"Vincent van Gogh was born near Brabant, the

                son of a minister. In 1869, he got a position at the art
                                           dealers, Goupil and Co. in The Hague, through his uncle,
         and worked with them until he was dismissed from the
                London office in 1873. He worked as a schoolmaster in
                England (1876), before training for the ministry at
                Amsterdam University (1877). After he failed to get a
                post in the Church, he went to live as an independent
                missionary among the Borinage miners.
                       "He was largely self-taught as an artist, although
                he received help from his cousin, Mauve. His first works
                were heavily painted, mud-colored and clumsy attempts
                to represent the life of the poor (e.g. Potato-Eaters, 1885,
                Amsterdam), influenced by one of his artistic heroes,
                Millet. He moved to Paris in 1886, living with his
                devoted brother, Theo, who as a dealer introduced him to
                artists like Gauguin, Pissarro, Seurat and
                Toulouse-Lautrec. In Paris, he discovered color as well
                as the divisionist ideas which helped to create the
                distinctive dashed brushstrokes of his later work (e.g.
              Pere Tanguy, 1887, Paris). He moved to Arles, in the
                south of France, in 1888, hoping to establish an artists'
                colony there, and was immediately struck by the hot reds
                and yellows of the Mediterranean, which he increasingly
                used symbolically to represent his own moods (e.g.
              Sunflowers, 1888, London, National Gallery). He was
                joined briefly by Gauguin in October 1888, and managed
                in some works to combine his own ideas with the latter's
                Synthetism (e.g. The Sower, 1888, Amsterdam), but the
                visit was not a success. A final argument led to the
                infamous episode in which Van Gogh mutilated his ear.
                       "In 1889, he became a voluntary patient at the St.
                Remy asylum, where he continued to paint, often making
                copies of artists he admired. His palette softened to
                mauves and pinks, but his brushwork was increasingly
                agitated, the dashes constructed into swirling, twisted
                shapes, often seen as symbolic of his mental state (e.g.
              Ravine, 1889, Otterlo). He moved to Auvers, to be closer
                to Theo in 1890 - his last 70 days spent in a hectic
                program of painting. He died, having sold only one work,
                following a botched suicide attempt. His life is detailed
                in a series of letters to his brother (published 1959)."

 Web Gallery of Art