Vincent Willem van Gogh.

30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born in Groot-Zundert, a village in the southern

Netherlands.Van Gogh was the son of Anna Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh, who was a minister of the Durch Reformed

Church.Van Gogh was the son of Anna

Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh,who was a

minister of the Durch Reformed Church.

His paintings and drawings include some

of the world's best known,most popular and

most expensive pieces.

Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a

brief spell as a

teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining

region. He did not

embark upon a career as an artist

until 1880.

He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during

the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two

years of his life, during which time he cut off part of

his left ear following a

breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin.

Nevertheless, Van Gogh persevered with his

work. He improved the lighting of his

atelier (studio) by installing variable

shutters, and experimented with a variety of drawing materials. For more

than a year he worked hard on single figures—highly elaborated

studies in "black and white," which at the time gained him only criticism. Nowadays they are appreciated

as his first masterpieces.

In spring 1883, he embarked on multi-figure compositions, based on

the drawings. He had some of them photographed, but

when his brother commented that they lacked liveliness and freshness, Vincent

destroyed them and turned to oil painting.

Still Life with Absinthe.(1887)

Medical theories have even been proposed to explain Van Gogh's use of the colour yellow. One theory holds that

Van Gogh's colour vision might have been affected by his love of absinthe, a liquor that contains a

neurotoxin called thujonet. High doses of thujone can cause xanthopsia: seeing objects in yellow. However,a 1991 study indicated that an

absinthe drinker would become unconscious from the alcohol content long before consuming enough

thujone to develop yellow vision.

Vincent van Gogh, 1876, (photographer unknown)

Vincent and Theo van Gogh’s graves at the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise.

Roelof.