Historical Figures and Seizures: Vincent van Gogh
Next week, Aura America will be celebrating the birthday of an artist whose talent was unfortunately undervalued in his own lifetime.
While retailers today stock their shelves with prints of his paintings to fulfill the demand for his art, Vincent van Gogh sadly sold only a small number of his paintings during his life. The Dutch artist differentiated himself with his unique brushwork, and his style developed over time into what is now known as Post-Impressionism.
Though you probably know his works such as “The Starry Night” and “The Cafe Terrace at Night,” Vincent created over 850 paintings in his lifetime. You may also know that he suffered from psychological problems. In fact, he has become
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Dr. Theophile Peyron noted that van Gogh retained “only a vague memory of [the ear-cutting incident] and cannot explain it. He tells that one of his mother's sisters was epileptic, and that there are several cases in the family.” Dr. Peyron also noted that Vincent’s “hallucinations of his sight and hearing” were what drove him to cut his ear.
Dr. Felix Rey diagnosed Vincent with temporal lobe epilepsy, and the diagnosis was upheld by Dr. Peyron. They believed that he was born with a brain injury and concluded that his heavy use of absinthe worsened his condition into epilepsy.
Based on what we know of van Gogh’s lifestyle, it is possible that he was unknowingly triggering his seizures. Some known triggers of seizures that could have affected his health include:
Stress
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The condition has been linked as a symptom of both temporal lobe epilepsy and bipolar disorder.
While some still dispute it, reviewing these symptoms has lead many analysts today to accept the original diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy.
A Courageous Artist
At 37 years old, van Gogh’s depression overcame him, and he took his own life. Despite his illnesses—whatever they may have been—his paintings brought him great happiness, and his work continues to touch and inspire as he had always hoped it would.
Let’s remember this artist for the beauty he brought to this world and use his story as a reminder to always persevere. After all, “even if one loses here and there, and even if one sometimes feels a sort of decline, the point is nevertheless to revive and have courage, even though things don’t turn out as one first thought.” —Vincent van Gogh
Sources:
Van Gogh Gallery, http://www.vangoghgallery.com
Van Gogh Museum, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/125-questions/questions-and-answers
Van Gogh Museum & Huygens ING, Vincent van Gogh: The Letters,
The studies identified the reasoning behind his illness as having temporal lobe epilepsy (Dietrich Blumer, M.D. 1). Van Gogh was considered a “tortured artist” (Templeton Reid, LLC. 1) due to many reasons. Rumor has it that Van Gogh cut off his ear and gave it to someone so they could hold onto it. He was later taken to the hospital for
Vincent van Gogh battled with psychological and emotional problems beginning at a very young age in his life which eventually led to suicide at the age of 37. Exactly one year before he was born, his mother gave birth to a stillborn child with the same name. Growing up having to see his name and birthday on a headstone caused some real emotional distress is the young artist’s life. Van Gogh had his first mental breakdown after the woman he loved refused to marry him. Afterwards he devoted himself to God and dabbled in ministry for a little while until he refused to take the entrance exams into priesthood because he didn’t like the latin language, and forced to find a new occupation away from preaching. That is when he took up art as a profession. His brother, Theo, sponsored him as he was getting started.
The story of Vincent Van Gogh’s life was filled with mental issues as well as artistic issues. Towards the end of the year in 1881, the first signs of Van Gogh’s mental illness began to take hold. He suffered various types of epilepsy, psychotic attacks, and delusions. One episode entailed Vincent cutting off and mutilating his own ear. The story behind that is quite interesting.
The life span of 37 years saw Vincent Willem van Gogh (Vincent) in creating beautiful works he dearly loved. Painting was an avenue, which allowed him to express his inner thoughts or vent his struggles. My decision to research on Vincent’s painting, Starry Night (1889) came with the inspiration from Don Mclean’s Song, Starry Starry Night where his lyrics spoke about Vincent’s life that further intrigued me in writing this paper.
A great artist once wrote, “If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced”. This artist was Vincent van Gogh, soon to be an appraised artist known all around the world for his works, such as Starry Night. He is one of the very first artists of the post-impressionist style than is now adored in every continent. However, there is much more to the man than one painting. Creating a full timeline that stretches beyond Gogh’s life, this paper will discuss the life of Vincent van Gogh and the impression he made on the world.
“Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul,” said William Maugham, a British playwright from the 19th century. Vincent Van Gogh, an artist who is considered by many one of the most inspirational artists in history, was no stranger to depicting his struggles in life or feelings in his work. Van Gogh’s piece Starry Night, designed in the year 1889, shows this to be true in that it was the result of his experiences in an asylum that encouraged this piece. Despite this work has being so well known, many critics and observers of the piece have differing views on what he was trying to communicate through it. Two prime examples of this can be seen by the views expressed in the poems entitled, “Vincent” and “The Starry Night”, written by Don McClean and Anne Sexton, respectively. While the poem “Vincent”, has a depressing tone to it, “The Starry Night”, by Anne Sexton, depicts Starry Night as having a more lively mood, which more accurately represents that of the painting, by Vincent Van Gogh.
