Portrait of the Artist's Mother (Van Gogh)
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| Artist | Vincent van Gogh |
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| Year | October, 1888 |
| Catalogue | F477 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 40.5 cm × 32.5 cm (15.9 in × 12.8 in) |
| Location | The Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, California |
Portrait of Artist's Mother is an 1888 painting by Vincent van Gogh of his mother, Anna Carbentus van Gogh, drawn from a black-and-white photograph. Van Gogh's introduction to art was through his mother, herself an amateur artist. After years of strained relations with family members, Van Gogh excitedly shared some of his works he thought his mother would appreciate most, of flowers and natural settings. In this painting, Van Gogh captures his mother's dignified and proud nature.
Anna Carbentus van Gogh was an amateur artist who enjoyed making drawings of plants and flowers and was a "keen watercolorist". From a large family, one of eight children, Anna raised six children: Vincent, Anna, Elizabeth, Theo, Wilhelmien and Cornelius. Anna enjoyed sharing her love of art with her children. Among Vincent's earliest drawings are copies of his mother's sketches of a bouquet of flowers and thistles.
Anna's husband, Theodorus van Gogh, was a pastor, a long-standing family profession. Theodorus, known for his good looks and long sermons, came from a family of eleven children. Anna and Theodorus devotedly served the rural communities in which they were stationed; their actions modeled their religious beliefs. Both mother and father believed that God was omnipotent, continually watching over them. They taught their children to look for God's presence in nature, such as the shape of the clouds or in the many colors in the sunsets. Theodorus van Gogh's favorite poet, Reverend Bernard ter Haar wrote in the poem "Song of Praise to Creation":
At the age of eleven Van Gogh was sent to boarding schools for training, which initiated his lifelong feelings of exile. Van Gogh felt even more removed from the family after failing as an art dealer and in the ministry. When he decided to become an artist, his family members suggested possible alternate, more lucrative vocations which widened the division between Vincent and his family. Van Gogh's manner of dress, behavior and unusual love life was unsettling and embarrassing to the family. Vincent too felt a division. By 1881 Vincent had developed his personal view of the world and realized it was quite different than his parents. To his brother, Theo he wrote "I can't settle into Father's and Mother's system, it is too stifling and would suffocate me." He continues, "I find Father and Mother's sermons and ideas about God, people, morality and virtue a lot of stuff and nonsense."
When Vincent was hospitalized in Arles in 1888-1889, his mother wrote to Theo, "I believe he was always ill and his suffering and ours was a result of it. Poor brother of Vincent, sweetest dearest Theo, you to have been very worried and troubled because of him." She then said, "I would ask, 'Take him, Lord.'"
As Vincent rose to the height of his career, he enjoyed passing on prized paintings to his family. "Great bouquets of flowers, violet-colored irises, great bouquets of roses," went to his mother. Another example, "the most resolved and stylized of the three" paintings of women picking olives was made for his sister and mother.
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