User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
STARRY LETTERS
In my youth I felt saturated with Van Gogh’s art. Its popularity made it predictable. As one of the greatest victims of the phenomenon that Walter Benjamin explores in his
The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, one could expect to see posters of Van Gogh’s
Sunflowers, or his
Room, or
Starry Night, in a third of the rooms of students. I suspected that more than this bright colours, always welcome in dingy lodgings, it was the legend grown out of the morbid aspect of his supposed suicide that explained the ubiquity of his art.
As a museumgoer, I have seen many of his paintings in various galleries and cities. I also visited long ago his museum in Amsterdam. But it was more recently, in an exhibition with a room devoted to him, when I felt completely enraptured in wonder in front of a couple of his paintings.
But I have wanted to read his letters for years and reading these has been a delight.
Most of them are addressed to his brother Theo, but there are a few to painter friends, such as
Anton van Rappard and
Émile Bernard. It was his sister in law who collected and edited them and gave them for publishing in 1913. They span from the Summer of 1872 until a couple of days before his death on 1890.
Reading his Letters I feel that he could not have disapproved, since he himself was addicted to reading biographies of other painters, those he admired, hoping to find a guide to his own path as a painter. If not looking for the same guidance, I have approached them to help me get closer to his art.
It has been a fascinating process to be able to follow how he gradually discovered his painting vocation, which happened relatively late. At first he felt his calling was for the church. Once he became disappointed with the clerical life, he thought of becoming a social helper. During this time, though, references to paintings and art, and close descriptions of landscapes, fill his letters. It was not until he was around 26 that he finally decided to become an artist. This was in 1879 and he had to begin his training, drawing and materials, from the start.
What comes across clearly, whether he is discussing art or whatever else, is the profound intensity with which he approached anything he undertook and the passion with which he defended his ideas. One could say he was a Romantic, not in the historical sense, but in the theoretical one. He pursued with his art his religious longings. Aestheticism at its purest.
During my read I felt compelled to post many updates. Most of these are either descriptions in text of what could have been visual. If even before he drew and painted he would send accounts of his visual impressions, once he began producing paintings, at a very fast rate, he would send textual versions of his painterly renditions. And in text colour dominates. His paintings are described as a succession of things in tones. The colour of the tree, the colour of his table, the colour of the grass, the colour of the sun, the colour of someone's coat… He does not discuss compositions or arrangements or drawing. His art discussions veer towards the most visual, colours. Why has he chosen which colour and what it signifies. We see then that even if he painted outdoors and very rarely from memory, he was not a naturalist. He developed his own system for colours based on correspondences with his own moods and very personal impressions. But this was not fixed. It could not be, It varied with his emotions.
And this personal meaning to his painting is what explains that even if it was after his arrival in Paris in 1886, where he fell under the spell of Impressionism, when he changed his palette from the earth tones to the bright and primary colours, he pursued something very different from the French painters. He aim was not to record of the sensory. And that is also why he did not get close to the analytical art of the
Pointillistes. Van Gogh had a profoundly and intensely intimate relation with painting, with the act of painting itself. His brushstroke is rich and thick and expressive. His canvases have a loaded texture. And this texture has his mark.
With such a personal approach to his art we should not be surprised that his stated favourite genre was portraiture-- of others and of himself.
I should like to do portraits which will appear as revelations to people in a hundred years time. I am not trying to achieve this by photographic likeness but by rendering our impassioned expressions, by using our modern knowledge and appreciation of colour as a means of expressing and exalting character.
.
To follow this epistolary approach to his art is also suitable because Van Gogh was a very literary man. This literary outlook tinted his vision of his surroundings. A compulsive reader, he peppers his letters with references to a wide array of writers. Very knowledgeable of French literature, and even if he turned his back to the Naturalist painters, his preferences in literature were for the Naturalists, in particular those who included a lens focused on the social content. He mentions regularly Zola, Flaubert, Maupassant, Daudet etc. From English literature his favourites were clearly Charles Dickens and, very dear to him, George Eliot.
This selection of letters is a perfect antidote to the alienating effect of ubiquitous reproduced images. Reading them is highly refreshing. They succeed in enlivening the aesthetic emotion when contemplating Van Gogh’s very dazzling and unforgettable works.
