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"My dear brother,
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"the painter's household with its great and petty vexations,
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"with its calamities,
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"with its sorrows and griefs,
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"it has a certain good will in its favour, a certain sincerity,
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"a certain genuinely human quality.
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"And I ask,
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"'What most makes me a human being?'
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"Zola says, 'I, an artist,
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"'I want to live life to the full,
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"'want to live without ulterior motive,
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"'naïve as a child... no, not as a child, as an artist,
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"'with good will.
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"'Just as life unfolds, so I will find something in it,
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"'so I'll do my best in it.'"
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There were a number of reasons why we felt
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a rehang, a new presentation of the permanent collection,
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was necessary.
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The previous presentation had some shortcomings,
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particularly with regards to the person of the artist.
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When we first started out,
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What is the importance of Van Gogh? Why is he still appealing to so many?
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What is it in his art that appeals to our emotions so much?
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What did he want to say with his art?
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Van Gogh is a phenomenon so when people enter the museum,
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they will already have an idea about Van Gogh.
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They probably will have
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his most important paintings in their heads
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or they know about his troubled life.
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So it's really a challenge for us
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to have them look beyond the sunflowers,
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to have them look beyond the suicide.
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We really hope
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that when they come here they will discover
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that the story is much more intricate
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and has a lot deeper meaning.
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I think the rehang makes it clear Van Gogh was not an isolated genius
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who just fell from heaven and just was.
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He was an artist who developed,
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who took lots of cues from the artistic world around him.
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He lived and worked in a context within a network of other artists.
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He exchanged ideas with them.
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He was inspired greatly by earlier generations of artists
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and, of course, subsequent generations were also inspired by him
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and we also want to show Van Gogh in that sort of continuum
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and really show
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what, on the one hand, made him an artist of his time
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and, on the other hand, also what makes him special
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with regards to the art and artists around him.
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The man and the artist are one. It's not two separate identities.
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So we do address some of the myths.
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We discuss his illness, what we know about it.
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We discuss his suicide.
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We give all the information we have assembled as an institution.
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It's not an illustrated diary that we are presenting here.
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It's the oeuvre of one of the greatest artists of all time.
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We put the focus back on the art
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by giving more attention to the myths as well.
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That sounds contradictory
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but I think it really helps in understanding
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what makes Van Gogh so important and special.
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Vincent's brother, Theo, was an art dealer in Paris
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and he supported Vincent all his life.
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So when Vincent died Theo owned over 450 paintings
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and many hundreds of drawings by Vincent.
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After the death of Vincent and Theo, and his mother as well,
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my grandfather inherited the entire collection.
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And in the '30s he decided to bring half of his collection
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to the municipal museum of art, the Stedelijk Museum, in Amsterdam.
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The other half he had in his home, hanging on the walls
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and in, as we say nowadays, a walk-in closet.
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200 paintings by Vincent van Gogh, 500 drawings
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and Vincent's letters to Theo
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and also many hundreds of contemporaries
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like Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard.
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And he had the idea, together with his mother,
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to keep the collection together
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and to get the collection accessible for everybody.
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The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam opened in 1973.
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After Theo's death
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his widow Jo started to read the letters
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Vincent wrote to his brother Theo.
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And while reading them
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she noticed they were of huge importance to art history
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because Vincent and Theo had a very close relationship,
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very intimate,
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and Vincent already wrote letters to his brother
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before he became an artist.
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And the last letter is dated five days before his death.
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So we know all about the development of Vincent as an artist,
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about his doubts, about his influences,
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about his relations with his peers, his contemporaries, everything.
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The letters are an enormous treasure for us
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because in the letters Van Gogh talks so much
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about his becoming an artist,
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what moved him, what inspired him.
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He refers to hundreds and hundreds of works of art,
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to literature, to music, to religion,
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all the sources of inspiration that he used.
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The letters are extremely well written so it is really a joy to read them
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in Dutch or in French, or in English even.
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He writes in various different languages depending on the correspondent
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and on the place where he writes them.
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And you really get a very comprehensive picture
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of who he was as a personality,
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his trials and tribulations, his joys and fears.
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In that sense the letters are an essential aspect
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of our understanding of Van Gogh the person
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and also of Van Gogh as an artist.
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We have so many works by Van Gogh.
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It's amazing. We have over 200 paintings.
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So you really can follow his development as an artist,
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as a person, his intentions,
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technique developing, materials.
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There is a lot to discover
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for us as researchers but also for the visitor.
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Being the Van Gogh Museum - that's what it says on the can -
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you expect when you enter to encounter Van Gogh.
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And we did that in a rather drastic way
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by presenting him just with a series of self-portraits,
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12 self-portraits in one room,
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so you really come eye to eye with Van Gogh.
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It has immediately a strong impact
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and then you enter the story.
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"My dear brother,
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"people say, and I'm quite willing to believe it,
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"that it's difficult to know oneself,
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"but it's not easy to paint oneself either.
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"Thus I'm working on two portraits of myself at the moment,
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"for want of another model,
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"because it's more than time that I did a bit of figure work."
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His face in itself, of course, is an icon.
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Everyone knows his face.
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Maybe they figure there might be an ear missing,
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but of course there's not.
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For him in the first place they were just practice.
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But it's also a sort of artistic and maybe even psychological research.
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I paint self-portraits and I know a lot of other artists who do.
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We do it because, for a start, the model is always there.
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He's for free.
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And the model doesn't mind too much
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if you take liberties and you're testing out something.
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You are not compromised
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by the need to get a likeness.
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You are at liberty to explore
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how you are going to use paint to shape a face
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and to communicate character and feeling
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as well as reproduce the geography
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of a human physiognomy.
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Because it's potential for him to explore
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stylistically what he wants to do
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and because capturing a human presence on canvas
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is a great achievement.
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Those are the paintings in any gallery, I think...
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It's the faces people instinctively look towards
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because we are always programmed to be looking for other people.
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I don't think you could surmise that by painting himself
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he was engrossed in the idea of his own identity
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or the trauma that we might imagine he was exploring about himself.
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I think he was just painting the model that he knew best.
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It's a bit funny to talk about "Van Gogh"
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because actually he wanted to be named as "Vincent"
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and we know him as "Van Gogh".
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But he signed his pictures all with "Vincent",
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partly because he didn't like the family name,
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partly, perhaps, this is also a tradition with great masters.
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Rembrandt is also a first name.
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Van Gogh had the personality of a driven man, a man obsessed,
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somebody who wanted to achieve something in life.
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Partly that had something to do with his character.
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He was a man who had emotions, strong emotions.
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If you were to go out with him to the pub,
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you would have, within five or ten minutes,
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not fighting but perhaps fighting in words
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because he would immediately try to convince you of his opinions.
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The testimonies we have of his parents, for instance,
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say that from early on, when he was still a kid,
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there was always something with him.
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It also had to do with his mood. He could easily change moods.
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Even also in later life we have testimony
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of the Zouave lieutenant in Arles in 1888.
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He remembered afterwards
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that in fact he was quite a gentleman and a soft man as well,
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an interesting man,
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but he could suddenly change his mood just like that.
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Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853
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in the rural Dutch village of Zundert, near the border with Belgium.
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He was the eldest son in a family of six children
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and his father was the local Protestant preacher.
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Vincent attended a boarding school
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where he was well educated, learning several languages.
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From an early age Vincent loved nature
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and being surrounded by the natural world.
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He would often go on long walks,
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exploring the rural landscape around him.
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He also loved to read
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and this was the normal thing in the 19th century.
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If you belonged to the middle class, you read.
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Especially in a Protestant family where the word is very important,
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you read.
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So the whole family read books, like we watch television nowadays.
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But in the case of the Van Goghs this really grew into,
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"You have to read to develop yourself and to learn about yourself."
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And that's what he did.
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Vincent's father decided that his eldest son should be
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an apprentice at Goupil & Cie,
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an art dealership partly founded by Van Gogh's uncle,
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also called Vincent.
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Goupil was a very big firm
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with showrooms and offices across Europe.
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During this period Vincent became exposed to the art market,
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visiting many galleries and museums.
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He was quick to formulate opinions on what appealed to him.
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He started communicating his thoughts through letters with his family,
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and particularly with his younger brother, Theo,
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who had also joined Goupil.
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"My dear Theo,
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"I saw from your letter that you have art in your blood
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"and that's a good thing, old chap.
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"Find things beautiful as much as you can.
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"Most people find too little beautiful.
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"Always continue walking a lot and loving nature
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"for that's the real way to understand art better and better.
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"Painters understand nature and love it
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"and teach us to see.
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"Have I already told you that I've taken up pipe-smoking again?
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"I've rediscovered in my pipe an old, trusty friend
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"and I imagine we'll never part again."
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Vincent was transferred to Goupil's offices in London.
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He moved into lodgings in Brixton, south London,
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and spent his time reading, taking long walks
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and visiting museums.
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Vincent became increasingly disillusioned with his work
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but found solace in reading and writing, particularly religious texts.
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You have to keep in mind
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that London was the biggest city of all Europe at the time
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with all the negative and maybe also the positive sides of such a city.
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But I think Van Gogh was mainly impressed by the negative sides of it,
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so a lot of people who were poor,
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and this was already at the time being recognised
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as the great problem of the age, of that particular period.
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The Van Gogh that we know was being born in London
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because he simply realised at the time that he had to look for something else.
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He liked art
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but I don't think he liked what he was doing within the firm.
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In 1875
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Vincent was transferred to Goupil's head office in Paris
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to improve a lacklustre attitude to his work.
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The plan failed and Vincent left Goupil & Cie,
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having decided his path lay with helping the disadvantaged.
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He travelled back to England
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to take up a poorly rewarded teaching position
255
00:18:03,996 --> 00:18:07,557
at a boys' school in the coastal town of Ramsgate.
256
00:18:09,676 --> 00:18:11,316
"My dear Theo,
257
00:18:11,436 --> 00:18:14,196
"herewith a little drawing of the view from the school window
258
00:18:14,316 --> 00:18:18,716
"where the boys watch their parents going back to the station after a visit.
259
00:18:18,836 --> 00:18:21,476
"Many a boy will never forget the view from that window."
260
00:18:22,916 --> 00:18:25,436
After a few months Vincent took up a post
261
00:18:25,556 --> 00:18:27,836
as a supply teacher and apprentice preacher
262
00:18:27,956 --> 00:18:31,676
in Isleworth, a poor suburb on the outskirts of London.
263
00:18:31,796 --> 00:18:35,996
While he worked fervently, writing sermons and rhetorical texts,
264
00:18:36,116 --> 00:18:39,956
he also read books about pathos and the human condition,
265
00:18:40,076 --> 00:18:43,875
writers like Dickens, Shakespeare and Hugo.
266
00:18:45,035 --> 00:18:46,755
No matter the sacrifice,
267
00:18:46,875 --> 00:18:48,915
Vincent's whole purpose in life
268
00:18:49,035 --> 00:18:51,835
was focused on evangelising to the poor.
269
00:18:53,275 --> 00:18:54,915
"My dear Theo,
270
00:18:55,035 --> 00:18:57,555
"not a day goes by without praying to God
271
00:18:57,675 --> 00:19:00,595
"and without speaking of God,
272
00:19:00,715 --> 00:19:03,955
"not only praying but also admitting to it,
273
00:19:04,075 --> 00:19:06,874
"not only speaking but also holding fast to prayer.
274
00:19:08,194 --> 00:19:11,354
"O Lord, join us intimately to one another
275
00:19:11,474 --> 00:19:15,394
"and let our love for Thee make that bond ever stronger."
276
00:19:17,673 --> 00:19:20,474
After returning home that year for Christmas,
277
00:19:20,594 --> 00:19:23,553
Vincent's parents prevented him from going back to London
278
00:19:23,673 --> 00:19:25,713
out of concern for his health.
279
00:19:25,833 --> 00:19:29,034
But the seed of religious conviction had been sown.
280
00:19:29,154 --> 00:19:32,953
Vincent was determined to follow his religious vocation
281
00:19:33,073 --> 00:19:35,873
and started studying for the theology entrance exams
282
00:19:35,993 --> 00:19:37,113
in Amsterdam.
283
00:19:37,233 --> 00:19:40,393
But he found the academic demands overwhelming.
284
00:19:40,513 --> 00:19:43,472
He gave up and returned home.
285
00:19:46,112 --> 00:19:49,712
He wanted to do something with religion and wanted to preach.
286
00:19:49,832 --> 00:19:53,993
And he thought, "Well, you don't need an academic degree to be a minister.
287
00:19:54,113 --> 00:19:57,552
"If you know the Gospel very well, by heart," like he almost did,
288
00:19:57,672 --> 00:19:59,352
"and you care for people,
289
00:19:59,472 --> 00:20:01,832
"then you can also preach the word of God."
