For Art and for Life

by Vincent van Gogh

Few artists' letters are as self-revelatory as Vincent van Gogh's. From the humanistic inspiration behind The Potato Eaters to his long-time obsession with painting the vision that eventually became The Starry Night, the letters in this selection paint an intense personal narrative of his artistic development and creative process across the years. They reveal a man of great spiritual and emotional depths who – in his own words – did everything ‘for art and for life itself’.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History

176 pages, Paperback

Published April 11, 2025

About the author

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.

Reviews

[victoria marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

so damn lovely! a selection of letters from Vincent to mainly his brother Theo but also others. found some of the quotes pulled by a major museum who was a client of mine a few years ago when they reached out for prints supporting the first exhibition of his Olive Trees series ever in the states, & loved seeing them in context of the full letters!!

there is also a detailed biographical outline & the letters are separated into three parts (Becoming an Artist, The Best Days, & Towards the End) with focuses on where van Gogh wrote them… originally selected by Ronald de Leeuw. a bit disappointing that translators are not named anywhere, only a translation copyright of Sdu Publishers (1997) — cannot recommend this enough! to all! (& these Penguin Archive books are truly so very beautiful as objects too!)

I want to pull so many quotes from this & put them here for my own reference, but also don’t want to feed the ai machines (even if my gr profile is private at the moment), so here is only a couple (& did I mention you should pickup this little book‽:)

*

Well, even in these depths of misery I felt my energy revive & said to myself, I shall get over it somehow, I shall set to work again with my pencil, which I had cast aside in my deep dejection, & I shall draw again, & ever since I have had the feeling that everything has changed for me, & now I am in my stride & my pencil has become slightly more willing & seems to be getting more so by the day. My over-long & over-intense misery had discouraged me so much that I was unable to do anything. (7)

*

What am I in the eyes of most people—a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person—somebody who has no position in society and never will have, in short, the lowest of the low.
All right, then—even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.
That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love malgré tout*, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.
Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum. (20) * in spite of everything

*

Painting and fucking a lot don't go together, it softens the brain. Which is a bloody nuisance.
The symbol of St Luke, the patron saint of painters, is, as you know, an ox. So you just be patient as an ox if you want to work in the artistic field. Still, bulls are lucky not to have to work at that foul business of painting.
But what I wanted to say is this: after the period of melancholy is over you will be stronger than before, you will recover your health, and you will find the scenery round you so beautiful that you will want to do nothing but paint. (69)

[Alex Geldzahler · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Though I am often in the depths of misery, there’s a still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven toward these things with an irresistible momentum.” - Van Gogh

[Varya Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew it was going to break my heart yet I read it anyway, now I’ve turned the last page and I’m sitting here with the shattered pieces in my hands.

You can see the shift in his character in his own writing from youthful, hopeful and determined, to confident in himself and his creativity, to timid and wracked with anxiety until the end. I took so much wisdom from everything that he said and did, whilst remembering that he was just experiencing life for the first time too.

I wish he could have known that his artistic abilities flowed not only through his paintbrush but also through his voice and his pen.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Covering the point from which he decided he wanted to be an artist to his final letter, these letters, mostly to his brother Theo, are revealing, inspiring, and profoundly moving

[paulína · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh, vincent... tak by som ťa objala...

[Arielle DL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely magical.

It is so clear how deeply artistry and creativity were ingrained within Van Gogh. His writing, even these private day to day letters, is stunning in my opinion. Having the chance to briefly view the world through his eyes was incredible.

Vincent Van Gogh mindset showed that of a passionately dedicated artist. He took the time to practice and really study his craft, which if it wasn’t already abundantly clear from his artwork, is now repeatedly shown through his writing. It is no surprise that his paintings have lasted throughout history when you learn that he lived and breathed creativity. While reading, I occasionally would look at the paintings he was talking about in some passages. It was intriguing to get an added sense of what was going through Van Gogh’s mind and what is intentions were for the paintings. This served really well to create another layer to his work.

