Van Gogh's life and work are complete. Biography of Vincent van Gogh
It would seem that Vincent van Gogh (Vincent Willem van Gogh, 1853-1890) and, the two greatest artists of the second half of the 19th century, could have a lot in common. But their short communication ended in tragedy.
Fate decreed that Van Gogh and Gauguin ended up in the same place at the same time. And those 70 days that they were destined to spend in Arles, a city in the south of France, became a difficult test for them. But if for Paul the difficult neighborhood turned into only an unpleasant memory, then for Vincent living together resulted in a loss of physical and mental health. After all, the crazy story with the cut off ear happened there, and there is still no clear answer to the question of what role Gauguin played in it.
The artists had different motives for settling in Arles. Vincent van Gogh was obsessed with the idea of creating a commune. It was for the Southern Studio that a small yellow house was filmed in the city.
The realization of this dream required a lot of stress from Vincent, because fate was rarely favorable to him. The artist worked as a consultant for the sale of paintings, was a teacher, mastered theology and read sermons to Belgian coal miners. But his diverse activities never found a living response in his soul.
Things were no better on the personal front: a relationship with a street woman ended in a “bad” illness and a destructive passion for absinthe.
The paintings did not sell, creativity did not provide even a modest existence, and in order to begin the next work, the artist often had to borrow canvas and paints from Papa Tanguy, a dealer in painting materials.
By the way, he exhibited in the window of his store paintings by Van Gogh, who was “unclaimed” at that time.
By the time he arrived in Arles, the artist was a thin, extremely emaciated thirty-five-year-old man with a shattered nervous system, uncontrollable outbursts of rage and a bunch of bad habits.
But creatively, van Gogh’s life in Arles turned out to be extremely fruitful. There were no caustic critics and ubiquitous newspapers commenting on the artist’s crazy antics, so in just the first two months of his life, 200 paintings appeared in the province.
This ability to work did not come in vain: the artist drank more than 20 cups of strong coffee a day, and fell asleep only after an enormous amount of alcohol. This continued from February to October 1888, until the appearance of Paul Gauguin in Arles, whose life was completely different.
Strong income, a large house in a prestigious area of Paris, a wife, five children - what else is needed for happiness? But Paul yearned for his former freedom and was burdened by the conventions of life as a wealthy bourgeois. In his guardian’s family, where everyone was very keen on painting, he got his hands on paints and brushes. Gauguin began to write.
Numerous hardships of an unrecognized genius immediately fell upon him: in just a few years, his career collapsed, his house was sold under the hammer, his Danish wife took the children and left for her homeland.
Slava put off a visit to the artist, and he was forced to agree to the proposal of Theo van Gogh, who promised to pay Paul 150 francs for going to Arles and living in the same house with his brother Vincent.
On October 22, Gauguin arrived in Arles. A little more than two months remained before the tragic events. The situation became tense in the very first minutes after the artists met. Gauguin did not like the terrible disorder that reigned in the rooms, and the fact that there was no food in the house. In addition, he stated that he would live in the brightest and largest bedroom, where Vincent had already settled. It would seem that the owner’s patience could be overflowing with a sarcastic review of the picture that he painted especially for the guest’s arrival - these, by the way, were the famous “Sunflowers”.
But van Vincent van Gogh patiently endured all the comments of his future friend, as he hoped, because he absolutely did not claim to be a leader in their relationship.
Paul did not stop there and began to manage not only the everyday life, but also the creativity of his neighbor. He believed that there was no need to go plein air often, because you could draw from memory. But van Gogh could only paint from life, and the landscapes created in the room caused him to have fits of rage.
When the artists did find themselves in nature, Gauguin was already annoyed - his friend painted a full-fledged picture in a day, but he brought home only sketches.
But their vision, of course, had something in common, and this explains the fact that the artists “intersected” several times in the subjects of their paintings. Thus, both of them were inspired to paint a portrait by the local beauty Marie Gino and were not left indifferent by the landscapes of Provence, the famous red vineyards of Arles and the modest homes of local farmers.
