Vincent van Gogh

Susie Hodge

• Publisher: Arcturus
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781839403347
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Biografie in ambito artistico

He did not paint his pictures; it was like he exhaled them in a gasping, boiling breath
- Julius Meier- Grae f Van Gogh's distinctive style of expressive brushstrokes and bold colors is now world famous, but during his lifetime the artist was met with cold disinterest from his contemporaries. This book explores the fascinating life story of this tortured soul, who came late to art and suffered throughout his life from anxiety and depression. It unravels the influences behind his artworks, from the luminous landscapes of the south of France to the Japanese woodblock prints he so admired, and explores how he developed his own unique style. This detailed monograph features Van Gogh's major works and examines the light they shed on this enigmatic character, serving as a wonderful introduction to one of the best artists of all time. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Great Artists series by Arcturus Publishing introduces some of the most significant artists of the past 150 years, looking at their lives, inspirations and techniques, as well as presenting a selection of their best work.

A Watermill in a Woody Landscape, Lodewijk Hendrik Arends, 1854. Landscape painting became a popular genre in Dutch art during the sixteenth century, and paintings of the Dutch landscape remained sought after in the nineteenth century. The young Vincent grew up extremely aware of the national tradition.

Chapter 1

Early Life

On 30 March 1852, Anna Cornelia van Gogh, wife of the Reverend Theodorus van Gogh, gave birth to a stillborn son whom the couple named Vincent Willem. Exactly one year later, on 30 March 1853, they had another baby boy, this time strong and healthy, to whom they gave the same name. Vincent was followed by five siblings: Anna, Theodorus, or Theo, Elisabeth, or Lies, Wilhelmina, or Wil and Cornelius, or Cor.

The family lived in the Dutch village of Groot Zundert in North Brabant, close to the Belgian border. Theodorus was a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church, and Vincent grew up in a devout household; his parents were quiet, modest people who regularly moved from one small parish to another. Vincent and Theo shared a bedroom in Groot Zundert and became especially close.

At the age of 11, Vincent was moved from the local village school to a boarding school in the town of Zevenbergen, 25 km (15½ miles) north of Groot Zundert. Although unhappy there, he stayed for two years until he was transferred to another boarding school in Tilburg, approximately 45 km (28 miles) from Zundert. Little is known about his education except that he was good at languages and became proficient in English, French and German; that drawing was a large part of the curriculum; and that he left his last school halfway through his second academic year when he was 15, although it is not clear why.

First job

Vincent’s Uncle ‘Cent’ (also Vincent van Gogh) had recently retired from his job as an art dealer, and he found the 16-year-old Vincent a position as a trainee at the international gallery Goupil & Cie. With headquarters in Paris and branches in London, Brussels, The Hague, Berlin and Vienna, Goupil & Cie specialized in French contemporary art. Vincent began working in The Hague branch. His boss recounted that he began ‘eager and ambitious’ and with ‘a friendly manner towards everyone’. In the summer of 1872, he went home to Helvoirt, where his father had been given a new parish. Theo joined them from school and during that holiday, the two brothers agreed to support each other and correspond regularly. This correspondence continued for the rest of Vincent’s life, except for a short time when they lived together in Paris. The following September, Theo left school and also began working as an art dealer at Goupil & Cie’s branch in Brussels. Meanwhile, Vincent was transferred to the London branch.

Portrait of Theo van Gogh, 1887. This small work was long thought to be a self-portrait, but after much research it is now believed to be of Theo, and possibly the only portrait of his brother that Vincent ever made.

Flower Beds in Holland, c.1883. Vincent made this painting when he returned to live in The Hague a few years later. From a low viewpoint, he uses linear and aerial perspective to draw the viewer’s eye into the scene. The colourful tulips in the foreground contrast with the dark thatched cottages and bare tree trunks in the distance.

The letters

Almost 1,000 letters survive from Vincent’s life, written by, to or about him. Although he did not keep many that he received, there are more than 650 in existence that he wrote to Theo. Others survive, such as several he wrote to his sister Wil and other relatives, and to his artist friends including Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Eugène Boch and Anthon van Rappard. When he died, a letter he was writing to Theo was discovered unfinished in his pocket.

The letters reveal much about Vincent’s ideas, working processes and the evolution of his art. They are a record of a passionate and intense man who often felt isolated and lonely, and it is largely through these letters, first published in 1914, that we know how much Theo did for Vincent, and how much gratitude and guilt Vincent sometimes felt about it. In one letter he wrote: ‘I will give you back the money or give away my soul.’ In another: ‘I have to thank you for quite a few things, first of all your letter and the 50-franc note it contained, but then also for the consignment of colours and canvas that I’ve been to collect at the station.’

Vincent poured out all his thoughts in his letters, from the small details of everyday life to his more profound beliefs about existence, his psychological difficulties and his vivid imagination. He described his feelings as well as events that happened to him, his views on colour theory and contemporary literature he was reading. Frequently illustrated, his letters also show how he planned his paintings. In words and drawings, he described people, places, colours, and his anxieties and preoccupations about his art. The letters are a record of his great struggle; his knowledge that he was trying to do something special and extraordinary, while also being full of self-doubt and lacking self-esteem. Yet despite all his insecurities and health problems, he was firm about his art, for instance: ‘I want you to understand clearly my conception of art … What I want and aim at is confoundedly difficult, and yet I do not think I aim too high. I want to do drawings which touch some people.’

