Hot Off the Shelf: Vincent's Books by Mariella Guzzoni

[image description: A white hand holding a copy of Vincent’s Books: Van Gogh and the Writers Who Inspired Him by Mariella Guzzoni in front of a wooden door. The book cover has a border of some of Vincent Van Gogh’s favorite books and the title and a picture of Vincent on a yellow box in the center.]

Before the pandemic, I loved going to museums. I went to everything from the Louvre to the National Railroad Museum to the Cullman County Museum. No matter how big or small, if there was a building with “museum” on the outside, I wanted to go in.

At art museums in particular, I’d always keep an eye out for Van Goghs. Yes, because he’s one of the more iconic artists, but also because his style is so unique as to be easily recognizable in a lot of cases, at least with his later works. Yet even as I sought out his art, the man himself was shrouded in mystery. I knew he chopped his ear off to woo a lover and died young, though I never bothered to learn more about him.

Until I got a copy of Vincent’s Books: Van Gogh and the Writers Who Inspired Him by Mariella Guzzoni from The University of Chicago Press. Lucky me, I won it on Instagram!

First, I have to point out that this is a gorgeous book. There are photos on nearly every other page showing the books Van Gogh was reading at the time and how that influenced his art. Nothing quite gripes my ass like an art book that doesn’t show you the art. Seriously, don’t make me run to google, pulling myself out of the story, so I can visualize the art being discussed. I’m happy to say this book doesn’t disappoint.

It’s also fascinating because you can tell a lot about a person by what they read. You can get insight as to what they’re interested in and what they’re thinking about in the moment. This was interesting to map in Van Gogh’s case because he went from being extremely devoted to his religion to having his faith shaken by the poverty and hunger he saw and his reading reflected this.

What the author did especially well was including excerpts from Van Gogh’s letters to his younger brother. They were close and his brother supported him financially while Van Gogh was building his art career. They wrote letters to each other constantly, with Van Gogh often telling his brother what he was reading, what he thought about it, and how it influenced his mental health and his art.

One especially cool thing that I didn’t know about Van Gogh before was that he painted a lot of portraits of people reading, as well as still lifes of books. And in many cases, he renders the books true to life and made them the actual books he was reading at the time. So he paints the covers as they actually appear in real life and we know this because the title and author are written clearly in the paintings. I was so struck by the book-themed paintings that I’m tempted to get prints of them to hang in my house.

I would’ve liked for the book to go more deeply into Van Gogh’s failing sanity toward the end of his life, though since the focus was on the books that inspired Van Gogh and he wasn’t reading as prolifically during his breakdowns, it makes sense.

While I love learning, these days I’m a casual learner. I seek out info on the things that interest me and I’d prefer them to be packaged in an accessible format (such as a book you can buy, written in plainspoken language) than a purely academic format (such as articles published in academic journals written in language that an average person might struggle with). I’m glad to say Vincent’s Books was a nice romp through art history and was just what I wanted. It’s an excellent read for the casual and studious art lovers alike.