290
00:20:01,952 --> 00:20:05,352
He decided, or it was more or less decided within the family,
291
00:20:05,472 --> 00:20:09,151
that he would go on a short course in Brussels
292
00:20:09,271 --> 00:20:12,151
for the Protestant church
293
00:20:12,271 --> 00:20:15,151
to be trained as a preacher, an evangelist,
294
00:20:15,271 --> 00:20:18,511
and after that he decided to go to the Borinage
295
00:20:18,631 --> 00:20:21,592
which was a difficult region in the south of Belgium,
296
00:20:21,712 --> 00:20:24,591
French-speaking, but with a heavy accent,
297
00:20:24,711 --> 00:20:27,031
quite difficult to understand in the beginning,
298
00:20:27,151 --> 00:20:29,031
as he said in his letters.
299
00:20:29,151 --> 00:20:32,031
But he wanted to be there. It was mining country.
300
00:20:40,590 --> 00:20:42,790
"My dear Theo,
301
00:20:42,910 --> 00:20:46,431
"one of the oldest and most dangerous mines in the area no less
302
00:20:46,551 --> 00:20:49,070
"is called Marcasse.
303
00:20:49,190 --> 00:20:52,790
"This mine has a bad name because many die in it,
304
00:20:52,910 --> 00:20:55,590
"whether going down or coming up,
305
00:20:55,710 --> 00:20:57,749
"or by suffocation or gas exploding,
306
00:20:57,869 --> 00:21:00,509
"or because of water in the ground,
307
00:21:00,629 --> 00:21:04,469
"or because of old passageways caving in and so on.
308
00:21:05,870 --> 00:21:08,429
"It's a sombre place.
309
00:21:08,549 --> 00:21:10,430
"At first sight everything around it
310
00:21:10,550 --> 00:21:13,909
"has something dismal and deathly about it.
311
00:21:14,669 --> 00:21:18,269
"The workers there are usually people emaciated and pale,
312
00:21:18,389 --> 00:21:19,989
"owing to fever,
313
00:21:20,109 --> 00:21:25,309
"who look exhausted and haggard, weather-beaten and prematurely old.
314
00:21:34,468 --> 00:21:37,628
"The women are generally sallow and withered.
315
00:21:39,468 --> 00:21:41,708
"All around the mine are poor miners' dwellings
316
00:21:41,828 --> 00:21:46,188
"with a couple of dead trees, completely black from the smoke,
317
00:21:46,308 --> 00:21:50,468
"and thorn hedges, dung heaps and rubbish dumps,
318
00:21:50,588 --> 00:21:53,228
"mountains of unusable coal.
319
00:21:54,307 --> 00:21:58,788
"Later I'll try and make a sketch of it to give you an idea of it."
320
00:22:02,507 --> 00:22:05,627
This is one of the earliest drawings that we have in the collection.
321
00:22:05,747 --> 00:22:08,947
It's from 1879
322
00:22:09,067 --> 00:22:12,866
when Van Gogh was staying in Belgium in the Borinage in the mining region.
323
00:22:13,586 --> 00:22:16,946
What we see here is a coal mine
324
00:22:17,066 --> 00:22:19,626
with a little person standing here
325
00:22:19,746 --> 00:22:23,186
and some kind of animal in the field.
326
00:22:23,306 --> 00:22:25,386
It's a bit naïve.
327
00:22:25,506 --> 00:22:27,026
It's not yet as developed
328
00:22:27,146 --> 00:22:30,706
as when he was really starting out as a draughtsman.
329
00:22:30,826 --> 00:22:36,546
He's experimenting with pencil and watercolour
330
00:22:36,666 --> 00:22:40,426
but this was before he decided to become an artist.
331
00:22:40,546 --> 00:22:45,185
It's quite interesting to see that he's put little colour notations in the drawing,
332
00:22:45,305 --> 00:22:48,826
so probably he made the drawing on the spot
333
00:22:48,946 --> 00:22:51,665
and then finished it at home
334
00:22:51,785 --> 00:22:53,825
or added the watercolour at home.
335
00:22:53,945 --> 00:22:57,545
So, for example, here we can see "vert jaune",
336
00:22:57,665 --> 00:23:01,025
which is green yellow,
337
00:23:01,145 --> 00:23:04,185
"clair", which is bright, and here "rose".
338
00:23:04,305 --> 00:23:09,904
He put those notations in order to know how he should fill in the colours later.
339
00:23:14,344 --> 00:23:17,664
Vincent's time in the Borinage village of Petit-Wasmes
340
00:23:17,784 --> 00:23:23,104
was full of self-sacrifice and dedication to the small mining community.
341
00:23:23,224 --> 00:23:27,304
But after six months he lost his position as an evangelist,
342
00:23:27,424 --> 00:23:30,704
largely due to his poor skills at delivering sermons,
343
00:23:30,824 --> 00:23:35,063
which were often very long and full of biblical rhetoric.
344
00:23:36,743 --> 00:23:39,224
Vincent moved to the neighbouring village of Cuesmes
345
00:23:39,344 --> 00:23:41,663
where he found new lodgings.
346
00:23:43,063 --> 00:23:47,503
From that moment on, almost for a year, we don't know what he actually did.
347
00:23:47,623 --> 00:23:50,223
He didn't write any letters any more to his brother Theo.
348
00:23:50,343 --> 00:23:54,303
We have some letters from his parents to Theo where they talk about Vincent
349
00:23:54,423 --> 00:23:58,183
and they only have concern about him and what he's going to do with his life.
350
00:23:58,863 --> 00:24:01,582
When Theo and Vincent started writing to each other again,
351
00:24:01,702 --> 00:24:06,742
Vincent's despair and wretched situation were all too apparent.
352
00:24:07,382 --> 00:24:10,742
Theo was now working in the Paris office of Goupil & Cie
353
00:24:10,862 --> 00:24:12,822
and he thought it might help his brother
354
00:24:12,942 --> 00:24:16,821
if he considered a new path as an artist.
355
00:24:16,941 --> 00:24:18,501
It must have triggered something.
356
00:24:18,621 --> 00:24:21,062
"OK, I've been drawing already for quite some time.
357
00:24:21,182 --> 00:24:24,421
"It's not much. I'm not very confident of becoming an artist.
358
00:24:24,541 --> 00:24:26,461
"I probably lack the talent."
359
00:24:26,581 --> 00:24:29,341
But he set himself to this course
360
00:24:29,461 --> 00:24:31,701
and the next letter we have,
361
00:24:31,821 --> 00:24:33,821
from that letter onwards
362
00:24:33,941 --> 00:24:37,061
it's only about art and becoming an artist.
363
00:24:38,501 --> 00:24:39,581
"Dear Theo,
364
00:24:39,701 --> 00:24:42,740
"you should know that I'm sketching large drawings after Millet.
365
00:24:42,860 --> 00:24:46,940
"I've done the four times of the day as well as the sower.
366
00:24:47,060 --> 00:24:50,580
"Despite the fact that every day new difficulties present themselves
367
00:24:50,700 --> 00:24:53,220
"and will continue to present themselves,
368
00:24:53,340 --> 00:24:57,460
"I couldn't tell you how happy I feel to have taken up drawing again.
369
00:24:57,580 --> 00:25:00,300
"It had already been on my mind for a long time
370
00:25:00,420 --> 00:25:03,820
"but I always saw the thing as impossible and beyond my reach.
371
00:25:03,940 --> 00:25:08,340
"But now, while feeling both my weakness and my painful dependence
372
00:25:08,460 --> 00:25:10,219
"in respect of many things,
373
00:25:10,339 --> 00:25:12,300
"I have recovered my peace of mind
374
00:25:12,420 --> 00:25:15,779
"and my energy is coming back, day by day."
375
00:25:20,179 --> 00:25:23,779
Catholics, when they want to become worthy of God,
376
00:25:23,899 --> 00:25:26,579
they go to the cloisters and they pray.
377
00:25:26,699 --> 00:25:30,619
Protestants want to be worthy of God as well, but they do not pray.
378
00:25:30,739 --> 00:25:33,819
They have this duty to show in their work
379
00:25:33,939 --> 00:25:35,538
that they are worthy of God.
380
00:25:35,658 --> 00:25:39,699
And how do they show that? By doing their work as well as possible.
381
00:25:39,819 --> 00:25:44,499
And that's how you get obsessed men. That's how you get driven men.
382
00:25:44,619 --> 00:25:46,098
That happened with Van Gogh.
383
00:25:46,218 --> 00:25:52,298
He was aware of the Protestant ethic from the moment he was born.
384
00:25:52,418 --> 00:25:56,378
He also had the idea that he had to find his way in life
385
00:25:56,498 --> 00:25:59,417
so he had to choose a certain kind of occupation.
386
00:25:59,537 --> 00:26:01,298
That's the Protestant ethic too.
387
00:26:01,418 --> 00:26:05,417
You have to find your position in life.
388
00:26:05,537 --> 00:26:10,737
He really believed that if you want to do something in life,
389
00:26:10,857 --> 00:26:13,577
it had to be small, not large.
390
00:26:13,697 --> 00:26:16,257
You didn't have to join a large institution.
391
00:26:16,377 --> 00:26:19,017
And what happened when he became an artist,
392
00:26:19,137 --> 00:26:22,257
he didn't want to go to the Academy
393
00:26:22,377 --> 00:26:25,216
because it wouldn't be authentic, it wouldn't be original.
394
00:26:25,336 --> 00:26:27,457
He really believed that he had to do it himself.
395
00:26:27,577 --> 00:26:31,736
So he went out in nature and simply started to draw,
396
00:26:31,856 --> 00:26:33,616
which I always find very fascinating
397
00:26:33,736 --> 00:26:37,456
because this is a nice way of starting.
398
00:26:37,576 --> 00:26:39,536
But that defined him as a man.
399
00:26:39,656 --> 00:26:43,016
And with somebody who really could not draw very well...
400
00:26:43,136 --> 00:26:45,816
He wasn't Degas, he wasn't Hockney.
401
00:26:45,936 --> 00:26:47,535
He had to conquer it.
402
00:26:47,655 --> 00:26:52,136
He really had to fight for it. And that's also what you see in his art.
403
00:26:53,216 --> 00:26:56,535
The Protestant work ethic also includes
404
00:26:56,655 --> 00:26:58,575
that you should not be rewarded
405
00:26:58,695 --> 00:27:02,655
because in the end it is God who is going to decide.
406
00:27:02,775 --> 00:27:05,415
You do not know whether you are rewarded or not.
407
00:27:05,535 --> 00:27:08,575
How you do it is simply to organise your work
408
00:27:08,695 --> 00:27:12,055
as economically and as healthily and as rationally as possible.
409
00:27:12,175 --> 00:27:14,935
That's the Protestant work ethic.
410
00:27:15,055 --> 00:27:18,894
So he's not a romantic genius who has inspirations.
411
00:27:19,014 --> 00:27:20,855
No, you simply do your work.
412
00:27:20,975 --> 00:27:23,934
And in terms of fame, of course you do not want it,
413
00:27:24,054 --> 00:27:25,694
of course you are not looking for it,
414
00:27:25,814 --> 00:27:29,094
because fame, to a certain extent, will spoil you.
415
00:27:48,733 --> 00:27:51,493
Van Gogh started as an artist in 1880.
416
00:27:51,613 --> 00:27:55,493
He was living in the Netherlands and stayed there for the next five years.
417
00:27:55,613 --> 00:27:58,893
So the first half of his career he spent in the Netherlands,
418
00:27:59,013 --> 00:28:00,573
what we call the Dutch period.
419
00:28:00,693 --> 00:28:02,933
He was moving around in the Netherlands.
420
00:28:03,053 --> 00:28:05,292
He was living in The Hague for a while
421
00:28:05,412 --> 00:28:07,332
where he took lessons with Anton Mauve,
422
00:28:07,452 --> 00:28:09,652
a well-known Hague School painter
423
00:28:09,772 --> 00:28:11,652
and he was also family of Van Gogh,
424
00:28:11,772 --> 00:28:15,852
so it was easy to get some training with this established artist.
425
00:28:15,972 --> 00:28:19,012
Van Gogh didn't take traditional schooling.
426
00:28:19,132 --> 00:28:22,052
He only went for a very brief period to the Academy
427
00:28:22,172 --> 00:28:23,772
when he started out as an artist
428
00:28:23,892 --> 00:28:29,332
and then decided that he would learn to be an artist by himself.
429
00:28:29,452 --> 00:28:31,451
He used a lot of handbooks
430
00:28:31,571 --> 00:28:34,451
and he looked at other artists intensely
431
00:28:34,571 --> 00:28:36,851
during these five years in Holland.
