The Oldest Thing

Jeanne Calment told a story about meeting Vincent van Gogh when she was 13. This was 1888.

Van Gogh came into her uncle’s fabric shop to buy some canvas for paintings. Recalling the meeting a century later, Calment did not mince words, describing the legendary painter as “very disagreeable”, adding that he "reeked of alcohol."

This brush between two notable historical figures may be a malleable memory, but let’s pause for a moment anyway. Let’s travel briefly back in time to this encounter.

1888 saw the rise of the bicycle, long before automobiles were much more than a concept. Electricity was decades away for most people, and the streets of Arles (where Calment lived her entire life) were lit by gaslight and populated by horse-drawn carriages.

Van Gogh was dead two years later by suicide, famously bringing a painful life to a painful end (he shot himself in the stomach!). Calment, on the other hand, lived before there was electricity, and after there was internet.

She got to see photo…