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Still Life: Vase with Irises against
a Yellow Background, 1890, Rijksmuseum, 92 x
73 cm
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Vincent van Gogh 1886-1888 Vincent was rejected at
art school but was offered a place in the beginner’s class, he turns
that down, and moves in with his brother Theo who introduces Vincent to
Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Degas. Seeing their paintings influences
Vincent to use brighter colours. In the winter van Gogh meets Paul
Gauguin and Pere Tanguy, both
live a big influence on Vincent in the future. 1887 Exhibits in the Cafe
du Tambourine along with Gauguin, Bernard and Toulouse-Lautrec. While in
Paris Vincent paints over 200 pictures in the two years he lived their
with his Brother at the Rue Lepic adjacent to Boulevard De Clichy, this
is called the artist quarter's, because along here lived: -
Dagas at No 6
, Renoir
No 11, John Russell
No 73, Cormon
No 104,
Seurat
No 128,
Signac
No 130
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VINCENT was born on March 30th, 1853, in the rectory of Zundert in Brabant. His
father was a quiet dignified ordinary man, from whom Vincent inherited nothing
but a burning desire to enter the Church. This desire forms the background to
our first act. His mother gave him his appearance, his sensibility and such
powers as had to serve him through life. Her portrait suggests that she was a
peasant, but she belonged, like her husband, to a cultured middle class. Vincent
looked like a peasant, who by an unkindly trick of fate had become a townsman,
and perhaps for this reason he never appeared to best advantage. He was starved.
His drama is a drama of starvation. Vincent longed for almost everything a man
can long for, and it so happened that the objects of his desires did not appear
to him to be altogether unattainable. In the light in which he regarded them,
his desires were as legitimate and reasonable as his right to earn a daily wage.
The first article of his faith was: I believe. This faith was not a toy for his
leisure, but Vincent's only demand upon life. This need was far more imperious
than any material demand of his physical senses. As a result he starved all his
life. From the moment he became conscious of his existence the pangs of hunger
never left him. The world beat him as Don Quixote was beaten, but the world's
blows and his parries were more actual than the deeds of Cervantes' hero. But
here is no phantasy: Vincent's illusions were almost tangible. Almost! The
thread of probability was drawn so taut, the motive power was so great, that
even after his downfall his starved desires remain a force as immortal and as
noble as the aspirations of the Spanish grandee.
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