began seeing Gachet, however, Vincent began to doubt the doctor's usefulness. Vincent described Gachet as: "sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much". However, after a while of meeting up with Gachet, Van Gogh's opinion of him improved. Van Gogh found a friend in him; he mentions that he wasn't only a muse but also a caretaker. "Vincent alternately wrote of the doctor, 'I have found in him a complete friend, even something like a new brother, ... ' ". Gachet has been the subject of 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 doctor's advice to cut back on alcohol and smoking. According to van Gogh biographer Wilfred 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, Cézanne and 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: Portrayals Everett Sloane played Gachet in Vincente Minnelli’s Lust for Life. Gachet is prominently featured in Maurice Pialat's 1991 film Van Gogh where he is played by Gérard Séty. Mathieu Amalric plays Gachet in Julian Schnabel's At Eternity's Gate, which depicts van Gogh (Willem Dafoe) painting Gachet's portrait in one scene. Jerome Flynn plays Gachet in the 2017 film Loving Vincent'' (notable for being animated entirely through oil paintings in van Gogh's style), in a scene where he discusses his own role in Vincent's final days. In popular culture "Dr. Gachet", a song written and sung by Rod MacDonald in 1997, tells the painting's history and notes "the painting Van Gogh couldn't sell / has become too valuable / for anyone to ever see again." References External links 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@. 1828 births 1909 deaths People