Van Gogh: Artistic Brilliancs Vs Insanity

How many times have you heard of someone being described as having an artistic personality or an artistic temperament? This is often spoken as a backhanded compliment, implying that although a person may be gifted, they are also somehow insane. The artist that most personifies the artistic personality is Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890.)

But what just is the artistic personality? Psychologists describe it as having certain elements of having a contrary nature often at war with itself. For example, they are both introverted and extroverted; intelligent and yet naïve about practical manners like handling money; is both humble and yet extremely proud – even boastful – about their art.  Van Gogh had all of these qualities.

Van Gogh's Mental Illness

There have been many papers, books and magazine articles debating what mental illness Van Gogh had. Today's diagnostic tools and awareness of the different types of mental illness was not available in Van Gogh's time. Back then, mental illness was viewed as character flaws or offshoots from other illnesses such as syphilis. Van Gogh did suffer from syphilis, according to Van Gogh: The Life (Random House; 2011.) He also drank excessively.

Sadly, we do not know exactly what kind of mental illness Van Gogh suffered from. He was definitely mentally ill. His hundreds of surviving letters exhibit unfounded paranoia and grandiose schemes not based on reality. Surviving letters from Van Gogh's family members and acquaintances often complain about how difficult and bizarre he was.

Studies on the Creative Brain

Recent studies have shown that many creative people are mentally ill. One 2010 study showed that dopamine is processed differently in the brains of creative people than non-creative people. This is because the brains of creative people have fewer dopamine receptors, which helps loosen up or eliminate social filters or that inner voice that says "you can't do that."

Although this lack of filtering is great for new and radical thinking, it doesn't make you popular with the neighbors. Van Gogh tried getting art instructions at least twice in his life, but within a month or two had so incensed his teachers that he was kicked out. He also had furious arguments with fellow art students or customers who frequented the art supply shops that Van Gogh used.

In Conclusion

Even if modern medicine and therapy had been available in Van Gogh's day, he still would have been creative. Whether he would have produced the vast number of brilliantly intense works is a matter of debate. Unfortunately, the very qualities that make Van Gogh's work so admirable made him a social outcast, a pauper dependent on his brother's charity and in the eyes of many and absolute failure.

Did Drinking Absinthe Cause Van Gogh to Lose His Mind?

One of the allures to the story of Vincent Van Gogh is that this brilliant artist went crazy.  He didn't just go crazy -- he went bug-fucking nuts. Things he did included:

eating his paints
following women into their homes when he was clearly uninvited
pissing off anyone who could have helped his career
that cutting off his ear lobe thing


So Let's Try the Question Again

Why did Vincent Van Gogh become bug-fucking nuts? Because he died in 1890 (even before Sigmund Freud's publication of The Interpretation of Dreams for crying out loud) we really have no idea what spicy stew of mental and physical disorders that Vincent actually suffered from.  It was known that around the time of his death he suffered from:

• syphilis
• impotence
• rotting teeth
• hallucinations, which may have been caused by temporal lobe epilepsy
• starvation due to extreme poverty
• paranoia
• alcoholism

Clearly, drinking absinthe was the least of Vincent's problems.

What About the Hallucinations?

One theory is that he hallucinated because he was addicted to absinthe.  The real absinthe was banned in France in 1915 but returned in 2012.  America's ban on real absinthe was lifted about 2007.  Until then, all anyone had to drink was weak substitutes.  Why was the stuff banned?  It was 110 to 144 proof.  I'm surprised Vincent lived as long as he did while quaffing this brew.  Rumor is that he drank it straight but absinthe was an expensive drink and so a bottle may have always been out of Vincent's price range.  It was usually drunk with lots of water and a melted sugar cube.

Absinthe has never been proven to cause hallucinations more than any other alcoholic beverage.  It could be that Vincent was especially sensitive to absinthe that it could have tipped him over the edge of sanity but Vincent was already teetering there.  Epilepsy and mental illness appeared frequently in Vincent's family.  Most of his siblings committed suicide.  His beloved brother Theo died insane and incontinent because of advanced syphilis. 

