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.
Vincent van Gogh's health
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There is no consensus on Vincent van Goghs health. His death in 1890 is generally accepted to have been a suicide, many competing hypotheses have been advanced as to possible medical conditions from which he may have suffered. These include epilepsy, bipolar disorder, sunstroke, acute intermittent porphyria, lead poisoning, various symptoms are described in Van Goghs letters and other documents such as the asylum register at Saint-Rémy. The symptoms include, poor digestion and a bad stomach, hallucinations, nightmares, stupor, absent mindedness, impotence, insomnia, and anxiety. Van Gogh suffered from some sort of seizures or crises, and in one of these attacks, on December 23,1888, he cut off a part, or possibly all, of his ear. Following that attack, he was admitted to hospital in Arles, Dr. Félix Rey, a young intern at the hospital, also suggested there might be a kind of epilepsy involved that he characterised as mental epilepsy. These attacks became more frequent by 1890, the longest and severest lasting some 9 weeks from February to April 1890. Initial attacks of confusion and unconsciousness were followed by periods of stupor and incoherence during which he was unable to paint, draw. One of the most frequent complaints in Van Goghs letters is the problems he endured with his stomach, Van Gogh suffered from hallucinations and nightmares at times. He often reported that he was suffering from fever, at various times he reported bouts of insomnia. He was unable to sleep for three weeks prior to his diagnosis of gonorrhea in The Hague, on occasions he sunk into a kind of stupor. Van Gogh reported his impotence to Theo, his brother, in the summer after he arrived in Arles, Van Gogh mentioned suicide several times in his letters towards the end of his life, nevertheless Naifeh and Smith note that van Gogh was fundamentally opposed to suicide. Many analytics, such as American psychiatrist Dietrich Blumer, agree that one of the things Vincent van Gogh suffered from was bipolar disorder and this mental illness builds up on itself and will grow stronger if not treated. Bipolar disorder is characterized by manic and depressive episodes, manic episodes feature reckless behavior, euphoria, depressive episodes feature symptoms of depression, anger, indecisiveness, social withdrawal, and often recurring thoughts of death or suicide. Many of these symptoms can be detected throughout his biography and explain many of his actions, from a young age, van Gogh grew up with a strong connection to painting and religion. After having worked at his uncle’s art dealership in the Netherlands, he transferred to another location in London. After she refused his proposal, he suffered his first mental breakdown. This setback at age 20 certainly marked a first step in to the spiral representing his health
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
9.
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
10.
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
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Theodorus Theo van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theos unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting. Theo died at the age of 33, six months after his brother died at the age of 37, Theodorus Theo van Gogh was born on 1 May 1857 in the village Groot-Zundert in the province of North Brabant, Netherlands. He was the son of Theodorus van Gogh and Anna Cornelia Carbentus and his elder brother was Vincent van Gogh, who later became a famous painter. Theo worked for years at the Dutch office of the Parisian art dealers Goupil & Cie in The Hague. Theo joined the Brussels office on 1 January 1873 as their youngest employee, after Theo was transferred to the London office, he moved to the office in The Hague, where he developed into a successful art dealer. By 1884, he was transferred to the Paris main office, starting in the winter of 1880–1881, he sent painting materials as well as monthly financial support to his brother and painter Vincent van Gogh, who was living back in the Netherlands. In Paris, Theo met Andries Bonger and his sister Johanna and he married Johanna in Amsterdam on 17 April 1889 and they moved to Paris. Their son Vincent Willem was born in Paris on 31 January 1890, on 8 June, the family visited Vincent, who was living near Paris in Auvers-sur-Oise. Vincent died in July 1890 at age 37, Theo suffered from dementia paralytica, an infection of the brain, and his health declined rapidly after Vincents death. Weak and unable to come to terms with Vincents absence, he died six months later at age 33 in Den Dolder, Theo admired his elder brother Vincent for his whole life. But communicating with him proved to be difficult, even before Vincent opted to follow his artistic vocation, the communication between both brothers suffered from diverging definitions of standards, and it was evidently Theo who kept on writing letters. Therefore, mostly Vincents answers survived and few of Theos, Theo was often concerned about Vincents mental condition and he was amongst the few who understood his brother. It is known that Theo helped Vincent to maintain his artist lifestyle by giving him money and he also helped Vincent pursue his life as an artist through his unwavering emotional support and love. The majority of Theo’s letters and communications with Vincent are filled with praise, Vincent would send Theo sketches and ideas for paintings, along with accounts of his day to day experiences, to the delight and eager attention of Theo. Theo was instrumental in the popularity of Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet and Edgar Degas by persuading his employers, Goupil & Cie, to exhibit and buy their works. In 1886, Theo invited Vincent to come and live with him in Paris, the two brothers maintained an intensive correspondence, with Theo often encouraging his depressed brother. Theo was one of the few people who Vincent could talk to, over three-quarters of the more than 800 letters Vincent wrote during his life were to Theo, including his first and his last letters
11.
Wil van Gogh
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Wilhelmina Jacoba Wil van Gogh was a nurse and early feminist. She is best known as the youngest sister of the artist Vincent van Gogh, wilhelmina Jacoba van Gogh was born on 16 March 1862 in Zundert in the Netherlands, daughter of Theodorus van Gogh and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. She had three brothers Vincent, Theo, and Cor, and two sisters Elisabeth and Anna, during the first part of her life Wil van Gogh served her family and others, nursing the sick. After the death of her brothers in 1890 and 1891, she obtained a modest job in a hospital, There she engaged in the committee to organise the National exhibition of womens work,1898. This was a successful enterprise and funds raised from the exhibition,20,000 Dutch guilders. No sources record what happened, but on 4 December 1902 Wil van Gogh was interned and later transferred to the House Veldwijk, the diagnosis of dementia praecox, on which this measure was based, was at the time considered a fatal illness. Asylum records later noted, There has been no significant change in the condition of this long-standing patient and she remains solitary and withdrawn, rarely speaks and generally does not respond to questions. She spends her day in the same place in the lounge, sitting in her chair. She has refused food for years and has to be fed artificially, Wil van Gogh remained at Ermelo for almost four decades before she died there on 17 May 1941. Whether she was ill or not is nowadays difficult to prove. Renate Berger asserts that Wil van Gogh shared the fate of many sisters of men at the time. Anonymous, Van Gogh, s-Gravenhage, Nederlands Patriciaat 50,1964, pp. 171–183 Berger, Renate, Willemina Jacoba van Gogh, Du bist sehr tapfer, liebe Schwester, in, Schwestern berühmter Männer
12.
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
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Johanna Gezina Jo van Gogh-Bonger was the wife of Theo van Gogh, art dealer, and the sister-in-law of the painter Vincent van Gogh and key player in the growth of Vincents fame. Johanna Gezina Bonger was born on 4 October 1862 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and she was the fifth of seven children, the daughter of an insurance broker. The family was musical, holding evening performances of quartets, and she stayed some months in London, working in the library of the British Museum. From the age of seventeen she kept a diary, which was to become a source of much information about Vincent van Gogh. At this time she came under the influence of the non-conformist writer Multatuli. At the age of twenty-two she became a teacher of English at a school for girls at Elburg. About this time while in Amsterdam she was introduced by her brother Andries to Theo van Gogh, one of the Van Gogh sisters described her as smart and tender. Theo became preoccupied with Johanna, and the following year paid a visit to Amsterdam to declare his love, surprised and annoyed that a man she hardly knew should wish to marry her, she rejected him. However, she accepted his proposal the following year, and they were married in Amsterdam on 17 April 1889 and their son Vincent Willem, was born on 31 January 1890. Following Theos death in January 1891, Johanna was left a widow with her infant son to support and she was left with only an apartment in Paris filled with a few items of furniture and about 200 then valueless works of her brother-in-law Vincent. She had not kept her diary during her marriage, but resumed it, to earn extra income she translated short stories from French and English into Dutch. In 1905, to the evident disapproval of her family, she was one of the members of a womens socialist movement. It is schoolgirlish twaddle, nothing more, in August 1901, she married Johan Cohen Gosschalk, a Dutch painter who was born in Amsterdam. She was widowed again in 1912, in 1914, she moved Theos body from Utrecht to Auvers-sur-Oise and interred it next to Vincents grave. A sprig of ivy taken from the garden of Dr Paul Gachet carpets both graves to this day, after the death of Vincent and her husband, she worked assiduously on editing the brothers correspondence, producing the first volume in Dutch in 1914. She also played a key role in the growth of Vincents fame and she wrote a Van Gogh family history as well. Johanna van Gogh stayed in contact with Vincent van Goghs friend Eugène Boch to whom she offered the portrait of Eugene Boch in July 1891. She also stayed in touch with Émile Bernard, who helped her to promote Vincent van Goghs paintings, the legacy and renown of Vincent van Gogh the long-suffering artist began to spread in the years after his death, first in the Netherlands, and Germany and then throughout Europe
13.
Andries Bonger
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Andries Bonger, nicknamed Dries, was Johanna van Gogh-Bongers favorite brother. Bonger was a friend of his future brother-in-law Theo van Gogh in Paris and it was through Andries that Johanna and Theo met. He also knew Vincent van Gogh who called him André in letters and he mentioned that Van Gogh was not very strong, and so this was a very melancholy circumstance. In several letters over the remainder of the year, Bonger comments on an appreciation for. Vincent van Gogh arrived in Paris in 1886 which meant that Bonger saw less of Theo, Bonger expressed his concern that Vincent van Gogh was harsh with his brother Theo, who had begun to look haggard. Theo met Bongers parents during a visit to the Netherlands about August,1886, Bonger went into the insurance business later in Amsterdam. He was a friend of Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon. His collection also included works by Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne and Émile Bernard and he is buried at Zorgvlied cemetery
14.
