Where's that Guy Gogh-ing? Why First Impressions Need a Second Look
First impressions can be wonderful. Or the worst.
I have great days when All-the-Things are awesome. and it’s a Great Hair Day and I hit my writing marks, and all my husband’s jokes are really funny. There’s a part of me that would love, love, love if that described my day-to-day reality.
Because surely it would mean everyone loves me.
But, reality check, there’s ALL THE OTHER DAYS. Bad hair, writer’s block, the to-do list only grows, and the jokes just don’t land (sorry babe).
According to Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink, he suggests it takes about seven seconds to form a first impression. This initial assessment, often based on appearance, body language, and tone of voice, can have a lasting impact on how we perceive others.
This insight makes it kinda honest AND awkward for me to admit that when I first started to research Vincent van Gogh (who is an off-the-page character in my novel) I found myself wondering that if I didn’t know he was famous already, I’m pretty sure I would have judged him as a loser.
Truly.
For here’s a guy who can’t hold down a job, lives off of his brother’s charity, makes mistake-after-mistake life choices, acts like a jerk and dies tragically young with a pile of work to his name worth nothing.
I know that if I met him today, it would be tough to recognize that this misfit, failed, disheveled guy was, in fact, a master talent.
I’ve thought about this a lot as I’ve mentally walked in the shoes of the heroine in my book, Jo, wondering what she thought of him. She was married to Vincent’s brother and in two out of the three times Jo met Vincent, frankly, he was kinda mean.
Her husband loved Vincent, and she loved her husband, so she knew she had little choice but to accept Vincent. (Do you have any family relationships like that?)
If I was Jo, confronted by Vincent’s abrasive behavior, I’m confident it would never have crossed my mind in a million years that this oddball brother-in-law would someday be beloved around the world.
Let me give you a quick take on his life story.
You be the judge.
Fired, Quit and Failed
Once upon a time there is a guy named Vince. He’s the oldest son in a family of five kids. His dad’s a pastor and his mom works without pay visiting the sick and other pastoral wife duties while managing their busy household. Money is tight and Vince’s parents want their kids to have better lives, so they emphasize the importance of making good connections with wealthier people who can help them get ahead.
Vince is eager to make his family proud. He loves his siblings, especially his closest brother, Theo, who is four years younger, and idolizes him.
Vince makes a promise to himself.
He will make his mark.
He will be somebody.
So, when Uncle “Cent”(short for Vincent, his dad’s brother), offers to take Vince on as a junior apprentice in his art gallery, Vince is all in.
Practically a man! He’s sixteen. On his way! Buoyant with hope, a bounce in his step, Vince triumphantly leaves his childhood home in small-town Zundert for the big city of The Hague.
Only. . .four long years later (uh-oh), Vince is still in the gallery and still in the backroom. “Learning the trade” with grunt work because he just can’t get the hang of sales out front. In frustration, Uncle Cent moves Vince to his Brussels shop, then to his London location. No dice. Perhaps their flagship Paris gallery? Surely Paris will inspire our Vince?
Well, not exactly. For in fact, during all this time of grunt work and travel, Vince has discovered the finesse of sneaking out and visiting art museums. He’s become kind of a dreamer. Likes to wander through the British Museum in London, lose himself down the hallways of the Louvre and becomes a visitor to Paris’ many art exhibitions. He’s 23 years old. Absentmindedly, he starts a hobby of putting together little scrapbooks of poetry and fairytales in verse.
Every time a letter arrives home from Vince, his dad’s about to pull his hair out.
When his oldest son is fired, the only one surprised is Vince.
OK, Vince needs a fresh start. So, he moves back to the Netherlands for a career change at 23 years old. Not so bad, he reassures himself. Fairly quickly, he finds a job as an assistant teacher in a private boy’s school in Ramsgate. Teaching is respectable; Vince is relieved. He’s assured he just needs to work for one month on a trial basis before he can get paid. One unpaid month stretches to two. With no money in sight, Vince quits. Quickly, happily, he bounces to another teaching job.
