Vincent Van Gogh
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Country:
Netherlands
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Biographical data:
born 1853 in Zundert; † 1890 in Auversur-Oise
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The most important works:
Pere Tanguy, 1887 - 1888
Sunflowers, 1888
Field of oats and cupresses, 1889
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Pay attention to:
landscapes and scenes from the life of farmers, expressive use of colour, partly preserved clear brushstrokes, clearly defined shapes emphasising the simplified contour
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Keywords:
Impressionism, Pointilism, Post-Impressionism, Ukiyo-e
LIFE AND CREATION
Vincent Van Gogh, whose artistic world he almost ignored at the time, became one of the most famous personalities in art history. His works were made known in numerous reproductions, and the originals reached astonishing sums on the market. Nevertheless, his life story is a symbol of the suffering and striving of the creative genius. Vincent van Gogh was the eldest son of a pastor from North Brabant. At the age of 16, he became a student at an art dealer, but his work was interrupted by an unrequited love for the daughter of the housekeeper with whom he lived – the first of many painful love failures of the artist. To support himself, he turned to religion and despised the world of the marchers. He was fired in 1876. He worked as a teacher in England and as a book salesman in Dordrecht, then he studied to become a priest. From 1878 to 1880 he worked as a missionary among the Belgian miners and gave away everything he had to live after Christian poverty.
He also lost this job, and at the age of 27 he decided to become a painter. Originally, he imitated Jean-Francois Millet and used subdued colors to reflect the life of the peasants. With the support of his brother Theo, an art master, he developed his style from his primitive and unsuccessful beginnings. His most famous paintings from this period are the potato eaters, which show a farming family at the table. In the winter of 1886, he studied in Antwerp before moving to Paris to live with Theo, who dealt with the works of the Impressionists. There he saw works full of sunshine and colour, paintings by artists such as Claude Monet and Pierre August Renoir. He particularly liked the pointilism of Georges Seurat. Another source of inspiration was Paul Gauguin, who worked on a flatter, expressive use of intense colors. Van Gog was also fascinated by the Japanese ukiyo-e, of whom we see in the background of a portrait by Pere Tanguy.
Colour became a central element of his work. He used it bravely and willingly to express his feelings. He, too, was slower with color. He combined Pointilyan smears with chiselled brushstrokes that can be seen in the sunflowers. He painted these paintings after moving to Arles in the south of France, where he left in February 1888, hoping to find sunlit colors and rural themes that originally inspired them. Van Gogh worked with incredible energy and created hundreds of landscapes, portraits and still lifes, but he couldn’t sell any of them. Together with Gauguin, who visited him in Arles, they planned to found an artists' colony. Both, however, had an irreconcilable temperament. After a fierce argument, Van Gogh cut off his ear. During his recovery in hospital, he suffered his first acute attack of recurrent mental illness.
In May 1889, he agreed to a hospitalization in Saint-Remy-en-Provence, where he painted. In paintings such as the wheat wreath with the lawnmower prevails, muted color quieter than in the works of previous years. The green hue attenuates the strong southern light, but it becomes clearer by the winding brush movement. In May 1890, at the age of 37, Van Gogh moved to Paris to live with Theo and to be controlled by Dr. Paul Gachet. The doctor, who was a hobby painter himself, encouraged van Gogh to work. Once again, the artist reacted to the new environment with a big bang of creativity and created an average of one picture per day.
Despite the vivid coloration of the 1890 painting, they express the restlessness and the immense loneliness he experienced at the time. He was celebrated in early 1890 when his painting was first sold in the exhibition and an article about him appeared in a French newspaper. Nevertheless, he was still suffering from severe depression: on July 27 he shot himself in the chest and died two days later.