Great Falls Elementary Art Enrichment – [Q4 2021] Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Slide 1 • Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) is one of the world’s most well-known artists, both Vincent for the legend of his life and the beloved Van Gogh paintings he left behind. He was the embodiment of the “mad genius,” an artist Dutch Painter whose talent and drive were finally too much to bear. (1853-1890) • He had a normal childhood, if not a particularly happy one. Vincent was born in the Netherlands in 1853, the eldest of six children, to a clergyman and his wife. Actually, he wasn’t the first-born; he was named after his parents’ baby who had died just one year before. • Vincent went to the local school until being sent to boarding school at age 12. He didn’t fit in well with other people, as he was shy and unsociable, and not a very good student. At age 16, one of his many uncles got him a job with an art dealing firm. Vincent had always liked art drawing, and the work seemed a good fit.

Slide 2 • Vincent did very well for several years, but then was sent to London, where things began to fall apart. He fell in love with a girl who rejected him – this was always the story of Vincent’s love life – and began to feel unsatisfied by the business of selling art. • In his family, the two professions chosen for generations were artist or art dealer on Young Man with a Pipe, 1884 the one hand, and clergyman on the other. Vincent began to feel a pull towards a religious life and a desire to help the poor. After a short time in Paris, he was fired by the art dealer, and back home, decided to go to seminary. • During this period, Vincent began his lifelong correspondence with his brother Theo, four years younger. Theo also worked, very successfully, for the same art dealer.

1 By Anne Whipple Great Falls Elementary Art Enrichment – [Q4 2021] Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Slide 3 • Vincent was now 25 years old, having left school at 16 with some big holes in his education. Only at university could he get the degrees he needed to be a minister. He moved in with another uncle in Amsterdam and tried to catch up on his studies of Latin and Greek. He struggled for over a year but eventually gave up. (During this time he was able to visit museums, though, and Women Miners Carrying Coal, 1882 learned a lot about classic Dutch painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer.) • Vincent went to work for a missionary outfit that sent him to a poor mining district to preach and help the poor. He took this so seriously that he lived even worse than the miners did, giving them everything he had, wearing old clothes and sleeping on the floor of a hut. This eccentric behavior didn’t go over very well even with those he was trying to help, and he was called back by his superiors. • What now? He decided to put everything else aside and become an artist.

Slide 4 • That meant, again, that he needed to go back to school, because although he had natural talent, he hadn’t mastered the techniques he needed. He took various courses in Brussels, Amsterdam and the Hague, and also got painting lessons from a cousin who was an artist. Occasionally he moved back home with his parents – not a happy situation, as he was a hard man to The Potato Eaters, 1885 live with, moody and intense – and very untidy! • His brother Theo was financing him at this point, a situation that would last the rest of Vincent’s short life. He developed technical skills and was ready to move to Paris, the center of the art world, where Theo lived. • One of his most famous pictures from this time is The Potato Eaters, which shows he hadn’t lost his interest in the less fortunate people around him. He often drew and painted people who had failed in some way, maybe a reflection of his feelings about himself.

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Slide 5 • Vincent dropped into the heart of 19th century bohemian life – the Montmartre district of Paris. He spent time in dance halls and corner cafes, and for the first time in his life became part of a community of artists. He saw the work of the Impressionists, experimented with different styles, and forged relationships with artists Portrait of Père Tanguy, 1888 Flowers in a Copper Vase, 1887 such as Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. He was drawn to the work of Seurat, although they only had one brief meeting. His work became much lighter, both in color and in subject matter, but he did sometimes depict the poor people of Paris. • Vincent produced many paintings during this period – still-lifes, self-portraits, landscapes and more. One of his best pictures was of an art supply owner named Tanguy, whom the artists called “Papa.” In the background are Japanese prints, which were very popular at the time and which Vincent loved. He also loved to paint flowers, once writing his sister that he could feel the flowers’ “souls.”

Slide 6 • After a time, living in Paris weighed heavily on Vincent. He longed for country life, but more than anything, he was in search of the sun. This was his move from Haystacks in Provence, 1888 north to south, from the Netherlands to the Mediterranean. He left a note on the table for Theo one day and took off.

Sunflowers in a Vase, 1888 Unfortunately, when he arrived in the town of Arles in March, it was snowing! • Vincent was in poor health, but the sun soon began to shine and he began to feel better. He was also much more comfortable around simple country people than the sophisticated artsy types he knew in the city. • Vincent loved the color yellow and the sun, both of which you find in many of his paintings. He painted sunflowers and haystacks again and again. The southern light and landscape proved to be exactly what he was hoping for. He produced hundreds of paintings in the next two years.

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Slide 7 • Vincent moved into a hotel and made good friends with the owners, whose portraits he painted. He spent a lot of time in their bar below his room. You can see it in the painting The Night Cafe, which doesn’t do the place any favors. The strong reds and

The Night Café, 1888 greens clash; the lights have eerie halos; and the figures look lonely and ghostly – in a letter, he described it as “a place where The Terrace Café, 1888 one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime.” • As a rule, Vincent only signed the works that he felt were his best. In the lower right corner of this painting, Van Gogh wrote "Vincent le café de nuit.” • The Terrace Café on the right is also a night scene, but it’s not spooky at all. This local spot is painted in cheerful blues and yellows and is very inviting. In a letter to his sister, Vincent remarked that he was proud to have painted a night picture without using any black.

Slide 8 • Here is another of Vincent’s friends from Arles – the postman! Vincent painted him at least six times, his wife at least three, and all his children, too. • Vincent loved to paint portraits of people he respected in some way, and tried to capture their dignity and spirits.

