Vincent The life and death of Vincent van Gogh. Brief biography of Van Gogh

On December 23, 1888, the now world famous post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh lost his ear. There are several versions of what happened, however, Van Gogh's whole life was full of absurd and very strange facts.

Van Gogh wanted to follow in his father's footsteps - to become a preacher

Van Gogh dreamed of becoming, like his father, a priest. He even completed a missionary internship that was required for admission to an evangelical school. He lived for about a year in the outback among the miners.

But it turned out that the admission rules have changed, and the Dutch have to pay tuition. The missionary Van Gogh was offended and after that decided to leave religion and become an artist. However, his choice was not accidental. Vincent's uncle was a partner in Goupil, the largest art dealer company at that time.

Van Gogh started painting only at the age of 27.

Van Gogh began to draw already in adulthood, when he was 27 years old. Contrary to popular belief, he was not a kind of "brilliant amateur" like the conductor Pirosmani or the customs officer Rousseau. By that time, Vincent van Gogh was an experienced art dealer and first entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, and later at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts. True, he studied there for only three months, until he left for Paris, where he met the Impressionists, including with.

Van Gogh started with "peasant" painting like "The Potato Eaters". But his brother Theo, who knew a lot about art and supported Vincent financially throughout his life, managed to convince him that "light painting" was created for success, and the public will definitely appreciate it.

The artist's palette has a medical explanation

The abundance of yellow spots of different shades in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, according to scientists, has a medical explanation. There is a version that such a vision of the world is caused by a large amount of epilepsy drugs consumed by him. Attacks of this disease he developed in the last years of his life due to hard work, riotous lifestyle and abuse of absinthe.

The most expensive painting by Van Gogh was in the collection of Goering

For more than 10 years Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" held the title of the most expensive painting in the world. Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito, the owner of a large paper company, purchased this painting at Christie's in 1990 for $82 million. The owner of the painting specified in his will that the painting should be cremated with him after his death. In 1996, Ryoei Saito died. It is known for certain that the painting was not burned, but where exactly it is now is unknown. There is an opinion that the artist painted 2 versions of the picture.

However, this is just one fact from the history of the “Portrait of Dr. Gachet”. It is known that after the exhibition "Degenerate Art" in Munich in 1938, Nazi Goering acquired this painting for his collection. True, he soon sold it to a certain Dutch collector, and then the painting ended up in the United States, where it was until it was acquired by Saito.

Van Gogh is one of the most kidnapped artists

In December 2013, the FBI released its top 10 high-profile thefts of brilliant art so that the public could help solve crimes. The most valuable on this list are 2 paintings by Van Gogh - "Sea View in Schwingen" and "Church in Nyunen", which are estimated at $ 30 million each. Both of these paintings were stolen in 2002 from the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It is known that two men were arrested as suspects in the theft, but it was not possible to prove their guilt.

In 2013, Vincent van Gogh's painting "Poppies" by Vincent van Gogh, estimated at $50 million by experts, was stolen from the Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Egypt due to the negligence of the leadership. The painting has not yet been returned.

Van Gogh's ear could have been cut off by Gauguin

The history of the ear in many biographers of Vincent van Gogh is in doubt. The fact is that if the artist cut off his ear at the root, he would die from blood loss. The artist's only earlobe was cut off. There is a record of this in the surviving medical report.

There is a version that the incident with the cut off ear occurred during a quarrel between Van Gogh and Gauguin. Gauguin, experienced in sailor fights, slashed Van Gogh on the ear, and he had a seizure from stress. Later, trying to whitewash himself, Gauguin came up with a story about how Van Gogh was chasing him in a fit of madness with a razor and crippled himself.

Unknown paintings by Van Gogh are still found today

This fall, the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam identified a new painting by the great master. The painting "Sunset at Montmajour", as stated by the researchers, was painted by Van Gogh in 1888. What makes this find exceptional is the fact that the painting belongs to a period considered by art historians to be the pinnacle of the artist's work. The discovery was made using methods such as comparison of style, colors, techniques, computer analysis of the canvas, x-ray photographs and the study of Van Gogh's letters.

The painting "Sunset at Montmajour" is currently exhibited in the artist's museum in Amsterdam in the exhibition "Van Gogh at work".

When 37-year-old Vincent van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, his work was almost unknown to anyone. Today, his paintings are worth stunning sums and adorn the best museums in the world.

125 years after the death of the great Dutch painter, it is time to learn more about him and dispel some of the myths that, like all art history, his biography is full of.

He changed several jobs before becoming an artist

The son of a minister, Van Gogh started working at the age of 16. His uncle hired him as an intern for an art dealership in The Hague. He happened to travel to London and Paris, where the firm's branches were located. In 1876 he was fired. After that, he worked briefly as a schoolteacher in England, then as a bookstore clerk. From 1878 he served as a preacher in Belgium. Van Gogh was in need, he had to sleep on the floor, but less than a year later he was fired from this post. Only after that he finally became an artist and did not change his occupation anymore. In this field, he became famous, however, posthumously.

Van Gogh's career as an artist was short

In 1881, the self-taught Dutch artist returned to the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to painting. He was supported financially and materially by his younger brother Theodore, a successful art dealer. In 1886, the brothers settled in Paris, and these two years in the French capital turned out to be crucial. Van Gogh took part in exhibitions of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, he began to use a light and bright palette, experimenting with methods of applying strokes. The artist spent the last two years of his life in the south of France, where he created some of his most famous paintings.

In his entire ten-year career, he sold only a few of over 850 paintings. His drawings (there are about 1300 of them left) were then unclaimed.

He probably didn't cut off his own ear.

In February 1888, after living in Paris for two years, Van Gogh moved to the south of France, to the city of Arles, where he hoped to found a community of artists. He was accompanied by Paul Gauguin, with whom they became friends in Paris. The officially accepted version of events is as follows:

On the night of December 23, 1888, they quarreled, and Gauguin left. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, pursued his friend, but, not catching up, returned home and, in annoyance, partially cut off his left ear, then wrapped it in a newspaper and gave it to some prostitute.

In 2009, two German scientists published a book suggesting that Gauguin, being a good swordsman, cut off part of Van Gogh's ear with a saber during a duel. According to this theory, Van Gogh, in the name of friendship, agreed to hide the truth, otherwise Gauguin would have been threatened with prison.

The most famous paintings were painted by him in a psychiatric clinic

In May 1889, Van Gogh sought help from the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric hospital, located in a former convent in the city of Saint-Remy-de-Provence in southern France. Initially, the artist was diagnosed with epilepsy, but the examination also revealed bipolar disorder, alcoholism and metabolic disorders. Treatment consisted mainly of baths. He remained in the hospital for a year and painted a number of landscapes there. Over a hundred paintings from this period include some of his most famous works such as Starry Night (purchased by New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1941) and Irises (purchased by an Australian industrialist in 1987 for a then record-breaking $ 53.9 million)

Citizenship: Genre: Style: Pedigree entry: Works at Wikimedia Commons

Vincent Willem van Gogh(Dutch. Vincent Willem van Gogh, March 30, Grotto-Zundert, near Breda, - July 29, Auvers-sur-Oise, France) is a world-famous Dutch and French post-impressionist artist.

Biography

Vincent van Gogh was born at 11 am on March 30, 1853 in the village of Groot Zundert in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, not far from the Belgian border. Vincent's father was Theodor van Gogh, a Protestant pastor, and his mother was Anna Cornelia Carbentus, the daughter of a respected bookbinder and bookseller from The Hague. Vincent was the second of seven children of Theodore and Anna Cornelia. He received his name in honor of his paternal grandfather, who also devoted his whole life to the Protestant church. This name was intended for the first child of Theodore and Anna, who was born a year before Vincent and died on the first day. So Vincent, although he was born the second, became the eldest of the children.

Four years after Vincent's birth, on May 1, 1857, his brother Theodorus van Gogh (Theo) was born. In addition to him, Vincent had a brother Cor (Cornelis Vincent, May 17) and three sisters - Anna Cornelia (February 17), Liz (Elizabeth Hubert, May 16) and Wil (Willemina Jacob, March 16). Vincent is remembered by the family as a wayward, difficult and boring child with "strange manners", which was the reason for his frequent punishments. According to the governess, there was something strange about him that distinguished him from others: of all the children, Vincent was less pleasant to her, and she did not believe that something worthwhile could come out of him. Outside the family, on the contrary, Vincent showed the opposite side of his character - he was quiet, serious and thoughtful. He hardly played with other children. In the eyes of his fellow villagers, he was a good-natured, friendly, helpful, compassionate, sweet and modest child. When he was 7 years old, he went to a village school, but a year later he was taken away from there, and together with his sister Anna, he studied at home, with a governess. On October 1, 1864, he leaves for a boarding school in Zevenbergen, 20 km from his home. Departure from home caused much suffering to Vincent, he could not forget this, even as an adult. On September 15, 1866, he begins his studies at another boarding school, Willem II College in Tilburg. Vincent is good at languages ​​- French, English, German. There he received drawing lessons. In March of the year, in the middle of the school year, Vincent suddenly drops out of school and returns to his father's house. This concludes his formal education. He recalls his childhood like this: “My childhood was gloomy, cold and empty ...”

