How deep is your Love

14/07/2022

According to their subject matter, Van Gogh's early works can be classified as realism, although the manner of ex*****on and technique can only be called realistic with certain significant reservations. One of the many problems caused by the lack of art education that the artist faced was the inability to portray the human figure. In the end, this led to one of the fundamental features of his style - the interpretation of the human figure, devoid of smooth or measured graceful movements, as an integral part of nature, in some ways even becoming like it. This is very clearly seen, for example, in the painting “A Peasant and a Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes” (1885, Kunsthaus, Zurich), where the figures of the peasants are likened to rocks, and the high horizon line seems to press on them, not allowing them to straighten up or at least raise their heads. A similar approach to the theme can be seen in the later painting "Red Vineyards" (1888, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow). In a series of paintings and studies of the mid-1880s. (“Exit from the Protestant Church in Nuenen” (1884-1885), “Peasant Woman” (1885, Kröller-Muller Museum, Otterlo), “Potato Eaters” (1885, Vincent Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), “Old Church Tower in Nuenen "(1885), written in a dark pictorial range, marked by a painfully acute perception of human suffering and feelings of depression, the artist recreated the oppressive atmosphere of psychological tension. At the same time, the artist also formed his own understanding of the landscape: an expression of his inner perception of nature through the analogy with man His artistic credo was his own words: "When you draw a tree, treat it like a figure."

14/07/2022

In The Hague, the artist tried to start a family. This time, his chosen one was the pregnant street woman Christine, whom Vincent met right on the street and, driven by sympathy for her situation, offered to move in with him with the children. This act finally quarreled the artist with his friends and relatives, but Vincent himself was happy: he had a model. However, Christine turned out to be a difficult character, and soon Van Gogh's family life turned into a nightmare. They separated very soon. The artist could no longer stay in The Hague and headed to the north of the Netherlands, to the province of Drenthe, where he settled in a separate hut, equipped as a workshop, and spent whole days in nature, painting landscapes. However, he was not very fond of them, not considering himself a landscape painter - many paintings of this period are dedicated to peasants, their daily work and life.

14/07/2022

Vincent worked hard, studied the life of the city, especially the poor neighborhoods. Achieving interesting and surprising colors in his works, he sometimes resorted to mixing different writing techniques on one canvas - chalk, pen, sepia, watercolor ("Backyards", 1882, pen, chalk and brush on paper, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; "Roofs. View from Van Gogh's workshop", 1882, paper, watercolor, chalk, private collection of J. Renan, Paris). The artist was greatly influenced by Charles Bargue's "Drawing Course". He copied all the lithographs of the manual in 1880/1881, and then again in 1890, but only part of it.

14/07/2022

At the same time, Van Gogh experienced a new love interest, falling in love with his cousin, the widow Kea Vos-Stricker, who was staying with her son in their house. The woman rejected his feelings, but Vincent continued courtship, which set all his relatives against him. As a result, he was asked to leave. Van Gogh, having experienced a new shock and having decided to forever abandon attempts to arrange his personal life, left for The Hague, where he plunged into painting with renewed vigor and began to take lessons from his distant relative, a representative of the Hague school of painting Anton Mauve.

14/07/2022

Fleeing from the depression and melancholy caused by the events in Paturage, Van Gogh again turned to painting, seriously thought about his studies, and in 1880, with the support of his brother Theo, left for Brussels, where he began attending classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. However, a year later, Vincent dropped out and returned to his parents. During this period of his life, he believed that it was not at all necessary for an artist to have talent, the main thing was to work hard and hard, so he continued his studies on his own.

11/07/2022

In 1876 Vincent returned to England, where he found unpaid work as a boarding school teacher at Ramsgate. At the same time, he has a desire to become a priest, like his father. In July, Vincent moved to another school - in Isleworth (near London), where he worked as a teacher and assistant pastor. On November 4, Vincent delivered his first sermon. His interest in the gospel grew, and he had the idea of ​​preaching to the poor.

