Synopsis:
Although Vincent van Gogh's and Paul Gauguin's artistic collaboration in the South of France lasted no more than two months, their stormy relationship has continued to fascinate art historians, biographers and psychoanalysts as well as film makers and the general public. Two great 19th century figures with powerful and often clashing sensibilities, they shared a house, worked side by side, drank, caroused and argued passionately about art. Their brief venture together, richly documented in the artists' letters and paintings, would be compelling enough even if it had not culminated in the catastrophe of van Gogh's life - his ear cutting. This traumatic climax to van Gogh's and Gauguin's weeks spent in the "Yellow House" in Arles has raised profound questions about the nature of their relationship and about their behavior before and after van Gogh's self-mutilation. Van Gogh and Gauguin will explore the artists' intertwined lives from a psychoanalytic perspective in order to draw a nuanced and sophisticated picture of the artists' dealings with each other. The book will also examine crucial art historical issues such as the aesthetic convictions that both united and divided the two men, and the extent to which they influenced each other's art.
Review:
Bradley Collins's Van Gogh and Gauguin is a psychoanalyst's interpretation of the relationship between the two artists, especially during the months in 1888 they spent living in the same house in Arles, southern France. The intensity of their time together is indicated by the way it ended, with van Gogh cutting off his ear after a violent argument with Gauguin, presenting it to a prostitute, and returning home to sleep in his own blood. Gauguin fled to Paris, and they never met again, though they exchanged several letters before van Gogh's suicide 18 months later. Both men's descriptions of their experience are vague and self-serving, and what really happened in Arles has eluded researchers. Collins takes paintings by the artists and the known facts of their relationship and offers psychological insights into their temperaments and motivations. He begins with narratives of their careers to 1888, then describes what drew them together and van Gogh's desire to establish an idealized art community. Collins tells his story well, analyzing the artists' different expectations and frustrations and the effect they had on each other's art. His explanations are persuasive, and they help us understand two brilliant but willful and ultimately tragic characters. --John Stevenson
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