared: Or Guinness.

[00:03:38] Jenn: It's true.

[00:03:39] Yes, exactly. That's what I was thinking first. Yes. I know, I know, I know. Um, they also, they brought Monet's, Claude Monet's immersion to Atlanta as well. And I I thought I'd spare everybody. The

[00:03:53] Jared: you snuck out there by yourself probably, didn't you?

[00:03:56] Jenn: No, I'd have to leave the house.

[00:03:58] Jared: Oh, you was gonna say the same, but I left that alone.

[00:04:00] Jenn: Yeah. Well, you know how much I love art. Um, I have a whole wall of artwork, priceless works that we have. They are priceless works of art, that they are priceless works of art. But I actually cut them out of a 12 by 12 calendar.

[00:04:19] Jared: Yep.

[00:04:20] Jenn: And I put them in really fancy frames. It looks damn good. It really is.

[00:04:25] It's a really cute, yeah, it's a really cute wall. Yeah. And I love, I love art. I like doing art myself, even though I'm a terrible artist. I am. I have vision. I just, my execution on canvas is you quit kind of crap.

[00:04:40] Jared: You, you, you quit practicing. I'll just leave it at that.

[00:04:44] Jenn: Yeah. I'm not very good. I'm not very good.

[00:04:47] Although my morning glory, when I was like in the fifth grade, I won an award at the county fair for that.

[00:04:53] Jared: No doubt.

[00:04:56] Jenn: Alright, uh, on that note, uh, we are going to talk about Van Gogh today. This is very, this is very much about me again, uh, self gratification here for sure, because, but I'm

[00:05:08] Jared: interested.

[00:05:09] Jenn: He is the epitome of the mad genius.

[00:05:12] Like that's where we get that mindset today. He very much was, uh. Fairly or unfairly you can judge for yourself. Are you

[00:05:22] Jared: gonna cry?

[00:05:24] Jenn: Oh, totally. Okay. Oh, hands down. When I get down to the, when we get to the end of the episode and I talk about his legacy, I might weep, dammit. I get really emotional when I talk about things.

[00:05:36] I got, like I did with Paul. Yeah.

[00:05:39] Jared: Oh.

[00:05:39] Jenn: Cried my eyes out reading a poem, but it's called alone. Oh my. Anyways, just, it was good. Um, yeah.

[00:05:52] Jared: Okay. Yeah. I just wanna be prepared.

[00:05:54] Jenn: Right. Well, I mean, what do you, what do you know about, I mean, you know, some of his artwork obviously, 'cause we went to see it. See, that's the thing though,

[00:06:04] Jared: I, I don't know enough about art to where it wouldn't, I, I could, I could be.

[00:06:12] Completely wrong. It could be one to the other, to a different artist, to a different genre, to a different whatever. No. Well, when I don't, when we went

[00:06:20] Jenn: to the immersion experience, if you read any of the plaques that were there in the experience Yeah. You would've known about his life. I did. I feel like I did.

[00:06:30] Jared: I did. Okay. It was a long time ago.

[00:06:34] Jenn: It was. I'm not gonna do a whole lot of, uh, cultural context or historical context. I think his life pretty much speaks for itself.

[00:06:46] Let's go back to understand Vincent Vangogh. We need to start with the simple fact that most of his life, he was unremarkable. He was born on March 30th, 1853 in the Netherlands into a deeply religious household. This always goes well led by a father who is a Protestant minister and a mother who values discipline, propriety, and emotional restraint.

[00:07:15] This is. Probably not a very warm and expressive home. It's moral now. They were a decently close family. It's just, I think the time period and the religious and the morality and all this. It was more austere probably than what we had, but not a bad life. Right. Okay.

[00:07:35] From the beginning. Vincent is different. He is intense in ways that do not sit easily within the structure around him. He feels things very deeply, takes ideas seriously, and struggles to soften himself to fit expectations. School does not come easily.

[00:07:53] Social connection is not natural and. He has something else that's hanging over him his entire life. Vincent is born one year to the day after a stillborn brother also named Vincent. Okay. What are the chances that they're born? He's born exactly one year later. That's, that

[00:08:13] Jared: would creep me out. Oh. Like as a, I mean, sorry.

[00:08:16] It sounds horrible. Even as a parent, that would freak me out.

[00:08:19] Jenn: It would, because every year on your child's birthday, you're going to, you're going to also think of the child that you lost.

[00:08:25] Jared: Yeah. That's, uh, course, that's of course shame on them for naming him. Vincent again. Come on.

[00:08:30] Jenn: It's like they were like, well, I don't know what name.

[00:08:32] It's a new Vincent. Vincent.

[00:08:33] Jared: Yeah,

[00:08:34] Jenn: yeah, yeah. I don't even know what to do with that. I would imagine from the start he might've felt like a replacement.

[00:08:40] Like you don't even know what those underlying feeling like. I don't even know.

[00:08:43] Jared: I think they need to check the grave. Anyway, moving on.

[00:08:48] Jenn: Yeah. His brother, Theo, is born four years later and this family is already shaped by loss. He does not carry the same weight of his brother. Obviously. He learns how to function inside of expectations in a way that Vincent never quite does.

[00:09:06] There are some other siblings, and I know I'm not bringing 'em up. There were other sisters and brothers in total that the, they had six children, but they're not really relevant to the story. And so I'm just kind of gonna lost. There you go. Yeah. Theo, his brother, they are close their entire lives and as they grow older, the difference between them becomes clearer.

[00:09:26] Vincent struggles, he searches, he fails publicly and repeatedly where his brother does not. Theo is adaptable. He learns how to move through institutions. He learns how to work, how to succeed quietly. And from early on. It is very clear that vent Vincent is struggling to function inside the same society.

[00:09:47] He's just not fitting in. He was intense, emotionally rigid, and socially awkward. He does not do things halfway. When he believed in something, he believed into it completely and he just dove right, like, no chill. This guy had zero, zero, chill. No, and for a long time, Vincent genuinely tries to build a conventional life, and I think this part really matters because of all of the failures he goes through.

[00:10:21] He fails at everything for the same underlying reason. He does not know how to moderate

[00:10:27] no

[00:10:28] chill. Yeah. Okay. His first serious career is as an art dealer, sounds like right up his alley. He works for a large international firm that sells paintings across Europe.

[00:10:44] Sher Luck has joined the podcast on paper. This is the perfect fit for him. This is him. He's surrounded by art, which he loves deeply learning what sells, what collectors value, how the market works. The problem is Vincent is terrible at selling. He becomes openly judgmental about what people buy. He discourages clients from purchasing works he thinks are shallow or commercial.

[00:11:11] And at one point he tells customers they shouldn't be buying art at all if they don't understand it. Like this guy, um, that obviously this, this doesn't go over well. Like you can't be telling people not to buy art.

[00:11:25] Jared: Yeah,

[00:11:26] Jenn: because. Because he doesn't, because he thinks it's crap. You imagine. He is like, no, this is crap.

[00:11:31] Don't buy it.

[00:11:34] Jared: Opinions are strong.

[00:11:35] Jenn: He does have very strong opinions. They let him go because he cannot separate his personal convictions from his professional responsibilities, he treats art like a moral calling, and that's just not gonna apply. So that ends.

