The Theme of the Double and Creativity in Vincent Van Gogh

THE INTEREST OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN THE WORK AND LIVES of great artists, as in Freud's classic study of Leonardo (1910) or his reflections on the Moses of Michelangelo (1924), has multiple purposes. From the point of view of psychoanalysis, it provides the opportunity for exploration of patterns of meaningful involvement in the artist's life and experience that come to bear in his artistic efforts and lend support from an extraclinical frame of reference for putative psychoanalytic hypotheses, whether developmental or pathological. From the artistic perspective, it lends another dimension to the understanding of the meaning of the artist's work and offers hopefully a deeper understanding of the roots of artistic creativity. I propose in this essay to explore a specific theme in the life and work of Vincent van Gogh that played itself out as a persistent and recurrent leitmotif from the very beginning of his life, had powerful determining influence on his life experience and his interpersonal relationships, and provided a powerful current in the dynamic processes underlying his immense artistic creativity. The theme I have in mind is that of the double.

The theme of the double has played a role in the unconscious fantasy of many creative individuals. It has played a prominent part in the creative lives of writers and artists through the ages (Rank, 1914), (1971) ; (Grotstein, 1983) ; (Rogers, 1970). The theme was enunciated by Freud (1919) in his description of the double as arising from the unconscious, another self that is both hostile and sympathetic. But, as Eder (1978) notes, "Doubles are of two kinds. Either the double is an exact replica, mirror image, or identical twin … or the double is one's other self, a self irrupting from the unconscious, that is antithetical yet complementary to one's conscious self" (p. 579). The theme of the "double" carries us to