Message about the symbols of Vincent van Gogh. The Life of Vincent van Gogh

The biography of Vincent van Gogh is a vivid example of how a talented person was not recognized during his lifetime. He was only appreciated after his death. This talented post-impressionist artist was born on March 30, 1853 in the Netherlands in a small village, which was located near the border with Belgium. In addition to Vincent, his parents had six children, of which the younger brother Theo can be distinguished. He had a great influence on the fate of the famous artist.

Childhood and early years

As a child, Van Gogh was a difficult and "tedious" child. This is how his family described him. With outsiders, he was quiet, thoughtful, friendly and affable. At the age of seven, the boy was sent to a local village school, where he studied for only a year, then he was transferred to home schooling. After some time, he was sent to a boarding school, where he felt miserable. This greatly affected him. Then the future artist was transferred to college, where he studied foreign languages ​​and drawing.

Attempt at writing. The beginning of an artist's career

At the age of 16, Vincent got a job in a branch of a large company that sold paintings. His uncle owned this company. The future artist worked very well, so he was transferred to . There he learned to understand painting and appreciate it. Vincent attended exhibitions and art galleries. Because of unhappy love, he began to work poorly and was transferred from one office to another. Around the age of 22, Vincent began to try his hand at painting. He was inspired to do this by exhibitions at the Louvre and the Salon (Paris). Because of his new hobby, the artist began to work very poorly and he was fired. He then worked as a teacher and assistant pastor. The choice of the latter profession was influenced by his father, who also chose to serve God.

Acquisition of skill and fame

At the age of 27, the artist, with the support of his brother Theo, moved to, where he entered the Academy of Arts. But, a year later, he decided to quit his studies, because he believed that diligence, not study, would help him become an artist. He painted his first known paintings in The Hague. There, for the first time, he mixed several techniques at once in one work:

• watercolor;
• feather;
• sepia.

Vivid examples of such paintings are “Backyards” and “Roofs. View from van Gogh's studio. Then he had another unsuccessful attempt to start a family. Because of this, Vincent leaves the city and settles in a separate hut, where he paints landscapes and working peasants. During that period, he painted such famous paintings as "Peasant Woman" and "Peasant and Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes."

Interestingly, Van Gogh was not able to draw human figures correctly and smoothly, so in his paintings they have somewhat straight and angular lines. After a while, he moved in with Theo. There he again took up the study of painting in a local famous studio. Then he began to gain fame and participate in exhibitions of the Impressionists.

Death of Van Gogh

The great artist died on July 29, 1890 from blood loss. The day before that day, he had been injured. Vincent shot himself in the chest with a revolver he took with him to scare away birds. There is, however, another version of his death. Some historians believe that he was shot at by teenagers with whom he sometimes drank in bars.

Van Gogh paintings

The list of Van Gogh's most famous works includes the following paintings: "Starry Night"; "Sunflowers"; "Irises"; "Wheat field with crows"; "Portrait of Doctor Gachet".

• There are several facts in Van Gogh's biography that historians are still arguing about. So, for example, it is believed that during his lifetime only one of his paintings “Red Vineyards in Arles” was bought. But, despite this, it is absolutely indisputable that Van Gogh left behind a great legacy and made an invaluable contribution to art. In the 19th century, he was not appreciated, and in the 20th and 21st centuries, Vincent's paintings are sold for millions of dollars.

Name: Vincent Gogh

Age: 37 years

Place of Birth: Grote Zundert, The Netherlands

A place of death: Auvers-sur-Oise, France

Activity: Dutch post-impressionist painter

Family status: not married

Vincent Van Gogh - Biography

Vincent van Gogh did not seek to prove to others that he was a real artist - he was not conceited. The only person he wanted to prove it to was himself.

Vincent van Gogh for a long time did not have any formulated goal in life, nor a profession. Traditionally, generations of Van Goghs either chose a church career or became an art dealer. Vincent's father, Theodorus van Gogh, was a Protestant priest who served in the small town of Groot Zundert in South Holland, on the Belgian border.

Vincent's uncles, Cornelius and Wien, traded paintings in Amsterdam and The Hague. Mother, Anna Cornelia Carbendus, a wise woman who lived for almost a hundred years, suspected that her son was not an ordinary Van Gogh, as soon as he was born on March 30, 1853. A year earlier, to the day, she had given birth to a boy named by the same name. He did not live even a few days. So by fate, the mother believed, her Vincent was destined to live for two.

