Stone, Irving. Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh. New York: Signet, 1937.
I found this book to be an amazing piece of literature! Van Gogh tells his own story in elaborate detail through letters addressed to his beloved brother Theo. Vincent Van Gogh could have easily been a literary giant during his lifetime if he had put his mind to it. In my opinion, to be able to pour your heart out onto paper day after day and still find something fresh to write about is a feat in itself.
I've noticed that Van Gogh uses color-filled descriptions in almost all of his letters to Theo. He describes scenes from nature as if he was actually painting them as he is writing about them. The following is from a letter written between December 1881 and September 1883, during Van Gogh's stay in the Hague. He writes:
Over the red tile roofs a flock of white pigeons come soaring between the black smoky chimneys. But behind it all, a wide stretch of soft, tender green, miles and miles of flat meadow, and over it is a grey sky, as calm, as peaceful as Corot or Van Goyen. (145)
What seems even more interesting to me is the colorless description in a quote from an earlier letter to Theo. It was written during a hospital stay before Van Gogh began painting and was trying to perfect his drawing skills. He writes:
The view from the window of the ward is splendid: shipyards on the canal, with boats laden with potatoes, rear views of houses that are being pulled down by workmen, part of a garden, and farther away the quay with its rows of trees and street-lamps, a very complicated little court with gardens connected with it, and finally all the roofs. The whole forms a bird's-eye view, but especially in the evenings and in the mornings through the light effect is mysterious, like Ruysdael or a Van der Meer, for instance. Draw it I may not, but, though I am forbidden to get out of bed, I cannot restrain myself from getting up to look at it every evening. (127)
All of Van Gogh's letters seem to start out very optimistically but then turn pessimestic about half way through. Van Gogh was very critical of himself and was constantly filled with self-doubt. This is evident in the following quote:
I think the success or failure of a drawing depends also greatly upon the mood and condition of the painter. Therefore, I try to do what I can to stay cheerful and clear-headed. But sometimes, as now, a heavy depression overcomes me, and then it is damnation. (88)
Van Gogh also seemed to be paraniod of others he came in contact with. He always felt that they were his enemy and were against him. He voiced his opinion of them many times in his letters to Theo. The following quote clearly shows his paranoia of others. The quote explains Van Gogh's reaction to negative remarks from an artist, Mauve, that he was seeking guidance from:
It causes me a great deal of worry when those on whom I thought I could depend for sympathy, like Mauve and Tersteeg, become indifferent or hostile and spiteful. Towards the end of January, Mauve's attitude toward's me changed suddenly, became as unfriendly as it had been friendly before. I ascribed it to his not being satisfied with my work, and I was so anxious and worried over it that it quite upset me and made me ill. (105)
In conclusion, I found this book to be a great resource for information on Van Gogh's personality. He was as fantastic and creative a writer as he was an artist. It is a tragedy that his low self-esteem mixed with the outside pressures of poverty and loneliness forced him to take his own life. Otherwise, he may have definitely made even more of a contribution to the artworld.