The most famous paintings by Van Gogh. The life of Vincent van Gogh Van Gogh is famous

Vincent Van Gogh. Biography. Life and art

We don't know who Vincent van Gogh was in past life... In this life, he was born quite a boy on March 30, 1853 in the village of Groot Zunder in the province of North Brabant near the southern border of Holland. At baptism, he was given the name Vincent Willem in honor of his grandfather, and the prefix Gog may come from the name of the small town of Gog, which stood at dense forest next to the border...
His father, Theodor van Gogh, was a priest, and besides Vincent, the family had five more children, but only one of them was of great importance to him - the younger brother Theo, whose life is confusing and tragically intertwined with Vincent's life.

The fact that in the case of Vincent fate chose the factor of surprise, making the author extremely famous and revered, unknown and despised during his lifetime, begins to appear, as it seems, already in the events of 1890, a decisive year for the unfortunate artist, which ended tragically for him in July. And this year began with the best omens, with that first, only and unexpected sale of his painting "Red Vineyards in Arles".
The January issue of the magazine Mercure de France published the first enthusiastic critical article on his work signed by Albert Aurier. In May, he moved from the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Remy-de-Provence to the town of Auvers-on-Oise, near Paris. There he met Dr. Gachet (amateur artist, friend of the Impressionists), who highly appreciated him. There he painted almost eighty canvases in a little over two months. In addition, signs of an extraordinary fate, something destined from above, appear from birth. By a strange coincidence, Vincent was born on March 30, 1853, exactly one year after the death of the first-born of Theodorus van Gogh and Anna Cornelius Carbentus, who received the same name at baptism. The grave of the first Vincent was located next to the church door through which the second Vincent passed every Sunday of his childhood.
It must have been not very pleasant, besides, in the Van Gogh family papers there is a direct indication that the name of the stillborn predecessor was often mentioned in the presence of Vincent. But whether this somehow affected his "guilty" or his supposed sense of being an "illegal usurper" is anyone's guess.
Following tradition, the Van Gogh generations chose two spheres of activity for themselves: the church (Theodorus himself was the son of a pastor) and the art trade (like the three brothers of his father). Vincent will take both the first and the second paths, but will fail in both cases. However, both the accumulated experience will have a great influence on his further choice.

The first attempt to find his place in life dates back to 1869, when, at the age of sixteen, Vincent goes to work - with the help of his uncle, his namesake (affectionately called Uncle Saint) - in a branch of the Parisian art firm Goupil, opened in The Hague . Here, for the first time, the future artist comes into contact with painting and drawing and enriches the experience he receives at work with informative visits to city museums and abundant reading. Everything goes well until 1873.
First of all, this is the year of his transfer to the London branch of Goupil, which had a negative impact on his future work. Van Gogh stayed there for two years and experienced a painful loneliness that comes through in his letters to his brother, more and more sad. But the worst comes when Vincent, having changed the apartment that has become too expensive for a boarding house maintained by the widow Loyye, falls in love with her daughter Ursula (according to other sources, Eugenia) and is rejected. This is the first acute love disappointment, this is the first of those impossible relationships that will permanently overshadow his feelings.
In that period of deep despair, a mystical understanding of reality begins to mature in him, growing into a downright religious frenzy. His impulse grows stronger, while crowding out his interest in working at Gupil. And the transfer in May 1875 to the central office in Paris, supported by Uncle Saint in the hope that such a change would do him good, would no longer help. On April 1, 1876, Vincent was finally dismissed from the Parisian art firm, which by then had been taken over by his partners Busso and Valadon.

Increasingly asserting himself in the thought of his religious vocation, in the spring of 1877, Van Gogh moved to Amsterdam to his uncle Johannes, the director of the city shipyard, in order to prepare for the entrance exams to the theological faculty. For him, who read “On the Imitation of Christ” with delight, becoming a servant of the Lord meant, first of all, devoting oneself to the concrete service of one’s neighbor, in full accordance with the gospel postulates. And great was his joy when, in 1879, he managed to get a position as a secular preacher in Vama, a mining center in the Borinage in southern Belgium.
Here he teaches the miners the Law of God and selflessly helps them, voluntarily dooming himself to a beggarly existence: he lives in a shack, sleeps on the floor, eats only bread and water, and exposes himself to bodily torture. However, the local authorities do not like such extremes, and they deny him this position. But Vincent stubbornly continues his mission as a Christian preacher in the nearby village of Kem. Now he does not even have such an outlet as the correspondence with his brother Theo, which is interrupted from October 1879 to July 1880.
Then gradually something changes in him, and his attention turns to painting. This new path is not as unexpected as it might seem. First, art for Vincent was no less familiar than reading. Work in the Goupil Gallery could not help honing his taste, and during his stay in various cities (in The Hague, London, Paris, Amsterdam) he never missed the opportunity to go to museums.
But first of all, it is his deep religiosity, his sympathy for the outcasts, his love for people and for the Lord that find their embodiment through artistic creativity. “One must understand the defining word contained in the masterpieces of the great masters,” he writes to Theo in July 1880, “and God will be there.”

In 1880, Vincent entered the Academy of Arts in Brussels. However, due to his irreconcilable nature, he very soon abandons her and continues art education self-taught, using reproductions and drawing regularly. Back in January 1874, in his letter, Vincent listed Theo's fifty-six favorite artists, among which the names of Jean-Francois Millet, Théodore Rousseau, Jules Breton, Constant Troyon and Anton Mauve stood out.
And now, at the very beginning of his artistic career, his sympathy for the realist French and Dutch school of the nineteenth century has not weakened in the least. In addition, the social art of Millet or Breton, with their populist themes, could not help but find an unconditional follower in him. As for the Dutchman Anton Mauve, there was another reason: Mauve, along with Johannes Bosboom, the Maris brothers and Josef Israels, was one of major representatives The Hague School, the most significant artistic phenomenon in Holland in the second half of the 19th century, which united french realism The Barbizon school, formed around Rousseau, with the great realist tradition of Dutch art of the seventeenth century. Mauve was also a distant relative of Vincent's mother.
And it was under the guidance of this recognized master in 1881, upon returning to Holland (to Etten, where his parents moved), that Van Gogh created his first two paintings: “Still Life with Cabbage and Wooden Shoes” (now in Amsterdam, in the Vincent Van Museum Gog) and "Still Life with a Beer Glass and Fruit" (Wuppertal, Von der Heidt Museum).

