really and truly not until later that the artistic sensibility develops and ripens.”
Vincent’s attachment to his mother was profound. Later in life, the sight of any mother and child could cause his eyes to “grow moist” and his “heart to melt,” he confessed. Activities and imagery that he associated with motherhood—arranging flowers, sewing, rocking a cradle, even just sitting by the fire—preoccupied him both in life and in art. He clung to a childlike maternal affection, and its tokens, well into his twenties. He was periodically overtaken (stricken, really) by the need to win, or win back, his mother’s favor. He felt intense affection for maternal figures and an equally intense desire to play a maternal role in others’ lives. Two years before he died, when he painted a portrait of his mother “as I see her in my memory,” he simultaneously painted a portrait of himself using exactly the same palette of colors.
Despite this special attachment, or perhaps because of its inevitable disappointment, Vincent hardened into an obstreperous, ill-tempered child. The process began early with fits of anger so remarkable that they merited a special mention in the family history. Driven to distraction by one such “insufferable” outburst, Vincent’s paternal grandmother (who had raised eleven children of her own) summarily boxed his ears and threw him out of the room. Years later, Anna herself complained: “I never was busier than when we only had Vincent.” A barrage of similar criticism found its way into family recollections that are otherwise bastions of circumspection. They call him “obstinate,” “unruly,” “self-willed,” and “hard to deal with”; “a queer one” with “strange manners” and “a difficult temper.” Sixty years later, even the family maid recalled vividly how “troublesome” and “contrary” Vincent had been, and branded him “the least pleasant” of the Van Gogh children.
He was noisy and quarrelsome and “never took the slightest notice of what the world calls ‘form,’ ” one family member complained. He often skipped the outings his mother organized (to visit distinguished families in the area), while spending inordinate amounts of time with the family maids (with whom he shared the parsonage attic). In fact, much of Vincent’s misbehavior seemedaimed directly at his class-conscious, order-loving mother. When she praised a little clay elephant that he had made, Vincent smashed it to the ground. Anna and Dorus tried punishing their son—indeed, all the family chroniclers agree that Vincent was punished more often and more severely than any of his siblings. But to no apparent effect. “It is as if he purposely chooses the ways that lead to difficulties,” Dorus lamented. “It is a vexation of our souls.”
On his side, Vincent felt increasingly thwarted, alienated, and rejected—a knot of feelings that characterized his later life just as pious resignation characterized his parents’. “Family,” he complained years after leaving Zundert, “is a fatal combination of persons with contrary interests, each of whom is opposed to the rest, and two or more are of the same opinion only when it is a question of combining together to obstruct another member.”
Although he continued to embrace his family and its rituals with teary-eyed fervor, Vincent increasingly sought escape from it. Nature beckoned. Compared to the physical and emotional claustrophobia of the parsonage, the surrounding fields and heaths exerted an irresistible pull. Starting at an early age, Vincent began to wander out past the barn, past the rainwater well, down the hill, past the bleaching field where the family’s linen was hung to dry, through the garden gate, and into the fields beyond. Most of Zundert’s farms were relatively small, but to the Van Gogh children, penned in the narrow garden, the patchwork sea of rye and corn that surrounded the town looked immense: “the
Vincent’s attachment to his mother was profound. Later in life, the sight of any mother and child could cause his eyes to “grow moist” and his “heart to melt,” he confessed. Activities and imagery that he associated with motherhood—arranging flowers, sewing, rocking a cradle, even just sitting by the fire—preoccupied him both in life and in art. He clung to a childlike maternal affection, and its tokens, well into his twenties. He was periodically overtaken (stricken, really) by the need to win, or win back, his mother’s favor. He felt intense affection for maternal figures and an equally intense desire to play a maternal role in others’ lives. Two years before he died, when he painted a portrait of his mother “as I see her in my memory,” he simultaneously painted a portrait of himself using exactly the same palette of colors.
Despite this special attachment, or perhaps because of its inevitable disappointment, Vincent hardened into an obstreperous, ill-tempered child. The process began early with fits of anger so remarkable that they merited a special mention in the family history. Driven to distraction by one such “insufferable” outburst, Vincent’s paternal grandmother (who had raised eleven children of her own) summarily boxed his ears and threw him out of the room. Years later, Anna herself complained: “I never was busier than when we only had Vincent.” A barrage of similar criticism found its way into family recollections that are otherwise bastions of circumspection. They call him “obstinate,” “unruly,” “self-willed,” and “hard to deal with”; “a queer one” with “strange manners” and “a difficult temper.” Sixty years later, even the family maid recalled vividly how “troublesome” and “contrary” Vincent had been, and branded him “the least pleasant” of the Van Gogh children.
He was noisy and quarrelsome and “never took the slightest notice of what the world calls ‘form,’ ” one family member complained. He often skipped the outings his mother organized (to visit distinguished families in the area), while spending inordinate amounts of time with the family maids (with whom he shared the parsonage attic). In fact, much of Vincent’s misbehavior seemedaimed directly at his class-conscious, order-loving mother. When she praised a little clay elephant that he had made, Vincent smashed it to the ground. Anna and Dorus tried punishing their son—indeed, all the family chroniclers agree that Vincent was punished more often and more severely than any of his siblings. But to no apparent effect. “It is as if he purposely chooses the ways that lead to difficulties,” Dorus lamented. “It is a vexation of our souls.”
On his side, Vincent felt increasingly thwarted, alienated, and rejected—a knot of feelings that characterized his later life just as pious resignation characterized his parents’. “Family,” he complained years after leaving Zundert, “is a fatal combination of persons with contrary interests, each of whom is opposed to the rest, and two or more are of the same opinion only when it is a question of combining together to obstruct another member.”
Although he continued to embrace his family and its rituals with teary-eyed fervor, Vincent increasingly sought escape from it. Nature beckoned. Compared to the physical and emotional claustrophobia of the parsonage, the surrounding fields and heaths exerted an irresistible pull. Starting at an early age, Vincent began to wander out past the barn, past the rainwater well, down the hill, past the bleaching field where the family’s linen was hung to dry, through the garden gate, and into the fields beyond. Most of Zundert’s farms were relatively small, but to the Van Gogh children, penned in the narrow garden, the patchwork sea of rye and corn that surrounded the town looked immense: “the
Similar Books
