Vincent van Gogh

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Dutch artist famous for starry nights and sunflowers, self portraits and simple chairs. These are images known the world over, and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) painted them and around 900 others in the last decade of his short, brilliant life and, famously, in that lifetime he made only one recorded sale. Yet within a few decades after his death these extraordinary works, with all their colour and life, became the most desirable of all modern art, propelled in part by the story of Vincent van Gogh's struggle with mental health.

With

Christopher Riopelle The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery

Martin Bailey A leading Van Gogh specialist and correspondent for The Art Newspaper

And

Frances Fowle Professor of Nineteenth Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator at National Galleries Scotland

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Martin Bailey, Living with Vincent Van Gogh: The Homes and Landscapes that shared the Artist (White Lion Publishing, 2019)

Martin Bailey, Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln, 2021)

Martin Bailey, Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln, 2021)

Nienke Bakker and Ella Hendriks, Van Gogh and the Sunflowers: A Masterpiece Examined (Van Gogh Museum, 2019)

Nienke Bakker, Emmanuel Coquery, Teio Meedendorp and Louis van Tilborgh (eds), Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months (Thames & Hudson, 2023)

Frances Fowle, Van Gogh's Twin: The Scottish Art Dealer Alexander Reid, 1854-1928 (National Galleries of Scotland, 2010)

Bregje Gerritse, The Potato Eaters: Van Gogh’s First Masterpiece (Van Gogh Museum, 2021)

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Van Gogh: The Life (Random House, 2012)

Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2009)

Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker (eds), Vincent van Gogh, A Life in Letters (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2020)

Hans Luitjen, Jo van Gogh Bonger: The Woman who Made Vincent Famous Bloomsbury, 2022

Louis van Tilborgh, Martin Bailey, Karen Serres (ed.), Van Gogh Self-Portraits (Courtauld Institute, 2022)

Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger, Van Gogh. The Complete Paintings (Taschen, 2022)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:05.0	This is in our time from BBC Radio 4,
0:07.6	and this is one of more than a thousand episodes
0:10.2	you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website.
0:13.0	If you scroll down the page for this edition,
0:15.0	you can find a reading list to go with it.
0:17.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:20.0	Hello, Starry Nights and Sunflowers, self-portraits and simple chairs. These are images
0:26.1	known the world over and Vincent Vangoff painted them and around 900 others in the last decade of his short brilliant life and famously by the time
0:36.8	he killed himself when he was only 37 he sold only one yet within a few decades after
0:42.4	his death these extraordinary works with all their
0:45.2	color and life became the most desirable of all modern art, propelled in part by the
0:50.4	story of his artist's struggle with mental health. With me to discuss Vincent Bank by the curator of post 1800 paintings at the National Gallery, Martin Bailey, a leading van
1:05.5	golf specialist and correspondent for the art newspaper, and Francis Fowl, professor of
1:11.5	19th century art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator
1:15.4	at the National Galbraise of Scotland.
1:17.8	Francis, what do we know about the early life of Vincent van Gogh.
1:21.6	Well, we know that a certain amount. Most of the
1:24.1	the knowledge we have of Vanguard is through the letters and unfortunately there
1:28.2	are obviously there's not much correspondence from that early period it's secondary information. So for example Yewangok Bonger who was
1:35.6	Theo Van Gogh's widow tells us that he was quite a difficult child and one can
1:40.6	assume from that that some of the kind of patterns which emerge in later life
	...

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