Van Gogh’s Health Van Gogh was a Dutch Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. Research shows In Van Gogh’s Book ‘Vincent’s Choice’ that he suffered from various conditions such as epilepsy, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, Ménière's disease and also syphilis that he suffered with up until the day he committed suicide. Fighting with the numerous medical conditions through out his artistic life.” Real painters do not paint things as they are... they paint them as they themselves feel them to be.
From my Museum visit Research Paper I went to the Art Institute of Chicago. When I got there I saw the Van Gogh’s Bedrooms exhibit. It was there main exhibit at the time I thought I would interesting to see his work in person. They were the bedroom in Arles the second versions to be exact not the sketches. The Art Institute had all three of the paintings there. I was drawn to this because I like to see what he tried differently form painting to painting. I wanted to see what he changed and what he kept so this was a perfect work to pick. The artist was Vincent van Gogh. He was born on March 30th, 1853 in Zundert, Netherlands and pasted on July 29, 1890. He was 37 when he died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers-sur-Oise,
Van Gogh started his career by copying prints and studying drawing manuals. He wanted to learn everything he could about art. He always had a love of art, but he turned away from it when his heart was broken by a woman. He turned to biblical teaching for a short period of time after she hurt him. This woman probably wouldn’t have affected his as much as she did if he didn’t suffer from mental illness. When someone is suffering from any mental illness it makes it harder for them to see the bright side of ordinary problems. Van Gogh didn’t have a way to cope with what he was going through.
One of the downs in Van Goghs life was when he suffered from seizures which doctors believed to be caused by temporal lobe epilepsy. Another down in Van Goghs life was when he suffered from thujone and lead poisoning.
“The life of an artist is a gamble, what a gamble, it’s all or nothing.” As for post-impressionist and Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, nothing is what was received. Out of the nine-hundred paintings produced within ten years, only one was sold. Van Gogh was often ridiculed by other artists about his work and he had very few friends. One of his closest friends was his younger brother Theodorus “Theo” van Gogh. Vincent would often write to Theo and on various occasions he would write about the hardships of life, including the ways in which he was treated. In one particular letter he wrote “I wish they would only take me as I am.”
As Van Gogh got older, more and more symptoms of Bipolar 2 emerged. Van Gogh left the church and decided to become an artist at the age of 27 and his mental health seemed to diminish greatly from here until the end of his life at the age of 37. While reading Blumer’s article, it became apparent that his first clear hypomanic episode occurred after he moved to Arles, France. In letters he was writing to his older brother, Theo, Van Gogh described his feverish painting, heightened emotions, and excessive consumption of absinthe (Blumer, 2002). I classify this as a hypomanic episode because it lasted less than a week and meets the requirement of showing three or more symptoms: feverishly painting would fall under an increase in goal-directed behavior, heightened emotions under either inflated self-esteem or
Who would have thought that Vincent Van Gogh was a psychopath? The highly praised artist is said to have spent 2 years inside of an insane asylum. There he is said to have been diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder. Vincent van Gogh, the “madman” of art, has been hailed as one of the most influential artists in history. For the past century, artist and historians have been put in a state of shock and awe by how misunderstood the man was and how dreadful his time on this crazy place we call Earth turned out to be. Over the course of his tragic life, Van Gogh painted several hundreds of paintings. A few of these works are exceptionally notorious in the world of art, while others are not even known to exist.
Vincent Van Gogh had a rather depressing life. After being born into an upper-middle class family he quickly became depressed in life. He tried different things like working as an art dealer, becoming a Protestant missionary, and so on. None of these stuck for him as his mental health continued to decline. He was already a quiet, keep to himself kind of person, but over time he became more isolated. He got help from his younger brother Theo in the form of money and moved back home with his parents. This is when he began painting and eventually moved to Paris. Once moving there his paintings became more colorful and his painting style began to develop. He also began suffering from delusions and psychotic episodes and began neglecting his health by eating less and drinking alcohol more frequently and in
A considerable number of us can relate to the barriers that Vincent Van Gogh experienced in his many profession and sentimental interests, all ending in disappointment. His response to these encounters shows an organic and mental precariousness, causing practices that alienated everyone around him. As he turned out to be more disconnected from society and started to pour most of his energy into painting, his eccentricities and outburst created neurotic attributes, which prompted him to start with, to be institutionalized, and second, prompted his self-destructive death at the youthful age of 37 and the introduction of Expressionism. During his short and turbulent life, he sold just 1 painting for 400 francs, only 4 months before his passing. It is titled "The Red Vineyard". In any case, he created an amazing number of perfect