Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 00:57, 11 July 2011

Vincent van Gogh
Self-Portrait in Front of the Easel, January 1888, Oil on canvas, 65 × 50.5 cm., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (F522)
Born	Vincent Willem van Gogh March 30, 1853 Zundert, Netherlands
Died	July 29, 1890 age 37 Auvers-sur-Oise, France
Nationality	Dutch
Known for	Painter
Notable work	The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers, The Starry Night, Irises, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, The Night Café, At Eternity's Gate
Movement	Post-Impressionism
Patron(s)	Theo van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh (/ˌvæn ˈɡɒx/, US: /ˌvæn ˈɡoʊ/; Template:IPA-nl; March 30, 1853– July 29, 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art as a result of its vivid colors and emotional impact. Suffering from anxiety and increasingly frequent bouts of mental illness throughout his life, he died largely unknown at the age of 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

He did not begin painting until his late twenties. Most of his best-known works are dated from his last two years. In less than a decade, he produced more than 2,000 artworks, consisting of around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches. His work included self portraits, landscapes, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.

Van Gogh spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers, traveling between The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught for a time in England. One of his early aspirations was to become a pastor and from 1879 he worked as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium where he began to sketch people from the local community. In 1885, he painted his first major work The Potato Eaters. His palette at the time consisted mainly of somber earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later work. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later he moved to the south of France and was taken by the strong sunlight he found there. His work grew brighter in color, and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style which became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.

The extent to which his mental illness affected his painting has been a subject of speculation since his death. Despite a widespread tendency to romanticize his ill health, modern critics see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence brought about by his bouts of illness. According to art critic Robert Hughes, van Gogh's late works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and "longing for concision and grace".

Letters

The most comprehensive primary source for the understanding of van Gogh as an artist is the collection of letters between him and his younger brother, art dealer Theo van Gogh. They lay the foundation for most of what is known about the thoughts and beliefs of the artist. Theo provided his brother with both financial and emotional support. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is known of van Gogh's thoughts and theories of art, is recorded in the hundreds of letters they exchanged between 1872 and 1890: more than 600 from Vincent to Theo and 40 from Theo to Vincent.

Although many are undated, art historians have generally been able to put them in chronological order. Problems remain, mainly in dating those from Arles although it is known that during that period, van Gogh wrote 200 letters to friends in Dutch, French and English. The period when Vincent lived in Paris is the most difficult for historians to analyze because the brothers lived together and had no need to correspond.

In addition to letters to and from Theo, other surviving documents include those to Van Rappard, Émile Bernard, van Gogh's sister Wil and her friend Line Kruysse. The letters were first annotated in 1913 by Theo's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger who explained that she published them with 'trepidation' because she did not want the drama in the artist's life to overshadow his work. Van Gogh himself was an avid reader of other artists' biographies and expected their lives to be in keeping with the character of their art.

Biography

Early life

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in Groot-Zundert, a village close to Breda in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands. He was the son of Anna Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. Vincent was given the name of his grandfather and of his stillborn brother from the year before. The practice of reusing a name was not unusual. Vincent was a common name in the Van Gogh family: his grandfather, Vincent (1789–1874), had received his degree of theology at the University of Leiden in 1811. Grandfather Vincent had six sons, three of whom became art dealers, including another Vincent who was referred to in van Gogh's letters as "Uncle Cent". Grandfather Vincent had perhaps been named in turn after his own father's uncle, the successful sculptor Vincent van Gogh (1729–1802). Art and religion were the two occupations to which the Van Gogh family gravitated. His brother Theodorus (Theo) was born on 1 May 1857. He had another brother, Cor, and three sisters: Elisabeth, Anna and Willemina (Wil).

As a child, Vincent was serious, silent and thoughtful. He attended the Zundert village school from 1860, where the single Catholic teacher taught around 200 pupils. From 1861, he and his sister Anna were taught at home by a governess, until October 1, 1864, when he went to Jan Provily's boarding school at Zevenbergen about 20 miles (32 km) away. He was distressed to leave his family home as he recalled later as an adult. On September 15, 1866, he went to the new middle school, Willem II College in Tilburg. Constantijn C. Huysmans, a successful artist in Paris, taught van Gogh to draw at the school and advocated a systematic approach to the subject. In March 1868, van Gogh abruptly left school and returned home. A later comment on his early years was, "My youth was gloomy and cold and sterile".

In July 1869, his uncle helped him obtain a position with the art dealer Goupil & Cie in The Hague. After his training, in June 1873, Goupil transferred him to London, where he lodged at 87 Hackford Road, Brixton, and worked at Messrs. Goupil & Co., 17 Southampton Street. This was a happy time for Vincent; he was successful at work and was, at 20, earning more than his father. Theo's wife later remarked that this was the happiest year of Vincent's life. He fell in love with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer, but when he finally confessed his feelings to her, she rejected him, saying that she was already secretly engaged to a former lodger. He was increasingly isolated and fervent about religion. His father and uncle sent him to Paris to work in a dealership, where he became resentful at how art was treated as a commodity, a fact apparent to customers. On April 1, 1876, his employment was terminated.

Van Gogh returned to England for unpaid work. He took a position as a supply teacher in a small boarding school overlooking the harbor in Ramsgate, where he made sketches of the view. When the proprietor of the school relocated to Isleworth, Middlesex, van Gogh moved to the new location taking the train to Richmond and the remainder of the journey on foot. The arrangement did not work out and he left to became a Methodist minister's assistant, following his wish to "preach the gospel everywhere." At Christmas, he returned home and worked in a bookshop in Dordrecht for six months. He was not happy in this new position and spent most of his time in the back of the shop either doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French and German. His roommate at the time, a young teacher called Görlitz, later recalled that van Gogh ate frugally, and preferred not to eat meat.

Van Gogh's religious zeal grew until he felt he had found his true vocation. To support his effort to become a pastor his family sent him to Amsterdam to study theology in May 1877. He stayed with his uncle Jan van Gogh, a naval Vice Admiral. Vincent prepared for the entrance exam with his uncle Johannes Stricker; a respected theologian who published the first "Life of Jesus" available in the Netherlands. He failed the exam, and left his uncle Jan's house in July 1878. He then undertook, but failed, a three-month course at the Vlaamsche Opleidingsschool, a Protestant missionary school in Laeken, near Brussels.

In January 1879, he took a temporary post as a missionary in the village of Petit Wasmes in the coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium. Taking Christianity to what he saw as its logical conclusion, van Gogh opted to live like those he preached to—sharing their hardships to the extent of sleeping on straw in a small hut at the back of the baker's house where he was billeted. The baker's wife reported hearing van Gogh sobbing all night in the hut. His choice of squalid living conditions did not endear him to the appalled church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity of the priesthood." He then walked to Brussels, returned briefly to the village of Cuesmes in the Borinage but gave in to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten. He stayed there until around March the following year, a cause of increasing concern and frustration for his parents. There was particular conflict between Vincent and his father; Theodorus made inquiries about having his son committed to the lunatic asylum at Geel.

He returned to Cuesmes where he lodged with a miner named Charles Decrucq until October. He became increasingly interested in the people and scenes around him. He recorded his time there in his drawings and followed Theo's suggestion that he should take up art in earnest. He traveled to Brussels that autumn intending to follow Theo's recommendation to study with the prominent Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him, in spite of his aversion to formal schools of art, to attend the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels where he registered on November 15, 1880. While in attendance, he not only studied anatomy but also the standard rules of modeling and perspective, of which he said, "...you have to know just to be able to draw the least thing." Van Gogh aspired to become an artist while in God's service, stating: "...to try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God; one man wrote or told it in a book; another in a picture."

