Vincent van Gogh
The Colours of a Tortured Soul
On a July evening in 1890, a thirty-seven-year-old Dutchman walked into a wheat field near the village of Auvers-sur-Oise and shot himself in the chest. He had been painting for barely ten years. In that decade, Vincent van Gogh produced roughly 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings — a body of work so intense, so emotionally raw, and so technically revolutionary that it would reshape the entire trajectory of Western art. He sold perhaps one or two paintings during his lifetime, lived largely on his brother’s charity, and spent his final years battling mental illness in an asylum. Today his paintings sell for over a hundred million dollars, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam draws nearly two million visitors a year, and The Starry Night is one of the most reproduced images in human history.
“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
1853–1890
Born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, North Brabant, Netherlands. Died on 29 July 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise, France — thirty-seven years that included failed careers as an art dealer, teacher, and missionary before a decade of furious artistic creation.
~10 years
Van Gogh did not begin painting seriously until age 27 in 1880, and died at 37. In that compressed decade he produced an output that most artists could not achieve in a lifetime — roughly 2,100 artworks including 900 oil paintings.
~900
His total output includes approximately 860–900 oil paintings and over 1,100 drawings and sketches, plus watercolours and prints. In his final 70 days at Auvers alone, he painted more than 70 canvases — roughly one per day.
820+
Van Gogh’s surviving correspondence — mostly letters to his brother Theo — totals over 820 letters. They form one of the most extraordinary literary records by any artist, revealing his thoughts on art, love, suffering, and the meaning of painting.
Post-Impressionist master who created roughly 2,100 artworks in a decade, transforming modern art
Defining Events
The Starry Night
Painted from the east-facing window of his room at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, The Starry Night depicts a swirling night sky above an imaginary village. Van Gogh considered it a failure. Today it hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and is one of the most recognised paintings in the world — proof that the artist is often the worst judge of his own work.
The Potato Eaters
Van Gogh’s first major composition, painted in Nuenen. Five peasants eating potatoes by lamplight, rendered in the dark, earthy tones of his Dutch period. He wrote to Theo: “I have tried to emphasise that those people, eating potatoes in the lamp-light, have dug the earth with the very hands they put in the dish.” It was a declaration of intent — art as moral witness to the lives of the poor.
The Sunflowers
Van Gogh painted four Sunflowers canvases in a single week in August 1888, decorating the Yellow House in Arles for the arrival of Paul Gauguin. Brilliant yellows on yellow backgrounds — an exercise in chromatic daring that no painter had previously attempted. He signed them simply “Vincent,” as if his surname were unnecessary. In 1987, one version sold at auction for $39.9 million — a world record at the time.
Timeline
Born in Groot-Zundert
Born on 30 March in the parsonage at Groot-Zundert, North Brabant, exactly one year after a stillborn brother also named Vincent. His father Theodorus was a Dutch Reformed pastor; his uncle “Cent” was a partner in the art dealing firm Goupil & Cie. The Van Gogh family straddled two worlds — the church and the art trade — and Vincent would try both before finding his own path.
Art Dealer at Goupil & Cie
At sixteen, Vincent joined the Hague branch of Goupil & Cie through his uncle’s connections. He transferred to London in 1873, then Paris in 1875. An unrequited love for his London landlady’s daughter left him despondent, and growing religious fervour made him hostile to the commercial art world. He was dismissed in April 1876.
Missionary in the Borinage
After failing as a teacher and theology student, Vincent became a lay missionary in the coal-mining district of the Borinage, Belgium. He gave away his clothes and lodgings to the poorest miners, slept on straw, and descended into the pits himself. Church authorities dismissed him for “undermining the dignity of the priesthood.” The experience of radical poverty shaped his artistic vision permanently.
Decision to Become an Artist
At age twenty-seven, after exhausting every other vocation, Vincent wrote to Theo announcing his decision to devote himself to art. He began copying drawings by Jean-François Millet and enrolled briefly at the Académie Royale in Brussels. The decade that would change art history had begun.
The Potato Eaters
Living with his parents in Nuenen, Van Gogh painted his first major work — five peasants eating by lamplight in dark, earthy tones. His father had died suddenly in March, and the painting carries the weight of that loss. It was a statement of purpose: art should honour the dignity of ordinary suffering.
Paris and the Impressionists
Moving in with Theo in Montmartre, Vincent’s palette transformed virtually overnight. He discovered Impressionism, Japanese prints, and Pointillism. He met Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissarro, Signac, Bernard, and Gauguin. He produced roughly 230 paintings in two years — including the first Sunflowers series and over 35 self-portraits.
The Yellow House and the Ear
In February, Van Gogh moved to Arles seeking southern light. He rented the Yellow House and envisioned an artists’ colony. Gauguin arrived in October; tensions escalated over two months. On the night of 23 December, after a violent argument, Vincent severed most of his left ear with a razor. The “Studio of the South” dream collapsed.
The Starry Night at Saint-Rémy
Voluntarily admitted to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum, Van Gogh painted approximately 150 canvases in a year — including The Starry Night, Irises, and his most celebrated self-portrait. Between breakdowns, he worked with extraordinary intensity, producing some of the most emotionally powerful landscapes in the history of art.
Death at Auvers-sur-Oise
After 70 days of frantic painting at Auvers — over 70 canvases — Van Gogh shot himself on 27 July and died two days later in his room at the Auberge Ravoux, with Theo at his side. His reported last words: “La tristesse durera toujours” — “The sadness will last forever.” Theo died six months later. They are buried side by side.
Key Figures
Theo van Gogh
Four years younger, Theo was the axis around which Vincent’s entire artistic life revolved. An art dealer at Boussod, Valadon & Cie in Paris, Theo provided the monthly allowance that kept Vincent alive and painting. Their correspondence — over 660 letters — is one of the great literary records in art history. Theo married Johanna Bonger in 1889; their son was named Vincent Willem. After Vincent’s death, Theo collapsed mentally and physically, dying just six months later in January 1891, at thirty-three. Johanna later had Theo’s remains reinterred beside Vincent in Auvers.
Paul Gauguin
The most volatile relationship of Van Gogh’s life. Vincent idolised Gauguin and begged him to come to the Yellow House in Arles, decorating it with Sunflowers canvases for his arrival. Gauguin arrived in October 1888; their artistic debates escalated into heated arguments over nine weeks. On the night of 23 December, after Gauguin stormed out, Vincent severed his own ear. Gauguin left Arles permanently, and the two never met again. The nine weeks produced extraordinary art from both men — but at a devastating personal cost.
The Legacy of Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh sold perhaps one or two paintings in his lifetime. Within three decades of his death, he was one of the most famous artists in history. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Theo’s widow, devoted her life to organising exhibitions and publishing the brothers’ letters, building Vincent’s posthumous reputation with extraordinary care and persistence. The Van Gogh Museum opened in Amsterdam in 1973 and now houses over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 750 letters.
His influence on modern art is immeasurable. The bold colour, visible brushwork, and emotional directness of his paintings inspired Expressionism, Fauvism, and much of the trajectory of twentieth-century art. In 1990, his Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for $82.5 million. Read his story in his own words — the first-person ePub brings you inside the mind of the man who painted the stars.
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