22: Vincent Van Gogh • Madness, Genius, & Tragedy (Part One)

Opening Scene

[sound of birds chirping, wind, steps]

It is a cool summer night in Southern France, in a charming little town called the Provence of St. Remy. The midnight sky is alive with stars. The date – is June 8th, 1889.

You are walking up a hill, on a dry dirt path lined with olive trees, which pass on your right and left. Their small leaves shimmer — silver in the moonlight. When you look to your right, you can see the town of St. Remy, in the distance, with its old world charm — the two story homes and narrow alleys are all dressed in midnight blue, save for the occasional window, warmly illuminated by an oil lamp.

We aren’t walking to the town though. We are climbing the hill to visit St. Paul’s Mental Asylum. It is the current home of a certain penniless artist, whose unique paintings, in a hundred years time, will collectively be worth billions of dollars.

But for now, and for the next year, those paintings will be made here.

Up ahead, you see that the stone archways and pyramid peaked tower of St. Paul’s make it look – more like a monastery than a mental hospital. That’s because it is. It was built 800 years ago, in the 11th century, as a monastery. Then in 1605, Franciscan monks converted St. Paul’s into a mental asylum.

The secluded nature of such a place serves two purposes:
1. The patients are surrounded by the calming effects of nature and removed from the agitating demands of city life, which often exacerbate their misunderstood mental disorders.
2. The secluded nature of such a place makes it an ideal destination to send troubled family members – ‘loved ones’ you might wish to keep ‘out of sight and out of mind.’

[stone stair walking]

And here we are. These vast wooden doors are at least a few hundred years old.

[large door unlocking, hinge opening]

The asylum is asleep… But even so, it stirs. [crazy voice in distance]

[start walking in hallway]

It’s currently home to only twenty patients, in various stages of mental illness. Psychology is still such a new field in the late 1800’s that doctors have no lasting solutions or treatments. The best they can offer is a place like this, where the needs of those with misunderstood afflictions can be tended to, in the hopes that the monastic lifestyle aids their condition.

[footsteps – reverberating in corridor]

We are on the first floor, in a long and empty corridor with vaulted ceilings. Darkness engulfs the space, except for the soft amber glow seeping out of a door frame across the hall. This room is usually locked at night, it is a recreational room only meant for the daytime, but it seems someone has snuck in.

[slow footsteps and door opens]

Inside stands Vincent van Gogh… his body hunched in shadow near an oil lamp. He seems possessed. You glimpse a flash of his wild eyes, as he intently swirls paint on a canvas in front of him. [sound of painting] He glances through the iron bars of the window, like through a prison cell, to gaze at the midnight landscape in perfect view. And returns to his canvas, a painting of the same landscape without the iron bars, a painting of cypress trees, a distant town, rolling hills, and a star filled sky.

His painting is suffused with deep blues and vibrant yellows. The moon and stars shimmer with a dynamic motion that brings them to life on the canvas. Right now, at 37 years old, Van Gogh is an unknown patient in a mental asylum. In less than fifty years he will be one of the most famous artists of all time. And in one hundred years, this painting, Starry Night, will be one of the most recognizable paintings in the world. Hotel owners will furnish their hallways with prints of it, it will be a painting credit card companies will feature as a design for their ‘cultured’ customers, an image so recognizable, songs will be written about it, yet all the while, few will know that Vincent painted Starry Night from his asylum window in between bouts of debilitating psychotic episodes.

How did we get here? Can madness and genius be contained in one individual? Can psychosis and the rarest artistry be contained in one mind?

These contradictions pervade the story of Vincent van Gogh. And in the final three years of his life they culminate in a whirlwind.

You may think you know Van Gogh, you may have heard about him on a tv show or a podcast. But not like this. I can say with confidence, you have never heard a podcast like this.

Over the next three episodes, we will explore Van Gogh’s personal letters, doctor’s reports, police reports, and family letters, to paint a vivid picture of Vincent in his three final years, these are the years that produced his most famous and beloved works, and the years in which Vincent’s final tragic descent begins.

Was he actually psychotic or just misunderstood? Did he really cut off his ear and commit suicide? Was he actually a creative genius or is it all just hype? Let’s find out.

Welcome to Creative Codex, I am your host, MJDorian.

This is Episode 22: Vincent van Gogh • Madness, Genius, & Tragedy…

Let’s begin.