Everything seems to be going well for Vincent, and the family seems to be happy with his new calling. But soon, relations with parents deteriorate sharply, and then completely interrupted. The reason for this is again his rebellious nature and unwillingness to adapt, as well as a new, inappropriate and again unrequited love for his cousin Kay, who recently lost her husband and was left alone with a child.

Having fled to The Hague, in January 1882, Vincent meets Christina Maria Hoornik, nicknamed Sin, a prostitute older than his age, an alcoholic, with a child, and even pregnant. Being at the height of his contempt for existing decorum, he lives with her and even wants to marry. Despite financial difficulties, he continues to be true to his calling and completes several works. Most of the pictures of this very early period- landscapes, mostly sea and urban: the theme is quite in the tradition of the Hague school.
However, her influence is limited to the choice of subjects, since Van Gogh was not characterized by that exquisite texture, that elaboration of details, those ultimately idealized images that distinguished the artists of this direction. From the very beginning, Vincent gravitated towards the image of the truthful rather than the beautiful, trying first of all to express a sincere feeling, and not just to achieve a sound performance.

The short life of this artist was like a bright flash of lightning. Vincent van Gogh lived in the world for only 37 years, but left behind a fantastically huge creative heritage: more than 1700 works, including about 900 drawings and 800 paintings. at modern auctions, all records are broken in value, and in fact during his lifetime he managed to sell only one of his works, which, in terms of today's money, brought him an income of only 80 dollars. The conflicting emotional personality of the artist and his unusual work were incomprehensible to most of his contemporaries.

Now, many books have been written about the biography of the famous Dutchman, and his paintings and drawings occupy places of honor in the most prestigious art museums and galleries in the world. Let's remember creative way the great expressionist and magnificent, unlike any other, paintings by Van Gogh.

Three creative periods in the artist's life

Vincent van Gogh's creative path is conditionally divided by art historians into three periods: Dutch (1881-1886), Parisian (1886-1888) and late, which lasted from about 1888 until the death of the artist in 1890. It's so short creative life, only 9 years long, was destined for this man. The canvases painted during these time intervals differ greatly among themselves and in plots and in the manner of writing. I would like to clarify that the paintings of Van Gogh, whose names are indicated in this article, of course, are only a small part of his vast artistic heritage.

Vincent van Gogh began to engage in creativity much earlier than 1881, but then he was mainly attracted to graphic drawing. He did not receive a professional art education, although he tried several times to study as an artist. But he could not overcome the rebellious spirit in himself, his talent could not fit into any academic framework, which forced the young Vincent to drop out of school and paint on his own.

Paintings by Wag Gogh from the Dutch period

Having discovered for himself, the artist began to paint people, their harsh life, hard life, first of all. The canvases of this period are not at all like the bright beautiful creations of Van Gogh, which later brought him deafening posthumous fame. Here are the characteristic works of those years: "Weaver", "Peasant Woman". Color palette of these pictures is dark and gloomy, like the very life of poor people.

It can be seen how the artist passionately empathizes with his characters. Van Gogh had a very responsive, kind and compassionate soul. In addition, he was very religious, for some time he even served as a Christian preacher. He understood all the commandments of the New Testament literally. He walked in the simplest clothes, ate poorly and lived in the poorest shacks. At the same time, he came from a very wealthy family and, if he wanted, he could continue the family business (trade in paintings and art objects). But Vincent van Gogh was not like that, he was good at painting, but not selling.

Parisian period

In 1886, Van Gogh left his native Holland forever and came to Paris, where he tried to study painting, visited exhibitions of fashionable painters, got acquainted with the work of the Impressionists. Monet, Pizarro, Signac, Renoir made a huge impression on Van Gogh and had a considerable influence on the further formation of his creative style of writing. Van Gogh begins to pay great attention to color, now he is attracted not only by people, but also by landscapes and still lifes. The artist's palette becomes brighter and lighter; in the works of the Parisian period, Van Gogh's talent as an excellent colorist begins to appear.

B works like a man possessed, however, as always. Here are some typical paintings by Wag Gogh painted at this time: "Sea in Sainte-Marie", "Bouquet of flowers in a blue vase", "Seine embankment with boats", "Still life with roses and sunflowers", "Almond blossom branch", " Gardens in Montmartre", "Roofs of Paris", "Portrait of a Woman in Blue", etc. Van Gogh's Parisian period was very fruitful, during these years the artist painted about 250 paintings. Then Van Gogh meets Gauguin, their friendship and creative union becomes very valuable to him. But the characters of the two creators are too dissimilar. And everything ends in a quarrel, which leads Vincent to nervous breakdown. It is to this difficult period of life that Van Gogh's painting "Self-portrait with a severed ear and pipe" belongs.

Van Gogh's work in Arly

Gradually noisy Paris began to weigh Van Gogh, and in the winter of 1888 he went to Provence, to the town of Arles. Here he was to write his most brilliant creations. The beautiful nature of these places fascinates the artist. One after another, he creates such canvases as "Landscape with a road, a cypress and a star", "Hacks in Provence", "Red vineyards", "Olive trees against the backdrop of Alpille", "Harvest", "Field of poppies", "Mountains in Saint-Remy", "Cypresses" and many other incomparable landscapes - masterpieces of post-impressionist painting.

He also paints an endless series of flower still lifes. No one has ever painted flowers like Vincent van Gogh. Pictures - the famous "Sunflowers" and "Irises" - were painted by him in Provence. The artist transfers to the canvas the endless fields of Provence, filled with pure transparent air, blooming gardens, cypresses, luxurious olive groves. At the same time, he is also an excellent portrait painter. In Arles, he painted many portraits and self-portraits.

The famous "Sunflowers"

Still life "Sunflowers" is one of the most popular paintings Van Gogh. Most of us know this painting from numerous reproductions. Meanwhile, the impressionist painted not this one still life, but a whole cycle of seven paintings, which depicted sunny flowers. But one of the works died in Japan during the atomic bombing, the other was lost in one of the private collections. Thus, only 5 paintings from this series have survived to this day.

