Vincent van Gogh
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| Vincent van Gogh | |
|---|---|
 Self-Portrait in Front of the Easel, January 1888, Oil on canvas, 65 × 50.5 cm., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (F522) | |
| Birth name | Vincent Willem van Gogh |
| Born | March 30, 1853 Zundert, Netherlands |
| Died | July 29, 1890 age 37 Auvers-sur-Oise, France |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Field | Painter |
| Movement | Post-Impressionism |
| Works | The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers, The Starry Night, Irises, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, The Night Café, At Eternity's Gate |
| Influenced by | Anton Mauve, Jean-François Millet, Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli, Impressionism, Ukiyo-e |
/ˌvæn ˈɡɒx/, US /ˌvæn ˈɡoʊ/;[note 1] Dutch: [vɑn ˈɣɔχ] (
listen); March 30, 1853 – July 29, 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art as a result of its vivid colors and emotional impact. Suffering from anxiety and increasingly frequent bouts of mental illness throughout his life, he died largely unknown at the age of 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.He did not begin painting until his late twenties. Most of his best-known works are dated from his last two years. In less than a decade, he produced more than 2,000 artworks, consisting of around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches. His work included self portraits, landscapes, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.
Van Gogh spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers, traveling between The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught for a time in England. One of his early aspirations was to become a pastor and from 1879 he worked as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium where he began to sketch people from the local community. In 1885, he painted his first major work The Potato Eaters. His palette at the time consisted mainly of somber earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later work. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later he moved to the south of France and was taken by the strong sunlight he found there. His work grew brighter in color, and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style which became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.
The extent to which his mental illness affected his painting has been a subject of speculation since his death. Despite a widespread tendency to romanticize his ill health, modern critics see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence brought about by his bouts of illness. According to art critic Robert Hughes, van Gogh's late works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and "longing for concision and grace".[1]
Letters
Vincent age 18, c. 1871–1872. This photograph was taken at the time when he was working at the branch of Goupil & Cie's gallery at The Hague.[2][3]
Theo in 1878 at age 21. Theo was a life-long supporter and friend to his brother. The two are buried together at Auvers-sur-Oise.
Although many are undated, art historians have generally been able to put them in chronological order. Problems remain, mainly in dating those from Arles although it is known that during that period, van Gogh wrote 200 letters to friends in Dutch, French and English.[7] The period when Vincent lived in Paris is the most difficult for historians to analyze because the brothers lived together and had no need to correspond.[8]
In addition to letters to and from Theo, other surviving documents include those to Van Rappard, Émile Bernard, van Gogh's sister Wil and her friend Line Kruysse.[9] The letters were first annotated in 1913 by Theo's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger who explained that she published them with 'trepidation' because she did not want the drama in the artist's life to overshadow his work. Van Gogh himself was an avid reader of other artists' biographies and expected their lives to be in keeping with the character of their art.[4]
Biography
For a timeline, see Vincent van Gogh chronology.
