biography for vincent 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.

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.

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Vincent van Gogh

By ellen gutoskey | apr 10, 2020.

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's Life, 1853-1890

Vincent van Gogh decided to become an artist at the age of 27. That decision would change his life and art history forever. Read Vincent's biography.

Biography, 1853 -1873

Young Vincent

Biography, 1873 -1881

Looking for a Direction

Biography, 1881-1883

First Steps as an Artist

Biography, 1883 - 1885

Peasant Painter

Biography, 1886 - 1888

From Dark to Light

Biography, 1888 - 1889

South of France

Biography, 1889 - 1890

Hospitalization

Biography, 1890

Vincent's Final Months

Biography, 1890 - 1973

After Vincent's Death

Find out more about the man behind the artworks in these stories

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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.

• Woman and Child at the Well, 1882 Camille Pissarro
• Young Peasant Having Her Coffee, 1881 Camille Pissarro
• Portrait of Jeanne Wenz, 1886 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
• Woman in Front of a Still Life by Cezanne, 1890 Paul Gauguin
• Arlésiennes (Mistral), 1888 Paul Gauguin
• Oil Sketch for “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884”, 1884 Georges Seurat
• A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884, 1884/86 Georges Seurat
• The Bay of Marseille, Seen from L’Estaque, c. 1885 Paul Cezanne
• Still Life with Fruit, 1890 Émile Bernard
• The Plate of Apples, c. 1877 Paul Cezanne
• Les Andelys, Côte d’Aval, 1886 Paul Signac
• Moulin de la Galette, 1889 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
• Still Life: Wood Tankard and Metal Pitcher, 1880 Paul Gauguin

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Vincent van Gogh: The Biography

• Vincent van Gogh

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Follow the troubled path to creative genius of Dutch art's favourite son in this extensive Van Gogh biography, which tracks his family life, the key periods of his development and also the artist's that influenced his own unique style.

"It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done." (Read more quotes here)

Vincent van Gogh is arguably one of the most brilliant artists who amassed tremendous accolades while others perceiving him as the 'mad' artist. He created artistic works, simple by nature but uniquely tormented the soul. Most of his works were merely perceived as basic manifestations of a man who was troubled in the head. Even though this might not be far from the truth, his works have inspired many great artists and to date, his works remain unique in their own ways.

Family Life

Vincent van Gogh was born Vincent Willem van Gogh on March 30th 1853 in the small town of Groot-Zundert, a region in Brabant that was near the Belgian border in Netherlands. Vincent was a son to Anna Cornelia Carbentus (1819–1907) and Theodorus van Gogh (1822–85)-Reverend of the protestant church. Vincent had two brothers-Cornelius Vincent (1867–1900) and Theo (1857–91) and three sisters - Willemina (Wil) Jacoba (1862–1941), Anna Cornelia (1855–1930) and Elisabeth Huberta (1859–1936).

A greater part of a younger Vincent was spent quiet since he was a calm and collected young boy who had seemingly no interest or ties to the artistic world. Vincent's sister, Elisabeth, regarded him as a sensitive and serious young boy who often preferred to be by himself rather than spending time with his family. As a young boy, he wore clothes and behaved in ways that made him appear strange when compared to his peers from a very young age.

School Life

In the general run of things, Vincent was a good student in school. He attended a village school just in his locality to pursue his academics and parsonage for religious education between the years of 1861 and 1864. Afterwards, from 1864 to 1866 he moved to a boarding school in Zevenbergen where he pursued French, English and German just before he transferred to another school in Tilburg. He was not to stay long in the school because of probable financial constraints that his middle-class family could not afford.

After his rather sketchy period of education, a 16-year old Vincent was sent to a gallery in Hague to work as a junior clerk on July 30, 1869. The gallery, Goupil and Company, was an internal corporation that specialised in the 18th and 19th century art, photographic prints, reproductions and contemporary works.

Mental Health Troubles

From his early life, Vincent was not like any other young boy. What followed were years of troubles and tribulations but there have been seemingly no consensus on the certainty of his health status. There have been numerous hypotheses that have been advanced by different scholars concerning what he was suffering from including:

• Lead poisoning: Vincent often used lead-based paint as his painting medium. This is the reason why some scholars still argue that he might have suffered from lead poisoning because of his continued exposure to paint. At some point, Dr. Peyron said that in one of his occasional attacks, he tried poisoning himself by drinking paint, which caused his retinas to swell. This is one of the symptoms of lead poisoning. The effect is that one starts to see light in form of halos, clearly evidenced in some of his works like The Starry Night.
• Bipolar disorder: Van Gogh had two extreme and competing personalities, that which loved art and the other religion. This was a clear condition since this enthusiasm levels concerning these two interests that were often followed by exhaustion and incidences of depression.
• Temporal lobe disorder: In his everyday life, Van Gogh used to experience seizures which Dr. Peyron and Dr. Felix Rey attributed to temporal lobe disorder. His prolonged use of absinthe, an infamous toxic alcoholic drink, aggravated his brain lesion, a condition which he was born with that also caused his epileptic condition.
• Hypergraphia: Vincent wrote a collection of over 800 letters over his lifetime since hypergraphia is a condition that is said to be symptomised by one feeling the need to continuously write something and specialists link it to epilepsy and mania.
• Sunstroke: In his time, he loved Realism painting and that means he spend most of his time outdoors while in the South of France. In his letters, he claims that his bad stomach, cases of nausea and episodes of hostility were as a result of the effects of sunstroke.

Early Training

Vincent van Gogh, in the fall of 1880, moved to Brussels on his quest to become an artist. By this time, he had no formal education in the field of art but his brother Theo came to his aid and supported him financially to further his dream. As committed as he was, a young Vincent first began with studying on his own embracing such books as Cours de dessin by Charles Bargue and Travaux des champs written by by Jean-François Millet . He drew great inspiration from these books even in his early works.

Art was an escape for him because they seemingly played an instrumental role in helping him stay emotionally afloat and balanced. Later in 1885, he broke ground and started working on Potato Eaters , which is still being considered as his first masterpiece. His brother Theo, who by the time was living in Paris, was strongly convicted that Vincent's art would not get proper accolades in Paris since the French capital dwellers had increasingly embraced Impressionism.

In 1886, Vincent packed his things and showed up on Theo's house in the French capital uninvited and he was welcomed in the small apartment. This is where he came to first experienced Impressionist art that had him fascinated especially by how artists used colour and light to create impressive pieces. This motivated him to begin studying with Camille Pissarro and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec among other great names.

Since money was quite a challenge, Vincent and his friends posed for each other and painted themselves instead of hiring models, an endeavour that they could not afford. He was a passionate young painter and always engaged in critiques with other painters but at the same time in stayed away from anyone who seemed tired of his constant bickering.

Career Development

In just a span of a decade (1880-1890), Vincent had achieved what many other artists had not achieved in their entire lives, starting from just drawings and water colours in the first four years of his career. He often liked working by himself but the difficulty of self-training soon caught up with him and he started perceiving the need for seeking guidance from other experienced players in the industry. That is he ended up working with Anton Mauve, a renowned Dutch landscape painter in 1881.

In the summer of 1882, Vincent started visiting museums where he met other great artists, which enabled to expand his knowledge extensively while experimenting with oil paints. However, when 1883, he developed the urge to be alone with peasants and nature and this journey led him to an isolated northern Netherlands town of Drenthe. This small town was largely frequented by the likes of Mauve and he spend three months there till the time he thought of going back home, Nuenen.

For the greater part of 1884 and 1885, Van Gogh spent his time in Nuenen which saw him improve his craft, becoming bolder and more assured. He specialised in painting landscape, figure and still life. He derived his inspirations for his artworks from the daily lives of peasants and the hardships they were passing through. This period saw him improve his techniques and his understanding of the possibilities of painting rapidly grew.

