Nienke Bakker

Hans Luijten

Leo Jansen

A remarkable selection covering all aspects of Vincent van Gogh's life and offering valuable new insights into the creative process behind his many famous works.

A Life in Letters

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Goghs letters have long been prized as some of the most valuable documents in the world of art. Not only do they throw light on Van Goghs own complex and intriguing character, they enlighten the whole creative process as seen through his eyes. Here we can observe Van Goghs thoughts and opinions at first hand, as well as his close ties with his brother Theo, his sometimes troubled relationships with friends and fellow artists, his personal doubts and fears, and above all his overriding passion for his art. This is not only an immense treasure trove of biographical and art-historical information, it provides a lasting pleasure as a personal written testimony to a life consecrated to art. Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters belongs on the shelves of every reader in search of self-revelatory documents of one of the greatest creative minds.

Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters

a life in letters

Vincent van Gogh

This groundbreaking publication, a companion to Van Gogh at Work (see opposite), shows how the artist experimented with an enormous range of materials and techniques in his paintings and drawings. The result of an extensive research project carried out by the Van Gogh Museum, Shell, and the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, this book discusses the artist's decisions to work with certain supports, priming layers, pigments, and inks, all of which had a profound effect on his final works. Also included are vast amounts of new information concerning van Gogh's resources, working conditions, and methods as well as potential influences on his work. Presented in detail is an overview of art that Van Gogh saw in exhibitions, handbooks he was able to acquire, and the materials and tools available at the time. The combination of art historical, scientific, and technical knowledge provides a better sense of how Van Gogh's artwork originally looked, encouraging reconsideration of future conservation efforts.

Van Gogh's Studio Practice

Philip Vergragt

Paul Weaver

Geert van Grootveld

Egbert van Spiegel

In the time it takes to read this sentence, about fifteen people will be added to the world's population. Read the sentence again, and there will be thirty. Tomorrow, each of these people will be demanding greater prosperity. Production and consumption are increasing fast but will have to grow even faster in the future to keep up with population growth and a world increasingly divided by inequality. How should we react to these trends? Certainly, many use growth figures to forecast disaster. But there is an alternative vision: one of a sustainable future, in which growth is seen not as a threat, but as the driving force behind innovation. This is the scenario worked out in the Netherlands by Sustainable Technology Development (STD), a five-year programme of research and "learning-by-doing" based on setting up new innovation networks and working with new methods to search for sustainable technological solutions. In order to make sustainability tangible, STD made a leap in time. What human needs will have to be satisfied fifty years from now? Taking a sustainable future vision as a starting point, STD demonstrated what steps we should take today for new technologies and systems to be in place in time. These results are now available for the first time in a comprehensive, specifically written English-language book, together with a description of the unique working method of STD and the results and key lessons from a set of the programme's illustrative case studies. This book serves as a manual for industry, governments and social leaders wanting to prepare themselves for a sustainable future. Sustainable Technology Development sets out the programme's underpinning philosophy and describes its approach, methods and findings. Delivering sustainability means finding ways to meet human needs using a fraction of the natural resources we use today. The world's richer nations would be wise to target at least ten-fold improvements by 2050 in the productivity with which conventional natural resources and environmental services are used. And they need to bring new, sustainable resources on-stream to augment the resource base and replace the use of unsustainable alternatives. Sustainable Technology Development marks a significant contribution to our understanding of innovation processes and how these might be influenced in favour of sustainable technology development. In principle, technology could play a pivotal role in sustainable development. Whether it does or not depends on whether innovators can be encouraged to make this an explicit goal, adopt long-term time-horizons and search for renewable technologies. Given the long lead-times involved, there is no time to waste in beginning the search. The STD programme has begun to make inroads into one of the most urgent of all needs concerning sustainable development: that for innovation in the innovation process itself.

Sustainable Technology Development

Sjraar Van Heugten

Chris Stolwijk

By juxtaposing these other artists' works with many of Vincent's most powerful and best-loved paintings, the exhibition reveals a fascinating dialogue between one artistic genius and his art historical predecessors.".

Exploring the Artist's Inner World

Van Gogh's Imaginary Museum

Marije Vellekoop

Louis van Tilborgh

Laura Prins

Being ill isn t a cause for joy, I nevertheless have no right to complain about it, for it seems to me that nature sees to it that illness is a means of getting us back on our feet, of healing us, rather than an absolute evil. --Vincent van Gogh to John Peter Russell, Saint-Remy-de-Provence, February 1, 1890"

Van Gogh and His Illness

On the Verge of Insanity

Ann Dumas

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is one of the greatest figures in Western art. Revered for his bold, expressionist paintings, he is also admired as a prodigious and eloquent letter writer. His correspondence displays a remarkable literary gift and an ability to communicate his ideas and feelings about nature, art, and life in direct, emotive language. Illustrated with works of art and letters that demonstrate Van Gogh’s abiding preoccupations--the role of color in painting, the cycles of nature, and friendship, for example--this fascinating book explores the correspondence as a self-portrait of the artist and the man. The letter-sketches that Van Gogh used to describe completed works or those in progress are reproduced here alongside the finished paintings or drawings, providing a unique insight into his artistic development. Drawing on new and extensive research, leading authorities on Van Gogh reveal how the letters enhance and shape our view of this modern master.

Leo Jansen

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