Vincent van Gogh's life is often seen as rife with drama, though most of it was internal.
Throughout his life, van Gogh was highly emotional and religious, and before he found his calling as an artist, he believed his purpose was to spread the gospel. For a large majority of his young life, in fact, he was not yet a painter. He had a few romances that ultimately ended in separation, and lived his life with family and friends more than anything. He eventually found his way to the paint brush, but not before he had worked a few unsuccessful jobs as a bookstore clerk, an art salesman, and a preacher. It was after his preaching days that he discovered life as artist, and this is how he spent the reaminder of his life.
During his time as a painter, he became aquainted with other greats of the time- Monet and Gauguin, to name a few. He took quite a bit of inspiration from these painters, and eventually developed the very specfic Impressionist style he is now known for today. His work is now the inspiration of countless artists, writers, and filmmakers alike, and he has gone down in history as one of the most famous, prolific painters to ever exist.
Despite his current acclaim, van Gogh went his entire life without knowing what his work would someday mean to people. He did not die a famous man, and in fact often had trouble selling his work. His brother, Theo, was a constant source of monetary and emotional support, and is likely a monumental reason van Gogh was able to produce as many paintings as he did.
Toward the end of his life, van Gogh's mental health steadily deteriorated. After a period of increasingly worrying behavior, he spent time living in an asylum, after which he seemed much improved. Just two months after he was released, however, he committed suicide. His brother, Theo, died only a year later, leaving Vincent's painting with his sister-in-law. It was through her that his work found fame, and he has been one of the greats in art history ever since.
While there is much to discuss about van Gogh's life, for the sake of this project we focused on the later years of his life, from 1880 to 1890, precisely. These were seen as the most productive years of his life, during which he wrote an incredible amount of letters to Theo.
In order to grasp as much of an understanding as possible about van Gogh and his personal life, our team decided analysing the letters sent to Vincent's brother, Theo, was best. The two were especially close and wrote often to one another, and seemed to be the best source for reliable information regarding van Gogh's health and well-being.
Consistency was key in analyzing these letters, so we used a handful of phrases when marking up each letter. When van Gogh mentioned stress, we decided on a handful of consistent reasons to mark it. It ranged from money to friendships, family to his career, and was sometimes even due to love.
When he mentioned feeling particulary delighted at something, it was marked as unstressed, with the same handful of reasons we had designated for stressed. We refrained from marking anything as proof of "bad" or "good" mental health unless van Gogh explicitly stated how he was feeling, such as this phrase from a letter to Theo: "I’m very glad indeed that it’s been arranged for me to work here quietly for a while."
Just as important in our markup was making sure to catch every mention of work. Whether it was a sketch, drawing, or painting, we made sure to mark it as work. We specified whether it was work he planned to start, whether it was finished, or whether he was in the middle of completing it.
With all of this information available, we were able to use Topic Modeling to find any connections between his state of health and his productivity.