Comments on: His exact pathology remains unknown

His exact pathology remains unknown

chavenet — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 11:28:19 -0800

Van Gogh made a host of poor life decisions — he smoked too much, drank too much, and visited brothels all too frequently, exposing himself to a cornucopia of sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, which can cause brain damage. On top of his already über-unhealthy lifestyle, he was eating paint that contained high levels of lead and other toxins, and drinking an industrial-grade solvent used to thin and strip paint. Things were not going to end well for this man. from Why did Van Gogh eat yellow paint? [Big Think]

By: supermedusa

supermedusa — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:03:36 -0800

very interesting read. it is a perilous thing to attempt to diagnose someone across the reach of history. self-evaluation is unreliable and medical professionals are not always much better. it does sound like pica is a strong candidate for contribution to a myriad of challenges, issues, problems. regardless, he certainly suffered. it's sad to think what great art he still had in him, if only help had existed to give him some relief. (or just to be content, and live past 40, even if he'd never painted again.)

By: Orthodox Humanoid

Orthodox Humanoid — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:51:08 -0800

Jeepers.

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 13:12:10 -0800

We are only now realizing the full extent to which Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience has fallen short.

By: Fuchsoid

Fuchsoid — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 14:09:28 -0800

All the yellow pigments he would have had access to (except yellow ochre) were heavy metal compounds, with lead in most of them, plus chromium, arsenic and/or antimony, so terpenes were probably the least of his pigment related problems. He was especially find of chrome yellow (lead chromate), poor bastard.

By: jamjam

jamjam — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 14:29:15 -0800

Heavy metals, including mercury and lead, were syphilis treatments of choice in those days. Chrome yellow may have actually made him feel better. There was a thread recently in which one of the commenters wondered why so many popular cartoonists seemed to go kind of crazy and drift toward the far right as they aged. I've noticed the same thing and meant to favorite that comment but evidently I did not. I think there might be some connection between chronic brain syndromes and an increased reliance on visual and spatial modes of thought as the syndrome progresses and corrupts other pathways of thought. And that corruption, in and of itself, might give rise to evil.

By: Windopaene

Windopaene — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 14:53:02 -0800

It is sad how he ended up suffering, and don't care about the reasons. But so much of work was just so vibrant, and so great, and so attracting to look at. .

By: Betty_effn_White

Betty_effn_White — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 14:57:38 -0800

Suddenly I want to see Charlie Day play Van Gogh

By: mike3k

mike3k — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 15:32:16 -0800

There's an unhoused man in my neighborhood who spends much of his time painting. His paintings are really good and he usually paints only in blue. Supposedly he has a MFA. When he's rational, he's very knowledgeable and can have interesting conversations about art & architecture, but unfortunately he has episodes when he starts ranting & screaming or threatening people.

By: The River Ivel

The River Ivel — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:06:32 -0800

We could also compare impressionist and early modern painters to jazz artists - another group of people who broke new ground in art, and died by the bucketload from various diseases that were caused by unhealthy lifestyle choices. However, musicians have been generally more left wing. Speaking as an artist, I think it's because you spend more time by yourself

By: dg

dg — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:35:52 -0800

supermedusa: " it's sad to think what great art he still had in him, if only help had existed to give him some relief. " Which may have prevented the catastrophically ridiculous prices being paid for his (and others') paintings. I guess, though, they'd still be relatively rare and therefore desirable to people with more money than sense.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:42:00 -0800

The tabloid tone of this excerpt is really putting me off, but aside from that, it seems that "Scientists now believe he had a biochemical craving for something called terpenes" comes from an article that appeared around 1988 in the Journal of the American Medical Association written by Wilfred Niels Arnold, who then went on to publish a book in 1992. It is his theory that Van Gogh developed a craving for terpenes through drinking absinthe, even though Van Gogh's doctor believed that he had ingested paint and paraffin (kerosene) in hospital in order to commit suicide. Part of Arnold's argument is essentially that absinthe was a uniquely destructive drink, based on centuries-old studies that have been pretty thoroughly debunked by this time. Arnold even reproduces a table in his book of liquors sorted by their "preference among alcoholic lunatics". Another of his points in favor of Van Gogh's "craving for terpenes" is Van Gogh's use of camphor for insomina, but Van Gogh was documented as being a heavy coffee drinker, and camphor is still used to treat insomnia today. Being an alcoholic that drank the most popular drink in Arles, while also trying to treat insomnia, and then eating paint while incarcerated in a mental institution all seems rather... circumstantial. Anyway, I didn't like the goofy tone of this article, and I'm not sure the assertions are substantiated: "Van Gogh had a strong nose for terpenes and sought them out relentlessly." Really? Or was he just drinking the same drink as everyone else was? I mean, he ate really poorly and drank and smoked a lot, so maybe he did have pica- he certainly had nutritional deficiencies as well as mental illness- but there's not a lot of evidence presented here to make that case.

