biography van gogh

Biography of Vincent van Gogh

Van Gogh received a fragmentary education: one year at the village school in Zundert, two years at a boarding school in Zevenbergen, and eighteen months at a high school in Tilburg. At sixteen he began working at the Hague gallery of the French art dealers Goupil et Cie., in which his uncle Vincent was a partner. His brother Theo, who was born 1 May 1857, later worked for the same firm. In 1873 Goupil's transferred Vincent to London, and two years later they moved him to Paris, where he lost all ambition to become an art dealer. Instead, he immersed himself in religion, threw out his modern, worldly book, and became "daffy with piety", in the words of his sister Elisabeth. He took little interest in his work, and was dismissed from his job at the beginning of 1876.

Van Gogh then took a post as an assistant teacher in England, but, disappointed by the lack of prospects, returned to Holland at the end of the year. He now decided to follow in his father's footsteps and become a clergyman. Although disturbed by his fanaticism and odd behavior, his parents agreed to pay for the private lessons he would need to gain admission to the university. This proved to be another false start. Van Gogh abandoned the lessons, and after brief training as an evangelist went to the Borinage coal-mining region in the south of Belgium. His ministry among the miners led him to identify deeply with the workers and their families. In 1897, however, his appointment was not renewed, and his parents despaired, regarding him as a social misfit. In an unguarded moment, his father even spoke of committing him to a mental asylum.

Vincent, too, was at his wits' end, and after a long period of solitary soul-searching in the Borinage he decided to follow Theo's advice and become an artist. His earlier desire to help his fellowman was an evangelist gradually developed into an urge, as he later wrote, to leave mankind "some memento in the form of drawings of paintings - not made to please any particular movement, but to express a sincere human feeling."

His parents could not go along with this latest change of course, and financial responsibility for Vincent passed to his brother Theo, who was now working in the Paris gallery of Boussod, Valadon et Cie., the successor to Goupil's. It was because of Theo's loyal support that Van Gogh later came to regard his oeuvre as the fruits of his brother's efforts on his behalf. A lengthy correspondence between the two brothers (which began in August 1872) would continue until the last days of Vincent's life.

When Van Gogh decided to become an artist, no one, not even himself, suspected that he had extraordinary gifts. His evolution from an inept but impassioned novice into a truly original master was remarkably rapid. He eventually proved to have an exceptional feel for bold, harmonious color effects, and an infallible instinct for choosing simple but memorable compositions.

In order to prepare for his new career, Van Gogh went to Brussels to study at the academy, but left after only nine months. There he got to know Anthon van Rappard, who was to be his most important artist friend during his Dutch period.

In April 1881, Van Gogh went to live with his parents in Etten in North Brabant, where he set himself the task of learning how to draw. He experimented endlessly with all sorts of drawing materials, and concentrated on mastering technical aspects of his craft like perspective, anatomy, and physiognomy. Most of his subjects were taken from peasant life.

At the end of 1881 he moved to The Hague, and there, too, he concentrated mainly on drawing. At first he took lessons from Anton Mauve, his cousin by marriage, but the two soon fell out, partly because Mauve was scandalized by Vincent's relationship with Sien Hoornik, a pregnant prostitute who already had an illegitimate child. Van Gogh made a few paintings while in The Hague , but drawing was his main passion. In order to achieve his ambition of becoming a figure painter, he drew from the live model whenever he could.

In September 1883 he decided to break off the relationship with Sien and follow in the footsteps of artists like Van Rappard and Mauve by trying his luck in the picturesque eastern province of Drenthe, which was fairly inaccessible in those days. After three months, however, a lack of both drawing materials and models forced him to leave. He decided once again to move in with his parents, who were now living in the North Brabant village of Nuenen, near Eindhoven.

In Nuenen, Van Gogh first began painting regularly, modeling himself chiefly on the French painter Jean-Francois Millet (1814 - 1875), who was famous throughout Europe for his scenes of the harsh life of peasants. Van Gogh set to work with an iron will, depicting the life of the villagers and humble workers. he made numerous scenes of weavers. In May 1884, he moved into rooms he had rented from the sacristan of local Catholic church, one of which he used as his studio.

At the end of 1884 he began painting and drawing a major series of heads and work-roughened peasant hands in preparation for a large and complex figure piece that he was planning. In April 1885 this period of study came to fruition in the masterpiece of his Dutch period, The Potato Eaters

In the summer of that year, he made a large number of drawings of the peasants working in the fields. The supply of models dried up, however, when the local priest forbade his parishioners to pose for the vicar's son. He turned to painting landscape instead, inspired in part by a visit to recently opened Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

I feel - a failure. That's it as far as I'm concerned - I feel that this is the destiny that I accept, that will never change. ”

He nevertheless continued working hard during his two months in Auvers, producing dozens of paintings and drawings. On 27 July 1890, Vincent van Gogh was shot in the stomach, and passed away in the early morning of 29 July 1890 in his room at the Auberge Ravoux in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise. Although official history maintains that Van Gogh committed suicide, the latest research reveals that Van Gogh's death might be caused by an accident.

Theo, who had stored the bulk of Vincent's work in Paris, died six months later. His widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger (1862 - 1925), returned to Holland with the collection, and dedicated herself to getting her brother-in-law the recognition he deserved. In 1914, with his fame assured, she published Vincent van Gogh's letters between the two brothers.

The Starry Night

Café terrace at night, vincent van gogh's letters, van gogh self portrait, the starry night over the rhone, wheatfield with crows, the night cafe, the potato eaters, the yellow house, almond blossom, the church at auvers, at eternity's gate by vincent van gogh, portrait of dr. gachet, portrait of the postman joseph roulin by vincent van gogh, self portrait with bandaged ear.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Vincent van gogh (1853–1890).

Road in Etten

Vincent van Gogh

Nursery on Schenkweg

Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)

The Potato Peeler (reverse: Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat)

Street in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

The Flowering Orchard

Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace

Wheat Field with Cypresses

Corridor in the Asylum

L'Arlésienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux (Marie Julien, 1848–1911)

La Berceuse (Woman Rocking a Cradle; Augustine-Alix Pellicot Roulin, 1851–1930)

Olive Trees

First Steps, after Millet

Department of European Paintings , The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2004 (originally published) March 2010 (last revised)

Vincent van Gogh, the eldest son of a Dutch Reformed minister and a bookseller’s daughter, pursued various vocations, including that of an art dealer and clergyman, before deciding to become an artist at the age of twenty-seven. Over the course of his decade-long career (1880–90), he produced nearly 900 paintings and more than 1,100 works on paper. Ironically, in 1890, he modestly assessed his artistic legacy as of “very secondary” importance.

Largely self-taught, Van Gogh gained his footing as an artist by zealously copying prints and studying nineteenth-century drawing manuals and lesson books, such as Charles Bargue’s Exercises au fusain and cours de dessin . He felt that it was necessary to master black and white before working with color, and first concentrated on learning the rudiments of figure drawing and rendering landscapes in correct perspective. In 1882, he moved from his parents’ home in Etten to the Hague, where he received some formal instruction from his cousin, Anton Mauve, a leading Hague School artist. That same year, he executed his first independent works in watercolor and ventured into oil painting; he also enjoyed his first earnings as an artist: his uncle, the art dealer Cornelis Marinus van Gogh, commissioned two sets of drawings of Hague townscapes for which Van Gogh chose to depict such everyday sites as views of the railway station, gasworks, and nursery gardens ( 1972.118.281 ).

Van Gogh’s admiration for the Barbizon artists, in particular Jean-François Millet, influenced his decision to paint rural life. In the winter of 1884–85, while living with his parents in Nuenen, he painted more than forty studies of peasant heads, which culminated in his first multifigured, large-scale composition ( The Potato Eaters , Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam); in this gritty portrayal of a peasant family at mealtime, Van Gogh wrote that he sought to express that they “have tilled the earth themselves with the same hands they are putting in the dish.” Its dark palette and coarse application of paint typify works from the artist’s Nuenen period ( 67.187.70b ;  1984.393 ).

Interested in honing his skills as a figure painter, Van Gogh left the Netherlands in late 1885 to study at the Antwerp Academy in Belgium. Three months later, he departed for Paris, where he lived with his brother Theo, an art dealer with the firm of Boussod, Valadon et Cie, and for a time attended classes at Fernand Cormon’s studio. Van Gogh’s style underwent a major transformation during his two-year stay in Paris (February 1886–February 1888). There he saw the work of the Impressionists first-hand and also witnessed the latest innovations by the Neo-Impressionists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. In response, Van Gogh lightened his palette and experimented with the broken brushstrokes of the Impressionists as well as the pointillist touch of the Neo-Impressionists, as evidenced in the handling of his Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat ( 67.187.70a ), which was painted in the summer of 1887 on the reverse of an earlier peasant study ( 67.187.70b ). In Paris, he executed more than twenty self-portraits that reflect his ongoing exploration of complementary color contrasts and a bolder style.

In February 1888, Van Gogh departed Paris for the south of France, hoping to establish a community of artists in Arles. Captivated by the clarity of light and the vibrant colors of the Provençal spring, Van Gogh produced fourteen paintings of orchards in less than a month, painting outdoors and varying his style and technique. The composition and calligraphic handling of The Flowering Orchard ( 56.13 ) suggest the influence of Japanese prints , which Van Gogh collected. The artist’s debt to ukiyo-e prints is also apparent in the reed pen drawings he made in Arles, distinguished by their great verve and linear invention ( 48.190.1 ). In August, he painted the still lifes Oleanders ( 62.24 ) and Shoes ( 1992.374 ); each work resonates with the artist’s personal symbolism. For Van Gogh, oleanders were joyous and life-affirming (much like the sunflower); he reinforced their significance with the compositional prominence accorded to Émile Zola’s 1884 novel La joie de vivre . The still life of unlaced shoes, which Van Gogh had apparently hung in Paul Gauguin ‘s “yellow room” at Arles, suggested, to Gauguin, the artist himself—he saw them as emblematic of Van Gogh’s itinerant existence.

