best van gogh biography book

An expert’s guide to Vincent van Gogh: five must-read books on the Dutch artist

All you ever needed to know about the artist, from the story of the ear incident to the definitive biography and best picture book—selected by van gogh specialist martin bailey.

Vincent van Gogh's Self-Portrait as a Painter (1888) Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

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“Van Gogh’s letters are by far the most interesting of any artist”

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It can be hard to know where to begin when reading up on an artist as famous and revered as Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), especially with so many myths surrounding his relatively short life and career. “There have probably been more books published on Van Gogh than any other modern painter, except for Picasso,” says Martin Bailey, a leading Van Gogh expert and senior correspondent for The Art Newspaper . “But of course, Picasso’s artistic career spanned over 70 years, while Van Gogh’s was only a decade.”

Bailey has written a series of books on Van Gogh including The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh's Masterpiece (2013) and  Living with Vincent van Gogh: The Homes & Landscapes that Shaped the Artist (2019). He has curated Van Gogh exhibitions at the Barbican Art Gallery and National Gallery of Scotland, and was the co-curator of Tate Britain’s 2019 show Van Gogh and Britain . His weekly blog Adventures with Van Gogh is published every Friday.

Below, Bailey has selected five books that he recommends to anyone wanting to learn all about Vincent van Gogh.

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated edition (2009) edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker

“Van Gogh’s letters are by far the most interesting of any artist. This six-volume set with 2,164 pages and 4,300 illustrations includes the texts of 927 letters, accompanied by detailed annotations. The publication resulted from a 15-year research project by Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. It is currently out of print, but let’s hope that Thames & Hudson reprints this superlative edition. For those wanting something more manageable, a new abridged version has just been published, Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters . And the full letters are also online , with a user-friendly search facility (this is great for research, but for those wanting to read and savour the letters in sequence, books are better).”

Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Paintings

Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Paintings (2020) by Ingo Walther and Rainer Metzger

“For the art, the place to go is Taschen’s massive compilation of the paintings, with 871 illustrations (nearly all in colour). But it is best for the images, rather than the text. With 752 pages, it is great value for money, but even cheaper is an earlier edition published as a smaller-format paperback. Sadly, the scholarly, illustrated catalogues raisonnés on Van Gogh by Jacob-Baart de la Faille (1928, 1938, 1970) and Jan Hulsker (1977, 1996) are now dated.”

Van Gogh: The Life (2011)

Van Gogh: The Life (2011) by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

“Another doorstopper, at 953 pages, it is the definitive biography. Two American writers have dug deep, providing a highly detailed and stimulating account of the artist’s entire life (with 28,000 footnotes available online). I add a personal proviso: I disagree with their appendix that argues that Van Gogh was shot by a local teenager, in my view it was suicide that ended his life.”

On the Verge of Insanity: Van Gogh and his Illness

On the Verge of Insanity: Van Gogh and his Illness (2016) by Nienke Bakker, Louis van Tilborgh and Laura Prins

“Much of the most interesting and innovative writing on Van Gogh now appears in exhibition catalogues. This one responds to the universal fascination with the artist’s astonishing personal story, including the ear incident and his early death. A lot of sensationalist material has been written on both issues, but four years ago the Van Gogh Museum set out to examine Van Gogh’s health in a serious, yet accessible exhibition.”

Van Gogh & Japan

Van Gogh & Japan (2018) by Louis van Tilborgh, Nienke Bakker, Cornelia Homburg, Tsukasa Kōdera and Chris Uhlenbeck

“Another exhibition catalogue from the Van Gogh Museum. This visually stunning show and book examine the impact of Japanese prints on Van Gogh’s work. We are now so accustomed to seeing images of global art, but to 19th century European eyes Japan represented an exotic tradition that proved highly stimulating for the avant-garde. The Japanese, in turn, became great lovers of Van Gogh as early as the 1920s. It is an exhilarating experience to look at Japan through Van Gogh’s eyes. Fresh research on this topic adds another dimension to the artist's story.”