Etten, Drenthe and The Hague

In April 1881, van Gogh moved to the Etten countryside with his parents where he continued drawing, often using neighbors as subjects. Through the summer he spent much time walking and talking with his recently widowed cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker. She was the daughter of his mother's older sister and Johannes Stricker, who had shown warmth towards the artist. Kee was seven years older than van Gogh and had an eight-year-old son. He proposed marriage, but she refused with the words, "No, never, never" (niet, nooit, nimmer). Late that November, he wrote a strongly worded letter to Johannes, and then hurried to Amsterdam where he spoke with him on several occasions. Kee refused to see him and her parents wrote, "Your persistence is disgusting." In desperation, he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, with the words "Let me see her for as long as I can keep my hand in the flame." He did not clearly recall what happened next, but later assumed that his uncle blew out the flame. Kee's father made it clear that there was no question of marriage given van Gogh's inability to support himself financially. Van Gogh's perception of his uncle and former tutor's hypocrisy affected him deeply. That Christmas he quarreled violently with his father, to the point of refusing a gift of money, and left for The Hague.

In January 1882, he settled in The Hague where he called on his cousin-in-law, Anton Mauve (1838–88) who was a Dutch realist painter and a leading member of the Hague School. Mauve introduced him to painting in both oil and watercolor and lent him money to set up a studio but the two soon fell out, possibly over the issue of drawing from plaster casts. Mauve appears to have suddenly gone cold towards Van Gogh and did not return a number of his letters. Van Gogh supposed that he had learned of his new domestic arrangement with an alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik (1850–1904) and her young daughter. He had met Sien towards the end of January when she had a five-year-old daughter and was pregnant. She had already borne two children who had died, although van Gogh was unaware of this. On 2 July, she gave birth to a baby boy, Willem. When van Gogh's father discovered the details of their relationship, he put considerable pressure on his son to abandon Sien and her children. Vincent was at first defiant in the face of opposition.

Van Gogh's uncle Cornelis, an art dealer, commissioned 12 ink drawings of views of the city, which the artist completed soon after arriving in The Hague, along with a further seven drawings that May. In June, he spent three weeks in a hospital suffering from gonorrhea. During the summer he began to paint in oil. In autumn 1883, after a year together, he left Sien and the two children. He had thought of moving the family out of the city but in the end made the break. It is possible that lack of money had pushed Sien back to prostitution—the home had become a less happy one, and van Gogh no doubt felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic development. When he left, Sien gave her daughter to her mother and baby Willem to her brother. She then moved to Delft, and later to Antwerp. Willem remembered being taken to visit his mother in Rotterdam at around the age of 12, where his uncle tried to persuade Sien to marry in order to legitimize the child. Willem remembered his mother saying, "But I know who the father is. He was an artist I lived with nearly 20 years ago in The Hague. His name was van Gogh." She then turned to Willem and said "You are called after him." While Willem believed himself to be van Gogh's son, the timing of his birth makes this unlikely. In 1904, Sien drowned herself in the River Scheldt. Van Gogh moved to the Dutch province of Drenthe, in the northern Netherlands. That December, driven by loneliness, he went to stay with his parents who were by then living in Nuenen, North Brabant.

Emerging artist

Nuenen and Antwerp (1883–1886)

In Nuenen, he devoted himself to drawing and would pay boys to bring him birds' nests for subject matter for paintings, and made many sketches and paintings of weavers in their cottages. In autumn 1884, Margot Begemann, a neighbor's daughter who was ten years his senior, often accompanied the artist on his painting forays. She fell in love, and he reciprocated—though less enthusiastically. They decided to marry, but the idea was opposed by both families. As a result, Margot took an overdose of strychnine. She was saved when van Gogh rushed her to a nearby hospital. On 26 March 1885, his father died of a heart attack and he grieved deeply at the loss.

For the first time, there was interest from Paris in his work. That spring, he completed what is generally considered his first major work, The Potato Eaters, the culmination of several years work painting peasant character studies. That August his work was exhibited for the first time, in the windows of a paint dealer, Leurs, in The Hague. He was accused of forcing himself on one of his young peasant sitters Gordina de Groot who became pregnant that September. As a result, the Catholic village priest forbade parishioners from modeling for him. During 1885, he painted several groups of still-life paintings.

From this period, Still-Life with Straw Hat and Pipe and Still-life with Earthen Pot and Clogs are characterized by smooth, meticulous brushwork and fine shading of colors. During his two-year stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolors and nearly 200 oil paintings. His palette consisted mainly of somber earth tones, particularly dark brown, and he showed no sign of developing the vivid coloration that distinguishes his later, best known work. When he complained to Theo that he was not making enough effort to sell his paintings in Paris, his brother replied that they were too dark and not in line with the current style of bright Impressionist paintings.

In November 1885, he moved to Antwerp and rented a small room above a paint dealer's shop in the Rue des Images (Lange Beeldekensstraat). He had little money and ate poorly, preferring to spend what money his brother Theo sent on painting materials and models. Bread, coffee and tobacco were his staple intake. In February 1886, he wrote to Theo saying that he could only remember eating six hot meals since May of the previous year. His teeth became loose and caused him much pain. While in Antwerp he applied himself to the study of color theory and spent time looking at work in museums, particularly the work of Peter Paul Rubens, gaining encouragement to broaden his palette to carmine, cobalt and emerald green. He bought a number of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, and incorporated their style into the background of a number of his paintings. While in Antwerp van Gogh began to drink absinthe heavily. He was treated by Dr. Amadeus Cavenaile, whose practice was near the docklands, possibly for syphilis; the treatment of alum irrigation and sitz baths was jotted down by van Gogh in one of his notebooks. Despite his rejection of academic teaching, he took the higher-level admission exams at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and in January 1886, matriculated in painting and drawing. For most of February, he was ill and run down by overwork, a poor diet and excessive smoking.

Paris (1886–1888)

Van Gogh traveled to Paris in March 1886 to study at Fernand Cormon's studio, where he shared Theo's Rue Laval apartment on Montmartre. In June, they took a larger apartment further uphill, at 54 Rue Lepic. Since there was no longer need to communicate by letters, less is known about his time in Paris than of earlier or later periods of his life. While in Paris he painted portraits of friends and acquaintances, still-life paintings, views of Le Moulin de la Galette, scenes in Montmartre, Asnières, and along the Seine.

During his stay in Paris, he collected Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. His interest in such works date to his 1885 stay in Antwerp when he used them to decorate the walls of his studio. He collected hundreds of prints, and they can be seen in the backgrounds of several of his paintings. In his 1887 Portrait of Père Tanguy several are shown hanging on the wall behind the main figure. In The Courtesan or Oiran (after Kesai Eisen) (1887), van Gogh traced the figure from a reproduction on the cover of the magazine Paris Illustre and then graphically enlarged it in his painting. Plum Tree in Blossom (After Hiroshige) 1888 is another strong example of van Gogh's admiration of the Japanese prints that he collected. His version is slightly bolder than the original.

Van Gogh greatly admired the work of Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli after seeing it in Paris when he arrived there in 1886. Van Gogh immediately adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack. In 1890, van Gogh and his brother Theo were instrumental in publishing the first book about Monticelli.

For months, van Gogh worked at Cormon's studio where he frequented the circle of the British-Australian artist John Peter Russell, and met fellow students like Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who painted a portrait of van Gogh with pastel. The group would meet at the paint store run by Julien "Père" Tanguy, which was at that time the only place to view works by Paul Cézanne. He had easy access to Impressionist works in Paris at the time. In 1886, two large vanguard exhibitions were staged. In these shows Neo-Impressionism made its first appearance—works of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac were the talk of the town. Though Theo, too, kept a stock of Impressionist paintings in his gallery on Boulevard Montmarte—by artists including Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro—van Gogh seemingly had problems acknowledging developments in how artists view and paint their subject matter. Conflicts arose, and at the end of 1886 Theo found shared life with Vincent "almost unbearable". By the spring of 1887 they had made peace.

