Van Gogh – A Seething Power by Julian Bell: book review

Van Gogh: A Seething Power (2015) is a biography of artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) based on the artist’s letters to his brother Theo and others. 

After Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s 953-page biography Van Gogh: The Life (2011), what else is there to say? This 176-page book skims through everything. 

Quickly readers see van Gogh in 1877 in his early 20s, quitting his studies to become a pastor, as he says in a letter: ‘One sometimes gets the feeling, where am I? what am I doing? where am I going? and one starts to grow dizzy.’ Dashing to 1883 ‘the ever-hard-up, ever-fractious edge-of-town loner with the benefactor brother shuttled between various lines of artistic research.’

Decriptions of the artist’s days in Antwerp and Paris provide more of the author’s passion, if not detail, and more interest for readers as van Gogh experiences challenging brotherly ties with Theo, a deep friendship with fellow artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and tempestuous nights with Paul Gauguin. 

To 1888 and the solitude of the sea brings about van Gogh’s ‘colourist’ period, but also his troubles, as he cuts off part of his ear. Bell briefly elaborates on the breakdown years. Enter Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, his brother’s wife in 1890, who ‘more than any single person aside from Vincent and Theo themselves, was responsible for the iconic status that van Gogh now possesses.’ And so the biography becomes more interesting. 

There is still the question: why another Vincent van Gogh book? Julian Bell wrote the book because he loved ‘the letter writer of heart piercing eloquence.’ 

Bell’s premise is that there were three facets to Vincent van Gogh: the painter, the letter writer, and the social misfit ‘tearing a ragged course through the late nineteenth-century Netherlands and France.’ Bell’s objective is to present an interpretation of why van Gogh’s letters were often ‘at odds’ with what he ‘actually painted and with the record of his actions’ – the gap between the three facets of the man. 

Given that this biography gets rapidly to the point, it’s a quick read, like a sprint: quick out of the blocks, a period of slow motion, then the most exciting part at the last 10 metres – and it’s all over before you know it. Nevertheless, for van Gogh lovers, this is another perspective in understanding the man and his paintings. 

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).