The Artist Who Wanted to Preach

Did You Know? – About The Artist Who Wanted to Preach.

Welcome to Did You Know? — the podcast that dives deep into the lesser-known corners of history, shedding new light on the people and events you thought you knew. 

Today, we uncover the surprising spiritual journey of one of the most famous names in art. You’ve likely seen his bold brush strokes and swirling skies, but you may not know that before he painted, he preached. This is the story of Vincent van Gogh — the artist who wanted to save souls long before he ever captured beauty on canvas.

Vincent van Gogh’s name is now synonymous with tortured genius. His vivid paintings, emotional honesty, and tragic death have become part of global cultural memory. But if we step back in time to his early life, we find a very different Vincent — one filled with spiritual longing, deep compassion, and a desperate desire to serve a higher purpose.

Born in 1853 in the Netherlands, Vincent grew up in a religious family. His father was a Protestant minister, and young Vincent felt an early pull toward faith and service. In his early twenties, he pursued work as a lay preacher and missionary, eventually enrolling in theology studies. But the traditional academic route didn’t suit him. He struggled with formal education, often clashing with instructors and failing exams. Still, his conviction didn’t waver.

Eventually, he found a position as a missionary in the coal-mining region of Borinage, Belgium — a place marked by poverty, grime, and hardship. There, Vincent embraced the community, giving away his possessions and living like the miners he ministered to. He slept on floors, wore tattered clothes, and dedicated himself to helping the sick and the poor. But his radical empathy, ironically, alarmed his superiors in the church. They dismissed him for taking his mission too literally, too intensely. And just like that, Vincent’s dream of preaching was crushed.
This crisis shattered him. He returned home, emotionally broken, with no sense of purpose. And then, something extraordinary happened: he picked up a pencil. He began to sketch the world around him — first in quiet, humble tones. Miners, farmers, peasants — the same people he once tried to preach to — became his subjects. Through art, he found a new voice.
Van Gogh came to believe that painting could reach the soul in ways words could not. In a letter to his brother Theo, he wrote, "I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say: he feels deeply, he feels tenderly." His mission hadn’t changed — only the medium had. The paintbrush became his pulpit.
Over the next decade, Vincent poured himself into art. He studied obsessively, experimented, and evolved. His palette exploded with color after moving to the south of France. His brushwork became more expressive. But beneath the brilliance, he struggled with mental illness, isolation, and rejection. He sold only one painting in his lifetime.
Yet the desire to connect — to inspire — never left him. Works like The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers, and Starry Night weren’t just experiments in form. They were expressions of faith, suffering, beauty, and humanity. In a way, each painting was a sermon.

Even in his letters, Vincent revealed a mind forever wrestling with purpose and meaning. He often quoted scripture and wrestled with existential questions, writing to Theo, "What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person? Somebody who has no position in society and will never have. In short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an outcast has in his heart."
His life was a paradox — a man who failed to preach by word but succeeded through color, who battled darkness while illuminating the lives of others. He once said, "There is nothing more truly artistic than to love peopl