And c oming soon…

“An English edition is due next year of Hans Luijten’s magnificent biography of Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent’s sister-in-law. The book breaks new ground in explaining her role in the development of the artist’s rise to fame.”

Sign up to our monthly Book Club newsletter and follow us on social media using #TANbookclub

5 Books About Van Gogh You Have to Read

Errika Gerakiti 26 June 2023 min Read

Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA.

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Vincent van Gogh is one of those artists whose reputation precedes them. The tormented child of the art, the cursed artist, the genius, the weird, or the eccentric are only a few of the labels that are used to describe him. Today, Van Gogh is one of the most famous and most loved painters worldwide. Here, we suggest five books about this artist. These are great reads if you are interested in learning about the personal life of the artist, but also how he viewed his life and his artistic evolution.

1. The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles

From October to December 1888, Van Gogh and Gauguin lived under the same roof in Arles, a French suburb. They had an exceptionally creative time together. They gave each other feedback and made some of their most distinguished works. However, Van Gogh bent under the pressure of cohabitation, and the crisis of his mental illness became very severe. He fought with Gauguin which is how he came to mutilate himself.

The author of this book is Martin Gayford, who is a well-known art critic. One might expect that he would use stilted language, but that is not the case. The Yellow House is pure literature. It gets inside Van Gogh’s psyche and makes you understand all about his state of mind. If you read this book, you will either fall in love with Van Gogh, or you will want to hug him and tell him that he’s not alone. In our opinion, it is one of the best books about Van Gogh.

You can check this book here .

2. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

What is a better way to learn about Van Gogh than reading his personal letters? This next book that we recommend is a selection of them. The letters narrate his personal story and artistic evolution. You will read about his relationship with religion, his unsuccessful effort to find love, and how he coped with the attacks of his mental illness. Aside from the popular belief that Van Gogh was a madman, this book proves he had great emotional and spiritual depth.

Also, the Penguin Classics’ edition links the letters to biographical details and gives insights into the events of his life. It is a very interesting book drawing every art historian and everyone who loves Van Gogh.

3. Van Gogh: Complete Works

Taschen is famous for its artistic series, and this book is a great addition. It is a catalog of Van Gogh’s 871 paintings , all in color! It also provides a detailed monograph on his life. In addition, it shows how the artist was so much more than his depression and anxiety and how he struggled for recognition.

You can check this catalogue here .

Barbara Stok created a graphic novel that narrates Van Gogh’s life in Arles. The illustrations are beautiful and vivid; however, the art is sometimes shocking when depicting his mental illness. Nevertheless, it is moving and will bring you to tears.

You can check this graphic novel here .

5. Van Gogh: The Life

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith cooperated closely with the Van Gogh Museum for this book. Van Gogh: The Life brings to light previously unknown information about the artist’s life, his relationship with his brother Theo, and the mysterious circumstances under which he committed suicide. In addition, the book is a New York Times bestseller and nominated one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and the BookReporter.

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Errika has a Master's degree in curatorial practices. She has been a writer for DailyArt Magazine since 2019 and loves sharing what she loves: weird, unusual art, female artists, and contemporary creations.

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Van Gogh: The Life Paperback – Illustrated, 4 Dec. 2012

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"In their magisterial new biography, Van Gogh: The Life, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith provide a guided tour through the personal world and work of that Dutch painter, shining a bright light on the evolution of his art. . . . What [the authors] capture so powerfully is Van Gogh's extraordinary will to learn, to persevere against the odds." -- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Brilliant . . . Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith are the big-game hunters of modern art history. . . . [ Van Gogh ] rushes along on a tide of research. . . . At once a model of scholarship and an emotive, pacy chunk of hagiography." --Martin Herbert, The Daily Telegraph (London)

• Print length 976 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Random House Trade
• Publication date 4 Dec. 2012
• Dimensions 15.52 x 4.29 x 23.01 cm
• ISBN-10 0375758976
• ISBN-13 978-0375758973
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"This generation's definitive portrait of the great Dutch post-Impressionist . . . [The authors'] most important achievement is to produce a reckoning with Van Gogh's occasional 'madness' that doesn't lose sight of the lucidity and intelligence--the profound sanity--of his art." --Richard Lacayo, Time

About the Author

Excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Trade; Illustrated edition (4 Dec. 2012)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 976 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0375758976
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0375758973
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.52 x 4.29 x 23.01 cm
• 541 in Biographies about Artists, Architects & Photographers
• 555 in Individual Artists
• 886 in Painting (Books)

About the author

Steven w. naifeh.

