1890 death of the Dutch painter
Vincent van Gogh died in the early morning of 29 July 1890 in his room at the Auberge Ravoux, in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, after presumably shooting himself two days earlier.
Background.
Early presentiments of a premature death.
As early as 1883, Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: "... as to the time I still have ahead of me for work, I think I may safely presume that my body will hold up for a certain number of years... between 7-10, say", "... I should plan for a period of between 5 and 10 years..." Van Gogh authority Ronald de Leeuw interprets this as van Gogh "voic[ing] the presentiment that he had at most another ten years of life in which to realize his ideals."
Deteriorating mental health.
In 1889, van Gogh experienced a deterioration in his mental health. Suffering from severe depression, he cut off part of his left ear with a razor while staying in Arles, France. As a result of incidents in Arles leading to a public petition, he was admitted to a hospital. His condition improved, and he was ready to be discharged by March 1889, coinciding with the wedding of his brother Theo to Johanna Bonger. However, at the last moment, he confided to Frédéric Salles, the hospital's unofficial chaplain to Protestant patients, that he wanted to be confined to an asylum. At Salles' suggestion van Gogh chose an asylum in nearby Saint-Rémy. Theo originally resisted this choice, even suggesting that Vincent rejoin Paul Gauguin in Pont Aven, but was eventually won over, agreeing to pay the asylum fees (requesting the cheapest third-class accommodation). Vincent entered the asylum in early May 1889. His mental condition remained stable for a while, and he was able to work "en plein air", producing many of his most iconic paintings, such as "The Starry Night", at this time. However at the end of July, following a trip to Arles, he suffered a serious relapse that lasted a month. He made a good recovery, only to suffer another relapse in late December 1889, and early the following January an acute relapse while delivering a portrait of Madame Ginoux to her in Arles. This last relapse, described by Jan Hulsker as his longest and saddest, lasted until March 1890. In May 1890 Vincent was discharged from the asylum (the last painting he produced at the asylum was "At Eternity's Gate", an image of desolation and despair), and after spending a few days with Theo and Jo in Paris, Vincent went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise, a commune north of Paris popular with artists.
Changing mood at Auvers from May 1890.
Shortly before leaving Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh told how he was suffering from his stay in the hospital: "The surroundings here are beginning to weigh me down more than I can say... I need some air, I feel overwhelmed by boredom and grief."
On arriving at Auvers, van Gogh's health was still not very good. Writing on 21 May to Theo he comments: "I can do nothing about my illness. I am suffering a little just now—the thing is that after that long seclusion, the days seem like weeks to me." But by 25 May, the artist was able to report to his mother that his health had improved and that the symptoms of his disease had disappeared. His letters to his sister Wilhelmina on 5 June and to Theo and his wife, Jo, on about 10 June indicate a continued improvement, his nightmares almost having disappeared.
On about 12 June, he wrote to his friends Mr and Mrs Ginoux in Arles, telling them how his health had suffered at Saint-Rémy but had since improved: "But latterly I had contracted the other patients' disease to such an extent that I could not be cured of my own. The other patients' society had a bad influence on me, and in the end, I was unable to understand it. Then I felt I had better try a change, and for that matter, the pleasure of seeing my brother, his family and my painter friends again has done me a lot of good, and I am feeling completely calm and normal."
Furthermore, an unsent letter to Paul Gauguin which van Gogh wrote around 17 June is quite positive about his plans for the future. After describing his recent colourful wheat studies, he explains: "I would like to paint some portraits against a very vivid yet tranquil background. There are greens of a different quality, but of the same value, to form a whole of green tones, which by its vibration will make you think of the gentle rustle of the ears swaying in the breeze: it is not at all easy as a colour scheme." On 2 July, writing to his brother, van Gogh comments: "I am also trying to do as well as I can, but I will not conceal from you that I hardly dare count on always being in good health. And if my disease returns, you will forgive me. I still love art and life very much..."
The first sign of new problems was revealed in a letter van Gogh wrote to Theo on 10 July. He first states, "I am very well, I am working hard, have painted four studies and two drawings," but then goes on to say, "I think that we must not count on Dr Gachet at all. First of all, he is sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much, so that's that... I don't know what to say. Certainly, my last attack, which was terrible, was in a large measure due to the influence of the other patients." Later in the letter he adds, "For myself, I can only say at the moment that I think we all need rest—I feel like - a failure (in French "Je me sens - raté")." In an even more despairing tone, he adds: "And the prospect grows darker, I see no happy future at all."
