Loving Vincent van Gogh

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Vincent van Gogh is one of the most well-known post-impressionist artists and color gave him the ability to express the complexities and beauty of life.

His career as an artists was short - covering only a bit over a decade. Van Gogh still managed to create over 900 paintings, 1000 drawings, 150 watercolors and 9 lithographs.

Before Art

Born in Groot-Zundert, Holland on March 30, 1853, van Gogh's father was a pastor. Therefore, he was raised in a religious and cultured environment.

Throughout his life, Vincent was a highly emotional individual. He lacked self-confidence, struggled to find a sense of identity, and lacked direction.

Vincent was convinced his true calling was to preach the gospel. He worked as a preacher in the Borinage - a dismal mining district in Belgium - but was let go due to being overzealous.

It took about 20 years for him to discover his true calling as an artist.

Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less than three years in a technique that grew more and more impassioned in brush stroke, in symbolic and intense color, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of form and line.

Van Gogh's inimitable fusion of form and content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically rhythmic, imaginative, and emotional, for the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either his struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature.

Very little would be known today about Vincent van Gogh if it wasn't for his letters sent to his brother Theo. The correspondence begins on September 29, 1872, when he was nineteen years old, and the final letter is dated July 23, 1890 at age thirty-seven.

His letters and paintings are the key to understanding the life of this great painter. His personal experience is woven into both his paintings and writings, allowing us insight into his personality and values.

It's sad to think about his lack of success during his lifetime. However, van Gogh’s legacy lives on in his lasting impact on the world of art. Van Gogh is now regarded as one of the most influential artists of all time, having contributed to the foundations of modern art.

Learn more about the incredible artist Vincent van Gogh at the vangoghgallery.com

I highly recommend watching the movie Loving Vincent:

The life and controversial death of Vincent Van Gogh told by his paintings and by the characters that inhabit them. The intrigue unfolds through interviews with the characters closest to Vincent and through dramatic reconstructions of the events leading up to his death.

Peace, love and creativity ~ Sandra

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