Van Gogh

Mar 04, 2012 Ann rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This biography was certainly a massive undertaking by award-winning authors. It's well-researched and well-written all right. But the underlying view of Vincent as a man with basically a horrible personality who created his own problems seems short-sighted and unfair. Are the authors re-doing the Jackson Pollack book? This book made me go back to read Vincent's incomparable letters to Theo. There are other books that are superior in contemplating Vincent's mental and physical health issues/disab...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Cody rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am neophyte to the wonder of Van Gogh. Previously, I had trouble connecting to what I perceived as all that craziness on the canvas - his work just did not resonate with me. Attending a Van Gogh exhibition and reading this book have made me a passionate convert! I now see all that paint on the canvas as Vincent literally laying his whole soul bare - troubled as it was, he left IT ALL on the canvas. It was tough for me to live with the madman Vincent while I read this book - some days it was ju...more

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Apr 13, 2012 Paula Hebert rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

ask me anythin about vincent van gogh. go ahead, ask me. after reading 800 plus pages of this amazing biography, I feel like a world expert. Meticulously researched, from his birth, childhood, and adult life, and yet written in a very readable style that doesn't bog you down as many biographies can do, this is truly an amazing book. so much of what I thought I knew about van gogh was totally wrong. he exhibited signs of mental illness from a very young age, perhaps aspergers, compulsive obsessiv...more ask me anythin about vincent van gogh. go ahead, ask me. after reading 800 plus pages of this amazing biography, I feel like a world expert. Meticulously researched, from his birth, childhood, and adult life, and yet written in a very readable style that doesn't bog you down as many biographies can do, this is truly an amazing book. so much of what I thought I knew about van gogh was totally wrong. he exhibited signs of mental illness from a very young age, perhaps aspergers, compulsive obsessive, lots of anger management issues, and schitzophrenia(sp)as he grew into manhood. they didn't say as much, but reading the descriptions of his behavior, it sounded textbook. add to that an obsession with prostitutes that lead to a horrible case of syphyllis for which there really wasn't an effective treatment at that time, and his progressive madness was guarenteed. I've always love his paintings, but I know now that if I had ever met him I would have punched him in the nose at the very least. He was a very unpleasent man, outspoken and arguementative, with bizarre behavior, delusions and totally unable to deal with life in any normal way. his poor brother theo supported him his whole life, and also had a horrible case of syphyllis, which attacked his body with even more ferocity than vincent. he died 6 months after vincents death, insane and raving in an asylum. the rest of the family didn't fare much better. a brother commited suicide, and a sister also died in an asylum , no sexual disease there though. I think being raised in a rigid christion home-his father was a pastor and his mother was more concerned with family appearances and reputation than the emotional needs of a very delicate son-was just more fuel for his breakdown. but I think he was doomed from the start, no amount of nurturing could have helped. maybe with some of todays medicines, but then would his painting have blossomed? we can only guess. I really enjoyed this book, but it takes some time to get through it.(less)

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Apr 03, 2012 Kiof added it · review of another edition

Encyclopedic. And for a figure mired in myth, that seems more than appropriate. Side note: I unfortunately can relate to V.V.G.'s cosmic, constant f-ups and overbearing and single-minded love. And his biogrpahism. But man was he a fuckup. It is quite amazing how much trouble he got himself in. Flip to any page and he's got himself (and his brother usually) in a new tradegy. His life as a societal fuckup, to me, does no disservice to his art or even my idea of him as a person. He seems sympatheti...more

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Oct 31, 2011 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

VAN GOGH: The Life. (2011). Steven Haifeh and Gregory White Smith. *****.
This massive biography of Van Gogh by the two authors who won a Pulitzer Prize for their biography of “Jackson Pollock,” was marvelously readable for a person not trained in the arts...me. I have been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, but that’s about it for my knowledge about the artist and his works. We’ve all seen the standards, like “The Sunflowers,” and “Starry Night,” and various self-portraits, but I didn’t reali...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Doug rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Van Gogh: The Life by Stephen Naifeh and Grogory White Smith was well written and moved along quite rapidly for such an exhaustive study. I was impressed with the voluminous correspondence between Van Gogh and his family in general and his brother, Theo,in particular. Because I am a nature lover and hiker, Van Gogh's love of nature and devotion to taking his easal into the heath attracted me to his paintings and I have since been studying and enjoying them. In addition, while many artists did th...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Maya rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'll confess: I didn't read all of this 900 page book. I read the end, because Naifah and Smith have received a lot of press for their new theory of Van Gogh's death, and I was interested to understand it after having studied Van Gogh at some depth.

