The most famous paintings by Van Gogh. Artist Vincent van Gogh and his severed ear. A unique talent gifted by nature

When 37-year-old Vincent Van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, his work was virtually unknown. Today his paintings are worth eye-popping sums and decorate best museums peace.

125 years after the death of the great Dutch painter, the time has come to learn more about him and dispel some of the myths with which his biography, like the entire history of art, is full.

He changed several jobs before becoming an artist

The son of a minister, Van Gogh began working at age 16. His uncle took him on as a trainee as an art dealer in The Hague. He had occasion to travel to London and Paris, where the company's branches were located. In 1876 he was fired. After that he worked for some time school teacher in England, then as a bookstore salesman. From 1878 he served as a preacher in Belgium. Van Gogh was in need, he had to sleep on the floor, but less than a year later he was fired from this post. Only after this did he finally become an artist and did not change his occupation again. In this field he became famous, however, posthumously.

Van Gogh's career as an artist was short

In 1881, the self-taught Dutch artist returned to the Netherlands, where he devoted himself to painting. He was supported financially and materially by his younger brother Theodore, a successful art dealer. In 1886, the brothers settled in Paris, and these two years in the French capital turned out to be fateful. Van Gogh took part in exhibitions of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists; he began to use a light and bright palette and experiment with brush stroke techniques. The artist spent the last two years of his life in the south of France, where he created a number of his most famous paintings.

In his entire ten-year career, he sold only a few of his more than 850 paintings. His drawings (about 1,300 of them remained) were then unclaimed.

Most likely he didn't cut off his own ear.

In February 1888, after living in Paris for two years, Van Gogh moved to the south of France, to the city of Arles, where he hoped to found a community of artists. He was accompanied by Paul Gauguin, with whom he became friends in Paris. The officially accepted version of events is as follows:

On the night of December 23, 1888, they quarreled and Gauguin left. Van Gogh, armed with a razor, pursued his friend, but, not catching up, returned home and, in frustration, partially cut off his left ear, then wrapped it in newspaper and gave it to some prostitute.

In 2009, two German scientists published a book in which they suggested that Gauguin, being a good swordsman, cut off part of Van Gogh's ear with a saber during a duel. According to this theory, Van Gogh, in the name of friendship, agreed to hide the truth, otherwise Gauguin would have faced prison.

The most famous paintings were painted by him in a psychiatric clinic

In May 1889, Van Gogh asked for help from mental asylum Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, located in a former monastery of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France. The artist was initially diagnosed with epilepsy, but examination also revealed bipolar disorder, alcoholism and metabolic disorders. Treatment consisted mainly of baths. He remained in the hospital for a year and painted a number of landscapes there. Over one hundred paintings from this period include some of his most famous works, such as " Starlight Night"(acquired by the New York Museum contemporary art in 1941) and “Irises” (purchased by an industrialist from Australia in 1987 for a then-record sum of $53.9 million)

One of the most bright artists XIX century, whose name is known to all fans of painting, is Vincent Willem Van Gogh (03/30/1853 – 07/29/1890). His popularity, according to sociologists, is comparable to the fame of Pablo Picasso. Although the facets of their creativity still differ. The genius of the Great Leonardo covers many branches of knowledge; Picasso was known not only as a painter, but also as a talented sculptor, graphic artist, and designer. Van Gogh devoted himself entirely to painting. Most famous paintings He painted Van Gogh with the titles that can be found on our website in just ten years of his creative activity.

The post-impressionist artist from the Netherlands, who never managed to receive a special education, lived for 37 years. He created a lot paintings, some of them after his death were recognized as real masterpieces and included in the list of the most expensive paintings in the world.

