Vincent Van Gogh
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1853 |
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Vincent Willem van Gogh is born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, in the south of the Netherlands, as the oldest son
of Theodorus van Gogh, a preacher and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. Four years later, in 1857,Vincent's favorite brother,
Theodorus (Theo), is born.
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1869 |
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At the age of 16, in July 1869, Vincent starts an apprenticeship at Goupil & Cie, international art dealers with
headquarters in Paris. He works in the Hague at a branch gallery established by his uncle Vincent. In August
1872, from the Hague, Vincent begins writing letters to Theo. Their correspondence continues for almost 18 years.
Theo accepts a position at Goupil's in January 1873, working in Brussels before his transfer to the Hague a few
months later.
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Vincent van Gogh at age of 13.
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1873 |
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In June 1873, Vincent is moved to Goupil in London. Daily contact with works of art kindles his appreciation
of paintings and drawings. He admires the realistic paintings of peasant life by Jean-François Millet and
Jules Breton. Gradually Vincent loses interest in his work and turns to the Bible. He is transferred to
Paris, to London and Paris again, to then be dismissed from Goupil's in March 1876. Driven by a growing
desire to help his fellow man, he decides to become a clergyman.
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Vincent van Gogh at age of 19.
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1876 |
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Vincent returns to England in 1876 to work as a teacher and assistant preacher at a boarding school.
In November, Van Gogh delivers his first sermon. His interest in evangelical Christianity and ministering
to the poor becomes obsessional. Due to a lack of professional perspectives, he returns to Amsterdam in 1877.
When he is refused admittance in theology school, Vincent briefly enters a missionary school near Brussels and
in December 1878 leaves for the Borinage, a coal-mining area in southern Belgium, to work as a lay preacher. Vincent
identifies with the miners, sleeping on the floor and giving away his belongings. His extreme commitment draws
disfavor from the church and he is dismissed.
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1880 |
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Vincent's desire to be useful, transforms into the wish to become an artist while still be in God's service.
He writes: "To try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters,
tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God; one man wrote or told it in a book; another, in a picture."
Vincent moves to Brussels and studies independently, sometimes assisted by Dutch artist Anthon van Rappard. Because
Vincent has no livelihood, Theo, who is at Goupil's Paris branch, supports him. He did this regularly until the end
of Vincent's life. Because of that, Vincent considers his work as the fruit of their combined efforts.
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1881-1882 |
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When he decides to become an artist, nobody could have guessed his immense talent. With surprising speed,
the clumsy but enthousiastic apprentice develops a strong artistic personality with his color effects and
simple but unforgettable compositions. At his parents' house in Etten, he refines his drawing techniques.
Vincent leaves at the end of 1881 to rent a studio in La Hague.Vincent makes his first independent watercolor
and painted studies in the summer of 1882. His uncle Cornelis van Gogh commissions him to produce 12 views of The Hague.
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1883-1884 |
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In September 1883 Vincent travels to the province of Drenthe in the northeastern Netherlands. He paints
the landscape and peasants, but lonely and lacking proper materials, he soon leaves for Nuenen, in Brabant,
to live with his parents. Following in the footsteps of Millet and Breton, by 1884 Vincent resolves to be
a painter of peasant life. Tensions develop when Vincent accuses Theo of not making a sincere enough effort
to sell the paintings Vincent has begun to send him.
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Theo admonishes Vincent that his darkly colored paintings
are not in the current Parisian style, where Impressionist artists are now using a bright palette. In 1885,
Vincent completes the Potato Eaters, his first large-scale composition and first masterpiece.
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The potato Eaters / 1885 / Oil on canvas.
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1885 |
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After a long stay in the countryside of Brabant, Vincent leaves the Netherlands for the Belgian
city of Antwerp in November 1885. He will never return to his native country. Van Gogh is invigorated
by Antwerp's urbaneness: "I find here the friction of ideas I want." He has access to better art
supplies and is exposed to the collections of Dutch and Belgian art. Among the exotic goods entering
Europe through Antwerp are Japanese woodblock prints, which Vincent starts to collect. In January 1886,
Vincent enrolls in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp but he withdraws within two months.
