Vincent van gogh biography articles collection

We have tried to list a few of the more irresistible invitations to further inquiry below. As we hope our biography makes clear, Van Gogh was a voracious reader. He not only read many books, he often read them more than once. Still, because allusions to his reading are not always identified as such, and he does not always quote directly from his sources, but only adopts their arguments or their tropes or sometimes just their perspectives, there are always new influences to be found.

Balzac and Hugo have survived somewhat better in the American academic curricula. But the same fate that has befallen his French favorites have also removed many of his favorite German authors — Goethe, Heine, and Uhland — from reading lists in many schools outside Germany. Reading the books and poetry that Van Gogh read has been one of the great unexpected pleasures of the decade we spent preparing this biography.

It is astonishing, and not a little depressing, to find how much beauty and wisdom has been lost — or at least neglected — in the hundred years since Vincent died. All of these are extremely important contributions to the feminist literature on Van Gogh. Robert L. Trimble and Tom G. The literature on self-mutilation includes Karl A.

Walsh and Paul M. For historical context on attitudes towards mental illness and the treatment of the mental diseases like epilepsy in the nineteenth century, see both Inheriting Madness: Professionalization and Psychiatric Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century France by Ian R. Fuller Torrey and Judy Miller. Two doctors reported some important medical information on Van Gogh in the first part of the twentieth century.

Victor Doiteau recorded early interviews with Dr. For a Freudian interpretation of the artist, see Alfred J. Below are links to some of the major online stores from which you can purchase many of the books and other materials that are listed in our section on Further Reading. Some of these books are still in print and can readily be purchased. Others are no longer in print, but even among these items, online stores sometime offer out-of-print copies for purchase, sometimes at very reasonable prices.

These notes perform a variety of functions: Each note typically consists of three parts: If you are using the notes while reading the book, you can If you are using the notes without the book, you can These rules will help guide you through these dual citations: Washington, D. Pickvance, Ronald. Van Gogh in Arles. Selected and edited by Ronald de Leeuw.

The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. London: Penguin, Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Online resource. Road in Etten Vincent van Gogh. Nursery on Schenkweg Vincent van Gogh. The Flowering Orchard Vincent van Gogh. The Zouave Vincent van Gogh. Shoes Vincent van Gogh. Cypresses Vincent van Gogh. Oleanders Vincent van Gogh. Wheat Field with Cypresses Vincent van Gogh.

Corridor in the Asylum Vincent van Gogh. When Hoornik went back to prostitution, van Gogh became utterly depressed. Inhis family threatened to cut off his money unless he left Hoornik and The Hague. Van Gogh left in mid-September of that year to travel to Drenthe, a somewhat desolate district in the Netherlands. For the next six weeks, he lived a nomadic life, moving throughout the region while drawing and painting the landscape and its people.

Van Gogh became influenced by Japanese art and began studying Eastern philosophy to enhance his art and life. He dreamed of traveling there, but was told by Toulouse-Lautrec that the vincent van gogh biography articles collection in the village of Arles was just like the light in Japan. In Februaryvan Gogh boarded a train to the south of France.

He moved into a now-famous "yellow house" and spent his money on paint rather than food. Vincent van Gogh completed more than 2, works, consisting of oil paintings and more than 1, watercolors, drawings and sketches. A combination of imagination, memory, emotion and observation, the oil painting on canvas depicts an expressive swirling night sky and a sleeping village, with a large flame-like cypress, thought to represent the bridge between life and death, looming in the foreground.

Van Gogh painted two series of sunflowers in Arles, France: four between August and September and one in January ; the versions and replicas are debated among art historians. The oil paintings on canvas, which depict wilting yellow sunflowers in a vase, are now displayed at museums in London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Munich and Philadelphia.

Critics believe the painting was influenced by Japanese woodblock prints.

Vincent van gogh biography articles collection

French critic Octave Mirbeau, the painting's first owner and an early supporter of Van Gogh, remarked, "How well he has understood the exquisite nature of flowers! Over the course of 10 years, van Gogh created more than 43 self-portraits as both paintings and drawings. But it is not easy to paint yourself, either. Van Gogh's self-portraits are now displayed in museums around the world, including in Washington, D.

In Decembervan Gogh was living on coffee, bread and absinthe in Arles, France, and he found himself feeling sick and strange. Before long, it became apparent that in addition to suffering from physical illness, his psychological health was declining. Around this time, he is known to have sipped on turpentine and eaten paint. Within a month, van Gogh and Gauguin were arguing constantly, and one night, Gauguin walked out.

Van Gogh followed him, and when Gauguin turned around, he saw van Gogh holding a razor in his hand. Hours later, van Gogh went to the local brothel and paid for a prostitute named Rachel. With blood pouring from his hand, he offered her his ear, asking her to "keep this object carefully. Theo arrived on Christmas Day to see van Gogh, who was weak from blood loss and having violent seizures.