Starry Night

“Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum” by Martin Bailey is a poignant and beautifully illustrated account of Van Gogh's time at the asylum in Saint-Remy. Despite the challenges of ill health and asylum life, he continued to produce prodigiously and created a series of masterpieces — cypresses, wheatfields, olive groves and sunsets. He wrote very little about this time in letters to his beloved brother Theo, so this book gives a helpful and sensitive impression of daily life behind the walls of the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole and looks at Van Gogh through fresh eyes, with newly discovered material. Highly recommended for all of us who deeply love this masterful artist. 5/5

Pub Date 27 Aug 2018

Thanks to Quarto Publishing Group - White Lion Publishing and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are truly mine.

#StarryNight #NetGalley

Starry Night is written by Martin Bailey, a Van Gogh specialist. He was permitted to go into the St. Paul asylum, near St. Rémy, where Vincent Van Gogh spent a year after cutting his ear off. A very interesting and educational view and wonderful read.

Van Gogh was born in Holland but spent the majority of his life in France. When he entered the asylum there were only 18 other male patients and he called them “my companions of misfortune. “He suffered from auditory hallucinations his entire life, although it manifested greatly after his beloved brother Theo was getting married. He was closest to his younger brother Theo and was terrified of being abandoned by Theo’s wife. Luckily that did not happen.

He voluntarily went into the asylum at the age of 36. His brother paid for a third class room and he was allowed another room to use as a studio. Video made two conditions for his admittance to the asylum. One being that he got to have a half liter of wine daily and the other that he be allowed to walk the gardens and countryside and paint.

There is a lot of documentation in this book. Martin Bailey followed Van Gogh's artistist journey to explore the places where he painted. While in the asylum he produced over 150 paintings. Before going into the asylum, most of his paintings had exacerbated colors and after he was in the asylum he painted with more muted tones that reflected his mood.

Martin Baileys book Starry Night is wonderfully written, documented well, and has photographs that work well with his prose. I highly recommend this book. It’s a treasure full of delight!

Thanks to NetGalley for the pleasure of reading this book!

Arc provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

Starry Night is a fully illustrated account of Van Gogh's time at the asylum in Saint-Remy. Despite the challenges of ill health and asylum life, Van Gogh continued to produce a series of masterpieces – cypresses, wheatfields, olive groves and sunsets. He wrote very little about the asylum in letters to his brother Theo, so this book sets out to give an impression of daily life behind the walls of the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole and looks at Van Gogh through fresh eyes, with newly discovered material.

I absolutely love the work of Van Gogh, it’s absolutely breathtaking and this book was eye opening to the experiences that Van Gogh and other patients would have gone through in the asylum. I didn’t even know that he was in an asylum.

4..25 stars!

A big thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group/White Lion Publishing for the ARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. I must be honest, I know nothing about Van Gogh except he cut off his ear. This is not to say that I don't appreciate a d enjoy his work, because I do. So this book was an eye opener in many ways. It is about his time in the assylum, and the time reading up to it. It does discuss the cutting off of the ear-which I found fascinating. Why would anyone do this and then send the ear to someone? We are extremely lucky that Van Gogh was allowed to wander the countryside and still paint! This book was almost overwhelming with the information provided. Still, I found.It well done and thought provoking. I am no expert but enjoyed this a d would recommend. I rate it 4.5 stars.

Van Gogh is one of my favorite painters and who doesn’t love Starry Night? I mean, you see it everywhere now…cell phone cases, tapestries, mouse pads, etc. He is one of the most well-known painters worldwide but how much do you really know about his life? I admit, I knew next to nothing and was thrilled to be able to read a copy of Martin Bailey’s new book chronicling the last year or so of his life as a patient of the Saint Paul asylum.

 I found this book absolutely fascinating. It reads very text book but the narration isn’t dry as I had expected it to be. The artwork (of course) is absolutely beautiful and really gives a little insight to where Vincent’s mind may have been during his battle with mental illness. We also get a peek at his relationship with his brother, Theo, and how  Theo really supported Vincent through his life, his asylum years and as a rising artist. 

 Starry Night Van Gogh at the Asylum is very well researched and brilliantly put together for any art lover, or anyone interested in a little bit of history about this amazing artist, to enjoy. My only criticism for this book is that I wish it was a little more chronologically written. There are quite a few places through the book where we flip from one point in time to another and I found it a little confusing trying to keep my facts straight.

