Thursday, October 7, 2010

Van Gogh’s Madness Revealed


Publication: 2006
Author: Martin Foster
Paperback
ISBN: 1-59526-610-0
Pages: 164
Price: $12.95
Size: 5x8

Available from:
Llumina Press, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor.
Toll Free Orders Line:  1-866-229-9244
Or visit www.llumina.com/store/nightcafe.htm
orders@llumina.com





Synopsis:
The Night Café is located in the town of Arles, France. In 1888, Vincent Van Gogh moved to Arles from Paris to paint the beautiful landscape. Some of his well-known works from Arles were Sunflowers and Trees in Bloom. One night, he decided to paint the inside of an Arles café and called the work The Night Café. The book Night Café is a fact-based fiction about what happened to him while painting his famous work.  Night Café is filled with illusions and trips into Van Gogh’s unfortunate mental state at that time of his life.

Some people have blamed his bizarre behavior on his consumption of both artist paint and absinthe. A better explanation may be in an excerpt from Van Gogh himself in a letter to his brother Theo on September 9, 1888: “In my picture of the Night Café, I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. So I have tried to express the Powers of darkness.”

Soon after, the artist went mad, cutting off his ear for a local prostitute.  Perhaps his ruin was the prompting of the devil.

About the Author:
Martin P. Foster has written four plays. His latest is a comedy, "Hook or Crook," about an amateur playwright who tries, with his girlfriend Peaches, to convince Neil Simon to re-write one of his so-so plays into a Broadway Hit. A native Philadelphian, Mr. Foster graduated from Drexel University.  He is married to a beautiful girl from Georgia (his Southern Peach) and resides in Huntsville, Alabama. Read more »


Sketches from the book:

 
Preface
Van Gogh shows his art to the bartender.


Chapter1
Van Gogh looks at the ugly, chained dwarf.


 
Chapter 2
Sleepwalker Eugenie bolts upright as London's clock strikes midnight.

 
Chapter 3
Vincent looks at the other Vincent Van Gogh. 

 
 
Chapter 4
Nostradamus shows Van Gogh his book of quatrains.

 
Chapter 5
Vincent could see the dead spirits in the Coliseum

 
Chapter 6
The Van Gogh, Halloween had come early.
 
Chapter 7
I will give you eighty million dollars for your painting.

 
Chapter 8
You must never return to the Night Cafe; Your soul is in danger.