Based on Van Gogh's personal correspondence, this biography shows the artist's pilgrimage of faith, from his early religious training through his evangelical missionary periods to his struggle with religion and modernity. 24 illustrations.

In the last seventy days of his life, Vincent van Gogh experienced an unprecedented burst of creativity. He painted at least one canvas per day, often more, and wrote dozens of eloquent, personal letters to family, fellow artists, and friends. For the first time, this volume gathers all that he produced during these last few months and presents it in a day-by-day chronology that reveals his intense focus on the continuing development of his signature artistic method as well as his innermost thoughts and concerns. Persuaded by his doting brother, Theo, to move to the artistic enclave of Auvers-sur-Oise in 1890 for a change of scenery and a chance at a life free from temptation, and with the intent of concentrating solely on painting and restoring his full mental health, van Gogh arrived in May just as the town and its nearby bucolic fields were bursting into full springtime glory, providing him ample material for inspiration. Stunning reproductions of his last paintings display his daily explorations of this charming hamlet’s streets and buildings, including its now-iconic church and thatched cottages, its inhabitants—including his friend and mentor Doctor Gachet, immortalized on canvas—and the wide, open fields that roused him to paint masterpieces such as Wheat Field with Crows and Landscape with a Carriage and a Train. Despite these idyllic surroundings, his encouraging pace of production, and mounting critical recognition, van Gogh chose to end his own life a mere two and a half months later, leaving the letters and paintings duplicated here as the only clues to the internal anguish that led him to an act of such desperation. The full complexity of van Gogh’s personality, emotions, and relationships is presented here through reproductions of historical documents, letters, and glorious full-color plates of over seventy paintings, each of which is also accompanied by incisive commentary from author Wouter van der Veen, a renowned van Gogh scholar. A final chapter fully explores the often overlooked role played by his sister-in-law, Johanna Bonger, in cultivating and establishing his posthumous legacy.

"The most revolutionary discovery in the entire history of Van Gogh's oeuvre. Not one drawing; not ten, not fifty, but sixty-five drawings." --Ronald Pickvance, from the Foreword Late in life, during his time living in Provence, Vincent van Gogh kept a sketchbook within a humble account ledger given to him by Joseph and Marie Ginoux, the owners of the Café de la Gare in Arles. This artifact of incalculable historical and aesthetic value remained hidden for more than one hundred and twenty years. It reappears today as a revelation and an extraordinary treasure. Published in this volume for the first time, Van Gogh's lost sketchbook tells a riveting story. Over two tumultuous years in the artist's life, he drew sixty-five sketches, including landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and a self-portrait, within the ledger. These priceless drawings provide insight into the last years of Van Gogh's life, just before his fatal stay in Auvers-sur-Oise, and a new understanding of his most famous paintings, such as The Yellow House, The Night Café, and The Starry Night. With meticulous analysis of the sketchbook and the historical record, art historian Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov discusses each drawing in terms of Van Gogh's career as a whole, and in particular during his time in Arles and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence between February 1888 and May 1890. This groundbreaking book includes facsimile reproductions of all the sketches and is richly illustrated with dozens of drawings, photographs, and paintings that situate the sketchbook in the context of Van Gogh's life's work and the history of art. The result of a remarkable discovery, Vincent van Gogh: The Lost Arles Sketchbook offers fresh insight into the life and work of one of the world's most beloved artists.

