Vincent Willem van Gogh is a Dutch artist born on March 30, 1853, in Groot Zundert in the North Brabant province of Noord-Brabant, bordering Belgium. Memories of the famous artist about the beginning of life were sad, the childhood time was associated with darkness, coldness, and emptiness.
The period of creativity, representing the first works performed in Drenthe, is notable for realism, but they express the artist’s individual manner’s key characteristics. The Parisian period of 1886-1888 in the creative biography of Van Gogh is light; the leitmotif is soft blue, bright yellow, and fiery shades. The manner of writing conveys movement, the “stream” of life. The man on the canvas acquires a secondary role, and the main thing is the light world of nature, its airiness, the richness of colors, and their subtlest transitions. Van Gogh discovers the newest trend – post-impressionism.
In 1888, Van Gogh, worried about the audience’s misunderstanding, left for the southern French city of Arles. Arles became a city in which Vincent understood his work’s purpose: not to seek to reflect the real visible world, but to express his inner “I” with the help of color and simple techniques. The attractiveness of the style of Van Gogh’s works of the heyday is in the contradiction between the striving for a harmonious outlook and the realization of one’s own helplessness in front of a disharmonious world. The works of 1888, full of light and festive nature, coexist with gloomy phantasmagoric images.
The artist plans to establish a society that will unite novice geniuses who will reflect humanity’s future. To open society, Vincent is helped by Theo’s funds. Van Gogh assigned the leading role to Paul Gauguin. When Gauguin arrived, they quarreled to the point that Van Gogh, on December 23, 1888, almost cut his throat. Gauguin managed to escape, and Van Gogh, repenting, cut off part of his earlobe. He was sent to a mental hospital, where he still has the opportunity to paint.
Since May 1889, Van Gogh has been living in Saint-Remy. He writes more than 150 large things and about 100 drawings and watercolors in a year, demonstrating his mastery of halftones and contrast techniques. He paints about 150 paintings (Naifeh & Smith, 2011). Some of the most outstanding canvases of this period were: “Starry Night”, “Irises”, “Road with Cypress and Star”, “Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background”, and “Pieta”.
On July 27, 1890, Van Gogh was fatally wounded by a pistol. It is unknown whether the shot was planned or accidental, but the artist died a day later. Over ten years of creativity, over 2,100 works have appeared, of which about 860 are made in oils. Van Gogh became the founder of Expressionism, Post-Impressionism, and his principles formed the basis of Fauvism and Modernism.
Reference
Naifeh, S. W., & Smith, G. W. (2011). Van Gogh: The Life. Random House Incorporated.