Artbooks about Van Gogh

Art Books Van Gogh

Despite the fact that Vincent van Gogh did not live long, an awful lot of art books have been published about him. The books above and on the follow-up pages tell the life story of one of the most famous Dutch artists in art history. His quest for innovative art, which has given rise to many speculations and interpretations fascinates because Van Gogh was driven with integrity and extremely intelligent. His letters, also published in book form, are very popular in the Netherlands. By reading them, you can get to know the sensitive man Van Gogh extremely well. Together, the art books in this webshop give a wonderful picture of Van Gogh's life and work; there are basic books to get acquainted with him for the first time, art books that deal with specific themes and sub-areas within his oeuvre, and books that recount the sensational events that helped make him so famous, such as the self-inflicted cutting off of a piece of his ear, his stay in a mental institution and the allegedly fierce quarrel with Paul Gauguin.

His ultimate success is that he is considered one of the most important artists in the history of modern art. Although he never got to experience that triumph himself. During his lifetime, tragically, none of his works were sold.

Vincent van Gogh, Sprig of Flowering Almond in a Glass, 1888,
oil on canvas, 24 x 19 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

‘It is freezing severely here and there is still snow on the land, I have a study of a white landscape with the city in the background. Furthermore, 2 small studies of an almond branch that is nevertheless already in bloom.’
Thus a quote from a letter by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) recorded in the cold early spring of 1888 in southern France (for the almond branch, see the image above). For Van Gogh, the spring of 1888 is all about hope. Confidence in a future as a respected visual artist is cautiously beginning to take shape ...

After a search that took years, during which he seemed to fall from one disappointment to another, Van Gogh also seems to have finally found his calling. He now actually began to feel that he could make a difference in art. In February that year, he moved to Arles. He had resolved to keep some 30 high-quality paintings to be shown together. Therefore, he deliberately wanted to temporarily not sell any work. Inspired by the Arles landscape, he paints flowering fruit trees. And a few months later, he paints golden yellow cornfields and his famous series of sunflowers. Moreover, he cherishes the hope that other artists will come to Arles to settle there, to continue their artistry in his presence. After all, two years earlier in Paris, he had befriended artists such as Georges Seurat (1859-1891), Paul Signac (1863-1935), Henri de Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). These are artists who are historically counted among innovative art movements at the beginning of the history of modern art as Pointillism and Post-Impressionism. Gauguin would actually join Vincent in Arles in October 1888. Van Gogh was delighted and hung two of his sunflower paintings in Gauguin's room. Not only for decoration, but also with the intention of challenging Gauguin. He admired him, but wanted the canvases to show that he was artistically matched to him. Until then, it seems that everything will go smoothly...

The vocation of Van Gogh

by Art Historian Sander Kletter and Kyra ter Veer

Arles 1888

Art dealer - Evangelist - Artist

Van Gogh was the eldest son of preacher Theodorus van Gogh and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. Together with his three sisters and two brothers, he enjoyed a fine childhood. The only notable thing was his school career, in which he spent no more than two years at the same school. At 16, he went to work at the Hague branch of French art dealer Goupil & Co. His brother Theo, five years younger, also joins the firm later. Their uncle Vincent is a business partner of this art dealership. However, when Van Gogh went to Paris in 1874, commissioned by Goupil, he decided he did not want to become an art dealer. Meanwhile, his interest in religion grew considerably and culminated in the ardent ambition to become a preacher. Just like his father. When he returned to the Netherlands in 1876, he took private lessons. He wanted to be admitted to the study of theology at university. But he did not succeed in completing this course of study. He therefore only took a short course to become an evangelist. In the mining region of Borinage in Belgium, he went to work as a faith preacher, but in 1879 his appointment was not renewed.
A period of despair follows for Vincent. He retreats, not knowing what use he could still be to humanity. His brother Theo advises him to become an artist. In itself, this was remarkable advice. Nobody yet knew about his artistic gifts, not even Van Gogh himself. But once he followed this advice, he did so passionately as if it were his calling. His brother supports him in this for the rest of his life. In Brussels, the budding artist attends art school, which he leaves after only a few months. There, he befriends artist Anthon van Rappard (1858-1892).

Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1889,
oil on canvas, 95 x 73 cm, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

In 1881, Van Gogh concentrated mainly on technical exercises in drawing. In The Hague, he received training in drawing and painting from the well-known painter Anton Mauve (1838-1888) of the Hague School, also his cousin by marriage. They do not get along well, the lessons are limited to just a few. Two years later, Van Gogh leaves for Drenthe, as Van Rappard and Mauve had done earlier. After only three months, he calls it quits because he finds it difficult to obtain materials and models. He returned to live with his parents in Nuenen, near Eindhoven. There he fulfils his ambition to paint.

His greatest inspiration in painting was French artist Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), who is considered to belong to the Barbizon School. This school of painting is known for the fact that its artists painted in the wild and preferred to depict farm life. Farm life greatly appealed to Van Gogh thematically and visually. He threw himself into painting and drawing farm workers, peasants and weavers. Peasant heads and knees, peasants working in the fields, he made countless studies of them. His zeal resulted in the famous painting The Potato Eaters (pictured above) in 1885. This work, considered one of his masterpieces, he was able to create mainly thanks to a lot of practice and great self-discipline. Yet he continued to yearn for a real art education. That same year, he leaves for Antwerp, attending the academy there. However, the course does not offer him what he expected. In the Brussels museums, he becomes impressed by the use of colour and the handling of the brush by Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640); Japanese prints also appeal to him.

Drawing lessons from Mauve - Studying in Antwerpen

Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885,
oil on canvas, 82 x 114 cm, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Introduction to impressionism - Going to Arles

In 1886, Van Gogh went to live with his brother Theo in Paris, who worked there in an annex of art gallery Goupil. The stay with his brother is crucial for his subsequent career. His painting style undergoes a major development here. The dark palette we know from The Potato Eaters gives way to a lively, brighter use of colour. This is mainly because he got to know some impressionists and post-impressionists through his brother. In addition, Van Gogh continues to study Japanese printmaking. Not only has he discovered his own style, he also follows the latest developments in painting.
This is when he leaves for Arles in southern France, in 1888. It begins to dawn on him that, with the authentic painting style he has developed more or less self-taught, he can make a difference in painting. In fact, his painting style is quite different from that of the Impressionists. He is not so much concerned with painting by observation. Above all, he has a desire to express himself powerfully through colour. He consciously uses strongly contrasting colours, such as red and green, which he applies to the canvas energetically and pasty. His formal language is powerful, simplified and expressive.

Vincent van Gogh, Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 1888,
oil on canvas, 65 x 81.5 cm, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Psychotic attacks... And a little bit of recognition

Van Gogh now devotes himself entirely to painting, with the same fervour with which he previously devoted himself to religion as an evangelist. He befriends important painters of Impressionism in Paris. Soon, several artists might join him in Arles. He is almost ready to show an impressive collection of artworks to the outside world. Tragically, these hopeful visions may not come true for Van Gogh. Fate strikes when he suffers unexpected psychotic attacks. During one of these attacks, he cuts off his left earlobe in despair. The iconic painting Self-portrait with bandaged ear (1889, pictured above), which also features an easel and a Japanese print, forms a lasting reminder of this sad incident.

