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Vincent van Gogh: de biografie
Ondanks talloze publicaties over Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is het toch al weer ruim 75 jaar geleden dat de laatste uitgebreide biografie over hem verscheen. Het bekende Amerikaanse biografenduo Naifeh en White Smith heeft zich verdiept in zijn leven en werk. Op grond van vele (on)gepubliceerde brieven en andere bronnen vertellen zij op boeiende wijze zijn dramatische levensverhaal. Afkomstig uit een predikantenmilieu te Zundert leefde hij een onrustig en kunstzinnig leven, eerst in Nederland o.m. in Den Haag, Drenthe en Brabant en vanaf 1886 in Frankrijk, o.a. te Parijs, Provence en Auvers. Overeenkomstig zijn temperament was zijn leven moeizaam, ook in zijn relaties met zijn familie, i.h.b. zijn broer Theo en zijn vrienden/collega's Gauguin, Pisarro, Toulouse-Lautrec en anderen. Over zijn dood hebben de auteurs een eigen, zij het controversiele mening, nl. dat hij werd doodgeschoten door Rene Secretan. Het vuistdikke boek bevat bovendien een stamboom Van Gogh-Carbentus, kaarten, noten, literatuur en een register en is ruim geillustreerd met zwart-witfoto's en twee katernen kleurenfoto's. Kleine druk.
1015 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 756 reviews
January 5, 2013
I've never read a book so thoroughly detailed. At times it felt like a day-by-day account of his 37 years. The book establishes early on that Van Gogh was at best "quirky" and at worst had a few disorders, but hey, who doesn't. I'm not a psychologist, but when you are sleeping with your walking stick in your bed to punish yourself, I don't know, that's probably a red flag for later developments. For the first 600 or 700 pages, I developed a dislike for Van Gogh; he's an unlikeable loser. But by the end there is empathy and compassion for all that he went through. Of course, he could have just gotten a job at some point, but then the world would be the lesser for not having his art. He taught himself, researched, studied, applied new techniques, which all lead to him 'becoming' Van Gogh. The book doesn't really spell out exactly why Van Gogh and his art became a worldwide phenomenom. It doesn't critique the art; the book just details the life. Most people are familiar with the art from Van Gogh's final two years, the fact that he cut off his ear and killed himself. Obviously, those few items don't tell the whole story, and the whole story which at times is repetitious is ultimately fascinating. He lived in interesting times in Europe and in art. Everyone wrote letters, kept family histories. Van Gogh exists at this crossroads between the old ways of society of manual labor and a new era. He was a craftman who appreciated the working man. He was relentless. You have to appreciate that.
At the end, I was sad that he passed; he had found his stroke, his style of painting that combined many of the interests and influences that became beloved by the world. But I was also relieved for him. He did not have an easy life. When he died, he became the embodiment of the suffering artist. The world learned of this solitary figure and fell in love with what they took to be a romantic figure.
The book theorizes that he did not kill himself and they make a very understandable and believable case that he did not.
The authors read everything that Van Gogh wrote and everything that Van Gogh read. The level of researching is amazing. The writing pulls you through a lengthy and detailed story, a life worth examining.
At the end, I was sad that he passed; he had found his stroke, his style of painting that combined many of the interests and influences that became beloved by the world. But I was also relieved for him. He did not have an easy life. When he died, he became the embodiment of the suffering artist. The world learned of this solitary figure and fell in love with what they took to be a romantic figure.
The book theorizes that he did not kill himself and they make a very understandable and believable case that he did not.
The authors read everything that Van Gogh wrote and everything that Van Gogh read. The level of researching is amazing. The writing pulls you through a lengthy and detailed story, a life worth examining.
October 23, 2024
I have a plethora of intense feelings after reading this extremely arduous book. I've learned so much and have this gnawing sadness in my heart for the misunderstood, broken, fragmented, tortured, loving, frustrating, creatively gifted, and masterfully talented soul.
Where do I begin? Upon being introduced to Van Gogh’s (pronounced GUH) family, it seemed Vincent was always desperate for his mother's affection. He longed for moments of solitude and tenderness of a woman he revered more than anything in the world. Vincent, one of 5 siblings, always seemed, to his parents, to be peculiar and difficult to handle. His melancholy mood made them uncomfortable more than curious.
In his early years, Vincent struggled to finish his schooling and hold a job. His mental health played a role at various moments in his life. It truly is an atrocity to think that Vincent is known today, most notably for the cutting of his ear and his so-called "suicide," but he was much more than that.
He had a deep, meaningful, and oftentimes catastrophic thought process in which he would ponder things that overtook his thinking. He seemed to suffer from what today would be diagnosed as anxiety, bipolar disorder, and possibly elements of a borderline personality (the author never explicitly mentions these diagnoses, but from the reading, this was my assumption).
Vincent was confrontational, prickly, and self-righteous; never fully at ease in company; prone to outbursts of vehemence that could derail any conversation. After years of living inside his own head, he had lost almost all sense of social grace and approached every interaction as a choice between assaulting or being assaulted
His brother Theo, the one constant in his life, was the brunt of many of Vincent's desperate attempts to find a sense of peace and stability in his life. Vincent would often write letters to Theo, which is where the author Steven Naifeh did his research. In those letters, Vincent was often extremely demanding of Theo's attention, time, and money.
Vincent's friendship and deep admiration for Paul Gauguin are also discussed in the book. Vincent had a chaotic and fraught relationship with Gauguin. He would be desperate for positive admiration from the painter. Mostly, Gauguin would criticize, but once Vincent's show was seen in Paris there was admiration for many of his works.
His relationship with Gauguin and many others was often conditional, and when things didn't go as Vincent wanted he would lash out with extremely negative opinions and thoughts. This became a struggle for Vincent as well as the people who loved him.
Van Gogh: The Life is such a thorough and intensely satisfying production of ideas in which the author did a retelling of every moment of the painter's life. I will say, that sometimes things felt repetitive, and the point could have been made clear with less detail.
Yet, it was interesting, from his time as a devoted Christian zealot to his obsession with brothels and prostitutes, Vincent was never able to find any sense of zen. He often said he worked best under the most distressing moments, which shows. Some of his best works were done at the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Remy, southern France.
All the lessons in symbolism that Vincent eventually transformed into paint—from Christian mythology, from art and literature—all first took root in his mother’s garden
The author Steven Naifeh gives the reader an absolute mind-bending, thought-provoking analysis of how Van Gogh may have died. I, for one, am now a believer. Regardless of how broken and tortured the painter was, the way his last few hours played out in no way added up to a suicide. Naifeh discusses this in the prologue of the book. The entire read is well worth it--this is an important and curiously accurate analysis.
The forever truth of how someone is defined is only appreciated after death, which seems to be fitting for Vincent Van Gogh. It was shortly after his passing that people began to be fascinated by his daring works of vibrant colors and strong brush strokes.
If I could talk to one person from the past, I would love to tell Vincent Van Gogh that he made it. It was quite heart-shattering to think of how many of his inner demons and struggles prevented him from being vindicated for his art.
Behind these thousands of stars, thousands more were appearing, and so it went on ceaselessly in the infinite depths of the sky. It was a continuous blossoming, a showering of sparks from fanned embers, innumerable worlds glowing with the calm fire of gems. The Milky Way was whitening already, flinging wide its tiny suns, so countless and so distant that they seem like a sash of light thrown over the roundness of the firmament
In a few months, I will have the pleasure of going to see Van Gogh's immersion exhibit, and this read came at the perfect time; a sheer work of genius that gave me wonderful insight into a truly brilliant painter’s life.
Thought-provoking and well-researched. In my opinion, Van Gogh: The Life deserves nothing less than 5 shining stars!
Where do I begin? Upon being introduced to Van Gogh’s (pronounced GUH) family, it seemed Vincent was always desperate for his mother's affection. He longed for moments of solitude and tenderness of a woman he revered more than anything in the world. Vincent, one of 5 siblings, always seemed, to his parents, to be peculiar and difficult to handle. His melancholy mood made them uncomfortable more than curious.
In his early years, Vincent struggled to finish his schooling and hold a job. His mental health played a role at various moments in his life. It truly is an atrocity to think that Vincent is known today, most notably for the cutting of his ear and his so-called "suicide," but he was much more than that.
He had a deep, meaningful, and oftentimes catastrophic thought process in which he would ponder things that overtook his thinking. He seemed to suffer from what today would be diagnosed as anxiety, bipolar disorder, and possibly elements of a borderline personality (the author never explicitly mentions these diagnoses, but from the reading, this was my assumption).
Vincent was confrontational, prickly, and self-righteous; never fully at ease in company; prone to outbursts of vehemence that could derail any conversation. After years of living inside his own head, he had lost almost all sense of social grace and approached every interaction as a choice between assaulting or being assaulted
His brother Theo, the one constant in his life, was the brunt of many of Vincent's desperate attempts to find a sense of peace and stability in his life. Vincent would often write letters to Theo, which is where the author Steven Naifeh did his research. In those letters, Vincent was often extremely demanding of Theo's attention, time, and money.
Vincent's friendship and deep admiration for Paul Gauguin are also discussed in the book. Vincent had a chaotic and fraught relationship with Gauguin. He would be desperate for positive admiration from the painter. Mostly, Gauguin would criticize, but once Vincent's show was seen in Paris there was admiration for many of his works.
His relationship with Gauguin and many others was often conditional, and when things didn't go as Vincent wanted he would lash out with extremely negative opinions and thoughts. This became a struggle for Vincent as well as the people who loved him.
Van Gogh: The Life is such a thorough and intensely satisfying production of ideas in which the author did a retelling of every moment of the painter's life. I will say, that sometimes things felt repetitive, and the point could have been made clear with less detail.
Yet, it was interesting, from his time as a devoted Christian zealot to his obsession with brothels and prostitutes, Vincent was never able to find any sense of zen. He often said he worked best under the most distressing moments, which shows. Some of his best works were done at the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Remy, southern France.
All the lessons in symbolism that Vincent eventually transformed into paint—from Christian mythology, from art and literature—all first took root in his mother’s garden
The author Steven Naifeh gives the reader an absolute mind-bending, thought-provoking analysis of how Van Gogh may have died. I, for one, am now a believer. Regardless of how broken and tortured the painter was, the way his last few hours played out in no way added up to a suicide. Naifeh discusses this in the prologue of the book. The entire read is well worth it--this is an important and curiously accurate analysis.
The forever truth of how someone is defined is only appreciated after death, which seems to be fitting for Vincent Van Gogh. It was shortly after his passing that people began to be fascinated by his daring works of vibrant colors and strong brush strokes.
If I could talk to one person from the past, I would love to tell Vincent Van Gogh that he made it. It was quite heart-shattering to think of how many of his inner demons and struggles prevented him from being vindicated for his art.
Behind these thousands of stars, thousands more were appearing, and so it went on ceaselessly in the infinite depths of the sky. It was a continuous blossoming, a showering of sparks from fanned embers, innumerable worlds glowing with the calm fire of gems. The Milky Way was whitening already, flinging wide its tiny suns, so countless and so distant that they seem like a sash of light thrown over the roundness of the firmament
In a few months, I will have the pleasure of going to see Van Gogh's immersion exhibit, and this read came at the perfect time; a sheer work of genius that gave me wonderful insight into a truly brilliant painter’s life.
Thought-provoking and well-researched. In my opinion, Van Gogh: The Life deserves nothing less than 5 shining stars!
September 20, 2014
By far the saddest biography I have ever read, VAN GOGH is also one of the most stirring and superbly detailed biographies I have ever read. That Vincent van Gogh's life was such a brutally painful and difficult one should not deter readers from embarking on this massive journey, yet the fact that a 951-page book reaches page 750 before the subject has what could genuinely be called a period of happiness is a testament to the skill with which the book is written, for despite the utterly depressing nature of Van Gogh's life, the authors make it a terrifically compelling one to read about. The amount of detail, in no small part but not entirely due to the prodigious correspondence that exists between Vincent and his brother Theo, is as complete as any biography could (or should) aspire to, and by the end of the book, one feels as though as though one has lived alongside Vincent through almost his entire life. The book approaches yet manages to skirt oppressiveness of detail, a superb feat given the consistency of the arc of Van Gogh's tortured life, and while the repetitious nature of Van Gogh's behavior and follies becomes almost as tiresome as it must have for his family, there is nothing in the book that should have been left out. The authors, too, have a splendid sense of art and how Van Gogh's mind was reflected in his art, and all this is described with clarity and, and at the same time, poetry. I wept as I reached the end of Vincent's life, in part because it was such a sad and unhappy life, but also because by the book's end, I felt as though I knew and understood the man behind some of the greatest art in history. Such should be the goal of every biography.
May 12, 2023
I don't usually write such lengthy, or such scathing reviews but this time I feel compelled to. First of all I will say that once I picked up this book, I really couldn't put it down. It was an incredibly intriguing, detailed, and fascinating story of a man we all know and some of us love despite his "issues". The authors spent ten years researching and writing this tome and in the end, I think they used their Harvard Law credentials to convict the subject of the crime of mental illness and of being a person no one else could tolerate. Clearly they'd done their research, but the way they chose to portray Vincent from the very beginning of his life, and of this book, was inexcusable. Like slimebag lawyers using other people's perceptions and recollections to make their case, they manipulated the “evidence” to support their claims.
