Van Gogh
did not die in a state of actual delirium,
but because he had become the physical battlefield of a problem
over which, since the beginning of time,
the unjust spirit of mankind has been at war.
That of the supremacy of the flesh over the mind,
or of the body over the flesh,
or of the mind over both flesh and body.
And where, in this delirium, is the place of the human self?
Van Gogh sought his own place throughout his life
with strange energy and determination,
and he did not commit suicide in a fit of madness,
out of fear of not finding it.
On the contrary – he had just found it,
he had uncovered what he was and who he was,
when the collective consciousness of society,
as punishment for having broken away from it,
drove him to suicide.
Translation from the German edition of Artaud’s “Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by Society” (orig. “Van Gogh, le suicidé de la société”).