Book Blurb:
For historical fiction fans of women’s untold true stories, an early twentieth century novel about Jo van Gogh who battled the male-dominated art elite in her fifteen-year crusade to save her genius brother-in-law Vincent from obscurity.
In the tradition of The Paris Bookseller and Her Hidden Genius, the story of a real woman overshadowed in history by the giant talent she saved, Vincent van Gogh.
How did a failed belligerent Dutch painter become one of the greatest artists of our time?
In 1891, timid Jo van Gogh Bonger lives safely in the background of her art dealer husband Theo’s passionate work to sell unknown artists, especially his ill-fated dead brother Vincent. When Theo dies unexpectedly, Jo’s brief happiness is shattered. Her inheritance—hundreds of unsold paintings by Vincent—is worthless. Pressured to move to her parents’ home, Jo defies tradition, opening a boarding house to raise her infant son alone, and choosing to promote Vincent’s art herself. But her ingenuity and persistence draw the powerful opposition of a Parisian art dealer who vows to stop her once and for all, and so sink Vincent into obscurity.
Saving Vincent reveals there was more than one genius in the Van Gogh family.
Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/sPIMALr
Editorial Review:
'Saving Vincent' by Joan Fernandez:
Most of us know at least some of the details of the brief and tortuous life of Vincent Van Gogh and of the subsequent and staggering rise of his reputation to the point where his current status is now as one of the greatest of all world artists. Slightly fewer know of the life and work of his truly devoted brother Theo, who followed him to the grave six months after Vincent's own suicide, dying, maddened and a victim of second stage syphilis. It is probably true to say that even fewer know of the life and works of the remarkable Jo Van Gogh-Bonger [1862-1925], the widow of Theo; the woman who subsequently devoted her life and all her considerable energies to not only the rescue of the art and letters of a, frankly, obscure and relatively unknown Dutch artist to the giant status of a Master that he enjoys today; a man who had sold just one of his own paintings in his entire life! She achieved this truly staggering goal heroically and almost single handedly in an age when women were, quite simply, neither required nor expected to behave in such a manner, or to display such stunning flair and determination. It is the life and work of this truly extraordinary woman that the writer Joan Fernandez, brings to life in her paean to the woman Jo Van Gogh in the book 'Saving VIncent'.
This long and impassioned book takes us from a probably claustrophobic apartment in Pigalle, a district of Paris, in the winter of 1891 to the triumphant display of four hundred and eighty four collected works of Vincent Van Gogh, long separated from each other, at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in the summer of 1905. There could not be a more dramatic contrast between the two events and it is a tribute indeed to the writer that the intervening years are so graphically and movingly described. In the first scene the reader encounters a young woman, intelligent and well educated, stranded alone with a baby son and surrounded by [doubtless immense and cumbersome] furniture and crates and crates of the art of her dead brother in-law; and a mountain of correspondence between the two brothers. Apart from these objects she is virtually penniless! Now, her loving but seemingly permanently ineffectual brother Dries arrives to tell her that her beloved husband Theo, to whom she has been married for less than two years, is dead. Now the only option, he argues, is to return home with her baby and to the control of a tyrannical and inflexible father.
In the second scene, in the Stedelijk Museum, we find an older, wiser and infinitely more experienced Jo Van Gogh being feted and acclaimed on all sides with champagne salutes from the greatest art critics and collectors of the age, a crowd of people come together in praise of her and her work on behalf of both her husband and her brother in law [for is is fair to say that when she married Theo, she also married Vincent!] She finds time in the throng to wander alone and view just some of the exhibits:
''Little reflections of light glinted from the paintings. For a moment it seemed as though they were alive, breathing. After all those years when the paintings had been cramped in her attic, after all those years of covering them up in muslim and shipping them back and forth in packing crates, it was surreal for so many to be out and seen together. No longer hidden. A joyous reunion. All in the open.....''
Finally, she stands before one of the 'Sun Flower' paintings, a familiar and cheerful image that she greets like an old friend.
