Early years Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 in
Groot-Zundert, in the predominantly Catholic province of
North Brabant in the Netherlands. He was the oldest surviving child of Theodorus van Gogh (1822–1885), a minister of the
Dutch Reformed Church, and his wife, Anna Cornelia Carbentus (1819–1907). Van Gogh was given the name of his grandfather and of a brother stillborn exactly a year before his birth. His grandfather, Vincent (1789–1874), was a prominent art dealer and a theology graduate from the
University of Leiden in 1811. This Vincent had six sons, three of whom became art dealers, and may have been named after his great-uncle, a sculptor (1729–1802). Van Gogh's mother came from a prosperous family in
The Hague. His father was the youngest son of a minister. The two met when Anna's younger sister, Cornelia, married Theodorus's older brother Vincent (Cent). Van Gogh's parents married in May 1851 and moved to Zundert. His brother Theo was born on 1 May 1857. There was another brother,
Cornelis (known as "Cor"), and three sisters: Elisabeth, Anna, and
Wil. In later life, Van Gogh remained in touch only with Wil and Theo. Theodorus's salary as a minister was modest, but the Church also supplied the family with a house, a maid, two cooks, a gardener, a carriage and horse; his mother Anna instilled in the children a duty to uphold the family's high social position. Van Gogh was a serious and thoughtful child. He was taught at home by his mother and a governess, and in 1860, was sent to the village school. In 1864, he was placed in a boarding school at
Zevenbergen, where he felt abandoned, and he campaigned to come home. Instead, in 1866, his parents sent him to the middle school in
Tilburg, where he was also deeply unhappy. His interest in art began at a young age. He was encouraged to draw as a child by his mother, and his early drawings are expressive, but do not approach the intensity of his later work.
Constant Cornelis Huijsmans, who had been a successful artist in Paris, taught the students at Tilburg. His philosophy was to reject technique in favour of capturing the impressions of things, particularly nature or common objects. Van Gogh's profound unhappiness seems to have overshadowed the lessons, which had little effect. In March 1868, he abruptly returned home. He later wrote that his youth was "austere and cold, and sterile." In July 1869, Van Gogh's uncle Cent obtained a position for him at the art dealers
Goupil & Cie in The Hague. After completing his training in 1873, he was transferred to Goupil's London branch on
Southampton Street, and took lodgings at
87 Hackford Road,
Stockwell. This was a happy time for Van Gogh; he was successful at work and, at 20, was earning more than his father. Theo's wife, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, later remarked that this was the best year of Vincent's life. He became infatuated with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer, but she rejected him after he confessed his feelings; she was secretly engaged to a former lodger. He grew more isolated and religiously fervent. His father and uncle arranged a transfer to Paris in 1875, where he became resentful of issues such as the degree to which the art dealers commodified art, and he was dismissed a year later. ; while there, he decided to become an artist|alt=Photo of a two-storey brick house on the left partially obscured by trees with a front lawn and with a row of trees on the right In April 1876, he returned to England to take unpaid work as a
supply teacher in a small
boarding school in
Ramsgate. When the proprietor moved to
Isleworth in Middlesex, Van Gogh went with him. The arrangement was not successful; he left to become a
Methodist minister's assistant. His parents had meanwhile moved to
Etten; in 1876 he returned home at Christmas for six months and took work at a bookshop in
Dordrecht. He was unhappy in the position, and spent his time doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French, and German. He immersed himself in Christianity and became increasingly pious and monastic. According to his flatmate of the time, Paulus van Görlitz, Van Gogh ate frugally, avoiding meat. To support his religious conviction and his desire to become a pastor, in 1877, the family sent him to live with his uncle
Johannes Stricker, a respected theologian, in Amsterdam. Van Gogh prepared for the
University of Amsterdam theology entrance examination; he failed the exam and left his uncle's house in July 1878. He undertook, but also failed, a three-month course at a
Protestant missionary school in
Laken, near Brussels. In January 1879, he took up a post as a missionary at
Petit-Wasmes in the working-class, coal-mining district of
Borinage in Belgium. To show support for his impoverished congregation, he gave up his comfortable lodgings at a bakery to a
homeless person and moved to a small hut, where he slept on straw. His humble living conditions did not endear him to church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity of the priesthood." He then walked the to Brussels before briefly to
Cuesmes in the Borinage, but he gave in to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten. He stayed there until around March 1880, which caused concern and frustration for his parents. His father was especially frustrated and advised that his son be committed to the lunatic asylum in
Geel. Van Gogh returned to Cuesmes in August 1880, where he lodged with a miner until October. He became interested in the people and scenes around him, and he recorded them in drawings after Theo's suggestion that he take up art in earnest. He travelled to Brussels later in the year, to follow Theo's recommendation that he study with the Dutch artist
Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him – in spite of his dislike of formal schools of art – to attend the . He registered at the Académie in November 1880, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of
modelling and
perspective.
