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Books on Vincent
Van Gogh |
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For Children!
In the Garden with Van Gogh (Board
book)
by Julie Merberg (Author), Suzanne Bober (Author)
With a narrative that will entertain art lovers of all ages, this new
board book is a fun way to introduce young children to fine art. The
sleepy trees, golden haystacks, and juicy fruits of In the Garden with
Van Gogh will delight little ones. Playful rhyming texts accompany
the artist s timeless paintings in this little masterpiece.
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Lust for Life (Paperback)
by Irving Stone (Author)
Stone takes the reader on a fascinating journey recapping Vincent
Van Gogh's life of hardships and triumphs in his biographical novel
Lust for Life. Beginning in London, the author reveals Vincent's
inner core as a young man of twenty-one working as a clerk for European
art dealers while falling madly in love with a vivacious nineteen-year-old
kindergarten teacher. Vincent's reaction to this unrequited relationship
establishes a pattern of behavior and insight into his personality,
which makes him more empathetic as a character. Vincent leaves London
and embarks on journey in search of his "true calling" and
ends up as a minister living in abject poverty in a Belgium miners'
village. This situation strengthens his character and weakens his
faith, but out of that grows a passion for art and drawing. The obsession
begins and so does his real journey. This book is well worth reading.
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Dear Theo: The Autobiography
of Vincent Van Gogh (Paperback)
by Irving Stone (Editor), Jean Stone (Editor)
"Dear Theo" should be mandatory reading for all students of
fine art today, as no modern artist injected a level of passion into
their work equal to that of Van Gogh in 1880 through 1890. This volume
is a sort of highlight reel of Vincent's comments on his life and art
to his beloved brother Theo. I recommend "The Complete Van Gogh" published
by Taschen to accompany "Dear Theo", as there are no visual
examples of Vincent's art aside from the cover included in this book.
No one who appreciates fine art will be sorry to invest in either publication. |
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The Letters of Vincent
van Gogh (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
by Vincent Van Gogh (Author), Ronald de Leeuw (Editor), Arnold J. Pomerans
(Translator)
While Vincent van Gogh has always been one of my favorite artists, this
compilation of his letters combined with a more in-depth study of his
work has intensified my appreciation of him as both an artist and a person.
I've always felt it was impossible to separate this particular artist
from his work and reading his letters has led me to a better understanding
of why this is. These letters beautifully capture his soul and spirit
and reveal him as the caring, expressive and socially aware person that
he was. The combination of strength of character and vulnerability expressed
in these letters explain both the intensity and sensitivity of his work. |
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Stranger on the Earth:
A Psychological Biography of Vincent Van Gogh (Paperback)
by Albert J. Lubin (Author)
The personality of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)-a 19th-century combination
of dropout, rebel, and genius-and the source of his enormous achievement
continue to fascinate people as deeply as his vivid, wildly painted canvasses
of sunflowers, peasants, and starry nights. In this first and only in-depth
study of the relationship between van Gogh's psychological development
and his art, Albert J. Lubin, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry (Emeritus)
at Stanford University and a practicing psychoanalyst, draws on the tremendous
wealth of information available about van Gogh, to explore his personal
conflicts in the context of the forces that molded him: familial, historical,
cultural, religious, artistic, and literary. Dr. Lubin approaches van
Gogh not as a mysterious mix of sick eccentric and martyred artist, but
as a complete man who transformed his suffering into a phenomenal body
of work. |
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For
Children!
Van Gogh (Getting to Know the
World's Greatest Artists) (Paperback)
by Mike Venezia (Author)
The strength of this book is that Venezia does one of his best jobs
of explaining the unique style of the artist with his look at Van
Gogh. It is ironic that in a book where the subject presents such
problems, Venezia provides ten cartoons in the book, which might
be the most I have seen in any of his volumes to date (there are
22 paintings and drawings by Van Gogh). Certainly the cartoons do
not reflect the tone of the text, which deals with Van Gogh's problems
in a straight-forward manner. But given the fate of the artist, it
is hard to find them totally appropriate. Again, to be fair, this
is Venezia's format and we could not expect him to abandon it and
perhaps he was trying to provide a counterbalance to Van Gogh's self-destructive
impulses. Certainly parents should check this one out and make a
judgment for their own children, and teachers should do the same
thing for their students. |
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Vincent Van Gogh Drawings (Vincent Van Gogh, Drawings)
(Hardcover)
by Marije Vellekoop (Author), Roelie Zwikker (Author), Monique Hageman
(Contributor), Diane Webb (Translator)
This is the first in what promises to be an exciting
new series of eight volumes devoted to the drawings and paintings of
the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which purportedly holds some 70 percent
of the artist's output. This volume chronicles his early draughtsmanship,
providing some 68 colored illustrations of cataloged drawings that
clearly show the artist coming to grips with line, value, texture,
light, and perspective. In a typical entry, the author, the museum's
curator of prints and drawings, includes a date, medium, type of paper,
sheet size, annotations to marks found on the front and verso of the
sheet, provenance, and references to pertinent letters, scholarly literature,
and exhibitions. Appendixes provide more complete information on exhibits
and scholarly literature. Though expensive, these volumes will be invaluable
to libraries supporting scholarly art research. Highly recommended.
P. Steven Thomas, Illinois State Univ. Lib., Normal |
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