From 7th February 2020 By Emma Reynolds, CNN
How do you pronounce “Van Gogh”? Van Go? Van Gof? Van Gog? You’re probably saying it wrong, according to creators of the Immersive van Gogh exhibit.
The audio guide for the installation, created by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, has raised a few eyebrows because it speaks the artist’s last name as “Van Go,” the typical American pronunciation. In Britain, people tend to say “Van Gof,” the French say ‘Gog’ and the Japanese say it differently, too. The Dutch pronounce it with a guttural sound, ‘Khokh.’ But it sounds pedantic if you insist on the Dutch pronunciation.”
“It is always very difficult to know how to pronounce. it’s not easy for someone English or American, we just don’t have that sound.” Martin Bailey, author of Starry Night: Van Gogh at the Asylum. “There are yet more variations on the name across the world, and it even affected how the legendary artist signed his paintings.
Van Gogh regularly traveled around Europe, moving to London to work as an art dealer when he was 20 and living in France. His paintings are all signed “Vincent,” and the artist is often named as Mr. Vincent or Monsieur Vincent in letters and documents. He always wanted to be ‘Vincent’ because the French and English couldn’t pronounce his name. In a letter to his brother Theo in March 1888, soon after Van Gogh moved to Arles, in France, he explained that “in future my name must be put in the catalog the way I sign it on the canvases, i.e. Vincent and not Van Gogh, for the excellent reason that people here wouldn’t be able to pronounce that name.”
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
–William Shakespeare
