All language subtitles for Van Gogh Of Wheat Fields And Clouded Skies (2018)

(birds chirping)

(dramatic orchestral)

[Narrator] Van Gogh desired love,

but he lived and died alone.

He searched for infinity,

where the sky meets the fields of wheat.

And one Sunday at the end of July,

overcome, as he himself wrote,
by never ending sadness,

he killed himself with a revolver.

It happened here, in Auvers-sur-Oise,

just a few weeks before he
had painted this church,

a painting that together
with him and his life's work,

could have simply been forgotten.

But something happened.

(inquisitive music)

A woman managed to give Vincent something

he had never had when he was alive.

Affection, recognition,

respect.

Someone recognized themselves,

in what had been called his madness,

but which was nothing more
than a search for the absolute,

in all its raw truth.

(speaking in a foreign language)

Her name was Helene Kröller-Müller.

She was one of the richest
women in the Netherlands

and she devoted her
life to Van Gogh's art,

like a wife, or novice taking her vows.

(gentle music)

She was one of the first to understand

how important his work was

and she helped make it live forever.

This story brings together
the lives of two people

who never met,

but who are now united forever,

in the rooms of the museum that Helene

wanted to build for Vincent.

Helene Kröller-Müller
saw something of herself

in Vincent's tormented life.

Like him, she wrote hundreds of letters

about spiritual anxiety
and the need to believe

in the most absolute way.

Both wanted much more from religion,

than just it's rituals.

In 1881, Van Gogh talking
about the church wrote,

"No wonder one becomes
hardened and numb there.

"I know that from my own experience.

"Look, I find the clergyman's God,

"as dead as a doornail.

"But does that make me an atheist?"

And this is what Helene said,

referring to Van Gogh.

"Like him, I couldn't believe in the God

"that people expected me to believe in.

"He was a sham God. "

Two souls looking for an
absolute kind of faith,

that couldn't possibly exist in real life.

(dramatic orchestral)

Helene began buying paintings

and drawings by Van Gogh in 1909.

About 20 years after the painter died,

in 1890.

(dramatic music)

Her collection grew to such an extent,

that the idea of building a museum,

appealed to her, more and more.

Kröller-Müller Museum first
opened up its doors in 1938.

And it was a dream come true
for Helene Kröller-Müller,

its founders, who had been
collecting since 1906,

1907 and brought together
a marvelous collection

of modern artworks and Vincent Van Gogh

was her absolute favorite.

To her he was the best artist ever.

[Narrator] It was a
spiritual dimension of

Van Gogh's paintings
that caught her interest.

They both shared an empathy for the meek,

for those suffering,

and she wanted others to
be able to take comfort

and find inner peace from Vincent's works.

Just like she did.

And so she built the
Kroller-Mueller Museum,

in Otterlo in the Netherlands.

And it is here that the
art historian Marco Goldin,

began mulling over an
exhibition on Van Gogh

for the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza.

(sweeping orchestral)

When the paintings arrive in
the city in the Veneto region,

the curator, technician,
restorers and fitters,

all work on creating a
setting for the life,

the work and the world of Van Gogh,

who to this day is still one
of the best loved artists,

and one of the most
valued in the art market.

A most unusual destiny for a
man who died in a small room,

rented for three and a half franks a day.

(speaking in a foreign language)

Looking back over the life of Van Gogh,

means tracing the suffering
of a man who always struggled

with mental illness
and a sense of failure.

In his work he failed as an art dealer,

as a man of the cloth

and finally as a painter,

during his own lifetime at least.

And romantically, he was
rejected by a cousin,

he had fallen in love with,

and then had just one
relationship with a prostitute,

an unmarried mother who he left,

when pressured by his family.

His wretchedness and his greatness

are reflected in his letters,

as well as in his extraordinary paintings

and are told through the words of those

who have studied him for a long time,

like Leo Jansen who edited his letters.

It's very difficult to
say why Vincent Van Gogh

was such an important and great artist,

because he obviously was.

What really contributed
to art and art history

is that he was a very radical person.

He would never give in.

He had his own thoughts and ideas,

and he would go for them
in a very absolute way,

which means, that he went to the extreme

to make his paintings.

And, he went further than
anybody else did at the time.

(dramatic music)

One of the most important ingredients

in Van Gogh work is expression.

He wanted to, to give an
expression to the subjects

that he painted and he did
that by means of lively color,

strong color, strong color contrast,

and very vivid brushstroke.

And what he aimed at, was moving people.

(upbeat orchestral)

Van Gogh saw everyday life as difficult,

people have problems and
art and literature was there

to give them something beautiful,

to give them a moment of rest,

to give them peace of mind.

And it was a very important
ingredient of his art.

(melancholic music)

[Narrator] Before he began painting,

Van Gogh wrote.

Here he accounts what in a few years time

will be part of his work.

First would come the drawings
and then the oil paintings,

the harvesters, the
forest, the plowed land,

the churches, the seasons.

From the autumn of 1872,

he sent more than 900 letters,

many addressed his brother Theo,

letters that today give us
an insight into his thoughts

on life and on painting.

From the Hague, July 21st 1882,

he wrote.

"What I want and set as
my goal is damn difficult,

"and yet I don't believe
I'm aiming too high,

"whether in figures, or in landscapes,

"I would like to express not something

"sentimentally melancholic,
but deep sorrow"

(sweeping orchestral)

[Van Gogh] In short, I
want to reach the point where

people say of my work.

"That man feels deeply,
and that man feels subtly"

Despite my so-called coarseness,

perhaps precisely because of it.

What am I in the eyes of most people?

A non-entity, or an oddity,
or a disagreeable person,

someone who has and will
have, no position in society.

In short, a little lower than the lowest.

Very well, assuming that
everything is indeed like that.

Then through my work, I'd
like to show what there is

in the heart of such an
oddity and such a nobody.

(dramatic orchestral)

(upbeat music)

(birds chirping)

[Narrator] An infinite
ocean of plant life,

which takes us back to
the origins of time.

A time before man.

In the large Hoge Veluwe Park,

in the green heart of the Netherlands,

Helene Kroller-Mueller spent her days

meditating on life and on art.

Marco Goldin, the exhibition's curator,

has filtered the world of Van Gogh,

through Helene's eyes.

(dramatic music)

Many of Vincent's most beautiful paintings

are found here, in the sun spoiled oasis.

Between walls of trees
and expanses of sand

far from the city.

Vincent would undoubtedly
have loved this place.

Its wild nature, the leaves, the light.

He might perhaps have seen God there,

as he was always looking for
him, in every sight he saw.

In the middle of the forest
is the Kröller-Müller Museum,

almost hidden behind the
peace and quiet of the trees.

