The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles

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Two Giants Make House Together

Vincent and Paul

Good info, poorly organized; grammatical problems

insight into the mind and soul of the great painter

Well-Researched Art Biography

The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles
Martin Gayford
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0316769010

Book Description

The mesmerizing true story of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin in the most celebrated cohabitation in art history.

From October to December of 1888, Paul Gauguin shared a yellow house in the south of France with Vincent Van Gogh. Never before or since have two such towering artists occupied so small a space. They were the Odd Couple of art history--one calm, the other volatile--and the denouement of their living arrangement was explosive. Two months after Gauguin arrived in Provence, Van Gogh suffered a psychological crisis that culminated in his cutting off part of an ear. He was institutionalized for most of the rest of his short life and never saw Gauguin again.

During the brief, exhilarating period they worked together in Arles, these not-yet-famous artists created a stream of masterpieces within the shared studio--including Van Gogh's Sunflowers, which decorated Gauguin's bedroom wall. Making use of Van Gogh's voluminous correspondence and new evidence, Martin Gayford describes not only how these two hallowed artists painted and exchanged ideas, but also the texture of their everyday lives. He tells us what they cooked and how they budgeted their meager finances and entertained themselves, and he movingly relays their inner fears and dreams. Gayford also makes a persuasive analysis of Van Gogh's mental illness--the probable bipolar affliction that led him to commit suicide at the age of 37. THE YELLOW HOUSE is a singular biographical work as dramatic and vibrant as the artists' pictures.

Customer Reviews:

Two Giants Make House Together.......2007-03-15

One of the most famous episodes of disastrous behavior by an artist is the tormented Vincent van Gogh's cutting off his ear. People who don't know anything else about the artist, or anything about art, know about the spectacular self-mutilation. There is more to the story, of course, and the excision of the ear is certainly not the most important part of van Gogh's life, but it did provide a climax to an important episode in that life, the collaboration between van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. In _The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles_ (Little, Brown), art critic Martin Gayford has recreated almost a day-by-day account of the time the two painters lived together, painted together, stimulated one another, and got on each other's nerves. It is a period that art historians have probed ever since van Gogh's postmortem fame, and while there have been recent discoveries made about details of the collaboration, Gayford's book in its chronological account gets close inside the minds of the two giants as they muddled their way through their period as housemates. Though Gayford tells in abbreviated form about what went on in their lives before and after their sharing of the Yellow House, the concentration on this particular period is wonderfully illuminating.

Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888, and on his walks spied the Yellow House, which he leased for five months. He was well known as a loner, but he had long dreamed of making a colony for artists who would collaborate together; it wasn't that they would work jointly on their canvases, but they would "live and paint together - different in individual style but sharing a common aim, exchanging ideas, commenting on each other's work." Vincent's brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris who lent support in multiple ways to his brother, hoped that it would be good for Vincent to have a companion, and offered Gauguin, whose paintings Theo brokered, a stipend to move in. Shortly after Gauguin's arrival, they proceeded out to paint the autumn foliage of Arles. They would carry out their gear, set up a few yards from each other, and work simultaneously on parallel subjects. There are thus fascinating pairs of paintings to show what the two artists made of the same subject. They talked about their work, they criticized and praised, and for the first weeks all was well. Gradually, however, van Gogh began to behave in ways that Gauguin could not accept or change. The exact reason for van Gogh's peculiar behavior has been retrospectively diagnosed with a dozen maladies, but Gayford makes the case (already made by others) that van Gogh had bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depression). In the particular case of the Yellow House there were other strains. "The claustrophobic pattern of life," writes Gayford, "would have put a strain on the most phlegmatic pair of friends."

Toward the end of the collaboration, van Gogh was strained by the chromatic complexities of his portrait _La Berceuse_. He was drinking, and alcohol always made him more erratic, and he was worried about Gauguin's departure; Gauguin had written to Theo, "Vincent and I are absolutely unable to live side by side without trouble caused by incompatibility of temperament and he like I needs tranquility for his work. He is a man of remarkable intelligence whom I esteem greatly, and I leave with regret, but it is necessary." Van Gogh had taken to wandering at night and winding up near Gauguin's bed, disconcerting his companion. At one point, after consuming an absinthe, van Gogh hurled the glass at Gauguin. On 23 December, van Gogh rushed menacingly in the dark upon Gauguin, and (if the report of the latter is to be believed) did so with a straight razor. Gauguin escaped to a hotel, van Gogh returned home, took the razor, and sliced off his ear. Gayford analyzes possible sources for the self-mutilation, from the Gethsemane story to a newspaper report about Jack the Ripper cutting off the ears of one of his victims. The police were called to the Yellow House to pack van Gogh off the to hospital, where in his delirium he called repeatedly for Gauguin. Gauguin, however, claimed that a visit would make things worse, and left for Paris; they never saw each other again. Gauguin indeed was off to the tropics, and van Gogh was off for a year and a half of hospitalizations and remissions and astonishing productivity, ending in his suicide. Gayford's account measures each day and week in the collaboration with fitting detail, and always concentrates on the paintings that the two men produced during the time. It is the paintings, of course, that matter, not the incivility, neuroses, or madness of the painters. Van Gogh himself declared, "Old Gauguin and I understand each other basically, and if we are a bit mad, what of it?"