[00:11:49] After that, he tries teaching, and again, this is reasonable. He's intelligent. He's literate. He's deeply serious and passionate about ideas. But teaching requires patience, adaptability, and the ability to meet people where they are. This, this is not, Vincent doesn't do this either. And obviously this doesn't last long 'cause he's lashing out at students that you can't, you can't yell at them. You can't yell at, I don't have any students because I would yell at them 'cause, well, I don't like people. But anyways, so he pivots again this time towards religion, which is probably the most logical pivot at this point.

[00:12:29] Now this is not a phase. Once again, he's all in, this is full scale conversion now. He was already raised in a religious household, but Vincent becomes convinced that his. Purpose in life is spiritual service. He studies theology and prepares to become a preacher. And eventually he takes a missionary position working among coal miners in Belgium.

[00:12:54] This is where, uh, things become particularly revealing about Vincent. He doesn't just preach to the minors. He lives like them. He gives away his clothes. He sleeps on the floor. Eats the same food, refuses comfort because he believes suffering is a form of moral alignment because from his perspective, he's doing what Christ would do from the church perspective.

[00:13:19] He's a maniac. Like he's, he's completely out of control and they see him as unstable. Yeah. Uh, not because of his faith. He clearly has faith. He doesn't lack it. He lacks boundaries. I mean, they want a minister who can guide the people, but Vincent wants to become them, and that's just not, it's not what they want.

[00:13:42] So he gets dismissed from the post. He's, he's out of there by his late twenties. Vincent has failed as a businessman, a teacher, and a preacher. Not because he lacks intelligence or commitment, but because in every role he enters, he just totally immerses himself in it, into the point of almost, I, what's the word?

[00:14:03] I'm trying to think. I'm not frenzy, but like

[00:14:06] Jared: I know what you're, yeah, I do know what you're saying. But, uh, yeah. So anyway, he just, um, is in too deep.

[00:14:11] Jenn: No chill.

[00:14:12] Jared: Yeah.

[00:14:12] Jenn: He, he has no chill. He does not adapt into system. He dissolves into them. He just becomes That's good. He becomes one with the wallpaper. Like, what a weirdo.

[00:14:23] So what is your, what's your, what's your gauge on on Vincent right now?

[00:14:28] Jared: He's already slightly strange.

[00:14:30] Jenn: He's, he's strange guy. Yeah. Yeah. I, what's really interesting to me is that he was like this as a child. Like he was always just a little bit strange, a little bit awkward, a little bit all in. Like, he just, he's just not really, it's like he's of the world, not in the world,

[00:14:50] Jared: um, preacher's son, what are you gonna do?

[00:14:54] I've known a few preacher's sons. They were not Vincent Van Gogh Odd, but they were, they're always a, they were always a handful.

[00:15:02] Jenn: Handful. Yeah. I, uh, I knew a preacher's daughter and Woo. Yep. Woo boy.

[00:15:06] Jared: Yep.

[00:15:07] Jenn: Woo Boy. Let's just say she was a wild one. That's all I'm gonna say about that. So after this dismissal from religious work, Vincent doesn't drift.

[00:15:22] He does a 180 and he just, again, just no chill. This is the moment that he commits to art. He's always been an artistic type person, so I think everybody knew that he, he had a knack for it. Um, but now he has decided to take it on as a profession, and he begins to study relentlessly. On anatomy, color technique, brush strokes.

[00:15:49] He's drawing constantly. He treats art the same way he treated religion. It is a calling that demands his everything. He immerses himself and this is where his younger brother Theo, becomes central. Up to this point, their parents have been supporting Vincent. They never really cut him off financially, so even as he was going through these professional failures, they were helping him but as the years go on, their confidence in him starts to fade.

[00:16:18] They're starting to get a little bit worried about their son like this. This guy his, his intensity is becoming harder and harder to justify, and his instability is becoming more and more difficult to manage.

[00:16:30] Jared: What are you gonna do with your life, Vincent?

[00:16:34] Jenn: Well. Then his father dies.

[00:16:36] Jared: Oh, sorry.

[00:16:37] Jenn: Theo. Doris Van Gogh died on March 26th, 1885.

[00:16:42] Vincent was 32 years old at this time, though. Like he was a grown ass man.

[00:16:46] Yeah,

[00:16:47] and he was, he was. He was on the struggle bus. Now Theo is four years younger than Vincent. He's the little brother, but by this point, he is the more stable and successful of the two. By, by by, by far. Uh, he works as an art dealer in Paris.

[00:17:04] I guess. Art runs in the family, I don't know. Kind of cool. And he is moving in professional circles, building a career, and eventually he's, he gets married and starts his own family. Despite that, Theo supports Vincent from the time of their father's death on. Now this is this, this is not casual generosity.

[00:17:25] It's not out of the, well, it is probably out of the love of his heart. Is that the same, the love in his heart? That's, you know what I mean? , , this is a structured, ongoing support. Theo pays Vincent's rent, buys his supplies, and sends him money regularly. Without it, Vincent would've, he, he would've started us.

[00:17:50] Theo believes in his brother's talent, but he also needs Vincent to justify the sacrifice emotionally and financially.

[00:17:58] And this is very, very clear in the correspondence between the two brothers, , which we have. Hundreds of letters that survived between the two of them. So it is very clear. Vincent's very aware of this, and it's a burden on him. It's a burden between the two brothers. But that's a good brother. That's a good brother.

[00:18:20] Like he's paying his brother's way, man, that's, that's a tough sell.

[00:18:26] And, uh, yeah. What do you think? So far

[00:18:31] Jared: his brother just rolls his eyes.

[00:18:34] Jenn: I don't know. His brother certainly loved him and certainly put up with a lot of his shit I'm most certain of. I think that is very clear in the relationship between the two brothers. But man, that's gotta be a big, big pill to swallow every month.

[00:18:55] You're wr writing out that check. Yeah. That's gotta be rough. Yep. That's that. Yeah. All right. So after fully committing to Art Vincent's, life becomes increasingly mobile. He's, he's moving all over the place. He's a nomad. He moves where the work is, where the instruction is available, and eventually where Theo can keep a closer eye on him, because I'm wondering if he's like, dude, can you, like, I don't know what you're doing.

[00:19:23] Can you come, come, come back to Paris. So in 1886, Vincent moves to Paris and lives with his younger brother. This is important because Paris is not where Vincent becomes famous, but this is where his work changes. You can see a definitive change , in his colors, , and how he, how he paints . Paris at this moment is the center of the European art world.

[00:19:51] Impressionism, at this point in time is in full swing color, light and experimentation dominate galleries and studios. Theo, is immersed in this environment professionally, and Vincent is suddenly exposed to ideas and artists he previously only encountered secondhand. So this is a really important time for Vincent.

[00:20:11] His palette begins to shift. His brush work loosens and his subject matter expands. Alright. Back to Vincent and Theo, they're, they're living together.

[00:20:23] Uh, this is not going well. This does not bring stability for Vincent, which he really, really needs. But man, this guy is difficult to share a space with. Just put yourself in this mindset. He is emotionally intense in ways that are just probably ridiculous.

