Isabella Flores
Vincent van Gogh is considered one of the greatest painters of all time. In a prolific 10-year career, he created around 2,000 artworks, including 860 oil paintings, most of which were produced in the last few years of his life. Van Gogh's work is characterised by bold colours, dramatic brushwork, and contoured forms, which have had a powerful influence on the development of modern art, particularly Expressionism. Despite being commercially unsuccessful during his lifetime, van Gogh's work gained recognition posthumously, with his paintings now selling for millions and sitting in some of the world's greatest museums.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Artistic career span | 10 years (1880-1890) |
| Total artworks created | 2,000-2,100 |
| Number of oil paintings | 860 |
| Genre | Landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits |
| Artistic style | Striking colours, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms |
| Posthumous fame | One of the most famous painters of all time |
| Most expensive paintings sold | Portrait de l’artiste sans barbe (1889) sold for $71.5 million in 1998; Portrait du Docteur Gachet (1890) sold for $82.5 million in 1990; L'Allée des Alyscamps (1888) sold for $66.3 million in 2015 |
| Museums with notable collections | Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Art Institute of Chicago, Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, Detroit Institute of Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York |
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What You'll Learn
Van Gogh's posthumous success
Vincent van Gogh is considered one of the greatest painters of all time. He is a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life.
Van Gogh's fame began to spread in France and Belgium during the last year of his life and in the years after his death in the Netherlands and Germany. However, his posthumous success is largely due to the efforts of his brother, Theo van Gogh, and Theo's widow, Jo Bonger-van Gogh. Theo kept all of Vincent's letters, and after both Vincent and Theo died, Jo arranged for the publication of some of their letters. A few appeared in 1906 and 1913, and the majority were published in 1914 in three volumes. Vincent's letters are eloquent and expressive, and their publication added a ""fresh dimension to the understanding of Van Gogh's artistic achievement".
In addition to the publication of his letters, Van Gogh's artwork also gained recognition posthumously. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, "The Red Vineyard", was sold. However, in the century after his death, he became one of the most recognized painters of all time, with his original artworks selling for millions. For example, Portrait de l’artiste sans barbe (1889) sold for $71.5 million in 1998, and Portrait du Docteur Gachet (1890) sold for $82.5 million in 1990.
Van Gogh's fame and influence continued to grow in the years following his death, with his work featured in blockbuster touring exhibitions and selling for record-breaking sums at auctions around the world. His extensive published letters and his short career of only 10 years also contributed to his mythologization in the popular imagination as the quintessential tortured artist.
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Van Gogh's influence on modern art
Vincent van Gogh is considered one of the greatest painters of all time, with his work gaining immense posthumous recognition. Van Gogh's influence on modern art is profound and far-reaching.
Van Gogh's innovative techniques, bold use of colour, and expressive style have had a significant impact on the development of modern art movements and artists. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, characterised by striking colours and dramatic brushwork. This unique style contributed to the rise of Expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's emotional and dramatic approach to painting influenced artists such as Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele, who adopted his use of distorted forms and vibrant colours to convey psychological states.
Van Gogh's influence also extended to the Fauvists. His use of bold, non-naturalistic colours inspired Fauvist painters like Henri Matisse, who, influenced by Van Gogh, abandoned his earth-toned palette for brighter colours. Van Gogh's exploration of the symbolic potential of form and colour also laid the groundwork for early abstraction.
The artist's impact can be seen in the work of modern artists like Willem de Kooning and Francis Bacon. De Kooning admired Van Gogh's ability to convey human emotions and existential angst through his paintings, emulating his frenzied brushwork in his own abstract expressionist works. Bacon, too, was fascinated by Van Gogh's expressive style, creating a series of paintings as a tribute to the artist.
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Van Gogh's mental illness
Vincent van Gogh is considered one of the greatest painters of all time. He is generally regarded as the greatest painter after Rembrandt van Rijn and one of the greatest Post-Impressionists. During his 10-year artistic career, Van Gogh created a vivid personal style, known for its striking colour, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms. His work has had a powerful influence on modern art movements, notably Expressionism.