This job is 100 miles away in Isleworth and is run by a Methodist preacher. In the cold north, Vince warms to Biblical study and even gets to guest preach his own sermon and is asked to work in the Sunday School. Finally, a vocation where he’s wanted! But when Vince goes back home for Christmas, his parents are angry and upset.
He will not go into the ministry they scold. Life as a preacher will not bring financial security. This is not how he was raised. Vince is ordered to quit the teaching job.
Angrily, Vince obeys but he’s mad, and then despondent. Twenty-four years old and once again, starting over. Determinedly, Mom and Dad get Vince a job in a bookshop in Dordrecht. Vince hates it. Defiantly he goes to one church service after another regardless of the denomination. He’s fanatical, copying out long passages from the Bible and decorating his room with sorrowful Biblical scenes, all the while feeding a fixation to go into full-time ministry. After just four months, he throws in the towel, quits the bookshop and moves to Amsterdam to study for a ministry entrance exam. Dad is especially angry, but since Vince asks his politically connected Uncle Jan (admiral in the navy and director of a naval shipyard), if he can live with him, plus will have his studies supervised by his Uncle J.P. (a clergyman with a city parish), his parents acquiesce. At least Vince is surrounded by influencers.
Finally, it looks like Vince is on the right track.
And Vince is happy. He’s doing what he wants.
Here’s the thing: Remember how Vince is a dreamer? Loves to roam around art museums? No surprise then that he discovers he hates studying. He spends a full year in Amsterdam procrastinating and opting for long walks in the countryside instead of prepping for his exam.
Of course, he fails.
Vincent is desperate. Such an idiot. He’s wasted an entire year. Later he will describe it as “the worst time.”
Maybe he wants to prove himself? At 25-years-old Vince quits Amsterdam and lurches into a brutal six-month assignment as a lay preacher in a desperately impoverished, gloomy northern mining district in Borinage. Food is scarce; black grime stains the air. Vince refuses to live more comfortably than the poor people surrounding him, and writes of being “overcome by a feeling of sorrow and. . . struggle against despair.”
The only thing that brings him consolation is drawing.
Look at that. In these lost, despairing moments, searching for comfort, a whisper of Vince’s talent appears.
He doesn’t notice it. He’s been fired, quit numerous jobs and failed at every occupation he’s set his mind out to do. That mark on the world he wanted to be. That thing to make him “somebody.” In this cold, abandoned corner of the world, those wishes look childish. Foolish.
He’s too low to see the spark.
But Theo does.
When Vince Realizes He’s an Artist
Little brother Theo is all grown up. He, too, started work in an art shop thanks to Uncle Cent. Only now he’s in Paris and managing his own gallery. In correspondence with his brother, Theo writes, “You should be an artist.”
Vince is incensed. Isn’t Vince the big brother? He should be the one giving counsel to his little brother, not vice versa. With all the failures in his life, at least give him that! So for a while, Vince goes off the grid, disappears into Belgium, but all the while he continues to draw. When he does resurface it’s the spring of 1881, Vince is 28-years-old, homeless and broke, but a new desire burns inside him: To be an artist.
Swallowing his pride, he returns to the Netherlands and his parents’ home in Etten so he can have a stable place to practice drawing.
Now Vince wants to be an artist? Dad is angry (no doubt, scared about his son’s inability to get his act together). Their arguments turn ugly, so horrible, triggered by the smallest unguarded remark, Dad writes Theo that he’s considering sending Vince to a psychiatric hospital.
Still, Vince steadily works on his craft. Studying, copying the masters, getting villagers to pose for him so he can do figure studies. Theo regularly sends him money. He’s offered to shoulder all of Vince’s living costs, mostly art supplies. Subtlely, their roles shift. The younger art dealer brother becomes the counselor.
Things are looking up for Vince. A roof over his head. Regular checks in the mail. Lots of work to inspire him out of doors. New artist friends to correspond with. So what if he’s 28, some say that’s late to start an artistic career but Vince feels a new fire in his belly. He will make this art career work! What could possibly stand in his way?
Well. . . love, of course.
