Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch painter, who was considered one of the greatest painters in European art history. Although he may have gone crazy his work is appreciated and evaluated around the world today. Back in the 1800's Vincent van Gogh was not a popular name. In fact, nobody knew who he was until 11 years after his death.

Vincent was born into a family of six. His father was a Protestant pastor. In his early years Vincent wanted to follow his fathers footsteps and become a pastor. In fact, in 1873, while in Paris he followed his heart as he thought he wanted to be a pastor but later in 1876 he was dismissed for lack of motivation. He later attempted to become a lay minister in Belgium, but was fired shortly after. In 1880, Vincent started painting by the suggestion of his brother Theo. Later Vincent started talking lessons from Anton Mauve at The Hague School. When van Gogh took lessons from Anton Mauve they often got in disagreements about the techniques of painting. Anton painted pieces that featured delicate silver gray tones in seascapes and rural scenes. Their main disagreement consisted of technique, van Gogh's favor of dark tones, usage of color and Anton Mauve did not agree with the way van Gogh played with light. Shortly after they split due to their conflicting ideas. Although they split the influences of the Hague School of painting would remain in Vincent's work, notably in the way he played with the light and loosened of his brushstrokes. In the winter of 1885-1886, van Gogh attended The Art Academy of Antwerp, it turned out to be a big disappointment after he was dismissed after a few months. In 1818 van Gogh considered marrying Sein Hoornik who was a prostitute after his cousin Kee Vos who he considered his Ð''true love' died, but his two favorite people Theo and his father, advised against it. Soon after he and Theo moved to Paris, van Gogh met a few painters that would soon lead him into neo-impressionism. Vincent Often painted in Pire Tanguy's Shop with Louis Anquetin, Emily Bernard, and Henri de Toulouse. In 1888, Vincent left and moved to Arles, Bouches-du-Rhone, France hoping to create a commune, a brotherhood built around the practice of art and life with other artists , which ended up failing. December 1888, after his failure lead to the period of his disillusionment, which lead to van Gogh dramatically cutting off his own ear and it marked off the start of a deep crisis that resulted in his admission to an asylum in Saint Remy. His depression deepened, and on July 27, at the age of 37, van Gogh shot him self in the chest Not realizing that he was fatally wounded, he returned to the inn where he died two days later at Theo's side saying "the sadness will last forever." Because the two brothers where so close Theo could not handle the loss of his brother Vincent and shortly after died being buried next to his companion Vincent van Gogh.

Vincent van Gogh lived most of his live in torment and anguish. His brother was the only thing that really kept him going. If you look at the collection of the Sunflower paintings, you can see the hurt getting deeper and deeper, killing him stem by stem. This is one of my favorite pieces because, the colors, tone, and flowers change every time, showing the slow and agonizing pain of his death on the inside.

Through out his career, Vincent changed paint styles numerous times. The first style he was really into was Neo-impressionism. Neo-impressionism is the theories on the perception of color and Van Gogh used it as a basis for his own original technique of fragmented brush strokes (pointillism), in simpler terms a bunch of dots applied to the canvas so at the distance the Ð''dots' come together and great one unified piece; Neo-impressionism is also stresses the value of using only pure colors and mixing them only when adjacent on the color wheel. The line meanings in neo-impressionism along with the theories are very different, for a horizontal line means calmness, an ascending line means joy and a descending line means sadness. The mixtures of colors also mean different things. For example