Vincent
van Gogh

About Vincent van Gogh written dozens of books and hundreds of articles. Add to this family Chronicles, translated and not translated from Dutch letters, eyewitness accounts and memoirs of contemporaries – and get only a small portion of sources that Neifi Steven and Gregory white Smith used to write the two volumes of "van Gogh. Life." In 2016, the publishing house "Azbuka-Atticus" released Russian translationa monumental biography of the artist, which opens all doors, Windows and cupboards with skeletons. Archiv offers a glimpse into some.

Gregory white Smith (left) and Steven Naife. Photo: nyt.com

Throughout these fruitful years, the writers had to struggle with a serious illness Smith. In 1975 he was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. He underwent 13 surgeries and countless sessions of chemotherapy and radiation. But despite a fatal diagnosis, Smith had until 2014. The Book "Van Gogh. Life" was the last joint work Naife and Smith.

Vincent and mother

Many biographies of Vincent van Gogh has become a tradition to take into consideration only the bad attitude of the artist with his father. Naife and Smith also paid close attention to Vincent's mother, Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Children in the parsonage house grew under her watchful supervision, they are strictly forbidden to walk on the street, so as not to fall under the influence of people from lower strata of society. In life Anna had three main values – Duty, Prudence, and Decency, and in the case of the last symptoms was much more important than internal. Vincent, which is not always wanted to look "decent" and tidy, always hovered in the clouds, loved to walk alone and at every opportunity take time off from the "visits of politeness" numerous relatives, upset and irritated mother.

In a limited picture of the world of Anna van Gogh was not enough room for understanding unlike the other children of the son. Vincent, in adult life engaged in one shameful story after another, cast a shadow over carefully guarded the honor of the family, each time causing a wave of rumors and gossip, which Anna so feared. Mother van Gogh did not approve of any of its undertakings, it in a penny did not put his attempts to become a priest, and later ruthlessly get rid of all the sent paintings and drawings. Anna often visited his children who lived in different cities, but never came to Vincent during his stay in a psychiatric hospital in Saint-Remy. She is survived son for 17 years, but even after his death, when the paintings van Gogh has finally become popular, continued to consider him a missing person and a terrible artist.

Vincent and gathering

All his life van Gogh was an obsessive collector. It began in childhood, when Vincent, before felt himself an outcast in the family, while hiding from people and being saved from loneliness, nature walks. He collected and classified wildflowers, fall is in the groves of deserted bird nests and eggs. But the passion of Vincent were bugs. To store them, he was making wooden boxes lined with paper. Each instance of the collection Vincent was signed in Latin, and each name he had memorized.

At the age of 16, van Gogh started working in the Hague branch of the company "Goupil Ko", and his life has a new passion – prints and reproductions. At that time in Vogue for albums, scrapbooks, and Vincent immediately got himself an album. His collection of prints and reproductions constantly replenished, sometimes van Gogh spent their last money. In London the paintings were added portraits of family members, in Brussels and Borinazh – engravings with religious scenes in Paris – dozens of Japanese "Krupnov". Some specimens from his collection, Vincent sent out letters to friends and family, some of them were lost in the shuffle or have been irreparably damaged because of the poor state of the property of the artist. But each time, moving from town to town, van Gogh is definitely transported to his collection, which he entered, edited and paracanonical until his death.

To interact with objects of his collection, Vincent was much easier than with real people: engravings talked to him in plain and understandable language, they did not disappoint and was not disappointed, don't judge demanded. And subjecting them understandable only to him alone system, van Gogh, apparently, tried to make at least some element of order in my chaos life.

Vincent and impressionism

In the spring of 1875, after only a few months after the controversial exhibition and sale of impressionist paintings at the Hotel Drouot, Vincent arrived in Paris and began working in a local branch of the company Pupila. But after almost 10 years in a letter to Theo, he writes: "From what you told me about "impressionism", I have not grasped what it is". And this passage is likely not been coquetry: Vincent, in 1875, possessed a religious fever, really could not see the paintings of the Impressionists and did not hear the talk about them in a cafe in Montmartre and at work.

Again settling in Paris in 1886 (the year the eighth and last, impressionist exhibition), Vincent still made up his mind about the Impressionists: their paintings were terrible. "When you see them for the first time, they leave you with a sense of bitter, bitter disappointment. They seem careless, ugly, badly written and badly drawn, bad in colour – in short, just miserable". The artist led a fierce debate with his brother, who prophesied a great future Impressionists and believed that Vincent should try to work in this style. Van Gogh stubbornly refused to abandon their "Dutch" palette, wrote the species of Montmartre only in cloudy weather, and then returned to the images nyaneka peasants.

However, in the spring of 1887, all of a sudden changed. The relationship between the brothers left something to be desired, and Vincent, deciding to please Theo, began to enter the plein air and fill your canvas with color. The change was striking. Vincent wrote such stories and used such colors that a few months ago, ignored or violently rejected. After some time of non-permanent van Gogh will have to worship Monet but soon under the influence Emile Bernard "switch" on cloisonism.

