Art historians divide the movement into two camps:

• The more classical, structured camp of Seurat and Cézanne, who experimented with scientific aspects of light and color, and employed a more rigorous structure to their compositions, and
• The more Romantic camp of van Gogh and Gauguin, who experimented with unprecedentedly bold, frank colors and expressive brushstrokes, and disregarded classical principles of depicting space and structuring compositions.

Biography: “Who would believe that life could be so sad?”

An Artist is Born: 1853-1876

Vincent van Gogh’s tragically short and often tormented life began in Holland, where he was born in 1853 into a strict family. One of six children of an evangelical pastor, Van Gogh spent most of his young life searching for his vocation. After abruptly quitting his studies, he began an apprenticeship at his uncle’s art dealership, which ushered him into the world of art for the first time. However, due to his dismal performance as an art dealer, in 1876 he was dismissed from his post, whereupon van Gogh decided to devote himself to the life of the spirit and become a clergyman.

Spiritual Devotion: 1876-1878

Although he never actually completed the necessary studies to become a minister, from 1876 to 1878 van Gogh was obsessed with ministering to the poor and worked as a teacher and lay clergyman. When in 1878 van Gogh arrived in Belgium to preach to the workers of a coal-mine, his excessive ascetic zeal (including giving away all his material possessions and sleeping without a bed) incurred the disfavor of the church and, once again, he was dismissed: the second major failure in van Gogh’s short life.

The Young Artist: 1880-1888

Finally, in 1880, van Gogh committed himself to his artistic career, deciding that he could better serve God through the medium of art. During these years, van Gogh was largely supported by his younger brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris with whom he was extremely close and exchanged hundreds of letters.

Van Gogh’s early works were dark (literally and figuratively), realistic depictions of the lives of the poor and working class. After a visit to Paris in 1886, van Gogh discovered Impressionism, which completely revolutionized his art and lead him to his now famous style of bright colors, loose, expressive brushwork, and more simple subjects (still lives, portraits, landscapes).

In Paris van Gogh met several artists, including fellow post-Impressionist Gauguin, with whom van Gogh began the “studio of the South” in 1888. The studio only lasted for two turbulent months, culminating in perhaps the most famous anecdote of van Gogh’s life: after a violent argument, the artist cut off his left ear and gave it to a prostitute as a gift, resulting in Gauguin’s immediate departure. The failure of the studio of the south was one of van Gogh’s major regrets.

“I would rather die of passion than boredom”: 1888-1890

From 1888-90, van Gogh continued to paint at a rapacious pace, but now as an inmate of a sanatorium under the care of the famous Dr. Gachet. For years it was assumed van Gogh suffered from some form of insanity; today, evidence suggests that he was actually perfectly sane, but most likely suffered from epilepsy. Nonetheless, the extremely sensitive and emotional artist did suffer from acute depression and disappointment throughout his life: his romantic efforts were doomed to failure (the only woman who ever accepted him romantically committed suicide after her parents forbade their union), as were his professional and artistic projects (the artist sold only one painting during his lifetime).

Van Gogh seems to have used art as a therapy both for the pain of his epileptic seizures and for his frequent attacks of depression and loneliness, and his output was tremendous. In the last seventy days of his life, he executed as many paintings, the last of which was the famous Crows over Cornfield of 1890. The work was still drying on its easel when van Gogh shot himself in the stomach. After two days of agonizing pain, van Gogh died with the words: “Who would believe that life could be so sad?”

Major Works: “These canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words”

Van Gogh was an extraordinarily prolific artist, and his oeuvre cannot fairly be reduced to a handful of key works. However, amongst some of the most notable works from different points of his career are the following:

The Potato Eaters, 1885, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. 82 x 114 cm.

Sunflowers, 1888, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London. 92.1 x 73 cm.

Cafe Terrace at Night, 1888, oil on canvas, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. 81 x 65.5 cm.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889, oil on canvas, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London. 60.5 x 50 cm.

Starry Night, 1889, oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art, New York. 29 x 36 1/4" (73.7 x 92.1 cm).

Crows over Cornfield, 1890, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. 50.5 X 103 cm.

Style: “Color expresses something in itself”

Two elements in particular make van Gogh’s style utterly unique: his color, and his brushstroke. Although his early works were executed in dark, muted, earthy tones, after discovering the Impressionists, Gauguin, and Japanese wood-block prints (which also influenced his flattened depiction of space and use of heavy contours), van Gogh’s work came to be distinguished for its shockingly bright and intensely rich palette. For van Gogh, color had a symbolic, even spiritual meaning:

• Blue represents infinity
• Yellow stands for love and light
• Red and green communicate passion and conflict, and
• Gray signifies surrender

Van Gogh’s style is also unique for his personal, expressive brushwork, so different from the smooth, invisible strokes of neo-classical painters and their “licked-clean” surfaces. Van Gogh’s hand is unmistakable: his strokes are rhythmic, bold, fluid, and especially in the later paintings often agitated and swirling. The surface of his paintings tends to be thick and textured, and he makes heavy use of impasto, or thick strokes of paint that rise off the canvas surface (perhaps speaking to the influence of fellow Dutchman Rembrandt, who van Gogh greatly admired).

Van Gogh’s brush stroke could be seen as expressive of his pantheistic philosophy, or the belief that all things, even inanimate objects, are infused with God, or some kind of animating spirit. In his paintings, the often undulating contours and rhythmic, energetic brush strokes that define forms, objects and landscapes could be interpreted as expressive of their essential spirit or energy.