Vincent van Gogh Essay

Vincent van Gogh is one of the world’s most well-known artists. He was the son of a pastor and was brought up in a religious atmosphere. He thought his true calling was to preach the gospel like his father. He became a preacher in a small coal mining town. This is when he starting becoming very interested in the people and things that surrounded him. He became an artist at the age of 27.

Many artists uses experiences from their own lives to create their arts. This form of art which is called therapeutic or catharsis allows the artist to investigate their pain and create a path to healing their wounds. This practice was both used by artists Vincent van Gogh and Louise Bourgeois. Van Gogh who uses his artwork to (which are often seen in a colorful scene) expresses his emotional pain. During his lifetime, Van Gogh went through many love affairs and bouts of depression which he often cope with through his artwork. In comparison, Louise Bourgeois known as the founder of confessional art use the trauma of her early life experience to create abstract sculpture. This sculptures draws viewer to her parental issues and psychological

Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most famous painters of all time. His style was post-impressionism. He was a Dutch man, born in an averaged sized town called Groot-Zundert, Netherlands. The reason he became an artist, and the thing that influenced him the most to become an artist was actually his mother. His mother was interested in nature, she did a lot of drawing and watercolors and that really influenced her son heavily and got him into art. When he was fifteen years old, his family was really struggling with their finances. Because of this, he was forced to get a job and help them provide. It ended up that his uncle owned an art dealership, so he got a job there.

According to, David W. Galenson and Bruce A. Weinberg, in their article, Creating Modern Art: The Changing Careers of Painters in France from Impressionism to Cubism, the goal of the Post-Impressionism artists were to symbolize, rather than describe nature. Therefore, this in turn, allowed them to use more innovating techniques and to express their emotions; Gauguin and van Gogh were particularly zealous about using their emotional state to convey the content of their paintings. A quote taken directly from Galenson’s and Weinberg’s article, perfectly describes this attitude of emotion, rather than observation as the key artistic foundation of Post-Impressionism:

At the time of Anna’s death, she only had a handful of letters and paintings out of the works that Vincent had sent her. Vincent at times would feel rejected and sorrowful towards his mother and would describe his mother as a “hard-hearted woman of a soured love”. At other times Vincent would blame himself for being a “half-strange half-tiresome person who brings only sorrow and loss.”. “Vincent’s attachment to his mother was profound. Later in life, the sign of any mother and child could cause his eyes to “grow moist” and his “heart to melt,” he confessed.” It’s possible that this constant yearning for love and approval from his mother may have a lot to do with Vincent’s mental state in years to

The oldest of six children, Vincent was named after his parent’s first child that was stillborn. Vincent’s mother rejected him and this left a lasting despair within van Gogh. Due to financial difficulty, Vincent left school at an early age and began working at his Uncle’s art dealership. In 1873, he transferred to the Groupil Gallery in London where he enjoyed English culture and would frequent art galleries. This was also during a time Vincent first fell in love and upon rejection of his marriage proposal, he had a mental breakdown. It is understandable how rejection played a significant and damaging role in Vincent’s troubled life. Vincent then turned to religion, but his inability to conform and his willingness to suffer for his cause became disconcerting to others and he was compelled to find another

Van Gogh started gaining attention in his last 2 years. But this wasn’t enough. His brother Theo wanted to show the world who his brother was after his death. Sadly, Theo died 6 months after Van Gogh. His widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger did the work his dead husband couldn’t. She sold some of Vincent’s works, lend some for exhibitions and published the letters Van Gogh constantly wrote Theo. His unique life has inspired lots of people to become active in art. Who would think a “Redheaded Madman” could influence the world in the way he

While at the asylum he painted one of his most widely known works, Starry Night. The doctor Paul Gachet offered to look after Van Gogh at his house. Theo visited Gogh and told him that he couldn’t give Vincent much more money, and Vincent believed that Theo was no longer interested in selling his work (Biography.com).

Vincent tried first to learn the art works to other artists. When he was 16, he started working as a art dealer at a firm of Goupil & Co. located in Belgium and

After living in London and Paris for Goupil & Co., Vincent’s employment came to an end in the first month of 1876. He then followed his father’s footsteps and worked as an evangelist for six months, before the Committee decided he was not fit for the work. Vincent was unsuccessful at several more jobs, and letters between the family members further revel their unease. His mother showed great concern for him in her letter to Theo,

When Van Gogh was sixteen, his first job was working for his uncle at Goupil et Cie, an art gallery in The Hague. When he was nineteen he went to work at the Groupil Gallery in London and then to the gallery in Paris. He was finally fired from the gallery because he was not happy with his job and discoursed customers from buying the artwork. After that he decided that he wanted to be a preacher and studied to get into a theological school but failed. In 1879 he went to Borinage, a coal mining town, as a missionary to the poor coal miners. He lasted there a couple of years and then was dismissed.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30th 1853, in Zundert, The Netherlands. Van Gogh spent his teenage year’s working for a firm of art dealers; however, he did not embark upon his art career until 1880. Originally, he worked only with dark and gloomy colors, until he came across the art movements developed in Paris known as, Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism (Meier-Graefe 4). Van Gogh than included their brighter colors and unique style of painting into his very own creations. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life (Meier-Graefe 10). However, most of his best-known works were produced in his last

          4. Later Van Gogh decide to moved to his next and final career which was An Artist.

The one close relationship Van Gogh had with his siblings was with his brother Theo who supported him not only emotionally but financially. (Letters to Theo from Van Gogh are big parts in understanding Van Gogh’s life and the troubles he faced. published in 1959.) Van Gogh was largely self-taught as an artist, although he received help from his cousin, Mauve. His first works were heavily painted, mud-colored and clumsy attempts to represent the life of the poor (e.g. Potato-Eaters, 1885, Amsterdam), influenced by one of his artistic heroes, Millet. He moved to Paris in 1886, living with his devoted brother, Theo, who as a dealer introduced him to artists like Gauguin, Pissarro, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec. In Paris, he discovered color as well as the divisionist ideas which helped to create the distinctive dashed brushstrokes of his later work (e.g. Pere Tanguy, 1887, Paris). He moved to Arles, in the south of France, in 1888, hoping to establish an artists' colony there, and was immediately struck by the hot reds and yellows of the Mediterranean, which he increasingly used symbolically to represent his own moods (e.g. Sunflowers, 1888, London, National Gallery). He was joined briefly by Gauguin in October 1888, and managed in some works to combine his own ideas with the latter's Synthetism (e.g. The Sower, 1888, Amsterdam), but the visit was not a success. A final argument led to the infamous episode in which Van Gogh mutilated

Vincent Van Gogh had a rather depressing life. After being born into an upper-middle class family he quickly became depressed in life. He tried different things like working as an art dealer, becoming a Protestant missionary, and so on. None of these stuck for him as his mental health continued to decline. He was already a quiet, keep to himself kind of person, but over time he became more isolated. He got help from his younger brother Theo in the form of money and moved back home with his parents. This is when he began painting and eventually moved to Paris. Once moving there his paintings became more colorful and his painting style began to develop. He also began suffering from delusions and psychotic episodes and began neglecting his health by eating less and drinking alcohol more frequently and in