The rapid evolution of a style characterized by canvases filled with swirling, bright colors depicting .

             people and nature is the essence of Vincent Van Gogh's extremely prolific but tragically short career. .

             .

             Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Holland, son of a Dutch Protestant pastor .

             and eldest of six children. His favorite brother Theo was four years younger. When Vincent was twelve to .

             sixteen years old, he went to a boarding school. That next year he was sent to The Hague to work for an .

             uncle who was an art dealer, but van Gogh was unsuited for a business career. Actually, his early interests .

             were in literature and religion. Very dissatisfied with the way people made money and imbued with a .

             strong sense of mission, he worked for a while as a lay preacher among proverty-stricken miners. Van .

             Gogh represented the religious society that trained him in a poor coal-mining district in Belgium. Vincent .

             took his work so seriously that he went without food and other necessities so he could give more to the .

             poor. The missionary society objected to Vincent's behavior and fired him in 1879. Heartsick, van Gogh .

             struggled to keep going socially and fin!.

             ancially, yet he 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.