I read chapters 42 and 43, the epilogue, and (most interesting) the Appendix: A Note on Vincent's Fatal Wounding.

I found their argument about Vincent's death fairly convincing. In a nutshell they argue that Van Gogh did not shoot himself, but was fat...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Michael rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: art, biography-memoir, non-fiction

philadelphiareviewofbooks.com

Notes for an essay called "The Limits of Fraternity"

Both sides of Van Gogh's family have long, well-documented histories, leading to a cold, exacting mother, Anna, and garbling but practical father Dorus. It's amazing how resistant Vincent is to the art world, considering his place in the family's print-selling business and his time in London, The Hague, and Paris. He is evading his destiny at all turns.

Vincent's pain and misery, his love of art and religion all stem...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Lynne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-2012, biography, kindle

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 30, 2011 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: general-biography

It's no wonder to me now that these truly gifted biographers won the Pulitzer Prize for their life of Jackson Pollock, assuming, of course, that their prose is as "intense" as the writing in their most recent collaboration.

After 300 pages, I haven't detected a sentence or a paragraph that fails to extend their narrative of Van Gogh's life (all 900 pages of it, less the 5000 pages of documentation that resides on-line) or enrich their characterization of this terribly difficult man, whose shiftin...more It's no wonder to me now that these truly gifted biographers won the Pulitzer Prize for their life of Jackson Pollock, assuming, of course, that their prose is as "intense" as the writing in their most recent collaboration.

After 300 pages, I haven't detected a sentence or a paragraph that fails to extend their narrative of Van Gogh's life (all 900 pages of it, less the 5000 pages of documentation that resides on-line) or enrich their characterization of this terribly difficult man, whose shifting realities, imperturable sense of entitlement and nearly intolerable temperament, alienated nearly everyone he ever engaged - even the most sympathetic.

I find their subject entirely fascinating, their treatment masterful, and their writing a model of splendid exposition.

11/22/11. After 600 pages, I find that their prose is as engaging - and as truly awe-inspiritng - as ever. I must also say that I find their meticulous and thorough descriptions of every repetition of Van Gogh's cycles of highly disturbed behavior, which destroyed every relationship he ever formed, a bit tiring. I understand that the authors aimed to document every moment of their subject's life, every hostile encounter of which there is even the least little scrap of evidence, and I applaud their epic industry. But I am beginning to skim the pages that present another instance of more of the same. Their book is as good a biography as can be written I suppose, and in some ways it rivals Kershaw's "Hitler." Each author's mastery of their craft doesn't impose an obligation on me that I savor every word, however, especially after I've tasted a particular dish twenty or thirty times over the last three days.

11/30/2011. I just finished this biography, and I can only give it a five-star rating. It is truly one of the most successful examples of the biographer's craft that I have encountered in my fifty years' devotion to that genre. I suspect that the authors will win another Pulitzer, perhaps a National Book Award, among many others, for their achievement. Nonetheless,in cases of products of such superlative craftsmanship as "Van Gogh: A Life" I often wonder if, for the sake of yet another perfect sentence or a brilliantly constructed paragraph, authors of non-fiction ignore or modify certain inconvenient facts. I still wonder about this particular life of Van Gogh, despite the excerpts of letters and memoirs that the authors aduce in every segment of their book, and despite the 5000 pages of further documentation that they provide on their website, www.vangoghbiography.com. I suppose I could allay my nagging concerns by tracking down the relevant footnotes, examining sources and evaluating corresponding sections of their biography. But I certainly don't intend to spend time in that way. And besides the world is full of art historians and subject matter experts (SME), who, no doubt, are probing, even as I write, every statement and conclusion that the authors committed to paper. If there's an unsupported claim in any of the book's 875 pages, these SMEs will certainly draw the world's attention to it. Highly recommended.
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Nov 29, 2011 Mlg rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Brilliant and exhaustive, this 900 page biography offers new insight into Van Gogh's troubled life and death. Vincent came from a family riddled with mental illness and suicide. All three of his siblings either died in a mental institution or committed suicide. It would have been interesting to include a modern day physician's take on what ailed Van Gogh. At the time, the diagnosis was epilepsy compounded by syphilis, but that doesn't explain his contrary nature, his ill-treatment of his family...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Belinda rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am finally finished and spent a lot time skimming through chapters to avoid repeats, overblown accounts of everything, and dull negativity.
I got sick of re-reading pages on the dysfunctional or negative relationships Vincent seemed to have with every man, woman, and child he ever met. How many blow by blow accounts does a person need to read?