Van Gogh studied Hals, which helped him cultivate the freshness of a visual impression which he incorporated with what he picked up from Eugène Delacroix and Paolo Veronese. These two painters inspired him to use colour to express an object by itself, which further made him embrace Peter Paul Rubens works with enthusiasm that led him to suddenly leaving for Antwerp, Belgium where he could study Rubens' works. Apart from just learning the decisiveness effect resulting from combining colours, he also learned a lot about Impressionist painting and Japanese prints. These were more than he even learned while attending an academy he had enrolled in Antwerp.

His impatience of rules being dictated to him led to him leaving for Paris to join his brother Theo. By this time, he was ready to for lessons from Camille, Henri and Georges Seurat who were a group of Impressionist artists between 1886 and February 1888. This learning period led to the discovery of his own style of brushworks with his palette full of colour, less traditional vision and lighter tones. In 1887, he was painting in much more paintings in pure colours and his Impressionist style crystallised in early 1888. His masterpieces Self-Portrait in Front of the Easel and Portrait of Père Tanguy were as a result of his Impressionist style plus other Parisian suburbs landscape paintings.

February 1888, Vincent grew tired of the city life and Arles, Southern France, "to look at nature under a brighter sky." The following 12 month of his career were full of paintings depicting blossoming fruit trees, self-portraits, views of the towns and portraits of Roulin the postman among other friends, landscapes and sunflowers . His style grew more instinctive and spontaneous from his traditional styles with great intensity and speed. His hopes of forming a separate Impressionist group in Arles with Henri, Gauguin and others fell into shambles since most of their ideas temperamentally incompatible and opposing. However, in the span of two months, they were able to learn and influence each other. The highlight of this falling out was Vincent snapping under the strain and argued with Gauguin and sources have claimed that he chases him around with a razor and ended up cutting the lower half of his own left ear in the Eve of Christmas, 1888.

Van Gogh returned home two weeks later to continue his work where he created works like La Berceuse (Woman Rocking a Cradle; Augustine-Alix Pellicot Roulin, 1851-1930) and Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe plus many other still lifes . His mental illness caught up with him again and finally asked to be temporarily shut up in a Saint-Rémy-de-Provence asylum to be under medical supervision. After 12 months of horror and recurrent haunting attacks, he produced great works such as The Starry Night , Cypresses , Les Alpilles, Trees , Garden of the Asylum among others.

This marked the end of his career mostly because he was oppressed by homesickness. This made him leave for home in 1890 since he longed to see his brother Theo. He feared that he could eventually become unable to overcome his loneliness and chose to take his own life by shooting himself but did not die immediately. He remained stubborn even when interrogated by the police saying "I shot myself... I only hope I haven’t botched it" and "What I have done is nobody else's business. I am free to do what I like with my own body." Unfortunately, he passed away just two days later.

Catalogue of Vincent van Gogh's Paintings

Below are some of notable artworks by Vincent van Gogh, an overview of his greatest highlights and achievements:

• The Potato Eaters (1885)
• The Courtesan (after Eisen) (1887)
• Café Terrace At Night (1888)
• Fourteen Sunflowers in a Vase (1888)
• The Bedroom (1889)
• Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889)
• Starry Night (1889)
• Church at Auvers (1890)
• Paul-Ferdinand Gachet (1890)

Legacy: Paintings Related to his Work

Vincent's style of work was not unique, other great names also painted using styles similar to Van Gogh’s. Here are some of the most notable works related to his work.

Boulevard des Capucines (1873)

This is a painting by Claude Monet which captures the hustle of Parisian life as he sees it from his friend's studio. His style is similar to Van Gogh because his speed and intensity were similar, utilising short and quick brushstrokes creating an impression of people in the French capital.

