REVIEWS

Michael Kimmelman The New York Review

Bell’s sympathy for his subject abides; his prose is angelic. He outlines the life without melodrama and with just enough exasperation at Vincent’s loutish, morose, and egocentric shenanigans. www.nybooks.com

Patricia Albers The New York Times

“Van Gogh” gives readers what we would get from a knowing interlocutor fresh off a walk — or rather six walks (there are six chapters) — with a master colleague. Bell probes van Gogh’s work, artist to artist. www.nytimes.com

Jonathan Lopez The Wall Street Journal 

“My existence is not without reason,” the artist once wrote to his brother Theo. “There is something inside me, what can it be?” British painter and writer Julian Bell answers that question forcefully in the subtitle of “Van Gogh: A Power Seething,” an impressively concise biography that offers a solid introduction to the troubled artist’s life, paintings and emotional travails. www.wsj.com

Joanna Scutts The Washington Post 

Julian Bell, himself a painter, offers a respectful portrait of van Gogh that doesn’t downplay the artist’s stormy nature or subordinate his art to his personality. www.washingtonpost.com

Peter Goddard The Star

Bell writes with a descriptive prowess in keeping with van Gogh’s own. www.thestar.com