Vincet Van Gogh Essay, Research Paper

Vincent Van Gogh was born March 30th 1853. He was born in a small village of Groot-Zundart. His father Theodorus Van Gogh was a Protestant Preacher in the village. Vincent had a younger brother Theo who was born May 1st 1857. Vincent had three uncles that were art dealers so it was hard to imagine that he would not get involved with art.

In July of 1869 Vincent left to become an apprentice to Goupil’s art dealers at The Hangue. He worked there for four years then was transferred in January to the Brussels branch of Goupil’s. Then in June Van Gogh went to the London branch where they specialized in the reproductive engravings and photographs of old masters and contemporary artists and their paintings.

After being dismissed from Goulip’s in Paris he became a voracious reader and letters to his brother show the increasing involvement of religious matters. In April 1876 he returned to England to take a teaching post in Ramstage. Later on he moved to become a teacher and a lay preacher at Isleworth, a city near London. Not staying there long he went back to Holland where his father was transferred to Etten. Vincent found a job in a bookshop were he was reported for spending most of his time drawing and translating the Bible into French and German and English. Continuing his education he went to Amsterdam to study for his matriculation in the theological faculty of the University.

A year after entering the University he quit his studies. This was do to the increasingly impatient and reluctance to except the fact that Latin and Greek were a necessity for his training. In August of 1878 he went to newly open training school for evangelists (preacher) in Brussels. Yet again he was unsuccessful and quit.

He moved down to the coal-mining district of the Broniage in southern Belgium. Here work as a temporary lay preacher, he held bible classes. While he was here Van Gogh lived a lie of self-denial and was dismissed from the grounds. So Vincent Van Gogh moved again to a small village where he continued his work. It was here when his interest in drawing was revived and he decided to become and artists.

In 1880 Van Gogh left the Broniage to return to Brussels where he met another art student, Anton Ridder van Rappard, with whom he corresponed with for the next five years. While in Brussels he had gained the confidence to be an illustrator. This was the time where Van Gogh did most of his black and white sketches. He was not working so his younger brother theo was sending him a monthly allowances. He went home and fell in love with a woman named Kee Vos-Strocker, who was living with the family. Vincent’s love was not returned by her and this provoked tension between his parents and him. By the end of the year he had become totally disillusioned with the church and moved to The Hague.

With many new problems in his life Van Gogh’s paintings represented the attitude he was in. Such problems were the many disappointing loves in his life. He went in an out of many different asylums for the mentally challenged and depressed. During this time he painted when he was well enough. In one of his many stages of depression he severed a part of his ear and sent it to a girl in the brothel, which he and Gaugain visited quite often. He was put in a hospital then he was released again and two months later he was back in there with another mental disorder that still has not been diagnosed. Then in 1890 July 27th Vincent shot him self and died two days later. Before the great artist died he left us with many great paintings, which have made him a very well, know and respected artist.

One of these paintings is “The Starry Night”; it was painted in June 1889. In a letter to his brother Theo he wrote, ” I hardly think impressionism will ever do more than the Romantics. This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big. Daubingy and Rousse have done just that, expressing all that it has of intimacy, all that vast peace and majesty, but at the same time a feeling of individual, so heart-breaking. I have no aversion to that sort of emotion.” Not really understanding what Van Gogh meant by that; I think that he was trying to say that he did not want to be like them, he wanted to paint his own picture from his own mind. He was not going to except the way they saw the moon and the stars he wanted them to be seen through his eyes as well. A few days after writing the letter to his brother he painted his “The Starry Night”. It is one of his boldest and most deliberate masterpieces (Petrie, VI).

This is my favorite painting of all the artwork I have seen, it brings a certain peace of mind to you when you sit back and look at it. The painting is very bold in brush strokes that help bring it into life; you almost feel the light from the stars and the moon. Vincent Van Gogh is my favorite artist and this is why I bought a reproduction of the painting, which hangs over my bed back home in Va. Beach.