This book offers trans-historical and trans-national perspectives on the image of "the artist" as a public figure in the popular discourse and imagination. Since the rise of notions of artistic autonomy and the simultaneous demise of old systems of patronage from the late eighteenth century onwards, artists have increasingly found themselves confronted with the necessity of developing a public persona. In the same period, new audiences for art discovered their fascination for the life and work of the artist. The rise of new media such as the illustrated press, photography and film meant that the needs of both parties could easily be satisfied in both words and images. Thanks to these "new" media, the artist was transformed from a simple producer of works of art into a public figure. The aim of this volume is to reflect on this transformative process, and to study the specific role of the media themselves. Which visual media were deployed, to what effect, and with what kind of audiences in mind? How did the artist, critic, photographer and filmmaker interact in the creation of these representations of the artist's image?

This book offers trans-historical and trans-national perspectives on the image of "the artist" as a public figure in the popular discourse and imagination. Since the rise of notions of artistic autonomy and the simultaneous demise of old systems of patronage from the late eighteenth century onwards, artists have increasingly found themselves confronted with the necessity of developing a public persona. In the same period, new audiences for art discovered their fascination for the life and work of the artist. The rise of new media such as the illustrated press, photography and film meant that the needs of both parties could easily be satisfied in both words and images. Thanks to these "new" media, the artist was transformed from a simple producer of works of art into a public figure. The aim of this volume is to reflect on this transformative process, and to study the specific role of the media themselves. Which visual media were deployed, to what effect, and with what kind of audiences in mind? How did the artist, critic, photographer and filmmaker interact in the creation of these representations of the artist's image?

This book is a hybrid collection of authors from various disciplines - literature, art history, history, and media, cultural and literary studies - who examine the life and work of Vincent van Gogh and its multiple meanings within a broad range of (inter)national contexts. Vincent Everywhere offers the reader a journey through time, beginning in our own day with the meaning of Vincent van Gogh in the Netherlands of the twenty-first century, to the ways in which Van Gogh was embraced by Hollywood (and how European cinema resisted this appropriation), to the Franco-German struggle regarding the discursive 'site' of Van Gogh's shoes, to the Japanese love affair with Van Gogh, to the problems the French have with the place of Van Gogh's letters in their literary canon. The book ends with Van Gogh in his own time, the nineteenth century, examining his perception of his own foreignness as an immigrant in England, Belgium and France, and the early conflicts regarding the location (both literal and figurative) of his artistic legacy.