 This beautiful book would make an excellent addition to anyone’s collection, a perfect coffee table conversation starter or a gift for the art lover in your life.

 Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy to read and review

An incredible account of an incredible artist. I'll definitely recommend this one to our patrons and some fellow artists.

This just has to be considered as five stars. I do admire Van Gogh art and read about him when I stumble across a book to review, but I came to this a little worried it only concerned the 53 weeks he spent in an asylum. However with the wonderful art reproductions you don't get over-burdened with detail, and the education level is set just fine for both the expert and the Man on the Clapham Omnibus. Marvellous.

In a spiral after the announcement of his brother, Theo's, marriage, and at odds with Gauguin, van Gogh cut off his ear, leading to his commitment at the Arles asylum of Saint-Peter. Bailey had unusual and rare access to the hospital's records, which he uses in this analysis of the paintings van Gogh produces while there--including Starry Night. This is a gorgeously illustrated book, with plates of the relevant paintings, assembled from galleries and private collections around the world.

Starry Night combines two subjects that fascinate me, art history and the history of mental health. Van Gogh’s stay at Saint-Rémy is detailed with quotes from his letters and writing, ephemera, and histories of the paintings that Van Gogh created during this era. The author did extensive research, and even provides a few rare photos of Saint-Rémy.

This is my favorite period of Van Gogh’s art, and his use of color is a feast for the eyes. This book is full of enough wheat fields, cypress trees, and starry nights to satisfy any Van Gogh lover. I enjoyed all the additional information on these paintings and would recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn more about Van Gogh’s stay at the asylum.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an unbiased review.

This was an advanced copy from NetGalley and the Quarto Publishing Group - White Lion Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Devoured this in less than a day during an extremely quiet day at work.
This is a fascinating account of the year Van Gough spent at Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence after the famous incident with Paul Gauguin which resulted in Van Gough cutting off his ear.

Bailey offers a compelling look into a turbulent period of the artist’s existence; the works he created, relationships formed with staff and patients alike, not to mention the strained relationship he shared with family members outside of his brother.

The author also gives a humane insight into what life must have been like as patient in an asylum like Saint-Paul during those times. It makes for depressing read, but to his credit, Bailey doesn’t linger on the more gruesome aspects, allowing the facts to speak for themselves.

Overall, I downright adored this book and will be keeping an eye on Martin Bailey’s work on the back of this. It’s the first time I’ve come away from Van Gough content and felt I learned something about the human being and not the mad, tortured genius that’s so often shown instead.

Informative and illustrative, great for any fan of Van Gogh's or art in general. Bailey delves into Van Gogh's time at the asylum and takes a biographical look at the paintings he created while there. While more writing than a typical coffee table book, this is still one I would put on my coffee table as the pictures and descriptions draw you in. I highly recommend.

This has been a truly wonderful reading and visual experience, seeing so many of Van Gogh’s most iconic paintings and learning how, and in what circumstances, they were created. The excitement is tempered by also learning more about Van Gogh’s emotional/psychological life, which certainly cost him peace of mind, freedom, health, and ultimately, life.

This book primarily deals with that year at St Paul’s asylum separated into chapters by the type of paintings he created. Van Gogh’s inspirations came primarily from the natural world around him, the town of St Remy, and a few people he saw regularly during the year. His brother Theo sent supplies on request and paintings were sent to Paris for show or sale (though sales were rare).

The discussion of Starry Night led me to enjoy the painting even more. That the Almond branch painting was done for his new godson adds a dimension to Vincent that I was happy to find. His multi-season paintings of the wheatfields are new to me, a wonderful surprise... I don’t believe I had seen them all before.

I definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in Van Gogh. It covers the penultimate year of his life and all of the art he created over that time. In addition, it provides some further information on what has happened to these pieces in the intervening years, including some “lost” pieces. There is also a history of St Paul’s hospital itself into the late 20th century. For potential art tourists, there is information on areas of interest around St Paul and St Remy and Arles. For information seekers, there are extensive footnotes and a lengthy bibliography.

The reproductions of Van Gogh’s art work are beautiful. I read this on an iPad and the clarity and color are excellent.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Really interesting, colourful and inspirational. Makes the perfect Christmas gift for friends and family as well!

Starry Night is my favorite painting. This book was fascinating both from the art-appreciation side of myself and the college Psych major side of myself. Beautifully done, thorough research and easy to read.

Neue Einsichten zum bekanntesten Künstler der Niederlande in seiner Zeit in Saint-Remy. Ein echtes Muss (nicht nur) für Fans.

This book is full of beautiful art and it all helps to tell a wonderful story. I've always been a fan of Van Gogh's work but this book helped me understand the life and trouble's that he faced over the course of his life. These struggles really impacted and shaped his work. It was cool to read about it and see his artwork side by side. I would highly recommend.

Thanks to Quarto Publishing Group – White Lion Publishing, Frances Lincoln and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine!

#StarryNight #NetGalley

Wow! I learned so much about my favorite painting from this! Great book.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

Beautifully put together and exceedingly well researched, the book is a total delight for all who love the art of Vincent van Gogh and are interested to know more about the man behind the canvas, who, for a substantial part of his life lived in agony, mostly with himself.

Starry Night offers a closer look at the time the painter spent in Saint-Paul de Mausole, a small asylum in France on the outskirts of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

In fact, the place is just 25 km/16 miles away from Arles, where van Gogh had previously shared the famous Yellow House together with Gauguin. There exists a book by Martin Gayford which tells of nine turbulent weeks, as that's basically how long it lasted, until after a final fallout Gauguin moved out, with the result of van Gogh suffering a severe breakdown and cutting off his left ear.

Short after his release from hospital he admits himself to the small asylum at the foot of Les Alpilles (the little Alps), where he spent a bit over a year. A time of intense and painful creativity and where he created in June 1889 one of his most famous paintings "Starry Night". A time, where he also tried to poison himself by swallowing the colours he used for those paintings.

Author Martin Bailey, an expert on van Gogh's life, takes the reader on a fascinating journey, which is gripping and touching at the same time and we follow Vincent through the "Harrowing Period".

The chapter "The Wheatfield" is for a fan simply a must, as we see a group of paintings on which the artist worked in 1889 during his time in the asylum and which capture a view he had from the studio room, an extra room, that was allocated to him in the institution to enable him to continue to paint. We see the same scene in the changing seasons and without doubt also reflecting good and bad days of the painter himself.

But what exactly happenend leading up to van Gogh's moment of madness and self harm? And was it really his free will to go to the asylum?
How did he feel upon his arrival, when he saw the place for the first time? A place about which he wrote himself "One continually hears shouts and terrible howls as of animals in a menagerie."
What was his treatment like, the other patients, his daily routine? Why did his brother Theo never visit him?

Endless questions and carefully the author unravels mystery after mystery.
The fluent writing has you hooked from the start.
The illustrations and photos, together with never before published material are often jawdropping.
There's even a map to offer the visitor of the place and its surrounds an idea for a most enjoyable walk along Vincent's path at this very painful time in his life.

To say, I love the book, doesn't cover it. Starry Night is simply one of my highlights of the year, every page is a delight.

Having not read other Van Gogh related books I can't comment on how it compares with other biographical works. What I enjoyed was the details about not just Van Gogh but the subjects he painted. What struck me through out was how human he seems in Bailey's book. Van Gogh for me was previously his paintings and legend but Starry Night explores an incredibly vulnerable period in his life and exposes the artist who was also a person searching for meaning, fulfillment, purpose and place on a level that was human rather than legendary. It is a wonderfully vulnerable book and I highly recommend.

Starry Night is the perfect book for those out there that have always been fascinating with both the painting it’s named after, as well as the artist himself; Van Gogh. It’s an illustrated novel covering the period of Van Gogh’s life that was spent at Saint-Remy, the asylum.
This novel included timelines, maps, and even went so far as to explain the events surrounding the paintings shown. This gave an amazing amount of context – not just to the paintings, but to the mindset of Van Gogh during those times.
I’ve been fascinated with Van Gogh for as long as I can remember, and yet Starry Night succeeded in putting the pieces together for me in ways other books never did. I don’t think I ever fully realized just how many of my favorite Van Gogh paintings were done while he was at Saint-Remy, nor was I ever aware of how close we came to losing some of them.
This was a wonderfully insightful book, and I strongly urge any fans of Van Gogh to take the time to read it. It is one thing to know (and list) the facts, but to have them laid out with context really enhanced the presentation of the book.

“When you receive the canvases I’ve done in the garden you’ll see that I’m not too melancholy here.”

Van Gogh lived at the asylum of Saint Paul from May 1889 to May 1890, just a single year. Here he suffered from different attacks, but he always went outside his chamber to paint and love the nature and the countryside. The works of this period at the asylum are ones of the most known around the world, as “Starry Night” teach us.