432
00:28:36,971 --> 00:28:40,211
We always tend to think Van Gogh was an avant-garde artist
433
00:28:40,331 --> 00:28:43,371
but, in fact, if you look at him, he was quite old-fashioned.
434
00:28:43,491 --> 00:28:46,531
Drawing remains the main thing for an artist.
435
00:28:46,651 --> 00:28:49,851
So he started that way; he started the traditional way
436
00:28:49,971 --> 00:28:51,850
of becoming an artist in the 19th century.
437
00:28:51,970 --> 00:28:53,770
You start with drawing.
438
00:28:53,890 --> 00:28:58,291
And you have to do a lot before you even take up your brush.
439
00:28:58,411 --> 00:29:01,210
For Van Gogh, I tend to think,
440
00:29:01,330 --> 00:29:04,891
the key to understanding his art is drawing.
441
00:29:05,011 --> 00:29:09,810
Van Gogh was already 27 when he decided to become an artist.
442
00:29:09,930 --> 00:29:13,450
He felt it was the biggest challenge for him
443
00:29:13,570 --> 00:29:15,490
to draw figures,
444
00:29:15,610 --> 00:29:17,490
and also a very important challenge
445
00:29:17,610 --> 00:29:21,969
because his first ambition was to become an illustrator of the press.
446
00:29:22,089 --> 00:29:24,889
So if you want to become an illustrator
447
00:29:25,009 --> 00:29:27,249
you need to know how to draw your figures.
448
00:29:27,369 --> 00:29:30,930
So that was the first thing he was really practising on.
449
00:29:31,050 --> 00:29:34,249
There were other things, like placing figures into perspective.
450
00:29:34,369 --> 00:29:37,489
He wasn't the biggest natural talent you would ever meet.
451
00:29:37,609 --> 00:29:40,009
He needed to learn a lot.
452
00:29:40,129 --> 00:29:43,448
He knew that he needed to learn a lot, so that helped.
453
00:29:43,568 --> 00:29:46,328
What strikes us most is,
454
00:29:46,448 --> 00:29:48,968
although there are a lot of shortcomings in his drawings
455
00:29:49,088 --> 00:29:53,048
and when you look at them rationally you can find a lot of things
456
00:29:53,168 --> 00:29:55,368
that are odd or maybe crude,
457
00:29:55,488 --> 00:29:58,568
there is also this very big expressiveness
458
00:29:58,688 --> 00:30:01,808
that strikes us and really impresses us with this artist
459
00:30:01,928 --> 00:30:03,688
even in the early years.
460
00:30:04,888 --> 00:30:07,848
Vincent had very large problems with perspective.
461
00:30:07,968 --> 00:30:11,407
He made use of a utensil in The Hague.
462
00:30:11,527 --> 00:30:14,927
He more or less developed it himself. It was partly also known from books.
463
00:30:15,047 --> 00:30:16,687
We call it a perspective frame.
464
00:30:18,287 --> 00:30:19,927
"My dear Theo,
465
00:30:20,047 --> 00:30:23,327
"the perpendicular and horizontal lines of the frame
466
00:30:23,447 --> 00:30:25,727
"together with the diagonals and the cross,
467
00:30:25,847 --> 00:30:28,367
"or otherwise a grid of squares,
468
00:30:28,487 --> 00:30:31,527
"provide a clear guide to some of the principal features
469
00:30:31,647 --> 00:30:34,287
"so that one can make a drawing with a firm hand,
470
00:30:34,407 --> 00:30:38,046
"setting out the broad outlines and proportions,
471
00:30:38,166 --> 00:30:39,846
"assuming, that is,
472
00:30:39,966 --> 00:30:42,526
"that one has a feeling for perspective
473
00:30:42,646 --> 00:30:45,726
"and an understanding of why and how perspective appears
474
00:30:45,846 --> 00:30:50,526
"to change the direction of lines and the size of masses and planes.
475
00:30:50,646 --> 00:30:53,726
"Without that the frame is little or no help
476
00:30:53,846 --> 00:30:57,446
"and makes your head spin when you look through it."
477
00:30:59,206 --> 00:31:02,126
Vincent kept working on his technique in The Hague,
478
00:31:02,246 --> 00:31:05,126
though finding willing models was proving hard.
479
00:31:06,086 --> 00:31:08,486
After setting up a studio in his lodgings,
480
00:31:08,606 --> 00:31:12,005
Vincent met a prostitute called Clasina Maria Hoornik,
481
00:31:12,125 --> 00:31:13,605
known as Sien,
482
00:31:13,725 --> 00:31:16,805
who was pregnant and living rough with a four-year old child.
483
00:31:17,645 --> 00:31:20,565
He decided to invite her to live with him.
484
00:31:20,685 --> 00:31:23,085
The arrangement was kept secret from the family
485
00:31:23,205 --> 00:31:27,844
as Vincent was using money sent by Theo to support them both.
486
00:31:27,964 --> 00:31:31,165
Vincent cared greatly for Sien and her children.
487
00:31:31,285 --> 00:31:33,404
They became part of his domestic life
488
00:31:33,524 --> 00:31:36,404
and the subject of many drawings and studies.
489
00:31:38,364 --> 00:31:40,564
It is an interesting question
490
00:31:40,684 --> 00:31:43,364
whether Van Gogh really had the capacity to love.
491
00:31:44,084 --> 00:31:45,684
He loved his brother.
492
00:31:45,804 --> 00:31:50,084
But also at the same time there was this goal in life
493
00:31:50,204 --> 00:31:52,404
that he was an obsessed man and he wanted to paint
494
00:31:52,524 --> 00:31:55,044
and he wanted to do something.
495
00:31:55,164 --> 00:31:57,084
And that isolated him
496
00:31:57,204 --> 00:32:00,243
from the normal conditions of a normal life.
497
00:32:01,563 --> 00:32:04,603
When the Vincent's relationship with Sien was discovered,
498
00:32:04,723 --> 00:32:08,243
his family, including Theo, put pressure on him to finish,
499
00:32:08,363 --> 00:32:13,403
which he did with great sadness after a long period of contemplation.
500
00:32:13,523 --> 00:32:14,642
He was 30
501
00:32:14,762 --> 00:32:19,403
and it was the first time he felt he had a family of his own to care for.
502
00:32:20,483 --> 00:32:22,002
Vincent left The Hague
503
00:32:22,122 --> 00:32:25,482
and travelled north to the flatlands of Drenthe.
504
00:32:25,602 --> 00:32:27,642
Here he lived a frugal life
505
00:32:27,762 --> 00:32:29,922
and captured the landscape on paper
506
00:32:30,042 --> 00:32:32,682
until he eventually moved back to the family home
507
00:32:32,802 --> 00:32:36,322
which was now located in the Dutch village of Nuenen.
508
00:32:56,121 --> 00:33:00,921
He was considered by locals as eccentric, a loner, strange,
509
00:33:01,041 --> 00:33:02,280
but nothing would deter him
510
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,321
from walking into the countryside with his artist's materials,
511
00:33:05,441 --> 00:33:08,721
endlessly attempting to capture rural life.
512
00:33:09,441 --> 00:33:14,920
It's interesting to see that he always had this crude, bold way of drawing.
513
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:18,200
In the beginning he was trying to fight against it
514
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:20,000
and then at some point he understood
515
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:26,159
that this expressiveness that kept pouring out of his chalk or his pencil
516
00:33:26,279 --> 00:33:29,519
was just his strongest asset in a sense.
517
00:33:29,639 --> 00:33:33,080
And he learned how to use it in a very strong way
518
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:37,599
so he could make his mark in drawing and being an artist.
519
00:33:37,719 --> 00:33:42,239
I think his marks in his drawings help him also to paint
520
00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:47,159
because he figures out what is his mark, what is his style.
521
00:33:48,199 --> 00:33:50,279
He had a talent, you might say,
522
00:33:50,399 --> 00:33:53,638
for a very broad approach of applying paint
523
00:33:53,758 --> 00:33:58,159
using big brushes, wide brushes,
524
00:33:58,279 --> 00:34:01,198
laying the paint on thick in general,
525
00:34:01,318 --> 00:34:02,758
trying to model with paint.
526
00:34:02,878 --> 00:34:06,038
In that he was quite different from many other painters at the time.
527
00:34:06,158 --> 00:34:10,038
His subject matter was very close to the School of Barbizon,
528
00:34:10,158 --> 00:34:12,358
so peasant life - he was in a peasant community.
529
00:34:12,478 --> 00:34:15,918
He adored some of the peasant painters from the School of Barbizon
530
00:34:16,038 --> 00:34:19,358
and he tried to be this peasant painter of Holland.
531
00:34:19,478 --> 00:34:22,677
The Barbizon School was a school of French painters.
532
00:34:22,797 --> 00:34:26,637
They lived and worked in Barbizon, just south of Paris.
533
00:34:26,757 --> 00:34:29,036
They were the first generation in the 19th century
534
00:34:29,157 --> 00:34:32,597
to work outdoors and to focus on nature and rural life.
535
00:34:32,717 --> 00:34:34,516
They left city life behind
536
00:34:34,637 --> 00:34:39,317
and their main theme became nature and peasant life.
537
00:34:39,437 --> 00:34:41,636
When Van Gogh started as an artist
538
00:34:41,755 --> 00:34:44,797
he admired the French landscape tradition greatly,
539
00:34:44,917 --> 00:34:48,556
especially as it was painted by Daubigny
540
00:34:48,677 --> 00:34:52,676
in a very personal, not sentimental but more realistic mood,
541
00:34:52,795 --> 00:34:55,716
but very personal and very free in his brush work.
542
00:34:55,835 --> 00:34:58,556
And this, of course, was also the ambition of Van Gogh
543
00:34:58,676 --> 00:35:00,036
when he started as an artist.
544
00:35:00,156 --> 00:35:02,636
So these French landscape painters,
545
00:35:02,756 --> 00:35:07,116
like Daubigny, like Millet, were his great models.
546
00:35:07,236 --> 00:35:09,516
One of the paintings that Van Gogh saw
547
00:35:09,636 --> 00:35:14,675
was a great painting of a tree by Dupré from the Mesdag Collection
548
00:35:14,795 --> 00:35:17,435
And Van Gogh describes it in one of his letters to Theo,
549
00:35:17,555 --> 00:35:19,876
saying it was one of the most beautiful things he saw
550
00:35:19,996 --> 00:35:22,355
at this exhibition of French landscape painting.
551
00:35:22,475 --> 00:35:25,875
It is a very large tree with a very tiny figure in the background
552
00:35:25,995 --> 00:35:29,795
and the whole tension between nature and human being
553
00:35:29,915 --> 00:35:33,474
was something that Van Gogh also really appreciated in the painting
554
00:35:33,594 --> 00:35:36,155
and he said it was like a portrait of a tree.
555
00:35:36,275 --> 00:35:39,754
This sentiment, the mood of nature, of landscape,
556
00:35:39,874 --> 00:35:44,634
was something that Van Gogh was trying to paint as well in his own works
557
00:35:44,754 --> 00:35:48,274
at the beginning when he was still in the Netherlands.
558
00:35:48,394 --> 00:35:51,594
So, looking at all these great French landscape painters,
559
00:35:51,714 --> 00:35:56,074
he tried to convey the same mood
560
00:35:56,194 --> 00:35:59,153
of human versus nature.
561
00:36:02,393 --> 00:36:03,593
"My dear Theo,
562
00:36:03,713 --> 00:36:05,993
"one would be wrong, to my mind,
563
00:36:06,113 --> 00:36:11,353
"to give a peasant painting a certain conventional smoothness.
564
00:36:11,473 --> 00:36:16,033
"If a peasant painting smells of bacon, smoke, potato steam,
565
00:36:16,153 --> 00:36:18,553
"fine, that's not unhealthy.
566
00:36:18,673 --> 00:36:21,832
"If a stable smells of manure,
567
00:36:21,952 --> 00:36:24,273
"very well, that's what a stable's for.
568
00:36:24,393 --> 00:36:27,592
"If the field has an odour of ripe wheat or potatoes
569
00:36:27,712 --> 00:36:31,153
"or of guano and manure
570
00:36:31,273 --> 00:36:34,832
"that's really healthy, particularly for city folk.
571
00:36:34,952 --> 00:36:38,632
"They get something useful out of paintings like this.
572
00:36:38,752 --> 00:36:42,032
"But a peasant painting mustn't become perfumed."
573
00:36:42,672 --> 00:36:44,552
He was really focusing very hard on this,
574
00:36:44,672 --> 00:36:48,471
reading about it, writing about it to Theo,
575
00:36:48,591 --> 00:36:52,311
by making a lot of studies of peasant heads, for example,
576
00:36:52,431 --> 00:36:56,832
and finally his most ambitious work, "The Potato Eaters".
