Why Did Vincent Van Gogh Die
Wyatt A. Pipkin
Professor Jennifer J. Chase
Hum2250
28 February 2016
DO YOU EVEN VAN GOGH, BRO?
Pipkin 1
On July 27th 1890 Vincent Van Gogh died a fairly young man, completely crazy and lost in his own mind. I want to dive deeper into the life of this brilliant, yet completely crazy man, who has produced more than 2,100 artworks, made up of some 1,300 watercolors and 860 oil paintings(Vincent Van Gogh Biography, quotes & paintings, The Art History Archive; retrieved 12 July 2011), It remains a mystery what exactly drove him to this point, who and what were some of the people and things that …show more content…
were some of his biggest inspirations that made him into the artist that we all know, and go into a deeper understanding of possibly what was his last painting, “Wheatfield with Crows”
While it is widely believed that Van Gogh killed himself with a revolver shot to the chest, there was never a revolver recovered, there were no witnesses to his apparent suicide, and they are still unsure where in the chest he actually shot himself.
He was only 37 at the time and had been dealing with years of terrible anxiety and bouts of mental illness, leading up to this time in his life some of his most famous works were created, “Wheatfield with Crows”, “Starry Starry Night”, and “Starry Night over the Rhone” being just a few of such works. To this day there is no absolute decision on what exactly Van Gogh’s illnesses were, and the kind of effect it had on his work, it has been argued over for centuries and more than 150 psychiatrists have attempted to diagnose him with over 30 different illnesses, ranging from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, syphilis, poisoning from swallowing paint, and epilepsy. All could have been worsened by his borderline alcoholism, thanks to his close friend …show more content…
absinthe.
Pipkin 2
Some of Van Gogh’s main inspirations were his uncle Cent, who helped him obtain a job with the art dealer Goupil & Cie, and after Van Gogh finished his training he was transferred to London, at this point in his life he was happy, he was out earning his dad, but it did not last more than a year before he would move to Paris, but it didn’t last long ether.
He then traveled to Brussels, and following his brother’s advice to take up art as a career, he would paint mostly with dark colors, and had a hard time selling his art until after seeing Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli’s work and he adopted a brighter array of colors and was living with his brother. In February of 1888. Feeling bored of Paris, he moved to Arles leaving the more than 200 paintings he had created in just two years while he was there. When his soon to be friend Gauguin visited Van Gogh showed him much kindness and asked him to stay and work with him, but although Van Gogh admired him, Gauguin was domineering and wouldn’t treat Van Gogh as an equal and the relationship quickly crumbled, at this point the only one Van Gogh had left was his
brother.
“I should like to paint portraits which appear after a century to people living then as apparitions. By which I mean that I do not endeavor to achieve this through photographic resemblance but my means of our impassioned emotions – that is to say using our knowledge and modern taste for color as a means of arriving at the expression and the intensification of the character” –Van Gogh (Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007, Monet to Dali) It was when he was at the end of his life when he produced some of his best works, “Crows in a Cornfield” is one that I want to dig into, Van Gogh had said while he was in the mental hospital, looking out of his window at the cornfields, that he did not need to go out of his way to try and express extreme sadness and loneliness. This is very evident in “Wheatfield with Crows” Hulsker, a painter said that it Pipkin 3 was “a doom filled painting with threatening skies and ill-omened crows” (Hulsker, 1990, 478-479). For me there is many more “could be” meanings of this painting, a large gathering of crows is called a murder, and they are flying away from him possibly his seeing his life fading away, and we are not able to tell whether the sky is just black, or black with crows, there is also a road, possibly him thinking about his road ending. What I get from this last painting is a very deep despair and hurt, and if you just were to look at it as a picture you may not see that but if viewed through the eyes of an artist you can see the colors, shapes and the way he painted it describes deep emotion. Despite him being insane and plagued with sickness and disease he managed to create great works of art that are invaluable and known worldwide.
Works Cited
Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition: Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Global Perspective. New York: McGraw. 2011. Print.