At the age of 15, having studied for two years at a school in the town of Zevenbergen, and then two more years at a secondary school named after King William P, Vincent left his studies and in 1868, with the help of his uncle Vince, entered the branch of a Parisian art firm that had opened in The Hague Goupil & Co. He worked well, the young man was valued for his curiosity - he studied books on the history of painting and visited museums. Vincent was promoted - sent to the London branch of Goupil.

Van Gogh stayed in London for two years, became a deep connoisseur of engravings by English masters and acquired the gloss appropriate to a businessman, quoted the fashionable Dickens and Eliot, and shaved his red cheeks smoothly. In general, as his younger brother Theo, who later also went on the trading side, testified, he lived in those years with almost blissful delight in front of everything that surrounded him. Heart overflowing tore out passionate words from him: “There is nothing more artistic than to love people!” Vincent wrote. Actually, the correspondence of the brothers is the main document of the life of Vincent van Gogh. Theo was the person Vincent referred to as his confessor. Other documents are fragmentary, fragmentary.

Vincent van Gogh had a bright future as a commission agent. He was soon to move to Paris, to the central office of Goupil.

What happened to him in 1875 in London is not known. He wrote to his brother Theo that he suddenly fell "in painful loneliness." It is believed that in London, Vincent, having truly fallen in love for the first time, was rejected. But the hostess of the boarding house at Hackford Road 87, where he lived, Ursula Leuer, is called his chosen one, then her daughter Eugenia and even a certain German woman named Caroline Haanebiek. Since Vincent kept silent about this love in his letters to his brother, from whom he did not hide anything, it is possible to assume that his “painful loneliness” had other reasons.

Even in Holland, according to contemporaries, Vincent at times caused bewilderment with his demeanor. The expression on his face suddenly became somewhat absent, alien, there was something pensive, deeply serious, melancholic in it. True, afterwards he laughed heartily and cheerfully, and his whole face then brightened. But more often he seemed very lonely. Yes, in fact, he was. To work in "Gupil" he cooled off. The transfer to the Paris branch in May 1875 did not help either. In early March 1876 Van Gogh was fired.

In April 1876, he returned to England a completely different person - without any gloss and ambition. Employed as an educator at the Reverend William P. Stoke School in Ramsgate, where he received a class of 24 boys aged 10 to 14. He read the Bible to them, and then turned to the reverend father with a request to allow him to serve prayers for the parishioners of Turnham Green Church. Soon he was allowed to lead the Sunday sermon as well. True, he did it extremely boring. It is known that his father also lacked emotionality and the ability to capture the audience.

At the end of 1876, Vincent wrote to his brother that he realized his true destiny - he would be a preacher. He returned to Holland and entered the theological faculty of the University of Amsterdam. Ironically, he, fluent in four languages: Dutch, English, French and German, failed to overcome the Latin course. According to the test results, he was identified in January 1879 as a parish priest in the mining village of Wasmes in the poorest Borinage region in Europe in Belgium.

The missionary delegation, which visited Fr. Vincent in Wasmes a year later, was much alarmed by the changes in Van Gogh. Thus, the delegation found that Father Vincent had moved from a comfortable room to a shack, sleeping on the floor. He distributed his clothes to the poor and walked around in a shabby military uniform, under which he put on a homemade burlap shirt. He did not wash himself, so as not to stand out among the miners smeared with coal dust. They tried to convince him that Scripture should not be taken literally, and the New Testament is not a direct guide to action, but Father Vincent came out with a denunciation of the missionaries, which, of course, ended in dismissal.

Van Gogh did not leave the Borinage: he moved to the tiny mining village of Kuzmes, and, existing on the offerings of the community, but in fact for a piece of bread, continued the mission of a preacher. He even interrupted for a while the correspondence with his brother Theo, not wanting to accept help from him.

When the correspondence resumed, Theo was once again surprised by the changes that had taken place with his brother. In letters from the impoverished Kuzmes, he talked about art: “We need to understand the defining word contained in the masterpieces of the great masters, and there it will turn out to be God!” And he said that he draws a lot. Miners, miners' wives, their children. And everyone likes it.

This change surprised Vincent himself. For advice on whether he should continue to paint, he went to the French artist Jules Breton. He did not know Breton, but in his past, commissioner life, he respected the artist to such an extent that he walked 70 kilometers to Courrieres, where Breton lived. Found Breton's house, but hesitated to knock on the door. And, depressed, he set off on foot back to Kuzmes.

Theo believed that his brother would return to his former life after this incident. But Vincent continued to draw like a man possessed. In 1880, he came to Brussels with the firm intention of studying at the Academy of Arts, but his application was not even accepted. Vincent didn't seem to mind at all. He bought Jean-Francois Millet and Charles Bug drawing manuals, popular in those years, and went to his parents, intending to educate himself.