In another letter to Theo on about 10 July, van Gogh explains: "I try to be fairly good-humoured in general, but my life too is threatened at its very root, and my step is unsteady too." He then comments on his current work: "I have painted three more large canvases. They are vast stretches of corn under troubled skies, and I did not have to go out of my way very much in order to try to express sadness and extreme loneliness." But he adds, "I'm fairly sure that these canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, that is, how healthy and invigorating I find the countryside."
In a letter to his mother and sister written around 12 July, van Gogh again appears to be in a far more positive frame of mind: "I myself am quite absorbed in that immense plain with wheat fields up as far as the hills, boundless as the ocean, delicate yellow, delicate soft green, the delicate purple of a tilled and weeded piece of ground, with the regular speckle of the green of flowering potato plants, everything under a sky of delicate tones of blue, white, pink and violet. I am in a mood of almost too much calm, just the mood needed for painting this."
Theo recognised that Vincent was experiencing problems. In a letter dated 22 July 1890, he wrote, "I hope, my dear Vincent, that your health is good, and since you say that you write with difficulty, and don't talk about your work I am a little afraid that there is something troubling you or not going right." He went on to suggest that he consult his physician, Paul Gachet.
On 23 July, van Gogh wrote to his brother, stressing his renewed involvement in painting: "I am giving my canvases my undivided attention. I am trying to do as well as certain painters whom I have greatly loved and admired... Perhaps you will take a look at this sketch of Daubigny's garden—it is one of my most carefully thought-out canvases. I am adding a sketch of some old thatched roofs and the sketches of two size 30 canvases representing vast fields of wheat after the rain."
He returned to some of his earlier roots and subjects and did many renditions of cottages.
The shooting.
Adeline Ravoux, the innkeeper's daughter who was 13 at the time, clearly recalled the incidents of July 1890. In an account written when she was 76, reinforced by her father's repeated reminders, she explains how on 27 July, Van Gogh left the inn after breakfast. When he had not returned by dusk, given the artist's regular habits, the family got worried. He finally arrived after nightfall, probably around 9 pm, holding his stomach. Adeline's mother asked whether there was a problem. Van Gogh started to answer with difficulty, "No, but I have..." as he climbed the stairs up to his room. Her father thought he could hear groans and found Van Gogh curled up in bed. When he asked whether he was ill, Van Gogh showed him a wound near his heart, admitting that during the night, he had set out for the wheat field where he had recently been painting and attempted suicide by shooting himself.
Adeline goes on to explain how her father sent Anton Hirschig, also a Dutch artist staying in the inn, to alert the local physician, who proved to be absent. He then called on Gachet, van Gogh's friend and physician, who dressed the wound but left immediately, considering it a hopeless case. Her father and Hirschig spent the night at van Gogh's bedside. The artist sometimes smoked, and sometimes groaned but remained silent almost all night long, dozing off from time to time. The following morning, two gendarmes visited the inn, questioning van Gogh about his attempted suicide. In response, he simply replied: "My body is mine and I am free to do what I want with it. Do not accuse anybody, it is I that wished to commit suicide."
As soon as the post office opened on Monday morning, Adeline's father sent a telegram to van Gogh's brother, Theo, who arrived by train during the afternoon. Adeline Ravoux explains how the two of them watched over van Gogh who fell into a coma and died at about one o'clock in the morning; his death certificate records the time of death as 1:30 am. In a letter to his sister Lies, Theo told of his brother's feelings just before his death: "He himself wanted to die. When I sat at his bedside and said that we would try to get him better and that we hoped that he would then be spared this kind of despair, he said, "La tristesse durera toujours" (The sadness will last forever). I understood what he wanted to say with those words."
In her memoir of December 1913, Theo's wife Johanna refers first to a letter from her husband after he arrives at Vincent's bedside: "He was glad that I came and we are together all the time... Poor fellow, very little happiness fell to his share, and no illusions are left him. The burden grows too heavy at times, he feels so alone..." And after his death, he wrote: "One of his last words was, 'I wish I could pass away like this,' and his wish was fulfilled. A few moments and all was over. He had found the rest he could not find on earth..."
Émile Bernard, an artist and friend of van Gogh, who arrived in Auvers on 30 July for the funeral, tells a slightly different story, explaining that van Gogh went out into the countryside on a Sunday evening, "left his easel against a haystack and went behind the château and fired a revolver shot at himself." He tells how van Gogh had carried out these acts deliberately and with absolute lucidity. When Gachet told him that he still hoped to save his life, van Gogh replied, "Then I'll have to do it over again."
The funeral.
In addition to the account given by Adeline Ravoux, Émile Bernard's letter to Albert Aurier provides details of the funeral which was held in the afternoon of 30 July 1890. Van Gogh's body was set out in "the painter's room" where it was surrounded by the "halo" of his last canvases and masses of