Having read Volume One of Vincent van Gogh The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, edited by Leo Jansen, I picked up this book thinking it would fill in some of the gaps that might help me have a better understanding of the subject: van Gogh and his life. (You can read all of his letters too, online for free, at http://vangoghletters.org/vg/.) Once I had caught up with Vincent's life in this book at the time his letters began, I noted how the authors would take his words, use them out of context to prove their point, ascribe questionable meaning to what he said and apply negative, inflammatory descriptors whenever possible to what he said and how he said it. Imagine my surprise when Letter 155, which I thought was a most lengthy, beautiful supplication, was described by the authors as “pages and pages of defensive posturing and convoluted casuistry...using veiled constructions.” The authors admit in the addendum at the end of the book to reading between the lines and assuming that what Vincent said was not always what he meant, that he was manipulating people because he took a different tone depending on to whom he was writing. But don't we all do this? And how do they justify this interpretation of his sentiment?
In any case, the list of contentious words used over and over to describe Vincent and his behaviour is, I find, reprehensible: "maniacal, paranoid, delusional, volatile, leaps of fantasy, rapture of enthusiasm, leap of unreality, fits of frustration, repeated failures, storm of protest, lashed out, lamented, moaned, complained endlessly, spasm of regret, fever of dread, erupted, boasted, sputtered, admonished, pleaded, begged, rhapsodised, wailed"... How they can apply this interpretation to Vincent's written words, which to me could be taken in a completely different way, is unfathomable. These descriptors were used from the beginning as evidence that he was mentally ill from the start. I dare you to read the letters and form the same conclusion. The rest of the information about Vincent is nothing but heresay. Imagine having a strained relationship with your parents and someone writing about you basing their interpretations of your behaviour on how these other people felt about it. What these other people saw. And the gossip they spread. I assume the authors had other sources of information but they cleverly used ubiquitous “quotes” and referred the reader to some website which supposedly contains every detail of who said what and where they got these “citations” which makes it virtually impossible to fact check their assertions. The assumption that because it's quoted and cited, that it's actually a correct interpretation of the situation would be absurd.
My disgruntlement is not about the alternative ending, which I actually find more plausible than the story of Vincent's attempted suicide. I do not question the details of his life: where he went, who he met, what he did. What I object to is the way they portray the man. They paint such an unflattering picture of a man who, if you read what he actually wrote, comes across as an extremely intelligent, sensitive, passionate, exuberant, persistent, energetic, chatty, needy, kind, spiritual, learned, and lonely man who loved his parents, wanted to please and help them and others, and who wanted a deep connection to other people and to the world around him but was thwarted, chastised, bossed around, controlled by others, bullied and ostracised wherever he went. To be sure, it takes two to tango, but I object to the way the authors place all the blame on Vincent himself when in so many cases he appeared to be reacting to the way other people were treating him. His sad story is a tale of traumatic events, wrong turns, bad decisions, and a striving for something that he could only achieve posthumously. At the very least Vincent was a deeply philosophical man who understood something special about the nature of people and the world. It's too bad he wasn't able to express it during his lifetime in a way that other people could perceive it. If you want to find out about the superficial details of Vincent's life you can read this book and appropriate the opinions of other people. If you want to understand Vincent better, read his letters and look at his paintings. You'll get a much clearer picture of who he was by what he, himself, left behind.
Having read Volume One of Vincent van Gogh The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, edited by Leo Jansen, I picked up this book thinking it would fill in some of the gaps that might help me have a better understanding of the subject: van Gogh and his life. (You can read all of his letters too, online for free, at http://vangoghletters.org/vg/.) Once I had caught up with Vincent's life in this book at the time his letters began, I noted how the authors would take his words, use them out of context to prove their point, ascribe questionable meaning to what he said and apply negative, inflammatory descriptors whenever possible to what he said and how he said it. Imagine my surprise when Letter 155, which I thought was a most lengthy, beautiful supplication, was described by the authors as “pages and pages of defensive posturing and convoluted casuistry...using veiled constructions.” The authors admit in the addendum at the end of the book to reading between the lines and assuming that what Vincent said was not always what he meant, that he was manipulating people because he took a different tone depending on to whom he was writing. But don't we all do this? And how do they justify this interpretation of his sentiment?
In any case, the list of contentious words used over and over to describe Vincent and his behaviour is, I find, reprehensible: "maniacal, paranoid, delusional, volatile, leaps of fantasy, rapture of enthusiasm, leap of unreality, fits of frustration, repeated failures, storm of protest, lashed out, lamented, moaned, complained endlessly, spasm of regret, fever of dread, erupted, boasted, sputtered, admonished, pleaded, begged, rhapsodised, wailed"... How they can apply this interpretation to Vincent's written words, which to me could be taken in a completely different way, is unfathomable. These descriptors were used from the beginning as evidence that he was mentally ill from the start. I dare you to read the letters and form the same conclusion. The rest of the information about Vincent is nothing but heresay. Imagine having a strained relationship with your parents and someone writing about you basing their interpretations of your behaviour on how these other people felt about it. What these other people saw. And the gossip they spread. I assume the authors had other sources of information but they cleverly used ubiquitous “quotes” and referred the reader to some website which supposedly contains every detail of who said what and where they got these “citations” which makes it virtually impossible to fact check their assertions. The assumption that because it's quoted and cited, that it's actually a correct interpretation of the situation would be absurd.
My disgruntlement is not about the alternative ending, which I actually find more plausible than the story of Vincent's attempted suicide. I do not question the details of his life: where he went, who he met, what he did. What I object to is the way they portray the man. They paint such an unflattering picture of a man who, if you read what he actually wrote, comes across as an extremely intelligent, sensitive, passionate, exuberant, persistent, energetic, chatty, needy, kind, spiritual, learned, and lonely man who loved his parents, wanted to please and help them and others, and who wanted a deep connection to other people and to the world around him but was thwarted, chastised, bossed around, controlled by others, bullied and ostracised wherever he went. To be sure, it takes two to tango, but I object to the way the authors place all the blame on Vincent himself when in so many cases he appeared to be reacting to the way other people were treating him. His sad story is a tale of traumatic events, wrong turns, bad decisions, and a striving for something that he could only achieve posthumously. At the very least Vincent was a deeply philosophical man who understood something special about the nature of people and the world. It's too bad he wasn't able to express it during his lifetime in a way that other people could perceive it. If you want to find out about the superficial details of Vincent's life you can read this book and appropriate the opinions of other people. If you want to understand Vincent better, read his letters and look at his paintings. You'll get a much clearer picture of who he was by what he, himself, left behind.
January 25, 2025
‘Van Gogh: The Life’ is a well-researched tome of more than a thousand pages.
This update provides a summary of Part III. I have finally finished reading this very detailed biography. I wrote a review of each part as soon as I had read it. Thus, the review is organized this way: Part III, Part II, Part I.
Part III Review
Van Gogh: The French Years 1886 - 1890 (Part Three) (Read Jan 19 - 24, 2025)
Of the three parts, this is the hardest to read as it offered a close look at van Gogh's interior world, his mental breakdown, hospitalization in more than one asylum, his death, and the controversies surrounding it.
Summary:
What a tragic life van Gogh had! I do not think I can ever see another of his painting without being reminded of the pain he suffered, his incredible talent, indefatigable energy, determination, hard work, and passion for self-expression.
Part II Review
Part II: The Dutch Years: 1880 - 1886 (Read Jan 5 - Jan 19, 2025)
Van Gogh’s biography is proving to be a trial to read. I was bogged down by its unrelenting melancholy and most of all Vincent’s overwhelming and domineering personality and failure to make good of opportunities made available to him through the generosity of his longsuffering brother, Theo.
What an intense and unlikeable person! He wore out me. I can see why he was nigh impossible to know, to befriend, and worse yet, to live with.
A few thoughts as I sum up Part II of this overly drawn-out history of his life:
I hope I can read Part Three and still preserve a modicum of respect for Vincent van Gogh, the man.
Part I: Review
Part I: The Early Years: 1853 - 1880 (Read Dec 29, 2024 - Jan 5, 2025)
Vincent van Gogh is my favorite painter and yet I know rather little about him except that he was so poor he survived on cups of coffee to buy paint for his canvas. This biography introduced me to the man behind his art.
Emile Zola, said, “What I look for in a picture before anything else is the man.” A book like this offered a detailed and intimate look at the life of Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890). He was only 37 when he died.
What did I learn about his early years? You may wish to stop reading here if you plan to read this biography.
This update provides a summary of Part III. I have finally finished reading this very detailed biography. I wrote a review of each part as soon as I had read it. Thus, the review is organized this way: Part III, Part II, Part I.
Part III Review
Van Gogh: The French Years 1886 - 1890 (Part Three) (Read Jan 19 - 24, 2025)
Of the three parts, this is the hardest to read as it offered a close look at van Gogh's interior world, his mental breakdown, hospitalization in more than one asylum, his death, and the controversies surrounding it.
Summary:
What a tragic life van Gogh had! I do not think I can ever see another of his painting without being reminded of the pain he suffered, his incredible talent, indefatigable energy, determination, hard work, and passion for self-expression.
Part II Review
Part II: The Dutch Years: 1880 - 1886 (Read Jan 5 - Jan 19, 2025)
Van Gogh’s biography is proving to be a trial to read. I was bogged down by its unrelenting melancholy and most of all Vincent’s overwhelming and domineering personality and failure to make good of opportunities made available to him through the generosity of his longsuffering brother, Theo.
What an intense and unlikeable person! He wore out me. I can see why he was nigh impossible to know, to befriend, and worse yet, to live with.
A few thoughts as I sum up Part II of this overly drawn-out history of his life:
I hope I can read Part Three and still preserve a modicum of respect for Vincent van Gogh, the man.
Part I: Review
Part I: The Early Years: 1853 - 1880 (Read Dec 29, 2024 - Jan 5, 2025)
Vincent van Gogh is my favorite painter and yet I know rather little about him except that he was so poor he survived on cups of coffee to buy paint for his canvas. This biography introduced me to the man behind his art.
Emile Zola, said, “What I look for in a picture before anything else is the man.” A book like this offered a detailed and intimate look at the life of Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890). He was only 37 when he died.
What did I learn about his early years? You may wish to stop reading here if you plan to read this biography.
October 12, 2019
A social pariah's life: stalking shades and hues, skirting the cliffs of sanity, into the forever's starry night.
Fascinates and inspires.
Fascinates and inspires.
December 17, 2015
He expressed his truth in letters, and on canvas, immortalized a complex and beautiful soul.*
Pulitzer-winning biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have gleaned a thorough and insightful portrait of Vincent van Gogh, primarily from meticulous research of his extensive letters to his brother Theo, who was a successful art dealer in Paris and his most ardent confidante and supporter. Vincent's epistolary story reveals thoughts and feelings ranging from spiritual, philosophical and poetic to muddled, indecisive or obsessive, his fevered search for truth in a vision that would inform his artistic development and his greatest achievements.
From childhood, Vincent would display disruptive behavior unpalatable to his minister father and strict mother, who possessed somewhat of a cool, obsessive nature herself. He enjoyed sketching since a young lad and having uncles in the art trade would have given Vincent a good start in his young adulthood, but his erratic manner often alienated people and that employment abruptly ended.
His failed attempt as a missionary, loss of faith, and what he must have seen as rejection from his parents, reawakened in him the sense of abandonment and loneliness that had taken root as early as his schoolboy years when he felt an outcast. Naifeh's and White Smith's extractions from his letters during the production of his early paintings show an internal pathos that reveal what we know today of his developing mental illness, which when spliced with artwork featuring peasant life and nature, a need to express his truth and a progressing avant-garde aesthetic (at the time called nonsense from a madman) define the tortured, harrowed life between swings of violence and utter degradation; and, on the other extreme, illuminate the evolution of his brilliance.
“That mind has for so long been preoccupied with things our society today has made impossible to solve and which he, with his kind heart and tremendous energy, nevertheless fought against.… He holds such sweeping ideas on questions of what is humane and how we should regard the world, that one first has to relinquish all one’s conventional ideas in order to grasp what he means.” - Theo van Gogh
Some of his most revealing paintings are his self portraits as he peers into himself quizzically, searching perhaps for the sentiment he yearns to express in his uniqueness.
"I want to get to the point where people say of my work: that man feels deeply, that man feels keenly....I want to paint what I feel and feel what I paint.”
Vincent's passion for landscapes and pictorials of earthliness populate his extraordinary legacy and often reflect his psychological state. In 'Wheatfields with Crows' is depicted the fierce changeability of the multifaceted natural world that filled his vision: the rolling, inconstant rhythms of wheat against the menacing turmoil in the sky - a representation of van Gogh, the artist on the brink of an emotional storm.
Ironically, some of his most acclaimed work, specifically one most popular masterpiece ( and my personal favorite), of undeniable perfection in nature's glorious splendor: 'Starry Night' was painted in the asylum at St. Remy - the explosive bursts of light and roiling quality of the sky are indications of a psychological maelstrom which his doctors claimed were epileptic.
"How your brain must have labored, and how you must have risked everything to the very limit where vertigo is inevitable," said Theo when he saw the swirling, intemperate painting.
I was a little taken aback with the biographers' belief that his tragic end was no suicide, contrary to the accepted norm that the fatal wound was self inflicted, surmising instead that a teenaged ruffian named Rene Secretan, known to brandish a gun and who often bullied Vincent: might have shot him, but that Vincent covered up for the boy in his desire to spare him.