Gallery

self-portraits

Like an artist	Dedicated to Gauguin	Bandaged ear

sunflowers

Scenery

Miscellaneous

Links

Literature

• Van Gogh. Letters. Per. with a goal - L.-M., 1966.
• Rewald J. Post-impressionism. Per. from English. T. 1. - L.-M, 1962.
• Perryusho A. Van Gogh's life. Per. from French - M., 1973.
• Murina E. Van Gogh. - M., 1978.
• Dmitrieva N. A. Vincent Van Gogh. Man and artist. - M., 1980.
• Stone I. Lust for Life (book). The Tale of W. Van Gogh. Per. from English. - M., 1992.
• Constantino Porcu Van Gogh. Zijn leven en de kunst. (from the Kunstklassiekers series) Netherlands, 2004.
• Wolf Stadler Vincent van Gogh. (from the De Grote Meesters series) Amsterdam Boek, 1974.
• Frank Kools Vincent van Gogh en zijn geboorteplaats: als een boer van Zundert. De Walburg Pers, 1990.

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

• Van Gogh, Vincent
• Van Dijk, T. A.

See what "Van Gogh" is in other dictionaries:

van Gogh- (van gogh) Vincent (1853, Grotto Zundert, Holland - 1890, Auvers sur Oise, near Paris), Dutch painter, representative of post-impressionism. Son of a Protestant priest. In 1869 76 served as a commission agent for an art trading company ... ... Art Encyclopedia

van Gogh- (van Gogh) Vincent (1853 1890) Dutch painter, whose main period of creativity took place in France and was about 5 years (the last years of his life), one of the largest representatives of post-impressionism. Comes from a family of a pastor, in ... ... Encyclopedia of cultural studies

van Gogh- Vincent (Van Gogh, Vincent) 1853, Grotto Zundert, North Brabant 1890, Auvers sur Oise, France. Dutch painter and draftsman. He did not receive a formal education. In his youth, he changed a number of professions. From 1869 he worked in the firm of Goupil and Co. for ... ... European Art: Painting. Sculpture. Graphics: Encyclopedia

van Gogh- (van Gogh) Vincent (Vincent Willem) (March 30, 1853, Grotto Zundert, Holland, July 29, 1890, Auvers sur Oise, France), Dutch painter. Pastor's son. In 1869, 76 served as a commission agent for an artistic trading company in The Hague, Brussels, London and ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

VAN GOGH- (var. to Van Gogh; Vincent Van Gogh (1853 1890) - Dutch artist) It used to be - / season, / our god - Van Gogh, / another season - / Cezanne. M925 (149) ... Proper name in Russian poetry of the XX century: a dictionary of personal names

Name: Vincent Gogh

Age: 37 years

Place of Birth: Grote Zundert, The Netherlands

A place of death: Auvers-sur-Oise, France

Activity: Dutch post-impressionist painter

Family status: not married

Vincent Van Gogh - Biography

Vincent van Gogh did not seek to prove to others that he was a real artist - he was not conceited. The only person he wanted to prove it to was himself.

Vincent van Gogh for a long time did not have any formulated goal in life, nor a profession. Traditionally, generations of Van Goghs either chose a church career or became an art dealer. Vincent's father, Theodorus van Gogh, was a Protestant priest who served in the small town of Groot Zundert in South Holland, on the Belgian border.

Vincent's uncles, Cornelius and Wien, traded paintings in Amsterdam and The Hague. Mother, Anna Cornelia Carbendus, a wise woman who lived for almost a hundred years, suspected that her son was not an ordinary Van Gogh, as soon as he was born on March 30, 1853. A year earlier, to the day, she had given birth to a boy named by the same name. He did not live even a few days. So by fate, the mother believed, her Vincent was destined to live for two.

At the age of 15, having studied for two years at a school in the town of Zevenbergen, and then two more years at a secondary school named after King William P, Vincent left his studies and in 1868, with the help of his uncle Vince, entered the branch of a Parisian art firm that had opened in The Hague Goupil & Co. He worked well, the young man was valued for his curiosity - he studied books on the history of painting and visited museums. Vincent was promoted - sent to the London branch of Goupil.

