Van gogh

Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter, was born on March 30, 1853 in Zundert in the Netherlands, in the province of North Brabant. He died on July 29, 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise. Van Gogh was an ambitious and cultivated artist as well as a subtle and thoughtful mind. He was fluent in Dutch, French and English, and could read and write equally well in all three languages. He had a great love of literature, he read everything from the Bible to the writings of French naturalists. He had a solid knowledge of art history and could talk about old master paintings as well as photography. Vincent van Gogh's parents sent him, on leaving primary school in his village, to a boarding school in Zevenbergen and then in Tilburg. The young Van Gogh learned foreign languages there and perfected himself in French, English and German. In March 1868, in the middle of the school year, Vincent abruptly ended his studies and returned to Zundert. In 1869, Van Gogh, who was then 16, became the youngest clerk of the art gallery Goupil & Cie in The Hague, a subsidiary of the international company of the same name whose headquarters were in Paris. Van Gogh took advantage of his linguistic skills there: he not only worked in The Hague but was also sent to the branches in London and Paris. His younger brother Théo also entered the service of Goupil in 1872, in the Brussels subsidiary. Vincent Van Gogh had a promising start to his career but eventually grew tired of working at the gallery after a few years. Increasingly interested in religion, he found it "impious" to sell paintings that he himself did not find beautiful. He was fired in 1876.