These are Van Gogh paintings. The description and photograph of the reproduction, of course, cannot convey all the charm of the original. And yet I would like to dedicate a couple of lines to "Sunflowers". This still life just splatters with sunlight! Van Gogh outdid himself by finding many shades in yellow. Some researchers believe that the artist’s mental illness manifested itself in this work, as evidenced by this unusual brightness and richness of the still life.

Painting "Starry night"

Van Gogh's painting "Night", or rather, " Starlight Night", was written by him in Saint-Remy, in 1889. This is a large canvas measuring 73x92 cm. The color scheme of this fantastic creation of the artist is very unusual - a combination of blue, sky, dark blue and green with various shades of yellow.

The compositional basis is dark cypresses in the foreground, in the valley lies a small inconspicuous town, and above it stretches an endless restless sky with an exaggerated huge stars and a luminous moon, as if swirling in a whirlwind This picture, like most of Van Gogh's works, must be viewed at a decent distance, it is impossible to perceive holistically scattered large strokes up close.

Canvas "Church at Auvers"

Van Gogh's painting "Church at Auvers" is also one of his most famous and popular works. This work was written in the last year of the painter's life, when he was already very ill. Van Gogh suffered from a severe mental disorder, which could not but affect his painting.

The drawing of the church, which is the center of the composition, is made with wavy, trembling lines. The sky - heavy, dark blue - seems to hang over the church and presses on it with its lead weight. It is associated in the viewer with some impending threat, it awakens disturbing feelings in the soul. The lower part of the picture is bright, it depicts a bifurcating path and grass illuminated by the sun.

The cost of paintings

As mentioned earlier, the cost of the work of the Dutch post-impressionist is very high. But even with a huge amount of money, it will be difficult to buy a canvas, the author of which is the great Van Gogh himself. Paintings with the names "Sunflowers" can currently be valued at any mega-large amount. In 1987, one of the paintings in this series was sold at Christie's for $40.5 million. A lot of time has passed since then, and therefore the cost of this work could have grown many times over.

The painting "Arlesian" left the auction "Christie" in 2006 for 40.3 million, and "Peasant Woman in a Straw Hat" was bought in 1997 for 47 million dollars. If the artist could live to this day, he would be one of the richest people on earth, but he died in poverty, not even suspecting how dearly future generations would appreciate his work.

Paintings of the artist in Russia

In Russia, Van Gogh's paintings can be seen in St. Petersburg, in the Hermitage, as well as in Moscow, in the Museum fine arts them. Pushkin. In total, there are 14 works by Van Gogh in our country: "Arles Arena", "Huts", "Morning", "Landscape with a house and a plowman", "Portrait of Mrs. Trabuque", "Boats to the house at night", "Ladies of Arles "," Bush "," Walk of prisoners "," Portrait of Dr. Felix Rey "," Red vineyards in Arles "," Landscape in Auvers after the rain ".

When 37-year-old Vincent van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, his work was almost unknown to anyone. Today, his paintings are worth stunning sums and adorn the best museums in the world.

125 years after the death of the great Dutch painter, it is time to learn more about him and dispel some of the myths that, like all art history, his biography is full of.

He changed several jobs before becoming an artist

The son of a minister, Van Gogh started working at the age of 16. His uncle hired him as an intern for an art dealership in The Hague. He happened to travel to London and Paris, where the firm's branches were located. In 1876 he was fired. After that, he worked briefly as a schoolteacher in England, then as a bookstore clerk. From 1878 he served as a preacher in Belgium. Van Gogh was in need, he had to sleep on the floor, but less than a year later he was fired from this post. Only after that he finally became an artist and did not change his occupation anymore. In this field, he became famous, however, posthumously.

Van Gogh's career as an artist was short

In 1881, the self-taught Dutch artist returned to the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to painting. He was supported financially and materially by his younger brother Theodore, a successful art dealer. In 1886 the brothers settled in Paris, and these two years French capital turned out to be fateful. Van Gogh took part in exhibitions of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, he began to use a light and bright palette, experimenting with methods of applying strokes. The artist spent the last two years of his life in the south of France, where he created some of his most famous paintings.

In his entire ten-year career, he sold only a few of over 850 paintings. His drawings (there are about 1300 of them left) were then unclaimed.

He probably didn't cut off his own ear.

In February 1888, after living in Paris for two years, Van Gogh moved to the south of France, to the city of Arles, where he hoped to establish a community of artists. He was accompanied by Paul Gauguin, with whom they became friends in Paris. The officially accepted version of events is as follows:

On the night of December 23, 1888, they quarreled, and Gauguin left. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, pursued his friend, but, not catching up, returned home and, in annoyance, partially cut off his left ear, then wrapped it in a newspaper and gave it to some prostitute.

In 2009, two German scientists published a book suggesting that Gauguin, being a good swordsman, cut off part of Van Gogh's ear with a saber during a duel. According to this theory, Van Gogh, in the name of friendship, agreed to hide the truth, otherwise Gauguin would have been threatened with prison.

The most famous paintings were painted by him in a psychiatric clinic

In May 1889, Van Gogh sought help from the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric hospital, located in a former convent in the city of Saint-Remy-de-Provence in southern France. Initially, the artist was diagnosed with epilepsy, but the examination also revealed bipolar disorder, alcoholism and metabolic disorders. Treatment consisted mainly of baths. He remained in the hospital for a year and painted a number of landscapes there. Over a hundred paintings from this period include some of his most famous works such as Starry Night (acquired by the New York Museum of contemporary art in 1941) and Irises (purchased by an Australian industrialist in 1987 for a then-record $53.9 million)

March 30, 2013 - 160 years since the birth of Vincent van Gogh (March 30, 1853 - July 29, 1890)

Vincent Willem Van Gogh (Dutch. Vincent Willem van Gogh, March 30, 1853, Grotto-Zundert, near Breda, the Netherlands - July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, France) - the world-famous Dutch post-impressionist artist


Self-portrait (1888, Private collection)