---
I want to thank Jasmine who, during my reading and as a comment to one of my updates, drew my attention to this great documentary. Benedict Cumberbatch impersonating Van Gogh. The text is composed out of sections of the letters and other primary documentation. Strong recommendation:
https://vimeo.com/109538758
Rating: really liked it
For great things do not just happen by impulse but are a succession of small things linked together.
The main problem when encountering Van Gogh is that his life has become the quintessential artistic myth of our age. The obscure genius ahead of his time, toiling in solitude, tortured by personal demons, driven by a creativity that sometimes spilled over into madness—and so on. You’ve heard it all before. You have also seen it before. His paintings suffer from the same overexposure as does his life story.
Starry Night hangs, in poster form, in dorm rooms and offices; it is used in commercials and as desktop backgrounds. The challenge, then, as with all iconic art, is to unsee it before it can be properly seen.
The best way to pop this swollen bubble of myth is, I think, to read these letters. Here an entirely different Van Gogh is revealed. Instead of the mad genius we find the cultured gentleman. Van Gogh could read and write English, French, and German fluently, in addition to his native Dutch. He peppers his letters with references to Dickens, Elliot, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Balzac, Zola. His prose is fluent, cogent, and clear—sometimes even lyrical. His knowledge of art history is equally impressive, as he, for example, compares Shakespeare’s and Rembrandt’s understanding of human nature. Not only this, but he was far from insulated from the artistic currents of his day. To the contrary, he was friends with many of the major artists in Paris—Seurat, Signac, Gauguin—and aware of the work of other prominent painters, such as Monet and Cézanne.
But, of course, Van Gogh’s myth, like many, has some basis in truth. During his lifetime he did not receive even a fraction of the recognition his work deserved (though if he had lived a little longer it likely would have). He was often unhappy and he did suffer from a mental illness of some sort, which did indeed lead him to sever a portion of his own ear. What is less clear is the role that his unhappiness and his mental illness played in his work. In our modern world, still full of Romanticism, we are apt to see these factors as integral to his artistic vision, the source of his inspiration and style. Van Gogh himself had, however, quite a different opinion, seeing his suffering and illness as a distraction or an obstacle, something to be endured but not sought.
The letters in this volume span from 1872 to 1890, the year of his death. Most of them are addressed to his brother, Theo, who worked as an art dealer in Paris and who supported Vincent financially. There are also a few letters to his sister, Wil, and to his artist friends. From the beginning we see Van Gogh as an enthusiastic and earnest man, very liable to be swept up into passions. His first passion was the church. Following in his father’s footsteps, Van Gogh went to England to work as a preacher. His letters from this period are full to bursting with pious sentiments; in one letter he even includes a sermon, which he composed in English. He quickly grew disenchanted with conventional religion, however, and soon he is pining after his cousin, Kee, who rejects him and refuses to see him. Not long after that he takes in a woman named Sien, a former prostitute, and his letters are filled with his dreams of family life.
But in all of these letters, even before he decided to take up art—which he did comparatively late, at the age of 27—Van Gogh show a keen visual awareness and appreciation. He includes long, detailed, and sometimes rapturous descriptions of towns and landscapes. He is also, from the start, independent to the point of stubbornness. He persists in trying to woo his cousin even in the face of his whole family (including Kee herself) discouraging him. He insists on taking in Sien despite the disapproval of nearly everybody, including his brother and his mentor, Mauve. When it came to art he was absolutely uncompromising, refusing to paint anything just for money, and getting into passionate disagreements with some of his artist friends (Gauguin, most notoriously).
Van Gogh’s intractability often landed him in trouble. He had a bad relationship with his parents and often quarrelled with his brother, Theo, who was his closest confidant. But it is also, I think, the quality that is ultimately most admirable in him. His personal standards drove him to work hard. He was no savant. His letters are filled with exercises and studies. He was tough on his own work and constantly strove to improve it. And though he sometimes got discouraged, there is never any hint of quitting or compromising. This is the classic story, often told. But it is easy to lose sight of how dreary and dispiriting this life could be, day to day. In films the struggling artist is enmeshed in a moving drama, and the audience always knows it will come right in the end. But for Van Gogh this was a plodding daily reality of struggle and failure, with no audience and no guarantee of ultimate success.
