What Van Gogh was reading
Before being the isolated painter created by legend, Vincent van Gogh was a fierce reader. The books gave him characters, a morality, a method for looking at reality and sometimes shelter against illness.
A library without inventory, but a perfectly documented passion
Van Gogh read the Bible, Dickens, Zola, Victor Hugo, Michelet, Shakespeare, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Balzac, George Eliot, Maupassant, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert, Daudet, Huysmans and many others. His letters do not allow us to reconstruct a complete library, but they reveal a vast, mobile literary culture directly linked to his painting.
He did not always own the volumes he read. He bought popular editions, borrowed, requested mailings from Théo or recommended titles to his sister Wil. The important thing is therefore not to set up an imaginary shelf, but to observe what he was looking for in the texts: credible human beings, working lives, moral truth and the mark of the author's temperament.
In the famous formula of June 1880, he explains that we must learn to read as we must learn to see and live. This sentence sums up his relationship with books: reading is a training of the gaze.
From the family Bible to the yellow novels of Paris and Arles
Bible, sermons, uplifting poetry and authors authorized in a pastor's family.
English opens Longfellow and especially Dickens, who will remain a companion all his life.
Almost exclusive reading of the Bible, Bunyan, Thomas a Kempis and Christian authors.
Michelet, Hugo, Balzac, George Eliot, Stowe and Zola accompanied his decision to become an artist.
French naturalists, Shakespeare and Dickens: aesthetic reflection, humor and consolation.
The yellow covers herald a new world
In cheap 19th-century French editions, recent novels frequently appear under yellow covers. Van Gogh recognizes them as signs of modernity. He stacks them up, contrasts them with a rose, a statuette or a glass: they are not simple accessories, but the visual equivalents of an intellectual conversation.
Painting and literature come together here through color. The red, yellow, green and blue backs organize the surface like the touches of a bouquet. The content of books counts, but their materiality also counts: used paper, pocket volumes, manipulated and shared objects.
Learning to read, for Van Gogh, is like learning to see and live.Faithful paraphrase of letter 155 to Théo, June 1880
He wasn't just looking for a story: he was looking for the artist behind the book
In 1889, in Saint-Rémy, Vincent explained to his sister Wil that he read books to find the artist who made them. This remark distances the image from a passive reader. He observes the choice of characters, the rhythm, the compassion or cruelty of the story and the capacity of a writer to give a singular form to reality.
"Figure painters’ books"
Dickens, Hugo and Zola construct human types. Vincent sees it as the literary equivalent of the portrait: silhouettes, gestures, clothing and social place immediately become visible.
Nature crossed by a temperament
The formula associated with Zola helps him think that a work faithful to reality is never neutral. The artist observes nature, then transforms it through his sensitivity.
A reserve of courage
In crises, he returns to Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Books can "edify" and comfort without denying poverty, disease or injustice.
A remote dialogue
He asks Théo for titles, comments on them in his letters and advises Wil. Lire forms an intellectual network between The Hague, Paris, Arles and Saint-Rémy.
Three living languages
Dutch, French and English give him access to several traditions. He reads some authors in the original language, others in translation or in extracts.
Correspondences between arts
He brings Shakespeare closer to Rembrandt, Victor Hugo to Delacroix or Beecher Stowe to Ary Scheffer. The comparison clarifies what a work makes him feel.
Zola: looking at men without beautifying their condition
After reading A page of love in 1882, Van Gogh announced that he wanted to read all of Zola. He follows recent novels, talks about them with Théo and recognizes in naturalism a project close to his own: showing beings in their environment, without transforming them into agreed allegories.
Zola offers him less of a program to copy than permission. Peasants, workers, tired women, cafes, poor housing and marginal existences deserve to enter art. This conviction links the first drawings of Borinage, Potato Eaters and the portraits of Arles.
In Still life in the Bible, Zola's book The joy of living appears worn out, next to the imposing family Bible. The contrast is not reduced to "faith against atheism": it depicts two legacies, two ways of understanding suffering and the contemporary world.