11/07/2022

Adding to this decades-old naming confusion, recent research suggests that Vincent was not in love with Eugenie at all, but with a German woman named Caroline Haanebiek. What actually happened remains unknown. The refusal of the beloved shocked and disappointed the future artist; gradually he lost interest in his work and began to turn to the Bible. In 1874, Vincent was transferred to the Paris branch of the firm, but after three months of work he again leaves for London. Things were getting worse for him, and in May 1875 he was again transferred to Paris, where he visited exhibitions at the Salon and the Louvre, and eventually began to try his hand at painting himself. Gradually, this occupation began to take more time from him, and Vincent finally lost interest in work, deciding for himself that "art has no worse enemies than art dealers." As a result, at the end of March 1876, he was fired from Goupil & Cie due to poor performance, despite the patronage of relatives who co-owned the company.

11/07/2022

In July 1869, Vincent got a job in the Hague branch of a large art and trading company Goupil & Cie, owned by his uncle Vincent ("Uncle Saint"). There he received the necessary training as a dealer. Initially, the future artist set to work with great zeal, achieved good results, and in June 1873 he was transferred to the London branch of Goupil & Cie. Through daily contact with works of art, Vincent began to understand and appreciate painting. In addition, he visited the city's museums and galleries, admiring the work of Jean-Francois Millet and Jules Breton. At the end of August, Vincent moved to 87 Hackford Road and rented a room in the home of Ursula Leuer and her daughter Eugenia. There is a version that he was in love with Eugenia, although many early biographers mistakenly call her the name of her mother, Ursula.

11/07/2022

Four years after Vincent's birth, on May 1, 1857, his brother Theodorus van Gogh (Theo) was born. In addition to him, Vincent had a brother Cor (Cornelis Vincent, May 17, 1867) and three sisters - Anna Cornelia (February 17, 1855), Liz (Elizabeth Hubert, May 16, 1859) and Wil (Willemina Jacob, March 16, 1862). Vincent is remembered by the family as a wayward, difficult and boring child with "strange manners", which was the reason for his frequent punishments. According to the governess, there was something unusual about him that distinguished him from others: of all the children, Vincent was less pleasant to her, and she did not believe that something worthwhile could come out of him. Outside the family, on the contrary, Vincent showed the opposite side of his character - he was quiet, serious, thoughtful and hardly played with other children. In the eyes of his fellow villagers, he was a good-natured, friendly, helpful, compassionate, sweet and modest child. When he was 7 years old, he went to a village school, but a year later he was taken away from there, and together with his sister Anna, he studied at home, with a governess. On October 1, 1864, he left for a boarding school in Zevenbergen, located 20 km from his home. Departure from home caused much suffering to Vincent, he could not forget this, even as an adult. On September 15, 1866, he began his studies at another boarding school - Willem II College in Tilburg. Vincent was good at languages ​​- French, English, German. There he received drawing lessons. In March 1868, in the middle of the school year, Vincent suddenly left school and returned to his father's house. This concludes his formal education. He recalled his childhood like this: “My childhood was gloomy, cold and empty…”.

11/07/2022

Born March 30, 1853 in the village of Grot Zundert (Dutch. Groot Zundert) in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, not far from the Belgian border. Vincent's father was Theodor Van Gogh (born February 8, 1822), a reformed pastor, and his mother was Anna Cornelia Carbentus, the daughter of a respected bookbinder and bookseller from The Hague. Vincent was the second oldest of the seven children of Theodore and Anna Cornelia. He received his name in honor of his paternal grandfather, who also devoted his entire life to the Protestant church. This name was intended for the first child of Theodore and Anna, who was born a year earlier than Vincent, but died before he lived a day. So Vincent, although he was born the second, became the eldest of the children.

11/07/2022

Vincent Willem van Gogh is a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a timeless influence on 20th-century painting. In a little over ten years, he created more than 2,100 works, including about 860 oil paintings. Among them are portraits, self-portraits, landscapes, still lifes and panels depicting olive trees, cypresses, fields of wheat and sunflowers. During his lifetime, he was practically bypassed by the attention of critics.

11/07/2022