Vincent van Gogh was born in Holland in 1853 to a middle-class family of art dealers and ministers. During his early life, Vincent had many different jobs. First, he worked in his uncle’s art dealership, buying and selling art. He lived for a time in London. Then he became a teacher and after that, a bookseller. He tried to enter university to study theology, but failed his entrance exam. In 1879, he worked as a Protestant missionary in a coal mining village in Belgium. He lived very poorly and simply like the miners. It was here that he started making his first drawings. 

His younger brother Theo encouraged his talent and persuaded him to seriously cultivate his interest in art. Vincent enrolled at the Royal Academy of Art in Brussels and learned how to draw properly. For the next 10 years he lived in various cities in Holland, trying to make a living as an artist. He was desperately poor and often ill from hunger. A woman he was in love with committed suicide, and several other women he fell in love with refused to marry him. From constant hunger, poverty and loneliness, he started to show symptoms of mental illness. 

Vincent moved to Paris with his brother Theo in 1886. At that time Paris was a center of modern art and Vincent met many artists who influenced his technique. He began to use bright colors, small dots, and oil color. In two years he painted over 200 pictures, experimenting with different styles and trying to develop his exceptional talent. 

In 1888, tired of Parisian life but having made some money selling his paintings, he moved to a town called Arles, in the south of France. He persuaded his friend, another artist called Paul Gauguin, to come and live with him. At first this arrangement worked well. The two artists painted together and talked about art. Then they began to quarrel, and Vincent, in fear that he would lose his friend, cut off his own ear. His mental health began to deteriorate. He began to believe that he was being poisoned and refused to eat. He spent the next few years in various hospitals. 

The work he produced early in his life is very dark, with lots of browns and greys, featuring local people and their lives. His mature art is full of bright colors and swirling shapes, and portraits of his friends. His most famous work is a still life called sunflowers. 

In July 1890, just as his genius was being recognized, suffering from terrible depression due to his mental illness, Vincent walked into a cornfield near his home and shot himself in the chest. He died two days later.