HOLLAND

1881–1885

“Nature is certainly pure here.”

Van Gogh was born in the southern Netherlands, where he spent his youth and was encouraged to read and to enjoy his rural surroundings. One of his sisters remembered that “he knew all the places where rare flowers grew” and “all the names of the beetles” that he preserved in little boxes. Over time he tried unsuccessfully to become a print dealer, a schoolteacher, and a pastor (like his father) before committing himself to studying art in his mid-twenties.

Initially depicting the Dutch landscape and rural workers in the somber tones used by painters like Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet, Van Gogh also worked hard at drawing and eventually produced skillful studies of gardens, birds’ nests, and trees. Vincent wrote to his brother Theo in 1883 about his attempts “to work faithfully and forcefully from nature,” while painting outdoors and also learning about new developments in art elsewhere. The following year he discovered the radical color theories of Charles Blanc and experimented with a brighter palette in works such as Poplars near Nuenen before moving to Paris in 1886.

PARIS

1886–1888

“With a sincere personal feeling of colour in nature I would say an artist can get on here.”

Van Gogh left rural Holland in late 1885 in search of lessons in drawing and painting and firsthand experience of modern art. After a brief stay in Antwerp, he arrived in Paris in February 1886. Vincent studied at the Louvre and attended classes elsewhere with other young artists, soon abandoning the somber hues of his Dutch years in favor of a modified Impressionist manner. Claiming that “a sincere personal feeling of color in nature” allowed artists to make progress in Paris, he produced large numbers of flower paintings that he attempted to sell, though with little success.

Lodging with his brother Theo (a rising art dealer in Paris) in an apartment in Montmartre high above the city, Van Gogh made experimental compositions of gardens and restaurants. Increasingly confident, he was befriended by such artists as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Émile Bernard, whose work encouraged Van Gogh to tackle views of Paris itself. Paintings of city parks and bridges across the river Seine followed, some with recently built apartments in the distance. More lasting was the influence of landscapes by Claude Monet, which Van Gogh saw for the first time in an 1886 exhibition.

AUVERS

1890

“Before such nature I feel powerless.”

Aware of his declining health and wishing to be nearer to his brother and family, Van Gogh traveled north in May 1890 and stayed in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small rural town northwest of Paris. It was far enough from the city “to be in the real countryside,” he reported on arrival and was “covered with flowers” and “almost lush.” Working outdoors nearly every day, he immediately began drawing and painting his surroundings, including trees, flowers, and sweeping landscapes, as well as fellow residents.

In House at Auvers Van Gogh seems to celebrate this lush environment, while the panoramic Wheat Fields with Reaper revisits a theme that persisted throughout his career. Bolder than ever in his colors and brushwork, his radiant compositions—such as Green Wheat Fields, Auvers—promised new departures in depicting nature. Letters reveal that he knew his health was failing, yet he labored on a series of spectacular views—among them the movingly spare Rain-Auvers, made within days of his death—that show little but sky, earth, and the elements. In late July, Van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In an unfinished letter he admitted that “before such nature I feel powerless.”