The optimism of a suicide

A postal strike would have been a disaster for Van Gogh. Letters were his lifeline and consolation. Not only did he receive through the mail his regular allowance from his brother Theo but, in letter after letter in return, he poured out his thoughts and feelings, recorded his work in progress and conveyed his impressions of books, people and places. In his often solitary existence, he was an avid recipient and kept in touch with a variety of correspondents, especially when he was in the South of France during the last two years of his life.

The glory must be shared, however, with Theo, in that he kept Vincent’s letters, many of which contained drawings, either appended or on the sheet itself, surrounded by his tumble of words. These letters have long been published in various editions, establishing themselves as one of the great correspondences of the world. Now we have been given them afresh in six superb volumes. They are the fruit of 15 years’ scholarly labour on the part of the three Dutch editors at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. It is surely one of the finest publications of our time, in the way that production and scholarship match the extraordinary human and aesthetic interest of the story that is revealed.

Many potential readers may feel that Van Gogh’s life is so well known to them that these volumes, however attractive, are superfluous. This is not the case. Although it must be admitted that there are no startlingly new revelations, the gains are manifold. To have the over 800 extant letters, along with other related documents and letters to, rather than from, Vincent, in a fully annotated and illustrated edition, places them beyond all other publications on this complex and endlessly fascinating man.