Few artist names are as recognizable (and as difficult to pronounce) as Vincent van Gogh. The Dutch painter’s name is synonymous with the art movement known as post-impressionism, and van Gogh made an incredible impact on the art world despite an abbreviated life. For all of the beautiful color, expression, mood, and extravagant wonder that filled his canvas, van Gogh struggled with mental illness. Despite these trials, he was an engine of creativity, and the strokes of his brush bestowed upon the world such gifts as “The Starry Night,” “Vase With Fifteen Sunflowers,” “Wheatfield With Crows,” “Irises,” “Café Terrace at Night,” and dozens of mesmerizing self-portraits. These seven facts explore the fascinating life of this self-made artist.
Van Gogh Started Painting at 27 And Was Mostly Self-Taught
Born March 30, 1853, in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands, Vincent van Gogh arrived at art through a more circuitous route than most of his contemporaries. Although exposed to the art world at a young age by his mother’s interest in watercolors and his work at his uncle’s art dealership in The Hague, van Gogh suffered a nervous breakdown after a failed marriage proposal and instead started studying to become a preacher. It wasn’t until 1880 — after facing another rejection, this time from the evangelical committee itself — that van Gogh took up the pencil and paintbrush and began experimenting with art at the age of 27. Many of van Gogh’s early works were actually drawings; he believed the art form to be “the root of everything.”
However, these drawings, some of which were masterpieces in their own right, were largely eclipsed by the incredible oil paintings that he created over the next decade. This body of work, considered by some to be one of the greatest ever created, eventually earned van Gogh a spot among the pantheon of history’s greatest artists.
Van Gogh Created 900 Paintings in Less Than 10 Years
Seemingly making up for lost time, van Gogh painted around 900 paintings from November 1881 until his death in July 1890 at the age of 37. Van Gogh often depicted subjects like peasants or farmers (one of the most famous examples being “The Potato Eaters”), or even himself, because he was too poor to pay any models. Flowers were also a frequent subject.
Although museum-goers can glimpse some of van Gogh’s most famous paintings crafted during these incredible years of creativity, many of the artist’s works were destroyed either after his death or during World War II. In addition to these lost works, another 85 van Gogh pieces are considered “missing” to this day.
Van Gogh May Have Sold Only One Painting in his Lifetime
Although a number of theories suggest van Gogh sold or bartered a few paintings, the only verified account of a painting being sold during his lifetime was when “The Red Vineyard” sold at a Brussels exhibition for 400 Belgian francs in March 1890, only a few months before the artist’s death. Although a small amount today, those francs amounted to essentially two months’ living expenses in 1890.
Overall, van Gogh was famously underappreciated as an artist during his lifetime. The popular conception of him is as a solitary genius who was shunned by the art community at large, and his combative and antisocial personality didn’t ingratiate himself to others. However, evidence exists that van Gogh was beginning to gain wider recognition a couple of years before his untimely death. An article published in the January 1890 issue of Mercure de France acknowledged van Gogh’s detractors but noted that he was ultimately understood by “his brothers, the true artists.”
Van Gogh Had an Intense Friendship With Famous Painter Paul Gauguin
Much like van Gogh, Paul Gauguin was also unappreciated during his lifetime, but gained fame after his death for his inventive use of color, among other things. Gauguin arrived in the French town of Arles in October 1888 at the behest of Theo van Gogh — Gauguin’s art dealer and Vincent’s younger brother and benefactor. Theo promised Gauguin a small sum to look after his brother, and the artist saw the opportunity as a way to raise money for his return trip to Martinique, an island in the Caribbean that served as Gauguin’s muse. Vincent, however, had other ideas, and hoped Gauguin would stay and be the leader of a new artistic community based in Arles.
The two settled in a small house in the center of town, immortalized by van Gogh’s painting “The Yellow House,” and both artists painted similar subjects, developing a sort of rivalry. Gauguin even captured van Gogh in the creative process in his portrait titled “The Painter of Sunflowers.” However, van Gogh’s increasingly erratic behavior caused Gauguin to eventually flee Arles, but not before one of the most dramatic moments in art history unfolded. Speaking of which…
The Story About Van Gogh’s Ear Is Still a Mystery
When people think of van Gogh, their minds usually meander among his masterworks, such as “The Starry Night” and “Sunflowers,” along with the infamous incident involving his severed ear. Today the story is filled with hyperbole and hearsay, and that’s largely because no one is exactly sure what took place on the evening of December 23, 1888. What we do know is that a fight erupted between Gauguin and van Gogh, and the latter suffered what some historians have called a “cataclysmic breakdown.”
Gauguin’s first-hand account says van Gogh approached him with a razor before pausing and retreating back to their home. Understandably freaked out by the incident, Gauguin decided to check himself into a hotel and call it a night. It was at some point soon after this altercation that van Gogh took the razor to himself and mutilated his left ear. Some reports say the troubled artist only severed his ear lobe, but further analysis has uncovered that van Gogh in fact removed his entire ear, leaving only a piece of the lobe behind. The story goes that van Gogh then delivered the ear to a prostitute before collapsing at his home in a pool of blood. Although van Gogh did travel to Arles’ Red Light District that night, historians believe that he actually delivered the ear to a cleaner — not a prostitute. The details of the event will always remain hazy, but the dramatic moment is a powerful reminder of the mental illness van Gogh suffered from for his entire life.
Van Gogh painted “Starry Night” While in an Asylum
That December night was a bloody tragedy for van Gogh, but it was only a chapter in the life of an artist who experienced dismal lows followed by unprecedented artistic highs. While staying at the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy, France — recovering from the ear incident — van Gogh painted roughly 150 paintings at a pace of about one painting every other day. Sometime in mid-June of 1889, he painted his most well-known masterpiece: “The Starry Night.” The Dutch master was inspired by the view outside his second-story asylum window, which he had painted several times before. Because he couldn’t paint in the dark, he actually painted the view from memory during the day.
The painting takes drastic departures from the actual view from his window, with the most obvious being that the dominant cypress trees in the foreground were actually much smaller in real life. Van Gogh also couldn’t glimpse a village from his window, and instead drew an idealized village (as it doesn’t resemble nearby Saint-Rémy).
The night sky itself is also an amalgamation of nighttime and early dawn views, and while the swirls throughout the heavens might seem like a clear example of artistic license, some art historians argue that van Gogh — who was passionate about astronomy — would’ve likely known about the swirling depiction of spiral galaxies found in popular French astronomy books of the day.
Vincent’s Sister-in-Law Made Him Famous
Theo van Gogh was Vincent’s constant companion and benefactor throughout his life. Theo supported his brother’s art and also sought care for Vincent’s mental illness. However, Theo himself wasn’t exactly a paragon of perfect health, and after Vincent’s suicide on July 29, 1890, Theo developed complications from syphilis and died only six months after his brother, at age 33. It’s very possible Vincent van Gogh would have remained a little-known Dutch post-impressionist if not for the tireless work of Theo’s wife and widow, Johanna “Jo” van Gogh-Bonger.
After her husband’s death, Jo inherited Vincent’s paintings, and spent the rest of her life fulfilling her late husband’s wish to promote his brother’s art. Jo made strategic sales to collections that were visible to the public, and in 1905, she secured a Vincent van Gogh retrospective at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, which showcased more than 480 works. As Vincent’s popularity rose, she also published, in 1914, a collection of letters written between him and her husband, which only raised appreciation for the artist. After Jo’s death in 1925, her son carried on her work and became one of the founding members of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.