577
00:37:14,270 --> 00:37:15,950
The play between light and dark,
578
00:37:16,070 --> 00:37:19,751
the chiaroscuro, is so important in this painting.
579
00:37:19,871 --> 00:37:26,231
It makes it, technically and stylistically, a very well-achieved painting.
580
00:37:26,350 --> 00:37:31,150
But also the motif, of course, for Van Gogh was really important.
581
00:37:31,270 --> 00:37:33,830
He wanted to become a peasant painter, but a modern one.
582
00:37:33,950 --> 00:37:36,910
He wanted to do something different than all his great models.
583
00:37:37,030 --> 00:37:44,470
Every artist wants to do something new and something of his own.
584
00:37:44,590 --> 00:37:48,709
This new way of presenting the peasant
585
00:37:48,829 --> 00:37:54,949
in a very stark and almost expressive manner
586
00:37:55,069 --> 00:37:56,669
was pretty radical.
587
00:37:57,309 --> 00:38:00,549
The people that you see are not happy or sad.
588
00:38:00,669 --> 00:38:03,989
They're just very tired from this intense work.
589
00:38:04,109 --> 00:38:08,668
For Van Gogh it was something beautiful that people worked hard.
590
00:38:08,788 --> 00:38:10,149
He worked hard himself.
591
00:38:10,269 --> 00:38:12,708
And, of course, that is also something religious.
592
00:38:12,828 --> 00:38:17,588
You work very hard and you will reap what you put in the ground.
593
00:38:17,708 --> 00:38:22,108
So it's also this symbolic meaning of the cycle of life
594
00:38:22,228 --> 00:38:25,748
and the peasant was closest to nature,
595
00:38:25,868 --> 00:38:28,148
more close than the city people
596
00:38:28,268 --> 00:38:31,588
or the modern man that rose in the 19th century
597
00:38:31,708 --> 00:38:34,427
because of industrialisation.
598
00:38:34,547 --> 00:38:39,707
He made all these different studies of the peasants in Nuenen
599
00:38:39,827 --> 00:38:43,227
to finally make this painting, 'The Potato Eaters'.
600
00:38:43,347 --> 00:38:47,267
It was something that he had in mind for a long time
601
00:38:47,387 --> 00:38:50,947
and he worked towards it by making drawings,
602
00:38:51,067 --> 00:38:54,027
making studies in colour, all kinds of things.
603
00:38:54,147 --> 00:38:56,827
It was a very ambitious painting
604
00:38:56,947 --> 00:38:59,746
because it's also a difficult painting to make.
605
00:38:59,866 --> 00:39:02,546
To make a group composition of several figures
606
00:39:02,666 --> 00:39:06,106
in a very small space
607
00:39:06,226 --> 00:39:10,786
was something that was artistically very difficult to achieve
608
00:39:10,906 --> 00:39:12,626
and then also put in all these details
609
00:39:12,746 --> 00:39:16,866
and make sure that the perspective is correct,
610
00:39:16,986 --> 00:39:19,746
that there is this relationship between the figures
611
00:39:19,866 --> 00:39:23,826
around the same table.
612
00:39:23,946 --> 00:39:28,065
We wanted to show the context, because it didn't come out of nothing.
613
00:39:28,185 --> 00:39:32,105
It was a strong tradition of these group compositions,
614
00:39:32,225 --> 00:39:35,905
especially peasant people or simple people.
615
00:39:36,025 --> 00:39:39,625
One is a peasant meal by Jozef Israëls,
616
00:39:39,745 --> 00:39:42,824
a painter that was called the 19th-century Rembrandt.
617
00:39:42,944 --> 00:39:46,145
He was really the biggest in the 19th century
618
00:39:46,265 --> 00:39:48,704
and a great example for Van Gogh as well.
619
00:39:49,344 --> 00:39:51,744
The other one is by Van Rappard.
620
00:39:51,864 --> 00:39:54,545
Anthon van Rappard was also a young artist
621
00:39:54,665 --> 00:39:57,224
and Van Gogh met him and they became friends.
622
00:39:57,344 --> 00:39:59,104
They exchanged a lot of letters
623
00:39:59,224 --> 00:40:01,904
but they also worked together for a while
624
00:40:02,024 --> 00:40:05,944
when they were in Nuenen and Van Rappard came to visit him.
625
00:40:06,064 --> 00:40:10,144
For example, they did a campaign together of weavers in their interiors,
626
00:40:10,264 --> 00:40:11,904
weaving at their looms.
627
00:40:12,024 --> 00:40:17,704
So Van Rappard was really his strongest connection at the time.
628
00:40:17,824 --> 00:40:20,983
Their friendship and their correspondence reveals a lot
629
00:40:21,103 --> 00:40:23,983
about Van Gogh's own ambitions and ideas at that time.
630
00:40:26,103 --> 00:40:30,822
Vincent believed 'The Potato Eaters' to be his greatest accomplishment so far
631
00:40:30,942 --> 00:40:33,623
and showed it to both Theo and Van Rappard
632
00:40:33,743 --> 00:40:36,822
but was met with an unenthusiastic response from Theo
633
00:40:36,942 --> 00:40:39,742
and harsh criticism from Van Rappard.
634
00:40:39,862 --> 00:40:42,382
Infuriated, he headed for Antwerp
635
00:40:42,502 --> 00:40:46,542
to explore new ideas and seek academic training.
636
00:41:14,181 --> 00:41:18,901
In Antwerp he went to the museums. He discovered Rubens, for instance,
637
00:41:19,021 --> 00:41:21,940
the beautiful colours of Rubens and the brushwork of Rubens.
638
00:41:22,060 --> 00:41:23,500
From now on when he looked at art
639
00:41:23,620 --> 00:41:26,061
he would always look at how these paintings were made.
640
00:41:26,181 --> 00:41:28,220
Before he was a painter he would go to a museum
641
00:41:28,340 --> 00:41:31,340
and only talk about the images he saw and the sentiment it gave,
642
00:41:31,460 --> 00:41:33,901
but now he would only talk about how they were made,
643
00:41:34,021 --> 00:41:37,260
so he wanted to learn something there from the old masters.
644
00:41:39,340 --> 00:41:43,340
Vincent enrolled at the Academy for drawing and painting classes,
645
00:41:43,460 --> 00:41:46,779
but once again he failed to impress the academic staff
646
00:41:46,899 --> 00:41:49,140
with his radical approach.
647
00:41:58,539 --> 00:42:02,139
After a short time in Antwerp, he decided to head for Paris
648
00:42:02,259 --> 00:42:07,339
to be with his brother and search out new inspiration.
649
00:42:07,459 --> 00:42:09,099
"My dear Theo,
650
00:42:09,219 --> 00:42:12,179
"don't be cross with me that I've come all of a sudden.
651
00:42:12,299 --> 00:42:16,058
"I've thought about it so much and I think we'll save time this way.
652
00:42:16,178 --> 00:42:18,578
"Will be at the Louvre from midday,
653
00:42:18,698 --> 00:42:20,579
"or earlier if you like.
654
00:42:20,699 --> 00:42:22,338
"A reply, please,
655
00:42:22,458 --> 00:42:25,139
"to let me know when you could come to the Salle Carrée.
656
00:42:25,259 --> 00:42:28,098
"We'll sort things out, you'll see,
657
00:42:28,218 --> 00:42:30,178
"so get there as soon as possible.
658
00:42:30,298 --> 00:42:34,338
"I shake your hand. Yours truly, Vincent."
659
00:43:01,337 --> 00:43:03,177
In the late 19th century
660
00:43:03,297 --> 00:43:05,657
Paris was the centre of modern art
661
00:43:05,777 --> 00:43:09,096
and Montmartre was the centre of artistic freedom.
662
00:43:09,216 --> 00:43:11,656
The establishment lived elsewhere
663
00:43:11,776 --> 00:43:14,937
but the hill of Montmartre was the place for young artists
664
00:43:15,057 --> 00:43:17,216
and radical thought.
665
00:43:17,336 --> 00:43:20,256
Vincent not only moved there to be closer to Theo,
666
00:43:20,376 --> 00:43:22,616
an increasingly successful art dealer,
667
00:43:22,736 --> 00:43:26,015
but also to involve himself with a like-minded community
668
00:43:26,135 --> 00:43:29,456
that thrived in this multitude of colourful bars,
669
00:43:29,576 --> 00:43:32,536
burlesque theatres and bohemian cafés.
670
00:43:33,536 --> 00:43:36,536
On arrival in Paris Vincent attended classes
671
00:43:36,656 --> 00:43:40,736
at the studio of a well-known painter called Fernand Cormon.
672
00:43:40,856 --> 00:43:43,375
Young artists were left to work in groups,
673
00:43:43,495 --> 00:43:47,535
receiving advice once in a while from the established Cormon.
674
00:43:47,655 --> 00:43:50,895
Although Vincent was disappointed with the level of tuition,
675
00:43:51,015 --> 00:43:54,574
his time at the studio introduced him to other young artists
676
00:43:56,815 --> 00:43:58,774
Émile Bernard, John Russell
677
00:43:58,894 --> 00:44:00,694
and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec,
678
00:44:00,814 --> 00:44:03,854
who introduced him to the hedonistic world of Montmartre
679
00:44:03,974 --> 00:44:07,894
and engaged him in the artistic dialogue he craved so much.
680
00:44:10,734 --> 00:44:13,894
And those were really young, radical artists
681
00:44:14,014 --> 00:44:15,414
who wanted to change art.
682
00:44:15,534 --> 00:44:18,054
They wanted to do something radically new.
683
00:44:18,174 --> 00:44:20,373
The Impressionists, like Monet and Pissarro,
684
00:44:20,493 --> 00:44:24,493
were already more or less established by the time that Van Gogh arrived.
685
00:44:24,613 --> 00:44:27,133
Their heydays were in the 1870s
686
00:44:27,253 --> 00:44:31,013
so there was this new generation of young men
687
00:44:31,133 --> 00:44:34,093
who wanted to change and revolutionise the art world.
688
00:44:34,213 --> 00:44:37,213
Van Gogh became one of them
689
00:44:37,333 --> 00:44:41,213
and he was fighting with them
690
00:44:41,333 --> 00:44:45,373
to do something radical and to do something very new.
691
00:44:48,012 --> 00:44:50,292
"Because I've always worked from nature,
692
00:44:50,412 --> 00:44:52,332
"I may be more daring than many others
693
00:44:52,452 --> 00:44:55,772
"in dashing things off and tackling a group of things.
694
00:44:55,892 --> 00:44:59,252
"But the others will most likely have more knowledge of the nude
695
00:44:59,372 --> 00:45:02,252
"for which I haven't had so much opportunity.
696
00:45:02,372 --> 00:45:04,652
"If I make up for that, the sooner the better,
697
00:45:04,772 --> 00:45:07,092
"the more benefit I'll get from Cormon.
698
00:45:07,972 --> 00:45:09,652
"Moreover, my health.
699
00:45:09,772 --> 00:45:12,931
"When I paint outdoors I don't eat
700
00:45:13,051 --> 00:45:16,492
"and I won't overcome it for I keep relapsing.
701
00:45:16,612 --> 00:45:19,771
"My constitution is still far from strong."
702
00:45:36,531 --> 00:45:39,411
Shortly after Vincent arrived in Paris
703
00:45:39,531 --> 00:45:42,291
the brothers moved to a larger apartment,
704
00:45:42,411 --> 00:45:44,451
54 Rue Lepic.
705
00:45:44,571 --> 00:45:48,690
Van Gogh had a small room there which he used as a studio
706
00:45:48,810 --> 00:45:51,690
and went outside to paint.
707
00:45:51,810 --> 00:45:55,930
He would just set up his easel and paint the landscape
708
00:45:56,050 --> 00:45:59,210
which was still quite rural in Montmartre.
709
00:45:59,330 --> 00:46:04,730
On the hill there were mills and allotments, little gardens,
710
00:46:04,850 --> 00:46:08,090
not yet as many apartment buildings as there are today.
711
00:46:08,210 --> 00:46:11,849
So he was basically painting everything
712
00:46:14,009 --> 00:46:16,809
street scenes, the view from his window,
713
00:46:16,929 --> 00:46:21,369
but also still-lifes in his studio when he couldn't go outside to paint,
714
00:46:21,489 --> 00:46:22,849
and the many self-portraits
715
00:46:22,969 --> 00:46:27,289
of which we have several on view here in the museum.
716
00:47:11,647 --> 00:47:15,167
'Garden with Courting Couples' is a very important painting.
