Vincent van Gogh was a great reader. He is often portrayed as a tortured artist working in isolation and poverty, but that's only one side of his character. Although it's true that his mercurial temperament alienated many friends and made him sometimes shy of making new ones, he was naturally gregarious and loved to engage with people and ideas. He was an enthusiastic letter-writer and sent frequent and detailed letters to his brother Theo, detailing his work, life, the weather, artwork he'd seen, and books he was reading. He was fluent in English, Dutch, and French, so he read works in all three languages and frequently told Theo about the latest book he was reading (or re-reading). Although Vincent enjoyed reading just about anything, from the Bible to philosophy to the classics, he particularly enjoyed a good novel, and some favorite authors of his were Dickens, Hugo, Shakespeare, Zola, and Eliot. As a creative who was fluent at putting his thoughts on paper, it's fascinating to have an insight into the way he thought about the art of writing a story in comparison with the art of painting.
He enjoyed the ability of authors to capture a scene with words - "I'm still under the spell of Zola's books. How painted those Halles are." (Letter 251, the Letters of Vincent van Gogh). Zola and Dickens were two authors whose descriptive abilities he particularly admired. "I have my perspective books here and a few volumes of Dickens, including Edwin Drood. There's perspective in Dickens too. By Jove, what an artist. There's no one to match him." (Letter 238, the Letters of Vincent van Gogh)
As someone who was constantly looking at artists he admired as well as reading, in his letters to Theo he would frequently compare a novelist to a painter who evoked the same emotions. " . . . there's something of Rembrandt in Shakespeare and something of Correggio or Sarto in Michelet, and something of Delacroix in Victor Hugo, and in Beecher Stowe there's something of Ary Scheffer. And in Bunyan there's something of M. Maris or of Millet, a reality more real than reality, so to speak, but you have to know how to read him; then there are extraordinary things in him, and he knows how to say inexpressible things; and then there's something of Rembrandt in the Gospels or of the Gospels in Rembrandt, as you wish. . . If now you can forgive a man for going more deeply into paintings, admit also that the love of books is as holy as that of Rembrandt, and I even think that the two complement each other."
Finally, who could resist the comparison of Shakespeare's use of the English language to the way a master artist handles his brush? "Shakespeare - who is as mysterious as he? - his language and his way of doing things are surely the equal of any brush trembling with fever and emotion. But one has to learn to read, as one has to learn to see and learn to live." (Letter 155, the Letters of Vincent Van Gogh)
Quotes from van Gogh's letters courtesy of vangoghletters.org.
