Van Gogh painted his paintings with his fingers. Stylization of a painting by Vincent van Gogh

On March 30, 1853, in the Dutch village of Grotto Zunderr, he was finally born. Vincent Willem Van Gogh. Finally, because the first attempt cannot be counted. A boy with the same name, born into the same family a year earlier, on the same day, was stillborn.

The second attempt was more successful. However, this became clear many years later. During Vincent's lifetime, his father, a Protestant pastor Theodore Van Gogh, Having learned that his “second-born son” had consistently failed in his career as a teacher, priest and merchant, he said in despair: “Maybe he will achieve his goal after all? It doesn’t matter what exactly...”

Parents' pleas are a proven and effective remedy. Vincent Van Gogh truly achieved success, fame and honor. One of the most recognizable and famous artists on planet Earth is worth something. The most interesting thing is that, contrary to popular belief, all this did not happen after death. Vincent Willem, who was still alive and not quite healthy, also got something.

Van Gogh around 1866. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

1. Ear from Matthew

Artist Researcher Robert Wallace rightly noted: “Even the most sophisticated reader, picking up a book about Van Gogh, will not be able to contain his curiosity until he finds the lines dedicated to the ear. Everything else, except for Van Gogh’s ear, will seem ordinary to him.” Let's not deviate from the canon. But let’s leave the analysis of the partial truncation of the auditory organ: it is not so important who did it and with what. Let's better appreciate the irony of fate. The artist's father is a stern Protestant preacher. And the fame of his son in popular culture and the philistine consciousness is thoroughly “Catholic.” At least formally. It is among Catholic saints that fragments of bodies are sometimes revered more than the main work of their lives: the cathedrals of old Europe are overflowing with holy relics.

In general, the religious background in this story really sticks out. One only has to compare the two facts. First: Vincent Van Gogh, being the son of a pastor and a professional preacher, knew the Holy Scriptures very well. In particular, this moment from the Gospel of Matthew: “Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear.” And now the second fact. Let's look at the famous “Self-Portrait with a Cut Off Ear and a Pipe” and make sure that the bandage is located just to the right.

“Self-portrait with a cut off ear” Photo: / Ilona Kyriokatis

2. Fire for diligence

At the age of 25, Vincent Willem completes a three-month preaching course at Pastor Bokma's Protestant Missionary School. And he receives an unenviable assignment to the poor mining village of Paturage in the south of Belgium. It is unlikely that the Belgian mining workers were aware of the Russian professional proverb: “The miner is not related to God, fear him like fire.” But they behaved in much the same way as their Russian brethren of that time: they added variety to their beggarly life with drunkenness and fights, and the last thing they thought about was the Word of God.

The preacher Van Gogh undertook to correct this matter in good faith. Those who say that he did not succeed here are brazenly slandering. The local Evangelical Society could not get enough of it, the residents were ready to carry the new ardent missionary in their arms, and they listened to his sermons willingly: Van Gogh’s speech “Our Life is a Pilgrim’s Progress” that has come down to us is wise, incendiary and instructive at the same time.

But you won’t be satisfied with words. And Van Gogh quite quickly - in just 18 months - came to the conclusion that the miners should be supported with something else besides sermons. He appeals to the mine management with a petition to improve the working and living conditions of workers. The directorate sends an “outrageous note” to the Synodal Committee of the Protestant Church of Belgium. And the functionaries there come up with a brilliant formulation: “Remove the preacher from office for excessive zeal.”

3. Vibrant diet

Van Gogh's health is often directly linked to the classic bohemian lifestyle: abuse of absinthe and tobacco, plus brothel excesses. They say that all this ruined the artist’s health. Is it common to lose 15 teeth by the age of 37?

At the same time, they forget that to a much greater extent, Van Gogh was killed by painting as such. More precisely, paints. And even more precisely - the habit of not washing off brushes, but licking them. Simply because Van Gogh liked the taste of certain colors. Sometimes they say that he did not chew or swallow paints, but only held the brushes in his mouth for the sake of convenience and speed of work. Firstly, this would be enough. And secondly, this is not true. The artist himself writes to his brother Theodore regarding his favorite yellow paints: “I’ll collect all the unnecessary leftovers and eat them.” Van Gogh painted an incredible amount: up to 87 large paintings a year. The lion's share of paints contained lead. The artist took shock doses of this metal. So don’t blame everything on absinthe and tobacco: lead poisoning has never benefited anyone.

