Vincent van Gogh, who gave the world his "Sunflowers" and "Starry Night", was one of the greatest artists of all time. A small grave in the French countryside became his final resting place. He fell asleep forever among those landscapes that Van Gogh left on his own - an artist who will never be forgotten. For the sake of art, he sacrificed everything ...

A unique talent gifted by nature

"There is something of a delightful symphony in color." There was a creative genius behind these words. Moreover, he was intelligent and sensitive. The whole depth and style of this man's life is often misunderstood. Van Gogh, whose biography has been carefully studied by many generations, is the most incomprehensible creator in the history of art.

First of all, the reader must understand that Vincent is not only the one who went crazy and shot himself. Many people know that Van Gogh cut off his ear, and someone knows that he painted a whole series of paintings about sunflowers. But there are very few who really understand what talent Vincent possessed, what a unique gift he was awarded by nature.

The sad birth of a great creator

On March 30, 1853, the cry of a newborn child cut through the silence. The long-awaited baby was born in the family of Anna Cornelia and pastor Theodore Van Gogh. It happened a year after the tragic death of their first child, who died within hours of being born. When registering this baby, identical data were indicated, and the long-awaited son was given the name of the lost child - Vincent William.

Thus began the saga of one of the world's most famous artists in the rural wilderness of the south of the Netherlands. His birth was associated with sad events. It was a child conceived after a bitter loss, born to people who were still mourning their dead firstborn.

Vincent's childhood

Every Sunday, this red-haired freckled boy went to church, where he listened to his parent's sermons. His father was a minister of the Dutch Protestant Church, and Vincent van Gogh grew up in accordance with the standards of education adopted in religious families.

In Vincent's time, there was an unspoken rule. The eldest son must follow in the footsteps of his father. This is how it should have happened. This placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of the young Van Gogh. While the boy sat on the pew, listening to his father's sermons, he fully understood what was expected of him. And, of course, then Vincent van Gogh, whose biography had not yet been connected with art in any way, did not know that in the future he would decorate his father's Bible with illustrations.

Between art and religion

The Church occupied an important place in Vincent's life and had a great influence on him. Being a sensitive and impressionable person, throughout his restless life he was torn between religious zeal and a craving for art.

In 1857 his brother Theo was born. None of the boys knew then that Theo would play a big role in Vincent's life. They spent many happy days. We walked for a long time among the surrounding fields and knew all the paths around.

The giftedness of young Vincent

Nature in the rural outback, where Vincent van Gogh was born and raised, would later become a red thread running through all his art. The hard work of the peasants left a deep impression in his soul. He developed a romantic perception of rural life, respected the inhabitants of this area and was proud of their neighborhood. After all, they earned their living by honest and hard work.

Vincent van Gogh was a man who adored everything related to nature. He saw beauty in everything. The boy often drew and did it with such feeling and attention to detail, which are more often characteristic of a more mature age. He demonstrated the skills and craftsmanship of an experienced artist. Vincent was truly gifted.

Communication with mother and her love for art

Vincent's mother, Anna Cornelia, was a good artist and strongly supported her son's love for nature. He often took walks alone, enjoying the peace and tranquility of the endless fields and canals. When twilight was gathering and the fog was falling, Van Gogh returned to a cozy house, where the fire crackled pleasantly and his mother's knitting needles pounded in time with him.

She loved art and carried on an extensive correspondence. Vincent adopted this habit of hers. He wrote letters until the end of his days. Thanks to this, Van Gogh, whose biography began to be studied by specialists after his death, could not only reveal his feelings, but also recreate many of the events associated with his life.

Mother and son spent long hours together. They drew with a pencil and paints, had lengthy conversations about the love of art and nature that united them. Father, meanwhile, was in the office, preparing for the Sunday sermon in the church.

Rural life away from politics

The imposing Zundert administration building was directly opposite their house. Once Vincent drew buildings, looking out of the window of his bedroom, located on the top floor. Later, he more than once depicted the scenes seen from this window. Looking at his talented drawings of that period, one can hardly believe that he was only nine years old.

Contrary to the expectations of his father, a passion for drawing and nature took root in the boy. He had amassed an impressive collection of insects and knew how they were all called in Latin. Very soon, the ivy and moss of the damp dense forest became his friends. In the depths of his soul, he was a true rural boy, explored the Zundert canals, caught tadpoles with a net.

Van Gogh's life took place away from politics, wars and all other events taking place in the world. His world was formed around beautiful colors, interesting, and peaceful landscapes.

Communication with peers or home education?

Unfortunately, special treatment to nature made him an outcast among other village children. He was not popular. The rest of the boys were mostly the sons of peasants, they loved the turmoil of rural life. Sensitive and sensitive Vincent, who was interested in books and nature, did not fit into their society.

The life of the young Van Gogh was not easy. His parents were worried that other boys would be a bad influence on his behavior. Then, unfortunately, Pastor Theodore found out that Vincent's teacher was too fond of drinking, and then the parents decided that the child should be spared such influence. Until the age of eleven, the boy studied at home, and then his father decided that he needed to get a more serious education.

Further education: boarding school

Young Van Gogh, whose biography, interesting facts and personal life are of interest to a huge number of people today, is sent in 1864 to a boarding school in Zevenbergen. This is a small village, located about twenty-five kilometers from home. But for Vincent, she was like the other end of the world. The boy was sitting in a wagon next to his parents, and the closer the walls of the boarding school approached, the heavier his heart became. Soon he will part with his family.

Vincent will yearn for his home all his life. Isolation from relatives left a deep imprint on his life. Van Gogh was a smart child and was drawn to knowledge. While studying at a boarding school, he showed great ability for languages, and this later came in handy in his life. Vincent spoke and wrote fluently in French, English, Dutch and German. This is how Van Gogh spent his childhood. A brief biography of a young age could not convey all those character traits that were laid down from childhood and later influenced the fate of the artist.

Education in Tilburg, or an incomprehensible story that happened to a boy

In 1866, the boy was thirteen years old, and elementary education came to an end. Vincent became a very serious young man, in whose eyes one could read boundless longing. He is sent even further away from home, to Tilburg. He begins his studies at a public boarding school. Here Vincent first got acquainted with city life.

Four hours a week were allotted for the study of art, which was a rarity in those days. This subject was taught by Mr. Heismans. He was a successful artist and ahead of his time. As models for the work of his students, he used figurines of people and stuffed animals. The teacher also encouraged in children the desire to paint landscapes and even took the children to nature.

Everything went well and Vincent passed his first year exams with ease. But over the next year, something went wrong. Van Gogh's attitude to study and work has changed dramatically. Therefore, in March 1868, he leaves school right in the middle of the school period and comes home. What did Vincent van Gogh experience at the Tilburg school? A brief biography of this period, unfortunately, does not provide any information about this. And yet, these events left a deep imprint on the soul of the young man.

Choice of life path

There was a long pause in Vincent's life. At home he spent fifteen long months, not daring to choose one or the other. life path. When he turned sixteen, he wanted to find his calling so that he could devote his whole life to it. The days passed in vain, he needed to find a purpose. The parents understood that something needed to be done and turned to the father's brother, who lives in The Hague, for help. He ran an art trading firm and could have gotten Vincent a job. This idea turned out to be brilliant.

If the young man shows diligence, he will become the heir of his rich uncle, who did not have his own children. Vincent, tired of the leisurely life of his native places, is happy to go to The Hague, the administrative center of Holland. In the summer of 1869, Van Gogh, whose biography will now be directly related to art, begins his career.

Vincent became an employee at Goupil. His mentor lived in France and collected works by artists of the Barbizon school. At that time in this country they were fond of landscapes. Van Gogh's uncle dreamed of the appearance of such masters in Holland. He becomes the inspirer of the Hague School. Vincent had the opportunity to meet many artists.

Art is the main thing in life

Having become acquainted with the affairs of the firm, Van Gogh had to learn how to negotiate with clients. And while Vincent was a junior employee, he picked up the clothes of people who came to the gallery, served as a porter. The young man was inspired by the world of art around him. One of the artists of the Barbizon school was his canvas "The Gatherers" resonated in Vincent's soul. It became a kind of icon for the artist until the very end of his life. Millet depicted peasants at work in a special manner that was close to Van Gogh.

In 1870, Vincent met Anton Mauve, who eventually became his close friend. Van Gogh was a taciturn, reserved man, prone to depression. He sincerely sympathized with people who were less fortunate in life than he was. Vincent took his father's preaching very seriously. After a working day, he went to private theology classes.

