Paul-Ferdinand Gachet was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 most famous for treating the painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...

 during his last weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise

Auvers-sur-Oise

Auvers-sur-Oise is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is associated with several famous artists, the most prominent being Vincent van Gogh.-History:...

. Gachet was a great supporter of artists and the Impressionist movement. In fact, he himself was an amateur painter, signing his works "Paul van Ryssel", referring to his birthplace: Gachet came "from" (Dutch: "van") "Ryssel", the Flemish name of Lille.

Biography

Born and raised in Lille

Lille

Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...

, his family moved to Mechelen

Mechelen

Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived...

, where Gachet's father was transferred to in 1844/1845 to start a new branch of the firm he was working for.

He qualified for a B.A.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 at the University of Paris

University of Paris

The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

 and then worked at the mental hospitals of Bicêtre and Salpêtrière. His teachers included Armand Trousseau

Armand Trousseau

Armand Trousseau was a French internist. His contributions to medicine include Trousseau sign of malignancy, Trousseau sign of latent tetany, Trousseau-Lallemand bodies , and the truism, "use new drugs quickly, while they still work."-Biography:A native of Tours, Indre-et-Loire, Armand Trousseau...

. In 1858 he received a medical degree for his thesis Étude sur la Mélancolie (Éditeur du Montpellier Médecal).

He returned to Paris and set up a private practice. He knew Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...

, Champfleury

Champfleury

Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson , who wrote under the name Champfleury, was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting and fiction.In 1843 Fleury-Husson moved to Paris...

, Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

 and later Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...

. He was a friend of the chemist Henri Nestlé

Henri Nestlé

Henri Nestlé, born Heinrich Nestle , was a German confectioner and founder of Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company, as well as one of the main creators of condensed milk.-Birth:...

 and prescribed Nestlé's new powdered milk supplement to some of his child patients.

He spent much time with Charles Méryon

Charles Méryon

Charles Méryon , was a French artist, who worked almost entirely in etching, as he suffered from colour-blindness. Although now little-known in the English-speaking world, he is generally recognised as the most significant etcher of 19th century France. He also suffered from mental illness, dying...

 after the etcher's committal to Charenton

Charenton (asylum)

Charenton was a lunatic asylum, founded in 1645 by the Frères de la Charité in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, now Saint-Maurice, Val-de-Marne, France....

. He oversaw Auguste Renoir's recovery from pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

 in 1882. He advised Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....

 against the amputation of his leg. However, Manet did not follow this advice.

Gachet's tomb is situated in section 52 of Père Lachaise Cemetery

Père Lachaise Cemetery

Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

Doctor Gachet and Vincent van Gogh

Vincent's brother, Theo van Gogh

Theo van Gogh (art dealer)

Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...

, thought that Gachet's background and sensitivity toward artists would make him an ideal doctor for Vincent during his recovery. Very soon after he began seeing Gachet, however, Vincent began to doubt the doctor's usefulness. Vincent described Gachet as:
Gachet has come in for much criticism over the years regarding Van Gogh's suicide after ten weeks of consultation. However Van Gogh was either unable or unwilling to follow his doctors' advice to cut back on alcohol and smoking. According to Arnold, "there was not much else available to any physician of the day which could have reversed the course of Vincent's illness." And he summarizes the medical treatment that Van Gogh received from his various doctors thus: "The overall assessment is rather that they did as well as expected with an unfamiliar disease and a difficult patient."

Subject in Art

Gachet was friends with and treated Pissarro, Renoir, Manet, Cezanne and Norbert Goeneutte to name just a few. He had amassed one of the largest impressionist art collections in Europe before he died in 1909. Gachet, his wife and his home were the subjects of several pieces of art by celebrated artists including:
- Dr Gachet, Painting by Vincent van Gogh
- Dr Gachet, Etching by Vincent van Gogh (1890)
- Paul Gachet, Painting by Norbert Goeneutte, (1891) Musee D'Orsay
- Paul Gachet, Painting by Emile Bernard

Émile Bernard

Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...

, (1926 posthumous) Musee D'Orsay
- House of Dr Gachet, Paul Cezanne

Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...

 (1872)

Resources

• Anne Distel & Susan Alyson Stein, Cézanne to Van Gogh: The Collection of Doctor Gachet, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1999 ISBN 0-87099-903-6

Biographical note by Jacqueline Sonolet and Paul Gachet's works digitized by the BIUM (Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de médecine et d'odontologie, Paris), see its digital library Medic@.

• Photographs of Gachet's tomb in Pere Lachaise Cemetery - (Findagrave)