Vince falls head over heels in love. Her name is Kee Vos. She’s younger than Vince and sadly already a widow. She lives close by in Etten with her parents. Her dad is J.P. That’s right! The same Uncle J.P. Vince lived with in Amsterdam while he was goofing off, but even worse, of course, Kee is Vince’s first cousin! Dad’s furious with Vince! Uncle J.P. is furious! And Kee is the most furious because when Vince presses her to accept his advances she says, “No! Nay! Never!” and still Vince doesn’t take no for an answer.
So Dad kicks Vince out. Disillusioned and infuriated, Vince escapes to The Hague where he moves in with a pregnant former prostitute named Sien Hoornik. She becomes his regular model and lover. Theo is now paying for two mouths plus a (ramshackle) studio. When Theo objects, Vince argues that he needs a family, but also fails to mention that Theo is supporting not just two people, but actually three, for Sien also has a five-year-old daughter, Maria, living with them too. Weeks later, when Theo discovers he’s also been paying for a little girl, exasperated, Theo sets up a budget. He will send 50 francs 3x/month. Vince will have to figure out how to make it work. When Sien delivers her baby, it’s a boy and she names him Willem (Vince’s middle name). All the while, amidst the home life turmoil, Vince begins to study oils and to experiment with various drawing materials and lithography.
Things don’t work out with Sien. At the age of 30 years old, Vince moves back in with his parents with the proverbial tail between his legs. Meanwhile, Vince is sending all his artwork to Theo now, telling him he considers Theo’s stipend to him “earned money.”
For two years, life settles down. What’s happened to Vince’s goal to make a mark? Be somebody?
He’s working on it, until. . .
Love again. In January 1884 Vince begins an affair with a neighbor Margot. In September she attempts suicide. Vince is shocked, upended, but when he’s scolded by his dad for embarrassing them and bringing their social status into question, Vince flips out, enraged and grief-stricken. He flees, vowing never to return. He doesn’t know that this is the last time he will see his dad, for five weeks later the Reverend Van Gogh dies of a stroke.
Vince is bereft. His only consolation is working on his art.
It’s in April and into May 1885, that Vince paints and re-paints his first serious painting, The Potato Eaters. The subject is a group of dignified Dutch laborers tiredly gathered around a table with a supper of potatoes they’ve grown themselves. Theo compliments Vince, “I can hear the clogs clattering on their feet.”
Vince is on his way. He’s wholeheartedly focused on being an artist. He studies at an art school in Antwerp, then moves to Paris to bunk with Theo. The city’s Impressionism and Neo-impressionism movements blow him away. His palette changes from somber tones to an explosion of color and light. He’s painting parks and cafés, flower still-life’s and self-portraits.
He drives Theo crazy. Shaking him awake past midnight to argue about art. In fact, Vince argues everywhere. The cadre of avant-garde artists he meets—Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard and Paul Signac—faithfully drink beer and smoke cigars and loudly debate art at nightly meetups. Art, art, art.
Vince is in heaven.
He is so passionate with his opinions that on the street his wild gestures to make a point spit multi-colored paint droplets flying from his palette onto the clothes of people passing by.
But Theo is exhausted; Vince is exhausting.
Vince is now 33 years old. He relentlessly hounds Theo to sell his paintings, but there are no offers. Vince is not yet “somebody.” Theo assures him it will happen.
It’s the end of 1887 and two years into Paris’ hectic hubbub that Vince begins to long for a more peaceful environment. Ultimately, he sets his sites on moving to Arles, a small town in the south of France. Vince envisions starting an artist group similar to the friendships he’s made in Paris. The cherry on top? Paul Gauguin. If Paul will come to be the leader of the group, Vince argues to Theo, other artists will come to his new cool kids club.
So Vince moves to Arles and becomes extremely productive. He paints many of the works that would one day be considered masterpieces, like The Starry Night. Theo is absolutely confident Vince’s time has come. He sends three of Vince’s paintings to a major exhibition, Les Indepéndants in Paris.
Vince is sure to make his mark. It will happen soon.
He is patient, though lonely. Since only a few government workers speak French in Arles—and Vince does not know the local dialect—he must communicate with hand gestures to local Arlesians, who frankly are suspicious of his unkempt appearance and strange hobby of hauling paints and canvases out into the countryside each day.
