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Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch post-impressionist painter, whose bold brush strokes and vibrant colors epitomize the emotionally rich expressionistic style, remains a towering figure of modern art. His stirring, trademark style as captured in works such as The Starry Night, Starlight over Rhone and Terrace Café, is a testament to his creative genius and willful, turbulent character.
Van Gogh was born March 30, 1853, in Groot-Zundert, son of a Dutch Protestant minister. Van Gogh's parents made great sacrifices to send all six of their children to school. However, Vincent did not finish his studies and at the age of sixteen he left home to earn a living.
In 1880, at the age of 27, Van Gogh had been in turn a salesman in an art gallery, a French tutor, a theological student, and an evangelist among the poor coal miners in Belgium. In 1880 Van Gogh turned away from his evangelicism and devoted his attention to drawing and painting the poor Belgian miners and weavers. Van Gogh would spend the last ten years of his life pursuing his art and dealing with his declining mental state.
In 1886 Vincent Van Gogh went to Paris to live with his art dealer brother Théo, and became familiar with the new art movements developing at the time. Influenced by the work of the impressionists and by the work of Japanese printmakers, Van Gogh began to experiment with current techniques. Where his prior artwork relied on dark colors and heavy forms, he subsequently adopted the brilliant hues found in the paintings of the French artists Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat.
In 1888 Van Gogh left Paris for southern France, where, under the burning sun of Provence, he painted scenes of the fields (see Field with Poppies), cypress trees (see Oat Field with Cypress), peasants (see La Siesta), and rustic life characteristic of the region (see First Steps). During this period, living at Arles, he began to use the swirling brush strokes and intense yellows, greens, and blues associated with such typical works as Bedroom at Arles, and Bateaux a Saintes - Maries.
For Vincent Van Gogh all visible phenomena, whether he painted or drew them, seemed to be endowed with a physical and spiritual vitality. In his enthusiasm he induced the painter Paul Gauguin, whom he had met earlier in Paris, to join him. In less than two months they began to have violent disagreements, culminating in a quarrel in which Van Gogh wildly threatened Gauguin with a razor; the same night, in deep remorse, Van Gogh cut off part of his own ear.
For a time Van Gogh was in a hospital at Arles. He then spent a year in the nearby asylum of Saint-Rémy, working between repeated spells of madness. His manic outbursts and depression did not stop him from remaining a most prolific artist - about 750 paintings and 1600 drawings, among which his most memorable are many versions of Sunflowers and Irises.
Just after completing his ominous Crows in the Wheatfield Vincent Van Gogh shot himself on July 27, 1890, and died two days later. The more than 700 letters that Van Gogh wrote to his brother Théo constitute an illuminating record of the life of an artist whose sublime sensitivity and volcanic temperament found unfettered expression in the passionate brushstrokes of his paintings.
Favorite works: Les Irises, Cafe Terrace at Night, The Starry Night, Sunflowers, Starlight over the Rhone, The Olive Trees 1889, The Reaping, Wheatfield with Crows 1890, View of Arles with Irises.