1.
Vincent van Gogh
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Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings and his suicide at 37 followed years of mental illness and poverty. Born into a family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling and he turned to religion, and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881 and his younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter. His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, in 1886 he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and his paintings grew brighter in colour as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the south of France in 1888. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include trees, cypresses, wheat fields. Van Gogh suffered from episodes and delusions and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor and he spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris and his depression continued and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He died from his injuries two days later, Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime, and was considered a madman and a failure. He became famous after his suicide, and exists in the imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius. His reputation began to grow in the early 20th century as elements of his style came to be incorporated by the Fauves. The most comprehensive source on Van Gogh is the correspondence between him and his younger brother, Theo. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is known of Vincents thoughts, Theo van Gogh was an art dealer and provided his brother with financial and emotional support, and access to influential people on the contemporary art scene. Theo kept all of Vincents letters to him, Vincent kept few of the letters he received, after both had died, Theos widow Johanna arranged for the publication of some of their letters. A few appeared in 1906 and 1913, the majority were published in 1914, Vincents letters are eloquent and expressive and have been described as having a diary-like intimacy, and read in parts like autobiography
2.
Vincent van Gogh chronology
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This is a chronology of the artist Vincent van Gogh. It is based as far as possible on Van Goghs correspondence, however, it has only been possible to construct the chronology by drawing on additional sources. Most of his letters are not dated, and it was only in 1973 that a sufficient dating was established by Jan Hulsker, subsequently revised by Ronald Pickvance and marginally corrected by others. Many other relevant dates in the chronology derive from the biographies of his brother Theo, his uncle and godfather Cent, his friends Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, facts and dates which are undisputed, remain unreferenced. Theodorus van Gogh, since 1849 pastore in Groot-Zundert, married Anna Cornelia Carbentus, his brother Cents sister-in-law, March 30, a first son, called Vincent, died at birth. March 30, Vincent Willem van Gogh is born in Groot-Zundert, February 17, sister Anna Cornelia van Gogh, called Anna, is born. May 1, brother Theodorus van Gogh, called Theo, is born, may 16, sister Elisabeth Huberta van Gogh, called Lies, is born. March 26, Uncle Cent becomes partner of Goupil & Cie. March 16, sister Willemina Jacoba van Gogh, October 1, in Zevenbergen to attend the school of Jan Provily. September 3, enters secondary school at Tilburg, may 17, brother Cornelis Vincent van Gogh, called Cor, is born. March, leaves Tilburg and returns to his family in Zundert, July 30, Vincent starts apprenticeship with Goupil & Cie, The Hague. January, Van Goghs family moves to Helvoirt, January 1, Theo starts apprenticeship with Goupil & Cie, Brussels. February 19, the lot to serve in the army has fallen on Vincent, may 12, Vincent leaves for Paris where he visits the Paris branches of Goupil & Cie, the annual Salon and the Musée du Luxembourg. A week later, takes up work at the London branch of Goupil & Cie, August, moves to the house of Ursula Loyer and her daughter Eugenie in Brixton,87 Hackford Road. June 27 - July 15, summer holiday with his family in Helvoirt, November, on the demand of Uncle Cent, Vincent is transferred to Paris to get acquainted with the headquarters of Goupil & Cie. November 26, Jet Carbentus, a cousin of Vincent, marries Anton Mauve, Christmas, with his family in Helvoirt. May 24, Goupils London opens its first exhibition, end of May, Vincent is re-transferred to Paris headquarters. October 18, Van Goghs family moves to Etten, Christmas, with his family in Etten. December 30, visits Uncle C. M. in the Hague to talk about his future, December 31, father thinks he has to advise Vincent to resign
3.
