Product Description

Throughout his life, Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) wrote hundreds of letters, many to his brother Theo. Theo acted as patron, agent, and sounding board to the artist whose life was fraught with poverty, a struggle for recognition, and alternating fits of madness and lucidity. Van Gogh also corresponded with other family members and fellow artists, including his dear friends Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard. His letters, originally collected by Theo’s wife, Johanna, exhibit Van Gogh’s genius, his depth of observation, and his feelings in their most naked form.

In Vincent Van Gogh these letters have been excerpted, newly translated, and set side-by-side with more than 250 of his drawings and paintings. Van Gogh’s words and art illuminate each other and reveal a portrait of the artist as never seen before. The commentary of H. Anna Suh frames Van Gogh’s work and puts his art, letters, life, and struggles into rich context. The result is this timeless jewel of a collection, unlike any other Van Gogh book that has gone before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66544 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

About the Author
H. Anna Suh has a master’s degree in Art and Archaeology from Princeton University. She was on the curatorial staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has worked on projects for several scholarly publications. She is the editor of Leonardo's Notebooks.She lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

A Super Van Gogh book
I was so pleased to find this book in the library and after readint it I had to own it. I have many Van Gogh books. This one is espeically interesting since the editor minimized her words on the first page of every chapter. The words after that are Van Gogh's words taken from his letters to Theo and various others. I find it extremelly intersting to read what he wrote about his works as he did them. This is a terrific book.

Very nice
It is a pleasure to see Van Gogh's original handwriting in his letters, accompanied by drawings and skecthes. Highly recommended.

bright with shade
This is most useful to students of van gogh because it focuses so on the drawings and the whole range of development in van gogh's artistry. The match of his lyrical descriptive writing with his specific creations is a window into the inspiration of visual artistry. Notes with the pictures that would match the text of the letters would have helped a lot. Seeing the drawn studies for some of the more famous paintings sometimes without the paintings themselves was a refreshing visual treatment of the reality of Vincent's process of creation. Then the drawings that never got painted take on a life of their own in our imagination. And the study drawings and letter sketches give the experience of the process. The book is more useful to those who want to understand van gogh the painter than vincent the man. In the very first chapter entry Suh makes a false distinction between Vincent's spiritual religion and his love of nature. She mistakes his renunciation of the God of his father for a rejection of religious belief. This misses a whole layer of intellectual and spiritual development that should be understood as an element of his art, not as distinct from it. Van gogh reveals the evolution of modern spirituality as a painter. This aspect Suh leaves in the shadows.