[music enters]

Chapter One: A Strange Boy

Before we narrow our focus on the three final tumultuous years of Vincent’s life, we need to first get a glimpse at the early years, we need to establish a baseline for his personality, to understand the significance that his mental breakdowns will have on his life. What were the circumstances that drove him from a small town in the Netherlands to the heart of Paris and then to an asylum in Southern France?

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30th, 1853, in the small country village of Zundert, in the Netherlands. He was not the first Vincent van Gogh in the family: exactly one year before he was born, his mother, Anna, tragically lost a child at birth, a baby boy, whom she named Vincent van Gogh. After her father, of the same name.

The infant was buried in a cemetery next to the Protestant church where Vincent’s father preached every week. And so, our Vincent, as a child, already must have had a strange deja vu that followed him, which made him feel separate from ordinary townfolk. Unusual. Whenever the family would take their long daytime walks, and visit the handsome stone marker with his name already inscribed in it, he no doubt felt himself in two places at once.

Vincent was the oldest of six children. Three boys and three girls. In a middle class family. Their father was a preacher, which earned only a livable income, but did come with certain luxuries: such as a house near the center square and a maid. Their mother, Anna, was from an upper middle class family, from the distinguished Hague, her marriage to a preacher in Zundert was seen as a step down the ladder of social status. As such, she always had a chip on her shoulder, and Anna did her best to instill in her children a sense of the upper class, out of her own self conscious mindset.

But just as effectively, she instilled in them an almost obsessive dependence on each other. Her outlook on life mirrored the Protestant view of the time, that the outside world was a turbulent and dangerous place, and that family, was the ultimate refuge.

Anna once wrote in a letter to Theo, Vincent’s brother: “We can’t live without each other, we love each other too dearly to be separated or to refuse to open our hearts to one another.”

Anna was more than a mother, she was the matriarch of the household, and as such, she believed her children’s successes and failures reflected on her. In many ways, she was a positive intellectual influence on their development, even making sure that all of her children had an education in the fine arts: they played piano, learned to sing, and draw.

But she could also be unwaveringly critical. She supported the intellectual development of her children, but she never wanted any of them to become artists. It was not a respectable profession. And even until the day Vincent died, Anna never encouraged or appreciated his painting. In her view, his struggles were an embarrassment, which reflected poorly on her. And more so than any of her other children, Vincent was a difficult child.

He was combative and prone to outbursts. Unlike his younger brother, Theo, whom schoolmates describe as playful and charming, Vincent was moody and aloof. Even the family maid called Theo “normal” and referred to Vincent as “strange.”

The book Vincent van Gogh – The Life says this:

[music]

“He was noisy and quarrelsome and ‘never took the slightest notice of what the world calls form.’ one family member complained. He often skipped the outings his mother organized (to visit distinguished families in the area), while spending inordinate amounts of time with the family maids (with whom he shared the attic.) In fact, much of Vincent’s misbehavior seemed aimed directly at his class-conscious, order-loving mother.

When she praised a little clay elephant that he had made, Vincent smashed it to the ground. Anna and Dorus tried punishing their son — indeed, all the family chroniclers agree that Vincent was punished more often and more severely than any of his siblings. But to no apparent effect. His father, Dorus, “It is as if he purposefully chooses the ways that lead to difficulties. It is a vexation of our souls.”

[music end]

But there was one great joy in adolescent Vincent’s life, of which his mother also disapproved: solitary journeys into nature’s wilderness. There was a popular Victorian outlook at the time that appreciating nature’s beauty was a form of worship, but still, this did not account for Vincent’s ‘long, unaccompanied disappearances — in all seasons, in all weathers.’

The book Vincent van Gogh: A Life, goes on:

[music]

“To his parent’s distress, he seemed especially to love walking in storms and at night. Nor did he stick to the meadow trails or the little garden byways in the village. Instead, he wandered far from the beaten path, into untracked regions where no decent person would dare to venture—godforsaken places where one would encounter only poor peasants cutting peat and gathering heather, or shepherds pasturing their flocks. Even the prospect of such contacts had to alarm Anna and Dorus. Once, he ended up near Kalmthout, a town six miles away on the Belgian side of the border— a route that only smugglers took—returning home late at night with his clothes dirty, his shoes muddy and battered.

But most worrisome of all was that he went alone. Anna, in particular, was deeply distrustful of solitude in all its forms. A popular parents’ handbook of the time warned sternly that all “country outings” had to be closely supervised otherwise “the young man disappears into the woods and finds … all that is capable of intoxicating his imagination.” Vincent spent more and more of his time on these solitary cross-country treks, and less and less time “visiting” or playing with others. Hi schoolmates recalled him as “aloof” and “withdrawn”: a boy who “had little to do with other children.” One of them said “Vincent went off on his own for most of the time, and wandered for hours … quite a long way from town.”

[music end]

It’s interesting how a person’s temperament may never change… even over a lifetime. How a person at the age of eleven, may end up having the same temperament when they are thirty seven. The official definition of the word temperament is poignant here: “a person’s or animal’s nature, especially as it permanently affects their behavior.”

Vincent’s attraction to nature’s beauty and power would continue into adulthood. It was one of his defining character traits. So much so that the beginning of that quoted passage seems prophetic: “To his parent’s distress, he seemed especially to love walking in storms and at night.”

One of Vincent’s first oil paintings is called ‘View of the Sea’, and he painted it on a beach during a strong summer storm. You can see from his vigorous brushstrokes that he wanted to capture the power of the ocean. One of the most wonderful details about View of the Sea is that it is technically a mixed medium piece, as the oil paint is riddled with specks of sand.

Vincent wanted to capture an intense summer storm in its true form, so he stood there, with his easel and canvas on a beach, as wind blew rain and sand into his wet paint. [strong wind and ocean waves – possible thunder]

You can imagine him squinting against the wind. As passing onlookers wonder ‘who is this madman?’ There’s really not many artists that would dare to do such a thing. [thunder – and stop]

But when you see his temperament as a child… a lot of his notorious behavior as an adult makes sense. This rebellious youth was born an outlier. Not only did his mother reinforce a sense of ‘otherness’ in her children and their elevated social class, but Vincent also felt himself to be an outlier at home too.

Is it really surprising that he would have a unique view of the world, of life, and of art?

But despite the social difficulties he faced in town and at home, Vincent had one person in his life whom he had a deep and meaningful relationship with. Someone who supported him without fail, when all others abandoned him.

+

Chapter Two: Theo & Vincent

The most important personal relationship in Vincent’s life was with his younger brother, Theo van Gogh.

It is no exaggeration to say that without Theo’s support of Vincent, there would never have been the 900 paintings we have from Van Gogh. Theo was not just Vincent’s brother, he was his closest friend, and a patron of his art. In the later years, when Vincent couldn’t hold down a job, it was Theo who sent him money and art supplies.

In many ways, the two of them were opposites since childhood: four years younger than Vincent, Theo was wiry in frame, with delicate features, tender eyes and blonde hair. Vincent was short, solid in stature, with strong features, piercing eyes, and fiery red hair.

After Vincent left their hometown of Zundert, he frequently wrote letters to his family. His letters offer us an intimate glimpse into his personality, interests, and his day to day life. He was a prolific letter writer. It is estimated he wrote 2,000 letters in his lifetime, only 820 of which survived. But in those 820, over 650 letters were from Vincent to Theo.

And the only reason we have them is because Theo saved all of them. He saved these letters before Vincent even picked up a brush and became a painter. Theo admired and adored his brother from childhood. He even followed him into a career of being an art dealer. Yes… Vincent van Gogh worked in the art dealership industry for six years, at the firm of Goupil & Company. He started as an office clerk at the age of sixteen and then an apprentice. It was his first official job, and it was this work as an art dealer that gave him the opportunity to first travel and live in Paris and London. Theo followed Vincent’s footsteps, joining the same firm, of Goupil & Company in their Brussels branch.

In a letter dated December 13th, 1872, Vincent writes

“Dear Theo,

What good news I’ve just read in Father’s letter. I wish you luck with all my heart. I’m sure you will like it there, it’s such a fine firm. It will be quite a change for you.

I am so glad that both of us are now to be in the same profession and in the same firm. We must be sure to write to each other often.

I hope I’ll see you before you leave, we still have a lot to talk about. I believe Brussels is a very pleasant city, but it’s bound to feel strange at first. Write to me soon in any case. Well, goodbye for now, this is just a brief note dashed off in haste, but I had to tell you how delighted I am at the news. Best wishes, and believe me, always,

Your loving brother,
Vincent”

In many ways, the lasting closeness of Vincent and Theo’s relationship reminds me of Emily Dickinson’s relationship with her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert. And the countless letters Emily sent Susan, and the way that Susan also saved and stored every one of those letters. We talk about this in the Emily Dickinson episodes of this show, those are in the podcast feed, episodes 18 and 19: The Enigma of Emily Dickinson.

