Book: Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings by Ingo F Walther.
ISBN: 978-3836557153
I bought this book on Van Gogh last May at a museum in Boston. I flipped through it, and then it sat on my bookshelf for a while. When I got psychosis in early August, I did not paint much. In October, I ordered some good paint and brushes with the mindset of painting twelve 8 x 10 works to give away to my family. So I’m having fun with the art, but feel I need to educate myself on it. To be part of any game, one should know the history of the discipline.
I started reading the words in this Van Gogh book sometime in October. It’s somewhat academic, and I don’t think I’ll retain much of the facts about Van Gogh’s life. At the end, there is a time outline of his life, which is nice.
The reason I recommend reading this is that the act of reading slows down the page turning. I found myself looking at each painting more carefully as opposed to a quick flip through.
The paintings started in 1882, and he passed away in 1890. Each of those eight years, he did hundreds of paintings. And his style changes with different scenes. He really liked landscapes and working-class people. Sometimes, he’d focus on other themes as well.
The print in the book is small, but for a higher price, one could purchase the larger version of this book; I believe the content remains the same. On Amazon, it lists it for $13 for the small one. My library and other library systems probably have it too. I was going to gift mine to a family member, but I may keep mine and buy another copy to give away.
Keeping this short. I plan to write a blog post about my New Year’s goals; stay tuned for that.