Etten, Drenthe and The Hague Van Gogh returned to Etten in April 1881 for an extended stay with his parents. He continued to draw, often using his neighbours as subjects. In August 1881, his recently widowed cousin, Cornelia "Kee" Vos-Stricker, daughter of his mother's older sister Willemina and Johannes Stricker, arrived for a visit. He was thrilled and took long walks with her. Kee was seven years older than he was, and had an eight-year-old son. Van Gogh surprised everyone by declaring his love to her and proposing marriage. She refused with the words "No, nay, never" ("
nooit, neen, nimmer"). After Kee returned to Amsterdam, Van Gogh went to The Hague to try to sell paintings and to meet with his second cousin,
Anton Mauve. Mauve was the successful artist Van Gogh longed to be. Mauve invited him to return in a few months, and suggested he spend the intervening time working in
charcoal and
pastels; Van Gogh went back to Etten and followed this advice. Late in November 1881, Van Gogh wrote a letter to Johannes Stricker, one which he described to Theo as an attack. Within days he left for Amsterdam. Kee would not meet him, and her parents wrote that his "persistence is
disgusting". In despair, he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, with the words: "Let me see her for as long as I can keep my hand in the flame." He did not recall the event well, but later assumed that his uncle had blown out the flame. Kee's father made it clear that her refusal should be heeded and that the two would not marry, largely because of Van Gogh's inability to support himself. Mauve took Van Gogh on as a student and introduced him to watercolour, which he worked on for the next month before returning home for Christmas. He quarrelled with his father, refusing to attend church, and left for The Hague. Within a month Van Gogh and Mauve fell out, possibly over the viability of drawing from
plaster casts. Van Gogh could afford to hire only people from the street as models, a practice of which Mauve seems to have disapproved. In June Van Gogh suffered a bout of
gonorrhoea and spent three weeks in hospital. Soon after, he first painted in oils, bought with money borrowed from Theo. He liked the medium, and spread the paint liberally, scraping from the canvas and working back with the brush. He wrote that he was surprised at how good the results were. By March 1882, Mauve appears to have gone cold towards Van Gogh, and stopped replying to his letters. He had learned of Van Gogh's new domestic arrangement with an alcoholic prostitute,
Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik (1850–1904), and her young daughter. Van Gogh had met Sien towards the end of January 1882, when she had a five-year-old daughter and was pregnant. She had previously borne two children who died, but Van Gogh was unaware of this; on 2 July, she gave birth to a baby boy, Willem. When Van Gogh's father discovered the details of their relationship, he put pressure on his son to abandon Sien and her two children. Vincent at first defied him, and considered moving the family out of the city, but in late 1883, he left Sien and the children. Poverty may have pushed Sien back into prostitution; the home became less happy and Van Gogh may have felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic development. Sien gave her daughter to her mother, and baby Willem to her brother. Willem remembered visiting
Rotterdam when he was about 12, when an uncle tried to persuade Sien to marry to legitimise the child. He believed Van Gogh was his father, but the timing of his birth makes this unlikely. Sien drowned herself in the
River Scheldt in 1904. In September 1883, Van Gogh moved to
Drenthe in the northern Netherlands. In December, driven by loneliness, he went to live with his parents, then in
Nuenen, North Brabant.
