Vincent van Gogh Van Gogh's fame reached its first peak in Austria and Germany before World War I, helped by the publication of his letters in three volumes in 1914. His letters are expressive and literate, and have been described as among the foremost 19th-century writings of their kind. These began a compelling mythology of Van Gogh as an intense and dedicated painter who suffered for his art and died young. In 1934, the novelist Irving Stone wrote a biographical novel of Van Gogh's life titled "Lust for Life", based on Van Gogh's letters to Theo. This novel and the 1956 film further
Death of Vincent van Gogh a little hill above fields that were ripe for harvest. Dr Gachet, trying to suppress his tears, stammered out a few words of praise, expressing his admiration for an "honest man and a great artist... who had only two aims, art and humanity." In 2011, authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith published a biography, "Van Gogh: The Life", in which they challenged the conventional account of the artist's death. In the book, Naifeh and Smith argue that it was unlikely for van Gogh to have killed himself, noting the upbeat disposition of the paintings he created immediately preceding his