Van Gogh and Gauguin: Electric Arguments and Utopian Dreams

Bradley Collins's Van Gogh and Gauguin is a psychoanalyst's interpretation of the relationship between the two artists, especially during the months in 1888 they spent living in the same house in Arles, southern France. The intensity of their time together is indicated by the way it ended, with van Gogh cutting off his ear after a violent argument with Gauguin, presenting it to a prostitute, and returning home to sleep in his own blood. Gauguin fled to Paris, and they never met again, though they exchanged several letters before van Gogh's suicide 18 months later. Both men's descriptions of their experience are vague and self-serving, and what really happened in Arles has eluded researchers. Collins takes paintings by the artists and the known facts of their relationship and offers psychological insights into their temperaments and motivations. He begins with narratives of their careers to 1888, then describes what drew them together and van Gogh's desire to establish an idealized art community. Collins tells his story well, analyzing the artists' different expectations and frustrations and the effect they had on each other's art. His explanations are persuasive, and they help us understand two brilliant but willful and ultimately tragic characters. --John Stevenson