Vincent van Gogh was born in Holland in 1853.  When van Gogh was growing up, he didn't draw very much.  Instead, he loved studying foreign languages.  He learned to speak French, English, and German!
    As he got older, he had many different jobs.  He got a job selling art, but he wasn't very good at it.  Then he tried to be a school teacher, pastor, and missionary, but they weren't the right jobs for him either.   Finally, when he was 27, van Gogh began to draw.  He loved it!  For the rest of his life, his only interest was art.
    When he first started painting, van Gogh mostly painted still-lifes and scenes of peasants at work.  His favorite colors for painting were dark brown and olive, and he painted using very heavy brushstrokes. 
    In 1886, he moved to Paris to visit his brother, Theo.   When he got there, he fell in love with Impressionism, a type of art that uses lighter brushstrokes and clear, bright colors.
    Van Gogh loved to paint.  In a period of ten years, he painted more than 750 paintings!  But unfortunately, nobody wanted to buy them.   In his entire life, van Gogh only sold one painting!  Today, the paintings of Vincent van Gogh are some of the most popular in the world, and many have been sold for millions of dollars!

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Fourteen Sunflowers in a Vase	The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night
Road with Cypress	The Starry Night
Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries	Starry Night Over the Rhone
Wheatfield with Cypress	Irises

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Van Gogh Student Art Gallery!

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