Customer Reviews (30)

Disapointed
I was familiar with this set of books titled Vincent van Gogh, the Complete Paintings.It consists of 2 volumes and is seven hundred something pages that is housed in a cardboard case to protect the dust jackets.That is what I ordered and I received volume one only.The description on the website did not indicate that it was half of the set.The emails to the company were not helpful.I am very unhappy.Vincent Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings

Love this book
Loads of paintings I'd never seen before in this book.Good quality and handy size.

Must Have
Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings (Klotz)

What an amazing teaching tool!I have used this tome in my art classes for adults for several years now.Packed full of color photographs of his work, they are separated into the periods of his life.You see what he painted and what his mood and life was at the time.All 700 pages of text have a color photograph or two or three, yet, there is still an extensive biography! Totally a bargain for this price or any price!

Bought it... Browse it..... Love it¡¡¡¡¡....
This book was a great find, I've been a Van Gogh Fan all my life, but I was a little dissapointed with the book's published about him,but this one is a real exception: jam packed with info and well illustrated with all his paintings and the price is a real bargain¡¡

Good Collection
I enjoyed a Van Gogh Exhibit and wanted to get a collection of his works to look at and decided on this book.

It is pretty encompassing with a wide range of paintings, though some here indicate it may not be complete.

As to the images, they are of a quality that was similar enough to what I recall to seeing, so it serves its purpose well (though I wish all the painting coulds have been larger, but of course in light of the amount of material it is too be expected.)

So overall I found this a good buy for what I wanted. ... Read more

Product Description
A splendid new biography--"vivid, intimate, scrupulously accurate yet reads like a novel.As we read Callow we feel closer to that tormented genius."--Olivier Bernier, Newsday.A Book-of-the-Month Club Alternative Selection. ... Read more

Product Description
A wall calendar. ... Read more

Product Description
A widowed first cousin, Kee; a prostitute named Sien; shy, spinsterish Margot Bergemann; the seventeen-year-old peasant girl Stien de Groot—to all of them Vincent van Gogh would declare his love. In none of them would he find the wife to seal the emotional bond that he so perfectly imagined and ardently desired. He described it, too, in his correspondence, not only in the remarkable, justly famous letters exchanged with his brother Theo, but also in heartfelt missives to his aggrieved mother, his loyal sister Wil, and his devoted sister-in-law Johanna. Focusing especially on van Gogh’s letters to these three steadfast women he called his sisters, award-winning author Derek Fell examines Vincent’s interior life and poignantly documents his emotional decline. Indeed, the blows that Vincent’s psyche suffered—like his rejection by Kee and a dramatic showdown with her father in which the devastated Vincent held his hand in a lantern’s flame—continually undermined his self-worth. In a sensitive reading and astute interpretation of van Gogh’s own written words, Fell illuminates the passions that at once commanded Vincent’s genius and tormented his heart. Many illustrations are included in this revealing life of the artist, as seen through the lens of his loves and losses. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

not very good
Indeed, this book is not well written. It reads like a college term paper, with attendant deficits in argument development, source citation, etc. There are huge amounts of speculation with little or no evidence to support them. It also loses its focus; although ostensibly about relationships with women, the book devolves into a loose biography of van Gogh's life.

Having said all of this, there are worthwhile portions of the book. I enjoyed knowing about his strong family history of psychiatric illness, and of his seemingly endless capacity to engage in doomed relationships. I wondered about van Gogh's diagnosis: bipolar, borderline personality disorder, neurosyphillis, lead toxicity, all of the above? There was enough here to stimulate some thought.

