Monday, October 25, 2021

Van Gogh, Art, and Madness

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I had the most wonderful experience on Friday, first, getting out and about with my daughter for the first time since the advent of Delta, and second, getting to see a wonderful exhibition that has just opened at the Dallas Museum of Art, Van Gogh and the Olive Groves curated by the DMA in conjunction with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. (This is not one of the many immersive experiences that are now touring the country, but an exhibition of his actual paintings, never before seen together.) It explores the olive grove paintings produced by Van Gogh in the last turbulent year of his life before he died two days after a suicide attempt in July of 1890. He was thirty-seven. 

 


Oh, such talent! The paintings are breathtaking. But he suffered terribly from episodes of mental illness. There has been much conjecture over the years about the specific nature of his illness--here's just one journal article for those who are research-happy. 

 

 

But it's not the specific cause of Van Gogh's illness that interests me as much as wondering what he might have accomplished in his life if treatment had helped him cope with his symptoms. And of course the corollary--was his genius dependent on his madness? He himself lamented the effects of his illness on his work. Would treatment or medication have damped his creativity? 

 


There are so many instances of mental illness/substance abuse associated with genius, whether painters, musicians, composers, writers. Are there some that especially intrigue you? (I've always been fascinated by the poet Dylan Thomas, who died at only thirty-nine. It was long held that he drank himself to death but researchers now think he died from pneumonia and poor medical treatment.) 

 


LUCY BURDETTE: That sounds like an amazing exhibit Debs! The name that comes to my mind is Ernest Hemingway. I believe he was a genius, but also seriously dogged by depression, as were other members of his family. And William Styron was another. It sure does make me wonder if they’d been treated, would their art be less distinctive? Or put another way, do you have to suffer to write? (Hope not!)


HALLIE EPHRON: Debs, your post brought to mind the generation of talent that was wiped out not by mental illness but by the AIDS epidemic. So many losses. It snuffed out one of my high school friends, Leland Moss, who was on his way to fame as a writer and director. I have vivid memories of “acting” in several plays he’d put on his backyard when we were in elementary school. I was Wendy to his Peter. He died at 41, after directing productions at at La MaMa and Playwrights Horizons and the NY Shakespeare Festival.  The list of theatre talents like Leland, lost to AIDS, is legion. 


JENN McKINLAY: Suffering for one’s art - bleh, that’s not for me. I don’t think I could work if it felt like torture. But there is no doubt that we’ve all heard that “real” artists are temperamental, high strung, eccentric, crazy, etc. I do believe creative humans are drawn to unstructured lifestyles, view the world through a different lens, and feel compelled to recreate that vision in their chosen medium. Michelangelo apparently had OCD, Georgia O’Keefe situational depression, and Rothko (one of my faves) suffered from bouts of depression that he self medicated with alcohol and barbiturates. Would any of those artists have created what they did  the way they did if they’d had a good therapist and appropriate meds? What would the world look like without their work or if their work had manifested differently? I have to admit, that thought sets me back on my heels a bit. 

 

Right now, I’m reading Mary Beard’s How Do We Look (research) and with your question in mind, I’m wondering who carved the three thousand year old, twenty ton, colossal head attributed to the ancient Olmec civilization? What creative spark motivated them? Depression? Anxiety? Piety? Hubris? Hmm.


RHYS BOWEN:  Debs, I saw the Van Gogh exhibit in the spring. Amazing! And I loved how it showed his slipping into bouts of madness. A bright scene of countryside slowly melting into a narrow bed. A chair. Poor man!  On a side note: I had Mohs surgery on my ear. A tiny piece sliced off. And it hurt! All I could think of was how he could possibly have cut off his ear if one small piece hurt so much!

 

I don’t think great art is tied to madness. Rather the other way around. These people only have the escape of art as self expression to relieve their suffering   Like so many comedians suffer from depression. When everyone is laughing they forget for a few minutes the great weight of the world 


JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I always think of those amazingly gifted writers like Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Zelda Fitzgerald, who struggled with both mental illness and the many ways their societies fenced women in. I wonder how much of their ultimate despair came from (untreated) depression and psychosis, and how much from living in a world that was constantly trying to stuff them in boxes labelled “wife” and “mother.”

 

On a personal note, depression tends to run in my family, and for years I refused to seek treatment during depressive episodes because I thought it might take away my creativity. Let’s face it, the ability to conjure up places and people and plots is mysterious - who knows where it comes from. Thankfully, I did get help, and discovered - of course - that I wrote just as well when I was healthy.  


