What is Yellow?

What is yellow? Startling splashes of lemon-yellow scatter the grassy hillside, which has erupted into a canvas of brilliant buttercups.

I half close my eyes and my lashes cast a foggy film over the landscape but the yellow still remains, forming a constellation of everlasting sunbeams behind my eyes. Each flower is brighter and more fervent than stars shining in a velvet green sky. What is it about yellow? It seems to overpower even the dreariest of darkness.

‘Vincent, you’re not listening to me.’ My brother’s voice is gently chiding, but his eyes turn up at the corners in amusement.

‘I was looking at the buttercups,’ I say.

The flowers sway and dance in the breeze. I want to remember the colours, how the greens and yellows contrast with each other in the sunlight.

‘To paint,’ I say needlessly.

Theo smiles. I believe he sees a flicker of what I see, the broken colours, the concept of a fleeting, passing vision becoming solid and fixed on a canvas – and the part of Theo which doesn’t understand would never question me. My brother is one of those rare human beings who offers unconditional love and support throughout the most difficult of times, whilst asking for nothing in return. I sometimes think my brother and I need each other in the same way the shadows need the light. Of course, if Theo is the light, then I am the shadows.

‘Painting from nature, right? It is not the language of painters which we should listen to, but the language of nature.’

Theo quotes my own words back to me, but it’s not in jest. As an art dealer he has a feeling for aesthetics too. We both grew up in awe of the old masters, revering the precision and discipline it took to become an artist. Even so, it is the feeling for reality and nature which is more vital and fertile than all the manmade creations adorning the walls of galleries. God is the greatest master of all.

‘That is what I want to capture with my brush strokes – the essence of vitality,’ I say as we walk noiselessly back towards the hospital. My heart droops and my pace slows at the idea of returning. Scattered around my bedroom are blank pages and sheets torn from my sketchbook, some abandoned after a few despondent lines whilst other sheets are awash with colour. Drawings by a madman – I know what people say.

What is yellow? Sunflowers standing proud in a vase. The cornfields at harvest time. A little house in Arles with green shutters and yellow walls – the same greens and yellows as buttercups in a meadow. Yellow is time spent with my brother.

‘It’s certainly worth capturing,’ Theo says, as we pause to survey the surrounding landscape. The brightness of the flowers makes my head spin – it is more vivid and fervent than anything I could create with my brush strokes. Although, it won’t stop me from trying. If only I could capture the fresh pollen scent, the gentle spring breeze caressing my face and the chirrup of birds singing in the olive trees too.

It is far easier to speak of spring and flowers, than it is of hospitalisation, of my hallucinations and break down. Recent events are unspoken between us but they’re still raw and palpable even on such a perfect afternoon. I often fear that one day Theo will lose heart and disapprove of me too – that his voice will join the tumult of indictments inside my head.

‘I’m working on a new painting at the moment – for little Vincent.’ The blossoms in the hedgerows have reminded me. Little Vincent – my nephew and namesake. ‘Did I mention before?’

‘Yes – we are very much looking forward to seeing it,’ Theo says. ‘Almond blossoms – a symbol of spring and hope.’

I nod. It had seemed apt for a newborn to have a painting in homage to the dawn of new life. I’d tried to convey the freshness of spring in the work. Little Vincent is the closest I will come to having a child of my own – although, in a sense, my paintings are also my offspring. They will be all that is left of me when I die. Worthless canvases.

The painting of the almond blossoms is a happy one though, for a happy child. Perhaps one might also be fooled in thinking it was painted by a happy artist.

Hope, however, is wearing thin. I have studied tirelessly for so many years, endured constant criticism and rejection but to no avail. Perhaps failure wouldn’t be so insufferable if someone could point me in the right direction and explain what I am doing wrong. I paint constantly day and night with all the passion and determination I can muster, but I’m dismissed as slap-dash and sloppy. My brush strokes are ‘too heavy’ – some say I ‘over paint’ or paint too fast. It’s the ‘wrong’ technique apparently – but how else can you catch an image exactly as you see it before it disappears?

‘Wrong,’ ‘wrong, ‘wrong’. Voices bore into my ears, each word a sledgehammer of rejection. I can’t remember when I lost the ability to recognise whether the whispers were real or coming from inside my head. I even cut off an ear to stall to the ceaseless babble but the voices never stopped. I woke up, hungover and earless, feeling like even more of a reprobate that I did before.

‘Am I a good painter, Theo?’ The need for affirmation burns in my psyche, causing sleepless nights and an all-consuming need to paint. But I don’t care if no one else can see what I see. If Theo believes in me that’s all that matters.

