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Vincent van Gogh
Self-portrait (1887), Art Institute of Chicago
Born	Vincent Willem van Gogh
Nationality	Dutch
Known for	Painter
Notable work	The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers, The Starry Night, Irises, Portrait of Dr. Gachet
Movement	Post-Impressionism
Patron(s)	Theo van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. He was a pioneer of Expressionism with enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists. Some of his paintings are now among the world's best known, most popular and expensive works of art.

Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief period as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not begin his career as an artist until he was about 27; however during the last ten years of his life, he produced more than 2,000 pieces, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches. He worked only with sombre colours until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. Van Gogh incorporated their brighter colours and style of painting into a uniquely recognizable style, which he had fully developed by the time he spent at Arles, France. Most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years, amid the recurrent bouts of mental illness which led to his eventual suicide at the age of 37.

A central figure in Van Gogh's life was his brother Theo, who continually and selflessly provided financial support. Their lifelong friendship is documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards.

Name

The pronunciation of "Van Gogh" varies somewhat in both English and Dutch. In English it is Template:Pron-en or sometimes /ˌvæn ˈɡɒf/, especially in the UK, or /ˌvæn ˈɡoʊ/ with a silent gh, especially in the US. In standard Dutch, based on the dialect of Holland, it is Template:IPA-nl. However, though van Gogh's parents were from Holland, he grew up in Brabant and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: Template:IPA-nl. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is Template:IPA-fr.

Biography

Early life (1853–1869)

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March, 1853 in Groot-Zundert, a village close to Breda in the province of North Brabant in the southern Netherlands. He was the son of Anna Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. Vincent was given the same name as his grandfather — and a first brother stillborn exactly one year before. The practice of reusing a name in this way was not uncommon. Vincent was a common name in the Van Gogh family; his grandfather (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. There was a third brother, Cor, and three sisters; Elisabeth, Anna and Willemina.

As a child Vincent was serious, silent and thoughtful. In 1860, he attended the Zundert village school, where the only teacher was Catholic and there were around 200 pupils. From 1861 he and his sister Anna were taught at home by a governess, until 1 October 1864, when he went away to the elementary boarding school of Jan Provily in Zevenbergen, the Netherlands, about 20 miles (32 km) away. He was distressed to leave his family home, and recalled this even in adulthood. On 15 September 1866, he went to the new middle school, Willem II College in Tilburg, the Netherlands. Constantijn C. Huysmans, who had achieved a certain success himself 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. His comment on his early years was: "My youth was gloomy and cold and sterile..."

Art dealer and preacher (1869–1878)

In July 1869, at the age of fifteen, he obtained a position with the art dealer Goupil & Cie in The Hague through his Uncle Vincent ("Cent"), who had built up a good business that became a branch of the firm. After his training, Goupil transferred him to London in June 1873, where he lodged at 87 Hackford Road, Brixton and worked at Messrs. Goupil & Co., 17 Southampton Street. This was a happy time for Van Gogh. He was successful at work, and was already, at the age of 20, earning more than his father. He fell in love with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer, but when he finally confessed his feeling to her, she rejected him, saying that she was already secretly engaged to a previous lodger.

Vincent became increasingly isolated and fervent about religion. His father and uncle sent him to Paris, where he became resentful at how art was treated as a commodity, and he manifested this to the customers. On 1 April 1876, it was agreed that his employment should be terminated.

His religious emotion grew to the point where he felt he had found his true vocation in life and he returned to England to do unpaid work, first as a supply teacher in a small boarding school overlooking the harbour in Ramsgate where he made some sketches of the view. The proprietor of the school relocated to Isleworth, Middlesex and Vincent decided to walk to the new location. This new position did not work out and Vincent became a Methodist minister's assistant in his desire to "preach the gospel everywhere."

At Christmas that year he returned home and then worked in a bookshop in Dordrecht for six months. However, 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 Vincent ate frugally, preferring not to eat meat.

In an effort to support his wish to become a pastor his family sent him to Amsterdam in May 1877 where he lived with his uncle Jan van Gogh, a rear admiral in the navy. Van Gogh prepared for university, studying for the theology entrance exam with his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected theologian who the first "Life of Jesus" available in the Netherlands. Vincent failed at his studies and had to abandon them. He left his uncle Jan's house in July 1878. He then studied, but failed, a three-month course at the Vlaamsche Opleidingsschool Protestant missionary school in Laeken, near Brussels.

Borinage and Brussels (1879–1880)

In January 1879, Van Gogh took a temporary post as a missionary in the village of Petit Wasmes in the coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium, bringing his father's profession to people many felt to be the most wretched and hopeless in Europe. Taking Christianity to what he saw as its logical conclusion, Vincent 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 Vincent sobbing all night in the little 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 Borinage, to the village of Cuesmes, but acquiesced to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten. He stayed there until around March the following year, to the increasing concern and frustration of his parents. There was considerable conflict between Vincent and his father, and his father made enquiries about having his son committed to a lunatic asylum at Geel.

Vincent fled back to Cuesmes where he lodged with a miner named Charles Decrucq, with whom he stayed until October. He became increasingly interested in ordinary people and scenes around him, which he recorded in drawings.