The Wave (1870)

A painting by Gustave Courbet which was clearly influenced by the early Japanese prints and he was arguably one of the first to embrace this style, just like Vincent van Gogh. He seemingly takes cue from the Easter prints in this painting showing viewers a slice of water that is closed off from the view of the large space. This painting is a general representation of Courbet's style of art that were seemingly composed of broken patches especially in the light and dark segments. This style was embraced by Van Gogh in his early stages of painting.

The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1867-68)

Painted by Édouard Manet aiming to express the shock experienced by French men by the execution of Maximilian of Austria on June 19, 1867. As a painter he strove to record all contemporary events and he did this by utilising Romanticism and muted tones to bring out a scene that was distinctly somber. Vincent also made use of muted tones in his paintings to arouse the feelings in his paintings, a style that made many critics perceive him as a troubled painter.

Inspirations

Painters vincent van gogh derived inspiration from.

His move to the French capital in 1886 had a lasting effect on his work as a painter. His Impressionism and Post-Impressionism styles were greatly influenced by individuals like Pissarro , Gauguin, Bernard and Monet. His close ties with Gaugin was his greatest inspiration since their first meet in 1887. The painter greatly influenced Vincent's style of painting and the themes in their paintings were oddly similar. Aprt from Gauguin, Jean-François Millet Gruchy was another source of inspiration to Vincent. Millet's work as a missionary and identifying with people of the lower class made Vincent derive great admiration. His early depictions of peasants in paintings inspired Vincent's earliest works as a painter. Other artist who profoundly inspired him were Rousseau, Rembrandt, Daumier and Delacroix.

Painters Vincent van Gogh Inspired

Van Gogh unique brushwork technique was widely received and inspired a lot of great painters who followed in his footsteps. Such artists like Matisse , Derain, Bacon, Gauguin and Pollock adopted some of Vincent's artistic elements in their works. Even after his death, he inspired many artists who adopted his brushwork techniques and seemingly depicted similar subject matters to Van Gogh's paintings. These artists included Maurice de Vlaminck, de Kooning and Paul Klee .

Considered as one of the greatest artists to come out of Netherlands part from Rembrandt and still remains one of the world's greatest Post-Impressionist painters till today. He remains an iconic painter despite his troubled life, a condition that played a crucial role in conveying his spiritual and emotional state characterised by densely laden canvas and unique brushstrokes.

"It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures." Vincent van Gogh

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Tom Gurney in an art history expert. He received a BSc (Hons) degree from Salford University, UK, and has also studied famous artists and art movements for over 20 years. Tom has also published a number of books related to art history and continues to contribute to a number of different art websites. You can read more on Tom Gurney here.

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.

The Final Years of Vincent van Gogh

Van Gogh and his brother were devoted to each other

Born in March 1853, van Gogh was the eldest of five surviving children born to Anna and Theodorus, a Protestant minister. He had a peripatetic early career, working for an art dealer in the Netherlands and London, as a missionary to a poor community in Belgium and briefly (but seriously) considering becoming a minister himself.

Throughout his life, van Gogh experienced periods of psychological and physical isolation, instability and depression. He was often malnourished and in ill health, and he suffered a series of thwarted romantic relationships with women. It was only in his late 20s that he fully turned to art, encouraged in part by his younger brother Theo, a Paris-based art dealer. The two were devoted to each other. Theo provided emotional and financial support for Vincent, and the brothers exchanged hundreds of letters.

Van Gogh moved to Paris in 1886. Theo had little success in marketing his brother’s work (van Gogh sold just one painting during his lifetime), but he did introduce Vincent to the flourishing avant-garde French art scene, including painters Georges Seurat , Camille Pissarro and Paul Gaugin . Van Gogh and Gaugin became close friends. When van Gogh decided to move to Arles in February 1888, he hoped to entice Gaugin and others to join him in establishing an artist’s colony there.

He cut off his left earlobe after a fight with another artist

The landscape and unique light of southern France unleashed van Gogh’s creativity, and his paintings and palette took on new depths of color and emotion. He worked quickly and constantly, churning out 300 oil paintings, drawings and watercolors. He rented rooms in a local building, the Yellow House, using it as a studio for several months while he lived in a series of inns nearby. He painted portraits of his landlords, acquaintances and the town’s residents, who looked upon him as talented, but volatile, high-strung and unusual.

In October 1888, Gaugin finally arrived in Arles. The two artists lived and worked together at the Yellow House, but their differing temperaments clashed, and the friendship soon soured. Gaugin’s arrogance and domineering personality unsettled van Gogh, fostering a deep sense of inadequacy and a fear of abandonment.

Things came to a head on December 23. Gaugin would later claim that van Gogh attacked him with a knife. But what is certain is that van Gogh violently turned the knife on himself, cutting off his left earlobe . He wrapped the bloody ear in paper and delivered it to a woman at a local brothel, before passing out in his room. When he was discovered the next day, he had no memory of his self-mutilation, likely a sign of a complete psychotic breakdown. Gaugin quickly fled Arles, and the two men never saw each other again. Van Gogh later captured the aftermath of the event in a series of self-portraits with his bandaged ear.

Van Gogh spent the next several months in and out of hospitals, as his condition worsened. Many of the residents of Arles turned on him. Some referred to him as "le fou roux" (the redheaded madman), and dozens signed a petition demanding he be forced to leave the town.

READ MORE: How Vincent van Gogh’s Tumultuous Friendship with Paul Gauguin Drove Him to Cut Off His Ear

Van Gogh checked himself into an asylum

In May 1889, van Gogh voluntarily entered the Saint-Paul asylum in nearby Saint-Rémy. More than a century after his death, scientists and historians continue to debate the cause of his mental instability. The most widely-accepted diagnosis is bipolar disorder, given his “manic” outbursts of energy and creativity followed by long, debilitating depressions. Félix Ray, van Gogh’s doctor in Arles, diagnosed him with epilepsy, though that has been dismissed by many modern scholars, as has an alternate theory that he suffered from advanced porphyria.

Van Gogh was initially allowed to work outside the asylum under supervision, and his condition briefly improved, before worsening. Unable to visit his beloved landscapes, he was reduced to painting from memory or depicting his immediate surroundings. Despite these limitations, he produced notable works during this period, including the legendary “The Starry Night,” which shows the view from his asylum window.

Feeling lonely and isolated, van Gogh committed suicide

Increasingly discouraged and fatalistic about his chances of recovery while in Saint-Rémy, van Gogh discharged himself in May 1890. Eager to be closer to Theo, and desperate for a new beginning, he moved north. He settled in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, taking a room at the Auberge Ravoux. He also began seeing Dr. Paul Gachet, who had previously treated Camille Pisarro, Auguste Renoir and others. Gachet, who specialized in nervous disorders and natural medicine, was an amateur artist himself, and Theo hoped that his sensitive nature would be beneficial to Vincent. In the century since, many have criticized Gachet’s unconventional treatment of van Gogh, but the two men quickly developed a close bond.

Van Gogh’s output during his 10 weeks in Auvers was astounding. He may have completed 70 works in as many days, as he was once again inspired by his new environment. But much of his work from this final period is also wild and dramatic, as the brilliant intensity — and instability — within poured out on his canvases. One of his final paintings, “Wheatfield With Crows,” depicts an isolated, windswept field and a flock of crows — birds are often used to depict death and rebirth.

Van Gogh wrote openly to Theo and others of his loneliness and isolation, although he also expressed hope for both a mental recovery and artistic and financial success. His work was increasingly being shown in Paris and elsewhere around Europe, as his reputation slowly grew. But he also ignored much of Dr. Gachet’s advice, continuing to incessantly smoke and drink. His mood worsened when he learned that Theo, already under duress due to his financial support of his brother, had suffered a setback at his job.

