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Sunflowers, starry nights, and cutting off his own ear.
We all know about Vincent Van Gogh. No matter our level of knowledge of art, we have at least heard about the Dutch artist. Even before I wandered around Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum a few months ago, I was already fascinated by Van Gogh, mostly his unique journey to post-impressionist and post-humous fame. A huge part of his journey was his battle with mental health.
Biographies and movies on Van Gogh have romanticized him as the symbol of crazy genius and “the starving artist.” I do not want to romanticize Van Gogh or the way he shut himself off from much of the world. However, I did want to shed light on the way he arrived at the expressionist style he is now famous for and why some of his paintings and words remain relevant and inspiring.
Van Gogh has said many intriguing quotes about both his own life philosophy and his art (I will include my favorites at the end of this article). Many of these insights can be found in the nearly 800 letters he wrote in his lifetime, particularly to his brother Theo. In the following, he speaks to the inspiration behind the famous The Starry Night:
“At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and…
