Van Gogh and nature

by Richard Kendall

"The celebrated painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) had a lifelong fascination with the natural world. He spent his youth in rural Holland, and the country's flat landscapes, trees, flowers, and birds would feature in his early art. After he moved to Paris, he encountered new radical thinking about art and humans' changing relationship with nature. Later, in Provence and Auvers, he discovered unfamiliar terrain, flora, and fauna that further influenced his artistic ideas and subject matter. Van Gogh's images of such diverse environments reflect not only his immediate surroundings but also...