With the opening of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 1973, the long-term efforts of the painter's family, especially his sister-in-law Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger and his nephew Vincent William Van Gogh, were finally completed for a dignified and complete presentation of the work of one of the most important figures in world art. Despite the fact that Vincent Van Gogh painted around 900 paintings and drew approximately 1,100 drawings in his short life, unfortunately, he did not receive artistic recognition until his death at the age of 37. Everything changed only when the exhibition of his works in Paris in 1901, that is, 11 years after the author's death, was a great international success.
During the artist's lifetime, only one work, Red Vineyard, was sold, which he created in 1888, albeit only for the price of 400 francs. Today, this painting worth millions hangs in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Vincent Van Gogh suffered from a serious mental disorder, the causes of which were attributed to a congenital disease, excessive absinthe drinking or poisonous substances contained in his paints. His psychosis peaked after one of his arguments with the famous French painter Paul Gaguin, on whom he even pulled out a razor, with which he eventually cut off the lobe of his left ear, which he later gave to Gabrielle Berlatier, an eighteen-year-old cleaning lady at the brothel. This bizarre incident was forever recorded in the history of art, and many artists often return to it in their works. Vincent Van Gogh maintained a close relationship with his brother Theo throughout his life, who supported him financially and humanly all the time, so we learn the most about his life and art from the letters that the artist wrote to his brother. Van Gogh ended his life in 1890 by his own hand, when in deep depression he shot himself in the stomach and two days later he died in Ravoux inn in front of his beloved brother Theo. Van Gogh is considered a post-impressionist painter, and his work was influenced by expressionism and pointillism, as evidenced by the dashes and dots in most of his later paintings. Thematically, he was fascinated by the countryside, especially the countryside around Arles, where he lived for some time and tried to found an artistic group. The bright colors of his paintings were based on Japanese art, which he met at the art academy in Antwerp and became a passionate collector of. The combination of these influences and the natural genius of the artist brought to the world one of the most original and today also the most popular works in terms of marketing that world history knows. In the Van Gogh Museum, we can find more than 200 paintings and 400 drawings from practically all periods of the artist's work in two buildings. Among the most valuable paintings in the entire collection is certainly his first masterpiece, Potato Eaters, which he painted in 1885 during his stay in Nuenen, Holland. On it, Van Gogh captured the Groot family, who had just sat down to a modest dinner. The picture looks gloomy and reflects the reality of harsh rural life. The artist used colors to highlight dark tones. From the facial expressions of the individual family members, which seem almost like a caricature, it can be seen that the family is worn down and tired from the hard daily work. Another famous painting, The Bedroom at Arles, from 1888, is one of three paintings in which Van Gogh painted his own room in a house on Place Lamartine in Arles. He was forced to create this painting by his illness, due to which he had to stay at home for several days and tried to create an atmosphere of rest and peace. Bright, light colors in a combination of yellow, light brown, lilac and purple predominate on the canvas. Van Gogh captured the entire house in which he lived in the painting The Yellow House. A work that is synonymous with the author himself Self-portrait in a straw hat from 1887 is one of 39 self-portraits that the painter created in different contexts and from different perspectives. Van Gogh used himself as a model very often for a simple reason. Due to the fact that he lived in modest conditions in Paris but also in Arles, he did not have the financial means to pay for another model. That is why he often used a mirror in his work, even though recently experts claim that the first version of the self-portrait in a straw hat, from Van Gogh's Paris period, is not the author himself, but his brother Theo. Perhaps the most iconic painting in the Amsterdam collection is one of the versions of the painting Sunflowers, which the artist painted in 1889. The painting is a variation on Sunflowers from 1888, which he created in a few days at home, because he could not work outside due to the strong wind in the French countryside. With the motif of sunflowers, he not only returned to the old Dutch tradition of painting floral still lifes, but at the same time he wanted to present the painting to his friend Paul Gauguin, whom he invited to move in with him in the Yellow House so that they could create together. The symbolism of sunflowers expresses the painter's inner feeling that just as sunflowers turn to the sun, so Van Gogh wanted to be guided by Gaguin in his work. The saddest painting in the museum's collection is the Raven over a Cornfield from 1890, which the painter painted just before his death. Its turbulent expression and at the same time the proximity of the suspected storm evoked for a long time among the public that this is the last picture painted before Van Gogh's death. But the truth is that the very last picture that the artist painted is the Garden near Daubigny. Nevertheless, this painting probably best illustrates the author's state of mind after his dramatic split with Paul Gauguin, from which he saw no other way out than to leave this world. However, even in his short and dramatic life, Van Gogh left behind a work that will be endlessly admired by many future generations.
Vladimír Dubeň