Learning From Henri Nouwen & Vincent van Gogh, by Carol A. Berry

My sweet husband bought me this book for Valentine’s Day after we watched the movie Loving Vincent in theaters. If you are not familiar with the movie, but you enjoy art, I would highly recommend it. The book, Learning from Henri Nouwen and Vincent van Gogh: A Portrait of the Compassionate Life, by Carol A. Berry, is a thoughtful composite of Vincent van Gogh’s life, art and writings, as researched and taught by renowned theologist Henri Nouwen. The author of the book, Carol Berry, was a pupil of Nouwen’s at Yale Divinity School. Having read a couple of Nouwen’s books myself, this book provided me with a fresh perspective on van Gogh’s story. It is an unusual combination of two of my seemingly unrelated interests: theology and art.

The book is organized in three parts: Solidarity, Consolation, and Comfort, respectively. And within each part, the chapters are “Henri”, “Vincent” and “My Story”, meaning the author’s perspective. If the book sounds a bit like the game telephone, it is a little, except that Carol Berry, and before her, Henri Nouwen are attentive listeners and communicators who seek to accurately understand what Vincent van Gogh may have been communicating in his art and letters.

According to Berry, Nouwen’s approach to van Gogh’s work is unique because he has a more personal grasp on a force that seemed to drive van Gogh - namely, his care for the poor. The discussion about van Gogh’s mental state among psychoanalysts and art historians alike is well known. But, according to Berry, Henri Nouwen encouraged his students to consider van Gogh’s life choices and artwork as stemming from his spirituality; indeed that to view the emotionality of his art as merely a result of his manic/depressive mind is to do an injustice to van Gogh. Moreover, it misses what Vincent states (in letters to his brother, Theo) he is trying to accomplish with his art. I would venture to assert that most artists want to “say something” with their work. But van Gogh’s achievement is to provoke emotions in the viewers of his art. More importantly, he succeeds to evoke in others the emotions that he himself feels.

Here is a man, so captivated by the suffering of others that he hurt over it. He cared so much that he broke. He may have even died over it (although, of course, the circumstance of his death is still debated). After reading this book, the thought struck me that Vincent van Gogh was truly an honest man; one who could not ignore the suffering of those around him, or that he himself endured. I also realized that the beauty of Henri Nouwen’s teachings about van Gogh is that they allow him human dignity that, I feel, is often absent from discourse about him. Stating that the genius of his obsessive work is the result of mental illness can, ironically, degrade him to just being “crazy” or “unstable”, if brilliant. Instead Nouwen appears to have taught from the perspective that even if Vincent struggled with mental illness, his perspective is not only valid and human, but also admirable, and something we should allow to change us in our own spiritual lives.

If you are at all interested in Vincent van Gogh’s artwork and story, I would encourage you to read this little book, even if you do not consider yourself a religious or spiritual person. Similarly, if you enjoy reading about spirituality, faith or theology, or if you have read Nouwen’s other books, I encourage you to pick up this one, as both Vincent van Gogh and Henri Nouwen made drastic, unconventional life choices which were shaped by their faith.