Van Gogh Question?

Question

While van Gogh sold fewer than half a dozen paintings in his lifetime, he is now considered an extremely popular “cultural hero.” Why? What does that say about our own time and his?

Answer 1

Van Gogh heavily influenced many artistic movements past Post-Impressionism, which he was eventually recognized as a leader of.

In other words, it's a mixture on the extent of his influence based on the fact that his style was one of the most original and innovative of its time, and that some of his more famous paintings were just plain pretty and received a lot of common renown due to a number of things, but mostly the former.

Answer 2

Have you ever heard the expression:

"An artist is never understood in his own time"?

Also, he was very little known to the art world, but soon after he died, he became very popular.

Now his paintings are worth millions of dollars.

I believe this is known as a cruel irony...

Answer 3

He was French.