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APRIL 2016
BERNARD MARTIN
THE AUTHENTIC DEATH OF VINCENT VAN GOGH
Everyone Here Thinks I'm Half Mad. Sometimes I Think so Myself.
acrylic on canvas, 57"x49", 2014.
Boys Laugh At Me and Play Jokes. Rene Secretan is the Worst. He Wants to be a Cowboy When He Grows Up. He Shoots at Birds and Rabbits with an Old Borrowed Pistol Which Doesn't Work Much of the Time.
acrylic on canvas, 57"x49", 2014.
I Paint the Fields All Morning and Go Back to the Inn for Lunch. Today When I Returned To Work Rene and His Brother Followed Me.
acrylic on canvas, 57"x49", 2014.
I'm Hurt. I'm Not Sure How it Happened. They Were Playing With the Gun and Teasing Me With It-- I Tried to Push Them Away For I had Started Working.
acrylic on canvas, 57"x49", 2014.
It Was After Dark Before I Was Able to Get Back To the Inn. They Asked Me What Was Wrong and I Said I was Wounded. Someone Asked if I Had Shot Myself and I Answered, "I Believe So..... Do Not Accuse Anyone."
acrylic on canvas, 57"x49", 2014.
I'm Very Tired and Want to Sleep Now That Theo Is Here. Perhaps Someday Someone Will Tell My True Story.
acrylic on canvas, 57"x49", 2014.
Vincent Van Gogh died early on the morning of July 29th, 1890 of a gunshot wound to his abdomen. The few people of Auvers who had any concern over the death of this extremely peculiar, difficult, and unsuccessful artist were uncertain if the wound was self-inflicted, accidental, or perhaps, even a homicide.
Little or no attempt was made at the time to clarify the events leading to his death. Some forty years later, after both public and critical acceptance of Van Gogh's work, Irvin Stone published a fictionalized biography of the artist, “Lust for Life”, in which a detailed description of his death as a result of suicide was given. This account was, and has continued to be, widely accepted. It seemed an appropriate ending for the emerging myth of an artist, neglected in their lifetime, who becomes recognized as a master after their death. This account was further canonized in 1956 with the release of a movie based on Stone's book in which Kirk Douglas portrayed van Gogh.
As a result of research for their 2011 biography of the artist Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith were the first to raise serious questions about this reading of the artist's death. While it will be forever impossible to know conclusively what happened in that field some twenty miles outside of Paris, Bernard Martin has given his best assessment of this event in a series of sequential paintings, “The Authentic Death of Vincent Van Gogh.”
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