Who Was Vincent Van Gogh?

Vincent Willem van Gogh (March 30, 1853 to July 29, 1890) was a post-impressionist painter whose
work, notable for its beauty, emotion and color, highly influenced 20th-century art. He struggled
with mental illness, and remained poor and virtually unknown throughout his life. Van Gogh died in
France at age 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

'The Starry Night'

Van Gogh painted "The Starry Night" in the asylum where he was staying in Saint-Rémy, France, in
1889, the year before his death. “This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time
before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big,” he wrote to his brother
Theo. A combination of imagination, memory, emotion and observation, the oil painting on canvas
depicts an expressive swirling night sky and a sleeping village, with a large flame-like cypress,
thought to represent the bridge between life and death, looming in the foreground. The painting is
currently housed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY.

'Sunflowers'

Van Gogh painted two series of sunflowers in Arles, France: four between August and September
1888 and one in January 1889; the versions and replicas are debated among art historians. The oil
paintings on canvas, which depict wilting yellow sunflowers in a vase, are now displayed at museums
in London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Munich and Philadelphia.

'Self-Portraits'

Over the course of 10 years, van Gogh created more than 43 self-portraits as both paintings and
drawings. "I am looking for a deeper likeness than that obtained by a photographer," he wrote to his
sister. "People say, and I am willing to believe it, that it is hard to know yourself. But it is not easy to
paint yourself, either. The portraits painted by Rembrandt are more than a view of nature, they are
more like a revelation,” he later wrote to his brother. The works are now displayed in museums
around the world, including in Washington, D.C., Paris, New York and Amsterdam.

How Did Van Gogh Die?

On July 27, 1890, Vincent van Gogh went out to paint in the morning carrying a loaded pistol and
shot himself in the chest, but the bullet did not kill him. He was found bleeding in his room. Van
Gogh was distraught about his future because, in May of that year, his brother Theo had visited and
spoke to him about needing to be stricter with his finances. Van Gogh took that to mean Theo was
no longer interested in selling his art.

Van Gogh was taken to a nearby hospital and his doctors sent for Theo, who arrived to find his
brother sitting up in bed and smoking a pipe. They spent the next couple of days talking together,
and then van Gogh asked Theo to take him home. On July 29, 1890, Vincent van Gogh died in the
arms of his brother. He was 37 years old.
When and Where Was Van Gogh Born?

Vincent van Gogh was born Vincent Willem van Gogh on March 30, 1853, in Groot-Zundert,
Netherlands.

Family

Vincent van Gogh’s father, Theodorus van Gogh, was an austere country minister, and his mother,
Anna Cornelia Carbentus, was a moody artist whose love of nature, drawing and watercolors was
transferred to her son. Van Gogh was born exactly one year after his parents' first son, also named
Vincent, was stillborn. At a young age — his name and birthdate already etched on his dead
brother's headstone — van Gogh was melancholy. The eldest of six living children, van Gogh had two
younger brothers (Theo, who worked as an art dealer and supported his older brother’s art, and Cor)
and three younger sisters (Anna, Elizabeth and Willemien).

Early Life and Education

At age 15, van Gogh's family was struggling financially, and he was forced to leave school and go to
work. He got a job at his Uncle Cornelis' art dealership, Goupil & Cie., a firm of art dealers in The
Hague. By this time, van Gogh was fluent in French, German and English, as well as his native Dutch.

In June of 1873, van Gogh was transferred to the Groupil Gallery in London. There, he fell in love
with English culture. He visited art galleries in his spare time, and also became a fan of the writings
of Charles Dickens and George Eliot. He also fell in love with his landlady's daughter, Eugenie Loyer.
When she rejected his marriage proposal, van Gogh suffered a breakdown. He threw away all his
books except for the Bible, and devoted his life to God. He became angry with people at work, telling
customers not to buy the "worthless art," and was eventually fired.

Van Gogh then taught in a Methodist boys' school, and also preached to the congregation. Although
raised in a religious family, it wasn't until this time that he seriously began to consider devoting his
life to the church. Hoping to become a minister, he prepared to take the entrance exam to the
School of Theology in Amsterdam. After a year of studying diligently, he refused to take the Latin
exams, calling Latin a "dead language" of poor people, and was subsequently denied entrance.

The same thing happened at the Church of Belgium: In the winter of 1878, van Gogh volunteered to
move to an impoverished coal mine in the south of Belgium, a place where preachers were usually
sent as punishment. He preached and ministered to the sick, and also drew pictures of the miners
and their families, who called him "Christ of the Coal Mines." The evangelical committees were not
as pleased. They disagreed with van Gogh's lifestyle, which had begun to take on a tone of
martyrdom. They refused to renew van Gogh's contract, and he was forced to find another
occupation.