Gauguin joined Van Gogh in Arles in October and abruptly departed in late December 1888, a move precipitated by Van Gogh’s breakdown, during which he cut off part of his left ear with a razor. Upon his return from the hospital in January, he resumed working on a portrait of the wife of the postmaster Joseph Roulin; although he painted all the members of the Roulin family, Van Gogh produced five versions of Madame Roulin as La Berceuse , shown holding the rope that rocks her newborn daughter’s cradle ( 1996.435 ). He envisioned her portrait as the central panel of a triptych, flanked by paintings of sunflowers. For Van Gogh, her image transcended portraiture, symbolically resonating as a modern Madonna; of its palette, which ranges from ocher to vermilion and malachite, Van Gogh expressed his desire that it “sing a lullaby with color,” underscoring the expressive role of color in his art.

Fearing another breakdown, Van Gogh voluntarily entered the asylum at nearby Saint-Rémy in May 1889, where, over the course of the next year, he painted some 150 canvases. His initial confinement to the grounds of the hospital is reflected in his imagery, from his depictions of its corridors ( 48.190.2 ) to the irises and lilacs of its walled garden, visible from the window of the spare room he was allotted to use as a studio. Venturing beyond the grounds of the hospital, he painted the surrounding countryside, devoting series to its olive groves ( 1998.325.1 ) and cypresses, which he saw as characteristic of Provence. In June, he produced two paintings of cypresses, rendered in thick, impastoed layers of paint ( 49.30 ; Cypresses , Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo), likening the form of a cypress to an Egyptian obelisk in a letter to his brother Theo. These evocative trees figure prominently in a landscape, produced the same month ( 1993.132 ). Van Gogh regarded this work, with its sun-drenched wheat field undulating in the wind, as one of his “best” summer canvases. At Saint-Rémy, he also painted copies of works by such artists as Delacroix, Rembrandt , and Millet, using black-and-white photographs and prints. In fall and winter 1889–90, he executed twenty-one copies after Millet ( 64.165.2 ); he described his copies as “interpretations” or “translations,” comparing his role as an artist to that of a musician playing music written by another composer. During his last week at the asylum, he extended his repertoire of still life by painting four bouquets of Irises ( 58.187 ) and Roses ( 1993.400.5 ) as a final series comparable to the sunflower decoration he made earlier in Arles.

After a year at Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh left, in May 1890, to settle in Auvers-sur-Oise, where he was near his brother Theo in Paris and under the care of Dr. Paul Gachet, a homeopathic physician and amateur painter. In just over two months, Van Gogh averaged a painting a day; however, on July 27, 1890, he shot himself in the chest in a wheat field; he died two days later. His artistic legacy is preserved in the paintings and drawings he left behind, as well as in his voluminous correspondence, primarily with Theo, which lays bare his working methods and artistic intentions and serves as a reminder of his brother’s pivotal role as a mainstay of support throughout his career.

By the time of his death in 1890, Van Gogh’s work had begun to attract critical attention. His paintings were featured at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris between 1888 and 1890 and with Les XX in Brussels in 1890. As Gauguin wrote to him, his recent works, on view at the Indépendants in Paris, were regarded by many artists as “the most remarkable” in the show; and one of his paintings sold from the 1890 exhibition in Brussels. In January 1890, the critic Albert Aurier published the first full-length article on Van Gogh, aligning his art with the nascent Symbolist movement and highlighting the originality and intensity of his artistic vision. By the outbreak of World War I, with the discovery of his genius by the Fauves and German Expressionists, Vincent van Gogh had already come to be regarded as a vanguard figure in the history of modern art.

Department of European Paintings. “Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gogh/hd_gogh.htm (originally published October 2004, last revised March 2010)

Further Reading

Brooks, David. Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Works . CD-ROM. Sharon, Mass.: Barewalls Publications, 2002.

Dorn, Roland, et al. Van Gogh Face to Face: The Portraits . New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000.

Druick, Douglas W., et al. Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South . Exhibition catalogue. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001.

Ives, Colta, et al. Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings . Exhibition catalogue. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. See on MetPublications

Kendall, Richard. Van Gogh's Van Gogh's: Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam . Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1998.

The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh . 3 vols. Boston: Bullfinch Press, 2000.

Pickvance, Ronald. Van Gogh in Arles . New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984. See on MetPublications

Pickvance, Ronald. Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvers . New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. See on MetPublications

Selected and edited by Ronald de Leeuw. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh . London: Penguin, 2006.

Stein, Susan Alyson, ed. Van Gogh: A Retrospective . New York: New Line Books, 2006.

Stolwijk, Chris, and Richard Thomson. Theo van Gogh . Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, 1999.

Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Online resource.

Additional Essays by Department of European Paintings

• Department of European Paintings. “ The Rediscovery of Classical Antiquity .” (October 2002)
• Department of European Paintings. “ Architecture in Renaissance Italy .” (October 2002)
• Department of European Paintings. “ Titian (ca. 1485/90?–1576) .” (October 2003)
• Department of European Paintings. “ The Papacy and the Vatican Palace .” (October 2002)

Related Essays

• Paul Gauguin (1848–1903)
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List of Rulers

• List of Rulers of Europe
• Central Europe and Low Countries, 1800–1900 A.D.
• France, 1800–1900 A.D.
• 19th Century A.D.
• 20th Century A.D.
• Agriculture
• Barbizon School
• Christianity
• Floral Motif
• French Literature / Poetry
• Impressionism
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• Low Countries
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• Self-Portrait

Artist or Maker

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Vincent van Gogh

Dutch Draftsman and Painter

Summary of Vincent van Gogh

The iconic tortured artist, Vincent Van Gogh strove to convey his emotional and spiritual state in each of his artworks. Although he sold only one painting during his lifetime, Van Gogh is now one of the most popular artists of all time. His canvases with densely laden, visible brushstrokes rendered in a bright, opulent palette emphasize Van Gogh's personal expression brought to life in paint. Each painting provides a direct sense of how the artist viewed each scene, interpreted through his eyes, mind, and heart. This radically idiosyncratic, emotionally evocative style has continued to affect artists and movements throughout the 20 th century and up to the present day, guaranteeing Van Gogh's importance far into the future.

Accomplishments

• Van Gogh's dedication to articulating the inner spirituality of man and nature led to a fusion of style and content that resulted in dramatic, imaginative, rhythmic, and emotional canvases that convey far more than the mere appearance of the subject.
• Although the source of much upset during his life, Van Gogh's mental instability provided the frenzied source for the emotional renderings of his surroundings and imbued each image with a deeper psychological reflection and resonance.
• Van Gogh's unstable personal temperament became synonymous with the romantic image of the tortured artist. His self-destructive talent was echoed in the lives of many artists in the 20 th century.
• Van Gogh used an impulsive, gestural application of paint and symbolic colors to express subjective emotions. These methods and practice came to define many subsequent modern movements from Fauvism to Abstract Expressionism .

The Life of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent expressed his life via his works. As he famously said, "real painters do not paint things as they are... they paint them as they themselves feel them to be."

Important Art by Vincent van Gogh

The Potato Eaters

This early canvas is considered Van Gogh's first masterpiece. Painted while living among the peasants and laborers in Nuenen in the Netherlands, Van Gogh strove to depict the people and their lives truthfully. Rendering the scene in a dull palette, he echoed the drab living conditions of the peasants and used ugly models to further iterate the effects manual labor had upon these workers. This effect is heightened by his use of loose brushstrokes to describe the faces and hands of the peasants as they huddle around the singular, small lantern, eating their meager meal of potatoes. Despite the evocative nature of the scene, the painting was not considered successful until after Van Gogh's death. At the time this work was painted, the Impressionists had dominated the Parisian avant-garde for over a decade with their light palettes. It is not surprising that Van Gogh's brother, Theo, found it impossible to sell paintings from this period in his brother's career. However, this work not only demonstrates Van Gogh's commitment to rendering emotionally and spiritually laden scenes in his art, but also established ideas that Van Gogh followed throughout his career.

Oil on canvas - The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

The Courtesan (after Eisen)

While in Paris, Van Gogh was exposed to a myriad of artistic styles, including the Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints. These prints were only made available in the West in the mid-19 th century. Van Gogh collected works by Japanese ukiyo-e masters like Hiroshige and Hokusai and claimed these works were as important as works by European artists, like Rubens and Rembrandt. Van Gogh was inspired to create this particular painting by a reproduction of a print by Keisai Eisen that appeared on the May 1886 cover of the magazine Paris Illustré . Van Gogh enlarges Eisen's image of the courtesan, placing her in a contrasting, golden background bordered by a lush water garden based on the landscapes of other prints he owned. This particular garden is populated by frogs and cranes, both of which were allusions to prostitutes in French slang. While the stylistic features exhibited in this painting, in particular the strong, dark outlines and bright swaths of color, came to define Van Gogh's mature style, he also made the work his own. By working in paint rather than a woodblock print, Van Gogh was able to soften the work, relying on visible brushstrokes to lend dimension to the figure and her surroundings as well as creating a dynamic tension across the surface not present in the original prints.

Café Terrace At Night

This was one of the scenes Van Gogh painted during his stay in Arles and a painting where he used his powerful nocturnal background. Using contrasting colors and tones, Van Gogh achieved a luminous surface that pulses with an interior light, almost in defiance of the darkening sky. The lines of composition all point to the center of the work drawing the eye along the pavement as if the viewer is strolling the cobblestone streets. The café still exists today and is a "mecca" for van Gogh fans visiting the south of France. Describing this painting in a letter to his sister he wrote, "Here you have a night painting without black, with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green and in this surrounding the illuminated area colors itself sulfur pale yellow and citron green. It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot..." Painted on the street at night, Van Gogh recreated the setting directly from his observations, a practice inherited from the Impressionists. However, unlike the Impressionists, he did not record the scene merely as his eye observed it, but imbued the image with a spiritual and psychological tone that echoed his individual and personal reaction. The brushstrokes vibrate with the sense of excitement and pleasure Van Gogh experienced while painting this work.

Oil on canvas - Kröller-Muller Museum, Otterlo

Van Gogh's Sunflower series was intended to decorate the room that was set aside for Gauguin at the "Yellow House," his studio and apartment in Arles. The lush brushstrokes built up the texture of the sunflowers and Van Gogh employed a wide spectrum of yellows to describe the blossoms, due in part to recently invented pigments that made new colors and tonal nuances possible. Van Gogh used the sunny hues to express the entire lifespan of the flowers, from the full bloom in bright yellow to the wilting and dying blossoms rendered in melancholy ochre. The traditional painting of a vase of flowers is given new life through Van Gogh's experimentation with line and texture, infusing each sunflower with the fleeting nature of life, the brightness of the Provencal summer sun, as well as the artist's mindset.

