Legendary impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh is the subject of a new biography entitled “Van Gogh: The Life” and written by Stephen Neifeh and Gregory  White Smith.

After reading a review of the book in USA Today, I am torn over whether to read it.  I have three Van Gogh replicas in my home, which I adore for their dark, torturous emotion and sense of melancholic longing.  There is something about Van Gogh’s sensitive, emotional soul that is beautiful to me. However, I don’t have hopes that the biography will treat that soul with enough respect.

The newspaper review summarized the book as presenting the painter as unlikeable, angry, and from a family of lunatics.  Using letters written by Van Gogh and confirmed details from his love life, the book suggests Van Gogh was disliked universally by everyone, whether acquaintance or relative.

With genius, comes eccentricity. Sometimes that eccentricity can be off-putting.  Had Van Gogh been liked, perhaps he would not have been able to present the artistic study of human suffering and loneliness as he does through his paintings.  Thus, I am irritated that any so-called lack of likeability would be presented as a detriment to his character.

Of course, the book has the obligatory inclusions of his regular visits to prostitutes, his contraction of syphilis, his alleged bi-polar disorder and ultimately his suicide at the young age of 37.

I think the book will be good for those who like Van Gogh from a distance and who want to be able to distinguish between Van Gogh myths and reality. For anyone who loves Van Gogh as I do, however, he or she might want to simply stick to experiencing his paintings to learn about the man.

That’s what I’ll do. I wish to avoid another situation like when I watched unflattering films about the lives of Mozart and Beethoven that made them look like pathetic figures rather than transcendent men.