Vincent Van Gogh: A Life of Color and Madness

Vincent Van Gogh:

A Life Full of Color and Madness 

by

Sam Winder

(Fig. 0) Van Gogh Self Portrait

April 29, 2018

History of Art to the Renaissance

Professor Bob deWitt / Instructor

Vincent Van Gogh lived a troubled life but found an escape through his artwork. The last few years of his life were very tumultuous, but also very productive. His artwork was not accepted in his lifetime, but today it is viewed by many to be profound and poetic. He had a major impact on how color is perceived in paintings and can be used to evoke emotions. Van Gogh painted in the impasto style with very thick oil paint. Today he is known as a major figure in the Post-Impressionism art movement. The purpose of this paper is to examine the last few years of Van Gogh’s life when he lived in southern France with Gauguin, how his poor mental health impacted his artwork, why he only sold one painting in his lifetime, and how his artwork is viewed today. 

  Vincent was born in the Netherlands, but he spent the last few years of his life in France. He moved to southern France in 1888 to a small town named Arles. When he first arrived in Arles he stayed at in an apartment above the cafe. The landlord was Joseph Ginoux and gave Vincent a hard time for not paying his rent. Vincent eventually painted ‘The Night Cafe’ which depicted this scene of Ginoux’s place (Fig. 1). 

(Fig. 1) The Night Cafe

Van Gogh purposefully painted the night cafe to be ugly because he was upset with Ginoux’s “filthy old place.” He painted the walls red and ceiling green to have these contrasting colors pop and represent “the terrible human passions with the red and the green” and Ginoux is the man all in white hosting a few lonely customers including a prostitute, he explained in a letter to his brother Theo. He also made the floor an acid yellow color and the ceiling lamps have radiating light around them to create a queasy and sickening feeling.

   After leaving the apartment above ‘The Night Cafe’ Vincent moved into a yellow house. He picked the ‘Yellow House’ largely due to its color. He liked yellow because it reminded him of happiness. He also associated the color with Japan, and he loved Japanese prints which he collected and hung in his house. Van Gogh mostly decorated the Yellow House with his own paintings of yellow sunflowers and portraits. In his painting ‘The Bedroom’ he has framed and hung some of his finished paintings on the wall by his bed (Fig. 2).

(Fig. 2) Van Gogh's Bedroom

All the furniture is yellow, but there is also a yellow hue in the greens as well. He loved to express himself through color and often exaggerated the color in his painting based on how he felt emotionally. Van Gogh framed fourteen of his sunflower paintings and hung them in his guest room in preparation for the arrival of his new roommate Paul Gaugin (Fig. 3).  

(Fig. 3) Sunflowers

  Vincent lived in the Yellow House for about six months by himself, but after a while, he got very lonely and invited Paul Gauguin to live with him. Vincent originally met Gauguin in1887 in Paris, and it was a brief encounter. Both Van Gogh and Gauguin were both artists and learned from each other. Theo, Vincent’s brother, actually offered money to Gauguin to watch over his brother, because Theo was concerned for Vincent’s well-being. Van Gogh preferred to paint from life and Gauguin liked painting things from his memory or imagination. Gaugin would critique Van Gogh’s work and this upset Vincent because he felt like Gaugin didn’t appreciate the value of what he was doing. Both artists influenced each other, and they went outside and painted the Arles countryside together.

  One moment that both Van Gogh and Gaugin shared was painting the countryside of Arles. One day they went out and both painted a red vineyard. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo about the experience, “We saw a red vineyard, completely red like red wine. In the distance it became yellow, and a green sky with a sun, fields violate and sparkling yellow here and thereafter the rain in which the setting sun was reflected.” Vincent painted ‘The Red Vineyard from his memory (Fig. 4). The harvest would have happened a few months before the painting, so Van Gogh added the grape-pickers from his own imagination. ‘The Red Vineyard’ is the only painting Van Gogh sold in his life. It sold in 1890 after being shown in an exhibition in Brussels and was bought for 400 francs which is the equivalent of about $2,000 today.  

(Fig. 4) Red Vineyards

  Gaugin’s interpretation of the vineyard is much deferent and features a sad woman with her head in her hands (Fig. 5). In Gauguin’s Grape Harvest painting it has a sense or sorrow which is why he titled it, ‘Human Misery.’ Gauguin was focused on creating artwork that was about the primitive human experience, whereas Van Gogh focused more on how the color was interpreted emotionally. Vincent would associate himself with the impressionists but he did not consider himself an impressionist because he wanted to focus on the emotion found in color and not the color found in a fleeting moment. Vincent felt strongly that, “Impressionism’s glancing sight and playful light could never penetrate the inner life of a subject, only record the charming surface.” Van Gogh wasn’t trying to capture the color of the outward appearance of how things actually looked, but instead, add the color of how thing appeared emotionally to him. By contrasting Gauguin and Van Gogh’s interpretation of the vineyard it becomes clear that the two artists had different styles, they influenced each other, but they fought all the time too.  

