Mystery of the Night Cafe: Hidden Key to the Spirituality of Vincent Van Gogh (Excelsior Editions) [Paperback]

Cliff Edwards (Author), Diane Apostolos-Cappadona (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Excelsior Editions | Publication Date: April 2009

Explores the spiritual vision of Van Gogh's painting The Night Café.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Written like a detective story, this book explores the spirituality of one of the world's most beloved artists, Vincent Van Gogh, through one of Western art's most mysterious paintings, The Night Café. Done in almost garish colors, the work depicts a late night in a café serving a poorer element of society, and Van Gogh himself saw both destructive forces and gaiety in the work. With author Cliff Edwards, we follow a trail of clues from a Yale art gallery to a neighborhood in Arles, from a novel by Émile Zola to a largely forgotten image of Jesus that hung in Van Gogh's bedroom. We enter the imagination of Van Gogh through the books he read, the art he admired, and the people with whom he identified, and arrive at startling conclusions that include a new and deeply spiritual understanding of a café after midnight and the "night prowlers" who inhabit it.

"The author's surprising encounter with The Night Café results in a long journey in which scholarship, intense reflection, and personal experience fuse together to create an intriguing saga." -- from the Foreword by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona

"I will never think of Van Gogh in the same way after reading this book. It is not that my views have changed; rather, they have achieved far greater depth. Edwards has convinced me that Van Gogh's religious thought is the key to properly understanding his work. His conclusions are nothing short of brilliant." -- Warren Roberts, author of Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Louis Prieur, Revolutionary Artists: The Public, the Populace, and Images of the French Revolution --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Cliff Edwards is Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of several books, including Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest and The Shoes of Van Gogh: A Spiritual and Artistic Journey to the Ordinary. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 116 pages
• Publisher: Excelsior Editions/State University of New Yo (April 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1438426127
• ISBN-13: 978-1438426129
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #759,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mystery of the Night Cafe, June 3, 2009

By 

Mark Ferrara - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mystery of the Night Cafe: Hidden Key to the Spirituality of Vincent Van Gogh (Excelsior Editions) (Paperback)

In Mystery of the Night Café, Cliff Edwards takes the reader on an intimate journey into the creative genius of Vincent Van Gogh by focusing on one painting that reveals "the inner life and intent of the artist himself." Rather than portraying Van Gogh as a gifted person tormented by fits of mental illness, Edwards shows us though primary sources (the artist's total work, his correspondences, and books and paintings that influenced him) the sheer force of Van Gogh's aesthetic vision that informs all of his work. It is a vision of compassion and service to others, emerging in part from a thoughtful life exposed to repeated loss and failure, which grew into a search for the true meaning of the self. It is a way of seeing the mystery, the reality behind the form or label, which Van Gogh urges us toward in his painting, and in this sense the artist's quest is essentially a spiritual one. Edward's takes the reader along as he discovers the "mystery within a mystery" found in this intriguing yet often overlooked painting.

I highly recommend this thoughtful and beautifully illustrated work by Cliff Edwards (author of two previous books on the painter, _The Shoes of Van Gogh_ and _Van Gogh and God_). It is much more than simply a meditation on a single painting by one of the great masters, for through the life of Van Gogh we glimpse the archetypal journey toward the true self.

Mark Ferrara
SUNY Oneonta

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What do you see when you see the painting for yourself?, May 29, 2009

By 

Charles N. Davidson (Lynchburg, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mystery of the Night Cafe: Hidden Key to the Spirituality of Vincent Van Gogh (Excelsior Editions) (Paperback)

Having meditated, as it were, at the shrine of Vincent van Gogh's Night Café while reading Cliff Edwards' book, I must say that the book, in keeping with the painting, is absolutely superb. The author captures in his interpretation not only the holy essence of this work of art but also of the artist. I believe Professor Edwards has got Vincent's spirituality exactly right, including the selfless, sacrificial nature of his death.

Truth is, we all live in some manner of speaking, or some manner of silence, within the Night Café. Cliff Edwards has not only unraveled its mystery, but has led us further into the mysterium tremendum where we come to know the inscrutable nature of our own poverty and desire in the face of the Infinite, which without doubt was Vincent's purpose.

I shall never gaze again upon Vincent's depiction of the Night Café without seeing the figure of Christ draped open in the doorway to the café's inner sanctum. I had sought him elsewhere in the scene. I had even thought the white-clothed figure without legs might symbolize an effigy of the risen Christ (the "innkeeper" as Edwards notes), but until reading this book I had not seen the "Empty Tomb" within the canvas as the thinly veiled visage of the Invisible One, Christus Consolator, just as Vincent envisioned God to be manifest in the life and suffering of the marginal poor of his day, which included himself.

It is Vincent's distinct and indomitable spirit that is captured in the Night Café. By leading us through the work of art back to the artist, thus also to the Ultimate Reality to which the artist symbolically points us, Cliff Edwards deserves a literary award for bringing the mystery of this painting, in concert with Vincent himself, to light.

As you come yourself in sacred pilgrimage before Vincent's alluring "sanctuary" of the Night Café, and as you read Cliff Edwards in order to gain his deep in-sight, be prepared to ponder the profound Mystery that Vincent conveys, which is to say, to understand it by standing under it long enough to see what otherwise remains invisible to the observing eye.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely and fascinating!, September 28, 2009

By 

Joanne Kirschner "JoannaJoannaDanna" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mystery of the Night Cafe: Hidden Key to the Spirituality of Vincent Van Gogh (Excelsior Editions) (Paperback)

This is a truly interesting and insightful read about Van Gogh's painting "The Night Cafe" in which author Edwards discusses the spiritual components of the work, and how this spirituality may have evolved in Van Gogh as a result of the artis's life, reading, and inner beliefs and torments. It's fascinating to read how Van Gogh, who was denied a career as a preacher, turned his spiritualty into artistic creativity.

This book is very readable (you don't have to be an intellectual or an art expert to enjoy it) and I am certainly going to check out Edwards' other books on Van Gogh. Highly recommended!