This book is worth a brief skim, at the library, but should be complemented by a more authoritative biography if you are more interested in fact than speculation. ... Read more

Product Description
This important, groundbreaking publication contains the illustrated letters between two great modern artists–Vincent van Gogh and Émile Bernard. The original letters were previously in private hands and have not been seen for approximately seventy years. Here they are published in association with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and an exhibit at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York. In addition to the letters, the book also includes paintings, photographs, and drawings by both artists, as well as works by artists of the period, such as Paul Gauguin and Jean-François Millet.These letters, written between 1887 and 1889, are among the most important and relevant sources of insight into van Gogh’s life and art. They bridge the time when van Gogh was living and working in Paris, where he painted most of his self-portraits (mainly because he was unable to afford models), to the small town of Arles, in Provence. Here he adopted new types of compositions and developed new ideas about color–all of which he describes in detail in letters to his friend and fellow painter Bernard. Only a year later, in July 1890, van Gogh died, at the age of thirty-seven. The authors have carefully placed each letter in context of relevant events and have written authoritative commentaries on the content of the letters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

He painted with words.
Word by word, page by page and letter after letter the myths are peeled back and the true character and personality of this great master becomes revealed.

Beautiful publication...
..in fact, in my entire library, one of the best. I read it before viewing the exhibition. The facsimiles of the letters are as good as seeing them in person. Art and letter lovers alike will cherish this book!

A new insight into Van Gogh's working method
The 22 letters written by Van Gogh to French painter Emile Bernard, in which he almost exclusively discusses the subject of painting with a fellow artist, are the subject of this beautiful volume which accompanies an exhibition of the letters at the Pierpont Morgan library in NYC. Each of the letters is reproduced through a high-quality facsimile and also translated into English. Many works Van Gogh alludes to in those letters are also reproduced and every letter is carefully annotated which helps the reader understand the many references the artist cites as sources of inspiration to his work.

This is a groundbreaking publication that gives the reader invaluable insights into Van Gogh thoughts and working methods and comes as a perfect complement to the already published correspondence of the artist with his brother and dealer Theo. The letters to Bernard are more spontaneous because they were written by an artist to another artist and the introduction of the book explains this very well.

Highly recommended.

A life examined in a new light
As a writer, I found this book very much of a revelation. Why? Simply put, Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) was a prolific writer of letters. He wrote hundreds of brilliant letters to fellow artists, friends and his brother, Theo. Much of a persons character, thoughts, likes and dislikes, loves and hates, fears and loneliness can be found in letters. Both the darkness and the light of the soul come through in personal letters as they are often inner directed as much as directed to the receiver.

Many of these letters tell the story of life. They give us a glimpse of the ideas behind his art. They seem to prove that he was very much in his right mind and that he was not suffering from any sort of mental disability as some have thought.

The letters written to the French painter, Emile Bernard (1868-1941), who was twenty-years-old in 1888, are of great significance. In these, the artists share ideas when van Gogh was working in Arles in the South of France.

This is a very fine work. It's interesting reading and seems to bring the characters to life.

Highly recommended.

- Susanna K. Hutcheson

A VOLUME TO BE READ, REREAD, AND TREASURED
A friend of many Impressionists, Vincent van Gogh stands alone among artists, beloved, admired and respected by millions.While many of his paintings are familiar to us, this beautiful volume offers insights into his thinking, his cretaive process, and his life.The letters presented herein were written between December 1887 and November 1889 to his younger friend and colleague, Emile Bernard.These epistles are priceless as they focus to a great extent on artistic questions and, at the same time reveal a man blessed with a unique style and plagued by doubts.

Letters in this volume are numbered from 1 to 22.Facsimiles of all are presented.With these we are privy to the artist's apparent disregard for apostrophes and his cavalier use of capital letters.A joy and privilege to see the writing in his own script, complete with drawings and crossed out words.

Following the facsimiles one finds the letters printed in the original French along with transcriptions.Also included are generous full color reproductions of paintings by van Gogh and Bernard, many of which are discussed in the epistles as van Gogh both criticized and praised the younger artist.What comes through very clearly in the correspondence is the depth of friendship the two men shared.

Van Gogh's last letter was written mere months before he took his own life.
Vincent van Gogh Painted with Words is a volume to be read, reread, studied, and treasured.It contributes immeasurably to our understanding of this troubled genius.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke
... Read more

Product Description
Parisian avant-garde artists of the late 1880s and early '90s made up the circle Vincent and Theo van Gogh called the "petit boulevard." Among this group of struggling artists, Vincent, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard, Georges Seurat and others fought, with brilliant results, to establish their careers and create a truly modern art.

Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard is a fresh look at this post-impressionist generation, and the extraordinary array of styles and movements they created. From the pointillist style of Seurat and his group, to the emerging symbolism of Gauguin and his circle, to the unique vision of Vincent van Gogh, this was the most exciting and influential avant-garde in the history of modern art. Bringing a wealth of new scholarship and insights to a neglected moment in art history, this book gathers together masterworks by some of the most popular artists of all time. Amazon.com Review
Most people think of van Gogh as a tortured loner, but the engrossing Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard makes plain his great desire to be part of the art world of his time. Focusing on the years between 1886 (when he came to Paris) and 1890 (the year of his death), four art historians examine the competitive spirit of young radical painters who searched for ways to express their reactions to an industrialized world increasingly remote from the idealized values of peasant life. The painters (who included Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Signac, and Émile Bernard) were vastly different from one another in style and temperament. Yet van Gogh embraced them all as "painters of the petit boulevard"--fellow unrecognized artists toiling in out-of-the-way studios and showing their work in cafés rather than in swank galleries. Dreaming of founding a colony of like-minded painters he called "The Studio of the South," van Gogh decamped to Arles in 1888. But the only artist who joined him, for two stressful months, was Gauguin. Both were loners, and differences loomed large. While van Gogh worked from nature, conveying his physical engagement with thick marks on canvas, Gauguin looked inward, abstracting objects with a thin application of paint. Even on a personal level, Gauguin's swaggering ease with the local women magnified van Gogh's insecurities. Each essay illuminates a different aspect of the complex personal, social, and artistic motivations that fueled each "petit boulevard" artist's search for a personal artistic identity. Lavishly illustrated and fluidly written, this book is the catalog for an exhibition of the same name at the St. Louis Art Museum (through May 13, 2001) and the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt (June 8-September 2, 2001). --Cathy Curtis ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good
if you're intrigued with Van Gogh you'll enjoy this. But I don't recommend it to those who are not interested in the subjexct matter. If you're not into the subject you will find it dry.

I am enthralled with the life of this great artist, so I was into the book. To me it was fascinating.

Beautiful work of art.....
Having read VINCENT VAN GOGH AND THE PAINTERS OF THE PETIT BOULEVARD, I regret I did not get to the exhibt in Saint Louis or Frankfurt where it closed in September 2001. This lovely book was created as an exhibition catalogue, but one does not need to have seen the exhibition to benefit from reading the informative essays or looking at copies of beautiful works by Van Gogh, Gauguin and other memebers of the self-styled "Petit Boulevard" artists group.

Essays on topics related to the subject are preceded by text written by the editor and exhibit curator, Cornelia Homberg, ("Vincent van Gogh's Avant-Garde Strategies"). Homberg suggests the 'petit boulevard' was both an avant garde artistic movement following the Impressionists and an actual commercial location in Paris at the end of the 19th Century. The Exhibit featured works by members of the avant garde group (Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, Signac, Pissaro, Toulous-Latrec, Anquetin, Bernard and others "petit" artists).

Homberg challenges the notion that Vincent van Gogh always worked alone and that his art was a "one-off" as other critics have suggested. She says Van Gogh was a member of an artists colony located in the vicinity rue Lepic where he lived with his brother Theo (Montmartre area), that he may have coined the phrase "Petit Boulevard" (he discussed it with Theo in their letters following his removal to Arles), and he saw himself as a leader of this innovative group (which he hoped to bring to Arles as a "brotherhood" of artists).

In his essay entitled "The Cultural Geography of the Petit Boulevard" Richard Thomas describes the material dimensions of the place and time within which the "petit boulevard" artists worked. He describes the "off-off-Broadway/Bourbon Street" atmosphere of the bohemian artistic community -- a proletarian territory dominated by factories, caberets, taverns, le circque, brothels, and other down scale establishments (Chat Noir, Molin Rouge) where 'decadent iconograpy' was born. He says artists such as Toulouse Latrec, Steinlin, Willith, and others developed commercial prints depicting this mileau.

