When he proposes, she responds: “No, nay, never.” Later, he tries to visit her at her parents’ home in Amsterdam. As a result, he is dismissed from his position, for ‘undermining the dignity of the priesthood.” Back in Etten, Vincent conceives another unrequited passion, for Cornelia “Kee” Vos-Stricker. He gives away most of his salary to poor families, and he donates his comfortable rooms above the bakery to a homeless person, moving to an unheated hut. The locals don’t take him seriously as an evangelist because he looks like a “madman,” and soon, instead of preaching, he is spending his time sketching the scenes and people around him, excited by the beauty he perceives amid the squalor. After failing the entrance exam, which would have allowed him to study Theology at university, Vincent is sent as a missionary to the deeply impoverished mining town of the Borinage in Belgium. He becomes depressed, taking comfort in religion.Įventually, Vincent decides to become a Calvinist pastor. However, he falls in love with his landlady’s daughter, Eugenie, and his proposal is rejected. His work goes well, and for a while, he is happy.

With his family’s help, Vincent secures a position at an art dealer’s in London. During these years, he suffers the first of many unrequited passions, for a local girl, Ursula. Vincent’s father is a predikant, a Dutch Calvinist minister, and his upbringing is strict and religious. Stone begins his story with Vincent’s teenage years. The book devotes many pages to the genesis of van Gogh’s most famous paintings, including Sunflowers, Bedroom in Arles, and Wheat Field with Crows. In each place, the artist learns something that feeds into his work. It is divided into nine sections, each titled after its setting: London, the Borinage, Etten, The Hague, Paris, Arles, St. In writing the novel, Stone drew heavily on the more than 700 surviving letters between van Gogh and his beloved brother Theo in the author’s own assessment, his story is “based 98 percent on documentary evidence.” The novel is structured around the places of van Gogh’s life. American author Irving Stone’s Lust for Life (1934) is a biographical novel based on the life of Vincent van Gogh, the great Dutch Impressionist painter.

A lust for life book