Van Gogh was clearly an extremely knowledgeable man, who put incredible thought into not just his own work but also the broader world around him, and work by the impressionists at large. His letters showed me how intertwined the impressionist artists were in reality. They were not just a group that were posthumously grouped together by academics.

I found this short collection a bit difficult to critique in the same way I would a normal novel. Given that these letters weren’t really intended for a public audience it feels wrong to try and search for pitfalls in some greater message. While it took me some time to really sink into the letters at the beginning, that again probably lies in the fact that they weren’t written with the intention to entertain the masses. The editor who compiled the letters also did a good job. Each grouping of letters accurately reflecting the mood of each section of the collection.

I would absolutely recommend this book. It’s a touching insight into sibling relationship, and a man who viewed the world as art itself.

[Dylan Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

So profoundly moving and inspiring are these letters by Van Gogh. Absolutely devastating that he died penniless, mentally unwell, and without knowing he would become the most recognised and popular painter in history.

There were so many things that he wrote in these letters that are worthy of quoting, but I think this struck me the most:

“The world concerns me only in so far as I owe it a certain debt and duty, so to speak, because I have walked this earth for 30 years, and out of gratitude would like to leave some memento in the form of drawings and paintings — not made to please this school or that, but to express a genuine human feeling.
So that work is my aim — and when one concentrates on this idea, everything one does is simplified, in that it is not muddled but has a single objective.”

Despite the lack of success, despite the poverty, despite the depression and the illness, despite it all… the dude just kept painting. Genuinely awe-struck at the sheer force of will of the man, in the face of such suffering.

I think I’ll pop one last quote here, not from the book but from an episode of Dr Who, believe it or not! When the Doctor asks Bill Nighy’s character, an art curator, where he thinks Van Gogh rates in the history of art:

“Big question, but, to me Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular, great painter of all time. The most beloved, his command of colour the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world, no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.”

If you’ve not seen the clip on YouTube it’s on BBC’s channel. I’d highly recommend it. Makes me tear up every time.

[aqilahreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

reading van gogh’s letters gave me a window into his intense dedication to art – how much he sacrificed emotionally, financially & socially to pursue something he felt deeply called to. 🖌️✨

the letters show how closely he observed the world: nature, light, people, and beauty in everyday things. theres something both admirable and tragic in how fully he gave himself to painting, often at the cost of personal stability.

what stood out most was how much he thought, felt and wrestled with meaning – not just in art, but in life. his passion, his anxieties, his loneliness & his ideals are all laid bare. its not always an easy or consistently gripping read but its very human and real.

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 as i thought it would be more complete if they feature the drawings as well. so !!!! would recommend a good companion to this which would be the drawings of vincent van gogh by christopher lloyd – seeing his visual development adds a powerful layer to what he describes in the letters. together, they offer a fuller picture of van gogh who saw the world in a way that still resonates.

in the end, its a quiet reminder of how deeply art can be tied to the human soul – not as a product, but as a way of seeing, feeling & existing in the world. even in his struggle, van gogh found meaning in beauty and theres something incredibly moving about that. 💫

[Borbála · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can I rate the letters of a man who went through so much suffering, but still was in love with all the beauty in the world? Somebody, who pushed on through his pain to create?

I was truly moved by this book, and it made me realize that I need to know more about van Gogh.

"This is how I regard myself, as having to accomplish in a few years something full of heart and love, and to do it with a will."

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I have cried over van Gogh so many times at this point. On a recent trip to Paris I saw some of his paintings at Musee D'Orsay, and then had to buy this in the gift shop. I read this mostly on the plane right home, and the last few letters were devastating. He was so human and tortured and such an artist. I think my favorite bits were the way he talks about art and his passion, and the begging his brother for my art supplies. Lovely and tragic.

[Lindsay Fu · Rating 5 out of 5]

ily Vincent 😢☹️☹️☹️

[Alex Fossett · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intensely beautiful and passionate man, living through a cruel struggle. Theo’s kindness seemed to be the best medicine.

