144 Facts About Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist who emerged as one of the most famous figures in the history of Western art after his death.

In only a decade, Van Gogh created a prolific body of more than 2,000 works of art.

Vincent Van Gogh's innovations contributed to the foundations of modern art.

Vincent Van Gogh expressed a desire to communicate joy and comfort through his art and aspired to gather a community of like-minded artists in southern France.

Van Gogh did not achieve commercial success in his lifetime and relied on financial support from his brother, Theo van Gogh.

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Vincent Van Gogh's life was shaped by severe depression and episodes of acute psychological distress.

Vincent Van Gogh began drawing at an early age and as a young man worked as an art dealer, often traveling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London.

Vincent Van Gogh turned to religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium.

Vincent Van Gogh drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881, having returned home to his parents.

In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris where he met members of the avant-garde, including Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility.

Vincent Van Gogh's paintings grew brighter as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the South of France in 1888.

Vincent Van Gogh's depression persisted and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself in the chest with a revolver, dying from his injuries two days later, with his brother Theo at his side.

Scholars increasingly have recognized the role of Vincent's sister-in-law Jo Bonger-Van Gogh for shaping and promoting his reputation as an artist.

Vincent Van Gogh evolved in the public imagination into a misunderstood genius.

Vincent Van Gogh's reputation grew in the early 20th century as elements of his style came to be incorporated by the Fauves and German Expressionists.

Vincent Van Gogh attained widespread critical and commercial success over the ensuing decades, and is remembered as an important but tragic painter whose troubled personality typifies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.

Theo van Gogh was an art dealer and provided his brother with financial and emotional support as well as access to influential people on the contemporary art scene.

Vincent Van Gogh's letters are eloquent and expressive and have been described as having a "diary-like intimacy", and read in parts like autobiography.

Vincent Van Gogh turned around and returned without making his presence known.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, in the predominantly Catholic province of North Brabant in the Netherlands.

Vincent Van Gogh was the oldest surviving child of Theodorus van Gogh, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and his wife, Anna Cornelia Carbentus.

Van Gogh was given the name of his grandfather and of a brother stillborn exactly a year before his birth.

Vincent Van Gogh's brother Theo was born on 1 May 1857.

In later life, Van Gogh remained in touch only with Willemina and Theo.

Vincent Van Gogh was taught at home by his mother and a governess, and in 1860, was sent to the village school.

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Vincent Van Gogh was encouraged to draw as a child by his mother, and his early drawings are expressive, but do not approach the intensity of his later work.

Vincent Van Gogh's philosophy was to reject technique in favour of capturing the impressions of things, particularly nature or common objects.

Vincent Van Gogh later wrote that his youth was "austere and cold, and sterile".

Vincent Van Gogh became infatuated with his landlady's daughter, Eugenie Loyer, but she rejected him after confessing his feelings; she was secretly engaged to a former lodger.

Vincent Van Gogh's parents had meanwhile moved to Etten; in 1876 he returned home at Christmas for six months and took work at a bookshop in Dordrecht.

Vincent Van Gogh was unhappy in the position and spent his time doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French, and German.

Vincent Van Gogh immersed himself in Christianity, and became increasingly pious and monastic.

Van Gogh prepared for the University of Amsterdam theology entrance examination; he failed the exam and left his uncle's house in July 1878.

Vincent Van Gogh undertook, but failed, a three-month course at a Protestant missionary school in Laken, near Brussels.

Vincent Van Gogh's humble living conditions did not endear him to church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity of the priesthood".

Vincent Van Gogh then walked the 75 kilometres to Brussels, returned briefly to Cuesmes in the Borinage, but he gave in to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten.

Vincent Van Gogh stayed there until around March 1880, which caused concern and frustration for his parents.

Vincent Van Gogh's father was especially frustrated and advised that his son be committed to the lunatic asylum in Geel.

Van Gogh returned to Cuesmes in August 1880, where he lodged with a miner until October.

Vincent Van Gogh became interested in the people and scenes around him, and he recorded them in drawings after Theo's suggestion that he take up art in earnest.

Vincent Van Gogh traveled to Brussels later in the year, to follow Theo's recommendation that he study with the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him – in spite of his dislike of formal schools of art – to attend the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts.

