Vincent Van Gogh was one of the most recognized artists of post-impressionism and, to date, is considered one of the greatest painters in the history of art, because his technique was unique, and with it, he left a great legacy. This style included an element that characterized his works, and that is that he used a lot of yellow hues.
A little-known fact is that Van Gogh painted The Starry Night while he was in the hospital for the mentally ill Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, and his inspiration was what he saw from his window. The curious thing is that what he painted was evidently not literally what his eyes observed at that moment, but his imagination led him to paint a lot in yellow and blue tones, and much of this was due to the medical condition he suffered at that time called Xanthopsia.
Why did Van Gogh use yellow a lot?
At that time, Vincent Van Gogh was medicated by Dr. Paul Gachet with a medicine called Digitalis purpurea, which treated epilepsy and manic-depressive crises. Throughout history, several studies were carried out, and it was discovered that patients who took this medicine tended to see things in a yellowish tone.
It is even said that those who consumed Digitalis in excess developed Xanthopsia, a rare pathology that altered the perception of colors. Also, another hypothesis why it is believed that Van Gogh used yellow a lot was because, suffering from subacute angle-closure glaucoma, he supposedly used to see many halos of light.
Xanthopsia is a type of chromatopsia produced by the malfunction of a retinal cone or by digital intoxication. In addition, all the side effects that Van Gogh suffered, such as fatigue, dizziness, or headache, and which he told his brother in his letters, perfectly describe a picture of intoxication by this medicine.
Story originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva
