Unrecognized and misunderstood during his lifetime, Van Gogh is one of the great painters of the 19th century. The son of a Protestant pastor, he was tempted by a religious vocation. He ultimately chose the life of an artist after joining his brother Theo in Paris and meeting young Parisian painters such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissarro, Gauguin, and Bernard. But it was the sunshine of Provence that revealed his lively, colorful, pure, and inimitable style. Mentally unstable, his work was also marked by episodes of insanity that led him to be committed to an asylum. Shortly before his suicide, he returned to the Paris region, to Auvers-sur-Oise, where he met Dr. Gachet. Despite his failing health, he never stopped painting. His post-impressionist work is the source of movements such as Fauvism and Expressionism.
Unrecognized and misunderstood during his lifetime, Van Gogh is one of the great painters of the 19th century. The son of a Protestant pastor, he was tempted by a religious vocation. He ultimately chose the life of an artist after joining his brother Theo in Paris and meeting young Parisian painters such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissarro, Gauguin, and Bernard. But it was the sunshine of Provence that revealed his lively, colorful, pure, and inimitable style. Mentally unstable, his work was also marked by episodes of insanity that led him to be committed to an asylum. Shortly before his suicide, he returned to the Paris region, to Auvers-sur-Oise, where he met Dr. Gachet. Despite his failing health, he never stopped painting. His post-impressionist work is the source of movements such as Fauvism and Expressionism.