Only his mother approved Vincent's decision to become an artist, which surprised the whole family. The father was very wary of the changes in his son, although art classes fit perfectly into the canons of Protestant ethics. The uncles, who had been selling paintings for decades, after looking at Vincent's drawings, decided that his nephew was out of his mind.

The incident with Cousin Cornelia only strengthened their suspicions. Cornelia, who had recently been widowed and raised her son alone, took a liking to Vincent. Wooing her favor, he broke into his uncle's house, stretched out his hand over an oil lamp, and vowed to keep it over the fire until he was allowed to see his cousin. Cornelia's father resolved the situation by blowing out the lamp, and Vincent, humiliated, left the house.

Mother was very worried about Vincent. She persuaded her distant relative Anton Mauve, a successful artist, to support her son. Mauve sent Vincent a box of watercolors and then met with him. After looking at the work of Van Gogh, the artist gave some advice. But having learned that the model depicted on one of the sketches with a child was a woman of easy virtue, with whom Vincent now lived, he refused to maintain further relations with him.

Van Gogh met Clasina at the end of February 1882 in The Hague. She had two young children and had nowhere to live. Taking pity on her, he invited Klasina and the children to live with him. They were together for a year and a half. Vincent wrote to his brother that in this way he atones for the sin of Klasina's fall, taking on someone else's guilt. In gratitude, she and her children patiently posed for Vincent to study with oil paints.

It was then that he confessed to Theo that art became the main thing for him in life. “Everything else is a consequence of art. If something has nothing to do with art, it doesn't exist." Klasina and her children, whom he loved very much, became a burden for him. In September 1883 he left them and left The Hague.

For two months Vincent, half-starved, wandered around North Holland with an easel. During this time he painted dozens of portraits and hundreds of sketches. Returning to his parents' house, where he was received cooler than ever, he announced that everything he had done before was "studies". And now he is ready to paint a real picture.

Van Gogh worked on The Potato Eaters for a long time. Made a lot of sketches, studies. He had to prove to everyone and to himself, to himself first of all, that he was a real artist. Margo Begeman, who lived next door, was the first to believe in this. A forty-five-year-old woman fell in love with Van Gogh, but he, carried away by the work on the painting, did not notice her. Desperate, Margo tried to poison herself. She was hardly rescued. Upon learning of this, Van Gogh was very worried, and many times in letters to Theo he returned to this accident.

After finishing The Eaters, he was satisfied with the painting and in early 1886 he left for Paris - he was suddenly fascinated by the work of the great French artist Delacroix on color theory.

Even before leaving for Paris, he tried to connect color and music, for which he took several piano lessons. "Prussian blue!" "Yellow chrome!" - he exclaimed, hitting the keys, dumbfounding the teacher. He specifically studied the violent colors of Rubens. Lighter tones have already appeared in his own paintings, and yellow has become his favorite color. True, when Vincent wrote to his brother about his desire to come to Paris to meet him, he tried to dissuade him. Theo feared that the atmosphere of Paris would be disastrous for Vincent. But his persuasion didn't work...

Unfortunately, Van Gogh's Parisian period is the least documented. For two years in Paris, Vincent lived with Theo in Montmartre, and the brothers, of course, did not correspond.

It is known that Vincent immediately plunged into the artistic life of the capital of France. He visited exhibitions, got acquainted with the "last word" of impressionism - the works of Seurat and Signac. These pointillist artists, taking the principles of Impressionism to the extreme, marked its final stage. He became friends with Toulouse-Lautrec, with whom he attended drawing classes.

Toulouse-Lautrec, seeing Van Gogh's work and hearing from Vincent that he was "just an amateur", ambiguously remarked that he was mistaken: amateurs are those who paint bad pictures. Vincent persuaded his brother, who was in artistic circles, to introduce him to the masters - Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. And Camille Pissarro was imbued with sympathy for Van Gogh to such an extent that he took Vincent to Papa Tanguy's Shop.

The owner of this shop of paints and other art materials was an old Communard and a generous patron of the arts. He allowed Vincent to arrange the first exhibition of works in the store, in which his closest friends participated: Bernard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Anquetin. Van Gogh persuaded them to unite in the "group of the Small Boulevards" - as opposed to the famous artists of the Grand Boulevards.

He had long been visited by the idea to create, according to the model of medieval brotherhoods, a community of artists. However, the impulsive nature and uncompromising judgments prevented him from building up from wearing with friends. He again became not himself.