Another passion of Van Gogh was books. He is fond of French history and poetry, and also becomes a fan English writers. In March 1871, Vincent turns eighteen. By this time, he had already realized that art was a very important part of his life. His younger brother Theo was fifteen at the time, and he came to Vincent for the holidays. This trip left a deep impression on both of them.

They even made a promise that they would take care of each other for the rest of their lives, no matter what happened. From this period, an active correspondence begins, which is conducted by Theo and Van Gogh. The artist's biography will subsequently be replenished with important facts precisely thanks to these letters. Before today 670 messages from Vincent arrived.

Trip to London. Important stage of life

Vincent spent four years in The Hague. It's time to move on. After saying goodbye to friends and colleagues, he prepared to leave for London. This stage of life will become very important for him. Vincent soon settled in the English capital. The Goupil branch was located in the heart of the business district. Chestnut trees with spreading branches grew in the streets. Van Gogh loved these trees and often mentioned it in his letters to his relatives.

A month later, his knowledge of English expanded. The masters of art intrigued him, he liked Gainsborough and Turner, but he remained true to the art he had come to love in The Hague. To save money, Vincent moves out of the apartment rented for him by the Goupil firm in the market district and rents a room in a new Victorian house.

He enjoyed living with Mrs. Ursula. The owner of the house was a widow. She and her nineteen-year-old daughter Evgenia rented rooms and teaching activities so that at least somehow Over time, Vincent began to have very deep feelings for Eugenia, but did not betray them in any way. He could write about this only to his relatives.

Severe psychological shock

Dickens was one of Vincent's idols. He was deeply affected by the death of the writer, and he expressed all his pain in a symbolic drawing made shortly after such a sad event. It was an image of an empty chair. who became very famous, painted a large number of such chairs. For him, it became a symbol of the departure of a person.

Vincent describes the first year in London as one of his happiest. He was in love with absolutely everything and still dreamed of Eugene. She won his heart. Van Gogh tried his best to please her, offering his help in various matters. After some time, Vincent nevertheless confessed his feelings to the girl and announced that they should get married. But Evgenia refused him, as she was already secretly engaged. Van Gogh was devastated. His dream of love was shattered.

He withdrew into himself, spoke little at work and at home. Was eating little. The realities of life dealt Vincent a heavy psychological blow. He begins to paint again, and this partly helps him find peace and distracts him from the heavy thoughts and shock that Van Gogh experienced. Paintings gradually heal the artist's soul. The mind was consumed by creativity. He went to another dimension, which is characteristic of many creative people.

A change of scenery. Paris and homecoming

Vincent became lonely again. He began to pay more attention to the street beggars and ragamuffins inhabiting the slums of London, and this only increased his depression. He wanted to change something. At work, he showed apathy, which began to seriously disturb his management.

It was decided to send him to the Paris branch of the firm, in order to change the situation and, perhaps, dispel the depression. But even there, Van Gogh could not recover from loneliness and already in 1877 returned home to work as a priest in the church, leaving his ambitions to become an artist.

A year later, Van Gogh receives a position as parish priest in a mining village. It was a thankless job. The life of the miners made a great impression on the artist. He decided to share their fate and even began to dress like them. Church officials were concerned about his behavior and two years later he was removed from office. But the time spent in the country had a beneficial effect. Life among the miners awakened in Vincent a special talent, and he began to paint again. He created a huge number of sketches of men and women carrying sacks of coal. Van Gogh finally decided for himself to become an artist. It was from this moment that a new period began in his life.

Regular bouts of depression and returning home

The artist Van Gogh, whose biography repeatedly mentions that his parents refused to supply him with money due to instability in his career, was a beggar. He was helped by his younger brother Theo, who was selling paintings in Paris. Over the next five years, Vincent perfected his technique. Equipped with his brother's money, he goes on a trip to the Netherlands. Makes sketches, paints in oils and watercolors.

Wanting to find his own pictorial style, in 1881 Van Gogh ended up in The Hague. Here he rents an apartment near the sea. This was the beginning of a long relationship between the artist and his environment. During periods of despair and depression, nature was part of Vincent's life. She was for him the personification of the struggle for existence. He had no money, he often went hungry. Parents, who did not approve of the artist's lifestyle, completely turned away from him.

Theo arrives in The Hague and convinces his brother to return home. At the age of thirty, a beggar and full of despair, Van Gogh arrives at his parents' house. There he sets up a small workshop for himself and begins to make sketches of local residents and buildings. During this period, his palette becomes muted. Van Gogh's paintings come out all in gray-brown tones. AT winter time people have more time, and the artist uses them as his models.

It was at this time that sketches of the hands of farmers and people picking potatoes appeared in Vincent's work. - Van Gogh's first significant painting, which he painted in 1885, at the age of thirty-two. The most important detail of the work are the hands of people. Strong, accustomed to working in the field, harvesting. The talent of the artist finally broke out.

Impressionism and Van Gogh. Self-portrait photo

In 1886 Vincent comes to Paris. Financially, he also continues to depend on his brother. Here, in the capital of world art, Van Gogh is struck by a new trend - the Impressionists. Is born new artist. He creates a huge number of self-portraits, landscapes and sketches of everyday life. His palette is also changing, but the main changes have affected the technique of writing. Now he draws with broken lines, short strokes and dots.

The cold and gloomy winter of 1887 affected the artist's condition, and he again fell into depression. The time spent in Paris had a huge impact on Vincent, but he felt it was time to get back on the road. He went to the south of France, to the provinces. Here Vincent begins to write like a man possessed. His palette is full of bright colors. Sky blue, bright yellow and orange. As a result, canvases juicy in color appeared, thanks to which the artist became famous.

Van Gogh suffered bouts of severe hallucinations. He felt like he was going crazy. The disease increasingly affected his work. In 1888, Theo persuaded Gauguin, with whom Van Gogh was on very friendly terms, to go visit his brother. Paul lived with Vincent for two exhausting months. They often quarreled, and once Van Gogh even attacked Paul with a blade in his hand. Vincent soon self-mutilated by cutting off his own ear. He was sent to the hospital. It was one of the strongest bouts of insanity.

Soon, on July 29, 1890, Vincent van Gogh died by suicide. He lived a life of poverty, obscurity and isolation, and remained unrecognized artist. But now he is revered all over the world. Vincent became a legend, and his work influenced subsequent generations of artists.

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1953 in Grot-Zundert in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, in the family of the Protestant pastor Theodor van Gogh. His mother Anna Cornelia was from The Hague, where her father ran a bookstore. In addition to Vincent, the family had six more children. Of all the children, the younger brother Theodorus (Theo) can be noted, he was four years younger than Vincent and the brothers were closely connected all their lives. At the age of seven, Vincent was sent to a village school, but a year later, his parents transferred their son to home education. Since October 1, 1864, Vincent has been studying at a boarding school in Zevenbergen, located 20 km from his parents' house. Two years later, on September 15, 1866, Van Gogh was transferred to the boarding college named after Willem II in Tilburg. Already in 1868, Vincent left this educational institution. Although by all indications, learning was easy for him, Vincent easily mastered three languages ​​- German, French and English, he recalled this period of his life as something gloomy, empty and cold.
Since July 1869, Van Gogh began work in the Hague branch of Goupil & Cie, owned by his uncle Vincent, the company is engaged in the sale of works of art. For the first three years of work as an art dealer.