Professor Jennifer J. Chase
Hum2250
28 February 2016
DO YOU EVEN VAN GOGH, BRO?
Pipkin 1
On July 27th 1890 Vincent Van Gogh died a fairly young man, completely crazy and lost in his own mind. I want to dive deeper into the life of this brilliant, yet completely crazy man, who has produced more than 2,100 artworks, made up of some 1,300 watercolors and 860 oil paintings(Vincent Van Gogh Biography, quotes & paintings, The Art History Archive; retrieved 12 July 2011), It remains a mystery what exactly drove him to this point, who and what were some of the people and things that …show more content…
were some of his biggest inspirations that made him into the artist that we all know, and go into a deeper understanding of possibly what was his last painting, “Wheatfield with Crows”
While it is widely believed that Van Gogh killed himself with a revolver shot to the chest, there was never a revolver recovered, there were no witnesses to his apparent suicide, and they are still unsure where in the chest he actually shot himself.
He was only 37 at the time and had been dealing with years of terrible anxiety and bouts of mental illness, leading up to this time in his life some of his most famous works were created, “Wheatfield with Crows”, “Starry Starry Night”, and “Starry Night over the Rhone” being just a few of such works. To this day there is no absolute decision on what exactly Van Gogh’s illnesses were, and the kind of effect it had on his work, it has been argued over for centuries and more than 150 psychiatrists have attempted to diagnose him with over 30 different illnesses, ranging from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, syphilis, poisoning from swallowing paint, and epilepsy. All could have been worsened by his borderline alcoholism, thanks to his close friend …show more content…
absinthe.
Pipkin 2
Some of Van Gogh’s main inspirations were his uncle Cent, who helped him obtain a job with the art dealer Goupil & Cie, and after Van Gogh finished his training he was transferred to London, at this point in his life he was happy, he was out earning his dad, but it did not last more than a year before he would move to Paris, but it didn’t last long ether.
He then traveled to Brussels, and following his brother’s advice to take up art as a career, he would paint mostly with dark colors, and had a hard time selling his art until after seeing Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli’s work and he adopted a brighter array of colors and was living with his brother. In February of 1888. Feeling bored of Paris, he moved to Arles leaving the more than 200 paintings he had created in just two years while he was there. When his soon to be friend Gauguin visited Van Gogh showed him much kindness and asked him to stay and work with him, but although Van Gogh admired him, Gauguin was domineering and wouldn’t treat Van Gogh as an equal and the relationship quickly crumbled, at this point the only one Van Gogh had left was his
brother.
“I should like to paint portraits which appear after a century to people living then as apparitions. By which I mean that I do not endeavor to achieve this through photographic resemblance but my means of our impassioned emotions – that is to say using our knowledge and modern taste for color as a means of arriving at the expression and the intensification of the character” –Van Gogh (Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007, Monet to Dali) It was when he was at the end of his life when he produced some of his best works, “Crows in a Cornfield” is one that I want to dig into, Van Gogh had said while he was in the mental hospital, looking out of his window at the cornfields, that he did not need to go out of his way to try and express extreme sadness and loneliness. This is very evident in “Wheatfield with Crows” Hulsker, a painter said that it Pipkin 3 was “a doom filled painting with threatening skies and ill-omened crows” (Hulsker, 1990, 478-479). For me there is many more “could be” meanings of this painting, a large gathering of crows is called a murder, and they are flying away from him possibly his seeing his life fading away, and we are not able to tell whether the sky is just black, or black with crows, there is also a road, possibly him thinking about his road ending. What I get from this last painting is a very deep despair and hurt, and if you just were to look at it as a picture you may not see that but if viewed through the eyes of an artist you can see the colors, shapes and the way he painted it describes deep emotion. Despite him being insane and plagued with sickness and disease he managed to create great works of art that are invaluable and known worldwide.
Works Cited
Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition: Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Global Perspective. New York: McGraw. 2011. Print.