He moved to Asnières a northwestern suburb of Paris, where he became acquainted with Signac. With Émile Bernard he adopted elements of pointillism, whereby many small dots are applied to the canvas to give an optical blend of hues when seen from a distance. The style stresses the value of complementary colors—including blue and orange—to form vibrant contrasts and enhance each other when juxtaposed. While in Asnières he painted parks and restaurants and the Seine, including Bridges across the Seine at Asnieres.

In November 1887, Theo and Vincent met and befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris. Towards the end of the year, Vincent arranged an exhibition of paintings by himself, Bernard, Anquetin, and probably Toulouse-Lautrec in the Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet, 43 Avenue de Clichy, in Montmartre. There Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings, and van Gogh exchanged work with Gauguin who soon departed to Pont-Aven. Discussions on art, artists and their social situations that started during this exhibition continued and expanded to include visitors to the show like Pissarro and his son Lucien, Signac and Seurat. Finally in February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, he left, having painted over 200 paintings during his two years in the city. Only hours before his departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his first and only visit to Seurat in his atelier (studio).

Artistic breakthrough and final years

Move to Arles (1888–1889)

Van Gogh moved to Arles hoping for refuge; at the time he was ill from drink and suffering from smoker's cough. He arrived on 21 February 1888, and took a room at the Hôtel-Restaurant Carrel, which, idealistically, he had expected to look like one of Hokusai (1760–1849) or Utamaro's (1753–1806) prints. He had moved to the town with thoughts of founding a utopian art colony, and the Danish artist Christian Mourier-Petersen (1858–1945), became his companion for two months. Arles appeared exotic and filthy to van Gogh. In a letter he described it as a foreign country; "The Zouaves, the brothels, the adorable little Arlesiennes going to their First Communion, the priest in his surplice, who looks like a dangerous rhinocerous, the people drinking absinthe, all seem to me creatures from another world".

100 years after his stay there, he was remembered by 113-year-old Jeanne Calment—who as a 13 year old was serving in her uncle's fabric shop where van Gogh wanted to buy some canvas—as "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable", and "very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick". She also recalled selling him colored pencils.

Yet he was taken by the local landscape and light. His works from the period are richly draped in yellow, ultramarine and mauve. His portrayals of the Arles landscape are informed by his Dutch upbringing; the patchwork of fields and avenues appear flat and lack perspective, but excel in their intensity of color. The vibrant light in Arles excited him, and his newfound appreciation is seen in the range and scope of his work. He painted local landscapes using a gridded "perspective frame" that March. Three of these paintings were shown at the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. In April, he was visited by the American artist Dodge MacKnight, who was living nearby at Fontvieille. On May 1, he signed a lease for 15 francs a month in the eastern wing of the Yellow House at No. 2 Place Lamartine. The rooms were unfurnished and uninhabited for some time. He had been staying at the Hôtel Restaurant Carrel, but the rate charged by the hotel was 5 francs a week, which he found excessive. He disputed the price, took the case to a local arbitrator and was awarded a twelve franc reduction on his total bill.

He moved from the Hôtel Carrel to the Café de la Gare on 7 May, where he became friends with the proprietors, Joseph and Marie Ginoux. Although the Yellow House had to be furnished before he could fully move in, van Gogh was able to utilize it as a studio. Hoping to have a gallery to display his work, his major project at this time was a series of paintings which included: Van Gogh's Chair (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), The Night Café (1888), Cafe Terrace at Night (September 1888), Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (1888), all intended to form the décoration for the Yellow House. van Gogh wrote about The Night Café: "I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime."

He visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer that June where he gave drawing lessons to a Zouave second lieutenant, Paul-Eugène Milliet and painted boats on the sea and the village. MacKnight introduced Van Gogh to Eugène Boch, a Belgian painter who stayed at times in Fontvieille, and the two exchanged visits in July.

Gauguin's visit

Gauguin agreed to join him in Arles, giving van Gogh hope for friendship and his collective of artists. Waiting, in August, he painted sunflowers. Boch visited again and van Gogh painted his portrait as well as the study The Poet Against a Starry Sky. Boch's sister Anna (1848–1936), also an artist, purchased The Red Vineyard in 1890. On advice from his friend, the station's postal supervisor Joseph Roulin, whose portrait he painted, he bought two beds on September 8, and spent the first night in the still sparsely furnished Yellow House on September 17. When Gauguin consented to work and live in Arles side-by-side with Van Gogh, he started to work on The Décoration for the Yellow House, probably the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. van Gogh did two chair paintings: Van Gogh's Chair and Gauguin's Chair.

After repeated requests, Gauguin finally arrived in Arles on October 23. During November, the two painted together. Gauguin painted van Gogh's portrait The Painter of Sunflowers: Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, and uncharacteristically, van Gogh painted some pictures from memory—deferring to Gauguin's ideas in this—as well as his The Red Vineyard. Their first joint outdoor painting exercise produced Les Alyscamps, and was conducted at the Alyscamps.

The two artists visited Montpellier that December and viewed works in the Alfred Bruyas collection by Courbet and Delacroix in the Musée Fabre, but their relationship was deteriorating. Van Gogh greatly admired Gauguin, and desperately wanted to be treated as his equal. But Gauguin was arrogant and domineering, a fact that often frustrated the Dutchman. They quarreled fiercely about art; van Gogh felt an increasing fear that Gauguin was going to desert him, as a situation he described as one of "excessive tension" reached crisis point.

On December 23, 1888, frustrated and ill, van Gogh confronted Gauguin with a razor blade, but in panic, left and fled to a local brothel. Deeply lonely at the time, he often visited the prostitutes at a brothel on Rue du Bout d'Aeles as his single emotional and sensuous point of contact with other people. While there, he cut off his left ear, though it is often claimed that it was "only" the lower part of his left earlobe. He wrapped the severed ear in newspaper and handed it to a prostitute named Rachel, asking her to "keep this object carefully." He staggered home, where he was later found by Gauguin lying unconscious with his head covered in blood.

Van Gogh was taken to a hospital and remained in a critical state for several days. He asked for Gauguin continually over the next number of days, but the Frenchman stayed away. Gauguin told one of the policeman attending the case, "Be kind enough, Monsieur, to awaken this man with great care, and if he asks for me tell him I have left for Paris; the sight of me might prove fatal for him." Gauguin wrote of van Gogh, "His state is worse, he wants to sleep with the patients, chase the nurses, and washes himself in the coal bucket. That is to say, he continues the biblical mortifications." Theo—notified by Gauguin—visited, as did both Madame Ginoux and Roulin. Gauguin left Arles and never saw Van Gogh again. In January 1889, van Gogh returned to the Yellow House, but spent the following month between hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions that he was being poisoned. In March, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople, who called him "fou roux" (the redheaded madman). Paul Signac visited him in hospital and van Gogh was allowed home in his company. In April, he moved into rooms owned by Dr. Rey, after floods damaged paintings in his own home. Around this time, he wrote, "Sometimes moods of indescribable anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time and fatality of circumstances seemed to be torn apart for an instant." Two months later he had left Arles and entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Saint-Rémy (May 1889 – May 1890)

On May 8, 1889, accompanied by his carer, the Reverend Salles, he committed himself to the hospital at Saint Paul-de-Mausole. A former monastery in Saint-Rémy less than 20 miles (32 km) from Arles, the monastery is located in an area of cornfields, vineyards and olive trees at the time run by a former naval doctor, Dr. Théophile Peyron. Theo arranged for two small rooms—adjoining cells with barred windows. The second was to be used as a studio.

