VAN GOGH Vincent

Vincent Willem VAN GOGH (born 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands) is a Dutch painter and cartoonist. His work full of naturalism, inspired by Impressionism and Pointillism, announces Fauvism and Expressionism.

Van Gogh grew up in a family of the former bourgeoisie. He first tries to pursue a career as an art dealer at Goupil & Cie. However, refusing to see art as a commodity, he was dismissed. He then aspired to become a pastor, but failed theological examinations. As he approached 1880, he turned to painting. During these years, he left the Netherlands for Belgium and settled in France. Self-taught, Van Gogh nevertheless takes painting classes. Passionate, he constantly enriched his pictorial culture: he analysed the work of the painters of the time, visited museums and art galleries, exchanged ideas with his painter friends, studied Japanese prints, English engravings, etc. His painting reflects his research and the breadth of his artistic knowledge. However, his life is stunned by crises that reveal his mental instability. One of them causes his suicide at the age of 37.

Van Gogh's abundant correspondence helps to understand him better. It consists of more than eight hundred letters written to his family and friends, including six hundred and fifty-two sent to his brother "Theo"Note 3, with whom he has a sustained personal and professional relationship.

Van Gogh's work consists of more than two thousand paintings and drawings dating mainly from the 1880s. It echoes the European artistic milieu of the late 19th century. He was influenced by his painter friends, including Anthon van Rappard, Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin. He also exchanged views with his brother Theo, a well-known art dealer. He admires Jean-François Millet, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Anton Mauve and Eugène Delacroix, while drawing inspiration from Hiroshige, Claude Monet, Adolphe Monticelli, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas and Paul Signac.

Little known in the 1890s, Van Gogh was only noticed by a small number of authors and painters in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. However, in the 1930s, his works attracted one hundred and twenty thousand people to an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is now considered one of the greatest artists of all time.