Friday, May 28, 2010

Sheramy Bundrick's Historical Novel of Van Gogh

Sheramy Bundrick's Historical Novel of Van Gogh
Sheramy Bundrick is an art historian and professor at the the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg, Florida and this is her very first novel. I enjoyed reading her fiction version of Van Gogh's last two years of life which he spent painting in Holland, Paris and Provence while suffering from mental illness. This novel makes you wonder about the reasons for Van Gogh's mental illness that led him to cut off his ear and present it to a Provence prostitute by the name of Rachel. Did Vincent Van Gogh develop mental illness because he was bi-polar or because he suffered from untreated syphlis. I guess we will never know. At the back of this book is a nice list of famous Van Gogh paintings that are mentioned in various chapters in the book.

1 comment:

ChrisJ said...

Hmm. Looks like I've found another book for my summer reading list. Thanks for posting this info.