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A review by jadecobain
Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith
5.0
Just finished reading this amazing well researched book. Growing up I thought I knew the story of Van Gogh but clearly I didn't know the whole of it. It was heartbreaking reading how abandoned he felt.
The mood swings that he made me wonder what form of mental health was he suffering from paranoid schizophrenia or bipolar. The drs diagnosed him as having a rare form of epilepsy but I can't help but wonder if during our modern times if he would've gotten a different diagnosis.
I felt sad for Theo who spent most of his life and money on his brother who was slowly slipping into madness and eventually he would succumb to madness as well.
Reading about all the art that he produces in his life I can't help but wonder is there an attic or storage somewhere that holds his art that no one knows about? Many times his art was thrown in the streets or auctioned off. There is soo much that hasn't been found.
I like that his family saved sooo many of his letters that help fill in those blanks of his life.
Reading about his death I can't help but lean toward murder or accident.
Such an amazing book
"When I think the eyes of so many are fixed on me, who will know where the fault is if I do not succeed, who will make me reproaches....the fear of failure, of disgrace-then I also have the longing: I wish I were far away from everything."~ Vincent Van Gogh
"You failed before and now you will fail again...This painting of yours will be like all other things you started, it will come to nothing."~ Mr Tersteeg
"I believe Thomas A Kempis says somewhere, 'I never mingled with a human beings without felling less human.' " ~Vincent Van Gogh
"When one has fire within oneself one cannot keep bottling it up better to burn than to burst. What is in will out." ~Vincent Van Gogh
"Looking for a different light and a brighter sky." ~Vincent Van Gogh
"I would rather fool myself than feel alone, I think I should feel depressed if I did not fool myself about everything." ~Vincent Van Gogh
"I love the night with a passion. I love it as one loves one's country or one's mistress, with a deep, instinctive, invisible love.....And the stars! The stars up there, the unknown stars thrown randomly into the immensity where they outline those bizarre figures, which make one dream so much, which makes one muse so deeply." ~ Maupassant
"The grief that gathers in our hearts like water in a swamp."~ Vincent Van Gogh
"His is an impassioned temperament, through which nature appears as it does in dreams."~ Julien Leclercq
"I don't say that my work is good, but it's the least bad that I can do. All the rest, relations with people, is very secondary, because I have no talent for that. I can't help it."~ Vincent Van Gogh
"He will not be forgotten. These masterpieces. People must know that he was a great artist; posterity must honor him; the world must grieve that he was taken from us so soon." ~ Theo Van Gogh
The mood swings that he made me wonder what form of mental health was he suffering from paranoid schizophrenia or bipolar. The drs diagnosed him as having a rare form of epilepsy but I can't help but wonder if during our modern times if he would've gotten a different diagnosis.
I felt sad for Theo who spent most of his life and money on his brother who was slowly slipping into madness and eventually he would succumb to madness as well.
Reading about all the art that he produces in his life I can't help but wonder is there an attic or storage somewhere that holds his art that no one knows about? Many times his art was thrown in the streets or auctioned off. There is soo much that hasn't been found.
I like that his family saved sooo many of his letters that help fill in those blanks of his life.
Reading about his death I can't help but lean toward murder or accident.
Such an amazing book
"When I think the eyes of so many are fixed on me, who will know where the fault is if I do not succeed, who will make me reproaches....the fear of failure, of disgrace-then I also have the longing: I wish I were far away from everything."~ Vincent Van Gogh
"You failed before and now you will fail again...This painting of yours will be like all other things you started, it will come to nothing."~ Mr Tersteeg
"I believe Thomas A Kempis says somewhere, 'I never mingled with a human beings without felling less human.' " ~Vincent Van Gogh
"When one has fire within oneself one cannot keep bottling it up better to burn than to burst. What is in will out." ~Vincent Van Gogh
"Looking for a different light and a brighter sky." ~Vincent Van Gogh
"I would rather fool myself than feel alone, I think I should feel depressed if I did not fool myself about everything." ~Vincent Van Gogh
"I love the night with a passion. I love it as one loves one's country or one's mistress, with a deep, instinctive, invisible love.....And the stars! The stars up there, the unknown stars thrown randomly into the immensity where they outline those bizarre figures, which make one dream so much, which makes one muse so deeply." ~ Maupassant
"The grief that gathers in our hearts like water in a swamp."~ Vincent Van Gogh
"His is an impassioned temperament, through which nature appears as it does in dreams."~ Julien Leclercq
"I don't say that my work is good, but it's the least bad that I can do. All the rest, relations with people, is very secondary, because I have no talent for that. I can't help it."~ Vincent Van Gogh
"He will not be forgotten. These masterpieces. People must know that he was a great artist; posterity must honor him; the world must grieve that he was taken from us so soon." ~ Theo Van Gogh