"There are moments when I am twisted by enthusiasm or madness or prophecy, like a Greek oracle on the tripod."

- Vincent van Gogh

Feb. 3, 1889

To comprehend the madness behind the art of Vincent van Gogh requires a lesson in math.

In his brief 10-year career, van Gogh created more than 2,100 paintings and drawings – an average of 210 pieces a year – or one work of art every 42 hours. By contrast, Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, van Gogh’s one-time friend, produced 497 pieces during his 30-year career. Another contemporary, Paul Cezanne, created 488 works over 45 years.

"This week I have done absolutely nothing but paint and sleep and have my meals. That means sittings of twelve hours at a stretch," van Gogh wrote to his brother on Sept. 16, 1888 – about three months before the artist was committed to a mental hospital after he attacked Gauguin on Christmas Eve with a razor and then sliced off part of his own ear.

The why behind madness

For decades forensic psychiatrists and psychologists have tried to explain the frenetic pace of van Gogh’s career. Among their diagnoses: temporal lobe epilepsy, bipolar disorder, acute porphyria (a hereditary disease that can cause confusion, hallucinations and seizures), Meniere’s disease (a balance disorder), schizophrenia, depression, thujone poisoning (a toxin in absinthe), lead poisoning, hypergraphia (incessant, compulsive writing), syphilis and sunstroke.

While many famous artists have struggled with mental illness, few have drawn as much attention as van Gogh. Why? Because no other artist has chronicled his mental illnesses with such exquisite, excruciating detail – in paint and words. Even his most deranged act – cutting off his own ear – he painted twice.

Best known for his Starry Night and Sunflower paintings, it is van Gogh’s self-portraits ­- 34 paintings and three drawings – that reveal the toll these illnesses took upon his health. Self-portrature was popular among Dutch painters, and van Gogh may have been emulating Rembrandt van Rijn. But the sheer number of van Gogh’s self-portraits painted over just 10 years far outpaced Rembrandt, who painted an estimated 85 self-portraits over his 40-year career.

"Dutch artists all knew that Rembrandt left this long legacy of self-portraits," said Roger Ward, the chief curator at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. As for the pace of van Gogh’s self- portraits, "this is a remarkable number," Ward said.

Final self-portrait here

Today, van Gogh’s self-portraits are spread among museums and private collections around the world. Among the five that reside in the United States is van Gogh’s final self-portrait – painted contemporaneously with another just 10 months before the artist killed himself.

That painting, with its frenzied brushwork and startling confluence of colors – the dark blue-violet of the background coupled with the artist’s orange hair and sallow yellow and green face – will hang for the next five months in the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. It is the first time the museum has housed a van Gogh.

"For many people this might be the first time ever seeing a van Gogh face to face," said Ward. "It is a remarkably powerful work of art whose effect on people is mesmerizing."

Possible childhood injury

Those who have studied van Gogh’s mental state believe that the asymmetry of van Gogh’s face is evidence of a childhood brain injury, possibly at birth. As a teenager he became a religious fanatic, giving away all his personal belongings and working as an evangelist in an impoverished mining town in Belgium. He eventually abandoned his religiousity and at age 27, fervently resolved to be an artist.

After six years of working as an artist in the Netherlands and Belgium, van Gogh moved to Paris where he took up drinking absinthe, the favorite alcoholic beverage of bohemian artists and writers of the time, including playwright Oscar Wilde, artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and poet Charles Baudelaire.

Alcohol, itself a depressant, exacerbated van Gogh’s moodiness and temper and his drink of choice – absinthe – had a very high alcohol content. Absinthe also contains a toxin called thujone, which in high doses can also cause yellow-tinged vision, fueling speculation that absinthe may have created van Gogh’s love of the color yellow.

Van Gogh’s doctor blamed the artist’s hallucinations, depression, mania and seizures on epilepsy. A medication frequently used to treat epilepsy at that time – digitalis – also can cause yellow vision and other symptoms that plagued van Gogh: anorexia, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, hallucinations and severe headaches.

As for the halos van Gogh painted around the stars in his Starry Night paintings, those may be the byproduct of lead poisoning resulting from van Gogh’s habit of nibbling on lead-laden paint chips. One of the symptoms of lead poisoning is swelling of the retinas, which can create halos of light around objects. High doses of digitalis can also create the illusion of blue halos around lights.

More than 800 letters

Besides his paintings and drawings, van Gogh wrote more than 800 letters – most to his brother Theo. From impotence and paranoia to alcohol and color schemes, van Gogh documented his madness while fully aware of his mental deterioration.

The letters, most dated, give precise and sometimes disturbing insight into his paintings as he painted them. He wrote lengthy treatises on color, hues, tones and the juxtaposition of objects and colors in his work. He critiqued and praised other artists. As his illnesses progressed, his writing became convoluted with explanations of his feelings and fears.

Finally, on a Sunday evening in July 1890, van Gogh walked into the French countryside, placed his easel against a haystack and shot himself in the lower chest. He stumbled back to the inn where he was staying and died the following day. He was 37 years old.

"On the walls of the room where his body was laid out all his last canvases were hung, making a sort of halo for him and the brilliance of his genius that radiated from them made his death even more painful," artist Emile Bernard wrote to a friend about van Gogh’s funeral. "Near him also on the floor in front of his coffin were his easel, his folding stool and his brushes."

Only one of van Gogh’s paintings sold during his lifetime.

"They said I was out of my mind, but I knew myself that it was not true, for the very reason that I felt my own disease deep within me, and tried to remedy it."

- Vincent van Gogh

Oct. 12, 1883

~christine_stapleton@pbpost.com

Was Vincent

van Gogh

BIPOLAR?

Posthumous diagnoses of the deeply disturbed Dutch artist range from bipolar disorder to epilepsy and absinthe addiction.

Bipolar disorder, the most widely accepted diagnosis, would explain van Gogh’s drastic mood swings, frenetic pace, irascible temper, debilitating depression and psychosis.

Poisoning from absinthe and side-effects from epilepsy medications could explain van Gogh’s obsession with the color yellow and the halos around objects in his paintings.