(Fig. 5) Gauguin's Human Misery

Van Gogh and Gauguin began to argue more and more. Vincent resented Gauguin because he was popular with women, and Van Gogh’s personality seemed to drive most women away. Vincent also didn’t appreciate how critical Gauguin was of his work. Gauguin was tired of Van Gogh’s mood swings and decided to move back to Paris. Vincent didn’t want to be alone again and actually wanted Gauguin to say. In a move of desperation, Van Gogh confronted Gauguin with a cut-throat razor. Paul Gauguin got away from Vincent and spent the night in a hotel and did not return to the Yellow House. Van Gogh was so upset by this that he cut off his own earlobe. Vincent almost bled to death but he was luckily found and taken to the hospital. However, Gauguin left to Paris without visiting Vincent again. Vincent took his ear to a prostitute he fancied living in Arles. It is believed he did this to show his affection.

    Van Gogh painted a couple self-portraits of his head wrapped in bandages after his ear got cut off. Van Gogh loved portraits, because he felt so much emotion could be found in portraiture, and that a portrait was like music. In one of his self-portraits, it shows a Japanese print he collected hanging on the wall behind him, as his head is wrapped in bandages from cutting off a piece of his ear (Fig. 6). Vincent was a very secluded person, but he did make a friend while he lived in Arles. One of Vincent’s only friends while living in Arles, was Joseph Roulin. He was a postman by trade and had very conservative viewpoints. Vincent painted a portrait of him and attempted to capture his straightforward personality, so he simplified the colors in the painting and used basic contours in the clothing (Fig. 7). Vincent would drink absinthe with Joseph Roulin in a local cafe, and some believe that added to Van Gogh’s insanity, but the truth is no one knows exactly was wrong with him. When Van Gogh cut off his ear it was Roulin that found him and took him to the hospital.

(Fig. 6) Van Gogh Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear

   

(Fig. 7) Portait of Joseph Roulin Van Gogh's Friend

(Fig. 8) Ward in the Hospital

While Van Gogh was in the hospital in Arles and healed he continued to paint. He painted the other patients in a hospital he stayed as shown in his painting ‘Ward in the Hospital’ (Fig. 8).  Van Gogh also painted his Doctor Felix Rey (Fig. 9). By comparing the painting to a photo of Doctor Rey there are some subtle differences, such as the roundness of his face and these were most likely by request of Dr. Rey (Fig. 10). The Hospital staff would take him back to his Yellow House and look at his artwork, and then brought Vincent back to the hospital. Van Gogh made progress, but he was still a concern. Eventually, the people of Arles became concerned about Van Gogh because he would have outbursts, and do crazy things like drink a whole bottle of turpentine. They ended up signing a petition saying he was dangerous. After this moment Van Gogh was in and out of the hospital in Arles, but he eventually checked himself into an asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence (about fifteen miles outside of Arles) to address his mental illness.

(Fig. 9) Portrait of Dr. Rey by Van Gogh

  

(Fig. 10) Photograph of Dr. Rey

When Van Gogh was in the asylum in Saint-Remy he painted arguably his most famous painting, ‘Starry Night.’ He was inspired to paint it by looking out at the night sky one night in 1889. The painting also contains elements created from his own imagination. The sky has swirling stars and lights containing a lot of cosmic energy, and the flame-like cypress tree in the foreground is very dynamic. Some suggest the cypress tree represents the bridge between life and death. The cypress tree could be interpreted as protecting the village below or as being a bad omen. 

