His whole life is a search for himself. He was both an art dealer and a preacher in a remote village. Many times it seemed to him that life was over, that he would never find a job that would be a reflection of his inner needs. When he started painting, he was almost 30 years old.
It would seem, what do we, the people of the XXI century, care about some crazy artist? But if you have ever thought about how lonely a person can be in the world, how difficult it is to find your place in life, your business, Van Gogh will be of interest to you not only as “some kind of artist”, but also as an amazing and tragic person.
When a person has a fire inside and has a soul, he is unable to restrain them. Let it burn rather than go out. What's inside will still come out.
Starry night, 1889
I consider life without love to be a sinful immoral state.
Self-portrait with cut off ear, 1889
A man carries a bright flame in his soul, but no one wants to bask near it; passers-by notice only the smoke leaving through the chimney, and pass on their way.
Blossoming almond branch, 1890
As for me, I really don't know anything, but the shining of the stars makes me dream.
Starry night over the Rhone, 1888
Even if I manage to raise my head a little higher in life, I will still do the same thing - drink with the first person I meet and immediately write it.
Van Gogh's chair with his pipe, 1888
In the evening I walked along the deserted seashore. It wasn't funny or sad - it was beautiful.
In the hope that Gauguin and I will have a common workshop, I want to decorate it. Some big sunflowers - nothing else.
Today's generation doesn't want me: well, I don't give a damn about him.
In my opinion, I often, although not every day, am fabulously rich - not in money, but in the fact that I find in my work something that I can devote my soul and heart to, which inspires me and gives meaning to my life.
Road with cypresses and a star, 1890
When 37-year-old Vincent van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, his work was almost unknown to anyone. Today, his paintings are worth stunning sums and adorn the best museums in the world.
125 years after the death of the great Dutch painter, it is time to learn more about him and dispel some of the myths that, like all art history, his biography is full of.
He changed several jobs before becoming an artist
The son of a minister, Van Gogh started working at the age of 16. His uncle hired him as an intern for an art dealership in The Hague. He happened to travel to London and Paris, where the firm's branches were located. In 1876 he was fired. After that, he worked briefly as a schoolteacher in England, then as a bookstore clerk. From 1878 he served as a preacher in Belgium. Van Gogh was in need, he had to sleep on the floor, but less than a year later he was fired from this post. Only after that he finally became an artist and did not change his occupation anymore. In this field, he became famous, however, posthumously.
Van Gogh's career as an artist was short
In 1881, the self-taught Dutch artist returned to the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to painting. He was supported financially and materially by his younger brother Theodore, a successful art dealer. In 1886, the brothers settled in Paris, and these two years in the French capital turned out to be crucial. Van Gogh took part in exhibitions of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, he began to use a light and bright palette, experimenting with methods of applying strokes. The artist spent the last two years of his life in the south of France, where he created some of his most famous paintings.
In his entire ten-year career, he sold only a few of over 850 paintings. His drawings (there are about 1300 of them left) were then unclaimed.
He probably didn't cut off his own ear.
In February 1888, after living in Paris for two years, Van Gogh moved to the south of France, to the city of Arles, where he hoped to establish a community of artists. He was accompanied by Paul Gauguin, with whom they became friends in Paris. The officially accepted version of events is as follows:
On the night of December 23, 1888, they quarreled, and Gauguin left. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, pursued his friend, but, not catching up, returned home and, in annoyance, partially cut off his left ear, then wrapped it in a newspaper and gave it to some prostitute.
In 2009, two German scientists published a book suggesting that Gauguin, being a good swordsman, cut off part of Van Gogh's ear with a saber during a duel. According to this theory, Van Gogh, in the name of friendship, agreed to hide the truth, otherwise Gauguin would have been threatened with prison.
The most famous paintings were painted by him in a psychiatric clinic
In May 1889, Van Gogh sought help from the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric hospital, located in a former convent in the city of Saint-Remy-de-Provence in southern France. Initially, the artist was diagnosed with epilepsy, but the examination also revealed bipolar disorder, alcoholism and metabolic disorders. Treatment consisted mainly of baths. He remained in the hospital for a year and painted a number of landscapes there. Over a hundred paintings from this period include some of his most famous works such as Starry Night (purchased by New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1941) and Irises (purchased by an Australian industrialist in 1987 for a then record-breaking $ 53.9 million)
At the age of 37, on July 27, 1890, the amazing and unique artist Vincent van Gogh committed suicide. In the afternoon, he went out into a wheat field behind the small French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, located a few kilometers from Paris, and fired a revolver into his chest.
