Art – Vincent Van Gogh

When she rejected him, van Gogh suffered a breakdown. He threw away all his books except for the Bible, and devoted his life to God. He became angry with people at work, telling customers not to buy the â€Å"worthless art. † He was eventually fired. Between the time of the heartbreak/ breakdown and the fall of 1880, van Gogh taught at a Methodist boys' school. He aspired to become a minister and after a year of diligently studying, he refused to take the exams in what he called Latin, the â€Å"dead language of poor people. † He was denied entrance. In the winter of 1878, the same thing happened again.Van Gogh volunteered to preach and minister to the sick in south of Belgium. The evangelical committees disagreed with van Sago's lifestyle, which begun to take a tone of martyrdom. They refused to renew van Sago's contract and he was forced to find another occupation (Vincent Van Gogh). In the fall of 1880, van Gogh decided to move to Brussels and become an artist. Altho ugh he had no formal training, his younger brother Thee offered to support van Gogh financially. At the academy, he met Nathan van Rapped, who was to be his most important artist friend during his Dutch period.The Climax of his life In April 1881, van Gogh moved in with his parent's where he set himself the task of earning how to draw. He experimented endlessly with all sorts of drawing materials and concentrated on mastering the technical aspects of his craft like perspective, anatomy and physiognomy. Most of his subjects were taken from peasant life. After a couple encounters with different women, he moved in again with his parent's, who were now living in Ennui. The Potato Eaters The paining consisted of 5 figures sitting around a square table eating potatoes.Four of them are females and one male. Although the piece is laced in darkness, the mixed emotions residing in the faces of the occupants shine out brightly. These fugues are so intense that one can nearly hear the conversat ion being spoken. Subtle aspects create the illusion that the building is an actual residence for the five figures. The portrayal of ordinary peasant life did not come in a burst of creativity. Van Gogh had this painting planned out in advance. Van Gogh had a sense of confidence that took him to advertising the painting before he even had it.Nevertheless, the Potato Eaters failed to become the painting he set his mind to. Today, however, the painting has reached great heights in the artistic community and is considered as one of his retreat masterpieces, as he had intended it to be (The van Gogh Gallery). In Ennui, van Gogh first began painting regularly, modeling himself chiefly on the French painter Jean-Franà §ois Millet, who was famous throughout Europe for his scenes of the harsh life of peasants. Van Gogh set to work with an iron will, depicting the lives of villagers and humble workers.In the end of 1884, he began painting and drawing a major series of heads and work-roughen ed peasant hands in preparation for a large and complex figure piece that he was planning. By April of 1885, this period of his life came to fruition in the masterpiece of his Dutch Period. In the summer of 1885, he made a large number of drawings of the peasants working in the fields. The supply of models dried up; however, when the local priest forbade his parishioners to pose for van Gogh. He thus turned to painting landscape, inspired in part by a visit to Risks museum in Amsterdam.This same year he enrolled at the academy in Antwerp. He found the lessons rather tedious but was impressed by the city and its museums. He fell under the spell of Rueben' palette and brushwork and also discovered Japanese prints. In early 1886, van Gogh went to live with his brother in Paris. There he was finally confronted with the full impact of modern art, especially with the recent work of the impressionists and vivisectionists. He discovered that the dark palette he had developed in Holland was out of date. In order to brighten up he began painting still lives of flowers.The search of his own idiom led him to experiment with impressionist and postmodernists techniques. He also studied the prints of Japanese master. During this time, he made friends with fellow artists such as Paul Gauguin, Emilee Bernard, Paul Signal, and Georges Serrate. Within two years van Gogh name to terms with his latest development and had forged his own highly personal style. In the early 1888, van Gogh was now a mature artist, who went south to Arles, in Provence. There was where he at last began to feel confident about his choice of career.He set out to make a personal contribution to modern art with his daring color combinations. He was swept away by the landscape around Arles. In the spring he painted numerous scenes of fruit trees in full blossom. In the summer he painted the yellow wheat fields. Although he had difficulty finding models, he did make portraits, among which were those in the Ro lling family. It was typical of van Sago's faith in his own abilities that he decided not to try to sell any work yet but to wait until he had thirty top-class pictures with which he could announce himself to the world.He enjoyed the thought that a number of other artists would come and Join him in Arles, where they could all live and work together. The idea seemed to get off to a promising star when Gauguin arrived in October of 1888 (Vincent Van Gogh [1853-1890]). The End Although towards the end of 1888, his optimism was rudely shattered by the first signs of his illness, a type of epilepsy that took the form of delusions and psychotic attacks. It was during one of those seizures that he cut off his left earlobe. Gauguin made hasty departure and van Sago's dreams of an artist's colony disappeared.In April of 1889 he entered himself in the Saint-Paul-De-Mausoleum asylum as a voluntary patient. Van Gogh was unable to work when he suffered episodes of his illness, if he felt well en ough, he went out to draw and paint in the garden or surroundings of the asylum. His use of color, which was once intense, became mute. He tried to make his brushwork more graphic. By the closing months of the year, he successfully had two f his paintings shown at the fifth exhibition of Society des artistes independents. Van Gogh made a large number of â€Å"transitions in color† of prints by some of his favorite artists, like Millet and Eugene Delicacies.He found them consoling. They helped him keep in practice (Van Gogh: His Life and Art). Starry Night One of van Sago's most well-known paintings is Starry Night. The features within the painting are responsible for its growing popularity. There are actually several main aspects that intrigue those that view the image. The sky is filled with swirling clouds, stars ablaze with their own luminescence and a bright crescent moon. Although the features are exaggerated, it is view most individuals are comfortable with. This painti ng was painted while in an Asylum at Saint-Remy in 1889 (The van Gogh Gallery).In January of 1890, although he now had a small but growing group of admirers, van Gogh had lost his original passion. He wrote to his brother: â€Å"l feel – a failure. That's it as far as I am concerned- I feel that this is the destiny that I accept, that will never change. † He nevertheless continued working hard during his two months in Avers-sure-Jose, producing dozens of paintings and drawings. Life had become an intolerable burden. At Eternity's Gate At Eternity's Gate also known as Sorrowing Old Man is an oil painting that he made in 1890 in Saint-Remy.The painting was completed in early May at a time when he was convalescing from a severe relapse in health and two or so months before his death. The work depicts an aged man seated with his head held in his hands, experiencing extreme sorrow and regret at the moment of his passing. Although this was Just once a drawing from 1882, it w as until he was at Saint- Remy that he painted this work. It reflects the emotions van Gogh must have been feeling as his mental state deteriorated (The van Gogh Gallery). On July 27, 1890, he hot himself in the chest. He died two days later.Thee, who had stored the bulk of Vincent work in Paris, died six months later. Theses widow, Johanna van Gogh- Bonged returned to Holland with the collection and dedicated herself to getting her brother in law the recognition he deserved. In 1914, with his fame assured, she published the correspondence between the two brothers. Today, van Gogh is considered the greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt. Unfortunately, van Gogh was not around to witness the greatness his works became. He contributed so much to the artistic community with his use of nature and painting figures the way he arrayed them.