The story of Vincent van GoghÆs life and art is widely known thanks to his frequent exchange of letters with his broth
er Theo. The son of a Protestant pastor from the Dutch region of Brabant, he finished his studies and was then employed from 1869 onward by the Goupil art dealers at their offices in The Hague, London, and Paris successively. In 1876 he was dismissed and
returned to the Netherlands. After various attempts to find a job, he enrolled in a missionary school in Brussels. Appointed a preacher, he spent the years 1879 and 1880 as an evangelist in the Belgian coalmining region of Borinage, surrounded by povert
y and suffering. In the fall, after months of solitude, he decided to devote himself to painting and at the age of almost thirty embarked on an artistic career, producing drawings and watercolors over the following two years. At the end of 1883 he went t
o Neunen, a country town in the Dutch part of Brabant to which his parents had moved. The two years he spent at Neunen were decisive to his development as an artist. Mindful of his experience among the miners, he made many drawings and paintings of the plac
e and its inhabitants, mostly poor peasants and weavers, depicting them at work or in their rare moments of rest (\i Bust of a Peasant Woman\i0 , 1884-85, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; \i The Potato-Eaters\i0 , 1885, Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kr÷ller-Mⁿller). In 1886
his move to Paris, where his brother Theo still lived, marked the beginning of the French period, interrupted only by a brief trip to Antwerp at the end of the same year. During his stay in Paris from 1886 to 1888 he discovered Impressionist painting an
d developed a growing interest in Japanese art and prints, of which he became a collector. He met Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and, later, Paul Gauguin, for whose paintings he had a particul
arly high regard. This was the time of his enthralling discovery of color, stimulated by the work of the Impressionists and his interest in the technique of Divisionism, which influenced his subsequent output. In 1888 he left Paris and moved to Arles in
the South of France. Delighted with the light and the brilliant colors of Provence, he painted some of his most significant works there, including \i The ArtistÆs Room in Arles\i0 (1889, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay) and the series of \i Sunflowers\i0 (1888-89
). At the end of 1888 Vincent had a furious argument with Gauguin, who had joined him in Arles, and tried to stab his friend. He then cut off his own ear (\i Self-portrait with Mutilated Ear\i0 , 1889, Chicago, private collection). Subject to fits of dee
p depression, he was repeatedly admitted to Arles Hospital, and then committed himself to the mental asylum of Saint-Paul, at Saint-RΘmy in Provence. Here, in moments of lucidity, he painted intensely, producing works of visionary power in ever more swir
ling brushstrokes and brighter colors (\i Starry Night over the Rh⌠ne\i0 , 1888, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). In the spring of 1890 he left the asylum and moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, where he was looked after by his brother and Dr. Gachet. In these l
ast years of his life he still painted many pictures, mostly landscapes and portraits (\i Doctor Paul Gachet\i0 , 1890 and \i The Church of Auvers-sur-Oise\i0 , 1890, both in Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; \i View of the Auvers Plain\i0 , 1890, Munich, Neue Pinak
othek; \i Wheatfield with Crows\i0 , 1890, Amsterdam, Museum Vincent van Gogh). At the end of July he shot himself and died after two days of agony.