He began to feel that he was too susceptible to other people's influence. And Paris, the city where he so aspired, suddenly became disgusting to him. “I want to hide somewhere to the south so as not to see so many artists who, as people, are disgusting to me,” he wrote to his brother from the small town of Arles in Provence, where he left in February 1888.

In Arles, Vincent felt himself. “I find that what I learned in Paris disappears, and I return to the thoughts that came to me in nature, before meeting the Impressionists,” Gauguin’s tough disposition, he told Theo in August 1888. and before, brother Van Gogh constantly worked. He painted outdoors, ignoring the wind, which often overturned the easel and covered the palette with sand. He also worked at night, using the Goya system, fixing burning candles on a hat and on an easel. This is how "Night Cafe" and "Starry Night over the Rhone" were written.

But then the idea of ​​​​creating a community of artists, which had been abandoned, again took possession of him. He rented for fifteen francs a month four rooms in the Yellow House, which became famous thanks to his paintings, on Place Lamartine, at the entrance to Arles. And on September 22, after repeated persuasion, Paul Gauguin came to him. This was a tragic mistake. Vincent, idealistically confident in the friendly disposition of Gauguin, told him everything he thought. He also did not hide his opinion. On Christmas Eve 1888, after a heated argument with Gauguin, Vincent grabbed a razor to attack a friend.

Gauguin fled and moved to a hotel at night. Falling into a frenzy, Vincent cut off his left earlobe. The next morning he was found bleeding in the Yellow House and sent to the hospital. A few days later he was released. Vincent seemed to have recovered, but after the first bout of mental clouding, others followed. His inadequate behavior frightened the residents so much that the deputation of the townspeople wrote a petition to the mayor and demanded to get rid of the "red-haired madman."

Despite many attempts by researchers to declare Vincent insane, it is still impossible not to recognize his general sanity, or, as psychiatrists say, "criticality to his condition." On May 8, 1889, he voluntarily entered the specialized hospital of St. Paul of Mausoleum near Saint-Remy-de-Provence. He was observed by Dr. Theophile Peyron, who came to the conclusion that the patient was ill with something resembling a split personality. And he prescribed treatment by periodic immersion in a bath of water.

Hydrotherapy did not bring any particular benefit in curing mental disorders, but there was no harm from it either. Van Gogh was much more oppressed by the fact that the patients of the hospital were not allowed to do anything. He begged Dr. Peyron to allow him to go to the sketches, accompanied by an orderly. So, under supervision, he painted many works, including "Road with cypresses and a star" and the landscape "Olives, blue sky and white cloud."

In January 1890, after the exhibition of the "Group of Twenty" in Brussels, in whose organization Theo Van Gogh also participated, Vincent's first and only painting, "Red Vineyards in Arles", was sold. For four hundred francs, which is approximately equal to the current eighty US dollars. To somehow encourage Theo, he wrote to him: "The practice of trading in works of art, when prices rise after the death of the author, has survived to this day - it's something like trading in tulips, when a living artist has more minuses than pluses."

Van Gogh himself was immensely happy with the success. Let the prices for the works of the Impressionists, who had become classics by that time, were incomparably higher. But he had his own method, his own path, found with such difficulty and torment. And he was finally recognized. Vincent painted nonstop. By that time, he had already painted more than 800 paintings and almost 900 drawings - so many works in just ten years of creativity were not created by any artist.

Theo, inspired by the success of the Vineyards, sent his brother more and more colors, but Vincent began to eat them. Dr. Neuron had to hide the easel and palette under lock and key, and when they were returned to Van Gogh, he said that he would no longer go to sketches. Why, he explained in a letter to his sister - Theo was afraid to admit this: “... when I am in the fields, I am so overwhelmed with a feeling of loneliness that it is even scary to go somewhere ...”

In May 1890, Theo made arrangements with Dr. Gachet, a homeopathic physician at a clinic in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, that Vincent continue his treatment with him. Gachet, who appreciates painting and is fond of drawing himself, gladly received the artist in his clinic.

Vincent also liked Dr. Gachet, whom he considered warm-hearted and optimistic. On June 8, Theo came to visit his brother with his wife and child, and Vincent spent a wonderful day with his family, talking about the future: “We all need fun and happiness, hope and love. The uglier, older, meaner, sicker I get, the more I want to retaliate by creating a great color, flawlessly built, brilliant.”

