Vincent van Gogh by Meyer Schapiro is an art book that I spotted in a charity shop in October and picked up on a whim.
It seemed like a great idea to pick up for non-fiction November, and I’m glad that I read this one. It’s a collection of prints of many of van Gogh’s paintings, with analysis on the neighbouring page, and the book starts with a 30-40 page analysis of the painters life, techniques, and more.
The analysis next to each painting is very detailed and the author clearly has a lot of knowledge about the art. However, the writing was overly academic and therefore quite inaccessible for anyone not in that realm of study. It did bring my enjoyment down a fair bit, because it just isn’t fun to read someone’s pretentious sounding thoughts on a painting. But there were some really interesting insights and I’m still glad I have a collection of van Gogh’s prints.
On CAWPILE I rated this: Credability: 9, Authenticity: 7, Writing: 3, Personal Impact: 5, Intrigue: 4, Informativeness: 6, and Enjoyment: 6 giving an average of 5.71 and a 3* rating.
Highlight here for content warnings: mentions of van Gogh’s suicide, mental illness, death.
This isn’t a book that I’d recommend for everyone to go and pick up. But as someone who loves van Gogh’s paintings, this is a nice edition to my shelves
Abi of Pellinor 