Claire Cooperstein

While an actual diary exists of the wife of Theo Van Gogh, the family repeatedly has denied public access. Thus, after much research, the author has created a very likeable, complex character of Johanna Van Gogh, (later in life after a second marriage) Johanna Gosschalk-Bonger. Written in diary form, we travel with Johanna from her love of Theo through her final days.

This book is exactly what historical fiction (faction) should be. It entices the reader to learn more about the subject and to ferret fact from fiction. In searching for information about Johanna, I found that Cooperstein adhered to the life of this wonderful, woman who was way ahead of her time.

The daughter of an insurance broker, Johanna came from a wealthy family from Amsterdam. A strict, controlling father doubted her choice of Theo Van Gogh as a husband. Learning there was a history of "unstability" in his brother, naturally, he feared for her future.

And sadly, his apprehension was well founded. A well-know art dealer, Theo appreciated the new artisit movement of the impressionists. Scorned by the high brow artists, this art form was deemed primative and sorely lacking any context or value. Yet, Theo believed in his eccentric brother with a pure love that many have difficulty understanding.

Johanna loved Theo deeply, and shortly after their marriage became pregnant with thier son, named Vincent after his Uncle.

Supporting Vincent emotionally and financially, the relationship at times appeared to be one sided. At distinct happy times in Theo's life, Vincent appeared to have a breakdown. Slicing his ear, and near dead from the bleeding, Theo grieved. Checking himself in and out of asylums. the timing co-incided with their engagement announcement, their wedding day, the announcement of the impending birth of a baby, and, the day Vincent shot himself was a day that Theo and Johanna prepared for a time alone -- a second honeymoon.

Rushing to the bedside of Vincent, Theo held his hand as Vincent's life came to an end after a slow, painful time from a gunshot wound to the chest.

Theo never recovered, and died six months later, leaving Johanna with a baby boy, a meager savings, and an apartment in France she could not afford. Institutionalized because of his extreme aggressive and unpredictible behavior, Theo's death certificate noted he died from grief, exhaustion and over work. In fact, he died of syphilis.

Her father's letters were stern and insistant that she return home to Amsterdam. In extreme grief, she relented and later regretted her decision.

With the help of her brother, she eventually left home, purchased a boarding house. Consumed with raising a child and keeping the boarding house afloat she had little time. Yet, still, because of her undying love of Theo and his unswearving devotion to his brother, she found connections to exhibit Vincent's work.

In fact, I discovered a November 1, 2010 Smithsonian article that was titled: The Woman Who Brought Van Gogh To the World

In was a slow process as the impressionist movement was slow to be appreciated by the art world.

In his final months, Vincent painted a prodigious amount of work. As he lay dying, the layers and layers on his paintings were still not dry. Inheriting the paintings after Theo died, Johanna's father insisted she stop paying storage costs for the 200 plus works in her possession, and that they be thrown away or burnt.

The world does indeed have her to thank that she followed her heart, kept the collection which is now shared throughout the world.

At the end of her life, she worked tirelessly to place the letters that Vincent and Theo shared in some type of order.

FIVE STARS

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.… (lisätietoja)

Johanna van Gogh worked tirelessly after her brother-in-law Vincent's death to help establish his reputation as a pre-eminent artist. Without her, his work would likely have faded into obscurity or worse yet, destroyed. And yet she promoted van Gogh's work entirely out of love for her late husband, who succumbed to mental illness and died (of syphilis) not long after his much loved older brother's death. Cooperstein has imagined Johanna's diary and letters as it might have told the story of her brief marriage to Theo van Gogh and her subsequent quest to find the fame he had worked for so diligently on his brother's behalf. There is an actual diary written by Johanna but the van Gogh family has refused all requests by authors and historians to view it. Cooperstein has created a credible character in her Johanna, showing her frustrations, sorrows, and joys, before and during her marriage and subsequent long widowhood as well as in her second marriage. There are known historical details peppered throught this mostly epistolary novel (Johanna continues to write letters to her late husband as a means of communicating with him--really just as a way to clarify her own thoughts) and while the bulk of the novel deals with the seemingly insurmountable hurdles to having van Gogh recognized as the brilliant avant guarde artist he was, we also see the gathering political clouds over Europe. Cooperstein's Johanna is a progressive and strong woman as the real Johanna must have been to have perservered in her causes, both for van Gogh's art and for womens' rights. This was an interesting book and illuminated a story I hadn't realized existed behind van Gogh's art. My biggest quibble with the book was the frankness of the discussion of sex by Joahnna's second husband when writing to his father. Perhaps this was indeed a cultural thing, as he himself notes in his letter, but it seemed gratuitous, and honestly out of place, in this novel. Other than a few bits like this, though, an enjoyable read. Perhaps someday, we'll be allowed to see the contents of Johanna's diary and we can see how well and closely portrayed Cooperstein's Johanna is. In the meantime, Cooperstein's Johanna is worth spending some time with: passionate, devoted, and determined.… (lisätietoja)