Living with Vincent van Gogh: The homes and landscapes that shaped the artist
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Living with Vincent van Gogh: The homes and landscapes that shaped the artist Details
About the Author Martin Bailey is a leading specialist on Van Gogh and an arts journalist. He is a London-based correspondent for The Art Newspaper. Bailey has curated several exhibitions on Van Gogh, including one at Tate Britain in 2019, and has written extensively on the artist. His books include The Sunflowers Are Mine (2013), Studio of the South (2016) and Starry Night (2018). Read more
Reviews
I enjoyed the way the author shared Vincent van Gogh’s personal journey in life, and how his art developed along the way. I was surprised to see how many different places he lived during his life and how his life experiences influenced his work.Painting and drawing didn’t come to Van Gogh easily. He had to work at it. Although, he had a true dedication to knowledge and to learning his craft, he struggled with traditional schooling and never completed a formal study of any sort. He was fluent in English, French and German, but the book never tells us how he learned stet languages. Although he did go to boarding school as a child, I’ll have to look into his educational background at a later date to uncover how he learned so much.Van Gogh family relationships were challenging at best. His father was a minister and Van Gogh didn’t get along with him. He studied theology and considered going into the ministry, once again, he didn’t fit in to the traditional schooling required for that vocation. As you can see, he grappled with finding the right occupation.It seemed the only true family relationship he had was with his brother Teo, and Teo supported Vincent emotionally as well as financially most of his life.While Van Gogh was in his thirties, he lived outside of Paris, Montmartre, and worked alongside other artists painting and showing their work to the general public, but Van Gogh had a temper and didn’t control it well, so he was asked to leave that community.On a side note, he sure loved the Brothels.In his thirties, Van Gogh suffered from hallucinations, which led him to admit himself into an Asylum for many years. Many thought he suffered from epilepsy or borderline bipolar disorder, but to this day, no one is sure what his true issues where.He was released from the asylum and later shot himself in the chest and died the next day. His brother Teo died 6 months later. What an amazing and well-written story.
