Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853-1890 Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 ?C 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. Some of his paintings are now among the world's best known, most popular and expensive works of art. Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief spell as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880. Initially, Van Gogh worked only with sombre colours, until he encountered Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. He incorporated their brighter colours and style of painting into a uniquely recognizable style, which was fully developed during the time he spent at Arles, France. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced in the final two years of his life, during which time he cut off part of his left ear following a breakdown in his friendship with Paul Gauguin. After this he suffered recurrent bouts of mental illness, which led to his suicide. The central figure in Van Gogh's life was his brother Theo, who continually and selflessly provided financial support. Their lifelong friendship is documented in numerous letters they exchanged from August 1872 onwards. Van Gogh is a pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. He had an enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists.  Related Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh :. | Les Vessenots in Auvers | Valley with Ploughman Seen from Above | The Siesta | Houses in Auvers | The Sower:Outskirts of Arles in the Background (nn04) |
Related Artists:
Jean-Baptiste Peronneau
French, 1715-1783
Willem Van Leen
Dutch, 1753-1825
John Rogers Herbert
English historical painter and portraitist . British, 1810-1890. was an English painter who is most notable as a precursor of Pre-Raphaelitism. Herbert was born in Maldon, Essex. In 1825, he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy. His early works were influenced by the troubadour style of Richard Parkes Bonington. Subjects showed the influence of Byron and exotic episodes of Venetian history. Haydee (1834) depicted the heroine of Byron's poem Don Juan. Herbert's first major success was The Appointed Hour (1835), depicting a melodramatic scene in which a Venetian man lies murdered at the place appointed for a tryst with his lover. The work became a popular engraving. Herbert followed it with other dramatic subjects such as A Prisoner of Condottieri Freed (1836) and Desdemona asks for Cassio (1838). After he was chosen to paint a portrait of Princess Victoria, before she became queen, he became a favourite portrait painter of the aristocracy. Around this time, he came under the influence of the architect William Payne, a convert to Catholicism. In 1840, Herbert also converted to the Catholic Church. He then painted mainly religious subjects in a style influenced by the artists of the Nazarene movement. Herbert was elected to membership of the Royal Academy in 1846. Herbert's paintings The First Introduction of Christianity into Great Britain (1842) and Our Saviour Subject to his Parents in Nazareth (1847) were the inspiration for the two most important early works of William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, founders of Pre-Raphaelitism. The two paintings, Hunt's A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary and Millais' Christ in the House of His Parents were exhibited at the RA in 1850 to great controversy.