Early life
See also: Van Gogh's family in his art
Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in Groot-Zundert, a village close to Breda in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands.[10] He was the son of Anna Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. Vincent was given the name of his grandfather and of his stillborn brother from the year before.[11] The practice of reusing a name was not unusual. Vincent was a common name in the Van Gogh family: his grandfather, Vincent (1789–1874), had received his degree of theology at the University of Leiden in 1811. Grandfather Vincent had six sons, three of whom became art dealers, including another Vincent who was referred to in van Gogh's letters as "Uncle Cent". Grandfather Vincent had perhaps been named in turn after his own father's uncle, the successful sculptor Vincent van Gogh (1729–1802).[12][13] Art and religion were the two occupations to which the Van Gogh family gravitated. His brother Theodorus (Theo) was born on 1 May 1857. He had another brother, Cor, and three sisters: Elisabeth, Anna and Willemina (Wil).[14]
In July 1869, his uncle helped him obtain a position with the art dealer Goupil & Cie in The Hague. After his training, in June 1873, Goupil transferred him to London, where he lodged at 87 Hackford Road, Brixton,[16] and worked at Messrs. Goupil & Co., 17 Southampton Street.[17] This was a happy time for Vincent; he was successful at work and was, at 20, earning more than his father. Theo's wife later remarked that this was the happiest year of Vincent's life. He fell in love with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer, but when he finally confessed his feelings to her, she rejected him, saying that she was already secretly engaged to a former lodger. He was increasingly isolated and fervent about religion. His father and uncle sent him to Paris to work in a dealership, where he became resentful at how art was treated as a commodity, a fact apparent to customers. On April 1, 1876, his employment was terminated.[18]
Van Gogh returned to England for unpaid work. He took a position as a supply teacher in a small boarding school overlooking the harbor in Ramsgate, where he made sketches of the view. When the proprietor of the school relocated to Isleworth, Middlesex, van Gogh moved to the new location taking the train to Richmond and the remainder of the journey on foot.[19] The arrangement did not work out and he left to became a Methodist minister's assistant, following his wish to "preach the gospel everywhere."[20] At Christmas, he returned home and worked in a bookshop in Dordrecht for six months. He was not happy in this new position and spent most of his time in the back of the shop either doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French and German.[21] His roommate at the time, a young teacher called Görlitz, later recalled that van Gogh ate frugally, and preferred not to eat meat.[22][note 2]
Van Gogh's religious zeal grew until he felt he had found his true vocation. To support his effort to become a pastor his family sent him to Amsterdam to study theology in May 1877.[23] He stayed with his uncle Jan van Gogh, a naval Vice Admiral.[24] Vincent prepared for the entrance exam with his uncle Johannes Stricker; a respected theologian who published the first "Life of Jesus" available in the Netherlands. He failed the exam, and left his uncle Jan's house in July 1878. He then undertook, but failed, a three-month course at the Vlaamsche Opleidingsschool, a Protestant missionary school in Laeken, near Brussels.
He returned to Cuesmes where he lodged with a miner named Charles Decrucq until October.[28] He became increasingly interested in the people and scenes around him. He recorded his time there in his drawings and followed Theo's suggestion that he should take up art in earnest. He traveled to Brussels that autumn intending to follow Theo's recommendation to study with the prominent Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him, in spite of his aversion to formal schools of art, to attend the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels where he registered on November 15, 1880. While in attendance, he not only studied anatomy but also the standard rules of modeling and perspective, of which he said, "...you have to know just to be able to draw the least thing."[29] Van Gogh aspired to become an artist while in God's service, stating: "...to try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God; one man wrote or told it in a book; another in a picture."
Etten, Drenthe and The Hague
See also: Early works of Vincent van Gogh
In April 1881, van Gogh moved to the Etten countryside with his parents where he continued drawing, often using neighbors as subjects. Through the summer he spent much time walking and talking with his recently widowed cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker. She was the daughter of his mother's older sister and Johannes Stricker, who had shown warmth towards the artist.[30] Kee was seven years older than van Gogh and had an eight-year-old son. He proposed marriage, but she refused with the words, "No, never, never" (niet, nooit, nimmer).[31] Late that November, he wrote a strongly worded letter to Johannes,[32] and then hurried to Amsterdam where he spoke with him on several occasions.[33] Kee refused to see him and her parents wrote, "Your persistence is disgusting." In desperation, he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, with the words "Let me see her for as long as I can keep my hand in the flame."[34] He did not clearly recall what happened next, but later assumed that his uncle blew out the flame. Kee's father made it clear that there was no question of marriage[35] given van Gogh's inability to support himself financially.[36] Van Gogh's perception of his uncle and former tutor's hypocrisy affected him deeply. That Christmas he quarreled violently with his father, to the point of refusing a gift of money, and left for The Hague.[37]
