|
 Vincent
van Gogh: (1853-1890)
Italian version
Early life (1853 –
1869)
Vincent Willem van Gogh was born in Groot-Zundert, a village close to
Breda in the Province of North Brabant in the southern Netherlands.
Vincent was the son of Anna Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh, a
minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. He was given the same name as his
grandfather and a first brother stillborn exactly one year before. It
has been suggested that being given the same name as his dead elder
brother might have had a deep psychological impact on the young Vincent,
and that elements of his art, such as the portrayal of pairs of male
figures, can be traced back to this. The practice of reusing a name in
this way was not uncommon. The name "Vincent" was often used in the Van
Gogh family: the baby's grandfather was called Vincent van Gogh
(1789-1874); he 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, referred to in Van Gogh's
letters as "Uncle Cent." Grandfather Vincent had perhaps been named
after his own father's uncle, the successful sculptor Vincent van Gogh
(1729-1802). Art and religion were the two occupations to which the Van
Gogh family gravitated.
Four years after Van Gogh was born, his brother Theodorus (Theo) was
born on May 1, 1857. There was also another brother named Cor and three
sisters, Elizabeth, Anna and Wil. As a child, Vincent was serious,
silent and thoughtful. In 1860 he attended the Zundert village school,
where the only teacher was Catholic and there were around 200 pupils.
From 1861 he and his sister Anna were taught at home by a governess,
until October 1, 1864, when he went away to the elementary boarding
school of Jan Provily in Zevenbergen, the Netherlands, about 20 miles
away. He was distressed to leave his family home, and recalled this even
in adulthood. On September 15, 1866, he went to the new middle school,
Willem II College in Tilburg, the Netherlands. Constantijn C. Huysmans,
who had achieved a certain success himself in Paris, taught Van Gogh to
draw at the school and advocated a systematic approach to the subject.
In March 1868 Van Gogh abruptly left school and returned home. His
comment on his early years was: "My youth was gloomy and cold and
sterile...."
Art dealer and preacher (1869 – 1878)
In July 1869, at the age of 15, he obtained a position with the art
dealer Goupil & Cie in The Hague through his Uncle Vincent ("Cent"), who
had built up a good business which became a branch of the firm. After
his training, Goupil transferred him to London in June 1873, where he
lodged at 87 Hackford Road, Brixton and worked at Messrs. Goupil & Co.,
17 Southampton Street. This was a happy time for Vincent: he was
successful at work, and was already, at the age of 20, earning more than
his father. He fell in love with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer,
but when he finally confessed his feeling to her, she rejected him,
saying that she was already secretly engaged to a previous lodger.
Vincent became increasingly isolated and fervent about religion. His
father and uncle sent him to Paris, where he became resentful at how art
was treated as a commodity, and he manifested this to the customers. On
April 1, 1876, it was agreed that his employment should be terminated.
His religious emotion grew to the point where he felt he had found his
true vocation in life, and he returned to England to do unpaid work,
first as a supply teacher in a small boarding school overlooking the
harbour in Ramsgate; he made some sketches of the view. The proprietor
of the school relocated to Isleworth, Middlesex. Vincent decided to walk
to the new location. This new position did not work out, and Vincent
became a nearby Methodist minister's assistant in wanting to "preach the
gospel everywhere."
At Christmas that year he returned home, and then worked in a bookshop
in Dordrecht for six months, but 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.
His roommate from this time, a young teacher called Görlitz, later
recalled that Vincent ate frugally, preferring to eat no meat. In an
effort to support his wish to become a pastor, his family sent him to
Amsterdam in May 1877 where he lived with his uncle Jan van Gogh, a rear
admiral in the navy. Vincent prepared for university, studying for the
theology entrance exam with his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected
theologian who published the first "Life of Jesus" available in the
Netherlands. Vincent failed at his studies and had to abandon them. He
left uncle Jan's house in July 1878. He then studied, but failed, a
three-month course at the Protestant missionary school (Vlaamsche
Opleidingsschool) in Laeken, near Brussels.