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the village of Grot-Zundert (Dutch. Groot Zundert) in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, not far from the Belgian border. Vincent's father was Theodor van Gogh, a Protestant pastor, and his mother was Anna Cornelia Carbentus, the daughter of a respected 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 whole life to Protestant Church. This name was intended for the first child of Theodore and Anna, who was born a year before Vincent and died on the first day. So Vincent, although he was born the 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 Hubert, May 16, 1859) and Wil (Willemina Jacob, March 16, 1862). Vincent is remembered by the family as a wayward, 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 others: of all the children, Vincent was less pleasant to her, and she did not believe that something worthwhile could come out of him. Outside the family, on the contrary, Vincent showed reverse side his character - he was quiet, serious and thoughtful. He hardly played with other children. In the eyes of his fellow villagers, he was 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 left for a boarding school in Zevenbergen, 20 km from his home. Departure from home caused much suffering to Vincent, he could not forget this, even as an adult. On September 15, 1866, he began his studies 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 dropped out of school unexpectedly and returned to Father's house. This concludes his formal education. He recalled his childhood like this: “My childhood was gloomy, cold and empty…”.


Vincent van Gogh im Jahr 1866 im Alter von 13 Jahren.

In July 1869, Vincent got a job in the Hague branch of a large art and trading company Goupil & Cie, owned by his uncle Vincent ("Uncle Cent"). There he received the necessary training as a dealer. 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 work of Jean-Francois Millet and Jules Breton. In London, Vincent becomes a successful dealer, and at the age of 20 he already earns more than his father.


Die Innenräume der Haager Filiale der Kunstgalerie Goupil&Cie, wo Vincent van Gogh den Kunsthandel erlernte

Van Gogh stayed there for two years and experienced a painful loneliness that comes through in his letters to his brother, more and more sad. But the worst comes when Vincent, having changed the apartment that has become too expensive for a boarding house maintained by the widow Loyye at 87 Hackford Road, falls in love with her daughter Ursula (according to other sources - Eugenia) and is rejected. This is the first acute love disappointment, this is the first of those impossible relationships that will permanently overshadow his feelings.
In that period of deep despair, a mystical understanding of reality begins to mature in him, growing into a downright religious frenzy. His impulse grows stronger, while crowding out his interest in working at Gupil.

In 1874, Vincent was transferred to the Paris branch of the firm, but after three months work, he again leaves for London. Things were getting worse for him, and in May 1875 he was again transferred to Paris. Here he attended exhibitions at the Salon and the Louvre. At the end of March 1876, he was fired from the firm Goupil & Cie, which by then had been taken over by his partners Busso and Valadon. Driven by compassion and a desire to be useful to his fellow man, he decided to become a priest.

In 1876 Vincent returned to England, where he found unpaid work as a boarding school teacher at Ramsgate. In July, Vincent moved to another school - in Isleworth (near London), where he worked as a teacher and assistant pastor. On November 4, Vincent delivered his first sermon. His interest in the gospel grew, and he had the idea of ​​preaching to the poor.


Vincent van Gogh at 23

Vincent went home for Christmas and was persuaded by his parents not to return to England. Vincent stayed in the Netherlands and worked for half a year in a bookstore in Dordrecht. This work was not to his liking; he spent much of his time sketching or translating passages from the Bible into German, English, and French. Trying to support Vincent's desire to become a pastor, the family sends him in May 1877 to Amsterdam, where he settled with his uncle, Admiral Jan van Gogh. Here he studied diligently under the guidance of his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected and recognized theologian, in preparation for passing the university entrance examination for the department of theology. In the end, he became disillusioned with his studies, gave up his studies and left Amsterdam in July 1878. The desire to be useful to the common people sent him to the Protestant Missionary School in Laeken near Brussels, where he completed a three-month preaching course.

In December 1878 he was sent as a missionary for six months to the Borinage, a poor mining district in southern Belgium. After a six-month internship, Van Gogh intended to enter an evangelical school to continue his education, but considered the introduced tuition fees to be a manifestation of discrimination, and abandoned the path of the priest.

In 1880, Vincent entered the Academy of Arts in Brussels. However, due to his irreconcilable nature, he very soon abandons her and continues his art education by self-taught, using reproductions and regularly drawing. Back in January 1874, in his letter, Vincent listed Theo's fifty-six favorite artists, among which the names of Jean-Francois Millet, Théodore Rousseau, Jules Breton, Constant Troyon and Anton Mauve stood out.

And now, at the very beginning of his artistic career, his sympathy for the realist French and Dutch school of the nineteenth century has not weakened in the least. In addition, the social art of Millet or Breton, with their populist themes, could not help but find an unconditional follower in him. As for the Dutchman Anton Mauve, there was another reason: Mauve, along with Johannes Bosboom, the Maris brothers and Joseph Israels, was one of the largest representatives of the Hague school, the most significant artistic phenomenon in Holland in the second half of the 19th century, which united the French realism of the Barbizon the school that formed around Rousseau, with the great realist tradition of Dutch art of the seventeenth century. Mauve was also a distant relative of Vincent's mother.

And it was under the guidance of this recognized master in 1881, upon returning to Holland (to Etten, where his parents moved), that Van Gogh created his first two paintings: “Still Life with Cabbage and Wooden Shoes” (now in Amsterdam, in the Vincent Van Museum Gog) and "Still Life with a Beer Glass and Fruit" (Wuppertal, Von der Heidt Museum).


Still life with a mug of beer and fruit. (1881, Wuppertal, Von der Heidt Museum)

Everything seems to be going well for Vincent, and the family seems to be happy with his new calling. But soon, relations with parents deteriorate sharply, and then completely interrupted. The reason for this is again his rebellious nature and unwillingness to adapt, as well as a new, inappropriate and again unrequited love for his cousin Kay, who recently lost her husband and was left alone with a child.

Having fled to The Hague, in January 1882, Vincent meets Christina Maria Hoornik, nicknamed Sin, a prostitute older than his age, an alcoholic, with a child, and even pregnant. Being at the height of his contempt for existing decorum, he lives with her and even wants to marry. Despite financial difficulties, he continues to be true to his calling and completes several works. For the most part, the paintings of this very early period are landscapes, mainly sea and urban: the theme is quite in the tradition of the Hague school.

