Vincent

One of my all-time favorite artists is Vincent Van Gogh. Today I wanted to share a little bit about his life and a cool place in LA where you can see one of my favorite paintings of his.

Vincent was born in the Netherlands on March 30th, 1853. His father was a reverend; he had 2 brothers and 3 sisters. In his early years Vincent followed in his father's footsteps, working as a preacher at a parish and doing missionary work. In 1880 he abandoned this path and began drawing. Finding his calling in art he experimented with pen-and-ink, lithography, and oils, especially blazing trails in the use of complementary colors in his paintings.

Throughout his life Vincent was unlucky "in love", first falling in love with a girl who was already engaged. Next his affections landed on a widow who rejected him. He spent time with a prostitute who gave him venereal disease (for which he needed treatment), had an affair with an older woman who tried to commit suicide on him, and cut off his own ear following a quarrel with another painter and presented it to a woman.

In the last years of his life Vincent spent much of his time being hospitalized or in an asylum, though he was still able to paint and some of his most magnificent works (I think) came from these last years of his life. On July 29th, 1890, Vincent died after shooting himself 2 days earlier. His brother was by his side.

Somewhere in the midst of the hospitalizations, the year after he cut off his ear (1888), Vincent painted my favorite piece, Irises. I love the colors, the broad brush strokes, the lone white iris amongst the purple. I also love the fact that he actually signed this painting. Throughout his career Vincent did not often sign his work. He felt it was arrogant to sign his paintings and when he did he would only sign as "vincent" and often it was to add a certain color to an area. For some reason he chose to sign Irises and that makes it even more interesting to me.

Irises is currently on display at the Getty museum, in Los Angeles. Check out the website below for information on hours and visiting - the thing I love about this museum is it's free! When you pull into the parking lot you pay $10 to park, then ride a tram up to the museum. The exhibits, gardens, sculptures are all free for you to view at your leisure! If you are ever in LA it is worth the trip, at the very least to check out the VanGogh paintings (although I will admit the rest of the artwork is not too shabby either).
http://www.getty.edu/