Van Gogh stayed in London for two years, became a deep connoisseur of engravings by English masters and acquired the gloss appropriate to a businessman, quoted fashionable Dickens and Eliot, and shaved his red cheeks smoothly. In general, as his younger brother Theo, who later also went on the trading side, testified, he lived in those years with almost blissful delight in front of everything that surrounded him. Heart overflowing tore out passionate words from him: “There is nothing more artistic than to love people!” Vincent wrote. Actually, the correspondence of the brothers is the main document of the life of Vincent van Gogh. Theo was the person Vincent referred to as his confessor. Other documents are fragmentary, fragmentary.

Vincent van Gogh had a bright future as a commission agent. He was soon to move to Paris, to the central office of Goupil.

What happened to him in 1875 in London is not known. He wrote to his brother Theo that he suddenly fell "in painful loneliness." It is believed that in London, Vincent, having truly fallen in love for the first time, was rejected. But the hostess of the boarding house at Hackford Road 87, where he lived, Ursula Leuer, is called his chosen one, then her daughter Eugenia and even a certain German woman named Caroline Haanebiek. Since Vincent kept silent about this love in his letters to his brother, from whom he did not hide anything, it is possible to assume that his “painful loneliness” had other reasons.

Even in Holland, according to contemporaries, Vincent at times caused bewilderment with his demeanor. The expression on his face suddenly became somewhat absent, alien, there was something pensive, deeply serious, melancholic in it. True, afterwards he laughed heartily and cheerfully, and his whole face then brightened. But more often he seemed very lonely. Yes, indeed, he was. To work in "Gupil" he cooled off. The transfer to the Paris branch in May 1875 did not help either. In early March 1876 Van Gogh was fired.

In April 1876, he returned to England a completely different person - without any gloss and ambition. Employed as an educator at the Reverend William P. Stoke School in Ramsgate, where he received a class of 24 boys aged 10 to 14. He read the Bible to them, and then turned to the Reverend Father with a request to allow him to serve prayers for the parishioners of Turnham Green Church. Soon he was allowed to lead the Sunday sermon as well. True, he did it extremely boring. It is known that his father also lacked emotionality and the ability to capture the audience.

At the end of 1876, Vincent wrote to his brother that he understood his true destiny - he would be a preacher. He returned to Holland and entered the theological faculty of the University of Amsterdam. Ironically, he, fluent in four languages: Dutch, English, French and German, failed to overcome the Latin course. According to the test results, he was identified in January 1879 as a parish priest in the mining village of Vasmes in the poorest Borinage region in Europe in Belgium.

The missionary delegation, which visited Fr. Vincent in Wasmes a year later, was much alarmed by the changes in Van Gogh. Thus, the delegation discovered that Father Vincent had moved from a comfortable room to a shack, sleeping on the floor. He distributed his clothes to the poor and walked around in a shabby military uniform, under which he put on a homemade burlap shirt. He did not wash himself, so as not to stand out among the miners smeared with coal dust. They tried to convince him that the Scriptures should not be taken literally, and the New Testament is not a direct guide to action, but Father Vincent came out with a denunciation of the missionaries, which, of course, ended in dismissal.

Van Gogh did not leave the Borinage: he moved to the tiny mining village of Kuzmes, and, existing on the offerings of the community, but in fact for a piece of bread, continued the mission of a preacher. He even interrupted for a while the correspondence with his brother Theo, not wanting to accept help from him.

When the correspondence resumed, Theo was once again surprised by the changes that had taken place with his brother. In letters from the impoverished Kuzmes, he talked about art: “We need to understand the defining word contained in the masterpieces of great masters, and there it will turn out to be God!” And he said that he draws a lot. Miners, miners' wives, their children. And everyone likes it.

This change surprised Vincent himself. For advice on whether he should continue to paint, he went to the French artist Jules Breton. He was not familiar with Breton, but in his past commission life he respected the artist to such an extent that he walked 70 kilometers to Courrieres, where Breton lived. Found Breton's house, but hesitated to knock on the door. And, depressed, he set off on foot back to Kuzmes.

Theo believed that his brother would return to his former life after this incident. But Vincent continued to draw like a man possessed. In 1880, he came to Brussels with the firm intention of studying at the Academy of Arts, but his application was not even accepted. Vincent didn't seem to mind at all. He bought Jean-Francois Millet and Charles Bug drawing manuals, which were popular in those years, and went to his parents, intending to educate himself.

Only his mother approved Vincent's decision to become an artist, which surprised the whole family. The father was very wary of the changes in his son, although art classes fit perfectly into the canons of Protestant ethics. The uncles, who had been selling paintings for decades, after looking at Vincent's drawings, decided that his nephew was out of his mind.