Borinage and Brussels (1879 – 1880)
In January 1879 Van Gogh got a temporary post as a missionary in the
village of Petit Wasmes in the coal-mining district of Borinage in
Belgium, bringing his father's profession to people felt to be the most
wretched and hopeless in Europe. Taking Christianity to what he saw as
its logical conclusion, Vincent opted to live like those he preached to,
sharing their hardships to the extent of sleeping on straw in a small
hut at the back of the baker's house where he was billeted; the baker's
wife used to hear Vincent sobbing all night in the little hut. His
choice of squalid living conditions did not endear him to the appalled
church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity of
the priesthood." After this he walked to Brussels, returned briefly to
the Borinage, to the village of Cuesmes, but acquiesced to pressure from
his parents to come "home" to Etten. He stayed there until around March
the following year, to the increasing concern and frustration of his
parents. There was considerable conflict between Vincent and his father,
and his father made enquiries about having his son committed to a
lunatic asylum at Geel. Vincent fled back to Cuesmes where he lodged
with a miner named Charles Decrucq, with whom he stayed until October.
He became increasingly interested in the everyday people and scenes
around him, which he recorded in drawings.
In 1880, Vincent followed the suggestion of his brother Theo and took up
art in earnest. In autumn 1880, he went to Brussels, intending to follow
Theo's recommendation to study with the prominent Dutch artist Willem
Roelofs, who persuaded Van Gogh (despite his aversion to formal schools
of art) to attend the Royal Academy of Art. There he not only studied
anatomy, but the standard rules of modelling and perspective, all of
which, he said, "you have to know just to be able to draw the least
thing." Vincent wished to become an artist while in God's service as he
stated, "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 (1881)
In April 1881, Van Gogh went to live in the countryside with his parents
in Etten and continued drawing, using neighbours as subjects. Through
the summer he spent much time walking and talking with his recently
widowed cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker, the daughter of his mother's older
sister and Johannes Stricker, who had shown real warmth towards his
nephew. Kee was seven years older than Vincent, and had an
eight-year-old son. Vincent proposed marriage, but she flatly refused
with the words: "No, never, never" (niet, nooit, nimmer). At the end of
November he wrote a strong letter to Uncle Stricker, and then, very soon
after, hurried to Amsterdam where he talked with Stricker again on
several occasions, but Kee refused to see him at all. Her parents told
him "Your persistence is disgusting". In desperation he held his left
hand in the flame of a lamp, saying, "Let me see her for as long as I
can keep my hand in the flame."He did not clearly recall what happened
next, but assumed that his uncle blew out the flame. Her father, "Uncle
Stricker," as Vincent refers to him in letters to Theo, made it clear
that there was no question of Vincent and Kee marrying, given Vincent's
inability to support himself financially. What he saw as the hypocrisy
of his uncle and former tutor affected Vincent deeply. At Christmas he
quarreled violently with his father, even refusing a gift of money, and
immediately left for The Hague.
Drenthe and The Hague (1881 – 1883)
In January 1882 he settled in The Hague, where he called on his
cousin-in-law, the painter Anton Mauve, who encouraged him towards
painting. He soon fell out with Mauve, however, perhaps over the issue
of drawing from plaster casts; but Mauve appeared to go suddenly cold
towards Vincent, not returning a couple of his letters. Vincent guessed
that Mauve had learned of his new domestic relationship with the
alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria Hoornik (born February 1850, The
Hague; she was known as Sien) and her young daughter. Van Gogh had met
Sien towards the end of January. Sien had a five year-old daughter, and
was pregnant. She had already had two other children who had died,
although Vincent was unaware of this. On 2 July, Sien gave birth to a
baby boy, Willem. When Vincent's father discovered the details of this
relationship, considerable pressure was put on Vincent to abandon Sien
and her children. Vincent was at first defiant in the face of his
family's opposition.
His uncle Cornelis, an art dealer, commissioned 20 ink drawings of the
city from him; they were completed by the end of May. In June Vincent
spent 3 weeks in hospital suffering gonorrhoea. In the summer, he began
to paint in oil. In autumn 1883, after a year with Sien, he abandoned
her and the two children. Vincent had thought of moving the family away
from the city, but in the end he made the break. It is possible that
lack of money had pushed Sien back to prostitution; the home had become
a less happy one, and Vincent may have felt family life was
irreconcilable with his artistic development. When Vincent left, Sien
gave her daughter to her mother, and baby Willem to her brother, and
moved to Delft and then Antwerp. 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."