This fast-paced adventure fantasy trilogy starts with murder and leads teenagers Nathan and Kelly out of their once-familiar world as they struggle to find answers to the tragedy. A mysterious mirror with phantom images, a camera that takes pictures of things they can't see, and a violin that unlocks unrecognizable voices ... each enigma takes the teens further into an alternate universe where nothing is as it seems. Find out what happens when good battles evil in an alternate universe Interfinity is imminent. In this second book in the Echoes from the Edge series, the merging of Earth and its parallel dimensions means one thing to Nathan Shepherd---he must rescue his parents while attempting to save his world and others. But signs foretell the impending collapse of the cosmos. Nathan and his friend Kelly watch the night sky transform into a giant mirror, as stars are replaced by scattered reflections of Earth. The teens are not the only ones on a mission. Mictar, a dimensional stalker who consumes the life energy of his victims, fights to control the universe---a universe Nathan knows belongs to God. Journeying through dimensional realities, Nathan and Kelly must draw on their God-given gifts of wisdom and courage and the help of faithful friends, as they battle Mictar for lives and worlds sliding toward the edge of destruction.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The definitive biography for decades to come.”—Leo Jansen, curator, the Van Gogh Museum, and co-editor of Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Letters Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, who galvanized readers with their Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Jackson Pollock, have written another tour de force—an exquisitely detailed, compellingly readable portrait of Vincent van Gogh. Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Naifeh and Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials to bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist: his early struggles to find his place in the world; his intense relationship with his brother Theo; and his move to Provence, where he painted some of the best-loved works in Western art. The authors also shed new light on many unexplored aspects of Van Gogh’s inner world: his erratic and tumultuous romantic life; his bouts of depression and mental illness; and the cloudy circumstances surrounding his death at the age of thirty-seven. Though countless books have been written about Van Gogh, no serious, ambitious examination of his life has been attempted in more than seventy years. Naifeh and Smith have re-created Van Gogh’s life with an astounding vividness and psychological acuity that bring a completely new and sympathetic understanding to this unique artistic genius. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • The Wall Street Journal • San Francisco Chronicle • NPR • The Economist • Newsday • BookReporter “In their magisterial new biography, Van Gogh: The Life, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith provide a guided tour through the personal world and work of that Dutch painter, shining a bright light on the evolution of his art. . . . What [the authors] capture so powerfully is Van Gogh’s extraordinary will to learn, to persevere against the odds.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “Brilliant . . . Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith are the big-game hunters of modern art history. . . . [Van Gogh] rushes along on a tide of research. . . . At once a model of scholarship and an emotive, pacy chunk of hagiography.”—Martin Herbert, The Daily Telegraph (London)

The best-known and most sensational event in Vincent van Gogh’s life is also the least understood. For more than a century, biographers and historians seeking definitive facts about what happened on a December night in Arles have unearthed more questions than answers. Why would an artist at the height of his powers commit such a brutal act? Who was the mysterious “Rachel” to whom he presented his macabre gift? Did he use a razor or a knife? Was it just a segment—or did Van Gogh really lop off his entire ear? In Van Gogh’s Ear, Bernadette Murphy reveals, for the first time, the true story of this long-misunderstood incident, sweeping away decades of myth and giving us a glimpse of a troubled but brilliant artist at his breaking point. Murphy’s detective work takes her from Europe to the United States and back, from the holdings of major museums to the moldering contents of forgotten archives. She braids together her own thrilling journey of discovery with a narrative of Van Gogh’s life in Arles, the sleepy Provençal town where he created his finest work, and vividly reconstructs the world in which he moved—the madams and prostitutes, café patrons and police inspectors, shepherds and bohemian artists. We encounter Van Gogh’s brother and benefactor Theo, his guest and fellow painter Paul Gauguin, and many local subjects of Van Gogh’s paintings, some of whom Murphy identifies for the first time. Strikingly, Murphy uncovers previously unknown information about “Rachel”—and uses it to propose a bold new hypothesis about what was occurring in Van Gogh’s heart and mind as he made a mysterious delivery to her doorstep. As it reopens one of art history’s most famous cold cases, Van Gogh’s Ear becomes a fascinating work of detection. It is also a study of a painter creating his most iconic and revolutionary work, pushing himself ever closer to greatness even as he edged toward madness—and one fateful sweep of the blade that would resonate through the ages.

A dramatization of the time that Van Gogh spent in Brixton in the 1870s--a period before he became a painter and one that changed him completely. Vincent develops a rapport with a widow twice his age, which blossoms into a full-blown love affair, only to be cruelly curtailed by the arrival of his fiercely puritan young sister. From the author of Cressida, Mrs. Klein, and the recent adaptation of Wedekind's Lulu.