Oil on canvas - The National Gallery, London

The Bedroom

Van Gogh's Bedroom depicts his living quarters at 2 Place Lamartine, Arles, known as the "Yellow House". It is one of his most well known images. His use of bold and vibrant colors to depict the off-kilter perspective of his room demonstrated his liberation from the muted palette and realistic renderings of the Dutch artistic tradition, as well as the pastels commonly used by the Impressionists. He labored over the subject matter, colors, and arrangements of this composition, writing many letters to Theo about it, "This time it's just simply my bedroom, only here color is to do everything, and giving by its simplification a grander style to things, is to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, looking at the picture ought to rest the brain, or rather the imagination." While the bright yellows and blues might at first seem to echo a sense of disquiet, the bright hues call to mind a sunny summer day, evoking as sense of warmth and calm, as Van Gogh intended. This personal interpretation of a scene in which particular emotions and memories drive the composition and palette is a major contribution to modernist painting.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear

After cutting off a portion of his left earlobe during a manic episode while in Arles, Van Gogh painted Self Portrait with a Bandaged Ear while recuperating and reflecting on his illness. He believed that the act of painting would help restore balance to his life, demonstrating the important role that artistic creation held for him. The painting bears witness to the artist's renewed strength and control in his art, as the composition is rendered with uncharacteristic realism, where all his facial features are clearly modeled and careful attention is given to contrasting textures of skin, cloth, and wood. The artist depicts himself in front of an easel with a canvas that is largely blank and a Japanese print hung on the wall. The loose and expressive brushstrokes typical of Van Gogh are clearly visible; the marks are both choppy and sinuous, at times becoming soft and diffuse, creating a tension between boundaries that are otherwise clearly marked. The strong outlines of his coat and hat mimic the linear quality of the Japanese print behind the artist. At the same time, Van Gogh deployed the technique of impasto, or the continual layering of wet paint, to develop a richly textured surface, which furthers the depth and emotive force of the canvas. This self-portrait, one of many Van Gogh created during his career, has an intensity unparalleled in its time, which is elucidated in the frank manner in which the artist portrays his self-inflicted wound as well as the evocative way he renders the scene. By combining influences as diverse as the loose brushwork of the Impressionists and the strong outlines from Japanese woodblock printing, Van Gogh arrived at a truly unique mode of expression in his paintings.

Oil on canvas - The Courtauld Gallery, London

Starry Night

Starry Night is often considered to be Van Gogh's pinnacle achievement. Unlike most of his works, Starry Night was painted from memory, and not out in the landscape. The emphasis on interior, emotional life is clear in his swirling, tumultuous depiction of the sky - a radical departure from his previous, more naturalistic landscapes. Here, Van Gogh followed a strict principal of structure and composition in which the forms are distributed across the surface of the canvas in an exact order to create balance and tension amidst the swirling torsion of the cypress trees and the night sky. The result is a landscape rendered through curves and lines, its seeming chaos subverted by a rigorous formal arrangement. Evocative of the spirituality Van Gogh found in nature, Starry Night is famous for advancing the act of painting beyond the representation of the physical world.

Oil on canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Church at Auvers

After Van Gogh left the asylum at Saint-Remy in May 1890 he travelled north to Auvers, outside of Paris. Church at Auvers is one of the most well-known images from the last few months of Van Gogh's life. Imbuing the landscape with movement and emotion, he rendered the scene with a palette of vividly contrasting colors and brushstrokes that lead the viewer through painting. Van Gogh distorted and flattened out the architecture of the church and depicted it caught within its own shadow - which reflects his own complex relationship to spirituality and religion. Van Gogh conveys a sense that true spirituality is found in nature, not in the buildings of man. The continued influence of Japanese woodblock printing is clear in the thick dark outlines and the flat swaths of color of the roofs and landscape, while the visible brushstrokes of the Impressionists are elongated and emphasized. The use of the acidic tones and the darkness of the church alludes to the impending mental disquiet that would eventually erupt within Van Gogh and lead to his suicide. This sense of instability plagued Van Gogh throughout his life, infusing his works with a unique blend of charm and tension.

Oil on canvas - Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Paul-Ferdinand Gachet

Dr. Gachet was the homeopathic physician that treated Van Gogh after he was released from Saint-Remy. In the doctor, the artist found a personal connection, writing to his sister, "I have found a true friend in Dr. Gachet, something like another brother, so much do we resemble each other physically and also mentally." Van Gogh depicts Gachet seated at a red table, with two yellow books and foxglove in a vase near his elbow. The doctor gazes past the viewer, his eyes communicating a sense of inner sadness that reflects not only the doctor's state of mind, but Van Gogh's as well. Van Gogh focused the viewer's attention on the depiction of the doctor's expression by surrounding his face with the subtly varied blues of his jacket and the hills of the background. Van Gogh wrote to Gauguin that he desired to create a truly modern portrait, one that captured the "the heartbroken expression of our time." Rendering Gachet's expression through a blend of melancholy and gentility, Van Gogh created a portrait that has resonated with viewers since its creation. A recent owner, Ryoei Saito, even claimed he planned to have the painting cremated with him after his death, as he was so moved by the image. The intensity of emotion that Van Gogh poured into each brushstroke is what has made his work so compelling to viewers over the decades, inspiring countless artists and individuals.

Oil on canvas - Private Collection

Biography of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh was born the second of six children into a religious Dutch Reformed Church family in the south of the Netherlands. His father, Theodorus Van Gogh, was a clergyman and his mother, Anna Cornelia Carbentus, was the daughter of a bookseller. Van Gogh exhibited unstable moods during his childhood, and showed no early inclination toward art-making, though he excelled at languages while attending two boarding schools. In 1868, he abandoned his studies and never successfully returned to formal schooling.

Early Training

In 1869, Van Gogh apprenticed at the headquarters of the international art dealers Goupil & Cie in Paris and eventually worked at the Hague branch of the firm. He was relatively successful as an art dealer and stayed with the firm for almost a decade. In 1872, Van Gogh began exchanging letters with his younger brother Theo. This correspondence continued through the end of Vincent's life. The following year, Theo himself became an art dealer, and Vincent was transferred to the London office of Goupil & Cie. Around this time, Vincent became depressed and turned to God.

After several transfers between London and Paris, Van Gogh was let go from his position at Goupil's and decided to pursue a life in the clergy. While living in southern Belgium as a poor preacher, he gave away his possessions to the local coal-miners until the church dismissed him because of his overly enthusiastic commitment to his faith. In 1880, Van Gogh decided he could be an artist and still remain in God's service, writing, "To try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God; one man wrote or told it in a book; another, in a picture." Van Gogh was still a pauper, but Theo sent him some money for survival. Theo financially supported his elder brother his entire career, as Vincent made virtually no money from making art.

A year later, in 1881, dire poverty motivated Van Gogh to move back home with his parents, where he taught himself to draw. He became infatuated with his cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker. His continued pursuit of her affection, despite utter rejection, eventually split the family. With the support of Theo, Van Gogh moved to the Hague, rented a studio, and studied under Anton Mauve - a leading member of the Hague School. Mauve introduced Van Gogh to the work of the French painter Jean-François Millet , who was renowned for depicting common laborers and peasants.

In January 1882, while wandering the streets of The Hague, Van Gogh encountered a young prostitute (who also worked as a seamstress and housecleaner) by the name of Clasina Maria Hoornik. He soon came to refer to her as Christien, which he then shortened to, simply, Sien. She was destitute, addicted to alcohol, pregnant, and had her five year-old daughter Maria Wilhelmina, in tow. Van Gogh took pity on her, and took her into his care for the next year and a half. This dismayed his friends and family, and some of his patrons and benefactors, including his cousin-in-law Anton Mauve, and art dealer Hermanus Tersteeg, abruptly withdrew their support for him.

While Sien's account of their relationship portrays it as one merely of convenience and benevolence, it seems that Van Gogh felt more of a connection, and even had plans to marry her. In return for his support, Sien (as well as her children and mother) modeled for over fifty of Van Gogh's works, such as his 1882 drawing Sorrow , in which Sien appears pregnant, and which the artist once called "the best figure I've drawn". It seems, however, that what Van Gogh valued about her was the challenging life she had faced (she had during her life, become pregnant four different times by four different men, all of whom had abandoned her, and two of the children had died during infancy). He once referred to her as "pockmarked" and "no longer beautiful”, and often depicted her frowning, and in difficult or unflattering situations. Sien and her family also appeared in Van Gogh’s 1883 series The Public Soup Kitchen .

Mature Period

In 1884, after moving to Nuenen, Netherlands, Van Gogh began drawing the weathered hands, heads, and other anatomical features of workers and the poor, determined to become a painter of peasant life like Millet. Although he found a professional calling, his personal life was in shambles. Van Gogh accused Theo of not trying hard enough to sell his paintings, to which Theo replied that Vincent's dark palette was out of vogue compared to the bold and bright style of the Impressionist artists that was popular. Suddenly, on March 26, 1885, their father died from a stroke, putting pressure on Van Gogh to have a successful career. Shortly afterward, he completed the Potato Eaters (1885), his first large-scale composition and great work.

Leaving the Netherlands for the last time, in 1885 Van Gogh enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. There he discovered the art of Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens , whose swirling forms and loose brushwork had a clear impact on the young artist's style. However, the rigidity of academicism of the school did not appeal to Van Gogh and he left for Paris the following year. He moved in with Theo in Montmartre - the artist's district in northern Paris - and studied with painter Fernand Cormon, who introduced the young artist to the Impressionists. The influence of artists such as Claude Monet , Camille Pissarro , Edgar Degas , and Georges Seurat , as well as pressure from Theo to sell paintings, motivated Van Gogh to adopt a lighter palette.

