I'm famous the world over.

But do you know my story?

Brabant.

Painted just as I remember it.

That's where I grew up.

I was different from the others.

Stubborn.

Always in trouble at home and at school.

Things were better outdoors.

I loved being out in the fields.

Do you know what you want to be yet?

Well, I certainly didn't.

I was an art dealer in Paris and London.

A teacher in England.

A priest in Belgium.

I tried the lot.

Nothing worked out.

My brother Theo, my best friend, had an idea.

Vincent, you're good at drawing.

Why don't you do something with that?

Well, he was right.

I was always drawing and I could learn how to paint.

There was no time to lose.

Practice, practice, practice.

I was unstoppable.

Anton Mauve, my cousin and a famous artist, taught me how to paint in oils.

I got my first commission.

Drawing cityscapes of The Hague, the train station.

What a building.

All that glass.

I wanted to show real life.

Nature.

The lives of farmers.

What I saw as I felt it.

That's what I wanted to paint.

Something good.

Something with soul in it.

And look.

There they are.

Their weather-beaten faces in the shadows, sitting in the light of a small lamp, poking their calloused hands into the dish of potatoes they themselves have sown and harvested.

Others didn't think much of it.

That woman's nose looks like dice at the end of a pipe stem.

Even Theo thought it was too dark.

But I had I was an artist.

Theo, I owe you so much.

When I came to Paris, I lived with you.

When I wanted to paint, you paid for my paints and brushes.

And me?

I was insufferable, living only for my art.

Late-night discussions with innovative artists like Lautrec, Bernard, Gauguin, about contrasts, colours, loose brushstrokes.

But the work wasn't selling.

I rarely had money for models, so I'd often end up looking in the mirror.

After two years I was fed up with the city.

I headed south, to the light, the colours.

That's where I painted the colours of the wheat, of the night, and the sea, which had many more colours than just blue.

Green, purple, blue, pink.

The sea changes colour like a mackerel's skin.

I looked around me and found beauty in almost everything, even in these withering sunflowers.

I had big plans for this yellow house.

It's where I wanted to work with others, to create a new kind of art.

But only my artist friend Gauguin came south.

We had the most fierce discussions about art.

What should you paint?

What do you see with your eyes, or what do you see in your mind?

One evening, things started to go wrong.

I just wasn't myself anymore.

I cut off my left ear.

I was sick.

I had myself admitted to hospital.

But I didn't stop.

I worked on, like some kind of painting locomotive.

And slowly I got my life back on track.

In the countryside, just north of Paris, with Theo close by, I worked incessantly.

My head was on fire.

My paintbrush swept back and forth, until… Now you know my story.

The story of a misunderstood, stubborn man who wouldn't give up.

A story about needing to do what it is that you're good at.

So tell me, what are you good at?