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I have thought about this so much since you posed the question. I mean--we sit at our computers every  day and make up stories about imaginary people. That takes a certain kind of brain. I think of Thomas Edison, and Mozart. Billie Holliday. Mother Teresa, even. Joan of Arc. Robin Williams. They were different, and tortured, and managed to turn their --obsessions--to do things that would change the world. I don’t think we can understand what makes someone tragic and what makes someone brilliant. We sit here every day and type type type--and others don’t--and why? And I’m not sure how to say this, but there are some actions (and reactions) that are a result of “decisions” and others that we have less control over.

 

DEBS: I would agree, Hank, that what we do--the ability to create worlds and people in our heads--must seem more than a bit odd to many people. Is it a matter of degree, then?

 

READERS, what do you think about all this? And have you seen Van Gogh's paintings in person? They are so amazingly, vibrantly alive. You can feel the passion that went into them so strongly.

 

 

64 comments:

  1. Even in a picture, those paintings are amazing . . . how wonderful to be able to actually see them in person! [And, no, sadly, I’ve never had that opportunity.]

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope you get to see some of them one day, Joan. They are truly amazing.

      Delete
    2. We've all seen a zillion reproductions of Van Gogh's Starry Night. They do nothing to prepare you for the energy and the vitality that pour off the canvas when you come face to face with it at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It rocked me back on my heels.

      Delete
  2. Great post. I saw the Van Gogh Museum with his paintings when I visited Amsterdam. The Name sign for Van Gogh is "slicing the ear with your hand". The ability to create worlds and people in our heads is a wonderful talent.

    We are learning more about mental illness every day. I do not think that great art is tied to madness.

    Diana

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Diana, I love the Name sign for Van Gogh. Thanks for sharing that!

      Delete
  3. DEBS: Lucky you, this Van Gogh exhibit has not come to Canada.
    But I do live close to the National Gallery of Canada (in Ottawa). I visited there last month and saw some van Gogh paintings then, as well as at other museums across North America and Europe over the years.

    Does genius and madness (or mental illness) go together?
    I hope not but rather that it takes a certain type of brain/talent to fuel their artistic passions and endeavours.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Edit to last sentence:

      I hope not ALWAYS...
      Sure several artists/creatives have suffered greatly through bouts of mania, depression and mental illness to fuel their greatest works. But many authors, including the REDS, have written wonderful stories with their imagination and talent.

      Delete
    2. I certainly don't think madness is necessary to a creative life. Thank goodness.

      Delete
  4. We saw a wonderful Van Gogh and David Hockney exhibit in Houston in May, how Van Gogh influenced Hockey. I had always thought of Hockney as the "swimming pool" painter, but his Yorkshire landscapes were wonderful.

    Sylvia Plath noted that her best poems came after childbirth. I was just as tired and cranky during pregnancy as I was afterwards.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I saw that Hockney exhibit in NYC! Wonderful!

      Delete
    2. I love Hockney. I have a print of one of his English landscapes hanging in my stairwell. You can certainly see Van Gogh's influence in this one.

      Kayti and I talked about making an overnight trip to Houston to see the Van Gogh/Hockney exhibit, but we didn't manage it. Very sad now!

      Delete
  5. I've seen many by not all Van Gogh paintings in the Louve and Musee d'Orsay, but best of all was a visit to Arles. The Yellow Cafe was not open for lunch, but we sat in another opposite it on the square. And all of a sudden the pompiers -- firemen -- arrived. It was on fire! We watched as they climbed to the roof and put out the blaze.

    I also remember studying Van Gogh's cats in college psychology 101. His descent into madness was as Rhys mentioned.

    Thinking of all the genius authors and artists and musicians that died in poverty, lost to us in their time but living now for us all in their art.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have been to Arles, Ann, on one of those seventies trips with my parents. It was wonderful!

      Delete
  6. I haven't seen that exhibit (if it came to Boston, I know I missed it) but I've seen a few paintings of his elsewhere. Gorgeous.

    Julia, thank you for sharing your personal journey - blessings that even healthy you are still a brilliant writer.

    Debs, people do think what we do is odd. I have had so many people tell me, "I could never make up stories like you do. I have no imagination." I guess we writers have enough to go around. I know I do!

