When we think about Vincent van Gogh, it’s easy to picture the wild, beautiful paintings: the swirling skies, the burning sunflowers, the thick brushstrokes full of energy. But there’s another side to Van Gogh’s story that’s just as important — maybe even more important — and that’s the way he lived openly with mental illness long before the world had any real understanding of it.
In Van Gogh’s time, mental health wasn’t a topic people discussed. If you struggled, you were often locked away, labeled, or simply ignored. There was no therapy, no medication, no language around mental health the way we have today. And yet, through his letters — especially the ones he wrote to his brother Theo — Van Gogh talked about his mental state with heartbreaking honesty.
He wrote about feeling isolated, about the weight of sadness he couldn’t shake, about moments when even getting through the day felt impossible. He described the waves of energy that would fuel his paintings and the crashes that followed. He didn’t have a diagnosis for what he was going through, but he knew it was real. And he tried to survive it the best way he knew how: through his art.
One of the most incredible things about Van Gogh is that even in his darkest times, he kept creating. The Starry Night wasn’t painted during some happy, peaceful chapter of his life. He painted it from the window of a mental asylum, after one of his most devastating breakdowns. He took everything he was feeling — the fear, the hope, the chaos — and turned it into something the world still can’t look away from.
It’s impossible not to wonder how different things might have been if Van Gogh had lived today. Would he have found a therapist who understood him? Would medication have eased his suffering? Would he have realized he wasn’t as alone as he felt?
We’ll never know. But what we do know is that Van Gogh’s openness — his refusal to hide his struggles — feels incredibly brave even now. He showed that someone could be battling demons and still create beauty. That someone could feel broken and still be worthy of love and attention. That mental illness doesn’t erase a person’s brilliance; if anything, it can deepen their view of the world in ways others can’t see.
Today, when we talk more openly about mental health, it’s worth remembering that people like Van Gogh were speaking up long before there was anyone willing to listen. His story is a reminder that pain and creativity can exist side by side, and that even when the world doesn’t understand you, your life still matters.
Maybe that’s why his paintings still feel so alive. They’re not just pretty pictures. They’re proof that even in the middle of struggle, there’s still something inside us reaching for the light.
Works Cited
Naifeh, Steven, and Gregory White Smith. Van Gogh: The Life. Random House, 2011.
Van Gogh, Vincent. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. Edited by Mark Roskill, Penguin Classics, 2009.
Bonger, Johanna van Gogh. Vincent van Gogh: A Memoir. New York Review of Books, 2002.
Elwes, Catherine. “Van Gogh and Mental Health: A Case Study.” Journal of Art and Health, vol. 3, no. 1, 2017, pp. 42-56.
Kemp, Martin. The Man Who Made the Machine: The Story of Vincent van Gogh’s Art and Mental Health. Oxford University Press, 2019.
Gogh, Vincent van. The Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh. Edited by Harry D. Smith, Thames & Hudson, 1994.
Brettell, Richard R. Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvers. University of Texas Press, 1993.
Rosenblum, Robert. “Van Gogh: The Pathos of Creativity.” Art Journal, vol. 50, no. 3, 1991, pp. 209-218.