717
00:47:15,287 --> 00:47:19,127
It really summarises the ambitions
718
00:47:19,247 --> 00:47:22,286
that Van Gogh had at that moment in Paris.
719
00:47:22,406 --> 00:47:28,806
He wanted to represent a modern subject in a modern way
720
00:47:28,926 --> 00:47:32,926
and he used a kind of impressionist, pointillist style
721
00:47:33,046 --> 00:47:37,285
which was much freer than the Pointillists would have used.
722
00:47:37,405 --> 00:47:41,166
We can see how he used complementary colours
723
00:47:41,286 --> 00:47:45,565
in order to have the very forceful contrast
724
00:47:45,685 --> 00:47:50,725
and how he expressed an emotional subject
725
00:47:50,845 --> 00:47:53,445
because of these courting couples.
726
00:47:53,565 --> 00:47:57,525
It's also this idea of representing love
727
00:47:57,645 --> 00:47:59,605
as a very timeless subject
728
00:47:59,724 --> 00:48:02,244
but in a completely new, modern way.
729
00:48:02,364 --> 00:48:05,124
Van Gogh was very satisfied with this picture
730
00:48:05,244 --> 00:48:08,805
and chose to exhibit it at the first exhibition
731
00:48:08,925 --> 00:48:12,244
that he was invited to exhibit in
732
00:48:12,364 --> 00:48:15,004
which was in 1888 in Paris.
733
00:48:16,284 --> 00:48:18,324
He was looking at what other people did
734
00:48:18,444 --> 00:48:22,004
but at the same time doing completely his own thing
735
00:48:22,124 --> 00:48:26,483
and this painting is an important step in finding his own style
736
00:48:26,603 --> 00:48:30,844
which we will see more in the period after Paris.
737
00:48:33,284 --> 00:48:34,844
It's impossible to understand
738
00:48:34,964 --> 00:48:38,883
what happened to Van Gogh's palette and technique when he moved to Paris
739
00:48:39,003 --> 00:48:41,723
without seeing the context that he worked in.
740
00:48:41,843 --> 00:48:47,043
It was such a great change from what he was doing in Holland.
741
00:48:47,163 --> 00:48:51,163
Of course it didn't happen overnight but it went really quickly.
742
00:48:51,283 --> 00:48:55,243
And in that time his colour changed dramatically.
743
00:48:55,363 --> 00:48:57,682
It became very bright and very pure.
744
00:48:57,802 --> 00:49:02,443
He used pure colours in his paintings. His brushstroke changed.
745
00:49:02,563 --> 00:49:06,162
He was very much influenced by the Pointillists
746
00:49:06,282 --> 00:49:09,602
who were painting in short stripes and dots.
747
00:49:23,202 --> 00:49:26,961
The woman that we see on the portrait is Agostina Segatori.
748
00:49:27,081 --> 00:49:29,761
She was the owner of a bar in Montmartre
749
00:49:29,881 --> 00:49:31,481
which was called Le Tambourin,
750
00:49:31,601 --> 00:49:34,041
a bar where artists frequently came.
751
00:49:34,161 --> 00:49:38,521
And Van Gogh at some point had a relationship with Agostina
752
00:49:38,641 --> 00:49:41,561
and he also exhibited in her bar.
753
00:49:41,681 --> 00:49:44,641
He hung his own paintings on the wall
754
00:49:44,761 --> 00:49:49,160
and he even organised an exhibition of Japanese prints from his collection.
755
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:52,560
She is portrayed as a free, independent woman.
756
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:54,281
She is smoking, she is drinking,
757
00:49:54,401 --> 00:49:58,760
which women from the upper classes wouldn't be doing.
758
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:02,240
This was more the case with women from artistic circles.
759
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:06,199
This was also the last relationship that he would have with a woman
760
00:50:06,319 --> 00:50:10,399
because afterwards there would only be visits to the brothels
761
00:50:10,519 --> 00:50:14,039
and no girlfriends in his life anymore.
762
00:50:14,959 --> 00:50:16,879
The portrait of Agostina Segatori
763
00:50:16,999 --> 00:50:20,080
is hanging next to a portrait by Toulouse-Lautrec
764
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:25,199
painted at the same time, in the same year actually, 1887.
765
00:50:25,319 --> 00:50:28,159
And we have hung those two paintings together
766
00:50:28,279 --> 00:50:31,158
because they show a similar subject,
767
00:50:31,278 --> 00:50:33,279
a similar composition,
768
00:50:33,399 --> 00:50:35,079
of a woman sitting at a café table,
769
00:50:35,199 --> 00:50:39,159
which was again a very modern subject at the time.
770
00:50:39,279 --> 00:50:41,439
Vincent experimented with his own style.
771
00:50:41,559 --> 00:50:43,518
He came from Nuenen and Antwerp
772
00:50:43,638 --> 00:50:46,078
and in the beginning in Paris he experimented,
773
00:50:46,198 --> 00:50:51,078
especially with expressionistic brushwork, laying the paint on quite thickly.
774
00:50:51,198 --> 00:50:53,878
Lautrec, on the other hand, painted quite lightly
775
00:50:53,998 --> 00:50:57,317
and he would dilute his paints so they became very fluid
776
00:50:57,437 --> 00:50:59,918
and with very small brushes
777
00:51:00,038 --> 00:51:03,878
he would work up, with small brushstrokes, his paintings.
778
00:51:04,757 --> 00:51:08,678
Another important thing he discovered in Paris were Japanese prints.
779
00:51:08,798 --> 00:51:12,837
There was this rage for Japanese art in Paris at that time.
780
00:51:12,957 --> 00:51:16,397
Some of his artworks are direct translations of these prints.
781
00:51:16,517 --> 00:51:19,917
He really copied them in colour in his own way.
782
00:51:20,037 --> 00:51:23,476
But also the way that they made cropped compositions
783
00:51:23,596 --> 00:51:26,476
or they used a very stark perspective
784
00:51:26,596 --> 00:51:29,756
is also reflected in Van Gogh's art.
785
00:51:29,876 --> 00:51:33,397
Paris was too overwhelming in the end for Van Gogh.
786
00:51:33,517 --> 00:51:37,516
There was too much visual noise, too much going on.
787
00:51:37,636 --> 00:51:39,796
He needed to step away from it all
788
00:51:39,916 --> 00:51:46,076
and to be physically removed from this centre of the world
789
00:51:46,196 --> 00:51:48,356
so he decided to leave.
790
00:51:52,116 --> 00:51:54,595
He longed for a warmer climate
791
00:51:54,715 --> 00:51:58,515
and he was also anxious to discover the colours of the south,
792
00:51:58,635 --> 00:52:04,075
the strong light and the effect that would have on the countryside,
793
00:52:04,195 --> 00:52:09,115
on the landscape such as the land that he knew from the Japanese prints.
794
00:52:09,235 --> 00:52:14,555
So when he arrived in Arles he was hoping to find a new utopia.
795
00:52:48,514 --> 00:52:50,353
"My dear Theo,
796
00:52:50,473 --> 00:52:53,353
"during the journey I thought at least as much about you
797
00:52:53,473 --> 00:52:56,433
"as about the new country I was seeing.
798
00:52:56,553 --> 00:53:01,433
"But I tell myself that you'll perhaps come here as often yourself later on.
799
00:53:01,553 --> 00:53:05,633
"It seems to me almost impossible to be able to work in Paris
800
00:53:05,753 --> 00:53:08,032
"unless you have a refuge in which to recover
801
00:53:08,152 --> 00:53:11,272
"and regain your peace of mind and self-composure.
802
00:53:11,392 --> 00:53:14,952
"Without that you'd be bound to get utterly numbed.
803
00:53:15,072 --> 00:53:18,712
"Arles doesn't seem any bigger than Breda or Mons to me.
804
00:53:18,832 --> 00:53:23,032
"Before reaching Tarascon I noticed some magnificent scenery.
805
00:53:23,152 --> 00:53:24,992
"Huge yellow rocks,
806
00:53:25,112 --> 00:53:29,432
"oddly jumbled together with the most imposing shapes.
807
00:53:30,592 --> 00:53:32,711
"In the small valleys between these rocks
808
00:53:32,831 --> 00:53:34,671
"there were rows of little round trees
809
00:53:34,791 --> 00:53:37,551
"with olive-green or grey-green foliage
810
00:53:37,671 --> 00:53:40,351
"which could well be lemon trees."
811
00:53:56,071 --> 00:53:59,870
He always went out early in the morning with all his painting gear
812
00:53:59,990 --> 00:54:03,950
and he often painted and drew a subject
813
00:54:04,070 --> 00:54:08,870
from various angles and in series of works.
814
00:55:01,308 --> 00:55:04,468
I think that for me painting is all about light
815
00:55:04,588 --> 00:55:06,588
and as an artist you've got to train yourself
816
00:55:06,708 --> 00:55:08,467
to notice it and scrutinise it
817
00:55:08,587 --> 00:55:12,187
because it shapes the world around us every day
818
00:55:12,307 --> 00:55:15,508
and most of the time we don't give it a second thought.
819
00:55:15,628 --> 00:55:20,068
But, depending upon whether it's an overcast day or a sunny day,
820
00:55:20,187 --> 00:55:22,987
the colours and the tones and the shadows all change.
821
00:55:23,107 --> 00:55:26,467
And the role of an artist, I think, anyway,
822
00:55:26,587 --> 00:55:30,267
is to try and seize the moment, seize the light of that instant
823
00:55:30,387 --> 00:55:34,146
and all the freshness and energy that is involved in that moment,
824
00:55:34,266 --> 00:55:36,587
that moment of being alive, being illuminated,
825
00:55:36,707 --> 00:55:38,067
and capture that on canvas.
826
00:55:38,187 --> 00:55:40,666
And it might well be an overcast day
827
00:55:40,786 --> 00:55:44,226
where everything feels a lot more muted and softer and cooler
828
00:55:44,346 --> 00:55:45,906
and the shadows aren't so extreme
829
00:55:46,026 --> 00:55:49,506
and you're searching for the difference between the areas of a building
830
00:55:49,626 --> 00:55:53,826
that are supposedly closer to the sun than those that are away from it.
831
00:55:53,946 --> 00:55:56,906
Or it might be a blazing hot Mediterranean day
832
00:55:57,026 --> 00:55:59,825
when the sun is really shaping and sculpting
833
00:55:59,945 --> 00:56:02,786
in combination with rich, dark shadows.
834
00:56:25,384 --> 00:56:28,904
The first series of works that he was doing there
835
00:56:29,024 --> 00:56:30,784
was the blossoming orchards.
836
00:56:30,904 --> 00:56:32,704
The blossom started in March
837
00:56:32,824 --> 00:56:35,904
and Van Gogh worked really very quickly
838
00:56:36,024 --> 00:56:40,064
to get as many paintings as possible of this beautiful motif
839
00:56:40,184 --> 00:56:43,704
which was obviously important also in the Japanese prints.
840
00:56:43,824 --> 00:56:48,063
He felt that it was a tremendously beautiful subject to represent.
841
00:56:48,183 --> 00:56:50,823
It was a very cheerful subject.
842
00:56:50,943 --> 00:56:55,023
And he thought that this subject might also interest buyers
843
00:56:55,143 --> 00:56:56,424
in Paris or in Holland.
844
00:56:56,544 --> 00:57:00,863
So he was also thinking about how to market his own work.
845
00:57:06,663 --> 00:57:08,223
"My dear Bernard,
846
00:57:09,143 --> 00:57:12,743
"having promised to write to you, I want to begin by telling you
847
00:57:12,863 --> 00:57:16,463
"that this part of the world seems to me as beautiful as Japan
848
00:57:16,583 --> 00:57:21,182
"for the clearness of the atmosphere and the gay colour effects.
849
00:57:21,302 --> 00:57:25,222
"The stretches of water make patches of a beautiful emerald
850
00:57:25,342 --> 00:57:27,782
"and a rich blue in the landscapes
851
00:57:27,902 --> 00:57:30,582
"as we see it in the Japanese prints.
852
00:57:30,702 --> 00:57:34,981
"Pale orange sunsets make the fields look blue.
853
00:57:35,101 --> 00:57:38,142
"Glorious yellow suns.
854
00:57:38,262 --> 00:57:41,622
"However, so far I've hardly seen this part of the world
855
00:57:41,742 --> 00:57:43,981
"in its usual summer splendour.
856
00:57:44,101 --> 00:57:46,141
"The women's costume is pretty.
857
00:57:46,261 --> 00:57:48,101
"Especially on the boulevard on Sunday
858
00:57:48,221 --> 00:57:52,301
"you see some very naïve and well-chosen arrangements of colour.
859
00:57:52,421 --> 00:57:56,021
"And that, too, will doubtless get even livelier in summer."
