Vincent's Biography

Van Gogh, Vincent Willem

Vincent van Gogh was born in March 30 1853 at Groot-Zundert, north Brabant, Van Gogh was the elder son of a protest ant clegyman, Theodrus van Gogh. As three of the minister's brothers were art dealers it is not surprising that Vincent and his brother Theo went into the art-dealing business; Vincent to Goupil & Co at the Hague, 1869; in transfer to the London branch, 1873; and to Paris in1875.Un-suited for business ha was dismissed in 1876.After other failures, including his effort to become a preacher, he began to draw in earnest in 880, much influenced by the 'social realism' of working-class life as depicted by the English illustrators of the time. He worked at Brussels, The Hague, Nuenen and Antwerp and was en-couraged to paint by Anton Mauve, 1882.Theo, director of a Parisian branch of Goupil from 1873(where he was one of the Impressionists' sup-porters) was now making the financial allowance that enabled Vincent to live and work. Vincent went to Paris in 1886 to join his brother. The sight of Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist works and of the Japanese prints, then so much a parisian vogue, effected a great change in his work, pre-viously somebre in tone. Seeking warmth and colour in the south he went to Arles in 1888 where Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist influence more especially had its quarrel with Gaugin at the end of the year-Xhis entry into the asylum at St Rémy, 1889 and his stay at Auvers under Dr Gachet' s care, the violence of personal feeling became interwoven with his subjects in painting in a way that would now be described in art-history terms as 'Expressionist'. He died at Auvers by his own hand in July 1890.