Gregory White Smith and Steven Naifeh are graduates of Harvard Law School.

Mr. Naifeh, who has written for art periodicals and has lectured at numerous museums including the National Gallery of Art, studied art history at Princeton and did his graduate work at the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University.

Together they have written many books on art and other subjects, including four New York Times bestsellers. Their biography Jackson Pollock: An American Saga won the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. It also inspired the Academy Award-winning 2000 film Pollock starring Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden as well as John Updike's novel Seek My Face.

Naifeh and Smith have been profiled in The New Yorker, The New York Times, USA Today, and People, and have appeared on 60 Minutes, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose, and the Today show.

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5 Books About Vincent Van Gogh for His 165th Birthday

S.W. Sondheimer

When not prying Legos and gaming dice out of her feet, S.W. Sondheimer is a registered nurse at the Department of Therapeutic Misadventures, a herder of genetic descendants, cosplayer, and a fiction and (someday) comics writer. She is a Yinzer by way of New England and Oregon and lives in the glorious 'Burgh with her husband, 2 smaller people, 2 cats, a fish, and a snail. She occasionally tries to grow plants, drinks double-caffeine coffee, and has a habit of rooting for the underdog. It is possible she has a book/comic book problem but has no intention of doing anything about either. Twitter: @SWSondheimer

View All posts by S.W. Sondheimer

Born March 30th, 1853 in Zundert, The Netherlands, Vincent Van Gogh took his first breath in the wake of an impossible legacy, lived a tortured life, and died before he had an opportunity to see the world acknowledge his genius. For all of that, his 37 years have proven a gift to humanity and, in acknowledgment of his 165th birthday, I wanted to share his life, work, and words with all of you, with these books about Vincent Van Gogh.

Van Gogh: The Life  by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White-Smith

Now considered the definitive biography of Van Gogh, written in partnership with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Naifeh and White-Smith had access to materials no previous biographer had the opportunity to study. They have made the larger-than-life Vincent human and accessible without diminishing the historical and artistic presence of Van Gogh one whit.

Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers  by Deborah Heiligman

While I’ve understood the  concept of “creative non-fiction” intellectually for some time, I’ll admit I never quite understood how it could be successfully executed until reading Heiligman’s lovely, if tragic, biography of the Van Gogh brothers. Based on the letters between Vincent and Theo, Heiligman creates vignettes carefully grounded in the words of the men themselves while allowing for a certain amount of closely researched narrative. The effect is the literary equivalent to one of the moving photographs from Harry Potter and just as magical. Geared toward young adults, it’s an excellent introduction to the artists and his family while also being thoroughly engaging for adults with foreknowledge of the subject.

Vincent  by Barbara Stok

Though presented in graphic novel format, this account of Van Gogh’s time in Provence is frank and intense, covering subjects ranging from the artist’s battles with mental illness to his sometimes painfully obsessive relationships (both romantic and sexual), to his tumultuous interactions with fellow artists such as Paul Gaugin. Simple, gorgeous, and sometimes visually shocking, this is an affecting portrayal of Van Gogh that touched and surprised me, as well as, at one point, bringing me to tears. Proceed carefully if you’re particularly sensitive to color shifts and visual portrayal of mental illness.

Vincent Van Gogh: A Self-Portrait in Art and Letters  by H. Anna Suh

As she did with Da Vinci, Suh has chronologically matched Van Gogh’s paintings with snippets of his letters, allowing insight into what Vincent was thinking and feeling, and what was occurring in his life, as he created his works. The text and art are printed side by side, allowing the reader/viewer to experience them simultaneously, giving her the sensation of standing beside Vincent, or perhaps Theo, listening as the artist or his best beloved family member lectures on the genesis of each work. The book is oversized, which presents more detail in each of the lovely reproductions and a more intense viewing experience.

Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings  by Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger

Few artists are as honest about their growing pains as Van Gogh was. He struggled to find his style and palette, craving recognition while, at the same time, expressing openly how much he still had to learn and how hard he worked to create. While some of his self-deprecation was certainly due to depression and anxiety, there is so much more to Vincent than his mental illness, as there is to all creators who wrestle with altered neurochemistry and circumstance, and paging through his work, through his progression, not only gives insight into the man himself, but hope to creators of all sorts.

So, happy birthday, Vincent. Though you’ll never know how much your work has meant to us, we will continue to celebrate it, and you.

[Ed. Note: The post has been fixed to reflect that it’s Van Gogh’s 165th birthday]

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Van Gogh: The Life

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith galvanized readers with their astonishing Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for biography, a book acclaimed for its miraculous research and overwhelming narrative power. Now Naifeh and Smith have written another tour de force—an exquisitely detailed, compellingly readable, and ultimately heartbreaking portrait of creative genius Vincent van Gogh. Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Naifeh and Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials. While drawing liberally from the artist’s famously eloquent letters, they have also delved into hundreds of unpublished family correspondences, illuminating with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh’s troubled, restless soul. Naifeh and Smith bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist—his early struggles to find his place in the world; his intense relationship with his brother Theo; his impetus for turning to brush and canvas; and his move to Provence, where in a brief burst of incandescent productivity he painted some of the best-loved works in Western art. The authors also shed new light on many unexplored aspects of Van Gogh’s inner world: his deep immersion in literature and art; his erratic and tumultuous romantic life; and his bouts of depression and mental illness. Though countless books have been written about Van Gogh, and though the broad outlines of his tragedy have long inhabited popular culture, no serious, ambitious examination of his life has been attempted in more than seventy years. Naifeh and Smith have re-created Van Gogh’s life with an astounding vividness and psychological acuity that bring a completely new and sympathetic understanding to this unique artistic genius whose signature images of sunflowers and starry nights have won a permanent place in the human imagination.

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Vincent van Gogh

Last updated: December 09, 2022

The Van Gogh Sisters

By willem-jan verlinden.

We've heard much about the crucial role that Theo van Gogh played in the life of his brother, Vincent. But Vincent also had three sisters who were a big influence on him. In fact, it was an argument with his eldest sister, Anna, that was the reason he left the Netherlands. This is their story.

Read expert recommendations

Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers

By deborah heiligman.

“Heiligman’s book is a multi-layered work of cultural history. It is a tightly wound story of two brothers, one of whom goes on to become one of the most famous impressionist painters and the other a seller of paintings. Both Van Gogh brothers played a central role in the history of late 19th-century art and ended up dying tragically, within months of one another. t gives the reader a feel for Western Europe in the 1870s and 1880s, for the countryside and vibrant art scene that inspired the brothers. It builds into a full biography of Van Gogh and his cohort. History is not at the center of the book; it’s the wings for the story.” Read more...

The Best Nonfiction Books for Teens

Marc Favreau , Publisher

Splendor in the Stars

• Share full article

By Deborah Solomon

• Nov. 25, 2011

Vincent VAN GOGH tends to be remembered as an art saint whose radiant paintings of sunflowers and starry skies seem somehow imbued with moral valor. He identified with the poor and marginalized, and looked upon art as a humanitarian calling. He died unknown, at age 37, and you suspect he will always be a shining hero not only to people who worship art but to those who feel their own talents remain insufficiently acknowledged by their peers — meaning, most everyone.

