Vincent van Gogh early paintings 1881-1883

Largely self-taught, Van Gogh gained his footing as an artist by zealously copying prints and studying nineteenth-century drawing manuals and lesson books, such as Charles Bargue's Exercises au fusain and cours de dessin. He felt that it was necessary to master black and white before working with color, and first concentrated on learning the rudiments of figure drawing and rendering landscapes in correct perspective. In 1882, he moved from his parents' home in Etten to the Hague, where he received some formal instruction from his cousin, Anton Mauve, a leading Hague School artist. That same year, he executed his first independent works in watercolor and ventured into oil painting; he also enjoyed his first earnings as an artist: his uncle, the art dealer C. M. Van Gogh, commissioned two sets of drawings of Hague townscapes for which Van Gogh chose to depict such everyday sites as views of the railway station, gasworks, and nursery gardens.

Still Life with Cabbage and Clogs
November - December 1881
Still Life with Earthenware, Bottle and Clogs
November - December 1881
Still Life with Yellow Straw Hat
November - December 1881
Beach at Scheveningen in Calm Weather
August 1882
View of the Sea at Scheveningen
Scheveningen: 21 - 22 August 1882
Cluster of Old Houses with the New Church in The Hague
August 1882
Dunes
August 1882
Dunes with Figures
August 1882
Edge of a Wood
August 1882
Fisherman on the Beach
August 1882
Fisherman's Wife on the Beach
August 1882
A Girl in the Street,
August 1882
Girl in the Woods
August 1882
Girl in White in the Woods
August 1882
Man Stooping with Stick or Spade
August 1882
Two Women in the Woods
August 1882
Women Mending Nets in the Dunes
August 1882
Bulb Fields
April 1883
Cows in the Meadow
August 1883
Farmhouses in Loosduinen
near The Hague at Twilight
August 1883
Footbridge across a Ditch
August 1883
Landscape with Dunes
August 1883
Lying Cow
August 1883
Lying Cow
August 1883
Marshy Landscape
August 1883
Potato Digging.
Five Figures
August 1883
The Sower.
Study
August 1883
A Wind-Beaten Tree
August 1883
Cottages
September-November 1883
Farmhouses Among Trees
September 1883
Two Women in the Moor
October 1883
Landscape with a Church at Twilight
October 1883
Peat Boat with Two Figures
October 1883
Peasant Burning Weeds
October 1883
Farm with Stacks of Peat
November 1883