Vincent van Gogh

BY INGRID SCHAFFNER

the

Wonderland
PRESS

Harry N. Abrams,

Inc., Publishers

the

Wonderland
PRESS

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ISBN 0-8109-5813-9 (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.)
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Copyright

1998 The Wonderland Press

Published in 1998 by Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated,

All rights reserved.

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New York

book may

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Distributed by

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oil

on canvas

Contents
Van Gogh, the

irresistible

The Post-Impressionist Van Gogh

11

The revolutionary cradle of his

12

From

The

16

cradle to failed art dealer

21

letter writer

From
To

times

failed preacher to artist

of the poor

38

Paris, irresistible and irritating

To Aries,

in search

Inventing the

of Japanese light

modern

Sunflowers and

Irises:

in

Auvers, the

success

final stop

Death

Which

at

Saint-Remy

73
87
95

The Starry Night

Ironically, critical

Gauguin

asylum

52

62

portrait

In Aries, with/without Paul

22

98

99
103

came

last?

108

The Essential Van Gogh

Gogh (1853-1890) is a legendary figure both in art history
popular culture. One might even say that his legend is so vast that

Vincent van

and
it

in

verges on mania. In looking at his paintings and drawings today,

may

find

it

pictures as

hard to separate the art from the myth

more than mere

depressing biographv. This

the
is

the

art,

life,

the legend

illustrations that

book gives you

and

will help

accompany
on

a handle

you look

all

at a

you

or to see his

a sensationally

of the above

body of art

every bit as powerful as the legend, or mania, surrounding

that

it.

Van Gogh Mania

Van Gogh

is

everywhere: "Sunflower" cocktail napkins and t-shirts

(cultured souvenirs)... the

Night ")... Lust for

starring

Life,

Don McLean
the

brawny Kirk Douglas

song, Vincent ("Starry Starry

biography by Irving Stone and film

as the crazy artist. .posters
.

papering college dormitories around the world

These

are

symptoms of what might be

called

You

of Irises wall-

get the point.

Vincent van

Gogh

mania, a strange fascination that has smothered with kitsch one of

the most profound artists of the
story

is

first-rate

modern

period. Granted,

Van Gogh's

tabloid copy for that ever-popular fairy tale of

the Misunderstood Artistic Genius. After

all,

he was:

OPPOSITE
Field with
Poppies.

1888

cm

34 x 65

Sound

Byte:

"He was very

ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick

Iforgive him,

Jeanne Calment, an Arlesienne who,

at the

they called him

loco.

time of her

death in 1997 at age 122 in Aries, France, was the oldest living

human and had

seen

Van Gogh

in

town when she was

A martyr, who cared passionately about

tormented

life

to

and who devoted

art

his

it

A FAILURE, who sold only one work during

committed

a child

his

lifetime

and

suicide

A MADMAN, who spent much of the

last part

of his short

life

in an

asvlum for the insane

A HERO,

What

glorified

by the high

do these myths have

and drawings

which

to

makes the

his art?

why would we

This book will explain why.

that

do with

It's

as

Without

essentials

of his

art

his paintings

work and focused

care about the legend?

a back-to-basics

key

pretations, historical, and, ves, biographical

understand

fetches

are actually the result of hard

intelligence, not of lunacv

Gogh

now

prices his art

look

at

Vincent van

pictures, critical inter-

background

the answer to this quiz question:

century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter cut offh is

"Which

own

ear

as easy to
late- 19th-

ABOVE
Van Gogh at age 18
LEFT
Van Gogh at age 13

BACKTRACK:
IMPRESSIONISM
Peak period:

1870s

Key

How

FYI:

to say "Van

Gogh?" Americans

say "go";

the Dutch say "gock" or "hock." (You say Po-tay-to;

say Po-tah-to...)

(not "V")

in

His

name can be found under "G"

most references.

players:

Edouard Manet (1832-1883),

Claude Monet (1840-1926),
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Why do
Nothing

People Line Up to see Van Gogh?

in

Van Gogh mania even approaches

the

(1841-1919)

impact of looking
Subjects:

The pleasures
life:

at his art.

Van Gogh communicated

vision of the world as he experienced

making no

it,

of bourgeois

luncheons, boating

parties, dress-ups, theater,

ballet, brothels,

gardens,

horse races, family

life

attempt to create a

However

realistic

image of

his

subjects.

subjective the pink skies, twisted figures, or

sinewy black outlines might appear,

are

all

based on his

experience and careful observation of them.

Characteristics of painting:

Attempt to

"scientifically"

represent transient effects

of light

and movement,

objectively

No

isolated nut, the painter

pletely

engaged in the

Dappled

brushwork dissolves

into

atmospheric compositions
of clear, vibrant colors

of his

day.

He worked

hard,

with great seriousness and commitment. Through the

and without

interpretation.

issues

was informed and com-

lens

of his

around him
tion,

own
in

imagination, he painted the world

its fullest

sense: nature, culture, imagina-

emotion, physicality, and abstraction

all

synthe-

sized into cohesive pictures, concisely expressed.

Gogh's works are about art as experience; Van

himself experienced everything through

art.

Van

Gogh

To

really get

Van Gogh, you have

the emotional

to stand in front

of his

art

and observe:
OVERLEAF

power of space

TOP LEFT
the symbolic

meaning

A Pair of Shoes

of color

1886. 15 x 18 Vs"
(37.5 x 45.5

medium

the physicality of the

cm)

TOP RIGHT
the sheer

beauty and

intelligence of his images

Landscape at

Montmajour

Try getting that from

a reproduction

on

with Train

a cocktail napkin!

(no date)

BOTTOM
Breton Peasants
FYI:

Who

put the "post"

in

Post-Impressionism? Neither term

(Impressionist nor Post-Impressionist)

painters' lives. (Claude

Monet

Modern
critic

blur

Life."

rubrics of

their

impression of

Impressionism

common

use during the

"The

In

New

their day, the Impressionists

Painters" or "The Painters of

They were dubbed "Impressionists" by

who, reviewing

an

in

didn't introduce himself at parties,

"Bonjour, je suis un Impressioniste.")

worked under the

was

is

1874 exhibition, found

reality rather

historical

than

jargon coined

English art historians Roger Fry

and Clive

matter of convenience ("What do

we

call

it

to

reality itself.

many
Bell

a scornful art

be

a bit of a

The term

Post-

years after the fact by

and probably as

them?").

1888.Watercolor
"
18 7/8x24 3/8
(47.5 x 62 cm)


An

Artist of the Post-Impressionist Period

BACKTRACK:
POST-IMPRESSIONISM

As

name

the

Post-Impressionism was a period

says,

("after Impressionism") rather than a formal movement.

Unlike the

were

artists

who

originated Impressionism,

based in Paris,

all

who

shared a

common

who

subject

Peak period:
1880s

Key

players:

Van Gogh; Paul Cezanne

matter and exhibited together regularly from 1874-86,

(1839-1906), based

the Post-Impressionists were a makeshift and far-flung

Aix-en-Provence, France;
Paul

group. True, they each passed through an Impressionist

period, but their work, developed in isolation from

one another, remains

distinct.

in

Gauguin (1848-1903),

based

in

and then

Brittany (France)
Tahiti

(Put a Cezanne next to

Subjects:

a
is

Van Gogh and

a

Post-Impressionism

you'll see this.)

term used retrospectively by

critics,

but never by

the artists themselves.

Nature and an idealized

life

within

it

Characteristics of painting:

Attempt to express subjective

What

did the Post-Impressionists get

reality

by extracting from

the traditional stuff of

from Impressionism?

representational painting

The short answer:

whiff of

how

radically different

perspective, color, line

abstract or symbolic expressions

painting can be

from

reality.

Because however

objectively the Impressionists claimed to paint, their

systematic devotion to brushwork and color was also

patently

artificial.

like brushstrokes,
Still, it's

They painted

brushstrokes to look

impressions to feel like sensations.

a representation

and not the

real thing.

What were the

Post-Impressionists into?

they changed the role

OPPOSITE
Thatched Cottages
inAuvers. 1890
23 7s x 28 7/'
(60 x 73 cm)

of the

artist

from slave-of-nature

to

constructor-of- reality

they changed the perception of paintings from

"mirrors" and "windows" to objects in their

they launched modern

Surrealism,
"isms") are

(to

legacies of Post-Impressionism.
as

right

Symbolism, Cubism, Expressionism,

and Abstract Expressionism

all

how Van Gogh,

known

art:

own

metaphorical

Post-Impressionist

name only

few

(Stay tuned to learn

artist,

would become

as a pre-Expressionist painter.)

Upheaval of Van Gogh's Times

Many of the conflicts Van Gogh expressed in his art are reflections of the
times at large.

By

the late 19th century, the Industrial Revolution had

transformed the world

conditions of life in
the

as

people had

Van Gogh's times

economy changes from an

known
that

it.

Here

rebound in

are

some of the

his paintings:

agrarian to an industrial one

people in search of factory work are hightailing

it

from the farms

to

the cities and newly created suburbs

the newly mobile people travel rapidly and in mass numbers on

trains

12

the

fast, noisy,

new-fangled scourges of the countryside

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund,

1949. (49.41) Photograph

1983 The Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

they leave behind their churches, families, and other close-knit

forms of community established over generations in search

of:

unlikely answer: middle-class lures of dazzling

(a)

department
(b)

stores

and

probable answer:

leisure

OPPOSITE
Sunflowers

time

1887.17x24"

working-class reality of dank,

(43.2 x 61

over-crowded slums and abysmal working conditions

once in the

they long for contact with nature

cities,

people experience extreme loneliness, alienation, and anonymity

within the crowded public

they gain a

new visual

life

of

streets, cafes, bars, restaurants, etc.

perspective:

From

atop the Eiffel Tower, from

the basket of a hot-air balloon, from an apartment building, even

from

NOW

a seat

on the

To have

of modern

life,

train, the

a fairly

impact.

imagine the normal anxieties, anticipation, and

even

Van Gogh's

the conflicted,

different

good handle on the fundamental neuroses

ambivalence each of us has

with everybody

modern world looks

art

when

is

home for the first time,

who stay put feeling the

leaving

the old-timers

powerfully (and sensitively) in tune with

modern-day consciousness, even

today.

has ridden a packed subway or been stuck in a traffic

to

work and

started

conflicts their

Anyone who

jam on the way

dreaming of the High Sierras can

still call

those

own.

*5

cm)

"

Sound
"It

Byte:

has been found that psychiatric patients

for a dead child tend,

mutilating accidents. Like Vincent,

at an early age

and have an

Albert
This

is

one reason

J.

who have

too,

illness,

and body-

they are apt to believe that they will die

inordinate interest in cemeteries.

Lubin, psychologist (Stranger on Earth, 1972)

why Van Gogh's

batches of ardent viewers to

art

continues to attract fresh

museums around

talk-show hosts and television evangelists,

20th-century capitalist

been reared as replacements

be preoccupied with death,

like Vincent, to

culture,

the world:

To

ad-lib our

in the late, great state

of

Vincent shows us our pain.

Who was He?

So....

Vincent Willem van

Gogh,

Gogh was

the son of the Rev.

an evangelical Calvinist, and

Born on March

Anna

Theodorus van

Cornelia Carbentus.

30, 1853 (an Aries) in Groot-Zundert, in

North

Brabant, Holland (the Netherlands), near the Belgian border, he was

not the

would

first

also

Vincent van

name

his

Gogh

(nor was he the

last: his

brother

Theo

son Vincent). There was:

GRANDFATHER VINCENT:

a highly respected Protestant minister

and

brilliant scholar

UNCLE VINCENT: an
Goupil and
16

art dealer

Company

with the venerable European firm,

baby VINCENT:

one year

exactly

who was born

his still-born brother,

(Attention psychologists:

earlier.

BACKTRACK:
THE BARBIZON

SCHOOL

red light, danger, warning.)

French landscape
painters, including

The Replacement Child Syndrome

Charles-Francois

Daubigny (1817-1878)
Virtually everything in

Van Gogh's

seen in terms of conflict.

seven years of his

first as

life

He

life

and

spends the

art

first

can be

twenty-

trying to discover his true calling,

an art dealer (shades of Uncle Vincent), then

as a

and Jean-Francois
(1814-1875),
their

to church,

that

where

He

spends his childhood going

his brother lies buried

under a stone

carved with their name: Vincent. (Yikes!) Like a

is

lost twin,

he spends his entire

life

feeling as

though he

(2)

replacement child for the

first

artist,

never wholly belonged as a "Van Gogh."

always

they painted with near-

he

ever-softening

Elvis feel as if he

depict peasant

life

and

the quality of natural

light

on objects. Though

(Parallel uni-

was only half a

dead twin
Presley.)

