Rebecca Graves, age 16, of Haggerstown, Md., for her question:
DID ARTIST VINCENT VAN GOGH REALLY CUT OFF HIS EAR?
One of the most famous painters in modern art is an artist named Vincent Van Gogh. During his lifetime, he received no recognition and sold only one painting. He failed in every career he attempted and felt unloved and friendless throughout his life
Van Gogh suffered from occasional violent seizures. During one of them late in 1888, the artist threatened to kill the French painter Paul Gauguin, who was visiting him. Van Gogh cut off one of his own ears during this seizure.
Van Gogh was born in Groot Zumdert, near Bredra, The Netherlands, in 1853. When he was 16, his parents sent him to The Hague to work for an uncle who was an art dealer. But Van Gogh was unsuited for a business career.
When he was 25 years old, in 1878, Van Gogh applied for admission to a theological school but was rejected. He then decided to become an unordained preacher and received his training from a missionary society in Brussels, Belgium.
Late in 1878, Van Gogh represented the missionary society as a minister in the Borinage, a poor coal mining district in Belgium. He took his work so seriously that he often went without food and other necessities so he could give more to the poor.
The missionary society objected to Van Gogh's unorthodox behavior and relieved him in the summer of 1879. Van Gogh began to draw while in the Borinage, and late in 1880 he decided to become a painter.
The first pictures Van Gogh painted were still lives and scenes of peasants at work. He favored dark brown and olive colors and heavy brushstrokes. He was attracted to the impressionist art he saw in Paris in 1886 and then lightened his brushstrokes and used bright, clear colors.
In 1888, Van Gogh moved to southern France were he painted his most expressive and original pictures. He completed more than 800 oil paintings during the last five years of his life.
In southern France, Van Gogh lived in a town called Arles. It was here that he started suffering occasional violent seizures. The intense color and slashing brushstrokes of Van Gogh's paintings done in Arles, some experts say, reflect his disturbed mind.
An excellent example of Van Gogh's work of this period is found in a painting called "Sunflowers." It is often reproduced in articles and books on impresisonist painters.
Throughout his life, Van Gogh corresponded with his brother Theo and other people. Van Gogh's "Complete Letters," published in phree volumes in 1958, provide an intimate view of the artist's life and thoughts.
One of the finest and most ambitious works of Van Gogh's early painting period, which is also reporduced in many books, is called "The Potato Eaters."
The experts say that Van Gogh turned to art as a way to express his strong religious feelings and his deep need for love and respect.
Van Gogh was only 37 years old when he died in 1890.