Van Gogh called the yellow house a monastery, where Gauguin would be the abbot, and he would be just a novice, but the artists did not live according to the monastery rules. They drank a lot and often visited the local bullfight and the city brothel. And perhaps these circumstances have the most direct relation to the severed ear of Vincent van Gogh.
At a bullfight in Arles, the matador did not kill the defeated bull, but only cut off its ear. Once again, the artists visited the arena literally on the eve of the tragedy, and van Gogh had the opportunity to once again see what happens to the losers.
This story could not have happened without a woman. She turned out to be the “priestess of love” Rachel, who chose to spend the night with the outwardly attractive Gauguin. He allowed himself not only to bring the girl into the house, but also to discuss his friend’s paintings with her.
It is likely that after this, a delusional thought arose in van Gogh’s fevered imagination that he was a loser, and Gauguin and Rachel were winners who had the right to “claim” his ear. Then it becomes clear why Vincent brought Rachel such a terrible “gift” in the morning.
But there is another version where events developed differently. According to it, the drunken friends got into a fight, Vincent van Gogh rushed at Paul with a razor, and he, in self-defense, accidentally cut off his ear with a rapier. This could well have happened, especially since the victim himself never spoke to anyone about self-harm, but in one of his letters to his brother he noted:
“It’s good that Gauguin didn’t have a firearm, otherwise everything could have ended much worse.”
1. Vincent Willem van Gogh was born in the south of the Netherlands to a Protestant pastor, Theodore van Gogh, and Anna Cornelia, the daughter of a respected bookbinder and bookseller.
2. The parents wanted to name their first child, who was born a year earlier than Vincent and died on the first day, with the same name. In addition to the future artist, the family had five more children.
3. In the family, Vincent was considered a difficult and wayward child, when, outside the family, he showed the opposite traits of his temperament: in the eyes of his neighbors, he was a quiet, friendly and sweet child.
4. Vincent dropped out of school multiple times—he dropped out of school as a child; Later, in an effort to become a pastor like his father, he prepared to take university exams for theology department, but ultimately became disillusioned with his studies and dropped out. Wanting to enroll in an Evangelical school, Vincent considered the fees to be discriminatory and refused to attend. Turning to painting, Van Gogh began attending classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, but dropped out after a year.
5. Van Gogh took up painting when he was already a mature man, and in just 10 years he went from an aspiring artist to a master who revolutionized the idea of fine art.
6. Over the course of 10 years, Vincent Van Gogh created more than 2 thousand works, of which about 860 were oil paintings.
7. Vincent developed a love for art and painting through his work as an art dealer at the large art firm Goupil & Cie, which belonged to his uncle Vincent.
8. Vincent was in love with his cousin Kay Vos-Stricker, who was a widow. He met her when she was staying with her son at his parents' house. Kee rejected his feelings, but Vincent continued his courtship, which turned all his relatives against him.
9. The lack of artistic education affected Van Gogh's inability to paint human figures. Ultimately, the lack of grace and smooth lines in human images became one of the fundamental features of his style.
10. One of Van Gogh's most famous paintings, Starry Night, was painted in 1889 while the artist was in a mental hospital in France.
11. According to the generally accepted version, Van Gogh cut off his earlobe during a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, when he came to the city where Vincent lived to discuss issues of creating a painting workshop. Unable to find a compromise in resolving the topic so trembling to Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin decided to leave the city. After a heated argument, Vincent grabbed a razor and attacked his friend, who fled the house. On the same night, Van Gogh cut off his earlobe, and not his entire ear, as some legends believed. According to the most common version, he did this in a fit of repentance.
12. According to estimates from auctions and private sales, Van Gogh's works, along with works of art, rank high on the list of the most expensive paintings ever sold in the world.
13. A crater on Mercury is named after Vincent van Gogh.
14. The legend that during Van Gogh’s lifetime only one of his paintings, “Red Vineyards at Arles,” was sold is incorrect. In fact, the painting sold for 400 francs was Vincent’s breakthrough into the world of serious prices, but in addition to it, at least 14 more works by the artist were sold. There is simply no accurate evidence of the remaining works, so in reality there could have been more sales.
