Vincent

[Frelga]

Like so:

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[url=http://pics.livejournal.com/colorado_jan/pic/0003c2e8]Ethel's Amond Tree[/url]

Ethel's Amond Tree

[Old_Tom_Bombadil]

Let me ask this question, and I'll bet y'all know the answer to it---- Did Vincent suffer from an actual mental disease, or "malfunctioning of the mind", or was he just eccentric to the point of appearing to be insane?

Vincent had a drinking problem, that's pretty certain.

I watched a program about distallation the other day on the History Channel. One of the things they explored was absinthe, and mentioned that Vincent van Gogh drank it. So it's possible that contributed to his madness.

P.S. I'm sure you know as much or more than I about van Gogh, samwarg. I might know more about van Beethoven, though, but not necessarily.

[baby tuckoo]

Absinthe was de la mode, especially for the avant garde, but there is no evidence that the distillate from wormwood has anything in it that is psychoactive (according to a long article about it in The New Yorker a few months ago.) Like the effect of tequila, it is likely a folk legend.


Vincent showed plenty of signs of his bi-polar or schitzoid tendencies long before he began drinking regularly. Some souls are simply tortured.

[axordil]

I am under the impression that the cheaper grades of absinthe in his day used mineral dyes to achieve the desired green tint. That couldn't have been good for him or anyone else who drank a lot of the stuff.

[WampusCat]

An online abstract from the American Journal of Psychiatry:

Blumer D.

Department of psychiatry, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, 38105, USA.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) had an eccentric personality and unstable moods, suffered from recurrent psychotic episodes during the last 2 years of his extraordinary life, and committed suicide at the age of 37. Despite limited evidence, well over 150 physicians have ventured a perplexing variety of diagnoses of his illness. Henri Gastaut, in a study of the artist's life and medical history published in 1956, identified van Gogh's major illness during the last 2 years of his life as temporal lobe epilepsy precipitated by the use of absinthe in the presence of an early limbic lesion. In essence, Gastaut confirmed the diagnosis originally made by the French physicians who had treated van Gogh. However, van Gogh had earlier suffered two distinct episodes of reactive depression, and there are clearly bipolar aspects to his history. Both episodes of depression were followed by sustained periods of increasingly high energy and enthusiasm, first as an evangelist and then as an artist.

[baby tuckoo]

Thanks, Wampus!!

And yes, Ax, there is no doubt that Vincent would have bought the cheapest of absinthes. Still, the connection is speculative as the passage above admits.

If we had no other paintings but those done in 1889, Vincent would still be a major figure in modern painting.

[samwarg]

Alright, the poor man was bonkers, drunk and drugged and produced some of the most amazing art there's ever been. Is there any conclusion that can be drawn from these facts?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

sam, I think you have to add another factor in there. He produced some of the greatest art ever, that was completely unappreciated during his lifetime. The man sold one painting. One. Can you imagine being that brilliant that you are so ahead of your time that no one can appreciate you. Being able to see things in a way that no one else could? And already having some predisposition to mental illness? No wonder he went off the deep end.

[Inanna]

And has all my sympathies.....

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I split off the ensuing more general discussion about Creativity and Mental Illness