From 1886 to 1888, Van Gogh became acutely interested in Japanese prints and began to avidly study and collect them, even curating an exhibition of them at a Parisian restaurant. In late 1887, Van Gogh organized an exhibition that included his work and that of his colleagues Emile Bernard and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , and in early 1888, he exhibited with the Neo-impressionists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac at the Salle de Repetition of the Theatre Libre d'Antoine.

Late Years and Death

The majority of Van Gogh's best-known works were produced during the final two years of his life. During the fall and winter of 1888, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin lived and worked together in Arles in the south of France, where Van Gogh eventually rented four rooms at 2 Place Lamartine, which was dubbed the "Yellow House" for its citron hue. The move to Provence began as a plan for a new artist's community in Arles as alternative to Paris and came at a critical point in each of the artists' careers. While at the "Yellow House" Gauguin and Van Gogh worked closely together and developed a concept of color symbolic of inner emotion and not dependent upon nature. Despite enormous productivity, Van Gogh suffered from various bouts of mental instability, likely including epilepsy, psychotic episodes, delusions, and bipolar disorder. Gauguin left for Tahiti, partially as a means of escaping Van Gogh's increasingly erratic behavior. The artist slipped away after a particularly violent fight in which Van Gogh threatened Gauguin with a razor and then cut off part of his own left ear.

On May 8, 1889, reeling from his deteriorating mental condition, Van Gogh voluntarily committed himself into a psychiatric institution in Saint-Remy, near Arles. As the weeks passed, his mental well-being remained stable and he was allowed to resume painting. This period became one of his most productive. In the year spent at Saint-Remy, Van Gogh created over 100 works, including Starry Night (1889). The clinic and its garden became his main subjects, rendered in the dynamic brushstrokes and lush palettes typical of his mature period. On supervised walks, Van Gogh immersed himself in the experience of the natural surroundings, later recreating from memory the olive and cypress trees, irises, and other flora that populated the clinic's campus.

Shortly after leaving the clinic, Van Gogh moved north to Auvers-sur-Oise outside of Paris, to the care of a homeopathic doctor and amateur artist, Dr. Gachet. The doctor encouraged Van Gogh to paint as part of his recovery, and he happily obliged. He avidly documented his surroundings in Auvers, averaging roughly a painting a day over the last months of his life. However, after Theo disclosed his plan to go into business for himself and explained funds would be short for a while, Van Gogh's depression deepened sharply. On July 27, 1890, he wandered into a nearby wheat field and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. Although Van Gogh managed to struggle back to his room, his wounds were not treated properly and he died in bed two days later. Theo rushed to be at his brother's side during his last hours and reported that his final words were: "The sadness will last forever."

The Legacy of Vincent van Gogh

Clear examples of Van Gogh's wide influence can be seen throughout art history. The Fauves and the German Expressionists worked immediately after Van Gogh and adopted his subjective and spiritually inspired use of color. The Abstract Expressionists of the mid-20 th century made use of Van Gogh's technique of sweeping, expressive brushstrokes to indicate the artist's psychological and emotional state. Even the Neo-Expressionists of the 1980s, like Julian Schnabel and Eric Fischl , owe a debt to Van Gogh's expressive palette and brushwork. In popular culture, his life has inspired music and numerous films, including Vincente Minelli's Lust for Life (1956), which explores Van Gogh and Gauguin's volatile relationship. In his lifetime, Van Gogh created 900 paintings and made 1,100 drawings and sketches, but only sold one painting during his career. With no children of his own, most of Van Gogh's works were left to brother Theo.

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Vincent van Gogh

• Vincent Van Gogh: A Biography By Julius Meier-Graefe
• Stranger On The Earth: A Psychological Biography Of Vincent Van Gogh By Albert J. Lubin
• Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist By Jan Greenberg, Sandra Jordan
• Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh By Irving Stone, Jean Stone
• Letters of Vincent Van Gogh Our Pick By Vincent Van Gogh, Mark Roskill
• Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings Our Pick By Ingo F. Walther, Rainer Metzger
• Van Gogh in Provence and Auvers By Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov
• Vincent's Colors By Vincent Van Gogh, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Vincent Van Gogh: The Drawings By Colta Ives, Susan Alyson Stein, Sjraar Van Heugten, Marije Vellekoop
• The Vincent Van Gogh Museum
• The Vincent Van Gogh Gallery Comprehensive image gallery of the artist's works
• Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters Our Pick Archives of Van Gogh's complete letters
• Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night Interactive website for the 2008 MoMA Exhibition
• Van Gogh's Ear and Modern Painting Our Pick By Adam Gopnik / The New Yorker / January 4, 2010
• Van Gogh's Night Visions By Paul Trachtman / Smithsonian Magazine / January 2009
• Nocturnal Van Gogh, Illuminating the Darkness Our Pick By Roberta Smith / The New York Times / September 18, 2008
• The Evolution of a Master Who Dreamed on Paper By Michael Kimmelman / The New York Times / October 14, 2005
• Where Van Gogh's Art Reached its Zenith By Grace Glueck / The New York Times / October 7, 1984
• Lust for Life Our Pick Book by Irving Stone
• Vincent & Theo Robert Altman's film about the brothers Van Gogh
• Don McLean's song 'Vincent (Starry Starry Night)'

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Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors

Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors

Biography Online

Vincent Van Gogh Biography

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)

Vincent Van Gogh was an artist of exceptional talent. Influenced by impressionist painters of the period, he developed his own instinctive, spontaneous style. Van Gogh became one of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century and played a key role in the development of modern art.

“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 eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.”

– Vincent Van Gogh (Letter to Theo, July 1882)

Short Biography Vincent Van Gogh

He was born in Groot-Zundert, a small town in Holland in March 1853. His father was a Protestant pastor and he had three uncles who were art dealers.

Despite disliking formal training, he studied art in both Brussels and Paris. His first attempts at art were not indicative of his later talent. In the beginning, he was a clumsy drawer and, when studying at one art academy, he was put back a year because of his perceived lack of ability to draw. His early pictures appear rather basic and do not show any sign of his later art. However, he worked hard and sought to improve his technique. Yet these early difficulties always stayed with Van Gogh and throughout his life, he was bothered with a sense of inadequacy. In a letter to his brother, he described his early efforts as mere ‘scribbles.’

He became absorbed in art and would prioritise it over more mundane matters. Van Gogh struggled to hold down a regular job. For example, he lost his position as an art dealer after quarrelling with a customer. He also had short-lived jobs as a supply teacher and priest. Not holding a regular job, he relied on financial help from his close brother Theo. Theo was generous to his brother throughout his life – often sending money and painting materials.

With his brothers financial backing, in 1888 Van Gogh travelled to Arles in the south of France, where he continued his painting – often outside – another feature of the impressionist movement. This was a prolific period for Van Gogh; he could paint up to five paintings per week and he enjoyed walking in the countryside and getting inspiration from nature – such as the corn harvest. He drew everything from nature, portraits of friends, everyday objects and the vast night sky.

Straw Harvest

Living in Paris (1886-88) he had been influenced by the new impressionist painters, such as Monet and Renoir, and their interest in light. However, he soon developed his own unique style of powerful, brush strokes – often using warm reds, oranges and yellows. Simple brush strokes which created strong and arresting images.

Van Gogh was driven by an inner urge to express the art he felt within. He wrote that he felt an artistic power within, which moved him to work very hard.

“Believe me, I work, I drudge, I grind all day long and I do so with pleasure, but I should get very much discouraged if I could not go on working as hard or even harder.. .I feel, Theo, that there is a power within me, and I do what I can to bring it out and free it.”

– Van Gogh, (Letter to Theo 1982)

Van Gogh lived from moment to moment and was never financially secure. He put his whole life into art and neglected other aspects of his life – such as his health, appearance and financial security. During his lifetime, he sold only one painting – ironic since now Van Gogh’s paintings are some of the most expensive in the world.

“What is true is that I have at times earned my own crust of bread, and at other times a friend has given it to me out of the goodness of his heart. I have lived whatever way I could, for better or for worse, taking things just as they came.”

– Van Gogh, Letter to Theo ( July 1880 )

Cafe Terrace at Night 1888 ( Kröller-Müller Museum)

“When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.”

– Vincent Van Gogh

In Arles, he had a brief, if unsuccessful, period of time with the artist Gauguin. Van Gogh’s intensity and mental imbalance made him difficult to live with. At the end of the two weeks, Van Gogh approached Gauguin with a razor blade. Gauguin fled back to Paris, and Van Gogh later cut off the lower part of his ear with the blade.

This action was symptomatic of his increasing mental imbalance. He was later committed to a lunatic asylum where he would spend time on and off until his death in 1890. At the best of times, Van Gogh had an emotional intensity that flipped between madness and genius. He himself wrote:

“Sometimes moods of indescribable anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time and fatality of circumstances seemed to be torn apart for an instant.”

Vase with 12 Sunflowers,  1888

It was during these last two years of his life that Van Gogh was at his most productive as a painter. He developed a style of painting that was quick and rapid – leaving no time for contemplation and thought. He painted with quick movements of the brush and drew increasingly avant-garde style shapes – foreshadowing modern art and its abstract style. He felt an overwhelming need and desire to paint.

“The work is an absolute necessity for me . I can’t put it off, I don’t care for anything but the work; that is to say, the pleasure in something else ceases at once and I become melancholy when I can’t go on with my work. Then I feel like a weaver who sees that his threads are tangled, and the pattern he had on the loom is gone to hell, and all his thought and exertion is lost.”

In 1890, a series of bad news affected his mental equilibrium and one day in July, whilst painting, he shot himself in the chest. He died two days later from his wound.

Yellow House

The religion of Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh was critical of formalised religion and was often scathing of clerics in the Christian church, but he denied he was an atheist, believing in God and love.

“That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such — be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, there is something mysterious in that.”

– Van Gogh

Van Gogh saw his painting as a spiritual pursuit. He wrote of great paintings, that the artist had hidden an aspect of God in the painting.

“Try to grasp the essence of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces, and you will again find God in them. One man has written or said it in a book, another in a painting.”

“I think that everything that is really good and beautiful, the inner, moral, spiritual and sublime beauty in men and their works, comes from God, and everything that is bad and evil in the works of men and in men is not from God, and God does not approve of it. But I cannot help thinking that the best way of knowing God is to love many things.”

– Vincent Van Gogh

Citation:  Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Vincent Van Gogh”, Oxford,  www.biographyonline.net. Published 23 May 2014. Last Updated 3 February 2020.

Van Gogh – His Life and Works

Van Gogh: His Life & Works in 500 Images at Amazon

Vincent Van Gogh – The Life

Vincent Van Gogh – The Life at Amazon

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Vincent van Gogh

ARTISTS (1853–1890); ZUNDERT, NETHERLANDS

The prolific yet short-lived career of Vincent van Gogh has captivated the art world nearly as much as his actual paintings have. From his birth in the Netherlands to his death in France—not to mention the infamous ear incident of 1888—the Dutch post-impressionist painter was a creative force of nature who took a little longer than other artists of the era to find his calling. Now, his life has been immortalized in movies, songs, and countless art exhibits, but, as is the case with so many great artists, van Gogh wasn't celebrated much while he was alive. Find out more about the fascinating man behind The Starry Night and Sunflowers below.

1. Most of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings were done in a single decade.

Vincent Willem van Gogh grew up in the Netherlands and joined an art firm called Goupil & Cie in The Hague in 1869, when he was just 16 years old. Four years later, Goupil & Cie sent him to deal art in London, but it was never a good fit—van Gogh couldn’t muster enthusiasm for the business side of art, and he was fired in 1876. After trying his hand at teaching and even preaching, he turned to what he’d soon realize was his true vocation: painting. Largely self-taught, van Gogh painted nearly 900 works between November 1881 and July 1890, when he died at age 37.

2. Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night in an asylum.

Van Gogh entered the Saint-Paul-de Mausole Asylum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, after a mental breakdown in late 1888. He painted The Starry Night based on the view from his second-story bedroom window—with a few significant modifications. For one, he omitted the iron bars that were almost definitely fastened to the window, since he mentioned “the iron-barred window” in a letter to his brother Theo the previous month. And he added a lovely, moonlit town in the distance, which he wouldn’t have been able to see from his window. Some historians think he modeled the village on earlier sketches he had done of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, while others believe it was inspired by the Netherlands, where van Gogh was born.

3. Nine paintings from Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers series still exist.

Van Gogh painted two series of Sunflowers . He completed the first series—four paintings known as the Paris Sunflowers , which all depict the flowers lying on the ground—while living with Theo in Paris in the mid-1880s. Then, when he moved into a yellow house in Arles in 1888, he set to work on what’s now called the Arles Sunflowers , which display floral arrangements in vases. He planned to decorate the house with the sunflower paintings to please fellow painter Paul Gauguin, who would visit him there. Originally, van Gogh had painted seven Sunflowers in Arles, but one was destroyed in a fire during World War II, and another was lost after it was sold into a private collection.

4. Historians aren’t sure exactly why Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear.

Everybody agrees the infamous incident took place on December 23, 1888, while van Gogh was living in Arles, France, with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, but there are several theories as to why van Gogh took a knife or razor to his own ear that fateful night—as well as how much he cut off, and who was the recipient of history’s most revolting gift. The leading theory is that van Gogh was distraught after a quarrel with Gauguin, though others believe it was a reaction to learning his beloved brother Theo was getting married. Some even think it was Gauguin who did the slicing.

Also, while it’s possible that van Gogh only lopped off the lobe, his physician sketched an image that shows van Gogh’s entire ear is missing. Circumstances notwithstanding, van Gogh then brought his mutilated ear to a woman in a nearby brothel—long thought to be a prostitute, though recent evidence suggests she was likely a barmaid—and asked her to guard it carefully.

5. Vincent van Gogh died from a (likely) self-inflicted gunshot wound in France.

Van Gogh’s auricular accident of 1888 may be due to the fact that he was likely dealing with an undiagnosed health issue at the time. The particular mental and/or physical illness van Gogh suffered from isn’t known—though a doctor did once diagnose him with a form of epilepsy—but suggestions include dementia, hallucinatory psychosis, alcoholism, syphilis, turpentine poisoning, schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorder, borderline personality disorder, and more.

On July 27, 1890, while living in the French village Auvers-sur-Oise, van Gogh walked into a field and shot himself in the abdomen. He was able to make it back to the inn where he was staying, but he died from the wound two days later, with Theo by his side. He was just 37 years old. Some have theorized  van Gogh was shot by someone else, but it’s generally believed the artist was responsible for his own death.

6. Vincent van Gogh didn’t sell many paintings commercially while he was alive.

Van Gogh is a pretty classic example of someone who didn’t see commercial success during his lifetime. Apart from the 19 cityscapes of The Hague that his uncle commissioned him to make early in his career, van Gogh only sold a few paintings while he was alive—one to Parisian art dealer Julien Tanguy, one that Theo sold to a London gallery, and a third, The Red Vineyard , to the sister of van Gogh’s friend, Eugène Boch.

That said, van Gogh did often trade works to other artists in exchange for food or supplies, so his paintings definitely weren’t unknown or unappreciated. Much of van Gogh’s art went to Theo after his death, but Theo himself died just a year later. At that point, Theo’s widow, Johanna, began working to organize exhibitions and promote the art of her brother-in-law across Europe, which eventually led to more mainstream success for the already-deceased artist.

A Selection of Vincent van Gogh’s Paintings

• Still Life With Cabbage and Clogs (1881)
• Dunes (1882)
• Girl in the Woods (1882)
• Cottages (1883)
• Weaver Facing Left With Spinning Wheel (1884)
• Cart with Red and White Ox (1884)
• Vase With Honesty (1884-1885)
• Head of an Old Peasant Woman With White Cap (1884)
• The Potato Eaters (1885)
• Skull of a Skeleton With Burning Cigarette (1886)
• A Pair of Shoes (1886)
• Self-Portrait (1886)
• Japonaiserie: The Courtesan (1887)
• Sunflowers (1886-1888)
• The Sower (1888)
• Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin (1888)
• The Night Café (1888)
• The Café Terrace at Night (1888)
• Starry Night Over the Rhône (1888)
• Portrait of the Artist’s Mother (1888)
• Bedroom in Arles (1888)
• Paul Gauguin (Man in a Red Beret) (1888)
• Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear (1889)
• Irises (1889)
• The Starry Night (1889)
• Cypresses (1889)
• Wheat Field With Reaper and Sun (1889)
• Olive Grove (1889)
• At Eternity’s Gate (1890)
• Houses in Auvers (1890)
• The Church at Auvers (1890)
• Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890)

Notable Quotes by Vincent van Gogh

• “Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.”
• “It’s certainly true that it is better to be fervent in spirit, even if one accordingly makes more mistakes, than narrow-minded and overly cautious.”
• “[The] great isn’t something accidental; it must be willed.”
• “The sight of the stars always makes me dream.”
• “Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music.”
• “The more I think about it the more I feel that there’s nothing more genuinely artistic than to love people.”
• “It is good to love as much as one can, for therein lies true strength, and he who loves much does much and is capable of much, and that which is done with love is well done.”
• “There is safety in the midst of danger. What would life be if we didn’t dare to take things in hand?”
• “I seek, I pursue, my heart is in it.”

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh. Self-Portrait , 1887. Joseph Winterbotham Collection.

During Vincent van Gogh’s tumultuous career as a painter, he created a revolutionary style characterized by exaggerated forms, a vivid color palette, and loose, spontaneous handling of paint. Although he only actively pursued his art for five years before his death in 1890, his impact has lived on through his works.

In 1886 Van Gogh left his native Holland and settled in Paris, where his beloved brother, Theo, was a paintings dealer. In the two years he spent in Paris, Van Gogh painted no fewer than two dozen self-portraits. The Art Institute’s early, modestly sized example displays the bright palette he adopted with an overlay of small, even brushstrokes, a response to the Pointillist technique Georges Seurat used, most notably in A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 . Works such as Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy (Asnières) ; Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples ; and Cypresses show the influence of the Impressionists.

Exhausted with the Parisian city life, Van Gogh moved on to the town of Arles in 1888. It was here that he created compositions of such personal importance that he repeated them several times, such as The Bedroom and Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La berceuse) , with slight variations on each repetition.

After experiencing several bouts of mental illness, at the time diagnosed as epilepsy, Van Gogh was admitted to the Asylum of Saint Paul in Saint-Rémy. There he sketched and painted the grounds of the asylum and the town around him. On days when he was unable to go out, he copied works by other artists, such as The Drinkers , after a wood engraving of the same title by Honoré Daumier. 

Van Gogh spent the last few months of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town to the north of Paris. Here, he continued drawing and painting the town and those around him, capturing people, landscapes, houses, and flowers in his work until his untimely death. The Art Institute of Chicago has celebrated van Gogh’s path-breaking work in the exhibitions Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South (2001–2002) and Van Gogh’s Bedrooms (2016).

• The Bedroom, 1889 Vincent van Gogh
• Self-Portrait, 1887 Vincent van Gogh
• The Poet’s Garden, 1888 Vincent van Gogh
• A Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage, c. 1885 Vincent van Gogh
• The Drinkers, 1890 Vincent van Gogh
• Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy (Asnières), 1887 Vincent van Gogh
• Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La berceuse), 1889 Vincent van Gogh
• Terrace and Observation Deck at the Moulin de Blute-Fin, Montmartre, Early 1887 Vincent van Gogh
• Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples, 1887 Vincent van Gogh
• Weeping Tree, 1889 Vincent van Gogh
• Weeping Woman, 1883 Vincent van Gogh
• Tetards (Pollards), 1884 Vincent van Gogh

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• Article On the Wall of Van Gogh’s Bedroom

Throbbing with the hum of life, this garden is as inviting as the artist’s iconic bedroom. Curator Kevin Salatino tells us why.

• Exhibition Closed Van Gogh’s Bedrooms Feb 14 – May 10, 2016
• Exhibition Closed Van Gogh: In Search Of Feb 16 – May 9, 2016
• Exhibition Closed Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South Sep 22, 2001 – Jan 13, 2002
• Exhibition Closed Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde Feb 17 – May 13, 2007
• Exhibition Closed Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre Jul 16 – Oct 10, 2005
• Print Publication Van Gogh’s Bedrooms
• Print Publication Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South
• Exhibition Closed Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: The Modern Landscape May 14 – Sep 4, 2023
• Exhibition Closed Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection Jan 25–Mar 13, 2020 | July 30–Oct 12, 2020

Explore Further

Related artworks.

