Vinnie

Vincent Van Gogh wrote over 800 letters, most of them to his brother Theo. These letters, along with the sketches that were in the actual letters can be found here:

(http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/quickguide.html).

This is the greatest resource on Vincent Van Gogh ever put together…and it’s free!

After carefully reading and re-reading the site for the past few months and thoroughly enjoying it, I still felt like something was missing.  I couldn’t figure out what it was, but I needed something more.  The letters let us into Van Gogh’s life; his fears and hopes, his vulnerability and convictions, and eventually his complete unraveling and demise.   But with all the letters and all the sketches and 200 paintings, something is still missing.  I’m left needing more. It was like spending a great day in the ocean and not catching that one wave or not getting that one, solid mouthful of salt water.  I felt the need to touch his rough, red beard, hear his loud, raspy voice, see him walk, see the creases on the back of his neck, how he parts his hair, the paint in his fingernails, his discolored teeth, the clearing of his throat, etc.  I had everything but the physical texture of his life and some real social interactions rather than just first hand re-tellings or clearly expressed thoughts and feelings.  And the humor.  There was a lot of humor somewhere in there.  There is so much in the letters, it leaves you needing more.  They bring him to life…almost.

Besides the letters, sketches and paintings, we have a black and white photograph of Vincent seated with his back to us, a fair distance from the photographer.  From the photograph we might infer that Vincent was
probably a stout, lumbering figure.  But that’s it.  A photograph of his back.  Again, I’m left needing more…a dozen photographs, an audio interview and some video fragments of Vincent painting.  But it’s not
going to happen. Not now.  Not ever.  Vincent is gone.  Only his letters and paintings remain. All divine.  Heavenly.  Sacred. 

And then there is this.  What I have to offer.  My findings.  My musings on Vincent.  These will hopefully round out his character and correspondence. 


There is no order or coherence to what I’ve posted here. Each piece should/could stand alone. I think there are 40 or so Van Gogh sketches in all. Later, I’m hoping to pull the whole mess together.

Vinnie


This exchange between Vincent and Theo happened sometime in June 1871.

As a child Vincent was once called Vinnie by a classmate. That night, Vincent wrote a letter to Theo and put the letter on Theo‘s pillow. The letter read:

Dear Theo, today at school Boris referred to me as “Vinnie.” I didn’t mind it. It made me think about myself differently. I felt slightly Italian. But just for a moment. Is Boris German? -V

Theo wrote back: Dear Vincent, Vinnie doesn’t suit you. You are too complicated a character to be called the name of a cartoon animal. Let’s go to Italy some day. Boris not German. Polish. -T

Vincent wrote back: Theo, I liked Vinnie. It made me feel happy when I thought of myself as Vinnie. Can we bring Boris to Italy? -V

Theo to Vincent: Vinnie, whatever makes you happy makes me happy. Boris can’t go to Italy with us. But Vinnie, your room is right next to mine. You don’t have to write letters to me. You can come next door to my room and we can visit here. -T

Vincent to Theo: Theo, why can’t Boris go with us? And I’m back to Vincent. I’m heading to your room now. -V

Theo to Vincent: Vincent, you never showed up to my room. Where are you now? Boris is a no-go in Italy because he chews with his mouth open, he talks loud and he appears to be the sort that would bring too much luggage. Still waiting in my room. -T

Gachet

As Vincent's life began to fully unravel, he checked himself into an asylum in Saint-Remy. Upon his release, his brother Theo arranged to have Vincent stay with Dr. Gachet. Gachet had "treated" and supported other artists, and Theo had heard good things about Gachet. Gachet was also a painter. Theo thought that this was the best place possible for Vincent to "get well." Vincent was skeptical of Gachet. Here is a letter to Theo:

August 7, 1889
Dear Theo, Dr Gachet is loopier then me. I am convinced that he, not me, is the patient. Today at lunch, he carefully peeled a hard boiled egg and then ate the little pieces of broken up shell and left the egg untouched on his plate. The other day, he smeared jam all over his arms, shoulders and head. He then walked into the open field behind his house and stretched out his arms and waited for the birds to arrive. And they did. Hundreds of them. He stood still like a scare crow as the birds had a feast. He yelled to me, “Vincent, look at me. I am a friend crow.”


