Vincent Van Gore

Vincent Van Gore, the Starving Artist, is a ghost painter who has the ability to make his paintings reality. He was responsible for creating the minor ghosts that flooded the rooms and halls of Luigi's Mansion. After being released by King Boo, Vincent Van Gore locked himself in the mansion's studio, giving the key to his room to Sir Weston in the Cold Storage, and bringing his ghastly works of art to life. These ghosts filled the mansion, providing the backbone of King Boo's forces. As such, Van Gore was a fundamental player in King Boo's quest to capture both Mario and Luigi. Without the constant supply of ghosts, Luigi would have had a much easier time defeating King Boo and the portrait ghosts.

After battling past almost all of the mansion's ghosts, Luigi ultimately discovered Vincent Van Gore, the source of the troublesome ghouls, in The Artist's Studio on the third floor of the mansion. However, instead of fighting Luigi directly, Van Gore brought his latest works of art to life to attack the green-clad plumber. As such, Luigi had to exterminate seven sets of minor ghosts (with three ghosts per set) before he could face off against the artist himself.

After Luigi eliminated all 21 ghost creations, Vincent Van Gore became deeply saddened by the loss of his artwork. In this state of depression, Van Gore's heart was exposed and Luigi easily sucked up the spirit with his Poltergust 3000. The ghost artist barely put up a fight, weakly pulling as he was being sucked in. After Van Gore was defeated, Luigi acquired the Secret Altar Key needed to open the door to the lair of King Boo (and Mario's cell).

Van Gore's ghosts
In battle, Van Gore used sets of ghosts to attack Luigi; each group consisted of three of the same kind of spectre. In order, the seven following types of ghosts were:
 * Gold Ghost
 * Purple Puncher
 * Blue Twirler
 * Red Grabbing Ghost
 * Red Shy Guy Ghost
 * Garbage Can Ghost
 * Purple Bomber

Trivia

 * Vincent Van Gore is a parody of the artist Vincent van Gogh. However, Van Gore speaks with a stereotypical French accent, even though van Gogh was Dutch.
 * Sculptures of Biff Atlas and Lydia can be found in Van Gore's studio.
 * After he is defeated, the only ghosts in the halls are Mice, meaning they probably were not made by Van Gore.
 * Vincent Van Gore is the only non-Boss ghost to house a "special key".
 * A normal key makes a triumphant sound when picked up and is a goldish bronze, while special keys each have a card suit on them and make a deep, organ-played musical fanfare of the games main theme (in a major key) when received.