We are fortunate to have a few photographs of the youthful Jo Van Gogh. There is also a powerful portrait of her by her second husband, the artist Johan Cohen Gosschalk. They are all striking images. One in particular stands out and conveys something of her personality and determination. We have the photograph of a quite slight looking woman, dressed in the sombre fashion of the day. She gazes almost defiantly at the camera; there is a sense of quiet determination and resolve to her. Is it also fanciful to detect a hint of pugnaciousness to her? This would certainly be in keeping, for in her constant and relentless championing of Vincent Van Gogh she made a considerable amount of enemies. Her image is a curious mix of steely resolve and sentimentality. This is a point that one critic [and later an ally], the art critic Richard Roland Holst made at the time:
''Mrs Van Gogh is a charming little woman, but it irritates me when someone gushes fanatically on a subject she knows nothing about, [in fairness, Jo Van Gogh had no formal art training] although blinded by sentimentality still thinks she is adopting a strictly critical attitude. It is school-girlish twaddle, nothing more....''
This is, in fact, quite mild criticism in comparison to other views. From the relative obscurity of her guest house, the 'Villa Helma' in Bussum in the north Netherlands, far away from the glittering centres of Paris and elsewhere, where her many enemies either lurked or else paraded in open hostility, she was able with true and extraordinarily precocious business acumen , control the volume and supply of the art of Vincent and, in a sense, artificially control prices and create demand. In this her decisions were largely governed by her passionate love of her son Vincentje as he grew, and the need to defend his inheritance. This passion was another of her three major passions, the third being her growing sense of socialism and of the rights of women. She was firm in her beliefs, despite her acquisitive and 'capitalist' tendencies that Vincent Van Gogh was 'of' the people and should be 'for' the people. Nothing, for example, gives her greater satisfaction than to learn that in Rotterdam 'the people' have bought a Vincent painting.
At the very beginning of the narrative, then, a courageous young widow takes a stand against her father, defying him by opening up a Guest House [with years of hard work and drudgery lying ahead of her] and is disowned by him. She is alienated from all of Vincent's former artist friends and colleagues and, in demanding her husband's bonus, falls foul of a true villain straight out of Central Casting, the truly odious and utterly repellent figure of Georges Raulf, a person fanatically consumed by hatred for the 'new art' [ which he holds responsible for the death of his younger brother]. He becomes almost demented in his hatred of 'the Van Gogh widow' and is a relentless and implacable enemy throughout the book. The writer, Joan Fernandez, paints him admirably, though she does point out in her footnotes that the figure of Georges Raulf, is in fact a fictitious amalgam of all the forces arraigned against Jo Van Gogh. He is, nonetheless, an admirable creation!
Jo remains a divisive character, with people tending to be vehement in either their support or their criticism. Besides being the champion of Vincent Van Gogh, her work as a translator and a writer should not be overlooked, particularly her monumental work in publishing his correspondence. Naturally enough, she is full of twinges of self doubt in confronting this trio of major goals. Who would not be?
''It was as though Vincent's artwork provided a heavy headwind and she wasn't strong enough to push against it.''
And, again.
''Jo opened her mouth, but no words came. Her mind seized, frozen. She stared at Jan [the art critic husband of her best friend Anna and a fierce opponent of the art of Vincent Van Gogh] and saw herself through his eyes. Through the eyes of the entire room. She was the Bussum Guesthouse Widow. The dead art dealer's wife. The overly enthusiastic sister-in-law. Sexual prey. Not an art expert. She tried to swallow, but a painful lump blocked her throat......''
There is also a further abiding fear, the fear of neglecting and failing her own beloved son Vincentje. She is constantly wracked with guilt and fear, exacerbated by her mother-in law's obsession that young Vincentje has a taint of the Van Gogh family madness. It is this, and the death of Theo of second stage syphilis, that obliges her to submit both herself and her son to regular and rigorous medical examinations. From time to time an isolated phrase from Vincent's letters leaps out at her: ''No use hesitating or doubting, Must remain fixed on one's purpose....'' Her life seems an uphill struggle, a constant battle against the dealers and critics with their own highly entrenched, views and interests; and in which a distant and interfering widow with no knowledge can only be an obstacle and a hindrance. The villain, Raulf, is but a single example and, closer to home, her own dear childhood friend Anna is becoming alienated through the hostility of her husband. She does, though, find a powerful and stirring friend and supporter in the extraordinary and singular form of Marie Mensing, an evangelising feminist and emancipationist who is always there with support and an encouraging word: ''stop listening to what other people tell you what you can and cannot do......you are the role model for me. For the new woman. You've taken control over your entire life - economic, social, personal....'' All of which, of course is perfectly true, but which does not make any of it any the easier! Jo, she reminds her, is the only female art dealer in Holland, perhaps in all of Europe! Jo is, in short, 'the New Woman'. ''You have an entire life ahead of you'' her mentor Marie urges her, ''No man should be a barrier between you and what you think.'' As a result, Jo finds herself constantly beset by waves of self doubt alternating with periods of enhanced self confidence. Jo's defence of Vincent becomes ever more impassioned, ever more strident as the time passes and as the obstacles accumulate. At one point, in trying to arrange an important exhibition, she turns on the critic Holst, already referred to above. She speaks forcefully of the man who she had barely known in life, but whom she had since come to know intimately since his death:
''He'd painted in all kinds of weather. HIs face had peeled from sunburn. He'd brushed away interminable gnats and sand stuck to his paint. Mistral winds would whip and rattle his canvas. Dogged by aching shoulders and great hunger and hollow loneliness, he'd lived on coffee and bread and beer. He'd been a machine for his work, rarely satisfied. Every day he'd turned to a fresh canvas to try once more....''
It is as fine a thumbnail sketch of the man as any. Jo is prepared to resort to guile and subterfuge, at one point enlisting, for example, Vincent's old idol Paul Gauguin [a man she holds in personal disdain] as a spy upon her personal nemesis George Raulf and others in their Parisian art dealings. She finds herself enjoying her flashes of anger and her acts of ruthlessness in the achieving of her ends. She enjoys, in short, being a 'new woman'. She even embarks upon a secret love affair with the Dutch artist Isaac Israels. She does not truly love him, but she relishes the sensations of having an affair, wishing that ''she had been more playful in bed with Theo''. There is, in fact, so much that she wishes and now regrets, all of the things she had not experienced: Her affair with Isaac Israels has brought her, amongst other things, realisation and regret.
''She wished a thousand things. That she had been bolder with Theo and pushed forward the ideas she'd had to sell Vincent's work. He could have experienced the joy in sales for Vincent. Or that she'd assisted his start in his own dealership as he'd wanted. She knew now that she could have been his business partner. She wished that she had been braver, stayed in the dining room with artists as they'd debated politics, learned to speak her mind, have her own opinions....''
Jo is fired by her mission, and by her determination to protect both the legacy of both Vincent and also the interests of her own beloved son Vincentje. It is small wonder that she continues to attract enemies and further infuriate old ones. Isaac, for one, counsels prudence., telling her 'not to stir the pot too much' for fear of ending up in the fire. Her attempts to negotiate with Georges Raulf, to at least co-operate, meet with failure . Her brother Dries is no match for the sharks of Paris and her one attempt to establish her own agent in Paris ultimately ends in grisly and macabre failure. Her own family life continues to be beset with tragedy, but still she perseveres, alone. It is at this point that she encounters the unlikely figure of Johan Cohen Gosschalk, an amiable hypochondriac who will become her second husband. In his stumbling courting of her, he buys her that gleaming symbol of 'the new Woman' - a bicycle.
Slowly, her efforts are beginning to pay off, despite a disquieting new seam of the art of Vincent appearing in Arles in the south of France from his time there and then, from a source in Holland, a secret stash in Breda, over which she has no control regarding pricing. More galleries and exhibitions beyond Holland are interested in displaying Vincent's art and there is a far greater interest in him, prompted also by Jo's stalwart efforts in publishing his correspondence. Vincent is beginning to make a stir, culminating in a display of his art at the prestigious World's Fair in Paris! She has a far firmer control on pricing and the control of the market. She has proved to be a more than efficient Business person, and Marie Mensing must be justifiably proud of her, the archetypal 'woman in a man's world'. Jo marries and, perhaps with regret, sells the Guest House Villa Helma and moves to Amsterdam. Vincentje is now fourteen, and with an insipient moustache.
And so, with the glittering triumph of the Stedellijk Exhibition, the wheel has come full circle. ''Saving Vincent'' by Joan Fernandez is a fine and remarkable book. It teems with personalities and individuals entering and exiting the crowded and busy life of Jo Van Gogh-Bonger and the incidents and events listed are far too many and complex for the purposes of a single book review. Joan Fernandez has brought to vivid life a truly remarkable person in tooth, claw and sinew that perhaps the world in general knows too little of. The writer has made her own and not inconsiderable contribution to a necessary and fuller understanding of the contribution of a truly steadfast and courageous individual.
*****
“Saving Vincent” by Joan Fernandez receives 4.5 stars from The Historical Fiction Company
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