It cannot be said about Van Gogh that he was far from the world of art until he took up painting seriously. After leaving school, young Vincent worked at the art company Goupil and Co., co-owned by his uncle, selling paintings. For seven years Van Gogh was a successful art dealer and often visited the Hague Museum. In 1872, he began to conduct active correspondence with his younger brother Theo. In 1873 he was promoted and transferred to London, where his career was ruined by unrequited love. After bitter disappointment, Van Gogh left for Belgium, to the mining village of Borinage, to serve as a preacher there, and then follow in the footsteps of his father and enter the Evangelical School. However, upon returning, he learns that tuition has already begun to be charged and indignantly refuses this opportunity. That's when Van Gogh began to paint. For a whole year he attended classes at the Royal Academy fine arts, and then decided to return to his parents, because he believed that he could study on his own.

The artist's character was not easy. His temper, constant overwork and alcohol abuse, mental turmoil influenced his last years life of epileptic psychosis, to which he had a predisposition. The story of the cut off earlobe has several options. But she is the one who counts a clear sign mental illness, which subsequently contributed to the deterioration mental health Van Gogh, which led him to suicide.

Van Gogh worked with ecstasy. He was a real workaholic. In two hours he could paint a painting that would have taken other artists much longer. Controversy still rages around his name, and the legend of poverty and madness, created by the German gallery owner and art critic Julius Meyer-Graefe, is perceived by many as a real historical fact.

In fact, Van Gogh was educated person and read a lot. He graduated from a prestigious gymnasium and was fluent in three foreign languages. For erudition and developed thinking in the society of artists he was even called Spinoza.

Of course, Van Gogh’s throwing did not please the family, but he was never left without financial support. The artist’s grandfather was a famous bookbinder of ancient documents and manuscripts, and carried out orders for several European courts. His uncles were famous and wealthy people. Three of them were engaged in the sale of paintings and other forms of art, and one was an admiral who headed the port in Antwerp. Young Vincent lived in his house when he studied in a painting class at the Academy of Arts during the day and attended a private school in the evenings. In fact, the artist was a rather pragmatic person, he assessed his capabilities quite realistically and devoted himself entirely to his work. He learned to draw using the latest textbooks, which were sent to him by his uncles, real art experts.

In 1886, Van Gogh, on the recommendation of his younger brother Theo, left for Paris. It was Theo, who successfully sold art, who advised the artist to engage in joyful and light painting. He introduces him to critics, artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir and others. An agreement was concluded between the brothers that in exchange for Vincent's paintings, Theo undertakes to pay him 220 francs monthly and also provides him best canvases, paints and brushes. In addition, the younger brother took on all the expenses associated with Vincent's treatment and bought him books, clothes, and necessary reproductions. In this regard, the artist never needed money; he even collected Japanese prints.

Van Gogh was a permanent member of the most prestigious art exhibitions, his paintings were shown by fashionable and successful art dealers at so-called “house shows”. Vincent's sudden suicide interrupted the methodically calculated “path of glory” that he had already set on by that time. The younger brother, in whose arms the great artist was dying, could not survive him and died six months later. From their friendly collaboration, a lot of paintings remained, real masterpieces that were appreciated in the twentieth century.

Some time after his death, the paintings painted by the artist were recognized as truly brilliant and priceless. Among the many paintings he painted, there are the most famous ones, the names of which are familiar even to those who are far from art at all. His paintings are characterized by some features, namely:

• dynamic thick strokes;
• bright, in some cases almost “open” colors;
• bold, experimental color combinations.

"Potato Eaters"

Vincent Van Gogh painted his first serious painting back in 1885. It was not created “in one breath”; it was preceded by a difficult preliminary work. The artist completed 12 sketches for the canvas, which he subsequently destroyed.

The painting shows peasant family de Grootov, who after a difficult working day gathered at the table to have dinner by the light of a kerosene lamp. There is only one dish on the table - baked potatoes and cups of barley coffee. The tired faces of the peasants, their large, rough hands. The color palette of this work is very sparse, but unusually accurately conveys the atmosphere of peasant life.