Vincent Van Gogh
1866

Vincent settled in well, constant work with paintings plus frequent visits to local museums / art galleries made Van Gogh a good expert with his opinion. The works of Jean-Francois Millet and Jules Breton were very significant for the artist, and he repeatedly wrote this in his letters. In 1873, Vincent was sent to work for the London branch of Goupil & Cie. In London, he is defeated on a personal front, a certain Carolina Haanebik, with whom Van Gogh was in love, rejects his proposal. Vincent is greatly shaken, he devotes less time to work and more to Bible study. In 1874, Vincent was sent for three months to the Paris branch of the company, upon his return to London, the artist became even more isolated. In the spring of 1875, Van Gogh again in the Paris branch, he begins to paint himself, very often visits the Louvre and the Salon. The work finally fades into the background and in 1876 Vincent was fired from Goupil & Cie.
Van Gogh returns to England, where he takes an unpaid position as a teacher at a school in Ramsgate. In the summer of 1876 he moved to a school in Isleworth, near London, as a teacher and assistant pastor. Perhaps at this moment it comes to the idea to continue following in the footsteps of his father and become a preacher for the poor, there are different opinions about the motives for such a choice. In early November 1876, Vincent read his first sermon to the parishioners, describing it in his letter to his brother. In December 1876, Van Gogh visits his parents for Christmas, they persuade him not to return to England. In the spring, Vincent gets a job in a bookshop in Dordrecht, Van Gogh has no interest in working in the shop, he is more often busy with his sketches and translating texts from the Bible into French, German and English. From May 1877 to June 1878 Vincent lived in Amsterdam with his uncle, Admiral Jan van Gogh. With the help of another relative of his, the famous theologian Johannes Stricker, Vincent has been preparing all this time to enter the theological faculty. In July 1878, Vincent entered the preaching course at the Protestant missionary school of pastor Bokma in Laeken near Brussels, there are versions that Van Gogh was expelled from this course before his graduation, due to his temper. From December 1878 to the summer of 1879 Van Gogh became a very active missionary in the village of Patuage in the Borinage, in a very poor mining area in southern Belgium. Different researchers of Van Gogh's life have different assessments of Vincent's involvement in the hard life of the local population, but the fact that he was very active and persistent is undeniable. In the evenings, Vincent drew maps of Palestine, and this is how he tried to earn his living. The stormy activity of the young missionary did not go unnoticed, and the local Evangelical Society offered him a salary of fifty francs. By the autumn of 1879, two circumstances had developed that knocked Vincent off balance and put an end to his desire to become a preacher. Firstly, tuition fees were introduced in the evangelical school, and according to some versions, it was the possibility of free education that became the reason why Van Gogh suffered six months of deprivation in Paturazh. Secondly, Vincent wrote a letter to the mine board on behalf of the miners about improving working conditions, the mine management was dissatisfied with the letter, and the local Committee of the Protestant Church removed Vincent from his post.

Vincent Van Gogh
1872

Being in a difficult emotional state, Vincent, with the support of his brother Theo, decides to take up painting seriously, for which he goes to Brussels in early 1880, where he attends classes at the Royal Academy fine arts. After a year of classes, Vincent returns to his parents' house. There he falls in love with his cousin, the widow Kay Vos-Stricker, who was visiting his parents. But all those close to him are against his passion, and Vincent, having lost faith in arranging his personal life, goes to The Hague, where he is drawn into painting with renewed vigor. Van Gogh's mentor was his distant relative, the artist of the Hague school Anton Mauve. Vincent writes a lot, because he himself adhered to the idea that in painting the main thing is not talent, but constant practice and diligence. Another attempt to create a semblance of a family fails miserably. Since his chosen one is a pregnant street woman Christine, whom Vincent met on the street. For a while she became his model, her difficult nature and his impulsive nature could not exist side by side. Communication with Christine was the last straw, Van Gogh broke off relations with relatives, except for Theo. The artist goes to the province of Drenthe, in the south of the Netherlands. There, the artist rents a house, which he uses as a workshop. Doing a lot of work bias towards portraits and scenes of the life of peasants. The first significant work, The Potato Eaters, was created in Drenthe. Until the autumn of 1885, Vincent worked hard, but the artist had a conflict with the local pastor and Van Gogh soon left for Antwerp. In Antwerp, Vincent again goes to painting classes, this time at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In February 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris to live with his brother Theo, who was already successfully working as an art dealer at Goupil & Cie. Vincent begins attending classes with the famous teacher Fernand Cormon, where he studies the techniques of impressionism and Japanese prints that were fashionable at that time. Through his brother, he meets Camille Pissarro, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard, Paul Gauguin and Edgar Degas. The most important thing for Van Gogh in Paris is that he falls into his environment and this gives a strong impetus to his development. In Paris, Vincent arranges his "exhibition" in the interior of the Tambourine cafe, owned by the Italian Agostina Sagatori - she was the model for several of Van Gogh's works. Vincent received a lot of negative feedback on his work and this prompted him to further study the theory of color (based on the work of Eugene Delacroix). The palette in Van Gogh's works changes to a lighter and richer one, bright and pure colors appear. Despite the fact that the level of Van Gogh's skill has grown his work is not in demand, this fact constantly frustrates the artist. In Paris, Vincent created more than two hundred and thirty works.
By February 1888, Vincent, driven by the idea of ​​​​creating a brotherhood of artists "Workshop of the South", went to the south of France in Arles. With the advent of spring, Van Gogh begins to work hard, not forgetting his idea from the "Workshop of the South". In the eyes of Vincent, one of key figures The brotherhood of artists was supposed to be Paul Gauguin, and therefore Van Gogh constantly writes to Gauguin with invitations to come to Arles. Gauguin refused to be persuaded to come, often referring to financial difficulties, but in the end, on October 25, 1888, he arrived in Arles to Van Gogh. The artist very often work together, but their speed and approach to work differ. Perhaps the fundamental point in the conflict between the two artists was the issue of the "Workshop of the South", but nevertheless, on December 23, 1888, an event took place that is known to everyone. After another quarrel with Gauguin, Vincent appeared in one of the nightclubs of Arles and handed a handkerchief with part of his earlobe to a woman named Rachel, after which he left.

Perhaps this is a photograph of Vincent van Gogh
1886

In the morning, the police found Vincent in his room in a serious condition, in the opinion of the police, Van Gogh was a danger to himself and others. Vincent was rushed to the Arles hospital. Gauguin left Arles on the same day, informing his brother Theo about what had happened.
There are several versions of what happened - perhaps this behavior of Van Gogh was caused by the frequent use of absinthe, perhaps this is a consequence of a mental disorder, perhaps this was done by Vincent in a fit of repentance. There is a version that Gauguin (being rather sharp and having experience as a sailor) cut off part of Van Gogh's earlobe in a skirmish; recently discovered diaries of Rachel herself, who knew both artists well, speak in favor of this version. In the hospital, Vincent's condition worsened and he was placed in a ward with violent patients diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. After the incident with Van Gogh's ear, about a week had passed and Vincent had almost returned to normal. Van Gogh is recovering quickly and is ready to work. Meanwhile, in March, about thirty residents of Arles write a complaint to the mayor of the city with a request to save them from the company of Vincent van Gogh. The artist is urged to go for treatment. In early May 1889, Van Gogh goes to the asylum for the mentally ill of St. Paul of Mausoleum near Saint-Remy-de-Provence. There he has the opportunity to work under the supervision of staff, some paintings of that period were made within the walls of the clinic, one of the most famous "Starry Night" . In total, during his stay in Saint-Remy, the artist created more than one hundred and fifty works. Van Gogh's condition in the clinic changes with periods from recovery and intensive work, to apathy and a deep crisis, at the end of 1889 the artist attempts suicide by swallowing colors.
Vincent leaves the clinic in the first half of May 1890, visits Paris for three days, where he stays with Theo and meets his wife and son, and then moves to Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris. In Auvers, Vincent rents a hotel room, but after a while he decides to move to the four Ravou's cafe, where a small room in the attic was rented out. July 27, 1890 Vincent van Gogh goes to the fields to work in the open air. But a few hours later he returns with a wound to his room at Ravu. He tells the Ravs that he shot himself and they call Dr. Gachet. The doctor reports the incident to his brother Theo, who arrives immediately. For what reason no action was taken to save the wounded Van Gogh is unknown, but on the night of July 29, 1890, Vincent Van Gogh died from blood loss. Vincent's tomb is located in Auvers-sur-Oise. Brother Theo spent all this time with Vincent. Theo himself survived Vincent by only six months and died in the Netherlands. In 1914, Theo's ashes were reburied next to Vincent's grave, and Theo's wife planted ivy on the grave, as a sign of the inseparability of the two brothers. The colossal fame of Vincent has a strong foundation - his brother Theo, it was he who constantly supplied Vincent with funds and sometimes directed his brother. Without Theo's efforts, no one would ever have known about the brilliant Dutchman Vincent van Gogh.

Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch. Vincent Willem van Gogh). Born March 30, 1853 in Grot-Zundert near Breda (Netherlands) - died July 29, 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise (France). Dutch post-impressionist painter.

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the village of Grot-Zundert (Dutch. Groot Zundert) in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, not far from the Belgian border. Vincent's father was Theodor van Gogh (born February 8, 1822), a Protestant pastor, and his mother was Anna Cornelia Carbentus, the daughter of a respected bookbinder and bookseller from The Hague.

Vincent was the second of seven children of Theodore and Anna Cornelia. He received his name in honor of his paternal grandfather, who also devoted his whole life to the Protestant church. This name was intended for the first child of Theodore and Anna, who was born a year before Vincent and died on the first day. So Vincent, although he was born the second, became the eldest of the children.

