Who Was Vincent van Gogh? Life, Art & His Most Famous Paintings

Just like the expressive swaths of vibrant color he passionately spread on canvas, Vincent van Gogh’s mind was a whirlwind. His life story is about both the rise of a creative genius and the descent of a madman. 

Van Gogh was staggeringly prolific. Though his career spanned just a decade (1880–1890), he created over 800 paintings and 1,300+ other works. Only one of them sold during his lifetime. 

Despite his posthumous reputation, he will always be remembered as one of the most iconic painters ever. His artistic evolution, from Impressionism to Neo-Impressionism and beyond, ignited many subsequent movements and inspired generations of future artists.

10 Vincent Van Gogh Facts: How Many Did You Know? 

• Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime—The Red Vineyard, for about 400 francs (roughly $2,000 in today’s money).
• In just over a decade, he produced over 2,000 artworks, including 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, and sketches.
• Despite the popular story, van Gogh likely only cut off a small piece of his earlobe, not his entire ear. He delivered the severed piece to a woman named Gabrielle Berlatier.
• The famous Starry Night was painted while he was staying in an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, looking out his window.
• Van Gogh was largely self-taught as an artist. He only received a few months of formal training.
• He was a prolific letter writer, with more than 800 letters preserved, primarily to his brother Theo.
• Van Gogh loved Japanese art and collected ukiyo-e prints. This influence can be seen in some of his paintings, which have flattened perspective and bold outlines.
• There’s a popular (but false) claim that Van Gogh ate yellow paint to “feel more cheerful on the inside.” Physician notes did, however, make note of him consuming paint and turpentine in an attempt to poison himself. 
• Van Gogh created his most famous works during the last two years of his life while struggling with mental illness.
• He was a voracious reader who spoke four languages: Dutch, French, English, and German. His letters often referenced over 150 different authors.

Early Life and Inspiration 

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands, 1853 into a large, middle-class family. The son of a Dutch Reformed minister, his early life was one of pious devotion, and he even considered following in his father’s footsteps.

He excelled in languages as a student but was otherwise unambitious. He left school in 1865 and apprenticed with Goupil and Co., an art collective that hosted galleries all over Europe. He got his start in the Netherlands but later transferred to London. There, he was exposed to French and Dutch masters and took some formal art lessons. It wasn’t a good fit, and he left by 1880. 

Conflicted about an art career and still feeling the call of the church, he volunteered as a lay pastor at age 25 in the rugged coal-mining town of Mons, Belgium. After two years and multiple failed positions, he began questioning his spiritual vocation. 

Van Gogh was also a prolific letter writer, and his younger brother, Theo, was a favorite pen pal. While Vincent was living in Mons, his brother worked as a manager at a Goupil’s location in Paris. 

Theo still believed in Vincent’s talent and encouraged his brother to come back to France. He even offered a monthly allowance. The ongoing emotional and financial support allowed Van Gogh to fully embrace life as a professional artist from 1880 to 1881.

Many consider this a period of momentous transformation for Van Gogh. His early observations and studies of the impoverished townspeople featured in one of his earliest major works, The Potato Eaters (1885), the dark and moody scene of peasants eating evoking the harsh bleakness of their lives. 

Van Gogh’s Time in Paris 

Paris in the late 1800s was a hub of flourishing creativity. Claude Monet and his Impressionism movement revolutionized the art world, while sociopolitical and economic factors changed how people lived. 

And Parisian society embraced it all. Van Gogh made his first forays as a public artist, with his first professional exhibition in 1888 at the annual Salon des Indépendants exhibition.

Initially living with Theo in March 1886, he soon found camaraderie among the other Impressionists, including Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Georges Seurat. 

Gone were the rigid composition rules of the past, replaced with vibrant colors and rapid, dynamic brushwork, capturing the movement and light. Van Gogh and others experimented, exploring Neo-Impressionist techniques like pointillism, eventually developing a freeform, less structured personal style more befitting his chaotic nature. Unknowingly, they paved the way for some of the most famous abstract artists of all time. 

While a time of fruitful productivity—he painted over 200 paintings during this period—Paris was personally challenging for Van Gogh. Mental health issues had shadowed him all his life. He hated the chaos of city life, and those stressors, combined with alcohol issues, inspired him to leave for the radiant sunlight and warm weather of Southern France.  

Life in Southern France (1888–1890)

Landing in Arles was a bit of serendipity for Van Gogh. Theo told their sister, “Vincent left for the south last Sunday, first to Arles to get his bearings and then probably on to Marseille.” But, captivated by Arles, he stayed, eventually renting an apartment in 2 Place Lamartine, later known as simply The Yellow House. 

He set up his studio, working to capture the gnarled orchard trees and rolling fields. He obsessed over the various shades of yellow in the southern Provencal landscape, the golden glow more inviting than the gloomy grey light of Paris. Exploding artistically, he enthusiastically dove in, harnessing bold colors in unusual combinations with wide, strong brush strokes, all with the intention of evoking an emotional response. 

The transition from cityscape to countryside wasn’t easy at first. 

Initially an outsider, Van Gogh struggled until he befriended Joseph Roulin, a local postal worker. As the friendship grew, Roulin and his family became frequent subjects, as Van Gogh aspired to more excellent aptitude in his technical portraiture work. In a period of almost inexhaustible creativity, he painted 26 portraits of the Roulin family, produced his Sunflowers series, and paintings Café Terace at Night and The Bedroom. 

Dreaming of creating a utopian artist’s colony in the area, a “Studio of the South,” he invited fellow artist and friend Paul Gaugin to visit and work. While well-intentioned, this pairing turned out to be disastrous.

Van Gogh and Gaugin were initially excited and inspired by one another, but their heavy drinking and heated debates quickly turned into violent quarrels. During a now infamous fight with Gaugin, Van Gogh sliced off part of his left ear with a razor. 

