Van Gogh
1853-1890
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Van Gogh is one of the most well known and respected artists of all time. His most popular works were his incredible self portraits as well as his painting, “The Starry Night”. When this struggling artist first started out painting, he used peasants for models. He couldn’t seem to make a living on being an artist, but it was his passion and he continued to pursue it. He was making absolutely no money, so he started to rely on his brother and other people’s donations in order to survive. Due to his lack of money to pay models, he painted himself and continued to paint himself for years and years.
Van Gogh struggled with physical and mental illness his entire life. Most went undiagnosed during his lifetime, and were later diagnosed posthumously. He lived with manic depression, which wasn’t uncommon amongst many incredibly creative people. His physician treated his epilepsy with a drug that causes some patients to see things with a yellow hue, as well as seeing yellow spots. This could be the reason of his frequent use of the color. As you can see in the video, he used yellow quite often in his work but it is more apparent in pieces that aren’t self portraits. Although society holds some people back from being themselves in every way they can, sometimes the body can do the same. Van Gogh suffered from epilepsy, manic depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, borderline personality disorder, and there are theories of other illnesses he had to endure during his short lifetime. He committed suicide when he was just 37 years old. His body was working against him and others were as well, two 16 year old brothers would chase him, put snakes in his paint, salt in his coffee, etc. Some believe that he was shot by one of the brothers in the pelvis, and in order to prevent the boys from being punished he took matters into his own hands and killed himself. Although illness and alcoholism plagued him for most of his life he remained true to himself and his passion to the end, and now he is one of the most widely known artists in our society today. |