Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was a loner, a rover, an autodidact, a passionate artist and one of the most impotant predecessors of modern painting.

The Great Artist Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in Groot-Zundert in Nothern Holland. He studied at boarding school, at several various boarding schools (with theological direction because his father was Protestant Minister). He began to work early, at age of 16 he started to work for his uncle, an art dealer in The Hague. He was a courier and assistent and worked at this position until 1876. Businesstrips during this period took him to London, where he met his first love Eugenia and to Paris, where he fell in love with Art&Painting. And at this time he began the correspondence with his younger brother Theo, which lasted all Vincent's life.

In 1877 Vincent began to study theology in Amsterdam, he trained as a Methodist lay preacher. In 1878 he at his own expense went volantary missionary to the coal-mining district of the Borinage in Belgium. It was territory of poverty and misery, poverty and suffer. Vincent began to draw to overcome his inner tensions and sufferings. At first he based his drawing on models by Jean-Francois Millet, whom headmired allhis life, but then hemade his own independent style,drawings and water-colours based on the miserable lives of local coal-miners.

In 1880 he took courses at the Art Academy in Brussels but Vincent remained a self-study, an autodidact. He searchd his own style, his own rflection ofthe world, and he decided clearly that he would be a painter of simple people.

This period, from 1881 to 1885 he came back an left his parent's house. He suffered from lack of money, unhappy love, misunderstanding. Andit was period of hard work, tireless, restless work. He produced hundreds of works, fifty paintings of people from his homeland, peasants and weavers, seven paintings are included into a cycle "Peasant life".

After many attempts and tryings, after many studies in 1885 van Gogh created "Potato Eaters". He made the colour of this painting as colour of dirty, dusty potato, this work expresses the inner state of the painter and his reminicence from Borinage, his perception of outer unfair world.
All pintings this period express strong social commitment and resignation. Oppressed forms, caricature, bony figures, pain, dark, simple lines. Paintings of this period are often described as "tormented, dark Realism".

"The Potato Eaters", 1885, 82x114. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

In Autumn 1885 Vincent studied at the Art Academy in Antwerp, where he was incredibly interested in Rubens and the technique of Japanese woodcut. By winter heappeared in Paris, where his brother Theo opened and ran an Art Gallery.
In Paris van Gogh studied colours, he came into contact with the group of the Impressionists. Van Gogh observed and praciced, worked hard, illuminated and brightened his palette, experimented with colours, me variations with unpopular matchers like 'red-green', 'yellow-violet'... In Paris he created bout 30 self-portraits, and other paintings, where he experimented not only with colours but with prismatic splitting, made vibrant brushstrokes.

Arles became new stage and page in painter's life. Vincent came to Arles by invitation of Toulouse-Lautrec. He found in Arles inspiration and "provencial works"of broad free brushstroke in rapid, ecstatic way, glowing, shiny bright colours made van Gogh popular. Arles was van Gogh's artistic peak and his psycological breakdown.

"Cornfield with crows", 1890, 51x101, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Visual expression of a tormented soul. This panoramic landscapes that Van Gogh painted in 1890, during the last days of his life, this famous picture with its dead-end track and menacing, crow-filled sky reveals his
tortured state of mind.

In Arles Vincent created his works "Cafe Terrace at Night" and "Sunflowers".

This vibrant painting (1889) was intended to be one of a series of still lifes to fill the “Yellow House” at Arles. Van Gogh chose sunflowers because he was expecting Paul Gauguin, and knew his friend liked them. The predominant yellows and oranges contrast with strokes of brilliant mauve and red.

He worked hard, as a possesed man. His psycological mood wasvery changible, excitments changed depressions but his moral, mental states didn't stop him from work.

In May 1889 Vincent became a patient of Saint-Remy mental hospital, near Arles. His stay was marked by hallicinations, nightmares, insomnia, consentration on death. Van Gogh understood how serious was his illnes ant worked, worked, worked...
He was given a work room and created about 300 painting during his stay at Saint-Remy asylem. This period Vincent van Gogh was very influenced by Millet,Rembrand, Daumier, Delacroix... For example, "Pietà" is inspired by Delacroix. The figure of Christ is thought to be a self-portrait.
He created landscapes and nature paintings made with dense brushstrokes, torn, expressive.
The painter shot himself on the 27th of July 1890 and died in the arms ofhis brother Theo.

" Pietà" (after Delacroix), painted in 1889 Van Gogh while in the asylum at Saint-Rémy.