Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a timeless influence on 20th-century painting

Vincent Van Gogh

short biography

Vincent Willem van Gogh(Dutch. Vincent Willem van Gogh; March 30, 1853, Grot-Zundert, the Netherlands - July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, France) is a Dutch post-impressionist painter whose work had a timeless influence on the painting of the 20th century. In a little over ten years, he created more than 2,100 works, including about 860 oil paintings. Among them - portraits, self-portraits, landscapes and still lifes, depicting olive trees, cypresses, fields of wheat and sunflowers. Most critics did not notice van Gogh until his suicide at the age of 37, which was preceded by years of anxiety, poverty and mental breakdown.

Childhood and youth

Born 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 venerable 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 is remembered by the 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 as follows: “My childhood was dark, cold and empty…”.

Work in a trading company and missionary work

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 of work he again leaves for London. Things were getting worse for him, and in May 1875 he was again transferred to Paris, where he visited exhibitions at the Salon and the Louvre, and eventually he began to try his hand at painting. 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 because of his 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 an indefatigable activity: visiting the sick, reading Scripture to the illiterate, preaching, teaching children, and drawing 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 enter the Gospel 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.

Becoming an artist

Fleeing 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 deciding 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 an interesting and surprising color in his works, he sometimes resorted to mixing different writing techniques on one canvas - chalk, pen, sepia, watercolor ("Backyards", 1882, pen, chalk and brush on paper, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; "Roofs. View from van Gogh's workshop", 1882, paper, watercolor, chalk, private collection of J. Renan, Paris). The artist was greatly influenced by Charles Bargue's "Drawing Course". He copied all the lithographs of the manual in 1880/1881, and then again in 1890, but only part of it.

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, Christine turned out to be a difficult character, and soon van Gogh's family life turned into 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 their subject matter, van Gogh's early works can be classified as realism, although the manner of execution and technique can only be called realistic 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 topic can be seen in the later painting "Red Vineyards" (1888, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, 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, because 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 tint 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, Vincent Museum 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, Museum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam). In the work there were notes of calm and tranquility, caused by the influence of the Impressionists. 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 These acquaintances had the most beneficial effect on the artist: he found a kindred environment that appreciated him, enthusiastically took part in exhibitions of the Impressionists - 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 made him again engage in self-education - 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 creative search of the artist led him to the origins of a new artistic style - post-impressionism.

Last years. The heyday of creativity

Despite the creative growth of 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. Van Gogh gave the most important role in the future workshop to 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 before 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 conditions, but the maximum intensity of the expression of the life of nature. His brush of this period also includes a number of portraits in which the artist tried out a new art form.

A fiery artistic temperament, a painful impulse towards harmony, beauty and happiness, and, at the same time, a fear of forces hostile to man, are embodied in 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 color (“The Sower”, 1888, E. Buerle Foundation, Zurich), tragic in sound (“Night Cafe”, 1888, Yale University Art Gallery, 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 Van Gogh cut himself ear lobe. 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 repentance, 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 Saint-Paul mental hospital in 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 of Modern 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, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

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 squeezing this or that object (“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 “Wheatfield with Crows” (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), and a week later, on July 27, a tragedy occurred. Going out for a walk with drawing materials, the artist shot himself in the heart area with 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, an alternative version of the artist's death appeared. 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("The sadness will last forever") Vincent van Gogh was buried in 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.

Heritage

Recognition and sales of paintings

Artist on the way to Tarascon, August 1888, Vincent van Gogh on the road near Montmajour, oil on canvas, 48×44 cm, former museum of Magdeburg; the painting is believed to have perished in a fire during World War II

It is a common misconception that only one of his paintings, The Red Vineyards at Arles, was sold during van Gogh's lifetime. This painting was only the first to be sold for a significant amount (at the Brussels exhibition of the Group of Twenty at the end of 1889; the price for the painting was 400 francs). Documents have been preserved on the lifetime sale of 14 works by the artist, starting in 1882 (about which van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: “The first sheep passed through the bridge”), and in reality there should have been more transactions.

After the first exhibition of paintings in the late 1880s, van Gogh's fame steadily grew among colleagues, art historians, dealers and collectors. After his death memorial exhibitions were organized in Brussels, Paris, The Hague and Antwerp. At the beginning of the 20th century there were retrospectives in Paris (1901 and 1905) and Amsterdam (1905) and significant group exhibitions in Cologne (1912), New York (1913) and Berlin (1914). This had a noticeable impact on subsequent generations of artists. By the middle of the 20th century, Vincent van Gogh is regarded as one of the greatest and most recognizable artists in history. In 2007, a group of Dutch historians compiled " The Canon of Dutch History" for teaching in schools, in which van Gogh was placed as one of the fifty themes, along with other national symbols such as Rembrandt and the art group Style.

Along with the creations of Pablo Picasso, van Gogh's works are among the first on the list of the most expensive paintings ever sold in the world, according to estimates from auctions and private sales. Sold for more than 100 million (2011 equivalent) include: "Portrait of Dr. Gachet", "Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin" and "Irises". Wheat Field with Cypresses was sold in 1993 for $57 million, an unbelievably high price at the time, and his Self-Portrait with Ear and Pipe Cut Off was sold privately in the late 1990s. The sale price was estimated at $80-90 million. Van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" was sold at auction for $82.5 million. Plowed Field and Ploughman went on sale at Christie's New York auction house for $81.3 million.