The next day, he was covered in scabs and peck marks, but smiling as he lowered his tongue into the sugar bowl.

Vincent Van Gogh’s Pants

In the attic of a small Café, Café de la Gare, in Arles France, a pair of Vincent Van Gogh’s pants were discovered. In the back pocket was a partially written letter to Theo that dates the pants at 1888.

Vincent’s chords are coffee with cream brown, wide chords with pleat, not hemmed. On the pants the following substances were identified:

urine
mud
a hair from Vincent’s head
paint
cocoa
something unidentifiable (substance unknown-food item)
turpentine
mayonnaise
ink
dirt
something unidentifiable (substance unknown-body fluid)
tobacco
body fluid-semin (DNA match with hair) 
mustard
smeared goat cheese
ear wax
something unidentifiable (substance unknown)
espresso

The fabric on the bottom of both legs are worn out due to worn out boot heels.

Letter to be released at a later date.

Vincent Van Gogh’s Dining Receipt
A dining receipt of Vincent Van Gogh’s was discovered among a bundle of papers left in the wall of Moulin de la Galette in Northern Paris. Who the papers belonged to is unknown. All of the papers concern different people and are dated between May 1885 and June 1887. Among the papers were train tickets, rental agreements, doctor’s prescriptions, grocery receipts, a love letter and Vincent Van Gogh’s dining receipt. The receipt reads as follows:

Mai 23 1885
Monsieur Van Gogh 9pm
water
salad with tomato
boiled potatoes
steamed fish
8 ff

A letter to Theo corresponds with the night of the dining receipt:

Theo, last tonight I dined at Café Rue Moi. I had steamed fish as my dish and wish I had haddock or haring with bread instead. Then I was off to Les Femmes Cuisses where I had two shots of Whisky side by side. Then I slept with Celine. Theo, she said my beard was too rough. Upon returning home, I shaved my beard off and went to bed. When I awoke this morning, the beard had fully grown back. It seems as if a close shaven or beardless Vincent is not possible. Last week a little boy in the street called me “Beardy.”

Theo, how is your beard?

Today I went to buy new pants. Nothing fit. Either too long in the legs and just right in the waist or waist too small, legs just right. The gentleman helping me told me I was both "thick and thin.”  He called me a “complicated stature.“ I ended up buying a stack of patches instead. Mariam will sew them on my pants where needed. One of the patches has a little Bee stitched into it. I’ve always wanted to paint a little bee.

Lederhosen 1883

Dear Theo, mother and father are worried about me. I can see it in their unpainted eyes. Momma looks sad and broken and father deeply troubled when I enter the room. Momma said I should clean myself up and father said I should stand up tall…or taller. Momma offered to buy me new clothes. I said OK because I knew it would make the clean Dutch linen in her head happy. When I awoke the next day, she had brightly painted, wood clogs, leather Lederhosen and a pressed Dutch cap laid out for me. Lederhosen! Theo, she is the one who is mad. Not me. I wore the Dutch cap for two days and then used it to wipe my mouth after eating pannokakens. I need a break in life and a break from life. Lederhosen!?!


Forever your loving brother
Vincent

PS. The Lederhosen were too small.

Gauguin's Tahitian Kid

Paul Gauguin had 7 lovely children.  He abandoned them all…”sacrificed them for his painting.”  He left his loving and loyal wife, Mette, for the wide open world of willing and available women, but mostly it was so that he could paint.  He had countless, one night encounters with prostitutes and numerous affairs with young girls in Tahiti. Gauguin was a handsome, charming man with a huge sexual appetite.  In the end, it was his sexual appetite that killed him: a high end version of syphilis brought him down.

