Facts About Vincent van Gogh

*VINCENT VAN GOGH, SELF-PORTRAIT WITH BANDAGED EAR, 1889, IN THE COLLECTION OF THE COURTAULD GALLERY , LONDON*.

• Even though Vincent van Gogh is famous today, he never had a successful career. Seven months prior to his death, he only sold one painting for just 400 francs.

• Van Gogh was born in The Netherlands in 1853 to artist Anna Cornelia Carbentus and country minister Theodorus van Gogh.

• Although he was given the name of his paternal grandfather, the name had actually been given to a child born before his parents, an older brother who had died in childbirth a year before he was born. He would have seen the name on his brother’s tombstone.

*VINCENT VAN GOGH, IRISES, 1889, IN THE COLLECTION OF THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM, LOS ANGELES*.

• Johanna, Van Gogh’s sister-in-law and the wife of his brother Theo, vowed to carry on his legacy after his death, is largely responsible for the artist’s posthumous success.

• He was the sixth and eldest child. Theo, his younger brother, would go on to work as an art dealer and become the primary, and frequently the only, person who supported his older brother and his art.

• Starry Night, possibly Van Gogh’s most famous work, was completed while he was recuperating from a nervous breakdown in an asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence.

*PAUL GAUGUIN, VINCENT VAN GOGH PAINTING SUNFLOWERS, 1888, IN THE COLLECTION OF THE VAN GOGH MUSEUM , AMSTERDAM*.

• Although the most common pronunciation of his last name is “van go,” it is actually pronounced “van gokh.”

• He didn’t start painting until he was in his late 20s. Prior to this, he held positions at the Groupil Gallery in London and his uncle’s art-dealing firm in The Hague.

• He thought about becoming a minister like his father at one point. In order to prepare for the entrance exam to the School of Theology in Amsterdam, he studied for nearly a year. In the end, he decided not to take the Latin portion of the exam because he thought peasants couldn’t speak it. As a result, the school refused to accept him.

*VINCENT VAN GOGH, THE BEDROOM, 1889, IN THE COLLECTION OF THE MUSÉE D’ORSAY , PARIS*

• Van Gogh had a strong and difficult personality, which made him famous. He alienated many fellow painters with his argumentative nature, and friends and colleagues believed that he had a penchant for self-martyrdom.

• Van Gogh served as a missionary in Belgium’s coal-mining region at one point. He had a spiritual awakening at this point, which inspired him to give up nearly all of his material possessions and begin living as a pauper. He was let go from his position because church officials thought this was inappropriate for a church official.

• Van Gogh learned most of his skills on his own, and he only received formal artistic instruction for about four months before he died.

*VINCENT VAN GOGH, NATURE MORTE, VASE AUX MARGUERITES ET COQUELICOTS , 1890. SOLD AT SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK FOR $61.8 MILLION IN NOVEMBER 2014.*

• Because of his spontaneous and intuitive style, his paintings were frequently completed quickly, which gave some viewers cause for concern. “When anyone says that such and such [painting] is done too quickly, you can reply that they have looked at it too quickly,” he once told his brother about this topic.

• Even though he had some form of mental illness throughout his life, his mental health began to seriously deteriorate toward the end of the 1880s. It is said that he consumed his paints and occasionally drank turpentine during this time.

• When Vincent’s brother Theo learned of his mental decline, he paid the painter Paul Gauguin to relocate to Vincent’s home in Arles, France, to keep an eye on him. Within a few weeks, the two artists were constantly at odds and couldn’t stand to be in the same room together.

• The artist cutting off his own left ear is one of Van Gogh’s most famous stories. In point of fact, only the earlobe was severed. According to legend, he cut off his ear with a razor during an argument with Gauguin that sent him into such a frenzy. According to some versions, he took the dismembered earlobe to the nearby brothel, where he gave it to a prostitute as a gift.

• Van Gogh was admitted to the nearby Hôtel-Dieu hospital following the ear-cutting incident. He was released once he recovered from a significant loss of blood. He unfortunately fell deeply into depression; He would paint at home during the day to help with this, but he would spend the night at the hospital.

• A petition stating that he posed a threat to the community was signed by fellow Arles residents toward the end of his life. He ended up staying in an asylum as a result of this.

• In the end, Van Gogh killed himself by shooting himself in the chest. Sadly, it was not a clean shot, and he didn’t pass away until almost 30 hours later.

• Vincent’s brother Theo passed away just a few short months after he did, and at first, Theo was buried in Utrecht. Theo’s wife requested that her husband be exhumed and reburied next to Vincent in Auvers in honor of the extremely close and special relationship between the two brothers.

• Because a lot of people who owned Van Gogh’s work initially thought it was worthless, much of his work has been lost. It is said that his mother disposed of all of his paintings in their original crates.