Vincent van Gogh's turn to religion and his subsequent
spiritual crisis are essential periods of his life. Not only does
his attempt at religious life represent his second major career
failure after being dismissed from the art trade, but his almost
fanatic religious devotion and obsessive asceticism help illuminate
both his psychological struggles and the ecstatic, otherworldly,
spiritual nature of his later artwork.
In an 1888 letter, reflecting on the "form" of his "madness,"
van Gogh comments that "when in a state of excitement my feelings lead
me...to the contemplation of eternity...rather than to persecution
mania" (L 556, Oct. 1888). Eleven years earlier, in a March 1877
letter to Theo, van Gogh had already decided on his religious mission:
"Someone in our family has always been a minister of the gospel...it
is my prayer and innermost desire that the spirit of my father
and grandfather may also rest upon me" (L eighty-nine). However,
despite his tremendous exertions and concentration on this one true
religious mission to the detriment of his mental health and happiness
(the same rigorous, but dangerous disciplined attitude and ethic
that would eventually make him a brilliant artist), Vincent failed
as a preacher. In May 1877, he moved to Amsterdam to study theology,
and, under the supervision of a tutor hired by his family, he began
studying for his theological entrance exams with zeal, but he discovered
that the requirements in Greek, Latin, and math were strenuous
and seemingly utterly unrelated to his personal brand of ecstatic
spiritual inspiration and revelation. By July 1878, he had dropped
out of this academic program, and in August he moved to Brussels
to enter a shorter course of study to prepare to become an evangelical
missionary rather than a minister. Apparently this program didn't
suit his sensibilities either, so he left after three months to
pursue a position as a lay preacher and evangelist in the Borinage,
a poor rural mining region in Belgium.
Throughout his truncated religious studies, Vincent read
and drew extensively, pastimes he continued after moving to the
village of Wasmes in December 1878. Initially unpaid, eventually
he took a temporary paid job ministering to the sick and teaching
Bible studies, but his fanaticism and asceticism (he insisted on
living in a shack, calling himself a peasant, and owning no worldly
possessions) were offensive to his employers, so he was asked to
leave. In August 1879 he moved to a town called Cuesmes to preach
without pay, where the residents appreciated his humanitarian missionary work
with the sick and needy and his generous, sincere disposition. However,
he failed as a preacher, because he lacked eloquence as a speaker,
and his sermons were convoluted and confusing to his congregation.
Sometime in 1879, Vincent finally came to the realization
that he was not cut out for a religious life, and apparently he
underwent a profound spiritual crisis about which we have no written
information. His letters to Theo had become less and less frequent
over the course of his religious failures and his family's vocal
disappointment in him. We do know that he felt "homesick for the
land of pictures [The Netherlands]" (L 127, Dec. 1878), and that
he was reading voraciously (gradually more and more literature–Dickens, Hugo,
and Shakespeare–and less religious material). He also began drawing
a great deal in 1879, and he wrote his brother to ask for books
about drawing and rendering and for some art supplies. He especially
enjoyed drawing the miners. But in July 1880, he still mused to
Theo: "How can I be of use in the world? Can't I serve some purpose
and be of any good?" (L 133). Vincent asked Theo for prints and
reproductions of famous works by Millet and others for him to copy
to better his technique, and Theo began to send money monthly to
support his suffering, confused brother. By the fall of 1880, Vincent
had decided to abandon his religious mission entirely to become
an artist.