Vincent Van Gogh registered at the Academie in November 1880, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modelling and perspective.

Van Gogh returned to Etten in April 1881 for an extended stay with his parents.

Vincent Van Gogh continued to draw, often using his neighbours as subjects.

Late in November 1881, Van Gogh wrote a letter to Johannes Stricker, one which he described to Theo as an attack.

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Vincent Van Gogh quarrelled with his father, refusing to attend church, and left for The Hague.

Van Gogh could afford to hire only people from the street as models, a practice of which Mauve seems to have disapproved.

Vincent Van Gogh liked the medium, and he spread the paint liberally, scraping from the canvas and working back with the brush.

Vincent Van Gogh wrote that he was surprised at how good the results were.

Vincent Van Gogh had learned of Van Gogh's new domestic arrangement with an alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik, and her young daughter.

Van Gogh had met Sien towards the end of January 1882, when she had a five-year-old daughter and was pregnant.

Vincent Van Gogh had previously borne two children who died, but Van Gogh was unaware of this.

Vincent Van Gogh believed Van Gogh was his father, but the timing of his birth makes this unlikely.

Van Gogh completed The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, which was stolen from the Singer Laren in March 2020.

Vincent Van Gogh's palette consisted mainly of sombre earth tones, particularly dark brown, and showed no sign of the vivid colours that distinguished his later work.

One of his young peasant sitters became pregnant in September 1885; Van Gogh was accused of forcing himself upon her, and the village priest forbade parishioners to model for him.

Vincent Van Gogh lived in poverty and ate poorly, preferring to spend the money Theo sent on painting materials and models.

Van Gogh bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, later incorporating elements of their style into the background of some of his paintings.

Vincent Van Gogh was drinking heavily again, and was hospitalised between February and March 1886, when he was possibly treated for syphilis.

Vincent Van Gogh became ill and run down by overwork, poor diet and excessive smoking.

Vincent Van Gogh started to attend drawing classes after plaster models at the Antwerp Academy on 18 January 1886.

Vincent Van Gogh quickly got into trouble with Charles Verlat, the director of the academy and teacher of a painting class, because of his unconventional painting style.

Van Gogh had clashed with the instructor of the drawing class Franz Vinck.

Van Gogh finally started to attend the drawing classes after antique plaster models given by Eugene Siberdt.

Soon Siberdt and Van Gogh came into conflict when the latter did not comply with Siberdt's requirement that drawings express the contour and concentrate on the line.

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When Van Gogh was required to draw the Venus de Milo during a drawing class, he produced the limbless, naked torso of a Flemish peasant woman.

Siberdt regarded this as defiance against his artistic guidance and made corrections to Van Gogh's drawing with his crayon so vigorously that he tore the paper.

The story that Van Gogh was expelled from the academy by Siberdt is therefore unfounded.

Van Gogh moved to Paris in March 1886 where he shared Theo's rue Laval apartment in Montmartre and studied at Fernand Cormon's studio.

In Paris, Vincent Van Gogh painted portraits of friends and acquaintances, still life paintings, views of Le Moulin de la Galette, scenes in Montmartre, Asnieres and along the Seine.

Vincent Van Gogh tried his hand at Japonaiserie, tracing a figure from a reproduction on the cover of the magazine Paris Illustre, The Courtesan or Oiran, after Keisai Eisen, which he then graphically enlarged in a painting.

Vincent Van Gogh worked at the studio in April and May 1886, where he frequented the circle of the Australian artist John Peter Russell, who painted his portrait in 1886.

Theo kept a stock of Impressionist paintings in his gallery on boulevard Montmartre, but Van Gogh was slow to acknowledge the new developments in art.

Vincent Van Gogh adopted elements of Pointillism, a technique in which a multitude of small coloured dots are applied to the canvas so that when seen from a distance they create an optical blend of hues.

In November 1887, Theo and Vincent Van Gogh befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris.

Towards the end of the year, Vincent Van Gogh arranged an exhibition alongside Bernard, Anquetin, and probably Toulouse-Lautrec, at the Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet, 43 avenue de Clichy, Montmartre.

In February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, Van Gogh left, having painted more than 200 paintings during his two years there.

Vincent Van Gogh seems to have moved with thoughts of founding an art colony.