Influence

In his last letter to Theo, Vincent admitted that since he had no children, he viewed his paintings as offspring. Reflecting on this, the historian Simon Schama concluded that he "did have a child - expressionism, and many, many heirs." Schama mentions a wide range of artists who adapted elements of van Gogh's style, including Willem de Kooning, Howard Hodgkin and Jackson Pollock. The Fauvists expanded the scope and freedom of color, as did the German Expressionists of the Die Brücke group and other early modernists. The abstract expressionism of the 1940s and 1950s is seen as partly inspired by van Gogh's broad, gestural brushstrokes. Here's what art historian Sue Hubbard has to say about the exhibition "Vincent van Gogh and Expressionism":

At the beginning of the twentieth century, van Gogh gave the expressionists a new pictorial language that allowed them to go beyond superficial vision and penetrate deeper into the essence of truth. It is no coincidence that at that very moment Freud was also discovering the depths of an essentially modern concept - the subconscious. This beautiful intellectual exhibition gives Van Gogh his rightful place as a pioneer of Art Nouveau.

original text(English)
At the beginning of the twentieth century Van Gogh gave the Expressionists a new painterly language which enabled them to go beyond surface appearance and penetrate deeper essential truths. It is no coincidence that at this very moment Freud was also mining the depths of that essentially modern domain -the subconscious. This beautiful and intelligent exhibition places Van Gogh where he firmly belongs; as the trailblazer of modern art.

Hubbard, Sue. Vincent Van Gogh and Expressionism. Independent, 2007

In 1957, the Irish artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992) based on a reproduction of a painting by van Gogh "The Artist on the Way to Tarascon", the original of which was destroyed during the Second World War, wrote a series of his works. Bacon was inspired not only by the image itself, which he described as "obtrusive", but also by Van Gogh himself, whom Bacon regarded as an "alienated superfluous man" - a position that resonated with Bacon's mood.

Subsequently, the Irish artist identified himself with Van Gogh's theories in art and quoted lines from van Gogh's letter to his brother Theo: "real artists do not paint things as they are ... They paint them because they themselves feel they are."

From October 2009 to January 2010, the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam hosted an exhibition dedicated to the artist's letters, then, from the end of January to April 2010, the exhibition moved to the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Gallery

self-portraits

Like an artist

Dedicated to Gauguin

Vincent Van Gogh. This name is familiar to every student. Even in childhood, we joked among ourselves “you draw like Van Gogh”! or “well, you are Picasso!”… After all, only the one whose name will forever remain in the history of not only painting and world art, but also humanity is immortal.

Against the backdrop of the fate of European artists, the life path of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) stands out in that he discovered his craving for art quite late. Until the age of 30, Vincent did not suspect that painting would become the ultimate meaning of his life. The vocation ripens in him slowly, in order to break out like an explosion. At the cost of labor almost on the verge of human capabilities, which will become the lot of his rest of his life, during the years 1885-1887, Vincent will be able to develop his own individual and unique style, which in the future will be called "impasto". His artistic style will contribute to the rooting in European art of one of the most sincere, sensitive, humane and emotional trends - expressionism. But, most importantly, it will become the source of his work, his paintings and graphics.

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the family of a Protestant pastor, in the Dutch province of North Brabant, in the village of Grotto Zundert, where his father was in the service. The family environment determined a lot in the fate of Vincent. The Van Gogh family was ancient, known since the 17th century. In the era of Vincent van Gogh, there were two traditional family activities: one of the representatives of this family was necessarily engaged in church activities, and someone in the art trade. Vincent was the eldest, but not the first child in the family. A year earlier, he was born, but his brother died soon after. The second son was named in memory of the deceased by Vincent Willem. After him, five more children appeared, but only with one of them would the future artist be connected by close fraternal ties until the last day of his life. It would not be an exaggeration to say that without the support of his younger brother Theo, Vincent van Gogh as an artist would hardly have taken place.

In 1869, Van Gogh moved to The Hague and began to trade paintings in the Goupil firm and reproductions of works of art. Vincent works actively and conscientiously, in his free time he reads a lot and visits museums, and draws a little. In 1873, Vincent begins a correspondence with his brother Theo, which will last until his death. In our time, the letters of the brothers are published in a book called “Van Gogh. Letters to Brother Theo” and you can buy it in almost any good bookstore. These letters are moving evidence of Vincent's inner spiritual life, his searches and mistakes, joys and disappointments, despair and hopes.

In 1875, Vincent was assigned to Paris. He regularly visits the Louvre and the Luxembourg Museum, exhibitions of contemporary artists. By this time, he is already drawing himself, but nothing foreshadows that art will soon become an all-consuming passion. In Paris, there is a turning point in his spiritual development: Van Gogh is very fond of religion. Many researchers attribute this condition to the unhappy and one-sided love that Vincent experienced in London. Much later, in one of his letters to Theo, the artist, analyzing his illness, notes that mental illness is their family trait.

From January 1879, Vincent received a position as a preacher in Vama, a village located in the Borinage, an area in southern Belgium, the center of the coal industry. He is deeply struck by the extreme poverty in which the miners and their families live. A deep conflict begins, which opens Van Gogh's eyes to one truth - the ministers of the official church are not at all interested in truly alleviating the plight of people who find themselves in inhuman conditions.

Having fully understood this sanctimonious position, Van Gogh experiences another deep disappointment, breaks with the church and makes his final life choice - to serve people with his art.

Van Gogh and Paris

Van Gogh's last visits to Paris were related to his work at Goupil. However, never before had the artistic life of Paris had a noticeable influence on his work. This time Van Gogh's stay in Paris lasts from March 1886 to February 1888. These are two extremely eventful years in the artist's life. During this short period, he masters the impressionistic and neo-impressionistic techniques, which contributes to the lightening of his own color palette. The artist who arrived from Holland turns into one of the most original representatives of the Parisian avant-garde, whose innovation breaks from within all the conventions that fetter the enormous expressive possibilities of color as such.

In Paris, Van Gogh communicates with Camille Pissarro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard and Georges Seurat and other young painters, as well as with the paint dealer and collector dad Tanguy.

last years of life

By the end of 1889, at this difficult time for himself, aggravated by fits of insanity, mental disorders and a craving for suicide, Van Gogh received an invitation to take part in the exhibition of the Salon des Indépendants, organized in Brussels. At the end of November, Vincent sends 6 paintings there. On May 17, 1890, Theo has a plan to settle Vincent in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise under the supervision of Dr. Gachet, who was fond of painting and was a friend of the Impressionists. Van Gogh's condition is improving, he works hard, paints portraits of his new acquaintances, landscapes.

July 6, 1890 Van Gogh arrives in Paris to Theo. Albert Aurier and Toulouse-Lautrec visit Theo's house to meet him.

