Van Gogh and What We're Obsessed With

I’m back in Japan again, this time mainly to attend the IVS 2025 Exhibition. Flying into Kobe and out of Osaka, I specifically saved a day on my return for a Van Gogh exhibition.

I’d seen Van Gogh’s paintings at the MET in New York, enjoyed many works about Van Gogh, and heard countless songs about him, but I didn’t really know his life story—especially what happened after his death.

How exactly did an unknown, misunderstood genius get discovered, recognized, and become an icon among painters and artists?

The exhibition in Osaka gave me the answer.

The Unknown Painter

Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in the Netherlands, and he wasn’t always a painter. His father was a clergyman, his mother came from a distinguished family, and young Vincent received a good education and artistic exposure. Three of his five uncles were quite successful art dealers. At 16, he began apprenticing at his uncle’s art trading company, and by 20, his salary was already quite impressive.

Then he fell in love with his landlord’s daughter, was brutally rejected, heartbroken, grew resentful of art’s commercialization, and became passionate about religion. He became a preacher, went to southern Belgium to evangelize, lived alongside miners, sympathized with the workers’ plight, gave away all his material possessions—yet wasn’t recognized by the church and was essentially dismissed.

His time living with miners gave him the urge to paint his surroundings. With encouragement from his brother Theo, he went to Brussels and began studying anatomy and perspective—the basics of painting. He was 27 years old.

Van Gogh’s growth story isn’t the focus of this article. From when Van Gogh truly started painting to when he shot himself, only ten short years passed. In those ten years, he created over 2,100 works, including more than 860 oil paintings—but sold only one, and that was to a friend’s sister.

In 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in a wheat field. Two days later, he died in his brother Theo’s arms. I think it’s hard to call Van Gogh a successful painter in his lifetime; he was undoubtedly a frustrated soul.

If the story ended here, perhaps many years later, posterity would still discover Van Gogh, marvel at his skill. He might gain recognition in elite, niche art circles, and the few remaining works might be classified as Impressionist, displayed in some unknown Parisian gallery or a public exhibition hall in Shanghai.

That would be all.

Jo’s Entrepreneurial Struggles

After Van Gogh’s death, Theo held an exhibition in his Montmartre apartment in Paris, displaying his brother’s paintings. This was probably Van Gogh’s first exhibition, but there’s no evidence it made any waves. Theo died of illness a few months later, and his wife Jo became a widow.

Before visiting today’s exhibition, I had no idea who Jo was—she doesn’t even have a Chinese Wikipedia page. But after learning the whole story, I believe she was the most crucial person.

Jo’s full name was Johanna van Gogh-Bonger. She was Dutch, received higher education, and became a high school English teacher at 22. At 27, she married Theo and moved to Paris. A year later, their son Vincent Willem was born, and Van Gogh was little Vincent’s godfather. But soon Theo also died, leaving behind an apartment in Paris, an infant son, and about 200 of Van Gogh’s works. Jo faced everything alone.

Some advised her to sell the paintings in bulk to dealers, but she brought Van Gogh’s works, hundreds of sketches, and the extensive correspondence between Van Gogh and Theo back to the Netherlands. She opened a guesthouse in Bussum, a village 25 kilometers from Amsterdam, to make a living. She moonlighted as a translator, converting French and English short stories into Dutch. Jo kept detailed records of her life and expenses—the exhibition showed her account books, apparently using double-entry bookkeeping. Jo maintained contact with Van Gogh’s sister Wil, but when Wil later developed mental illness, Jo had to sell some of Van Gogh’s works to pay for Wil’s hospitalization.

I don’t know what motivated Jo—whether she genuinely appreciated Van Gogh’s work, was influenced by her art dealer husband Theo, or simply saw the paintings as her only “assets.” But Jo began systematically, tirelessly promoting Van Gogh’s paintings and letters. She believed Van Gogh was not only a genius painter but also an outstanding writer. She combined his paintings and letters into a whole, helping art critics and the public better understand Van Gogh and his vision.

Jo also had brilliant business strategies. She reconnected with friends Van Gogh and her husband had known, asking them to help promote Van Gogh’s work. His story gradually reached art critics of the time. Through her efforts, the suffering genius Van Gogh’s work and fame began to spread:

• 1905: She self-funded a major retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, attracting about 2,000 visitors
• 1914: She compiled and published the collected letters between Van Gogh and Theo
• 1915-1919: Living in New York, she began translating the letters into English, successfully attracted American attention, and held an exhibition on Fifth Avenue

Additionally, Jo was very careful about selling Van Gogh’s works: only a few pieces, to the right people (whales?). Most other works she lent to various exhibitions, gradually building Van Gogh’s exposure.

In 1914, Jo moved Theo’s remains from Utrecht to Auvers-sur-Oise, burying him right next to Van Gogh’s grave. The site soon became a pilgrimage destination.