During his stay, the clinic and its garden became the main subjects of his paintings. He made several studies of the hospital interiors, such as Vestibule of the Asylum and Saint-Remy (September 1889). Some of the work from this time is characterized by swirls—including one of his best-known paintings The Starry Night. He was allowed short supervised walks, which lead to paintings of cypresses and olive trees, like Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889, Cypresses 1889, Cornfield with Cypresses (1889), Country road in Provence by Night (1890). Limited access to the world outside the clinic resulted in a shortage of subject matter. He was left to work on interpretations of other artist's paintings, such as Millet’s The Sower and Noon – Rest from Work (after Millet), as well as variations on his own earlier work. Van Gogh was an admirer of the Realism of Jules Breton, Gustave Courbet and Millet and compared his copies to a musician's interpreting Beethoven. Many of his most compelling works date from this period. His The Round of the Prisoners, (1890) was painted after an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883); the face of the prisoner in the center of the painting and looking toward the viewer is Van Gogh.

That September he produced a further two versions of Bedroom in Arles, and in February 1890 painted four portraits of L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux), based on a charcoal sketch Gauguin had produced when Madame Ginoux sat for both artists at the beginning of November 1888. His work was praised by Albert Aurier in the Mercure de France in January 1890, when he was described as "a genius". In February invited by Les XX, a society of avant-garde painters in Brussels, he participated in their annual exhibition. At the opening dinner, Les XX member Henry de Groux insulted van Gogh's works. Toulouse-Lautrec demanded satisfaction, and Signac declared he would continue to fight for van Gogh's honor if Lautrec should surrender. Later, when van Gogh's exhibit was on display with the Artistes Indépendants in Paris, Monet said that his work was the best in the show. In February 1890, following the birth of his nephew Vincent Willem, he wrote in a letter to his mother, that with the new addition to the family, he "started right away to make a picture for him, to hang in their bedroom, branches of white almond blossom against a blue sky."

Auvers-sur-Oise (May–July 1890)

In May 1890, van Gogh left the clinic to move nearer the physician Dr. Paul Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise, and also to Theo. Gachet was recommended by Camille Pissarro and had treated several other artists, and was himself an amateur artist. Van Gogh's first impression was that Gachet was "...sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much." In June 1890 he painted a number of portraits of the physician, including Portrait of Dr. Gachet, and his only etching. In all the emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition. Van Gogh stayed at the Auberge Ravoux, where he paid 3 francs and 50 centimes to rent an attic room measuring 75 square feet (7.0 m).

In his last weeks at Saint-Rémy, van Gogh's thoughts returned to his "memories of the North", and several of the approximately 70 oils he painted during his 70 days in Auvers-sur-Oise, such as The Church at Auvers, are reminiscent of northern scenes.

Wheat Field with Crows (July 1890) is an example of the double square technique he developed in the last weeks of his life. In its turbulent intensity, it is among his most haunting and elemental works. It is often mistakenly believed to be his last work, but van Gogh scholar Jan Hulsker lists seven paintings which postdate it.

Barbizon painter Charles Daubigny had moved to Auvers in 1861, and this in turn drew other artists there, including Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier. In July 1890, van Gogh completed two paintings of Daubigny's Garden; one of these is likely to be his final work. There are also paintings which show evidence of being unfinished, including Thatched Cottages by a Hill.

Death

Van Gogh suffered a severe setback in December 1889, only recently acquitted from the hospital, as his bouts of illness became more pronounced. For some of these periods he was either unwilling or unable to paint, a factor which gradually deepened the frustration of an artist aware that he was at the peak of his ability. On July 27, 1890, aged 37, he walked into a field and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. The bullet was deflected by a rib and entered the stomach. He managed to walk back to the Ravoux Inn, but died there 29 hours later in extreme agony (dans d'atroces souffrances). Theo rushed to be at his side. Theo reported his brother's last words as "The sadness will last forever" (La tristesse durera toujours).

Van Gogh was buried on July 30 at the municipal cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise at a funeral attended by Theo van Gogh, Andries Bonger, Charles Laval, Lucien Pissarro, Émile Bernard, Julien Tanguy and Dr. Gachet amongst some 20 family and friends, as well as a number of locals. The funeral was described by Émile Bernard in a moving letter to Albert Aurier and Bernard later painted a picture of it from memory. The original burial plot was leased for only 15 years and, in connections with plans eventually to bury Vincent and Theo side by side, Van Gogh's remains were exhumed on 13 June 1905, in the presence of Jo Bonger, Dr. Gachet and others, and relocated, eventually for Theo to be buried beside him. The precise location of the original grave is no longer known.

Theo's health declined in the months after the death of his brother. He had suffered from syphilis—though this was not admitted by the family for many years. He was admitted to the hospital; weak and unable to come to terms with Vincent's absence, he died six months later, on January 25, at Utrecht. In 1914, Theo's body was exhumed and re-buried with his brother at Auvers-sur-Oise.

While most of Vincent's late paintings are somber, they are essentially optimistic and reflect a desire to return to lucid mental health. The paintings completed in the days before his suicide are severely dark. His At Eternity's Gate, a portrayal of an old man holding his head in his hands, is particularly bleak. The work serves as a compelling and poignant expression of the artist's state of mind in his final days. Over the years there has been much debate as to the source of van Gogh's illness and its effect on his work. Over 150 psychiatrists have attempted to label its root, with some 30 different diagnoses. Diagnoses include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, syphilis, poisoning from swallowed paints, temporal lobe epilepsy and acute intermittent porphyria. Any of these could have been the culprit and been aggravated by malnutrition, overwork, insomnia and consumption of alcohol, especially absinthe.

Work

Van Gogh drew and painted with watercolors while at school; few of these works survive and authorship is challenged on some of those that do. When he committed to art as an adult, he began at an elementary level, copying the Cours de dessin, a drawing course edited by Charles Bargue. Within two years he had begun to seek commissions. In Spring 1882, his uncle, Cornelis Marinus, owner of a well-known gallery of contemporary art in Amsterdam, asked him for drawings of the Hague. Van Gogh's work did not live up to his uncle's expectations. Marinus offered a second commission, this time specifying the subject matter in detail, but was once again disappointed with the result. Nevertheless, van Gogh persevered. He improved the lighting of his studio by installing variable shutters and experimented with a variety of drawing materials. For more than a year he worked on single figures—highly elaborated studies in "Black and White", which at the time gained him only criticism. Today, they are recognized as his first masterpieces.

Early in 1883, he began to work on multi-figure compositions, which he based on his drawings. He had some of them photographed, but when his brother remarked that they lacked liveliness and freshness, he destroyed them and turned to oil painting. By Autumn 1882, his brother had enabled him financially to turn out his first paintings, but all the money Theo could supply was soon spent. Then, in spring 1883, van Gogh turned to renowned Hague School artists like Weissenbruch and Blommers, and received technical support from them, as well as from painters like De Bock and Van der Weele, both second generation Hague School artists. When he moved to Nuenen after the intermezzo in Drenthe he began a number of large-sized paintings but destroyed most of them. The Potato Eaters and its companion pieces—The Old Tower on the Nuenen cemetery and The Cottage—are the only ones to have survived. Following a visit to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh was aware that many of his faults were due to lack of technical experience. So he traveled to Antwerp and later to Paris to learn and develop his skill.

More or less acquainted with Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist techniques and theories, van Gogh went to Arles to develop these new possibilities. But within a short time, older ideas on art and work reappeared: ideas such as working with serial imagery on related or contrasting subject matter, which would reflect on the purposes of art. As his work progressed, he painted many Self-portraits. Already in 1884 in Nuenen he had worked on a series that was to decorate the dining room of a friend in Eindhoven. Similarly in Arles, in spring 1888 he arranged his Flowering Orchards into triptychs, began a series of figures that found its end in The Roulin Family series, and finally, when Gauguin had consented to work and live in Arles side-by-side with Van Gogh, he started to work on The Décorations for the Yellow House, which was by some accounts the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. Most of his later work is involved with elaborating on or revising its fundamental settings. In the spring of 1889, he painted another, smaller group of orchards. In an April letter to Theo, he said, "I have 6 studies of Spring, two of them large orchards. There is little time because these effects are so short-lived."

