Van Gogh's death
The birth of a legend
Written by / Ganmu Support / Capital Museum
Van Gogh spent his short life as an internete and an ostracized person, only to be recognized after his death. History likes to play tricks not only with the self-righteous, but also with the good and pure mind and body! Van Gogh, an artist who was sainted after his death, his death was more like a birth, the birth of a legend.
Vincent van Gogh, an artist in the history of fine art who, together with Cézanne and Gauguin, is known as the "Post-Impressionist" Triumvirate, is well known in China, and his reputation may be much greater than that of the other two representative painters. Vincent van Gogh was such an artist by virtue of which one could divide art history in two. Just as people lamented that "before Van Gogh, the cypress was just a cypress", after Van Gogh, the concept of "artist" was completely changed. Van Gogh discarded all acquired knowledge, ignored the dogmas cherished by the academic school, and even forgot his own reason. In his eyes, there are only natural landscapes full of life. He reveled in it, and forgot both things. So much so that French Fauvism, German Expressionism, etc. were inspired by him, forming their own different schools of painting.
◎ In September 2011, a self-portrait created by Van Gogh in 1887 was unveiled at the Capital Museum in Beijing.
From his dedication to painting in 1880 to his suicide in 1890, Van Gogh created nearly 2,000 works in his short 10-year career, including nearly 40 self-portraits. With an average annual frequency of 4 self-portraits, Van Gogh truly recorded the changes in his painting techniques and the fluctuations of thoughts and emotions. As he himself said, "I want to emphasize that there are many different kinds of self-portraits of the same person. Instead of pursuing photographic similarities, dig deeper into similarities. "I can't have any courage and hope anymore, but anyway, I've long since discovered that it's not a profession that makes people happy." Van Gogh wrote this in a letter dated August 22, 1889 to his younger brother Theo.
◎ Van Gogh painted nearly 40 self-portraits in his lifetime, and the 28 self-portraits he created during his time in Paris have completely changed their style, showing that Van Gogh has been deeply influenced by Impressionism.
In fact, at first Van Gogh wanted to inherit his father's business as a missionary, but found that the spread of the gospel did not actually improve the lives of the poor masses. So he distributed his clothes to the children, he gave his salary to poor families, and he lived as unkempt as they were in a damp and leaky house. When the Church was furious when it saw that their representatives were so poor and depraved, Van Gogh gradually understood that preaching was not what he wanted, "You are all hypocrites! And I just want to try to live like a true Christian," he shouted at them. After that, Van Gogh began to devote himself to painting. He was still poor and lonely, but his deep desire to create drove him to work day and night. Van Gogh's early paintings were dimly colored, repeating "batches of dirty potatoes" after batch.
◎ Van Gogh's sketchbook. The first half of Van Gogh's career as a painter was almost entirely devoted to sketching.
In 1886 he went to Paris to live with his brother, who persuaded Van Gogh to change his painting style to make it easier to sell. Van Gogh also became interested in the Impressionist painting techniques of Monet and others, and began to adopt the vivid colors and free brushwork of the Impressionists. However, because Van Gogh was poor and had no money to hire models to sketch, he had to think of himself as a model and paint on cardboard, one of the cheapest materials. In a letter to his brother Theo on 10 July 1890, Van Gogh noted that he had just finished painting The Wheat Field and two other works, "Under the melancholy sky is a vast field of wheat, and I do not need to make a fuss about my sorrow and extreme loneliness...", he wrote. "Wheat Field" was completed on July 10, 1890, a dozen days after Van Gogh committed suicide at the age of 37.
◎ On the evening of March 31, 1987, at Christie's in London, England, a van Gogh "Sunflower" was being auctioned. Bids started at £5 million and rose fourfold in 4 minutes – £20 million. In the end, the painting was auctioned by the Japanese insurance giant for $39.5 million, setting a record for the highest auction of famous paintings at that time, shocking the world.
Loneliness, a lifetime with Van Gogh. On July 27, 1890, Van Gogh walked into a field and fired a revolver at his abdomen. With a fatal gunshot wound, he staggered back to Orwell's hotel. Dr. Gachet heard the news and rushed to Van Gogh's side. Theo in Paris arrived the next day after knowing. When Van Gogh died on 29 July, Theo guarded him. The next morning, friends from the surrounding villages, and even in Paris, came to pay their respects to the artist. The coffin is surrounded by works from his lifetime. The first to arrive was Dr. Gachet, who brought with him a large bouquet of sunflowers and an etching of his own "Van Gogh on the sickbed". On July 30, 1890, Van Gogh was buried in Orwell's cemetery. Exhausted, Theo died 6 months later, buried next to Van Gogh.
◎ In March 1888, Van Gogh created this painting "Al's Suspension Bridge". The bridge on the painting, named Langlu Bridge, was demolished in 1935, and in 1962, in order to commemorate Van Gogh, a bridge was rebuilt as it was on the same river, and called it "Van Gogh Bridge".
The root cause of Van Gogh's suicide is difficult to determine. Admittedly, Van Gogh suffered from depression for many years, and Van Gogh was also lonely, and his dream of building an artist group never became a reality, and he did not have a wife and children. In addition, in early July 1890, Theo informed Van Gogh that he intended to invest his money in the commercial sector. Van Gogh was deeply troubled by this, because it would jeopardize his artistic career, after all, he needed Theo's financial support. Ironically, Van Gogh died at a time when his career was about to take off. In September 1889, two van Gogh paintings appeared at the Salon des Libertés in Paris, and the following year the number increased to 10. In addition, in early 1890, Van Gogh was invited to participate in the "Brussels Exhibition of twenty", organized by the famous Belgian Society of Avant-Garde Artists. The artist Anna Boch bought a painting by Van Gogh for 400 francs in a red vineyard, marking the beginning of the rise of the artist to be recognized by the international community, and of course the only work van Gogh sold during his lifetime. Soon after, the art critic Albert Aurier published a lengthy article full of praise in the magazine The Courier de France, praising Van Gogh, a lonely genius, for bringing fresh air to the art world. Van Gogh was increasingly praised or criticized by his peers, critics and collectors. Even outstanding artists like Monet paid tribute to Van Gogh.
◎ The tombs of Van Gogh and Theo are in the small town of Orwell on the Oise River, northwest of Paris, which is where Van Gogh last lived. Their tombstone simply reads: Here rests Vincent van Gogh, here rests Theo van Gogh.
History likes to play not only with teleologists who regard themselves as the masters of meaning, but also with the good and pure mind and body! Van Gogh spent his short life as an internete and an ostracized person, only to be recognized after his death. Van Gogh's works have long been available in the auction market, because few people are willing to sell them, either as permanent exhibits in museums or as heirlooms that accompany them for a lifetime. Van Gogh's death was more like a birth, the birth of a legend.
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This article is an excerpt from the November 2011 issue of Civilization
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