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1886 |
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In early 1886, Vincent moves in with Theo in Montmartre. It is a crucial period of development for his
painting style. Theo, who manages the Montmartre branch of Goupil's (now called Boussod, Valadon & Cie),
acquaints Vincent with the works of Claude Monet and other Impressionists. Now he sees for himself how the
Impressionists handle light and color, and treat the town and country themes. He begins to meet the city's
modern artists, including Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Camille Pissarro. Vincent's Paris
work is an effort to assimilate the influences around him; his palette becomes brighter, his brushwork more broken.
Like the Impressionists, Vincent takes his subjects from the city's cafés and boulevards, and the open countryside
along the Seine River. Through Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, he discovers the stippling technique of Pointillism
"What is required in art nowadays," he writes, "is something very much alive, very strong in color, very much
intensified." Unable to afford models to perfect his skills, Vincent turns to his own image: "I deliberately bought
a good mirror so that if I lacked a model I could work from my own likeness." He paints at least 20 self-portraits
in Paris. His experiments in style and color can be read in the series. The earliest are executed in the grays
and browns of his Brabant period; these dark colors soon give way to yellows, reds, greens, and blues, and his
brushwork takes on the disconnected stroke of the Impressionists. To his sister he writes: "My intention is to
show that a variety of very different portraits can be made of the same person." One of the last portraits
Vincent paints in Paris, Self-Portrait as an Artist, is a dramatic illustration of his personal and artistic
identity. Vincent regularly paints outdoors in Asnières, a village near Paris where the Impressionists often
set up their easels. Later, he writes to his sister Wil: "And when I painted the landscape in Asnières this summer,
I saw more colors there than ever before."
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1887 |
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Among his new friends Vincent counts the painters he refers to as the "artists of the Petit Boulevard"
-- Toulouse-Lautrec, Signac, Bernard, and Louis Anquetin-artists who are younger and not as famous as
the Impressionists. He organizes a group show of his and his friends' paintings at a Paris restaurant.
The artists often gather at Père Tanguy's paint shop, where Vincent regularly sees Gauguin. Tanguy,
who generously advances supplies to many young artists, occasionally displays Vincent's paintings in his
store window. Vincent buys Japanese prints and studies them intensively. He arranges an exhibition of
Japanese woodcuts at a Paris café and his own work takes on the stylized contours and expressive
coloration of his Japanese examples.
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1888 |
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In early 1888, Vincent leaves for Provence in the south of France: "It appears to me to be
almost impossible to work in Paris." He rents a studio in Arles, the "Yellow House," and
invites Paul Gauguin to join him. In anticipation of his arrival, Vincent paints still
lifes of sunflowers to decorate Gauguin's room. Paul describes the paintings as "completely Vincent."
Inspired by the bright colors and strong light of Provence, Vincent executes painting after painting
in his own powerful language. "I am getting an eye for this kind of country," he writes to Theo.
Whereas in Paris his works covered a large range of subjects and techniques, the Arles paintings
are consistent in approach. Vincent enters a period of immense creative activity. He has little
to distract him from his painting, for he knows almost no one: "Whole days go by without my
speaking a single word to anyone." He befriends the local postman, Joseph Roulin, and paints
portraits of his entire family. Captivated by the spectacle of spring in Provence, Vincent
paints the blossoming fruit trees and later, in summer, scenes of rural life. He paints
outdoors, often in a single long session: "Working directly on the spot all the time, I
tried to grasp what is essential." He identifies each season and subject with specific colors:
"The orchards stand for pink and white, the wheatfields for yellow." Color also becomes an expressive,
emotional tool. For "Bedroom in Arles", he depicts his room with a stark simplicity, using uniform
patches of complimentary orange and blue, yellow and violet, red and green.
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To Gauguin he writes:
"I wanted all these different colors to express a totally restful feeling." Gauguin finally arrives
in Arles in October, painting and discussing art for nine weeks with Vincent. Paul makes a portrait
of Vincent in front of one of his sunflower canvases, which Vincent describes as "certainly me, but
me gone mad."
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Paul Gauguin / Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers / 1888 / Oil on canvas
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Personal tensions grow between the two men. In December, Vincent experiences a psychotic
episode in which he threatens Gauguin with a razor and later cuts off a piece of his own left ear.
He is admitted to a hospital in Arles and stays there through January of 1889. Theo, in Paris,
marries Johanna Bonger in the spring.
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1889 |
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After his discharge from the hospital in Arles, he voluntarily admits himself to the
psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy, 15 miles from Arles. He attributes his breakdown
to excessive alcohol and tobacco, giving up neither. Fearful of a relapse, in May 1889
he writes: "I wish to remain shut up as much for my own peace of mind as for other people's."