Van Gogh's uncle Cornelis, an art dealer, commissioned 12 ink drawings of views of the city, which the artist completed soon after arriving in The Hague, along with a further seven drawings that May.[49] In June, he spent three weeks in a hospital suffering from gonorrhea.[50] During the summer he began to paint in oil.[51] In autumn 1883, after a year together, he left Sien and the two children. He had thought of moving the family out of the city but in the end made the break.[52] It is possible that lack of money had pushed Sien back to prostitution—the home had become a less happy one, and van Gogh no doubt felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic development. When he left, Sien gave her daughter to her mother and baby Willem to her brother. She then moved to Delft, and later to Antwerp.[53] Willem remembered being taken to visit his mother in Rotterdam at around the age of 12, where his uncle tried to persuade Sien to marry in order to legitimize the child. Willem remembered his mother saying, "But I know who the father is. He was an artist I lived with nearly 20 years ago in The Hague. His name was van Gogh." She then turned to Willem and said "You are called after him."[54] While Willem believed himself to be van Gogh's son, the timing of his birth makes this unlikely.[55] In 1904, Sien drowned herself in the River Scheldt. Van Gogh moved to the Dutch province of Drenthe, in the northern Netherlands. That December, driven by loneliness, he went to stay with his parents who were by then living in Nuenen, North Brabant.[56]
Emerging artist
Nuenen and Antwerp (1883–1886)
In Nuenen, he devoted himself to drawing and would pay boys to bring him birds' nests for subject matter for paintings,[57] and made many sketches and paintings of weavers in their cottages.[58] In autumn 1884, Margot Begemann, a neighbor's daughter who was ten years his senior, often accompanied the artist on his painting forays. She fell in love, and he reciprocated—though less enthusiastically. They decided to marry, but the idea was opposed by both families. As a result, Margot took an overdose of strychnine. She was saved when van Gogh rushed her to a nearby hospital.[46] On 26 March 1885, his father died of a heart attack and he grieved deeply at the loss.[59]
From this period, Still-Life with Straw Hat and Pipe and Still-life with Earthen Pot and Clogs are characterized by smooth, meticulous brushwork and fine shading of colors.[62] During his two-year stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolors and nearly 200 oil paintings. His palette consisted mainly of somber earth tones, particularly dark brown, and he showed no sign of developing the vivid coloration that distinguishes his later, best known work. When he complained to Theo that he was not making enough effort to sell his paintings in Paris, his brother replied that they were too dark and not in line with the current style of bright Impressionist paintings.[63]
In November 1885, he moved to Antwerp and rented a small room above a paint dealer's shop in the Rue des Images (Lange Beeldekensstraat).[64] He had little money and ate poorly, preferring to spend what money his brother Theo sent on painting materials and models. Bread, coffee and tobacco were his staple intake. In February 1886, he wrote to Theo saying that he could only remember eating six hot meals since May of the previous year. His teeth became loose and caused him much pain.[65] While in Antwerp he applied himself to the study of color theory and spent time looking at work in museums, particularly the work of Peter Paul Rubens, gaining encouragement to broaden his palette to carmine, cobalt and emerald green. He bought a number of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, and incorporated their style into the background of a number of his paintings.[66] While in Antwerp van Gogh began to drink absinthe heavily.[67] He was treated by Dr. Amadeus Cavenaile, whose practice was near the docklands,[68] possibly for syphilis;[69] the treatment of alum irrigation and sitz baths was jotted down by van Gogh in one of his notebooks.[70] Despite his rejection of academic teaching, he took the higher-level admission exams at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and in January 1886, matriculated in painting and drawing. For most of February, he was ill and run down by overwork, a poor diet and excessive smoking.[71][72]
Paris (1886–1888)
Courtesan (after Eisen), 1887, Van Gogh Museum
The Blooming Plumtree (after Hiroshige), 1887, Van Gogh Museum
During his stay in Paris, he collected Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. His interest in such works date to his 1885 stay in Antwerp when he used them to decorate the walls of his studio. He collected hundreds of prints, and they can be seen in the backgrounds of several of his paintings. In his 1887 Portrait of Père Tanguy several are shown hanging on the wall behind the main figure. In The Courtesan or Oiran (after Kesai Eisen) (1887), van Gogh traced the figure from a reproduction on the cover of the magazine Paris Illustre and then graphically enlarged it in his painting.[74] Plum Tree in Blossom (After Hiroshige) 1888 is another strong example of van Gogh's admiration of the Japanese prints that he collected. His version is slightly bolder than the original.[75]
Van Gogh greatly admired the work of Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli after seeing it in Paris when he arrived there in 1886. Van Gogh immediately adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack.[76][77] In 1890, van Gogh and his brother Theo were instrumental in publishing the first book about Monticelli.[78]
He moved to Asnières a northwestern suburb of Paris, where he became acquainted with Signac. With Émile Bernard he adopted elements of pointillism, whereby many small dots are applied to the canvas to give an optical blend of hues when seen from a distance.[81] The style stresses the value of complementary colors—including blue and orange—to form vibrant contrasts and enhance each other when juxtaposed.[82] While in Asnières he painted parks and restaurants and the Seine, including Bridges across the Seine at Asnieres.