The incident with Cousin Cornelia only strengthened their suspicions. Cornelia, who had recently been widowed and raised her son alone, took a liking to Vincent. Wooing her, he broke into his uncle's house, stretched out his hand over an oil lamp, and vowed to keep it over the fire until he was allowed to see his cousin. Cornelia's father resolved the situation by blowing out the lamp, and Vincent, humiliated, left the house.

Mother was very worried about Vincent. She persuaded her distant relative Anton Mauve, a successful artist, to support her son. Mauve sent Vincent a box of watercolors and then met with him. After looking at the work of Van Gogh, the artist gave some advice. But having learned that the model depicted on one of the sketches with a child was a woman of easy virtue, with whom Vincent now lived, he refused to maintain further relations with him.

Van Gogh met Clasina at the end of February 1882 in The Hague. She had two young children and had nowhere to live. Taking pity on her, he invited Klasina and the children to live with him. They were together for a year and a half. Vincent wrote to his brother that in this way he atones for the sin of Klasina's fall, taking on someone else's guilt. In gratitude, she and her children patiently posed for Vincent to study with oil paints.

It was then that he confessed to Theo that art became the main thing for him in life. “Everything else is a consequence of art. If something has nothing to do with art, it doesn't exist." Klasina and her children, whom he loved very much, became a burden for him. In September 1883 he left them and left The Hague.

For two months Vincent, half-starved, wandered around North Holland with an easel. During this time he painted dozens of portraits and hundreds of sketches. Returning to his parents' house, where he was received cooler than ever, he announced that everything he had done before was "studies". And now he is ready to paint a real picture.

Van Gogh worked on The Potato Eaters for a long time. Made a lot of sketches, studies. He had to prove to everyone and to himself, to himself first of all, that he was a real artist. Margo Begeman, who lived next door, was the first to believe in this. A forty-five-year-old woman fell in love with Van Gogh, but he, carried away by the work on the picture, did not notice her. Desperate, Margo tried to poison herself. She was hardly rescued. Upon learning of this, Van Gogh was very worried, and many times in letters to Theo he returned to this accident.

Having finished The Eaters, he was satisfied with the painting and left for Paris at the beginning of 1886 - he was suddenly fascinated by the work of the great French artist Delacroix on color theory.

Even before leaving for Paris, he tried to connect color and music, for which he took several piano lessons. "Prussian blue!" "Yellow chrome!" - he exclaimed, hitting the keys, dumbfounding the teacher. He specifically studied the violent colors of Rubens. Lighter tones have already appeared in his own paintings, and yellow has become his favorite color. True, when Vincent wrote to his brother about his desire to come to Paris to meet him, he tried to dissuade him. Theo feared that the atmosphere of Paris would be disastrous for Vincent. But his persuasion didn't work...

Unfortunately, Van Gogh's Parisian period is the least documented. For two years in Paris, Vincent lived with Theo in Montmartre, and the brothers, of course, did not correspond.

It is known that Vincent immediately plunged into the artistic life of the capital of France. He visited exhibitions, got acquainted with the "last word" of impressionism - the works of Seurat and Signac. These pointillist artists, taking the principles of Impressionism to the extreme, marked its final stage. He became friends with Toulouse-Lautrec, with whom he attended drawing classes.

Toulouse-Lautrec, seeing Van Gogh's work and hearing from Vincent that he was "just an amateur", ambiguously remarked that he was mistaken: amateurs are those who paint bad pictures. Vincent persuaded his brother, who was in artistic circles, to introduce him to the masters - Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. And Camille Pissarro was imbued with sympathy for Van Gogh to such an extent that he took Vincent to Papa Tanguy's Shop.

The owner of this shop of paints and other art materials was an old Communard and a generous patron of the arts. He allowed Vincent to arrange the first exhibition of works in the store, in which his closest friends participated: Bernard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Anquetin. Van Gogh persuaded them to unite in the "group of the Small Boulevards" - as opposed to the famous artists of the Grand Boulevards.

He had long been visited by the idea to create, on the model of medieval brotherhoods, a community of artists. However, the impulsive nature and uncompromising judgments prevented him from building up from wearing with friends. He again became not himself.

He began to feel that he was too susceptible to other people's influence. And Paris, the city where he so aspired, suddenly became disgusting to him. “I want to hide somewhere to the south so as not to see so many artists who, as people, are disgusting to me,” he wrote to his brother from the small town of Arles in Provence, where he left in February 1888.

