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The Hague, 29 September 1872.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter, I was glad to hear that you got back safely. I missed you the first few days, and it was strange for me not to find you when I came home in the afternoon. We spent some pleasant days together, and actually did go for some walks and see a thing or two whenever we had the chance.
What terrible weather, you must feel anxious on your walks to Oisterwijk. Yesterday there were trotting races on the occasion of the exhibition, but the illumination and fireworks were postponed because of the bad weather, so it’s just as well you didn’t stay to see them. Regards from the Haanebeeks and the Rooses.
Ever, Your loving
Vincent
The Hague, 13 December 1872.
My dear Theo,
That was good news that I just read in Pa’s letter. My hearty congratulations. I don’t doubt that it will give you pleasure, it’s such a fine firm. It will be a big change for you. I’m so glad that both of us are now in the same line of business, and in the same firm; we must correspond often.
I hope so much to see you before you leave, we’ll have a lot to talk about. I believe that Brussels is a very pleasant city, though it will seem strange at first. At all events, write to me soon. And now adieu, these are only a few words written in haste, but I just had to tell you how very glad I was. I wish you well, and believe me ever,
Your loving brother
Vincent
I pity your having to go to Oisterwijk every day in this beastly weather. Regards from the Rooses.
The Hague, 28 Jan. 1873
My dear Theo,
It’s good that you answered me so quickly. I’m glad that things are to your liking and that you’ve been lucky with your boarding-house. Be of good heart if things sometimes get difficult, everything will come right later on, and no one can do what he really wants in the beginning. How sorry I am about Uncle Hein. I sincerely hope he’ll get better, but Theo, I fear he won’t. Last summer he was still so full of ambition, and had so many plans and told me that business was going so well. It is indeed sad.
Last Sunday I was at Uncle Cor’s and had a very pleasant day there and, as you can well imagine, saw many beautiful things. As you know, Uncle has just been to Paris and has brought home splendid paintings and drawings. I stayed in Amsterdam on Monday morning and went to the museums again. Did you know that a large, new building will take the place of the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam? That’s fine with me; the Trippenhuis is too small, and many paintings hang in such a way that one can’t see them properly.
How I’d like to see that painting by Cluysenaar. I’ve seen only a few of his paintings, and those I find very beautiful. Write and tell me whether that other painting is by Alfred Stevens, or otherwise what his Christian name is. I know the photo of the Rotta, and even saw the painting at the Brussels exhibition. Do keep me constantly informed about whatever you see, that always gives me pleasure. The album whose title you gave me isn’t the one I meant, which contains only lithographs after Corot. Thanks anyway for taking the trouble. I expect a letter from Anna soon. She’s rather lazy about writing these days. You ought to surprise her with a letter sometime, that would give her so much pleasure. You must be very busy, but that’s a good thing.
It’s cold here, and people are already skating on the flooded fields. I go walking as much as I can. I’m curious to know whether you’ll find an opportunity to go skating. Herewith my portrait, but don’t say anything about it when you write home. As you know, it’s for Pa’s birthday, on which I congratulate you ahead of the event. My warm regards to Uncle and Aunt, also to Mr Schmidt and Eduard.
Ever your loving brother
Vincent
All at the Haanebeeks’, Aunt Fie’s and the Rooses’ send you their compliments. Adieu, I wish you well.
The Hague, 17 March 1873
My dear Theo,
It’s time you heard from me again, and I’m also longing to hear how you are and how Uncle Hein is doing, so I hope you’ll write to me when you can find the time. You’ll have heard that I’m going to London, and probably very soon. I do hope we’ll be able to see each other before then. I’ll go to Helvoirt at Easter if I possibly can, but it will depend on the nouveautés that Iterson takes along on his trip. I won’t be able to leave until he gets back.
Life in L. will be very different for me, for I’ll probably have to live alone in lodgings, and will therefore have to deal with many things that I needn’t trouble myself with now. I’m looking forward to seeing L. very much, as you can imagine, and yet I’m sorry to have to leave this place. I’m only just noticing how attached I am to The Hague, now that it’s been decided I must go away. Still, it can’t be helped, and I intend not to take things too hard. I think it’s wonderful for my English, which I understand well, though I don’t speak it nearly as well as I’d like.
I heard from Anna that you had your portrait taken. If you can spare another, I commend myself. How is Uncle Hein? Certainly no better, and how is Aunt doing? Can Uncle keep himself occupied, and is he in a lot of pain? Give them my warm regards, I think of them so often.
How is business with you? It must be busy, as it is here. You probably know your way around by now. How is your boarding-house? Is it still to your liking? That’s important. Above all, you must write more about the kind of things you see. Sunday a fortnight ago I was in Amsterdam to see an exhibition of the paintings going to Vienna from here. It was very interesting, and I’m curious as to the impression the Dutch will make in Vienna. I’m very curious about the English painters, we see so little of them, because almost everything stays in England. Goupil has no gallery in London; they only supply the trade.
Uncle Cent is coming here at the end of the month, I’m longing to hear more from him. The Haanebeeks and Aunt Fie ask after you constantly, and send you their regards. What wonderful weather we’ve been having, I’m taking advantage of it as much as I can. Last Sunday I went rowing with Willem. How much I’d have liked to stay here this summer, but we must take things as they come. And now, adieu, I wish you well, and write to me. Bid good-day to Uncle and Aunt, Schmidt and Eduard from me. As to Easter, I’m just hoping. Ever,
Your loving brother
Vincent
Mr and Mrs Roos and Willem also send you their regards. I just received your letter, for which I thank you. I’m very pleased with the portrait, it turned out well. If I hear anything more about my trip to Helvoirt I’ll write to you immediately. It would be nice if we could arrive on the same day. Adieu. Theo, I must again recommend that you start smoking a pipe. It does you a lot of good when you’re out of spirits, as I quite often am nowadays.
The Hague, 24 March 1873
My dear Theo,
Would you mind checking whether a painting by Schotel is still in Brussels? It was sent from here on consignment on 6 May 1870, but perhaps Uncle has already sent it back to Paris. If that isn’t the case, however, see that it’s sent here immediately. We have every chance of selling it, but time is of the essence. I saw it last summer in your gallery, and imagine it’s probably still there.
Bid good-day to Uncle and Aunt and Mr Schmidt and Eduard for me. You’ll have received my letter by now.
Adieu, I wish you well.
Vincent
The Hague, 5 May 1873
My dear Theo,
You mustn’t take it amiss, old chap, that I didn’t remember your birthday. Many congratulations; I hope that things will continue to go well for you this year, and that you’ll take more and more pleasure in your work.
My time is drawing to a close. On Saturday I’ll go home and take my leave, and then on Sunday on to Paris. I’m afraid it’ll end up being Monday, however, and that on Sunday I’ll still be in Helvoirt. I hope I’ll be able to write to you in time about when I’ll be passing through Brussels, but it’s quite possible that I won’t be able to, as I don’t yet know for sure when I have to be in Paris at the latest.
How are Uncle and Aunt? Have they moved yet? Be sure to write to me soon about that, I’ll give you my address below. I’m writing in haste, as you can imagine I’m busy. Adieu, I wish you well. Give my warm regards to Uncle and Aunt, also to Mr Schmidt and Eduard.
Ever your loving brother
Vincent.
The Hague, 9 May 1873
My dear Theo,
On Monday morning I’ll leave Helvoirt for Paris, passing through Brussels at 2:07. Do come to the station if you can; it would give me great pleasure. Before I forget, yesterday I showed your portrait to Mrs Tersteeg, and she would like very much to have one. Would you have a chance to get another one and send it to me? If you can’t do it now, try to think of it some other time.
Theo, you have no idea how kind to me they all are here; you can imagine how sorry I am to have to part from so many friends.
Adieu, old chap, give my warm regards to Uncle and Aunt. Goodbye for now.
Vincent.
Find out whether you have to be at the Station du Nord or du Midi.
London, 13 June 1873.
My dear Theo,
You’re probably longing to hear from me, so I don’t want to keep you waiting for a letter any longer. I heard from home that you’re now staying with Mr Schmidt, and that Pa has been to see you. I sincerely hope that this will be more to your liking than your previous boarding-house, and don’t doubt that it will be. Write to me soon, I’m longing to hear from you, and tell me how you’re spending your days at present, &c. Write to me especially about the paintings you’ve seen recently, and also whether anything new has been published in the way of etchings or lithographs. You must keep me well informed about this, because here I don’t see much in that genre, as the firm here is just a stockroom. I’m very well, considering the circumstances.
I’ve come by a boarding-house that suits me very well for the present. There are also three Germans in the house who really love music and play piano and sing themselves, which makes the evenings very pleasant indeed. I’m not as busy here as I was in The Hague, as I only have to be in the office from 9 in the morning until 6 in the evening, and on Saturdays I’m finished by 4 o’clock. I live in one of the suburbs of London, where it’s comparatively quiet. It’s a bit like Tilburg or some such place. I spent some very pleasant days in Paris and, as you can imagine, very much enjoyed all the beautiful things I saw at the exhibition and in the Louvre and the Luxembourg. The Paris branch is splendid, and much larger than I’d imagined. Especially the Place de l’Opéra. Life here is very expensive. I pay 18 shillings a week for my lodgings, not including the washing, and then I still have to eat in town.
Last Sunday I went on an outing with Mr Obach, my superior, to Box Hill, which is a high hill (some 6 hours from L.), partly of chalk and covered with box trees, and on one side a wood of tall oak trees. The countryside here is magnificent, completely different from Holland or Belgium. Everywhere one sees splendid parks with tall trees and shrubs, where one is allowed to walk. During the Whitsun holiday I also took a nice trip with those Germans, but those gentlemen spend a great deal of money and I shan’t go out with them any more. I was glad to hear from Pa that Uncle H. is reasonably well. Would you give my warm regards to him and Aunt and give them news of me? Bid good-day to Mr Schmidt and Eduard from me, and write to me soon.
Adieu, I wish you well.
Vincent.
My address is:
Care of Messrs Goupil & Co. 17 Southampton Street Strand London.
London, 20 July 1873
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter, which gave me a great deal of pleasure. I’m glad you’re well and that living at Mr Schmidt’s is still to your liking. Mr Obach was pleased to make your acquaintance. I hope that in future we’ll do a lot of business with you. That painting by Linder is very beautiful. As to the photogravure, I know more or less how they’re made, though I haven’t seen it, and it isn’t clear enough to me to explain it.
English art didn’t appeal to me much at first, one has to get used to it. There are some good painters here, though, including Millais, who made ‘The Huguenot’, Ophelia, &c., engravings of which you probably know, they’re very beautiful. Then Boughton, of whom you know the ‘Puritans going to church’ in our Galerie photographique. I’ve seen very beautiful things by him. Moreover, among the old painters, Constable, a landscape painter who lived around 30 years ago, whose work is splendid, something like Diaz and Daubigny. And Reynolds and Gainsborough, who mostly painted very, very beautiful portraits of women, and then Turner, after whom you’ll probably have seen engravings. Several good French painters live here, including Tissot, after whom there are various photos in our Galerie photographique, Otto Weber and Heilbuth. The latter is currently making dazzlingly beautiful paintings in the style of the one by Linder. Be sure, when you get the chance, to write and tell me whether there are photographs after Wauters, besides Hugo van der Goes and Mary of Burgundy, and whether you also know photographs of paintings by Lagye and De Braekeleer.
It’s not the elder De Braekeleer I mean but, I believe, a son of his, who had 3 splendid paintings at the last exhibition in Brussels, titled ‘Antwerp’, ‘The school’ and ‘The atlas’. Things are going well for me here. I go walking a lot. Here where I live it’s a quiet, convivial, nice-looking neighbourhood, in this I’ve really been fortunate. And yet I sometimes think back with nostalgia to the wonderful Sundays in Scheveningen and so on, but never mind that. You’ll surely have heard that Anna is at home and not well. It’s a bad start to her holiday, but let’s hope she’s better by now. Thanks for what you wrote to me about paintings. Be sure to write and tell me if you ever see anything by Lagye, De Braekeleer, Wauters, Maris, Tissot, George Saal, Jundt, Ziem, Mauve, who are painters I like very much, and by whom you’ll probably see something now and then.
Herewith a copy of that poem about that painter ‘who entered The Swan, the inn where he boarded’, which you no doubt remember. It’s Brabant to a T, and I’m so fond of it. Lies copied it out for me on my last evening at home. How much I’d like to have you here, what pleasant days we spent together in The Hague. I still think so often of our walk on Rijswijkseweg, where we drank milk at the mill after the rain. If those paintings we have from you are to be sent back, I’ll send you a portrait of that mill by Weissenbruch. Perhaps you remember, ‘the merry tune’ is his nickname, ‘I say, superrrb’. That Rijswijkseweg holds memories for me which are perhaps the most delightful I have. Perhaps we’ll speak of it again sometime when we meet.
And now, old chap, I wish you well, think of me from time to time and write to me soon. It’s so refreshing when I receive a letter.
Vincent
My regards to Mr Schmidt and Eduard. How are Uncle Hein and Aunt? Write to me about them, do you go there often? Give them my warm regards.
The evening hour.
Slowly the toll of the angelus-bell resounded o’er the fields, As they blissfully bathed in the gold of the evening sun. O solemn, moving moment! When every mother in the village suddenly Stops the whirring of the wheel to bless herself with the sign of the cross;
While in the field the farmer reins in his steaming horses, And, behind the plough, bares his head to murmur an Ave. O solemn, moving moment! When the bell that proclaims far and wide The end of the day’s work makes those powerful, dripping heads Bow down for Him who causes the sweat in the furrow to thrive.
For the artist, too, on the slope of yon shady hill, Absorbed in his painting from the earliest morning, The angelus now gave the sign to retreat. Slowly he wiped His brush and palette, which he stowed with his canvas in the valise, Folded his camp-stool and dreamily descended the path That leads, gently winding, through the flowery dale to the village.
Yet how oft, before reaching the foot of the hill, did he Stand admiringly still, to imprint on his mind once again The refreshing scene down below, unfolding before his eyes.
Just before him lay the village, with a hill to north and to south, Between whose crests the sun, inflamed and sinking in the west, Let flow the whole wealth of its colours and up-conjured glory. The bell, in the grey tower entwined with black-green ivy, Was now silent. Hanging motionless on high were the brown Sails of the windmill; the leaves stood still and above the huts Blue clouds of peat-smoke ascended so straight from the chimneys That they, too, seemed to hang motionless in the shimmering air.
’Twas as though this village, this field, those hills, as though everything, Before wrapping itself in a cloak of evening dew to sleep Beneath the sun’s parting kiss, silently and gratefully Recalled once more the peace and plenty it had again savoured.
Soon, though, this silence was gently disturbed by the sweet sounds Of the evening. In the distance, from a hollow in the hill echoed Lingeringly the sound of the cow-horn, calling the cattle. And at this sign from their herdsman there soon appeared in the furrowed Sandy mountain road the whole of a colourful herd of cows. Cracking and smacking, the lad’s lash drove them forward, While they, as if by turns, their necks outstretched, with friendly lowing Greeted from afar the cow-shed where the milkmaid Waited for them each evening to ease their taut udders. Thus on the paths running out from the village like spokes From an axle, there slowly came movement and life. Here, ’twas a farmer, dragging homeward a harrow or plough On a sledge, whistling a tune and riding beside on his bay;
There, a blushing lass, on her head a lock of sweet clover Laced with daisies and poppies, called from afar to the others, Kindly and gaily at once, her clear-toned ‘good evening’. Further... But on the same track where the painter’s path Led, he suddenly heard peals of joyous laughter. Rocking from side to side, a wagon, nearly toppling Under its load of fresh-harvested buckwheat, came rumbling closer, Both horse and burden adorned with fluttering ribbons and greenery. Children, all with wreaths of flowers on their little flaxen heads, Were seated on top, happily waving branches of alder, Or scattering flowers and leaves, which rained down on all sides, While round the wagon a troop of country lads and lasses Skipped and sang enough to startle the whole drowsy plain.
Quietly smiling, the Painter, from behind the thicket, Watched as the revellers slowly wound their way down the rutted road. ‘Aye’, he thus mumbled, ‘Aye, the Lord must think it A happy sound, the jubilance with which these hearts So simply pour forth their thanks as they gather the last Fruits, which He yearly lets grow fully ripe from their toil. Yea, for the purest prayer of simplicity and innocence is joy!’
And thus contemplating the calm, deep delight upon which the soul Feasts in the fields; or with his artist’s mind reconstructing In silent rapture the glorious scene of a moment ago, He found he had sauntered, unnoticing, into the village.
Already the purple and yellow had faded to grey in the west, And in the east there had risen close by the little church the full Copper-coloured disc of the moon, in mist enshrouded, When he entered The Swan, the inn where he boarded.
Jan van Beers (The boarder)
London, January 1874
My dear Theo,
Thanks for writing. I sincerely wish you a very happy New Year. I know that things are going well for you in the office, because I heard as much from Mr Tersteeg. I saw from your letter that you have art in your blood, and that’s a good thing, old chap. I’m glad you like Millet, Jacque, Schreyer, Lambinet, Frans Hals &c., because – as Mauve says – ‘that’s it’. Yes, that painting by Millet ‘The evening angelus’, ‘that’s it’. That’s rich, that’s poetry. How I’d like to talk to you about art again, but now we can only write to each other about it often; find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.
I’m writing below a few names of painters whom I like very much indeed. Scheffer, Delaroche, Hébert, Hamon. Leys, Tissot, Lagye, Boughton, Millais, Thijs Maris, Degroux, De Braekeleer Jr.
Millet, Jules Breton, Feyen-Perrin, Eugène Feyen, Brion, Jundt, George Saal. Israëls, Anker, Knaus, Vautier, Jourdan, Jalabert, Antigna, Compte-Calix, Rochussen, Meissonier, Zamacois, Madrazo, Ziem, Boudin, Gérôme, Fromentin, De Tournemine, Pasini.
Decamps, Bonington, Diaz, T. Rousseau, Troyon, Dupré, Paul Huet, Corot, Schreyer, Jacque, Otto Weber, Daubigny, Wahlberg, Bernier, Emile Breton, Chenu, César de Cock, Mlle Collart. Bodmer, Koekkoek, Schelfhout, Weissenbruch, and last but not least Maris and Mauve.
But I could go on like this for I don’t know how long, and then come all the old ones, and I’m sure I’ve left out some of the best new ones. Always continue walking a lot and loving nature, for that’s the real way to learn to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see. And then, there are painters who make nothing but good things, who cannot make anything bad, just as there are ordinary people who cannot do anything that isn’t good.
Things are going well for me here, I have a wonderful home and it’s a great pleasure for me to observe London and the English way of life and the English themselves, and I also have nature and art and poetry, and if that isn’t enough, what is? Yet I haven’t forgotten Holland, and especially The Hague and Brabant. We’re busy in the office, we’re occupied with the inventory, which is however drawn up in 5 days, so we have it a little easier than you do in The Hague. I hope you had a nice Christmas, just as I did. Well, old chap, I wish you well and write to me soon; in this letter I’ve written just what popped into my pen, I hope you’ll be able to understand it.
Adieu, regards to everyone in the office and anyone else who asks after me, particularly everyone at Aunt Fie’s and the Haanebeeks’.
Vincent
Herewith a few words for Mr Roos.
London, 30 March 1874
My dear Theo,
In a letter from Pa and Ma I got a guilder from you to buy a pair of cuff links. Many thanks, old chap, but you shouldn’t have done it, you need your money more than I do. Thanks for your letter of this morning. I was very glad to hear that Mauve is engaged to Jet C. That’s wonderful. I’m glad that you’re so well. It’s good that you’ve read the book by Bürger; read about art as much as possible, especially the Gazette des Beaux-Arts &c.
Above all, be sure to find out as much as possible about paintings. The Apol that we have here now is very beautiful, last year he painted a similar subject and I found it better and fresher than this one. I’m glad that you go to Uncle Cor’s occasionally. You see things there that you never find at the gallery in The Hague. I’m also busy at present and am glad of it, because that’s what I need. Adieu, old chap, keep your chin up, and I wish you well.
Give my regards to Van Iterson.
Vincent
As regards Anna, I haven’t heard anything more.
London, 30 April 1874
My dear Theo,
Many happy returns of the day. Do right and don’t look back, and things will turn out well. I was glad to get your last letter. I sent you a photo a couple of days ago:
Young girl with a sword, Jacquet
because I thought you’d like to have it. Van Gorkom’s painting isn’t very dirty. (Between you and me, I didn’t see it, but anyway tell him I wrote that it wasn’t very dirty.) How are Mauve and Jet Carbentus? Write to me with news of them. It’s good that you visit the Haanebeeks.
If I come to Holland, I’ll also come to The Hague for a day or two if possible, because The Hague is like a second home to me. (I’ll come and stay with you.) I’d have liked to go on that walk to De Vink. I walk here as much as I can, but I’m very busy. It’s absolutely beautiful here (even though it’s in the city). There are lilacs and hawthorns and laburnums &c. blossoming in all the gardens, and the chestnut trees are magnificent. If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere. Yet I sometimes yearn so much for Holland, and especially Helvoirt. I’m doing a lot of gardening and have sown sweet peas, poppies and reseda, now we just have to wait and see what comes of it.
I enjoy the walk from home to the office and in the evening from the office back home. It takes about three-quarters of an hour. It’s wonderful to be finished so early here; we close at 6 o’clock and yet we work none the less because of it. Give my regards to everyone I know at the Tersteegs’, Haanebeeks’ and Carbentuses’, and especially the Rooses’, also everyone at Uncle Pompe’s, because they’re going to Kampen, and Mr Bakhuyzen &c.
I wish you the best.
Vincent
The apple trees &c. have blossomed beautifully here; it seems to me that everything is earlier here than in Holland.
As soon as I know something more definite about my going home, I’ll write to you directly. I fear, however, that it will be around 4 weeks or so before it can happen. Write soon.
London, 16 June 1874
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter. I think I’ll be leaving here on Thursday, 25 or Saturday, 27 June, if nothing unforeseen happens. I’m longing so much to see everyone and Holland. I’m also looking forward to having a good talk with you about art, start thinking about any questions you might want to put to me. We have many beautiful things here, including a spirited painting by Jacquet, and a beautiful Boldini.
There are beautiful things at the Royal Academy this year; among others Tissot has 3 paintings. I’ve been drawing again recently, but it was nothing special. I was glad to see in your letter that you visit the Haanebeeks. Adieu, goodbye for now, give my regards to all my friends.
Ever, Your brother.
Vincent.
I’m glad you like César de Cock so much; he’s one of the few painters to have understood our Brabant intimately enough. I don’t know whether I told you that I met him last year in Paris.
Helvoirt, 10 July 1874
My dear Theo,
Thanks for the information you got. We’re now staying a day longer and will arrive in London on Wednesday morning.
I gave you the photo in the Forbes catalogue here already, because I thought it would interest you, being the Scheldt and therefore Belgium. It’s of a painting by Cap. It’s not so very beautiful, but at least it’s original. I’ll write to you soon from London.
I wish you well.
Vincent.
London, 21 July 1874.
My dear Theo,
Yesterday a crate was sent to The Hague in which I put a photo of a J. Maris and also ‘The landlady’s daughter’ I promised, both of which I hope you’ll hang up in your room. There’s a photo in the same crate of a Thijs Maris for Mr Tersteeg. Schüller at Paris sent me 6 copies of both, which I needed in order to give away. I can’t spare another of the Thijs Maris. Anna and I arrived in London safe and sound, and will manage here somehow.
I’m not saying that we’ll find something quickly, but each day that she’s here she learns something, and in any case I believe there’s more chance of her finding something here than in Holland. It’s wonderful for me to walk with her through the streets in the evening; I then find everything here just as beautiful as I did when I first arrived. I wish you well, old chap, and give my regards to the Rooses, Haanebeeks and Carbentuses if you see any of them. I’m learning to swim.
Write to me whether you’ve begun reading Michelet and what you think of it. That book was a revelation to me.
Adieu,
Vincent
Regards from Anna.
London, 31 July 1874
My dear Theo,
I’m glad you’ve been reading Michelet and that you really understand it. A book like that at least teaches one to see that there’s a lot more to love than people usually think. That book was a revelation and immediately a gospel to me.
‘There is no such thing as an old woman!’
(This isn’t to say that there are no old women, but that a woman doesn’t grow old as long as she loves and is loved.) And then a chapter like The longing for autumn, how rich it is.
That a woman is ‘a completely different being’ from a man, and a being that we do not yet know, or at least only very superficially, as you say, yes, that I certainly believe. And that a woman and a man can become one, that is, one whole and not two halves, that I believe too. Anna is managing well, we go on wonderful walks together. It’s so beautiful here, if only one has a good and a single eye, without many beams in it. But if one has that, then it’s beautiful everywhere.
Pa isn’t at all better, even though he and Ma say he is. Yesterday we received a letter with all kinds of plans (whether we shouldn’t try this and that), which would be unfeasible and certainly useless, and at the end Pa said yet again that he’d leave it all to us &c. &c. Rather feeble and disagreeable, Theo, and it reminded me so much of Grandfather’s letters, but what can be done about it? Our dear aunts are staying there now, and are certainly doing a lot of good!
Things are as they are, and what is a body to do about it, as Young Jochem said.
Anna and I look at the newspaper faithfully every day and answer the advertisements if there are any. Moreover, we’ve already registered with a Governess agency. So we’re doing what we can. More haste, less speed. It’s good that you go to the Haanebeeks so often; give everyone there my warm regards and give them some news of me.
That painting by Thijs Maris that Mr Tersteeg bought must be beautiful, I’ve already heard about it, and I myself have already bought and sold one completely in the same genre. My passion for drawing has again vanished here in England, but maybe inspiration will strike again one day.
I’m reading a lot again.
We’ll probably be moving on 1 January 1875 to another, larger gallery. Mr Obach is in Paris at the moment, deciding whether or not we’ll take over that gallery. Don’t mention this to anyone for the time being. I wish you well; write to us again soon. Anna takes quite some pleasure in paintings, and has rather a good eye. She already finds Boughton, Maris and Jacquet beautiful, for example, so that’s a start. Between you and me, I think we’ll have trouble finding something for her, everywhere they say she’s too young and they require German as well, but at any rate she certainly has more of a chance here than in Holland.
Adieu
Vincent
You can imagine how wonderful it is for me to be here with Anna. Tell Mr T. that the paintings arrived in good order and that I’ll write to him soon.
London, 10 Aug. 1874
My dear Theo,
‘Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.’ ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ So stick to your own ideas, and if you doubt the goodness of them, test them against those of him who dared to say ‘I am the truth’, or against those of some humane person, such as Michelet. Purity of soul and impurity of body can go together. You know the Margaret at the fountain by Ary Scheffer; is there a purer being than that girl ‘who loved so much’? ‘Leys is not an imitator, but a kindred spirit’ is a true saying that touched me as well. One could say the same of some of Tissot’s paintings, of his Walk in the snow, Walk on the ramparts, Margaret in church, &c.
What is the subject of Fagel’s Leys?
Buy Alphonse Karr’s ‘Voyage autour de mon jardin’ with the money I gave you. Be sure to do it, I want you to read it. Anna and I take a walk every evening; it’s already the beginning of autumn, and that makes nature even more serious and intimate. We’re going to move and will live in a house completely overgrown with ivy; we’ll write to you again soon from there.
Regards to everyone who asks after me.
Vincent
London,between Monday, 4 January and Friday, 5 March 1875.
My dear Theo,
I’ve filled your little book and I believe it’s turned out well. Send me The cliff by Jules Breton when you get the chance.
Our gallery is now finished and it’s beautiful, we have many beautiful things at the moment: Jules Dupré, Michel, Daubigny, Maris, Israëls, Mauve, Bisschop, &c. We’re going to hold an exhibition in April. Mr Boussod has promised to send us the best that can be had: Malaria by Hébert, The cliff by J. Breton, &c. I’d like so much to have you here, we must make sure that it happens sometime. I’d like so much to show you my room &c. There’s a beautiful exhibition of old art here, including a large Descent from the Cross by Rembrandt, 5 large figures at twilight, you can imagine the sentiment. 5 Ruisdaels, 1 Frans Hals, Van Dyck. A landscape with figures by Rubens, a landscape, an autumn evening, by Titian. 2 portraits by Tintoretto and beautiful old English art, Reynolds, Romney and Old Crome, landscape, magnificent. Adieu, I’ll send your little book at the first opportunity.
Write to me soon.
Vincent
London 6 March 1875
My dear Theo,
Bravo Theo – You well understood that girl in Adam Bede. That landscape – in which a dull yellow sandy road leads over the hill to the village, with mud or whitewashed huts with green, moss-covered roofs and here and there a blackthorn, on either side brown heather and bunt and a grey sky, with a narrow white strip above the horizon – is by Michel. Except that the atmosphere is purer and nobler than in Michel.
Today I’m enclosing that little book for you in the crate to be sent. Also Jesus by Renan and Jeanne d’Arc by Michelet, and also a portrait of Corot, from the London News, which I also have hanging in my room.
I don’t believe there’s any chance that you’ll be transferred to the London branch for the time being.
Don’t feel bad because you’re not finding things difficult; I have it easy, too. I believe that life is quite long, and the time when ‘another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not’ will come of its own accord. Adieu, give my regards to everyone I know.
With a handshake,
Vincent
London 6 April 1875
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter. Didn’t I copy out Meeresstille by Heine in your little book? Some time ago I saw a painting by Thijs Maris that reminded me of it. An old Dutch town with rows of brownish red houses with step-gables and tall flights of steps, grey roofs, and white or yellow doors, window-frames and cornices; canals with ships and a large white drawbridge, a barge with a man at the tiller going under it. The little house of the bridge-keeper, whom one sees through the window, sitting in his office. Some distance away a stone bridge over the canal, with people and a cart with white horses crossing it.
And everywhere movement, a porter with his wheelbarrow, a man leaning against the railing, gazing into the water, women in black with white caps. The foreground a quay with paving-stones and a black railing.
In the distance a tower rises above the houses. A greyish white sky over everything. It’s a small painting, upright. The subject is nearly the same as the large J. Maris, Amsterdam, which you perhaps know, only this is talent and the other is genius. I’ve again copied out one or two things for you, which I’ll send when I get the chance. Think of ‘The cliff’ and whether you know of anything else. That Victor Hugo piece is beautiful.
Adieu, give my regards to Pa if you see him.
Vincent
London, April 1875
My dear Theo,
I’m sending you herewith a small drawing. I made it last Sunday, the morning a daughter (13 years old) of my landlady died. It’s a view of Streatham Common, a large, grass-covered area with oak trees and broom. It had rained in the night, and the ground was soggy here and there and the young spring grass fresh and green. As you see, it’s scribbled on the title page of the ‘Poesies d’Edmond Roche’.
There are beautiful ones among them, serious and sad, including one that begins and ends
Sad and alone, I climbed the sad, bare dune, Where the sea keens its ceaseless moaning plaint, The dune where dies the wide unfurling wave, Drab path that winds and winds upon itself again.
and another, ‘Calais’
How I love to see you once again, o my native town, Dear sea nymph seated at the waters’ edge!
I love the soaring spire of your bell-tower, Lovely in its boldness and its elegance, Its fretted cupola, through which we see the sky.
You’ll probably be curious about what goes with the etching by Corot and so I’ve copied that out as well.
The pond to Corot
We watched the pond, its water leaden, drear, Form crease upon crease slowly in the breeze, And the mud, enfolding in a softened line The prow and black sides of a boat aground;
The woods’ high crown, leaf by fallen leaf, Lay strewn upon the ground; the sky was filled with mist; We two, in whispers, almost furtively, Were sadly saying, ‘Summer’s past:
These slopes have lost their accustomed grace; No more green foliage, no more golden light Trembling in the trembling water or touching tops with gold!’
This idyll may yet come before our eyes again, If you would have it so: are you not the master Who re-created it after its first creator’s hand?
Ville-d’Avray
Warm regards, and I wish you the best. Adieu
Vincent
London, 8 May 1875
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter. How is the patient? I’d already heard from Pa that she was ill, but I didn’t know that it was as bad as you said. Write to me about this soon, if you will. Yes, old boy, ‘what shall we say?’ C.M. and Mr Tersteeg were here and left again last Saturday. In my opinion they went a little too often to the Crystal Palace and other places that didn’t concern them. It seems to me they could also have come and seen where I lived. You ask about Anna, but we’ll discuss that another time.
I hope and believe that I’m not what many think me to be at present, we’ll see, we have to give it time; people will probably say the same about you in a couple of years; at least if you continue to be what you are: my brother in two senses of the word. Regards, and my regards to the patient.
With a handshake,
Vincent
To act on the world one must die to oneself. The people that makes itself the missionary of a religious thought has no other country henceforth than that thought. Man is not placed on the earth merely to be happy; nor is he placed here merely to be honest, he is here to accomplish great things through society, to arrive at nobleness, and to outgrow the vulgarity in which the existence of almost all individuals drags on.
Renan
Paris, 31 May 1875
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter of this morning. Yesterday I saw the Corot exhibition. It included a painting of the ‘Mount of Olives’; I’m glad he painted that.
On the right, a group of olive trees, dark against the darkening blue sky; in the background hills covered with shrubs and a couple of tall trees, above them the evening star. There are 3 Corots at the Salon, very beautiful, the most beautiful one, painted shortly before his death, ‘Women cutting wood’, will probably appear as a woodcut in L’Illustration or Le Monde Illustré. I’ve also seen the Louvre and the Luxembourg, as you can imagine.
The Ruisdaels in the Louvre are magnificent, especially ‘The bush’, ‘The breakwater’ and ‘The ray of sunlight’. I wish you could see the small Rembrandts there, the ‘Supper at Emmaus’, and two pendants, ‘The philosophers’. I recently saw Jules Breton with his wife and two daughters. Physically he reminded me of J. Maris, though he has dark hair. When I have the chance I’ll send you a book of his, ‘Les champs et la mer’, which contains all his poems. He has a beautiful painting at the Salon, ‘The feast of St John’, peasant girls dancing on a summer evening round the St John’s bonfire, in the background the village with its church and the moon above it.
Dance, young maidens, dance, As you sing your songs of love! Tomorrow, at break of day, You’ll go, hastening to ply your sickles.
There are now 3 paintings by him in the Luxembourg. ‘Procession through a cornfield’, ‘Women gleaning’ and ‘Alone’.
Adieu
Vincent
Paris, 19 June 1875
My dear Theo,
I had hoped to see her again before she died, and that didn’t happen. Man proposes and God disposes.
In the first crate we send to Holland you’ll find a photo of that painting by P. de Champaigne, of which Michelet said, ‘she stayed with me for 30 years, coming back to me incessantly’, also an etching by Daubigny after Ruisdael’s ‘Bush’, a lithograph after Corot’s ‘Sunset’, a lithograph by Bodmer, ‘Fontainebleau in the autumn’ and two Jacque etchings.
Adieu
Vincent
I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here, but before I return to London I hope to go to Helvoirt. I hope you’ll be there too. I’ll pay for the journey.
You certainly won’t forget her and her death, but keep it to yourself. This is one of those things that, little by little, makes us ‘sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’; and that we must become.
Paris, 29 June 1875
My dear Theo,
I’d rather that you were out of The Hague. Don’t you sometimes long for that as well? Write and tell me, yes or no? I’m staying here for the time being, and will probably not go to Holland before the autumn.
In the first crate going to The Hague you’ll find a package for Helvoirt. Please send it on after looking at what’s inside. There are a few lithographs &c. which I’d like to see in Pa’s study with the ‘Funeral in the cornfield’ by Van der Maaten. Anker’s painting of ‘An old Huguenot’, a photo of which is in the package in question, I sold to Uncle Vincent, who was here a couple of days ago. He also bought a beautiful painting by Jacque, horses pulling a plough in the rain.
There was a sale here of drawings by Millet, I don’t know whether I’ve already written to you about it. When I entered the room in Hôtel Drouot where they were exhibited, I felt something akin to: Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. You know that Millet lived in Gréville. Well, I don’t know whether it was Gréville or Granville where the man I once told you about died. At any rate, I looked at Millet’s drawings of ‘The cliffs at Gréville’ with redoubled attention. A painting of his, ‘The church of Gréville’, is now in the Luxembourg.
Adieu
Vincent
Paris, 6 July 1875
My dear Theo,
Thanks for writing, yes, old boy, I thought so. You must write and tell me sometime how your English is, have you done anything about it? If not, it’s not such a great disaster. I’ve rented a small room in Montmartre which you’d like; it’s small, but overlooks a little garden full of ivy and Virginia creeper. I want to tell you which prints I have on the wall.
Ruisdael The bush ditto Bleaching fields Rembrandt Reading the Bible (a large, old Dutch room, (in the evening, a candle on the table) in which a young mother sits beside her child’s cradle reading the Bible; an old woman listens, it’s something that recalls: Verily I say unto you, ‘for where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them’, it’s an old copper engraving, as large as ‘The bush’, superb).
P. de Champaigne Portrait of a lady Corot Evening ditto ditto Bodmer Fontainebleau Bonington A road Troyon Morning Jules Dupré Evening (resting place) Maris Washerwoman ditto A baptism Millet The four times of the day (woodcuts, 4 prints) Van der Maaten Funeral in the cornfield Daubigny Dawn (cock crowing) Charlet Hospitality. Farmhouse surrounded by fir trees, winter scene with snow. A peasant and a soldier before a door. Ed. Frère Seamstressesditto A cooper
Well, old boy, keep well, you know it, longsuffering and meek, as much as possible. Let us remain good friends.
Adieu
Vincent
Paris 15 July 1875
My dear Theo,
Uncle Vincent was here again, we were together quite a lot and talked about one thing and another. I asked him whether he thought there would be an opportunity to get you here, into the Paris branch. At first he wouldn’t hear of it, and said it was much better that you stay in The Hague; but I kept insisting, and you can be sure that he’ll bear it in mind. When he comes to The Hague he’ll probably talk to you; stay calm and let him have his say; it won’t do you any harm, and later on you’ll probably need him now and again.
You shouldn’t talk about me if it’s not the right moment. He’s terribly clever, when I was here last winter one of the things he said to me was ‘perhaps I know nothing of supernatural things, but of natural things I know everything’. I’m not sure whether those were his exact words, but that was the gist of it.
I also want to tell you that one of his favourite paintings is ‘Lost illusions’ by Gleyre. Sainte-Beuve said, ‘There is in most men a poet who died young, whom the man survived’ and Musset, ‘know that in us there is often a sleeping poet, ever young and alive’. I believe that the former is true of Uncle Vincent. So you know who it is you’re dealing with, and so be warned. Don’t hesitate to ask him openly to have you sent here or to London.
I thank you for your letter of this morning, and for the verse by Rückert. Do you have his poems? I’d like to know more of them. When there’s an opportunity I’ll send you a French Bible and L’imitation de Jesus Christ. This was probably the favourite book of that woman whom P. de Champaigne painted; in the Louvre there’s a portrait, also by P. de C., of her daughter, a nun; she has L’imitation lying on a chair next to her. Pa once wrote to me: ‘you know that the same lips that uttered “be harmless as doves” also immediately added “and wise as serpents”’.
You should bear that in mind as well, and believe me to be ever
Your loving brother Vincent
Do you have the photos of the Meissoniers in the gallery? Look at them often; he painted men. You may well know The smoker at the window and The young man having lunch.
Paris, Saturday, 24 July 1875.
My dear Theo,
A couple of days ago we got a painting by De Nittis, a view of London on a rainy day, Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. I crossed Westminster Bridge every morning and evening and know what it looks like when the sun’s setting behind Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, and what it’s like early in the morning, and in the winter with snow and fog.
When I saw this painting I felt how much I love London. Yet I believe it’s good for me to be away from it. This in answer to your question. I certainly don’t think that you’ll be going to London. Thanks for ‘Aus der Jugendzeit’ and ‘Um Mitternacht’ by Rückert. It’s poignantly beautiful; the latter made me think of ‘La nuit de Décembre’ by Musset. I wish I could send it to you, but don’t have it.
Yesterday we sent a crate to The Hague, what I had promised you was in it. I hear that Anna and Lies are at home; I’d like to see them again. I wish you the very best, and write again soon.
With a handshake,
Your loving brother Vincent
Paris, 13 August 1875
My dear Theo,
I had wanted to write to you earlier. I’m glad that Pa has accepted the call to Etten; under the circumstances I also think it good that Willemien is going along with Anna. I’d also have liked to be with all of you that Sunday at Helvoirt; have I already told you that I was with Soek and his family at Ville-d’Avray that day? I was surprised to find 3 paintings by Corot in the church there.
On Sunday last and Sunday a fortnight ago I went to Mr Mercier’s church and heard him speak on ‘all things work together for good to them that love God’ (in Dutch it says ‘for those who love God all things will work together for good’) and on ‘He created man in his own image’, it was glorious and grand. You should also go to church every Sunday if you can, even if it isn’t so very beautiful; do that, you won’t regret it.
Have you ever been to hear the Rev. Zubli? In the list of what I have hanging in my room I forgot: N. Maes The nativity Hamon ‘If I were sombre winter’ Ed. Frère The seamstresses ditto A cooper Français Last fine day Ruipérez The imitation of Jesus Christ Bosboom Cantabimus and psallemus I’m doing my best to find another engraving of ‘Rembrandt, Reading the Bible’ for you, perhaps I’ll be sending it to you in the first crate of paintings.
Have I sent you a lithograph of Troyon, Morning effect? Français, Last fine days? If not, write and tell me; I have two of each.
And now, I wish you well, do right and don’t look back, as much as you can, and believe me ever
Your loving brother Vincent
Please give my regards to Mr and Mrs Tersteeg and Mauve, also my regards to the Van Stockums, Haanebeeks, Aunt Fie, Rooses, &c. What do you think about our Anna?
Paris, between Monday, 16 August and Wednesday, 1 September 1875.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter and for the poem by Rückert. On Sunday I went again to Mr Bersier, his sermon was based on the text ‘It is not lawful for thee’, he concluded with ‘Happy are they for whom life has all its thorns’. Here are some words which I know Uncle Vincent is very fond of: ‘Rejoice, young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgement. Remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.’ Yet I find even more beautiful: ‘Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.’ And ‘Thy will be done’ and ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’.
Herewith a note for Mr Tersteeg, asking him if he would frame 2 engravings, ‘Good Friday’ and ‘St Augustine’, which you’ll find in the next crate. And will you please be so kind as to send them to Helvoirt around 10 Sept. I’d really like them to be from both of us, so that you pay 2.50 guilders towards the frames. I told Mr Tersteeg that you’d write and tell me what they cost and then I’d send him the money. You can give me the 2.50 guilders when we see each other. That probably won’t be before Christmas; I believe it’s better not to ask for any time off before then. This evening I’m going to dine with Mr Hamman.
Adieu, write again soon, and believe me
Your loving brother Vincent
Paris, on or about Thursday, 9 September 1875.
My dear Theo,
You hadn’t expected to get this letter back again, had you? No, old boy, this isn’t the path to follow. The death of Weehuizen is certainly sad, but sad in a different way than you say. Keep your eyes open and try to become strong and resolute. Was that book by Michelet really meant for him? Actually, I’d like to suggest something to you, Theo, which will perhaps amaze you: Read no more Michelet or any other book (except the Bible) until we’ve seen each other again at Christmas, and do what I told you, go often in the evenings to the Van Stockums, Borchers &c. I believe you won’t regret it, you’ll feel much freer as soon as you’ve started this regimen.
Be careful with the words I underlined in your letter. There is quiet melancholy, certainly, thank God, but I don’t know if we’re allowed to feel it yet, you see I say we, I no more than you. Pa wrote to me recently ‘Melancholy does not hurt, but makes us see things with a holier eye’. That is true ‘quiet melancholy’, fine gold, but we aren’t that far yet, not by a long way.
Let us hope and pray that we may come so far and believe me ever
Your loving brother Vincent
I’m already a little bit further than you and already see, alas, that the expression ‘childhood and youth are vanity’ are almost completely true. So remain steadfast, old chap; I heartily shake your hand.
Paris, Sunday, 12 September 1875.
My dear Theo,
Wings, wings above life! Wings over the grave and death! That’s what we need, and I’m beginning to see that we can acquire them. Doesn’t Pa have them, for instance? And you know how he got them, through prayer and the fruits thereof: patience and faith, and through the Bible, which was a light unto his path and a lamp unto his feet. This afternoon I heard a beautiful sermon on ‘forget that which is behind you’; part of which was: ‘Have more hope than remembrances; what there was of seriousness and blessings in your past life is not lost; do not reflect on it any longer, you will find it elsewhere, but keep moving forward. All things are become new in Jesus Christ’.
Keep your chin up, and believe me
Your loving brother Vincent
If it’s indeed true that childhood and youth are vanity (always bearing in mind what’s written above, and remembering that although one has to start anew later, a well-spent youth is worth a fortune), shouldn’t it then be our ambition and hope to become men like Pa and others? Let us both hope and pray for this. My regards to everyone who asks after me. You know the etching by Rembrandt, Burgomaster Six standing in front of the window, reading. I know that Uncle Vincent and Cor like it very much, and I sometimes think that they must have looked like that when they were younger. You also know the portrait of Six when he was older, I believe there’s an engraving of it in your shop. That life of his must have been a fine and serious life.
Paris, Saturday, 25 September 1875.
My dear Theo,
The way is narrow, so we must be careful. You know how others have arrived where we wish to go; let us take that simple path as well. ora et labora. Let us do our daily work, whatever the hand finds to do, with all our might, and let us believe that God will give good gifts, a part that shall not be taken away, to those who pray to Him for it. And let us trust in God with all our heart and lean not unto our own understanding. God’s will and not ours. ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’. II Cor. 5:18. I’m going to get rid of all my books by Michelet &c. &c., you should too. How I’m longing for Christmas, but let’s be patient, that time will come soon enough.
Keep well, old chap, and give my regards to all my acquaintances, and believe me
Your loving brother Vincent
I’ll send the money for the frames as soon as possible; when I write to Mr Tersteeg I’ll tell him that I don’t have much money at the moment, because I’ve asked our cashier to keep back part of my monthly wages as I’ll be needing a good deal of money around Christmas for my trip &c. I hope, though, that it won’t be so very long before I can send it. If I were you I wouldn’t go to Borchers all that often. Don’t you find these words beautiful? I Cor 2:4 and 5For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Matt. 7:14: ‘Want de poort is eng, en de weg is naauw’ (Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way).Pray and work (a Benedictine rule that has become a popular saying).
Paris, Monday, 27 September 1875.
My dear Theo,
‘The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: the kingdom of God is within you.’ ‘The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister’, and we who want to become His disciples, Christians, we are no better than our Master. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the pure in heart. Narrow is the way, which leadeth unto Life, and few there be that find it. Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. My brother, let us take care; let us ask Him who is above, who also maketh intercession for us, that He should not take us out of the world, but that He should keep us from the evil.
Yea, let us watch and be sober, let us trust in the Lord with all our heart, and lean not unto our own understanding. Let us ask that He compel us to come in, that He give us a Christian life to fulfil; that He teach us to deny ourselves, daily to take up our cross and to follow Him; to be meek, longsuffering, and lowly in heart. A part which shall not be taken away, a well of living water springing up into everlasting life, these are the good gifts that He who heareth prayer, the Giver of all perfect gifts, will give to those who pray to Him for them. And in addition to all this, the assurance that there is ‘a house of the Father in which there are many mansions, and that when He has prepared a place for us there He will draw all men unto Him.
And to comfort us in this life, on our way to our Father’s house, ‘the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who will guide us into all truth’. The Christian life nevertheless has its dark side too; it is mainly men’s work. Those who walk with God, God’s friends, God’s pious followers, those who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, have been proved and tried, and have oft-times received from God a thorn in the flesh; blessed will we be when we can repeat after our father, Paul: when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child: but now that I have become a man, I put away childish things, and I became, and God made me: sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing.
Write to me soon,and give my regards to all my acquaintances, and believe me
Your loving brother Vincent.
Paris, Wednesday, 29 September 1875.
My dear Theo,
Be careful, old boy, don’t lose your resilience. See things as they are, and, for yourself, don’t think everything good. One can deviate, both to the left hand and to the right hand. Remember what Pa no doubt once told you too: understanding and feeling must go together.
Warm regards and ever,
Your loving brother Vincent
Write again soon. I advised you to go out quite a lot, but if you don’t like it, don’t do it. You know that I didn’t go out so very much either, and that people often remarked upon it. How much I’d like for us to be able to breakfast together or drink a cup of chocolate in my room. Keep well, old chap. Don’t take things that don’t concern you directly too much to heart, and don’t let them weigh upon you too heavily. How is it going, eating bread? Have you tried it yet? In haste, I shake your hand heartily in thought.
Paris, Thursday, 30 September 1875.
My dear Theo,
Herewith the book about Michel that I promised you, also an etching after the Margaret by Scheffer and a lithograph after Corot, and a package of chocolate. I do know that things aren’t easy for you at the moment, old chap, but remain steadfast and be brave; ‘Not to dream, not to sigh’ is also necessary sometimes. You know ‘that you are not alone but that the Father is with you’. I shake your hand heartily in thought.
Ever,
Your loving brother Vincent
Please keep the enclosed etching after Rembrandt, along with the photos of the Corot and the Jules Breton sent previously, until Pa and Ma are comfortably settled in Etten, and send them then, at the end of November for example.
Paris, Wednesday, 6 October 1875.
