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CibbuanoVincent van Gogh – Part 2
November 5th 2007 23:41
Vincent van Gogh – Genius Mania
From darkness to light
The last 6 years of Van Gogh’s life were full of incident and importantly marked his embracing of the impressionist style and use of the bold, swirling bright colours for which he became synonymous.
In 1883 Vincent was lonely and moved back with his parents in Nuenen, North Brabant. There he focused on drawing and met Margot Beggman who fell in love with him.
The union was opposed by both families and in a fit of depression Margot attempted to kill herself using strychnine, ending the relationship. The loss of his father in 1884 triggered massive grief that he carried with him the rest of his life.
van Gogh's Arlesienne
Ironically amongst all this personal turmoil recognition for his work was finally beginning to form in Paris. It is around this time that many consider Van Gogh found his visual voice, painting the first of his major works titled The Potato Eaters. This led to the premiere exhibition of his pieces in a gallery in Hague.
While in Nuenen he produced a prolific amount of work with over 200 oil paintings, drawings and sketches. Moving to Antwerpen Vincent obsessed over his creative endeavours; any commission he made went on painting supplies instead of food or shelter. A lack of stable meals, combined with heavy smoking and an addiction to absinthe began to take a toll on his physical and mental health.
It is here that Vincent began studying the use of colours and through observing the art of Ruebens drifted away from the darker earth tones that had dominated his earlier efforts.
Moving to the city of Paris in 1886 he finally focused on the emerging impressionist movement, taking note of artists like Monet and Degas. His time in the French capital was the most influential in his life and by the time he left he had produced another couple of hundred original paintings.
Emotionally exhausted Vincent again picked up and moved, this time to Arles in the south of France. Moving into the “Yellow House” this is where the most recognized of his works “Sunflowers’ was rendered.
Collaborating with his friend Gauguin, who had come to stay Van Gogh painted landscapes but also for the first time embraced his minds eye to create from memory. This is when The Red Vineyard came to be.
The Red Vineyard
Coming to rely on his partner, the friendship became strained and this is when, after stalking Gauguin Van Gogh famously sliced off his left ear lobe and gave it to a local prostitute for safe keeping.
Abandoned by Gauguin, he was in and out of hospital for the remainder of his short life. Paranoid and hallucinating he was kicked out of his dwelling because the locals saw him as insane. (Which he was)
Checking himself into a mental institution in 1889. Cut off from the outside world, living in adjoining cells one a studio and one to sleep in, it is during his stay that the Starry Night was created.
The Starry Night
The limited subject matter viewed through his window was exhausted and soon he was reinterpreting his only earlier works.
Van Gogh's final shrink Gachet
In his final year 1890, he was declared a genius by Albert Aurier and high profile exhibitions followed. Leaving the clinic, without rehabilitation he was treated unsuccessfully by a melancholy physician and despite his continuing output one morning Vincent Van Gogh walked out into a field, pulled a revolver and shot himself in the chest. He died 2 days later at the age of 37.
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