The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeksin Provence
The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeksin Provence
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Two Giants Make House Together
One of the most famous episodes of disastrous behavior by an artist is the tormented Vincent van Gogh’s cutting off his ear. People who don’t know anything else about the artist, or anything about art, know about the spectacular self-mutilation. There is more to the story, of course, and the excision of the ear is certainly not the most important part of van Gogh’s life, but it did provide a climax to an important episode in that life, the collaboration between van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. In _The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles_ (Little, Brown), art critic Martin Gayford has recreated almost a day-by-day account of the time the two painters lived together, painted together, stimulated one another, and got on each other’s nerves. It is a period that art historians have probed ever since van Gogh’s postmortem fame, and while there have been recent discoveries made about details of the collaboration, Gayford’s book in its chronological account gets close inside the minds of the two giants as they muddled their way through their period as housemates. Though Gayford tells in abbreviated form about what went on in their lives before and after their sharing of the Yellow House, the concentration on this particular period is wonderfully illuminating.
Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888, and on his walks spied the Yellow House, which he leased for five months. He was well known as a loner, but he had long dreamed of making a colony for artists who would collaborate together; it wasn’t that they would work jointly on their canvases, but they would “live and paint together - different in individual style but sharing a common aim, exchanging ideas, commenting on each other’s work.” Vincent’s brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris who lent support in multiple ways to his brother, hoped that it would be good for Vincent to have a companion, and offered Gauguin, whose paintings Theo brokered, a stipend to move in. Shortly after Gauguin’s arrival, they proceeded out to paint the autumn foliage of Arles. They would carry out their gear, set up a few yards from each other, and work simultaneously on parallel subjects. There are thus fascinating pairs of paintings to show what the two artists made of the same subject. They talked about their work, they criticized and praised, and for the first weeks all was well. Gradually, however, van Gogh began to behave in ways that Gauguin could not accept or change. The exact reason for van Gogh’s peculiar behavior has been retrospectively diagnosed with a dozen maladies, but Gayford makes the case (already made by others) that van Gogh had bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depression). In the particular case of the Yellow House there were other strains. “The claustrophobic pattern of life,” writes Gayford, “would have put a strain on the most phlegmatic pair of friends.”
Toward the end of the collaboration, van Gogh was strained by the chromatic complexities of his portrait _La Berceuse_. He was drinking, and alcohol always made him more erratic, and he was worried about Gauguin’s departure; Gauguin had written to Theo, “Vincent and I are absolutely unable to live side by side without trouble caused by incompatibility of temperament and he like I needs tranquility for his work. He is a man of remarkable intelligence whom I esteem greatly, and I leave with regret, but it is necessary.” Van Gogh had taken to wandering at night and winding up near Gauguin’s bed, disconcerting his companion. At one point, after consuming an absinthe, van Gogh hurled the glass at Gauguin. On 23 December, van Gogh rushed menacingly in the dark upon Gauguin, and (if the report of the latter is to be believed) did so with a straight razor. Gauguin escaped to a hotel, van Gogh returned home, took the razor, and sliced off his ear. Gayford analyzes possible sources for the self-mutilation, from the Gethsemane story to a newspaper report about Jack the Ripper cutting off the ears of one of his victims. The police were called to the Yellow House to pack van Gogh off the to hospital, where in his delirium he called repeatedly for Gauguin. Gauguin, however, claimed that a visit would make things worse, and left for Paris; they never saw each other again. Gauguin indeed was off to the tropics, and van Gogh was off for a year and a half of hospitalizations and remissions and astonishing productivity, ending in his suicide. Gayford’s account measures each day and week in the collaboration with fitting detail, and always concentrates on the paintings that the two men produced during the time. It is the paintings, of course, that matter, not the incivility, neuroses, or madness of the painters. Van Gogh himself declared, “Old Gauguin and I understand each other basically, and if we are a bit mad, what of it?”
5 Stars Delightful!
I accidently got this book thinking it was something else, but am so glad for that mistake because this is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read. It truly moves you in every way. If you didn’t hold Vincent dear in your heart before, you surely will after reading this, and will carry him with you for the rest of your life.