Some researchers of the artist’s work argued that this painting is an undisguised satire on people who are not even aware of their ignorance. But in his letters, Van Gogh spoke with great respect about this family, their honesty and simple moral principles. He wanted to show in the picture the steam from hot potatoes and tired peasants busy eating, and also to evoke a feeling of compassion in the viewer.

"Self-portrait with a bandaged ear and a pipe"

In January 1889, the artist created this painting with a very strange backstory. It is still impossible to say with certainty whether Van Gogh himself cut off his earlobe or whether it was an accident that occurred during a quarrel with another famous artist- Paul Gauguin. Tired and thoughtful, with a pipe in his mouth, Vincent wrote his work, which truly became his calling card.

"Starlight Night"

The artist painted this picture in 1889, while being treated in a psychiatric hospital in the small town of Saint-Rémy, in French Provence, which Cote d'Azur. The painting depicts a starry sky, which is the most important thing in the artist’s plan. It shows the possibilities of human mental activity, which contribute to a deep understanding of the nature of things, the interweaving of cosmic secrets and earthly cypress trees growing on a hill. The painter clearly demonstrates in the foreground the incomprehensible harmony of the Universe, its mysteries and secrets. And somewhere in the shadow of the twilight he placed city houses and mountains. He subsequently admitted to his brother that the stars were very close to him, he could look at them for a very long time and indulge in dreams.

"Irises"

The painting is considered one of the very last paintings of the great artist. Even though the disease continued to progress, he was still working. In this picture he departs from his usual technique and imbues it with extraordinary lightness and weightlessness. The color scheme he selected allows you to endlessly look at images of irises growing in the field without tension, with a feeling of relaxation and even peace. The influence is obvious here Japanese art, which the artist liked so much, and French impressionism. Such a difficult combination of two various directions in art ensured the painter the complete success of this painting.

"Sunflowers"

Paintings with a variety of sunflowers are very famous among Van Gogh lovers and art connoisseurs. First, in Paris, the artist begins to work on images of cut flowers, and later, in Arles, he paints bouquets in vases. As it became known, he simply wanted to decorate the walls of the house for the arrival of his friend, Paul Gauguin. Gauguin liked the paintings so much that he even purchased two of them for himself.

Even a small acquaintance with the work of this genius artist, who created more than one masterpiece for a very long time a short time, can serve as a significant incentive to make Van Gogh’s paintings with titles much clearer. And this one short life the hardworking master was appreciated by fans of his work.

1. Vincent Willem van Gogh was born in the south of the Netherlands to a Protestant pastor, Theodore van Gogh, and Anna Cornelia, the daughter of a respected bookbinder and bookseller.

2. The parents wanted to name their first child, who was born a year earlier than Vincent and died on the first day, with the same name. In addition to the future artist, the family had five more children.

3. In the family, Vincent was considered a difficult and wayward child, when, outside the family, he showed the opposite traits of his temperament: in the eyes of his neighbors, he was a quiet, friendly and sweet child.

4. Vincent dropped out of school multiple times—he dropped out of school as a child; Later, in an effort to become a pastor like his father, he prepared to take university exams for theology department, but ultimately became disillusioned with his studies and dropped out. Wanting to enroll in an Evangelical school, Vincent considered the fees to be discriminatory and refused to attend. Turning to painting, Van Gogh began attending classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, but dropped out after a year.

5. Van Gogh took up painting when he was already mature man, and in just 10 years he went from a novice artist to a master who changed the idea of ​​fine art.

6. Over the course of 10 years, Vincent Van Gogh created more than 2 thousand works, of which about 860 were oil paintings.

7. Vincent developed a love for art and painting through his work as an art dealer at the large art firm Goupil & Cie, which belonged to his uncle Vincent.

8. Vincent was in love with his cousin Kay Vos-Stricker, who was a widow. He met her when she was staying with her son at his parents' house. Kee rejected his feelings, but Vincent continued his courtship, which turned all his relatives against him.

