Customer Reviews

Baby Van Gogh (Video & Book) [VHS]

5 star:		(143)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

We have all of the video products of the Baby Einstein Company. This video is more similar in format to Baby Shakespeare than the Baby Mozart / Baby Bach videos. Nevertheless, I would say that Baby Van Gogh is a better attention-getter and -holder than Baby Shakespeare. The visuals are much more professional and entertaining - the main content being color and art, as opposed to poetry readings.

If you are new to the Baby Einstein Company's products, I highly recommend them over the products of the competing companies (we have a VERY extensive childern's video library). The live-action visuals are far more engaging to infants and toddlers than the computer graphics and animation of other videos. In this respect (visually), Baby Van Gogh is even more dynamic than some of the earlier Baby Einstein productions - and certainly has a bit higher production quality. For babies under 6 months, however, I would recommend Baby Mozart as the best 'starter' in the series.

As with Baby Mozart, Baby Bach and Baby Einstein, my daughter (now almost nine months) cannot get enough of this video.

We have a number of the Baby Einstein videos in our home, but Baby Van Gogh is our hands-down favorite. There are a number of segments on each of the basic colors, showing toys and nature photography that feature those colors. There are children also illustrating the colors (a little girl holding a lemon, boys holding a blue umbrella, etc.). Some of the other Baby Einstein videos feature only girls in live-action shots, but Baby Van Gogh has an even mix of boys and girls. I doubt my son really cares one way or the other, but I liked that aspect. The music featured in this video/DVD is also impressive. There are selections from some classical favorites like the William Tell Overture or Bolero. It's nice to have some variety, as opposed to an entire video of Bach or Mozart. Another thing that impressed me about this video is the artwork they use to further illustrate certain colors. For each color, they have a different painting by Van Gogh (Starry Night for blue, Sunflowers for Orange, and so on). This video brings together so many different aspects and blends them together seamlessly: art, nature, music. At the end of the video, there is also a segment that details the toys shown throughout the program and their manufacturer. So in case you're impressed with any of the items featured, you can buy them for yourself. Truly, this video more than any other provides a complete "Baby Einstein" experience. It's sure to be a favorite in any home.

As one who strongly supports reading to children, I was a "little" anti-TV for my youngster, until watching THIS video. Julie Aigner-Clark is a genius! Her innovative products, exceptionally creative, are designed to entertain children while they learn. "Baby Van Gogh," is no exception. With an imaginative approach, this instantly engaging video teaches colors through cleverly written text, and real world objects, while stimulating auditory senses with classically arranged musical pieces. My son was immediately mesmerized from the first viewing, two-months old, and remains fascinated to this day, now fourteen months old.

I heard about Baby Einstein products from friends, but did not become interested until I learned of the company's dedication to providing financial support to MANY children's charities such as the Autism Society of America, Ronald McDonald House, The Eden Institute, a leading school for educating autistic children, and a host of other organizations committed to children with special needs. I now own several Baby Einstein videos and most of the companion books - they are excellent educational tools.

Additional recommendations - "Baby Shakespeare," "Baby Mozart," "Baby Dolittle Neighborhood Animals," also, Richard Scarry's "BEST" videos are excellent for children 1 year and up.

The videos of the Baby Einstein company have an effect on our 20-month old like no other (and this has been the case since he was 10-months old). He greets the puppets like old friends and is enraptured by the sights and sounds. I sense that part of the series' attraction is the simplicity of the visuals: bare backgrounds and one or two toys and puppets. These "toy tableaus" are interspersed with some lush nature photography in this video, but these segments are only at the beginning and the end. The music's instrumentation is pared down as well. For the very young it seems that a lot of videos ostensibly produced for them are too busy and too noisy.

As far as Baby Van Gogh in particular, it really has a lot of wonderful qualities. The idea of dividing it into "chapters" based on individual colors is great. Our child gets a whole color "experience", seeing it in toys,puppets, live action photos and of course the Van Gogh paintings (several of which were unfamiliar to me). The music is mostly rousing and danceable. The only annoying part (at least to this parent) are the space-agy music breaks between chapters. At least these are short.

Each color features a poem written and read by the filmaker Julie Clark. These emphasize the emotions of each color and are enjoyable--although "when I am blue I put some happy in my stew" irks me every time I hear it. This video is closest in spirit to Baby Shakespeare and would be an excellent follow-up to it. If I were intending to produce a toddler's video I would spend hours and hours studying the products of this company. They really have the touch.

My 19 month old daughter was completely mesmerized by Baby Van Gogh when we first got it, although the attraction was a bit of a mystery for us parents. The content seems way too simple and there is no dialogue at all -- only single words "red", "yellow", "blue", etc. However, it seems to be just the right thing for very young children and my daughter has watched it over and over. I like that it is not connected to some syndicated character like Barney, and introduces famous artwork with a soundtrack of pleasant classical music. I feel the Baby Einstein series is a nice healthy thing to introduce to your babies and can see where it would be especially great for infants (I wish I would have bought it earlier!), but now that my daughter is old enough to follow a story line, I feel she will lose interest in the Baby Einstein format. I have purchased Baby Mozart but she doesn't seem as interested in it. I would highly recommend Baby Van Gogh and Baby Mozart for babies 0 to 18 months, whereas toddlers, (mine, at least) will be looking for more stimulation.

