Today, a painting by Vincent van Gogh sells for more than $80 million. But while he was alive, no one wanted to buy his work. Most people either ignored him or laughed at him.
Vincent van Gogh, for whom color was the chief symbol of expression, was born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, in the south of the Netherlands. His father was a church minister. He taught Vincent that it was important to help others. Van Gogh tried to be a minister too, but he was not successful. He tried many other jobs, too. He worked as an art seller, a bookseller, and a teacher. He failed at each one. Unfortunately, Van Gogh had mental problems and was often sad or angry. This made it difficult for him to succeed.
Van Gogh was very good at one thing—art. He taught himself to draw and paint. Van Gogh drew all the time. He drew on anything he could find—menus, books, and scraps1 of paper. In 1881, he began to study art, first in Brussels, then in Paris. His early paintings were about poor people in Holland. They were dark pictures and the people in them were sad. When he went to France, Theo admonished2 Vincent that his darkly colored paintings were not in the current Parisian style, where Impressionist3 artists were now using a bright palette4. He started to paint with bright colors. He painted in an exciting way, and his paintings showed his strong feelings. He always painted the ordinary things in life—his bedroom, a chair, or some flowers. Often he went into the country to paint birds, flowers, and fields. In 1885, Vincent completed the Potato Eaters, his first large-scale composition and first masterpiece5.
Unable to afford models to perfect his skills, Vincent turned to his own image:“I deliberately6 bought a good mirror so that if I lacked a model I could work from my own likeness.” He painted at least 20 self-portraits in Paris. One of the last portraits Vincent painted in Paris, Self-Portrait as an Artist, was a dramatic illustration of his personal and artistic identity.
Van Gogh’s paintings were very different from the paintings of other artists, and people didn’t like them. Sometimes he left his paintings when he moved to a different place. When people found the paintings, they used them for firewood or to build things. He couldn’t sell his work, so he didn’t have much money. He often did not have food to eat because he used his money to buy paints and brushes. Van Gogh’s mental problems made his life very difficult. He had a strange, moody7 personality. He was stubborn and liked to argue. Some people were afraid of him. Others laughed at him. Children threw things at him in the street and called him bad names. His brother Theo was his only real friend. Theo was an art seller. He believed that Vincent was a genius. Theo gave him money and encouraged him to keep working. He did this regularly until the end of Vincent’s life. Because of that, Vincent considered his work as the fruit of their combined efforts.
Van Gogh spent the last two years of his life in southern France. During this time, he created almost 200 paintings. In 1888, French artist Paul Gaugin went to live with van Gogh. One night they had a terrible argument. Van Gogh chased8 Gaugin down a street with a razor9. Later Van Gogh was very sorry. He went home and cut off a piece of his left ear. He lost so much blood that he almost died.
Van Gogh realized that he needed help. He went to a mental hospital. While he was there, he continued to paint. In fact, in the last 70 days of his life, he painted a picture every day. He painted one of his best works, Starry Night, while he was looking out from his bedroom window at the hospital. Van Gogh went in and out of mental hospitals for many months. In May of 1890, he seemed much better and went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under the watchful eye of Dr. Gachet.
On July 27, 1890, Vincent walked to a wheat field and shot himself in the chest. He stumbled10 back to his lodging, where he diedtwo days later, on July 29, with Theo at his side. He was buried in Auvers on July 30. Among the mourners11 were Lucien Pissarro, Emile Bernard, and Pere Tanguy. Bernard described how Vincent’s coffin was covered with yellow flowers,“his favorite color... Close by, too, his easel12, his camp stool, and his brushes had been placed on the ground beside the coffin.”
Vincent’s paintings were left to Theo, but his true legacy will be realized in his powerful influence on artists of the twentieth century. Theo held a memorial exhibition of Vincent’s paintings in September 1890 in his Paris apartment.
Theo was full of sorrow over his brother’s death. He became sick and died only six months later. He was just 33 years old. Theo’s widow, Johanna, worked hard to make van Gogh and his paintings well known. Less than 30 years after his death, Van Gogh was called one of the greatest artists of all time.