That we admire Van Gogh for persisting is, in large part, because his art was truly great. But what would we think if he was mediocre? This, you might say, is the paradox of persistence: We admire those who persist in the face of struggle when they have genuine talent; but when they do not, the spectacle becomes almost pathetic. What would we think of a man financially supported by his brother, constantly quarrelling with and alienating his parents, toiling away in isolation, who produced nothing beautiful? We might be inclined to call such a person naïve, foolish, or even selfish. Whether we admire or scorn stubbornness, in other words, depends on whether it eventually pays off. But in the meantime nobody can know if it will, least of all the stubbornly persistent person. It is, in short, a great risk.
Yet it cannot be said that Van Gogh wagered everything on his talent, since there is not even a hint of calculation or self-interest in his continuing persistence. He is so manifestly, uncompromisingly, absolutely obsessed and absorbed by art that there is no other option for him. Even when institutionalized and hospitalized he thinks of nothing but when, how, where, and what he can paint next. And though he at times expresses regret for the sacrifices this entails—he is especially vexed by the toll it takes on his love-life—he never discusses art with even a touch of bitterness. He is willing to live in a hovel and survive on crumbs if it means he can afford paint. To see such unqualified devotion, not in a novel or on a stage, but in the real, intimate context of his daily life is (to use a hackneyed word) inspiring.
Vincent's story had a tragic ending. On a summer day in July he walked into a wheat field where he was painting and shot himself in the chest. He survived two more days, finally passing away in his brother’s arms on July 29. The circumstances surrounding this death are rather remarkable, and I don’t wonder that two biographers, Naifeh and Smith, have raised questions about it. The tone of his final letters, while troubled, are far from despairing. He even includes an order of paints in his final dispatch to Theo. And it is also extraordinary to think that a man who had shot himself in the chest could walk a mile back to the inn, or that a man locally known for his mental instability could get a gun. The recent film,
Loving Vincent (which I haven’t seen), is focused on this question.
Theo did not long survive his brother: he succumbed to syphilis within just six months. Theo had married his wife, Jo, less than two years earlier, which proved an extremely fortunate circumstance—for art’s sake, at least—since it was Jo who championed Vincent’s legacy and who published his correspondence. Theo and Jo’s only son, named after his uncle Vincent, was responsible for founding the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which I recently visited. To any who get the chance, I highly recommend this paired experience, for the letters and the paintings are mutually enriching. Few people in history seemed to have lived so entirely for the sake of posterity: churning out paintings which few people saw, writing letter after letter few people read, creating a story and an oeuvre that now have the power to tear you in two.
Rating: really liked it
I want to be careful in writing this review because I want to do what I can to urge you to put this book in your list of Books I Should Read During my Lifetime. You have such a list, don't you? No? Will you think about making one? It consists of the books that a large majority of your fellow humans believe are representative of what is most significant about this gift you have received, which we call life. Lots of the books that should go on that list are not necessarily ones you would pick from a book store or library shelf. It's okay to put a book on the list out of a mysterious sense of obligation that you might feel. And once on the list, if you begin to read and it does not speak to you, that is okay too. There will be others who will. Only be patient with this book. It may take you a few pages to become interested in the author and to see in his struggles to be true to a calling lessons for your own life. This book is a compendium of letters from Vincent van Gogh. It does not contain all of Van Gogh's letters. But the letters selected (mostly to Van Gogh's brother Theo) tell a fairly complete story of Van Gogh's inner life. Now and then the editor will insert snippets of Van Gogh's life and circumstances at the time of the letter so that we have a good context for the letter we are reading. Lots and lots of letters consist of Van Gogh pleading with his brother to send him money (Van Gogh sold the grand total of one painting during his lifetime) but somehow even these letters are important to the slow vision of Vincent that you are gradually forming and befriending as you read. Not to mention the glimpse these letters give you of true friendship and devotion between Vincent and Theo. But why is this one of those books that should be placed in your Lifetime List? Someone once said that vocation is that place where your heart's joy meets the word's great need. And I think that this book shows you one man's struggle to develop and remain true to the inner joy that art brought to him and to have that joy be useful, of service to others. He says in an early letter, when he is discovering his aptitude to draw and paint: "I feel a power in me which I must develop, a fire that I may not quench, but must keep ablaze, though I do not know to what result it will lead me, and shouldn't wonder if it were a gloomy one. . . " And indeed he kept the blaze of that power throughout his short life even when gloominess was all there was. The power was kept alive sometimes by a fiery, consuming enthusiasm and sometimes by the cold steel of will and duty. But always there was that practice, practice, practice the need to align through visual description and color the emotions elicited by nature, by the poor peasants, simple objects and ordinary people he insisted in painting. At some point, the constant practice of his craft would have allowed him to paint pictures that would sell. But that would have been a departure from that place where his heart's joy met what he saw as the world's need. This a book for your Lifetime List because we are all called (and a call can come from you or from outside of you) to find that joy and find a way to make it useful.