4. Went to success

The cliché “Van Gogh sold only one painting in his entire life” is also not true. The real situation can be described as follows. The artist sold that “only” canvas (“Red Vineyards in Arles”) for a substantial sum. That is, for 400 francs. For comparison: the salary of a postman, one of Van Gogh's friends, was 100 francs per month. With this money he supported a family of 4 people.

“Red Vineyards at Arles”, Vincent van Gogh, 1888. Photo: Public Domain

The remaining thirteen paintings were sold for much more modest money. But still sold. Including Paul Gauguin: he acquired two canvases by Van Gogh, still lifes with sunflowers. By the way, another characteristic point: Vincent’s brother Theodore Van Gogh owned an art gallery. He understood the market conditions perfectly. It was he who persuaded Vincent to take up interior painting: still lifes and vases. A business plan was developed, Vincent began to work. The entire series of sunflowers was written during that period. And, I must say, the experienced gallery owner’s instincts did not let him down: it was sunflowers that became one of the most popular subjects.

The painting "Alyscamp" was sold at Sotheby's in 2015 for $66.3 million. Van Gogh painted this autumn landscape in 1888 in Arles, where he worked with Gauguin. It depicts an alley in the ancient Roman necropolis of Alyscamp.

Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch: Vincent Willem van Gogh; March 30, 1853, Grote-Zundert, Netherlands - July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, France) was a Dutch post-impressionist artist whose work had a timeless influence on 20th-century painting. In just over ten years, he created more than 2,100 works, including about 860 oil paintings. Among them are portraits, self-portraits, landscapes and still lifes, depicting olive trees, cypress trees, wheat fields and sunflowers. Van Gogh was overlooked by most critics until his suicide at the age of 37, which was preceded by years of anxiety, poverty and mental disorders.

Born on March 30, 1853 in the village of Groot Zundert (Dutch. Groot Zundert) in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, near the Belgian border. Vincent's father was Theodore Van Gogh (born 02/08/1822), a Protestant pastor, and his mother was Anna Cornelia Carbenthus, the daughter of a venerable bookbinder and bookseller from The Hague. Vincent was the second of seven children of Theodore and Anna Cornelia. He received his name in honor of his paternal grandfather, who also devoted his entire life to the Protestant church. This name was intended for Theodore and Anna's first child, who was born a year earlier than Vincent and died on the first day. So Vincent, although born second, became the eldest of the children.

Four years after Vincent's birth, on May 1, 1857, his brother Theodorus van Gogh (Theo) was born. In addition to him, Vincent had a brother Cor (Cornelis Vincent, May 17, 1867) and three sisters - Anna Cornelia (February 17, 1855), Liz (Elizabeth Guberta, May 16, 1859) and Wil (Willemina Jacoba, March 16, 1862). Family members remember Vincent as a willful, difficult and boring child with “strange manners”, which was the reason for his frequent punishments. According to the governess, there was something strange about him that distinguished him from the others: of all the children, Vincent was the least pleasant to her, and she did not believe that anything worthwhile could come of him. Outside the family, on the contrary, Vincent showed the other side of his character - he was quiet, serious and thoughtful. He hardly played with other children. In the eyes of his fellow villagers, he was a good-natured, friendly, helpful, compassionate, sweet and modest child. When he was 7 years old, he went to a village school, but a year later he was taken away from there, and together with his sister Anna he studied at home, with a governess. On October 1, 1864, he went to boarding school in Zevenbergen, located 20 km from his home. Leaving home caused Vincent a lot of suffering; he could not forget it, even as an adult. On September 15, 1866, he began studying at another boarding school - Willem II College in Tilburg. Vincent is good at languages ​​- French, English, German. There he received drawing lessons. In March 1868, in the middle of the school year, Vincent suddenly left school and returned to his father's house. This ends his formal education. He recalled his childhood like this: “My childhood was dark, cold and empty...”.