The Young Vincent as Art Dealer: 1869-1876

the age of 16, under the auspices of his Uncle

Vincent (Uncle "Cent"), a former partner in the firm,

from nature, they

were actually studio

painters
their

At

and

light,

they advocated drawing

lifelong absense of Elvis Presley's

made

settled

the late 1840s.

Their landscapes, which

directly

The

in

religious reverence

signs his paintings simply "Vincent," feeling that he

verse:

little

is:

(dead) Vincent, and

divided from part of himself. Later, as an

the

where they

starting

in

(i)

name from

town of Barbizon, near

Paris,

pastor (hello Grandpa).

Millet

who took

who completed

works indoors,

based on voluminous
sketches.

opposite
Fritillaries in

a Lopper Vase

28 Va x 23

TV'

(73 x 60.5 cm)

Van Gogh
becomes an employee
of the Paris-based Goupil
fo
r J
^ and Co.
its

branch in The Hague

located

in a gallery

at

once owned by Uncle

Cent. Goupil and Co. represents both historic and contemporary

artists;

they also publish reproductions of

partner,

Van Gogh

where he

is

promoted

reads, visits

London. In

May

Seven months

1875 he

later,

he

As

art.

London

museums, and observes

from October

stint in Paris

to their

is

to

promising junior

May

December 1874, when he

fired. It

is

during

returns to

this

period that

and begins to develop

his

counterparts of the

grows infatuated with

who

spurns

what

will

obsession
starts

him

Hague School

(such as

own

tastes

summer of

1883, establishing the basis of

in his relations with

met with

by depression

rejection followed

corresponding with his younger brother,

also enters the

Goupil firm

Brussels office. (Vincent writes to Theo: "I

am

in

1873

so glad that

We

sure to write to each other regularly") Unlike Vincent,

18

a lifetime career

of art dealing.

women:

Theo van Gogh

both be in the same profession and in the same firm.

and makes

their

his British landlady's daughter, Ursula Loyer,

in the

who

and

Anton Mauve)

become an unhappy pattern

(1857-1891),

Paris.

Van Gogh:

discovers his affinity for artists of the French Barbizon School

Dutch

1873,

nature; he then does a

permanently transferred back to

is

learns first-hand about art

office in

in their

we

shall

must be

Theo

stays

M'

IS

-*-*VJ4* ***-V*'V4t-**^t

**

\X

<? Cc4/^V^

II*

i*

Pi

L.JL

!-*>

-Av*^l

to

*t \JLS*

< !*-**

Letters to

Theo (and Others)

More than 600

to brother

letters

Theo,

remain, beginning in August 1872, with letters

his lifelong correspondent. Other pen pals are his

sister

Wil and

Gogh

corresponded in English, French, and Dutch.)

the artists Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin. (Van

was

sive publication

of the

arranged by the

artist's sister-in-law,

first

attempt

at

letters

in

1914 with

The

first

exten-

three-volume edition

Johanna Bonger. In 1952-54, the

complete edition appeared, edited by Vincent's

nephew and namesake, Vincent Willem van Gogh. These were published in

English translation in a three-volume set in 1958. For

research purposes, each letter has been assigned a number.

A scholarly

BELOW LEFT
AND OPPOSITE
Letters to Theo

battleground exists over the exact chronology.

\h* co\s>i0~yL

Ceo C if\, <SjljUU<- 7

o- u.*j c

ABOVE
Theo van Gogh

cX<4-cU-'

CU. CM- LV &**>- H*

>

~!

8f
21

Sound

Byte:

"lam a man ofpassions, capable ofand subject to doing more or lessfoolish

which I happen

I be of use

to repent,

in the

more or less, afterward.

My only anxiety

despairs.

clearly articulated his inner

Theo, 1880

He

detailed

what he

saw,

what he

art to

communicate and how.

sketches of works in progress

an

Many

who

he met, what he

paint,

what he intend-

read,

letters are illustrated

attempt,

some

say,

to

benevolent brother that he was indeed being productive.

are

and

his visions, desires,

life,

drew and painted, how much he spent on

ed his

to

are the letters Significant?

Van Gogh

did,

how can

world? Cant I serve any purpose and be of some good?"

Vincent

Why

is,

things,

with

show

The

one of the most thorough and moving narratives of modern

While Van Gogh's behavior may have been

his

letters
art.

insane, his thinking, as

revealed in his letters, was extraordinarily lucid and focused.

Van Gogh as Zealous Evangelist: 1876-1880

Starting in Paris in 1875,
filled

Van Gogh's

letters to

with admonishments that Theo cast away

Theo
all

only the Bible, from which he quotes liberally and

increasing obsession with

spiritual matters,

proves of worldly possessions (hello!

22

art??).

are routinely

novels and read

at length.

Van Gogh

In his

vocally disap-

This proves to be a bad

move

an

for his career as

Goupil

in

January 1876

art dealer,
at the

and he

is

fired

from

BACKTRACK:

THEO VAN GOGH

age of 23.

Vincent van Gogh's

Determined
to

England

to

do some good

in the world,

he returns

in April to teach at a boy's school.

passion, however,

is

His

real

to preach the Gospel, so he resolves

younger

brother, hence-

forth referred to as

was

dealer based

to enter the

and

Church. Thus begins

failures,

made

owing

brilliance

When

he goes

especially

of his

home

a period

of struggles

gloomy by the overshad-

clerical father

for Christmas,

and grandfather.

Van Gogh decides

Theo,

contemporary

art

in Paris.

He

was Vincent's sustaining

connection to the world,
a constant correspon-

dent, a source of

com-

panionship and supto

remain in Holland.

He

spends the

first

few months

port

both

financial

and

of 1877 working in a bookstore and devotes hours each

emotional. Vincent called

day to copying out pages of the Bible. Then, in May,

Theo

he moves to Amsterdam, where he

and prepares
Seminary.

for the entrance

It's

a disaster.

studies hard but

is

lives

exam

with

to the

by

Bonger

Theology

Gogh

his passionate desire to

go out and work among the poor.

Finally,

even his tutor

encourages him to quit training.

In July 1878,

Van Gogh abandons

the test and heads to

an evangelical school in Brussels. Eager to spread

God's word, he soon drops out of school without getting his certification
to preach

and heads to the south of Belgium

and work among the

sick.

"other

relatives

For 15 months, Van

distracted

his

half."

Having married Johanna

In January 1879,

in

1889their

one son being named

after his uncle Vincent

Theo died just six

months after his brother.

RIGHT
The Sower
Charcoal drawin
(no date)

FYI: Van Gogh's finances

Vincent was supported by

throughout

his entire career.

major topic

in

was paying

(Money and

Vincent's letters.)

Vincent's

way by

The

Theo, an

bitter irony that

lost

on Vincent.

monthly "allowance" turn

into

In

with quite a trove of his brother's

art,

much

this initiative earns

Wasmes, but he

is

him

soon

to teach Bible classes

July,

From

him

He

in

Theo ended up

went on to form the

Amsterdam, the most

and archives

sick,

in

the world.

(He had been hired

but he went overboard by try-

gave away his

money and

possessions and

His zeal alienated the parish

Failed Evangelist to

a mentor,

own

and, in

to please leave.)

"Fired" from the church,

from

art dealer,

1884, Vincent

say,

fired for his excessive zeal.

into a miserable hut.

they asked

art

are a

a short-lived position as a lay preacher in

and help the

ing to be Jesus himself

moved

of which

Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh

comprehensive collection of Van Gogh's

Theo

it

an ongoing commission for

the purchase of drawings and paintings. Needless to

collection of the

brother

selling other artists' pictures while his

remained unsold, cannot have been

insisted that the

his

an obsession for earning

Gung-Ho

Van Gogh walks

Artist:

Summer 1880

to Brussels to seek advice

Reverend Pietersen, who, coincidentally, happens

be a painter in his spare time. The two

men visit Pietersen's

to

studio and

Van Gogh shows him some sketches he made of the miners while

in

25

BACKTRACK:
JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET
French painter of the
Barbizon School (1840s)

who saw

peasants

same warm and

light that his

in

Wasmes. Pietersen encourages him

the miners, so

of Belgium,
duties,

Van Gogh

go back

to

to helping

returns to the Borinage area

time to Cuesmes. Without any

this

official

he spends more time reading and drawing.

the

fuzzy

fast FORWARD:

colleagues
ers,

He

continues to

work among

the min-

draws them, discovers that his true vocation

is

envisioned the landscape.

man,

talented drafts-

Millet

(1814-1875)

rendered figures as

to be

an

artist, not

an evangelist. In October, he goes

to Brussels to take classes in perspective and

who, by the way,

(courtesy of Theo,

isn't

anatomy

exactly rolling

simple sculptural forms

at the

same time

as he

in

dough

himself).

transformed sowers,

and farming

reapers,

in

general into a blessed

vocation performed by
noble, beatific beings.
In Millet's

essential work,

The Angelas

peasants are kneeling

in

the

"Peasant-Romance"

primitivism, a major

beyond the

phenomenon

direct impact of

is

an aspect of

of modernism. Cultures

Western society and

(1859), the

prayer after a day of

ing

FYI: Primitivism

soil,

in

toil-

while the

technology (what we
considered to be

in

like

to think of as "civilization")

were

was believed

that,

their childhoods.

eventually, "they" (Asians,

all

It

indigenous peoples,

sun sets resplendently.

It

is

among

the most

reproduced paintings of
the 19th century.

peasants...)

would grow up to be

Europeans. But

until

just like

urbanized

then, as children, they were to

be

indulged, patronized, and ruled. (Of course, the fallacy of

primitivism

is

that

its

subjects are not

in

formative or

degenerative stages of our culture; each

is its

own

culture.)

LEFT

Old Man with His

Head in His Hands

1882. Pencil drawing

19 Vs x 12 Vr

(10x31 cm)

BELOW
Old Man in Sorrow
1890
32 x 25 V"
(81 x 65 cm)

Collection Kroller-Muller
Otterlo,

The Netherlands

Mu

ABOVE
Sien Seated

1882. Pencil
black chalk, wash

22 7/8xl8Vs"
(58 x 45.5 cm)

RIGHT
Sorrow. 1882

Lithograph
15

Ysxll

(38.5 x

Ys"

29 cm)

BACKTRACK:
THE HAGUE SCHOOL

Reality Check:
it's

1880

The Hague School

Van Gogh

(1860-1900) did unto

is

he has only

27

just

Dutch landscape (dunes,

marshes, churches) as the

picked up a pencil!

French Barbizon painters

he

is

smart, sophisticated, revved with religious and

had done unto the Forest

of Fontainebleau:

social fervor, desperate to

But

self.

failure.

make something of him-

in his family's eyes (and in his

With

own), he

is

the repressed energy of a convert, he

turns his zeal onto

art.

Art will be

his salvation,

observed and idealized

its

charms. As exemplified by
a leading

exponent (and

cousin of Van Gogh),

Anton Mauve, they had

even though he truly doesn't have a due

paint!
10!!!!)

Unbeknown

to

how

to

him, he has ten (count 'em

short years left to

We're talking com-

live.

added

a characteristically

Northern interest

in light

and revived many of the

traditions of 17th-century

pressed, explosive. .exhausting!

.

landscape painters.

FYI: Van Gogh's

took

some

no formal
art

artistic training

art lessons

training

here and there, he had basically

in art.

He taught

himself

how

to

make

by drawing from a hand-picked, diverse, and peculiar

group of references

As you
art,

Although Van Gogh

Van

will

see,

in art, literature,

when

Gogh was

it

comes

and trashy

tabloids.

to finding sources for his

consummate

sampler.

Holland and the Peasant Years: 1881-1885

OPPOSITE

Van Gogh spends

his first years as

an

artist

studying peasant

life

in his

native Holland. His depictions are willfully crude (crude lines for

TOP LEFT
The Weaver
1884

crude

lives) as befit

Peasant-Romance, by which means

artists

of the

time romanticized peasants to be:

Watercolor
simple, noble salts-of-the-earth

TOP RIGHT
Thatched Roofs

in tune

1884. Gouache

with eternal rhythms of chaos and order

on paper

Weaver Facing
Front. 1884
Oil on canvas
on panel
18

Ax

(48 x 61

24"

cm)

and therefore

close to the earth

BOTTOM

The French

painter

God

and nature

Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875) was famous

for his depictions of

and

to

humble, holy farmers, their cherubim children,

their close proximity to

heaven on earth. Millet's influence on Van

Gogh's art cannot be overstated.

Van Gogh's
what

art

of this period

vision he wants to extract

Symbolic abstraction or
laboring for

Sound
"I

is

God, or

distinguished by (yes!) a conflict over

from Dutch peasants:

social realism:

Were

peasants pure souls

dirt farmers struggling for their lives?

