Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest

Art was Vincent Van Gogh's road to personal salvation, a direction he took only after abandoning his career as lay Methodist minister in England and evangelist preacher in the Belgian mines, maintains the author. In this specialized, philosophically arguable, illustrated study, Edwards ( Christian Being and Doing ) broadly interpets Van Gogh's paintings as a moral-religious drama, claiming the tormented artist found a gateway to spiritual unity with God through solitude in nature. He further argues that Van Gogh's conversion experience in his early 20s was not the result of obsession or of a thwarted love affair, as many scholars believe, but of a deep-seated hunger for ultimate answers. Examining the painter's fascination with Japanese ukiyo-e (``floating world'') prints, which Van Gogh passionately collected, the author links his awareness of life as constant flux to the outlook of Zen Buddhism. (Oct.)