Vincent left behind a life so well expressed in his letters that the authors could create this passionate portrait of an artist as a troubled man, which at 1000+ pages is itself a masterful work of art, a painfully heartrending reflection of an intelligent, colorful yet restless life, who suffered in his quest to articulate meaning in his art, and died not realizing that he had already done just that.
"It must be good to die in the knowledge that one has done some truthful work."
* me
Pulitzer-winning biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have gleaned a thorough and insightful portrait of Vincent van Gogh, primarily from meticulous research of his extensive letters to his brother Theo, who was a successful art dealer in Paris and his most ardent confidante and supporter. Vincent's epistolary story reveals thoughts and feelings ranging from spiritual, philosophical and poetic to muddled, indecisive or obsessive, his fevered search for truth in a vision that would inform his artistic development and his greatest achievements.
From childhood, Vincent would display disruptive behavior unpalatable to his minister father and strict mother, who possessed somewhat of a cool, obsessive nature herself. He enjoyed sketching since a young lad and having uncles in the art trade would have given Vincent a good start in his young adulthood, but his erratic manner often alienated people and that employment abruptly ended.
His failed attempt as a missionary, loss of faith, and what he must have seen as rejection from his parents, reawakened in him the sense of abandonment and loneliness that had taken root as early as his schoolboy years when he felt an outcast. Naifeh's and White Smith's extractions from his letters during the production of his early paintings show an internal pathos that reveal what we know today of his developing mental illness, which when spliced with artwork featuring peasant life and nature, a need to express his truth and a progressing avant-garde aesthetic (at the time called nonsense from a madman) define the tortured, harrowed life between swings of violence and utter degradation; and, on the other extreme, illuminate the evolution of his brilliance.
“That mind has for so long been preoccupied with things our society today has made impossible to solve and which he, with his kind heart and tremendous energy, nevertheless fought against.… He holds such sweeping ideas on questions of what is humane and how we should regard the world, that one first has to relinquish all one’s conventional ideas in order to grasp what he means.” - Theo van Gogh
Some of his most revealing paintings are his self portraits as he peers into himself quizzically, searching perhaps for the sentiment he yearns to express in his uniqueness.
"I want to get to the point where people say of my work: that man feels deeply, that man feels keenly....I want to paint what I feel and feel what I paint.”
Vincent's passion for landscapes and pictorials of earthliness populate his extraordinary legacy and often reflect his psychological state. In 'Wheatfields with Crows' is depicted the fierce changeability of the multifaceted natural world that filled his vision: the rolling, inconstant rhythms of wheat against the menacing turmoil in the sky - a representation of van Gogh, the artist on the brink of an emotional storm.
Ironically, some of his most acclaimed work, specifically one most popular masterpiece ( and my personal favorite), of undeniable perfection in nature's glorious splendor: 'Starry Night' was painted in the asylum at St. Remy - the explosive bursts of light and roiling quality of the sky are indications of a psychological maelstrom which his doctors claimed were epileptic.
"How your brain must have labored, and how you must have risked everything to the very limit where vertigo is inevitable," said Theo when he saw the swirling, intemperate painting.
I was a little taken aback with the biographers' belief that his tragic end was no suicide, contrary to the accepted norm that the fatal wound was self inflicted, surmising instead that a teenaged ruffian named Rene Secretan, known to brandish a gun and who often bullied Vincent: might have shot him, but that Vincent covered up for the boy in his desire to spare him.
Vincent left behind a life so well expressed in his letters that the authors could create this passionate portrait of an artist as a troubled man, which at 1000+ pages is itself a masterful work of art, a painfully heartrending reflection of an intelligent, colorful yet restless life, who suffered in his quest to articulate meaning in his art, and died not realizing that he had already done just that.
"It must be good to die in the knowledge that one has done some truthful work."
* me
July 6, 2012
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.
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.
December 8, 2019
During this summer I had the chance to visit Van Goghs museum in Amsterdam and after my return home I just had to find out more. Before my trip I looked up interesting locations to visit up on TripAdvisor and of course this museum was in top 5. Seeing this my thoughts were:
1) Oh yeah, he was Dutch, wasn't he... and
2) I really don't know more about him other then the ear incident, Sunflowers and Starry Night
This gap in knowledge had to be fixed!
Vincent was an incredibly tragic and passionate figure, battered by his own manias his entire life and always dreaming of fame and redemption he never got. It was hard reading about all of his personal, interpersonal or financial failures. The blow by blow accounts of all of his friendship meltdowns struck me quite deep and made me feel quite sorry for him, long before the ear incident. Which undoubtedly helped in making himself into a legend that he is today, and one of the best representatives of struggling artists everywhere.
This book is overwhelmingly thorough, it feels as if the only way to find out more would be to read all of his letters myself. Thankfully for every painting mentioned I could recall it from the museum or use the internet to look them up (this was especially useful for the mentioned paintings that were made by his contemporaries). I personally loved this book, but I see a lot of other reviewers say that the author portrayed Vincent in overly negative light in this book, looking at everything through the lens of mental illness. To some extent I can see why people might have a problem with this, but I would have to read more biographies and probably the "My Dear Theo" collection of his letters to see if they are right...
I might start looking into this in a few years (it was a 900 page book, I need a break from this topic).
1) Oh yeah, he was Dutch, wasn't he... and
2) I really don't know more about him other then the ear incident, Sunflowers and Starry Night
This gap in knowledge had to be fixed!
Vincent was an incredibly tragic and passionate figure, battered by his own manias his entire life and always dreaming of fame and redemption he never got. It was hard reading about all of his personal, interpersonal or financial failures. The blow by blow accounts of all of his friendship meltdowns struck me quite deep and made me feel quite sorry for him, long before the ear incident. Which undoubtedly helped in making himself into a legend that he is today, and one of the best representatives of struggling artists everywhere.
This book is overwhelmingly thorough, it feels as if the only way to find out more would be to read all of his letters myself. Thankfully for every painting mentioned I could recall it from the museum or use the internet to look them up (this was especially useful for the mentioned paintings that were made by his contemporaries). I personally loved this book, but I see a lot of other reviewers say that the author portrayed Vincent in overly negative light in this book, looking at everything through the lens of mental illness. To some extent I can see why people might have a problem with this, but I would have to read more biographies and probably the "My Dear Theo" collection of his letters to see if they are right...
I might start looking into this in a few years (it was a 900 page book, I need a break from this topic).
May 20, 2023
"Sou um fanático! Sinto um poder dentro de mim...um fogo que não posso apagar e preciso manter aceso.
O que a minha arte é, eu sou também."
Absolutamente indispensável a todos os fãs do pintor. ❤️
Já tinha lido uma outra biografia, já li as cartas, já vi filmes, enfim, achei que conhecia bem a vida de Van Gogh. Afinal, nada me preparou para a montanha russa que foi a vida do pintor aqui esmiuçada até ao mais insignificante detalhe. Num momento estava com pena dele e no seguinte bufava de impaciência. Tinha uma personalidade difícil, um génio exacerbado e um talento que desconhecia e demorou a aperfeiçoar.
Os últimos meses de vida, os últimos dias, as últimas cartas são difíceis de digerir. Em cada livro que leio fico sempre com a sensação de que podia ter tido um desfecho diferente.
O que a minha arte é, eu sou também."
Absolutamente indispensável a todos os fãs do pintor. ❤️
Já tinha lido uma outra biografia, já li as cartas, já vi filmes, enfim, achei que conhecia bem a vida de Van Gogh. Afinal, nada me preparou para a montanha russa que foi a vida do pintor aqui esmiuçada até ao mais insignificante detalhe. Num momento estava com pena dele e no seguinte bufava de impaciência. Tinha uma personalidade difícil, um génio exacerbado e um talento que desconhecia e demorou a aperfeiçoar.
Os últimos meses de vida, os últimos dias, as últimas cartas são difíceis de digerir. Em cada livro que leio fico sempre com a sensação de que podia ter tido um desfecho diferente.
September 13, 2015
A very comprehensive biography of an intense and passionate man that provides a deep insight into his mind and creative process. A thoroughly researched portrait of Vincent's tragic life. Vincent initially comes off as an arrogant and self-destructive man. But he was as much a victim of the society that rejected him for being different. Vincent would start his career as an art dealer. But he was neither smooth talking nor good with people, which would mean an end to his career as an art dealer. Faced with his failure and rejection from his family, he would try to find solace in religion. But his later foray into a career as a missionary would also end in a similar failure. The intensity and passion that he brought to his attempted career as a missionary or a preacher, and his constant search for meaning would alienate most of his peers.
Faced with his failure in all his career endeavors, and having been rejected and shunned by family and friends and women, his life would soon spiral downward into intense melancholy and guilt that would mark his painting career. Throughout his artistic career, he would search for solace and meaning, often keeping emotional crisis and complete breakdown at bay by his furious dedication to his work and delusions of future success. It is remarkable the amount of intensity with which he worked despite being rejected and ridiculed at every step. His art was his solace and his mode of expression. He puoured his emotional and spiritual feelings into his work. He may not have been a good draftsman but his passion and intensity speaks through his colours.
The authors here also make a good case that the gunshot wound that killed Vincent might infact have been an accident, a result of an altercation rather than suicide.
A remarkable and heartbreaking biography.
Faced with his failure in all his career endeavors, and having been rejected and shunned by family and friends and women, his life would soon spiral downward into intense melancholy and guilt that would mark his painting career. Throughout his artistic career, he would search for solace and meaning, often keeping emotional crisis and complete breakdown at bay by his furious dedication to his work and delusions of future success. It is remarkable the amount of intensity with which he worked despite being rejected and ridiculed at every step. His art was his solace and his mode of expression. He puoured his emotional and spiritual feelings into his work. He may not have been a good draftsman but his passion and intensity speaks through his colours.
The authors here also make a good case that the gunshot wound that killed Vincent might infact have been an accident, a result of an altercation rather than suicide.
A remarkable and heartbreaking biography.
November 23, 2018
En este curso me matriculé de dos asignaturas de estética, entendiéndose estética como la rama de la filosofía aplicada al arte, no la estética corporal, aunque curiosamente también tengo la titulación (y nunca ejercí porque no pude encontrar trabajo en ello). Para estas asignaturas tengo que realizar un trabajo/ensayo de investigación, con la ventaja de que la elección del tema corre a cargo del los propios alumnos. Yo elegí un tema relacionado con Vincent van Gogh para el que necesitaba conocer muy bien su biografía, así que decidí documentarme con, entre otras cosas, este tochaco que tardó en investigarse y escribirse diez años. El resultado: un documento completísimo, con mucha información, no solo sobre Van Gogh, sino también de allegados, contexto histórico y social de la época, láminas, fotos nunca antes publicadas (cedidas por el Museo Van Gogh de Amsterdam)... En fin, lo que viene a ser, me atrevo a decir, la biografía definitiva del pintor. Se nota el esmero y la implicación de los autores, aunque en algunos momentos no me gustó que incluyeran cliffhangers, lo vi innecesario y un poco sensacionalista, pero bueno, es un pequeño "pero".
He tardado casi dos meses en leer este libro, pero lo he disfrutado y he aprendido mucho. Ahora voy a por algo más complicado: los ensayos filosóficos de estética para seguir completando mi trabajo. No los pondré en mi Goodreads porque no leeré libros enteros, solo algunos fragmentos y también artículos sueltos. La odisea continua, aprendiendo pero con ganas de superarla.
He tardado casi dos meses en leer este libro, pero lo he disfrutado y he aprendido mucho. Ahora voy a por algo más complicado: los ensayos filosóficos de estética para seguir completando mi trabajo. No los pondré en mi Goodreads porque no leeré libros enteros, solo algunos fragmentos y también artículos sueltos. La odisea continua, aprendiendo pero con ganas de superarla.
July 7, 2018
This was by far the most incredibly detailed biography I have ever read but also one of the most fascinating books in general I’ve ever picked up. I have always been drawn to van Gogh’s art and also him as a person, but admittedly didn’t know much despite having gone to the museum dedicated to him twice. He is such a legendary figure but the real story, meticulously researched and written here, is absolutely tragic. I find myself wanting to reach out to anyone I’ve ever been mean to in my life to apologize and afford them the courtesy that was denied to Vincent. He was a social outcast, had zero employability, and depended on his brother Theo in every aspect of life (especially financially). He tried so, so hard—that’s my main takeaway. Vincent tried. He tried to please his family, he tried to get a job to support himself, he tried to make beautiful art, he tried to find a wife, he always tried. The authors’ note on his death is incredibly interesting; they suggest that it was the result of an accidental shooting by a local teenager who regularly tormented Vincent. While Vincent was certainly depressed, the authors argue that he never truly was suicidal and his death occurred because he merely welcomed it as it happened and told authorities he shot himself in order to protect the boy. If this is the truth (I believe it, but we’ll never truly know) I’m even more impressed and devastated by Vincent. I’m reminded of the Doctor Who episode in which a museum curator calls him the best painter of all time, a man who took his debilitating pain and created ecstatic beauty—I absolutely agree.
March 4, 2012
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/disabilities from a distance. These authors don't care; to them he was a spoiled (!) brat who took advantage of his friends and family.
