The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (Penguin Classics)

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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). Despite a widespread tendency to romanticize his ill health, art historians see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence wrought through illness. He decided to go south to Arles where he hoped his friends would join him and help found a school of art. Vincent often wrote the colours on his black-and-white sketches, to give an idea of the colour of the painting.

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. Personal letters seem to be so much more profitable to me as a reader than fiction, or even a biography.The main problem when encountering Van Gogh is that his life has become the quintessential artistic myth of our age. I came to understand his selections based on these letters explaining in great detail why he chose specific colors to use in his paintings. At the time he went through a stage of religious fanaticism, his letters fully reflect his thoughts; at the time he was involved with Sien Hoornik his letters reflect his feelings. It is interesting to read his letters from this stage of his life as he seems to be quite fundamentalist, however as it turns out that theology wasn’t down his alley either, so he decided to become a missionary to the Dutch miners.

Letter 716 is a letter sent jointly by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin to Émile Bernard around 1 November 1888 shortly after Gauguin had joined van Gogh in Arles.I enjoyed reading Van Gogh's description of his images and later looking at images of the painting in another book. Anybody looking for a book on the “craft of writing” … believe it or not, this book is top dog for that.

In 1906 Bruno Cassirer published a small volume of selected letters of Vincent's to Theo van Gogh, translated into German.The biggest disappointment was that they failed to provide as much insight into Van Gogh's working process and aesthetic ideas than I hoped. Arnold Pomerans, editor of a 1966 selection of the letters, wrote that Theo "was the kind of man who saved even the smallest scrap of paper", and it is to this trait that the public owes the 663 letters from Vincent. I wydaje mi się, że właśnie ten zbiór można potraktować jako jego ostatni, namalowany z największą skrupulatnością i jędrnym, zdecydowanym wyczuciem gestu, autoportret. His words shook me to the core and broke my heart some times, inspired and uplifted me at other times.