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Meet Vincent

The End of a Difficult Road

Vincent van Gogh took his own life in July 1890. He felt he couldn’t go on. The immense demands he made of himself, his obsessive labour, his mental illness and, not least, his changing relationship with his brother had all become too much.

Vincent wrote to Theo: 'I feel – a failure. I feel that that’s the fate I’m accepting, and which won’t change any more.'

How could this have happened?

If I was without your friendship I would be sent back without remorse to suicide, and however cowardly I am, I would end up going there.

To Theo from Arles, 30 April 1889

The beginning of the end

Vincent left the psychiatric institution at Saint-Rémy in May 1890, hoping he would be able to live independently with his condition. He found a certain peace in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, where he soon began to paint prolifically once more.

Sadly, it was not to last. Two months after arriving, Vincent shot himself in the chest. He died of his wounds on 29 July 1890.

Ah well, I risk my life for my own work and my reason has half foundered in it. (…) But what can you do...

The final sentence of the unfinished letter to Theo, with a note in Theo’s hand: ‘The letter he had on him on 27 July, that horrible day.’

Vincent had been lodging in Auvers at the inn run by the Ravoux family, who had grown accustomed to him setting off each day to work in the surrounding countryside. On 27 July, he failed to return for his evening meal.

Knowing Vincent’s punctuality when it came to dinner, Mr and Mrs Ravoux and their daughter immediately began to worry.

Vincent arrived into the inn, badly wounded, around nine o’clock. When Ravoux asked what he had done, he replied: ‘I tried to kill myself’.

Early next morning Theo was informed. He rushed from Paris to Vincent’s bedside, where he remained until his brother died the following night.

Auberge Ravoux

Auberge Ravoux on Place de la Mairie in Auvers

Auberge Ravoux

Vincent rented a modest attic room at the Auberge Ravoux for three and a half francs a night. He used the ‘Painter’s Room’ downstairs to paint and to store his canvases.

Two months later, his body would be laid out in the same room. The suicide weapon was almost certainly a pistol taken from the landlord, Arthur Ravoux.

Vincent’s attic room is open to the public nowadays as a monument

Final days

‘When I was sitting with him and told him we would try to cure him and that we kept hoping he would be spared this sort of despair, he said: “Sadness will last forever.” I understood what he meant. Shortly afterwards, he gasped for breath and a moment later closed his eyes.’

Theo van Gogh to his sister Lies, 5 August 1890

Posthumous portrait

Paul van Ryssel (pseudonym of Dr Gachet), Vincent van Gogh on his Deathbed, 1890

Posthumous portrait

Vincent’s body lay on his deathbed for more than a day until a coffin could be brought. Dr Paul Gachet drew this portrait of him there.

The artist’s face has been shaved, and his mutilated ear is visible. A faint geometric pattern can be made out in the drawing, as the paper was laid on a wicker chair while the charcoal was fixed.

Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Doctor Gachet, 1890

Dr Gachet

The day he arrived in Auvers, Vincent went straight to Dr Gachet with Theo’s letter of introduction in his pocket.

The alternative physician and amateur artist (who signed his works ‘Paul van Ryssel’), did not offer him medical treatment, but talked to the artist at length and encouraged him to paint. Gachet taught Vincent how to make etchings in his studio, which is where this portrait was also made.

Rumour

Vincent van Gogh, Landscape at Twilight, 1890

Rumour

Although Vincent himself told the Ravoux family that he had tried to commit suicide, a story circulated in Auvers in the 1950s that he had actually been shot by schoolboys. This can be dismissed, however, as a rumour.

Vincent had been thinking about suicide for some time. Before setting off, moreover, he stuffed what amounted to a farewell letter to Theo in his jacket pocket. He tried to take his life in the fields near Auvers.

Scene of the shooting

Louis van Ryssel (pseudonym of Paul Gachet Jr), Auvers, the location where Vincent committed suicide, 1904, Musée Tavet-Delacour, Pontoise/Musée Camille Pissarro

Scene of the shooting

Fourteen years after Vincent’s death, Dr Gachet’s son painted this view of the location in Auvers where the painter shot himself.

What was almost certainly the suicide weapon was found almost seventy years later by a farmer while ploughing the fields behind the haystacks in the painting.

The funeral

The funeral cortège made its way from Auberge Ravoux to the churchyard on Wednesday 30 July, led by a grief-stricken Theo. He was followed by friends of the brothers from Paris, the Ravoux family, and neighbours and other villagers who had known the painter in Auvers.

Vincent’s first grave was located close to the entrance of Auvers’ cemetery. His remains were reinterred in 1905. Theo’s remains (d. 1891) were placed beside Vincent’s in 1914.

Shocked reactions

Toulouse-Lautrec's condolence letter

Shocked reactions

In the months following Vincent’s death, both Theo and his mother received numerous letters from artists, expressing their shock and deepest sympathy. George Breitner wrote that he had heard the terrible news in Norway, while Isaac Israëls expressed his regret at never having known Vincent in person.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who received the card too late to attend his friend’s funeral, also sent his condolences.

Cemetery

The graves of the Van Gogh brothers at the cemetery in Auvers

Painters being dead and buried, speak to a following generation or to several following generations through their works. In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing

To Theo from Arles, 9 or 10 July 1888

Vincent van Gogh had an eventful life. It wasn't always easy. Do you have dark feelings or suicidal thoughts? It helps to talk.

Find an international helpline near you.

More about Vincent van Gogh

Vincent's Illness and the Healing Power of Art

Have a look at Vincent's paintings and drawings

Discover more about Vincent's life

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