A passionate account of the tortured life and tragic death of the greatest artis
t of the nineteenth century, by renowned critic and painter Julian Bell. "Van Go
gh "is a vivid portrait of the great Impressionist painter that traces his life
from the Netherlands, where he was born into a family of art dealers, through hi
s years in England, the Hague, and Paris, to his final home in Arles, where he d
iscovered the luminous style of his late paintings before his suicide at the age
of thirty-seven. Van Gogh struggled to find his way as an artist: Well into his
mid-twenties he had achieved virtually nothing except a few charcoal drawings o
f coal miners. Afflicted by mental illness and a mercurial temper, he was instit
utionalized several times toward the end of his life. Julian Bell conveys this t
ragic story with great compassion, depicting van Gogh in all his anguished vigor
, a genius for whom the greatest challenge was to stay alive until he had comple
ted his most fully realized and magnificent works.