[Enda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until reading this collection, I had never fully appreciated how well-rounded Van Gogh was. His writing moves you as you read it, where a simple letter begging for money can be complemented with adroit turns of phrase ('poverty is a small beginning') to surprising metaphors, where ideas are likened to sheep: if you can get one to cross over, the rest will follow. He read voraciously, and his generosity of spirit, his unabashed praise of other artists, something which runs through the book, finds voice in the first letter as he praises both Shakespeare and Dickens. In fact, he even chastises the writer of an article that lauds him because he feels the writer didn't take enough time to talk about his influences. Without Paul Gauguin, Vincent believes, his painting would be second-rate.

As a side note, the evolution of their friendship is heartbreaking, from Vincent's excitement at Gauguin's arrival in Arles, where he was obsessively decorating the house and guest bedroom, to Gauguin's increasingly dry letters in the years after the ear incident.

This lust for life cannot be contained, and it expresses itself in a multitude of ways. He walked 80 km to Courrières, and it is here that his sadness and dispirited disposition are very relatable - after suffering cold, hunger, rain, and after sleeping in haystacks, most people would feel miserable. Yet, he finds beauty in the rugged denizens of this mining town, acknowledging that not many would see the goodness and nobility in their humble lives. And his great sense of mission and drive is always active as he commits the workers to sketches and memory, preparing for future canvases.

This celebration of the humble speaks to two of his impulses: a socialist one that finds form in later hopes for a collective of artists, where the greats like Monet would allow their great fees to trickle down the painting pyramid; and his celebration of authenticity, as he opines that a peasant girl is already more honest and lovely that a wealthy woman, and that even if the former dressed as the latter, it wouldn't suit her natural state.

The letters twin the prosaic with the magical. After a handful of lines complaining about his living conditions, he will explain that artists should not copy the masters but instead find new ideas.
When he visits a cafe for artists, he is unimpressed by the murals inside.

Vincent is like a proto-travel writer as he describes sailors escaping brothels in Belgium, a girl smiling like a hyena on a beach, and people ravaged by smallpox. He is a man of firm opinions. Paired with that was the painful realisation that most people saw him as a misfit, but he hoped his art would touch people and make him integrated in society.

He had a keen sense that he had four or five good years of painting ahead of him, before his body gave in. (His strange beliefs about 'good' and 'bad' blood make for curious reading in these passages.) He subsisted on biscuits so he could pay models, and he ignored the possibility of love as he felt his passion had to be completely focused on art. What is more, he felt the world could be so beautiful, that he owed it something in return, a great painting or two. Manifesting this wish was not always easy, with inspiration drying up and tiredness afflicting him. To solve these problems, he either waited for the malaise to pass or alternated between figure and landscape painting to keep things fresh.

He was obviously close to his brother, Theo, and the relationship is quite tender. One Sunday, he writes about taking a break from painting and feeling far from his brother, when, by chance, a letter from Theo arrived to him, and the beautiful part was that the letter contained descriptions of things Vincent had dreamt about, so in that moment, he felt doubly connected to his brother. Later in the collection, we see his genuine happiness for Theo's marriage and son's birth, and Theo's wife, Jo, even writes to Vincent after the two brothers had fallen out over money, explaining that he was not to worry, Theo really did understand that, Vincent was making a huge effort to work and make money.

There are bittersweet throughlines throughout the collection.

On one hand, he drops classic painting into letters, these little pearls that are fun for the reader. His comments on his ultimate dream of painting Starry, Starry Night, and he wonders whether the painting is better left in his mind's eye, where it is already perfect. The Night Cafe, we are told, is done in such a way that it makes you feel drunk when looking at it, and open to the possibility of anything occurring. The Potato Eaters should be, he advises Theo, framed in gold to offset the earthy tones of the scene.

On the other hand, sparse editor notes bluntly intercede into a collection. After two seemingly normal letters, we learn that Vincent has cut off his ear and, two years later, has shot himself in the chest. We know it would end like this, yet finishing this book fills you with a sense of tragedy and pain for Vincent.

This is why he endures - his painting prowess and his humanity. And this is why this book is essential reading. It is short, but it packs a punch to all your senses.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Now, hope is vaguely beckoning on the horizon again, that flickering hope which used sometimes to console my solitary life. I should so much like to imbue you with a large share of my faith that we shall succeed in starting something that will endure.” I’ve read a collection of Vincent van Gogh’s letters before, but For Art and for Life offers up a different and more potent distillation of them, one that rings with the artist’s prescience about his own life and work, as well as his gift for language, to render the aesthetic, the visual world around him, into words. “The walls are pale violet. The floor - is red tiles. The wood of the bed and the chairs is the yellow of fresh butter, the sheet and the pillows very light lime green. The blanket scarlet. The window green. The washstand orange, the basin blue. The doors lilac. And that’s all - nothing of any consequence in this shuttered room. The sturdy lines of the furniture should also express undisturbed rest.” Reading his letters I am always struck less by the pain than by the resolute hopefulness that thrums through his correspondence with his brother, a hopefulness that kept him alive and working for as long as it could. Like many, I’m sure, van Gogh was the first artist to make me think that maybe visual art was something I was interested in, something that meant something even to my word-oriented brain. “I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. The day will come, however, when people will see they are worth more than the price of the paint and my living expenses, very meagre on the whole, which we put into them.” I’m glad he was at least proved right in the end. Thanks again to Maria and Penguin for another Penguin Archive book!

[Emma Prado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Van Gogh’s letters to Theo (his brother) has been such a good way to understand who he was, how he grew as an artist, how he was broke, their relationship, how he admired life, nature, light… and how he kind of regretted, at the end of his life, choosing giving ALL for his art over maybe having a family, or over some more health/mental stability.

I looooved seeing how passionate he was about art, what was influencing the way he would do things, other artists and how he shared with his brother everything he admired, expositions he knew about and so. How can all these people know each other at that time where you wouldn’t travel that much or text or whatever? it’s not even the 1900s, but they knew what was going on!

I think reading his letters has been better than reading a biography, you can see him more, I guess. It’s not that it’s interesting all the time, but you see his life, thoughts, worries, happiness, sadness and passions.

I’ve been thinking about this quote for weeks: “The feeling for things themselves, for reality, is of greater importance than the feeling for painting; anyway it is more productive and more inspiring.”

[Georgia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Archive #30

A lovely man and a lovely painter but getting a glimpse into his personal dealings didn’t do a huge amount for me. Some of the letters they included I really didn’t feel needed to be there. A lot of organisational discussions with his brother that made me glaze over a little!
Still there were very nice lines, and as I’m already endeared to him through his art, I could never give it fewer than 3 stars.

[Jay C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant; a beautiful glimpse into the life a great artist, and the artistic culture of Europe at the time. van Gogh writes like I imagines he painted - considered and learned, but also earnest with unbridled enthusiasm, for all that he suffered. I would have liked to have read also the letters from Theo, Vincent’s brother. He sounds like one of the best of us.

[Juleane Monique Borres · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me."

heartwarming writing! van gogh's words are also art in and of themselves. arnold pomerans did a great job at translating these :)

[Gayle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ego death

[liriaels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, my dear Vincent…

[Tomasz Perczyński · Rating 5 out of 5]

sad but true story of a great artist, missed by reality. his struggle is overwhelming

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Van gogh idk how you had this much time to write this many letters and paint non stop

[Georgia-Mae Chung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really moving to read and to be able to learn more about Van Gogh as a human being rather than just a historical figure. It seems that he wrote as beautifully as he painted

[Lewis Timms · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first book I have read and finished in seven years and it didn’t disappoint, hearing parts of a story from one side was such an interesting way of learning a story.

[Salena Yasin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me to me every five seconds: “omg UNDERLINE THAT”

[swiss alpine herbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty good !! not one of my faves but its kind of sweet to see he really was just a guy that lost the mental health lottery

[Steazy Peasy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The end was very sad, but expected.