Named in memory of the famous Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) on the 100th anniversary of his death in Auvers sur Oise by his own hand. Deeply concerned with human suffering, van Gogh went in 1879 to the Borinage, a poor mining district in southern Belgium, to do some missionary work. It was there that he discovered his true vocation, not as a preacher but as a painter. This first great spiritual crisis in his life is testified by his early dark realistic pictures, which bear a social-critical message. In 1886 he went to Paris, where he met the “pointillists”. In his later works color acquired a special function, providing a vision that influenced the upcoming expressionistic generation in the twentieth century. During his period in the Provence his landscapes expressed more and more his inner emotions. The colors become extremely vivid, although he was always in search of rest and harmony. (M 15595) _ _.