From the last letter to Theo, Van Gogh says: “... Through me, you took part in the creation of some canvases that even in a storm keep my peace. Well, I paid with my life for my work, and it cost me half my sanity, that's right… But I'm not sorry.”

Thus ended the life of one of the greatest artists not only of the 19th century, but of the entire history of art as a whole.

The future artist was born in a small Dutch village called Grot Zundert. This joyful event in the family of the Protestant priest Theodor van Gogh and his wife Anna Cornelius van Gogh happened on March 30, 1853. There were only six children in the pastor's family. Vincent is the oldest. Relatives considered him a difficult and strange child, while neighbors noted in him modesty, compassion and friendliness in relations with people. Subsequently, he repeatedly said that his childhood was cold and gloomy.

At the age of seven, Van Gogh was assigned to a local school. Exactly one year later, he returned home. Having received his primary education at home, in 1864 he went to Zevenbergen to a private boarding school. He studied there for a short time - only two years, and moved to another boarding school - in Tilburg. He was noted for his ability to learn languages ​​and draw. It is noteworthy that in 1868 he suddenly dropped out of school and went back to the village. This was the end of his education.

Youth

It has long been customary that the men in the Van Gogh family were engaged in only two types of activities: the sale of art canvases and parochial activities. Young Vincent could not help but try himself in both. He achieved some success both as a pastor and as an art dealer, but the passion for drawing took its toll.

At the age of 15, Vincent's family helped him get a job at the Hague branch of the art company Goupil & Co. His career growth was not long in coming: for his diligence and success in his work, he was transferred to the British branch. In London, he turned from a simple country boy, a lover of painting, into a successful businessman, a professional who understands the engravings of English masters. It has a metropolitan look. Not far off and moving to Paris, and work in the central office of the Goupil company. However, something unexpected and incomprehensible happened: he fell into a state of "painful loneliness" and refused to do anything. Soon he was fired.

Religion

In search of his destiny, he went to Amsterdam and intensively prepared to enter the theological faculty. But he soon realized that he did not belong here, dropped out and entered a missionary school. After graduating in 1879, he was offered to preach the Law of God in one of the cities in southern Belgium. He agreed. During this period, he paints a lot, mostly portraits of ordinary people.

Creation

After the disappointments that befell Van Gogh in Belgium, he again fell into depression. Brother Theo came to the rescue. He gave him moral support and helped him enter the Academy of Fine Arts. There he studied for a short time and returned to his parents, where he continued to independently study various techniques. In the same period, he experienced several unsuccessful novels.

The most fruitful time in the work of Van Gogh is the Parisian period (1886-1888). He met with prominent representatives of impressionism and post-impressionism: Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Renoir, Paul Gauguin. He constantly searched for his own style and at the same time studied various techniques of modern painting. Imperceptibly brightened and his palette. From light to a real riot of colors, characteristic of his paintings of recent years, there is very little left.

Other biography options

• After returning to the psychiatric clinic, Vincent, as usual, went to draw from nature in the morning. But he returned not with sketches, but with a bullet fired by himself from a pistol. It remains unclear how a serious wound allowed him to reach the shelter on his own and live for another two days. He died on July 29, 1890.
• In a brief biography of Vincent van Gogh, it is impossible not to mention one name - Theo van Gogh, the younger brother, who helped and supported his elder brother all his life. He could not forgive himself for the last quarrel and the subsequent suicide of the famous artist. He died exactly one year after Van Gogh's death from nervous exhaustion.
• Van Gogh cut off his ear after a violent quarrel with Gauguin. The latter thought that they were going to attack him, and fled in fear.

Name: Vincent Gogh

Age: 37 years

Place of Birth: Grote Zundert, The Netherlands

A place of death: Auvers-sur-Oise, France

Activity: Dutch post-impressionist painter

Family status: not married

Vincent Van Gogh - Biography

Vincent van Gogh did not seek to prove to others that he was a real artist - he was not conceited. The only person he wanted to prove it to was himself.

Vincent van Gogh for a long time did not have any formulated goal in life, nor a profession. Traditionally, generations of Van Goghs either chose a church career or became an art dealer. Vincent's father, Theodorus van Gogh, was a Protestant priest who served in the small town of Groot Zundert in South Holland, on the Belgian border.

Vincent's uncles, Cornelius and Wien, traded paintings in Amsterdam and The Hague. Mother, Anna Cornelia Carbendus, a wise woman who lived for almost a hundred years, suspected that her son was not an ordinary Van Gogh, as soon as he was born on March 30, 1853. A year earlier, to the day, she had given birth to a boy named by the same name. He did not live even a few days. So by fate, the mother believed, her Vincent was destined to live for two.

At the age of 15, having studied for two years at a school in the town of Zevenbergen, and then two more years at a secondary school named after King William P, Vincent left his studies and in 1868, with the help of his uncle Vince, entered the branch of a Parisian art firm that had opened in The Hague Goupil & Co. He worked well, the young man was valued for his curiosity - he studied books on the history of painting and visited museums. Vincent was promoted - sent to the London branch of Goupil.

Van Gogh stayed in London for two years, became a deep connoisseur of engravings by English masters and acquired the gloss appropriate to a businessman, quoted fashionable Dickens and Eliot, and shaved his red cheeks smoothly. In general, as his younger brother Theo, who later also went on the trading side, testified, he lived in those years with almost blissful delight in front of everything that surrounded him. Heart overflowing tore out passionate words from him: “There is nothing more artistic than to love people!” Vincent wrote. Actually, the correspondence of the brothers is the main document of the life of Vincent van Gogh. Theo was the person Vincent referred to as his confessor. Other documents are fragmentary, fragmentary.

Vincent van Gogh had a bright future as a commission agent. He was soon to move to Paris, to the central office of Goupil.

What happened to him in 1875 in London is not known. He wrote to his brother Theo that he suddenly fell "in painful loneliness." It is believed that in London, Vincent, having truly fallen in love for the first time, was rejected. But the hostess of the boarding house at Hackford Road 87, where he lived, Ursula Leuer, is called his chosen one, then her daughter Eugenia and even a certain German woman named Caroline Haanebiek. Since Vincent kept silent about this love in his letters to his brother, from whom he did not hide anything, it is possible to assume that his “painful loneliness” had other reasons.

Even in Holland, according to contemporaries, Vincent at times caused bewilderment with his demeanor. The expression on his face suddenly became somewhat absent, alien, there was something pensive, deeply serious, melancholic in it. True, afterwards he laughed heartily and cheerfully, and his whole face then brightened. But more often he seemed very lonely. Yes, indeed, he was. To work in "Gupil" he cooled off. The transfer to the Paris branch in May 1875 did not help either. In early March 1876 Van Gogh was fired.

In April 1876, he returned to England a completely different person - without any gloss and ambition. Employed as an educator at the Reverend William P. Stoke School in Ramsgate, where he received a class of 24 boys aged 10 to 14. He read the Bible to them, and then turned to the Reverend Father with a request to allow him to serve prayers for the parishioners of Turnham Green Church. Soon he was allowed to lead the Sunday sermon as well. True, he did it extremely boring. It is known that his father also lacked emotionality and the ability to capture the audience.

At the end of 1876, Vincent wrote to his brother that he realized his true destiny - he would be a preacher. He returned to Holland and entered the theological faculty of the University of Amsterdam. Ironically, he, fluent in four languages: Dutch, English, French and German, failed to overcome the Latin course. According to the results of the tests, he was identified in January 1879 as a parish priest in the mining village of Vasmes in the poorest Borinage region in Europe in Belgium.

The missionary delegation, which visited Fr. Vincent in Wasmes a year later, was much alarmed by the changes in Van Gogh. Thus, the delegation discovered that Father Vincent had moved from a comfortable room to a shack, sleeping on the floor. He distributed his clothes to the poor and walked around in a shabby military uniform, under which he put on a homemade burlap shirt. He did not wash himself, so as not to stand out among the miners smeared with coal dust. They tried to convince him that the Scriptures should not be taken literally, and the New Testament is not a direct guide to action, but Father Vincent came out with a denunciation of the missionaries, which, of course, ended in dismissal.

Van Gogh did not leave the Borinage: he moved to the tiny mining village of Kuzmes, and, existing on the offerings of the community, but in fact for a piece of bread, continued the mission of a preacher. He even interrupted for a while the correspondence with his brother Theo, not wanting to accept help from him.

When the correspondence resumed, Theo was once again surprised by the changes that had taken place with his brother. In letters from the impoverished Kuzmes, he talked about art: “We need to understand the defining word contained in the masterpieces of great masters, and there it will turn out to be God!” And he said that he draws a lot. Miners, miners' wives, their children. And everyone likes it.

This change surprised Vincent himself. For advice on whether he should continue to paint, he went to the French artist Jules Breton. He was not familiar with Breton, but in his past commission life he respected the artist to such an extent that he walked 70 kilometers to Courrieres, where Breton lived. Found Breton's house, but hesitated to knock on the door. And, depressed, he set off on foot back to Kuzmes.

Theo believed that his brother would return to his former life after this incident. But Vincent continued to draw like a man possessed. In 1880, he came to Brussels with the firm intention of studying at the Academy of Arts, but his application was not even accepted. Vincent didn't seem to mind at all. He bought Jean-Francois Millet and Charles Bug drawing manuals, which were popular in those years, and went to his parents, intending to educate himself.

Only his mother approved Vincent's decision to become an artist, which surprised the whole family. The father was very wary of the changes in his son, although art classes fit perfectly into the canons of Protestant ethics. The uncles, who had been selling paintings for decades, after looking at Vincent's drawings, decided that his nephew was out of his mind.

The incident with Cousin Cornelia only strengthened their suspicions. Cornelia, who had recently been widowed and raised her son alone, took a liking to Vincent. Wooing her, he broke into his uncle's house, stretched out his hand over an oil lamp, and vowed to keep it over the fire until he was allowed to see his cousin. Cornelia's father resolved the situation by blowing out the lamp, and Vincent, humiliated, left the house.

Mother was very worried about Vincent. She persuaded her distant relative Anton Mauve, a successful artist, to support her son. Mauve sent Vincent a box of watercolors and then met with him. After looking at the work of Van Gogh, the artist gave some advice. But having learned that the model depicted on one of the sketches with a child was a woman of easy virtue, with whom Vincent now lived, he refused to maintain further relations with him.

Van Gogh met Clasina at the end of February 1882 in The Hague. She had two young children and had nowhere to live. Taking pity on her, he invited Klasina and the children to live with him. They were together for a year and a half. Vincent wrote to his brother that in this way he atones for the sin of Klasina's fall, taking on someone else's guilt. In gratitude, she and her children patiently posed for Vincent to study with oil paints.

It was then that he confessed to Theo that art became the main thing for him in life. “Everything else is a consequence of art. If something has nothing to do with art, it doesn't exist." Klasina and her children, whom he loved very much, became a burden for him. In September 1883 he left them and left The Hague.

For two months Vincent, half-starved, wandered around North Holland with an easel. During this time he painted dozens of portraits and hundreds of sketches. Returning to his parents' house, where he was received cooler than ever, he announced that everything he had done before was "studies". And now he is ready to paint a real picture.

Van Gogh worked on The Potato Eaters for a long time. Made a lot of sketches, studies. He had to prove to everyone and to himself, to himself first of all, that he was a real artist. Margo Begeman, who lived next door, was the first to believe in this. A forty-five-year-old woman fell in love with Van Gogh, but he, carried away by the work on the painting, did not notice her. Desperate, Margo tried to poison herself. She was hardly rescued. Upon learning of this, Van Gogh was very worried, and many times in letters to Theo he returned to this accident.

Having finished The Eaters, he was satisfied with the painting and left for Paris at the beginning of 1886 - he was suddenly fascinated by the work of the great French artist Delacroix on color theory.

