Vincent van Gogh practiced a variety of occupations, including that of an art dealer and pastor, before deciding to become a painter at the age of 27. During his artistic career, which lasted 10 years - from 1880 to 1890 - he created about 900 paintings and above than 1100 drawings, watercolors and sketches. With sarcasm and irony, in 1890, he defined his own art as a painter with words that it is "of very secondary significance." During his short art-career Van Gogh had sold only one painting. His most excellent paintings were created in no more than 3 years in a method that graduated more and more emotional in brushstroke, in symbolic and powerful colors, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of structure and contour. His unique synthesis of form and substance is potent; spectacular, lyrically spontaneous, creative, and expressive. His masterpieces have a variety of uniqueness that have been imitated by many artists but achieved by no one of them.