A sample of the photographs in the presentation

In the Footsteps of Vincent van Gogh

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Vincent van Gogh grew up in the town of Zundert in the south of Holland in an area historically know as the Brabant. As a child, Vincent loved nature and would spend hours hanging out at this canal, a short five-minute walk from his home.

The afternoon I spent walking in young Vincent's footsteps along this canal and the surrounding farmland was an emotional highlight in my travels.

Vincent's father, Theodorus van Gogh was a Protestant minister. He held services in this church every Sunday. The church still holds regular services to this day.

In the churchyard is a cemetery and the one grave stone with flowers has the name Vincent van Gogh and the date 1852.

Yet, the artist, Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 and died in 1890.

So whom is the Vincent van Gogh buried under this stone?

Vincent painted the Le Moulin de la Galette in Paris in 1886.

Today the windmill survives atop a beautiful restaurant.

Vincent van Gogh painted this old church outside of his home town of Nuenen in the south of Holland. My photograph of the same town captures a different tower but the same powerful clouds.

Wheatfield With Crows was not Vincent's last painting but it is one of his most compelling.

In these wheatfields, behind the picturesque town of Auvers-sur-Oise, less than 50 kilometers north of Paris, Vincent van Gogh shot himself and died three days later. He was 37-years old.

The farm village looks much the way it did 130 years ago. Walking in the footsteps of the mortally wounded artist I contemplated the challenges that face a professional artist, living on the "razor's edge" of reality — between mastery and madness.

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