On the other hand, is it possible that we have him entirely wrong, that he was just a creep and selfish user who felt that a life in art basically meant never having to say “Thank you”? Such is the portrait that emerges from Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s energetic, hulking and negatively skewed “Van Gogh: The Life.” The artist, as they see him, was bitter and manipulative, more of a perpetrator than a victim. The eldest child of a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, he grew up in a rural corner of Holland and was not exactly an easy son. For part of his adulthood, we are told, in “a campaign that seemed intended to mortify and embarrass his parents,” he moved into their parsonage in Nuenen and shocked the congregation by swearing, smoking a pipe, drinking ­Cognac from a flask, dismissing the locals as “clodhoppers” and loudly proclaiming his atheism.

His financial dependency on his brother Theo is already well known, but it is not until now that anyone has publicly accused him of being lavish. Although he pleaded poverty and was forced to cadge, in reality he lived beyond his means, “never budgeting and never saving,” at least according to the authors. They itemize his purchases: art supplies, novels, reproductions of other artists’ work, the services of a “little girl he paid to sweep his studio” as well as models who posed for him. “The problem went beyond simple profligacy,” the authors write. He had a “delusional sense of entitlement.”

From such comments, you might think that van Gogh harbored an epicurean predilection for Bordeaux wines and foie gras. It is true he lived on borrowed money, but you cannot accurately call him profligate. He used his money to finance his art, and the paintings that resulted, most of us would agree, were worth the expenditure.

In some ways, “Van Gogh” resembles the authors’ previous biography, “Jackson Pollock: An American Saga,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1991. As an example of what might be called Extreme Biography, the Pollock book is extremely long (more than 900 pages) and larded with extreme theories (e.g., Pollock’s famous drip paintings originated in a childhood memory of watching his father urinate on a rock). The van Gogh biography, while free of any attempt to link the advent of Post-Impressionism to the workings of the urethra, does float at least one sensational theory. It strongly suggests he was murdered.

In this it challenges the version of history offered by everyone from professors like Meyer Schapiro to performers like Kirk Douglas in “Lust for Life.” It asks you to delete from memory the image of van Gogh lying alone in a wheat field in Auvers-sur-Oise, bleeding from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his stomach. The authors argue that the bullet was fired elsewhere in town by a French punk, a teenager who had made a summer sport out of teasing the artist. Although based on decades-old hearsay and unaccompanied by forensic evidence, the claim has impressed at least one journalist: Morley Safer recently devoted a segment of “60 Minutes” to the book, without inviting any art historians to respond. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has stated that it does not accept the verdict of murder.

The new biography runs to 953 pages but is actually longer. The footnotes, which “ballooned to roughly 5,000 typewritten pages,” as the authors say, have been divorced from the hardcover edition and relocated to an online site. When you click on vangoghbiography.com, you learn that the footnotes have expanded to “more than 6,000 typewritten pages.” Apparently they’re growing as we speak, perhaps as part of a fun experiment to see whether a biography can be too big to fail.

But length alone does not render a book definitive. In this case, gaps abound. The authors seldom slow the rush of facts to offer analysis or raise even the most basic questions. For starters, what illness was van Gogh suffering from? Naifeh and Smith, inexplicably, do not weigh in on the debate. Some psychiatrists have made the case for paranoia. Others believe he was manic-depressive. It goes without saying that no diagnosis can begin to explain the origins of van Gogh’s art. But it would have been helpful to have a page or two summarizing the current medical ­consensus.

Asked about van Gogh’s illness on “60 Minutes,” the authors cited “temporal lobe epilepsy.” They see no reason, they explained, to revise the opinion of ­Félix Rey, who treated van Gogh after the hideous incident in which he sliced off a substantial chunk of his left ear. It is not surprising that Dr. Rey, a 23-year-old intern at the hospital in Arles, felt van Gogh was afflicted with nonconvulsive epilepsy — the concept referred to invisible fits believed to occur in the brain. It provided doctors, in the pre-EEG late 19th century, with a convenient label to apply to every­thing from schizophrenia to ordinary obnoxiousness. Such a diagnosis hardly seems persuasive today.

Another question that remains unanswered: When and how did van Gogh become interested in art?