In November 1887, Theo and Vincent met and befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris.[83] Towards the end of the year, Vincent arranged an exhibition of paintings by himself, Bernard, Anquetin, and probably Toulouse-Lautrec in the Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet, 43 Avenue de Clichy, in Montmartre.[84] There Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings, and van Gogh exchanged work with Gauguin who soon departed to Pont-Aven. Discussions on art, artists and their social situations that started during this exhibition continued and expanded to include visitors to the show like Pissarro and his son Lucien, Signac and Seurat. Finally in February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, he left, having painted over 200 paintings during his two years in the city. Only hours before his departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his first and only visit to Seurat in his atelier (studio).[85]
Artistic breakthrough and final years
Move to Arles (1888–1889)
100 years after his stay there, he was remembered by 113-year-old Jeanne Calment—who as a 13 year old was serving in her uncle's fabric shop where van Gogh wanted to buy some canvas—as "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable", and "very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick".[87][88] She also recalled selling him colored pencils.[89]
The Night Café, 1888, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
Paul Gauguin's Armchair, 1888, Van Gogh Museum
He visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer that June where he gave drawing lessons to a Zouave second lieutenant, Paul-Eugène Milliet[96] and painted boats on the sea and the village.[97] MacKnight introduced Van Gogh to Eugène Boch, a Belgian painter who stayed at times in Fontvieille, and the two exchanged visits in July.[96]
Gauguin's visit
See also: Hospital in Arles (Van Gogh series)
Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, August 1888, Neue Pinakothek, Munich
The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night, September 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands
Van Gogh's Chair, 1888, National Gallery, London
After repeated requests, Gauguin finally arrived in Arles on October 23. During November, the two painted together. Gauguin painted van Gogh's portrait The Painter of Sunflowers: Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, and uncharacteristically, van Gogh painted some pictures from memory—deferring to Gauguin's ideas in this—as well as his The Red Vineyard. Their first joint outdoor painting exercise produced Les Alyscamps, and was conducted at the Alyscamps.[104]
On December 23, 1888, frustrated and ill, van Gogh confronted Gauguin with a razor blade, but in panic, left and fled to a local brothel. Deeply lonely at the time, he often visited the prostitutes at a brothel on Rue du Bout d'Aeles as his single emotional and sensuous point of contact with other people. While there, he cut off his left ear, though it is often claimed that it was "only" the lower part of his left earlobe.[note 6] He wrapped the severed ear in newspaper and handed it to a prostitute named Rachel, asking her to "keep this object carefully." He staggered home, where he was later found by Gauguin lying unconscious with his head covered in blood.
Van Gogh was taken to a hospital and remained in a critical state for several days. He asked for Gauguin continually over the next number of days, but the Frenchman stayed away. Gauguin told one of the policeman attending the case, "Be kind enough, Monsieur, to awaken this man with great care, and if he asks for me tell him I have left for Paris; the sight of me might prove fatal for him."[106] Gauguin wrote of van Gogh, "His state is worse, he wants to sleep with the patients, chase the nurses, and washes himself in the coal bucket. That is to say, he continues the biblical mortifications."[106] Theo—notified by Gauguin—visited, as did both Madame Ginoux and Roulin. Gauguin left Arles and never saw Van Gogh again.[note 7] In January 1889, van Gogh returned to the Yellow House, but spent the following month between hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions that he was being poisoned. In March, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople, who called him "fou roux" (the redheaded madman). Paul Signac visited him in hospital and van Gogh was allowed home in his company. In April, he moved into rooms owned by Dr. Rey, after floods damaged paintings in his own home.[107][108] Around this time, he wrote, "Sometimes moods of indescribable anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time and fatality of circumstances seemed to be torn apart for an instant." Two months later he had left Arles and entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.[109]
Saint-Rémy (May 1889 – May 1890)
Main article: Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy (Van Gogh series)
The Starry Night, June 1889, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Sower, 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum
During his stay, the clinic and its garden became the main subjects of his paintings. He made several studies of the hospital interiors, such as Vestibule of the Asylum and Saint-Remy (September 1889). Some of the work from this time is characterized by swirls—including one of his best-known paintings The Starry Night.[111] He was allowed short supervised walks, which lead to paintings of cypresses and olive trees, like Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889, Cypresses 1889, Cornfield with Cypresses (1889), Country road in Provence by Night (1890). Limited access to the world outside the clinic resulted in a shortage of subject matter. He was left to work on interpretations of other artist's paintings, such as Millet’s The Sower and Noon – Rest from Work (after Millet), as well as variations on his own earlier work. Van Gogh was an admirer of the Realism of Jules Breton, Gustave Courbet and Millet [112] and compared his copies to a musician's interpreting Beethoven.[113][114] Many of his most compelling works date from this period. His The Round of the Prisoners, (1890) was painted after an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883); the face of the prisoner in the center of the painting and looking toward the viewer is Van Gogh.[115]
L'Arlésienne: (Madame Ginoux), 1890, Kröller-Müller Museum
Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1890, was sold for US$ 82.5 million in 1990.[116] Private collection
The Round of the Prisoners, 1890, Pushkin Museum, Moscow
Auvers-sur-Oise (May–July 1890)
See also: Double-squares and Squares
The Church at Auvers, 1890, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Wheat Field with Crows (July 1890) is an example of the double square technique he developed in the last weeks of his life. In its turbulent intensity, it is among his most haunting and elemental works.[124] It is often mistakenly believed to be his last work, but van Gogh scholar Jan Hulsker lists seven paintings which postdate it.[125]
Barbizon painter Charles Daubigny had moved to Auvers in 1861, and this in turn drew other artists there, including Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier. In July 1890, van Gogh completed two paintings of Daubigny's Garden; one of these is likely to be his final work.[121] There are also paintings which show evidence of being unfinished, including Thatched Cottages by a Hill.[124]
Death
See also: Vincent van Gogh's health
Self-portrait, 1889, private collection. Mirror-image self portrait with bandaged ear
Still Life with Absinthe, 1887, Van Gogh Museum
While most of Vincent's late paintings are somber, they are essentially optimistic and reflect a desire to return to lucid mental health. The paintings completed in the days before his suicide are severely dark. His At Eternity's Gate, a portrayal of an old man holding his head in his hands, is particularly bleak. The work serves as a compelling and poignant expression of the artist's state of mind in his final days.[129] Over the years there has been much debate as to the source of van Gogh's illness and its effect on his work. Over 150 psychiatrists have attempted to label its root, with some 30 different diagnoses.[130] Diagnoses include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, syphilis, poisoning from swallowed paints, temporal lobe epilepsy and acute intermittent porphyria. Any of these could have been the culprit and been aggravated by malnutrition, overwork, insomnia and consumption of alcohol, especially absinthe.
Taken from Wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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