Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose emotionally charged, vividly colored works—such as The Starry Night, Sunflowers, and Bedroom in Arles—became some of the most iconic and influential in all of Western art. Largely self-taught and plagued by mental illness, poverty, and personal turmoil, he produced roughly 2,100 artworks (including around 860 oil paintings) in just over a decade, most of them in his final years in Arles, Saint-Rémy, and Auvers-sur-Oise under the care of his devoted brother Theo. His bold, expressive brushwork, dramatic use of color, and emotional intensity went largely unappreciated during his lifetime—he sold very few paintings—but profoundly shaped the development of modern art, especially Fauvism, Expressionism, and early abstraction. He died at 37 from a gunshot wound, widely believed to be self-inflicted, and has since become the archetype of the tormented, unrecognized genius.