Byte:

draw, not

to

annoy people, but

that are worth observing

to

amuse them, or

to

make them

and that not everybody knows.

see things

"

Vincent toTheo, 1882

30

What

he especially wants to

see, in either case, is failure.

motif of the Holland pictures

is

a seated figure (peasant, female nude,

old man), head in hands, crushed by

ma

life,

beyond prayer

of despair, depicted with compassion.

"figures,"

A recurrent

He

melodra-

called these drawings

not portraits, since they usually depict an attitude or gesture

rather than a fully fleshed-out subject.

Etten (1881)
After a family council ("What do
sent

home

to

Holland

to live

we do about

Vincent?"),

with his parents in Etten.

Van Gogh

is

He hones his

talents of observation by drawing the moors and farms, peasants in

the fields, and children.
visits

artist

The Hague

for

Anton Mauve

(Van Gogh's

first

cousin,

overtures.

to apprentice

(1838-1888),

who

him

for the

He,

introduces

him

as

Kate),

that he finds "the

abhorrent." His father throws

him

clogs.)

who

in turn, refuses to attend his father's

telling

after Millet.

him out of the

He

with his distant cousin, the

to painting.

Back

attachment he has formed to

Kee Vos- Strieker (known

Christmas Day,

32

makes extensive copies

also

work, very Dutch: cabbages and

his parents reproach

owed

He

two weeks

in Etten,
his

wid-

sharply rejects his

church sendee on

whole system of religion

house.

PEASANT CEMETERY
24Vjx31Vs"

(1885)

(63 x 79 cm)

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundatioi

Symbolic narrative: You don't need Freud to see

conflicts

the

here (remember,

artist

failed

Dad was

minister

a minister,

had

rejected

and
his

heavy sky spotted with wheeling crows

the spring of the earth

crosses

seem

in

bloom from which

to sprout

father's church):

Van Gogh's
little

crosses huddling around church ruins

windows and doors as

the church turning
like a giant's

back

blind apertures

away from the

viewer,

intent:

wanted to express how very

"I

simple dying and being buried

some

earth

dug up

that ruin tells

a small

me how

moldered away."

are... nothing

wooden

cross.

but

And

creed and religion have

Begins to paint
OPPOSITE
Peasant Woman

Near

the Fireplace

1885
11 7.x 15 7/'
(29.5 x

40 cm)

With

in

The Hague: 1881-1883

Van Gogh

help from Mauve,

1881 and continues

in the spring of 1882. In the

woman named
woman,"

From

meantime, Van

his

is

The Hague

the

model

with

Gogh

December

a falling-out

has taken in a young

or,

simply, "the

whom

he determines to

woman

of Sorrow, 1882.)

syphilis,

for the forsaken

in

two have

Clasina Maria Hoornik, called Sien

a pregnant prostitute

marry. (Sien

settles in

his apprenticeship until the

Uncle Cornelius Marinus, he receives

a first

commission

to

make Twelve Views of The Hague. Instead of depicting the city's picturesque quaintness, Van Gogh sets his sites on the edges of town, the
pressure points of industrialization
lines

and railroad

what Uncle

Theo
but
sell

is

it is

shabby housing, tangled new tram

tracks, bustling workforces.

CM.

(as he's called in the letters)

Needless to
bargained

say, this isn't

for.

not too thrilled about Sien and pressures Vincent to cool

Van Gogh's own

my work?) and

feelings of artistic inadequacy

Sien's indifference that eventually

September 1883, he

(why cant Theo

end the

affair.

his

Life

scruffy,

with Vincent
surly

proved good

modern

34

was no

brother.

On

picnic. Theo's friends

complained about

the other hand, having Vincent around

for Theo's business.

painters,

In

leaves for Drenthe, Holland, to spend three

months roaming the moors and mourning.

FYI:

it;

He

cultivated a following

whose work Theo would

among

increasingly represent.

the

ABOVE
Skull with

Burning Cigarette
1885/1886
12 Vs x 9 Vs"
(32 x 24.5 cm)

RIGHT
Candlestick,

and

Novel. 1885

25

7s x

30 Y/'
cm)

(65 x 78

{Above: Amsterdam, Van

Gogh Museum

(Vincent van

Gogh

Foundation)

Home

Back

with

Ma &

Pa

Having patched things up with

his letters

them

at

he says he

Nuenen

feels like

Van Gogh

weavers, shown as

somewhat, though:

creates

if

in

an unwanted dog), he moves back in with

December 1883 and undertakes

in

of weavers (page 31). Against

revolts,

his folks (only

a political

of pictures

a series

backdrop of labor

two images of the industry:

strikes
(i)

and

factory

trapped inside the mechanisms of their looms, set

in empty, pit-of-hell blackness;

and

dignity before the furniturelike

loom

domestic weavers, seated with

(2)

at

home, near hearth and

family.

The Ultimate Rejection

On

his

own home

Begemann, who,
in late

front,

Van Gogh forms an attachment

for

Margo

for a change, likes him, but (hard luck) her parents object;

1884 she attempts

suicide.

This

is

nothing compared to the seismic

shock of March 27, 1885: Van Gogh's father drops dead.

dence that shordy

after the

formidable father's death,

Is it a coinci-

Van Gogh produces

his first

two major works of art, The Potato Eaters and Peasant Cemetery?

Stop to

Pit

Before leaving

Paris:

Nuenen

Bible, Candlestick,

for

Antwerp
Antwerp, Van

Gogh

paints a

still life,

and Novel (1885), announcing yet another

his art: the alluring temptations

symbols to note in

of

life

in the big city.

Open

conflict in

The two main

this painting are:

37

"

THE POTATO EATERS (1885)

% x 44 7s

32

Preparation: Van

books are
ies of
in

Gogh's

own

Made

Nuenen

sketch-

with feverishly animated stud-

filled

peasants; he drew

their

light.

(26.5 x 30.5 cm)

"

them from

life,

often

cottages, sometimes by lamp-

over

period of months, there are

copious studies of heads, of hands, and of

seated groups

preparation for "the

in

all

scene of those peasants around

dish

of

potatoes."

Narrative: The meal

breakfast

after

is

chores

the peasants' second

and

consists of tea

and potatoes. The peasants look

themselves, as
or

made

of

if

dirt.

It's

still

potatoes

dark outside and the

cottage, barely illuminated,

nest or burrow,

like

they were dug from the earth

full

of

is

like

an animal

warmth and community.

Note the separateness of the

child,

whose

back faces the viewer, and whose head

haloed

in

steam and

Van Gogh's

intent: To

make

"a genuine peas-

ant painting... (to) portray the peasants

coarseness....

If

If

in

their

peasant painting smells of

bacon, smoke, potato steam, very

not unhealthy.

is

light.

well, that's

a field smells of ripe grain

potatoes or of guano and manure,

healthy, especially for city people.

and

that's quite

'

Kv

M/V

jg&\
^v^,'

Van Gogh Museum. Amsterdam, The Netherlands/Art Resource

NY

the Bible, open to Isaiah, a

book of prophecy that proclaims

the sins

of the world and eternal damnation

La

Joie de vivre,

the latest novel by Emile Zola, a scathingly

naturalistic observer of

modern

whose

life

fiction

was the height of

urbanity in contemporary Paris

During the

brief

months he spends

1885-February 1886), Van

Gogh

in

studies

Antwerp (November
anatomy

at

the

local

academy, making unexceptional works except for the screamingly

decadent Skull with a Burning Cigarette between the Teeth (see page
36).

The

The
Up

train for Paris

Paris Years:

to this point,

is

leaving now!

Life in

the Big City

Van Gogh's work has focused on drawing peasants and

on rechanneling

his missionary zeal

into his art. In Paris

40

social responsibility

(March 1886-February 1888), he focuses

reveling in contemporary painting

meeting other

artists

making

more about

his art

and sense of

art

on:

Impressionist Punk

WOMAN

AT A TABLE IN THE
CAFE DU TAMBORIN (1887)

22x18 'A"

(55.5 x 46.5 cm)

Where: The tambourine-shaped

Clichy, an artists' cafe,

where Van Gogh pre-

sented informal exhibitions of

and

his friends,

What:

This

image:

is

prints.

a quintessential^ Impressionistic

an individual seated

in

a cafe, alone

with an abstract look on her face.

goes something

like this: in

people take

their

private

they

have

leisure

spaces;

by himself

art

and, on one occasion, an exhi-

Japanese

bition of

and

table

62 Boulevard de

chairs reveal the location as

The subtext

modern
lives

times, city

into

public

time and they're

bored. (Back on the farm, people were too tired

from their chores to have time to be bored.)

How: The
atively

painting

natural

is

Impressionistic

subject,

rendered

brushstrokes. But not entirely:

in its relin

short

Note the black

outlines (hints of Cloisonnism), the stippled

dots

(Pointillism),

and the way the perspective

of the wall rushes off into an impossible distance

in

Gogh

Foundatii

(a

hint of Expressionism).

Cool things to note: the woman's

up

that

And

hat!

She

is

truly a

the print on the wall:

bizarre get-

punk Parisienne.

It's

Japonisme.

Portrait ofPere

Tanguy. 1887

36

% x 29

72

"

(65x51 cm)
Musee Rodin,

Paris.

Erich

Lessing/Art Resource,

NY

Julien "Pere"

Tanguy was a
pigment grinder
whose shop was
Clauzel near

Rue
Rue

Not

only

located on

Lepic.

did he

sell artists'

materials

paint,

canvas, brushes

but he also sold

and collected works

artists whose
work he admired.

by the

(For ten years he

was Paul Cezanne's

sole dealer.) As Van
Gogh shows, he was
an avid collector of
Japanese prints.

The portrait shows

a man made by,
and devoted to, art.

Dabbling and Sampling

He moves

with

in

Cormon

dio of Fernand
save

some

Theo

in

Montmartre and attends

(studies of plaster casts

classes at the stu-

conventional enough,

pretty lively paintings of taxidermed birds

and

Contemporary

important contacts happen outside of

class.

pu-pu

platter

which Van Gogh meets

artists

and finds

of

artistic possibilities in

(for the first time) a

painters. Stimulated

new

ideas

freight- train speed

You can

is

lots

of

community of

he meets, the Paris years

actually see

Van Gogh sampling and

from one painting to the next

toward the formulation of his

FYI: Haussmannization

Paris

who

by what he sees and

are highly experimental:

spitting out

peer group within a

The

a bat).

The making of modern

as

he rushes

at

own language of art.

Paris,

named

for

its

master planner, Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann (1809-1891). During

comprised of many small quarters, was razed to

the 1850s, the old

city,

make way

big, uniform plan. Little streets

for

one

were replaced by grand

boulevards; the lower classes were pushed to the outskirts to

the middle classes; the center of the

trict for

shopping, tourism, and

city

new apartment

commissioned by Emperor Napoleon

socialists,

old

city.

who

easily barricaded

was turned

III

make way

for

into a fashionable dis-

buildings.

Haussmann was

after a violent uprising in

1848 by

themselves within the twisted streets of the

Haussmannization was the emperor's military strategy to insure

against future disobedience: Those big boulevards are specifically

designed

for the

movement

of troops

and munitions.

43

Van Gogh's

Intermission:

Paris

Menu

MAIN ENTREE:
Impressionism: Though the

movement had

already peaked by 1886, the

whom

Impressionists are the established avant-garde with

must come
of

to terms.

Even though he admired

colors, the delineation at lightning speed,"

their

nimble blending

he was disappointed in

Impressionism and moved in another direction:

ugly,

Van Gogh

"It all

seems slapdash,

badly painted, badly drawn."

SELECTED SIDE DISHES:

Pointillism:

technique formulated by the neo-Impressionist,

Georges Seurat (1859-1891), whose monumental Sunday

Afternoon on the Island of

La Grande Jatte was

named

1886. Pointillism was

that cover the canvas;

its

exhibited in

first

for the little stippled dots of color

main

objective

was

to blend optical

impressions and memories to capture the afterimages of

life.

Japonisme:

Europe

like a

taste

for

things Japanese

roared through Western

tsunami in the wake of Commodore Perry's 1850s

to the previously closed ports

ofJapan. During the 1880s,

with France started the wave

all

over again.

The Japanese

Hiroshige (1797-1858) created woodblock

Hundred Views of Edo

that strongly influenced

deliberate violation of the rules of

44

modern

Also called Divisionism.

Western

prints

trip

new treaties
artist

Ando

such as

Van Gogh

perspective.

