Episode list

Paris and Holland, 1959: painter van Gogh's sole heir's sole heir, civil engineer Vincent Willem, wants to sell his vast collection of paintings and drawings to invest in the French super-fast train (TGV). The process stirs memories of the artist, who was fired after ten years trying to work for a major Brussels art gallery, but lacks his brother Theo's commercial feeling. Vincent decides to become a reverend, like their father, but abandons the theological seminar within a year to become a lay preacher in the Walloon Borinage coal mines, only to be fired for putting empathy over spiritual guidance. Destitute and disillusioned, he joins Theo's new Paris art firm, only to be rejected as naive. Even Theo turns away after Vincent takes in a pregnant prostitute and her offspring.

Vincent can't accept that his 'wife' persists in prostitution, leaves the city and moves back home, to paint 'real life' in the countryside. But there's no market for it and neighbor Marion, with whom he starts an affair, makes him realize his family is deeply ashamed of the artistic loser even kid brother Dorus's warm welcome soon turns into bitterness. Father dies.

Supported by Theo, Vincent unhappily takes technique-obsessed Cormon's conservative classes. His plan to exhibit in lover Agostina Segatori's pub fails after fellow students Gaugin and Lautrec bail out. Vincent must move south to enable Theo's engagement with socialite Jo Bonger. His dream of launching a realistic painting school with Gauguin, who returns after travels, proves void, as Theo paid him. Desperate Vincent, meanwhile an alcoholic, cuts off an ear.

After Vincent cut off his own ear, brother Theo, now happily married to wealthy compatriot Jo Bonger, sees to his medical and mental treatment. Afterward Theo arranges for the artist, whom he won't take into their new Paris home, to stay in a seemingly peaceful Auvergne village. It seems a happy time, spent painting in the countryside, but he can't stand public opinion when some recognition finally arrives. It ends with a fatal gunshot, which may be suicidal, accidental or a struggle with neighboring adolescent scamps who often bulled the foreign weirdo.