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The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh,

Ronald de Leeuw (Editor)

Arnold J. Pomerans (Translator)

4.01 · Rating details · 63,089 ratings · 286 reviews

A new selection of post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gough's 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 ...more

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Paperback, 528 pages

Published July 31st 1997 by Penguin Classics (first published 1914)

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Nov 04, 2012 Kalliope rated it it was amazing

Shelves: art, biography, correspondence, netherlands

STARRY LETTERS

In my youth I felt saturated with Van Gogh’s art. Its popularity made it predictable. As one of the greatest victims of the phenomenon that Walter Benjamin explores in his The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, one could expect to see posters of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, or his Room, or Starry Night, in a third of the rooms of students. I suspected that more than this bright colours, always welcome in dingy lodgings, it was the legend grown out of the morbid aspect o ...more

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Feb 19, 2018 Roy Lotz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: artsy-fartsy, eurotrip, biography-memoir-travel

For great things do not just happen by impulse but are a succession of small things linked together.

The main problem when encountering Van Gogh is that his life has become the quintessential artistic myth of our age. The obscure genius ahead of his time, toiling in solitude, tortured by personal demons, driven by a creativity that sometimes spilled over into madness—and so on. You’ve heard it all before. You have also seen it before. His paintings suffer from the same overexposure as does his life story. Starry Night hangs, in poster form, in dorm rooms and offices; it is used in commercials and as desktop backgrounds. The challenge, then, as with all iconic art, is to unsee it before it can be properly seen.

The best way to pop this swollen bubble of myth is, I think, to read these letters. Here an entirely different Van Gogh is revealed. Instead of the mad genius we find the cultured gentleman. Van Gogh could read and write English, French, and German fluently, in addition to his native Dutch. He peppers his letters with references to Dickens, Elliot, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Balzac, Zola. His prose is fluent, cogent, and clear—sometimes even lyrical. His knowledge of art history is equally impressive, as he, for example, compares Shakespeare’s and Rembrandt’s understanding of human nature. Not only this, but he was far from insulated from the artistic currents of his day. To the contrary, he was friends with many of the major artists in Paris—Seurat, Signac, Gauguin—and aware of the work of other prominent painters, such as Monet and Cézanne.

But, of course, Van Gogh’s myth, like many, has some basis in truth. During his lifetime he did not receive even a fraction of the recognition his work deserved (though if he had lived a little longer it likely would have). He was often unhappy and he did suffer from a mental illness of some sort, which did indeed lead him to sever a portion of his own ear. What is less clear is the role that his unhappiness and his mental illness played in his work. In our modern world, still full of Romanticism, we are apt to see these factors as integral to his artistic vision, the source of his inspiration and style. Van Gogh himself had, however, quite a different opinion, seeing his suffering and illness as a distraction or an obstacle, something to be endured but not sought.

The letters in this volume span from 1872 to 1890, the year of his death. Most of them are addressed to his brother, Theo, who worked as an art dealer in Paris and who supported Vincent financially. There are also a few letters to his sister, Wil, and to his artist friends. From the beginning we see Van Gogh as an enthusiastic and earnest man, very liable to be swept up into passions. His first passion was the church. Following in his father’s footsteps, Van Gogh went to England to work as a preacher. His letters from this period are full to bursting with pious sentiments; in one letter he even includes a sermon, which he composed in English. He quickly grew disenchanted with conventional religion, however, and soon he is pining after his cousin, Kee, who rejects him and refuses to see him. Not long after that he takes in a woman named Sien, a former prostitute, and his letters are filled with his dreams of family life.

But in all of these letters, even before he decided to take up art—which he did comparatively late, at the age of 27—Van Gogh show a keen visual awareness and appreciation. He includes long, detailed, and sometimes rapturous descriptions of towns and landscapes. He is also, from the start, independent to the point of stubbornness. He persists in trying too woe his cousin even in the face of his whole family (including Kee herself) discouraging him. He insists on taking in Sien despite the disapproval of nearly everybody, including his brother and his mentor, Mauve. When it came to art he was absolutely uncompromising, refusing to paint anything just for money, and getting into passionate disagreements with some of his artist friends (Gauguin, most notoriously).

Van Gogh’s intractability often landed him in trouble. He had a bad relationship with his parents and often quarrelled with his brother, Theo, who was his closest confidant. But it is also, I think, the quality that is ultimately most admirable in him. His personal standards drove him to work hard. He was no savant. His letters are filled with exercises and studies. He was tough on his own work and constantly strove to improve it. And though he sometimes got discouraged, there is never any hint of quitting or compromising. This is the classic story, often told. But it is easy to lose sight of how dreary and dispiriting this life could be, day to day. In films the struggling artist is enmeshed in a moving drama, and the audience always knows it will come right in the end. But for Van Gogh this was a plodding daily reality of struggle and failure, with no audience and no guarantee of ultimate success.

