1853 -1890 · Netherlands, Paris and Provence in color

Burning sunflowers, swirling nights and maskless faces make Vincent van Gogh one of the most immediate voices in modern painting.

Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in Groot-Zundert, in the Netherlands, and died in 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise. Before becoming an artist at twenty-seven, he worked in the art trade, taught and sought a religious vocation with the miners of Borinage. Drawing then became a way of understanding the lives of workers and the dignity of daily gestures. In Nuenen, The Potato Eaters summed up this first dark and earthly period. In 1886, Les Mangeurs de Potatoes summarized this first dark and earthly period. In 1886, Van Gogh joined his brother Theo in Paris. In 1886, Van Gogh joined his brother Theo in Paris. He discovered impressionism, Japanese prints and complementary colors; His touch lightened and his self-portraits became an uncompromising laboratory. Installed in Arles in 1888, he dreams of a community of artists and transforms Provence into an intensely colorful world. The Sunflowers, The Room, Café Terrace in the evening and Starry Night on the Rhône do not copy light: they organize its energy through yellows, blues, contours and the rhythm of the keys. After the crisis which put an end to the Yellow House and the collaboration with Gauguin, Van Gogh voluntarily entered the Saint-Rémy asylum. There he painted Iris, cypresses, olive trees and Starry Night, where sky, earth and architecture seem to be crossed by the same force. In Auvers, under the supervision of Doctor Gachet, he worked with exceptional speed until his death. In ten years, he creates nearly nine hundred paintings and an immense set of drawings. His approximately eight hundred and twenty letters, especially addressed to Theo, shed light on a demanding thought of color, craftsmanship and consolation through art. The "Vincent van Gogh" selection notably compares Starry Night and Sunflowers. His reading favors the story.

Van Gogh paints to make the world more intensely visible: color, touch and drawing together carry a constructed emotion.