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.

Van Gogh -- the Drink

Van Gogh did a lot of drinking in his day.  That was just about all anyone had to do in Vincent's time and financial situation.  It is with no sense of surprise that I've discovered many alcoholic beverages named after Vincent.  He probably would have liked them. 

For a fancy drink, you can do no worse than a Van Gogh's Rocket, created by Los Angeles bistro Church & State. It's made up with the modern wimpy version of Vincent's favorite drink, absinthe, vodka, Lillet Blanc aperitif wine, lemon juice, honey syrup, a pinch or arugula and a lemon peel curled on top.  The peel is resemble Vincent's ear.  How appetizing.

If that doesn't make you see stars, then you could sip from a bottle of Van Gogh Vodka.  This is a complete line of vodka with a Van Gogh reproduction on the bottle.  I can't stand vodka but I do admit I'm tempted by the Van Gogh Rich Dark Chocolate flavor.  There's also a peanut butter and jelly flavor.  I'm not sure I want to know how they came up with that flavor.  Perhaps it's for alcoholics who can't be bothered to actually eat a PB & J sandwich?

There's also Vino Van Gogh, but it's not what it sounds like.  It's actually the name of a painting class where wine is served.  I guess that's keeping up with the great tradition of well-lubricated artists.  The real attractive thing about the class is that you do not have to bring any supplies.  They are provided for you.  You do get instruction for your 2 to 3 hour class.  At the end of it, you have a painting done all by your little lonesome.

Image: "The Drinkers (After Daumier)" By Vincent Van Gogh; 1890.

Van Gogh and Absinthe

It's no secret that Van Gogh was addicted to absinthe, a green drink that became so feared it was banned, being castigated as "the Devil in a bottle."  It was thought to cause hallucinations and was blamed for a murder in the early 1900s.  Absinthe is legal in many countries.

The main ingredients were  wormwood, florence fennel and green anise.  (If you wonder what anise taste likes, wonder no more.  It tastes like black liquorice.)  A sugar cube and water was often added to it just before drinking.  The intoxicating ingredient is thujone, found in wormwood.  Thujone is in a class of chemicals called terpenes.  Terpenes are also in turpentine, which Van Gogh reportedly tried to drink and in his paints, which he did eat at times. 

Any "absinthe" drinks available today are much milder than what was available in the late 1800s when Vincent Van Gogh lived.  Back then, one glass of absinthe could have as much as 70% alcohol, giving it a 140 proof sock to the gut. A chemical anaysis of 100 year old bottles by the Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Laboratory of Karlsruhe in Germany in 2008 did not find any hallucinatory substances present and as much thujone as in modern absinthe.

However, you're not supposed to drink it neat, but mixed with water and sugar.   Each manufacturer of absinthe used a different amount of wormwood, so it's unsure how much thujone contributed to drunkenness, dreamy sensations or other symptoms.  Just how dangerous and how addictive absinthe actually was is a source of never-ending debate by historians, doctors and the generally curious.

Absinthe was a commonplace drink in Europe.  Other known absinthe drinkers include Henri Toulouse-Latrec, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur Rimbaud and the infamous "wickedest man in the world" Aleister Crowley.

Does absinthe cause an upsurge in creativity?  Probably not any more than any other kind of drug or alcoholic beverage.  Some art historians claim that absinthe hallucinations may explain some of Van Gogh's more bizarre paintings and his suicide.  Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle (I.B. Tauris; 2004) points out that absinthe wasn't as addictive as any other alcoholic drink.  Addictions were thought to be moral failures rather than chemical diseases, so the ban on absinthe seems a bit silly today. 

Image is "Still Life with Absinthe" by Van Gogh, oil on canvas, 1887.