Art historian Albert Boime believes that van Gogh—even in seemingly fantastical compositions like Starry Night—based his work in reality. The White House at Night, shows a house at twilight with a prominent star surrounded by a yellow halo in the sky. Astronomers at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos calculated that the star is Venus, which was bright in the evening sky in June 1890 when Van Gogh is believed to have painted the picture.

Self portraits

Van Gogh created many self-portraits during his lifetime. He was a prolific self-portraitist, who painted himself 37 times between 1886 and 1889. In all, the gaze of the painter is seldom directed at us; even when it is a fixed gaze, he appears to look elsewhere. The paintings vary in intensity and color and some portray the artist with beard, some beardless, some with bandages; representing the episode in which he severed one of his ears. Self-portrait Without Beard, from the end of September 1889, is one of the most expensive paintings of all time, selling for $71.5 million in 1998 in New York. At the time, it was the third (or an inflation-adjusted fourth) most expensive painting ever sold. It was also van Gogh's last self-portrait, given as a birthday gift to his mother.

All of the self-portraits painted in Saint-Rémy show the artist's head from the right, the side opposite his mutilated ear, as he painted himself reflected in his mirror. During the final weeks of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, he produced many paintings, but no self-portraits.

Portraits

Van Gogh, known for his landscapes, seemed to find painting portraits his greatest ambition. He said of portrait studies, "the only thing in painting that excites me to the depths of my soul, and which makes me feel the infinite more than anything else."

To his sister he wrote, "I should like to paint portraits which appear after a century to people living then as apparitions. By which I mean that I do not endeavor to achieve this through photographic resemblance, but my means of our impassioned emotions—that is to say using our knowledge and our modern taste for color as a means of arriving at the expression and the intensification of the character."

Of painting portraits, van Gogh wrote: "in a picture I want to say something comforting as music is comforting. I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize, and which we seek to communicate by the actual radiance and vibration of our coloring."

Cypresses

One of the most popular and widely known series of van Gogh's paintings are his Cypresses. During the Summer of 1889, at sister Wil's request, he made several smaller versions of Wheat Field with Cypresses. The works are characterised by swirls and densely painted impasto—and produced one of his best-known paintings—The Starry Night. Other works from the series have similar stylistic elements including Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background (1889) Cypresses (1889), Cypresses with Two Figures (1889–1890), Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889), (van Gogh made several versions of this painting that year), Road with Cypress and Star (1890), and Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888). These have become synonymous with van Gogh's work through their stylistic uniqueness. According to art historian Ronald Pickvance,

Road with Cypress and Star (1890), is compositionally as unreal and artificial as the Starry Night. Pickvance goes on to say the painting Road with Cypress and Star represents an exalted experience of reality, a conflation of North and South, what both van Gogh and Gauguin referred to as an "abstraction". Referring to Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background, on or around 18 June 1889, in a letter to Theo, he wrote, "At last I have a landscape with olives and also a new study of a Starry Night."

Hoping to also have a gallery for his work, his major project at this time was a series of paintings including Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (1888), and Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888) that all intended to form the décorations for the Yellow House.

Flowering Orchards

The series of Flowering Orchards, sometimes referred to as the Orchards in Blossom paintings, were among the first group of work that van Gogh completed after his arrival in Arles, Provence in February 1888. The 14 paintings in this group are optimistic, joyous and visually expressive of the burgeoning Springtime. They are delicately sensitive, silent, quiet and unpopulated. About The Cherry Tree Vincent wrote to Theo on 21 April 1888 and said he had 10 orchards and: one big (painting) of a cherry tree, which I've spoiled. The following spring he painted another smaller group of orchards, including View of Arles, Flowering Orchards.

Van Gogh was taken by the landscape and vegetation of the South of France, and often visited the farm gardens near Arles. Because of the vivid light supplied by the Mediterranean climate his palette significantly brightened. From his arrival, he was interested in capturing the effect of the seasons on the surrounding landscape and plant life.

Flowers

Van Gogh painted several versions of landscapes with flowers, as seen in View of Arles with Irises, and paintings of flowers, including Irises, Sunflowers, lilacs and roses. Some reflect his interests in the language of color, and also in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

He completed two series of sunflowers: the first while he was in Paris in 1887, and the second during his stay in Arles the following year. The first series shows living flowers in the ground. In the second series, they are dying in vases. The 1888 paintings were created during a rare period of optimism for the artist. He intended them to decorate a bedroom where Gauguin was supposed to stay in Arles that August, when the two would create the community of artists van Gogh had long hoped for. The flowers are rendered with thick brushstrokes (impasto) and heavy layers of paint.

In an August 1888 letter to Theo, he wrote,

"I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won't surprise you when you know that what I'm at is the painting of some sunflowers. If I carry out this idea there will be a dozen panels. So the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow. I am working at it every morning from sunrise on, for the flowers fade so quickly. I am now on the fourth picture of sunflowers. This fourth one is a bunch of 14 flowers ... it gives a singular effect."

Wheat fields

Van Gogh made several painting excursions during visits to the landscape around Arles. He made a number of paintings featuring harvests, wheat fields and other rural landmarks of the area, including The Old Mill (1888); a good example of a picturesque structure bordering the wheat fields beyond. It was one of seven canvases sent to Pont-Aven on 4 October 1888 as exchange of work with Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard, Charles Laval, and others. At various times in his life, van Gogh painted the view from his window—at The Hague, Antwerp, Paris. These works culminated in The Wheat Field series, which depicted the view he could see from his adjoining cells in the asylum at Saint-Rémy.

Writing in July 1890, van Gogh said that he had become absorbed "in the immense plain against the hills, boundless as the sea, delicate yellow". He had become captivated by the fields in May when the wheat was young and green. The weather worsened in July, and he wrote to Theo of "vast fields of wheat under troubled skies", adding that he did not "need to go out of my way to try and express sadness and extreme loneliness".

Working procedures

A self-taught artist with little training, Van Gogh was anything but academic in his painting and drawing techniques. Recent research has shown that some of his oil paintings and drawings would better be described as mixed-media. The Langlois Bridge at Arles' shows highly elaborate under-drawing in pen and ink, while several works from Saint-Rémy and Auvers, such as Vestibule of the Asylum, Saint-Remy (September 1889), were painted in diluted oil and with a brush.

Legacy

Posthumous fame

Following his first exhibitions in the late 1880s, van Gogh's fame grew steadily among colleagues, art critics, dealers and collectors. After his death, memorial exhibitions were mounted in Brussels, Paris, The Hague and Antwerp. In the early 20th century, there were retrospectives in Paris (1901 and 1905), and Amsterdam (1905), and important group exhibitions in Cologne (1912), New York (1913) and Berlin (1914). These had a noticeable impact on later generations of artists. By the mid 20th century van Gogh was seen as one of the greatest and most recognizable painters in history. In 2007 a group of Dutch historians compiled the "Canon of Dutch History" to be taught in schools and included van Gogh as one of the fifty topics of the canon, alongside other national icons such as Rembrandt and De Stijl.

Influence

In his final letter to Theo, Vincent admitted that as he did not have any children, he viewed his paintings as his progeny. Reflecting on this, the historian Simon Schama concluded that he "did have a child of course, Expressionism, and many, many heirs." Schama mentioned a wide number of artists who have adapted elements of van Gogh's style, including Willem de Kooning, Howard Hodgkin and Jackson Pollock. The Fauves extended both his use of color and freedom in application, as did German Expressionists of the Die Brücke group, and as other early modernists. Abstract Expressionism of the 1940s and 1950s is seen as in part inspired from van Gogh's broad, gestural brush strokes. In the words of art critic Sue Hubbard: "At the beginning of the twentieth century Van Gogh gave the Expressionists a new painterly language which enabled them to go beyond surface appearance and penetrate deeper essential truths. It is no coincidence that at this very moment Freud was also mining the depths of that essentially modern domain—the subconscious. This beautiful and intelligent exhibition places Van Gogh where he firmly belongs; as the trailblazer of modern art."

In 1957, Francis Bacon (1909–1992) based a series of paintings on reproductions of van Gogh's The Painter on the Road to Tarascon, the original of which was destroyed during World War II. Bacon was inspired by not only an image he described as "haunting", but also van Gogh himself, whom Bacon regarded as an alienated outsider, a position which resonated with Bacon. The Irish artist further identified with van Gogh's theories of art and quoted lines written in a letter to Theo, "eal painters do not paint things as they are...They paint them as they themselves feel them to be". An exhibition devoted to Vincent van Gogh's letters took place in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from October 2009 to January 2010 and then moved to the Royal Academy in London from late January to April.

Footnotes

1. The pronunciation of "Van Gogh" varies in both English and Dutch. Especially in British English it is /ˌvæn ˈɡɒx/ van-GOKH or sometimes /ˌvæn ˈɡɒf/ van-GOF. U.S. dictionaries list /ˌvæn ˈɡoʊ/ van-GOH, with a silent gh, as the most common pronunciation. In the dialect of Holland, it is Template:IPA-nl, with a voiceless V. Van Gogh grew up in Brabant (although his parents were not born there), and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: Template:IPA-nl, with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is Template:IPA-fr
2. "...he would not eat meat, only a little morsel on Sundays, and then only after being urged by our landlady for a long time. Four potatoes with a suspicion of gravy and a mouthful of vegetables constituted his whole dinner"—from a letter to Frederik van Eeden, to help him with preparation for his article on Van Gogh in De Nieuwe Gids, Issue 1, December 1890. Quoted in Van Gogh: A Self-Portrait; Letters Revealing His Life as a Painter. W. H. Auden, New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, CT. 1961. 37–9
3. There are different views as to this period; Jan Hulsker (1990) opts for a return to the Borinage and then back to Etten in this period; Dorn, in: Ges7kó (2006), 48 & note 12 supports the line taken in this article
4. see Jan Hulsker's speech The Borinage Episode and the Misrepresentation of Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh Symposium, 10–11 May 1990. In Erickson (1998), 67–68
5. The girl was Gordina de Groot, who died in 1927; she claimed the father was not van Gogh, but a relative.
6. According to Doiteau & Leroy, the diagonal cut removed the lobe and probably a little more.
7. They continued to correspond and in 1890 Gauguin proposed they form an artist studio in Antwerp. See Pickvance (1986), 62

