Vincent Van Gogh: Woe Is Me

Vincent Van Gogh: Woe is Me

During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century a new form of artistic painting formed. Postimpressionism was a form of art where the artist was highly individual and expressive. Some of the most creative painters in history helped to make the style a success. Paul Gauguin and Paul Cezanne are two of the most creative and popular painters among the postimpressionists, but not the master. The master of the postimpressionist movement was Vincent Van Gogh.

Vincent Van Gogh was born on the 30th of March 1853, in the small village of Zundert; in the south of the Netherlands. He was the oldest of six children born to Theodorus Van Gogh and Cornelia Carbentus. He began his education in 1861, at the village school in Zundert; he would subsequently attend two boarding schools. Van Gogh excelled in language learning French, English, and German. During that time he also began drawing. Vincent for the most part educated himself. In March 1868, he ends his formal education and begins an apprenticeship with Goupil and Cle. (Fine Art Web)

The Goupil and Cle. Were art dealers in Europe and Vincent was stationed at their Paris Headquarters. During his time spent as a salesman, for the art gallery, Van Gogh developed a love for fine art. Van Gogh began to become unstable and the Paris Gallery released him in 1873. Upon leaving Paris, Vincent (wanting to be useful) trained for the ministry in 1877, at Amsterdam University. After failing to land a post in the Church, he became an independent missionary and practiced among the Borinage miners. “His experiences as a preacher are reflected in his first paintings of peasants and potato diggers; of these early works, the best known is the rough, earthly Potato Eaters (http://sunsite.auc.dk/cgfa/gogh/gogh_bio.htm).

“In 1886 van Gogh went to Paris to live with his brother Theo van Gogh, an art dealer, and became familiar with the new art movements developing at the time. Influenced by the work of the impressionists and by the work of such Japanese printmakers as Hiroshige and Hokusai, van Gogh began to experiment with current techniques. Subsequently, he adopted the brilliant hues found in the painting of the French artists Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat (http://sunsite.auc.dk/cgfa/gogh/gogh_bio.htm).

In Paris, Vincent discovered color and the divisionist ideas, which helped to create the distinctive dashed brushstrokes that is seen in his later works. In 1887, at a restaurant in Paris, Van Gogh organized an exhibition.