Sure, V was moody, argumentative, opinionated, and obsessive, but the man MUST have had good qualities. To the authors V is a burden and haunted, they ba...more I am finally finished and spent a lot time skimming through chapters to avoid repeats, overblown accounts of everything, and dull negativity.
I got sick of re-reading pages on the dysfunctional or negative relationships Vincent seemed to have with every man, woman, and child he ever met. How many blow by blow accounts does a person need to read?

Sure, V was moody, argumentative, opinionated, and obsessive, but the man MUST have had good qualities. To the authors V is a burden and haunted, they barely dip into their own box of word-colour to paint the man's character with some yellow, blue or red.

However, they do use hyperbole to describe letters and encounters in a way that is based purely on their opinion. Signac writes "tepidly" to invite Vincent to Cassis - how do the authors get this word when the letter quoted says, "come do a study or two in this pretty country."? What is tepid about that? Why do they always skew Vincent's encounters so they are anti?

They write about how negatively Theo responded to Vincent, yet, after V died, Theo obviously broke with grief. Theo describes Vincent to his Mother, "he was so my own, own, brother." And this isn't a retrospective romantic notion - and "romantic" is how the author's describe any positive comments made by the brothers, it is a heartfelt expression of a, for the most, loving relationship.

The authors harp on and on about how Vincent spent his whole life trying to tell others how to think, but this book does the same thing.
And I can only think Why?
Why is this bio so dark? Why don't they offer a lucid explanation or two? Why don't they explore the mental illnesses in the family more?
Especially in light of the fact 3 of them ended up in asylums at some point or other?

And I do not agree that this bio is well written. The author's are competent writers but if they use far too many adjectives to create a biased account of a life then it becomes a sort of polemic that can't be trusted.
Vincent led an often troubled, sometimes glorious, often ordinary (albeit extraordinarily artistic) life amidst what appears to be mental illness (bipolar?). His life must be contextualised by this instead of being treated as if he could choose a different way of being. Because this bio doesn't do that it is not to be taken seriously. Far better to read about Vincent without all the sensationalist language and overdone description than waste time on this bloody great doorstop.
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May 01, 2012 Darlene rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This biography of Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most extensive and well-researched biographies I have read. I'm not an art critic and I'm not even very knowledgeable about art but I do remember having the good fortune of seeing a traveling exhibition of Van Gogh's paintings many years ago and I was instantly enthralled with what I saw. I don't wish to write this review as simply a recitation of facts... anyone can obtain that information. Instead, this book provided me with some wonderful insi...more This biography of Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most extensive and well-researched biographies I have read. I'm not an art critic and I'm not even very knowledgeable about art but I do remember having the good fortune of seeing a traveling exhibition of Van Gogh's paintings many years ago and I was instantly enthralled with what I saw. I don't wish to write this review as simply a recitation of facts... anyone can obtain that information. Instead, this book provided me with some wonderful insight into Vincent Van Gogh, the man...as well as the artist. I also discovered that I have held a couple of misconceptions about Van Gogh... one of which is a very interesting mystery surrounding the circumstances of his death. The authors provided historical and personal background of both Van Gogh and his country of origin.. the Netherlands.. and in doing so made the reading of this book as interesting and fast moving as reading a novel.

Losing myself in the life of this very talented man, I also discovered just how incredibly mentally ill he was; and in putting myself in his position, I felt amazed that he was able to create anything at all... never mind the incredible paintings that have made him world renowned since his death. It seemed, from the descriptions of his behavior,that he probably suffered from bipolar disorder. In his manic states , he often went without sleep for extended periods of time and would feverishly paint;in his depressed state, he simply could not function.. was often unkempt and did not eat. Van Gogh's family was, by and large, not supportive of him.. although from the family history provided, many members of the family struggled with mental illness. In particular, his mother completely annexed him from her life... she was ashamed , embarrassed and angry with him. He continued to try to breach the gap between them by sending her paintings and poems.. which she ultimately always discarded. The one family member who unfailingly and unselfishly tried to help and care for Vincent throughout his life was his brother Theo. Reading about the two brothers brought an expression to mind...'I am my brother's keeper'. This without a doubt, applies to Theo.

