Vincent Van Gogh Research Paper

Vincent Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands. Van Gogh was a post-impressionist painter whose work, most well-known for its beauty, emotion, and vibrant use of arbitrary color, highly influenced 20th century art. He battled with mental illness most, if not all, of his life and many historians belief he suffered from Syphilis as well. He lived most of his life poor and practically unknown as an artist. Over the course of his decade-long career, he produced roughly nine hundred paintings and more than eleven hundred works on paper. Van Gogh died in France on July 29, 1890, at age 37, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Being an autodidact or self-taught artist, Van Gogh got his technique and style by copying prints, …show more content…
Three months later, he left for Paris, where he lived with his brother Theo, an art dealer with the firm of Boussod, Valadon et Cie, and for a while Van Gogh even attended classes at Fernand Cormon's art studio. Van Gogh's style underwent a drastic metamorphosis during his two-year stay in Paris. This is where he first saw the work of the Impressionists and also witnessed the latest cutting edge movements by the Neo-Impressionists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. In response, Van Gogh lightened the hue of his palette and experimented with the broken, harsh brushstrokes of the Impressionists as well as the pointillist touch of the Neo-Impressionists, as clearly shown in the brushwork of his “Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat,” which was painted in the summer of 1887 on the back of an older peasant study. In Paris, he painted more than twenty self-portraits that reflect his ongoing study of color contrasts and a more wild …show more content…
Fearing another breakdown, Van Gogh voluntarily interned himself at the asylum located near Saint-Rémy in May of 1889, where, over the course of the following year, he painted roughly 150 works. The start of his confinement to the hospital is reflected in his imagery, from his depictions of its haunting corridors to the many flowers inside its walled garden, visible from the room next to his that he was allowed to use as a painting studio. Venturing beyond the grounds of the hospital, he painted the surrounding countryside, devoting series to its olive groves and cypresses, which he saw as characteristic of Provence. In June, he produced two paintings of cypresses, rendered in thick, impastoed layers of paint, likening the form of a cypress to an Egyptian obelisk in a letter to his brother Theo. These evocative trees figure prominently in a landscape, produced the same month. Van Gogh regarded this work, with its sun-drenched wheat field undulating in the wind, as one of his "best" summer canvases. At Saint-Rémy, he also painted copies of works by such artists as Delacroix, Rembrandt, and Millet, using black-and-white photographs and prints. In fall and winter 1889–90, he executed twenty-one copies after Millet; he described his copies as "interpretations" or "translations,"

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