Willem believed himself to be Van Gogh's son, but the timing of the
birth makes this unlikely. In 1904 Sien drowned herself in the river
Scheldt.
Van Gogh moved to the Dutch province of Drenthe in the north of the
Netherlands, and in December, driven by loneliness, to stay with his
parents who were by then living in Nuenen, North Brabant, also in the
Netherlands.
Nuenen (1883 – 1885)
In Nuenen, he devoted himself to drawing, paying boys to bring him
birds' nests and rapidly sketching the weavers in their cottages. In
autumn 1884, a neighbour's daughter, Margot Begemann, ten years older
than Vincent, accompanied him constantly on his painting forays and fell
in love, which he reciprocated (though less enthusiastically). They
agreed to marry, but were opposed by both families. Margot tried to kill
herself with strychnine and Vincent rushed her to the hospital.
On March 26, 1885, Van Gogh's father died of a stroke. Van Gogh grieved
deeply. For the first time there was interest from Paris in some of his
work. In spring he painted what is now considered his first major work,
The Potato Eaters (Dutch De Aardappeleters). In August his work was
exhibited for the first time, in the windows of a paint dealer, Leurs,
in The Hague. In September he was accused of making one of his young
peasant sitters pregnant, and the Catholic village priest forbade
villagers from modelling for him.
During his time in Nuenen Van Gogh's palette was of sombre earth tones,
particularly dark brown, and he showed no sign of developing the vivid
coloration that distinguishes his later, best known work. (When Vincent
complained that Theo was not making enough effort to sell his paintings
in Paris, Theo replied that they were too dark and not in line with the
current style of bright Impressionist paintings.) During his two-year
stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolors, and
nearly 200 oil paintings.
Antwerpen (1885 – 1886)
In November 1885 he moved to Antwerpen and rented a little room above a
paint dealer's shop in the Rue des Images. He had little money and ate
poorly, preferring to spend what money his brother Theo sent to him 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. While in Antwerpen 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 also bought some Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands,
which he imitated and incorporated into the background of some of his
paintings. It was while he was living in Antwerpen that Vincent began to
drink absinthe heavily. He was treated by Dr Cavenaile whose surgery was
near the docklands, possibly for syphilis; the treatment of alum
irrigations and sitz baths was jotted down by Vincent in one of his
notebooks.
In January 1886 he matriculated at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Antwerpen,
studying painting and drawing. Despite disagreements over his rejection
of academic teaching, he nevertheless took the higher-level admission
exams. For most of February he was ill, run down by overwork and a poor
diet (and excessive smoking).
Paris (1886 – 1888)
In March 1886 he moved to Paris to study at Cormon's studio, and in May
1886 his mother and sister Wil moved to Breda. The brothers first shared
Theo's Rue Laval apartment on Montmartre. In June they took a larger
flat at 54 Rue Lepic, further uphill. As there was no longer the need to
communicate by letters, less is known about Van Gogh's time in Paris
than earlier or later periods of his life.
For some months Vincent worked at Cormon's studio where he frequented
the circle of the British-Australian artist John Peter Russell, and met
fellow students like Émile Bernard and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who
used to meet at the paint store run by Julien "Père" Tanguy, which was
at that time the only place to view works by Paul Cézanne.
It was not difficult to see and study Impressionist works in Paris at
this time. In 1886, for example, two large vanguard exhibitions were
staged, the 8th and final exhibition of the Impressionists and an
exhibition of the Artistes Indépendants. In these shows
Neo-Impressionism made its first appearance; works of Georges Seurat and
Paul Signac were the talk of the town. Though Theo, too, kept a stock of
Impressionist paintings in his gallery on Boulevard Montmarte, by
artists including Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Edgar Degas and Camille
Pissarro, Vincent evidently had problems acknowledging these recent ways
to see and paint. Conflicts arose, and at the turn of 1886 to 1887 Theo
found shared life with Vincent "almost unbearable," but in spring 1887
they made peace. Then Vincent set out for a campaign in Asnières, where
he became personally acquainted with Paul Signac. Vincent and his friend
Emile Bernard, who lived with parents in Asnières, adopted elements of
the "pointillé" (pointillism) style, where many small dots are applied
to the canvas, resulting in an optical blend of hues, when seen from a
distance. The theory behind this also stresses the value of
complementary colours in proximity—for example, blue and orange—as such
pairings enhance the brilliance of each colour by a physical effect
(known as optical mixing) on the receptors in the eye.
