Van Gogh: Painted With Words

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Caption:
Channelography

Timing, editing:
Graine

The myth of Vincent Van Gogh, the mad artist

has captivated us for over a century now.

Ignored during his lifetime,

after his death, his paintings finally surfaced,

or rather exploded,

capturing the world in vibrant, vivid colours.

Today, they are among the most recognisable and valuable works of art in the world

My brush goes between my fingers as if it were the bow on a violin,

and absolutely for my pleasure.

When we think of van Gogh, we see him as a strange, mad genius

who somehow, through sheer instinct, found a way of pouring out the blaze

of his inner feelings onto canvas.

Let me quietly continue my work.

If it's that or the madman, well, then too bad.

And then I can't do anything about it.

But his work has often been eclipsed by his reputation as a madman.

Vincent and I can absolutely not live side by side without trouble.

There's simply no changing the fact that he's eccentric.

It is an incredible story,

but the true story of Vincetn van Gogh is here in the letters he left behind.

Nothing can be said about van Gogh that he didn't say himself.

There are 902 letters here,

the vast majority written to his younger brother Theo,

who became his confidant and his lifeline.

This is Vincent thinking aloud, taking us through his life

step by step, documenting his struggles as an artist and as a man.

It's from these letters that this film is made.

Using only van Gogh's words and those of the people around him.

Nothing is imagined.

Every word spoken is true.

On the night of December the 23rd, 1888,

Vincent van Gogh suffered an acute mental breakdown

and cut off part of his left ear,

which he presented to a prostitute in his favourite brothel.

The police discovered him lying in a pool of blood in his bedroom

and committed him here, to the local hospital in Arles,

where he was placed in an isolation cell.

This is van Gogh's story in his own words.

'My dear Theo

'..where can I go that's worse than where I've already been?

'Shut up for long days under lock and key and in the isolation cell.'

I still have a certain "what's the good of getting better?" feeling,

however the unbearable,

unbearable hallucinations have stopped

reducing themselves to simple nightmares.

Physically, I am well,

the wound is closing very well

and the great loss of blood is balancing out.

The most fearsome thing

is the insomnia.

I feel weak,

a little anxious

and fearful.

My dear brother,

it breaks my heart to know that now you will actually have very bad days.

I do so wish that you could tell me how you feel.

For nothing is as distressing as uncertainty.

I remain your brother who loves you.

Theo

A certain number of people from here have addressed a petition to the mayor

designating me as a man not fit for living at liberty.

As the managing agent of the house occupied

by Mr Vincent van Gogh, I had occasion to speak with him yesterday

and to observe that he is suffering from mental disturbance.

He insults my customers,

and is prone to interfering with women from the neighbourhood,

whom he follows into their residences.

I was seized round the waist outside Mrs Crevlin's shop by this individual.

In short, this madman is becoming a threat to public safety,

and everyone is demanding that he be confined to a special establishment.

And this is the petition,

filed in the police records in Arles,

and signed by 30 of his neighbours.

The chief of police then gave the order to have me locked up.

'I won't hide from you that I would prefer to die than cause and bear so much trouble.

'To suffer without complaining is the only lesson that has to be learned in this life.'

Vincents childhood was the product of a strict Calvinist upbringing.

His father was a minister in the Dutch Reform Church,

and he was brought up in Zundert, a small town in the Netherlands.

He was sent away to boarding school,

where he was taught the rudiments of drawing,

and excelled in foreign languages.

He left at the age of 16,

when he started an apprenticeship

with the international art dealers, Goupil.

Three years later, Theo followed in his footsteps.

This is when the letters begin.

Vincent was 19 years old,

and Theo just 15.

'My dear Theo,

'I'm so glad that both of us are now in the same line of business and in the same firm.

'We must correspond often.

'The love between two brothers is a great support in life,

'that's an age-old truth.

'Let the fire of love between us not be extinguished,

but let instead the 'experience of life make that bond even stronger -

'let us remain upright

'and candid with each other.'

Let there be no secrets,

as things stand today.

In May 1873,

Vincent was transferred to Goupils London office in Covent Garden.

He moved to Brixton -

then a prosperous, middle-class neighbourhood.

I crossed Westminster Bridge every morning and evening

and know what it looks like

when the sun's setting behind Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

His apprenticeship at Goupil was beginning to train his eye in art,

and his enthusiasm extended beyond office hours.

We know that because this visitors' book at the British Museum

shows that on August 28 1874,

van Gogh was the fourth visitor of the day,

and he came to see this drawing

attributed to Rembrandt.

The figure of our lord, noble and impressive,

stands out gravely against the window.

I hope not to forget that drawing,

nor what it seems to be saying to me.

Vincent became an ardent visitor

to London's great museums and galleries.

And he shared with Theo his growing enthusiasm for the art and literature

he was becoming increasingly attached to.

English art didn't appeal to me much at first,

one has to get used to it.

But there are some good artists here.

Millais, who painted Huguenot and Ophelia - they're very beautiful.

And then there's Turner,

after whom you'll probably have seen engravings.

"Where are the songs of spring?

"Aye, where are they?

"Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,

"while barred clouds bloom

"the soft-dying day, and touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue."

The last few days I've enjoyed reading the poems of John Keats.

He's a poet who isn't very well known in Holland, I believe, but

he's a favourite of the painters here, which is

how I came to be reading him.

Vincent developed a passion for English popular art,

as seen in the black and white prints in The Graphic and Illustrated London News,

eventually collecting a thousand of them.

In my view, prints like these together form a kind of Bible

for an artist, in which he reads now and again to get into a mood.

It's good not only to know them but to have them in the studio once and for all.

For me, the English draughtsmen are what Dickens is in the sphere of literature.

Noble and healthy, and something one always comes back to.

Amongst his collection was this print of Dickens' empty chair.

The social realist subject matter of the prints

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