VINCENT VAN GOGH
1853-1890, NetherlandsPost-impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh is much admired for his highly individual paintings that use innovative colour and undulating distortion to convey emotional power, and was legendary for his tortured and tempestuous personality. His landscapes, portraits, and still lifes convey a startlingly restless energy and fluidity of form.
Vincent Van Gogh: Early Life
Van Gogh only painted in the last ten years of his life, creating almost 900 works. The last five years, his French period, were his most significant. His father was a Dutch pastor and Van Gogh was a believer all his life. Van Gogh became an evangelist amongst the poor in Belgium, but before that he worked in a number of jobs. These included Goupil & Cie, an art dealing firm in The Hague, London, and Paris, which also employed his younger brother Theo, to whom he was close.
Van Gogh Artworks
Dismissed from missionary work in 1880, he returned to his father's house in Etten. He then lived in penury in various cities in the Netherlands, but taught himself to draw and paint, rendering the hardships of peasant life. Works from this Dutch period, dark and sombre in tone and emphasising plasticity, show the influence of Rubens' colour theory, and Van Gogh's fascination with the Japanese prints with which he decorated his studio. Works from this time include The Potato Eaters, Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace, and The Potato Peeler (all 1885). A bad diet and excessive drinking and smoking took its toll.
After attending academies in Brussels and The Hague, in 1886 he attended drawing and painting classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, but fell out with his teachers. He was asked to repeat the year.
Van Gogh's Paris period
Instead, in 1886 he returned to Paris, staying initially with Theo and painting local street scenes and parks. There he met a coterie of painters that included Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, and Paul Signac. It was then that Van Gogh also befriended Paul Gauguin, who had just arrived in Paris. By chance Van Gogh discovered a portrait by Adolphe Monticelli, which pushed him into experimenting with brighter colour. In 1887 he organised a much-discussed group exhibition in Montmartre. He swapped paintings with Gauguin, and, exhausted from over-work, fled south to Provence.
Van Gogh in Arles
In 1888 Van Gogh settled in Arles, where he had a period of intense productivity, much linked to the 'Yellow House' which he used as a studio. His work at this time showed the influence of Japanese prints, tilting the picture plane and introducing swirling rhythms, while his landscape imagery, interiors, and portraits became more convulsive compositionally. His colour became more saturated, and the brushed-on paint more expressive. Works from this period include some of his most renowned, such as Van Gogh's Chair (1888), Sunflowers (1888); The Night Café (1888), Self Portrait (1889), and The Starry Night (1889).
In 1888 he persuaded Paul Gauguin to come and stay so they could paint together and discuss ideas as equals, but their relationship was volatile, with Gauguin domineering and arrogant and Van Gogh experiencing psychotic episodes. Inevitably they fell out. While retaining considerable skills as an finely tuned colourist and observant draughtsperson, Van Gogh at this time was greatly troubled by the mental illness which led to his ear-mutilation and eventual suicide in 1890.
Van Gogh's troubled interiority and use of intense colour and vibrant brush marks were immensely influential on many artists, such as Edvard Munch, and avantgarde groups like the German Expressionists and the Fauves.
Exhibitions
Van Gogh has been the subject of both solo exhibition and group exhibitions. Selected exhibitions include:
- Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, National Gallery, London (14 September 2024–19 January 2025)
- Van Gogh's Bedrooms, Art Institute of Chicago (14 February–8 ay 2016).
- Van Gogh: The Adventure of Becoming an Artist, National Art Centre, Tokyo (1 October–20 December 2010).
Group exhibitions include:
- _Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne anf Beyond. Post-Impressionism from the Musée d'Orsa_y, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2 December 2009–18 April 2010).
- Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces From the National Gallery of Art, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art (14 September–30 November 2011).
- Post-Impressionism: Beyond Appearances, Louvre Abu Dhabi (16 October 2024–9 February 2025)
FAQs
Who was Vincent van Gogh?
Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist born in 1853, whose emotionally charged use of colour, impasto brushwork, and radical compositional approaches helped lay the foundation for modern art. Although largely unrecognised during his lifetime, van Gogh's practice would later become highly influential for 20th-century expressionist movements. He created over 2,000 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, in a brief but prolific career that ended with his death in 1890.
What is Vincent van Gogh's most famous work?
The Starry Night (1889), painted while van Gogh was at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, is often considered van Gogh's most recognisable painting. Expressive swirls of blue and yellow capturing not only an illuminated night sky, but wind and atmospheric energy in an expansive landscape. The work is seen to be emblematic of van Gogh's characteristic paint application and ability to create emotive and expressive landscapes. The Starry Night can often be found on display in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
What were Van Gogh's influences?
Van Gogh's early works were influenced by Dutch genre painting and the realism of Jean-François Millet, focusing on peasant labour and rural life, such as in The Potato Eaters (1885). His move to Paris in 1886 introduced him to Impressionism and Japanese prints, which informed his use of brighter colours and lighter brushwork. Later, in Arles and Saint-Rémy, his work became increasingly expressive and symbolic, shaped by mental health struggles, intense introspection, and spiritual yearning.
Where can I see Vincent van Gogh's art?
Van Gogh's work is represented in major collections around the world, most significantly at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands; and Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Did Vincent van Gogh achieve success during his lifetime?
Despite creating a vast body of work, van Gogh sold only a handful of paintings during his lifetime and struggled with poverty and mental illness. Much of his recognition came posthumously, thanks in part to the efforts of his brother Theo van Gogh and Theo's widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, who championed his legacy and helped bring his work to the attention of galleries and collectors.
Hazel Ellis | Ocula | 2025
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