(Vincent Willem Van Gogh) was born on 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 dropped out of school, after which he went to work at a branch of the large Parisian art company Goupil & Cie. He successfully worked in the gallery, first in The Hague, then in branches in London and Paris.

By 1876, Vincent had completely lost interest in the painting trade and decided to follow in the footsteps of his father. In Great Britain, he found work as a teacher at a boarding school in a small town in the suburbs of London, where he also served as an assistant pastor. On October 29, 1876, he preached his first sermon. In 1877 he moved to Amsterdam, where he began studying theology at the university.

Van Gogh "Poppies"

In 1879, Van Gogh received a position as a secular preacher in Wham, a mining center in the Borinage, in southern Belgium. He then continued his preaching mission in the nearby village of Kem.

During this same period, Van Gogh developed 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 character, he soon abandoned the course and continued art education yourself, using reproductions.

In 1881, in Holland, under the guidance of his relative, landscape artist Anton Mauwe, 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 “Harvesting Potatoes” (1883), the main motif of the artist’s paintings was the theme of ordinary people and their work, the emphasis was on the expressiveness of scenes and figures, the palette was dominated by dark, gloomy colors and shades, sharp changes in light and shadow . The canvas “The Potato Eaters” (April-May 1885) is considered a masterpiece of this period.

In 1885, Van Gogh continued his studies in Belgium. In Antwerp he entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. In 1886, Vincent moved to Paris to join his younger brother Theo, who by then had taken over as leading manager of the Goupil gallery in Montmartre. Here Van Gogh took lessons from the French realist artist 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 human faces. Without the 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 traveled 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 his uncontrollable outbursts of aggression, he threatened Paul Gauguin, who came to see him in the open air, with an open razor, and then cut off a piece of his earlobe, sending it as a gift to one of his female acquaintances. After this incident, Van Gogh was first placed in a psychiatric hospital in Arles, and then voluntarily went for treatment at the specialized clinic of St. Paul of the Mausoleum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The hospital's chief physician, Théophile Peyron, diagnosed his patient with "acute manic disorder." However, the artist was given a certain freedom: he could paint in the open air under the supervision of staff.

In Saint-Rémy, Vincent alternated between periods of vigorous activity and long breaks caused by deep depression. In just one year of his stay at the clinic, Van Gogh painted about 150 paintings. Some of the most outstanding paintings of this period were: " Starlight Night", "Irises", "Road with cypresses and a star", "Olive trees, blue sky and white cloud", "Pieta".

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

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

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

Vincent actively took up painting; almost every day he completed a painting. During this period, he painted several outstanding portraits of Dr. Gachet and 13-year-old Adeline Ravou, the daughter of the owner of the hotel where he stayed.

On July 27, 1890, Van Gogh left his house at the usual time and went to paint. Upon his return, after persistent questioning by the couple, Ravu admitted 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 Steven Nayfeh and Gregory White Smith in their study “The Life of Van Gogh” (Van Gogh: The Life) of Vincent’s death, according to which he died not from his own bullet, but from an accidental shot committed by two drunken young men.

During his ten-year creative career, Van Gogh managed to paint 864 paintings and almost 1,200 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 based on information from open sources

Vincent Van Gogh. Biography. Life and art

We do not know who Vincent Van Gogh was in past life... In this life, he was born just a boy on March 30, 1853 in the village of Groot Zunder in the province of North Brabant near the southern border of Holland. At baptism, he was given the name Vincent Willem in honor of his grandfather, and the prefix Gog, perhaps, comes from the name of the small town of Gog, which stood near a dense forest next to the border...
His father, Theodore Van Gogh, was a priest, and besides Vincent, there were five more children in the family, but only one of them was of great importance to him - his younger brother Theo, whose life was intertwined with Vincent's in a confusing and tragic way.

The fact that in the case of Vincent, fate chose the factor of surprise, making the author extremely famous and revered, while unknown and despised during his lifetime, begins to manifest itself, it seems, already in the events of 1890, decisive for the unfortunate artist, which ended tragically for him in July. And this year began with the best omens, with that first, only and unexpected sale of his painting “Red Vineyards in Arles.”
The January issue of Mercure de France magazine featured the first enthusiastic critical article about his work signed by Albert Aurier. In May, he moved from the Saint-Rémy-de-Provence psychiatric hospital to the town of Auvers-on-Oise, near Paris. There he met Dr. Gachet (an amateur artist, a friend of the Impressionists), who highly appreciated him. There he painted almost eighty canvases in just over two months. In addition, signs of an extraordinary destiny, something destined from above, appear from birth. By a strange coincidence, Vincent was born on March 30, 1853, exactly one year after the first-born of Theodorus Van Gogh and Anna Cornelius Carbenthus, who received the same name at baptism, was stillborn. The first Vincent's grave was located next to the church door through which the second Vincent passed every Sunday of his childhood.
This must not have been very pleasant, in addition, in the Van Gogh family papers there is a direct indication that the name of the stillborn predecessor was often mentioned in the presence of Vincent. But whether this had any effect on his "feeling of guilt" or his supposed feeling of being an "illegal usurper" by some is anyone's guess.
Following tradition, generations of Van Goghs chose two areas of activity for themselves: the church (Theodorus himself was the son of a pastor) and the art trade (like his father’s three brothers). Vincent will follow both the first and second paths, but will fail in both cases. However, both accumulated experiences will have a great influence on his future choice.

The first attempt to find his place in life dates back to 1869, when, at the age of sixteen, Vincent went to work - with the help of his namesake uncle (he is affectionately called Uncle Saint) - at the branch of the Parisian art company Goupil, which opened in The Hague . Here the future artist first comes into contact with painting and drawing and enriches the experience he receives at work with educational visits to city museums and copious reading. Everything goes quite well until 1873.
First of all, this is the year of his transfer to the London branch of Goupil, which had a negative impact on his future work. Van Gogh stayed there for two years and experienced a painful loneliness, which comes through in his letters to his brother, more and more sad. But the worst comes when Vincent, having exchanged the apartment that has become too expensive for a boarding house, which is maintained by the widow Loyer, falls in love with her daughter Ursula (according to other sources - Eugenia) and is rejected. This is the first acute love disappointment, this is the first of those impossible relationships that will constantly darken his feelings.
During that period of deep despair, a mystical understanding of reality begins to mature in him, developing into downright religious frenzy. His impulse grows stronger, displacing his interest in working at Gupil. And the transfer in May 1875 to the central office in Paris, supported by Uncle Saint in the hope that such a change would benefit him, would no longer help. On April 1, 1876, Vincent was finally fired from the Parisian art company, which by that time had passed to his partners Busso and Valadon.

More and more firmly convinced of his religious vocation, in the spring of 1877 Van Gogh moved to Amsterdam to live with his uncle Johannes, the director of the city shipyard, in order to prepare for the entrance exams to the Faculty of Theology. For him, who read with delight “On the Imitation of Christ,” becoming a servant of the Lord meant, first of all, devoting himself to specific service to his neighbor, in full accordance with the tenets of the Gospel. And great was his joy when, in 1879, he managed to obtain a position as a secular preacher in Wham, a mining center in the Borinage in southern Belgium.
Here he teaches the miners the Law of God and selflessly helps them, voluntarily dooming himself to a miserable existence: living in a shack, sleeping on the floor, eating only bread and water, subjecting himself to bodily torture. However, local authorities do not like such extremes, and they deny him this position. But Vincent stubbornly continues his mission as a Christian preacher in the nearby village of Kem. Now he doesn’t even have such an outlet as correspondence with his brother Theo, which is interrupted from October 1879 to July 1880.
Then gradually something changes in him, and his attention turns to painting. This new path is not as unexpected as it might seem. Firstly, making art was no less common for Vincent than reading. Work at the Goupil gallery could not help but influence the honing of his taste, and during his stay in various cities (The Hague, London, Paris, Amsterdam) he never missed the opportunity to visit museums.
But first of all, it was his deep religiosity, his compassion for the outcast, his love for people and for the Lord that are embodied through artistic creativity. “One must understand the defining word contained in the masterpieces of the great masters,” he writes to Theo in July 1880, “and God will be there.”

In 1880, Vincent entered the Academy of Arts in Brussels. However, due to his irreconcilable nature, he very soon leaves her and continues his art education as a self-taught person, using reproductions and regularly drawing. Back in January 1874, in his letter, Vincent listed fifty-six favorite artists to Theo, among whom the names of Jean François Millet, Théodore Rousseau, Jules Breton, Constant Troyon and Anton Mauve stood out.
And now, at the very beginning of his artistic career, his sympathies for the realistic French and Dutch schools of the nineteenth century have in no way weakened. Besides social art Millet or Breton, with their populist themes, could not help but find in him an unconditional follower. As for the Dutchman Anton Mauwe, there was another reason: Mauwe, along with Johannes Bosboom, the Maris brothers and Joseph Israels, was one of the major representatives of the Hague School, the most significant artistic phenomenon in Holland in the second half of the 19th century, which united the French realism of the Barbizon school formed around Rousseau, with the great realistic tradition of the Dutch art XVII century. Mauve was also a distant relative of Vincent's mother.
And it was under the guidance of this recognized master that in 1881, upon returning to Holland (to Etten, where his parents had moved), Van Gogh created his first two paintings: “Still Life with Cabbage and Wooden Shoes” (now in Amsterdam, in the Vincent Van Museum Gogh) and “Still Life with Beer Glass and Fruit” (Wuppertal, Von der Heydt Museum).

For Vincent, everything seems to be working out for the better, and the family seems to be happy with his new calling. But soon relations with parents deteriorate sharply, and then are completely interrupted. The reason for this, again, is his rebellious character and unwillingness to adapt, as well as a new, inappropriate and again unrequited love for his cousin Kay, who recently lost her husband and was left alone with a child.

Having fled to The Hague, in January 1882, Vincent meets Christina Maria Hoornik, nicknamed Sin, an older prostitute, an alcoholic, with a child, and even pregnant. Being at the apogee of his contempt for existing decency, he lives with her and even wants to get married. Despite financial difficulties, he continues to be faithful to his calling and completes several works. Mostly pictures of this very early period- landscapes, mainly sea and urban: the theme is quite in the tradition of the Hague School.
However, its influence is limited to the choice of subjects, since Van Gogh was not characterized by that refined texture, that elaboration of details, those ultimately idealized images that distinguished the artists of this movement. From the very beginning, Vincent gravitated towards an image that was more truthful than beautiful, trying first of all to express a sincere feeling, and not just achieve a good performance.

Pastor's son. In 1869-76 he served as a commission agent for an art trading company in The Hague, Brussels, London and Paris, and in 1876 - as a teacher in England. Having taken up the study of theology, in 1878-79 he was a preacher in Borinage (Belgium), where he learned hard life miners; protecting their interests brought van Gogh into conflict with church authorities.

In the 1880s van Gogh turns to art: visits the Academy of Arts in Brussels (1880-81) and Antwerp (1885-86), takes advice from A. Mauve in The Hague. Van Gogh enthusiastically paints disadvantaged people - Borinage miners, and later - peasants, artisans, fishermen, whose life he observed in Holland in 1881-85. At the age of 30, van Gogh began to paint and created an extensive series of paintings and sketches, executed in dark, gloomy colors and imbued with warm sympathy for ordinary people(“Peasant Woman”, 1885, State Museum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo; “Potato Eaters”, 1885, W. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam). Developing the traditions of critical realism of the 19th century, primarily the work of J. F. Millet, van Gogh combined them with the emotional and psychological intensity of the images, a painfully sensitive perception of the suffering and depression of people.

In 1886-88, while living in Paris, van Gogh visited a private studio; at the same time he studies plein air painting of the impressionists and Japanese print, joins the searches of A. Toulouse-Lautrec, P. Gauguin. During this period, the dark palette gradually gave way to the sparkling pure blue, golden yellow and red tones, the brushwork became freer and more dynamic ("Bridge over the Seine", 1887, V. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam; "Portrait of Father Tanguy", 1887, Rodin Museum, Paris).

Van Gogh's move to Arles in 1888 opens the period of his maturity. Here the originality of the artist’s painting style was fully determined, who expressed his attitude to the world and his emotional condition, using contrasting color combinations and a loose impasto stroke. A fiery feeling, a painful impulse towards harmony, beauty and happiness and fear of forces hostile to man are embodied in landscapes shining with the joyful, sunny colors of the south (“Harvest. La Croe Valley”, “Fishing Boats in Sainte-Marie”, both 1888, W. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam), then in ominous images scary world, where a person is depressed by loneliness and helplessness ("Night Cafe", 1888, private collection, New York).

The dynamics of color and long winding strokes fills with spiritual life and movement not only nature and the people inhabiting it (“Red Vineyards in Arles”, 1888, Museum of Art named after A.S. Pushkin, Moscow), but also every inanimate object (“ Van Gogh's bedroom in Arles", 1888, W. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam).

Van Gogh's hard work last years his life was complicated by seizures mental illness, which led the artist to tragic conflict with Gauguin, who also came to Arles; van Gogh was hospitalized in Arles, then in Saint-Rémy (1889-90) and in Auvers-sur-Oise (1890), where he committed suicide.

The work of the last two years of Van Gogh’s life was marked by ecstatic obsession, extremely heightened expression color combinations, rhythm and texture, sudden changes in mood - from frenzied despair ("At the Gates of Eternity", 1890, State Museum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo) and crazy visionary impulses ("Road with Cypresses and Stars", 1890, ibid.) to tremulous feelings of enlightenment and tranquility (“Landscape in Auvers after the rain”, 1890).

Van Gogh's work reflected the complex, crucial moment in history European culture. It is imbued with an ardent love for life, for the simple working person. At the same time, it expressed with great sincerity the crisis of bourgeois humanism and realism of the 19th century, the painfully painful search for spiritual and moral values. Hence van Gogh's special creative obsession, his impetuous expression and tragic character. pathos; They define V.G.’s special place in the art of post-impressionism, of which he became one of the main representatives.

Van Gogh lived only 37 years, of which only the last seven were devoted to painting. However, his creative heritage amazing - there are about a thousand drawings and almost as many paintings created as a result of volcanic creative eruptions, when he painted one or two paintings every day. Van Gogh's paintings are an amazing dialogue full of suffering and love - with oneself, with God, with the world. Van Gogh became the last great artist in the history of mankind, whose heroic art now shines above the earth like the sun.

Vincent Van Gogh - great artist, which every person on Earth knows about today. But once upon a time no one knew about him: his path to the pinnacle of fame...

From Masterweb

These days, few people do not know about the great artist Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh's biography was destined to be not too long, but eventful and full of hardships, brief ups and desperate downs. Few people know that in his entire life, Vincent managed to sell only one of his paintings for a significant amount, and only after his death did contemporaries recognize the enormous influence of the Dutch post-impressionist on 20th-century painting. Van Gogh's biography can be briefly summarized in the dying words of the great master:

The sadness will never end.

Unfortunately, the life of this amazing and original creator was full of pain and disappointment. But who knows, maybe if it weren’t for all the losses in life, the world would never have seen his amazing works, which people still admire?

Childhood

A brief biography and work of Vincent Van Gogh was restored through the efforts of his brother Theo. Vincent had almost no friends, so everything we now know about the great artist was told by a man who loved him immensely.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in North Brabant in the village of Grote-Zundert. The firstborn of Theodore and Anna Cornelia Van Gogh died in infancy - Vincent became the eldest child in the family. Four years after Vincent was born, his brother Theodorus was born, with whom Vincent was close until the end of his life. In addition, they also had a brother, Cornelius, and three sisters (Anna, Elizabeth and Willemina).

An interesting fact in Van Gogh’s biography is that he grew up as a difficult and stubborn child with extravagant manners. At the same time, outside the family, Vincent was serious, soft, thoughtful and calm. He did not like to communicate with other children, but his fellow villagers considered him a modest and friendly child.

In 1864 he was sent to a boarding school in Zevenbergen. The artist Van Gogh recalled this part of his biography with pain: his departure caused him a lot of suffering. This place doomed him to loneliness, so Vincent began studying, but already in 1868 he left his studies and returned home. In fact, this is all the formal education that the artist managed to receive.

A brief biography and work of Van Gogh is still carefully preserved in museums and a few testimonies: no one could have imagined that the enfant terrible would become a truly great creator - even if his importance was recognized only after his death.

Work and missionary activity

A year after returning home, Vincent goes to work at the Hague branch of his uncle's art and trading company. In 1873, Vincent was transferred to London. Over time, Vincent learned to appreciate and understand painting. He later moved to 87 Hackford Road, where he rented a room from Ursula Loyer and her daughter Eugenie. Some biographers add that Van Gogh was in love with Eugenie, although the facts suggest that he loved the German Carlina Haanebeek.

In 1874, Vincent was already working in the Paris branch, but he soon returned to London. Things are getting worse for him: a year later he is again transferred to Paris, visits art museums and exhibitions, and finally plucks up the courage to try his hand at painting. Vincent cools down to work, fired up by a new business. All this leads to the fact that in 1876 he was fired from the company for poor work.

Then there comes a moment in the biography of Vincent van Gogh when he returns to London again and teaches at a boarding school in Ramsgate. During the same period of his life, Vincent devoted a lot of time to religion; he developed a desire to become a pastor, following in the footsteps of his father. A little later, Van Gogh moved to another school in Isleworth, where he began working as a teacher and assistant pastor. Vincent preached his first sermon there. His interest in writing grew, and he became inspired to preach to the poor.

At Christmas, Vincent went home, where he was begged not to go back to England. So he stayed in the Netherlands to help in a bookshop in Dordrecht. But this work did not inspire him: he mainly occupied himself with sketches and translations of the Bible.

His parents supported Van Gogh's desire to become a priest, sending him to Amsterdam in 1877. There he settles with his uncle Jan Van Gogh. Vincent studied hard under the supervision of Yoganess Stricker, a famous theologian, preparing for exams for admission to the theology department. But very soon he quits his studies and leaves Amsterdam.

The desire to find his place in the world led him to the Protestant Missionary School of Pastor Bokma in Laeken near Brussels, where he took a course in preaching. There is also an opinion that Vincent did not graduate full course, because he was driven away due to his unkempt appearance, hot temper and fits of anger.

In 1878, Vincent became a missionary for six months in the village of Paturage in Borinage. Here he visited the sick, read the Scriptures for those who could not read, taught children, and spent his nights drawing maps of Palestine, earning his living. Van Gogh planned to enroll in an Evangelical school, but he considered paying for tuition discriminatory and abandoned the idea. Soon he was removed from the rank of preacher - this was a painful blow for the future artist, but also an important fact in Van Gogh’s biography. Who knows, perhaps, if not for this high-profile event, Vincent would have become a priest, and the world would never have known the talented artist.

Becoming an artist

Studying short biography Vincent Van Gogh, we can conclude: fate seemed to push him all his life in the right direction and led him to painting. Seeking salvation from despondency, Vincent again turns to painting. He turns to his brother Theo for support and in 1880 goes to Brussels, where he attends classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. A year later, Vincent is forced to leave his studies again and return to his family. It was then that he decided that an artist does not need any talent, the main thing is to work hard and tirelessly. Therefore, he continues painting and drawing on his own.

During this period, Vincent experiences a new love, this time for his cousin, the widow Kay Vos-Stricker, who was visiting the Van Goghs' house. But she did not reciprocate, but Vincent continued to look after her, which caused the indignation of her relatives. Eventually he was told to leave. Van Gogh experiences another shock and abandons attempts to improve his further personal life.

Vincent leaves for The Hague, where he takes lessons from Anton Mauve. Over time, the biography and work of Vincent Van Gogh was filled with new colors, including in painting: he experimented with mixing different techniques. Then such works of his as “Backyards” were born, which he created with chalk, pen and brush, as well as the painting “Roofs. View from Van Gogh's studio", painted in watercolor and chalk. The development of his work was greatly influenced by Charles Bargue’s book “A Course in Drawing,” lithographs from which he diligently copied.

Vincent was a man of fine spiritual organization, and, one way or another, was drawn to people and emotional return. Despite his decision to forget about his personal life, in The Hague he still made another attempt to start a family. He met Christine right on the street and was so imbued with her plight that he invited her to live in his house with the children. This act finally broke Vincent’s relationship with all his loved ones, but they maintained a warm relationship with Theo. This is how Vincent got a girlfriend and a model. But Christine turned out to have a nightmare character: Van Gogh’s life turned into a nightmare.

When they parted, the artist went north to the province of Drenthe. He equipped his home as a workshop, and spent whole days outdoors, creating landscapes. But the artist did not call himself a landscape painter, dedicating his paintings to peasants and their everyday life.

Van Gogh's early works are classified as realism, but his technique does not quite fit into this direction. One of the problems that Van Gogh faced in his work was the inability to correctly depict the human figure. But this only played into the hands of the great artist: it became characteristic feature his manners: interpretation of man as an integral part of the surrounding world. This can be clearly seen, for example, in the work “A Peasant and a Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes.” Human figures are like mountains in the distance, and the elevated horizon seems to press on them from above, preventing them from straightening their backs. A similar technique can be seen in his more late work"Red Vineyards"

During this period of his biography, Van Gogh writes a series of works, including:

• "Leaving the Protestant Church in Nuenen";
• "Potato Eaters";
• "Peasant Woman";
• "Old church tower in Nuenen."

The paintings are created in dark shades, which symbolize the author’s painful perception of human suffering and a feeling of general depression. Van Gogh depicted the heavy atmosphere of hopelessness of the peasants and the sad mood of the village. At the same time, Vincent developed his own understanding of landscapes: in his opinion, landscape expresses state of mind human through the connection between human psychology and nature.

Parisian period

The artistic life of the French capital is thriving: it was there that the great artists of the time flocked. A landmark event was the exhibition of impressionists on rue Lafitte: for the first time, works by Signac and Seurat, who heralded the beginning of the post-impressionism movement, were shown. It was impressionism that revolutionized art, changing the approach to painting. This movement presented a confrontation with academicism and outdated subjects: at the head of creativity are pure colors and the very impression of what he saw, which are later transferred to the canvas. Post-Impressionism was the final stage of Impressionism.

The Parisian period, lasting from 1986 to 1988, became the most fruitful in the artist’s life; his collection of paintings was replenished with more than 230 drawings and canvases. Vincent van Gogh forms own view on art: the realistic approach is becoming a thing of the past, replaced by a desire for post-impressionism.

With his acquaintance with Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet, the colors in his paintings begin to lighten and become brighter and brighter, eventually becoming a real riot of color, characteristic of his last works.

An iconic place was Papa Tanga's shop, where they sold art materials. Here many artists met and exhibited their works. But Van Gogh’s temper was still irreconcilable: the spirit of competition and tension in society often drove the impulsive artist crazy, so that Vincent soon quarreled with his friends and decided to leave the French capital.

Among famous works the following paintings from the Parisian period:

• “Agostina Segatori at the Tambourine Cafe”;
• "Papa Tanguy"
• "Still Life with Absinthe";
• "Bridge over the Seine";
• "View of Paris from Theo's apartment on Rue Lepic."

Provence

Vincent goes to Provence and is imbued with this atmosphere for the rest of his life. Theo supports his brother's decision to become a real artist and sends him money to live on, and he, in gratitude, sends him his paintings in the hope that his brother will be able to sell them profitably. Van Gogh checks into a hotel where he lives and works, periodically inviting random visitors or acquaintances to pose.

When spring comes, Vincent goes outside and draws blooming trees and reviving nature. The ideas of impressionism gradually leave his work, but remain in the form of a light palette and pure colors. During this period of his work, Vincent wrote “The Peach Tree in Bloom” and “Anglois Bridge in Arles”.

Van Gogh even worked at night, once inspired by the idea of ​​capturing the special night colors and glow of the stars. It works by candlelight: this is how the famous “Starry Night over the Rhone” and “Night Cafe” were created.

Severed ear

Vincent comes up with the idea of ​​​​creating a common house for the artist, where creators could create their masterpieces while living and working together. An important event marks the arrival of Paul Gauguin, with whom Vincent had a long correspondence. Together with Gauguin, Vincent writes works filled with passion:

• "Yellow House";
• "Harvest. La Croe Valley";
• "Gauguin's Chair".

Vincent was overjoyed, but this union ends in a loud quarrel. Passions were heating up, and in one of his desperate moments, Van Gogh, according to some accounts, attacks a friend with a razor in his hands. Gauguin manages to stop Vincent, and he ends up cutting off his earlobe. Gauguin leaves his house, while he wrapped the bloody flesh in a napkin and handed it to a prostitute he knew, Rachelle. His friend Roulin found him in a pool of his own blood. Although the wound soon healed, the deep scar on his heart affected Vincent’s mental health for the rest of his life. Vincent soon finds himself in a psychiatric hospital.

Creativity flourishes

During periods of remission, he asked to return to the studio, but the residents of Arles signed a statement to the mayor asking him to isolate the mentally ill artist from civilians. But the hospital did not forbid him to create: until 1889, Vincent worked on new paintings right there. During this time, he created more than 100 drawings in pencil and watercolor. The canvases of this period are distinguished by tension, bright dynamics and juxtaposition of contrasting colors:

• "Starlight Night";
• "Landscape with Olives";
• "Wheat field with cypress trees."

At the end of the same year, Vincent was invited to participate in the G20 exhibition in Brussels. His works aroused great interest among art connoisseurs, but this could no longer please the artist, and even a laudatory article about the “Red Vineyards in Arles” did not make the exhausted Van Gogh happy.

In 1890 he moved to Opera-sur-Ourz, near Paris, where for the first time for a long time saw my family. He continued to write, but his style became increasingly gloomy and depressing. Distinctive feature of that period became a curved and hysterical contour, which can be seen in the following works:

• "Street and stairs in Auvers";
• “Rural road with cypress trees”;
• "Landscape in Auvers after the rain."

Last years

The last bright memory in the life of the great artist was meeting Dr. Paul Gachet, who also loved to write. Friendship with him supported Vincent during the most difficult periods of his life - besides his brother, the postman Roulin and Doctor Gachet, by the end of his life he had no close friends left.

In 1890, Vincent painted the canvas “Wheat Field with Crows,” and a week later a tragedy occurred.

The circumstances of the artist's death look mysterious. Vincent died from a shot in the heart from his own revolver, which he carried with him to scare away birds. Dying, the artist admitted that he shot himself in the chest, but missed, hitting a little lower. He himself got to the hotel where he lived, and they called a doctor for him. The doctor was skeptical about the version of a suicide attempt - the angle of entry of the bullet was suspiciously low, and the bullet did not go through, which suggests that it was as if they were shooting from afar - or at least from a distance of a couple of meters. The doctor immediately called Theo - he arrived the next day and was with his brother until his death.

There is a version that on the eve of Van Gogh’s death, the artist had a serious quarrel with Dr. Gachet. He accused him of insolvency, while his brother Theo is literally dying from a disease that is eating him up, but still sends him money to live on. These words could have greatly hurt Vincent - after all, he himself felt enormous guilt before his brother. In addition, in recent years, Vincent had feelings for the lady, which again did not lead to reciprocity. Being as depressed as possible, upset by a quarrel with a friend, and having recently left the hospital, Vincent could well have decided to commit suicide.

Vincent died on July 30, 1890. Theo loved his brother endlessly and experienced this loss with great difficulty. He began organizing an exhibition of Vincent's posthumous works, but less than a year later he died of severe nervous shock on January 25, 1891. Years later, Theo's widow reburied his remains next to Vincent: she believed that inseparable brothers should be close to each other at least after death.

Confession

There is a widespread misconception that during his lifetime Van Gogh was able to sell only one of his paintings - “Red Vineyards in Arles”. This work was only the first to be sold for a large amount– about 400 francs. However, there are documents indicating the sale of 14 more paintings.

Vincent Van Gogh received truly wide recognition only after his death. His commemorative exhibitions were organized in Paris, The Hague, Antwerp, and Brussels. Interest in the artist began to grow, and at the beginning of the 20th century, retrospectives began in Amsterdam, Paris, New York, Cologne and Berlin. People began to be interested in his work, and his work began to influence the younger generation of artists.

Gradually, prices for the artist's paintings began to increase until they became one of the most expensive paintings ever sold in the world, along with works by Pablo Picasso. Among his most expensive works:

• "Portrait of Doctor Gachet";
• "Irises";
• “Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin”;
• “Wheat field with cypress trees”;
• “Self-portrait with a cut off ear and a pipe”;
• "A plowed field and a plowman."

Influence

IN last letter to Theo Vincent wrote that, not having his own children, the artist perceived the paintings as his continuation. To some extent this was true: he did have children, and the first of them was Expressionism, which later began to have many heirs.

Many artists subsequently adapted the features of Van Gogh’s style to their own work: Howard Hodgkin, Willem de Koening, Jackson Pollock. Fauvism soon came, which expanded the scope of color, and expressionism became widespread.

The biography of Van Gogh and his work gave the expressionists new language, which helped creators to delve deeper into the essence of things and the world around them. Vincent became, in a sense, a pioneer in modern art, trodden a new path in visual art.

It is almost impossible to tell Van Gogh’s biography briefly: his work during his unfortunately short life was influenced by so many different events that to omit at least one of them would be a terrible injustice. Heavy life path brought Vincent to the pinnacle of fame, but posthumous fame. During life great painter did not know either about his own genius, or about the enormous legacy that he left to the world of art, or about how his family and friends missed him in the future. Vincent spent a lonely and sad life, rejected by everyone. He found salvation in art, but was never able to escape. But, one way or another, he gave the world many amazing works that warm people’s hearts to this day, so many years later.

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Vincent Van Gogh - famous artist and a scandalous figure in the world art of the 19th century V. Today, his work continues to generate controversy. The ambiguity of the paintings and their fullness of meaning force us to take a deeper look at both them and the life of their creator.

Childhood and family

He was born in 1853 in the Netherlands, in the small village of Grote-Zundert. His father was a Protestant pastor, and his mother was from a bookbinder family. Vincent Van Gogh had 2 younger brothers and 3 sisters. It is known that at home he was often punished for his wayward character and temper.

The men in the artist’s family worked in the church or were engaged in selling paintings and books. From childhood he was immersed in 2 contradictory world– the world of faith and the world of art.

Education

At the age of 7, the elder Van Gogh began attending the village school. Just a year later he switched to home schooling, and after another 3 years he left for boarding school. In 1866 Vincent became a student at Willem II College. Although leaving and separation from loved ones was not easy for him, he achieved some success in his studies. Here he received drawing lessons. After 2 years, Vincent Van Gogh interrupted his primary education and returned home.

Subsequently, he made repeated attempts to obtain an art education, but none of them were successful.

Finding yourself

From 1869 to 1876, working as a painting salesman in a large company, he lived in The Hague, Paris and London. During these years, he became acquainted with painting very closely, visited galleries, had daily contact with works of art and their authors, and for the first time tried himself as an artist.

After his dismissal, he worked in 2 English schools as a teacher and assistant pastor. Then he returned to the Netherlands and sold books. But most of his time was spent on drawings and translating fragments of the Bible into foreign languages.

Six months later, having settled in Amsterdam with his uncle Jan Van Gogh, he was preparing to enter the university to study theology. However, he quickly changed his mind and went first to the Protestant missionary school near Brussels, and then to the mining village of Paturage in Belgium.

Since the mid-80s of the XIX century. and until the end of his life, Vincent Van Gogh actively painted and even sold some paintings.

He spent some time in 1888 in a psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy. The incident with cutting off his earlobe is well known, because of which he ended up in the hospital - Van Gogh, after a quarrel with Gauguin, separated it from his left ear and took it to a prostitute he knew.

The artist died in 1890 from a bullet wound. According to some versions, the shot was fired by himself.

Van Gogh short biography.