15. Towards the end of his life, Vincent painted very quickly - he could finish his painting from start to finish in 2 hours. However, at the same time, he always quoted the favorite expression of the American artist Whistler: “I did it in two hours, but I worked for years to do something worthwhile in those two hours.”
16. Legends that Van Gogh's mental illness helped the artist look into depths that are inaccessible to ordinary people are also untrue. The seizures, which were similar to epilepsy, for which he was treated in a psychiatric clinic, began only in the last year and a half of his life. Moreover, it was precisely during the period of exacerbation of the disease that Vincent could not write.
17. Van Gogh's younger brother, Theo (Theodorus), was of great importance to the artist. Throughout his life, his brother provided Vincent with moral and financial support. Theo, being 4 years younger than his brother, fell ill with a nervous disorder after Van Gogh’s death and died just six months later.
18. According to experts, if not for the almost simultaneous early death of both brothers, fame could have come to Van Gogh in the mid-1890s and the artist could have become a rich man.
19. Vincent Van Gogh died in 1890 from a gunshot to the chest. Going out for a walk with drawing materials, the artist shot himself in the heart area from a revolver, bought to scare away birds while working in the open air, but the bullet passed lower. 29 hours later he died from loss of blood.
20. The Vincent Van Gogh Museum, which has the world's largest collection of Van Gogh's works, opened in Amsterdam in 1973. It is the second most popular museum in the Netherlands, after the Rijksmuseum. 85% of visitors to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum come from other countries.
Pastor's son. In 1869-76 he served as a commission agent for an art trading company in The Hague, Brussels, London and Paris, and in 1876 - as a teacher in England. Having taken up the study of theology, in 1878-79 he was a preacher in Borinage (Belgium), where he learned about the hard life of miners; protecting their interests brought van Gogh into conflict with church authorities.
In the 1880s van Gogh turns to art: visits the Academy of Arts in Brussels (1880-81) and Antwerp (1885-86), takes advice from A. Mauve in The Hague. Van Gogh enthusiastically paints disadvantaged people - Borinage miners, and later - peasants, artisans, fishermen, whose life he observed in Holland in 1881-85. At the age of 30, van Gogh began to paint and created an extensive series of paintings and sketches, executed in dark, gloomy colors and imbued with warm sympathy for ordinary people (“Peasant Woman,” 1885, State Museum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo; “Potato Eaters” ", 1885, W. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam). Developing the traditions of critical realism of the 19th century, primarily the work of J. F. Millet, van Gogh combined them with the emotional and psychological intensity of the images, a painfully sensitive perception of the suffering and depression of people.
In 1886-88, while living in Paris, van Gogh visited a private studio; At the same time, he studies the plein air painting of the Impressionists and Japanese engraving, and joins the quest of A. Toulouse-Lautrec and P. Gauguin. During this period, the dark palette gradually gave way to the sparkling pure blue, golden yellow and red tones, the brushwork became freer and more dynamic ("Bridge over the Seine", 1887, V. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam; "Portrait of Father Tanguy", 1887, Rodin Museum, Paris).
Van Gogh's move to Arles in 1888 opens the period of his maturity. Here the originality of the artist’s painting style was fully determined, who expressed his attitude to the world and his emotional state using contrasting color combinations and a free impasto brushstroke. A fiery feeling, a painful impulse towards harmony, beauty and happiness and fear of forces hostile to man are embodied in landscapes shining with the joyful, sunny colors of the south (“Harvest. La Croe Valley”, “Fishing Boats in Sainte-Marie”, both 1888, W. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam), then in ominous images of a terrible world where a person is depressed by loneliness and helplessness ("Night Cafe", 1888, private collection, New York).
The dynamics of color and long winding strokes fills with spiritual life and movement not only nature and the people inhabiting it (“Red Vineyards in Arles”, 1888, Museum of Art named after A.S. Pushkin, Moscow), but also every inanimate object (“ Van Gogh's bedroom in Arles", 1888, V. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam).