The admitting physician notes that Vincent suffers from "acute mania with hallucinations of
sight and hearing." Although subject to intermittent attacks, Vincent converts an
adjacent cell into a studio, where he produces 150 paintings. Vincent paints the world
he sees from his room, deleting the bars that obscure his view. In the hospital's walled
garden he paints irises, lilacs, and ivy-covered trees. Later he is allowed to venture
farther afield, and he paints the wheatfields, olive groves, and cypress trees of the
surrounding countryside. The imposed regimen of asylum life gives Vincent a hard-won stability.
When losing the confidence to execute original works, Vincent regains his bearings by painting
copies after his favorite artists, including Millet, Rembrandt and Delacroix. He makes more than
twenty copies of Millet's peasant scenes, and reinvents Delacroix's Pieta, in which the bearded
Christ bears some resemblance to himself. After one particularly violent attack, in which he
tries to poison himself by swallowing paint, Vincent is forced to restrict himself to drawing.
While in Arles and Saint-Rémy, Vincent sends his canvases to Theo in Paris. Despite his illness,
he paints one masterwork after another, including Irises, Cypresses, and The Starry Night. Theo
encourages his brother: "They have an intensity of color you have not attained before . . . but
you have gone even further than that. . . . I see that you have achieved in many of your canvases . . .
the quintessence of your thoughts about nature and living beings." Others are beginning to notice
Vincent's work, too. The progressive Belgian artists' group "Les Vingt" includes six of his paintings
in their 1890 exhibition. When Vincent exhibits recent work at the Salon des Indépendants - two canvases
in 1889 and ten in 1890 - friends in Paris assure him of their success. "Many artists think your work
has been the most striking at the exhibition," writes Gauguin. Theo's son, Vincent Willem van Gogh, is born in January 1890.
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1890 |
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After his long period of confinement at Saint-Rémy, Vincent leaves for Auvers-sur-Oise
near Paris in May 1890. Though removed from the immoderate pace of life in Paris, he
is close enough that he can easily visit Theo. Vincent places himself in the care of Paul
Gachet, a homeopathic physician and himself an amateur painter. Vincent warms to Gachet immediately,
writing to Theo that he had "found a perfect friend in Dr. Gachet, something like another brother."
Gachet advises Vincent to concentrate entirely on his painting. Vincent paints portraits of his
new acquaintances and the surrounding landscape, including nearby wheatfields and the garden of
the painter Daubigny. Working with great intensity, he produces nearly a painting a day over the
next two months. Vincent briefly enjoys a peaceful, mentally stable period. In early July Vincent
visits Theo in Paris. Theo is considering setting up his own business, and he warns Vincent that
they will all have to tighten their belts. Strongly affected by Theo's dissatisfaction, Vincent
grows increasingly tense: "My life is also threatened at the very root, and my steps are also
wavering."
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On July 27, 1890, Vincent walks to a wheatfield and shoots himself in the chest.
He stumbles back to his lodging, where he dies two days later, on July 29, with Theo at his side.
He is buried in Auvers on July 30. Among the mourners are Lucien Pissarro, Emile Bernard, and
Père Tanguy. Bernard describes how Vincent's coffin is covered with yellow flowers, "his favorite color
. . . . Close by, too, his easel, his camp stool, and his brushes had been placed on the ground beside the coffin."
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Vincent and Theo van Gogh's grave site: Auvers-sur-Oise, France
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Vincent's paintings are left to Theo, but his true legacy will be realized in his
powerful influence on artists of the twentieth century. Theo holds a memorial exhibition
of Vincent's paintings in September 1890 in his Paris apartment. His own health suffers
a precipitous decline, and on January 25, 1891, Theo dies. His widow returns to the
Netherlands with their infant son and her husband's legacy, the collection of Vincent's
paintings. After Johanna's death in 1925 the collection is inherited by her son, Vincent
Willem van Gogh (1890-1978). On the initiative of the Dutch state, which pledges to build
a museum devoted to Van Gogh, Vincent Willem van Gogh, in 1962, transfers the works he owns
to the newly formed Vincent van Gogh Foundation. Construction of the museum building, designed
by the modernist Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld, begins in 1969. The museum officially opens
its doors in 1973. Since then, the building houses the largest collection of works by Vincent
van Gogh, on loan from the Vincent van Gogh Foundation.
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