Rating: really liked it
That a woman is a ‘quiet different being’ from a man and a being we do not yet know, or at best only superficially, as you put it, yes, that I am sure. And that a woman and a man can become one, that is, one whole and not two halves, I believe that too.
Rating: really liked it
I have had an interest in painting since my younger days. I never painted myself, nor could I draw or sketch, yet I was drawn into this branch of art. Perhaps it is because I had a poet's mind or perhaps it is because I'm a reader who learned to imagine and read between the lines. Whatever the reason is, I enjoyed viewing them and forming my own interpretations, even though my idea of the painting vastly contradicted the idea of its author. In my twenties, I read about the different periods of art and famous artists and later, started visiting art galleries. This is the time when Van Gogh came across me. I have no understanding of paintings; I'm only an admirer. Yet Van Gogh's paintings captured me from the onset. I think it is mainly due to the colors he used and also the expressions of his figures. There is such a real and humane touch to his paintings. Later on, I read of his life and I felt an immediate connection, a sort of an odd kinship with him. He was undervalued and misunderstood, something I could personally relate to. All these reasons made this selected collection of letters by Van Gogh a pleasurable read.
The letters, most written to his brother Theo Van Gogh, express Van Gogh's thinking on life and art. They are profound. Notwithstanding what is thought of him, he wasn't eccentric or anti-social. His isolation was a result of his devotion and dedication to his painting - his final chosen field. Through these letters, Van Gogh expresses in detail his perspective of contemporary and past renowned painters and their works. His attention is specifically fixed on the impressionists who he admired and who he wished would improve their style to suit modern times. He being a post-impressionist, he wanted the impressionists to break the barriers and expand their horizons.
Most of all, however, these letters are immensely valuable for they give a good insight into the artistic view of the painter. He was drawn by nature. The inspiration arose for him from everyday details of nature and human life. And he loved colour; bright and vivid colors. He was criticized for lack of a technique, so he worked on form and value more diligently. But it is the colourfulness of nature that inspired his art and compelled him to draw and paint.
"It is impossible to attach the same importance both to values and colours. One cannot be at the Pole and at the Equator at once. One must choose one's way, and my way is the road to colour." Apart from art, Van Gogh's views on life are profound. He also talks of the lonely life of an artist but maintains that an isolated and solitary life is needed for a devoted artist. He was well aware of how he was viewed by society.
"What I'm in the eyes of most people? A nonentity, or an oddity, or a disagreeable man, someone neither has nor ever will have any place in society. I should like to show by my work that the heart of such a nonentity, such an insignificant man, conceals." . He was not resentful though. On the contrary as his own words say
"what am I, but a friend of nature, of study, of work, and above all, of man." Yes, Vincent, you were a true friend. Your words and your works are living proof of that.
Rating: really liked it
Beautiful letters written by a beautiful soul and one of the most gifted artists of all time, in my humble opinion. 😊
Rating: really liked it
About This Edition
Translator's Note
Introduction
Biographical Outline--Early Letters
--Ramsgate and Isleworth
--Dordrecht
--Amsterdam
--The Borinage
--Etten
--The Hague
--The Hague, Drenthe and Nuenen
--From Nuenen to Antwerp
--Paris
--Arles
--Saint-Rémy
--Auvers-sur-Oise
Bibliography
Index
Rating: really liked it
I loved this book.