[00:20:45] He has. Mood swings that shift sharply. Points of high energy and confidence give way to exhaustion, despair. Sometimes this comes on with zero warning. He'll experience these emotions all in one day. He works obsessively, eats poorly, barely sleeps, and when he does, it's at all different times of day and night.

[00:21:10] And he's struggling to adapt to other people's routines. Can you imagine this guy?

[00:21:14] Jared: Yeah. Sounds like my boss.

[00:21:17] Jenn: Woo.

[00:21:19] Jared: Woo.

[00:21:20] Jenn: Well, that's revealing. Woo. I don't even know gta. Go with that. All right. So these same traits that drive his work forward and make him a better artist, this focus intensity, refusal to disengage, , have to make daily life absolutely exhausting for everybody around him.

[00:21:40] Uh, this arrangement does not last. Vincent leaves Paris. It's, it's his brother's probably like you. You gotta go, bud. It's time. He's not found peace. And honestly, the city overwhelms him. He does not need to be in a city space. Alright, so looking for clarity and control. Vincent heads south to aal, France. That is A-R-L-E-S. I'm gonna do my best with the French pronunciation of all of these fricking places. Paris is the easiest one on the list.

[00:22:18] All right. He is hoping that the light landscape and isolation will give him something that Paris couldn't. He imagines a simpler life structure focus, and for a brief period of time almost works. Vincent paints constantly in ar landscapes, interiors, portraits. He works outdoors. Sketching and painting in the moment.

[00:22:43] So painting a subject that's directly in front of him. He does not paint from memory from the most part. Okay? And this is where the pace of his work becomes impossible to ignore over roughly 10 years. Vincent will produce close to 900 paintings. I

[00:23:05] Jared: remember that.

[00:23:06] Jenn: That is a huge number. That's a crazy number.

[00:23:09] And most of them were created in the later phase of his life in the last five years. Yeah. Yeah. This is not a slow burn.

[00:23:16] Jared: That's crazy.

[00:23:17] Jenn: This is like, this is an inferno. This, oh, I just thought of that.

[00:23:21] Jared: Good one. Yep.

[00:23:23] Jenn: Now while living in a Vincent becomes fixated on the idea that he believes will solve several problems at once, he wants to create an artist's colony.

[00:23:39] Oh,

[00:23:40] Vincent, buddy, this is not a good idea. And he's not talking about a loose social circle.

[00:23:46] He is looking for a working collective, a place where artists living together, share ideas, critique each other's work, and build something lasting outside the commercial pressure of Paris. It in theory, this sounds like a great idea , and really Vincent is deeply isolated at this point, and he doesn't interpret this as a warning sign.

[00:24:10] He's isolated and all, and he wants to create this colony of artists that can all collaborate and work together. And it's like, that sounds great in theory, but the way he worked, dude. Anyways, , so he invites someone that he respects, and this person is Paul Gogan. Do you know who that is? I've

[00:24:32] Jared: heard of it.

[00:24:34] Jenn: Okay. He's an artist. Yeah. I'm not gonna go into it. Uh.

[00:24:37] Jared: Don't worry. I didn't think he was like a famous musician, guitar player or anything like that. You know, figured he was another artist,

[00:24:43] Jenn: guitar players or artists

[00:24:46] Jared: with a pencil.

[00:24:51] Jenn: Alright. Gogan is not a struggling unknown. He is older than Vincent. More confident, socially adept for sure, and far more self-assured about his talent. He has already exhibited his works. He has already sold work. He sees himself as an innovator, and he expects to be treated like one. Theo helps make the arrangements possible, obviously, knowing everybody in the art world at this point, he financially supports Gogans Trip South and helps fund the setup in R.

[00:25:25] This is an intentional experiment at this point as far as Theo is concerned, but from the beginning, expectations do not align. Vincent imagines collaboration, shared purpose and mutual inspiration. He wants constant discussion about art. Constant engagement, constant validation.

[00:25:45] This guy needs somebody telling him that this is a great idea all the time, and it's just art, art, art, art, art. Let's just talk about our paintings. Hmm. Gogan not interested. He wants independence. He works methodically. He values control. He likes the process. He believes in intellectual dominance over emotional intensity.

[00:26:06] These guys are not meshing, he is not interested in orbiting in Vincent's inner world, in Vincent's Head, which is where Vincent lives all the time. Thinking, everybody's gonna understand what's going on up there, and nobody understands shit about what's going on up there because it's

[00:26:23] Jared: because Vincent doesn't

[00:26:24] Jenn: crazy talk.

[00:26:27] Anyways, they clash almost immediately. Vincent is painting compulsively, often directly from observation, driven by urgency and emotion. Gogan prefers to work for memory and imagination. He. He just wants to sit there and think and, and ponder and then start working from there. He values structure and symbolism.

[00:26:50] Vincent wants a connection. Gogan wants authority 'cause he's the older man in this situation, and their conversations turn into arguments. Critiques feel like attacks. Praise is inconsistent, which Vincent needs constantly, and he's already emotionally unstable. So he starts taking everything personally.

[00:27:10] The house becomes super intense. Vincent's behavior grows more erratic. He oscillates between admiration and resentment towards Gogan. He becomes paranoid about being abandoned. He pressures gogan to stay, to commit to believe the same way that he does.

[00:27:29] This sounds terrifying. It sounds like a stalker girl is what this sounds like. And Gogan obviously is becoming increasingly uncomfortable and begins talking openly about leaving, telling Vincent he doesn't wanna stay any longer. This is the breaking point. Okay. Vincent's mental health deteriorates rapidly during this time.

[00:27:53] He's sleeping poorly, eating badly, drinking heavily. He drinks absent back in the 18 hundreds. This is probably like some stuff,

[00:28:02] Jared: trippy shit.

[00:28:04] Jenn: His emotional regulation collapses. And in December of 1888, after a series of escalating arguments, go, GaN decides to leave a gogan. Decides to leave aal. He's like, I gotta go.

[00:28:22] I, I have to wonder if he like left in the night,

[00:28:25] Jared: right.

[00:28:25] Jenn: Just. It didn't even take his stuff. He's like, you can keep it. I gotta go. Yeah. Now accounts vary about what happens next, Vincent suffers a psychological breakdown down. This is the, this is the ear incident.

[00:28:45] Jared: Yeah.

[00:28:46] Jenn: He severed part of his left ear, probably the lower lobe.

[00:28:51] It wasn't, he didn't cut his whole ear off, but he mangled his ear. Uh, this was, this was a serious bloody and self-inflicted wound. Vincent wrapped the severed piece in paper, brought it to a woman at a local brothel. This was not, sometimes people will say this was a romantic gesture, even the bloody kind, but still it, this, that's not true.

[00:29:20] It wasn't, I think. He was just trying to reach out to somebody to get some help. Right. And in a very, very strange way, uh, he was found afterward in a confused state and at this point he is hospitalized. Whatever those sequence of events were, it's roughly like that. Okay.

[00:29:42] Jared: So on a side note,

[00:29:43] Jenn: yeah.

[00:29:44] Jared: Do you know how bad the ear bleeds when you cut it?

