Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch painter and writer.

Vincent loved hiking. In England in 1876, he walked for two days from Landsgate to London several times. When traveling alone, you often have a more subtle perception of the outside world. We might as well take a look at the London street scene at dusk in his eyes:

The glow began to sink and the lamps were lit. Everyone goes home and everything smells like a weekend night. Amidst all the noise and chaos, there is silence and tranquility, which makes people feel a sense of need and excitement for the approaching Sunday.

In 1879 in Polines, Belgium, when he was unemployed, he went on two more excursions. The first time was to go to Brussels, 80 kilometers away, to visit Pastor Peterson at the Evangelism School. The pastor is friendly and likes to draw. He brought several sketches of miners with him to show him. Although his ragged appearance frightened the pastor's family, the pastor received him friendly, arranged accommodation for him, gave him some advice and the cost of his return journey.

The second time was to Couriers, 170 kilometers away in northern France, where he wanted to visit the painter José Pretton. It was during this trip that he firmly decided to pick up his painting brush again.

It was winter, so he took the train to Courières with only 10 francs.

When he arrived at his destination and found Brayton's residence after wandering around, he stopped. The brand-new studio built with red bricks was cold and distant, as if it was rejecting him thousands of miles away. Looking at his homeless appearance and touching the paintings in his bag, he lost the courage to knock on the door.

Unwilling to go back like this, he continued to look for the imprints of Bereton and other artists in Courières, but only saw a few reproductions. On the contrary, the nearby rural scenery somewhat satisfied his perception. He saw the unusual dark brown soil, and saw the night gradually turning into day in the dim light. See the miners, see the weavers.

Miners and weavers were a type of people with whom he had great sympathy. He often found something touching in these poor and humble people. He hopes to one day be able to profile them and bring these little-known people to the public.

There was not much money left, and it was expected that he would have to walk on the return trip, but he was not afraid. Since he had obeyed the obsession of traveling far away, he should have the tenacity to walk.

Along the way, he traded a few sketches for a little food and slept outdoors at night. I once slept in an abandoned van and it was covered with white frost in the morning. Once he slept on a comfortable bed of hay, but a drizzle ruined his enjoyment.

The miserable situation actually gave him the power of resurrection. He said to himself: "No matter what happens, I will stand up. I will pick up the paintbrush I dropped when I was discouraged. To paint." This powerful voice came from a letter written to Theo in September 1880. "From that moment on, everything changed for me."

He finally found his goal and finally decided to be a painter. He had thought about it for a long time and always thought it was impossible and beyond his capabilities.

The harsh external environment aroused his fighting spirit. Looking at himself living in the wilderness like a beggar, he thought of the long journey, just to meet a few painters and get their advice, but he found nothing.

He then thought that a person renting in a remote village in a foreign country, enduring hunger and poverty, and burying himself in books and pictures all day long, is to find someone he truly loves, who can maximize his potential, and who can completely dedicate himself. career.

The trip to Courières and the seclusion in the Belgian countryside were all for the things he likes. Only by trying and doing what he likes can he live up to all the grievances he has suffered this time and even before. .

He wanted to paint. When he made this decision that gave him a new life, when he looked at the world with a new perspective, the world was different from before. Theo sent him a series of Miller's prints, and his former colleague Tistig of the Coupill Company lent him Barger's "Charcoal Drawings", "Sketch Reader", and books on anatomy and perspective. .

He started copying a lot. In his opinion, copying some good works is to draw based on it. As for the two books on techniques, although they were so boring that it made people angry, he still read them patiently.

Sometimes he also painted miners. He painted a scene of miners going to work early in the morning.

Slender figures of men and women walked on the snow-covered road. There were several bushes of thorns on the roadside, and in the background were coal piles and mining structures.

He told Theo that he was working feverishly and that as long as he kept painting, he would one day get the idea. "Although there are no brilliant results yet, I hope that when the time comes, these thorns will eventually bloom with white flowers."

This is the beginning of optimism and wisdom. At the beginning of learning painting, he realized that the quality of a work depends on whether it has a soul. He said that when Mei Yong's paintings are put together with those of other architects, one can immediately see Mei Yong's skill, and the others are just a foil.

“This Mei Yong, even when he painted bricks, stones, granite, and even the railings of bridges, he had to infuse his paintings with spiritual things, and he was also infected with an inner sadness that I didn’t know existed. ”

He believes that this feature is more obvious in the paintings of Miller, Brayton and Izreth. He hopes that he will be able to produce some works that contain humanity in the future, but currently, he has to copy the drawings and learn some more difficult things.

"Narrow is the path, and narrow is the gate, and those who find it are but few."

Among the many tryers, will he be the one to find the secret? Despite the difficulties and new problems arising every day, picking up the paint brush gave him indescribable happiness and inner peace.

He will strive to paint better and become the master of the brush in his hands.