9. Absence art education affected Van Gogh's inability to paint human figures. Ultimately devoid of grace and smooth lines in human images became one of the fundamental features of his style.

10. One of Van Gogh's most famous paintings, Starry Night, was painted in 1889 while the artist was in a mental hospital in France.

11. According to the generally accepted version, Van Gogh cut off his earlobe during a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, when he came to the city where Vincent lived to discuss issues of creating a painting workshop. Unable to find a compromise in resolving the topic so trembling to Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin decided to leave the city. After a heated argument, Vincent grabbed a razor and attacked his friend, who fled the house. On the same night, Van Gogh cut off his earlobe, and not his entire ear, as some legends believed. According to the most common version, he did this in a fit of repentance.

12. According to estimates from auctions and private sales, Van Gogh's works, along with his works, rank high on the list of the most expensive paintings ever sold in the world.

13. A crater on Mercury is named after Vincent van Gogh.

14. The legend that during Van Gogh’s lifetime only one of his paintings, “Red Vineyards at Arles,” was sold is incorrect. In fact, the painting sold for 400 francs was Vincent’s breakthrough into the world of serious prices, but in addition to it, at least 14 more works by the artist were sold. There is simply no accurate evidence of the remaining works, so in reality there could have been more sales.

15. Towards the end of his life, Vincent painted very quickly - he could finish his painting from start to finish in 2 hours. However, he always quoted favorite expression American artist Whistler: “I did it in two hours, but I worked for years to do something worthwhile in those two hours.”

16. Legends that mental disorder Van Gogh helped the artist to look into depths that were inaccessible ordinary people, are also untrue. Seizures that were similar to epilepsy, for which he was treated at psychiatric clinic, began only in the last year and a half of his life. Moreover, it was precisely during the period of exacerbation of the disease that Vincent could not write.

17. Van Gogh's younger brother, Theo (Theodorus), was of great importance to the artist. Throughout his life, his brother provided Vincent with moral and financial support. Theo, being 4 years younger than his brother, fell ill with a nervous disorder after Van Gogh’s death and died just six months later.

18. According to experts, if not for the almost simultaneous early death of both brothers, fame could have come to Van Gogh in the mid-1890s and the artist could have become a rich man.

19. Vincent Van Gogh died in 1890 from a gunshot to the chest. Going out for a walk with drawing materials, the artist shot himself in the heart area from a revolver, bought to scare away birds while working in the open air, but the bullet passed lower. 29 hours later he died from loss of blood.

20. The Vincent Van Gogh Museum, which has the world's largest collection of Van Gogh's works, opened in Amsterdam in 1973. It is the second most popular museum in the Netherlands, after the Rijksmuseum. 85% of visitors to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum come from other countries.

Biography and episodes of life Vincent Van Gogh. When born and died Vincent Van Gogh, memorable places and dates important events his life. Artist Quotes, Photo and video.

Years of life of Vincent van Gogh:

born March 30, 1853, died July 29, 1890

Epitaph

“I’m standing there, and looming over me
Cypress twisted like a flame.
Lemon crown and dark blue, -
Without them I would not have become myself;
I would humiliate my own speech,
If only I could take someone else's burden off my shoulders.
And this rudeness of an angel, with what
He makes his stroke similar to my line,
Guides you through his pupil
To where Van Gogh breathes the stars.”
From a poem by Arseny Tarkovsky dedicated to Van Gogh

Biography

Without a doubt the greatest artist XIX V. with a recognizable manner, the author is worldwide recognized masterpieces, Vincent Van Gogh was and remains one of the most controversial figures in world painting. Mental illness, passionate and uneven character, deep compassion and at the same time unsociability, combined with an amazing sense of nature and beauty, found expression in a huge creative heritage artist. Throughout his life, Van Gogh painted hundreds of canvases and remained unrecognized genius. Only one of his works, “Red Vineyards in Arles,” was sold during the artist’s lifetime. What an irony: after all, a hundred years after Van Gogh’s passing, his tiniest sketches were already worth a fortune.