In 1880, Vincent followed the suggestion of his brother Theo and took up art in earnest. In autumn 1880, he went to Brussels intending to follow Theo's recommendation to study with the prominent Dutch artist Willem Roelofs who persuaded Van Gogh, despite his aversion to formal schools of art, to attend the Royal Academy of Art. There he not only studied anatomy, but the standard rules of modeling and perspective of which he said, "...you have to know just to be able to draw the least thing." Vincent wished to become an artist while in God's service as he stated, "...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 (1881)

In April 1881, Van Gogh went to live in the countryside with his parents in Etten where he continued drawing, using neighbors as subjects. Through the summer he spent much time walking and talking with his recently widowed cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker, the daughter of his mother's older sister and Johannes Stricker, who had shown real warmth towards his nephew. Kee was seven years older than Vincent and had an eight-year-old son. Vincent proposed marriage, but she flatly refused with the words, "No, never, never" (niet, nooit, nimmer).

At the end of November he wrote a strong letter to his uncle Stricker, and then, very soon after, hurried to Amsterdam where he talked with Stricker again on several occasions, but Kee refused to see him at all. Her parents told him, "Your persistence is disgusting". In desperation he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, saying, "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 assumed that his uncle blew out the flame. Her father, "Uncle Stricker", as Vincent refers to him in letters to Theo, made it clear that there was no question of Vincent and Kee marrying, given Vincent's inability to support himself financially. What he saw as the hypocrisy of his uncle and former tutor affected Vincent deeply.

At Christmas he quarreled violently with his father, even refusing a gift of money, and immediately left for The Hague.

Drenthe and The Hague (1881–1883)

In January 1882 he settled in The Hague where he called on his cousin-in-law, the painter Anton Mauve, who encouraged him towards painting. An example is the 1882 watercolor View from the atelier. He soon fell out with Mauve, however, perhaps over the issue of drawing from plaster casts. Mauve appeared suddenly to go cold towards Vincent, not returning a couple of his letters.

Vincent guessed that Mauve had learned of his new domestic relationship with the alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria Hoornik (born February 1850, The Hague; she was known as Sien) and her young daughter. Van Gogh had met Sien towards the end of January. Sien had a five-year-old daughter and was pregnant. She had already borne two other children who had died, although Vincent was unaware of this. On 2 July, Sien gave birth to a baby boy, Willem.

When Vincent's father discovered the details of this relationship, considerable pressure was put on Vincent to abandon Sien and her children. Vincent was at first defiant in the face of his family's opposition.

His uncle Cornelis, an art dealer, commissioned 20 ink drawings of the city from him. They were completed by the end of May. In June Vincent spent three weeks in a hospital suffering gonorrhoea. In the summer, he began to paint in oil. In autumn 1883, after a year with Sien, he abandoned her and the two children. Vincent had thought of moving the family away from the city, but in the end he 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 Vincent may have felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic development. When Vincent 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." Willem believed himself to be Van Gogh's son, but the timing of the birth makes this unlikely. In 1904 Sien drowned herself in the river Scheldt.

Van Gogh moved to the Dutch province of Drenthe in the north of the Netherlands. In December, driven by loneliness, went to stay with his parents who were by then living in Nuenen, North Brabant, also in the Netherlands.

Nuenen (1883–1885)

In Nuenen, he devoted himself to drawing — paying boys to bring him birds' nests — and rapidly sketching the weavers in their cottages. In autumn 1884, a neighbour's daughter, Margot Begemann, ten years older than Vincent, accompanied him constantly on his painting forays and fell in love, which he reciprocated (though less enthusiastically). They agreed to marry, but were opposed by both families. Margot tried to kill herself with strychnine and Vincent rushed her to the hospital. On 26 March 1885, Van Gogh's father died of a heart attack. Van Gogh grieved deeply.

For the first time there was interest from Paris in some of his work. In spring he painted what is now considered his first major work, The Potato Eaters (Dutch: De Aardappeleters).In August his work was exhibited for the first time, in the windows of a paint dealer, Leurs, in The Hague. In September he was accused of making one of his young peasant sitters pregnant, and the Catholic village priest forbade villagers from modelling for him.

During 1885 Vincent painted several groups of Still-life paintings. Still-Life with Straw Hat and Pipe, along with another from the same period Still-life with Earthen Pot and Clogs, are extraordinary given their technical mastery. Both paintings are characterized by smooth, meticulous brushwork and fine shading of colors.

During his time in Nuenen Van Gogh's palette was of sombre earth tones, particularly dark brown, and he showed no sign of developing the vivid colouration that distinguishes his later, best known work. (When Vincent complained that Theo was not making enough effort to sell his paintings in Paris, Theo replied that they were too dark and not in line with the current style of bright Impressionist paintings.) During his two-year stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolours, and nearly 200 oil paintings.

Antwerp (1885–1886)

In November 1885 he moved to Antwerp and rented a little 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 to him 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 colour 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 also bought some Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, which he imitated and incorporated into the background of some of his paintings.

It was while he was living in Antwerp that Vincent began to drink absinthe heavily. He was treated by Dr Cavenaile whose surgery was near the docklands, possibly for syphilis; the treatment of alum irrigations and sitz baths was jotted down by Vincent in one of his notebooks.

In January 1886 he matriculated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, studying painting and drawing. Despite disagreements over his rejection of academic teaching, he nevertheless took the higher-level admission exams. For most of February he was ill — run down by overwork, a poor diet and excessive smoking. His 1885 painting Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette, is an apt commentary on his smoking.

Paris (1886–1888)

In March 1886 he moved to Paris to study at Fernand Cormon's studio, and in May 1886 his mother and sister Wil moved to Breda. The brothers first shared Theo's Rue Laval apartment on Montmartre. In June they took a larger flat at 54 Rue Lepic, further uphill. As there was no longer the need to communicate by letters, less is known about Van Gogh's time in Paris than earlier or later periods of his life. He painted several Paris street scenes in Montmartre and elsewhere like Terrace and Observation Deck at the Moulin de Blute-Fin, Montmartre, 1886, Bridges across the Seine at Asnieres, 1887 and Street scene in the Montmartre, Le Moulin à Poivre 1887.

