CASA ARMIDA | art

One word that can best define the paintings of Vincent van Gogh is "ambience," for they definetly create a special atmosphere or mood.  Much has been written about van Gogh over the centuries due to the many paintings he left behind and the many letters he wrote to his brother Theo, especially.

 

The ambience of this article is slightly a different one because it will focus on the air that surrounded him as he painted and as he stored his unsold art in his little room.  Little was known then that he suffered from chemical poisoning, and this fact has come to light.  Appropriately, it will get the attention it deserves.

 

The diagnosis of his chemical poisoning is saturnine encephalopathy (aka lead poisoning).  For a fascinating description of this diagnosis, read Vincent van Gogh and the Toxic Colours of Saturn by F. Javier Gonzalez Luque and A. Luis Montejo Gonzalez (Salamanca, September 2004).  In brief, Van Gogh's technique of impasto (applying thick paint straight onto the painting surface) lend itself to such exposure.  The impasto technique  allowed van Gogh to use bold and expressive brushstrokes in rendering skies, wheat fields, people, and the like.  

 

Unfortunate for van Gogh, the colors he used had high content of white lead (lead carbonate) or chrome yellow (lead chromate) in preparing his color mixtures.  Lead is a cumulative poison. Over the years of his artistic career from 1881-1890, a known 900 or so canvases were created.  He was most prolific during the last nine months of his life, just before he fatally shot himself in the chest in a wheatfield.  Those many oil paintings continued to outgas volatile organic compounds in his tiny abode where he stored them.  Minute quantities of lead entered his respiratory and digestive routes on a daily basis to cause severe symptoms to manifest in a few months.

 

As exposure to lead and other toxic chemicals (e.g., cadmium, an extremely toxic metal) , key symtoms of saturnism encephelopathy in the early stages of his painting career were fairly unspecific--weakness, gingivitis, abdominal pain, anemia. As his lead intoxication progressed, he experienced epileptic fits, states of delrium, vertico, insomnia, sexual dysfunctions, affective disorders  and the like.  

 

His letters offered great insights into his mental and emotional states.  What is telling is the story of each of his paintings.  For example, when he mutilated his ear, he was shortly interned where he was diagnosed with "fits of epilepsy with visual and aural hallucinations."  He would experience "twilight states," "flights or wanderings," "stupification," "confusion," "extreme mood shifts," "unexpected agitations," "memory loss".... And, towards the end, he experienced, among other things, motor disorder of the hand.

 

Van Gogh stated that "the brush is almost falling from my fingers," which must have given him a sense of despair.  The technique of his paintings became simplified.  Brushstrokes were dragged unidirectionally, and perspective was distored (e.g., "Wheat Field Near Auvers," "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain," "Wheat Fields with Auvers in the Background").

 

It may be interesting to note that another favorite painter of the artist is Caravaggio.  It is held that Caravaggio's lead poisoning accentuated aggressive traits and nervous behavior which he displayed during his life.  Michelangelo Merisi o Amerighi da Caravaggio died at the age of 39 in 1610.  Vincent van Gogh died at the age of 37.

 

A message to all artists:  Be careful about the medium you use. Manufacturers such as Golden tell you about the toxicity of their products.  Heed.  And when you paint, please do not take lightly what is happening when you put your painted fingers on your face or mouth or when the paint/medium gets on your skin and face. Never open stubborn tubes of paint with your teeth.  Toxic encephelopothy is real, and it is not limited to just lead.