Vincent & Theo Van Gogh
Hannah Gadsby in Nanette (2018) // At Eternity’s Gate dir. Julian Schnabel (2018) // Loving Vincent dir. Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman (2017) // Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to Theo Van Gogh (1880) // Almond Blossoms by Vincent Van Gogh (1890); painted as a gift for the birth of his brother Theo’s son named after him
“It is not immediately obvious which of Zadkine’s figures is Vincent and which is Theo. Like all who relieve the suffering of others, Theo—in a process that is the exact opposite of a blood transfusion—has taken some of Vincent’s pain into himself. Soon, however, it becomes obvious that while the sky weighs heavily on both figures, one, Vincent, feels gravity as a force so terrible it can drag men beneath the earth. From this moment on you are held by the pathos and beauty of what Zadkine depicts: despair that is inconsolable, comfort that is endless. One figure says, “I can never feel better,” the other, “I will hold you until you are better.”
Geoff Dyer on Ossip Zadkine’s sculpture of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh (from “Blues for Vincent”, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition)
The graves of Vincent and Theo van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise.
Theo van Gogh died less than a year after Vincent and was buried in Utrecht, The Netherlands. In 1914, however, his widow, Jo, decided to have his body moved to Auvers and buried next to his brother.
