Vincent "Chore Coat" Van Gogh

Celebrity book.

Fuck up. Introna painting was fucked today?

Wait, Allison passed me the bunk. Okay, I actually kind of liked Introni painting. I don't know. That was chill, like that professor was. I don't know. I felt like she was getting somewhere cool.

Dude, did you smoke before class or something? Like I'm sorry, just like dango snooze.

Like, okay, I get it, I know, Like yes, do you need to canonize more white man? But like he's the original tortured artist like come on us and like fucking caught off his ear like after he fought with another artist, Like that's what art is? A ballot?

Oh, I'm sorry, two white dudes fought in the field in France, Like what is this my study abroad trip like sophomore year, Like I'm sorry, like like I've learned about these guys, Like give me some fucking bascot, Like give me Felix Consols tores someone who had real fucking pain.

I haven't even learned who Felix Conus is yet.

My dude, dude, he's so lit. He piled fucking candy in a.

Gallery and that's heavy.

But like but it was about like a disease.

Like go back, look at the fucking orchard. It's like look at the sunflowers. Like Fango's use of color, like it was actually I know what you're saying, like the brushstrokes are dope, it's newmanous.

But I'm just kinda like like, Okay, you're in a room, you're in a field, you're in Paris, Like shit, yeah, I'd love to go to Paris, but like the torture, shit, I don't buy it. And then we praise him and make all these freaking exhibits.

I think like he was onto like the beauty that is everywhere, like the beauty that's.

In us, Like are you crying?

No, I'm not. Like look at my Fast and the Furious two poster, like do you see the way the light? It's the car, it's so beautiful.

Like but what I'm saying like that's fucking art, like that deals with like cars and like urbanism. I guess I'm just like, Okay, so like Van go he's this guy, he's like tortured, right, and then some like other dude was like disguised the goat like eighteen.

Hold no, no, Allison, like remember like it was this brother's widow who was asking him the fuck up.

Like, oh shit, do you think they're like hooking up?

I think like it. I'm just saying, like, as like woman approved a hug. How much did you pay for this ounce? Again?

Literally twenty five bucks? Uh yeah?

Wait?

Have you heard this band of tigra?

Who's that knocking at the door. It's all your friends, your filthy horse, your husband's gone, and we've got books and a bottle of wine to kill.

It's Hollywood, it's books, it's gossip.

I'm shook. It's memoirs Martini.

Celebrity Poop Club.

Come read it while it's hot. Celebrity Poop Club, I tell your secrets.

We won't talk celebrity books.

No boys are a loud celebrity book say it loud and pound. Celebrity book Club.

Buzz me in. I brought the queer foe.

Hey, hey, best friend? Oh the fuck are you?

Oh my god? I'm doing pretty good and I have to say hashtag season maxing. I'm kind of look so into the winter right now.

I know, I'm so grateful for this berber cold.

It's like last winter was just so I wasn't even wearing any of my heaviest stuff. Now I'm wearing thrashed from the thresh starlb in flannel lingeans.

There's nothing like a Filena leaned pant.

Hoodie, my heaviest jackets. You're in a thermal. I recently have like gone thermal crazy.

Thermals are so essential for layering.

I feel like I've had none and now I have three.

It's so much better to be rich with thermals rich and thermal I to be scavengean.

It just something hits different. And I'm sipping on a dove hot coco from our weird Flavia office machine.

Flavia sounds like a Roman emperor.

This podcast brought to you by Flavia.

And is it Flavy a full But isn't it.

Also so like a pillow for vaginal dryness?

Oh for sure. Talk to your Dodger about maybe with Flavy as Flaviac.

Yeah, so it doesn't sound too Labia. And it's a woman like running on the beach with her like silver husband.

Yeah, Flavias medication is always about having silver hair and looking like Daniel dan Lois. I'm sitting on some English breakfastie.

Damn, you're gonna be up for hours with.

A little bit of full calorie milk.

Full calorie milk, old milk, you know it. Have you ever tried fair Life protein milk.

I've tried fair Life. I'm not a huge fan of the branding. It's a little bit too flat millennial design for me.

Well it's like made for like Jim bros.

Oh okay, I guess now that I'm like really leaning into my gim era, I should write check it out protein. I just had Booth Brothers milk, which is i Vermont brand Brothers.

That's very like assassination. I do want to get the legend of the Booth Brothers dry them milk.

It is the creamiest, richest, butteriest milk you can imagine. I'm selenic almost.

Okay, It's like the milk nicle Kinman wishes she was sipping and baby.

Girl, Oh yeah, no, I mean it'll make you, baby girl, you'll down a full glass of it.

Was it almost cream like? Were you having like a big milk mustache?

Oh? Absolutely?

Am Oh yeah, it's crazy when you have like real ass cow milk compared to like garlic farms.

Yeah, go, relic just doesn't same anymore as an adult with a refined palate. I crepe deep duckadant dark milk like chocolate milk both brothers is the dark meat of milks?

Me wrong if you know you know both brothers milk is dark meat. Before we get into a book now that we're on the subject of poultry, because you know, I feel like in our VIP lounge, I was like, you were like, okay, season maxinge is in. I was like, little birds are in eating little fowl.

Yes, small fowl.