Vincent Van Gogh was born in a village in big family Dutch pastor, where he was one of six children. While studying at school, the boy began to draw with a pencil, and even in these very early drawings the teenager is already peeking through extraordinary talent. After school, sixteen-year-old Van Gogh was given a job at the Hague branch of the Parisian company Goupil and Company, which sold paintings. This gave the young man and his brother Theo, with whom Vincent had a not simple but very close relationship all his life, the opportunity to get acquainted with real art. And this acquaintance, in turn, cooled Van Gogh’s creative zeal: he strove for something sublime, spiritual, and in the end gave up what he considered a “base” occupation, deciding to become a pastor.

What followed were years of poverty, living from hand to mouth and the spectacle of much human suffering. Van Gogh was passionate about helping poor people, while at the same time experiencing an ever-increasing thirst for creativity. Seeing in art much in common with religious faith, at the age of 27 Vincent finally decides to become an artist. He works a lot, enters the School of Fine Arts in Antwerp, then moves to Paris, where at that time a whole galaxy of impressionists and post-impressionists live and work. With the help of brother Theo, who is still engaged in the painting trade, and with his financial support Van Gogh leaves to work in the south of France and invites Paul Gauguin there, with whom he became close friends. This time is the flowering of Van Gogh’s creative genius and at the same time the beginning of his end. The artists work together, but the relationship between them becomes increasingly tense and eventually explodes in the famous quarrel, after which Vincent cuts off his earlobe and ends up in a mental hospital. Doctors find he has epilepsy and schizophrenia.

The last years of Van Gogh's life were tossing between hospitals and attempts to return to normal life. Vincent continues to create while in the hospital, but he is haunted by obsessions, fears and hallucinations. Twice Van Gogh tries to poison himself with paints and, finally, one day he returns from a walk with a gunshot wound in his chest, having shot himself with a revolver. Last words Van Gogh's words to his brother Theo sounded like this: “The sadness will be endless.” A hearse for the suicide's funeral had to be borrowed from a neighboring town. Van Gogh was buried in Auvers, and his coffin was strewn with sunflowers - the artist's favorite flowers.

Self-portrait of Van Gogh, 1887

Life line

March 30, 1853 Date of birth of Vincent Van Gogh.
1869 Start of work at the Goupil Gallery.
1877 Work as a teacher and life in England, then work as an assistant pastor, life with miners in Borinage.
1881 Life in The Hague, the first paintings created to order (cityscapes of The Hague).
1882 Meeting with Klozinna Maria Hornik (Sin), the artist’s “vicious muse”.
1883-1885 Living with parents in North Brabant. Creation of a series of works on everyday rural subjects, including the famous painting “The Potato Eaters”.
1885 Study at the Antwerp Academy.
1886 Acquaintance in Paris with Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat, Pissarro. The beginning of a friendship with Paul Gauguin and creative growth, the creation of 200 paintings in 2 years.
1888 Life and work in Arles. Three paintings by Van Gogh are exhibited at the Independent Salon. Gauguin's arrival collaboration and a quarrel.
1889 Periodic exits from the hospital and attempts to return to work. Final move to the shelter in Saint-Rémy.
1890 Several of Van Gogh's paintings were accepted for exhibitions of the Society of Twenty in Brussels and the Independent Salon. Moving to Paris.
July 27, 1890 Van Gogh wounds himself in Daubigny's garden.
July 29, 1890 Van Gogh's date of death.
July 30, 1890 Van Gogh's funeral in Auvers-sur-Oise.