Vincent Van Gogh was enchanted by the local countryside and light; his works from this period are rich in yellow, ultramarine and mauve.

Vincent Van Gogh wanted a gallery to display his work and started a series of paintings that eventually included Van Gogh's Chair, Bedroom in Arles, The Night Cafe, Cafe Terrace at Night, Starry Night Over the Rhone, and Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, all intended for the decoration for the Yellow House.

Van Gogh wrote that with The Night Cafe he tried "to express the idea that the cafe is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime".

When Gauguin agreed to visit Arles in 1888, Van Gogh hoped for friendship and the realisation of his idea of an artists' collective.

When Boch visited again, Van Gogh painted a portrait of him, as well as the study The Poet Against a Starry Sky.

In preparation for Gauguin's visit, Van Gogh bought two beds on advice from the station's postal supervisor Joseph Roulin, whose portrait he painted.

When Gauguin consented to work and live in Arles with him, Van Gogh started to work on the Decoration for the Yellow House, probably the most ambitious effort he ever undertook.

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Vincent Van Gogh completed two chair paintings: Van Gogh's Chair and Gauguin's Chair.

Van Gogh was found unconscious the next morning by a policeman and taken to hospital, where he was treated by Felix Rey, a young doctor still in training.

Vincent Van Gogh arrived on Christmas Day and comforted Vincent, who seemed to be semi-lucid.

Vincent Van Gogh spent the following month between hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions of poisoning.

Van Gogh gave his 1889 Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey to Dr Rey.

Van Gogh entered the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum on 8 May 1889, accompanied by his caregiver, Frederic Salles, a Protestant clergyman.

Van Gogh had two cells with barred windows, one of which he used as a studio.

Vincent Van Gogh made several studies of the hospital's interiors, such as Vestibule of the Asylum and Saint-Remy, and its gardens, such as Lilacs.

Vincent Van Gogh was allowed short supervised walks, during which time he painted cypresses and olive trees, including Valley with Ploughman Seen from Above, Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889, Cypresses 1889, Cornfield with Cypresses, Country road in Provence by Night.

Van Gogh instead worked on interpretations of other artist's paintings, such as Millet's The Sower and Noonday Rest, and variations on his own earlier work.

Van Gogh was an admirer of the Realism of Jules Breton, Gustave Courbet and Millet, and he compared his copies to a musician's interpreting Beethoven.

Van Gogh asked his mother and his brother to send him drawings and rough work he had done in the early 1880s so he could work on new paintings from his old sketches.

In February, Van Gogh painted five versions of L'Arlesienne, based on a charcoal sketch Gauguin had produced when she sat for both artists in November 1888.

From 20 March to 27 April 1890, Van Gogh was included in the sixth exhibition of the Societe des Artistes Independants in the Pavillon de la Ville de Paris on the Champs-Elysees.

In May 1890, Van Gogh left the clinic in Saint-Remy to move nearer to both Dr Paul Gachet in the Paris suburb of Auvers-sur-Oise and to Theo.

In July 1890, Van Gogh completed two paintings of Daubigny's Garden, one of which is likely his final work.

Vincent Van Gogh wrote that they represented his "sadness and extreme loneliness" and that the "canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, that is, how healthy and invigorating I find the countryside".

Research published in 2020 by senior researchers at the museum Louis van Tilborgh and Teio Meedendorp, reviewing findings of Wouter van der Veen, the scientific director of the Institut Van Gogh, concluded that it was "highly plausible" that the exact location where Van Gogh's final work Tree Roots was some 150 metres from the Auberge Ravoux inn where he was staying, where a stand of trees with a tangle of gnarled roots grew on a hillside.

On 27 July 1890, aged 37, Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself in the chest with a 7mm Lefaucheux pinfire revolver.

Vincent Van Gogh was able to walk back to the Auberge Ravoux, where he was attended to by two doctors, but without a surgeon present the bullet could not be removed.

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The consensus is that Van Gogh had an episodic condition with periods of normal functioning.

Gun Van Gogh was reputed to have used was rediscovered in 1965 and was auctioned, on 19 June 2019, as "the most famous weapon in art history".

Van Gogh drew, and painted with watercolours while at school, but only a few examples survive and the authorship of some has been challenged.