860
00:57:58,581 --> 00:58:01,581
I think with an artist like Van Gogh
861
00:58:02,381 --> 00:58:04,500
you get the impression that this is someone
862
00:58:04,620 --> 00:58:07,860
who is being energised by the moment.
863
00:58:07,980 --> 00:58:12,180
So when he wanders off into the outdoors
864
00:58:12,300 --> 00:58:15,980
he is experiencing...
865
00:58:16,100 --> 00:58:17,940
he's experiencing nature
866
00:58:18,060 --> 00:58:19,620
in every instance.
867
00:58:19,740 --> 00:58:23,140
He's experiencing the weather, the temperature, the wind.
868
00:58:23,260 --> 00:58:24,460
He's gauging all of that.
869
00:58:24,580 --> 00:58:27,659
And when you get into the zone as a painter and you're out there,
870
00:58:27,779 --> 00:58:30,820
that energy becomes almost hypnotic.
871
00:58:30,940 --> 00:58:35,660
You are painting and you are responding to what is happening in front of you.
872
00:58:35,780 --> 00:58:38,180
You're mixing pigments on your palette.
873
00:58:38,300 --> 00:58:40,699
Maybe you drop your brush and you get some earth on it
874
00:58:40,819 --> 00:58:42,179
and it mixes into the colour.
875
00:58:42,299 --> 00:58:44,339
You become at one with this whole experience
876
00:58:44,459 --> 00:58:48,299
and you can almost get into a kind of weird trance.
877
00:58:56,179 --> 00:59:00,619
More than being a landscape painter he wanted to be a painter of portraits
878
00:59:00,739 --> 00:59:05,418
and this is something he started to do in a very serious way in Provence.
879
00:59:05,538 --> 00:59:09,618
He asked people from the town to pose for him,
880
00:59:09,738 --> 00:59:11,538
such as an old woman of Arles.
881
00:59:11,658 --> 00:59:14,618
All kinds of portraits of ordinary people,
882
00:59:14,738 --> 00:59:17,178
of everyday people, of everyday life,
883
00:59:17,298 --> 00:59:21,938
such were the things that he wanted to paint and draw in Arles.
884
00:59:44,297 --> 00:59:45,577
"My dear Theo,
885
00:59:45,697 --> 00:59:48,096
"today I rented the right-hand wing of this building
886
00:59:48,216 --> 00:59:49,536
"which contains four rooms
887
00:59:49,656 --> 00:59:53,096
"or, more precisely, two with two little rooms.
888
00:59:53,216 --> 00:59:56,456
"It's painted yellow outside, whitewashed inside,
889
00:59:56,576 --> 00:59:58,776
"in the full sunshine.
890
00:59:58,896 --> 01:00:01,696
"I've rented it for 15 francs a month.
891
01:00:01,816 --> 01:00:04,416
"Now, what I'd like to do would be to furnish a room,
892
01:00:04,536 --> 01:00:07,336
"the one on the first floor, to be able to sleep there.
893
01:00:07,456 --> 01:00:09,136
"The studio, the store,
894
01:00:09,256 --> 01:00:12,935
"will remain here for the whole of the campaign here in the south.
895
01:00:13,055 --> 01:00:17,255
"That way I have my independence from petty squabbles over guesthouses,
896
01:00:17,375 --> 01:00:20,935
"which are ruinous and depress me.
897
01:00:21,055 --> 01:00:22,335
"If necessary...
898
01:00:22,455 --> 01:00:24,815
"I could live at the new studio with someone else,
899
01:00:24,935 --> 01:00:26,815
"and I'd very much like to.
900
01:00:26,935 --> 01:00:30,054
"Perhaps Gauguin will come to the south."
901
01:00:32,454 --> 01:00:34,175
When Van Gogh was living in Arles
902
01:00:34,295 --> 01:00:37,294
he started to have this dream about an artist colony
903
01:00:37,414 --> 01:00:40,095
and he hoped that other artists would join him
904
01:00:40,215 --> 01:00:44,254
and they could work together, share their materials, discuss art
905
01:00:44,374 --> 01:00:48,934
and together they would make better art and become better artists.
906
01:00:49,054 --> 01:00:53,534
One of these artists was Gauguin and he came in the end.
907
01:00:55,694 --> 01:00:58,174
In preparation for Gauguin's arrival
908
01:00:58,294 --> 01:01:03,134
Van Gogh started a campaign of painting canvases
909
01:01:03,254 --> 01:01:06,374
as a kind of decoration for his yellow house.
910
01:01:06,494 --> 01:01:08,894
He made several ambitious paintings,
911
01:01:09,014 --> 01:01:12,173
such as the sunflowers but also the bedroom,
912
01:01:12,293 --> 01:01:16,133
which was his own bedroom in that yellow house.
913
01:01:38,852 --> 01:01:41,732
And he started to make specific paintings
914
01:01:41,852 --> 01:01:44,412
that would hang in Gauguin's bedroom
915
01:01:44,532 --> 01:01:46,731
and it was a very beautiful series
916
01:01:46,851 --> 01:01:51,252
of what are now icons of Van Gogh's work.
917
01:02:03,371 --> 01:02:08,531
Gauguin and Van Gogh worked and lived together for two months in Arles.
918
01:02:08,651 --> 01:02:09,971
They drank and ate together
919
01:02:10,091 --> 01:02:14,731
and painted the same models side by side in the yellow house.
920
01:02:14,851 --> 01:02:17,850
They experimented with the same kind of materials,
921
01:02:17,970 --> 01:02:22,050
using a very coarse canvas, for example, a type of burlap,
922
01:02:22,170 --> 01:02:26,410
to see what it would do with the pigments and with the oil paint.
923
01:02:26,530 --> 01:02:29,730
Gauguin's beautiful portrait of Van Gogh painting the sunflowers
924
01:02:29,850 --> 01:02:32,570
was made using this coarse canvas.
925
01:02:32,690 --> 01:02:37,489
So in the beginning it was a very fruitful and special period of collaboration.
926
01:02:38,770 --> 01:02:42,089
Unfortunately, it didn't end that well.
927
01:02:42,209 --> 01:02:45,370
As most people know, it ended with the famous incident
928
01:02:45,490 --> 01:02:48,370
that Van Gogh cut off part of his ear.
929
01:02:48,490 --> 01:02:51,249
They had a huge argument,
930
01:02:51,369 --> 01:02:56,889
probably also about art and what modern art should be about.
931
01:02:57,009 --> 01:03:00,449
Their characters didn't go well together.
932
01:03:00,569 --> 01:03:02,448
Gauguin left Arles.
933
01:03:02,568 --> 01:03:05,609
Van Gogh was hospitalised for a long period
934
01:03:05,729 --> 01:03:11,368
to recover from his ear injury.
935
01:03:34,407 --> 01:03:37,088
The paintings of the sunflowers and his bedroom
936
01:03:37,208 --> 01:03:39,567
were very important to Vincent.
937
01:03:39,687 --> 01:03:42,887
They reflected the ambitions that he set himself while in Arles.
938
01:03:43,607 --> 01:03:46,487
Critics of the day and observers of the avant-garde
939
01:03:46,607 --> 01:03:52,327
recognised that 'Sunflowers' was something completely new and unique.
940
01:03:52,447 --> 01:03:56,047
These paintings may have become icons after Van Gogh's death
941
01:03:56,167 --> 01:03:58,567
but they had always been very important,
942
01:03:58,687 --> 01:04:01,766
not only to Vincent but also to his brother Theo
943
01:04:01,886 --> 01:04:06,046
and to other artists from his circle, like Gauguin.
944
01:04:10,366 --> 01:04:12,126
"My dear friend Gauguin,
945
01:04:12,246 --> 01:04:16,446
"in my mental or nervous fever, or madness -
946
01:04:16,566 --> 01:04:19,686
"I don't know quite what to say or how to name it -
947
01:04:19,806 --> 01:04:22,765
"my thoughts sailed over many seas.
948
01:04:22,885 --> 01:04:26,205
"I even dreamt of the Dutch ghost ship and 'The Horla'
949
01:04:26,325 --> 01:04:28,404
"and it seems that I sang,
950
01:04:28,525 --> 01:04:31,365
"I who can't sing on any other occasions,
951
01:04:31,485 --> 01:04:35,445
"to be precise an old wet-nurse's song
952
01:04:35,565 --> 01:04:38,085
"while thinking of what the cradle-rocker sang
953
01:04:38,205 --> 01:04:39,764
"as she rocked the sailors
954
01:04:39,884 --> 01:04:42,524
"and whom I had sought in an arrangement of colours
955
01:04:42,644 --> 01:04:44,765
"before falling ill."
956
01:04:49,604 --> 01:04:51,404
Here in Arles there was reed everywhere
957
01:04:51,524 --> 01:04:53,285
so he cut his own pens
958
01:04:53,404 --> 01:04:58,004
and he used them to make these most wonderful ink drawings
959
01:04:58,124 --> 01:05:01,924
and one of the examples you see here is probably one of the best.
960
01:05:02,044 --> 01:05:05,644
When he drew this picture he was admitted there
961
01:05:05,764 --> 01:05:07,723
so you have to imagine that when he drew this
962
01:05:07,843 --> 01:05:10,524
he was at a very low point in his life.
963
01:05:10,644 --> 01:05:13,243
It's a very ambitious drawing, as you can see,
964
01:05:13,363 --> 01:05:15,203
to translate every part,
965
01:05:15,323 --> 01:05:20,243
the fountain, the trees, even the other patients in the courtyard,
966
01:05:20,363 --> 01:05:22,883
into this very distinct style.
967
01:05:23,003 --> 01:05:26,963
That was what he was looking for. He was looking for his own style.
968
01:05:27,083 --> 01:05:29,123
And I think in Arles he found it.
969
01:05:29,243 --> 01:05:33,563
So there's hedges, there's little dots, there's little stripes.
970
01:05:33,683 --> 01:05:35,723
And with his reed pen and ink
971
01:05:35,843 --> 01:05:38,322
he just uses the whole sheet
972
01:05:38,442 --> 01:05:42,282
and covers it with all these different graphic marks.
973
01:05:42,402 --> 01:05:45,322
He must have seen it as an independent work of art
974
01:05:45,442 --> 01:05:48,362
because there's a signature right there in the watering pot.
975
01:05:48,482 --> 01:05:52,802
it's a very cute, anecdotal place to put it.
976
01:06:04,881 --> 01:06:07,881
Van Gogh was an incredibly creative person
977
01:06:08,001 --> 01:06:10,241
and tried out many different techniques,
978
01:06:10,361 --> 01:06:12,881
experimenting with things he picked up along the way
979
01:06:13,001 --> 01:06:16,041
but combining them in his own personal approach.
980
01:06:16,681 --> 01:06:20,401
He often experimented with extremes,
981
01:06:20,521 --> 01:06:24,961
so first painting with very dilute oil paint, for example,
982
01:06:25,081 --> 01:06:27,601
and then switching just a month later
983
01:06:27,721 --> 01:06:30,920
to using incredibly thick, creamy what we call impasto -
984
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:33,601
very strongly textured paint.
985
01:06:33,721 --> 01:06:36,240
Although he was using basically the same materials
986
01:06:36,360 --> 01:06:38,560
for these different approaches,
987
01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:41,200
we do have to adjust our technique of treating paintings
988
01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:43,560
according to the build-up of the layers
989
01:06:43,680 --> 01:06:45,720
and the way that the paint is applied.
990
01:06:50,000 --> 01:06:52,639
So this is an example of a painting that I'm restoring.
991
01:06:52,759 --> 01:06:55,879
It's a view of Arles with irises in the foreground,
992
01:06:55,999 --> 01:06:58,080
painted in May 1888.
993
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:00,399
As you can see, what I'm actually doing
994
01:07:00,519 --> 01:07:05,559
is reversing the restoration carried out by my predecessor.
995
01:07:05,679 --> 01:07:09,359
Apparently the conservator who worked on the painting in 1927
996
01:07:09,479 --> 01:07:11,519
found this transition very disturbing
997
01:07:11,639 --> 01:07:15,359
so he applied retouches to soften this transition
998
01:07:15,479 --> 01:07:16,878
to blend it into each other,
999
01:07:16,998 --> 01:07:19,518
even though, as in this case, Van Gogh did not intend
1000
01:07:19,638 --> 01:07:21,438
his French paintings to be varnished
1001
01:07:21,558 --> 01:07:24,758
because he preferred a modern matte surface.
1002
01:07:24,878 --> 01:07:26,718
In a way it's restoration
1003
01:07:26,838 --> 01:07:30,158
because I'm changing the painting back to a previous state
1004
01:07:30,278 --> 01:07:34,438
before it was restored and closer to what the artist intended.
