Viatouch Teacher Articles
Art

Young Vincent van Gogh
by Elizabeth Klein

Vincent van Gogh, best known as the artist who cut off his ear, created more than 800 oil paintings and 700 drawings. However, van Gogh only sold one painting in his brief thirty-seven years!

Vincent was born in the small community of Groot-Zundert in the southern Netherlands on March, 1853. His father was Theodorus van Gogh, a local clergyman and his mother, Anna, was a supportive and tireless pastor's wife. They had five other children: Anna, Theodorus (Theo), Elisabetha, Willemina and Cornelis. His younger brother Theo remained a close friend throughout his life.

As a child, Vincent loved to roam through the flat cornfields and sandy heath that typified the southern countryside. He would often sketch scenes around his village and although his drawings showed promise, neither parent encouraged Vincent to become an artist. Interestingly, many of the van Gogh's ancestors had become painters.

Up until the age of 11, Vincent appeared to have an untroubled childhood. Then in October 1864, his parents decided to send him to a boarding school twenty miles away. Vincent did not do very well in his studies because he missed his family and the freedom that he had enjoyed at home. The separation that he experienced affected him profoundly years later as an adult. It may have contributed to his severe depression and dark mood swings.

At the age of sixteen, Vincent went to work for his Uncle Cent in The Hague, who ran an art dealer business called Goupil and Company. Several years later in 1872, Vincent and his younger brother Theo began to write letters to each other, of which over 650 survive. In them, Vincent poured out his deepest emotions, fears, and hopes to his younger brother.

At The Hague, he learned the business of art dealing and became quite successful during his training. After four years he was transferred to the London branch, where he enjoyed the parks, galleries, and museums—especially the National Gallery. However, Vincent saw a dark side to London, where its severe poverty greatly disturbed him. About this time he fell in love with a young woman called Eugenie Loyer, but when she did not return his love, Vincent turned to religion for support.

Feeling rejected, increasingly isolated, and disillusioned with the art dealing business, Vincent was led to Uncle Cent's head office in Paris. His angry outbursts with customers soon became intolerable. On April 1, 1876, he finished as an art dealer and looked elsewhere for employment. At one time, he became an assistant teacher, a social worker, and finally a preacher in West London. He applied to enter a university when he felt called to be a clergyman, but he was rejected twice. Frustrated, van Gogh ventured to a coal-mining district in the Borinage, situated on the border between France and Belgium, to directly help the poor. He possessed great compassion for the indigent and expressed his strong emotional empathy through art, though he himself was often so poor that he went without food just to have enough money to buy paint. In fact, he believed that colour was a powerful source of expression.

Van Gogh's short life was marked with tragedy and rejection, yet he left behind a powerful legacy as one of the world's best-known artists. His Post-Impressionistic style influences art and artists worldwide with its bold use of colour to express different emotions in everyday themes. Vincent's painting, The Red Vineyard, sold a few months before he died on July 29, 1890. Today his art sells for millions of dollars.

Bibliography:
Beaujean, Dieter. Vincent van Gogh Life and Work. Konijswinter, Germany: Konemann, 2005.

Blizzard, Gladys S. Come Look with Me Exploring Landscape Art with Children. Charlottesville, Virginia: Thomasson-Grant, Inc, 1992.

Bolton, Linda. Art Revolutions Impressionism. London: Belitha Press Limited, 2000.

Green, Jen. Vincent van Gogh Artists in Their World. London: Franklin Watts, 2002.

Schapiro, Meyer. Van Gogh. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 2003.

Photo: courtesy of Wikipedia

Elizabeth Klein has been a primary school teacher for nineteen years and is now a freelance writer. She lives in Sydney, Australia with her husband. Her publishing credits include a short story called, "Courage Comes in Strange Parcels." She is currently working on a fantasy trilogy.