In Arles Vincent felt himself. “I find that what I learned in Paris disappears, and I return to the thoughts that came to me in nature, before meeting the Impressionists,” Gauguin’s tough disposition, he told Theo in August 1888. and before, brother Van Gogh constantly worked. He painted outdoors, ignoring the wind, which often overturned the easel and covered the palette with sand. He also worked at night, using the Goya system, fixing burning candles on a hat and on an easel. This is how "Night Cafe" and "Starry Night over the Rhone" were written.

But then the idea of ​​​​creating a community of artists, which had been abandoned, again took possession of him. He rented for fifteen francs a month four rooms in the Yellow House, which became famous thanks to his paintings, on Place Lamartine, at the entrance to Arles. And on September 22, after repeated persuasion, Paul Gauguin came to him. This was a tragic mistake. Vincent, idealistically confident in the friendly disposition of Gauguin, told him everything he thought. He also did not hide his opinion. On Christmas Eve 1888, after a heated argument with Gauguin, Vincent grabbed a razor to attack a friend.

Gauguin fled and moved to a hotel at night. Falling into a frenzy, Vincent cut off his left earlobe. The next morning he was found bleeding in the Yellow House and sent to the hospital. A few days later he was released. Vincent seemed to have recovered, but after the first bout of mental clouding, others followed. His inappropriate behavior frightened the residents so much that the deputation of the townspeople wrote a petition to the mayor and demanded that they be rid of the "red-haired madman."

Despite many attempts by researchers to declare Vincent insane, it is still impossible not to recognize his general sanity, or, as psychiatrists say, "criticality to his condition." On May 8, 1889, he voluntarily entered the specialized hospital of St. Paul of Mausoleum near Saint-Remy-de-Provence. He was observed by Dr. Theophile Peyron, who came to the conclusion that the patient was ill with something resembling a split personality. And he prescribed treatment by periodic immersion in a bath of water.

Hydrotherapy did not bring any particular benefit in curing mental disorders, but there was no harm from it either. Van Gogh was much more oppressed by the fact that the patients of the hospital were not allowed to do anything. He begged Dr. Peyron to allow him to go to the sketches, accompanied by an orderly. So, under supervision, he painted many works, including "Road with cypresses and a star" and the landscape "Olive trees, blue sky and white cloud."

In January 1890, after the exhibition of the "Group of Twenty" in Brussels, in whose organization Theo van Gogh also participated, Vincent's first and only painting, "Red Vineyards in Arles", was sold. For four hundred francs, which is approximately equal to the current eighty US dollars. To somehow encourage Theo, he wrote to him: "The practice of trading in works of art, when prices rise after the death of the author, has survived to this day - it's something like trading in tulips, when a living artist has more minuses than pluses."

Van Gogh himself was immensely happy with the success. Let the prices for the works of the Impressionists, who had become classics by that time, were incomparably higher. But he had his own method, his own path, found with such difficulty and torment. And he was finally recognized. Vincent painted nonstop. By that time, he had already painted more than 800 paintings and almost 900 drawings - so many works in just ten years of creativity were not created by any artist.

Theo, inspired by the success of the Vineyards, sent his brother more and more colors, but Vincent began to eat them. Dr. Neuron had to hide the easel and palette under lock and key, and when they were returned to Van Gogh, he said that he would no longer go to sketches. Why, he explained in a letter to his sister - Theo was afraid to admit this: “... when I am in the fields, I am so overwhelmed with a sense of loneliness that it is even scary to go out somewhere ...”

In May 1890, Theo arranged with Dr. Gachet, a homeopathic physician from a clinic in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, that Vincent would continue his treatment with him. Gachet, who appreciates painting and is fond of drawing himself, gladly received the artist in his clinic.

Vincent also liked Dr. Gachet, whom he considered warm-hearted and optimistic. On June 8, Theo came to visit his brother with his wife and child, and Vincent spent a wonderful day with his family, talking about the future: “We all need fun and happiness, hope and love. The uglier, the older, the meaner, the sicker I get, the more I want to retaliate by creating a great color, flawlessly built, brilliant.”

A month later, Gachet had already allowed Van Gogh to go to his brother in Paris. Theo, whose daughter was then very ill and financial affairs were shaken, did not greet Vincent too kindly. A quarrel broke out between them. Its details are unknown. But Vincent felt that he had become a burden to his brother. And probably always has been. Shocked to the core, Vincent returned to Auvers-sur-Oise the same day.