Prior to that, for a year and a half, he had suffered from mental disorders, ever since he cut off his own ear in 1888.
The Last Days of an Artist
After that high-profile incident of self-harm, Van Gogh was tormented by periodic but debilitating attacks of insanity, which turned him into an embittered and inadequate person. He could stay in this state from several days to several weeks. In the periods between attacks, the artist was calm and thought clearly. These days, he loved to draw and seemed to be trying to make up for the time taken from him. For ten and a few years of creativity, Van Gogh created several thousand works, including oil paintings, drawings and sketches.
His last creative period, spent in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, turned out to be the most productive. After Van Gogh left the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, he settled in the picturesque Auvers. In just over two months spent there, he completed 75 oil paintings and drew over a hundred drawings.
Death of Van Gogh
Despite the extraordinary productivity, the artist did not cease to be tormented by feelings of anxiety and loneliness. Van Gogh became more and more convinced that his life was worthless and was wasted. Perhaps the reason for this was the lack of recognition of his talent by his contemporaries. Despite the novelty of artistic expression and the unique style of paintings, Vincent van Gogh rarely received laudatory reviews for his work.
Ultimately, the desperate artist found a small pocket revolver that belonged to the owner of the boarding house where Van Gogh lived. He took a weapon in the field and shot himself in the heart. However, due to the small size of the revolver and the small caliber, the bullet got stuck in the rib and did not reach the target.
Wounded, Van Gogh lost consciousness and fell into a field, dropping his revolver. In the evening, after dark, he came to his senses and tried to finish what he started, but could not find a weapon. With difficulty, he returned to the boarding house, where the owners called the doctor and the artist's brother. Theo arrived the next day and did not leave the wounded man's bed. For some time, Theodore hoped that the artist would recover, but Vincent van Gogh intended to die, and on the night of July 29, 1890, he died at the age of 37, saying to his brother in the end: "That's exactly how I wanted to leave."
On the verge of insanity
Today, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam opened a new exhibition called "On the Edge of Madness". It reveals in detail, carefully and as objectively as possible the life of the artist in the last year and a half, at that very time, overshadowed by bouts of madness.
Despite the fact that it does not give an exact answer to the question of what exactly the artist suffered from, the exhibition presents the viewers with still unexhibited exhibits related to the life of Van Gogh, and a number of his latest works.
Possible diagnoses
As for the diagnosis, over the years there have been a lot of different theories, well-founded and not very well-founded, regarding what Vincent van Gogh actually suffered, what his madness consisted of. Both epilepsy and schizophrenia were considered. In addition, among the possible ailments were listed a split personality, complications of alcohol dependence and psychopathy.
Van Gogh's first recorded bout of insanity and violence was in December 1988, when, as a result of conflicts with his friend Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh attacked him with a razor. Nothing is known for certain about the causes and course of this particular quarrel, but as a result, in a fit of repentance, Van Gogh cut off his own ear with this very razor.
There are many theories about the causes of self-harm and even doubts about the very fact of self-harm. Many believe that Van Gogh hid Paul Gauguin from responsibility and trial in this way. However, this theory has no practical evidence.
Saint Remy de Provence
After a bout of violence, the artist was taken to a psychiatric hospital, where everything continued until Van Gogh was placed in a ward for especially violent patients. At that time, the diagnosis of psychiatrists was epilepsy.
After the attack ended, Van Gogh asked to be allowed back to Arles so that he could continue painting. However, on the recommendation of doctors, the artist was transferred to a mental hospital located near Arles. Van Gogh lived in Saint-Remy-de-Provence for almost a year. There he painted about 150 paintings, most of which are landscapes and still lifes.
The tension and anxiety that tormented the artist during this period are reflected in the extraordinary dynamism of his canvases and the use of darker tones. One of the most famous works of Van Gogh - "Starry Night" - was created during this period.
Curious exhibits
The exhibition "On the Threshold of Madness", despite the lack of precise diagnoses, gives an unusually visual and emotional account of the last stage of the artist's life. In addition to the paintings that Van Gogh worked on in recent days, there are letters from his brother Theo, notes from a doctor who treated the artist in Arles, and even a revolver from which the artist shot himself in the chest.
