Now one of the world's favourite artists, with curiosity about his life at an all time high, the story of van Gogh starts in his birthplace, the town of Zundert in the Netherlands. Today's floral processions celebrating the artist contrast starkly with the conflict within the quiet Protestant family as they tried to find gainful employment for their son. His birth on 30 March 1853 to the pastor Theodorus van Gogh and his wife Anna, was the first of six to the couple. He was named after his uncle, an art dealer, Vincent Willem van Gogh. After a lonely and awkward childhood at boarding school in Tilburg then at secondary school, Vincent was despatched to The Hague to join his namesake at Goupil & Co. In 1873 he was promoted and sent to London, home of four million people. During a daily walk from his lodgings in Brixton to Covent Garden, his eyes were opened to the realities of poverty and wretched living conditions.

Supported by an allowance from his brother Theo, Vincent settled for a year in The Hague, spending days at the beach painting the sea. However, when his father discovered Vincent's relationship with Sien, he tried to have him committed. Abandoning Sien, van Gogh was on the move again, to Drenthe, and back to the grim, melancholy landscapes that had inspired his earlier paintings. With no money forcing a move back to the family in Nuenen in 1883, he again saw beauty in the lowly weavers and labourers, painting his masterpiece, Potato Eaters, in 1885, at the age of 32. But when his peasant model became pregnant, the Catholic priest banned the locals from posing for him. Impulsive and impassioned, Vincent left Holland for good. In the rough Belgian port city of Antwerp, café girls were his models, although the seedy lifestyle took its toll on his health. Without funds, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Art where he could paint nudes, but his teachers felt he had little talent.

In Arles, Vincent was set on a downward path. Renting four rooms in the famous Yellow House to use as a studio, he begged Gauguin to join him. The strong, bright colours of the Mediterranean gave him the confidence to experiment more boldly with colours leading to the series of sunflower paintings intended as a decoration for Gauguin's room. Bribed by Theo's offer of money, Gauguin arrived, but the 63 days together were marked by growing tensions. Becoming ever more sexually impotent as a result of drink and mentally unstable, Vincent's thoughts turned to early death. He found inspiration in the night sky, producing the first of his paintings of stars, and immortalising The Night Café run by Joseph and Marie Ginoux at 30 Place Lamartine. Van Gogh's behaviour was becoming more erratic and the two artists' rivalry more intense, and after a regular visit to the town's famous bullfights, van Gogh cut off part of his left ear as a sign of defeat like the bull.