The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

A Critical Study

By (author) Patrick Grant
Categories: History of art, The Arts: treatments and subjects, The Arts
Series: Cultural Dialectics
Publisher: Athabasca University Press
Paperback : 9781927356746, 225 pages, May 2014

Table of contents

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction: Letters as Literature

Part I  Vincent Agonistes: Religion, Morality, Art

Religious Convictions, Moral Imperatives

The Artistic Life and Its Limits

Part II  Thinking in Images

    
Birds’ Nests: Art and Nature, Exile and Return

    
The Mistral: Creativity and Adversity

    
Cab Horses: Despair and Optimism

Part III Exploring with Ideas

    
By Heart: The Creative Unconscious

     A
Handshake Till Your Fingers Hurt: Autonomy and Dependency

    
Something New Without a Name: Beyond Religion, Morality, Art

Conclusion: “My Own Portrait in Writing”

Notes

Index

As the first literary critical study of Vincent van Gogh’s
letters, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh presents the
painter’s letters as purposeful imaginative creations that chart
van Gogh’s evolving conception of himself as an artist.

Description

As Grant demonstrates, quite apart from furnishing a highly revealing self-portrait of their author, van Gogh's letters are compelling for their imaginative and expressive power, as well as for the perceptive commentary they offer on universal human themes.

Through a subtle exploration of van Gogh’s contrastive style of thinking and his fascination with the notion of imperfection, Grant illuminates gradual shifts in van Gogh's ideas on religion, ethics, and art. He also analyzes the metaphorical significance of a number of key images in the letters, which prove to yield unexpected psychological and conceptual connections, and probes the relationships that surface when the letters are viewed as a cohesive literary product.

The result is a wealth of new insights into van Gogh’s inner landscape.