Four years after Vincent's birth, on May 1, 1857, his brother Theodorus van Gogh (Theo) was born. In addition to him, Vincent had a brother Cor (Cornelis Vincent, May 17, 1867) and three sisters - Anna Cornelia (February 17, 1855), Liz (Elizabeth Hubert, May 16, 1859) and Wil (Willemina Jacob, March 16, 1862).

Vincent was remembered by his family as a wayward, difficult and boring child with "strange manners", which was the reason for his frequent punishments. According to the governess, there was something strange about him that distinguished him from others: of all the children, Vincent was less pleasant to her, and she did not believe that something worthwhile could come out of him.

Outside the family, on the contrary, Vincent showed the opposite side of his character - he was quiet, serious and thoughtful. He hardly played with other children. In the eyes of his fellow villagers, he was a good-natured, friendly, helpful, compassionate, sweet and modest child. When he was 7 years old, he went to a village school, but a year later he was taken away from there, and together with his sister Anna, he studied at home, with a governess. On October 1, 1864, he left for a boarding school in Zevenbergen, located 20 km from his home.

Departure from home caused much suffering to Vincent, he could not forget this, even as an adult. On September 15, 1866, he began his studies at another boarding school - Willem II College in Tilburg. Vincent is good at languages ​​- French, English, German. There he received drawing lessons. In March 1868, in the middle of the school year, Vincent suddenly left school and returned to his father's house. This concludes his formal education. He recalled his childhood like this: "My childhood was gloomy, cold and empty ...".

In July 1869, Vincent got a job in the Hague branch of a large art and trading company Goupil & Cie, owned by his uncle Vincent ("Uncle Saint"). There he received the necessary training as a dealer. Initially, the future artist set to work with great zeal, achieved good results, and in June 1873 he was transferred to the London branch of Goupil & Cie. Through daily contact with works of art, Vincent began to understand and appreciate painting. In addition, he visited the city's museums and galleries, admiring the work of Jean-Francois Millet and Jules Breton. At the end of August, Vincent moved to 87 Hackford Road and rented a room in the home of Ursula Leuer and her daughter Eugenia.

There is a version that he was in love with Eugenia, although many early biographers mistakenly call her the name of her mother, Ursula. Adding to this decades-old naming confusion, recent research suggests that Vincent was not in love with Eugenia at all, but with a German woman named Caroline Haanebiek. What actually happened remains unknown. The refusal of the beloved shocked and disappointed the future artist; gradually he lost interest in his work and began to turn to the Bible.

In 1874, Vincent was transferred to the Paris branch of the firm, but after three months work, he again leaves for London. Things were getting worse for him, and in May 1875 he was again transferred to Paris, where van Gogh visited exhibitions at the Salon and the Louvre and eventually began to try his hand at painting himself. Gradually, this occupation began to take more time from him, and Vincent finally lost interest in work, deciding for himself that "art has no worse enemies than art dealers." As a result, at the end of March 1876, he was fired from Goupil & Cie due to poor performance, despite the patronage of relatives who co-owned the company.

In 1876 Vincent returned to England, where he found unpaid work as a boarding school teacher at Ramsgate. At the same time, he has a desire to become a priest, like his father. In July, Vincent moved to another school - in Isleworth (near London), where he worked as a teacher and assistant pastor. On November 4, Vincent delivered his first sermon. His interest in the gospel grew and he got the idea to preach to the poor.

Vincent went home for Christmas and was persuaded by his parents not to return to England. Vincent stayed in the Netherlands and worked for half a year in a bookstore in Dordrecht. This work was not to his liking; he spent much of his time sketching or translating passages from the Bible into German, English, and French.

Trying to support Vincent's desire to become a pastor, the family sends him in May 1877 to Amsterdam, where he settled with his uncle, Admiral Jan van Gogh. Here he studied diligently under the guidance of his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected and recognized theologian, in preparation for passing the university entrance examination for the department of theology. In the end, he became disillusioned with his studies, gave up his studies and left Amsterdam in July 1878. The desire to be useful to ordinary people sent him to the Protestant Missionary School of Pastor Bokma in Laeken near Brussels, where he completed a three-month sermon course (however, there is a version that he did not complete the full course of study and was expelled due to sloppy appearance, short temper and frequent fits of rage).

In December 1878, Vincent went for six months as a missionary to the village of Paturazh in Borinage, a poor mining area in southern Belgium, where he launched a tireless activity: he visited the sick, read the Scriptures to the illiterate, preached, taught children, and drew maps of Palestine at night to earn money. Such selflessness endeared him to the local population and members of the Evangelical Society, which resulted in the appointment of a salary of fifty francs to him. After completing a six-month period, Van Gogh intended to enroll in an evangelical school to continue his education, but considered the introduced tuition fees to be a manifestation of discrimination and refused to study. At the same time, Vincent turned to the management of the mines with a petition on behalf of the workers to improve their working conditions. The petition was rejected, and Van Gogh himself was removed from his position as a preacher by the Synodal Committee of the Protestant Church of Belgium. This was a serious blow to the emotional and mental state of the artist.

Fleeing from the depression caused by the events in Paturazh, Van Gogh again turned to painting, seriously thought about his studies, and in 1880, with the support of his brother Theo, he left for Brussels, where he began attending classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. However, a year later, Vincent dropped out and returned to his parents. During this period of his life, he believed that it was not at all necessary for an artist to have talent, the main thing was to work hard and hard, so he continued his studies on his own.

At the same time, van Gogh experienced a new love interest, falling in love with his cousin, the widow Kay Vos-Stricker, who was staying with her son in their house. The woman rejected his feelings, but Vincent continued courtship, which set all his relatives against him. As a result, he was asked to leave. Van Gogh, having experienced a new shock and having decided to forever abandon attempts to arrange his personal life, left for The Hague, where he plunged into painting with renewed vigor and began to take lessons from his distant relative, a representative of the Hague school of painting Anton Mauve. Vincent worked hard, studied the life of the city, especially the poor neighborhoods. Achieving interesting and surprising colors in his works, he sometimes resorted to mixing on one canvas. various techniques letters - chalk, pen, sepia, watercolors ("Backyards", 1882, pen, chalk and brush on paper, Kröller-Muller Museum, Otterlo; "Roofs. View from the Van Gogh Workshop", 1882, paper, watercolor, chalk, private collection of J. Renan, Paris).

In The Hague, the artist tried to start a family. This time, his chosen one was the pregnant street woman Christine, whom Vincent met right on the street and, driven by sympathy for her situation, offered to move in with him with the children. This act finally quarreled the artist with his friends and relatives, but Vincent himself was happy: he had a model. However, Christina turned out to be a difficult character, and soon family life Van Gogh has become a nightmare. They separated very soon. The artist could no longer stay in The Hague and headed to the north of the Netherlands, to the province of Drenthe, where he settled in a separate hut, equipped as a workshop, and spent whole days in nature, depicting landscapes. However, he was not very fond of them, not considering himself a landscape painter - many paintings of this period are dedicated to peasants, their daily work and life.

According to your topic early work van Gogh can be classified as realism, although the manner of execution and technique can be called realistic only with certain significant reservations. One of the many problems caused by the lack of art education that the artist faced was the inability to portray the human figure. In the end, this led to one of the fundamental features of his style - the interpretation of the human figure, devoid of smooth or measured graceful movements, as an integral part of nature, in some ways even becoming like it. This is very clearly seen, for example, in the painting “A Peasant and a Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes” (1885, Kunsthaus, Zurich), where the figures of the peasants are likened to rocks, and the high horizon line seems to press on them, not allowing them to straighten up or at least raise their heads. A similar approach to the theme can be seen in the later painting Red Vineyards (1888, State Museum fine arts them. A. S. Pushkin, Moscow).

In a series of paintings and studies of the mid-1880s. (“Exit from the Protestant Church in Nuenen” (1884-1885), “Peasant Woman” (1885, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo), “Potato Eaters” (1885, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), “Old Church Tower in Nuenen "(1885), written in a dark pictorial range, marked by a painfully acute perception of human suffering and feelings of depression, the artist recreated the oppressive atmosphere of psychological tension. At the same time, the artist also formed his own understanding of the landscape: an expression of his inner perception of nature through the analogy with man His artistic credo was his own words: "When you draw a tree, interpret it as a figure."

In the autumn of 1885, van Gogh unexpectedly left Drenthe due to the fact that a local pastor took up arms against him, forbidding the peasants to pose for the artist and accusing him of immorality. Vincent left for Antwerp, where he again began attending painting classes - this time in a painting class at the Academy of Arts. In the evenings, the artist attended a private school, where he painted nude models. However, already in February 1886, van Gogh left Antwerp for Paris to his brother Theo, who was engaged in the trade in works of art.