References

1. Hughes (1990), 144
2. ^ Pickvance (1986), 129 Cite error: The named reference "pick" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
3. Tralbaut (1981), 39
4. ^ Pomerans (2003), ix
5. "Van Gogh: The Letters". Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
6. Van Gogh's letters, Unabridged and Annotated. Retrieved 25 June 2009.
7. ^ Hughes, 143
8. Pomerans, i–xxvi
9. Pomerans, vii
10. Vincent Van Gogh Biography, Quotes & Paintings. The Art History Archive. Retrieved 14 June 2007.
11. It has been suggested that being given the same name as his dead elder brother might have had a deep psychological impact on the young artist, and that elements of his art, such as the portrayal of pairs of male figures, can be traced back to this. Lubin (1972), 82–4
12. Erickson (1998), 9
13. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Van Gogh Memoir
14. Tralbaut (1981), 24
15. Letter 347 Vincent to Theo, 18 December 1883.
16. Hackford Road, UK: Vauxhall Society, archived from the original on 27 September 2007, retrieved 27 June 2009.
17. Letter 7 Vincent to Theo, 5 May 1873.
18. Tralbaut (1981), 35–47
19. "Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Isleworth 18 August 1876". Retrieved 11 April 2010.
20. Tralbaut (1981), 47–56
21. Callow (1990), 54
22. See the recollections gathered in Dordrecht by M. J. Brusse, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 26 May and 2 June 1914.
23. McQuillan (1989), 26
24. Erickson (1998), 23
25. Letter 129, April 1879, and Letter 132. Van Gogh lodged in Wasmes at 22 rue de Wilson with Jean-Baptiste Denis a breeder or grower ('cultivateur', in the French original) according to Letter 553b. In the recollections of his nephew Jean Richez, gathered by Wilkie (in the 1970s!), 72–8. Denis and his wife Esther were running a bakery, and Richez admits that the only source of his knowledge is Aunt Esther.
26. Letter from mother to Theo, 7 August 1879 and Callow, work cited, 72
27. Letter 158 Vincent to Theo, 18 November 1881
28. Letter 134, 20 August 1880 from Cuesmes
29. Tralbaut (1981) 67–71
30. Erickson (1998), 5
31. Letter 153 Vincent to Theo, 3 November 1881
32. Letter 161 Vincent to Theo, 23 November 1881
33. Letter 164 Vincent to Theo, from Etten c.21 December 1881, describing the visit in more detail
34. Letter Letter 193 from Vincent to Theo, The Hague, 14 May 1882.
35. "Uncle Stricker", as van Gogh refers to him in letters to Theo.
36. Gayford (2006), 130–1
37. Letter 166 Vincent to Theo, 29 December 1881
38. "Letter 196". Vincent van Gogh. The Letters. Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum.
39. "Letter 219". Vincent van Gogh. The Letters. Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum.
40. Tralbaut (1981), 96–103
41. Callow (1990), 116; cites the work of Hulsker.
42. Callow (1990), 123–124
43. "Letter 224". Vincent van Gogh. The Letters. Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum.
44. Callow (1990), 117
45. Callow (1990), 116; citing the research of Jan Hulsker; the two dead children were born in 1874 and 1879.
46. ^ Tralbaut (1981), 107
47. Callow (1990), 132
48. Tralbaut (1981),102–104,112
49. McQuillan, 34
50. Letter 206, Vincent to Theo, 8 June or 9, June 1882
51. Tralbaut (1981),110
52. Arnold, 38
53. Tralbaut (1981), 113
54. Wilkie, 185
55. Tralbaut (1981),101–107
56. Tralbaut (1981), 111–122
57. Johannes de Looyer, Karel van Engeland, Hendricus Dekkers, and Piet van Hoorn all as old men recalled being paid 5, 10 or 50 cents per nest, depending on the type of bird. See Theo's son's Webexhibits.org
58. Vincent's nephew noted some reminiscences of local residents in 1949, including the description of the speed of his drawing
59. Tralbaut (1981), 154
60. McQuillan, 127
61. Vincent Van Gogh and Gordina de Groot
62. Hulsker (1980) 196–205
63. Tralbaut (1981),123–160
64. Callow (1990), 181
65. Callow (1990), 184
66. Hammacher (1985), 84
67. Callow (1990), 253
68. Vincent's doctor was Hubertus Amadeus Cavenaile. Wilkie, 143–146
69. Arnold, 77. The evidence for syphilis is thin, coming solely from interviews with the grandson of the doctor; see Tralbaut (1981), 177–178
70. Van der Wolk (1987), 104–105
71. Tralbaut (1981), 173
72. His 1885 painting Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette, is an apt commentary on his smoking
73. Tralbaut (1981) 187–192
74. Pickvance (1984), 38–39
75. Tralbaut (1981), 216
76. Letter 626a. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
77. Van Gogh et Monticelli. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
78. Turner, J. (2000). From Monet to Cézanne: late 19th-century French artists. Grove Art. New York: St Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-22971-2
79. Pickvance (1986), 62–63
80. Tralbaut (1981), 212–213
81. "Glossary term: Pointillism", National Gallery London. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
82. "Glossary term: Complimentary colours", National Gallery, London. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
83. D. Druick & P. Zegers, Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South, Thames & Hudson, 2001. 81; Gayford, (2006), 50
84. Crispino, Enrico. Van Gogh
85. Letter 510 Vincent to Theo, 15 July 1888. Letter 544a. Vincent to Paul Gauguin, 3 October 1888
86. ^ Hughes, 144
87. Whitney, Craig R. "Jeanne Calment, World's Elder, Dies at 122", The New York Times, 5 August 1997. Retrieved on 4 August 2008.
88. "World's oldest person dies at 122", CNN, 4 August 1997. Retrieved on 4 August 2008.
89. Associated Press. "World's oldest person marks 120 beautiful, happy years", Deseret News, 21 February 1995. Retrieved on 4 March 2010.
90. "Letters of Vincent van Gogh". Penguin, 1998. 348. ISBN 0-14-044674-5
91. Nemeczek, Alfred. Van Gogh in Arles. Prestel Verlag, 1999. 59–61. ISBN 3-7913-2230-3
92. Gayford (2006), 16
93. Callow (1990), 219
94. Pickvance (1984), 175–176 and Dorn (1990), passim
95. Tralbaut (1981), 266
96. ^ Letters of Vincent van Gogh, Penguin edition, 1998 page 348
97. "Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 1888". Permanent Collection. Van Gogh Museum. 2005–2011. Retrieved 2011-05-18.
98. Hulsker (1980), 356
99. Pickvance (1984), 168–169;206
100. Letter 534; Gayford (2006), 18
101. Letter 537; Nemeczek, 61
102. ^ See Dorn (1990)
103. Pickvance (1984), 234–235
104. Gayford (2006), 61
105. Pickvance (1984), 195
106. ^ Gayford, 284
107. Pickvance (1986). Chronology, 239–242
108. Tralbaut (1981), 265–273
109. Hughes (1990), 145
110. Callow (1990), 246
111. Carol Vogel, NY Times. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
112. Jules Breton and Realism, Van Gogh Museum
113. Pickvance (1984), 102–103
114. Pickvance (1986), 154–157
115. Tralbaut (1981), 286
116. Kleiner, Carolyn (July 24, 2000). "Van Gogh's vanishing act". Mysteries of History. U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 2011-5-7. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
117. Pickvance (1986) 175–177
118. Aurier, G. Albert. "The Isolated Ones: Vincent van Gogh", January, 1890. Reproduced on vggallery.com. Retrieved 25 June 2009.
119. Rewald (1978), 346–347; 348–350
120. Tralbaut (1981), 293
121. ^ Pickvance (1986), 272–273
122. Letter 648 Vincent to Theo, 10 July 1890
123. Letter 629 Vincent to Theo, 30 April 1890
124. ^ Pickvance (1986), 270–271
125. Hulsker (1980), 480–483. Wheat Field with Crows is work number 2117 of 2125
126. ^ Le Régional. Beaumont-sur-Oise: Private archive of M. Jean-Pierre Mantel, Auvers-sur-Oise. 7 August 1890. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
127. Petrucelli, Alan W. (2009). Morbid Curiosity: The Disturbing Demises of the Famous and Infamous. Perigee Trade. ISBN 0399535276. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
128. Hulsker (1980), 480–483
129. "Letter from Emile Bernard to Albert Aurier". WebExhibits. Retrieved 11 July 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
130. "Van Gogh and Bernard: an artist's friendship". Van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 11 July 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
131. ^ Obst, Andreas (2010). "2.3 Stochastic Derivation of Section C". Records and deliberations about Vincent van Gogh's first grave in Auvers-sur-Oise. Lauenau: Het Geheugen van Nederland. {{cite book}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
132. Hayden, Deborah . POX, Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis. Basic Books, 2003. 152. ISBN 0-465-02881-0
133. "La tombe de Vincent Van Gogh – Auvers-sur-Oise, France". Groundspeak. Retrieved 23 June 2009.
134. Hulsker (1980)
135. Blumer, Dietrich. ""The Illness of Vincent van Gogh". American Journal of Psychiatry, 2002
136. Van Heugten (1996), 246–251
137. Artists working in Black & White, i. e. for illustrated papers like The Graphic or Illustrated London News were among van Gogh's favorites. See Pickvance (1974/75)
138. See Dorn, Keyes & alt. (2000)
139. ^ See Dorn, Schröder & Sillevis, ed. (1996)
140. See Welsh-Ovcharov & Cachin (1988)
141. ^ Hulsker (1980), 385
142. Boime (1989)
143. At around 8:00 pm on 16 June 1890, as astronomers determined by Venus's position in the painting. "Star dates Van Gogh canvas". BBC News, 8 March 2001.
144. Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art, art of self-portrait. Retrieved June 13, 2010.
145. Top-ten most expensive paintings. Retrieved June 13, 2010.
146. JRSM Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, A Tale of Two Ears. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
147. Letter to the New York Times, September 1989, VAN GOGH MYTHS;The ear in the mirror. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
148. Self Portraits. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
149. ^ Cleveland Museum of Art (2007). Monet to Dalí: Impressionist and Modern Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-940717-89-3.
150. "La Mousmé". Postimpressionism. National Gallery of Art. 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2011Additional information about the painting is found in the audio clip.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
151. Portrait of Madame Augustine Roulin and Baby Marcelle. Collections. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 2011. Additional information in "Teacher Resources" and audio clip. Retrieved June 4, 2011
152. Pickvance (1986), 132–133
153. Pickvance (1986), 101; 189–191
154. Pickvance (1984), 175–176
155. Letter 595 Vincent to Theo, 17 or 18 June 1889
156. Pickvance (1984), 45–53
157. Fell (1997), 32
158. "Letter 573" Vincent to Theo. 22 or 23 January 1889
159. Pickvance (1986), 80–81; 184–187
160. ^ "Sunflowers 1888". National Gallery, London. Retrieved 12 September 2009.
161. ^ Pickvance (1984), 177
162. Seeing Feelings. Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. Retrieved 26 June 2009.
163. Hulsker (1980), 390–394
164. Edwards, Cliff. Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest. Loyola University Press, 1989. 115. ISBN 0-8294-0621-2
165. Letter 649
166. Schaefer, von Saint-George & Lewerentz, 105–110
167. See Ives, Stein & alt. (2005)
168. John Rewald, Studies in Post-Impressionism, The Posthumous Fate of Vincent van Gogh 1890–1970,pp. 244–254, published by Harry N. Abrams 1986, ISBN 0-8109-1632-0
169. See Dorn, Leeman & alt. (1990)
170. Rewald, John. "The posthumous fate of Vincent van Gogh 1890–1970". Museumjournaal, August–September 1970. Republished in Rewald (1986), 248
171. "Vincent van Gogh The Dutch Master of Modern Art has his Greatest American Show," Life Magazine, October 10, 1949, pp. 82–87. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
172. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
173. "The Canon of the Netherlands". De Canon van Nederland. Foundation entoen.nu. 2007. Retrieved 10 July 2009.
174. Schama, Simon. "Wheatfield with Crows". Simon Schama's Power of Art, 2006. Documentary, from 59:20
175. "Glossary: Fauvism, Tate. Retrieved 23 June 2009.
176. David Minthorn, NYC exhibit highlights van Gogh's impact on German modernists, USA Today, 2007. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
177. Hubbard, Sue. "Vincent Van Gogh and Expressionism". Independent, 2007. Retrieved July 3, 2010.
178. Farr, Dennis; Peppiatt, Michael; Yard, Sally. Francis Bacon: A Retrospective. Harry N Abrams, 1999. 112. ISBN 0-8109-2925-2
179. The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
180. "The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters". Royal Academy of Arts. Retrieved 24 March 2010.

