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Vincent was born in Zundert, Netherlands. His father was a Protestant minister, a profession that Vincent found appealing and to which he would be drawn to a
certain extent later in his life. His sister described him as a serious and introspective child.
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At age 16 Vincent started to work for the art dealer Goupil & Co. in The Hague. His brother Theo, four years his junior and with whom Vincent cherished a life
long friendship, would join the company later. This friendship is amply documented in the vast amount of letters they sent each other. These letters have been
preserved and were published in 1914. They provide a lot of insight into the life of the painter, and show him to be a talented writer with a keen mind. Theo
would support Vincent financially throughout his life.
In 1873, his firm transferred him to London, then to Paris. He became increasingly interested in religion; in 1876 Goupil dismissed him for lack of
motivation. He became a teaching assistant in Ramsgate near London, then returned to Amsterdam to study theology in 1877.
After dropping out in 1878, he became a lay minister in Belgium in a poor mining region known as the Borinage. He even preached down in the mines and was
extremely concerned with the lot of the workers. He was dismissed after 6 months and continued without pay. During this period he started to produce charcoal
sketches.
In 1880, Vincent followed the suggestion of his brother Theo and took up painting in earnest. For a brief period Vincent took painting lessons from Anton
Mauve at The Hague. Although Vincent and Anton soon split over a divergence of artistic views, influences of the Hague School of painting would remain in
Vincent's work, notably in the way he played with light and in the looseness of his brush strokes. However his usage of colours, favouring dark tones, set
him apart from his teacher.
Vincent van Gogh painted many pieces that have captured the hearts of millions of art lovers. Images: van Gogh's Twelve Sunflowers in a Vase, Cafe terrace on the place du forum, The Starry Night.
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In 1881 he declared his love to his widowed cousin Kee Vos, who rejected him. Later he would move in with the prostitute Sien Hoornik and her children and
considered marrying her; his father was strictly against this relationship and even his brother Theo advised against it. They later separated.
Impressed and influenced by Jean-François Millet, van Gogh focused on painting peasants and rural scenes. He moved to the Dutch province Drenthe, later to
Nuenen, North Brabant, also in The Netherlands. Here he painted in 1885
The Potato Eaters,
now in The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam).
In the winter of 1885-1886 van Gogh attended the art academy of Antwerp, Belgium. This proved a disappointment as he was dismissed after a few months by
Professor Eugène Siberdt. Van Gogh did however get in touch with Japanese art during this period, which he started to collect eagerly. He admired its bright
colours, use of canvas space and the role lines played in the picture. These impressions would influence him strongly. Van Gogh made some paintings in
Japanese style. Also some of the portraits he painted are set against a background which shows Japanese art.
In spring 1886 van Gogh went to Paris, where he moved in with his brother Theo; they shared a house on Montmartre. Here he met the painters Edgar Degas,
Camille Pissarro, Emile Bernard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Gauguin. He discoverd impressionism and liked its use of light and colour, more than its
lack of social engagement (as he saw it). Especially the technique known as pointillism (where many small dots are applied to the canvas that blend into rich
colors only in the eye of the beholder, seeing it from a distance) made its mark on van Gogh's own style. It should be noted that van Gogh is regarded as a
post-impressionist, rather than an impressionist. Van Gogh also used complementary colors, especially blue and orange, in close proximity in order to enhance
the brilliance of each.
In 1888, when city life and living with his brother proved too much, van Gogh left Paris and went to Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was impressed with
the local landscape and hoped to found an art colony. He decorated a "yellow house" and created a celebrated series of yellow sunflower paintings for this
purpose. Only Paul Gauguin, whose simplified colour schemes and forms (known as synthetism) attracted van Gogh, followed his invitation. The admiration was
mutual, and Gauguin painted van Gogh painting sunflowers. However their encounter ended in a quarrel. Van Gogh suffered a mental breakdown and cut off part of
his left ear, which he gave to a startled prostitute friend. Gauguin left in December 1888.
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One of Vincent's famous paintings, the Bedroom in Arles of 1888, uses bright yellow and unusual perspective effects in depicting the interior of his bedroom.
The boldly vanishing lines are sometimes attributed to his changing mental condition. The only painting he sold during his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, was
created in 1888. It is now on display in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Russia.
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Van Gogh now exchanged painting dots for small stripes. He suffered from depression, and in 1889 on his own request van Gogh was admitted to the psychiatric
center at Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole in Saint Remy de Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. During his stay here the clinic and its garden became his main
subject. Pencil strokes changed again, now into swirls.
In May 1890 Vincent left the clinic and went to the physician Paul Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, where he was closer to his brother Theo, who had
recently married. Gachet had been recommended to him by Pissarro; he had treated several artists before. Here van Gogh created his only etching: a portrait of
the melancholic doctor Gachet.
His depression aggravated. On July 27 of the same year, at the age of 37, after a fit of painting activity, van Gogh shot himself in the chest. He died two
days later, with Theo at his side, who reported his last words as "La tristesse durera toujours" (French: "The sadness will last forever").
He was buried at the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise; Theo, unable to come to terms with his brother's death, died 6 months later and, at his wife's request,
was buried next to Vincent. It would not take long before his fame grew higher and higher. Large exhibitions were organised soon: Paris 1901, Amsterdam 1905,
Cologne 1912, New York 1913 and Berlin 1914.
Van Gogh's life forms the basis for Irving Stone's biographical novel Lust for Life.