Finally, nine months later, Gauguin arrives. Vince is so thrilled he paints several sunflower paintings to brighten their rented rooms. At first, Gauguin’s presence is all Vince had hoped for. They paint together, fiercely debate art, visit museums. But then their disagreements intensify, climb, their debates turn into fiery arguments and one frenzied night Vince waves around a knife. Slices off his ear!
Delusional, he wanders out onto the street with the ear in a bloody handkerchief. The next time he’s conscious a police officer is shaking his shoulder awake. In his confusion, Vince had given his ear to a freaked-out brothel girl. Gauguin is nowhere to be found.
Mental Illness Episodes
Vince has had a weird mental illness episode. Theo rushes to him on an overnight train from Paris. Vince checks himself into the Arles hospital, but when he’s released a few days later, he finds the Arles townspeople have signed a petition to expel him. Disconsolate, Vince voluntarily admits himself to an asylum in Saint-Rémy, a town fifteen miles away.
Two months later, in July, Vince has another mental breakdown. In December, another one in which he tries to poison himself by eating paint. Another in January, then February.
Still, he is painting. Between the bad episodes, he reemerges again and again to paint in the asylum garden and then in the surrounding countryside. He is extremely productive, shipping dozens of paintings to Theo in Paris. In turn, Theo hangs two paintings in Les Indépendents again, another six at the Les Vingt exhibition in Brussels. Anna Boch, sister to a poet and good buddy of Vince, buys a painting there, The Red Vineyard.
At last! It’s beginning! The impasse is broken! Surely, more sales will come.
Vince can make his mark.
Released from the asylum in May, Vince travels north by train to Paris. He stops to visit Theo and meet Theo’s young wife, Jo, and their infant son, named Vincent. His namesake. Together, with tears in their eyes, the brothers stand side-by-side over the crib, gazing at this new young Van Gogh.
Vince continues on to Auvers-sur-Oise outside Paris. He checks in under the care of a doctor and amateur artist, Paul Gachet.
With feverish intensity, Vince paints nearly a masterpiece/day. His work is sure, confident, intense, astonishing. Triumphantly, he writes to Theo that the nightmare of his illness is over. He writes his mom that he is feeling very calm.
It’s now 1890. Ten years since Theo planted the seed, “You should be an artist.” Though it will be years before his total output will be calculated, by now Vince has produced more than 2,000 artworks, comprised of about 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches.
That whisper of talent, that spark in a gloomy mining town is now honed by years of study and practice and repetition. He knows this. He’s written about it in his letters to Theo:
“The great doesn’t happen through impulse alone and is a succession of little things that are brought together.”“Working with as much cold-bloodedness as I can muster, [I] don’t let myself be deterred by my mistakes.”“Pay attention to the end. Work achieved over a lifetime is better than one more quickly. . .Love is true strength. Love is most noble after trials.”
Has he made it? Is he wondering whether he’s making his mark?
On July 29, 1890, Vince walks out to a field and shoots himself in the stomach. Two days later, with Theo weeping by his side, our dear friend, Vince, dies.
Six months later, Theo succumbs to a brain disease and dies.
Both ending their lives never knowing that one day Vince will be somebody.
For its Jo who makes this happen.
Now that You Know
Even though I know how Vincent’s story ends, I always still feel a little sad every time I read it. Certainly, the thought that “this guy’s a loser,” which started in my research, completely about-faced as I got to know Vincent’s life.
That’s the way it works. Empathy comes when we know each other’s stories.
According to Malcolm Gladwell, it’s natural to judge on that first impression, but working on my novel has been an arena for witnessing how prejudice and bias blinds people to seeing the talent and brilliance in front of them.
Yes, Vincent was “somebody” and made his mark because Theo was “somebody” providing an emotional lifeline to his brother and Jo was “somebody” and made her mark too.
Maybe that’s how it works. We’re all connected.
I see you, Somebody!
Warmly,
P.S. My book, Saving Vincent, A Novel of Jo van Gogh, will publish in April 2025.
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