This sumptuously illustrated book offers a completely new way of looking at the art of Vincent van Gogh, by exploring the artist's approach to nature through his innovative use of the close-up view. Focusing on the last years of the artist's career—from 1886 until his death in July 1890—an international team of leading scholars in the field examines Van Gogh's radical approach to the close-up and sets it in the context of contemporary and historical references, such as his hitherto unrecognized use of photography and his fascination with the Old Masters and with Japanese art and culture. One hundred key paintings dating from his arrival in Paris in 1886 to the end of his career show how Van Gogh experimented with unusual visual angles and the decorative use of color, cropping, and the flattening of his compositions. In some paintings he zoomed in on a tuft of grass or a single budding iris, while depicting shifting views of a field or garden in others. Van Gogh: Up Close not only reveals how these paintings became the most radical and innovative in the artist's body of work but also demonstrates that, far from being a spontaneous or undisciplined artist, Van Gogh was well aware of the history of art and was highly conscious of his efforts to break new ground with his work.

Classified as a Post-Impressionist, Van Gogh is perhaps one of the world's most famous and instantly recognisable artists. Famous for almost as much for his embodiment of a tortured romantic artist as for his bold and unusually distorted artworks, his works now fetch some of the highest prices in world of fine art. This beautifully illustrated and meticulously researched project will be hugely popular as a collector's item for both Van Gogh's established fans and for those wishing to learn about him for the first time. With the inclusion of facsimiles of 15 documents including Van Gogh's famous private letters, The Treasures of Van Gogh offers a unique insight into his life and works — from his childhood and youth in Zundert in southern Netherlands, the time he spent as a missionary and the gradual decline in his mental health that led him to cut off part of his ear and eventually to commit suicide.