An understated building
made of simple bricks

and transparent corridors.

In the center, there are the rooms

that Helene dedicated to
the painter she loved.

A total of 88 paintings and 180 drawings,

from all the stages in
Van Gogh's life an artist,

a period of only 10
years from 1880, to 1890.

Helene saw the museum as
a temple, a sanctuary,

a place to worship Vincent.

And it is here that Goldin
begins to reveal the artist

through some of his masterpieces,

the most fragile ones that cannot travel,

as they must be preserved for safekeeping

in these Dutch rooms.

Starting with a night time
image of the Place du Forum,

the Café Terrace at Night.

(dramatic music)

[Marco] Vincent was
particularly interested

in rendering a nighttime setting.

And when he wrote to his sister
on the 16th of September,

1888, talking to her about this painting,

he mentions the fact that painters,

usually try to avoid night time settings,

because the colors change,

they become something different,

but he very much wanted to capture

the night mood in a painting,

just like in this wonderful picture.

In the same letter to his sister,

Vincent speaks of his happiness

in painting, on the spot at night

and also relates how depicting the night

in a painting like this,

can also lead to mistakes,

because the colors are
different from daytime colors.

But it could be said that
by painting a mistake,

Van Gogh also paints the truth.

The truth of his vision that is.

Of course, a vision completely transformed

through the light of the soul

and not merely the light of the eyes.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator] Darkness is one
of Van Gogh's favorite themes.

He explores it also in
depicting the reality

and the dignity of the life of the poor.

Represented in the
painting, the potato eaters.

An image that he wanted to
paint with the same colors,

as those of the earth.

[Marco] In April, 1885,

after are painting subjects in Nuenen

for about a year and a
half, such as landscapes,

weavers, and the heads of
peasants, both men and women,

Vincent Van Gogh decided
that the time had come

to paint a large painting,

whose main theme would be
the life of the farmer.

(gentle music)

It was to be the Groot Van Roy family,

and there he sat close
to the men and women

around this dish of potatoes.

He must also make another
fundamental decision

for this painting,
whether to paint the image

as if in daylight, in natural light,

or in artificial light.

In the end, the choice
is the one we can see

in the famous painting
with the potato eaters.

What he created is a
painting that gave him

a great deal of satisfaction.

He had effectively painted a Tableau,

a complex painting.

The one that in Van Gogh's mind

would make him important
in academic circles too.

(gentle music)

[Narrator] In 1890, Van Gogh
painted one final painting

in the asylum in St. Remy in Provence,

where he was hospitalized
for his nervous breakdowns.

The title is "Country
Road in Provence by Night"

with nighttime giving way
to the colors of dawn.

Shortly after, he returned to the north

for the final weeks of his life.

For many scholars, the work conveys

a sense of imminent death.

[Marco] On the evening
of the 20th of April 1890,

Mercury and Venus were in conjunction

with the crescent moon.

Van Gogh kept this image in
mind and just one month later,

he painted it, however, in a mirror image.

This painting contains all
the elements of Van Gogh's

stay in Provence, like
a kind of grand summary,

starting with the central crucial element,

this beautiful Cypress
like an Egyptian obelisk,

as Vincent wrote in one of his letters.

It is all about the
relationship between the earth

and the sky, in an almost funerial way,

thanks to the Cypress.

And then there's the wheat
field here on the left side,

with this very fragmented,

very jagged painting, as if
it were a kind of vast sea,

that opens up in an interplay of waves.

The carriage, and these two figures

we know from a letter
to Gauguin from Auvers,

where Van Gogh spent the
last 70 days of his life,

how these figures are
actually very much smaller,

because in the end, what must endure,

what must remain is the absoluteness.

The dimension of the landscape,
in its sense of infinity.

(gentle piano music)

(bright music)

[Narrator] Helene too
would drift off into infinity

when she was alone with her Van Gogh's.

She would look at still life with lemons

for hours and hours.

She wrote that in this painting,

she saw the perfection of all things.

The presence of a divine
principle in the world.

Among her favorites was La Berceuse,

which she had bought in Paris.

In reality, the lady was
the wife of a postman,

Monsieur Roulin, one of
Van Gogh's few friends

during his stay in Arles.

Helene imagined La Berceuse
as a comforting woman,

that melancholic sailors
would dream of at night.

(soft music)

Helene's art collection,

which took her 30 years to
bring together, is immense.

Besides her favorite Van Gogh,

there are works by Piet Mondrian, Picasso,

Leggett and many others.

Anton Kröller, the husband of Helene

and Helene bought this area for Anton,

to have a nice hunting ground.

And in the end, Helene
decided that she wanted

to have her museum there.

And, the main reason for
this remarkable choice

was that she was convinced
that she could much better

enjoy art, in the seclusion
and silence of nature,

much better in the turmoil of the city.

(soft music)

[Narrator] Helene
Kroller-Muller was a rich woman.

She came from a family
of German industrialists.

Her husband Anton Kroller,

became a business partner
to Helene's father

and together they moved
to the Netherlands,

where they had four children.

Helene loved literature and philosophy.

She came across art by chance.

She was 36 years old during
lessons with her daughter,

held by professor Henk Bremmer.

She discovered what
would become her passion

and also her comfort,
Van Gogh's paintings.

(gentle bright music)

Helene wrote a lot of
letters during her lifetime,

more than 3000 letters.

So she was an avid letter writer,

just like Vincent van Gogh.

And the letters are beautiful.

She describes why she loves art, what it,

how it comforts her.

For instance, she writes.

(speaking in a foreign language)

[Narrator] People will
be talking about Van Gogh

for a long time.

I'm just starting to discover him.

Van Gogh is the key and
the antithesis to so much.

There will be two main movements in art.

One, that is based on Van Gogh

and one that follows tradition.

(speaking in a foreign language)

Van Gogh's importance
is his ability to let us

and future generations feel
what it is to be human.

He was capable of this because,

he was human first and only
subsequently a painter.

His relevance does not
consist of his works,

which may be of pleasure to people.

No, his relevance lies in
touching the innermost reaches

of the human soul.

Something we may have felt unknowingly,

but of which we were
never consciously aware.

(dramatic music)

Guiding us through the
archive of Helene's letters,

is the writer Eva Rovers.

Like many Dutch people,

she visited the Kroler-
Mueller Museum as a child.

At the time, her imagination
was struck by the fact

that it was founded by a woman.

So after graduation,

when she was studying for her doctorate,

she chose to research her history.

She spent four years with all these papers

and eventually published a
biography of the collector,

that many people had forgotten.

Helene found a lot of comfort

in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh.

