Vincent Willem van Gogh (March 30, 1853 – July 29, 1890) was born in Zundert, Netherlands and is generally considered one of the greatest painters in European art history. He produced all of his work (some 900 paintings and 1100 drawings) during a period of only 10 years before he succumbed to mental illness and committed suicide. He had little success during his lifetime, but his posthumous fame grew rapidly, especially following a showing of 71 of van Gogh's paintings in Paris on March 17, 1901 (11 years after his death).
Van Gogh's influence on expressionism, fauvism and early abstraction was enormous, and can be seen in many other aspects of 20th-century art. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is dedicated to Van Gogh's work and that of his contemporaries. The Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo (also in the Netherlands), has a considerable collection of Vincent van Gogh paintings as well. Several paintings by Van Gogh rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. On March 30, 1987 Van Gogh's painting Irises was sold for a record US$53.9 million at Sotheby's, New York, on November 20, 1998 also in New York, at Christie’s, his Portrait de l'artiste sans barbe was sold for $71.5 million. On May 15, 1990 his Portrait of Doctor Gachet was sold for $82.5 million also at Christie's, thus establishing a new price record.
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 colors, favoring dark tones, set him apart from his teacher. 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. 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 colors, 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 discovered impressionism and liked its use of light and color, more than its lack of social engagement (as he saw it). (It should be noted that Van Gogh is regarded as a post-impressionist, rather than an impressionist.) He especially liked 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. Van Gogh also used complementary colors, especially blue and orange, in close proximity in order to enhance the brilliance of each (see color). A lovely quote from one of his letters: "I want to use colors that complement each other, that cause each other to shine brilliantly, that complete each other like a man and a woman."
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. 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. At this time his work began to be dominated by 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 deepened, and on July 27 of the same year, at the age of 37 Van Gogh shot himself in the chest. Without realizing that he was fatally wounded, he returned to the Ravoux Inn, where 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.
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