Vincent van Gogh 

Biography
Vincent van Gogh was one of the world’s greatest artists, with
paintings such as ‘Starry Night’ and ‘Sunflowers,’ though he was
unknown until after his death.
Who Was Vincent van Gogh?

Vincent van Gogh was a post-Impressionist painter whose work — notable for its beauty,
emotion and color — highly influenced 20th-century art. He struggled with mental illness and
remained poor and virtually unknown throughout his life.

Early Life and Family

Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands. Van Gogh’s father,
Theodorus van Gogh, was an austere country minister, and his mother, Anna Cornelia
Carbentus, was a moody artist whose love of nature, drawing and watercolors was transferred
to her son.Van Gogh was born exactly one year after his parents' first son, also named
Vincent, was stillborn. At a young age — with his name and birthdate already etched on his
dead brother's headstone — van Gogh was melancholy.

Theo van Gogh

The eldest of six living children, van Gogh had two younger brothers (Theo, who worked as
an art dealer and supported his older brother’s art, and Cor) and three younger sisters (Anna,
Elizabeth and Willemien).Theo van Gogh would later play an important role in his older
brother's life as a confidant, supporter and art dealer.

Early Life and Education

At age 15, van Gogh's family was struggling financially, and he was forced to leave school
and go to work. He got a job at his Uncle Cornelis' art dealership, Goupil & Cie., a firm of art
dealers in The Hague. By this time, van Gogh was fluent in French, German and English, as
well as his native Dutch.In June of 1873, van Gogh was transferred to the Groupil Gallery in
London. There, he fell in love with English culture. He visited art galleries in his spare time,
and also became a fan of the writings of Charles Dickens and George Eliot.

He also fell in love with his landlady's daughter, Eugenie Loyer. When she rejected his
marriage proposal, van Gogh suffered a breakdown. He threw away all his books except for
the Bible, and devoted his life to God. He became angry with people at work, telling
customers not to buy the "worthless art," and was eventually fired.

Life as a Preacher
Van Gogh then taught in a Methodist boys' school, and also preached to the congregation.
Although raised in a religious family, it wasn't until this time that he seriously began to
consider devoting his life to the church

Hoping to become a minister, he prepared to take the entrance exam to the School of
Theology in Amsterdam. After a year of studying diligently, he refused to take the Latin
exams, calling Latin a "dead language" of poor people, and was subsequently denied
entrance.

The same thing happened at the Church of Belgium: In the winter of 1878, van Gogh
volunteered to move to an impoverished coal mine in the south of Belgium, a place where
preachers were usually sent as punishment. He preached and ministered to the sick, and also
drew pictures of the miners and their families, who called him "Christ of the Coal Mines."

The evangelical committees were not as pleased. They disagreed with van Gogh's lifestyle,
which had begun to take on a tone of martyrdom. They refused to renew van Gogh's contract,
and he was forced to find another occupation.

Finding Solace in Art

In the fall of 1880, van Gogh decided to move to Brussels and become an artist. Though he
had no formal art training, his brother Theo offered to support van Gogh financially. 

He began taking lessons on his own, studying books like Travaux des champs by Jean-
François Millet and Cours de dessin by Charles Bargue.

Van Gogh's art helped him stay emotionally balanced. In 1885, he began work on what is
considered to be his first masterpiece, "Potato Eaters." Theo, who by this time living in Paris,
believed the painting would not be well-received in the French capital,
where Impressionism had become the trend.

Nevertheless, van Gogh decided to move to Paris, and showed up at Theo's house uninvited.
In March 1886, Theo welcomed his brother into his small apartment.

In Paris, van Gogh first saw Impressionist art, and he was inspired by the color and light. He
began studying with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Camille Pissarro and others.

To save money, he and his friends posed for each other instead of hiring models. Van Gogh
was passionate, and he argued with other painters about their works, alienating those who
became tired of his bickering.
Love Life

Van Gogh's love life was nothing short of disastrous: He was attracted to women in trouble,
thinking he could help them. When he fell in love with his recently widowed cousin, Kate,
she was repulsed and fled to her home in Amsterdam. 

Van Gogh then moved to The Hague and fell in love with Clasina Maria Hoornik, an
alcoholic prostitute. She became his companion, mistress and model.

When Hoornik went back to prostitution, van Gogh became utterly depressed. In 1882, his
family threatened to cut off his money unless he left Hoornik and The Hague.

Van Gogh left in mid-September of that year to travel to Drenthe, a somewhat desolate
district in the Netherlands. For the next six weeks, he lived a nomadic life, moving
throughout the region while drawing and painting the landscape and its people.

Arles

Van Gogh became influenced by Japanese art and began studying Eastern philosophy to
enhance his art and life. He dreamed of traveling there, but was told by Toulouse-Lautrec that
the light in the village of Arles was just like the light in Japan.

In February 1888, van Gogh boarded a train to the south of France. He moved into a now-
famous "yellow house" and spent his money on paint rather than food.

Paintings

Vincent van Gogh completed more than 2,100 works, consisting of 860 oil paintings and
more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings and sketches. 

Several of his paintings now rank among the most expensive in the world; "Irises" sold for a
record $53.9 million, and his "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" sold for $82.5 million. A few of van
Gogh’s most well-known artworks include:

'Starry Night'

Van Gogh painted "The Starry Night" in the asylum where he was staying in Saint-Rémy,
France, in 1889, the year before his death. “This morning I saw the countryside from my
window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very
big,” he wrote to his brother Theo. 

