Vincent Van Gogh: Color Was The Chief Symbol of Expression
Vincent Van Gogh: Color Was The Chief Symbol of Expression
Vincent Van Gogh: Color Was The Chief Symbol of Expression
• Vincent van Gogh, for whom color was the chief symbol
of expression, was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland. The
son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured
atmosphere, Vincent was highly emotional and lacked
self-confidence. Between 1860 and 1880, when he
finally decided to become an artist, van Gogh had had
two unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked
unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, an art
salesman, and a preacher in the Borinage (a dreary
mining district in Belgium), where he was dismissed for
overzealousness.
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh
• He remained in Belgium to study art,
determined to give happiness by creating
beauty. The works of his early Dutch
period are somber-toned, sharply lit, genre
paintings of which the most famous is "The
Potato Eaters" (1885). In that year van
Gogh went to Antwerp where he
discovered the works of Rubens and
purchased many Japanese prints.
The Potato Eaters 1885
Vincent Van Gogh
• In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother
Théo, the manager of Goupil's gallery. In
Paris, van Gogh studied with Cormon,
inevitably met Pissarro, Monet, and
Gauguin, and began to lighten his very
dark palette and to paint in the short
brushstrokes of the Impressionists.
Vincent Van Gogh
• His nervous temperament made him a difficult
companion and night-long discussions combined with
painting all day undermined his health. He decided to go
south to Arles where he hoped his friends would join him
and help found a school of art. Gauguin did join him but
with disastrous results. Near the end of 1888, an incident
led Gauguin to ultimately leave Arles. Van Gogh pursued
him with an open razor, was stopped by Gauguin, but
ended up cutting a portion of his own ear lobe off. Van
Gogh then began to alternate between fits of madness
and lucidity and was sent to the asylum in Saint-Remy
for treatment.
Vincent Van Gogh
• In May of 1890, he seemed much better and
went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under the
watchful eye of Dr. Gachet. Two months later he
was dead, having shot himself "for the good of
all." During his brief career he had sold one
painting. Van Gogh's finest works were
produced in less than three years in a technique
that grew more and more impassioned in
brushstroke, in symbolic and intense color, in
surface tension, and in the movement and
vibration of form and line.
The Only Painting
Van Gogh Sold
• The Red Vineyard was exhibited for the first time
at the annual exhibition of Les XX, 1890 in
Brussels, and sold for 400 Francs (equal to
about $1,000-1,050 today) to Anna Boch,[1] an
impressionist painter, member of Les XX and art
collector from Belgium; Anna was the sister of
Eugène Boch, another impressionist painter and
a friend of Van Gogh, too, who had painted
Boch's portrait (Le Peintre aux Étoiles) in Arles,
in autumn 1888.
Vincent Van Gogh
• Van Gogh's inimitable fusion of form and
content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically
rhythmic, imaginative, and emotional, for
the artist was completely absorbed in the
effort to explain either his struggle against
madness or his comprehension of the
spiritual essence of man and nature.
Vincent Van Gogh
Short Facts
• Vincent had an older brother who died at birth.
His name was also Vincent van Gogh.
• Van Gogh was close friends with Paul Gauguin,
another famous artist.
• Van Gogh suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy
as well as other mental and physical conditions.
• Vincent shot himself in a wheatfield in Auvers,
France but did not die until 2 days later at the
age of 37.
Short Facts
• Vincent’s brother Theo died six months after
Vincent and is buried next to him in Auvers,
France.
• Vincent’s brother’s wife collected Vincent’s
paintings and letters after his death and
dedicated herself to getting his work the
recognition it deserved.
• In a short period of ten years Van Gogh made
approximately 900 paintings.
• Vincent only sold one painting during his lifetime
and only became famous after his death.
Short Facts
• Vincent van Gogh did not cut off his ear. He only
cut off a small portion of his ear lobe.
• Van Gogh created his most famous work The
Starry Night while staying in an asylum in Saint-
Remy-de-Provence, France.
• Vincent’s earliest career aspiration was to be a
pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church like his
father.
• Van Gogh wrote over 800 letters in his lifetime.
The majority of them written to his brother and
closest friend Theo.
Van Gogh's
Mental and Physical Health
• Hundreds of physicians and psychiatrists
have tried to define Van Gogh's medical
conditions over the years. The following
are some of the more probable mental and
physical diagnoses.
Temporal Lobe Epilepsy