(Fig. 11) Starry Night

   Van Gogh lived about one year after painting ‘Starry Night.’ He moved to another asylum north of Paris. One day he was frustrated while painting outside, and he shot himself with a pistol outside. He didn’t die right away, so his brother Theo came to be with him in the last few days of his life. Van Gogh struggled with mental illness and ultimately died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

Van Gogh lived a brilliant life full of color and madness. During his life, he only sold one painting for a couple of reasons. First, his artwork was not valued or seen by many people while he was alive. Also, Van Gogh was not a salesman. His personality and mental illness made it difficult to get along with people. Van Gogh made few friends and the friends he did have found him difficult at times. Today many people love his artwork and it sells for millions of dollars. However, many people today do not like Van Gogh because he was not a trained traditional artist in the French Academy. People love Van Gogh not because of his paintings alone, but because of the story behind the paintings. His paintings show a raw level of emotion and brilliant color that makes his work stand out as poetic and profound. Van Gogh himself wanted to leave the world better than he found it and once wrote, “I don’t care much whether I live a longer or shorter time. The world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain debt toward it, because I have walked on this earth for thirty years, and out of gratitude I want to leave some souvenir…” Van Gogh certainly did leave a souvenir with his paintings. His legacy will be remembered as a man you brought brilliant color into the world as he struggled through mental illness. 

Citations

1. George Roddam, This is Van Gogh (United Kingdom: Laurence King Publishing, 2015), 48. 
2. Roddam, This is, 48.
3. Roddam, This is, 48.
4. Susan Goldman Rubin. The Yellow House: Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin Side by Side. (The Art Institute of Chicago: harry N. Abram, Inc. Publishers, 2001.), 4
5. Roddam, This is, 30
6. Rubin, Yellow House, 4 
7. Martin Bailey. Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2016), 107.
8. Bailey, Studio, 107. 
9. Bailey, Studio, 107. 
10. “Vincent Van Gogh Biography.” The Biography. com website. A&E Television Networks. Last modified August 14, 2017. Accessed April 28, 2018. https://www.biography.com/people/vincent-van-gogh-9515695.
11. Roddam, This is, 62.
12. Bailey, Studio, 134. 
13. Biography. Com, “Vincent Van Gogh.”
14. Bailey, Studio, 135. 
15. Steven Naifeh and Gregory Smith. Van Gogh: The Life. (New York: Random House, 2011.), 628
16. Roddam, This is, 59.
17. Naifeh, The Life, p.628
18. Roddam, This is, 59.
19. Roddam, This is, 43.
20. Bailey, Studio, 161.
21. Bailey, Studio, 164.
22. Bailey, Studio, 165.
23. Roddam, This is, 60.
24. Biography. Com, “Vincent Van Gogh.”
25. Roddam, This is, 64.
26. Biography. Com, “Vincent Van Gogh.”
27. Biography. Com, “Vincent Van Gogh.”
28. Stone, Irving. Forward to Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh. (New York: Penguin Group, 1937.) i.

Bibliography

Bailey, Martin. Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence. London: Frances 

Lincoln Limited, 2016.

Biography. com. “Vincent Van Gogh Biography.” The Biography. com website. A&E Television Networks. Last modified August 14, 2017. Accessed April 28, 2018. https:// www.biography.com/people/vincent-van-gogh-9515695. 

Greenberg, Jan and Sandra Jordan. Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist. New York: 

Random House, 2001.

Muhlberger, Richard. What Makes a Van Gogh a Van Gogh?: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Penguin Group, 1993. 

Naifeh, Steven, and Gregory Smith. Van Gogh: The Life. New York: Random House, 2011. 

Roddam, George. This is Van Gogh. United Kingdom: Laurence King Publishing, 2015.

Rubin, Susan Goldman. The Yellow House: Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin Side by Side. The Art Institute of Chicago: harry N. Abram, Inc. Publishers, 2001. 

Stone, Irving. Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh. New York: 

Penguin Group, 1937.


Images:

Fig. 0 Van Gogh Self Portrait https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/van-gogh-self-portrait.html
Fig. 1 The Night Cafe https://www.vincentvangogh.org/the-night-cafe.jsp
Fig. 2 Van Gogh's Bedroom https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/1865/van-gogh-s-bedrooms
Fig. 3 Sunflowers https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/sunflowerindex.html
Fig. 4 Red Vineyards https://www.vincentvangogh.org/the-red-vineyard.jsp
Fig. 5 Gauguin's Human Misery https://www.artsy.net/artwork/paul-gauguin-the-wine-harvest-human-misery
Fig. 6 Van Gogh Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear 
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/avant-garde-france/post-impressionism/a/van-gogh-self-portrait-with-bandaged-ear
Fig. 7 Portrait of Joseph Roulin Van Gogh's Friend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roulin_Family
Fig. 8 Ward in the Hospital https://www.wikiart.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/ward-in-the-hospital-at-arles-1889
Fig. 9 Portrait of Dr. Rey by Van Gogh http://www.dailyartmagazine.com/van-gogh-felix-rey/
Fig. 10 Photograph of Dr. Rey http://www.vggallery.com/photos/rey.htm
Fig. 11 Starry Night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night