In Vincent’s letters to Theo we see Vincent’s warmth and good humor. Something so vital to understand about him. We need to see that he wasn’t just this tortured artist who could not get along with anyone. Yes, he had some social issues. But he had a heart for others and he had this brimming enthusiasm whenever he connected intimately with someone that shared his interests.

In January 1874, Vincent writes to Theo from London:

“My dear Theo,

Many thanks for your letter. My warm good wishes for a very happy New Year. I know you are doing well in the firm, because Mr. Tersteeg told me so. I can see from your letter that you are taking a keen interest in art, and that’s a good thing, old fellow.

I’m glad you like Millet, Jacque, Schreyer, Lambinet, Frans Hals, etc. because, as Mauve says, ‘That’s it.’ That painting by Millet, L’angelus du soir, ‘that’s it’, indeed — that’s magnificent, that’s poetry. How I wish I could have another talk with you about art, but we’ll just have to keep writing to each other about it. Admire as much as you can, most people don’t admire enough.”

At this point in the letter, Vincent makes a list of artists he particularly likes, the list includes Millet, Jules Breton, Otto Weber, and 58 others… Yes, that’s right. I counted. Vincent is 21 years old at this time, and he can already name 61 contemporary artists off the top of his head. Important to note, he has not written them in any alphabetical order, so he is not reading them from a printed list. Although, to his credit, he is working as an art dealer at this time. That same letter continues:

“But I could carry on like that for I don’t know how long, and then there are still all the old ones and I am sure I have overlooked some of the best of the modern.

Do go on doing a lot of walking and keep up your love of nature, for that is the right way to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see.

I’m getting on well here, I’ve got a lovely home and I’m finding it very pleasurable taking a look at London and the English way of life and the English people themselves, and then I’ve got nature and art and poetry, and if that isn’t enough, what is? But I haven’t forgotten Holland and especially not The Hague and Brabant.

We are busy at work doing the stocktaking, but it will all be over in 5 days, we got off more lightly than you did in The Hague.

I hope that, like me, you had a happy Christmas.

And so, my boy, best wishes and write soon, I’ve put down whatever came into my head in this letter. I hope you’ll be able to make some sense out of it.

Goodbye, regards to everybody at work and to anyone else who asks after me, especially everybody at Aunt Fie’s and at the Haanebeeks.

Vincent.”

But despite the tone of the letters that were saved, all was not perfect in Vincent’s life. Oftentimes, it seems when he was going through depression or personal struggles, he would stop writing to his brother and parents.

In the months to come, there would be turmoil at his art dealers job, the owners of the firm always had reservations about Vincent. He seemed to lack the social graces that the parties and events of such a job required. The reason he had not yet been released is because his Uncle, Cent van Gogh, was a prominent figure in the firm. All they were waiting for was to get the ‘nod’ from his Uncle to drop the ax.

During a two month period in 1875, Vincent stops writing to anyone. Usually a sign that he is suffering through some heartbreak or depression. His parents fear the worst. That he is living a life of debauchery and sin, during which he refuses contact with them.

In some ways, they weren’t wrong. In letters to Theo around that time, Vincent would often try to convince his brother to come to London, where he could experience the pleasures of the flesh from the streetwalkers and brothels. He once wrote “The animal must get out.”

The book Vincent van Gogh: The Life states:

“London had no heath into which Vincent could escape. But it offered distractions and consolations nowhere available on the Grote Beek, with wildlife far more varied and strange. Especially at night, after the long workdays, Vincent ‘roamed around a lot there in the backstreets,’ he later told a friend.

Socially inept, craving human contact, and long since stripped of any human compunction, Vincent found himself in the world capital of paid companionship. More than eighty thousand prostitutes, many of them barely teenagers, plied their trade in a city where the age of consent was only twelve.

In the parts of London that Vincent frequented, opportunities abounded. “You cannot walk a hundred steps without knocking into tweet streetwalkers,” one visitor complained about a walk along the Strand. The trade was serviced by three thousand official brothels, and half again as many coffee shops, cigar divans, dancing saloons, and “night houses,” all peddling the same wares. In addition, prostitutes gathered in “swarms” at designated locations (Oxford Street, St. James Square, Covent Garden), many of them within steps of the Goupil store. They accosted passersby with a fearlessness that unnerved the unwary. They went by many names: drabs, Cyprians, fallen sisters, lorettes, harlots, whores, and ‘degraded creatures.’ Vincent called them ‘girls who love so much.”

And so, with his Protestant family’s suspicions, fear of family embarrassment, and the dislike of Vincent by the firm, the chips were set against him. Vincent’s father (who was still a Protestant minister) spoke with his Uncle who had connections throughout the industry, and after Vincent returned from a Christmas vacation, in January 1876, Goupil and Company gave him notice of his release. He was given two months to prepare to be out of the job.

It’s ironic that only one hundred years later, this same art dealer and auction house would be stumbling over themselves for the opportunity to sell a Vincent van Gogh painting.

Being fired by the firm served as a kind of catalyst in Vincent’s life, according to his letters, his interests were already shifting. From one family profession, to another: religion. In the years that follow he devotes himself to becoming a missionary. The tone of his letters to Theo shift, now filled with quotes from Bible passages, and admonitions to Theo to buy a French Bible. He was devoted to this new pursuit… until, even this calling was denied to him. The consensus was that Vincent was not fit to be a preacher or missionary. That his sermons were filled with abstract metaphors, and that he took his role too seriously. Once again he was too strange.

[music]

In January of 1879, Vincent was working as a missionary in a coal mining district in Belgium. He gave up all of his belongings, to show his solidarity with the poor people of the town. He even rejected his very comfortable living quarters, and in an act of charity, he gave his room to a homeless person, choosing instead to live in a small hut, where he slept on straw every night.

This may have endeared him to the locals, but once word spread of his behavior, it alarmed the church authorities, who immediately dismissed him for “undermining the dignity of the priesthood.” Haha… imagine that. Vincent no doubt thought they were undermining it well enough already.

He was once again without a profession, and so, laden with anxiety, he returned to his parent’s home with the news. They didn’t welcome him with open arms, instead they vented their frustrations on him, and made their shame clearly known. Vincent never took such corrections well, and so, bitter arguments ensued.

His parents believed that their son, who was now at the age of twenty eight, was bringing shame to the family name by still idling without a profession or career. And even worse, failing and being unceremoniously released while refusing to listen to their wise counsel, well, that could only be a symptom of someone deranged. Vincent’s father began to make serious threats to send Vincent to the lunatic asylum in Antwerp… So he left their home again.

[music]

His anger hardened into despair, and the guilt and self loathing overwhelmed him. Vincent was in a truly dark night of the soul. He was penniless, homeless, faithless, and friendless. He complained of feeling a ‘dreadful disappointment gnawing’ at his spirit, and ‘a wave of disgust welling up inside.’ He wrote “How can I be of use to anyone? The best and most sensible solution all around would be for me to go away … to cease to be.”

It was somewhere around this time… in the deepest turmoil of Vincent’s life that he rediscovered art.

He began to dedicate himself to drawing. And it quickly became an all-consuming passion. Something that had laid dormant in him since childhood, but was never nurtured into adulthood. Every letter became filled with references to this new calling.

But a problem remained, as it always had for Vincent, a problem of finances. Developing as an artist took time and financial support, and his parent’s were at their wits end.

And so it was Theo, Vincent’s younger brother, who offered him a rare proposal.

Perhaps out of pity… perhaps out of lifelong admiration… perhaps out of family duty… Theo told Vincent that if he dedicates his life to being an artist that he will provide him with financial support.

Theo is still working as an art dealer, and he forwards him fifty francs (equivalent of $200 today.) Until that point, Vincent had stopped writing letters to Theo and the family for a year. This caring hand extended to him in the darkness no doubt feels like both a surprise — and a relief.

But if they are to reopen their closeness and familial ties, Vincent feels it is vital that Theo understand why Vincent is the way he is. Why he has been without a job in five years. And why he disappeared from the family for over a year. And so, in July 1880, at the age of 27, Vincent writes Theo one of the most important letters of his life. In it, he shows a depth of self awareness that only comes from years of deep and painful self reflection. He writes:

“My dear Theo,

I am writing to you rather reluctantly because, for a good many reasons, I have kept silent for such a long time. To some extent you have become a stranger to me, and I to you perhaps more than you think. It is probably better for us not to go on like that. It is probable that I would not have written to you even now, were it not that I feel obliged, compelled, to do so — because, be it noted, you yourself have compelled me to.

I heard in Etten that you had sent fifty francs for me. Well, I have accepted them. With reluctance, of course, with a feeling of some despondency, of course, but I have reached a sort of impasse, am in trouble, what else can I do? And so I am writing to thank you.

To the family, I have become a more or less objectionable and shady sort of character, at any rate, a bad lot. How could I then be of any use to anyone? And so I am inclined to think the best and most sensible solution all around would be for me to go away and to keep my distance, to cease to be, as it were.

