Painter’s Hub

 

“Oh great creator of being grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives” – Jim Morrison .

Whenever I see this quote, one man pops into my head and you must have guessed that from the title. Yes. It is Vincent Van Gogh and by the end of this article you would come to know how aptly the quote suits him. 

“My youth was gloomy and cold and sterile…”-Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent left the school abruptly and went back home. He worked with an art dealer in Hague. He got his training and was sent to London. He was successful and happy. He was in love and his love was rejected. He became isolated, religious and highly emotional. To get some fresh air Vincent was sent to Paris and he hated the way art was treated which he started to express to his customers. He became Van Gogh-the jobless.

The pastor years.

He worked as a missionary in borniage, a coal mining district in Belgium. It is here that Vincent became increasingly interested in drawing and sketched ordinary people and everyday scenes.

In 1880, following his brother Theo’s advice he went to Brussels’s and studied with a prominent Dutch artist in the Royal academy of art. All he said about the training at the academy ward “you have to know just to be able to draw the least thing”. He wanted to surrender himself to the god through his art. After a brief period of married life and the death of his wife adding to his loneliness he moved to nuenen to live with his parents.

The Potato eaters.

He got devoted to drawing in nuenen and sketched the weavers. In the spring of 1885 came to the art world a masterpiece, Van Gogh’s major work-The Potato eaters. At first it looks like a dirty painting with ugly models. But as you look deeper it breaks your heart As it shows the harsh reality of the peasant’s life. It tells you “that they have earned their food by honest means.” In this period he used earth colors like brown and he is supposed to have completed numerous drawings and watercolors, nearly 200 oil paintings.

The Traveling Painter.   

From then on he went to Antwerp, Paris and Arles. It was during his stay in Arles that he painted some of his more famous paintings like The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Starry Night over the Rhone and the sunflowers series to decorate his Yellow house. While in Arles he invited Paul Gauguin and they painted together for a short while.

The missing ear lobe!

On December 23 1888, he stalked Paul Gauguin cut off his own ear lobe and gifted it to a prostitute due to which he was hospitalized. 

The Saint Remy period.

Vincent committed himself to a mental hospital in Saint Remy where he used to have two small rooms (Thanks to Theo). During this period, his subjects were mostly the clinic and its garden. It was at this place that he painted his most famous painting-The starry night.

Auvers-sur-Oise.

Vincent left the clinic and went to Auvers-sur-Oise. During his 70 days stay in Auvers-sur-Oise he did 70 oil paintings. It was time for Van Gogh to leave. During his last days he painted his Wheatfield with crows which is not his last work as is generally thought.

He shot himself on a wheatfield on 27 july 1890 and died two days later. Vincent van Gogh has influenced many famous painters like Henri Matisse and other German expressionists. Some of his works are in the list of costliest paintings on the planet. The paintings stated here were just very small fractions of his works. For the complete list check the link below. And he did all these by the age of 37.

How many more paintings do you think he would have completed if he was given one more hour ?!

Author: Mr. Hayavadhan

[ He is graphic designer and explores new art forms in traditional and digital media.]