Oh brother!

Long in the writing, deep in research, heavy to hold, this is the latest of umpteen biographies of Vincent van Gogh (1853-90). But it should be said straightaway that it is extremely readable, contains new material and is freshly, even startlingly re-interpretative of a life whose bare bones are very familiar. The more one reads, the more absorbing it becomes, both in its breadth of approach and its colossal detail.

Potential readers, however, should be warned: this is no sentimentalising study, no apologia for the excesses of the ‘mad genius’ of popular renown. Quite the contrary: one’s dismay intensifies as the self-crucifixion of Van Gogh’s life unfolds, disaster after disaster on page after page.

In the 1870s and early 1880s his art dealing, teaching, evangelical preaching, attendance at art schools all ended in frustration and failure. Although devoted to the idea of family life, his presence in his father’s presbytery was often explosive; his attempts at wooing led to rejection; and the famous relationship with his brother Theo was riddled with difficulties, deceptions and misunderstanding: Vincent’s ideal of fraternal love was pitched far too high above reality. He bullied and emotionally blackmailed; he quarrelled with friends and contacts willing to help him. There was never any compromise. And it was this last, of course, that led to his inviolable achievements as one of the great painters of the 19th century.

It is sometimes forgotten that although Van Gogh was born into the modest circumstances of a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church, his family was well known, and included rich relations and art-world connections. His uncle was a partner in Goupil & Co., the highly successful art dealing firm in The Hague. At 16, Vincent was apprenticed there and then transferred to Goupil’s London branch.