2. Vincent Van Gogh was born in 30 March 1853 in
Groot-Zundert, a village close to Breda in the province of
North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, a
predominantly Catholic area.[He was the oldest child of
Theodorus van Gogh, a minister of the Dutch Reformed
Church, and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. Vincent was given
the name of his grandfather, and of a brother still born
exactly a year before his birth.[ He was a Dutch painter
and when he started his work he wasn’t a famous painter of
his era. His work was then known to only a handful of
people and appreciated by fewer still. Van Gogh began to
draw as a child, and he continued to draw throughout the
years that led up to his decision to become an artist.
3. His work included self portraits, landscapes, still lifes,
portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and
sunflowers. One of his early aspirations was to become
a pastor and from 1879 he worked as a missionary in a
mining region in Belgium where he began to sketch
people from the local community. In 1885, he painted
his first major work The Potato Eaters. His palette at
the time consisted mainly of somber earth tones and
showed no sign of the vivid coloration that
distinguished his later work.
4. On 22 February 1890, Van Gogh suffered a new crisis
that was "the starting point for one of the saddest
episodes in a life already rife with sad events. This
period lasted until the end of April, during which time
he was unable to bring himself to write though he did
continue to draw and paint. On 27 July 1890, aged 37,
Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself in the chest
with a revolver .There were no witnesses and his
location when he shot himself is unclear.
