Vincent Van Gogh is a post-impressionist painter from the Netherlands. For ten years of creativity, Van Gogh created about 2,100 works that had a huge impact on the visual arts of the 20th century. Until the artist's suicide at the age of 37, no one noticed his work. Currently, Van Gogh's works are the first on the list of the most expensive paintings ever sold around the world.
Fact number 1. First love for painting
Van Gogh developed a love for painting after getting a job in the firm of his uncle Vincent in London. While working as an art dealer for the art and trading company "Goupil & Cie", and every day in contact with different works of art, Van Gogh began to orientate himself in painting, understand and love it. At first, Vincent liked his work, and he achieved success in this field. This continued until Van Gogh's beloved refused him reciprocity. Her name remained unknown (according to various sources, her name was either Evgenia or Ursula).
Her rejection of a relationship with Vincent greatly shocked the future artist. Because of this, he lost all interest in work, constantly felt unhappy. He began to try himself in painting, and also increasingly began to turn to the Bible. As a result, in the spring of 1876, despite family ties, Van Gogh was fired from his uncle's firm due to negligence in work.
Fact number 2. Van Gogh is a priest
After an unsuccessful career at Goupil & Cie, Vincent decides to follow in his father's footsteps - becoming a clergyman. Having worked for free in several schools as a teacher and assistant pastor, Van Gogh is eager to preach the gospel to the poor.
Vincent studies preaching at the Protestant Mission School for three months. In 1878, Van Gogh went to the small mining village of Paturage in Borinage (in the south of Belgium), where he began active missionary work. He cares for the sick, teaches the Bible to the illiterate, works with children, and at night works part-time drawing maps and portraits for the local population. By this, he wins the favor of the inhabitants of the village and members of the religious community. As a result, he was assigned a salary of fifty francs.
Seeing the overworking work of the miners, Van Gogh appeals to the managers of the mines with a request to reconsider the working conditions of the workers. His request was not only rejected, but Vincent was fired as a preacher. For an impressionable artist, this was a great shock and negatively affected his mental state.
Fact number 3. Southern workshop
In 1888, Vincent Van Gogh moved from Paris to Arles (a town in southeastern France in the Provence region). Exhausted by the cold winter, misfortune and illness in Paris, the artist wanted to find inspiration in Arles and improve his health. Van Gogh also dreamed of creating a commune for artists in the south of France, a kind of "Workshop of the South", headed by his friend Paul Gauguin.
Fact number 4. Severed ear
During Van Gogh's residence in Arles, Paul Gauguin came to him to talk about organizing a general workshop for painting. This dialogue between friends soon turned into a quarrel. Gauguin realized that they would not come to a common opinion with Vincent and decided to leave. There are several possible versions about this conflict of artists. According to one of them, Van Gogh pounced on Gauguin with a razor in his hand and that, by a happy coincidence, managed to avoid death. According to another version, Van Gogh attacked the sleeping Gauguin, but he woke up in time and escaped reprisals.
It is a fact that on that unfortunate night, Van Gogh cut off his own earlobe. Most art historians believe that the artist cut off his ear in a fit of regret and remorse. According to other researchers, it was a violent manifestation of insanity due to the abuse of absinthe. After the artist almost became the murderer of his own friend, Vincent was isolated from society and placed in a mental hospital in Saint-Remy-de-Provence.
Fact # 5. Best Picture
In the hospital Saint-Remy-de-Provence, Vincent Van Gogh continued to paint. Most often he painted landscapes, views from the window to the garden and the surroundings of Saint-Remy. Here the artist created one of his best works "Starry Night". During the year spent in the clinic, Van Gogh created more than 150 oil paintings and about 100 drawings and watercolors.
Fact # 6. Recognition during life
There is another myth that during Van Gogh's lifetime his works were not sold and were not recognized by the general public. In fact, this is not the case.
In 1889, the artist took part in a Brussels exhibition called the Group of Twenty. There, his paintings were approved by other artists, critics and many connoisseurs of painting. But, unfortunately, this circumstance did not cause any emotions in Van Gogh, since after all the trials and poverty he had endured, he was mentally ill.
Fact number 7. 10 years of creativity
An incredible fact is that Van Gogh was painting only the last ten years of his life. In such a short period of time, the artist created more than two thousand works. In the last year of his life, Vincent Van Gogh reached such a level of skill that he could complete a picture in just two hours. At such moments, he said that he wrote the work in two hours, but worked for years to do something worthwhile in those two hours.
Fact number 8. The mysterious death of the artist
Van Gogh died at the age of 37. The reasons for his death are still full of secrets and mysteries. It is unclear whether this was a fatal accident, suicide or attempted murder.
According to one version, on July 27, 1890, Van Gogh went for a walk to draw from life. The artist had a revolver with him to scare away birds that bothered him while painting in the open air. Van Gogh accidentally shot himself in the heart area, but the bullet went a little lower, so he was able to get to the hotel where he lived.
The innkeeper immediately called the doctor and notified Brother Theo. Bleeding to death, Van Gogh refused medical attention. Most likely, this happened due to the fact that Vincent no longer wanted to burden his brother, who all his life supported not only him, but also his wife with a child, as well as an elderly mother. The artist died of blood loss 29 hours after being shot in the arms of his younger brother Theo.
According to another version, on which American art critics insist, one of the teenagers who regularly drank with the artist in pubs shot at Van Gogh. According to Theo, the last words spoken in life by Van Gogh were: "The sadness will last forever."
Fact # 9. Brother Theo
The closest and closest person in the artist's life was his younger brother Theo. Thanks to his financial help, Vincent was able to seriously study painting. Theo loved his older brother very much and sincerely believed in his talent. But communication between the brothers did not work out mainly due to the difficult nature of Vincent. The family bond was maintained thanks to Theo, who regularly wrote letters to his brother. Their correspondence lasted for about eighteen years. Only 36 letters have survived that Theo wrote to Vincent. Unlike Vincent, Theo was very sensitive to the messages of his older brother, so more than 600 of Vincent's letters have survived.
Fact number 10. The cost of creativity
Van Gogh's paintings (along with those of Pablo Picasso) are the most expensive paintings ever sold in the world. As of 2011, Van Gogh's works sold for more than one hundred million dollars include: "Irises", "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" and "Portrait of the postman Joseph Roulin". Wheatfield with Cypresses sold for $ 57 million - a hefty price for 1993. The price of the painting "Self-Portrait with a Cut Off Ear and a Pipe" in the late 1990s was $ 90 million.
