Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved

Religion

No one needed the balm of religion more than Vincent van Gogh.

From childhood, he fixed on the image of Christ as both sorrowing and the comforter of sorrows. This was the image enshrined forever in his imagination by an engraving of Ary Scheffer s Christus Consolator that hung in his father s parsonage throughout his childhood as far as we know, the first work of art to enter his consciousness. Illustrating a passage from the Bible ( I have come to heal those who are of a broken heart ), it became one of the favorite religious images of a nineteenth century fixated on images of innocent suffering: A radiant but sad Christ sits surrounded by supplicants prostrated by pain, oppression, and despair. He opens his hand to reveal the wounds he received on the cross, a reminder of his own suffering. The message was clear: Suffering brings one closer to God. Sadness does no harm, wrote Van Gogh s father, the pastor Theodorus, but makes us see things with a holier eye.

In many of the rooms that Van Gogh rented throughout his early life, he hung religious illustrations on almost every wall, image after image, mostly of Jesus, until the whole room was decorated with biblical images and ecce homos, a co-worker named Paulus Görlitz recalled many years later. On almost every image Van Gogh wrote the same inscription from 2 Corinthians: Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. At Easter, he surrounded every print of Christ with palm branches. I was not a pious person, said Görlitz, who roomed with Van Gogh when they worked together as booksellers in Dordrecht in 1877, but I was moved when I observed his piety. Görlitz remembered Van Gogh s telling him, The Bible is my solace, my support in life. It is the most beautiful book I know.

That same year, at the age of twenty-four, Van Gogh moved to Amsterdam, where he set out to become a Dutch Protestant pastor like his father, whom the family called Dorus. It was an arduous career choice. Before he could begin

Steven Naifeh

A captivating look inside the mind of Vincent van Gogh . . . Naifeh lucidly traces the painter s relationship with everything from 17th century works by Rembrandt (who, like Van Gogh, had a penchant for obsessively painting himself) to experimenting with the Pointillist dots of Georges Seurat (which, Naifeh writes, freed Van Gogh from the unforgiving linearity of realism ) to his fascination with Japanese woodblock prints. . . . While illuminating the life of one of the world s most significant artists, this also sheds a broader light on the fascinating nuances of the creative process. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A celebration of one of the world s greatest artists and the works that inspired him. . . . Handsome . . . with learned explanations, dozens of beautiful reproductions, and an especially moving essay about the author and his husband of 40 years, scholar Gregory White Smith, who died in 2014, and their love of art. An accessible, heartfelt introduction to Van Gogh s work and life. Kirkus Reviews

Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved is a profusely illustrated musée imaginaire, representing Vincent s ideal museum. It is a volume which the artist would have loved to have had by his bedside table. Naifeh, along with his companion the late Gregory White Smith, was the co-author of the 2011 best-selling biography Van Gogh: The Life so he draws upon great accumulated knowledge. The Art Newspaper
 
Continuing Steven Naifeh s work that began with the landmark biography Van Gogh: The Life, his important new book, Van Gogh and the Artists He Loved, illuminates Van Gogh s remarkable journey to becoming an artist. Richly illustrated, it inspires us to look at him and his art afresh by revealing his deep admiration and affection for the artists who inspired him.