For instance, when she traveled,

she always took some
reproductions of his work,

so she could enjoy them
while she was not at home.

And they were so important to her,

that when she died,

they put her coffin,

just in front of her favorite
paintings by Vincent van Gogh,

so, she could still be in his
presence even after her death.

And she wrote a lot about his letters.

She found a lot of
comfort in his paintings,

but also in his letters.

She writes,

(speaking in a foreign language)

[Narrator] Despite all the sadness,

I greatly enjoy Van Gogh's letters.

They convey such beautiful human things.

What a modern person Van Gogh was

and how much misery he
had to suffer from uncles

and the people around him.

(melancholic music)

[Narrator] But who were all
these letters addressed to?

Conveying as they do much more than

a simple passion for art.

Helene's correspondence
is stored in an old trunk,

kept in the museum's archive.

The recipient was a man
20 years younger than her,

Sam van Devente with whom
Helene maintained an enduring,

but probably only platonic relationship

throughout their life.

He was a school friend of
one of Helene's daughters.

In the best romantic tradition,

as if an annulled by Gerter,

art perhaps helped her
sublimate that impossible love.

(ducks quacking)

(gentle piano)

Eva Rovers often went for walks to Helene

and her husband Anton's hunting lodge.

It's not far from the museum.

I think that anyone writing autobiography,

has to play the part of
an actress in her work.

She must try to get as close as possible

to the life of the person
she wants to write about.

This was where Helene
probably sought peace

in life's most difficult moments.

Perhaps she was struggling
not to give in to,

the embraces of Sam van Deventer,

or perhaps she was looking
for answers to the questions

about religion that had tormented her,

since she was a little child.

Do I, or don't I believe in God?

Will I find faith?

What is the meaning of
what I'm going through?

This hunting lodge was
designed by H. P Berlage

and commissioned by
Helene Kroller-Mueller.

Helena thought it was very important

that people could see this lake,

but also have the nature communicate

with all the architecture
here in the room.

The most important place
in this room was her desk.

This is where she wrote
her many, many letters,

thinking about the artwork she bought,

about Van Gogh, relating to his life

and reflecting all her
inner thoughts on the paper.

And also very interesting
is this very tiny,

very modest bedroom.

This is where Helene slept,

when she was in the hunting lodge,

as you can see a very small bed,

even for Helene Kroller-Mueller,
who was very small,

but she always sat a little bit upright,

when she was sleeping.

And when you see this very modest bedroom,

you might think it's very strange,

for one of the richest women
in Holland to live like this.

But I think in a way she was much inspired

by Vincent van Gogh and his
very modest way of living.

[Narrator] Helene was
not content to sleep

in an uncomfortable bed,
to be like Van Gogh.

She tried to live in
his image and likeness.

She cared for the wounded
on the battlefront,

during the first world war,

just as Van Gogh had spread the
gospel among Belgian miners,

both wanted to make their mark.

Van Gogh drew life.

Helene traveled far and
wide before realizing

that her duty, was to make
Vincent's work eternal

and find a home for his masterpieces.

(soft music)

In 1911, Helene Kroller-Muller
become seriously ill,

very dangerous and she
has to undergo a surgery,

which is life threatening.

So, she decides at that point,

that should she survive this surgery,

that she will dedicate her life to art

and to building a museum.

And afterwards, when she survives

and she gets better and stronger,

she takes two trips to Italy

and in Italy, she sees what this museum

that she wants to leave
behind should look like.

She gets inspired by the
building she sees in Rome

and in Florence and in Milano.

[Narrator] Milan.

We saw small churches
that impressed me more

than the greatest cathedrals.

Everything is such an affirmation.

A great amen.

Also, I saw Raphael again in a church

and the form of the paintings building

reminded me of Romante.

I sat in front of his
Sposalizio for half an hour

without talking, but with my
heart, I quietly said, yes.

If I could describe
everything I experienced,

there would be no end to this letter.

That's impossible.

It is so much and all such a great wonder.

(romantic music)

March 24th, 1913.

Florence exceeds my expectations.

I can't walk five steps without
seeing something beautiful.

This morning, we visited the Santa Croce,

the only church I've seen that conveys

a distinct Gothic influence.

It was worth it, as it is
a very beautiful church.

Many great Florentines are buried here,

or when their bodies have been lost,

are honored with a
statue, just a few names.

Michelangelo, Donatello,

Galileo, Dante.

You will understand that
I felt a deep reverence,

when I stood in front of these monuments.

Giotto painted in this church.

Donatello sculpted, a
beautiful annunciation

and Ghiberti designed the colored windows.

There are so many
masterpieces to be seen here.

Yesterday, when I stood in
front of Michael Angelo's tomb

and saw his bust,

it seemed as if I looked at
the vivid face of Van Gogh,

although a bit more restrained,

as well as his works,
which I recently studied.

I felt him to be great and
humanly tender, nonetheless.

I felt tears and wished
I could shake his hand,

because that human aspect
is what binds us all.

One of the buildings in Florence,

that strike her the most,

is the Palazzo Vecchio.

She writes about this
Palazzo to her husband.

(speaking in a foreign language)

[Narrator] I'm sending
you this postcard,

because it shows a building,

that gave me a lot to think about.

Do you recognize the kinship
with the (indistinct)?

It is one of the most
beautiful buildings I've seen,

in a long time built
by the Vecchio family.

And this is a little bit
funny because she thinks,

at this time that the Plazzo
Vecchio is built by the family,

Vecchio, but still this
mistake is very important,

because it makes her
decide that she wants to be

like the family Vecchio.

[Narrator] The tower rises
like a crown above Florence.

Everywhere you go, you see it.

Here, you find the desire to build again.

And now I have to tell you
about the great wonder.

I will build a new house
and it will be a museum,

which in the future will
belong to the public.

In a 100 years time,

it should become an
interesting cultural monument,

a great lesson, showing
how far a merchant's family

could go in terms of inner refinement,

at the beginning of the century.

It will be a museum as
authentic and alive,

as no museum ever before.

(dramatic music)

Helene called on several famous
names to design her museum,

Even Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,

one of the founding fathers
of modern architecture.

She had made drawings made.

She dreamed of constructing
a monumental building,

with Van Gogh's rooms in the center,

but bad luck was lurking
around the corner.

Towards the end of the first world war,

her husband Anton had
made some bad investments,

in Chilean mines.

The Kröller-Müller's finances nose dived

and in 1922, the museum
building sites had to close

due to lack of funds.

In the following years,
Helene was often depressed,

but she never gave up on her dream.

In the end, the museum was
built on a more modest scale,

by the Dutch state.