My dear Theo,
Even though I wrote to you only recently, I want to do so again anyway, because I know how difficult life can sometimes be. Keep your chin up, old boy, after rain comes sunshine, just keep hoping for that. Rain and sunshine alternate on ‘the road that goes uphill all the way, yes to the very end’, and from time to time one also rests on ‘the journey that takes the whole day long, from morn till night’. So think now and often after this, that ‘this also will pass away’. And especially, you too should ask: Create in me a new heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Today I had the opportunity to send a package to Anna and Willemien. Among other things I sent her L’imitation de Jesus Christ and several books of the Bible, published separately, in the same edition as the Psalms I sent you. Read them faithfully. Would you perhaps like the 4 Gospels and some of the epistles, printed separately? I also sent Anna several prints – including Rembrandt, Reading the Bible and The supper at Emmaus (an old engraving, by De Frey, I believe), Philippe de Champaigne, Portrait of a lady, a large, beautiful etching after Chaigneau, Shepherdess and sheep, and then Dupré, Evening, Troyon, Morning, Bodmer, Fontainebleau, Français, Last fine days, Frère, Seamstresses, and A cooper, Daubigny, After sunset, &c. &c., as well as a couple of photos, namely of Delaroche, Gethsemane No. 424, Good Friday and Mater Dolorosa and Brion, The farewells. I hope so much that things will continue to go well for Anna there. She keeps up her courage, I know so well that she sometimes finds things so difficult. And yet ‘one has one’s good days’ as Jules Dupré often said, let’s go on believing that.
I’d very much like to have the Dutch hymns. When you get the opportunity, do you think you could manage to send the cheapest edition that can be found? I have the Psalms. There are also some beautiful English hymns, including this one:
Thy way not mine, o Lord However dark it be, Lead me by thine own hand Choose out the path for me. I dare not choose my lot; I would not if I might; Choose Thou for me, my God, So shall I walk aright. The kingdom that I seek, Is thine; so let the way That leads to it be thine Else I must surely stray. Choose Thou for me my friend My sickness, or my health; Choose Thou my cares for me, My poverty my wealth. Not mine, not mine, the choice In things or great or small Be Thou my Guide my strength My wisdom and my all and the following: Nearer my God to Thee Nearer to Thee! E’en though it be a cross That raiseth me; Still all my song shall be Nearer my God to Thee Nearer to Thee. Though like a wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness come over me My rest a stone; Yet in my dreams I’d be Nearer, my God, to Thee Nearer to Thee! There let my way appear Steps unto Heaven; All that Thou sendest me In mercy given Angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to Thee Nearer to Thee. Oft in sorrow and in woe Onward, Christians, onward go; Fight the fight, maintain the strife, Strengthen’d with the bread of life. Let your drooping hearts be glad; March in heavenly armour clad: Fight, nor think the battle long, Soon shall vict’ry tune your song Let not sorrow dim your eye, Soon shall ev’ry tear be dry; Let not fear your course impede, Great your strength, if great your need!
Give my regards to my acquaintances. How is Caroline van Stockum? Give my special regards to her, and believe me
Your most loving brother Vincent
Does the road go uphill then all the way? ‘Yes to the very end’. And will the journey take all day long? ‘From morn till night, my friend’.
Paris, Monday, 11 October 1875.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter of this morning. This time I’d like to write to you as I seldom do; I’d actually like to tell you in detail about my life here. As you know, I live in Montmartre. Also living here is a young Englishman, an employee of the firm, 18 years old, the son of an art dealer in London, who will probably enter his father’s firm later on. He had never been away from home and was tremendously boorish, especially the first few weeks he was here; he ate, for example, mornings, afternoons and evenings 4-6 sous worth of bread (bread, nota bene, is cheap here) and supplemented that with pounds of apples and pears &c. In spite of all that he’s as lean as a pole, with two strong rows of teeth, large red lips, sparkling eyes, a couple of large, usually red, jug-ears, a shorn head (black hair) &c. &c. I assure you, an altogether different creature from that lady by Philippe de Champaigne. This young person was ridiculed a lot in the beginning, even by me. But I nonetheless warmed to him gradually and now, I assure you, I’m very glad of his company in the evenings. He has a completely naїve and unspoiled heart, and works very hard in the firm. Every evening we go home together, eat something or other in my room, and the rest of the evening I read aloud, usually from the Bible. We intend to read it all the way through. In the morning, he’s already there to wake me up, usually between 5 and 6 o’clock; we then have breakfast in my room and go to the gallery around 8 o’clock.
Recently he’s begun to eat with more moderation, and he’s started to collect prints, with my help. Yesterday we went to the Luxembourg together and I showed him the paintings I like best there. And truthfully, unto babes is revealed much that is hidden from the wise. J. Breton, Alone, The blessing of the corn, Calling the gleaners Brion, Noah, The pilgrims of St Odile. Bernier, Fields in winter Cabat. The pond and Autumnal evening Emile Breton, Winter evening. Bodmer, Fontainebleau Duverger, The labourer and his children Millet, The church at Gréville Daubigny, Spring and Autumn Français, The end of winter and The cemetery Gleyre, Lost illusions and Hébert, Christ in the Garden of Olives and Malaria, also Rosa Bonheur, Ploughing &c. Also a painting by ? (I can’t remember his name), a monastery where monks receive a stranger and suddenly notice that it is Jesus. Written on the wall of the monastery is L’homme s’agite et Dieu le mène.
Qui vous reçoit, me recoit et qui Me reçoit, reçoit celui qui m’a envoyé. At the gallery I simply do whatever the hand finds to do, that is our work our whole life long, old boy, may I do it with all my might. Have you done what I advised you to do, have you got rid of the books by Michelet, Renan &c? I believe it will give you peace. You certainly won’t forget that page from Michelet about that portrait of a lady by P. de Champaigne, and don’t forget Renan either, but still, get rid of them. ‘If you have found honey, see to it that you don’t eat too much of it, lest it disagree with you’ it says in Proverbs, or something to that effect. Do you know Erckmann-Chatrian, Le conscrit, Waterloo, and especially L’ami Fritz and also Madame Thérèse? Read them some time if you can get hold of them.
A change of fare whets the appetite (provided we take especial care to eat simply; not for nothing is it written ‘Give us this day our daily bread’), and the bow cannot always stay bent. You won’t take it amiss if I tell you to do one thing and another. I know you have your wits about you as well. Do not think everything good, and learn to distinguish for yourself between relative good and evil; and let that feeling show you the right way with guidance from above because, old boy, it’s so necessary ‘that God dispose us’.
Do write again soon with some particulars, give my regards to my acquaintances, especially Mr Tersteeg and his family, and I wish you the very best.
Adieu, believe me ever, Your loving brother Vincent
Paris, Tuesday, 9 November 1875.
My dear Theo,
It’s time you heard from me again, though this will only be a short note, for I haven’t much time. Thanks for what you sent me, I’m glad to have it. I’m glad that you were in Etten on the day of the induction, for Pa and Ma’s sake as well as yours. You must write and tell me what it was like. Uncle Vincent and Aunt left yesterday. I went to see them quite often. I’m sorry I didn’t see them at the train yesterday when they left.
Herewith a letter, give it to Uncle when you see him, it explains why we didn’t see each other at the station. Autumn is really here, you’ll be going for walks fairly often. Do you get up early? I do regularly, it’s good to make a habit of it. It’s precious and already very dear to me, that early morning twilight. I usually go to bed early in the evening. Every morning my worthy Englishman cooks barley porridge; how I’d like you to be here in the morning sometime. Anna seems to get up early as well. She doesn’t have it easy, and she certainly makes herself very useful. Well, more soon, probably. Do write again soon, and freely.
I shake your hand in thought, and am ever
Your loving brother Vincent
Paris, Monday, 15 November 1875.
My dear Theo,
Herewith a note for Uncle Haanebeek. I hadn’t written since Annet died, and felt the need to do so at last. Do you ever go there? In any case you’ll deliver the letter yourself, won’t you? My worthy Englishman now cooks barley porridge every morning; he got 25 pounds of it from his father. How I wish you could try it sometime. I’m really very glad to have met that boy. I’ve learned from him and was able, in turn, to draw his attention to a danger that was threatening him. He had never been away from home and, although he didn’t let it show, he had an unwholesome (though noble) yearning for his father and his home. He yearned with a yearning that belongs to God and heaven. Idolatry is not love. He who loves his parents must follow them on life’s path. He now sees this clearly and, with some genuine sorrow in his heart, he has the courage and the desire to go on. Has Pa already said to you what he once said to me? Keep thy heart above all things; for out of it are the issues of life. Let us do that, then, and with God’s help we shall succeed.
I wish you well, and believe me ever
Your loving brother Vincent
Paris, Saturday, 4 December 1875.
My dear Theo,
A few words in haste because tomorrow is the Feast of St Nicholas. That’s such a nice day in Holland, I’d like to see it again sometime. It’s time for Christmas to come, don’t you think? We’ll have a great deal to talk about. It’s a pity that Anna can’t come either; I so much hope that she’ll have a good time then too. Christmas in England is very special, and perhaps Anna will become even more attached to her surroundings if she celebrates it there and helps to make things pleasant in the house there. My worthy Englishman (his name is Gladwell) is also going home for a couple of days. You can imagine how much he longs for it; he has never really been away from home before.
Do write again soon. Do you ever visit Uncle Cor? If he should ever invite you, accept by all means, and give him my regards if you see him. Is it as cold there as it is here? Gladwell and I are very cosy by our little stove, mornings and evenings. I’ve taken up pipe-smoking again, and sometimes it tastes just as good as it used to. Regards to everyone who asks after me, especially to the Rooses, and also to Jan and Piet.
I shake your hand heartily in thought, and am ever
Your loving brother Vincent
Paris, Thursday, 9 Dec. 1875
My dear Theo,
This morning I heard from home what happened to you, and I wanted to write to you immediately. If only I knew what I could do for you. One of these days a crate will be going to The Hague; I’ll put some chocolate in it. Gladwell calls that ‘Consolation’. I’ll also send you the little book by Jules Breton, at least if I can get it back. I’ve lent it out. I’m very anxious to hear how you are, so drop me a line soon and tell me in detail, if you will, how it was with you those days. How I’d like to be with you, Theo, but what can we do about it? It can’t be helped, old boy. In a fortnight I’ll be going home, and then we hope to see each other in any case, and our seeing each other won’t be any the less wonderful for what has happened. If you should see Uncle Jan, please give him my regards and thank him for his letter.
I received a letter from Anna today. I believe she’s reconciled to celebrating Christmas there, with a will and enthusiasm, and will help to make it a success. You must try and become good friends with Uncle Jan; I don’t know him well, but I do know he is ‘fine gold’. How cold it’s been. Fortunately, it started to thaw here yesterday, which was fine with me. These last few days I’ve been busy with the inventory &c., and trying to finish off one thing and another before I leave.
And now Theo, in thought a hearty handshake, my heartfelt wishes for your recovery, old chap.
Ever Your most loving brother Vincent.
Paris, Friday, 10 December 1875.
My dear Theo,
Herewith what I promised. You’ll like the book by Jules Breton. There’s one poem of his that I found especially moving: ‘Illusions’. Blessed are those whose hearts are thus attuned. All things work together for good to them that love God is a beautiful saying. It will be so for you, too; and the aftertaste of these difficult days will be good. But write and tell me soon how things are and when the doctor says you’ll be better, if you haven’t done so already, that is. In a fortnight I hope to be in Etten, you can imagine how much I’m looking forward to it. Have I already told you that I’ve taken up pipe-smoking &c. again? I’ve rediscovered in my pipe an old, trusty friend, and I imagine we’ll never part again. I heard from Uncle Vincent that you smoke too.
Tell everyone at the Rooses’ especially that I bid them good-day; you and I have had a lot of good times in their house, and have met with much loyalty. We have ‘Sunday morning’ by Emile Breton here at present. You know it, don’t you? It’s a village street with farmhouses and sheds, and at the end the church surrounded by poplars. Everything covered with snow and little black figures going to church. It tells us that winter is cold but that there are warm human hearts.
I wish you the very best, old boy, and believe me ever
Your loving brother Vincent
The packages of chocolate marked X are for you, the other two are for Mrs Roos. Smoke the cigarettes with your housemates. Adieu.
Paris, Monday, 13 December 1875.
My dear Theo,
I’d been longing to receive your letter of this morning, and am very glad that you’re getting better again. The parcel for you was sent only today; the little book by Jules Breton is in it. I’m longing for Christmas and to see you, old boy, but now we’ll be there soon enough. I’ll probably be leaving here Thursday week, in the evening. Do everything you can to get as long a holiday as possible. One more thing, though, please forgive my saying it. You and I both liked the poems by Heine and Uhland, but watch out, old boy, it’s pretty dangerous stuff. The illusion won’t last long, don’t surrender to it. Shouldn’t you get rid of those little books I wrote in for you? Those books by Heine and Uhland will fall into your hands again later on, and then you’ll read them with different feelings and with a calmer heart.
I like Erckmann-Chatrian very much, you know that. Do you know L’ami Fritz? To return again to Heine. Take the portrait of Father and Mother and take ‘Farewells’ by Brion, and then read Heine with those three before your eyes; then you’ll see what I mean. But, old chap, surely you know that I’m not lecturing you or preaching a moralizing sermon. I know you have in your heart what I have in mine, that’s why I sometimes talk to you so seriously. But in any event try this test sometime.
And now, get well soon and do write again soon. How is Willem Valkis? Give my regards to him and to all your housemates and to all who know me, also Van Iterson. We have a beautiful painting by Schreyer here at present, a wagon with horses in an autumnal landscape at sunset. Also a splendid Jacque, a sombre landscape with sheep. What do you think of that small Jacque, ‘Ploughing’, which has been in The Hague for some time?
I sincerely wish you the best and, again, a speedy recovery.
Ever Your loving brother. Vincent
Paris, Monday, 10 January 1876.
My dear Theo,
I haven’t written to you since we saw each other; in the meantime something has happened that didn’t come as a total surprise to me. When I saw Mr Boussod again I asked if His Hon. indeed thought it a good thing for me to go on working in the firm this year, since His Hon. had never had any very serious complaints against me. The latter was indeed the case, though, and His Hon. took the words out of my mouth, so to speak, saying that I would leave on 1 April, thanking the gentlemen for anything I might have learned in their firm. When an apple is ripe, all it takes is a gentle breeze to make it fall from the tree, it’s also like that here. I’ve certainly done things that were in some way very wrong, and so have little to say. And now, old boy, so far I’m really rather in the dark about what I should do, but we must try and keep hope and courage alive. Be so good as to let Mr Tersteeg read this letter, His Hon. may know it, but I believe it’s better that you speak to no one else of it for the time being, and behave as if nothing is going on.
Do write again soon, and believe me ever,
Your loving brother Vincent.
Paris, on or about Monday, 17 January 1876.
My dear Theo,
In the first crate going to The Hague you’ll find various packages; be so good as to take care of them. First of all, one for you containing ‘Felix Holt’, when you’ve read it please send it to Etten, and when they’ve finished it there please send it back here, when you get the chance, because it doesn’t belong to me. It’s a book that touched me deeply, and it will no doubt have the same effect on you. There’s also a package for Mr Tersteeg and one for Mrs Tersteeg, and also one for Mauve and his wife. I wrote and told Mauve that he should ask you for that book about Michel; please show it to him sometime when it suits you. There’s also a package for Pa; do your best to ensure that it arrives in Etten on Pa’s birthday. Perhaps you could add Felix Holt to it and read it after it’s been in Etten, that might be the best thing. In the small roll addressed to you you’ll find 3 etchings after Jules Dupré, one for you, one for Uncle Jan van Gogh, with my regards, and one for Pa. Also for Pa a lithograph after Bodmer and an etching by Jacque, and then there’s a lithograph after Cabat for you.
Cabat is a lot like Ruisdael, there are two magnificent paintings by him in the Luxembourg, one a pond with trees around it in the autumn at sunset, and the other the evening of a grey autumn day, a road by the waterside and a couple of large oak trees. That etching after Jules Dupré is beautiful, it’s one from an album of 6 with Dupré’s portrait. He has such a simple and noble face, it reminds me a bit of Mauve’s, though he’s older, and perhaps in reality he looks different from Mauve.
It’s good that you’re taking English lessons, you won’t regret it. I’d like to send you a Longfellow and ‘Andersen’s fairy tales’, I’ll see if I can find them. If I do send them, read especially Longfellow’s Evangeline, Miles Standish, The baron of St Castine and King Robert of Sicily &c. And now I’ll bid you good-day again and shake your hand in thought.
Regards to everyone at the Rooses’ and if anyone else should ask after me, and believe me ever
Your loving brother Vincent.
Give my regards again to my friend Borchers.
Paris, on or about Monday, 24 January 1876.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter, write to me often, as I long for it these days. Write in more detail, too, and about everyday things; you see that I, too, am doing that more and more. I was interested to hear what you said about Boks, how he has arranged his studio and that you go there quite a lot. Do keep me well informed. We sometimes feel rather lonely and long for friends, and think we’d be quite different and happier if only we found ‘it’, a friend of whom we would say, ‘this is it’. But you, too, will already have started to notice that there’s a lot of self-deception behind this, and that this longing, if we were to surrender to it too much, would cause us to stray from the path.
There are words that keep haunting me these days, they are the text for today: ‘His children shall seek to please the poor.’ And now for some news, namely that my friend Gladwell is going to move. One of the employees at the printer’s has persuaded him to come and live with him; he had already tried to do this before. Gladwell has done it, I believe, without thinking. I’m awfully sorry he’s going. It will be soon now, probably at the end of this month. For a few days now we’ve had a mouse in our ‘cabin’; that’s what we call our room, you know. Every evening we put some bread out, and it already knows how to find it. I read the advertisements in the English newspapers and have already written to a couple, we’re hoping for a godsend.
And now, regards to everyone at the Rooses’ and to any others who might ask after me, and do write again soon. Adieu.
Ever,Your loving brother Vincent
If Mr Tersteeg should speak to you about me, write and tell me. Give my regards to His Hon. every time I write to you.
Paris, Wednesday, 2 February 1876.
My dear Theo,
Would you do me a great favour? You know that 15-cent edition of ‘Andersen’s vertellingen van de maan’, translated by the Rev. Ten Kate. Could you send me a copy of it when you get the chance? It’s only tomorrow that a crate will be going to The Hague in which I’ll enclose the packages in question. The one for Pa can no longer arrive at Etten in time, but send it as soon as possible anyway. I still haven’t had a reply to various letters I wrote in response to advertisements. Nor did Uncle Vincent answer me. I asked Mr Obach whether any people desiring information about me could apply to him, and His Hon. replied with a very kind letter. At any rate, old boy, we can only continue quietly with our eyes on Him whom we think of when we say ‘Who will shew us any good?’
Adieu, regards to anyone who might ask after me, and ever
Your loving brother. Vincent
Paris, Monday, 7 February 1876.
My dear Theo,
My hearty congratulations to you on the occasion of Pa’s birthday. It’s a beautiful text, the one for 8 February: Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it. What that it will be for our Father and for us we do not know, but in a sense we can leave that to Him whose name is ‘Our Father’ and ‘I am that I am’.
Today I received a letter in reply to one of mine; they asked whether I could teach French, German and drawing, and also requested a portrait. I’ll answer today; if I hear more I’ll write to you directly. Thanks for the little book by Andersen, I’m glad to have it. It’s for reading aloud to a Dutchman, one of the employees I’ve been seeing a lot of lately. Yesterday I went to an English church here, it was a nice experience to attend such an English service again, which has much that is simple and beautiful.
The sermon was on ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lay down in green pastures, He leadeth me gently by still waters. He restoreth my soul and leadeth me in the paths of righteousness. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Surely Goodness and Mercy shall surround me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord for ever.’ Thanks again for the little book by Andersen, and in thought a handshake, and regards to everyone at the Rooses’.
I heard from home that Mr Tersteeg had been in Etten. In haste.
Ever,Your loving brother. Vincent
Paris, Saturday, 19 February 1876.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter, and also for the catalogue that was in the last crate. Have I already thanked you for ‘Andersen’s vertellingen’, if not, then I do so now. I heard from home that you’ll be making the trip with the nouveautés in the spring, you’ll surely have nothing against that, it’s good experience and you’ll see lots of beautiful things during your trip. You’ll find Longfellow in the next crate. Gladwell was here yesterday evening – he comes every Friday – and we read some more of it. I haven’t read Hyperion yet, but have heard that it’s beautiful.
These last few days I’ve been reading a beautiful book by Eliot, 3 stories, ‘Scenes of clerical life’. The last story, Janet’s repentance, I found especially moving. It’s the life of a curate who lives chiefly among the inhabitants of the dirty streets of a town. His study looked out over gardens with cabbage stalks &c. and over the red roofs and smoking chimneys of poor cottages. For his midday meal he usually had badly cooked mutton and watery potatoes. He died at about the age of 34, and was nursed during his long illness by a woman who had previously been given to drink but, through his words and by leaning on him, as it were, had got the better of herself and found peace for her soul. And at his funeral they read the chapter with the words ‘I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live’.
And now it’s already Saturday evening, the days fly by here, and the time of my departure will soon be here. Still no answer from Scarborough.
Regards, and in thought a handshake, and ever,
Your loving brother. Vincent
Regards to everyone at the Rooses’, and also to Van Iterson, Jan and Piet.
Paris, Wednesday, 15 March 1876.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter; thank Mauve and his wife for theirs, too, if you will, which I was glad to receive. I’m very eager to see the two paintings by M. that are going to the Salon. Gladwell may be coming back to his old room; he’s taking my place here in the gallery. Is it also blowing up a storm like this in The Hague? Here for a few days already, almost continuously. You should know that if nothing unforeseen happens I’ll go to Etten first. I’m thinking of leaving here on 1 April or perhaps 31 March.
I hear from home that you’re also thinking of stopping in Etten in the course of your trip. When are you leaving? I hope I’ll get the chance to send you the Longfellow before you leave. It might be a good book to take along. My time here is running out awfully fast, less than three weeks to go now. Meekness and longsuffering are also in my thoughts sometimes, every now and then. Aunt Cornelie gave me a nice book to read, ‘Kenelm Chillingly’ by Bulwer. There’s much that’s beautiful in it. It’s about the fate of the son of a rich Englishman who can find no rest or peace among his peers and goes to seek it in other circles. He nonetheless ends up returning to his own class, but doesn’t regret what he did.
And now, adieu, have a good trip, I wish you well and hope you see many beautiful things, in case you leave before my next letter arrives.
Ever, Your loving brother. Vincent
Paris, Thursday, 23 March 1876.
My dear Theo,
Herewith the book by Longfellow, it will no doubt become a friend of yours. Today I responded to two more advertisements, I’ll go on doing it, even though most of my letters remain unanswered. My time here is running out. You’ll surely see many beautiful things on your trip; although a feeling for nature isn’t it, it’s nonetheless a wonderful thing to have; may it always remain with us.
And now you’ll be ‘boarding in many inns’, that’s also a singular pleasure at times. You know that I once went to Brighton on foot. I always think back on it with pleasure. Lodging-houses in England are often so pleasant, Longfellow describes this well in Tales of the wayside inn. Gladwell is getting my place at the gallery; he’s there already, learning the ropes before I leave. I’ve seen quite a few paintings that are going to the Salon, including two very beautiful, large Gabriëls, a morning in the meadows, through the dew one sees a town in the distance, the other one was what we would call a watery sun.
Also 2 large Xavier de Cocks, one of them an evening at the beginning of summer, a meadow surrounded by poplars; in the distance a farmhouse and fields and a girl bringing the cows home. In the foreground a pond, next to which 3 cows – a white one, a black one and a red one – lie in the grass; the sun has already set and the sky is pale yellow, the trees dark against it. I’m writing in great haste, as you’ll see from my handwriting.
Have a good trip, and ever,
Your loving brother Vincent
[Letterhead: Goupil The Hague (crossed out)]Ramsgate, 17 April 1876.
Dear Father and Mother,
By now you’ve no doubt received the telegram, but will be wanting to know more particulars. I wrote down a few things in the train and am sending you that, so you can see how my trip went.
Friday
We want to stay together today. Which would be better, the joy of seeing each other again or the sadness of parting?
We’ve often parted from each other already, though this time there was more sorrow than before, on both sides, but courage as well, from the firmer faith in, and greater need for, blessing. And wasn’t it as though nature sympathized with us? It was so grey and rather dismal a couple of hours ago.
Now I look out over rolling pastures, and everything is so quiet and the sun is setting behind the grey clouds and throws a golden glow across the land. How much we long for each other, those first hours after parting, which you’re spending in church and I in the station and the train, and how much we think of the others, of Theo, and of Anna and the other sisters and of little brother.
We just passed Zevenbergen, and I thought of the day you took me there and I stood on Mr Provily’s steps and watched your carriage driving away down the wet street. And then the evening when my Father came to visit me for the first time. And that first homecoming at Christmas.
Saturday and Sunday.
How much I thought of Anna on the boat; everything there reminded me of our journey together.
The weather was clear, and on the Maas especially it was beautiful, also the view from the sea of the dunes, gleaming white in the sun. The last thing one saw of Holland was a small grey tower.
I stayed on deck until sunset, but then it grew cold and dismal.
The next morning in the train from Harwich to London it was beautiful to see in the morning twilight the black fields and green pastures with sheep and lambs, and here and there a hedge of thornbushes and a few large oak trees with dark branches and grey, mosscovered trunks. The blue twilit sky, still with a few stars, and a bank of grey clouds above the horizon. Even before the sun rose I heard a lark.
When we arrived at the last station before London the sun rose. The bank of grey clouds had disappeared and there was the sun, so simple and as big as possible, a real Easter sun.
The grass was sparkling with dew and night frost.
And yet I prefer that grey hour when we parted.
Saturday afternoon I stayed on deck until the sun was down. The water was quite dark blue as far as one could see, with rather high waves with white crests. The coast had already disappeared from view. The sky was light blue, burnished and without a cloud.
And the sun went down and cast a streak of dazzling light on the water. It was a truly grand and majestic sight, and yet simpler, quieter things move one so much more deeply, for now I couldn’t help shuddering, and thought of the night in the stuffy saloon with smoking and singing passengers.
A train was leaving for Ramsgate 2 hours after my arrival in London. That’s another train ride of around 4 1/2 hours. It’s a beautiful ride; we passed, among other things, a hilly region. The hills have a sparse covering of grass at the bottom and oak woods on the top. It’s very similar to our dunes. Between those hills lay a village with a grey church covered with ivy like most of the houses. The orchards were in blossom, and the sky was light blue with grey and white clouds.
We also came past Canterbury, a town which still has a lot of medieval buildings, in particular a splendid church with old elm trees around it. Often, already, I’ve seen something of this town in paintings.
You can imagine how I sat looking out of the window, watching well ahead of time for Ramsgate.
I arrived at Mr Stokes’s around 1 o’clock. He was away from home but will be coming back this evening. During his absence his place was taken by his son (23 years old, I think), a schoolmaster in London.
I saw Mrs Stokes in the afternoon at table. There are 24 boys between the ages of 10 and 14. (It was a fine sight, seeing those 24 boys eating.)
So the school isn’t large. The window looks out onto the sea.
After eating we went for a walk by the sea, it’s beautiful there. The houses on the sea are mostly built of yellow brick in a simple Gothic style, and have gardens full of cedars and other dark evergreen shrubs.
There’s a harbour full of ships, closed in by stone jetties on which one can walk. And further out one sees the sea in its natural state, and that’s beautiful.
Yesterday everything was grey.
In the evening we went to church with the boys. On the wall of the church was written ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world’.
The boys go to bed at 8 o’clock and get up at 6. There’s another assistant teacher, 17 years old. He, 4 boys and I sleep in another house close by, where I have a small room, which wants some prints on the wall.
And now enough for today, what a good time we had together, thank you, thank you for everything. Many regards to Lies, Albertine and little brother, and in thought a handshake from
Your loving
Vincent.
Thanks for your letters which just arrived; more soon, when I’ve been here a few days and have seen Mr Stokes.
Ramsgate, 17 April 1876.
My dear Theo,
I arrived here safe and sound yesterday afternoon at 1 o’clock, and one of my first impressions was that the window of the notverylarge school looks out over the sea.
It’s a boarding school and there are 24 boys between the ages of 10 and 14.
Mr Stokes is out of town for a couple of days and so I haven’t seen His Honour yet, but he’s expected back this evening.
There’s another assistant teacher, 17 years old.
Yesterday evening and this morning we all took a walk by the sea. Herewith a bit of seaweed.
The houses on the seafront are mostly built of yellow brick in the style of those in Nassaulaan in The Hague (but taller), and have gardens full of cedars and other dark evergreen shrubs. There’s a harbour full of all kinds of ships, closed in by stone jetties running into the sea on which one can walk. And further out one sees the sea in its natural state, and that’s beautiful. Yesterday everything was grey.
I’m shortly going to unpack my trunks which have just been brought, and hang up some prints in my room. (The assistant teacher, 4 boys and I sleep in another house close by.)
It’s the holidays just now, so I haven’t had to give any lessons yet. I’m anxious to see Mr Stokes. I must go out with the boys, adieu.
EverYour most loving brother
Vincent.
Ramsgate, 28 April 1876
My dear Theo,
Many happy returns; my hearty congratulations on this day, may our love for one another only increase as we get older.
I’m so happy that we have so much in common, not only memories of the past but also that you’re working for the same firm I worked for until now, and therefore know so many people and places that I know too, and that you love nature and art so much.
You’ll have received that letter containing Anna’s advertisement in good order. There’s also an advertisement in the Daily News; now we can only hope that something will come of it.
Mr Stokes told me that he intends to move after the holidays – with the whole school, naturally – to a village on the Thames, around 3 hours from London. He would then furnish the school somewhat differently and perhaps expand it.
Now let me tell you about a walk we took yesterday. It was to an inlet of the sea, and the road to it led through the fields of young wheat and along hedgerows of hawthorn etc. When we got there we had on our left a high, steep wall of sand and stone, as high as a two-storey house, on top of which stood old, gnarled hawthorn bushes. Their black or grey, lichen-covered stems and branches had all been bent to the same side by the wind, also a few elder bushes.
The ground we walked on was completely covered with large grey stones, chalk and shells.
To the right the sea, as calm as a pond, reflecting the delicate grey sky where the sun was setting. It was ebb tide and the water was very low.
Thanks for your letter of yesterday, I think it very nice that Willem Valkis will be joining the branch. Give him my particular regards. I’d like to walk with you both sometime through the Bosjes to Scheveningen.
Have a pleasant day today, and give my regards to everyone who asks after me, and believe me
Your loving brother
Vincent.
I wish you well today, old boy, and begin a happy and blessed year. These are important years for us both, years on which much already depends. May everything turn out well.
I’ll be glad when Anna has found something, but situations like the ones she is looking for are rather scarce. A sickly lady here who needed someone to look after her received 300 replies to her advertisement.
I shake your hand heartily in thought.Adieu!
Ramsgate, 6 May 1876
My dear Theo,
Herewith you’ll find the 2 books I promised you. I’ve marked a few things in them, but you’ll certainly find many beautiful things in addition to these. As I wrote to you already, though, one starts to grow especially fond of them when one lives in the country itself.
It’s already Saturday evening again; the weather’s beautiful today: the sea is very calm and it’s low tide at the moment, the sky is a delicate whitish blue with a haze in the distance. Early this morning it was also beautiful, everything was clear, where now it’s more or less hazy.
This town has something very singular, one notices the sea in everything; but you know this special quality, too, because one finds it in The Hague and Scheveningen as well. Did you know that Anna has received an answer to her advertisements? This week she sent me 3 letters she’d received. I’m longing to hear what she’s decided. One of the letters came from Amsterdam, a situation as companion to an old lady, another letter was from Vaals and yet another from here in England. She may have received even more since then.
She seems awfully eager for an opportunity to come into contact with families; in Amsterdam she would find this at once through Uncle Cor and Uncle Stricker.
Do you still visit Uncle Cor now and then? Sometimes I long to see him so much; just yesterday I wrote to him. Keep him as your friend, there can’t be any harm in that. Sometime you must tell Mr Tersteeg about the school here. These are really happy days, the ones I’m spending here, day after day, and yet it’s a happiness and peacefulness that I don’t trust entirely, though one thing can lead to another.
A person isn’t easily satisfied, one moment he finds things far too good and the next he’s not satisfied enough. But I’m saying this by the by, we would do better not to talk about it, but rather continue quietly on our way. Have a good Sunday morning, and give my regards to everyone at the Rooses’, also to Mr and Mrs Tersteeg and Betsy, and in thought a handshake from
Your loving brother
Vincent
Ramsgate, 12 May 1876
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter; I also like ‘Tell me the old, old story’ very much. I first heard it sung in Paris, in the evening in a small church I used to attend sometimes. No. 12 is also beautiful. I regret not having gone to hear Moody and Sankey when they were in London. There’s such a yearning for Religion among the people in those big cities. Many a worker in a factory or shop has had a remarkable, pure, pious youth. But city life often takes away ‘the early dew of morning’, yet the yearning for ‘the old, old story’ remains, the bottom of one’s heart remains the bottom of one’s heart. In one of his books, Eliot describes the life of factory workers &c. who have joined a small community and hold religious services in a chapel in ‘Lantern Yard’, and he says it is ‘God’s Kingdom upon earth’, nothing more nor less.
And there’s something moving about seeing the thousands now flocking to hear those evangelists.
I think your plan to give Pa and Ma ‘After the departure’ by Sadée is very good; that’s agreed, then.
Willemien may be already there on 21 May. I see from your letter that you’re also thinking of going. Do it, old boy, if you can manage it. Sometimes such actions receive a special blessing. How it would surprise them.
There was something wistful in Ma’s last letter, in which she wrote a word or two about the necessity of our being so far from home. And Ma’s eyes are hurting her again.
Come on, old boy, brighten them up again by being there on that day.
This afternoon Mr Reid sent me the catalogue of the exhibition in London.
In thought a handshake, and congratulations on the birthdays of Lies and Cor, and also on 21 May. Regards to everyone at the Rooses’. In haste.
Your loving brother.
Vincent.
Ramsgate, 31 May 1876
My dear Theo,
Bully for you, being in Etten on 21 May, happily there were 4 of the 6 at home. Pa wrote to me in detail about everything that happened that day. Thanks, too, for your last letter.
Have I already written to you about the storm I saw recently? The sea was yellowish, especially close to the beach; a streak of light on the horizon and, above this, tremendously huge dark grey clouds from which one saw the rain coming down in slanting streaks. The wind blew the dust from the small white path on the rocks into the sea and tossed the blossoming hawthorn bushes and wallflowers that grow on the rocks.
On the right, fields of young green wheat, and, in the distance, the town with its towers, mills, slate roofs and houses built in Gothic style, and, below, the harbour between the 2 jetties running out into the sea, looking like the cities Albrecht Dürer used to etch. I also saw the sea last Sunday night, everything was dark grey, but day was beginning to break on the horizon. It was still very early, and yet a lark was already singing. And the nightingales in the gardens on the seafront. In the distance the light of the lighthouse, the guardship &c.
That same night I looked out of the window of my room onto the roofs of the houses one sees from there and the tops of the elms, dark against the night sky. Above those roofs, one single star, but a nice, big friendly one. And I thought of us all, and I thought of the years of my life that had already passed, and of our home, and the words and feeling came to me, ‘Keep me from being a son that causeth shame, give me Your blessing, not because I deserve it, but for my Mother’s sake. Thou art Love, beareth all things. Without your constant blessing we can do nothing.’
Herewith a little drawing of the view from the school window where the boys stand and watch their parents going back to the station after a visit. Many a boy will never forget the view from that window. You should have seen it this week when we had rainy days, especially in the twilight when the streetlamps are being lit and their light is reflected in the wet street.
Mr Stokes was sometimes moody during those days, and when the boys were too boisterous for him it sometimes happened that they didn’t get their bread and tea in the evening. You should have seen them then, standing at the window looking out, it was really rather sad. They have so little apart from their food and drink to look forward to and to get them through the day. I’d also like you to see them going down the dark stairs and small corridor to table. On that, however, the friendly sun shines.
Another extraordinary place is the room with the rotten floor where there are 6 basins at which they wash themselves, with only a feeble light falling onto the washstand through a window with broken panes. It’s quite a melancholy sight, to be sure. How I’d like to spend or to have spent a winter with them, to know what it’s like.
The youngsters are making an oil stain on your little drawing, forgive them. Herewith a few words for Uncle Jan.
And now goodnight, if anyone should ask after me bid them goodday. Do you still visit Borchers once in a while? Give him my regards if you see him, and also Willem Valkis and everyone at the Rooses’. A handshake in thought from
Your loving
Vincent
Welwyn, 17 June 1876
My dear Theo,
Last Monday I left Ramsgate for London. That’s a long walk indeed, and when I left it was awfully hot and it remained so until the evening, when I arrived at Canterbury. That same evening I walked a bit further until I came to a couple of large beeches and elms next to a small pond, where I rested for a while. In the morning at half past 3 the birds began to sing upon seeing the morning twilight, and I continued on my way. It was good to walk then. In the afternoon I arrived at Chatham, where, in the distance, past partly flooded, low-lying meadows, with elms here and there, one sees the Thames full of ships. It’s always grey weather there, I think. There I met a cart that brought me a couple of miles further, but then the driver went into an inn and I thought he might stay there a long time, so I walked on and arrived towards evening in the well-known suburbs of London and walked on towards the city down the long, long ‘Roads’. I stayed in London for two days and often ran from one end of the city to the other in order to see various people, including a minister to whom I’d written. Herewith a translation of the letter, I’m sending it to you because you should know that the feeling I have as I start out is ‘Father, I am not worthy!’ and ‘Father be merciful to me!’ Should I find anything it will probably be a situation somewhere between minister and missionary, in the suburbs of London among working folk. Don’t speak about this to anyone, Theo. My salary at Mr Stokes’s will be very small. Probably only board and lodging and some free time in which to teach, or if there’s no free time, at most 20 pounds a year.
But to continue: I spent one night at Mr Reid’s and the next at Mr Gladwell’s, where they were very, very kind. Mr Gladwell kissed me good-night and that did me good, may it be granted me sometime in the future to show some more friendship to his son every now and then. I wanted to leave for Welwyn that evening, but they literally held me back by force because of the pouring rain. However, when it had let up somewhat, around 4 in the morning, I set out for Welwyn. First a long walk from one end of the city to the other, something like 10 miles (each taking 20 minutes). In the afternoon at 5, I was with our sister and was very glad to see her. She looks well and you would be as pleased with her room as I am, with ‘Good Friday’, ‘Christ in the Garden of Olives’, ‘Mater Dolorosa’ &c. with ivy around them instead of frames. Old boy, when you read my letter to that minister you’ll perhaps say: he’s not so bad after all, though in fact he is. Think of him as he is, however, every once in a while. A handshake in thought from
Your loving brother
Vincent
Rev. Sir.
A clergyman’s son, who, because he must work to earn a living, has no money and no time to study at King’s College, and who, besides that, is already a couple of years older than is usual for someone starting there, and has not even begun on the preparatory studies of Latin and Greek, would, in spite of everything, dearly like to find a situation connected with the church, even though the position of a clergyman who has had college training is beyond his reach.
My father is a clergyman in a village in Holland. When I was 11 years old I started going to school and stayed there until I was 16. At that time I had to choose a profession and didn’t know what to choose. Through the offices of one of my uncles, an associate in the firm of Goupil & Co., art dealers and publishers of engravings, I was given a position in his branch at The Hague. I worked for the firm for 3 years. From there I went to London to learn English, and after 2 years from there to Paris. Forced by various circumstances to quit the firm, however, I left Messrs G.&Co. and have since taught for 2 months at Mr Stokes’s school at Ramsgate. As my goal is a situation connected with the church, however, I must look further. Although I have not been trained for the church, perhaps my past life of travelling, living in various countries, associating with a variety of people, rich and poor, religious and not religious, working at a variety of jobs, days of manual labour in between days of office work &c., perhaps also my speaking various languages, will compensate in part for my lack of formal training. But what I should prefer to give as my reason for commending myself to you is my innate love of the church and that which concerns the church, which has at times lain dormant, though it awakened repeatedly, and – if I may say so, despite feelings of great inadequacy and shortcoming – the Love of God and of humankind. And also, when I think of my past life and of my father’s house in that Dutch village, a feeling of ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants. Be merciful to me.’ When I was living in London I often attended your church and I have not forgotten you. Now I am asking you for a recommendation in my search for a situation, and to keep a fatherly eye on me should I find such a situation. I have been left very much to myself; I believe that your fatherly eye could do me good, now thatThe early dew of morning
has passed away at noon.Thanking you in advance for whatever you may be willing to do for me...
Holme Court, 8 July 1876
My dear Theo,
Your letter and the prints came as a wonderful surprise this morning while I was weeding the potatoes in the garden. I thank you; the two engravings, Christus Consolator and Remunerator, are already hanging above my readingdesk in my room. God is just, so He will use persuasion to bring those who stray back to the straight path, that’s what you were thinking of when you wrote, may it come to pass. I’m straying in many ways, but there’s still hope. Don’t worry about your wanton life, as you call it, just go quietly on your way. You’re purer than I, and will probably get there sooner and better.
Don’t have too great illusions about the freedom I have; I have my bonds of various kinds, humiliating bonds some of them, and this will only get worse with time; but the words inscribed above Christus Consolator, ‘He is come to preach deliverance to the captives’, are still true today. Now I have a request to make of you. Back then in The Hague I went to a catechist, Hillen, who was living in Bagijnestraat at the time. He took great pains over me and, although I didn’t show it, what he said made an impression on me, and I have a mind to write a word or two to him, perhaps it would give him pleasure.
Go and find him if you have the time and can discover his address, and tell him that I’ve become a schoolmaster and, who knows, may later find some kind of situation connected with the church. He’s a very modest man, one who has struggled a lot, I believe; sometimes when I went to see him and took a look at him I couldn’t help thinking that the end of that man will be peace.
And give him the enclosed drawing for me.
How much I’d like to look in on Mauve sometime, what you describe, what you saw the evening you were there, I can picture clearly, as it were. Do write again soon, I wish you well, and believe me
Your most loving brother
Vincent.
Please give my regards to Mr Tersteeg and his wife and Betsy, and to everyone at the Rooses’, and anyone else you might see. Don’t tell them about me, though. Tell Jan and Piet I bid them goodday as well. As you see, I’ve ended up at the other school after all, herewith two prospectuses. If you can recommend the school to anyone wishing to send their boys to England, then do so.
Isleworth, 2 August 1876
My dear Theo,
I heard from home that you’d be coming home for a day while Anna and Lies were still there; write and tell me if that happened.
Mr Jones came home yesterday, and his family, I’d made the boys’ dining room green with Welcome home on the wall in holly and ivy and large bouquets on the table. There’s a lot of holly in the garden here, and a few old trees have had all their branches chopped off. These are now full of new branches, pure white or yellowish, with a small pink leaf here and there, which is absolutely beautiful, I picked a large bunch of them to put on the table.
Mr Jones asked me if I could find out how much 50 pounds of butter would cost in Holland; if it isn’t too expensive he’s thinking about always having it sent from Holland. Ask Mrs Roos about it sometime, and write and tell me as soon as possible.
The boys will also be coming soon.
Have you ever read the story of Elijah and Elisha properly? I’ve been reading it again these last few days, and am enclosing what I’ve copied out. It’s so movingly beautiful. Similarly, I’ve also been reading in Acts about Paul, how he stood on the seashore, and they fell on his neck, and kissed him, and those words of Paul moved me, ‘God comforteth the simple’. It is God who makes men and who can enrich life with moments and times of higher life and loftier feeling. The sea may have made itself, or an oak tree itself, but men like Pa are purer than the sea. The sea is beautiful all the same; there were lots of bedbugs at Mr Stokes’s, but that view from the school window made one forget them.
The heart of a man of flesh and blood ‘sometimes faints from earnest longing’ upon seeing those who devote themselves to and work for Him who baptized them, as it were, with the Holy Ghost, and with fire, and they – look, their eyes sometimes grow moist with tears of wistfulness as they think back on their young years and on ‘the good things with which He satisfied them’. Yet their exalted peace is better than the deceptive peace of bygone days. True rest and peace begin only ‘when there is nothing more in which to rest’ and when there is ‘none upon earth they desire beside God’. Then there is a ‘woe is me’ in them, and a beseeching ‘who shall deliver me from the body of this death’, and yet that is the best time of life, and blessed are they who reach that high peak.
I’ve heard two men say that, one in Paris, the Rev. Bersier, who, out of fear of a great bodily suffering that awaited him, exclaimed during his sermon, ‘Who shall deliver me of this dead body’ in a tone of voice that I believe made everyone in the church tremble. And I heard Pa say it (when I was home in April, in his sermon), but he said it in a soft voice, though it had a keener edge than the other, and he followed it with (and his countenance was like that of an angel) ‘the blessed above, they say “what you are now, I used to be: what I am now, you will one day be”’. Between Pa and those above there is still a part of life, between us and Pa there is also still life. He above can make us Pa’s brothers and can also join us intimately to one another, more so every day, may it be so, for I have a need to remain your brother, old boy, surely you know how much I love you!
May I succeed and get some firm ground beneath my feet.
Yesterday I took a lovely walk along the Thames; on the other side there were splendid villas with their gardens. It was a sky like Ruisdael or Constable paint it.
And now a handshake in thought, give my regards to everyone at the Rooses’. How is Willem doing? And give my regards to Borchers, too, if you happen to see him, and believe me
Your loving brother
Vincent.
The word of the Lord came unto Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. He so went and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.
And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse! and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake to Elijah. And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son? And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God! hast Thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim. Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty. So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel. And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal is God, then follow him! And the people answered him not a word. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: And call ye on the name of your Gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your Gods, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us! But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a God; but he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.
And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name: And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord: and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed. And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. And he said, Do it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time, so that the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel! let it be known this day that Thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that Thou art the Lord God! and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God. And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound as of abundance of rain. So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees, And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.And Elijah went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord! take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the Angel of the Lord came again the second time, and again touched him, and said, Arise and eat! because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of the meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks, going before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave.And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee! So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day? And he said, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. And Elijah said unto him, Elisha! tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee! So they came to Jericho. And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day? And he answered, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on. And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off: and they two stood by Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground. And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.
And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father! my Father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan; and he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over.‘And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all. And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, and kissed him, Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more.
Isleworth, 18 Aug. 1876
My dear Theo,
Yesterday I went to see Gladwell, who’s home for a few days. Something very sad happened to his family: his sister, a girl full of life, with dark eyes and hair, 17 years old, fell from her horse while riding on Blackheath. She was unconscious when they picked her up, and died 5 hours later without regaining consciousness.
I went there as soon as I heard what had happened and that Gladwell was at home. I left here yesterday morning at 11 o’clock, and had a long walk to Lewisham, the road went from one end of London to the other. At 5 o’clock I was at Gladwell’s. I’d gone to their gallery first, but it was closed.
They had all just come back from the funeral, it was a real house of mourning and it did me good to be there. I had feelings of embarrassment and shame at seeing that deep, estimable grief, for these people are estimable. Blessed are they that mourn, blessed are they that are ‘sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’, blessed are the pure in heart, for God comforts the simple. Blessed are they that find Love on their path, who are bound intimately with one another by God, for to them all things work together for good. I talked with Harry for a long time, until the evening, about all kinds of things, about the kingdom of God and about his Bible, and we walked up and down on the station, talking, and those moments before parting we’ll probably never forget.
We know each other so well, his work was my work, the people he knows there I know too, his life was my life, and it was given to me to see so deeply into their family affairs, I think, because I believe that I love them, not so much because I know the particulars of those affairs, but because I feel the tone and feeling of their being and life.
So we walked back and forth on that station, in that everyday world, but with a feeling that was not everyday.
They don’t last long, such moments, and we soon had to take leave of each other. It was a beautiful sight, looking out from the train over London, that lay there in the dark, St Paul’s and other churches in the distance. I stayed in the train until Richmond and walked along the Thames to Isleworth, that was a lovely walk, on the left the parks with their tall poplars, oaks and elms, on the right the river, reflecting the tall trees. It was a beautiful, almost solemn, evening; I got home at quarter past 10.
Thanks for your last letter. You hadn’t yet written that Mrs Vintcent had died; how often I brought her home in the evenings. Do you still visit Borchers sometimes? How I’d like to have walked with you to Hoeven! I often teach the boys biblical history, and last Sunday I read the Bible with them. Mornings and evenings we all read the Bible and sing and pray, and that is good. We did that at Ramsgate, too, and when those 21 sons of the London markets and streets prayed ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven, give us this day our daily bread’, I’ve sometimes thought of the cry of the young ravens that the Lord hears, and it did me good to pray with them and to bow my head, probably even lower than they did, at the words Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil.
I’m still full of yesterday; it must be good to be the brother of the man I saw so sorrowful yesterday, I mean that it must ‘be blessed to mourn’ with manly sorrow, how I’d have liked to comfort the Father, but I was embarrassed, though I could talk to the son. There was something hallowed in that house yesterday.
Have you ever read ‘A life for a life’, I think in Dutch it’s called ‘Uit het leven voor het leven’, by the woman who wrote John Halifax? You’d find it very beautiful. How’s your English coming along?
It was a delight to take a long walk again, very little walking is done here at school. When I think of my life of struggle in Paris last year and now here, where sometimes I can’t leave the house for a whole day, or at least no further than the garden, then I sometimes think, when will I return to that world? If I do return to it, though, it will probably be some other kind of work than I did last year. But I think that I prefer doing biblical history with the boys to walking; one feels more or less safe doing the former.
And now, regards to everyone at the Rooses’, and if anyone else should ask after me. How are the Van den Berghs, and the Van Stockums on Buitenhof? Do you ever hear anything from them? A handshake in thought and best wishes from
Your most loving brother
Vincent
And herewith a letter for Mauve. You may read it, I believe it’s good not to forget one’s old acquaintances, that’s why I’m writing again to some of them, also those in Paris, to Soek and others. If you can persuade anyone to read Scenes from clerical life by Eliot, and Felix Holt, you’ll be doing a good deed. The former is a wonderful book. Recommend the former to Caroline and to the Mauves and, if possible, to Mr Tersteeg as well.Could you write by return of post saying whether a Dutch pound of butter costs 80 cents and – if it’s a different pound – what part of a kilo is it then?Also give my regards to Mr and Mrs Tersteeg and Betsy.