• A Family Meal, 1890s (?) Evert Pieters
• Portrait of an Artist, c. 1830 Ary Scheffer
• Entrance to the Port of Honfleur, 1863–64 Johan Barthold Jongkind
• A Roadside Tavern, 1863 Johan Barthold Jongkind
• The Church of Overschie, 1866 Johan Barthold Jongkind
• Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, c. 1630/35 Jan Lievens
• Fishing Boats in a Calm, 1651 Jan van de Cappelle
• Travellers Arriving at an Inn, 1630/40 Pieter De Neyn
• The Rommel-Pot Player, c. 1630 Follower of Frans Hals
• Wooded Landscape with Cottage and Horseman, 1663 Meindert Hobbema
• Portrait of a Woman, c. 1655 Dutch School
• Still Life with Ostrich Egg Cup and the Whitfield Heirlooms, c. 1670 Pieter Gerritsz. van Roestraeten
• Jacob’s Farewell to Benjamin, 1650/60 Follower of Rembrandt van Rijn

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Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) was a Dutch post-impressionist artist whose paintings are amongst the most popular and recognizable in history. His dramatic brushwork, exuberant palette, and mastery at capturing moments in time and light revolutionised art. Only recognised at the end of his life, his struggles and triumphs have coloured exactly what we imagine it is to be an artist.

Works like Sunflowers , Café Terrace at Night , and The Starry Night have transcended the world of painting to become iconic symbols, not only of a single artist but a whole time period and art movement. Van Gogh's unique way of looking at the world was ahead of its time with the consequence that, unable to earn a living from his work or reconcile his doubts as to the value of his achievements and overcome his mental crisis, he committed suicide, alone and penniless. Not only did van Gogh leave the world the great gift of his visionary paintings but his letters, written to his younger brother Theo (1857-1891) and others, give us a fascinating and, at times, heartbreaking insight into how Vincent battled rejection, indifference, and self-harm to achieve his goals in art and life.

Van Gogh painted around 870 oil paintings in his short career, as well as sketches and watercolours. In addition, we have a tremendous amount of detail on what Vincent got up to when he was not painting thanks to him being a prolific letter writer. The artist wrote over 650 letters to Theo, and 41 replies survive from Theo. His younger brother helped him financially and with materials throughout his career; he also gave advice regarding his art and kept Vincent up-to-date with developments in the art world. Another 100 or so letters survive written to other relatives and artists. Many letters contain sketches that can reveal the planning stage of paintings and their dates. Then there are the 43 self-portraits. Neither the letters nor the portraits are unbiased, naturally, but they mean we can pursue the career of the artist from multiple directions besides mere paint and canvas.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, the Netherlands. His mother was Anna Cornelia Carbentus (1819-1907) and his father, Theodorus (1822-1885), was a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church. Significantly, three of Vincent's uncles worked in the art trade . Vincent did well at school in Zevenbergen and Tilburg, and he took an interest in drawing. His drawing master at Tilburg, C. C. Huysmans, not only encouraged Vincent to copy old paintings, as was standard practice, but also, unusually, to copy nature. None of his surviving early drawings suggests the great talent within. In July 1869, Vincent joined the firm Goupil & Cie in the Hague branch. The company sold art prints and originals. Vincent did well, and in January 1873, he was transferred to the Brussels branch. In June, he moved to the London branch. Vincent continued to sketch, visited the capital's many galleries, and developed a taste for English poetry.

Between 1874 and 1875, Vincent transferred to the Paris branch of Goupil's, then returned to London, then was back in Paris. All was not well, and he was dismissed in the spring of 1876. Next followed a teaching post in Ramsgate, England , and then a teaching role under the auspices of a Reverend Jones, which saw him preach in various villages outside London. Unable, it seems, to settle anywhere for very long, Vincent next turned up selling books in Dordrecht as 1876 came to a close. By now intent on a career in the Church, Vincent moved to Amsterdam in May 1877 to prepare for the theological entrance exam. Meanwhile, he continued to sketch, this time focussing on landscapes.

Van Gogh seems to have been determined to bring some kind of religious consolation to the peasantry, and in July 1878, he tried to become an evangelical missionary. Spending three months training in Brussels, Vincent was a poor speaker and was not given a post, but he went anyway to a mining town in the Borinage region of Belgium in December 1878. Eventually gaining official support, Vincent then promptly lost it in July 1879 when it was discovered he had given away practically all of his belongings to the poor. Vincent continued on his one-man mission for another 12 months until his religious zeal was quenched. His art continued in sketch form, especially of miners, and he studied art theory books to improve his draughtsmanship. At some point in 1879, he made the definitive decision to become a full-time artist. By October 1880, he was back in Brussels and hoping to join the Academy of Art there, but he soon ran out of cash and was obliged to return to his parents' home in Etten in April 1881. By 1882, a trip to The Hague and his artist cousin Anton Mauve (a prominent member of The Hague School) had given Vincent the courage to begin to paint in watercolours, a move encouraged by Theo. It was in this period that Vincent's advances towards his cousin Kee Vos-Stricker were rebuffed. A brief visit home ended with a quarrel with his father, possibly over Vincent not wanting to attend church anymore. Back in The Hague and with the help of Mauve, Vincent set up his first studio.

Vincent van Gogh: A Gallery of 30 Paintings

A full-time artist.

With his attic studio at Shenkweg, The Hague, Vincent began to use as a model a seamstress and former prostitute, Clasina Maria Hoornik (called Sien). Vincent and Sien then lived together, the artist also supporting Sien's mother and his model's two children, an act of kindness which neither his parents nor fellow artists in The Hague approved of. Cousin Mauve withdrew his support, perhaps not impressed with Vincent's progress and after the two had argued on how to improve the technical side of his drawing. Vincent continued his own methodology, studying illustrations and experimenting in lithography. One typical sketch of this period is an old man with his head in his hands in despair; Vincent gave it the title At Eternity's Gate . A mark of his progress was a commission from his uncle Cornelis Marinus for a series of views of The Hague. Then, a visit from Theo in August 1882, who brought him the supplies, led to a move into oil painting. This was a risk since oil paints were expensive, but Vincent persevered, and his letters show that he revelled in the exploration of colours.

Theo was now essentially paying for Vincent's living costs, and to lessen the burden in September 1883, the artist moved to a cheaper location, Drenthe, leaving behind Sien. Not staying long, Vincent moved around the Netherlands, painting landscapes and labourers at work in the fields.

In December 1883, Vincent was back with his parents at Nuenen, although his studio was in the village. Theodorus van Gogh died in March 1885, and this put further strain on the artist's relationship with his family. He continued to paint, notably winter scenes and local weavers. A commission came for six sketches of peasant life, an all too rare case of Vincent contributing to his living costs, which were now being met by Theo with regular monthly payments. Another small source of cash was Vincent teaching a handful of local artists. Another episode of unrequited love hit Vincent when his marriage proposal to Margot Begemann, a neighbour, was refused, largely because of the disapproval of her family. Artistically, Vincent's work was maturing, and in April 1885, he produced his first great canvas, The Potato Eaters , a work he himself highly valued. He was also experimenting with brighter colours. In November 1885, Vincent was looking for new ideas, and he left for Antwerp, then in March 1886, after an unsuccessful stint studying at the Academy, he moved on to the very centre of the European art world in the late 19th century: Paris.

Vincent joined up with Theo in Paris, and the pair shared an apartment for the next two years. From his arrival in March, Vincent visited galleries, and he learnt first-hand from fellow artists of the new movement in art – impressionism – and its preoccupation with light and capturing a particular scene at a particular moment with quick brushstrokes and dramatic colours. Vincent studied under the painter Félix Cormon, copying plaster casts and exploring colours in still life works of flowers. He also encountered the Japanese prints that had become popular in Europe and which he greatly admired for their boldness of colour and composition. He painted panoramas of Paris, especially Montmartre, a whole series of windmills, and the first of his many self-portraits.

Vincent struggled to get any of his paintings exhibited, except by friends of the impressionists like "Père" Tanguy (1825-1894), who owned an art supplies shop in Montmartre, accepting paintings as payment for materials. Vincent painted Tanguy three times. Vincent organised his own exhibition of modern artists in the rooms of a restaurant in November-December 1887, showing many of his own paintings and by fellow artists like Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). A few of the other works were sold, but none of Vincent's. The artist did sell a still life to a dealer in this period, and he often paid for meals in cafés by giving the proprietor a painting. His now-famous Self-portrait with Grey Hat (1887-8) belongs to this period, and the bold brushstrokes and use of colours demonstrate what is yet to come.

Southern France

Tired of the rivalry between artists in Paris and seeking warmer weather to boost his frail health, Vincent moved to Arles in the south of France in February 1888, where he began by far the most productive period of his career, rattling off countless paintings. While not isolated from company, Vincent did struggle to make meaningful relations with southern artists. Instead, he befriended people like Joseph Roulin, the local postman who he painted several times.

Vincent was impressed with the sunlight of southern France, and his palette was now bright and bold. The subjects are much simpler in composition than previous works (although he curiously ignored the many Roman ruins of the region). In the spring, he captured blossom trees in works like Pink Peach Trees . As summer came on, the sun and yellow fields were brilliantly captured in such works as the Sower with Setting Sun . He painted seascapes and captured more local colour at Sainte-Maries-de-la-Mer. Arles, though, dominates with scenes depicted in fiercely contrasting and saturated colours like the yellow and blue of the Café Terrace at Night and the red and green of The Night Café . By August, he had begun his startling series of sunflowers, created as a mere decoration for his home, the Yellow House. September's Starry Night over the Rhône shows that the artist is undaunted by the practicalities of impressionistic plein air (open-air) painting. His colours are now intense, the form and space are often exaggerated. Vivid monochrome backgrounds, often textured to contrast with the smoother main subject, mix with swirling brushstrokes of liberally-applied paint. He has blended impressionism with symbolism, where a painting is created to provoke the imagination and prompt an emotional response from the viewer. The inimitable van Gogh style has arrived.

