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Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Vincent van Gogh is born on 30 March 1853 in Zundert, a small village in the southern Netherlands. After academic studies in French, English, and German, he leaves school without graduating.

In 1869, Vincent starts working for an international art dealer in Hague. He moves to London in 1873 to continue working in the art dealing business. He studies the contemporary paintings in London's art galleries, and becomes religious. In 1875, he is transferred to Paris, where he continues to attend art exhibitions. He performes less and less well at work, and in 1876, he is forced to quit.

Highly religious and feeling the need to help the poor, Vincent now decides to become a priest. He moves back to England to teach, but his family persuades him to return to the Netherlands, and so, he moves to Amsterdam to study theology. After completing his studies, he starts evangelising, but his extreme commitment is too much for the church.

In 1880, he concludes that he — just like the monks — can serve God through his own paintings. As a consequence, he moves to Brussels to study art, and also takes oil and watercolour painting lessons in Hague. In 1882, he rents a flat and lets his model (a pregnant prostitute) move in. At this time, he becomes serious about his art. However, he is never able to make a living out of it. Instead, his beloved brother Theo sends him money on a regular basis.

In 1885, Vincent moves to Antwerp in Belgium, where he takes a few additional painting lessons and starts collecting Japanese woodblock prints. The year after, he moves to Paris again, and now discoveres the impressionism paintings, which are much brighter than the comparatively dull Dutch ones. Here he becomes aquatinted with Paul Gauguin, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Camille Pissarro, and more artists. He also starts discovering and experimenting with pointillism (neo-impressionism). By now, both Dutch and impressionism painting, as well as the Japanese prints, has made an influence on him, and he becomes obsessed with the use of bright colours, something he has never seen before his visit to Paris.

Drawn to the colourful springtime in Provence, Vincent moves to Arles in 1888, and invites Gauguin to stay with him. After a few weeks, they can't stand each other, and Gauguin moves out when Vincent threatens him with a razor. Later on, he cuts off his own left ear.

Still in Provence, Vincent paints masterpiece upon masterpiece, but becomes more and more mentally unstable. One day in 1890, he walks to a wheat field — a common motive in his late paintings — and shoots himself. After two days, on 29 July, he dies, with Theo at his side. Theo soon turnes ill himself, and dies the following year.

Read more about Vincent van Gogh here: http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl.

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