Van Gogh is one of the most famous artists of contemporary art, and he is known not only because of his artistic skill, but also because of various episodes of his life, as the one in which he cut his ear after the “fight“ with Paul Gauguin. This man was one of the most important person to Van Gogh, and for him “our protagonist” painted a lot of “Sunflowers”. They shared an house, really. After the fight, Van Gogh arrived in Saint Remy, the local community in which The asylum is placed.

The author visited this location, a mental hospital nowadays, looking for something that could remember the works of Van Gogh. Some places remained untouched, while others were redone after WWII. The author found a lot of interesting things about this place, such as postcards and photos, memories and stories from the catholic nuns who ruled the asylum until the war. There was also a book of signatures for the asylum-museum, autographed by great painters as Signac, who studied the same locations painted by Van Gogh.

With a fluid writing style, the narrator takes us in a journey through the important year in the life of one of the must famous painters of the world. Divided into sections with different themes and destinations, the book has a lot of beautiful images of high quality, accompanied with good descriptions and interesting notes and explanations. Very good, indeed.

Flowers, people, trees, landscapes: all these themes are the main focus of Van Gogh in 1889/1890. Drawings and paintings are beautiful and have a meaning to their author: they gave him happiness, sadness, pleasure, comfort, love.
One of the color binomial in the paintings I love is yellow-blue: Van Gogh adored this formula, which expresses life and contrasting emotions at the same time.

Van Gogh wrote a lot to his brother Theo and we can know his thoughts just because of his postcards and letters from the asylum. These manuscripts are very informative, giving us ideas for the dates of the paintings. The artist lved in the small “alienation” community for a full year, sharing the sufferings of numerous men (18 males, according to the notes of the hospital). He understood the pains and the bad experiences not only because he was one of them, but also because he could see through these human beings with his work, as shown on different portraits of patients and people in the hospital.

The intensity of his artistic skills gave Van Gogh the possibility to escape from the suffering and the indignities in the asylum, giving him purpose. The mental suffering caused inability to paint or draw few times, but didn’t change the power of the works.

Very interesting and well done is the chapter about the most famous paint of Van Gogh, now in New York City, “Starry Night”. The author explores the hows and the whens and the whats, trying to understand times and themes of this masterpiece. A really enjoying experience, as a reader and as an art history lover. Well done.

I recommend this book to anyone who want to investigate the Van Gogh’s period at the asylum, before his painful death for a gunshot in a field.

Martin Bailey's latest publication, Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum, reads like a scholarly article. If I wasn't such a fan of Van Gogh's art and so curious about his struggles with mental illness I would have quickly put this book aside. Instead I persevered and was richly rewarded with an intimate look at Van Gogh's daily life while in the asylum at Saint-Remy from 1889 - 1890. Despite his inner turmoil Van Gogh was allowed to paint while at the asylum and created many of his great masterpieces during this period.

While living at the asylum Van Gogh was allowed to roam the countryside, in the company of a keeper, and engage in plein aire painting. Bailey has included photographs of many of the works of art produced by Van Gogh during this period. He has also included photographs taken in and around the asylum which clearly show Van Gogh's inspiration. Personally, I read this book on a black and white ereader which prevented me from enjoying the beauty of colours as expressed by Van Gogh.

Bailey has thoroughly researched the archives at the asylum, Van Gogh's letters and seemingly every book and article that has ever been written about Vincent Van Gogh. The end notes and bibliography are the most extensive I have ever seen!

Reading this book, although tedious at times, has given me a greater appreciation for Van Gogh as both a suffering individual and an artistic genius.

I received a free copy of this ebook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really loved the insight into Van Gogh's life in this. Alongside the photographs, it was the perfect context and exploration of an artist's life that I'm almost nearly unfamiliar with. I would definitely be interested in a finished copy of this book because it was so informative and intriguing, but also because I wasn't able to finish it. The ebook file for this book was so strenuous to read because of the amount of pictures and formatting, so rather than navigate a bulky pdf while trying to zoom in and out as I read and look at the pictures, I'll wait to finish the last dozen or so pages until I can have it physically. But I would definitely recommend this to people interested in Van Gogh.

Interesting read, well-researched and presented in a manner any art lover might enjoy. A bit slow at times with countless details as the focus generally remained on each piece van Gogh produced during his stay at the hospital. Some character development but none resulting in intimacy. Nice addition to the chronology in the life of one of our greatest artists of all-time.