Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of  Western Art. During his lifetime (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) he could not achieve commercial success which led to his mental illness and depression. At a very young age of 37 years he decided to take the extreme step of committing suicide and the world lost an outstanding artist.

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But by then in a decade, he had created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still life paintings, portraits and self-portraits. All his paintings are characterized by bold colors and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art.

Van Gogh Museum at Museumplein, Amsterdam is the perfect destination to discover the life and work of ‘Vincent van Gogh’ and some of his contemporaries. Come let’s step into Van Gogh’s world.

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Although I am not an art connoisseur, I have always admired artists and their paintings. So while we were in Amsterdam a little more than a year back, this day of ours was earmarked for visits to two renowned art museums. ‘Van Gogh Museum’ was the first of them. The third museum we were scheduled to visit later in the afternoon was ‘Anne Frank House’, a writer’s house and biographical museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist, Anne Frank.

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The weather was cool and sunny as we took a tram from our hotel and then this nice little walk through the green towards Museumplein.

Feeling Special

What felt so good throughout the day was the warm welcome and privileges extended to us as a travel blogger in all the three museums we visited and the respect for the travel blogging community that was so evident. Before we enter the museum, I wish to thank Ms. Wietske Van Berkum, Press Office, Van Gogh Museum for extending press privileges to ‘Travelwisesr’ and our travel blog, ‘Travel with passion’ and also the permission to use some original paintings of Van Gogh and videos from the museum here.

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The life of Van Gogh

Van Gogh was born into an upper-middle-class family in Zundert, Netherlands and was a quiet, serious and thoughtful child. He started working at the age of 16 as a trainee with an art dealership in The Hague, often travelling for work, but when he was transferred to London he went into depression and was later fired from his job in 1876.

Afterward, he worked briefly as a schoolteacher in England then at a bookstore back in the Netherlands. He subsequently turned to religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He moved back home with his parents after he drifted into ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881.

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His younger brother Theo, an art dealer, supported him financially and emotionally, and the two kept a long correspondence by letter till he went to live with him in Paris in 1886. His two years there proved to be crucial. He was exposed to the work of Impressionist and Neo Impressionist artists and started using a lighter, brighter palette and experimenting with brushstroke techniques.

In February 1888 he moved to Arles, a town south of France, and produced a number of his best-known paintings during the two years that he lived there. By the time of his death in July 1890, when he shot himself, van Gogh had started to garner critical acclaim.

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Vincent van Gogh – Some curious anecdotes

His Art Style evolved over time

Van Ghogh’s early works were mostly still life paintings and depictions of peasant laborers without the vivid color that distinguished his later work. After moving to Paris and coming in contact with french artists, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, his work developed a new approach to still life paintings and local landscapes. His paintings grew brighter in color as he developed a style which became fully realized during his stay in Arles. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include series of olive trees, wheat fields and sunflowers.

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He wrote more than 2000 letters

Vincent van Gogh was a passionate letter writer. He along with his brothers and his sisters often wrote to each other and to their parents after they all had left home. Many of Vincent’s letters have survived, and even some of the replies. The total correspondence features 902 letters: 819 by Van Gogh and 83 to him. By far the most letters are to his brother Theo, his best friend and loyal supporter. Van Gogh’s letters are also special because of the sketches he added to them. He called them ‘scratches’. Theo kept Vincent’s letters with great care.

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He loved making self portraits

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Why did Van Gogh make so many self portraits? He used them to practice his art. To get a great insight into his thoughts and how he evolved as an artist by making use of numerous self portraits, check out this wonderful video. Courtesy Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

He cut off his ear

Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, the french artist with whom he had been working for a while in Aries got along very well. However his illness during those days led him to hallucinate and he suffered attacks during which he would lose consciousness. On the night of December 23, 1888, while suffering an attack, he had a tiff with Gauguin who left their house. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, followed his fellow artist out onto the street; however, rather than attacking him, the Dutchman returned home, cut off part of his left ear, wrapped it in newspaper and gave it to a prostitute. He could later recall nothing about the event. This is the commonly held version of what happened.

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Some of his most famous paintings were created while in mental asylum

In May 1889, van Gogh checked himself into Saint Paul de Mausole, a mental hospital located in a former monastery in the town of Saint-Remy-de-Provence in southern France. He was diagnosed with epilepsy, bipolar disorder, alcoholism and acute intermittent porphyria, a metabolic disorder.

He stayed at the hospital for a year, during which time he painted scenes of its gardens as well as the surrounding countryside. The more than 100 paintings he produced during this period include some of his most celebrated works, such as “The Starry Night,” which was acquired by New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in 1941, and “Irises,” a series of paintings which was purchased by an Australian industrialist in 1987 for a then-record sum of $53.9 million. Since 1990, the painting has been owned by the J. Paul Getty Museum, which bought it for an undisclosed amount.

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Van Gogh’s sister-in-law played a role in his posthumous fame

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In January 1891, six months after van Gogh’s death, his brother Theo who had contracted syphilis, died at age of 34 in the Netherlands. Theo’s widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, inherited a large collection of Vincent’s paintings, drawings and letters. She made it her mission to help promote van Gogh’s work, in part by loaning it out for various exhibitions. Also, in 1914 she published a collection of letters written by van Gogh, in an effort to tell his life story. After Jo passed away, her only child with Theo, Vincent Willem van Gogh named after his uncle, inherited his artworks and eventually founded the Van Gogh Museum, which opened in Amsterdam in 1973.

