sunflower
When it comes to Van Gogh, the first work that people think of is his sunflower, the hot and bright yellow, the brash and slightly tired bouquet, witnessing his transition from the early gray and dark painting style to post-Impressionism, and at the same time, through the work, he peeks into van Gogh's innermost secrets, and wants to prove his pain but backfires.
In addition to sunflowers, he painted eight different works on the subject of shoes during his lifetime. The shoes were worn, covered in mud, mixed with rain, dirty, and some even broken. Why Van Gogh liked such a subject matter, I am afraid that it has a lot to do with his bumpy life experience.
Van Gogh, "A Pair of Shoes"
There were three main traditional occupations of the Van Gogh family: merchant, priest and painter, and each profession at that time had a family representative. In the business world, Van Gogh's uncle founded a huge artistic business empire with branches in the world's famous capitals. Van Gogh's father was a beloved priest, and in the field of art, the most prominent was Van Gogh's cousin Anton Mow, who was the leader of the Dutch Hague School, whose works were highly appreciated by collectors, and thus became one of the most profitable painters.
Van Gogh also experimented with both the merchant and the priestish profession. He had worked as a painting salesman in the gallery run by his uncle, and had enthusiastically persuaded buyers to buy what he thought was excellent, and once buyers did not choose the works he recommended and chose what they thought were their favorites, Van Gogh would complain about the stupidity of the buyers and lash out at the "favorite work", and the results could be imagined, either the buyer's anger or the snowflake letter of complaint.
Even so, Van Gogh would not have thought he was wrong, and he would have complained a few more words about his uncle's greedy businessman qualities. However, his younger brother Theo, who was also under the same roof, did a good job, his gentle personality, good at lobbying buyers, and good at the middle way of dealing with the world, he soon became the darling of the boss, and his career path was smooth, from the bottom salesman to the manager of the Paris Gupière branch.
Compared with his brother, Van Gogh's final end can only be to pack up and go home, and from then on, the word "failure" is with him, and it has been marked with gray and dark in his life. After that, he tried to become a priest again, but he did not escape the fate of failure. What was more terrifying than returning to the original point again and again was that he had to reach out to the family again and again for money.
Throughout his life, his livelihood depended largely on the financial support of his younger brother Theo. After failing to try both professions, the family profession was left with only the path of "artist". Initially his decision was supported by his entire family, including his uncle, who works as a gallery artist, and his cousin Mov, who is already an artist.
Van Gogh self-portrait
At Mov's recommendation, he entered the "Puhley Studio" as a trainee, but before long, he and Morph were already quarreling. Mov believes that he should start with a small landscape watercolor that is more marketable, but he insists on drawing his favorite characters, and even tries to convince his cousin-in-law, who has achieved fame, that he will eventually be kicked out of the door.
However, what his parents could not accept was that Van Gogh rented a large studio and bought brand new furniture without the consent of his family, so as to make himself a "professional artist", for which he did invest in the enthusiasm of the sun, but the huge expenses also became a burden for his parents.
Just when his parents were struggling with Van Gogh's living expenses, his younger brother Theo offered to help him. Since then, the two brothers have added another layer of money to the original simple brotherhood, so that Van Gogh has always wanted to prove himself to his brother and his family that he can become an outstanding and unique artist. But unfortunately, during his lifetime, this wish was never realized.
In Van Gogh's eyes, Theo was like the successful self, and he was like a shadow behind him, forever hiding in the shadows where there was no light. At one point, he fought against his brother at every turn, squandering his salary, paying expensive rent, buying various decorations, hiring models, and even currying favor with prostitutes in taverns to fill his sense of distance.
Looking at the following painting "The Potato Eater", it is an unpleasant oil painting, the picture is shrouded in an atmosphere of "pain and despair", the faces of the characters in the painting are lifeless, and even a little distorted and deformed, and under the gray and dark tones is a lifeless atmosphere.
At this time, Van Gogh was indulging in Miller's rustic peasant plot, and in fact, through this painting, we can also see Van Gogh's heart, life without color, can not see the future, and the despair of difficulty in integrating into the real world. So much so that when Theo criticized the painting, Van Gogh said that the painting contained rich colors, but it needed to be savored by a "noble mind".
People who eat potatoes
The colors of his life did not improve until Paris, and the choice of shoes as the subject of his paintings was the year he moved to Paris. In 1886, he saw a pair of worn boots at the Paris flea market, with low prices and practicality, which gave him an inexplicable sense of intimacy.
Behind each pair of shoes there is a master, and the appearance of the shoes often reflects the identity and experience of the shoe owner, and even unconsciously exudes a temperament similar to the owner. Perhaps Van Gogh read the smell of abandonment from those old shoes, just as he never integrated into the world of ordinary people in his life, and was constantly abandoned by the world.
When he studied in The Colmont Studio, his dull personality, unauthentic French, and "messy" painting style caused him to have many contradictions with the rich children of the upper class, and finally fell into a cold world of ridicule and alienation.
The apricot blossoms are in full bloom
After that, he left the studio and went to the extremely inclusive and unbiased nature. He moved nature into his paintings with great enthusiasm, and nature rewarded him handsomely. He traveled to the countryside every day to sketch, using Impressionist brushstrokes to depict landscapes on the banks of the Seine in Paris.
All the Impressionists tried their tricks, and Degas, Seurat, Monet, Pissarro, etc., finally began to brighten the colors in his palette. After living in Paris for two years, he went alone to the small town of Arles in the south of France, and of course his brother continued to support him as always.
View of Paris from the room
He was even lonelier in Al, he longed to communicate with people, had a family and lovers and children, but these were always far away from him. In order to alleviate his loneliness, Theo made a quid pro quo with Paul Gauguin, who went to spend some time with Van Gogh, and in return could hold an exhibition at the Gupier Gallery.
But the ending was the same, Gauguin still fled, and his reason for Theo was that he was going crazy. Although Van Gogh was a loser in the eyes of the people at the time, he never admitted it, and argued countless times about it, always forcing the other side away. He wanted to hug everyone, but because of his personality and eccentric temper, everyone turned their backs on him.
iris
Cypress trees in a wheat field
In the end, he actually went to a mental hospital, where he found a long-lost peace. In his letter to Theo, he said that the psychopaths were friendly, that they helped each other and did not interfere with each other, and that he had plenty of time to paint. It was in this place of what he considered to be tranquility that he painted his most iconic works: fiery cypress trees, curved olive trees, flower beds in the summer sun, and purple irises blooming on the side of the road.
After wandering for half a lifetime, he finally found the "truth" of the art he had longed for for a long time, and his unique personal style was becoming more and more mature. Unfortunately, his life soon came to an end.
Starry night on the Rhône
The last of his life was spent in the small town of Orville in northern France, and in his letters to his brother, he depicted over and over again the freedom and freedom of country life, the beautiful scenery and fresh air of the countryside, and the friendliness of the neighbors and the laughter of the children.
Look at the above "Starry Night on the Rhône" was created there, the picture depicts a quiet summer night, the lights of the distant fishing boats on the water directly shoot out a yellow lamppost, and the stars shining in the sky, see the spoon-shaped Big Dipper in the starry sky? In the darkness of the night, it seems to be guiding the direction of life for those who have lost their way. In the lower left corner of the picture there is also a couple or young couple holding each other, that is, his brother and sister-in-law who miss him.
Wheat fields with crows
On the evening of July 27, 1890, Van Gogh stumbled back to his rented hotel, his face pale, pressing his abdomen with his hands to his room. The innkeeper ran upstairs to see him and asked him what had happened? Van Gogh said in a faint voice that he was injured, after which the innkeeper saw the small bullet hole under his ribs. Two days later, at midnight, he died in the arms of his brother Theo.
Two weeks before his death, he completed his last work, Wheat Field with Crows, in which the golden wheat fields swaying in the wind took up half of the painting, dozens of black crows flew under the dark sky, and Van Gogh stood at the fork in the three roads, obviously still trapped in the quagmire of the family profession. The whole picture was so gloomy that later people saw the painting as a landscape he saw when he was dying, which seemed to be a good explanation for his suicide.
Although Van Gogh's life was very depressed, he was always so clean and tidy in his self-portraits, and he covered up his true self with the brush in his hand, perhaps he did this only to find a trace of his dignity.
Three months after Van Gogh's death, his younger brother Theo also went mad, and his brother's death stabbed him deeply. He kept chanting the phrase "He can't be forgotten," and in January 1891, Theo closed his eyes on a cold winter night. Twenty years later, he and his brother met in the cemetery, and the cemetery of the two was next to each other, just like when they were alive, only this time to change the shadow of Theo.