Historians do not know if there was a final impetus for van Gogh’s suicide, but on July 27, he likely walked to a nearby field or barn and shot himself. The bullet missed his vital organs but lodged so deeply in his body doctors were unable to remove it. Van Gogh was able to walk to the Auberge Ravoux, where an innkeeper found him. Dr. Gachet and others were summoned. Theo soon arrived and was with van Gogh when he died from an infection on July 29.

Theo never recovered his brother’s death and died just months later. His body was later reinterred beside his beloved brother in the municipal cemetery at Auvers. In the decades after the brothers’ deaths, it was Theo’s widow, Johanna, who worked tirelessly to posthumously promote van Gogh’s work, eventually helping to make him one of the most famous and well-respected painters in history.

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Van Gogh Biography

Vincent Van Gogh was born near Brabant in Southern Holland on March 30, 1853, the oldest son of a Dutch minister, he grew to become one of the most well known and influential artists of the 19 th century.  Van Gogh tried his hand at several different vocations including working for Goupil & Co., an art dealer, at the age of 16 with his 4 years younger brother Theo, teaching as an assistant in Ramsgate, and acting as a layman preacher in a poor coal mining district in Belgium, before finally deciding to become an artist at the age of twenty-seven.  His early works are dark portraying downtrodden city dwellers as well as Dutch peasants at work. 

Van Gogh’s relationship with his younger brother, Theo, was well documented in the vast number of letters the brothers sent each other.  Van Gogh’s letters to his brother and to other artists provide insight into the life of the painter. 

In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris where he lived with his brother, now the manager of Goupil’s, who financially supported the artist.  In Paris Van Gogh became familiar with the work of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists.  He befriended Pissarro , Monet , and Gauguin .  Van Gogh began to lighten his color palette and experimented with different shorter brushstrokes.  His works changed from peasant workers to images of Paris, portraits, self-portraits, and images of flowers. 

In 1888, at the age of 35, Van Gogh moved from Paris to Arles where he had dreams of starting a community of artists.  Theo continued to support him financially and tried to sell his artwork.  Fellow artist Paul Gauguin joined him for a short time however, the two frequently had disagreements and Gauguin soon left.  Van Gogh threatened Gauguin with a razor and ended up cutting off a portion of his own ear.  Struggling with fits of madness Van Gogh spent time in an asylum in Arles and then in Saint Remy.

Van Gogh spent much time in the asylum at Saint Remy though it was later believed that he suffered from epilepsy.  While there he painted some 150 paintings.  Upon his release in 1890 he went to Auvers-sur-Oise where he was under the care of physician and painter, Dr. Paul Gachet.  In two months Van Gogh was averaging a painting a day.  At the age of 37, Van Gogh attempted suicide, while in a wheat field he shot himself in the chest.  He died two days later with his brother at his side.  Six months later Theo died as well and was buried next to his brother in the small church at Auvers-sur-Oise.

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The paint was still wet: a closer look at three Van Gogh paintings heading to the Rijksmuseum

They include an amsterdam townscape painted an hour or so before the artist visited the newly opened museum in 1885.

Van Gogh’s Wheatfield (June 1888)

P. & N. de Boer Foundation, Amsterdam

Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist. Published every Friday, his stories range from newsy items about this most intriguing artist to scholarly pieces based on his own meticulous investigations and discoveries. © Martin Bailey

Van Gogh’s Wheatfield (June 1888), which is among the artist’s finest Arles landscapes, has just gone on display at the Rijksmuseum . It is one of three pictures which have arrived on long-term loan from the P. & N. de Boer Foundation , which was set up by a family that has run an Amsterdam art dealership for just over a century. 

In Wheatfield , the composition is dominated by the varied colours of the crop immediately before the harvest. The lively brushwork of the golden wheat is set against a complementary blue sky and the narrow band of the hills of Les Alpilles on the horizon. As Van Gogh advised his artist friend Emile Bernard when he was finishing the picture: “If you do blue, then do yellow and orange as well.”