However, her influence is limited to the choice of subjects, since Van Gogh was not characterized by that exquisite texture, that elaboration of details, those ultimately idealized images that distinguished the artists of this direction. From the very beginning, Vincent gravitated towards the image of the truthful rather than the beautiful, trying first of all to express a sincere feeling, and not just to achieve a sound performance.

By the end of 1883 the burden family life became unbearable. Theo - the only one who has not turned away from him - convinces his brother to leave Sin and devote himself entirely to art. A period of bitterness and loneliness begins, which he spends in the north of Holland in Drenthe. In December of the same year, Vincent moved to Nuenen, in North Brabant, where his parents now live.


Theo van Gogh (1888)

Here, in two years, he creates hundreds of canvases and drawings, even paints with his students, takes music lessons himself, and reads a lot. In a significant number of works, he depicts peasants and weavers - the same working people who could always count on his support and who were sung by those who were authorities in painting and literature for him (beloved Zola and Dickens).

In a series of paintings and studies of the mid-1880s. (“Exit from the Protestant Church in Nuenen” (1884-1885), “Old Church Tower in Nuenen” (1885), “Shoes” (1886), Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), painted in dark pictorial colors, marked by painful acute perception of human suffering and feelings of depression, the artist recreated the oppressive atmosphere of psychological tension.


Exit from the Protestant Church in Nuenen, (1884-1885, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)


Old church tower in Nuenen, (1885, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)


Shoes, (1886, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

Beginning with Potato Harvesting (now in a private collection in New York), painted in 1883, while he was still living in The Hague, the theme of downtrodden people and their labors runs through his Dutch period: the emphasis is on the expressiveness of the scenes and figures, the palette is dark, with a predominance of deaf and gloomy tones.

The masterpiece of this period is the canvas "Potato Eaters" (Amsterdam, Vincent Van Gogh Museum), created in April-May 1885, in which the artist depicts an ordinary scene from the life of a peasant family. By that time, this was the most serious work for him: contrary to custom, he made preparatory drawings of peasant heads, interiors, individual details, compositional sketches, and Vincent painted it in the studio, and not from life, as he used to.


The Potato Eaters, (1885, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

In 1887, when he had already moved to Paris, a place where all those who had been involved in art in one way or another had been relentlessly striving since the 19th century, he wrote to his sister Villemina: who eat potatoes, written in Nuenen, is by far the best thing I've done." By the end of November 1885, after his father died unexpectedly in March and, moreover, slanderous rumors spread that he was the father of a child who was born to a young peasant woman who posed for him, Vincent moved to Antwerp, where he again came into contact with the artistic environment.

He goes to the local school fine arts, goes to museums, admiring the works of Rubens, and discovers Japanese engravings, which were so popular at that time among Western artists, especially among the Impressionists. He studies diligently, intending to continue his studies at the higher courses of the School, but an ordinary career is clearly not for him, and the exams turn out to be a failure.

But Vincent will never know about it, because, obeying his impulsive nature, he decides that for the artist there is one and only city where it really makes sense to live and create, and leaves for Paris.

Van Gogh arrives in Paris on February 28, 1886. The brother learns about Vincent's arrival only from a note with a proposal to meet at the Louvre, which is delivered to him in art gallery Busso & Valadon, the new owners of Goupil & Co., where Theo has been working continuously since October 1879, rising to the rank of director.

Van Gogh begins to act in the city of opportunities and motives with the help of his brother Theo, who gave him shelter in his house on the Rue Laval (now Rue Victor-Masset). Later, a larger apartment will be found on Lepic Street.


View of Paris from Theo's apartment on Rue Lepic (1887, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam).

After arriving in Paris, Vincent begins classes with Fernand Cormon (1845-1924) in his atelier. Although, these were not so much classes as communication with his new art comrades: John Russell (1858-1931), Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) and Emile Bernard (1868-1941). Later, Theo, who then worked as a manager at the Bosso and Valladon gallery, introduced Vincent to the works of impressionist artists: Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro (along with his son Lucien, he would become Vincent's friend), Edgar Degas and Georges Seurat. Their work made a huge impression on him and changed his attitude towards color. In the same year, Vincent met another artist, Paul Gauguin, whose passionate and irreconcilable friendship became the most important event in the lives of both.

The time spent in Paris from February 1886 to February 1888 turned out to be for Vincent a period of technical research and comparison with the most innovative trends in modern painting. During these two years, he creates two hundred and thirty canvases - more than in any other stage of his creative biography.

The transition from realism, characteristic of Dutch period and preserved in the first Parisian works, to a manner that testifies to the subordination of Van Gogh (though never - unconditional or literal) to the dictates of impressionism and post-impressionism, clearly manifested itself in a series of still lifes with flowers (among which - the first sunflowers) and landscapes, written in 1887 . Among these landscapes is "Bridges at Asnières" (now in a private collection in Zurich), which depicts one of the favorite places in impressionist painting, which repeatedly attracted artists, as, indeed, other villages on the banks of the Seine: Bougival, Chatou and Argenteuil. Like the Impressionist painters, Vincent, in the company of Bernard and Signac, goes to the banks of the river in the open air.


Bridge at Asnières (1887, Bührle Foundation, Zürich, Switzerland)

Such work allows him to strengthen his relationship with color. “In Asnières, I saw more colors than ever before,” he notes. During this period, the study of color captures all his attention: now Van Gogh seizes it separately and no longer assigns it a purely descriptive role, as in the days of narrower realism.

Following the example of the Impressionists, the palette brightens significantly, setting the stage for that yellow-blue explosion, for those violent colors that have become characteristic of recent years his creativity.

In Paris, Van Gogh most of all communicates with people: he meets with other artists, talks with them, visits the same places that his brothers have chosen. One of them is "Tambourine", a cabaret on the Boulevard Clichy, in Montmartre, hosted by the Italian Agostina Segatori, a former Degas model. With her, Vincent has a short romance: the artist makes her beautiful portrait, depicting her sitting at one of the tables of her own cafe (Amsterdam, Vincent van Gogh Museum). She also poses for his only nudes painted in oil, and maybe for The Italian Girl (Paris, Musee d'Orsay).