By: TheWhiteSkull

TheWhiteSkull — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 17:06:36 -0800

"preference among alcoholic lunatics" Absinthe was likely highly ranked in this preference because most commercially-produced versions were around 60%abv. If Wray & Nephew Rum had been available in France at the time, I imagine it would have been pretty popular as well. I'm sure Green Chartreuse was up there, too. Or perhaps alcoholic lunatics simply had a preference for licorice, anise, and similar flavors.

By: crazy_yeti

crazy_yeti — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 18:41:32 -0800

I agree with oneirodynia about the glib, goofy tone of this article. More like "Lazy Think". And as someone who truly enjoys absinthe, I resent the characterization of absinthe and the lovely ritual around it as "pretentious". Is anything that requires more preparation than cracking open a can of beer pretentious? Shaking up a martini? Grinding coffee?

By: jamjam

jamjam — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 19:57:03 -0800

Gauguin spent nine weeks with Van Gogh in Arles in October, November, and December of 1888. Gauguin had malaria, and I don't know what the mosquito situation was at that time in Arles during those months, but it seems conceivable that he gave Van Gogh malaria. And that might partially account for Van Gogh's taste for Absinthe because Artemisia is the primary herb in absinthe and also the primary source of Artemisinin, for the discovery of which in 1972 Tu Youyou got a share of the 2015 Nobel in physiology and medicine because of its effectiveness against malaria. And if Van Gogh did get malaria in 1888, that might account in turn for some of Van Gogh's bizarre and self destructive behavior that caused his death in 1890.

The modern medical literature implicates malaria, and particularly the potentially fatal form of cerebral malaria, with a risk of neurocognitive impairment. Yet historically, even milder forms of malaria were associated in the literature with a broad range of psychiatric effects, including disorders of personality, mood, memory, attention, thought, and behaviour. In this article, the history of psychiatric effects attributed to malaria and post-malaria syndromes is reviewed, and insights from the historical practice of malariotherapy in contributing to understanding of these effects are considered. [...]

By: jamjam

jamjam — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 20:14:53 -0800

Isn't the slotted spoon which the author mentions was used to hold sugar that absinthe drinkers "drizzled" ice water through into their absinthe to make it sweeter normally used to hold sugar loaves or cubes that are then saturated with something alcoholic like brandy and set on fire, allowing the partially burnt sugar to drip down into drinks and sweeten them that way? Why else would you bother to use a slotted spoon to add the sugar to the absinthe? And I'd imagine the end product would be a lot tastier.

By: aspersioncast

aspersioncast — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 21:47:28 -0800

Why else would you bother to use a slotted spoon to add the sugar to the absinthe? Nah, it's just a whole thing. AFAIK this was a fairly standard service, and it's still in fairly common usage in some parts of the world.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 23:28:30 -0800

Everything seemed to be going well for Van Gogh in the village — but on July 27, 1890, only two months after he left the asylum, he was struck by another fit of madness. This time he shot himself in the belly with a revolver. Even though he missed his vital organs and received medical care soon after, it wasn't enough to save him. I mean, maybe? There is still mystery revolving around Vincent's last days under the care of Doctor Gachet. Vincent himself, whom you might expect had a tolerance for odd people wrote:

Van Gogh described Gachet to his actual brother as 'rather eccentric, but his experience as a doctor must keep him balanced enough to combat the nervous trouble from which he certainly seems to be suffering at least as seriously as I'. He attributed Gachet's depression to his having lost his wife 15 years earlier. Van Gogh had a near total identification with Gachet; however, knowing his own precarious mind, this did not instil confidence. A few days later Van Gogh wrote again to his brother saying that he thought Gachet unreliable because 'he is sicker than I am, I think [...] Now when one blind man leads another blind man, don't they both fall into the ditch?'