[00:29:48] Jenn: No. No. I do not. I, I, I mean, I probably have cut my ear, but I do not recall. Yeah.

[00:29:52] Jared: I mean, it bleeds a lot. I know. 'cause, you know, I'm bald, cut my ear accidentally. It's very aggravating. I have a point, this story. Okay. You tell the point he'd like, you'd have a hard time stopping that bleeding for a while.

[00:30:07] Jenn: He sliced his earlobe off.

[00:30:08] Jared: Yeah.

[00:30:09] Jenn: Now I have to wonder if he was like, oh, my ear, or if it was just he was swinging around a knife and

[00:30:17] Jared: Yeah.

[00:30:19] Jenn: I, this was.

[00:30:23] The artist colony is, is dead. We're this is, we're not doing this anymore. Right. At this point Vincent is left alone and at, and he's, his instability has now been exposed.

[00:30:34] Yeah. People, everybody heard about this?

[00:30:39] Jared: Yeah. Well, if you show up at a brothel with half your ear, people talk,

[00:30:42] Jenn: people talk. And Gogan was well known at this point in his life, and I'm sure at this point he was like, guys, this lunatic I lived with.

[00:30:52] Jared: Yeah. I used to live with the son of a bitch.

[00:30:55] Jenn: Yeah. This is, this is weird.

[00:30:57] This is some weird stuff. I will say, on a slight side note, there has been speculation over the years about a romantic relationship between Van Gogh and Gogan. But there is no Yeah. Historical evidence

[00:31:13] Jared: for this. I was actually, that's oddly enough. I was curious about that.

[00:31:15] Jenn: Well, I think people go there.

[00:31:18] Well, because they did live together, eh, but too, and I think people correlate emotional intensity.

[00:31:25] Jared: Sure.

[00:31:25] Jenn: With romance.

[00:31:26] Jared: Sure.

[00:31:27] Jenn: This, there's, there's no, yeah. There's no evidence of that.

[00:31:31] Jared: Go's like, don't associate me with that. Not with that guy.

[00:31:36] Jenn: I mean, it wasn't unheard of at the time. I wasn't heard unheard of at any time.

[00:31:39] But no,

[00:31:39] Jared: don't tie me in with Vincent got cut his half his ear off. Anyway.

[00:31:44] Jenn: Now, Vincent Van Gogh did not live a life, just on that note, did not live a life of romantic fulfillment. But he wasn't celibate or anything like that. I mean, I wouldn't say he was uninterested in intimacy. He was, he sought romantic connection repeatedly.

[00:32:04] And those relationships. Mostly unreciprocated unstable or socially unacceptable. , I think we're very clear here that he struggled with emotional boundaries.

[00:32:16] Jared: Yeah.

[00:32:16] Jenn: , Rejection just reinforced probably all the failures of his life already. , Showing him how he was fundamentally flawed. He already thought he was, he did have an intense infatuation with his cousin, which was rejected firmly on her part.

[00:32:35] It was like a, that's no, and also no, don't

[00:32:39] Jared: Yeah.

[00:32:40] Jenn: Have relationships like that with your cousin. That's weird. Don't be weird. He did have relationships with sex workers that provided the physical intimacy that he probably needed. Right. But this was not stability, obviously. He had a deep desire for companionship, , that he could not sustain without emotional collapse.

[00:33:01] But this is just, he would be a hard person to be in a relationship with. The constant validation.

[00:33:09] I

[00:33:10] time with that. After this episode, then, since life enters a new phase, he is no longer just a struggling artist. He is a man with a documented mental illness. He's, he's been to the loony bin at this

[00:33:25] Jared: point.

[00:33:26] Jenn: Okay. , He's had public incidents and a growing reputation for this instability. This isn't good for Vincent. From here on out, his life becomes a cycle of intense work followed by institutionalization. I gonna check and make sure that, that word, 'cause it sounded like a really long word, it was correct.

[00:33:48] So the work continues and the costs keep rising from here. , Vincent enters psychiatric care voluntarily more than once, and despite the instability, he continues to paint. In fact, some of his most well-known works come from this period, and some of his most well-known works he did while institutionalized.

[00:34:11] In fact, starry night is from that time period. Okay, all right. But he's still not getting any recognition for his work and the distance between what he is producing and how he's living is just, it's just widening this, this guy's, , after the breakdown in Oral, Vincent doesn't just recover and move on.

[00:34:32] This is now public. Everybody knows he's hospitalized locally at first, treated for what doctors at the time describe as acute mental disturbance. , That is very vague language. , This is the 18 hundreds. I don't know what that means. There is no clear diagnosis. There's obviously no treatment plan in the 1880s.

[00:34:55] I mean, they're like, you know, drink some absent. I'm sure it'll be fine. But what is clear at this point is that Vincent is not safe living on his own. And he himself recognized this in 1889. Vincent voluntarily admits himself to the asylum at San Remy Depro

[00:35:17] Jared: you go.

[00:35:19] Jenn: I will tell you phonetically on the page, it looks like Saint Remy de events,

[00:35:28] Jared: as I say, in the south,

[00:35:29] Jenn: as I say in Arkansas,

[00:35:32] Jared: all right.

[00:35:36] Jenn: There

[00:35:37] Jared: you go.

[00:35:38] Jenn: Alright. Anyways, this matters because it shows awareness. He, he checked himself in, okay. He's, he's going to Betty 40. He knows he's got a problem. , He is trying within the limits of what they had at the time to manage it. Now, let's be clear, this is 1889. The asylum is not a modern psychiatric facility.

[00:36:01] It's restrictive, quiet, heavily controlled. Vincent has a small room. His movement is limited. , And his episodes continue.

[00:36:11] Jared: He keeps probably a lot more absent,

[00:36:13] Jenn: no absent than the asylum.

[00:36:14] Jared: Okay? Okay.

[00:36:15] Jenn: None of that. I don't know if they had medication. Hard to say. Maybe

[00:36:20] Jared: not. I'm not sure.

[00:36:21] Jenn: I don't know.

[00:36:22] Jared: I figured they'd have medicated, but it would be medication that was not, uh.

[00:36:26] Not in your best interest.

[00:36:28] Jenn: I mean, if you go back to like the twenties, the 1920s electroshock would've been sure the way to go. Yeah. But I don't think we're quite there to electroshock yet. Right? Right. I don't think so. During this time, he continues to paint, , with permission. He is allowed to work in a nearby room and occasionally outdoors under supervision.

[00:36:48] During this period, he produces some of his most notable work landscapes, irises, night scenes, starry night repeated motifs viewed again and again as if he's, he, and I think this is common for a lot of artists, they do the same. They repeat the same artwork over and over. Mm-hmm. I find that really interesting.

[00:37:12] Mm-hmm. What's going on there?

[00:37:14] Jared: No, I mean, what do you mean explore? I mean, what do you mean? Why paint the

[00:37:17] Jenn: same thing over and over, right?

[00:37:18] Jared: Yeah. Okay. You mean just 'cause they, might they paint landscapes of some form or fashion? Is that what you're referring to? I'll talk

[00:37:24] Jenn: about it later. We can talk about it later.

[00:37:25] Okay. This is, this is a psychiatric time. This is not the landscape time.

[00:37:29] Jared: Fuck that.

[00:37:30] Jenn: , Vincent's condition fluctuates. There are periods where he seems clearer, more focused. Then there are relapses, episodes of confusion, agitation, and most notably despair. Each relapse reinforces the same reality.

[00:37:49] That this is not, this is not going away. There's, there's something, there's something wrong with Vincent.

[00:37:53] Jared: Right.

[00:37:54] Jenn: Okay. Theo continues to support him , financially and emotionally, but now. The pressure is shifting. Theo's married. He has a child. His own health is deteriorating. The responsibility Vincent represents is no longer theoretical, like there nothing's coming out of this.

[00:38:12] It's just ongoing. Vincent knows this. , It is very much, uh, present in the letters that he writes and clear that this awareness is weighing very heavily on him. He feels like a drain to his brother. He feels it after about a year, doctors agree that Vincent can leave the asylum, but only under supervision.

[00:38:34] He's not released independently. He is transferred in 1890. Vincent moves to Veer was, it is a small town outside of Paris to live near a physician who is agreed to monitor him, and that is Dr. Paul Gache. Gache is familiar with artists. He believes in the therapeutic value of creative work.

[00:39:01] He is sympathetic, but he's not especially a very good doctor actually. , even Vincent himself expresses doubt about how much help he's actually receiving. But still, what Over does give Vincent is freedom of movement. And like he always does, he uses this relentlessly over roughly 70 days, Vincent produces around 70 to 80 paintings.

[00:39:33] I don't think Vincent's sleeping, I don't think so. That's nearly only one a day. Fields, roads, houses, portraits. He is repeated landscapes from slightly different angles. Like, what is he doing? This is the most productive time of his life, though. , It's also the most precarious, , around this same time, the, the, the pressure of Vincent has been carrying begins to concentrate.

[00:40:02] In his letters. Vincent expresses guilt about being a burden. He worries about money, he worries about the future. He worries that his illness will never truly let him live independently. And he worries that his work, despite all of his efforts, still doesn't matter.

[00:40:19] That's sad.

[00:40:20] Jared: Yeah.

[00:40:20] Jenn: There is no evidence that Vincent is planning to end his life. Okay? At any point. . By the summer of 1890, Vincent has been living in over Siris for about two months.

[00:40:36] He is lodging at the Oberg Vu, a small inn where he eats his meals and sleeps in a modest upstairs room, and he settles into a routine during the day. He paints, he returns to the inn in the evenings, and then he eats, smokes, eats dinner, drinks, and writes letters. On the morning of Sunday, July 27th, Vincent leaves the end after breakfast, carrying his painting supplies.

[00:41:07] This is very well documented. There's no dispute here. He walked out carrying his paint brushes canvas in an easel that were later recovered in the countryside where he'd been working. He is dressed as usual. Nothing about the morning or anybody that saw him drew any concern at some point during that day.

[00:41:28] Vincent is seen in the fields outside, over near the village, but not too far from the chateau grounds. This is an area that he paints frequently in the wheat fields, very open space, slightly removed, but not isolated. He could be seen. This is where we're kind of gonna go off a little bit. We don't know what happens exactly, but we have some credible historical evidence that during this time, Vincent encounters local boys that afternoon.

[00:41:59] These were adolescents known in town for teasing him because Vincent was visibly different. He dressed poorly, he was socially awkward. He had an accent. His Dutch. In the, in the French countryside. I don't know if these boys were nice or not. I, I, I don't have any evidence they were nice or not nice.

[00:42:17] Okay. But they did tease him. Okay. That's not very nice. , Multiple later accounts describe the boys mocking him, harassing him, or treating him as an oddity. Some accounts include a pistol owned by one of the boys, a gun that they used to scare birds, but not intended for, for serious harm. This is all hearsay.

[00:42:40] Mm-hmm. All right. But what we know for certain is that during the day, Vincent is shot Once in the abdomen, the bullet enters at an angle that is unusual for a self-inflicted wound. The gun is never recovered. Nobody knows what happened to it. Nobody saw him get, get shot. But sometime the late afternoon or early evening, Vincent makes his way back to the end on his own.

[00:43:06] He doesn't cry out, he doesn't accuse anybody. He doesn't collapse publicly. He just walks back quietly and goes to his room. The end keeper found him in his room later that day. And when the wound is discovered, a doctor is called, the injury is serious, but not immediately fatal. The bullet has lodged inside him, and surgery is not performed.

[00:43:31] Now surgery is not performed because this is 1890. Yeah, that would be, that would be bad. Uh, they don't wash instruments at this point in time. Right. So, uh, we don't even know where it's, you don't go dig around the abdomen when you don't know where it is going on.

[00:43:46] Jared: Yeah, I do.

[00:43:47] Jenn: Right. Vincent is questioned at this point in time because he is shot.

[00:43:53] He simply says that he shot himself.

[00:43:56] Hmm.

[00:43:58] He does not name any names. He's, he's basically doesn't say anything. He's just like, oh, shut myself. And they're like, oh, okay. That's it. Uh, so this is weird. I'm just saying Theo is notified and arrives as quickly as possible, and over the next two days, Vincent remains conscious.

[00:44:21] He speaks with Theo as an admit to, uh, he does not explain the shooting in detail. He does not change his account. At no point is the weapon produced or found. At no point is the, like this, there was no investigation whatsoever. And then on July 29th, 1890, Vincent Van Gogh dies from the complications related to the gunshot wound, and he is 37 years old.

[00:44:51] What do you think? So.

[00:44:52] Jared: He's younger than I thought I remembered.

[00:44:54] Jenn: Yeah.

[00:44:55] Jared: I'm not surprised, but I, he is younger than I was thinking.

[00:44:57] Jenn: I will say his self portraits make him seem older. They really do. But I imagine that he aged just

[00:45:06] Jared: Well, we also made this jo not joke, made the statement the other day when we were looking at old, uh, very old black and whites from family and how some of the family was in their fifties and they looked like they were in their seventies and eighties.

[00:45:19] So, to your point, yeah. Very familiar conversation we just had a few days ago.

[00:45:23] Jenn: Yes. Yeah. I have a picture of my great grandparents, which I knew. I, I knew both. I knew two sets of great grandparents on, on both sides of my family. And the, there's a picture of my great-grandparents, they were probably in their late forties.

[00:45:39] They did not look like they were great. No.

[00:45:40] Jared: And it's not that they looked bad. No. It's just they look. They looked older aged.

[00:45:45] Jenn: They looked aged. I think it's, I mean, and the same thing for better skincare.

[00:45:50] Jared: Right? And the same thing for the pictures of my Yeah, yeah. You're my grandparents, right. Grandparents were

[00:45:54] Jenn: in totally in their fifties.

[00:45:55] 'cause we know one of them passed away that passed away in their fifties. Right. So,

[00:46:00] Jared: and he looked like he was at least 65. Oh, he looked all of 75. Yeah. Yeah. He

[00:46:05] Jenn: looked like an old, he was kind of stooped over.

