Withdrawal

As drinking developed from a social function into a daily routine, however, van Gogh’s struggle with alcohol began. Soon after his initial fascination with the liquor, he realized that the noxious brew made it ‘almost impossible [for him] to work in Paris’ (van Gogh 2: 525), as it intoxicated his physical and mental health, distracting him from his paintings. Eventually, in 1888, he decided to relinquish the habit and leave his café fellows in Paris for Arles in southern France. Although he instantly benefited from the change, reiterating in his letters that ‘I have done better work than before since I stopped drinking,’ (van Gogh 2: 556) - a sign of improved health and efficiency without the harm of alcohol, he also developed a growing fear of solitude. He once lamented to his brother Theo that ‘The difficulty is eating at home alone…. It is at times like these [after a day of hard work] that the prospect of not being alone is not disagreeable’ (van Gogh 2: 606). Away from his family, his dear brother and other companions, he had to live by himself, eat by himself, and work by himself. Without the alcoholic potion that opens his more sociable side in order to communicate with others, he probably could hardly find a person to share his exhaustion or exhilaration from his painting. Solitude apparently dragged him into abysmal fear.

Van Gogh’s The Night Café (1888) done in Arles resonates with his apprehension of loneliness by divulging the ugliness of the lack of interaction among the customers in the café. In this painting, van Gogh brings us to a night café just beneath his home in Arles, where night prowlers took refuge (Van Tilborgh 148). Apparently retreating into a corner in the café to paint his surroundings, van Gogh maximizes his distance from other drinkers in the scene. Moreover, the interaction between the drinkers is scarce. The six are scattered throughout the room, holding their distance from one another. A couple is sitting stiffly side by side in the far left corner; according to van Gogh, they are in a quarrel (qtd in Scherjon 109). The pair of drinkers on the right also barely interact, preferring to slump over the table even though they appear to have come to the café together. Then there is the lonely man on the left who, probably like van Gogh, sits alone, burying his head in his arms, refusing to associate with anyone. Upon finishing this depressing scene, Van Gogh judged the canvas as ‘one of the ugliest pictures I have done’ (qtd in Cooper 73). He considered this painting ugly probably because he detested its overwhelming solitude and lack of conviviality which he was particularly sensitive to due to his lonesomeness without the soothing from alcohol.

Image: Van Gogh, Vincent. The Night Café. 1888. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.