Guess what I ate this weekend game?

Hand quail oh demhing.

Felt more decadent and like I felt like a little tiny prince suckling on the tiniest the tiniest bone, little bone, like, m you kid, just for me?

Where was the quail?

I went to Shay Josephine, which is a restaurant in the Theater District dedicated to Josephine Baker. Oh, it's so freaking fab.

Beautiful and there's like old photos of her.

No, it's a huge, massive old paintings of Justine Baker everywhere.

Cool.

Yeah, and it's like owned by one of that she was very Angelina Jolie, one of the men she like adopted, so it's an honorary son.

I see. You mean it's not like she adopted an adult. But now, I mean I feel like she.

Probably did adopt him at like sixteen or.

Something like that.

But yeah, it's this like there's these huge paintings everywhere and curtains and like a piano player and Kurt him curtons, and yes, there are some photos, but yeah, I have the quail and it was suck on my tuckle. It was juicy because that was where's gonna be dry?

Yeah, yeah, I And I was like shut with quail also because it's easy to over roast a quail. It's such a right and you think of that crispy, crispy skin on the quail, and then you're getting to the bone. You're getting the bone so quickly and you're just like okay.

It was like, yeah, it was like scared quail.

But I'm sure she had a wonderful life.

I think she had a beautiful life and then she was like flash frozen and sent to shade Josephine.

Yeah, beautiful.

And these gay guys next to me at dinner were like can I as he you a question to one of his dinner mates and he goes, Yeah, nine and a half inches uncut.

Stop. Okay, guys, And they were.

Like sixty and I was like, this will be future me, like hanging out with these gays, like hearing the joke like for the hundredth times that year.

Okay, oh god, well speaking of okay, guys, kind of kind of not really, Yeah, although I do have some ideas. Yeah, there's some elements that felt a little queer to me.

Oh, he day for sure.

Yeah, it just in terms of the chaos.

Yes, let's say the name. Let's get into it. Okay, you guys, you have heard of You've definitely heard of him. He's a little more famous than Jeremy Meeks.

You know him from some of his paintings, which have fetched some of the highest prices at auction in art history.

You know him from being the twisted sister that chopped his.

Day on ear off in solidarity with our hearing impaired folks. Yes, imagine if that's why he did that.

No, was like insolidarity with my hearing impaired.

You know him from.

Some of his like immersive exhibits, the people always standing in line for or No.

You know him from the giant screensavers that his estate is catching in on that you can find in cities such as Chicago, New York City. We'll be coming soon. Yes, I'm pleased. Buy tickets at the Lincoln our bio.

Or the Lincoln. This little the podcast description.

Yeah, come to the Immersive CBC show.

In Chicago twenty four hours.

Were we talking about? Of course we're.

Talking about another painter, but kind of I always thought of him his French Dame Vincent van van Go Go, Vincent van Go, Vinny the oil painter. N then go.

You're supposed to say like van Goug because it's like he's Dutch. I feel like sometimes when you hear people like whatever her story's talking about, and they're just like, oh yeah van Goug and an answer him, they're kind of like seeing Van Gug in this way. Yeah.

No, this came up as I was reading it. My lover to me says van Go and I was like, wait, what are you talking about? She was like, I think that's how Steven's gonna say it.

Yeah, yeah, you can really gutturalize. But here at CBC we're gonna go ahead and say Van Go because we're American. Sorry, we're American literally the normal way to say yeah, and that's.

You hear enough of us doing accents. And by the way, what are we reading but his letters? And not just Dear THEO, because that's an abridged there's many versions. Yeah, there's a shorter version that's just Dear THEO. That's a bridge letters to his brother. This is more letters though, this is this is mostly still to his a.

Lot of dear theos. This is the letters of Vincevanga. We both are rocking in the Penguin classics vers.

Shout out Penguin and shout out to I've never heard of this hoe. But her name. She is the wife of his brother.

Theo, Johanna von Bonger. Her name is literally a Bonger.

Bunger, Johanna von Bunger. And I like my milk chocolate stirred, non shaped.

And she was Theo's wife, and she kind of made it her mission to burnish the legacy of her late husband's brother, Vincent. And she was a real advocate for publishing this correspondence, and largely due to her efforts, that's.

Why we think of him as one of the greatest pictures.

Of Yes, mister Celebritaci why you know him as people thrown out one hundred two hundred million dollars for his paintings, I mean insane crisis. Not that they're not gorgeous paintings. Oh my god, of course it's so beautiful.

When you were just a young lad, you went to the MFA and you've got a first heart of the addis you know, van.

Go Vango Picasso, Picasso, van Go money.

Money, What were your feelings one of those early feelings about tho artists, you.

Know, as eighteen, I remember being drawn to the Impressionists. I love the color, the explosion of color, and I saw myself as a little bit different, right, And so I was drawn to their differentiation. And I said they saw the world a bit differently, and I feel something in myself that feels a little bit outside society looking in.

As a romantic view. Maybe yes, oh this is not what a room actually looks.

Like, right, And so you know, specifically those French Impressionists. Again, I always associated in Savanga with France, and he lived in France for a very long time, painted a lot in France. So it's not crazy to think. And then we think of the Impressionists as like mostly being French Go Gone.

He was actually.

