Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette (1886). Vincent van Gogh.
Van Gogh’s collection of letters to his brother, to me, is one of the highlights of Dutch literature. He’s so lucid about his demons—they almost become your own demons. Madness, insanity, comes in two forms, doesn’t it: either you completely lose yourself in it until you become unrecognizable, or you experience it consciously as it’s all happening. Like surgery without an anesthetic. Van Gogh belongs in the second category, which is why he tried to end it as he did.
