here's a bright, poetic, and evocative tale of the painter Vincent van Gogh's fight to develop into his actual self. the writer listens in on Vincent's so much intimate, usually startling recommendations on a number of subject matters, drawn from 3 volumes of his correspondence and his 900 extant work. What emerges is the portrait of an artist whose religious imaginative and prescient used to be borne of an agonizingly lengthy adventure of the "dark evening of the soul" wherein his paintings dared to envision the triumph of pleasure over sorrow, of resurrection over anguish and death.

Readers will notice that during many ways Vincent's tale is as a lot approximately us as approximately him. Tracing van Gogh's pilgrimage from being an apprentice paintings broker to being known as to minister, in self-renunciation and distress, between destitute coal miners, the narrative follows his winding, tortuous course into maturity as he struggles with relations, affiliates, lovers--and with himself. continuously evidenced in Vincent's personal eloquent phrases and work is his tussle with the mysterious presence and maddening absence of God. Vocation unveils as a technique of summoning and birthing his personal self, via an try and imitate Christ, calling forth van Gogh's impressive inventive powers from deep within.

Adding selection offers from different observers, Davidson the following weaves his personal special, crafty tapestry of interpretation, generating a suspenseful day trip into the lifetime of van Gogh that gives profound which means at each turn.

"This richly exact and deeply felt account of van Gogh's tormented and self-tormenting existence, including many telling quotations from his correspondence along with his devoted brother Theo, can be crucial studying for all who see him as one of many geniuses of the 19th century."
--Frederick Buechner
author of secrets and techniques in the dead of night and The Yellow Leaves

"Charles Davidson's ebook viewing Vincent van Gogh's lifestyles and paintings is a wonderful contribution to methods we would top comprehend the artist's fight and spirituality. The stream of the narrative and the presence of theological and mental motifs support us re-vision the artist in a postmodern framework that opens new and artistic channels for understanding."
--Cliff Edwards
author of Van Gogh and God, The sneakers of Van Gogh, and secret of the evening Café

"This paintings of preferrred artwork unveils Vincent van Gogh's personal nice art--in lifestyles, paintings, and loss of life. It accomplishes this in amazingly diverse style and unpretentious, non secular intensity. it really is remarkably attuned to, and commonly makes use of, Vincent's personal strikingly sincere, poetic statements in corporation with a few of Vincent's work. within the approach, it translates either with each conceivably applicable software, drawing in others' profoundly insightful responses to Vincent with the author's personal. From commencing to finish, Charles Davidson--pastor, instructor, clinician, poet, musician, and scholar--has created, reflectively, a unprecedented, easily remarkable portrayal. Any attentive reader who has identified both deprivation or fight in existence can locate the following a therapeutic love and joy."
--Terrence N. Tice
editor of Hermann Peiter's accumulated essays, Christian Ethics in keeping with Schleiermacher, and translator of Friederich Schleiermacher's Christmas Eve Celebration

"Bone useless, and emerging is a psychologically and theologically incisive research of the lifestyles and paintings, the psyche and spirituality of Vincent Van Gogh. it truly is tough to visualize that the artist himself could have ignored the value and worthiness of this verbally inventive rendering."
--Lallene J. Rector
co-editor of mental views and the non secular Quest

Charles Davidson, a Presbyterian minister and psychotherapist, used to be the Darrel Rollins Professor of Holistic Ministry in Pastoral Theology, Care, and Counseling at Virginia collage of Lynchburg, till retiring to Black Mountain, North Carolina, the place he lives together with his spouse, puppy, cats, saxophone, and clarinet.