When I received 'Baby Einstein' at our baby shower, I had never heard of this before and was kind of skeptical about introducing my child to TV in infancy. Now, almost 9 months later, I'm happy to say that we are all big fans. And these products are appearing more and more on baby registries for almost all of our friends who are expecting.

We own several of the videos in the series, and Baby Van Gogh is probably the reigning champ (followed closely by Baby Mozart and the original, Baby Einstein). The use of color and art are really wonderful ways to delight and entertain a child, and my husband and I find ourselves a bit mesmerized as well. My daughter also loves seeing the other kids in the video and giggles pretty regularly at the same faces and smiles.

The creation of these videos, DVDs, CDs and books was a stroke of genius...Baby Einstein is truly an appropriate name.

My 19 month old daughter has this video as well as several others in the Baby Einstein series (Mozart, Bach, Shakespeare, and the 2 Dolittles). She has been watching it for 5 months now (since she was 14 months old) and it is currently her favorite in the Einstein series. She calls it "painter goat" and it has gotten her interested in painting with a brush instead of just her fingers. This video is organized around 6 colors- yellow, green, orange, purple, red and blue. After the introduction of each color, a short poem (written and read by Julie Aigner-Clark) scores a short skit highlighting that color. Using toys, video segments from nature, live action sequences of children, and the ubitiquous puppets, the selected color is featured while the puppet "Vincent Van Goat" is painting one of six Van Gogh masterpieces that features that color. My daughter enjoys this video, laughing, clapping and pointing at the screen while we watch. She can now also indentify all her colors and will yell them out at the screen. For this reason, given the educational content and the spark of interest in painting, I have to say this is a very good effort by the Baby Einstein Company. I didn't give it a full 5 stars for two reasons. First, as an adult, I find the poems rather poorly written. This is something I don't think my daughter notices however. Second, some of the colors used tend to run into others, given that they use real world objects like flowers, I know this can't be helped. However, what can be helped is the color of paint they use to exemplify the color. For example, for the color "purple" the can of paint that the puppet uses shows up as blue--it is almost the same color as the blue puppet itself. Further, some of the items used to demonstate purple (such as a hanging mobile) show up as blue as well. It is not the fault of my TV or VCR, my husband suspects that the lighting in the studio when they were filming was incorrect, as certain colors absorb and reflect light in differing degrees. For a child learning her colors, this can be very confusing. In this instance, my daughter names the color blue, which is what it LOOKS like, instead of purple which is what it is SUPPOSED to be. I feel they should have taken more care with the production quality in this regard. However, even with these two reservations, I have to say it is a very good video for a child interested in colors and who enjoys painting.

It seems every mother I know has a video from this collection.
I have 2, but have seen all the others time and again. Our favorites, hands down, are Van Gogh and Dolittle Neighborhood.
The others are good, too (with the exception of Baby Einstein, which is miserably boring and uneffective). The problem is that
they are all very, very similar. So you don't need but a couple.
Van Gogh does have its disadvantages, and that is that the images aren't representative of the color they are teaching.
Dolittle is great. Our triplets have been mesmorized by these
videos time and again, although I must say that they also are smitten with the Baby Know-It-All Series, and tend to interact much better with them. I would suggest the Einstein videos for baby's under one year, whereas The Wiggles and Baby Know-It-All are most suitable for 1 year and up.
As for the other videos in the series, we did not like Baby Newton--too slick, and although Shakespeare has great imagery, it only has one poem from Shakespeare and we find that disappointing on the verge of misleading.
Bach and Mozart are almost identical-better to buy a well made music cd from another company.

We now have the whole series of Bsby Einstein videos, much to the delight of my 10 month old son. This video, led by Vincent Van Goat. continues in the tradition of Baby Shakespeare in combining poetry and music with bright visuals of puppets and toys and small children. This is the first tape in the series in which little boys get to share the screen with little girls and that is a welcome change. The video focuses on introducing color to children and shows the pictures of Van Gogh as painted by Van Goat. My little boy loves this one too and I would highly recomend it!

This is one of the best videos for older children in the Baby Einstein series. Led by a puppet character named Vincent Van Goat, children are introduced to art and colors. Van Gogh paintings are selected with predominant color themes and then the video shows various items of each respective color, including having all the children dress in the color. As always, there are puppet skits and toys, only in this presentation, they all follow the color motif. There are also original poems and arrangements of classical musical pieces.

I highly recommend this video as an addition to your Baby Einstein collection for children two years old and up. If you don't have a Baby Einstein collection, start one today. They are wonderful, culturally enriched learning experiences for your child that they can start watching from birth through the toddler years.