Vincent Van Gogh Essay

Vincent van Gogh is one of the world’s most well-known artists. He was the son of a pastor and was brought up in a religious atmosphere. He thought his true calling was to preach the gospel like his father. He became a preacher in a small coal mining town. This is when he starting becoming very interested in the people and things that surrounded him. He became an artist at the age of 27.

While the painters after the Impressionism period were collectively called the “Post-Impressionists,” the label is quite reductive. Each artist had their own unique style, from Seurat’s pointillism to Signac’s mosaic-like divisionism, Cezanne, Émile Bernard, and others. These artists were all connected in that they were reacting to the aesthetics of Impressionism. Two of the more influential painters from this movement were Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who aimed to connect with viewers on a deeper level by access Nature’s mystery and meaning beyond its superficial, observable level. However, each artist’s approach to achieving this goal was different. In close examination of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin) and Paul Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables), one may clearly see the two artists’ contrasting styles on display.

The life span of 37 years saw Vincent Willem van Gogh (Vincent) in creating beautiful works he dearly loved. Painting was an avenue, which allowed him to express his inner thoughts or vent his struggles. My decision to research on Vincent’s painting, Starry Night (1889) came with the inspiration from Don Mclean’s Song, Starry Starry Night where his lyrics spoke about Vincent’s life that further intrigued me in writing this paper.

In Van Gogh’s piece of art “Prisoners Exercising” (1890) is shown sadness, depression, and despair of the prisoners. You can say that prisoners are also hopeless, by how the artist drew faces of some of the prisoners. The artist used black, gray, dark blue, brown and dull orange colors, these colors make you feel sad and distressed. By looking at this painting and the colours that were used we can say that Van Gogh was feeling depressed and he had a life crisis. I believe that the artist’s message that he wanted to deliver is, this is how life can look like, making circles in a small room, loneliness, being controlled by other people who are watching your each and every step that you take. Maybe he wanted to show how people look like when they are freedomless.

In my research / readings of my chosen Artist, I found a lot of information about them that I will descibe individually. Based on the biography, It has been stated that Vincent “was a most well known post-impressionism Artist, for whom color was the chief symbol of expression, he was highly emotional, lacked self-confidence and struggled with his identity and with direction.” (Templeton Reid) In the late 1800’s is when Vincent basically made the decision to become an Artist, in which he wanted to provide some type of Happiness because he was able to create beauty (Templeton Reid). As you review the art chosen above by Vincent Van Gogh, you will notice the colors used were dark i.e. Greens, Oranges, Blues, with splashes of yellow to create the sun, which led me to believe that maybe this was when he was in the dark place of his life. In the Van Gogh painting, I see big trees with the nice bright sun shining over the blue water, while looking at the trees it makes me feel safe because of the openness of the surrounding space, also the brightness of the sun and the coolness of the water makes me calm and relaxed, it’s just something about being in nature that gives me a sense of peace and direction, nothing to distract or disturb me.

Most people have no idea that Van Gogh was a Christian. Before pursuing a career as an artist he desired to be a minister. In fact, he was very focused on pursuing ministry. He spent time ministering to coal miners. The

“Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin drew their inspiration from emotions. Van Gogh declared that "instead of trying to reproduce what I have before my eyes I use color more arbitrarily in order to express myself forcibly," whereas Gauguin advised a fellow painter: "Go on working, freely and furiously, you will make progress.... A strong emotion can be translated immediately” (Maurice Malingue qtd. in Galenson and Weinberg_2).

Everybody has heard of the name Vincent Van Gogh. Maybe you’ve heard about his ear or you’ve seen his painting “The Starry Night”. Perhaps you had seen one of his paintings but didn’t know who he was. I am happy to tell you: today is your lucky day. You will be learning a little about him. He was a Dutch painter which was one of the 4 artists who led the movement Post-Impressionism (the use vivid colors, thick application of paint, and real-life subject matter), Van Gogh made about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 paintings. He didn’t have a good life. Van Gogh was constantly depressed, got heartbroken multiple times in his life (he never got married), and was insane. He suffered from psychotic episodes and hallucinations. Often, he didn’t care and neglected he was mentally unstable. For this reason, he did not eat properly and drank a lot.

