r years of work he lost his job due to the lack of his everyday responsibilities. At the age of twenty-three, Vincents mental state began to deteriorate. He developed a strong sense of religious devotion and took an unpaid position at a small boarding school in Ramsgate, England. In 1880 Van Gogh started to focus on art as a career and not just a hobby. After a brief stay at the University of Amsterdam studying theology, Vincent chose art as a vocation and became dependent on his brother Theo for money. In the spring of 1880 his brother wrote to him and said, Vincent, what is the matter? (Burra). In the letter there was some money. Though he knew the proper thing to do was to return it, it felt good for him to have a square meal again. For the next ten years his brother, Theo, continued to send him money and Vincent began to paint feverishly to the end of his life. Theo and his parents regarded Vincents passion for books as the root of all his trouble (Meier-Graefe). They felt that since he stopped being an art dealer he had somehow deserted art. They could not have been farther from the truth. Many of the letters written from Vincent and Theo have now become such an extraordinary source of knowledge to Van Gogh life. From 1881 to 1885 van Gogh lived in the Netherlands. In keeping with his humanitarian outlook he painted peasants and workers, the most famous picture from this period being The Potato Eaters (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; 1885). Of this he wrote to Theo: I have tried to emphasize that those people, eating their potatoes in the lamp-light have dug the earth with those very hands they put in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labor, and how they have honestly earned their food (Auden). This was his first important picture that underscores his lifelong interest in peasant subjects. He worked at The Hague, where he received some instruction from his cousin, Anton Mauve. In the winter months of 1885-1886, Van Gogh studied at...
