Van Gogh: His Life and His Art

by David Sweetman

An in-depth study, which includes a wealth of new information about Van Gogh's early years, spiritual beliefs, and failed loves, probes the life of the Impressionist painter, examining his work, mental illness, and family relations

Genres: Art, Biography, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the best Doctor Who episodes is when the Doctor meets Vincent Van Gogh. That episode, as well as the beauty of his art and stories of how he cut off his own ear, piqued my curiosity. I picked up this book at the library to learn more about Van Gogh's life. While it is interesting, I never really got into it. I learned a lot, but also found myself skimming. His religious commitment in his youth was unknown to me. It was also fascinating that he did not really start painting till he was 27! This may be a reminder that aimless young people searching for a call is not a new thing for our day and age. Perhaps that is even encouraging to those who are uncertain about what they want to do in life.

Ultimately, Van Gogh is a tragic figure as he could not overcome the demons that plagued him. Thankfully we have his wonderful artwork to remember him, though we can only imagine what else he may have done had he lived longer.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bittersweet, thoroughly researched and profoundly moving biography of Vincent Van Gogh.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I’ve read twenty-plus books on van Gogh, this was the first cradle-to-grave biography that I’ve taken on. If I was concerned at first with the possibility of more myth-making (I was) Mr. Sweetman dispelled my fear, if gradually. He opens his narrative with the gravestone of the infant Vincent van Gogh, stillborn exactly one year prior to the birth of the artist, and the supposition that a print by a little-known Dutch artist, “Funeral Procession Through the Cornfields”, which hung in the van Gogh family home when van Gogh was a boy, influenced his personal and artistic thinking for the rest of his life. Sweetman allows himself these suppositions while largely denying them to critics and other van Gogh biographers—which is exactly the book’s strength. Sweetman’s indulgences in these two instances are brief and he draws no definitive conclusions about them; nor does he allow anyone else to draw positive conclusions about van Gogh’s actions or artistic decisions, at least without evidence. He warns against such foolish and threadbare assumptions-against-the-facts as trying to identify the female figure making her way along the church-side path in “Church at Auvers”; he resists fully demonizing Gauguin or van Gogh’s father, Pastor Theodorus van Gogh; and he provides a balanced portrait of van Gogh’s last doctor, Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, without making him look criminally negligent. There goes the myth-making.

Most interestingly and affectingly, Sweetman manages, in the book’s final eighteen pages, to bring the reader up to speed on how van Gogh became VAN GOGH, a process that began with Theo’s widow and eventually fell by inheritance to her son, also a Vincent (who established the Van Gogh Foundation, which led to the creation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam). Bringing the works to such a wide public, Sweetman points out, helped van Gogh achieve “what he most dearly desired—to make art for ordinary people.” This very public, says Sweetman, “makes Vincent’s story a happy not a despairing one.” Yes.

[Scoats · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent recap on the life of VVG.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this basically out of a desire to get to know another artist while working at the reference desk at the Gallery. The book was good--not extraordinary, but good. I would have liked it to include more about the art (a lot was about his mental illness, personal life, etc. which was good and interesting, but I wish there was more direct reference to paintings, more information on what they meant, etc.). I also think I had a good idea in reading the book with a catalogue raisonne and following along with the timeline--there are some reproductions in the book, but not enough. The catalogue raisonne that I randomly chose was "The Complete Van Gogh" by Hulsker, which didn't have enough color for me. And Vincent is all about color! Overall, interesting read.

[Anchoas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went through this Book in its French version (clearly : my mother language ... so sorry for the poor vocabulary) some years ago. I really appreciated it because it is very well written and emphasizes the very nature of Vincent towards the world surrounding and witnesses of his difficulty to live in the real world whilst we get the confirmation that his very essence of existence was embedded in his paintings.

[Scoats · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent recap on the life of VVG.

[Jessica]

only made it half-way...

[Kiof · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly readable.