In November 1887, Theo and Vincent met and befriended Paul Gauguin, who
had just arrived in Paris. Towards the end of the year, Vincent arranged
an exhibition of paintings by himself, Bernard, Anquetin and (probably)
Toulouse-Lautrec in the Restaurant du Chalet, on Montmartre. There,
Bernard and Anquetin sold their first painting, and Vincent exchanged
work with Gauguin, who soon departed to Pont-Aven. But the discussions
on art, artists and their social situation started during this
exhibition continued, and expanded to visitors of the show like Pissarro
and his son, Signac and Seurat. Finally in February 1888, when Vincent
felt worn out from life in Paris, he left the city, having painted over
200 paintings during his two years there. Only hours before his
departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his first and only visit to
Seurat in his atelier.
Arles (February 1888 – May 1889)
Van Gogh arrived on February 21, 1888, at the railroad station in Arles,
crossed Place Lamartine, entered the city through the Porte de la
Cavalerie, and took quarters a few steps further, at the Hôtel-Restaurant
Carrel, 30 Rue Cavalerie. He had ideas of founding a Utopian art colony.
His companion for two months was the Danish artist, Christian Mourier-Petersen.
In March, he painted local landscapes, using a gridded "perspective
frame." Three of his pictures were shown at the annual exhibition of the
Société des Artistes Indépendants. In April he was visited by the
American painter, Dodge MacKnight, who was resident in Fontvieille
nearby. On May 1, he signed a lease for 15 francs a month to rent the
four rooms in the right hand side of the "Yellow House" (so called
because its outside walls were yellow) at No. 2 Place Lamartine. The
house was unfurnished and had been uninhabited for some time so he was
not able to move in straight away. He had been staying at the Hôtel
Restaurant Carrel in the Rue de la Cavalerie, just inside the medieval
gate to the city, with the old Roman Arena in view. The rate charged by
the hotel was 5 francs a week, which Van Gogh regarded as excessive. He
disputed the price, and took the case to the local arbitrator who
awarded him a twelve franc reduction on his total bill. On May 7 he
moved out of the Hôtel Carrel, and moved into the Café de la Gare. He
became friends with the proprietors, Joseph and Marie Ginoux. Although
the Yellow House had to be furnished before he could fully move in, Van
Gogh was able to use it as a studio. His major project at this time was
a series of paintings intended to form the décoration for the Yellow
House.
In June he visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. He gave drawing lessons to
a Zouave second lieutenant, Paul-Eugène Milliet, who also became a
companion. MacKnight introduced him to Eugène Boch, a Belgian painter,
who stayed at times in Fontvieille (they exchanged visits in July).
Gauguin agreed to join him in Arles. In August he painted sunflowers;
Boch visited again.
On September 8, upon advice from his friend the station's postal
supervisor Joseph Roulin, he bought two beds, and he finally spent the
first night in the still sparsely furnished Yellow House on September
17.
On 23 October Gauguin eventually arrived in Arles, after repeated
requests from Van Gogh. During November they painted together.
Uncharacteristically, Van Gogh painted some pictures from memory,
deferring to Gauguin's ideas in this. Their first joint outdoor painting
exercise was conducted at the picturesque Alyscamps. It was in November
that Van Gogh painted The Red Vineyard. In December the two artists
visited Montpellier and viewed works by Courbet and Delacroix in the
Museé Fabre. However, their relationship was deteriorating badly. They
quarrelled fiercely about art. Van Gogh felt an increasing fear that
Gauguin was going to desert him, and what he described as a situation of
"excessive tension" reached a crisis point on December 23, 1888, when
Van Gogh stalked Gauguin with a razor and then cut off the lower part of
his own left ear, which he wrapped in newspaper and gave to a prostitute
named Rachel in the local brothel, asking her to "keep this object
carefully." Gauguin left Arles and did not see Van Gogh again. Van Gogh
was hospitalised and in a critical state for a few days. He was
immediately visited by Theo (whom Gauguin had notified), as well as
Madame Ginoux and frequently by Roulin.
In January 1889 Van Gogh returned to the "Yellow House", but spent the
following month between hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations
and paranoia that he was being poisoned. In March the police closed his
house, after a petition by thirty townspeople, who called him fou roux
("the redheaded madman"). 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. On April 17,
Theo married Johanna Bonger in Amsterdam.
