Van Gogh (171 page)
Authors: Steven Naifeh
90.
Tralbaut, p. 335. See
chapter 43
.
91.
See Tralbaut, p. 333.
92.
Even Bernard’s melodramatic account acknowledges as much: “The innkeeper told us all the details of the accident,” he wrote to Aurier (b6918 V/1996, “Bernard, Émile” to “Aurier, Albert,” in Bernard, in Stein, pp. 219–20).
93.
In “La curieuse figure de Docteur Gachet” (“The Curious Case of Doctor Gachet”) (pp. 278–79), Doiteau reports a later story circulated by the doctor’s son, Paul, in 1957 that Vincent had threatened his father with a pistol after an argument over an unframed painting in the doctor’s collection. We dismiss this as an audaciously
inventive attempt to connect this argument to Vincent’s death, by gunshot wound, shortly afterward. See
chapter 42
.
94.
In the asylum at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, Vincent reported dropping many of his prints into oil or paint, or spilling on them, thus ruining some of his favorites. See
chapter 40
.
95.
In a study of 464 suicides by firearm, Di Maio found that only eight (2 percent) of the suicidal handgun wounds were in the chest or abdomen. Vincent J. M. Di Maio,
Gunshot Wounds: Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Technique
(Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 1999), chapter 14 (see Table 14.1), p. 358.
96.
“You reached [the wheat field] by climbing a rather steep slope shaded by big trees.” Carrié-Ravoux, in Stein, p. 215.
97.
Paul Gachet, quoted in Doiteau and Leroy, pp. 169–92, quoted in Tralbaut, p. 327. See
chapter 43
.
98.
“Allez me chercher le docteur … je me suis blessé dans les champs
…
je me suis tiré un coup de revolver là.”
“Hirschig, A. M.” to “Bredius, Dr., A.,” 8/1911, b3023V/1983, partly published in Jan van Crimpen, “Friends Remember Vincent in 1912,” p. 86. In
assessing Hirschig’s recollections, one has to allow for his notoriously poor French, described by Adeline Ravoux as “laughable” (Carrié-Ravoux, in Stein, pp. 211–12), and for Adeline’s contrary account, that Vincent said nothing when he entered the inn that night (ibid.).
99.
“Hirschig, [A. M.]” to “Bredius, Dr. A.,” published in
Oud-Holland in
1934, quoted in Tralbaut, p. 328.
100.
Compare the three very different accounts Adeline gave of the same event (Vincent’s return to the Ravoux Inn after the shooting) in the following sources: (1) Maximilien Gauthier, “La femme en bleu nous parle de l’homme à l’oreille coupée” [“The Woman in Blue Speaks to Us of the Man with the Severed Ear”], in
Les Nouvelles
Littéraires
, April 16, 1953; (2) Carrié-Ravoux, in Stein, pp. 211–19; and (3) Tralbaut, pp. 325–26.
101.
Carrié-Ravoux, in Stein, p. 214.
102.
Adeline claimed to have been present at only “a majority” of the events she related. “Obviously,” she told one interviewer, “I did not witness the agony of Van Gogh.” Carrié-Ravoux, in Stein, p. 215. Hearsay evidence is generally considered unreliable in courts of law and therefore inadmissible. There are exceptions to this rule, such as
deathbed statements and declarations against interest, but we do not believe that any of these exceptions apply to Adeline’s accounts where they involve hearsay. An example is her account of the police interview with Vincent. Despite offering a word-for-word reconstruction of the interview, she does not claim to have been present in the room, and it is unlikely that, as a thirteen-year-old girl, she would have been invited to attend.
103.
For example, in her first (1953) account, Adeline said that Vincent entered the inn and went up to his room “without saying a word.” In her second (1956) account, she recalled that Vincent had a brief exchange with her mother on his way upstairs. In her third (1960s) account, she added this dramatic interlude to Vincent’s passage to his room: “He leant for a few
minutes against the billiard table in order not to lose his balance, and replied in a low voice: ‘Oh nothing, I am wounded.’ ” Another example: In Adeline’s first account, her father first hears the sound of moaning coming from Vincent’s room. In a later account, it is Adeline herself who first hears Vincent’s moans and summons her father to his aid.
104.
