Strinka
Because he was nutty as a fruitcake. I’ve loved his paintings since I was a kid. The art museum here in Philly has a few, and I could watch them for hours. While I’ve avoided studying his life out of fear that he won’t live up to my image of him, I’m convinced he was either schizophrenic, had chronic recurrent depression, or had some form of manic depression.
My guess (based almost entirely on looking at Sunflowers and View From The Asylum Window, for hours on end) it was a mixture of anger (for Gauguin <as a brother/father/mentor>, Theo, Rachel and the world for not accepting and loving him), despair (He felt that he’d failed at everything, and was wondering if was capable of success or deserving of being loved) and a cry for help (‘I’m broken inside. I cannot cope with this’)
BTW Prints almost entirely fail to convey Van Gogh’s paintings. His work had texture and literal depth.