Most of these paintings were done during a brief period, a creative flurry of his final turbulent years, 1888, 1889 and 1890. These images are of his paintings from 1883 onward. As you scan through them chronologically from the earliest to the latest, one can easily appreciate the progression of his work, from darker depictions of Dutch life to more brightly and expressive paintings done in the South of France and near Paris.

In 1883, Vincent was 30 years old. He had been living in The Hague, but did not overcome his poverty nor a difficult relationship with his model Sien (see below). He left town to find some peace. By the time he painted Landscape with Wheelbarrow, he had been painting for just a little over a year. This scene is of the rural countryside of Drenthe, a village northeast of Amsterdam. Vincent used a limited palette of steely greens, cool blues and lavenders in this scene. He described it saying, "a vast plane vanishing into infinity."

From his earliest works, Van Gogh expressed a sensitivity for the working poor. In 1883-84, he created at least 28 oil paintings, drawings and watercolors of weavers near his family's home in the Netherlands. In Weaver, Vincent was not only interested in the weaver, but also in the somber effect of the dark wood and gray walls which contrasted with the red cloth on the loom.

Head of a Peasant Woman In 1885, it was part of Vincent's goal to paint a series of fifty "heads of people." Inspired by German Renaissance masters Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein, Vincent continued his project in Nuenen where he convinced his parents' neighbors to serve as his models. The model for Head of a Peasant Woman was Sien de Groot.

This painting was done in April of 1885. It was a study for his most celebrated painting from the earlier portion of his career. The Potato Eaters.

In this painting, Van Gogh uses the headdress to great effect, allowing the character of the woman's face to be set apart from the dark background. Van Gogh was inspired by the work by French artists Jean-François Millet and Gustave Courbet who were very interested in painting the dignity of peasants. A companion painting is in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.

In November of 1885, Van Gogh moved to Antwerp. He ate poorly, choosing to spend his money on painting materials and models. His diet was mostly bread, coffee and tobacco. In February of 1886, he confessed to his brother Theo that he only remembered having only six hot meals since May. His teeth were loose and painful.

In February and March of 1886, he was also hospitalized, possibly being treated for syphilis.

In Antwerp, he applied himself studying color theory, especially the work of Peter Paul Rubens. He broadened his palette to include carmine, cobalt blue and emerald green.

He bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts, later including elements of their style into the backgrounds in some of his paintings.

Even though he disliked academic teaching, Vincent did attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp with bad results. Vincent bristled when his teacher Eugene Sieberdt made considerable critiques on one of Vincent's drawing of a woman. Van Gogh flew into a rage, "You clearly do not know what a woman is like, God damn it! A woman must have hips, buttocks, a pelvis in which she can carry a baby!" Soon after this encounter, Van Gogh left for Paris.

Vincent Van Gogh arrived in Paris in March of 1886. He lived with his brother Theo in Montmartre when he painted this scene Le Moulin de la Galette. He adopted a brighter palette and became more bold in his compositions. He studied with Australian artist John Russell and met his fellow art students Emile Bernard, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

In early 1887, Van Gogh moved to Asniéres-sur-Seine, a bit north of Montmartre. There, Vincent painted parks, restaurants and bridges across the Seine. While in Asniéres, Vincent got to know Paul Signac. He adopted Pointillism, using small colored dots of color blending with different colored dots to create a perceived blend of hues for the viewer. The effect created vibrant contrasts.

Also at this time, Vincent and his brother Theo befriended another struggling artist, Paul Gauguin, who had just arrived in Paris. With these new associations, Vincent grew artistically but did not yet find success. Although he created over 200 paintings in Paris, he wasn't feeling success or satisfaction.

Self Portrait with a Straw Hat at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is an example of Van Gogh's awareness of New-Impressionist technique and color theory. During his nearly two year stay in Paris, he painted twenty self portraits. He wanted to sharpen his skill as a figure painter. To save paying a model, he repeatedly painted his own image. He wrote, "I purposely bought a good enough mirror to work from myself, for want of a model."

Self Portrait with a Straw Hat at the Detroit Institute of Arts was created in the summer of 1887, a relatively happy time in Vincent's life. In a letter to his sister, he called Paris "a hotbed of ideas." In this self portrait, he appears almost light hearted in appearance, with dark and alert eyes.

According to the Art Institute of Chicago, Van Gogh's Self Portrait in their collection shows how Van Gogh took Seurat's pointillism and used it to create an intense emotional language. The dazzling array of staccato dots and dashes brings the viewer to focus on Van Gogh's deep green eyes, gazing with intensity. Van Gogh said, "I prefer painting people's eyes to cathedrals. However solemn and imposing the latter may be -- a human soul, even if it be that of a poor streetwalker, is more interesting to me.

