Vincent van Gogh
A painter from the Netherlands. In a career of about ten years he painted landscapes and still lifes with swirling brushwork and intense color. He learned deeply from ukiyo-e, and in Japan his "Sunflowers" can be seen at the Sompo Museum of Art, among other works.
Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in Zundert in the southern Netherlands, into a pastor's family. After working as an art dealer's clerk and as a lay preacher, he decided around the age of 27 to become a painter. His early work showed peasant life in dark tones, and in 1886 he went to Paris, where he encountered the bright colors of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists. He depended for his livelihood and work on the support of his brother Theo.
In 1888 he moved to Arles in the south of France, where he painted the Sunflowers series and "Cafe Terrace at Night." After his shared life with Gauguin collapsed, he entered the asylum at Saint-Remy and took the flowers of its garden as subjects as well. "Roses" (1889) at the National Museum of Western Art dates from this time. In 1890 he moved to Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, and died there that summer, the same year he painted "Daubigny's Garden" (Hiroshima Museum of Art) and "Thistles" (Pola Museum of Art).
Van Gogh collected several hundred ukiyo-e prints in Paris and copied works from Utagawa Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, such as "Plum Garden at Kameido," in oils. In his letters he spoke of the bright south of France as being like Japan. His clear outlines and flat areas of color show what he learned from ukiyo-e. "Sunflowers" (1888) at the Sompo Museum of Art was bought in 1987 by Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance (now Sompo Japan).
