Julian Bell

"'I believe in the absolute necessity of a new art of colour, of drawing and--of the artistic life,' Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1888. 'And if we work in that faith, it seems to me that there's a chance that our hopes won't be in vain. 'His prediction would come true. In his brief and explosively creative life--he committed suicide a few years later at the age of thirty-seven--Van Gogh made us see the world in a new way. His shining...