The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
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The Letters of Vincent van Gogh refers to a collection of 903 surviving letters written or received by Vincent van Gogh. More than 650 of these were from Vincent to his brother Theo, the collection also includes letters van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil and other relatives, as well as between artists such as Paul Gauguin, Anthon van Rappard and Émile Bernard. Vincents sister-in-law and wife to his brother Theo, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, spent many years after her husbands death in 1891 compiling the letters, by contrast Vincent infrequently kept letters sent him and just 84 have survived, of which 39 were from Theo. Nevertheless, it is to these letters between the brothers that we owe much of what we know today about Vincent van Gogh, indeed, the only period where we are relatively uninformed is the Parisian period when they shared an apartment and had no need to correspond. The letters effectively play much the role in shedding light on the art of the period as those between the de Goncourt brothers did for literature. Within two years both brothers were dead, Vincent as the result of a wound, and Theo from illness. Joanna began the task of completing the collection, which was published in full in January 1914 and that first edition consisted of three volumes, and was followed in 1952–1954 by a four-volume edition that included additional letters. Jan Hulsker suggested, in 1987, that the letters be organized in date order, the project consists of a complete annotated collection of letters written by and to Vincent. In the last days of December 1901, running through January 1902, Bruno Cassirer and his cousin Paul Cassirer organized the first van Gogh exhibition in Berlin, Germany. Paul Cassirer first established a market for van Gogh, and then, with the assistance of Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, in 1906 Bruno Cassirer published a small volume of selected letters of Vincents to Theo, translated into German. Of the 844 surviving letters that van Gogh wrote,663 were written to Theo,9 to Theo, of the letters Vincent received from Theo, only 39 survive. The first letter was written when Vincent was 19 and begins, at that time Vincent was not yet developed as a letter writer – he was factual, but not introspective. When he moved to London, and later to Paris, he began to add personal information. Beginning in 1888 and ending a year later, van Gogh wrote 22 letters to Émile Bernard in which the tone is different from those to Theo, in these letters van Gogh wrote more about his techniques, his use of color, and his theories. Van Gogh was a reader, and his letters reflect his literary pursuits as well as a uniquely authentic literary style. His writing style in the letters reflect the literature he read and valued, Balzac, historians such as Michelet, additionally he read novels written by George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Keats poetry, reading mostly at night when the light was too poor for painting. Gauguin told him that he read too much, poet W. H. Auden wrote about the letters, there is scarcely one letter by van Gogh which I. do not find fascinating. Pomerans believes the letters to be on the level of world literature based on style, in the letters Vincent reflects different facets of his personality and he adopts a tone specific to his circumstances
4.
Death of Vincent van Gogh
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Van Gogh was shot in the stomach, either by himself or by others, and died two days later. In 1889, Vincent van Gogh experienced a deterioration in his mental health, as a result of incidents in Arles leading to a public petition, he was committed to a hospital. His condition improved and he was ready to be discharged by March 1889, at Salles suggestion van Gogh chose an asylum in nearby Saint-Rémy. Theo originally resisted this choice, even suggesting that Vincent rejoin Paul Gauguin in Pont Aven, Vincent entered the asylum in early May 1889. His mental condition remained stable for a while and he was able to work en plein air, producing many of his most iconic paintings, such as Starry Night, at this time. However at the end of July, following a trip to Arles and he made a good recovery, only to suffer another relapse in late December 1889, and early the following January an acute relapse while delivering a portrait of Madame Ginoux to her in Arles. This last relapse, described by Jan Hulsker as his longest and saddest, lasted until March 1890. In May 1890 Vincent was discharged from the asylum, and after spending a few days with Theo and Jo in Paris, Vincent went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise, a commune north of Paris popular with artists. Shortly before leaving Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh told how he was suffering from his stay in the hospital, I need some air, I feel overwhelmed by boredom and grief. On arriving at Auvers, van Goghs health was not very good. Writing on 21 May to Theo he comments, I can do nothing about my illness, I am suffering a little just now — the thing is that after that long seclusion the days seem like weeks to me. But by 25 May, the artist was able to report to his parents that his health had improved and his letters to his sister Wilhelmina on 5 June and to Theo and his wife Jo on about 10 June indicate a continued improvement, his nightmares almost having disappeared. The other patients society had a bad influence on me, furthermore, an unsent letter to Paul Gauguin which van Gogh wrote around 17 June is quite positive about his plans for the future. After describing his recent colourful wheat studies, he explains, I would like to paint some portraits against a very vivid yet tranquil background. On 2 July, writing to his brother, van Gogh comments, I myself am also trying to do as well as I can, and if my disease returns, you would forgive me. I still love art and life very much, the first sign of new problems was revealed in a letter van Gogh wrote to Theo on 10 July. He first states, I am very well, I am working hard, have painted four studies, first of all, he is sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much, so thats that. Certainly my last attack, which was terrible, was in a large measure due to the influence of the other patients, later in the letter he adds, For myself, I can only say at the moment that I think we all need rest — I feel exhausted
5.