1005
01:07:34,558 --> 01:07:37,837
We're very lucky. In this case we have a good deal of information
1006
01:07:37,957 --> 01:07:41,758
about how the painting was made.
1007
01:07:41,878 --> 01:07:43,918
To start with we have a drawing
1008
01:07:44,038 --> 01:07:46,837
that Van Gogh made on the spot just a couple of weeks before
1009
01:07:46,957 --> 01:07:49,997
which is actually signed "Vue d'Arles"
1010
01:07:50,117 --> 01:07:52,037
and then with his signature, "Vincent".
1011
01:07:52,157 --> 01:07:56,157
It's done with a reed pen and ink
1012
01:07:56,277 --> 01:07:59,037
in a very calligraphic, bold style.
1013
01:07:59,157 --> 01:08:03,357
Unfortunately, the ink has faded so it's a little less bold than it was originally
1014
01:08:03,477 --> 01:08:06,357
but you can see this very strong graphic, linear approach
1015
01:08:06,477 --> 01:08:08,356
transferred into the painting
1016
01:08:08,476 --> 01:08:10,636
with these blue contours that were added later.
1017
01:08:10,756 --> 01:08:12,477
So there's a sort of mutual influence
1018
01:08:12,596 --> 01:08:17,356
between his drawing and painting technique in the period.
1019
01:08:17,475 --> 01:08:21,515
A nice detail if you look closely is that we can see the traced contour,
1020
01:08:21,636 --> 01:08:25,076
the inner edge of a perspective frame which he's traced with pencil.
1021
01:08:25,196 --> 01:08:28,876
So this is for us very definite evidence that he was on the spot,
1022
01:08:28,996 --> 01:08:30,995
using the perspective frame
1023
01:08:31,115 --> 01:08:33,236
to help him correct what he saw in front of him
1024
01:08:33,356 --> 01:08:36,875
and transfer it onto the flat surface of his canvas.
1025
01:08:40,075 --> 01:08:42,915
After recovering from his ordeal in hospital
1026
01:08:43,035 --> 01:08:45,995
Vincent went back to his studio and his yellow house
1027
01:08:46,115 --> 01:08:49,234
and realised his dream of an artistic brotherhood
1028
01:08:49,354 --> 01:08:50,955
had been shattered.
1029
01:08:51,075 --> 01:08:53,154
The episode of the cutting of the ear
1030
01:08:53,274 --> 01:08:56,314
was the start of a very difficult period in his life,
1031
01:08:56,434 --> 01:08:59,953
blighted by seizures and bouts of illness.
1032
01:09:01,234 --> 01:09:02,674
"My dear Theo,
1033
01:09:04,113 --> 01:09:07,993
"at the end of the month I still wish to go to the mental hospital at Saint-Rémy
1034
01:09:08,113 --> 01:09:12,754
"or another institution of that kind which Mr Salles has told me about.
1035
01:09:12,874 --> 01:09:14,714
"Forgive me for not going into details
1036
01:09:14,834 --> 01:09:17,553
"to weigh up the pros and cons of such a course of action.
1037
01:09:17,673 --> 01:09:21,673
"It would strain my mind a great deal to talk about it.
1038
01:09:22,273 --> 01:09:24,594
"It will, I hope, suffice to say
1039
01:09:24,714 --> 01:09:26,712
"that I feel decidedly incapable
1040
01:09:26,832 --> 01:09:29,513
"of starting to take a new studio again
1041
01:09:29,633 --> 01:09:31,033
"and living there alone,
1042
01:09:31,153 --> 01:09:35,553
"here in Arles or elsewhere, it comes down to the same thing,
1043
01:09:35,673 --> 01:09:36,872
"for the moment.
1044
01:09:36,993 --> 01:09:40,393
"I have nevertheless tried to make up my mind to begin again.
1045
01:09:40,513 --> 01:09:42,631
"For the moment not possible.
1046
01:09:42,752 --> 01:09:45,193
"I'd be afraid of losing the faculty of working,
1047
01:09:45,313 --> 01:09:47,633
"which is coming back to me now,
1048
01:09:47,752 --> 01:09:50,872
"by forcing myself to have a studio
1049
01:09:50,993 --> 01:09:54,992
"and also having all the other responsibilities on my back."
1050
01:09:57,992 --> 01:10:01,632
Van Gogh stayed a little longer in Arles, in and out of hospital,
1051
01:10:01,752 --> 01:10:05,112
and finally he decided that he needed to get away from Arles
1052
01:10:05,232 --> 01:10:09,232
and he committed himself to an asylum in Saint-Rémy,
1053
01:10:09,352 --> 01:10:10,912
not far from Arles.
1054
01:10:11,032 --> 01:10:12,751
He stayed there for a long time
1055
01:10:12,871 --> 01:10:17,351
and he was treated for what he called his lunacy or illness,
1056
01:10:17,471 --> 01:10:19,192
his moments of depression.
1057
01:10:19,311 --> 01:10:23,511
We will never know exactly what his illness was.
1058
01:10:23,631 --> 01:10:26,471
The doctor wrote down that he had a type of epilepsy
1059
01:10:26,591 --> 01:10:30,911
so it was close to some kind of madness in the eyes of many people.
1060
01:10:32,511 --> 01:10:37,071
The thing about Van Gogh and the mythology which is important
1061
01:10:37,191 --> 01:10:39,351
is that people think that painting is easy.
1062
01:10:39,471 --> 01:10:43,950
They think it's just a sort of crazy rabid energy
1063
01:10:44,070 --> 01:10:48,750
that comes out like a dash of madness
1064
01:10:48,870 --> 01:10:50,630
and that's what artists are.
1065
01:10:50,750 --> 01:10:54,950
But painting is a difficult, troubling
1066
01:10:55,070 --> 01:10:58,790
and enormously frustrating activity.
1067
01:10:58,910 --> 01:11:01,430
As much as it can be therapeutic,
1068
01:11:01,550 --> 01:11:04,229
as much as you can gain solace from being outside
1069
01:11:04,349 --> 01:11:07,589
and painting something beautiful and getting it on canvas,
1070
01:11:07,709 --> 01:11:12,109
every day when I stand in front of my canvas
1071
01:11:12,229 --> 01:11:13,549
I will expose the gap
1072
01:11:13,669 --> 01:11:16,149
between what I want to achieve and what I can achieve.
1073
01:11:16,269 --> 01:11:20,709
The greatest artists in history have been possessed
1074
01:11:20,829 --> 01:11:23,229
by the need to create art
1075
01:11:23,349 --> 01:11:25,468
and it exhausts them.
1076
01:11:25,588 --> 01:11:27,668
And it's real, that bit is real.
1077
01:11:27,788 --> 01:11:30,988
Painting takes it out of you
1078
01:11:31,108 --> 01:11:36,788
if you are doing it as a conviction, as a passion.
1079
01:11:38,028 --> 01:11:41,468
And that's no lie, that's for real.
1080
01:11:50,667 --> 01:11:52,827
In Saint-Rémy, in spite of his illness,
1081
01:11:52,947 --> 01:11:57,867
he created a lot of works that are considered his best works.
1082
01:11:57,987 --> 01:12:01,387
It's amazing how he managed to recover every time
1083
01:12:01,507 --> 01:12:04,387
and to really continue to develop his work,
1084
01:12:04,507 --> 01:12:07,067
his way of painting, his way of drawing.
1085
01:12:07,187 --> 01:12:09,187
The irises, for example,
1086
01:12:09,307 --> 01:12:11,426
were done at the end of his stay in Saint-Rémy
1087
01:12:11,546 --> 01:12:18,266
and during this period he created an amazing amount of masterpieces.
1088
01:13:27,464 --> 01:13:29,584
"My dear Theo,
1089
01:13:29,704 --> 01:13:32,984
"I have a wheatfield, very yellow and very bright,
1090
01:13:33,104 --> 01:13:36,063
"perhaps the brightest canvas I've done.
1091
01:13:36,183 --> 01:13:38,583
"The cypresses still preoccupy me.
1092
01:13:38,702 --> 01:13:41,903
"I'd like to do something with them like the canvases of the sunflowers
1093
01:13:42,023 --> 01:13:44,263
"because it astonishes me
1094
01:13:44,383 --> 01:13:47,423
"that no one has yet done them as I see them.
1095
01:13:47,543 --> 01:13:50,422
"It's beautiful as regards lines and proportions,
1096
01:13:50,542 --> 01:13:52,462
"like an Egyptian obelisk.
1097
01:13:52,582 --> 01:13:56,623
"And the green has such a distinguished quality.
1098
01:13:56,743 --> 01:13:59,623
"To do nature here, as everywhere,
1099
01:13:59,743 --> 01:14:02,782
"one must really be here for a long time."
1100
01:14:02,902 --> 01:14:07,862
He made beautiful close-ups of undergrowth or butterflies,
1101
01:14:07,982 --> 01:14:09,542
roses in the garden.
1102
01:14:09,662 --> 01:14:13,221
He painted the view of his window on the fields,
1103
01:14:13,341 --> 01:14:16,062
the olive groves around the asylum.
1104
01:14:16,182 --> 01:14:18,141
But he also asked Theo to send him
1105
01:14:18,261 --> 01:14:20,622
several of his favourite artworks,
1106
01:14:20,742 --> 01:14:25,941
such as paintings by Millet, Delacroix, Rembrandt, in print.
1107
01:14:26,061 --> 01:14:28,981
So he received these black and white prints from Theo
1108
01:14:29,101 --> 01:14:30,661
and he started copying them
1109
01:14:30,781 --> 01:14:33,381
like he did before when he started out as an artist.
1110
01:14:33,501 --> 01:14:37,301
He had this beautiful series of peasants at work
1111
01:14:37,421 --> 01:14:38,821
by Jean-François Millet
1112
01:14:38,941 --> 01:14:41,941
and he made small copies, small paintings,
1113
01:14:42,061 --> 01:14:44,021
one to one of these prints,
1114
01:14:44,141 --> 01:14:48,380
but he translated it into very colourful little depictions
1115
01:14:48,500 --> 01:14:50,741
of these peasants at work.
1116
01:14:50,861 --> 01:14:54,340
Van Gogh himself believed that the only way to be cured
1117
01:14:54,460 --> 01:14:59,980
was to really keep on working as much as possible.
1118
01:15:00,100 --> 01:15:03,979
So he was forcing himself every time to start over again
1119
01:15:04,099 --> 01:15:06,340
and to go out to paint
1120
01:15:06,460 --> 01:15:11,500
or to work in the little studio that he had in the asylum.
1121
01:15:12,700 --> 01:15:14,659
After a year in the asylum
1122
01:15:14,779 --> 01:15:17,779
Van Gogh was feeling stronger and was anxious to move
1123
01:15:17,899 --> 01:15:22,179
to get away from the institutional atmosphere of Saint-Rémy.
1124
01:15:22,299 --> 01:15:25,699
It was time to move back north and be closer to Theo,
1125
01:15:25,818 --> 01:15:31,098
who had by this time married Jo Bonger and had a child named Vincent Willem.
1126
01:15:34,818 --> 01:15:36,099
"My dear brother,
1127
01:15:36,219 --> 01:15:40,218
"I feel I have more confidence in my work than when I left
1128
01:15:40,338 --> 01:15:43,539
"and it would be ungrateful of me to speak ill of the south.
1129
01:15:43,659 --> 01:15:48,138
"I confess that it's with great sorrow that I turn my back on it.
1130
01:15:51,298 --> 01:15:54,857
"If your work prevented you from coming to get me at the station
1131
01:15:54,977 --> 01:15:58,978
"or if it was at a difficult time or if the weather was too bad,
1132
01:15:59,098 --> 01:16:01,778
"don't worry, I'd certainly find my way.
1133
01:16:01,898 --> 01:16:03,257
"And I feel so calm
1134
01:16:03,377 --> 01:16:07,577
"that it would greatly astonish me if I lost my composure.
1135
01:16:07,697 --> 01:16:10,097
"How much I want to see you again
1136
01:16:10,217 --> 01:16:12,377
"and meet Jo and the baby.
1137
01:16:13,857 --> 01:16:17,857
"It's likely that I'll arrive in Paris around 5 o'clock in the morning."
1138
01:16:35,216 --> 01:16:38,456
Although Vincent was keen to be closer to his brother,
1139
01:16:38,576 --> 01:16:42,416
Paris was considered too much for his fragile state of mind
1140
01:16:42,536 --> 01:16:45,776
so he asked Theo to find him a location close to Paris
1141
01:16:45,896 --> 01:16:48,776
with a doctor who could keep an eye on him.
