“I can assure you it’s never been dull” – Henry Martin on his new book Van Gogh and the Good Samaritan

Henry Martin is a Salford priest, author, and artist “obsessed” with the work of Vincent Van Gogh and has written a story focusing on his work.

The Good Samaritan was one of the last paintings Van Gogh made before his tragic suicide.

Henry Martin, therefore, wrote a book deeply focusing on the different characters in the painting relating them to different points of Van Gogh’s life.

During his research, he discovered that Van Gogh actually wrote his own form of parables and “when he wants to express himself and make his point very clear he uses wonderful analogies and metaphors, and they really are very very striking”.

As a priest and an author, Henry has written some lent advent books, which are to be slowly read over the period of lent.

However despite the religious aspect to this book, when asked if this was a lent advent book, he said: “I’d like to think it should be read slowly rather than just galloped through”.

This reflects the idea that his main interest is the admiration he feels for Van Gogh and his need to analyse a painting that relates to his other passion, which Is his religion.

When asked about researching this book, he said it took him about 4 months to research and then the writing process went by very quickly.

He said: “I’ve so enjoyed researching and writing this book, living in Van Gogh’s world has not always been comfortable but I can assure you it’s never been dull”.

When asked what appeals to him about Van Gogh’s art, he said: “I love what he does with colour, I love the risks he takes, I love the fact he almost reinvented the way we paint, so much so now if I ever paint a sunflower on the internet people will say ‘ooh very Van Gogh… where would painting be without Vincent Van Gogh.”