Artist I look up to

Vincent Van Gogh is one of my all time favorite Artist. His works have inspired me so much.His life story too played a role in my life about painting.So here's a little about Vincent and what about him inspired me.

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch Artist born in 1853. The son of a pastor, he worked as art dealer as a young man, before spending some time teaching and working as a missionary in Belgium, and eventually becoming a painter.

He is now regarded as one of the most important and influential painters in the world, Vincent van Gogh never saw the praise and celebration of his work during his short lifetime. His career as a painter lasted just ten years, and was marred by mental health issues and a lack of recognition. He is certainly a rich source of inspiration when you’re feeling less-than-motivated.

What inspires me about Vincent Van Gogh was that he was a late starter ,and although he drew often as a child and into adulthood, it wasn’t until he was 27 that he decided he wanted to be a painter, returning to his parent’s home to teach himself techniques of perspective, anatomy and shading. Far from being a prodigy, Van Gogh struggled with self-doubt about his abilities and frequently faced derision from his family and from other artists. Only his brother, Theo, encouraged him to keep painting. Van Gogh even enrolled at Antwerp Academy of Art, but was promptly thrown out for his unruly and experimental painting techniques. However, he was extremely disciplined about practising and developing his skills. So it thought me that, when it comes to art, it is never too late to start – and there is nothing stopping you from being an artist, no matter what else you’ve done with your life.

He found original ways of self-expression at the age of 33, Vincent painted his first major painting, The Potato Eaters, which favoured a dark, muddied palette. Upon moving to Paris, he met artists like Manet, Gauguin and Monet. The influence of Impressionism encouraged him to brighten his palette dramatically and he began to experiment with vivid colours, especially yellows, blues and purples. He also developed his painting techniques and adopted a way of applying paint known as ‘impasto’, which involved applying oil paints very thickly to the canvas, in some cases straight from the tube, which gave his paintings an expressive force, making them charged with emotion and atmosphere.

He only sold one painting during his life-time, Vincent died just ten years into his career as a painter, aged 37, but he was incredibly prolific and painted over 900 paintings during his lifetime. Of these 900 paintings, only one was sold: The Red Vineyard, which now hangs in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. According to his brother, Vincent’s mother threw away lots of his paintings that he had left at his parents’ house, which i found that it was a really stupid to do, he wrote “it is absolutely certain that I shall never do important things”. So if there are times where I’ve felt like my work is not important, I remember that Vincent van Gogh wrote ‘it is absolutely certain I shall never do important things!’

He was completely and utterly broke hardly surprising as he only sold one painting, but Van Gogh lived almost entirely from hand-outs from his brother, Theo, who wholeheartedly supported Vincent throughout his lifetime, both financially and emotionally. Upon his death, Vincent bequeathed his entire works to his brother Theo and his wife, who worked hard to bring his paintings to public attention.

He struggled with mental illness perhaps Van Gogh’s most recognisable paintings are his Sunflower series, which were painted as the artist began to experience his first psychotic episodes in 1888. He committed himself to a mental asylum the same year, after slicing off a portion of his ear after an argument with his friend and painter, Paul Gauguin. He stayed for two years, but died in 1890, aged 37 after (allegedly) shooting himself in a field in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. His psychotic episodes cost him many friendships and caused him great anguish, but they were also accompanied by some of his most inspired and creative paintings, such The Starry Night (1889), painted while he was still in the mental asylum.