Vincent van Gogh

Starry Night, Sunflowers — painting as spiritual urgency

He painted for only ten years, sold one painting in his lifetime, and shot himself at 37. The late works — Starry Night, the Arles sunflowers, the wheat fields — blaze with a color and emotional intensity that made him the archetype of the tormented genius and the most beloved painter in the world.

Key works

• The Starry Night1889— The night sky as cosmic turbulence
  Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Sunflowers1888— Yellow on yellow — radical simplicity
  National Gallery, London / Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam / Neue Pinakothek, Munich (multiple versions)
• Wheatfield with Crows1890— Among his last paintings — storm and solitude
  Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Connections

External