1142
01:16:50,136 --> 01:16:53,775
Theo made enquiries and, through the painter Camille Pissarro,
1143
01:16:53,895 --> 01:16:57,055
found a homeopathic doctor called Paul Gachet
1144
01:16:57,175 --> 01:17:01,495
in the rural village of Auvers-sur-Oise, just to the north of the capital.
1145
01:17:01,615 --> 01:17:05,415
Gachet was both a well-known doctor and a well-known collector
1146
01:17:05,535 --> 01:17:08,855
and would keep an eye on Vincent, while offering his companionship
1147
01:17:08,975 --> 01:17:12,655
as one who understood artists and the art world.
1148
01:17:16,014 --> 01:17:17,654
"My dear Theo and Jo,
1149
01:17:17,773 --> 01:17:23,654
"I'd hope, then, that in doing a few canvases of that really seriously
1150
01:17:23,773 --> 01:17:26,854
"there would be a chance of recouping some of the costs of my stay,
1151
01:17:27,773 --> 01:17:29,934
"for really it's gravely beautiful.
1152
01:17:30,054 --> 01:17:33,613
"It's in the heart of the countryside, distinctive and picturesque.
1153
01:17:35,014 --> 01:17:37,014
"I have seen Dr Gachet
1154
01:17:37,134 --> 01:17:40,333
"who gave me the impression of being rather eccentric,
1155
01:17:40,452 --> 01:17:43,973
"but his doctor's experience must keep him balanced himself
1156
01:17:44,093 --> 01:17:47,974
"while combatting the nervous ailment from which it seems to me
1157
01:17:48,094 --> 01:17:51,493
"he's certainly suffering at least as seriously as I am."
1158
01:18:17,612 --> 01:18:20,612
When Van Gogh arrived on the 20th May 1890
1159
01:18:20,732 --> 01:18:23,492
he found the least expensive room in the village.
1160
01:18:23,612 --> 01:18:25,331
It was a furnished room in the Auberge Ravoux,
1161
01:18:25,451 --> 01:18:27,731
on the second floor under the roof.
1162
01:18:27,851 --> 01:18:31,131
Normally when one goes to a hotel you ask for a room with a view.
1163
01:18:31,251 --> 01:18:36,611
Here there is no view. There's just a wall.
1164
01:18:36,731 --> 01:18:39,291
Van Gogh was only here for 70 days.
1165
01:18:39,411 --> 01:18:41,971
But in 70 days he did 80 paintings!
1166
01:18:42,091 --> 01:18:44,971
It was one of the most productive periods of his life.
1167
01:18:55,090 --> 01:18:58,411
When Vincent went to Auvers, in one of his first letters to Theo in Paris
1168
01:18:58,531 --> 01:19:01,490
quite a remarkable thing he said
1169
01:19:01,610 --> 01:19:04,770
is that he felt that his whole life had been a failure,
1170
01:19:04,890 --> 01:19:06,690
that he was a failure as a painter.
1171
01:19:06,809 --> 01:19:11,970
We know that Van Gogh really thought that the ambition was gone in his life.
1172
01:19:12,090 --> 01:19:15,930
He was still working, but he was working like a madman.
1173
01:19:16,050 --> 01:19:17,930
But why are you working like a madman?
1174
01:19:18,050 --> 01:19:22,449
You're working like a madman to push certain thoughts out of your mind
1175
01:19:22,568 --> 01:19:24,570
which you do not want to think about.
1176
01:19:24,690 --> 01:19:29,489
And that's the state he was in in the last months of his life.
1177
01:19:32,689 --> 01:19:34,369
"My dear brother,
1178
01:19:34,489 --> 01:19:39,488
"I'd like to write to you about many things but I sense the pointlessness of it.
1179
01:19:39,608 --> 01:19:41,048
"You didn't need to reassure me
1180
01:19:41,168 --> 01:19:44,209
"as to the state of peace of your household.
1181
01:19:44,329 --> 01:19:47,648
"I believe I've seen the good as much as the other side
1182
01:19:47,768 --> 01:19:50,168
"and, besides, am so much in agreement
1183
01:19:50,288 --> 01:19:53,928
"that raising a kid in a fourth-floor apartment is hard labour,
1184
01:19:54,048 --> 01:19:55,968
"as much for you as for Jo.
1185
01:19:57,208 --> 01:19:58,407
"Ah well,
1186
01:19:58,528 --> 01:20:01,208
"I risk my life for my own work
1187
01:20:01,327 --> 01:20:04,087
"and my reason has half foundered in it.
1188
01:20:04,728 --> 01:20:07,848
"Very well, but you're not one of the dealers in men.
1189
01:20:07,968 --> 01:20:12,647
"As far as I know and can judge, I think you really act with humanity.
1190
01:20:13,487 --> 01:20:15,727
"But what can you do?"
1191
01:20:17,207 --> 01:20:20,047
Vincent was at a very low point.
1192
01:20:20,166 --> 01:20:25,687
Illness, despair and an uncertain future weighed heavy on his mind.
1193
01:20:26,487 --> 01:20:30,246
In the afternoon of July 27 1890,
1194
01:20:30,366 --> 01:20:34,527
Vincent left his lodgings and disappeared into the countryside.
1195
01:20:34,647 --> 01:20:39,046
On his return that evening he was evidently in great pain.
1196
01:20:39,886 --> 01:20:42,966
He confessed to having shot himself in the chest
1197
01:20:43,086 --> 01:20:46,006
and Dr Gachet was called to tend the wound.
1198
01:20:46,126 --> 01:20:49,086
Theo arrived in haste the next day.
1199
01:20:50,446 --> 01:20:53,326
Vincent lay in some agony
1200
01:20:53,446 --> 01:20:56,925
but still managed to smoke his pipe and talk with Theo
1201
01:20:57,046 --> 01:21:00,446
until the following day he fell into unconsciousness
1202
01:21:00,566 --> 01:21:05,205
and died on 29 July in his brother's arms.
1203
01:21:09,645 --> 01:21:12,325
"I want to die like this."
1204
01:21:26,245 --> 01:21:33,565
On the following day, Theo invited friends to the funeral.
1205
01:21:33,684 --> 01:21:39,164
The funeral should have taken place at 2.30pm in the local church
1206
01:21:39,284 --> 01:21:45,523
but at the last moment the priest refused to perform the ceremony in the church
1207
01:21:45,644 --> 01:21:49,443
because he had committed suicide and was a protestant.
1208
01:21:49,563 --> 01:21:56,523
So Theo decided to pay homage to Van Gogh in the Auberge dining room.
1209
01:21:56,643 --> 01:21:59,883
They put Van Gogh's coffin on a table
1210
01:22:00,003 --> 01:22:05,202
and arranged his many recent paintings around him.
1211
01:22:05,323 --> 01:22:07,883
Some were still drying.
1212
01:22:09,763 --> 01:22:15,323
The painter Vincent van Gogh lived and died in this house on 29 July 1890
1213
01:22:49,521 --> 01:22:51,001
Many people have thought,
1214
01:22:51,121 --> 01:22:54,800
because of that fear that's being expressed in this picture
1215
01:22:54,921 --> 01:22:56,841
that it also was his last picture.
1216
01:22:56,961 --> 01:22:59,241
It's been described as such. It wasn't.
1217
01:22:59,361 --> 01:23:03,161
But people are right, I think, in the interpretation of the picture
1218
01:23:03,281 --> 01:23:05,520
that there is a kind of fear in it.
1219
01:23:05,640 --> 01:23:08,160
The idea that you're being overwhelmed by something
1220
01:23:08,280 --> 01:23:10,960
you cannot do anything about and it will threaten you,
1221
01:23:11,080 --> 01:23:13,120
that's the idea of the picture.
1222
01:23:14,960 --> 01:23:17,280
'Tree Roots' is his last picture.
1223
01:23:17,400 --> 01:23:22,040
That's the picture that he made in the morning before he died.
1224
01:23:33,519 --> 01:23:37,479
Vincent's brother Theo was heartbroken, proclaiming to his mother
1225
01:23:37,599 --> 01:23:42,119
that Vincent had found the rest he was longing for.
1226
01:23:42,239 --> 01:23:44,959
With a similar obsession to his departed brother,
1227
01:23:45,079 --> 01:23:49,159
Theo tirelessly sought to elevate Vincent's position in the art world
1228
01:23:49,279 --> 01:23:54,559
and bring to the public the hundreds of illuminating letters he had kept.
1229
01:23:54,679 --> 01:23:58,077
Tortured by feelings of regret and grief,
1230
01:23:58,198 --> 01:24:01,519
Theo's frail constitution started to give way
1231
01:24:01,639 --> 01:24:04,718
and he suffered paralysing fits due to syphilis
1232
01:24:04,838 --> 01:24:06,758
and passed away in Utrecht
1233
01:24:06,878 --> 01:24:09,598
just six months after the death of Vincent.
1234
01:24:10,998 --> 01:24:15,717
In 1914 Theo's wife Jo had his body moved to Auvers-sur-Oise
1235
01:24:15,837 --> 01:24:20,958
and buried next to his beloved brother, Vincent van Gogh.
1236
01:24:22,197 --> 01:24:25,518
Although today his works are among the most recognised
1237
01:24:25,638 --> 01:24:27,798
and valued of any painter,
1238
01:24:27,918 --> 01:24:33,397
during his lifetime Vincent van Gogh sold no more than a handful of paintings
1239
01:24:33,517 --> 01:24:35,517
and just a few drawings.
1240
01:24:38,156 --> 01:24:42,557
Vincent's art wasn't appreciated very well by the audience,
1241
01:24:42,677 --> 01:24:44,597
by the people during his life,
1242
01:24:44,717 --> 01:24:49,116
but at the end of his life his contemporaries, his peers,
1243
01:24:49,236 --> 01:24:51,876
considered him as one of the most important,
1244
01:24:51,996 --> 01:24:55,956
maybe the most important, artist of the avant-garde of that time.
1245
01:24:56,076 --> 01:24:59,556
To be so passionate about something.
1246
01:24:59,675 --> 01:25:01,756
For him it was art and he lived it.
1247
01:25:01,876 --> 01:25:06,595
So I think with the rich collection of paintings, drawings,
1248
01:25:06,715 --> 01:25:09,636
the letters too and the documents we have
1249
01:25:09,756 --> 01:25:12,875
you can step into Van Gogh's world and his thoughts
1250
01:25:12,995 --> 01:25:17,195
and you can see how he was living his art.
1251
01:25:17,315 --> 01:25:20,475
That's an amazing story for everyone.
1252
01:25:20,595 --> 01:25:23,955
Van Gogh hoped to move and touch
1253
01:25:24,075 --> 01:25:27,555
and inspire or console as many people as possible,
1254
01:25:27,675 --> 01:25:31,115
despite their background, despite their nationality.
1255
01:25:31,235 --> 01:25:33,915
He really strived towards an art
1256
01:25:34,035 --> 01:25:37,474
that would be universal so everyone could understand it.
1257
01:25:37,594 --> 01:25:41,994
I don't think the fact that he is so successful now,
1258
01:25:42,114 --> 01:25:43,474
that his paintings belong
1259
01:25:43,594 --> 01:25:45,634
to the most expensive paintings in the world
1260
01:25:45,754 --> 01:25:48,674
or that we have so many visitors at the Van Gogh Museum...
1261
01:25:48,794 --> 01:25:51,714
It is not the financial success.
1262
01:25:51,834 --> 01:25:54,314
It is really about a sincere ambition
1263
01:25:54,434 --> 01:25:57,314
that he wanted to make this connection
1264
01:25:57,434 --> 01:26:01,833
and to try to give answers
1265
01:26:01,952 --> 01:26:05,313
to all of our questions about our existence,
1266
01:26:05,433 --> 01:26:06,833
about life.
1267
01:26:06,952 --> 01:26:11,433
And the fact that he still is able to make that connection to so many people,
1268
01:26:11,553 --> 01:26:14,273
that would have pleased him the most.
1269
01:26:23,593 --> 01:26:25,873
"My dear Theo,
1270
01:26:25,993 --> 01:26:28,472
"man is not placed on the earth merely to be happy.
1271
01:26:29,312 --> 01:26:32,392
"Nor is he placed here merely to be honest.
1272
01:26:32,512 --> 01:26:36,432
"He is here to accomplish great things through society,
1273
01:26:36,552 --> 01:26:38,512
"to arrive at nobleness
1274
01:26:38,632 --> 01:26:40,112
"and to outgrow the vulgarity
1275
01:26:40,232 --> 01:26:44,871
"in which the existence of almost all individuals drags on.
1276
01:26:47,151 --> 01:26:50,991
"Art is long and life is short
1277
01:26:51,951 --> 01:26:57,791
"and we must wait patiently while trying to sell our skin dearly."
104038
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