I’m writing to you between school hours and rather in haste, as you can see.
Isleworth Between 2 and 8 September 1876
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter of this morning. There are hours and days and times in life when God hides His face, as it were, but for those who love God even those times, those sorrowful times, are not entirely without God, but as though full of prophecies for the future and full of voices from the past: ‘hitherto hath the Lord brought you’, ‘foster again the faith of old’.
If things should sometimes happen to you that you hadn’t counted on, strengthen within yourself the godly sorrow and the voice: ‘Abba, Father’.
It was an autumn day and I stood on the front steps of Mr Provily’s school, watching the carriage drive away that Pa and Ma rode home in.
One could see that yellow carriage in the distance on the long road – wet after the rain, with thin trees on either side – running through the meadows. The grey sky above it all was reflected in the puddles. And around a fortnight later I was standing one evening in a corner of the playground when they came to tell me that someone was asking after me, and I knew who it was and a moment later I flung my arms round Father’s neck. What I felt, wouldn’t it have been ‘because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying in us, “Abba, Father”’? It was a moment in which we both felt that we have a Father in heaven; because my Father, too, looked up and in his heart there was an even bigger voice than mine crying ‘Abba, Father’.Between that moment and today are years of pilgrimage. There are words that accompany us and grow up with us, as it were – which are, ‘sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’. There is the prayer of a Mother for her children which is very powerful, for the prayer of a righteous person availeth much.Father, I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.There is the hand of a faithful Father that blessed us when we left the family home.
And then, old boy, as I said earlier, there is a strong yearning for the day when He will no longer remember the iniquities of our youth. Who rejoices in grey hair?
As far as the east is from the west, so far do I remove your transgressions from you. Though your sins be as scarlet, I shall make them white as snow.
He who hate not his own life, he cannot be Christ’s disciple. Pa once sent me this:A longing for sanctificationWho shall free us fully and for ever
From the body of this death, bent beneath the yoke?
How long must I still combat my nature
Ere this heart from sinful service be revoked?That God my God would be, I pledged my troth
With singleness of mind Him would I follow
But I was tried – forgotten was my oath I was tempted – and my foot did falter.No, with my own strength I shan’t learn to conquer
Soul, confess your weakness, selfdeceit, take flight!
A child’s heart must be shaped by the Father
The Master be the pupil’s guiding light.Well then, Father, let your love be my teacher
My Master, take my hand, and show your standard
I stood alone – and fell: now we’re together
I succumbed, but win behind your vanguard.Only now do I feel strong, when with weakness stricken
Powerless in myself, but in the Lord, almighty!
Sin may tempt, the evil passions quicken,
Thou castest down all foes, O God in me!I am grieved, but it’s a godly sadness
A nightcloud – tinged all round with dawn’s bright crimson
I weep, Lord, though my heart is full of gladness
I bow my head – but, Father, in thy bosom.Who rejoices in grey hair? Who sees behind it as Felix Holt saw behind the word ‘failure’? Who sees, when the first life, the life of childhood and adolescence, that life of joy in the world and vanity reluctantly withers, and it will wither, even as the blossom falls from the trees, that then another life shoots up vigorously, the life of the love of Christ that constraineth and godly sorrow not to be repented of; how then, in our profound dependence on God, and in the clear and forceful feeling of this, we find more favour in His eyes, which are too pure to behold evil, and how He will entrust to us more safely, in our weakness, His Holy Spirit which giveth life and constraineth unto good works. Who rejoices in the life ahead? Who rejoices in grey hair, who rejoices in sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing, chastened, but not killed until ‘dying, and, behold, we live’? Who rejoices in falling down, and standing up again with longsuffering and meekness? Who rejoices in the green of the pine trees and cedar and ivy and holly and moss in the winter? Dry wood gives more heat, bright fire and light when it is lit than green wood does. There is no fear in Love, but perfect love shutteth out fear.Father in my great affliction,
Father, who punishes and saves,
Father, e’en in death’s own kingdom,
Father, too, in the silent grave.
Where’er I see inconstancy,
God, Thou takest a firm stand.
My dust, too, rests in Thy loyalty
And slumbers in Thy fatherly hand.Years, go quickly, fly by swiftly
With your gladness and travail
Whatever evil I bewail
God, my God, He changeth not.Though we sit in mournful darkness
That eternal light will blaze
All its glory and resplendence
Worthy of all laud and praise.I know in Whom my faith is founded,
Though day and night change constantly,
I know the rock on which I’m grounded,
My Saviour waits, unfailingly.
When once life’s evening overcomes me,
Worn down by ills and strife always,
For every day Thou hast allowed me,
I’ll bring Thee higher, purer praise.Why art thou cast down, my soul,
Disquieted in me, oh why?
Foster again the faith of old,
Rejoice in praising Him most high.
Oft hath He taken your distress
And turned it into happiness.
Hope in Him, eyes heavenward raised,
For to my God I still give praise.And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.The good Lord blesses love’s dwellingplace,
He dwelleth there, there one obtains His grace,
and life everlasting.Let us have Love toward one another, so that God may increase and strengthen our Love, and let us have love toward those around us, and if sometimes there are no people whom you can love enough, love the town you live in, as you certainly do, don’t I love Paris and London even though I’m a child of the pinewoods and of that beach at Ramsgate?
And seek to please the poor, and to find favour in their eyes.
‘Stablish your heart’. ‘Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying in us, “Abba, Father”’.
He that hath not loved knoweth not God; for God is Love. And this is life eternal, to know God, and Christ, Whom He hath sent. There is no fear in love.
In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.
And yet I am not alone, but the Father is with me. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to fall into the hand of the Lord than into the hand of man.
Let Christ be the centre of your longing, the Comforter of a troubled mind.
‘Stablish your heart’ in this sense, too: eat your bread with singleness of heart, I do so at least, I cannot do otherwise, God help me, if there be any danger in doing it; ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my heart’, eat your bread but live simply, and smoke your pipe, I do it too, whenever I have some tobacco and take a walk, I do it too whenever I get the chance to break loose. ‘And commit thy way unto the Lord; He shall bring it to pass’.‘Stablish your Love’. What exactly is the Love of which Paul speaks? What exactly are those wonderful words which you also know, 1 Cor. XIII. That Love is the life in Christ, that love is our Mother, all the goodness of the earth belongs to her, for everything is good if enjoyed with thanksgiving, but she extends much further than that goodness of the earth. To her belongs a drink from the brook during a walk or from a fountain in the hot streets of London and Paris, to her also belongs ‘I shall make your bed in sickness’, ‘as one whom his Mother comforteth, so will I comfort you’, to her also belongs faithfulness until death in Christ who gives us the strength to do all things. There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
‘Stablish your hope’, for there is much that is good in life, for him who loves Christ the world is what it is, and all things shall be added unto him, as it were. It is indeed true that much joy already lies behind us, and also much that we used to look forward to, and although much joy may lie in store for us, we have already seen that ‘the world passeth away, and all the glory thereof’. And if it be true that:I’ve found a joy in sorrow, a secret balm for pain,
A beautiful tomorrow of sunshine after rain;
I’ve found a branch of healing near every bitter spring,
A whispered promise stealing o’er every broken string.then it’s also true that there is no joy without insufficiency.
Sorrow is better than joy, and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasts, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.
Even in mirth the heart is sad.
For myself I shall endeavour to strive to love Christ and to work for Him in my life, even if it fails and even if I fall, there will always remain a standing aloof and a longing for above from the misery below. But I want to seek faith and Love and to continue asking for God’s spirit under all circumstances.
Now this is my vow to the Lord my God, my rock. If I am forsaken, then I am forsaken, but He is faithful and loves with an eternal Love and grants us our heart’s desire of being Evergreen. Read the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, Isa. 9, 11, 35; Isa. 40, 42, 43, 44, 45:2 and the following verses, 49, 53, 55, 58, 61, 63, 65; Jer. 3, 17, 30, 31.
The Lord is thy keeper, The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. Unto Him belong the issues from death, with Him is everlasting life.
My boy, days will come when we’ll no longer believe because we heard it said but when we’ll know, feel and love it. Then we’ll be moved to hear the name of God spoken, just as we’re moved to see our father again after a long time away from home.
And we’ll be brothers and sisters and children of the parsonage, as though made new, and in manifold ways.
Let us continue in life as long as our legs will carry us, even though our feet grow tired, and the oppression great, and even if our ears buzz with the sound of the world that they have been hearing for so many years, and even if our whole head is tired, and the going is difficult, let us continue in life because our Father and our Mother tell us to ‘go forth and don’t look back’, and if we can do good along the way, let us not neglect to do so; and yet it is more our heart than our work that God desires. Pa and Ma say ‘go forth’ and they love us, didn’t Pa say: my boy, surely you know that I would give my last shirt for you. Let us continue as long as our legs will carry us (and you will find that God giveth power to the faint; and increaseth strength to him that has no might, that God supports) for there is greater Love in store, that is why we rejoice and have faith in that life ahead.
A handshake in thought, it’s already late, adieu.
Your most loving brother,
Vincent
Now, Brother, these are the fruits of my pen and the fruits of my heart.My eyes, O weep no more, but hold back your tears
My soul, grieve no more, but pray, but pray,
my soul.Do you ever go to the Lord’s Supper? They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.(Try and send that page from Michelet.)Don’t be afraid, when you’re out walking in the evening and there’s no one near by, to sing a psalm: ‘The panting hart, the hunt escapèd’, or ‘O why art thou cast down, my soul?’ or ‘Centre of our longing’ or ‘I know in Whom my faith is founded’.The years between 20 and 30 are full of all sorts of dangers, full of great danger, yea, the danger of sin and death, but also full of light and God’s comfort. Wrestling, you will emerge victorious, and when they’re over you’ll think back on them with nostalgia and say, it was a good time after all.Regards to everyone at the Rooses’, Haanebeeks’, Tersteegs’, Borchers’, Caroline and Mauve.If you can, send a Carte de visite to Ma on her birthday, No. 669, The prodigal son by Scheffer.
Isleworth Between 16 and 22 September 1876
My dear Theo,
Van Iterson just came and surprised me, I think it’s nice that he came, but it’s as though he were a person from another world, so much lies between the time when we were in the firm together and now.
Herewith the ‘Wijde wijde wereld’ and another little book, give one of them to Caroline.
How much I’d like you to be able to see it here.
I hope to walk to London on Saturday morning at 4 o’clock to visit Gladwell and others. I wish you could walk along with me.
A hearty handshake in thought. Adieu, believe me,
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Isleworth 3 October 1876
Dear Theo,
I heard from home that you were ill. How much I’d like to be with you, my boy. Yesterday evening I walked over to Richmond and I thought about you the whole way, it was a beautiful, grey evening, you know that I go there every Monday evening to the Methodist church, yesterday evening I even said a few words on ‘Nothing pleaseth me but in Jesus Christ, and in Him all things please me’.
How I’d like to be with you, though, oh why are we all so far apart? But what shall we do about it?
I’m sending herewith a letter from the aunts at Zundert. You know that Aunt Bet hurt herself so badly. I wrote and told them that, if possible, you and I would walk to Zundert sometime at Christmas.
Herewith I’m copying out a few psalms, you might like to read them at this time. Write a few words soon if you can.
A week ago on Saturday I made a long journey to London, and there I heard about a situation that might be of future interest. The clergymen in such seaside places as Liverpool and Hull, for example, often have need of assistants who speak various languages to work among the seamen and foreigners, and also to visit the sick. In addition, such a situation would be salaried.
I left here early that morning, 4 o’clock, that night it was beautiful in the park here, with the dark avenues of elm trees and the wet road going through them and the grey rainy sky above it all, and there was a thunderstorm in the distance. When daylight came I was in Hyde Park, where the leaves were already falling from the trees and the Virginia creeper was so magnificently red against the houses, and it was foggy. At 7 o’clock I was in Kennington, and rested there awhile in the church I had attended many a Sunday evening. In London I visited one or two people and also went to the gallery of Messrs Goupil & Cie, and there I saw the drawings that Van Iterson had brought, and it was a pleasure to see the Dutch cities and meadows again. That painting by Artz, that mill on the canal, I find really very beautiful. You also have a good life ahead of you, Theo, remain steadfast, and much light will come your way. Is Van Iterson back yet? I was very glad indeed to see him again, he’s bringing you ‘De wijde wijde wereld’, read it one of these days, the first chapters in particular are so beautiful and so truly straightforward. And read Longfellow sometime, e.g.:I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resistA feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rainCome read to me some poem
Some simple and heartfelt lay
That shall soothe this restless feeling
And banish the thoughts of day.Not from the grand old masters
Not from the bards sublime
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of timeRead from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart
As showers from the clouds of summer
Or tears from the eyelids start.Who through long days of labour
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodiesSuch songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.Why art thou cast down, my soul,
Disquieted in me, oh why?
Foster again the faith of old,
Rejoice in praising Him most high.
Oft hath he taken your distress
And turned it into happiness.
Hope in Him, eyes heavenward raised,
For to my God I still give praise.If Van Iterson gave you that English hymnal, read No. 14.
And now, old boy, a handshake in thought to you and one to Uncle Jan, adieu, old boy, remain steadfast and get well soon, and write soon about how you’re doing and at the same time send back the aunts’ letter, poor Aunt Bet, what old friends we are. Oh that Zundert, the thought of it’s almost too much at times. Adieu, old boy, may God make us brothers more and more and join us intimately to one another, and may the Love for Him make that bond ever stronger. Give my very warm regards to Uncle Jan, I heard from Pa that Willem and Johan are doing very well indeed. Give my regards, too, to everyone at the Rooses’, from
Your most loving brother,
Vincent.
Paris will also be beautiful now in the autumn, last year Gladwell and I went every Sunday to as many friends and churches as we could, we left in the morning and came home late. NotreDame is so absolutely beautiful in the autumn evenings among the chestnut trees. There’s something in Paris, though, that’s more beautiful than the autumn and the churches, and that is the poor people there. I sometimes think of many a person there.
Psalm 23
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.Psalm 91
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His wings, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because Thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, Thy habitation;
There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall give his angels charge to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.Psalm 121
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord, which made Heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.
Thus saith the Lord; Refrain thine eyes from tears, and thy voice from weeping, for thy work shall be rewarded, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. But this shall be the covenant that I will make, saith the Lord, I will write my law in their inward parts, and will be their God, and they shall be My sons and daughters. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.I know in Whom my faith is founded,
Though day and night change constantly,
My Saviour waits, unfailingly.
When once life’s evening overcomes me,
Worn down by ills and strife always,
For every day Thou hast allowed me,
I’ll bring Thee higher, purer praise.Father in my great affliction,
Father, who punishes and saves,
Father, e’en in death’s own kingdom,
Father, too, in the silent grave.
Where’er I see inconstancy,
God, Thou takest a firm stand.
My dust, too, rests in Thy loyalty
And slumbers in Thy fatherly hand.
Though catastrophes come hither,
Refuge I shall find in thee.
Thou art in Thy Son my Father,
Constant shalt Thou ever be.The light of stars.The night is come but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently the little moon
Drops down beneath the sky.There is no light in heaven and earth
But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.Is it the tender star of love?
The star of love and dreams?
Oh no, from that blue tent above,
A hero’s armour gleamsAnd earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,
Susp
ended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red starO star of strength, I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand
And I am strong againWithin my breast there is no light,
But the cold light of stars;
I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast
Serene and resolute and still,
And calm and selfpossessed.And thou, too, whosoe’er thou art
That readest this brief psalm
As one by one thy hopes depart
Be resolute and calm.O fear not in a world like this
And thou shalt know ’ere long
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.The panting hart, the hunt escapèd,
Cries no harder for the pleasure
Of fresh flowing streams of water
Than my soul doth long for God.
Yea, my soul thirsts for the Lord,
God of life, oh when shall I
Approach Thy sight and drawing nigh,
Give Thee praise in Thine own house.Do read Isaiah 53.
Taken, with several changes, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem ‘The saga of king Olaf’ in Tales of a Wayside inn. See Longfellow 18861891, vol. 4, p. 108.
‘So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o’erflowing
And they that behold it
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining!’
Isleworth, 7 Oct. 1876.
Dear Theo,
It’s Saturday again, and I’m writing a few words once more. I’m longing so much to see you again, oh, I can long for it so much sometimes. Do write soon and tell me how you are.
Last Wednesday afternoon we took a lovely walk to a village an hour away from here. The road there goes through meadows and fields, along hedgerows of hawthorn full of blackberries and clematis and here and there a tall elm tree. It was so beautiful when the sun went down behind the grey clouds and when the shadows were long, and we chanced to meet Mr Stokes’s school, where there are still several boys I know.
The clouds kept their red glow long after the sun had set and the twilight was gathering over the fields, and in the distance we saw the streetlamps being lit in the village. This morning there was also a beautiful sunrise. I see it every morning when I wake the boys up.
Last night I opened that book by Souvestre again (Le philosophe sous les toits), and I found such a friendly description of Paris in it, a kind description; I copied it out for Pa and Ma, perhaps you’ll like it too:9 May. The beautiful evenings have returned; the trees are beginning to uncurl their buds. Hyacinths, daffodils, violets and lilacs scent the flowersellers’ stalls; the crowds have begun to stroll along the quays and boulevards again. After supper, I too came down from my garret to breathe the evening air. It is the hour when Paris shows herself in all her beauty. During the day, the plaster of the facades fatigues the eye with its monotonous whiteness, the heavily laden carts make the cobblestones shudder under their huge wheels, the hurrying crowds cross and collide, intent on not missing a moment of business; there is something harsh, anxious, breathless about the city. But everything changes the moment the stars come out; the white houses fade into misty shadow; nothing is to be heard but the wheels of carriages as they bowl along on their way to some party or other; nothing is to be seen but people strolling idly or gaily by; work gives way to leisure. Now everyone draws breath from that fierce race through the day’s activities; what strength remains is given over to pleasure! See the dancehalls lighting up their colonnades, the theatres opening, the titbit stalls lining the avenues, the newsvendors making their lanterns shine. Paris has clearly put aside the pen, the ruler and the apron; after the day dedicated to work it wants to keep the evening for enjoyment; like the masters of Thebes it has put off serious business till the morrow. I love to share this festive time — not to take part in the general gaiety but to observe it. The joy of others may embitter jealous hearts, but it fortifies submissive hearts; it is the ray of sunshine that opens up those two lovely flowers called ‘confidence’ and ‘hope’.Usually, the view that opens before my window delights me. It is a clutter of roofs whose tops overlap and crisscross, superimposed on one another, and upon which the tall chimneys raise their peaks. Yesterday I still found something Alpine about them, and waited for the first snow, to see glaciers on them; today I see nothing but tiles and stovepipes. The pigeons that fed my rustic fantasies now seem no more than poor feathered creatures that have taken the roofs for a farmyard; the smoke that rises in faint wisps, instead of giving me dreams of the ventholes of Vesuvius makes me think of cooking and dishwater; lastly, the telegraph that I can see from afar, on the old tower of Montmartre, looks to me like a revolting gallows whose arm rises above the city.In sorrow did I bow my head
There is no peace on earth I said
The world is strong
And mocks the song
Of ‘peace on earth, Goodwill to men’!Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead! nor doth He sleep!
What’s wrong shall fail
What’s right prevail
With peace on earth, goodwill to men.’There’s still a lot to do here for many to whom God gives His blessing and whose lives He spares.While I was writing to you I was summoned to Mr Jones, who asked if I felt like walking to London for him to collect some money. And when I returned in the evening, happily there was a letter from Pa with news of you! How I’d like to be with you, with Pa and with you, old boy. And thank God you’re a little better, even though you’re still weak. And you’ll be longing to see Ma too, and now that I hear you’re going home with Ma it makes me think of a passage in Conscience:
I have been ill. My spirit was weary, my soul disenchanted, my body sickly. I, whom God has at least endowed with moral energy and a vast instinct for affection, was falling into the depths of the bitterest discouragement, and I felt with terror a deadly poison creeping into my shrivelled heart. I have spent three months on the heath: you know, that lovely region where the soul returns to itself and enjoys sweet repose; where everything exudes peace and tranquillity; where the soul, in the presence of God’s immaculate creation, shakes off the yoke of convention, forgets society and frees itself from its bonds with the vigour of returning youth; where every thought takes on the form of prayer; where the heart is emptied of everything that is not in harmony with the freshness and freedom of nature. Oh, there the weary soul finds calm; there, the exhausted man regains a youthful strength. Thus were my days of sickness spent, days of ineffable joy for my soul: smiling at the sun when, in all its majesty, it casts its first rays over the horizon; watching the countryside awaken and catching the first notes of the glorious hymn it addresses to heaven; roaming heaths and forests; questioning my soul — and thinking — scrutinizing and admiring the life of plants and animals, taking deep breaths of the pure air, stopping, going on, turning back, and talking out loud in the solitude; dreaming of splendid things: of God, of the future, of our dear Flanders, of peace and love. And in the evening! To sit under the wide chimneypiece, feet in the ashes, eyes fixed upon a star that sends me its light from on high through the chimneytop, as if calling out to me; or, sunk in a vague reverie, to look at the fire, watching the flames come to life, grow, gasp and crackle, pushing each other aside as if vying to lick the cookingpot with their tongues of fire — and to imagine that this is human life: to be born, to work, to love, to grow up, and to die.... Up above, smoke crowns the chimney with its weightless plume; of all that noise, that crackling, that heat, nothing more comes forth.
Mr Jones has promised me that I won’t have to teach so much any more, but that I may work in his parish from now on, visiting people, talking to them, and so on. May God give this His blessing. Father, I pray that Thou dost not take me out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep me from the evil. Now I’ll tell you about my walk to London. I left here at noon and arrived where I had to be between 5 and 6 o’clock and posted the letter to Pa and Ma along the way. When I came to the neighbourhood in the city where most of the galleries are, in the neighbourhood of the Strand, I met a lot of acquaintances; it was right at lunchtime and so there were a lot of people on the street, coming from or going to their offices. First of all, I met a young clergyman who used to preach here and with whom I became acquainted at that time, then Mr Wallis’s clerk and then one of the Messrs Wallis himself, in those days I went to their house once or twice – he already has two children – and then I ran into Mr Reid and Mr Richardson, who are old friends by now. Last year at this time Mr Richardson was in Paris, and we walked together to Père Lachaise. Afterwards I went to see Van Wisselingh, where I saw sketches for two church windows.
In the middle of one of the windows the portrait of an elderly lady, such a noble face, with the words ‘Thy will be done’ inscribed above; in the other window the portrait of her daughter, with the words ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen’. There, as well as in the gallery of Messrs G.&Cie, I saw beautiful paintings and drawings, it’s such a deep pleasure to be reminded time and again of Holland through art.
In the City I also went to see Mr Gladwell and to St Paul’s. And from the City to the other end of London, there I visited a boy who had left Mr Stokes’s school because of illness, and I found him completely recovered, outside in the street. Then on to the place where I had to collect the money for Mr Jones. The suburbs of London have a peculiar beauty; between the small houses and gardens there are open places covered with grass and usually with a church or school or poorhouse between the trees and shrubbery in the middle, and it can be so beautiful there when the sun goes down red in the light evening mist. It was like that yesterday evening, and later I did so wish that you had seen the streets of London when it began to grow dark and the streetlamps were lit and everyone was going home, it was obvious from everything that it was Saturday evening, and in all that hustle and bustle there was peace, one felt, as it were, the need for and joy at the approach of Sunday. Oh those Sundays and how much is done and striven for on those Sundays, it’s such a relief to those poor neighbourhoods and busy streets. It was dark in the City, but it was a lovely walk past all those churches along the way. Close to the Strand I found an omnibus that brought me a long way, it was already rather late. I rode past Mr Jones’s little church and saw another in the distance where light was still burning so late. I headed for it and found it to be a very beautiful little Roman Catholic church in which a couple of women were praying. Then I came to that dark park I already wrote to you about, and from there I saw in the distance the lights of Isleworth and the church with the ivy and the cemetery with the weeping willows on the banks of the Thames. Now then, Theo, get well soon and read this letter sometime when Ma is sitting with you, because I’d very much like to be with you both in thought. I’m really very glad that Mr Jones has promised to let me work in his parish, and that I’ll eventually find the right thing. We must seek that, but God must help and that He does, there is no life that He cannot sanctify and inspire. May I also discover ‘that this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came into the world to save sinners’, being useful and of some value.
I long so much to see you sometimes. A hearty handshake to you, and give Ma your hand for me when she’s sitting with you. Adieu.
Your most loving brother,
Vincent
Adieu. May God grant that I find grace in the eyes of my Father and Mother and in the eyes of those who will come after me. And now, my boy, another word to you. He who puts himself in a Christian sphere, and seeks and does Christian work as best he can, he will soon feel that he is on a path that he must traverse whether he wants to or not, and will cry out in anguish, God help me, I can do nothing else, and God hears this cry and God is a more powerful help in life than all human and worldly help.
Psalm 107O Give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.
Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses. And He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.
He brought them out of darkness, and brake their bands in sunder. For He hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder. He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.
They that go down to the sea in ships, these see the great works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.
For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the Heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven.
He setteth the poor on high. The righteous shall see it, and rejoice.Man proposes, but God disposes.Protect me O God, for my bark is so small and Thy sea is so great.Only they that brave its dangers know the secret of the sea, understand its mystery.I hope to receive tomorrow, for the second time, some money for my new work, and to buy a pair of new boots and a new hat with it. And then, God willing, we shall ‘rise up once again’.Many regards to everyone at the Rooses’ and to everyone I know, especially everyone at Mr Tersteeg’s and at the Van Stockums’ and the Haanebeeks’. Tell Ma that it was such a delight, after that journey to London, to put on a pair of socks that she’d knitted.In the streets of London they’re selling sweet violets everywhere; they flower here twice a year. I bought some for Mrs Jones to make up for the pipe I smoke here now and then, mostly late in the evening in the playground. The tobacco here is rather strong, though.
Isleworth 3 November 1876
My dear Theo,
It’s again high time that you heard something from me. Thank God you’re recovering, I long so much for Christmas – perhaps that time will come before we know it, even though it seems a long way off.
Theo, your brother spoke for the first time in God’s house last Sunday, in the place where it is written ‘I will give peace in this place’. I’m copying out what it was herewith. May it be the first of many.
It was a clear autumn day and a lovely walk from here to Richmond along the Thames, which reflected the large chestnut trees with their load of yellow leaves and the clear blue sky, and between the treetops the part of Richmond that lies on the hill, the houses with their red roofs and windows without curtains and green gardens, and the grey tower above it all, and below, the large grey bridge with tall poplars on either side, with people crossing it who looked like small black figures. When I stood in the pulpit I felt like someone emerging from a dark, underground vault into the friendly daylight, and it’s a wonderful thought that from now on, wherever I go, I’ll be preaching the gospel – to do that well one must have the gospel in his heart, may He bring this about. God says, Let there be light: and there is light. He speaks, and it is done. He commands, and it stands, and it stands fast. Faithful is He that calleth us, who also will do it. You know enough of the world, Theo, to see how a poor preacher stands rather alone as far as the world is concerned – but He can awaken in us, more and more, awareness and firmness of faith. ‘And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me’.I know in Whom my faith is founded,
Though day and night change constantly,
I know the rock on which I’m grounded,
My Saviour waits, unfailingly.
When once life’s evening overcomes me,
Worn down by ills and strife always,
For every day Thou hast allowed me,
I’ll bring Thee higher, purer praise.Praise, Christian, there on your left hand,
And on your right, is God –
When I have no more strength to stand,
When anguished, there is God –
When loving hand of faithful friend
Helps not, there is God –
In death and agony at life’s end,
Yes, everywhere is God.How I long for Christmas and to see all of you, old boy, it seems to me that I’ve grown years older in these few months.The panting hart, the hunt escapèd,
Cries no harder for the pleasure
Of fresh flowing streams of water
Than my soul doth long for God.
Yea, my soul thirsts for the Lord,
God of life, oh when shall I
Approach Thy sight, and drawing nigh,
Give Thee praise in Thine own house.Why art thou cast down, my soul,
Disquieted in me, oh why?
Foster again the faith of old,
Rejoice in praising Him most high.
Oft hath he taken your distress
And turned it into happiness.
Hope in Him, eyes heavenward raised,
For to my God I still give praise.My boy, if illness and difficulties come to meet us, let us thank Him for bringing us into these hours – and let us not forget meekness, for it is written: On this man will I look, even on him who is poor and sorrowful and who trembleth at My word. Yesterday evening I went to Richmond again, and took a walk there on a large common surrounded by trees, and houses around it, above which the tower rose. Dew lay on the grass and it was growing dark; on one side the sky was still full of the glow of the sun that had just set there, on the other side the moon was rising. An old lady (dressed in black) with lovely grey hair was walking beneath the trees. In the middle of the common, some boys had lit a big fire, which one saw flickering in the distance; I thought of this: when once life’s evening overcomes me, worn down by ills and strife always, for every day Thou hast allowed me, I’ll bring Thee higher, purer praise. Adieu, a handshake in thought from
Your most loving brother,
Vincent
Regards to Mr and Mrs Tersteeg, Haanebeeks, Van Stockums and everyone at the Rooses’ and Van Iterson and if you should see someone or other whom I know.Your brother was indeed moved when he stood at the foot of the pulpit and bowed his head and prayed ‘Abba, Father, let Thy name be our beginning’.On Thursday week I hope to speak at Mr Jones’s church: And the Lord added daily to the church such as should be saved, on John and Theagenes.
Psalm 119:19 I am a stranger in the earth, hide not Thy commandments from me.It is an old faith and it is a good faith that our life is a pilgrims progress – that we are strangers in the earth, but that though this be so, yet we are not alone for our Father is with us. We are pilgrims, our life is a long walk, a journey from earth to heaven.
The beginning of this life is this. There is one who remembereth no more Her sorrow and Her anguish for joy that a man is born into the world. She is our Mother. The end of our pilgrimage is the entering in Our Fathers house where are many mansions, where He has gone before us to prepare a place for us. The end of this life is what we call death – it is an hour in which words are spoken, things are seen and felt that are kept in the secret chambers of the hearts of those who stand by, it is so that all of us have such things in our hearts or forebodings of such things. There is sorrow in the hour when a man is born into the world, but also joy – deep and unspeakable – thankfulness so great that it reacheth the highest Heavens. Yes the Angels of God, they smile, they hope and they rejoice when a man is born in the world. There is sorrow in the hour of death – but there too is joy unspeakable when it is the hour of death of one who has fought a good fight. There is One who has said, I am the resurrection and the life, if any man believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. There was an Apostle who heard a voice from heaven, saying: Blessed are they that die in the Lord for they rest from their labour and their works follow them. There is joy when a man is born in the world but there is greater joy when a Spirit has passed through great tribulation, when an Angel is born in Heaven. Sorrow is better than joy – and even in mirth the heart is sad – and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasts, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. Our nature is sorrowful but for those who have learnt and are learning to look at Jesus Christ there is always reason to rejoice. It is a good word, that of St Paul: As being sorrowful yet always rejoicing. For those who believe in Jesus Christ there is no death and no sorrow that is not mixed with hope – no despair – there is only a constantly being born again, a constantly going from darkness into light. They do not mourn as those who have no hope – Christian Faith makes life to evergreen life.We are pilgrims in the earth and strangers – we come from afar and we are going far. The journey of our life goes from the loving breast of our Mother on earth to the arms of our Father in heaven. Everything on earth changes – we have no abiding city here – it is the experience of everybody: That it is Gods will that we should part with what we dearest have on earth – we ourselves, we change in many respects, we are not what we once were, we shall not remain what we are now. From infancy we grow up to boys and girls – young men and young women – and if God spares us and helps us – to husbands and wives, Fathers and Mothers in our turn, and then, slowly but surely the face that once had the ‘early dew of morning’ gets its wrinkles, the eyes that once beamed with youth and gladness speak of a sincere deep and earnest sadness – though they may keep the fire of Faith, Hope and Charity – though they may beam with Gods spirit. The hair turns grey or we loose it – ah – indeed we only pass through the earth, we only pass through life – we are strangers and pilgrims in the earth. The world passes and all its glory. Let our later days be nearer to Thee and therefore better than these. Yet we may not live on just anyhow – no, we have a strife to strive and a fight to fight. What is it we must do: We must love God with all our strength, with all our might, with all our heart, with all our soul, we must love our neighbour as ourselves. These two commandments we must keep and if we follow after these, if we are devoted to this, we are not alone for our Father in Heaven is with us, helps us and guides us, gives us strength day by day, hour by hour. and so we can do all things through Christ who gives us might. We are strangers in the earth, hide not Thy commandments from us. Open Thou our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. Teach us to do Thy will and influence our hearts that the love of Christ may constrain us and that we may be brought to do what we must do to be saved.On the road from earth to Heaven
Do Thou guide us with Thine eye.We are weak but Thou art mighty
Hold us with Thy powerful hand.Our life, we might compare it to a journey, we go from the place where we were born to a far off haven. Our earlier life might be compared to sailing on a river, but very soon the waves become higher, the wind more violent, we are at sea almost before we are aware of it – and the prayer from the heart ariseth to God: Protect me o God, for my bark is so small and Thy sea is so great. The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too. The heart that seeks for God and for a Godly life has more storms than any other. Let us see how the Psalmist describes a storm at sea, He must have felt the storm in his heart to describe it so. We read in the 107th Psalm, They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and raiseth up a stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to Heaven, they go down again to the depth, their soul melteth in them because of their trouble. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and He bringeth them out of their distresses, He bringeth them unto their desired haven.
Do we not feel this sometimes on the sea of our lives. Does not everyone of you feel with me the storms of life or their forebodings or their recollections?
And now let us read a description of another storm at sea in the New Testament, as we find it in the VIth Chapter of the Gospel according to St John in the 17th to the 21st verse. And the disciples entered into a ship and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing nigh unto the ship and they were afraid. Then they willingly received Him into the ship and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. You who have experienced the great storms of life, you over whom all the waves and all the billows of the Lord have gone – have you not heard, when your heart failed for fear, the beloved well known voice – with something in its tone that reminded you of the voices that charmed your childhood – the voice of Him whose name is Saviour and Prince of peace, saying as it were to you personally – mind to you personally ‘It is I, be not afraid’. Fear not. Let not your heart be troubled. And we whose lives have been calm up to now, calm in comparison of what others have felt – let us not fear the storms of life, amidst the high waves of the sea and under the grey clouds of the sky we shall see Him approaching for Whom we have so often longed and watched, Him we need so – and we shall hear His voice, It is I, be not afraid. And if after an hour or season of anguish or distress or great difficulty or pain or sorrow we hear Him ask us ‘Dost Thou love me’ then let us say, Lord Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee. And let us keep that heart full of the love of Christ and may from thence issue a life which the love of Christ constraineth. Lord Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee, when we look back on our past we feel sometimes as if we did love Thee, for whatsoever we have loved, we loved in Thy name. Have we not often felt as a widow and an orphan – in joy and prosperity as well, and more even than under grief – because of the thought of Thee.
Truly our soul waiteth for Thee more than they that watch for the morning – our eyes are up unto Thee, o Thou who dwellest in Heavens. In our days too there can be such a thing as seeking the Lord.What is it we ask of God – is it a great thing? Yes it is a great thing, peace for the ground of our heart, rest for our soul – give us that one thing and then we want not much more, then we can do without many things, then can we suffer great things for Thy names sake. We want to know that we are Thine and that Thou art ours, we want to be thine – to be Christians. We want a Father, a Fathers love and a Fathers approval. May the experience of life make our eye single and fix it on Thee. May we grow better as we go on in life.We have spoken of the storms on the journey of life, but now let us speak of the calms and joys of Christian life. And yet, my dear friends, let us rather cling to the seasons of difficulty and work and sorrow, even for the calms are treacherous often.
The heart has its storms, has its seasons of drooping but also its calms and even its times of exaltation. There is a time of sighing and of praying but there is also a time of answer to prayer. Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.The heart that is fainting
May grow full to o’erflowing
And they that behold it
Shall wonder and know not
That God at its fountains
Far off has been raining.My peace I leave with you – we saw how there is peace even in the storm. Thanks be to God who has given us to be born and to live in a Christian country. Has any of us forgotten the golden hours of our early days at home, and since we left that home – for many of us have had to leave that home and to earn their living and to make their way in the world. Has He not brought us thus far, have we lacked anything. We believe Lord, help Thou our unbelief. I still feel the rapture, the thrill of joy I felt when for the first time I cast a deep look in the lives of my Parents, when I felt by instinct how much they were Christians. And I still feel that feeling of eternal youth and enthusiasm wherewith I went to God, saying ‘I will be a Christian too’. Are we what we dreamt we should be? No – but still – the sorrows of life, the multitude of things of daily life and of daily duties, so much more numerous than we expected – the tossing to and fro in the world, they have covered it over – but it is not dead, it sleepeth. The old eternal faith and love of Christ, it may sleep in us but it is not dead and God can revive it in us. But though to be born again to eternal life, to the life of Faith, Hope and Charity – and to an evergreen life – to the life of a Christian and of a Christian workman be a gift of God, a work of God – and of God alone – yet let us put the hand to the plough on the field of our heart, let us cast out our net once more – let us try once more – God knows the intention of the spirit, God knows us better than we know ourselves for He made us and not we ourselves. He knows of what things we have need, He knows what is good for us. May He give His blessing on the seed of His word that has been sown in our hearts.
God helping us, we shall get through life. With every temptation He will give a way to escape.
Father we pray Thee not that Thou shouldest take us out of the world, but we pray Thee to keep us from evil. Give us neither poverty nor riches, feed us with bread convenient for us. And let Thy songs be our delight in the houses of our pilgrimage. God of our Fathers be our God: may their people be our people, their Faith our faith. We are strangers in the earth, hide not Thy commandments from us but may the love of Christ constrain us. Entreat us not to leave Thee or to refrain from following after Thee. Thy people shall be our people, Thou shalt be our God.Our life is a pilgrims progress. I once saw a very beautiful picture, it was a landscape at evening. In the distance on the right hand side a row of hills appearing blue in the evening mist. Above those hills the splendour of the sunset, the grey clouds with their linings of silver and gold and purple. The landscape is a plain or heath covered with grass and heather, here and there the white stem of a birch tree and its yellow leaves, for it was in Autumn. Through the landscape a road leads to a high mountain far far away, on the top of that mountain a city whereon the setting sun casts a glory. On the road walks a pilgrim, staff in hand. He has been walking for a good long while already and he is very tired. And now he meets a woman, a figure in black that makes one think of St Pauls word ‘As being sorrowful yet always rejoicing’. That Angel of God has been placed there to encourage the pilgrims and to answer their questions:And the pilgrim asks her: Does the road go uphill then all the way?
and the answer is: ‘Yes to the very end’ –
and he asks again: And will the journey take all day long?
and the answer is: ‘From morn till night my friend’. And the pilgrim goes on sorrowful yet always rejoicing – sorrowful because it is so far off and the road so long. Hopeful as he looks up to the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening glow, and he thinks of two old sayings he has heard long ago – the one is:‘There must much strife be striven
There must much suffering be suffered
There must much prayer be prayed
And then the end will be peace.’and the other:The water comes up to the lips
But higher comes it not.And he says, I shall be more and more tired but also nearer and nearer to Thee. Has not man a strife on earth? But there is a consolation from God in this life. An angel of God, comforting men – that is the Angel of Charity. Let us not forget Her. And when everyone of us goes back to daily things and daily duties, let us not forget – that things are not what they seem, that God by the things of daily life teacheth us higher things, that our life is a pilgrims progress and that we are strangers in the earth – but that we have a God and Father who preserveth strangers, and that we are all bretheren.
Amen.And now the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us for evermore.
Amen.(Reading Scripture Psalm XCI)Tossed with rough winds and faint with fear,
Above the tempest soft and clear
What still small accents greet mine ear
‘’t Is I, be not afraid.’’t Is I, who washed thy spirit white;
’t Is I, who gave thy blind eyes sight,
’t Is I, thy Lord, thy life, thy light,
’t Is I, be not afraid.These raging winds, this surging sea
Have spent their deadly force on me
They bear no breath of wrath to Thee
’t Is I, be not afraid.This bitter cup, I drank it first
To thee it is no draught accurst
The hand that gives it thee is pierced
‘’t Is I, be not afraid’.When on the other side thy feet,
Shall rest, mid thousand welcomes sweet;
One well known voice thy heart shall greet –
’t Is I, be not afraid.Mine eyes are watching by thy bed
Mine arms are underneath thy head
My blessing is around Thee shed
‘’t Is I, be not afraid’.Again, a handshake in thought – yesterday evening I was at Turnham Green in place of Mr Jones, who wasn’t well. I walked over there with the oldest boy, 17 years old, but he’s as big as I am and has a beard. He’ll go into business later, his father has a large factory; he has a good, honest, feeling heart and a great need of religion, it is his hope and desire to do good among the workers later on in life, I recommended ‘Felix Holt’ by Eliot to him. It was lovely in the park with the old elm trees in the moonlight and the dew on the grass. It was so good for me to speak in the little church, it is a little wooden church. Goodbye, Theo. Goodbye, old boy, I hope I’ve written it so that you’ll be able to read it. Remain steadfast and do get well soon.
Isleworth 10 November 1876.
My dear Theo,
I feel the need to enclose a few words to you. You’ll be having pleasant days at home, I almost envy you, old boy.
What lovely autumn weather we’re having. You probably see the sun rising in the morning too. Which room are you sleeping in?
If you can get ‘The imitation of Christ’ one of these days, read some of it, it’s a wonderful book, one that’s very enlightening. It describes so beautifully, for the one who wrote the book did it himself, how good it is to wage the holy war of devotion to one’s duty, and the heartfelt joy that is to be found in doing good deeds and in doing what one does well.
You must read the letter for Pa and Ma sometime, I’ve taken such lovely walks recently, which were especially good after the anxiety of the first months here.
It is indeed true that every day has its own evil and its own good, too. But how terrible life must be, especially later on – when the evil of each day increases as far as the things of the world are concerned – if it isn’t supported and comforted by faith. And in Christ all things of the world can improve and become sanctified, as it were. These are beautiful words, and happy are those who come across them, ‘Nothing pleaseth me but in Christ, and in Him all things please me’. But one doesn’t achieve this all of a sudden. But he that seeketh findeth.
Do write a few words again the next time Pa and Ma write. I hope to go to Richmond again on Monday evening and to take the words: But when he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him, and had compassion.
Theo, woe is me if I don’t preach the gospel, and if I didn’t have my sight fixed on that and didn’t have hope and faith in Christ, then I would only have woe. Now, however, I have a bit of spirit as well.
I should have liked you to be in the little church at Turnham Green last Thursday evening; I walked over there with the oldest boy in the school and told him several of Andersen’s fairy tales, including ‘The story of a mother’.
And now we’re slowly heading towards winter, and many dread it, but Christmas is wonderful, it’s like the moss on the roofs and like the pine and the holly and the ivy in the snow. How I’d like to come with Anna, may she find something soon, I’ll write to her again today.
Today one of the maids left, they don’t have it easy here and she couldn’t stand it any longer – indeed, everyone, richer or poorer, stronger or weaker, has moments when he can go no further, when ‘all these things seem to be against us’, when much of what we have built collapses.
And yet, one mustn’t lose heart, Elijah had to pray all of seven times, and David had ashes on his head many a time.
There’s a new assistant teacher at the school, because I’ll have to work more at Turnham Green from now on. He has never been away from home before, and won’t find it easy in the beginning.
And now a handshake in thought, it’s already late and I’m rather tired. I wish you well. Do think now and then of
Your most loving and affectionate brother
Vincent
Isleworth, 25 Nov. 1876
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter, which I received at the same time as one from Etten. So you’re back at the gallery. Do whatever your hand finds to do, with all your might, and your work and prayers cannot fail to be blessed. How I’d have liked to go along on that walk to Het Heike and to Sprundel in the first snow. But before I go further, I’ll copy out a couple of poems that you’ll no doubt like.The journey of lifeTwo lovers by a mossgrown spring
They leaned soft cheeks together
Mingled the dark and sunny hair,
And heard the wooing thrushes sing
o Budding time
o Loves best prime.Two wedded from the portal steps
The bells made happy carolings
The air was soft as fanning wings
While petals on the pathway slept
O pure eyed bride
o tender pride.Two faces o’er a cradle bent
Two hands above the head were locked
These pressed each other while they rocked
Those watched a life which love had sent
O solemn hour
o hidden power.Two parents by the evening fire
The red light fell about their knees
On heads that rose by slow degrees
Like buds upon the lily spire
O patient life
O tender strife.The two still sat together there
The red light shone about their knees
But all the heads by slow degrees
Had gone and left that lonely pair
O Voyage fast
O Banished past.The red light shone upon the floor
And made the space between them wide
They drew their chairs up side by side
Their pale cheeks joined, and said ‘once more’
O, memories!
O past that is!The three little chairs.They sat alone by the bright woodfire
The greyhaired dame and the aged sire
Dreaming of days gone by;
The tear drop fell on the wrinkled cheek
They both had thoughts that they could not speak,
And each heart uttered a sigh.For their sad and tearful eyes descried
Three little chairs placed side by side
Against the sitting room wall;
Old fashioned enough as there they stood
Their seats of flag, and their frames of wood,
With their backs so straight and tall.Then the sire shook His silvery head,
And with trembling voice he gently said,
‘Mother, those empty chairs,
They bring us such sad, sad thoughts tonight,
We’ll put them for ever out of sight
In the small dark room upstairs’.But she answered: Father, no, not yet;
For I look at them, and I forget
That the children went away,
The boys come back, and our Mary, too,
With her apron on of checkered blue
And sit here every day.Johnny still whittles a ships tall masts,
And Willie his leaden bullets casts
While Mary her patchwork sows;
At evening time three childish prayers
Go up to God from those little chairs,
So softly that no one knows.Johnny comes back from the billowy deep,
Willie wakes from the battle field sleep,
To say good night to me:
Mary’s a wife and mother no more,
But a tired child whose playtime is o’er, And comes to rest on my knee.So let them stand there – though empty now,
And every time when alone we bow
At the Fathers throne to pray,
We’ll ask to meet the children above
In our Saviours home of rest and love,
Where no child goeth away.
In his letter Pa wrote, among other things: ‘in the afternoon I had to go to Hoeven, Ma had ordered the cab but it couldn’t come, because they hadn’t yet been able to have the horses’ shoes frosted – I therefore decided to go on foot and good Uncle Jan didn’t want me to go alone, so he came along. It was a hard journey, but Uncle Jan rightly said: the devil is never so black that you can’t look him in the face. And indeed, we arrived there and returned safe and sound, even though there was a gale blowing, coupled with freezing rain, so that the roads were slippery as ice, and I cannot describe how wonderful it was to sit so cosily in a nice warm room in the evening, resting after work – that dear Theo was still with us then’.
Shall we, too, go once again to some church in this way? As sorrowful yet alway rejoicing, with everlasting joy in our hearts because we are the poor in the kingdom of God, because we have found in Christ a friend in our lives that sticketh closer than a brother, who brought us to the end of the journey as to the door of the Father’s house. May God grant it – what God hath done is done aright.
Last Sunday evening I went to a village on the Thames, Petersham. In the morning I had been at the Sunday school at Turnham Green, and went after sunset from there to Richmond and then on to Petersham. It grew dark early and I wasn’t sure of the way, it was a surprisingly muddy road over a kind of embankment or rise on the hill covered with gnarled elm trees and shrubs. At last I saw below the rise a light in a small house, and scrambled and waded over to it, and there I was told the way. But, old boy, there was a beautiful little wooden church with a kindly light at the end of that dark road, I read Acts V:1416. Acts XII:517, Peter in prison, and Acts XX:737, Paul preaching in Macedonia, and then I told the story of John and Theagenes yet again. There was a harmonium in the church, played by a young woman from a boarding school that was attending en masse.
In the morning it was so beautiful on the way to Turnham Green, the chestnut trees and clear blue sky and the morning sun were reflected in the water of the Thames, the grass was gloriously green and everywhere all around the sound of church bells. The day before I’d gone on a long journey to London, I left here at 4 in the morning, arrived at Hyde Park at half past six, the mist was lying on the grass and leaves were falling from the trees, in the distance one saw the shimmering lights of streetlamps that hadn’t yet been put out, and the towers of Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, and the sun rose red in the morning mist – from there on to Whitechapel, that poor district of London, then to Chancery Lane and Westminster, then to Clapham to visit Mrs Loyer again, her birthday was the day before. She is indeed a widow in whose heart the psalms of David and the chapters of Isaiah are not dead but sleeping. Her name is written in the book of life. I also went to Mr Obach’s to see his wife and children again. Then from there to Lewisham, where I arrived at the Gladwells at half past three. It was exactly 3 months ago that I was there that Saturday their daughter was buried, I stayed with them around 3 hours and thoughts of many kinds occurred to all of us, too many to express. There I also wrote to Harry in Paris. I hope you’ll see him sometime. It may well be that you too will go to Paris sometime. That night I was back here at half past ten, I went part of the way with the underground railway. Fortunately I’d received some money for Mr Jones. Am working on Ps. 42:1, My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. At Petersham I told the congregation that they would be hearing poor English, but that when I spoke I thought of the man in the parable who said ‘have patience with me, and I will pay thee all’, God help me.
At Mr Obach’s I saw the painting, or rather the sketch, by Boughton: the pilgrim’s progress. If you can ever get Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s progress, it’s very worthwhile reading. For my part I love it with heart and soul.