[00:46:07] Jared: Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, to your point, yeah. Uh, everything,

[00:46:12] Jenn: well we learned to stay out of the sun. We have better skincare.

[00:46:16] Um, yeah. Botox, not that I use it of course. No, I do. I totally use Botox. There's nothing wrong with Botox. Anyways, so, yeah. I did a little bit of digging because I wondered what Theo and Vincent talked about during those two days because they, they didn't get to spend time together. Right. They got to say goodbye, which I thought was sweet.

[00:46:38] , And I wondered if Theo ever disclosed what Vincent said during those two days after he was shot. The most famous line attributed to Vincent comes directly from Theo's account later account, and he said, quote unquote, the sadness will last forever.

[00:46:56] So Vincent was having a rough time, right. Even in his final moments. Yep. This wasn't. That's a, that's a heavy quote.

[00:47:07] Jared: It is.

[00:47:08] Jenn: I don't like that. No. , Theo reports that Vincent appeared calm and resigned. He did not express , fear of death. There were no accusations. And in fact, he seemed to accept that this was inevitable.

[00:47:24] Jared: Right.

[00:47:26] Jenn: Theo describes sitting with Vincent holding him and being present when he died. That makes me sad.

[00:47:34] At least they were together when

[00:47:36] Jared: that's not Yeah, that's not a sad thing. I mean,

[00:47:37] Jenn: it's sad in this like, at least I, I guess it's, that's a, and they probably talked

[00:47:41] Jared: and hear Vincent, you know, if anything he went, I'm sorry for being a, an oddball all those years, but did you see the paintings? I did.

[00:47:52] Jenn: I mean, vincent is buried in over there. Theo is devastated, absolutely devastated. Vincent does not live to see any recognition. In fact, he only sold one painting during his entire lifetime.

[00:48:10] He's so, he doesn't see suc success. He does not live to know what his work will become.

[00:48:17] Jared: I think that's even better. In a weird way, I think that's even better.

[00:48:22] Jenn: We will get to that. All right. We're back from a break. We had to get drinks. Mm-hmm. The doctors who examined Vincent did not have modern forensics, obviously, but they did note that he had a single entry wound in the lower abdomen. There was no exit wound, and the bullet traveled at an angled trajectory, not straight in.

[00:48:43] , Obviously no weapon present this, there was nothing. Forensic about this. It was, these are basically just, I don't even know, but the boys that Vincent encountered are not named in contemporary records from 1890s. Their identities come from a later historical reconstruction.

[00:49:04] There were no police files, there was no investigation. In fact, as soon as Vincent said,

[00:49:10] Jared: I shot myself. Yeah, I shot myself.

[00:49:11] Jenn: They, they moved on. Modern historians agree that there were local adolescent boys in over, they were known to mock or, or harass Vincent. One of them were known to have a gun and in fact, one of the boys was the son of a local town official.

[00:49:30] That's about all we know, but

[00:49:32] I would like to note that some of this information comes from historical reconstruction from the earliest 20th century. So this was several decades later. They reconstructed this from speaking to people in the area.

[00:49:47] So it did come from memory. We don't know how much of it is true or not.

[00:49:51] Jared: Right. Memory generations down

[00:49:53] Jenn: it that could. Right, right. And the only reason why we're thinking that that angle is strange. First of all, people don't normally shoot themselves in the abdomen.

[00:50:06] Jared: Yep.

[00:50:06] Jenn: They normally go for other more obvious areas.

[00:50:09] Yep. , Also, he could have been sitting or walking or moving in a way, like even if he did it by himself, it could have been just from some strange situation. It could have been accidental, I guess, to be. Had a gun and he was moving it in an accident. I don't know. I don't know one way or the other. What we do know, there was no autopsy.

[00:50:31] Uh, if a crime was suspected, authorities demanded one or death occurred in custody or under legal dispute, but none of those conditions applied to this situation. Vincent said he did it himself.

[00:50:45] Jared: Yeah, you died. That's it.

[00:50:46] Jenn: That's it. Effectively, there was no public accusation, no social pressure.

[00:50:53] I mean, I'm not trying to be mean, but Vincent was a poor foreigner. Right?

[00:50:57] Jared: He did, he was insignificant. Unfortunately, he was

[00:51:00] Jenn: mentally unstable. Right? There was no power advocate. Yeah. In, in this situation and in rural France, a gunshot was not automatically a criminal case like it is today. Today they'd be like,

[00:51:14] Jared: yeah, where'd that come from?

[00:51:16] Jenn: Vincent. Vincent, look at me. Look at me. Vincent, who shot you? Vincent,

[00:51:21] Jared: I don't want to look at you.

[00:51:22] Jenn: Okay. So yeah. , Autopsies and forensic follow up in this situation would've been really strange. So decades later, all of this information comes in. I'm not saying it's false. That doesn't make it false.

[00:51:38] Jared: No.

[00:51:38] Right? Makes it questionable. It

[00:51:40] Jenn: makes it questionable. But historians still take this information seriously. These reports are consistent across multiple independent retailings, different biographers working from different sources. They're all surfacing very similar details. So there's something there with that.

[00:52:00] Uh, I'm just, I'm just saying, , all of them align with known anomalies of the missing gun, the unusual angle. Vincent returned on foot quietly, didn't say anything. No accusation. Like all of these things are all the same. And the boys all show up in the, in the retellings as well. So we have two theories. There are only two. The first one is Vincent shot himself,

[00:52:27] Jared: right?

[00:52:27] Jenn: He said he did. He might have, he maybe, probably, I don't know whether it's intentional or it could have been accidental. Let's, let's face it. Uh, this is the official conclusion and the one most often cited.

[00:52:43] , Vincent told the doctors and others that he shot himself. He repeated himself for over two days. He didn't accuse anybody. , Theo later confirmed that Vincent was fine with this. Like he just, like, this is what happened. Vincent had a documented severe mental illness. He felt like a burden. He was under emotional stress.

[00:53:05] , This theory requires us to accept that Vincent had access to a gun despite no evidence that he owned one or borrowed one. He chose an, the abdo, the abdomen. That's just a,

[00:53:21] Jared: it's an odd one.

[00:53:22] Jenn: That's weird. That's strange. The gun never found it vanished. That's what, yeah.

[00:53:27] Jared: I mean, that's the odd, that's where I get stuck, right?

[00:53:30] Yeah.

[00:53:30] Jenn: That's where I get stuck. Yeah. Because all of his painting supplies that he left behind the blood trail that was found

[00:53:36] Jared: right.

[00:53:38] Jenn: But not the gun.

[00:53:39] Jared: Yep.

[00:53:40] Jenn: Strange. His behavior on the day did not seem to allude to a crisis. He just went out to paint like he always said, like he wasn't in a manic state. Right.

[00:53:55] He was in a normal, like, I'm going to do my thing. I'm a weirdo. I paint in the wheat field. That's what, so yeah, theory number two is an accidental shooting involving the local boys. I changed this to specifically state, it was an accidental shooting. These were teenagers. These were adolescents. I don't think they went out like with a vengeance trying to get the poor weirdo in the, in the town.