According to his letter to Theo after the incident, Vincent seemed to have no ill will toward Guagin. The feeling wasn’t mutual. Gaugin returned to Paris and refused to visit despite Van Gogh’s request. 

Tired of his erratic behavior, Van Gogh’s landlord petitioned to have him committed. Van Gogh instead voluntarily entered an asylum in rural Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. During his year there, his health stabilized enough he could paint on good days. He created some of his most iconic works at the institution, including The Starry Night and Wheatfield with Cypresses. 

Upon release, Van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, near Theo in Paris. He threw himself again into painting, but the period of calm was unfortunately short-lived. Under increasing stress over finances and health, he shot himself in the chest in a nearby wheat field. He died two days later, on July 29, 1890, with Theo by his side.

Artistic Style and Technique

Van Gogh built on Impressionism and gradually developed a distinctive painting style. Considered an early forerunner of modern Expressionism, his work featured vibrant colors, often in unconventional color combinations, bold brushstrokes, and thickly layered paint to convey intense emotion and movement. His brushwork was also “directional,” meaning that the strokes move the viewer through the image, making it feel active and alive.

But it wasn’t just the brushwork techniques that set Van Gogh apart. He played with perspectives, portraying subjects from strange angles or physically disproportioned, subtly suggesting his mental health issues made him see the world differently, even slightly askew. Not unlike the Cubist painters who would come after him. 

Newly opened Eastern trade routes also brought Japanese art to Europe in the mid-19^th century, and Van Gogh became fascinated by their colorful, stylized woodblock prints, or ukiyo-e. Featuring ordinary subjects painted with bold colors, unusual perspectives, and contrasting light, he found it so influential he told Theo in 1888, “All my work is based to some extent on Japanese art.” 

Famous Van Gogh Paintings

The Bedroom in Arles (1888–1889)

A charming yet stylized depiction of his private bedroom in Arles, Van Gogh deliberately “flattened” the perspective of the room and eliminated shadows in an attempt to mimic what he had seen in Japanese prints. This intimate view of his private inner sanctum was very personal and meaningful to Van Gogh. He created three known versions, all similar in perspective but with subtle differences in the amount of light in the room and décor selections. His own title for the works was simply The Bedroom. 

Infused with a yellow-based color scheme, Van Gogh portrays a charming, comfortable room with minimal personal touches. However, the room’s perspective is askew, hinting that while it seems cozy and inviting, the artist’s mental illness alters their view. 

The Starry Night (1889)

One of his most influential works from his asylum period in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Van Gogh’s portrait of a swirling sky amid twinkling stars right before sunrise is arguably his greatest masterpiece. 

Looking out his asylum window, he sketched the landscape’s changing light and weather patterns. The sketches allowed him to add small details, like the little houses and cypress trees. 

The night sky swirls curiously amid blazing stars. Rich shades of blues contrast white hot yellows, simultaneously calm and wild, echo the contradictory emotions swirling within the artist himself. 

Van Gogh was also fascinated by the variations of light at nighttime, telling Theo, “It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly colored than the day.” 

Considered one of the most recognizable paintings, The Starry Night has become incredibly revered and markedly commercialized. One can only imagine how he might feel today if he could see this piece immortalized as adult Lego sets, coloring books, and mass-market immersive experiences. He’d likely be surprised the painting ended up being worth anything at all.

Sunflowers (Series, 1888–1889)

Van Gogh painted two completely separate and distinct series of sunflower paintings over a period of just a year. Initially inspired by a sunflower he saw in a Japanese wood print, he produced the first lesser-known series featuring withering sunflowers laid horizontally in Paris in 1887. 

But the second, significantly more famous series emerged a year later while in Arles. Excited about the impending arrival of his friend Gaugin, Van Gogh started work on the paintings as a gift to welcome his friend to the Yellow House in Arles. The five paintings as a set show the sunflowers slowly wilting in the vase, decaying over time. Perhaps a more bleak aesthetic than you’d expect when decorating with flowers.

Van Gogh often used the impasto technique, in which artists apply paint and mix colors directly on the canvas. Usually applied with a palette knife, not a brush, impasto leaves visibly thick layers of shaped paint. In the Sunflowers series, he uses impasto skillfully and clearly to add dimension and texture to the flowers. 

Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear (1889)

This haunting self-portrait, painted shortly after leaving the hospital for his mangled ear, depicts his bandaged head tucked under a warm winter cap to keep the wrappings in place. 

A time of internal struggle, the portrait also demonstrates Van Gogh’s absolute resolve not to let his injury and struggles keep him from painting. His eyes pierce out from his tense, ghostly face, a study in willpower tempered by conflict and pain, filling the room with bright color while painting himself in more muted tones. 

Van Gogh, always a lover of symbology, added a nod to his love of Japanese art in the background: a rendering of a print called Geishas in a Landscape (1870) that he had in his personal collection. 

Impact and Influence

Despite only selling one painting in his lifetime, Van Gogh’s works are valued at millions of dollars each today. While better known during life for his exploits, his influence continued to expand in the years after his death. Multiple modern and contemporary movements were built upon his vision and methods, particularly Fauvism and Expressionism, and within the art community, his reputation and respect for his talents continued to grow. 

But it was Van Gogh’s own letters, really, that cemented his fame. On Vincent’s death, Theo and his wife, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, inherited the estate and all of the art. After Theo also died young, Johanna was determined to promote Vincent’s legacy and 1914, published three volumes of the artist’s letters to his brother. Their release, along with the estate’s liberal policies for lending his works to museums, helped shape the mythical figure of a talented, intensely creative, yet tormented artist whose brief time on Earth belied his vast impact on the history of art.