It’s nighttime now, I’m still doing a bit of work for the Gladwells at Lewisham, copying out one thing and another etc.; one must strike while the iron is hot and soften the human heart when it is burning within us. Tomorrow off to London again for Mr Jones. Beneath that poem The journey of life and The three little chairs one should write: that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth. So be it. A handshake in thought, give my regards to Mr and Mrs Tersteeg and to everyone at the Rooses’ and the Haanebeeks’ and the Van Stockums’ and the Mauves’, adieu and believe me
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Etten, 31 December 1876
My dear Theo,
I sincerely wish you the best in the new year, I wish you well and may you be blessed in all things. Wonderful to have seen each other again, how beautiful it was that morning you left, and how often we’ll think back on that trip to Chaam.
Ma’s eye is hurting a lot again, she has a bandage on; Pa delivered such a beautiful sermon again this morning.
And now this evening New Year’s Eve again, if only you were here.
Now then, there’s something I must tell you: a couple of days ago Mr Braat of Dordrecht paid a visit to Uncle Vincent and they spoke about me, and Uncle asked Mr B. whether he would have a place for me, if I should wish it. Mr B. thought he might have a place, and said that I should come sometime to talk about it. So I went there early yesterday morning; Pa and Ma and I, too, thought it was something we shouldn’t let pass without seeing what it was.
Agreed that after the New Year I should go to him for a week, after that we’ll see.
There are many things that make it desirable, first and foremost my being back in Holland near Pa and Ma, and also you and the others. Moreover, the salary would certainly be a little better than with Mr Jones, and especially with an eye to later, when a man has need of more, one is obliged to think of such things.
As far as the other thing is concerned, for these reasons I won’t give it up. Pa’s spirit is so great and manysided, and at all events I hope that something of it will develop in me. The change means that now, instead of teaching those boys, I’ll be working in a bookshop.
How often we’ve longed to be together, and how terrible it is to feel so far away from one another in cases of illness or anxiety, as we felt, for example, during your illness, and then the feeling that lack of money may very well stand in the way of our being together in times of need.
It’s quite possible, then, that I’ll go there.
Yesterday evening I was at Uncle Vincent’s to tell him that I’d just been to Dordrecht, it was a stormy evening, you can imagine how beautiful the road to Princenhage was with the dark clouds with their silver linings. I also went briefly to the Roman Catholic church, where evening Mass was under way, it was a beautiful sight, all those peasants and their wives with their black clothes and white caps, and the church looked so friendly in the evening light. You must also tell Mr Tersteeg straightaway that I’ll be going there for a week to see how it goes, let His Hon. read this letter, if you will, and be sure to give him and his wife my best wishes for a happy New Year. I’m writing in great haste, Anna and the girls and Cor went to Princenhage, and Pa wanted me to go with them. Aunt came back with them in the carriage and I went for a walk with Willem Carbentus. Now, old boy, dear brother, what good days those were when we were all together, have a good New Year’s Eve and believe me
Your loving brother
Vincent
More soon – adieu. If you write, send your letter to Dordrecht.
Dordrecht, 21 January 1877
My dear Theo,
You’ll have expected a letter sooner; things are going rather well in the shop, and it’s so busy that I go there at 8 o’clock in the morning and come back at 1 o’clock at night, but I’m happy about that.
I hope to go to Etten on 11 February. As you know, that’s when they’ll celebrate Pa’s birthday, would you be able to come as well? I hope to give Pa Eliot’s ‘Novellen’ (a translation of Scenes from clerical life), if we were to give something together we could give him Adam Bede as well.
Wrote last Sunday to Mr Jones and his wife that I’m not coming back, and without my being able to help it, the letter grew quite long – out of the abundance of the heart – did wish that they, for their part, would remember me, and asked them ‘to wrap my recollection in the cloak of Charity’.
The two prints of Christus Consolator that I got from you are hanging in my little room – saw the paintings in the museum, and also ‘Christ in Gethsemane’ by Scheffer, which is unforgettable, a long time ago that painting moved Pa just as much – then there’s a sketch of The sorrows of the earth and various drawings, and also the portrait of his studio and, as you know, the portrait of his Mother. There are other beautiful paintings as well, such as the Achenbach and Schelfhout and Koekkoek and, among others, a beautiful Allebé, an old man by the stove. Will we look at them together some day?
The first Sunday I was here I heard a sermon on ‘Behold, I make all things new’, and in the evening ‘Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things’.
This morning I went to hear the Rev. Beversen in a small old church, it was the Lord’s Supper and his text was ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink’.
The window of my room looks out over gardens with pine trees and poplars etc. and the back of old houses, including a large one covered with ivy, ‘a strange old plant is the ivy green’, said Dickens. There can be something so serious and rather sombre in that view, and you should see it with the morning sun on it.
When I look at it I sometimes think of a letter of yours in which you speak of such an ivycovered house, do you remember it? If you can afford it – if I can, I’ll do it too – subscribe to this year’s Katholieke Illustratie, which has Doré’s prints of London – the wharves on the Thames, Westminster, Whitechapel, the Underground railway &c. &c.
One of the people in the house I live in is a schoolmaster. Last Sunday, and today as well, we took a lovely walk along the canals and outside town as well, along the river Merwede, we also passed the place where you waited for the boat.
This evening when the sun went down and was reflected in the water and the windows, throwing a strong golden glow on everything, it was just like a painting by Cuyp. This evening I went to hear the Rev. Keller van Hoorn, who spoke on ‘I come to do Thy will, O Lord’. He just lost his daughter, and in all his words – I also heard him speak on ‘He that hath not loved knoweth not God; for God is love’ – one can sense what he feels.
Write again soon when you have the time, I’ll have rather a lot of bookkeeping to do for the time being and will no doubt be busy. Give my regards to everyone at the Rooses’, and accept a handshake in thought from
Your loving brother
Vincent
Dordrecht 7 and 8 February 1877
My dear Theo,
Adam Bede costs 2.60 guilders, so herewith you get back 1.40 guilders. Now I only hope that it will give them some pleasure at home, but no doubt it will.
Thanks for your letter, which made me so happy. When next we meet we’ll look each other straight in the eye. I sometimes think how wonderful it is that we have the same ground beneath our feet and that we speak the same language.
Last week we were flooded here. Coming from the shop between 12 and 1 at night, I took another turn around the Grote Kerk. The wind was blowing hard in the elm trees surrounding it, and the moon shone through the rainclouds and reflected in the canals that were already filled to the brim. At 3 o’clock in the morning we were all rushing around at Rijken’s, the grocer in whose house I’m lodging, bringing things upstairs from the shop, because the water was an ell high in the house. There was quite a bit of commotion, and in all the downstairs rooms people were busy bringing upstairs what they could, and a small boat came down the street. In the morning, when it was beginning to grow light, one saw a group of men at the end of the street, wading one after another to their warehouses. There’s a lot of damage, the water has also got into the place where Mr Braat keeps his paper &c., not because of the flood but because of the great pressure coming from under the ground.Mr Braat says it will cost him a banknote of the largest kind. It took us a day and a half to carry everything to an upstairs flat. Working with your hands like that for a day is a welcome change, though it was a pity it was for that reason. You should have seen the sun go down that evening, the streets shone of gold, the way Cuyp used to paint them.
Longing to have my trunk, which is on the way, one reason being to have some prints hanging in my room again. I now have Christus Consolator, which you gave me, and two English woodcuts, namely the Supper at Emmaus: ‘But they constrained Him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent’, and another: ‘They that sat in darkness and the shadow of death have seen a great light’; ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning’. There can come a time in life when one is tired of everything, as it were, and has the feeling as if everything that one does is wrong, and there’s certainly some truth in that – is this a feeling that one ought to avoid and repress, or it is rather ‘the godly sorrow’ that one must not fear but carefully consider whether it can perhaps compel us to do good – is it perhaps ‘the godly sorrow that worketh a choice not to be repented of’? And at such times, in which one feels tired of oneself, one may think with heedfulness, hope and love of the words ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your soul. For My yoke is easy, and my burden is light’. ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’ At such times one may well reflect upon: ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’. If we let ourselves be taught by the experience of life and led by godly sorrow, then new vitality may spring from the tired heart. If we are once good and tired, then we shall believe more firmly in God, and shall find in Christ, through His word, a Friend and Comforter. And then there may be times when we feel ‘thou removest my iniquities from me as far as the east is from the west’, when we feel something of ‘the zeal for Thine house hath eaten me up’ and ‘our God is a consuming fire’ – when we shall again know what it is to be fervent in spirit. Hope will not always fade away.
Let us not forget ‘the things which we have heard from the beginning’.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Nothing shall separate us from the Love of Christ, neither things present, nor things to come.Rejoice on earth, praise God on high,
Let thankful tears stream from your eye
For Him from whom all blessings flow.
This joyful day then celebrate,
The greatest the world has seen to date,
On its horizon all aglow.Still welcoming us, that blessed night,
In which the stars with beauteous light
And heavenly hosts with one glad voice
In Jesus’ coming do rejoice.I know in Whom my faith is founded,
Though day and night change constantly,
I know the rock on which I’m grounded,
My Saviour waits, unfailingly.
When once life’s evening overcomes me,
Worn down by ills and strife always,
For every day Thou hast allowed me,
I’ll bring Thee higher, purer praise.The panting hart, the hunt escapèd,
Cries no harder for the pleasure
Of fresh flowing streams of water
Than my soul doth long for God.
Yea, my soul thirsts for the Lord,
God of life, oh when shall I
Approach Thy sight, and drawing nigh,
Give Thee praise in Thine own house.Why art thou cast down, my soul,
Disquieted in me, oh why?
Foster again the faith of old,
Rejoice in praising Him most high.
Oft hath he taken your distress
And turned it into happiness.
Hope in Him, eyes heavenward raised,
For to my God I still give praise.Hope will not always fade forever.Last Sunday morning I was in the French church here, which is very serious and dignified and has something very appealing. The text was Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. The end of the sermon was ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning’.
After church I took a lovely walk alone on a dyke running past the mills, there was a brilliant sky above the meadows that was reflected in the ditches. There are curious things in other countries, such as the French coast which I saw at Dieppe – the chalk cliffs with green grass on top – the sea and sky – the harbour with old boats like Daubigny paints them, with brown nets and sails, the small houses including a couple of restaurants with little white curtains and green pine branches in the window – the carts with white horses with big blue halters decorated with red tassels – the drivers with their blue smocks, the fishermen with their beards and oiled clothing and the French women with pale faces, dark, often somewhat deepset eyes, black dress and white cap, and such as the streets of London in the rain with the streetlamps, and a night spent there on the steps of an old, small grey church, as happened to me this summer after that journey from Ramsgate – there are certainly curious things in other countries, too – but last Sunday when I was walking alone on that dyke, I thought how good that Dutch soil was, and I felt something akin to ‘today it is in mine heart to make a covenant with my God’ – because memories of times past came back to me, including how often we walked with Pa to Rijsbergen and so on in the last days of February and heard the lark above the black fields with young green wheat, the shimmering blue sky with white clouds above – and then the paved road with the beech trees – O Jerusalem Jerusalem! or rather O Zundert O Zundert! Who knows but that we may go walking at the seaside together this summer? We really must remain good friends, Theo, and simply believe in God and trust with that faith of old in Him who is able to do above all that we ask or think – who can say to what heights grace can ascend?
Hearty congratulations for today, it’s already half past 1 and therefore already 8 February. May God spare our Father for us for a long time yet ‘and may He join us intimately to one another and let our love of Him make that bond ever stronger’.
Pa wrote that he had already seen starlings, do you remember how they used to sit on the church at Zundert? I haven’t seen any here yet – though there are a lot of crows on the Grote Kerk in the mornings. Now it’s almost spring again and the larks will return again. ‘He reneweth the face of the earth’ and it is written, Behold, I make all things new, and just as He renews the face of the earth, so can He renew and strengthen the human soul and heart and mind – the nature of every true son somewhat resembles that of the son in the parable who ‘was dead, and is alive again’. Let us not forget the words ‘sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’, ‘unknown, and yet well known’, and write the word woespiritedness as two words, woe and spiritedness, and believe in God who in His own good time can make the loneliness disappear which we sometimes feel so much even in the bustle, of whom Joseph said ‘He hath made me forget my Father’s house and all my sorrow’ – and yet Joseph did not forget his father – you know that of course, but you also know what he meant by those words. Do keep well, give my regards to everyone at the Rooses’, and especially to Mr Tersteeg and his wife, and accept in thought a handshake, and believe me
Your most loving brother,
Vincent
Tell Mr Tersteeg that he shouldn’t be upset about the drawing examples being away for so long, it’s for the high school, 30 have already been chosen – but they still want to select some for the secondary school, which is why they have to keep them for another week or so. You’ll get them back as soon as possible.Old boy, send me that page from Michelet again, the one you sent me earlier is in my readingdesk in my trunk and I need it again – do write again soon.
Dordrecht, 28 February 1877
My dear Theo,
Write again soon if you can find a moment, remain steadfast, be of good heart, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wrote something for us last night which I enclose herewith, read it sometime.
Last night I left the office at 1 o’clock and walked around the Grote Kerk again and then along the canals and past that old gate to the Nieuwe Kerk and then home. It had snowed and everything was so still, the only thing one saw was a little light here and there in one or two upstairs rooms and, in the snow, the black figure of the rattleman. It was high tide, and the canals and boats looked dark against the snow. It can be so beautiful there by those churches. The sky was grey and foggy, and the moon shone faintly through it.
Thought of you while I was walking, and upon arriving home I wrote what I’m sending you. It’s perhaps a time when one needs ‘the sound of a psalm of the past and a lamentation from the Cross’. Behold, I thought in the dead of night
To hear His voice, so tender, so soft. You have of course a De Génestet. Do read it much and often.
Pa sent me this once when I was in Paris: When I was a lad. When I was a lad, my life carefree as ever
I girt myself up, did whatever I chose,
Free to go wand’ring, to seek, to endeavour,
Free in my travels, my dreams, my repose. Even for me, though, the hour was nearing
Of calling, of mercy, of seriousness,
When in my bosom the voice I’d been hearing
Enquired ‘Do you love Me?’ – my soul answered ‘Yes’. Since that hour of waking my dreams are no longer,
Another now leads me, at times ’gainst my will,
Teaches my hands to reach eagerly further,
To follow and carry, oh, happy and still.Yet now that life’s governed by the Supreme Being
Despite pain and fetters, my soul torn apart –
I find what in life I’d once vainly been seeking:
More rest and more peace for my uneasy heart.There is no Priest who can explain
Him whom no one seeks in vain. Although into Elijah I cannot transform
The Lord soared past me after the storm. Writing to you in haste between tasks, adieu, a hearty handshake in thought from
Your most loving brother
Vincent
A prayer from the sons of the parsonage, from the children of the minister of the gospel; from those who were blessed by their Father when they left their parents’ house and for whom their Mother prayed that day, ‘Father, I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil’. A prayer from the children of many prayers, a prayer from two brothers who slept together for so long in the little upstairs room in their parents’ house. And they lifted up their voices, and wept. O Lord, we love the light of Thy sun and the soughing of Thy sea; we lift up our eyes to Heaven and love the stars that Thou bringest out their host by number and that Thou callest all by name. We love the early morning hours when Thou makest Thy sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and the evening hour and the setting of the sun speaks to us of the evensong coming from our parents’ house: I know in whom my faith is founded,
Though day and night change constantly,
I know the rock on which I’m grounded,
My Saviour waits, unfailingly.
When once life’s evening overcomes me,
Worn down by ills and strife always,
For every day Thou hast allowed me,
I’ll bring Thee higher, purer praise. Happily the farmer returns from ploughing,
Bidding the gathering darkness goodday,
So happy are we after all our toiling
That the day will end without delay.
Hope will not always fade forever. O Joy when now all grief is banned,
The pilgrimage is long forgotten,
And we are in the Promised Land. When we admire Thy works, however, ah! then we feel it, even when we thank Thee for the beauty of Thy creation, that we cannot find sufficient comfort for our life; the light of the sun and the glittering of the stars, Lord, that is not it, that cannot fulfil us, we need a different and better light – the light of the spirit and the mind that was in Jesus Christ – Love of Thee, of Christ and of one another in Him – the light of a Love that can constrain and can ignite the fire of fervour in our heart.
We know that all labour is God’s labour, and that there is something good in all labour, but even that is not it, and we are often inclined to ask, with an eye to the beauty of nature, ‘turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity’, and with an eye to our labour ‘we labour for that which does not satisfy and that which does not fulfil’ – what does that mean: Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.
There is a question in us – ‘What must we do to be saved?’ – and the answer to that question is ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved’. If thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God, He shall save His people from their sins. We are surrounded by temptations of all kinds, by perils to the most precious thing we have, ‘our heart and our soul’. We are already far enough along life’s path to know that we are composed of great afflictions and needs and miseries, that we cannot stand with our own strength but only through Thy mercy and through the protection of Thy Love and the guidance of Thy Spirit. Into Thy hands, o Abba, Father! we commend our heart. Father, we pray not that Thou shouldest take us out of the world, but we pray and beseech Thee to keep us from the evil. Be Thou our keeper and our shade upon our right hand and teach us to fear Thee and to keep Thee ever in front of our eyes. And unite my heart and aim
In Thy truth, to fear Thy Name. Thou knowest, O Lord, that we love Thy words with an old, old, deeprooted, singular, fervent and very tender Love, that we believe that Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but Thy words shall not pass away, and that without the will of our heavenly Father not a hair can fall from our head. We believe in Thee and we love Thee, and though we live in everyday things, yet is the eye of our soul fixed on Thee, yea, our soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning. Still welcoming us, that blessed night,
In which the stars with beauteous light
And heavenly hosts with one glad voice
In Jesus’ coming do rejoice. He who leads us through this earthly vale,
He whose love for us will never fail,
He has pledged His Love and a faithful hand
To speed our journey to the Promised Land. Burning centre of our longing,
Comforter of troubled minds,
Jesus, hymns of our thanksgiving
Praise Thy fervent love that binds.
From Heaven above Thou wouldst be sent
To Earth, tainted and torn apart,
And take upon Thyself the debt
That weighs upon our fearful heart. Love for Thee is our whole being,
Thou who art our highest good,
For Thy Cross gives life its meaning,
Eternally rejoice we should.
O how much to Thee we’re bound,
Jesus, Saviour, God’s own son,
Our hearts and voices do resound
To God on high, we sing as one. And yet, O Lord, at present we are poor, and full of sorrow, and we quake at Thy word. Yea, we love Thy Bible and are sons of Thy Bible. Thy folk is our folk and Thou art our God. Intreat us not to leave Thee, to return from following after Thee, because Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of Eternal Life. Whom have we in Heaven but Thee? And there is none upon Earth that we desire beside Thee. Yea, we love the old stories and our heart is burning within us when we read them or when we are mindful of them. We quake at Thy words with inner emotion. God so loved the world, that he sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not be lost, but have Everlasting Life. And this is life Eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. And so he that hath not loved knoweth not God; for God is Love. Love never faileth, but beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, believeth all things. Well, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And there is no fear in Love, because perfect Love casteth out fear.
Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the Son of man, that Thou visitest him? We quake at Thy words with inner emotion, we who are uncomforted, tossed with tempest. ‘I have loved Thee with an everlasting Love.’ Can a woman forget her child? And if she should forget, yet will I not forget Thee. I will comfort Thee as one whom his Mother comforteth. Lord, thou woundest, but Thy hands makest whole. Thy ways are higher than our ways, and Thy thoughts are higher than our thoughts, as high as Heaven is above earth. Thou, O Lord, canst remove our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west, and though our sins be as scarlet, Thou, O Lord, canst make them white as snow. And faithful art Thou that callest us, who also will do it. Thou, Thou alone art able to do above all that we ask or think, and if mercy is shown us, who can say to what heights mercy can ascend?
Therefore, because we have so much need of Thee, just as the disciples of old, on the road when evening had fallen and the sun had gone down, we constrain Thee, saying, ‘Abide with us’. Make our hearts Thy dwellingplace, and give us that other Comforter whom Thou hast promised to all who pray for Him, even the Spirit of truth, who will guide us into truth. Thy Love to us is wonderful, Thy Love to us is better than the love of women. Thou art a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. We are as unknown, and yet well known to Thee, make us whole and thoroughly sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing. Teach us to lift up the hands which hang down, and to strengthen the feeble knees, teach us to arise when we have fallen, and when we have sat in darkness, be unto us a light. We also love Thy dark words: ‘those which sat in darkness and in the shadow of death saw great light’, they saw in their mind’s eye Jesus Christ, and Him crucified and Him in Gethsemane. They saw the image of the serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, and they saw and understood and came unto Thee that they might have life. They beheld Thee and believed in Thee, and Thou hast given them the water of life freely. Make us Christians too – teach us to know Christ in His full worth and teach us the meaning of ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’. And yet he who hate not, even his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
Without Thee, O Eternal Being, oh, what would man on earth be? But Thou art come to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind and to heal the brokenhearted. Thou art come to seek that which was lost, and to be a physician for them that are sick. Therefore we pray to Thee, O Christus Consolator, saying, Heal us, and we shall be healed; turn us, and we shall be turned; save us, and we shall be saved. Give us the best that there is in the world and in life, the bond of Love to Thee, which never lets go of us, not even when we suffer the most, and which even teaches us to take pleasure in infirmities and distresses and necessities and afflictions of all kinds. Into Thy hands we commend this, our very greatest good, which is life in reverent and pious and simple communion with Thee in prayer.
Give us the spirit of prayer and supplication to Thee. May experience of life make our eye single and fix it on Thee more and more, make us worshippers in spirit and in truth, make us the poor in Thy kingdom. Make that the love of Thee constraineth us to examine Thy words zealously and make godly sorrow worketh a choice for salvation not to be repented of. Thy word is a light unto our life’s path and a lamp unto our feet. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Thou art the bread of life which came down from Heaven, and whosoever desireth the living water of Thy word, it shall become in him as a source of living water. Whosoever eateth of that bread and drinketh of that water shall never hunger and never thirst for all eternity. Let us not depart from this life without having professed openly in one way or other our Love of Thee. O Lord, join us intimately to one another and let our Love for Thee make that bond ever stronger. Deliver us from evil, especially the evil of sin. Give us the holiness and the regeneration of which Thy scriptures speak, in Thee all things can become new at all times. We also think that we desire a good thing of Thee when we pray that Thou shouldest grant, IN THY TIME, that we be given a ring on our finger and that we may meet her on our way and that we may become men and fathers. Convey us to the opposite shore, O Lord, because we cannot rest until we rest in Thee. When we were children, we spoke as children, we understood as children, we thought as children, but now that we are become men, help us to put away childish things. Yet Lord, keep our memory green, yea evergreen.Ensure that for us, too, that hour is nearing
Of calling, of mercy, and seriousness,
That in our hearts the voice we are hearing
Enquires ‘Do you love Me?’, our soul answers ‘Yes!’Because we are sons, Thou hast sent forth the Spirit of Thy Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Again we commend ourselves to Thy Love, into Thy hands we commit our heart and our life. Be Thou the Hearer of our prayers and of those of our parents and let us not go before giving us Thy blessing, not now or ever. Amen, yea, Amen. Psalm 42
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.
O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying to Him, Abba, Father. If thou art wretched, shamed, perplexed,
Then do not sin, renounce thy will
Speak to thyself and mend thy ways
And be in thy God meek and still. Though many ask in desperation
Who will shew us any good?
Lord, after fearful lamentation,
Show us the sweet light of Thy face
Grant us Thy favour and Thy grace. Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in my presence: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Who rejoices in grey hair, and in the words of the Lord, which are a light unto life’s path and a lamp unto our feet? Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace. ‘Nothing troubles his end. It’s the end of a fine day.’Psalm 25
Unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in Thee: let me not be ashamed. Shew me Thy ways, O Lord; teach me Thy paths. Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me: for Thou art the God of my salvation; on Thee do I wait all the day. Remember, O Lord, Thy tender mercies and Thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for Thy goodness’ sake, O Lord. Good is the Lord and upright: therefore will He teach sinners in the way. The meek will He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach his way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.
For Thy name’s sake, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great. What man is he that feareth the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and he will shew them His covenant. Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord; for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Turn Thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins. Consider mine enemies; for they are many; and they have something cruel against me. O KEEP MY SOUL, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in Thee. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on Thee.
Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. Make us masters, because we are Thy faithful servants and Thy true worshippers in spirit and in truth. Amen, yea, amen. Lord, take not Thy holy spirit away from the sons, from their Father and from their Father’s house, and grant that they may stand before the door of their own house before they know it, although they now say, how shall we ever get there? Grant that we may live in that house for many days and that that may be the way to ‘my Father’s house where there are many mansions’. Grant also that we may stand before the door of that house before we know it, although we shall often say ‘how shall we ever get there?’ and grant that we may live therein with the blessed who called to us What you are now, I used to be,
what I am now, you will one day be! Grant that the Love of Christ may constrain us. Amen, yea, amen.Grant that we may meet her on our path, grant that one day Mrs van Gogh sits before us in the carriage. Amen. Psalm 91
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His wings, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because Thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall command His angels and give them charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon Me, saith God, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. Lord, do not let us go, except Thou bless us. Father, into Thy hands we commend our Spirit, our soul and our heart, make us Christians and sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing. Amen. What old friends we are already, let us always remain so! Ps. 27:14.
Dordrecht 6 March 1877
When the Lord’s Supper is next celebrated here I’ll attend it, you should do the same in The Hague, let us go as true participants in the Lord’s Supper.
And take this piece of rye bread too, and eat it, as I do, with our thoughts turned toward our Father’s house and to the things we heard and saw there.
And believe me
Your most loving and affectionate brother
Vincent
And pray: Lord, bless this food!
Herewith Ecce Homo, send me Mater Dolorosa. Adieu, old boy, a handshake in thought.
Dordrecht 8 March 1877. God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape.Let none of these things move thee.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter, be of good heart, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Today I received a long letter from home in which Pa asked me if it would suit us both to go to Amsterdam next Sunday to visit Uncle Cor. If it’s all right with you, then I’ll come to you in The Hague on Saturday evening on the train that arrives a few minutes after 11, and in the morning we’ll take the first train to Amsterdam and stay till evening.
We ought to do it, Pa seems very keen on the idea, then we’ll be together again next Sunday. It is possible, isn’t it, for me to stay with you that night? Otherwise I’ll go to the Toelast. Write a postcard now if you agree, let us stick close together.
Herewith a few words for Uncle Cor, add something to it if you like. It’s already late, this afternoon I took a walk, because I felt such a need to, first around the Grote Kerk, then the Nieuwe Kerk, and then up onto the dyke where all those mills are that one sees in the distance if one walks along the railway tracks. There is so much in that singular landscape and vicinity that speaks and seems to say ‘be of good courage, fear not’.
There are days in one’s life when all members suffer because one member suffers, and where there is true ‘godly sorrow,’ God is not far, He who will hold us. If we believe that, let us, in those days, fervently desire and ask for things we should like to see happen, that we might also be heard. Would you also ask for me that a way be found for me to devote my life, more so than is now the case, to the service of Him and the gospel? I continue to insist and I believe that I’ll be heard, I say this in all humility and bowing myself down, as it were. It is such an import and such a difficult matter, and yet I desire it. One might say it isn’t humanly possible, but if I think about it more seriously and delve beneath the surface of what is humanly impossible, then truly my soul waiteth upon God, for it is possible for Him who speaks, and it is done, who commands, and it stands, and it stands fast. O Theo, Theo, old boy, if only it might happen to me and that deluge of downcastness about everything which I undertook and failed at, that torrent of reproaches I’ve heard and felt, if it might be taken away from me and if I might be given the opportunity and the strength and the love required to develop and to persevere and to stand firm in that for which my Father and I would offer the Lord such heartfelt thanks. A handshake in thought and regards to everyone at the Rooses’, ask it for me in this thy day, and believe me
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Dordrecht, 16 March 1877
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter, want to make sure you receive a few words in Amsterdam. We’ll see each other Sunday, I hope, and it will be good for us to be together again.
My hearty congratulations to you on Willemien’s birthday, what a nice girl she’s become. From Pa and Ma she’s getting ‘de wijde wijde wereld’, and from me ‘het Kerstfeest aan de pool’ by Bungener. I’m glad for you that you left on your trip so soon, that makes for a good change.
I’m so sad and so alone, you say. ‘And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me’. ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world’.
Holding fast in all places and in all circumstances to the thought of Christ, that is a good thing. ‘I set the Lord before me alway, the Lord is my keeper, He is the shade upon my right hand’, said David. What a hard life the farmers in Brabant have; Aarssen, for example, where does their strength come from? And those poor women, what is the support in their lives? Might it not be that image of Christ, the wondrous power and attraction of that name? Might it not be what the painter painted in his ‘Light of the world’? I cannot tell you how much I sometimes yearn for the Bible. I do read something out of it every day, but I’d so much like to know it by heart and to see life in the light of that word of which it is said: Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
I believe and trust that my life will still be changed, and that that longing for Him will be satisfied. I, too, am sometimes sad and alone, especially when I walk around a church or a parsonage.
‘A poor man in the kingdom of heaven’, that is a name that attracts a man and is a gospel to him. Let us not give up and go on seeking meekness and longsuffering.
And be true to your own nature and be separate, distinguish between good and evil even if you don’t show it. Do it for yourself.
‘Do not leave this life without having given evidence in one way or other of your love for Christ’, says Claudius.
You’ve had an experience that can make you wise your whole life long, do hold that fast which thou hast.
Feed me with the bread of my tears, truth, teach me. And it also says: ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken heart and a broken spirit; a broken heart, O God, thou wilt not despise’. HATE sin, be discerning, do you remember how Pa used to pray every morning ‘Preserve us from all evil, especially the evil of sin’? And he certainly knows. And it also says: he who hate not, yea his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. I’m longing for Sunday, I hope you’ll have a good trip, working is always a wonderful thing, and there is something good in all labour.
Am still busy until late at night, but glad it’s like this.
Be sure to give my regards to Uncle Cor and Aunt. There are storks here already, but I haven’t heard any larks yet. It’s often stormy, and then one sees swarms of crows and starlings.
The photograph of Mater Dolorosa that you sent is hanging in my room, how beautiful it is. Do you remember it hanging in Pa’s study at Zundert?
Now Theo, I wish you the very best, we’ll be seeing each other soon, I’m longing to see the prints you wrote about, accept a handshake in thought, see you Sunday, adieu, and believe me
Your loving brother
Vincent
Dordrecht, 23 March 1877
My dear Theo,
Want to make sure you receive a letter on your trip. What a good day we spent together in Amsterdam, I stood there watching the train you left in as long as it was still in sight. We’re such old friends, aren’t we? How long we’ve walked together, starting in the black fields with the young green wheat at Zundert, where we heard the lark at this time of year with Pa.
In the morning I went with Uncle Cor to see Uncle Stricker, where we had a long talk about youknowwhat. In the evening at half past six Uncle Cor brought me to the station, it was a beautiful evening and in everything there was so much that seemed to speak, the weather was still and there was a bit of mist in the streets, as is usually the case in London. Uncle had toothache that morning, but fortunately it didn’t last, we went to the flower market too, it’s good to love flowers and pine branches and ivy and hedges of hawthorn, we have seen them from the very beginning. Wrote home about how we had spent our time in Amsterdam and what we talked about. Arriving here I found a letter from home at Rijken’s. Pa was unable to preach last Sunday and the Rev. Kam stood in for him – I know that his heart is burning within him that something might happen so that I could give myself over not only almost but altogether to following Him, Pa always hoped I would do so, oh! may it come to pass, and may there be a blessing on it. The print that you gave me of ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away’ and the portrait of the Rev. Heldring are already hanging in my room, oh, I’m so glad to have them, they give me hope. Am writing to you offhand about my plans; my idea becomes clear and firm by doing so. For the time being I’m thinking of the words ‘it is my portion to keep Thy word’, have such a desire to familiarize myself with the treasure of biblical scripture, to know all those old stories thoroughly and lovingly, especially to learn what we know about Christ. In our family, which is indeed a Christian family in the full sense of the word, there has always been a minister of the gospel as far back as one can see, from generation to generation. Why should that voice not be heard in this and in following generations? Why should a member of that family not now feel himself called to that office and think, with some reason, that he can and must declare himself and seek the means to achieve that goal? It is my prayer and deepest desire that the spirit of my Father and Grandfather may rest upon me, and that it may be given me to be a Christian and a Christian labourer, that my life may resemble that of them whom I name – the more, the better – for behold, that old wine is good and I desire not the new. Their God shall be my God, and their people my people, that this may be my portion: to know Christ in His full worth and to be constrained by His love. What that Love is, is so beautifully said in the words ‘as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’, and in 1 Cor. XIII, it beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, it never faileth. It is in my heart today, those words of the pilgrims going to Emmaus when evening was come and the sun had gone down, ‘But they constrained Him, saying, Abide with us’.
You like it too, that ‘sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’, keep it in mind, because they are good words and a good cloak in the storm of life, keep it in mind at this time, now that you’ve experienced so much lately. And be careful, because even though it’s no small thing that you’ve experienced, yet, if I see rightly, there is something greater in store, and you too will remember the words of the Lord: I have loved thee with an everlasting Love, I will comfort you as one whom his mother comforteth. I shall send you another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth, I will make a new covenant with you, be separate, and touch not the unclean thing, I will be your God, and you shall be My people, I will be a Father unto you, and you shall be My sons and daughters. Hate sin and the places where it resides, and come not nigh, it attracts so easily with a false appearance of being something great, and does what the devil did to Christ when he showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth and their glory and said, ‘All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt kneel down and worship me’. There is something better than the glory of worldly things: it is the feeling we get when our heart burns within us upon hearing His word, it is faith in God, the Love of Christ, faith in immortality, in a life after this life. Hold fast to what you have. Theo, old boy, brother whom I love, I have such a great longing for that thing which you know of, but how shall I ever get it? How I wish that I, like Pa, had already done a lot of the difficult work of a Christian labourer and minister of the gospel and sower of the word. You see, Pa can count his services and Bible readings and visits to the sick and the poor and his written sermons by the thousands, and still he doesn’t look back but goes on doing good. Lift up your eyes for me and pray that it may be given to me, just as I now do for you, may He give you the desires of thine heart, He who knows us better than we know ourselves and who is able to do above all that we ask or think, for His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, as high as the Heaven is above the earth. And may you continue to think of Christ as a Comforter and God as a refuge.
I wish you well on your trip; write soon, and accept a handshake in thought, adieu, and believe me ever
Your loving brother
Vincent
May Pa get better soon, try to be in Etten at Easter, things will be all fine once more when we’re together again.
With many things in the past, also with what you’ve experienced, it could be that ‘thou shalt find it after many days’.
Etten, 8 April 1877
My dear Theo,
Want to make sure you get a letter quickly, I’m writing to you again from Etten, as you see.
Yesterday morning I got a letter from Pa in which Pa wrote that Aertsen was dying and how Pa had been there again, as he wished to see and speak to Pa again. When I heard that, my heart was drawn to Zundert so strongly that I felt the need to go there again. But more about this later – I just read your last letter and saw that your trip is over and you’re back in The Hague. Do write to me again soon, too, and let’s remain close to one another.
Today a postcard from Anna to say she arrived safely, may things go well for her. Haven’t you also noticed that something has come over her that recalls the women who loved Jesus of whom the Bible tells. And every time I think of her I am reminded of the words of Béranger:
In palaces and under thatch,
The Virgin said, with my hands
I have prepared honey and balm
For mankind’s suffering. And how sweet she was in that family in Welwyn, sharing their joys and sorrows, keeping nothing back of what she had in her to be a help and comfort to them, also during the time that child there was sick and died; I saw so clearly how everyone there loved her. She did her very best from the start, getting up early in the winter to make the fire with her own hands, even though the first days weren’t easy and she wrote that she was thinking: Without Thee, O Eternal Being, oh, what would become of man on earth? Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. And how she wanted so much to attend the Lord’s Supper, and went there and found strength in it. And Pa and Ma love her so much, and we all do too, yes, do let’s stay close to one another.
On Saturday evening I left on the last train from Dordrecht to Oudenbosch and walked from there to Zundert. It was so beautiful there on the heath, even though it was dark one could make out the heath and the pinewoods and the marshes stretching far and wide, it reminded me of that illustration by Bodmer that’s hanging in Pa’s study. The sky was grey but the evening star shone through the clouds, and now and then other stars were visible too. It was still very early when I arrived at the cemetery in Zundert, where it was so quiet, I went to have a look at all the old places and paths and waited for the sun to rise. You know the story of the Resurrection, everything there reminded me of it in that quiet cemetery this morning. I heard from Aertsen and Mientje, as soon as they were up, that their Father had died that night, oh, they were so sad and their hearts were so full, for Hein also arrived there early. I was glad to be there; I sympathized with them because I had also been so fond of the man.
The aunts send you their regards, and Jan Doome too, whom I also went to see. From there I walked with Hein to Rijsbergen, and was in the house around an hour and we read together. Woutje Prins had also sat up for 3 nights with the deceased, and had stood by him till the last. His passing was peaceful.
I’ll never forget that noble head lying there on the pillow; one saw, besides the signs of suffering, an expression of peace and something holy. Oh, it was so beautiful, I’d say that it spoke of all the singularity this land has and the life of these Brabant folk.
And they were all so full of praise for Pa and what Pa had always been to them, and how fond those two were of each other.
Then I walked with Hein Aertsen to Etten and am now at home, leaving early tomorrow morning.
Goodbye, old boy, it’s time for the post, accept a handshake in thought and believe me, after giving my regards to all your housemates,
Your most loving brother,
Vincent
Dordrecht 15 April 1877
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter of yesterday, which I answer today, having an hour of time.
Remembered that when we were at the Van der Hoop Museum we talked about the book by Bürger, which you’ll be receiving in the post, in it you’ll also find a woodcut after G. Doré, Judith and Holofernes, and one after Brion &c. for your scrapbook. Do go on with it, because you’ll turn it into something beautiful in time.
Do accept my small contribution, I need so much to commune with you by way of such trifles; when I come back to my room I’m reminded of you again and again by the illustrations on the wall.
The love between brothers is a great support in life, that is an ageold truth, let us seek that support, let the fire of love between us not be extinguished, but let instead the experience of life make that bond ever stronger, let us remain upright and candid with each other, let there be no secrets – as things stand today.
Thanks for your last letter. ‘It’s not over yet’, you say – no, it cannot be over yet. Your heart will need to trust itself and to pour forth – you’ll be torn between the two – her and my Father – I think that our Father loves you more than she does – that his love is worth more – these words are ‘fine gold’:The child puts great faith in his Father
As befits the father’s worth.
For who is closer than thy Father, is he nearer
In Heaven or on earth? By all means go there again if things get to be too much for you.
This week I got a letter from Uncle Vincent, who wrote that he thought it unnecessary to continue the correspondence, that he cannot help me in this matter. A letter came at the same time from Mr Gladwell, in which he wrote about Harry – who must have endured much anguish, being very hard pressed to make him act as he did.
Mr Görlitz is in Etten today to talk to Pa about the vacancy for a teaching post at Leur. I sincerely hope he’ll get it. Today was the first early sermon, which I attended, the sermon was very beautiful, about Jesus showing himself to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias, John 21. Herewith a few poems by Uhland which I found moving. Do write soon, old boy, give my warm regards to your housemates, and accept a handshake in thought from
Your loving brother,
Vincent
Dordrecht, 23 April 1877
My dear Theo,
I received your letter of 21 April, thanks for writing so quickly – and that letter gave me a feeling of joy such as the woman must have had who found the piece of silver she had lost, namely, you wrote that Aunt Koos’s little readingdesk containing Pa and Ma’s letters was found at the Rooses’ when the house was being cleaned.
What fear and worry I felt last year, looking for it and imagining that I’d taken it to England and that it got left behind at one of the houses I stayed at in London. It’s wonderful that it has turned up, I’m so grateful, keep it for the time being, I’ll be needing it in Amsterdam when I’m ‘on the way’.
I now remember very clearly having left it behind at the Rooses’ when I left for England, because there wasn’t much room in my trunk and also because I thought it would be safer there than travelling with me in foreign parts.
It seems to me to be new proof, as it were, and a sign like others that I think I’ve been noticing recently, that my efforts will be blessed, that things will go well for me, and the thing I desire so fervently will be granted me – something of the faith of old has come alive in me that my thoughts shall be established and a right spirit renewed and the soul restored to the old faith. I alone am making a choice for my life. Set your heart and mind, you too, on something good, on a good cause, and desire it of the Lord.
Uncle Jan was in Etten and said that my room was already ready. Mr Braat is negotiating with someone, so in May I’ll probably put my hand to the plough.
Hanging in that little room will be the prints I got from you, and so I’ll be reminded of you daily – beneath that one after Rosenthal, that monk, I have written ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me – in the kingdom of heaven they do not marry, and are not given in marriage’. Beneath its pendant, The imitation of Jesus Christ (after Ruipérez), I wrote what we used to hear Pa say: ‘Lord, I should so much like to be earnest’.This morning I heard a very beautiful sermon by the Rev. Keller van Hoorn on ‘and that from a child thou hast known the scriptures’. This afternoon Görlitz, Mager, Ten Broek and I went to the museum to see the Scheffers – they’re really beautiful. Have I already told you that Görlitz went to Etten to apply for the teaching position that has fallen vacant in Leur?
He came back filled with everything he had seen there. Pa had given a sermon on Jacob who slept in the field at Bethel, and he had found it all so moving.
I’d be happy for him if he got the position; then he would probably marry very soon.
Last week I got a letter from Harry Gladwell himself. Something has happened to him, a little different, admittedly, and yet essentially the same as what happened to you, and he is in dangerous surroundings there – the fowlers are many and clever. I hope to hear more soon, and we’ll talk about it sometime.
I know little of Taine’s life, I assume that he travelled a lot in France, Italy, England and also Holland, one could deduce as much from his writings. He is certainly an artist. I still have the first book by Bürger, Musées. Now, Theo, have a nice Sunday today. I hope to see you if I go to Amsterdam.
For a ‘sower of the word’ as I hope to become, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, just like for a sower of corn in the field – and the earth shall bring forth all manner of thorns and thistles – do let’s continue to support each other and to seek brotherly love.
Adieu, give my regards to your housemates, and accept a handshake in thought, and believe me ever
Your loving brother
Vincent
It’s raining here today and one could imagine oneself in London. But how green everything outside is becoming. This morning Görlitz, Ten Broek and I went for a walk while it was still early. Isn’t it beautiful in the Scheveningen Bosjes as well? Shall we walk there together again, and on the beach? I hope so! When I go to post this I hope to take that small path behind the station again where we walked together. See Luke 15:89.
Dordrecht, Monday, 30 April 1877
My dear Theo,
My hearty congratulations on this day, many happy returns, have a good day tomorrow, and many good days in the year you’re now beginning. Time passes quickly and the days fly past – yet something can remain and the past isn’t entirely lost – we can become richer and firmer of spirit, of character, of heart, we can become richer in God, we can become richer in the fine gold of life, the love for one another and the feeling ‘and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me’. May it be so for all of us, it is a good prayer, that one of Father’s: O Lord, join us intimately to one another and let our love for Thee make that bond ever stronger.
I hope to see you soon, because when I go to Amsterdam I’m planning to stop in The Hague for a while. Don’t tell anyone about this, though, because my main purpose in doing so is to see you.
I’m going to Etten this Wednesday, to stay there for a few days before putting my hand to the plough.
I should have liked you to be here yesterday; in the morning I heard the Rev. Hooyer’s farewell sermon in the little French church. The church was full, he spoke with fire and feeling, I was moved by the sight of that distinguished, singular congregation, the mood was very earnest. He thanked them for the love that he had received from many of them, especially at difficult times, in the beginning, four years ago, when he was wrestling with the difficulties of speaking in French, because he’s a Dutchman. There were various other clergymen in the congregation.
In the afternoon I went to the Grote Kerk to hear the Rev. Keller van Hoorn, whose text was ‘Our Father’; in the evening I heard the Rev. Greeff, whom I’d heard on my first Sunday evening here in Dordrecht. By chance, he took for his sermon yesterday the same text he had taken that first time: Now we see through a glass, darkly; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.
After church I walked along that path behind the station where we walked together, thinking of you and wishing we could be together – and kept on walking until I came to the cemetery at the end of a black cinder road running through the meadows that looked so beautiful in the twilight. The cemetery looks a little like that drawing by Apol in ‘Eigen Haard’, there’s a canal around it and there’s a house surrounded by pine trees, yesterday evening the light was shining through the windows in such a friendly way – it’s an old house that looks like a parsonage. There can still be much good in store for both of us, let us learn to say after Pa ‘I never despair’ and after Uncle Jan ‘the devil is never so black that one cannot look him in the face’.
Write again soon, this Wednesday, then, I’ll be in Etten. Do you have De Plancy, Légendes des artistes, with woodcuts after Rochussen? I hope to bring it for you.
These last few days I’ve managed, in between times, to work my way through the whole story of Christ from a catechism book written by Uncle Stricker, and I copied out the texts, which brought to mind so many paintings by Rembrandt and others. It is, I believe and trust, a choice not to be repented of, which I’ve made in an attempt to become a Christian and a Christian labourer. Yes, all things of the past can work together for good, familiarity with cities like London and Paris and life in such places as that school in Ramsgate and in Isleworth makes one more drawn and attached to many things and such books of the Bible as The Acts of the Apostles. Knowing and loving the work and life of such men as Jules Breton, Millet and Jacque, Rembrandt, Bosboom and so many others, can also be a source of ideas. What a similarity there is between the work and life of Pa and that of such men; that of Pa I rate even higher.
God help us, old boy, He can make you and all of us and me say, Lord, it is enough.
Adieu, accept a handshake in thought and again, hearty congratulations from
Your loving brother
Vincent
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and give thee peace. May the Lord do above all that we ask and think. He is your keeper and the shade upon your right hand. May He be with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Give my regards to your housemates.
Amsterdam, Monday, 21 and Tuesday, 22 May 1877
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter and for the church’s attestation, it’s a pity you didn’t go to Etten for Whitsun; I sincerely hope you’ll be able to go one Sunday soon. Did you get the attestation easily? Thanks for taking the trouble.
Yesterday morning I went to the early service and heard a sermon, ‘I shall not always strive with man’, how after a time of disappointment and grief in life a time may come when one’s innermost desires and wishes may be fulfilled. At 10 in the morning I heard Uncle Stricker on Acts II:14, the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit. A very beautiful, warm address from the heart; this morning I’m going to hear Uncle again and must go now, I’ll write and tell you presently what his text was.
It’s rainy today, and a long walk along Buitenkant to the Noorderkerk. There, by the Schreijerstoren, where one has a view of the IJ, the city looked like a painting by J. Maris. The text was I Corinthians 12:13, For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. There are some beautiful churches here. This week I walked as far as the Zuiderzee on a dyke going to Zeeburg. This takes one past the Jodenkerkhof, which I visited as well. It’s very simple, full of old tombstones standing upright with Hebrew inscriptions and elderberries here and there, and covered with long, dark grass. Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon I went with Uncle Jan to Baarn, how beautiful it is there, we walked in the wood in the avenues of spruce and beech trees and saw the sun go down behind the oak copse. You can imagine how beautiful it is in the evening, around the time we came home yesterday, for example, at the wharf and the dockyard and the shore of the IJ, and there’s such a glorious smell of tar in the air that reminds one of pinewoods.
Yesterday Uncle gave me some old black gloves and scarves. Thought we’d share them in brotherly fashion. You’ll receive them in a day or two as ‘samples without value’, because black gloves are a good thing, good like ivy, for example, and ‘mosses green and lichens fair’, and good like the fixed habit of going to church.
This afternoon I’m going to Uncle Stricker’s, who asked me to come, Vos, Kee and Paul’s girl will be there too.
Do you know an old English engraving ‘The vicar’s daughter’? It’s hanging at Baarn and struck me yesterday; look out for it if you come to Baarn. Its atmosphere recalls Die Abendglocke.
Nevertheless, I find it such a pity that there, as well as in Uncle Jan’s best rooms, there is nothing hanging like Christus Consolator or Ecce Homo. The latter is hanging in your room, surely, at least I thought I noticed it there. Do make a habit of hanging it up everywhere you live, for that is right and is your due.
This morning in church I saw a little old woman, probably the footstove woman, who reminded me so much of that etching by Rembrandt, a woman who has been reading the Bible and has fallen asleep leaning her head on her hand. C. Blanc writes about it so beautifully and with so much feeling, and I think Michelet does as well in his: there is no such thing as an old woman. The poem by De Génestet, ‘Haar pad in ’t leven loopt eenzaam af’ also reminds me of it. Will we also find ourselves in the evening of our life before we know it, as it were? – when we feel the days flying by, passing ever more quickly – it helps me to believe and trust that ‘man proposes, but God disposes’.
Were you at the gallery in the mornings over the Whitsun holidays? I do hope you had a good time all the same.
22 May. Yesterday evening I was at Uncle Stricker’s, where it was very convivial. Vos, Kee, Paul’s girl and Jan were there, and it was after 11 when I got home, then I wrote until 12, how I wish that we could go to places together, I’d have liked you to be with us last night.Do write a few words again soon, when you have a moment. This morning I still have a lot of work to do, I see that it isn’t easy and will no doubt become much more difficult, yet have unfaltering hope that I’ll succeed, and I’m also convinced that I’ll learn to work by working, and that my work will become better and more substantial. I’ve already begun studying the Bible, but only in the evenings, when I’ve finished my work for the day, or early in the morning – after all, that’s the most important thing – even though it’s now my duty to dedicate myself to studying other things, which I do, of course.Yesterday at the Strickers’ I had to tell them about London and Paris, and whenever I do that I see it all before me again, all things from that past can also work together for good, I’m fond of much there, and that, ah, I’ve experienced that everywhere I’ve been, I also feel that when I walk the streets of The Hague or Zundert, for example, I shan’t easily forget that last journey there. Before I went to the Strickers’ I walked briefly through the Trippenhuis in order to see several paintings again, I’m sure you know which ones.
