A quote from the famous Dutch artist is popular on the Internet, from which users conclude that he is an ideological vegetarian. We have verified the correctness of this attribution.

A statement attributed to Van Gogh can be found on vegetarian websites, in online collections quotes, as well as on social networks: Facebook, "VKontakte", LiveJournal And X. In some cases it is specified that the artist talked about this in one of his letters to his brother Theo.

Post-Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most scrutinized artists in human history. Much has been written about his short but eventful life. books, dozens removed films, and dedicated to the artist museums There is V different cities, where the artist happened to spend some time. The main one is Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, welcoming more than 2 million visitors annually. However, on website museum there are no traces of the phrase we are interested in.

Under the auspices of the Amsterdam Museum there is a website vangoghletters.org, on which in digital form are stored all 820 letters written by Vincent van Gogh that have survived to this day, as well as 25 notes, drafts and copies of some texts. Each document can be read both in the original language (Dutch or French) and in an English translation. A convenient mechanism allows you to search for texts by keywords.

A search shows that the word "slaughterhouse" does not appear in Van Gogh's letters in various languages. As for mentions of meat, the picture is richer. Is it true, significant Part cases in English translations it is associated with a religious context and the word meat in the meaning of “food”. But there are other examples. So, in a letter to brother Theo from The Hague June 22, 1882 Vincent complains that he feels weak because the woman who brought him smoked meat, sugar and bread has not been visiting him for some time - she is hospitalized due to the upcoming birth. A few weeks later he reportsthat after being discharged from the hospital, on the advice of the doctor, she adheres to a restorative diet, and Vincent himself also plans to do the same - in particular, he writes, it is enough to eat meat once or twice a week. There is also evidence from Professor Görlitz, Van Gogh's roommate in 1876–1877 in Holland. That claimedthat Vincent did not eat meat, only a small portion on Sundays after much persuasion, and four potatoes with a little gravy and a handful of greens made up his entire lunch. Görlitz also cites Van Gogh's explanation: “For man, physical life must be a pitiful detail; there is enough plant food, everything else is luxury.”

Of particular interest are the letters written by Van Gogh starting in 1888, when he moved to the south of France, to Provence - to where he allegedly saw a slaughterhouse (Verified also did not find any mention of this episode in documents related to the artist). So, September 10, 1889 he tells his brother that Peyron, the doctor at the mental hospital where Van Gogh ended up, gave him some wine and meat, which he willingly accepted in the first days after the exacerbation. In one of the following letters to Theo reminds brother that he should eat meat.

Thus, it cannot be said that Vincent Van Gogh did not eat meat - there is evidence to the contrary at various periods of his life. At the same time, he ate this product quite limitedly - both because of his almost impoverished life and because of the diet he had chosen for himself. It is difficult to judge its reasons - judging by another late letter brother, the artist did not experience any moral discomfort, depicting a resident of Marseille eating bouillabaisse, a Provençal fish soup. Based on the spread of years, it is impossible to pinpoint a specific moment when Van Gogh switched to eating mainly plant-based foods, but it was definitely before moving to the south of France. At the very least, making an artist an icon of vegetarianism with such omnivorousness is not entirely correct. And here is the website VegNews A little more reasonably calls him the godfather of flexitarianism - a predominantly plant-based diet that allows the consumption of animal flesh.

It was not possible to find a phrase about meat and slaughterhouses in any authoritative source. But it was most likely composed by people who knew about the Dutchman’s limited diet. In Russian on the Internet, she begins to appear around 2010 in the collection “Sayings about vegetarianism”, which contains quotes from various celebrities in support of this lifestyle. A few years earlier, the phrase appeared in English, also in a similar selection. The earliest reference found by Verified is Stephen Kellman's 2000 article "Fish, flesh and breaking the rules”, in which the information is given not as a quote, but as a fact: “Van Gogh became a vegetarian after visiting a slaughterhouse.” This is true happened With some people, however, this cannot be said about Vincent van Gogh today and there is no evidence of the existence of the quote being studied.

Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons