Van Gogh Life Story
Vincent Willem van Gogh – Born – 30 March 1853 – Died – 9 July 1890.
Painting Style
Van Gogh Life Story – He was a Post-Impressionist painter who became one of the most famous and influential artists in western art history. In the last decade of his life he created around 2,100 artworks, including about 860 oil paintings. The last two years of his life were the most productive of his vocation. His work includes landscapes, portraits, self portraits and still life paintings. Van Gogh is generally regarded as the most outstanding Dutch painter since Rembrandt because of the way his he used colour and his distinctive large brush strokes in his paintings towards the end of his phase of his life. His style influenced influenced early abstraction, Expressionism and Fauvism, well into the 20th-century. His technique is referred to as Impasto. This is the Italian term for “mixture” or “paste”, and refers the painting technique in which the paint (typically oil) is applied thickly so it shows the texture of the palette knife and brush strokes.
No commercial success in his life
He was not commercially successful. He sold only one painting in his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, for 400 francs (approximately US$2,000 in today’s equivalent).
Early Life
Van Gogh was born into an upper-middle class family. As a young man he got a job as an art dealer and was transferred to London, where he became depressed. Next he became a protestant missionary and traveled to southern Belgium. His health deteriorated and he took up painting in 1881. He then moved home and lived with his parents. His younger brother Theo became his financial supporter. His early works were mainly depictions of peasant laborers and still life’s. They were in quite dull dark colors unlike his later works. In 1886 he moved to Paris where he met practitioners of the Avant-garde movement including Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard. His painting style became brighter and he moved to Arles in the south of France in 1888. During his stay here he subject matter broadened to include sunflowers, wheat fields and olive trees.
Mental Health
Van Gogh suffered from delusions and psychotic episodes. He neglected his physical health and drank heavily and did not have a good diet. Van Gogh is unfortunately well known for allegedly cutting off his own ear. There are various versions of exactly what happened:
1. Most experts allege that he had a fight with his friend Paul Gauguin and cut off his own ear in a rage with a razor.
2. Some historians speculate that Paul Gauguin was responsible for cutting off Van Gogh’s ear. They say Paul Gauguin was an excellent fencer and cut off Van Gogh’s ear with his sword during a fight. The two artists then agreed to keep the truth quiet to avoid problems with the police.
3. There is also evidence that Van Gogh received news from his brother Theo who was going to get married that may have been an additional trigger to the argument with Gauguin. Which may have triggered a fear of abandonment in both an emotional and financial way.
After the incident Van Gogh went to his favourite brothel in Arles and gave his ear to an 18 year old maid named Gabrielle Berlatier.
He then spent time in psychiatric hospitals including at Saint Remy. He then discharged himself and moved to Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris. Where he received the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. This treatment ended with an argument with Paul Gachet. Then his depression deepened from his inability to succeed as a painter and his financial dependence on his brother Theo who was married with a son. On 27 July 1890 feeling in despair of ever being cured of his mental illness and feeling lonely it’s believed he shot himself in the chest with a pistol and died two days later from the injury.
Posthumously
Van Gogh received widespread commercial and critical success over the following decades. Today Van Gogh’s paintings are some of the most expensive art works ever sold. His legacy is honored by a whole museum named the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Where there is the largest collection of his drawings and paintings.