During his stay in Paris Vincent collected Japanese prints. His interest in Japanese prints dates to 1885 in Antwerp when he decorated the walls of his studio with them. Vincent collected hundreds of prints and they can often be seen in the backgrounds of several of his paintings. In his 1887 Portrait of Père Tanguy several prints can be seen hanging on the wall behind the figure. In his 1887 painting The Courtesan or Oiran (after Kesai Eisen), Vincent 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 Vincent's admiration of the Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints that he collected. His version is slightly bolder than the original.

For some months Vincent 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 and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (who created a portrait of Vincent with pastel, see above), who used to meet at the paint store run by Julien "Père" Tanguy, which was at that time the only place to view works by Paul Cézanne.

It was not difficult to see and study Impressionist works in Paris at this time. In 1886, for example, two large vanguard exhibitions were staged, the eighth and final exhibition of the Impressionists and an exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. 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, Vincent evidently had problems acknowledging these recent ways to see and paint.

Conflicts arose, and at the turn of 1886 to 1887 Theo found shared life with Vincent "almost unbearable," but in spring 1887 they made peace.

Then Vincent set out for a campaign in Asnières, where he became personally acquainted with Paul Signac. Vincent and his friend Emile Bernard, who lived with parents in Asnières, adopted elements of the "pointillé" (pointillism) style, where many small dots are applied to the canvas resulting in an optical blend of hues when seen from a distance. The theory behind this also stresses the value of complementary colours, (for example, blue and orange) which form vibrant contrasts and enhance each other, when juxtaposed.

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 Restaurant du Chalet on Montmartre. There Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings, and Vincent exchanged work with Gauguin who soon departed to Pont-Aven. But the discussions on art, artists and their social situation started during this exhibition continued, and expanded to visitors of the show like Pissarro and his son, Signac and Seurat.

Finally in February 1888, when Vincent felt worn out from life in Paris, he left the city, having painted over 200 paintings during his two years there. Only hours before his departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his first and only visit to Seurat in his atelier.

Arles (February 1888 – May 1889)

Van Gogh arrived on 21 February 1888 at the railroad station in Arles, crossed Place Lamartine, entered the city through the Porte de la Cavalerie, and took quarters a few steps further on at the Hôtel-Restaurant Carrel (30 Rue Cavalerie — just inside the medieval gate to the city with the old Roman arena in view.)

He had ideas of founding a utopian art colony. His companion for two months was Christian Mourier-Petersen, the Danish artist. In March, he painted local landscapes using a gridded "perspective frame." Three of his 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 resident in Fontvieille nearby.

On 1 May he signed a lease for 15 francs a month to rent four rooms in the eastern wing of the Yellow House (so called because its outside walls were yellow) at No. 2 Place Lamartine. The house was unfurnished and had been uninhabited for some time so he was not able to move in straight away. (He had been staying at the Hôtel Restaurant Carrel and the rate charged by the hotel was 5 francs a week, which Van Gogh regarded as excessive. He disputed the price, and took the case to the local arbitrator who awarded him a twelve franc reduction on his total bill.) On 7 May he moved out of the Hôtel Carrel and into the Café de la Gare. 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 use it as a studio. Hoping to also have a gallery for his work his major project at this time was a series of paintings including: Van Gogh's Chair 1888, Bedroom in Arles (1888), The Night Café (1888), The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, 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. Vincent 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.

In June he visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. He gave drawing lessons to a Zouave second lieutenant, Paul-Eugène Milliet, who also became a companion. MacKnight introduced him to Eugène Boch, a Belgian painter who stayed at times in Fontvieille (they exchanged visits in July).

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

On 23 October Gauguin arrived in Arles, after repeated requests from Van Gogh. During November they painted together. Gauguin painted Vincents 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. Their first joint outdoor painting exercise was conducted at the picturesque Alyscamps. It was in November that Van Gogh painted The Red Vineyard.

In December the two artists visited Montpellier and viewed works in the Alfred Bruyas collection by Courbet and Delacroix in the Musée Fabre. However, their relationship was deteriorating badly. They quarrelled fiercely about art. Van Gogh felt an increasing fear that Gauguin was going to desert him, and what he described as a situation of "excessive tension" reached a crisis point.

On 23 December 1888, Van Gogh stalked Gauguin with a razor and then later cut off the lower part of his own left ear lobe, which he wrapped in newspaper and gave to a prostitute named Rachel in the local brothel, asking her to "keep this object carefully."

Gauguin left Arles and never saw Van Gogh again although they corresponded and in 1890 Gauguin proposed forming an artist studio in Antwerp. Van Gogh was hospitalized and in a critical state for several days. Immediately, Theo visited (whom Gauguin had notified), as did Madame Ginoux and Roulin. He continued to ask for Gauguin, and told Theo that he "thought about him all the time."

In January 1889 Van Gogh returned to the Yellow House, but spent the following month between hospital and home suffering from hallucinations and paranoia 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.

Saint-Rémy (May 1889 – May 1890)

On 8 May 1889 Van Gogh, accompanied by a carer, the Reverend Salles, committed himself to the mental hospital of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in a former monastery in Saint Rémy de Provence a little less than 20 miles (32 km) from Arles. The monastery was a mile and a half out of the town and was in an area of cornfields, vineyards and olive trees. The hospital was run by former naval doctor, Dr. Théophile Peyron, who had no specialist qualifications. Theo van Gogh arranged for his brother to have two small rooms, one for use as a studio — they were adjoining cells with barred windows. He made several studies of the hospital interiors like Vestibule of the Asylum, Saint-Remy (September 1889).

