Vincent Van Gogh - Resources for Art Lovers

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Find out more about Vincent Van Gogh and his art

This lens is about the artist Vincent Van Gogh. It shares information about
- the life of Vincent Van Gogh
- the art of Vincent Van Gogh - his drawings, watercolours and oil paintings
- museums, art galleries and exhibitions where you can see Van Gogh's paintings in person or images of them online,
- books and articles about Van Gogh's life and artwork
- and other resources for artists wanting to improve their knowledge about how Van Gogh worked

Links are being added added on a regular basis. Create a bookmark or link to be able to check back to this site or e-mail it- see the "save and share" section in the right hand column.

Vincent Van Gogh - on Wikipedia 

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 ? 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. He was a pioneer of Expressionism with enormous influence on 20th century art, especially on the Fauves and German Expressionists. Some of his paintings are now among the world's best known, most popular and expensive works of art.

Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief period as a teacher, he became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. H...

Van Gogh's Life 

Van Gogh Museum - Young Vincent 1853 - 1880
Vincent Willem van Gogh, the second of six children, is born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, a village in Brabant, in the south of the Netherlands.
Covers the period 1853-1880 - including time spent in The Hague and England
Van Gogh Museum - Starting artist 1880 - 1885
Van Gogh starts to learn about art and being an artist
Van Gogh Museum - Paris 1886 - 1888
On February 27, 1886, Van Gogh arrives in Paris. He lives with Theo in Montmartre, an artists' quarter. The move is formative in the development of his painting style. Theo, who manages the Montmartre branch of Goupil's (now called Boussod, Valadon & Cie), acquaints Van Gogh with the works of Claude Monet and other Impressionists. Previously he had known only Dutch painting and the French Realists; now he sees for himself how the Impressionists handle light and color, and treat their original themes from the town and country.
Van Gogh Museum - Arles 1888 - 1889
Van Gogh moves to Arles and sets up the Studio of the South in the yellow house
Van Gogh Museum - Saint-Remy 1889 - 1890
Van Gogh's stay in the asylum at St Remy - a period when he produced many masterpieces
Van Gogh Museum - Return North
Van Gogh moves north to Auvers and dies
Van Gogh Museum - Van Gogh's life in periods
Vincent van Gogh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Overview of the life and works of Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) | Thematic Essay | Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
A timeline of Van Gogh's life and career as an artist
Vincent Van Gogh - The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
Vincent Van Gogh , 1853-90, postimpressionist painter, b. the Netherlands. Van Gogh's works are perhaps better known generally than those of any other painter. His brief, turbulent, and tragic life is thought to epitomize the mad genius legend.
Vincent Van Gogh - Encyclopedia of World Biography
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) was a Dutch painter whose formal distortions and humanistic concerns made him a principal forerunner of 20th-century expressionism.

Van Gogh's Letters 

van Gogh's Letters - Unabridged
The Van Gogh letters are available online unabridged and annotated. It's possible to read extracts relating to specific themes

Art: equipment, influences, material, materials, supplies, support, technique, theory,

Attitude: clergy, death, family, Father, Mother, parents, people, reclusive, sisters, women,

Business: co-op, sales, selling,

Fear: paranoia, shyness, Feelings: ambition, apprehension, despair, guilt, homesick, loneliness, love, masochism, nostalgia, suicide,

Food-and-drink: alcohol, diet, malnutrition, preference, shortage,

Health: dental, eyes, fatigue, gastrointestinal, general, illness, impotence, mental, psychological, symptoms, venereal, Lifestyle: appearance, clothing, reclusive,

Psychology: agoraphobia, depression, hallucinations, insomnia, mental, neurological, nightmares,

Theo: health, mistress, work,

Memoirs: Sister-in-law, Nephew

Chronology: Calendar of all letters
van Gogh letters: colours
Van Gogh on colours
van Gogh letters: art - material
Van Gogh on art material
van Gogh letters: models
Van Gogh on the use of models
van Gogh letters: art - support
Van Gogh on the supports he uses for drawing and paintings
van Gogh letters: art - technique
Van Gogh on art techniques

