Vincent Van Gogh was born in Southern Holland on March 30, 1853, the oldest son of a Dutch minister. In his youth he decided himself to become a lay preacher and eventually went to work as a missionary where he lived with the poor people, giving away all his possessions. However, he was soon dismissed for being overzealous. He remained in Belgium to study art, feeling he could better serve God as an artist. His first masterpiece, The Potato Eaters, was painted in 1885.

In 1886 he joined his brother Theo, a museum curator, in Paris. There he met and studied with the city's modern Impressionist painters, including Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Gauguin. As he saw how the Impressionists used paint to depict light, he began to lighten his very somber palette and to paint with short brushstrokes. Due to ill health and depression, he decided to go to the south of France to find a more congenial atmosphere for painting.

Here Vincent continued to paint and with the help of his brother Theo, tried to sell his work. however, his depression aggravated and on July 27, 1890 , at the age of 37, after a fit of painting activity, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest. He died two days later with Theo at his side,who reported his last words as, "This sadness will last forever". He only sold one painting in his lifetime but grew to become of the most influential and well known artists of the 19th century.