THE WORLD OF VAN GOGH - ROBERT WALLACE

If there is one fact about Vincent van Gogh that is well known, it is that he cut off his ear and gave it to a prostitute. The act is not at all important in itself, but it is wildly disconcerting, and obscures the whole picture of the artist. Even the most sophisticated reader, on picking up a book about Van Gogh, cannot help but wonder when he will come to the part about the ear. In anticipating it, he may skim over information that is a hundred fold more pertinent. Having got past it, he may feel that all else is anticlimactic. Perhaps it is best to meet the problem headon: the part about the ear will be found at the end of Chapter 5.
Now that the ear (in fact merely the ear lobe) has been removed, it may be possible to take a more relaxed view of the unhappy man who removed it. Vincent van Gogh, who died at 37, in 1890, had one of the briefest careers in art history. It spanned only 10 years-and of these, the first four were devoted almost exclusively to drawing. But the volume of his output was astonishing. Close to 1,700 of his works survive, almost 900 drawings and more than 800 paintings, made in volcanic outbursts of creation that sometimes saw him produce a canvas a day for weeks on end. During his lifetime he sold only one painting (for the equivalent of $80), and among his last recorded words was the question, "But what's the use?" The use, of course, became apparent within 25 years after his death. Together with Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat and Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh is now ranked as one of the founding fathers of modern art.
Van Gogh's work is of an extremely personal sort. With the exception of his countryman Rembrandt, no other great artist has produced more self-portraits (more than 40). His landscapes, figures, interiors and still lifes are in a sense self-portraits as well. It was his method to fuse what he saw, and what he felt, as quickly as possible into statements that were revelations of himself. His color and his warmth are so powerful that looking at one of his paintings can be like staring into the blue, yellow and orange flames beyond the suddenly opened door of a furnace. It is not that he had an apocalyptic vision of the fires of hell.