Died, suicide 37
Bouts of melancholy, profound disillusionment
Cerebral, lonely
He wanted to give something of himself to this world.
Wasn’t afraid to try and persevere. He was only idle when he had to be. A victim of circumstance – Felt imprisoned by poverty.
Uncompromising, difficult – he knew that people didn’t like him and found him impossible, but he made no effort to alter his behavior.
Saw the beauty in the ordinary
Found inspiration in nature
A slave to himself, drove himself mad with his urge to create. “The desire to succeed was gone, and I work because I must, so as not to suffer too much mentally, so as to distract my mind.”
He found many things about life to be interesting
He had a deep appreciation for certain artists and writers – Shakespeare, Michelet, Balzac (Jules Michelet: Historian Who Coined the Term “Renaissance” to describe the cultural resurgence that occurred in Italy during the 15th century, and which led to a new conception of mankind and our place in the world. http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/critics/jules-michelet.htm) “All happiness depends on courage and work” Honore de Balzac, letter to friend Laurent-Jan, December 10, 1849, in The Works of Honore de Balzac, Volume 20, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley (1899) “Let me stop there, but my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.”
Mauve:, “M has taught me to see so many things I didn’t see before’.
Daubigny. Daubigny was an influential painter in the 19th century. Unlike his predecessors, he painted nature as he saw it before him, with the feelings that the landscapes evoked in him. According to critics, he painted both ‘with the eye’ and ‘with the heart’.
Japanese prints: he went south chasing the colors of Japan.
He set off for Arles in the South of France in February 1888. In addition to peace, he hoped to find the ‘clearness of the atmosphere and the gay colour effects.’
Vincent, like Gauguin, believed that artists should move to more southern, primitive regions, in search of vibrant colours. This would help them take art to a new stage. It was with that idea in mind that he moved to Arles.
“After some time, your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently. I’m also convinced that it’s precisely through a long stay here that I’ll bring out my personality.” Vincent to his brother Theo from Arles, 5 June 1888
Vincent was keen to respond to the call for a modern, more primitive kind of painting. Japanese prints, with their expanses of colour and their stylisation, showed him the way, without requiring him to give up nature as his starting point. It was ideal.
“All my work is based to some extent on Japanese art…“
“Look, we love Japanese painting, we’ve experienced its influence — all the Impressionists have that in common — and we wouldn’t go to Japan, in other words, to what is the equivalent of Japan, the south [of France]? So, I believe that the future of the new art still lies in the south after all.“
I am glad that he was born when he was because so much of what he read made him the man that he grew to be. Too many distractions now. He might have just been a gamer today.
Alcoholism
He felt both miserable and exalted when painting
Sexually transmitted disease
Bipolar, manic episodes
Filled with love
Religious fervor – “But I cannot help thinking that the best way of knowing God is to love many things. Love this friend, this person, this thing, whatever you like, and you will be on the right road to understanding Him better, that is what I keep telling myself. But you must love with a sublime, genuine, profound sympathy, with devotion, with intelligence, and you must try all the time to understand Him more, better and yet more. That will lead to God, that will lead to an unshakable faith.”
He loved people even though he also hated them
He dreamed of being greater than he currently was, he saw something in himself, he believed in himself before anyone else did.
Impulsive behavior
Smoked, drank too much alcohol and coffee, ate like shit or not at all, maybe even ate his lead based paints
“I have often neglected my appearance. I admit it, and I also admit that it is “shocking.“
“I think that everything that is really good and beautiful, the inner, moral, spiritual and sublime beauty in men and their works, comes from God, and everything that is bad and evil in the works of men.“
“What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.
That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.“
Open to any random page of his journal
“That head of his [Vincent] has been occupied with contemporary society’s insoluble problems for so long, and he is still battling on with his good-heartedness and boundless energy. His efforts have not been in vain, but he will probably not live to see them come to fruition, for by the time people understand what he is saying in his paintings it will be too late. He is one of the most advanced painters and it is difficult to understand him, even for me who knows him so intimately. His ideas cover so much ground, examining what is humane and how one should look at the world, that one must first free oneself from anything remotely linked to convention to understand what he was trying to say, but I am sure he will be understood later on. It is just hard to say when.” -Letter of Theo van Gogh to his wife Jo van Gogh-Bonger, from Paris, 9-10 February 1889; as cited on the Vincent van Gogh Gallery, online
“The night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.”
Krista Marson 