Vincent Van Gogh, born March 30, 1853 and died July 29, 1890 (from injuries due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his chest), was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who is among the most celebrated and influential artists in Western art history.

His art is characterized by his use of bold color and dramatic and expressive brushwork that was unlike anyone else of his time. His work was a foundation of modern art’s development in the years following his death. Despite his talent and brilliance, he was mostly considered a failure while living and was derided as being “mad.”

Mental health was a constant struggle for van Gogh evidenced by his stints at psychiatric hospitals in France and ultimately his suicide. He suffered for years with depression since his early twenties until the time of his death at the age of 37.

Don’t let his battle with depression, however, lower your view of this exceptional artist. He spent 10 years from 1880 to 1890 working hard to acquire technical skills first at the Brussels Academy and later at The Hague to work alongside Anton Mauve, the Dutch landscape painter.

In 1883, van Gogh spent extensive time “alone with nature” and with peasants in Drenthe, an isolated area in the northern Netherlands. Fellow Dutch painters, including Mauve, frequented the area for inspiration.

He learned from other painters such as Hals, about how to portray a fresh visual impression, and Paolo Veronese and Eugène Delacroix taught him about color that expresses something on its own. Peter Paul Rubens’ art too directly impact van Gogh’s works, as he used color to convey mood. Van Gogh was also affected by Japanese prints and Impressionist painting of his day.

These discoveries led to his withdrawal from the Antwerp Academy, where he refused to adhere to the school’s dictates followed by his move in 1886 to join his brother, Theo, in Paris, France. Van Gogh met other artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, who later played pivotal roles in the modern art movement. Theo introduced him to Camille Pissarro, Georges Suerat, and other Impressionist artists.

These influencers in his life led to his own individualistic style. His paintings were full of color depicting mood through the broken brushwork he is now celebrated for.

Before his death, his work was largely overlooked and ignored. After his suicide, his work became increasingly more popular and renowned. His life and death wrongly proliferates the “struggling genius” mythology surrounding some of the most celebrated artists, writers, and creative types whose works have posthumously become popularized.

It is a sad reality for someone with such vision and talent that only produced ten years of art before his life was tragically cut short.

– Jason