2016-03-17 Thu

On this day, 15 years ago, paintings by the legendary Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh, were on display at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris. These masterpieces rocked the world with their masterful brush strokes and expressive colours. The irony is that he had only sold one painting in his life before he succumbed to depression and shot himself. He would never have imagined how much his work is admired today.

Born in Zundert, Netherlands in 1853, Van Gogh was a true painter at heart. He initially took up various professions like that of a language teacher, a bookseller, an evangelist etc. He learnt his art professionally at the Brussels Academy and went to the Netherlands in 1881 to work from nature. His famous painting “The Potato Eaters” was influenced by Jean-Francois Millet, a French painter.

In 1886, he moved to Paris to stay with his brother where he interacted with famous painters like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Camille Pissarro, and Georges Seurat. He adopted his new postimpressionist style under the advice of Pissarro through his 1887 painting “Portrait of Pere Tanguy”.

In 1888, he created some of his best works like the sunflower series and The Night Cafe, but was diagnosed with dementia due to his growing frustration. After spending two weeks at the Arles Hospital, he stayed in an asylum at Saint-Remy-de-Provence for 12 months. It was during this period that he created one of his most beloved paintings, “Starry Night”.

In May 1890, he moved back to Paris and lived with Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, a homeopathic doctor and friend of Pissarro, at Auvers-sur-Oise. Though he worked enthusiastically for several months, his mental and emotional state started deteriorating considerably. He could not take it anymore and finally shot himself in late July 1890, feeling that he was a burden on Theo and the others.

A painter of such calibre did not get his due fame until the exhibition in 1901 which turned him into one of the greatest painters of all time!

Many coins have been minted featuring this great painter, like the Silver coin released for Cook Islands and the 10 Euro coin issued by the Netherlands in 2003 on his 150th birth anniversary.