30 March 1853 : 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work
had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art for its vivid colors and
emotional impact. He suffered from anxiety and increasingly frequent bouts of
mental illness throughout his life and died, largely unknown,
at the age of 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Van Gogh came late to painting after spending time in London trying to be a
Christian missionary. And though he is now amongst the most famous artists on earth,
in his day, no one saw him coming – apart from one French art critic called Aurier.
It is possible he never sold one of his paintings in his life time.
Little appreciated during his lifetime, his fame grew in the years after his death.
Today, he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest painters and an
important contributor to the foundations of modern art. Van Gogh did not begin
painting until his late twenties, and most of his best-known works were produced
during his final two years. He produced more than 2,000 artworks, consisting of
around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches.
Today many of his pieces—including his numerous self portraits,
landscapes, portraits and sunflowers—are among the world's most recognizable and
expensive works of art.
In addition to his better known oil paintings, Vincent van Gogh produced nearly
150 watercolour paintings during his life. Though often lacking his distinctive
brush stroke textures, the watercolors are unmistakably Van Gogh in their
use of bold, vibrant color. Often times, these watercolors were used as field
studies for their eventual larger oil counterparts.
A self-taught artist with little training, Van Gogh was anything but academic
in his painting and drawing techniques. Recent research has shown that works
commonly known as "oil paintings" or "drawings" would better be described as
"mixed-media". The Langlois Bridge at Arles shows highly elaborate under-drawing
in pen and ink,[166] while several works from Saint-Rémy and Auvers,
hitherto considered to be drawings or watercolors, such as Vestibule of the Asylum,
Saint-Remy (September 1889), turned out to be painted in diluted oil and with a
brush.
His Self-portrait without beard , completed in September 1889, is one of the
most expensive paintings of all time, selling for $71.5 million in 1998 in
New York to a private collector.
On 27 July 1890, aged 37, he walked into a field and shot himself in the chest
with a revolver. He survived the impact and managed to walk back to the
Ravoux Inn. He died there two days later.
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