Best From Van Gogh - Sadness Will Last Forever

Bursting with sorrows, disappointments, depressions, poverty and unending regret, the story of Vincent Van Gogh ascertains the belief, ‘Great Art is born of Great Sorrow‘

‘For the Creation of Great Art, There Should be Great Sorrow’!

Vincent was a Dutch, born in Zundert, the Netherlands, in the home of a protestant minister. The life of Vincent was a blend of all and sundry forms of dismay! He was an pensive and serious child. He commenced working at the early age of 16, from where he was discarded showing the reason of absence of drive. Then he accepted a job of a teaching assistant for some time in London and afterwards returned back to his homeland to study theology. He withdrew there too  and went to an impoverished Belgian place, Borinage, to do a job of a layman minister. From this job he was dismissed after 6 months and had to go on without salary. It was during this period, when he initiated preparing charcoal sketches.

For the whole of his life-time, he had just one supporter and well-wisher, and it was his brother, Theo. It was according to Theo’s recommendation, that Vincent took painting solemnly. He got training of painting at The Hague from Anton Mauve. In a short duration he split with his guide because of controversy about thoughts on art, still the impact of Hague School persisted in his paintings, which is proven from the use of light and looseness of strokes.

He failed in love as well! He got a refusal from his cousin, Kee Vos, whom he first loved. After that he married a prostitute, Sien Hoornik, and accepted her children too, an act which was completely intolerable to his family, and also to Theo. With her also, Vincent separated afterwards.

He carried on painting, going in many places in the country, when he was influenced by Jean-Francois Millet and painted villagers and rural views.

Later, when he got engaged with the art academy of Antwerp in Belgium, that also was a depressing experience, as his coach discarded him after over only a short period of time. Afterwards he was inspired by Japanese artworks and the impact is revealed even in the backgrounds of the portraits he made.

In 1886, in spring, when he had come to stay with his brother, Theo, in Paris, he came to know numerous versatile artists. He was influenced by impressionism and the use of color and light in the art style. Specifically, pointillism which is marked by the use of countless small spots to prepare rich color shades, inspired him the most. It is noteworthy that Van Gogh is taken to be post-impressionist, and not an impressionist.

In the year 1888, he was sick of the urban life and went to Arles, Bouches-du-Rh, France, where he longed for founding an art colony. It was on this place and time, that he embellished a ‘yellow house’ and painted his most celebrated array of sunflower paintings for the purpose. But nobody, except Paul Gauguin, respected his invitation. Van Gogh was inspired by Gauguin’s humble coloration and forms, known as synthetism, and Gauguin too was inspired by Van Gogh. But here also, a disagreement arose between the two, which caused a harsh stroke of depression for Van Gogh, during which he cut his own left ear.

It is a cruel mockery of destiny that Vincent Van Gogh could sell only one painting in his life and it was The Red Vineyard (now in Pushkin Museum, Moscow). His mother got rid of plenty of of his pieces of art during his life and after his demise. And today, the painter is taken to be one of the most gifted painters of the world. He spent his whole life in insolvency and at present his works are the most priced in the world.

On July 27, 1890, at the age of 37, after a masterpiece, Van Gogh, because of an exacerbated depression, gunned down himself in the chest. He departed after two days, when Theo was beside him. The last sentence spoken by him was, ‘La tristesse durera toujours’ in French, which means, ‘The sadness will last forever’!