November 21, 2019
“Trust in God who sees everything and knows everything,” said Vincent Van Gogh’s mother, Anna, “though His solution may be deeply sad.” This is a fitting summary of one of the saddest family chronicles imaginable. Nearly everyone in Vincent’s family ended life at least disappointed, if not depressed or insane. The glorious French sunlight that Vincent left us in his paintings covers a shadowy lifetime of seemingly unanswered prayers for harmony and wholeness in his family. The massive biography by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith portrays Vincent’s life as a long plea for reconciliation—with his pastor father especially, but also with his stoic mother, his enabling brother, and with fellow artists and the Paris art scene that didn’t understand him or accept him. It’s hard to see exactly where and why this breakdown of the family occurred—the biographers endeavor to present the bare facts, without interpretation of what was “really” happening (though of course any biography is an interpretation, not just the facts). The authors put a negative spin on some aspects of Vincent’s growing-up years that seems to me based more on knowing the tragic outcome than on a neutral view on what was really said and done.
What we learn for certain from this accounting of Vincent’s life is that he was an extraordinarily difficult person to get along with. He struggled all of his adult life with deep feelings of inadequacy, failure, and regret. With hindsight, we see many places in his story where, with our better understanding of depression, interventions could have greatly helped him. But at the time, even near the end of Vincent’s life when he was admitted to asylums, no one knew what depression was. The best diagnosis doctors could offer was that Vincent suffered from a “latent epilepsy” that caused mental seizures, not physical, which led to his darkest periods of depression and rage. The only treatment doctors could prescribe was to keep him in a safe place where he wouldn’t be able to harm himself or others. And after a certain period of apparently good mental health, they saw no reason not to release him back to the world, where he would meet exactly the same situations that brought about the madness in the first place. It all seems sad and ludicrous now, which shows how much we’ve learned in the decades since (and suggests how much we still have to learn).
In those later years of Vincent’s life, when he was in and out of asylums, the biographers want to suggest that his family, and even his beloved brother Theo, were heartless and cold toward him, not reaching out in love and support. But after the hundreds of pages detailing how awful Vincent was to his family, again and again, the reader wants to throw his hands up and say, “Well, what were they supposed to do, though?” They had given Vincent chance after chance and seen him throw it back in their faces every time. I know that by that point in the biography, I was exasperated with him! And only in his late 30s, there was probably little thought that the end was so near. I can understand if the family assumed that this was a short period in his life where he was safely looked after by someone else in an asylum.
“Exasperation” is a key word for my feelings at a lot of points in this 900-page biography. I wanted to learn more about Vincent, beyond the legend, and I suppose this book met that need. But it is a long book. I don’t fear long books—Middlemarch is my favorite novel and Les Misérables, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, and other lengthy tomes are also favorites—but this book felt long. The writing is clear and precise, but something about the style felt ponderous and dull to me. All of it is “fine,” but none of it is “beautiful.”
The barrage of minutiae about Vincent’s day-to-day life really wore me down (one reason that I spent months reading this! There always seemed to be another book that I’d rather be reading, until I settled down and forced myself to just finish this one). Before reading the book, I thought that I liked him and his work. Having finished this biography, I find that he has now been thoroughly demystified for me. Getting to the end and finding that even his enduring legacy was in many ways manufactured by people who wanted or needed him to be famous—not that contemporaries saw his works and were instantly blown away by them (though I’m sure that’s some part of it, too)—was particularly disheartening. I would still like to read a collection of Vincent’s letters, because I sense that perhaps the biographers have given a negative reading to some of his writing; but I wish I felt more affection for him after learning this much about his life. It is at least nice to be able to place his work within a timeline and a story—it’s interesting to know, for example, that the sheaves of wheat painting I see at the Dallas Museum of Art is from the end of his life, when he was living in Auvers and still dreaming of recruiting Theo and his family to join him there. But for most people who want to learn about Vincent, I’d recommend a shorter book—probably one that focuses on his life and work from the period at Arles onward. That phase includes most of his best-known works, and what comes before is extremely repetitive and bleak. A shorter summary of his life up to that point will be sufficient for most readers.
I look forward to watching Loving Vincent and re-watching At Eternity’s Gate, which I think I’ll appreciate more this time.
What we learn for certain from this accounting of Vincent’s life is that he was an extraordinarily difficult person to get along with. He struggled all of his adult life with deep feelings of inadequacy, failure, and regret. With hindsight, we see many places in his story where, with our better understanding of depression, interventions could have greatly helped him. But at the time, even near the end of Vincent’s life when he was admitted to asylums, no one knew what depression was. The best diagnosis doctors could offer was that Vincent suffered from a “latent epilepsy” that caused mental seizures, not physical, which led to his darkest periods of depression and rage. The only treatment doctors could prescribe was to keep him in a safe place where he wouldn’t be able to harm himself or others. And after a certain period of apparently good mental health, they saw no reason not to release him back to the world, where he would meet exactly the same situations that brought about the madness in the first place. It all seems sad and ludicrous now, which shows how much we’ve learned in the decades since (and suggests how much we still have to learn).
In those later years of Vincent’s life, when he was in and out of asylums, the biographers want to suggest that his family, and even his beloved brother Theo, were heartless and cold toward him, not reaching out in love and support. But after the hundreds of pages detailing how awful Vincent was to his family, again and again, the reader wants to throw his hands up and say, “Well, what were they supposed to do, though?” They had given Vincent chance after chance and seen him throw it back in their faces every time. I know that by that point in the biography, I was exasperated with him! And only in his late 30s, there was probably little thought that the end was so near. I can understand if the family assumed that this was a short period in his life where he was safely looked after by someone else in an asylum.
“Exasperation” is a key word for my feelings at a lot of points in this 900-page biography. I wanted to learn more about Vincent, beyond the legend, and I suppose this book met that need. But it is a long book. I don’t fear long books—Middlemarch is my favorite novel and Les Misérables, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, and other lengthy tomes are also favorites—but this book felt long. The writing is clear and precise, but something about the style felt ponderous and dull to me. All of it is “fine,” but none of it is “beautiful.”
The barrage of minutiae about Vincent’s day-to-day life really wore me down (one reason that I spent months reading this! There always seemed to be another book that I’d rather be reading, until I settled down and forced myself to just finish this one). Before reading the book, I thought that I liked him and his work. Having finished this biography, I find that he has now been thoroughly demystified for me. Getting to the end and finding that even his enduring legacy was in many ways manufactured by people who wanted or needed him to be famous—not that contemporaries saw his works and were instantly blown away by them (though I’m sure that’s some part of it, too)—was particularly disheartening. I would still like to read a collection of Vincent’s letters, because I sense that perhaps the biographers have given a negative reading to some of his writing; but I wish I felt more affection for him after learning this much about his life. It is at least nice to be able to place his work within a timeline and a story—it’s interesting to know, for example, that the sheaves of wheat painting I see at the Dallas Museum of Art is from the end of his life, when he was living in Auvers and still dreaming of recruiting Theo and his family to join him there. But for most people who want to learn about Vincent, I’d recommend a shorter book—probably one that focuses on his life and work from the period at Arles onward. That phase includes most of his best-known works, and what comes before is extremely repetitive and bleak. A shorter summary of his life up to that point will be sufficient for most readers.
I look forward to watching Loving Vincent and re-watching At Eternity’s Gate, which I think I’ll appreciate more this time.
May 18, 2021
Biographies can be a dry subject, especially if they have over 900 pages - and for that reason, I must compliment Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith for having written such a compelling and addictive book. In this absolute page-turner, they have not only developed a top-notch academic research work, they have also managed to write it with such skill that it turned into a gripping, inspiring novel-like tale. Using the painter's letters, they succeeded in making his personality and struggles come to life, and have drawn a complete psychological profile of Vincent, the man, while highlighting what makes the work of Van Gogh, the painter, so mesmerizing.
In this book we discover that Vincent was by no means a perfect man - selfish, manipulative, stubborn and prone to anger - but by the end of the book you can't help but feel a great sadness for this unique, troubled man, stuck in a lifelong fight with himself. I dare say that even if you are not that interested in art, you'd be captivated by Vincent's inspiring, although tragic, life story. Despite it being 950 pages long, I wish it could have been even longer - I will miss this book.
In this book we discover that Vincent was by no means a perfect man - selfish, manipulative, stubborn and prone to anger - but by the end of the book you can't help but feel a great sadness for this unique, troubled man, stuck in a lifelong fight with himself. I dare say that even if you are not that interested in art, you'd be captivated by Vincent's inspiring, although tragic, life story. Despite it being 950 pages long, I wish it could have been even longer - I will miss this book.
May 22, 2012
I've read a good amount of books regarding van Gogh, including a condensed book of his prolific correspondence, and a few regarding his time in Arles with and without Gauguin.
I was somewhat disappointed with this book. I felt the viewpoint was slanted and biased to a negative perspective regarding a complicated man. Van Gogh was flawed, like any other man; he was a man misunderstood in his time. I suppose you could read any number of his letters and decide he was "delusional" or "ungrateful" and "unappreciative" with what he was given in life. At the same time, you would see a man who perceived the world beyond what most men of his time saw. An art that was both charged with emotional perspective and limitless in its communication. Full of color; full of life; full of expressing what's inside of us through the mundane and simple objects of our world.
I choose to think that Vincent was a genius as an artist. I am always inspired by his interpretation of the world and the art he created and I truly believe that had he been creating his masterpieces 30 years later he would have been seen in a truly different light by many of his peers. How many other artists can we say were so driven? so difficult? Unfortunately the almost 900 pages of this book were mostly negative and painted Vincent in a pitiful light and without much respect for the difficulties he managed to overcome in his life.
I also found the research regarding the other artists discussed in the book, i.e. Gauguin and Bernard was not very complete.
I was somewhat disappointed with this book. I felt the viewpoint was slanted and biased to a negative perspective regarding a complicated man. Van Gogh was flawed, like any other man; he was a man misunderstood in his time. I suppose you could read any number of his letters and decide he was "delusional" or "ungrateful" and "unappreciative" with what he was given in life. At the same time, you would see a man who perceived the world beyond what most men of his time saw. An art that was both charged with emotional perspective and limitless in its communication. Full of color; full of life; full of expressing what's inside of us through the mundane and simple objects of our world.
I choose to think that Vincent was a genius as an artist. I am always inspired by his interpretation of the world and the art he created and I truly believe that had he been creating his masterpieces 30 years later he would have been seen in a truly different light by many of his peers. How many other artists can we say were so driven? so difficult? Unfortunately the almost 900 pages of this book were mostly negative and painted Vincent in a pitiful light and without much respect for the difficulties he managed to overcome in his life.
I also found the research regarding the other artists discussed in the book, i.e. Gauguin and Bernard was not very complete.
November 7, 2021
I seldom write Goodreads reviews and am not about to start to, but this book has deeply moved me - at times to tears. It would seem unjust to simply mark it as read and move onto the next read.
Many know Vincent van Gogh for cutting of his own ear and his crowning achievement: The Starry Night. A few know the details in between; the frustrations and let-downs that had led to Vincent almost amputating his left ear, after which he sought respite at the Saint-Paul asylum, from which he painted his second starry night, welding both real-life observation and imagination - and that he had considered it a failure. These are but a few details that do not even begin to cover the rich and heartbreaking life of Vincent van Gogh; one that overflowed with torment, beauty, sentiment and color.
For fans of Vincent, such as myself, this is a must-read. In eloquent, almost poetic language, and thorough attention to the smallest of details, this book provides an intimate, day-by-day account of Vincent van Gogh's life; which has been anything but easy. I am grateful that, in spite of his despair, Vincent continued to paint and write his true-hearted brother Theo - for it is from their correspondences that we had gleaned insight into the extraordinary life of an extraordinary man; one the world, at the time, was committed to misunderstanding.
Upon hearing of Charles-François Daubigny's death in 1878, Vincent wrote: "it must be good to die in the knowledge that one has done some truthful work and to know that, as a result, one will live on in the memory of at least a few." I wish there were a way for Vincent to know that his truthful work would be celebrated into perpetuity and that his beautiful, gentle soul would live on and continue to touch and inspire lives, even today.
Many know Vincent van Gogh for cutting of his own ear and his crowning achievement: The Starry Night. A few know the details in between; the frustrations and let-downs that had led to Vincent almost amputating his left ear, after which he sought respite at the Saint-Paul asylum, from which he painted his second starry night, welding both real-life observation and imagination - and that he had considered it a failure. These are but a few details that do not even begin to cover the rich and heartbreaking life of Vincent van Gogh; one that overflowed with torment, beauty, sentiment and color.
For fans of Vincent, such as myself, this is a must-read. In eloquent, almost poetic language, and thorough attention to the smallest of details, this book provides an intimate, day-by-day account of Vincent van Gogh's life; which has been anything but easy. I am grateful that, in spite of his despair, Vincent continued to paint and write his true-hearted brother Theo - for it is from their correspondences that we had gleaned insight into the extraordinary life of an extraordinary man; one the world, at the time, was committed to misunderstanding.
Upon hearing of Charles-François Daubigny's death in 1878, Vincent wrote: "it must be good to die in the knowledge that one has done some truthful work and to know that, as a result, one will live on in the memory of at least a few." I wish there were a way for Vincent to know that his truthful work would be celebrated into perpetuity and that his beautiful, gentle soul would live on and continue to touch and inspire lives, even today.
November 30, 2011
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.
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.