During his stay, the clinic and its garden became his main subjects. Some of his work from his time at St. Rémy is characterised by swirls — for example one of his best-known paintings The Starry Night. He took some short supervised walks, which gave rise to images 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, but because of a shortage of subject matter due to his limited access to the world outside the clinic, he painted interpretations of Millet's paintings, like The Sower and Noon – Rest from Work (after Millet) as well as his own earlier work. Vincent was an admirer of Millet and he compares a painter's making copies to a musician's interpreting Beethoven. One of his most compelling paintings of this period is The Round of the Prisoners, (1890). Painted after an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883), in his book London. The face of the prisoner in the center of the painting and looking toward the viewer is Vincent.

In September 1889 two new versions of Bedroom in Arles, and in February 1890 he 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.

In January 1890, his work was praised by Albert Aurier in the Mercure de France, and he was called 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 honour if Lautrec should be surrendered. 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, the son of Theo and Johanna — Vincent wrote in a letter to his mother: I started right away to make a picture for him, to hang in their bedroom, big branches of white almond blossom against a blue sky. He was referring to the painting Almond Blossoms, 1890 seen above.

Auvers-sur-Oise (May–July 1890)

In May 1890, Van Gogh left the clinic and went to the physician Dr. Paul Gachet, in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, where he was closer to his brother Theo. Dr. Gachet had been recommended to him by Pissarro, as he had previously treated several artists and was an amateur artist himself. 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 Portrait of Dr. Gachet, and Van Gogh did two portraits of Gachet in oils, as well as a third — his only etching, and in all three emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition.

In his last weeks at Saint-Rémy Van Gogh's thoughts had been returning 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, an example of the unusual double square canvas size he used in the last weeks of his life, with its turbulent intensity is often, but mistakenly, thought to be Van Gogh's last work (Jan Hulsker lists seven paintings after it). Barbizon painter Charles Daubigny moved to Auvers in 1861. Pictorially he put Auvers on the map, attracting artists Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier among others, and in 1890 Vincent van Gogh. Vincent made a second version of Daubigny's Garden in July 1890, and they are among his final works. Daubigny's Garden in two separate versions are more likely candidates. Another double square canvas Wheat Field Under Clouded Sky, is dated from July, 1890 and is among his most haunting and elemental works. There are also seemingly unfinished paintings, such as Thatched Cottages by a Hill.

Death

In 1890, Vincent painted the striking and remarkable painting of an old man with his head in his hands called At Eternity's Gate. It is a work derived from a drawing and a print that Vincent had done in 1882 and all the more remarkable because it is a compelling and poignant expression of his state of mind in 1890. Van Gogh's depression deepened and on 27 July 1890, at the age of 37, he walked into the fields and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He did not realize that his wound was fatal, and returned to the Ravoux Inn, where he died in his bed two days later. Theo hastened to be at his side and reported his last words as "La tristesse durera toujours" (French for "the sadness will last forever").

Vincent was buried at the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise.

Theo had contracted syphilis, though this was not admitted by the family for many years, and not long after Vincent's death, was himself admitted to hospital. He was not able to come to terms with the grief of his brother's absence and he died six months later on 25 January at Utrecht. In 1914 Theo's body was exhumed and re-buried beside Vincent.

Medical theories

As seen in his Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear, in December 1889 Vincent suffered a severe setback. It is generally recognised that Van Gogh cut off the lobe of his left ear during some sort of seizure on 24 December 1888, although doubt has recently been cast on this theory by Dr Wildegans, who suggests that an accident during a fight between himself and Gauguin may have been the cause.

Mental problems afflicted Van Gogh, particularly in the last few years of his life, and during some of these periods he chose not to paint or was not allowed to. There has been much debate over the years as to the source of Van Gogh's mental illness and its effect on his work. Over 150 psychiatrists have attempted to label his illness, and some 30 different diagnoses have been suggested. Diagnoses that have been put forward 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 a fondness for alcohol and absinthe in particular (see Still Life with Absinthe, 1887).

Medical theories have even been proposed to explain Van Gogh's use of the colour yellow. One theory holds that Van Gogh's colour vision might have been affected by his love of absinthe, a liquor that contains a neurotoxin called thujone. High doses of thujone can cause xanthopsia: seeing objects in yellow. However, a 1991 study indicated that an absinthe drinker would become unconscious from the alcohol content long before consuming enough thujone to develop yellow vision. Another theory suggests that Dr. Gachet might have prescribed digitalis to Van Gogh as a treatment for epilepsy. There is no direct evidence that he ever took digitalis, but he did paint Gachet with some cut flower stalks of Common Foxglove, the plant from which the drug is derived. Those who take large doses of digitalis often report yellow-tinted vision or yellow spots surrounded by coronas (like those in the The Starry Night) and changes in overall colour perception.

A recently proposed illness is lead poisoning. The paints he used were lead-based, and one of the symptoms of lead poisoning results in a swelling of the retina, which may have led to the halo effect seen in many of Van Gogh's later works. It has been suggested that Van Gogh suffered from the brain disorder hypergraphia. This is a manifestation of another disorder that appears as a near constant, overwhelming urge to write. The disorders it is most commonly associated with are mania and epilepsy.

