00:00Few men evoke the image of a tortured and misunderstood artist quite as well as Vincent van Gogh.
00:07His tale is a particularly tragic one.
00:10He died miserable and broke, only for his unsold paintings to become masterpieces mere decades after his death.
00:18In fact, Vincent's career was such a failure that we know of only one painting that he managed to sell
00:24during his lifetime.
00:25It's this one, The Red Vineyard.
00:28So why exactly was Vincent such a stunning disappointment?
00:33Well, for a start, he was what we'd call a late bloomer.
00:36He started painting seriously pretty late in his life, entering the Belgian Royal Academy at age 27.
00:43Now, this was during the height of Impressionism,
00:46a counter-movement that rejected traditional painting techniques in favour of short, broken brushstrokes that emphasised light and movement.
00:55It reminds me of my old hairstyle, so much light and movement, shimmying and shaking.
01:02Vincent, for all his acclaim, was never a particularly skilled painter.
01:07He couldn't draw in a photorealistic manner, and so he dropped out of the academy to pursue Impressionism.
01:13The hottest place to be for an Impressionist at the time was Paris.
01:18That's where the movement had begun, and it was also where its wealthiest patrons resided.
01:24Vincent, however, didn't arrive in Paris until 1886 at the very tail end of the movement.
01:30He was a latecomer to an already crowded trade, one of probably hundreds of wannabe Impressionists.
01:37Many of the original Impressionists were already famous by the time they rebelled against the establishment.
01:44Monet, the founder of Impressionism, for example, earned his credentials with near photorealistic paintings, such as this one.
01:52Amazing.
01:52Vincent, unfortunately, had no such foundation to build upon.
01:57He also didn't have any social connections.
02:00When he arrived in Paris, his only friend in the art world was his own brother, Theo.
02:05Theo had been working as an art dealer in Paris since 1884, and unlike his older brother, he was actually
02:12pretty successful in his career.
02:13It is through Theo that Vincent was acquainted with other contemporary Impressionists, though unfortunately Theo's connections didn't extend into the
02:22world of deep-pocketed patrons.
02:24Theo would end up being Vincent's main source of financing.
02:29Yet, despite Theo's line of work, the majority of Vincent's paintings would eventually be bartered away to secure painting materials
02:37or food.
02:39Complicating Vincent's financial situation was his copious consumption of alcohol and tobacco.
02:45In his latter years, he'd resort to a diet of bread and water just so he could afford his other
02:50vices.
02:51Unsurprisingly, his health deteriorated quite rapidly, as did his mental state, and in early 1889 he was admitted into a
03:00mental asylum.
03:00Interestingly enough, during his stay, Vincent produced over a hundred paintings, including some of his most famous ones, with his
03:09style evolving into what is now called post-impressionism.
03:13He left the mental asylum in May 1890, and two months later decided to shoot himself in the gut, as
03:21you do.
03:22Understandably, Theo was devastated and couldn't come to terms with Vincent's death for the rest of his life, which amounted
03:29to six months since he caught syphilis shortly after.
03:33Oh, Theo, what have you been doing?
03:36The task of preserving Vincent's legacy fell onto Theo's widow.
03:40She donated his paintings to any museum that would take them and published the letters Theo and Vincent had written
03:46to each other.
03:47Her timing proved to be perfect.
03:50She published the letters in 1914, right around the time when American art dealers were entering the European art market.
03:58As the era of Impressionism came to a close, numerous American institutions purchased lesser-known Parisian art at bargain prices.
04:08The Detroit Institute of Arts was the first to acquire one of Vincent's paintings, and before long, Americans were writing
04:15biographies, dedicating solo exhibitions, and making movies about him.
04:20It really was a compelling story.
04:23A lonely artist pouring his soul onto the canvas, and it made a ton of money for the art dealers
04:29who bought his paintings on the cheap.
04:31Well, my friends, I hope I haven't discouraged you from pursuing a career in fine arts.
04:37It's a tough business, but the rewards for your children and grandchildren could be spectacular.
04:43I, as one more thing, much like Vincent himself, we're in desperate need of patrons, figuratively and literally, on Patreon.
04:52But even if you're not quite ready to jump that far for us just yet, you can still like and
04:57share this video and I'll be extremely grateful in either case.
05:01Anyhow, I look forward to exploring another completely unrelated topic with you in a couple of weeks in the next
05:08photo-realistically impressionist episode of SideQuest.
05:16Now to commission a painter for my bathtub pose.
05:19Hmm, glass-raised with my rubber ducky, perhaps.
05:22Hmm, glass-raised with my
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