Sison and and.

We found out he was so inspired by the Dutch re brand.

Yeah wait, there's that line when he's writing that letter to some other artists and he's like, have you heard of from mir? I don't know if you know this guy. It's actually kind of like almost condescending, a bitchy and I think he's a little bit just of an artist and that's why he says it like that. But I was a little bit like, okay, maybe like dial down the it.

No, this whole book is him being a huge cunt, but also just like so romantic and then vulnerable, but also him just being so like, yeah, maybe you could send me fifty francs and actually read my fucking letters.

Yeah. I mean, this is why I'm saying that there's this queerness to him, because so basically he never sold a painting in his life until at the very end of his life he like sells one painting, And this is weird thing, but he's insanely prolific. He's painting around the clock.

Constantly drawing. Well, before we get into it, I just want to remark on one thing of my impression of him as a child, which is it's so interesting because I think we both probably felt out of the box of life. Yes, and you saw Impressionism as a kind of like, oh, I'm like that, whereas I guess I always viewed impressionism. I equaled it with classical music and I're like, bo b, this is for fucking squares, my dudes.

So you lumped impressionism and with like baroque painting with it, just like all painting from the past.

You were just like boring, I feel like baroque paintings. I was a little bit more like, oh, this is the crazy past and like we're being fab and royal. Yeah, Impressionism. I more was like comparing it to like Cubism and like early like moder like Warhole and modern.

Arts, which is totally fair, and I think that's fine.

And so I was like, I'm actually a little born to Andy Warhol. Yeah, Casso, yeah, Jackson Pulla I color but like primary and like crazier where impression and felt too pretty.

I guess for me, I one hundred percent agree, And I think I like adopted that view as I moved into adulthood and I began to see impressionism as more boring and pretty and to like concerned with being pretty and too concerned with just like just moving the needle enough so that people being it was like, oh, so you're still just painting a landscape and you're doing something completely ineffensive, but like people are just a little bit freaked out because your brushwork is kind of crazy.

Oh I'm I'm so sketchy, But honestly, reading this now, I'm kind of seeing your original impression. M Yeah, where I'm just like he was so like pained by like watching a peasant put potatoes in a sack, and like there is more like well.

And there's also sense that you know, we've talked a lot about this when we cover artists and content creators Bengo. Yeah, and you know this difference between people who are super like hyper self aware and a little bit more pretentious and calculated about the art they make and the people who are just producing because it's like this emotional process that just pours out of them. And I do think he's the latter. I think like, A, he's so prolific,

Of the stuff early stuff doesn't look like him because we think of him as so like Starry.

Nights, Storry Knight and just like the Lions, and it's like very just like classically Impressionist, but like he was so into that painting because he was just like he was into his own painting because he was like I'm showing these peasants and they're eating the food that they.

Made, like can you believe it?

Like I mean it's also him doing this like poverty cosplay where it's like he grew up like kind of a perminal son of a vicar.

He's some of like a reverend vicar and like they're very like conservative you know, church folk, and he is quite religious himself, but kind of in this more like rebellious almost Pilgrim like way, I will say, well, yeah.

I mean the dad is a Protestant and so they're being so like Protestantia and he's like wait. At one point he like calls like like renoir like a heathen or something.

Like renwall even well, and when you talk about the stuff he puts out, Okay, I mean that makes sense because he's being so like, oh, they're like drawing so much pussy.

Okay, but can I just back to your first impression of art? Yeah, and like I know we're being like but I'm like, see, I now think I'm more what you thought originally.

Where it's like we're switching.

I appreciate some of the impressions work. I do think Monet is like basically just like pretty, but yeah, money is.

Straight up postcards. And I think van Go at least was like I think, doing new things with perspective and like color and brush work.

The bedroom I think is really cool.

I think the Bedroom's a dope painting and I think you can much more see in van Go's work that he is mad, mad mad.

But I also think that old like baroque stuff is like way cooler, and I'm like, cool, this is insane and the past was mad and everyone was like murdering each other and it's so sexy.

I just saw this crazy ass painting this weekend about like the fall of the Roman Empire, and it was like all these like nude women on a cliff being pushed off, and I was like I could look at that for hours. Yeah, when you're walking through the Boston MFA and you see an impression.

Of them, You're like, let me grab a pillow.

I've been to is it in France Money's Garden?

Yeah? Is that in France?

It's past Branson. Actually, I've been to Money's Garden. Going there, of course, was utterly.

You may remember it from season four of Emily in Paris when she gets in a fight with Camie and they both get wrenched in water.

Emily if she's like more money or van go to me, she's so like making a van go McDonald's collab cup. Yeah, I'm like genius McDonald's take that.

Yeah, that's the starry night, like h super size.

And so it's like and if you see a lot of like if this book has some of these like cool like early drawings, and it is much more of like you feel like you are watching in kind of a freak watch town life.

Yeah, because he was a lonely ass bitch and he couldn't make friends.

And his letters to THEO are throughout this entire book, just this like desperation of like kinship and brotherhood. Yet they are also THEO worked for like a gallery and he funded Van Goo's entire life. Yeah, so Van Go is always being like, could we make a schedule so the money you're gonna send me?

