A quick introduction into the life of artist Vincent Van Gogh.

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Vincent van Gogh

(1853-1890)

A Quick Introduction Into The Life Of Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh was one of the four great Postimpressionists. Vincent van Gogh is generally considered the greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt. His reputation is based largely on the works of the last three years of his brief ten-year painting career. He had a powerful influence on expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh created more than 800 oil paintings and 700 drawings, but he sold only one during his lifetime. His striking colors, coarse brushwork, and contoured forms display the anguish of the mental illness that drove him to suicide.

Van Goghs Schooling

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert in the Brabant region of The Netherlands. He was the oldest son of a Protestant clergyman. At the age of 16 Van Gogh was apprenticed to art dealers in The Hague, and he worked for them there and in London and Paris until 1876.

Van Gogh disliked art dealing, and, rejected in love, he became increasingly solitary. He began to prepare for the ministry, but he failed the entrance examinations and became a lay preacher. In 1878 he went to the impoverished Baronage district in southwestern Belgium to do missionary work. He was dismissed in 1880 over a disagreement with his superiors. Penniless and with his faith broken, he sank into despair and began to draw. He soon realized the limitations of being self-taught and went to Brussels to study drawing. In 1881 he moved to The Hague to work with the Dutch landscape painter Anton Mauve, and the next summer Van Gogh began to experiment with oil paints. His urge to be with nature took him to Dutch villages, and his subjects- still life, landscape, and figure all related to the...