Van Gogh, Fields and Flowers
by Debra N. Mancoff
San Francisco, Chronicle Books
ISBN 0-8118-2569-8

Reviewed by Wilfred Niels Arnold


Vincent van Gogh is a household item and anything that includes his name demands some attention. It was not always so. At the time of his suicide in 1890, at the tender age of thirty seven, the genius of van Gogh was acknowledged by only a small cadre of friends and followers. The first major public response to Vincent was at the Cologne exhibition (108 paintings and 16 drawings) in 1912. Thereafter his popularity grew in leaps and bounds and has never abated. The huge crowds that assembled to see a selection of canvases and drawings in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles provide the most recent attestation.

A considerable literature has accrued on Vincent's life and work. His interesting, eventful, but jagged life has evoked everything from titillation to saintly adoration. Numerous books and films have attempted to capture this, with varying degrees of success. The depth of van Gogh's own writing in letters to his brother Theo, other family members, and contemporary artists provides a wonderful source, truly revealing of all aspects of his philosophy and daily life. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the facts. Unfortunately, many van Gogh biographers have not bothered to read them and "The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh" is apparently beyond the ken of most curators and journalists who blithely quote each other's errors and thus compound the mythology. A remarkable amount of ink and time is also spent in declaring that its not the man but the art that needs to be celebrated. The same sort of quandary seems to be in place for compilations of van Gogh's paintings and drawings which fall roughly into three categories.

First, the encyclopedic works by J.B. de la Faille, J. Hulsker, and others must be mentioned. Because of the depth of their coverage (as well as an appropriate interest in documentation of dimensions, locations, and provenances) the size of a particular reproduction does not always do justice to the original. For the most part these books follow a chronological order, do not attempt to push things into sub-categories, and stick to the art. Second, we have the exhibition catalogs which reproduce the items of a particular show but also, more often than not, try to round-out by including a few paintings that are not traveling and others by contemporary artists, or those greatly influenced by the star. These are always accompanied by essays about the life and times of van Gogh and on rare occasions include some scholarship. The dating of Vincent's paintings in Arles and St. Ròmy, often to the very day, by R. Pickvance is a case in point. And third, we encounter books of reproductions that profess to give the viewer a slice of Vincent's work. A natural category here is the self-portrait and the complete assembly of van Gogh's self-portraits by P. Bonafoux is a laudable example. Others elect to carve out a topic, often arbitrary with regard to place or time, and then blend in a narrative with mixed success. This last type seem to be driven by publishers who want to offer yet another volume at a prescribed weight, suitable for the coffee table or bed, but not overly taxing intellection.

"Van Gogh: Fields and Flowers" is a light book that has been ably designed and produced. High quality color reproductions of van Gogh's paintings abound and, true to title, the selections are mostly of floral arrangements, flowering trees, and agricultural landscapes. However, there is a smattering of other subjects, both urban and domestic. It is a bit of a surprise to encounter "The Cafò Terrace at Night," "The Yellow House," "The Bedroom," "Vincent's Chair," "Gauguin's Chair," and a "Pair of Shoes," which were supposedly included to help carry the narrative. The trouble with little books on this big subject is that they cannot resist bouncing the vita from chapter to chapter (in this case "Bouquets," "Flowering Trees," "Irises," etc.) and end up with a disjointed chronology because of the multiplicity of venues and dates.

Debra Mancoff has made a good choice of quotations from Vincent's letters, and cites them by month or season and year. The letter number from the English version would have been helpful. One assumes that the selected bibliography was guided by the author's experience and the omission of Tralbaut and others will trouble serious scholars. Seventeen references may be in proportion to the length of the book (if not the subect) yet citations take up such little space and a larger number would have been useful. The index is limited and quaint, for example the ear-cutting affair is not in the e's but can be found under van Gogh, Vincent, m..., as in "mutilates his left ear." Happily, the author has spared us the nonsense of others about Vincent Willem van Gogh being a replacement child but then inexplicably claims that the older brother died in infancy when in fact he was stillborn (a reproduction of the village certificate stating this is in Tralbaut's book). Likewise she misses the point that Vincent and Willem were the first names of the artist's grandfathers. Vincent's medical crises in Arles and St. Ròmy are vaguely documented and the longest of the six, just three weeks before his train trip to Paris, is not even mentioned. Readers who are most interested in the color plates may not notice such errors and omissions and we can only hope that they will consult other publications. On the other hand, the author obviously enjoys van Gogh's paintings, has offered personal selections as a starting point, and her enthusiasm is clear.

Wilfred Niels Arnold is the author of "Vincent van Gogh: Chemicals, Crises, and Creativity" Boston: Birkhƒuser, 1992, ISBN 0-8176-3616-1.