Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent was born on March 30, 1853 in Groot-Zundest, a Dutch village in the southern Netherlands. When Vincent was sixteen, he worked at The Hague as an art salesman. As a teenager he began writing to his younger brother, Theo. They would continue to write each other for the rest of their lives. The Hague sent Vincent to London and Paris, and in these cities, he was consumed in the museums and beautiful artwork in the galleries.

Van Gogh's returned to Holland and became a lay preacher. He went to work as a missionary in a poor mining district in Belgium, the Borinage. He lived with the poverty stricken people and he gave away his possessions. He was soon dismissed for his enthusiastic intense devotion. He stayed in Belgium to study art. In 1885 he painted The Potato Eaters, which was seen as his first masterpiece.

In 1886 he joined his brother Theo in Paris. Vincent met modern Impressionist painters, including Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He was inspired by how the Impressionists used paint to depict light. Vincent began to lighten his very dark palette and to paint with short brushstrokes. Van Gogh's unhealthy lifestyle of painting all day and having long discussions all night was the reason he decided to move to the south of France to find a better atmosphere to paint.

Vincent found himself settling in Arles. He hoped that his friends would join him and found an art school. Gauguin did visit, but with very unfortunate results. Gauguin and Van Gogh fought constantly about art. Van Gogh, in an outburst of epilepsy almost endangered his friend with a razor. He later cut his own ear. Although Vincent was troubled by mental illness throughout his life, his fits of madness became more distinct in his last few years of his life. He went to an asylum for treatment in Arles, and later at Saint-Rémy.

Vincent's depression deepened and on July 27 1890, at age 37, he walked into a field and shot himself with a revolver. He survived the impact, and walked to the Ravoux Inn, he died there two days later. Van Gogh's brother Theo ran to his brothers side. Theo reported Vincent's last words as "the sadness will last forever." In 1891, Theo died and was buried next to Vincent.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic that to love others.
Vincent Van Gogh

"The way to know life is to love many things."
-Vincent Van Gogh

"There is no blue without yellow and without orange."
--Vincent Van Gogh

"There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke."
Vincent Van Gogh

"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?"
-Vincent Van Gogh

"When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars."
-Vincent Van Gogh

"As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed."
-Vincent Van Gogh

"But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things".
-Vincent Van Gogh

"Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again".

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day."
-Vincent Van Gogh

"I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process."
-Vincent Van Gogh

"I wish they would only take me as I am."
-Vincent Van Gogh

Saint-Rémy, France: June, 1889

The painting reflects the view outside Van Gogh's sanatorium room window at night. This painting was painted from memory during the day. Starry Night has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1941.

Arles, France: August, 1888

The Sunflower series are some of Van Gogh's most famous works. He painted twelve canvases in total. In a letter to his sister, he referenced the Sunflowers, saying he "intends to decorate the whole studio with nothing but sunflowers," for the arrival of his friend Gauguin.

Saint-Rémy, France: 1890

Almond Branches in Bloom were painted as a symbol of life in the celebration of his nephew's birth.

Saint-Rémy, France: 1889

Irises was painted while Vincent van Gogh was living at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. This work was painted in the last year before his death in 1890.

Saint-Rémy, France: 1889

In July 1889, Vincent wrote a letter to his brother Theo from the asylum in Saint-Rémy. "I have a canvas of cypresses with some ears of wheat, some poppies, a blue sky like a piece of Scotch plaid; the former painted with a thick impasto . . . and the wheat field in the sun, which represents the extreme heat, very thick too."

Arles, France: September, 1888
Café Terrace at Night is also known as The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum.

After finishing this painting, Van Gogh wrote a letter to his sister saying:

"I was only interrupted by my work on a new painting representing the exterior of a night café. On the terrace there are small figures of people drinking. An immense yellow lantern illuminates the terrace, the facade, the side walk and even casts light on the paving stones of the road which take a pinkish violet tone. The gables of the houses, like a fading road below a blue sky studded with stars, are dark blue or violet with a green tree. Here you have a night painting without black, with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green and in this surrounding the illuminated area colours itself sulfur pale yellow and citron green. It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot. Normally, one draws and paints the painting during the daytime after the sketch. But I like to paint the thing immediately. It is true that in the darkness I can take a blue for a green, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, since it is hard to distinguish the quality of the tone. But it is the only way to get away from our conventional night with poor pale whitish light, while even a simple candle already provides us with the richest of yellows and oranges."

A primary source for understanding Van Gogh as an artist and a person are the collection of letters that were passed between Vincent and his younger brother Theo. These letters help us understand who Van Gogh was, and what his thoughts and beliefs were. Theo was Vincent's support system and it is made clear through his letters, what a wonderful and lifelong friendship they shared. Their letters date back from August 1872 until 1890. Over 600 letters from Vincent to Theo are survived today.

Dear Theo,

Though it is only a short time since I wrote to you, I have something more to tell you now.

For there has been a change in my drawings, both in the way I set about them and in the results.

Also, as a consequence of some of the things Mauve told me, I have started working with live models again. Luckily I have been able to get several people to sit here for me, including Piet Kaufman, the labourer.

Careful study and the constant and repeated copying of Bargue's Exercises au Fusain have given me a better insight into figure-drawing. I have learned to measure and to see and to look for the broad outlines, so that, thank God, what seemed utterly impossible to me before is slowly becoming possible now. I have drawn a man with a spade, that is un bècheur [a digger], five times over in a variety of poses, a sower twice, a girl with a broom twice. Then a woman in a white cap peeling potatoes and a shepherd leaning on his crook and finally an old, sick peasant sitting on a chair by the hearth with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees.

And it won't be left at that, of course. Once a few sheep have crossed the bridge, the whole flock follows. Now I must draw diggers, sowers, men and women at the plough, ceaslessly. Scrutinize and draw everything that is a part of country life. Just as many others have done and are doing. I no longer stand helpless before nature like I used to.

I brought along some conté-crayon in wood (just like pencils) from The Hague, and I work with them a great deal now.

I have also started to introduce the brush and the stump. With a little sepia and India ink, and now and then with a little colour.

What is quite certain is that the drawings I have been doing lately bear little resemblance to anything I have done before.

The size of the figures is about the same as that of an Exercices au Fusain.

As for landscape, I don't see why it need suffer in any way as a result. On the contrary, it will gain. Enclosed are a few small sketches to give you an idea.

Of course I have to pay the people who pose. Not much, but because it happens every day it is one more expense until I manage to sell some drawings.

But since a figure is hardly ever a complete failure, I am sure that the outlay on the model will be fully recovered relatively soon.

For nowadays anyone who has learned to tackle a figure and hang on to it until it is safely down on paper, can earn quite a bit. I need hardly tell you that I am only sending you these sketches to give you some idea of the pose. I dashed them off today in no time at all and can see that there is much wrong with the proportions, more so anyway than in the actual drawings. I've had a nice letter from Rappard, who seems to be hard at work. He sent me some very good landscape sketches. I wish he would come back here for a few days.

This is a field or rather a stubble, where they are plowing and sowing. Have made a fairly large sketch of it with a gathering thunderstorm.

The other two sketches are poses of diggers. I hope to do several more of them.

The other sower has a basket.

I am tremendously anxious to get a woman to pose with a seed basket, so as to find a little figure like the one I showed you last spring and which you can see in the foreground of the first little sketch.

Well, as Mauve says, the factory is in full swing.

If you like and are able to, please remember the Ingres paper, the colour of unbleached linen, the stronger kind if possible. In any case, write as soon as you can, and accept a handshake in my thoughts,

Ever yours, Vincent.

My dear Theo -
At last I'm sending you a little croquis to give you at least an idea of the direction the work is taking. Because today I've gone back to it.
My eyes are still tired, but anyway I had a new idea in mind, and here's the croquis of it. No. 30 canvas once again.
This time it's simply my bedroom, but the colour has to do the job here, and through its being simplified by giving a grander style to things, to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In short, looking at the painting should rest the mind, or rather, the imagination.
The walls are of a pale violet. The floor - is of red tiles.
The bedstead and the chairs are fresh butter yellow.
The sheet and the pillows very bright lemon green.
The bedspread scarlet red.
The window green.
The dressing table orange, the basin blue.
The doors lilac.
And that's all - nothing in this bedroom, with its shutters closed.
The solidity of the furniture should also now express unshakeable repose.
Portraits on the wall, and a mirror and a hand-towel and some clothes.
The frame - as there's no white in the painting - will be white.
This to take my revenge for the enforced rest that I was obliged to take.
I'll work on it again all day tomorrow, but you can see how simple the idea is. The shadows and cast shadows are removed; it's coloured in flat, plain tints like Japanese prints.
It will contrast, for example, with the Tarascon diligence and the night café.
I won't write to you at length, because I'm going to start very early tomorrow with the fresh morning light, to finish my canvas.
How are your pains? Don't forget to give me news about them.
I hope you'll write in the next few days.
One day I'll do you some croquis of the other rooms as well.
I shake your hand firmly.

Ever yours,
Vincent