Bio:Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter. His works represent the archetype of expressionism, the idea of emotional spontaneity in painting. Van Gogh was the son of a Dutch Protestant pastor. Early in life he displayed a moody, restless temperament that was to blight his life.
In 1886 Van Gogh went to Paris to live with his brother Th�o van Gogh, an art dealer. There he became familiar with the new art movements developing at the time. Influenced by the work of the impressionists and by the works of the Japanese printmakers, Van Gogh began to experiment with current techniques. Subsequently, he adopted the brilliant hues found in the paintings of the French artists Camille Pissarro and
Georges Seurat.
In 1888 Van Gogh left Paris for southern France. Whilst in Provence, he painted scenes of the fields, cypress trees, peasants, and rustic life characteristic of the region. During this period, living at Arles, he began to use the swirling brush strokes and intense yellows, greens, and blues. Paul Gauguin, whom he had met earlier in Paris, was persuaded to join him. After less than two months they began to have violent disagreements, culminating in a quarrel in which van Gogh wildly threatened Gauguin with a razor; the same night, in deep remorse, Van Gogh cut off part of his own ear. He then spent a year in the nearby asylum of Saint-R�my, working between repeated spells of madness.
On July 27, 1890 shortly after completing Crows in the Wheatfields, he shot himself. Vincent van Gogh died two days later.