Or to put it another way, why wasn't Van Gogh's work looked on favorably during his lifetime?
I did a quick Google search, and it seems like while it isn't exactly true that he sold "zero" paintings, he actually sold two and some drawings, and one of those purchases was by his uncle out of pity. Which is not much better.
I'm also thinking of the story of how the painting he gifted to a doctor was used to patch a hole in the chicken coop - https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/van-gogh-felix-rey/
It seems weird to me that he had so little success, because outside of artistic quality, his work doesn't come off as markedly different than that of contemporary impressionists and post-impressionists, who were more successful. Relatedly, Van Gogh's interest in Ukiyo-e was one shared by a lot of other contemporary artists and art purchasers.
So, I'm curious why people who would buy say a Monet, Vuillard, Cassat, etc. wouldn't buy a Van Gogh.
A few reasons-
His painting lifetime was extremely short- he started painting late (attending the academy c.1880 at 27) and died young at 37 by suicide (1890). Many artists such as Monet and Vuillard lived to more than twice his age and had much longer careers (Monet to 86 and Vuillard to 71) and so were able to overcome initial unpopularity
He was not a Paris man. Monet etc. spent a considerable amount of time in Paris, the capital of impressionism. Van Gogh spent less than 2 years there. Monet and the other impressionists were French, spoke French fluently and could co-ordinate and organize themselves well- they set up an Anonymous Society to exhibit when rejected from the official French Salon. They also often had wealthy friends in Paris society i.e. Vuillard sold some of his paintings to school friends. Van Gogh's only real artist friend was Gauguin, and his brother Theo, who was an art dealer. He was a bit odd and had mental health issues- not the sort of person who would be great at socializing
Van Gogh was not a good draftsman by the standards of the day. If you consider wealthy late 19th c. contemporaries like Holman Hunt, Tissot, Alma Tadema or early Klimt, they can pull off near photo-realistic figures. Monet's early work shows he could do an approximation of this. Van Gogh couldn't. So he couldn't build his credentials in semi-realistic work as Monet did before branching into impressionism
19th and 20th century perceptions of what is good art were vastly different. In the 19th century, the most prestigious artists were schooled professionals who could spend up to a year on a single near photographic history painting, then below them you had a group of professional portraitists and decorative artists making posters like early Alphonse Mucha, or decorating churches etc. , and below that, you had the avant garde headed by slightly eccentric bourgeois like Cezanne. The avant garde didn't make much money- I imagine Van Gogh was one amongst thousands of wanna-be artists in Paris in the late 1800's.
In the 20th century, the US entered the European art market in a big way and bought up a lot of second-rate Parisian art which was then fairly cheap, as did a few members of the Bloomsbury Group in London. Add in to that promotion of the artist as an individual with an incredibly interesting life (for example the way Picasso and Dali promoted themselves in the US) and the emergence of psycho-analysis, and you can see how Van Gogh, a man who was previously viewed as a third-rate 19th century artist could now be promoted as a tortured and misunderstood genius, pouring his soul out on a canvas, making works beyond price. Needless to say this promotion made a lot of money for art dealers who had bought in when his paintings were cheap