Now, Theo, give my regards to one person or another you might see, write soon, I wish you the very best, accept a firm handshake in thought, and believe me.
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Amsterdam, Monday, 28 May 1877.
My dear Theo,
Today Uncle Jan found some clothes that were Hendrik’s which he’s grown out of, and asked if I could use them, and I said if I might share them with you I’d gladly take them. So herewith a pair of duffle trousers which may well be of use to you in the autumn and winter, by which time you’ll likely be in need of them. I have a black pair.
Today was stormy, on my way to my lessons this morning I looked towards the Zuiderzee from the bridge. There was one white stripe on the horizon with dark grey clouds above it, the rain pouring down from them in slanting lines in the distance, standing out against this was the long row of houses with the Oosterkerk.
Uncle Jan went to Leiden yesterday, so I was alone that day. In the morning I went to the Oosterkerk and heard a sermon on Isaiah 55:8 and 9, ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts’.
Walked to the seaside in the afternoon, and spent the rest of the day writing. The work and writing don’t yet go as fast and easily as I’d wish, but I hope to learn by practice, but, old boy, if I could I’d like to skip over a few years, though I trust that I shall succeed and that my lips shall speak the fullness of preaching the gospel and that my hand shall write it, and I pray that that be given me, but first one must get some rest when one already has several years of work behind one and feels one is on the way and is doing the same thing as those whom one loves.
This morning I was in Uncle Stricker’s study, it’s beautiful and he has a portrait of Calvin after Ary Scheffer hanging there, although I should have liked very much to see more prints on the wall. Last week I got as far as Gen. XXIII, the burial of Sarah in the field that Abraham bought to bury her there in the cave of Machpelah, and I couldn’t help making a little drawing of how I imagined that place to be, it’s nothing very special but I’m enclosing it anyway.
A good letter from home yesterday, wrote back today, also to Anna. You must also write again soon, for I’m longing to hear from you.
Right now all the people are leaving the dockyard to go home, that’s nice to see. One hears them already early in the morning, I think there are around 3,000 of them, the sound of their footsteps is something like the sound of the sea. This morning bought from a Jew ‘Tobias’ after Rembrandt, a small engraving, for six cents.
Uncle Jan sends you many regards, write him a word or two, or else write a sentence in a letter to me that I can read to him to thank him for the clothes.
How is Mrs Tersteeg doing? I’m also eager to hear whether you’ve been to see Mauve.
Aunt Mina and Paul’s girl will soon be going to Etten, that will be nice for them at home. Pa wrote that the church had been whitewashed and the organ painted. Yesterday 3 children were baptized. Lips is still no better, and Willem van Eekelen’s wife is also very ill. Did you hear that Uncle Vincent has bronchitis again, and it seems to be serious? It’s fortunate that Uncle is back in the country, and in his own house, and that Pa and Ma visit him almost every day.
Now, old boy, I wish you the very best, give my regards to your housemates, please forgive me for not being able to pay the postage on the parcel, old chap, do write soon and accept in thought a hearty handshake, and believe me
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Amsterdam, Wednesday, 30 May 1877.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter of today, I have to do a few things and so am writing in haste. Gave your letter to Uncle Jan, accept his warm regards and he thanks you for writing.
There were some words in your letter that touched me, ‘I should really like to get away from everything, I’m the cause of everything and only make others sad, I alone have caused all this misery to myself and others’. Those were words that touched me – because that same feeling, exactly the same, nothing more and nothing less, is also on my conscience.
When I think of the past – when I think of the future, of nearly insurmountable difficulties, of much and difficult work which I have no passion for, which I – the evil part of me, that is – would prefer to avoid, when I think of the eyes of so many that are fixed upon me – who, if I do not succeed, will know the reason why – who will not utter any ordinary reproaches but who, because they have been tried and are well versed in what is good and proper and fine gold, as it were, will say it by the expression on their faces: we helped you and have been a light unto you – we did for you what we could. Did you sincerely desire it? What are our wages and the fruits of our labours? You see, when I think of all that and of so much else, all manner of things – too many to mention, of all the troubles and worries which do not become less as one progresses through life, of suffering, of disappointment, of the danger of failing to a scandalous extent, then that desire is no stranger to me either – I would really like to get away from everything!
And yet – I go on – but with caution and in the hope that I’ll succeed in warding off all these things, so that I can somehow answer all the reproaches that threaten, trusting that in spite of everything that seems to be against me I shall attain that thing that I desire, and, God willing, shall find grace in the eyes of some whom I love, and in the eyes of those who shall come after me.
It is written, lift up the feeble hands, and the knees which hang down, and when the disciples had toiled all night and had taken nothing, it was said unto them, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets again.
My head is sometimes numb and is often burning hot, and my thoughts are confused – how shall I ever get all that difficult and detailed study into it? – I don’t know – after those turbulent years, becoming accustomed to plain, well-ordered work and persevering in it isn’t always easy. And yet I go on, if we’re tired, isn’t it because we’ve already gone a long way, and if it’s true that man’s life on earth is a struggle, isn’t feeling tired and having a burning head a sign that we have struggled? When one labours at difficult work and strives for good results, one fights the good fight, the reward of which, surely, is already this: that one is preserved from much that is evil. And God beholds the labour and the sorrow, and can help in spite of everything.
Faith in God is for me a certainty – not some notion, not an idle belief, it is so, it is true – there is a God that lives – and He is with our parents, and his eye is also upon us, and I am certain that He intends us for something, and that we do not belong entirely to ourselves, as it were – and that God is none other than Christ of Whom we read in our Bible, whose word and story are also deep in your heart. If only I had worked at it sooner with all my might, yes, it would be better for me now – but even now He will be a mighty help, and it is in His power to make our life bearable, to keep us from evil, to let all things work together for good, to make the end of us peace. There is evil in the world and in ourselves, terrible things, and one doesn’t have to have gone far in life to dread much and to feel the need for unfaltering hope in a life after this one, and to know that without faith in a God one cannot live – cannot endure. But with that faith one can long endure. And now, there are words in our Bible that are emphatically repeated in various places, on various occasions, under various circumstances, Fear not, our Father took that to heart and he says ‘I never despair’, let us repeat it after him. Isn’t it your experience, too, that whenever you wanted to do something bad, you were held back – that whenever there was something upsetting you and you saw no way out, you came through it all unharmed? A book by Bunyan tells of a traveller who sees a lion lying at the side of the road he must traverse – and yet he continues on his way – there is nothing else he may or can do – and when he arrives at the place he notices that the lion is chained up and is only there to test the travellers’ courage. Thus it is in life more than once. There is much in store for us, but others have lived, and so whosoever loves his parents must follow them on life’s path. If you value the love and esteem of young people, declare your beliefs openly whenever suitable, and admit that you love Christ and the Bible, doesn’t a son love his Father better for this reason than for any other? Women and children and the simple often feel and know these things so deeply, and there is hidden in so many a heart a great and vigorous faith. We, too, are in need of this when we think of much that is in store for us, He spoke from all His experience of life, and we know how much must have been going on in the heart whose plenitude made His mouth utter the words ‘in the Heavenly Kingdom they do not marry, and are not given in marriage’, and who said, he who hate not, even his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. Yes, those words of the Lord, surely they are the words issuing from the mouth of God whereby man shall live – and not by bread alone and the more one seeks in those words, the more one shall find therein. When I was standing next to Aertsen’s body, the calm and seriousness and solemn stillness of death contrasted so greatly with us who were living, that everyone felt what his daughter said in her simplicity: he is delivered from the burden of life which we must still bear. And yet we are so attached to that old life because there is cheerfulness to counter despondency, and our heart and our soul are gladdened, just as the lark who cannot help singing in the morning, even if our soul is sometimes cast down within us and is disquieted in us. And the memory of everything we have loved remains and returns in the evening of our life. It is not dead, but sleepeth and it is good to collect a great store of it. Accept a handshake in thought, and I wish you the very best, and write again soon to
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Amsterdam, Thursday, 31 May 1877.
My dear Theo,
It’s already late and everyone is already asleep, but I feel the need to write a few words to you again. You must persevere – you must go onward – as I must, too – we’re going through the same ordeal in many respects.
In your last letter you write that you were thinking about moving elsewhere if possible, and you mention London and Paris.
That might be good – oh, old boy, how deeply I love those cities, that’s to say I love much of what one meets with there, there’s also much that I hate – or at least don’t love as much as the hedges of thornbush and the green grass and the little grey churches. What you’re thinking of is not bad at all.
Be aware, though – we must both make sure that we survive the time between now and the age of 30 or so – and we must beware of sin – after all, we’re in the midst of life – well then, we must fight a good fight – and we must become men – which we aren’t yet, neither of us – there is something greater in store for us, my conscience tells me so, we are not what others are – well then, but we can endeavour to become so. You know what I want. If I may become a clergyman, if I fulfil that position so that my work is equal to that of our Father, then I shall thank God. I have good hope that I shall succeed, it was once said to me by someone who was further on in life than I, and who was no stranger in Jerusalem – I mean someone who had sought it himself and had also found it; it was once said to me: I believe that you are a Christian, you see, it was so good for me to hear those words. You too hold fast, no matter what you wish for yourself, to the thought of Christ and keep His saying, as you do. It is good to believe that there is a God who knows what we need, better than we know it ourselves, and who helps us when we need help. It is also good to believe that, just as in the olden days, now, too, an angel is not far from those who feel godly sorrow – not only from those who are almost angels themselves, but especially those who need help from a higher power to keep them from evil, from the evil that we know is in the world and not far from us, not far from those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I’ve carefully read the story of Elijah so often, and so often has it given me strength up to now:And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an Angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the Angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And He said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts. And the Lord said unto him, ‘Go, return on thy way’.And that story does not stand alone, we read of the Angel who strengthened Him in Gethsemane, who was sorrowful, even unto death, of the Angel who woke Peter from his sleep in prison, of the Angel who appeared to Paul in the night and said ‘Fear not’. And we, although we saw no Angel, although we are not the same as those men of old, should we not know that there is strengthening from Above?
This afternoon it was stormy and rained here, and I walked to the sea past the Jewish cemetery, a few days ago I also went for a walk there on Buitenkant near the Oosterspoor, where they’re working on the sand works. What a beautiful and heartening story that is too, the one about Jesus walking on the sea, Matthew XIV:2233, And straightway Jesus constrained His disciples to get into a ship, and to go before Him unto the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, He was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water. And He said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Believe in God, through faith one can become ‘sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’ and evergreen and we need not complain ‘if our youth disappears at the maturing of our powers’.
Herewith something by Esquiros, I wish you the very best, write again soon, give my regards to your housemates and any acquaintances you might see, and accept in thought a hearty handshake, and believe me
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Amsterdam, Monday, 9 July 1877.
My dear Theo,
Well, what do you say about Anna? It surprised me, and it seems to be serious too, and will certainly take place, one would venture to say. It could be good. The difficulties of holding a subordinate position, especially when one perseveres in it for a longer period, as she has in fact done for years in all honour and virtue, are very great and sometimes become a hard struggle, and the seemingly easy becomes extremely difficult.
There’s nevertheless much poetry in it, and such years are a treasure not easily lost, and when one denies and humbles oneself, especially the first time, one has a wonderful feeling of inner peace, but I would understand very well if the future was sometimes dark for her too – it might be sensible of her, for her part, to have already decided to take this step. And I also maintain that she truly loves him, I believe that and trust in it absolutely, otherwise things wouldn’t have gone this far. And so I sincerely hope that she won’t be disappointed but that this, with God’s guidance, will be the path to her lasting happiness. May the Lord grant that she find peace, that dear sister, and bless her, and give her good things in life. On this occasion I congratulate you, too, as I have Anna and Pa and Ma.
How are you, old chap? I had wanted to write to you earlier and answer your last letter. I have a lot to do and the work isn’t easy.
Then again, I go to church a lot, there are beautiful old churches here, and outstanding preachers, I often hear Uncle Stricker, and what he says is very good, and he speaks with much warmth and feeling. I’ve heard the Rev. Laurillard three times, you would like him too, because he paints, as it were, and his work is at once lofty and noble art. He has the feeling of an artist in the true sense of the word, as someone like Andersen had when he says, for example:
Every evening came the moon and whispered in my ear, Telling of the quiet night and what its eye Had lit on from its watchpost in the sky. It who knows centuries – through ages did it roam, Casting, high above the Flood and crest of foam, On the floating ark a soft silver glow, Just as it now lights my lonely window Then, too, when the folk of Israel knelt down To weep by the waters of Babylon It illumined with sad twinkling down below The unstrung harp, hanging on the willow.
The moon still shines now, and the sun and the evening star, which is fortunate, and they often speak of God’s Love and call to mind the words, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
Am busy making a summary of the history of the Reformation, there’s much that is stimulating and appealing in the history of those days.
The room in the Trippenhuis where Rembrandt’s Syndics are hanging is open again; coming from church yesterday I walked over there for a while, hanging right next to the Rembrandt is that portrait by Van der Helst.
Adieu, Theo, a hearty handshake in thought, I wish you the very best, and believe that often thinking of you is
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Herewith a small contribution for your scrapbook, is it coming along? Give my regards to your housemates and if someone or other should ask after me.
Amsterdam, Sunday, 15 July 1877.
My dear Theo,
I feel the need to write to you again, let me have a word from you too, if you have time.
This morning I went to the early sermon, and the text was Eph. 5:14, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. When I left here it was raining, and also when leaving the church, though during the sermon the sun had been shining brightly through the windows.
Pa had to lead the early service today in Etten, and afterwards Pa had to go to Zundert.
After that I heard dear Uncle Stricker in the Oudezijdskapel on the words ‘Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees’, which is a warning not to become too attached to outward forms and ceremonies without truly sincere religious feeling of the heart, as opposed to a life without belief in the things that are higher than those in this life. There were very few people in the church, apart from the orphan boys and orphan girls with their red and black clothes, who filled a large part of the little old church nonetheless. If you come here again I hope to take you there, that Oudezijdskapel is in a very narrow street, Zeedijk, near the part of Buitenkant called ‘the old taryards’ and near Warmoesstraat. It’s a very nice part of town and reminds one of the heart of London, like Booksellers’ Row or some such place. May it be granted me in time to speak as I have heard so many do, and hear each Sunday again. I’m doing my best to become skilled at it with all the power in me.
Last week I spent an evening at the old Rev. Meijjes’s and met his son there, the Rev. Jeremie Meijjes with his wife, a daughter of Professor Tilanus, and two of his sons – one of them attends the gymnasium here and the other is training to be an engineer. The latter helped to build those roofs here at the dockyard (underneath which the ships are built, where we went with Uncle that afternoon you were here), as well as the new Kattenburg bridge. It was a pleasant evening and we talked about all kinds of foreign matters. He’s a very gifted man and has a pure talent and a great faith, heard him in the Westerkerk. Saw him coming from the pulpit and walking through the church after the sermon, and that tall, noble figure and that tired, pale face and that noble head, the hair already showing some grey, made a great impression on me. To be tired in such a way from that work, that is a blessing.
Today you’ll perhaps go to Scheveningen, have a good Sunday, how I’d like to visit your little room. Heard from home that you’ll probably go to see Mauve again soon in his house in the dunes, and will stay overnight, I can imagine you sitting there, and I also know what you’ll discuss. Last week Mendes told me about a very interesting part of the city, namely the area extending from the Leidsepoort (thus close to Vondelpark) to the Hollandsche Spoor station. Went there yesterday, I knew part of it already, and you do too, I think, namely the part near the station. There are a great many mills, sawmills, workers’ houses with little gardens, old houses too, of all kinds, and very populous, and the area is crisscrossed by all kinds of small canals and waterways full of barges, and all kinds of picturesque bridges and so on. It must certainly be a wonderful thing to be a minister in such a district.
This study is difficult, old chap, but I must persevere, and to that end may He help me of Whom it is written: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.
Ma wrote in her last letter something about ‘Anna’s house’, which is a new expression that doesn’t sound bad, she’ll perhaps be very happy one of these days, may she have made a good choice and one not to be repented of. The best we can do for the time being is, I think, simply be very happy about it.
If you should happen to visit Mauve and Jet one of these days, give them my warm regards and spend some pleasant hours together, and bid goodday to the dunes and the sea for me. And tell Mauve that the photograph of his drawing, the plough in the field, is hanging in my little room and constantly reminds me of him.
Are you reading something beautiful? I’d like so much to start reading a great many books but may not, if you can get hold of John Halifax do read it again, even though we read it with nostalgia, still, let us not say ‘that is not for me’, because it’s good to go on believing in everything that’s good and noble. I heard that the man whose life and character prompted the book to be written died recently, he was called Harper and ran a large bookshop in London. I once met the painter Millais on the street in London, just after I had been so happy to see various of his paintings, and that noble figure made me think of John Halifax. Millais once painted The lost penny, a young woman looking in the early morning twilight for the penny she has lost (there’s an engraving of it, the lost mite) and not the least beautiful of his work is an autumn landscape, Chill October.
Adieu, old chap, accept in thought a hearty handshake, and believe me, after giving my regards to your housemates, in haste, because I have to go to church,
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Amsterdam, Friday, 27 July 1877.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter, I heard from home that you’ve already been to Mauve’s, that was undoubtedly a good day, I’ll certainly hear about it sometime, when the opportunity arises. Herewith a contribution for your collection, namely three lithographs after Bosboom and two by J. Weissenbruch, found them this morning at a Jewish bookseller’s. Is that one after Bosboom the church in Scheveningen? The other is the Grote Kerk in Breda, the third after his painting that was at the large exhibition in Paris. Those two after Weissenbruch moved me – perhaps you already have them, but then again possibly not. Do go on collecting such prints, and books too.
I’m now collecting Latin and Greek themes and all kinds of writings on history and so on. Am working on one on the Reformation that’s getting rather long.
Recently spoke to a young man who had just done his entrance examination for the Leiden college with a good result – it isn’t easy, he told me what they asked him, but I do keep up my courage, and with God’s help I’ll pass them, and the following examinations as well. Mendes has given me every reason to believe that at the end of three months we’ll be as far as he imagined we would be if everything went well. Still, Greek lessons in the heart of Amsterdam, in the heart of the Jewish quarter on a very warm and oppressive summer afternoon, with the feeling hanging over me that many difficult examinations will have to be taken, set by very learned and cunning professors, are rather more oppressive than a walk on the beach or in the Brabant wheatfields, which will certainly be beautiful now, on a day like that. But we must ‘strive on’ through everything, as Uncle Jan says.
A couple of days ago a couple of children fell into the water near the Kattenburg bridge. Uncle saw it and commandeered the sloop of the Makasser that is in dock here. A little boy was pulled out; I went along with two ship’s doctors whom Uncle had sent over, and the men carrying the boy into a chemist’s shop made every effort to resuscitate the child, but to no avail. In the meantime it was recognized by the father, who’s a stoker at the dockyard, and the little body was taken home in a woollen blanket. The search went on for an hour and a half, as it was thought that a girl had fallen in as well, though happily that seems not to be the case. In the evening I went back to see the people, it was then already dark in the house, the little body lay so still on a bed in a side room, he was such a sweet little boy. There was great sorrow, that child was the light of that house, as it were, and that light had now been put out. Even though coarse people express their grief in a coarse way and without dignity, as the mother did, among others, still, one feels a great deal in such a house of mourning, and the impression stayed with me the whole evening when I took a walk.
Last Sunday morning I made a nice excursion, namely first to the early sermon, the Rev. Posthumus Meijjes in the Noorderkerk, then to Bickerseiland, where I walked on the dyke along the IJ until it was time for church again, and then to the Eilandskerk where Uncle Stricker preached. Thus the time passes, and quickly too, already we’re almost at the end of the week again.How are you, old chap? So very often, daily, do I think of you.
God help us, struggling, to stay on top, it is good that you associate with good artists; I, too, still cling to the memory of many of them. Overcome evil with good, it is written, and one can seek to do it – and to this end God can help and make our days bearable with much good in the meantime, and preserve us from too much selfreproach.
When Uncle Jan commandeered the sloop and the doctors to go and help on the afternoon that accident happened, I saw him in his element.
Now I must get to work, though I still have to fill this page. Anna is in Leiden, as you surely know, and will come here one of these days with our future brotherinlaw, am looking forward to seeing them very much, Pa wrote so cheerfully about last Sunday when they were in Etten and everything was good in his eyes, and they see rightly, so let us view what has happened to our sister as a blessing on our house, in which we all share; if one member be glad, let all the members be glad with her.
Next week, or perhaps even tomorrow, Uncle and Aunt Pompe are coming to stay here, and also Fanny and Bet ’s Graeuwen, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen any of them.
Am quite often up rather early in the morning, and when the sun rises over the yard and the workers come a while later it’s a wonderful sight from the window, and I should wish to have you here. Will I later be working on such a morning on a sermon on ‘He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good’, or on ‘Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light’, or on ‘It is a good thing to praise the Lord in the morning’ and ‘It is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun’ – I hope so.
All the same, it seems that the sun never shines so beautifully as it does in a parsonage or in a church. It’s wonderful to work on ‘the writings’ early in the morning.
If you have the time and a stamp and paper, then write again soon. Uncle Jan sends you his regards, that evening you described there in the dunes must have been pleasant. In Uncle Cor’s shop I recently saw The Gospels by Bida, how beautiful it is, how wonderful it must be to be a Christian labourer like that, but it’s impossible to put into words how beautiful it is, that’s it again, there is much in that work that reminds one of Rembrandt. And now a handshake in thought, and I sincerely wish you the best, and believe me ever
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Amsterdam, Friday, 3 August 1877.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter, which I was happy to receive and for which I heartily thank you. What you write about Mr Tersteeg’s loss, that his youngest child has died, moved me, and I felt the need to start corresponding with him again.
Yesterday a letter from Anna, who arrives today at 12:45 with Van Houten, am very much looking forward to meeting them, he seems to have made a good impression on you, as he did on everyone at home, we must simply consider it an asset.
So you were at Mauve’s and had a good time there, did you draw anything while you were there? I was also in Weissenbruch’s studio once, a couple of days before my first trip to London, and the recollection of what I saw there in the way of studies and paintings is still very clear, as is that of the man himself. When next you write, tell me something about the exhibition that will have opened yesterday, how much the artists would be able to find here at the dockyard that’s fit to be painted. The Rev. Meijjes was here a few days ago with 2 of his sons, and Uncle gave us permission to go and see the yard and the workshops, the forges and so on were of course in use, everything was standing still that Sunday we were there together. Was also with Uncle Pompe and Jan on the guardship the Wassenaar, which is also very interesting. This week the house here was full of people, Uncle and Aunt Pompe and Jan, Uncle Cor and Vincent, Fanny and Bet ’s Graeuwen and Bertha van Gogh from Haarlem, the last is a very sweet girl.
Went last Sunday to the early sermon given by the Rev. Hasebroek, and again in the morning to that Oudezijdskapel I already told you about. The Rev. Van Marken preached very beautifully on Matth. IX:9. Jesus saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow Me, and in the next part of that chapter: Jesus ate with publicans and sinners. They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
So day by day I do my best to settle in, especially in Latin and Greek, and have already written quite a few themes, composed of phrases that remind me of the old schooldays, such as ‘Which eminent philosopher was sentenced to death by the Athenians? The very good and wise Socrates. Our life is very similar to a journey, and open to very many and very great catastrophes and accidents. The nature of Odysseus, and the grapes of the vineyard’. I was up early this morning, it had rained a lot during the night, but the sun broke through the clouds very early, the ground and the piles of timber and beams in the yard were drenched, and the sky reflected in the puddles was completely golden due to the rising sun, and at 5 o’clock one saw all those hundreds of workers looking like little black figures fanning out on all sides. I go to Uncle Stricker’s study quite a lot. He’s very clever and has lots of beautiful books, and he has a great love for his work and his position. Got a very cheerful letter last Monday from Pa in Helvoirt.
I heard from home that you got a bill from Dr Coster for 40 guilders, that’s rather a burden, and paying it will remind you of the feeling one has when a tooth is pulled, if only I could help you, but you know that I have neither gold nor silver. I often have to use my cunning to get money for the collection at church, for example by exchanging stamps for cents at a tobacconist’s, but old boy, struggling we stay on top, and you know that it is said of the poor in the kingdom of heaven that they are blessed. Every time I see Uncle Vincent I’m moved by something indescribably kind and, I might say, something good and spirited in him, I don’t know what it is, Pa has much more of it still, and Uncle Jan has it in another form, and it’s in Uncle Cor as well, among a hundred people one wouldn’t always find even one who calls them to mind, do let us preserve their image and their memory. Could it be that which Fénelon describes as follows in his Télémaque?The man to whom he had by chance presented himself was a stranger, who had an air of majesty, and yet something that was sad and downcast; at times he appeared dreamy, at others he had something that was either very determined or excited and agitated. At first he hardly listened to Telemachus’s question, but at last he replied: You are not mistaken, Ulysses was received at the home of King Alcinous, as in a place where God is feared and hospitality is practised, but he is no longer there, and you would search for him in vain; he has departed for Ithaca, if indeed the angry Gods eventually permit him to see his household deities again. Telemachus looked at him intently; the longer he looked, the more moved and astonished he was. This stranger, he said to Mentor, answered me like a man who scarcely listens to what is said to him, and who is full of bitterness. I pity the unfortunate since I have become one of them, and I feel that my heart is drawn toward this man, without knowing why. He did not receive me well; he hardly deigned to listen to me, or to reply. And so Mentor said to him, I am not at all astonished, my dear Telemachus, to see you thus moved; the cause of your pain, who is a stranger to you, is not so to Mentor, it is nature that speaks and makes itself felt, it is nature that softens your heart. The stranger who caused you such strong emotion is the great Ulysses. He is sailing straight to Ithaca, he is already very close to port, and at last he sees again those places so long yearned for. Your eyes saw him, but without knowing him; soon you will see him and you will know him — and he will know you, but now the Gods could not allow you to acknowledge each other, away from Ithaca. His heart was no less moved than yours; he is too wise to reveal himself to any mortal, in a place where he could be exposed to treachery. Ulysses, your father, is the wisest of all men; his heart is like a deep well, its secret could not be drawn from it. He loves truth, and never says aught that might wound it, but he speaks it only out of necessity, and wisdom, like a seal, ever keeps his lips closed to needless words. How moved he was when speaking to you! What violence did he do himself, so as in no wise to disclose himself! What did he not suffer, seeing you? That is what made him sad and downcast.And now, old chap, a hearty handshake in thought, let us but keep our faith in God and continue to worship what we know, give my regards to those at Mauve’s and anyone else you might see, especially your housemates, I wish you the very best, I sincerely hope you find a way of paying that bill, adieu and believe me
Your most loving brother,
Vincent
Amsterdam, Friday, 7 September 1877.
My dear Theo,
It felt wonderful to hear Gladwell’s voice in the hall as I sat upstairs studying and to see him a moment later and to shake his hand. Yesterday we took a nice walk through the main streets and past most of the churches, and got up this morning before 5 to see the people coming to the dockyard and afterwards walked to Zeeburg and also saw a cemetery and went to the Trippenhuis (twice) and he alone to Van der Hoop, and he was also at Uncle Cor’s gallery (who isn’t in town, however) and with Mendes in the room. Now we also have plans to go to Uncle Stricker’s (because I’ve been invited to eat there today and will simply risk it and take him along), and if we have time also to see Vos and Kee. And I would also like very much to go with him to Bickerseiland, but perhaps there won’t be time. Have also strongly suggested that he go to Haarlem to see the paintings by Frans Hals, and now he’s going there and not to Antwerp as he had planned, but will save Belgium for later and is concentrating now exclusively on Holland.
We also spent a lot of time in the little study and talked of things new and old.
When he’s sitting beside me I again feel the same feeling that drew me to him so often, as though he were a son of the same family and a brother in faith because he loves ‘the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’. Who is our God and in Whose teachings and resurrection we believe, Whose spirit we seek, of Whose love we ask that it constrain us in life and that nothing separate us from it, nor things present, nor things to come. In him, too, godly sorrow shall work that which in many it has worked and works and shall work, a choice not to be repented of, for that good part which shall not be taken away, and choosing the only thing necessary and worthy of bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. He is a Christian and will become one more and more. This morning we read together the story of Elijah by the brook Cherith and at the widow’s – because when we lived together in Montmartre we found that the barrel of meal did not waste and the cruse of water did not fail – and yesterday evening the parable of the sower and others. Now he’ll stay with you for a while as well, and is longing to see your little room and what you have in the way of prints.
Received from him Bunyan, The pilgrim’s progress, that is an asset, as is Bossuet, Oraison funèbres, which I recently bought very cheaply, and The imitation by T. a Kempis in Latin, which I got from Vos and which I hope to be able to read in Latin some day.He read here various bits of Bungener, Esquiros, Lamennais, Souvestre, Lamartine (Cromwell), and took pleasure in the lithographs after Bosboom, we bought one from a Jew, and he gave me instructions to buy some more for him when the opportunity presents itself.
I sincerely hope that you’ll have a pleasant evening with him, and I believe that the more you seek in him the more you will find in him.
We talked about this and that, and what we said to each other is this: many, having come to a point in life where one must make a choice about life, have chosen for their part ‘the love of Christ and poverty’, or rather ‘give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with bread convenient for me’. The time together flew past for me, and I wished we could have stayed together a little longer; but it cannot be, and everyone must return to his way and continue to do whatsoever the hand findeth to do in the calling wherein he was called, and I for my part am thankful from the bottom of my heart that I was able to see him again, and found in him that which drew me to him. He told me that you will certainly make the trip with the nouveautés, probably in about 4 weeks’ time, so I also hope to see you again then.
I sincerely hope that he’ll have pleasant and good memories of his visit to Holland, it’s courageous of him to have persisted with that plan.
Give my regards to your housemates, have a good evening with him; should wish for you to be attached to him as I feel attached to him at the moment, and accept in thought a handshake from
Your most loving brother
Vincent
You’ve no doubt heard about the death of Mrs Richard; it must have been a difficult night. To learn the Bible well and thoroughly and with love, would that not be a very desirable thing?
Amsterdam, Tuesday, 18 September 1877.
My dear Theo,
The time is approaching when you’ll go travelling for the Messrs Cie, and I’m already looking forward to seeing and talking to you again.
What I wanted to ask you is this. Wouldn’t you be able to arrange it so that we could be together for a while, quietly and calmly, I was thinking of at least one whole day. Mendes was out of town this week, staying for a few days with a Rev. Schröder in Zwolle who had lessons from him at one time. Being less occupied because of this, I could carry out my plan to see the etchings by Rembrandt in the Trippenhuis, went there this morning and am glad I did it.
When I was there I thought, won’t Theo and I be able to see them together sometime? Think about whether you couldn’t go off on your own for a day or even longer for such things.
How much someone like Pa – who ofttimes travels at night, carrying a lantern, to a sick or dying person, for example, to speak to him about Him whose word is also a light in the night of suffering and mortal fear – would have a feeling for Rembrandt’s etchings. Such as the flight into Egypt at night or the entombment of Jesus. That collection in the Trippenhuis is splendid, and I saw much that I’d never encountered before, there they also told me about drawings by R. in the Fodor. If you think it’s a good idea, speak to Mr Tersteeg about it, and write a few words in advance and tell me when you’re coming, then I’ll study ahead to be free and at your disposal when you come.
I can’t see anything of that kind, paintings either, for example, without thinking of you and of Pa and everyone at home.
Am otherwise up to my ears in work, because it’s becoming clear to me what I actually have to know, what they know and what inspires those whom I should like to follow. ‘Search the scriptures’ is not written for nothing, but those words are a good guide, and I’d really like to become such a scribe who is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things old and new.
I spent Monday evening with Vos and Kee, they’re fond of each other and one certainly notices that where Love lives the Lord commands His blessing. It’s nice at their house, only a great pity that he couldn’t go on being a minister. When one sees them sitting there together in the evening by the kindly light of their lamp in the little living room and close by the bedroom of their little boy, who wakes from time to time and asks his mother for this or that, it’s an idyll, but they also know dreadful days and sleepless nights, and fear and anxiety. Walked back over the big sand works by the Oosterspoor which you know, and along Buitenkant, the moon was shining and everything was full of M. Maris or Andersen.
From there it’s such a wonderful sight across the city and towers, with lights here and there, on one side the IJ and on the other Bickerseiland. And everything was so deathly still, ‘the withered leaf does not rustle, the stars alone speak. When all sounds cease, God’s voice is heard under the stars’.
Was in the Oudezijdskapel last Sunday, where the Rev. Jer. Meijjes preached on Eccl. XI:7XII:7.‘Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun: but if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgement. Therefore remove heaviness from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, nor the stars be darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain.
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, and the door shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: or ever the silver bowl be loosed, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall turn unto God Who gave it.’ For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap and he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap Life Everlasting.I then heard the Rev. Laurillard again in the early sermon on Jer. VIII:7, Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming.
He told about how he had walked on a road where the leaves were already falling from the trees, and had seen a flock of migratory birds and spoke about the phenomenon of birds migrating, and how man will also migrate once to a warmer land. He treated this subject in the spirit of Michelet or Rückert, or as many have also painted it, including Protais, Souvenirs of the homeland.
Pa wrote that you’d been to Antwerp, am eager to hear what you saw there, long ago I also saw the old paintings in the museum – and even seem to recall a beautiful portrait by Rembrandt, it would be wonderful if one could remember everything clearly, but it’s just like the sight of a long road, in the distance things seem smaller and as though in a mist.
There was a fire here one evening on the water, namely a barge with arrack or something similar. Was with Uncle on the Wassenaar, there was no real danger as they’d managed to get the burning barge out from between the other boats and had tied it to a post. When the flames got up a bit one saw Buitenkant and the black row of people standing there watching, and the little boats going back and forth around the blaze also appeared black in the water in which the flames were reflected, I don’t know if you’re familiar with photographs after Jazet that were in the Galerie photographique at one time but have now been destroyed, ‘Christmas Eve’, ‘The conflagration’ and others, it was something like that.
Twilight is already falling, ‘blessed twilight’ Dickens called it, and indeed he was right. Blessed twilight especially when two or three are gathered together in harmony of mind, and like the scribes bring forth out of their treasure old and new things just like a householder. Blessed twilight when two or three are gathered together in His name and He himself is in the midst of them. And blessed is he who knows these things and also does them. Rembrandt knew that, for out of the rich treasure of his heart he brought forth, among other things, that drawing in sepia, charcoal, ink. (which is in the British Museum) depicting the house in Bethany. In that room twilight dominates, the figure of the Lord, noble and impressive, stands out gravely against the window through which the evening twilight falls. Just like the figure of John Halifax. He said he was a Christian, in front of a window with white curtains in a room in Rose Cottage, I think, on an evening like so many that are described with so much feeling in that book. At Jesus’ feet sits Mary, who had chosen that good part which would not be taken away from her, and Martha is in the room busy with something or other, stirring up the fire or something like that, if I remember rightly. I hope not to forget that drawing, nor what it seemed to be saying to me: I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life, the light of the gospel that is preached to the poor in My Father’s Kingdom, that shines, like a candle placed on a candlestick, on all that are in the house. I am come that they shall have life and that they shall have abundance. I am the Resurrection, and the Life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. If a man love Me, My Father will honour him and We will come unto him, and make our abode with him, We will come in to him, and will sup with him. The twilight says such things to those who have ears with which to hear and a heart with which to understand and to have faith in God – blessed twilight.
And it’s also twilight in that painting by Ruipérez, The imitation of Jesus Christ, and also in another etching by Rembrandt, ‘David praying to God’, yes! we may thank ‘blessed twilight’ for the words ‘as the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.
Deep calleth unto deep: all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my God’.
But it isn’t always ‘blessed twilight’, as you see from my handwriting I’m by the lamp upstairs, because there are people downstairs and I can’t sit with them with my books.
Uncle Jan sends you his regards, Hendrik and Marie were here for a day this past week and have now left. Monday a telegram that the Madura had arrived at Southampton. The day of their departure Uncle left in the morning with the 6 o’clock train with Mr Vos, who had come here the previous evening from Utrecht – for Nieuwediep to say goodbye to them on board.
I wish you well, write soon and do come soon, because it’s good to see each other again and to talk, perhaps we could go together to see the exhibition that will open one of these days. Give my regards, too, to your housemates. Old boy, how wonderful it must be to have a life behind one like Pa has, God grant that we be and that we may become more and more sons after His spirit and heart, something may yet come of that, He can raise a person above that which is his nature, His strength can be made perfect in our weakness.
Adieu, accept in thought a handshake from
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Amsterdam, Tuesday, 30 October 1877.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter, which I was glad to get. Yes, old boy, that etching after Jules Goupil is beautiful and forms, with all that’s associated with it, a fine and good whole that is a thing to keep in one’s heart. I rather envy your having read Carlyle, ‘French Revolution’, it’s not unknown to me but didn’t read all of it, I found parts of it in another book, namely by Taine.
Am busy making an extract from Motley, including capture of Den Briel and siege of Haarlem, Alkmaar and Leiden, have drawn a map to go with it, so as to complete it. Have also finished an extract from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s progress. Am working all the time, day in, day out, so some things do get done.
I keep my work together, everything aimed at getting through the exams, I consult Mendes on everything, and model my studies on what he has done, for that is how I’d like to do it too. That history of the 80 Years’ War is really wonderful, anyone would do well to make such a good fight of his life. Truly life is a fight, and one must defend oneself and resist and make plans and calculations with a cheerful and alert mind in order to make it through and get ahead. It becomes no easier the further one gets in life, and it has been rightly said:
Does the road go uphill then all the way? ‘Yes to the very end’ And will the journey take all day long? ‘From morn till night, my friend.’
But by fighting the difficulties in which one finds oneself, an inner strength develops from within our heart, which improves in life’s fight (one matures in the storm), if we always endeavour to keep that heart out of which are the issues of life, good and simple and rich toward God, to restore that and make it thus more and more, and to bear in mind the words that we must have a good conscience before God and before people.
As we regard others so are we regarded by many eyes. It is from the conscience — God’s finest gift, and the proof that His eye is upon us, allseeing and allknowing, and also the assurance that He be not far from every one of us, but as our shade upon our right hand, and that He keeps us from the evil — that our light comes in the darkness of life and of the world. And if we feel an eye watching us, as it were, then it is good to gaze upward sometimes as though seeing Him who is invisible.I know that life of Frederick the Great illustrated by Menzel, that’s a good acquisition, do go on with that collection; I also know that woodcut after Jacque, The sheepfold, do bring those things home with you at Christmas.
Have bought from the Jew that lithograph after L. Steffens of which you once showed me the painting, an old and a young priest conversing in a garden, it’s a good lithograph. The scene reminds me of a painting by Jacquand, photographed in the cartes de visite, it’s called ‘The new vicar’, I believe, it has the same sentiment, and also of The novice by G. Doré.
Old boy, Latin and Greek and studying are difficult, but all the same I feel very happy with it and am doing the things I have longed for. I’m no longer allowed to sit up late in the evenings, Uncle has very strictly forbidden it — yet the words written below the etching by Rembrandt stick in my mind, In medio noctis vim suam lux exerit (In the middle of the night the light diffuses its strength) and I make sure that a small gaslight goes on burning the whole night, and lie looking at it often in medio noctis, thinking about my plan for work the following day and considering how to go about that studying as well as possible. Hope in the winter to light the fire early in the morning (and while obeying Uncle yet letting the light shine in the night and darkness once in a while). The winter mornings have something special about them, Frère painted that in that workman, ‘A cooper’ (the etching is hanging in your room, I believe), among other things.
Fill my soul with a holy bitterness that shall be agreeable to Thee, and I shall humbly spend all the years of my life in Thy service, in the bitterness of my soul, yea, even in Thy Service, O Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. That is certainly a good prayer, and I thought of it when I told you in simplicity that it was good to steep oneself in coffee in everyday life.
A person has needs, and requires strength and fortification to be able to work. And one must make do with what one has and fight with such weapons as are within one’s reach, and use the means at one’s disposal to make the most of it and gain from it.
(You can see from my handwriting that it had grown dark, but now the lamp is on.) Ate hotchpot at Uncle Stricker’s one afternoon, and it occurred to me on that occasion to make that extract from Motley, I’ll show it to you at Christmas. Because here in town I’ve seen and walked over so awfully many doorsteps and church floors and flights of steps up to houses, it occurred to me to make those maps of rocky Scotland, and while colouring them in (green and red) I thought of those pickles that Uncle is so fond of and I’ve grown fond of too. A person’s soul is a singularly strange thing, and it is good, I think, to have one like a map of England made with love and to have in it as much as possible of that love which is holy and beareth all things and believeth all things and hopeth all things and endureth all things and never faileth. That Love is the Light of the world, the true life that is the light of men. The knowledge of languages is certainly a good thing to have, and I follow after in the hope that I might also grasp something of it.
When one eats a crust of black rye bread it’s certainly good to think of the words ‘Tunc justi fulgebunt ut sol in regnum Patris sui’ (Then shall the righteous shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father), or also when one very often has muddy boots or wet, dirty clothes. May we all at sometime enter into that kingdom which is not of this world, where they do not marry and are not given in marriage, where the sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee, but the Lord shall be an Everlasting Light, and God our glory, where the sun shall no more go down, neither shall the moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine Everlasting Light, and the days of mourning shall be ended and God shall wipe away all tears from the eyes. And so we can be leavened with the leaven of ‘sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’, being what we are through God’s grace, having in the secret recesses of the heart the words ‘I never despair’ because we have faith in God. And then ‘Set your face as a flint’ are really good words in many circumstances, and also ‘be like an iron pillar or like an old oak tree’. It’s also good to love thorns, such as the thornhedges around the little English church or the roses in the cemetery, they’re so beautiful these days, yes, if one could make oneself a crown of the thorns of life, not for the people but with which one is seen by God, then one would do well.
I imagine you know the woodcuts by Swain, he’s a clever man, his studio is in such a nice part of London, not far from that part of the Strand where the offices of the illustrated magazines are (Ill. Lond. News, The Graphic, Seeley), not far from Booksellers’ Row either, full of all kinds of bookstalls and shops where one sees all kinds of things, from the etchings of Rembrandt to the Household edition of Dickens and Chandos classics, everything there has a green cast (especially in foggy weather in the autumn, or during the dark days before Christmas), and it’s a place that immediately reminds one of Ephesus, as it is described with such singular simplicity in Acts. (Similarly, the bookshops in Paris are also so interesting, in the Faubourg St Germain, for instance.)
Old boy, how inexpressibly happy I’ll be if I manage to pass my exams, if I conquer the difficulties it will be done in singleness of heart, but also with prayer to God, for I so often pray fervently to Him for the wisdom I’m in need of, and that He may one day grant that I write and deliver many sermons, the more like our Father’s the better, and to complete a Work in my life to which end all things work together for good.
I was at Uncle Cor’s on Monday evening, and also saw Aunt and the whole family, all send you their warm regards. Stayed rather a long time because I hadn’t seen Aunt for a long time and one offends so easily without meaning to by giving the impression of not appreciating and of neglecting people. Looked through that book at Uncle’s, the engraved oeuvre of C. Daubigny. Went from there to Uncle Stricker’s, Uncle was out but a son of the Rev. Meyboom was visiting (brother of Margreet), an officer in the Navy, and his girlfriend and a young man, Middelbeek, who has been in London for a while and is going back there.At 10 o’clock Uncle came home soaking wet, for it was raining quite a lot that evening, and I had a long talk with him and Aunt, because Mendes had paid them a visit a couple of days ago (one shouldn’t utter the word genius lightly, even if one believes that there is more of it in the world than many people think, but Mendes certainly is a very remarkable person, and I’m happy and grateful for my contact with him) and hadn’t given them a bad report, fortunately, but Uncle asked me if it wasn’t difficult, and I admitted that it was very difficult and that I was doing my best to bear up and to be alert in all kinds of ways. He gave me encouragement, however. But now there’s still that terrible algebra and geometry, anyway, we’ll see — after Christmas I have to have lessons in those as well, there’s nothing for it.
I also cling to the church and to the bookshops, if I can think of an errand to do there I do it. Today, for instance, I was at Schalekamp’s and at C.L. Brinkman’s in Hartestraat (that shop of Schalekamp’s is an interesting sight) and bought a couple of maps from the Teachers’ Society, of which there are around 100 at a stuiver apiece, including the Netherlands in every possible historical period. (So often, in the past as well, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me up and reminded me that there are good things in the world.)
Sunday morning I went to the early service and afterwards to the French church, where I heard an outstanding sermon from the Rev. Gagnebin: the house at Bethany. ‘One thing is needful and Mary hath chosen that good part’. That Rev. Gagnebin has a pleasant appearance and a worthy head, and his face has something of the Peace of God which passeth all understanding. He does have something, I think, either of that priest in The last victims of the terror or of that humble and faithful manservant one sees in ‘The women of the boardinghouse’.
That painting by Israëls you describe must be beautiful, I can picture it from your clear description. Saw a small painting of his at C.M.’s, also one by Mauve, very beautiful, shepherd with flock of sheep in the dunes.
A good cheerful letter from home too, fortunately things seem to be going better in Princenhage. I’m longing not a little for Christmas, do bring one thing and another with you, as much as possible, it’s good for all of us. Don’t be in a hurry to send the tobacco; still have some, it’s a good and necessary aid to study.
Wrote a long letter to Harry Gladwell that went off today, also sent your regards. If you have the time and the opportunity, think of Michelet, you know what, and J. Breton, but you know what it’s for and that there’s no hurry, and if necessary Christmas is soon enough. Now, I must get to work and the sheet of paper is nearly full, I wish you well, write if possible, I gave Uncle the receipt enclosed in your letter. Uncle sends you his regards, also Uncle and Aunt Stricker. Bid your housemates goodday from me, and should the opportunity arise also Mauve and his wife and the Tersteegs and Van Stockums (how is she?) and Haanebeeks, and Borchers if you run into him. Blessings on everything you do, I wish you strength and vigour in these autumn days, and let it be Christmas again with us together again before we know it, as it were, adieu, a handshake in thought, and believe me ever
Your most loving brother
Vincent.
Saw 2 photos of Gabriel Max, the raising of Jairus’ daughter and a nun in a convent garden, the first one, in particular, was beautiful.Do you know an engraving after Landseer? It’s called The highlander, I believe, a highlander in a snowstorm on top of a mountain holding an eagle he’s shot.
Amsterdam, Monday, 19 November 1877.
My dear Theo,
I feel the need to write to you again, because I often think of you and long so much for Christmas, when we hope to see each other again. Well, the dark days before Christmas are already in sight, and behind them lies Christmas, just like the kindly light from the houses behind the rocks and the water that breaks against them on a dark evening.
The Christmas celebration was always a bright spot for us, and may it remain so.
An entrance exam has been held at the university here for the first time — it’s here in the city that I’ll sit the exam as well. In addition to the usual 4 subjects of Latin, Greek, algebra and geometry, they also tested history, geography and Dutch.
Have taken pains to find a teacher of Algebra and Geometry and have succeeded, namely a cousin of Mendes, Teixeira de Mattos, a teacher at the Jewish School for the Poor. He gives me hope that we’ll have met the requirements by around October of next year. If I should then pass the exam, things will have gone very well indeed.Because when I started they said that 2 years would be necessary for the first 4 subjects mentioned, whereas if I should pass in October, I’ll have done more in an even shorter time. May God give me the wisdom I need and grant me my heart’s desire, namely to complete my studies as soon as possible and to be inducted into a living and the practical duties of a minister. Doing that work, and being devoted to it, I believe one would be doing what God wants one to do.
The preparatory studies (i.e. those preceding the actual theological study and practice in preaching and speaking) more or less comes down to the history, languages and geography of Greece, Asia Minor (which can be taken to include Palestine) and Italy. So I have to study these just as diligently as a dog gnaws a bone, and similarly I should like to know the languages, history and geography of the northern countries, i.e. those around the North Sea and the English Channel.
Have finally succeeded in making a map of Asia Minor, Greece and Italy, fairly large (which now includes Paul’s travels as well), and also one of England which finally has something of what I wanted it to have, at least Mendes sees it in it, namely that it was not drawn without feeling and love. (I put in the names from a map in the Atlas Antiquus of SprunerMenke that Mendes has, because it’s one to be used for history.) Come on, do your best to take a look at that atlas sometime, likewise the one by Stieler in particular. Because it is artistry. (SprunerMenke, Atlas Antiquus.)On Sunday I heard the Rev. Ten Kate on John XIV:16 (In my Father’s house are many mansions: Whosoever says that, what our Father’s house holds in memories for us, what it promises us). He ended with: The hour is coming in which the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of the people and shall stand up, they that have done good, unto the Resurrection of the Eternal Life. Blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home. The church was so packed that I stood.
Spent two evenings at Uncle Cor’s, once to look at old books (including volumes of L’Illustration in which I found many old acquaintances, that is really an interesting magazine, among other things an old portrait of Dickens and a woodcut by De Lemud, ‘The cup of coffee’, a young man with rather severe and sharp features and a serious expression who looks exactly as though he were thinking about that passage from The imitation, On the monastic life, or as though he were contemplating some difficult but good work or plan, as only a soul in need can. Such work isn’t always the worst, but what one does in sorrow, as it were, lives on. Happy the man who is instructed by Truth itself, not by signs and passing words, but as it is in itself, are good words).
Then I was also at Uncle Cor’s on Aunt’s birthday, i.e. last Friday, they played cards that evening, and because I can’t I sat there reading A. Gruson, Histoire des croisades (Panthéon classique 50 cmes). That’s a very beautiful little book, I would almost say that here and there it was written with the sentiment of Thijs Maris (herewith, among other things, a page that struck me), such as when he paints an old castle on a rock with autumnal woods at twilight, with the black fields with a peasant ploughing with a white horse in the foreground, and it also made me think of Michelet and Carlyle.
I should like so much for Pa to know that etching of A young citizen of the year V. Do you approve of giving it on Pa’s birthday or before then, along with some small photos of the Revolution, so that it forms a whole from which Pa can see what we often think about?
