Van Gogh: The Life

In many ways, Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith parallels the authors' earlier biography of the abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock.  Both are huge books, especially when one considers how brief were the lives of their subjects.  The authors' insistence in documenting in these biographies every formative incident  finally so over- whelms the reader with a wealth of detail that each artist is brought vividly to life and becomes a breathing presence beside one.  Not only does one come to understand the histories of these artists but he/she is also provided insight into the creative process from which each derived his own distinctive body of work.  This is probably the books' greatest achievement, for nothing can ever be so mysterious as the forces that compel an artist to forgo the normal pleasures of life and endure pain and suffering in order to give expression to a unique vision.  And the authors are painstaking in describing all the sources and influences, no matter how inconsequential in themselves, that formed this vision.  They also include a sufficient number of reproductions to enable the reader to trace the course of the artist's career.

Like Pollock, Van Gogh was a deeply dysfunctional person, so much so that it seems miraculous that he was not only able to survive for so long on his own but in the end could triumph over his afflictions to the extent that he left behind an oeuvre that is among the greatest works of genius of the nineteenth century.  Although the authors wisely refrain from any armchair psychoanalysis, it's obvious that Van Gogh suffered from a form of schizo- phrenia so debilitating that towards the end of his life he needed to be forcibly confined to asylums where he blacked out for weeks at a time.  He had no adult interaction with family, aside from his brother Theo, nor any real friends.  Instead, he was the ultimate outsider who was both unable and unwilling to assume a role within polite society.  Having failed at virtually everything he set out to do, he came to art only in his thirties and achieved no great success there either until the very end.

Perhaps the greatest praise that can be given a biography such as this is that it makes the reader want to see the subject's work first hand.  While reading the book, I walked to the Met Museum to see the few Van Goghs on display.  At the next opportunity, I'll visit MOMA to see what they have as well. I visited years ago the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and wish I were able to travel there again to view their holdings with a new found appreciation.