Emerging artist Nuenen and Antwerp (1883–1886) In Nuenen, Van Gogh focused on painting and drawing. Working outside and very quickly, he completed sketches and
paintings of weavers and
their cottages. Van Gogh also completed
The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, which was stolen from the
Singer Laren in March 2020. From August 1884, Margot Begemann, a neighbour's daughter ten years his senior, joined him on his forays; she fell in love and he reciprocated, though less enthusiastically. They wanted to marry, but neither side of their families approved. Margot was distraught and took an overdose of
strychnine, but survived after Van Gogh rushed her to a nearby hospital. On 26 March 1885, his father died of a heart attack. Van Gogh painted several groups of
still lifes in 1885. During his two-year stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolours and nearly 200 oil paintings. His palette consisted mainly of sombre earth tones, particularly dark brown, and showed no sign of the vivid colours that distinguished his later work. There was interest from a dealer in Paris early in 1885. Theo asked Vincent if he had paintings ready to exhibit. In May, Van Gogh responded with his first major work,
The Potato Eaters, and a series of "
peasant character studies" which were the culmination of several years of work. When he complained that Theo was not making enough effort to sell his paintings in Paris, his brother responded that they were too dark and not in keeping with the bright style of Impressionism. In August his work was publicly exhibited for the first time, in the shop windows of the dealer Leurs in The Hague. One of his
young peasant sitters became pregnant in September 1885; Van Gogh was accused of forcing himself upon her, and the village priest forbade parishioners to model for him. File:Stilleven met bijbel - s0008V1962 - Van Gogh Museum.jpg|alt=An image of a large opened bible on a table top|
Still Life with Open Bible, Extinguished Candle and Novel, also
Still Life with Bible, 1885. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam File:Vincent van Gogh - Head of a skeleton with a burning cigarette - Google Art Project.jpg|alt=A skull smoking a cigarette|
Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette, 1885–86. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam File:Vincent van Gogh - Peasant woman digging.jpg|alt=A woman facing away working with a spade|
Peasant Woman Digging, or
Woman with a Spade, Seen from Behind, 1885.
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto File:Vincent van Gogh - Tête de paysanne à la coiffe blanche (1884).jpg|
Tête de paysanne à la coiffe blanche, 1884. Private collection. He moved to Antwerp that November and rented a room above a paint dealer's shop in the rue des Images (
Lange Beeldekensstraat). He lived in poverty and ate poorly, preferring to spend the money Theo sent on painting materials and models. Bread, coffee and
tobacco became his staple diet. In February 1886, he wrote to Theo that he could only remember eating six hot meals since the previous May. His teeth became loose and painful. In Antwerp he applied himself to the study of
colour theory and spent time in museumsparticularly studying the work of
Peter Paul Rubensand broadened his palette to include
carmine,
cobalt blue and
emerald green. Van Gogh bought Japanese
ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, later incorporating elements of their style into the background of some of his paintings. He was drinking heavily again, and was hospitalised between February and March 1886, when he was possibly also treated for
syphilis. After his recovery, despite his antipathy towards academic teaching, he took the higher-level admission exams at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and, in January 1886, matriculated in painting and drawing. He became ill and run down by overwork, poor diet and excessive smoking. He started to attend drawing classes after plaster models at the Antwerp Academy on 18 January 1886. He quickly got into trouble with
Charles Verlat, the director of the academy and teacher of a painting class, because of his unconventional painting style. Van Gogh had also clashed with the instructor of the drawing class
Franz Vinck. Van Gogh finally started to attend the drawing classes after antique plaster models given by
Eugène Siberdt. Soon Siberdt and Van Gogh came into conflict when the latter did not comply with Siberdt's requirement that drawings express the contour and concentrate on the line. When Van Gogh was required to draw the
Venus de Milo during a drawing class, he produced the limbless, naked torso of a Flemish peasant woman. Siberdt regarded this as defiance against his artistic guidance and made corrections to Van Gogh's drawing with his crayon so vigorously that he tore the paper. Van Gogh then flew into a violent rage and shouted at Siberdt: 'You clearly do not know what a young woman is like,
God damn it! A woman must have hips, buttocks, a pelvis in which she can carry a baby!' According to some accounts, this was the last time Van Gogh attended classes at the academy and he left later for Paris. On 31 March 1886, which was about a month after the confrontation with Siberdt, the teachers of the academy decided that 17 students, including Van Gogh, had to repeat a year. The story that Van Gogh was expelled from the academy by Siberdt is therefore unfounded.
