Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in Zundat, a town in the southern Netherlands. Van Gogh died at his own hand in France at the age of 37. The son of a Protestant pastor, he was the eldest of six children and, by all accounts, had a normal, happy childhood. Van Gogh came from an upstanding family of clergymen, art-dealers, and military officers, and his parents wished for him to follow in this tradition. As a child, he was an insatiable reader, with wide-ranging interests, including religion.
Although his mother was a talented artist, van Gogh did not pursue art in his early life. He was especially close to his younger brother, Theodore Theo, his most staunch supporter. In 1873, at age 20, van Gogh traveled to London, fell in love with an English girl by whom he was rejected. Saddened and disillusioned, he resigned himself to a solitary life as a language teacher and a lay preacher in England. From 1879 to 1880, van Gogh did missionary work in southwestern Belgium. He had deep sympathy for the poor and unfortunate. He gave away all of his possessions and fell into despair and poverty.
In his solitude, van Gogh began to draw. He also underwent a spiritual awakening and decided that his mission in life was to console humanity through art. Van Gogh moved to Paris, where his brother Theo worked as an art-dealer. Theo introduced him to many of the popular painters of the time, including Paul Gaugin, Camille Pissarro, and Georges Seurat. In 1888 he settled in Arles in Provence, where he painted his famous series of Sunflowers. He invited Gaugin to live with him, but the relationship suffered because of extreme conflict and personality differences. Gaugin left shortly thereafter.
In extreme despair, at the age of 35, on Christmas Eve of 1888, Van Gogh cut off a part of his left ear. Mentally ill, he was treated at the hospital in Arles shortly after this event. He was then committed to the asylum in St. Remy, where he was under medical supervision for 12 months. He continued to paint while in the asylum.>/p>