Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh was born March 30, 1853. About a year before his birth, his mother had a baby and named him Vincent, but he died before the Vincent we know was born. As a child, he liked to walk and read as long as he could be alone. Vincent Van Gogh was an impressionalist and his work is extremely personal. He expressed what he felt through his art. The blue's yellow's and orange's in his paintings create a powerful sense of warmth. But contrary to what some people think, this usage of colors does not represent a vision of the hell he found on earth. Few men have ever had greater capacity to give love, or a greater need to receive it. Sadly, he could express his love only in his art. When sought to express it directly to other humans he met only misunderstanding or hostility. "One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul," he wrote, "and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke rising from the chimney and continue on their way."

Vincent Van Gogh had one of the briefest careers in art history. It spanned only 10 years, and of these, the first four were devoted almost exclusively to drawing. The volume of his output is astonishing. Close to 1,700 of his works have survived. This includes almost 900 drawings and more than 800 paintings. During his life time, he sold only one painting for 400 Frances (the equivalent of $80). Among his last recorded words was the question, "But what's the use?" The answer to this became apparent within 25 years after his death. Van Gogh is now ranked as one of the founding fathers of modern art.

Here is one of Vincent's most famous paintings.
The Starry Night 1889

This is a painting Vincent made of his bedroom.
Bedroom at Arles


La Nuit Etoilee

This is the last painting Vincent Van Gogh ever made, shortly after he shot himself and survived until the next night.
Wheat Field With Crows 1890

The shock casued by the loss of Vincent was disasterous. It shattered the health of his brother Theo, destroying his sanity as well. Within six months he too was dead. The extent of Theo's despair is revealed in a letter he wrote his mother soon after Vincents death: "One cannot write how grieved one is nor find any confort. It is a grief that will last and which I certainly shall never forget as long as I live; the only thing one might say is that he himself has the rest he was longing for....Life was such a burden to him; but now, as often happens, everybody is full of praise for his talents....Oh Mother! He was my own, own brother."