Van Gogh's intense work in the last years of his life was complicated by attacks of mental illness, which led the artist to a tragic conflict with Gauguin, who also came to Arles; van Gogh was hospitalized in Arles, then in Saint-Rémy (1889-90) and in Auvers-sur-Oise (1890), where he committed suicide.
The work of the last two years of Van Gogh's life was marked by ecstatic obsession, extremely heightened expression of color combinations, rhythm and texture, sudden changes in mood - from frenzied despair ("At the Gates of Eternity", 1890, State Museum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo) and crazy visionary impulses (“Road with Cypresses and Stars”, 1890, ibid.) to a tremulous feeling of enlightenment and tranquility (“Landscape in Auvers after the rain”, 1890).
Van Gogh's work reflected a difficult, turning point in the history of European culture. It is imbued with an ardent love for life, for the simple working person. At the same time, it expressed with great sincerity the crisis of bourgeois humanism and realism of the 19th century, the painfully painful search for spiritual and moral values. Hence van Gogh's special creative obsession, his impetuous expression and tragic character. pathos; They define V.G.’s special place in the art of post-impressionism, of which he became one of the main representatives.
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When 37-year-old Vincent Van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, his work was virtually unknown. Today, his paintings cost eye-popping sums and adorn the best museums in the world.
125 years after the death of the great Dutch painter, the time has come to learn more about him and dispel some of the myths with which his biography, like the entire history of art, is full.
He changed several jobs before becoming an artist
The son of a minister, Van Gogh began working at age 16. His uncle took him on as a trainee as an art dealer in The Hague. He had occasion to travel to London and Paris, where the company's branches were located. In 1876 he was fired. After this, he worked for some time as a school teacher in England, then as a bookstore salesman. From 1878 he served as a preacher in Belgium. Van Gogh was in need, he had to sleep on the floor, but less than a year later he was fired from this post. Only after this did he finally become an artist and did not change his occupation again. In this field he became famous, however, posthumously.
Van Gogh's career as an artist was short
In 1881, the self-taught Dutch artist returned to the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to painting. He was supported financially and materially by his younger brother Theodore, a successful art dealer. In 1886, the brothers settled in Paris, and these two years in the French capital turned out to be fateful. Van Gogh took part in exhibitions of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists; he began to use a light and bright palette and experiment with brush stroke techniques. The artist spent the last two years of his life in the south of France, where he created a number of his most famous paintings.
In his entire ten-year career, he sold only a few of his more than 850 paintings. His drawings (about 1,300 of them remained) were then unclaimed.
Most likely he didn't cut off his own ear.
In February 1888, after living in Paris for two years, Van Gogh moved to the south of France, to the city of Arles, where he hoped to found a community of artists. He was accompanied by Paul Gauguin, with whom he became friends in Paris. The officially accepted version of events is as follows:
On the night of December 23, 1888, they quarreled and Gauguin left. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, pursued his friend, but, not catching up, returned home and, in frustration, partially cut off his left ear, then wrapped it in newspaper and gave it to some prostitute.
In 2009, two German scientists published a book in which they suggested that Gauguin, being a good swordsman, cut off part of Van Gogh's ear with a saber during a duel. According to this theory, Van Gogh, in the name of friendship, agreed to hide the truth, otherwise Gauguin would have faced prison.
The most famous paintings were painted by him in a psychiatric clinic
In May 1889, Van Gogh sought help at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric hospital, located in a former monastery in the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France. The artist was initially diagnosed with epilepsy, but examination also revealed bipolar disorder, alcoholism and metabolic disorders. Treatment consisted mainly of baths. He remained in the hospital for a year and painted a number of landscapes there. More than one hundred paintings from this period include some of his most famous works, such as Starry Night (acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1941) and Irises (purchased by an Australian industrialist in 1987 for a then-record sum of $ 53.9 million)
On December 23, 1888, the now world-famous post-impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh lost his ear. There are several versions of what happened, however, Van Gogh’s whole life was full of absurd and very strange facts.
