Paris092 Portrait de l'artiste, 1889 Vincent van Gogh Portrait of the artist. Van Gogh spent his early life working for a firm of art dealers and after a brief spell as a teacher, became a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as an artist until 1880. Initially he only worked with somber colors, until an encounter in Paris with Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, whose brighter colors and style of painting he developed into a uniquely recognizable style, which was fully developed during time spent at Arles.