The Truth About Vincent Van Gogh's Death

May 2024 ยท 1 minute read

Van Gogh was the quintessential tortured artist. As History details, before trying his hand at painting, he failed at various occupations. He trained with an art dealership that later decided not to deal with him. He failed to make the grade as a schoolteacher, and working at a bookstore didn't work out. He then tried to save the souls of sinners as a lay preacher, even relinquishing his belongings and sleeping on floors. But his leap of faith didn't save Van Gogh from unemployment. 

As a painter, Van Gogh would go largely unknown and unappreciated until after his death (One of his hundreds of unsold works, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, would be bought for $82 million in 1990). And he created many of his greatest works in a mental institution. Given the terrible hand he'd been dealt, you might think, "unlucky in life, lucky in love," but no such luck. His heart was repeatedly broken and by 1888 his sanity shattered as well, leading to the infamous incident in which he severed his left earlobe and gave it to a prostitute. In 1889 he was voluntarily institutionalized and the following year he died.

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