Vincent Van Gogh / Antonin Artaud. Le Suicidé de la société

In 1947, in ‘Le Suicide de la Société’, Antonin Artaud wrote an impassioned homage to the genius of Van Gogh, offering a reading that went against the dominant discourse of his day. Weary of simplistic theories about the madness and deliriums of the Dutch master, the writer offered a portrait of a painter whose clear-sightedness was too much for the common man. Exit the thesis of alienation and the medicines prescribed by doctor Gachet: for Artaud, it was the impoverished spirit of late 19th century society, and not the famed psychological imbalance, that pushed the painter to suicide. This rich text well deserves an exhibition: the Musée d’Orsay undertakes the task through drawings, letters and 30 or so paintings.