Vincent van Gogh

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Jan 18, 2024

Guests discuss Vincent van Gogh's famous works and his battle with mental health. Topics include his early life and family background, fascination with sunflowers, difficult collaborators, time in the asylum, self portraits, compelling biography, changing colors, and upcoming exhibition at the National Gallery.

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ANECDOTE

Sunflowers and Provence Move

Van Gogh moved to Arles to work better outdoors and escape Paris' hectic life.
He painted the famous Sunflowers to decorate Gauguin's room, symbolizing summer and personal significance.

ANECDOTE

Ear Incident and Asylum

After Gauguin left, Van Gogh suffered a crisis and famously cut off part of his ear.
He was treated in an asylum in Saint-Rémy where he painted many works including Starry Night.

INSIGHT

Starry Night: Reality and Imagination

Starry Night combines observed reality with imagination, evoking movement and emotion beyond the visual scene.
Van Gogh's view mix memory and physical observation for heightened expression.

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dutch artist famous for starry nights and sunflowers, self portraits and simple chairs. These are images known the world over, and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) painted them and around 900 others in the last decade of his short, brilliant life and, famously, in that lifetime he made only one recorded sale. Yet within a few decades after his death these extraordinary works, with all their colour and life, became the most desirable of all modern art, propelled in part by the story of Vincent van Gogh's struggle with mental health.

With

Christopher Riopelle The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery

Martin Bailey A leading Van Gogh specialist and correspondent for The Art Newspaper

And

Frances Fowle Professor of Nineteenth Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator at National Galleries Scotland

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Martin Bailey, Living with Vincent Van Gogh: The Homes and Landscapes that shared the Artist (White Lion Publishing, 2019)

Martin Bailey, Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln, 2021)

Martin Bailey, Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln, 2021)

Nienke Bakker and Ella Hendriks, Van Gogh and the Sunflowers: A Masterpiece Examined (Van Gogh Museum, 2019)

Nienke Bakker, Emmanuel Coquery, Teio Meedendorp and Louis van Tilborgh (eds), Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months (Thames & Hudson, 2023)

Frances Fowle, Van Gogh's Twin: The Scottish Art Dealer Alexander Reid, 1854-1928 (National Galleries of Scotland, 2010)

Bregje Gerritse, The Potato Eaters: Van Gogh’s First Masterpiece (Van Gogh Museum, 2021)

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (Random House, 2012)

Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2009)

Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh, A Life in Letters (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2020)

Hans Luitjen, Jo van Gogh Bonger: The Woman who Made Vincent Famous Bloomsbury, 2022

Louis van Tilborgh, Martin Bailey, Karen Serres (ed.), Van Gogh Self-Portraits (Courtauld Institute, 2022)

Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger, Van Gogh. The Complete Paintings (Taschen, 2022)