One

in their

The

chief

La

Guinguette

a Montmartre

1886
19

Ax

25 Vs"

(49 x 64 cm)
Musee

d'Orsay, Paris. Erich

Lessing/Art Resource,

characteristics

of Japonisme

unmodulated planes;

are:

(i)

(2) radically

off by the frame are Japonismes);

colors

and patterns

cropped compositions
(3)

for

on

(figures cut

textiles, etc.).

fields

of jewel-like

color contained in heavy black outlines, like stained glass;

way

was

to distill painting to line

for subjective

Cloisonnists' impact

flat,

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903); named

an enameling technique; characterized by

objective

in

Japanese props and backdrops

(everyone was collecting Japanese prints, parasols,

Cloisonnism: Formulated by

laid

and color and

its

main

to clear the

and decorative forms of representation. The

was

critical to

the formulation of modernism.

45

NY

Top

Collection Kroller-Muller

Museum,

Ottcrlo.

The Netherlands

The Britsh Museum

Bottom Left: The British Museum, London.
Bottom Right: Musee d'Orsay, Paris. Scala/Art Resource,

NY

A Dutchman

in

bohemian

In the midst of
lonely

Paris
Paris,

Van Gogh

fancies himself to be the

Dutchman:

OPPOSITE

TOP

La

he tramps around the fringes of the city

Butte

Montmartre
1886
14 Vs x 24"
(36 x 61 cm)

he hangs out in divey bars

he makes dozens of searching self-portraits

BOTTOM LEFT
He's soaking up

new

but very

possibilities in art,

much on

his

own

Suburb of
Paris near

terms, starting with the landscape. His turf includes:

LA butte MONTMARTRE: (the

hilly section in the

known

Drop

as

an

artists' quarter):

does he paint? Windmills.

The

northern part ofParis,

Dutchman

them

as defiant

holdouts of peasant

broad (Impressionistic), but the

in Paris

and what

moulins were already defunct tourist

attractions dotting the hills of Montmartre, but

to see

Montmartre
1887

colors are

Van Gogh chooses

life.

The brushwork

is

Watercolor
heightened

with white
15

72x21"

(39.5 x 53.5

cm)

BOTTOM RIGHT
Restaurant

dark and muddy.

de la Siren e

THE BANLIEUE: ("suburbs"): In the wake of Haussmannization,

was surrounded by melancholy wastelands, where building

Paris

stopped and nothing had really begun

post.)

for a

The

mock

yet. (Well,

maybe

lamp-

suburbs were a cultural subject, the organizing principle

society of artists,

Banlieue." In

who

called themselves

Van Gogh's depictions of the

"La Societe de

banlieue, perspective

is

47

at Asnieres

22 V2 x 26
(57 x 68 cm)

BACKTRACK:
FRANZ MESMER
Mesmer

stretched beyond the points of reality to achieve

mum

maxi-

anxiety.

(1734-1815),

an Austrian physicist and

mystic, popularized

theories of hypnotism

ASNIERES:

As

the Impressionists had the

town of

Argenteuil, the Post-Impressionists had Asnieres,

suburb

cum amusement park on the Seine,

and "animal magnetism."

He believed
thing

in

that every-

the universe was

connected by magnetic
energy. Since Van

Gogh

with boating, picnicking,

Van Gogh went

there

cafes,

and gardens.

with his friend Emile

Bernard on painting expeditions. Asnieres was

developed and commercialized, but he depicted

it

was aware of Mesmer's

work,

it's

some

of his self-portraits

possible to see

as a fresh

Impressionist landscape: sparkling

colors

and stroking brushwork.

as graphic representations of

Mesmerism.

Man

of a Thousand Faces

Well, 47 to be exact.

24 were painted
this

Of the total number of self-portraits,

in Paris. Like the rest

of the works of

experimental period, they reflect a wide range of inspi-

rations,

from Impressionism

to

Mesmerism. They

also

render conflicts of identity.

OPPOSITE

Here

are

two things

to observe:

Self-Portrait

with Grey Felt

Hat. 1887/88
17 Vi x 14 3 A"
(44 x 37.5 cm)

different HATS: Hats demonstrate various personae

and an attempt

to find (or,

more

accurately, construct)

personal identity. There's a stylish grey fedora for the

*W

rm.

;>V
4
:.<**.
.

>\>'^

**.

5tf

A-'/

am

Top Left: Van

Netherlands. Art Resource, NY Bottom Left. Musee

Above: Musee d'Orsay, Paris. Scala/Art Resource, NY

Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. The

d'Orsay, Paris. Erich Lessing/Art Resource,

NY

city slicker; & rustic

straw hat (which the brushwork can

make appear
OPPOSITE

thatched right onto his scalp) for the country bumpkin; and

when

he's

TOP LEFT

humbly

hatless, he's the pious aesthete.

Self-Portrait

with Straw

ART DIARY: The

through his

art,

self-portraits

show Van Gogh seeing himself

looking naturalistic through the rendered, overlap-

Hat. 1887
16

7s

x 13"

(41 x 33

cm)

ping strokes of Impressionism, schematized through the stippled

dots and lines of Pointillism, and hypnotic

turning

him and

his

background into

(!)

a picture

with rays of paint

BOTTOM LEFT
Self-Portrait

of Mesmerism.

1889
25 78x21 7/'
(65 x 54 cm)

Flower Power

RIGHT
In Paris,

Van Gogh

paints flowers galore, but the sunflowers are in a

Self-Portrait

1887
category of their own.

They

encapsulate the innovations of his art to

an acute sense of observation: These

portraits.

Each flower

nomy of bumps and

is

like a

still lifes

are practically

head with an individual physiog-

features. In lieu

of

hair, there are

blazing

halos of petals.

THE COLORS: Yellow takes on conflicted associations in Van Gogh's

art

at

18

Vi

x 13 V/'

(47 x 35 cm)

date, as characterized by:

once the color of fields, of modern Paris, and of country

But when paired with blue

ennervate one another to a

shrill pitch.

the

life.

the two

complement of yellow

5i


THE BRUSHWORK:

It's as

compulsive

as Pointillism,

has turned into hatch, hatch, hatch

woven

paint intricately

little

but dot, dot, dot

lines

and

of

slabs

into highly artificial structures that pulse

with energy

THE MEANING:

No

for the people.

They connote

the South

contact with
late

all

hothouse blooms, these sunflowers are flowers

the countryside, strong sunlight, and

Gogh

of which Van

when he

apparently longed to

make

chose to paint sunflowers in Paris during the

summer of 1887.

Leaving for Aries: "I'm outta here..."

After painting the sunflowers (and some grimacing
surprise that within several
for the

come

South of France?

months Van Gogh

What he

skulls), is it

quits Paris

any

and heads

hopes to find there, however, might

as a surprise....

As absurd

as

it

sounds,

Van Gogh goes

to the

South of France

to

find Japan. Japanese artists, he believes, see things in (literally) a

different light.

He

imagines the sun in Japan to be stronger and

perceptions to be clearer

Van Gogh's

artists'

better.

final Paris self-portrait

(page 78) announces his

new sense of

He paints himself, hatless, sitting in front of an easel

and holding a palette loaded with colors and several paint brushes. He is:

professional identity.

52

working

"graduate" of Paris

artist

ready to go out into the world and

It's

make

his

mark

not just Japan that he's hoping to find in Aries, but also career

opportunities. His goal

to establish an artists' school

is

attracting fellow "colorists" to join

him

turn, attract the support of writers and

notice

from

dealers,

who

Van Gogh

mistic that success

art in a

Japanese

FYI: Aries

Their community will, in

critics,

whose

will exhibit the colorists'

their art. In short,

In search of brighter

there.

of the South by

interest will

work and

sunshine, Van Gogh goes

Located

When

in

he gets there,

Provence,

Roman town, founded by

(yes!) sell

leaves Paris with an ambitious plan, opti-

financial, critical, artistic, personal

light.

draw

in

it is

is

imminent.

to Aries to improve his

snowing.

the South of France, Aries was a

Julius Caesar.

It

was more popular with

writers

than with painters: Stendhal, Alexandre Dumas, Gustave Flaubert,

George Sand,
(Perhaps this

Victor

is

Hugo, and the Goncourt brothers

Dutch touch

embankments,

visited Aries.

what attracted the bookish Van Gogh.) The town

small; a railroad factory

all

is

is

the local industry; bullfighting

is

is

a local sport.

the extensive system of canals, with bridges and

offering excellent

vantage points of the landscape.

53

Artistically (at least)

Loaded with

Van Gogh
or

is

all

he was Right

that he has assimilated

and developed while

months

ripe for exploding into maturity. In the fifteen

444 days that he

will live in Aries (February

in Paris,

1888-May

1889), he

makes 200 paintings and over 100 drawings. The hallmarks of

mature

his

art are:

exaggerated PERSPECTIVES: space rushes away; landscape

is

topographical

ENERGIZED COLORS: often paired

in

complements

for

optimum

dazzle: blue with yellow, pink with lime, red with green

highly graphic TECHNIQUE: dots,

lines,

thatched and woven

brushstrokes create a structural language of painting

OPPOSITE

CONSTRUCTED COMPOSITIONS:

self-consciously framed

Sunflowers. 1888

and

35

cropped images

Neue Pinakothek, Munich,

Germany. Scala/Art Resource,

Byte:

"This country seems to

the atmosphere

x 28"

(91 x 71 cm)

EXPLICIT SYMBOLISM: communicating the intangible

Sound

me

and the gay

as beautiful as Japan, as far as the limpidity

of

color effects are concerned.

Vincent

to

Theo, 1888

55

NY

Aries

Arriving

in

Van Gogh

arrives in Aries

wreck.

he's a

on Monday, February 20, 1888.

Too much smoking and

winter cold. In his

search

for

Physically,

drinking, and sick from the

restoration

through warmth and

sunshine, he's crushed to find Aries in the midst of an unusual and

s-*-^.

heavy snowstorm.
"' -A~'-V/.S.-

look
Souvenir de

Mauve. 1888

He

disappointment with
as

rents a

room above

The

and records

his

makes Southern France

bleak as the banlieue of Paris. (The painting

Impressionism.) Eventually the weather

artist.

a restaurant

a first landscape that

itself

warms up and

is

lackluster

so does the

orchards bloom and he sees the Japan that he had hoped to

28 /4 x 23 Vs"
(73 x 59.5 cm)

find in the Aries of his mind.

Orchards

in

Bloom

Between March and April 1888, Van Gogh makes fourteen paintings
of

fruit trees in

bloom.

He

even describes his project in horticultural

terms: "I have nine orchards to work..."; "I

He

have ten orchards...."

establishes a connection through these trees to the earth

FYI:

While Van

death of

Gogh was working

his teacher,

Souvenir de Mauve, as
his

56

now

own

in

the orchards, he learned of the

Anton Mauve, and dedicated

a tribute to

explosive potential.

the

and

a painting to him,

man who had helped him

cultivate

to

Sound

Byte:

At

moment, I am absorbed

the

stroke has no system at

brush,

all.

bloomingfruit

in the

My brush-

trees

I hit the canvas with irregular touches of the

which I leave as they

are.

Patches of thickly laid-on

color.

"

repetitions, savageries.

Van Gogh, describing

his orchard paintings to

Emile Bernard, 9 April 1888

meaningful

artistic

are characterized

production, such as he missed in Paris. These works

by

their:

japonisme he makes

copy of plum blossoms

sense OF containment he
around looking

were

erratic

same orchard, which he

and these

his studio,

BRUSHWORK there

dentally, the

day he

left Paris,

Hiroshige

very focused, he doesn't wander

for better trees or pinker blossoms.

paintings are done in the

if it

is

after

Most of these

visits

every day as

are his still-life subjects

are

moments of

Van Gogh

Pointillism (coinci-

visited Seurat)

flagrant impasto (application of thick paint),

which

mixed with
reveal

Gogh's obsessive admiration for the work of the Marseilles

Van

artist,

Adolfe Monticelli (1824-1886). Van Gogh's appreciation of

Monticelli's

prepares

him

work
for his

drives

his

early

own impasto

development

style

in

Aries

and

of painting.

57

CONFLICT an orchard

man-made;

is

and to produce with unnatural

trees are cut

back to bloom

In Van Gogh's painting

intensity.

of spring blooms on wizened branches, nature appears almost in

OPPOSITE
Cafe Terrace at

competition with culture.

Night (Place du

Forum

in Aries)

1888

Japanese Suites

31 78x26"
(81 x 65.5

cm)

Museum,

Otterlo,

Kroller-Muller

The

Netherlands. Erich

Lessing Art Resource,

Drawing

plays an important role for

he intends to make

lots

Van Gogh

in Aries.

He

tells

Theo

of works on paper and organize them into

NY
suites,

which he compares

to Japanese prints.

FYI: Drawing and painting together

Gogh

drawing)

In

Aries,

paintings and vice versa.

in

as

it's

It's

if

(or,

His use of a reed pen

what to look

for

Van Gogh's drawings are

in

Van

talking to his

even possible to compare the same subjects

both mediums. The following points capture the general dialogue:

the marks used

in

the paintings

hatching, and outlining are

all

come from

drawing:

Stippling,

graphic techniques

the drawings appear as architectural plans of the paintings: They

reveal the underlying structure of

detailed, elaborate,

Van Gogh's

vision as

being highly

and constantly reinforced by the need to look

and describe
color

is

so intrinsic to Van Gogh's art that

no pigment involved. See

L
58

scream with color

for yourself:

it

exists

even when there's

These sepia drawings

is

-S>Jb.,

^rv. -

'

Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands. Erich Lessing/Art Resource,

NY

significant: It

an archaic

is

traditional:

hollow stick with a sharp end, but

For Van Gogh,

tool.

exotic: It's a

basically a

associations are twofold:

Rembrandt drew with

pointy stylus (dots,

describe, he did:

like a

jabs, scratches)

These works

a reed

OPPOSITE
The Sower. 1888
25 74x3178"
(64 x 80.5 cm)

pen

brush (stroked

lines)

and

to describe the landscape.

are characterized

detail goes unregistered. In

some

And

by thorough rendering.

the sky

of dots. Entire sheets of paper are covered in discursive marks.

is full

as if he's

hand

like a

cases, particularly in the later

Aries drawings, even the atmosphere has been accounted for

It's

also

Japanese tool

Van Gogh used the reed pen

No

its

it's

is

Surf

touching every bit of the landscape with his pen and his

an extension of his eye.

&

Turf

In June 1888, Van

Gogh

heads for the beach.

He

spends one week in

town of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, located 30 miles south of

the

Aries,

on the Mediterranean.

It's

a productive trip:

the sea and light confirm his fantasies of the South, even the

Japanese ones

he gets speedier: having gone on

this holiday

ing his drawing technique looser,

faster,

with the goal of mak-

more spontaneous, and

6i

more "Japanese" (he

quickly"),

He

Van Gogh

"The Japanese draw

writes,
is

thrilled

when he draws

returns to Aries revitalized, with a

in a painting
sky.

This progressive streak continues with

art.

Any

hour.

and

a yellow

of paintings of the

a related studio

work

tentative Impressionism vanishes.

technique and vision take over, with

From

here on, Van

Inventing the

(81 x 65

streets

a series

and with The Sower (1888),

thatched, graphic impasto, and brilliant,

The Seated
Zouave. 1888
31 Vsx25 7s"

an

page 60). Altogether, this stage marks the completed trans-

formation of his

own

a boat in

sense of color, as revealed

of the seaside cottages, with pink

local wheatfields
(see

new

quickly, very

Gogh

shrill,

combination of thick,
confident colors.

in full voice.

is

Modern

Portrait

Van Gogh made an extraordinary

wanted

its

His

series

of portraits while in Aries.

He

to

modernize established tradition by creating "portraiture of

the soul."

Instead of showing rich burghers, kings, and dowagers

cm)

wallowing in the trappings of their privileged station in

at

meTm important enough

paint ordinarv

to

have

men and women

life

("Hey, look

my portrait painted"), he sought

to

"with something of the eternal which

the halo used to symbolize."

For Van Gogh, the modern portrait would not be an attribute of power

and

62

status,

but a svmbol of

human

dignity and freedom.

He

achieved

by making portraiture

this goal

form of exchange, an

of friend-

act

ship between himself and the model, and an expression of his larger

sense of humanity.

of portraits painted by Van

Gogh

The

cast

how

the backgrounds in these portraits play an important

in Aries

is

large.

Note

role as

extensions of the subject's environment:

m

man who dreams great

dreams," is shown surrounded by an infinite night sky. The Belgian
Boch frequently visited Van Gogh at his Aries home (captured in

THE artist, Eugene Boch (1855-1941),

The Ye/low House, on page

his

"a

Van Gogh

71).

describes this portrait as

token of deep friendship with Boch,

the zouaves were an Algerian corps of the French infantry known

for their distinctive

uniform of baggy trousers, embroidered tops,

and tasseled turbans. Van

with

Gogh

describes his

and the eye of

a small face, a bull neck,

signified his relative proximity to

Zouave

a tiger."

North Africa

as a

"boy

The motif

then known

as

"The Orient."
the peasant, Patience

Escalier, appears

background. Vincent writes to

Escalier because he looked so

Theo

against a fiery orange

that he

much like

was

first

attracted to

This

the

first

peasant portrait since those dirty faces of The Potato Eaters, but

it is

major breakthrough:

"What

their father.

learned in Paris

is

is

leaving me, and

63

am

returning

knew

to

the

the Impressionists."

the Impressionists and

painter,

ideas

He

allies

Eugene Delacroix

states that

country before

the

in

he

now opposed

is

to

himself with the great Romantic

(1798-1863), "Because instead of try-

ing to reproduce exactly what

more

had

have before

arbitrarily in order to express

my

eyes,

use color

myself forcibly."

the postman, Joseph Roulin, became Van Gogh's best friend in

Aries.

The

various paintings and drawings that

him might even be seen

first

portrait of late July

as a portrait

Van Gogh made of

of an evolving friendship.

is

akimbo

hands en garde;

(i.e.,

hands on

hips), his

startled

and wary;
his

into a pair of prongs. In the last portraits of spring

here), Roulin's implacable presence appears a

amidst chaos.

The

1888 shows Roulin seated against an empty

ice-blue ground. His expression

The remarkable beard

is

his

beard

1889

arms

are

is

parted

(as

shown

monument of calm

painted with the same

churning strokes that animate Van Gogh's contemporary images of

the landscape.

Sound

lush green background blocks out the world like

Byte:

"Roulin has a salient gravity

might havefor a young

offeeling and so

and a

tenderness for

one. ..[He is] such a

me

such as an old soldier

good soul and so wise and sofull

"

trustful.

64

OPPOSITE
Portrait ofJoseph
Roulin. 1889

Vincent

to

Theo

25 V. x 21 7/'
(64.6x55.2 cm)

shoot by like fiery comets. Painted

living wallpaper; flowers

Gogh

only weeks before Van

leaves Aries

to

check himself

into an asylum, this image depicts Joseph Roulin as a steadying

force

and

a trusting friend

who

responds to Van Gogh's terrible

physical and mental conditions with a look of calming under-

OPPOSITE

standing.

UArle'sienne:

Van Gogh admired

his easy affability, his socialism,

his family life (he also painted Roulin's wife, in

Madame

his children; see pages 84-85).

Joseph-Michel
Ginoux. 1888
36 x 29"

is

also significant:

him

(91.4x73.7 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Bequest of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951.
(51.112.3) Photograph by Malcolm
Varon. Photograph
1979
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

to his brother

Van Gogh
and

the arlesienne was

Southern
aquiline

Belle),

and

The

fact that

La

Berceuse,

he was the postman

lived for the mail that connected

local

female

stereotype

for the classical

(a

delicate features, her luxurious curly hair, her elegant

fluffy lace

its

women. By Van Gogh's

Marie Ginoux, who

is

bodice and coquettish cap. Nary

But unlike

He

conflicted:

She becomes
and modern

is

its

embodied by

pretty

Mme

runs the cafe depicted in The Night Cafe

portrait he writes: "I have an Arlesienne

a simple cliche, his

shows her seated

of modern

expression of the

66

account, this beauty

page 74) and of whose

(a sign

Provencal

"Greek" beauty of her

an account of Aries omits some rhapsodizing about

at last...."

and

friends.

famous

black costume with

(see

and

life),

Woman

image of the Arlesienne

at a table

with an open novel

her distracted gaze echoing the bored

at a Table in the Cafe du Tamborin (1887).

symbol of peasant culture caught between tradition

life.

THE BONZE"
Photograph
of the

Yellow House

(i.e.,

Buddhist monk)

is

self-portrait of

September 1888, Van

bonze with

shaved head, open

Van Gogh Wmself. In

Gogh

collar,

depicts htmself as a

and frad expressron

. accentuated by

His vulnerability
worshiping the eternal Buddha.
painte m sohd pale
of the background,
the brilliant vastness
look
sister, he says, I
the portrait to his
chite. In describing

a Japanese."

68

has

The

On

Painter's Yellow

September

18, 1888,

House

Van Gogh moves

corner of 2 place Lamartine, intending for

to

create

the

next

major

Impressionism. Unaware that he will spend

(until

February

7,

1889), he furnishes

and an extra bedroom for Gauguin

it

his

a place
style

less

where

of painting after

than

five

decked out with

whom

artists will

months here

with rustic furniture, paintings,

flowers "like the boudoir of a really artistic

corresponding with Gauguin,

on the

to be the headquarters for

it

the artist colony he hopes to found in Aries

work together

into a yellow house

pictures of sun-

woman." Van Gogh has been

he hopes will become the leader of

new colony of artists.

Fortunatelv for Vincent, his brother

arranges for the money-starved
free of charge, in

Theo

Gauguin

is

to

Gauguin's dealer;

Theo

spend time with Vincent

exchange for a few of Gauguin's paintings.

More than

FYI: The French painter Eugene Delacroix was hailed as the leader of
the Romantic

movement and celebrated

as the greatest colorist

history of French art. During the 1830s, his

tic

temperament, and choices of

literary

swashbuckling

style,

in

the

roman-

and exotic themes emerged

in

opposition to the cool classicism of such contemporaries as Jean-

Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867). For Van Gogh,

embodied an

anti-Impressionist position

and

Delacroix's art

bold approach to color

and brushwork.

69

Sound

Byte:

new

"I believe

that a

and more

that those in the North rely on their ability with the brush,

school of colorists will take root in the South, as

I see more

and the so-

called 'picturesque' rather than on the desire to express something by color itself."

Van Gogh, describing the

"colorist"

movement he

hopes to found in the South

Van Gogh

anything,

OPPOSITE
Vincents House
in Aries, the

'Yellow House'

1888
28

Vs x 36"

feels lonely

the South of France has given

and alienated, even though coming

him

to

the necessary detachment from the

Impressionists and the Paris art scene that he so desperately craved.

The

idea of having

That the

(72x91.5 cm)
is

act

Gauguin come

stay

of setting up household

with him

is

fills

Vincent with joy

extremely meaningful for

him

demonstrated by two key paintings that bracket his move: The Night

Cafe and Van Goghs Bedroom (see pages 74-75).

Not

Cozy

Picture

Even though Van

was

specifically

The Night

Gogh's

Bedroom

intended

Cafe', it's

the furniture

whomever

is

is

7o

all

as

The Artist s Bedroom)

an antidote to the irritating interior of

room tips upward

about to

slide right

to

Look

closely:

an alarming degree:

out of the picture and crush

standing in front of it

the bed, vastly long,

look at

known

not an entirely restful image.

the perspective of the

all

as

(also

is

like

some gaping

the signs ofloneliness: two

maw

empty

chairs,

two

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Kl

.C^^VCyS

.,M&iiv\

'^
"

!/./}

empty bed,

pillows, that

that

empty room. The

folks in

The Night

Cafe might appear to be alienated, but at least they are alienated

together.

comes to

Paul Gauguin

live

In early October 1888, before

Gauguin

Gogh exchange

Van Gogh

self as a

self-portraits.

Gogh

with Van

arrives in Aries,

he and Van

(the "bonze") depicts

him-

Gauguin opts

for a

humble worshiper in the temple of

art.

criminal persona, identifying himself with Jean Valjean, the rebel hero
in Victor
trait.

He

hunched
as

Hugo's novel Les Miserables,

after

which he

paints himself as a seedy presence

in front

of

a pretty, floral

invasion

The

finally
is

no

shows up

less radical

sinner has

moved

Gauguin had been

in

at

dark and scowling

is

no virgin, but

The Yellow House on October

when

23, the

than the two self-styled portraits suggest:

with the

in Brittanv,

saint.

where he was involved

painterly pursuit of the primitive, as

Sound

the por-

background, which he designates

wallpaper in a virgin's bedroom. Vincent

Gauguin

titles

embodied

for

him

in his

own

in western

Byte:

"Instead of trying to depict exactly

more arbitrarily

to express

what

is

before

my

eyes,

I am using

color

myselfforcefully.

Vincent

to

Theo

73

OPPOSITE
The Promenade,
Evening. 1889
19 5/8 x 18 Vs"
(49.5 x 45.5 cm)

Cafe
Check out

Bedroom:

vs.

the volley of differences

between these two images.

(Note: Van

Gogh painted more

than one version of each.)

THE NIGHT CAFE (1888)

(Detail)

28

V2

x 36

7,"

(72.4 x 92.1 cm)

New Haven, Connecticut.

Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903.

Yale University Art Gallery,

Time: Painted

just

Setting: Located

moved

before he
in

into

The Yellow House

the all-night cafe below his lodgings,

where he would hang out

in

the evenings

place where

drunks, prostitutes, and night prowlers could take refuge.

homeless

Gogh

member

identified with

of this nocturnal
its

community, Van

marginal denizens at the

same

time as he feared the connection. He described The Night

Cafe as "a place

could commit
Intent:

"I

where the mind could go mad, where one

a crime."

have

tried to express the terrible passions of

humanity by means of red and green." He called the colors

a palette of nerves,

and the painting one of the

ugliest he

had ever done.

Light: Illuminated

rushes forward to engulf

And

that

ominous

UFO

of a

shadow hovering beneath the

pool table!

by sulphurous gaslight: a picture of

people keeping unnatural

sleep,

Mood: The empty foreground

the viewer, to involve us as inhabitants of The Night Cafe.

zombies of modern

hours,

being

deprived of

Colors: The colors are specifically meant to look

found

life.

prints

in

cheap reproductions,

he collected.

like

like

those

the English tabloid

VAN GOGH'S BE DROOM

22 'Ax 29

*88ing

Time: Painted
"It is

Setting:

orated
ings

in

it,

with the portrait of

nest to

of his having

35 years old,

beginning to wear
Intent:

bedroom

in

to

The Yellow House:

The Night Cafe."

as he furnished

and dec-

Eugene Boch and other

paint-

\n Resource,

NY

rather,

the imagination." Tragically, neither would occur.

Light:

The windows are closed, shutting out the

light

and

the world, keeping the room cool, dark, and quiet. The

bed

sits

there, waiting to

be slept

in.

simple pine frames. This room was to be Van

document
is

moved

a contrast to...

study of his

Gogh's haven,

(He

he

just after

going to be

(1888)

Vs" (72 x 90 cm)

When

pamper

made

after

all,

his creativity.

his

own

place

It

in

was

Mood: Van Gogh equated

the world.

and the bohemian thing

ows,

thin.)

he started the painting, he complained of

at

the simple masses of unmodulated color, the lack of shad-

and the general emptiness of the room with

is

pain and exhaustion. His eyes especially were tired. "In a

word, looking

the broad lines of the furniture,

also a

the picture ought to rest the brain, or

"absolute restfulness."

image

to the

Japanese

He

likened the simplicity of the

prints,

which he collected.

Colors: This picture was conceived as a therapy,

"color

is

to

do everything."

in

which

France by the Breton peasants,

who were

considered as ancient and

mystical as the Celts. But he had run out of money, and

up
OPPOSITE
Starry Night over

1888
28 Va x 36
(72.5 x 92 cm)

the Rhone.

in Aries,

he

is

trying to figure out

nation, Martinique
letter

from

of the

sale

although

how

to get to his ultimate desti-

Gauguin

the day

Theo van Gogh,

his Paris dealer,

of a painting. Nonetheless, Van

when he shows

is

arrives in Aries, a

waiting to inform

Gogh

is

elated:

him

For months

he has urged Gauguin to come and be the leader of this community of

colorists,

Their

and now Gauguin

life

is

here.

together begins harmoniously:

They

share the

same model,

use the same kind of burlap canvas, and paint the same landscapes.

Gogh

shops,

Gauguin cooks. To Van Gogh's

relief,

sense of order and responsibility to his everyday

Van

Gauguin brings

life.

INCOMPATIBILITY TEST:
Despite similarities in their approach to
ly different results in their

Van Gogh's big

colorist

is

reliance

upon

it

art,

the artists achieve radical-

work: If a passion for color and being a

thing, then Gauguin's

is

memory and

for imagining one's subjects.

Compare:

Van Gogh's

thick, lush paint; graphic

brushwork; naturalistic

colors pitched to high keys

Gauguin's thin, dry surfaces; soft brushmarks; muted colors

absorbed from
76

memory

the

Musee

d'Orsay, Paris. Erich Lessing/Art Resource,

NY

As

Gauguin seems

their partnership progresses,

He

toward Van Gogh.

stars

Van

Gogh's friend

Postman Roulin

as

paints his

from Theo
weeks, he

version of The Night Cafe that

Mme Ginoux as a hardened prostitute and the

figment of an opiated dream. Far from enjoying his

new surroundings, Gauguin

a filthy hole

own

increasingly peevish

brutally characterizes the

and has no desire

to

town of Aries

remain there, especially

after learning

that several of his paintings have been sold. After a

starts teasing

Van Gogh

as

few

for being a slave to nature, for being

OPPOSITE
Self-Portrait in

Front of the
Easel 1888
"
25 A x 19 7/8
(65.5 x 50.5 cm)
%

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum

so observant.

ination

from

Van Gogh
ite

He

ridicules the

his

memory

conjures

Dutchman

into painting

instead of from

Memory of the Garden

nature.

from

Eager to

at Etten, a strange

imag-

his

please,

compos-

cobbled together from:

memories of Holland
mental portraits of his mother and
artist's

his sister

(how they look

in the

mind)

the invention of a fictitious "Dickensian" character in a scotch

plaid shawl

Gauguin responds with the Garden

image of two
his

own

face that

this point
artists

women

on and

work

strolling.

But he

moons up from
for the

at Aries, a picture that echoes the

irreverently adds a caricature of

shrub

at the

passing ladies.

remaining weeks of Gauguin's

distinctly separately

visit,

From

the two

from one another.

79

(Vincent van

Gogh

Foundation)

"

"Take

Good Care

of

In mid-December, Van
ily

when Gauguin

in a

it"

Gogh

presents

is

working on images of the Roulin fam-

him with

remarkably bovine fashion, painting a

legend has

Gogh

it

and

retorts, "It

of absinthe

at

is

this

is

I,

but

it's I

accosted by a frantic

madness and wields

is

Van Gogh

briefly restored.

Gauguin

momentary

seized with

is

Van

throws a glass

strolling alone after dinner,

Van Gogh, who

razor.

He

gone mad."

Gauguin, then apologizes and peace

Gogh

of sunflowers. As

still life

a legendary episode in art history

certainly

But on December 23, while out

is

shows Van

a portrait that

stops short of attacking

Gauguin, then runs away distraught. Alarmed, Gauguin spends the

night in a hotel, and

House, he finds
learns that

when he

returns the next

morning

Van Gogh had mutilated himself during

ting off a piece of his right ear (not the whole ear),
el

and asked

for a prostitute

beseeching her to "keep

Sound
"How

named

The Yellow

to

crowd of police and townsfolk huddled

outside.

He

the night by cut-

had gone

to a broth-

Rachel, then had given her his

ear,

this object carefully."

Byte: 9 Vi weeks

long did

we remain

together?

I couldn't say I have

y

entirelyforgotten.

In spite of the swiftness with which the catastrophe approached, in spite of

the fever of work that

Gauguin's

80

had seized me,

the time

seemed to me a century.

recollection of the time he spent with

Van Gogh

in Aries

Gogh was angry

FYI: What precipitated the ear episode? Van

Gauguin, upset about their obvious incompatibility as fellow

living

and working together

some

selling

and

of his paintings

at

artists

Gauguin's success

fearful that

would cause the painter to leave

in

Aries,

thereby abandoning Van Gogh. But there are other factors:

In

December, Theo announced

Bonger

engagement

his

which meant only one thing to Vincent:

exclusive devotion of Theo,

whom

upon

Johanna

to

He might

lose the

he depended absolutely.

Gauguin was enjoying some professional success: He was receiving

praise from such luminaries as Degas; he
participate

shows; and Theo was selling

in

was happening
Rain.

It

was getting

rained

for

like

invited to

none of which

his art

Van Gogh.

mad

stuck indoors and Van

in

December. Van Gogh and Gauguin were

Gogh knew

School of the South would not

that his

become

dream

of a sun-drenched

a reality.

PLEASE LEAVE!
Van Gogh
Gauguin

Van Gogh

is

Theo by telegram of the

incident.

horrified

Theo

one day, then leaves for Paris with Gauguin on December

Joseph Roulin

Gogh

admitted to the Hotel-Dieu hospital in Aries and

notifies

arrives for

27.

is

stays in hospital for

visits

released

him and sends

two weeks, during which time

progress reports to Theo.

on January 7 and returns

to

Van

The Yellow House, where

81

'.
.

s?

m
J~z.11

\
\
\

Tim

he

starts

painting the next day, working on self-portraits that are

images of self-healing.
Observe:
the bandaged ear: seen without pain or self-pity but with fascination
the meditative gaze: the artist appears to be focusing his energy inward

the

composed background: balanced arrangements of color and

fast FORWARD: Driven by loneliness, Van

obsessively. In late

post in Marseilles.
fencing mask.
is

paints feverishly and

January 1889, Joseph Roulin leaves Aries for a

letter

from Gauguin asks

On February 4, crisis strikes

trying to poison him,

Van Gogh

where he hears voices and

to the chagrin

Gogh

new

for the return of his

again: Paranoid that

someone

taken back to the Aries hospital,

who now fear him. The

is

released,

people of Aries

petition that he remain in confinement, or better yet, please leave town.

The

police bar

him from The Yellow House.

readmitted to hospital, "shut up in a

cell all

On

February 25, he

is

visited

by the

Pointillist painter,

is

the livelong day" with-

out paints, books, or pipe. His health improves and in late

he

March

Paul Signac (1863-1935).

Together they go to The Yellow House, where Signac breaks in and

they find Van Gogh's art intact.
his

On March

30,

Van Gogh

36th birthday in a relatively good frame of mind.

again, out in the orchards.

OPPOSITE
Self-Portrait

is

hallucinates. After 10 days he

of his neighbors,

art

On April

17,Theo

He

celebrates

is

painting

gets married in Holland.

83

with Bandaged
Ear. 1889
23 Va x 19
(60 x 49 cm)

Double-Entendre: Lullaby Lady

LA BERCEUSE (1889)
36 Vz x 28 n/u" (92. 7 x 72.8 cm)

What:

woman who

word

for lullaby. In

French, a berceuse

In

rocks a cradle.

also the

It is

Gogh

her portrait by Van

five versions),

Madame

of the postman)

berceuse"

in

How: Note

is

is

(of

intended to represent

that she

baby

the connection

is

open

Van Gogh

In

lives

Van Gogh has

writing

about

life

sioned

symbolic rescue
at risk

in

this paint-

by

Van

the woman's

men whose

the center of a triptych,

flanked on either side by a painting of sunflowers

in

a vase.

The

triptych,

would be erected on board

he suggests,

a fishing

sailors with

(represented by the sunflowers), and of

people. By offering

this

compared

anyone whose

for
his

its

symbolic connection,

Van Gogh intends the painting as

image

an

home, of the land

life

a
is

therapeuadrift.

aims to what he found

in

He
the

music of Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) to create with La

on the seas. Van Gogh envi-

this portrait as

their maternal

Berceuse "a consoling

inspired

line to

would comfort the

left

Pecheur d'lslande (1886).

to see the cradle rope

were

but by

to bigger ties.

This tale of Breton fishing

hands as

a cradle,

it

image of

tic

refers to a favorite novel

Pierre Loti entitled

Gogh

"la

holding a rope. This

offstage,

The Big Picture:

ing,

(wife

both senses of the word.

would have been attached to

leaving the

which there are

Augustine Roulin

where

boat,

An

art for

broken hearts."

intimate detail: The "wallpaper" Van

invented for

Mme

background

in

traits,

is

the

same

page

64). Incidentally, at

Gogh was working on

Joseph

Gogh
as the

the contemporary portrait of

her husband (see

time Van

Roulin

Roulin

Aries to Marseilles and

the

these por-

was transferred from

was temporarily sepa-

rated from his wife and children. Could the

common background Van Gogh

their portraits also

have been

his

created

way

in

of keep-

ing the family together during this period?

tW^

'',:l(A>:;:y

B\

mmm
Awfc"^

if
.

M^l

mmm

it

i.m

^n

few days

anymore

later,

suffering yet again

Van Gogh

and now unable

to live alone

agrees with a local preacher's suggestion that he

enter an asylum in nearby Saint-Remy-de-Provence. His final images

of Aries include views of the hospital dormitory and garden.

From Sunflowers to

Irises:

Saint-Remy

Saint-Remy-de-Provence, located about 50 miles north of Aries,

beautiful
It is

town of gorgeous gardens,

flowers,

and magnificent old

is

trees.

surrounded by elegant, barren mountains, the colors of which

new

establish a

Van Gogh: from

palette for

the sun-baked Aries, to

cooler blues, grayish greens, and violet; from sunflowers to

ABOVE
Vase with Irises
1890
36 A x 29
(92 x 73.5 cm)

irises.

