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AS IS WELL KNOWN, VINCENT VAN GOGH ended his life with suicide. The last year-and-a-half of his life were spent in a struggle with a probable schizophreniform psychosis that began with his cutting off of his left ear lobe and required his hospitalization. During the period of Vincent's illness, suicide was never far from his mind. If we regard his lifelong pattern of self-deprivation and self-mortifications as suicidal equivalents (Menninger, 1938), the idea must have had its place through most of his life. Certainly the amputation of his ear was a suicidal gesture, or the equivalent.
During his hospitalization, there were other attempts: Paul Signac recalled an attempt during his visit in March 1889 when Vincent tried to drink some turpentine: "The whole day he spoke to me about painting, literature, socialism. That night he was a little tired. There was a frightful mistral blowing which might have unnerved him. He wanted to drink a liter of oil of turpentine out of a bottle that sat on the table in the room. It was time to return to the hospital" (Stein, 1986, p. 136). In the sanitarium there were several other occasions when he tried to swallow kerosene or oil paints and had to be forcibly restrained. It was not as though death came upon Vincent by stealth; he actively pursued it, sought it out.
Vincent was well aware that his condition was gradually worsening. There came a quiet Sunday morning. He walked out on the countryside and turned onto a small farm. He went behind the barn, and concealing himself behind a manure pile he pulled out a revolver and shot himself in the chest. With his hand pressed against the wound to control the bleeding, he staggered back to