July 11, 2015
"Nós, que vivemos de pão, não somos em boa medida como o trigo, não somos, quando menos, obrigados a nos submeter a crescer como uma planta sem poder se mover, quero dizer, no rumo a que nos impele nossa imaginação, e a ser colhidos quando estamos maduros, como o próprio trigo?"
A história de um homem que viveu fiel a si próprio. E contou com trinta e sete anos e alguns meses de força para lutar contra todos os que pretendiam que ele se submetesse, sem exceção. Sem nenhuma exceção, e isso requer uma força extraordinária, explicada, contada, esmiuçada em mil e tantas páginas de sumo interesse, valor literário e pesquisa minuciosa, sem quase nenhum momento de tédio. Restou afinal uma grande emoção para o leitor, que pode ser resumida em suas próprias palavras, como acima:
"As ilusões podem desaparecer, mas o sublime permanece".
A história de um homem que viveu fiel a si próprio. E contou com trinta e sete anos e alguns meses de força para lutar contra todos os que pretendiam que ele se submetesse, sem exceção. Sem nenhuma exceção, e isso requer uma força extraordinária, explicada, contada, esmiuçada em mil e tantas páginas de sumo interesse, valor literário e pesquisa minuciosa, sem quase nenhum momento de tédio. Restou afinal uma grande emoção para o leitor, que pode ser resumida em suas próprias palavras, como acima:
"As ilusões podem desaparecer, mas o sublime permanece".
May 30, 2021
niesamowita książka, według mnie naprawdę świetnie napisana, szacunek do autorów
ilość stron może trochę przerażać na początku, ale inaczej się nie dało przy tak szczegółowych opisach
dla mnie była to świetna lektura, przeszyta ogromnym smutkiem, ale ważna
ilość stron może trochę przerażać na początku, ale inaczej się nie dało przy tak szczegółowych opisach
dla mnie była to świetna lektura, przeszyta ogromnym smutkiem, ale ważna
May 19, 2014
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 White make a thoroughly convincing case for Vincent's illness having been temporal lobe epilepsy. In fact, that was the diagnosis at the hospital in Arles where he was first treated for his mental illness after he mutilated his ear. Why so many other theories about his illness clouded the issue is unclear to me, when the original diagnosis and all his symptoms pointed directly to temporal lobe epilepsy.
And finally, the short discussion about Vincent's death and why the authors do not believe it was a suicide, is also totally convincing. Reading their assertions and the reasons for them (both pertaining to the diagnosis of his illness and the cause of his death) leaves no room for any other theory, as far as I'm concerned. If for no other reason, the fact that all the painting gear that he had taken with him that day as well as the revolver that he was shot with were never found would point to it NOT being a suicide. Poor wonderful, talented, brilliant Vincent.
This is an essential book for anyone who is truly interested in Vincent van Gogh.
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 White make a thoroughly convincing case for Vincent's illness having been temporal lobe epilepsy. In fact, that was the diagnosis at the hospital in Arles where he was first treated for his mental illness after he mutilated his ear. Why so many other theories about his illness clouded the issue is unclear to me, when the original diagnosis and all his symptoms pointed directly to temporal lobe epilepsy.
And finally, the short discussion about Vincent's death and why the authors do not believe it was a suicide, is also totally convincing. Reading their assertions and the reasons for them (both pertaining to the diagnosis of his illness and the cause of his death) leaves no room for any other theory, as far as I'm concerned. If for no other reason, the fact that all the painting gear that he had taken with him that day as well as the revolver that he was shot with were never found would point to it NOT being a suicide. Poor wonderful, talented, brilliant Vincent.
This is an essential book for anyone who is truly interested in Vincent van Gogh.
March 5, 2016
What banal and unadulterated drivel!
I must begin by stating for the record that I am not religious. And it would not be appropriate to place me in any distinct “belief” category since even I cannot. But I am continually amazed and saddened by the audacity of those who purport with their writings to tell the story of a person’s life yet distort that biographical record so completely and, in the case of the illustrious Vincent van Gogh, so unashamedly. I refer to the 976-page tome by former Pulitzer-winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith under the somewhat unimaginative title of Van Gogh: The Life (Random House, 2012).
Telling the story of another person’s life comes with a formidable responsibility, as with the recording of all true events. Biographers are documentarians and by definition set down evidence for those who come after them. In doing so, they must connect with the essence of the subject on a factual level as well as on an intellectual and emotional level. Biography is, after all, the recording of a person’s life; and if I as biographer rush to judgement or am slipshod with facts, I not only besmirch that person’s life but violate the trust of future generations to come. The historical record would be flawed.
As I have stated, I am not a religious man by any means but my beliefs have nothing to do with biographical integrity. In my opinion, a good deal of the ruminations of Naifeh and Smith in Van Gogh: The Life are in reality mere speculation, and certainly lack journalistic integrity. Their protracted opus, had it been confined to fact, would have been half its size. It is suffused with conjecture . . . some might say claptrap. And there’s a lot of it. The tangible evidence revealed in Vincent van Gogh’s own beautifully written and reverent letters, of which over 900 exist, seems to have been ignored by the book’s authors (notwithstanding the thousands of citations on the book’s website) in their desire to sensationalize.
The Washington Post, in a review of Van Gogh: The Life, had this to say:
“Marvelous . . . [Van Gogh: The Life] reads like a novel, full of suspense and intimate detail . . . In beautiful prose, Naifeh and Smith argue convincingly for a subtler, more realistic evaluation of Van Gogh, and we all win.”
Actually, we all lose. There’s no doubt that the book reads like a novel because it is serves up a lot of fiction, and is full of presumption and supposition. Read Vincent’s own letters if you doubt that. Someone once said, “Well, every biography has some conjecture. It’s the nature of the beast.” I disagree. Postulation perhaps—an intellectual questioning as a basis for reason. But conjecture is the forming of an opinion based on incomplete or inaccurate information. How this book and its polemics argue for “… a subtler, more realistic evaluation of Van Gogh” is beyond me. The record clearly shows otherwise. And the prose is not so much beautiful as garrulous.
Here’s what Naifeh and Smith say about Van Gogh’s painting of his father’s Bible:
“When he finally achieved the color he was looking for—a deep, pearly lavender gray, equal parts Veronese’s wedding banquet, Hals’s bourgeois militiaman, and the dead flesh of Rembrandt’s corpses—he ‘detonated’ it on the canvas in a hail of vandalizing brushstrokes in place of the neat blocks of text.”
One can’t help but wonder how the authors knew what color Vincent was looking for. Nowhere in the record does Van Gogh say he’s looking for “a deep lavender grey” let alone any reference to Veronese, Frans Hal, and certainly not “the dead flesh of Rembrandt’s corpses”. “Detonating” paint onto canvas may have worked for their (also questionable) treatment of Jackson Pollok but it’s a bit over the top for Van Gogh. And their “hail of vandalizing brushstrokes” starts in me a kind of literary nausea. I get the strong notion that Naifeh and Smith’s writing is mere loquaciousness, and certainly demonstrates that they are less familiar with art history than their chosen profession as lawyers, and lack the ability to craft an honest biography. Then comes:
“As he finished the book and the draped table, the clash of complementaries played itself out in an argument of broken tones applied with an increasingly broad and confrontational brush. To complete this chronicle of rejection, grief, self-reproach, and defiance, Vincent added at the last minute a new object—an extinguished candle—the final snuffing out of the ‘rayon noir’, and a confession that he could never make any other way.”
Amazing rhetoric. Astounding conjecture. Clever alliteration. But little veracity. The overall impression one takes away from Naifeh and Smith’s book is well expressed in reviews on Amazon.com. One of them by Richard A. Schindler stands out:
‘The excessive focus on almost every moment of Vincent’s personal life and relationships paints a portrait of an ungrateful, wretched, belligerent, obsessive, delusional (a word used numerous times) son, brother, employee, and friend. The letters are exhaustively (and I mean exhaustively) combed for passages that purportedly reveal a man who lived a life of passionate renunciation of the truth and mightily abused anyone who happened to cross his path.
“Oh yeah, he happens to make some great art in the last four years of his life. The analysis of the art occasionally provokes some insights into Vincent’s influences and his application of a vast internal compendium of art, literature, and religion to all of his work. However, the individual works are either given cursory treatment or relegated to a kind of elevated descriptive exegesis. For example, the section on “Still Life with Open Bible” (1885) ignores Vincent’s great respect for the Bible and the central significance of the passage from Isaiah as it relates to the subject and hero of Emile Zola’s “La Joie de vivre”.
“When will we be freed of these monstrous biographies that purport to give us some psychological insight into the minds of artists? The Jackson Pollock bio was character assassination through labored and pseudo-intellectual analysis of every aspect of his life and art. Van Gogh: The Life (the hubris!) is more of the same, but with better pictures. The authors are graduates of Harvard Law School and it looks like they want to put their subjects in a dock and prosecute the life out of them.”
~ Richard A. Schindler, Amazon.com, February 26, 2012.
While there are many who have given the book glowing reviews on Amazon.com, one wonders if any of them took the time to read some of Van Gogh’s complete letters (freely available on the Van Gogh Museum’s website) rather than believe in the trite techniques of obfuscation used by Naifeh and Smith to paint their subject in “fathomless grey”. Parts of Van Gogh’s letters have been deliberately, it seems, taken out of context, and interpreted to suit the authors’ motives. One wonders what possible motives these people would have for denigrating a man’s life, especially that of a man so well known and loved for his generosity of spirit and innumerable acts of kindness. And that’s not supposition; it’s fact.
Naifeh and Smith would have you believe that Van Gogh turned away from God over the course of his brief life and, using a skewed interpretation of one of Vincent’s letters, that his was a “fanatic heart”—that he was a fractured and frenzied soul. They are quick to use sentences and phrases such as:
“Long after others had put away the breathless manias of youth, Vincent still lived by their unsparing rules.”
‘”These storms of zeal had transformed a boy of inexplicable fierceness into a wayward, battered soul: a stranger in the world, an exile to his own family, and an enemy to himself.”
” . . . the price Vincent paid in loneliness and disappointment for his self-defeating, take-no-prisoners assaults on life . . .”
” . . .all those who dismissed Vincent’s paintings—or his letters—as the rantings of the wretched, as most still did.”
What unadulterated, hackneyed nonsense has been spawned by these two authors. And the damage done to Van Gogh’s legacy is immeasurable. Naifeh and Smith, in my view, misinterpret passion for fanaticism. They smear youth as having “breathless manias” and that youth as a whole is “unsparing”. The hyperbole is disturbing. If I were young, I’d be insulted. But don’t just take my word for it; read the facts. Read Vincent’s own letters—completely, not partially. And with an open mind that, like Van Gogh’s, begins with a kind heart, and not one that seeks to besmirch and sensationalize at the cost of truth, or to engage in the wanton denigration of a person’s character.
Vincent van Gogh’s letters remain today some of the finest examples of prose in existence. And they illustrate, over and over, a mind that could not have been so fractured and frenzied; it would never have been able to see the minute details of human existence—his powers of observation were remarkable—and to write those down so eloquently and with such warmth and caring. And then to transform those scenes into the powerful (and undeniably compassionate) drawings and paintings that are his enduring legacy.
Ten years before his untimely death, Van Gogh wrote:
“Now likewise, everything in men and in their works that is truly good, and beautiful with an inner moral, spiritual and sublime beauty, I think that comes from God, and that everything that is bad and wicked in the works of men and in men, that’s not from God, and God doesn’t find it good, either. But without intending it, I’m always inclined to believe that the best way of knowing God is to love a great deal. Love that friend, that person, that thing, whatever you like, you’ll be on the right path to knowing more thoroughly, afterwards; that’s what I say to myself. But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more. That leads to God, that leads to unshakeable faith.
“Someone, to give an example, will love Rembrandt but seriously, that man will know there is a God, he’ll believe firmly in Him.
“Someone will make a deep study of the history of the French Revolution—he will not be an unbeliever, he will see that in great things, too, there is a sovereign power that manifests itself.
“Someone will have attended, for a time only, the free course at the great university of poverty, and will have paid attention to the things he sees with his eyes and hears with his ears, and will have thought about it; he too, will come to believe, and will perhaps learn more about it than he could say.
“Try to understand the last word of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces; there will be God in it. Someone has written or said it in a book, someone in a painting.”
~ Vincent van Gogh, c. June 22-24, 1880.
And then, just two years before his death, Vincent—this man whose letters Naifeh and Smith would have you believe were ” . . . the rantings of the wretched . . .” and who had moved away from his core Christian beliefs—wrote these exquisite lines:
“Christ alone—of all the philosophers, Magi, etc.—has affirmed, as a principal certainty, eternal life, the infinity of time, the nothingness of death, the necessity and the raison d’etre of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as a greater artist than all other artists, despising marble and clay as well as color, working in living flesh. That is to say, this matchless artist, hardly to be conceived of by the obtuse instrument of our modern, nervous, stupefied brains, made neither statues nor pictures nor books; he loudly proclaimed that he made . . . living men, immortals. This is serious, especially because it is the truth. . .
” . . . And who would dare tell us that he [Jesus] lied on that day when, scornfully foretelling the collapse of the Roman edifice, he declared, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. . . .
‘”. . . But seeing that nothing opposes it—supposing that there are also lines and forms as well as colors on the other innumerable planets and suns—it would remain praiseworthy of us to maintain a certain serenity with regard to the possibilities of painting under superior and changed conditions of existence, an existence changed by a phenomenon no queerer and no more surprising than the transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly, or the white grub into the cockchafer.
