More and more studies reread Van Gogh’s tormented mind like that of a neurodicing man. Are we ready to recognize the value of those who think differently today?
You cannot understand Vincent Van Gogh’s genius if you don’t look beyond suffering. Not only beyond mental illness – what for decades was the dominant explanation of his torment – but beyond the entire way in which we judge who is “different”. A recent study published onInternational Journal of Forensic Sciences rekindles the spotlight on a powerful and necessary hypothesis: Van Gogh may have been autistic. Or, to say it with greater precision, It may have experienced a form of neurodactiveness never recognized or understood in its time.
His life, reread with the eyes of modern science, resembles that of many neurodicjecting people: extreme sensitivity, rigid routines, totalizing interests, difficulties in social contexts, but also one emotional depth and a radically original world vision. It is not just art history. It is an urgent reflection on the present.
The artist who saw too much
Born in 1853 in a village in the Netherlands, Vincent Van Gogh never managed to adapt. He changed many works, could not maintain stable relationships, lived in conditions of extreme economic and emotional precariousness. His entire life was crossed by misunderstandings, isolation, forced hospitalizations, and growing frustration for the impossibility of being accepted for what it was.
But if we tried to read his behaviors – documented in the over 900 letters sent to his brother Theo –
The scientific study in question lists several elements consistent with the profile of a person in the autistic spectrum:
All taken today attributable to the autistic spectrum. Stakes that, in the case of Van Gogh, have given rise to a pictorial language never seen before. But that in his time they were never understood, nor welcomed. The company, instead of protecting it, marginalized it. Until the end.
If he were born today, would Van Gogh have received support instead of judgments?
It is the question that we cannot ignore: If Van Gogh had lived in 2025, would he have had a different life? Maybe yes. But we cannot be sure.
True, today we are talking more and more about neurodiversity. But real inclusion is still far away. Schools struggle to recognize and enhance neurodicging children. The world of work excludes them, or forces them to mask what they are. Medicine continues too often to see the “disorder” before the person.
And in the meantime, How many brilliant minds are growing today between late diagnosis, isolation, lack of understanding?
Van Gogh is the symbol of unplosed talent. And its history reminds us that Creativity is not born from normal, but from the ability to see the world from different perspectives. Prospects that the company often struggles to accept.
Valuing neurodicinging thought is a cultural, non -clinical choice
Rereading Van Gogh as a possible autistic does not mean pathologizing his art. On the contrary: it means recognizing that Neurodactiveness can be an immense source of beauty, depth and intuition. But only if the context is able to understand and support it.
Being different is not a problem. It is potential. The problem is when the world is not ready to let it bloom.
Van Gogh did not have this possibility. We can still offer it to many others.