Work

Van Gogh drew and painted with watercolors while he went to school, though very few of these works survive, and his authorship is challenged for many claimed to be from this period. When he committed himself to art as an adult in 1880, he started at the elementary level by copying the Cours de dessin, edited by Charles Bargue and published by Goupil & Cie. Within his first two years he began to seek commissions, and in spring 1882, his uncle, Cornelis Marinus (owner of a renowned gallery of contemporary art in Amsterdam) asked him to provide drawings of the Hague; Van Gogh's work did not prove up to his uncle's expectations. Despite this, Uncle Cor (or "C.M." as he was referred to by his nephews) offered a second commission, specifying the subject matter in detail, but he was once again disappointed with the result. Nevertheless, Van Gogh persevered with his work. He improved the lighting of his atelier (studio) by installing variable shutters, and experimented with a variety of drawing materials. For more than a year he worked hard on single figures — highly elaborated studies in "Black and White", which at the time gained him only criticism. Nowadays they are appreciated as his first masterpieces.

In spring 1883, he embarked on multi-figure compositions, based on the drawings. He had some of them photographed, but when his brother commented that they lacked liveliness and freshness, Vincent destroyed them and turned to oil painting. Already in autumn 1882, Theo had enabled him to do his first paintings, but the amount Theo could supply was soon spent. Then, in spring 1883, Vincent 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 Hague School artists of the second generation.

When he moved to Nuenen, after the intermezzo in Drenthe, he started various large size paintings, but he destroyed most of them himself. The Potato Eaters and its companion pieces — The Old Tower on the Nuenen cemetery and The Cottage — are the only ones that have survived. After a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Vincent was aware that many faults of his paintings were due to a lack of technical experience. So he went to Antwerp, and later to Paris to improve his technical 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 like doing series on related or contrasting subject matter, which would reflect the purpose of art. As his work progressed he painted a great 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, and finally, when Gauguin had consented to work and live in Arles side-by-side with Vincent, he started to work on the The Décoration for the Yellow House, probably the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. Most of his later work is elaborating or revising its fundamental settings. In the spring of 1889 he painted another smaller group of orchards. In an April letter about them 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.

Cypresses

One of the most popular and widely known groups of Vincent's paintings are the Cypresses. During the summer of 1889 honoring his sister Wil's request Vincent made several smaller versions of Wheat Field with Cypresses. Characterised by swirls and densely painted impasto — one of his best-known paintings is The Starry Night, and others that have similar stylistic elements include Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889, Cypresses 1889, Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889), (van Gogh made several versions of this painting in 1889), Road with Cypress and Star 1890, and Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), have become synonymous with Vincent's work through their stylistic uniqueness. According to art historian Ronald Pickvance,

Road with Cypress and Star 1890, is a painting 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 June 18, 1889, in a letter to Theo, Vincent 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) all intended to form the décoration of the Yellow House.

Flowering Orchards

The Flowering Orchards or the Orchards in Blossom paintings were among the first group of work that Vincent completed after his arrival in Arles. The 14 paintings in this group are optimistic, joyous and visually expressive of the burgeoning Springtime. They are delicately sensitive and silent, quiet and unpeopled. About The Cherry Tree Vincent wrote to Theo on April 21, 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.

Flowers

Vincent painted several versions of Landscapes with flowers at seen in View of Arles with Irises, and paintings of flowers as seen in Irises, Sunflowers, lilacs, roses, oleanders and other flowers. Some of the paintings of flowers reflect his interests in the language of color and also in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

Wheat Fields

Vincent made several painting excursions into the landscape around Arles. He made several versions of Harvests, Wheat fields and other rural landmarks of the area. The Old Mill (1888), is a good example of a picturesque structure bordering the wheat fields beyond. It was one of seven canvases sent to Pont-Aven on October 4, 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 — in The Hague (example illustrated), in Antwerp, in Paris; this culminated in the great series of paintings of The Wheat Field he could see from his adjoining cells in the asylum at Saint-Rémy.

Working procedures

A self-taught artist with some training, Van Gogh's painting and drawing techniques are all but academic. Recent research has shown that works commonly known as "oil paintings" or "drawings" would better be called executed in "mixed-media", for example The Langlois Bridge at Arles still shows the highly elaborate underdrawing in pen and ink, and several works from Saint-Rémy and Auvers hitherto considered to be drawings or watercolours turnt out to be painted in diluted oil and with a brush.

Furthermore, radiographical examination has shown that Van Gogh re-used older canvases to a much further extend than previously assumed — whether he really overpainted more than a third of his output, as presumed recently, will simply be verifiable by further investigations. In 2008, a team from Delft University of Technology and the University of Antwerp used advanced X-ray techniques to create a clear image of a woman's face previously painted, underneath the work Patch of Grass.

Astronomical data

Albert Boime, art historian, was the first to show that Van Gogh — even in seemingly phantastical compositions like Starry Night — relied to reality.

The White House at Night, shows a house at twilight with a prominent star with 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.

The paintings from the Saint-Rémy period are often characterized by swirls and spirals. The patterns of luminosity in these images have been shown to conform to Kolmogorov's statistical model of turbulence.

Legacy

Posthumous fame

Since his first exhibits in the late 1880s, Van Gogh's fame grew steadily, among his colleagues and among art critics, dealers and collectors. After his death, memorial exhibitions were mounted in Brussels, Paris, The Hague and Antwerp. In the early 20th century, the exhibitions were followed by vast retrospectives in Paris (1901 and 1905), Amsterdam (1905), Cologne (1912), New York City (1913) and Berlin (1914). These prompted a noticeable impact over a new generation of artists.

Influence on art

The French Fauves, including Henri Matisse, extended both his use of colour and freedom in applying it, as did German Expressionists in the Die Brücke group. The 1950s' Abstract Expressionism is seen as benefiting from the exploration Van Gogh started with gestural marks. In 1957, Anglo-Irish artist Francis Bacon based several paintings on reproductions of Van Gogh's The Painter on the Road to Tarascon the original of which had been destroyed during World War II).