“The existence of painter-butterfly would have for its field of action one of the innumerable heavenly bodies, which would perhaps be no more inaccessible to us, after death, than the black dots which symbolize towns and villages on geographical maps are in our terrestrial existence.”
~ Vincent van Gogh, 1888
It is difficult to contemplate how these words could have been written by Naifeh and Smith’s “. . . wayward, battered soul: a stranger in the world, an exile to his own family, and an enemy to himself.” This apparently fractured man in fact said in a letter to Anthon van Rappard, in 1883:
“The more one loves, the more one will act, I believe, for love that is only a feeling I wouldn’t even consider to be love . . .”
Vincent van Gogh proved many times in his life to have been a man of great kindnesses supported by action. There are scores of examples of his acts of benevolence that bely the exegeses in Van Gogh: The Life. One of the more clear-thinking reviewers on Amazon.com, Kathleen Anderson, wrote:
“The highest spiritual glory in Vincent’s personal life was first expressed in his intention to serve those most in need, to value those rejected by social constructs. He gave up all to bring the divine in Christian understanding to the miners in the ministry of his early manhood. This is evidence of sacrificial love, the highest love, of which Jesus Christ was the example for Vincent. I remain unconvinced that Vincent ever turned away from God; his call to ministry seems to me to have evolved into visual witness of the glorious gifts God gives to humanity. I have no sense of this from the authors of the book, ‘Van Gogh: The Life’.”
~ Kathleen Anderson, Amazon.com, February 24, 2012
Vincent van Gogh was, by dint of his own writings, an ardent Christian. That he retreated from the organized church early in life is not in dispute. He despaired of the hypocrisy of the clergy with whom he was first connected in the Borinage mining region, an order that to Vincent was one of words and appearances rather than deeds. However, his faithfulness to core Christian principles never waned. This is plainly evident not just in his words but in his actions.
From his earliest days, Vincent van Gogh was conditioned to take action on behalf of the needy. He was the son and grandson of two welfare pastors stationed in the rural south of the Netherlands, and as a young boy had often accompanied his father on missions to deliver clothing and food to the poorest of the peasants in the region. Accounts of Vincent and his family working as nurses are also well substantiated.
Even the cynical and controversial post-impressionist painter, Paul Gauguin, wrote admiringly of how Vincent had nursed severely burned miners back to life during his days in the Borinage region. Many of those injuries included firedamp explosions in the mines of the 19th century, the result of dangerous working conditions that routinely led to death and dismemberment. Van Gogh sacrificed his clothing and bed sheets as bandages for the wounds of severely burned victims. This caused him to have an unkempt appearance which angered his Evangelical superiors who insisted on a dress code for members of the clergy. Ultimately he was dismissed because of his refusal to accede to their admonishments, preferring instead to minister through good deeds. However, those whom he had cared for admired his devotion to them, and his acts of kindness were instrumental in bringing the true Gospel messages to many of them.
The following account from Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent’s sister-in-law, is particularly revealing:
“Some of his characteristics have been remembered vividly. When the miners of Wasmes went to the pits, they put old vests made of sacking over their linen work clothes, using them like pea jackets to protect themselves in the cages, from water spurting from the walls of the shafts. This miserable raggedness kindled Vincent van Gogh’s pity most deeply. One day he saw the word ‘fragile’ printed on the sackcloth on one miner’s back. He did not laugh. On the contrary, for many days he spoke about it compassionately at mealtimes. People did not understand. . .
“An epidemic of typhoid fever had broken out in the district. Vincent had given everything, his money and his clothes, to the poor sick miners. An inspector of the Evangelization Council had come to the conclusion that the missionary’s “exces de zele” bordered on the scandalous, and he did not hide his opinion from the consistory of Wasmes. Van Gogh’s father went from Nuenen [sic] to Wasmes. He found his son lying on a sack filled with straw, horribly worn out and emaciated. In the room, dimly lit by a lamp hanging from the ceiling, some miners with faces pinched with starvation and suffering crowded round Vincent. . .
“. . . Van Gogh made many sensational conversions among the Protestants of Wasmes. People still talk of the miner whom he went to see after the accident in the Marcasse mine. The man was a habitual drinker, ‘an unbeliever and blasphemer,’ according to the people who told me the story. When Vincent entered his house, to help and comfort him, he was received with a volley of abuse. He was called especially a macheux d’capelets [rosary chewer], as if he had been a Roman Catholic Priest. But Van Gogh’s evangelical tenderness converted the man.”
~ Van Gogh-Bonger 1978/1914, 1:226
Now read how absurd the words of Naifeh and Smith are in the Prologue of Van Gogh: The Life:
“No one knew better than Theo—who had followed his brother’s tortured path through a thousand letters—the unbending demands that Vincent placed on himself, and others, and the unending problems he reaped as a consequence. No one understood better the price Vincent paid in loneliness and disappointment for his self-defeating, take-no-prisoners assaults on life . . .”
What banal and clichéd drivel. There’s hardly a letter written by Vincent van Gogh that would give any open-minded reader such ideas.
I will allow that Van Gogh’s relationships with members of his immediate family were at times strained. But the idea put forward by Naifeh and Smith that these were of a permanent or irredeemable nature is patently false. The raising of children into responsible adulthood is fraught with angst and often with trauma. Yet most parents would never give up on their kids, no matter what. The Van Goghs were no exception. Vincent caused his father and mother great anxiety over the course of his brief life; and he bore at times antipathy towards them. But if you know the real story, one devoid of sensationalism for sensationalism's sake, Vincent's relationship with his family was redeemed prior to his death, and very much so afterward.
If you want to read a truly good book on Vincent's life, read "Van Gogh's Untold Journey" by William J. Havlicek, Ph.D. and the forthcoming book "Johanna: The Other Van Gogh" by Havlicek and Glen. Those books are based on facts, not conjecture like Van Gogh: The Life.
I must begin by stating for the record that I am not religious. And it would not be appropriate to place me in any distinct “belief” category since even I cannot. But I am continually amazed and saddened by the audacity of those who purport with their writings to tell the story of a person’s life yet distort that biographical record so completely and, in the case of the illustrious Vincent van Gogh, so unashamedly. I refer to the 976-page tome by former Pulitzer-winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith under the somewhat unimaginative title of Van Gogh: The Life (Random House, 2012).
Telling the story of another person’s life comes with a formidable responsibility, as with the recording of all true events. Biographers are documentarians and by definition set down evidence for those who come after them. In doing so, they must connect with the essence of the subject on a factual level as well as on an intellectual and emotional level. Biography is, after all, the recording of a person’s life; and if I as biographer rush to judgement or am slipshod with facts, I not only besmirch that person’s life but violate the trust of future generations to come. The historical record would be flawed.
As I have stated, I am not a religious man by any means but my beliefs have nothing to do with biographical integrity. In my opinion, a good deal of the ruminations of Naifeh and Smith in Van Gogh: The Life are in reality mere speculation, and certainly lack journalistic integrity. Their protracted opus, had it been confined to fact, would have been half its size. It is suffused with conjecture . . . some might say claptrap. And there’s a lot of it. The tangible evidence revealed in Vincent van Gogh’s own beautifully written and reverent letters, of which over 900 exist, seems to have been ignored by the book’s authors (notwithstanding the thousands of citations on the book’s website) in their desire to sensationalize.
The Washington Post, in a review of Van Gogh: The Life, had this to say:
“Marvelous . . . [Van Gogh: The Life] reads like a novel, full of suspense and intimate detail . . . In beautiful prose, Naifeh and Smith argue convincingly for a subtler, more realistic evaluation of Van Gogh, and we all win.”
Actually, we all lose. There’s no doubt that the book reads like a novel because it is serves up a lot of fiction, and is full of presumption and supposition. Read Vincent’s own letters if you doubt that. Someone once said, “Well, every biography has some conjecture. It’s the nature of the beast.” I disagree. Postulation perhaps—an intellectual questioning as a basis for reason. But conjecture is the forming of an opinion based on incomplete or inaccurate information. How this book and its polemics argue for “… a subtler, more realistic evaluation of Van Gogh” is beyond me. The record clearly shows otherwise. And the prose is not so much beautiful as garrulous.
Here’s what Naifeh and Smith say about Van Gogh’s painting of his father’s Bible:
“When he finally achieved the color he was looking for—a deep, pearly lavender gray, equal parts Veronese’s wedding banquet, Hals’s bourgeois militiaman, and the dead flesh of Rembrandt’s corpses—he ‘detonated’ it on the canvas in a hail of vandalizing brushstrokes in place of the neat blocks of text.”
One can’t help but wonder how the authors knew what color Vincent was looking for. Nowhere in the record does Van Gogh say he’s looking for “a deep lavender grey” let alone any reference to Veronese, Frans Hal, and certainly not “the dead flesh of Rembrandt’s corpses”. “Detonating” paint onto canvas may have worked for their (also questionable) treatment of Jackson Pollok but it’s a bit over the top for Van Gogh. And their “hail of vandalizing brushstrokes” starts in me a kind of literary nausea. I get the strong notion that Naifeh and Smith’s writing is mere loquaciousness, and certainly demonstrates that they are less familiar with art history than their chosen profession as lawyers, and lack the ability to craft an honest biography. Then comes:
“As he finished the book and the draped table, the clash of complementaries played itself out in an argument of broken tones applied with an increasingly broad and confrontational brush. To complete this chronicle of rejection, grief, self-reproach, and defiance, Vincent added at the last minute a new object—an extinguished candle—the final snuffing out of the ‘rayon noir’, and a confession that he could never make any other way.”
Amazing rhetoric. Astounding conjecture. Clever alliteration. But little veracity. The overall impression one takes away from Naifeh and Smith’s book is well expressed in reviews on Amazon.com. One of them by Richard A. Schindler stands out:
‘The excessive focus on almost every moment of Vincent’s personal life and relationships paints a portrait of an ungrateful, wretched, belligerent, obsessive, delusional (a word used numerous times) son, brother, employee, and friend. The letters are exhaustively (and I mean exhaustively) combed for passages that purportedly reveal a man who lived a life of passionate renunciation of the truth and mightily abused anyone who happened to cross his path.
“Oh yeah, he happens to make some great art in the last four years of his life. The analysis of the art occasionally provokes some insights into Vincent’s influences and his application of a vast internal compendium of art, literature, and religion to all of his work. However, the individual works are either given cursory treatment or relegated to a kind of elevated descriptive exegesis. For example, the section on “Still Life with Open Bible” (1885) ignores Vincent’s great respect for the Bible and the central significance of the passage from Isaiah as it relates to the subject and hero of Emile Zola’s “La Joie de vivre”.
“When will we be freed of these monstrous biographies that purport to give us some psychological insight into the minds of artists? The Jackson Pollock bio was character assassination through labored and pseudo-intellectual analysis of every aspect of his life and art. Van Gogh: The Life (the hubris!) is more of the same, but with better pictures. The authors are graduates of Harvard Law School and it looks like they want to put their subjects in a dock and prosecute the life out of them.”
~ Richard A. Schindler, Amazon.com, February 26, 2012.
While there are many who have given the book glowing reviews on Amazon.com, one wonders if any of them took the time to read some of Van Gogh’s complete letters (freely available on the Van Gogh Museum’s website) rather than believe in the trite techniques of obfuscation used by Naifeh and Smith to paint their subject in “fathomless grey”. Parts of Van Gogh’s letters have been deliberately, it seems, taken out of context, and interpreted to suit the authors’ motives. One wonders what possible motives these people would have for denigrating a man’s life, especially that of a man so well known and loved for his generosity of spirit and innumerable acts of kindness. And that’s not supposition; it’s fact.
Naifeh and Smith would have you believe that Van Gogh turned away from God over the course of his brief life and, using a skewed interpretation of one of Vincent’s letters, that his was a “fanatic heart”—that he was a fractured and frenzied soul. They are quick to use sentences and phrases such as:
“Long after others had put away the breathless manias of youth, Vincent still lived by their unsparing rules.”
‘”These storms of zeal had transformed a boy of inexplicable fierceness into a wayward, battered soul: a stranger in the world, an exile to his own family, and an enemy to himself.”
” . . . the price Vincent paid in loneliness and disappointment for his self-defeating, take-no-prisoners assaults on life . . .”
” . . .all those who dismissed Vincent’s paintings—or his letters—as the rantings of the wretched, as most still did.”
What unadulterated, hackneyed nonsense has been spawned by these two authors. And the damage done to Van Gogh’s legacy is immeasurable. Naifeh and Smith, in my view, misinterpret passion for fanaticism. They smear youth as having “breathless manias” and that youth as a whole is “unsparing”. The hyperbole is disturbing. If I were young, I’d be insulted. But don’t just take my word for it; read the facts. Read Vincent’s own letters—completely, not partially. And with an open mind that, like Van Gogh’s, begins with a kind heart, and not one that seeks to besmirch and sensationalize at the cost of truth, or to engage in the wanton denigration of a person’s character.
Vincent van Gogh’s letters remain today some of the finest examples of prose in existence. And they illustrate, over and over, a mind that could not have been so fractured and frenzied; it would never have been able to see the minute details of human existence—his powers of observation were remarkable—and to write those down so eloquently and with such warmth and caring. And then to transform those scenes into the powerful (and undeniably compassionate) drawings and paintings that are his enduring legacy.