Museums and Art Galleries with work by Vincent Van Gogh 

View Van Gogh's Drawings and Paintings all over the world

Van Gogh Museum - Information about the Museum
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is home to a great deal of information about Van Gogh. View the collections according to the period of his lif. Also a source of research and information about the processes used by Van Gogh
The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag - Van Gogh Walk
Like to know exactly where Van Gogh lived and worked in The Hague? Download here a special Van Gogh walk and follow in the footsteps of the famous artist! If you would rather do the walk with a guide, contact the museum's Education Department at tel. 070 ? 338 11 20.
The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag - The Hague School and young Van Gogh
With its great collection of Hague School paintings, the
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag is the ideal place to present the
work of the young Van Gogh in the context of his Hague
contemporaries.
MFA Boston: Art of Europe: Missing van Gogh Discovered
The MFA and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, have discovered a painting by Vincent van Gogh (1853?1890) underneath the artist's painting Ravine, owned by the MFA.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art - references to Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Musée d'Orsay: - references to Vincent van Gogh
National Gallery, London - VAN GOGH, Vincent
Works by Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) | Thematic Essay | Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Over the course of van Gogh's 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."
Neue Pinakothek [Sammlung - Künstler]
Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890)
As a forerunner of expressionist tendencies, van Gogh's color-heightened paintings, commonly abounding with glittering brush strokes, show the use of line to be the determining element in contrast to Impressionism.

BOOKS: Van Gogh Paintings 

Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings (Klotz)

A survey of all Van Gogh's paintings in one paperback volume. Originally published in hardback as two volumes, this paperback book offers very good colour and great value for money

Amazon Price: (as of 07/14/2009) Buy Now

Vincent Van Gogh (Spanish Edition)

Amazon Price: (as of 07/14/2009) Buy Now

Van Gogh's Sunflowers 

Making a Mark: Flowers in Art: Van Gogh #2 - Sunflowers and the value of repetition
I said I would do a study of sunflowers for Flowers in Art month and here they are - more about these later. When I was younger it took me an awful long time to realise just how many sunflower paintings Van Gogh painted. This post is about that and the value of repetition.
Sunflowers (series of paintings) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Van Gogh Sunflowers (series of paintings) From Wikipedia,
Van Gogh Museum - Zonnebloemen
Van Gogh painted the series to decorate the room where Paul Gauguin would stay when he arrived in Arles. He chose this subject because his friend had previously admired his paintings of sunflowers run to seed.
vangoghgallery.com - Vincent van Gogh: Sunflowers A Brief Understanding of the Sunflower Paintings.
Vincent van Gogh's collection of Sunflower paintings shown and described in detail.
vggallery.com - The Paintings: Sunflowers
The Vincent van Gogh Gallery - includes a complete listing of the series of sunflower paintings
Van Gogh Museum - Van Gogh en de zonnebloemen
A new publication about Van Gogh's sunflowers
Guardian - Van Gogh's Sunflowers have become monsters. But I'd rather have them than 'botanical art'
Germaine Greer: Despite the phenomenal marketability of flower paintings, no one does them any more. What proliferates instead is botanical art

The great tradition of flower painting in western art seems to have ended more than a century ago, in a series of tremendous bangs amid an obbligato of whimpers. Bang number one has to be the explosion of Van Gogh Sunflowers, 11 paintings in all, probably. The first four, studies of drying sunflower heads, were painted in Paris in 1887

