Becoming Van Gogh ed. by Timothy Standring, Louis Van Tilborgh (review)

Standring, Timothy, and Louis Van Tilborgh, eds. Becoming Van Gogh. New Haven: Yale UP, 2012. ISBN 978-0-300-18686-4. Pp. 288. $50. This book is the catalogue of an exhibit held solely at the Denver Art Museum in fall 2012–winter 2013. The over ninety paintings and drawings by Vincent Van Gogh and some of his contemporaries that were displayed and on loan from several major collections around the world are reproduced in this volume. There are also six scholarly essays and a preface. The theme of the exhibit is the chronological development of Van Gogh’s art. As the title indicates, the viewer is shown how Van Gogh became the artist we know over the period of ten years when he produced his drawings and paintings. We see his dark early style in Holland when he expressed his compassion for the poor of the earth and when he viewed his artistic vocation as a continuation of his failed career as a clergyman. We observe the brightening of his palette after his move to Paris in 1886 where he became acquainted with the new Impressionist and Post-Impressionist trends in painting as well as their practitioners. We then follow him to Arles, Saint-Rémy, and Auvers (1888–90) where his mature style for which he is best known emerged. He now used brilliant colors and dynamic lines as a symbolic projection of his inner thoughts and feelings. In the essays we also discover some less well-known aspects of Van Gogh’s inspiration. For example, we learn of his eagerness to study the fundamentals of his craft as a visual artist. He was aware of his technical shortcomings because of his previous lack of training. He studied perspective and the human figure, including nudes. He was self-taught through reading art manuals and also attended art schools briefly in Antwerp and Paris.At the same time, he wanted to express his own vision and style and to resist the influence of what he rejected as academicism. Another surprising facet of his outlook is his ambition to find a market for his works and his readiness to create drawings and paintings that would appeal to a particular audience. If he did not sell a large number of works in his lifetime, it was not for want of trying. Moreover, although he often painted his works with great rapidity and emotional fervor, he thought them out intellectually beforehand. It is noteworthy too that religion continued to play an important role in his inspiration. His constant choice to depict humble people was based on his belief that they were the closest to life’s essential spiritual values. Like the naturalists, whom he admired, he thought the most profound truth is to be found in suffering humanity. He greatly respected nature as well and sought to capture it faithfully in his work, but he also believed that it was the artist’s mission to give expression to the deeper meaning lying within it. University of Denver (CO) James P. Gilroy 254 FRENCH REVIEW 87.1 ...