Perhaps you already know that there have been sad tidings today from Brussels, that Pa has already gone there. Uncle Jan, who received a telegram containing this news from Ma, telegraphed Pa and received the answer ‘Condition unchanged don’t come yet I’m here’. Uncle Jan and Uncle Cor were already set to go there together, now they’re awaiting further notice from faithful Pa. Will there then finally be an end to that long and terrible suffering?
Goodbye Theo, write soon, old boy, if you can, may God preserve our health and give us the clarity of mind and the strength and vigour we need every day. Uncle Jan, Uncle Cor and the Stricker family send you their regards, and accept a hearty handshake in thought from
Your loving brother
Vincent
That news about Uncle Hein comes while I’m writing this.Paul Stricker will in all likelihood have to return to Holland because of his health. A good letter from Johan van Gogh, and Willem is also doing relatively well, but does have to look after himself and be careful.
Amsterdam, Sunday, 9 December 1877.
My dear Theo,
I feel the need to write to you without waiting too long, the reason being first of all that I must thank you for three things. First of all, for your excellent fourpage letter, with which you gave me the greatest pleasure, because it does one good to feel that a brother of his also walks and lives on earth, when one has a lot of things to think about and a lot to do, one sometimes gets the feeling, where am I? what am I doing? where am I going? — and one starts to grow dizzy — but then such a familiar voice, or rather familiar handwriting, makes one feel firm ground beneath one’s feet again, as it were.
Then I must thank you for an issue of the Galerie Contemporaine about E. Frère. It’s very interesting and I’m happy to have something by him. And I also thank you for the 10 postage stamps, it really is too much and you shouldn’t have done so much. A hearty handshake for everything.
Now I have a few things to tell you about St Nicholas; I received a good letter from Etten with a money order for a pair of gloves enclosed.
I already had some, however, so I bought something else with the money, namely another map by Stieler, namely Scotland alone. At present I can get them singly at Seyffardt’s, but there probably won’t always be that opportunity. I’ve drawn that map and so have it double, and because I did want to give Harry Gladwell a Christmas present I hope to send it to you for him, to enclose when a crate goes to Paris. one must build one’s house upon a rock, Scotland, Normandy and Brittany are really rather rocky, just take a look at that large map of Scotland when you get it. If I compare the work of studying to the building of a house, and these months to its foundation, then rocks accordingly lie at its base.
But all of this by the by, now more about the evening in question. From Uncle Cor I received Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres, in a very good and handy edition, very complete, it includes, among other things, the fine sermon about Paul on the text ‘for when I am weak, then am I strong’. It’s a noble book, you’ll see it at Christmas, I was so happy with it that until today I’ve been carrying it around in my pocket, though it’s time I stopped that because something might happen to it. From Mendes I received the works of Claudius, also a good, solid book; I had sent him Thomae Kempensis de imitatione Christi and written in the front, There is neither Jew nor Greek in Him, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female: but Christ is all, and in all. From Uncle Stricker a box of cigars, you know what I did with them, they’re always so friendly at the Rooses’ and I’d already been wondering if I had anything to send when that box of cigars arrived as a godsend. And in the evening I found a letter from Uncle Jan lying on my table. Was then briefly at Vos and Kee’s, where Uncle and Aunt Stricker were as well, but couldn’t stay because I had a lesson from 810 with Teixeira. Uncle Jan spent the evening at Uncle Cor’s.Was at Uncle Stricker’s service this morning, i.e. in the Eilandskerk, Uncle Cor was there too. The text was ‘by Thy light shall we see light’. It’s always a nice walk to that Eilandskerk. This afternoon I took another walk around the little English church with those maps of those rocky countries, because I had a feeling that they were connected with that little church.
‘The Church of God stands on a rock’, those words were in this morning’s hymn, and that’s how Ruisdael painted it too, and Millet in the painting in the Luxembourg.
It’s a good plan of yours to write those names etc. on the map of Brittany. Bring it along at Christmas, you know that I did that on the one I drew, then we can compare them. Be sure and do it, for that is good.
You talk about my coming to The Hague again on my way to Etten, I should really like to, would it be possible to stay a night at the Rooses’? If so, then you do not have to write, then I’ll count on it being possible if necessary. I should like to see your room again and the tree with ivy, I hope that will be possible and that I can leave here early enough.
I can’t tell you how much I long for Christmas. And may Pa be satisfied with what I’ve done.
It was such wonderful weather today, and so beautiful among those thornhedges by the little church when night began to fall.
Had a talk with Mendes this week, or rather last week, about ‘He who hate not, even his own life also, he cannot be my disciple’. He declared that expression too strong, but I maintained that it was the simple truth, and doesn’t Thomas a Kempis say it when he talks about knowing oneself and despising oneself?
If we look at others who have done more and are better than we are, then soon enough we come to hate our own life because it’s not as good as that of others. Just look at a man like Thomas a Kempis, constrained by the love of Christ to write that little book, sincere and simple and true as few others were, either before or since. Or in another sphere, just take a look at the work of a Millet or that of a Stieler or The large oaks by Jules Dupré. They did it: ‘let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven’, and Pa is such a man too; and however much we can do, you see, the best thing is to keep our sights on such people and to seek whether we too may perhaps find something. And to believe that it’s true what Pa said, that if someone asks ‘Lord, I should so much like to be earnest’, that it will be heard and granted by God.
Have a good Sunday today, how I’d like to be with you, Uncle Jan has gone to Haarlem so I’m alone this evening, but still have to do as much as I possibly can. You have really given me such pleasure with that magazine on E. Frère. I once saw him myself at Goupil’s, he has something very unpretentious about him. ‘At last, he triumphed’ it says in his biography, may it be so with us one day — that can happen and it is good to say: I never despair.
A person doesn’t get it all at once, and most of those who have become something very good have gone through a long, difficult period of preparation that was the rock upon which their house was founded.
Man is depraved by nature, at best a thief — but — with God’s guidance and blessing he can become something of higher worth, as there came for Paul a day on which he could say with frankness and trust to Herod, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were such as I am, except these bonds.
Thanks for what you write about the lithographs. Something else — you also sent 2 pairs of Christus Consolator and pendant, I was very glad to get them. It could do no harm if you also had that map of Scotland, then you would have three things from that atlas, and the proverb says: all good things come in threes. So count on getting that one too, and by no means buy it yourself, had first wanted to send you this one that is now going to Gladwell, but I consider it my duty to let him hear from me now and again. I hope he’ll be able to go to Lewisham at Christmas. You know that painting by Cuyp in the museum here, an old Dutch family, when he saw that he stood looking at it for a long time and then spoke of ‘the house built on the rock’ and of his home in Lewisham. I, too, have memories of his father’s house and will not easily forget it. Much and strong and great love lives there under that roof, and its fire is in him still, it is not dead, but sleepeth.
Now I have to hurry, for I have to get to work. So in all likelihood I’ll be coming to The Hague next week for a day, Thursday say, possibly later, I have to see how it fits in best with my work. From The Hague I hope to go to Dordrecht, and if it turns out that you can leave Saturday evening, we’ll meet each other at the station in Dordrecht.
In that case I would even spend two nights at the Rooses’, if I’m going to The Hague anyway, it can’t hurt to stay a bit longer and call on some people.
A pity, in a way, that Mauve is going to move, I hope that we’ll go there again together, like that evening last spring, it was really pleasant then.
Now make sure they don’t go to any trouble at the Rooses’. If I can’t stay there you’ll know it without asking them and can write to me, and I’ll take it into account; if I can, tell them only the day before.
I wish you the very best and blessings in your work. You’ll be busy, but actually one should be grateful for pressure and effort and all suchlike things more than for anything else, for it is only by long training in that that one develops. I sincerely hope that you’ll be able to leave Saturday, because at home they’d surely like us to be in Etten the Sunday before Christmas. So goodbye for now, if I hear nothing more from you I’ll come on Thursday or Friday, 20 or 21 December.
I finally decided to hang up that page again from Bargue’s Cours de dessin, Anne of Brittany, yes, man is depraved by nature and at best a thief, but in the battle of life he can become a being of higher worth; a being of higher worth, those words sprang to mind when I had been looking for a long time at the expression on the face of that beautiful woman Anne of Brittany, the expression which explains why she also recalls the words ‘one of Sorrows and acquainted with grief; sorrowful yet always rejoicing’.
Adieu, give my regards to your housemates, and believe me
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Etten, Sunday, 30 December 1877.
My dear Theo,
I wish you much happiness for the new year, may it be blessed for you in many ways. Those were good days, when you were here, though they didn’t last long. My holiday will be over soon, too, but I’ll stay at least a day longer because Pa’s so busy these days, and it would be good to discuss calmly how best to pursue further study.
Pa also has to preach at Princenhage on New Year’s Eve, because the Rev. Kuylman fell and hurt himself, dislocating his arm, and so is unable to take his turn on New Year’s Eve, and Pa has offered to do it for him. So Pa has to preach 9 times in 10 days.
If you haven’t yet sent that map. to Harry Gladwell, wait a while, I hear he’s no longer in Paris, wrote to his father today. I may get a reply and will then add something to the roll.
You forgot to take the etching after Meissonier, I’ll send it to you one of these days with the lithograph after Jules Breton, The fields in winter, because I don’t want to accept it, it belongs in your collection.
It snowed last week and Cor had fun with the sledge and so did I, because I sledged on the road with him and a girl who was staying at the Hackstrohs’. Today Pa, Ma, Cor and I took a lovely walk, you should have been there.
Yesterday I saw the sewing school that Ma now holds in the consistory, it is indeed pleasant, one would like to have a painting of it, there are already quite a few children coming to it.
Another painting has occurred to me that is related to Brittany, namely Ribot, The prayer, a number of children kneeling in a corner of a church at dusk, there’s a large etching by him of the same thing, which you perhaps know. Jacque once made an etching of the same subject, but smaller.
Made a list today of everything I could remember about the French Revolution, so as to write it on the back of the map of France, and I hope gradually to expand on that work, recording, for instance, the most important things about the Middle Ages, or the time of the 80 Years’ War, and so on. One must hold on to what one has seen or what one knows, for it always comes in useful.
If you should make such lists from time to time, send them to me when you have the opportunity, then we can compare them, it’s good to do so — as far as knowledge is concerned, it’s important to hold on to what one has and to absorb it internally as much as one can; especially when one is short of money, it’s good to fill the gaps with this and similar things.Give my regards to all your housemates and wish them all the best from me. It’s not impossible that, on my way to Amsterdam, I could spend another night in The Hague and bring you the prints that you left here myself, but don’t count on it.
Adieu, again I wish you the best, and a hearty handshake in thought from
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Amsterdam, Sunday, 10 February 1878.
My dear Theo,
It’s Sunday evening, and I want to write a few words again, for I also really long to get another letter from you, do write again soon, I am with you so often in thought. I sincerely hope that you’ve had a good Sunday.
As you know, Pa was here and I’m very glad of it, we went together to Mendes, Uncle Stricker, Uncle Cor, Vos and Kee and both Meijjes families, and the most pleasant memory of Pa’s visit is that morning we spent together in my study, looking over my work and talking about all sorts of things. You can imagine that those days flew by and when, after bringing Pa to the station and watching the train or even only the smoke for as long as it was in sight, I came back to my room and Pa’s chair was standing there by the little desk on which the books and notebooks were still lying from the day before, even though I know that we’ll see each other again quite soon, I broke down and cried like a child.
You’ll already have heard that Mendes made a favourable impression on Pa as well. In the evening, at Uncle Cor’s, we saw drawings and books, including Doré’s Bible and Bida’s Le livre de Ruth and Histoire de Joseph.
Was in the English church this morning and met Wierda upon leaving the church, who had been there too. We went for a walk together and he asked me if I’d like to come and see his room, he lives in Weteringstraat, about 10 minutes from Leidsestraat. I told him that for a long time I had wanted to see his room and where and how he lived, so I went along and after drinking coffee I stayed till around 3 o’clock and saw his books and heard a thing or two about his life, where he had been previously and so on, first he was in Bolsward, then in Haarlem and then here. He has worked hard in his life and will probably continue to do so and not give it up easily. Afterwards, at home, translated a passage from Caesar, and this afternoon to Uncle Stricker’s, I go there rather often now that Uncle is out of town and now that it’s lonely again here in the house since Pa left. This evening they went to see Vos, who isn’t any better.
I still have to congratulate you on Pa’s birthday, even though it’s already been and gone, it will have been a good day, with Anna there too, I’m longing for a letter from home to hear how they celebrated that day. Anna was slightly indisposed and hadn’t yet recovered completely, she wrote in a letter that Pa received here. Perhaps Pa read Ma’s letter aloud to you, which she wrote while Pa was here, it told about a visit to a sick person which sounded like something out of Adam Bede.It’s foggy here today, fortunately Pa had good weather so that we could walk quite a lot.
I’m reminding you of that piece by Jules Breton, not that there’s any hurry, but try and remember it sometime.
Because in March you’ll probably make the trip again, won’t you, and also come here again?
Uncle Jan will most likely come back on Tuesday.
You’ll certainly have a lot to do at the beginning of the year, like most people. Wierda, too, unburdened himself on that score this morning.
For me, too, things are beginning to get more and more serious as the exam approaches. I’ll be glad when it grows light a bit earlier in the morning and we’re already beginning to get used to it.
Did Pa remember to give you the photograph of the Maris? The woodcut after Van Goyen, Dordrecht, is hanging in its place. Went recently to see that painting again here in the museum, it is good through and through. The next time you come here I’d like to look through the etchings by Dürer here in the museum again, as we did with Rembrandt’s last time.
It’s no doubt beautiful in Scheveningen on these grey days, do you still go there quite often? Perhaps it’s like that painting by Ruisdael in the museum in The Hague. Do you have the lithograph of it that was once in the Kunstkronijk? It’s really good.
How are things going at Mauve’s? Very well, I hope. Have you been there recently?
I’m currently taking lessons from Uncle Stricker once or twice a week, that is a bonus. Uncle is an expert in it, and I’m glad he could find the time to do it.
Now, old boy, a hearty handshake in thought, I’ll set to work, give my regards to your housemates, and also to Mauve if you run into him, I wish you the very best, write soon, also congratulations on Anna’s birthday, even though it’s still to come, and believe me ever
Your loving brother
Vincent
Goodnight, old boy, I sat up writing till 12 o’clock, a handshake in thought.
Amsterdam, Monday, 18 and Tuesday, 19 February 1878.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter of 17 February, which gave me not a little pleasure, as I had been longing for it so very much. And I’m going ahead and writing again so soon, old chap, because I think of you so often and also long for you, and every morning the prints on the wall of my study remind me of you, Christus Consolator and pendant, that wood engraving after Van Goyen, Dordrecht, the portrait of the Rev. Heldring, The oven by T. Rousseau and so on, because I got them all from you, and so the pot called the kettle black when you wrote that it was so wrong of me to give you a print for your room now and then, if I find something that goes with what you already have. So enough about that, I say in turn, but write and tell me whether you’ve added some good thing or other to your collection, do continue with it, because the way you do it and set about it, it’s most certainly a good work.
Yesterday evening at C.M.’s I saw a whole year of that magazine L’Art, of which you have the issue with the woodcuts after Corot. What especially struck me were woodcuts after drawings by Millet, including The leaffall (shepherd guarding his flock), The flock of crows, donkeys in a marsh (misty effect), The woodcutters, Housekeeper sweeping her house, Farmyard (nocturnal effect), also an etching after Corot, The dune, and after Breton, The feast of Saint John and others, by Chauvel, among others, and also one after Millet, The beans.
Was with Uncle Jan the whole afternoon and evening of Sunday, 17 Feb. at Uncle Cor’s, where Aunt Antje is staying these days.
It was Anna’s birthday, and it was also a good day for me. Got up quite early and went in the morning to the French church, where a minister from the vicinity of Lyon was preaching, he’d come to collect money for an evangelical mission. His sermon consisted mainly of stories from the lives of factory workers there, and although he wasn’t especially eloquent as far as ease of expression goes, and though one even noticed how difficult it was for him and a little awkward, as it were, his words were moving nonetheless, because they came from the heart, and that alone has the power to make an impression on other hearts. Afterwards, at 1 o’clock, I had to be at a Sunday school given by an English minister, Adler, in Barndesteeg, he has a small but very respectable old church there. The school, though, was held in a small room where the light had to be lit even at that hour, i.e. in the middle of the day. There were perhaps some 20 children from that poor neighbourhood. Although he’s a foreigner he nevertheless preaches in Dutch (though the English service), and also gives confirmation classes in Dutch, but very charmingly and capably. Had taken along the sketch of that map of the Holy Land that I’d made for Pa’s birthday (with red chalk on heavy brown paper) and I gave it to him, because I thought that little room a nice place for it, and I’m glad it’s hanging on the wall there.
Had met him at Mr Macfarlane’s, the minister of that little English church in the Begijnhof, where I had ventured to pay a visit. Was received with kindness and hope to go there again sometime.I then paid a visit on Sunday afternoon to Vos, who is but poorly and was lying in bed to rest a little, so I couldn’t see him. And then on to Uncle Stricker and after that to Uncle Cor. This morning I went back to see Vos, for I really wanted to see and speak to him myself. This time I found him up, but he doesn’t look at all well and Kee looked rather tired and pale too.
Spent a long time there, they have a lot of worries, he brings up blood now and then and coughs a lot. Jan is staying at Uncle Stricker’s for a few days.
Apart from visiting the English minister, I also ventured to pay a visit to the Rev. Gagnebin. Now that I’m really getting down to work and have thrown myself into the fight, it’s important to try to do it boldly and to set to work with relative forthrightness, even though there are still many obstacles to be overcome. By working and doing, one grows into the work and the doing of it, and perhaps the best way to acquire sufficient enthusiasm is to take the enthusiasm one has in oneself and to employ it and expend it and use it.
The Rev. Gagnebin took it well and said that I should come back one evening, deciding on this evening, so I have to go there directly, and hope still to write and tell you how it was. Pa also advised me to try and make the acquaintance of a person or two. I did find it pleasant to speak French and English again; it’s a strange feeling if one hasn’t done it for a long time. Old boy, Dickens knew it, didn’t he, when he prayed, Lord keep my memory green yea evergreen. Amen.
Twice I got up early in the morning to work on a sketch of the map of the journeys of Paul that I still had, making it more complete, so that now it looks good, with the names in French even better than on the ones I made for Pa and for my study, with the idea of giving it to him, for if possible I wanted to highlight this visit, because he’s a clever man from whom I may get good advice later on, once he notices from one thing and another that I take it seriously. Also showed him the map of Brittany and Normandy and some French texts I have.
Last week Nico Mager, who’s here in town, came to visit, and that pleased me. The contract he has with Mr Braat will expire in October or November, so he is free, but also compelled by necessity, to seek another position. He’s thinking of venturing abroad and had his eye on Geneva, where he’s been before, perhaps that isn’t such a bad plan after all. If now, meaning by October, there was a vacancy at Goupil’s, that would help him out immediately. He was planning to write to Uncle Cent again, around Uncle’s birthday on 28 March. I’ve seen that he can work well. He’s a nice chap, he asked me to send you his regards if I wrote. From him I also heard some news from Dordrecht. Lord keep my memory green.
I took a walk with him as well. Also told him that I thought that a young man who knew what he knew – namely what one learns when one has worked diligently for some years in a bookshop or similar position – is almost sure to find, after a time of searching and difficulties in London or some other large English city, a position in which he could earn enough to support himself while also learning to speak good English. That once he had found something like that he could count on its being permanent, and that he would thus be secure, as it were, for a few years.One can profit a great deal, especially when one does more than the shop assistants there tend to do, and England certainly has an advantage over Paris in that one has a better chance of finding decent lodgings and a kind of home in middleclass surroundings, which is rather difficult in Paris. And I also told him to ‘hold fast to that which you have already’ and to go forth and see with your own eyes, because having been in a bookshop for so long and having worked there faithfully, as he has done, is an asset.
You must write again soon, and as soon as you know when you’ll be making the trip, I’ll no doubt hear it, and I sincerely hope that when you’re here we’ll be able to spend some time together and that you won’t be too busy.
Was just at the Rev. Gagnebin’s, but was told he was too busy to receive me (and yet he’d stipulated this hour and this day). I heard music in the house, so apparently something or other was going on. I left what I’d made for him and asked for it to be given to him.
I feel the need to do something like that now and then, for it’s most certainly in doubt whether I’ll pass, i.e. all of the requirements, 5 years at the least is a long time, if one begins younger then one succeeds much more easily. Though I can work more and am better able to keep clear from distractions, and I have no desire for those things which many another craves, even so, I notice that I have difficulty learning. And in case I don’t pass, I want nevertheless to be sure of having left a sign of life here and there.
It’s an amazing amount that one has to know, and even though they try to reassure me, it constantly gives me an indescribably strong feeling of fear, and there’s nothing for it but to get back to work again, for it has been clearly shown that I must do it, no matter what the cost. Onwards, then, because standing still or going downhill are things I’d rather not think about. If one did that, one would make things even more difficult and become confused, and actually end up having to start all over from the beginning.
It’s already rather late and I’m really quite tired, for I’ve also walked a lot today. What would it be like at Vos’s? At night he probably often has a bad time of it, what with coughing and bringing up blood.
A good letter from home, fortunately it appears that the journey agreed with Pa. I’m longing to hear how Anna’s birthday was, in all likelihood she’ll celebrate her next one in her own house.
I wish you the very best and blessings on your work and everything you do, write again soon if you can. Give my regards to everyone at the Rooses’, and accept in thought a hearty handshake. Goodnight, and believe me
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Tuesday morning. Apropos. Have you sent those maps to Gladwell, i.e. to London? Haven’t heard from him lately, and should like to know how he is and what his plans are. It’s wonderful weather this morning, must go to Mendes in a little while.
Amsterdam, Sunday, 3 March 1878.
My dear Theo,
It’s time to write to you again, how I should like to have been with you today, it was such beautiful weather here, and one feels that spring is coming.
In the country one would probably have been able to hear a lark, but that’s difficult in the city, unless one notices the sounds of the lark’s song in the voice of some old minister whose words come from a heart tuned like a lark’s.
Heard the Rev. Laurillard this morning, preaching in the Oudezijdskapel, Uncle Stricker was in that church too, and I had coffee with him. Uncle Jan went this morning to ’t Nieuwe Diep, but has come back again. Then to a Sunday school in Barndesteeg, and then walked around the outer canals, visiting three Roman Catholic churches along the way.
Went yesterday to see Vos who is but poorly, it’s such a sad sight, seeing him sitting with his feet on a stove, for he’s troubled by cold feet, staring out the window with his hollow eyes. Kee is just as pale and looks so tired, went from there to Uncle Cor’s again, he’s had the gallery newly wallpapered and a new grey carpet laid on the floor, now those beautiful cupboards containing the whole Gazette des BeauxArts etc. in red volumes stand out better than before. Uncle told me that Daubigny has died, I freely admit that it made me sad to hear it, just as it did to hear that Brion had died (his Saying grace is hanging in my room), because the work of such men, if one understands it, moves one more deeply than one is aware of, it must be truly good, when one dies, to be conscious of having done a thing or two in truth, knowing that as a result one will continue to live in the memory of at least a few, and having left a good example to those who follow. A work that is good — it can hardly last for eternity but the idea expressed in it can, and the work itself almost certainly continues to exist for a long time and, if others appear later, they can do no better than to follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and to do it the same way.
Speaking of a good work, would you care to have a Flemish Imitation of Christ? I hope to send it to you shortly, a little book that one can easily put in one’s pocket if necessary.
When Uncle told me about Daubigny, his etchings after Ruisdael, The bush and The ray of sunlight, came to mind, and he promised to send for them sometime, since he didn’t know them at all.
Was at the Rev. Gagnebin’s last Monday evening and also saw his wife and daughter, and was also in his study, where I talked to him until about 11 o’clock.
He said, among other things, that at certain times in his life he had benefited from forgetting himself altogether and throwing himself into work without a second thought; that he had done a lot then and had later found himself stronger and more advanced in what he intended to do and clear in his mind. That nevertheless, even now, nobody had any idea how much effort his sermons cost him. Have worked my way through the history of the Netherlands and made an extract of 30 pages, closely written. (I was pleased to come across the Battle of Waterloo and the 10day campaign again.) Did you know that Rochussen once painted the siege of Leiden? The painting belongs, I think, to Mr de Vos. Am now working on general history as well. I really long for you to come here again, be sure and do your best to stay as long as possible. And write again soon if you can, for you must know that you always give me so much joy by doing so.
Have you read anything beautiful lately? Do make sure somehow to get hold of and read the books by Eliot, you won’t be sorry, Adam Bede, Silas Marner, Felix Holt, Romola (Savonarola’s story), Scenes of clerical life. You know we gave the 3 underlined ones to Pa on his birthday last year.
When I get the time for reading, I’ll read them again. Both the Rev. Macfarlane and the Rev. Adler spoke to me about them, i.e. advised me to read them.
Wrote to Harry Gladwell again this week, since he didn’t answer my last letter and I wanted so much to know what he’s doing and what he’s planning to do.
I still have hopes of his becoming a minister, and if that happens he’ll do it well, of that I’m convinced, but it would be no easy thing for him to carry it off.
Have you ever seen an etching by Millet himself, a man pushing a wheelbarrow of dung into a garden on a day like today in early spring? And don’t forget that he also made the etching ‘The diggers’, if you ever run into it you won’t easily forget it. Thought today of the former, this morning when Uncle Stricker was looking for texts in which the word dung occurs, one of which is ‘let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it’.
Recently made a list of the paintings by Brion that I could remember, next time you come you must tell me whether I’ve forgotten many. Lord keep my memory green! One must say that over and over again.
Was last Sunday evening at cousin Vrijdag’s in Houttuinen, there are still 7 children at home, it was a pleasant little circle, most of them are still very young.
Couldn’t you say a bit in advance when you’ll be coming? I’ll count on it, then, by working ahead a little so we can spend some time together. Adieu, a handshake in thought, and believe me
Your loving brother
Vincent
Uncle Jan sends you his regards.Bid your housemates goodday from me.
Amsterdam, Wednesday, 3 April 1878.
I’ve been thinking about what we discussed, and I couldn’t help thinking of the words ‘we are today what we were yesterday’. This isn’t to say that one must stand still and ought not try to develop oneself, on the contrary, there are compelling reasons to do and think so.
But in order to remain faithful to those words one may not retreat and, once one has started to see things with a clear and trusting eye, one ought not to abandon or deviate from that.
They who said ‘we are today what we were yesterday’, those were honnêtes hommes, which is apparent from the constitution they drew up, which will remain for all time and of which it has rightly been said that it was written with a ray from on high and a finger of fire. It is good to be an ‘honnête homme’ and truly to endeavour to become one both almost and altogether, and one does well if one believes that being an ‘homme intérieur et spirituel’ is part of it.
If one only knew for certain that one belonged among them, one would always go one’s way, calmly and collectedly, never doubting that things would turn out well. There was once a man who went into a church one day and asked, can it be that my zeal has deceived me, that I have turned down the wrong path and have gone about things the wrong way, oh, if only I could rid myself of this uncertainty and have the firm conviction that I will eventually overcome and succeed. And then a voice answered him, And if you knew that for certain, what would you do? Act now as though you knew it for certain and thou shalt not be ashamed. Then the man went on his way, not faithless but believing, and returned to his work, no longer doubting or wavering.
As far as being an homme intérieur et spirituel is concerned, couldn’t one develop that in oneself through knowledge of history in general and of certain people of all eras in particular, from biblical times to the Revolution and from The odyssey to the books of Dickens and Michelet? And couldn’t one learn something from the work of the likes of Rembrandt or from Weeds by Breton, or The four times of the day by Millet, or Saying grace by Degroux, or Brion, or The conscript by Degroux (or else by Conscience), or his Apothecary, or The large oaks by Dupré, or even the mills and sand flats by Michel? It’s by persevering in those ideas and things that one at last becomes thoroughly leavened with a good leaven, that of sorrowful yet alway rejoicing, and which will become apparent when the time of fruitfulness is come in our lives, the fruitfulness of good works.
The ray from on high doesn’t always shine on us, and is sometimes behind the clouds, and without that light a person cannot live and is worth nothing and can do nothing good, and anyone who maintains that one can live without faith in that higher light and doesn’t worry about attaining it will end up being disappointed.
We’ve talked quite a lot about what we feel to be our duty and how we should arrive at something good, and we rightly came to the conclusion that first of all our goal must be to find a certain position and a profession to which we can devote ourselves entirely.
And I think that we also agreed on this point, namely that one must pay special attention to the end, and that a victory achieved after lifelong work and effort is better than one achieved more quickly.
He who lives uprightly and experiences true difficulty and disappointment and is nonetheless undefeated by it is worth more than someone who prospers and knows nothing but relative good fortune. For who are they, those in whom one most clearly notices something higher? — it is those to whom the words ‘workers, your life is sad, workers, you suffer in life, workers, you are blessed’ are applicable, it is those who show the signs of ‘bearing a whole life of strife and work without giving way’. It is good to try and become thus.
So we go on our way ‘undefessi favente Deo’.
As far as I’m concerned, I must become a good minister, who has something to say that is good and can be useful in the world, and perhaps it’s good after all that I have a relatively long time of preparation and become secure in a firm conviction before I’m called upon to speak about it to others. It is wise, before one begins that work, to gather together a wealth of things that could benefit others.
Do let us go on quietly, examining all things and holding fast to that which is good, and trying always to learn more that is useful, and gaining more experience.
Woespiritedness is quite a good thing to have, if only one writes it as two words, woe is in all people, everyone has reason enough for it, but one must also have spirit, the more the better, and it is good to be someone who never despairs. If we but try to live uprightly, then we shall be all right, even though we shall inevitably experience true sorrow and genuine disappointments, and also probably make real mistakes and do wrong things, but it’s certainly true that it is better to be fervent in spirit, even if one accordingly makes more mistakes, than narrowminded and overly cautious. It is good to love as much as one can, for therein lies true strength, and he who loves much does much and is capable of much, and that which is done with love is well done. If one is moved by some book or other, for instance, just to mention something, ‘The swallow, the lark, the nightingale’, The longing for autumn, ‘From here I see a lady’, ‘Never this unique little village’ by Michelet, it’s because it’s written from the heart in simplicity and with poverty of spirit.
If one were to say but few words, though ones with meaning, one would do better than to say many that were only empty sounds, and just as easy to utter as they were of little use.
Love is the best and most noble thing in the human heart, especially when it has been tried and tested in life like gold in the fire, happy is he and strong in himself who has loved much and, even if he has wavered and doubted, has kept that divine fire and has returned to that which was in the beginning and shall never die. If only one continues to love faithfully that which is verily worthy of love, and does not squander his love on truly trivial and insignificant and fainthearted things, then one will gradually become more enlightened and stronger. The sooner one seeks to become competent in a certain position and in a certain profession, and adopts a fairly independent way of thinking and acting, and the more one observes fixed rules, the stronger one’s character becomes, and yet that doesn’t mean that one has to become narrowminded.
It is wise to do that, for life is but short and time passes quickly. If one is competent in one thing and understands one thing well, one gains at the same time insight into and knowledge of many other things into the bargain.
It’s sometimes good to go about much in the world and to be among people, and at times one is actually obliged and called upon to do so, or it can be one way of ‘throwing oneself into one’s work unreservedly and with all one’s might’, but he who actually goes quietly about his work, alone, preferring to have but very few friends, goes the most safely among people and in the world. One should never trust it when one is without difficulties or some worry or obstacle, and one shouldn’t make things too easy for oneself. Even in the most cultured circles and the best surroundings and circumstances, one should retain something of the original nature of a Robinson Crusoe or a savage, for otherwise one hath not root in himself, and never let the fire in his soul go out but keep it going, there will always be a time when it will come in useful. And whosoever continues to hold fast to poverty for himself, and embraces it, possesses a great treasure and will always hear the voice of his conscience speaking clearly. Whosoever hears and follows the voice in his innermost being, which is God’s best gift, ultimately finds therein a friend and is never alone. Happy is he who has faith in God, for he shall overcome all of life’s difficulties in the end, though it be not without pain and sorrow. One cannot do better than to hold fast to the thought of God and endeavour to learn more of Him, amidst everything, in all circumstances, in all places and at all times; one can do this with the Bible as with all other things. It is good to go on believing that everything is miraculous, more so than one can comprehend, for that is the truth, it is good to remain sensitive and lowly and meek in heart, even though one sometimes has to hide that feeling, because that is often necessary, it is good to be very knowledgeable about the things that are hidden from the wise and prudent of the world but that are revealed as though by nature to the poor and simple, to women and babes. For what can one learn that is better than that which God has put by nature into every human soul, that which in the depths of every soul lives and loves, hopes and believes, unless one should wilfully destroy it? There, in that, is the need for nothing less than the boundless and miraculous, and a man does well if he is satisfied with nothing less and doesn’t feel at home until he has acquired it.
That is the avowal that all great men have expressed in their works, all who have thought a little more deeply and have sought and worked a little harder and have loved more than others, who have launched out into the deep of the sea of life. Launching out into the deep is what we too must do if we want to catch anything, and if it sometimes happens that we have to work the whole night and catch nothing, then it is good not to give up after all but to let down the nets again at dawn.
So let us simply go on quietly, each his own way, always following the light ‘sursum corda’, and as such who know that we are what others are and that others are what we are, and that it is good to have love one to another namely of the best kind, that believeth all things and hopeth all things, endureth all things and never faileth.
And not troubling ourselves too much if we have shortcomings, for he who has none has a shortcoming nonetheless, namely that he has none, and he who thinks he is perfectly wise would do well to start over from the beginning and become a fool.
We are today what we were yesterday, namely ‘honnêtes hommes’, but ones who must be tried with the fire of life to be innerly strengthened and confirmed in that which they are by nature through the grace of God.
May it be so with us, old boy, and I wish you well on your way, and God be with you in all things, and make you succeed at that, that is what is wished you with a hearty handshake at your departure by
Your most loving brother
Vincent
It’s only a very small light, the one in the room of the Sunday school in Barndesteeg, let me keep it burning; in any event, if I don’t do it, I don’t think that Adler is the kind of man who would let it go out.
Amsterdam, Monday, 13 May 1878.
>My dear Theo,
It’s time you received a few words from me, Pa already wrote that you’ve arrived safely and have already written how you roamed around the city the first few days. I’m really longing to hear what your impressions are of this and that, and that’s why I urge you to write a few words as soon as you can find the time. It’s true, though, that first impressions don’t last, for we know all too well that all that glitters is not gold, and that when there is a friendly dawn there is a midnight too, and scorching and oppressive heat in the afternoon. But just as the morning hour is a blessed hour and the early bird catches the worm, so it is with first impressions, and they have their value even though they pass, for it is they which later appear to have been correct, and one comes back to them. The first thing that attracts and strikes a child is the light, and an old man also searches again fearfully for it. So write and tell me what you saw during those first few days, and what you thought.
You’ll have heard that Lies didn’t pass her exam and has fallen ill, and that because she longed so much for home, Ma went to fetch her, poor girl, it will be no small disappointment for her and for everyone at home, and yesterday was perhaps a less cheerful Sunday. Pa nevertheless wrote again, and in his mouth that is the truth, that with all disappointment and at every serious moment of life, faith becomes more alive and stronger.
The weather has been beautiful here the last few days, and probably in Paris too. You’ll soon notice that in the summer it’s at times rather warmer there than it is here, and you’ll probably see stormy skies like those Bonington painted. It’s really a nice neighbourhood where you live. If one roams the streets there, whether in the morning or evening, or walks in the direction of Montmartre, one is struck by many workshops and many rooms that recall ‘a cooper’ or The seamstresses or other paintings by E. Frère, and it does one good sometimes to see such things, which are simple, as one occasionally sees a good many people who for various reasons have strayed a long way from everything that is natural, thereby throwing away their true and inner lives, and also many who are rooted in misery and loathsome things, because in the evening and at night one sees all manner of those dark figures walking about, both men and women, who personify, as it were, the terror of the night, and whose misery must be classified among the things that have no name in any language.
Vos isn’t well, he has coughed up blood again more than once. Was there recently one afternoon when he was up, sitting hand in hand with Kee, both of them dressed in black and their faces equally pale, looking out of the window at the Church and the trees across the street, when there was a dark stormy sky and the leaves and the dust were whirling around in a strange way and the pavingstones looked so much whiter than usual, and the little black figures of the people stood out against them so much more sharply, as is often the case before a thunderstorm. He has become so much paler and thinner than when you saw him, and sometimes looks like a ghost. It has become a veritable house of mourning, and Uncle Stricker’s too, in fact, for when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, for they have been planted together.
Last week one of the ministers here died who was very well known throughout the country (Pantekoek). The funeral was on Saturday, it was something that reminded one of ‘In memoriam’, that procession along the path by the green borders of the Amstel. He was the father of 6 children, the eldest around 20. A very large crowd followed, literally jostling one another. Yesterday there were sermons occasioned by the event in nearly every church. Heard Uncle Stricker, among others, who had been a close acquaintance of his. It was his turn to preach in the Oudezijdskapel, where the boys from the orphanage and those from the nautical college usually go. There was a lot of spirit in it, spoke, among other things, of the words: Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? It was a long and terrible suffering that was his lot. Heard one of his last sermons one evening, and even then it was clearly evident from what he said that he trembled at and recoiled from each new day and night, and especially from one that followed upon the effort of preaching. Even then one couldn’t hear him without feeling for him, as it were, and one couldn’t help shuddering, for it is a dark path, the one to his long home, and happy is he who, when that darkness and night are approaching, is strengthened even then by the hope for a better life and the resurrection as we know befell Mary Magdalen and Him Whom she supposed to be the gardener in the garden by the sepulchre, by the hope: who knows what shall be on the morrow? Saw his son yesterday at the early service, if one can compare the faces of people with other faces, then his looks very much like an eagle, especially then, when he was stricken by what had just happened.
You must try to read some beautiful book or other over there, by Michelet, for instance, on the Revolution or something by Thoré or T. Gautier on Paris and the time of the young painters and writers. Oh, old boy, how I’d like to roam through the city with you.
Hope to take a long walk today through a neighbourhood I haven’t seen much of yet. I found the house in Breestraat where Rembrandt lived. We talked about it, you know, when you were here.
Don’t forget about that painting in the Luxembourg, He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me, and write and tell me who made it.
It can be so glorious in Paris in the autumn, well, you’ll be seeing something of it at the end of September.
Give my warm regards to everyone at the Soeks’, I still think so often of an excursion I made with his family to Villed’Avray. Going into the church there, it struck me that there was, I believe, even more than one painting by Corot hanging there. You know that he spent a lot of time there.
Bid goodday to Braat, and Mutters too. I wish you well, and write soon, and accept in thought a hearty handshake, and believe me ever
Your most loving brother
Vincent.
I still have to thank you for your portrait, I’m very glad to have it, it turned out very well. Thanks for sending it.
Etten, Monday, 22 July 1878.
My dear Theo,
I’m enclosing a note in the letter from Pa and Ma; was glad to hear things are still going well for you there, and that you also continue to enjoy life. How much I’d like to walk with you there.
As Pa has certainly already written to you, Pa and I went to Brussels last week in the company of the Rev. Jones of Isleworth, who stayed here over Sunday. The impression we brought home from that journey was satisfactory inasmuch as we think that, with time, a place and position can be found there — that the road is most certainly shorter and less expensive than in Holland, and that it’s therefore best to fix our eyes on Belgium and to go on looking there until we find something.
We saw the Flemish training college, it has a 3year course while, as you know, in Holland the study would take another 6 years at the very least. And one is not even required to complete the training before competing for a place and position as an Evangelist. What is required is the talent to give easy, warmhearted and popular lectures or speeches to the people, better short and to the point than long and learned. So less attention is paid to great knowledge of ancient languages and much theological study, although everything one knows about such things is a great recommendation, and more consideration is given to one’s suitability for practical work and one’s natural faith. We aren’t there yet, though, first of all because one doesn’t suddenly possess, nor can one acquire it except by much practice, the gift of speaking to the people with earnestness and feeling and without stiffness and forcedness, but naturally and as though constrained by love and as a master of his subject matter, knowing how to say what one has to say to the people clearly and understandably, while what one has to say must have meaning and import and strong grounds to whet his listeners’ interest in it, that they shall endeavour to let their affections take root in truth. In a word, one must be a lay preacher to succeed over there.Those gentlemen in Brussels wanted me to come there for a period of 3 months to make closer acquaintance, but in the long run this, too, would be costly, and that must be avoided as much as possible. It’s for this reason that at present I shall continue here in Etten to do some work as preparation, going from here from time to time to pay a visit to the Rev. Pieterszen in Mechelen or the Rev. De Jonge in Brussels, in so doing becoming more closely acquainted with one another.
How long things go on like this depends entirely on what else they’ll say over there. Both Pa and I have just written to them again.
Pa wants me to write, to the best of my ability, a theme or two to have on hand (I’m now busy, for instance, on Rembrandt’s painting ‘The carpenter’s house’ in the Louvre).
Yesterday Pa had to preach at Zundert, and I went along. The Aunts sent you their regards, we also went to C. van Ginneken who, as you’ve probably heard, is going to marry Marie van Mens and has bought the Ropsentuin to put a tannery there.
Was also at Jan Doomen’s, who has been suffering a lot from rheumatism in his leg, and complains that he wouldn’t even be able to walk to Breda any more, but it didn’t bother him so much working in the field or the garden, only in the morning the pain drove him to get up very early. Old age is accompanied by ailments, the old Rev. Meijjes would say.
What an outstandingly beautiful wood engraving of ‘A young citizen of the year V’ by Jules Goupil was recently published in L’Illustration! Have you seen it? Have managed to get hold of one and it’s now hanging on the wall of the little room here where I’m allowed to take up residence, i.e. the classroom that looks out on the garden and against which the ivy grows. But regarding that painting, the magazine said this: ‘Eyes that have seen the spectacle of the dreadful guillotine, a mind that has survived all the sights of the Revolution. He is almost surprised to find himself still alive after so many disasters’.
It was a remarkable presence in art and will continue to have a similar effect on many and continue to make a deep impression on those with a feeling for high art, like a portrait by Fabritius or some other rather mystical paintings from the school of Rembrandt.
In the evening, when we rode back from Zundert over the heath, Pa and I walked a way, the sun set red behind the pines and the evening sky was reflected in the marshes, the heath and the yellow and white and grey sand were so resonant with tone and atmosphere. You see, there are moments in life when everything, within us too, is peace and atmosphere, and all of life seems to be like a path across the heath, though it isn’t always so.
And this morning Cor, who’s on holiday, and I went to the heath and the pinewood again, a way past Molenend, and went to fetch heather for his rabbits, which are apparently very fond of it, for it’s their natural food for a good part, as well as a thing or two to fill a flower basket. We sat for a while in the pinewood, and together we drew a map of Etten and its surroundings with the Bremberg and Haansberg and ’t Slagveld and Geestestraat and Sprundel and Het Heike and Hoeven.
Anna is but poorly, she’s so quiet and sometimes looks so very weak — poor sister — it seems to me that it’s better to be well and truly married than to be engaged, and I should sincerely wish for her sake that she were already safely three years or so further along in life — may God spare her and protect her from all evil, He about Whom it is written that He is our Keeper and our Shade upon our right hand.
Would you give my warm regards to Soek and all his family (if you happen to go there), also to Frans Braat and Ernest and the others if the opportunity should arise? I think about you a lot and am so glad that things are going well for you and that you’re finding things over there that stimulate you and are, as it were, good food for the true life. That too is high art, as are the works of those who work with their heart and with their mind and spirit, just as so many you know and will perhaps meet personally, whose words and works are spirit and life. That you too, and, if possible, all of us may become more and more rooted and grounded in that same principle, so that our affections take root in truth, this is wished you with a hearty handshake in thought by
Your most loving brother
Vincent.
Etten, Thursday, 15 August 1878.
My dear Theo,
I’m enclosing a few words with Pa and Ma’s letter to bid you good morning. It’s raining outside and has done so a lot lately, with strong winds too. It was nice the day Anna and Joan registered their banns. Now that Joan is here, Anna looks a lot more cheerful and better than before. For their honeymoon they’re thinking of making a journey through Belgium, first to Brussels and from there probably south to Liège or Chaudfontaine or the cave in Han. Wrote and told the Rev. De Jonge that I was ready to come to Brussels straightaway if work or duty should call me, but that if there were no sound reasons that made it desirable for me to go there now, I’d like to stay here another week (because of Anna’s wedding), coming in that case before Sunday, 25 Aug. I’m very curious to know whether the exhibition of paintings there will still be open, I should so much like to see it.
Things are very sad at Princenhage, Aunt suffers a lot, and they’re all very worried about her.
I long for a word from you, hope to write to you in more detail as soon as I’m in Brussels, also about the exhibition, at least if it isn’t over yet.
Give my regards to Braat and Soek, if you see them, and Ernest. Adieu, I wish you the very best, not a day goes by that we don’t speak of you. Do write again soon, and accept a hearty handshake in thought from
Your loving brother
Vincent
In haste.
Laken, on or about Wednesday, 13 and Friday, 15 or Saturday, 16 November 1878.
My dear Theo,
On the evening of the day we spent together, which for me passed as if in a twinkling, I want to write to you after all. It was a great joy for me to see and talk to you again, and it’s fortunate that such a day that passes in a twinkling and a joy of such short duration nevertheless remains in our memory, and that the remembrance of it is of a lasting nature. After we’d taken leave of each other I walked back, not the shortest way but along Trekweg. There are workshops of all kinds there that look pleasant, especially lit up in the evening, which also speak in their own way to us who are, after all, labourers and workers, each in the sphere and in the work whereunto we have been called, if only we care to listen, for they say, work while it is day, before the night cometh, when no man can work, and they remind us that the Father worketh hitherto, and that we too must work.
It was the very moment when the streetsweepers were coming home with their carts with old white horses, there was a long line of those carts standing by the socalled sludge works at the beginning of Trekweg. Some of those old white horses resemble a certain old aquatint that you perhaps know, an engraving with no very great artistic value but which nevertheless struck me and made an impression on me. I mean the last of the series of prints titled ‘The life of a horse’. That print depicts an old white horse, emaciated and spent and worn out to death by a long life of heavy labour and much and difficult work. The poor animal stands in an indescribably lonely and forsaken place, a plain with lank, withered grass and here and there a twisted tree, bent and cracked by the storm wind. On the ground lies a skull and in the distance, in the background, the bleached skeleton of a horse lying next to a hut, where the man who slaughters horses lives.
A stormy sky hangs over the whole, it’s a foul and bleak day, sombre and dark weather. It’s a sorrowful and profoundly melancholy scene that must move everyone who knows and feels that we, too, must one day go through that which we call dying, and that at the end of human life there are tears or grey hair. What lies beyond is a great mystery that God alone comprehends, who has however revealed this irrefutably in His word, that there is a resurrection of the dead.
The poor horse — the old faithful servant, stands patient and submissive, but courageous nonetheless and as resolute, as it were, as the old guard who said ‘the guard dies but does not surrender’ — waits for its final hour. I couldn’t help thinking of that print this evening when I saw those dustcart horses. And now, as far as the drivers themselves are concerned, with their dirty, dingy clothes, they seemed to be sunk or rooted in poverty almost more deeply than that long row or rather group of poor people drawn by master Degroux in his paupers’ pew. Write and tell me if you know that print. I’d like to speak to the dustmen, if they would only come and sit in the paupers’ pew and consider it worthwhile to come and hear about the gospel and the lot of the poor and God, too, their Keeper and their Shade upon their right hand. You see, it always strikes me and it is remarkable, when we see the image of unutterable and indescribable forsakenness — of loneliness — of poverty and misery, the end of things or their extremity — the thought of God comes to mind. At least this is the case with me, and doesn’t Pa also say: There is no place I would rather speak than a cemetery, for there we are all on equal ground — there we not only stand on equal ground but there we also feel that we are standing on equal ground, and elsewhere we don’t always feel that.
I’m glad that we saw the museum together, especially the works by Degroux and Leys and so many other remarkable paintings, such as that landscape by Coosemans, among others. I’m very happy about the two prints you gave me, but you should have let me give you that small etching, The three mills. Now you’ve paid it all yourself, not just half of it as I had so wished — you must keep it in your scrapbook, however, because it’s remarkable, even though it isn’t very well executed. In my ignorance I’d think it attributable to Peasant Bruegel rather than to Velvet Brueghel. I hereby enclose that scratch, ‘The Au charbonnage café’. I should really rather like to start making rough sketches of some of the many things one meets along the way, but considering I wouldn’t actually do it very well and it would most likely keep me from my real work, it’s better I don’t begin. As soon as I got home I began working on a sermon on ‘the barren fig tree’, Luke XIII:69.I sincerely hope that you’ll have had good days at home, that you also will have stayed over Sunday and found things well at Princenhage.