梵高的一幅画现在售价超过8000万美元。可是，他在世时根本没有人愿意买他的画。大多数人要么不屑一顾，要么嗤之以鼻。
对文森特·梵高来说，色彩是他的主要表达符号。1853年3月30日，他出生于荷兰南部[布拉班特省]宗德尔特，父亲是教会牧师。父亲教导梵高说，帮助别人至关重要。梵高也想做牧师，但未能如愿。他又尝试了许多工作，先后当过画店店员、书商和教师。可惜，每一行他都没有成功。雪上加霜的是，梵高患有精神疾病，时常情绪低落或者勃然大怒。这使得他在事业上很难成功。
梵高惟一擅长的是艺术。他自学绘画与着色。梵高不停地绘画。身边能找到什么——如菜单、书本、废纸，他就在上面作画。1881年，他开始学习艺术，先去布鲁塞尔，然后到巴黎。他的早期画作描绘的是贫穷的荷兰人。画面颜色非常阴沉，画中人物满脸忧伤。去法国之前，他的弟弟西奥告诫梵高，说他沉郁的画作不是巴黎流行的风格——彼时的印象派艺术家们正采用明亮的调色板。于是梵高开始以明亮的颜色作为画作的底色。他一绘画就非常兴奋，作品也展示了他强烈的情感。他的作品总是以生活中的普通东西为对象，如卧室、椅子或鲜花。很多时候，他到乡村画鸟、花卉、田野等。1885年，文森特完成了《吃马铃薯的人》，这是他的第一幅大型作品，也是他第一幅杰作。
由于雇不起模特完善绘画技能，梵高不得不画自己：“我特意买了一面很棒的镜子，这样当我没有模特时，我可以画自己。”在巴黎期间，他至少画了20幅自画像。其中画得最晚的一幅名曰《艺术家自画像》，是这位艺术家个性及其艺术风格最富戏剧性的写照。
梵高的画与其他艺术家的作品迥然不同，当时的人们不欣赏他的画。有时候，他搬家了，画却留在原地。新的房主发现了他的画，竟然用作柴火或建筑材料！他的画卖不出去，所以他手头很紧。他经常没有东西充饥，因为他仅有的钱要用来买颜料和画笔。
梵高的精神疾病使他的生活非常困难。他个性古怪、多变。他相当固执，喜欢争辩。有的人怕他，有的人取笑他。大街上孩子们朝他扔东西，拿脏话骂他。他的弟弟西奥是他惟一的挚友。弟弟西奥是位艺术品经销商，认为哥哥文森特是一个天才。西奥给哥哥梵高经济支持，鼓励哥哥继续努力。他对哥哥的支持直到梵高生命的尽头。正因为如此，梵高认为自己的绘画作品是兄弟俩的结晶。
梵高生命的最后两年是在法国南部度过的。在此期间，他创作了近200幅画。1888年，法国画家保罗·高更与梵高住在一起。一天晚上，他俩进行了一场可怕的争论。梵高手持一把剃须刀在大街上追赶保罗。后来梵高感到非常难过。回家后，他切下了自己左耳一块。因为失血过多，他差点死去。
梵高意识到自己需要帮助。他去了一家精神病医院接受治疗。在医院里，他继续作画。事实上，在生命的最后70天里，他每天都画一幅画。看着医院病房窗外的景色，他创作了最优秀的作品之一《星月夜》。一连好几个月，梵高在精神病医院进进出出。1890年5月，他似乎康复了许多，于是搬到临近巴黎的奥维尔，由加歇医生看护。
1890年7月27日，梵高走到一处麦田边，朝自己的胸部开枪。他跌跌撞撞地回到寓所，两天后——即7月29日，他死在弟弟西奥身旁，年仅37岁。7月30日他被安葬在奥维尔。前来悼念的人包括卡米耶·毕沙罗、埃米尔·贝尔纳、佩里·唐基。唐基叙述道，梵高的棺木上覆盖着黄色的花朵，“那是他最喜欢的颜色……他的棺材旁摆着他的画架、折叠凳还有他的画笔。”
梵高的画都留给了弟弟西奥，但他真正的遗产体现在他对20世纪艺术家所产生的强大影响力。1890年9月，西奥在巴黎公寓举行了一场梵高纪念画展。
哥哥梵高英年早逝，这让西奥无比悲痛。他一病不起，在哥哥去世半年后也撒手人寰，年仅33岁。西奥的遗孀乔安娜费尽心血，终于使梵高及其绘画名扬天下。去世不到30年之后，梵高被称为有史以来最伟大的画家之一。
1. scrap n. 纸片
2. admonish v. 劝告，告诫
3. impressionist adj. 印象派的
4. palette n. 调色板
5. masterpiece n. 杰作
6. deliberately adv. 有意地
7. moody adj. 喜怒无常的
8. chase v. 追赶，追逐
9. razor n. 剃刀，刮脸刀
10. stumble v. 摇摇晃晃地移动或步履蹒跚
11. mourner n. 哀悼者
12. easel n. 画架
13. conscience n. 良心，是非感