On July 27, after dinner, Van Gogh went out with an easel to sketch. Stopping in the middle of the field, he shot himself in the chest with a pistol (how he got a weapon remained unknown, and the pistol itself was never found.). The bullet, as it turned out later, hit the costal bone, deflected and missed the heart. Clamping the wound with his hand, the artist returned to the shelter and went to bed. The owner of the shelter called the doctor Mazri from the nearest village and the police.

It seemed that the wound did not cause Van Gogh much suffering. When the police arrived, he was calmly smoking a pipe while lying in bed. Gachet sent a telegram to the artist's brother, and Theo van Gogh arrived in the morning of the next day. Vincent was conscious until the last minute. To his brother’s words that he would definitely be helped to recover, that he only needed to get rid of despair, he answered in French: “La tristesse “durera toujours” (“Sorrow will last forever”). And he died at half past one in the night on July 29, 1890.

The priest in Auvers forbade the burial of Van Gogh in the church cemetery. It was decided to bury the artist in a small cemetery in the nearby town of Meri. On July 30, the body of Vincent van Gogh was interred. Vincent's longtime friend, the artist Emile Bernard, described the funeral in detail:

"On the walls of the room where the coffin with his body stood, his latest works were hung, forming a kind of halo, and the brightness of the genius that they radiated made this death even more painful for us artists who were there. The coffin was covered there were sunflowers, which he loved so much, and yellow dahlias - yellow flowers everywhere. It was, as you remember, his favorite color, a symbol of light, which he dreamed of filling the hearts of people and which filled the works art.

Beside him on the floor lay his easel, his folding chair and brushes. There were many people, mostly artists, among whom I recognized Lucien Pissarro and Lauzet. I looked at the sketches; one is very beautiful and sad. Prisoners walking in a circle, surrounded by a high prison wall, a canvas painted under the impression of the Dore painting, from its horrific cruelty and symbolizing his imminent end.

Wasn't life like this for him: a high prison, with walls so high, with such high... and these people walking endlessly around the pit, aren't they poor artists - poor damned souls who pass by, urged on by the whip of Fate? At three o'clock, his friends carried his body to the hearse, many of those present were crying. Theodor van Gogh, who loved his brother very much and always supported him in the struggle for his art, did not stop crying...

It was terribly hot outside. We went up the hill outside of Auvers, talking about him, about the bold impulse he gave to art, about the great projects that he was constantly thinking about, and about the good that he brought to all of us. We reached the cemetery: a small new cemetery full of new tombstones. It was located on a small hill among the fields that were ready for harvest, under a clear blue sky, which he still loved at that moment ... I guess. Then he was lowered into the grave...

This day was as if created for him, until you imagine that he is no longer alive and he cannot admire this day. Dr. Gachet wished to say a few words in honor of Vincent and his life, but he wept so hard that he could only stutter, embarrassedly, utter a few farewell words (maybe that was best). He gave a short description of Vincent's torment and achievements, mentioning how lofty the goal he pursued and how much he loved him himself (although he knew Vincent for a very short time).

He was, said Gachet, an honest man and a great artist, he had only two goals: humanity and art. He put art above all else, and it will repay him in kind, perpetuating his name. Then we returned. Theodor van Gogh was broken by grief; those present began to disperse: someone retired, simply leaving for the fields, someone was already walking back to the station ... "

Theo van Gogh died six months later. All this time he could not forgive himself for quarrels with his brother. The extent of his despair becomes clear from a letter he wrote to his mother shortly after Vincent's death: “It is impossible to describe my grief, just as it is impossible to find solace. It is a grief that will last and from which, of course, I will never get rid of as long as I live. The only thing that can be said is that he himself found the peace he longed for... Life was such a heavy burden for him, but now, as often happens, everyone praises his talents... Oh, mother! He was so mine, my own brother."

After Theo's death, Vincent's last letter, which he wrote after a quarrel with his brother, was found in his archive: “It seems to me that since everyone is a little nervous and also too busy, it’s not worth sorting out all the relationships to the end. I was a little surprised that you seem to want to rush things. How can I help, or rather, what can I do to make it suit you? One way or another, mentally again I firmly shake hands with you and, in spite of everything, I was glad to see you all. Don't doubt it."

Vincent Van Gogh. This name is familiar to every student. Even in childhood, we joked among ourselves “you draw like Van Gogh”! or “well, you are Picasso!”… After all, only the one whose name will forever remain in the history of not only painting and world art, but also humanity is immortal.