Posthumous fame of Vincent van Gogh
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His friendship with his younger brother Theo was documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. The letters were published in three volumes in 1914 by Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Theos widow, who generously supported most of the early Van Gogh exhibitions with loans from the artists estate. His fame reached its first peak in Austria and Germany before World War I, due to the economic crisis in Germany and France after 1918, pioneer collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art which included works by Van Gogh were dissolved. Thus, British and American collectors had the opportunity to acquire first rate works relatively late, during his lifetime, Van Gogh contributed works of his own only on a few and minor occasions which mainly passed unnoted by critics and public. Van Gogh considered the first one a disaster, while he was prepared to take the one as a success, Bernard and Anquetin sold paintings. The hall was decorated with his canvases, in 1888, Van Gogh joined the Société des Artistes Indépendants, so this year three of his paintings were on show in their annual exhibition in Paris, and two in the year following. In 1890 and 1891, their annual exhibitions comprised ten paintings by Vincent, part of them had shown before by the society Les XX in Brussels. According to letters from his brother Theo, Vincents contributions to these few exhibitions established his renown amongst French vanguard painters like Claude Monet, probably it is little more than for curiosity that one of the first mentions of Van Gogh in newspapers was printed in Arles. September 30,1888, LHomme de Bronze told its readers Mr. Vincent, impressionist painter, works in the night, as we are assured, earlier this year, Van Goghs contribution to the exhibition of the Artists Indépendants has been reviewed. Vincent felt more troubled than honoured, and asked Isaacson to stop writing about him, another voice was that of Octave Mirbeau whose review article Vincent van Gogh in LEcho de Paris on 1 March 1891. Later that year Van Goghs friend Émile Bernard contributed short pieces on Van Gogh for La Plume, in the English-speaking world, the Bloomsbury art critics Roger Fry and Clive Bell were his first champions. His works gave an expression in paint for the violence of his spiritual hunger. That set the agenda for many subsequent Van Gogh studies, which are predominantly biographical to this day, Van Gogh fits modern cultures attempt to find secular substitutes for a religion it no longer believed in, as M. H. Abrams describes in Natural Supernaturalism. There were retrospectives in Brussels and Paris in 1891, during the 1890s, Van Gogh exhibitions were staged in several Dutch and Belgian towns. In 1893, Julien Leclercq brought together a first exhibition featuring Van Gogh, Gauguin and other modernists touring Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Berlin. In 1895 and in 1896 Ambroise Vollard mounted Van Gogh retrospectives in his galleries Rue Lafitte, in 1901, Leclercq arranged a Van Gogh Exhibition at the Galeries Bernheim Jeune in Paris. A little later in the year 1901, the Berlin Secessionists entered the scene, accompanied by the art dealers Bruno Cassirer and especially his cousin Paul, who set the pace for the years to come. In the last days of December, running through January 1902, Paul Cassirer organized the first van Gogh exhibition in Berlin, minor exhibitions of some recently found early works were held in Rotterdam and Amsterdam in 1903 and 1904
6.