Theo van Gogh (film director)
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Theodoor Theo van Gogh was a Dutch film director, film producer, television director, television producer, television presenter, screenwriter, actor, critic and author. On 2 November 2004, Van Gogh was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, Theo van Gogh was born on 23 July 1957 in The Hague, Netherlands to Anneke and Johan van Gogh. His father served in the Dutch secret service and he was named after his paternal uncle Theo, who was captured and executed while working as a resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Theo van Gogh was the great-grandson of Theo van Gogh, the brother of painter Vincent van Gogh, after dropping out of law school at the University of Amsterdam, Van Gogh became a stage manager. His self-proclaimed passion was film-making, and he made his debut as a director with the movie Luger and he was awarded a Gouden Kalf for Blind Date and In het belang van de staat. For the latter, he received a Certificate of Merit from the San Francisco International Film Festival. As an actor, he appeared in the film, De noorderlingen and he made numerous films, many on political themes. From the 1990s, van Gogh worked in television and his last book was Allah weet het beter, in which he strongly condemned Islam. He was a critic of Islam, particularly after the September 11 attacks in the United States. He supported the nomination of writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali for the Dutch parliament, born in Somalia, she had immigrated to the Netherlands to escape an arranged marriage. She became a writer and liberal politician, in the 1980s, Van Gogh became a newspaper columnist. Through the years he used his columns to express his frustration with politicians, actors, film directors, writers and he delighted in provocation and became a controversial figure, frequently criticizing Islamic cultures. He used his website, De Gezonde Roker, to express criticism of multicultural society. He said the Netherlands was so rife with social turmoil that it was in danger of turning into something Belfast-like, working from a script written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Van Gogh created the 10-minute short film Submission. The movie deals with violence against women in some Islamic societies, it tells the stories, using visual shock tactics, the title, Submission, is a translation of the word Islam into English. Following the broadcast, both Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali received death threats, Van Gogh did not take the threats seriously and refused any protection. According to Hirsi Ali, he said, Nobody kills the village idiot, Van Gogh was a member of the Dutch Republican society Republikeins Genootschap, which advocates the abolition of the Dutch monarchy. He was a friend and supporter of the controversial Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, the killer shot Van Gogh eight times with an HS2000 handgun
15.
Anton Mauve
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Anthonij Rudolf Mauve was a Dutch realist painter who was a leading member of the Hague School. Mauve or with a monogrammed A. M, a master colorist, he was a very significant early influence on his cousin-in-law Vincent van Gogh. Most of Mauves work depicts people and animals in outdoor settings, in his Morning Ride in the Rijksmuseum, for example, fashionable equestrians at the seacoast are seen riding away from the viewer. An unconventional detail, horse droppings in the foreground, attests his commitment to realism and his best known paintings depict peasants working in the fields. His paintings of flocks of sheep were especially popular with American patrons, Anton Mauve was born on 18 September 1838 in Zaandam, a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. A year after his birth, his father Willem Carel Mauve, a Mennonite chaplain, was sent to Haarlem and he was apprenticed to the painter Pieter Frederik van Os followed by Wouter Verschuur. In his further development he worked with Paul Gabriël, painting from nature, and they stayed and worked together at Oosterbeek. He was a friend of Jozef Israëls and Willem Maris, in the last two years of his life Mauve settled in the village of Laren in the region surrounding Hilversum called het Gooi. Mauve will have influenced other painters one of whom was the Scottish painter. Mauve died suddenly in Arnhem on 5 February 1888, Mauve was married to van Goghs cousin Ariëtte Sophia Jeannette Carbentus, and he was a major influence on van Gogh, who revered him. He is mentioned, directly or indirectly, in 152 of van Goghs surviving letters, a comparative table of number of letters mentioning his most significant influences is shown in the table. Mauve continued to him and lent him money to rent and furnish a studio. Van Gogh continued his letter by expressing his sorrow, and then launches defiantly into a defence of his relationship with Clasina Maria Hoornik. Vincent is keeping something back that may not be divulged, the reality was that they were lovers. The presumption must be that Mauve had heard of the relationship, however, their relationship had already become strained by late January. Nevertheless, van Gogh continued to hold Mauve in very high esteem, now here, for instance, at this moment, I have 6 paintings of blossoming fruit trees. You may well see it, since I’ve decided to send one to Jet Mauve. I’ve written on it Souvenir de Mauve Vincent & Theo, van Gogh und die Haager Schule, Skira, Milan 1996 ISBN 88-8118-072-3 Engel, E. P. Anton Mauve
16.
Johannes Stricker
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Johannes Paulus Stricker was a Dutch theologian and biblical scholar. He attended the University of Leiden where he worked with J. F. van Oordt and he sat his ordination examination in May 1841, and was appointed to a ministerial post in October of that year. In December of that year, he married Willemina Carbentus, a sister of Vincent van Goghs mother. As an uncle he tutored the young Vincent in theology and biblical criticism in 1877-78, in the summer of 1881, van Gogh became infatuated with Strickers daughter Kee. He proposed marriage, but was rebuffed with an adamant no, nay, never
17.
Anna Boch
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Anna Rosalie Boch was a Belgian painter, born in Saint-Vaast, Hainaut. Anna Boch died in Ixelles in 1936 and is interred there in the Ixelles Cemetery, Brussels, Boch participated in the Neo-Impressionist movement. Her early works used a Pointillist technique, but she is best known for her Impressionist style which she adopted for most of her career, a pupil of Isidore Verheyden, she was influenced by Théo van Rysselberghe whom she met in the Groupe des XX. Besides her own paintings, Boch held one of the most important collections of impressionist paintings of her time and she promoted many young artists including Vincent van Gogh whom she admired for his talent and who was a friend of her brother Eugène Boch. The Vigne Rouge, purchased by Anna Boch, was believed to be the only painting Van Gogh sold during his lifetime. The Anna Boch collection was sold after her death, in her will, she donated the money to pay for the retirement of poor artist friends. 140 of her own paintings were left to her godchild Ida van Haelewijn, many of these paintings show Ida van Haelewijn as a little girl in the garden. In 1968 these 140 paintings were purchased by her great nephew Luitwin von Boch, the paintings remained in the house of Ida van Haelewijn until her death in 1992. The Anna & Eugène Boch Expo opened March 30,2011, some paintings were also donated by Anna Bochs will to various museums like the Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique. Different exhibitions of her life and work were held at the Royal Museum of Mariemont at Morlanwelz and her name is associated with famous museums like the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the Musée dOrsay in Paris or the Van Goghhuis in Zundert, the Netherlands. In 2005 the Belgian historian Dr Therèse Thomas published a catalogue raisonné, in 2010 a great great great nephew of Anna Boch and Dr Therèse Thomas created the Anna Boch. com website. Since 2011 the website is edited from the Cremerie de Paris, P. & V. Berko, Dictionary of Belgian painters born between 1750 &1875, Knokke 1981, p.51. Anna Boch. com - includes painting reproductions Newsletter on Anna Boch
18.
Fernand Cormon
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Fernand Cormon was a French painter born in Paris. He became a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel, Eugène Fromentin, and Jean-François Portaels and his father was the playwright Eugène Cormon. His mother was Charlotte Furais, the actress, the Musée dOrsay has his Cain flying before Jehovahs Curse, and for the Mairie of the fourth arrondissement of Paris he executed in grisaille a series of panels, Birth, Death, Marriage, War, etc. A Chiefs Funeral, and a series of paintings for the Museum of natural history in Paris with themes from the Stone Age. He was appointed to the Legion of Honor in 1880, subsequently he also devoted himself to portraiture. Among his students with whom he was unsuccessful on this point were, for instance, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Louis Anquetin, Eugène Boch, Paul Tampier, Émile Bernard, other students included Alphonse Osbert, Marius Borgeaud, and Theodor Pallady. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Atelier Cormon ~1885 (note e. g. Toulouse-Lautrec, Tampier, Anquetin, last row, second after sculpture, É. Bernard
19.
Paul Gachet
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Paul-Ferdinand Gachet was a French physician most famous for treating the painter Vincent van Gogh during his last weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise. Gachet was a supporter of artists and the Impressionist movement. He was a painter, signing his works Paul van Ryssel, referring to his birthplace. Born and raised in Lille, his family moved to Mechelen and he qualified for a B. A. at the University of Paris and then worked at the mental hospitals of Bicêtre and Salpêtrière. In 1858 he received a degree for his thesis Étude sur la Mélancolie. He returned to Paris and set up a private practice and he knew Gustave Courbet, Champfleury, Victor Hugo and later Paul Cézanne. He was a friend of the chemist Henri Nestlé and prescribed Nestlés new powdered milk supplement to some of his child patients and he spent much time with Charles Méryon after the etchers committal to Charenton. He oversaw Auguste Renoirs recovery from pneumonia in 1882 and he advised Édouard Manet against the amputation of his leg. However, Manet did not follow this advice, Gachets tomb is situated in section 52 of Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Vincents brother, Theo van Gogh, thought that Gachets background, very soon after he began seeing Gachet, however, Vincent began to doubt the doctors usefulness. Vincent described Gachet as, sicker than I am, I think, Gachet has come in for much criticism over the years regarding Van Goghs suicide after ten weeks of consultation. However Van Gogh was either unable or unwilling to follow his doctors advice to cut back on alcohol, according to Arnold, there was not much else available to any physician of the day which could have reversed the course of Vincents illness. Gachet was friends with and treated Pissarro, Renoir, Manet, Cézanne and Goeneutte and he had amassed one of the largest impressionist art collections in Europe before he died in 1909. Paul Gachet at Find a Grave
20.
