Vincent Van Gogh: Big Talent. Big Heart. Big Sorrow. (NSFW)
This story about Vincent Van Gogh touched me deeply and I am still impressed.
Andreas Nossmann. Van Gogh sketches Sien
There was a time when the drawings of Van Gogh were aggressively criticized by familiar artists and he felt himself he needed to learn much yet. The figures of people in his drawings were angular and clumsy and it was clear as he was always making paintings casually. Professional models cost much and the money which his brother sent to him was not enough.
Sometimes he dropped in a pub and greedily looked how people sat, drank and walked. Once he met a lonely woman. She was not young and not attractive and her face told that she was sick and lived in poverty. No doubts it was a street prostitute but her hands showed she had done it because of a hard life.
Van Gogh felt sympathy as he was alone too. His father kicked him out of the house, the woman, he loved, rejected him and nobody understood his wish to become an artist.
Photo of Vincent Van Gogh
Self portrait
Kee. The woman Vincent Van Gogh loved
And then he thought she could become a good model for a beginning artist like him. And it looked like her wage was very low as she was pregnant and didn't attract clients anymore. So, she wouldn't require a high payment for posing.
Her story was as usual. Her name was Christina. She first became pregnant when she was 16 and her boy - friend left her. She worked as a laundress, then as a prostitute. When Van Gogh met her she was 32 with 4 kids and pregnant. When there was delay in wage payment for laundry she was looking for clients on the streets.
Vincent's heart was torn in pieces. He offered her to pose for him and she agreed. Christina never posed before but felt quite comfortable and was very thankful to Vincent for his kindness. Van Gogh was very enthusiastic about painting her. He made a drawing of a woman sucked dry. He depicted her autumnal ugly body very truthfully but also showed that deep and bitter hopelessness she had.
He signed that drawing with the words from Jules Michelet's poem: "How is it possible that on this earth a lonely abandoned woman exists." That phrase became a kind of manifest of the artist for the protection of insulted women.
That drawing took a week to be complete. Money ran out and his brother's help would come only in a week. A couple of times Christina came to pose free but then Vincent said he was leaving and locked himself up in the house without money and food. After 5 days Christina came to visit him and found Van Gogh with fever and unconscious. She brought food and took care of him.
It was the beginning of a new life for Van Gogh. He didn't love her as his Kee but they had much in common. Not thinking that he lived for his brother's money he felt obliged to her and he offered to live together. He found an idea to serve. It was to help the deprived Christina.
Nobody could understand him but he felt that somebody needed him. Vincent wanted to have a traditional Dutch home with a fireplace and family. He called her Sien and he got a second breath after taking responsibility for others lives. From his last money he paid for the surgery as the baby was breech and she suffered from pain.
He was constantly painting Sien: Sien cleaning the potato, praying, with a baby on her lap and others. There were also more models like her kids and mother.
Chritina was very obedient in the beginning. His house was filled with the smell of food, care, kids laughter and Van Gogh felt himself loved and cared for. His brother Theo was so touched with that story that also started to help one woman and increased the amount of money he gave to Vincent.
But after having a child Christina changed. She was fed up with the constant posing and lack of money. Vincent was patient with her heavy drinking, negligence and abuse. He was attached to a so-called family and the kids. Christina infected him with syphilis and he was treated for a long time but even that didn't push him away. Sien was the initiator of the separation. She was irritated that he spent all money on painting and even her mom, being happy in the beginning, started to persuade her to go to work in a brothel. And it was the end of the "perfect family life". Later she even got remarried but after 3 years she drowned herself.
Van Gogh left the Hague with big pain. But that 2 year union brought him not only disappointment but also much experience in drawing, depicting perspective and movement.
He didn't see Christina any more and even didn't know that she had got another baby, probably his son.
The works of Vincent became popular only after his death and now they adorn the most famous museums around the world.
I am happy that Steemit supports beginning artists. Who knows maybe the next Van Gogh is among us.
This post is written under the impression of the book "100 masterpieces" by N. Sinelnikova.
And I have a feeling that I will come back to this extraordinary person and artist in one of my next posts.
Society still hasn't gotten over Van Gogh. In the words of Don McClean: "Perhaps they never will."
they will not)))
Very poignant story. Great talent rarely goes together with peaceful family life. Thank you for the story.
That's true. Thank you
a talent for sure
yes!
Such a sad story...
very sad(((
Well put together!
thank you!