That we admire Van Gogh for persisting is, in large part, because his art was truly great. But what would we think if he was mediocre? This, you might say, is the paradox of persistence: We admire those who persist in the face of struggle when they have genuine talent; but when they do not, the spectacle becomes almost pathetic. What would we think of a man financially supported by his brother, constantly quarrelling with and alienating his parents, toiling away in isolation, who produced nothing beautiful? We might be inclined to call such a person naïve, foolish, or even selfish. Whether we admire or scorn stubbornness, in other words, depends on whether it eventually pays off. But in the meantime nobody can know if it will, least of all the stubbornly persistent person. It is, in short, a great risk.

Yet it cannot be said that Van Gogh wagered everything on his talent, since there is not even a hint of calculation or self-interest in his continuing persistence. He is so manifestly, uncompromisingly, absolutely obsessed and absorbed by art that there is no other option for him. Even when institutionalized and hospitalized he thinks of nothing but when, how, where, and what he can paint next. And though he at times expresses regret for the sacrifices this entails—he is especially vexed by the toll it takes on his love-life—he never discusses art with even a touch of bitterness. He is willing to live in a hovel and survive on crumbs if it means he can afford paint. To see such unqualified devotion, not in a novel or on a stage, but in the real, intimate context of his daily life is (to use a hackneyed word) inspiring.

Vincent's story had a tragic ending. On a summer day in July he walked into a wheat field where he was painting and shot himself in the chest. He survived two more days, finally passing away in his brother’s arms on July 29. The circumstances surrounding this death are rather remarkable, and I don’t wonder that two biographers, Naifeh and Smith, have raised questions about it. The tone of his final letters, while troubled, are far from despairing. He even includes an order of paints in his final dispatch to Theo. And it is also extraordinary to think that a man who had shot himself in the chest could walk a mile back to the inn, or that a man locally known for his mental instability could get a gun. The recent film, Loving Vincent (which I haven’t seen), is focused on this question.

Theo did not long survive his brother: he succumbed to syphilis within just six months. Theo had married his wife, Jo, less than two years earlier, which proved an extremely fortunate circumstance—for art’s sake, at least—since it was Jo who championed Vincent’s legacy and who published his correspondence. Theo and Jo’s only son, named after his uncle Vincent, was responsible for founding the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which I recently visited. To any who get the chance, I highly recommend this paired experience, for the letters and the paintings are mutually enriching. Few people in history seemed to have lived so entirely for the sake of posterity: churning out paintings which few people saw, writing letter after letter few people read, creating a story and an oeuvre that now have the power to tear you in two. ...more

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Jan 27, 2015 Francisco rated it it was amazing

I want to be careful in writing this review because I want to do what I can to urge you to put this book in your list of Books I Should Read During my Lifetime. You have such a list, don't you? No? Will you think about making one? It consists of the books that a large majority of your fellow humans believe are representative of what is most significant about this gift you have received, which we call life. Lots of the books that should go on that list are not necessarily ones you would pick from I want to be careful in writing this review because I want to do what I can to urge you to put this book in your list of Books I Should Read During my Lifetime. You have such a list, don't you? No? Will you think about making one? It consists of the books that a large majority of your fellow humans believe are representative of what is most significant about this gift you have received, which we call life. Lots of the books that should go on that list are not necessarily ones you would pick from a book store or library shelf. It's okay to put a book on the list out of a mysterious sense of obligation that you might feel. And once on the list, if you begin to read and it does not speak to you, that is okay too. There will be others who will. Only be patient with this book. It may take you a few pages to become interested in the author and to see in his struggles to be true to a calling lessons for your own life. This book is a compendium of letters from Vincent van Gogh. It does not contain all of Van Gogh's letters. But the letters selected (mostly to Van Gogh's brother Theo) tell a fairly complete story of Van Gogh's inner life. Now and then the editor will insert snippets of Van Gogh's life and circumstances at the time of the letter so that we have a good context for the letter we are reading. Lots and lots of letters consist of Van Gogh pleading with his brother to send him money (Van Gogh sold the grand total of one painting during his lifetime) but somehow even these letters are important to the slow vision of Vincent that you are gradually forming and befriending as you read. Not to mention the glimpse these letters give you of true friendship and devotion between Vincent and Theo. But why is this one of those books that should be placed in your Lifetime List? Someone once said that vocation is that place where your heart's joy meets the word's great need. And I think that this book shows you one man's struggle to develop and remain true to the inner joy that art brought to him and to have that joy be useful, of service to others. He says in an early letter, when he is discovering his aptitude to draw and paint: "I feel a power in me which I must develop, a fire that I may not quench, but must keep ablaze, though I do not know to what result it will lead me, and shouldn't wonder if it were a gloomy one. . . " And indeed he kept the blaze of that power throughout his short life even when gloominess was all there was. The power was kept alive sometimes by a fiery, consuming enthusiasm and sometimes by the cold steel of will and duty. But always there was that practice, practice, practice the need to align through visual description and color the emotions elicited by nature, by the poor peasants, simple objects and ordinary people he insisted in painting. At some point, the constant practice of his craft would have allowed him to paint pictures that would sell. But that would have been a departure from that place where his heart's joy met what he saw as the world's need. This a book for your Lifetime List because we are all called (and a call can come from you or from outside of you) to find that joy and find a way to make it useful. ...more

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Aug 20, 2014 Luís C. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: art, biography, favourites, dutch, penguin, 500-600, reading-the-world

"[His letters] enable us to know more about Van Gogh's life and mentality than we do of any other artist. The letters form a running commentary on his work, and a human document without parallel."

