"Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart" by Russ Ramsey

Every so often I read a book about which I can only say good things. Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart by Russ Ramsey is such a book. 

And this is after his previous book, Rembrandt Is in the Wind, which I thought might be difficult to top. Ramsey proved me wrong. That book looked at how to love and appreciate art through the eyes of faith. His latest does the next step – what art teaches us about being alive, with all the sorrow, tragedy, change, and upheaval we experience. 

 

Every chapter is gem, filled with insights about the featured artist and artworks.

 

Rough Sea with Wreckage by N.M.W. Turner

He starts with Gustave Dore and da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (which only achieved its worldwide renown because it was stolen and hidden for two years), Rembrandt can teach us about the power of suffering. J.M.W. Turner speaks to abrupt change in one’s life; his art changed dramatically after a trip to Italy and both revolutionized British painting and anticipated Impressionism. Albert Bierstadt of the Hudson River School spoke to the beautiful and the sublime in his art. Van Gogh stewarded both his pain and that of others (and it’s not just about his ear). Edgar Degas suffered with macular degeneration throughout his painting career (and he knew it). Norman Rockwell not only chronicled traditional American values; he also demonstrated how racism and violence were part of those values. 

 

The chapter on Van Gogh mentions the room the artist prepared at the Yellow House for his friend Gauguin and the two paintings of sunflowers on the wall. I saw those two paintings hung together as Gauguin would have seen them this past September at the Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers exhibition at the National Gallery in London.

 

Each chapter offers wisdom and understanding. Two in particular spoke to the general subject of art and art criticism.

 

First, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656) was a woman working in the virtually all-man’s world of painting. In the last 30 years, she’s become a feminist icon, with lots of books and exhibitions about the artist herself and what she painted. But as Ramsey points out, interpreting Gentileschi by the standards and needs of our own time diminishes her as both a woman and an artist. In effect, she becomes something of a one-dimensional political cartoon. Ramsey explores what she achieved in her own time, despite setbacks, betrayals, and disparagement – and that’s far more important than what she’s reduced to today.

 

Russ Ramsey

Second, the book’s concluding chapter is the most personal, a moving tribute to the place of art in Ramsey’s own life. He and his daughter too a trip to Amsterdam in 2023 to see the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Rembrandt House. At the Rijksmuseum, he heads straight to the Hall of Honor, which contains some of the museum’s highlights, including The Night Watch by Rembrandt (I saw it in 1999; it’s an astonishing painting). But his daughter finds the painting that was so influential in Ramsey’s becoming a minister (and he tells the story of how). And he didn’t know the painting was there. 

 

Ramsey is a pastor, author, and speaker. He’s previously published Struck: One Christian’s Reflections on Encountering Death, The Advent of the Lamb of God, The Passion of the King of Glory, The Mission of the Body of Christ, and Rembrandt Is in the Wind.  A native of Indiana, he is a graduate of Taylor University and received his M.Div. and Th.M. degrees from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. He lives in Nashville with his family.

 

I loved Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart. It’s written by someone with a lifelong love affair with art (except for Donatello; you have to read the first appendix to find out why). He sees art through the eyes of his Christian faith, and he understands how art can illuminate his faith. It’s a wonderful book.

 

Related:

 

Rembrandt Is in the Wind by Russ Ramsey.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Silence of the labs: How a censorship campaign failed to kill a COVID origin story – Jonathan Turley at The Hill. 

 

London Films – Capturing 100 Years of Change – A London Inheritance.

 

Basic Principles of Pitching – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

From the Top of the Hill – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

“Rembrandt Is in the Wind” by Russ Ramsey

Some 15 years ago, my wife and I signed up for an unusual tour of the St. Louis Art Museum. Rory McClure, a student from Ireland studying at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, hosted an art tour seen through the eyes of faith. Not to press the metaphor too far, it was eye-opening.  

Paintings we had previously considered for their beauty, subject matter, or technical skill became stories. McClure guided us in understanding not only the power of ideas in culture, but how those ideas were represented in art. It was a museum tour you wished would never end. It also changed how we understood art and prepared us for the many visits we’ve made to art museums since that time.

 

Russ Ramsey, a pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tenn., has done in book form what our Irish student did on the tour, and then some. The subtitle of his Rembrandt Is in the Wind tells the story: “Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith.”

 

Ramsey tells the stories of nine artists: Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Jean Frederic Bazille, Vincent Van Gogh, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Edward Hopper, and Lilias Trotter. He provides the back story, but he usually focuses on a specific painting by each artist. 

 

In the case of Rembrandt, for example, he discusses “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.” It’s a wonderful painting, and it is indeed “Rembrandt in the wind,” as the title suggests. It was stolen with 12 other works in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The total value of the artwork involved exceeded $500 million; the paintings have never neem found. The museum has left the empty frame of the Rembrandt painting as a kind of memorial.

 

This is a discussion about art as only an art lover, and a man of faith, can have. Ramsey talks about art, the artist, faith, culture, and meaning. He tells some wonderful, and some agonizing, stories. In his hands, artists and paintings covering 400 years of Western culture come alive. And the book is a physically beautiful publication, a delight to read and just look at. (I have the limited Edition from The Rabbit Room, but it is also available from Amazon and other distributors.)

 

Russ Ramsey

Ramsey is a pastor, author, and speaker. He’s previously published Struck: One Christian’s Reflections on Encountering Death, The Advent of the Lamb of God, The Passion of the King of Glory, and The Mission of the Body of Christ. A native of Indiana, he is a graduate of Taylor University and received his M.Div. and Th.M. degrees from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. He lives in Nashville with his family.

 

Rembrandt Is in the Wind is a pure delight of a book. Well-researched, highly readable, and beautifully presented, it tells a story of art that informs, surprises, and resonates. I’d put in in my “top five books I’ve read this year” list.

 

Top painting: The Storm in the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt van Rijn.