In the footsteps of Van Gogh

This combined biography/travelog chronicles the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh, "the most famous and best-loved of all painters," according to the author. Beautiful illustrations include color reproductions of some of the artist's paintings and photographs of buildings and scenery from his famous haunts such as Auvers-sur-Oise, Arles, and Paris. Many photographs are accompanied by passages from Van Gogh's letters, but it is irksome that the actual locations or subjects of some photographs are not more clearly identified. The travelog portion ("Small Tourist Guide") describes things to see, hotels, and restaurants in Auvers, Arles, Saint-Remy, Paris, Amsterdam, Borinage, The Hague, Nuenen, and Zundert. But colorful travel guides abound, and most readers will be better served, instead, by other biographies such as Bernard Denvir's Vincent: A Complete Portrait (Running Pr., 1994), or David Sweetman's Van Gogh: His Life and His Art (LJ 7/90). For browsing collections and gift shops.‘P. Steven Thomas, Central Michigan Univ. Lib., Mt. Pleasant (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Plazy, an art critic, and del Moral, a photographer, have quite laterally done what the title of their book suggests, retracing the movements of the restless, often tormented Vincent van Gogh. The description of his travels and of his fretful though productive life is terse and vivid. The photographs, of some of the French landscapes still in existence that van Gogh saw and painted, of the remnants of the past still to be found in the towns in which he lived, and of the remaining houses in which he or family members lived, are generally of unusual interest. There are also apt juxtapositions of (often less-well-known) paintings by van Gogh with relevant photographs. Those who find van Gogh's life and work particularly engrossing will find the book revealing and, given the tragedies surrounding the artist, rather moving.