Van Gogh 100

edited by Joseph D. Masheck

Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1996. 402
pp., illus. Trade, $75.00. ISBN: 0-313-29491-7.

Reviewed by Wilfred Niels Arnold

His paintings and drawings are enjoyed around the world and he is on everybody's list of major artists. Vincent van Gogh's jagged life, and suicide at the tender age of 37, elicit sympathy in even the most casual observer. The combination of the art and the life has elevated his to a household name.

The centenary of van Gogh's death was celebrated in 1990 by blockbuster shows in the Netherlands of paintings, at the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh (Amsterdam), and of drawings, at the Rijksmuseum Kroller-Moller (Otterlo). The large indigenous holdings were complemented by loans from other museums and collectors. The opportunities to see so much together for the first time, particularly at the Otterlo exhibit, were both entertaining and instructive. Estimated insurance costs suggest that such a van Gogh feast will never again be possible.

That was also the year of the record-setting auction sale in New York of van Gogh's Portrait of Doctor Gachet to the Japanese paper manufacturer Ryoei Saito for $82.5 million. The painting itself was 100 years old. But its life was in doubt; the new owner declared that the canvas would accompany him to the grave. This was not to be. Since Saito's death in March 1996 the canvas has resided in a warehouse under the auspices of creditors, chagrined by a current devaluation of one third, according to the Guardian Weekly (September 8, 1996).

The excitements in art entertainment and market for 1990 were not matched in academic groups. One of the few symposia in the world, and "the only major scholarly conference in the United States," was convened at Hofstra University. Van Gogh 100 is the selected proceedings of that meeting, organized and now edited by Professor Masheck. Biographical notes on the editor and twenty six other contributors, many of whom will need introduction to van Gogh scholars, appear at the end of the book.

Why did it take six years to appear? Prefatory remarks indicate that multiple manuscript versions were received. Some of the themes were old, worn, and resistant to freshening then as now, but only a half dozen of the contributors took advantage of the inordinate gap between symposium and publication to update text or to insert citations, which were then restricted to their own subsequent papers and books. The number of references attending each article ranges from 0 to 77 items. There are eight tables, seven of which appear in a study of van Gogh's thematics by Tsukasa Kūdera, the only attempt at quantification and one of the few with "hard" data. The essays vary from anecdotal dispositions through polemics (once or twice removed) to a minority of scholarly analyses containing some new ideas.

Remarks on Vincent's pastoral background by J. Frits Wagener will be of general interest. The Reverend Wagener was vicar to the Dutch Reformed Church in Zundert, which had been the first post as Pastor for Vincent's father, and the site of the painter's baptism. I regret to report that Johannes Fredricus Wagener died on August 22, 1996.

The section with the sub-heading "Interpretation" is odd. Of all the great artists who have influenced the twentieth century, van Gogh is probably the least in need of psychological explanations by art historians. Flawed, incorrectly founded assessments muddy the waters but are occasionally humorous. One recalls the ink spilt elsewhere on interpreting the receding back wall in van Gogh's bedroom pictures by a commentator who failed to ascertain that the actual floor plan was a trapezoid rather than a rectangle. Vincent was a faithfully representational painter whose choice of subjects often depended on circumstances, e.g. still-lifes during inclement weather and self-portraits when he could afford a mirror but not a model. He was an intelligent, educated and sensitive man and his renditions as well as his letters are certainly worthy of analyses. My objection is the second or third derivative nature of the present examples. Thus we are treated to a rehash of what Martin Heidegger and Meyer Schapiro saw in van Gogh's boots and laces, the refereeing by Jacques Derrida, and now an elevation of the whole exercise to something more important than the artist. For all their words, Vincent himself probably felt that his boots had neither more nor less soul than a Cezanne apple.

Albert Boime describes van Gogh's early ambition to become both an artist and a social commentator with illustrated English journals such as The Graphic. This unfulfilled goal nonetheless influenced Vincent's subsequent style, composition, and choice of subject. Aaron Sheon explores nineteenth century concepts of neurosis, neurasthenia and degeneration, together with van Gogh's relative understanding of these hypotheses and, en passant, refers to some of the problems of Vincent and his siblings, Theo and Willemina.

The conference, or at least the proceedings, is notable for the subjects it neglected. One of the outstanding attributes of van Gogh, a place where he broke new ground, was his application of color in modeling, especially with regard to portraits. A discussion of the artist's philosophy and use of color would have been appropriate. Inexcusably, Vincent's underlying illness and his lifestyle are virtually ignored. I believe that van Gogh suffered from an inherited metabolic disorder. He was a genius in spite of his illness - not because of it.

Overall, this book is disappointing in terms of summarizing the information available to 1990, and it does little to advance the field. The contents will be of interest to specialists but I imagine that they will find all too often that better primary sources are available. A frontispiece and fifty six figures are well placed but none is in color, regrettable for any volume on van Gogh, and the more remarkable given the high price of the book.