A month later, Gachet had already allowed Van Gogh to go to his brother in Paris. Theo, whose daughter was then very ill and financial affairs were shaken, did not greet Vincent too kindly. A quarrel broke out between them. Its details are unknown. But Vincent felt that he had become a burden to his brother. And probably always has been. Shocked to the core, Vincent returned to Auvers-sur-Oise the same day.

On July 27, after dinner, Van Gogh went out with an easel to sketch. Stopping in the middle of the field, he shot himself in the chest with a pistol (how he got a weapon remained unknown, and the pistol itself was never found.). The bullet, as it turned out later, hit the costal bone, deflected and missed the heart. Clamping the wound with his hand, the artist returned to the shelter and went to bed. The owner of the shelter called the doctor Mazri from the nearest village and the police.

It seemed that the wound did not cause Van Gogh much suffering. When the police arrived, he was calmly smoking a pipe while lying in bed. Gachet sent a telegram to the artist's brother, and Theo van Gogh arrived in the morning of the next day. Vincent was conscious until the last minute. To his brother’s words that he would definitely be helped to recover, that he only needed to get rid of despair, he answered in French: “La tristesse “durera toujours” (“Sorrow will last forever”). And he died at half past one in the night on July 29, 1890.

The priest in Auvers forbade the burial of Van Gogh in the church cemetery. It was decided to bury the artist in a small cemetery in the nearby town of Meri. On July 30, the body of Vincent van Gogh was interred. Vincent's longtime friend, the artist Emile Bernard, described the funeral in detail:

"On the walls of the room where the coffin with his body stood, his latest works were hung out, forming a kind of halo, and the brightness of the genius that they radiated made this death even more painful for us artists who were there. The coffin was covered there were sunflowers, which he loved so much, and yellow dahlias - yellow flowers everywhere. It was, as you remember, his favorite color, a symbol of light, with which he dreamed to fill the hearts of people and which filled the works art.

Beside him on the floor lay his easel, his folding chair and brushes. There were many people, mostly artists, among whom I recognized Lucien Pissarro and Lauzet. I looked at the sketches; one is very beautiful and sad. Prisoners walking in a circle, surrounded by a high prison wall, a canvas painted under the impression of the Dore painting, from its horrific cruelty and symbolizing his imminent end.

Wasn't life like that for him: a high prison, with walls so high, with such high... and these people walking endlessly around the pit, aren't they poor artists - damned poor souls who pass by, urged on by the whip of Fate? At three o'clock, his friends carried his body to the hearse, many of those present were crying. Theodore van Gogh, who loved his brother very much and always supported him in the struggle for his art, did not stop crying...

It was terribly hot outside. We went up the hill outside Auvers, talking about him, about the bold impulse he gave to art, about the great projects that he was constantly thinking about, and about the good that he brought to all of us. We reached the cemetery: a small new cemetery full of new tombstones. It was located on a small hill among the fields that were ready for harvest, under a clear blue sky, which at that time he still loved ... I guess. Then he was lowered into the grave...

This day was as if created for him, until you imagine that he is no longer alive and he cannot admire this day. Dr. Gachet wished to say a few words in honor of Vincent and his life, but he wept so hard that he could only stutter, embarrassedly, utter a few farewell words (maybe that was best). He gave a short description of Vincent's torment and achievements, mentioning how lofty the goal he pursued and how much he loved him himself (although he knew Vincent for a very short time).

He was, Gachet said, an honest man and a great artist, he had only two goals: humanity and art. He put art above all else, and it will repay him in kind, perpetuating his name. Then we returned. Theodor van Gogh was broken by grief; those present began to disperse: someone retired, simply leaving for the fields, someone was already walking back to the station ... "

Theo van Gogh died six months later. All this time he could not forgive himself for quarrels with his brother. The extent of his despair becomes clear from a letter he wrote to his mother shortly after Vincent's death: “It is impossible to describe my grief, just as it is impossible to find solace. It is a grief that will last and from which, of course, I will never get rid of as long as I live. The only thing that can be said is that he himself found the peace he longed for... Life was such a heavy burden for him, but now, as often happens, everyone praises his talents... Oh, mother! He was so mine, my own brother."

After Theo's death, Vincent's last letter was found in his archive, which he wrote after a quarrel with his brother: “It seems to me that since everyone is a little excited and also too busy, it is not worthwhile to sort out all the relationships to the end. I was a little surprised that you seem to want to rush things. How can I help, or rather, what can I do to make it suit you? One way or another, mentally again I firmly shake hands with you and, in spite of everything, I was glad to see you all. Don't doubt it."

(Vincent Willem Van Gogh) was born March 30, 1853 in the village of Groot-Zundert in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands in the family of a Protestant pastor.

