Thank you very much for visiting my Vincent van Gogh Gallery. As I mention on the main page, this site has undergone a great number of changes over the course of the last four years. What started out as three simple files (one page and two graphics) has now grown to more 6,500 files. I'm fairly pleased with the various improvements I've been making to my Van Gogh website, but these changes are only the beginning of what I envision to be an ongoing series of enhancements. It seems the more time I spend learning about Van Gogh, the more I realize there is still so much to do.

In addition to continually fine tuning the layout of my Van Gogh site, I have a number of ideas for new features:

• As this website has evolved, I've tried to give it a more objective and less personal flavour. The first simple page went by the name "David Brooks' Salute to Vincent van Gogh", the second draft was called "Vincent van Gogh: A Tribute" and the current site is entitled "The Vincent Van Gogh Gallery". It's my goal to provide as much information as I can about Vincent and his works (eventually this will encompass a link to and information about virtually every painting and sketch) in a site that's easy to access and, hopefully, entertaining. Ironically, having said that I have to admit that my Personal View page has received dozens of compliments from visitors (and it took about two hours to develop) while my World Map page has only ever received a small handful of favourable comments (and it took more than fifty hours to develop). Go figure . . . .

• By using my Van Gogh database as the engine, I hope to hook up a feature which would enable the visitor to run on-the-fly queries on any one of Van Gogh's works choosing from a number of different criteria.

• You'll note on my letters page, as well as on a few of the graphics pages, that I have incorporated new inter-connected links. For example, if you go to the Starry Night page, you'll note that there is a direct link to a sketch Van Gogh made of the same subject. You can easily toggle between either which, hopefully, will give the visitor a greater insight into the work. Eventually I would like to have hundreds of these types of inter-connecting links set up between the paintings, sketches and letters throughout my Van Gogh site.

• This Gallery is a bit heavy on reference content (all of the works and their locations, the letters, etc.) and light in terms of critical analysis. This is partly due to the fact that I'm just an enthusiastic amateur, but I'm still going to throw caution to the wind and strive to add far more background information for many of the works (provenance, exhibition and commentary). I've created a section called "InSites" and have been slowly adding content. It's going to take a fair bit of time to really flesh out this section given the amount of work that goes into each "InSite" (my working area generally looks like it's been hit by a typhoon after I finish writing one). But these pages will get there in time and will, I feel, greatly enhance the value of this Gallery. I would welcome guest submissions, too!

In any event, I sincerely hope that you've enjoyed your visit and that you'll return soon to see my Van Gogh site continue to improve and, hopefully, provide some insights and entertainment for anyone interested in the life and art of Vincent van Gogh.

Thanks again for dropping by.

David Brooks
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

brooks@vggallery.com

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