Van Gogh then volunteers to be admitted to the psychiatric institution of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole. There he paints and draws in the garden. His use of colour is somewhat austere. The painting The Starry Night was painted by Van Gogh in June 1889 (pictured below). He had just suffered his second nervous breakdown. The painting is counted among the most sensational works of art in art history. It is among the treasured masterpieces of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Although it shows a landscape at night, Van Gogh painted it during the day. He was obsessed with the idea of painting a nocturnal landscape from memory. It is also said that the painting shows the view from the interior. But it is noteworthy that the little church at the bottom centre of the canvas bears more resemblance to the architecture of a Dutch church building than a French church. The huge cropped cypress tree in the front left seems to be in motion, as does the turbulent starry sky, in which the moon and stars almost seem to explode while spinning around. The image is enhanced by the undulating and twisting pattern of feverishly rhythmic brushstrokes.
Art historians have tried to explain the painting's remarkable content based on existing literary narratives, astronomy and religion. Areas, all of which had Van Gogh's interest. But no unambiguous explanation has ever emerged. A psychological explanation has also been given to the painting. It is said to illustrate the mentally hypersensitive state Van Gogh was in. In this type of interpretation, the painting could be a spiritual meditation by the artist on life, death and the infinity of the universe. The repeated wave motion in the painting would represent the life-giving primal force of nature. A force some call God. To his brother Theo, Van Gogh had once written that he thought stars were the last destination for a human being after death. It must be said that it is very appealing to go along with this explanation.

Despite being in an asylum, Van Gogh achieves some success. A number of his works were shown at the fifth exhibition of the Societé des Artistes Indépendants in Paris, as well as at an exhibition of the Belgian avant-garde artists' group Les Vingt in Brusels. Art critic Albert Aurier (1865-1892) wrote positively about his work in the 1890 Mercure de France.

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889,
oil on canvas, 73,7 x 92 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889,
oil on canvas, 60 x 49 cm, Courtauld Institute of Art, Londen

In the same year of positive art criticism, Van Gogh left the asylum to move to Auvers sur Oise, where he produced an awful lot of paintings and drawings at breakneck speed. Possessed as he was, he sometimes made two paintings in a day. He was known to paint outside in the heat of the day. Hence, it is sometimes claimed that the illness he suffered from was the result of sunstroke. Wheat Field with Crows (1890) is one of the last paintings the artist painted. He made it, as his letters show, in early July 1890 in Auvers. He died on 29 July 1890 as a result of suicide. The rave reviews from the press, the recognition he had so longed for, ultimately left him cold.
It has been said that the cornfield pictured is the field where he shot himself through the chest on 27 July 1890. However, he missed his heart and died of severe internal bleeding only two days later. He himself remarked about the site of the painting that it was not difficult to express ‘sadness and extreme loneliness there. Indeed, there is clearly little to experience and few distractions at the spot where he painted the painting. We see no buildings and nothing in the distance. Remarkably, there are virtually no traces of human presence. We do get to see a vast expanse of cornfield with a few bare cart tracks. But what Van Gogh does show at that spot does have something unsettling about it. The wheat seems to undulate and sway up and down. The sky is painted with a turbulently moving energetic touch and menacingly dark in tone. The middle dirt path seems to be a dead end. Not to mention the large swarm of black crows, which could be interpreted as a harbinger of impending death. Yet, after thorough research in 2012, one is no longer entirely sure whether this interpretation of the painting makes enough sense.
Either way, the landscape Wheat Field with Crows lacks the usual warmth and tidiness that many of Van Gogh's other landscapes do. Also unusual is the rough way it was painted, a reason why Van Gogh is often seen as a forerunner of expressionism and fauvism, styles that would only emerge in the early 20th century.

The impressive correspondence, which Van Gogh had with his beloved brother Theo since August 1872, has survived. Twenty-four years later, when Van Gogh's oeuvre received its full recognition, the letters were published. The Netherlands has a museum entirely dedicated to the artist: the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. This museum holds the world's largest collection of works by Van Gogh. The museum attracts around two million visitors a year, making it one of the busiest art museums in the world. The formula is simple: Van Gogh's inspiration, unruliness and life story also makes a deep impression internationally. Moreover, Vincent van Gogh is the prototype of the myth that the real artist only becomes known after his death.

Sander Kletter, Kyra ter Veer, March 2025

This article was originally published in 2013 for Art Salon Holland, and rewritten and expanded March 2025

The End - Auvers sur Oise

Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows, 1890,
oil on canvas, 50,5 x 103 cm, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam