Sunset at Montmajour by Vincent van Gogh, painted 1888, discovered in 2013
Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in the Netherlands and died 37 years later, in 1890 in France. Born to a minister father and an artist mother, he worked towards being a priest but then rejected the structure of the church. Instead he moved to a beleaguered coal mine town to minister in the south of Belgium and was called, “Christ of the Coal Mines.”
Vincent traveled from country to country, place to place, looking for a sense of peace within himself. He turned to painting for solace and fought with his inner demons who were reflected in the eyes of the villagers wherever he lived. In a decade’s time he created 2100 artworks, including 43 self-portraits. He found himself in and out of asylums by choice and decree in the last years of his life. He painted “Starry Night” and “Irises” while in an asylum.
Towards the end, van Gogh moved in with Dr. Gachet, who lived twenty miles north of Paris. Some say he shot himself in the chest. Others say he was shot by one of two young men. His younger brother, Theo, who sold art in Paris and who steadfastly supported him over the years, died six months later in a Dutch asylum. Johanna, Theo’s widow, made sure Theo was buried next to Vincent, in Auvers.
Johanna, who believed in Vincent, began to collect his paintings. She discovered many had been destroyed. Vincent’s own mother had thrown out crates of his work. It was only after his death that appreciation for Vincent’s art blossomed. In 2013, one of his paintings was discovered in the attic of a person who thought it was counterfeit.
Shunned across borders,
Tortured, he turned pain to paint.
Silent screams: “See me!”
Much of this information gathered from here. Bits of it were gleaned from the 2018 movie, “At Eternity’s Gate.”
Reena Saxena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge. Reena says:
Use or don’t use one or more of the following oxymorons in your piece
- silent scream
- open secret
- disgustingly delicious
- awfully lucky
- unbiased opinion
You may choose not to use the word, but let the meaning reflect in your piece. It can be a theme. As usual, there is no restriction on length or format of the piece.
Tao Talk 
A sad story of the life of a genius. But then it’s often so that from unhappiness and hardship, great art is born.
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Yes, Sadje, I wish it wasn’t like that.
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Yes, me too.
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Vincent van Gogh was watching Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar when Mark Antony said, “lend me your ear” and he took him literally.
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I’ve read about his life.
Hope someone ‘discovers’ me after I die 😀😀
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🙂 Before would be better 😉
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😀😀
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Reblogged this on Reena Saxena and commented:
Silent Scream ….. by Jade Li/Lisa
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How amazing. A new van Gogh coming to light after all this time. What a find! I looked at it and thought it was a little known painting by one of the Australian impressionists until I read the story.
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Yes it is amazing. Also found was a “ledgerbook” full of drawings at an inn in France that had sat there unknown until recently (2016) that they think was by him (not sure in the final analysis it was by him or not.)
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How wonderful 😁
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Great artist… but the life. I know artists suffer…but that is heartbreaking.
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Yes it is 😦
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The epitome of the tortured artist the life of van Gogh has always intrigued me. This was a very informative and enjoyable read.
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Violet, thank you. Watching the movie spurred me to look for more info and the parts included were some of the stuff the movie didn’t mention. What strikes me about what they showed in the film was the sheer number of people who actively tried to dissuade him from painting how he wished and who tried to block him from other callings in his life. So very sad!
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