Thursday, July 18, 2024

Madness and Genius

 


Vincent Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society
by Antonin Artaud

Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) was a French surrealist writer and actor. Artaud may be one of the most famous mad artists of the twentieth century. In this strange, short book, he writes about a mad artist of the nineteenth century: Vincent Van Gogh, who is (of course) much more famous than Artaud. 

Artaud’s view is that Van Gogh’s doctors, especially Dr. Gachet, were monsters who hated Van Gogh and did all they could to destroy his creativity. This experience Artaud says that he shared with Van Gogh — his own doctors in the asylums where he was confined also tried to convince him to renounce his madness, which he equates with his creativity. Madness and genius: the constant duo from the Romantic era returns with the iconoclastic surrealists. It’s a challenging book for a boringly sane person like me to read. 



Some Van Gogh Paintings Discussed by Artaud

Portrait of Dr. Gachet. Biographies of Van Gogh usually report a cordial relationship between
Van Gogh and the doctor. Artaud portrays this connection in a totally different light, clearly based
on his own personal experience with doctors who treated his mental illness.

“Wheatfield with Crows” — one of the last paintings by Van Gogh, painted just days before his suicide.
Artaud had seen Van Gogh's paintings at a major art exhibit in Paris in 1946.

“The Bedroom” — Van Gogh’s room in his home in Arles. One of three versions he made of this scene.

“Gauguin’s Chair” — Artaud was fascinated by the candle. He finds this painting more expressive
than all the famous tragedies written since the Greeks.

Artaud writes:

“The simple motif of a lit candlestick on a straw armchair with a purplish frame says much more in Van Gogh's creation than the whole series of Greek tragedies, or the dramas of Cyril Tourneur, Webster or Ford... . Without literature, I saw the figure of Van Gogh, red with blood in the explosion of his landscapes, come to me, KOHAN, TAVER, TINSUR, yet in a blaze, in a bombardment, in a burst, avengers of that millstone that poor, mad Van Gogh wore around his neck all his life. The millstone of painting without knowing why. For it's not for this world, it's never for this earth that we've all always worked, struggled, bellowed the horror of hunger, misery, hatred, scandal and disgust, that we've all been poisoned, although by them we've all been bewitched, and that we've finally committed suicide, for aren't we all, like poor Van Gogh himself, suicides of society!” (p. 26, edited translation by Deepl.)

I'm a fan of the Surrealist and Dadaist painters who worked in Paris in era between the two World Wars. Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, René Magritte, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Joan Miró, and others fascinate me. The Surrealist Manifesto by André Breton was the interesting call to creativity of that era, and it intrigues me. On the other hand, I've always found Artaud rather strange and unapproachable: in contrast, this essay on Van Gogh resonates with me.

Review © 2024 mae sander

 


11 comments:

  1. LOL, "boringly sane".
    When I was signed sick one doctor subscribed me a drug that I did not need and that really took me down.

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  2. I purchased a canvas copy of what I understood was the final pantiong by Van Gogh. When it came to me it was called Crows over the wheatfield. The first time I saw it, it caused a physical reaction. I could barely look at it for days. Now I can't imagine why it affected me so much. I've never seen the original, but would love to. I have quite a few Van Gogh paintings because he is probably my favorite artist. I'm not sure I agree with Artaud, but I sort of see his point.

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  3. I read a lot about van Gogh back in the day but am not familiar with Artaud. Thanks!

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  4. I'd never heard of Artaud. One of my favorite movies of all time is the movie about Van Gogh starring Kirk Douglas. What is it called...Lust For Life (1956)

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  5. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is Robert Pirsig's attempt to account for his bout with madness. The preferred treatment at that time was electroshock therapy. Pirsig looks on his former self with nostalgia, but he acknowledges that this former self, for all its wild creativity, couldn't continue in the rational world.

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  6. About the Kirk Douglas film: the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam presents quite a lot of information to try to correct the misinformation in the film and in the book it was based on. I was especially impressed by the evidence that Van Gogh was a very systematic and intentional painter, and studied techniques and composition.

    One quote from Wikipedia (which agrees with what I remember from the museum which I visited in 2022) —
    “It is commonly stated that [Wheatfield with Crows ] was van Gogh's final painting. This association was popularized by Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 biopic Lust for Life, which depicts van Gogh painting it immediately before shooting himself. His final painting in actuality was Tree Roots. The evidence of his letters suggests that Wheatfield with Crows was completed around 10 July and predates such paintings as Auvers Town Hall on 14 July 1890 and Daubigny's Garden.”

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  7. Combining art and food, my mother and I went on a Viking River Cruise about two years ago and went to Arles where we had a snack at one of the cafes Van Gogh painted!

    Thanks for visiting my blog. I used to spend a lot of time in Ann Arbor: I worked in publishing and Borders was my client for years. I flew in once a month from NYC and really enjoyed exploring the area. Then my company decided to save money by having someone in Michigan take over the account. I was annoyed but it made sense financially.

    Constance

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  8. Thanks, very interesting. I had forgotten about Artaud's interest in Van Gogh

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  9. Strange and unapproachable is pretty much how I felt about the one Artaud book I read. Interesting that you felt the same & then liked this one (which I'd never even heard of). I'll have to keep an eye out.

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  10. This book does sound interesting to me. True story -- my first play I worked on as a theatre student at MSU was doing props for some Artaud thing -- can't even remember the name of it. It was the weirdest thing a pretty innocent 18-year-old girl in the late 1960s had ever seen. I wouldn't even let my parents come -- I was afraid they'd make me drop my major!

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  11. Sounds like an interesting book. I do love that era of art so I find books like this intriguing.

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