November 24, 2016

VAN GOGH’S SKETCHBOOK?Vincent van Gogh is one of the world’s most famous artists. He never had much money. During his lifetime Van Gogh did not sell any of his paintings. It’s said that he swapped one picture for some food and other things. Nowadays, the art-ist’s paintings sell for many millions of dollars.

On November 15, a new book was published. It’s called Vincent van Gogh: The Lost Arles Sketch-book. The book contains 65 sketch-es, or drawings, that have recently been discovered. The author is a professor who works at a university in Canada. She is an art expert and Van Gogh scholar. On the same day, officials from the Van Gogh Mu-seum made an announcement. They declared that the drawings in the book were imitations, or fakes. The Van Gogh Museum is in Amster-dam, the Netherlands’ capital city.

Vincent van Gogh self-portrait painted in 1887 (Art Institute of Chicago)

Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890) came from the Netherlands. For his time, he was an unusual painter. Van Gogh liked to use very bright colors, especially yellows. He suf-fered from anxiety and mental health problems. For the last ten years of his life Van Gogh moved to the city

of Arles, in the south of France. He hoped that the warmer weather in this part of Europe would improve his health.

The artist had a brother called Theo. He lived in Paris, the French capital. They frequently wrote let-ters to each other. Van Gogh relied on his brother for money and help with his mental problems. Van Gogh is famous for having cut off part of his own ear. This happened after he and a friend, Paul Gauguin, argued. Gauguin (1848 – 1903) is a well-known French artist.

Self-portrait drawing from the recently discovered sketchbook (Editions du Seuil)

Van Gogh continued to suffer from mental health problems. In 1890, he went to a field and shot himself in the chest. The artist died a few days later, aged 37. After van Gogh’s death, ownership of all his paintings passed to Theo. Van Gogh created over 2,000 artworks. About 850 are oil paintings. These include: portraits, self-portraits, landscapes, and still life pictures. Some of van Gogh’s most famous still life paint-ings are of sunflowers.

The book’s author claims that all the drawings come from a sin-gle sketchbook. For a time, while he lived in Arles, Van Gogh stayed

at a local café. The sketchbook, the author says, was given to van Gogh by the owners of the café. In 1889, because of his mental illness, Van Gogh went to live in an asylum. It was not far from Arles. The follow-ing year the artist moved to a home not far from Paris. He did this to be closer to his brother. Also, the doctor who owned the home often looked after artists. Two months later, Van Gogh killed himself. The book’s au-thor claims that before the artist left Arles, he gave several items to the café owners. The sketchbook was one of them.

Later, another family bought the café. The mother of the person who owns the sketchbook married into this family. She had no interest in art and left the book in a cupboard. Eventually, when her daughter was 20, she gave her the sketchbook. This person is the sketchbook’s owner. The sketchbook contains a self-portrait and a picture of Gauguin. It also includes what looks like landscapes of the countryside near Arles.

Officials at the Van Gogh Mu-seum insist that the sketches do not match Van Gogh’s style. What’s more, they say that the drawings were done in a type of ink that he did not use. The museum officials also think that the story of the sketch-book being left in a cupboard for many years is unlikely. Yet several art experts believe that the drawings are Van Gogh’s work. If so, they are worth many millions of dollars.