I discovered that one of the great misconceptions (or perhaps I should say POSSIBLE misconceptions as there is no way to prove this) I've had about Vincent Van Gogh was about the way in which he died. I had always thought that Van Gogh committed suicide; however, the authors of this biography propose a very different scenario. They present a very compelling case that perhaps his death was actually accidental. Using more current knowledge of forensic science and ballistics they do indeed make a case that Van Gogh's shooting may indeed have been an accident. It was fascinating reading.

This book was an amazingly thorough biography of an incredibly talented though deeply troubled man. I think that as I gaze upon Van Gogh's paintings in the future, I will have a more complete.. perhaps fuller.. understanding of just how incredible his talents were. If you have ever, like I have, found yourself transfixed by "Starry Night", "vase with Fifteen Sunflowers" or "Irises", you will definitely want to read this biography.(less)

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Aug 24, 2012 Lit Folio rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an exhaustive and brilliantly written biography of a great painter I've always had certain ideas about, but soon learned better. I always thought--like many, I suppose-- that Vincent was so misunderstood; suffering through his passion that became his stamp, his signature.

But here the authors smash many of those illusions about a man who was richly intelligent and knew exactly what he was doing. So much so, that I was aghast at some of Vincent's selfish antics with long-suffering brother,...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was very well written, but too repetitive. I don't think the book needed to be as long as it was. That said, I found myself so drawn to find out more about Vincent Van Gogh after seeing and being blown away by "Starry Night over the Rhone" in San Francisco last year. I learned one term from this book that helped describe an impact he made on me. "Impasto" is the thick application of a pigment to a canvas", which described one of his techniques that moved me. Hearing, too, how wildly and fur...more

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Aug 28, 2012 Patrick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: art, biography

Wow. Loving this, though I think most of my Goodreads friends will enjoy the summary more than the book. And my Provo Library copy has a completely blank white cover, with only the title and authors on the spine. I wondered why that choice, but now see it was supposed to be this nice self-portrait. Still confused there.

Principal thing I'm enjoying right now: the authors explain Van Gogh's letters deeply in context and show how he contradicted himself day to day and often in the same letter. Most...more Wow. Loving this, though I think most of my Goodreads friends will enjoy the summary more than the book. And my Provo Library copy has a completely blank white cover, with only the title and authors on the spine. I wondered why that choice, but now see it was supposed to be this nice self-portrait. Still confused there.

Principal thing I'm enjoying right now: the authors explain Van Gogh's letters deeply in context and show how he contradicted himself day to day and often in the same letter. Most biographies take his letters as a factual sort of journal when really he lied to others and especially himself almost every time he wrote. You have to look at the situation and if he was trying to persuade someone to join him before you believe the sunny description of a place or time in his letters.

Finished. This made me like Van Gogh both more and less. I'd always had the commonly thrown around view of him that he was a poor guy with mental problems that couldn't be understood. He is certainly sympathetic as someone who never saw things in a regular way and never fit in, and definitely had something at least resembling bipolar depression and maybe more. his manic obsessions with religion, then anti-religion, and various regions seem to point to this.

However, he is also very unsympathetic as a lazy, entitled person who was angry his whole life that people and reality did not conform to his unstable desires. He was not so mentally ill that he was incapacitated or could not be held responsible for his actions. If he were someone's brother nowadays, we'd insist he get a job and he would end up homeless or in a mental institution.

The alternate death theory, that some punky rich teen obsessed with American cowboys shot him in some sort of confrontation is well researched and supported in my opinion. I had never heard of this and googled around a little bit and found it is controversial. I think the authors made a good case that this makes more sense than a suicide with no gun ever seen or found in a small town with very few guns and how far Van Gogh was able to walk afterward.

Anyway, this book was fascinating despite Van Gogh being only an intermittently sympathetic subject. I like knowing the truth even though it make me sad to learn that Van Gogh was not as innocent as I previously thought. His obsession with sex and prostitutes was apparently normal within the Parisian and artistic community (the authors cited an estimate that I'm forgetting the specifics of after a month, but some huge percentage like 70% or 80% of Parisian men were estimated to patronize prostitutes in that era, and the artists bragged about their number of mistresses), but it was still weird to learn some of the sexualized aspects of his portraits. I pulled out another book last night that described some particular paintings in Arles as innocent country workers when this book explains from the subject matter, titles and Van Gogh's own letters they really represented white guy fantasies about primitive virgins and virility. Gauguin is a pretty nasty piece of work as well. And his brother Theo, though a mostly sympathetic person, also slept all around before getting married and died of the resulting syphilis 6 months after Vincent, leaving his wife and young child behind.