Built to Last

In 1925, Jo died in the Dutch countryside at age 62. Her son Vincent Willem joined his mother’s efforts to promote his uncle’s work, turning it into a family business.

In 1962, he established the Vincent van Gogh Foundation to protect Van Gogh’s artworks and letters. In 1973, the Van Gogh Museum opened in Amsterdam, with Vincent Willem personally involved in its design.

Today, ownership of Van Gogh’s physical works (about 200 paintings, 400 drawings) remains with the family foundation, permanently “loaned” to the Van Gogh Museum. Revenue is jointly managed by the Van Gogh Foundation and the museum. Van Gogh’s works have entered the public domain, but high-resolution images, scholarly editions, and brand licensing remain controlled by the foundation, generating enormous annual revenue.

Van Gogh’s legacy, through one family and two generations of management, has become a “century-old enterprise” built to last.

And Jo was undoubtedly the founder and soul of this century-old enterprise.

What If There Were No Jo?

The exhibition didn’t allow photos, so I browsed while discussing background knowledge and various possibilities with ChatGPT. What if there had been no Jo? Would Van Gogh be as famous as he is today?

GPT-4o’s answer:

Van Gogh would have become a “marginal figure” in art history, similar to many forgotten painters of his time;

His works would have scattered into the market, making systematic understanding difficult;

Without the letters being published, people couldn’t deeply understand his spiritual world, and there wouldn’t be today’s emotional identification with the “art martyr.”

But if there hadn’t been effective promotion, would he not be Van Gogh? Would his work have no value? Couldn’t his work have had sufficient impact on the art world?

GPT-4o’s answer:

Your question is crucial—it touches one of art history’s core paradoxes: “Is great art great because of itself, or because it’s seen and narrated?”

An honest assessment would be: Van Gogh’s art itself has epoch-making creativity, with extreme breakthroughs in expression, emotional intensity, and subject matter. His path to fame shows that even the greatest art needs to be narrated, understood, and pushed to center stage to truly enter “historical context.”

So the final answer is: His artistic achievements are real, profound, and transcend his era. But his influence and mythical status were completed through family promotion, media narrative, and art history’s selection.

The complete conversation is here: Van Gogh’s Path to Fame w/ GPT-4o—worth checking out if you’re interested.

Talk is cheap, show me the chat.

Why Are We So Obsessed with Van Gogh?

Behind Van Gogh’s popularity lies a more crucial question: Why did Van Gogh become popular? Why Van Gogh? Or rather: Why are we so obsessed with Van Gogh?

Van Gogh is practically a “perfect suffering artist”:

• The misunderstood genius: No one understood him in his time, but now we “get it”—we’re more sophisticated than people of his era
• Creation through suffering: He was poor, mad, yet persisted in creating. We admire this “martyrdom” for art
• Justice delayed but delivered: Our recognition today is a correction of past “blind eyes failing to see pearls”

We fear pain, madness, failure—but Van Gogh could create great art within them, so perhaps our own suffering has meaning too. We use Van Gogh to give our own suffering value. We sympathize with his plight, praise his persistence, as if by understanding Van Gogh, we ourselves become that lonely, noble soul. We consume not just art but a kind of self-touching. We’re obsessed with Van Gogh because we love ourselves.

Or as one might say: humanity’s collective narcissism.

If Van Gogh is the religion, Jo is the prophet.

Van Gogh and Ukiyo-e

I accidentally criticized all humanity—I guess I’ve offended you all today.

Finally, let’s return to the exhibition itself.

Because it was held in Japan, the organizers spent some effort introducing ukiyo-e’s influence on Van Gogh. I personally love ukiyo-e works, but I wondered if this was just the organizers making forced connections. So I searched and found that Van Gogh explicitly expressed his love for ukiyo-e and its stylistic influence on him. He collected many ukiyo-e works and even copied Japanese artists’ paintings.

During Van Gogh’s lifetime, Japan was undergoing the Meiji Restoration, with rapid economic development and active integration into the Western world. Traditional Japanese culture was also being discovered by Europe—it must have been an “emerging” image with high attention. Van Gogh was indeed influenced by ukiyo-e style. I wonder if Jo leveraged Europeans’ interest in traditional Japanese culture when promoting Van Gogh’s work. A century later, the Japanese are naturally happy to promote Van Gogh’s love of ukiyo-e. Across time and space, the two seem to cite each other’s papers, or build mutual backlinks. Win-win.

Van Gogh is generally thought to have absorbed from ukiyo-e:

• Flat composition, distinct color blocks, weakening Western perspective
• Rich colors and bold outlines
• Attention to everyday subjects (bridges, flowers, figures)

Hmm, traditional Chinese painting shares these characteristics. Perhaps in a parallel universe, Van Gogh would be moved by Emperor Huizong’s works and paint a different Starry Night.

The above is just an unrealistic Chinese fantasy.

The exhibition is great! If you have a chance to visit Osaka, I highly recommend it—remember to book tickets in advance!

2025-07-05 @Osaka