Paris (1886–1888) Van Gogh moved to Paris in March 1886 where he shared Theo's rue Laval apartment in
Montmartre and studied at
Fernand Cormon's studio. In June the brothers took a larger flat at 54
rue Lepic. In Paris, Vincent painted
portraits of friends and acquaintances,
still life paintings, views of
Le Moulin de la Galette,
scenes in Montmartre,
Asnières and along the
Seine. In 1885 in Antwerp he had become interested in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints and had used them to decorate the walls of his studio; while in Paris he collected hundreds of them. He tried his hand at
Japonaiserie, tracing a figure from a reproduction on the cover of the magazine
Paris Illustre, The Courtesan or Oiran (1887), after
Keisai Eisen, which he then graphically enlarged in a painting. After seeing the portrait of
Adolphe Monticelli at the Galerie Delareybarette, Van Gogh adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack, particularly in paintings such as his
Seascape at Saintes-Maries (1888). Two years later, Vincent and Theo paid for the publication of a book on Monticelli paintings, and Vincent bought some of Monticelli's works to add to his collection. Van Gogh learned about
Fernand Cormon's
atelier from Theo. He worked at the studio in April and May 1886, where he frequented the circle of the Australian artist
John Russell, who painted
his portrait in 1886. Van Gogh also met fellow students
Émile Bernard,
Louis Anquetin and
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – who painted
a portrait of him in pastel. They met at
Julien "Père" Tanguy's paint shop, (which was, at that time, the only place where
Paul Cézanne's paintings were displayed). In 1886, two large exhibitions were staged there, showing
Pointillism and
Neo-impressionism for the first time and bringing attention to
Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. Theo kept a stock of Impressionist paintings in his gallery on boulevard Montmartre, but Van Gogh was slow to acknowledge the new developments in art. Conflicts arose between the brothers. At the end of 1886 Theo found living with Vincent to be "almost unbearable." By early 1887, they were again at peace, and Vincent had moved to
Asnières, a northwestern suburb of Paris, where he got to know Signac. He adopted elements of Pointillism, a technique in which a multitude of small coloured dots are applied to the canvas so that when seen from a distance they create an optical blend of hues. The style stresses the ability of
complementary colours – including blue and orange – to form vibrant contrasts. File:Vincent van Gogh - Windmills on Montmartre - Google Art Project.jpg|
Le Moulin de Blute-Fin ( 1886) from the
Le Moulin de la Galette and
Montmartre series.
Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo (F273) File:Van Gogh - la courtisane.jpg|alt=A Japanese woman looks to the left in a Ukiyo-e style painting|
Courtesan (after
Eisen), 1887. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam File:Van Gogh - Portrait of Pere Tanguy 1887-8.JPG|alt=A bearded old man sits gazing directly at the viewer|
Portrait of Père Tanguy, 1887.
Musée Rodin, Paris While in Asnières Van Gogh painted
parks,
restaurants and the
Seine, including
Bridges across the Seine at Asnières. In November 1887, Theo and Vincent befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris. Towards the end of the year, Vincent arranged an exhibition alongside Bernard, Anquetin, and probably Toulouse-Lautrec, at the Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet, 43 avenue de Clichy, Montmartre. In a contemporary account, Bernard wrote that the exhibition was ahead of anything else in Paris. There, Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings, and Van Gogh exchanged work with Gauguin. Discussions on art, artists, and their social situations started during this exhibition, continued and expanded to include visitors to the show, like
Camille Pissarro and his son
Lucien, Signac and Seurat. In February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, Van Gogh left, having painted more than 200 paintings during his two years there. Hours before his departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his only visit to Seurat in his studio.
Artistic breakthrough Arles (1888–89) '', 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam|alt=A large house under a blue sky Ill from drink and suffering from smoker's cough, in February 1888, Van Gogh sought refuge in
Arles. He seemed to have moved with thoughts of founding an
art colony. The Danish artist
Christian Mourier-Petersen was his companion for two months and at first, Arles appeared exotic to Van Gogh. In a letter, he described it as a foreign country: "The
Zouaves, the brothels, the adorable little Arlésienne going to her First Communion, the priest in his surplice, who looks like a dangerous rhinoceros, the people drinking
absinthe, all seem to me creatures from another world." The time in Arles was one of Van Gogh's more prolific periods: he completed 200 paintings and more than 100 drawings and watercolours. He was energised by the local countryside and light; his works from this period are rich in yellow,
ultramarine and
mauve. They include harvests, wheat fields and general rural landmarks from the area, including
The Old Mill (1888), one of seven canvases sent to
Pont-Aven on 4 October 1888 in an exchange of works with Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard,
Charles Laval and others. In March 1888, Van Gogh created landscapes using a gridded "perspective frame" and three of those works were shown at the annual exhibition of the
Société des Artistes Indépendants. In April, he was visited by the American artist
Dodge MacKnight, who was living nearby at
Fontvieille. On 1 May 1888, Van Gogh signed a lease for four rooms at 2 Place Lamartine, Arles, which he later painted in
The Yellow House. The rooms cost 15
francs per month, unfurnished; they had been uninhabited for months. Because the Yellow House had to be furnished before he could fully move in, Van Gogh moved from the Hôtel Carrel to the Café de la Gare on 7 May 1888. He had befriended the Yellow House's proprietors, Joseph and
Marie Ginoux, and was able to use it as a studio. Van Gogh wanted a gallery to display his work and started a series of paintings that eventually included ''
Van Gogh's Chair (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), The Night Café (1888), Café Terrace at Night (September 1888), Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), and Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers'' (1888), all intended for the
decoration for the Yellow House. Van Gogh wrote that with
The Night Café he tried "to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime". When he visited
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in June, he gave lessons to a Zouave second lieutenant –
Paul-Eugène Milliet – and painted
boats on the sea and the village. MacKnight introduced Van Gogh to
Eugène Boch, a Belgian painter who sometimes stayed in Fontvieille, and the two exchanged visits in July. File:De zaaier - s0029V1962 - Van Gogh Museum.jpg|alt=A man sowing seeds in front of a giant sun going down near a large tree|
The Sower with Setting Sun, 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam File:Vissersboten op het strand van Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer - s0028V1962 - Van Gogh Museum.jpg|alt=On the edge of the sea four boats on the water in the distance; closer, four boats are on the dry sand on the beach|
Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries, June 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam File:Vincent van Gogh - De slaapkamer - Google Art Project.jpg|alt=A small room with paintings on the wall, two chairs, a single bed and a table|
Bedroom in Arles, 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam File:Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) - The Old Mill (1888).jpg|alt=A large building under a clear sky with a landscape in the background and two people in the near distance|
The Old Mill, 1888.
