Random Facts About Tortured, Miserable Life of Vincent van Gogh (15 items)

• 

  (#2) He Only Sold One Painting During His Lifetime

  In 1889, Vincent van Gogh was invited to exhibit at Les XX, an annual art show in Brussels sponsored by 20 local artists who displayed their own work as well as the work of 20 invitees. Vincent submitted three landscapes, two sunflower studies and a painting, titled The Red Vineyard. Anna Boch, the sister of a friend of Van Gogh, Eugene Boch, paid 400 francs for the painting (about $80 in 1890).  Because Van Gogh's work was greeted by many in the art community with derision, Anna wished to encourage him with the purchase. Although Van Gogh may have sold some drawings and works unofficially, this is the only publicly recorded sale that occurred in his lifetime. Today, The Red Vineyard hangs in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, having been nationalized from a Russian collector after the revolution.
• 

  (#6) A Postcard Offers Clues To A Hillside Van Gogh Might Have Painted In His Final Hours

  Van Gogh's unfinished painting Tree Roots, depicting tree trunks and roots on a hillside, was likely his final work, perhaps created the day he perished, July 29, 1890, in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, France. Art historians who examined a postcard of the area announced in July 2020 that they think they found the exact spot depicted in the painting.

  The postcard, dated circa 1905, was first noticed by Wouter van der Veen, scientific director of the Institut Van Gogh, which is in in Auvers-sur-Oise; he found it in a collection of postcards borrowed from someone. Researchers, after studying Tree Roots, the postcard, and the hillside in its current state, said they believe the postcard site, next to a road, was the spot in the painting. 

  Van Gogh Museum researcher Teio Meedendorp said the hillside was about 492 feet from the Auberge Ravoux, the inn where van Gogh spent his final days, so the artist probably walked past it many times. Dominique-Charles Janssens, owner of the Institute Van Gogh, said that "45 to 50 percent" of the growth is still in place.

  “[T]he overgrowth on the postcard shows very clear similarities to the shape of the roots on van Gogh’s painting,” Meedendorp said. “That this is his last artwork renders it all the more exceptional, and even dramatic."
• 

  (#7) His Therapist Made Off With Millions Of Dollars Worth Of Van Gogh's Art When He Died

  Vincent van Gogh spent the last 90 days of his life in the small French town of Auvers-Sur-Oise, 20 miles from Paris. His brother Theo sent him to Auvers based on the recommendations from other artists because of a doctor who lived there by the name of Paul Gachet. Dr. Gachet was a physician and devotee of homeopathic medicine, and Theo was hoping that he could help his brother achieve some semblance of stability and happiness. Gachet was also an artist and art collector who traded his services for paintings from the likes of Cezanne, Renoir, and Van Gogh, who famously painted his portrait. Unfortunately, although he became quite friendly with Van Gogh in his last days, Gachet was unable to prevent his suicide in July of 1890. After the funeral of Van Gogh, who was buried in Auvers, in the town cemetery, Theo van Gogh invited the small circle of mourners back to Vincent's lodgings and suggested they each take a painting in remembrance of his brother. When it was their turn, Paul Gachet and his son gathered up as many paintings as they could carry. Although these paintings would be privately kept by Gachet's son for many years, he ultimately donated most of them to the Louvre, and today they make up the bulk of the Van Gogh exhibition at the Musee D'Orsay.  
• 

  (#9) Mental Illness And Suicide Were Common In The Van Gogh Family

  Vincent van Gogh's parents had six children: three sons and three daughters. Of these six, Vincent struggled with mental illness for his entire adult life and ended it in suicide. Theo van Gogh died under mysterious circumstances that are historically obscure but may have been related to syphilis, suicide, or mental illness. The third brother, Cornelius, was 14 years younger than Vincent and lived in South Africa. After his marriage disintegrated, he enlisted during the Boer-British conflict, was captured, and committed suicide at 33. Wilhemina van Gogh would spend the last four decades of her life in a mental institution, suffering from conditions that were similar to Vincent's maladies.  
• 

  (#1) He Cut Off His Ear Lobe In An Attempt To Win Back A Friend

  In the summer of 1888, Vincent van Gogh left the city of Paris and headed to the Provence region of France. Supported financially by his art-dealer brother Theo, he ultimately settled in the ancient town of Arles, where he rented a large yellow house and began to dream of establishing an artist colony where he and other like-minded painters could live and create. Theo and Vincent were acquainted with Paul Gauguin, another cutting-edge impressionist that both men admired professionally. It took some persuasion, but in October of 1888, Gauguin agreed to move to the Yellow House, and initially the two artists functioned reasonably well together. Gauguin was a streetwise, former stock exchange worker, and van Gogh was a troubled and talented young man. Unfortunately, the acerbic and condescending Gauguin and the sensitive, needy Vincent van Gogh quickly began to get on each other's nerves. What little money they had was consumed by drinking and visits to nearby brothels. Eventually, sensing correctly that Gauguin was preparing to abandon him and their "artistic colony," Van Gogh descended into drunken agitation and hostility.

  According to Gauguin, on December 23, after another savage argument, he moved out and checked into a hotel when Van Gogh threatened him with a knife. Supposedly, Van Gogh sliced off much of his left ear lobe, walked to a familiar brothel and presented the bloody appendage to a prostitute named Rachel, who fainted on the spot. Because Gauguin's self-serving account is the only perspective that remains, speculation continues around what exactly happened and who exactly cut off Van Gogh's ear. A recent theory is that Gauguin, an accomplished fencer, actually lopped off the ear during the pair's final argument. Whatever the case, Van Gogh evaded police on the night of the 23rd but, because they knew of his eccentric identity, they eventually made it to the Yellow House, where they discovered him in his blood soaked bed. Van Gogh was taken to the hospital and eventually committed himself to a mental asylum. Gauguin noticed the police activity when he returned and left Arles on Christmas Day, informing Theo of his brother's condition while en route to Paris.

  Although the two artists would never see each other again, they would continue to correspond. With his typical arrogance, within weeks, Gauguin sent Van Gogh a letter requesting that Vincent give him back paintings that he had previously gifted.  
• 

  (#13) HIs Sister-In-Law Helped Popularize Van Gogh

  Johanna "Jo" van Gogh-Bonger was born in Amsterdam in 1862. She was introduced by her brother to Theo van Gogh who immediately proposed, a proposal that was eventually accepted in 1889. In fact, her marriage and subsequent delivery of a son may have been the main factors in Vincent's decision to commit suicide, believing that Theo, with a growing family, would soon be unable to support him. With Theo's death shortly after Vincent's, it was left to Jo van Gogh to make something of the then-worthless artistic legacy and collected letters of both Vincent and Theo. Through her promotion of Vincent's work with prominent art dealers and her publication of Letters To Theo, a public fascination with the work and life of Vincent van Gogh began - a fascination that has never subsided. With her death, her son Vincent Willem, named after his illustrious uncle, continued her work and established the foundation that is responsible for the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking