Vincent Van Gogh’s comics style

Barbara Stok’s delightful comics biography encapsulates the spirit of the artist’s struggle, influences and commitment to art

The Dutch painting maestro Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853–1890)’s life told through the medium of comics naturally produces a work that anticipates its own heritage. Van Gogh was heavily inspired by many techniques employed in Japanese ukiyo-e prints, which he hung in his Antwerp studio to brighten the room and internalise the techniques employed by their creator. He described them as containing “those little female figures in gardens or on the shore, horsemen, flowers, gnarled thorn branches” in a letter to his brother Theo from Antwerp. He made copies of these prints to understand them better.

Van Gogh’s copy of Japanese artist Kesai Eisen

Later, he would start collecting Japanese woodcut art prints, hoping to trade in them. He was not alone in this craze. Japanese art became an obsession with 19th century Paris. This mania was called Japonisme, but van Gogh called it Japonaiserie. In a letter to his brother Theo, he exclaims:

“One of De Goncourt’s sayings was ‘Japonaiserie for ever’.”