Van Gogh by Steven Naifeh

thoroughfare.
    From this comfortable berth, he quickly rose to leadership in the “Society for Prosperity,” the church’s missionary initiative in the Catholic south. Far from a traditional charity, the Society saw its mission as investment. Secretly—to avoid conflict with Catholic authorities—it purchased farms and homesteads in Catholic areas and then relocated needy Protestants to work them. Like any investor, the Society expected a return on its money—both in lease payments and in large families to bolster Brabant’s struggling Protestant congregations. For forty-two years, Vincent served as the Society’s “cashier,” recruiting hundreds of farmers with the Society’s dual promise of financial reward and spiritual salvation.
    Reverend van Gogh encouraged his children to a serious life of “work andprayer,” but he also instilled in them his own bourgeois aspirations. His family record is filled with loving descriptions of china, silver, furniture, and carpets; detailed reports of salary increases and prices paid; lamentations over missed promotions and squandered inheritances; and tributes to the advantages of owning over renting.
    Thus, it was hardly surprising that none of the Reverend’s six sons showed any interest in following him into the ministry. One by one, they embarked instead on socially and financially ambitious careers. The eldest, Hendrik (called Hein), saw opportunities in the book business and opened his own store in Rotterdam by the time he turned twenty-one. He, too, married a rich man’s daughter. The second son, Johannes (called Jan), sought his fortune in the Dutch navy. The third son, Willem, joined the officer corps. The youngest, Cornelis (called Cor), entered the civil service.
    The Reverend’s hopes for a spiritual heir settled on his namesake, Vincent (called Cent). But Cent was soon struck down by scarlet fever and emerged too frail for the intense study required by the ministry. Or so he claimed. Whether because of his “terrible headaches,” or because, like his brothers, he had no interest in his father’s religious ambitions, he soon quit studying altogether. After a brief apprenticeship with brother Hein in Rotterdam, he moved to The Hague, where he worked in a paint store and lived a bachelor life of fencing, socializing, and womanizing.
    That left only Theodorus.
    IN FORTY YEARS of sermons, Dorus van Gogh preached thousands of images, verses, and parables. But one had special meaning for him: the sower. “For whatsoever a man soweth,” Paul wrote to the Galatians, “that shall he also reap.” To Dorus, Paul’s words meant much more than a call to seek spiritual rewards rather than earthly pleasures. As he told the story to the farmers of Zundert working their sandy fields, the sower became a paragon of persistence in the face of adversity. His Sisyphean labors, like theirs, affirmed the power of perseverance to overcome any obstacle, triumph over any setback. “Think of all the fields that were turned down by shortsighted people,” Dorus preached, “but through the sower’s hard work finally produced good fruit.”
    If the story of the persistent sower had special meaning for Dorus van Gogh, it was because he had lived it.
    Dorus’s entire childhood had been a struggle. Declared by the family chronicler, his sister Mietje, “a very weak baby” from the moment of his birth in 1822, Dorus never fully recovered his health or his strength. He didn’t learn to walk until he was well past two. He kept the short, slight body of a boy throughout his life. As the seventh of eleven children, the fifth of six sons, he barely knewhis parents. He inherited his father’s “fine, delicate appearance” but not his easy intelligence. His modest academic success was the product of application, not aptitude. He was known for being “tidy” and diligent—“a good worker” who began his studies every morning at five.
    Perhaps because illness was such a constant in