Mette Guaguin

But throughout his life, he missed his children and loved his wife even though they were separated and later divorced.  He wrote telling her how much he loved his children, and, as odd as it seems, loved her until the day he died.  Not acceptable and commendable behavior by today's standards, but considering the time and context of then, maybe not so deplorable. Abandoning your children, cheating on your wife and sleeping with underaged Tahitian youth is not a big crowd pleaser by today's standards. Nobody wins Man of the Year for that today, but an 1880’s perspective sees the world differently.

Gauguin's last son was born in 1902 to one of the Tahitian models that used to "pose" for him.  Needless to say, they were doing way more than posing and painting.  Enter Emile Marae Tai Gauguin: Paul Gauguin's final son.

Emile was a jolly, rotund little boy who perfected the skill of sitting in a hammock for prolonged periods of time.  Extended  durations of inactivity in the hammock and huge quantities of empty caloric intake, our final Gauguin became wider than he was tall. At age 6 he weighed in at a plump and tumble 140 lbs.  There were accounts of him eating  coconuts whole on the beach. He would bite the coconut in half, guzzle the coconut water and then eat the shell and the meat all at once; loud crunching could be heard. His smile was broad and bright...his teeth speckled with coconut fragments.

A few years on Emile Gauguin grew into a hugely overweight teenager. By age 16, he had become massive...350 lbs.  He would walk around the village in Hawaiian print shirts made from bed sheets, wore custom made, extra-wide flip-flops and a red, terry cloth headband. Now way too big to climb coconut trees, he would harness a rope around the top of the tree and powerfully pull the bending tree into arm's reach, so he could grab hold of the coconuts.  On one occasion, the rope snapped and he accidentally catapulted a tree monkey 80 yards.    


Eventually he became an enormous young man with a Sumo wrestler presence.  He wore a custom made moomoo and walked around barefooted because his feet had become abnormally wide and too fat for footware.  But he was still recognized and adored as being Paul Gauguin’s son.  Up until his mid-fifties, he would pose with art-loving, Paul Gauguin admiring, tourists from around the world.  When he was among tourists, his mantra was, "Yeah mon, Gauguin me dod."  


And he looked exactly like Paul Gauguin but ten times bigger.  He was huge.
He became a heavy drinker and a formidable bar brawler.  He was a two fisted drinker (a beer in each hand), and once brawled with four men at once while continuing to drink his two beers.  His big saying at the time was, "I tink we drink in good time. I tink we drink in bad time.  And I tink we drink in between da good and da bad time, mon"

In 1932, a very drunk Emile Gauguin used his brute weight, massive mid-section and manly might to roll a tipped over school bus full of Tahitian children back onto its wheels.  All the children cheered, "Go Gan!  Go Gan!  Go Gan!" Emile let out a loud roar and a powerful grunt and the bus was back on its wheels and ready to drive away.    

A few years later he dragged a stranded, beached whale by the tail back into the ocean and set it free.  All the onlookers chanted, "Go Gan! Go Gan! Go Gan!  


In the 1960's, a French journalist, met Gauguin and became worried about his size and health.  She convinced Emile Gauguin to move to New York where she would slim him down, get him off the bottle and introduce him to the paint brush.  She took him on long walks through Central Park, fed him green salads and started having Emile paint daily.  And paint he did.  Two or three paintings a day is what he produced.  And it was in his genes.  He turned out to be an incredibly good artist.  While showing his work at art galleries, he used to say, "I tink doddy be proud me, mon."   

Emile Gauguin's work

Emile Gauguin died at age 71 while laying on the beach in Florida, surrounded by young, naked women.  And, yes, his doddy be proud, mon.  

In 1993, marlon brando told larry king on CNN that he owned almost all of Emile gauguin’s work and that sometimes, when he’s away from hollywood on his island, in a hammock with a half dozen native women, he is visited by the ghost of the great Paul Gauguin.  Brando told of the time that he invited Emile Gauguin to his Island.  Emile showed up 11 days late with 3 beautiful Polynesian woman at his side.  Apparently, emile spent 11 enjoyable days on the wrong island.  Go Gan! Go Gan! Go Gan!

Brando waiting for Gauguin