Leaving Van Gogh Read Online Free

physicians in those days who had studied and practiced mental medicine. Of those, the “mad doctors,” how many were acquainted with the new painting and those who produced it? I knew all too well that artists put a great strain on their nerves. Their perception of the world is as important as their touch with a brush or their color sense, and it is very easy to overtax this faculty. At the same time, many of them live in terrible conditions, as Vincent had evidently done. Vincent van Gogh felt he could help the world with his painting. That seemed unlikely. It was probably this very conviction that was driving him mad. I had written my doctoral thesis on the topic of melancholy, and I knew how closely linked it was with the artistic temperament.
    If you are a doctor—indeed, if you are a man of science—another man’s suffering may become your project. I cannot deny that, as Theo van Gogh trotted down my stairs, I felt a surge of excitement. This Vincent, this mad artist, sounded fascinating, like a case study of my keenest interests. It was a fortunate thing for both of us that Pissarro had sent Theo van Gogh to me. I still believe that. I do.

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    I THOUGHT OCCASIONALLY about Vincent van Gogh in the subsequent weeks. Theo’s visit had piqued my curiosity. I was convinced that Vincent’s state would improve once he was settled in Auvers. We are all affected by our surroundings—surely a painter, with his artist’s sensitivity, would be especially susceptible to the peace and beauty of our village.
    And then, before I knew it, spring came. As I get older, I find myself more astonished every year when the gray tones of winter give way to the gentle tide of green that creeps across our landscape. That spring, it seems to me, I was already anticipating Vincent’s presence, seeing the village with the eyes of an artist seeking subjects to paint.
    Auvers nestles along the bank of the Oise, northwest of Paris. The town fits into a narrow band between the river and a high chalk plateau. Although the railroad came out from Paris before 1850, it brought very little change: there are neither factories nor suburban villas in Auvers. It is still farming country. The plateau is planted with wheat, and the fields along the river are a patchwork of peas, asparagus, and grapevines. Old chestnut trees line the main street, known simply as la grande Rue, which runs east to west through the village.
    It was the beauty of this landscape that brought Daubigny here in the 1850s. Daumier came too, though of course orchards and peasants made quite a contrast to his usual urban subjects. Then Pissarro moved to neighboring Pontoise. This was in the late 1860s, just before the years when many of the other painters—Monet and Caillebotte, for instance—were working in the industrialized suburb Argenteuil, with its strange and alluring contrasts. But while Argenteuil offered smokestacks and laundry boats alongside the Seine, Auvers and Pontoise had an old-fashioned charm that Pissarro preferred. Its highlights were simply the everyday sights of trees and fields and the weather that acted on them.
    In the early 1870s, before I had moved to Auvers, I frequently came out from Paris to visit the Pissarro family as a doctor and as a friend. The train ride took only an hour from the Gare du Nord, but one might have been traveling back through time as well, so great was the contrast between the bustle of Paris and the deep peace of the countryside. Cézanne was staying nearby, and he and Pissarro sometimes painted side by side—such beautiful pictures! I still have a number of them. I cannot say I care for the direction Cézanne’s work took after that period; I find his canvases from the South harsh and sometimes unpleasant. But he painted my house several times, and I never fail to wonder at the solidity he managed to convey in those pictures. The house is a white cube, perched on a rock, surrounded by trees, approached by the curving road.