Agostina Segatori at the Tambourine Café, (1887-1888, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)


Nude in Bed (1887, Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania, USA)

Another meeting place is the shop of “daddy” Tanguy on Rue Clausel, a shop of paints and other art materials, the owner of which was an old communard and a generous patron of the arts. And there and there, as in other similar institutions of that time, sometimes serving as exhibition spaces, Vincent organizes a show of his own works, as well as the works of his closest friends: Bernard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Anquetin.


Portrait of Père Tanguy (Father Tanguy), (1887-8, Musée Rodin)

Together they form a group of Small Boulevards - this is how Van Gogh calls himself and his associates in order to emphasize the difference with the more famous and recognized masters of the Grand Boulevards, as defined by the same Van Gogh. Behind all this is the dream of creating a community of artists on the model of medieval brotherhoods, where friends live and work in complete unanimity.

But the Parisian reality is completely different, there is a spirit of rivalry and tension. “It takes vanity to succeed, and vanity seems absurd to me,” Vincent tells his brother. In addition, his impulsive nature and uncompromising stance often involve him in disputes and strife, and even Theo finally breaks down and complains in a letter to Sister Villemina how it has become "almost unbearable" to live with him. In the end, Paris becomes disgusting to him.

“I want to hide somewhere to the south, so as not to see so many artists who, as people, are disgusting to me,” he admits in a letter to his brother.

And so he does. In February 1888, he sets off towards Arles, in the warm embrace of Provence.

“Nature here is extraordinarily beautiful,” Vincent writes to his brother from Arles. Van Gogh arrives in Provence in the middle of winter, there is even snow. But the colors and light of the south make the deepest impression on him, and he becomes attached to this land, as Cezanne and Renoir later captivated him. Theo sends him two hundred and fifty francs a month for his life and work.

Vincent tries to recoup this money and - as he began to do from 1884 - sends him his paintings and again bombards him with letters. His correspondence with his brother (from December 13, 1872 to 1890, Theo receives 668 of his letters out of a total of 821) is, as always, full of sober self-analysis regarding his mental and emotional state and is saturated with valuable information about artistic ideas and their implementation.

Arriving in Arles, Vincent settles in the Carrel Hotel, at number 3 on Cavaleri Street. At the beginning of May, for fifteen francs a month, he rents four rooms in a building on Place La Martine, at the entrance to the city: this is the famous Yellow House (destroyed during the Second World War), which Van Gogh depicts on a canvas of the same name, now stored in Amsterdam .


Yellow House (1888, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

Van Gogh hopes that in time he will be able to accommodate there a community of artists of the type that formed in Brittany, in Pont-Aven, around Paul Gauguin. While the premises are not yet completely ready, he spends the night in a nearby cafe, and eats in a cafe near the station, where he becomes a friend of the owners, the Zhino couple. Entering his life, the friends that Vincent makes in a new place almost automatically find themselves in his art.

Thus, Mrs. Ginoux will pose for him for the "Arlesian", the postman Roulin - an old anarchist of a cheerful disposition, described by the artist as "a man with a large Socratic beard" - will be captured in some portraits, and his wife will appear in five versions of "Lullaby".


Portrait of the postman Joseph Roulin. (July-August 1888, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)


Lullaby, portraits of Madame Roulin (1889, Art Institute, Chicago)

Among the first works created in Arles, there are many images of flowering trees. “These places seem beautiful to me, like Japan, because of the transparency of the air and the play of cheerful colors,” writes Vincent. And it was Japanese engravings that served as a model for these works, as well as for several versions of Langlois Bridge, reminiscent of individual Hiroshige landscapes. Lessons of impressionism and divisionism of the Parisian period remain behind.



Langlois bridge near Arles. (Arles, May 1888. Kreller-Muller State Museum, Waterloo)

“I find that what I learned in Paris disappears, and I return to the thoughts that came to me in nature, before meeting the Impressionists,” Vincent writes Theo in August 1888.

What still remains from previous experience is a fidelity to light colors and plein air work: paints - especially yellow, which prevails in the Arlesian palette in such rich and bright colors, as in the canvases "Sunflowers" - acquire a special radiance, like would be breaking out of the depths of the image.


Vase with twelve sunflowers. (Arles, August 1888. Munich, Neue Pinakothek)

Working outdoors, Vincent defies the wind that knocks over the easel and lifts the sand, and for nighttime sessions he invents a system as ingenious as it is dangerous, by fixing burning candles on the hat and on the easel. Night views painted in this way - note "Night Cafe" and "Starry Night over the Rhone", both created in September 1888 - become some of his most enchanting paintings and show how bright the night can be.


Terrace of the night cafe Place du Forum in Arles. (Arles, September 1888. Croller-Moller Museum, Oterloo)


Starry night over the Rhone. (Arles, September 1888. Paris, Musee d'Orsay)

Paints applied with flat strokes and a palette knife to create large and uniform surfaces characterize - along with the "high yellow note" that the artist claims he found in the south - a painting such as Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles.


Bedroom in Arles (first version) (1888, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)


The artist on the way to Tarascon, August 1888, Vincent van Gogh on the road near Montmajour ( former museum Magdeburg; the painting is believed to have been destroyed in a fire during World War II)


Night cafe. Arles, (September 1888. Connecticut, Yale University of Fine Arts)

And the 22nd of the same month was an important date in the life of Van Gogh: Paul Gauguin arrives in Arles, who was repeatedly invited by Vincent (in the end, Theo convinced him), accepting the offer to stay in the Yellow House. After an initial period of enthusiastic and fruitful existence, the relationship between the two artists, two opposite natures - the restless, uncollected Van Gogh and the confident, pedantic Gauguin - deteriorates to the point of breaking.


Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers (1888, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

The tragic epilogue, according to Gauguin, will be on Christmas Eve 1888, when, after a violent quarrel, Vincent grabs a razor so that, as it seemed to Gauguin, he would attack a friend. He, frightened, runs out of the house and goes to the hotel. At night, having fallen into a frenzy, Vincent cuts off his left earlobe and, wrapping it in paper, takes it as a gift to a prostitute named Rachel, whom they both know.

