A few days after his recovery, Dr Théophile Peyron told Theo that Vincent’s “ideas of suicide have disappeared”. In April 1889, four months after mutilating his ear, Vincent had written to Theo: “If I was without your friendship I would be sent back without remorse to suicide, and however cowardly I am, I would end up going there.” A few months later he tried to poison himself by eating his paints and turpentine, but fortunately his doctor saved him. ![]() Vincent had tried to kill himself the year before Theo then needed to amend the printed funeral invitations. ![]() Tessier was presumably concerned that the Protestant artist had sinned by committing suicide. Henri Tessier, the Catholic priest in Auvers, refused to allow the funeral service to be held in his church, or to provide the parish hearse to carry Van Gogh’s body to the cemetery. Notice of Vincent van Gogh’s funeral at Auvers-sur-Oise, 30 July 1890, with the church venue crossed out after the priest objected © Van Gogh Museum archive (b1993 V/1980) 6. Although her testimony was given in the 1950s, more than 60 years after the events, subsequent research revealed that an Emile Rigaumont had indeed once served as a gendarme in the neighbouring village of Méry-sur-Oise. Adeline even named one of the gendarmes as Rigaumont. I am free to do what I like with my own body.” Surely the police would have followed up if they had harboured any suspicions of foul play. The artist had told the police: “What I have done is nobody else’s business. His daughter, Adeline Ravoux (who was 13 at the time of the incident), later reported that her father had often spoken about Van Gogh. No police records about the shooting survive, but Bernard also informed Aurier that the innkeeper, Arthur Ravoux, had told him about “the gendarmes who came to his bed to reproach him for an act for which he was responsible”. Gauguin knew Van Gogh well from their time together in the Yellow House in Arles, where their collaboration had come to an abrupt end with the ear incident, and he was only too aware of his friend’s fragile mental condition. Although Gauguin was in Brittany at the time, he remained in touch with Vincent’s circle of friends. In Gauguin’s memoir, Avant et Après, he wrote that “Van Gogh shot himself in the stomach”. Paul Gauguin, Self-portrait given to Van Gogh (1888) © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) 4. Two weeks after Vincent’s death, he wrote again to Theo, explicitly using the word “suicide”. Had there been anything to suggest possible foul play, he would presumably not have let the matter rest. Dr Gachet had inspected the wound and spoken with Vincent. Vincent’s doctor believed it was suicideĪ few hours after the shooting, Vincent’s doctor, Paul Gachet, wrote to the artist’s brother, Theo van Gogh, to break the news that “he has wounded himself”. Here are ten reasons why it was suicide: 1. ![]() The murder story is yet another myth that has been added to those which have come to surround the artist. However, I remain convinced that the traditional view that Van Gogh shot himself is correct he was not killed by Secrétan. The murder/manslaughter theory was subsequently taken up in different ways in two acclaimed films, the painted-animation Loving Vincent (2017) and artist Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate (2018). He then protected Secrétan by claiming it was suicide. Naifeh and Smith argued that Van Gogh “welcomed death” and therefore the unexpected shooting. The two authors based their theory on their imaginative interpretation of an interview that Secrétan gave in 1957, a few months before his death. Van Gogh managed to stagger back to his inn, dying two days later from his wounds. They wrote that Van Gogh was shot in the abdomen on 27 July 1890 by 16-year-old René Secrétan, a summer visitor in Auvers-sur-Oise who taunted the artist. The theory that Van Gogh’s death was murder (or manslaughter) first surfaced seriously in 2011, in a comprehensive biography by two American writers, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. ![]() The story of his extraordinary life has always excited just as much interest as his pathbreaking art. A few years ago, the question I was most often asked about Vincent van Gogh was, “Why did he cut off his ear?” Now it's, “Did he commit suicide, or was he actually murdered?”
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