What is drawing? How does one get there? The urgency, the drivenness of these two juxtaposed questions from a letter by van Gogh, seem to summarise perfectly the spirit of this ­tortured man.

Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters
Edited by NIENKE BAKKER, LEO JANSEN and HANS LUIJTEN
(THAMES & HUDSON, 448 PP, £30)
Tablet bookshop price £27 • Tel 020 7799 4064

What is drawing? How does one get there? The urgency, the drivenness of these two juxtaposed questions from a letter by van Gogh, seem to summarise perfectly the spirit of this ­tortured man. His short life feels pressure-cooked from first to last. By the time you reach the end of this new selection from his letters, edited and annotated by the scholars who brought to birth the brilliant, multi-­volume, collected edition of 2009 (which, incidentally, is entirely free to read online), it seems almost inevitable that he would need to take his own life. Everything bore down on him, always, to such an ­intolerable extent.

Get Instant Access

Continue Reading

Register for free to read this article in full

REGISTER

Subscribe for unlimited access

SUBSCRIBE NOW

From just £37.50 quarterly

  Print copy of The Tablet delivered directly to your door.
  Complete access to all Tablet website content including all premium content.
  Access to the weekly digital copy of The Tablet.
  Full access to The Tablet’s archive – over 180 years of back issues.

Already a subscriber? Login