Vincent van Gogh
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
The incarnation of the myth of a cursed artist, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is a legend who became a reference for modern art. An Expressionist during the Post-Impressionist movement, his art was misunderstood during his lifetime. In Holland, he partook in the Dutch realist painting movement by studying peasant characters. Anxious and depressed, Vincent van Gogh produced more than 2000 artworks, yet sold only one in his lifetime. A self-made artist, his work is known for its rough and emotional beauty and is amongst the most popular in the art market today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A man possessed, van Gogh transformed himself over a 10-year period from a somewhat awkward, overwrought sketcher into a master painter. His best work in both media is abundantly sampled in this magnificent set, the catalogue of a large retrospective held concurrently at two museums in the Netherlands on the centenary of the artist's death. Essays provide insight into how this dissatisfied experimenter viewed his own output ( The Starry Night ``said nothing'' to him). We are also able to situate the paintings in a biographical context. The color reproductions--hundreds of them--are glorious, the commentaries consistently interesting. The volume devoted to drawing rescues a body of work from undeserved, comparative obscurity; here we see van Gogh the doer and pragmatist, using charcoal, pencil, chalk, ink, watercolor, in whatever combinations needed, to penetrate the secrets of what he was observing.
