Focus on Houses at Auvers and analyze the "Reminisces of the North".
Vincent van Gogh spent the early 1881–1885 years of his brief ten-year career as an artist painting in the Netherlands at Etten, The Hague, Drenthe, and Nuenen (his last family home). It was in Nuenen that Vincent executed F82, The Potato Eaters, which he considered his first really successful painting, while other early paintings of the time, such as F83, The Cottage (left), attest to his sympathy for peasants and their way of life.Following the death of his father in March 1885 and ensuing difficulties and quarrels with both his family and neighbours in Nuenen, Van Gogh moved first to Antwerp, Belgium, where he briefly studied at the Academy. Shortly thereafter, he joined his art dealer brother, Theo, in Paris, France, in March 1886. His move from Antwerp was motivated by worries about his health, after he suffered a breakdown earlier in the year.The two years he spent in Paris with his brother are the least documented of Vincent's career, simply because the main source for Vincent's life are the letters between them and, naturally, they did not correspond when together. Nevertheless, there are abundant sources to show that Vincent participated fully in the artistic life of the city, although never aligning himself with the Impressionist movement. In particular, he came into contact with Paul Gauguin, whom he idolized. By the end of the two-year period, relations between the brothers had soured somewhat and Vincent resolved to leave Paris and settle in Arles in the south of France, where he conceived the project of starting an artists' commune with Gauguin.
Gauguin joined Vincent at The Yellow House in October 1888. However, Vincent's erratic behaviour and drunkenness alarmed Gauguin, and by December he had resolved to leave. Vincent suffered a severe nervous collapse as a result and was hospitalised. Despite making a speedy recovery, Vincent voluntarily entered an asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence on 9 May 1889, where he was able to continue painting between relapses of mania (his exact medical condition is not known with certainty). Perhaps his most loved and best known painting, F612 The Starry Night, dates from this time. It exemplifies the vigorous and agitated brush work he had developed.Vincent suffered his most severe relapse towards the end of February 1890. The following two months he was unable to paint and scarcely able even to write. He declared himself "totally stupefied" in his single letter of this period to Theo on 17 March . Hulsker called it the saddest period of Vincent's life. Nevertheless, Vincent was able to draw and paint a little as he recovered. He described painting a few canvases from memory, which he had experimented with in F496 Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles) while painting with Gauguin, in a letter to Theo dated 29 April. He called these paintings souvenirs du nord, "reminisces of the North." He mentions he might redo F83 The Cottage (above left) and F84 The Old Church Tower at Nuenen.He is more explicit in a following letter to his mother and sister Willemien: "And while my illness was at its worst, I still painted, among other things a reminiscence of Brabant, cottages with mossy roofs and beech hedges on an autumn evening with a stormy sky, the sun setting red in reddish clouds." This painting is identified by the Van Gogh Museum as either F673, F674, or F675 (right). Hulsker also singles out F695 Two Peasant Women Digging in the Snow and identifies a series of sketches depicting peasants, of which F1594r is an example, as dating from this time as well. He says these works, almost alone in Vincent's entire oeuvre, show unmistakable signs of mental collapse. Finally he notes that F702: Worn Out – At Eternity's Gate, which Vincent made at this time, is likewise an unmistakable remembrance of times long past. The original was a drawing Vincent had made in The Hague.Vincent ascribed this latest relapse to the boredom and monotony of life at the asylum. For months, he had been writing to Theo saying he wanted to leave the asylum. He felt sure that if he moved back to Paris he would get well quickly. At the same time Vincent had become something of a celebrity in the art world following a very favourable review of his work by the critic Albert Aurier, who declared him a genius. Despite his misgivings, Theo followed advice proffered by Camille Pissarro and arranged for Vincent to work at the village of Auvers-sur-Oise north of Paris under the supervision of Paul Ferdinand Gachet, a doctor.
France The Yellow House Saint-Rémy-de-Provence Etten Theo Impressionist Paul Ferdinand Gachet Saint-Rémy Antwerp Arles The Potato Eaters Camille Pissarro F1594r The Old Church Tower at Nuenen The Starry Night Worn Out – At Eternity's Gate The Hague Nuenen Paul Gauguin Albert Aurier Belgium Pissarro Paris Vincent van Gogh Willemien Academy Van Gogh Museum Old Church Tower at Nuenen Drenthe Two Peasant Women Digging in the Snow left At Eternity's Gate Auvers-sur-Oise Brabant Netherlands Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles)