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This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.

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The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations but not necessarily

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the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.

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As an actor, I have portrayed Theo, the little known brother of artist Vincent van Gogh.

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Somehow I related so strongly to the story of the two brothers that I became obsessed

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with Theo's struggle to defend Vincent and to prove that he was not insane.

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Most people, including many experts, believe that Vincent van Gogh was mad, his brother

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didn't, and I have evidence that he was right.

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This for me is a personal search.

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A search for a man who painted brilliant impressions of sunflowers and starry nights.

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He was called mad man by many, and in fact he did cut off part of his own ear.

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But was he really mad?

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He was born twice and he had a deep feeling for family.

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Yet, he considered himself a stranger on the earth.

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Vincent van Gogh.

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Today, 14 of his works are displayed here in the celebrated Louvre Museum in Paris.

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In a feverish ten-year period, though plagued by illness, he turned out 1,800 pieces of

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work, many of which sell for as much as a million dollars each today.

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Clearly, van Gogh belongs in the pantheon of the world's greatest artists.

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How could works of such beauty be the product of a deranged mind?

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Vincent van Gogh, Dutchman, painter, impressionist, lover of love, God, and art, took this route

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to the south of France after a year of painting and studying in Paris.

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As I followed his trail, I reviewed my research.

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From collections of his preliminary sketches, we know that he studied his art logically,

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precisely.

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He was well read.

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He knew five languages.

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His work was not accidental, it was an act of choice and use of skills which he had worked

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hard and long to acquire.

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For me, something here rang a jarring note.

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How could this man work so diligently, skillfully?

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How could he write more than 500 beautiful letters to Theo, so sensitive and full of enlightened

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insight if he were actually insane?

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Whatever Vincent's problem was, it began to appear here in the south of France.

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What I hoped to find was the cause.

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Was it the intense loneliness?

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Was it the burning southern sky?

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Was it the maddening mistral wind, lack of proper food, or the feverish work itself?

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What caused the man to fall to the depths of illness and despair while his work soared

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to the heights of brilliance?

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My first stop in the town of Arles would be the corner where Vincent lived, in what became

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known as the Yellow House.

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The adjacent Sidewalk Cafe is still open for business.

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I stopped to absorb the atmosphere.

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The Yellow House had been destroyed during World War II.

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All that remains is Vincent's luminescent painting.

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Here Vincent dreamed of starting a community of artists, and Paul Gauguin was invited to be its leader.

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Gauguin, eloquent, outspoken, and arrogant.

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He had deserted his wife and five children in favor of painting.

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To share his home, Vincent could not have picked a more unsuitable partner.

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But Vincent, thrilled by Gauguin's acceptance, painted masterpieces to decorate the walls.

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Gauguin arrived and flattered Vincent by painting his portrait.

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They worked together, and they socialized together.

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But soon, more than anything, they argued.

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Vincent always the straightforward, passionate seeker of truth.

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Gauguin, caustic, cool.

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Baiting Vincent as a matador might taunt a bull.

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Eventually Vincent wrote,

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I think our friend Gauguin has become tired of our house, the little town of Arles, and especially me.

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Was it the agitation of the argument?

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Was it alcohol?

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Was it illness?

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What triggered the famous events which followed?

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According to Gauguin's version of the story, he took a walk into the night.

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He was being followed.

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It was Vincent with a razor.

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Gauguin later reported, I stared him down with a look.

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What really happened, we will never know.

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Then, Vincent performed the act most widely presented as evidence of his insanity.

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He went back to his room and severed half his ear.

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Later that night, he delivered a bizarre gift to a prostitute named Rachel at a local brothel

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and said, Gardé cet objet précisement.

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Well, guard this object carefully.

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It was the severed ear.

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Why?

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The answer may lie in a previous relationship with a prostitute named Christine.

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When Vincent met her, she had a child and was expecting another.

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Vincent felt he could savor from the streets.

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It was a noble effort, but a failure.

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The lady did not want to change her lifestyle.

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Was there for Vincent a connection between his past and the present?

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The hospital at Arle where Vincent van Gogh was treated after he had slashed his ear.

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Why had he done it?

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And was he really mad?

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Why was he suffering such personal pain while his work was soaring?

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Here I hope to find some answers.

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I quickly recognize the garden of one of his famous paintings.

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And now, the first real clues began to emerge.

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In the hospital records, I found the diagnosis of his illness.

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The key word was a total surprise.

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Epilepsy.

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Dr. Ray, his physician, diagnosed Vincent as epileptic, suffering from seizures, hallucinations.

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He was hearing voices which taunted him, terrified him.

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Vincent's biblical training had taught him, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.

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I wonder if Vincent was trying to silence an offending ear.

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The isolation chamber where Vincent was locked up during his stay at the hospital.

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This was his view of the world when he wrote,

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Dear Theo, I write to you in full possession of my faculties and not as a madman, but as the brother you know.

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A certain number of people addressed the petition to the mayor, describing me as a man not fit to be at liberty.

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The commissioner of police then gave the order to shut me up without my guilt being proved or even open to proof.

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I have done no harm to anyone.

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After his release, Vincent was embittered and deeply pained by the cruel actions of the people of all.

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He realized that he was ill, but felt that he deserved help rather than punishment.

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It became obvious that he would suffer periodic hallucinatory attacks which terrified him.

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Vincent and his brother Theo decided that he should have constant medical supervision.

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He signed himself into the asylum at San Rami.

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It was understood that he would be allowed to paint whenever he was well enough to do so.