Mental Instability

Vincent hoped to form an artist's community in Arles, and he invited such young painters as Gauguin and Emile Bernard (1868-1941). The former did come to Arles in October 1888, and the pair lived and worked together, both funded by Theo. The two painters influenced each other – Vincent's bright colours on Gauguin's palette, and Gauguin's encouragement that the Dutchman experiment with different subjects. Cooped up indoors as the mistral wind blew, the two strong characters often clashed, especially over art; Vincent described their arguments as "electric," and Gauguin describes even threats of violence. The crisis came on 23 December. After yet another argument, Gauguin spent the night in a hotel, and when he returned to the Yellow House the next morning, he was surprised to see the police. During the night, Vincent had cut off a part of his ear and presented it to a local prostitute. He was sent to hospital, and Theo was summoned from Paris. Gauguin left Arles immediately after the incident. Vincent put the attack down to a fever and lack of nutrition; by January, he was back painting, but more attacks of his illness, whatever it was, would follow.

In May 1889, Vincent voluntarily admitted himself to the asylum of Saint- Paul -de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Still the artist suffered attacks, but in between, he was permitted to continue painting. Like his spirits, Vincent's palette is now noticeably muted. Perhaps this return to more sober works was an attempt to recapture his earlier ambition of becoming a painter of northern peasant life. It may also be significant that he now created a new version of The Potato Eaters . Doctors at the asylum diagnosed the artist's illness as epilepsy. Studies in the 20th and 21st century have come up with other theories for the artist's mental instability, notably schizophrenia or the effects of syphilis (he was treated for a venereal disease while in The Hague) or overconsumption of absinthe or a combination of all four maladies. In his own letters, Vincent mentions "the artist's madness" (LT 574), but he makes little connection between his illness and his work; he treats them as being quite independent.

Making some improvement healthwise, Vincent was permitted to paint in the nearby fields and olive orchards, but another attack occurred during which he ate some of his oil paints. Intermittent attacks followed through to February 1890, and the recovery periods lengthened. In May 1890, following consultation with Theo and on the advice of Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Vincent went to consult with Dr Paul Gachet (1828-1909) in Auvers-sur-Oise in northern France. Gachet was a physician, heart specialist, and advocate of homoeopathy, he was also a good friend of the impressionists. Vincent stayed in a local inn and regularly visited Gachet, painting his portrait and the many flowers in his garden. Perhaps sensitive to an end of things, the artist was more prolific than ever, painting a new canvas almost every day.

Death & Legacy

On 27 July, van Gogh, after painting in a field, suffered another attack. He shot himself in the chest with a pistol but managed to drag himself back to his inn. Theo was once again called. Vincent was still alive when his brother arrived, but he died from his wound in the morning of 29 July. An added tragedy was that the artist was just beginning to arouse the interest of art critics. A few months prior to his death, some of Vincent's works had been exhibited in Paris and Brussels (where he sold a painting). The fallen artist was buried in the cemetery of Auvers.

Vincent van Gogh's works were exhibited from as early as the 1890s in Amsterdam, Paris, and elsewhere as the symbolism movement took off. Van Gogh came to be seen by some as a bridge between impressionism, with its concern with transient light and colour, and expressionism, which saw artists attempt to convey their exaggerated inner emotional turmoil. He is generally classed as a post-impressionist painter, someone who uses the techniques of impressionism but is also interested in symbolism and permanent emotional expression in their work. Whatever group he is placed within in the history of art, the public and collectors were in no doubt as to the value of his contribution. Van Gogh's paintings have commanded a price tag of millions of dollars at auctions from the mid-20th century onwards.

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Van Gogh is much more than just an artist, though. His choice to sign some of his paintings with a simple 'Vincent' has, along with his instantly recognisable style, his candid letters, and painful struggles with mental health, given the artist's life an intimacy that has helped personalise the relationship between artist and viewer like no other. The 'mad genius,' the 'tortured artist,' and the 'unrecognised talent' are all ideas that the van Gogh myth has contributed to world art and culture regardless of their validity. Few artists have captured our imaginations and intrigued us just as much by their lives as by their art like Vincent van Gogh has. This empathy is, perhaps, no accident, for it is precisely what Vincent strived to achieve: "I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart" (LT 218D).

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Bibliography

• Bouruet Aubortot, Veronique. Impressionism. Flammarion, 2017.
• Denvir, Bernard. Post-Impressionism . Thames & Hudson, 1992.
• Howard, Michael. Encyclopedia of Impressionism. Thunder Bay Pr, 1997.
• McQuillan, Melissa & Van Gogh, Vincent. Van Gogh . Thames & Hudson, 1989.
• Metzger, Rainer & Walther, Ingo F. Van Gogh. La obra completa - pintura . TASCHEN, 2015.
• Roe, Sue. The Private Lives of the Impressionists. Harper Perennial, 2007.
• Thomson, Belinda. Impressionism. Thames & Hudson, 2022.
• Van Gogh, Vincent (ed. Leeuw). The Letters of Vincent van Gogh . Penguin Classics, 1998.

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Biography of Vincent van Gogh (1890–1978)

Vincent van Gogh (1890–1978) was Vincent van Gogh’s nephew and the founder of the Van Gogh Museum.

'The engineer’

Vincent was the only child of Theo van Gogh and Jo Bonger. He was born in Paris on 31 January 1890 and named after his artist uncle.

He studied mechanical engineering at Delft University and worked as an engineer in France, the United States and Japan, before returning to the Netherlands in early 1920. Together with Ernst Hijmans, a friend from his student days, he set up a management consultancy – the first of its kind in the country.

To avoid confusion with his uncle’s name, he was often referred to as ‘the engineer’.

Vincent 'The Engineer' van Gogh at the information desk in the Van Gogh Museum, 1976, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Following his mother’s death in 1925, Vincent assumed full responsibility for the collection of Van Gogh’s drawings, paintings and letters, and for the works of contemporaries that his uncle and father had collected.

It was important to him that the collection would remain intact and accessible after his death. That is why he established the Vincent van Gogh foundation and concluded an agreement with the State of the Netherlands. The State agreed to build the Van Gogh Museum and the municipality of Amsterdam made a piece of land on the Museumplein available. This way it was ensured that the collection is alwyas accessible to anyone.

The Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh opened its doors to the public on 3 June 1973. Vincent could be found at the museum most days until shortly before his death, and he devoted himself to everything related to his uncle Vincent, his father Theo and the museum.

Publication

The biography focuses on the different areas in which Vincent was active. Key themes include his background and motivation, his ideas about management consultancy, his activities in relation to the art collection, and the foundation and early years of the Van Gogh Museum.

The study draws on sources such as diaries, memoranda, annual reports, letters and family papers.

This PhD research contributes to our knowledge of the history of the Van Gogh Museum and the popularity of Vincent van Gogh's art.

The dissertation is being developed under the auspices of the Biography Institute of the University of Groningen and is supervised by Prof. Hans Renders and Dr. Peter de Ruiter.

Roelie Zwikker (Senior Researcher): [email protected]

Vincent van Gogh

Dutch, 1853 - 1890

van Gogh, Vincent

Works of Art

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Vincent van Gogh, born in 1853, grew up in the southern Netherlands, where his father was a minister. After seven years at a commercial art firm, Van Gogh’s desire to help humanity led him to become a teacher, preacher, and missionary—yet without success. Working as a missionary among coal miners in Belgium, he had begun to draw in earnest; finally, dismissed by church authorities in 1880, he found his vocation in art.

Van Gogh’s earliest paintings were earth-toned scenes of nature and peasants, but he became increasingly influenced by Japanese prints and the work of the impressionists in France. In 1886 he arrived in Paris, where his real formation as a painter began. Under the influence of Camille Pissarro , Van Gogh brightened his somber palette and juxtaposed complementary colors for luminous effect. Younger artists like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Gauguin prompted him to use color symbolically and for its emotional resonance.

Although stimulated by the city’s artistic environment, Van Gogh found life in Paris physically exhausting and moved in early 1888 to Arles. He hoped Provence’s warm climate would relax him and that the brilliant colors and strong light of the south would provide inspiration for his art. Working feverishly, Van Gogh pushed his style to greater expression with intense, energetic brushwork and saturated, complementary colors. Yet his densely painted canvases remained connected to nature—their colors and rhythmic surfaces communicate the spiritual power he believed inhabited and shaped nature's forms. His activity was not undisciplined; quite the opposite, he worked diligently to perfect his craft.

Van Gogh hoped to attract like-minded painters to Arles, but only Gauguin joined him, staying about two months. It was soon clear that their personalities and artistic temperaments were incompatible, and Van Gogh suffered a breakdown just before Christmas. In April 1889, following periods of intense work interrupted by recurring mental disturbances, Van Gogh committed himself to a sanitarium in St.-Rémy. He painted whenever he could, believing that in work lay his only chance for sanity. After a year, he returned north to be closer to his brother Théo, who had been his constant support; in July 1890 he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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His artistic career was extremely short, lasting only the 10 years from 1880 to 1890. During the first four years of this period, while acquiring technical proficiency, he confined himself almost entirely to drawings and watercolors. First, he went to study drawing at the Brussels Academy; in 1881 he moved to his father’s parsonage at Etten, Netherlands , and began to work from nature.

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Van Gogh worked hard and methodically but soon perceived the difficulty of self-training and the need to seek the guidance of more experienced artists. Late in 1881 he settled at The Hague to work with a Dutch landscape painter, Anton Mauve . He visited museums and met with other painters. Van Gogh thus extended his technical knowledge and experimented with oil paint in the summer of 1882. In 1883 the urge to be “alone with nature” and with peasants took him to Drenthe , an isolated part of the northern Netherlands frequented by Mauve and other Dutch artists, where he spent three months before returning home, which was then at Nuenen, another village in the Brabant. He remained at Nuenen during most of 1884 and 1885, and during these years his art grew bolder and more assured. He painted three types of subjects— still life , landscape , and figure—all interrelated by their reference to the daily life of peasants, to the hardships they endured, and to the countryside they cultivated . Émile Zola ’s Germinal (1885), a novel about the coal-mining region of France , greatly impressed van Gogh, and sociological criticism is implicit in many of his pictures from this period—e.g., Weavers and The Potato Eaters . Eventually, however, he felt too isolated in Nuenen.

