Who Was Vincent Van Gogh? | Artrageous with Nate

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[MUSIC PLAYING] If I ask you which painter cut off part of his ear and painted sunflowers, my guess is you're instantly going to know who I'm talking about, right? Vincent van Gogh. But there's a lot more to van Gogh than just ears and sunflowers that made him one of the most influential artists who ever lived. Let's dig into, who was Vincent van Gogh? This episode is funded by The Glick Fund and the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation who inspire philanthropy and creativity. On March 30, 1853, Vincent van Gogh was born in a small town in the Netherlands to a Protestant minister, Theodorus van Gogh, and his wife, Anna Carbentus. Unfortunately, one year earlier, Anna had a baby who died stillborn whose name was also Vincent. They must have really liked the name since they used it once again for the Vincent van Gogh we know. Vincent had three sisters and two brothers, Anna, Theo, Wil, Lis, and Cor. When Vincent was 11, his parents sent him off to boarding school. He did not like this at all, but he did manage to get pretty good grades. And at age 13, he was sent to secondary school in Tilburg where he did quite well, especially in languages. By the way, did you know that Vincent could speak and write in Dutch, English, and French? Yep. Unfortunately, Vincent's family wasn't doing well financially back home, so he quit school after his second year to return. That was the last of his schooling. As you can imagine, van Gogh's parents started worrying about, what would he do with himself? A concern his parents had pretty much the rest of their lives. Thankfully, in 1869 at age 16, his uncle-- known as Uncle Cent-- got Vincent a job as a trainee at the international art dealer Goupil & Cie in a town of La Hague. It was at this time that Vincent's younger brother Theo was working for Goupil as well, but in Brussels. In 1872, Vincent began writing letters to Theo, a practice that lasted his entire life. In fact, he wrote some 651 letters to Theo. Good thing texting wasn't around. I have a feeling Theo's phone would have been, like, ringing off the hook. [BLEEPING] In 1875, he transferred to Paris where he became increasingly religious. Even though Vincent was becoming more interested in art, he was becoming less interested in his job. So in 1876, he quit and returned back to England to begin several years of what we might call his job hunting or experimenting. Vincent tried a variety of jobs such as teaching and working in a bookstore, but ultimately decided to follow his dream of studying theology at the age of 24. He continued to write to his brother Theo, and began including sketches in his letters. But Vincent and I shared a common difficulty when it came to school, which was staying focused. Vincent preferred to wander around the city and take long walks through the countryside. Historians guesstimate Vincent would walk-- get this-- four to six miles a day. As you probably have guessed, Vincent quit school again, but decided he still wants to serve God. He moves to Belgium on a new mission. Work as a preacher in the mining region of Borinage. Vincent went all in and lived with the miners, sharing in their poverty. He would sleep on the floor and gave away just about everything he owned. His nickname was the Christ of the coal mine. We now come to a pivotal moment for Vincent when his brother advised him to concentrate more on his drawings. Vincent started taking painting lessons from artist Anton Mauve, who taught him the basics of oils and watercolors. Vincent ate this instruction up and practiced fanatically. His uncle commissioned him to draw some perspective drawings of the city, one of which was this one of the Hague. Vincent moved back to Nuenen in 1883 where his parents lived, and rented a small studio on the back of the house. Soon after in 1885, Vincent's father died, and he started working on "The Potato Eaters," along with taking up chain smoking and a terrible diet. MAN: Yummy! On the move once again, Vincent moves to Paris to live with his brother-- uninvited, I might add-- where Theo introduces him to artists like Claude Monet, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec and Emile Bernard. All this exposure to the new impressionists inspired Vincent to start using brighter colors. So compare "The Hill of Montmartre with Stone Quarry" to "The Potato Eaters." Pretty drastic difference, right? At this time, Vincent was also amazed by the German composer Wagner, and became excited by the analogies between painting and music. He even took organ lessons at one point, which apparently didn't work out, because Vincent continually compared musical chords with colors like Prussian blue or cadmium yellow. Yeah. The organist decided he was dealing with a madman. Vincent also discovered a new inspiration in Japanese woodcuts, which sold all over Paris. Both he and his brother Theo started collecting them. After just two years, Vincent is getting tired of the busy lifestyle in Paris, and dreamt of sunshine and countryside. So he hopped on a train and headed south to Provence. In 1888, he ended up in the small town of Arles where he went on one of the most amazing creative sprints the world has ever seen. Vincent was so excited after arriving in Arles and seeing all the bright light and the colors, he immediately got to work painting flowers such as orchids and workers gathering the harvest and boats along the coast. Feeling inspired but a bit lonely, Vincent wrote to Theo about setting up a Studio of the South for artists to work at. With this in mind, Vincent rented a small yellow house with four rooms. It's hard to imagine just what it was like in that yellow house, but apparently, paintings were everywhere. Of the 200-plus works created while Vincent was there, only a few made it back to Theo in Paris to hopefully sell. The house reeked of pipe smoke, turpentine, and paint pigment. It was hot, and with no bathroom, washing arrangements were a bit limited. Vincent was also addicted to coffee, something else we definitely have in common. Was short on cash. Vincent lived on little else but coffee and bread. Only one artist ever came down, which was Paul Gauguin. To welcome Gauguin to the yellow house, Vincent painted this little gem. Might look a bit familiar to you. While people often focus on the dysfunctional aspects of their relationship, they actually got along