Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh, a Dutch Post-Impressionist, was born on 30 March 1853 in Zundert and died by suicide on 29 July 1890 at age 37. He is now considered one of the most famous and influential painters in Western art history, but his life was marked by mental illness and poverty. Over a span of just over ten years, he produced roughly 2,100 artworks, including about 860 oil paintings—most completed in his final two years. His subjects ranged from landscapes and still lifes to portraits and self-portraits, all defined by bold colors and a dramatic, impulsive brushstroke style that helped lay the groundwork for modern art.

Van Gogh came from an upper-middle-class family and was a quiet, serious child who drew from an early age. As a young man, he worked as an art dealer and traveled often, but a transfer to London left him depressed. He then turned to religion, serving as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. After a period of poor health and isolation, he began painting in 1881 after moving back in with his parents. His younger brother Theo, an art dealer, provided financial and emotional support, and the two exchanged hundreds of letters. Van Gogh’s early work—mostly still lifes and scenes of peasant laborers—showed little of the vivid color that later defined his style. In 1886 he moved to Paris, where he connected with avant-garde artists like Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were pushing back against Impressionism. There, his paintings grew brighter, and he developed a new approach to still lifes and local landscapes. This style fully emerged during his 1888 stay in Arles, in southern France, where he created series of olive trees, wheat fields, and sunflowers.

Van Gogh experienced psychotic episodes and delusions, and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his health, eating poorly and drinking heavily. His friendship with Gauguin ended violently when, after a confrontation with a razor, Van Gogh cut off part of his own left ear. He was later treated in psychiatric hospitals, including one in Saint-Rémy. After discharging himself, he moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, under the care of homoeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. His depression persisted, and on 27 July 1890, he shot himself in the chest with a revolver, dying two days later.

During his lifetime, Van Gogh was unsuccessful, dismissed as a madman and a failure. Only after his suicide did his fame grow, and he became the archetype of the misunderstood genius—where “discourses on madness and creativity converge.” His reputation rose in the early 20th century as Fauves and German Expressionists adopted elements of his style. Over the following decades, he achieved widespread critical, commercial, and popular success, remembered as a tragic painter whose troubled personality embodies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.

The most comprehensive source on Van Gogh is his correspondence with Theo. Their lifelong friendship, along with most of Vincent’s thoughts on art, is recorded in hundreds of letters exchanged from 1872 to 1890. Theo, an art dealer, gave Vincent financial and emotional support and introduced him to influential figures in the art world. Theo kept all of Vincent’s letters, but Vincent kept only a few of Theo’s. After both brothers died, Theo’s widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, arranged for their publication: a few appeared in 1906 and 1913, with the majority published in 1914. Vincent’s letters are eloquent and expressive, described as having a “diary-like intimacy,” and read partly like an autobiography. Translator Arnold Pomerans noted that their publication adds “a fresh dimension to the understanding of Van Gogh’s artistic achievement, an understanding granted to us by virtually no other painter.” The letters are also key to understanding his artistic methods, working practices, and evolving theories of color and composition.

More than 600 letters from Vincent to Theo survive, along with about 40 from Theo to Vincent. There are also 22 letters to his sister Wil, 58 to painter Anthon van Rappard, 22 to Émile Bernard, and individual letters to Paul Signac, Paul Gauguin, and critic Albert Aurier. Some include sketches. Many are undated, but art historians have placed most in chronological order, though transcription and dating problems remain, especially for those sent from Arles. While in Arles, Vincent wrote around 200 letters in Dutch, French, and English. There is a gap during his Paris years, when the brothers lived together and had no need to correspond.

The highly paid contemporary artist Jules Breton appears often in Vincent’s letters. In 1875 letters to Theo, Vincent mentions seeing Breton, discusses Breton paintings he saw at a Salon, and talks about sending one of Breton’s books on condition it be returned. In a March 1884 letter to Rappard, he discusses a Breton poem that inspired one of his own paintings. In 1885, he calls Breton’s famous work *The Song of the Lark* “fine.” In March 1880, roughly midway between these letters, Van Gogh walked 80 kilometers to Courrières to meet Breton, but was intimidated by Breton’s success and the high wall around his estate, so he returned without making himself known. Breton appears to have been unaware of Van Gogh or his attempted visit. No letters between the two artists are known, and Van Gogh is not mentioned among the contemporary artists Breton discussed.