Paul Gauguin
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Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a French post-Impressionist artist. Underappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his use of color. His work was influential to the French avant-garde and many artists, such as Pablo Picasso. Many of his paintings were in the possession of Russian collector Sergei Shchukin and he was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer. He was also a proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms. Gauguin was born in Paris, France to Clovis Gauguin and Alina Maria Chazal on June 7,1848 and his birth coincided with revolutionary upheavals throughout Europe that year. His father, a 34-year-old liberal journalist, came from a family of petit-bourgeoisie entrepreneurs residing in Orléans and he was compelled to flee France when the newspaper for which he wrote was suppressed by French authorities. Gauguins mother, the 22-year-old Aline Marie Chazal, was the daughter of Andre Chazal, an engraver, and Flora Tristan and their union ended when Andre assaulted his wife Flora and was sentenced to prison for attempted murder. Paul Gauguins maternal grandmother, Flora Tristan, was the daughter of Thérèse Laisnay. Details of Thérèses family background are not known, her father, Don Mariano, was a Spanish nobleman, members of the wealthy Tristan Moscoso family held powerful positions in Peru. Nonetheless, Don Marianos unexpected death plunged his mistress and daughter Flora into poverty, when Floras marriage with Andre failed, she petitioned for and obtained a small monetary settlement from her fathers Peruvian relatives. She sailed to Peru in hopes of enlarging her share of the Tristan Moscoso family fortune and this never materialized, but she successfully published a popular travelogue of her experiences in Peru which launched her literary career in 1838. An active supporter of early socialist societies, Gauguins maternal grandmother helped to lay the foundations for the 1848 revolutionary movements, placed under surveillance by French police and suffering from overwork, she died in 1844. Her grandson Paul idolized his grandmother, and kept copies of her books with him to the end of his life. In 1850, Clovis Gauguin departed for Peru with his wife Alina and he died of a heart attack en route, and Alina arrived in Peru a widow with the 18-month-old Paul and his 2 ½ year-old sister, Marie. Gauguins mother was welcomed by her granduncle, whose son-in-law would shortly assume the presidency of Peru. To the age of six, Paul enjoyed an upbringing, attended by nursemaids. He retained a vivid memory of period of his childhood which instilled indelible impressions of Peru that haunted him the rest of his life
21.
John Peter Russell
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John Peter Russell was an Australian impressionist painter. Born and raised in Sydney, Russell moved to Europe in his teenage years to attend art school. A mans man, popular with students, Russell befriended fellow pupil Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh maintained correspondence with Russell throughout his life, Russells work was also admired by the French Impressionists, with whom he often painted. Russell returned to Sydney in old age, where he died and his works are held in major galleries in his home country and in Europe. John Peter Russell was born at the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst, the eldest of four children of John Russell, J. P. Russell was a nephew of Sir Peter Nicol Russell. After his fathers death J. P. Russell enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, on 5 January 1881, Russell then went to Paris to study painting under Fernand Cormon. His fellow students there included Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Émile Bernard, Russell was a man of means and, having married a beautiful Italian, Mariana Antoinetta Matiocco, he settled at Belle Île off the coast of Brittany, where he established an artists colony. He would have 11 children with Matiocco, of whom six survived, Russell had met Vincent van Gogh in Paris and formed a friendship with him. Van Gogh spoke highly of Russells work, and after his first summer in Arles in 1888 he sent twelve drawings of his paintings to Russell, to inform him about the progress of his work. Claude Monet often worked with Russell at Belle Île and influenced his style, due to his substantial private income Russell did not attempt to make his pictures well known. In 1897 and 1898 Henri Matisse visited Belle Île, Russell introduced him to impressionism and to the work of van Gogh. Matisses style changed radically, and he would later say Russell was my teacher, in 1907, Russells wife Matiocco died in Paris. Grief-stricken, Russell buried her next to his home and destroyed 400 of his oils, Auguste Rodin despaired at the destruction of those marvels, and in one of his final letters to Russell, said Your works will live, I am certain. One day you will be placed on the level with our friends Monet, Renoir. Russell returned to Sydney, where he suffered a heart attack. Thea Proctor, a cousin of Russell prominent in Sydney art and society circles, Russell was a friend of Auguste Rodin and Emmanuel Frémiet, and his wifes beauty is immortalised in Rodins Minerve sans Casque and Fremiets Joan of Arc. Five of Russells sons served in France during World War I and his portrait of van Gogh, painted about 1886-87, was acquired by the Van Gogh Museum, at Amsterdam in 1938
22.
Agostina Segatori
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She is also known for running the Café du Tambourin in Paris. Agostina Segatori was born in the Italian city of Ancona, in 1860 she posed for Manet and in 1873 for Jean-Baptiste Corot. Little is known of her life until she met the Parisian painter Edward Dantan in 1873, Agostina Segatori had a child by Dantan, Jean-Pierre Segatori. In 1874, she was depicted by Edward Dantan in the first work that he exhibited at the Salon, during the summers of 1874,1875 and 1877, Agostina Segatori posed many times for Dantan. In 1884, Edward Dantan described his former mistress by the name of Madame Segatori-Morière and his son Jean-Pierre is also called Morière, so he may have been recognized or adopted by her husband. Agostina Segatori is not only known for being the mistress of Edward Dantan, she was the proprietress of the Café Tambourin, Agostina Segatori became famous for her relationship in the spring of 1887 with Vincent van Gogh, who lived in Paris from 1886 until 1888. We have little information on this relationship as Vincent van Gogh lived at the time with his brother, however Agostina Segatori was cited in two letters by the painter. It seems that Vincent van Gogh and Agostina Segatori were very fond of other, and she inspired the painter. Agostina Segatori gave Vincent van Goghs first exhibition at her Café Tambourin and their relationship quickly became stormy and they decided by mutual agreement to separate in July 1887. After this separation, Agostina Segatori improperly retained works by Van Gogh in her Café, Agostina Segatori died in Paris in 1910 after experiencing a number of setbacks including the loss of her Café. Segatoris Café du Tambourin was originally located at 27 rue de Richelieu in Paris, before reopening at 62 Boulevard de Clichy, the decor included works offered to her by Edward Dantan, but also featured those by Vincent van Gogh. In 1887, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created a portrait of Vincent van Gogh at the Café, in 1860, she posed for Manet, who painted her portrait known as The Italian. This work, now held in a collection in New York, was sold by the merchant Alphonse Portier to Alexander Cassatt. She then posed twice for the painter Jean-Baptiste Corot, the first work is called The Picture of Agostina and the second the Bacchante with tambourines. She was also painted by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Vincent van Gogh created two portraits of Agostina Segatori, one named The woman with the tambourine and the other the Italian
23.
Anthon van Rappard
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Anthon Gerard Alexander van Rappard was a Dutch painter and draughtsman. He was a pupil of Lawrence Alma-Tadema and for four years a friend and mentor of Vincent van Gogh. According to the RKD he worked in Paris, Brussels, Utrecht, Amsterdam and he studied at the Rijksakademie and was a member of the Utrecht artist societies Kunstliefde and Utrechtse Kunstkring, and Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam. The letters Van Gogh wrote to Van Rappard during their correspondence in the years 1881-1885 are a source for Van Goghs biography. Today, Van Rappards works are due to his short life
24.
Portraits of Vincent van Gogh
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This article refers to self portraits and portraits of Vincent van Gogh. It includes self-portraits, portraits of him by artists, and photographs. Van Goghs dozens of self-portraits were an important part of his oeuvre as a painter. Most probably, van Goghs self-portraits are depicting the face as it appeared in the mirror he used to reproduce his face, the first self-portrait by van Gogh that survived, is dated 1886. All the self-portraits executed in Saint-Rémy show the head from the left. No self-portraits were executed by van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise, during the weeks of his life. F208a, Self-Portrait with Dark Felt Hat is amongst the earliest of Vincents self-portraits and it was discovered late in the family collection and was not exhibited before 1945. Opinions differ about the date and place of its execution, de la Faille thought it painted in Antwerp before 1886, while Hulsker thought it painted in Paris in spring 1886. Hendriks and Tilborgh opt for autumn 1886, based on its resemblance to Vincents work that winter when he began to embrace Neo-impressionism, x-ray analysis reveals a nude figure study below. Since students did not work from the model at Antwerp. There is no work in Vincents oeuvre which complements this portrait. However Hendriks and Tilborgh are satisfied that the painting is consistent with others executed at the beginning, marc Edo Tralbaut, Vincents principal biographer, especially valorised the portrait, selecting it for the dust-jacket of his biography and stating that Vincent had laid himself bare for the portrait. Tralbaut notes that Vincent painted a number of self-portraits at this time and he was in poor health and his teeth were falling out, prompting him to grow a moustache to conceal them. At this time he was wearing city-clothes in an effort to stress his middle-class background as he strove to establish a career for himself as an artist. F627, This painting may have been van Goghs last self-portrait, f525, This painting may have been van Goghs last self-portrait, which he gave to his mother as a birthday gift. Van Gogh painted Self-Portrait without beard just after he had shaved himself, the painting can be seen in the third version of Bedroom in Arles at the Musée dOrsay. The self-portrait is one of the most expensive paintings of all time, at the time, it was the third most expensive painting ever sold. F476, Vincent van Gogh, Arles, gift, to Paul Gauguin, sold
25.
