Sweetbrook Farm and Deep Van Gogh

A 14x18 oil painting of the Sweetbrook Farm.

I'm trying to catch up on my reading.  The following is from the March 24, 2010 NY Review of Books (yeah, I know...), a review of Van Gogh's letters by Richard Dorment:  "...when you look at his pictures you sense the depth of experience and the breadth of culture behind them.  Lesser artists like Maurice de Vlaminck or Andre Derain imitated Van Gogh's bright colors, thick paint, and expressive brushwork, but all they achieved in their work was surface excitement.  Their art had none of the moral weight and psychological density that in Van Gogh's came from living among the poor, taking the gospels to heart, poring over the works of Shakespeare and many other writers, and studying the history of art."