Vincent and Paul.......2007-03-04

A greatly enjoyable book. While focussed on just nine weeks in Arles, the narriative darts back and forth over the past lives of Van Gogh and Gauguin in the attempt to explain their specific actions that took place in and around the famous Yellow House.

Martin Gayford does not claim to have written an academic history, but one attempting to shed clarifying light on the actual motivations, thoughts and techniques that resulted in some of the Western world's greatest art. I think the author succeeded in his objective.

Good info, poorly organized; grammatical problems.......2007-02-08

Yes, I have loved Van Gogh forever, and I've read many of his bios. This book has loads of fascinating details, but is poorly organized despite its chronological sequence. Gaylord confusingly moves, from 1888, back and forth, creating disjointed scenes of Van Gogh's past, pieces of art (stupidly printed in black and white, when the author talks over and over about the importance of color), or a place, that he loses the content and context constantly.
His editors don't know how to use commas; and his editors don't seem to know when to reorganize his writing in a way that emphasizes Van Gogh.
Tangents on Paul G. are weirdly excessive, yet shed no light on their relationship. Missing is any reasonable discussion of their alleged duel, and yet, the author takes great liberty in suggesting a confrontation amidst the two with Van Gogh carrying an alleged razor (But where is the source of this conclusion)?
Then the info stops. And starts, and is told in a way as manic and unmanageable as Vincent's disease.
This book is worthy for the author's interesting research and revelations. But the book is a poorly organized hodge podge of this research.
Also: he suggests Van Gogh's funeral in Auvers with no further insight. I've been to Vincent's grave in Arles.
The author would have been smart to clarify why Arles as the final resting place of not only Vincent, but his brother, Theo, right next to him as well.
Lots of great data poorly organized; lots of incomplete data, but well worth the price of the book for the facts you can find here and there.
No sound footnotes, vague explanations of translations, and a poor bibliography make me wonder how well the subject was researched.
Lorraine Keenan

insight into the mind and soul of the great painter.......2007-01-10

This book gives us insight into the mind and vision of Van Gogh. A very good read.

Well-Researched Art Biography.......2006-12-12

Most people have heard of Vincent Van Gogh, the famous--or infamous--nineteenth-century artist. He's the one who painted Starry Night and various Sowers and Sunflowers, among a very few. But he is also notorious as the deranged artist who cut off his ear in 1888.

What lead to this act of self-mutilation, this event known as "the Crisis"? In the weeks leading up to the Crisis, Van Gogh shared a cramped studio with another renowned artist, Paul Gauguin. Located in the southern French town of Arles, the Yellow House became the setting for one of art history's oddest pairings.

In hopes of changing the future of art, Van Gogh and Gauguin agreed to a period of collaboration. Great things indeed happened. But with such disparate personalities, the idyll of the artists' dream didn't last.

Martin Gayford presents an intimate look into a critical period in art history. Dogged research not only into letters written by Van Gogh and Gauguin, but through public records and more, has allowed Gayford to surmise what daily life must have been like for the two artists that autumn.

Art enthusiasts interested in either artist's story will find THE YELLOW HOUSE a fascinating study. Casual purveyors, however, might find their attention wanders when Gayford gets into minute details that mean more to an artist than the average person, such as the weather on a given day. Overall, this accounting of "nine turbulent weeks in Arles" is well done. It is less dry than many biographies, and there is a real sense of the rise and fall of the Yellow House studio, and the enormous emotional impact on all those involved.

This is a definite recommendation for readers interested in Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and/or art from that period. Readers who are only interested in the Crisis may be surprised to learn a lot more than they expect, as well.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
12/11/2006

4.5-Books on WUAT = S-Stars on Amazon

"Primitivism" in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern

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"Primitivism" in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern
Paul Gauguin , Ezio Bassani , Christian Feest , Sidney Geist , Donald Gordon , Jean Laude , Gail Levin , Jean-Louis Paudrat , Philippe Peltier , Laura Rosenstock , Alan Wilkinson , Evan Maurer , Richard Oldenburg , Jack Flam , Rosalind Krauss , Constantin Brancusi , Jacques Lipchitz , Amadeo Modigliani , Henri Moore , Alberto Giacometti , and Kirk Varnedoe
Manufacturer: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0870705342
Release Date: 2002-07-02

Book Description

"In 1906 tribal sculpture was ""discovered"" by 20th century artists; these objects had suddenly become relevant because of changes in the nature of modern art itself. These two volumes comprise the first comprehensive scholarly treatment in half a century of the crucial influence of the tribal arts--particularly those of Africa and Oceania--on modern painters and sculptors. In this visually stunning and intellectually provocative work, 19 essays confront complex aesthetic, art-historical, and sociological problems posed by this dramatic chapter in the history of modern art. The main body of the book contains a series of essays on primitivism in the works of Gauguin, the Fauves, Picasso, Brancusi, the German Expressionists, Lipchitz, Modigliani, Klee, Giacometti, Moore, the Surrealists, and the Abstract Expressionists. It concludes with a discussion of primitivist contemporary artists, including those involved in earthworks, shamanism, and ritual-inspired performances."

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Another equisite title to accompany a Fondation Beyeler exhibition!

