van Gogh the reader

[rapa]

Many thanks to Lip Service for posting the beautiful van Gogh still life of books.

Here is a bit about van Gogh, himself a reader.


http://www.vangoghreproductions.com/paintings/1887-12.html

[Lip Service]

Very interesting

Unfortunately the link on that page does not provide information on the three books in the painting

Here is what i found on the three French books:

“Van Gogh painted this still life on the oval lid of a Japanese tea box. With some difficulty, the titles of the books can be discerned: Braves gens by Jean Richepin, Au bonheur des dames by Emile Zola and La fille Elisa by Edmond de Goncourt, all three of them contemporary Naturalist novels. Van Gogh was a great reader, of books in Dutch, German, English and French. He was particularly influenced by the French Naturalists. As he wrote to his sister Wil, ‘they paint life as we ourselves feel it, thereby fulfilling the need we have for people to tell us the truth.’“ 

The three authors are described as "naturalists" they were really early critics of the society at that time