Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
View Vincent Van Gogh's Art Prints
An artist whose work is one of the formative influences of 20th-c. art and whose life has become almost a legend.
The son of a Dutch parson, he was employed by a firm of art dealers in The Hague, London and Paris. Afterwards
he became in turn a schoolmaster in Britain, a missionary to the miners in the Borinage, Belgium, and finally,
in 1880, an artist. Van Gogh was virtually self-taught, though he received some technical advice in oil and
watercolour painting from a cousin, the artist A. Mauve. In 1886 he left Holland for Paris, where he lived with
his brother Theo, one of the few art dealers encouraging such artists as Bernard, Degas, Gauguin, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Impressed by the work and personalities of these painters, Van Gogh conceived the idea of founding a 'Studio of the South' at Arles
as a working community for progressive artists. He himself went to Arles early in 1888, but the only other painter he persuaded to
join him was Gauguin, who visited him at the end of 1888. A violent quarrel between the 2 precipitated the first of Van Gogh's periodic
attacks of madness in which he cut off part of his ear. 2 years later, at Auvers-sur- Oise, he shot himself. He had sold 1 picture
during his lifetime.
Early work of Van Gogh's Dutch period is heavy, rich but subdued in colour, with a few fine effects.
The Potato Eaters is typical. After his contact with other painters in Paris, with Japanese prints and the work of such original colourists as
Delacroix and A. Monticelli, Van Gogh's style changed radically to the brilliant colour and frenzied, thick brushwork of his Arles period.
Among hundreds of paintings of the last two and a half years are: Cornfield and Cypress Trees, Starry Night, La Mousmé, Sunflowers and Self-portrait.
His watercolours (e.g. Fishing Boats Near Santeo Maries) and drawings are of equal intensity and value, while the letters he wrote to his brother
Theo are important literary and human documents in their own right.
View Vincent Van Gogh's Art Prints
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