Anyway, I think this is likely beyond what most of my Goodreads friends want to read, but it was awesome.(less)

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Jan 08, 2012 Lorraine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I finished this book last week and have been referring to it repeatedly since then. Ten years ago, I read "Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art" by Debora Silverman. These two books together complement each perfectly (Silverman's book is cited by Haifeh and Smith). My only criticism of "Van Gogh: The Life" is that I wish there had been more color plates from Van Gogh's period with Gauguin, but Silverman's book takes care of that.

The way Van Gogh died according to Haifeh and Smith's re...more

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Nov 09, 2011 Sbennett rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A great book about a man far ahead of his time, who is still shrouded in myth and legend. I was unaware of the fact that Van Gogh suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy until I read this book. That accounts for many, if not all of the 'strangeness' associated with this artist. Van Gogh spent much of his life alienated from his family, especially his parents. His lifelong obsession with images portraying motherhood probably stemmed from his desire to please his own mother, something he never achiev...more

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May 08, 2013 Renee rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Loved this book. It's close to 1000 pages, but none of it feels like mere filler and it's more character-driven (to borrow a term from fiction) than it is a pieced-together narrative of the major events of the artist's life. Naifeh beautifully details Vincent's complexity, the intensity that fueled everything he did, his inability to be moderate in who or what he loved, and the inevitable disasters that ensue when passion has an accelerator but no brake. Van Gogh emerges as he must have been in...more

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Dec 02, 2011 Michelle Stie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, art

Now that I've finished the book, I understand why the authors took 600+pages to get to the last two years of Van Gogh's life, during which his most interesting work was completed. While it was slow going, the detailed discussion of the artist's family relationships and artistic philosophy and development was helpful in understanding how radical paintings like Starry Night and the sunflower and olive tree series are. I found the discussion of Starry Night's production to be the most poignant mome...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Mt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thoroughly detailed and richly woven with Van Gogh's own words (i.e., his letters), this book provides an authoritative biography on one of art's more misunderstood figures. The authors convincingly bring to light Van Gogh's mental illness; his complex relationship with his brother; and his lack of acclaim during his lifetime.

Most central to this work, compared to others, is the authors' new theory on Van Gogh's death. Due to the scant evidence (and great detective work by the authors), this new...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Fred Rose rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-biography

Another doorstop of a biography. I know this has mixed reviews but I liked it. I'm not an art historian so I didn't know anything about Van Gogh other than the myths of him cutting off his ear (he did, but not in a suicide attempt, he was distraught at a fight with Gauguin), he didn't sell a painting in his lifetime (he sold one), and he was probably insane (he was definitely mentally ill). His brother Theo gave him a pretty good monthly salary, so wasn't really a starving artist. I liked how th...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Dvora rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: france, favorites, art, biography-history

This is a massive and wonderful book about an amazing person. I've read several books about Vincent, both fiction and non-fiction and I thought I knew a lot about Vincent's life, but Naifeh and Smith provide a lot more information than any of the others I've read and do it well.

Having recently read Carol Wallace's Leaving Van Gogh with Goodread's Art Lovers group, I must say that I think her book should be banned for using real people in a fiction that is so far from the known facts.

Naifeh and...more

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May 18, 2013 Tam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fic

It is a challenge to arrange my thoughts about this massive book into proper writing.

Van Gogh is undoubtedly one of the most known artists in our time. Van Gogh museum is the most visited museum in the Netherlands, and stands in the top most visited in the world even though the entire museum is devoted to a single artist only. Who does not know Sunflowers, who has not seen Starry Night? Oh that color, oh that contour, oh that haziness, those halos, those bright bold colors... And well, someone...more

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Jan 27, 2013 L is currently reading it · review of another edition

Based on the prologue, of any artist, Van Gogh might be the one for whom one would most want to study a biography, in order to understand the art. And that's as far as I've gotten.

