Vincent Van Gogh

On December 23rd, 1888 Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cut off part of his ear with a razor.  Van Gogh was suffering from severe depression and later documented his self mutilation in a painting which he titled "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear."  Here are ten books about his life and works.

Becoming Van Gogh edited by Timothy Standring & Louis van Tilborgh - The career path of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), one of the world's most recognizable artists, was anything but typical. Focusing on the early stages of van Gogh's artistic development, Becoming van Gogh illustrates the artist's efforts to master draftsmanship, understand the challenges of materials and techniques, incorporate color theory, and fold myriad influences into his artistic vocabulary. Van Gogh was aware of avant-garde trends including Georges Seurat's divisionism, Paul Signac's and Camille Pissarro's pointillism, Émile Bernard's synthetism, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec's immersion in the bohemian culture of Montmartre. This handsome book features works by van Gogh alongside works by the artists who influenced him, showing how he incorporated elements of their techniques into a style that became, eventually, uniquely his own. It features essays exploring how van Gogh imbued his early works with energy as he strove to master drawing with graphite, ink, and washes; how he began to understand color with watercolor paintings; and how he tested his skill with oils on canvas. The distinguished contributors to this volume offer insight into van Gogh's temperament, memory, typography, and relationship with his critics, among other topics. Generously illustrated with 150 color images, the book also includes a chronology charting the artist's stylistic development.

The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters by Ann Dumas & others - Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is one of the greatest figures in Western art. Revered for his bold, expressionist paintings, he is also admired as a prodigious and eloquent letter writer. His correspondence displays a remarkable literary gift and an ability to communicate his ideas and feelings about nature, art, and life in direct, emotive language.
Illustrated with works of art and letters that demonstrate Van Gogh’s abiding preoccupations--the role of color in painting, the cycles of nature, and friendship, for example--this fascinating book explores the correspondence as a self-portrait of the artist and the man.
 The letter-sketches that Van Gogh used to describe completed works or those in progress are reproduced here alongside the finished paintings or drawings, providing a unique insight into his artistic development. Drawing on new and extensive research, leading authorities on Van Gogh reveal how the letters enhance and shape our view of this modern master.

The Sunflowers are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh's Masterpiece by Martin Bailey - This is the story of one of the world's most iconic images. Martin Bailey explains why Van Gogh painted a series of sunflower still lifes in Provence. He then explores the subsequent adventures of the seven pictures, and their influence on modern art. Through the Sunflowers, we gain fresh insights into Van Gogh's life and his path to fame. Based on original research, the book is packed with discoveries throwing new light on the legendary artist.

Van Gogh by Paola Rapelli & Alfredo Pallavisini - This generously illustrated volume on the work of Vincent van Gogh makes the world's greatest art accessible to readers of every level of appreciation. Tracing the arc of van Gogh's career, this volume presents his portraits and self-portraits, landscapes, and haunting interiors. Readers will learn deteails of van Gogh's complicated personal life including his struggles with mental illness and his close but difficult relationship with his brother, Theo. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book offers full-page spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details-allowing the viewer to appreciate every aspect of the artist's technique and oeuvre. Chronologically arranged, the book covers important biographical and historic events that reflect the latest scholarship. Additional information includes a list of works, timeline, and suggestions for further reading.

Van Gogh: His Life and Works in 500 Images by Michael Howard - Vincent van Gogh produced over 2000 works of art during his short career, but did not achieve fame as an artist until after his death. He led a troubled life, dealing with commercial failure, difficult personal relationships and eventually mental illness, culminating in his suicide in 1890. He made little money from his art during his lifetime, but his paintings are now some of the best-known and most expensive works in the world. The first half of this fascinating new book contains a detailed exploration of van Gogh's life, including his background, early career, influences and relationships. Beginning with his birth in the Netherlands in 1853, it details his childhood, family life, education and work-life before he began painting in 1880. Initially influenced by the Impressionist artists whose work he encountered during his time in Paris, van Gogh played a huge role in shaping the development of modern art, as an early pioneer of what came to be known as Expressionism. His influences and achievements are explained clearly and comprehensively with informative and attractive illustrations throughout. The second half of the book comprises a beautifully illustrated and comprehensive gallery, presenting over 280 full colour representations of his significant works, from his early sketches and paintings to the hugely famous Sunflowers, Irises and The Starry Night. These superb reproductions are accompanied by thorough analysis of each painting and its significance within the context of van Gogh's life, his technique and his body of work as a whole. This comprehensive new book is an essential volume for anyone who wants to learn more about this intriguing artist, and to survey their greatest works in one beautfully illustrated collection.

Van Gogh: The Asylum Year by Edwin Mullins - On May 8, 1889, Vincent van Gogh committed himself to the Saint Paul Asylum in Saint-Remy, an isolated estate where he remained as a voluntary patient for a full year. Throughout this time, Van Gogh kept up a continuous correspondence with his brother Theo about his art, mental condition, hopes, and ambitions, along with his despair and sense of failure. His asylum year was Van Gogh's most raw and desperate period, yet also his most creative, producing nearly a masterpiece a day. He painted many of his most famous works at the asylum, such as The Round of the Prisoners, Sorrowing Old Man, and Starry Night.
In Van Gogh: The Asylum Year, Edwin Mullins offers a month-by-month account of that crucial penultimate chapter in Van Gogh's life. Mullins examines this period as a self-contained episode, unique within the history of Van Gogh's artistic genius. Containing an excellent variety of paintings and sketches from that year, correspondence with his brother, and extensive biographical and historical material, this book is a magnificent study of this most impassioned and prolific year.

Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith - Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith galvanized readers with their astonishing Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for biography, a book acclaimed for its miraculous research and overwhelming narrative power. Now Naifeh and Smith have written another tour de force--an exquisitely detailed, compellingly readable, and ultimately heartbreaking portrait of creative genius Vincent van Gogh.
Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Naifeh and Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials. While drawing liberally from the artist's famously eloquent letters, they have also delved into hundreds of unpublished family correspondences, illuminating with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh's troubled, restless soul. Naifeh and Smith bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist--his early struggles to find his place in the world; his intense relationship with his brother Theo; his impetus for turning to brush and canvas; and his move to Provence, where in a brief burst of incandescent productivity he painted some of the best-loved works in Western art.
The authors also shed new light on many unexplored aspects of Van Gogh's inner world: his deep immersion in literature and art; his erratic and tumultuous romantic life; and his bouts of depression and mental illness.
Though countless books have been written about Van Gogh, and though the broad outlines of his tragedy have long inhabited popular culture, no serious, ambitious examination of his life has been attempted in more than seventy years. Naifeh and Smith have re-created Van Gogh's life with an astounding vividness and psychological acuity that bring a completely new and sympathetic understanding to this unique artistic genius whose signature images of sunflowers and starry nights have won a permanent place in the human imagination.

Van Gogh: Up Close by Cornelia Homburg - This sumptuously illustrated book offers a completely new way of looking at the art of Vincent van Gogh, by exploring the artist's approach to nature through his innovative use of the close-up view. Focusing on the last years of the artist's career--from 1886 until his death in July 1890--an international team of leading scholars in the field examines Van Gogh's radical approach to the close-up and sets it in the context of contemporary and historical references, such as his hitherto unrecognized use of photography and his fascination with the Old Masters and with Japanese art and culture.One hundred key paintings dating from his arrival in Paris in 1886 to the end of his career show how Van Gogh experimented with unusual visual angles and the decorative use of color, cropping, and the flattening of his compositions. In some paintings he zoomed in on a tuft of grass or a single budding iris, while depicting shifting views of a field or garden in others. Van Gogh: Up Close not only reveals how these paintings became the most radical and innovative in the artist's body of work but also demonstrates that, far from being a spontaneous or undisciplined artist, Van Gogh was well aware of the history of art and was highly conscious of his efforts to break new ground with his work.

Van Gogh's Letters: The Mind of the Artist in Paintings, Drawings, and Words, 1875-1890 edited by H. Anna Suh - This volume is a collection of more than 150 of Vincent Van Gogh's (1853-1890) letters paired with more than 250 of his works of art -- including sketches, drawings, and paintings. Van Gogh was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. Van Gogh wrote hundreds of letters to his brother Theo as well as to family members and fellow artists including Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard. In many of the letters he described, in painstaking detail and beautiful prose, the progress of his work and his chaotic mental state. Van Gogh suffered from frequent mental breakdowns, particularly in the latter part of his life. The letters capture a mind never quite at ease and a soul that suffered from acute loneliness and self-doubt. But they also reveal his staggering artistic genius, the evolution of his theoretical principles, his formidable intellect and strong work ethic, and his deep connection to the natural world around him.

Vincent Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings by Ingo F. Walther & Rainer Metzger - Today, the works of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) are among the most well known and celebrated in the world. In paintings such as Sunflowers, The Starry Night, and Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, we recognize an artist uniquely dexterous in the representation of texture and mood, light and place.
Yet in his lifetime, van Gogh battled not only the disinterest of his contemporary audience but also devastating bouts of mental illness. His episodes of depression and anxiety would eventually claim his life, when, in 1890, he committed suicide shortly after his 37th birthday.
This comprehensive study of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) offers a complete catalogue of his 871 paintings, alongside writings and essays, charting the life and work which continues to tower over art to this day.