Book Review: Vincent: Art Masters Series

Vincent is the graphic biography of Vincent Van Gogh. The book is published by SelfMadeHero-under its Art Masters series. Some of the other books in the series include Rembrandt and Pablo Picasso, which was reviewed here.

The graphic novel does not cover the entire life of Van Gogh , but focus mainly on his move to Provence in southern France. It sheds light into his intense artistic endeavour during that period of time, including his troubling friendship with Paul Gauguin-another Titan in Post Impressionism.

This is a superb graphic novel by Barbara Stok. She gives the reader an overview of Van Gogh’s life-from his inner workings as an artist to the letters with his brother- Theo, who stoutly believes in Van Gogh. Stok delves into Van Gogh’s life and creates a sensitive portrait of the artist, which connects with the reader.

The artworks is simple and effective, almost simplistic with a touch of Chris Ware’s style.
They are created with simple bold and black outline with flat colors, and this allows the reader to focus on the story, without any distraction (I must confess that I was quite wary of the book initially and felt that the style look too simple and I won’t enjoy it. I am glad I was wrong on that)
There are some interesting elements that Barbara Stok used - eg, the lines will be wavy or zig-zag at times. Some of the scenes are devoid of text , with clever use of the drawings to tease out the content and the panels are very succinct and clear in terms of the story pacing.

It’s a great graphic novel for anyone who wants to know more of Van Gogh’s life in the annals of art history.

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Vincent: Art Masters Series is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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