1853-90
A dutch artist who while
happy in childhood became grim, impoverished, melancholic and difficult-but he painted works that are now among the world'
s best known, best loved, and most expensive.
He came late into his artistic vocation, after years of unfulfilling careers, failed love affairs, poverty, and spiritual crises. His obsessive letters to his devoted
brother,
Theo, which often explain work in detail, formed the source material for the quickly emergent
cult that continues to grow around him.
His style was self-taught, instantly recognizable, he used paint straight from the tube and applied it as
thick as furrows. He distorted form and color in order to express inner feelings, moving away from the reproduction of literal visual appearances toward a symbolic and expressive synthesis.
