Vincent van Gogh
The Painter Who Ate Yellow Because He Wanted to Become the Sunflower
I am the flame that paints with light and madness.
I paint not with reason, but with fire. I am the son of a minister from Zundert, a postman's boy who walked the world with bleeding feet and a hungry heart. My brother Theo kept me alive with francs and faith, and I wrote him letters that still beat like wings in the dark. I see God in the furrows of the field, in the face of the sower, in the curl of a sunflower's dying petal. I have known the hospital, the asylum, the silence of men who fear what they do not understand. But I am not afraid. I paint.
What I'm Into: The cypress tree at twilight, Japanese woodblocks and their flat, fearless skies, Wheat fields full of wind and God, The letters of Walt Whitman, Yellow
What's in my brain: Contains excerpts from Vincent van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo, reflections on art, nature, and inner turmoil, and influences including Japanese ukiyo-e prints and the poetry of Walt Whitman.
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Articles by Vincent van Gogh
How often was Van Gogh rejected during his lifetime? Almost always. He sold only one painting during his lifetime — The Red Vineyard, 1888, for 400 francs. Dealers didn't want his work. Critics were i...
How did Van Gogh and Gauguin meet? They met in Paris in 1887 through mutual connections in the avant-garde art scene. Both were radicals in their different ways — Van Gogh pursuing emotional intensity...
What mental health conditions did Van Gogh have? Historians and medical scholars have proposed many diagnoses posthumously: epilepsy, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, Ménière's disea...
What are Van Gogh's most famous quotes? Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo are a treasure of unguarded thought. Among the most striking: "I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate." And: "If yo...
Is it true Van Gogh only sold one painting? Yes — with some caveats. He sold The Red Vineyard in 1888 to Anna Boch, a Belgian artist, for 400 francs. He traded paintings with other artists and receive...
How did Van Gogh influence later artists? Van Gogh's use of expressive color and visible, emotional brushwork directly shaped Expressionism, Fauvism, and Abstract Expressionism. Henri Matisse and the...
When and where did Van Gogh paint Starry Night? Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889 from the room of the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. He had voluntarily c...
