Van Gogh: The Life
9 12 2011
Wheat Field with Crows 1890
Are you looking for a holiday gift for the art or book lover in your life? May I suggest Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s giant tome “Van Gogh: The Life”? For a mere $25.00 you can give the gift of three and half pounds of artsy goodness, guaranteed to keep even the fastest reader busy for hours and hours on end.
Billed as “an exquisitely detailed, compellingly readable, and ultimately heartbreaking portrait of creative genius Vincent Van Gogh” the book is a “serious, ambitious examination of his life”. Fortunately it does live up to those claims, and it should at nearly 1000 pages. It is truly absorbing reading, having sworn that I don’t have time to read it; I find myself thumbing through and getting lost in whole chapters at a time.
One of the most interesting things about the volume, and the reason it is getting so much buzz, is that the authors claim to have found evidence that Van Gogh was murdered and did not commit suicide as traditional histories claim. In an appendix titled “A Note on Vincent’s Final Wounding” Naifeh and Smith lay out the police report, accounts supplied by friends, relatives, enemies, fortune seekers, and the man they believe pulled the trigger. It is interesting speculation that a pair of young, wealthy teenagers summering in the town of Auvers shot and killed the painter. I find their arguments clear, timeline of events well constructed, and ability to fill in the blanks of the original story plausible. Naturally, the internet is filled with critics decrying their conclusion, although I have yet to see how Van Gogh’s committing suicide is a preferable end to his story rather than murder.
Several critics find Naifeh and Smith heavy handed in their treatment of Van Gogh as a man who is deeply depressed, an outcast in his own family, capable of wild mood swings and an emotional drain on his friends and family. I think the authors worked to clearly put forth the information they uncovered and paint a picture of a man who struggled his entire life. Naifeh and Smith take great pains to be clear that the Van Gogh Museum at www.vangoghletters.org has complete translations of the Van Gogh letters and their own site www.vangoghbiography.com has over five thousand pages of searchable notes from their research for the dedicated readers perusal.
“Van Gogh: The Life” is a commitment to read, but I don’t think you will be sorry. Van Gogh’s life story, his dedication to family, art and literature, is fascinating reading.
Categories : Uncategorized

To do list – start a hobby
































Recent Comments