van gogh watercolor paintings

Ever wonder if the same fella who famously lost his ear also messed around with watercolours? ‘Cause let’s be real—when we hear van gogh watercolor paintings, our brains usually flash to those swirling night skies and sunflowers slathered in thick, gloopy oil paint—not soft washes or ghostly gradients. But hey, surprise, eh? Vincent absolutely gave watercolours a go, even if he never became their poster boy. His little fling with van gogh watercolor paintings mostly happened early on, between 1881 and 1883, back when he was still figuring out who he even was as an artist and couldn’t afford fancy oil tubes. Watercolour? Cheap, quick, and easy to toss in a satchel—perfect for a restless soul like him, sketching farmers, looms, and potato patches under those moody Dutch clouds. So yeah, van gogh watercolor paintings are 100% real—they just ain’t the kind you’ll spot next to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.

While his oil paintings howled like a winter wind off Lake Ontario, van gogh watercolor paintings murmured like someone whispering secrets over a campfire. There’s this unpolished, almost humble honesty to them—less fireworks, more journal entries. Back in The Hague and Drenthe, Vincent used watercolour not for show, but to record the grit of everyday folks: calloused hands, worn faces, boots caked in mud like they’d just stomped through a thawing Manitoba field. Even in this quieter medium, though, his energy crackled. The way he layered browns and greys in “Peasant Woman Digging” (1885)? Feels like a sigh you can paint. These van gogh watercolor paintings weren’t warm-up sketches—they were quiet acts of defiance against pretty-but-empty art. And sure, they get overshadowed now, but this is where his heart first learned how to bleed onto paper—raw, real, and unfiltered.

Alright, let’s cut to the chase—how many van gogh watercolor paintings are actually out there? The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam says about **100 confirmed pieces**, maybe a few more if you count the disputed ones. Sounds like a stack, right? But compared to his 900+ oils and over 1,100 drawings? It’s barely a snowflake in a Toronto blizzard. Nearly all were done before 1886—before Paris lit his brain on fire with colour theory and ukiyo-e prints. After that? He basically ghosted watercolours. So while van gogh watercolor paintings do exist, they’re like finding that one rare hockey card your grandpa tucked in a biscuit tin—cherished by true fans, ignored by the hype train. But if you stumble on one? You’re staring at soul, sweat, and pencil smudges that never got cleaned up—just like a good old Canadian toque after a long winter walk.

“Are van gogh watercolor paintings any good?”—a question you’ll hear in art school cafés from Halifax to Vancouver, or scrolling through Reddit at 2 a.m. Truth? They’re all over the map. Some feel stiff, like he’s wearing someone else’s shoes—trying to follow rules that just didn’t sit right with him. Others? Straight-up magic. Take “The Water Mill at Kollen” (1884): the sky’s this soft bruise of blue-grey, and the trees? Like they’re shivering in the wind. You can almost hear the creak of the mill wheel. The beauty of van gogh watercolor paintings isn’t in perfection—it’s in the honesty. They’re not dressed up for likes or clout; they’re just Vincent, thinking out loud with a soggy brush. And honestly? In a world drowning in filtered, curated perfection, that messy truth hits like a hot double-double on a -30°C morning—pure, simple, and deeply comforting.

Let’s keep it real—when people ask, “Who’s the king of watercolour?” van gogh watercolor paintings don’t usually get the mic. That throne’s usually held by J.M.W. Turner (the Brit who painted storms like Beethoven composed symphonies) or Winslow Homer (America’s brooding bard of the sea). Even John Singer Sargent, with his posh ladies in silk, gets more watercolour street cred. Van Gogh? He’s the underdog—the indie folk singer who only got famous after switching to electric guitar. But here’s the thing: his van gogh watercolor paintings matter *because* he wasn’t playing by the rules. He didn’t use watercolour for genteel landscapes or tea-time scenery—he used it to dig into feeling. And that, my friend, is the kind of legacy that lasts longer than a Tim Hortons drive-thru line on a Monday morning.

