criticism of Modernism

Saltzman makes several factual errors about Vincent. This was discouraging to read. I know something about Vincent but I know nothing about the history of what happened to the painting of Dr. Gachet. Saltzman's research was supposed to be brilliant. Would the rest of the book be full of errors too?

The book was very interesting and I think that apart from the errors about Vincent, the rest of the book was probably credible. The strange thing is that after the death of the Japanese industrialist (Saito) who bought the painting at auction for the highest price ever paid for a work of art sold at auction, no one knows what happened to the painting after Saito died in 1996. But Saltzman never mentions that there is any mystery to the painting's present location. Saito died in 1996 and this book was written in 1998, so she knew of the disappearance of the painting. And yet I didn't know there was any mystery until I looked online to see who owned the painting now.

Some of the factual errors were: (1) that Vincent attended school in his home town whereas he had been sent away to school, which he found very painful; (2) that he came from a wealthy family of art dealers, which ignored the fact that his family was poor and his rich art-business relatives refused to help him once he started to paint; that we worked in an exclusive art dealer business, never mentioning that he had been fired; and much more. Really the first part of the book was disturbing, coming from someone who was supposed to have done such excellent research. But the rest of the book made up for it. ( )

Good book. Read and follow how are history and world events paralell. ( )

Gogh, Vincent van, 1853-1890. Dr. Gachet/Gachet, Paul Ferdinand, 1828-1909 > Portraits/Gogh, Vincent van, 1853-1890 > Criticism and/interpretation