Cultural depictions of Vincent van Gogh
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This is a list that shows references made to the life and work of artist Vincent van Gogh in culture. Letters to Theo, a selection of Vincents letters to his brother Theo in various sized volumes, became available in several languages during the 1950s, the artists life forms the basis for Irving Stones biographical novel Lust for Life. Starry Night, a written by Tupac Shakur, is a dedication to Van Gogh. Antonin Artaud wrote a study Van Gogh le suicidé de la société in 1947, Paul Celan mentions Van Goghs ear in his poem Mächte, Gewalten. Woody Allen wrote a parody of Vincents letters to his brother Theo, the short story If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists is included in Allens book Without Feathers. Paul Gauguin writes about van Gogh in his book Avant et après, theun de Vries wrote a novel Vincent in Den Haag which takes place between 1881 and 1883. Ivan Diviš wrote a poem Goghova milá, published in his book Rozpleť si vlasy and this was based on several events in Van Goghs life, he later used some of the same themes in his 6th symphony, Vincentiana. Einojuhani Rautavaara, Vincentiana, symphony N°6 - movements, I Tähtiyö II Varikset III Saint-Rémy IV Apotheosis Henri Dutilleux, Correspondances for soprano and orchestra - movements, gong II V. De Vincent à Théo. Henri Dutilleux, Timbres, espace, mouvement is a work for orchestra composed,1978, in 2006, Hong Kong singer-songwriter Ivana Wong composed a song called Paintings Meaning in memory of van Gogh. In 2007, Folk rock songwriter Freddy Blohm had a different take on Van Gogh in the song Cheerful, Bob Dylan in the 1960s wrote an unreleased, but widely bootlegged, song called Vincent Van Gogh. Bob Neuwirth, a friend of Bob Dylans, wrote a song in the 1960s called Where did Vincent van Gogh. The title track for Joni Mitchells album Turbulent Indigo references Van Goghs madness, the album cover is a take on Van Goghs Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear. A Spanish Group is named La Oreja de Van Gogh, the Vigilantes of Love released a song titled Skin which is about Van Gogh. Smooth jazz composer/singer Michael Franks released the song Vincents Ear in 1990 on his Blue Pacific album produced on the Reprise label, lyrics include No-one understands all the love inside he tried to give/No-one understands his life was hard to live. Lust for Life, a 1934 novel by Irving Stone, was adapted into a film of the same name and it was directed by Vincente Minnelli and George Cukor and produced by John Houseman. The 1956 film starred Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh and Anthony Quinn as Paul Gauguin, the film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including best actor and best supporting actor, for which Anthony Quinn won. In 1948, Alain Resnais made the documentary Van Gogh, resnais’ black-and-white film featured only Van Gogh’s canvases. According to art and film historian John Walker, the personal crisis was inscribed in the images on screen by means of accelerated montage
7.
