Why did Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear? This compelling detective story reveals the truth about the art world's greatest mystery
Bernadette Murphy was born and brought up in the UK. She has lived in the south of France for most of her adult life and worked in many different fields. A series of chance events led her to start investigating the life of Van Gogh in Arles, but little did she know at the time quite what an exciting adventure it would turn out to be. Van Gogh's Ear is her first book.
This book has the pace of a detective novel, sending fresh blood
pulsing through an old tale as Murphy recreates the heartbreaking
drama of Van Gogh’s loosening grip on reality.
*Daily Mail*
Murphy’s revelations are fascinating and add intriguing details to
the great crisis of Van Gogh’s life.
*The Times*
Murphy’s book rescues the real Van Gogh from the lazy clichés of
tea towel memorabilia by painting an electric, nuanced portrait of
a man who achieved artistic brilliance despite his mental health
issues and not because of them. In doing so, she allows for a
version of his history in which her subject’s passion for life, art
and humanity blooms like the sunflowers he painted.
*Daily Mail*
She knows Provence with an intimacy that’s rare in the ear genre.
Her descriptions of the people, their landscape, their customs are
unusually detailed… Her second stand-out quality is a doggedness
that goes beyond the usual art-historical drives. Relentlessly she
wrestles with the book’s central mystery.
*Sunday Times*
No one before has built up such a detailed picture of the people
who surrounded the great artist.
*Daily Telegraph*
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