Saint-Rémy (May 1889 – May 1890)
On May 8, 1889, Van Gogh, accompanied by a carer, the Reverend Salles,
committed himself to the mental hospital of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in a
former monastery in Saint Rémy de Provence, a little less than 20 miles
from Arles. The monastery was a mile and a half out of the town and was
in an area of cornfields, vineyards, and olive trees. The hospital was
run by a former naval doctor, Dr. Théophile Peyron, who had no
specialist qualifications. Theo van Gogh arranged for his brother to
have two small rooms, one for use as a studio, although in reality they
were simply adjoining cells with barred windows. During his stay there,
the clinic and its garden became his main subject. At this time some of
his work was characterised by swirls, as in one of his best-known
paintings, The Starry Night. He took some short supervised walks, which
gave rise to images of cypresses and olive trees, but because of the
shortage of subject matter due to his limited access to the outside
world, he painted interpretations of Millet's paintings, as well as his
own earlier work. In September 1889 he painted two new versions of the
Bedroom in Arles, and in February 1890 he painted four portraits of
L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux), based directly on a charcoal sketch
Gauguin had produced when Madame Ginoux had sat for both artists at the
beginning of November 1888.
In January 1890, his work was praised by Albert Aurier in the Mercure de
France, and he was called a genius. In February, invited by Les XX, a
society of avant-garde painters in Brussels, he participated in their
annual exhibition. When, at the opening dinner, Henry de Groux, a member
of Les XX, insulted Van Gogh's works, Toulouse-Lautrec demanded
satisfaction, and Signac declared, he would continue to fight for Van
Gogh's honour, if Lautrec should be surrendered. Later, when Van Gogh's
exhibit was on display with the Artistes Indépendants in Paris, Monet
said that his work was the best in the show.
Auvers-sur-Oise (May – July 1890)
In May 1890, Vincent left the clinic and went to the physician Dr. Paul
Gachet, in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, where he was closer to his
brother Theo. Dr. Gachet had been recommended to him by Pissarro, as he
had previously treated several artists and was an amateur artist
himself. Van Gogh's first impression was that Gachet was "sicker than I
am, I think, or shall we say just as much." Later Van Gogh did two
portraits of Gachet in oils, as well as a third—his only etching, and in
all three emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition.
In his last weeks at Saint-Rémy Van Gogh's thoughts had been returning
to his "memories of the North", and several of the approximately 70 oils
he painted during his 70 days in Auvers-sur-Oise—such as The Church at
Auvers—are reminiscent of northern scenes.
Wheat Field with Crows—an example of the unusual double square
canvas-size he used in the last weeks of his life—with its turbulent
intensity is often, but mistakenly, thought to be Van Gogh's last work
(Jan Hulsker lists seven paintings after it). Daubigny's Garden is a
more likely candidate. There are also seemingly unfinished paintings,
such as Thatched Cottages by a Hill.
Van Gogh's depression deepened, and on July 27, 1890, at the age of 37,
he walked into the fields and shot himself in the chest with a revolver.
Without realizing that he was fatally wounded, he returned to the Ravoux
Inn, where he died in his bed two days later. Theo hastened to be at his
side and reported his last words as "La tristesse durera toujours"
(French for "[the] sadness will last forever"). Vincent was buried at
the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise.
Theo had contracted syphilis (though this was not admitted by the family
for many years) and, not long after Vincent's death, was himself
admitted to hospital. He was not able to come to terms with the grief of
his brother's absence, and died six months later on January 25 at
Utrecht. In 1914 Theo's body was exhumed and re-buried beside Vincent.
Medical record
Vincent van Gogh's medical condition
Van Gogh cut off the ear lobe on one of his ears during some sort of
seizure on December 24, 1888. Mental problems afflicted him,
particularly in the last few years of his life. During some of these
periods he did not paint, or was not allowed to. There has been much
debate over the years as to the source of Van Gogh's mental illness and
its effect on his work. Over 150 psychiatrists have attempted to label
his illness, and some 30 different diagnoses have been suggested.
Diagnoses which have been put forward 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
a fondness for alcohol, and absinthe in particular.
