Synopses & Reviews
andquot;I believe in the absolute necessity of a new art of colour, of drawing andandmdash;of the artistic life,andquot; Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1888. andquot;And if we work in that faith, it seems to me that thereand#39;s a chance that our hopes wonand#39;t be in vain.andquot; His prediction would come true. In his brief and explosively creative lifeandmdash;he committed suicide a few years later at the age of thirty-sevenandmdash;Van Gogh made us see the world in a new way. His shining landscapes of Provence and somber portraits of workers shattered the relationship between light and dark, and his hallucinatory visions were so bright they nearly blinded the world.
He was a great writer as well. In his six hundredandndash;plus letters to Theo he chronicled with heartbreaking urgency his mental breakdowns, acrimonious family relations, and struggles with art dealers, who largely ignored him until the last years of his life. Shading this dark story is the artistandrsquo;s acquaintance with prostitutes and penury, stormy scenes with his friend Paul Gauguin, and dissipated Parisian nights with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Julian Bellandrsquo;s passion for his subject brings the painter to life. Bell writes with slashing intensity, at once scholarly and defiantly partisan. andldquo;I have written this book out of my love for Vincent van Gogh, the uniquely exciting painter, and Vincent van Gogh, the letter writer of heart-piercing eloquence,andrdquo; he declares. For Bell, Van Gogh was an artistic genius and more: he was a wonder of the world.
Synopsis
"I believe in the absolute necessity of a new art of colour, of drawing and--of the artistic life," Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1888. "And if we work in that faith, it seems to me that there's a chance that our hopes won't be in vain." His prediction would come true. In his brief and explosively creative life--he committed suicide a few years later at the age of thirty-seven--Van Gogh made us see the world in a new way. His shining landscapes of Provence and somber portraits of workers shattered the relationship between light and dark, and his hallucinatory visions were so bright they nearly blinded the world.
He was a great writer as well. In his six hundred-plus letters to Theo he chronicled with heartbreaking urgency his mental breakdowns, acrimonious family relations, and struggles with art dealers, who largely ignored him until the last years of his life. Shading this dark story is the artist's acquaintance with prostitutes and penury, stormy scenes with his friend Paul Gauguin, and dissipated Parisian nights with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Julian Bell's passion for his subject brings the painter to life. Bell writes with slashing intensity, at once scholarly and defiantly partisan. "I have written this book out of my love for Vincent van Gogh, the uniquely exciting painter, and Vincent van Gogh, the letter writer of heart-piercing eloquence," he declares. For Bell, Van Gogh was an artistic genius and more: he was a wonder of the world.
Synopsis
A passionate account of the tortured life and tragic death of the greatest artist of the nineteenth century, by renowned critic and painter Julian Bell. and#160; Vanand#160;Gogh is a vivid portrait of the great Impressionist painter that traces his life from the Netherlands, where he was born into a family of art dealers, through his years in England, the Hague, andand#160;Paris, to his final home in Arles, where he discovered the luminous style of his late paintings before his suicide at the age of thirty-seven. and#160; Vanand#160;Gogh struggled to find his way as an artist:and#160;Well into his mid-twenties he had achieved virtually nothing except a few charcoal drawings of coal miners. Afflicted by mental illness and a mercurial temper, he was institutionalized several times toward the end of his life. Julian Bell conveys this tragic story with great compassion, depicting van Gogh in all his anguished vigor, a genius for whom the greatest challenge was to stay alive until he had completed his most fully realized and magnificent works.
About the Author
Julian Bell has a BA in English from Oxford.andnbsp;He is the author of What is Painting?andnbsp;Representation and Modern Art (1999) and Mirror of the World:andnbsp;A New History of Art (2007).