Exhibitions of Van Gogh's drawing and paintings 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Special Exhibitions: Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings
A large and significant part of Van Gogh's production that remains comparatively unknown is featured in this first major American retrospective of the artist's drawings. The exhibition includes a selection of more than 100 works ingeniously composed in pen and ink, graphite, chalk, charcoal, and watercolor, along with a group of related paintings. These graphic images, lent by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and from 50 other public and private collections, brilliantly illustrate Vincent's own dictum: "Drawing is the root of everything."
Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South (2001-2)
The exhibition "Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South" was organized by The Art Institute of Chicago and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. This link is to the Chicago website.
Van Gogh Museum - Van Gogh's drawings: new insights
The fourth and final volume of the catalogues of drawings by Van Gogh at the Van Gogh Museum will be published in September. To mark the occasion, works on paper seldom shown due to their light sensitivity will be on display in the print room of the Rietveld building from 13 July until 7 October 2007.
Years of research have led to surprising new insights in Van Gogh's way of working. Based on a selection of his drawings, attention is paid to Van Gogh's stylistic development, use of materials, technique and experimentation and consequently the place that these works occupy in his oeuvre.
vggallery: Vincent van Gogh Exhibitions
A list of current and upcoming exhibitions about Vincent van Gogh
Philadelphia Museum of Art - Exhibitions : Past Exhibitions : 2001
This exhibition will focus, for the first time, on Van Gogh's evolving approach to the portrait throughout a tragically brief life.
National Gallery of Art - Van Gogh's Van Goghs
the largest survey of Van Gogh's art presented outside the Netherlands in more than 25 years.
National Gallery of Art - Van Gogh's Van Goghs: Virtual Tour
Virtual Tour: Take a virtual tour of Van Gogh's Van Goghs.
This exhibition was on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington
October 4, 1998 - January 3, 1999.
See also, exhibition overview and related links.
National Gallery of Art - Van Gogh's Van Goghs: Exhibition Brochure
NGA: Teaching Program on the work of Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh
Based on brichure linked to exhibition - Includes chronology and images
National Gallery of Art - Van Gogh Exhibition
Van Gogh's Van Goghs
National Gallery of Art - Van Gogh Exhibition
Van Gogh's Van Goghs
ALBERTINA (Vienna) - Van Gogh 5 September 2008 - 8 December 2008
VAN GOGH
5 September 2008 - 8 December 2008
The Albertina's autumn exhibition offers a new perspective on Vincent van Gogh by focusing on the artist as both painter and draughtsman. Fifty paintings and 100 major watercolours and drawings are on loan from over 60 lenders around the world. They underscore the artistic unity between van Gogh's expressive draughtsmanship and his radically new use of colour.
MoMA.org | Exhibitions | 2008 | Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night
Throughout his career, Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) attempted the paradoxical task of representing night by light. His procedure followed the trend set by the Impressionists of "translating" visual light effects with various color combinations. At the same time, this concern was grafted onto Van Gogh's desire to interweave the visual and the metaphorical in order to produce fresh and deeply original works of art. These different artistic concerns found themselves powerfully bound together in Van Gogh's nocturnal and twilight paintings and drawings. This exhibition will present new insight into Van Gogh's depictions of night landscapes, interior scenes, and the effects of both gaslight and natural light on their surroundings.
The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters - Exhibitions - Royal Academy of Arts
23 January - 18 April 2010

In January 2010, the Royal Academy of Arts will stage a landmark exhibition of the work of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). The focus of the exhibition will be the artist's remarkable correspondence.

Over 35 original letters, rarely exhibited to the public due to their fragility, will be on display, together with around 65 paintings and 30 drawings that express the principal themes to be found within the correspondence.

The first major Van Gogh exhibition in London for over 40 years, this will be a unique opportunity to gain an insight into the complex mind of Vincent van Gogh.
Guardian - Royal Academy to showcase Van Gogh's private side
Van Gogh's intimate letters, displayed alongside his paintings at the Royal Academy next year, offer a fresh view of the artist's life and opinions

Critiques of Van Gogh exhibitions and Van Gogh's mark-making 

Find otu what critics thought about exhibitions of Van Gogh's work

The Evolution of a Master Who Dreamed on Paper
The Evolution of a Master Who Dreamed on Paper By Michael Kimmelman (From the New York Times, October 14, 2005)
Van Gogh - the draughtsman
Charles Darwent from The Independent on Sunday, 31 July 2005 - reviewing the Van Gogh Museum exhibition of over 100 of some of http://static.squidoo.com/images/icon-reorder.gifthe finest drawings by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).
eric gelber on van gogh drawings at the metropolitan museum
Article about Van Gogh Drawings and the exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue October 18, 2005

Eric Gelber comments very eloquently on Van Gogh's mark-making in this article about the drawings exhibition in 2005
CODART list - Museums with Dutch art & Flemish art
Commentary on the exhibition of drawings
Van Gogh in Saint Rèmy
Van Gogh in Saint Rèmy
Freaking Out(doors):
Van Gogh's Fear of Death As Associated with the Outdoors at Saint-Rèmy
Audrey Burgess, Princeton Class of 2008
lines and colors :: Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night
Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night is the title of a new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition promises to be a small (23 paintings, 9 drawings and some letters) but insightful look into Van Gogh's interpretation of the night, of which he said: "I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day."