    I've been lucky not to be prone to depression, but I live with someone who is. His certainly doesn't lead to brilliant creativity but rather a kind of ennui bordering on paralysis.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Edith, I don't think I made it clear that this exhibition is only in Dallas and Amsterdam. But it's in Dallas until sometime in February, so a good excuse to come for a visit! (Or to go to Amsterdam when it arrives there...)

      Delete
    2. Thank you, Edith. Like your partner, my own bouts of depression were less "tormented genius" and more "existential laziness."

      Delete
  7. Deb, I've never seen the Van Gogh paintings in person and I've probably only seen pictures of his work by accident.

    Except for when I saw the Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor" (Season 5 Episode 10). If you haven't seen it, you should look it up. It's an amazing episode that would be the key reason why I would probably go to an exhibition of Van Gogh's paintings (the real thing, not this immersion thing).

    As for depression, other than the depression/grief that normally accompanies the loss of loved ones or friends, I don't believe that I've suffered from any kind of long-term or debilitating form of depression.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jay, a good friend of mine recently attended one of the immersive Van Gogh productions. She said it was amazing, well-done, drawing in a diverse audience. The most impressive part of the experience for her was the absolute silence of all the members of the audience--their attention was riveted by the show. I can imagine that museums will see an uptick in people coming to see Van Gogh's actual works.

      Delete
    2. Jay, that is one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes ever! Now I want to watch it again!

      Delete
    3. FLORA: I went to the immersive Van Gogh exhibit here in Ottawa last month. It was the first art/cultural in-person event I had been able to go to since March 2020.

      Yes, the use of technology to project the images was interesting and there were a lot of people in the room, not socially distanced. B
      But frankly, I was underwhelmed. The whole projection lasted for only 15 minutes and the admission price was high (for us): $42.

      Delete
    4. There are two of these immersion shows running in the Dallas area at the moment. One is well reviewed and the other, not so much.

      Delete
    5. What I didn't realize is that today my friend Ann is on the way up to Boston to see that immersion show with her stepdaughter.

      Delete
  8. Debs, thank you for sharing the photos. I have been to the Van Gogh Museum twice. The first time with a friend in the early 1970's. (We were touring Europe on $5 a day.) We could look across the room and really see what he saw when he painted. There were few people in the museum blocking our view. My friend was the art teacher at the elementary school where we taught and knew a lot about him. The second time was just a couple of years ago with Irwin. We were lucky to see the paintings at all it was so crowded. Still, what a fabulous exhibit you saw and a great mother-daughter day!

    I have often thought about genius and different forms of mental illness. I'm not exactly sure what the connection may be because there are millions of people with mental illness who exhibit no particular talent at all. I also think that people throughout history who were geniuses had quite a bit of push back, think Galileo, when trying to express that genius in the form of art, music, science, literature. Plus, I believe we all, even ordinary people like me, have times when the stresses of life get to us. Do we have moments of madness? Maybe.

    Coincidentally, I was at the Wadsworth Atheneum on Saturday with my neice to see their exhibit of Italian female artists from 1500 through 1800. Most of them were able to have careers in art because their fathers were artists or their teachers were women artists. The barriers for them were enormous.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That sounds like a wonderful exhibit, Judy. I visited the Van Gogh Museum in the late seventies with my parents. (Maybe we were up to $10 a day, lol. We loved those Frommer books.) I'd love to see it again.

      Delete
  9. What a great Friday you had Debs with your daughter and this exhibition. I visited a number of museums but never saw a real Van Gogh.
    I think that there is a greater part of the population that suffers of a form or another of mental illness. I think that it may be the same proportion of artists. We just see more of those because they are in the public eye.

    ReplyDelete
  10. While I haven't seen the collections that are currently touring, I have seen some of Van Gogh's work in person. It's amazing.

    Mozart was the one who sprang to mind. Such genius, from such a young age, but talk about a flame that burned fast and bright. Although I don't think he was appreciated in his lifetime the way he is now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I thought of Mozart, too. What genius, and he was only thirty-five when he died.

      Delete
  11. Another incredibly thoughtful -- and thought provoking -- Jungle Red Writers essay. I love Van Gogh and am privileged to be able to see something like a dozen of his paintings at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. My favorite may be Wheat Fields with Cypresses (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436535). That roiling sky!

    As someone with a severely bi-polar nephew, I know how destructive those alternating bouts of euphoria and despair can be to the person suffering from this illness and to those who love them.