Portraits by Vincent van Gogh
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Vincent van Gogh lived during the Impressionist era. With the development of photography, painters and artists turned to conveying the feeling and ideas behind people, places, Impressionist artists did this by emphasizing certain hues, using vigorous brushstrokes, and paying attention to highlighting. Vincent van Gogh implemented this ideology to pursue his goal of depicting his own feelings toward, Van Gogh’s portraiture focuses on color and brushstrokes to demonstrate their inner qualities and van Gogh’s own relationship with them. Vincent van Gogh painted portraits throughout his career from 1881 through 1890, Van Gogh was fascinated with making portraits early in his artistic career. Even so, he considered it a matter to focus on their character. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in November 1882 that he had drawn a portrait of Jozef Blok, unlike the character studies, the work was detailed in pencil with watercolor and chalk. At this time it was rare for Van Gogh to use color, in November 1882 Van Gogh began drawings of individuals to depict a range of character types from the working class. The peasant genre that greatly influenced Van Gogh began in the 1840s with the works of Jean-François Millet, Jules Breton, in 1885 Van Gogh described the painting of peasants as the most essential contribution to modern art. If one hasnt a horse, one is ones own horse, to depicting the essence of the life of the peasant and their spirit, Van Gogh lived as they lived, he was in the fields as they were, enduring the weather or long hours as they were. To do so was not something taught in schools, he noted, Van Gogh described his sitter for this painting a wonderful old man. It was made in Antwerp where Van Gogh hoped to bring in money to himself by painting portraits. Van Gogh made a series of paintings of Sien Hoornik, a prostitute whom he met, included in the series are works of Siens daughter, Maria, her newborn son and her mother. Van Gogh occasionally visited Café du Tambourin run by Agostina Segatori, the Italian Woman also called Le Italienne is without doubt Agostina Segatori, per the Musée dOrsay. Van Gogh introduced elements of Japanese woodcut prints in this portrait, surrounding her image is an asymmetrical border with a monochromatic background. He also brings, though, his own style and energy to the work as compared to the lines of the Asian prints. Van Gogh creates his own style of brushstroke from Impressionism and Pointillism and he uses red and green in her face which he later described as a technique to be able to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. The Portrait of Etienne-Lucien Martin was made of the owner of a restaurant in Paris and he allowed artists to exhibit their work. In November 1887 Van Gogh and his friends showed their works, Van Gogh made the painting of Martin with care and precision
26.
Early works of Vincent van Gogh
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The early works of Vincent van Gogh is a group of paintings and drawings that Vincent van Gogh made when he was 27 and 28, in 1881 and 1882, his first two years of serious artistic exploration. Over the course of the two-year period Van Gogh lived in several places and he left Brussels, where he had studied for about a year in 1881, to return to his parents home in Etten, where he made studies of some of the residents of the town. In January 1882 Van Gogh went to The Hague where he studied with his cousin-in-law Anton Mauve and set up a studio, in 1882 Van Gogh had an offer for a commission of paintings of The Hague however the paintings, now considered masterpieces, were not acceptable. Van Gogh started out primarily drawing and painting with watercolor, under Mauves tutelage Van Gogh began painting with oils in 1882. A subject that fascinated Van Gogh was the class or peasant, inspired by the works of Jean-François Millet. In July 1869, Van Goghs uncle Philip James Quinlan helped him obtain a position with the art dealer Goupil & Cie in The Hague. After his training, in June 1873, Goupil transferred him to London, where he lodged at 87 Hackford Road, Brixton and this was a happy time for him, he was successful at work and was, at 20, earning more than his father. He fell in love with his landladys daughter, Eugénie Loyer and he was increasingly isolated and fervent about religion. His father and uncle sent him to Paris to work in a dealership, however, he became resentful at how art was treated as a commodity, a fact apparent to customers. On 1 April 1876, his employment was terminated, Van Gogh explored his interest in ministry to serve working people. He studied for a time in the Netherlands but his zeal and he became somewhat embittered and rejected the church establishment, yet found a personal spirituality that was comforting and important to him. By 1879, he made a shift in the direction of his life and found he could express his love of God and man through painting. After having moved to Brussels Van Gogh decided to study on his own, rather than at the art academy, often in the company of Dutch artist Anthon van Rappard. It is at this point his brother Theo, working as an art dealer at the Paris Goupil & Cie branch, began sending him money for support, a practice that continued throughout the brothers lives. In April 1881, Van Gogh moved to the Etten countryside in the Netherlands with his parents where he continued drawing, through the summer he spent much time walking and talking with his recently widowed cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker. She was the daughter of his mothers sister and Johannes Stricker. Although Van Gogh would have liked to marry Stricker, given her decisive refusal, No, never, never and his inability to support himself financially, marriage was out of the question. That Christmas he quarreled violently with his father, to the point of refusing a gift of money, in January 1882, he settled in The Hague where he called on his cousin-in-law, the painter Anton Mauve
27.
Lost works by Vincent van Gogh
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A part of the work that remained with his family when he left the Netherlands must be considered lost, and the remaining early works of Vincent van Gogh tell an incomplete story. Van Gogh himself wrote that he had stored some 70 painted studies in the attic of his studio when he left The Hague, but only some 25 of these are now known. Some of those involved in the trade have been interviewed by journalists and art researchers. The father of Vincent van Gogh, the Nuenen pastor Theo van Gogh, Vincent moved to Antwerp on November 27. In the following months his mother, Anna-Cornelia van Gogh-Carbentus, decided to move to a home for her and her daughter Wil. They found a part of a house on the corner of the Nieuwe Ginnekenstraat and Wapenplein in Breda. Vincents mother had a part of the furniture, including Vincents possessions and it ended up in a warehouse owned by a carpenter, Adrianus Schrauwen, living in the Ginnekenstraat. When the furniture and boxes were later retrieved, Vincents sister Wil discovered traces of woodworm in the crates and he wondered if he had to help with arrangements in Nuenen. Vincent went to Paris at the end of February 1886 and he did not help his family with packing. When the family moved, the things that Vincent had left behind when he went to Antwerp, including wood engravings, the carpenters name was Adrianus Schrauwen. In a letter from Arles to his sister Wil from June 1888 Vincent writes and it is perhaps worth saving what is good among the rubbish which, as Theo says, is still in an attic somewhere in Breda. I dare not ask, however, and perhaps it is lost, in a postscript of a letter in early August 1888, Vincent asks Wil to bring him some wood engravings and prints that had remained in Breda. This could mean that Vincent considered his work in the attic at Schrauwen lost, in any case, in 1888 Theo and Wil knew of belongings that had been left behind in Breda. In a letter from Vincent to Wil he says that Wil, the population register in Breda mentions that the move took place on November 2,1889. On this basis, it is assumed that in the beginning of November 1889 his mother and Wil reclaimed their possessions from Schrauwen, but left Vincents boxes because of the alleged woodworm. Seventeen years later, in 1903, Schrauwen invited a market merchant Mr. J. C. Couvreur to sell some belongings, such as a small can, a pot and other kitchen equipment. Couvreur offered 2.50 guilders and Schrauwen accepted on condition that he take the rubbish which he had stored in his attic for so long. She said to me, That I do not want to have in my house, I said, you can never know what those things may turn out to be worth, but my wife said, those things go out the door or I go out the door
28.