Van Gogh is discovered on a bed in a pool of blood by his friend Roulin, and the artist is taken to the city hospital, where, against all fears, he recovers in a few days and can be released home, but new attacks repeatedly return him to the hospital. Meanwhile, his dissimilarity to others begins to frighten the Arlesians, and to such an extent that in March 1889, thirty citizens write a petition asking to free the city from the "red-haired madman."


Self-portrait with bandaged ear and pipe. Arles, (January 1889, Niarchos Collection)

So, the nervous malady that always smoldered in him nevertheless broke out.

The whole life and work of Van Gogh was influenced by his physical and mental illness. His experiences were always experiences in the superlative degree; he was very emotional, reacted with his soul and heart, he threw himself into everything as if into a pool with his head. Vincent's parents from an early age began to worry about their son "with sore nerves", and they did not have much hope that something could come out of their son in life. After Van Gogh decided to become an artist, Theo - at a distance - looked after his older brother. But Theo could not always prevent the artist from completely forgetting about himself, working like a man possessed, or due to lack of funds. During such periods, Van Gogh sat for days on end on coffee and bread. In Paris, he abused alcohol. Leading a similar lifestyle, Van Gogh acquired all sorts of diseases for himself: he had problems with his teeth and a bad stomach. There are a huge number of versions about Van Gogh's illness. There are suggestions that he suffered from a special form of epilepsy, the symptoms of which progressed when physical health. His nervous temperament only aggravated the matter; in a fit, he fell into depression and utter despair about himself

Being aware of the danger mental disorder, the artist decides to do everything to recover, and on May 8, 1889, he voluntarily goes to the specialized hospital of St. Paul of Mausoleum near Saint-Remy-de-Provence (doctors diagnosed epilepsy of the temporal lobes). In this hospital, which is headed by Dr. Peyron, Van Gogh is still given some freedom, and he even has the opportunity to write in the open air under the supervision of staff.

This is how the fantastic masterpieces "Starry Night", "Road with Cypresses and a Star", "Olives, Blue Sky and White Cloud" are born - works from a series characterized by extreme graphic tension, which enhances the emotional frenzy with violent swirls, undulating lines and dynamic beams.


Starry Night (1889. Museum of Modern Art, New York)


Landscape with Road, Cypress and Star (1890. Kroller-Muller Museum, Waterloo)


Olive trees against the backdrop of the Alpille (1889. Collection of John Hay Whitney, USA)

On these canvases - where cypresses and olive trees with twisted branches reappear as harbingers of death - the symbolic significance of Van Gogh's painting is especially noticeable.

Vincent's painting does not fit into the framework of the art of symbolism, which finds inspiration in literature and philosophy, welcomes the dream, mystery, magic, rushing into the exotic - that ideal symbolism, the line of which can be traced from Puvis de Chavannes and Moreau to Redon, Gauguin and the Nabis group .

Van Gogh is looking for a possible means in symbolism to open the soul, to express the measure of being: that is why his legacy will be perceived by expressionist painting of the 20th century in its various manifestations.

In Saint-Remy, Vincent alternates periods of intense activity and long breaks caused by deep depression. At the end of 1889, at the moment of crisis, he swallows paints. And yet, with the help of his brother, who in April married Johann Bonger, he takes part in the September Salon des Indépendants in Paris. In January 1890, he exhibited at the eighth exhibition of the Group of Twenty in Brussels, where he sold for a very flattering sum of four hundred francs, "Red Vineyards in Arles."


Red Vineyards in Arles (1888, State Museum Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin, Moscow)

In the January issue of the Mercure de France magazine in 1890, the first critically enthusiastic article about Van Gogh's painting "Red Vineyards in Arles" appeared, signed by Albert Aurier.

And in March, he was again among the participants in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, and there Monet praised his work. In May, his brother writes to Peyron about Vincent's possible move to Auvers-on-Oise near Paris, where Dr. Gachet, with whom Theo had recently become friends, is ready to treat him. And on May 16, Vincent goes to Paris alone. Here he spends three days with his brother, gets acquainted with his wife and a recently born child - his nephew.


Blossoming almond trees, (1890)
The reason for writing this picture was the birth of the first-born Theo and his wife Johanna - Vincent Willem. Van Gogh painted almond trees in blossom using decorative compositional techniques in Japanese style. When the canvas was finished, he sent it as a gift to new parents. Johanna wrote later that the baby was impressed by the sky-blue painting that hung in their bedroom.
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Then he goes to Auvers-on-Oise and first stops at the Saint-Aubin hotel, and then settles in the Ravou's cafe on the square where the municipality is located. In Auvers, he vigorously sets to work. Dr. Gachet, who becomes his friend and invites him to his house every Sunday, appreciates Vincent's painting and, being an amateur artist, introduces him to the etching technique.


Portrait of Dr. Gachet. (Auvers, June 1890. Paris, Musee d'Orsay)

In the numerous paintings painted by Van Gogh during this period, there is an incredible effort of a bewildered consciousness, longing for some kind of rules after the extremes that filled his canvases in a difficult year spent in Saint-Remy. This desire to start again, in an orderly and calm way, to control your emotions and reproduce them on canvas clearly and harmoniously: in portraits (two versions of “Portrait of Dr. Gachet”, “Portrait of Mademoiselle Gachet at the Piano”, “Two Children”), in landscapes (“ Staircase at Auvers") and in still lifes ("Bouquet of Roses").


Mademoiselle Gachet at the piano. (1890)


Village street with figures on the stairs (1890. Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri)


Pink roses. (Auwer, June 1890. Copenhagen. Carlsberg Glyptothek)

But in the last two months of his life, the artist hardly manages to drown out the internal conflict that drives him somewhere and suppresses him. Hence such formal contradictions as in The Church at Auvers, where the elegance of the composition is dissonant with the riot of colors, or convulsive, disorderly strokes, as in A Flock of Crows over a Grain Field, where a gloomy omen of imminent death slowly hovers.


