Synopsis
The painter, Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) was also an accomplished writer, and this collection of his letters provides both a self-portrait and a picture of the contemporary cultural scene. The book includes complete letters wherever possible, linked with passages of connecting narrative and showing all the pen-and-ink sketches that originally went with them. The familiar image of Van Gogh as an anti-social madman is questionned in this book as the letters show the humanitarian and religious causes he embraced, his fascination with the French revolution, his striving for God and for ethical ideals, his desperate courtship of his cousin and his unsuccessful search for love. Not only does this serve to demolish some of the myths about Van Gogh but it shows him as a human being, not just an artist. The letters also reveal Van Gogh's conflicts as a painter, torn between realism, symbolism and abstraction. He received little feedback from the public and wrote at length to his family and friends and above all, to his brother Theo, who was his confidant.
Présentation de l'éditeur
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 as Vincent van Gogh's, 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 Gogh's 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 Gogh's letters belong beside those great classics of artistic self-revelation, Cellini's autobiography and Delacroix's journal, this excellent new edition dispels it'The Times
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