What makes van gogh watercolor paintings stick with you isn’t how they look—it’s how they *feel*. Unlike oils, which you can scrape, rework, and fuss over for weeks, watercolour? Once it’s down, it’s down. No take-backs—kinda like saying “I love you” after too many pints at a backyard BBQ. That immediacy mirrors Vincent’s own mind: racing, raw, never quite settled. In “Sorrow” (1882), his watercolour study of Sien, the pigment blurs like tears on skin—fragile, human, painfully real. These van gogh watercolor paintings aren’t meant to match your couch; they’re meant to sit with you in your quietest moments. They don’t shout—they sit across the kitchen table and say, “Yeah, I get it.” And in a world that’s all highlight reel and no behind-the-scenes? That kind of quiet truth is pure gold, eh?

Even with all that heart, van gogh watercolor paintings barely get top billing. Most museums tuck them away in back rooms of retrospectives—like that one cousin who shows up late to the family reunion and sits quietly in the corner. Partly, it’s science: watercolours fade faster than a pair of jeans left in the sun on a Saskatchewan summer day. Partly, it’s showbiz: folks line up for *Starry Night*, not a sketch of a thatched cottage in drizzle. But get this—when they *do* get the spotlight, like in the 2021 “In the Picture” exhibit at the Kröller-Müller Museum, people stick around longer than expected. There’s an intimacy to van gogh watercolor paintings that oils can’t fake—they feel like handwritten letters, not press releases. Still, curators play it safe. After all, who’s gonna drop loonies on tickets to see “sad Dutch guy paints damp trees with shaky hands”?

Here’s a kicker: van gogh watercolor paintings won’t break your bank like his oils might. That “Portrait of Dr. Gachet”? Went for $82.5 million USD—roughly CAD 110 million. A top-shelf watercolour? Maybe CAD 1–5 million—if it ever hits the block, which almost never happens. Most live in museums (Van Gogh Museum, Kröller-Müller) or private collections, treated like Great-Aunt Marge’s secret pie recipe: treasured, but never shared. Provenance is everything. A legit van gogh watercolor painting with solid paperwork? That’s the collector’s version of striking gold in the Yukon. But watercolours are fragile—like trying to carry snow in your bare hands. Every sale’s a roll of the dice… kind of like betting it won’t snow on Canada Day.

Not every piece slapped with “van gogh watercolor painting” is the real McCoy. The market’s littered with wishful fakes—some cooked up by folks in Theo’s circle, others by 20th-century hustlers banking on Vincent’s name. Experts now use brushstroke mapping, paper aging tests, even X-ray fluorescence to sniff out the phonies. Remember that “Watercolour of Montmartre” that popped up in 2008? Turned out to be a slick imitation—good, but not *him*. So here’s the takeaway: with van gogh watercolor paintings, a little healthy doubt goes a long way. As one Toronto gallery regular once told us over a pint of Molson, “If it’s cheap, it ain’t Van Gogh. If it’s pricey but fishy? Probably still ain’t Van Gogh.” Wise words, eh?

By 1886, van gogh watercolor paintings disappeared from his work like last season’s winter boots. Why? Simple: colour. Paris rewired his brain. He met the Impressionists, saw Monet’s lilies, Seurat’s dots, and realized watercolour couldn’t give him the punch he craved. Oils? You could build them up like snowbanks—scrape ‘em, layer ‘em, make ‘em *thick*. He wanted paint you could feel with your eyes closed. So he left watercolours behind like an old flannel shirt that just didn’t fit anymore. But here’s the beauty: that shift shows his real mission—not chasing pretty, but chasing truth in texture. And while van gogh watercolor paintings were just one chapter, they’re the quiet opening lines of his story—tentative, tender, and true. Want more on how artists evolve? Swing by SB Contemporary Art, poke around the Styles section, or dive into our deep-dive on Famous Painting ACNH Virtual Art Treasures.

References

• https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/artworks
• https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ft=van+gogh+watercolor&offset=0&rpp=20
• https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/vincent-van-gogh-2058
• https://krollermuller.nl/en/collection/artists/van-gogh-vincent