Who were Van Gogh's contemporaries?
Van Gogh lived just from 1853 to 1890. A whole world fits into that short span: painters, writers, thinkers and inventors at work in the very same years.
The highlighted column is Van Gogh's life. Each bar is someone whose own life overlapped it.
Meanwhile, in the same years.
The age of light
Edison switched on the first practical electric bulb in 1879, just before Van Gogh found his calling as a painter. The modern world was lighting up as he picked up the brush.
Fame just out of reach
Van Gogh sold almost nothing in his lifetime. By the late 1880s, his contemporary Monet was finally celebrated and selling well.
A tower of iron
The decade Van Gogh died in gave the world the Eiffel Tower (1889), rising over Paris while he painted in the south of France.
Minds on the edge
In 1888, Van Gogh painted in a feverish blaze in Arles while Nietzsche wrote his final books. Within weeks of each other, both men broke.
This is one slice. Parallel shows the rest.
Parallel puts artists, composers, writers, thinkers, rulers and events on one screen, so you can see at a glance who lived at the same time, for anyone you are curious about.