Van Gogh was born on the 30th march 1853 and was a post impressionist painter, his self portraits mainly conveying strong senses of emotion, not only through the expressions used, but also the colours and brush strokes. Due to Van Gogh battling severe depression and anxiety most of the portraits convey moods of sadness, which is shown very effectively through the way he manipulates the paint through his brush. He uses many short brush strokes to create texture and tonal values throughout the face, as opposed to using long strokes. This style of painting can be seen in almost all of his self portraits and although it may not be accurate to real life, this unique style of many brush strokes allows Van Gogh to recreate the emotions felt in real life in his paintings. The consistency of paint stays constant throughout the paintings as does the brush strokes, the way in which he creates such an effective piece of art work using only little brush strokes is extraordinary. The composition itself is fairly basic being a portrait, but being at eye level helps portray the depression and sadness as his dull, somewhat hopeless eyes glare out of the painting. The distribution of shade is interesting and also adds to the emotive features of his work, because in a lot of his portraits areas of his face are shaded, possibly conveying that he is in a dark stage of his life at the time. Van Gogh went through some very depressing times during his life, so much so that at one point after relations with this girlfriend ended, he cut off a bit of his ear and sent it to her. And after a while the stresses of life grew too much for him and he sadly ended his own life in 1890.