Van Gogh: The Life

I found this book extremely interesting and informative. As an art historian who has lectured for many years on this period and on Van Gogh, I found plenty of new information and facts which corrected my previous impressions. For example the fact that Van Gogh returned several times to Arles in 1889 after being committed to the asylum at St Remy, and of course the possibility that Van Gogh did not actually commit suicide, but was the victim of an accidental shooting which he decided to keep secret to protect those involved. There is no better account of Van Gogh's life in existence and this will become the standard biography. There some faults in particular the length of the book and certain amount of editing would have helped reduce its size by maybe a couple of hundred pages. There is repetition which a good editor could have cut out. However overall a great book and a great achievement

it took me the whole summer to read... every page is quality text content structure mature clean and informative and inspirational too... no one could have done better than you too... please take over picasso from JR... picasso deserves you... and have you considered twombly too

Excellent read, dare i say, the doomed cliche of divine talent an eggshell mind. Misunderstood, tortured, a man of profound humility and kindness to others, virtues sadly forgotten and eclipsed by his fabled talent.

This biography was absolutely brilliant, well researched, so detailed & easy to read. I just loved it from start to finish, took me 3 months to read as the book is huge, so not easy to carry around with you. I'm a Van gogh fan now & reading this has got me really interested in art.

Fantastically in-depth look at Van Gogh, not only exploring his own life but that of his parents and contemporaries which I found gave great context. In particular I found the appendix concerning the authors' theory of Van Gogh's murder rather than suicide incredibly interesting, actually rather inclined to believe their idea.