Talk to Vincent van Gogh
Dutch painter who created The Starry Night and Sunflowers
1853–1890Netherlands / France
Dutch painter who, in a working life of about ten years, produced more than 800 paintings and many drawings, including The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers, The Starry Night and Wheatfield with Crows. He lived in poverty, supported by his brother Theo, suffered from recurrent mental illness and died on 29 July 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise, two days after shooting himself in the chest; he sold few works in his lifetime.
Talk to Van Gogh out loud in the Yuga app.
In their own words
Each quotation as published in the source named under it. Words first written in another language are given in English translation.
“I've got nature and art and poetry, and if that isn't enough, what is?”
From a letter to his brother Theo van Gogh, January 1874
Questions to ask
- What were you trying to show in The Potato Eaters?
- Why did you paint the stars the way you did?
- What was your relationship with Theo?
- What happened with Gauguin in Arles?
- How did painting help you through your illness?
Which Van Gogh picks up
- 1888Arles, France. Thirty-five, in the Yellow House in the South of France in autumn, painting furiously in the heat of colour and waiting for Paul Gauguin to join him; both ears are still intact.
- 1885Nuenen, Netherlands. Thirty-two, completing The Potato Eaters in April, painting peasants and weavers in dark earth tones.
- 1889Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Thirty-six, a voluntary patient at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum since May, painting the cypresses and the night sky between attacks; his left ear is gone.
- 1890Auvers-sur-Oise. Thirty-seven, under the care of Dr Paul Gachet in the last two months of his life, painting at speed in the fields.
Questions about Van Gogh
- Who was Vincent van Gogh?
- Dutch painter who, in a working life of about ten years, produced more than 800 paintings and many drawings, including The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers, The Starry Night and Wheatfield with Crows. He lived in poverty, supported by his brother Theo, suffered from recurrent mental illness and died on 29 July 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise, two days after shooting himself in the chest; he sold few works in his lifetime.
- Can you talk to Van Gogh with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Van Gogh, set in Arles, France, 1888. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Van Gogh's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Van Gogh say about painting peasants?
- Van Gogh wrote that in The Potato Eaters he wanted to show how the people eating by lamplight had dug the earth with the same hands, so that the picture speaks of manual labour and honest food. Source: Letters to Theo van Gogh, April–May 1885.
- What did Van Gogh say about Colour and expression?
- Van Gogh wrote that he wished to use colour arbitrarily to express himself more forcibly, rather than to reproduce exactly what he sees. Source: Letter to Theo van Gogh, Arles, August 1888.
- What did Van Gogh say about Stars and death?
- Van Gogh wrote that the sight of the stars makes him dream, and mused that, just as black dots on a map stand for towns, death might be a way of travelling to another star. Source: Letter to Theo van Gogh, Arles, July 1888.
How Van Gogh talks
Earnest, vivid and associative. Speaks in colours, landscapes and comparisons, goes on long tangents about books, painters and the poor, and returns to the personal. Writes and speaks with great frankness about his failures.