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Vincent Van Gogh – Innovative or Insane?
The son of a Dutch pastor, Vincent Willem van Gogh was a difficult child who spent his time alone rather than play with his younger brother. He was born in 1853, exactly one year after his stillborn brother, also named Vincent Willem. A gravestone in the village churchyard would have been a constant childhood reminder to Vincent of his dead namesake.
At the age of 16, Vincent started to work for his uncle, who was a successful art dealer. His employment took him to London, where he fell in love, became unable to apply himself to his work, and was dismissed.
He gained new work collecting overdue fees for a private school. This job brought him into contact with the horrors of urban squalor, which distressed him, led to his resignation and decision to become a preacher. Vincent returned to Holland to train as a minister, but did not have the self-discipline required for study. He soon gave-up his training and laboured as an evangelist. In this activity, his excessive zeal shocked his superiors, and so once again he was dismissed.
At the age of 27, Vincent resolved to become an artist. He returned to his parents’ home, but started to exhibit stormy behaviour, and left after a quarrel with his father. In 1885 he enrolled in the Antwerp academy to study art, but he failed his first term and left for Paris. Here he was exposed to Impressionist paintings, and inspired by their colour.
Vincent did not fit in well with his fellow artists. He had a quick temper, and was argumentative, so he left Paris for the south of France, and settled in Arles where he planned to establish an artists’ colony. Vincent recruited Paul Gauguin as his first member, but the two argued fiercely. Gauguin eventually left after Vincent had threatened him with a razor. Later that night, Vincent cut off his left ear lobe, put it in an envelope, and gave it to a prostitute! With his dream of an artists’ colony in tatters, and persecuted by the townspeople for his strange ways, Vincent voluntarily committed himself to an asylum in a nearby town.
He remained in the asylum, suffering from convulsions and hallucinations, but managed to paint some 200 canvases. After about a year, he was discharged into the care of Dr Gachet, and moved to a village north west of Paris. In 1890, at the age of 37, Vincent shot himself in the chest. He died the next day.
Vincent’s volatile temperament made it impossible for him to study art, but the works of the Impressionists inspired him. They had abandoned traditional methods and ignored the idea of a finished painting in which the colours were mixed to the correct shade, and laid down smoothly. Vincent always painted with thick layers of colour, often squeezing paint straight from the tube on to the canvas, and modelling it a little with his brush. He painted objects using bold outlines, filled these with flat colour, and had a strong preference for yellow, purple and blue. In his lifetime, he sold just one painting.
Vincent purposely embraced and developed a style of painting. Whether that style is meritorious is a mater of personal taste. He is accredited with inspiring millions to paint (perhaps because his standard of painting appears attainable); his works are exceptionally well known, and sell for fortunes. Supporters of his art marvel at features such as the swirls of paint being possible representations of his mental turmoil. I would agree with this observation, but I can see no beauty in the visions of a troubled mind. In most of his works, I see the paint and warped forms before I see the picture. His painting “the bedroom at Arles” was intended to depict his “perfectly restful” artists’ colony. I find the confused perspective and proportions unsettling.
It is often said that there is a fine line between genius and madness. But it does not follow that being mad necessarily makes one a genius. Poor Vincent was unquestionably mad. The genius of his art is attributable to those who have sold the idea he was a great artist.
About the Author
Portrait artist working mainly from clients' own photographs.
Vincent Pastore: Doughboys Behind The Scenes