FratFiles

• Save Paper

Vincent van Gogh, the eldest son of a Dutch Reformed minister and a bookseller's daughter, pursued various vocations, including that of an art dealer and clergyman, before deciding to become an artist at the age of twenty-seven. Over the course of his decade-long career (1880–90), he produced nearly 900 paintings and more than 1,100 works on paper. Ironically, in 1890, he modestly assessed his artistic legacy as "of very secondary importance."

Largely self-taught, Van Gogh gained his footing as an artist by zealously copying prints and studying nineteenth-century drawing manuals and lesson books, such as Charles Bargue's Exercises au fusain and cours de dessin. He felt that it was necessary to master black and white before working with color, and first concentrated on learning the rudiments of figure drawing and rendering landscapes in correct perspective. In 1882, he moved from his parents' home in Etten to the Hague, where he received some formal instruction from his cousin,......

View the rest of this paper...

Approximate Word Count: 1329
Approximate Pages: 6 (250 words per double-spaced page)

Similar Essays

1. Vincent Van Gogh
   

   Vincent Van Gogh What fascinates me much, much more than anything else in my métier is the portrait, the modern portrait . . . I should like to do portraits which will appear as

2. Vincent Van Gogh
   

   vincent van gogh Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter, whose work represents the archetype of expressionism, the idea of emotional spontaneity in painting. Van

3. Vincent Van Gogh
   

   Vincent Van Gogh Vincent Van Gogh: Insanely Magnificent On March 30, 1853 Anna Cornelia Carbentus gave birth to a boy in Groot-Zundest, Holland. Unbeknownst to her or the father,

4. Vincent Van Gogh
   

   Vincent Van Gogh Biography of Vincent Van Gogh What drove Vincent Van Gogh, born March 30,1853, to his mental illness and suicide? Could it have been the many things he tried, but

5. Vincent Van Gogh: Woe Is Me
   

   Vincent Van Gogh: Woe Is Me Vincent Van Gogh: Woe is Me During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century a new form of artistic painting formed. Postimpressionism was a form