The Parisian period of Vincent's life began, which turned out to be very fruitful and rich in events. The artist visited the prestigious private art studio of Fernand Cormon, a teacher famous throughout Europe, studied impressionist painting, Japanese engraving, and synthetic works by Paul Gauguin. During this period, Van Gogh's palette became light, the earthy shade of paint disappeared, pure blue, golden yellow, red tones appeared, his characteristic dynamic, as if flowing brushstroke ("Agostina Segatori in the Tambourine Cafe" (1887-1888, Museum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam), "Bridge over the Seine" (1887, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), "Papa Tanguy" (1887, Rodin Museum, Paris), "View of Paris from Theo's apartment on Rue Lepic" (1887, The Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) A note of calmness and tranquility appeared in the work, caused by the influence of the Impressionists.

With some of them - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard - the artist met shortly after his arrival in Paris thanks to his brother. These acquaintances had the most beneficial effect on the artist: he found a kindred environment that appreciated him, enthusiastically took part in impressionist exhibitions - in the La Fourche restaurant, the Tambourine cafe, then in the lobby of the Free Theater. However, the public was horrified by van Gogh's paintings, which forced him to engage in self-education again - to study the theory of color by Eugene Delacroix, the textured painting of Adolphe Monticelli, Japanese color prints and planar oriental art in general. The Parisian period of his life accounts for the largest number of paintings created by the artist - about two hundred and thirty. Among them stand out a series of still lifes and self-portraits, a series of six canvases under the general title "Shoes" (1887, Art Museum, Baltimore), landscapes. The role of a person in van Gogh's paintings is changing - he is not at all, or he is a staffage. Air, atmosphere and rich color appear in the works, however, the artist conveyed the light-air environment and atmospheric nuances in his own way, dividing the whole without merging the forms and showing the “face” or “figure” of each element of the whole. A striking example of this approach is the painting "The Sea in St. Mary" (1888, State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin, Moscow). The artist's creative search led him to the origins of a new artistic style- post-impressionism.

In spite of creative growth van Gogh, the public still did not perceive and did not buy his paintings, which was very painfully perceived by Vincent. By mid-February 1888, the artist decided to leave Paris and move to the south of France - to Arles, where he intended to create the "Workshop of the South" - a kind of brotherhood of like-minded artists working for future generations. most important role in the future workshop, van Gogh gave Paul Gauguin. Theo supported the undertaking with money, and in the same year Vincent moved to Arles. There, the originality of his creative manner and artistic program were finally determined: "Instead of trying to accurately depict what is in front of my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily, so as to express myself most fully." The result of this program was an attempt to develop "a simple technique that, apparently, will not be impressionistic." In addition, Vincent began to synthesize pattern and color in order to more fully convey the very essence of local nature.

Although van Gogh declared a departure from impressionistic methods of depiction, the influence of this style was still very strongly felt in his paintings, especially in the transfer of light and air (“Peach Tree in Blossom”, 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo) or in the use of large coloristic spots (“Anglois Bridge in Arles”, 1888, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne). At this time, like the Impressionists, van Gogh created a series of works depicting the same species, however, achieving not the exact transmission of changing lighting effects and states, but the maximum intensity of the expression of the life of nature. His pen of this period also includes a number of portraits in which the artist tried out a new art form.

A fiery artistic temperament, a tormenting impulse towards harmony, beauty and happiness, and, at the same time, fear of forces hostile to man, are embodied in the landscapes shining with sunny colors of the south ("Yellow House" (1888), "Gauguin's Armchair" (1888), "Harvest. Valley of La Crau "(1888, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), then in ominous, reminiscent of a nightmare images ("Cafe Terrace at Night" (1888, Kröller-Muller Museum, Otterlo); the dynamics of color and stroke fills with spiritual life and movement not only nature and the people who inhabit it (“Red Vineyards in Arles” (1888, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow)), but also inanimate objects (“Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles” (1888, Museum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam)), the artist’s paintings become more dynamic and intense in their color (“The Sower”, 1888, E. Bürle Foundation, Zurich), tragic in sound (“Night Cafe”, 1888, Art Gallery Yale University, New Haven; "Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles" (1888, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam).

On October 25, 1888, Paul Gauguin arrived in Arles to discuss the idea of ​​creating a southern painting workshop. However, a peaceful discussion very quickly turned into conflicts and quarrels: Gauguin was dissatisfied with the carelessness of Van Gogh, while Van Gogh himself was perplexed that Gauguin did not want to understand the very idea of ​​​​a single collective direction of painting in the name of the future. In the end, Gauguin, who was looking for peace in Arles for his work and did not find it, decided to leave. On the evening of December 23, after another quarrel, Van Gogh attacked a friend with a razor in his hands. Gauguin accidentally managed to stop Vincent. The whole truth about this quarrel and the circumstances of the attack is still unknown (in particular, there is a version that Van Gogh attacked the sleeping Gauguin, and the latter was saved from death only by the fact that he woke up on time), but on the same night the artist cut off his lobe ear. According to the generally accepted version, this was done in a fit of remorse; at the same time, some researchers believe that this was not remorse, but a manifestation of insanity caused by the frequent use of absinthe. The next day, December 24, Vincent was taken to a psychiatric hospital, where the attack recurred with such force that the doctors placed him in the ward for violent patients with a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy. Gauguin hurriedly left Arles without visiting Van Gogh in the hospital, having previously informed Theo about what had happened.

During periods of remission, Vincent asked to be released back to the studio in order to continue working, but the inhabitants of Arles wrote a statement to the mayor of the city with a request to isolate the artist from the rest of the inhabitants. Van Gogh was asked to go to the insane asylum of Saint-Remy-de-Provence, near Arles, where Vincent arrived on May 3, 1889. There he lived for a year, tirelessly working on new paintings. During this time, he created more than one hundred and fifty paintings and about a hundred drawings and watercolors. The main types of canvases during this period of life are still lifes and landscapes, the main differences of which are incredible nervous tension and dynamism (“Starry Night”, 1889, Museum contemporary art, New York), contrasting contrasting colors and - in some cases - the use of halftones ("Landscape with Olives", 1889, J. G. Whitney Collection, New York; "Wheat Field with Cypresses", 1889, National Gallery, London).

At the end of 1889, he was invited to participate in the Brussels exhibition of the "Group of Twenty", where the artist's work immediately aroused the interest of colleagues and art lovers. However, this no longer pleased van Gogh, just as the first enthusiastic article about the painting "Red Vineyards in Arles" signed by Albert Aurier, which appeared in the January issue of the magazine Mercure de France in 1890, did not please either.

In the spring of 1890, the artist moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a place near Paris, where he saw his brother and his family for the first time in two years. He still continued to write, but the style of his latest work has changed completely, becoming even more nervous and depressing. The main place in the work was occupied by a whimsically curved contour, as if clamping one or another object with itself (“Country Road with Cypresses”, 1890, Kröller-Muller Museum, Otterlo; “Street and Stairs in Auvers”, 1890, City Art Museum, St. Louis ; "Landscape at Auvers after the rain", 1890, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow). The last bright event in Vincent's personal life was an acquaintance with an amateur artist, Dr. Paul Gachet.

On the 20th of July 1890, van Gogh painted his famous painting “Wheat Field with Crows” (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), and a week later, on July 27, a tragedy occurred. Going for a walk with drawing materials, the artist shot himself in the heart area from a revolver bought to scare away flocks of birds while working in the open air, but the bullet went lower. Thanks to this, he independently got to the hotel room where he lived. The innkeeper called a doctor, who examined the wound and informed Theo. The latter arrived the next day and spent all the time with Vincent, until his death 29 hours after being wounded from blood loss (at 1:30 am on July 29, 1890). In October 2011, there was alternative version death of the artist. American art historians Stephen Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have suggested that van Gogh was shot by one of the teenagers who regularly accompanied him in drinking establishments.

According to Theo, the artist's last words were: La tristesse durera toujours ("Sorrow will last forever"). Vincent van Gogh was buried at Auvers-sur-Oise on 30 July. On his last journey, the artist was seen off by his brother and a few friends. After the funeral, Theo set about organizing a posthumous exhibition of Vincent's works, but fell ill with a nervous breakdown and exactly six months later, on January 25, 1891, he died in Holland. After 25 years in 1914, his remains were reburied by a widow next to Vincent's grave.