It wasn't just one factor that caused Vincent to go mad.  It was a large combination of factors.

What is the Artistic Temperament?

Vincent Van Gogh has often been described as having an artistic personality, creative personality or artistic temperament.  Sometimes Van Gogh is described as the definition of the artistic temperament.  What is an artistic temperament?  Let's put it this way -- it's not exactly a compliment.

Books like Bullying in the Arts: Vocation, Exploitation and Abuse of Power (Gower Publishing; 2011) describes the double-edged sword of having an artistic temperament -- you may produce works later labelled as "genius" but you also have mental illness and may wind up so lonely and miserable that you will kill yourself. 

Although not all people with artistic temperaments are alike, some generalities can be made.  Most people blessed/cursed with an artistic temperament display these ten qualities:

1. Pursues a creative avenue, sometimes described as "having artistic inclinations"
2. Prefers to work alone
3. Shows or professes a love of nature
4. Mood swings at unpredictable times
5. Relationships with people have a low priority behind their work, their art and their own problems
6. Although intelligent, they often aren't very wise in the practical ways of the world
7. Swings between periods of tremendous energy and long periods of rest
8. Is both introverted and extroverted, which basically means that they don't get on well with others
9. Tries to be androgynous or blends characteristics of both genders without necessarily being gay
10. Tries to be humble but deep down inside is really proud of their artwork.

Van Gogh certainly fits these qualities.  Others complained often about his mood swings and his intensity but to Van Gogh he was completely justified for feeling the way he did.  He loved meeting people and yet was so easily offended that he lived a mostly solitary life.  He wanted to be accepted and admired by other artists but balked at any suggestions, instructions or advice.  He certainly was intelligent (he spoke four languages) but he could not stick to a budget and never could figure out how to sell his work.  If he had a less abrasive personality, he may have at least broke even with his artwork.  But then he wouldn't have been Van Gogh.

The portrait of Vincent here is by John Peter Russell when Van Gogh lived in Paris in 1886.  Van Gogh didn't like it, but this a great portrait of how the world saw Van Gogh -- as looking at them from the shadows with a sideways stare.

 

Did Van Gogh Have Syphilis?

It's generally assumed that Vincent Van Gogh had syphilis because (quite frankly) 10% of all European men had it in the late 1800s.  He was diagnosed with another sexually transmitted disease, gonorrhea, in 1882.  Both STDs have similar symptoms so Van Gogh could have been misdiagnosed.

Van Gogh is thought to have had syphilis for 2 reasons:

1. He frequented brothels
2. He was kinda loopy

According to Van Gogh:The Life (Random House; 2012) Van Gogh did have syphilis about 1885.  During this time he had terrible mouth sores and lost a lot of weight because he was unable to eat. (See p. 447)

Unlike gonorrhea, syphilis caused insanity (or seeming insanity) in it's last stages, called neurosyphilis.  In teriary syphilis, the face become deformed, as seen in the bust of such a patient (pictured.)

According to The Lobotomist John Wiley & Sons; 2005), one fifth of all patients in American psychiatric wards had syphilis in the 1920s and 1930s.  The book, a biography of lobotomist Walter Freeman, includes some really vivid passages describing neurosyphilis patients, such as this little gem from page 59:

Though largely forgotten today, neurosyphilis was a terrible disease, a near epidemic that left its targets -- mainly men thirty and over -- in a wasted, twisted condition, riddled with bedsores and unable to speak coherently...They frequently grew demented, demented, incontinent and unable to control their muscles.
 

The problem is that Van Gogh was not really old enough to begin showing symptoms of neurosyphilis.  Men usually begin showing them 10 to 20 years after they get infected. 

My theory (and I think I'm alone on this one) that Van Gogh thought he had syphilis.  Since he had spent time in asylums, he saw what happened to men suffering in the final stages of neurosyphilis.  Perhaps one of the deciding factors in his suicide was that he feared developing those horrible final symptoms.