Sien (Van Gogh series)
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Vincent van Gogh drew and painted a series of works of his mistress Sien during their time together in the Netherlands. In particular, his drawing Sorrow is widely acknowledged as a masterwork of draftsmanship, commonly called Sien Hoornik, Clasina Maria Hoornik lived with van Gogh during much of his time in The Hague from 1881 to 1883. Van Gogh used Sien, a pregnant prostitute, as a model for his work and later took Sien, Van Gogh made drawings and paintings of Sien and her daughter, baby and mother over that period, which reflected the domestic life and hardships of the working poor. Their relationship was not accepted by his family or supporters, although his brother Theo did not withdraw his support over it, at his brother Theos urging, van Gogh left Sien in 1883 to paint in Drenthe, ending the only domestic relationship he would ever have. Sien resumed her life as a seamstress, cleaning woman and likely prostitute before marrying in 1901. On 12 November 1904, aged 54, she threw herself into the Schelde river and drowned, fulfilling a prediction she had made to van Gogh in 1883, it’s bound to end up with me jumping into the water. In the summer of 1881, van Gogh fell in love with his widowed cousin. He proposed marriage, but was rebuffed with an adamant no, nay, Mauve was a successful and noted artist, a leading member of the Hague School and a master colorist whose paintings found a ready market both home and abroad. He had married van Goghs cousin, Ariëtte Carbentus, in 1874 while she was very young and he was already established and successful. After a last, humiliating, effort to win Kee over, on Christmas Day that year he refused to attend church, provoking a violent quarrel with his father, a pastor, which resulted in his leaving home the very same day. He returned to The Hague and studied further under Mauve and he also introduced van Gogh to painting, first in oils and then with watercolor. At the end of January 1882, on his own account, van Gogh met a homeless, pregnant, the exact date of this meeting is not known beyond van Goghs dating of it in a letter to Theo written in May. However another letter written mid-January mentions he was negotiating modelling with a mother with a little child, based on the dates, van Gogh could not have been the father of the child. Sien was born in 1850, the eldest of ten children of Pieter Hoornik, a porter in the district of the Geest. To provide for the family, Sien and her mother worked as seamstresses and their earnings were supplemented by what Siens brother, Pieter, could provide from the income of his chair-making business. The family often relied upon public assistance, for a time Sien and some of her siblings lived at a Catholic orphanage, relying on assistance from the public soup kitchen and church charities. So meager were her earnings, she turned to prostitution for a better income, by the age of 32, the unmarried Sien had given birth to four children, two of whom lived, Maria Wilhelmina, born about 1877, and Willem, born July 1882. Sien posed for van Gogh throughout the winter, in exchange, van Gogh provided Sien and her daughter with a place to live and food to eat
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Peasant Character Studies (Van Gogh series)
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Peasant Character Studies is a series of works that Vincent van Gogh made between 1881 and 1885. Van Gogh had an attachment and sympathy for peasants and other working class people that was fueled in several ways. He was particularly fond of the peasant genre work of Jean-François Millet and he found the subjects noble and important in the development of modern art. Van Gogh had a particular interest in creating character studies of working men and women in the Netherlands and Belgium, such as farmers, weavers, and fishermen. Making up a body of Van Goghs work during this period. The peasant genre of the Realism movement began in the 1840s with the works of Jean-François Millet, Jules Breton, Van Gogh described the works of Millet and Breton as having religious significance, something on high, and described them as being the voices of the wheat. The Van Gogh Museum says of Millets influence on Van Gogh, Millets paintings, with their depictions of peasants and their labors. Before Millet, peasant figures were just one of many elements in picturesque or nostalgic scenes, in Millets work, individual men and women became heroic and real. Millet was the major artist of the Barbizon School who was not interested in pure landscape painting. In 1880 when he was 27 years old, Van Gogh decided to become an artist, in October of that year he moved to Brussels and began a beginners course of study. Van Gogh returned to Etten in April 1881 to live with his parents and his younger brother Theo, an art dealer at the main branch of Goupil & Cie, encouraged him and started covering Van Goghs expenses. Van Gogh used images from illustrated magazines to teach himself how to draw, Charles Bargue, a French artist, wrote two books on drawing that were a significant source of study for Van Gogh. In January 1882, he settled in The Hague where he called on his cousin-in-law, Mauve introduced him to painting in both oil and watercolor and lent him money to set up a studio. Van Gogh began drawing people from the poor, including the prostitute Clasina Maria Sien Hoornik. Van Gogh dreamed his studio would one day become a form of respite for the poor where they could receive food, shelter and money for posing. His work was not well received, Mauve and H. G. Tersteeg, manager of Goupil & Cie, considered the drawings coarse, Van Gogh likened the unrefined characteristics of his drawings to harsh yellow soap made of lye. Van Goghs relationship with Sien changed as they lived together with Maria, her five-year-old daughter, Mauve appears to have suddenly gone cold towards Van Gogh and did not return a number of his letters. Van Gogh supposed that Mauve did not approve of his arrangement with Sien
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Cottages (Van Gogh series)
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Cottages is a subject of paintings created by Vincent van Gogh from 1883 and 1885. This is related to the Peasant Character Studies that Van Gogh worked on during the time period. Inspired by the work of Jean-François Millet and others working in the peasant genre, Van Gogh became interested in representing peasant life in his art. To depict the essence and spirit of their life, he for a time lived as they lived, he was in the fields as they were, enduring the weather for long hours as they were. To do so was not something taught in art schools, he wrote, so thoroughly was he engaged in living the peasant lifestyle that his appearance and manner of speech began to change. This alienated some of his friends and family, but was a cost, he believed, Van Gogh visited the province of Drenthe for three months, staying in Nieuw-Amsterdam. While there, he explored the countryside still untouched by progress found in larger towns, cottages is a study of farm cottages and an outbuilding that Van Gogh found on one of his treks. The dark cottage is set against the evening sky, here he was greatly impressed by the working poor, but unable to find models for his character studies. In 1882 Van Goghs father became pastor in Nuenen and the family lived at the vicarage at Nuenen, having been in Drenthe for several months, Van Gogh came to live with his parents in December 1883 and stayed there until May 1885. During the winter in Nuenen Van Gogh worked on studies of the local peasants. There was little to be done in the fields and Van Gogh was able to make connections to people through his father, Van Goghs character studies culminated in his famous painting The Potato Eaters. The Cottage was a home that the De Groot family, immortalized in The Potato Eaters shared with another family, the cottage has double front doors, a split chimney and quarters for two families. Seen in the light, the cottage seems peaceful. Van Gogh called the peasant homes human nests, Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage was one of the paintings that Van Gogh left behind when he went to Antwerp in 1885 and it went to his mother Anna Carbentus van Gogh. Houses at Auvers, a return to the subject of cottages by van Gogh in 1890 Impressionism List of works by Vincent van Gogh Postimpressionism Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Rémy
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Van Gogh's family in his art
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Van Goghs family in his art is a group of works that Vincent van Gogh made for or about Van Gogh family members. In 1881 Vincent drew a portrait of his grandfather, also named Vincent van Gogh, while living in Nuenen, Vincent memorialized his father in Still Life with Bible following his death in 1885. There he also many paintings and drawings in 1884 and 1885 of his parents vicarage, its garden. At the height of his career in Arles he made Portrait of the Artists Mother, Memory of the Garden at Etten of his mother and sister and Novel Reader, Vincent van Goghs grandfather was also named Vincent van Gogh. According to the artists first biographer, his sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh, the grandfather was a pastor, and the son of Johanna van der Vin of Malines and Johannes van Gogh. Johanna van Gogh writes that Johannes was at first a gold-wire drawer like his father, but he became a Bible teacher. She describes him as an intellectual, duty-bound man who was awarded prizes, a family legacy, from his great-uncle—a sculptor and a lifelong bachelor—allowed Vincent van Gogh to study divinity at the University of Leiden. After successfully completing his studies and having become established at the parsonage of Benschop and they remained married until Elisabeths death on 7 March 1857, the Reverend Vincent van Gogh lived until 1874. In July,1881 Vincent made Portrait of Artists Grandfather, the work was drawn in pencil and brown ink, with opaque white watercolor and a brown wash. The drawing is owned by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Theodorus van Gogh was born February 8,1822, one of eleven children and the only one of six brothers to become a pastor like his father. He was confirmed by his father, Vincent van Gogh, in Zundert on 1 April 1849, Reverend Theodorus van Gogh was pastor of the Protestant Dutch Reformed Church, which adhered to Calvinist doctrine. In May 1851 Theodorus married Anna Cornelia Carbentus, whose father was in the book business, according to Johanna van Gogh, Theodorus was a handsome man, he was called the handsome parson by some, he had an amiable character and fine spiritual qualities. Vincent van Gogh made a painting of his fathers Dutch Authorized Bible in Still Life with Bible months after Theodorus sudden death in March 1885, the Bible symbolizes his fathers faith, which Vincent saw as mired in convention. He painted the page open to the passage of Isaiah 53 and he placed Émile Zolas novel La Joie de vivre in front of the Bible which to him likely symbolized worldliness. The burned out candle shows an extinguishment—perhaps both of the life and of Vincents faith. Anna Cornelia Carbentus was born September 10,1819 at The Hague to Willem Carbentus and her younger sister Cornelia married Theodorus brother, Vincent van Gogh, the art dealer, and her older sister married a clergyman named Stricker. Anna became a devout and helpful clergymans wife, helping her husband in the parish and she enjoyed art and was artistically inclined, filling notebooks with drawings of plants and flowers and studied painting with Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen. She outlived her three sons and her husband, yet still retained her energy and spirit and bore her sorrow with rare courage
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Montmartre (Van Gogh series)
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The Montmartre paintings are a group of works that Vincent van Gogh made in 1886 and 1887 of the Paris district of Montmartre while living there with his brother Theo. Rather than capture urban settings in Paris, van Gogh preferred pastoral scenes, such as Montmartre, of the two years in Paris, the work from 1886 often has the dark, somber tones of his early works from the Netherlands and Brussels. By the spring of 1887 van Gogh embraced use of color and light, the works in the series provide examples of his work during that period of time and the progression he made as an artist. In 1886, van Gogh left the Netherlands for Paris and the guidance of his brother Theo van Gogh who was an art dealer. While he had influenced not only by the great Dutch masters but also to a considerable extent by his cousin-in-law Anton Mauve a Dutch realist painter. Coming to Paris meant that he would also have the opportunity to be influenced by Impressionists, Symbolists, Pointillists and his circle of friends included Camille Pissarro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard. Montmartre, sitting on a butte overlooking Paris, was known for its bars, cafes and it was also located on the edge of countryside that afforded Van Gogh the opportunity to work on paintings of rural settings while living in Paris. When Van Gogh painted he intended not just to capture the subject and it was through his paintings of nature that he was most successful at accomplishing his goal. It also created a challenge, how to portray the subject. The Boulevard de Clichy, a street in Montmartre, played an important role in van Goghs life in Paris, the Café du Tambourin was located there, a restaurant just around the corner from the apartment where he lived with his brother Theo. There van Gogh met with artists and displayed some of his works. He had a relationship with the owner of the establishment, Agostina Segatori, the painting of the Boulevard is Impressionistic in terms of subject and technique. Van Gogh used short brush strokes to depict the figures of the people, light is reflected off the road. Capturing a moment in a scene was a common theme for Impressionists. The vantage point for the painting was looking northwest from Place Blanche, Rue Lepics entrance is on the right side of the painting. Van Gogh also made a drawing of this site from a greater distance, Van Gogh created a number of paintings titled Le Moulin de la Galette, which was also called Moulin Bloute-Fin. In van Gogh’s first year in Paris he painted rural areas around Montmartre, such as the butte, the colors are somber and evoke a sense of his anxiety and loneliness. The landscape and windmills around Montmartre were the source of inspiration for a number of van Goghs paintings, the Moulin de la Galette, still standing, is located near the apartment he shared with his brother
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Outskirts of Paris (Van Gogh)
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Outskirts of Paris are paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in 1887, while he was living in Paris with his brother Theo. Van Gogh liked to explore the outskirts of Paris, searching for pastoral settings in parks and his goal was to find scenes that would allow him to explore techniques he learned in Paris. Like many Impressionsits, Van Gogh was concerned about the way in which the landscape and way of life was affected by technical progress and industrialization. Speaking for myself, in certain spots I do not look without a little sadness on a new red-tiled tavern, since then there have come beet-sugar factories, railways, agricultural developments of the heath, etc. which is infinitely less picturesque. One of the versions of Outskirts of Paris illustrates the encroachment of urban expansion to the pastoral life, to Van Gogh, industrialization meant loss of a revered lifestyle, the simple life of the peasant
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Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Paris)
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Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh is the subject of many drawings, sketches and paintings by Vincent van Gogh in 1886 and 1887 after he moved to Paris from the Netherlands. While in Paris, Van Gogh transformed the subjects, color and he saw the work and met the founders and key artists of Impressionism, Pointillism and other movements and began incorporating what he learned into his work. Japanese art, Ukiyo-e, and woodblock prints also influenced his approach to composition, There was a gradual change from the somber mood of his work in the Netherlands to a far more varied and expressive approach as he began introducing brighter color into his work. He painted many still life paintings of flowers, experimenting with color, light, by 1887 his work incorporated several elements of modern art as he began to approach his mature oeuvre. Another example are the Blue Vases paintings made in 1887 that incorporate both color and technique improvements that result in uplifting, colorful paintings of flowers, with the spring of 1887 Van Gogh left the city proper for a visit to Asnières with his friend Émile Bernard. While there his work was further transformed stylistically and through the use of bright, contrasting color, see his works from Asnières and Seine. From 1880 to 1885 Van Gogh began working as an artist in earnest and he was influenced not only by the great Dutch masters but also to a considerable extent by his cousin-in-law Anton Mauve a Dutch realist painter and a leading member of the Hague School. Van Goghs palette consisted mainly of earth tones, particularly dark brown. His brother Theo, an art dealer, commented that his work was too somber to be marketable and encouraged him to modern art, particularly Impressionism for its bright. In 1886, Van Gogh left the Netherlands and traveled to Paris to explore emerging artistic movements under the guidance and continued support of his brother Theo van Gogh, an art dealer. For four months, Van Gogh studied with Fernand Cormon, painting plaster casts, live nude models, There me met Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Émile Bernard, and Louis Anquetin. Through Theo and artistic social circles he also met Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Paul Signac, Georges Seurat, through the fellowship with these men, he was introduced to Impressionists, Symbolists, Pointillists, and Japanese art, Ukiyo-e, and woodcut prints. In spite of his manner, disheveled clothes and often time frightening manner. So much so that when Toulouse-Lautrec heard disparaging remarks against Van Gogh, seeing and trading artwork with the Parisian avant-garde artists, Van Gogh understood what Theo had been trying to tell him for years about modern art. He was able to experiment with each of the movements to develop his own style, romanticism was an art and literature movement formed by people looking to escape the drab world. Its characteristics are paintings of exotic lands with grandiose feeling and intense color, Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli developed a highly individual Romantic style of painting with richly colored, dappled, and textured painting and glazed surfaces. Vincent van Gogh, greatly admired his work after seeing it in Paris when he arrived there in 1886, Van Gogh was influenced by the richness that he perceived in Monticellis work. In 1890, Van Gogh and his brother Theo were instrumental in publishing the first book about Monticelli, the Impressionism movement was a change from traditional artistic techniques
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Le Moulin de la Galette (Van Gogh series)
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Le Moulin de la Galette is the subject and title of several paintings made by Vincent van Gogh in 1886 of a windmill. The Moulin de la Galette was near Van Goghs apartment with his brother, the owners of the windmill maximized the view on a butte overlooking Paris, creating a terrace for viewing and a dance hall for entertainment. The windmill paintings are a subset of paintings from Montmartre, in 1886 van Gogh left the Netherlands for Paris and the guidance of his brother Theo van Gogh. While van Gogh had been influenced by great Dutch masters, coming to Paris meant that he would have the opportunity to be influenced by Impressionists, Symbolists, Pointillists and his circle of friends included Émile Bernard, Paul Gauguin, Camille Pissarro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. Montmartre, sitting on a butte overlooking Paris, was known for its bars, cafes and it was also located on the edge of countryside that afforded van Gogh the opportunity to work on paintings of rural settings while living in Paris. The landscape and windmills around Montmartre were the source of inspiration for a number of van Goghs paintings, Moulin de la Galette, still standing, is located near the apartment that van Gogh shared with his brother Theo from 1886 until 1888. Built in 1622, it was originally called Blute-Fin and belonged to the Debray family in the 19th century, Moulin de la Galette was also the name of an outdoor dance hall that was located between two of the last windmills on a Montmartre hilltop. In addition to van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre-Auguste Renoir also painted Moulin de la Galette, renoirs painting of the dance hall is titled Bal du moulin de la Galette. In van Gogh’s first year in Paris he painted rural areas around Montmartre, such as the butte, the colors are somber and evoke a sense of his anxiety and loneliness. Le Moulin de la Galette, also called The Blute-Fin Windmill, Montmartre reflects van Goghs artistic transition from his work in the Netherlands which was somber, influenced by Impressionism, van Goghs painted this work with lighter colors and unrestrained brushstrokes to capture light and movement. Van Gogh made the painting from an empty lot on rue Lepic, the painting features the Moulin de Blute-Fin, a 17th-century grain-mill, which was an attraction for its views of Paris. At this time there were three windmills on the butte, but this was the windmill van Gogh favored as a subject for his paintings, Moulin a Poivre, a second windmill, is just inside the left frame of the painting on the horizon. The painting was sold by Scottish art dealer Alex Reid to William McInnes, Le Moulin de la Galette is an example how van Gogh used a technique for heavily applying paint called impasto that it created a relief effect, partly to convey emotion. The brushstrokes in the windmill and doorsteps are noticeable, the faces of the two people were created with just a couple of brushstrokes. In addition to Le Moulin de la Galette, which is also named The Blute-Fin Windmill, here are the images of paintings from van Goghs period in Paris that include windmills
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Seine (Van Gogh series)
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Seine is the subject and location of paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in 1886. The Seine has been a part of Parisian life for centuries for commerce, travel. Here van Gogh primarily captures the respite and relief from city life found in nature, a few of the paintings were made in Paris and the rest in the northwestern suburbs of Paris in Clichy and Asnières. Through these works the audience can see a transition in his work one of dark colors and serious themes to more joyous use of color and light. In the Netherlands van Gogh was influenced by great Dutch masters as well as cousin-in-law Anton Mauve a Dutch realist painter who was a member of the Hague School. In Paris van Gogh was exposed to and influenced by Impressionism, Symbolism, Pointillism, the spring of 1887 seemed to trigger an awakening within van Gogh where he experimented with the genres to develop his personal style. To dull colors, van Gogh often added black to his paintings, in 1886 van Gogh left the Netherlands for Paris never to return. His brother Theo, a successful Parisian art dealer, provided Vincent the support, starting March 1886 van Gogh studied with Fernand Cormon. During that time he lived with Theo who leased an apartment on Rue Lepic in Montmartre with space for a studio for his brother. Three months later Vincent abandoned his studies with Cormon, but his education continued on a basis as he met local artists. During 1886 he was introduced to Impressionist artists and their works, such as Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat, many of the Impressionist artists also shared his interest in Japanese ukiyo-e wood block prints. In the two years, from 1886 through 1888, Van Gogh emerged as a sophisticated, thoughtful, one of van Goghs quarrels with Impressionists, though, was subject matter. In the late 1880s the avant-garde painted the city, one modified significantly by the work of Baron Georges Haussmann. His plan was to build a city of grand boulevards, bridges and parks, which figure into van Goghs works of the Seine. The city lost tens of thousands of old buildings, some of them cherished historical buildings, paradoxically, renovations along the Seine provided some of artists most cherished views. Prior to the renovation buildings crowded the Seine, which could only be reached at right angles from narrow streets, new bridges were built and existing ones rebuilt, without shops and other structures that previously sat on the bridges. The city benefited by more light and air and improved commerce, to celebrate the modern city, Impressionists painted the changing urban landscape. Many, including van Gogh, felt that the city now dwarfed the individual and this was one of the key reasons for van Goghs growing unease in Paris
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Wheat Fields (Van Gogh series)
