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This vibrant painting (1889) was intended to be one of a series of still lifes to fill the “Yellow House” at Arles. Van Gogh chose sunflowers because he was expecting Paul Gauguin, and knew his friend liked them. The predominant yellows and oranges contrast with strokes of brilliant mauve and red.

The culmination of his years in Nuenen, this was Van Gogh’s first major composition (1885). He wanted to portray the peasants realistically, not glamorize them, but the painting was not the critical success he had hoped for.

This work, painted in 1887, illustrates Van Gogh’s interest in Japanese art, in particular Utagawa Hiroshige. However, Van Gogh used far brighter colours and greater contrasts.

Van Gogh gives character to a pair of worn boots in one of the first paintings after his move to Paris (1886). The dark palette harks back to his Nuenen work.

The last and most accomplished in a series of self-portraits painted in 1887, shortly before he left Paris, reveals Van Gogh’s distinctive interpretation of Pointillism. He chose himself as subject since he could seldom afford models.

A trip to the sea in 1888 produced these colourful, stylized boats. Look close and you will see grains of sand, blown on to the canvas and fixed there forever as the paint dried.

The mastery of this painting (1888) lies in the simplicity of the subject and the subtly alternating blocks of colour. Van Gogh was so happy with the result that he made two copies (see ).

While undergoing treatment in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh found solace painting people who worked the land. He painted three versions of The Reaper (1889).

Van Gogh made this picture of white almond blossom against a blue sky for his new nephew, born in January 1890 and named after him.

One of the panoramic landscapes that Van Gogh painted in 1890, during the last days of his life, this famous picture with its dead-end track and menacing, crow-filled sky, perhaps reveals his tortured state of mind.