Van Gogh's mental health has puzzled experts for decades. The artist's mental illness has frequently been associated with schizophrenia, but researchers and experts have largely ruled out this diagnosis. Van Gogh's episodes of psychosis were brief and followed by periods of complete recovery, which is not typical of people with schizophrenia. Instead, experts believe that Van Gogh likely suffered from comorbid illnesses. Since his young adulthood, he probably developed a mood disorder (possibly bipolar disorder) in combination with traits of a borderline personality disorder. This was likely exacerbated by an alcohol use disorder, malnutrition, and psychosocial tensions.
Van Gogh's mental health issues are thought to have been influenced by several factors, including sexual rejection, family history of mental illness, and physical ailments such as seizures and stomach problems. His mental health struggles are evident in some of his paintings, such as 'Wheatfield with Crows', which many consider to be a foreshadowing of his suicide and a representation of the isolation he felt.
Van Gogh's mental health declined further in the last years of his life, with attacks of confusion, unconsciousness, stupor, and incoherence becoming more frequent in 1890. During these severe episodes, he was unable to paint, draw, or write letters. Despite his mental health struggles, Van Gogh persevered with his art, even during the most difficult periods of his life.
While the exact nature of Van Gogh's mental illness remains a subject of debate among experts, his struggles undoubtedly contributed to the mythologization of the artist as the quintessential tortured artist in the popular imagination.
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Van Gogh's use of colour
Vincent van Gogh is considered one of the greatest painters of the Post-Impressionist era. In a career spanning just ten years, he created a vivid personal style, characterised by striking colour, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms. Van Gogh's works have been the subject of extensive analysis and research, focusing on the pigments he used and how they contributed to the overall aesthetic of his art.
Van Gogh also used colour to symbolise the contrasting characters of the two artists. He wrote, "That there are colours that make each other shine, that make a couple, complete each other like man and wife". This use of complementary colours to create visual power and evoke emotion was especially appealing to him. He was also influenced by the French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix, who used contrasting colours to enhance the drama and evoke a particular emotion or mood.
Van Gogh's palette included a range of pigments such as yellow ochre, chrome yellow, cadmium yellow, chrome orange, vermilion, Prussian blue, ultramarine, lead white, zinc white, emerald green, red lake, red ochre, and raw sienna. He used yellow ochre to create warm, golden tones in his landscapes, conveying tranquility and peacefulness. Prussian blue was used to create the deep, rich blues in his night scenes, evoking a sense of mystery and wonder.
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Van Gogh's short career
Vincent van Gogh's artistic career lasted just 10 years, from 1880 to 1890. Before this, he worked as an art dealer, language teacher, lay preacher, bookseller, and missionary worker.
Van Gogh's career as a painter was short but prolific. He created around 2,000 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. His oeuvre includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, most of which are characterised by bold colours and dramatic brushwork. He is known for his striking colour palette, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms, which have been said to have contributed to the rise of Expressionism in modern art.
Van Gogh's work was only beginning to gain critical attention before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot at the age of 37. During his lifetime, only one of Van Gogh's paintings, "The Red Vineyard", was sold. He became posthumously celebrated and is now considered one of the greatest painters of all time.
Van Gogh's time in Arles, in the South of France, from 1888 to 1889, was particularly productive. During this period, he created five paintings of sunflowers in a vase, using only shades of yellow and a touch of green. He also painted several pictures from memory, following the suggestion of his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin, with whom he had a tumultuous relationship.
Van Gogh entered the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy in 1889, accompanied by his caregiver, Frédéric Salles, a Protestant clergyman. The clinic and its garden became the main subjects of his paintings during this time. He made several studies of the hospital's interiors and its gardens, such as "Lilacs" (May 1889). Limited access to life outside the clinic resulted in a shortage of subject matter, so Van Gogh also worked on interpretations of other artists' paintings and variations on his own earlier work.
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Frequently asked questions
Vincent van Gogh is considered one of the greatest painters of all time. He is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of Western art, with a style noted for its striking colours, bold brushwork, and contoured forms.
No, Van Gogh only became famous after his death. During his lifetime, he was considered a failure and sold only one artwork.
Van Gogh produced around 2,000 artworks during his lifetime, including around 860 oil paintings.
Some of Van Gogh's most famous paintings include *The Potato Eaters* (1885), *Starry Night* (1889), *Sunflowers* (1889), *The Bedroom in Arles* (1888), and *Wheatfield with Crows* (1890).
Van Gogh's paintings are among the world's most expensive. Some of his works have sold for over $100 million, including *Portrait of Dr Gachet*, which sold for $82.5 million in 1990.
