Conscious of his failure in the field of rural genre, van Gogh decided to return to the city. He planned to go to Paris in the hope that the new movements in Parisian painting, of which he had heard from his brother, might provide him with new directions for his work. To prepare himself for this encounter with Paris and its urban population and motifs van Gogh went to the Belgian port of Antwerp.
He spent three months in Antwerp where he visited the museums and carefully studied the portraiture and colourist palette of Frans Hals and Rubens. He created a series of experimental portraits in which he tried to apply what he learned from them.
From the very start, van Gogh saw his time in Antwerp as an intermezzo before he moved on to Paris, capital of the nineteenth century.
Summary of works by Vincent van Gogh |
Early paintings (1881-85) |
Etten, The Hague | Nuenen | The Potato Eaters | Antwerp |
Paris (1886-87) |
Flower and other still-lifes | Various |
Arles (1888-89) |
Orchards in Blossom | Portraits |
January-August 1888 | September 1888-April 1889 |
Asylum in Saint-Rémy (1889-90) |
Environs | Cypresses and olive groves |
Copies after other artists | Miscellaneous |
Auvers-sur-Oise (1890) |
Last paintings (May-July 1890) |
Self-portraits (1886-89) |
Self-portraits in chronological order |
Graphics |
Lithographs | Watercolours | Drawings | 1 | 2 | 3 |