Vangogh Essay Example For Students

Vangogh Essay The rapid evolution of a style characterized by canvases filled with swirling, bright colors depictingpeople and nature is the essence of Vincent Van Goghs extremely prolific but tragically short career. Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Holland, son of a Dutch Protestant pastorand eldest of six children. His favorite brother Theo was four years younger. When Vincent was twelve tosixteen years old, he went to a boarding school.That next year he was sent to The Hague to work for anuncle who was an art dealer, but van Gogh was unsuited for a business career.Actually, his early interestswere in literature and religion. Very dissatisfied with the way people made money and imbued with astrong sense of mission, he worked for a while as a lay preacher among proverty-stricken miners.VanGogh represented the religious society that trained him in a poor coal-mining district in Belgium. Vincenttook his work so seriously that he went without food and other necessities so he could give more to thepoor.The missionary society objected to Vincents behavior and fired him in 1879. Heartsick, van Goghstruggled to keep going socially and fin!ancially, yet he was always rejected by o ther people, and felt lost and forsaken. Then, in 1880, at age 27, he became obsessed with art. The intensity he had for religion, he now focusedon art. His early drawings were crude but strong and full of feeling: It is a hard and a difficult struggle tolearn to draw well I have worked like a slave .His first paintings had been still lifes and scenes ofpeasants at work.That which fills my head and heart must be expressed in drawings and in picturesImin a rage of work.In 1881, he moved to Etten. He very much liked pictures of peasant life and labor. Jean-Francois Milletwas the first to paint this as a main theme and his works influenced van Gogh. His first paintings here werecrude but improving. Van Goghs progress was interrupted by an intense love for his widowed cousin KeeVos. On her decisive rejection of him he pursued her to Amsterdam, only to suffer more humiliation. Anton Mauve, a leading member of the Hague school was a cousin of van Goghs mother. Thisopportunity to be taught by him encouraged van Gogh to settle in Den Hague with Theos support.Whenvan Gogh left Den Hague in September 1883 for the northern fenland of Drenth, he did so with mixedfeelings. He spent hours wandering the countryside, making sketches of the landscape, but began to feelisolated and concerned about the future. He had rented a little attic in a house but found it melancholy, andwas depressed with the quality of his equipment. Everything is too miserable, too insufficient, toodilapidated. Physically and mentally unable to cope with these conditions any longer, he left for his parents newhome in Nuenen in December 1883. Van Gogh had a phase in which he loved to paint birds and birdsnests.This phase did not last long. It only lasted until his fathers death six months later. The FamilyBible which he painted just before leaving his house for good, six months after his fathers death in 1885,must have meant a great deal to him. Van Gogh had broken with Christianity when he was fired from themissionary which proved to be the most painful experience of his life, and one from which he never quiterecovered. At Nuenen, van Gogh gave active physical toil a remarkable reality. Its impact went far beyond whatthe realist Gustave Corbet had achieved and beyond even the quasi-religious images of Jean-FrancoisMillet. He made a number of studies of peasant hands and heads before embarking on what would be hismost important work at Nuenen. The pinnacle of his work in Holland was The Potato Eaters, a scenepainted in April 1885 that shows the working day to be over. It was the last and most ambitious painting ofhis pre-Impressionist period, 1880-1885.When van Gogh painted the The Potato Eaters, he had not yetdiscovered the importance of color. How Can Artificial Intelligence Help Us? Essay In 1888, while living at Arles, he began to use the swirling brush strokes and intense yellows, greens,and blues. He loved bright colors especially yellow because of the sun which was bright in southern Franceand he painted what he saw and felt.He painted in colors with bright hues and high value.Vincent wouldsometimes put paints on his canvas with his palette knife or right from the tube and mix it around with hisfingers which would make it quite coarse. In Arles he attached the greatest importance to his portraits,although he also painted many landscapes.Later, in 1890, he devoted his main energy to landscapepainting. In southern France van Gogh lived for a time with Paul Gauguin, whom he had met in Paris. But aftertwo months they had violent arguments, culminating in a quarrel in which van Gogh threatened Gauguinwith a razor. The same night, in a deep remorse, van Gogh cut off part of his own ear. This episode markedthe beginning of a periodic insanity that plagued him until his death. On May 8, 1889, he was admitted toSt. Rmy Hospital as a voluntary patient. Dr. Peyron interviewed him and entered in the register that vanGogh Suffers from fits which last from fifteen days to a month. During these fits the patient is victim toterrifying terrors and on several occasions has attempted to poison himself.During the intervals betweenfits he is perfectly quiet and paints ardently.He was possibly having a seizure when he threatened to killPaul Gauguin. Since his death, investigators have come to feel that his fits were due to epilepsy. Despairing of a cure and fearing !he would no longer be able to paint, van Gogh committed suicide in July 1890. He felt very deeply that artalone made his life worth living. We know a good deal about his inner life as a result of a massive, stirring and deeply movingautobiography in the form of hundreds of letters written to his brother Theo.The letters he sent to hisbrother include many eloquent descriptions of his choice of hues and the emotional meaning he attached tothem. In one of his letters to Theo he wrote the following: I do not intend to spare myself, nor to avoid emotions or difficulties Idont care much whether I livea longer or shorter timeThe world concernsme insofar as I feel a certain indebtedness and duty towardit because I have walked this earth for thirty years, and, out of gratitude, want toleave somesouvenir in the shape of drawings and pictures not made to pleasea certain taste in art, but to express asincere human feeling. I feel that he succeeded.