Brothers

Today, people like Theodorus van Gogh are known by the elegant term “gallerist.” Back then, he was simply an art dealer. Working for Goupil & Cie, a company that traded in works of art, Theo developed an exceptional taste for painting. He recognized the extraordinary talent of the then-unknown Claude Monet and Edgar Degas and persuaded his employers to exhibit their work. Yet whenever he brought up his older brother, his bosses seemed to stop listening. His brother’s name was Vincent.

He was a strange, small, unprepossessing man, dressed carelessly. People around him took a dislike to him. His own parents were ashamed of him and seemed uncomfortable about having brought such an eccentric son into the world. Women rejected his love. He had no friends, and he irritated his colleagues. Only one person in the world understood him, admired his work, loved him with all his heart, and sacrificed everything for him: his younger brother Theo.

Knowing that Vincent could not manage without help, and seemingly tormented by a sense of guilt toward him, Theo supported his brother financially throughout his life. To avoid wounding Vincent’s pride, he pretended that the money came from their father. When the company sent Theo to Paris, he invited his brother to join him. He wanted to introduce Vincent to Parisian artists, knowing how important that would be to his professional development. Vincent began attending the famous studio of Cormon, where he studied modern painting and Japanese prints. There he also met Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rousseau, Pissarro, and Gauguin. During his two years in Paris, Vincent painted hundreds of beautiful works, including Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin, Bridge over the Seine, Père Tanguy, and View of Paris from Theo’s Apartment on Rue Lepic.

Eventually, Theo managed to organize the first exhibition of his brother’s paintings, and the name van Gogh gradually began to gain recognition, at least among fellow artists and art critics. Unfortunately, in addition to their professional experiences, both brothers developed a taste for absinthe, the drink of Parisian geniuses. Some say that the “green fairy” was responsible for the madness of both men. Tormented by attacks of illness, Vincent was the first to enter a psychiatric hospital voluntarily. Theo held out longer, but he, too, ended his sad days in an institution for the mentally ill, surviving his brother by only six months.

In Paris, Theo found the woman he was destined to marry. A child was born, and Vincent, realizing that he had become a burden on the young family, left. He took a liking to the beautiful town of Arles in the south of France and settled there. These were the final years of his life and the flowering of his art. There he painted The Red Vineyard at Arles, Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles, Sunflowers, and his last and most famous painting, Wheatfield with Crows.

In Arles, the artist managed to befriend local residents, who willingly commissioned portraits from him. This provided additional income and enabled him to rent premises for a studio. Theo was delighted to hear that his brother’s life was beginning to improve. To help the studio flourish, he came up with the idea of inviting other artists they knew to work there, creating a commune like those in Paris. The only person willing to leave the capital and join Vincent was Paul Gauguin, and even he agreed only after Theo paid his travel expenses. After just two months of living together, the artists quarreled, and, as Gauguin later claimed, Vincent cut off his own left ear in a fit of rage. There is a suspicion that it was Gauguin himself, not Vincent, who committed this brutal act, but nothing could be proved. In any case, Gauguin abandoned his bleeding friend without even attempting to help him and left for Paris that same day. Neighbors found Vincent only the following day, lying unconscious on the floor of his studio.

After this incident, Vincent voluntarily entered the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he spent exactly one year, until May 1890. But the treatment did not help him; on the contrary, he felt even worse. In this sorrowful place, the artist created dozens of paintings, including the famous Starry Night. “I have a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars,” he wrote to Theo. The doctors treated the artist like a prisoner, and he asked his brother to help him leave the hospital. Theo then sent him to Auvers-sur-Oise, where an unusual man practiced medicine: Paul Gachet, part doctor, part artist. Theo entrusted him with looking after his brother’s health. But the choice proved unfortunate. Van Gogh’s biographers still suspect that Gachet played a far from innocent role in the artist’s death.

Meanwhile, Theo continued his determined struggle to secure recognition for Vincent. Between September 1889 and April 1890, he succeeded in exhibiting his brother’s paintings in several well-known galleries. The first enthusiastic critical article about van Gogh and his Red Vineyard at Arles appeared in January 1890 in the magazine Mercure de France. Thanks to this article, the painting—the only one sold during the artist’s lifetime—was purchased for 400 francs.

On July 27, 1890, Vincent took his sketchbook, went out to work in the open air, and shot himself in the heart with a pistol. The bullet glanced off a rib, and he managed to make his way to the clinic. Dr. Gachet lacked the expertise to help him. The physician behaved strangely in other respects as well: knowing that his patient was dying, he did not miss the chance to document the event by making a drawing entitled Van Gogh on His Deathbed. A day later, Vincent died from blood loss in the arms of Theo, who had hurried from Paris. His last words were: “The sadness will last forever.”

An alternative account of the artist’s death, proposed by American art historians who suggested that van Gogh was shot by his drinking companions, has no substantial foundation.

Theo could not recover from the loss. Almost like a madman, he rushed around Paris, trying to explain to people what a genius the world had lost. With enormous difficulty, he managed to organize a posthumous exhibition of his brother’s paintings in his own apartment. Few came. Most remained indifferent. Theo sank into profound despair and returned to Holland, where he died a few months later, never knowing that his efforts had borne fruit—and what extraordinary fruit it would be.

As if by the wave of a magic wand, interest in van Gogh’s paintings began to grow. Exhibitions were organized across Europe—in Paris, The Hague, and Antwerp, then Cologne and Berlin. Finally, the wave reached New York. By the middle of the twentieth century, van Gogh’s name was known throughout the world, and at the beginning of the twenty-first, prices for his paintings reached six figures. In 1990, Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold at Christie’s in New York for $82.5 million. Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe was valued at $10 million more in a private transaction, so the reported price is uncertain. In 1987, Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin and Irises changed hands at Sotheby’s for $58 million and $53.9 million, respectively. The magnificent Wheat Field with Cypresses fetched only $57 million. Over just ten years of artistic activity, the painter created 864 paintings. That figure varies constantly because the attribution of some works remains uncertain.

Throughout the periods when they did not live together, the brothers maintained an active correspondence. Vincent did not preserve Theo’s letters. Theo, by contrast, saved every letter from his brilliant brother. Over eighteen years, they accumulated to 661. The artist sent his brother pencil sketches and shared his views on life and art. From these letters, which have been extensively studied and repeatedly published, art historians have been able to reconstruct in detail the lives of both men and the development of their relationship. Van Gogh’s epistolary legacy is as priceless as his paintings.

In 1914, fulfilling Theo’s dying wish, his widow had his remains brought to France and reburied in the small cemetery at Auvers-sur-Oise, beside those of his brother.