Celebrating the Great Vincent van Gogh

Born on March 30, 1853 in the Netherlands, van Gogh is among the most influential figures in Western, or even worldwide, art history. He he did not begin painting seriously until his late 20s, after first working as an art dealer, teacher, and missionary.

Throughout his career, van Gogh created more than 2,000 works of art, including some 860 oil paintings, many of them in the last two years of his life, before his death in 1890. His style is defined by bold colors, strong brushstrokes and mark making, and emotional intensity.

This week’s cover painting, “Landscape with Wheat Sheaves and Rising Moon” (1889), is an 28.34 x 36-inch oil on canvas that lives in the Rijksmuseum Kroeller-Mueller in Otterlo, the Netherlands. It comes to us courtesy of Theodore Feder HIP Art Resource, NY, the world’s largest fine art stock photo archive, with more than 1,000,000 searchable fine art images from the world’s leading sources, available for licensing to all media.

According to the Rijksmuseum Kroeller-Mueller, the moon in “Landscape with Wheat Sheaves and Rising Moon” is rising over the Alpilles mountain range in France, lighting the wheat in the foreground. The museum notes that van Gogh spent “a long time” working on the canvas, and at the end, he added a series of small, light purple brushstrokes to enhance the nocturnal light effect. Throughout the years, the paint has faded and has made the scene appear less nocturnal than the artist originally intended.

Sadly, van Gogh struggled with mental health issues and poverty. He never reached the fame he deserved in his lifetime and sold very few paintings. Instead, he relied heavily on financial and emotional support from his brother, Theo, and in 1888, during a very difficult mental health crisis in Arles, France, he infamously cut off part of his own ear.

Van Gogh died at age 37 on July 29, 1890, from a gunshot wound that many believe had been self-inflicted. His work gained widespread recognition after his death, and he is now considered among the greatest and most influential painters of all time.

His art continues to inspire, including our North Fork cover artist this week, Diane Alec Smith, who coincidentally shared her love of van Gogh and his influence on her work, noting, “Combined with my admiration for the way Van Gogh uses yellow, particularly in paintings featuring sunflowers or the blazing sun over wheat fields, I was inspired to create “A Yellow Sea” (see our North Fork cover story inside this issue of Dan’s).

This is the first of a series of Dan’s Papers covers honoring works by some of the greatest masters in the history of art.