Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night: Great Art Explained (2)

Stars that must have comforted Vincent as he gazed at the night sky from his cell.

Vincent van Gogh would dismiss his most famous painting as a “failure” and maybe if he lived longer,

he would have painted over it, as he did with so many of his paintings he considered "failures".

He was released from the asylum, and he moved to the village of Auvers, 20 kilometres north of Paris,

and two months later he shot himself.

It took Vincent thirty-six hours to die, which meant Theo, the brother who supported him both financially and emotionally,

was at his side when he died.

Theo himself was to die just six months after Vincent.

It is a myth than Vincent was unrecognised in his lifetime. He was already considered an important artist by his peers.

His work had been shown in an exhibition in Brussels alongside Toulouse Lautrec, Cezanne and Renoir.

"The Red Vineyard" had sold for the decent sum of 400 francs.

A major art critic had just published an article on him,

and only two months before his death,

ten of his works went on display in a major show in Paris, attended by the president of France.

Vincent Van Gogh was on the verge of success,

and may have killed himself at the very moment he was going to become what he had always wanted.