Ten years before his untimely death, Van Gogh wrote:
“Now likewise, everything in men and in their works that is truly good, and beautiful with an inner moral, spiritual and sublime beauty, I think that comes from God, and that everything that is bad and wicked in the works of men and in men, that’s not from God, and God doesn’t find it good, either. But without intending it, I’m always inclined to believe that the best way of knowing God is to love a great deal. Love that friend, that person, that thing, whatever you like, you’ll be on the right path to knowing more thoroughly, afterwards; that’s what I say to myself. But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more. That leads to God, that leads to unshakeable faith.
“Someone, to give an example, will love Rembrandt but seriously, that man will know there is a God, he’ll believe firmly in Him.
“Someone will make a deep study of the history of the French Revolution—he will not be an unbeliever, he will see that in great things, too, there is a sovereign power that manifests itself.
“Someone will have attended, for a time only, the free course at the great university of poverty, and will have paid attention to the things he sees with his eyes and hears with his ears, and will have thought about it; he too, will come to believe, and will perhaps learn more about it than he could say.
“Try to understand the last word of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces; there will be God in it. Someone has written or said it in a book, someone in a painting.”
~ Vincent van Gogh, c. June 22-24, 1880.
And then, just two years before his death, Vincent—this man whose letters Naifeh and Smith would have you believe were ” . . . the rantings of the wretched . . .” and who had moved away from his core Christian beliefs—wrote these exquisite lines:
“Christ alone—of all the philosophers, Magi, etc.—has affirmed, as a principal certainty, eternal life, the infinity of time, the nothingness of death, the necessity and the raison d’etre of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as a greater artist than all other artists, despising marble and clay as well as color, working in living flesh. That is to say, this matchless artist, hardly to be conceived of by the obtuse instrument of our modern, nervous, stupefied brains, made neither statues nor pictures nor books; he loudly proclaimed that he made . . . living men, immortals. This is serious, especially because it is the truth. . .
” . . . And who would dare tell us that he [Jesus] lied on that day when, scornfully foretelling the collapse of the Roman edifice, he declared, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. . . .
‘”. . . But seeing that nothing opposes it—supposing that there are also lines and forms as well as colors on the other innumerable planets and suns—it would remain praiseworthy of us to maintain a certain serenity with regard to the possibilities of painting under superior and changed conditions of existence, an existence changed by a phenomenon no queerer and no more surprising than the transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly, or the white grub into the cockchafer.
“The existence of painter-butterfly would have for its field of action one of the innumerable heavenly bodies, which would perhaps be no more inaccessible to us, after death, than the black dots which symbolize towns and villages on geographical maps are in our terrestrial existence.”
~ Vincent van Gogh, 1888
It is difficult to contemplate how these words could have been written by Naifeh and Smith’s “. . . wayward, battered soul: a stranger in the world, an exile to his own family, and an enemy to himself.” This apparently fractured man in fact said in a letter to Anthon van Rappard, in 1883:
“The more one loves, the more one will act, I believe, for love that is only a feeling I wouldn’t even consider to be love . . .”
Vincent van Gogh proved many times in his life to have been a man of great kindnesses supported by action. There are scores of examples of his acts of benevolence that bely the exegeses in Van Gogh: The Life. One of the more clear-thinking reviewers on Amazon.com, Kathleen Anderson, wrote:
“The highest spiritual glory in Vincent’s personal life was first expressed in his intention to serve those most in need, to value those rejected by social constructs. He gave up all to bring the divine in Christian understanding to the miners in the ministry of his early manhood. This is evidence of sacrificial love, the highest love, of which Jesus Christ was the example for Vincent. I remain unconvinced that Vincent ever turned away from God; his call to ministry seems to me to have evolved into visual witness of the glorious gifts God gives to humanity. I have no sense of this from the authors of the book, ‘Van Gogh: The Life’.”
~ Kathleen Anderson, Amazon.com, February 24, 2012
Vincent van Gogh was, by dint of his own writings, an ardent Christian. That he retreated from the organized church early in life is not in dispute. He despaired of the hypocrisy of the clergy with whom he was first connected in the Borinage mining region, an order that to Vincent was one of words and appearances rather than deeds. However, his faithfulness to core Christian principles never waned. This is plainly evident not just in his words but in his actions.
From his earliest days, Vincent van Gogh was conditioned to take action on behalf of the needy. He was the son and grandson of two welfare pastors stationed in the rural south of the Netherlands, and as a young boy had often accompanied his father on missions to deliver clothing and food to the poorest of the peasants in the region. Accounts of Vincent and his family working as nurses are also well substantiated.
Even the cynical and controversial post-impressionist painter, Paul Gauguin, wrote admiringly of how Vincent had nursed severely burned miners back to life during his days in the Borinage region. Many of those injuries included firedamp explosions in the mines of the 19th century, the result of dangerous working conditions that routinely led to death and dismemberment. Van Gogh sacrificed his clothing and bed sheets as bandages for the wounds of severely burned victims. This caused him to have an unkempt appearance which angered his Evangelical superiors who insisted on a dress code for members of the clergy. Ultimately he was dismissed because of his refusal to accede to their admonishments, preferring instead to minister through good deeds. However, those whom he had cared for admired his devotion to them, and his acts of kindness were instrumental in bringing the true Gospel messages to many of them.
The following account from Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent’s sister-in-law, is particularly revealing:
“Some of his characteristics have been remembered vividly. When the miners of Wasmes went to the pits, they put old vests made of sacking over their linen work clothes, using them like pea jackets to protect themselves in the cages, from water spurting from the walls of the shafts. This miserable raggedness kindled Vincent van Gogh’s pity most deeply. One day he saw the word ‘fragile’ printed on the sackcloth on one miner’s back. He did not laugh. On the contrary, for many days he spoke about it compassionately at mealtimes. People did not understand. . .
“An epidemic of typhoid fever had broken out in the district. Vincent had given everything, his money and his clothes, to the poor sick miners. An inspector of the Evangelization Council had come to the conclusion that the missionary’s “exces de zele” bordered on the scandalous, and he did not hide his opinion from the consistory of Wasmes. Van Gogh’s father went from Nuenen [sic] to Wasmes. He found his son lying on a sack filled with straw, horribly worn out and emaciated. In the room, dimly lit by a lamp hanging from the ceiling, some miners with faces pinched with starvation and suffering crowded round Vincent. . .
“. . . Van Gogh made many sensational conversions among the Protestants of Wasmes. People still talk of the miner whom he went to see after the accident in the Marcasse mine. The man was a habitual drinker, ‘an unbeliever and blasphemer,’ according to the people who told me the story. When Vincent entered his house, to help and comfort him, he was received with a volley of abuse. He was called especially a macheux d’capelets [rosary chewer], as if he had been a Roman Catholic Priest. But Van Gogh’s evangelical tenderness converted the man.”
~ Van Gogh-Bonger 1978/1914, 1:226
Now read how absurd the words of Naifeh and Smith are in the Prologue of Van Gogh: The Life:
“No one knew better than Theo—who had followed his brother’s tortured path through a thousand letters—the unbending demands that Vincent placed on himself, and others, and the unending problems he reaped as a consequence. No one understood better the price Vincent paid in loneliness and disappointment for his self-defeating, take-no-prisoners assaults on life . . .”
What banal and clichéd drivel. There’s hardly a letter written by Vincent van Gogh that would give any open-minded reader such ideas.
I will allow that Van Gogh’s relationships with members of his immediate family were at times strained. But the idea put forward by Naifeh and Smith that these were of a permanent or irredeemable nature is patently false. The raising of children into responsible adulthood is fraught with angst and often with trauma. Yet most parents would never give up on their kids, no matter what. The Van Goghs were no exception. Vincent caused his father and mother great anxiety over the course of his brief life; and he bore at times antipathy towards them. But if you know the real story, one devoid of sensationalism for sensationalism's sake, Vincent's relationship with his family was redeemed prior to his death, and very much so afterward.
If you want to read a truly good book on Vincent's life, read "Van Gogh's Untold Journey" by William J. Havlicek, Ph.D. and the forthcoming book "Johanna: The Other Van Gogh" by Havlicek and Glen. Those books are based on facts, not conjecture like Van Gogh: The Life.
February 5, 2015
This is a compelling, tragic biography of the great 19th century Dutch artist whose life was deeply troubled, despite his creative gifts and intellectual power. It is to the writers' deep credit that despite the unbending pattern of extreme behavior and inevitable disappointment and failure that dominates the life recounted here over 800 pages, the telling firmly holds your attention.
Vincent was the eldest of six children. His father was a Protestant minister who served in a backwater parish, surrounded largely by Catholic families. He was not a success but was a dominating figure in his parish and in his homestead. His wife was staunchly religious, too. So was the family and Vincent not the least among them. But as with everything, all his interests and passions, Vincent is not conventionally religious. He is impulsive, fanatical in his pursuits (searching for birds nests, walking, literature, art and faith). He will walk miles and miles at a time, regardless of weather. He will sketch through the night and into the morning. He will copy poems, sermons, and prose with obsessive zeal, filling notebooks and letters with his copying. He was gifted to a degree that couldn’t help but guarantee success in a chosen field, but cursed with a personality disorder that was guaranteed to undermine any endeavor. He was impatient, moody, explosive of temper.
Van Gogh had a lifelong nostalgia for a moment of imagined happiness in home and hearth and spent the twenty years between his teens and death at 37 working to recreate that moment—to restore his family in reality or by proxy with adopted families, to form a nuclear family of sorts with his brother Theo, to create a commune of like-minded artists. Based in fantasy and undermined by his oppressive intensity, failure was inevitable and often. As a teen, Vincent, already too much for his proper but loving parents, was sent off to work for his uncle’s art business. His passion and compulsive curiosity opened the window of brief success before his personality slammed it shut. The family demonstrated patience but soon, like a corrupt priest, he was shifted from office to office within the international company, trying to find a spot where he could do little or no damage to business and colleagues.
In England he got involved with evangelical sects and for a few years pursued a self-constructed religious study hoping to become a minister or missionary. He betook himself to a bleak coal mining region to serve but his refusal to see barriers, personal or otherwise, went beyond off-putting, created resentment and provoked ridicule. The propensity to attract public ridicule in response to his appearance and behavior would shadow the remainder of his days.
In his twenties he returned to art, but not as a seller, as a creator. His mother had taught him to draw and he took it up with the same tireless drive that he did everything else. What was a hobby, illustrating letters with drawings of places he had visited or lived, became his calling. The imaginative talent was there, and there in spades. Art would rescue a tragic life that might well have been an anonymous, meaningless nightmare. It couldn’t rescue him from the tragedy, but his artistic legacy would prove to be one of the century’s great individual contributions to world culture.
His brother Theo had followed him into the family business but had done so successfully. The two would have a fraught relationship, intensely close (even when at a distance). Briefly they lived together in Paris for some months, an event that nearly killed the younger but frailer Theo. (In the end, the brothers died a year apart; Vincent violently, perhaps self-inflicted, perhaps in an accidental shooting by local youths, Theo from disease and madness. The latter, to borrow a line, didn’t just run in the family it galloped.) Through connections with Theo and his uncle, Vincent got access to the world of Dutch and French artists, and to the very limited amount of formal training he would get. He was known in that small, small world, but his work wasn’t noticed (or even shown or sold) until the very end of his life. Naifeh and Smith do a fantastic job of tracking the artist’s development, his artistic vision and values, and how he compensated through genius and endless effort for his lack of training. The book is well-illustrated (though you want more) and the descriptions of the work are masterful. Van Gogh The Life is a fantastic accomplishment but, because of the tragedy, a challenging read.
Vincent was the eldest of six children. His father was a Protestant minister who served in a backwater parish, surrounded largely by Catholic families. He was not a success but was a dominating figure in his parish and in his homestead. His wife was staunchly religious, too. So was the family and Vincent not the least among them. But as with everything, all his interests and passions, Vincent is not conventionally religious. He is impulsive, fanatical in his pursuits (searching for birds nests, walking, literature, art and faith). He will walk miles and miles at a time, regardless of weather. He will sketch through the night and into the morning. He will copy poems, sermons, and prose with obsessive zeal, filling notebooks and letters with his copying. He was gifted to a degree that couldn’t help but guarantee success in a chosen field, but cursed with a personality disorder that was guaranteed to undermine any endeavor. He was impatient, moody, explosive of temper.
Van Gogh had a lifelong nostalgia for a moment of imagined happiness in home and hearth and spent the twenty years between his teens and death at 37 working to recreate that moment—to restore his family in reality or by proxy with adopted families, to form a nuclear family of sorts with his brother Theo, to create a commune of like-minded artists. Based in fantasy and undermined by his oppressive intensity, failure was inevitable and often. As a teen, Vincent, already too much for his proper but loving parents, was sent off to work for his uncle’s art business. His passion and compulsive curiosity opened the window of brief success before his personality slammed it shut. The family demonstrated patience but soon, like a corrupt priest, he was shifted from office to office within the international company, trying to find a spot where he could do little or no damage to business and colleagues.
In England he got involved with evangelical sects and for a few years pursued a self-constructed religious study hoping to become a minister or missionary. He betook himself to a bleak coal mining region to serve but his refusal to see barriers, personal or otherwise, went beyond off-putting, created resentment and provoked ridicule. The propensity to attract public ridicule in response to his appearance and behavior would shadow the remainder of his days.