Bolding mine, above and below. There's speculation that Gachet himself was an abinthe sufferer. In any case:

According to Émile Bernard, who came to Auvers for the funeral, Van Gogh, smoking a pipe in his death throes, claimed to have fired the shot deliberately, in 'complete lucidity'. When Gachet said that he hoped to save him, Van Gogh replied, 'Then I'll have to do it all over again'. Though a skilled dissector of bodies, Gachet made no attempt to remove the bullet. At the funeral, Gachet put a bouquet of sunflowers on the coffin and, according to Bernard, perhaps suffused with guilt as well as grief, 'could only stammer a very confused farewell'.

The first tragedy of Van Gogh is that he was indeed suicidal and mentally unwell. The second tragedy is that he obviously did not get the help he needed.

By: BWA

BWA — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 04:24:47 -0800

Tastes better than chalk?

By: jeremias

jeremias — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 04:29:21 -0800

>>Why else would you bother to use a slotted spoon to add the sugar to the absinthe? > Nah, it's just a whole thing. AFAIK this was a fairly standard service, and it's still in fairly common usage in some parts of the world. Yes, the slotted spoon was part of the whole absinthe ritual involving fountains and special glasses. As the water drips into the sugar cube and through the spoon, it creates a reaction (in some absinthes) called the "louche" which are the cloudy/milky swirls that appear as the sugar water combines with the oils in the absinthe. Basically, absinthe drinking was a 19th century version of a psychedelic light show, albeit more calm and meditative. Van Gogh's contemporary Toulouse-Lautrec even had an absinthe spoon designed for him.

By: crazy_yeti

crazy_yeti — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 05:02:31 -0800

Why else would you bother to use a slotted spoon to add the sugar to the absinthe? They do that in Czechia but not in France. Some consider it tacky. Burning the sugar does not improve the taste. Basically, absinthe drinking was a 19th century version of a psychedelic light show For extra psychedelia, put a drop of liquid LSD on the sugar cube :)

By: crazy_yeti

crazy_yeti — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 20:12:12 -0800

Van Gogh's contemporary Toulouse-Lautrec even had an absinthe spoon designed for him. I need that. Or maybe what I really need is an absinthe spoon with MY initials. I don't suppose you can 3D print a silver spoon, can you?

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 08:46:41 -0800

I don't suppose you can 3D print a silver spoon, can you? The process is not direct 3d printing of silver, but of wax, which is then used for lost wax casting, but you can totally get arbitrary parts made in silver. I assume it's expensive!

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 08:48:20 -0800

(It would very likely be cheaper to buy a silver spoon and cut your initials into it in any of a dozen ways. Dremel and steady hands, CNC waterjet, high power laser cutter, whattever)

By: dancestoblue

dancestoblue — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 14:59:45 -0800

It is sad how he ended up suffering, and don't care about the reasons. But so much of work was just so vibrant, and so great, and so attracting to look at. . posted by Windopaene at 4:53 PM on August 14 Go to a museum, note that you can walk right up to most paintings (I like to get close and try to figure how many can get 3D effects on completely flat canvas, amazing to me, Renoir makes me so happy), so you can walk right up to most paintings but generally Van Gogh paintings have a bit of a fence, holding you off from them maybe 16 or 18 inches. I don't know why the fence but I know what I want to do when I get close to a Van Gogh painting -- I want to reach out and touch it, feel the depth and 3D and power, so much of his paint done with a knife; I want to feel it, the raw edges cut from the knife are the coolest. I thank god that Van Gogh put so much emotion in his work that I can feel it anyway, just visually; still, my first impulse is to reach out to touch. Speculating on why the man was the way he was, why he was who he was, it's comical. Forget it. Dog be thanked that we've got his paintings, and the story(ies) of his life. But the idea of using him as a cautionary tale is -- to me -- just ridiculous. He was broken in about every way a human being can be broken yet he was still compelled to paint, compelled to generate beauty, to see that beauty regardless others didn't and to hold to his ideal and keep moving until he just couldn't any longer.