What Makes A Van Gogh A Van Gogh by Robert Muhlberger

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Series of What Makes A.... A...." introduces young readers to a series of famous artists. For this post I will review one of the books in this series, What Makes A Van Gogh A Van Gogh?.

Each book in the series follows a similar format, beginning with an introduction to the artist. This introduction provides some background information about the artist's early life.

In What Makes A Van Gogh, readers learn that Vincent Van Gogh was a person who "inherited a deep respect for humanity" from his minister father, while his passion for art and nature came from his mother. Van Gogh was a hard-working student who studied a number of languages. But school was not his forte and he quit when he was sixteen. Van Gogh worked in an art gallery, as a school teachers and then a minister. But eventually Van Gogh came to believe that he was called to be an artist.

What Makes A Van Gogh follows Vincent's artistic journey from its beginnings in 1885 when he painted his first masterpiece. This painting was of a group of peasants eating their dinner of potatoes.  He used his friends, the DeGroots making many sketches before finally paint the larger portrait. From Holland, Van Gogh traveled to Antwerp and then on to Paris where his brother Theo lived. One of the first people Van Gogh met in Paris was the owner of an art supply shop, Julien Tanguy. Their friendship was to prove an important influence on Van Gogh and his art. It was probably due to the Through Tanguy, Van Gogh formed a friendship with fellow artist Paul Signac, who painted with bright colours and used a new technique called pointillism. Although Van Gogh never really adopted pointillism, he did begin to use brighter colours. He painted more than twenty self-portraits during his time in Paris.

In 1888, Van Gogh moved to the town Arles in southern France. This was to be the most productive time of his life, a period where he painted his famous sunflower canvases.  What Makes A Van Gogh explores the influences on Van Gogh's art and technique, which scenes and subjects attracted his interest, and some of the different techniques he used to create his beautiful paintings. Muhlberger devotes a few pages to Van Gogh's famous painting, Starry Night, exploring the some of the features of the painting.

Like the other books in the series, this book ends with a section that uses the title of the book to summarize the special attributes of Van Gogh's art and technique. Although these books are out of print now, they are worth obtaining from your local library or through interlibrary loan. They provide young readers with many interesting facts about the artist, their techniques and paintings.

Book Details:

What Makes A Van Gogh A Van Gogh by Robert Muhlberger
New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Viking Press    1993
49 pp.