Source: http://www.vggallery.com/letters/main...

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Dec 30, 2013 Edward rated it it was amazing

Shelves: netherlands, non-fiction, translated, biography-memoir-letters, own, art-and-artists, van-gogh, 5-star

About This Edition
Translator's Note
Introduction
Biographical Outline

--Early Letters
--Ramsgate and Isleworth
--Dordrecht
--Amsterdam
--The Borinage
--Etten
--The Hague
--The Hague, Drenthe and Nuenen
--From Nuenen to Antwerp
--Paris
--Arles
--Saint-Rémy
--Auvers-sur-Oise

Bibliography
Index

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Dec 24, 2016 Ammara Abid rated it it was amazing

Shelves: exceptional-books, classics

This book is exceptional, thought-provoking, painstakingly beautiful and soulful. Not only literary letters but they encompassed whole life of a genius artist.
I absolutely love this book ♡
It's worth reading.

"What I find such a pleasant surprise about painting is that you can, with the same effect you put into a drawing, take something home with you that conveys the impression much better and is much more pleasing to look at. And at the same time more accurate, too. In a word, it is more rewardin ...more

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Oct 04, 2018 Chuột Thổ cẩm rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

May mắn làm sao khi Theo không chỉ dành cả đời để giúp đỡ người anh bất hạnh, mà kể cả sau khi mất, ông và vợ vẫn giữ gìn những lá thư mà anh trai ông gửi, để cả thế giới được nhìn thấy một bi kịch thật đẹp, về một nghệ sĩ điên nhưng tỉnh táo nhất, một người buồn nhưng lạc quan nhất, đã từng hiện diện, từng bị chối bỏ, và rồi được yêu thương nhất.

Có nhiều lý do khiến mình cực kỳ yêu mến Vincent van Gogh:
- Ông chọn chủ đề trong tranh là đồng quê, và nhiều lần đề cập trong những bức thư việc yêu May mắn làm sao khi Theo không chỉ dành cả đời để giúp đỡ người anh bất hạnh, mà kể cả sau khi mất, ông và vợ vẫn giữ gìn những lá thư mà anh trai ông gửi, để cả thế giới được nhìn thấy một bi kịch thật đẹp, về một nghệ sĩ điên nhưng tỉnh táo nhất, một người buồn nhưng lạc quan nhất, đã từng hiện diện, từng bị chối bỏ, và rồi được yêu thương nhất.

Có nhiều lý do khiến mình cực kỳ yêu mến Vincent van Gogh:
- Ông chọn chủ đề trong tranh là đồng quê, và nhiều lần đề cập trong những bức thư việc yêu thích cuộc sống, con người và thiên nhiên ở vùng nông thôn. Với van Gogh, nhân vật trong tranh chẳng cần là ngài bá tước, cô công chúa, hay những điển tích Thánh kinh nào hết, mà chỉ đơn giản là nông phu đào khoai, chở than, là người đưa thư, là cây hạnh trổ bông trắng ngần, là cây bách dưới bầu trời sao. Nội dung giản dị như chính con người vẽ ra nó.
- Sự nhạy cảm vô cùng của một người nghệ sĩ. Mình luôn nghĩ khi là một nghệ sĩ, đặc biệt là hoạ sĩ, người ta phải luôn có sự rung cảm, nhạy cảm khi nhìn thấy sự vật sự việc. Vincent may mắn có được điều đấy. Nhiều trang thư miên man sự miêu tả sống động những thứ mà Vincent nắm bắt được, cách dùng từ gợi cảm luôn phiên nhau như những cơn sóng từ ngữ uyển chuyển ập vào tâm trí người đọc. Rất nhiều tính từ hay xuất hiện trong sách.
- Vincent thích màu xanh, thích bầu trời, thích đêm hơn ngày.
- Mối quan hệ giữa Vincent và Theo. Nếu cần một ví dụ để nói về tri kỷ, thì không còn gì rõ ràng hơn là mối quan hệ của hai anh em nhà van Gogh. Cả hai chia sẻ một tâm hồn, một trí óc, thậm chí một sinh mệnh. Muốn khóc khi nghĩ về Theo.
- Vincent không bao giờ từ bỏ tình yêu của ông dành cho mọi người, nhưng hầu hết đều chối bỏ ông. Thật buồn khi những lời cuối của ông dành cho Theo là, anh muốn được chết ngay lập tức. Tại sao tại sao, đáng ra phải ôm lấy người đàn ông nhạy cảm ấy vào lòng?

