Art as Therapy, Art as Diagnosis?
Vincent Van Gogh and Dr. Paul-Ferdinand Gachet
By Hannah Shearer
Vincent van Gogh's overwhelming artistic talent may have been matched only by his overpowering illness. Many of van Gogh?s best paintings were conceived while he underwent treatment for mental disorders; among these masterpieces are two portraits of his doctor, Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, both completed during the final seventy days of van Gogh's life. One Portrait of Dr. Gachet resides in the Musée d?Orsay in Paris -- the other Portrait made headlines in 1990 when it sold to a private collector for a staggering $82.5 million. But far less known than these famous portraits is a sketch that Dr. Gachet made of van Gogh on his deathbed, signed under a pseudonym. After van Gogh's suicide on July 25, 1890, Gachet meticulously sketched a close-up of the dead artist's face, his mutilated ear unmistakable.
Gachet's interest in art was not localized to his relationship with van Gogh. Before he met the troubled artist, Gachet had offered medical advice to a number of other Impressionists, including Camille Pissarro, who recommended the doctor to van Gogh's brother, Theo. Art history professor Aruna D?Souza notes that Gachet had so many artists as patients that he accepted paintings as payment -- an option that the destitute van Gogh would have certainly appreciated. D'Souza notes that Gachet?s interest in art stemmed from his years in medical school, where he completed a thesis on "melancholy," writing that this nebulous illness had afflicted the mind and body of "all the great men, philosophers, tyrants, the great conspirators, the great criminals, the great poets, the great artists." It is easy to see why Gachet took an interest in van Gogh. He recognized in the tortured Impressionist, and in the other artists he treated, a creative quality that could lead to greatness, but just as easily to melancholy and madness.
But if Gachet believed that artistic creativity was the cause of van Gogh's illness, he also saw art as a potential cure. Van Gogh's personal correspondence reveals that Gachet encouraged the artist to use painting as therapy for his illnesses, in the hope that by keeping busy, van Gogh could maintain composure. "He said that I must work boldly on, and not think at all of what went wrong with me," van Gogh wrote to his brother in May 1890. Five days later he wrote to his parents: "The physician here has shown me much sympathy [?] He tells me that in my case work is the best thing to keep my balance." The next month, he sent another letter to his friends: "The doctor here says that I ought to throw myself into my work with all my strength, and so distract my mind." In their British Medical Journal article, "The Fine Art of Patient-Doctor Relations," art historian M.P. Park and gastroenterologist R.H.R. Park characterize Gachet's approach as "occupational therapy," noting that Gachet urged van Gogh to continue working in his own style but also to experiment with new artistic mediums, including etching.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next>>