Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

In a small town called Groot Zundert located in the south of Holland, Anna Cornelia van Gogh gave birth to Vincent Willem van Gogh on March 30, 1853. Vincent Willem was named after Anna’s first born son who was stillborn exactly 1 year earlier. He was to be the oldest of 5 siblings, 2 brothers and 3 sisters. He formed a special bond and was closest with his brother Theo. His father, Theodorus van Gogh was a pastor at a small church which still stands today. In 1869 when Vincent was just 15 he left home and headed for England. He was hired by his uncle and worked for the art dealership Goupil and Cie. In The Hague, though not as an artist but a dealer.Van Gogh spent seven years with the firm, but after his marriage proposal to a women named Ursula, his landlady’s daughter, was rejected he was sent to the Goupil gallery center in Paris.

Vincent grew tired of selling art and decided to follow his father’s footsteps and become a minister. While preaching among the poor miners of Borinage, Belgium he began drawing and soon believed that his true mission in life was to be an artist. Vincent began painting at the age of 27 and in 1885 he produced his first masterpiece, The Potato Eaters. In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris with his brother Theo. Theo, who was an art dealer introduced him to artists such as Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Camille Pisarro and Georges Seurat. Impressionism influenced Vincent’s style and led him to use brighter colors in his landscapes and portraits.

 A few years later Vincent left Paris and moved to Arles in the south of France where he lived in a yellow house. He didn’t have a normal diet and lived mainly on coffee, cheese, bread and absinthe. His physical and mental health began to deteriorate quickly which concerned his brother Theo. Theo paid Gauguin to move in with Vincent to watch over him but the two were constantly disagreeing and after an argument on Christmas Eve Van Gogh cut off part of his own left ear. Gauguin left Arles after just 9 weeks at the yellow house and Vincent volunteered himself for hospitalization in Saint-Rémy, a province in France where Théophile Peyron, a physician treated him (Bhattacharyya).

Historians and researchers have variously felt that he might have had suffered from epilepsy, bipolar disorder, sunstroke, acute intermittent porphyria, lead poisoning, absinthe intoxication, Ménière’s disease, and digitalis toxicity (Bhattacharyya). Vincent was allowed to paint when his condition was stable and he painted his most famous work, The Starry Night while at the asylum. After a year of confinement he moved to the home of a physician-artist in Auvers-sur-Oise for two months. It was during this time that Vincent would produce many great pieces of work including the Portrait of Dr. Gachet, Field under Thunderclouds, and the famous Crows in the Wheatfields. His work was finally beginning to be noticed and Theo sold van Gogh's "The Red Vineyards" painting for 400 francs.