...more

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Sep 12, 2015 ZaRi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: art, biography, letter

تئوی عزیزم!احساس زیبایی طبیعت،حتی احساس ظرافت ونکته های آن، با احساس عقیده وایمان فرق دارد، اگرچه به نظر من بین آن دو،رابطه ی نزدیکی موجود است.(احساس ما نسبت به هنرنیزهمین است.)درهرحال زیاد هم پایبند این موضوع نباش.هرکس طبیعت را یک نوع احساس می کند ولی کمتر کسی است که بتواند خدا را احساس کند،خدایی که باروح ما پیوستگی دارد.هرآن کس که دربرابرخدا سجده کند،باید برابرروح وحقیقت نیزسرتعظیم فرودآورد.
پاریس،17سپتامبر1875

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May 16, 2007 Matt rated it liked it

Robert Hughes writes in one of his essays on Van Gogh that the myth's around Van Gogh run exactly opposite to the truth. He recommends delving into Van Gogh's letters as a way to get beyond the myths and better understand both the artist and his work. Van Gogh is often given an aura of a mad genius, whose hallucinations and fits gave rise to the intense colors and patterning of his paintings and drawings. In fact, his fits (most likely due to epilepsy) were debilitating, and often kept him out o Robert Hughes writes in one of his essays on Van Gogh that the myth's around Van Gogh run exactly opposite to the truth. He recommends delving into Van Gogh's letters as a way to get beyond the myths and better understand both the artist and his work. Van Gogh is often given an aura of a mad genius, whose hallucinations and fits gave rise to the intense colors and patterning of his paintings and drawings. In fact, his fits (most likely due to epilepsy) were debilitating, and often kept him out of commission for weeks at a time. Hughes closes and essay saying that Van Gogh was a great painter in spite of his madness, not because of it - and having read his letters, I'm inclined to agree.

However, I somehow found the letters both more and less than I expected. The biggest disappointment was that they failed to provide as much insight into Van Gogh's working process and aesthetic ideas than I hoped. Much of his talk about his work is merely a description of recent paintings (at most a vague description of his goals) or a long list of influences. While it's interesting to see who he was looking at, I didn't come away with much more understanding of the piece by piece construction of his paintings, or of any grander aesthetic theory.

On the other hand, I now have a much greater understanding of the character and biography of Van Gogh than of any other artist I've ever studied. I can look at any piece, and place where it was in his development, where he was physically and mentally at the time, and what issues he was grappling with in his life. I may not have had much more access to his artistic thoughts, but I'm able to process his work in a much wider context than I was before. And there are many, many interesting anecdotes to be learned - like the fact that the work that he is known for, his famously intense paintings and hatched drawings, were down in less than three years - from 1887 to 1890 (a period during which he produced over 1000 combined paintings and drawings).

I also have some gripes with the editing of this edition - the letters are interspersed with brief biographical sketches which contextualize the letters, but there are also many letters left out. Without having read every single letter, it's hard for me to know whether the choice of letters reflects and editorial slant (and I have a sneaking suspicion that many letters were chosen for biographical upheaval rather than artistic insight, but have no real grounds for that claim).

It's difficult to recommend this book to everyone. Those obsessed with Van Gogh or painting in general might find a lot to learn - and those who enjoy reality TV might get a similar kick out of the bizarre twists and turns of this self-narrated life. The rest will probably find it a bit dull. ...more

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Feb 09, 2012 M. Sarki rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-wonders

I first began my reading of these letters as a way to learn more about the art process, the way to creation coming from the mind of such a gifted artist such as Vincent Van Gogh. I also was interested in his life, his story, and how he got to this end. Personal letters seem to be so much more profitable to me as a reader than fiction, or even a biography. Throughout the entire book I came to feel, and inhabit, his struggle, his pain, his lack of recognition for what he deemed so important in tot ...more

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Jul 26, 2015 Lauren Kammerdiener rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, letters-and-journals, 2016, own, supplements

"How much sadness there is in life. Still, it won't do to become depressed, one should turn to other things, and the right thing is work, but there are times when one can only find peace of mind in the realization: I, too, shall not be spared by unhappiness."

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Mar 31, 2018 David Sarkies rated it really liked it

The Mind of an Artist
31 March 2018 - Adelaide

Well, straight out I can say that this book isn’t the easiest of reads, namely because it is a collection of letters between Vincent and his brother Theo. It doesn’t contain all of the letters, namely because Vincent was quite a prolific, and very eloquent, letter writer, and Theo was one of those people that kept everything, which means that we literally have a copy of all of the letters that he sent Theo, as well as some that he sent to others (inc ...more

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Dec 30, 2010 Gregory Hunt rated it liked it

Reading Van Gogh's letters is rewarding to any artist who's interested in the creative process. As a musician, I found these letters inspiring in parts. Be warned, most of what you'll read is about money, painting supplies, and what he happened to be working on at the moment and when he expected to finish, but he will occasionally talk about his philosophies on art and his personal thoughts and troubles. Make no mistake, he was indeed a tortured individual, but he was highly read and hyper-aware ...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Jason rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

if i had to choose just 2 books on a desert island it would be the bible and van gogh's letters!

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Mar 29, 2013 S.J. Pettersson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: worn-spines

I wasn't aware that Gauguin was at Vincent's bedside when he passed and when I read the letter G wrote describing what happened I began to cry so hard. Not out of sadness but out of love for his dignity, passions and unwavering commitment, both artistic, social and in hindsight, political, to the infinite possibilities of art of which he humble only considered himself a forbearer paving the way for more important artists to come who would truly be able to paint the essence of all people, not pos ...more

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Jul 26, 2014 Marko rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Vec 10 minuta pokusavam da napisem neki rivju koji ce biti dovoljno dobar i dostojan ovog predivnog bica, koji je voleo ljude i prirodu sa retko vidjenom strascu, ali ne mogu. Osecao sam se prelepo i inspirisano. Osecao sam se...well, osetio sam sve, ono undefinable sve. Jeste da nema na srpskom, ali je treba svakako kupiti i nikad ne skidati s police, da bude vecni podsetnik da je nekad on hodao istim svetom kao i mi.

