Who was the man called Vincent Van Gogh? Vincent Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 to Theodorus Van Gogh and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. He was born in the village of Groot Zundert, In the North Brabant region of the Netherlands. His father was a Protestant preacher. He had three sisters and two brothers. He spent the first thirteen years living in Groot Zundert. At age 16 he moved to Hague to go to work for his uncle as a clerk for the art dealers Goupil and Co. He stayed with the firm for six years. In May of 1873 he arrived in England, He had been promoted to the London branch. He fell in love with his landlady's daughter, who was engaged to another man. Upon her rejection he went to work in Paris. Because of his irritability, He was dismissed from the firm in 1876. He returned to England later that year. He began teaching at Ramsgate then at Isleworth. He also assisted Rev. Slade-Jones with his church services at Turnham Green. He returned to Holland in 1877 and went to work in a bookstore in Doredrecht. He entered a religious seminary in Brussels, which lasted three months. In 1878, he moved to the Borinage, a coal-mining area and began to work as a lay preacher. He was constantly trying to give to others. He even gave away his clothes. His eccentricities alienated the miners and he was dismissed in 1879. This was a rough time for Van Gogh as he was always being rejected. In 1880, he devoted his life to art. He attended an art school in Brussels, where he studied the rudiments of perspective and anatomy. In 1881 he stayed with his parents who were living in Etten. It was in Ettan he did his first drawing titled The Sower. He fell in love with his widowed cousin, who rejected him. He followed her to Amsterdam. He suffered more humiliation, and moved back to The Hague. It was there he began taking art lessons from Anton Mauve, a cousin of his mother's. He left his father's home and with the support of his brother Theo settled in.
