Nobody has ever connected Van Gogh’s melancholy to his painting, thus acknowledging the autonomy of art and without relying solely – and simplistically – on biographical evidence:
Massimo Recalcati has finally done it. Establishing new and fruitful connections between facts, Recalcati moves form the source of Van Gogh’s psychosis within his family – Vincent was born on the first anniversary of his brother’s death and bore his name – through his choice of living as an outsider because of the disgrace of being a substitute-son, to his total devotion to painting, to the “high yellow note”, that is, to the incandescence of Southern light as he was able to capture it on the cloth. Did you think you knew each and every shade of Van Gogh’s palette and life? Recalcati will
show you how much we have been missing.