What the moulting season is for birds — the time when they lose their feathers — setbacks, misfortune and hard times are for us human beings. You can cling on to the moulting season… you can also emerge from it reborn, but it must not be done in public. The thing is far from amusing, not very exhilarating, and so one should take care to keep out of the way. Well, so be it.

Now I must trouble you with certain abstract matters, hoping that you will listen to them patiently. I am a man of passions, capable of and given to doing more or less outrageous things for which I sometimes feel a little sorry. Every so often I say or do something too hastily, when it would have been better to have shown a little more patience. Other people also act rashly at times, I think.

This being the case, what can be done about it? Should I consider myself a dangerous person, unfit for anything? I think not. Rather, every means should be tried to put these very passions to good effect.

To mention just one by way of example, I have a more or less irresistible passion for books and the constant need to improve my mind, to study if you like, just as I have a need to eat bread. You will understand that.

Now anyone who becomes absorbed in all this is sometimes considered outrageous, ‘shocking’, sinning more or less unwittingly against certain forms and customs and proprieties. It is a pity that people take that amiss. You know, for example, that I have often neglected my appearance. I admit it, and I also admit that it is ‘shocking’. But look here, lack of money and poverty have something to do with it too, as well as a profound disillusionment, and besides, it is sometimes a good way of ensuring the solitude you need, of concentrating more or less on whatever study you are immersed in.

Now for the past five years or so, I don’t know how long exactly, I have been more or less without permanent employment, wandering from pillar to post. You will say, ever since such and such a time you have been going downhill, you have been feeble, you have done nothing. Is that entirely true?

What is true is that I have at times earned my own crust, and at other times a friend has given it to me out of the goodness of his heart. I have lived whatever way I could, for better or for worse, taking things just as they came. It is true that I have forfeited the trust of various people, it is true that my financial affairs are in a sorry state, it is true that my future looks rather bleak, it is true that I might have done better, it is true that I have wasted time when it comes to earning a living, it is true that my studies are in a fairly lamentable and appalling state, and that my needs are greater, infinitely greater than my resources. But does that mean going downhill and doing nothing?

But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the draft turns into the sketch and the sketch into the painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought.

Can you tell what goes on within by looking at what happens without? There may be a great fire in your soul, but no one ever comes to warm himself by it, all that passers-by can see is a little smoke coming out of the chimney and they walk on.

A caged bird in spring knows perfectly well that there is some way in which he should be able to serve. He is well aware that there is something to be done, but he is unable to do it. What is it? He cannot quite remember, but then he gets a vague inkling and he says to himself, ‘The others are building their nests and hatching their young and bringing them up,’ and then he bangs his head against the bars of the cage. But the cage does not give way and the bird is maddened by pain. ‘What a ne’er-do-well,’ says another bird passing by — what an idler. Yet the prisoner lives and does not die. There are no outward signs of what is going on inside him, he is doing well, he is quite cheerful in the sunshine.

But then the season of the great migration arrives: an attack of melancholy. He has everything he needs, say the children who tend him in his cage — but he looks out, at the heavy thunderous sky, and in his heart of hearts he rebels against his fate.

Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But wherever affection is revived, there life revives.”

Vincent accepts Theo’s unique arrangement, and from that moment, he devotes himself wholeheartedly to his new calling… to be an artist. The unwavering focus he had once applied to studying the Bible, is now being applied to studying anatomy and perspective. He takes figure drawing classes. He pays strangers to pose for him. He reads books about art diligently, and frequently updates his brother on his progress.

In a letter two months later, dated September 24th, 1880 he writes: “These studies are demanding and sometimes the books are extremely tedious, but I think all the same that it’s doing me good to study them. So you see that I am working away hard, though for the moment it is not yielding particularly gratifying results. But I have every hope that these thorns will bear white blooms in due course and that these apparently fruitless struggles are nothing but labour pains. First the pain… then the joy.”

[‘On the Next’ music bumper]

On the next episode of Creative Codex: After years of diligent study and practice, and with Theo’s financial support, Vincent develops his world famous style of painting. Over the course of ten years, he finishes 900 paintings. Some of the most beloved artworks in the world. But a new complication arises… At the age of 35, his psychotic attacks begin. He becomes a danger to himself and others, experiencing intense visual and auditory hallucinations that at times result in self harm.

We explore these three final tumultuous years of his life. During which, Vincent’s mental health is declining, and contrary to anyone’s expectations, as he is admitted to the asylum, his artistic abilities are showing the evidence of a creative genius.

[final ending music]

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