Memorable places

1. The village of Zundert (Netherlands), where Van Gogh was born.
2. The house where Van Gogh rented a room while working for the London branch of the Goupil company in 1873.
3. The village of Kuem (Netherlands), where Van Gogh’s house, where he lived in 1880 while studying the life of miners, is still preserved.
4. Rue Lepic in Montmartre, where Van Gogh lived with his brother Theo after moving to Paris in 1886.
5. Forum Square with a cafe-terrace in Arles (France), which in 1888 Van Gogh depicted in one of his most famous paintings “ Night terrace cafe".
6. The hospital at the monastery of Saint-Paul-de-Mousol in the town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where Van Gogh was placed in 1889.
7. Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh spent the last months of his life and where he is buried in the village cemetery.

Episodes of life

Van Gogh was in love with his cousin, but she rejected him, and the persistence of Van Gogh’s courtship put him at odds with almost his entire family. The depressed artist left his parents' house, where, as if in defiance of his family and himself, he settled with a corrupt woman, an alcoholic with two children. After a year of nightmare, dirty and miserable “family” life, Van Gogh broke up with Sin and forever forgot about the idea of ​​starting a family.

No one knows exactly what caused Van Gogh's famous quarrel with Paul Gauguin, whom he greatly respected as an artist. Gauguin did not like Van Gogh's chaotic life and disorganization in his work; Vincent, in turn, could not get his friend to sympathize with his ideas of creating a commune of artists and general direction painting of the future. As a result, Gauguin decided to leave, and apparently this provoked a quarrel, during which Van Gogh first attacked his friend, although without harming him, and then mutilated himself. Gauguin did not forgive: subsequently he more than once emphasized how much Van Gogh owed him as an artist; and they never saw each other again.

Van Gogh's fame grew gradually but constantly. Since his very first exhibition in 1880, the artist has never been forgotten. Before the First World War, his exhibitions were held in Paris, Amsterdam, Cologne, Berlin, and New York. And already in the middle of the 20th century. Van Gogh's name became one of the most famous in the history of world painting. And today the artist’s works occupy first place in the list of the most expensive paintings in the world.

The grave of Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theodore in the cemetery in Auvers (France).

Testaments

“I am increasingly coming to the conviction that God cannot be judged by the world he created: this is just a failed sketch.”

“Whenever the question arose - to starve or work less, I chose the first, if possible.”

“Real artists don’t paint things as they are... They paint them because they feel like they are them.”

“He who lives honestly, who knows real difficulties and disappointments, but does not bend, is worth more than he who is lucky and knows only comparatively easy success.”

“Yes, sometimes it gets so cold in winter that people say: the frost is too severe, so it doesn’t matter to me whether summer returns or not; evil is stronger than good. But, with or without our permission, the frosts sooner or later stop, one fine morning the wind changes and a thaw sets in.”

BBC documentary “Van Gogh. Portrait written in words" (2010)

Condolences

"He was an honest man and a great artist, for him there were only two true values: love for one’s neighbor and art. Painting meant more to him than anything else, and he will always live in it.”
Paul Gachet, Van Gogh's last attending physician and friend

He wrote more than 900 works. His biography is studied at school, and his name is always heard. Vincent Van Gogh. The works of this artist are countless and priceless, but we will tell you about the most famous and most charismatic paintings with names and descriptions.

Starry Night (1889)

Looking at the painting “Starry Night”, you will immediately recognize Van Gogh in it. The artist worked on it in San Remy (city hospital), using a regular canvas 920x730 mm.

To “understand” a painting, you need to look at it from afar; this is due to the specific style of writing. Unusual technique allowed us to depict the static moon and stars as if they were constantly moving.

The canvas is surprising in that all the objects on it are conveyed either by color or by the nature of the stroke. Not with lines - with long or short strokes. And only contours were used to depict the village. Apparently to emphasize the contrast between the heavenly and the earthly.

“Starry Night” is the fruit of the artist’s recovering mind. Van Gogh's brother begged the doctors to give Vincent the opportunity to write to recover. And it helped.

Vague Gogh painted this particular picture from memory, which is not at all typical for him. He loved nature.

