Who pulled the trigger of the gun that killed Vincent Van Gogh? Until now everyone assumed it was the painter himself, but two American writers have written a biography of Van Gogh in which they claim he was shot by two boys.
At Amsterdam’s Vincent van Gogh Museum they’re sceptical.

For the last 120 years, the story of Van Gogh’s demise has gone like this: the bipolar Dutch painter shot himself in the chest in a wheat field in Auvers-sur-Oise, at the age of 37, using a borrowed pistol. He meant to shoot himself in the heart but missed and staggered critically injured, back to his room at the Auberge Ravoux. There he died of his wounds two days later, with his brother Theo at his side.

Cowboy game
However, biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith believe two teenage boys were involved in Van Gogh’s death. White Smith:

“The evidence suggests Van Gogh was not shot in a wheat field, but on a farm in Auvers. Two boys were involved. It’s not clear whether it was deliberate or accidental. Possibly it was a cowboy game that got out of hand or maybe they were hassling Vincent with the gun.”

In their 900-page biography Van Gogh, The Life, Naifeh and White Smith seriously question the suicide theory. Depressed and impoverished, the painter certainly talked about suicide in his letters but rejected it because he regarded it as “immoral and a sin”.

Salt and snake
The pistol Van Gogh is supposed to have used to take his own life was never found and it’s also a mystery how someone so badly injured could have travelled the distance from the wheat field to the inn.

The new theory is based on two statements. The first is the story told by an American art historian who visited Auvers-sur-Oise in the 1930s. There he heard a rumour that Vincent van Gogh was actually shot by two boys, accidentally or otherwise.

Then there is the statement made by Parisian businessmen René Secrétan. In 1890, as a 16-year-old, he was on holiday with his brother in Auvers, where the unworldly painter was regularly tormented. They would put salt in his coffee and once hid a snake among his painting gear.

Secrétan apparently often played cowboy games there and got to use a real pistol. That pistol, the Frenchman claimed later, was stolen one day by Van Gogh. By the time the painter died the boys had long left Auvers, according to Secrétan.

"I have failed"
The curator of the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Leo Jansen, has serious doubts about the new theory. He assisted the writers of the biography but he does not believe their version holds water. He still believes Vincent van Gogh committed suicide.

“In all honesty, I have to admit there is no hard evidence for that, apart from the fact that there were many contemporary witnesses who believed it was suicide. One witness said that Vincent, who survived the gunshot wound for 30 hours, said: 'I have failed, I shall have to do it again.' That seems like clear evidence. His brother, his sister-in-law and his friends who came to Auvers all believed it was suicide. They were not in any doubt.”

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith say Van Gogh was probably trying to protect the two boys since he was quite happy to die. Leo Jansen thinks that is difficult to prove. He believes the mystery surrounding Van Gogh’s death will never be resolved.

(imm)