World-renowned painter collection - Van Gogh

Author: He Zhengguang, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-04-01
Features:
Background: Van Gogh was a loved and moving painter. His tragic life has been depicted in novels and films. G. de Groot wrote Van Gogh: A Biography in 1899, and Edna Ferber's novel The Star (also known as Van Gogh: The Life of a Man) was published in 1934. The film Van Gogh (starring Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh and Anthony Quinn as Gauguin), adapted from The Star, was shown worldwide and received high praise. In 1972, the Dutch government established the Van Gogh Museum, an unparalleled honor for this artist who lived in poverty and sorrow his entire life. His paintings, much like his vibrant life, have sparked interest and admiration, earning him.
Van Gogh (1853–1890) was a genius, like Raphael, who died at the age of 37. Van Gogh's painterly career lasted less than a decade, but this extremely lonely and passionate artist left behind approximately 850 oil paintings, nearly as many sketches, and a vast collection of letters—his personal correspondence with his brother Theo. The doctor who appeared in Van Gogh's paintings once said, "Van Gogh's love, Van Gogh's genius, the great beauty he created will forever exist, enriching our world."
In his letters, Van Gogh wrote, "The image of a laborer, the furrows of a field, a stretch of beach, the sea, and the sky—all are important subjects to depict. They are not easy to paint, but they are all beautiful. To spend a lifetime expressing the poetry hidden within them is truly worthwhile." His paintings allow us to feel as if we are witnessing a fresh, more beautiful, and meaningful world with our own eyes. I have visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam twice, and I have also seen more than ten of his famous oil paintings at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and the Hermitage Museum in Russia. His paintings are indeed worth lingering over and deeply moving.
This book selects important representative works from different periods of his life, recreating the places he visited and the scenes he witnessed, allowing us to appreciate and understand the artistic soul of this great tragic figure of the 19th century. Van Gogh was a genius, a madman, and also the protagonist of a tragedy. His paintings were once shunned in his lifetime, with only one oil painting and two sketches sold during his entire career. Yet after his death, they fetched astronomical prices in the art market. The reasons behind this are worth pondering.
No matter which part of Van Gogh's life we examine, we see a serious and concrete face. We witness a brave, passionate, and self-consuming individual who struggled with his life and poured everything into his art. Through over 200 representative oil paintings in this book, his "life and art" are narrated, along with more than 100 sketches and watercolor works. "His Words" are his letters, revealing his beliefs about life and his views on death.