Post-Impressionism Van Gogh

Post-Impressionism: Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is the defining figure of Post-Impressionism: the movement that took Impressionism's liberation of colour and brushwork and pushed it toward personal, psychological, and expressive intensity. In a painting career spanning only a decade -- and intensely productive only from 1888-1890 -- van Gogh produced more than 2,100 artworks that became the most recognisable in Western art history.

Style Development

Van Gogh moved from the dark, earthy palette of his Dutch period (The Potato Eaters, 1885, Van Gogh Museum) through a revolutionary encounter with French Impressionism in Paris (1886-88), where Seurat's Pointillism and Japanese woodblock prints permanently altered his sense of colour. His mature style emerged in Arles, southern France, in 1888: The Night Café (1888, Yale University Art Gallery), The Yellow House (1888, Van Gogh Museum), and the first Sunflowers series (1888, National Gallery London; 1889, Van Gogh Museum).

At the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy (1889-90), van Gogh produced his most celebrated works: The Starry Night (June 1889, MoMA) -- the swirling night sky over Saint-Rémy with its turbulent cypresses -- and a further Sunflowers variant. At Auvers-sur-Oise in the final 70 days before his death, he painted Wheatfield with Crows (July 1890, Van Gogh Museum) -- three forking paths and a threatening sky, long read as a premonition.

Technique

Van Gogh's mark-making is the most imitated and recognisable in painting history. Brushstrokes are thick, directional, and autonomous -- each stroke records a physical gesture. He applied paint straight from the tube in some areas, building impasto ridges up to a centimetre high. Colour oppositions are deliberate: complementary pairs (yellow/violet, orange/blue, red/green) are juxtaposed to generate maximum vibrational intensity.