‘Vincent, you are a superb painter. Time just hasn’t caught up yet.’

He sounds weary but genuine – there is no jarring false note in his voice. But perhaps, like me, he’s wrong too. There’s no question that I’ve failed in every pursuit I’ve tried my hand at. I’ve been taunted by children and run out of villages as an outcast. Either I’m wrong or everyone else is.

I push the shadows and the voices away for now.

‘Tell me about my nephew,’ I say. This gives me a respite from talking as Theo goes into raptures as he tells me of the exceptional and miraculous characteristics of his first-born son, with all the excitement of a new father. The low hum of his chatter blends pleasingly with the afternoon birdsong, but his step is slow, and his speech slurred and tired.

You’re not sick are you, Theo?’ I ask. An unpleasant prickling sensation pulses within me. I have a sibilant sense of foreboding.

‘Me!? Sick? With all due respect brother, you are the one I’m visiting in hospital.’ Theo laughs and a ghost of his old self is recognisable in his drawn, grey face.

I laugh at the joke, but the unease stays with me. ‘You work too hard Theo.’

He is unable to disguise his watery, bloodshot eyes and the slowness in his step as we make our way back to the hospital. I know he works too hard. I know he worries.

He worries about me.

What is yellow? Yellow can be feverish, a muted sickly colour, a wilted plant turning golden to brown. The tone of Theo’s skin, the glaze of his eyes reminds me of a bilious yellow. If anything happened to Theo, I would never forgive myself. I realise more than ever what a burden I am on him.

‘And you, Vincent? Are you feeling any better?’ It is the first acknowledgement of recent events.

‘A little. But I confess I often feel overwhelmed by boredom and grief.’ I think back to the accusations – that I was screaming and crying in the streets, covered in paint – but I do not remember. I only remember darkness and anxiety.

‘Do you ever have bad dreams, Vincent?’ Theo’s brow creases with worry. It irritates me far less when Theo asks than when the doctors ask the same question. They seem obsessed with the idea of my dreams unlocking the secrets of the mind – as if there’s some twisted, rotten tree root lurking in my subconscious that only manifests itself in my sleep. I don’t always sleep but when I do it’s blissful – it’s waking up that brings the sadness and longing that is not quite akin to pain. The pain that is to sorrow as the mist is to the rain.

‘Sometimes,’ I tell my brother truthfully. ‘But often I dream of stars. Bright constellations, just within reach, as accessible and easy to visit as the dots marking towns and cities in a map book.’

But inwardly I know I’m wrong. Those stars will always be out of reach – the voices will continue to mock and terrorise me always. The knowledge that I am a burden to my never-complaining brother kills me more than anything else. He has another Vincent to care for now. I’d be better off dead. The sadness is forever. La tristesse durera toujours.

I look at Theo’s thin, pallid face. I’m hesitant to worry him further but I warn him anyway.

‘I fear the illness will return again. When it does, please forgive me. I know I have failed you.’

‘There is nothing to forgive, Vincent. And you’re not a failure.’

What is yellow? It’s the flicker of candlelight on a stormy night. It is the glow of streetlamps on an unlit road. It is the orange of a dying sun as it dips beyond the horizon and drains liquid gold into the reflection on the water.

I start to plan paintings in my head – a buttercup yellow sun and a red vineyard, awash in a golden glow of sundown and silhouetted figures against the backdrop of conflagration. Although my sleepless eyes begin to tire of the sun and I'm drawn more and more to tempestuous landscapes – dark, diagonal lines sketched across the canvas to show rainfall.

I may no longer paint with sunlight, but I’ll still continue to paint. I am a painter in my soul, and I have no choice but to persevere. I know I may be mad. I know I may be wrong. I know I am a burden. But I’ll continue painting just a little longer, and perhaps the colours will hold off the darkness for one more day.

Author’s note:

Vincent van Gogh died in July 1890 from a bullet wound to the stomach which he admitted was self-inflicted. After his brother’s death, Theo wrote that: 'He himself wanted to die. When I sat at his bedside and said that we would try to get him better and that we hoped that he would then be spared this kind of despair, he said, ‘La tristesse durera toujours’ (The sadness will last forever).'

Theo van Gogh, who had unceasingly supported his brother’s career both emotionally and financially, died just six months after his brother in January 1891. His health is said to have declined rapidly after Vincent’s death. Theo's death was due to a condition known as dementia paralytica caused by ‘heredity, chronic disease, overwork and sadness’.

References:

V. van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh, edited by Mark Roskill, 1963.