Portrait of Joseph Roulin, 1889 Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin, 1888

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Slide 9 • Vincent had a dream. He wanted to gather artists that he admired to live and work together in this paradise he believed he’d found. He rented The Yellow House, began to furnish it, and invited his few friends from Paris to come stay. Paul Gauguin agreed. The Yellow House, 1888

Bedroom at Arles, 1888 • Vincent was painting all the time, producing work to decorate his yellow house. He planned for 12 sunflower pictures, and painted four. He also painted his bedroom, which he loved. There are five versions of this scene. • These two pictures show some of the typical characteristics of a Van Gogh painting: exaggerated perspective – the room seems to open outwards from left to right; strong, complementary colors – blue and yellow, green and red; energetic, visible brushstrokes; and graphic outlining – as around the furniture in the room.

Slide 10 • For a while, Vincent’s tiny art colony was a

Two portraits of “L’Arlesienne,” or Mme Ginoux success. He learned a lot from the more Van Gogh’s to the right ⇒ established artist Gauguin, although Gauguin’s below ⇓ Gauguin tried to get Vincent to change his work in ways that didn’t really stick. They both painted the wife of the café owner, Madame Ginoux. • Gauguin’s version is on the left; Van Gogh’s on the right. Van Gogh’s is more like classic Dutch portraits, with a bare background. You can see the same pool table on the left that is also in Vincent’s The Night Café. • But as time wore on, the two artists stopped getting on so well. Gauguin could be arrogant and unkind, and Vincent was often needy and too intense. Vincent was also jealous of Gauguin, whose work was selling through Vincent’s brother Theo. Vincent hadn’t sold a single painting yet, and was still existing on the money and paint that Theo sent from Paris.

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Slide 11 • Most people know the story of Van Gogh’s cutting off his own ear. The two artists had been arguing constantly, and Gauguin eventually moved out of The Yellow House into a hotel after Vincent went at him with a razor. Vincent was devastated. He cut off part of his ear, wrapped it up and gave it to a girl he knew to “keep it safe.”

Self-Portrait Facing Left, 1889 Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889 Then he passed out in a pool of blood at his house. When he was found, he was taken to the hospital, and lay unconscious for three days. Gauguin took off for Paris, and they never saw each other again. • After Vincent got out of the hospital, he tried to resume his life, but the townspeople were now afraid of him. They mounted a petition against the fou roux– crazy redheaded man – and asked that he leave town. He had to break into The Yellow House to get his paintings out.

Slide 12 • Vincent decided he needed to get help, so he checked himself into an asylum (a mental hospital) in a nearby town, St- Rémy. • This is one of Van Gogh’s most famous and well-loved paintings. (In 1987, it sold at auction for $54 million, a record price at the time.) • Here is another example of complementary Vase with Irises, 1890 colors – yellow and violet-blue – that make the whole painting cheerful and intensely vivid. • This was painted while he was at the asylum in St-Rémy. There were periods of time when he was too disturbed to work, but even while in the mental institution, Vincent managed to produce over 140 paintings, plus drawings, as well. He used the gardens and fields around the hospital, and the people who worked there, as his subject matter.

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Slide 13 • "I have a terrible need of – dare I say the word? – religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars..." - Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, 1888. • When Vincent decided to pursue art instead of a place in the church, he began to find his comfort in the natural world, in color, in the stars, in his work. He exaggerated nature in order to express his feelings. The Starry Night, 1889 • He painted The Starry Night while at the hospital, and its swirls are very characteristic of this period. It is another very famous and well-loved painting. Cypress trees are everywhere in southern France, and Vincent loved their tall, straight shapes, making dark lines across the intense colors of the landscape. • Meanwhile in Paris, other artists and critics were finally beginning to take notice of his work, and Theo even sold one Van Gogh painting.

Slide 14 • Vincent did improve at St-Rémy, and then decided to move north to be closer to Theo. He went under the care of Dr. Paul Gachet, a psychiatrist and part-time artist. Vincent felt that Dr. Gachet really understood him, because he and the doctor shared many characteristics – sadness being one expressed in these two portraits. Portrait of Dr. Paul Gachet, 1889 (version 1) Portrait of Dr. Paul Gachet, 1889 (version 2) • Dr. Gachet said of Vincent: “The words love of art are scarcely applicable to him. One ought to say: belief even unto martyrdom.” What the doctor meant was that Vincent would even sacrifice his life in trying to make the best art he could, because he believed art was more important than any man’s life. Vincent wrote to Theo that “my steps are wavering.” Even though he was painting a lot – 70 canvases in 70 days – he felt weak, lonely and desperate.

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Slide 15 • Some people see this painting, one of Vincent’s last, as an expression of his state of mind. You can read a feeling of doom into the low sky, the hovering crows, and the heavy brushstrokes. It was painted a few days before Vincent borrowed a gun, went into a field, and shot himself in the Wheatfield with Crows, 1890 chest. He managed to walk back home but One of Van Gogh’s last paintings died the next day of infection at the age of 37. His brother Theo, to whom he had written over 600 letters that we still have, rushed to be with him. Theo died six months later, and he and Vincent were eventually laid to rest side-by-side. • One amazing thing to remember about Vincent Van Gogh is that all of his painted works – over 800 canvases – were produced in the very short time span of only eight years. His total output of over 2,000 drawings and paintings was made in the last ten years of his life,1880-1890. After his death, his fame grew quickly and steadily among other artists and art collectors, and he finally received the recognition he had wanted. His painting hugely influenced the course of modern art.

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