quite often. Vincent certainly was inspired by Gauguin, who was also a bit cocky and probably hard to deal with. Part of the problem might have been the room they both shared to work in, which was less than 16 feet across. At its longest wall, measured 24 feet. But the room had a strange shape where it narrowed to nine and a half feet on the other side. Not a super tiny room, but they were definitely bound to bump into each other. The two had very different painting techniques. Gauguin liked to work from memory, while Vincent preferred to paint what was in front of him. Vincent also applied paint with amazing speed, gathering up the paint as with a shovel. He was known to sit and stare at the canvas, and then suddenly leap up, attack the canvas with two or three brush strokes, and then scramble back to his chair. Both artists had very differing views on art, which led to some pretty heated arguments. It was on December 29 in 1888 around 11 PM that Gauguin and Vincent got into another argument, and Gauguin threatened to leave. Vincent, who always had a difficult time working through his emotions, grabbed a razor and sliced off his ear. The part of this story you may not know about is what happens next. Vincent wrapped up the ear in newspaper, headed down to the red light district, and presented the package to a young lady and said, guard this object carefully, and they disappeared. After waking up in a hospital the next morning, Vincent didn't remember much about the incident, and seemed to be perplexed by the whole situation, which seems to come out in a self-portrait done soon after. Vincent's dream of sharing a studio came to an end, and Gauguin left. van Gogh also realized he had some sort of illness, and fearing he might have another episode, he admitted himself to Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, a psychiatric hospital in Saint-Remy. There are many different ideas as to what illness Vincent had. Some believe Vincent suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, which causes seizures as well as manic depression. Interestingly, another creative who suffered from the same thing was Edgar Allan Poe. Perhaps this is why on good days, Vincent would paint the walled garden at Saint-Remy, and was later even allowed to work outside as well. But his mental health would fluctuate, and one time during an episode of extreme confusion, he ate some of his oil paint. Despite the relapses, Vincent was incredibly productive. He completed around 150 paintings within a year. Yeah, you heard me right. One year. Of these paintings was the iconic "Starry Night," which he painted while looking through the iron-barred windows in his room. While Vincent did only sell a few paintings while still alive, he did start to see some appreciation for his work. In 1890, six of his paintings were shown in Brussels. One art critic, Albert Aurier, published a positive article about the show, and Vincent even sold one painting, "The Red Vineyard." Interestingly, "Starry Night" was not in this show. As the year continued, Vincent felt pretty good, and even left the mental hospital, heading north to Auvers-Sur-Oise. This was closer to his brother Theo and there was a Dr. Paul Gachet to watch over him. Vincent threw himself into his work, painting gardens and wheat fields around the village. Unfortunately, it was during this time that Vincent started to worry about money since he heard his brother Theo might quit his job. This sent Vincent into an episode of extreme worry and depression concerning the future. It was on July 27 in 1890 he set out to paint a wheat field and shot himself in the chest with a pistol. Wounded, he staggered back to the inn where he was staying, some two-plus miles away. Two days later, he died from his injuries. As you can imagine, medicine at this time was not what it is today, especially for mental illness and depression. I imagine neither Vincent nor his doctor had any idea how serious his condition was or could get. And man, do I wish he could have had the medicine and doctors we have today. Either way, Vincent's legacy is like none other, creating over 850 paintings and nearly 1,300 works on paper. Unfortunately, not six weeks after Vincent's death, his brother Theo became ill, and then died a year later in 1891. This brings us Theo's wife, Jo van Gogh. Jo knew the power of Vincent's work, and it became her goal to raise public awareness, including loaning paintings to museums all over the world, which finally brought in more and more buyers. In 1914, she also published the first edition of Vincent's letters to Theo. This passion for seeing Vincent van Gogh's work appreciated passed down to her son Vincent. After Jo's death in 1925, the massive art collection passed down to her son who loaned it to a museum in Amsterdam in 1930. After the Vincent van Gogh Foundation was formed in 1962, work began on a dedicated museum for the collection. In 1973, the Van Gogh Museum opened. Over 1.5 million people visit this incredible museum every year. There was certainly more to Vincent van Gogh than some flowers and cut off ears. He was driven to find his calling in the world, and once he did, he poured himself into what he was most passionate about. If anything, it inspires me to keep creating, keep following what you believe you are born to do, even if the crowd does not agree. Until next time, be artragous. Click on the right to get yourself some more "Artrageous" episodes, and click on the left on the circle icon to subscribe. And please, I would love to connect with you on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter at Artrageousnate. Hey everybody, have a great day, and be artrageous.
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Channel: Artrageous with Nate
Views: 313,264
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Keywords: who was vincent van gogh?, van gogh history, van gogh, vincent van gogh, vincent van gogh starry night, art, painting, starry night, saint remey france, france, van gogh museum, impressionism, art history, art history for kids, contemporary art, PBS, self-portrait van gogh, bandaged ear, Irises, The Potato Eaters, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, artrageous with nate, Crash Course, Crash Course John Green, Art Assignment John Green
Id: vBLvusSwHRk
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Length: 13min 23sec (803 seconds)
Published: Wed Sep 06 2017
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