Based on a project by a Belgian architect,

Henry van de Velde, with the
provision that the works,

will become public property.

Helene died in 1939, a year
after the museum opened.

In a letter to Sam, she wrote,

"This museum was born from suffering"

During the war years in German occupation,

Sam, thanks to his
privileged relationship with

Arthur Seyss-Inquart,

Reich commissioner for the Netherlands,

was the one who saved the collection.

(dramatic music)

Helene did not live long enough

to see her important work appreciated,

just like Vincent with his art.

But now her collection is in demand,

for exhibitions all around the globe.

(dramatic music)

Every day in her museum, experts
check and restore the works

that are to leave on loan to other museums

and galleries.

These drawings, for example,

must always be kept in the dark.

They are sensitive to light.

They are taken out of their drawers

and put in glass cases
only on rare occasions,

to be displayed only temporarily.

(dramatic music)

The paintings too are delicate.

Before traveling, they must
be meticulously examined.

A report is drafted about their condition,

the solidity of the structure,
the hold of the paint.

It is essential that the canvas
is not damaged by moving.

(dramatic music)

I'm working on the
painting by Vincent van Gogh,

it's a portrait, painted in the
last month before his death.

And it's going to Vicenza in the fall.

It's going to a large exhibition.

I'm now removing the
degraded yellow varnish,

because it gave a really
yellow veil on the painting.

In this painting van Gogh used a lot of

different brush strokes.

In the background, you can see very,

he used a broad brush to
quickly set up the backgrounds

and on top he uses smaller brush

and in quick swift brush strokes,

he sets up a nice contrast.

And the nice thing about this painting is,

that's hidden behind the,

black cardboards.

A lot of his materials,
he used have degraded

and discolored over the years.

And the background of this painting

must have been much more
pink underneath the frame

and paint is protected from the lights.

So, you can still have a glimpse

of what the painting used to be like.

(sweeping orchestral)

(snapping staple gun)

(gentle piano)

[Narrator] The Basilica
Palladiana in Vicenza,

is also known as the White Lady.

It is one of the most beautiful buildings

of the Italian Renaissance.

The works from the Kroller-Mueller Museum

and other important
museums for the exhibition

"Van Gogh, Between Wheat and
Sky" are already in place.

The story begins in the Netherlands.

In 1880, Van Gogh was 27 years old.

It was here that he decided
to become an artist.

His experience as a lay
preacher among the workers

of the mining region of
Borinage Belgium, was a failure.

His first paintings,

once he had obtained the colors,

were scenes of country life
and portraits of peasants.

Dark faces, furrowed by fatigue,

like plowed fields, and the
same brown as winter landscapes.

One of the most important
works of this period,

is "Peasants Planting Potatoes"

(gentle piano)

[Marco] In the summer of 1884,

Vincent van Gogh was commissioned
to decorate six panels,

in the dining room of a former
goldsmith from Eindhoven,

Anton Hermens, who asked Van Gogh,

to take some themes from the
Bible, as his starting point.

Vincent however, chose to
recommend to Mr. Herman's

some scenes from country life.

One of which was the
peasants planting potatoes,

a picture that shows quite clearly,

what Van Gogh's references were,

during this period of his painting.

They obviously included
French realist painters,

especially Jean-François Millet,

as well as painters from the Hague school,

who carried on the French
painters work in the Netherlands.

It's a crucial painting,

because he had found a
new way to use color.

The first blues that light up the sky

and the greens that are lighter,

compared to the almost
mossy depths of the greens

that appear in the Dutch years.

(sweeping orchestral)

[Narrator] The peasant's
movements and faces

that appear in Van Gogh's works,

are an important legacy to
this day in the Netherlands.

A land arrested from the
seas grip by man's hand.

At the open air museum in Arnhem,

not far from the Kroller-Muller Museum,

tourists have been able
to learn about life

in the 19th century countryside
every day, since 1918.

(dramatic music)

[Marco] One of the
painters that Van Gogh

really admired very much was

Jean-François Millet the Barbizon painter,

who painted simple people, peasants,

in a very monumental way.

There's a saw, an image
of a saw that we edited,

where you really look up to
the figure in the painting.

So he gives these people
a very high status,

and that is why Van Gogh admired him,

because he too believed
that these people were

truer to life than cultivated
and bourgeois people.

(sweeping orchestral)

Of course, he had had a
lot of conflict himself

with sophisticated people
before he became an artist

and he had completely done with them

and wanted to be as
simple as those people.

He dressed very simply himself

and he tried to identify
himself with the simple folks,

because he thought they
are closer to nature.

They are closer to what
is essential in life.

They work in the ground,

they dig up the potatoes
that they eat themselves.

So they are very close to the cycle of,

sowing, growing, harvesting
the cycle of life.

(gentle music)

[Narrator] The world of
peasants often crops up

in Vincent's letters,
from the Dutch period.

[Vincent] Being a laborer,

I belong to the working class

and shall live and put down roots

in that sphere more and more.

I can't do anything else

and I have no desire to do anything else.

I can't imagine anything else.

It's always very tempting
to draw a figure at rest.

Expressing action is very difficult.

But the truth is, that there's
more toil than rest in life.

The man from the bottom of the abyss,

they perform this as the miner,

the other one with a dreamy,

almost pensive, almost
a sleep walker's air

is "The Weaver"

And now it's roughly two years

that I've been living with them

and to some extent,

I've learned to know
their original character.

(sweeping orchestral)

More and more, I find something touching

and even heartrending in these
poor and obscure workers,

the lowest of all, so to speak

and the most looked down upon,

which one, usually
pictures through the effect

of a perhaps vivid, but very
false and unjust imagination,

as a race of criminals and brigands.

(sweeping orchestral)

[Narrator] In the
blackened faces of the miners

and in the tarnished
hands of the peasants,

Vincent Van Gogh saw a manifestation
of the presence of God,

much more so than in
churches like this one,

in Auvers-sur-Oise where we are now,

or in the more austere ones in the north

where he used to live.

Perhaps it was also because
his father Theodoros,

was a somewhat religiously conventional

Protestant, pastor and Vincent
didn't get along with him.

His father and mother named him Vincent,

the same name as a brother still born,

exactly a year to the
day before his birth.

A replacement son, Vincent,

making up for the lost one.

How much did this knowledge

weigh on the artist's existential malaise?

(bells tolling)

[Vincent] People say,

and I'm quite willing to believe it,

that it's difficult to know oneself,

but it's not easy to
paint one self either.

(birds chirping)

I also read the Bible sometimes,

just as I sometimes
read Michele or Balzak,

or Elliot, but I see
completely different things

in the Bible than Pa sees

and I can't agree at all
with what Pa makes of it,

in his petty academic way.

All that dribble about good and evil,

morality and immorality,

I actually care so little about it,

for truly it's impossible for me

always to know what is good, what is evil,

what is moral, what is immoral.

(gentle music)

[Narrator] Helene too
had questioned the doctrine

that was forced on her by her family,

since she was a little girl.

(gentle music)

At the age of 15, for example,

she wrote in her diary that
she had refused to be confirmed

and that her father and
mother considered her

religious beliefs to be criminal.

She would later discover the
same rebellion against dogma

and the same mysticism in Van Gogh,

who in a letter from 1877 wrote,

"I am desperately searching
for a way to devote my life,

"more so than is now the
case to the service of Him

"and the gospel.

"I do nothing but pray"

Religion played an enormous
role in the family, Van Gogh.

It was a kind of enlightened
kind of Protestantism,

not very strict, not very rigid,

but freedom for the people
to make up their own mind.

But, Van Gogh at a
certain point in his life,

became much more religious
than the rest of the family.

Van Gogh became very, very Christian.

Very much focused on the
Bible in a way that his family

found way over the top.

And in a sense, what he does with his art,

is what he tried to do with his religion.

Van Gogh wants to mean something,

not only for humans, but for humanity.

(gentle music)

[Vincent] I'm concerned with the world.

Only in that I have a certain obligation

and duty as it were,

because I've walked the earth for 30 years

to leave a certain souvenir
in the form of drawings,

or paintings in gratitude.

Not done to please some movement or other,

but in which an honest
human feeling is expressed.

I see myself in a similar way,

as having to do something
with heart and love in it,

within a few years and
do it with willpower.

(soft music)

[Narrator] Van Gogh felt that his life

would not last long.

He knew he had to find his path quickly.

So, from the moment he
decided to be an artist,

he started off with a very strict method

and with plenty of willpower.

In the first two years as an
artist, between 1880 and 1881,

he did not touch a brush.

He only practiced drawing,

which for him meant getting
to the root of forms

and therefore of life.

Today, he is known as one of
the greatest masters of color,

but this is how he began,
with a pencil, ink,

chalk, or charcoal.

What very few people know is
how good a draftsman he was,

how beautiful his drawings were.

These drawings, they are not functioning

as a kind of stage in
the making of a painting.

They are artworks in themselves

and they are not seen so often because,

the paper is very brittle.

It's very sensitive to light.

So, the drawings are not
exposed so much, but in fact,

one could say that he was two artists.

He was a fantastic painter,
but he was also a very,

very gifted draftsman.

Van Gogh started as an artist,

he was aware of the academic principles,

the way academies worked at his time.

And he knew that drawing was seen

as the foundation of really everything.

So, if you wanted to
become a good painter,

you had to become a good draftsman first.

(soft music)

(people chattering)

[Narrator] In Brussels at
the Royal Academy of Fine Arts,

here in this school, Vincent
van Gogh came to enroll,

to learn the basics of
drawing and traditional art.

We don't know exactly how long he stayed.

The lessons held here since 1711,

the year the academy was founded,

were inspired by the teachings

of the oldest academy in the world.

The Academy of the Arts
of drawing in Florence,

founded in the 16th century
by Cosimo I de' Medici

and Giorgio Vasari.

Professor George Mayer,

honorary professor of art
history shows us an area,

that is normally closed to the public.

The attic of the library.

[Georges] Vincent van
Gogh enrolled in 1880.

And here I have the enrollment
records from that time.

No one ever have dreamed that
he would become Van Gogh,

with works in the
world's greatest museums,

in the most important exhibitions.

(gentle piano)

According to the academies
enrollment register,

Van Gogh was given the number 8488.

Van Gogh wanted to devote
himself to painting,

but first he had to undertake
a very rigorous apprenticeship

in the field of drawing.

In the teaching methods,

he found here at the academy,

he realized that drawing lessons
were of great importance.

(dramatic music)

[Vincent] What is drawing?

How does one get there?

It's working one's way through
an invisible iron wall,

that seems to stand between what one feels

and what one can do.

How can one get through that wall,

since hammering on it,
doesn't help at all?

In my view, one must undermine the wall

and grind through it slowly and patiently.

(gentle music)

[Narrator] As soon as he
had enrolled at the academy,

Van Gogh took part in the
competition for places,

as was the custom at the time.

There was a drawing competition

and the highest ranked
students were rewarded

with a good place in the classroom,

a warm seat near the heater,

or a well lit table with
a good view of the models

and plaster casts to be copied.

Vincent only ranked 22nd,
misunderstood from the very start.

[Man] He didn't like academic teaching.

So it's very difficult
to know what he learned

from that experience.

There were things he didn't like.

What he didn't like was
the nude model clearly,

which he often mentions in
his letters to his brother

and to his fellow student at
the academy, Anton van Rappa.

He said "The nude model
does not interest me.

"I prefer to depict
clothed model in a field"

He was also aiming for a
certain type of representation,

that tends more towards the natural,

than towards the ideal
dimension of the nude model.

He wanted to be as a sane French painting,

(speaking in a foreign language)

In other words, in a field,

close to the fields, in the forest

and not locked away in a schools atelier.

(sweeping orchestral)

[Narrator] Van Gogh turned
his back on the academy,

and headed quickly to the
countryside to find the truth.

His hands would not obey the
tenants of classical beauty.

In his eyes, life did not seem harmonious

and polished like a Greek statue,

but wretched and full of hurt

and this is how he wanted to portray it.

(gentle music)

After the drawings and
the paintings painted

in the Netherlands,

the Vicenza exhibition features works

from his French period.

The years in which Van
Gogh becomes the painter,

we can instantly recognize.

The turning point came in 1886,

when Vincent moved to Paris.

In a few months, his
style changed completely.

He left behind the brown
of the cloths of earth

in the fields and started
applying bright colors,

in a way that no one
before him had ever dared.

(gentle music)

[Marco] It was his brother Theo,

in certain letters
written in February, 1886,

who called Vincent to Paris
to learn about the art

of the impressionists
and post-impressionists.

But the first paintings Vincent painted,

in the Montemarte quarter,

where he lived with Theo,

still reflect the depth
and almost the earthiness

of the last Dutch paintings.

In the summer of the same year, 1886,

something wonderful happened.

In some beautiful, still lifes of flowers,

the first violets and the first reds,

light up in Vincent Van Gogh's painting.

(upbeat music)

[Vincent] My dear Theo.

Don't be cross with me that
I've come all of a sudden.

I've thought about it so much

and I think we'll save time this way.

We'll be at the Louvre from
midday, or earlier if you like.

[Narrator] An appointment
to meet his brother,

among the Lourve's paintings,
a symbolic gesture,

which would perhaps prove to be,

a stroke of good luck for modern painting.

But what was the real reason
for Vincent's style to change

so radically in Paris?

We ask the writer, Pascal Bonafoux,

who teaches Art History
at the Paris 8 University.

He takes us to Montmartre
and helps us to understand

how the mood in the district
at the end of the 1800s,

could have influenced Van Gogh.

Starting from the house
where he and Theo lived,

at 54 Rue Lepic.

[Pascal] Vincent van
Gogh arrived in Paris

in February, 1886.

He had already visited before,

but this time he decided to live here.

They lived on the fourth
floor and beyond the rooftops,

Vincent has an extraordinary view of Paris

and of course when it rains,
or it looks like rain,

he indulges in painting a
number of views of Paris,

from the windows of his
fourth floor apartment.

[Vincent] Paris is Paris.

There is but one Paris,

and however difficult living here may be,

the French air clears up the brain

and does one good.

A world of good.

[Narrator] Montmartre was
a birthplace of modern art.

In these streets, bustling
today with tourists,

looking for a quick caricature

and to breathe the air
of the Paris of old

In the 1800's they were
home to the most troubled

bohemian artists.

It was a poor community,
but hungry for life.

Free in its ideas and morals,

being further away from the center,

rents were low in the quarter

and the nightlife was cheap for some fun.

The painters womanized with their models,

who almost always had to
prostitute themselves,

to make it to the end of the month.

By day up and down the hill, they painted.

In the evening as the sun set,

they sat around talking about art.

[Pascal] So, here we are in Montmartre.

In Montmartre is as you know,

still a city within a city.

It's an extraordinary place,

because with good reason,

Paris in the 19th century
was the world capital of art.

But artists in this capital of art,

led a very special life.

They had their meeting places,

places to let their hair down of course.

They went to its cafes and why not?

To places where they could sing,

to what we also call the cafe concert,

but they might have also gone to cabarets

like Le Chat Noir

or Le Lapin Agile

and then there are the other places

that have become legendary,

like the the Moulin de
la Galette behind me.

The Moulin de la Galette

was one of the quintessential places,

where the impressionist
would come to work,

particularly Renoir,

who painted one of his
largest paintings here.

Offering the girls that he wanted

to pose for whole sessions,

hats, as a means to persuade them.

[Narrator] Following in the footsteps

of the impressionist masters,

Van Gogh also painted different versions

of the Moulin de la Galette
and its surroundings,

where there were also other windmills,

most of which have since disappeared.

Like Renoir and like Monet,

Vincent loved working En plein air.

He spent his days among the fields,

gardens and dusty roads of Montmartre

which at that time was a rural suburb.

[Pascal] The Vincent
who arrived in Paris

was clearly obsessed with nature.

He wanted to paint the countryside

and by a wonderful stroke of luck,

Montmartre was still in the countryside.

When he came up here on the hill,

when windmills stood here,

he found nature still,

that illusion of being perhaps

in the countryside again.

And a couple of centuries later,

today at the start of the 21st century,

these rare traces of the extraordinary

Montmartre Hill remain.

(birds chirping)

Van Gogh spent two years in
Paris, shedding his skin,

the little, not exactly
glorious painter that he was,

at the beginning of his career,

but who had extraordinary willpower

and determination,
became Van Gogh in Paris.

Just a few weeks after his arrival,

at the end of February, 1886,

the final exhibition of
the impressionists opened.

For Van Gogh, discovering
this explosion of color

was something quite extraordinary

and in the two years he lived in Paris,

Van Gogh plunders, it's
not a pejorative word.

It was truly his initiation.

He plunders from works here and there.

He takes from Pissaro.

He takes from Monet.

He takes from Renoir.

I won't list them all.

He takes what he needs to invent,

what would become his painting style.

(gentle piano)

[Narrator] The origin of Van Gogh style,

those small colorful colors,
can be traced back to Paris.

When he discovered the
paintings of Georges Seurat,

a painter who was considered
a new impressionist,

using colors that are not mixed,

but paired together with
light brush strokes.

His paintings had a great
influence on Vincent.

Helene Kroller-Mueller,
knew this perfectly well.

And in her collection,

she wanted works by Seurat

and other new impressionist artists

like Paul Signac,

which can be seen in the
collection at Otterlo,

before entering the Van Gogh rooms.

In Vincenza, the painting that
symbolizes this meeting is,

"Interior of a Restaurant"

[Marco] There is no doubt,

that the interior of this restaurant,

painted in Paris in the summer of 1887,

represents for Vincent van Gogh,

his main tribute to neo-impressionist art.

In the spring of the
previous year in 1886,

at the eighth final
impressionist exhibition,

Van Gogh had probably
seen the great painting

by Georges Seurat, a Sunday afternoon

on the island of a Grande Jatte,

from where his love for
neo-impressionist painting stemmed.

A new version of prismatic color,

with these tiny dots of
color placed side by side.

This is the moment when Van Gogh,

sets out on his journey
towards pure color,

towards the absolute light

that would take himself toward Provence.

(gentle music)

[Narrator] In June, 1888,

Van Gogh wrote to his
friend Émile Bernard,

"I even work in the wheat fields at midday

"in the full heat of the sun
without any shade, whatever.

"And there you are, I
revel in it like a cicada.

"My God, if only I'd
known this country at 25,

"instead of coming here at 35"

In February, Vincent had
moved a Southern France

to Arles, in Provence.

The supremely enthusiastic
period had begun for him,

the most wonderful time of his life,

which would last only a year,

until his first attack of madness.

(dramatic music)

Van Gogh had never been so productive.

In the spring and summer months,

he threw himself into the landscape,

spending whole days, painting vineyards,

orchards, wheat fields.

His pictures began to sing in a language

that no one had ever heard before.

His painting exploded with light.

(dramatic music)

[Vincent] What a
funny thing that touches

the brush stroke, out of
doors exposed to the wind,

the sun, people's curiosity.

One works as one can.

One fills one's canvas regardless.

Yet one catches the
true and the essential.

I feel fine working outside,
in the hottest part of the day.

It's a dry clean heat.

The color here is actually very fine.

[Marco] At the end of March, 1888,

Van Gogh turned the sense
of color on its head,

discovering a kind of anti-naturalism.

The sky became yellow,

in a wonderful tone on tone relationship,

between the sun and the space of the sky,

and the tree trunks became blue.

The blue that we see in one
of the most famous versions

of the Langlois Bridge on the Bouc Canal,

south of the city of Arles.

Here it is, with a very graphic style

that records the art of Japanese painters.