Confirmation that the picture was painted outdoors is a smudge at the very bottom of the canvas. Van Gogh probably caught the wet canvas on his sleeve while carrying it, smearing the paint.

Van Gogh’s View of Amsterdam from Central Station (October 1885)

View of Amsterdam from Central Station (October 1885) is the most personal of the three loans, in terms of what it reveals about the artist’s life. Van Gogh had travelled to Amsterdam from his parents’ village of Nuenen, in the south of the Netherlands, specifically to visit the Rijksmuseum, which had opened only three months earlier.

He stayed in Amsterdam for three days and on 7 October 1885 he went to the railway station, to await the arrival of his friend Anton Kerssemakers, who was travelling separately from Eindhoven. In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent explained that he had painted the view from the waiting room, working by a window.

The picture was completed in only an hour. “It’s enjoyable to put something down in a rush,” Vincent added. He modestly described the painting as just “an impression”—perhaps a nod to the recently established Impressionist movement.

Kerssemakers later recalled that on arriving, he immediately spotted his friend by the window: “I saw quite a crowd of people of all sorts, railway guards, workmen, travellers… gathered near the front windows of the waiting room, and there he was sitting, surrounded by this mob, in all tranquility, dressed in his shaggy Ulster [overcoat] and his inevitable fur cap… without paying the slightest attention to the loud disrespectful observations and critical remarks of the esteemed public."

Van Gogh quickly packed up his painting gear, setting off with Kerssemakers for the Rijksmuseum. In a letter to his brother Theo, he discussed his visit, mentioning that Rembrandt’s The Night Watch (1642) was the first work he saw. The painting still hangs in the same position at the centre of the museum’s Gallery of Honour—where it remains the collection’s most famous work.

View of Amsterdam from Central Station depicts two bridges over the Singel canal, with the dome of the Koepelkerk (the cupola church is now part of the Renaissance Hotel) in the middle distance. Although “Central Station” appears in the picture’s traditional title, Amsterdam’s grand station was only completed in 1889 and during Van Gogh’s visit trains stopped at a temporary building on the adjacent Westerdok.

Vincent told his brother that the painting, along with another townscape , was “quite badly damaged”. He explained: “They got wet on the journey; then the little panels warped when they dried, and dust etc got into them.” The Singel scene must have been restored at some point in the 20th century, since the small panel is now in quite reasonable condition.

Van Gogh’s Riverbank with Trees (spring 1887)

The third De Boer painting on loan to the Rijksmuseum is Riverbank with Trees (spring 1887). It depicts a scene beside the Seine on the outskirts of Paris, probably on the northern side of the Ile des Ravageurs. Two apartment buildings in Asnières are visible in the background. Vincent gave this picture to his sister Lies.

Installation view of the three De Boer loans, surrounding the Rijksmuseum’s Van Gogh Self-portrait (spring 1887)

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The De Boer loan to the Rijksmuseum adds significantly to its Van Gogh display (but it is completely dwarfed by the huge collection of the adjacent Van Gogh Museum). Although the Rijksmuseum has five Van Gogh drawings, it owns only two paintings. There is an important Self-portrait (spring 1887), which forms the centrepiece of the new display (in room 1.18). It also has an early landscape, Farming Village at Twilight (1884), but this is on long-term loan to the Noordbrabants Museum in ’s-Hertogenbosch.

Rijksmuseum curator Mayken Jonkman says that with the De Boer paintings done in Amsterdam, Paris and Arles “we can now show Van Gogh’s artistic development for the first time.”

Most of the De Boer Foundation’s substantial collection of paintings, mainly 17th century Dutch works, normally hang in the family’s gallery in a grand house in Amsterdam’s Herengracht. The foundation was set up by the founder Pieter de Boer (1894-1974), a decade before his death, and it is also named in memory of his wife Nellie.

The foundation also owns five Van Gogh works on paper, although these are not part of the loan: Digger (September 1881), Worn Out (September-October 1881), Scheveningen Woman sewing (December 1881), Sower (December 1882) and Moulin de Blute-Fin (spring 1886).

