Vincent Willem van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who rose to prominence after his death. In a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, from his final two years of life. 

They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits. The bold colors and dramatic, impulsive, and expressive brushwork helped lay the groundwork for modern art.

Van Gogh was born into an upper-middle-class family and drew as a child. He was serious, quiet, and thoughtful. As a young man, he worked as an art dealer and traveled extensively, but he became depressed after moving to London. 

His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant laborers, showed few signs of the vibrant colors that distinguished his later work. In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met avant-garde artists such as Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin. He developed a fresh approach to still life and local landscapes. His paintings became more colorful as he developed a style that came to fruition during his stay in Arles, south of France, in 1888. During this time, he expanded his subject matter to include images of olive trees, wheat fields, and sunflowers.

Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions, and despite his concern for his mental stability, he frequently neglected his physical health, eating poorly and drinking excessively. His friendship with Gauguin came to an end after he cut off a portion of his left ear in a fit of rage. 

He spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a stay in Saint-Rémy. The homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet treated him at Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris. His depression persisted, and on July 27, 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a Lefaucheux revolver. He died of his injuries two days later.

Throughout his life, Van Gogh was considered a failure and a madman. He rose to prominence following his suicide and is remembered as a misunderstood genius, the artist "where discourses on madness and creativity converge." His reputation grew in the early twentieth century as the Fauves and German Expressionists adopted elements of his painting style. Over the years, he achieved widespread critical, commercial, and popular success, and people remember him as an important but tragic painter whose troubled personality exemplifies the romantic ideal of the tormented artist.