Adeline filled her various accounts with examples of her father’s kindness, attentiveness, and especially his protectiveness toward the painter during his final agony. For example: When the police came to question Vincent about the shooting, her father “preceded the officers into the room [and] explained to Vincent that French law prescribed in such cases an investigation, which
the officers were coming to make.” When the gendarme spoke to Vincent “in an unpleasant tone,” her father “begged him to soften his manner.”
105.
In her first (1953) interview, Adeline gave only a brief summary of the interview that the police conducted with Vincent as part of their investigation into the shooting. In her second (1956) interview, however, she quoted the participants in lengthy word-for-word exchanges.
106.
According to Adeline’s first (1953) account, her father went to Vincent’s room and found him wounded, at which point “[Vincent] showed him his wound and said that, this time, he really hoped he hadn’t missed.” In her second (1956) account, she gave the two men this extended interaction: “ ‘What’s wrong with you?’ asked
Father. ‘Are you sick?’ Vincent then lifted his shirt and showed him a small wound in the area of the heart. Father exclaimed, ‘You poor man, what did you do?’ ‘I wanted to kill myself,’ answered Van Gogh.” By the time of her third and final account (1960s), this exchange had grown into a complete dramatic scene: “The door was not locked, and my father went in and saw Monsieur Vincent lying on his narrow iron bedstead with
his face turned to the wall. My father gently asked him to come and eat downstairs. There was no answer. ‘What is the matter with you?’ my father went on. Then Monsieur Vincent turned carefully over towards my father.
Look
…he began, and taking his hand he showed him the place on his body at the bottom of his chest where there was a small bleeding hole. Once again my father asked: ‘But what have you done?’ And this time Monsieur Vincent
replied: ‘I shot myself … I only hope I haven’t botched it.’ ”
107.
For example, in her second (1956) account, Adeline added the detail that Vincent fainted when the gun went off, apparently in order to explain why, if he intended suicide, he did not take a second shot. By the time he regained consciousness, night had fallen and he could not find the gun in the darkness—although he did make a search “on all fours,” she
clarified, still hoping to “finish himself off.”
108.
Tralbaut, pp. 325–26.
109.
In subsequent interviews, Adeline explained why her father’s connection to the gun had not come out before, first by saying that her father had simply forgotten it belonged to him (i.e., he was “so upset that he did not at once remember that he had lent his pistol to Monsieur Vincent” [quoted in Tralbaut, p. 326]), and then by saying that he had, in fact, revealed it to
the police at the time (when the gendarme asked Vincent “Where did the pistol come from?” her father “hastened to explain that it was he who had lent it,” and Vincent would neither confirm nor deny this, according to her account [quoted in Tralbaut, p. 329]).
110.
In 1877, during his pastoral studies, Vincent noted with approval that the Romans believed that if a crow “landed on the head of anyone, it was a sign that heaven approved of them and blessed them” (BVG 114; 11/24/1887). For more on Vincent’s lifelong love, knowledge, and fearlessness of birds, see also
chapter
3
.
111.
JH2117.
112.
In the new edition of the
Collected Letters
, the letter in which Vincent reports having completed the painting of crows in the wheatfield (JH2117) is dated July 10, 1890 (JLB Letter 898, n. 4.). See
chapter 42
.
113.
Wilfred Arnold,
Vincent van Gogh: Chemicals, Crises, and Creativity
(Boston: Birkhaüser, 1992), p. 259.
114.
See John Rewald,
Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin
, 3rd rev. ed. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 403, n. 35. The footnoted text appears on page 380.
We are profoundly grateful to our many friends at the Van Gogh Museum who welcomed us into one of the most intellectually exciting and professionally rewarding scholarly institutions in the entire world of art. No artist other than Vincent van Gogh benefits from a dedicated research institution on a scale comparable to an American presidential library. This book would not have been possible without the decades of accumulated archival work, research, and scholarship of the Museum’s extraordinary staff.