OPPOSITE

Roman
by
8,

ruins

lie

train at the

1889 and

painted

outside the town; inside, an asylum.

will

remain here for one

Irises (see

page

its

the ten years Van

year.

Within the

first

May

week, he has

an image that stands alone in Van Gogh's

89),

intoxicating beauty:

tight, claustrophobic, entirely filled

In

arrives

asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole on Wednesday,

paintings of flowers for

FYI:

Van Gogh

The composition

is

with richly colored flowers, leaves,

Gogh was

active as an

artist,

he produced

about 1,000 drawings, watercolors, and sketches, and 1,250 paintings.

If

he worked

one image

a five-day

a day,

week

(which he didn't), that would be almost

every single day.

87

St.

Paul's Hospital

at Saint-Remy

1889
23 x 17
(58 x 45 cm)

and

dirt.

Upon

Independents in

seeing this packed picture exhibited at the Salon des

Paris, the critic Felix

violently slash their petals to pieces

Feneon commented: "The

upon swordlike

The Multimillion Dollar Painting:

Irises is a

opposite
188V
28 x 36 Vs
(71 x 93 cm)
lrises.

place

study from

life

Irises

leaves."

(1889)

of a corner of the asylum garden

Van Gogh was allowed

to

work when he

irises

the only

arrived at Saint-

first

Remy. The lack of open space within the frame might suggest Van
Gogh's

own

restricted freedom.

painting in terms of
to distinguish Irises

its close

from

However, the

proximity

his other "pictures"

only discussed the

artist

to nature:

He

called

it

a "study"

of flowers. This distinction

underscores the Northern imperative of Van Gogh's art in general

need to directly observe and describe

reality in detail.

ings of sunflowers, he's searching for individuality:

purple blooms, one white

Sound

the

in his paint-

Amidst

all the

stands alone, a symbol ofthe lone painter.

Byte:

"In the popular view,

stood,

iris

As

Van Gogh has become the prototype of the misunder-

tormented artist who sold only one work in his

Irises (sold at Sotheby's in

lifetime,

New York on November 11,

record auction sale price of 49 million.

but whose

1987) achieved a

"

Evert van Uitert,

art historian

!!&lii&ft
^z>

National Gallery, London. Erich Lessing/Art Resource,

NY

FYI: Van Gogh's "madness"

is

now

generally thought to have

epilepsy complicated by syphilis. His

symptoms

case study of depression. Today, Van

Gogh would be

also read as a

seriously

been

modern
on Prozac.

Essential Characteristics of the Saint-Remy Paintings

As Van Gogh
some

settles into

work

at the

asylum, his painting develops

distinct characteristics:

a sense

Cypress Trees

1889
28 Va x 36 V/'
(72.5x91.5 cm)

of anxiety about unstructured and empty spaces

down

like

surface built to describe:

air,

brushstrokes that whorl and churn, slabs of paint slapped

bricks, every

nook and cranny of the

rocks, flowers, trees,

and

stars

paint becomes a vital and reassuring substance with

which

to fill the

void of Van Gogh's canvas

The Big Motifs

at Saint-Remy

Despite constant attacks of delirium, Van

tive in the

Gogh

is

extremely produc-

asylum and explores a huge range of motifs. Not only does

he work from nature, but he returns to old sketchbooks or works

directly

OPPOSITE
Wheatfeld with

from memory. Painting from inside the asylum,

his

main

themes include:

91

walls, windows, CORRIDORS conflicted signs of security and

opposite
1889
28 Va x 36 A"
(73 x 92 cm)

confinement

Lilacs.

"

THE

garden a

source of

self-portraits painted in
against

subjects

still-life

his studio, overlooking the garden,

empty grounds, with everything swirling with paint

THE fields and MOUNTAINS as seen from

inside the walls of

the asylum

He

also ventures outside the asylum,

where he

paints:

olive trees, gnarled and tortured by the ferocious winds of

the mistral, which, incidentally,

Gogh, who complains

his

is

also

doing a number on Van

that these incessant winds are leading to

disenchantment with Provence

cypresses, a
turns

them

classical

symbol of strength and endurance. Van

into microcosms of turbulence

the local quarry,

and

Gogh

self- torment

Cezznnt- esque theme of the earth painfully

ripped open

Perhaps in an effort to find security and peace of mind, he also returns to

his

own archive of images: Old Man

in

Sorrow (old

man with his head in his

hands, waiting for death; see page 27), Van Gogh's Bedroom, and LArlesienne

reappear as

92

new paintings. He

also copies

works by other

artists,

whom he

^m

mx
HlHHIHlHhM

Metropolitan

Museum

Photograph
of Art. From the Collection of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg.

1994 The Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

appears to select as reinforcements of his

particular,

identity as an artist

Daumier, Delacroix, Dore, Millet, and Rembrandt.

Van Gogh

moment

own

is

creating a personal pantheon for himself to enter.

arrives

when he

nary masterpices in

all

It's

in

as if

But the

ready to create one of the most extraordi-

is

of European

art:

The Starry Night

(see

page 96).

His Big Work: The Starry Night

Here

it is.

But before going into

Van Gogh
it's

is

June and

it,

pause for a quick reality check:

36 years old
he's

been

living in the enclosed

world of an asylum

for

month, suffering intermittent mental breakdowns

thirteen

months from now, he

will be

dead

he has received no significant attention

er's

as

an

artist,

save his broth-

steadfast support

his big

dream of founding

France was a

community of

artists in

the South of

horrific failure

Seeds of Recognition
At Saint-Remy, Van Gogh
by violent attacks

experiences long periods of clarity, ruptured

one of which

lasts

from July to mid- August, dur-

95

opposite
Olive Orchard
1889
28 5/8 x 36
(72.7 x 92.1 cm)

THE STARRY

29x36'/^
What: A nocturne

(i.e.,

Nl GHT (1889)

(73. 7

night picture) of the

Provencal landscape with cypress trees, village,

and mountains beneath

in

a star-studded

a crescent

moon

with-

x 92.1 cm)
that

Provence. But such pointy spires are

in

absolutely typical of churches

(This

complicated, but fascinating.)

is

Given how much he tended to verbalize about

his art (his letters

progress,

brim with news about

intent,

his

his

Van Gogh was

etc.),

Dutch

in

is

vil-

powerful act

deliberately constructed as an

of invention,

and cataclysmic universe.

abstraction

Why:

The Starry Night

lages. Thus,

based on

memory,

Gogh,

imagination. For Van

it

is

reality,

and

a willful act of

spiritual, personal, symbolic,

abstract, and interpretive liberation achieved

freedom
through

art.

unusually quiet on the subject of this picture.

He merely

tells

thus

night,

starry

Theo

that he

is

referring

to

Over the Rhone

Starry Night

painting a

the

(see

new

"other"

page

77),

which he had painted the previous year

Aries.

The Aries painting was

in

manifesto of

Van Gogh's adamant belief that nocturnes

when of the
colors of darkness were apparent and not by
should be painted at night

daylight

in

the studio the following morning.

other words, he was asserting his naturalis-

tic

approach against Gauguin's encourageto paint from

memory.)

Starry Night couldn't

nature,

Gogh
dio

since

that

But the "new"

have been painted from

view doesn't

Van

exist:

couldn't see the mountains from his stu-

window

at the asylum, so

chaos

order.

is

a picture of

The night sky

roils

church makes

a small

the

it's

stars,

ground
ward.

cosmic convul-

represented as part of universal

is

but

over the earth; the

stab at connecting with

the cypress tree

in

(nature) that achieves a reach

Some

critics

venture that Van

the fore-

heaven-

Gogh

sees

all

(In

ment

The Point: This

sion:

he must have

himself as the bright

monition of

his

new

star, in a

kind of pre-

death and ascension into the

heavens. (There was a contemporary belief

that souls

go

straight to a

The Paint: The surface

pulsing:

short

rhythm;

of this

brushstrokes

Pointillism), stippled

cato

star.)

black

painting

and swabbed, set

lines

is

from

(evolved

a stac-

(holdovers

from

Cloisonnism) sinuate the surface; the drawing

painted them at night from other images and

makes everything attenuated and

pure recollection. Even more fascinating

bizarrely

is

the

elegant; the colors are snatched directly from

church steeple: They don't have steeples

like

daylight and are electrified.

ing which time he develops a fear of going outdoors. In September, the

eleven paintings (including

that

Irises)

Salon des Independents garner some

receives a

copy of a publication

mentions the painter

which the Dutch

to the

In October, he

critic, J. J.

Isaacson,

Van Gogh modestly chides

enthusiastically.

words of praise

Isaacson's

in

Theo had submitted

critical attention.

as "highly exaggerated."

Christmas, never a good time for Van Gogh, brings on another attack
that lasts until

New Years

Day. In early January, delusional again, he

attempts to eat his paints. (Theo advises

ing,

in

him

to concentrate

not painting, for the time being.) In Brussels, his

7th annual exhibition organized by the

the

Impressionist group, Les

XX

(i.e.,

opens on January 18, 1890. Van

who

is

is

Belgian Post-

Gogh

does not attend the exhibition

visit

Mme

Ginoux, the

from nervous complaints not unlike

ailing

included

Les Vingt, The Twenty), which

but travels the short distance to Aries to

Arlesienne,

art

on draw-

his

own.

In late Januarv, he receives reviews of the Belgian show and a copy of

an essay devoted to

his

work by

the critic Albert Aurier in the period-

ical Mercure de France. Aurier hails

Van Gogh

for

showing contempo-

rary artists a

way out of Impressionism. Himself

Aurier

perhaps the

is

also

Van Gogh

is

"a fanatic,

first

to launch the lunacy angle, writing that

an enemy of bourgeois sobrieties and petty

details... a brain in eruption, irresistibly

ravines of art, a terrible

98

a Symbolist poet,

pouring

and maddened genius."

its

lava into

all

the

More good

news: Gauguin writes to ask Van

up household together

consider setting

Meyer de Haan. Happy

Willem van Gogh,

Van Gogh

event of his

first sale

400

in

francs

is

his

adopted

March

his favorite nemesis,

Theo and

Red Vineyard

to express a desire to leave

north, toward his native Holland.

his family. Johanna's

Paris,

where he spends

touching account of the

begins with a recollection of her husband's anxiety at

everyone's

relief,

display of his

own

pictures are piling

bustle of Paris

art,

prospect:

its

be in f

Vincent

He beams

sells in

clouded by a long period of illness.

he leaves Saint- Remy and goes to

and suntanned.

artist,

Even the momentous

the painting

Van Gogh begins

What state would Vincent

To

like to

he's better off alone in Saint- Re my.

home of Aries and head

three days with

visit

from

suffers further attacks.

his depression recedes,

16,

he would

born on January 31; they name him Vincent

is

As

On May

if

after the painter.

In February,

Brussels for

Gogh

Belgium with another

for the invitation

Van Gogh nonetheless decides

Theo and Johanna's son

in

arrives
at the

from the asylum robust, smiling,

baby and basks

which crams Theo's apartment

in the

abundant

to the point that

up under the beds. Soon, however, the noise and

grow overwhelming and Van Gogh decides

to

move

to

nearbv Auvers-sur-Oise.

99

Musee

d'Orsay, Paris. Giraudon/Art Resource,

NY

Ending His
Auvers

Life in

Auvers-sur-Oise

on the River Oise, 20 miles northwest of Paris

lies

a distance

who have habitually settled in

The Barbizon School painter

that proves attractively short for artists,

and quaint

this cultured

little

town.

OPPOSITE

La Meridienne
(The

Siesta),

after Millet

Charles-Francois Daubigny had lived there until his death in 1878 and

Cezanne had worked

1889-90
28 /4 x 35
3

there intermittently during the early 1880s.

(73 x 91

When Van Gogh arrives in Auvers on May 20, he is met (through previous arrangement with Theo) by Dr. Paul- Ferdinand Gachet, a friend

and patron of

Gachet

an

is

and, like the

with

filled
tric,

artists,

artist

including Cezanne, Pissarro, Monet, and Renoir.

himself

he sketches Van Gogh on his death bed

Postman Roulin,

art

is

a socialist.

and antiques, immediately

more nervous even than

The

strikes

doctor,

whose house

Van Gogh

as

months. Van
ing

Gogh

and

sees to his well-being

He

is

reveres

throughout the next three

spends his remaining days visiting with Gachet, writ-

and painting. Having taken lodgings in the

letters,

Van Gogh
paintings,

talent

an eccen-

himself. Following these impressions,

however, Gachet becomes Van Gogh's friend and companion.

Van Gogh's

is

attic

of a

local inn,

persistendy troubled by the question of what to do with his

which the dealer Tanguy

is

storing for

him

in Paris.

