A few days before the shooting, van Gogh had placed a large order of paints, and on the morning of the day he died, he had sent an upbeat letter to his brother Theo, with an optimistic take on the future. Crucially, no suicide note was ever found.
Why did the suicide version take such a strong hold, then? Well, it simply provided a more logical narrative. Van Gogh's earlobe episode, which had happened two years earlier, plus his history of nervous breakdowns and alcoholism, made him the perfect artist maudit: a troubled, unpredictable, erratic genius.
Even friends of the artist, such as the painter Émile Bernard, liked to sensationalize van Gogh's exploits. “My best friend, my dear Vincent, is mad," he told an art critic in 1889. “Since I have found out, I am almost mad myself."
The police investigated the death, but according to Naifeh and White Smith, no records survive. The suicide rumors, thus, provided a “better story," and gained momentum throughout the 20th century by the sheer force of hearsay.