Letters

Much of what is known about van Gogh is derived from his letters, most of which were written by Vincent to his brother, Theo. More than 600 letters from Vincent to Theo and 40 letters from Theo to Vincent survive today, and although many of them are undated, art historians have been able to arrange these correspondences largely chronologically. This serves as the largest, and most valuable, collection of primary textual sources that lay the foundation for what is known about the van Gogh brothers.

The period of van Gogh's life that is the most obscure, the Paris period, is the most difficult for art historians to examine because Theo and Vincent were living together, and thus had no need to correspond with letters, leaving little or no historical record of this time.

References

Notes

1. The difference is that the G is voiced, in contrast to the gh, and that both are palatal consonants (the so-called "Ich-Laut"), rather than velar or uvular (the so-called "Ach-Laut") as in Holland. (The Van Gogh Gallery)
2. Vincent Van Gogh Biography, Quotes & Paintings. Retrieved 14 June 2007.
3. 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. See: Lubin (1972), 82–84
4. Erickson (1998), 9
5. Tralbaut (1981), 24
6. Letter 347. Vincent to Theo, 18 December 1883
7. Tralbaut (1981), 39
8. Pickvance (1986), 129
9. Hackford Road. vauxhallsociety.org.uk. Retrieved 27 June, 2009.
10. Letter 7. Vincent to Theo, 5 May 1873.
11. Theo's wife later remarked that this was the happiest year of Vincent's life. Wilkie, 34–36
12. Wilkie, 38–52
13. Tralbaut (1981), 35–47
14. Tralbaut (1981), 47–56
15. Callow (1990), 54
16. See the recollections gathered in Dordrecht by M. J. Brusse, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, May 26 and 2 June 1914.
17. "...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, selected by W. H. Auden, New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, CT. 1961. 37–39.
18. Erickson (1998), 23
19. 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!), 72–78. Denis and his wife Esther were running a bakery, and Richez admits that the only source of his knowledge is Aunt Esther.
20. Wilkie, 75
21. Wilkie, 77
22. Letter from mother to Theo, 7 August 1879 and Callow, work cited, 72
23. 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: Geskó (2006), 48 & note 12 supports the line taken in this article
24. Letter 158
25. see Jan Hulsker's speech The Borinage Episode and the Misrepresentation of Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh Symposium, 10–11 May 1990. Referenced in Erickson (1998), 67–68
26. Letter 134, 20 August 1880 from Cuesmes; also Wilkie, 79
27. Tralbaut (1981) 67–71
28. Erickson (1998), 5
29. Letter 153. Vincent to Theo, 3 November 1881
30. Letter 161. Vincent to Theo, 23 November 1881
31. Letter 164 Vicent to Theo, from Etten c.21 December 1881, describing the visit in more detail
32. ^ Letter 193 from Vincent to Theo, The Hague, 14 May 1882
33. Gayford (2006), 130–131
34. Letter 166, Vincent to Theo, 29 December 1881
35. Tralbaut (1981), 96–103
36. Callow (1990), 116; cites the work of Hulsker
37. Callow (1990), 123–124
38. Callow (1990), 117
39. Callow (1990), 116; citing the research of Jan Hulsker; the two dead children were born in 1874 and 1879.
40. Tralbaut (1981), 107
41. Wilkie, 176. Forceps were used in the birth. Baby Willem was 3.42 kg and 53 cm at birth, suggesting conception occurred late August or early September 1881 ... see Wilkie, 201. Vincent visited The Hague briefly 23–26 August where he visited Anton Mauve and viewed the Panorama Mesdag
42. Callow (1990), 132
43. Letter 203. Vincent to Theo, 30 May 1882 (postcard written in English)
44. Letter 206, Vincent to Theo, 8 or 9th June 1882
45. Tralbaut (1981),110
46. Arnold, 38
47. Tralbaut (1981), 113
48. ^ Wilkie, 183
49. Wilkie, 185
50. Wilkie, 201
51. Tralbaut (1981), 111–122
52. 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 Wilkie, 25–26, and Theos' son's note
53. Vincent's nephew noted some reminiscences of local residents in 1949, including the description of the speed of his drawing
54. Tralbaut (1981), 107
55. Wilkie, 82
56. Tralbaut (1981), 154
57. The Potato Eaters by Vincent van Gogh Retrieved June 25, 2009
58. the girl was Gordina de Groot, who died in 1927; she claimed the father was not Van Gogh, but a relative; see Wilkie, 26
59. Hulsker (1980) 196–205
60. Tralbaut (1981),123–160
61. Tralbaut (1981), 176
62. Callow (1990), 181
63. Callow (1990), 184
64. Hammacher (1985), 84
65. Callow (1990), 253
66. Vincent's doctor was Hubertus Amadeus Cavenaile; Wilkie, 143–146
67. Arnold, 77. The evidence for syphilis is thin, coming solely from interviews with the grandson of the doctor; see Tralbaut (1981), 177–178, and Wilkie, 143–146
68. Van der Wolk (1987), 104–105
69. Tralbaut (1981), 173
70. Tralbaut (1981) 187–192
71. Pickvance (1984), 38–39.
72. Tralbaut (1981), 216
73. Pickvance (1986), 62–63.
74. Tralbaut (1981), 212–213
75. "Glossary term: Pointillism", National Gallery (London). Retrieved 13 September 2007.
76. "Glossary term: Complimentary colours", National Gallery (London). Retrieved 13 September 2007.
77. D. Druick & P. Zegers, Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South, Thames & Hudson, 2001. 81; Gayford, (2006), 50
78. Letter 510. Vincent to Theo, 15 July 1888. Letter 544a. Vincent to Paul Gauguin, 3 October 1888