In 1868, Van Gogh left school, after which he went to work in a branch of a large Parisian art company, Goupil & Cie. Successfully worked in the gallery, first in The Hague, then in offices in London and Paris.

By 1876, Vincent finally lost interest in the painting trade and decided to follow in his father's footsteps. In the UK, he found work as a teacher at a boarding school in a small town outside London, where he also served as an assistant pastor. On October 29, 1876, he gave his first sermon. In 1877 he moved to Amsterdam, where he studied theology at the university.

Van Gogh "Poppies"

In 1879, Van Gogh obtained a position as lay preacher at Vama, a mining center in the Borinage, in southern Belgium. He then continued his preaching mission in the nearby village of Kem.

In the same period, Van Gogh had a desire to paint.

In 1880, in Brussels, he entered the Royal Academy of Arts (Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles). However, due to his unbalanced nature, he soon dropped out of the course and continued his art education on his own, using reproductions.

In 1881, in Holland, under the guidance of his relative, the landscape painter Anton Mauve, Van Gogh created his first paintings: "Still Life with Cabbage and Wooden Shoes" and "Still Life with a Beer Glass and Fruit".

In the Dutch period, starting with the painting "Potato Harvesting" (1883), the main motif of the artist's canvases was the theme of ordinary people and their work, the emphasis was on the expressiveness of scenes and figures, dark, gloomy colors and shades, sharp changes in light and shadow prevailed in the palette. . The masterpiece of this period is the canvas "Potato Eaters" (April-May 1885).

In 1885 Van Gogh continued his studies in Belgium. In Antwerp, he entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp). In 1886, Vincent moved to Paris to live with his younger brother Theo, who had by then taken over as the leading manager of the Goupil gallery in Montmartre. Here, Van Gogh took lessons from the French realist painter Fernand Cormon for about four months, met the Impressionists Camille Pizarro, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, from whom he adopted their style of painting.

© Public Domain "Portrait of Doctor Gachet" by Van Gogh

© Public Domain

In Paris, Van Gogh developed an interest in creating images of human faces. Having no funds to pay for the work of models, he turned to self-portraiture, creating about 20 paintings in this genre in two years.

The Parisian period (1886-1888) became one of the artist's most productive creative periods.

In February 1888, Van Gogh went to the south of France to Arles, where he dreamed of creating a creative community of artists.

In December, Vincent's mental health took a turn for the worse. During one of the uncontrollable outbursts of aggression, he threatened with an open razor Paul Gauguin, who came to him in the open air, and then cut off a piece of his earlobe, sending it as a gift to one of the women he knew. After this incident, Van Gogh was placed first in a psychiatric hospital in Arles, and then voluntarily went to the specialized clinic of St. Paul of Mausoleum near Saint-Remy-de-Provence. The head physician of the hospital, Theophile Peyron, diagnosed his patient with "acute manic disorder." However, the artist was given a certain freedom: he could paint outdoors under the supervision of staff.

In Saint-Remy, Vincent alternated periods of intense activity and long breaks caused by deep depression. In just a year of being in the clinic, Van Gogh painted about 150 paintings. Some of the most outstanding canvases of this period were: "Starry Night", "Irises", "Road with Cypresses and a Star", "Olives, Blue Sky and White Cloud", "Pieta".

In September 1889, with the active assistance of Brother Theo, Van Gogh's paintings took part in the Salon des Indépendants, an exhibition of contemporary art organized by the Society of Independent Artists in Paris.

In January 1890, Van Gogh's paintings were exhibited at the eighth exhibition of the Group of Twenty in Brussels, where they were enthusiastically received by critics.

In May 1890, Van Gogh's mental state improved, he left the hospital and settled in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise (Auvers-sur-Oise) in the suburbs of Paris under the supervision of Dr. Paul Gachet.

Vincent actively took up painting, almost every day he finished a painting. During this period, he painted several outstanding portraits of Dr. Gachet and 13-year-old Adeline Rava, the daughter of the owner of the hotel in which he lodged.

On July 27, 1890, Van Gogh left the house at the usual time and went to paint. On his return, after persistent questioning by the Ravos, he confessed that he had shot himself with a pistol. All attempts by Dr. Gachet to save the wounded were in vain, Vincent fell into a coma and died on the night of July 29 at the age of thirty-seven. He was buried in the Auvers cemetery.

American biographers of the artist Stephen Naifeh and Gregory White Smith in their study "Van Gogh's Life" (Van Gogh: The Life) of Vincent's death, according to which he died not from his own bullet, but from an accidental shot by two drunken young people.

