I want to talk about a book that impressed me very much in my childhood: Irving Stone's novel "Lust for Life", a book about Vincent Van Gogh. This book inspired me very much in childhood and when I studied at art school, I often recalled the life of a great artist.
Van Gogh has a tragic biography. This is a biography of a man who is not only famous for his misfortunes, he also has a very long, tortuous life. He had a complex biography and mental illness - this is only part of his creative path. Irving Stone talks about all this in detail and very emotionally.
This is a novel, not a documentary biography, but it is based on a lot of documents left from Van Gogh. The fact is that he received letters from us to his elder brother Theo Van Gogh, who was the "guardian angel" of Vincent Van Gogh, helped his whole life in all his endeavors and supported financially.
Van Gogh had only two passions in life and at the very beginning of this book, tells about a break between these passions, the transformation of a man who turned from a priest into an artist. Of course, "Lust for Life" is a great novel, there are many things there, but I will tell only about its beginning.
Van Gogh studied long and hard on the priest, the Protestant pastor. He studied the ancient languages, studied the Bible and finally, after incredible efforts, he managed to contain the exam, he got the right to serve the Mass and went to Borinazh.
Borinage is a mining community (city). This is one of the most terrible places that a person can only imagine. This is the place where people work in inhuman conditions and work in mortal danger, for absolutely tiny money, without a gleam, without the slightest hope to change their destiny and somehow "get out on the surface". "This is the new Egypt," as Irving Stone calls it, Van Gogh called it, the place where suffering has become a routine affair, they do not surprise anybody, this poor miner does not represent another life to himself. They have Van Gogh and became a pastor.
A huge impression is made, as for the first time Van Gogh descends with his wards into the mine. Several pages take a description, in fact, I now looked it very short, but when I first read the book, it seemed to me incredibly long. Describes how they descend in the cage along the vertical trunk of the mine, pass through the upper horizons, which are well ventilated and can still go full-length. Then descend to a lower horizon, the temperature rises, it becomes more difficult to breathe because of the coal dust that clogs the lungs. They descend along a narrow staircase, along vertical wells to the lower horizon, they literally creep around each other over their heads with a chain and if the upper one breaks, it will simply kill those below. And finally they come to the places where coal is mined. There, mine corridors and transitions are so low that a person can move at best in a belt or on all fours, or even crawl. It's so hot there that the hot air rushes into your lungs. And after that, having risen to the surface, Van Gogh could no longer treat these believers as ordinary people who worked on the hard and dangerous work, which he served with his ministry.
It is very interesting to describe how he came to this village for the first time. He took a completely clean room, with a bed, with bed linen, with a washbasin. And after many trials, he could no longer live in this hired room. He moved closer to the miners, to the same shack where there was a bed with a mattress without bed linen and where he was as black as his wards, since coal dust was never washed from birth to death. Describes his path to the priest's field, when he tried to live, like these miners, trying to give them hope. And they accepted him, they considered him their own, they completely trusted him.
Then, there was a catastrophe, which often occurs in mines and nowadays - a huge number of miners died. And during the funeral Mass, when the first tribulation had already passed, the first horror, while reading the sermon to the miserable, exhausted people, Van Gogh was caught by some commission, who came to see how he was serving in Borizage. And this commission immediately deprives him of the right to serve, because the priest must be a clean, neat person who keeps himself with dignity, serves, uses books. Vincent did not have any books for a long time, he read his sermons on the only gospel. Everything was sold, the proceeds were distributed to widows and orphans, who remained after the tragedy. He has long been no longer a model of the pastor, as they themselves imagined: very prosperous, well-bred and respectable people. He is black as these miners, he is dressed the same way, he is in this crib, which was reserved for the meeting, serves them mass, reads sermons, says words of consolation.
Further, there follows a colossal emotional crisis from which Vincent Van Gogh is selected by drawing on. He begins to draw miners, drawings fill his letters to his brother, the artist's birth begins. And after a few years, having overcome this deep crisis, he realizes that his true vocation is not a belief in a god that has already been lost, but faith in art. It is painting, drawing, becomes his heat, ardor, becomes his vocation.
Then - an acquaintance with the Impressionists. The next chapter of the book, which turns everything upside down, because Van Gogh completely changes his technique, his taste, his manner of drawing. All that he, self-taught, managed to accumulate by the time he met the impressionists, everything is going away. Bright colors appear, a smear appears, and an incredible vision appears. That is, everything that was hidden or existed in the rudiments, finally blossoms.
Still, of course, there will be still a lot of trials, disappointments, poverty, absolute misunderstanding on the part of the public. I would even say - complete deafness, when the artist does not see anything in response to his work. None of his paintings, until the very last days, was bought. Let's not forget that he wrote, created without any response, it was supported only by Theo Van Gogh and friends by artists. Only one of his paintings was sold, but he did not have time to find out about it, because he was already at the clinic, in a madhouse.
You learn a lot about the life of the artist, you will learn from the Irving Stone novel about what creativity is, what forces are needed for it, what motivates a person. All this, very much changes your attitude to pictures, to music, to books that you will later read. Behind each of these things, there is a whole human life full of suffering, effort, disappointment, ups and downs, all that sensation that appears at the end of the novel. You understand how exactly all this was presented to you, what it all cost, to the artist, his family, and the whole world that surrounds you. Something very important about life you learn from such seemingly simple biographical novels.
The life of Van Gogh in Irving Stone's novel is a very instructive thing. That's how it was all created, that's how these masterpieces, which we will admire after centuries, appeared. Read and enjoy.
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