Van Gogh

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was
always rejected by other people, and felt lost and forsaken.

Then, in 1880, at age 27, he became obsessed with art. The intensity
he had for religion, he now focused on art. His early drawings were crude
but strong and full of feeling: "It is a hard and a difficult struggle to
learn to draw well... I have worked like a slave ...." His first
paintings had been still lifes and scenes of peasants at work. "That
which fills my head and heart must be expressed in drawings and in
pictures...I'm in a rage of work."

In 1881, he moved to Etten. He very much liked pictures of peasant
life and labor. Jean-Francois Millet was the first to paint this as a
main theme and his works influenced van Gogh. His first paintings here
were crude but improving. Van Gogh's progress was interrupted by an
intense love for his widowed cousin Kee Vos. On her decisive rejection of
him he pursued her to Amsterdam, only to suffer more humiliation.

Anton Mauve, a leading member of ...

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It's impact went far beyond what the realist Gustave Corbet had achieved
and beyond even the quasi-religious images of Jean-Francois Millet. He
made a number of studies of peasant hands and heads before embarking on
what would be his most important work at Nuenen. The pinnacle of his work
in Holland was The Potato Eaters, a scene painted in April 1885 that shows
the working day to be over. It was the last and most ambitious painting of
his pre-Impressionist period, 1880-1885. When van Gogh painted the The
Potato Eaters, he had not yet discovered the importance of color.

Van Gogh went to Antwerp in November 1885, partly to escape local
gossip. He vainly attempted to make ...

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