So here's it. Just an example. This is a letter from September third, eighteen eighty two. I value your loyal and effective help more than I can say. I think give you so much. I should so like my work to become vigorous, serious, virile, so that you too may get some pleasure from it as soon as possible. Like he's like, oh, I know, I'm so like shitty, Like

And by the way, that slayed me because I was like, this is after letter after a letter of him being like I received your twenty five francs, like thank you so much. I bought charcoal, Like how is mother?

I hate her?

And then this is like okay, well, let's actually talking about a wholes.

Yeah, like sisk, can we get a discount code. It's very like what I said that the UCBC at checkout, I got the white and the Okra.

It's like yeah, so it would just be like oils brushes. It's very like us about trying to buy like natural wine wholesale just be like.

Oh my god, wait, I love your bar.

I actually didn't say an idea. Yeah, it would probably be cheaper for all of us.

Yeah, if I could, let's just remove the middle man of you making money and just when you get those twenty bottles for like costs for like fourteen because so like no, and then like Payard is going to get like promo basically yeah, he's like, no, you're gonna get the paintings.

Well, and this goes when he changes, of course, it gets much more expensive. So he's drawing for I would say, the first half of this book, and then he moves to oil, which is a lot.

More expensive, and drawings are impressive. I mean, I do have to say, and this is what I think is kind of like so classic like whatever, it's straight kai but it's also just like Ridge and and queer where it's like his fascination with the working class. It is a little fetishistic.

Well, absolutely, and I wonder it's like, is that our generation and of being like third fourth generation, is it queer or is it because it's like right, it's rigid indie guy being like.

I think it's just like classically bourgeois to be like look at someone on a loom and be like, marvelly, not their work.

Well, and it's even more I would say of the time, since like we're the first generation to like make less than our parents, so in a way, like we're reverting back to the working class.

Right, and now our parents will be making paintings of us podcasting, but it's.

Like we're still like a lot of us have like grown up with a lot of priv so we're like, I'm actually a part of your community. So if I like paint you being like a factory worker, we're kind of one of the same because I'm a barista.

Right, totally. No, I mean when I paint a tomaly lady, Yes, the same boat.

I just feel like he is of that mindset. He's like, well, I'm a poor artist and I'm rejecting my parents.

Because he actually says many times that he says he's like the artist is more similar to the smith or to the doctor than to someone who lives a life of leisure. And he's saying that he thinks like art should be a job and it is like a technically demanding job that you just have to work at. And I feel like the way that he was painting, that's kind of true, like he was working a lot. However, by and large, I would not say that the artist is the same as a doctor.

Well, okay, but like, how many books of doctors have we read?

Yeah, we haven't read a tool.

We haven't read doctor oz No, So well depends on the doctor.

Well, would not just imply that, yeah, they're not the same.

No, they're definitely not the same, because my point is that artists work are sometimes maybe more important than the medical field. Oh yes, and the conversation rather than the general practitioner that says gurgle salt.

Yeah, I'm on my r Okay, yes, but like society needs the general practitionersough Also honestly, throughout all of his doctors literally did nothing and were actually bad until look so recently Andy was like dying and they were just like blood lp mark. Okay, but I'm not saying that like creative labor is not essential.

In obviously, like is being like a conceptual artist like needed, we need to like pay them by the state. That's up for debate.

Even in his estimation of the craft of art making and specifically like painting, like he's doing like as being something that just like is a technical skill that requires a lot of dedication and requires like hours per day and should be thought of as like a worker in the same way. I'm also like it is self expression in a way that other things are not. The doctor is not expressing himself no in surgery, and if he is, that's a problem.

Yeah, if he's like, oh damn, like I sewed this up in an amazing way. Though, I feel like the surgeon who did my top surgery like did think he was an artist, and that goes to surgeon's narcissism, which is a whole other episode. Yeah, because he was still the trump and being like, what an amazing job I did. Wonderful, wonderful look at a beautiful chest. Yeah, like this he was being like he.

Was of chest. Yeah, look at my binder.

Here's a passage where this tends to, which is his observations of the working class and drawing, which I thought was just a beautiful sentence. Once again, hard at work at drawing. I sometimes think there's nothing nicer than drawing. I do think drawing it's the first thing we learned to do in the arts as children, and I feel like it's so meditative and like I am nostalgic for like drawing as a child.

It's immediate connection to inner child. You know. It so funny.

I was to sit down, put down your goddamn phone, and like, just like let it go.

I was thinking about this weekend I was skiing, and for me, I learned just he as a child, and so there's a nostalgia there, but you have to be so present, especially when you're skiing moguls, because there's so many things going on.

I've never done a mogal. You've always been scared.

Like you cannot be scrolling.

While yeah mogul, put the phone down.

It is like the most wildly present activity, like you can only think about your next move.

I for get worried when I see people post on the mountains and.

You see me post on the mountains. Yes, well I'm not like video and as I'm on the mocal no but downhill.

Sometimes it makes me nervous.

The thing is, though, it's that level of presence that I do feel like drawing takes you back to, like you say, meditative, which I think is true, right.

But no, it's also focus.

It's a separation from all distractions. And I'm sure maybe because children are incredibly in touch with themselves.

Oh my god, you know what I mean.

But they don't have all the social anxieties, like the responsibilities.

