A selection from 'Making van Gogh: A German Love Story'

A series of sailboats on the shore, with more of them sailing in the distance, create perfect diagonal lines in Van Gogh's painting from 1888. Now regarded as one of the most famous artists ever, the Dutch artist didn't experience success during his lifetime. His work was revealed to the world after he died.

Vincent van Gogh painted many pictures with a strong sun blazing in the background, such as here. That was innovative at the time, because until then painters would only depict sunlight indirectly. Van Gogh saw the sun as a symbol of life and hope. That inspired German Expressionist painters such as Erich Heckel, Max Pechstein and Otto Dix.

In this early work by German artist Otto Dix (1891-1969), the sun rises over a snow-covered field. The 1913 painting, included in the exhibition "Making Van Gogh: A German Love Story" in Frankfurt's Städel Museum, shows how Van Gogh influenced German artists as the "painter of the sun."

Lacking the money to pay for models, the artist often portrayed himself, here with short strokes and dabs of paint. These self-portraits contributed to Van Gogh's image as a misunderstood, suffering artist — the tragic hero who sacrificed himself for his art. This legend also inspired many other artists.

In 1913, Peter August Böckstiegel (1889-1951) painted this portrait of himself with his head enigmatically outstretched, his eyes looking down at something outside of the picture. The German Expressionist painter appears to have been inspired by his role model, Vincent van Gogh. He also paid tribute to the myth of the suffering artist.

Farmers' hard work and simple countryside life fascinated Van Gogh and inspired many of his paintings, including this portrait of Augustine Roulin, the wife of his postman in the region of Arles, in the south of France. Van Gogh wanted to set up an artists' colony there, but his project failed to get off the ground.

Van Gogh's paintings of farmers and country life inspired a number of artists. The influence of Van Gogh's "Augustine Roulin" on this work by Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) is notable. Even though the German Expressionist developed her own style, her early career was influenced by the Post-Impressionism that Van Gogh pioneered.

The exhibition at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt shows that Vincent van Gogh was in search of the ideal style of painting. He went through a range of styles and was constantly questioning whether a painting should be flat or vividly structured and dynamic. Germany developed an early passion for the Dutch artist which, as this latest retrospective show, has continued to the current day.