In July 1869, Vincent got a job in the Hague branch of the large art and trading company Goupil & Cie, owned by his uncle Vincent (“Uncle Saint”). There he received the necessary training as a dealer. Initially, the future artist set to work with great zeal, achieved good results, and in June 1873 he was transferred to the London branch of Goupil & Cie. Through daily contact with works of art, Vincent began to understand and appreciate painting. In addition, he visited the city's museums and galleries, admiring the works of Jean-François Millet and Jules Breton. At the end of August, Vincent moved to 87 Hackford Road and rented a room in the house of Ursula Loyer and her daughter Eugenie. There is a version that he was in love with Eugenia, although many early biographers mistakenly call her by the name of her mother, Ursula. In addition to this naming confusion that has been going on for decades, recent research suggests that Vincent was not in love with Eugenie at all, but with a German woman named Caroline Haanebeek. What actually happened remains unknown. The lover's refusal shocked and disappointed the future artist; he gradually lost interest in his work and began to turn to the Bible. In 1874, Vincent was transferred to the Paris branch of the company, but after three months of work he again left for London. Things were getting worse for him, and in May 1875 he was again transferred to Paris, where he attended exhibitions at the Salon and Louvre and eventually began to try his hand at painting. Gradually, this activity began to take up more of his time, and Vincent finally lost interest in work, deciding for himself that “art has no worse enemies than art dealers.” As a result, at the end of March 1876 he was fired from Goupil & Cie due to poor performance, despite the patronage of his relatives who were co-owners of the company.

This is part of a Wikipedia article used under the CC-BY-SA license. Full text of the article here →

Those that are made with your own hands. But for adults they have not lost their relevance. Especially when it comes to a themed gift.
This master class will help you impress a lover of impressionism or simply an art connoisseur. In addition, a bottle of high-quality strong drink will never be superfluous.
For my work I chose Vincent Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night". I started painting a bottle of absinthe, since it was the artist’s favorite drink.
So, we need a bottle, a soft wide brush and a hard thin brush, and the following paints: black, blue, cyan, red, yellow, orange and white (I bought it in a set).

For painting, it is best to use acrylic paints, as they will adhere perfectly to the glass, and additional varnish treatment will not be necessary at all. Do not wet the brush with water, because the thicker the paint, the better. This will give the product a texture.
It's better to get rid of labels. If the bottle has a paper label, it can be easily removed by dipping the bottle in warm water.

If you need to clean your brush from paint, it is better to use alcohol.
Let's start with the darkest element of the picture. For this you will need black, yellow and red paints. First, apply a layer of black, wait about 15-20 minutes.

Then, when the paint has already dried, we make red and yellow strokes in a chaotic order, since we are still working on stylization, not reproduction.

Then carefully apply the blue background. To ensure that the bottle is not transparent, at least two layers of paint will be needed. Apply the first layer with a circular motion of the brush, wait until the paint dries, and apply the second.

When the second blue layer dries, paint the stars with yellow paint. To prevent the stars from turning out green on a blue background, you should add white paint.
Color the bottom of the bottle blue. Next, with a thin brush we draw the outlines of the houses using black paint.
Then we leave blue, yellow and white strokes on the bottle. Remember that before applying each new layer, you need to let the previous one dry. In order to depict the moon, we use orange paint.
When the bottle is completely dry, you can coat it with varnish if you want to achieve a glossy shine.
This is what we should get in the end.

Such a gift is suitable for any holiday. You can not only give a quality drink, but also please a loved one with your attention, reflected in a picture you drew yourself.
You can choose any other drink and any other picture. It all depends on your preferences.

“I really like the saying: “As things get worse, things will get better.” At times I ask myself whether things really haven’t gotten any worse for us, because I really wish that everything would finally “get better” - Van Gogh.

Today you can’t just get into the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. There are always a lot of tourists who want to see the masterpieces of the Dutch artist, but especially this year. If three years ago you could buy a ticket at the museum box office on the day of your visit, today they are sold out three days in advance, reports a MIR 24 correspondent from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

But ticket prices are very reasonable - a standard adult ticket costs 15 euros, a visit with a guide costs 23 euros, and children under 17 years old are completely free. Photographing paintings is strictly prohibited; the museum itself does not display photos of Van Gogh’s paintings on its official website, nor does it display the interiors of the museum. The Dutch strictly monitor visitors: a guard is assigned to almost every Van Gogh work, and video surveillance is carried out in the halls. The three-story museum consists of a permanent exhibition and temporary exhibitions, which are often updated, for example, on the artist’s anniversary, the exhibition “Inspiration from Japan” was opened. It presents paintings that Van Gogh was inspired by Japanese culture. Today Van Gogh is a pride not only for the Netherlands, but also for the whole of Europe, but once upon a time for them he was just a crazy artist with an obnoxious character, whose paintings no one wanted to buy.