When you arrive home in The Hague write a quick note if you can find the time, and be sure to give my warm regards to the Rooses. That little drawing, ‘The Au charbonnage café’ is really nothing special, but the reason I couldn’t help making it is because one sees so many coalmen, and they really are a remarkable people. This little house is not far from Trekweg, it’s actually a simple inn right next to the big workplace where the workers come in their free time to eat their bread and drink a glass of beer. Back during my time in England I applied for a position as an evangelist among the coalminers, but they brushed my request aside and said I had to be at least 25 years old. You surely know that one of the root or fundamental truths, not only of the gospel but of the entire Bible, is ‘the light that dawns in the darkness’. From darkness to Light. Well then, who will most certainly need it, who will have an ear to hear it? Experience has taught us that those who work in darkness, in the heart of the earth like the mineworkers in the black coalmines, among others, are very moved by the message of the gospel and also believe it. In the south of Belgium, in Hainaut, from around the area of Mons to the French borders and even extending far beyond them, there is a region called the Borinage, where there is one of those populations of labourers who work in the many coalmines. I found this and other things about them in a geography book: The Borins (people who live in the Borinage, an area west of Mons) do nothing but mine coal. They’re an impressive sight, these coalmines, opened up 300 metres underground, down which a working population worthy of our respect and sympathy descends every day. The coalminer is a type peculiar to the Borinage; daylight hardly exists for him, and he scarcely enjoys the sun’s rays except on Sunday. He works with great difficulty by the light of a lamp whose illumination is pale and feeble, in a narrow gallery, his body bent double, and sometimes forced to crawl; his work is to pull from the earth’s entrails this mineral substance whose great usefulness we know, he thus works in the midst of a thousand constantly recurring dangers, but the Belgian foreman has a cheerful character, he’s used to this way of life, and when he goes down the pit, his hat topped with a little lamp whose job is to guide him in the darkness, he entrusts himself to his God Who sees his labours and Who protects him, his wife and his children. His clothing consists of a hat of boiled leather, a jacket and a pair of canvas trousers. So the Borinage lies to the south of Lessines, where one finds the stonequarries.
I should like to go there as an evangelist. The threemonth trial period set by Messrs De Jonge and the Rev. Pieterszen is nearly over. Paul spent three years in Arabia before he became active as a preacher and began his great missionary journeys and his actual work among the heathens. If I could spend three years or so in a similar region, working in peace and always learning and observing, then I wouldn’t return from there without having something to say that is indeed worth hearing; I say this in all humility yet with frankness. If God wills it and spares my life, I’d be ready by about the age of 30 and could begin, with my special training and experience, having more mastery of my affairs and more maturity for the work than I do now. I’m writing this to you again, even though we’ve already talked about it. There are already a number of small Protestant congregations in the Borinage, and certainly schools as well, may God point me to a place where I can be active as an evangelist in the way we spoke about, by preaching the gospel to the poor, thus to those who have need of it and for whom it is suited to perfection, and devoting my time during the week to teaching.You’ve no doubt been to SaintGilles. I once took a walk from there to the ‘old boundary mark’. Where the road to Mont Saint Jean begins there’s another hill, the Alsemberg. Here, on the right, is the cemetery of SaintGilles, full of cedars and ivy, from which one can look out over the city. Further on one comes to Forest. The region is very picturesque there, standing on the high slopes are old houses like the huts in the dunes that Bosboom painted. One sees people doing all kinds of farm work, sowing wheat, lifting potatoes, washing turnips, and everything, right down to woodgathering, is picturesque and looks very much like Montmartre.
There are old houses with ivy or Virginia creeper and charming inns, among the houses I noticed was that of a mustardmaker, one Verkissen. His place would be perfect for a painting by Thijs Maris, for example. There are places here and there where stones are found and therefore small quarries to which sunken roads with the deep ruts of cart tracks lead, where one sees small white horses with red tassels and drivers with blue smocks, and the shepherd is not lacking, nor old women in black with white caps reminiscent of those by Degroux. There are also places here — as there are everywhere, for that matter, thank God — where one feels at home more than elsewhere, where one gets a remarkable, familiar feeling like homesickness, which has something bitterly melancholy about it but which nevertheless strengthens and awakens the spirit in us and gives us new strength and appetite for work and stimulates us, we know not how or why. That day I walked on, past Forest, and took a side road to an old church overgrown with ivy. I saw many lime trees, even more entwined with one another and even more Gothic, so to speak, than those we saw in the park, and at the side of the sunken road leading to the cemetery twisted bushes and the roots of trees, as gnarled as those Dürer etched in ‘Knight, Death and the Devil’. Have you ever seen a painting, or rather a photo of it, by Carlo Dolci, The Garden of Olives? There’s something Rembrandtesque about it, saw it recently. You no doubt know the large, rough etching of the same subject after Rembrandt, being the pendant of the other, Reading the Bible, with those two women and the cradle. It came to mind after you told me that you had seen the painting by père Corot of the same subject; I saw it at the exhibition of his work shortly after he died, and it moved me deeply.
How much there is in art that is beautiful, if only one can remember what one has seen, one is never empty or truly lonely, and never alone.
Adieu Theo, I shake your hand right heartily in thought, I wish you well, may you thrive in your work and encounter many good things on your path in life, such as stay in the memory and make us rich though we seemingly have nothing. If you see Borchers sometime, be so good as to tell him that I thank him very much for his letter of some time ago. If you go to Mauve’s, give him my regards, and believe me
Your loving brother
Vincent
I kept this letter for a couple of days. 15 Nov. has passed, so the three months are up. Spoke with the Rev. De Jonge and with Master Bokma, they say there is no opportunity to be at the school under the same conditions they offer to native Flemings — I can attend the lessons, for free if necessary — but this is the only privilege — in order to stay, therefore, I would need to have more financial means at my disposal than I do now, which is none. So I’ll probably soon try the Borinage plan. Once out of the city I shan’t easily return to a big city. It wouldn’t be easy to live without believing in Him and without having the faith of old in Him, and without that one would lose heart.
Wasmes, Thursday, 26 December 1878.
My dear Theo,
It’s time I write to you again, first of all to wish you happiness at the beginning of a new year. May much good be your share, and God’s blessing be on your work in this year that we’re beginning.
I’m eagerly longing for a letter from you, to hear again how things are going and how you are, also perhaps to hear if you have recently seen anything beautiful or remarkable.
As far as I’m concerned, you surely understand that there are no paintings here in the Borinage, that in general they haven’t the slightest idea of what a painting is, so it goes without saying that I’ve seen absolutely nothing in the way of art since my departure from Brussels. But this doesn’t mean that this isn’t a very special and very picturesque country, everything speaks, as it were, and is full of character. There was snow these last few days, the dark days before Christmas. Then everything was reminiscent of the medieval paintings by Peasant Bruegel, among others, and by so many others who were so good at expressing the singular effect of red and green, black and white. Time and again, what one sees here reminds one of the work of Thijs Maris or Albrecht Dürer, for example.
There are sunken roads here, overgrown with thornbushes and with old, twisted trees with their gnarled roots, which look exactly like that road in the etching by Dürer, The knight and Death.
These last few days, for instance, it was an extraordinary sight, with the white snow in the evening around the twilight hour, seeing the workers returning home from the mines. These people are completely black when they come out of the dark mines into the daylight again, they look just like chimneysweeps. Their houses are usually small and could better be called huts, scattered along the sunken roads and in the wood and against the slopes of the hills. One sees mosscovered roofs here and there, and the light shines kindly in the evening through the smallpaned windows.Just as in Brabant we have the copse and the oak wood, and in Holland the pollard willows, so here one sees those black thornbushes around the gardens, fields and land. The recent snow gave it the effect of letters written on white paper, like the pages of the gospel.
I’ve already spoken here at various times, both in a fairly large room, specially furnished for religious meetings, and in the gatherings that are customarily held in the workers’ houses in the evenings, which one can best call Biblereading. Spoke, among other things, on: the parable of the mustard seed, the barren fig tree, the man who was blind from his birth. On Christmas, of course, on the stable of Bethlehem, and Peace on earth.
May it come to pass with God’s blessing that I be placed here permanently somewhere; I should sincerely wish it.
Everywhere around here one sees the big chimneys and the huge mountains of coal at the entrance to the mines, the socalled coalpits. You know that large drawing by Bosboom, Chaudfontaine, it conveys the character of the land here well, only here everything is coal, in the north of Hainaut stonequarries, and Chaudfontaine more iron ore.
I still think so often of that day when you were in Brussels and of our visit to the Museum. And I often wish that you were a bit closer and we could be together more often. Do write again soon. Again and again I look at that etching of A young citizen. The mineworkers’ language is not all that easy to understand, but they understand normal French well if one can speak it rapidly and fluently, then it naturally resembles their dialect, which is spoken amazingly fast. At a gathering this week I spoke on the text Acts XVI:9 ‘And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.’ And they listened attentively when I tried to describe what that Macedonian was like who needed and longed for the comfort of the gospel and the knowledge of the Only True God. How we should imagine him as a worker with signs of sorrow and suffering and fatigue on his face, without form or glory but with an immortal soul that has need of the meat which endureth unto everlasting life, namely the Word of God, for man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
How Jesus Christ is the Master who can strengthen, comfort and enlighten a man like the Macedonian, a workman and labourer who has a hard life. Because He himself is the great Man of Sorrows, who knows our diseases, who himself is called the carpenter’s son, even though He was the Son of God and the great physician of sick souls. Who worked for 30 years in a humble carpenter’s workshop to carry out God’s will; and God wants man to live and walk humbly upon the earth, in imitation of Christ, minding not high things, but condescending to men of low estate, learning from the gospel to be meek and lowly in heart.
I’ve already had the opportunity to visit a few sick people, for many people here are ill. Wrote today to the president of the Comité d’Evangelisation to request that my case be brought before the next meeting of the committee.
It thawed last night, I cannot tell you how picturesque the hilly countryside looks in the thaw, now that the snow is melting and the black fields with the green of the winter wheat are again becoming visible. For foreigners the villages here are truly a maze, with countless narrow streets and alleyways with the small houses of the workers, at the foot of the hills as well as on their slopes and at the top. It can best be compared to a village like Scheveningen, especially the poor quarters, or to those villages in Brittany that we know from paintings. For that matter, you rode through this region yourself on the railway journey to and from Paris, and maybe remember it a little. The Protestant churches are small, similar to the one in Hoeven, but slightly larger, but where I spoke was only a simple, large room that can hold a hundred people if necessary. I also attended a service in a stable or barn, so it’s quite simple and novel.
Write soon when you have the time, and remember that you are repeatedly, even constantly, in my thoughts. Wishing again that God’s best blessings may be your share in the new year, and shaking your hand in thought, believe me ever
Your most loving brother
Vincent
Give my regards to everyone at the Rooses’ and wish them all, and anyone who should happen to ask after me, a happy New Year. If you write, please address your letter care of M. Vanderhaegen, Colporteur à Pâturages près de Mons (Borinage Haînaut).
Wasmes, between Tuesday, 4 and Monday, 31 March 1879.
My dear Theo,
I heard from Pa and Ma that they were recently surprised by a visit from you, just when Pa had returned from here. I’m very glad that Pa was here. Together we visited the 3 ministers of the Borinage and walked through the snow and visited a miner’s family and saw coal being hauled up from a mine called Les trois Diefs (the three heaps of earth) and Pa attended two Bible readings, so we did a great deal in those couple of days. I believe that Pa received an impression of the Borinage that he won’t easily forget, as it would be with anyone who visited this singular, remarkable and picturesque region of the country.
It’s been a long time since I wrote to you. If, with God’s blessing, I succeed in getting settled here, then you must come here sometime, perhaps when you have to go to Paris again, or tying it in with a business trip.
I recently found in the house of an elderly man who had worked in the mines for many years a list of all the seams of coal south of Mons, which are 155 in number. The country and the people here appeal to me more each day, one has here a familiar feeling as though on the heath or in the dunes, there’s something simple and kindhearted about the people. Those who have left here are homesick for their country, just as, conversely, foreigners who are homesick may come to feel at home here.How are Mauve and Maris? Have you seen a lot lately? The spring that is beginning will renew and change their subject matter. What did Israëls make this winter? How much they would notice here that would make an impression on them! When the cart with a white horse (l’blanc ch’val) brings an injured man home from the mine, one sees things that remind one of Israëls’s shipwreck, and over and over again there is something that moves one.
Write a few words soon, and remember that if you tell me about the painters, I still understand something of it, even though it’s been a long time since I’ve seen many paintings.
Have rented a small house where I’d really like to live entirely on my own, but which now serves only as a workplace or study, because Pa thinks it better that I board with Denis, and I do too. I have prints on the wall there and all sorts of things.
I have to go out and visit the sick as well as the healthy. Write soon, and I wish you the very best.
Give my regards to Mauve, if you see him, and to your housemates.
Spring is beginning, for one hears larks here, and in the woods the branches and buds are beginning to sprout, especially the alders, but when Pa was here everything was covered with snow, so that Pa saw the singular effect of the black coalpits and the many black chimneys in the snow. There are many places here that remind one of that drawing by Bosboom, Chaudfontaine.
Adieu, a handshake in thought, and believe me ever
Your loving brother
Vincent
Petit-Wasmes, between Tuesday, 1 and Wednesday, 16 April 1879.
My dear Theo,
It’s time that you hear something from me again. I heard from home that you were in Etten for a couple of days and that you were travelling for the firm. I sincerely hope that your trip went well.
These days you’ll no doubt be in the dunes and in Scheveningen now and then. Here it’s also attractive in the country in the spring; here and there are places where one could imagine oneself in the dunes, because of the hills.
I went on a very interesting excursion not long ago; the fact is, I spent 6 hours in a mine.
In one of the oldest and most dangerous mines in the area no less, called Marcasse. This mine has a bad name because many die in it, whether going down or coming up, or by suffocation or gas exploding, or because of water in the ground, or because of old passageways caving in and so on. It’s a sombre place, and at first sight everything around it has something dismal and deathly about it. The workers there are usually people, emaciated and pale owing to fever, who look exhausted and haggard, weatherbeaten and prematurely old, the women generally sallow and withered. All around the mine are poor miners’ dwellings with a couple of dead trees, completely black from the smoke, and thornhedges, dungheaps and rubbish dumps, mountains of unusable coal. Maris would make a beautiful painting of it.
Later I’ll try and make a sketch of it to give you an idea of it. Had a good guide, a man who has already worked there for 33 years, a friendly and patient man who explained everything clearly and tried to make it understandable.
We went down together, 700 metres deep this time, and went into the most hidden corners of that underworld.
The maintenages or gradins (cells where the miners work) that are farthest removed from the exit are called ‘des caches’ (hidden places, places where one searches). This mine has 5 levels, 3 of which, the uppermost ones, are exhausted and abandoned, one no longer works in them because there’s no more coal. If anyone were to try and make a painting of the maintenages, that would be something new and something unheardof or rather neverbeforeseen. Imagine a series of cells in a rather narrow and low passageway, supported by rough timberwork. In each of the cells is a worker in a coarse linen suit, dingy and soiled as a chimneysweep, chipping away at the coal by the dim light of a small lamp. In some of the cells the worker stands upright, in others (‘seams worked lying down’) he lies flat on the ground.
The arrangement is more or less like the cells in a beehive, or like a dark, sombre passageway in an underground prison, or like a series of small looms, or actually they look like a row of ovens such as one sees among the peasants, or like the separate tombs in a vault. The passageways themselves are like the large chimneys of the Brabant farmsteads.
In some, water leaks in everywhere and the light of the miner’s lamp creates a peculiar effect and reflects as in a cave full of stalactites. Some of the miners work in the maintenages, others load the loosened coal into small wagons that are transported along rails resembling a tramway. It’s mostly children who do this, both boys and girls. There’s also a stable there, 700 metres below ground, with around 7 old horses that transport larger amounts, bringing them to the socalled accrochage, that being the place where they’re hauled up. Other workers are busy restoring the antiquated passageways to prevent them from caving in, or are making new passageways in the coal seam. Just as sailors on land are homesick for the sea, despite all the dangers and difficulties that threaten them, so the mineworker would rather be below ground than above.
The villages here have something forsaken and still and extinct about them, because life goes on underground instead of above. One could be here for years, but unless one has been down in the mines one has no clear picture of what goes on here.
The people here are very uneducated and ignorant, and most of them can’t read, yet they’re shrewd and nimble in their difficult work, courageous, of rather small build but squareshouldered, with sombre, deepset eyes. They’re skilled at many things and work amazingly hard. Very nervous dispositions, I mean not weak but sensitive. Have a festering and deeprooted hatred and an innate distrust of anyone who tries to boss them around. With charcoalburners one must have a charcoalburner’s nature and character, and no pretensions, pridefulness or imperiousness, otherwise one can’t get on with them and could never win their trust.Did I tell you at the time about the miner who was badly burned by a gas explosion? Thank God he has now recovered and goes out and about and is beginning to take long walks as practice, his hands are still weak and it will be some time before he’s able to use them for his work, yet he has been saved. But since then there have been quite a few cases of typhus and virulent fever, including what is known as ‘foolish fever’, which causes one to have bad dreams such as nightmares and delirium. So there are again many sickly and bedridden people, lying emaciated on their beds, weak and miserable.
In one house everyone is sick with fever, and they have little or no help, which means that there the sick are taking care of the sick. ‘Here it is the sick who nurse the sick,’ said the woman, just as it is the poor who befriend the poor.
Have you seen anything beautiful recently? I’m eagerly longing for a letter from you.
Has Israëls been working a lot lately, and Maris and Mauve?
A couple of nights ago a foal was born in the stable here, a nice small creature that was quick to stand firmly on its feet. The workers keep a lot of goats here, and there are young ones in the houses everywhere, just like the rabbits commonly to be found in the workers’ houses.
Must go out and visit the sick, so have to finish now, let me hear from you soon, to give a sign of life, should you have the time.
Give my regards to your housemates, and to Mauve when you get the chance, I wish you the very best, and believe me ever, with a handshake in thought,
Your loving brother
Vincent
Going down in a mine is an unpleasant business, in a kind of basket or cage like a bucket in a well, but then a well 500700 metres deep, so that down there, looking upward, the daylight appears to be about as big as a star in the sky. One has a feeling similar to one’s first time on a ship at sea, but worse, though fortunately it doesn’t last long. The workers get used to it, but even so, they never shake off an unconquerable feeling of horror and dread that stays with them, not without reason or unjustifiably. Once down there, however, it isn’t so bad, and the effort is richly rewarded by what one sees.
Wasmes, on or about Thursday, 19 June 1879.
My dear Theo,
It’s already rather late, i.e. nearly 12 o’clock, but I still want to write a few words to you today. First of all, because it was such a long time ago that I wrote to you — but old chap, what should I write to you? — am swamped with all kinds of work here, so that the days pass by, but often one doesn’t even have time to think or do things that would otherwise appeal to one. But what particularly compels me to write is what I heard from home, namely that they’ve offered to send you to Paris for 6 weeks. If you go there, you’ll pass by the Borinage. Wouldn’t you consider spending a day here, or longer if possible? I’d so much like you to know this country, because there’s so very much that’s unique to be noticed by those who look at things closely. Wouldn’t it be remarkable for someone who had never seen a seaside village to see Scheveningen or Katwijk or some other village? Well then — there’s no sea here, but the character of all things is interesting and worth getting to know. So should you feel the desire and are so inclined, and can find the time and opportunity, please stop over here, but write ahead of time when you’re coming and whereabouts I can find you, at which station and on which train.
I’ll give this letter to Ma when she comes, because in all likelihood I’ll be meeting her when she returns from Paris. Am eagerly longing to see her.
Fortunately for Uncle, the danger seems to have been averted for the time being.
What affected me deeply was hearing that Frans Soek died, I’d like to hear some particulars in the matter from you, if you happen to know anything, poor chap, life wasn’t easy for him, but rather quite a struggle.
We had a terrible storm here a couple of days ago, around 11 o’clock in the evening. There’s a place nearby where one can see in the distance, below, a large part of the Borinage, with the chimneys, mountains of coal, small workers’ houses, small black figures moving about during the day as though in an ants’ nest, in the far distance dark fir woods with small white workers’ houses in front of them, a couple of little towers in the distance, an old mill. Usually a sort of fog hangs over it, or else there’s the fanciful effect of light and shade owing to the shadows of clouds that remind one of paintings by Rembrandt or Michel or Ruisdael. But on the occasion of that storm in the pitchblack night, it was a special effect caused by the flashes of lightning that made everything visible just for a moment now and then. Nearby, the large, sombre buildings of the Marcasse mine, standing alone and set apart on the flat field, which that night, during the violent rains, truly reminded one of the hulk of Noah’s ark, as it would have appeared in the darkness of the Flood by the light of a lightning flash. Inspired by the impression made by that storm, I included a description of a shipwreck in the Bible reading this evening.
Am currently reading Uncle Tom’s cabin a lot — there’s still so much slavery in the world — and in that astonishingly beautiful book this extremely momentous matter is treated with such wisdom, with a love and a zeal and interest in the genuine welfare of the poor and oppressed, that one can’t help coming back to it again and again and finding more in it each time.
I know no better definition of the word Art than this, ‘Art is man added to nature’, nature, reality, truth, but with a meaning, with an interpretation, with a character that the artist brings out and to which he gives expression, which he sets free, which he unravels, releases, elucidates.
A painting by Mauve or Maris or Israëls speaks more and more clearly than nature itself. So it is with books as well, and in Uncle Tom’s cabin in particular, things have been put in a new light by the artist, and thus in that book, even though it’s already beginning to be an old book, i.e. one written years ago, all things are made new. It’s so subtly felt, it’s so well worked out, it’s so masterly. It was written with so much love, so much seriousness and so faithful to the truth and with knowledge of the subject. It’s so humble and simple but at the same time so truly sublime, so noble and so distinguished.
Recently read a book about the English coalmining district, but it didn’t give very many details. Herewith a woodcut for your scrapbook.
Lately made the acquaintance of someone who supervised the workers for years. Is of humble origins but worked his way up. Now he has a chest complaint, quite serious, and can no longer stand the terribly exhausting work down in the mine. It’s very important to hear him talk about the subject. He has always remained the workmen’s friend (in contrast to many others who worked their way up, not because of true distinction but because of money, driven by motives less noble and many times more base). He has a labourer’s heart, true and honest and courageous, but is far above most of them as regards intellectual development.
On more than one occasion during a strike, he was the only person who could exert any influence on the workers.
They would hear no one, they would listen to no one but him, and at the critical moment no one was obeyed but him alone. When I met him for the first time, I thought of the etching after Meissonier, with which you are familiar, The reader. One of Denis’s boys is as good as engaged to his daughter, which is why he comes here to the house, though but seldom, and I made his acquaintance. Since then I’ve visited him a few times.
Have you ever read Legouvé’s Les pères et les enfants, that’s a remarkable book, found it there in the house and read it with interest.
Received a letter a few days ago from the Rev. Jones of Isleworth in which he writes about the building of wooden churches here in the Borinage. Is it feasible? Is it desirable? He has a mind to work towards that goal, i.e. erecting the first of such buildings.
Even talks about coming over here sometime in the autumn to discuss the matter.
I truly wish that such a thing may come to pass.
Write a few words if you have time, and if you can, stop here on your way to Paris. In any event, let me know if possible on which train you’ll be passing through one of the railway stations in the vicinity of Wasmes, and which station, because I’ll do my best to be there.
Blessings on your work, and believe me ever
Your loving brother
Vincent
Cuesmes, Tuesday, 5 August 1879.
My dear Theo,
I’m writing to you in haste. Won’t you be going to Paris quite soon now? If so, write and tell me which day and what time, and in all likelihood I’ll see you at the station. If you have time to stay here for a day, or longer or shorter, I sincerely wish that this could happen.
Would be able to show you some drawings, types from here, not that they alone make it worth your while to get off the train, but here you would easily find something that appeals to you in the scenery and in the singularity of everything, for there’s so much picturesque character in everything in this region. Have you ever read Dickens, ‘Les temps difficiles’, I’m giving you the title in French because there’s a very good French translation for 1.25 francs published by Hachette, Bibliothèque des meilleurs romans étranger. It’s masterly, one of the characters is a worker, Stephen Blackpool, who’s well portrayed and extremely likeable.
Was recently in Brussels and MariaHorebeke and Tournai, partly on foot.
Am at the following address at the momentMr Francq. Evangelist in CUESMES (at Marais, near Mons).There have been a lot of storms here lately.
Come on, old chap, if you can arrange it, come and stay over till the next train.
Was recently in a studio, the Rev. Pieterszen’s, who paints in the style of Schelfhout or Hoppenbrouwers and really understands art.
He asked me for one of my sketches, a mineworker’s type. Often sit up drawing until late at night to have some keepsakes and to strengthen thoughts that automatically spring to mind upon seeing the things. But old boy, I don’t have any time, had to write urgently to Mr Tersteeg to thank him for the box of paints he sent and the sketchbook, already half full. In Brussels I bought another large sketchbook with old Dutch paper from a Jewish bookseller.
If I should get to see you, how pleased I’d be, I promise you Dickens, Les temps difficiles, if you want to come and fetch it, but otherwise I’ll send it when I get the chance.
Adieu, accept a handshake in thought, and believe me ever
Yours truly,
Vincent
Cuesmes, between about Monday, 11 and Thursday, 14 August 1879.
My dear Theo,
It’s mainly to tell you that I’m grateful for your visit that I’m writing to you. It was quite a long time ago that we saw each other or wrote to each other as we used to. All the same, it’s better that we feel something for each other rather than behave like corpses towards one another, the more so because as long as one has no real right to be called a corpse by being legally dead, it smacks of hypocrisy or at least childishness to pose as such. Childish in the manner of a young man of 14 years who thinks that his dignity and social standing actually oblige him to wear a top hat. The hours we spent together in this way have at least assured us that we’re both still in the land of the living. When I saw you again and took a walk with you, I had the same feeling I used to have more than I do now, as though life were something good and precious that one should cherish, and I felt more cheerful and alive than I had been for a long time, because in spite of myself life has gradually become or has seemed much less precious to me, much more unimportant and indifferent. When one lives with others and is bound by a feeling of affection one is aware that one has a reason for being, that one might not be entirely worthless and superfluous but perhaps good for one thing or another, considering that we need one another and are making the same journey as travelling companions. Proper selfrespect, however, is also very dependent on relations with others.
A prisoner who’s kept in isolation, who’s prevented from working, would in the long run, especially if this were to last too long, suffer the consequences just as surely as one who went hungry for too long. Like everyone else, I have need of relationships of friendship or affection or trusting companionship, and am not like a street pump or lamppost, whether of stone or iron, so that I can’t do without them without perceiving an emptiness and feeling their lack, like any other generally civilized and highly respectable man — and I tell you these things to let you know what a salutary effect your visit had on me.
And just as I wished that we not drift apart, this is also the case with regard to those at home. Even so, at the moment I really dread going there and am strongly inclined to stay here. It could, however, be my fault, and you could be right in thinking that I don’t see things straight, which is why it may be that, despite my great reluctance and notwithstanding that it’s a hard journey, I’m going to Etten for at least a few days.
As I think back on your visit with thankfulness, our talks naturally come to mind. I’ve heard such talks before, many, in fact, and often. Plans for improvement and change and raising the spirits — and yet, don’t let it anger you, I’m a little afraid of them — also because I sometimes acted upon them and ended up rather disappointed. How much has been well thought out that is, however, impracticable.
The time spent at Amsterdam is still so fresh in my memory. You were there yourself, and so you know how the pros and cons were weighed, considered and deliberated upon, reasoned with wisdom, how it was well meant — and yet how pitiful the result, how daft the whole business, how grossly stupid. I still shudder at the thought. It was the worst time I’ve ever gone through. How desirable and appealing the rather difficult and troubled days here in this poor country, in these primitive surroundings, seem to me compared with then. Something similar, I fear, will be the result of following wise counsel given with the best of intentions.
For such experiences are pretty drastic for me. The damage, the sorrow, the heart’s regretfulness is too great for both of us not to have learned the hard way. If we don’t learn from this, what shall we then learn from? A striving such as reaching the goal set before me, as it was put then, truly that is an ambition that won’t easily take hold of me again, the desire to achieve it has cooled considerably, and I now look at things from a different perspective, even though it may sound and look attractive, and even though it’s unacceptable to think about it as experience taught me to think about it. Unacceptable, yes, just as, for example, Francq the Evangelist finds it unacceptable that I declared the sermons given by the Rev. Jean Andry to be only slightly more evangelical than the sermons of a priest. I would rather die a natural death than be prepared for it by the academy, and have occasionally had a lesson from a grassmower that seemed to me more useful than one in Greek.
Improvement in my life — should I not desire it or should I not be in need of improvement? I really want to improve. But it’s precisely because I yearn for it that I’m afraid of remedies that are worse than the disease. Can you blame a sick person if he looks the doctor straight in the eye and prefers not to be treated wrongly or by a quack?
Does someone who has consumption or typhus do wrong by maintaining that a stronger remedy than barley water might be useful or even necessary, or, finding that barley water in itself can do no harm, nevertheless doubts its efficacy and potency in his particular case?
The doctor who prescribed barley water mustn’t say, this patient is a stubborn person who is set upon his own ruin because he doesn’t want to take medicine — no, because the man is not unwilling, but the socalled medicine was unsuitable, because it was indeed ‘it’ but still not yet ‘it’ at all.
Do you blame someone if he fails to be moved by a painting which is recorded in the catalogue as a Memling but which has nothing to do with Memling other than that it’s a similar subject from the Gothic period but without artistic value?
And if you should now assume from what I’ve said that I intended to say you were a quack because of your advice then you will have completely misunderstood me, since I have no such idea or opinion of you.
If, on the other hand, you think that I thought I would do well to take your advice literally and become a lithographer of invoice headings and visiting cards, or a bookkeeper or a carpenter’s apprentice — likewise that of my very dear sister Anna to devote myself to the baker’s trade or many other things of that kind (quite remarkably diverse and mutually exclusive) — which it was suggested I pursue, you would also be mistaken. But, you say, I’m not giving you this advice for you to follow to the letter, but because I thought you had a taste for idling and because I was of the opinion that you should put an end to it.
Might I be allowed to point out to you that such idling is really a rather strange sort of idling. It’s rather difficult for me to defend myself on this score, but I would be sorry if you couldn’t eventually see this in a different light. I also don’t know if I would do well to counter such accusations by following the advice to become a baker, for example. That would really be a sufficient answer (supposing it were possible for us to assume the guise of a baker or haircutter or librarian with lightning speed) and yet actually a foolish response, rather like the way the man acted who, when accused of heartlessness because he was sitting on a donkey, immediately dismounted and continued on his way with the donkey on his shoulders.
And, joking apart, I honestly think it would be better if the relationship between us were more trusting on both sides. If I must seriously feel that I’m annoying or burdensome to you or those at home, useful for neither one thing nor another, and were to go on being forced to feel like an intruder or a fifth wheel in your presence, so that it would be better I weren’t there, and if I should have to continue trying to keep further and further out of other people’s way — if I think that indeed it would be so and cannot be otherwise, then I’m overcome by a feeling of sorrow and I must struggle against despair.
It’s difficult for me to bear these thoughts and more difficult still to bear the thought that so much discord, misery and sorrow, in our midst and in our family, has been caused by me.
If it were indeed so, then I’d truly wish that it be granted me not to have to go on living too long. Yet whenever this depresses me beyond measure, all too deeply, after a long time the thought also occurs to me: it’s perhaps only a bad, terrible dream, and later we’ll perhaps learn to understand and comprehend it better. But is it not, after all, reality, and won’t it one day become better rather than worse? To many it would no doubt appear foolish and superstitious to believe in any improvement for the better. Sometimes in winter it’s so bitterly cold that one says, it’s simply too cold, what do I care whether summer comes, the bad outweighs the good. But whether we like it or not, an end finally comes to the hard frost, and one fine morning the wind has turned and we have a thaw. Comparing the natural state of the weather with our state of mind and our circumstances, subject to variableness and change, I still have some hope that it can improve.
If you write, soon perhaps, you will make me happy. Just in case, address your letter care of J.Bte Denis, rue du PetitWasmes à Wasmes (Hainaut).
Walked to Wasmes after your departure that evening. Have since drawn a portrait.
Adieu, accept in thought a handshake, and believe me
Yours truly,
Vincent
Cuesmes, between about Tuesday, 22 and Thursday, 24 June 1880.
My dear Theo,
It’s with some reluctance that I write to you, not having done so for so long, and that for many a reason. Up to a certain point you’ve become a stranger to me, and I too am one to you, perhaps more than you think; perhaps it would be better for us not to go on this way. It’s possible that I wouldn’t even have written to you now if it weren’t that I’m under the obligation, the necessity, of writing to you. If, I say, you yourself hadn’t imposed that necessity. I learned at Etten that you had sent fifty francs for me; well, I accepted them. Certainly reluctantly, certainly with a rather melancholy feeling, but I’m in some sort of impasse or mess; what else can one do? And so it’s to thank you for it that I’m writing to you.
As you may perhaps know, I’m back in the Borinage; my father spoke to me of staying in the vicinity of Etten instead; I said no, and I believe I acted thus for the best. Without wishing to, I’ve more or less become some sort of impossible and suspect character in the family, in any event, somebody who isn’t trusted, so how, then, could I be useful to anybody in any way? That’s why, first of all, so I’m inclined to believe, it is beneficial and the best and most reasonable position to take, for me to go away and to remain at a proper distance, as if I didn’t exist. What moulting is to birds, the time when they change their feathers, that’s adversity or misfortune, hard times, for us human beings. One may remain in this period of moulting, one may also come out of it renewed, but it’s not to be done in public, however; it’s scarcely entertaining, it’s not cheerful, so it’s a matter of making oneself scarce. Well, so be it. Now, although it may be a thing of rather demoralizing difficulty to regain the trust of an entire family perhaps not entirely devoid of prejudices and other similarly honourable and fashionable qualities, nevertheless, I’m not utterly without hope that little by little, slowly and surely, a good understanding may be re-established with this person and that. In the first place, then, I’d like to see this good understanding, to say no more, re-established between my father and me, and I would also be very keen that it be re-established between the two of us. Good understanding is infinitely better than misunderstanding. I must now bore you with certain abstract things; however, I’d like you to listen to them patiently.
I, for one, am a man of passions, capable of and liable to do rather foolish things for which I sometimes feel rather sorry. I do often find myself speaking or acting somewhat too quickly when it would be better to wait more patiently. I think that other people may also sometimes do similar foolish things. Now that being so, what’s to be done, must one consider oneself a dangerous man, incapable of anything at all? I don’t think so. But it’s a matter of trying by every means to turn even these passions to good account. For example, to name one passion among others, I have a more or less irresistible passion for books, and I have a need continually to educate myself, to study, if you like, precisely as I need to eat my bread. You’ll be able to understand that yourself. When I was in different surroundings, in surroundings of paintings and works of art, you well know that I then took a violent passion for those surroundings that went as far as enthusiasm. And I don’t repent it, and now, far from the country again, I often feel homesick for the country of paintings.
You may perhaps clearly remember that I knew very well (and it may well be that I still know) what Rembrandt was or what Millet was, or Jules Dupré or Delacroix or Millais or M. Maris. Good — now I no longer have those surroundings — however, that something that’s called soul, they claim that it never dies and that it lives for ever and seeks for ever and for ever and for evermore. So instead of succumbing to homesickness, I said to myself, one’s country or native land is everywhere. So instead of giving way to despair, I took the way of active melancholy as long as I had strength for activity, or in other words, I preferred the melancholy that hopes and aspires and searches to the one that despairs, mournful and stagnant. So I studied the books I had to hand rather seriously, such as the Bible and Michelet’s La révolution Française, and then last winter, Shakespeare and a little V. Hugo and Dickens and Beecher Stowe, and then recently Aeschylus, and then several other less classic authors, several good minor masters. You well know that one who is ranked among the minor (?) masters is called Fabritius or Bida. Now the man who is absorbed in all that is sometimes shocking, to others, and without wishing to, offends to a greater or lesser degree against certain forms and customs and social conventions. It’s a pity, though, when people take that in bad part. For example, you well know that I’ve frequently neglected my appearance, I admit it, and I admit that it’s shocking. But look, money troubles and poverty have something to do with it, and then a profound discouragement also has something to do with it, and then it’s sometimes a good means of ensuring for oneself the solitude needed to be able to go somewhat more deeply into this or that field of study with which one is preoccupied. One very necessary field of study is medicine; there’s hardly a man who doesn’t try to know a little bit about it, who doesn’t try to understand at least what it’s about, and here I still don’t know anything at all about it. But all of that absorbs you, but all of that preoccupies you, but all of that makes you dream, ponder, think. And now for as much as 5 years, perhaps, I don’t know exactly, I’ve been more or less without a position, wandering hither and thither. Now you say, from such and such a time you’ve been going downhill, you’ve faded away, you’ve done nothing. Is that entirely true? It’s true that sometimes I’ve earned my crust of bread, sometimes some friend has given me it as a favour; I’ve lived as best I could, better or worse, as things went; it’s true that I’ve lost several people’s trust, it’s true that my financial affairs are in a sorry state, it’s true that the future’s not a little dark, it’s true that I could have done better, it’s true that just in terms of earning my living I’ve lost time, it’s true that my studies themselves are in a rather sorry and disheartening state, and that I lack more, infinitely more than I have. But is that called going downhill, and is that called doing nothing? Perhaps you’ll say, but why didn’t you continue as people would have wished you to continue, along the university road?
To that I’d say only this, it costs too much and then, that future was no better than the present one, on the road that I’m on. But on the road that I’m on I must continue; if I do nothing, if I don’t study, if I don’t keep on trying, then I’m lost, then woe betide me. That’s how I see this, to keep on, keep on, that’s what’s needed. But what’s your ultimate goal, you’ll say. That goal will become clearer, will take shape slowly and surely, as the croquis becomes a sketch and the sketch a painting, as one works more seriously, as one digs deeper into the originally vague idea, the first fugitive, passing thought, unless it becomes firm. You must know that it’s the same with evangelists as with artists. There’s an old, often detestable, tyrannical academic school, the abomination of desolation, in fact — men having, so to speak, a suit of armour, a steel breastplate of prejudices and conventions. Those men, when they’re in charge of things, have positions at their disposal, and by a system of circumlocution seek to support their protégés, and to exclude the natural man from among them. Their God is like the God of Shakespeare’s drunkard, Falstaff, ‘the inside of a church’; in truth, certain evangelical (???) gentlemen find themselves, by a strange conjunction (perhaps they themselves, if they were capable of human feeling, would be somewhat surprised) find themselves holding the very same point of view as the drunkard in spiritual matters. But there’s little fear that their blindness will ever turn into clear-sightedness on the subject. This state of affairs has its bad side for someone who doesn’t agree with all that, and who protests against it with all his heart and with all his soul and with all the indignation of which he is capable. Myself, I respect academicians who are not like those academicians, but the respectable ones are more thinly scattered than one would believe at first glance. Now one of the reasons why I’m now without a position, why I’ve been without a position for years, it’s quite simply because I have different ideas from these gentlemen who give positions to individuals who think like them. It’s not a simple matter of appearance, as people have hypocritically held it against me, it’s something more serious than that, I assure you.
Why am I telling you all this? — not to grumble, not to apologize for things in which I may be more or less wrong, but quite simply to tell you this: on your last visit, last summer, when we walked together near the disused mine they call La Sorcière, you reminded me that there was a time when we also walked together near the old canal and mill of Rijswijk, and then, you said, we were in agreement on many things, but, you added — you’ve really changed since then, you’re not the same any more. Well, that’s not quite how it is; what has changed is that my life was less difficult then and my future less dark, but as far as my inner self, as far as my way of seeing and thinking are concerned, they haven’t changed. But if in fact there were a change, it’s that now I think and I believe and I love more seriously what then, too, I already thought, I believed and I loved. So it would be a misunderstanding if you were to persist in believing that, for example, I would be less warm now towards Rembrandt or Millet or Delacroix, or whomever or whatever, because it’s the opposite. But you see, there are several things that are to be believed and to be loved; there’s something of Rembrandt in Shakespeare and something of Correggio or Sarto in Michelet, and something of Delacroix in V. Hugo, and in Beecher Stowe there’s something of Ary Scheffer. And in Bunyan there’s something of M. Maris or of Millet, a reality more real than reality, so to speak, but you have to know how to read him; then there are extraordinary things in him, and he knows how to say inexpressible things; and then there’s something of Rembrandt in the Gospels or of the Gospels in Rembrandt, as you wish, it comes to more or less the same, provided that one understands it rightly, without trying to twist it in the wrong direction, and if one bears in mind the equivalents of the comparisons, which make no claim to diminish the merits of the original figures. If now you can forgive a man for going more deeply into paintings, admit also that the love of books is as holy as that of Rembrandt, and I even think that the two complement each other. I really love the portrait of a man by Fabritius, which one day, also while taking a walk together, we looked at for a long time in the Haarlem museum. Good, but I love Dickens’s ‘Richard Cartone’ in his Paris et Londres en 1793 just as much, and I could show you other strangely vivid figures in yet other books, with more or less striking resemblance. And I think that Kent, a man in Shakespeare’s King Lear, is just as noble and distinguished a character as any figure of Th. de Keyser, although Kent and King Lear are supposed to have lived a long time earlier. To put it no higher, my God, how beautiful that is. Shakespeare — who is as mysterious as he? — his language and his way of doing things are surely the equal of any brush trembling with fever and emotion. But one has to learn to read, as one has to learn to see and learn to live. So you mustn’t think that I’m rejecting this or that; in my unbelief I’m a believer, in a way, and though having changed I am the same, and my torment is none other than this, what could I be good for, couldn’t I serve and be useful in some way, how could I come to know more thoroughly, and go more deeply into this subject or that? Do you see, it continually torments me, and then you feel a prisoner in penury, excluded from participating in this work or that, and such and such necessary things are beyond your reach. Because of that, you’re not without melancholy, and you feel emptiness where there could be friendship and high and serious affections, and you feel a terrible discouragement gnawing at your psychic energy itself, and fate seems able to put a barrier against the instincts for affection, or a tide of revulsion that overcomes you. And then you say, How long, O Lord! Well, then, what can I say; does what goes on inside show on the outside? Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way. So now what are we to do, keep this fire alive inside, have salt in ourselves, wait patiently, but with how much impatience, await the hour, I say, when whoever wants to, will come and sit down there, will stay there, for all I know? May whoever believes in God await the hour, which will come sooner or later. Now for the moment all my affairs are going badly, so it would seem, and that has been so for a not so inconsiderable period of time, and it may stay that way for a future of longer or shorter duration, but it may be that after everything has seemed to go wrong, it may then all go better. I’m not counting on it, perhaps it won’t happen, but supposing there were to come some change for the better, I would count that as so much gained; I’d be pleased about it, I’d say, well then, there you are, there was something, after all.
But you’ll say, though, you’re an execrable creature since you have impossible ideas on religion and childish scruples of conscience. If I have any that are impossible or childish, may I be freed from them; I’d like nothing better. But here’s where I am on this subject, more or less. You’ll find in Souvestre’s Le philosophe sous les toits how a man of the people, a simple workman, very wretched, if you will, imagined his mother country, ‘Perhaps you have never thought about what your mother country is, he continued, putting a hand on my shoulder; it’s everything that surrounds you, everything that raised and nourished you, everything you have loved. This countryside that you see, these houses, these trees, these young girls, laughing as they pass by over there, that’s your mother country! The laws that protect you, the bread that is the reward of your labour, the words that you exchange, the joy and sadness that come to you from the men and the things among which you live, that’s your mother country! The little room where you once used to see your mother, the memories she left you, the earth in which she rests, that’s your mother country! You see it, you breathe it everywhere! Just think, your rights and your duties, your attachments and your needs, your memories and your gratitude, put all that together under a single name, and that name will be your mother country.’ Now likewise, everything in men and in their works that is truly good, and beautiful with an inner moral, spiritual and sublime beauty, I think that that comes from God, and that everything that is bad and wicked in the works of men and in men, that’s not from God, and God doesn’t find it good, either. But without intending it, I’m always inclined to believe that the best way of knowing God is to love a great deal. Love that friend, that person, that thing, whatever you like, you’ll be on the right path to knowing more thoroughly, afterwards; that’s what I say to myself. But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more. That leads to God, that leads to unshakeable faith. Someone, to give an example, will love Rembrandt, but seriously, that man will know there is a God, he’ll believe firmly in Him. Someone will make a deep study of the history of the French Revolution — he will not be an unbeliever, he will see that in great things, too, there is a sovereign power that manifests itself. Someone will have attended, for a time only, the free course at the great university of poverty, and will have paid attention to the things he sees with his eyes and hears with his ears, and will have thought about it; he too, will come to believe, and will perhaps learn more about it than he could say. Try to understand the last word of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces; there will be God in it. Someone has written or said it in a book, someone in a painting. And quite simply read the Bible, and the Gospels, because that will give you something to think about, and a great deal to think about and everything to think about, well then, think about this great deal, think about this everything, it raises your thinking above the ordinary level, despite yourself. Since we know how to read, let’s read, then! Now, afterwards, we may well at times be a little absent-minded, a little dreamy; there are those who become a little too absent-minded, a little too dreamy; that happens to me, perhaps, but it’s my own fault. And after all, who knows, wasn’t there some cause; it was for this or that reason that I was absorbed, preoccupied, anxious, but you get over that. The dreamer sometimes falls into a pit, but they say that afterwards he comes up out of it again.
And the absent-minded man, at times he too has his presence of mind, as if in compensation. He’s sometimes a character who has his raison d’être for one reason or another which one doesn’t always see right away, or which one forgets through being absent-minded, mostly unintentionally. One who has been rolling along for ages as if tossed on a stormy sea arrives at his destination at last; one who has seemed good for nothing and incapable of filling any position, any role, finds one in the end, and, active and capable of action, shows himself entirely different from what he had seemed at first sight. I’m writing you somewhat at random whatever comes into my pen; I would be very happy if you could somehow see in me something other than some sort of idler. Because there are idlers and idlers, who form a contrast. There’s the one who’s an idler through laziness and weakness of character, through the baseness of his nature; you may, if you think fit, take me for such a one. Then there’s the other idler, the idler truly despite himself, who is gnawed inwardly by a great desire for action, who does nothing because he finds it impossible to do anything since he’s imprisoned in something, so to speak, because he doesn’t have what he would need to be productive, because the inevitability of circumstances is reducing him to this point. Such a person doesn’t always know himself what he could do, but he feels by instinct, I’m good for something, even so! I feel I have a raison d’être! I know that I could be a quite different man! For what then could I be of use, for what could I serve! There’s something within me, so what is it! That’s an entirely different idler; you may, if you think fit, take me for such a one. In the springtime a bird in a cage knows very well that there’s something he’d be good for; he feels very clearly that there’s something to be done but he can’t do it; what it is he can’t clearly remember, and he has vague ideas and says to himself, ‘the others are building their nests and making their little ones and raising the brood’, and he bangs his head against the bars of his cage. And then the cage stays there and the bird is mad with suffering. ‘Look, there’s an idler’, says another passing bird — that fellow’s a sort of man of leisure. And yet the prisoner lives and doesn’t die; nothing of what’s going on within shows outside, he’s in good health, he’s rather cheerful in the sunshine. But then comes the season of migration. A bout of melancholy — but, say the children who look after him, he’s got everything that he needs in his cage, after all — but he looks at the sky outside, heavy with storm clouds, and within himself feels a rebellion against fate. I’m in a cage, I’m in a cage, and so I lack for nothing, you fools! Me, I have everything I need! Ah, for pity’s sake, freedom, to be a bird like other birds!
An idle man like that resembles an idle bird like that. And it’s often impossible for men to do anything, prisoners in I don’t know what kind of horrible, horrible, very horrible cage. There is also, I know, release, belated release. A reputation ruined rightly or wrongly, poverty, inevitability of circumstances, misfortune; that creates prisoners. You may not always be able to say what it is that confines, that immures, that seems to bury, and yet you feel I know not what bars, I know not what gates — walls. Is all that imaginary, a fantasy? I don’t think so; and then you ask yourself, Dear God, is this for long, is this for ever, is this for eternity? You know, what makes the prison disappear is every deep, serious attachment. To be friends, to be brothers, to love; that opens the prison through sovereign power, through a most powerful spell. But he who doesn’t have that remains in death. But where sympathy springs up again, life springs up again. And the prison is sometimes called Prejudice, misunderstanding, fatal ignorance of this or that, mistrust, false shame. But to speak of something else, if I’ve come down in the world, you, on the other hand, have gone up. And while I may have lost friendships, you have won them. That’s what I’m happy about, I say it in truth, and that will always make me glad. If you were not very serious and not very profound, I might fear that it won’t last, but since I think you are very serious and very profound, I’m inclined to believe that it will last.
But if it became possible for you to see in me something other than an idler of the bad kind, I would be very pleased about that. And if I could ever do something for you, be useful to you in some way, know that I am at your service. Since I’ve accepted what you gave me, you could equally ask me for something if I could be of service to you in some way or another; it would make me happy and I would consider it a sign of trust. We’re quite distant from one another, and in certain respects we may have different ways of seeing, but nevertheless, sometime or some day one of us might be able to be of use to the other. For today, I shake your hand, thanking you again for the kindness you’ve shown me. Now if you’d like to write to me one of these days, my address is care of C. Decrucq, rue du Pavillon 8, Cuesmes, near Mons, and know that by writing you’ll do me good.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Brussels, February 1881
Dear Pa and Ma,
I received your letter and was glad to have it, for I had already been looking forward to it, especially because of Pa’s indisposition. It’s fortunate that he’s starting to get better. Things continue to go quite well with my work, although it’s still imperfect and must improve a lot. I found a very good illustration of a skeleton in that painter’s studio. Because such things are fairly difficult to find, I asked him whether he’d give it to me for a day or two in order to copy it. At first he objected, probably because he thought that I wouldn’t be able to do it or that it would take me too long, but I insisted on having it and he allowed me to. That was last Sunday afternoon, and as soon as I got home I started on it, and on Monday evening it was finished, and to his surprise I brought it back to him on Tuesday morning already and he thought my drawing good, and in fact it isn’t that bad. I’ll profit even more from that man if only he has the time, he’s well informed on some points, especially perspective, and I can anyhow learn a lot from him. Now I must tell you about something else I’ve done. As I told you in a letter, I bought a pair of trousers and a jacket second-hand about a month ago. It turned out so well that I bought another jacket and another pair of trousers from the same man. I was of course more or less provided for by the first one, but having two suits is actually better and they don’t wear out so fast, because one can alternate between them. I herewith send you a sample of the material. And I also needed to supplement my underclothes with 3 pairs of underwear for which I paid 2.75 francs apiece, and I also bought a pair of shoes for 4 francs. I really did have to buy a few things. These few things have made a noticeable hole in what was sent for this month, and I’ll have to tighten my belt rather, especially because I paid the painter 5 francs in advance for the lessons. Don’t be concerned about these expenses, though, and don’t suspect me of recklessness, for in fact the opposite is sooner my failing, and if I could spend more I’d easily progress and make headway more quickly. If you could send me some more this month without inconveniencing yourselves, I’d like to ask it of you after all.