Against the backdrop of the fate of European artists, the life path of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) stands out in that he discovered his craving for art quite late. Until the age of 30, Vincent did not suspect that painting would become the ultimate meaning of his life. The vocation ripens in him slowly, in order to break out like an explosion. At the cost of labor almost on the verge of human capabilities, which will become the lot of his rest of his life, during the years 1885-1887, Vincent will be able to develop his own individual and unique style, which in the future will be called "impasto". His artistic style will contribute to the rooting in European art of one of the most sincere, sensitive, humane and emotional trends - expressionism. But, most importantly, it will become the source of his work, his paintings and graphics.

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the family of a Protestant pastor, in the Dutch province of North Brabant, in the village of Grotto Zundert, where his father was in the service. The family environment determined a lot in the fate of Vincent. The Van Gogh family was ancient, known since the 17th century. In the era of Vincent van Gogh, there were two traditional family activities: one of the representatives of this family was necessarily engaged in church activities, and someone in the art trade. Vincent was the eldest, but not the first child in the family. A year earlier, he was born, but his brother died soon after. The second son was named in memory of the deceased by Vincent Willem. After him, five more children appeared, but only with one of them would the future artist be connected by close fraternal ties until the last day of his life. It would not be an exaggeration to say that without the support of his younger brother Theo, Vincent van Gogh as an artist would hardly have taken place.

In 1869, Van Gogh moved to The Hague and began to trade paintings in the Goupil firm and reproductions of works of art. Vincent works actively and conscientiously, in his free time he reads a lot and visits museums, and draws a little. In 1873, Vincent begins a correspondence with his brother Theo, which will last until his death. In our time, the letters of the brothers are published in a book called “Van Gogh. Letters to Brother Theo” and you can buy it in almost any good bookstore. These letters are moving evidence of Vincent's inner spiritual life, his searches and mistakes, joys and disappointments, despair and hopes.

In 1875, Vincent was assigned to Paris. He regularly visits the Louvre and the Luxembourg Museum, exhibitions of contemporary artists. By this time, he is already drawing himself, but nothing foreshadows that art will soon become an all-consuming passion. In Paris, there is a turning point in his spiritual development: Van Gogh is very fond of religion. Many researchers attribute this condition to the unhappy and one-sided love that Vincent experienced in London. Much later, in one of his letters to Theo, the artist, analyzing his illness, notes that mental illness is their family trait.

From January 1879, Vincent received a position as a preacher in Vama, a village located in the Borinage, an area in southern Belgium, the center of the coal industry. He is deeply struck by the extreme poverty in which the miners and their families live. A deep conflict begins, which opens Van Gogh's eyes to one truth - the ministers of the official church are not at all interested in truly alleviating the plight of people who find themselves in inhuman conditions.

Having fully understood this sanctimonious position, Van Gogh experiences another deep disappointment, breaks with the church and makes his final life choice - to serve people with his art.

Van Gogh and Paris

Van Gogh's last visits to Paris were related to his work at Goupil. However, never before had the artistic life of Paris had a noticeable influence on his work. This time Van Gogh's stay in Paris lasts from March 1886 to February 1888. These are two extremely eventful years in the artist's life. During this short period, he masters the impressionistic and neo-impressionistic techniques, which contributes to the lightening of his own color palette. The artist who arrived from Holland turns into one of the most original representatives of the Parisian avant-garde, whose innovation breaks from within all the conventions that fetter the enormous expressive possibilities of color as such.

In Paris, Van Gogh communicates with Camille Pissarro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard and Georges Seurat and other young painters, as well as with the paint dealer and collector dad Tanguy.

last years of life

By the end of 1889, at this difficult time for himself, aggravated by fits of insanity, mental disorders and a craving for suicide, Van Gogh received an invitation to take part in the exhibition of the Salon des Indépendants, organized in Brussels. At the end of November, Vincent sends 6 paintings there. On May 17, 1890, Theo has a plan to settle Vincent in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise under the supervision of Dr. Gachet, who was fond of painting and was a friend of the Impressionists. Van Gogh's condition is improving, he works hard, paints portraits of his new acquaintances, landscapes.

July 6, 1890 Van Gogh arrives in Paris to Theo. Albert Aurier and Toulouse-Lautrec visit Theo's house to meet him.

From the last letter to Theo, Van Gogh says: “... Through me, you took part in the creation of some canvases that even in a storm keep my peace. Well, I paid with my life for my work, and it cost me half my sanity, that's right… But I'm not sorry.”

Thus ended the life of one of the greatest artists not only of the 19th century, but of the entire history of art as a whole.