This popular edition of selected Van Gogh letters is based on the expanded four-volume Dutch edition De Brieven van Vincent van Gogh (Van Gogh Museum and SDU, 1990). The translations read smoothly and are more elegant than those found in other editions. Covering an 18-year period, this selection of letters aims to capture the spirit of Van Gogh's life rather than offer up yet another chronicle of facts and opinions. Following the beginning section of early letters, sections are organized chronologically by the geographic locale where Van Gogh lived and worked. Editor De Leeuw provides thoughtful explanations that link many letters and introduce each section. Several reproductions of Van Gogh's drawings accompany appropriate letters. As is often the case with one-sided collections of correspondence, one often wishes that letters sent to Van Gogh were as readily available as his responses to them. For larger art collections.P. Steven Thomas, Illinois State Univ., Normal
Van Gogh was an intensely expressive man whether he was wielding a paintbrush or a pen. His letters have long been available, but this volume, edited by the director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, is the most complete and sensitively compiled. The combination of newly discovered material and de Leeuw's commentary takes us beyond the cliched view of van Gogh as a madman helpless in the grip of mental illness and an overly demanding muse. Truly, van Gogh suffered, but he was also blessed with lucidity and was an energetic correspondent who wrote searchingly about art, love, and spirituality. He could move from intricate psychological and philosophical analyses to statements of breathtaking directness about his art, such as when he writes that nature is so "extraordinarily beautiful . . . I let myself go without giving a thought to a single rule." Like his paintings, van Gogh's letters express unparalleled depth of feeling, and we catch our breath in wonder as we read them.
A new translation of van Gogh's ebullient letters (including some never before published), edited by the director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, revealing the painter to be an intensely observant and passionate man, struggling to understand and overcome the episodes of mental illness that so damaged his life.
To the average person, van Gogh is the apotheosis of the mad genius, but his letters, written between 1872 and 1890, mostly to his brother, Theo, tell a different story. To be sure, he found it difficult to submit to an office job. He refused to become a baker, as his sister suggested, or a preacher, which was his father's line of work. And although his letters are filled with conviction about painting, he felt guilty throughout his life for depending on Theo and periodically lapsed into despondency, worrying, as do many artists, that his labors might ultimately be futile: "At the moment I'm working on some plum trees, yellowy white, with thousands of black branches. I am using up an enormous amount of canvases and paints, but I hope it's not a waste of money for all that." Doubt was dispelled by his earnest love of nature and art. It's strange, nonetheless, to read a chipper description of an orchard, only to discover that a few days after the letter was written van Gogh was stalking his good friend Gauguin with a razor blade. Despite his efforts to keep working, the attacks increased in frequency and severity. One can sense the fear of imminent collapse gnawing away at his exuberance. Either in the grip of another episode, or fearing it, van Gogh committed suicide in July 1890. His heartbroken brother died less than a year later.
The hardest thing for an artist, van Gogh noted in one letter, is to capture "the true and the essential." These letters reveal the extraordinary personal struggle that lay behind his triumphant ability to do so.
