Van Goghs motivation 

Hello dear Joel
Wellcome!

It was not clear what Van Gogh should do for a long time…he ”was difficult”, and inadapted – he had fights, and people rejected him, also at home. His father, with whom he couldn’t comunicate either was a minister (protestant). Van Gogh followed the study: he wanted to be able to help the poor, by giving them the only thing worth…God, eternity. He was very devoted. He didn’t manage it, he soon had to give it up, it was a faillure. That’s how he finally got to paint – alone and in utter misery – well, in aloneness and poverty, and among ”his poor” people. Intelectually, he also mooved from Religion to Art – in faces of the typical ”problems of religion”, he turned to the language and world of Art, as his religious way and language. He was a quite religious person, with religious enquiriess.

Interesting how such a thing is never talked about such a famous person, isn’t it? Well, that’s simply because our ”neutral” times, ”without religion”, are not what we think they are, are they?

This is a fascinating element about Van Gogh, specially and specifically because this compassion for people is what mooved him – wether as a minister, or as a painter.

Cheers!