The revolver was found in that same field seventy years after Van Gogh's death. Its model and corrosion confirm that this is the same weapon that inflicted a mortal wound on the artist.
A note in a letter from Dr. Felix Rey, who was treating the artist after a sensational razor incident, contains a diagram showing exactly how Van Gogh's ear was cut off. Until now, it has often been mentioned that the artist cut off his earlobe. It follows from the letter that Van Gogh cut off the auricle almost completely, leaving only part of the lower lobe.
The final stage of creativity
The exhibition is interesting not only for those who are interested in the life and death of the great artist, but also for fans of his work, since the canvases, drawings and sketches presented in it appear before the viewer in a different light.
Against the background of evidence of the artist's practical insanity, the latest paintings look like a kind of visual timeline, showing when the artist visited periods of clarity and peace, and when he was tormented by anxiety.
last picture
The last painting that Van Gogh worked on in the morning of that very July day is called “Roots of Trees”. The canvas remained unfinished.
At first glance, the painting is an abstract composition, unlike anything the artist has depicted before on his canvases. However, upon closer examination, an image of an unusual landscape emerges, in which the main role is assigned to the closely interwoven tree roots.
In many ways, "Tree Roots" is an innovative composition, even for Van Gogh - there is not a single point of focus in it, and it does not follow the rules. The picture seems to herald the onset of abstractionism.
At the same time, considering this painting as part of the exhibition "On the Threshold of Madness", it is difficult not to evaluate it retrospectively. Is there a secret in it and what is it? Involuntarily, questions are asked: while painting the intertwined tree roots, what was the artist thinking about, who in a few hours will try to shoot at his own heart?
The life, death and work of Vincent van Gogh have been studied quite well. Dozens of books and monographs have been written about the great Dutchman, hundreds of dissertations have been defended and several films have been made. Despite this, researchers are constantly finding new facts from the life of the artist. Recently, researchers have questioned the canonical version of the suicide of a genius and put forward their own version.
Van Gogh biography researchers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith believe that the artist did not commit suicide, but was the victim of an accident. Scientists came to this conclusion after conducting a large-scale search work and studying many documents and memoirs of eyewitnesses and friends of the artist.
Gregory White Smith and Steve Knife
Nyfi and White Smith designed their work in the form of a book called “Van Gogh. Life". Work on a new biography of the Dutch artist took more than 10 years, despite the fact that 20 researchers and translators actively helped scientists.
Auvers-sur-Oise cherishes the memory of the artist
It is known that Van Gogh died in a hotel in the small town of Auvers-sur-Oise, located 30 km from Paris. It was believed that on July 27, 1890, the artist went for a walk in the picturesque surroundings, during which he shot himself in the heart area. The bullet did not reach the target and went lower, so the wound, although severe, did not lead to immediate death.
Vincent van Gogh "Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun" Saint-Remy, September 1889
Wounded, Van Gogh returned to his room, where the hotel owner called a doctor. The next day, Theo, the brother of the artist, arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise, in whose arms he died on July 29, 1890, at 1.30 am, 29 hours after the fatal shot. Van Gogh's last words were "La tristesse durera toujours" (Sorrow will last forever).
Auvers-sur-Oise. Tavern "Ravu" on the second floor of which the great Dutchman died
But according to research by Stephen Knyfi, Van Gogh did not go for a walk in the wheat fields on the outskirts of Auvers-sur-Oise in order to take his own life.
“People who knew him believed that he was accidentally killed by a couple of local teenagers, but he decided to protect them and took the blame.”
So says Nayfi, referring to the numerous references to this strange story by eyewitnesses. Did the artist have a weapon? Most likely it was, since Vincent once acquired a revolver to scare away flocks of birds, which often prevented him from drawing from life in nature. But at the same time, no one can say with certainty whether Van Gogh took weapons with him that day.
The tiny closet where Vincent van Gogh spent his last days, in 1890 and now
For the first time, the version of careless murder was put forward back in 1930 by John Renwald, a well-known researcher of the painter's biography. Renwald visited the city of Auvers-sur-Oise and spoke with several residents who still remembered the tragic incident.
Also, John was able to access the medical records of the doctor who examined the wounded man in his room. According to the description of the wound, the bullet entered the abdominal cavity in the upper part along a trajectory close to a tangent, which is not at all typical for cases when a person shoots himself.
