Vincent van Gogh The Madman with Red Hair

In my previous Edvard Munch article, The Anguish and the Scream, I have also mentioned another great art genius who has captured my attention with his short life, psychological problems and magnificent work. It is about Vincent van Gogh or as some have called him "the madman with red hair".

These are some curiosities about the painter that perhaps you did not know ...

• Vincent received the same name as his brother who had been born dead a year earlier.

• Although Vincent had five siblings, Theo was his favorite and became the central figure in his life..

• Vincent lived in poverty and his brother Theo gave him financial aid on several occasions. It is estimated that Vincent dedicated 650 letters to his brother.

• Vincent painted 900 pictures and more than 1,600 drawings. However, he only managed to sell one or two paintings in his life.

• Today it is considered the main exponent of post-impressionism.

• With only 10 years of career he managed to revolutionize art.

• His paintings today are among the most sought after in the world and some are priceless..

• The Starry Night (1889) It was painted from the window of the Saint-Rémy asylum. Some theories indicate that this painting was based more on his creativity than on reality.

• It is considered that his masterpiece refers to death due to cypresses, a tree that is associated with cemeteries and also taking into account a quote that he himself had pronounced… "Just as we take the train to get to Rouen, we take death to get to a star "...

• There is still discussion about the episode of his ear. Some theories suggest it was an accident while others argue that van Gogh himself cut it off.

• The truth is that after cutting his ear, van Gogh was never the same again and he never saw Gauguin again (for whom he felt a deep admiration). Gauguin was with van Gogh that night but suspiciously left, never to return to his life.

• A few years ago it was determined that van Gogh suffered from Menière's syndrome (a disease of the inner ear with dizziness and hearing disorders).

• Like Munch, van Gogh voluntarily decided to go into a mint institutionl because of his emotional ups and downs and his psychotic breakouts.

• He finally died at the age of 37 from a gunshot wound. The question is did he commit suicide or was it an accidental gunshot? Could he have been killed? His death, like his birth, constitutes another great mystery in the artist's life..

• Munch and van Gogh never met but they had a lot in common. In 1880, they both became artists. His paintings were apparently very simple but technically very complex. Clearly existential emotions can be seen reflected in the work of both.

Art and Sublimation

The starry Night it can be described as "sublimated" only if it triggers the same creative impulse in the viewer. This work endowed with a great power of suggestion and resulting from the sublimation of the artist's instincts causes two effects in us viewers that can be summarized in two words: hypnosis and passion.

Sublimation is always a transmission. In order for us to absorb something of this work, it is necessary that we find ourselves internally available and that we allow ourselves to be penetrated by the force that springs from it.

Art is thus for van Gogh a balm for his emotions while also revealing itself to him as a critical reflection on himself. Van Gogh undergoes a spiritual metamorphosis and goes from being created to being a creator and from being a son to being an artist in an attempt to free himself from that self-imposed design of taking the place of his dead brother in the imaginary of his parents.

After his death, he achieved success and became the legitimate Vincent van Gogh, the great artist for whom painting had the cathartic effect that Freud himself postulated in his work..

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• LUNDAY, Elizabeth (2008): Secret Lives of Great Artists, Quirk Books, Philadelphia.
• NASIO, J.D. (2015): Art and Psychoanalysis, Paidós, Buenos Aires.
• THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (2008): Vincent van Gogh - The Starry Night, New York.