Expressive!
Paul Gauguin , Markus Bruderlin , Donald Kuspit , Francis Bacon , Georg Baselitz , Max Beckmann , Francesco Clemente , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Edvard Munch , Pablo Picasso , Egon Schiele , and Vincent van Gogh
Manufacturer: Hatje Cantz Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3775713034
Release Date: 2003-07-02

Book Description

The quality of expressiveness--an outcry of the human soul against the mechanization of life--runs like a red scar through the entire history of modern art and up to the present day. If expressionism is associated first and foremost with the German contribution to Modernism, evoking the artists associated with Die Brcke (Kirchner, Heckel and Nolde) and Der Blaue Reiter (Marc and Kandinsky), but also the Austrian Schiele and Kokoshka, and the Parisian fauves, it nevertheless goes further. Beginning with the fathers of expressionism, Gauguin, van Gogh and Munch, the most important inspirations for a movement laden with emotions and endowed with the furor of rebellion, the red scar bleeds through the expressive tendencies of the interwar artists (Beckmann, Soutine and Picasso) and the postwar artists (Dubuffet, de Kooning and Bacon), and all the way to neo-expressionism (Baselitz, Lpertz, Lassnig) and 80s neo-fauvism (Clemente, Basquiat and Disler), ending with Louise Bourgeois and Bruce Nauman. In accompanying essays, philosopher and art historian Donald Kuspit sets out to trace the meaning of the term "expressive"; curator Markus Brderlin explores expressionism by looking backwards from neo-expressionism; and numerous short texts round off the exploration by focusing on individual works of art.

Customer Reviews:

Another equisite title to accompany a Fondation Beyeler exhibition!.......2005-08-16

The color reproductions are excellent, detailed text is easily read without flipping back and forth between pages, the scholarship is fine, and the book makes an excellent addition to current thoughts on expressionism. Plus, Amazon.com's discounts on fine art books are truly important in helping one build a great art library!

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should have been better
Don't waste your money!
DRAWING from the MODERN

Drawing From The Modern
Andre Breton , Paul Gauguin , Georges Bataille , Jodi Hauptman , Hans Bellmer , Constantin Brancusi , Paul Cezanne , Marc Chagall , Giorgio De Chirico , Robert Delaunay , Andre Derain , Arthur Dove , Alexandra Alexandrovna Exter , Arshile Gorky , Juan Gris , Gustav Klimt , Wilfredo Lam , Filippo Marinetti , and Joan Miro
Manufacturer: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0870706632
Release Date: 2004-11-02

Book Description

Many of the key achievements in art of the last 125 years have been worked out on paper. From pictorial investigations that expanded the possibilities of vision to the invention of entirely new kinds of media, drawing has been the perfect laboratory for avant-garde experimentation. Drawing from the Modern traces such groundbreaking innovation through the unparalleled holdings of the drawings collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Drawing has historically been understood as a mark or line on paper--the record of a bodily gesture, an inscription of the action of the hand, an expression of the mind. Since the 1880s, however, artists have sought to interrupt these seemingly unbreakable links between mark, hand, and imagination. Defying long-held definitions of drawing and rejecting traditional materials, modern artists invented a host of practices, altering not only the field of drawing but artmaking in general. Examining masterworks from the Museum's collection of nearly 7,000 works on paper in three chronological volumes beginning in the 1880s and continuing through today, Drawing from the Modern reconsider artists' repudiation of traditional drafting methods, assault on the use of the single sheet of paper, and introduction of new materials. Going to the heart of avant-garde innovation, all three volumes showcase new formal strategies, including collage, abstraction, chance, and the integration of text and image, as well as new subject matter, including the urban experience, the body, and identity. Volume I, presented here, spans the period from 1880 to 1940, and includes work by such artists as Jean Arp, Hans Bellmer, Paul Cazanne, Arshile Gorky, Georgia O'Keeffe, Odilon Redon, and Kurt Schwitters. Volume II, available in Spring 2005, will cover 1940 to 1975, and Volume III, available in Fall 2005, will bring us from 1975 to the present day.

Customer Reviews:

should have been better.......2007-09-13

I purchased book 1 & 2 from Amazon. The illustrations are far too small to be a professionally represented art book from MOMA I've decided to save my money rather than pay out for the 3rd edition. It sounds a good buy from its description but I don't consider this trilogy to be very satisfactory.

Don't waste your money!.......2007-08-09

This is not a good artbook. The images are way too small to be satisfying. This book could have been great, but falls way short of its potential. Don't buy it, you will be disappointed.

DRAWING from the MODERN.......2006-12-27

DRAWING from the MODERN is the first of a three part series published by MOMA as catalogue to accompany the chronologically arranged exhibitions of their drawing collection; in part, celebration of the seventy fifth anniversary of the founding of the Museum.

This first book looks at the late nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. Care and preservation of these drawings dictate that they are displayed infrequently, paper being a delicate medium, subject to fading, discoloration and brittleness. The publication of this series then allows us to have at hand a history of drawings seldom seen, and a visual education demonstrating how problems of that era both evolved and worked themselves out.

The introduction by Jodi Hauptman is broad and well worth reading. Aside from her entertaining "end of art" stories, she addresses artists and process leading to the dissolution of prevalent notions: relationship of "mark" to "ground", took new form; spatial notions of an orderly page, questioned; the element of chance, explored as process; the ego relationship of an artist to work, dissolving. New imagery happened: collage, abstraction, grids, enhanced emotions, metaphors of feeling, the sublime re-imaged. New subjects explored brutalities of war, notions of "city", identity, the spiritual, and the abstract.

