Van Gogh's Letters

Very cool - wish I were in Amsterdam. From The First Post.

The publication of 800 letters written by or addressed to Vincent Van Gogh is an unprecented window into the artist's private life

By Robert Fox

FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 7, 2009

At times in his life he could barely give away his paintings, let alone sell them. But today Vincent Van Gogh, long one of the world's most sought after and loved artists, conquers a new literary stage, with the publication of more than 800 of his letters.

Some 120 of the letters form a major exhibition at the museum named after him in Amsterdam. They are surrounded by some of his most celebrated paintings - the sunflowers, irises, the roasting sun at Arles, the stars whirling like Catherine wheels, the threatening cloud of crows above the wheatfield painted at Auvers sur Oise just days before he shot himself, never to recover.

The project to edit all the known correspondence - 819 of his own letters, and 93 of those to him from his brother Theo and painters including Gaugin - has taken 15 years. The glory of the letters is the matching of the words with sketches and diagrams. "They're really an extension of the paintings and pictures - a form of art in themselves, sketch-letters," says Leo Jansen, one of the designers of the project.

The idea that he was a madman slashing the canvas with paint in frenzy is rubbish

The letters portray Vincent's terrible suffering from epilepsy and breakdown, his loneliness when only his devoted brother Theo believed in his art and genius. Yet taken together the letters show how he developed into a fully fledged artist in less than ten years - and created a revolution in art in just under three years, from the time he left Paris in February 1888 and went to live in Arles.

In that time he voluntarily committed himself to the asylum in the cloister at St Remy. "Through the iron-barred window I can make out a square of wheat," he wrote to Theo on Thursday, May 23, 1889, "where alone each morning I see the sun rise in glory."

St Remy was a welcome refuge from the world. For his fellow sufferers he had nothing but compassion: "Although there are some who howl and occasionally rave, there is much true friendship that they have for each other."

In the letters the method far outweighs the madness - and this is one of the great revelations of the show and the book. "The letters are one of the great correspondences of the century, comparable to the letters of Keats, Byron and Wilde in their energy," says Philip Watson, who has edited the letters in six volumes in English for Thames and Hudson.

"What emerges here is somebody deliberately planning a campaign in his art," says Hans Luijten, one of the editors of the Dutch edition and curator of the Amsterdam show. His colleague, Leon Jansen adds, "Every move was thought through - every brush stroke planned. The idea that he was a madman slashing the canvas with paint in frenzy is rubbish and these letters show this."

Some of the letters have been stitched together from sheets that were sold separately - and they'll have to be parted again after the Amsterdam exhibition closes in January. Some are too delicate, the ink too faded, to go on public display again. So the show will be different when it travels to the Royal Academy from Amsterdam - more pictures, but fewer letters.

It's worth seeing the letters now on display at the Van Gogh museum because it is one of the most sustained essays on art by any painter of any age. "They show he knew what he was doing and that he was so far ahead of his time - that's why they thought him mad," says Hans Luijten.

You can get all two million words and 2,000 images of this great project for a cool £325 for the six volumes - if you buy before the New Year, when the price rises to £395. If you can't run to that, you can read and view it all online.

As for the Amsterdam exhibition, it will open to the public after the visit this evening by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

The fact that she is there at all might raise a smile to the gaunt and grizzled features of Vincent himself, wherever he may be now. He was no court painter. Indeed he only ever painted one person of substance and status in his entire short but brilliant life - and no one is quite certain what became of the canvas.

'Van Gogh's Letters: The Artist Speaks' at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam runs from October 7 to January 3. It will transfer to the Royal Academy, London on January 27. 'Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters' is published by Thames and Hudson at £325.

Tags: Art, literature, Vincent Van Gogh, letters, Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters, books, museums