Van Gogh, Theodorus

Like the older brother Vincent, Theodorus van Gogh, better known as Theo, was born in Grotto Sundert , in the province of Brabant in the Netherlands . Theo's parents: parish priest Theodorus van Gogh and Anna Cornelia Carbentus.

Work

Thanks to family ties, both Vincent and Theo worked for the Paris-based art-dealer company Goupil & C ( eng. Goupil & Cie ). Vincent first began working, having spent several years in an office in The Hague. Theo began work in Brussels on January 1, 1873 and was the youngest employee of the company. After Vincent was transferred to London , Theo moved to his place in The Hague , where he quickly developed and became a successful art dealer. By 1884 he was transferred to Paris , to the head office. Beginning in the winter of 1880–81, Theo sent his brother drawing supplies and money.

Personal Life

In Paris, Theo met Henri Bonger and his sister Johanna, whom he married in Amsterdam on April 17, 1889 . They lived in Paris when their son Vincent Willem was born on January 31, 1890 . On June 8, the family visited Vincent , who lived in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris .

Illness and death

July 27, 1890 Vincent shot himself in Auvers-sur-Oise . Perhaps this was due to the fact that Vincent did not want to hang around the neck of his younger brother, who contained not only him, but his wife and child and his elderly mother. Refusing any medical care, Vincent died two days after he shot himself in the stomach. Theo was with him. The next day, he wrote about this to his mother and family and went to Holland.

July 30, 1890 Theo fell into a deep depression, there were signs of serious mental disorder. In September of the same year, Theo tried to persuade the gallery Durand-Ruel to make a memorial retrospective of the works of Vincent , but to no avail. In Paris , with the help of Emil Bernard, Theo did in his former apartment (he himself moved to the next) posthumous exhibition.

In October, at the request of Henri Bonger, Theo agreed to go to Etoile's insane asylum, where he was diagnosed with acute manic irritability with delusions of grandeur and progressive general paralysis. At the request of his wife, in November 1890, he was transferred to the "Medical Institute of the Mentally Sick" in Utrecht , the Netherlands . Here he died two months later at the age of 33 from complications of the last stage of syphilis , and was buried in Eerste Algemene Begraafplaats Soestbergen .

Twenty-five years later, the remains of Theo van Gogh were transported to France, and on April 8, 1914, the two brothers were reburied next to each other at Auvers-sur-Oise .

Theo admired his older brother all his life. But it was hard to communicate with him even when he did not choose his vocation to be an artist. Communication between the two brothers suffered from a divergence of views on the norms of life, and undoubtedly, it was only thanks to Theo that the contact was maintained, since he constantly wrote letters.

At first, Theo pretended that Vincent's money came from his father, and not from him. He did not want to upset his brother. True, Vincent soon found out from whom the money came, and thanked his brother. All his life he suffered from this dependence, justifying himself by the fact that Theo, as it were, takes part in the creation of paintings and that later they will share the money from the sale of paintings.

Theo helped Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet and Edgar Degas become better known by persuading their employers Gupil & Company to display and buy their work. However, he could not break through the views of the authorities on the painting and never sold a single painting by Vincent.

In 1886, Theo invited Vincent to live with him. In March, they began to live together in Theo's apartment in Montmartre. Theo introduced his brother to such artists as Paul Gauguin , Paul Cezanne , Henri Toulouse-Lautrec , Henri Rousseau , Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat . In 1888, Theo persuaded Gauguin to join Vincent, who had already left for Arles.

The correspondence between the brothers began after Theo's visit to Vincent in The Hague, where the latter had been working for about three years. When this happened, Vincent was 19 years old, and Theo 15. It lasted for nearly 18 years - from 1872 to 1890 . Only 36 letters written by Theo Vincent have survived. But Theo himself was careful about the letters of his older brother, thanks to which 661 letters from Vincent remained. At first the letters were simple and concise. Vincent gives instructions to his brother, advises not to smoke a pipe and to study the creativity of various writers and artists. Then Vincent begins to send sketches in pencil, which depicted the daily life of the peasants. Over time, letters become more serious and more voluminous, Vincent frankly talks about his views on life and art. The last unfinished letter to Theo was found in Vincent’s pocket when he shot himself.

• Van Gogh. On the threshold of eternity (film)

• Anonymous (initialled "HHH" and "WFdCH"): Van Gogh, 's-Gravenhage , Nederland's Patriciaat 50, 1964, pp. 171–183.
• Hulsker, Jan: Vincent and Theo van Gogh: A Dual Biography, Ann Arbor, Fuller Publications, 1990. ISBN 0-940537-05-2 .
• Jansen, Leo, and Jan Robert: Kort geluk. De briefwisseling tussen Theo van Gogh en Jo Bonger , Waanders, Zwolle 1999. ISBN 90-400-9353-9 (also available in English).
• Rewald, John: Theo van Gogh, Goupil and the Impressionists , Gazette des Beaux-Arts, January & February 1973, pp. 1–107; reprinted in Rewald, John: Studies in Post-Impressionism , Thames and Hudson , 1986, pp. 7-115 (no ISBN).
• Stolwijk, Chris, & Thomson, Richard: Theo van Gogh 1857–1891: Art dealer, collector and brother of Vincent , Waanders, Zwolle 1999. ISBN 90-400-9363-6 .