What Van Gogh admires about Zola: a social truth that has become an artistic form.Synthetic reading from letters 244, 345 and 804
Dickens, Hugo, Stowe, Shakespeare, Maupassant: five companions, five uses
The French Revolution, but also a writing of nature and the people which accompanies the exit from its religious crisis.
An author authorized during her religious period, then appreciated for psychological truth and the dignity of ordinary lives.
Meticulously constructed social worlds; in 1889, he expressed limitless admiration for Flaubert and the Goncourts.
Tarascon Tartarin brings the humor of the South; Huysmans belongs to the laboratory of modern naturalist novels.
The ancient tragedy enters into the great readings he lists in 1880, alongside Shakespeare, Hugo and Dickens.
He recommends the Russians to Wil and is interested in a literature broadening the moral, social and spiritual horizon of Europe.
The Bible: first vocation, then critical dialogue
The son of a pastor, Van Gogh grew up in a biblical culture. Between 1877 and 1879, when he wanted to become a preacher, the Scriptures occupied almost all the space. He also reads Bunyan, Thomas a Kempis, Bossuet and Fénelon. In Borinage, he seeks to live the Gospel among poor miners.
The failure of his vocation and the conflict with religious institutions do not mean that the Bible disappears. She changes status. In 1881, he wrote that he sometimes read it like Michelet, Balzac or George Eliot: the same text now shows him something other than what his father sees there.
In Saint-Rémy, he continues to evoke biblical stories, but often refuses to illustrate them out of pure invention. He admires Millet, a reader of the Bible who mainly paints the gestures of work. The spiritual can therefore pass through a sower, a garden, a face or a night, without explicit religious subject.
Reducing this journey to a simple transition from faith to atheism erases the essential: Van Gogh breaks with the Church and his father's theology, but maintains a biblical culture which structures his language, his comparisons and his vision of consolation.
Four paintings to see what reading did to his eyes
The Novel Reader
The face is not detailed: posture, dark dress, hair and yellow rectangle of the book are enough. Reading becomes a modern, concentrated, almost luminous activity. Vincent describes the painting to Théo in letter 720.
Statuette, rose and two novels
The ancient plaster ideal confronts the ephemeral flower and the contemporary novel. Three beauty regimes fit on the same table.
L'Arlésienne, Madame Ginoux
Two open and closed books accompany the portrait. The character is not defined by a picturesque setting but by his presence, his thought and this silent proximity to reading.
See reproductionFrench and pink novels
Van Gogh paints the books like a bouquet: nervous touches, complementary colors and unstable arrangement. Modern thinking becomes a visible thing.
What literature concretely changes in its painting
Choose the subjects
Miners, weavers, farmers, cafes, women at work: the social novel confirms that ordinary life deserves an ambitious form.
Build a type
Like Dickens or Zola, Vincent seeks a particular face which also carries a broader human condition.
Assume temperament
Loyalty excludes neither exaggeration nor expressive color. A true work bears the emotional signature of its author.
Hold on to the crisis
The stories keep open humor, attention to others and the desire to work when illness reduces one's world.
Why this library corrects the legend of the instinctive artist
Van Gogh's popular image readily contrasts the spontaneity of the touch with reflection. His letters prove the opposite. He works, compares, memorizes, translates and constructs genealogies between writers and painters.
He is not an academic and does not claim to be. His culture is discontinuous, enthusiastic, sometimes biased. But it is lived. A novel becomes a method of portraiture; a tragedy enlightens Rembrandt; the Bible confronts Zola; Dickens accompanies a difficult night.
This circulation explains why his paintings appear both immediate and busy. Behind the color, there is an experience of the world linked to hundreds of pages.
Where to start reading with Van Gogh?
| Author | Start with | What Van Gogh found there | Key moment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Dickens | Christmas Tales or David Copperfield | Humanity, humor, city, marginalized people and consolation. | London, then rereadings to Saint-Rémy. |
| Emile Zola | A page of love, then The joy of living | Social environments, modern reality and the power of temperament. | The Hague and Nuenen, 1882 -1885. |
| Victor Hugo | The Wretches | Dramatic grandeur and attention to the humiliated. | Artistic turning point of 1880. |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe | Uncle Tom's Cabin | Compassion, injustice and moral force of the story. | Rereaded during illness in 1889. |
| William Shakespeare | Hamlet or King Lear | Depth of characters, tragedy and human chiaroscuro. | Sustainable reference, close to Rembrandt. |
| Jules Michelet | History of the French Revolution | People, history, nature and exit from dogma. | Borinage and Brussels, circa 1880. |
| Guy de Maupassant | The stories, then Bel-Friend | Clear observation, irony and modern situations. | Arles and Saint-Rémy. |
This course is not a classification of one's preferences. Exact titles vary depending on periods and correspondence status; it is a gateway based on works explicitly commented on in letters.
What letters allow - and what they do not allow
False. His learning is not academic in the classical sense, but his readings, museum visits, reproductions and exchanges form a dense visual and literary culture.
False. The Bible dominates some years, but the correspondence then cites a very large corpus of French, English, Dutch, ancient and Russian.
Too simple. Still life in the Bible puts two legacies in tension. Biblical references remain long after the break with the religious institution.
False. The letters list hundreds of titles and periodicals, but reading a book does not mean owning it. Any complete list would be artificial.
Explore the paintings surrounding his readings
L'Arlésienne, Madame Ginoux
The portrait unites human presence, flat areas of color and books placed on the table. An ideal work to see how Van Gogh transforms the reader into a monumental figure without telling an anecdote.
Discover reproductionLetters, religion and intellectual friendships
Van Gogh reader
Who was Van Gogh's favorite writer?
There is no single answer. Dickens is the most enduring companion; Zola dominates his thinking on modern realism; the Bible deeply structures its culture and language.
Was Van Gogh reading Zola?
Yes, with passion. After A page of love in 1882, he wanted to read all of Zola. The joy of living appears in his Still life in the Bible from 1885.
What books did Dickens Van Gogh know?
His letters mention in particular the Christmas stories and several great novels. He read Dickens in the English years and still reread it in Saint-Rémy.
Did Van Gogh read the Bible after leaving religion?
Yes. He breaks with the ecclesiastical institution and with his father's vision, but continues to read and quote the Bible. His interpretation becomes more personal, literary and moral.
Did Van Gogh read in English?
Yes. His time in London and his language practice gave him direct access to English literature, including Dickens, Shakespeare and George Eliot.
How many books has Van Gogh read?
Impossible to quantify precisely. The letter edition identifies hundreds of books, authors, magazines and newspapers, but not everything he read is mentioned and not everything he cites belonged to him.
Why was he painting yellow books?
Popular French editions often used yellow covers. In his paintings, this color immediately signals the modern novel and creates a powerful contrast with blues, greens or reds.
Did literature influence his style?
Yes, less as an illustration than as a method: choosing ordinary lives, constructing strong figures, assuming the artist's temperament and uniting social truth and emotional intensity.
Letters and reference search
- Van Gogh Letters, "Literature" - scholarly synthesis of readings, authors and uses.
- Letter 155 to TheoJune 1880 - learn to read, Shakespeare, Hugo, Dickens, Stowe and Michelet.
- Letter 193December 1881 - read the Bible like Michelet, Balzac or George Eliot.
- Letter 244July 1882 - after A page of love, plan to read all of Zola.
- Letter 345May 1883 - Hugo, Zola and Dickens as "books of figure painters".
- Letter 720November 1888 - description of the woman reading a yellow novel.
- Letter 753March 1889 - Dickens, Beecher Stowe and consoling literature.
- Letter 801September 1889 - the books that edify and comfort during illness.
- Letter 804September 1889 - look for the artist in his books; Zola, Flaubert, Goncourt, Maupassant, Huysmans.
- Letter 822November 1889 - Bible, Millet and spiritual subjects without biblical illustration.
- Vincent van Gogh: The Letters - reference annotated digital edition, 902 letters.
- Van Gogh Museum, texts from the permanent collection . Still life in the Bible and The joy of living.
The long quotes have been reformulated in French; links lead to transcriptions, facsimiles and critical notes to verify the exact context.
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