Church in Auvers. (Auvers, June 1890. Paris, France, Musee d'Orsay)


Wheat Field with Crows (1890, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)
IN last week of his life, Van Gogh paints his last and famous painting: “Wheatfield with Crows”. She was a testament tragic death artist.
The painting was supposedly finished on July 10, 1890, 19 days before his death in Auvers-sur-Oise. There is a version that Van Gogh committed suicide in the process of writing this picture; this version of the artist's life ending was featured in the film Lust for Life, where the actor playing Van Gogh (Kirk Douglas) shoots himself in the head in a field while completing the painting. However, there is no evidence to support this theory. For a long time it was believed that this was the last work of Van Gogh, but a study of Van Gogh's letters with a high degree of probability indicates that the artist's last work was the painting "Wheat Fields", although there is still ambiguity on this issue.

By that time, Vincent is already completely possessed by the devil, who breaks out more and more often. In July he is greatly disturbed family problems: Theo has financial difficulties and bad health (he will die a few months after Vincent, January 25, 1891), and his nephew is not quite all right.

Added to these worries is the disappointment that the brother will not be able to summer holidays in Auvers, as promised. And on July 27, Van Gogh leaves the house and goes to the fields to work in the open air.

Upon his return, after persistent questioning by the Ravos, concerned about his depressed appearance, he confesses that he shot himself with a pistol, which he allegedly bought to scare away flocks of birds while working in the open air (the weapon will never be found).

Dr. Gachet arrives urgently and immediately informs Theo of what has happened. His brother rushes to help him, but Vincent's fate is already sealed: he dies on the night of July 29 at the age of thirty-seven, 29 hours after being wounded, from loss of blood (at 1:30 am on July 29, 1890). The earthly life of Van Gogh ended - and the legend of Van Gogh, the last truly great artist on planet Earth, began.


Van Gogh on his deathbed. Drawing by Paul Gachet.

According to Brother Theo, who was with Vincent at his death, last words the artist were: La tristesse durera toujours ("Sorrow will last forever"). Vincent van Gogh was buried in Auvers-sur-Oise. After 25 years (in 1914), the remains of his brother Theo were buried next to his grave.

In October 2011, an alternative version of the artist's death appeared. American art historians Stephen Nayfeh and Gregory White Smith have suggested that Van Gogh was shot by one of the teenagers who regularly accompanied him in drinking establishments.

Pastor's son. In 1869-76 he served as a commission agent for an art trading company in The Hague, Brussels, London and Paris, and in 1876 as a teacher in England. Having taken up the study of theology, in 1878-79 he was a preacher in the Borinage (Belgium), where he learned hard life miners; protecting their interests brought van Gogh into conflict with church authorities.

In the 1880s van Gogh turns to art: he visits the Academy of Arts in Brussels (1880-81) and Antwerp (1885-86), uses the advice of A. Mauve in The Hague. Van Gogh enthusiastically draws disadvantaged people - the miners of the Borinage, and later - peasants, artisans, fishermen, whose life he observed in Holland in 1881-85. At the age of 30, van Gogh begins to paint and creates an extensive series of paintings and sketches, made in dark, gloomy colors and imbued with ardent sympathy for ordinary people ("Peasant Woman", 1885, Kröller-Müller State Museum, Otterlo; "Potato Eaters ", 1885, W. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam). Developing Traditions critical realism In the 19th century, primarily the work of J.F. Millet, van Gogh combined them with the emotional and psychological tension of the images, painfully sensitive perception of the suffering and depression of people.

In 1886-88, while living in Paris, van Gogh visited a private studio; at the same time, he studies plein-air painting of the Impressionists and Japanese engraving, joins the searches of A. Toulouse-Lautrec, P. Gauguin. During this period, the dark palette gradually gave way to the sparkle of pure blue, golden yellow and red tones, the brushstroke became freer and more dynamic ("Bridge over the Seine", 1887, W. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam; "Portrait of Papa Tanguy", 1887, Rodin Museum, Paris).

Van Gogh's move to Arles in 1888 opens the period of his maturity. Here, the originality of the artist’s pictorial manner was completely determined, who expressed his attitude to the world and his emotional state, using contrasting color combinations and a free pasty brushstroke. A fiery feeling, a painful impulse towards harmony, beauty and happiness, and fear of forces hostile to man are embodied in landscapes shining with joy, solar colors south ("Harvest. La Crot Valley", "Fishing Boats in Sainte-Marie", both 1888, W. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam), then in ominous images scary world, where a person is depressed by loneliness and helplessness ("Night Cafe", 1888, private collection, New York).

The dynamics of color and long sinuous strokes fills with spiritual life and movement not only nature and the people inhabiting it ("Red Vineyards in Arles", 1888, the Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin, Moscow), but also every inanimate object (" Van Gogh's bedroom in Arles", 1888, W. van Gogh Foundation, Amsterdam).

The intense work of van Gogh in the last years of his life was complicated by bouts of mental illness, which led the artist to a tragic conflict with Gauguin, who also arrived in Arles; van Gogh ends up in a hospital in Arles, then in Saint-Remy (1889-90) and in Auvers-sur-Oise (1890), where he commits suicide.

The work of the last two years of Van Gogh's life is marked by an ecstatic obsession, an extremely heightened expression of color combinations, rhythm and texture, abrupt mood swings - from frenzied despair ("At the Gates of Eternity", 1890, Kröller-Müller State Museum, Otterlo) and insane visionary impulses ("Road with cypresses and stars", 1890, ibid.) to a quivering feeling of enlightenment and peace ("Landscape in Auvers after the rain", 1890).

Van Gogh's work reflected a difficult, turning point in history European culture. It is imbued with an ardent love for life, for the simple working man. At the same time, it expressed with great sincerity the crisis of bourgeois humanism and realism in the 19th century, the painfully painful search for spiritual moral values. Hence the special creative obsession of van Gogh, his impetuous expression and tragic. pathos; they determine the special place of VG in the art of post-impressionism, one of the main representatives of which he became.

Van Gogh lived only 37 years, of which only the last seven were devoted to painting. However, his creative legacy is amazing - it is about a thousand drawings and almost as many paintings created as a result of volcanic creative eruptions, when he painted one or two paintings daily. Van Gogh's paintings are an amazing dialogue full of suffering and love - with oneself, with God, with the world. Van Gogh became the last great artist in the history of mankind, whose heroic art now shines over the earth like the sun.


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