Van Gogh - Artist Description

Van Gogh - Artist Description

Vincent van Gogh was born March 30, 1853 in the village of Groot-Zunder in the Netherlands. His father was a Dutch minister. He had three brothers and three sisters, although one brother, after whom he was named, was stillborn. Van Gogh attended a boarding elementary school. While in middle school he showed an increasing interest and talent for art. Eventually, Van Gogh became an art dealer but was unsuccessful and was later fired. He then turned to religion and worked for a while as a minister’s assistant. Ultimately he failed in his attempt to become a theologian, unable to handle the rigorous theology study and examination that was required.

Leaving theology school he worked temporarily as a missionary in Belgium but didn’t get along with church authorities because he, in their view, demeaned their “holy” profession by living among the people and making them subjects of his artwork. Van Gogh attended the Royal Academy of Art where he received a formal study in Art. He then moved home, continued drawing and fell in love with and proposed to his cousin (Kee). She along with family denied his proposal, which eventually prompted him to leave furiously.

Van Gogh moved to The Hague, the Netherlands where he had children with a drunken prostitute from whom he caught gonorrhea (she killed herself many years later.) He left her and moved back in with his parents in Nuenen, the Netherlands. It was there that Van Gogh’s father died. Around this time he used lots of dark colors in his art work (not the bright impressionistic painting he later became renowned for).

Moving to Antwerp in Belgium, Van Gogh attended the Academy of Fine Arts. During this time he allegedly caught syphilis and possibly even got a village art model pregnant. Continuing his nomadic ways, Van Gogh then traveled to Paris where he studied a wide variety of impressionistic painting/ painters (learned about pointillism/ visible brush strokes/ use of bright complementary colors/ depictions of ordinary subject matter etc.)

He then spent time giving art lessons and painting with fellow artist Paul Gauguin in Arles, France. A dark time in his life in part derived from a turbulent friendship with Gauguin began and culminated with Van Gogh cutting off a part of his earlobe while suffering from delirium and terror of being poisoned. Van Gogh was taken to a psychiatric infirmary and later began attending sessions with a physician, Dr. Gachet. He continued painting throughout this time. In the end, Van Gogh’s depression and despair became more profound. He shot himself in the chest and died in bed a few days later at the age of 37.

Over the next few paragraphs, we will examine three of Van Gogh’s most famous and admired paintings, “The Potato Eaters”,“The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum,” and the “The Red Vineyard."


The Potato Eaters
“The Potato Eaters” was Van Gogh's first conscious effort to gain acceptance within the art community. At this point in his life, he only had five years of study behind him, yet he was eager to prove himself to the world.

This piece was unique in the fact that the peasants of the picture were not sugar coated; the piece was a “real peasant painting.” Van Gogh said that he “wanted to convey the idea that the people eating potatoes by the light of an oil lamp used the same hands with which they take food from the plate as they did to work the land, that they have toiled with their hands—that they have earned their food by honest means." The painting that was completed consisted of five people sitting around a square table eating potatoes, one of them is male and the other four are females. Although the piece is dark and bleak, the emotions in the faces of the occupants are clearly visible. “These figures are so intense that one can nearly hear the conversations being spoken around the table”, perhaps this layered with the darkness is what draws one to examine the smaller details of the painting.

The significance of Van Gogh’s piece “The Potato Eaters” was that, although the piece never gained the acknowledgement or notoriety that he yearned for during his lifetime, today the piece has garnered great acclaim within the artistic community and is widely considered to be his first masterpiece.


The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night
"The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum," was painted in 1888 towards the end of his life in the south of France. He was excited by the unique colors and light that he found in the south of France. He was also eager to experiment and tried to show the range of colors seen at night in Arles.

It is the first painting that Van Gogh did in his most famous series of 3 paintings that included "Starry Night" and "Starry Night Over the Rhone". I chose this piece because of my love for it. The contrast of the bright yellow walls which give it so much warmth, and make it so inviting, with the darkness and dreariness of the city on the right is striking. The brightness of the sky together with the vivid yellow stars shining over the people outside the café adds an extra element of hopefulness and interest to this fascinating outdoor scene.

To me, as well as millions of other people, this painting tells a significant and compelling story. I see it as a view of a warm and hopeful place bustling with people, with the darkness and uncertainty of the rest of city almost eclipsed by the bright yellow of a happy and lively place. The stars overhead convey a sense of warmth and benevolence, looking down on this cheery and magical scene. I love this painting and always have because it speaks volumes about the human spirit, a spirit that yearns for the warmth, comfort and friendship our fellow human beings.


The Red Vineyard
During his life, Vincent van Gogh was never famous as a painter and struggled to make his living as an artist. Van Gogh sold only one painting from his vast collection of works while he was alive, "The Red Vineyard", making this painting both unique and significant in this aspect. The painting sold in Brussels for 400 francs only a few months before his death.

"The Red Vineyard" is one of his most vivid paintings and one of his first attempts at painting an actual outdoor scene that he was physically looking at, while trying to learn from, and somewhat mimic a fellow painter, Paul Gauguin. I chose this painting for its practical and aesthetic appeal, as it depicts a scene that was probably quite common in those days.