A combination of imagination, memory, emotion and observation, the oil painting on canvas
depicts an expressive swirling night sky and a sleeping village, with a large flame-like
cypress, thought to represent the bridge between life and death, looming in the foreground.
The painting is currently housed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY.

'Sunflowers'

Van Gogh painted two series of sunflowers in Arles, France: four between August and
September 1888 and one in January 1889; the versions and replicas are debated among art
historians. The oil paintings on canvas, which depict wilting yellow sunflowers in a vase, are
now displayed at museums in London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Munich and Philadelphia.

'Irises'

In 1889, after entering an asylum in Saint-Rémy, France, van Gogh began painting Irises,
working from the plants and flowers he found in the asylum's garden. Critics believe the
painting was influenced by Japanese woodblock prints.

French critic Octave Mirbeau, the painting's first owner and an early supporter of Van Gogh,
remarked, "How well he has understood the exquisite nature of flowers!"

'Self-Portrait'

Over the course of 10 years, van Gogh created more than 43 self-portraits as both paintings
and drawings. "I am looking for a deeper likeness than that obtained by a photographer," he
wrote to his sister. 

"People say, and I am willing to believe it, that it is hard to know yourself. But it is not easy
to paint yourself, either. The portraits painted by Rembrandt are more than a view of nature,
they are more like a revelation,” he later wrote to his brother. 

Van Gogh's self-portraits are now displayed in museums around the world, including in
Washington, D.C., Paris, New York and Amsterdam.

Vincent van Gogh Self-Portrait Painting Courtesy Musée d'Orsay via Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Courtesy Musée d'Orsay via Wikimedia Commons
Van Gogh's Ear

In December 1888, van Gogh was living on coffee, bread and absinthe in Arles, France, and
he found himself feeling sick and strange.

Before long, it became apparent that in addition to suffering from physical illness, his
psychological health was declining. Around this time, he is known to have sipped on
turpentine and eaten paint.

His brother Theo was worried, and he offered Paul Gauguin money to go watch over Vincent
in Arles. Within a month, van Gogh and Gauguin were arguing constantly, and one night,
Gauguin walked out. Van Gogh followed him, and when Gauguin turned around, he saw van
Gogh holding a razor in his hand.

Hours later, van Gogh went to the local brothel and paid for a prostitute named Rachel. With
blood pouring from his hand, he offered her his ear, asking her to "keep this object
carefully." 

The police found van Gogh in his room the next morning, and admitted him to the Hôtel-
Dieu hospital. Theo arrived on Christmas Day to see van Gogh, who was weak from blood
loss and having violent seizures. 

The doctors assured Theo that his brother would live and would be taken good care of, and on
January 7, 1889, van Gogh was released from the hospital.

He remained, however, alone and depressed. For hope, he turned to painting and nature, but
could not find peace and was hospitalized again. He would paint at the yellow house during
the day and return to the hospital at night.

Asylum

Van Gogh decided to move to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence

On May 8, 1889, he began painting in the hospital gardens. In November 1889, he was
invited to exhibit his paintings in Brussels. He sent six paintings, including "Irises" and
"Starry Night."

On January 31, 1890, Theo and his wife, Johanna, gave birth to a boy and named him
Vincent Willem van Gogh after Theo's brother. Around this time, Theo sold van Gogh's "The
Red Vineyards" painting for 400 francs.
Also around this time, Dr. Paul Gachet, who lived in Auvers, about 20 miles north of Paris,
agreed to take van Gogh as his patient. Van Gogh moved to Auvers and rented a room.

Death

On July 27, 1890, Vincent van Gogh went out to paint in the morning carrying a loaded pistol
and shot himself in the chest, but the bullet did not kill him. He was found bleeding in his
room. 

Van Gogh was distraught about his future because, in May of that year, his brother Theo had
visited and spoke to him about needing to be stricter with his finances. Van Gogh took that to
mean Theo was no longer interested in selling his art. 

Van Gogh was taken to a nearby hospital and his doctors sent for Theo, who arrived to find
his brother sitting up in bed and smoking a pipe. They spent the next couple of days talking
together, and then van Gogh asked Theo to take him home. 

On July 29, 1890, Vincent van Gogh died in the arms of his brother Theo. He was only 37
years old.

Theo, who was suffering from syphilis and weakened by his brother's death, died six months
after his brother in a Dutch asylum. He was buried in Utrecht, but in 1914 Theo's wife,
Johanna, who was a dedicated supporter of van Gogh's works, had Theo's body reburied in
the Auvers cemetery next to Vincent.

Legacy

Theo's wife Johanna then collected as many of van Gogh's paintings as she could, but
discovered that many had been destroyed or lost, as van Gogh's own mother had thrown away
crates full of his art. 

On March 17, 1901, 71 of van Gogh's paintings were displayed at a show in Paris, and his
fame grew enormously. His mother lived long enough to see her son hailed as an artistic
genius. Today, Vincent van Gogh is considered one of the greatest artists in human history. 

The painting is believed to have been created by van Gogh in 1888 — around the same time
that his artwork "Sunflowers" was made — just two years before his death