The authors trace his awakening to July 1869, when, at age 16, he left the family parsonage in provincial Zundert and moved to The Hague to begin his working life. He was hired by his Uncle Vincent, who, as it happened, was an art dealer with Goupil & Cie, a fashionable Paris-based firm. “In his enthusiasm for his new job,” the authors write, “Vincent took a characteristically sudden, feverish interest in a subject toward which he had shown no particular inclination before: art.”

Not true. As the authors well know, van Gogh drew copiously throughout his childhood. Their book reproduces a stiffly detailed barnyard scene sketched in pencil shortly before he turned 11. Although van Gogh spoke of his childhood efforts as “little scratches,” naturally they hold great interest today. It is hard to know why Naifeh and Smith opted to disregard any art biographer’s obligation to look at juvenilia and identify themes and preoccupations that recur in an artist’s mature work. In van Gogh’s case, his early drawings represent more than a vestigial glimmer of his later accomplishments. He was, of course, a master letter writer, and many of his early drawings were landscapes inserted like so many illustrations into the body of his letters. His instinct for combining text and images is fascinating, because you might say that the chief struggle of his art was to integrate the two forms. How do you inject the immediacy and charisma of your personal letters into a painting?

In the end, he did find a way to make his paintings as alive as his correspondence — significantly, his marks as a painter are reminiscent of handwriting. In his masterpiece “Wheat Field With Crows,” for instance, a profusion of short, blunt, parallel lines of cadmium yellow slant strongly to the right. The strokes of his brush come in a sequence, like words in a sentence. He transformed the trademark unit of Impressionism, the buttery brush stroke, into a calligraphic, confessional presence.

But that came later. His early stint at Goupil & Cie was important because it acquainted him with a vast array of 19th-century prints, many of them photo­gravure reproductions of popular French paintings. A close observer, he remembered images that other people forgot and came to possess a deep, nearly erudite knowledge of art history. Or, as the authors clumsily put it, “Vincent kept a salesman’s open mind about the images passing across his ­desktop.”

For all its put-downs and grating cynicism, the book is highly readable and lavishes welcome attention on van Gogh’s lesser-known middle period. Other studies, especially those by art historians, tend to concentrate on the last four years of his short life, when he made the paintings that changed art history.

But the bulk of this book is taken up with his pre-Arles adventures, the meandering years when he was trying to find his artistic bearings. He did not care for the newly ascendant French Impressionists, with their fixation on the shifting effects of sunlight, and accused them of elevating cleverness over substance. He preferred, in his own work, the smudgy atmospherics of black chalk and narratives involving lumpen weavers who subsisted on potatoes.

For inspiration, he turned to weekly British magazines like The Graphic and Punch and cut out affecting illustrations, scenes attesting to poverty and illness. He eventually amassed thousands of images and saved them in portfolios that were among his most cherished possessions. Although Naifeh and Smith deride his taste for social realists like Jean-François Millet and “the sentimental, cliché-driven world” of popular prints, van Gogh had an admirably daring eye. He found the line separating high and low culture entirely phony, and preferred to divide the world’s images into those that move you and those that merely pretend to sophistication. Magazine illustration no doubt played a role in helping him formulate a pictorial style that is singularly direct and accessible.

After all that has been written about van Gogh, there is still no agreement on who he was. Whether he was a high-I.Q. aesthete (yes!) or an intellectual simpleton, a frugal-minded bohemian or a miscreant squandering spare resources, whether he was the Ingrate From Hell or an achingly sensitive artist, or whether he was none of these — clearly, it is a sign of his greatness that so many people feel so proprietary about him. Yet not all interpretations are created equal. Perhaps only in an age that distrusts the notion of genius could we wind up with a life of van Gogh that treats his iconoclasm as an expression of anger-management issues. Hasn’t he suffered enough without this?

By Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

Illustrated. 953 pp. Random House. $40

Deborah Solomon, a frequent contributor to the Book Review, is the author of “Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell” and a forthcoming biography of Norman Rockwell.

The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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Pages:  379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

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Moscow Oblast Paperback

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Out of the Centre

Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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