Vincent Van Gogh was possibly the most influential impressionist, not to mention the most recognized, from his time.  He changed the way people look at art.  He was born in 1853 to a Dutch Pastor, although he didn’t follow his father’s profession.  His uncle got him a job with the art dealers Goupil and Company at The Hague. In 1873 he was sent on business to London where he had an unfortunate love affair, then he went to the firm’s branch in Paris.  Van Gogh was restless most of his life due to his religious enthusiasm.  This led him to train for the protestant ministry in the Netherlands, although his extremism made him intolerable to the missionary society that employed him.  His career as a preacher faltered and eventually halted in 1879.
    The next year his brother Theo, an artist in Paris, decided to finance Van Gogh in his aspiration of becoming an artist.  The next six years of his life were spent taking occasional lessons from his uncle, Anton Mauve.  In 1886 he moved to Paris and met Paul Gauguin, Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.  His style in painting here started to evolve, his palette became brighter and he began to use pure colors.  He moved to Arles in 1888 where his artistic liberation was accelerated and completed.
    There he experienced his first attack of insanity, even once cutting off his own ear during his friend’s visit.  In March 1889 Van Gogh was committed to an asylum.  Although his mental state was less than functional, he continued to paint.  In May 1890 he left the asylum to stay with his brother and then with Dr Gachet, a friend of Cezanne and Gauguin.  After the following two moths he shot himself.  He had created a vast amount of fine art in his lifetime, but at a terrible cost.