Van Gogh by Steven NaifehMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I know I'm going to like/maybe love this book. Loved their life of J Pollock. But in the very beginning they blame van Gogh's mom. I'm not sure for what, but it's her fault.
June 13. I finished it Sunday. It was long, but I was on vacation. Also, by reading it on Kindle I never felt its many pages. When finished, I needed a breather. Now, Thursday, i can face the miseries of Vincent van Gogh. Living with him, or befriending him, or working with him in his relatives' art galleries or during his misguided pursuit of the ministry must have been a tromp in a swamp with no mosquito repellent. You come out resentful.VvG would top you and be hellishly resentful. You'd come out feeling used. VvG would think you should have given him more--LOTS more. Cash, sex, paintbrushes, whatever. He lived in all CAPS all the time. Even his father, a minister no less, damned him to hell. A sister accused VvG of actually killing their father, who died of a stroke just inside his front door. And the mother -- Long- suffering is her name.
I knew the outline of VvG's life. Now I know in detail how tortured he was. While mental illness is treated better these days, there are still many friendless people obsessed, ravished, and rejected -- as Vincent was -- over everything, everyone. If only all of them could paint.
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2 comments:
OH, glad to hear, read this, though I'm getting a somewhat different idea at least early on reading the letters in Van Gogh, a retrospective, going page by page, through this awesome book given to me by daughter Jen a hundred million years ago or so it seems. A few months ago, a wonderful small but exquisite show on Van Gogh: Up Close ended at the PMA here in Philadelphia and it was so fine I saw it twice. Just amazing paintings drawn from all over the world, many small wonders I'd never seen before. I decided to really pore over this retrospective from at least 20 years ago which Jen had given me then from another exhibit somewhere. It's edited by Susan A. Stein. Well, I suppose I'll get to the really awful stuff about this tortured man soon enough. But the early letters about him and from him to his friends, his brother are fascinating.
Thanks for your wonderful blog entries, as ever! They are superb.
Maybe don't read this. The letters aren't in it, just excerpts. He was avid letter-writer. I was shocked, just by the relentlessness of his troubles and antipathies. But that doesn't diminish his work! And he sold just a single painting in his lifetime, despite his family business of art dealing. He antagonized lots.
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