Van Gogh’s cry: What do you want from me?

Vincent Van Gogh is an important painter whose life was marked by drama, and his works have often been interpreted through the lens of his personal struggles and the tension between madness and genius. Although he was the son of a pastor and a highly productive artist, Van Gogh hardly sold any of his paintings during his lifetime. Moreover, despite the fact that his brother Theo was a successful art dealer in Paris, this situation did not change. While Theo was generous in covering his brother’s expenses, he did not – or could not – show the same generosity when it came to commercializing Van Gogh’s works.

Costantino D’Orazio, in his book "The Van Gogh Mystery," offers an opening into this enigma by drawing on the diary of Van Gogh’s nephew – who shared his name – as he visits the places his uncle once passed through, searches for traces of his uncle’s memories, and reflects on the connections between his life, letters, and paintings, as well as the reasons behind his commercial failure.

Van Gogh did not receive any serious formal training in painting. His attempts at education consistently ended in failure. Yet he never gave up drawing, especially the nature studies to which he was passionately devoted. As his nephew describes, he continued to dig – with patience – the pit in which he would lay the foundations of his artistic caree