Vincent Van Gogh (Archive Episode)

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dutch artist famous for starry nights and sunflowers, self portraits and simple chairs. These are images known the world over, and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) painted them and around 900 others in the last decade of his short, brilliant life and, famously, in that lifetime he made only one recorded sale. Yet within a few decades after his death these extraordinary works, with all their colour and life, became the most desirable of all modern art, propelled in part by the story of Vincent van Gogh's struggle with mental health. With Christopher Riopelle The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery Martin Bailey A leading Van Gogh specialist and correspondent for The Art Newspaper And Frances Fowle Professor of Nineteenth Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator at National Galleries Scotland Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Martin Bailey, Living with Vincent Van Gogh: The Homes and Landscapes that shared the Artist (White Lion Publishing, 2019) Martin Bailey, Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln, 2021) Martin Bailey, Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln, 2021) Nienke Bakker and Ella Hendriks, Van Gogh and the Sunflowers: A Masterpiece Examined (Van Gogh Museum, 2019) Nienke Bakker, Emmanuel Coquery, Teio Meedendorp and Louis van Tilborgh (eds), Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months (Thames & Hudson, 2023) Frances Fowle, Van Gogh's Twin: The Scottish Art Dealer Alexander Reid, 1854-1928 (National Galleries of Scotland, 2010) Bregje Gerritse, The Potato Eaters: Van Gogh’s First Masterpiece (Van Gogh Museum, 2021) Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (Random House, 2012) Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2009) Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh, A Life in Letters (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2020) Hans Luitjen, Jo van Gogh Bonger: The Woman who Made Vincent Famous Bloomsbury, 2022 Louis van Tilborgh, Martin Bailey, Karen Serres (ed.), Van Gogh Self-Portraits (Courtauld Institute, 2022) Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger, Van Gogh. The Complete Paintings (Taschen, 2022) Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.
0:09.0	In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?
0:16.0	Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.
0:20.0	A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by
0:23.1	their own light and that light is to be recognized by others. The long history of heroism with me,
0:28.6	Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, starry nights and sunflowers, self-portraits and simple
0:36.9	chairs. These are images known the world
0:39.4	over, and Vincent Van Gogh painted them, and around 900 others in the last decade of his short,
0:46.1	brilliant life. And famously, by the time he killed himself when he was only 37, he sold only one.
0:53.4	Yet within a few decades after his death,
0:55.9	these extraordinary works with all their colour and life became the most desirable of all modern
1:01.1	art, propelled in part by the story of his artist's struggle with mental health.
1:06.1	With me to discuss Vincent Van Gogh, 1853 to 1890, a Christopher Riopel, the Neil Westwright curator of
1:13.1	post-1800 paintings at the National Gallery, Martin Bailey, a leading Van Gogh specialists and correspondent
1:20.1	for the art newspaper, and Francis Fowell, Professor of 19th century art at the University of Edinburgh
1:26.5	and Senior Cur curator at the National
1:28.6	Galeries of Scotland. Francis, what do we know about the early life of Vincent Van Gogh?
1:34.1	Well, we know a certain amount. Most of the knowledge we have of Van Gogh is through the letters.
1:39.9	And unfortunately, there are obviously, there's not much correspondence from that early period.
1:43.2	It's secondary information.
1:45.4	So, for example, Yovo van Gog Bunger, who was Theo Van Gogh's widow,
1:50.0	tells us that he was quite a difficult child.
	...

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