Who Was Vincent van Gogh?: A Guide to Van Gogh’s Life and Art

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853–1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose energetic brushwork and striking color palette greatly influenced the twentieth-century Expressionism movement. His short career spanned only a decade, but in that brief period, he painted more than 2,000 pieces of art, including portraits, oil paintings, still lifes, watercolors, and landscapes.

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, Netherlands, and didn't begin his art career until 1881 at the age of 28.

• Artistic beginnings: Van Gogh produced his earliest drawings while living with his parents in Etten in 1881. A self-taught artist, he drew inspiration from the works of Rembrandt and Jean-Francois Millet. His first teacher, Anton Mauve, taught him introductory painting techniques and watercolor and oil painting basics. Van Gogh studied at the Hague School in 1892 and 1893, where he continued to sharpen his craft.
• Nuenen and Antwerp: In December of 1983, Van Gogh moved to Nuenen, where he produced nearly 200 oil paintings over two years. During this period, he painted his first masterpiece, The Potato Eaters (1985). In November 1985, Van Gogh moved to Antwerp to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts but frequently locked horns with several instructors over their artistic opinions and quit attending classes after less than two months. He left Holland to live in Paris, where his brother Theo van Gogh was an art dealer.
• Stay in Paris: Theo exposed Van Gogh to Georges Seurat, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, whose art all significantly affected Van Gogh's subsequent paintings. Van Gogh stayed in Paris through 1987, during which time he became interested in Japanese woodblock printing and befriended French artists, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Gauguin.
• Stay in Arles: In 1888, Van Gogh moved to Arles in the south of France, where he rented a home called the Yellow House and experienced one of the most prolific periods in his career. During this time, he painted notable works that included The Night Café (1888), Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), Café Terrace at Night (1888), a series of paintings depicting blossoming trees called Flowering Orchards (1888), and several portraits of postmaster Joseph Roulin and his family (1888–1889).
• Gauguin Collaboration: In October 1888, at the suggestion of Van Gogh's brother, Gauguin spent nine weeks living and working with Van Gogh at the Yellow House, where both men experimented with painting styles that deviated from the more traditional Impressionism of Monet, Pissarro, and Renoir. Unfortunately, Van Gogh's bouts of depression and violent outbursts led to Gauguin’s departure from Arles. Gauguin’s leave was prompted by Van Gogh allegedly threatening him with a razor and then using the razor to cut off a piece of his own ear.
• Saint-Paul asylum: Van Gogh checked into Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he continued to paint, using the asylum and its olive tree-filled grounds as his inspiration. There he painted Irises (1889), Almond Blossom (1890), and the most famous painting of his entire career—The Starry Night (1889).
• Death: Van Gogh left Saint-Paul asylum in May 1890 and settled in a suburb of Paris called Auvers-sur-Oise. His mental health continued to decline, and he died of complications from a gunshot wound on July 29 in 1890, at the age of 37. His death is generally considered a suicide. Art historians believe two of his last paintings were Tree Roots and Wheatfield with Crows; both completed that same month.

Van Gogh's artistic style shifted throughout his career, most notably when he moved to France, but many of his works contain one or more of the following characteristics:

1. 1. Emotional hues: Van Gogh utilized color differently than other artists of his day. Instead of reproducing the colors of the subject of his painting realistically, he used colors that best expressed his emotions toward the subject.
2. 2. Bold color palette: Van Gogh began his career painting with dark, earth tone colors, as seen in 1885's The Potato Eaters. However, when he moved from the Netherlands to Paris and saw Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painters’ art, he drastically changed his color palette to be more bold and vibrant. For the latter half of his career, his work featured bright shades of blue, yellow, orange, red, and green.
3. 3. Expressive brushstrokes: Van Gogh's signature painting style features energetic, visible brushwork to emphasize desired emotions.
4. 4. Japanese influence: Inspired by Japanese woodblock prints, he often painted dark outlines around subjects and filled the outlines with thick strokes of color.
5. 5. Self-portraits: Van Gogh was a prolific self-portraitist, painting more than 35 self-portraits in his short career that served as self-examinations of his emotional and mental state.

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, Van Gogh's best-known paintings continue to inspire.

1. 1. The Starry Night (1889): Van Gogh painted his most recognizable masterpiece from his ground-floor studio room in the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. In this expressive piece, a swirling-patterned night sky with a large moon and numerous bright stars shine over a quiet village, with a large cypress tree in the foreground. You can currently find The Starry Night at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
2. 2. Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890): Dr. Paul-Ferdinand Gachet became Van Gogh's caretaker and friend after Van Gogh left the asylum in Saint-Remy. In the portrait, Van Gogh depicts Gachet sitting at a table, leaning his head on his arm, gazing sadly out at the viewer. Van Gogh painted two versions of this portrait, the first version belongs in a private collection, and the second version is displayed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
3. 3. Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889): Van Gogh painted this self-portrait while recuperating after slicing off part of his ear during a confrontation with Paul Gauguin. While the painting makes it appear as though he cut off his right ear, Van Gogh used a mirror to paint his self-portraits, and the bandaged ear is his left. You can currently view Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear at the Courtauld Gallery in London.
4. 4. The Potato Eaters (1885): Painted when lived among farm laborers in Nuenen, Van Gogh’s first showcase piece features a family of peasants sitting at their dinner table eating potatoes. To portray the family’s poor living conditions, he used a dull color palette and highlighted the subjects’ unflattering features to show the intense toll of farm labor. The Potato Eaters is part of The Van Gogh Museum’s collection in Amsterdam.

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