Van Gogh Paintings: The Masterpieces

The volume explores the works in the context of Van Gogh’s short but brilliant career, in which frequent spells of isolation were paired with lively engagement with his peers and the popular ideas of his time. Additionally, Van Gogh’s continuous stream of letters written to family and friends—one of the most important archival resources of nineteenth-century art—provides a narrative thread around which this study develops. In the text, art historian Belinda Thomson considers Van Gogh as a cosmopolitan figure who combined his art experiences and native traditions absorbed in Holland and in Victorian England, and later succeeded in making his mark upon the painting scene in France at one of its richest periods.