Plus a commentary on finding Van Gogh in Provence
Edward_ Hussein Winkleman
This show is breathtaking. What's most impressive about what the chronology reveals is how van Gogh's marks themselves evolve over the course of his career. This may be obvious to many folks, and I had a sense of it myself before, but seeing it firsthand is something else altogether. So I'll share my impressions, knowing they're perhaps not at all novel.

Van Gogh's Watercolours 

Vincent van Gogh: The Watercolours (Standard Version)
The Vincent van Gogh Gallery: a detailed catalogue of the 148 watercolours produced by Van Gogh during the course of his artistic career. Documents the title of each work, where and when it was produced and where it can be currently found.
The watercolours of Vincent Van Gogh
During his lifetime Van Gogh created 148 watercolours. This is a slideshow of some of them created by a fan.

Vincent Van Gogh - Online Resources 

Links to places which provide information about Van Gogh. Poster sites are excluded.
The Vincent van Gogh Gallery
The Vincent van Gogh Gallery: The most comprehensive Van Gogh resource on the Web
Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings
The Vincent van Gogh Gallery - the drawings catalogue
Vincent van Gogh: The Paintings
The Vincent van Gogh Information Gallery - an overview of the paintings. Van Gogh's works are divided into nine categories
Artchive: Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh images and biography

How Van Gogh made his mark 

How Van Gogh Made His Mark | Explore & Learn | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Website for kids

How Van Gogh Made His Mark

Van Gogh's Drawings 

Van Gogh produced some wonderful drawings which, as a result of an exhibition, are now more widely appreciated. His skill and style in drawing with reed and pen in astounding.

In February 2007, as part of a project on my blog "Making A Mark", I recorded my investigations into Van Gogh's Drawings.
Making a Mark: Van Gogh: Drawing media and techniques
This post focuses on Van Gogh's drawing materials and how they influenced his style. Here are some of the things I've learned about Van Gogh's approach to drawing....
Making a Mark: Van Gogh: More About Drawing
Links to sources of information about Van Gogh's Drawing
Van Gogh Museum - Drawings
Van Gogh Drawings in the Van Gogh Museum - image and explanation
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890): The Drawings | Thematic Essay | Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
A timeline of Van Gogh's drawings

BOOKS: The Drawings of Vincent Van Gogh 

Vincent Van Gogh - Portraits 

What fascinates me much, much more than does anything else in my metier is the portrait, the modern portrait.
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh: The Portraits (Standard Version)
The Vincent van Gogh Gallery - table listing portraits (and links to images).
Only identifies those with titles which start "Portrait of..."

Van Gogh - The Self Portraits 

Van Gogh's paintings of himself are splendid examples of self-portraiture. I've seen various different numbers given for the number of self portraits he painted and drew. There's a suggestion that he painted over 43 in total and that he produced some 30 self-portraits as drawings and paintings in five years between 1885 and the end of his stay in Brabant period (1885) to the last year of his life at St Rémy and Auvers.
Van Gogh Museum - Self-Portrait as an Artist
Image and commentary on the collection self portraits in the Van Gogh Museum collection
Van Gogh's Self Portraits
Feeling Blue? Art Criticism in Van Gogh's Paris Self-Portraits
Jason Wu, Princeton Class of 2009
Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890)
The Vincent Van Gogh website : A permanent museum showing a 300 paintings database searchable on theme, title, date or technique. Current exhibitions, biography, e-cards.

Self portraits
The Paintings: Van Gogh's Self-Portraits
The Vincent van Gogh Gallery by David Brooks
Catalogue with images of Van Gogh's self-portraits
NGA Classroom: Who Am I?: Self Portraits in Art and Writing: Student Activity: Van Gogh: A Closer Look
Student Activity: Van Gogh: A Closer Look

The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh 

The Starry Night () is a painting by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. The painting depicts the view outside his sanitarium room window at night, although it was painted from memory during the day. Since 1941 it has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Reproduced often, the painting is widely hailed as his magnum opus.