About 1/3 of the way through, recognizing that any biography is one person's interpretation of another's life, albeit based on much, much research. At this point I can only think "poor, poor Vincent; how he suffers" and "omg--what he puts his family through!" Van Gogh is seriously f'ed up. And yet, what he left for the...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Melissa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: general-non-fiction

Absolutely fascinating. I always had a little tender spot in my heart for Van Gogh. He just seemed like such a misunderstood genius. He is indeed that, but he was pretty crazy at the end of the day. He was crotchety. He manipulated his poor brother. He wore out his father. He was seriously ill. His images are undeniably beautiful and he lived a pretty tortured life. The authors have very convincing research about Van Gogh's death - arguing that he was murdered and did not attempt suicide. A real...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Tovansteve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I finally finished this somewhat tedious book. If I were to rate it solely based on the way the authors presented the life of Van Gogh, I'd probably would have given it a generous 3 stars. It seemed to me that had a clear point of view before they started to write, and used bits and pieces from Van Gogh's letters to support their point. The impression I got was that to the writers, he was a manipulative, mean spirited individual with very little if any redeeming qualities. However, I gave it fou...more

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May 12, 2012 Lynne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I finally finished reading this - it took me forever - but I loved it.

Vincent Van Gogh is such a sad character in history. Burdened with both a difficult personality and a little understood mental illness (probably frontal lobe epilepsy), his life was an endless series of failures both deeply personal and (at least during his life) deeply professional. As an art lover, I appreciated the very thorough contexts the authors gave as they described the books Vincent was reading and the art he was st...more I finally finished reading this - it took me forever - but I loved it.

Vincent Van Gogh is such a sad character in history. Burdened with both a difficult personality and a little understood mental illness (probably frontal lobe epilepsy), his life was an endless series of failures both deeply personal and (at least during his life) deeply professional. As an art lover, I appreciated the very thorough contexts the authors gave as they described the books Vincent was reading and the art he was studying to the different stages of his development. Vincent was intellectually brilliant and his art was hardly just a knee-jerk reaction to the beauty of nature but rather carefully considered, distilled, and studied. As an art maker, I appreciated the description of the tremendously hard work Vincent did to develop his skills. Again, his art was not just the accidental product of simple passion but of hard, hard work and persistence.

I also really appreciated that the authors didn't sentimentalize or romanticize Vincent, something which I think could be tempting. Reading about his life from the very beginning you come to understand how truly hard it must have been to be in Vincent's inner circle; the huge financial, emotional, and social burden his brother Theo carried in being his sole support for most of Vincent's life. To me understanding this makes their close relationship so much more meaningful and amazing.

Finally - I just have to say that after reading this and spending a bunch of time looking at Vincent's paintings online over the past few days (particularly the work he made in the months before his death in Auvers) - I am in awe of Vincent's ability to turn a life full of so much pain, so much rejection, so much heartbreak - into such a physical outpouring of beauty. He blanketed the world which essentially hated him in beauty and his gift was unwanted (at least while he lived!).

**Oh, also - the authors have a really interesting interpretation of the circumstances of his death which I think makes total sense - they reject the theory that he committed suicide and attribute it instead to an accidental shooting by a teenage bully who had "befriended" Vincent in the summer before his death. They argue that it was Vincent's final act of love to not accuse and therefore ruin the life of this kid to accept responsibility for it himself. 60 Minutes did a great interview with the authors where they explain it - if you are interested, google it! It's fascinating...(less)

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May 24, 2012 Gerard Brown rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What did I learn from reading Van Gogh: The Life? Perhaps that one should choose a subject someone whose life had not already become a myth.

I had a lot of problems with this biography, but I'll focus on just a couple. It seems that the authors had a great deal of trouble connecting the to the im which Van Gogh lived. This became apparent early in the book in passages that addressed the artist's mother. It's hard to read these passages and not see her as superficial for her concern about social s...more What did I learn from reading Van Gogh: The Life? Perhaps that one should choose a subject someone whose life had not already become a myth.

I had a lot of problems with this biography, but I'll focus on just a couple. It seems that the authors had a great deal of trouble connecting the to the im which Van Gogh lived. This became apparent early in the book in passages that addressed the artist's mother. It's hard to read these passages and not see her as superficial for her concern about social standing and convention. The authors seem to ignore that this is exactly how a mother would convey concern for her son in the middle of rural Europe in the 19th century, and that her son's embrace of new experiences was actually really unusual and, to a parent, quite alarming

Through the book, Van Gogh seems out of touch with reality and vaguely parasitic, living on money given him by his family, especially by his brother Theo. We repeatedly see Van Gogh asking his brother for a raise or appearing to squander his stipend. What I wish the book had more successfully talked about is how this relatively normal family spun so out of control (we learn - very late in the story - of the various forms of mental illness that basically ended the Van Gogh line Vincent's generation).

The other aspect of the book I want to address is the way the authors attribute Van Gogh's stylistic innovations to his epilepsy, especially after the completion of his Starry Night pictures. Clearly, alcoholism, syphilis, and social maladjustment (with its attending persecution) all took their toll on Van Gogh. But one senses more than a whiff of distain for the imagination in explanations that connect creativity with pathology (or psychosis). At one point in the text, Van Gogh is quoted talking about how he'd like to make paintings 'without subjects' that would work on viewers 'like music' through 'the arrangement of tones.' Is is so hard to believe that a person who thought that perhaps paintings didn't need to be of anything in the first place was okay with introducing a pattern of marks in the night sky to achieve a specific, intended affect on the viewer? I guess it is.

There are a few parts of the book that succeed in telling us something more about the world Van Gogh lived in than about our own. A short section that describes Paris of the later part of the 1880s is thrilling for how it captures the strangeness and uncertainty of the time. But any book that takes more than 475 pages to achieve lift off is a little hard to recommend with any enthusiasm. I'm more excited to be re-reading Cynthia Saltzman's Portrait of Dr. Gachet and I'm looking forward to reading Chris Stolwijk's biography of Theo Van Gogh, who (as the parenthesis around Naifeh and Smith's story) comes out as person one would like to know more about...(less)

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May 07, 2012 Bob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Naifeh and White, who have specialized in very long and thorough biographies of famous artists (Jackson Pollock was another subject), have produced a weighty (860 or so pages) volume on the life (and controversial death) of one of the art world's most fascinating and most tragic figures in Vincent Van Gogh. With unprecedented access to Van Gogh's correspondence, dutifully kept by his devoted brother Theo, Naifeh and White complete a portrait of a man who was troubled all his life, and yet someho...more Naifeh and White, who have specialized in very long and thorough biographies of famous artists (Jackson Pollock was another subject), have produced a weighty (860 or so pages) volume on the life (and controversial death) of one of the art world's most fascinating and most tragic figures in Vincent Van Gogh. With unprecedented access to Van Gogh's correspondence, dutifully kept by his devoted brother Theo, Naifeh and White complete a portrait of a man who was troubled all his life, and yet somehow managed to create some of the most brilliant paintings of all time, most of it in a brief burst of creativity at the end of his life.

The standard work on Van Gogh's life has been Irving Stone's 1934 book "Lust for Life" which later was turned into a film starring Kirk Douglas. Since that time, scholars have learned much more about Van Gogh.

To begin with, Van Gogh showed signs of mental instability from a very young age. He was prone to going on long, solitary walks from his childhood home in the Netherlands. When he failed in his initial career choice as a minister, his parents attempted to have him hospitalized for mental illness, something Van Gogh managed to avoid.

Naifeh and White don't believe that Van Gogh suffered from what would be described as a mental illness, such as depression or mania, but rather from a form of epilepsy, known as temporal lobe epilepsy, a disease that can often seem like a form of mania interrupted by periods of very placid behavior. Van Gogh's chronic malnutrition likely did not help him.

What Van Gogh wanted in life was to have a family that was warm and accepting of him. However, he was extraordinarily difficult to live with because of his illness. Calling his parents unsympathetic would be an understatement. Feelings of abandonment often set Van Gogh off to destructive behavior, such as his mutilation of his ear after Paul Gauguin left Van Gogh's home in Arles. Of course, Van Gogh did not make his dream artists' commune any more likely to take hold after he pulled a knife on Gauguin.

This book does take a while to get through. It is extraordinarily thorough. Van Gogh's life was rarely happy. His most famous work, Starry Night, was painted from his memory of looking out an asylum window. The shadows of death, depression, and abandonment abound. Did these feeling help or hurt his art? They likely did not as Van Gogh produced his best paintings in a very short period of time while working very quickly. Some of his greatest works were created in a period of a day or two.

The book concludes with an appendix about Van Gogh's death, which is commonly considered to be a suicide. Naifeh and White present compelling evidence (as compelling as 120 year old evidence can be) that Van Gogh likely died as the result of an accidental shooting by two French boys who liked to tease the eccentric Dutch painter who lived near them. (less)

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