In the third essay, Elizabeth Childs describes the escape of Gauguin and Seurat to Pont Aven and Van Gogh to Arles following their Paris adventures. Here the artists hoped to reconnect with the timeless cycles of nature and leave the crass, commercial, class-ridden city behind. Childs says once Gauguin reached Pont Aven, the Celtic Catholic nature of Brittany spurred Gauguin to develop a medieval stain-glass cloisonnist style of art. She contrasts Gauguin's work with Van Gogh's 'rural' art which he based on a love of Japanese prints (by Hiroshege and others) and what he fancied to be Japanese culture, as well as the Barbizon style which included Daumier and Millet. In the last essay, John House discusses landscapes by Van Gogh (who influenced by his Dutch predecessor Rembrandt and the French Millet) as well as other artists of the period including Gauguin.

The book is filled beautiful reproductions of the paintings and other works included in the Exhibit (prints and photographs of the various items of art, the people involved, and the places they lived and worked). Sadly, one would have to do quite a bit of traveling to recapitulate the Exhibit, and then the synergistic effect would be missing. On the other hand, the book is a solid testament to the art that followed Impressionism. Although I had seen many of the paintings in their home museums (National Gallery, Chicago Art Institute, D'Orsay, Van Gogh Museum, etc.) I had not seen some of the works in private hands, nor the photographs of the period. This book is a valuable addition to my collection.

Excellent companion to the exhibition
The Impressionist movement never really impressed me until I went and experienced this exhibit. This book is a great companion to the exhibit, going into much greater detail than the audio tour did, but can be equally appreciated (as a stand alone art history text) if you couldn't make it to St. Louis. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for information on some of the lesser known impressionists (those of the Petit Boulevard), as well as information on this brief period in van Gogh's life. ... Read more

Product Description
The poverty, the mental illness, the troubled friendships, the scant acclaim he received while living... The tragic life story of Vincent van Gogh is well-known. Especially considering his enormous posthumous fame and influence, Van Gogh has in many ways shaped today's notion of the "troubled artist." It makes one wonder if his brilliant work isnt still somewhat underappreciated. Vincent van Gogh fans are sure to enjoy the collection of timeless paintings in this delightful wall calendar. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (6)

A Gigglefest of Freudian Fallacies
Pure, unintentional, Freudian-style hilarity! This book is what happens when modern psychology ignores modern neuropathy. I was laughing until tears streamed down my face when I read the passage that states that Vincent's early work, (i.e. the Potato Eaters) was his superego rebelling against his mother's "Dutch cleanliness" and her refusal to allow the infant Vincent to smear feces on the walls of his nursery which then affected his pallete choice as an adult.Brown, yep. OK, I'm about to start laughing again . . . (whew!)

Vincent van Gogh was extraordinarily adept at introspection, and through reading his body of correspondence a student of psychology may glean an idea of van Gogh's state of agitation and alienation, and I recommend that a van Gogh scholar, or anyone with a genuine desire to better understand and empathize with van Gogh, read his correspondence instead of this book.

This book fails to lend any original - or even modern - insights, it is entirely too subjective, mired in neo-Freudian and occasionally, Jungian, conjecture, it lacks Gestalt, and works to distort and narrow the reader's perception of Vincent's gift as it related to his sustained neuropsychiatric state.

But, if you want to laugh (and laugh and laugh and laugh) at one scholar's attempt at deconstructing art and epileptiform neurological affect via Freud's ridiculous personality-based suppositions, read this book.

Once past the first chapter, really great book!
I really liked the perspective of looking at Van Gogh from a psychological view point. However, the first chapter is very dense with names of paintings and their deeper meaning. The author does much better in the subsequent chapters trying to discover Vincent the man.
A must read for anyone trying to understand Van Gogh!

