Vincent Van Gogh Research Paper

Vincent van Gogh is known for many things; his passion for art, his troubled life, and his struggle with mental health. However, as time has progressed, more and more information has surfaced about Van Gogh’s life and ambitions. For example, some of the important information found tells us of the artists spiritual life, most importantly, his stance on religion and how it had affected him. In fact, religion played such a role in his life, it affected everything from his career, to his art, to his relationships and beliefs. To demonstrate, with this new information, it is easy to assume that if the artist had taken only a few different steps, we would not even know about his famous paintings. This would have caused him to follow a similar path

Some of these would include both his family life and career choices he would make in his upbringing and early life. First, and the more important of the two, is how his family ties to religion affected his life. The foremost and most obvious influence that affected Van Gogh was his father’s career as a protestant (or Lutheran, depending on the source) preacher (Davis/Van Gogh Museum). As can be assumed, this influenced his views as a child, and the Van Gogh museum accurately describes how this caused Van Gogh to consider following in his father’s career (Van Gogh Museum). The Vincent van Gogh museum, located in Amsterdam, is the global source for finding any documentation and paintings done by the artist. For instance, the museum states that while the young Van Gogh was still influenced by his family’s profession, he would take it upon himself to go on a mission to Borinage, in Belgium, in 1879. Be that is it may, Borinage was no preacher’s dream. The LA times describes the town as a coal mining community, with most people living in poverty (Watanabe). At the age of 26, and still burning with a passion for Christ, instead of turning away from the town’s depressing setting, he embraced it. To explain, Teresa Watanabe, the religious writer for the LA times also tells us that “He gave away his money and clothes (to the miners), refused the lodgings of a miner family and slept crouched in the hearth of a bare hovel. He even refused the luxury of soap…”. By doing this, Vincent van Gogh was able to connect with the people in the town, comparing himself to Christ living amongst the poor