The Final Days of Van Gogh in Auvers

In the evening of July 27, 1890, Vincent van Gogh returned to his small room at the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise, located north of Paris. Upon hearing his distressing groans, the innkeeper discovered van Gogh in agony, doubled over due to a gunshot wound in his chest. The innkeeper, Ravoux, promptly called for the village doctor, and van Gogh asked for his own physician, Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, to be summoned as well.

Following a thorough examination of the patient, the doctors agreed that removing the bullet was not feasible. Therefore, at van Gogh's behest, Gachet loaded a pipe, ignited it, and positioned it in the artist's mouth. Van Gogh smoked peacefully as the doctor sat by his side, displaying keen attention. Over the course of ten weeks in Auvers, the two had cultivated a close and affectionate friendship.

After moving to Auvers on May 20, 1890, Vincent van Gogh's brother Theo arranged for Dr. Gachet, known for his expertise in homeopathy and nervous disorders, to look after Vincent during his recovery from the asylum in Saint-Rémy. Theo had been referred to Gachet by the painter Camille Pissaro, who recognised the doctor's fondness for artists. Gachet was well-connected within the art world, counting Cézanne, Pissarro, and other Impressionist painters among his friends, and he was an enthusiastic art collector himself. Additionally, Gachet was a talented painter and engraver who signed his works under the name Paul van Ryssel.

With his red hair, Gachet also possessed an uncanny resemblance to van Gogh, which only fostered a stronger bond between the two men. Van Gogh noted to his youngest sister, Wilhelmina, "I have found a true friend in Dr. Gachet, something like another brother, so much do we resemble each other physically and also mentally."

Tempering the rapport, though, was van Gogh's observation that the "eccentric" doctor suffered from "nervous trouble" just as serious as the artist's. But despite these initial reservations, van Gogh soon began visiting Gachet's home regularly, sharing multi-course meals and painting portraits of the doctor and his daughter. One of these portraits, titled the Portrait of Dr. Gachet, is among van Gogh's most famous paintings and emphasizes the physician's melancholic nature more than his medical expertise. Describing the portrait to Gauguin, van Gogh wrote the doctor possessed "the heartbroken expression of our time."

Upon settling in his new environment, the artist's productivity experienced a significant increase. Some catalogues have even credited van Gogh with around 70 works created during his stay in Auvers. In correspondence with Theo and his sister-in-law, Jo, he expressed his admiration for Auvers, describing it as "deeply beautiful, truly representing the countryside with its unique and picturesque qualities."

However, as July approached, signs of trouble started to appear in his letters and artworks. In a letter to Theo, van Gogh described several paintings of wheat fields "under troubled skies," expressing how easily he could convey feelings of sadness and profound loneliness. His anxiety may have been heightened by the news that Theo, his financial supporter, was facing challenges with his employers and contemplating starting his own business. This situation likely intensified van Gogh's increasing distress.

Theo heard the news the next day and rushed to Auvers to be by his brother's side. Comforted by Theo's presence, van Gogh told his brother, "I wish I could pass away like this." They were among his last words. He died on July 29 at 1:30 a.m.

A small group of friends and family attended his funeral, abundant with sunflowers. Among the mourners was Gachet, who spoke a few words. "He was an honest man . . . and a great artist," Gachet eulogised. "He had only two goals, humanity and art."

In recent years doubt has been cast on whether the gunshot was self inflicted, according to the groundbreaking research of Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, the painter didn’t shoot himself: he was killed. When they first exposed this theory in their 2011 biography Van Gogh: The Life, it was viciously attacked and contested. Rewriting history is not an easy task.

Now, in a article published in Vanity Fair, the writers substantiate even further their controversial theory, which challenges the deep-seated assumptions about the (now) revered Dutch artist.

According to Naifeh and White Smith’s research, van Gogh was shot accidentally by a man called René Secrétan, who broke a lifetime of silence after seeing Vicente Minnelli’s van Gogh biopic Lust for Life (1956), in which the painter is depicted as killing himself in the woods surrounding the French town of Auvers, just outside Paris.

Secrétan admitted to being the leader of a group of young troublemakers who took pleasure in drinking and harassing the tormented artist. While he never confessed to shooting van Gogh, Secrétan did acknowledge that he would dress up as Buffalo Bill and wield a faulty pistol obtained from the Ravoux Inn's caretaker, where the artist resided.

According to Naifeh and White Smith, two days before van Gogh’s death (July 29, 1890), a stray bullet shot from afar hit the painter in the abdomen while he was out in the fields of Auvers. Because it didn’t hit his vital organs, it took over 29 agonising hours to kill him.

None of the reports of his death mention the word suicide, only that he had “wounded himself.” No one admitted to having found the gun, and the doctors could not really make sense of his wounds.

A few days before the shooting, van Gogh had placed a large order of paints, and on the morning of the day he died, he had sent an upbeat letter to his brother Theo, with an optimistic take on the future. Crucially, no suicide note was ever found.

Why did the suicide version take such a strong hold, then? Well, it simply provided a more logical narrative. Van Gogh’s earlobe episode, which had happened two years earlier, plus his history of nervous breakdowns and alcoholism, made him the perfect artist maudit: a troubled, unpredictable, erratic genius.

Even friends of the artist, such as the painter Émile Bernard, liked to sensationalise van Gogh’s exploits. “My best friend, my dear Vincent, is mad,” he told an art critic in 1889. “Since I have found out, I am almost mad myself.”

The police investigated the death, but according to Naifeh and White Smith, no records survive. The suicide rumours, thus, provided a “better story,” and gained momentum throughout the 20th century by the sheer force of hearsay.

Naifeh and White Smith's rendition does not change the reality of van Gogh's tragic and untimely death, which might have been preventable. However, it presents a fresh perspective on the artist: depicting him as an individual filled with aspirations, faith in his art, and whose demise was accidental.

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