The graves of Vincent and his brother Theo, who survived the artist by only six months
Stephen Nyfi in the book puts forward a very convincing version of what happened, in which his young acquaintances became the perpetrators of the death of a genius.
“It was known that these two teenagers often went out for drinks with Vincent at that time of the day. One of them had a cowboy suit and a malfunctioning gun with which he played cowboy."
The scientist believes that careless handling of the weapon, which was also faulty, led to an involuntary shot, with which Van Gogh was mortally wounded in the stomach. It is unlikely that teenagers wanted the death of their older friend - most likely, there was a murder by negligence. The noble artist, not wanting to ruin the life of the young men, took the blame upon himself, and told the guys to keep quiet.
Biography and episodes of life Vincent van Gogh. When born and died Vincent van Gogh, memorable places and dates of important events in his life. artist quotes, Photo and video.
Life of Vincent van Gogh:
born March 30, 1853, died July 29, 1890
Epitaph
“I stand to myself, and hung over me
Twisted like a flame, cypress.
Lemon crown and dark blue, -
Without them I would not be myself;
I would humiliate my own speech,
When someone else's burden dropped from his shoulders.
And this rudeness of an angel, with which
He makes his stroke related to my line,
Leads you through his pupil
Where Van Gogh breathes stars.
From a poem by Arseny Tarkovsky dedicated to Van Gogh
Biography
Without a doubt the greatest artist of the XIX century. with a recognizable manner, the author of world-renowned masterpieces, Vincent van Gogh was and remains one of the most controversial figures in world painting. Mental illness, a passionate and uneven character, deep compassion and at the same time unsociableness, combined with an amazing sense of nature and beauty, found expression in the artist's vast creative heritage. Throughout his life, Van Gogh painted hundreds of paintings and at the same time remained an unrecognized genius until his death. Only one of his works, "Red Vineyards in Arles", was sold during the life of the artist. What an irony: after all, a hundred years after Van Gogh's death, his tiniest sketches were already worth a fortune.
Vincent van Gogh was born in the countryside into a large family of a Dutch pastor, where he was one of six children. While studying at school, the boy began to draw with a pencil, and even in these, the earliest drawings of a teenager, an extraordinary talent is already visible. After school, the sixteen-year-old Van Gogh was assigned to work in the Hague branch of the Parisian firm Goupil and Company, which sold paintings. This made it possible for the young man and his brother Theo, with whom Vincent had a not simple but very close relationship all his life, to get acquainted with real art. And this acquaintance, in turn, cooled the creative zeal of Van Gogh: he strove for something sublime, spiritual, and in the end he gave up the “low” occupation, in his opinion, deciding to become a pastor.
This was followed by years of poverty, living from hand to mouth and the spectacle of much human suffering. Van Gogh was passionately eager to help the poor people, at the same time experiencing an ever-increasing thirst for creativity. Seeing in art a lot in common with religious faith, at the age of 27, Vincent finally decides to become an artist. He works hard, enters the school of fine arts in Antwerp, then moves to Paris, where at that time a whole galaxy of impressionists and post-impressionists lives and works. With the help of his brother Theo, who is still engaged in the sale of paintings, and with his financial support, Van Gogh leaves to work in the south of France and invites Paul Gauguin there, with whom he became close friends. This time is the heyday of Van Gogh's creative genius and at the same time the beginning of his end. The artists work together, but the relationship between them becomes increasingly tense and eventually explodes in a famous quarrel, after which Vincent cuts off his earlobe and ends up in a mental hospital. Doctors find he has epilepsy and schizophrenia.
The last years of Van Gogh's life are throwing between hospitals and attempts to return to normal life. Vincent continues to create while in the hospital, but he is haunted by obsessions, fears and hallucinations. Twice, Van Gogh tries to poison himself with paints and, finally, one day he returns from a walk with a gunshot wound in his chest, having shot himself with a revolver. The last words of Van Gogh, addressed to his brother Theo, were: "Sadness will be endless." The hearse for the funeral of the suicide had to be borrowed from a nearby town. Van Gogh was buried in Auvers, and his coffin was strewn with sunflowers, the artist's favorite flowers.
Van Gogh self-portrait, 1887
life line
March 30, 1853 Vincent van Gogh's date of birth.
