Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include series of olive trees, wheat fields and sunflowers. His paintings grew brighter as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the South of France in 1888. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and local landscapes. In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, contain few signs of the vivid colour that distinguished his later work. His younger brother Theo supported him financially the two kept a long correspondence by letter. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881, having moved back home with his parents. He turned to religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in predominantly Roman Catholic southern Belgium. As a young man, he worked as an art dealer, often traveling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. Not commercially successful in his career, he struggled with severe depression and poverty, which eventually led to his suicide at age thirty-seven.īorn into an upper-middle class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet, and thoughtful. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. Vincent Willem van Gogh ( Dutch: ( listen) 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history.

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