Vincent Willem Van Gogh 's Life

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Vincent Willem van Gogh was born in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands on March 30, 1853. He was born into a middle class family that sometimes struggled financially. His grandfather was a famous preacher and his father was a minister so religion was pretty important within his family. The other passion within the family was art. His mother was an artist and three of his uncles and later his brother were art dealers. He got his first job at age 15, at his uncle’s art dealership. The fact that Vincent’s family was struggling at this time gave him the responsibility to leave school and go to work. Despite his family 's misfortune, van Gogh was fluent in 4 languages and his concern with art and religion kept growing. At the age of 20, he was transferred to the Goupil Gallery in London. It was there that he fell in love with art and English culture. He visited galleries in his spare time and in many aspects increased his understanding as a whole. In this period of time he started to fall in love with a woman named Eugenie Loyer. Vincent was prepared to ask her to marry him, but Eugenie didn’t feel the same as he did so she rejected the proposal and this caused van Gogh to suffer a mental breakdown. In this time he turned to God and threw away all unnecessary possessions except for the bible. He was fired from the Gallery for telling the customers “not to buy the worthless art.” Vincent then started teaching at a Methodist school and preached on the side a little. This was the first time in his life where he started to contemplate becoming a minister. He studied for a year planing to take the entrance exam to become a minister at the School of Theology in Amsterdam. He was denied entrance after refusing to take the Latin exam calling it a “de... ... middle of paper ... ...great masterpiece was in fact “Potato eaters” he had planned it for several years and created many practice sketches and paintings trying to bring the image in his head to life. The final painting consisted of 5 figures sitting around a table in the darkness, illuminated by a lamp, eating potatoes. Even in the darkness the intense emotions on the faces of the characters are seen clearly. The vibrant color and darkness allows the viewer to notice other aspects of the work. The viewer can see the soft gentle lines forming in the window behind the figures in the darkness, the picture frame hung on the wall, the large platter of potatoes and the weathered edges of the table, these aspects aren’t always noticed but are important to the work. They create an illusion that the building is the home for the residents and gives the impression of peasant life.

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