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Description |
From October to December 1888, Paul Gauguin shared a home in Arles with
Vincent van Gogh. This was, without doubt, the most celebrated cohabitation
in art history: never, before or since have two such towering artistic
talents been penned up in so small a space. They were the Odd Couple of art
history. Predictably, the results were explosive. The denouement of their
life together has entered into folk lore. Two months after Gauguin arrived
in Arles, Van Gogh suffered a psychological crisis. He spent most of the
rest of his life in a mental institution. Gauguin fled from Arles, and they
never saw each other again. But in the brief period during which they worked
together a stream of masterpieces was created within the studio they shared,
including Van Gogh's paintings of his own chair and Gauguin's. Meanwhile his
Sunflowers decorated Gauguin's bedroom wall. Here for the first time, the
full story of their life together is told. Making use of fresh research and
new evidence, Martin Gayford describes not only how they painted and
exchanged ideas, but also the texture of their everyday life. As well as the
great pictures, he considers the way these two geniuses cooked, and drank,
their clothes and daily routine - and also their inner thoughts, hopes,
fears and dreams. The book culminates in a persuasive analysis of Van Gogh's
mental illness and the swirling thoughts that led him to slice off an ear
and present it to a prostitute. This is a novel type of biography, more
drama than epic. Its aim is to put you, the reader, inside the little
four-roomed dwelling which these two turbulent men inhabited: the Yellow
House. |