Edge of a Wheat Field with Poppies shows some of the artistic ideas Van Gogh was exposed to while in Paris. The bright contrast between the oranges and yellows of the wheat contrasts with the blue of the sky and the green of the new shoots.

Fishing in the Spring, the Pont de Clichy shows what Vincent learned from Paul Signac and Georges Seurat. Here, he applies individual strokes of pure color. When combined with strokes of contrasting color, the effect of light reflecting from various surfaces creates a luminous and vibrant scene.

Although Vincent grew artistically during 1887 while in Paris, he did not manage to sell paintings. As Fall turned to winter, his mood for Paris waned. By February, suffering from too much drinking and accompanied with "smoker's cough," Vincent left Paris for the warmth of the South of France. He moved to the town of Arles, with a dream of creating an art colony.

Vincent loved the people of Arles, and described the place and its people as if it were a foreign country. He wrote in a letter, "The Zouaves" (soldiers of a brightly costumed light infantry regiment of the French Army which Van Gogh painted), the brothels, the adorable little Arlésienne going to her First Communion, the priest in his surplice who looks like a dangerous rhinoceros, the people drinking absinthe, all seem to me creatures from another world."

Arles proved to be a productive period. While in Arles, Vincent completed over 200 paintings and more than 100 drawings and watercolors. He loved the countryside and the light. He sent seven canvases in exchange with members of the artist colony in Pont-Aven on the Brittany Coast including artists Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard and Charles Laval. He sent three paintings to be shown at the Societe des Artistes Independents (the Impressionist Exhibition of 1888). Among his 1888 paintings were Van Gogh's Chair, Bedroom in Arles, The Night Cafe, Starry Night Over the Rhone, and Still Life Vase with the Twelve Sunflowers.

Portrait of the Artist's Mother 1888 Vincent's sister Wilhelmina, who was living in the Netherlands, sent Vincent a black and white photo of their mother. Vincent did not like this portrait of his mother. He had hoped to enliven her image from the black and white photo with color. He felt his efforts left her with a pale and sickly tone. He wrote, "I don't like Mother's picture enormously." However, when I saw it at the Norton Simon in Pasadena, I felt a warmth from his mother's warm, accepting and supportive gaze.

Postman Joseph Roulin 1888. Vincent became a good friend of his local postman. Over 1888, he painted six portraits of Joseph Roulin and several portraits of his wife and their children.

Entrance to the Public Gardens in Arles 1888 is a scene possibly directly across from Vincent's newly rented Yellow House. Most of the paintings Van Gogh did in the fall of 1888 were scenes of this garden. He was inspired by the bright colors and exotic foliage. He wrote to Theo, "Everywhere and all over the vault of heaven is a marvellous blue, and a sun sheds a radiance of pure sulphur, and it is soft and as lovely as the combination of heavenly blues and yellow in Van Der Meer of Delft (Johannes Vermeer). It absorbs me so much that I let myself go, never thinking of a single rule."

Wheat Field 1888 is one of ten paintings from his Harvest Series done late in 1888. Compositionally, this is Van Gogh anticipating 20th century modernism. The horizontal bands of the sheared stubble in the foreground, the yet to be cut wheat, yellow and green fields in the distance and the sky draws attention to the vertical stalks of harvested wheat, with their ripe harvestable wheat heads, bold and yellow, on top.

Towards the end of 1888, Van Gogh's dream of establishing an art colony in Arles was coming into focus. He had been joined in Arles by Paul Gauguin. But his dream and its reality did not mesh. Vincent's relationship with Paul Gauguin did not go well.

In Lullaby, Madame Augustine Roulin, Madame Roulin sits in a rocking chair holding a rope. The other end of the rope is attached to a cradle, so as she rocked, the baby rocked. Vincent's title for this painting was La Berceuse (the Lullaby) and he described it as a lullaby in colors.

Van Gogh's Self Portrait 1889. In July of 1889, Van Gogh suffered a severe mental breakdown which could have been a symptom of epilepsy. The experience was unnerving. Van Gogh withdrew, remaining in his studio, refusing to even go into his garden. This self portrait was his first work after recovering from that episode.

On the evening of December 23, 1888, Vincent and Paul had an altercation. The details have long been speculated on and debated, but afterward, Vincent returned to his room in the yellow house. He is said to have heard voices and, either wholly or in part, severed his left ear with a razor. He bandaged his own wound as best he could, wrapped the ear in paper and delivered the package to a woman at a brothel where Paul Gauguin was staying.

The next morning, Vincent was found unconscious by a policeman and taken to a hospital. The ear was brought to the hospital, but too much time had passed to attempt to reattach it. Van Gogh had no recollection of the previous evening's events and seemed to be suffering an acute mental breakdown. Gauguin contacted Theo who boarded a train in Paris and arrived in Arles on Christmas Day. Theo stayed briefly, returning to Paris that same evening. Gauguin left soon afterward for Paris, never to see Vincent again. They did correspond, and in 1890, Gauguin suggested they try to form a joint studio in Antwerp.

On January 7, 1889, Vincent was released from the hospital where they treated his ear wound. The rest of the month, he stayed at the yellow house with frequent back and forth trips to the hospital. He was suffering hallucinations and delusions of poisoning. In March, the police closed his house after a petition signed by 30 neighboring townspeople described him as "le fou roux" (the redheaded madman.)

In May, Vincent entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, about 16 miles northeast of Arles. At the time Vincent admitted his grip on reality was fragile. He wrote, "Sometimes moods of indescribable anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time and fatality of circumstances seemed to be torn apart for an instant."

Vincent remained a full year at Saint Rémy's until May of 1890. He was given two cells, one for his bed and the other for his studio. Both rooms had barred windows. He created many paintings of the hospital and its gardens. Some of his paintings from this period are characterized by swirls, such as The Starry Night. On his better days, Vincent was allowed supervised walks where he painted cypresses, olive trees and cornfields. Since he had limited access outside the hospital, he created interpretations based on other artist's work, such as paintings by Jean-François Millet, Jules Breton and Gustave Courbet.

The Diggers 1889 was done while Vincent was a patient at Saint-Rémy's. In this scene, two diggers are doing battle with a tree stump. Van Gogh was influenced by his admiration of Jean François Millet's dignified depiction of peasant laborers.

The Poplars at Saint Rémy 1889 was done in the Autumn, after Vincent had made enough progress in his treatment for his doctor to allow him to paint outdoors rather than from within his cell. The liveliness of this painting is spectacular, as if all the natural elements are vividly and dynamically in motion. Intense colors applied with thick brushstrokes suggest Van Gogh's deeply emotional response to this windswept landscape.

Enclosed Field with Ploughman was a view Van Gogh could see from his cell window in Saint Rémy. Vincent added the windmill in the distance. The interspersed horizontal bands of dark and light color gives this painting a vibrating rhythm to the painting's harmonic theme of the ploughman toiling in the field.

The Getty Museum's website for Irises 1889 says, "In May 1889, after episodes of self-mutilation and hospitalization, Vincent van Gogh chose to enter an asylum in Saint-Rémy, France. There, in the last year before his death, he created almost 130 paintings. Within the first week, he began Irises, working from nature in the asylum's garden. The cropped composition, divided into broad areas of vivid color with monumental irises overflowing its borders, was probably influenced by the decorative patterning of Japanese woodblock prints."

There are no known drawings for this painting; Van Gogh himself considered it a study. His brother Theo quickly recognized its quality and submitted it to the Salon des Independants in September 1889, writing Vincent of the exhibition: "[It] strikes the eye from afar. It is a beautiful study full of air and life."

Each one of Van Gogh's irises is unique. He carefully studied their movements and shapes to create a variety of curved silhouettes bounded by wavy, twisting, and curling lines. The painting's first owner, French art critic Octave Mirbeau, one of Van Gogh's earliest supporters, wrote: "How well he has understood the exquisite nature of flowers!"

Olive Trees 1889. Vincent Van Gogh created at least 15 paintings of olive trees, most of them while he was a patient at Saint Rémy's. For Van Gogh, olive trees were an important part of the cycle of life. For him, it was closely tied to to the Biblical accounts of Jesus in Garden of Gethsemane. Also, these olive trees show the relationship of man and nature.

Ravine was painted near Saint Rémy's in the Autumn of 1889. In the Spring of 1890, Van Gogh sent this painting to Paris where Paul Gauguin saw it. He wrote Van Gogh saying, "In subjects from nature you are the only one who thinks. I talked about it with your brother." Recent research revealed there is another painting beneath the surface of Ravine, an earlier painting of a hillside in bloom. It appears Van Gogh was short of materials and he sacrificed an earlier painting, reusing the canvas for this painting.

While at Saint Rémy's, Vincent's painting evolved away from the hallucinatory color of his Arles period. He began to use more vigorous brushwork, with liberally applied paint. Here, the mulberry tree seems aflame and the paint is piled high making the it more of a bas-relief sculpture. Van Gogh was really pleased with this painting, considering it one of his best trees.

Wheat Field with Cypresses 1889 was painted plein air in late June or early July of 1889, a period when he was allowed to venture out from Saint Rémy's for painting excursions. He was fascinated with painting cypress trees. Their vertical dimension added an exciting element to his otherwise horizontal compositions. He painted these cypress trees with rich impasto. He regarded this painting as one of his best summer landscapes. In September he painted two new renditions of this painting, one the same original size (now in the National Gallery, London) and a smaller one intended as a gift for his mother and sister.

The Starry Night 1889 was painted from the window in Vincent's room at Saint Rémy's. The Museum of Modern Art's webpage says this painting "is both an exercise in observation and a clear departure from it." Although it is a night scene, Vincent used several sessions during the day working on it. Although certain aspects of the sky were rendered as observed, he altered celestial shapes and added glow. He is expressing this night scene with a deep emotional language.

Although Vincent Van Gogh was never able to see photos taken by the Hubble or James Webb telescopes and even though he never heard Carl Sagan talk about "the pale blue dot," I feel he would be most at home with all we have learned since his time. Looking up and out, he's filled with wonder, and the rhythm and vibrancy of this painting speaks to his response to the immensity and beauty of what he saw.

1890 career successes
Although Vincent still resided as a patient at Saint Rémy's, his artistic career was beginning to take off.

In January 1890, Albert Aurier praised his work in the Mercure de France, a publication meant to inform French citizens about "the elegant life."

In February, he was invited by Les XX, a society of avant-garde painters in Brussels, to participate in their annual exhibition.

In March and April, the Société des Artistes Indépendants included ten of Vincent's paintings (including Ravine and Mulberry Tree pictured above) at their sixth annual exhibition at the Pavillon de la Ville de Paris on the Champs-Elysées. As the exhibition was going on, Claude Monet, who had never met Van Gogh, said "Van Gogh's work is the best in the show."

The Drinkers 1890 While still a patient at Saint Rémys, Vincent made copies of other artists' work whom he admired. In this painting, Vincent copied a wood engraving by Honoré Daumier 1808-1879, a French painter, sculptor and printmaker who created works of social and political commentary. He earned his living creating caricatures for newspaper and periodical cartoons.

In The Drinkers, Daumier creates a parody of the four ages of man, a sad and realistic image conveying the horrors of alcoholism. Vincent's addition of a greenish palette to this scene may be an allusion to absinthe.

Vincent at Saint Rémy's and his release
In summary,Vincent had spent a year in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, from May 1889 to May 1890. In May of 1889, he committed himself after severing his left ear. He was diagnosed with a form of epilepsy. After a year of work, of ups and downs, a year of creative and therapeutic painting, in May of 1890, he asked to be released.

Vincent's move to Auvers-su-Oise
Encouraged by his recent good reviews, he decided to move back to Paris to pursue his artistic career. On May 20th, 1890, Vincent moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a medieval town about 15 miles northwest of Paris. The town was a narrow band of hamlets following the banks of the river with thatched roofed farmhouses and farm structures. He moved into the Ravoux Inn, room #5.

Vincent's brother Theo and artist friend Camille Pissarro suggested Vincent see a local doctor in Auvers. Dr Paul-Ferdinand Gachet was also an amateur painter and a supporter of the Impressionist movement. Vincent found Dr. Gachet to be both helpful and supportive. He resembled Vincent in both looks and personality. Vincent painted Dr. Gachet's portrait, portraits of this wife and children and even Dr. Gachet's garden.

A flurry of work while in Auvers

36 paintings can certainly be dated to Vincent's Auvers period and there probably were more. Some say the total number is closer to 75. Conservatively speaking, over his two months of painting in Auvers, he did a painting every day or two.

Stairway at Auvers 1890 This painting was done soon after Vincent arrived in Auvers. The broken strokes and colors of the blossoms of late spring provide an exciting frame for the stairway, what would otherwise be an ordinary subject. The motion of the young women walking towards the stairway leads our eyes to the stairway colored in yellows and greens. The lines of the stairway are curved and expressive.

Wheatfield after the Rain 1890. This painting appears to be a calming depiction of a wheatfield after a storm. But in Vincent's case, it may well be the calm before the storm. A few days after creating this canvas, he ended his own life. For Vincent, a wheatfield represented the cycle of life. Swaying stalks symbolized the fragility and vulnerability of life. The rain while nurturing also added a sense of unease. His use of greens, yellows and blues blend to convey a sense of raw energy.

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