I Heard Van Gough Had Celiac...

[mr. moore]

i think it was on this site too! is that true? if so that could explain a thing or two.

[Gentleheart]

If anyone knows, I too would love to know whether that was true about him and the source of the information.

[DingoGirl]

it's unknown......what IS known is that he lived on absinthe, coffee, and cigarettes, mainly. When he was hospitalized, and ate a more balanced diet and drank less, he hardly painted anything. He did suffer terrible mental ills, for a variety of reasons.....

Read "Lust for Life" - very interesting

[elye]

Bipolar, most certainly, and a mind riddled with syphillis, at least towards the end. . . . ....one or both of these conditions caused him to often eat his lead paints, which is likely what killed him.

Did undiagnosed celiac contribute to all of these conditions? Certainly possible. . . . . . . ..

[Lisa]

Open Original Shared Link

[fedora]

interesting,

Van gough was my favorite painter my entire life. In 1998 I had the wonderful experience of seeing his Holland collection on display in DC while they restored he museum in Holland. Incredible!!!!

I saw the painting wheat field with crows, one of the last paintings he did(they are unsure which was his last) that was mentioned on that VG illness website

In the painting the sky is what is ominous. The crows are dark and scary. The fields aren't so much, but add to the loneliness and fear of the painting.

If he were celiac and suspected it, I would think the wheat fields would be dark and scary and there could be beautiful fruit trees around- who knows

Poor guy no matter what afflected him

[DingoGirl]

forgot about the syphilis! And the wheat fields painting.....hope to see that in real life someday!

He was a fascinating man and brilliant painter. Very interesting website, Momma G - must peruse it.

Also, he began life as a priest and worked closely with coal miners, I think working in the mines himself, a bit? can't remember.....became embittered with that and evolved into the impoverished, tortured painter we all love.

Many of you know that I was pretty severely bipolar for nearly 20 years - was put on disability for it, in fact. I used to paint/create/play piano wildly, frenetically, into the wee hours of the night - often until 4 or 5 a.m., crazed with insomnia and ideas; I've gone as many as five entire days without sleep, and had two years of near-constant insomnia that nearly killed me in the early 90's. Began using mood stabilizers of all kinds in the mid-90's, this helped a lot but not entirely.

Since gluten removal.....my brain is so much quieter and.....I create very little. My mania is 95 percent gone.....I have very mixed feelings about this.

But - I was so exhausted and depleted the last couple of years before dx that I had no interest or stamina in creating anyway, so I don't attribute all of the decline in mad creativity to gluten removal.....

But oh! this reminds me, must paint some tiny cards now

and Didn't mean to hijack Van Gogh's thread!