The art of Japanese painters
that comes back at the times

when Vincent Van Gogh worked
in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

a small fishing village along the shore

of the Mediterranean Sea.

And it is from Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer,

that he wrote to Theo,

that he had made the right
choice for his painting

by moving down to Provence.

(gentle music)

[Narrator] No one knows
for sure why Van Gogh,

had decided to move to Arles.

Certainly his passion
for Japanese prince ,

played its part in his
decision to move south.

In these Southern landscapes,

he was probably hoping
to find the bright colors

and strong contrasts of the
oriental images that he loved.

He also hoped that other
painters would soon join him,

especially his friend Gauguin

and they could form a
community of artists.

The failure of this dream
would play a large role

in the nervous breakdown,
he was shortly to have.

He found an atmosphere that
suited what he wanted to do.

And you see in Arles, how he
comes strongly inspired by

the change of the seasons,

of the changing colors
of the beautiful nature

that he sees in front of him.

So, he started to paint all of that,

with a complete gusto.

In Arles, he discovers that the way

the paint is applied,

can make a big difference in
the effect that a painting has.

And he develops his own style of,

I would say a kind of sculptural style,

in which he imitates
the forms of the motif

with the brush stroke.

So, that makes it a very
expressive way of painting

and it also gives a lot of
depth into the painting,

'cause we call that impasto,

how thick the paint is applied.

And he really used everything he could,

to heighten the expressiveness,

expressive power of his painting.

So that's why he used this physical

and very physical brush stroke to make it,

to give it more expression.

(dramatic music)

[Vincent] At the moment
I have a clear head

or a lover's blindness towards my work,

because being surrounded
by color like this,

is quite new to me and
excites me extraordinarily.

Fatigue, doesn't come into it.

I could do another painting tonight even,

and I could bring it home.

If I tell you that it's very urgent

that I receive six large
tubes, Chrome yellow,

one lemon, six large
tubes, veronaze green.

Three large tubes Prussian blue,

blue 10 large tubes of zinc white,

large tubes, like the
zinc and silver white,

then it's to be deducted
from yesterday's order.

Also five meters of canvas.

(dramatic uplifting music)

Van Gogh, didn't only
paint landscapes in Provence.

He also painted portraits of people

he spent time with, or met in Arles,

like Paul-Eugène Milliet,

a lieutenant with a Zoab.

Vincent met the soldier
on leave in June, 1888

and he gave him drawing lessons.

For Vincent Van Gogh,

portraits are not merely
the faithful representation

of a person's features,

but they are also a distortion
of the person's features

to reach their very soul.

In this picture, Milliet,
is placed in a space

that is almost nothingness,

in an abstract place,

relating the moon and a star here above,

to the green of a great flow of color.

(dramatic music)

[Vincent] In a painting,
I'd like to say something

consoling like a piece of music.

I'd like to paint men, or women
with their je ne sais quoi

of the eternal, of which the
halo used to be the symbol

and which we tried to achieve
through the radiance itself,

through the vibrancy of our colorations.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator] Meanwhile,
Vincent's friend Gauguin

had arrived, but the happy moment,

the time of mad joy in Arles,

would soon come to an end.

And the time that they were
supposed to spend together,

a year, ended badly.

After only two months of time together,

due to the excesses,

the constant tension and their
differences in character,

Gauguin, one one evening
in December, 1888,

announced that he was leaving.

They drank Absinthe and a
violent argument broke out.

Van Gogh took a razor and cut
off the lobe of his left ear.

He wrapped it in newspaper

and gave it as a present to
a prostitute named Rachel.

From that moment until his death,

a year and a half later,

Vincent's painting was a
struggle against madness.

(dramatic music)

[Vincent] The weather
outside has been splendid

for a very long time,

but I haven't left my room for two months.

I don't know why.

I would need courage and I often lack it

and it's also that since my illness

and the feeling of
loneliness takes hold of me

in the fields in such a fearsome way,

that I hesitate to go out.

The room where we stay on rainy days,

is like a third class waiting room

in some stagnant village,

all though moreso since
there are honorable

mad men who always wear a hat,

spectacles and traveling
clothes and carry a cane,

almost like at the seaside

and who represent the passengers there.

There's one person here
who has been shouting

and always talking like
me for a fortnight.

He thinks he hears voices and words

and the echo of the corridors.

Anyway, I'm trying to get better now,

like someone who having
wanted to commit suicide

and finding the water too cold,

tries to catch hold of the bank again.

(dramatic music)

[Marco] This large model,

is a reproduction of the
St Paul De Mausole Asylum,

in Saint-Rémy, in Provence.

At the foot of the small
mountain range, of the Alps.

Following Vincent's repeated episodes,

of mental instability, in
the previous months in Arles,

the painter deliberately
chose to be hospitalized here.

In the year he spent in Saint-Rémy,

the head of the St Paul De Mausole Asylum,

Dr. Peron, did not always
give him permission

to go out and paint in nature.

So, Van Gogh painted from his
small studio, or his room.

It is the moment when his painting

becomes increasingly abstract,
in the landscape's light.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator] Dr. Peron
diagnosed Vincent with epilepsy.

Today, it is difficult
to assess his conclusions

and we can't say exactly
what mental disorder

Van Gogh suffered from.

We only know that in Saint
Remy, in spite of his illness,

he painted some extraordinary works,

such as Starry Night,

which is now at the MOMA in New York.

We cannot really say he
was either this or that.

It has lots in common
with borderline, some say,

or with manic depression, some other say,

but I don't think it's really important

what actually was his disease.

What is important is,
first of all, of course,

that he was ill and that it
caused so many problems for him

and then of course, what
is important is that

he still made a lot of
beautiful paintings,

in the periods when he was doing well,

he made fantastic paintings.

(soft music)

Although he thought that he
couldn't make the same kind of,

or reach the same level as before,

we think that after becoming ill,

he still made fantastic paintings.

(gentle music)

[Marco] When he went to Saint Remy,

he not changed that immediately of course,

but in Saint Remy,

he started looking for
something much more stylish,

stylized, and it was partly a result of

his discussion with his
friends, Paul Gauguin

and Emile Bernard,

who stressed that things should
not be taken from reality,

but from the imagination

and that you should manipulate reality.

Van Gogh tried his hand at it,

he was not, the imagination,

just the imagination was
not good enough for him,

but the search for style,
the search for rhythm,

which you see in the paintings
and drawing from Saint Remy,

is part of that discussion.

Partly a result of that discussion.

We start to experiment
with exaggerated forms

and exaggerated brush strokes.

I don't think that these are,

showing his mental illness
as some people believe,

but they were part of his artistic search,

for his own style

and he abandoned that afterwards.

So, it was like he did in Paris,

like he has done all his life.

He comes up on something new,

the circular brush strokes.

He experiments with that.

He tries to, make use of it,

make paintings with it,
in the best way he can

and then he goes on and on.

(gentle dramatic music)

[Vincent] Since I've been here,

the neglected garden,
planted with tall Pines

under which grows tall

and badly tended grass
intermingled with various weeds,

has provided me with enough work

and I haven't yet gone outside.

However, the landscape of
Saint Remy is very beautiful

and little by little,

I'm probably going to make trips into it.

I'm obliged to ask you
for some more colors

and especially some canvas.

When I send you the four
canvases of the garden

I have on the go, you'll see that,

considering that life happens
above all in the garden,

it isn't so sad.

Life goes on like that,
time doesn't come back,

but I'm working furiously,

because of the very fact that
I know that the opportunities

to work don't come back,
above all in my case,

where a more violent crisis,

may destroy my ability, to paint forever.

Work is going very well.

I'm finding things that I've
sought in vain for years

and feeling that I always
think of those words

of de la Cruz, that you know,

that he found painting
when he had neither breath,

nor teeth left.

(soft music)

[Narrator] As the
end of 1889 approached,

Van Gogh wanted to see the north again.

(gentle guitar)

He loved Provence.

It's colors.

The South had given him so much,

but he wanted to return
to his Northern light,

to his roots.

So in May, 1890, he moved here,

to Auvers-sur-Oise, 30
kilometers north of Paris.

(gentle music)

[Van Gogh] Auvers is really beautiful.

Among other things,
many old thatched roofs,

which are becoming rare.

I'd hope then that in doing a few canvases

of that really seriously,

there would be a chance of recouping

some of the costs of my stay,

for really it's gravely beautiful.

It's the heart of the countryside,

distinctive and picturesque.

I can do nothing about my illness.

I'm suffering a little these days.

It's just that after this long seclusion,

the days seem like weeks to me.

Whatever the case, I don't
regret coming back here

and things will go better.

(gentle music)

[Narrator] Here in Auvers,

Vincent rented a room
at the Auberge Ravoux,

the cheapest inn he could find.

It was a place frequented by artists,

who could come from Paris to paint

the villages surroundings.

The Ravoux family also made him his meals,

which he ate in the ground floor room,

that has been preserved
in its original state.

Auvers-sur-Ois would be the
last stop on Vincent Van Gogh's

frenzied journey.

He moved house 37 times in 37 years.

He spent the last 10 weeks
of his life at Auvers.

Once again, painting feverishly,

around one painting a day.

In the end, he had produced 70 works.

Vincent walked the countryside

and his canvases took in the fields,

houses and landscapes,
with a vast horizon,

as if preparing for a leap into infinity.

His brush strokes were calmer now.

The twisting whirling arabesques

of Saint Remy, were gone.

The paintings of Auvers,

such as Poppy Field and
Landscape of Auvers in the Rain,

convey a sense of final abandonment.

(dramatic music)

[Marco] From the middle of June,

Van Gogh began painting the
last landscapes of his life,

and they are great
horizontal views of alfalfa.

As in this painting with
the red of the poppies,

floating above.

A kind of a long immersion in nature,

with a graphic style,

determined by the trees that recalls

Van Gogh's love of Japanese art

and these skies that
seem to almost swallow

the breath and the soul of painter,

very different from the
sky's painted in Provence,

just a few months before.

They are horizontal views,

that will then become the
final views of wheat fields.

Like a very important and wonderful image,

whose distinguishing mark

is the light of poetry and destiny.

This field of wheat under the rain.

Once again, the reference
is to Japanese art,

but it is here in this
moment that Van Gogh,

paints a kind of real tombstone

and the landscape is the place,

that will finally embrace
him once and for all.

(bells tolling)

[Narrator] Who knows
whether Vincent passed by here

on his last day, from the
street next to the church,

as he went to the
appointment with the death

that he himself had made.

It was a Sunday and these aisles

were probably ringing with song.

I imagine him moving away,

like the peasant woman in his painting,

back turned as if to
raise a wall of solitude

between him and us, before disappearing.

(dramatic music)

[Van Gogh] I am often
terribly and cantankerously

melancholic, irritable,

yearning for sympathy ,

as if with a kind of hunger and thirst.

I become indifferent, sharp,

and sometimes even poor oil on the flames,

if I don't get sympathy,

I don't enjoy company
and dealing with people,

talking to them is often
painful and difficult for me.

But do you know where a great deal,

if not all of this comes from?

Simply from nervousness.

I am terribly sensitive,
both physically and morally.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator] After breakfast
on Sunday, July 27th, 1890,

Vincent went out to paint
in the fields as usual.

In the afternoon, after resting
his easel on a haystack,

he took a revolver and
fired a shot into his chest.

He fell to the ground unconscious,

and only when the call evening arrived,

he came to and managed to
make his way back to his room.

(dramatic melancholy music)

He was found in the night by Mr. Ravoux

owner of the inn, who had heard his moans.

Theo was warned and arrived
the next day from Paris.

He and Vincent talked for many hours,

with Vincent, even smoking a pipe.

They reminisced about the rare,

happy moments of life, they spoke,

as they always had of painting,

until on the night between
the 28th and the 29th of July,

Vincent van Gogh died.

(dramatic music)

Vincent's ordeal through art and life

had to end this way, with sacrifice.

His search for an eternal principle,

in the simple manifestation of things,

perhaps led him too far and too deep.

It made him turn the
visible world on its head

until he lost himself.

(dramatic music)

(soft music)

This is why Helene Kroller-Mueller

loved Van Gogh's paintings
and letters so much,

because she saw Vincent as a guide,

a prophet who had the
courage to look beyond

what everyone else saw

and beyond what others painted.

Van Gogh was a sensitive man,

generous to a fault.

He used his life to give
us extraordinary paintings.

Whether it is right to forsake everything,

love health wellbeing in the name of art,

is not ours to say.

Standing in front of his paintings,

each one of us will form our own answer.

What is important is that Vincent existed

and that people like Helene
have protected his legacy.

And then I think that maybe Van Gogh,

as he was painting outdoors,

sometimes saw the God he was
searching for and smiled.

(soft music)

[Vincent] Now I look
out over rolling pastures

and everything is so quiet

and the sun is setting
behind the great clouds

and throws a golden glow across the land.

(gently sweeping orchestral)

When one travels for hours
and hours through the region,

one feels as if there's actually nothing,

but that infinite earth,

that mold of wheat or heather

and that infinite sky.

(sweeping orchestral)

(soft piano music)