5 Stars Van Gogh and Gauguin Culturally De-Gunkified (from Ahadada Books)
Unfortunately the story of “Starry Starry Night” Van Gogh has grown into one of the biggest cultural cliches this side of Walt Disney and Hummel collectibles. Who hasn’t walked into someone’s grandmother’s retirement flat and found a “sunflower” reproduction hung somewhere? (Last “sunflower” sighting I recall was in a bathroom in Cleveland above a catbox.) It’s one of the givens of our time that “Lust for Life” Van Gogh was a tormented yadda yadda, misunderstood yadda yadda, visionary yadda yadda and we should all be glad he once walked upon the face of the earth. Yet those same people who use “sunflower” notecards to invite each other to Starbucks would probably have run screaming from the bad-smelling, bad-mannered, brothel-hopping, drunk, chain-smoking, loudly opinionated, mood-swinging, and just plain weird, dirt-under the nails-artist. (Reminds me a bit of what’s currently happening with the even more extreme case of the apotheosis of Henry Darger and his armies of little girls. Has some enterprising museum administrator begun to market Henry Darger “thank you” notes yet?) So given all of this cultural baggage, anything that helps me to dig through the gunk and actually catch a glimpse of the reality lurking behind the production of such extraordinary paintings, and to see the pictures anew, is welcome indeed. Martin Gayford succeeds in doing this by going back to one of the most creche-like moments in the life of Saint Vincent (the slicing off of the Great Misunderstood Genius’ ear), and infusing it with the reality of daily weather reports, of letters, of the memories of one of the oldest persons ever to have lived. He attempts to tease out hints from the pictures themselves. We learn the name of the prostitute to whom the grisly gift was offered up. We learn that the authorities kept the ear in a vial of alcohol, and that perhaps the newspaper reports of the surgical antics of Jack the Ripper as well as “La Horla” by Guy de Maupassant (himself well on the way to madness) might have colored this bit of desperate performance art that Van Gogh’s mental illness led him to carry out. Still, all of Gayford’s digging around and speculating cannot really explain the worm in this artist’s brain and how the twists and turns of mental illness undermined his incredible talent. The author succeeds somewhat better with Gauguin, whose real gift seems to have been a massive ego and a rat-like ability to survive anywhere and to use anyone. He comes across as totally understandable in his coolly calculating attempts to create a career for himself in the art world. Gayford also shows us that Gauguin harbored a real fondness for Van Gogh, though it’s hard to believe that such an affection would have been deep or lasting. Both of these gentlemen were kept under the scrutiny of the local police in their unusual comings and goings to and from the Yellow House, and most of you good people reading this review would have agreed with the authorities, even perhaps requested their surveillance, had you been living in that town at that time. The final detail that impressed me was that the architecture of the Yellow House placed Van Gogh and Gauguin’s studio antics on street level, clearly observable by passers-by, who often stopped, stared–and in the case of Van Gogh and the local children–jeered. What worlds of pain existed for these two strange beings! Van Gogh–whose one attempt at “normal” life with a “fallen” woman and her child was condemned by his mother, father and siblings, so that he felt forced to give it up, and Gauguin, who turned his back on a good job and a loving wife and children to paint. The reality of their lifestyles must have been grim indeed. No wonder we construct “safe” and sugary versions of their story and hang their pictures in our bathrooms.
5 Stars Fascinating read!
This book is a must for those people who need to find out more about what made Vincent tick. Well researched and written. A consuming read.
4 Stars …From ArtsyFartsy News, April 2007
“The Yellow House - Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles” by Martin Gaylord (ISBN 978-0316769013) published by Little, Brown and Co, 2006. It is practically a daily account during the nine weeks the “odd couple” lived and painted together in Arles, France - ending with Van Gogh’s death. I was intrigued and enlightened to discover the details of how the two painters worked, what inspired them, their visits to museums, how they were treated by the locals and their constant communication with their art dealer in Paris, Theo.
You might envy their experiences and feel their anxiety, realizing you’re not that different from them or other painters who go to their studios and make paintings! The Yellow House is a good read– some photos, black and white. My companion piece to this book is “Van Gogh and Gauguin - The Studio of the South” - by Douglas Druick and Peter Kort Zegers. Many color pictures, showing the work produced during those nine wild weeks. Published by Thames and Hudson, Inc. in conjunction with the exhibition “Van Gogh and Gauguin - The Studio of the South” 2002.
Filed under: Mental Health Book Reviews