Bibliography

General and biographical

• Bernard, Bruce (ed.). Vincent by Himself. London: Time Warner, 2004.
• Callow, Philip. Vincent van Gogh: A Life. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1990. ISBN 1-56663-134-3
• Erickson, Kathleen Powers. At Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent van Gogh, 1998. ISBN 0-8028-4978-4.
• Gayford, Martin. The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles. London: Penguin, 2006. ISBN 0-670-91497-5
• Grossvogel, David I. Behind the Van Gogh Forgeries: A Memoir by David I. Grossvogel. San Jose: Author's Choice Press, 2001. ISBN 0-595-17717-4
• Hammacher, A.M. Vincent van Gogh: Genius and Disaster. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985. ISBN 0-8109-8067-3
• Hughes, Robert. Nothing If Not Critical. London: The Harvill Press, 1990. ISBN 0-14-016524-X
• Hulsker, Jan. Vincent and Theo van Gogh; A dual biography. Ann Arbor: Fuller Publications, 1990. ISBN 0-940537-05-2
• Hulsker, Jan. The Complete Van Gogh. Oxford: Phaidon, 1980. ISBN 0-7148-2028-8
• Lubin, Albert J. Stranger on the earth: A psychological biography of Vincent van Gogh. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. ISBN 0-03-091352-7
• McQuillan, Melissa. Van Gogh. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989. ISBN 1-86046-859-4
• Pomerans, Arnold. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. London: Penguin Classics, 2003. ISBN 0-14-044674-5
• Rewald, John. Post-Impressionism: From van Gogh to Gauguin. London: Secker & Warburg, 1978. ISBN 0-436-41151-2
• Rewald, John. Studies in Post-Impressionism. New York: Abrams, 1986. ISBN 0-8109-1632-0
• Sund, Judy. Van Gogh. London: Phaidon, 2002. ISBN 0-7148-4084-X
• Tralbaut, Marc Edo. Vincent van Gogh, le mal aimé. Edita, Lausanne (French) & Macmillan, London 1969 (English); reissued by Macmillan, 1974 and by Alpine Fine Art Collections, 1981. ISBN 0-933516-31-2
• van Heugten, Sjraar. Van Gogh The Master Draughtsman. London: Thames and Hudson, 2005. ISBN 978-0-500-23825-7
• Walther, Ingo F. & Metzger, Rainer. Van Gogh: the Complete Paintings. New York: Taschen, 1997. ISBN 3-8228-8265-8

Art historical

• Boime, Albert. Vincent van Gogh: Die Sternennacht-Die Geschichte des Stoffes und der Stoff der Geschichte, Frankfurt/Mainz: Fischer, 1989 ISBN 3-596-23953-2
• Cachin, Françoise & Welsh-Ovcharov, Bogomila. Van Gogh à Paris (exh. cat. Musée d'Orsay, Paris 1988), Paris: RMN, 1988. ISBN 2-7118-2159-5.
• Dorn, Roland: Décoration: Vincent van Gogh's Werkreihe für das Gelbe Haus in Arles. Zürich & New York: Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, 1990. ISBN 3-487-09098-8.
• Dorn, Roland, Leeman, Fred & alt. Vincent van Gogh and Early Modern Art, 1890–1914 (exh. cat). Essen & Amsterdam, 1990. ISBN 3-923641-33-8 (in English) ISBN 3-923641-31-1 (in German) ISBN 90-6630-247-X (in Dutch)
• Dorn, Roland, Keyes, George S. & alt. Van Gogh Face to Face: The Portraits (exh. cat). Detroit, Boston & Philadelphia, 2000–01, Thames & Hudson, London & New York, 2000. ISBN 0-89558-153-1
• Druick, Douglas, Zegers, Pieter Kort & alt. Van Gogh and Gauguin-The Studio of the South (exh. cat). Chicago & Amsterdam 2001–02, Thames & Hudson, London & New York 2001. ISBN 0-500-51054-7
• Fell, Derek. "The Impressionist Garden". London: Frances Lincoln, 1997. ISBN 0-7112-1148-5
• Geskó, Judit, ed. Van Gogh in Budapest. Budapest: Vince Books, 2006. ISBN 978-963-7063-34-3 (English edition).ISBN 963-7063-33-1 (Hungarian edition).
• Ives, Colta, Stein, Susan Alyson & alt. Vincent van Gogh-The Drawings. New Haven: YUP, 2005. ISBN 0-300-10720-X
• Kōdera, Tsukasa. Vincent van Gogh-Christianity versus Nature. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1990. ISBN 90-272-5333-1
• Pickvance, Ronald. English Influences on Vincent van Gogh (exh. cat). University of Nottingham & alt. 1974/75). London: Arts Council, 1974.
• Pickvance, Ronald. Van Gogh in Arles (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Abrams, 1984. ISBN 0-87099-375-5
• Pickvance, Ronald. Van Gogh In Saint-Rémy and Auvers (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Abrams, 1986. ISBN 0-87099-477-8
• Orton, Fred and Pollock, Griselda. "Rooted in the Earth: A Van Gogh Primer", in: Avant-Gardes and Partisans Reviewed. London: Redwood Books, 1996. ISBN 0-7190-4398-0
• Schaefer, Iris, von Saint-George, Caroline & Lewerentz, Katja: Painting Light. The hidden techniques of the Impressionists. Milan: Skira, 2008. ISBN 88-6130-609-8
• Van der Wolk, Johannes: De schetsboeken van Vincent van Gogh, Meulenhoff/Landshoff, Amsterdam 1986 ISBN 90-290-8154-6; translated to English: The Seven Sketchbooks of Vincent van Gogh: a facsimile edition, New York: Abrams, 1987.
• Van Heugten, Sjraar. "Radiographic images of Vincent van Gogh's paintings in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum". Van Gogh Museum Journal .1995. 63–85. ISBN 90-400-9796-8
• Van Heugten, Sjraar. Vincent van Gogh Drawings, vol. 1, Bussum: V+K, 1996. ISBN 90-6611-501-7 (Dutch edition).
• Van Uitert, Evert, et. al. Van Gogh in Brabant: Paintings and drawings from Etten and Nuenen. (English edition). Zwolle: Waanders, Zwolle, 1987. ISBN 90-6630-104-X

External links

• Vincent van Gogh Biography, Style and Critical Reception.
• Vincent van Gogh Gallery. The complete works and letters of Vincent van Gogh.
• Van Gogh Letters – The complete letters of Van Gogh, translated into English and annotated. Published by the Van Gogh Museum.
• Johanna Gesina van Gogh-Bonger, Memoir of Vincent van Gogh
• Memoir of Vincent van Gogh. By Johanna Gesina van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent's sister in law.
• Van Gogh's Letters, unabridged and annotated.
• Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• Template:Worldcat id
• Vincent van Gogh at the Museum of Modern Art
• Van Gogh at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., United States.
• 'Drama at Arles new light on Van Gogh's self-mutilation' from Apollo, September 2005 by Martin Bailey.
• Painted with Words: Vincent van Gogh's Letters to Emile Bernard, New York Times, 9 September 2007
• Painted with Words: Vincent van Gogh's Letters to Emile Bernard – Facsimiles at The Morgan Library & Museum
• Art Historians Claim Van Gogh's ear 'Cut Off by Gauguin' by Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian, 4 May 2009
• Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Vincent Van Gogh. Getty Vocabulary Program, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California.
• Admiel Kosman, Treading toward sanctity. Musings and meditations on close to a century's worth of discussions occasioned by Van Gogh's series of paintings of worn shoes. Was the artist's statement primarily aesthetic, or political, or was it religious?

Template:Persondata

Template:Link GA Template:Link GA Template:Link FA Template:Link FA Template:Link FA Template:Link FA

• Use dmy dates from August 2010
• Ill-formatted IPAc-en transclusions
• 1853 births
• 1890 deaths
• Alumni of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp)
• Dutch expatriates in Belgium
• Dutch expatriates in France
• Dutch expatriates in the United Kingdom
• Dutch painters
• Flower artists
• Painters who committed suicide
• People from North Brabant
• Post-impressionist painters
• Suicides by firearm in France
• Vincent van Gogh
• Vincent van Gogh paintings