Van Gogh’s Love Life

Van Gogh had a catastrophic love life. He was attracted to women in trouble, thinking he could help
them. When he fell in love with his recently widowed cousin, Kate, she was repulsed and fled to her
home in Amsterdam. Van Gogh then moved to The Hague and fell in love with Clasina Maria
Hoornik, an alcoholic prostitute. She became his companion, mistress and model.

When Hoornik went back to prostitution, van Gogh became utterly depressed. In 1882, his family
threatened to cut off his money unless he left Hoornik and The Hague. Van Gogh left in mid-
September of that year to travel to Drenthe, a somewhat desolate district in the Netherlands. For
the next six weeks, he lived a nomadic life, moving throughout the region while drawing and painting
the landscape and its people.

Van Gogh the Artist

In the fall of 1880, van Gogh decided to move to Brussels and become an artist. Though he had no
formal art training, his brother Theo offered to support van Gogh financially. He began taking lessons
on his own, studying books like Travaux des champs by Jean-François Millet and Cours de dessin by
Charles Bargue.

Van Gogh's art helped him stay emotionally balanced. In 1885, he began work on what is considered
to be his first masterpiece, "Potato Eaters." His brother, Theo, by this time living in Paris, believed
the painting would not be well-received in the French capital, where impressionism had become the
trend. Nevertheless, van Gogh decided to move to Paris, and showed up at Theo's house uninvited.
In March 1886, Theo welcomed his brother into his small apartment.

In Paris, van Gogh first saw impressionist art, and he was inspired by the color and light. He began
studying with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Camille Pissarro and others. To save money, he and his
friends posed for each other instead of hiring models. Van Gogh was passionate, and he argued with
other painters about their works, alienating those who became tired of his bickering.

Van Gogh in Arles

Van Gogh became influenced by Japanese art and began studying eastern philosophy to enhance his
art and life. He dreamed of traveling there, but was told by Toulouse-Lautrec that the light in the
village of Arles was just like the light in Japan. In February 1888, van Gogh boarded a train to the
south of France. He moved into the "yellow house" and spent his money on paint rather than food.

Why Did Van Gogh Cut Off His Ear?

In December 1888, van Gogh was living on coffee, bread and absinthe in Arles, France, and he found
himself feeling sick and strange. Before long, it became apparent that in addition to suffering from
physical illness, his psychological health was declining. Around this time, he is known to have sipped
on turpentine and eaten paint.

His brother Theo was worried, and he offered Paul Gauguin money to go watch over Vincent in
Arles. Within a month, van Gogh and Gauguin were arguing constantly, and one night, Gauguin
walked out. Van Gogh followed him, and when Gauguin turned around, he saw van Gogh holding a
razor in his hand. Hours later, van Gogh went to the local brothel and paid for a prostitute named
Rachel. With blood pouring from his hand, he offered her his ear, asking her to "keep this object
carefully."

The police found van Gogh in his room the next morning, and admitted him to the Hôtel-Dieu
hospital. Theo arrived on Christmas Day to see van Gogh, who was weak from blood loss and having
violent seizures. The doctors assured Theo that his brother would live and would be taken good care
of, and on January 7, 1889, van Gogh was released from the hospital. He was alone and depressed.
For hope, he turned to painting and nature, but could not find peace and was hospitalized again. He
would paint at the yellow house during the day and return to the hospital at night.

Asylum and End of Life

Van Gogh decided to move to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence after

the people of Arles signed a petition saying that he was dangerous. On May 8, 1889, he began
painting in the hospital gardens. In November 1889, he was invited to exhibit his paintings in
Brussels. He sent six paintings, including "Irises" and "Starry Night."

On January 31, 1890, Theo and his wife, Johanna, gave birth to a boy and named him after van Gogh.
Around this time, Theo sold van Gogh's "The Red Vineyards" painting for 400 francs. Also around this
time, Dr. Paul Gachet, who lived in Auvers, about 20 miles north of Paris, agreed to take van Gogh as
his patient. Van Gogh moved to Auvers and rented a room. In July of that year, Vincent van Gogh
committed suicide.

Theo, who was suffering from syphilis and weakened by his brother's death, died six months after
his brother in a Dutch asylum. He was buried in Utrecht, but in 1914 Theo's wife, Johanna, who was
a dedicated supporter of van Gogh's works, had Theo's body reburied in the Auvers cemetery next to
Vincent.
Born in 1853 in Brabant, The Netherlands, Vincent Willem Van Gogh was the eldest son of
Theodorus Van Gogh (1822–85), a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church, and Anna Cornelia
Carbentus (1819–1907). A good student, Vincent left school in 1869 at age sixteen in the middle of
his secondary education to begin work as a clerk at the art dealership Goupil and Company in The
Hague, where his uncle was a partner and where his younger brother Theo began work in 1872.
Although he himself showed no inclination toward art as a profession, he appreciated art history and
thrived in his commercial art profession, receiving high praise from his superiors, who soon
transferred him to London.