Albright–Knox Art Gallery,
Buffalo, New York Gauguin's visit (1888) ,
The Painter of Sunflowers: Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam|alt=A seated red-bearded man wearing a brown coat, facing to the left, with a paintbrush in his right hand, is painting a picture of large sunflowers. When Gauguin agreed to visit Arles in 1888, Van Gogh hoped for friendship and to realise his idea of an artists' collective. Van Gogh prepared for Gauguin's arrival by painting four versions of
Sunflowers in one week. "In the hope of living in a studio of our own with Gauguin," he wrote in a letter to Theo, "I'd like to do a decoration for the studio.
Nothing but large Sunflowers." When Boch visited again, Van Gogh painted a portrait of him, as well as the study
The Poet Against a Starry Sky. In preparation for Gauguin's visit, Van Gogh bought two beds on advice from the station's postal supervisor
Joseph Roulin, whose portrait he painted. On 17 September, he spent his first night in the still sparsely furnished Yellow House. When Gauguin consented to work and live in Arles with him, Van Gogh started to work on the
Décoration for the Yellow House, probably the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. He completed two chair paintings: ''Van Gogh's Chair
and Gauguin's Chair.'' After much pleading from Van Gogh, Gauguin arrived in Arles on 23 October and, in November, the two painted together. Gauguin depicted Van Gogh in his
The Painter of Sunflowers; Van Gogh painted pictures from memory, following Gauguin's suggestion. Among these "imaginative" paintings is
Memory of the Garden at Etten. Their first joint outdoor venture was at the
Alyscamps, when they produced the pendants
Les Alyscamps. The single painting Gauguin completed during his visit was his portrait of Van Gogh. Van Gogh and Gauguin visited
Montpellier in December 1888, where they saw works by
Courbet and
Delacroix in the
Musée Fabre. Their relationship began to deteriorate; Van Gogh admired Gauguin and wanted to be treated as his equal, but Gauguin was arrogant and domineering, which frustrated Van Gogh. They often quarrelled; Van Gogh increasingly feared that Gauguin was going to desert him, and the situation, which Van Gogh described as one of "excessive tension", rapidly headed towards crisis point. File:Le café de nuit (The Night Café) by Vincent van Gogh.jpeg|
The Night Café, 1888.
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut|alt=A billiard table in the centre of a room of a cafe surrounded by tables. Patrons are seated at several tables, and a man dressed in white stands behind the billiard table. File:Vincent Willem van Gogh - Cafe Terrace at Night (Yorck).jpg|
Café Terrace at Night, 1888.
Kröller-Müller Museum,
Otterlo|alt=The outdoor terrace of a cafe with several tables filled with patrons. People are walking along the street under a starry sky. File:red vineyards.jpg|
The Red Vineyard, November 1888.
Pushkin Museum, Moscow. Sold to
Anna Boch, 1890|alt=A vineyard with many people working picking fruit, while a very large and bright sun shines in the sky. File:Vincent Willem van Gogh 138.jpg|''Van Gogh's Chair'', 1888.
National Gallery, London|alt=A single, simple, yellow, wooden and straw, armless, empty chair, with a pipe and tobacco on the seat, in an empty room with tiles on the floor. File:Vincent van Gogh - De stoel van Gauguin - Google Art Project.jpg|''Paul Gauguin's Armchair'', 1888. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam|alt=An armchair with a cushion seat; there are two books and a lit candle on the seat. A lit lamp is on the wall.
Hospital in Arles (December 1888) '', January 1889,
Pushkin Museum; note written by Dr Rey for novelist
Irving Stone with sketches of the damage to Van Gogh's ear The exact sequence that led to the mutilation of Van Gogh's ear is not known. Gauguin said, fifteen years later, that the night followed several instances of physically threatening behaviour. Their relationship was complex and Theo may have owed money to Gauguin, who suspected the brothers were exploiting him financially. It seems likely that Vincent realised that Gauguin was planning to leave. The following days saw heavy rain, leading to the two men being shut in the Yellow House. Gauguin recalled that Van Gogh followed him after he left for a walk and "rushed towards me, an open razor in his hand". This account is uncorroborated; Gauguin was almost certainly absent from the Yellow House that night, most likely staying in a hotel. After an altercation on the evening of 23 December 1888, who died in Arles at the age of 80 in 1952, and whose descendants still lived (as of 2020) just outside Arles. Gabrielle, known in her youth as "Gaby", was a 17-year-old cleaning girl at the brothel and other local establishments at the time Van Gogh presented her with his ear. Van Gogh had no recollection of the event, suggesting that he may have suffered an acute mental breakdown. The hospital diagnosis was "acute mania with generalised delirium", and within a few days, the local police ordered that he be placed in hospital care. Gauguin immediately notified Theo, who, on 24 December, had proposed marriage to his old friend
Andries Bonger's sister Jo. That evening, Theo rushed to the station to board a night train to Arles. He arrived on Christmas Day and comforted Vincent, who seemed to be semi-lucid. That evening, he left Arles for the return trip to Paris. During the first days of his treatment, Van Gogh repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked for Gauguin, who asked a policeman attending the case to "be kind enough, Monsieur, to awaken this man with great care, and if he asks for me tell him I have left for Paris; the sight of me might prove fatal for him." Gauguin fled Arles, never to see Van Gogh again. They continued to correspond, and in 1890, Gauguin proposed they form a studio in Antwerp. Meanwhile, other visitors to the hospital included Marie Ginoux and Roulin. Despite a pessimistic diagnosis, Van Gogh recovered and returned to the Yellow House on 7 January 1889. He spent the following month between hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and
delusions of poisoning. In March, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople (including the Ginoux family) who described him as
le fou roux "the redheaded madman"; Van Gogh returned to hospital. Paul Signac visited him twice in March; in April, Van Gogh moved into rooms owned by Rey after floods damaged paintings in his own home. Two months later, he left Arles and voluntarily entered an asylum in
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Around this time, he wrote, "Sometimes moods of indescribable anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time and fatality of circumstances seemed to be torn apart for an instant." Van Gogh gave his 1889
Portrait of Doctor Rey to Rey. The doctor was not fond of the painting and used it to repair a chicken coop, then gave it away. In 2016, the portrait was housed at the
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and estimated to be worth over $50 million. File:Van Gogh - Selbstbildnis mit verbundenem Ohr und Pfeife.jpeg|alt=A portrait of Vincent van Gogh from the right; he is smoking a pipe, wearing a winter hat. His ear is bandaged and he has no beard.|
Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe, 1889, private collection File:Van Gogh - Garten des Hospitals in Arles1.jpeg|alt=A courtyard garden of a large building with tree and fountain.|
The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles, 1889, Oskar Reinhart Collection "
Am Römerholz",
Winterthur, Switzerland File:Vincent van Gogh - Self-portrait with bandaged ear (1889, Courtauld Institute).jpg|alt=A portrait of Vincent van Gogh from the right; he is wearing a winter hat, his ear is bandaged and he has no beard.|
Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889,
Courtauld Institute of Art, London File:Ward in the Hospital in Arles.jpg|alt=A large room of a large building with hospital beds and several people gathered around a wood-burning stove; nuns and others are in the background.|
Ward in the Hospital in Arles, 1889, Oskar Reinhart Collection "Am Römerholz", Winterthur, Switzerland
Saint-Rémy (May 1889 – May 1890) '', June 1889.
Museum of Modern Art, New York Van Gogh entered the
Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum on 8 May 1889, accompanied by his caregiver, Frédéric Salles, a Protestant clergyman. Saint-Paul was a former monastery in Saint-Rémy, located less than from Arles, and it was run by a former naval doctor,
Théophile Peyron. Van Gogh had two cells with barred windows, one of which he used as a studio. The clinic and
its garden became the main subjects of his paintings. He made several studies of the hospital's interiors, such as
Vestibule of the Asylum and
Saint-Rémy (September 1889), and its gardens, such as
Lilacs (May 1889). Some of his works from this time are characterised by swirls, such as
The Starry Night. He was allowed short supervised walks, during which time he painted
cypresses and olive trees, including
Valley with Ploughman Seen from Above,
Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889,
Cypresses 1889,
Cornfield with Cypresses (1889),
Country road in Provence by Night (1890). In September 1889, he produced two further versions of
Bedroom in Arles and
The Gardener. Limited access to life outside the clinic resulted in a shortage of subject matter. Van Gogh instead worked on
interpretations of other artist's paintings, such as
Millet's
The Sower and
Noonday Rest, and variations on his own earlier work. Van Gogh was an admirer of the
Realism of
Jules Breton,
Gustave Courbet and Millet, and he compared his copies to a musician's interpreting
Beethoven. His ''
Prisoners' Round (after Gustave Doré)'' (1890) was painted after an
engraving by
Gustave Doré (1832–1883). Tralbaut suggests that the face of the prisoner in the centre of the painting looking towards the viewer is Van Gogh himself;
Jan Hulsker discounts this. Between February and April 1890, Van Gogh suffered a severe relapse. Depressed and unable to bring himself to write, he was still able to paint and draw a little during this time, and he later wrote to Theo that he had made a few small canvases "from memory ...
reminisces of the North". Among these was
Two Peasant Women Digging in a Snow-Covered Field at Sunset. Hulsker believes that this small group of paintings formed the nucleus of many drawings and study sheets depicting landscapes and figures that Van Gogh worked on during this time. He comments that this short period was the only time that Van Gogh's illness had a significant effect on his work. Van Gogh asked his mother and his brother to send him drawings and rough work he had done in the early 1880s so he could work on new paintings from his old sketches. Belonging to this period is ''
Sorrowing Old Man ("At Eternity's Gate")'', a colour study Hulsker describes as "another unmistakable remembrance of times long past". His late paintings show an artist at the height of his abilities, according to the art critic
Robert Hughes, "longing for concision and grace". After the birth of his nephew, Van Gogh wrote, "I started right away to make a picture for him, to hang in their bedroom, branches of
white almond blossom against a blue sky." File:Vincent Willem van Gogh 037.jpg|alt=In an indoor prison yard a large group of men walk in a circle, one behind the other. The face of the prisoner in the centre of the painting and looking toward the viewer looks like van Gogh.|''
Prisoners' Round (after Gustave Doré)'', 1890. Pushkin Museum, Moscow File:Sower at Sunset - Vincent Van Gogh.jpg|alt=A man is scattering seeds in a ploughed field. The figure is represented as small and is set in the upper right and walking out of the picture. He carries a bag of seed over one shoulder. The ploughed soil is grey; behind it rises a standing crop and, in the left distance, a farmhouse. In the centre of the horizon is a giant yellow rising sun with emanating yellow rays. A path leads into the picture, and birds are swooping down.|
The Sower (after
Jean-François Millet), 1888. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo File:Van Gogh - Zwei grabende Bäuerinnen auf schneebedecktem Feld.jpeg|alt=Two women are digging in a snowy field, covered in white, houses off in the distance, while the sun rises.|
Two Peasant Women Digging in a Snow-Covered Field at Sunset (after
Jean-François Millet), 1890.
Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection, Zurich, Switzerland File:Van Gogh - Trauernder alter Mann.jpeg|''
Sorrowing Old Man ('At Eternity's Gate')'', 1890. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo|alt=A painting of an old man who sits on a chair with his head in his hands.
1890 Exhibitions and recognition Albert Aurier praised his work in the
Mercure de France in January 1890 and described him as "a genius". In February, Van Gogh painted five versions of ''
L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux)
, based on a charcoal sketch Gauguin had produced when she sat for both artists in November 1888. Also in February, Van Gogh was invited by Les XX, a society of avant-garde painters in Brussels, to participate in their annual exhibition. At the opening dinner a Les XX'' member,
Henry de Groux, insulted Van Gogh's work. Toulouse-Lautrec demanded satisfaction, and Signac declared he would continue to fight for Van Gogh's honour if Lautrec surrendered. De Groux apologised for the slight and left the group. From 20 March to 27 April 1890, Van Gogh was included in the sixth exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in the Pavillon de la Ville de Paris on the Champs-Elysées. Van Gogh exhibited ten paintings. While the exhibition was on display with the Artistes Indépendants in Paris,
Claude Monet said that Van Gogh's work was the best in the show.
