THE SEEKERS: Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin

One of the sadder sidelights of the lives of these three great painters is that it was not only the public that failed to appreciate them, nor even the fellow artists; except for the generous, enthusiastic Van Gogh, they seem not to have-appreciated each other. Oh, Gauguin admired Cezanne immensely, but Cezanne repaid the feeling with suspicion and scorn; as for Van Gogh, Cezanne pronouned his painting the work of a madman, and Gauguin thought him talented, but not awfully. Yet each of the three, in his own way, experienced the same isolated, soul-searing need to find a true medium of expression; the same incapacity to work within the idiom of an established ""school""; the same privation, hardship, and total dedication. Each was tragically alienated from a beloved family by the need to pursue his own genius to its logical end, and of the three, only Cezanne lived to see himself acknowledged a great artist. Lawrence and Elizabeth Hanson have presented an oft-told story with a freshness and fidelity to their subjects.