In his twenties he returned to art, but not as a seller, as a creator. His mother had taught him to draw and he took it up with the same tireless drive that he did everything else. What was a hobby, illustrating letters with drawings of places he had visited or lived, became his calling. The imaginative talent was there, and there in spades. Art would rescue a tragic life that might well have been an anonymous, meaningless nightmare. It couldn’t rescue him from the tragedy, but his artistic legacy would prove to be one of the century’s great individual contributions to world culture.
His brother Theo had followed him into the family business but had done so successfully. The two would have a fraught relationship, intensely close (even when at a distance). Briefly they lived together in Paris for some months, an event that nearly killed the younger but frailer Theo. (In the end, the brothers died a year apart; Vincent violently, perhaps self-inflicted, perhaps in an accidental shooting by local youths, Theo from disease and madness. The latter, to borrow a line, didn’t just run in the family it galloped.) Through connections with Theo and his uncle, Vincent got access to the world of Dutch and French artists, and to the very limited amount of formal training he would get. He was known in that small, small world, but his work wasn’t noticed (or even shown or sold) until the very end of his life. Naifeh and Smith do a fantastic job of tracking the artist’s development, his artistic vision and values, and how he compensated through genius and endless effort for his lack of training. The book is well-illustrated (though you want more) and the descriptions of the work are masterful. Van Gogh The Life is a fantastic accomplishment but, because of the tragedy, a challenging read.
April 3, 2016
"Vincent was 'a dreamer, a fanatical believer, a devourer of beautiful utopias, living on ideas and dreams.'" -- from "Van Gogh: The Life"
First let me say that despite the high rating, this book is not for the slacker. With 950-plus pages, it requires a real commitment of time and energy. This is a book that can leave you feeling exhausted, wishing many times that it would soon be over and then just as soon as you finish, thinking you should begin it all again to gather all the keen insights you missed the first time around.
The book itself took 10 years to write, note the authors, and it shows. Once done, any reader would feel like he or she has gained some real insight into the life and struggles of Van Gogh, as well as a better understanding of the challenges he faced. Among those were an extremely sensitive nature, guilt over the inability to support himself, an extreme passion for his work, an inability to separate out his thoughts (inner world) from reality, and nonconvulsive (or latent) epilepsy.
To have succeeded in producing such beautiful artwork, given those conditions, is pretty amazing. In fact, it's likely that art saved Van Gogh, despite his short life. The book is probably most known for, and most controversial regarding, its theory behind how Van Gogh died. The authors suggest, and provide plenty of evidence for, the theory that Vincent was accidentally shot and did not commit suicide. There's also some interesting information on the incident in which he attempted to cut off his ear and sent it to a brothel.
The authors also provide a lot of insight into Van Gogh's paintings. Although there are many examples, both color and black and white within the book, most readers will find themselves turning again and again to their art books or the Internet to seek out images of his paintings not shown.
For academics, and others who would like to explore certain nuances, there is also a website (VanGoghBiography.com) where one can find more than 5,000 pages of notes for the book (not included among the 900 pages of actual text). Whew!
Most of all, what should be said about this book is that it will give any reader a new level of understanding, sympathy, and appreciation for Van Gogh's work and life. Looking at his paintings will never be the same again after having read this book.
First let me say that despite the high rating, this book is not for the slacker. With 950-plus pages, it requires a real commitment of time and energy. This is a book that can leave you feeling exhausted, wishing many times that it would soon be over and then just as soon as you finish, thinking you should begin it all again to gather all the keen insights you missed the first time around.
The book itself took 10 years to write, note the authors, and it shows. Once done, any reader would feel like he or she has gained some real insight into the life and struggles of Van Gogh, as well as a better understanding of the challenges he faced. Among those were an extremely sensitive nature, guilt over the inability to support himself, an extreme passion for his work, an inability to separate out his thoughts (inner world) from reality, and nonconvulsive (or latent) epilepsy.
To have succeeded in producing such beautiful artwork, given those conditions, is pretty amazing. In fact, it's likely that art saved Van Gogh, despite his short life. The book is probably most known for, and most controversial regarding, its theory behind how Van Gogh died. The authors suggest, and provide plenty of evidence for, the theory that Vincent was accidentally shot and did not commit suicide. There's also some interesting information on the incident in which he attempted to cut off his ear and sent it to a brothel.
The authors also provide a lot of insight into Van Gogh's paintings. Although there are many examples, both color and black and white within the book, most readers will find themselves turning again and again to their art books or the Internet to seek out images of his paintings not shown.
For academics, and others who would like to explore certain nuances, there is also a website (VanGoghBiography.com) where one can find more than 5,000 pages of notes for the book (not included among the 900 pages of actual text). Whew!
Most of all, what should be said about this book is that it will give any reader a new level of understanding, sympathy, and appreciation for Van Gogh's work and life. Looking at his paintings will never be the same again after having read this book.
August 17, 2016
The writers had a wealth of materials to draw from for this comprehensive biography, including the years of correspondence between Vincent and his brother Theo and numerous interviews with people who were knew or were aware of Vincent. This book is a commitment at 893 pages and it took me a couple of weeks of careful reading to finish it. An additional 6,000 pages worth of footnotes and source materials are available on the authors' website: http://vangoghbiography.com/
I must admit that I grew up with the Don McLean song "Vincent" and its poignant lyrics and have held a romanticized view of Vincent (which is the way he always signed his paintings). For the first three quarters of this book I was somewhat taken aback by my conflicted feelings for the artist as he grew up dealing with physical and psychological issues. At first his whole family did try to help him find his way, but his difficulties were daunting and for most of his adult life his brother Theo supported him for every expense. Vincent only sold one painting during his lifetime and that was near the end of it. From the testimony of people who knew Vincent or tried to know him I became sympathetic to their rejection.
By the last years of his life as he furiously tried to bring his many ideas to life on canvas I again saw the genius, the pathos and felt a new appreciation for his art. I also hoped I learned a lesson about judging anyone by the face they show to the world, not knowing of their struggles and the inner beauty we all have.
The authors have a theory about his death that has proved controversial. After reading what they said and other viewpoints on his death, I am inclined to agree with them. Although Vincent claimed to have said he shot himself, the description of the bullet wound does not support a self-inflicted wound. (Doctors then and now agree on that.) I agree with the authors that it may have been the result of an accidental shooting and because Vincent had struggled so much he accepted his pending death without a fight.
Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the man who produced such beautiful art.
I must admit that I grew up with the Don McLean song "Vincent" and its poignant lyrics and have held a romanticized view of Vincent (which is the way he always signed his paintings). For the first three quarters of this book I was somewhat taken aback by my conflicted feelings for the artist as he grew up dealing with physical and psychological issues. At first his whole family did try to help him find his way, but his difficulties were daunting and for most of his adult life his brother Theo supported him for every expense. Vincent only sold one painting during his lifetime and that was near the end of it. From the testimony of people who knew Vincent or tried to know him I became sympathetic to their rejection.
By the last years of his life as he furiously tried to bring his many ideas to life on canvas I again saw the genius, the pathos and felt a new appreciation for his art. I also hoped I learned a lesson about judging anyone by the face they show to the world, not knowing of their struggles and the inner beauty we all have.
The authors have a theory about his death that has proved controversial. After reading what they said and other viewpoints on his death, I am inclined to agree with them. Although Vincent claimed to have said he shot himself, the description of the bullet wound does not support a self-inflicted wound. (Doctors then and now agree on that.) I agree with the authors that it may have been the result of an accidental shooting and because Vincent had struggled so much he accepted his pending death without a fight.
Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the man who produced such beautiful art.
April 13, 2012
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.
June 3, 2016
EXTREMELY DETAILED !
So much information in this spectacular and in-depth bio on Van Gogh arbitrary and turbulent life .
And with that so much despair and sadness.
Van Gogh lived a life with many obstacles. His struggle with mental illness and depression . The demons that refused to leave his head . His rejection from family , lovers and other artist .But despite all of this he had a mutual love and admiration for his brother Theo . Theo was his "saving grace" in many ways .
Without doubt Van Gogh was a artistic genius. And attached to this gift was that of a man who had limited social skills . I personally think he was misunderstood because of his erratic and stand off personality .Perhaps Van Gogh suffered from several Personalty Disorders ?
This book is filled with pictures of some of his greatest work . Each painting is a book . Each painting tells a story without a single word being written . That is the brilliancy and uniqueness than Van Gogh held. . He was a painter and a writer The only difference was he used a canvas to express his words . Much of his inspiration came from his love of reading . His mind would go off into another dimension . Creating work and techniques that helped him in his creative journey .
Sadly Van Gogh life ended tragically and short . His manner of death still unclear , with many new theories being uncovered . And with much controversy
Naifeh and Smith open a panoramic view of a monumental life . The writing is captivating and capture the true essence of a masterpiece .
Van Gogh words still haunt me to this day . "I put my heart and soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process".
So much information in this spectacular and in-depth bio on Van Gogh arbitrary and turbulent life .
And with that so much despair and sadness.
Van Gogh lived a life with many obstacles. His struggle with mental illness and depression . The demons that refused to leave his head . His rejection from family , lovers and other artist .But despite all of this he had a mutual love and admiration for his brother Theo . Theo was his "saving grace" in many ways .
Without doubt Van Gogh was a artistic genius. And attached to this gift was that of a man who had limited social skills . I personally think he was misunderstood because of his erratic and stand off personality .Perhaps Van Gogh suffered from several Personalty Disorders ?
This book is filled with pictures of some of his greatest work . Each painting is a book . Each painting tells a story without a single word being written . That is the brilliancy and uniqueness than Van Gogh held. . He was a painter and a writer The only difference was he used a canvas to express his words . Much of his inspiration came from his love of reading . His mind would go off into another dimension . Creating work and techniques that helped him in his creative journey .
Sadly Van Gogh life ended tragically and short . His manner of death still unclear , with many new theories being uncovered . And with much controversy
Naifeh and Smith open a panoramic view of a monumental life . The writing is captivating and capture the true essence of a masterpiece .
Van Gogh words still haunt me to this day . "I put my heart and soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process".
September 23, 2016
I was blown away by this book. Not only for its deeply researched detail, but because it does what a superior biography should do, it humanizes it's subject and makes the reader care about them.
This is no easy feat with a character like Vincent Van Gogh.
Through letters with his brother Theo, we come to learn of Vincent's petty jealousies and insecurities, his living off his brother's money, his violent temper, and a host of other unlikeable traits.
Yet by the end of this book, I found it really difficult not to feel immense sadness for him. He was a man who saw the world in a way that few others did. When those images collided with reality, it was only going to end badly. He often chose to ignore realities and instead plunge headlong into idealized scenarios that were never going to come true. This would only deepen his alienation.
For as much as he lived off his brother, he also loved him deeply and was profoundly concerned that he was driving his brother to an early grave.
The length notwithstanding, this is not an easy book to read. When you turn the last page you may feel the immense sadness that I felt for this troubled but brilliant individual. You should read it all the same.
This is no easy feat with a character like Vincent Van Gogh.
Through letters with his brother Theo, we come to learn of Vincent's petty jealousies and insecurities, his living off his brother's money, his violent temper, and a host of other unlikeable traits.
Yet by the end of this book, I found it really difficult not to feel immense sadness for him. He was a man who saw the world in a way that few others did. When those images collided with reality, it was only going to end badly. He often chose to ignore realities and instead plunge headlong into idealized scenarios that were never going to come true. This would only deepen his alienation.
For as much as he lived off his brother, he also loved him deeply and was profoundly concerned that he was driving his brother to an early grave.
The length notwithstanding, this is not an easy book to read. When you turn the last page you may feel the immense sadness that I felt for this troubled but brilliant individual. You should read it all the same.
April 13, 2022
Could not imagine a more authoritative and fluent biography of a difficult subject: an artist.
The author seamlessly melds quotes to text, making a seamless story that never seems stilted.
Van Gogh was a self absorbed, delusional man who claimed and got the full financial support of his brother.
Failing at the clergy, business, and a myriad of artistic notions: journeys to backwaters, starting artistic communes, or simply alienating everyone he met, Vincent was an utter failure.
But he also suffered a mental illness and the effects of syphillis.
And Vincent couldn’t even paint hands, he was no Picasso.
And yet, one can find compassion in his never ending quest to find the sublime. He was truly a Don Quixote and Dulcinea, the art he could never achieve.
Hopefully anyone who reads this will see the tragedy and the man.
P.S. the author’s contention that Vincent did not kill himself but instead was accidentally shot by some troublemaking youths seems well supported.
The author seamlessly melds quotes to text, making a seamless story that never seems stilted.
Van Gogh was a self absorbed, delusional man who claimed and got the full financial support of his brother.
Failing at the clergy, business, and a myriad of artistic notions: journeys to backwaters, starting artistic communes, or simply alienating everyone he met, Vincent was an utter failure.
But he also suffered a mental illness and the effects of syphillis.
And Vincent couldn’t even paint hands, he was no Picasso.
And yet, one can find compassion in his never ending quest to find the sublime. He was truly a Don Quixote and Dulcinea, the art he could never achieve.
Hopefully anyone who reads this will see the tragedy and the man.
P.S. the author’s contention that Vincent did not kill himself but instead was accidentally shot by some troublemaking youths seems well supported.
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