Niels de Boer, the great-nephew of the gallery’s founder, tells us that the foundation’s Van Gogh paintings have frequently been lent to exhibitions, so they could do “with some rest” by remaining in the same place. The loan is for a few years, “with the option of a prolongation”.

Niels adds that the Rijksmuseum is the most appropriate temporary home, since View of Amsterdam from Central Station is returning there for the first time since the day it was painted, “with a marvellous story to tell”.

Presumably Van Gogh carried the picture when he walked with Kerssemakers from the station to the museum, depositing it in its cloak or luggage room. The two men then ascended the stairs to view The Night Watch . Van Gogh would be delighted to know that his little townscape has returned, this time to be honoured with a space on the wall of the greatest museum in the Netherlands.

Martin Bailey is the author of Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln, 2021, available in the UK and US ). He is a leading Van Gogh specialist and investigative reporter for The Art Newspaper . Bailey has curated Van Gogh exhibitions at the Barbican Art Gallery and Compton Verney/National Gallery of Scotland. He was a co-curator of Tate Britain’s The EY Exhibition: Van Gogh and Britain (27 March-11 August 2019).

Martin Bailey’s recent Van Gogh books

Bailey has written a number of other bestselling books, including The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh's Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, available in the UK and US ), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, available in the UK and US ), Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, available in the UK and US ) and Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame  (Frances Lincoln 2021, available in the UK and US ). Bailey's Living with Vincent van Gogh: the Homes and Landscapes that Shaped the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, available in the UK and US ) provides an overview of the artist’s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, available in the UK and US ).

To contact Martin Bailey, please email [email protected] . Please note that he does not undertake authentications.

Read more from Martin's Adventures with Van Gogh blog   here .

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Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.

The Starry Night

Vincent van Gogh Dutch

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Artwork Details

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Title: The Starry Night

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise)

Date: June 1889

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 29 × 36 1/4 in. (73.7 × 92.1 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange), 1941 Conservation was made possible by the Bank of America Art Conservation Project

Accession Number: VGC.055

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Arles Café Modeled After Van Gogh’s Famous Painting Closed for Legal Reasons

By Francesca Aton

Francesca Aton

Associate Digital Editor, ARTnews and Art in America

A café in the southern French town Arles, made to resemble a bistro painted by Vincent Van Gogh , has been closed for legal reasons since July 2023.

Café Terrace at Night (1888) is one of the Dutch artist’s most notable works, painted during his time in Arles. The canvas shows the empty atmospheric exterior of the restaurant during the night. Van Gogh also painted The Night Café (1888), which shows the establishment’s interior billiards room.

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“The reconstruction of the place is a job well done, except that it’s a rip-off,” a nearby shopkeeper told Le Monde .

The café painted by Van Gogh, however, was not located on the Place du Forum, in the heart of Arles’ historic center, where the reconstruction sits. Rather, the original site was in the Place Lamartine, close to where the painter once lived. Unfortunately, in 1944, the location was destroyed by Allied bombings.

Three local residents came up with the idea to recreate the famous locale painted by Van Gogh in the early 2000s. The trio—a property developer, a heritage conservationist, and a journalist—made a deal with Marseille businessman Roland Zemmour who later became the owner. The café was recreated to include every last detail of Van Gogh’s paintings and was even registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 2015, the managers could not produced tax documents requested during an inspection. Among the missing paperwork was inventories, certificates, and receipts from the previous three years. They avoided paying VAT and business tax by declaring a lower turnover, but were accused of concealing more than €1 million in sales between 2012 and 2014.

Roland Zemmour was banned from running a business for five years by a French court in 2021 and was ordered to pay all outstanding taxes, including surcharges and penalties. One of the managers Lazare Zemmour received a 12-month suspended prison sentence. In 2023, Roland Zemmour was declared by judges personally bankrupt for 10 years.

The café remains shuttered and its future unclear.

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