You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The figure of Vincent van Gogh stands out in the history of art and human experience as one of the most enigmatic cases in which severe psychopathology and a powerful creative genius were conjoined. He has taken his place as one of the towering figures in the world of art, one of the greatest painters of the 19th century (whose works, along with his 20th-century successor, Picasso, command the highest prices paid by collectors). Yet van Gogh's life, which ended in suicide, was an almost uninterrupted saga of hurt, abandonment, isolation, depression, desperation, hopelessness, and frustration.
Van Gogh's life experience draws the interest of the psychoanalytic investigator. The recently passed centennial of his death-he killed himself on July 29, 1890-has been the occasion of renewed interest in his tragic life, resulting in a torrent of studies of many aspects of his life and career. The psychoanalytic observer can say little about the genius that shaped the splotches of paint that flowed from his brushes to the canvas to become works of great beauty and expression, but there is much to be thought and said about the driving forces behind his creative work, about the motivations, the wishes and ambitions, the complex and multiple determinants that led him along his abysmal path and were distilled into his art. We are curious to seek out the factors that came into play to make his life such an unutterable disaster at the same time as they made his artistic endeavors so profoundly and meaningfully creative and expressive.
We know that the rudiments of this story were laid down in childhood and that any sense we might make of Vincent's story must take its origins in his earliest years. Brought into play from the very beginning of his life experience were crucial determinants that cast a long shadow over the