    On a lighter note, here's one of my favorite quotes about the writing life: "The difference between a writer and a madman is a publisher." Let's hear it for publishers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Amy, that was the first painting in this exhibition, on loan from the Met! It was painted in June, 1889, at the beginning of his stay in Saint-Remy.

      And, yes, hooray for publishers!!!

      Delete
  12. I do think there are plenty of creative souls who are fueled by recurring bouts of mania. Then depression. Then drinking to self-medicate. That was the cycle with my dad who had a good amount of success in the movie business.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hallie, my dad, who was also very creative, also suffered from depression. I think he even had electroshock therapy at one point. But for the most part he coped and lived into his nineties.

      Delete
  13. That the paintings survived we owe to Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, the widow of Van Gogh's brother Theo (he died at 34, six months after Vincent died, and just two years after Theor married Jo). Interesting information about her on the web site of the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/stories/the-woman-who-made-vincent-famous

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't realize that Theo died so young, and so soon after Vincent! Looking this up! I have been to the Van Gogh Museum but it was a long time ago.

      Delete
    2. Hallie, I also didn't realize Theo dies right after Vincent. I'm definitely going to read that article on Johanna. Thanks.

      Delete
  14. I wouldn't think that there's a causative connection between mental illness and creativity, necessarily, but definitely a correlation. There are certainly stresses enough for anyone living a creative life--couple that with a person who has the potential for mental illness to develop and I can understand why it would. But I don't think that getting treatment would end someone's creative spark. Relieving any of the stressors--mental illness, poverty, illness of any kind--might instead prolong an artist's life and expand their creative world.

    Debs, so happy you and your daughter could enjoy the Van Gogh exhibit together. Thanks for sharing the photos!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Well, I was at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam a million years ago (okay, gasp, 40!)
    But my most memorable view of one of his paintings was at the Art Gallery of Ontario a few (or more?) years ago, when he was touring with some friends. I walked into the last gallery in the exhibition and turned and gasped.

    Starry Night Over the Rhône.

    Oh my gosh...! I couldn't stop looking at it, drinking it in. Of course I'd seen prints etc many times, and they depict a nice scene. This was living, glowing. My friend with me, who is no slouch about art, said, "I never realised before the Big Dipper is in the sky..."

    Fortunately, as a member, I was able to go back later and visit it again. Ahhh...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susan, I'm glad we're able to enjoy photos and prints of great art, but they don't prepare you for the impact of the works "in the flesh". The first time I saw Renoir's actual paintings, I cried.

      Delete
    2. Seeing the starry night at the interactive exhibit--stars on all four wells, moving around you, was breathtaking.

      Delete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Remember the movie/book A Beautiful Mind? Imagine how it would feel to truly believe you are SO right, and then have people dismiss and pity you. I am still haunted by that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, that's such an interesting story, Hank. But in Nash's case, he did learn to cope with his illness.

      Delete
  18. A line came to me as I was reading this: the cracks are where the light gets in. The mended places are stronger, too. Some of us never get mended.

    I was taking a drawing class a couple years ago, and Carol the artist friend who was teaching the class, was trying to explain to me how to use my tremor to make a piece my own. She described how a local artist paints through the pain of severe migraines: she paints her pain. I've seen some of her work, and it's obvious once you know that she is representing agony.

    That's what I see when I look at Van Gogh's work: pain manifested. And possibly, held at bay for the moment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pain, yes, but also great joy. He loved nature and the world with an equal passion.

      Delete
    2. Karen, You are the winner of Amy Pershing's book, An Eggnog to Die For! If you could email Amy with your snail mail addy at amycpershing at gmail dot com, she'll arrange to send it. Congratulations!

      Delete
  19. Tough questions. I think Karen is right about Van Gogh's work. Pain manifested. A perfect description. Yet in Hemingway's case, I think he was writing to justify himself and his actions. Like Fitzgerald, they were very much part of the "lost" generation. I don't believe it is necessary to suffer for one's art, but I think the creative needs to have the ability to pull up the blanket on his or her dark underside and be willing to look at what's hiding there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you read A Moveable Feast, Kait? I would have said the same about Hemingway's work until I read that memoir. In it you can sense his joy in writing.

      Delete
    2. Yes, that's my favorite Hemingway book! He was joyous in it, but it was also obviously a memoir. He was such a complex man.

