Van Gogh's Influence On Art

So, continuing in our series of important artists, ones who have really shaped and influenced art today, we’re going to look at Van Gough - Vincent Willem van Gogh, who was born in 1853 and who died in 1890, at only the age of 37.

Van Gogh began to draw as a child, and although he drew throughout his youth, he did not use the medium of paint until his late twenties. Actually he originally intended to become a pastor, and even worked as a missionary in a mining region of Belgium. It was here where he began to sketch members of the local community, and you can see on the slide here, one of his first major works, the Potato Eaters. You can see that his palette is very somber… lots of earth tones. There’s none of that vivid coloration that you see in his later work. Really, not what you’d expect from Van Gogh at all.

And it makes you wonder what, if anything really, Van Gogh would have contributed to the art world had he not given up on the devout, spiritual path, because it wasn’t until he came to Paris that he developed his distinctive style. That said, it seems that he was greatly influenced by the strong sunlight there, because, as I mentioned before, his work got distinctly more vibrant and flamboyant in that respect. Two years later, he stayed in Arles, and it was after that when he developed his highly recognizable style and created his famous works, like ‘Sunflowers’ and his self-portrait. Remember, this is only two years before his death, so it wasn’t until really later on in life that he really came into his