After a failed attempt at romance with his London landlady's daughter, Vincent was devastated and,
upon his subsequent transfer to Paris in 1875, became dejected and more introverted, neglecting his
work and appearance and becoming heavily interested in the Bible and religious study. In 1876, Van
Gogh was fired from Goupil and Company, and by 1877, he had taught and preached at schools in
England and worked at a bookstore in The Netherlands, after which he decided to begin theological
study in Amsterdam and then in Brussels. He worked as an evangelist in various villages in the
Borinage, a poor mining district in Belgium, but his religious fanaticism, asceticism, and his lack of
charisma as a preacher marked him for failure, despite his humanitarian intentions and his sincere,
even obsessive, devotion to the poor and the sick. By 1879, he had experienced a total spiritual crisis
and had decided to become an artist, beginning by sketching the Belgian miners and workers with
whom he lived, then studying art briefly in Brussels with the painter Anton van Rappard With Theo's
support, Vincent moved to his family's home in Etten, The Netherlands, in 1881, and in January of
the next year, after quarreling with his disappointed parents, he moved to The Hague to begin
serious artistic study.

In The Hague, Vincent studied with painter and relative Anton Mauve, and continued his rigorous
program of drawing workers and the poor, with whom he claimed he felt a spiritual connection. He
took in a prostitute named Sien as his model, and while supporting her, her child, and her mother,
he began his first figure studies, the most famous of which is Sorrow. Scandalized by his proclaimed
love for Sien and his desire to marry her, his family gradually cut off financial support, until Van Gogh
was supported only by his devoted younger brother Theo. Theo had become an art dealer with
Goupil and he continued to support and represent Vincent financially, commercially, and
emotionally until his death.

This financial support allowed Vincent to begin experimentation with lithography, printmaking, and
oil painting, but by 1883, he could no longer afford city life, and he was forced to leave Sien and
move to the countryside. Staying first in Drenthe and then with his parents in Nuenen, The
Netherlands, eventually he moved to the local presbytery, where he concentrated on depictions of
peasant life and came into contact with visiting artists, including Van Rappard. Things slowly
improved for Vincent's career–he met and befriended a few fellow artists, received a commission for
a domestic mural, briefly took on a few unpaying students, and made a consignment arrangement
with Theo, wherein he would send all his work to his brother with the understanding that Theo
would try to sell it. Theo would pay him modestly for his efforts by continuing to financially support
him. In 1885, after his father died and upon completing his first masterpiece of peasant life, The
Potato Eaters, Vincent visited Amsterdam and then moved to Antwerp, where he could visit art
museums and study at the academy. After a few months, he had become completely frustrated with
the stifling academic art training and its emphasis on realism and "natural laws," and he abruptly
moved to Paris to live with Theo in March 1886.

In Paris, Vincent was in the very epicenter of modern art, and he took the opportunity to study with
Fernand Cormon, at whose studio he met some members of the Impressionist circle, including Emile
Bernard, who later became a close friend. Theo's position in the commercial art world afforded
Vincent the chance to see the latest Impressionist exhibitions and to speak with many of the
Impressionist artists whom Theo represented, including Monet, Degas, Sisley, Renoir, and Pissarro,
many of whom frequented the art shop of Pere Tanguy, a local hang-out for the Paris avant-garde.
Vincent was able to trade his paintings for other artists' work, and an art dealer even took a few of
his paintings, but he still could not sell anything. Influenced by the Japanese prints he was able to
see in Paris, in 1887 Vincent began settling on portraits including self-portraits and flowers as
subjects, hoping to improve his use of color.

In Paris, Vincent's psychiatric health began its decline, and the dark side of his complicated condition
(probably a combination of mild epilepsy and schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, compounded with
syphilis, glaucoma, Digitalis poisoning from paint, and a weakness for absinthe and alcohol) started
to reveal itself in violent mood swings, depression, and drunken and erratic behavior. Vincent
became involved with the female owner of the local Cafe du Tambourin, where he exhibited work
with rising post-Impressionist stars like Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Bernard–he was even able to
organize his own exhibition of Japanese prints at the cafe in March of 1887.

That spring, Vincent began spending a lot of time painting and talking with his new artist friends and
his affair with the cafe proprietress ended after about five months. By the beginning of 1888,
Vincent had managed to exhibit his own work at two substantial, proper shows–one that he
organized himself in November 1887 at a restaurant to display the work of the circle of the younger
Paris Impressionists. The neo-Impressionist leader Georges Seurat was impressed by the show, as
was Paul Gauguin, and Vincent was able to show some work with Seurat and Signac at the Salle de
Repetition of the Theatre Libre d'Antoine. In February 1888, after experiencing a near physical and
mental breakdown due to stress and alcohol, Vincent decided he must move to Arles, in the south of
France, where he could work in a more temperate climate more quietly and independently and with
fewer expenses. He intended to concentrate on bucolic landscapes, open-air light and color, and
peasant portraiture.

