Van Gogh’s Re-discovered Landscape: “Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague.”

“I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will
come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value
of the paints used in the picture.”

How poignant is that? If only he could have known. A year or two ago the best episode ever of Dr Who imagined what it would be like to go back to Van Gogh's time and tell him how famous he would become, how admired his art would be, and how revered as an artist. It finished with Van Gogh transported into the future to observe the adulation of visitors to the Van Gogh museum admiring his paintings.

Real life isn't like that. He died poor, unrecognised and his paintings largely unsold. His work is now essentially a collection of masterpieces – even minor paintings are of major importance, and there's little point now in talking of monetary value. Just keep adding zeros. So the finding of a new full size landscape, confirmed as an authentic Van Gogh, is cause for celebration and gratitude from everyone whose world is the richer for the work of Van Gogh.

The letters written by Vincent to his brother Theo reveal much of the inner life of this remarkable, tortured genius. He repeatedly talks of the importance of love, the inner springs of imagination, art as both passion and tedium, and the stars, the importance of the stars as guides not only for his feet, but more significantly for his heart. "When I have a terrible need of, shall I say – religion? Then I go out and paint the stars."

 And he knew about risk, anxiety, failure and rejection. At times he can be almost stoic in responding to his own anguish, and finding in it possibilities otherwise unavailable. “The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible,
but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining
ashore.”

His paintings remain, for me at least, texts of comfort and solidarity, sermons in symbol and colour, and as in all great art, a summons to see, to attend and to be changed.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24014186