79. ^ Pickvance (1984), 41–42: Chronology
80. Letters of Vincent van Gogh, Penguin edition, 1998. 348
81. Nemeczek, Alfred. Van Gogh in Arles. Prestel Verlag, 1999. 59–61. ISBN 3-7913-2230-3
82. Gayford (2006), 16
83. Callow (1990), 219
84. Pickvance (1984), 175–176 and Dorn (1990), passim
85. Tralbaut (1981), 266
86. Letters of Vincent van Gogh, Penguin edition, 1998 page 348
87. Hulsker (1980), 356
88. Pickvance (1984), 168–169;206
89. Letter 534; Gayford (2006), 18
90. Letter 537; Nemeczek, 61
91. ^ See Dorn (1990)
92. Pickvance (1984), 234–235
93. Gayford (2006), 61
94. Pickvance (1984), 195
95. Recently, two art historians proposed that Gauguin attacked Van Gogh with his epee and caused the ear injury; see Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans, Van Gogh's Ear: Paul Gauguin And The Pact Of Silence, 2009. Their interpretation was spread in the news (see The Guardian, 5 May 2009, The Independent, May 6, 2009), but has been refused immediately: see Vincent’s Sliced Ear Can’t Be Blamed on Gauguin: Martin Gayford. Retrieved May 6, 2009 and the statement by Leo Jansen, curator at the Van Gogh Museum: Discussie over oor Van Gogh, De Telegraaf, 6 May 2009. 7
96. According to Doiteau & Leroy, the diagonal cut removed the lobe and probably a little more.
97. Pickvance (1986), 62
98. Pickvance (1986). Chronology, 239–242
99. Tralbaut (1981), 265–273
100. Callow (1990), 246
101. Pickvance (1984), 102–103
102. Pickvance (1986), 154–157
103. Tralbaut (1981), 286
104. Pickvance (1986) 175–177
105. Aurier, G. Albert. "The Isolated Ones: Vincent van Gogh", January, 1890. Reproduced on vggallery.com. Retrieved June 25, 2009
106. Rewald (1978), 346–347; 348–350
107. Tralbaut (1981), 293
108. Letter 648. Vincent to Theo, 10 July 1890
109. Letter 629. Vincent to Theo, 30 April 1890
110. Hulsker (1980), 480–483. Wheat Field with Crows is work number 2117 of 2125
111. Pickvance (1986), 272–273
112. Pickvance (1986), 270–271
113. Hulsker (1980)
114. Hulsker (1980), 480–483
115. "La tombe de Vincent Van Gogh - Auvers-sur-Oise, France". Groundspeak. Retrieved June 23, 2009
116. Hayden, Deborah . POX, Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis. Basic Books, 2003. 152. ISBN 0-4650-2881-0
117. Still life with Absinthe. tracingvincent.com. Retrieved June 26, 2009
118. an alternative theory proposed by Dr Rita Wildegans, in an essay Van Goghs Ohr Ein Corpusculum als Corpus Delicti, which appears in Curiosa Poliphili. Festgabe für Horst Bredekamp. Leipzig 2007, is that Gauguin may have damaged Van Gogh's ear in a fight. See the article (in German) on Dr Wildegans' website.
119. Blumer, Dietrich (2002)"The Illness of Vincent van Gogh" American Journal of Psychiatry
120. Wolf, Paul (November 2001). "Creativity and chronic disease Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)". Western Journal of Medicine. 175 (5): 348. doi:10.1136/ewjm.175.5.348. PMID 11694494. Retrieved 2006-10-07.
121. Ross King. The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism. New York: Waller & Company, 2006 ISBN 0-8027-1466-8. See page 61.
122. William J. Cromie (2004-01-29). "The brains behind writer's block". Harvard Gazette.
123. Van Heugten (1996), 246–251: Appendix 2 — Rejected works
124. 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)
125. See Dorn, Keyes & alt. (2000)
126. ^ See Dorn, Schröder & Sillevis, ed. (1996)
127. See Welsh-Ovcharov & Cachin (1988)
128. Hulsker (1980), 385
129. Ronald Pickvance, Van Gogh In Saint-Remy and Auvers. 132–133. Exhibition catalog. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. ISBN 0-87099-477-8
130. Pickvance (1986), 101; 189–191.
131. Pickvance (1984), 175–176
132. Letter 595. Vincent to Theo, 17 or 18 June 1889
133. Pickvance (1984), 45–53
134. Hulsker (1980), 385
135. "Letter 573". Vincent to Theo. 22 or 23 January 1889
136. Pickvance (1986), 80–81; 184–187
137. ^ Pickvance (1984), 177
138. Seeing Feelings. Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. Retrieved June 26, 2009
139. Hulsker (1980), 390–394
140. Schaefer, von Saint-George & Lewerentz (2008), 105–110
141. See Ives, Stein & alt. (2005)
142. Ives, Stein & alt. (2005), 326–327: cat. no. 115
143. See Van Heugten (1995)
144. Struik, Tineke van der, ed. Casciato Paul. "Hidden Van Gogh revealed in color by scientists". Reuters, 30 July 2008. Retrieved 3 August 2008.
145. "'Hidden' Van Gogh painting revealed", Delft University of Technology, 30 July 2008. Retrieved 3 August 2008. A photo on this site shows the revealed older image under the new painting.
146. See Boime (1989)
147. At around 8:00 pm on 16 June 1890, as astronomers determined by Venus's position in the painting. Star dates Van Gogh canvas 8 March 2001
148. 'Kolmogorov scaling in impassioned van Gogh paintings' by J. L. Aragón, Gerardo G. Naumis, M. Bai, M. Torres, P.K. Maini; 28 June 2006
149. See Dorn, Leeman & alt. (1990)
150. Rewald, John. The posthumous fate of Vincent van Gogh 1890–1970. First published in Museumjournaal, August–September 1970. Republished in Rewald (1986), 248
151. "Glossary: Fauvism, Tate. Retrieved June 23, 2009
152. Biography: 1954–1958Francis Bacon Estate, retrieved June 28, 2009
153. Van Gogh's Letters, Unabridged and Annotated retrieved June 25, 2009
154. Pomerans, Arnold. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. Penguin Books: London. 1996. i–xxvi.

