| | 61 letters relate to health - mental... | Excerpt length: shorter longer | |
| Letter from Reverend Salles to Theo van Gogh
(31 December 1888)
... I am going to give you news of your brother. I have just
seen him, and found him calm, in a state which does not show anything
abnormal with him. Unfortunately, as a result of the insane act which
required his admission to the hospital and the more
than strange behaviour that he showed in that establishment, the doctors found it
necessary to isolate him and place him in an isolated room which they can keep locked. It
is their opinion that he must be transferred to a lunatic
asylum and they have made a report to this effect to the Mayor.
This report will cause an inquiry and the result will be sent
to the Prefect, who will probably order your brother's
transfer to Marseilles or Aix.
I wanted to warn you of what is going on with respect to
your brother, something of which he himself seems to fully
understand. I repeat, I found him talking calmly and not raving any more than anyone else. He
is amazed, even indignant (which could be sufficient to
start another attack) that they keep... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(17 January 1889)
... I hope, as I
get back my strength.
Rey told me that being very impressionable was enough to
account for the attack that I had, and that I was really only
anaemic, but that I really must feed myself up. But I took the
liberty of saying to M. Rey that if the first thing for me was
to get back my strength, and if by pure chance or
misunderstanding it had just happened that I had had to keep a
strict fast for a week - whether he had seen many madman in
similar circumstances fairly quiet and able to work; if not,
would he then be good enough to remember occasionally that for
the moment I am not yet mad.
Now considering that all the house was upset by this
occurrence, and all the linen and my clothes soiled, is there
anything improper or extravagant or exorbitant in these
payments? If I paid what was owing to people almost as
poor as myself as soon as I got back, did I do wrong, or could
I have been more economical? Now today on the seventeenth I at
last received 50... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to A. H. Koning
(22 or 23 January 1889)
... the way
from the North of our native country. I received your postcard
in the hospital at Arles, where I had been quartered following
an attack of something the matter with my brains, or otherwise
fever, which had nearly passed off already.
And as for the causes and consequences of said illness, I
think I shall be wise to leave the solving of these problems to
the casual discussions of the Dutch catechists, that is to say
whether I am mad or not, or whether I have been mad, and am
still mad, in some imagination of a purely sculptural
nature.
And if not, whether I was already mad before that time; or
whether I am so at present, or shall be so in the
hereafter.
After having thus given you ample information with regard to
the state of my mind and body…I suppose you will think
it less miraculous that I did not answer you earlier. Meanwhile
we must not forget to stick to the point.
And starting from there I ask you what you are doing in the
art of painting,... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Paul Gauguin
(22 or 23 January 1889)
... just proves
that he understands us.
I shall send you your things, but I still have bouts of
weakness at times during which I'm in no position to even lift
a finger to return your things to you. In a few days' time I'll
pluck up the courage. And as for the `fencing masks and gloves'
(make as little use as possible of less infantile engines of
war), these terrible engines of war will just have to wait
until then. I am writing to you very calmly, but packing up
what's left is still beyond me.
In my mental or nervous fever, or madness - I am not too
sure how to put it or what to call it - my thoughts sailed over
many seas.
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(28 January 1889)
... my work are
not progressing so badly.
It astonishes me already when I compare my condition today
with what it was a month ago. Before that I knew well enough
that one could fracture one's legs and arms and recover
afterward, but I did not know that you could fracture the brain
in your head and recover from that too.
I still have a sort of “what is the good of getting
better?” feeling about me, even in the astonishment
aroused in me by my getting well, which I hadn't dared hope
for.
During your visit I think you must have noticed the two size
30 canvases of sunflowers in
Gauguin's room. I have just put the finishing touches to
copies , absolutely identical replicas of them.
I think I have already told you that besides
these I have a canvas of “La Berceuse” the very one
I was working on when my illness interrupted me .
I now have two versions of this one too.
I have just said to Gauguin about this picture that when he
and... |
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