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