And even the is this good will this?

Because that, like drawing, takes you back to that childlike master of your domain.

Con just like I like this color, I want to draw this dog and yeah, and now dog is killing yes and dark drawings. Obviously paint can be that way too, but I think just drawings comes usually before painting, and then he goes on and this is where he is being like in the way we always talk about like American photography of like the American like pastoral, like mall closing down, and it's a drawing of like three old women. This is part of that Pew's piece. There are other

Like it's so dear leak.

It's really dear ah leak, Like, oh my god, Orphan style the nineteen twenties was so amazing.

His use of pain is a little it's like you say, like versus trying. It's like you have to use a lot, and he constantly talking about impasting, and it's like, I think it just means like using a shit ton of paint and it's like it starts to just get like thick and dry. Yeah, and so you really have to like commit. And then you're like, okay, like what color

Like you're not just doing real stuff, which I guess is again like what he was like being I'm a freak, like I'm making a tree blue. Can you believe it? Yeah, which is in a way also kind of like the first like psychedelic.

Because he says this thing at some point where he's like, in a way, I'm glad that I never learned painting Hey, I know he underlines learned in all probability, I would have then had to learn to ignore such effects as this. Now I can say to myself, this is just what I want. If it is impossible, it's impossible, but I'm gonna try it, even though I don't know how it ought to be done. I don't know myself at a pain do. I just sit down with the whiteboard in front of

Yeah, he's being literally like messy bun put on some gangster rat. Get it get just like when I see a blank calendar, that's actually an inspiration for me. And that's why I take out my try colored stickies.

Because he's kind of saying like, yeah, I guess I'm sorry. I'm in insane savant, like I never learned how to paint. It's just like shit, I'm just fucking weird because like they never told me what not to do. Fuck the teachers.

No, He's like, fuck the teachers. Throughout this entire book. He's really not talking to his parents because his brother gets like an actual job. It's kind of classic where it's like you respect the brother at a job because it's like at a gallery and he's getting paid, but the parents are like, don't become an artist?

Can I ask?

Though?

Like Vincent's making like dope work. The brother literally works at a gallery, and yet why isn't it being shown a Why is it being shot at literally that gallery? B I'm sure he knows a gazillion other galleries in Paris and Amsterdam and London. Why isn't he like, oh, let me like send this Gallerius to your fucking studio and like why why is it taking jo? Yeah?

Like no wonder Sometimes you're like damn, Vinny, like you're actually being so mean to your brother who's straight up supporting you. But then I'm also just like, yeah, I would be mad. Yeah, you're just kind of being like, here's twenty five francs so you can like paint your little chairs.

And like I feels like probably going on studio visits, like with fucking Saison, just being like mmm love this, Yeah, we're gonna show this at the.

Salon, And I feel like, Okay, if we can purchase like entourage, Like.

I feel like, of course we can.

Yeah. I feel like it's like THEO is like one of Ari's assistants and is so like getting up the courage all year to like present his boss with like one of his brother's drawings. And I was like, oh, hey, like do you want to take a look at this? And I just thinks it's awkward, yeah, and he's like, oh.

I mean I get it obviously. Sometimes, like we've all been in a situation where somebody kind of asks you for something and they're like, hey, do you know this person? Like I feel like people ask me that a lot about like oh, like I want to like get pressed or something, and they're like do you know this writer? Like would you want to put me in touch with somebody like this here or there? And I'm sometimes I'm like sure, but sometimes I'm like.

No, Well, sometimes you don't want to give all your cards exactly.

I don't want to spend my political capital on this person who frankly, maybe I just don't think that their art is that worthy. And so I do feel like maybe THEO thought that a little bit about Vincent. Yeah, but he wasn't a total believer in the work.

Because he's always sending THEO there were paintings. But then I thought it was cool that Van go even though he had like such utter confidence to keep on going and like keep on going into insane asylums and practicing and many times he's like, oh, I know, my drawing's not there. Like he's like, I'm not. He's a very like believer in like you actually have to like paint and draw every d the process and like do it every day.

I mean that's very not gay of him.

Yeah, to me, he's like so crazy straight guy.

I think he is crazy straight guy.

I as someone who went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Where will be on February twenty seven that Sleeping Village. Get your tickets now with the link in our bio.

That's right. Anyway, I went to school with a lot of male painters and they were like tortured, and I was always a little bit like.

Why, what's the matter, And it was like color canvas, paint and they're always stretching. I mean some of those guys are legitimately alcoholics, which is a disease. Yes, although Van Goh actually literally got epilepsy from drinking too much absinthe, which is insane. No, he's.

Doing turpentine like he's being very Jerry Springer. A show I worked on in the City of Chicago would be The twenty seventh when it was like alcoholics would be on and it would be like, oh, this person's drinking like straight up mouth washed to get wasted.

He was more in that category.

Moving on to love for just a moment. Oh yeah, speaking of heterosexuality. Yeah, so this is also very like straight painter. He fell in love with this woman, Key Voss, who was his cousin. Yeah, straight up his cousin.

So it had so straight painter. Okay, what's weirdness? The parents were so like disapproving of this, but it was like the nineteenth century and it was like, actually so normal to be marrying your cousins. But I thought it was because like her parents were just priven because they were like, you're poor.

Yeah, thought he was a poor and sketchy. So he's writing to THEO and he's like, I need to tell you something, which is kind of gay, and so he's like, I wanted to let you know that I feel so much desired.

Gossip is gay with key Voss.

The summer, and then I can find no other words for it. It is just as if key Voss were the closest person to me and I the closest person to kie Voss, And those are the words I spoke to her. But when I told her this, she replied that her past and her future remained as one to her, so that she could never return my feelings.

She was literally like no, says I'm good.

She was not now, so not never.

He does not take this rejection. Well, then this is insane. So he goes to Amsterdam to try and see her where she is like from So this is a later letter. Now this is like, I don't know. A couple months later, another letter to THEO. I'm like, THEO just must be spending all day reading these fucking waters the substack and.

Never ends well because later on he's like, the letters fall off when he gets married. But we'll get into that.

Forgive me if I repeat myself. But I don't know if I've already written to you exactly what happened to me in Amsterdam.

It's very like you texted me that yesterday.

He was like, okay, so here's what went down. On Amsterdam. I went there thinking perhaps the no never ever will thaw, the weather is so mild, just being like, maybe she's gonna come around.

Yeah, He's like maybe it's just about like persistence and like girls are into that to like kind true to a point.

And so one five in evening, I trudged along the Kaiserkrocks looking for the house, and indeed I found it. It's a little bit like he's never been to her parents'.

House before, and it's like and he's the show up.

Yeah, but it's also like a little bit like borderline stalker. And naturally I rang the doorbell and was told that the family were still at dinner. But then I was told to come in all the same and all of them were there, including Jan and that very learned professor, except for Key. And there was a plate in front of each person, but no extra plate. This small detail

Down staring at these plates, being like, oh, she was there, but then she was like, take away my plate.

I'm going upstairs, So like she left the table and then they like put the plate in the kitchen, so he wouldn't think that like room, So if there had been an extra plate in a person, you would have been like, she's there. But then the no plate, you're also like, oh, they just took away the plate. It's like you're being crazy.

He's being completely insane.

And like even if she was hiding in her bedroom, that just means she doesn't want to see you and you're being cuckoo.

Well she's not being like oh my god, you showed up. Like it's not holiday movie where it's like like a just no point. Does it even sound like there was even a flirtation. Yeah, And he's telling THEO and he's being.

Like, no, but I'm obsessed with he's and.

He's been like I don't regret any of it. And he's like, I like wish for you to have this sort of love.

Oh yeah, which is.

Like also so sad. He's like I wish you to have this obsessive love.

That to me was a little bit him trying to be like hey, like what's going on with you true, yeah, a little bit like him being you get yeah, like so like have you ever like had like penetrative sucks before, like kind of hoping that he will be a little bit revealing.

I think he's you know, because sometimes you're like, I don't.

Think he was dating anybody at that point, even though because.

THEO doesn't get with Johannah.

Miss Bonger, if you mask me, yeah.

Till much later. And so I think that is his way because maybe that would be like two forward for a man of that time to be like are you with the lady?

Yes, like bring me news, But then what suple bosoms?

You may have rested upon all these letters like it's blah blah blah my charcoal blah blah blah by me paintings wholesale, and he rarely like is like what's up?

Well, but that's that thing of like classic narcissist who knows when to inject one little thing to be like oh and like wait chica, like how are you doing? Okay anyway? Wait okay. The most insane, egregious example of that it's at the end. So when THEO has a son and names it after Vincent, names it like VILLEM or whatever, which is I guess like a derivation of Vincent.

And imagine what birth was?

I mean to finally, at like thirty six, to just like finally have a blog post about you, like when paper magazine is just like you check out this artist and you're like, oh my god, the way like.

Thirty at that time was might as well been sixty.

Yeah no, And like this paper mag article launches and he's like, so gassed up the who But then also Theodos had a baby. So he writes THEO, going, my dear Theory, I just receive your good news that you're a father at last, that Joe is over the most critical period, and finally that little boy is doing well. This has done more good and giving me more pleasure that I can put into words, bra Vo, and how

He was like, wait, do you remember that part in the article when it says this, He's like, by the way, congrats.

No, he literally does, like a line by line breakdown, just like one paragraph.

Congrats you think about some people in your life.

Absolutely, it does make you think about certain people in your life.

Yeah. I was kind of just saying, okay, yes, no, right, I wasn't talking about you.

I thought it was me.

I mean, no, you would like so send an Etsy gift.

No, I'm obsessed with babies.

Yeah, so in the kind of there's like some biographical parts in this book between the letters and then also talks about how van Go like gets so mad when THEO gets married, and like, you know, his letters are a little more few and far between because it's like, well, damn, how can you keep up with this though, and all of his letters and it's like, sorry, he has to have some sort of life himself. Yet so heartbreaking. When van Go kills himself in a field, THEO gets note

He had a little something we like to call syphilis.

Yeah, from Johanna or not Joe.

He may not have been barling Banger when he got the sef.

And that's private and that's up to Joe.

He also has a long incubation period.

He could have gotten that from just like deach John Furtenberg.

Yeah, six two brothels were everywhere because you know, so Vincent, like six months before the gunshot, he had cut off his ear after a fight with Gogan, and then he went to a brothel and presented the ear to one of the ladies of the night at the brothel.