Auvers-sur-Oise (May–July 1890) , Madrid, painted weeks before the artist's death In May 1890, Van Gogh left the clinic in Saint-Rémy to move nearer to both
Dr Paul Gachet in the Paris suburb of
Auvers-sur-Oise and to Theo. Gachet was an amateur painter and had treated several other artists –
Camille Pissarro had recommended him. Van Gogh's first impression was that Gachet was "iller than I am, it seemed to me, or let's say just as much." The painter
Charles Daubigny moved to Auvers in 1861 and in turn drew other artists there, including
Camille Corot and
Honoré Daumier. In July 1890, Van Gogh completed two paintings of ''
Daubigny's Garden'', one of which is likely his final work. '', 1890. Musée d'Orsay, Paris During his last weeks at Saint-Rémy, his thoughts returned to "
memories of the North", and several of the approximately 70 oils, painted during as many days in Auvers-sur-Oise, are reminiscent of northern scenes. In June 1890, he painted several portraits of his doctor, including
Portrait of Dr Gachet, and his only
etching. In each the emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition. There are other paintings which are probably unfinished, including
Thatched Cottages by a Hill. In July, Van Gogh wrote that he had become absorbed "in the immense plain against the hills, boundless as the sea, delicate yellow". He had first become captivated by the fields in May, when the wheat was young and green. In July, he described to Theo "vast fields of wheat under turbulent skies". He wrote that they represented his "sadness and extreme loneliness" and that the "canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, that is, how healthy and invigorating I find the countryside".
Wheatfield with Crows, although not his last oil work, is from July 1890 and Hulsker discusses it as being associated with "melancholy and extreme loneliness". Hulsker identifies seven oil paintings from Auvers that follow the completion of
Wheatfield with Crows. Hulsker also expressed concern about the number of paintings attributed to Van Gogh from the period.
Death On 27 July 1890 (Sunday), aged 37, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a
revolver. The shooting may have taken place in the wheat field in which he had been painting, or in a local barn. The bullet was deflected by a rib and passed through his chest without doing apparent damage to internal organs – possibly stopped by his spine. He was able to walk back to the
Auberge Ravoux, where he was attended to by two doctors. One of them, Dr Gachet, had served as a war surgeon in the 1870
Franco-Prussian War and had extensive knowledge of gunshots. Vincent was possibly attended to during the night by Dr Gachet's son Paul Louis Gachet and the innkeeper, Arthur Ravoux. The following morning, Theo rushed to his brother's side, finding him in good spirits but within hours Vincent's health began to fail, suffering from an infection resulting from the wound. He died in the early hours of Tuesday, 29 July. According to Theo, Vincent's last words were: "The sadness will last forever". Cemetery|alt=Two graves and two gravestones side by side; heading behind a bed of green leaves, bearing the remains of Vincent and Theo van Gogh, where they lie in the cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise. The stone to the left bears the inscription:
Ici Repose Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) and the stone to the right reads:
Ici Repose Theodore van Gogh (1857–1891) Van Gogh was buried on 30 July, in the municipal cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise. The funeral was attended by Theo van Gogh,
Andries Bonger,
Charles Laval,
Lucien Pissarro, Émile Bernard, Julien Tanguy and Paul Gachet, among twenty family members, friends and locals. Theo suffered from
syphilis, and his health began to decline further after his brother's death. Filled with grief after losing his brother, Theo only survived Vincent by six months, as he died on 25 January 1891 at
Den Dolder and was buried in Utrecht. In 1914,
Jo van Gogh-Bonger had Theo's body
exhumed and moved from Utrecht to be re-buried alongside Vincent's at Auvers-sur-Oise. There have been numerous debates as to the nature of
Van Gogh's illness and its effect on his work, and many
retrospective diagnoses have been proposed. The consensus is that Van Gogh had an episodic condition with periods of normal functioning. Perry was the first to suggest
bipolar disorder in 1947, and this has been supported by the psychiatrists Hemphill and Blumer. Biochemist Wilfred Arnold has countered that the symptoms are more consistent with
acute intermittent porphyria, noting that the popular link between bipolar disorder and creativity might be spurious.
Temporal lobe epilepsy with bouts of depression has also been suggested. Whatever the diagnosis, his condition was likely worsened by malnutrition, overwork, insomnia and alcohol. ==Style and works==