Some famous Van Gogh paintings

Sunflowers

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Van Gogh’s paintings of Sunflowers are among his most famous. He did them when he was staying in Arles. Vincent painted a total of five large canvases with sunflowers in a vase, with three shades of yellow and nothing else. In this way, he demonstrated that it was possible to create an image with numerous variations of a single color, without any loss of eloquence. The sunflower paintings had a special significance for Van Gogh: they communicated ‘gratitude’, he wrote. 

The Potato Eaters

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Van Gogh saw the Potato Eaters as a showpiece, for which he deliberately chose a difficult composition to prove he was on his way to becoming a good figure painter. The painting had to depict the harsh reality of country life, so he gave the peasants coarse faces and bony, working hands. He painted the five figures in earth colors, something like the color of a really dusty unpeeled potato. Nowadays, the Potato Eaters is considered as one of Van Gogh’s most famous works.

Almond Blossom

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Large blossom branches like this against a blue sky were one of Van Gogh’s favorite subjects with Almond trees flower early in the spring making them a symbol of new life. The painting was a gift for his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo, who had just had a baby son, Vincent Willem.

In the letter announcing the new arrival, Theo wrote: ‘As we told you, we’ll name him after you, and I’m making the wish that he may be as determined and as courageous as you.’ Unsurprisingly, it was this work that remained closest to the hearts of the Van Gogh family. Vincent Willem went on to found the Van Gogh Museum.

The Yellow House (The Street)

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In May 1888, Van Gogh rented four rooms in a house on Place Lamartine in Arles. The green shutters in this painting of the square show where he lived. The work, which Van Gogh himself called ‘The Street’, records the artist’s immediate surroundings: he often ate at the restaurant on the left. Vincent felt he had finally found a place at the ‘Yellow House’ where he could not only paint but also turn the yellow corner-building into an artists’ house, where like-minded painters could live and work together.

The Bedroom

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While he was in Arles, Van Gogh made this painting of his bedroom in the Yellow House. He prepared the room himself with simple furniture and with his own work on the wall. The bright colors were meant to express absolute ‘repose’ or ‘sleep’. Van Gogh was very pleased with the painting: ‘When I saw my canvases again after my illness, what seemed to me the best was the bedroom’ he had stated.

The Sower

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Van Gogh had a special interest in sowers throughout his artistic career and had made more than 30 drawings and paintings on this theme. He painted this sower in the autumn of 1888. Here, Van Gogh used colors meant to express emotion and passion. He assigned the leading roles to the greenish-yellow of the sky and the purple of the field. The bright yellow sun looks like a halo, turning the sower into a saint.

Wheatfield under Thunderclouds

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In the last weeks of his life, Van Gogh completed a number of impressive paintings of the wheatfields around Auvers. This outspread field under a dark sky is one of them. In these landscapes he tried to express sadness and extreme loneliness. But the overwhelming emotions that Van Gogh experienced in nature were positive and he considered the countryside healthy and fortifying.

Wheatfield with Crows

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Wheatfield with Crows is one of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings. It is often claimed that this was his very last work. The menacing sky, the crows and the dead-end path are said to refer to the end of his life approaching. But that is just a persistent myth. In fact, he made several other works after this one. Van Gogh used powerful color combinations in this painting: the blue sky contrasts with the yellow-orange wheat, while the red of the path is intensified by the green bands of grass.

Tree-roots

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This painting seems at first sight to consist of a jumble of bright colors and fanciful abstract forms. Only when your focus deeper that it shows a slope with tree trunks and roots. These are trees used for timber, growing in a marl quarry. Such quarries could be found around Auvers. The work was not entirely completed. That explains its unfinished appearance. It is probably Van Gogh’s very last painting.

Garden with Courting Couples

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Van Gogh called this sunny park scene ‘the painting of the garden with lovers’. Couples in love are strolling under the young chestnut trees and sitting along the winding paths. Van Gogh applied small brushstrokes of varying length in different directions to help him create the effect of a radiant spring day, which fit the sense of intimacy and togetherness he wished to express. He too longed for a wife and a family, but he had ‘the most impossible love affairs’. He eventually resigned himself to the situation and devoted himself to his art.

Van Gogh Museum – Let’s step into Van Gogh’s World

A quick tour of the museum

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Shop to your delight

Van Gogh Museum has an amazing Gift Shop which made us go bonkers, wondering what to buy and what to leave out. But you could make your choice right from the comfort of your home now and carry on shopping when you visit the museum in the future. Come get transported into the world of Van Gogh mementos and check out the wonderful range of products and paintings, with some great Valentine’s Day offer that you can take advantage of right now. Go enjoy this special shopping experience. Click here to shop online.

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These are trying times

We all are going through the most difficult phase of our life right now and it’s the same with Van Gogh Museum. The museum has only been able to welcome a fraction of its usual visitor numbers during the year which means it scarcely has any income. The Van Gogh Museum normally generates nearly 90% of its own income.  Therefore a small donation from your end could go a long way in supporting the museum. Click here to Donate.

Vincent van Gogh. A dreamer and a creative genius who left us too early. But his legacy lives on even after more than a century. What you witnessed here is just the tip of the iceberg that you would experience when you visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

If you loved this Van Gogh journey, PIN it for later and your friends!

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