His understanding of the possibilities of painting was evolving rapidly; from studying Hals he learned to portray the freshness of a visual impression, while the works of Paolo Veronese and Eugène Delacroix taught him that color can express something by itself. This led to his enthusiasm for Peter Paul Rubens and inspired his sudden departure for Antwerp , Belgium, where the greatest number of Rubens’s works could be seen. The revelation of Rubens’s mode of direct notation and of his ability to express a mood by a combination of colors proved decisive in the development of van Gogh’s style. Simultaneously, van Gogh discovered Japanese prints and Impressionist painting. All these sources influenced him more than the academic principles taught at the Antwerp Academy, where he was enrolled. His refusal to follow the academy’s dictates led to disputes, and after three months he left precipitately in 1886 to join Theo in Paris. There, still concerned with improving his drawing, van Gogh met Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , Paul Gauguin , and others who were to play historic roles in modern art. They opened his eyes to the latest developments in French painting. At the same time, Theo introduced him to Camille Pissarro , Georges Seurat , and other artists of the Impressionist group.

( Impressionist or not? Find out in our list of Artists Mistaken for Impressionists.)

By this time van Gogh was ready for such lessons, and the changes that his painting underwent in Paris between the spring of 1886 and February 1888 led to the creation of his personal idiom and style of brushwork. His palette at last became colorful, his vision less traditional, and his tonalities lighter, as may be seen in his first paintings of Montmartre. By the summer of 1887 he was painting in pure colors and using broken brushwork that is at times pointillistic . Finally, by the beginning of 1888, van Gogh’s Post-Impressionist style had crystallized, resulting in such masterpieces as Portrait of Père Tanguy and Self-Portrait in Front of the Easel , as well as in some landscapes of the Parisian suburbs.

After two years van Gogh was tired of city life, physically exhausted, and longing “to look at nature under a brighter sky.” His passion was now for “a full effect of color.” He left Paris in February 1888 for Arles, in southeastern France.

The pictures he created over the following 12 months—depicting blossoming fruit trees, views of the town and surroundings, self-portraits, portraits of Roulin the postman and other friends, interiors and exteriors of the house, sunflowers, and landscapes—marked his first great period. In these works he strove to respect the external, visual aspect of a figure or landscape but found himself unable to suppress his own feelings about the subject, which found expression in emphatic contours and heightened effects of color. Once hesitant to diverge from the traditional techniques of painting he worked so hard to master, he now gave free rein to his individuality and began squeezing his tubes of oil paint directly on the canvas. Van Gogh’s style was spontaneous and instinctive, for he worked with great speed and intensity, determined to capture an effect or a mood while it possessed him. “When anyone says that such and such [painting] is done too quickly,” he told his brother, “you can reply that they have looked at it too fast.”

Van Gogh knew that his approach to painting was individualistic, but he also knew that some tasks are beyond the power of isolated individuals to accomplish. In Paris he had hoped to form a separate Impressionist group with Gauguin , Toulouse-Lautrec, and others whom he believed had similar aims. He rented and decorated a house in Arles with the intention of persuading them to join him and found a working community called “The Studio of the South.” Gauguin arrived in October 1888, and for two months van Gogh and Gauguin worked together; but, while each influenced the other to some extent, their relations rapidly deteriorated because they had opposing ideas and were temperamentally incompatible.

Disaster struck on Christmas Eve, 1888. Physically and emotionally exhausted, van Gogh snapped under the strain. He argued with Gauguin and, reportedly, chased him with a razor and cut off the lower half of his own left ear. A sensational news story reported that a deranged van Gogh then visited a brothel near his home and delivered the bloody body part to a woman named Rachel, telling her, “Guard this object carefully.” The 21st-century art historians Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans, however, examined contemporary police records and the artists’ correspondence and concluded, in Van Gogh’s Ohr: Paul Gaugin und der Pakt des Schweigens (2008; “Van Gogh’s Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence”), that it was actually Gauguin who mutilated van Gogh’s ear and that he did so with a sword. Whatever transpired, van Gogh took responsibility and was hospitalized; Gauguin left for Paris.

Van Gogh returned home a fortnight later and resumed painting, producing a mirror-image Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe , several still lifes, and La Berceuse (Woman Rocking a Cradle; Augustine-Alix Pellicot Roulin, 1851–1930) . Several weeks later, he again showed symptoms of mental disturbance severe enough to cause him to be sent back to the hospital. At the end of April 1889, fearful of losing his renewed capacity for work, which he regarded as a guarantee of his sanity, he asked to be temporarily shut up in the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in order to be under medical supervision.

Van Gogh stayed there for 12 months, haunted by recurrent attacks, alternating between moods of calm and despair, and working intermittently: The Starry Night , Garden of the Asylum , Cypresses , Olive Trees , Les Alpilles , portraits of doctors, and interpretations of paintings by Rembrandt , Delacroix, and Millet date from this period. The keynote of this phase (1889–90) is fear of losing touch with reality, as well as a certain sadness. Confined for long periods to his cell or the asylum garden, having no choice of subjects, and realizing that his inspiration depended on direct observation, van Gogh fought against having to work from memory. At Saint-Rémy he muted the vivid, sun-drenched colors of the previous summer and tried to make his painting more calm. As he repressed his excitement, however, he involved himself more imaginatively in the drama of the elements, developing a style based on dynamic forms and a vigorous use of line (he often equated line with color). The best of his Saint-Rémy pictures are thus bolder and more visionary than those of Arles.

Van Gogh himself brought this period to an end. Oppressed by homesickness—he painted souvenirs of Holland—and loneliness, he longed to see Theo and the north once more and arrived in Paris in May 1890. Four days later he went to stay with a homeopathic doctor-artist, Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, a friend of Pissarro and Paul Cézanne , at Auvers-sur-Oise. Back in a village community such as he had not known since Nuenen, four years earlier, van Gogh worked at first enthusiastically; his choice of subjects such as fields of corn, the river valley, peasants’ cottages, the church, and the town hall reflects his spiritual relief. A modification of his style followed: the natural forms in his paintings became less contorted, and in the northern light he adopted cooler, fresh tonalities. His brushwork became broader and more expressive and his vision of nature more lyrical. Everything in these pictures seems to be moving, living. This phase was short, however, and ended in quarrels with Gachet and feelings of guilt at his financial dependence on Theo (now married and with a son) and his inability to succeed.

In despair of ever being able to overcome his loneliness or be cured, van Gogh shot himself. He did not die immediately. When found wounded in his bed, he allegedly said, “I shot myself.…I only hope I haven’t botched it.” That evening, when interrogated by the police, van Gogh refused to answer questions, saying, “What I have done is nobody else’s business. I am free to do what I like with my own body.”

Van Gogh died two days later. Theo, his own health broken, died six months later (January 25, 1891). In 1914 Theo’s remains were moved to his brother’s grave site, in a little cemetery in Auvers, where today the two brothers lie side by side, with identical tombstones.

Vincent van Gogh

• Style and Technique
• Critical Reception
• Bedroom in Arles
• Café Terrace at Night
• Portrait d'Eugene Boch
• Self-portrait with Straw Hat

Starry Night

• Starry Night Over the Rhone
• The Flowering Orchard

The Potato Eaters

Vincent Van Gogh Biography

• Vincent Willem van Gogh
• Short Name:
• Date of Birth:
• 30 Mar 1853
• Date of Death:
• 29 Jul 1890
• Figure, Landscapes, Cityscapes, Scenery
• Art Movement:
• Post-Impressionism
• Zundert, Netherlands
• Vincent Van Gogh Biography Page's Content

Introduction

• Early Years
• Middle Years
• Advanced Years

A key figure in the world of Post-impressionism Vincent Van Gogh also helped lay the foundations of modern art. A troubled man, he experienced many uncertainties and rejections in his early life, particularly where female love interests were concerned. Religion played a huge role in van Gogh´s life and many of his paintings carry religious undertones. Van Gogh did not experience great success during his lifetime, selling just one painting but after his death his work was revealed to the world and he is now regarded as one of the greatest artists that ever lived.

Vincent van Gogh Early Years

Becoming increasingly frustrated, Vincent ended his relationship with Hoomik and feeling uninspired, he moved back in with his parents to continue practicing his art. It was then that he was introduced to the paintings of Jean-Franqois Millet and he imitated Millets style a lot in his early works. Van Gogh had the desire to paint figures and in 1885 he completed The Potato Eaters which proved a success at the time. Believing he needed focused training in art techniques, van Gogh enrolled at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and was impressed by the works of Rubens and various Japanese artists, and such influences would impact greatly on van Gogh's individual style. In 1886 Vincent van Gogh relocated to Paris and immersed himself in the world of Impressionism and Post-impressionism. He adopted brighter, more vibrant colors and began experimenting with his technique. He also spent time researching the styles found in the Japanese artwork he had discovered a year earlier. Paris exposed van Gogh to artists such as Gauguin, Pissarro, Monet, and Bernard. He befriended Paul Gauguin and moved to Arles in 1888 and Gauguin joined him later. Van Gogh started to paint sunflowers to decorate Gauguin's bedroom and this work of art would later become one of his most accomplished pieces, Sunflowers.

Vincent van Gogh Advanced Years

It was towards the end of 1888 that van Gogh's mental illness began to worsen and in one outburst he pursued Gauguin with a knife and threatened him. Later that day at home, Vincent cut off part of his own ear then offered it to a prostitute as a gift, and he was temporarily hospitalized. Upon returning home he found Gauguin leaving Arles, and thus his dream of setting up an art school was crushed. Van Gogh committed himself to an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence at the end of 1888 and his paintings from his time there were brimming with activity. It was in the asylum that he painted Starry Night which became his most popular work and is one of the most influential pieces in history. Van Gogh left Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in 1890 and continued painting, producing a number of works - nearly one painting per day. Despite his creative achievements, the artist thought of his life as terribly wasted, and a personal failure. On July 27, 1890 he attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest and died two days later from the wound, aged 37. Van Goghs dear brother Theo was devastated by his loss and died six months later. Theos widow took Vincent van Goghs works to Holland and published them, and he was an instant success. His work went on to influence Modernist art and today, Vincent van Gogh is regarded as one of history's greatest painters.