In Vincent’s women Donna Russo tells us about the important women in Vincent van Gogh’s life, through stories his sister-in-law Johanna (Jo) van Gogh-Bonger tells her son Willem.
It starts with his mother, Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. She was a cold woman who was hard on the serious, mentally unstable boy he was. She grew more impatient with him as his mental illness episodes progress.
The second woman is the young Eugenie Loyer, the daughter of his landlady in London. Vincent became infatuated with Eugenie but she was engaged to someone else. Vincent was asked to leave his boarding house when he became more insistent with his advances towards Eugenie. After this, he started stalking her until his family moved him home to the Netherlands.
After Vincent studies to become a priest and flunks out, he’s sent to the Belgian town of Petit-Wasmes as a missionary. He boarded with the Denis family and became like a son to Madame Denis who took him under her wing. Vincent was having a hard time relating to the mine workers, and left the Denis family to go live in one of the shacks for the miners and the church authorities dismissed him.
When he returned to his parents’ home, his cousin Cornelia (Kee) Vos-Stricker was visiting with her son Jan. Kee had recently been widowed and she spent a lot of time walking in the area with Vincent who had taken up his art again. Vincent mistook her kindness for romantic love and asked her to marry him. Again, he became obsessive and even followed Kee home to her parents’ house in Amsterdam to convince her they belonged together. However, this ended in another heartbreak for him.
Vincent moved to The Hague and became the apprentice of a successful artist: Anton Mauve, who happens to be his cousin as well. In The Hague, Vincent met the prostitute Clasina Maria (Sien) Hoornik. Sien was pregnant and already had a young daughter. and they became Vincent’s models. They also moved in with him. Sien had a son, Willem, while she was in a relationship with Vincent. But she too disappeared from his life.
After Vincent moved back in with his parents, after spending some time alone in Drenthe. His parents now lived in Nuenen. Here he met the neighbour Margaretha (Margot) Begemann. The two started taking walks together and fell in love. They wanted to marry but both families were against it. Margot took a fatal dose of strychnine, however, she survived because Vincent rushed her to hospital. Their marriage never happened.
The next section in the book tells us about Vincent’s history with Paul Gauguin and his descent into madness. After he cut his ear, he had himself committed and he met Sister Epiphany who nursed him back to health. To alleviate the cost of his medical care, Vincent left to get care from a different doctor: Gachet.
The last woman in the book is Marguerite Gachet, the doctor’s daughter. Vincent painted two portraits of Marguerite.
I enjoyed this book. Van Gogh is one of my favourite painters and it was great learning more about his life.
Read for the ShelfReflection Reading Challenge 2025
Prompt 6: A book about a historical figure
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