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Failing to find a vocation in ministry, Van Gogh turned to art as a means to express and communicate his deepest sense of the meaning of life. Van Gogh came to painting as a calling, I feel a certain indebtedness. Out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures -- not made to please a certain taste in art, but to express a sincere feeling. When Van Gogh left Paris for Arles, he sought an antidote to the ills of city life and work among laborers in the giving his art. In the series of paintings about wheat fields, Van Gogh expresses through symbolism and use of color his deeply felt spiritual beliefs, appreciation of manual laborers, as a young man Van Gogh pursued what he saw as a religious calling, wanting to minister to working people. In 1876 he was assigned a post in Isleworth, England to teach Bible classes, when he returned to the Netherlands he studied for the ministry and also for lay ministry or missionary work without finishing either field of study. With support from his father, Van Gogh went to Borinage in southern Belgium where he nursed and ministered to coal miners, there he obtained a six-month trial position for a small salary where he preached in an old dance hall and established and taught Bible school. His self-imposed zeal and asceticism cost him the position, after a nine-month period of withdrawal from society and family, he rejected the church establishment, yet found his personal vision of spirituality, The best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, something - whatever you like - you will be on the way to knowing more about Him, but one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence. By 1879, he made a shift in the direction of his life and found he could express his love of God and man through painting. Drawn to Biblical parables, Van Gogh found wheat fields metaphors for humanitys cycles of life, the image of the sower came to Van Gogh in Biblical teachings from his childhood, such as, A sower went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty fold, and sixty fold, Van Gogh used the digger and ploughman as symbols of struggle to reach the kingdom of God. He was particularly enamored with the good God sun and called anyone who didnt believe in the sun infidels. The painting of the sun was a characteristic style seen in many of his paintings, representing the divine. Van Gogh found storms important for their nature, symbolizing the better times of pure air. Van Gogh also found storms to reveal the divine, the peasant genre that greatly influenced Van Gogh began in the 1840s with the works of Jean-François Millet, Jules Breton, and others. In 1885 Van Gogh described the painting of peasants as the most essential contribution to modern art and he described the works of Millet and Breton of religious significance, something on high, and described them as the voices of the wheat
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Flowering Orchards
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Flowering Orchards is a series of paintings which Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh executed in Arles, in southern France in the spring of 1888. Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888 in a snowstorm, appreciating the symbolism of rebirth, Van Gogh worked with optimism and zeal on about fourteen paintings of flowering trees in the early spring. He also made paintings of flowering trees in Saint-Rémy the following year, Flowering trees were special to Van Gogh, they represented awakening and hope. He enjoyed them aesthetically and found joy in painting flowering trees, the trees and orchards in bloom paintings that he made reflect Impressionist, Divisionist and Japanese woodcut influences. When Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888, the fruit trees in the orchards were about to bloom. The blossoms of the apricot, peach and plum trees motivated him, excited by the subject matter, he completed nearly one painting a day. Around April 21 Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, that he will have to something new. In 1888 Van Gogh became inspired in southern France and began the most productive period of his painting career and he sought the brilliance and light of the sun which would obscure the detail, simplifying the subjects. It also would make the lines of composition clearer, which would suit his ambition to create the patterns that he appreciated in Japanese woodblocks. Arles, he said, was the Japan of the South, Van Gogh found in the south that colors were more vivid. Mancoff says of flowering trees and this work, In his flowering trees, Vincent attained a sense of spontaneity, in Almond Tree in Blossom, Vincent used the light, broken strokes of impressionism and the dabs of colour of divisionism for a sparkling surface effect. The distinctive contours of the tree and its position in the foreground recall the formal qualities of Japanese prints, the southern region and the flowering trees seems to have awakened Van Gogh from his doldrums into a state of clear direction, hyper-activity and good cheer. He wrote, I am up to my ears in work for the trees are in blossom, while in the past a very active period would have drained him, this time he was invigorated. To paint the flowering orchards, Van Gogh contended with the winds which were so strong that he drove pegs into the ground to which he fastened his easel, even so, he found painting the orchards too lovely to miss. Van Gogh may have envisioned several triptychs of his paintings of orchards, However, only one triptych grouping has been documented, one which Vincent envisioned and sketched for Theos apartment. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger displayed them in the apartment according to Van Goghs sketch, in Paris, Van Gogh had learned to paint more than what one sees, but what it should be. He felt Pink Orchard was an example of use of that technique. The way in which he outlined the bark of the tree indicates influence of the Japanese prints that he greatly admired, using an Impressionist technique of placing colors side by side, Van Gogh makes short dots or brush strokes of colors to represent grass
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Almond Blossoms
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Almond Blossoms is from a group of several paintings made in 1888 and 1890 by Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Saint-Rémy, southern France of blossoming almond trees. Flowering trees were special to van Gogh and he enjoyed them aesthetically and found joy in painting flowering trees. The works reflect the influence of Impressionism, Divisionism, and Japanese woodcuts, Almond Blossom was made to celebrate the birth of his nephew and namesake, son of his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo. In 1888 van Gogh became inspired in southern France and began the most productive period of his painting career, Arles, he said, was the Japan of the South. Here, he felt, the effect of the sun would strengthen the outlines of compositions. Pairs of complements—the red and green of the plants, the highlights of oranges and blue in the fence. When van Gogh arrived in Arles in March 1888 fruit trees in the orchards were about to bloom, the blossoms of the apricot, peach and plum trees motivated him, and within a month he had created fourteen paintings of blossoming fruit trees. Excited by the matter, van Gogh completed nearly one painting a day. Around April 21 he wrote to Theo, that he will have to something new. Van Goghs work reflected his interest in Japanese wood block prints, hiroshiges Plum Park in Kameido demonstrates portrayal of beautiful subject matter with flat patterns of colors and no shadow. Hiroshige was one of the last great masters of the Japanese genre called ukiyo-e, Van Gogh integrated some of the technical aspects of ukiyo-e into his work as his two 1887 homages to Hiroshige demonstrates. The southern region and the trees seems to awakened van Gogh from his doldrums into a state of clear direction, hyper-activity. He wrote, I am up to my ears in work for the trees are in blossom, while in the past a very active period would have drained him, this time he was invigorated. Vincent wrote to Theo, Down here it is freezing hard and there is snow in the countryside. The two studies are Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass and Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass with a Book, to reflect the early signs of spring, he used delicate brushstrokes and pastel shades for Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass. A broken-off sprig is set in a simple glass, the sprig is highlighted by a red line along the beige wall and lavish empty space. There is no formal decorative intent, Van Goghs name, also in bright red, hovers above a sprig in the upper left as if a symbol of hope. Van Gogh has transformed the life with the help of these values
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Langlois Bridge at Arles
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The Langlois Bridge at Arles is the subject of four oil paintings, one watercolor and four drawings by Vincent van Gogh. The works, made in 1888 when Van Gogh lived in Arles, in southern France, represent a melding of formal, Van Gogh leverages a perspective frame that he built and used in The Hague to create precise lines and angles when portraying perspective. Van Gogh was influenced by Japanese woodcut prints, as evidenced by his use of color to create a harmonious. Contrasting colors, such as blue and yellow, were used to bring a vibrancy to the works and he painted with an impasto, or thickly applied paint, using color to depict the reflection of light. The subject matter, a drawbridge on a canal, reminded him of his homeland in the Netherlands and he asked his brother Theo to frame and send one of the paintings to an art dealer in the Netherlands. The reconstructed Langlois Bridge is now named Pont Van-Gogh, Van Gogh was 35 when he made the Langlois Bridge paintings and drawings. Living in Arles, in southern France, he was at the height of his career, producing some of his best work, sunflowers, fields, farmhouses and people of the Arles, Nîmes and Avignon areas. It was a time for Van Gogh, in less than 15 months he made about 100 drawings, produced more than 200 paintings. The canals, drawbridges, windmills, thatched cottages and expansive fields of the Arles countryside reminded Van Gogh of his life in the Netherlands. Arles brought him the solace and bright sun that he sought for himself and conditions to explore painting with more colors, intense color contrasts. He also returned to the roots of his training from the Netherlands. The Langlois Bridge was one of the crossings over the Arles to Bouc canal and it was built in the first half of the 19th century to expand the network of canals to the Mediterranean Sea. Locks and bridges were built, too, to manage water, just outside Arles, the first bridge was the officially titled Pont de Réginel but better known by the keepers name as Pont de Langlois. This was the first of several versions he painted of the Langlois Bridge that crossed the Arles canal, in Arles Van Gogh began using again a perspective frame he had built in The Hague. The device was used for outdoor sightings to compare the proportion of items that were near to those that were in the distance, some of the works of the Langlois Bridge were made with the aid of the frame. Its use deepened his exploration of the drawbridge as a mechanism, the Langlois Bridge reminded Van Gogh of Hiroshiges print Sudden Shower on the Great Bridge. Inspired by the Japanese wood block prints, Van Gogh sought to integrate techniques from Japanese artwork into his own, with a Japanese aesthetic, Van Goghs Langlois Bridge paintings reflect a simplified use of color to create a harmonious and unified image. Outlines were used to suggest movement and he used fewer shades of colors, preferring multiple subtle color variations
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Saintes-Maries (Van Gogh series)
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Saintes-Maries is the subject of a series of paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in 1888. When Van Gogh lived in Arles, he took a trip to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on the Mediterranean sea, in June 1888 Van Gogh took a 30-mile stagecoach trip from Arles to the sea-side fishing village of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on the coast of the Mediterranean sea. Van Goghs week-long trip was taken to recover from his health problems, at that time Saintes-Maries was a small fishing village with under a hundred homes. In just a few days he made two paintings of the sea, one of the village and nine drawings and it was before the boats hastened out, I had watched them every morning, but as they leave very early I didnt have time to paint them. Some of the work on the painting was finished in the studio, such as capturing the light in the sand, sea, another seascape Van Gogh made was The Sea at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in which he sought to capture lights effect on the sea. The setting includes fishing boats returning to the village, to emphasize contrast to the color green in the painting, Van Gogh signs his name in large bright letters. Fishing Boats at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is one of Van Goghs reed pen drawings of Saint-Maries which he based on his painting The Sea at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, the fluid movements of Van Goghs pen bring an energy to the drawing, not intended to be a mimetic copy. Both his choice of the pen and the placement of tiered-patterned strokes reflect the influence of Japanese prints. He brings life to the painting through technique, the Pointillist dotted sky accentuates the clouds. Whitecaps are evoked by the lines and horizontal lines portray the calmer sea in the distance. Seascape at Saintes-Maries was painted six years after Van Gogh wrote that he wished to paint a painting of sand, sea. In this painting the combination of a high horizon and boats close to the top edge of the frame, draw the audience in to the sea in the foreground. He also made three drawings of this composition, a wall encloses the town in which a large church becomes the focal point. The painting takes upon a three-dimensional appearance, starting with relief-like layers of paint in the sky. Finer brushstrokes were used on the field and town buildings, the Philadelphia Museum of Art owns a drawing that Van Gogh made titled The Road at Saintes-Maries. It is also known as Cottages in Saintes-Maries, beaujean, D. Van Gogh, Life and Work
