Vincent van Gogh

Self-portrait by van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) was a Dutch painter, born in Zundert, Brabant. From 16 to 22 he worked as an assistant for branches of the Goupil Galleries in The Hague, London, and Paris. Soon after his arrival in Paris he became interested in religion and in 1877 he began to study for the church. After a short period of instruction at the School for Missionaries in Brussels, van Gogh was sent as a missionary to the mining town of La Borinage in Belgium. In less than two years he was dismissed, because he gave everything he owned to the poor; an act which van Gogh considered true Christianity, but which the church did not. He found solace for his disappointment in theology by sketching the peasants of La Borinage amid their sordid surroundings, using the technique of Millet for his work. In 1880 he returned to The Hague to study under Mauve. By 1885 van Gogh had produced "The Potato Eaters," a powerful charcoal that showed his development from mere illustration to well-composed studies from nature. The same year he entered the Academy at Antwerp, but left in 1886 to join his brother, Theodore, in Paris. There he met the Impressionists and through their influence abandoned the dark browns of the Dutch school and adapted the Impressionists' clear, light colors to his own more intense shades.
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