Van Gogh wanted to follow in his father's footsteps - to become a preacher
Van Gogh dreamed of becoming a priest, like his father. He even completed the missionary internship required for admission to an evangelical school. He lived in the outback among miners for about a year.
But it turned out that the admission rules had changed, and the Dutch had to pay for training. The missionary Van Gogh was offended and after that decided to leave religion and become an artist. However, his choice was not accidental. Vincent’s uncle was a partner in the largest art dealer company at that time, Goupil.
Van Gogh began painting only at the age of 27
Van Gogh began painting in adulthood, when he was 27 years old. Contrary to popular belief, he was not such a “brilliant amateur” like conductor Pirosmani or customs officer Russo. By that time, Vincent Van Gogh was an experienced art dealer and entered first the Academy of Arts in Brussels, and later the Antwerp Academy of Arts. True, he studied there for only three months until he left for Paris, where he met the Impressionists, including.
Van Gogh began with “peasant” paintings like “The Potato Eaters.” But his brother Theo, who knew a lot about art and supported Vincent financially throughout his life, managed to convince him that “light painting” was created for success, and the public would definitely appreciate it.
The artist's palette has a medical explanation
The abundance of yellow spots of different shades in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, according to scientists, has a medical explanation. There is a version that this vision of the world is caused by the large number of drugs for epilepsy consumed by him. He experienced attacks of this disease in the last years of his life due to hard work, a riotous lifestyle and abuse of absinthe.
The most expensive Van Gogh painting was in Goering's collection
For more than 10 years, Vincent van Gogh’s “Portrait of Doctor Gachet” held the title of the most expensive painting in the world. Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito, owner of a large paper manufacturing company, purchased this painting at a Christie's auction in 1990 for $82 million. The owner of the painting indicated in his will that the painting should be cremated with him after his death. In 1996, Ryoei Saito died. It is known for certain that the painting was not burned, but where exactly it is now is unknown. It is believed that the artist painted 2 versions of the painting.
However, this is just one fact from the history of “Portrait of Doctor Gachet.” It is known that after the exhibition “Degenerate Art” in Munich in 1938, the Nazi Goering acquired this painting for his collection. True, he soon sold it to a certain Dutch collector, and then the painting ended up in the USA, where it remained until Saito acquired it.
Van Gogh is one of the most kidnapped artists
In December 2013, the FBI published the top 10 high-profile thefts of ingenious works of art with the goal that the public could help solve the crimes. The most valuable on this list are 2 paintings by Van Gogh – “View of the Sea at Schevingen” and “Church at Newnen”, which are estimated at $30 million each. Both of these paintings were stolen in 2002 from the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It is known that two men were arrested as suspects in the theft, but their guilt could not be proven.
In 2013, Vincent van Gogh’s “Poppies,” which experts value at $50 million, was stolen from the Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Egypt due to management negligence. The painting has not yet been returned.
Van Gogh's ear may have been cut off by Gauguin
The story with the ear raises doubts among many biographers of Vincent Van Gogh. The fact is that if the artist cut off his ear at the root, he would die from loss of blood. Only the artist's earlobe was cut off. There is a record of this in the surviving medical report.
There is a version that the incident with the cut off ear occurred during a quarrel between Van Gogh and Gauguin. Gauguin, experienced in sailor fights, slashed Van Gogh in the ear, and he had a seizure from stress. Later, trying to whitewash himself, Gauguin came up with a story about how Van Gogh chased him in a fit of madness with a razor and crippled himself.
Unknown Van Gogh paintings are still found today
This fall, the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam identified a new painting by the great master. The painting “Sunset at Montmajour,” according to researchers, was painted by Van Gogh in 1888. What makes the find exceptional is the fact that the painting belongs to a period that art historians consider the pinnacle of the artist’s work. The discovery was made using methods such as comparison of style, paint, technique, computer analysis of the canvas, X-ray photographs and the study of Van Gogh's letters.
The painting “Sunset at Montmajour” is currently on display at the artist’s museum in Amsterdam in the exhibition “Van Gogh at Work.”