      Delete
    3. I was not a big Hemingway fan. In fact, some of his stories I actively disliked. (Don't talk to me about The Old Man and Sea!) But a few years ago I was staying in a London flat with a wonderful library and I discovered in the shelves a first edition of A Moveable Feast. I stayed up all night reading, transfixed.

      Delete
  20. I've seen the Van Goghs in the National Gallery of Art in DC; I was a very regular visitor in the years I lived in DC. (And now I'm realizing it's been over two years since I've set foot in a museum, and I feel sad.)

    It does seem to me that there is some sort of correlations between depression and creative power, just because SO many artists and writers seem to have been gifted with both. And of course, talk therapy has only been around a hundred years or so, and effective biochemical treatments date from, what, the sixties? Imagine how much happier lives veterans of the Great War/the Spanish Civil War/WWII would have had if society could have acknowledged and treated PTSD.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PS: Debs, the paper on diagnosing Van Gogh is quite fascinating, and very easy for the layman to read. Thanks for sharing it!

      Delete
    2. Such an interesting point about treatments for the traumatized victims of those earlier wars. Of course I think of Rutledge and Hamish's "ghost," an effective coping strategy for the fictional character. Makes me wonder how many actual veterans developed their own coping strategies but, like Rutledge in the novels, never talked about them.

      And also, sadly, I wonder if our current veterans with PTSD are faring much better...

      Delete
  21. I've been fortunate enough to have seen some of Van Gogh's paintings here and there. How lucky he was to have a brother like Theo.
    I've always wondered how life would have turned out for Howard Hughes if someone had recognized his mental illness and helped him. The man was a genius.
    I've been prone to depression since I was a teenager. It's a gray cloud that just sits there at times and dulls things. It still baffles me that people don't get that telling you to snap out of it is not very helpful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I find it really heartbreaking that Theo was so devastated by Vincent's death that he died only six months later from what the doctors called "paralytic dementia." Not sure what the diagnoses would have been today.

      Delete
    2. most likely it would be 'complicated grief"

      Delete
    3. Ah, this is research-rabbit-hole day. I just read up on it and it was actually a degenerative effect of syphilis! Thanks to antibiotics, seldom seen today.

      Delete
  22. My mother was an art teacher. When I was a kid, she took me to museums like other moms take their kids to Six Flags or Disneyland. I had "favorite paintings" the way other kids have favorite movies, and one of them was a Van Gogh Olive Grove painting held by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO. It was a lovely surprise, all these years later, to have the Dallas Winds perform a work by Adam Schoenberg called "Finding Rothko," where the composer toured the Nelson and wrote a collection of tone poems inspired by works he saw there, including "my" Van Gogh.

    And, no, I don't think you have to be mentally ill to be creative. Rather, I think, as others have said, that the arts offer refuge for people who don't feel like they fit in anywhere else.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gigi, one of the paintings in this exhibit was on loan from the Nelson! I wonder if it's the same one??

      Delete
  23. In 1959, the Seattle Art Museum hosted "Vincent Van Gogh - Paintings and Drawings. I can close my eyes and still see "Wheat field with Crows" and "The Potato Eaters". That is the power of art.

    I found an interesting gov.doc. talking about artists in the US in the Labor Force. The data is from 2015. At that time, 2.5 million people listed their profession in the "arts" category (writers are included). This is a very small percentage of the labor force, indicating a. Talent and ability (and luck?) are rare b. the correlation between creative people and mental illness might be related to the struggles with a muse. I have been privileged to know many successful creators. For them the commonality was, the next work will be better.

    ReplyDelete
  24. When my husband was stationed at the Pentagon, my favorite place in D.C. to spend time was the National Gallery of Art, and Van Gogh was one of my top three artists I loved best (Vermeer and Da Vinci were the other top two). I spent lots of time standing in front of the Van Gogh paintings mesmerized by the brush strokes and knowing that I was looking at a painting he touched and created.

    I think the discussion about mental disorders and creativity are fascinating. I've more than once come across articles about schizophrenia and people who suffer from it not wanting to take medication because it interferes with their creativity. I need to look up some recent research and see what's being said about that currently. There are those who believe that true art comes from the knowledge of redemption from pain and suffering, from addiction or mental illness or just life's regular pain. I think that there's an art and authenticity that is associated with pain, but I also believe that there is art associated with just the pure beauty of life.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Fascinating post, Debs! Thanks so much for sharing the Van Gogh article - definitely food for thought.

    ReplyDelete