Vincent Van Gogh: The Asylum Year

Edwin Mullins

ISBN 10: 1910065536 / ISBN 13: 9781910065532

Published by Unicorn Publishing Group, 2015

About this Item

On May 8th 1889 Vincent Van Gogh was admitted to a mental asylum near St.-Remy-de Provence where he remained as a voluntary patient until May the following year. Throughout the year, Van Gogh enjoyed a continuous dialogue with his brother about his art, his mental condition, his hopes and ambitions, and from time to time his despair and sense of failure. The asylum year saw Vincent at his most raw and needy, but also at his most creative - turning out the equivalent of a masterpiece a day. This book offers an account, month by month, of that crucial penultimate chapter in Van Gogh's life. It is separated from the other chapters in the artist's life because although treated in all the numerous biographies it is none the less a self-contained episode, a play within a play, with a shape and dynamic of its own. Excellent quality reproductions of his paintings and sketches, contains over 100 colour images.

Seller Inventory # CIN1910065536VG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Vincent Van Gogh: The Asylum Year
• Publisher: Unicorn Publishing Group
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1910065536
• ISBN 13: 9781910065532
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

On May 8, 1889, Vincent van Gogh committed himself to the Saint Paul Asylum in Saint-Rémy, an isolated estate where he remained as a voluntary patient for a full year. Throughout this time, Van Gogh kept up a continuous correspondence with his brother Theo about his art, mental condition, hopes, and ambitions, along with his despair and sense of failure. His asylum year was Van Gogh’s most raw and desperate period, yet also his most creative, producing nearly a masterpiece a day. He painted many of his most famous works at the asylum, such as The Round of the Prisoners, Sorrowing Old Man, and Starry Night.

In Van Gogh: The Asylum Year, Edwin Mullins offers a month-by-month account of that crucial penultimate chapter in Van Gogh’s life. Mullins examines this period as a self-contained episode, unique within the history of Van Gogh's artistic genius. Containing an excellent variety of paintings and sketches from that year, correspondence with his brother, and extensive biographical and historical material, this book is a magnificent study of this most impassioned and prolific year.

About the Author

Edwin Mullins is an author and broadcaster who served for years as the regular art critic for the Sunday Telegraph and Daily Telegraph. He has written many books on art, including Alfred Wallis: Cornish Primitive Painter and Van Gogh: The Asylum Years.