Fucking freak. Yeah, he's so sketchy. His thing with Gogant was very also like art school romance, where they were like besties and like we're always going to Brittany or somewhere to the paints with each other. And it was still like wine and turpentine and absynthe.

And hips and Quail quail and like and a brothel.

But then it's also so like our guys Rail.

And a brothel over coat Rail and a brothel.

It's like, okay, on like the ninth bottle of coate drone. Yeah, they're like, I actually hate that brushstroke and he's like, bitch, give me the scissors.

No, it got really awkward because like he's with Gogang and then what does he say this like very short letter he writes right at the end of like they're kind of fighting. Then Gogan leaves and he goes. I think that go Gown was a little disenchanted with the good town of Arl, the little yellow house where we work, and above all with me and short. I think that he'll either simply leave or he'll simply stay. I've told him. But they get over and wig up the pros and

His ear and he's trying to be so like, oh, I don't know, last weekend was fun. Yeah, I do wish him the best. He might be a little upset with me, but onward and vin go. He at one point, I mean before the death, he does find love, but like he doesn't really love her.

Wait that like pregnant woman? Yeah with CN, oh, that like old pregnant woman that he paints It was.

The way matters stand with CN is that I'm generally attached to her, and she to me that she is my loyal helpmate. Imagine being all to loyal.

She think seems like literally homeless. And he was like, I'll feed you if you like pose for me.

Yeah, and then they like did fuck? Who goes everywhere with me? And who is becoming more indispensable to me by the day. I feel less passionate for her than I did for Key Voss left here, But the kind of love I have for Ciena is the only one I'm still capable of after the disappointment of that first passion. She and I are two unhappy people who keep each other company and share a burden. And that is precisely what And happiness is making way for happiness, and the

And old and homeless, and and I'm like completely mentally insane and like still my cousin and.

Poor, I hate him, jealous my brother's wife, and like I'm still holding onto an ear and a brothel. But I guess it's like good to like order takeout.

With some Yeah. And they were just kind of having this like grub up relationship.

Oil painting and chill.

Yeah, being like seabiscuits again, ships more ships, biscuits. Sure.

The parents were even more like damn, what are you up to? YEA, Like now you're doting this home bostwoman, go to.

Church, dns.

What does she with?

What does she eat? Okay, what does she eat? He's so spartan, He's like coffee, biscuits, water absence.

Okay, I have to read this part where he's in the insane asylum and he's talking about how everyone else is like eating, and he's kind of looking down at as like, oh, you're eating to like waste time. But

I was just like, so they're farting up a storm. I took that, or they're like shitting down the latrines.

Maybe, I guess I kind of took it as like in the lentils could be like gassy, way, but it's like and pees together, It's like.

It was gas and then all that colonial produce that they're not used.

To colonial produce. Yeah, and I think it's like they're serving then he's having one green bead.

But I guess at one point he brags, he goes, fortunately my stomach is recovered, because he was like, after one of his episodes, he was like, to such an extent that I lived for three weeks of the month on ship's biscuits with milk and eggs.

Can you, I mentione, how dry those biscuits are?

Yeah? He once you soak them in milk though.

Sound tasty? Yeah, You're like, I like dark biscuits, dark biscuscuits, light milk, light milk. How does he live? Padded walls? Yeah, it's padded cell with window of a beautiful garden.

Yeah. Well, and then famously starry night he was looking out the window of his insanea tount himself in the night and being like that's gorgeous and making a little sketch and then painting during the day.

So he likes snad and day. He loves the time giving window.

He's giving window, he is giving time of day.

I'm like, Okay, if he lived in modern times.

I guess I'm like, would he be like more of a hoarder if you were an artist today? And would it be so like just cigarettes and like gatorade bottles.

I can't, yeah, but it wouldn't be horor would be like I think it would be the meme mattress on the mattress on floor books, Gatorade one like vodka bottle.

And I think that he still would be basically like because I was thinking of how he hasn't sold anything at all, and I'm like, God, if you could just get on Instagram, you could have a link tree and people could be like, Oh, here's my work. But I also think that he would be the kind of strikeuy who would just be like, I don't really fuck with Instagram.

No. He would have a flip phone. Yeah, he'd be that. I'd be like, oh yeah, and he'd get an iPhone for Christmas and he'd be like I don't fucking want this and be like okay, and his mom would be like, what if you set up an Etsy? Yeah, and like maybe like Johanna would actually be setting up an Etsy for him.

And he'd be like, you don't fucking get it, mom.

They're trying to turn it into post girls already.

But does he wear chor coat?

Yeah? Is he like o G French blue chort?

Because I think he's also a little bit into the kind of like, Oh, no, I think he's which was chort coats. Yeah, and he's not being so like cravat and no, it's like maybe he's like suspenders.

I don't think he's in like he's kind of ate a chortcoat on this.

I mean, yeah, this famous self portrait, he's in a chortcoat and I think underneath but people like didn't have belts back then, like he did have suspenders.

You live now, I feel like you'd wear a belt that'd be like a bicycle bungee cord tied around pants.

You think he's that like Portland could be just being like I don't know, I just sucking something.