In particular we want to thank Leo Jansen, curator and editor of the
Complete Letters
, who, despite a mercilessly demanding schedule, read much of this book in manuscript and pointed out mistakes of both fact and nuance. Fieke Pabst and Monique Hagemann, the Museum’s archivists, both generously shared with us their encyclopedic knowledge of Van Gogh and warmly embraced us as friends. Fieke also read the manuscript with enormous care, pointing out errors, recommending improvements, and even directing us to little-known photographs, some of which are making their first public appearance in this book. (With expert assistance such as this, it should be clear—but is worth emphasizing—that we have no one but ourselves to blame if any errors remain.) Rianne Norbart, the Museum’s director of development, offered her infectious encouragement, astute advice, and vital support at every turn. Finally, we are grateful to Axel Rüger, the Museum’s director, who extended his support and friendship from the moment he assumed the leadership of the Museum toward the end of our long project. Leo, Fieke, Monique, Rianne, and Axel were all generous enough to visit us at our home in Aiken, South Carolina (not a common tourist destination), and to extend their extremely warm hospitality during our stays in Amsterdam.
Also at the Museum, we benefited greatly from the expertise of curators Sjraar van Heugten, Louis van Tilborgh, and Chris Stolwijk, all of them major scholars in the study of Van Gogh’s art and life. We thank them not only for sharing their scholarship but also for making us so welcome at the Museum. We will never forget the time we spent with Sjraar in the Museum’s “Vault” opening one Solander box after another filled with Vincent’s most glorious drawings. Heidi Vandamme, the Museum’s director of publicity, has also been enormously supportive of our efforts, as have Maria Smith and Femke Gutter in the Rights and Permissions Department, without whom this book would not be the rich tapestry it is.
Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker, Leo Jansen’s colleagues in the Letters Project, also deserve our profuse thanks. Van Gogh studies have been permanently transformed by their remarkable, fifteen-year-long retranslation and annotation of Van Gogh’s letters—a six-volume monument of scholarship which the
Guardian
rightly called “the book of the decade.” During the decade we spent writing this book, it was a source of constant consternation
that we were working just ahead of their great scholarly project. Fortunately, the editors made their website available to us early and, in the last years, their work overtook ours, giving us the opportunity to take full advantage of this incredible resource in finalizing our book.
No list of acknowledgments would be complete without a word of thanks to Theo van Gogh and his wife, Johanna Bonger. All of Van Gogh scholarship owes a vast debt of gratitude to Theo for saving so many of Vincent’s letters (and those of other family members); and to Johanna for safeguarding this treasure and undertaking the first publication and translation of Vincent’s letters. Her English translation, while not literal or scholarly, still rings with the cadences of Vincent’s Victorian voice and the authenticity of firsthand acquaintance. Jo and Theo’s son, Vincent’s godson and namesake, continued his parents’ work by generously donating the letters along with many works of art to the Dutch nation for the enjoyment and enrichment of the world.
Several other people read the manuscript for us, and we want to express our gratitude to them as well. Marion and George Naifeh read an early draft, as did Elizabeth Toomey Seabrook. We are very grateful for their recommendations and profoundly saddened that Steve’s father, George; Greg’s parents, William and Kathryn Smith; and Liz Seabrook did not live to see their inestimable contributions come to fruition. Carol Southern, the editor of our biography of Jackson Pollock, also read the manuscript and gave it the same sage guidance that proved such a benefit to the previous book.
This book is built on a formidable foundation—a virtual library of books and articles created by an army of brilliant scholars and devoted aficionados who have given some part of their lives to Vincent van Gogh. The task of telling Van Gogh’s life in this detail would have been impossible without this superb and at times astonishing body of research. During the past years we have had the pleasure of meeting and in a few cases forging friendships with some of the scholars outside the Van Gogh Museum who have made singular contributions to this corpus of knowledge, including Douglas Druick, Ann Dumas, Cornelia Homburg, Colta Ives, Debora Silverman, Susan Stein, and Judy Sund. We are grateful to all of them for their friendship, encouragement, and support.
Our previous experiences had not prepared us for the esprit de corps that exists throughout much of the Van Gogh community—a spirit of cooperation, we believe, that springs directly from Vincent and his embracing art, as well as from the museum that carries his missionary flame forward. (For a complete list of the scholars who have made important contributions to the Van Gogh literature, and thus to our book, see the Bibliography online at
www.vangoghbiography.com
.) We have also had the pleasure of meeting David Brooks, not only a conscientious contributor to Van Gogh research but also a tireless proselytizer on behalf of the artist’s life and work.