Still Life: Vase with Irises against a Yellow Background, 1890, Rijksmuseum, 92 x 73
cm
|
Vincent van Gogh 1886-1888 Vincent was rejected at art school but was offered a place in the beginner’s
class, he turns that down, and moves in with his brother Theo who introduces Vincent to Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Degas.
Seeing their paintings influences Vincent to use brighter colours. In the winter van Gogh meets Paul Gauguin and Pere
Tanguy, both live a big influence on Vincent in the future. 1887 Exhibits in the
Cafe du Tambourine along with Gauguin, Bernard and Toulouse-Lautrec. While in Paris Vincent paints over 200 pictures in the two
years he lived their with his Brother at the Rue Lepic adjacent to Boulevard De Clichy, this is called the artist quarter's,
because along here lived: -
Dagas at No 6 ,
Renoir No 11, John Russell No 73, Cormon No 104,
Seurat No 128,
Signac No 130
|
VINCENT was born on March 30th, 1853, in the rectory of Zundert in
Brabant. His father was a quiet dignified ordinary man, from whom Vincent inherited nothing but a burning desire to enter the Church. This desire
forms the background to our first act. His mother gave him his appearance, his sensibility and such powers as had to serve him through life. Her
portrait suggests that she was a peasant, but she belonged, like her husband, to a cultured middle class. Vincent looked like a peasant, who by
an unkindly trick of fate had become a townsman, and perhaps for this reason he never appeared to best advantage. He was starved. His drama is a
drama of starvation. Vincent longed for almost everything a man can long for, and it so happened that the objects of his desires did not appear
to him to be altogether unattainable. In the light in which he regarded them, his desires were as legitimate and reasonable as his right to earn
a daily wage. The first article of his faith was: I believe. This faith was not a toy for his leisure, but Vincent's only demand upon life. This
need was far more imperious than any material demand of his physical senses. As a result he starved all his life. From the moment he became
conscious of his existence the pangs of hunger never left him. The world beat him as Don Quixote was beaten, but the world's blows and his
parries were more actual than the deeds of Cervantes' hero. But here is no phantasy: Vincent's illusions were almost tangible. Almost! The thread
of probability was drawn so taut, the motive power was so great, that even after his downfall his starved desires remain a force as immortal and
as noble as the aspirations of the Spanish grandee.
| 