Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Vincent Van Gogh and artworks
Vincent Van Gogh and artworks
Vincent Van Gogh and artworks
Ebook175 pages2 hours

Vincent Van Gogh and artworks

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

Vincent van Gogh’s life and work are so intertwined that it is hardly possible to observe one without thinking of the other. Van Gogh has indeed become the incarnation of the suffering, misunderstood martyr of modern art, the emblem of the artist as an outsider. An article, published in 1890, gave details about van Gogh’s illness. The author of the article saw the painter as “a terrible and demented genius, often sublime, sometimes grotesque, always at the brink of the pathological.” Very little is known about Vincent’s childhood. At the age of eleven he had to leave “the human nest”, as he called it himself, for various boarding schools. The first portrait shows us van Gogh as an earnest nineteen year old. At that time he had already been at work for three years in The Hague and, later, in London in the gallery Goupil & Co. In 1874 his love for Ursula Loyer ended in disaster and a year later he was transferred to Paris, against his will. After a particularly heated argument during Christmas holidays in 1881, his father, a pastor, ordered Vincent to leave. With this final break, he abandoned his family name and signed his canvases simply “Vincent”. He left for Paris and never returned to Holland. In Paris he came to know Paul Gauguin, whose paintings he greatly admired. The self-portrait was the main subject of Vincent’s work from 1886c88. In February 1888 Vincent left Paris for Arles and tried to persuade Gauguin to join him. The months of waiting for Gauguin were the most productive time in van Gogh’s life. He wanted to show his friend as many pictures as possible and decorate the Yellow House. But Gauguin did not share his views on art and finally returned to Paris. On 7 January, 1889, fourteen days after his famous self-mutilation, Vincent left the hospital where he was convalescing. Although he hoped to recover from and to forget his madness, but he actually came back twice more in the same year. During his last stay in hospital, Vincent painted landscapes in which he recreated the world of his childhood. It is said that Vincent van Gogh shot himself in the side in a field but decided to return to the inn and went to bed. The landlord informed Dr Gachet and his brother Theo, who described the last moments of his life which ended on 29 July, 1890: “I wanted to die. While I was sitting next to him promising that we would try to heal him. [...], he answered, ‘La tristesse durera toujours (The sadness will last forever).’”
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 14, 2023
ISBN9781781609767
Vincent Van Gogh and artworks
Author

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh (1853—1890) was a highly influential Dutch Post-Impressionist painter best known for his uniquely expressive brushwork and use of bold, dramatic colors. Van Gogh’s early life and formative adult years were marked by mundane security; he was born into an upper-middle class family, received a rounded education, and was able to make a living off of his interest in art by working as a dealer; however, while his employment provided the opportunity for travel, it also exacerbated his lifelong struggle with his mental health. It wasn’t until 1881—nine years before his death—that he began to produce his own art. His early work would consist mostly of still lifes and character studies but as he began to travel and become acquainted with new artistic communities, his art would become brazen and bright—capturing vivid portraits of the natural world. However, while Van Gogh would correspond and receive financial support from his younger brother, Theodorus, he often found himself skirting the line of poverty. His lack of commercial and financial success with his painting would lead him to neglect his physical and mental health, resulting in increased psychotic episodes and delusions; the worst of which ended with Van Gogh severing part of his own left ear. After a lifelong battle with depression, on July 27th, 1890, he went out into a wheat field where he had recently been painting and attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest. Van Gogh would die from his injuries in his room at the Auberge Ravoux just two days later. In the aftermath of his death, Van Gogh’s story would—for better or worse—cement his legacy in the public imagination as the “tortured artist” and in the decades that followed his work would gain worldwide critical and commercial beyond what he could have ever imagined.

Read more from Vincent Van Gogh

Related to Vincent Van Gogh and artworks

Related ebooks

Visual Arts For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Vincent Van Gogh and artworks

Rating: 4.428571428571429 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

14 ratings2 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Informative. A great read although I find the great painter's life so sad.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Viewing Vincent's paintings while reading what was happening in his life at the time he was painting them makes the book so fascinating, the way the colors and even to a degree his style changes throughout the years. It's an enjoyable read.

Book preview

Vincent Van Gogh and artworks - Vincent Van Gogh

Self-Portrait, Saint-Rémy, late August 1889


Oil on canvas, 57 x 43.5 cm. Private Collection, New York

Biography

1853

Vincent Van Gogh is born on 30 March at Groot Zunder, in the south of Holland, not far from the Belgian border. Son of the pastor Théodorus Van Gogh and Anna Van Gogh-Carbentus, he is the eldest of the family’s six children. He is given the name of his brother who was stillborn on exactly the same day one year before.

1857

His brother Théodorus is born on 1 May. Van Gogh was particularly close with Théodorus throughout his life, and the two maintained a long correspondence.

1869

He is hired by his uncle in the Goupil and Co. gallery in the Hague and becomes acquainted with 20th-century English art, with the works of the Barbizon school, as well as with 17th-century Flemish painting (particularly with Rembrandt).

1872

This year marks the beginning of the correspondence with his brother Theo, which lasted throughout their lives.

1873

He joins the London branch of Goupil’s. At London he suffers his first deceptive encounter with love in the face of Ursula, his landlady’s daughter, who rejects him.

1874

In October, he is sent to the centre of Goupil’s gallery in Paris, where he lives in isolation and devotes himself to the study of the Bible.

1876

He is dismissed from Goupil’s for negligence and returns to England, where he works as a teacher and then as a vicar's assistant.

1877

Van Gogh returns to Amsterdam to prepare for his entry to the faculty of Theology.

Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1