Book Review: Van Gogh: The Life, by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

This article was first published at Blogcritics.

Contumacious is not too strong a word to describe biographers who subtitle their tome, eight hundred and fifty plus pages though it may be, "The Life" as do authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith: Van Gogh: The Life.  "The Life" suggests that here the readers finally have the definitive version, the last word—everything we ever wanted to know about what was surely one of the most tortured of lives.  Clearly that is not the case.  For all its length and detail, it postulates a controversial theory of the artist's death which is sure to raise at least some hackles and generate some biographical blowback.  "Van Gogh: A Life" might have been a more appropriate title.

Viewers of 60 Minutes are most likely acquainted with the authors' theory about Van Gogh's death.  Long thought to have been a suicide,  Naifeh and Smith treat that idea as little more than a tall tale made legend by Irving Stone's novelization and the film that followed, Lust for Life, and a legend  filled  with holes.  While their arguments are presented with conviction, they are arguments, even though they have been around for some time, by no means accepted by all Van Gogh scholars.

Based primarily on a prior scholar's 1956 interviews with Rene Secretan, an octogenarian who came forward near the end of his life to explain his own role in the painter's 1890 death in what he claimed was an attempt to correct some of the romantic liberties taken in the film.  Although Secretan doesn't seem to have confessed to anything other than harassing the painter whom he and his young friends considered nothing short of a crazy man, he did have access to the kind of gun that people thought must have been the weapon Van Gogh used, a weapon that was never found.  Add to this a lot of circumstantial evidence including the facts that none of the painter's equipment was found at the site where he supposedly shot himself, the peculiarity of trying to commit suicide by shooting yourself in the stomach, Van Gogh's somewhat less than adequate statements about what he did, as well as a number of other tidbits, and you've got the makings of a case. 

A case at least for an accident—Secretan was hassling the painter and the gun went off.  He was frightened and ran off.  The authors never really accuse the young man of actually murdering the painter, but they are clearly of the opinion that however it happened, it was Secretan and his gun that were involved.  Their theory may convince some, it may not others; one thing for sure, it will sell books.

In general, the picture they paint of the artist is not very flattering.  For most of his life he is shown as demanding and self absorbed to the point that he was completely unable to get along with anyone, be it family, friends or fellow artists.  Even his brother Theo who supported him for most of his adult life was unable to deal effectively with his extravagant demands both financially as well as emotionally.  Certainly though many of his problems were the result of his mental state, the Van Gogh pictured in this book would have tested the patience of a saint, let alone a normal human being. 

Strange behavior is often tolerated in great artists.  It is the price you have to pay for genius.  Van Gogh's problem was that not until the last few months of his life that his greatness was even begun to be recognized.  For most of his life, he was considered little more than a mad man.  His work was ridiculed.  His impassioned ideas were derided.  His behavior was outlandish.  Naifeh and Smith are meticulous in documenting the disasters that followed him from his early career working in art sales, his flirtation with religion, and his eventual devotion to art, but through it all Van Gogh is presented as such a head case that one has to wonder how it was he ever managed to create any of the masterworks for which he has become so loved.  Not only does one have to tolerate genius; one has to tolerate all those crazies who may turn out to be not so crazy after all.  If anything, the reader comes away from this life, recognizing that often there may be very little difference between genius and madness.

DVD Review: Art of the Western World

Article first published as DVD Review: Art of the Western World on Blogcritics.

If you're looking for a general introduction to the history of art in western civilization you can't do much better than Art of the Western World, a nine part documentary which appeared on PBS in 1989 and is now available on a three DVD set from Athena. Narrated by historian Michael Wood the series moves from the Greeks and Romans through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance right up to modern times with stops at every significant period in between. It looks at architecture, sculpture, painting and even some of the more modern forms like collages and installations. The whole set runs for 513 minutes, but even at that length, it covers a field so vast that it would be hard to do more than provide an overview, a kind of guide for further study. Still, in an accompanying bonus booklet, producer Perry Miller Adato insists that it is more than a simple introduction. With all the scholarly expertise gathered for each episode, he is confident that "it can supply students who already know the subject with new insights."

He may well be right. Recognizing the impossibility of showing the viewer everything of importance in any given period, the filmmakers have chosen to spend their time focusing on several representative examples in greater detail. They pay some attention to other pieces to give some idea of the breadth of period, but their focus is on specific works and their place in the culture of the period. For example, in the episode on the classical ideal in Greece they feature the Parthenon, for the Gothic period, the cathedral at Chartres, the early Renaissance, Donatello's statue of David. Later episodes take intensive looks at David's "Death of Marat, "Seurat's Pointillist masterpiece, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," and Picasso's revolutionary Cubist innovation, "Les demoiselles d'avignon." Concentrating their efforts in this way allows them the kind of close analysis that often yields "new insights." One may not always agree with their choices, but none seems completely egregious.

Rather than cluttering up the screen with talking heads, they generally find one or two experts on any given episode —professors, curators, art historians—to explain the significance of what we are being shown. For the most part their choices are excellent, not only do they know their stuff, but their explanations are usually lucid and their presentations are quite animated. This is not to say that some of their commentary is not open to question, what discussion of art is not subject to opinion. Watching Robin Middleton from Columbia University romping around Syon House is nothing if not entertaining. Listening to Griselda Pollock's Feminist critique of 19^th century French female nudes is illuminating. Italian art historian Germano Celant's assertion that post-modern art demands faith from its audience in the same way that religion does, if a work is in a museum you have to have faith that it belongs there, is nothing if not controversial. Wood, himself, is an engaging host who projects his own sense of the import of his subject.

The central thesis of the series demonstrates the relationship between a work of art and the social values of the culture in which it is produced. In monarchial societies portraits of rulers show them on rearing horses controlling them with one hand it emphasize their power. Formal gardens surrounding neo-classical buildings in the age of reason point to the culture's passion for order in the universe. Genre painting develops from a desire to mythologize the ordinary. Pop art emerges as a critique of consumerism. Certainly some of the specifics are open to objection, but the general notion that a work of art is some in some central way a product of the environment in which it is created is undeniable.

Since the series is over twenty years old, there are occasional problems with the picture quality, but these are few and far between and there are some spectacular shots of works of art that more than make up for them. They linger over paintings, panning slowly to catch as much detail as possible. They circle free standing statues to illustrate their every curve and angle. They roam through and around the great architectural monuments of the world. They use the camera to document the environment surrounding the work. Often they show something of the settings and scenery that provided the artist's inspiration. If the color might have been better in a shot or two, it is never so bad for so long that it becomes anything more than a minor annoyance.

As PBS documentaries go, Art of the Western World is one of the best. It manages to paint a cogent picture of an extremely large subject without oversimplifying it and talking down to the audience. Moreover it allows viewers a taste of the variety of art that may well have them hungering for more, no mean accomplishment.