[00:54:22] , Later accounts described all, you know, this entire situation that they mocked him, they made fun of him. One of the boys had access to a small pistol. The gun was never found that boy's gun, that pistol that he had disappeared. So that's all very strange. , The only thing that is a issue for me is that this came up decades later.

[00:54:47] This is not a. This is not an in the moment investigation. Right. Found this information. I don't know. I don't know. And why did, why would Vincent choose to absorb blame rather than implicating them? I mean, he was a very kind man. He was just nod ball.

[00:55:03] Jared: Right.

[00:55:03] Jenn: So maybe if it was an accident, he just didn't want them to get in trouble.

[00:55:08] Jared: Maybe.

[00:55:09] Jenn: I dunno.

[00:55:10] It's plausible, but, , retrospective testimony, I don't know. No, I mean, that's, this is a, no, there was no investigation, no autopsy. I don't know. What do you, what do you, what do you think, what do you think happened?

[00:55:28] Jared: It was only a third that they hand him the gun and go do it.

[00:55:31] Vincent, do it. Do it. You know? 'cause they like, pick on 'em or something. Do it to yourself. Whatever. I don't know.

[00:55:36] That's terrible.

[00:55:37] I'm reaching for it, man. These are

[00:55:38] mean boys. You

[00:55:39] wanted a, oh, you wanted a, I gave you a third item. Uh. There's, I don't really have a theory. If I had to, then he probably did it, but I just question where the gun went.

[00:55:54] Jenn: That's a problem for me. Yeah.

[00:55:58] Jared: And also why did he shoot himself in the abdomen or not? Tony Soprano. I,

[00:56:05] Jenn: did he shoot himself? He didn't shoot himself.

[00:56:08] Jared: No. That's

[00:56:08] Jenn: what I was saying. That's what I was struggling with. I was like, hold on here. He

[00:56:10] Jared: didn't shoot himself. He got, it was a big thing when he got shot in the abdomen.

[00:56:14] Jenn: Didn't they have to like leave the wound open? Oh yeah. Stomach

[00:56:17] Jared: was, yeah, it was bad.

[00:56:18] Jenn: What was the doctor explanation for that?

[00:56:21] Jared: It was some, uh, uh, infection that came. Yeah, something like that. Ugh. Sorry, I wasn't trying to go down the soprano, but when you talked about the abdomen, that's the first thing I thought about.

[00:56:30] Jenn: Yeah. Here's, here's. So, you know how I pick my theories? Like I go down rabbit holes of trying to lean into information and just learn as much as I can about the situation.

[00:56:43] Jared: You've been known for it because

[00:56:44] Jenn: I'm like, what? Why Sure is So here's the thing. Vincent had a documented mental crisis. He's done it before. We've

[00:56:54] Jared: established it. This

[00:56:55] Jenn: is not new information. But when he had a mental crisis, they were loud, visible, disruptive, marked by disorganization, paranoia, loss of control, hospitalization, third party inter intervention, like this was when he was going through these things.

[00:57:16] Jared: It was noticeable.

[00:57:17] Jenn: It was very, very noticeable, right? There was a lot of high emotion and frenzy. The ear incident,

[00:57:25] Jared: yeah.

[00:57:25] Jenn: Fits that pattern. This, this, this is not it. This is not that Thatam day. He followed routine. He went out to paint, he came back on his own. He was coherent and calm like in the two days afterwards.

[00:57:42] Jared: Yeah.

[00:57:43] Jenn: No witnesses describe a acute psychosis or agitation on that day. Yeah. Now that doesn't, I'm not saying he wasn't depressed. I think he was depressed his whole life.

[00:57:52] Jared: Right.

[00:57:53] Jenn: I think that was just the state of, of who Vincent Van Gogh was. But I do not think that he was in the same state as his previous self harm episodes.

[00:58:03] Right. This is not, I'm with you. I'm with you. This is not the same. This is not the same.

[00:58:07] Jared: I'm with you.

[00:58:07] Jenn: Um, the missing gun is a big problem for me.

[00:58:11] Jared: Yep.

[00:58:12] Jenn: Now, could he have thrown it in a river or a toilet or the trash? Sure. But how did he get it in the first place?

[00:58:23] Jared: Yep.

[00:58:23] Jenn: Now. Okay. 1890 rural France. I'm not, there were guns.

[00:58:30] This is not a, but like, guns don't vanish. That's super weird. , I don't know. And I think the wound, the, the, the location is just really strange. The only way I can figure that he shot himself is that he did it by accident.

[00:58:48] Jared: Uh, yeah.

[00:58:49] Jenn: Like it just doesn't make sense.

[00:58:51] Jared: Yeah. He was like twirling and trying to be cool and all a sudden pow

[00:58:55] Jenn: I, you know, of all the things that Vincent tried to be Yeah.

[00:59:00] I don't think cool was one of '

[00:59:01] Jared: em. Yeah. Well, but that was his first, you know, attempt.

[00:59:05] Jenn: I mean, he wasn't watching like American Cowboys. Yeah. I don't think so. Yeah. The part of me doesn't want him to have shot himself.

[00:59:14] Jared: Yeah, I understand.

[00:59:15] Jenn: I don't like that. But I think that he probably.

[00:59:18] I think he probably did.

[00:59:19] Jared: Okay.

[00:59:20] Jenn: I just don't think he did it with an intent to end himself.

[00:59:25] Hmm.

[00:59:25] That just doesn't make sense. I don't think he was in a frenzy. I think if he did it, I think in some way he encountered these boys. One of them had a gun. I maybe they were messing with him and he tried to grab it away from them.

[00:59:42] That could be Sure. Just to, you know, to try to, that could be, that makes more sense to me. And I think that he was just a kind sad man.

[00:59:52] Jared: Yeah.

[00:59:52] Jenn: I got, I have no theory actually. Yeah. Uh, go back and forth. I, I don't have a theory. I don't know what happened.

[01:00:05] Let's talk about a little bit about Theo Van Gogh. Just to wrap this up. Theo's health had already been declining before Vincent died. He suffered from neuro syphilis, he had syphilis and it went to his, that's what aone died of.

[01:00:21] Mm-hmm. Oh, nodding in the hood. Mm-hmm. So if, if syphilis is not treated, you know that's a sexually transmitted disease, right? If it is not treated, it will go to your brain. And there was no treatment at the time for syphilis.

[01:00:36] Jared: Starts in one head and goes to the next.

[01:00:38] Jenn: Ew. No, no. Incorrect. That is you. Anyways, , after Vincent's death, which we can note that Theo was absolutely devastated by Theo's condition worsens rapidly, he becomes increasingly disoriented, unable to work, emotionally unstable, prone to breakdowns.

[01:01:04] At one point. He's also hospitalized in a psychiatric institution. Theo is collapsing under his grief. There's, there is no doubt about this at this time. Theo is married, his wife, Johanna Van Bonger. I am just reading what it says. , She had just given birth to their son, a child they named Vincent's.

[01:01:28] Jared: No, of

[01:01:28] Jenn: course they did. Of course they did. He's only a few months old. On January 25th, 1891, which is six months after Vincent dies, Theo's Theo, Theo dies.

