Van Gogh, Vincent Willem
Van Gogh, Vincent Willem (1853-1890),
Dutch painter, who exemplified the idea of the artist as tortured genius. Van Gogh was born in Zundert, in the Netherlands, on March 30, 1853, the son of the Protestant minister Theodorus van Gogh. Most of Vincent?s life was orientated towards a career in the Church rather than in painting; he became an artist full-time only in 1880-1881, when he was 27. Several of van Gogh?s uncles were art dealers, and, after leaving school in 1869, he joined the firm of Goupil & Co. in The Hague, where his uncle Vincent worked. In the early 1870s, he was transferred to the London and Paris branches of the company. In 1876, however, he was dismissed, probably because his growing religious fervour showed that he was not suited to a life in the commercial art trade.Van Gogh then went to England and took a job as a schoolmaster, first in Ramsgate, in Kent, and then in Isleworth, near London. He taught Sunday school and gave the occasional sermon but was keen to become a minister full-time and so returned to the Netherlands to begin studying for the entrance exam to university, where he was to take up theology. However, this also left him dissatisfied, and, hoping to find a practical application for his religious beliefs, he became an evangelist in the Borinage, a poor mining district in Belgium. Even here, van Gogh failed, because the Evangelization Committee was wary of his increasing fanaticism and so did not renew his appointment.
About 1881, when he was still living in poverty in the Borinage, van Gogh?s interests moved towards art rather than the Church, more so after he visited the painter Jules Breton, who depicted peasants and whom, with Jean-Fran?ois Millet, van Gogh took as a model. In 1881, he returned to live with his parents, now residing in Etten, in Brabant, and began to concentrate on his career as a professional artist. He was mostly self-taught, using prints, especially those of Millet, to copy from. His early work developed very slowly, however, showing little of the originality and skilful technique so evident in his later, famous works. From this time, van Gogh was supported financially by his brother Theo, who also worked for Goupil?s and with whom van Gogh maintained a close correspondence, in which he described in detail his daily life and the ideas for his works.
Conflicts with his father led van Gogh to abandon Etten for The Hague in late 1881. The Hague was the main centre of Dutch painting at this time, and here Vincent received some lessons in painting from his relative, Anton Mauve. Van Gogh concentrated on producing figure drawings, particularly of the woman with whom he lived, Sien Hoornik (who was a laundress and prostitute), and her children. One of the most celebrated drawings of this period is the seated nude study Sorrow (1882, Rijksmuseum van Gogh, Amsterdam), for which Sien was the model.
After his relationship with Sien Hoornik broke down, van Gogh hoped to find new inspiration alone in Drenthe, in the northern Netherlands, where he moved in 1883. The bleak and depressing landscape led him to produce few drawings and paintings, however, and he concentrated on writing to Theo. In December 1883, he returned once more to his parents?s home, this time in Nuenen, near Eindhoven, where he remained until November 1885. Here, he began producing works that he considered worthy of exhibition or sale. His most important painting of this period is The Potato-Eaters (1885, Rijksmuseum van Gogh, Amsterdam), showing an interior with peasants eating a frugal meal and revealing his sympathy for the working people. In its dark colours and realist style, this painting is typical of van Gogh?s early work. Another important work of this time is the Open Bible, Extinguished Candle and Novel (Rijksmuseum van Gogh, Amsterdam); the open bible represents van Gogh?s father, who died in 1885, and the novel can be identified as Joie de Vivre by ?mile Zola, whom van Gogh admired.
After a brief stay in Antwerp in 1885 and 1886, van Gogh decided to leave the Netherlands and settle in Paris, where he lived with Theo, who was trying to sell avant-garde paintings by such Impressionist artists as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. In this way, van Gogh became familiar with the colourful style of the new movement, and he began to abandon the dark palette of his earlier works for a much lighter one. He was particularly influenced by the Pointillist works of Georges Seurat, which, as experiments in colour theory, used thousands of tiny dots of different hues to model form. This influence can be seen in van Gogh?s portrait of the painter dealer Julien-Fran?ois Tanguy (1887-1888, Mus?e Rodin, Paris) and in his own series of self-portraits of this time, in which forms are modelled by using short strokes of bright colours. Another important inspiration for van Gogh were Japanese prints, with their clear lines and strong, flat colours. His interest in an almost abstract style of painting brought him into contact with such avant-garde painters as ?mile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, with whom he remained closely associated.
To realize his long-held ideal of becoming a painter of the working people, van Gogh moved in 1888 to Arles, in Provence, where some of his most famous works, rendered in intensely bright colours and an expressionistic style, were painted. These include portraits of local people, such as the Postman Roulin (1888, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) and his wife, and the paintings of sunflowers, which were originally intended to decorate the Yellow House that he had rented. He also wanted to form a community of artists and, in late 1888, persuaded Gauguin to leave Brittany and join him in Arles. However, the artists? temperaments were incompatible; their collaboration ended in argument and with van Gogh cutting off part of his ear, the first sign of his serious mental instability. Gauguin left Arles, but he and Van Gogh remained in contact.
Van Gogh?s mental health deteriorated from 1888 onwards, and in May 1889 he admitted himself to an asylum at Saint-R?my, near Arles. Between periods of illness, he produced a huge number of paintings and drawings expressing his torment in writhing, expressionistic forms. These include the famous Irises, sold at Sotheby?s, New York, in 1987 for a record price of $49 million, and Starry Night (1889, Museum of Modern Art, New York). These works had a particular influence on the work of the later German Expressionists and on Edvard Munch. In the last two and a half months of his life, van Gogh lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, where he was looked after by Dr Paul Gachet, a homoeopath with an interest in art and of whom van Gogh made two famous portraits. He also depicted his surroundings, as he had done throughout his life, as shown in paintings of the village church and local landscape of wheatfields. The brooding atmosphere of the Crows in a Wheatfield (1890, Rijksmuseum van Gogh, Amsterdam) is often considered to be the best reflection of the artist?s disturbed state of mind. After another attack of depression, van Gogh shot himself on July 27, 1890, and died two days later. His brother Theo also succumbed to mental illness after Vincent?s death and died only six months later.
Wheat Fields and Cypress Trees
From 1888 until his death in 1890, Vincent van Gogh painted his most important works. In these paintings, mostly landscapes such as Wheat Fields and Cypress Trees (1889), van Gogh, like other Post-Impressionist artists, rejected the Impressionists' aim of creating a direct interpretation of nature. He found expression through the subjective use of colour and line. Van Gogh's emotional painting style later inspired artists of the Fauvist and Expressionist movements.
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
Vincent's Room
In his mature work, Van Gogh used vibrant colours and broad, vital brushstrokes to convey mood and emotion. He painted Vincent?s Room (Mus?e d?Orsay, Paris), his room in a house in Arles, in southern France, in 1889 as part of a process of self-examination. He died the following year, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
Self-Portrait by Van Gogh
The burning eyes of this Self-Portrait by Vincent van Gogh exemplify the way the artist attempted to capture the human essence and emotions of his subjects. During the last years of his life, van Gogh painted a number of self-portraits. The expressive brushstrokes and vibrant colours in these paintings are typical of his later style.
Encarta EncyclopediaBridgeman/Art Resource, NY
In the Orchard
In the Orchard (1883), a lithograph with pen and ink drawing by Vincent van Gogh, shows the concern for the poor that is often apparent in his early art work. His subjects at this stage in his career were the people who worked the land. Van Gogh?s distinctive drawing style is characterized by the use of small marks to create a sense of form and movement.
Encarta EncyclopediaBridgeman Art Library, London/New York
Van Gogh: Significant Works
YEAR TITLE1882 Sorrow (lithograph)
1885 The Potato-Eaters
1885 Open Bible, Extinguished Candle and Novel
1886 Vase with Poppies, Cornflowers, Peonies, and Chrysanthemums
1887 Japonaiserie: Oiran (after Kesa? Eisen)
1887-1888 Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat
1888 The Langlois Bridge at Arles with Women Washing
1888 Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin
1888 Vase with Fourteen Sunflowers
1888 The Night Caf? in the Place Lamartine in Arles
1888 Self-Portrait (dedicated to Paul Gauguin)
1888 The Caf? Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night
1888 Vincent's Bedroom in Arles
1888 Red Vineyard at Arles
1888 Portrait of Armand Roulin
1889 Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear
1889 Irises
1889 Starry Night
1889 Self-Portrait with Light-Blue Background
1889 Wheatfield with Cypresses
1889 The Piet? (after Delacroix)
1889-1890 Noon: Rest from Work St R?my (after Millet)
1890 Prisoners Exercising (after Dor?)
1890 Portrait of Doctor Gachet
1890 Crows in the Wheatfields
1890 Daubigny's Garden
Sumber :
Microsoft ? Encarta ? Encyclopedia 2003. ? 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.