◆ Sample Work · Painter's Memorial Gallery · Vincent's Voice ← Return to the Shire
1853 — 1890 · Brabant · Paris · Arles · Saint-Rémy · Auvers

I dream my painting,
and then I paint my dream.

"What I have done is rather hard and dry, but that is because I am trying to gather strength by doing rather rough work, and I should be afraid of becoming abstract if I were to grind down the bones and the muscles."

to Theo, from Nuenen, the year before everything began
— from the letters to his brother Theo —

In his own hand

Arles
9 September, 1888

My dear Theo —

I am working on a new picture. The terrace of a café in the evening — and the corner of the street is sanded with pink. The gas lamps light up the empty terrace, and above it the deep blue sky with stars. I find painting in the night more interesting than the day.

The sky is not black. It is a very deep blue, and the violet of the houses is so much itself. I am extraordinarily happy in this moment. I wish you could see it.

Ever yours, Vincent
Saint-Rémy
15 June, 1889

The asylum is a strange place but I am working. I have done a study of stars, made the night more itself than the day. I do not know if you will like it. I do not know if anyone will like it. I do not paint for them. I paint because I cannot do otherwise.

The cypresses still preoccupy me. They are as a black flame in a green landscape. I should like to make of them something like the canvases of the sunflowers.

Vincent
Auvers-sur-Oise
10 July, 1890

The wheatfields have given me three large canvases — vast fields of wheat under troubled skies. I did not need to go out of my way to express sadness and the extreme of loneliness.

I hope you will see them soon. I think they say what I have not been able to say in words. There are things which one cannot put down on a canvas alone — and yet, sometimes, the canvas does it.

Yours, V.
— a brief chronology —

A Life

1853

Born in Zundert, Netherlands

Son of a Dutch Reformed minister. The first of six children.

1869

Apprentice at Goupil & Cie

The art dealership in The Hague. He sees and handles paintings, but does not yet make them.

1880

Begins to paint, at twenty-seven

After failing as a preacher in the Belgian coalfields. Theo, his younger brother, will support him for the rest of his life.

1886

Paris

Living with Theo. Meets Pissarro, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec. The palette opens. The dark earth tones give way to color.

1888

Arles · The Yellow House

The most fertile fifteen months of his life. Sunflowers. The Bedroom. Café Terrace at Night. Then Gauguin arrives, and then leaves.

1889

Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, Saint-Rémy

He admits himself to the asylum. He paints The Starry Night from the window of his room. He paints the irises in the garden.

1890

Auvers-sur-Oise · the final seventy days

Seventy-five paintings in seventy days, under the care of Dr. Gachet. Then the wheatfield. He dies on July 29, with Theo at his side.

Come and see the work.

The collection lives in three principal places. Postal inquiries are answered by a person, not a robot. Group tours by appointment.

Van Gogh Museum

Museumplein 6
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Open daily, 9:00 — 18:00

Kröller-Müller Museum

Otterlo, the Veluwe forest
Sunflowers, Self-Portraits, the early dark works

Letters Archive

vangoghletters.org
902 letters · transcribed · annotated · public