Making A Mark - blog posts about Van Gogh 

Making A Mark: posts labelled 'Van Gogh'
Posts on Making A Mark having a connection to Van Gogh. The majority of these discuss his drawings and paintings and development as an artist - or his influence on my own work.
Making a Mark: The economic impact of Van Gogh's Drawings
It's well known that Van Gogh paintings are worth millions - but did you know the drawings are as well?
Making a Mark: Flowers in Art - and Van Gogh #1
This post is about Van Gogh's early development in painting flowers.
Making a Mark: Van Gogh: More About Drawing
A perspective - and links - on Van Gogh's approach to drawing and mark-making
Making a Mark: Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings (Taschen)
Book Review: I bought a new book about Van Gogh a week ago and have been mesmerised ever since. Van Gogh - The Complete Paintings by Ingo F Walther and Rainer Metzger (published by Taschen) is a complete survey of all the paintings....
Making A Mark: Gardens in Art - drawings and paintings by Van Gogh
A review of the drawings and paintings Van Gogh made about gardens - both public and private. He seems to have made gardens one of his prime and enduring motifs for experimenting with mark-making and drawing in both monochrome and colour.
Making a Mark: Van Gogh: Drawing Landscapes
More about Van Gogh and Drawing - this post focuses on his landscape drawings.
Making a Mark: Van Gogh, colour and a colour study
Van Gogh's letters contain some 324 references to colours. The Van Gogh Musuem also has some interesting narrative about use of colour
Making a Mark: Van Gogh: Drawing Figures, Portraits and Self-Portraits
This post is about Van Gogh's approaches to drawing figures and creating portraits. It includes several links to where you can see images and read commenntary online.

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EditionH wrote...

Thanks for this great resource on van Gogh. I appreciate especially the links to the many great drawings by van Gogh.

ReplyPosted May 11, 2009

makingamark wrote...

Robert - one of the problems with evaluating the sunflower series is that the yellow he used has almost certainly changed and darkened with age. So what the paintings look like now is probably not the same as they looked when they were painted

ReplyPosted February 09, 2009

Lensmaster

Robert Mileham wrote

Hi Making a Mark, did I spell that right? Sorry I missed your reply. Not interested in hits! Not that kind anyway!

No, I seriously find adoration of an individual artist annoying, quite ok to have a favourite but V-G is hugely disappointing especially his sunflowers and so much time and effort by the great and good goes into saying how wonderful he was: needs some moderation, so that is why I feel the need to express my opinion. So sorry, I mean no offence. I can't spell and V-G was lucky to get the English version from my dyslexic brain!

Reply Posted February 09, 2009

Lensmaster

Hiberniensis wrote

A convincing argument for genius -- what would that look like? It seems to me that genius can only be recognised, not 'proved'. As for the genius of Van Gogh, his paintings themselves are convincing enough.

Reply Posted October 21, 2008

rms wrote...

You've accumulated a goldmine of information on Van Gogh. My personal favorite of his is Starry Night. Nice work!

ReplyPosted October 19, 2008

makingamark wrote...

But Robert - this is a site for people who do like Van Gogh.

Nobody expects everybody to like the same art or artists!!! It's a question of individual taste and perception - possibly influenced just a tad by 'art experts'! By all means go and start a site but I suggest checking the spelling first! ;)

Now you weren't commenting just to increase hits to your website were you? I didn't say you couldn't leave a URL - just that html is stripped out so it's not a live link.

ReplyPosted September 24, 2008

Lensmaster

Robert Mileham wrote

I have yet to find a convincing argument on the so called genius of Van Gough. If I had the time I could write a great deal on why his works do little or nothing for me. I would be happy to discuss any of his works in depth with anyone who will argue fairly and straight otherwise I will start an anti- Van Gough website I think!

As you will not let me add by address, you will have to google my name.

Reply Posted September 24, 2008

KimGiancaterino wrote...

Lovely lens. I have several books on Van Gogh and even visited the museum in Amsterdam. Congratulations on making Giant Squid!

ReplyPosted July 07, 2008

InspiredWritingResearch wrote...

Lovely, well-put-together thorough lens. (Faved & lensrolled.)We just got back from The National Gallery London and saw some of these!

ReplyPosted June 19, 2008

Who is Making A Mark? 

by makingamark

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