By the time he had moved to Arles for a period of rehabilitation, Van Gogh had already gained the
respect of the Paris avant-garde, but in Arles and later in St. Remy and Auvers, he produced most of
the masterpieces for which he is most widely known in what were the two final years of his life.
Here, he finally achieved his mature style of distinctive color and heavy, modeled, rhythmic
brushwork. The stress and sheer physical and mental exertion of this obsessive output, however,
proved too much for his encroaching illnesses, and his condition gradually worsened as his painting
became increasingly facile and accomplished.

In March, Theo managed to have his brother's work shown at an important exhibition of the Artistes
Independents in Paris, which was a heartening sign of real inclusion in the Paris avant-garde. In May,
Vincent moved into the "little yellow house" in Arles, where he remained until his move to the St.
Remy asylum in May 1889. He befriended several local residents, some of whom he painted
repeatedly, but he was lonely, yearning for the company of other artists that he enjoyed in Paris. In
July, Gauguin accepted Vincent and Theo's offer to move in with Vincent in Arles in the hope that
they could together spearhead Vincent's dream of founding an artistic community there. By the time
Gauguin arrived in October, Vincent had produced some of his most important portraits and self-
portraits, as well as his interior masterpieces, The Night Cafe and The Bedroom. Gauguin and Van
Gogh worked together fruitfully for two months, but their friendship became strained after an
argument about a Montpellier museum exhibition they visited together.

In December, the strain of living with the difficult and antagonistic Gauguin reached a crisis after a
violent argument. Vincent suffered a total mental collapse, experiencing auditory hallucinations and
cutting off part of his left ear, possibly during an epileptic seizure while shaving. Vincent was taken
to a hospital in Arles after presenting his severed ear to a prostitute at a local brothel as a gift–a last-
ditch attempt at romance after so many failures and rejections. Vincent's "attacks" became fairly
regular after this first major episode, and these fits of hallucinations, dementia, and seizures only
increased in frequency until his suicide.

In May 1889 Vincent left Arles for an asylum in St. Remy of his own accord. Vincent spent his time,
which is exactly one year, at the asylum painting landscapes of the hospital grounds and portraits of
patients and attendants, hoping to achieve a cure for his condition. He suffered periodic episodes of
hallucination, breakdown, and seizure, during which times he was confined indoors. He occasionally
ate his paint during his fits, which only made him sicker and resulted in the temporary confiscation
of his materials. In September, his work was requested for the "Les XX" or "The Twenty" exhibition
of post-Impressionist artists in Paris, and although his Irises and Starry Sky, both works from Arles,
were well received at the fifth Artistes Independents show, his interest in refining his portraits grew.
Vincent was outraged by his first taste of publicity, a quite positive mention of his work at the Paris
World Fair in October 1889, and in December he had suffered a serious relapse and had begun to
mention thoughts of suicide to his attendants. His work at the "Les XX" exhibit in Brussels aroused
much interest from the public, and one painting even sold in February 1890 for four hundred francs.
The same month a glowing review of Van Gogh's work alone by Albert Aurier was published, and
Vincent was overwhelmed with gratitude and hopefulness, but after a return visit to a friend in Arles
he was once again incapacitated. In March 1890, ten of his paintings were exhibited at the next
Artistes Independents show, and Monet claimed that Vincent's work was the finest in the entire
exhibition. In May 1890, Vincent finally left the St. Remy asylum and visited Theo and his new wife
and baby son, named Vincent, but was contingent on Theo making arrangements with a Dr. Gachet
to supervise Vincent while he stayed at an inn in Auvers-sur-Oise, a town north of Paris.
Concentrating on portraits of Gachet's family and neighbors and landscapes of the surrounding
wheat fields, Van Gogh finished at least seventy paintings in the seventy days he lived in Auvers, the
final days of his life. He worked furiously and with total focus and concentration for the beginning of
the summer of 1890, avoiding any serious attacks, although he slowly began to show signs of
depression and erratic behavior. His letters to Theo became less lucid and coherent. On July 27,
1890, Vincent wandered behind a haystack in one of the wheat fields through which he strolled daily
and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He was able to stagger back to the inn where he was
staying, and Dr. Gachet was called. He died with a bullet lodged beneath his heart after a final
physical attack two days later, with Theo at his side. His funeral in Auvers was attended by several of
his artist friends and acquaintances from Paris, and Bernard organized a memorial show of Van
Gogh's work in Paris. By October of 1890, Theo himself had experienced a mental and physical
breakdown due in part to advanced syphilis, dying in January 1891 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. In
1914, Theo's widow had her husband's body exhumed so that it could be buried next to Vincent's in
Auvers.