It was the only way I knew of to get to know this man/artist.
Had I known about this earlier, it would have
been extremely cool to read this while spending hours
inside the VG museum in Amsterdam. It might have added different
aspects to my interpretations with this knowledge of
transparency. Please read the other reviews posted; they are
just wonderful in telling his story. While the book's
synopsis is written accurately, the letters share
emotions that a summary cannot. Finally, the song
"Starry Starry Night" is out of my head.
Rating: really liked it
This book is exceptional, thought-provoking, painstakingly beautiful and soulful. Not only literary letters but they encompassed whole life of a genius artist.
I absolutely love this book ♡
It's worth reading.
"What I find such a pleasant surprise about painting is that you can, with the same effect you put into a drawing, take something home with you that conveys the impression much better and is much more pleasing to look at. And at the same time more accurate, too. In a word, it is more rewarding than drawing. But it is absolutely essential to be able to draw the proportions correctly and to position the objects fairly confidently before you start. If you make a mistake here, it will all come to nothing." "What I’m trying for is the shortest means to that end - on the understanding that the work is of genuine and lasting merit, which I can only expect if I put something really good into it and make an honest study of nature, not if I work exclusively with an eye to saleability - for which one is bound to suffer later.""The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too." " And when I read, and really I do not read so much, only a few authors, - a few men that I discovered by accident - I do this because they look at things in a broader, milder and more affectionate way than I do, and because they know life better, so that I can learn from them."" If I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it,keep going, keep going come what may."" The lamps are burning and the starry sky is over it all."
Rating: really liked it
Robert Hughes writes in one of his essays on Van Gogh that the myth's around Van Gogh run exactly opposite to the truth. He recommends delving into Van Gogh's letters as a way to get beyond the myths and better understand both the artist and his work. Van Gogh is often given an aura of a mad genius, whose hallucinations and fits gave rise to the intense colors and patterning of his paintings and drawings. In fact, his fits (most likely due to epilepsy) were debilitating, and often kept him out of commission for weeks at a time. Hughes closes and essay saying that Van Gogh was a great painter in spite of his madness, not because of it - and having read his letters, I'm inclined to agree.
However, I somehow found the letters both more and less than I expected. The biggest disappointment was that they failed to provide as much insight into Van Gogh's working process and aesthetic ideas than I hoped. Much of his talk about his work is merely a description of recent paintings (at most a vague description of his goals) or a long list of influences. While it's interesting to see who he was looking at, I didn't come away with much more understanding of the piece by piece construction of his paintings, or of any grander aesthetic theory.
On the other hand, I now have a much greater understanding of the character and biography of Van Gogh than of any other artist I've ever studied. I can look at any piece, and place where it was in his development, where he was physically and mentally at the time, and what issues he was grappling with in his life. I may not have had much more access to his artistic thoughts, but I'm able to process his work in a much wider context than I was before. And there are many, many interesting anecdotes to be learned - like the fact that the work that he is known for, his famously intense paintings and hatched drawings, were down in less than three years - from 1887 to 1890 (a period during which he produced over 1000 combined paintings and drawings).
I also have some gripes with the editing of this edition - the letters are interspersed with brief biographical sketches which contextualize the letters, but there are also many letters left out. Without having read every single letter, it's hard for me to know whether the choice of letters reflects and editorial slant (and I have a sneaking suspicion that many letters were chosen for biographical upheaval rather than artistic insight, but have no real grounds for that claim).
It's difficult to recommend this book to everyone. Those obsessed with Van Gogh or painting in general might find a lot to learn - and those who enjoy reality TV might get a similar kick out of the bizarre twists and turns of this self-narrated life. The rest will probably find it a bit dull.
Rating: really liked it
https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/th...