Even before leaving for Paris, he tried to connect color and music, for which he took several piano lessons. "Prussian blue!" "Yellow chrome!" - he exclaimed, hitting the keys, dumbfounding the teacher. He specifically studied the violent colors of Rubens. Lighter tones have already appeared in his own paintings, and yellow has become his favorite color. True, when Vincent wrote to his brother about his desire to come to Paris to meet him, he tried to dissuade him. Theo feared that the atmosphere of Paris would be disastrous for Vincent. But his persuasion didn't work...

Unfortunately, Van Gogh's Parisian period is the least documented. For two years in Paris, Vincent lived with Theo in Montmartre, and the brothers, of course, did not correspond.

It is known that Vincent immediately plunged into the artistic life of the capital of France. He visited exhibitions, got acquainted with the "last word" of impressionism - the works of Seurat and Signac. These pointillist artists, taking the principles of Impressionism to the extreme, marked its final stage. He became friends with Toulouse-Lautrec, with whom he attended drawing classes.

Toulouse-Lautrec, seeing Van Gogh's work and hearing from Vincent that he was "just an amateur", ambiguously remarked that he was mistaken: amateurs are those who paint bad pictures. Vincent persuaded his brother, who was in artistic circles, to introduce him to the masters - Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. And Camille Pissarro was imbued with sympathy for Van Gogh to such an extent that he took Vincent to Papa Tanguy's Shop.

The owner of this shop of paints and other art materials was an old Communard and a generous patron of the arts. He allowed Vincent to arrange the first exhibition of works in the store, in which his closest friends participated: Bernard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Anquetin. Van Gogh persuaded them to unite in the "group of the Small Boulevards" - as opposed to the famous artists of the Grand Boulevards.

He had long been visited by the idea of ​​creating, on the model of medieval brotherhoods, a community of artists. However, the impulsive nature and uncompromising judgments prevented him from building up from wearing with friends. He again became not himself.

He began to feel that he was too susceptible to other people's influence. And Paris, the city where he so aspired, suddenly became disgusting to him. “I want to hide somewhere to the south so as not to see so many artists who, as people, are disgusting to me,” he wrote to his brother from the small town of Arles in Provence, where he left in February 1888.

In Arles Vincent felt himself. “I find that what I learned in Paris disappears, and I return to the thoughts that came to me in nature, before meeting the Impressionists,” Gauguin’s tough disposition, he told Theo in August 1888. and before, brother Van Gogh constantly worked. He painted outdoors, ignoring the wind, which often overturned the easel and covered the palette with sand. He also worked at night, using the Goya system, fixing burning candles on a hat and on an easel. This is how "Night Cafe" and "Starry Night over the Rhone" were written.

But then the idea of ​​​​creating a community of artists, which had been abandoned, again took possession of him. He rented for fifteen francs a month four rooms in the Yellow House, which became famous thanks to his paintings, on Place Lamartine, at the entrance to Arles. And on September 22, after repeated persuasion, Paul Gauguin came to him. This was a tragic mistake. Vincent, idealistically confident in the friendly disposition of Gauguin, told him everything he thought. He also did not hide his opinion. On Christmas Eve 1888, after a heated argument with Gauguin, Vincent grabbed a razor to attack a friend.

Gauguin fled and moved to a hotel at night. Falling into a frenzy, Vincent cut off his left earlobe. The next morning he was found bleeding in the Yellow House and sent to the hospital. A few days later he was released. Vincent seemed to have recovered, but after the first bout of mental clouding, others followed. His inappropriate behavior frightened the residents so much that the deputation of the townspeople wrote a petition to the mayor and demanded that they be rid of the "red-haired madman."

Despite many attempts by researchers to declare Vincent insane, it is still impossible not to recognize his general sanity, or, as psychiatrists say, "criticality to his condition." On May 8, 1889, he voluntarily entered the specialized hospital of St. Paul of Mausoleum near Saint-Remy-de-Provence. He was observed by Dr. Theophile Peyron, who came to the conclusion that the patient was ill with something resembling a split personality. And he prescribed treatment by periodic immersion in a bath of water.

Hydrotherapy did not bring any particular benefit in curing mental disorders, but there was no harm from it either. Van Gogh was much more oppressed by the fact that the patients of the hospital were not allowed to do anything. He begged Dr. Peyron to allow him to go to the sketches, accompanied by an orderly. So, under supervision, he painted many works, including "Road with cypresses and a star" and the landscape "Olive trees, blue sky and white cloud."

In January 1890, after the exhibition of the "Group of Twenty" in Brussels, in whose organization Theo van Gogh also participated, Vincent's first and only painting, "Red Vineyards in Arles", was sold. For four hundred francs, which is approximately equal to the current eighty US dollars. To somehow encourage Theo, he wrote to him: "The practice of trading in works of art, when prices rise after the death of the author, has survived to this day - it's something like trading in tulips, when a living artist has more minuses than pluses."

Van Gogh himself was immensely happy with the success. Let the prices for the works of the Impressionists, who had become classics by that time, were incomparably higher. But he had his own method, his own path, found with such difficulty and torment. And he was finally recognized. Vincent painted nonstop. By that time, he had already painted more than 800 paintings and almost 900 drawings - so many works in just ten years of creativity were not created by any artist.

Theo, inspired by the success of the Vineyards, sent his brother more and more colors, but Vincent began to eat them. Dr. Neuron had to hide the easel and palette under lock and key, and when they were returned to Van Gogh, he said that he would no longer go to sketches. Why, he explained in a letter to his sister - Theo was afraid to admit this: “... when I am in the fields, I am so overwhelmed with a feeling of loneliness that it is even scary to go out somewhere ...”

In May 1890, Theo arranged with Dr. Gachet, a homeopathic physician from a clinic in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, that Vincent would continue his treatment with him. Gachet, who appreciates painting and is fond of drawing himself, gladly received the artist in his clinic.

Vincent also liked Dr. Gachet, whom he considered warm-hearted and optimistic. On June 8, Theo came to visit his brother with his wife and child, and Vincent spent a wonderful day with his family, talking about the future: “We all need fun and happiness, hope and love. The uglier, the older, the meaner, the sicker I get, the more I want to retaliate by creating a great color, flawlessly built, brilliant.”