The Only Van Gogh Biography I Can Recommend
Many biographies and abbreviated collections of Vincent's volumnous and passionate letters to his brother Theo have been published in recent years. The only one that I can recommend though is "Stranger on the Earth : A Psychological Biography of Vincent Van Gogh" by Albert J. Lubin, which provides a fascinating insight into Vincent's life and work. The author examines Vincent's fragile personality with a sensible balance of clinical observation and human compassion. The title "stranger on earth" is an apt description of how Vincent apparently felt about his life. I read this book cover to cover in a few days (a page-turner) and came away with an appreciative sense of Van Gogh as a complex personality driven alternately by great passion and great depression. A tragic yet very human story.

Outstanding!
Unlike most any biography out there, this book yeilds new insights to the man and his art.

Elegant, honorable, beautiful
The elegance with which he, Stone, makes manifest the life of this magnificent artist is breathtaking at times.This is not just the work to which all biographical material on Van Gogh is measured, but one of thebiographical novels by which all other biographies and biographical novelsshould be.It is imposiible to not get sucked into the narrative and feelwhat it was like to be in the company of men who are poised, with theirgifts, to change the way we look at the world and ourselves.Nor is itpossible to not come away sympathisizing, or even feeling a kinship withthe deeply troubled genius whose art bares witness to the human soul. I suggest you read this book if you are interested in anything regardingcreativity. Period. ... Read more

Product Description
hardcover book ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Whether it's a $50m painting or a simple garden of Iris
Anyone interested in True Beauty as exemplified by Art would be most satisfied with this magnificent work.Not only are the illustrations first class, the breadth and depth is astonishing.This tomb has virtually ALLVan Gogh's works, etchings and all.It also tells the physical location ofhis work (as of 1970), and is considered the basis for all Van Gogh study. Many of his best works are color illustrated.My personal favorite being aportrait of an elderly seems to be sailor, sitting before a montage ofJapanese pictures.The dust cover is an absolutely beautiful rendition of"Starry Night".A must for any serious student or lover of greatArt.

Whether it's a $50m painting or a simple garden of Iris
Anyone interested in True Beauty as exemplified by Art would be most satisfied with this magnificent work.Not only are the illustrations first class, the breadth and depth is astonishing.This tomb has virtually ALLVan Gogh's works, etchings and all.It also tells the physical location ofhis work (as of 1970), and is considered the basis for all Van Gogh study. Many of his best works are color illustrated.My personal favorite being aportrait of an elderly seems to be sailor, sitting before a montage ofJapanese pictures.The dust cover is an absolutely beautiful rendition of"Starry Night".A must for any serious student or lover of greatArt. ... Read more

Product Description
Vincent van Gogh is best known for two things - his sunflowers and his ear-cutting. But there are many other ways of knowing this remarkable son of a Dutch pastor, who left his chill homeland for the sunshine of Arles in the South of France; and left us over a thousand frank letters of struggle and joy, to help us glimpse his inner world.Vincent came late to painting after spending time in London trying to be a Christian missionary. And though he is now amongst the most famous artists on earth, in his day, no one saw him coming - apart from one French art critic called Aurier. It is possible he never sold one of his paintings in his life time.When he discovered the sun in Arles, he also discovered energy. Yellow for him was the colour of hope, and in his last two years he painted almost a canvass a day. But hope ran out on July 27th , 1890 when he shot himself, aged 37. He was at this time six months out of a mental institution, where perhaps he experienced his greatest calm. Vincent compared himself to a stunted plant; damaged by the emotional frost of his childhood. 'Conversations with Van Gogh' is an imagined conversation with this remarkable figure.But while the conversation is imagined, Van Gogh's words are not; they are all authentically his. "Speaking with Vincent - which he insists on being called - was a privilege,' says Simon Parke. 'He's endlessly fascinating, contradictory, moving, funny, insightful and tragic. There's a fury in him; but also a great kindness. He found harmony in human relationships elusive; his love life was a painful shambles. But with colour, he was a harmonic genius, and he has much to say about this. And here's the thing: for a man who killed himself - he died in the arms of his brother on July 29th - spending time with him was never anything but life-affirming.' ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A gem of a book
I loved this book.

