Product Description

No artist has been more ruthlessly driven by his creative urge, nor more isolated by it from most ordinary sources of human happiness, than Vincent Van Gogh. A painter of genius, his life was an incessant struggle against poverty, discouragement, madness and despair. Lust for Life skilfully captures the exciting atmosphere of the Paris of the Post-Impressionists and reconstructs with great insight the development of Van Gogh's art. The painter is brought to life not only as an artist but as a personality and this account of his violent, vivid and tormented life is a novel of rare compassion and vitality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46819 in Books
• Published on: 1990-02-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 430 pages

From the Back Cover
The classic fictional biography of Vincent Van Gogh. No artist was ever more ruthlessly driven by his creative urge, nor more isolated by it from most ordinary sources of human happiness, than Van Gogh. A painter of genius, his life was an incessant struggle against poverty, discouragement, madness and despair.
Lust for Life skilfully captures the exciting atmosphere of the Paris of the Post-Impressionists and reconstructs with great insight the development of Van Gogh's art. The painter is brought to life not only as an artist but as a personality and this account of his violent, vivid and tormented life is a novel of rare compassion and vitality.

About the Author
Irving Stone was born in San Francisco in 1903 and received his B. A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1923 and his Master's degree from the University of Southern California in 1924. He wrote plays and supported himself by writing detective stories until the publication of Lust for Life, his first novel, in 1934. Stone called his work 'bio-history' and based his novels on meticulous and extensive research into the lives of the historical characters at the heart of his novels. He married his editor, Jean Factor, in 1934. He founded the Academy of American Poets in 1962. He died in Los Angeles in 1989.

Customer Reviews

Stone's Most Successful Bio
Irving Stone is not a "great" biographer. He doesn't provide copious bibliographic details or even pretend particularly to serious scholarship. But he does do his research. What Stone is is a very good storyteller. And the stories he tells, whether about Jack London, Heinrich Schleimann, Michelangelo or Freud, have always entertained and (yes) enriched me.

Van Gogh's biography, and it's companion-piece, Dear Theo, are particularly moving accounts of that great, tragic painter. I doubt if any artist ever despaired as deeply or more profoundly than Vincent. Stone captures the pathos of Van Gogh's few moments of exhiliration, followed always by days of dissilusionment and depression. Van Gogh was the saint and prototype of all struggling artists. The penury and neglect he suffered through shouldn't have to be endured by the mangiest stray animal.

It's one of God's great ironies (Faulkner's cosmic jester?) that Van Gogh's works are bought by Japanese investors and museum collections for umptold millions, whereas their creator, having climbed down to the last rung of despair, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

If you enjoy this book as much as I did, read Dear Theo. It reveals the extraordinarly tender love the two Van Gogh brothers had for each other. Theo was basically Vincent's sole means of support during the artists's latter years. Unfortunately, Theo was living in boderline poverty himself, had a family, and thus couldn't give much to Vincent save for a little bit of money and a great deal of moral encouragement.

Both of these books are infinitely sad, yet the redeeming aspect is that Vincent didn't live his life in vain, as he thought, and that the body of work which has survived ( many paintings were painted over - canvas was a luxury) is a testament to his genius.

The life & work of Van Gogh
This is a good summary of the life on Vincent Van Gogh. I read this book to get some background for an upcoming vist to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, and it didn't disapoint. I would say that 90% of the things that happen in the book are true, the other 10% is made up of likely to occur dialog between Van Gogh and the other characters. Irving Stone did a great job of capturing the emotions of Vincent as he slowly progressed to madness. Also, as I hoped, the story is very focused in the art and how it developed throughout his life. If you are a Van Gogh fan or looking for a good introduction to his life and work, then this book is great. I can see how it would be boring for the person with no motivation to read it.

It is autibiogrpahy of Vincent van gogh.
It is a very beautiful book and how the writer has narrated the incidents are amazing beautiful. The realtionship between van gogh and his brother is brought out beautifully in this book. I have read 3 times this book and it is truely inspirational. Infact this book lead me to read all books of Irving stone. Some of which i have read more than 2 times.