A month later, Gachet had already allowed Van Gogh to go to his brother in Paris. Theo, whose daughter was then very ill and financial affairs were shaken, did not greet Vincent too kindly. A quarrel broke out between them. Its details are unknown. But Vincent felt that he had become a burden to his brother. And probably always has been. Shocked to the core, Vincent returned to Auvers-sur-Oise the same day.

On July 27, after dinner, Van Gogh went out with an easel to sketch. Stopping in the middle of the field, he shot himself in the chest with a pistol (how he got a weapon remained unknown, and the pistol itself was never found.). The bullet, as it turned out later, hit the costal bone, deflected and missed the heart. Clamping the wound with his hand, the artist returned to the shelter and went to bed. The owner of the shelter called the doctor Mazri from the nearest village and the police.

It seemed that the wound did not cause Van Gogh much suffering. When the police arrived, he was calmly smoking a pipe while lying in bed. Gachet sent a telegram to the artist's brother, and Theo van Gogh arrived in the morning of the next day. Vincent was conscious until the last minute. To his brother’s words that he would definitely be helped to recover, that he only needed to get rid of despair, he answered in French: “La tristesse “durera toujours” (“Sorrow will last forever”). And he died at half past one in the night on July 29, 1890.

The priest in Auvers forbade the burial of Van Gogh in the church cemetery. It was decided to bury the artist in a small cemetery in the nearby town of Meri. On July 30, the body of Vincent van Gogh was interred. Vincent's longtime friend, the artist Emile Bernard, described the funeral in detail:

"On the walls of the room where the coffin with his body stood, his latest works were hung out, forming a kind of halo, and the brightness of the genius that they radiated made this death even more painful for us artists who were there. The coffin was covered there were sunflowers, which he loved so much, and yellow dahlias - yellow flowers everywhere. It was, as you remember, his favorite color, a symbol of light, which he dreamed of filling the hearts of people and which filled the works art.

Beside him on the floor lay his easel, his folding chair and brushes. There were many people, mostly artists, among whom I recognized Lucien Pissarro and Lauzet. I looked at the sketches; one is very beautiful and sad. Prisoners walking in a circle, surrounded by a high prison wall, a canvas painted under the impression of the Dore painting, from its horrific cruelty and symbolizing his imminent end.

Wasn't life like this for him: a high prison, with walls so high, with such high... and these people walking endlessly around the pit, aren't they poor artists - poor damned souls who pass by, urged on by the whip of Fate? At three o'clock, his friends carried his body to the hearse, many of those present were crying. Theodor van Gogh, who loved his brother very much and always supported him in the struggle for his art, did not stop crying...

It was terribly hot outside. We went up the hill outside of Auvers, talking about him, about the bold impulse he gave to art, about the great projects that he was constantly thinking about, and about the good that he brought to all of us. We reached the cemetery: a small new cemetery full of new tombstones. It was located on a small hill among the fields that were ready for harvest, under a clear blue sky, which at that time he still loved ... I guess. Then he was lowered into the grave...

This day was as if created for him, until you imagine that he is no longer alive and he cannot admire this day. Dr. Gachet wished to say a few words in honor of Vincent and his life, but he wept so hard that he could only stutter, embarrassedly, utter a few farewell words (maybe that was best). He gave a short description of Vincent's torment and achievements, mentioning how lofty the goal he pursued and how much he loved him himself (although he knew Vincent for a very short time).

He was, said Gachet, an honest man and a great artist, he had only two goals: humanity and art. He put art above all else, and it will repay him in kind, perpetuating his name. Then we returned. Theodor van Gogh was broken by grief; those present began to disperse: someone retired, simply leaving for the fields, someone was already walking back to the station ... "

Theo van Gogh died six months later. All this time he could not forgive himself for quarrels with his brother. The extent of his despair becomes clear from a letter he wrote to his mother shortly after Vincent's death: “It is impossible to describe my grief, just as it is impossible to find solace. It is a grief that will last and from which, of course, I will never get rid of as long as I live. The only thing that can be said is that he himself found the peace he longed for... Life was such a heavy burden for him, but now, as often happens, everyone praises his talents... Oh, mother! He was so mine, my own brother."

After Theo's death, Vincent's last letter was found in his archive, which he wrote after a quarrel with his brother: “It seems to me that since everyone is a little nervous and also too busy, it’s not worth sorting out all the relationships to the end. I was a little surprised that you seem to want to rush things. How can I help, or rather, what can I do to make it suit you? One way or another, mentally again I firmly shake hands with you and, in spite of everything, I was glad to see you all. Don't doubt it."

Vincent van Gogh is a post-impressionist painter from the Netherlands, the author of portraits, still lifes, self-portraits, landscapes.

Vincent van Gogh was overwhelmed by strong emotions mixed with difficult mental conditions, and perhaps thanks to this he became one of the most important artists in the world. He began painting at 27 and strove to capture everything he saw around him. He painted passionately and a lot, but no one recognized his paintings as art. And he continued to apply more and more new ideas to the canvas. Eight hundred canvases became the result of his life, and more than four hundred of them he painted in the last three years before his death.

Van Gogh did not try to prove to anyone that he was an artist, he had absolutely no vanity. The only person he wanted to prove it to was himself. The artist died a beggar, believing that his work had no artistic value. But now they see in him the era of post-impressionism, and his paintings are put up at auctions at a fabulous price.

Childhood and youth

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the village of Grot-Zundert in the Netherlands. His parents were Pastor Theodor van Gogh and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. In addition to Vincent, the family had five more children. And only one of the brothers - Theo, tried to help Vincent in everything, tried to alleviate his difficult fate.

At home, Vincent was very naughty, showed some odd behavior, and his parents often punished him for disobedience. In society, he behaved quietly, seriously and often thought about something. He was not particularly friendly with anyone and did not take part in children's games. According to fellow villagers, Vincent was distinguished by modesty, friendliness, and compassion. He went to school like everyone else, at the age of seven, but a year later he had to be taken away from there and continue his studies at home. In 1864, his parents sent him to a boarding school in the city of Zevenbergen.

