A Tortured Mind: van Gogh's Grapple with Death
by Mike Snyder, Princeton Class of 2008
As Lilli Cristin writes in Vincent van Gogh: Painter, Printmaker, Collector, Vincent van Gogh’s Crows in the Wheatfield, usually considered his last painting, has long been seen as an example of the artist’s “menace-filled images of his own torment” (Cristin 10). Along the same lines as Cristin, Phillip Callow claims that “writers inevitably interpret it as a clamorous and doom-laden portent of his imminent self-destruction” (Callow 269), a portent that puts on display the artist’s agony. The wheat field is thrown into chaos, and crows ominously rush toward the onlooker. Everything is in motion and in turmoil, and as Callow tells us, “unlike the others it depicts a great darkness lowering over the land” (Callow 270). This darkness is something that viewers have latched onto for years, attributing it to van Gogh’s subsequent suicide. They point to three roads that extend into the wheat field, none giving us a path through the chaos. The vibrant yellows of the field, and the horde of death crows, swallow us up and engulf us in darkness.
But is it necessary to focus on this sinister darkness? Yes, he does seem troubled, but tormented? The exhibition Van Gogh in Saint-Remy and Auvers, put on by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the mid 1980’s, suggests as much: “What has been perceived as the picture’s brooding sense of menace can in fact be seen in a different light” (O’Neill 275). The catalogue essentially argues here that van Gogh was in control, not a madman, and his “madness” did not affect his art. Indeed, van Gogh himself bolstered this stance in his reference to the “restorative forces” he felt in this painting (Letter 649, van Gogh), but it is a view that many experts — such as Cristin and Callow — have failed to emphasize. Caught up in an obsession with the stormy mystique of van Gogh’s life, researchers often overemphasize the mental illnesses of the artist, particularly in Crows in the Wheatfield, attributing his art to the beautiful, and crazed, mind of a “mad genius” (O’Neill 15). Even the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, the relatively enlightened argument that examines the different, calmer side of van Gogh, falls short in its discussion of Vincent’s religion and of his outlook on life. More importantly, however, none of our sources addresses how these restorative forces affected his mentality at the time of his suicide, a vital question that can entirely change our perspective on the nature of his death. Answering this question might cast the suicide of an icon in a much different light, modifying our perception of a crazed madman into a more forgiving picture of an artist at ease with his decisions. Close investigation leads us to the skies, where in scenes like Crows in the Wheatfield, we can clearly see the themes of Vincent’s spirituality and sense of comfort, thereby giving us special insight into the final mindset of a complex man at his suicide.
Main PagesVan Gogh's Hope, and his Heaven * The Reaper * Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon * Road with Cypress and Star * Wheatfield Under Clouded Sky * Conclusion *
Additional
Van Gogh: A Life of Disappointments * A Lasting Relationship * Starry Night * The Potato Eaters * Selected Letters *
Resources
Works Cited * About the Author *