As perhaps with all process of art, the uncertainty of change brought forth much that is new. The 139 plates of drawings both demonstrate and give testimony by leading artists of the time to new era in process. Drawing as subject matter is fascinating. To be expected, the book is well printed. Of course, what is book one without book two and three?

Nancy Gutrich

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Gauguin and the Origins of Symbolism
Richard Shiff , Guillermo Solana , Richard Brettel , Guy Cogeval , and Mary Dolores Jimenez-Blanco Blanco
Manufacturer: Philip Wilson Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0856675954
Release Date: 2005-02-10

Book Description

One of the key paradoxes concerning Paul Gauguin is the fact that he was both a profound individualist and at the same time the founder of an artistic school. For the young artists collectively known as the Nabis, Gauguin's personal version of Symbolism became the canonical route to modern art. The book, which accompanies an exhibition at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemsiza, reveals this double facet of the artist and his legacy through a series of successive encounters between Gauguin and his masters, his contemporaries and his pupils.

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Gauguin In His Own Words
The True Iconoclast
Lots of fragments

Gauguin's Intimate Journals
Paul Gauguin
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486294412

Book Description

Revealing documents, reprinted from rare, limited edition, throw much light on the painter's inner life, his tumultuous relationship with van Gogh, evaluations of Degas, Monet, and other artists; hatred of hypocrisy and sham, life in the Marquesas Islands, much more. 27 full-page illustrations by Gauguin. Preface by Emil Gauguin.

Customer Reviews:

Gauguin In His Own Words.......2007-09-08

Gauguin wasn't Picasso or Munch. Picasso thought his diary would someday make him even more famous as an important writer who also dabbled in the visual arts. Edvard Munch thought that his poetry-prose journals were as good as his paintings--even the title of his journals "We Are Flames Which Pour Out of the Earth" gives his readers a clue to the seriousness of his private journals. Gauguin didn't consider himself a great writer. He didn't feel that the words he was scribbling were all that important. He said "I should like to write as I paint my pictures,--that is to say, following my fancy, following the moon, and finding the title long afterwards." Gauguin was true to that desire.
Also unlike the poetry of Picasso and Munch, a reader doesn't have to carefully parse obscure poetic verses to maybe gain an insight into the mind of the artists. In Picasso's case he loved to write in different languages and in different styles and riddles and often in a stream of consciousness manner. As with his art, he couldn't resist toying with his audience. Gauguin wrote straightforward descriptions of people, places and things that fascinated him. One of the best parts of this book is Gauguin's eyewitness account of Vincent Van Gogh, his housemate's strange behavior. One evening Vincent ran toward him on the street with an open razor in his hand, but stopped suddenly in front of him, bowed and then turned and went home alone. Once there, he cut off his ear, taped up the wound enough to allow him to go out into the streets wearing a Basque Beret pulled down to conceal the missing ear. Van Gogh went straight to a local house of ill repute "and gave the manager his ear, carefully washed and placed in an envelope. `Here is a souvenir of me,' he said. Then he ran off home, where he went to bed and to sleep." The next morning the local police accused Gauguin of murdering his housemate, until Gauguin, who fearing for his own life, had spent the night in a hotel checked the undisturbed body in the blood-soaked bed and discovered his friend to still be alive. The hapless police then called an ambulance, but didn't apologize for their incompetent bungling.
Gauguin hated government bureaucrats and felt they, along with the French clergy were exploiting and destroying the pure culture of the South Seas and anywhere else France controlled.
This is fascinating, easy-to-read, meandering and very natural journal-diary. It provides lots of fresh and politically incorrect views of Gauguin's world in a very pithy style.

The True Iconoclast.......2005-10-23

It is impossible to read and re-read GAUGUIN'S INTIMATE JOURNALS and not be inspired to jump into the thrills of creativity and rebellion that sparks greatness in artists. Paul Gauguin's life has been well captured in films, in poems, in numerous biographies, in essays - but none of these supply what these extraordinary journals offer: here is the motivation for the fauvist mind and career and art movement Gauguin sprouted.

In these beautifully translated journal entries we learn why Gauguin, a self-taught artist, son of financially secure parents, a businessman able to succeed in the financial world of his era, would leave all of that to first paint in France with the likes of his roommate Vincent Van Gogh and ultimately flee to the Pacific Islands where his unusual and avant-garde painting style set all of the art world into motion to change.

Beginning with the preface by his son Emil Gauguin, these journals are accompanied by full page, full color reproductions of some of this finest paintings, works which take on new life when informed by the accompanying words of the artist. This is a splendid book well worth adding to the art library of everyone. Grady Harp, October 05

Lots of fragments.......2005-04-05

This is a 'journal'. It's not a diary, nothing so organized, and he claims repeatedly that "This is not a book." Instead, it's a sequence of slightly connected thoughts, anecdotes, and aphorisms. Give the book time, though, it develops into something much more revealing in its second half.

Gauguin is known for his abrupt departure from respected commercial and family life into the most primitive world available to him. His son prefaces this book by explaining that the parting of ways was necessary and mutual. This book itself presents a few hints at what drove him out of polite and wealthy society - a distaste for the venal gendarmerie, a contempt for the church, and more.

