For Art and for Life: Vincent Van Gogh (Penguin Archive)

Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work has had far-reaching influence on 20th-century art and beyond. Born to upper middle-class parents, he trained to become a pastor, and did not start painting until his twenties, travelling to The Hague, London, Paris and, famously, Arles. Most of his best-known works were completed during the last two years of his life. Van Gogh suffered from poor mental health and spent over a year in an asylum. On 27 July 1890, he shot himself at the scene of his last painting, the foreboding Cornfields with Flight of Birds. He died two days later.