Photo: Degtereva

A POPULAR LOSER FROM A GOOD FAMILY: WHY THEY DID NOT LOVE VAN GOGH

“There was a phrase in your letter that struck me: “I would like to get away from everything, I myself am the cause of everything and only cause trouble for others, I alone brought this trouble on myself and others.” These words struck me so much because I experience exactly the same feeling, exactly the same thing, no more and no less, in my soul. When I think about the past, when I think about the future - about almost insurmountable difficulties, about great and hard work for which I have no soul and which I, or rather my bad self, would willingly avoid; when I think of the many people whose eyes are watching me, I foresee that if I fail, they will understand what the matter is, and will not shower me with petty reproaches, but, being more experienced and experienced in everything that is good , honestly and fairly, with all their appearance they will say: “We helped you and were a light for you; we did everything we could for you. Have you worked to the fullest of your abilities? Where are the fruits of our labor and the reward for it?” - from a letter to his brother on May 30, 1877.

There is a common belief that Van Gogh lived in poverty, but this is not true. He was born into an average Dutch family. His father was a pastor, and his mother was the daughter of a respectable bookbinder and bookseller from The Hague. In addition, the family had many very influential relatives close to the field of art. Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the village of Grot-Zundert, in the province of North Brabant. It is interesting that from birth the future artist bore the name of his late brother. Winstent was first named the boy who was the first born in the family, however, he died immediately on his birthday. Van Gogh had a beloved younger brother, Theo, as well as another younger brother, Cor, and three sisters. But besides Theo, the artist did not actually communicate with any of them.

At the very beginning of his journey, Van Gogh worked for relatives in the Hague branch of the art and trading company Goupil & Cie. Things went well at first, the young man was even transferred to England. It was at this workplace that he began to better understand art. But as a result, Van Gogh’s career was largely ruined by unsuccessful love. It was during those years that he was rejected for the first time. He lost his motivation, and with it his position in the company. To cope with depression, Van Gogh painted. In the last years of Van Gogh's life, the artist's acquaintances called him an atheist. But this was not always the case. After his dismissal, he became seriously interested in pastoring and thought about following in his father’s footsteps. Vincent did a lot of preaching work, studied, communicated with the poor and tried to achieve greater rights for them. Actually, this was one of the reasons that the “elite” rejected Van Gogh’s pastoral activities. The quarrelsome character of the young man, who often got excited and made scandals, did not contribute to success. After Van Gogh was removed from the parish, he began to paint more often and seriously thought about a career as an artist.

With the support of his brother and his full financial support, in 1880 Van Gogh went to study in Brussels at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. But after a year he dropped out of school and returned to his parents. Van Gogh decided that studying for an artist was useless, and it was much more important to work hard and hard. It is interesting that one of the most valuable artists today, who passionately loved his work, did not recognize such measures as “talent”.

“When you think about the people from whose hearts such words pour out, all the chatter about “natural talent” that you so often hear from art dealers seems to me like a vile croak. “I have patience” - how restrained and dignified it sounds! Can you consider yourself so dead as to admit that you will never grow again? I say all this to explain why talking about whether you are gifted or not seems so stupid to me,” wrote Van Gogh.

Van Gogh painted his first known paintings in 1882. Then he worked a lot and practiced mixing techniques on one canvas - chalk, pen, sepia, and also took lessons from his distant relative, the artist Anton Mauve. In 1888 he painted the painting "Red Vineyards". For a long time it was considered the only painting by the artist sold. Actually this is not true. They just bought it for good money, which helped Van Gogh pay off all his debts at that time. In total, about 14 works were sold during the artist’s lifetime. But, of course, for a person who painted 2100 works, this is the same as almost nothing.

Van Gogh was constantly troubled by his lack of public recognition. Although it is wrong to say that no one knew about him during his lifetime. The fact is that at that time his brother Theo already owned his own gallery in the center of Paris, which, of course, all the artists knew about. Despite his material well-being, Theo was jealous of his brother's talent and freedom. But at the same time, the artist’s brother ardently sought to glorify Van Gogh. That is why he exhibited all the works in his gallery and brought famous artists, critics and buyers for inspection.

As for the rumors of Van Gogh's poverty, they are highly exaggerated. Van Gogh made almost no money himself. And it is true. But he never lived in poverty. Theo paid all expenses: materials, food and rent. His brother sent Van Gogh 200 francs every month. And with 100 francs people then supported a family of four. Critics often talk about the simple and unsightly interiors in which the artist lived and worked; for example, this was once again recalled in the recently released British painting “Van Gogh. With love, Vincent." In fact, the minimalism of the Dutch cannot be discounted. Just a couple of centuries ago, the inhabitants of Holland were sure that houses were protection from the wind, and not a luxury item. So it was not poverty that bothered Van Gogh, but the lack of love from the public. Even Van Gogh’s mother, to whom the artist gave at least 200 works, left them in the old house when she moved. After which they were lost forever.