I first began my reading of these letters as a way to learn more about the art process, the way to creation coming from the mind of such a gifted artist such as Vincent Van Gogh. I also was interested in his life, his story, and how he got to this end. Personal letters seem to be so much more profitable to me as a reader than fiction, or even a biography. Throughout the entire book I came to feel, and inhabit, his struggle, his pain, his lack of recognition for what he deemed so important in total to his life. I learned through almost countless correspondences that he was rarely given the respect he felt he deserved, and he had just terrible luck with women. It was so sad the difficulties he faced socially. But I never felt once he was suicidal in his thinking. He was a creator, and a sick man obviously, but his genius insisted that he live and make history. I am of the opinion that Van Gogh shot himself in order that his brother Theo’s family could once again thrive as they had fallen on hard times and were suffering. A gut shot is a slow death, and in it one has the opportunity to say what needs to be said to those around him even though the end of life is inevitable.
In regards to the art of Van Gogh, the letters presented a complete study in the use of color. I came to understand his selections based on these letters explaining in great detail why he chose specific colors to use in his paintings. The man was authentic, and that is all one might hope to become in such a short and often confusing life we are all faced with. Vincent Van Gogh was gifted in so many ways, and had such high hopes as dreamers often do. The letters are a testament to his great love for his brother, and the many works of genius he left for those of us who today appreciate it. And as good a literary work as anything I have ever read.
Rating: really liked it
Ever yours,
Vincent
They tell me that "a
gazillion stars" is not a rating that exists on Goodreads. Well then, this book is a perfect reason to introduce it.
It was
not easy reading. The book is very long, and my copy had an uncomfortably small print. I won't lie, it was boring at times, as everyday life is not always exciting. It was also so often sad, and toward the end downright tragic. So it took me 6 months to read. But in the end, I can say it was
one of the most rewarding experiences in my life.
"Admire as much as you can, most people don't admire enough"
Before reading this book, I wouldn't have called Van Gogh my favorite artist. But I always admired his paintings for being decorative, for the bright colors, distinct style, and textures. Looking around the house, I see his artworks are certainly prominently represented: I have an umbrella, shoes, T-shirt, and sweatshirt with Van Gogh's paintings.
Humanity is lucky that Theo had a hoarding tendency and loved his brother Vincent dearly. That's why so many of Van Gogh's letters were preserved and are now available to us. The public rarely gets to glimpse the real-life and struggles of a much-admired genius.
This book contains so much!
1) The
mundane realities of XIX century life in a few European countries, as experienced by a rather poor commoner - which is interesting in itself.
2) The life of
a painter: evolution from deciding to try it out, to learning and struggling, to finding personal style and meaning, to persevering against critics. A painter's life is also a lot about finding cheap but good quality paint, materials, and models.
“What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do."
"Let us try to grasp the secrets of technique so well that people will be taken in and swear by all that is holy that we have no technique. Let our work be so savant that it seems naive and does not reek of our cleverness."
"The day will come, however, when people will see [my pictures] are worth more than the price of the paint and my living expenses, very meagre on the whole, which we put into them."
3) Van Gogh's dialogue with the contemporary
culture: the successful and upcoming artists of his time, the old masters. It was interesting to read his opinions, criticism, analysis, and admiration of their works and find out about personal relationships with those he was acquainted with.
"How does one become mediocre? By going along with this today and conforming to that tomorrow, as the world wants, and by not speaking out against the world and by only following public opinion!"
4) What
books Van Gogh read and what he thought of them. I really loved those passages in the letters! He loved Zola and Tolstoy; he commented on Poe and Dickens. Also, he drew parallels between painting and literature.
"...there is something of Rembrandt in Shakespeare, something of Correggio in Michelet and something of Delacroix in V. Hugo, and there is also something of Rembrandt in the Gospel or, if you prefer, something of the Gospel in Rembrandt, it comes to much the same thing if you understand it properly, do not try to distort it..."
5) Van Gogh's
personal life story. He certainly didn't have an easy time of it. But it was even more admirable how he took so many setbacks with kindness, perseverance, and hope. His longing for companionship, community, and family broke my heart. When he encountered obstacles, I so wanted to scream: "HE'S VAN GOGH JUST LET HIM HAVE HIS WAY!!!!!!!!!"
"Can you tell what goes on within by looking at what happens without? There may be a great fire in your soul, but no one ever comes to warm himself by it, all that passers-by can see is a little smoke coming out of the chimney and they walk on."