Bibliography

General and biographical

• Beaujean, Dieter. Vincent van Gogh: Life and Work. Könemann, 1999. ISBN 3-8290-2938-1
• Bernard, Bruce (ed.). Vincent by Himself. London: Time Warner, 2004.
• Callow, Philip. Vincent van Gogh: A Life, 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, Fig Tree, Penguin, 2006. ISBN 0-670-91497-5
• Grossvogel, David I. Behind the Van Gogh Forgeries: A Memoir by David I. Grossvogel. Authors Choice Press, 2001. ISBN 0-5951-7717-4
• Hammacher, A.M. Vincent van Gogh: Genius and Disaster. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985. ISBN 0-8109-8067-3
• 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. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1972. ISBN 0-03-091352-7
• Rewald, John. Post-Impressionism: From van Gogh to Gauguin. Secker & Warburg, 1978. ISBN 0-436-41151-2
• Rewald, John. Studies in Post-Impressionism, Abrams, New York 1986. ISBN 0-8109-1632-0
• 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. Thames and Hudson, 2005. ISBN 978-0-500-23825-7
• Walther, Ingo F. & Metzger, Rainer. Van Gogh: the Complete Paintings. Benedikt Taschen 1997. ISBN 3-8228-8265-8
• Wilkie, Ken. The Van Gogh Assignment, Paddington Press, 1978; republished: The Van Gogh File. A Journey of Discovery. Souvenir Press, 1990. ISBN 0-2856-2965-4
• Wilkie, Ken. In Search of Van Gogh. Prima Pub, 1991. ISBN 1-5595-8101-8

_{† Tertiary sources, with little or no reference to sources}

Art historical

• Boime, Albert. Vincent van Gogh: Die Sternennacht - Die Geschichte des Stoffes und der Stoff der Geschichte, Fischer, Frankfurt/Main 1989 ISBN 3-596-23953-2 (in German) ISBN 3-634-23015-0 (CD-ROM 1995)
• Cachin, Françoise & Welsh-Ovcharov, Bogomila. Van Gogh à Paris (exh. cat. Musée d'Orsay, Paris 1988), RMN, Paris 1988 ISBN 2-7118-2-159-5
• Dorn, Roland: Décoration - Vincent van Goghs Werkreihe für das Gelbe Haus in Arles, Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, Zürich & New York 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 3-923641-31-8 (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 0500510547
• Geskó, Judit, ed. Van Gogh in Budapest (exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest 2006/07), Vince Books, Budapest 2006 ISBN 9789637063343 (English edition).ISBN 9-6370-6333-1 (Hungarian edition)
• Ives, Colta, Stein, Susan Alyson & alt. Vincent van Gogh — The Drawings (exh. cat. New York 2005), Yale University Press, New Haven & London 2005 ISBN 0-300-10720-X
• Kōdera, Tsukasa. Vincent van Gogh — Christianity versus Nature, John Benjamins, Amsterdam & Philadelphia 1990. ISBN 9027253331 (European edition)
• Pickvance, Ronald. English Influences on Vincent van Gogh (exh. catalogue University of Nottingham & alt. 1974/75), Arts Council, London 1974.
• Pickvance, Ronald. Van Gogh in Arles (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Abrams, New York 1984. ISBN 0-87099-375-5
• Pickvance, Ronald. Van Gogh In Saint-Rémy and Auvers (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Abrams, New York 1986. ISBN 0-87099-477-8
• Schaefer, Iris, von Saint-George, Caroline & Lewerentz, Katja: Painting Light. The hidden techniques of the Impressionists (exh. cat. Cologne & Florence, 2008), Skira, Milan 2008. ISBN 8-8613-0609-7
• Van der Wolk, Johannes: De schetsboeken van Vincent van Gogh, Meulenhoff/Landshoff, Amsterdam 1986 ISBN 9029081546; translated to English: The Seven Sketchbooks of Vincent van Gogh: a facsimile edition, Harry Abrams Inc, New York, 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 9-0400-9796-8
• Van Heugten, Sjraar. Vincent van Gogh — Drawings, vol. 1, V+K Publishing / Inmerc, Bussum 1996. ISBN 9-0661-1501-7 (Dutch edition)
• Van Uitert, Evert, & alt. Van Gogh in Brabant — Paintings and drawings from Etten and Nuenen (exh. cat. 's-Hertogenbosch 1987/78), Waanders, Zwolle 1987. ISBN 9-0-6630-104-X (English edition)

External links

• Vincent van Gogh Gallery. The complete works and letters of Vincent van Gogh.
• Van Gogh's Letters, unabridged and annotated.
• Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• Template:Worldcat id
• Van Gogh at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., United States.
• Photographs of locations in Auvers-sur-Oise painted by Van Gogh.
• '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, May 4, 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.

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