VINCENT VAN GOGH

This past summer, at our family reunion, I created a number of DVDs for us to review. Most were fun pictures of the family, tagged to cool songs I like.

One particular DVD...that a number of family members liked...was some history about Vincent van Gogh followed by the song 'Vincent' by Don McLean played while viewing a number of van Goghs' paintings...one of which was 'Starry, Starry Night'.

I saw this article about some school kids who used cereal to create one of those paintings.

A good memory...recalled.

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh 1853-1890 generally considered greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt, though he had little success during his lifetime. Produced all of his work (some 900 paintings and 1100 drawings) during a period of only 10 years before he succumbed to mental illness (possibly bipolar disorder) and committed suicide. His fame grew rapidly after his. Several paintings by Van Gogh rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. 1987 Van Gogh's painting Irises sold for $53.9 million. 1990 Portrait of Doctor Gachet sold for $82.5 million.

Born in Zundert, The Netherlands; his father was a protestant minister, a profession Vincent found appealing and to which he would be drawn to a certain extent later in his life.

At age 16 Vincent started work for art dealer in The Hague. His four years younger brother Theo, with whom Vincent cherished a life long friendship, would join the company later. This friendship is documented in a vast amount of letters they sent each other published in 1914. They provide a lot of insight into the life of the painter, and show him to be a talented writer with a keen mind. Theo would support Vincent financially throughout his life.

In 1873, his firm transferred him to London, then Paris. He became increasingly interested in religion; in 1876 firm dismissed him for lack of motivation. He became a teaching assistant near London, then returned to Amsterdam to study theology in 1877.

After dropping out in 1878, he became a layman preacher in Belgium in a poor mining region. He even preached down in the mines and was extremely concerned with the lot of the workers. He was dismissed after 6 months and continued without pay. During this period he started to produce charcoal sketches.

In 1880, Vincent followed the suggestion of his brother Theo and took up painting. For a brief period he took painting lessons but soon left over divergence of artistic views.

In 1881 he declared his love to his widowed cousin who rejected him. Later he would move in with a prostitute and her children and considered marrying her; his father was strictly against this relationship and even his brother Theo advised against it. They later separated.

Impressed and influenced by Jean-Francois Millet, van Gogh focused on painting peasants and rural scenes.

In the winter of 1885-1886 Van Gogh attended an art academy in Belgium but was dismissed after a few months.
Van Gogh did however get in touch with Japanese art during this period, which he started to collect eagerly. He admired its bright colors, use of canvas space and the role lines played in the picture. These impressions would influence him strongly. Van Gogh made some painting in Japanese style. Also some of the portraits he painted are set against a background which shows Japanese art. In spring 1886 Vincent went to Paris, and moved in with his brother Theo. Here he met the painters met Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Bernard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Gauguin. He discovered impressionism and liked its use of light and color
In 1888, when city life and living with his brother proved too much, Van Gogh left Paris and went to Arles, France. He was impressed with the local landscape and hoped to found an art colony. He decorated a "yellow house" and created a celebrated series of yellow sunflower paintings for this purpose.

The admiration for Gauguin ended in a quarrel. Van Gogh suffered a mental breakdown and cut off part of his left ear, which he gave to a startled prostitute friend. The only painting he sold during his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, was created in 1888. It is now on display in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Russia.

He suffered from depression, and in 1889 on his own request Van Gogh was admitted to a psychiatric center in France. During his stay the clinic and its garden became his main subject. In May 1890 van Gogh left the clinic and went to the physician Paul Gachet, near Paris, where he was closer to his brother Theo, who had recently married. Gachet had been recommended to him by Pissarro; he had treated several artists before. Here van Gogh created his only etching: a portrait of the melancholic doctor Gachet. His depression aggravated. On July 27 of the same year, at the age of 37, after a fit of painting activity, van Gogh shot himself in the chest. He died two days later, with Theo at his side, who reported his last words as "La tristesse durera toujours" (French: "The sadness will last forever"). He was buried at the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise; Theo unable to come to terms with his brother's death died 6 months later and was buried next to him.

It would not take long before his fame grew higher and higher. Large exhibitions were organized soon: Paris 1901, Amsterdam 1905, Cologne 1912, New York 1913 and Berlin 1914.

Vincent van Gogh's mother threw away quite a number of his paintings during Vincent's life and even after his death. But she would live long enough to see her son become a world famous painter.


Bet you didn't know that.
Dan