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890) is a famous Dutch artist who, with his work, had a huge impact on the painting of the 19th-20th centuries. His creative path was short-lived, only ten years, but during this time he managed to create about 2100 paintings, of which 860 were painted in oils. Worked in artistic direction post-impressionism. He painted portraits, landscapes, still lifes, self-portraits. He lived in poverty and constant anxiety, lost his mind and committed suicide, only after that critics appreciated his great work.

Birth and family

Vincent was born in the southern Dutch province of North Brabant, which is located near the border with Belgium. There was a small village of Grot-Zundert, where on March 30, 1853, the future great artist.

His father, Theodor van Gogh, born in 1822, was a Protestant pastor.
Mom, Anna Cornelia Carbentus, was from The Hague, which is located in the west of the Netherlands. Her father bound and sold books.

In total, seven children were born in the family, Vincent was the second, but the eldest, because the first child died. The name Vincent, meaning "winner", was intended for the first son, the mother and father dreamed that he would grow up, become successful in life and glorify their family. That was the name of the grandfather on the father's side, who served all his life in the Protestant church. But after a month and a half from birth, the child died, his death was a heavy blow, the parents were inconsolable in their grief. However, a year passed and they had a second baby, whom it was decided to name again Vincent in honor of the deceased brother. He became the great winner who brought fame to the Van Gogh family.

Two years after the birth of Vincent, a girl, Anna Cornelia, appeared in the family. In 1857, the boy Theodorus (Theo) was born, who later became a well-known art dealer in Holland, in 1859 the sister Elisabeth Hubert (Liz), in 1862 another sister of Willemine Jacob (Wil), and in 1867 the boy Cornelis (Cor) .

Childhood

Among all the children, Vincent was the most tedious, difficult and wayward, distinguished by strange manners, for which he often received punishments. The governess, who was engaged in raising children, loved Vincent less than the others and did not believe that something good could come of him.

He grew up gloomy and lonely. While the rest of the children rushed around the house and prevented their father from preparing for the pastor's sermon, Vincent retired. He went to wander around the countryside, carefully examined the plants and flowers, weaved braids from woolen threads, combining bright shades and admiring the play of colors.

However, as soon as Vincent left the family environment and found himself among people, he became a completely different child. Among fellow villagers, completely different sides of his character were manifested - modesty, good nature, compassion, friendliness, courtesy. People saw in him a sweet, quiet, thoughtful and serious child.

Surprisingly, such duality then haunted the artist until the end of his days. He really wanted to have a family and kids, but he lived his life alone. He created for people, and they answered him with ridicule.

Among the brothers and sisters, Vincent was the closest to Theo, their friendship lasted until the last breath of the artist. Van Gogh himself recalled his childhood as empty, cold and gloomy.

Education

When Vincent was seven years old, his parents sent him to study at a village school. However, a year later they were taken away from there, and the boy received his education at home with a governess.

In the autumn of 1864, he was taken to a boarding school, which was located 20 kilometers from native village, in the town of Zevenbergen. The departure from his home left a deep impression on the boy, he suffered greatly and remembered it all his life. During this period Van Gogh made his first sketches and copies of lithographs.

Two years later he was transferred to another boarding school, it was Willem II College in Tilburg. Best given to a teenager foreign languages Here he began to study drawing.

In the early spring of 1868, when his studies had not yet ended, Vincent dropped out of college and went home to his parents. This was the end of his formal education. Parents were very worried that their son grew up so unsociable. And they were also worried that Vincent was not attracted to any profession. As soon as his father started a conversation with him about the need to work, the son agreed with him, briefly answering: “Of course, work is a necessary condition for human existence.”

Youth

Van Gogh's father served all his life in not very prestigious parishes, so he dreamed that his son had a good well-paid job. He turned to his brother, also named Vincent, to help arrange young Van Gogh somewhere. Uncle Saint used to work in a large trade and art firm, but he had already retired and was gradually engaged in the sale of paintings in The Hague. However, he remained connected, and in the summer of 1869 he gave his nephew his recommendations and helped him get a job in the Hague branch of the Goupil company.

Here Vincent underwent initial training as a dealer in the sale of paintings and began to work with great zeal. He showed good results, and already in the summer of 1873 the guy was transferred to the London branch of this company.

Every day, by the nature of his service, he had to deal with works of art, and the guy began to be well versed in painting, and not just understand it, but also deeply appreciate it. On weekends, he went to city galleries, antique shops and museums, where he admired the work of French artists Jules Breton and Jean-Francois Millet. I tried to draw myself, but then, looking at each new drawing, I grinned displeasedly.

In London, he lived in an apartment with the widow of the priest Ursula Loyer. Vincent fell in love with the owner's daughter Eugenia. But the girl has a young boy who speaks badly in English language, only evoked a sense of amusement. Van Gogh invited Eugenia to become his wife. She gave a sharp refusal, saying that she had been engaged for a long time, and he, a provincial Fleming, was not interested in her. Vincent received such a blow for the first time, but the consequences of this mental wound remained for life.

Young Van Gogh was crushed, he did not want to work or live. Vincent wrote in letters to his brother Theo that only God helps him survive, and, probably, he will become a priest, like his grandfather and father.

In the late spring of 1875, Vincent was transferred to work in Paris. But the lost interest in life led to the fact that he was fired due to poor performance of his duties, even the patronage of Uncle Saint did not help. Van Gogh returned to London, where for some time he worked in a boarding school in an unpaid position as a teacher.

Finding yourself

In 1878, Vincent left for his homeland in the Netherlands. He was already 25 years old, and he still did not decide how to continue to live. Parents sent their son to Amsterdam, where he settled with Uncle Jan and began to diligently prepare for entering the university at the Faculty of Theology. Very soon, studies disappointed the young Van Gogh, he wanted to be as useful as possible for ordinary people, and he decided to leave for the south of Belgium.

Vincent came to the Borinage mining district as a priest. He saved miners who fell under the rubble, held conversations with dying people, read sermons to the miners. With the last money he bought wax and lamp oil, he tore his clothes into bandages. He had no idea about medicine, but he helped hopeless patients, and soon they began to consider him "not of this world."

At the same time, Vincent constantly had a desire to draw. He wanted to sketch on paper every object that he met on the way. But Van Gogh understood that drawing would distract him from the main thing and decided not to start. Each time he wanted to pick up a brush or pencil, he said a firm “no”.

He didn't have anything. He could not even think about women after Evgenia's refusal. Vincent's younger brother Theo helped with money. Relatives insisted that it was time to quit their sermons, which do not bring income and return to life, get a home and a family.

creative path

In the end, Vincent decided to listen to the reproaches of his relatives, he left the sermons and determined for himself the only desired and true way of life - drawing. In this matter, he had no experience, but as Van Gogh himself said: "Where there is a desire, there is a way out." He began to master the technique of drawing, to study the laws of perspective, for the sake of art he was ready to endure all sorts of hardships.

In 1880, Vincent's brother Theo helped Vincent financially so that he could go to Brussels to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After studying there for four months, Van Gogh had a fight with the teacher and went home to his parents. At this time, his cousin Kay Vos-Stricker was visiting them, with whom Vincent tried to start a love relationship. The woman he liked rejected him again. Unable to fail anymore on the love front, Van Gogh decided to give up trying to start a family forever and devote his life only to drawing.

He moved to The Hague, where the landscape painter Anton Mauve became his teacher in the world of painting. Van Gogh still had no money, Theo kept him. Vincent began to work very hard to thank his younger brother for his kindness and patronage. He walked around the city a lot, studying every little thing, the artist was especially interested in the poor quarters. So his first paintings “Backyards” and “Roofs. View from Van Gogh's workshop.

Soon Vincent left The Hague for the province of Drenthe in the northeast of the Netherlands. There he rented a hotel hut, equipped it as a workshop and painted landscapes from morning to night. He was also very interested in the theme of the peasants, their daily life and work.

The lack of art education still affected the paintings of Van Gogh, it was problematic for him to depict human figures. That's how it worked out own style, in which a person was deprived of graceful, smooth, measured movements, he, as it were, merged with nature and became an integral part of it. This approach is clearly visible in his paintings:

• "Peasant woman at the hearth";
• "Two Women on the Moorland";
• "Digging peasant woman";
• "Villagers planting potatoes";
• "Two women in the forest";
• "Two peasant women digging potatoes".

In 1886 the artist moved from Drenthe to Paris to live with his brother. This fruitful period was marked in Van Gogh's work by the fact that his palette became much lighter. Previously, earthy colors prevailed in his paintings, but now there is a purity of blue, red, golden yellow colors:

• "Exterior of a restaurant in Asnières";
• "Bridges along the Seine at Asnier";
• "Daddy Tanguy";
• "On the outskirts of Paris";
• "Factories in Asnières";
• "Sunset on Montmartre";
• "Corner of the Park d'Argenson in Asnières";
• "The courtyard of the hospital in Henri".

Unfortunately, the public did not accept or buy Van Gogh's paintings. This caused the artist mental anguish. But he continued to work for days on end, while he could sit for weeks only on tobacco, absinthe and coffee.

Last years of life and death

The use of a large amount of absinthe as a result led to the development of mental disorders. Once, during an attack, Vincent cut off his earlobe, after which he was placed in mental asylum to the ward for the violent.

In the spring of 1889 he was transferred to an institution for the mentally ill in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. Here he lived for a year, during which time he painted about 150 paintings.

At the end of 1889, his work aroused genuine interest for the first time at the Brussels Exhibition, and in January 1890 an enthusiastic article about Van Gogh's paintings was published. However, the artist was no longer pleased.

In early 1890, he was released from the clinic, and Van Gogh came to his brother. He managed to paint his famous canvases:

• "Rural road with cypresses";
• "Street and stairs in Auvers";
• "Wheat field with crows".

And on July 27, 1890, Vincent shot himself with a revolver he bought to scare away birds while painting. He missed and missed the heart, so he died only a day and a half later, on July 29, from blood loss. He left quietly without saying a word. Everything that he wanted to say to this world, Van Gogh depicted on his canvases. Exactly six months later, his younger brother Theo died.

During the life of the artist, only fourteen of his paintings were sold. A hundred years have passed, and his works are included in the list of the most expensive paintings sold in the world. For example, "Self-Portrait with Ear and Pipe Cut Off" was sold to a private collection for $90 million in the late 1990s.

Nowadays, few people do not know about the great artist Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh's biography was destined to be not too long, but eventful and full of hardships, brief ups and desperate falls. Few people know that in his entire life Vincent managed to sell only one of his paintings for a significant amount, and only after his death did his contemporaries recognize the enormous influence of the Dutch post-impressionist on the painting of the 20th century. The biography of Van Gogh can be briefly summarized in the dying words of the great master:

The sadness will never end.

Unfortunately, the life of an amazing and original creator was full of pain and disappointment. But who knows, maybe, if not for all the losses in life, the world would never have seen his amazing works, which people still admire?

Childhood

A brief biography and work of Vincent van Gogh was restored through the efforts of his brother Theo. Vincent had almost no friends, so everything we now know about the great artist was told by a man who loved him immensely.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in North Brabant in the village of Grot-Zundert. Theodore and Anna Cornelia Van Gogh's first-born child died in infancy - Vincent became the eldest child in the family. Four years after the birth of Vincent, his brother Theodorus was born, with whom Vincent was close until the end of his life. In addition, they also had a brother Cornelius and three sisters (Anna, Elisabeth and Willemina).

An interesting fact in the biography of Van Gogh is that he grew up as a difficult and stubborn child with extravagant manners. At the same time, outside the family, Vincent was serious, gentle, thoughtful and calm. He did not like to communicate with other children, but his fellow villagers considered him a modest and friendly child.

In 1864 he was sent to a boarding school in Zevenbergen. The artist Van Gogh recalled this segment of his biography with pain: the departure caused him a lot of suffering. This place doomed him to loneliness, so Vincent took up his studies, but already in 1868 he left his studies and returned home. In fact, this is all the formal education that the artist managed to receive.

A brief biography and work of Van Gogh is still carefully kept in museums and a few testimonies: no one could have thought that an unbearable child would become a truly great creator - even if his significance was recognized only after his death.

Work and missionary activity

A year after returning home, Vincent goes to work in the Hague branch of his uncle's art and trading company. In 1873 Vincent was transferred to London. Over time, Vinset learned to appreciate painting and understand it. He later moves to 87 Hackford Road, where he rents a room with Ursula Leuer and her daughter Eugenie. Some biographers add that Van Gogh was in love with Eugenia, although the facts say that he loved the German Karlina Haanebiek.

In 1874, Vincent was already working in the Paris branch, but soon he returned to London. Things are getting worse for him: a year later he is again transferred to Paris, visits art museums and exhibitions, and finally, gaining courage to try his hand at painting. Vincent cools off to work, fired up with a new business. All this leads to the fact that in 1876 he was fired from the company for poor performance.

Then in the biography of Vincent van Gogh there comes a moment when he returns to London again and teaches at a boarding school in Ramsgate. In the same life period, Vincent devoted a lot of time to religion, he has a desire to become a pastor, following in the footsteps of his father. A little later, Van Gogh moved to another school in Isleworth, where he began to work as a teacher and assistant pastor. Vincent gave his first sermon there. Interest in writing grew, he was inspired by the idea of ​​preaching to the poor.

At Christmas, Vincent went home, where he was begged not to go back to England. So he stayed in the Netherlands to help in a bookshop in Dordrecht. But this work did not inspire him: he mainly occupied himself with sketches and translations of the Bible.

His parents supported Van Gogh's desire to become a priest by sending him to Amsterdam in 1877. There he settled with his uncle Jan van Gogh. Vincent studied hard under the supervision of Johannes Stricker, a famous theologian, preparing for the exams for admission to the theology department. But very soon he quits classes and leaves Amsterdam.

The desire to find his place in the world led him to Pastor Bokma's Protestant Missionary School in Laeken near Brussels, where he took a course in preaching. There is also an opinion that Vincent did not complete the full course, because he was expelled due to his untidy appearance, quick temper and fits of anger.

In 1878, Vincent became a missionary for six months in the village of Paturazh in the Borinage. Here he visited the sick, read the Scriptures for those who could not read, taught children, and at night he was engaged in drawing maps of Palestine, earning a living. Van Gogh planned to enter the Gospel School, but he considered the tuition fees to be discrimination and abandoned this idea. Soon he was removed from the priesthood - this was a painful blow for the future artist, but also an important fact of Van Gogh's biography. Who knows, perhaps, if not for this high-profile event, Vincent would have become a priest, and the world would never have known the talented artist.

Becoming an artist

studying short biography Vincent van Gogh, we can conclude that fate seemed to push him all his life in the right direction and led him to paint. Seeking salvation from despondency, Vincent again turns to painting. He turns to his brother Theo for support and in 1880 goes to Brussels, where he attends classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. A year later, Vincent is forced to leave school again and return to his family. It was then that he decided that the artist does not need any talent, the main thing is to work hard and tirelessly. Therefore, he continues painting and drawing on his own.

During this period, Vincent experiences a new love, this time directed to his cousin, the widow Kay Vos-Stricker, who was visiting the Van Goghs' house. But she did not reciprocate, but Vincent continued to court her, which caused the indignation of her relatives. In the end, he was told to leave. Van Gogh is experiencing another shock and refuses to try to establish a further personal life.

Vincent leaves for The Hague, where he takes lessons from Anton Mauve. Over time, the biography and work of Vincent van Gogh was filled with new colors, including in painting: he experimented with mixing different techniques. Then such works of his as “Backyards”, which he created with the help of chalk, pen and brush, as well as the painting “Roofs. View from Van Gogh's workshop, painted in watercolor and chalk. A great influence on the formation of his work was influenced by the book of Charles Bargue "Drawing Course", lithographs from which he diligently copied.

Vincent was a man of fine mental organization, and, one way or another, he was drawn to people and emotional returns. Despite his decision to forget about his personal life, in The Hague, he nevertheless again attempted to create a family. He met Christine right on the street and was imbued with her plight so much that he invited her to settle in his house with the children. This act finally severed Vincent's relationship with all his relatives, but they maintained a warm relationship with Theo. So Vincent got a girlfriend and a model. But Christine turned out to be a nightmare character: Van Gogh's life turned into a nightmare.

When they parted, the artist went north to the province of Drenthe. He equipped a dwelling for a workshop, and spent whole days outdoors, creating landscapes. But the artist himself did not call himself a landscape painter, dedicating his paintings to the peasants and their everyday life.

Van Gogh's early works are classified as realism, but his technique does not quite fit into this direction. One of the problems that Van Gogh faced in his work is the inability to correctly depict the human figure. But this only played into the hands of the great artist: it became feature his manners: the interpretation of man as an integral part of the world around him. This is clearly seen, for example, in the work "Peasant and Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes". Human figures are like mountains in the distance, and the elevated horizon seems to press on them from above, preventing them from straightening their backs. A similar device can be seen in his later work "Red Vineyards".