During the ten-year creative activity, Van Gogh managed to write 864 paintings and almost 1200 drawings and engravings. During his lifetime, only one painting by the artist was sold - the landscape "Red Vineyards in Arles". The cost of the painting was 400 francs.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
(1853-1890)

VAN GOGH Vincent - Dutch painter, draftsman, etcher and lithographer, one of the largest representatives of post-impressionism.

Vincent was born in a small northern Brabant village to a priestly family. At the age of 16, he became a seller of paintings in the salons of the Goupil company, but at 23, seized by a dream to help the most disadvantaged, he, like his father, decides to become a preacher of the Bible and leaves for the south of Belgium in the mining village of Borinage. But, faced with hopeless poverty and the complete indifference of church authorities, he breaks forever with the official religion. It is in the Borinage that he first recognizes himself as an established artist and takes on a new mission of serving society through his art. Fate wanted Van Gogh to spend the last decade of his life feeling joy from his work, leading a half-starved existence on the money of his brother Theo, the only person who supported him to the very end.
For some time, W. Van Gogh took lessons from the Dutch artist Mauve, but further improvement of his work took place, in his own words, with the help of "continuous study of nature and battle with it." The main characters of the paintings of the Dutch period are peasants depicted in their daily activities ("Peasant Woman", 1885, Kröller-Müller State Museum, Otterlo). Indicative is the canvas "Potato Eaters" (1885, Collection of V. Van Gogh, Laren), in which V. Van Gogh pays tribute to his idol - the French painter J. F. Millet. The picture is painted in dark colors, reminiscent of the color of the land cultivated by the peasants. However, according to the author, it is not the color that occupies him in the first place, but the form. And yet, behind the muted grayish tones, one can already feel that rich color base that will break out in the mature period of the painter's work.
A vague desire for renewal, a creative search for an artistic method led him to Paris, where he met the Impressionists, studied the theory of color by E. Delacroix, was fond of planar Japanese engraving and textured painting by Monticelli. Here, in Paris, he paints impressionistic paintings full of light depicting bouquets of flowers, views of Montmartre, the surroundings of Paris, and performs several portrait works (The Hills of Montmartre, 1887, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam).
But the life of a big city tires W. Van Gogh, and in February 1888 he leaves for Arles to return to the land and to those who work on it. Staying in this southern city restored his lost strength, it is here that his talent as a painter is fully revealed and his unique individual style is finally formed. V. Van Gogh creates his numerous paintings in a fit of inspiration, controlling his enthusiastic sensual perception of nature with his mind. He no longer seeks to convey the "impression" of what he saw, but depicts its quintessence in combination with his own experiences. In this he is helped by the experience gained in Paris in developing his own language of color, which has an emotional and symbolic sound, as well as the use of volitional contours that simplify the form, dynamic strokes that give the image a certain rhythm, and a pasty texture that conveys the materiality of the world.
Van Gogh expressed his love and admiration for the nature of Provence in numerous landscapes, finding his own color scheme and plastic solution for each depicted season ("Harvest. La Crot Valley", 1888; "Fishing Boats in Sainte-Marie", 1888; "Crows over a field of wheat", 1890; "Almond branch", 1890 - all in the Van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam). Indicative in this regard is the painting "Red Vineyards" (1888, Pushkin Museum, Moscow), built on the contrast of additional colors, enriched with a range of warm and cold colors.

The main protagonist of Van Gogh's Arles landscapes is the sun, and the dominant color is yellow, the color of the sun, ripe bread and sunflowers, which have become for the artist a symbol of the sun (Sunflowers, 1888, Neue Pinakothek, Munich).

The images of peasants dear to his heart acquire a generalizing character, personifying the creative principle of the world and bright faith in the future.
In portrait images, the artist focuses on the inner life of the model, reproducing it with all the individual originality inherent only to her alone against a background devoid of any specific surroundings. Moreover, even the most dramatic images are inextricably linked with a sense of joy and beauty of life, conveyed by a combination of bright colors and bizarre ornamental forms. These are his self-portraits and images of ordinary people, close friends of the artist: "Arlesian. Mrs. Ginoux" (1888, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); "Postman Roulen" (1888, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); "Zouave"; "Lullaby", etc.

In humanizing the surrounding world, V. Van Gogh was not limited to the nature around him, many objects presented on his canvases are also endowed with the ability to feel and express the feelings of their owners: "Night Cafe in Arles" (1888, private collection, New York), causing deadly melancholy, "The Artist's Bedroom" (1888, W. Van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam), evoking thoughts of peace and relaxation.

In Arles, van Gogh tried to fulfill his long-held dream of an association of artists against the chaos of an individualistic civilization, but the attempt proved tragic. Physical and spiritual overstrain led to an exacerbation of mental illness, and in May 1889 the artist entered the Saint-Remy hospital, where, in between attacks, he continued to do his favorite thing. As a "model" he was served by reproductions of works by famous artists, which he reproduced in his own pictorial language. So, according to the drawing by G. Dore, he created his original painting "Walk of Prisoners" (1890, Pushkin Museum, Moscow), reflecting his current mood: humility and doom.
But, despite the oppressive state, it is here, in the hospital, that Van Gogh creates truly cosmic canvases filled with love for the earth and sky. space planet. The balls of stars - these semblances of the sun - seem to complete the motif of the light source, begun by W. Van Gogh in The Potato Eaters.

The artist spends the last two months of his life in a small village near Paris and creates paintings of different emotional mood: filled with purity and freshness "Landscape at Auvers after the rain" (1890, Pushkin Museum, Moscow), a tragic portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890, Louvre, Paris) and full of foreboding imminent death "I'm a flock of crows over a grain field." Having finished work on this picture, during the next bout of depression, he commits suicide.

1853 March 30. In Groo Zundert in Brabant (Holland), Vincent van Gogh was born into the family of a pastor.
1857 The 1 of May. The younger brother Theodore, nicknamed Theo, was born.
1864 For two years he has been attending a college in Zevenbergen.
1866 Attends the Technical School in Tilburg.
1869 Accepted as an apprentice at Goupil & Co., and moves to The Hague.
1873 Vincent is transferred to London. Unrequited love causes depression.
1875 Transferred to the Paris branch of Goupil & Co.
1876 Dismissed from the company and moved to Ramsgate (London), where he teaches at the college. In December, he returns to his parents.
1879 Engaged in preaching activities.
1880 Goes to Brussels, where he studies anatomy and drawing.
1881. First time painting in oils. Spat with parents: going to The Hague.
1886 Arrives in Paris.
1888 Moves to Arles, where he lives with Gauguin. Nervous crisis (as a result of which he cuts off his earlobe).
1889 Located in the clinic for the mentally ill in Saint-Remy.
1890 After a trip to Theo, Vincent goes to Auvers-on-Oise, where he is under the supervision of Dr. Gachet.
July 27th. Shoots himself in the chest. After 2 days he was gone. Theo dies after 6 months.

Van Gogh on our community

"Red Vineyards in Arles" is the only painting sold during his lifetime...

Vincent van Gogh is one of the greatest artists in the world, whose work has a great influence on the development of modern trends in painting and gives impetus to the development of impressionism. Today, countries such as the Netherlands, France and England are proud that such a great creator once lived and worked on their territory, and the value of his paintings, located in different parts of the world, cannot be calculated by any monetary unit, like the cost of irobot. However, no matter how sad it may sound, during the life of Vincent van Gogh, his paintings were of no value to the society of that time, and this genius was dying in a state of madness and complete loneliness.

Van Gogh's work was influenced by many factors, so, undoubtedly, his childhood, his temperament, the time in which he was born influenced him. However, despite the fact that in his short life the creator experienced many illnesses, depressions, poverty, loneliness, he was never afraid and did not stop experimenting. And he experimented with everything that was possible. So during his short career, Van Gogh experimented with light and shadow, with color schemes, with form, with models and with various artistic techniques. His work also changed as his worldview changed.

So, born at the end of the nineteenth century in a low-income Dutch family of the working class, Van Gogh used to observe the life of ordinary people and empathize with her. At that time, the poor barely had enough money for food, and therefore it was not possible to imagine that in a couple of centuries people would be able, sitting at home in an armchair, to purchase equipment for themselves by asking in the browser search line: “buy irobot roomba 790”.

The hard times and impressionability of the young Van Gogh served as the main impetus for the development of his work, in which the main characters were people of the working class. In the paintings of that time, the creator conveyed the gravity of the situation of poor people. Performing canvases in dark colors, the artist clearly and accurately conveyed the oppressive and oppressive atmosphere of that time.

However, having moved to sunny France, the artist begins to paint life-filled landscapes and still lifes. The paintings of that period of Van Gogh's work seemed to flow with light, thanks to the use of blue, golden yellow, red colors, as well as writing them using the technique of small strokes.

The end of the short, but so rich artistic life of Vincent van Gogh, is considered the dawn of his work. It was in the last years of his life that the creator was determined with his style and technique of painting.