1869 Start of work in the Goupil Gallery.
1877 Work as an educator and life in England, then work as an assistant pastor, life with miners in the Borinage.
1881 Life in The Hague, the first commissioned paintings (cityscapes of The Hague).
1882 Meeting with Klozinna Maria Hornik (Sin), the "vicious muse" of the artist.
1883-1885 Living with parents in North Brabant. Creation of a series of works on domestic rural scenes, including the famous painting "Potato Eaters".
1885 Studying at the Antwerp Academy.
1886 Acquaintance in Paris with Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat, Pissarro. The beginning of friendship with Paul Gauguin and a creative upsurge, the creation of 200 paintings in 2 years.
1888 Life and work in Arles. Three paintings by Van Gogh are exhibited at the Independent Salon. Arrival of Gauguin, joint work and quarrel.
1889 Periodic exits from the hospital and attempts to return to work. Final transfer to the orphanage in Saint-Remy.
1890 Several paintings by Van Gogh are accepted for exhibitions of the Society of the Twenty in Brussels and the Independent Salon. Moving to Paris.
July 27, 1890 Van Gogh wounds himself in Daubigny's garden.
July 29, 1890 Date of Van Gogh's death.
July 30, 1890 Van Gogh's funeral at Auvers-sur-Oise.
Memorable places
1. The village of Zundert (Netherlands), where Van Gogh was born.
2. The house where Van Gogh rented a room while working in the London branch of the Goupil company in 1873
3. The village of Kuem (Netherlands), where Van Gogh's house is still preserved, in which he lived in 1880, studying the life of miners.
4. Rue Lepic in Montmartre, where Van Gogh lived with his brother Theo after moving to Paris in 1886.
5. Place du Forum with a cafe-terrace in Arles (France), which in 1888 Van Gogh depicted on one of his most famous paintings, “Night Cafe Terrace”.
6. The hospital at the monastery of Saint-Paul-de-Musol in the town of Saint-Remy-de-Provence, where Van Gogh was placed in 1889.
7. Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh spent the last months of his life and where he is buried in the village cemetery.
Episodes of life
Van Gogh was in love with his cousin, but she rejected him, and the persistence of Van Gogh's courtship quarreled him with almost the entire family. The depressed artist left his parental home, where, as if in defiance of his family and himself, he settled with a corrupt woman, an alcoholic with two children. After a year of a nightmarish, dirty and miserable "family" life, Van Gogh broke up with Sin and forgot about the idea of starting a family forever.
No one knows exactly what caused Van Gogh's famous quarrel with Paul Gauguin, whom he greatly respected as an artist. Gauguin did not like the chaotic life and disorganization of Van Gogh in his work; Vincent, in turn, could not get a friend to sympathize with his ideas of creating a commune of artists and the general direction of painting of the future. As a result, Gauguin decided to leave, and, apparently, this provoked a quarrel, during which Van Gogh first attacked a friend, though without harming him, and then mutilated himself. Gauguin did not forgive: subsequently, he repeatedly emphasized how much Van Gogh owed him as an artist; and they never saw each other again.
Van Gogh's fame grew gradually but steadily. Since the very first exhibition in 1880, the artist has never been forgotten. Before the First World War, his exhibitions were held in Paris, Amsterdam, Cologne, Berlin, New York. And already in the middle of the XX century. Van Gogh's name has become one of the loudest in the history of world painting. And today the artist's works occupy first places in the list of the most expensive paintings in the world.
The grave of Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theodore in the cemetery in Auvers (France).
Testaments
“I am more and more convinced that God cannot be judged by the world he created: this is just an unsuccessful study.”
“Whenever the question arose whether to starve or work less, I chose the former whenever possible.”
"Real artists don't paint things as they are... They paint them because they feel they are."
"The one who lives honestly, who knows real difficulties and disappointments, but does not bend, is worth more than the one who is lucky and who knows only relatively easy success."
“Yes, sometimes it is so cold in winter that people say: the frost is too severe, so it doesn’t matter to me whether summer comes back or not; evil is stronger than good. But, with or without our permission, the frosts stop sooner or later, one fine morning the wind changes and a thaw sets in.”
BBC documentary Van Gogh. Portrait written in words "(2010)
condolences
“He was an honest man and a great artist, for him there were only two true values: love for one's neighbor and art. Painting meant more to him than anything else, and he will always live in it.
Paul Gachet, Van Gogh's last attending physician and friend
