And art too....Van Gogh saw Dickens both as "a poet and an artist" who inspired his own art --he has over 40 references to him in the 100's of letters he wrote to friends and relations, e.g. "I have my books on perspective here, and a few volumes of Dickens, including Edwin Drood; there is perspective in Dickens, too. Good God, what an artist! There's no one like him." In his portrait-- L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux) 1890...the books on her table are Dickens Christmas Tales and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Without Dickens we would be missing a goodly number of van Gogh's, including, I suspect, his two empty chairs.
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