#theo van gogh

[flowerytale]

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to his brother Theo

[metamorphesque]

— Van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

[edwardian-masquerade]

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day."

-Vincent Van Gogh; "To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 8 September 1888"

[daydreamers-serene-musings]

"(...) the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too."

--Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Theo van Gogh. November, 1867.

[akindplace]

The thing about romanticizing the tortured artist trope is that it takes very serious health conditions, physical, mental, and emotional ones, and it turns it into a very empty aesthetic made for consumption. It takes a life story, and it turns it into a punch line, an easy way out to explain a lifelong struggle while having no regard for the person who actually lived it.

It’s a way of simplifying something so complex as a whole life story, take away the good parts, the artist’s talent, and atribute years and year of studying and practicing their craft to an illness. As if it makes people feel better that maybe they aren’t geniuses but at least they aren’t “insane”.

Artists are constantly working to the bone to get people to see and understand their art, to change the current status quo, to perfect their craft. The most important thing is not how an artist died. It’s the life they lived, the work they’ve left behind, their mark on the world. Reducing people to a tragedy is not a way of appreciating their genius: their art is.

No one is a genius because of their illness, their trauma, their suffering, but because they studied and worked hard to develop the aptitude they were born with. Talent is not a miracle, it’s a lifelong effort.

This stereotype is extremely harmful to people who are currently struggling with those health problems, and it should not be used to “give pain a meaning”, because there is always so much more to someone’s life than suffering, and there is always so much more to your own life than romanticizing your own struggles and those of others.

Pain is meant to be worked through, not fed. And when you feed yourself the myth that an artist was brilliant because they were sick, you are erasing a big part of their life to try and make sense of yours. But you won’t find true meaning in life if you’re only feeding your sorrow instead of maybe, just maybe, doing what those artists did and work through it with your own art.

A lot of them did not have any access to healthcare because their conditions were unknown, but they did what they could to keep going. Their deaths don’t mean they gave up in a big tragic ending, and reducing them to that means you’re erasing everything they did to keep going, every fight, every effort they put into their own health and into their life’s work.

I love impressionist art ever since I was in elementary school, my favorite artist being Vincent Van Gogh. I was first introduced to his story as a man who had a mental illness and died a tragic death, while struggling financially and never being recognized properly during his lifetime.

But you see, Vincent Van Gogh had his brother Theo, who kept all the letters his older brother sent him, and sent his brother words of admiration, support, and unconditional love in his own.

He helped Vincent financially so he could pursue his paiting career. He saw the talent in his own brother even when others might’ve not. The period when Vincent was doing a little better with his health was actually when he was most prolific in his painting, which shuts down the idea that someone must be on the gutter and on the deepest pain and sickness to produce great art.

Most people in really poor health have a hard time managing daily life, and they probably won’t miraculously produce their best work yet while they in extreme suffering (I dare you to make the greatest work of art you’re capable of while you’re down with the flu, now imagine being in constant physical, mental and emotional distress and people think you can just make just about anything). Great art takes a lot of work. Genius and suffering don’t go hand in hand, and it reductive to explain away talent by an illness, as if any effort artists put into their craft was meaningless.

Theo named his own son after his brother, and after Vicent died, he still wanted to make his work known, and after his own death, his wife Johanna kept working on Theo’s mission besides her own political activism. She published the letters between the two brothers, and her own son helped in making Van Gogh’s work even more well known. Even though he was just a baby when his uncle died, he kept his memory alive by founding a world famous museum in his name.

Vincent Van Gogh was able to keep working because he was helped by his own family, financially, emocionally, and was given every encouragement so he could go on with his own career. He painted more when he got medical help, even though in his own time he would have had access to much simpler treatments, since the understanding of illnesses has largely changed in the last centuries.

Healthcare, support, compassion and understanding go a long way, and that’s why it’s important to keep pushing society to be more inclusive to people with illnesses - so they will get the help they need, so they won’t leave earlier than they should.

Vincent Van Gogh’s name is not well known just because of his own efforts, but also by the efforts of those who loved him and kept his name alive long after he was gone. He is not famous because he was a tortured artist. He is famous because those who loved him tried to help him in the ways they could, even after he was gone. His fame is not the result of his death, but of his life’s work and the work of those around him.

Love made him known. Support allowed him to keep working. Getting some help even at a time people did not understand his condition well enough meant he could paint more.

Van Gogh was only human, and he felt such a broad spectrum of emotions and lived through so many things, just as we all do. Behind those paintings, there is a person, a story, and so much hard work, and none of that can be reduced to the romanticized ideal of a tragic death of a tortured man.

It is not about his pain, his suffering, his death, you see. It’s about his life. And it’s about the life of those who loved him. He was able to do what he loved because he was loved, and that is the reason is remembered to this day.

I will end this long post with one of his most famous quotes:

“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

[punkcaligula]

Leonard Cohen, Good Brothers. In. The Spice-Box of Earth.

[the-cricket-chirps]

Vincent van Gogh, A Lane of Cypresses with a Couple Walking, 1888

Vincent van Gogh, Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon, 1890

[pvnkle]

Theo Van Gogh and His Brother Vincent

•do not repost•

[irenes-tender-world]

vincent van gogh from a letter to his brother theo, 1874

[kittygrimm88]

That's our Theo. Our favourite ikevamp sadist.

[flowerytale]

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to his brother Theo (The Hague, September 1882)

[metamorphesque]

Admire as much as you can, most people don’t admire enough.

Vincent van Gogh, from Van Gogh’s letter to Theo (London, January 1874)

[stardust-musing]

Nothing in this universe could be as satisfying as when that old woman’s smiling and blessing you because you helped her cross a road or climb a stair, or you bought food for those homeless kids who were watching you while you were at that restaurant having your food, or you buying stuff from a really needy person even when you have no idea what you would use it for, or lending your shoulder, while travelling in a metro or a bus, to that human who’s now going back home, after a tiring day at work..

[ikeromantic]

Theo Van Gogh Masterlist

Theo and MC's first fight

Sing - Theo and an MC who is embarrassed to sing in public

A Little Victory - Theo (spicy) features an OC

Never Enough - Theo (spicy smut!)

Make-Up Kiss, Theo, Spicy

Theo Van Gogh - Nice - Kiss Under the Mistletoe

Theo Van Gogh - Surprise! - Quiet Night

Theo Van Gogh - Angst/Happy Ending - Quiet Night

Theo - Space, Hawthorn - protection, and Calliope - eloquence

Theo - Air, Alder - change, and Terpischore - dance

Scarf/Theo/Fluff  

[lorei-writes]

Loreiiiii my darling! Your game is so cute and I'm so so curious!

✨️ wiiiiith Theo? Bc I'm weak. And we all know this.

"Hm? You're still up, hondje? Damn, you look tired."

(...)

"I didn't say that. And don't think you're moving anywhere now either. I'm late and you've still waited for me to get back, so it's part my fault you're like this. A good owner must take responsibility... Heh, what's that look you're giving me?"

send me a ✨+ [character] & get a short message

[khrystinekhaos]

AWWW

i swear theo’s just a big softie . could you

imagine reading romantic poetry with him🤭