Medical theories have even been proposed to explain Van Gogh's use of
the color yellow. One theory holds that Van Gogh's color vision might
have been affected by his love of absinthe, a liquor that contains a
neurotoxin called thujone. High doses of thujone can cause xanthopsia:
seeing objects in yellow. However, a 1991 study indicated that an
absinthe drinker would become unconscious from the alcohol content long
before consuming enough thujone to develop yellow vision. Another theory
suggests that Dr. Gachet might have prescribed digitalis to Van Gogh as
a treatment for epilepsy. There is no direct evidence that he ever took
digitalis, but he did paint Gachet with some cut flower stalks of Common
Foxglove, the plant from which the drug is derived. Those who take large
doses of digitalis often report yellow-tinted vision or yellow spots
surrounded by coronas (like those in the The Starry Night) and changes
in overall color perception.
Another recently proposed illness is lead poisoning. The paints used at
the time were lead-based, and one of the symptoms of lead poisoning is a
swelling of the retinas which could have caused the halo effect seen in
many of Van Gogh's works.
It has also been suggested that Van Gogh suffered from the brain
disorder, Hypergraphia. The disorder causes a near constant overwhelming
urge to write and is associated with epilepsy or mania.
Work
Van Gogh drew and painted water-colours while he went to school, though
very few of these works survive, and his authorship is challenged for
many claimed to be from this period.
When Van Gogh committed himself to art as an adult (1880), he started at
the elementary level by copying the "Cours de dessin," edited by Charles
Bargue and published by Goupil & Cie. Within his first two years he
began to seek commissions, and in spring 1882, his uncle, Cornelis
Marinus (owner of a renowned gallery of contemporary art in Amsterdam)
asked him to provide drawings of the Hague; Van Gogh's work did not
prove up to his uncle's expectations. Despite this, Uncle Cor (or "C.M.
" as he was referred to by his nephews) offered a second commission,
specifying the subject matter in detail, but he was once again
disappointed with the result.
Nevertheless, Van Gogh persevered with his work. He improved the
lighting of his atelier (studio) by installing variable shutters, and
experimented with a variety of drawing materials. For more than a year
he worked hard on single figures—highly elaborated studies in "black and
white," which at the time gained him only criticism. Nowadays they are
appreciated as his first masterpieces. In spring 1883, he embarked on
multi-figure compositions, based on the drawings. He had some of them
photographed, but when his brother commented that they lacked liveliness
and freshness, Vincent destroyed them and turned to oil painting.
Already in autumn 1882, Theo had enabled him to do his first paintings,
but the amount Theo could supply was soon spent. Then, in spring 1883,
Vincent turned to renowned Hague School artists like Weissenbruch and
Blommers, and received technical support from them, as well as from
painters like De Bock and Van der Weele, both Hague School artists of
the second generation. When he moved to Nuenen, after the intermezzo in
Drenthe, he started various large size paintings, but he destroyed most
of them himself. The Potato Eaters and its companion pieces, The Old
Tower on the Nuenen cemetery and The Cottage, are the only ones that
have survived. After a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Vincent
was aware that many faults of his paintings were due to a lack of
technical experience. So he went to Antwerp, and later to Paris to
improve his technical skill.
More or less acquainted with impressionist and neo-impressionist
techniques and theories, Van Gogh went to Arles to develop these new
possibilities. But within a short time, older ideas on art and work
reappeared: ideas like doing series on related or contrasting subject
matter, which would reflect the purpose of art. Already in 1884 in
Nuenen he had worked on a series that was to decorate the dining room of
a friend in Eindhoven. Similarly in Arles, in spring 1888 he arranged
his Flowering Orchards into triptychs, began a series of figures which
found its end in The Roulin Family, and finally, when Gauguin had
consented to work and live in Arles side by side with Vincent, he
started to work on the The Décoration for the Yellow House, probably the
most ambitious effort he ever undertook. Most of his later work is
elaborating or revising its fundamental settings.
The paintings from the Saint-Rémy period are often characterized by
swirls and spirals. The patterns of luminosity in these images have been
shown to conform to Kolmogorov's statistical model of turbulence.
At various times in his life Van Gogh painted the view from his window;
this culminated in the great series of paintings of the wheat field he
could see from his adjoining cells in the asylum at Saint-Rémy. |
Free Van Gogh Wallpapers
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