Vincent Van Gogh’s turbulent and tragic life story is told with compassion and wisdom in Giuseppe Cafiero’s exceptional work of bio-fiction, writes Lucy Bryson.

By Lucy Bryson

This fascinating audiobook from prolific writer Giuseppe Cafiero provides a nuanced account of the life and times of one of the greatest painters of the 20^th-Century. It sheds fresh light on the ways in which the artist’s life and works were shaped by people, places – and by a dangerously obsessive personality.

Loosely based around the correspondence between Van Gogh and his brother Theo – here portrayed as one of very few constantly supportive figures in the troubled artist’s all-too-short life – Van Gogh, The Ambiguity of Insanity presents Van Gogh’s life as a fictional series of chapters, each shaped by a particularly meaningful woman and by the place where the Dutchman was living at the time. Cafiero creates a portrait of a man both proud and vulnerable, reclusive yet deeply desirous of emotional, artistic and physical companionship.

Beginning with his early life on the Dutch-Belgian border, born to a pious pastor father and staunchly religious mother in a “sterile, oppressive land, burdened with gossip, ill-feeling and sickness“, Cafiero goes on to present Van Gogh’s life in 10 chapters, each of which takes as a focus a specific woman – be she an unrequited love, a lover, family member, model or muse – who was instrumental in shaping the troubled artist’s life.

Cafiero’s audiobook paints a stark yet vivid picture of an obsessive, psychologically vulnerable man, prone to extremes of emotion that led him to dark and troubled places. He was, we learn, driven by obsessions, which were often seemingly at odds with each other: an obsession with religious piety; with erotic love; with redemption; with artistic perfection; with family ties and with friendship (Vincent is seen to be hugely emotionally affected by the collapse of his friendship with fellow artist Gaugin). Suffering the pain of rejection on numerous occasions (and often as a result of inappropriate fixations), Van Gogh was perhaps overly dependent on his more stable brother Theo, who supported him both financially and emotionally throughout Vincent’s turbulent life and until his premature death at the age of just 37.

But we discover that Van Gogh’s emotional and artistic life was shaped not only by the women he encountered, but also by the places he lived, studied and painted – from the glamour of Paris to the decay of London’s insalubrious back streets. Van Gogh travelled extensively in his 37 years, and was apparently deeply susceptible to external influences.

The book follows Van Gogh’s long and painful mental unravelling and his sad journey towards apparent suicide (it has never quite been an open and shut case, and some people still maintain Van Gogh was murdered…). As its title suggests, this book shows that ‘insanity’ is not a constant, easily identifiable condition, but rather a spectrum, and something that may be more or less apparent at different life stages. Cafiero’s passion for his subject matter is evident (as is his painstaking research) and he has taken care avoid sensationalism. 

Vincent Van Gogh, The Ambiguity Of Insanity is a powerful, thoughtful account of a fascinating figure in art history. 

Vincent Van Gogh, The Ambiguity Of Insanity by Giuseppe Cafiero (Rowanvale Books), is out now as an audiobook on Amazon UK, Audible or iTunes.

Q&A with Italian author Giuseppe Cafiero

Giuseppe Cafiero is pioneering the ‘bio-fiction’ genre with meticulous research and masterful storytelling. Frost Magazine finds out more about what drives and inspires him, and his plans for the future.

Frost Magazine (FM): You have become known for your bio-fictional accounts of the lives of authors. What made you turn your attention to the life of an artist? 

Giuseppe Cafiero (GC): My main interest in the life of Vincent Van Gogh is in his humanity. In attempting to understand the man and his art, I have focused on the women and the places which played an essential part in his development. In my opinion, no previous biography has concentrated so specifically on these two factors, which I have used to provide the framework for my account.

FM: Van Gogh is more typically portrayed as the stereotypical ‘tortured genius’ – do you think that is an oversimplification? 

GC: Certainly. The vital factor in Van Gogh’s life was his obsessive determination to become a painter. It is impossible to understand man without investigating the nature of this obsession.

FM: How did researching the book alter your understanding of Van Gogh and his work (if at all) and did anything about his relationships or personality surprise you?

GC: I was surprised by the obsession as a subtle and tragic illness that inexorably consumed man. He was driven by a passionate determination to express himself through colour: above all with yellow as a symbol of life and spirituality.

FM: Who is the book likely to appeal to, and what do you hope readers will take away from reading it?

GC: The book is for lovers of Van Gogh and those who try to understand how madness can be a creative means. The long and painful progress towards suicide, the desire for extinction once madness turned out to be a painful companion and certainly not the source of hope.

FM: Why did you choose to base each of the chapters around a woman and a place in Van Gogh’s life? Was it a clear choice as to which females and locations to include?

GC: The book really focusses on Van Gogh’s obsessions: the obsession with redemption (his mission among the miners of Borinage and his relationship with Sien); the obsession with friendship (the failure of his relationship with Rachel in Arles); the obsession with a selfishly tormented spirituality (the relationship with the Kee Vos in Etten); the obsession with the sun of southern France (Madame Ginoux in Auvers); and the obsession with family love (her relationship with her sister-in-low Johanna in Paris).

FM: This title seems to have a more straightforward narrative than other titles in the Ambiguities series. Was this a conscious decision?

GC: Yes, of course. I had to tell the life of Van Gogh, the women he met, the places he frequented, the paintings he painted year after year.

FM: Van Gogh produced some of his finest works while his mental health was at a low (for example Starry Night). Do you think his mental health issues were integral to his genius as an artist?

GC: Van Gogh’s life was a moving struggle to find his way as an artist. He managed to express at the end of his life and through a tender and overwhelming madness, a pictorial proposition in which the colours are an unimaginable beauty.

FM: Are there any other titles planned in the Ambiguities series? And how would you summarise the series for readers who are not yet familiar with the books?

GC: Certainly. I have written books on the ambiguity of Gustave Flaubert, Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf and Mario di Sa Carneiro. Ambiguity is just a way of seeing some writers from a particular perspective: in their imagination and their desire for imagination.