Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh is a renowned Dutch post-Impressionist artist. Throughout his entire lifetime, Van Gogh remained poor and unknown. Only after his death did he become one of the most influential figures in western art history.
Early life
Van Gogh was born on the 30th of March 1853, to an upper middle class family. His early adulthood years, were spent working for a firm of art dealers, after which he travelled to The Hague, London and Paris.
As a young man he was a profoundly religious and aspired to be a pastor, just as his father. In 1876 he returned to England and worked as an unpaid supply teacher for a boarding school in Ramsgate. In 1879 he went to work as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium during this period he sketched people from the local community, and in 1885 painted his first major work The Potato Eaters. His palette at that time, featured a very few stark earth tones and showed no sign of his vivid colourful style that was to distinguished his later paintings.
France
In March 1886, he moved to Paris and made acquaintance of artists such as: Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissarro and Gauguin, who he befriended. Subsequently, he moved to the south of France and was greatly influenced by the region’s strong sunlight. His paintings grew more vivid in colour. During this period he also developed his unique and highly recognizable style, which characterized his works of art during his stay in Arles in 1888. Subsequently Van Gogh invited his friend Gaugin to join him in Arles, but soon after their rapour deteriorated.
Van Gogh admired Gauguin and desperately wanted to be treated as his equal, but Gauguin was arrogant and overbearing, something that often frustrated Van Gogh. They rowed over art; Van Gogh over time feared that Gauguin was going to abandon him, and the circumstances, which Van Gogh described as one of “excessive tension,” swiftly headed towards a tipping point. Deeply regretful, he then cut off part of his own ear.
Mental illness
This episode was the first significant sign of his deteriorating the mental, that were to plague Van Gogh for the remaining days of his life. He spent long periods of time in psychiatric hospitals and shifting between periods of inertia, depression and incredibly focused artistic activity. His work reflected the intense colours and intense light of the countryside surrounding him. On May 9, 1889, he requested to be admitted to the asylum at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, asylum for the mentally infirm. In the year spent in the asylum, eventhough he didn’t have a lot of subject matter to paint, Van Gogh still managed to create as many pieces of art work as he had at Arles, producing 150 paintings and hundreds of drawings.
Death
Van Gogh went to Paris on May 17, 1890, to visit his brother, Theo. Following the suggestion of Pissarro, Theo sent Vincent to Auvers, near Paris. At first, Van Gogh felt relieved at Auvers, but towards the end of June he suffered fits of temper and often fought with Gachet. On July 27, 1890, he shot himself in a lonely field probably whilst painting and died, two days later, in the morning of July 29, 1890.