Van Gogh has always been an inspiration of mine, especially as there was a Doctor Who episode based on him and his life, which off course made me so much more interested in him. He suffered from manic depression/ bipolar throughout his life and was always seen as a mad man due to his illness. He sadly committed suicide in 1890 at the age of 37.
He was no doubt very advanced for his time in terms of painting and how he used colours. He had a strong connection with the colour yellow due to over medication and excessive consumption of liquor, this caused him to see everything with a yellow hue which could explain why a lot of his paintings due contain the colour yellow. This is odd as yellow is generally seen as a happy colour.
He admitted himself into a mental hospital and would paint during his time there, even though the idea of Art therapy had not been created, he was said that when he painted this helped me keep peace of mind. It was also said that when he was in the hospital, the others would leave him alone whilst he was painting so this was a way of him getting away from ‘the crazy people in the hospital, he referred to them as crazy in a letter he sent to his sister in law.
Some art historians would depict some of his paintings as him representing himself, for example in this painting ‘Irises’ by Van Gogh
The white Iris which was painted among these beautiful blue Irises was a representation of Van Gogh himself although he did not admit to this being his intentions in any letters.
Interestingly, Claude Monet saw this piece of work in an exhibition and remarked ‘How can a man who loved flowers and light to such an extent and who rendered them so well, how then did he still manage to be so unhappy?’ - Interestingly, it seems as if he would put all of his depression symptoms into his work and use his art as a coping mechanism to create this sense of hyper-reality. I found this very intriguing that Claude Monet, a painter so insanely talented who also suffered from mental illness, would comment this based on Van Gogh’s work, it is almost as if he is using this painting as a way of relating to Van Gogh which in itself is reassuring and a form of therapy.
If one was to have no clue about Van Gogh’s life and his sad problems, it would be very difficult to see his suffering through his imagery, so I cannot help but think that he really did use his practice as a form of self-help even if the concept was not around at the time.