He was just a great person! His love and respect for people, including shunned disgraced women and the poor working class, sounded so contemporary to me.
"Oh, I am no friend of present-day Christianity, thought its founder was sublime. That icy coldness mesmerized even me, in my youth - but I have taken my revenge since then. How? By worshipping the love they, the theologians, call sin, by respecting a whore, etc., and not too many would be respectable, pious ladies. To some, woman is heresy and diabolical. To me she is the opposite."
6) The struggle with
mental health. The way he described experiencing and coming to terms with his condition also sounded surprisingly contemporary to me. Which means his thoughts were probably revolutionary for his time.
"What comforts me is that I am beginning to look upon madness as a disease like any other and accept it as such."
"So instead of giving in to despair I chose active melancholy, in so far as I was capable of activity, in other words I chose the kind of melancholy that hopes, that strives and that seeks, in preference to the melancholy that despairs numbly and in distress."
7) His approach to work, his impeccable
work ethic, discipline, patience, and conviction. It's a lesson in being hard-working and driven. It was also interesting to see how the ideas for his paintings were born, learning some details of their creation. For instance, he came up with the Starry Night and pondered painting it for two years before actually doing it.
"The more active one is, the better, and I would sooner have a failure than sit idle and do nothing."
"Plumb the depths [of the sea of life] that is what we too must do if we want to make a catch, and if we sometimes have to work the whole night through without catching anything, then we do well not to give up and to cast the net once more at dawn"
8) Surprisingly, the book is also simply
beautifully written. I'm not sure why it was such a shock, but I didn't expect the language to be descriptive, imaginative, piercing. Van Gogh is a painter, but he could have been a novelist or philosopher. His words shook me to the core and broke my heart some times, inspired and uplifted me at other times.
"Fishermen know that the sea is perilous and the storm fearful, but have never thought the perils reason enough for deciding to take a stroll along the beach instead. They leave that sort of prudence to those who relish it."
"Art is something which, though produced by human hands, is not wrought by hands alone, but wells up from a deeper source, from a man's soul."
Ultimately, it adds up to a story of a
misunderstood hero - arguably humanity's favorite kind of tale. It's a story of a man driven by internal conviction, who gets knocked down time and time again but gets up, no matter how hard it is, until he can get up no more. But the way he does it makes you feel that his struggle wasn't in vain. He did what he believed in, and
in the end, it mattered.
"It seemed to me that you were suffering, like me, from seeing our youth go up in smoke - but if it throws out new growth in one's work, then nothing is lost, for the capacity to work is another form of youth."
Rating: really liked it
There are some lovely reviews of this on Goodreads already, so I'm not going to attempt an extensive or informative review. I'll just say a few things straight from the heart. Van Gogh and his troubled life is one of those subjects that appeals to one's deepest feelings; to one's heart rather than one's head.
Reading these letters gives you a window into Vincent's immense pain. Vincent was a deeply spiritual person who never, during his lifetime, received the recognition that he so richly deserved. An extremely prolific painter with works mainly done in a post-impressionist/neo-impressionist style, some of the works more pointillist than others, Van Gogh's works all seem to have a unique touch of expressionism to them - his style was very distinct and uniquely his own.
One of Vincen't most famous paintings, and a personal favorite of mine: "Starry Night".
He never achieved commercial success during his lifetime, most of which was lived in poverty, and he was often severely depressed, leading to self-mutilation and eventually suicide at age thirty-seven.
Despite the fact that his life was cut short far too early, he left behind the rich legacy of many deeply emotive paintings and these poignant letters.
Rating: really liked it
"How much sadness there is in life. Still, it won't do to become depressed, one should turn to other things, and the right thing is work, but there are times when one can only find peace of mind in the realization: I, too, shall not be spared by unhappiness."
Rating: really liked it
charming and poignant ... presents in his own words, mostly in letters to his brother, the struggles of one of the greatest artists ever ... who eventually took his own life while still a young man ... there are also numerous references to his paintings and the problems of painting
Some years ago my wife and I travelled through France to the major locations in Van Gogh's life, including his small tombstone in the tiny village of Auvers ... it was an emotional journey for us