What I found more interesting, though, was his recollections of rooming with Van Gogh and his first-person narrative of the Impressionist revolution in France. He sweetens any bitterness by describing the Tahitian people, as a society, as a system of mores, and as healthy and beautiful human animals.

There's a slight self-conciousness here. Gauguin seemed to be writing for some imagined reader, and in fact sent these journals to be published. I feel that not nearly enough is said; what's written here does little to describe the personal angel or demon that drove him to the farthest point on the planet. Still, I value the master's words.

I admit that I'm not fond of his art. Still, I acknowledge the place that history has given him, and I feel somewhat more of a person for reading what he chose to write.

//wiredweird

Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art

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Sacred cows and eternal weavers....
A Magnificent Achivement, Worthy of Its Subject
best book of the year
When protestant modernist meets secular egotist

Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art
Debora Silverman
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0374282439

Book Description

A leading scholar offers fresh insight into one of the key moments in modern art history

During the fall of 1888, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin lived and worked together in Provence. There in a yellow house at Arles, they changed the course of modern art. The relationship between the two painters came at a critical point in each of their careers, and began as a plan for a new community of artist-brothers, who would flourish in a harmonious condition of mutual support. While the two painters never achieved the goal of brotherly harmony, they nonetheless found their creativity spurred by association.

Until now, the Arles period has been interpreted in the light of the temperamental differences between the artists, culminating in the famous incident in which Van Gogh cut off part of his left ear lobe to spite Gauguin. In the shadow of the drama, their larger intellectual and theoretical debates at Arles have been neglected. Debora Silverman demonstrates here for the first time the great significance of their religious backgrounds and conflicts, with important new research on Van Gogh and Gauguin's respective Protestant and Catholic origins and formations, and fresh readings of the major pictures of the period. Both artists emerge in startling new ways, as the paintings they produced at Arles are reevaluated in the light of their divergent attempts to create a new sacred art.

Customer Reviews:

Sacred cows and eternal weavers...........2001-11-13

I collect art books and am particularly fond of Vincent Van Gogh, the fabulous Dutch artist of the 19th Century, who is probably the most popular of all artists--EVER (certainly my favorite!!). I have taken several art history courses with Van Gogh as subject, seen all the "Van Gogh" films, etc. I own many books about Van Gogh including a few I picked up in the Netherlands. What could anyone else possibly say about him that I have not already heard? The answer as it turns out is plenty. I had not yet read Debora Silverman's VAN GOGH AND GAUGUIN: THE SEARCH FOR SACRED ART.

Silverman has taken a different tact in writing about the artists Van Gogh and Gauguin--who will linked together through eternity if for no other reason than the episode in Arles with Van Gogh's "earlobe" (not ear). Like many, I have wondered just why these two men behaved so antagonistically towards each other. I have heard about personality conflicts, differing life styles, and mental illness, but somehow these reasons have never resonated with me. The explanation for the Gauguin-Van Gogh conflict according to Silverman was owing to nothing less than their conflicting interpretations of the meaning of life.

Gauguin was raised Roman Catholic and attended a Catholic boys school where he was taught the theology of bearing one's cross and dying to the material world to attain the transcendent good--paradise. Van Gogh came from a humanistic Dutch Reformed background in an era when this church was focused on the need for a consolatary religion in the face of EVOLUTION. Their conflict seems to have been a feud of a particular kind as both men attempted to understand the eternal truths, grapple with the new reality of science, and abandon their relgious upbringings.

While Gauguin's paintings reflect the transcendent as "otherworldly" and point the way for later abstract symbolists such as Picasso, Van Gogh's works are tied to the sacred presence of the eternal in the natural world. In painting after painting, Gauguin flattens the canvas, uses paint sparingly and depicts scenes of misery and suffering, sin and redemption. On the other hand, Van Gogh focuses on the sacred nature of work and rural life--threshing, weaving, milking, and rocking the baby by the fireplace. Where Gauguin creates angels strugging with men and flying cows, Van Gogh paints wheat fields and grape vineyards filled with sowers, thrashers, and harvesters. Where Gauguin sees classical elements such as the three muses and a Greek temple and admires Delacroix, Van Gogh sees bridges, sailboats, looms, and walls, and adores Millet.

During their short time together in Arles, Gauguin sought to influence Van Gogh--to have him paint from memory, flatten surfaces, and introduce overt religious symbolism into his work. Van Gogh did partially adapt some of Gauguin's techniques such as cloisonism (black outlines separating flat patches of color), but while Gauguin continued to tackle the sinful ways of man (and apparently sin quite heavily when he wasn't working) Van Gogh adapted Zenlike techniques reminiscent of Hiroshege and other Japanese artists who saw no boundary between the divine and natural worlds.

Silverman writes beautifully (I read every word..this is a powerful book) and there are hundreds of drop-dead beautiful facsimilies of the works of Gauguin and Van Gogh. I think Silverman favors Van Gogh, and I do too so I was not disappointed (though she covers Gauguin quite well). She spends a great deal of time on style and technique, which I also liked very much. She is not merely pointing out technical differences, however, she is showing how their respective techniques were tied to their philosophical outlooks. Several "sets" of paintings by both men are discussed in detail--Van Gogh's Langlois bridge paintings (all nine are reproduced) and the Berceuse paintings (she who rocks the cradle); as well as Gauguin's repeated use elements such as the women of Brittany, cows, angels, and "the dead."

