Today the world knows Van Gogh for his priceless depictions of sunflowers, and exquisite Provencal scenes infused with sunlight. On the rare occasions a ‘Vincent’ - he signed his work using his first name, aware of the fact his last name was too difficult to pronounce - appears at auction it usually sends records tumbling. But it wasn’t the same story during the Dutchman’s lifetime, during which he struggled to make ends meet and was plagued by illness.
The son of a preacher, Van Gogh was born on March 30th, 1853 in Zundert, a village in the southern Dutch province of Brabant. At the age of 16 he began an apprenticeship with an international art dealer in The Hague. His brother Theo joined the same company in 1873.
Vincent’s contact with art fired his appreciation of paintings, but he lost interest in his job and turned to the Bible. He embarked on a failed career as a lay preacher in Belgium, before becoming a full-time artist in 1880. Moving to Brussels to study, Theo supported him by sending 150 francs a month.
Back at his parents’ home a year later, Vincent fell in love with his own cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker. His feelings were unrequited and she rejected his advances – the first of many doomed loves throughout his life. To further his career he took painting lessons from another cousin, Anton Mauve, who taught him watercolour and oil techniques. While living in the Brabant village of Nuenen, Vincent resolved to paint peasant life. In 1885, he produced ‘The Potato Eaters’, which was both his first large-scale canvas and his first masterpiece.
That November Van Gogh left for Antwerp, frustrated by zealous Dutch clergymen who prevented him finding models. He never returned to the Netherlands. Continuing to Paris in February 1886, Vincent moved in with his brother in Montmartre, where he met other artists including Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. Theo introduced him to the works of the Impressionists, and his life changed forever. He experimented with new styles, filling his palette with vivid colours and changing his brushwork technique. "What is required in art nowadays," he wrote, "is something very much alive, very strong in colour, very much intensified."
Worn down by Paris, Van Gogh moved to Provence in February 1888. Planning to establish an artists' cooperative, he rented the ‘Yellow House’ in Arles as a studio, and invited Gauguin to join him. Awaiting his friend’s arrival he produced his immortal series of sunflower paintings, which were originally intended to decorate Gauguin's bedroom. Inspired by the brilliant colours and strong light of southern France, he painted prolifically, spending all day in the fields and creating 200 canvases in 15 months.
Gauguin joined Vincent in October, and they worked together, but trouble soon flared. In December, Van Gogh suffered a psychotic episode and threatened Gauguin with a razor. That evening, Vincent cut off part of his own left earlobe with the same razor and delivered it to a prostitute in a nearby brothel.
On his discharge from hospital in January 1889, Vincent returned to the Yellow House, but the police closed it after a petition by local townspeople, who were fearful of the ‘redheaded madman’. Concerned about his health he voluntarily admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy. "I wish to remain shut up as much for my own peace of mind as for other people," he wrote.
But being in hospital didn’t prevent Van Gogh from working. He produced another 150 paintings during his year there, including The Starry Night. Initially confined to the asylum, he painted the world as seen from his room. Though briefly restricted to drawing after he tried to poison himself by swallowing paint, the strict routine of asylum life gave Vincent stability.
Meanwhile, others were beginning to take notice of Vincent’s work. ‘Les Vingt’, a group of avant-garde Belgian artists, included his paintings in their 1890 exhibition, and he also exhibited in Paris, receiving enthusiastic acclaim.
In May 1890 Van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, placed in the care of the physician Paul Gachet. Dr. Gachet advised him to focus entirely on painting, which he did, producing 70 canvasses in as many days. But on July 27 he walked into a wheat field and shot himself in the chest. He returned to his room, dying two days later with Theo at his side, aged just 37.
There are many theories regarding Van Gogh’s mental condition. It was certainly not helped by his demanding, self-imposed work rate, poor diet, and excessive consumption of tobacco and alcohol. But the root cause has been ascribed to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, syphilis and epilepsy. Another suggestion is lead poisoning from paint, one symptom of which is a swelling of the retinas, which would cause the halo effect often seen in Vincent's work.
Theo wanted to promote his brother’s work, but he had contracted syphilis earlier in life and passed away in January 1891. His widow Johanna returned to the Netherlands with their infant son, and Vincent’s prodigious output - 800 paintings and over 1,000 drawings.
During his lifetime Van Gogh famously sold only one painting (although he did receive several commissions and bartered canvasses for meals): in February 1890 the Belgian painter Anna Boch bought the Red Vineyard at Arles for 400 francs (around 1,000 USD today). But by the time of his death, Vincent’s reputation was already gathering momentum. There were retrospectives in Brussels and Paris in 1891, and by 1913 large exhibitions were being organised as far away as New York. Vincent’s influence over new generations of 20th century artists would be enormous and profound. His bold brushstrokes and dazzling colours made him arguably more famous than any other painter.
Although Van Gogh’s masterpieces are now scattered throughout the world, the best collections can be found in his native Holland. In 1962, Theo and Johanna’s son Vincent transferred his uncle’s legacy to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, and many of these works were loaned to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where they are housed in a specially designed building. There are 200 paintings and 500 drawings on display, tracing each period of Vincent’s life from the early ‘The Potato Eaters’ to several of his series of ‘Sunflowers’.
East of Amsterdam, and set in beautiful parkland, the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo houses more Van Gogh originals, including ‘Café Terrace at Night’. The works displayed were acquired by Helen Kröller-Müller, one of the first European women to build a major art collection, and among the first to recognise the Van Gogh’s genius. In 1935 she donated her entire collection to the Dutch people.
The value of Van Gogh’s work has skyrocketed. In 1990, his Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for 82.5 million USD at auction - the highest amount ever paid for a painting (although that figure has now been exceeded, refer to Bespoke issue 22). Everyone dreams of owning a Vincent, even if only in the form of a poster reproduction, but for those lucky few who can afford an original, it seems no price is too high.
