The Letters of Vincent van Gogh by Vincent van GoghA new selection of post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Goughs letters, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh put a human face on one of the most haunting figures in modern Western culture. In this Penguin Classics edition, the letters are selected and edited by Ronald de Leeuw, and translated by Arnold Pomerans in Penguin Classics.
Few artists letters are as self-revelatory as Vincent van Goghs, and this selection, spanning his artistic career, sheds light on every facet of the life and work of this complex and tortured man. Engaging candidly and movingly with his religious struggles, his ill-fated search for love, his attacks of mental illness and his relation with his brother Theo, the letters contradict the popular myth of van Gogh as an anti-social madman and a martyr to art, showing instead a man of great emotional and spiritual depths. Above all, they stand as an intense personal narrative of artistic development and a unique account of the process of creation.
The letters are linked by explanatory biographical passages, revealing van Goghs inner journey as well as the outer facts of his life. This edition also includes the drawings that originally illustrated the letters.
Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890) was born in Holland. In 1885 he painted his first masterpiece, The Potato Eaters, a haunting scene of domestic poverty. A year later he began studying in Paris, where he met Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Seurat, who became very important influences on his work. In 1888 he left Paris for the Provencal landscape at Arles, the subject of many of his best works, including Sunflowers.
If you enjoyed The Letters of Vincent van Gogh, you might also like 100 Artists Manifestos, available in Penguin Modern Classics.
If there was ever any doubt that Van Goghs letters belong beside those great classics of artistic self-revelation, Cellinis autobiography and Delacroixs journal, this excellent new edition dispels it
His art became his outlet to find peace, although his profoundly unique and controversial artwork was only truly appreciated after his death.. In his lifetime he only sold one painting. He traveled learning new techniques but remained fixated on painting an atmosphere of brooding darkness. Apart from painting, Van Gogh expressed his thoughts and ideas in letters to his brother encompassing the philosophical concepts tackled by even the most elite philosophers such as the nature of existence and understanding how to live. His revelations and perceptions shed light on how he wanted to lead his life and work towards finding peace.
The Letters of Vincent van Gogh refers to a collection of surviving letters written or received 83 by Vincent van Gogh. Vincent's sister-in-law and wife to his brother Theo, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger , spent many years after her husband's death in compiling the letters, which were first published in Arnold Pomerans , editor of a selection of the letters, wrote that Theo "was the kind of man who saved even the smallest scrap of paper", and it is to this trait that the public owes the letters from Vincent. By contrast Vincent infrequently kept letters sent him and just 84 have survived, of which 39 were from Theo. Indeed, the only period where the public is relatively uninformed is the Parisian period when they shared an apartment and had no need to correspond. The letters effectively play much the same role in shedding light on the art of the period as those between the de Goncourt brothers did for literature.
In a letter to his brother Theo, dated Thursday, 3 November , found in Ever Yours: The Essential Letters , Vincent van Gogh describes an unreciprocated love and in so doing alludes to three stages of love. And I said these words to her. But when I told her this, she replied that her past and her future were all one to her and so she could never return my feelings. Then I was in an awful dilemma about what to do, to resign myself to that no, nay, never, or not yet to regard the matter as over and done with, and to take courage and not give up yet. I chose the latter.
This edition, the product of 15 years of research at the Van Gogh Museum and Huygens ING, contains all Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo, his artist friends .
grant cardone book real estate
Brothers in art
Dear Theo: Letters From Vincent Van Gogh
The earliest known one dates from 29 September , just after the year-old Theo had spent a few days in The Hague with his brother, who was four years his senior. Three months later, Theo went to work for the Goupil branch in Brussels, and they began writing to each other regularly. It is due to his letters to Theo that we have such good picture of the period before Vincent decided to become an artist, the years , when he lived in 12 different places. Van Gogh became estranged from his parents and Theo when he was living in the Borinage December October Theo had sent him some money, and he felt obliged to respond letter