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Digitalis

Today I learned that Xanthopsia caused by the plant Digitalis could explain some of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings1.

With the onset of spring, I was trying to figure out which plants had returned to our garden when I discovered that the foxglove's is a Digitalis1 and is both medicinal and poisonous2. Medicines extracted from foxglove plants were approved by the FDA in 1998 to treat congestive heart failure.

Depending on the species, the digitalis plant may contain several deadly physiological and chemically related cardiac and steroidal glycosides. Digitalis plants have also been called dead man's bells and witch's gloves. Some of the oculotoxic effects included blurry vision, haloed outlines, and yellowed vision.

It's been speculated that Vincent Van Gogh's "yellow period may have been influenced by digitalis3 4. Van Gogh regularly visited Dr. Paul Gachet during which he was very prolific. The foxgloves are front and center in his portrait 5.

Portrait of Dr. Gachet - Vincent Van Gogh - 1890 - Oil on Canvas (57x56)

Footnotes​

  1. Digitalis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitalis ↩ ↩2

  2. Digitalis: The Flower, the Drug, the Poison - https://www.aaas.org/digitalis-flower-drug-poison ↩

  3. Van Gogh and the Obsession of Yellow: Style or Side Effect - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41433-018-0204-2 ↩

  4. Xanthopsia and van Gogh's Yellow Palette - https://www.nature.com/articles/eye199193.pdf ↩

  5. Portrait of Dr. Gachet - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Dr._Gachet ↩