Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch Painter, generally considered one of the greatest painters in European art history. Van Gogh was a highly prolific artist and he produced 864 full paintings and almost 1,200 drawings and prints during a 10 year period. He came late to painting after trying his hand in the art trade, teaching, and the church. During his time in Paris, Van Gogh developed a passing interest in Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism which encouraged him to lighten his palette and eschew the somber, tonal renderings of the works of his early Dutch period work. Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less than three years in a technique that grew more and more impassioned in brushstroke, in symbolic and intense color, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of form and line. Van Gogh's work hauntingly conveys through its striking color, coarse brushwork, and contoured forms the anguish of a mental illness that eventually resulted in his death.