This is a wonderful book and if you love Van Gogh and want to better understand his painterly ways, you must have it. It will enrich your life.

A Magnificent Achivement, Worthy of Its Subject.......2001-01-11

Although a non-scholar, I have a keen interest in art history and thus was delighted to receive a copy of this book as a holiday gift from my daughter. The subtitle indicates Silverman's thematic objective: To examine "the search for sacred art." She provides her reader with a brilliantly written narrative during which she shares a wealth of information about Van Gogh and Gauguin, of course, in combination with hundreds of illustrations (many in full-color) which are skillfully correlated with the text. Here is how the material is organized:

Part One: Toward Collaboration [two "Self-Portraits"]

Part Two: Peasant Subjects and Sacred Forms [eg Van Gogh's "Sower" and Gauguin's "Vision After the Sermon"]

Part Three: Catholic Idealism and Dutch Reformed Realism

Part Four: Collaboration in Arles

Part Five: Theologies of Art After Arles

Part Six: Modernist Catechism and Sacred Realism

Silverman carefully identifies and then eloquently explores all manner of comparisons and contrasts between the lives and art of Van Gogh and Gauguin within an historical, theological, and anthropological context. Hers is a magnificent achievement.

best book of the year.......2000-11-06

a work of genius and a pleasure to read. this book is essential for any museumgoer and the general reader with any interest in either artist. revealing the mutual respect and support between two very different men, with outstanding illustrations and insightful prose. i cannot remember any art history book so erudite and approachable.

When protestant modernist meets secular egotist.......2000-11-03

"Christ alone -- of all the philosophers, Magi, etc. -- has affirmed, as a principal certainty, eternal life, the infinity of time, the nothingness of death, the necessity and the raison d'etre of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as a greater artist than all other artists, despising marble and clay as well as color, working in living flesh. That is to say, this matchless artist, hardly to be conceived of by the obtuse instrument of our modern, nervous, stupefied brains, made neither statues nor pictures nor books; he loudly proclaimed that he made... living men, immortals. This is serious, especially because it is the truth." Vincent van Gogh wrote these words in a long letter to Emile Bernard, his close friend and painter. He wrote them in Arles, where was working particularly hard, at the end of June 1888. The greatest artistic achievements where still before him, as well as unexpected illness and pity death. Debora Silverman exhibits to us another great event of Vincent's life: short and vehement artistic friendship with Paul Gaugain, that inspired Vincent much and may be even more costed. They knew and write each other for some years. They spent together same weeks in Arles working and fiercely discussing many artistic topics. Unexpectedly, in a while of serious depression Vincent decided to punish his comrade. With dark intentions in the mind he even picked up a razor. But his own illness won. Next day Gaugin found him laying unconscious, all in blood, with one ear cut. Silverman asks how possible was this strange and strangely fruitful friendship. She explores complicated cultural and religious background of both the painters. "I was intrigued -- writes in the Introduction -- by how Gauguin may have assimilated from his seminary training certain mental habits and attitudes toward the visual that were profoundly discordant with those I had identified in van Gogh's formative period in his Dutch theological culture, and I suspected that these distinctive mentalities had implications for the form and content of their work". There have been no similar studies up now. Religious life of Vincent van Gogh have been explored only very recently by Tsukasha Kodera (Vincent van Gogh. Christianity versus nature), Katheleen Power Erickson (At Eternity's Gate), Cliff Edwards (Van Gogh and God) and others, but never in relation to the southern France Catholicism, in atmosphere of which Vincent spent his recent years. Catholic background of Gaugin himself is even less known. Their mutual cultural and religious interferences, and their own personal achievements of this field finally received an abundant and complete description grace to Silverman research.

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Gauguin fot the insider
Gauguin: The Artist, Author, Ethnographer, and Promoter
He was a man of amazing talent

Gauguin Tahiti
Paul Gauguin , and Claire FrEches-Thory
Manufacturer: MFA Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0878466665
Release Date: 2004-02-02

Book Description

The life of Paul Gauguin is one of the richest and most mythic in the history of Western art. A banker and "Sunday painter," he left behind family and homeland and sailed to the South Seas, seeking a life "in ecstasy, in peace, and for art." Gauguin Tahiti, the first major retrospective of the artist's work in fifteen years, offers an in-depth study of the fabled Polynesian years that have so defined our image of the painter. Alongside essays by leading American and French critics on every aspect of Gauguin's art, from the legendary canvases to his sculptures, ceramics, and innovative graphic works, are discussions of the Polynesian society, culture, and religion that helped shape them; an in-depth biographical narrative of the artist's life, with the many epiphanies, frustrations, and discoveries that make his time in the South Seas one of the most mythologically potent episodes in the history of Western art; and a chronicle of his changing fortunes in the century since his death. At the center of it all is Gauguin's 1897 masterpiece, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, the summation and crowning glory of his mature career, presented with unprecedented depth and authority. Over one hundred years later, Gauguin remains one of the most enigmatic and attractive figures of 19th-century art, the very pivot of modernism, and Gauguin Tahiti finally portrays this crucial period of his life in all its color and drama.