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Jul 27, 2017 Saiful Sourav rated it it was amazing

Shelves: letter, favorites

ভাই থিওর কাছে ভযান গঘের চিঠিতে- গমের কষেতে ছবি আঁকার সময় বাতাসের তোড়ে কয়টা ছবি হারানো গেছে, ইদানিং কি করছে, ছবি কেউ বুঝছে না আর মোটেও বেচা যাচছে না বলে দারুণ দশা, আরো কিছু বরাশ আর পেপার কিনতে হবে ইতযাদি কথাবারতা ছাড়াও আরো মেলা কথা । যেমন বলল কালারের টোন নিয়ে কথা । বসতুর পরকৃত রঙ কেন আঁকবে না তার আলোচনা পৃষঠার পর পৃষঠা । থিও ছিল তখনকার একজন আরট কালেকটর পলাস সমঝদার । সুরাতের পেইনটিং এ কোথায় জানি সকিল বেশি সৌনদরয কম অথবা পল গগা কিভাবে কি করে, দেগা'র লাইটিং আর ফিগর বা আরো অনেক সমসাময়িক চিতরকরদের কাজ ভাই থিওর কাছে ভ্যান গঘের চিঠিতে- গমের ক্ষেতে ছবি আঁকার সময় বাতাসের তোড়ে কয়টা ছবি হারানো গেছে, ইদানিং কি করছে, ছবি কেউ বুঝছে না আর মোটেও বেচা যাচ্ছে না বলে দারুণ দশা, আরো কিছু ব্রাশ আর পেপার কিনতে হবে ইত্যাদি কথাবার্তা ছাড়াও আরো মেলা কথা । যেমন বলল কালারের টোন নিয়ে কথা । বস্তুর প্রকৃত রঙ কেন আঁকবে না তার আলোচনা পৃষ্ঠার পর পৃষ্ঠা । থিও ছিল তখনকার একজন আর্ট কালেক্টর প্লাস সমঝদার । সুরাতের পেইন্টিং এ কোথায় জানি স্কিল বেশি সৌন্দর্য কম অথবা পল গগা কিভাবে কি করে, দেগা'র লাইটিং আর ফিগর বা আরো অনেক সমসাময়িক চিত্রকরদের কাজ নিয়ে কথা ছাড়াও তাদের সাহিত্যপাঠ অভিজ্ঞতার শেয়ারিং, আন্ডার্স্ট্যান্ডিং; প্রকৃত প্রস্তাবে গঘের কথাই সর্বাঙ্গে । তার ভাই এক পৃষ্ঠার বেশি লেখার কিছু অথবা প্রয়োজনীয়তা কোনটাই খুব একটা খুঁজে পেত না তবে পয়সা পাঠাতো । সমস্ত প্রতিকূলতার মধ্যেও কর্মময় জীবন ও ব্যক্তি জীবনের ভ্যান গঘের কিছু রূপরেখা । ...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Taymara Jagmohan rated it it was amazing

Quite pleasant.
I read the few lines concerning himself, and his most favored brother, Theo, but I couldn't muster the courage to read between the lines of his personal letters.
His letters weren't just conventional, but they were meant for his brother. Clearly if he had preferred for the entirety of the World to honorably view/read the letters, then he would have granted the dispensation.
I didn't like how his letters were just published. This is a man of secrecy. One with true talent, not just y ...more

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Jan 30, 2018 Joaco rated it it was amazing

Shelves: cajonera

The habit of reading whatever I feel like from the stack of books it keeps piling in my bedroom led me to these beautiful Letters of Vincent van Gogh.

I was not expecting much from them, maybe some insight into van Gogh depressive character or perhaps some everyday experiences from the time he lived, maybe getting a better idea of what it means to be an artist. Vincent, however, delivered much more than expected.

The letters are separated in periods of his life which coincide to where he was livin The habit of reading whatever I feel like from the stack of books it keeps piling in my bedroom led me to these beautiful Letters of Vincent van Gogh.

I was not expecting much from them, maybe some insight into van Gogh depressive character or perhaps some everyday experiences from the time he lived, maybe getting a better idea of what it means to be an artist. Vincent, however, delivered much more than expected.

The letters are separated in periods of his life which coincide to where he was living. This way you have a clear idea how he was seeing his world develop in each stage: the early period while he was studying to be an art dealer and how he was beginning to doubt the path laid for him; his life in England and how he was starting to get acquainted with his spiritual and deeply humane side; his return to his family house and the difficulties of this due to his strong personality which would not yield to the rules of society; his time in Paris where he lives with his brother and so practically we have no record from him; his life in Arles in the south of France where he would eventually live with Gauguin; his time in Saint-Remy, the metal institution where he spent some time; and finally Auvers-sur-Oise where he would eventually commit suicide.