Parting with the house had a bad effect on the boy, he suffered a lot at school. Two years later, in 1866, Vincent was assigned to another boarding school. The boy liked to learn languages, and during these years he first shows his creative abilities in drawing. In 1868, right in the middle of the educational process, he left school and went home. An end has been put on the process of education. Subsequently, the famous artist did not like to remember his childhood - he exuded gloom and cold.

All the men of the Van Gogh family were either engaged in the sale of paintings or served in the church. Vincent decided to immediately become a preacher, then tried to sell works of art. He devoted himself entirely to each of his occupations. Everything worked out for him, but the guy resolutely refused both jobs and decided to do what he liked most - painting.

Carier start

In 1868, at the age of 15, the young man became an employee of the branch of the art company Goupil & Co., which was located in The Hague. He showed excellent results, was inquisitive and executive, and was soon encouraged by a transfer to one of the branches located in London. He stayed there for two years, showed himself to be a real businessman, began to be well versed in the engravings of local masters, and spoke in quotes from Eliot. In general, an ordinary young man, with a pleasant appearance and gloss. In the future, he was supposed to get a commission agent position in the central Paris branch of the company.

However, in 1875, something happened in Vincent's life, and this something completely changed his biography.

He often wrote letters to his brother Theo, and in one of them he said that he was in "painful loneliness."

Years later, historians suggested that at this time the young man fell in love, but the girl rejected his love. The name of this girl remained a mystery, and whether she was, no one will say for sure. Just such an explanation of his condition was more than logical. The situation was not affected by the imminent transfer to France. Vincent completely lost interest in his recently beloved job, and he was fired.

Theology and missionary work

The young man is busy searching for himself and his destiny, and soon comes to the conclusion that it is connected with religion. In 1877, he settled in Amsterdam with his uncle Johannes, and was about to begin his studies at the Faculty of Theology. But studies brought only disappointment, Vincent quits theology and leaves. However, he sees his destiny in serving people, so the guy becomes a student of a missionary school. In 1879 he was appointed preacher in Vama, south of Belgium.

Vincent became a teacher of the Law of God for the Borinage miners, he tries to help their families, takes care of the sick, teaches children, preaches. To make a living, he makes maps of Palestine. He lived in a poor shack, food was only bread and water, he had to sleep on the floor - he just physically tortured himself. In addition, he still fights on the side of the workers for their rights.

The authorities of the city soon removed him from this position, because such an extreme and too violent activity of the preacher greatly alarmed them. Vincent continues to paint, portraits of miners and their families coming out from under his brush.

Formation

Van Gogh is trying to fight the depression that overtook him after his dismissal in Paturage. Painting helps him in this. Thanks to the support of his brother Theo, Vincent studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. However, a year later, he drops out of school and goes home to his parents. Now he is engaged in fine arts on his own.

And again love covers him, this time his cousin became the object of his passion. And again, unrequited love, but the young man does not lose hope and continues to care for his beloved. But relatives were categorically opposed to this relationship, and even offered Vincent to leave. The new shock turned out to be too strong, and led to a complete rejection of personal life. Van Gogh leaves his home and moves to The Hague, where he continues to paint. There he becomes an apprentice to Anton Mauva, works hard, takes a close interest in the life of the townspeople, especially poor neighborhoods attract him. Vincent began to copy lithographs, studying the book of Charles Bargue "Drawing Course". Van Gogh began to experiment with different techniques, mixing them on canvas to develop his own and get a new color scheme.

At this time, there is another attempt to become a family man. He met a pregnant woman, and she and her child moved in with him. This caused Vincent to quarrel with his friends and relatives, but it was at this time that the artist would be truly happy. However, a happy family life did not work out, the woman soon showed her tough temper, and the family broke up.

After parting, Vincent settled in the province of Drenthe, closer to the north of the Netherlands. He lived in a hut, converted into a workshop. He works hard, paints pictures of peasant life, depicts them on canvases, creates landscapes. Those early works of the artist are somewhat less than realistic. He never received an academic education, so some irregular outlines of human figures are noticeable in his drawings of that period.

A little time passed, and Vincent again moved to his parents, this time in Nuenen. He continues to draw a lot, at the same time gaining students, reading avidly and playing music. The heroes of his canvases again become nature, people, and all this was depicted in dark, one might even say, gloomy colors. Van Gogh's most significant Dutch period painting is The Potato Eaters, painted by the artist in 1885. The painting depicts a scene from peasant life.

Paris

Vincent was in thought for a long time, but in the end he decided, and in 1886 he moved to Paris. In this city, a meeting took place between the artist and his brother Theo, who at that time had already become the director of an art gallery. The creative life of the capital of France in those years was very stormy.

The most significant event of that period was the exhibition of Impressionist artists in the salon on Rue Lafitte. There, for the first time, Signac and Seurat presented their canvases, which became the head of post-impressionism, which became the final stage of impressionism. Impressionism was a kind of revolution in painting, thanks to which academic techniques and subjects disappeared from the canvases. It is believed that it is more important to be guided by the first impression, to give preference to pure tones.

In Paris, Vincent came under the tutelage of his brother Theo, who settled him at home and introduced him to famous artists. Van Gogh first visited the studio of Fernand Cormon, who was known as a traditionalist artist, and it was there that he met Emile Bernard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Louis Anquetin. Vincent is delighted with impressionism and post-impressionism. At this time, the artist fell in love with absinthe and even painted a still life with his favorite drink.

From 1886 to 1888, when Vincent lived in Paris, he painted the most paintings. This period will then be called the most fruitful in the artist's biography, because his collection has grown by 230 canvases. He persistently searches for his technique, studies all the innovations and trends of modern painting. During these years, Van Gogh took a fresh look at painting, he found his own style, in which impressionism and post-impressionism were more present, moving away from a realistic perception of the world. This can be seen in his landscapes and still lifes created in the Parisian period.

Post-Impressionism Van Gogh

With the light hand of brother Theo, artists appear among Vincent's acquaintances, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In this company, Van Gogh is often in the open air. The master's palette gradually acquires light tones, becomes brighter, so that after some time it turns into a riot of tones and shades, which has become characteristic of him in recent years.

In the Parisian period, Vincent's social circle expanded significantly. Together with his brothers, he goes to different places, meets girls and even starts novels. At the Tambourine Cafe, he made an acquaintance named Agostina Segatori, who owned this institution. He painted her portrait at a table in her cafe, then there were several paintings in the nude style. They even had a brief romance. Often the artists gathered in the shop of papa Tanga, who sold paints and everything necessary for artists. In this shop, as in others like it, entire exhibitions of artists were held.

Soon Van Gogh and his comrades, who were not famous and recognized, formed their own group of Small Boulevards, because only world-famous artists had the honor to be in the Grand Boulevards group. There was a real spirit of rivalry between them, constant tension reigned, and Van Gogh feels that this is unbearable for him. He endlessly clashes with everyone, often quarrels, and therefore decides to leave Paris.

severed ear

In February 1888, the impulsive and uncompromising artist left the capital and moved to Provence. He soon fell in love with this area with all the strength of his soul. Theo continues to support his brother, he fully supports him, sending Vincent 250 francs a month. The grateful artist sends Theo all his works. Vincent settled in a hotel, he had four rooms at his disposal, meals in a cafe. He quickly became friends with the owners of the hotel, and began to paint their portraits.

A new wave of inspiration came to the artist in the spring, when trees blossomed under the bright sun of the South. He admired the brightness of colors, the transparency of the air, and gradually moved away from the ideas of impressionism. But the light palette is still present in his canvases, and he also works in the open air. The works of that period are painted in yellow, as if the artist wanted to convey the spiritual radiance that bursts from the depths of his soul.

Van Gogh liked to work at night, and in order to be able to create in the open air, he attached candles to the sketchbook and hat, thus providing lighting for the workplace. So he wrote his masterpieces called "Night Cafe" and "Starry Night over the Rhone". At the invitation of Vincent, Paul Gauguin comes to visit him, whom he has been waiting for a long time to visit. However, very soon they quarreled among themselves and broke off friendly relations. Gauguin was always confident and pedantic, while Van Gogh, on the contrary, was restless and very uncollected.

Before the onset of Christmas 1888, they had another showdown, as a result of which Van Gogh cut off his own ear. Gauguin was afraid of the attack, he decided that they were attempting to assassinate him. While he was hiding in a hotel, Vincent wrapped his severed earlobe in paper and ordered it to be delivered to a prostitute named Rachel, their mutual friend. The bloody Van Gogh was found by one of his friends - Roulin. The wound healed quickly enough, but the state of mind of the artist led him to a hospital bed.

Personal life

The mental illness of the great artist could be caused by the disorder of his personal life, because he never married. He experienced the first shock when he confessed his love to the daughter of his mistress. The offer of a strange young man was unexpected for the girl, and she refused him in a rude manner.

The same story was repeated with Ki Stricker Voe, who happened to be his cousin. She did not accept his courtship, but the artist decided not to give up. When he appeared for the third time in their house, he put his hand over a burning candle and said that he would not remove it until he received consent to the marriage. The girl's father considered all his imbalance in this act and simply expelled him from his house.

Lack of sex leads to a nervous state. The artist began to get involved in prostitutes, and the worst of them. Among them, he chose a pregnant woman, who also had a five-year-old daughter. When a son was born, Vincent fell in love with him and even decided to marry. She began to pose for him and lived for about a year. This woman gave Vincent gonorrhea. Soon he ended his relationship with her, and she returned to her former life. The frustrated artist leaves The Hague.

Recently, Vincent was simply fighting off the persecution of his neighbor Margo Begemann. She was 41 years old and she wanted to get married. When her parents did not bless this marriage, she almost committed suicide, but the artist saved her. Vincent was promiscuous, a frequent visitor to brothels and periodically treated for "pleasure ailments".

Death

The townspeople of Arly, with some apprehension, began to treat the artist, who was alien and incomprehensible to them. In 1889, they draw up a petition in which they express a request to protect them from the company of a madman. Vincent is well aware that his condition is a danger to others, so he voluntarily goes to the clinic in Saint-Remy. Doctors do not forbid him to work on the street, but only when accompanied by medical personnel. It was during this period that he painted the paintings "Road with Cypresses and a Star" and "Starry Night", in which there are swirls and undulating lines.

In the hospital, his condition changed quite often - either violent activity or prolonged depression. The disease often worsened, but despite this, Theo van Gogh managed to get permission for his brother to participate in the Salon des Indépendants, which was held in September in Paris. In early 1890, Van Gogh exhibited his painting "Red Vineyards in Arles", which was bought for 400 francs. It was a fairly decent amount received for the only painting that Vincent sold in his life.

He rejoiced like a child, and set to work with triple zeal. The success of the sale of the painting also inspired Brother Theo. He sent Vincent everything necessary for creativity, but the artist began to eat paints. In the spring of 1890, Theo persuaded the homeopathic physician Dr. Gachet to accept Vincent into his clinic. The doctor himself loved to draw, so he willingly agrees to work with the artist. Vincent quickly got used to the doctor, who seemed to him a kind and optimistic person.

A month later, the artist was allowed to go to Paris. Theo was not very happy with the meeting, a lot of financial problems fell on him at that time, and his daughter became very ill. Vincent was upset by this reception, he realized that all his life he had been a burden to his brother. This discovery shocked him, and he immediately returned to the clinic.

On July 27, 1890, as usual, he went to study, but brought not finished drawings, but a bullet in the chest, which he himself fired from a pistol. He hit himself in the rib, and it did not lead to a fatal outcome during the shot. He reached the orphanage, lay down on the bed and lit a cigarette. He didn't seem to experience any physical pain.

The doctor immediately sent a telegram to his brother, who rushed in instantly. He began to calm Vincent, saying that he would definitely be cured. To which the artist replied: "Sadness will last forever." Vincent van Gogh died on July 29, 1890 at 1:30 am. The well-known artist was buried in the town of Mary the next day.