Simon Parke manages the impossible here - in one slim volume, the figure of van Gogh in all its messy, glorious humanity comes alive.

While Parke stands back, asks intelligent and sensitive questions, offers an occasional wry comment, and simply listens, the painter speaks about his family, art, beauty, love, suffering, God - in short, anything and everything that matters in life.

The story is both heartbreaking and inspiring, in equal measures.But even if you thought that you knew the story, it's the man behind the myth that we get to know and love.

It left me greedy for more and I wanted to be reckless enough to buy the new Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh (Thames & Hudson, in 6vol), but at £395, common restraint prevailed.

Buy this instead, it's a little gem!

An unexpected insight
I read this book, by chance, shortly before seeing the Van Gogh & his letters exhibition in London. Completely fascinating. I've read plenty of biographies about Vincent, but 'hearing' his own words from his letters and diaries gave me a quite different picture and explained his personal world much more clearly.

Van Gogh as the afflicted genius is an easy cliché, but this really exposes his love of nature and the self-doubt which drove him to experiment further and further with the chromaticism which helped him capture his environment. An unusual book and an unusual insight.

The man behind the paintings
I've always been a big fan of Van Gogh's paintings but after going to the recent exhibition in London, that featured many of his letters, I wanted to find out more about his words. Luckily I came across this wonderful book that not only features his letters but builds upon their contents in an honest and thought provoking way. Simon Parke has really managed to bring Vincent to life and shines a light on the complexities of a brilliant mind. The book warms the heart and challenges the brain and I would recommend this book not only to fans of Vincent who want to know more, but to those who are interested in delving into the human condition as a whole. ... Read more

Product Description
The letters of Vincent van Gogh lay bare the events of his dramatic life, providing remarkable insight into the creative process, and touching revelations of his personal anguish. They are reproduced in these three volumes with over 200 ink drawings that the artist sketched into them. Most of the letters were sent between 1872 and 1890 to the artist's brother, Theo, and it was Theo's son, Vincent W. van Gogh, who acted as consulting editor for this publication. A memoir by Theo's wife serves as the introduction. ... Read more

Product Description
The 3rd part in an eight-volume catalogue raisonne of Van Gogh''s work from the Van Gogh Museum Collection, this book covers the same period in the artist''s career as the two volumes on his drawings.' ... Read more

Product Description
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) created more than two thousand drawings and paintings in an art career that lasted just a decade. As prolific a writer as he was an artist, Van Gogh wrote hundreds of letters to his brother Theo. An excerpt from this correspondence accompanies each of the works reproduced in this calendar--among them Self-portrait, Plain near Auvers with Rain Clouds, The Yellow House, Vase with Sunflowers, Evening Landscape with Rising Moon, and Cypress against a Starry Sky.

Size: 12 x 13 in.; opens to 12 x 26 in. Printed on FSC certified paper with soy-based ink. ... Read more

Product Description
Features highlights from the collection of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation. ... Read more

Product Description
Now art lovers and colorists of all ages can enjoy hours of coloring pleasure. This exquisite new coloring book will launch you on a journey of discovery with a collection of 30 meticulously rendered black-and-white drawings of Van Gogh masterpieces. By referring to the 30 accompanying full-color illustrations, you can bring alive these skillful adaptations that include Sunflowers, Starry Night, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe, The Church at Auvers, and many more. Captions. Line drawings by Marty Noble.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Master! Beautiful as expected.
As an art student finishing her Bachelor's degree, I have purchased this as a way to study his line work. I have always admired Van Gogh, have many of the prints on my wall, but my goal was to study his lines and how his process to achieving a finish drawing was.


This book is a must have on any art student's library. You will get most of the master's famous workand have it for years. It's so relaxing and you can learn a lot from it.

The way I use is this:

I photocopy it, then use on my sketchbook because it does have drawings on both sides,you want to make sure you don't color it right on the book so that you can use other times.

