At Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent Van Gogh

Based on Van Gogh's personal correspondence, this biography shows the artist's pilgrimage of faith, from his early religious training through his evangelical missionary periods to his struggle with religion and modernity. 24 illustrations.

Few images in modern art have so captured the attention of the public as Van Gogh's Starry Night, a painting that reveals all the light and glory hidden in an ordinary evening sky. In this very readable study of Van Gogh, essentially a spiritual biography, Kathleen Erickson explores the intense spirituality of the painter, from his early religious training and evangelical missionary work to the crisis that occurred when the church rejected his more radical way of following Christ. Erickson argues (against many Van Gogh scholars) that the artist's mature work reflects not a rejection of Christ so much as a rejection of a dogmatic church, seeing instead in the famous images of his art a profound connection to Christian symbols. Throughout, she helps us to discover the source of the power in Van Gogh's stars and sunflowers. --Doug Thorpe