In this segment of his biography, Van Gogh writes a series of works, including:

• "Exit from the Protestant Church in Nuenen";
• "Potato Eaters";
• "Peasant Woman";
• "The Old Church Tower at Nuenen".

The paintings are created in dark shades, which symbolize the author's painful perception of human suffering and a feeling of general depression. Van Gogh depicted the heavy atmosphere of hopelessness of the peasants and the sad mood of the village. At the same time, Vincent formed his own understanding of landscapes: in his opinion, the state of mind of a person is expressed through the landscape through the connection of human psychology and nature.

Parisian period

The artistic life of the French capital is flourishing: it was there that the great artists of that time flocked. A landmark event was the exhibition of the Impressionists on the rue Lafitte: for the first time, the works of Signac and Seurat, who proclaimed the beginning of the post-impressionism movement, are shown. It was impressionism that revolutionized art, changing the approach to painting. This trend presented a confrontation with academicism and outdated subjects: pure colors and the very impression of what they saw, which are later transferred to the canvas, are at the head of creativity. Post-Impressionism was the final stage of Impressionism.

The Parisian period, lasting from 1986 to 1988, became the most fruitful in the life of the artist, his collection of paintings was replenished with more than 230 drawings and canvases. Vincent van Gogh forms his own view of art: the realistic approach is becoming a thing of the past, giving way to the desire for post-impressionism.

With the acquaintance with Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet, the colors in his paintings begin to lighten and become brighter and brighter, eventually becoming a real riot of colors, characteristic of his latest works.

The shop of papa Tanga, where art materials were sold, became a landmark place. Here many artists met and exhibited their work. But Van Gogh's temper was still irreconcilable: the spirit of rivalry and tension in society often drove the impulsive artist out of himself, so Vincent soon quarreled with friends and decided to leave the French capital.

Among famous works the Parisian period the following paintings:

• "Agostina Segatori at the Tambourine Café";
• "Daddy Tanguy";
• "Still life with absinthe";
• "Bridge over the Seine";
• "View of Paris from Theo's apartment on Rue Lepic."

Provence

Vincent goes to Provence and is imbued with this atmosphere for the rest of his life. Theo supports his brother's decision to become a real artist and sends him money to live on, and he sends him his paintings in gratitude in the hope that his brother will be able to sell them profitably. Van Gogh settles in a hotel where he lives and creates, periodically inviting random visitors or acquaintances to pose.

With the onset of spring, Vincent gets out into the street and draws blooming trees and living nature. The ideas of impressionism gradually leave his work, but remain in the form of a light palette and pure colors. During this period of his work, Vincent writes "The Peach Tree in Blossom", "The Anglois Bridge in Arles".

Van Gogh even worked at night, once imbued with the idea of ​​capturing the special night shades and the glow of the stars. He works by candlelight: this is how the famous "Starry Night over the Rhone" and "Night Café" were created.

severed ear

Vincent is inspired by the idea of ​​creating a common home for the artist, where creators could create their masterpieces while living and working together. An important event is the arrival of Paul Gauguin, with whom Vincent had a long correspondence. Together with Gauguin, Vincent writes works filled with passion:

• "Yellow House";
• "Harvest. Valley of La Crau;
• "Armchair of Gauguin".

Vincent was beside himself with happiness, but this union ends in a loud quarrel. Passions were running high, and in one of his desperate cloudings, Van Gogh, according to some reports, attacks a friend with a razor in his hands. Gauguin manages to stop Vincent, and in the end he cuts off his earlobe. Gauguin leaves his house, while he wrapped the bloody flesh in a napkin and handed it to a familiar prostitute named Rachel. In a pool of his own blood, he was found by his friend Roulin. Although the wound soon healed, the deep mark on the heart shook mental health Vincent for life. Vincent soon finds himself in a psychiatric hospital.

The heyday of creativity

During periods of remission, he asked to return to the workshop, but the inhabitants of Arles signed a statement to the mayor with a request to isolate the mentally ill artist from civilians. But in the hospital he was not forbidden to create: until 1889, Vincent worked on new paintings right there. During this time, he created over 100 pencil and watercolor drawings. The canvases of this period are distinguished by tension, vivid dynamics and contrasting contrasting colors:

• "Landscape with Olives";
• "Wheat field with cypresses".

At the end of the same year, Vincent was invited to participate in the G20 exhibition in Brussels. His works aroused great interest among connoisseurs of painting, but this could no longer please the artist, and even a laudatory article about the "Red Vineyards in Arles" did not make the exhausted Van Gogh happy.

In 1890, he moved to the Opera-sur-Ourze, near Paris, where he saw his family for the first time in a long time. He continued to write, but his style became more and more gloomy and oppressive. hallmark of that period became a curved and hysterical contour, which can be traced in the following works:

• "Street and stairs in Auvers";
• "Rural road with cypresses";
• "Landscape at Auvers after the rain".

Last years

The last bright memory in the life of the great artist was an acquaintance with Dr. Paul Gachet, who also loved to write. Friendship with him supported Vincent in the most difficult periods of his life - except for his brother, the postman Roulin and Dr. Gachet, by the end of his life, he had no close friends left.

In 1890, Vincent paints the canvas "Wheat Field with Crows", and a tragedy occurs a week later.

The circumstances of the death of the artist looks mysterious. Vincent was shot in the heart with his own revolver, which he carried with him to scare away birds. Dying, the artist admitted that he shot himself in the chest, but missed, hitting a little lower. He himself got to the hotel where he lived, he called the doctor. The doctor was skeptical about the version of a suicide attempt - the angle of entry of the bullet was suspiciously low, and the bullet did not go right through, which suggests that they were shooting as if from afar - or at least from a distance of a couple of meters. The doctor immediately called Theo - he arrived the next day and was next to his brother until his death.

There is a version that on the eve of Van Gogh's death, the artist seriously quarreled with Dr. Gachet. He accused him of insolvency, while his brother Theo is literally dying from a disease that eats him, but still sends him money to live. These words could have hurt Vincent greatly - after all, he himself felt great guilt before his brother. Moreover, in last years Vincent had feelings for the lady, which again did not lead to reciprocity. Being as depressed as possible, upset by a quarrel with a friend, having recently left the hospital, Vincent could well decide to commit suicide.

Vincent died July 30, 1890. Theo loved his brother infinitely and with great difficulty experienced this loss. He set about organizing an exhibition of Vincent's posthumous works, but less than a year later, he died of a severe nervous shock on January 25, 1891. Years later, Theo's widow reburied his remains next to Vincent: she felt that the inseparable brothers should be next to each other at least after death.

Confession

Common misconception that during his lifetime, Van Gogh was able to sell only one of his paintings - “Red Vineyards in Arles”. This work was only the first, sold for a large amount - about 400 francs. Nevertheless, there are documents showing the sale of 14 more paintings.

Indeed, Vincent van Gogh received wide recognition only after his death. His commemorative exhibitions were organized in Paris, The Hague, Antwerp, Brussels. Interest in the artist began to grow, and at the beginning of the 20th century, retrospectives began in Amsterdam, Paris, New York, Cologne and Berlin. People began to be interested in his work, and his work began to influence the younger generation of artists.

Gradually, the prices of the painter's paintings began to increase until they became one of the most expensive paintings ever sold in the world, along with the works of Pablo Picasso. Among his most expensive works:

• "Portrait of Dr. Gachet";
• "Irises";
• "Portrait of the postman Joseph Roulin";
• "Wheat field with cypresses";
• "The Plowed Field and the Ploughman".

Influence

In his last letter to Theo, Vincent wrote that, having no children of his own, the artist perceived the paintings as his continuation. To some extent, this was true: he did have children, and the first of them was expressionism, which later began to have many heirs.

Many artists later adapted the features of Van Gogh's style to their work: Gowart Hodgkin, Willem de Kening, Jackson Pollock. Fauvism soon came, which expanded the scope of color, and expressionism became widespread.

The biography of Van Gogh and his work gave the expressionists a new language that helped the creators to delve deeper into the essence of things and the world around them. Vincent became, in a sense, a pioneer in modern art, blazing a new path in visual art.

It is almost impossible to tell a brief biography of Van Gogh: his work during his, unfortunately, short life, was influenced by so many different events that it would be a nightmarish injustice to omit even one of them. A difficult life path led Vincent to the pinnacle of fame, but posthumous fame. During the lifetime great painter he did not know either about his own genius, or about the huge legacy that he left to the world of art, or about how his relatives and friends later yearned for him. Vincent led a lonely and sad life, rejected by everyone. He found salvation in art, but he could not be saved. But, one way or another, he gave the world a lot of amazing works that warm the hearts of people so far, so many years later.