I found it, Yeah, just hold it up.

Maybe I think I think he's a little bit more like, oh, I took this from my dad and wearing my dad's belt.

I hate my dad. I hate my dad, but I have but it's like a beautiful leather belt. Yeah, that too. I think he would go two faces. Yeah, and I see like a little bit of a wide canvas pant for sure.

Would he have like a little pony or No, No, he's kind.

Of shorn less, like little creepy pony that's too new agy.

But like low weird little like rattail on most.

Oh, I could see him as rattail or like having an accidental like bullet, because he would definitely cut his own.

Hair, yes, and it's hard to get the back and.

Be like choppy bead head shoes like cool French leather shoes that like are actually kind of from like a bespokerye. But he would just see it as a local persons. You don't think he would, Oh, I'm just talking about then, But I feel like it was like just a place you would go to be.

I think he'd be like so maryls and asex now like yes, yeah.

And but in this way where someone if his dress your shoes, they'd be like, oh, where'd you get those? You'd be like, I don't know, man, I just like stumbled into the shop in Portugal and they they made these shoes for me, and they're like beautiful.

Ex girlfriend and she's my cousin.

My ex girlfriend cousin like knows this guy who got the wholesale like Portuguese leather like mohair loafers.

Who are you in the book?

You know. I was looking at good Gal's work and I was like drawn to it. Yeah, I was drawn to it, and like because it was being a little more like nightlife and like cafe.

Go Gan spent a little more time on his works because Bengo really like busted through. He was just like Boom, I'm done, Boom, I'm done.

Which I also kind of relate with, and like, Okay, made a drawing.

Because I do think you have that confidence and that ability to stop and say it's done. It's done.

Yeah, It's like you're more like you could you could tweak forever.

Yeah, because I think I'm actually more go gown that sense if we're just looking at the two Yeah.

Like I think I'm more van Go and being like I drew a chair of an old man.

An old man say, but I also see my you know, I can be a gatekeeper in the sense that the okay.

Are you theo, well, you are a support of the arts, Like I could also see you being like I will give you thirty two francs, but I'm not gonna like intro you to the senator. Yeah, you are a philanthropist. That's a little me and I'm van Go yeah, and I am just being like, how cool did that old man, Yeah, sorry, my new favorite person.

What do I give this one? I have to say, like, I do think that he drones on and on and on and on.

I was a little slow to get into it, but then I kind of locked in.

I don't know. I find the letters to be like, hey, this a bridge version. Even with how a bridge, it is like.

They're a little more bridged.

And I feel like they also included a lot of maybe boring letters, but could have kept out some of the more interesting ones.

Yeah, I would have loved like maybe this is out there, like, okay, what are his most sassy letters? And maybe, like I'll pitch that to Penguin Classics.

I just find his writing style to be a little long winded, and he like takes a while to stay stuff and kind of repeats himself and like goes in these circles.

And there's some beautiful lines here, but it's a little like give me Franks, give me Franks. Look at this drawing, and then they are like moments of genius. And it's always interesting to kind of see the time that he's in.

Like, I sincerely hope that you won't conclude from this letter that I'm presumptuous have to think that would be possible to do something straight away with these first studies, seeing once interpreted certain remarks I made that way although I had met nothing of the sort anyway. I used to be able to tell better than I can now what something was worth and if it could be sold

What I did like about this is how like fucking so he was about his parents. Look, I did love seeing that of him just being like mom and dad, I will return when they stop being such annoying ass Protestants.

Yeah, I like that, even though he is also being so like I'm so Christian.

That part I was a little bit like, dude, chill, chill with the God stuff.

I give this three out of five severalty years because I just like I wish it were a diary.

No, it's hard, and then to go from like peace, I'm sir Picasso or no, sorry, diego.

Letters like yes, people should write letters, but letters are a weird way of like archiving your life because like you're performing this like for this very specific audience of one and like brother, your brother, and I feel like it ends up being less like honest than.

Which is interesting because it's how he sees himself towards his brothers another way of looking at it.

True, but I think like a diary is more honest, but even also a memoir in some ways, even if you're being like fanciful about your own kind of like like mythology, like is some more honest away because you're like putting all the pieces together in a letter. You're trying to be like, oh, I'm only winding with this. One person will be interested.

Yeah, when it's like what actually is THEO interested? I give it three point two like insane asylum chickpea meals out of five. Like to kind of see his anger as someone who came to I guess impressionism as kind of this more like pretty genre. I think I liked seeing his anger.

In the writing. Yep. And then now you see the passion in the breast trucks, in the breast trucks.

And I will go to the starry night whatever like that's on the.

Story, fire on the canvas, Yeah, and I'll go get a moment. Storry Knight is a member of their permanent collection.

I love that museum, yeah, but I love the Art institud of Chicago better. And you can find us there February twenty seven.

In the city, not the not the museum.

Yeah you guys. Wow, what a journey through time and painting and art. Think you as always from the bottom of my heart for listening. Love you best, do you fear. I want to tell you about a painter I met in Amsterdam. Her name was Christina Everett Well. She is the executive producer of a group of artists a gallery show. It's quite amazing. I would love for you to connect me with them. She had a helpmate named Darby Masters who was a producer and she is a fine woman.