The artist's fruitful period began in 1886, when Van Gogh moved to live with his brother in Paris. It was at this time that blue and yellow colors, red tones and dynamic brushstrokes appeared in Van Gogh's works, which later made Vincent's paintings unique. The work contains calm and peaceful motifs caused by the influence of the impressionists. The meaning of the person in the paintings also changes; he is no longer the central character. Often the person is either absent or plays a secondary role.


Photo: Degtereva

HOW AND WHY VAN GOGH WENT CRAZY

“Sadness will last forever,” Van Gogh said before his death.

Van Gogh's work began to dawn, but this did not attract critics to his side. Buyers considered the artist's paintings disgusting. The artist perceived this fact very painfully. He went to the south of France and decided that he would create a workshop for the creators of “future generations.” He gave the main place in it to his friend, the French painter Paul Gauguin. The time has come when Van Gogh left the impressionists and his further works belong to post-impressionism.

“Instead of trying to accurately depict what is in front of my eyes, I use color more freely, so that I can express myself more fully,” explained the artist.

The relationship between Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh went through all stages in just 9 weeks, from friendship to attempted murder. One day Gauguin came to Van Gogh to discuss the workshop. But the conversation quickly turned into an argument. Gauguin believed that Van Gogh had a careless attitude towards painting, and he, in turn, accused Gauguin of being weak-minded. He was shocked by the fact that his friend did not understand the idea of ​​​​working for the future. As a result, on the same day, Van Gogh attacked Gauguin and tried to kill him. There are several versions on this matter. Some historians claim that the Dutchman attacked the Frenchman with a razor in broad daylight, others that Van Gogh tried to kill his friend in his sleep. In any case, Gauguin managed to miraculously escape; he left the workshop and never returned. That same evening, Van Gogh cut off his earlobe, went to a brothel and gave it to a prostitute. Why the artist did this is not known for certain. There are two versions, one says that this is repentance, the other says that this is madness.

Be that as it may, the next day Van Gogh was taken to a mental hospital and diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. There the artist had another attack and was placed in a ward for violent people. Since then, Van Gogh's attacks have been repeated monthly. During remission, he asked to stay in his studio, but city residents wrote a letter to the authorities, in which they asked to isolate the artist from society. As a result, he spent a year in a mental hospital. During this time, he created about 100 paintings that became especially famous: “Starry Night”, “Wheat Field with Cypress Trees”, etc. The main type of paintings at this time were still lifes and landscapes.

Why did Van Gogh end up in a hospital and was he truly ill? It is known that in addition to psychological torment, the artist became addicted to absinthe and drank almost every day. At that time, the dangers of this drink were not yet known. Due to illness, constant smoking and drinking absinthe, Van Gogh lost 15 teeth, contracted syphilis from his wife, who was a former prostitute, and began to suffer from impotence. Before Van Gogh met his last wife, he had never had any luck in his personal life, so he was a frequenter of brothels. And he had a predisposition to epilepsy since childhood. We can conclude that there were many reasons for emotional distress.

It is interesting that the artist’s first recognition during his lifetime came after leaving the hospital, shortly before his death. In 1889, Van Gogh was invited to participate in the Brussels G20 exhibition. Then the artist’s canvases first aroused interest among both colleagues and art lovers. But all this no longer pleased Van Gogh. In July 1890, he painted his last famous painting, “Wheat Field with Crows,” and died a week later. According to the official version, Van Gogh went for a walk with materials and shot himself with a revolver to scare away flocks of birds. But in 2011, art historians came up with an alternative version that Van Gogh was shot by one of the teenagers. Six months after the artist’s death, his brother Theo, who suffered from syphilis, also died.

Today in the Van Gogh Museum, in addition to famous paintings, interior items, letters and personal belongings have also been recreated. Visitors stop for a long time in front of “Sunflowers” ​​and “Starry Night”, watch videos, get acquainted with monographs and ask the same question: “How did a person who was constantly tormented by emotional experiences paint such bright, warm and positive pictures?” Today Van Gogh is 165, today there is a big party at the museum.