Christine - Around The World

Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh was a self taught painter who started painting around the age of 27 after his intent to become a minister failed. He decided that he could become an artist and still be in God's service. He started painting by attending academies and learning from and following other artists such as Millet and Breton. His first paintings were very dark and of peasant life. When he moved to Paris to live in the artists' quarter of Montmartre he saw the Impressionists and Pointillism styles and there he learned about light and color. This is when Van Gogh began to create his own style. He wrote, "What is required in art nowadays is something very much alive, very strong in color, very much intensified."

When Van Gogh got tired of Paris he decided to leave for Provence in the south of France where he rented a studio in Arles. He painted this studio in the Yellow House. He invited Gauguin to join him and create an artist's cooperative. He painted many still lifes to decorate Gauguin's room; one of these paintings was The sunflowers. Gauguin arrived in Arles and for nine weeks he and Van Gogh worked together, painting and discussing art. Personal tensions grew between the two artists and Van Gogh experienced a psychotic episode in which he threatened Gauguin with a razor and later cut off a piece of his own left ear. There has been much debate as to the source of Van Gogh's illness. Some 30 different diagnoses have been suggested by psychiatrists, these include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, syphilis, poisoning from swallowed paints, temporal lobe epilepsy and acute intermittent porphyria. The illness could also have been aggravated by malnutrition, overwork, insomnia and Van Gogh's addiction to alcohol.

After this episode, Van Gogh felt he was unable to organize his life or set up a new studio. He attributed his breakdown to excessive drink and tobacco. Afraid of having a relapse, he voluntarily admitted himself to the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy. He stayed at the hospital for a year where he worked on paintings, many of them with wheatfields that he saw from his room's window, and tried to get a handle on his life.

Staying in the asylum, Van Gogh wrote, "I feel happier here with my work than I could be outside. By staying here a good long time, I shall have learned regular habits and in the long run the result will be more order in my life."

While in Arles and Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh sent his paintings to his brother, Theo, in Paris to try and sell. Despite his illness, he produced many masterpieces, such as Irises, Cypresses, and Starry Night. With these paintings Van Gogh started to get recognition.

Because Theo financially supported his own family and Van Gogh, Van Gogh had always felt like a burden for his brother. On July 27, 1890 Van Gogh walked into a wheat field and shot himself in the chest. He staggered back to his room, where two days later, on July 29, he died with Theo at his side.