Van Gogh's Women: His Love Affairs and a Journey into Madness [Hardcover]

Derek Fell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2004

A widowed first cousin, Kee; a prostitute named Sien; shy, spinsterish Margot Bergemann; the seventeen-year-old peasant girl Stien de Groot—to all of them Vincent van Gogh would declare his love. In none of them would he find the wife to seal the emotional bond that he so perfectly imagined and ardently desired. He described it, too, in his correspondence, not only in the remarkable, justly famous letters exchanged with his brother Theo, but also in heartfelt missives to his aggrieved mother, his loyal sister Wil, and his devoted sister-in-law Johanna. Focusing especially on van Gogh’s letters to these three steadfast women he called his sisters, award-winning author Derek Fell examines Vincent’s interior life and poignantly documents his emotional decline. Indeed, the blows that Vincent’s psyche suffered—like his rejection by Kee and a dramatic showdown with her father in which the devastated Vincent held his hand in a lantern’s flame—continually undermined his self-worth. In a sensitive reading and astute interpretation of van Gogh’s own written words, Fell illuminates the passions that at once commanded Vincent’s genius and tormented his heart. Many illustrations are included in this revealing life of the artist, as seen through the lens of his loves and losses.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While much has been written about Vincent van Gogh's close and complicated friendships with his brother Theo and the painter Paul Gauguin, comparatively little attention has been paid to the women in his life. In this pop-psych biography, Fell, who's best known for his garden photography (Cézanne's Garden; Van Gogh's Gardens; etc.), uses van Gogh's extensive trove of letters to focus on the artist's relationships with women, particularly his sister Wilhelmina; Theo's wife, Johanna; his mother; and his various lovers, models and objects of romantic desire. Van Gogh's ill-fated early obsession with a widowed cousin betrays his fabled intensity; "while the sky becomes clouded and overcast with quarrels and curses, a light rises on her side," he wrote to Theo. His thoughtful missives to his aspiring-artist sister and his empathetic sister-in-law show warmer and deeper facets of his personality. Fell stretches his facts into conjecture at times, and he never lets up on his theory that van Gogh was permanently scarred when his mother named him after a stillborn older brother, as if the artist were a "replacement child." But for those who don't mind excess psychologizing and melodrama ("Since childhood, ghosts had starved Vincent of affection"), this book shines a novel light on a fascinating life.
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From Booklist

Vincent van Gogh's remarkably poetic and spiritual letters have been scrutinized by throngs of scholars, but no one until now has focused on the significance of the painter's often bizarre, always doomed romantic obsessions. Fell, an art historian and the author of a popular series of photography books about impressionists' gardens, speculates that Van Gogh's birth a year after the death of his parents' stillborn first child, also named Vincent, caused what psychologists call the "replacement child syndrome," which led to his attraction to women in distress, desperation for unconditional love, and inability to cope with rejection (each time he was refused, he injured himself). As Fell quotes discerningly from candid and moving letters written by Vincent; his brother, Theo; and Theo's wife, Johanna, he also considers the true nature of van Gogh's relationship with Gauguin and asks whether or not van Gogh meant to kill himself. Fell may be practicing impressionistic psychology, but his involving inquiry does rekindle appreciation for van Gogh's empathy, courage, genius, and belief in love as a "germinating force." Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (October 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786714255
• ISBN-13: 978-0786714254
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,201,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #12 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Expressionism

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging so far, October 12, 2007

By 

Shubham Basu "Author/Columnist" (NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Van Gogh's Women: His Love Affairs and a Journey into Madness (Hardcover)

Two chapters and so far its intellectually engaging, the only kind I read. It should see more sales.