Vincent Willem Van Gogh (1853–1890) lived a very short life, but his creative life was even shorter - only the last ten years were devoted to painting. A hungry, almost beggarly existence, full of loneliness and contempt of others, titanic work and selfless search for a calling, turned into worldwide interest and recognition in the 20th century. During his life, Van Gogh sold only one painting - for only 400 francs, and almost 100 years later, at an auction in New York, one of his paintings was purchased for almost 100 million dollars. The biography of the artist, written by the French philosopher and writer, is based on correspondence with his brother Theo, as well as on the memories and testimonies of contemporaries; The book talks in detail about Van Gogh's mental illness - the author, avoiding an unambiguous interpretation of this issue, relies on the diagnoses of the doctors who treated the artist, as well as on the hypotheses of modern psychiatrists.