What comes to mind when you think of Van Gogh?
Is it a sunflower, a starry night, or a red-haired man with one missing ear?
What many people don't know is that Van Gogh, who is now sought after by countless people, was once just a marginal person who was riddled with venereal diseases and mixed with prostitutes all day long.
Vincent van Gogh's life was a life of a genius and a life of a madman.
Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in a small village in the Netherlands.
Born into a family of Protestant clergymen, Van Gogh did not have a rich childhood, but had many opportunities to get in touch with the arts.
As a child, he thought he would become a pastor, but after he was sent to a public school with a bad reputation, his situation got worse and worse, and he finally chose to drop out.
Van Gogh was not the kind of "madman" who threw himself into art from the beginning.
Forced to make a living, he worked as an ordinary clerk and as an agent in a business firm that had nothing to do with art.
In the beginning, he got a job under the protection of his uncle. As a result, his uncle later became ill, and his boss stopped selling Van Gogh's face and pushed him out of the company.
What to do?
We can see many shadows of contemporary confused youth in Van Gogh:
He frequently participated in evangelistic activities, read many books, tried to find his faith, and at the same time looked for work everywhere, worked as a teacher, teaching assistant, assistant pastor, and worked part-time in bookstores, seminaries, etc., but never found a "home".
In 1879, at the age of 26, Van Gogh was kicked out of the church for being "too enthusiastic".
After the path of faith failed, the following year, Van Gogh came into contact with art.
It is said that Van Gogh had an unforgettable first love, who was later not together for various reasons.
Van Gogh, who was saddened by love, decided to devote himself to art and embarked on the road of painting.
In those days, anyone who engaged in art had to make a pilgrimage to Paris, and Van Gogh was no exception.
There, he meets Sean, a prostitute, and soon develops a relationship with her.
Mixing with prostitutes, no matter what era it is, is a shocking thing, but the thought that Van Gogh's first love seems to be his cousin who has just lost her husband for a long time, everything seems to be much easier to accept.
As an artist, love life is to go off the beaten path.
Van Gogh's relationship with Sian is also full of contradictions and ups and downs.
The article hated life, and it was the same for engaging in art, and the bumpy emotional experience provided Van Gogh with a lot of creative inspiration, and some people began to pay attention to his paintings.
It is also known that very few artists can support themselves from their work before they die, and Van Gogh is no exception.
He is facing a seemingly ordinary "midlife crisis":
The economic situation is not optimistic, the relationship with the family is very bad, and the health is also in trouble......
It was then that he met fellow artist Paul Gauguin.
Gauguin was also a painter, and in Maugham's book The Moon and Sixpence, the main character Strickland is based on Gauguin.
The two were both Impressionist painters, and after a period of in-depth dating and cooperation, they often quarreled because of disagreements.
Here's the point, why did Van Gogh cut off one of his ears?
For Gauguin.
It is rumored that the ear cutting incident is related to Gauguin and another prostitute, Rachel, but whether it is true or not, I don't know, because Van Gogh never admitted it.
Where is Gauguin's friend? Good friends are about the same.
After cutting off his ear, Van Gogh's emotions slipped into the abyss, and finally chose to shoot himself and end his life.
Gauguin, on the other hand, went away, married three natives in Tahiti, and named his home "The House of Climax", isn't this a waste......
The result of Gauguin's prodigal urging was even worse - syphilis relapsed, suicide failed, and he was tormented by syphilis and heart disease for six years before dying.
Ahem, let's go back to Van Gogh.
As an artist, Van Gogh did not care about his own life and died at the age of 37, leaving behind more than 2,000 paintings.
Yes, you read that right, more than 2000.
Moreover, as I said earlier, Van Gogh is not the kind of person who aspires to engage in art since he was a child, he started painting at the age of 27 and began to paint halfway through his home, and the amount of this work is more than 200 pieces a year on average, which can be called a high yield like a sow!
However, such a high prolific production did not prevent later collectors from treating his paintings as treasures.
In his paintings, people can see his love for life and his dedication to art.
That kind of vigorous vitality has touched countless people.
Maybe this is the so-called talent of art - even if you become a monk halfway, you can still become a legend in the history of art......