Post-Impressionism
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Post-Impressionism is a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction against Impressionists concern for the depiction of light. The movement was led by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, the term Post-Impressionism was first used by art critic Roger Fry in 1906. Three weeks later, Roger Fry used the term again when he organized the 1910 exhibition, Manet, the Post-Impressionists were dissatisfied with what they felt was the triviality of subject matter and the loss of structure in Impressionist paintings, though they did not agree on the way forward. Georges Seurat and his followers concerned themselves with Pointillism, the use of tiny dots of colour. Paul Cézanne set out to restore a sense of order and structure to painting, to make of Impressionism something solid and durable and he achieved this by reducing objects to their basic shapes while retaining the saturated colours of Impressionism. The Impressionist Camille Pissarro experimented with Neo-Impressionist ideas between the mid-1880s and the early 1890s, Vincent van Gogh used colour and vibrant swirling brush strokes to convey his feelings and his state of mind. Although they often exhibited together, Post-Impressionist artists were not in agreement concerning a cohesive movement, yet, the abstract concerns of harmony and structural arrangement, in the work of all these artists, took precedence over naturalism. Artists such as Seurat adopted a scientific approach to colour. Younger painters during the early 20th century worked in geographically disparate regions and in various categories, such as Fauvism and Cubism. Most of the artists in Frys exhibition were younger than the Impressionists, Fry later explained, For purposes of convenience, it was necessary to give these artists a name, and I chose, as being the vaguest and most non-committal, the name of Post-Impressionism. This merely stated their position in time relatively to the Impressionist movement, john Rewald limited the scope to the years between 1886 and 1892 in his pioneering publication on Post-Impressionism, From Van Gogh to Gauguin. This volume would extend the period covered to other artistic movements derived from Impressionism, though confined to the late 19th, Rewald focused on such outstanding early Post-Impressionists active in France as van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Redon. Pont-Aven School, implying more than that the artists involved had been working for a while in Pont-Aven or elsewhere in Brittany. Symbolism, a highly welcomed by vanguard critics in 1891. Rewald wrote that the term Post-Impressionism is not a precise one. Convenient, when the term is by definition limited to French visual arts derived from Impressionism since 1886, rewalds approach to historical data was narrative rather than analytic, and beyond this point he believed it would be sufficient to let the sources speak for themselves. Rival terms like Modernism or Symbolism were never as easy to handle, for they covered literature, architecture and other arts as well, Symbolism, however, is considered to be a concept which emerged a century later in France, and implied an individual approach
8.
Auberge Ravoux
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The Auberge Ravoux is a French historic landmark located in the heart of the village of Auvers-sur-Oise. It is known as the House of Van Gogh because the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life as a lodger at the auberge. During his stay at Auvers, Van Gogh created more than 80 paintings and 64 sketches before shooting himself in the chest on 27 July 1890, the auberge has been restored and is now a museum and tourist attraction. The room where Van Gogh lived and died has been restored, the auberge was built in the mid-nineteenth century as a family home on the main road leading to Pontoise. Various parts of buildings were incorporated into the auberge – including an entire eighteenth-century wall. The auberge was ideally situated in front of the Town Hall, the daughter of Mr Levert, the original owner, put the centrality of the location to use by opening a retail wine business. During Van Gogh’s stay, the rooms were all occupied by Dutch, the Spaniard artist Nicolás Martínez de Valdivieso, who lived nearby, took his meals at the auberge with Van Gogh. Van Gogh arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise on 20 May 1890 and he had spent a year in a convalescent home in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and wanted to settle in the North, closer to Paris. Camille Pissarro, a friend of Van Goghs, suggested that he go to Auvers-sur-Oise where Dr Gachet lived, Dr Gachet had treated mental patients before and was interested in and sympathetic to the arts. The doctor was immortalized in a portrait Van Gogh made of him in June of that year, which fetched a record price of $82.5 million in 1990. Upon arrival in Auvers, Van Gogh decided to stay at the Auberge Ravoux, mainly because it was cheaper than the proposed by Dr. Gachet. At the Auberge Ravoux, Vincent paid 3 francs 50 a day, half board, and rented room 5, an attic room measuring 75 square feet and containing only a bed, a dressing table. He stored his paintings and drawings in a shed at the back and he became acquainted with Arthur Ravoux and his family and painted a portrait of Adeline Ravoux, the eldest daughter of Ravoux, on more than one occasion. Van Gogh was charmed by the village and in a letter to his brother Theo van Gogh praised its old thatched roofs and colours and he found the juxtaposition between the rustic country life and recent modern additions such as the railway and the bridge on the River Oise fascinating. He was in health, covering large distances with his painting gear. Despite his love of his new surroundings and his activity, on the morning of 27 July 1890, Van Gogh walked into a field. The bullet was deflected by a rib and lodged in his stomach and he survived the impact and managed to walk back to the auberge. Adeline Ravoux later recalled, Vincent walked bent, holding his stomach, crossed the hall, took the staircase and climbed to his bedroom