Customer Reviews:

Gauguin fot the insider.......2006-03-09

This book gives a lot of informaton over the Tahiti-period of Gauguin, not only of his paintings but also of his his sculpture and graphic work. It's state of the art, but a bit dull. Beside, if you want to know more about the exoticism in Gauguin's oeuvre or the symbolism in his work I recommend Gauguin's skirt by Stephen Eisenman or Symbolism by Rodolphe Rapetti. On the other hand, if you are interested in the total output of the artist (and not only his paintings), this book is highly recommemded.

Gauguin: The Artist, Author, Ethnographer, and Promoter.......2004-11-26

Most art books give you lots of gorgeous plates and a view from 50,000 feet of the artist's entire life. Gauguin Tahiti was a pleasant and positive exception from that generalization.

The book does contain lots of gorgeous plates, but also shows a tremendous number of sketches and source materials backed with extensive notes on what the author wrote and said. This enables a careful reader to appreciate the development of icons, iconography, themes and cosmology. The number of interesting essays in the book is unexpectedly large: 17 by my count where the usual art book has perhaps 3 or 4. The essays come at Gauguin from slightly different perspectives, helping you to fill in a 360 degree view over time.

Most art books focus on the artist's best known work. I was very pleased to see this book deal thoroughly with Gauguin's relatively little known sculptures, wood carvings, unusual prints and experimentation with materials and processes. To me, that made this book a particularly rich experience.

If the book has a weakness, it's that the authors of the essays cannot quite bring themselves to describe the less attractive parts of Gauguin's life style and personal habits. So you end up with a partially sanitized package. Like so many artists, his ability to communicate visually was marred by a weak ability to relate to others in constructive and supportive ways.

Be prepared to spend time with this book. Each essay builds on insights from earlier ones with lots of cross referencing of images. As a result, your knowledge will build to a level similar to that of taking an MFA course for a semester on Gauguin's Tahitian and South Sea works.

If you read only one art book this year, you would do well to pick this one. This book will also make a wonderful gift for anyone who loves Gauguin's paintings and wants to learn more about his entire oeuvre.

Take a close look!

He was a man of amazing talent.......2004-04-05

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) is one of 19th Century Europe's most mythic artists. He was a man of amazing talent, eccentric behavior, and controversial conduct. Leaving a career as a banker, Gauguin became obsessed with painting, eventually abandoning his family and sailing to the South Sea islands of Polynesia where he spent out the remainder of his life painting, sculpturing, producing innovative graphic works and unusual ceramics. Enhanced with 260 color and 80 b/w illustrations, Gauguin Tahiti is wonderfully presented, highly recommended, in-depth, 380-page biography of this gifted man's life and work as a European master artist who "went native" in the tropical paradise of Tahiti.

El Paraiso En La Otra Esquina/the Way to Paradise

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¡Qué decepción!
Una gran desilusion
El Paraiso en la otra equina
De lo mejor de Vargas Llosa

El Paraiso En La Otra Esquina/the Way to Paradise
Mario Vargas Llosa
Manufacturer: Punto De Lectura
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 8466313230

Book Description

A century passed between the birth of Flora Tristán and the death of her grandson, the great painter Paul Gauguin. They never met, but both dreamed, each in their own way, with a better world. With this novel we get to know these two great personalities that had similar characteristics: an impressive stubbornness and a bulletproof determination and motivation.

Description in Spanish: Dos vidas: la de Flora Tristán, que pone todos sus esfuerzos en la lucha por los derechos de la mujer y de los obreros, y la de Paul Gauguin, el hombre que descubre su pasión por la pintura y abandona su existencia burguesa para viajar a Tahití en busca de un mundo sin contaminar por las convenciones. Dos concepciones del sexo: la de Flora, que sólo ve en él un instrumento de dominio masculino y la de Gauguin, que lo considera una fuerza vital imprescindible puesta al servicio de su creatividad. ¿Qué tienen en común esas dos vidas? Esto es lo que Vargas Llosa pone de relieve en esta novela: el mundo de utopías que fue el siglo XIX. Un nexo de unión entre dos personajes opuestos que desvelan un deseo común: el de alcanzar un paraíso donde sea posible la felicidad para los seres humanos.

Customer Reviews:

¡Qué decepción!.......2003-09-20

No debe ser fácil ser Vargas Llosa, mal acostumbrando a sus lectores a escribir excelentes novelas, de esas que cada vez que las cerramos nos decimos: "He aquí al mejor escritor de nuestra era"; no, no debe ser fácil porque cuando escribe un libro tedioso como El Paraíso en la otra esquina, la desilución del libro que pudo haber sido y no fue es demasiado grande, quizás porque las expectativas de sus lectores así lo son.
El Paraíso en la otra esquina trata dos historias alternas: la de Paul Gauguin, el pintor que renunció a una cómoda vida burguesa europea para irse a pintar nativas al Pacífico, y la de su abuela Floria Tristán, incorruptible mujer de grandes ideales. Sólo de leer la contraportada se nos hace agua la boca, qué puede fallar en una novela con unos personajes tan apasionantes en la pluma del autor de La Fiesta del Chivo y Lituma en los Andes, para no irnos más atrás a sus obras maestras de juventud; cómo no devorar palabra por palabra lo que debería ser un festín literario... y nos encontramos con una obra plana, repetitiva, tediosa y desigual. Después de dos capítulos la historia de Flora Tristán daba la vuelta sobre sí misma, nos dejaron de importar sus andanzas, queríamos que terminará de una vez para saber sobre su nieto y sus llagas, sus correrías tras las niñas nativas, su orgía con los colores del Pacífico; pero ni siquiera la vida del rebelde Gauguin nos logra apasionar. Para mi esta novela es mucha información, muchos datos, pero poco corazón.