A great artist once wrote, “If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced”. This artist was Vincent van Gogh, soon to be an appraised artist known all around the world for his works, such as Starry Night. He is one of the very first artists of the post-impressionist style than is now adored in every continent. However, there is much more to the man than one painting. Creating a full timeline that stretches beyond Gogh’s life, this paper will discuss the life of Vincent van Gogh and the impression he made on the world.

Vincent Van Gogh is a widely known painter throughout the world for multiple reasons. His paintings weren’t just paintings, they were life experiences. Van Gogh’s life was an emotional and mental rollercoaster. Every single one of his paintings contained a story behind them. The visual aspect seemed as if they were full of motion. His painting techniques seemed to be impeccable. During the time period in which he was working on art, there was a big movement called the Impressionism Movement. This movement inspired artist to draw more landscapes and incorporate motion into their art. Van Gogh took full advantage of this movement. Van Gogh’s hard life and painting strategies are what made him so amazing as an all around artist. One of Van Gogh’s

Here is another crucial point in Van Gogh's life. He was a passionate, often eccentric artist. The idea of Van gogh arguing art theory with other painters in Montmartre is a very strong image, but one of the most powerful and moving images come from his time in Arles. Here is Van gosh: deeply hopeful that his dream of establishing an artists' community in the south would soon come true. One of Van gogh’s most personal works of his Arles period is Painter on His Way to Work. It's a very touching image--Vincent as the lone painter, trekking along the sun-scorched roads of Provence--looking for the right spot among the cypresses to set up his easel. There's as much of the real Van gogh in this small sketch as there is in any of his more famous self-portraits.

Van Gogh was a Post Impressionist artist who painted expressively to portray emotions subjectively, like Gauguin, rather then

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30th 1853, in Zundert, The Netherlands. Van Gogh spent his teenage year’s working for a firm of art dealers; however, he did not embark upon his art career until 1880. Originally, he worked only with dark and gloomy colors, until he came across the art movements developed in Paris known as, Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism (Meier-Graefe 4). Van Gogh than included their brighter colors and unique style of painting into his very own creations. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life (Meier-Graefe 10). However, most of his best-known works were produced in his last

The one close relationship Van Gogh had with his siblings was with his brother Theo who supported him not only emotionally but financially. (Letters to Theo from Van Gogh are big parts in understanding Van Gogh’s life and the troubles he faced. published in 1959.) Van Gogh was largely self-taught as an artist, although he received help from his cousin, Mauve. His first works were heavily painted, mud-colored and clumsy attempts to represent the life of the poor (e.g. Potato-Eaters, 1885, Amsterdam), influenced by one of his artistic heroes, Millet. He moved to Paris in 1886, living with his devoted brother, Theo, who as a dealer introduced him to artists like Gauguin, Pissarro, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec. In Paris, he discovered color as well as the divisionist ideas which helped to create the distinctive dashed brushstrokes of his later work (e.g. Pere Tanguy, 1887, Paris). He moved to Arles, in the south of France, in 1888, hoping to establish an artists' colony there, and was immediately struck by the hot reds and yellows of the Mediterranean, which he increasingly used symbolically to represent his own moods (e.g. Sunflowers, 1888, London, National Gallery). He was joined briefly by Gauguin in October 1888, and managed in some works to combine his own ideas with the latter's Synthetism (e.g. The Sower, 1888, Amsterdam), but the visit was not a success. A final argument led to the infamous episode in which Van Gogh mutilated

Vincent Van Gogh had a rather depressing life. After being born into an upper-middle class family he quickly became depressed in life. He tried different things like working as an art dealer, becoming a Protestant missionary, and so on. None of these stuck for him as his mental health continued to decline. He was already a quiet, keep to himself kind of person, but over time he became more isolated. He got help from his younger brother Theo in the form of money and moved back home with his parents. This is when he began painting and eventually moved to Paris. Once moving there his paintings became more colorful and his painting style began to develop. He also began suffering from delusions and psychotic episodes and began neglecting his health by eating less and drinking alcohol more frequently and in