The above however cannot convey how touching, powerful and full of wisdom his letters were. From the very beginning, Vincent describes his surroundings with a color pallet as he was painting it. Not only that, he was also great in describing how he felt contemplating the things he described. There is a particularly touching moment when he describes to Theo how his pupils in England who had nothing to eat were treated badly by the headmaster. Of course this was just a prelude to Vincent's search for spiritual enlightenment which would end in failure as he was too much of an ascetic and the religious authorities considered he was mad. However, Vincent's passion was just a character trait. This passion would always provide him with the strength to live a miserable life; economically dependent of his brother Theo. While this would have filled others with resentment, Vincent affection to Theo was present from the beginning and only once in all his letters reprimanded his brother. In person it was completely different as Theo could not stand to live with him while they shared lodging in Paris. Eventually, Vincent would move on, continuing working on his ideas of what should be painted and how; asking Theo for money; arguing with friends and family; and living with hardly any food.

It is impossible to condense in a short review van Gogh's life experiences, but if any of the above interested you, it will be worth your while reading his letters. ...more

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Mar 28, 2010 Tammy Marie Jacintho rated it really liked it

I felt the full impact of Vincent’s loneliness, despair, and rebounding hopefulness. I felt the weight of what it means to be an artist, what it means to strive for your own voice, to know the strengths and weaknesses of your own hands.

I experienced, through Vincent, a true representation of monastic isolation. Vincent’s isolation allowed him to deepen his dialogue with his beneficiaries. And, his most steadfast Muse was Theo. Theo and God. In many ways they were interchangeable, as Vincent ido I felt the full impact of Vincent’s loneliness, despair, and rebounding hopefulness. I felt the weight of what it means to be an artist, what it means to strive for your own voice, to know the strengths and weaknesses of your own hands.

I experienced, through Vincent, a true representation of monastic isolation. Vincent’s isolation allowed him to deepen his dialogue with his beneficiaries. And, his most steadfast Muse was Theo. Theo and God. In many ways they were interchangeable, as Vincent idolized his brother. And while Theo was Vincent’s best friend, this devotion was only surpassed by his fervor for the Divine. Worldly and Heavenly aspirations were both necessary components of his artistic identity.

Looking at his art, one sees that there is a spiritual dimension to his vision. It is a sort of double transfiguration occurring in both the creator and the object. That is, the artist is changed through the creation of the object, and the physical world is changed into a spiritual object by the artist. The object is proof of the transformation.

Vincent’s art was the residue left behind after a mystical experience. His ascent or mania, in many ways, resembled the behavior of mystics. There is a break down of the real and a descent into the super-real where the world becomes a mirror for the intensity of feeling. This is manifest in the amorphous gestalt and intense tinctures found in his later works.

One can warm their hands at his fires, feel the chill of his winds, and swim in the many faceted greens that take the viewer deep below the surface. The layers of paint, the fine comb of his brush, all bring the world into focus. Therefore, we believe we can touch the rooms, the fields, the winding roads... We know too desperation in a darkened church and in a murder of crows... These are the things that make Vincent’s work so striking today. It is that we feel it, all these years later.

And we feel these letters. Reading them is like striking flint on bone. There’s something hot burning alongside something cold. There’s something primordial about his fear. There’s something familiar about his hope.

These letters were necessary, like his art. His letters speak to the need of a man working his way into himself. He calls himself forth. He dares himself. He confesses himself. He reveals himself. And through this self, he pulls the most distilled and refined experiences to the surface. Like the Transcendentalists, he becomes his thoughts.

He becomes Vincent Van Gogh. ...more

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Dec 07, 2010 Keith rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recommendations

so great. such a rare and impassioned human being, van gogh. he was one of the last virtuous men. i listened to don mclean's song "vincent" after i read this and cried undignified blubbery tears; "the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you! why vincent, why!"

Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, ‘You can't do a thing’. The canvas ha ...more

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Mar 08, 2017 Francis Coco rated it it was amazing

Once I house sat for a man I worked with while he was on vacation and as a thank you, he gave me a Cookie Jar with Van Gogh's Starry Night. At the time, I wasn't so crazy about Van Gogh because I felt his art was so commercialized - Starry Night seemed to be everywhere! But, a few years later I saw a Van Gogh piece in person and that changed everything. - - Brilliant. I just fell in love with Van Gogh. So, I read these letters and found them fascinating, even the mundane stuff about what supplie ...more

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Dec 13, 2018 Çağatay Boz rated it it was amazing

100 küçük sayfada alabildiğine yalnızlık. Kâbuslar, halüsinasyonlar, mide sancıları, depresif ve manik epizodlar, gerçekle bağın kopması, bir şekilde tutunmaya çalışmak. Sevdiklerle, sanatla, doğayla, ne olduğunun bir önemi yok.

"Zaman kaybetmemem açısından bu kâğıtlar bana her hâlükârda lâzım."

van Gogh'un aklî durumuyla ilgili genel bir kanı mevcut değil, zira yaşadığı dönemde pek "mühim" bir insan olmadığı için kendisiyle ilgili bildiklerimiz çoğunlukla bizzat yazdığı mektuplardan ibaret. Büyük ...more

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Feb 09, 2018 Bjørk Rúnadóttir rated it really liked it

4.5

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Jan 26, 2015 Aman Mittal rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction

Admire as much as you can. Most people do not admire enough.

