Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh and His World

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, born on 30 March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, in North Brabant in the Netherlands. He died on 29 July 1890, at the age of 37. In the history of Western art, he became one of its most famous and influential figures, though this came only after a life marked by poverty, illness, and little public success. His paintings helped lay the foundations of modern art through bold colour, expressive brushwork, and a direct emotional force that later artists would draw from.

Van Gogh came from an upper-middle-class family. His father, Theodorus van Gogh, was a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and his mother, Anna Cornelia Carbentus, came from a prosperous family in The Hague. As a child, Vincent drew and was described as serious, quiet, and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer and travelled often, but he became depressed after being transferred to London. He then turned toward religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium before returning to live with his parents and taking up painting in 1881.

Art, Letters, and a Hard Life

In just over a decade, Van Gogh created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings. Most of them were made in the last two years of his life. His early work centered on still lifes and peasant labourers, with little of the vivid colour that later became associated with him. In 1886 he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin. His work grew brighter, and during his stay in Arles in the south of France in 1888, his mature style took shape. He painted local landscapes and still lifes, and broadened his subjects to include olive trees, wheat fields, and sunflowers.

The person who supported him most steadily was his younger brother Theo, an art dealer who gave Vincent financial and emotional help and access to people in the contemporary art scene. Their correspondence is the most comprehensive primary source on Van Gogh. More than 600 letters from Vincent to Theo survive, along with smaller groups of letters to his sister Wil, the painter Anthon van Rappard, Émile Bernard, Paul Signac, Paul Gauguin, and the critic Albert Aurier. These letters record much of what is known about his thoughts and theories of art. They are eloquent, expressive, and have been described as having a “diary-like intimacy.”

Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions, worried about his mental stability, and often neglected his physical health. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation in which Van Gogh severed part of his own left ear. He spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including at Saint-Rémy, and later moved to Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, where he was under the care of Paul Gachet. On 27 July 1890, he shot himself in the chest and died two days later. After his death, his reputation grew in the early 20th century as elements of his style were taken up by the Fauves and German Expressionists.

Van Gogh’s words still matter because they show the working mind behind the paintings: observant, restless, wounded, and deeply engaged with art. His letters give readers unusually close access to an artist thinking aloud about colour, labour, solitude, friendship, and failure. For a quotes website, that closeness is part of the appeal. His sentence, “Normality is a paved road: it’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow there,” fits the image many readers have of him: a painter who lived outside comfort and made beauty there anyway.