Van Gogh persevered; he experimented with lighting in his studio using variable shutters and different drawing materials.

Vincent Van Gogh wrote that he could now "go on painting with new vigour".

Vincent Van Gogh had some of them photographed, but when his brother remarked that they lacked liveliness and freshness, he destroyed them and turned to oil painting.

Vincent Van Gogh moved to Nuenen after a short period of time in Drenthe and began work on several large paintings but destroyed most of them.

Vincent Van Gogh was aware many of his faults were due to lack of experience and technical expertise, so in November 1885 he travelled to Antwerp and later Paris to learn and develop his skills.

Van Gogh came to believe that the effect of colour went beyond the descriptive; he said that "colour expresses something in itself".

Van Gogh strove to be a painter of rural life and nature; during his first summer in Arles he used his new palette to paint landscapes and traditional rural life.

Vincent Van Gogh's paintings of flowers are filled with symbolism, but rather than use traditional Christian iconography he made up his own, where life is lived under the sun and work is an allegory of life.

Van Gogh stayed within what he called the "guise of reality" and was critical of overly stylised works.

Vincent Van Gogh wrote afterwards that the abstraction of Starry Night had gone too far and that reality had "receded too far in the background".

Between 1885 and his death in 1890, Van Gogh appears to have been building an oeuvre, a collection that reflected his personal vision and could be commercially successful.

Vincent Van Gogh was influenced by Blanc's definition of style, that a true painting required optimal use of colour, perspective and brushstrokes.

Van Gogh applied the word "purposeful" to paintings he thought he had mastered, as opposed to those he thought of as studies.

Vincent Van Gogh painted many series of studies; most of which were still lifes, many executed as colour experiments or as gifts to friends.

Vincent Van Gogh was inclined to immerse himself in local cultures and lighting conditions, although he maintained a highly individual visual outlook throughout.

Vincent Van Gogh moved home often, perhaps to expose himself to new visual stimuli, and through exposure develop his technical skill.

Art historian Melissa McQuillan believes the moves reflect later stylistic changes, and that Van Gogh used the moves to avoid conflict, and as a coping mechanism for when the idealistic artist was faced with the realities of his then current situation.

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Those closest to Van Gogh are mostly absent from his portraits; he rarely painted Theo, Van Rappard or Bernard.

Vincent Van Gogh considered his December 1888 painting La Berceuse as good as his sunflowers.

Van Gogh created more than 43 self-portraits between 1885 and 1889.

Vincent Van Gogh can be seen with bandages in portraits executed just after he mutilated his ear.

Van Gogh painted several landscapes with flowers, including roses, lilacs, irises, and sunflowers.

Sunflowers were painted to decorate the walls in anticipation of Gauguin's visit, and Van Gogh placed individual works around the Yellow House's guest room in Arles.

Vincent Van Gogh brought life to the trees, which were traditionally seen as emblematic of death.

In mid-1889, and at his sister Wil's request, Van Gogh painted several smaller versions of Wheat Field with Cypresses.

Vincent Van Gogh painted swiftly, and although he brought to this series a version of Impressionism, a strong sense of personal style began to emerge during this period.

Vincent Van Gogh wrote to Theo on 21 April 1888 that he had 10 orchards and "one big [painting] of a cherry tree, which I've spoiled".

Van Gogh was enthralled by the landscape and vegetation of the south of France, and often visited the farm gardens near Arles.

Van Gogh made several painting excursions during visits to the landscape around Arles.

Vincent Van Gogh made paintings of harvests, wheat fields and other rural landmarks of the area, including The Old Mill ; a good example of a picturesque structure bordering the wheat fields beyond.

At various points, Van Gogh painted the view from his window – at The Hague, Antwerp, and Paris.

About 10 July 1890, Van Gogh wrote to Theo of "vast fields of wheat under troubled skies".

Vincent Van Gogh's work was shown in several high-profile exhibitions, including six works at Les XX; in 1891 there was a retrospective exhibition in Brussels.

Vincent Van Gogh's letters are expressive and literate, and have been described as among the foremost 19th-century writings of their kind.

Vincent Van Gogh then began negotiations with the Dutch government to subsidise a foundation to purchase and house the entire collection.

Van Gogh Museum opened in the Museumplein in Amsterdam in 1973.