I also use transfer paper, when I don't have the time to xerox it. Always have sharp points and Prismacolor pencil is the best to achieve the bright tones. Happy Drawing everybody. =)

Impressionist Coloring Book For Kids Of Any Age
I am a fan of this series of books, and especially appreciate their utility in introducing great art to children and young adults. I am a great admirer of Vincent van Gogh, and have always appreciated his unique style and especially his brushwork. In my mind his use of dynamic brushstrokes and bright contrasting colors defines impressionism for all time. The problem, of course, is that these characteristics are impossible to reproduce in a coloring book or paint-by-numbers book of any sort.

While I prefer the abstract coloring books from the same series, I recognize that impressionism is more difficult to reproduce than the (generally) hard-lined linearity inherent in abstract art. While I considered giving this book four stars due to the impossibilities in reproducing a van Gogh masterpiece, I elected to give it five because of the educational and inspirational value that exposing people to these great works intrinsically has.

The book is well printed, and comes with a nice color guide for rendering the individual pieces. It is a bargain, and is a great, interactive way to introduce kids (or adults new to van Gogh, for that matter) to the work of the master impressionist.

Pretty good
This is a great coloring book for adults.I use it as a time to just do something a little mindless.Its a nice change to have a book like this that isn't a bunch of cartoons intended for 5 year olds.

Careful!
I think we can all agree that, although he depicted some perfectly pleasant scenes of quaint countryside and rural life, Van Gogh's approach to paint application and colour was way off. How many times did he spoil, say, a nice waving wheat scene with turmultuous swirling colours, giving a dark psychological insight into a tormented psyche, at odds with the scene depicted? He couldn't even paint a nice starry sky without expressing through colour, texture and dynamic motion a radical and unique vision of personal torment, at odds with the artistic conventions of the time. This book, then, is a godsend; a chance to rectify Van Gogh's stylistic mistakes in the area of colour application, while retaining the charming scenes of the French countryside.
A word of warning, however: this book is really not suitable for children or similarly impressionable people. I gave it to a young nephew who, after spending quite some time colouring in the nice birds over the wheat field, cut his ear off!

Good adult therapy
I was looking for a good "adult therapy" style coloring book, and this is exactly what I was hoping for. Since I can't draw, I satisfy my creative yearning with coloring. The pictures have a enough detail to be absorbing, but not so much detail as to be tedious. The paper and granularity of the drawings are perfect for crayons, which I prefer over markers or pencil. My husband still teases me for playing with crayons, but at least my subjects are adult now. ... Read more

Product Description
Choice drawings—from early impressions of peasant life to studies for Starry Night, other masterpieces. 44 b/w illus. Captions.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Extremely poor reproductions
Guess my title says it all. This book was a big disappointment. The reproductions are so faint it's not worth buying.

Van Gogh Drawings
Drawings in this set were not very good quality. But they are interesting (and reasonable) if you are not familiar with them.[[ASIN:0486254852 Van Gogh Drawings: 44 Plates (Dover Art Library) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (50)

Helps you appreciate a great artist
I went to NYC and wanted to visit the Met. I know a little about a lot of artists but really wanted to find out more. This book really helps you understand and appreciate the work of Van Gough. Amazing.

Falling in love all over again!
I don't read often, especially biographies. Van Gogh's life is incredible, and reading this book is helping me to understand and appreciate his work so much more. A perfect book!

Starry Starry Night
Stone captured all the beauty and pain expressed in Van Gogh's life. His search for God as a pastor, his sense of humanity when he was with the coal miners, his desire for affirmation and his passion for life all show the depth of his soul that lives on in his artwork. The author conveyed the essence of this man's life so eloquently.

LUST FOR LIFE
The book was a gift for my spouse at Christmas.They loved paging through the book and really loved it.

The Soul of An Artist
Irving Stone created a wondeful biography of Van Gogh, who is one of the definative "tortured" artists if for nothing more than his name is synonymous with the phrase to most people who are even casual fans of art.

In this book Stone captures the emotions of Van Gogh and the highs and lows of his life.This sheds even more meaning on his works of art.I was fortunate enough to see a Van Gogh Exhibition and hopefully will be able to do so again now that I read this.

I am sure it will add to viewing his works. ... Read more