Vincent's models - Sint Willebrord

Vincent van Gogh was not a natural talent or genius, but a hard worker. He was already 27 when he decided to become an artist in 1880. Near here, in Etten-Leur, he got his first studio. He struggled with the basics of drawing and learned by practising a lot and watching other artists closely. Here in St Willebrord lived one of his favourite models: Cornelis Schuitemaker, the only Protestant in the village. In 1881, he posed for Vincent van Gogh's famous drawings ‘Worn Out’ and ‘Farmer by the Fire’. It was not easy to find people willing to pose properly.

‘But what a job it is to make people understand what posing is.─ Peasants and citizens are desperately inveterate on the point they don't want to get rid of, that n.l. one shouldn't want to pose other than in his Sunday suit with impossible folds in which neither knee nor elbow nor omoplates nor any other part of the body has marked its characteristic dent or elevation...’ (Vincent to Theo, 5 August 1881).

Vincent continued to draw models throughout his life. He also tried ‘marketable’ subjects, such as portraits. The reason why Van Gogh painted self-portraits so often was because models were quite expensive for him. Before Van Gogh decided to become an artist, he worked in the art trade, among other things. Between 1869 and 1873, he worked as a junior clerk at the Hague branch of the international art dealer Goupil & Cie. Goupil. There he had to pack, unpack, line pictures and etchings with tissue paper and help crate paintings.

At the church in St Willebrord, you will find an audio column. This commemorates Cornelis Schuitemaker.