Sundays with Vincent
Contemplative Workshop
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4 Meetings, starting Sept. 6, 2026
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Live event; every Sunday in September
Vincent van Gogh is one of the most recognized artists in the world and one of the least understood as a spiritual figure. Everyone knows his paintings, but few are aware that behind them was a man deeply steeped in the contemplative life. A man who gave away his possessions and voluntarily slept on a straw bed among the coal miners of Belgium; a man steeped in the mystical literature of bygone eras who made it his mission to imitate Christ; a man, also, who was rejected by the church for being too radical, and eventually gave himself over to painting as the most authentic expression of his mystical devotion.
Vincent's Forgotten Mysticism
Sundays with Vincent is structured around the main pillars of van Gogh’s contemplative life. Over four consecutive Sundays, we will interactively explore what animated van Gogh’s spiritual life and discover how his life, letters, and paintings continue to inspire us on our own contemplative paths.
We will discuss Vincent’s religious upbringing and see how his encounter with the devotional literature of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period shaped his subsequent contemplative life: from the radical compassion of the years he spent in Belgium, when solidarity with the suffering became a spiritual discipline, to the daily practice of painting and writing that replaced institutional religion with something more suited to his temperament and talents.
It is remarkable that one of the most popular painters in modern art is also one of its most overlooked contemplatives.
We will also cover the dark night of the asylum period, in which van Gogh continued to work, write, and attend even as everything else fell away, and the late works, in which his spiritual life finds its deepest and most authentic expression.
Structure of the Workshop
This is not an ordinary course. Each session moves from a guided encounter with his work to an interactive and creative practice. At the heart of the program is the creation of a personal journal in which participants are encouraged to apply the lessons of Vincent’s life and art to their own spiritual journey.
What they will find is that Vincent van Gogh is not simply the tormented genius he is often taken to be, but a great exemplar of what it means to live contemplatively: a man who transformed attention into a spiritual practice and showed how devotion, compassion, and wonder can transform even the most ordinary moments into sites of spiritual meaning.
