Vincent van Gogh Biography - life, childhood, parents, name, history, school, mother, son, information, born, time
Vincent van Gogh Biography
Auvers, France
Dutch painter
Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch painter whose formal distortions and       humanistic concerns made him a major pioneer of twentieth-century       expressionism, an artistic movement that emphasized expression of the       artist's experience.
Childhood
Born on March 30, 1853, at Groot-Zundert in the province of Brabant,         Holland, Vincent Willem Van Gogh was the son of a Protestant minister,         Theodorus Van Gogh. Exactly a year before his birth, his mother,         Cornelia, gave birth to an infant, also named Vincent, who was         stillborn, or dead upon birth. His grieving parents buried the child and         set up a tombstone to mark the grave. As a result, Vincent Van Gogh grew         up near the haunting sight of a grave with his own name upon it. His         mother later gave birth to Theo, his younger brother, and three younger         sisters. Not much is known about Van Gogh's earlier education,         but he did receive some encouragement from his mother to draw and           paint. As a teenager he drew and painted regularly.
Van Gogh's uncle was a partner in Goupil and Company, art         dealers. Vincent entered the firm at the age of sixteen and remained         there for six years. He served the firm first in The Hague, the         political seat of the Netherlands, and then in London, England, where he         fell in love with his landlady's daughter, who rejected him.         Later he worked for Goupil's branch in Paris, France.
Because of Van Gogh's unpleasant attitude, Goupil dismissed him         in 1876. That year he returned to England, worked at a small school at         Ramsgate, and did some preaching. In early 1877 he clerked in a bookshop         in Dordrecht. Then, convinced that the ministry ought to be his calling,         he joined a religious seminary in Brussels, Belgium. He left three         months later to become an evangelist (a preacher) in a poor mining         section of Belgium, the Borinage. Van Gogh exhibited the necessary         dedication, even giving away his clothes, but his odd behavior kept the         miners at a distance. Once again, in July 1879, he found himself         dismissed from a job. This period was a dark one for Van Gogh. He wished         to give himself to others but was constantly being rejected.
In 1880, after much soul searching, Van Gogh decided to devote his life         to art, a profession he accepted as a spiritual calling. When in London         he had visited museums, and he had drawn a little while in the Borinage.         In October 1880 he attended an art school in Brussels, where he studied         the basics of perspective (representing three-dimensional objects on a         two-dimensional surface) and anatomy (the human body). From April to         December 1881 he stayed with his parents, who were then in Etten, and         continued to work on his art. At this time, too, he studied at the         academic art school at The Hague, where his cousin Anton Mauve taught.
Dutch period
During Van Gogh's Dutch period (1880–1886) he created         works in which his overriding concerns for his fellow man were growing.         His subjects were poor people, miners, peasants, and inhabitants of         almshouses, or houses for the poor. Among his favorite painters at this         time were Jean François Millet (1814–1875), Rembrandt         (1606–1669), and Honoré Daumier (1808–1879).         Complementing Van Gogh's dreary subject matter of this time were         his colors, dark brownish and greenish shades. The masterpiece of Van         Gogh's Dutch period is the Potato Eaters (1885), a night scene in which peasants sit at their meal around a         table.
Van Gogh decided to go to Paris in early 1886, partially because he was         drawn to the simple and artistic life of the French city. His younger         brother, Theo, was living in Paris, where he directed a small gallery         maintained by Goupil and Company. Theo had supported Vincent financially         and emotionally from the time he decided to become a painter, and would         continue to do so throughout his life. The letters between the brothers         are among the most moving documents in all the history of Western art.         Vincent shared Theo's apartment and studied at an art school run         by the traditional painter Fernand Cormon, where he met Émile         Bernard (1868–1941) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec         (1864–1901), who became his friends.
By now Van Gogh was largely under the influence of the impressionists, a         style of painting where the artist concentrates on the immediate         impression of a scene by the use of light and color. Especially         influenced by Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), Van Gogh was         persuaded to give up the gloomy tones of his Dutch period for bright,         high-keyed colors. Also, his subject matter changed from the world of         peasants to a typically impressionistic subject matter, such as         cafés and cityscapes around Montmartre, an area of northern Paris.         He also copied Japanese prints. While subjects and handling were         obviously taken from impressionism, there frequently could be detected a         certain sad quality, as in a scene of Montmartre (1886), where pedestrians are pushed to the outer sides of an open         square.
Stay at Arles
Longing for a place of light and warmth, and tired of being entirely         financially dependent on Theo, Van Gogh left for Arles in southern         France in February 1888. The pleasant country about Arles and the warmth         of the place restored Van Gogh to health. In his fifteen months there he         painted over two hundred pictures. At this time he applied color in         simplified, highly dense masses, his drawing became more energetic and         confused than ever before, and objects seemed to radiate a light of         their own without giving off shadows. During this period he also turned         to painting portraits and executed several self-portraits. Among the         masterpieces of his Arles period are the Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries (June 1888); the Night Café (September); and the Artist's Bedroom at Arles (October).
At Arles Van Gogh suffered fainting spells and seizures (involuntary         muscle
Vincent Van Gogh.
Library of Congress
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spasms). The local population began to turn against him as well. Paul         Gauguin (1848–1903), responding to his invitation, visited him in         October 1888, but the two men quarreled violently. Gauguin left for         Paris. Van Gogh, in a fit of remorse and anger, cut off his ear. On May         9, 1889, he asked to be admitted to the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de         Provence, a hospital for the mentally ill.
Production at Saint-Rémy
In the year Van Gogh spent at the asylum he worked as much as he had at         Arles, producing 150 paintings and hundreds of drawings. Van Gogh         suffered several attacks but           was completely peaceful in between. At this time he received his first         critical praise (a good review), an article by the writer Albert Aurier.
During Van Gogh's stay at Saint-Rémy, his art changed         markedly. His colors lost the intensity of the Arles period: yellows         became coppers; reds verged toward brownish tones. His lines became         restless. He applied the paint more violently with thicker impasto, the         application of thick layers. Van Gogh was drawn to objects in nature         under stress: whirling suns, twisted cypress trees, and surging         mountains. In Starry Night (1889) the whole world seems engulfed by circular movements.
Van Gogh went to Paris on May 17, 1890, to visit his brother. On the         advice of Pissarro, Theo had Vincent go to Auvers, just outside Paris,         to submit to the care of Dr. Paul Gachet, an amateur painter and a         friend of Pissarro and Paul Cézanne (1839–1906).
Last year at Auvers
Van Gogh arrived at Auvers on May 21, 1890. He painted a portrait of Dr.         Gachet and portraits of his daughters, as well as the Church of Auvers. The blue of the Auvers period was not the full blue of Arles but a more         mysterious, flickering blue. In his last painting, the Cornfield with Crows, Van Gogh showed a topsy-turvy world. The spectator himself becomes the         object of perspective, and it is toward him that the crows appear to be         flying.
At first Van Gogh felt relieved at Auvers, but toward the end of June he         experienced fits of temper and often quarreled with Gachet. On July 27,         1890, he shot himself in a lonely field and died the morning of July 29,         1890.
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