Van Gogh's letters go online

A collection of Vincent van Gogh's letters have been made available to read online, offering an insight into the life of the famous artist.

The collection covers the years from 1872 and 1890, when van Gogh killed himself aged just 37 and has been put online to mark a new exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

There are 902 letters in the exhibition, all of which can be seen on the web, and show the artist to have been a "literary giant", according to researchers.

Though access to the online collection is free, the dedicated site Vincent van Gogh The Letters and the website of the Van Gogh Museum are both currently both slow to load, presumably due to the levels of traffic.

The majority of the letters are written by van Gogh himself and most were sent to his younger brother, Theo, though some are to other significant artists of the age such as Gaugin.