Many people cared for the artist during his times of illness and Van
Gogh pays tribute to them in a series of portraits. Dr. Gachet is one of
them

(see

page 105). The portrait of Dr. Gachet

is

perhaps the ultimate

IOI

7s"

cm)

modern
this

he

portrait, as

Van Gogh intended

humane man whose

is

it:

We

feel

we know and

like

expression of weary melancholy suggests that

burdened by the suffering he has seen. The good doctor wears a

kind of personal uniform, consisting of the same hat and trench coat

worn on even

The

the hottest days.

He

practices

homeopathic medicine:

foxglove flowers on the table are the source of digitalis, a natural

heart medicine for treating nervousness.

In Auvers, Van

Gogh

also paints the village

church (see page 105), a

deliberate echo of the church in Peasant Cemetery, painted nine years

earlier in

Nuenen

(see

page 33) and views of the pretty town,

its

gar-

dens, and nearby vineyards. Collectively they form a concentrated

body

of work, but in terms of the overall structure of Van Gogh's

these

pictures appear to be falling apart

art,

from within:

the compositions are less centralized

the brushwork tends to be finicky

the drawing can be brittle

In June, Theo and family pay Vincent a

visit in

Auvers. The pleasantness

of that afternoon does not carry over to Vincent's next trip to Paris in
July.

Despite the company of friends, such as Toulouse-Lautrec (who

makes undertaker

jokes), this visit

distress over the storage

of his

art,

is

marred by Vincent's mounting

which he considers inadequate.

Back

and anxiety continue to grow, and on July 27,

in Auvers, tension

Van Gogh

carries his easel out to a field, props

and shoots himself in the

the inn, where he
Paris with a note,
ings...."

chest.

He manages

found by Dr. Gachet,

is

"With

When Theo

against a haystack,

to drag himself

must bring you bad

As

bullet).

wound was

Van Gogh died of infection from

Vincent's condition rapidly worsens,

brother's side

Vincent van

and hears

Gogh

the

coffin, laid

final paintings,

Theo remains by

dies

on July 29. The

funeral, held the next day,

out in the parlor of the inn,

equipment

his painting

body

buried in a small cemetery in Auvers.

would

like to

was such
full

go

loss,

Theo

like this'

who

burden to him; but now,

dies six

months

later

Van

and

dahlias),

stool).

His

writes to their mother, "Vincent said,

and half an hour

of praise for his talents

is

surrounded by his

(easel, brushes, paints,

later

as often

happens, everybody

Theo, whose

'I

he had his wish. Life

Oh, Mother! He was

brother." Vincent's death devastates

and

is

by masses of yellow flowers (sunflowers and

Distraught over his

his

his last words.

and by
is

not,

unremoved

attended by artist-friends from Paris, including Emile Bernard.

Gogh's

tid-

he finds Vincent to be in better shape

than expected (subsequent evidence suggests that the

in fact, fatal, but that

back to

who summons Theo from

the greatest regret,

arrives,

it

so

frail

on January 25, 1891.

my

is

own, own

health collapses

He

is

buried next

to his brother in Auvers.

103

Closing shots: What's to

he was a Pre-Expressionist
he

felt

what

was

it

to be

know about Van Gogh?

artist

modern

of the Post-Impressionist period

artistically, socially,

and

intellectually

he cut off only a piece of his ear

OPPOSITE
the

LEFT
The Church at

meaning and content of his paintings

calculated

down

to the last cool

are absolutely

drop of lilac paint

Auvers-sur- Oise

1890
"
37 x 29 3/8
(94 x 74.5 cm)

RIGHT
Portrait of Dr.

Paul Gachet
1890
26 Y/' x 22
(68 x 57 cm)

he created an imagery that changed the way people see the world

The Pre-Expressionist painter

Van Gogh

is

considered the official forerunner of Expressionism,

one of the most important currents in 20th-century

his

letters

to

Theo

read

as

Expressionist. Expressionism
that

had begun

and adhere

art reflects interior conditions

artistic exploitation:

and exaggeration

power

ended

in the Renaissance

objectively reflect

of

primers

are all

in

a tradition in

namely,

art.

Indeed,

how-to-think-like-an-

that art

Western Europe
was supposed

to

to nature. In Expressionism, however,

and the

artist's

subjective vision

byway

Line, color, spatial compositions, distortion,

manipulated for their expressive potential and

to visually express highly individual, unique emotions.

The

mission of Expressionism was the palpable need to communicate

104

Musee

abstract feelings in a concrete fashion.

called

themselves "Painters of

trying to represent the world

urban scene

Gogh advanced
intellect,

Life,"

moment,

saw

it.

As

were

still

who

basically

a ballerina, a haystack,
a Post-Impressionist,

an

Van

Through

his

work,

art

was seen

as

an expression

emotion, mystery, and imagination.

What makes Van

for

Modern

Impressionists,

the notion of pictorial reality (or art) as something

separate from nature.

of

exactly as they

Even the

d'Orsay, Paris. Erich Lessing/Art Resource,

Gogh's Post-Impressionist

Expressionism

is

that he,

more than

art particularly significant

his peers, exaggerated nature

105

NY

to specifically express his feelings

son that Van

Expressionist

Gogh

is

is

about the

human

that his

work evolved

The

rea-

bona

fide

condition.

and not

considered a forerunner

in terms of Impressionism: It

never fully breaks from nature, or from the observation of nature, into
the realm of pure abstraction. Expressionism per

when German

critics

se

comes

in

1911

coined the term to describe the work of the

Fauves, the early Cubists, and other

Impressionism. Expressionism

is

adamantly opposed to

artists

modern

a recurrent aspect of

art,

manifested throughout the 20th century:

from Fauvism (Henri Matisse, 1869-1954

to

Futurism

(Umberto Boccioni, 1882-1916)

from German Expressionism (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,
1880-1938)

to Abstract Expressionism (Jackson Pollock,

1912-1956)
and, in a class of his own, the

Munch
all

The

106

Norwegian Symbolist, Edvard

(1863-1944), whose painting The Scream (1893) embodies

Expressionist angst to follow

art

of Vincent van

Gogh

anticipates

and informs

all

of the above.

The Five Big Conflicts

You

really

begin to get Van

in

Van Gogh's Art

Gogh when you

see the major conflicts that

provoked and inspired him:

1.

2.

painting the material world

giving symbolic form

gible perceptions, thoughts,

and feelings

yearning for a simple

vs.

life,

a desire to create

vs.

close to the earth, peasants,

contemporary

art, to

to intan-

and nature

establish a

community

of colorists, and to participate in sophisticated urban culture

3.

religious conviction, a desire to alleviate spiritual suffering

social conscience, a desire to educate

4.

desire for

community,

need for solitude and

sense of his

own

family,

and

vs.

and reform

a sense

of permanence

vs.

isolation, a constant search for fulfillment, a

marginal

life

and of the alienating intensity of his

personality

5.

the strength of his Northern heritage, from painters Pieter Breughel

(c.

1525-1569), Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), and Rembrandt

(1606-1669), and from

a tradition

of

the

particular in extreme detail

garde, with

new

vs.

art that seeks to describe the

vitality

of the French avant-

systems of representation based on ideas, not on

observation

107

Which came Last?

Wheatfield with
Crows. 1890

20

Vs

x 39 Y/'

(50.5 x 100.5

For years,

art historians

was Van Gogh's

last?

have debated the question:

The sensational

Which

painting

(hence favorite) candidate was

always Wheatfield with Crows, an image heaving with anguish, painted

cm)
in a hail

Van Gogh Museum

Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Art Resource,

NY

of brushstrokes, associated iconographically with Judgment

Day: The road punched into the wheatfield just

ends.

of closure, with a sense of resolve and

conflict, the

sophisticated choice

was Daubignys Garden, an homage

Daubigny, one of the

work

first

attracted

to

Van Gogh. The enclosed garden was,

an image of unnatural confinement. In his

picture, "It

108

is

But

last letter,

one of my most purposeful canvases."

for

an image

artists

for

whose

Van Gogh,

he wrote of

this

In 1994, to the astonishment of the entire art world,

revealed

its

during World

came

when

holdings of paintings taken from collections in

to light:

War

II, a

very persuasive candidate for the

The White House at Night

Russia

Germany

last

painting

(see next page).

Daubignys
Garden. 1890
21 x 40 Va"
(53.2 x 103.5

Here's

why people

As Theo

ruefully observed of the hard -won praise

his brother's genius,

instantly
it

upon the

line

up to see Van Gogh

Vincent van

artist's

Hiroshima

and recognition

Gogh mania was

for

ignited almost

death. Unable to organize a tribute himself,

was Theo's widow Johanna who put together the

first

major survey

of Van Gogh's work in 1892 in Amsterdam.

IO9

Museum

cm)

of Art

THE WHITE HOUS E AT NIGHT (1890)

23

'/,*

28 7/ (59 x

Courtesy The State

What:

Like

nocturne
a

The

Starry Night, this too

the suburban

modern, pretty

version.

It

the

charming town of Auvers, bathed and

glowing

in

celestial

light.

are out walking; the night

Three

women

is still.

Nature,

represented by landscaped trees and gar-

den shrubbery,

is

tamed and

artificial.

72.5 cm)

Museum

let nitage

shows

for

typical

villa,

is

Petersburg

St.

serenity, this painting

notes. For one,

it's

of puzzling

full

is

terribly bright for a

nocturne. The point of illumination, that

haloed

looks plucked right out of

star,

the sky of The Starry Night. Then there's

women

the three

Van Gogh's
at

home

art,

out walking.

In

terms of

people are meant to be

their beds, sleeping at night,

in

not out and about. Drifting about

Where: Auvers has the charms

of rural

unnatural

landscape and Van

a

Gogh hopes

haven of calm and comfort.

it

will

be

doctor loves

artists,

seem

like

Cezanne,

like

made

his

1872-74

stay

women

in

the

might even

spirits.

They

cer-

specters of imagination.

the house

Finally, there's

who, during

the

be seen as wandering

(Plus the

tainly
local

light,

itself,

back

set

Auvers,

in

into the picture plane as

if

withdrawing

paintings of the doctor's house.)

from approach. Altogether, these notes

Why: Van Gogh spends

in

his first

Auvers getting to know

He

loves

its

his

months

new town.

beauty and hatches a plan to

add up to

nuanced

painting, construct-

ed from memory and

artifice,

projection

and observation.

paint a series of anecdotal pictures to

capture

its

charms.

When:

He

starts

thatched cottages on

moves

into

its

a letter to

In

890, Van

then

outskirts,

town, where he paints partic-

Gogh mentions

ing a study of "a white

trees, with a

ular houses, deliberately avoiding

that

those

Cezanne had already painted.

House, not a home: From

his early

depictions of his parents' house,

Parsonage at Nuenen (where he

The

felt like

an invasive mutt), to The Yellow House at

Aries (where he

hoped

family of

the "house"

home

in

artists),

Van Gogh's

art.

to reside with a
is

Despite

rarely a
its

the

light in

and

Theo on 17 June

with the

stark

that he's

mak-

house among

night sky and an orange

window and dark greenery

note of somber pink." Given the

changes

in

the

gone and the

final

version

trees are

the pink

is

pruned down

Van Gogh obviously continued to devel-

op

this

image.

not be his

And though

last

painting by Van

painting,

Gogh

recent scholarship.

to

it

it

may
is

come

or

may

the latest
to light

in

He came

to art

the world.

through a passionate desire to "make

Working

in

a difference" in

Belgium and Holland, Van Gogh expressed

his

humanitarian and moral impulses by creating dark, representational

paintings that depicted peasants and laborers. But illustrating other
people's suffering did not allow

complex

feelings

leave for Paris

and involvement with

and

to grapple with the

Impressionism. But

day

through

Van Gogh

He

that, too.

in

two short

assimilated the

to express his

own

highly

That prompted him

life.

most sophisticated
years,

art

Van Gogh had

to

of his

blasted

main precepts of the movement

(brushwork, color, and composition were

potentially

all

artificial

constructions to be used with specific intent) and rejected others (in

particular, that the

visual effects

Now

aim of art was

of color,

light,

to reproduce almost scientifically the

and movement).

had the know-how, he needed content

that he

he looked inward. Paris was too urban and

world through the use of intense

for

which

of distractions, so he

full

headed south to Provence, where he evolved

his

unique vision of the

color, aggressive

brushwork, and bold,

thick application of paint. His paintings express this vision through a

dynamic tension between

are rigorously

put

internal

at the service

and external frames of reference: All

of expressing the

artist's

keen visual and

emotional intelligence and experience with the conditions and conflicts

of modern

life.

That's what makes

Van Gogh

irresistible

and

timeless.