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He wrote to his brother, I think I have done well to come here.

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The idea of work as a duty is coming back very strong.

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I have two landscapes done, views among the hills.

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One is the country I see from the window of my bedroom, a boundary wall,

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and beyond it the gray foliage of a few olive trees and the hills.

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Though here there are some patients very seriously ill,

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the fear and horror of madness that I used to have has lessened a great deal.

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When I'm working in the garden, they all come to look

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and I assure you they have the discretion and the manners to leave me alone

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more than I can save for the good people of the town of all.

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A major newspaper article now praised Vincent as the leader of the Impressionists

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and one of his canvases was sold for the equivalent of $80, his first sale.

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He was 36. No other painting would be sold in his lifetime.

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The quantity and quantity of his work was enormous.

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He captured, enhanced and enriched whatever he saw.

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He said, I feel as if nature has spoken to me.

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The pattern of Vincent's life now is defined.

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The attacks were almost predictable, approximately every three months.

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They were followed by periods of recovery and feverish work,

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hardly the pattern of a madman.

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And then again, the next attack, the voices,

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always the damnable voices that beleaguered his brain.

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In May 1890, after two years in the South,

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Vincent's loneliness and his longing to see his brother and the North again

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prompted a decision to leave San Remy.

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Before following Vincent's trail to Auvers, I had one more important stop to make.

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The nature of Vincent's illness was now clear.

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But what about his mysticism?

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Why did he suspect that there was another side to existence?

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Why did he see death as a trip to a star?

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Perhaps at his birthplace, I would find some answers.

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Certainly the family offered no clue.

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His father, a minister in the Reformed Church,

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both parents, straightforward, no nonsense, bound by tradition.

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No mysteries here.

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And yet, during his brief career as an evangelist among the miners in Belgium,

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Vincent preached that he was a stranger on the earth.

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Why?

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In Zundert, Holland, I made an amazing discovery.

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In the early 1850s, a strange ritual took place at this church every Sunday.

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Young Vincent van Gogh visits a grave which bears his own name.

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The grave is that of a brother who was still born.

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Both Vincent's were born on exactly the same date, one year apart.

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He lived his entire childhood with a ghost that bore his name.

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Could this Sunday ritual have planted the seeds of his mysticism?

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In Auvers, a suburb of Paris, arrangements were made for him to live in a room over the Café Revue,

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now called the Café Van Gogh.

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He was placed under the care of a sympathetic doctor named Gache.

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The current owner of the Gache house, Madame Vandenbroek.

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Doctor who was famous, Vincent came earlier than expected and was terribly impatient.

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He came out here, unannounced, and came like a bombshell on the terrace

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and was standing there in the bright sunlight when he was discovered

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and ushered into the dining room, the doctor was called,

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and when the dining room shutters were slightly closed because of the strong sunshine,

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and Vincent, who wanted to see the view, threw them open and was standing there just drinking it all in.

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In the first sight, the doctor had of his patient and friend was that one.

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He was indeed impatient, and perhaps he had good reason.

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When he arrived in Auvers, he had 70 days to live.

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Is it possible that he knew that?

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In those 70 days, he turned out 100 pieces of work, as if he were in a race against time.

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On a Sunday morning, the 27th of July, 1890, Vincent as usual took his paint box, easel, and brushes,

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and walked up this road to the nearby fields.

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He was also carrying a gun.

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He was about to make a decision.

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The next day

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Regardless of our moral reaction to his act, it must be recognized as a deliberate choice.

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After lying unconscious all day in the hot sun, he managed to stagger back to the café.

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What occurred in the last hours of his life most clearly indicates that he was not mad,

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but obviously a man afflicted with a physical problem which drove him to a desperate act.

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His brother received the news the next day and came immediately.

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When Theo stepped into this room, he expected to find his brother either unconscious or dead.

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He was shocked to find Vincent sitting up in his bed, calmly smoking his pipe.

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Vincent asked his brother not to cry. He said,

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I did it for the good of everyone.

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Dr. Gershé said that Vincent's wound wasn't really that serious and Vincent had a strong constitution.

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His chances of recovery were good, but Vincent was very stubborn about it.

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It seemed as though he was determined to succeed in his own death.

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He said, I've been a failure at so many things in my lifetime.

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I hope I haven't failed at this as well.

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Theo held his hands and they talked late into the night.

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And then Theo said, I felt his hands weaken and his voice grew fainter.

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I sat on the bed. I cradled him in my arms.

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I kissed his face and he looked up at me and he said, Theo, I wish I could die like this.

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And then, said Theo, he closed his eyes and I felt his heart stop.

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I held him close. I didn't want to let him go.

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I felt his soul lingering near me for those next few moments and then something went out of me and he was gone.

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Vincent's brother Theo, his only lifelong friend and support, went into a physical and emotional decline.

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And six months later, joined his brother in death.

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With the mistrall wind, the heat of the sun, his illness, it's amazing that Vincent van Gogh accomplished as much as he did.

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While it is interesting and worthwhile to investigate the man, the power and the magnificence of his work are awesome.

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Today, the controversy about Vincent van Gogh continues.

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He was a very complicated man. He was sometimes difficult, sometimes stubborn, mystical, loving, self-destructive and always passionate.

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I set out looking for answers to a set of intellectual questions. Some of those questions have been answered. Some still remain mysteries.

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But I found something that was in a sense beyond the search and I think even more important.

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In my efforts to understand the man, I found a new and even deeper appreciation for the beauty that he gave us.

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The Lost Ark, Tonight at 8 on the History Channel.