Vincent Van Gogh history

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You come from a good family. Dutch notables. Your father, himself the son of a famous preacher, was a minister. Your mother was the daughter of a court binder ( he bound the first Constitution of Holland). An old family had been respected since the sixteenth century. Your grandparents on your fatherÕs side had twelve children ( one of whom died as an infant). Their six sons became priests, goldsmiths, art dealers...Even one was a sculptor... Two families whose main concerns were religion and art... Your future was already mapped out... As she was coming from the big city of Breda,your mother must have founf herself most isolated, far from her family among peasants who spoke a dialect she didnÕt understand. She was 31 when she got married with your father, who was a little younger than her. They wanted fast a child... One year later, she gave birth to a stillborn child.... You can imagine their expectation, their hope, thenÊ the radical disappointment. The remorse. The fear of the future, to give birth only to stillborn children. Their anxiety and their hope. The desire of your mother to make up for what she had done, her guilt. To erase their shame, their disgrace to have put in the world a dead child. Soon, you are conceived.