Una gran desilusion.......2003-09-14

Este libro ha sido una gran desilusion. Es dificil relacionarse con los personajes y con sus ambiciones en la vida. Uno siente que nunca los llega a conocer ni a enteder de verdad. A consecuencia de eso, es muy dificil comprender sus actos. El libro carece de profundidad y entrelaza la narracion de las dos vidas (la de Flora y Gaugin) muy superfluamente. Es monotono y sin impacto. EL lector espera que el libro cobre impacto, pero ese momento nunca llega. Me fue muy dificil encontrar la disciplina para terminarlo. Vargas Llosa es uno de los mejores escritores de nuestros tiempos, y despues de haber leido la gran mayoria de sus obras, este libro ha sido una gran desilusion.

El Paraiso en la otra equina.......2003-08-06

This may be the crowning achievement of one of the foremost authors in the Spanish language. Alternating between the impressionist Gauguin and his maternal grandmother, Flora Tristan, the author traces the careers of these legendary 19th century figures. For Gauguin, the paradise was to be found in escaping the constraints of Euro-Christian civilization by fleeing further and further into the primative cultures of the South Seas. His grandmother too chaffed and strained under the constraints of French and Peruvian societies. The former would relegate her to the status of chattel to her husband, the latter offered her refuge as a virtual princess among her father's family who were as near to Peruvean royalty as was possible. Rejecting both, she chose instead to campaign for the liberation women, then the working classes through social political reform. Both characters died struggling, neither achieving the acceptance of their contemporaries; each sanguine in the choices s/he had made.

The writing is brilliant, the story riveting. The work is clearly superior to "La Fiesta del Chivo" that the "New York Times" predicted would gain Vargas a Nobel Prize for Literature.

De lo mejor de Vargas Llosa.......2003-06-07

Es increible como Vargas Llosa te lleva atraves del espacio y el tiempo saltando de parrafo en parrafo y el lector no se pierde nunca! Flora esta en Paris reunida con obreros y un instante despues (10 anhos antes) en Arequipa visitando a su tio Pio, Gauguin esta Tahiti, 50 anhos despues, y en la linea siguiente esta (otros 10 anhos antes)pintando con van Gogh en Arles, y lector ve pasar todo esto frente a si sin confundir una sola idea. El manejo de los tiempos es similar a Pulp Fiction, donde Tarantino te va ofreciendo escenas de la historia en desorden, pero nunca te pierdes.

Adicionalmente, el tema de las historias, el humor, y lo crudo de algunas escenas (tipo el capitulo final de "La fiesta del Chivo") hacen que este libro asuste y encante. En este libro el capitulo final es tambien fenomenal.

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Carmen Thyssen-Bornemixza Collection Vol 1 & 2

Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Vol 2
Paul Gauguin , Camille Pissarro , Thomas Llorens , Georges Braque , Robert Delaunay , Childe Hassam , Winslow Homer , Edward Hopper , Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Paul Signac , Alfred Sisley , Edouard Vuillard , Pierre Bonnard , Edgar Degas , Henri Matisse , Claude Monet , Edvard Munch , and Emil Nolde
Manufacturer: Ediciones el Viso/Fundaci n Colecci n Thyssen-Bornemisza
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Prado Museum

ASIN: 8496233073
Release Date: 2005-03-15

Book Description

The private art collection of Mrs. Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza is considered one of the most important in the world. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum has published these two volumes to accompany the permanent exhibition of the International Collection, which includes 345 works of art by Brueghel, de Hooch, Van Goyen, Canaletto, Fragonard, Constable, Corot, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Van Gogh, Monet, Gauguin, Braque, Kandinsky, Nolde, Heckel, Hopper, Picasso, Juan Gris and others. Also included in two the volumes is a selection of works of art from a number of important 19th-century American artists such as Head, Bierstadt, Church, and Bricher. Provided here is a fully documented analysis of the collection, including color illustrations and a summary profile for each work of art, as well as research analyses written by 87 international experts and field specialists. There is an introduction to each chapter written by Javier Arnaldo--the publisher of these volumes, and co-curator at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Volume 1 focuses on art from the 13th to 19th centuries, while Volume 2 looks at art of the 19th and 20th centuries. Combined, these two books feature 960 pages and some 270 beautifully-reproduced full-color images.

Customer Reviews:

Carmen Thyssen-Bornemixza Collection Vol 1 & 2.......2006-03-09

After seeing the collection in Madrid a study of Vol 1& 2 were rewarding in so far as each work of art (95% plus ) paintings had an essay regarding the work and aspects of the artists life and style. The paintings in the books and collection were perhaps not typical of the artist they are in deed lovely and worth an art lovers time. These are not coffee table books but give one an opportunity to get a good idea of what Western art is. A. Cinelli, M.D.

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