I can't stop admiring his art work. Sometimes I just want to drown myself in them. Anyone familiar with the drawings and paintings Van Gogh produced will certainly observe that he just not created any beauty with his art work, but the beauty that would give people something to think about. During his short, intense life, one will discover that The Letters of Vincent van Gogh highlight many facets of his personality that are suggested by Admire as much as you can. Most people do not admire enough.

I can't stop admiring his art work. Sometimes I just want to drown myself in them. Anyone familiar with the drawings and paintings Van Gogh produced will certainly observe that he just not created any beauty with his art work, but the beauty that would give people something to think about. During his short, intense life, one will discover that The Letters of Vincent van Gogh highlight many facets of his personality that are suggested by his work as a visual artist.

These complete letters linked with brief passages of connecting narrative and showing all the pen-and-ink sketches provide both a unique self-portrait and a vivid picture of the contemporary cultural scene. Vincent van Gogh emerges as a complex but captivating personality, struggling with utter integrity to fulfil his artistic destiny. These letters illuminate his constant conflicts as a painter, torn between realism, symbolism and abstraction; between landscape and portraiture; between his desire to outline peasant life and the exciting diversions of the city though his work; between his uncanny versatility as a sketcher and his ideal of the full-scale finished paintings. Vincent van Gogh wrote at length to friends, fellow artists and his family, above all, to his brother Theo, the Parisian art dealer, who was his confidant.

Theo van Gogh was the man who saved even the smallest scrap of paper. There were more than 600 letters he received from Vincent and it is possible due to him, that one can get a detailed insight on Vincent van Gogh. These letters are also a proof of the artistic bond that both the brothers shared. Another amazing aspect that these letters manifest is Vincent's writing eloquence, clarity of thought and ability to describe his art and other artists.

While Vincent developed as an artist, he also learned to express his ideas more concisely and fundamentally with same telling effect that one can find in his sketches and drawings. His description of landscapes, people or situations are fascinating of their drawn comparisons.

Literature was a big part of van Gogh's life. He, many a times in his letters, reveals his delight and admiration for the works of authors like Hans Christian Anderson, George Eliot, Zola, Charles Dickens, Goethe, and Victor Hugo. His love for written words, he not only shared with his brother but his family too in the early days of him becoming a painter.

Van Gogh's life did not simply speed towards madness. After a youth full of false starts and disappointments, his decision to become an artist was unconditional. His sense of isolation found an equivalent of becoming a painter even when the madness was the price that he had to pay.

We spent our whole lives in unconscious exercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words. ...more

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Dec 13, 2012 lavinia rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, art-culture

Van Gogh's letters are clearly the best way to know the artist, to understand his life, but not to get into his mind and understand his work. Throughout his life, van Gogh depended a lot on his brother Theo for financial support, and their letters are most of the time about lack of money. It's very interesting to read about the artists that he admired, and understand how he was influenced at first by Millet when he started painting peasants, potatoes, peasants and potatoes, and then by the frenc Van Gogh's letters are clearly the best way to know the artist, to understand his life, but not to get into his mind and understand his work. Throughout his life, van Gogh depended a lot on his brother Theo for financial support, and their letters are most of the time about lack of money. It's very interesting to read about the artists that he admired, and understand how he was influenced at first by Millet when he started painting peasants, potatoes, peasants and potatoes, and then by the french impressionists. It's a shame that from the two years while he lived in Paris, and was exposed for the first time to impressionists, there are very few letters because he was living with his brother at that time. I would have been curious to know how he shifted from the darker Dutch scenery to the vibrant colors of more contemporary French style. So for the artistic perspective, the book is not very rich, since you never actually get explanations for why he wanted to paint that way, or why he chose a specific scene.

However, I really enjoyed the explaining notes inserted among the letters. These were highly useful for understanding context, knowing more about what was currently happening in van Gogh's life. The letters are also full of an abundance of cultural insights, I got to learn more about other painters, and even the more "gossiping" part, when he has the fights with Gauguin, how he cuts his ear, or how he describes his crisis, these are also captivating to read.

Besides the historical value of the letters, they are still "good reads": from time to time, van Gogh would talk very philosophical about life in general, or he would give advices to his brother. He would often talk about love, saying how sacred it is, and he would talk a lot (in the first few years of correspondence) about religion, and God, and his beliefs. I don't know how deep these thoughts would seem if they weren't spoken by the great artist, but even simple as they are, of common sense, they feel like an intimate path towards van Gogh's soul, describing his sensitivity. Although I am sad that he never wrote about his paintings and what he felt when finishing them, these personal thoughts and advices to his brother were a way to allow us, so many years after his disappearance, to get a small glimpse of how van Gogh thought and felt about life. ...more

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Nov 07, 2014 Jose rated it it was amazing