Vincent and Theo

Brothers van Gogh connected with two things – money and nostalgia. The image of the parsonage in Zundert, where they shared the loft, was for Vincent a symbol of family warmth and brotherly love. Suffering from forced isolation and loneliness away from Theo, he often wrote of Zundert in the letters and dreamed of reunion. However, the joint life of van Gogh was not as rosy as it seemed for the artist. When the euphoria of the reunion has passed, it became clear that Vincent is simply impossible to live. Realizing what a Gulf lies between him and his successful younger brother, van Gogh, as if punishing Theo, turned the house on the Rue LePic in hell. He alienated many friends, Theo, who did not want to put up with the dark and aggressive Dutch, and put an end to his appearances. The brothers fought over perpetual confusion, unwillingness Vincent to observe the rules of decency and of course for the money.

Almost all of his adult life, Vincent was forced to exist on the money Theo. On the one hand, this humiliating financial dependence, it was very depressing, and with another – at some point he began to perceive financial assistance as something self-evident. "I have to ask you, Theo, to send me from time to time as much as you can, without constraining itself"- humble wrote Vincent in the Hague. But after a week the tone of his letters is strikingly varied: "What's wrong, Theo?.. I didn't get anything received from you... Came in with a letter at least part of the money". While still not promising a beginner in painting, Vincent suddenly came to believe that the arts and noble purpose gives him the right on the money brother. He never planned expenses, was not able to save enough, and growing debts easily shifted to the shoulders of his brother with a barely noticeable regret: "Another way I don't see". But in an ostentatious carelessness and indifference hiding a heavy burden of guilt for the need to exist on the money brother and the inability to earn a living.

Vincent and popularity

In January 1890, Vincent was still in the mental hospital and suffered from another round of seizures, not knowing that in Paris he became a sensation. A young and talented art critic albert Aurier wrote an article about it in the newspaper "Mercure de France", Vincent presenting an exile from the North, the most outcast of the outcast, the one who crippled himself from the passion for life and art. About van Gogh Aurier for the most part learned from the stories of Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin including and the reason for the departure of the last of the Yellow house (Gauguin in these stories, tried to imagine himself the innocent victim of a madman).

Article Aurier was full of admiration and praises, thanks to the Vincent name was on everyone's lips. Van Gogh sent laudatory text to all the relatives, but this good news went almost unnoticed by them, because, ironically, coincided with another important event – the birth of his son Theo. The public was intrigued by the new "genius". At the exhibition "Twenty" in Brussels, where van Gogh took a seat next to the paintings of Cezanne, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Signac, his sunflowers and cypress trees, wheat fields and vineyards deprived of the gift of speech conservative critics and led to a complete delight of the avant-garde. Toulouse-Lautrec, barely tolerated the society of Vincent in Paris, even tried to duel insolent, who called van Gogh's "charlatan".

Vincent've experienced what now would be called "the imposter syndrome". He simply ignored all the praise, believing themselves unworthy of all these praises. "I should be the one described in the article - he wrote, - not the sad creation, which I feel really". Boasting article family and old friends, he immediately experienced a familiar sense of guilt: "As soon as I read this article, I immediately felt that it is followed by some punishment".

Vincent (of course)a murder

In 2011 version Naife and Smith that Vincent's death wasn't a suicide, was probably the main reason for the interest in their book. In fact, biographers leave more questions than answers. Why the gun that shot himself, van Gogh was never found? Where did his easel and paints, with whom he had allegedly left in a wheat field? Why he was shot in the stomach, and not in the heart or in the head?

For the most part doubt biographers relate to the gun. At that time in rural areas, firearms were a rarity. Hardly anyone of the locals would trust a revolver to the mad artist. After the incident with Vincent was checked every gun in Auvers. Disappeared only one – together with the owner. Young Rene Secretan was a regular drinking companion of Vincent, though, and treated him contemptuously, not missing the occasion to make fun of. Renee wore a cowboy costume, for which van Gogh called him "Buffalo bill." Immediately after the incident with the artist's father Secretan for a while took away the boy and his brother from the Overa. A few decades later, Rene admitted that Vincent stole his revolver.

However, in the 30 years of the twentieth century, art historian John Rewald came to over to interview still-living witnesses, and they told him that Vincent was accidentally shot by some "boys". They in deed did not confess, and van Gogh, has protected them from prison, stated that he had shot himself.

Vincent and all

Family chronicle van Gogh, sometimes otdalyayutsya vague wording, make a rather sad line of the family madness. Grandfather Vincent Willem Carbentus died at the age of 53 years from "mental illness", although in official documents the cause of his death has been called "catarrhal fever." Daughter of Willem Clara suffered from "epilepsy" - then it refers to everything that is related to mental disorders. The son of Willem Johannus "went life on the right road" and eventually killed himself. Brothers of pastor Theodorus, Jan and St both suffered from the mysterious "seizures".

No less sad was the fate and close relatives of Vincent. Theo van Gogh, as we know, died in a mental hospital only six months after the death of the artist. The younger brother of Vincent Theo and Cor went to work in Africa, came to the troops the Boers, who fought against the British in 1900, became ill with fever and was shot at the age of 32 years. Fork sister was in a mental hospital and held it for nearly forty years. Anna van Gogh-Carbentus survived all her children and bravely took all the blows of fate with unwavering faith in God.

Author: Eugene Sidelnikov