Van Gogh's favorite plant was sunflowers. I wrote them 11 times in several episodes. The most famous paintings with sunflowers were painted during the second “sunflower” period, when the artist lived in Arles in France - a fruitful era for him.

In letters to his brother, Van Gogh said that he painted with great zeal, and, of course, painted large sunflowers. I had to work from dawn and finish the canvas quickly, because the flowers immediately withered.

Irises (1889)

Another passion of the master is irises. And another fruit of the fight against the disease in the hospital. The canvas was painted a year before Van Gogh’s death and was called by him “a lightning rod for my illness.”

The first time the painting was sold to Octave Mirbeau (an art critic from France) for 300 francs. But in 1987, “Irises” became the most expensive painting in history, valued at $53.9 million.

Vincent's Bedroom at Arles (1889)

It is surprising that it is the paintings “from the hospital” that are world famous. "Vincent's Bedroom in Arles" is one of them, created in Saint-Rémy. This is not the original painting. The first work was damaged and Theo then advised his brother Vincent to copy the canvas before attempting to restore the original.

Two versions of "The Bedroom" were made, one of which was a gift for his mother and sister.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe (1889)

Sometimes the self-portrait is called “with a cut off ear and a pipe.” The canvas was written in Arles.

How exactly Van Gogh lost his earlobe is unknown. The background story is Van Gogh's quarrel with Gauguin amid creative differences. Either his ear was injured in a fight while drinking, or Van Gogh did it himself in a crazy fit. He is 35.

Vincent's House at Arles (Yellow House) (1888)

Van Gogh could not afford comfortable housing. So he rented a room in a yellow house. The building was located in the central square of the city and was very dilapidated. This is where the Sunflowers were created and where the “southern workshop” was planned – Van Gogh’s idea to unite artists under one roof. In particular, Van Gogh dreamed of working here hand in hand with Gauguin.

Red Vineyards at Arles (1888)

Remember, we talked about “Irises” as the most expensive painting in my time? The painting “Red Vineyards in Arles” is famous for being the only work that was sold during the artist’s lifetime.

The Potato Eaters (1885)

Vincent Van Gogh loved this painting, and he himself highly appreciated it, sincerely calling it his masterpiece.

Yes, this is not “Starry Night” or “Irises”, not even “Sunflowers”, but “Eaters” was written 2 days after the death of the shepherd Theodore Van Gogh, the artist’s father. Being in a quarrel with his parent, Van Gogh could not calmly cope with the loss of his father. This should have been reflected in the master’s paintings and zeal.

The peasants themselves are partly like potatoes. Intentionally distorted to emphasize their provincialism and uncouthness. World art critics agree that Van Gogh still lacks experience and skill. And even during the artist’s lifetime, the work was critically assessed by his friend Anton van Rappard, who called “Eaters” a frivolous and careless painting.

Even though this is one of the works of the novice Van Gogh, you will not find so much invested young soul in any of his future works.

Van Gogh was surprised that Dr. Gachet, having so much knowledge in his field, himself suffered from melancholy and could not cope with what he saved others from.

Dr. Felix Rey helped Van Gogh while he was in Arles hospital. It is believed that the portrait was painted as a sign of gratitude for treatment and support.

Contemporaries confirmed that the portrait turned out very similar, but Felix Rey himself did not have much love for either art or his portrait by Van Gogh - the canvas hung in his chicken coop for 20 years, covering a hole in the wall.

Like sunflowers and irises, shoes in Van Gogh’s work are represented in a series. It is believed that the artist decided in this way to continue the idea of ​​​​reflecting the life of simple provincial peasants, those same potato eaters.

There is no information about the purpose for which this series of works was created. And there is no sacred meaning. These are simply worn shoes through the prism of the vision of the recognized Van Gogh.

That's all for us. We hope you learned a little more about the man we know as Vincent Van Gogh. The works of the great artist are world-famous paintings. Do you have his favorite painting?