[01:01:43] So Johanna is a young widow with limited money, a newborn baby, and now she has become responsible for hundreds of Vincent's paintings and drawings that at the time were worth probably as much as the paper that they were right painted on this. This is this woman. We gotta give her some credit here.

[01:02:07] She must have been very much paying attention to what Theo did for a living because this woman. Did not treat Vincent's work as a burden or something that she just needed to deal with. She recognized its value, right? Very early on and probably just listening to Theo talk about, you know, just what you know, whatever she, she understood what she needed to do, so she carefully preserves Vincent's paintings and drawings, organizes and edits the brother's letters.

[01:02:43] Lynns works to exhibitions rather than selling them to get money immediately, and she starts building relationships with critics, artists, and galleries. Positioning Vincent, not as a madman, but as a serious driven artist that was not understood during his time. She knew what she was doing, and this was very deliberate.

[01:03:04] And she took her time. She did not make Vincent famous overnight. She made him legible. She made him okay to be seen in these galleries. Without her, the letters would not have been widely published like they were. The emotional narrative around visit around Vincent would not exist. , His work probably would've been scattered and lost, and he probably wouldn't have the vin the reputation that he does today.

[01:03:32] She was careful to curate his reputation 'cause these episodes were very public, but I think she kind of shaped the narrative that showed his humanity more than anything. , This is the life that, , Theo's son grows up knowing. , He obviously carries the name Vincent Van Gogh and as an adult, Vincent Wilhem, van Gogh becomes a key figure in preserving and formalizing his uncle's legacy.

[01:04:03] He helps consolidate the family collection works. He works to keep all the artwork together so that it doesn't get sold off in, in pieces , and just scattered across the globe. And he supports the establishment of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam that opens in 1973. I mean, this is 80 something years later that he's finally able to get this museum opens.

[01:04:28] Yeah. That's

[01:04:28] Jared: crazy.

[01:04:29] Jenn: Yep. I mean, it's really cool that Johanna did that after Theo's death. I mean, she could have just been like, well, shit, I gotta sell this stuff. Right?

[01:04:39] Jared: Oh, easily. Easily. Yeah.

[01:04:40] Jenn: She had very little means after, right after her husband died. So. I think it says a lot that she saw the value,

[01:04:49] Jared: right,

[01:04:50] Jenn: and didn't just try to monetize it straight out of the gate.

[01:04:54] She really wanted to curate his image before,

[01:04:57] Jared: right

[01:04:57] Jenn: before she did that. So, you know, I also wondered what, like, what did he think about success? Because it's not really clear, I don't think. If you look at his letters and the things that he writes about and the way that he talks about his art, I don't think he wanted fame and fortune and all of those things. In fact, I don't think a man like that could have handled,

[01:05:20] Jared: I don't think he even knew what, I don't even know if he knew what it meant

[01:05:22] Jenn: in Fortune.

[01:05:23] I, I don't think he had dreamed of public adoration. In fact, I don't think he cared what the critics thought of his

[01:05:29] Jared: work. I, I don't either.

[01:05:31] Jenn: , I think that he wanted to be taken seriously. He wanted other people to feel what he felt when they looked at his works. And that would've been success to him. , I think he would've collapsed under recognition, right?

[01:05:46] In any sort, if you want my personal opinion. But I do think that he wanted professional recognition and respect, which he. I certainly did not have during his life. ,

[01:06:00] I just, I think that's really interesting because he would've had to sell his art in order to make a living as an artist, but I don't know if that would've given him what he wanted.

[01:06:11] Jared: Right, right.

[01:06:13] Jenn: I guess to a certain extent, selling his artwork would mean validation in what he was doing. It certainly would mean independence from Theo, but I don't know if he wanted that.

[01:06:25] Jared: Right.

[01:06:27] Jenn: He loved his brother so much, and dependence on him probably was a burden, but at the same time, it feels like he needed it. He needed that connect. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

[01:06:43] Jared: I don't know.

[01:06:44] Jenn: I don't think. Okay, given all this and, and the way that he talked in his letters, he did not wanna be remembered as a mad genius.

[01:06:53] He did not want his illness to be the reason that people were drawn. No, of course, drawn to his story. No. In fact, he often worried that his mental health would undermine how seriously people took him. , Certainly the version of him that became famous after his death is, I don't think it was what he was trying to be, but I think two things can be true at the same time, he really was a mad genius.

[01:07:22] I, I mean, he was mad,

[01:07:24] Jared: right?

[01:07:24] Jenn: This is not a brand, it's just a factual description of what he was, right. It shaped his work. It shaped how he perceived the world. It shaped how he relentlessly worked constantly and how little distance he had between what he was feeling and how he put those feelings into his paintings.

[01:07:46] If he didn't have this madness, there is no way he would've produced the artwork that he did. Right? He would not have been as passionate and compulsive as he was.

[01:07:56] And I even have to wonder if it is the reason that he was experimenting with colors because he is, he changed the art world in the sense, in the way that color was perceived and used at the time he changed it. There was something that I read at some point about him that he perceived colors in a way because of some of his mental illness. And he was putting it on paper like it was just so he could feel the painting.

[01:08:25] Right. And he talked about how the color and his, the bright colors and the contrast between the colors specifically, he could really feel it when he looked at the painting. Sorry, I got excited. I like talking

[01:08:39] Jared: about this. You did?

[01:08:40] Jenn: I think the tragedy is obviously that he didn't. Get validated while he was alive. I think that that's really sad. , But he still got the version of history that he wanted it. It may not be framed in the way that he would've liked as the mad genius, but he's still known as a genius.

[01:09:03] Yeah. I, I mean that history doesn't really care about comfort. , It's not about that. He was a mad genius and his work is indisputably legitimate, and both of those facts can coexist.

[01:09:20] Jared: Well said.

[01:09:21] Jenn: Yep. That's it. What do you think

[01:09:26] Jared: You had a good time doing that one.

[01:09:27] Jenn: Oh, I, I like talking about, I like talking about art.

[01:09:30] I like talking about Vincent Van Gogh specifically. I like talking about the movement of colors.

[01:09:35] Jared: Yes, you do. Yes you do.

[01:09:37] Jenn: I don't think that's the first time I've talked about that. Surely not. Did you learn anything?

[01:09:45] Jared: Yeah.

[01:09:47] Jenn: Okay. That's it. That's it.

[01:09:51] Jared: I learned. I learned.

[01:09:52] Jenn: Okay. All right. I

[01:09:54] Jared: enjoyed it. I really did.

[01:09:55] So

[01:09:57] Jenn: that's all I have that, so you listener we're on Patreon, YouTube, TikTok, outhouse of six. Don't look at my tiktoks. You can look at my Facebook though.

[01:10:10] House of six. Yep. That's fun. Share it with somebody. Anybody Share it with your mom.

[01:10:17] Jared: There you go.

[01:10:18] Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. So that's it for this week. We'll be back next week with a mystery or a murder or something. But we'll be back.

[01:10:29] Jared: Yeah. Tune in to listen to you. Be intellectual and me be me.

[01:10:34] Jenn: Yeah. That's what we're here for.

[01:10:38] Until next time, stay out of the artist colony. There's crazy people there. This one.

[01:10:46] Jared: Bye bye.