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The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeksin Provence |  | Author: Martin Gayford
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 560116
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0618990585
Dewey Decimal Number: 759.9492
EAN: 9780618990580
ASIN: 0618990585
Publication Date: April 24, 2008
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| • | Hardcover - The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles | | • | Paperback - The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeksin Provence | | • | Hardcover - The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles | | • | Paperback - The Yellow House | | • | Hardcover - The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles | | • | Kindle Edition - The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles |
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Product Description
From October to December of 1888, Paul Gauguin shared a yellow house in the south of France with Vincent van Gogh. They were the odd couple of the art world -- one calm, the other volatile -- and the denouement of their living arrangement was explosive. Making use of new evidence and Van Gogh’s voluminous correspondence, Martin Gayford describes not only how these two hallowed artists painted and exchanged ideas, but also the texture of their everyday lives. Gayford also makes a persuasive analysis of Van Gogh’s mental illness -- the probable bipolar affliction that led him to commit suicide at the age of thirty-seven. The Yellow House is a singular biographical work, as dramatic and vibrant as the work of these brilliant artists.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
 Vincent and Paul March 3, 2007
Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
A greatly enjoyable book. While focussed on just nine weeks in Arles, the narriative darts back and forth over the past lives of Van Gogh and Gauguin in the attempt to explain their specific actions that took place in and around the famous Yellow House.
Martin Gayford does not claim to have written an academic history, but one attempting to shed clarifying light on the actual motivations, thoughts and techniques that resulted in some of the Western world's greatest art. I think the author succeeded in his objective.
Well-Researched Art Biography December 12, 2006
Wantz Upon A Time Reviews (Chicago)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
Most people have heard of Vincent Van Gogh, the famous--or infamous--nineteenth-century artist. He's the one who painted Starry Night and various Sowers and Sunflowers, among a very few. But he is also notorious as the deranged artist who cut off his ear in 1888.
What lead to this act of self-mutilation, this event known as "the Crisis"? In the weeks leading up to the Crisis, Van Gogh shared a cramped studio with another renowned artist, Paul Gauguin. Located in the southern French town of Arles, the Yellow House became the setting for one of art history's oddest pairings.
In hopes of changing the future of art, Van Gogh and Gauguin agreed to a period of collaboration. Great things indeed happened. But with such disparate personalities, the idyll of the artists' dream didn't last.
Martin Gayford presents an intimate look into a critical period in art history. Dogged research not only into letters written by Van Gogh and Gauguin, but through public records and more, has allowed Gayford to surmise what daily life must have been like for the two artists that autumn.
Art enthusiasts interested in either artist's story will find THE YELLOW HOUSE a fascinating study. Casual purveyors, however, might find their attention wanders when Gayford gets into minute details that mean more to an artist than the average person, such as the weather on a given day. Overall, this accounting of "nine turbulent weeks in Arles" is well done. It is less dry than many biographies, and there is a real sense of the rise and fall of the Yellow House studio, and the enormous emotional impact on all those involved.
This is a definite recommendation for readers interested in Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and/or art from that period. Readers who are only interested in the Crisis may be surprised to learn a lot more than they expect, as well.
Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
12/11/2006
4.5-Books on WUAT = S-Stars on Amazon
Two Giants Make House Together March 14, 2007
R. Hardy (Columbus, Mississippi USA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
One of the most famous episodes of disastrous behavior by an artist is the tormented Vincent van Gogh's cutting off his ear. People who don't know anything else about the artist, or anything about art, know about the spectacular self-mutilation. There is more to the story, of course, and the excision of the ear is certainly not the most important part of van Gogh's life, but it did provide a climax to an important episode in that life, the collaboration between van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. In _The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles_ (Little, Brown), art critic Martin Gayford has recreated almost a day-by-day account of the time the two painters lived together, painted together, stimulated one another, and got on each other's nerves. It is a period that art historians have probed ever since van Gogh's postmortem fame, and while there have been recent discoveries made about details of the collaboration, Gayford's book in its chronological account gets close inside the minds of the two giants as they muddled their way through their period as housemates. Though Gayford tells in abbreviated form about what went on in their lives before and after their sharing of the Yellow House, the concentration on this particular period is wonderfully illuminating.
Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888, and on his walks spied the Yellow House, which he leased for five months. He was well known as a loner, but he had long dreamed of making a colony for artists who would collaborate together; it wasn't that they would work jointly on their canvases, but they would "live and paint together - different in individual style but sharing a common aim, exchanging ideas, commenting on each other's work." Vincent's brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris who lent support in multiple ways to his brother, hoped that it would be good for Vincent to have a companion, and offered Gauguin, whose paintings Theo brokered, a stipend to move in. Shortly after Gauguin's arrival, they proceeded out to paint the autumn foliage of Arles. They would carry out their gear, set up a few yards from each other, and work simultaneously on parallel subjects. There are thus fascinating pairs of paintings to show what the two artists made of the same subject. They talked about their work, they criticized and praised, and for the first weeks all was well. Gradually, however, van Gogh began to behave in ways that Gauguin could not accept or change. The exact reason for van Gogh's peculiar behavior has been retrospectively diagnosed with a dozen maladies, but Gayford makes the case (already made by others) that van Gogh had bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depression). In the particular case of the Yellow House there were other strains. "The claustrophobic pattern of life," writes Gayford, "would have put a strain on the most phlegmatic pair of friends."
Toward the end of the collaboration, van Gogh was strained by the chromatic complexities of his portrait _La Berceuse_. He was drinking, and alcohol always made him more erratic, and he was worried about Gauguin's departure; Gauguin had written to Theo, "Vincent and I are absolutely unable to live side by side without trouble caused by incompatibility of temperament and he like I needs tranquility for his work. He is a man of remarkable intelligence whom I esteem greatly, and I leave with regret, but it is necessary." Van Gogh had taken to wandering at night and winding up near Gauguin's bed, disconcerting his companion. At one point, after consuming an absinthe, van Gogh hurled the glass at Gauguin. On 23 December, van Gogh rushed menacingly in the dark upon Gauguin, and (if the report of the latter is to be believed) did so with a straight razor. Gauguin escaped to a hotel, van Gogh returned home, took the razor, and sliced off his ear. Gayford analyzes possible sources for the self-mutilation, from the Gethsemane story to a newspaper report about Jack the Ripper cutting off the ears of one of his victims. The police were called to the Yellow House to pack van Gogh off the to hospital, where in his delirium he called repeatedly for Gauguin. Gauguin, however, claimed that a visit would make things worse, and left for Paris; they never saw each other again. Gauguin indeed was off to the tropics, and van Gogh was off for a year and a half of hospitalizations and remissions and astonishing productivity, ending in his suicide. Gayford's account measures each day and week in the collaboration with fitting detail, and always concentrates on the paintings that the two men produced during the time. It is the paintings, of course, that matter, not the incivility, neuroses, or madness of the painters. Van Gogh himself declared, "Old Gauguin and I understand each other basically, and if we are a bit mad, what of it?"
Delightful! May 14, 2009
Taylor H. (north metro Atlanta)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I accidently got this book thinking it was something else, but am so glad for that mistake because this is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. It truly moves you in every way. If you didn't hold Vincent dear in your heart before, you surely will after reading this, and will carry him with you for the rest of your life.
Loved it December 13, 2009
Mathew D. Kuehl (Minneapolis, MN)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was a brilliant book. I have not looked at a Van Gogh or a Gauguin painting the same ever since I read this. If you are curious about Van Gogh's "hygenic" ways this is an excellent choice to investigate the question. There are choice quotes and if you have Dutch ancestry like myself, you will find enjoyment in this book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
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