Vincent van Gogh: God in a picture



(The Potato Eaters by Van Gogh)

Just as Mark Twain had warned, “Never let schooling interfere with your education” – Van Gogh might as well have added, “And never let seminary interfere with your religion…” 

That’s because Van Gogh never let any “official” antipathy to his religious zeal stifle it – he simply found a different, more profound, way of expressing it.  He became a visual artist whose pictures were worth a thousand sermons.

According to Wikipedia, Van Gogh’s family of origin had long gravitated toward both art and theology.  His grandfather, also Vincent van Gogh, had graduated from the University of Leiden with a degree in theology.  His father, Theodorus van Gogh, was a Dutch Reformed minister.  Three of his uncles were art dealers, and his grandfather’s great-uncle (yet another Vincent van Gogh) was a well-known sculptor.  Van Gogh himself at first worked as an art dealer, and was quite successful at it until a thwarted romance interfered.  He was also becoming increasingly at odds with the commoditization of art.

As his personal anguish increased, so did his religious fervor.  He then decided to pursue another family vocation - ministry.  Van Gogh became a Methodist minister’s assistant for a short while – with the ardent intention of “preaching the Gospel everywhere.”  He afterwards worked at a bookshop, and spent much of his “free” time there translating biblical passages into three other languages.  His family then sent him to Amsterdam to “officially” study theology.  After failing the entrance exam, Van Gogh then went on to a

three-month Protestant missionary school near Brussels.  He failed this latter course of study, as well.

Seeking what he considered to be an authentic Christian ministry, Van Gogh next began evangelizing within the poverty-stricken, coal-mining Borinage region of Belgium.  He chose to live as the miners did, and slept “on straw in a small hut in the back of the baker’s house…”  He was then dismissed from this temporary missionary post by church authorities who accused him of “undermining the dignity of the priesthood” by living in this manner.

These so-called failures did not sit well with Van Gogh’s minister father, who began seriously questioning his son’s sanity.  Van Gogh, however, was on the verge of discovering his true spiritual vocation.  He began turning back to art – this time on the creative end of the paintbrush.  One of his earliest works, The Potato Eaters, was directly inspired by his Borinage experience.

According to Kathleen Powers Erickson, this painting reflects Van Gogh’s “commitment to religious themes and his appreciation for true piety.”  Erickson reports that the figures in this painting were deliberately portrayed in the somber colors of a “very dusty, unpeeled potato” – and that “the sharing of their meager repast alludes to the Eucharist.”  She also reports that the lamp above their table “was Van Gogh’s symbol of love and recalls the light of the gospel which he once brought into the huts of the peasants and the miners.”

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Potato_Eaters

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/09/25/schooling-vs-education/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh#cite_ref-20

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=752

Copyright March 30, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved