The unintentional autobiography of Van Gogh

He wrote, he wrote extensively, he wrote as much as he painted and perhaps even more. In a biographical description, he could be defined, not only as a painter but also as an epistolographer. There is a collection of nearly a thousand letters from Vincent Van Gogh in existence, three quarters of which are addressed to his younger brother, Theo (Theodorus). In all those lines he had an obsessive need to tell everything; his mood, his physical pains, the ailments of his mind, hopes, suggestions and intentions. It is the hidden narrative of his life, a plot that can be reconstructed letter after letter. An unconscious autobiography that shows the essence of his existence, collected at the precise moment in which Vincent lived it. When writing a novel the moods are often described after the event when memories are relived or reflected upon however, in those letters, there is instead the absolute relevance of the moment for Van Gogh, the sensations recorded live, the ideas that are born and then disappear, the moods that mark that moment and then perhaps vanish, and all this conveyed through the flavour of those vivid, sometimes brutal colours that we find on his canvases.

Thanks to the letters we can place ourselves into his inner universe, and it is as if, through this window, that we can see his painting expressed in a different code. Van Gogh shows us every element of his perceptions and sensations he experiences, his passions and fears. He would like to reproduce the beauty of the whole of nature, all of it, but then there is the reality of his world, the daily hardships with which he realizes he has to face: "... At this moment - he says in Letter 228, written in August 1882 - I feel like I'm on the high seas; I have to devote all the strength I can to painting. If I want to paint on board or canvas, there will be expenses; everything is expensive, even the colours are expensive, and my supply runs out quickly. But patience, these are the difficulties that all painters run into… ”.

This wealth of correspondence that Vincent dedicates, especially to Theo, gives us today an extraordinary privilege, the tool that allows us to understand in a very authentic way his sensitivity and the paths of his thoughts. In the letter he sent to his painter friend Anthon van Rappard in August 1885, he bitterly states: "... I know perfectly well what purpose I pursue, and I am firmly convinced that, despite everything, I am on the right track when I want to paint what I feel and when I feel what I paint, to worry about what others say about me. However, sometimes these (comments) poison my life, and I think that most likely one day they will regret what they said about me by showering me with hostility and indifference. I save the blows by isolating myself, to the point that I literally don't see anyone anymore… ”.

? 2020. Anna Maria Amato. All rights reserved