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Paintings of Children (Van Gogh series)
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Vincent van Gogh enjoyed making Paintings of Children. He once said that its the thing that excites me to the depths of my soul. Painting children, in particular represented rebirth and the infinite, over his career Van Gogh did not make many paintings of children, but those he completed were special to him. During the ten years of Van Goghs career as a painter, from 1881 to 1890, his work changed and grew richer, particularly in how he used color and his early works were earth-toned and dull. After a transformative period in Paris, Van Gogh embarked on his most prolific periods starting in Arles, in the south of France, during those times his work became more colorful and more reflective of influences, such as Impressionism and Japonism. Japonism influences are understood in the painting of a young girl, among others, he was inspired by the work of Jean-François Millet which he emulated in First Steps and Evening, The Watch. Van Gogh enjoyed painting portraits when he had available models, possibly the greatest impact to his paintings of children came out of the friendship with Joseph Roulin and the many paintings of his family. Van Gogh, known for his landscapes, seemed to find painting portraits his greatest ambition and he said of portrait studies, the only thing in painting that excites me to the depths of my soul, and which makes me feel the infinite more than anything else. To his sister he wrote, I should like to paint portraits which appear after a century to people living then as apparitions, of painting portraits, Van Gogh wrote, in a picture I want to say something comforting as music is comforting. I want to paint men and women with something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize. Van Gogh saw something deeper, more intimate, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a baby when it wakes in the morning. Infants which represented rebirth and immortality to Van Gogh and lightened his mood, when he had the opportunity, Van Gogh enjoyed painting them. The peasant genre that greatly influenced Van Gogh began in the 1840s with the works of Jean-François Millet, Jules Breton, in 1885 Van Gogh described the painting of peasants as the most essential contribution to modern art. He described the works of Millet and Breton of religious significance, referring to painting of peasants Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, How shall I ever manage to paint what I love so much. This was a transition in approach to paintings from his earlier works influenced by Dutch masters. His goal at that time was to paint them as he saw them and his early works of peasants were in muted tones. As he was influenced by Impressionism and the use of complementary colors, as much as Van Gogh liked to paint portraits of people, there were few opportunities for him to pay or arrange for models for his work. He found a bounty in the work of the Roulin family, in exchange, Van Gogh gave the Roulins one painting for each family member
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The Roulin Family
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The Roulin Family is group of portrait paintings Vincent van Gogh executed in Arles in 1888 and 1889 on Joseph, his wife Augustine and their three children, Armand, Camille and Marcelle. This series is unique in many ways, although Van Gogh loved to paint portraits, it was difficult for financial and other reasons for him to find models. So, finding a family that agreed to sit for paintings — in fact. Joseph Roulin became a good, loyal and supporting friend to Van Gogh during his stay in Arles. To represent a man he admired was important to him. The family, with children ranging in age from four months to seventeen years, rather than making photographic-like works, Van Gogh used his imagination, colours and themes artistically and creatively to evoke desired emotions from the audience. This series was made during one of Van Goghs most prolific periods, the work allowed him to pull artistic learnings over the past several years towards the goal of expressing something meaningful as an artist. Van Gogh moved to Arles in southern France in 1888, where he produced some of his best work and his paintings represented different aspects of ordinary life, such as portraits of members of the Roulin family. The sunflower paintings, some of the most recognizable of Van Goghs paintings, were created in this time and he worked continuously to keep up with his ideas for paintings. This is likely one of Van Goghs happier periods of life and he is confident, clear-minded and seemingly content. In a letter to his brother, Theo, he wrote, Painting as it is now, promises to become more subtle - more like music and less like sculpture - and above all, as a means of explanation, Vincent explains that being like music means being comforting. Van Gogh, known for his landscapes, seemed to find painting portraits his greatest ambition and he said of portrait studies, the only thing in painting that excites me to the depths of my soul, and which makes me feel the infinite more than anything else. Van Gogh wrote further of the meaning he wished to evoke, I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize, and which we seek to communicate by the actual radiance and vibration of our colouring. As much as Van Gogh liked to paint portraits of people and he found a bounty in the work of the Roulin family, for which he made several images of each person. In exchange, Van Gogh gave the Roulins one painting for each family member, as the Roulin family was similar in size to Van Goghs own, in his psychological approach Lubin suggested that Van Gogh may have adopted them as a substitute. Van Gogh painted the family of postman Joseph Roulin in the winter of 1888, the family included Joseph Roulin, the postman, his wife, Augustine, and their three children. Van Gogh described the family as really French, even if they look like Russians, over the course of just a few weeks, he painted Augustine and the children several times. The reason for multiple works was partly so that the Roulins could have a painting of each member, so that with these pictures and others
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Hospital in Arles
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Hospital at Arles is the subject of two paintings that Vincent van Gogh made of the hospital in which he stayed in December 1888 and again in January 1889. The hospital is located in Arles in southern France, one of the paintings is of the central garden between four buildings titled Garden of the Hospital in Arles, the other painting is of a ward within the hospital titled Ward of the Hospital in Arles. Van Gogh also painted a Portrait of Dr. Félix Rey his physician while in the hospital, Arles is located in a region called Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur, department of Bouches-du-Rhône in southern France. It is about 32 kilometres southeast of Nîmes, Arles became a successful port for trade in France during the Roman period. Many immigrants from North Africa came to Arles in the 17th and 18th centuries, Arles remained economically important for many years as a major port on the Rhône. The arrival of the railway in the 19th century eventually took away of much of the river trade, because Arles maintained Provençal charm it attracted artists, like Van Gogh. Van Gogh came to Arles on February 20,1888 and initially stayed at the lodgings at Restaurant Carrel, signs of spring were evident in the budding almond trees and of winter by the snow-covered landscape. To Van Gogh the scene seemed like a Japanese landscape, Arles was quite a different place than anywhere else he had lived. The climate was sunny, hot and dry and the inhabitants had more of an appearance. The vivid colors and strong compositional outlines of Provence led van Gogh to call the area the Japan of the South, in this time he produced more than 200 paintings including The Starry Night, Café de Nuit and The Sunflowers. Part of his difficulty in making friends was his inability to master the Provençal dialect, whole days go by without my speaking a word to anyone. In the beginning of his time in Arles, though, he was so enthused by the setting in Provence that the lack of connection with others hadnt troubled him, in October 1888 Paul Gauguin came to Arles and joined van Gogh in his rented rooms at The Yellow House. Unfortunately many of the places that van Gogh had visited and painted were destroyed during bombing raids in World War II. Van Goghs mental health deteriorated and he became eccentric, culminating in an altercation with Paul Gauguin in December 1888 following which van Gogh cut off part of his own left ear. He was then hospitalized in Arles twice over a few months and his condition was diagnosed by the hospital as acute mania with generalised delirium. Dr. Félix Rey, an intern at the hospital. In January 1889, he returned to the Yellow House where he was living, in March 1889, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople, who called him fou roux. Signac visited him in hospital and van Gogh was allowed home in his company, in April 1889, he moved into rooms owned by Dr. Félix Rey, after floods damaged paintings in his own home
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Butterflies (Van Gogh series)
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Butterflies is a series paintings made by Vincent van Gogh in 1889 and 1890. Van Gogh made at least four paintings of butterflies and one of a moth, the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly was symbolic to Van Gogh of men and womens capability for transformation. Butterflies and moths, in the insect order Lepidoptera, are distinguished generally in several ways, Butterflies are brighter in color, butterfly wings are not linked and fold together when they are in a resting position. On the other hand, moths are generally duller in color, there are some exceptions, though, such as a few types of colored moths. Butterflies are found in art and literature, often as symbols of freedom, transformation, Van Gogh used butterflies in his works as a symbol of hope. One of his favorite metaphors was about transformative possibilities, in a letter to his sister Wil, Van Gogh says that like a grub eats salad roots, unknowing of the transformation that will take it to a beetle, we are not aware of our potential for metamorphosis. Similarly, he as a painter ought to paint pictures, possibly something else will come after that. Of prostitutes, such as those he met at brothels, Van Gogh wondered of any woman who fell into a life of degradation, might she be transformed one day like a grub into a butterfly. That hope may have been on Van Goghs mind when he took in pregnant Sien Hoornik, a prostitute, when in need of solace, nature is where Van Gogh went to find peace. In a letter to his sister Wilhelmina he writes that he finds to calm down its best to look at a blade of grass, the branch of a fir tree, an ear of wheat. So if you want to do, as the artists do, go look at the red and white poppies with their bluish leaves, Van Gogh came to Arles in southern France when he was about 35 years of age. There he began producing some of his best work, the sunflower paintings, some of the most recognizable of Van Goghs paintings, were created in this time. This is likely one of Van Goghs happier periods of life and he is confident, clear-minded and seemingly content. In a letter to his brother, Theo, he wrote, Painting as it is now, promises to become more subtle - more like music and less like sculpture - and above all, it promises color. As a means of explanation, Van Gogh explains that being like music means being comforting, Grass and Butterflies, made in Arles, is part of a private collection. Fascinated by butterflies at an age, Vincent Dethier became an entomologist. In tribute to him on his birthday, Miriam Rothschild expressed her appreciation metaphorically through Van Goghs painting, Two white butterflies twirling in freedom. For me they are the symbol of daydreaming — the poetry that Vince Dethier insinuates so cunningly into our factual information and knowledge
