Up until recently, the following painting was also thought to be a self-portrait, but it has now been reassessed as the artist's only depiction of his beloved young brother Theo van Gogh [1857-1891], an art dealer:
Vincent shot himself at the age of 37, and Theo died of syphilis and sadness, six months later, at the age of 33. Theo's great-grandson, also named Theo van Gogh, was a movie director who became an outspoken critic of Islam.
In 2004, at the age of 47, he was gunned down in Amsterdam by a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim.In a recent blog post, I evoked what Miguel de Unamuno referred to as "the tragic sense of life" [display]. These three members of the van Gogh family certainly rose to summits in that dramatic domain.