In this letter to Theo from Drenthe, dated 28 October 1883, Vincent wrote of his thoughts and visions, adding this sensitive drawing of a man pulling a harrow. Even in their rough note form, his images are uniquely dynamic and expressive.

An excerpt from one of Vincent’s letters to Theo from April 1885 in which he described and made a sketch of his painting The Potato Eaters, which he was working on at the time. He wrote, ‘I’ve painted it on a fairly large canvas, and as the sketch is now, I believe there’s life in it.’

While waiting for Gauguin’s visit to Arles, Vincent wrote to him on 17 October 1888, explaining that on his journey from Pont-Aven to Arles, he would see ‘miles and miles of countryside of different kinds with autumn splendours’. He also made a sketch of his painting The Bedroom.

Vincent in London

During his time in London, Vincent walked in the parks, rowed on the River Thames and visited the British Museum and the National Gallery. At the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition he admired paintings by J.M.W Turner, John Constable, John Everett Millais, Luke Fildes, Frank Holl and Hubert von Herkomer. He also began improving his English by reading a range of British writers, including William Shakespeare, John Keats, Charles Dickens and Christina Rossetti. He wrote to friends: ‘These last days I have greatly enjoyed reading the poems of John Keats; he is a poet who, I think, is not very well known in Holland. He is the favourite of all the painters here.’ To Theo, he wrote: ‘I’m getting on very well here. I’ve got a delightful home and I’m finding it very pleasurable taking a look at London and the English way of life and the English people themselves.’ He also admired British graphic illustrations and prints, especially those by artists such as Fildes, Holl, Herkomer and Millais who illustrated the English magazine The Graphic (founded in 1869), writing to Theo: ‘For me one of the highest and noblest expressions of art is always that of the English, for instance Millais and Herkomer and Frank Holl. What I mean in regard to the difference between the old masters and the modern ones is – perhaps the modern ones are deeper thinkers.’ He and Theo collected classic Dutch prints and English prints from popular magazines including The Graphic and the Illustrated London News, founded in 1842.

In 1872, London: a Pilgrimage was published, written by William Blanchard Jerrold and illustrated by Gustave Doré. The book had taken four years to complete and the two men had spent days and nights exploring the streets of London in their mission to produce an illustrated record of the ‘shadows and sunlight’ of the city. Using strong effects of light and shade, Doré’s 180 engravings in the book capture the atmosphere, places and most of all the people of London at the time. Vincent was fascinated by it.

Study for Deserted – a Foundling, Frank Holl, 1874. Holl made an engraving of this scene for The Graphic. Vincent collected some of Holl’s engravings and wrote in 1883: ‘When I was looking them over, all my memories of London … moved me so deeply that I have been thinking about them ever since, for instance Holl’s The Foundling.’

Prisoners in Newgate Prison Exercise Yard, Gustave Doré, 1869–72. Doré’s powerful engravings of London were widely praised. In later life, Vincent returned to them, painting his only image of London, Prisoners Exercising, from this print by Doré of Newgate Prison.

Calling in the Gleaners, Jules Breton, 1859. After moving to Paris in 1875, Vincent visited the Musée du Luxembourg every week, sometimes with Harry Gladwell. This was one of several paintings in the museum that Vincent particularly admired. Breton’s paintings appealed to Vincent as he depicted peasants conducting their harsh lives with dignity. This particularly inspired him for its frieze-like composition and rich colouring.

Love rejected

A few months after arriving in London, Vincent moved into a boarding house run by a widow, Sarah Ursula Loyer, who also ran a boys’ school. He wrote to Theo about how much he enjoyed the bustle of the household and tending the garden. In July 1874, his sister Anna arrived and stayed there with him. Vincent had fallen in love with Ursula’s daughter, Eugenie, even though she was already engaged to someone else; nonetheless, Vincent proposed to her and refused to accept her rejection, so Ursula asked him to leave. He and Anna moved to another boarding house, but he became melancholy and withdrawn and began acting strangely, which worried Anna. He remained friends with the Loyers, but later wrote that the rejection of his love caused him ‘many years of humiliation’. After he had spent the summer of 1874 back at home in the Netherlands, their mother wrote to Theo about him: ‘Poor boy, he does not take life easily.’

Discovering Paris

In May 1875, Vincent was transferred to Goupil & Cie in Paris. Once there he became increasingly religious and his letters to Theo were full of quotations from the Bible and accounts of church services and sermons he attended. He also regularly visited the Musée du Louvre and the Musée du Luxembourg, becoming uplifted by the paintings of artists including Rembrandt and Charles-François Daubigny. He later wrote to Theo: ‘Rembrandt goes so deep into the mysterious that he says things for which t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Early Life
• Chapter 2. Becoming an Artist
• Chapter 3. Vincent in Paris
• Chapter 4. Arles
• Chapter 5. Saint-Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise
• Epilogue
• Timeline
• Further Information
• List of Illustrations
• Copyright