I'm smitten. It is impossible to think "Van Gogh" without being aware of the well-known irony of his elevation to the very highest altars of ART (and commerce) after a life cut short by despair and scarcity. In this letters Van Gogh makes his case. Vehemently, honestly and without much embellishments beyond their raw directness, he appeals to his patient brother Theo often for money but even more often for understanding. And even though he might have been difficult and stubborn, he makes all kin I'm smitten. It is impossible to think "Van Gogh" without being aware of the well-known irony of his elevation to the very highest altars of ART (and commerce) after a life cut short by despair and scarcity. In this letters Van Gogh makes his case. Vehemently, honestly and without much embellishments beyond their raw directness, he appeals to his patient brother Theo often for money but even more often for understanding. And even though he might have been difficult and stubborn, he makes all kinds of sense. Among the themes : His religious beliefs, badly shaken by the evidence of hypocrisy and abandonment; his loneliness and desperate "inopportune" love for his cousin Kee Vos and the need for female companionship; rows against his father , ex-employers and teachers as well as his admiration for them, often in the same paragraph. And of course his art as the hard-fought vehicle for all that faith and passion, his appreciation for beauty and his hard work to stay afloat. Incredibly touching and sincere, the story of Van Gogh would still be told were the letters to vanish but they certainly deliver us the artist as the genuine article.
As his life as an artist evolves against all odds, VG starts to enter more and more into the "thinking" behind his "working" efforts. Some of the letters he addresses to artists (Bernard, Gaugin) are full of insights into what constitutes art and its meaning. He formulates a life long ambition of forming an artist colony of sorts. He delves into what is a subject worth painting (and what isn't, he was a harsh critic, an honest one), the influence of Millet a constant above all others but also the beauty of Japanese prints and the old Dutch masters. Van Gogh comes across as a very intelligent and aware artist able to follow the art and literary worlds despite his desperate plight. His search for authenticity and quality is relentless and may have been the final straw that rendered him depressed, sick and spent even when things were just starting to look rosier. One of the best books one can read about art just because it is honest to a fault and direct. ...more

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Aug 18, 2016 Ted Prokash rated it it was amazing

Most of what I knew about Van Gogh, previous to reading his letters, was gleaned from the 1956 Kirk Douglas movie, Lust For Life, and the 1994 Lee Harvey Oswald Band song, Van Gogh and the Chemical Haze (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uwty...). Both fine offerings in their own right. This collection of correspondence is a deeper delving indeed.

I have no legitimate understanding of the visual arts . . . but let's not turn this in to a litany of the things I don't understand, eh?! If you have an ...more

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Jun 04, 2014 Maan Kawas rated it it was amazing

A great book that contains a great selection of Vincent Van Gogh’s letters, basically to his brother Theo, which are revealing and provide better understanding of this great artist’s ideas and life! The letters look like a work of literature, and tell a lot about the different circumstances and challenges in Van Gogh’s life. The letters included many painful and sad experiences in his life that left my eyes wet, such as his unrequited love, threats from his father (guardianship), his illness, th ...more

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Jul 09, 2009 Chris Lugo rated it it was amazing

This is literally the best book describing the experience of being an artist that I have ever read. Not only was Van Gogh a profound and deeply symbolic painter, he was also an excellent writer who understood how to use words in the same fashion that he used paint in order to express his profound pathos and admiration of the natural world. A true artist is someone who not only observes the beauty of nature but also lives it within their experience. Van Gogh was an example of the artist as experi ...more

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About Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

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Vincent Willem van Gogh, for whom color was the chief symbol of expression, was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland. The son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere, Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence. Between 1860 and 1880, when he finally decided to become an artist, van Gogh had had two unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked unsuccessfully as a cle Vincent Willem van Gogh, for whom color was the chief symbol of expression, was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland. The son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere, Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence. Between 1860 and 1880, when he finally decided to become an artist, van Gogh had had two unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, an art salesman, and a preacher in the Borinage (a dreary mining district in Belgium), where he was dismissed for overzealousness. He remained in Belgium to study art, determined to give happiness by creating beauty. The works of his early Dutch period are somber-toned, sharply lit, genre paintings of which the most famous is "The Potato Eaters" (1885). In that year van Gogh went to Antwerp where he discovered the works of Rubens and purchased many Japanese prints.

In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother Théo, the manager of Goupil's gallery. In Paris, van Gogh studied with Cormon, inevitably met Pissarro, Monet, and Gauguin, and began to lighten his very dark palette and to paint in the short brushstrokes of the Impressionists. His nervous temperament made him a difficult companion and night-long discussions combined with painting all day undermined his health. He decided to go south to Arles where he hoped his friends would join him and help found a school of art. Gauguin did join him but with disastrous results. In a fit of epilepsy, van Gogh pursued his friend with an open razor, was stopped by Gauguin, but ended up cutting a portion of his ear lobe off. Van Gogh then began to alternate between fits of madness and lucidity and was sent to the asylum in Saint-Remy for treatment.

In May of 1890, he seemed much better and went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under the watchful eye of Dr. Gachet. Two months later he was dead, having shot himself "for the good of all." During his brief career he had sold one painting. Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less than three years in a technique that grew more and more impassioned in brushstroke, in symbolic and intense color, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of form and line. Van Gogh's inimitable fusion of form and content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically rhythmic, imaginative, and emotional, for the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either his struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature. ...more