But if you can’t, there’s no immediate hurry, because I mentioned to my landlord that I might find it hard to manage this month, and it’s all right with him if I pay him when it suits me, because by now he’s known me long enough not to demand absolutely that I pay in advance, at least not a whole month in advance. As regards that other suit, I have another objective apart from wearing it myself for as long as possible, for the fact is that when it’s a bit older it will serve me in another way. You see, I’ll gradually need a small collection of work-clothes with which to dress the models for my drawings. The blue smock of Brabant, for example, the grey linen suit that the miners wear and their leather hat, also a straw hat and clogs, a fisherman’s costume of brown fustian and a sou’wester. And most definitely the clothing made of that kind of black or brown velvet that’s very picturesque and characteristic — furthermore, a red doublet or vest. Likewise a couple of women’s costumes, such as that of Kempen and the area of Antwerp with the Brabantian cap and that of Blankenberge, for example, or Scheveningen or Katwijk. However, it’s by no means my plan to buy all of this at once, but most certainly to gather this and that gradually, piece by piece, when the opportunity arises. And because one can obtain these clothes second-hand, it’s not wholly unattainable. And all of this can get well and truly underway only when I have some kind of studio somewhere permanent.
This is the only true way to succeed, by drawing from a model with the necessary costumes. Only if I pursue drawing this thoroughly and seriously, always seeking to portray reality, shall I succeed, and then, despite the inevitable expenses, a living can be made out of it. Because a good draughtsman can certainly find work nowadays, and there’s a great demand for such individuals and there are positions to be had that pay very well. So the thing is to try and become as good at it as possible. In Paris there are many draughtsmen who earn 10 or 15 francs a day, and in London and elsewhere just as much or even more, but one can’t achieve this all at once and I am by no means that far, but it could well come to that if I’m a little blessed and come again into contact with people like Mr Tersteeg and Theo and, more specifically, with good painters and draughtsmen. But only on the condition that a great deal of work and study be done. It won’t surprise you if I tell you that I’m extraordinarily eager to know what Theo’s proposal could possibly be, or perhaps to hear something from Mr Tersteeg. Because one way or another I must know anyway sometime in the month of March where I stand and how and where I’ll be able to work during the spring and summer months.
And should I gradually begin to earn some money, that wouldn’t be disagreeable at all, even though the main thing is that I progress and become better at drawing. Then much will fall into place later on, whether it takes a long time or not. Models are expensive, relatively expensive at any rate, and if I could pay them and use them often I’d be able to work much better. But a studio then becomes indispensable. And people like Mr Tersteeg and Theo and others know this very well. Anyway, I’ll have to wait until they write about one thing and another, and meanwhile do what I can. Made a drawing of miners in the snow that’s a little better than the one from last winter, it has more character and effect.
Am also collecting wood engravings again in the manner of those scrapbooks that Theo and Willemien used to have. For if I have that a bit more complete I may well profit by it, for it could very well be that one day I’ll do work for wood engravings. I want you to know that those clothes I bought are well cut and look better on me than anything else I can remember. I tell you this because you might think they were tawdry or out of the ordinary. This material is worn often, especially in the studios. And now I’ll close, after sending my regards to everyone and after congratulating you on Anna’s birthday, and believe me
Your loving
Vincent
At the moment that painter with whom I now take lessons is making a very good painting of a Blankenberge fisherman, among other things.
72 blvd du Midi Bruxelles February 4 1881
My dear Theo,
In answer to your two good letters and prompted by a visit from Pa, which I’d been looking forward to for some time, I have a few things to tell you. And this, first of all. I heard from Pa that you’ve already been sending me money without my knowing it, and in doing so are effectively helping me to get along. For this accept my heartfelt thanks. I have every confidence that you won’t regret it; in this way I’m learning a handicraft, and although I’ll certainly not grow rich by it, at least I’ll earn the 100 francs a month necessary to support myself once I’m surer of myself as a draughtsman and find steady work. What you told us about the painter Heyerdahl has greatly aroused the interest of both Rappard and myself.
Because the former will no doubt write to you about it himself, I address this question only because it concerns me personally, to some extent.
Your remarks about the Dutch artists, that it’s doubtful whether they’d be able to give clear advice on the difficulties of perspective &c. with which I’m wrestling, I find in a certain sense quite correct and true. At any rate, I whole-heartedly agree with you that someone like Heyerdahl, because he seems to be such a highly cultivated man, would be far preferable to some others who might not have the ability to explain their way of doing things to anyone else, or to give one the guidance and advice that’s so necessary. You speak of Heyerdahl as one who takes great pains to seek ‘proportions for the purpose of design’, that’s precisely what I need. Many good painters have no idea, or almost no idea, what ‘proportions for the purpose of design’ are, or beautiful lines or distinctive compositions, and ideas and poetry. Yet these are important questions which Feyen-Perrin and Ulysse Butin and Alphonse Legros, not to mention Breton and Millet and Israëls, take very much to heart and never lose sight of.
Many Dutch painters would understand nothing, absolutely nothing, of the beautiful work of Boughton, Marks, Millais, Pinwell, Du Maurier, Herkomer, Walker, to name but a few artists who are true masters as ‘draughtsmen’, over and above their qualities in other directions. Many, I say, shrug their shoulders at such work, just as many — even among the painters here in Belgium, who should know better — do at the work of Degroux. I saw 2 things by Degroux this week that I didn’t know yet, namely a painting, The conscript’s departure, and a drawing in vertical format, The drunkard, two compositions that so much resemble Boughton that I was struck by the resemblance, as of two brothers who had never met each other but were nevertheless kindred spirits. So you see that I share your view of Heyerdahl, that I’ll consider myself fortunate if you can put me in touch with that man later on, that I certainly won’t insist on having my way about going to Holland, not, at least, if I have the prospect of going to Paris later on and can more or less count on it. In the meantime, though, what should I do? What would you think best? I can carry on working at Rappard’s for a week or so, but then he’ll probably be leaving. My bedroom is all too small and the light isn’t good, and the people would object to my shutting out some of the light coming in through the window, I’m not even allowed to hang my etchings on the wall or my drawings. So when Rappard leaves here in May I’ll have to move, and in that case I’d very much like to work in the country for a while, Heist, Kalmthout, Etten, Scheveningen, Katwijk or wherever. Or even, which is closer, Schaarbeek, Haren, Groenendaal. But preferably a place where there’s a chance of coming into contact with other painters, and if possible of living and working together, because that’s cheaper and better. The cost of accommodation, no matter where, is at least 100 francs a month, anything less means suffering deprivation, either bodily or through a lack of indispensable materials and tools.
This winter I spent around 100 francs a month, I reckon, although in truth it was scarcely that much. And of that I spent a considerable amount on drawing materials and also bought some clothes. Namely bought two workmen’s suits of coarse black velvet, of the material I think one calls velveteen. They look smart and one looks presentable in them; moreover, they’ll come in handy later on, for I’ll need a great many workman’s clothes later, and even now already, for my models, whom I naturally need like anyone else. Gradually I’ll have to acquire articles of clothing of all kinds, second-hand if necessary, both men’s and women’s clothing, for that purpose. Naturally this doesn’t have to happen all at once, though I’ve already made a start and shall continue.
You say, and rightly so, that financial matters have done a lot both to assist and to thwart people in the world. So be it, and the words of Bernard Palissy remain true: ‘Poverty prevents good minds succeeding’. But when I think about it, I nonetheless say, Could it be that in a family like ours, in which 2 Messrs van Gogh are very rich, and that in the art business, C.M. and our uncle at Princenhage, and in which you and I in the present generation have also chosen that line of work, albeit in different spheres, I say, notwithstanding these facts, could it be that I can’t continue to count in one way or another on those 100 francs a month for the time that must necessarily elapse before I obtain regular employment as a draughtsman? 3 years ago I had words with Uncle Cor on an entirely different matter, but is that any reason for C.M. to bear me ill will for ever and ever? I much prefer to assume that he never bore me any ill will, and view it as a misunderstanding for which I gladly take the entire blame, rather than bickering about whether and to what extent I’m to blame, because I have no time for such arguments. Now, Uncle Cor so often does things to help other draughtsmen, and would it now be so very unnatural for him to take an active interest in me as well, should the occasion arise? I say these things, however, not so much to obtain financial help from His Hon. but rather because I think it wouldn’t be good if he were to show himself completely unwilling for there to be a vigorous renewal of harmony, at least, between us. His Hon. could help me a great deal in a wholly different way than by giving me money, for example by putting me in touch, if possible, now or later, with people from whom I could learn a great deal. And, if possible, by His Hon.’s mediating to bring about one thing or another during the time that must still elapse before I obtain regular employment — in Paris, for example — at some illustrated magazine or other. I also spoke to Pa in this vein, I don’t know whether it will be of any use, but I noticed that they were talking about how strange and inexplicable it was that I had to struggle so hard even though I belonged to such and such a family. In reply to this I said that I thought that this was a passing thing and would be set to rights later. Nonetheless, it seemed to me advisable to speak to Pa and to you about it, and I wrote to Mr Tersteeg and mentioned it briefly, but His Hon. seems not to have understood my meaning, because he took it to mean that I was planning to live out of C.M.’s pocket and, this being his interpretation, he wrote me a rather discouraging letter and said that I had no right to such a thing. I don’t claim to have the right, but I wish to prevent the matter being talked about sooner or later in the studios, and so, in my opinion, harmony must be restored between me and the family, at least temporarily and in the eyes of the world, in expectation of their changing their minds about me. If they refuse, so be it, but then I can’t prevent it being talked about here and there. If I were to write immediately to C.M., or to go and see His Hon., there would be a chance that he wouldn’t read my letter or would receive me all too brusquely, so I’m speaking about it to Pa and to you, because you’ll probably be able to say a word or two about it in passing, and then he won’t misconstrue my meaning. It isn’t my intention to obtain money from His Hon., as Mr Tersteeg thought, unless it be the case that after talking to me he acquires faith and confidence in my future and starts to see me in an entirely different light. And if he were to be convinced of it, then I’d certainly not spurn his help, that goes without saying, and then he would be able to smooth my way a little in an entirely different way than by giving me money, for instance, in the interval of time between now and going to Paris. I wrote to Mr Tersteeg that it didn’t surprise me in the least that he had interpreted my letter in that way, since you had also spoken at one time of ‘idling’. And just as I now understand from the tone of your letter that you no longer see my difficult position in that dismal light, and experience it as well through your effective assistance, so I hope that Mr Tersteeg, too, will gradually change his opinion. The more so because His Hon. was the first to help me with those Bargues, for which I’ll always be grateful. Now you write about a manikin. There’s no particular hurry, but it would be of great use to me in composing and finding poses, you’re sensible of that. However, I’d rather wait a bit longer and have a better one than have a tool sooner that was far too inadequate. Be sure and keep an eye out, though, for all manner of prints or books about proportion, and find out as much as you can about them, that’s of inestimable value, without it one can’t make a figure drawing quickly. Moreover, it would be very beneficial for me to have a thing or two about the anatomy of the horse and sheep, cow, not with an eye to veterinary medicine but rather with a view to drawing the aforementioned animals. If I’m asking you for all these things like this, it’s because you’ll most likely have an opportunity to find such prints very cheaply, relatively speaking, just as I’ve already found a few myself, and you’d perhaps pay them less heed if I hadn’t said that they’re of such great use to me. If you ever have an opportunity to ask Bargue or Viollet-le-Duc, for example, about those prints about proportion, that’s most probably the best place for such information. I should, of course, find it wonderful to live with you later on, but we haven’t reached that point yet. If C.M. could be persuaded to give me a chance to learn the ropes somewhere on a temporary basis, I’d certainly not scorn it. One can sometimes learn much indirectly even from relatively bad artists, just as, for example, Mauve learned a great deal from Verschuur about bringing a stable and a wagon into perspective, and the anatomy of a horse, and yet how Mauve towers above Verschuur. If by any chance you can recommend the painting of Madiol at the Salon, do so, for there’s much that’s beautiful in it, and the man is in a fix and has lots of small children. He’s painting a smithy that will also be good, and he recently made a little old woman that is superb in its drawing and especially colour. But he’s very inconsistent. His chalk drawings are often outstanding.
This letter is really rather long, but I can’t make it any shorter. If I mention that it would be desirable for at least the general public, but in fact even more so for C.M. and others, to change their minds about me, it’s because people like Roelofs, for example, don’t know what to think of such an untoward position, whether there is something wrong with me or with the other side, but he sees that there is something wrong somewhere anyhow. Such a person is therefore too circumspect and will have nothing to do with me at present, just when it’s most necessary for me to receive advice and help. And such experiences are unpleasant, to say the least, it remains to be seen whether, working on with patient energy, I gradually make progress notwithstanding. I mean to. Where there is a will there is a way. And would I be to blame later on if I were to take revenge?
Nonetheless, a draughtsman doesn’t draw for the sake of revenge but for the love of drawing, and that’s more compelling than any other reason. And so it’s likely that later on some things will be set to rights that aren’t quite right yet. I’ve collected a lot of woodcuts this winter. Your Millets have been augmented with various others, and you’ll see that your wealth of woodcuts &c. haven’t had an unproductive stay with me. I now have 24 woodcuts by or after Millet, counting the Labours of the fields. But my own drawing is the main thing, and everything has to work towards that. The cheapest thing, of course, would be for me to spend this summer in Etten, there’s subject matter enough there. If you think this desirable, you can write to Pa about it, I’m willing to conform to what they want as regards clothing or anything else, and I’d most likely run into C.M. there this summer, if he were to go there or to Princenhage. There’s no real objection to it, as far as I know. I’ll always be judged or talked about in differing ways, whether within or outside the family, and one will always hear the most wide-ranging opinions being put forward.
And I don’t blame anyone for it, for relatively very few people know why a draughtsman does this or that.
Peasants and townsfolk, however, generally impute very great wickedness and evil intentions never dreamt of by one who betakes himself to all manner of places, corners and holes that others prefer not to visit, in order to find picturesque places or figures. A peasant who sees me drawing an old tree-trunk and sees me sitting there in front of it for an hour thinks I’m mad, and naturally laughs at me. A young lady who turns up her nose at a workman in his patched and dusty and sweaty work-clothes can’t understand, of course, why anyone visits the Borinage or Heist and goes down a coal-mine all the way to the maintenages, and she, too, comes to the conclusion that I’m mad. All that, though, doesn’t matter to me in the slightest, of course, if only you and Mr Tersteeg and C.M. and Pa and others I’m concerned with know better and, far from criticizing it, say instead, your line of work involves that, and we understand why it is so. So that I repeat, in the circumstances there’s actually no particular reason why I shouldn’t be able to go to Etten, for example, or to The Hague, if it should work out that way, even if little gentlemen and ladies chop logic on the subject. So, since Pa said to me during his visit, do write to Theo and arrange with him what would be best and least expensive, be so good as to let me know your views on this matter before long. Heist (near Blankenberge, thus on the sea) or Kalmthout are very picturesque, there’s subject matter in Etten as well, here too if necessary, although I’d move to Schaarbeek all the same. Scheveningen or Katwijk would of course be possible if C.M. were to change his opinion of me, and then I could profit directly or indirectly from the artists in Holland. As far as expenses go, I reckon them to be at least around 100 francs a month, less isn’t possible, ‘thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn’. And so I’ll wait until you write more concerning one thing and another, and will work at Rappard’s in the meantime. Rappard has really painted some spirited studies, including a few from the models at the academy which are vigorously conceived. A bit more passion or emotion would do him no harm, a little more self-confidence and a little more daring. Someone once said to me, We must make an effort like the lost, like the desperate. But he isn’t doing it yet. I find his landscape drawings in pen very witty and pleasing, in those too, though, gradually a bit more passion please! And now I take my leave with a handshake in thought, and remain
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’m sending you three scratches that are still awkward, but from which I hope you’ll nonetheless see that there’s gradual improvement. You must remember that I haven’t been drawing for long, even if I did sometimes make little sketches as a boy. And also that this winter the most important thing for me was to make strict anatomical studies and not my own compositions.
Etten, on or about Saturday, 30 April or Sunday, 1 May 1881.
My dear Theo,
My sincere congratulations on your birthday. I think of your visit time and again, I’m glad we spoke to each other again in this way, and hope it turns out that you’ll come again in the summer. I’ve been here for a few days and it’s beautiful outdoors, but the weather doesn’t yet permit of drawing outdoors every day.
Meanwhile I’ve started on the Millets, The sower is finished and the 4 times of the day sketched. And now still to come are The labours of the field. As you know, there was an exhibition of watercolours in Brussels and it was quite interesting. There were 4 or 5 Mauves, woodcutters, 1 J. Maris, dunes, just like a painting by Ruisdael or Van de Velde. Then J.H. Weissenbruch, superb, 5 large drawings, Roelofs ditto, also 5 large pieces. Then Gabrië and Van de Sande Bakhuyzen and Valkenburg and Van Trigt and P. Stortenbeker, and Vogel&c. of the Dutchmen.
Then there was a Mesdag that one had to imagine wasn’t there in order to see any of the other drawings, at least that’s how it was with me. The beach at twilight, stormy weather, sky with grey clouds with a ruddy glow from the sun, which had set.
In the foreground a fisherman on a horse, a tall, singular, dark silhouette standing out against the white, foaming waves. This figure is speaking with people on board a pink floating in the middle ground. On deck people are busy with a lantern, and they’re evidently speaking to the man on horseback about the anchor, which he must come and fetch. It was a large, important drawing, broadly done and so powerful that, as I said, nothing else could hold a candle to it.
What also struck me were 2 drawings by Ter Meulen, sheep in the dunes and ditto in the snow, he’s becoming really good. If I remember rightly, I saw that man struggling and swotting in Bakhuyzen’s studio, and now he’s succeeded all the same, those two drawings, at any rate, were excellent.
Then there were drawings by Meunier, Farm-hand in a barn, distinguished in colour and treatment, and in conception reminiscent of Millet, for instance, as regards simplicity and faithfulness to nature. Also by him a stoker and a factory worker.
There were also various drawings by Rochussen. And many others, but Meunier was the only one of the Belgians who actually moved me. Rappard is going to Holland in 3 weeks, and will probably carry on working in the countryside this summer and then possibly go to Paris next winter, but as yet he won’t go there with the intention of staying. I believe that he really received a cold shower when he was there earlier, but that’s no reason to think that he won’t have more luck during his next stay. He’s certainly progressed a good deal since then.
I’m very glad indeed that it’s been arranged for me to work here quietly for a while, I hope to make as many studies as I possibly can, for that’s the seed from which later drawings will grow. Do write to me from time to time and keep me informed, if possible, of one thing and another that strikes you, and think of me if you happen to hear of a position for a draughtsman somewhere or other.
And now it’s time for the post, I’ll keep you informed of what I’m doing, and you must also tell me from time to time what you would advise me, by preference, to draw and to look out for. Sometimes I’ll find it useful, sometimes perhaps not, but don’t hesitate to tell me one thing and another, I’ll do the same to you, and then we must both try to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Adieu, with a handshake in thought.
Vincent
Etten, beginning of October 1881
My dear Theo,
As a letter is going to you again, I’m enclosing a word in it. I sincerely hope that you’re doing well and will be able to find half an hour to write to me again. I want to tell you what I’ve done since I last wrote to you. First of all, two large drawings (chalk and some sepia) of Pollard willows, something like the sketch below.
Also the same, but vertical, of Leurseweg. Then I had a model a couple of times, digger and basket-maker. And then last week I got a box of paints from Uncle Cent that is rather good, certainly good enough to start with (the paint is from Paillard). And I’m very glad to have it.
I’ve just tried making a kind of watercolour, like the above motif.
I count myself very lucky to be able to get models, I’m also searching around for a horse and donkey. That thick Ingres paper is especially good for drawing with watercolour, and a great deal cheaper than other paper. Still, there’s no particular hurry, because I have some on hand, but unfortunately plain white brought from The Hague. Anyway, you see that I’m hard at work. Uncle Cent will be going to The Hague tomorrow and will most likely speak with Mauve again about when I should next visit him. And now adieu, have walked far today and am surprisingly tired, but didn’t want the letter to leave without enclosing something. I wish you well, and accept a handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Etten, Tuesday, 8 or Wednesday, 9 November 1881.
Old boy,
How you took my two previous letters isn’t yet apparent to me from your letter of today to Pa and Ma. Precisely because you neither enclosed a letter for me nor mentioned receiving my letters, I take it that I’ll soon be getting a letter from you. And in the circumstances I’d much rather that you write to me after reading both of my letters, or, this one included, all three of them, which supplement one another and don’t stand alone, than that you’d have immediately answered only the first one alone. How cold and harsh my first letter must have sounded, and you undoubtedly thought then that I was already very callous and hardened. But was it wrong of me? And will you think badly of me for not immediately revealing my more tender and intimate feelings, since they would have found you, O man of business! in the fever of daily affairs, which is not exactly the mood to appreciate love stories. So I thought something along the lines of: no, first we’ll wake him up and only then will we sow softer words in His Hon. We’ll plough him first, this man who ‘deftly dispatches business’. That’s why the first letter was as cold as a ploughshare. But as to the second, was I wrong in claiming that it would be more serious and intimate? And now that we’ve begun to talk more intimately, we want to go on doing so. But ‘meanwhile’ – a bit more ploughshare. It begins here. Although you’ve come a long way without a ‘she and no other’, although you stand firm in your shoes without a she and no other, although you deftly dispatch business without a she and no other, although you are a man of willpower, energy and character without a she and no other, although you’ve gained human understanding and experience without a she and no other, although you possess cheerfulness and high spirits and courage without a she and no other, although you dare to choose sides and loathe vacillation without.... Nevertheless, you would go much further, stand firmer in your shoes, dispatch business more deftly, be more a man of willpower, energy and character, gain more human understanding and experience, possess more cheerfulness, high spirits and courage, choose sides more resolutely, be even more loathful of vacillation, hesitation, doubt &c. than you have been thus far, when you’ll have found someone suited to being your ‘she and no other’. In short, you’ll be more yourself, happier and better, with an honestly meant and deeply felt ‘she and no other’ than without the same.
The bit of ploughshare continues — don’t let it anger you! Your letter to Pa and Ma was so gloomy in a way, and to tell you the honest truth I couldn’t make head or tail of it and don’t know what to think. Is there anything serious or not? And some of the things you said amazed me, first of all because it was you saying them, and second because you said them to Pa and Ma. After all, it’s you more than anyone who keep all your great and petty miseries of human life to yourself, and if you chance to voice them it is to those whom you know to be strong in whatever it is that might be making you feel vulnerable. In short, I think that when you feel insecure about something, you confess that insecurity only to someone you know can cure you of it. Indeed, just this summer you yourself told me that you considered it better not to speak of life’s difficulties but thought it better to keep them to yourself in order, you said, not to lose your resilience. I found such strength of mind very impressive, even though I was far from sympathizing and am aware that all too often my need for sympathy has tempted me to seek it from those who, instead of bolstering me up, tended rather to weaken my resolve. Pa and Ma are really good, but they have little idea of one’s actual state of mind and the actual circumstances of either you or me. They love us, especially you, with all their heart, and at bottom we, you and I both, love them truly. But alas! In many cases they cannot give us practical advice, and there are instances when they don’t understand us, no matter how hard they try. It’s not that they or we are to blame as much as the difference in age and a different way of thinking, the difference in circumstances. I do believe, Theo, that no matter how great the love you and Pa and Ma feel for one another, they nevertheless imagine you to be very different from what you really are. And I think that you and I would do better to talk about business as well as about more intimate affairs of the heart with people like Mr Tersteeg and Mauve, for instance, than with Pa and Ma. Is the ploughshare very cold and sharp — old boy?
I say this from my own experience. Still, I don’t mean to say that we should hide our hearts’ secrets from Pa and Ma and not give them our trust. God forbid. It’s also not my opinion that Pa and Ma’s advice is wrong or silly. God forbid that too. But we shouldn’t expect from them such practical and such indispensable advice as others would perhaps be able to give us (Mr T. and M., for instance) who understand more from half a word than Pa and Ma from a careful explanation. I consider it possible that I’m wrong about this, but think about it and share your thoughts on the matter with me, if you will. But — that our home is and will continue to be our refuge, come what may, and we do well to appreciate this and are obliged for our part to honour that home — I agree with you entirely on that score, though you probably didn’t expect such a frank declaration from me. Even so, there’s a refuge that is better, more necessary, more indispensable than our home with Pa and Ma, no matter how good, how necessary, how indispensable that may be, and that is our own hearth and home with our respective ‘she and no other’. So then, O man of business, who dispatches business deftly, behold your greatest business affair, your own home with your own ‘she and no other’. Behold, in my view, the point which you do well to keep sight of, the remedy which, more than any other ‘tonic’, will stimulate and renew more and more every day your courage to face life, your high spirits, your vigour and energy. Several things you said in your letter of today now make me say: Suppose there were a special reason for you to be more than ever on the qui vive and to act forcefully and intelligently, suppose someone were trying to undermine you and there were some trouble or predicament, don’t forget that you’re 26 years old and in ‘the prime of life’. Strike the best blow you’ve ever struck! Thoroughly renew yourself! By being especially on the qui vive in the sense that you look at girls somewhat more seriously and observantly, and see for once whether your ‘she and no other’ isn’t among them. Here ends the ploughshare.
Perhaps you remember that we talked this summer about the question of women, both with a kind of despondency. That we felt, or thought we felt, something like, Woman is the desolation of the righteous man. And — and — I and possibly you too, at least a little bit, were in our view ‘the Mr Righteous in question’. Whether the above words are true or not I’m in no position to say, because since this summer I’ve begun to doubt if I actually knew then, first ‘what a woman is’, and second ‘what a righteous man is’. And I set out to examine both questions more closely, the result of such examination being that now I often say to myself, You don’t yet know what a woman is, you don’t yet know what a righteous man is, except that you aren’t yet such a one.
Which is completely different from my frame of mind this summer. Not I but père Michelet says to all young men like you and me, ‘a woman must breathe upon you if you’re to be a man’. She has breathed upon me, my dear chap! What do you mean? Because three times she has answered ‘never’. That, my dear chap, is one of their ways of breathing upon a monster, and there’s the monster who turns into a man! For love of her! She and no other! Do you understand, my dear chap? In the same way and conversely must ‘a man breathe upon a woman if she is to be a woman’? I think so very certainly. If you ask me, How to breathe on her? Here’s my clear and simple answer, By setting against her ‘never’ these other words, ‘my dear, I love you and you will love me, may God help us’. One must have loved, and have fallen out of love, and love on! Do you understand, my dear chap? No! where is thy sting? Never, where is thy victory! To love again, it is God’s will! Do you understand ─ my dear chap?
Behold, therefore, a love story for you, man of business! Do you think it very tedious and very sentimental? Once I’d firmly resolved neither to leave her nor to return from following after her, even if this might incur her displeasure at first, once I clung simply and solely to the ‘she and no other’ and the ‘love on’, then I felt a certain calm and determination. Then my despondency also disappeared, then all things became new for me, then, too, my physical energy increased. And even though I haven’t yet come to the end of the no, nay, never, and unfortunately therefore am to this day a soul in need, I still consider my conduct unregrettable. By this I don’t mean to say that I did not, do not or will not do any clumsy, awkward things, but that the mistakes I did make, am making and will yet make don’t alter the fact that there’s a straight path before me upon which I walk, and that the ‘she and no other’ and the ‘love on’ are principles which I do well to adhere to. There are, however, those who think that I ought to have resigned myself and think that it goes ‘against the rules’ not to consider myself defeated, but if one says of my declaration of this summer, ‘the cat gets the birds who sing too soon’, then you know the verse,
Indeed, he lost feathers galore, But what, my fine sirs, was in store? They grew better than ever before.
And as for ‘the rejection’ I got this summer, I’d be ashamed if I hadn’t got it. I won’t trade it for ‘no rejection’ (it was suggested that I view it as ‘not having happened’, but I said ‘it did happen’) in the sense of ‘not having happened’, but only for ‘no rejection’ in the sense of ‘love on’!
Now, however, it’s ‘a petty misery of human life’ for me that I can’t even occasionally visit her or write to her, and that those who, with me, might exert a wholesome influence on the undermining or bankrupting of that ‘no, nay, never’ instead rather too readily bring grist to the mill of ‘no, nay, never’. I would that she found no sympathy, anywhere or from anyone, for her ‘no, nay, never’, and that all would combine their efforts culpably to bankrupt that ‘no, nay, never’. In short, to reduce it once and for all to a monument, warning other no-nay-never-saying ladies and encouraging those who say ‘love on’. But we haven’t reached that point yet; but you, you Theo, don’t be for the ‘no, nay, never’ but instead for the ‘love on’! I’d think it very decent of you if, for example, you were to find a way of persuading Pa and Ma, who are extremely pessimistic about this and call what I did this summer ‘untimely’ and ‘indelicate’ (until I begged them very decidedly and definitely, after first having used more temperate reasoning in vain, no longer to apply such expressions to this love of mine, because otherwise I would be forced, proud as a lion, to go against them), I should, I say, think it very decent of you if you were to move them to less pessimism and more good courage and humanity. A word from you probably has more influence on them than anything I could say, and it would be so good, both for them and for me, if, instead of trying to thwart me in my progress, they let me quietly proceed.
They would, for instance, like me to break off all correspondence whatsoever with Uncle and Aunt Stricker. Naturally I can’t promise anything of the kind, and even if I were to cut off my correspondence with them for a while, I’d only take it up again afterwards with renewed vigour. She doesn’t want to read my letters but — but — but — the frost and winter cold is all too bitter to last for long. I find it much healthier and more natural that, when I first spoke to her of these things, she responded so very energetically with that ‘no, nay, never’. Precisely that — gives me the assurance that there existed some fatal condition and the hope that I’ve touched upon the very heart of that condition of wrapping oneself up in the past too much. Now there follows a crisis of indignation, but the operating surgeon laughs up his sleeve and says ‘touché’. Between you and me! Let this be between you and me! Listen, Theo, she mustn’t find out that I’m laughing up my sleeve about the result of the lancet’s cut. I’m rather repentant towards her, of course. ‘Have I hurt you? Oh, how coarse and hard I’ve been! How could I have been like that?’ That’s my attitude towards her. Very contrite and humble letter to Uncle Stricker, but nonetheless said ‘she and no other’ to His Hon. You won’t betray me, brother! Viewing what has happened as not having happened, that’s nothing but nonsense and humbug. I’ll have none of it. Old chap, I’m so happy about ‘that rejection’, I’d really like to shout it to the skies, but I have to keep quiet. And attack her again in some way or other. But how to approach her? How to get near her? Some time or other, very unexpectedly and unforeseen. Because if I don’t stick to my guns, that fatal condition of wrapping oneself up in the past too much will return seven times stronger, and the matter of ‘love on’ is indeed such a good thing and surely worth surrendering one’s soul to.
Well, I’ve grumbled a bit about Pa and Ma, but except that they really don’t have the remotest idea of how matters stand, and understand nothing of the ‘love on’, and could think of nothing else to say than untimely and indelicate until I stopped them, they are very good to me, and kinder than ever. But I would rather that they had a little more understanding of my thoughts and view of things. They think along the lines of a kind of resignation strategy regarding many things to which I cannot resign myself. Well, a letter from you making light of the no, nay, never would possibly prove very effective. This summer, for instance, a single word from Ma would have given me the opportunity to say many things to her that couldn’t be said in public. She resolutely refused to say that word, however; instead, she cut short my opportunity. And came to me with a face full of pity and all kinds of consoling words, and without doubt she said a very nice prayer for me that would have granted me the strength to resign myself anyway. But until now that prayer has gone unanswered, and instead I’ve been given the strength to act. You understand that someone who wants to act cannot entirely approve of his mother praying for resignation for him. And also finds her consoling words slightly misplaced, so long as he doesn’t despair but says from the bottom of his heart,
I do not accept the yoke of despair. I would that she hadn’t prayed for me but had given me the opportunity for an intimate conversation with her. Furthermore, instead of bringing grist to the mill of no, nay, never, she could have looked after my interests, when Kee spoke confidentially to her and poured her heart out, and instead of going along with no, nay, never, she could have said ‘love on’. I tell you these things to prove that an energetic ‘love on’! from you, directed at Pa and Ma, would be doing me a true kindness. For I’m right in thinking, am I not, brother, that we aren’t just brothers but also friends and kindred spirits, especially with respect to Love on? Adieu, write soon, a handshake in thought, believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
Since I love ‘in reality’ there’s also more reality in my drawings, and I’m now sitting in the little room, writing to you with a whole collection of men, women, children from Het Heike &c. all around me. Mauve is ill, but Pa and Ma have asked him to come here and get well as soon as he can make the journey.
Sometimes, I fear, you throw a book away because it’s too realistic. Have compassion and patience with this letter, and read it through, despite its severity. Etten, on or about Friday, 23 December 1881.
My dear Theo,
As I already wrote to you from The Hague, I have some things to discuss with you now that I’m back here. It’s not without emotion that I look back on my trip to The Hague. When I went to see M. my heart was beating rather hard, because I was thinking to myself, will he too try and fob me off or will I find something else here? And well, what I experienced with him was that he instructed and encouraged me in all manner of kind and practical ways. Though not merely by always approving of everything I did or said, on the contrary. But if he tells me, this or that isn’t good, then it’s because he’s saying at the same time ‘but try it this way or that way’, and that’s entirely different from criticizing for the sake of criticizing. Or if someone says ‘you’re ill with this or that’, that doesn’t help much, but if someone says ‘do this or that and you’ll get better’, and his advice isn’t deceit, look, that’s the real thing, and – and – it naturally helps. Now I’ve come from him with a few painted studies and a couple of watercolours. Of course they aren’t masterpieces and yet I truly believe there’s something sound and real in them, more at least than in what I’ve made up to now. And so I now consider myself to be at the beginning of the beginning of making something serious. And because I now have a few more technical resources at my disposal, namely paint and brush, all things are made new again, as it were.
But – now we have to put it into practice. And the first thing is that I must find a room large enough to be able to take a sufficient distance. Mauve just said to me, when he saw my studies, ‘you’re too close to your model’. In many cases this makes it next to impossible to take the necessary measurements for the proportions, so this is certainly one of the first things I have to watch out for. Now I must arrange to rent a large room somewhere, be it a room or a shed. And that won’t be so terribly expensive. A labourer’s cottage in these parts costs 30 guilders a year to rent, so it seems to me that a room twice as large as that in a labourer’s cottage would cost something like 60 guilders.
And that isn’t insurmountable. I’ve already seen a shed, though it has too many inconveniences, especially in the winter. But I’d be able to work there, at least when the weather is milder. And here in Brabant, moreover, there are models to be found, I believe, not only in Etten but also in other villages, if difficulties were to arise here.
Still, though I love Brabant very much, I also have a feeling for other figures than the Brabant peasant types. Scheveningen, for example, I again found unspeakably beautiful. But after all I’m here, and it would very probably be cheaper to stay here. However, I’ve definitely promised M. that I’ll do my utmost to find a good studio, and now I must also use better paint and better paper.
Nevertheless, Ingres paper is excellent for studies and scratches. And it’s much cheaper to make sketchbooks in all formats from it oneself than to buy ready-made sketchbooks. I still have a small supply of Ingres paper, but you’d be doing me a big favour if you could send some more of the same kind when you send back those studies. Not pure white, though, but the colour of unbleached linen, no cold shades.
Theo, what a great thing tone and colour are! And anyone who doesn’t acquire a feeling for it, how far removed from life he will remain! M. has taught me to see so many things I didn’t see before, and when I have the opportunity I’ll try and tell you about what he’s told me, because perhaps there are still one or two things that you don’t see properly either. Anyway, we’ll talk about artistic matters sometime, I hope.
And you can’t imagine the feeling of relief I’m beginning to get when I think of the things M. said to me about earning money. Just think of how I’ve slogged away for years, always in a kind of false position. And now, now there’s a glimmer of real light.
I do wish that you could see the two watercolours I’ve brought with me, because you would see that they’re watercolours just like any other watercolours. There may be many imperfections in them, be that as it may, I’d be the first to say that I’m still very dissatisfied with them, and yet, it’s different from what I’ve done up to now, and it looks fresher and sounder. All the same, it must become much fresher and sounder, but one can’t do what one wants all at once. It comes gradually. I need those couple of drawings myself, however, to compare with what I’ll be making here, because I have to do them at least as well as what I did at M.’s.
But even though Mauve tells me that if I continue to slog away here for a couple of months and then go back to him again in March, for instance, I’ll then be able to make saleable drawings on a regular basis, I’m nevertheless going through a rather difficult period. The cost of models, studio, drawing and painting materials are multiplying, and there are no earnings as yet.
Admittedly, Pa said that I needn’t be afraid of the inevitable expense, and Pa is pleased with what M. himself said to him, and also with the studies and drawings I brought back. But I do find it utterly, utterly wretched that Pa should suffer by it. Of course we hope that things will turn out well later, but still, it weighs heavily on my heart. Because since I’ve been here Pa really hasn’t profited from me, and more than once he’s bought a coat or trousers, for example, which I’d actually rather not have had, even though I really needed it, but Pa shouldn’t suffer by it. The more so if the coat and trousers in question don’t fit and are only half or not at all what I need. Anyway, still more petty vexations of human life. And, as I’ve told you before, I find it absolutely terrible not to be free at all. Because even though Pa doesn’t ask me to account for literally every penny, still, he always knows exactly how much I spend and what I spend it on. And now, although I don’t necessarily have any secrets, I don’t really like people being able to look at my cards. Even my secrets aren’t necessarily secrets to those for whom I feel sympathy.
But Pa isn’t the kind of man for whom I can feel what I feel for you, for example, or for Mauve. I really do love Pa and Ma, but it’s a very different feeling from what I feel for you or Mauve. Pa cannot empathize or sympathize with me, and I cannot settle in to Pa and Ma’s routine, it’s too constricting for me — it would suffocate me.
Whenever I tell Pa anything, it’s all just idle talk to him, and certainly no less so to Ma, and I also find Pa and Ma’s sermons and ideas about God, people, morality, virtue, almost complete nonsense. I also read the Bible sometimes, just as I sometimes read Michelet or Balzac or Eliot, but I see completely different things in the Bible than Pa sees, and I can’t agree at all with what Pa makes of it in his petty, academic way. Since the Rev. Ten Kate translated Goethe’s Faust, Pa and Ma have read that book, because now that a clergyman has translated it, it can’t be all that immoral (??? what is that?). Yet they don’t see anything in it but the catastrophic consequences of an unchaste love.
And they certainly understand the Bible just as little. Take Mauve, for instance, when he reads something deep he doesn’t immediately say, that man means this or that. Because poetry is so deep and intangible that one can’t simply define it all systematically, but Mauve has a refined sensibility and, you see, I find that sensibility to be worth so much more than definition and criticism. And oh, when I read, and I actually don’t read so much and even then, only one-and-a-half writers, a couple of men whom I accidentally found, then I do so because they look at things more broadly and milder and with more love than I do, and are better acquainted with reality, and because I can learn something from them. But all that drivel about good and evil, morality and immorality, I actually care so little about it. For truly, it’s impossible for me always to know what is good, what is evil, what is moral, what is immoral. Morality or immorality coincidentally brings me to K.V. Ah! I’d written to you that it was beginning to seem less and less like eating strawberries in the spring. Well, that is of course true. If I should lapse into repetition, forgive me, I don’t know if I’ve already written to you about what happened to me in Amsterdam. I went there thinking, who knows whether the no, nay, never isn’t thawing, it’s such mild weather. And so one evening I was making my way along Keizersgracht, looking for the house, and indeed found it. And naturally I rang the bell and heard that the family were still at table. But then I heard that I could come in all the same. And there they were, including Jan, the very learned professor, all of them except Kee. And they all still had a plate in front of them, and there wasn’t a plate too many. This small detail caught my eye. They wanted to make me think that Kee wasn’t there, and had taken away her plate, but I knew she was there, I thought it so much like a comedy or game.
After a while I asked (after chatting a bit and greeting everyone), But where’s Kee? Then J.P.S. repeated my question, saying to his wife, Mother, where’s Kee? And the missus said, Kee’s out. And for the time being I didn’t pursue the matter but talked a bit with the professor about the exhibition at Arti he’d just seen. Well, the professor disappeared and little Jan Vos disappeared, and J.P.S. and the wife of the same and yours truly remained alone and got ourselves into position. J.P.S., as priest and Father, started to speak and said he’d been on the point of sending a certain letter to yours truly and he would read that letter aloud. However, first I asked again, interrupting His Hon. or the Rev., Where’s Kee? (Because I knew she was in town.) Then J.P.S. said, Kee left the house as soon as she heard you were here. Well, I know some things about her, and I must say that I didn’t know then and still don’t know with certainty whether her coldness and rudeness is a good or bad sign. This much I do know, that I’ve never seen her so seemingly or actually cool and callous and rude towards anyone but me. So I didn’t say much in reply and remained dead calm. Let me hear that letter, I said, or not, I don’t really care either way. Then came the epistle. The writing was reverent and very learned and so there wasn’t really anything in it, though it did seem to say that I was being requested to stop corresponding and I was given the advice to make vigorous attempts to forget the matter. At last the reading of the letter was over. I felt exactly as though I were hearing the minister in the church, after some raising and lowering of his voice, saying amen – it left me just as cold as an ordinary sermon. And then I began, and I said as calmly and politely as I could, well yes, I’ve already heard this line of reasoning quite often, but now go on – and after that? But then J.P.S. looked up... he even seemed to be somewhat amazed at my not being completely convinced that we’d reached the extreme limit of the human capacity to think and feel. There was, according to him, no ‘after that’ possible. We went on like this, and once in a while Aunt M. put in a very Jesuitical word, and I got quite warm and finally lost my temper. And J.P.S. lost his temper too, as much as a clergyman can lose his temper. And even though he didn’t exactly say ‘God damn you’, anyone other than a clergyman in J.P.S.’s mood would have expressed himself that way. But you know that I love both Pa and J.P.S. in my own way, despite the fact that I truly loathe their system, and I changed tack a bit and gave and took a bit, so that at the end of the evening they said to me that if I wanted to stay at their house I could. Then I said, thank you. If Kee walks out of the house when I come, then I don’t think it’s the right moment to stay here, I’m going to my boarding-house. And then they asked, where are you staying? I said, I don’t know yet, and then Uncle and Aunt insisted on bringing me themselves to a good, inexpensive boarding-house. And heavens, those two old dears came with me through the cold, misty, muddy streets, and truly, they showed me a very good boarding-house and very inexpensive. I didn’t want them to come at all but they insisted on showing me.
And, you see, I thought that rather humane of them and it calmed me down somewhat. I stayed in Amsterdam two more days and talked with J.P.S. again, but I didn’t see Kee, she made herself scarce each time. And I said that they ought to know that although they wanted me to consider the matter over and done with, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And they continued to reply firmly: ‘Later on I would understand it better’. Now and then I also saw the professor again, and I have to say he wasn’t so bad, but – but – but – what else can I say about that gentleman? I said I hoped that he might fall in love one day. Voilà. Can professors fall in love? Do clergymen know what love is?
I recently read Michelet, La femme, la religion et le prêtre. Books like that are full of reality, yet what is more real than reality itself, and what has more life than life itself? And we who do our best to live, why don’t we live even more!
I walked around aimlessly those three days in Amsterdam, I felt damned miserable, and that half-kindness on the part of Uncle and Aunt and all those arguments, I found them so tedious. Until I finally began to find myself tedious and said to myself: would you like to become despondent again? And then I said to myself, Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed. And so it was on a Sunday morning that I last went to see J.P.S. and said to him, Listen, my dear Uncle, if Kee Vos were an angel she would be too lofty for me, and I don’t think that I would stay in love with an angel. Were she a devil, I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her. In the present case, I see in her a real woman, with womanly passions and whims, and I love her dearly, that’s just the way it is, and I’m glad of it. So long as she doesn’t become an angel or a devil, the case in question isn’t over. And J.P.S. couldn’t say very much to that, and spoke himself of womanly passions, I’m not really sure what he said about them, and then J.P.S. left for the church. No wonder one becomes hardened and numb there, I know that from my own experience. And so as far as your brother in question is concerned, he didn’t want to let himself be overwhelmed. But that didn’t alter the fact that he felt overwhelmed, that he felt as though he had been leaning against a cold, hard, whitewashed church wall for too long. Oh well, should I tell you more, old chap? It’s rather daring to remain a realist, but Theo, Theo, you too are a realist, oh bear with my realism! I told you, even my secrets aren’t necessarily secrets. Well, I won’t take those words back, think of me as you will, and whether you approve or disapprove of what I did is less important.
I’ll continue – from Amsterdam I went to Haarlem and sat very agreeably with our dear sister Willemien, and I took a walk with her, and in the evening I went to The Hague, and I landed up at M.’s around seven o’clock.
And I said: listen M., you were supposed to come to Etten to try and initiate me, more or less, into the mysteries of the palette. But I’ve been thinking that that wouldn’t be possible in only a couple of days, so now I’ve come to you and if you approve I’ll stay four weeks or so, or six weeks or so, or as long or as short as you like, and we’ll just have to see what we can do. It’s extremely impertinent of me to demand so much of you, but in short, I’m under a great deal of pressure. Well, Mauve said, do you have anything with you? Certainly, here are a couple of studies, and he said many good things about them, far too many, at the same time voicing some criticism, far too little. Well, and the next day we set up a still life and he began by saying, This is how you should hold your palette. And since then I’ve made a few painted studies and after that two watercolours.
This is a summary of my work, but there’s more to life than working with the hands and the head.
I remained chilled to the marrow, that’s to say to the marrow of my soul by that aforementioned imaginary or not-imaginary church wall. And I didn’t want to let myself be overwhelmed by that deadening feeling, I said. Then I thought to myself, I’d like to be with a woman, I can’t live without love, without a woman. I wouldn’t care a fig for life if there wasn’t something infinite, something deep, something real. But, I said to myself in reply: you say ‘She and no other’ and should you go to a woman? But surely that’s unreasonable, surely that goes against logic? And my answer to that was, Who’s the master, logic or I? Is logic there for me or am I there for logic, and is there no reason and no understanding in my unreasonableness or my stupidity? And whether I act rightly or wrongly, I can’t do otherwise, that damned wall is too cold for me, I’ll look for a woman, I cannot, I will not, I may not live without love. I’m only human, and a human with passions at that, I need a woman or I’ll freeze or turn to stone, or anyway be overwhelmed. In the circumstances, however, I struggled much within myself, and in that struggle some things concerning physical powers and health gained the upper hand, things which I believe and know more or less through bitter experience. One doesn’t live too long without a woman without going unpunished. And I don’t think that what some call God and others the supreme being and others nature is unreasonable and merciless, and, in a word, I came to the conclusion, I must see whether I can’t find a woman. And heavens, I didn’t look so very far. I found a woman, by no means young, by no means pretty, with nothing special about her, if you will. But perhaps you’re rather curious. She was fairly big and strongly built, she didn’t exactly have lady’s hands like K.V. but those of a woman who works hard. But she was not coarse and not common, and had something very feminine about her. She slightly resembled a nice figure by Chardin or Frère or possibly Jan Steen. Anyhow, that which the French call ‘a working woman’. She’d had a great many cares, one could see that, and life had given her a drubbing, oh nothing distinguished, nothing exceptional, nothing out of the ordinary.
Every woman, at every age, if she loves and if she is kind, can give a man not the infinite of the moment but the moment of the infinite.
Theo, I find such infinite charm in that je ne sais quoi of withering, that drubbed by life quality. Ah! I found her to have a charm, I couldn’t help seeing in her something by Feyen-Perrin, by Perugino. Look, I’m not exactly as innocent as a greenhorn, let alone a child in the cradle. It’s not the first time I couldn’t resist that feeling of affection, particularly love and affection for those women whom the clergymen damn so and superciliously despise and condemn from the pulpit. I don’t damn them, I don’t condemn them, I don’t despise them. Look, I’m almost thirty years old, and do you think I’ve never felt the need for love?
K.V. is older than I am, she also has love behind her, but she’s all the dearer to me for that very reason. She’s not ignorant, but neither am I. If she wants to subsist on an old love and if she wants to know nothing of new ones, that’s her business, but the more she perseveres in that and avoids me, the more I can’t just stifle my energy and strength of mind for her sake. No, I don’t want that, I love her, but I don’t want to freeze and deaden my mind for her sake. And the stimulus, the spark of fire we need, that is love and I don’t exactly mean mystic love.
That woman didn’t cheat me – oh, anyone who thinks all those sisters are swindlers is so wrong and understands so little.
That woman was good to me, very good, very decent, very sweet. In what way? That I won’t repeat even to my brother Theo, because I strongly suspect my brother Theo of having experienced something of this himself now and then. The better for him.
Did we spend a lot together? No, because I didn’t have much and I said to her, listen, you and I don’t have to get drunk to feel something for one another, just pocket what I can afford. And I wish I could have afforded more, because she was worth it.
And we talked about all kinds of things, about her life, about her cares, about her destitution, about her health, and I had a livelier conversation with her than with my learned professorial cousin Jan Stricker, for instance.
I’ve actually told you these things because I hope you’ll see that even though I perhaps have some feeling, I don’t want to be sentimental in a senseless way. That, no matter what, I want to preserve some warmth of life and keep my mind clear and my body healthy in order to work. And that I understand my love for K.V. to be such that for her sake I don’t want to set about my work despondently or let myself get upset.
You’ll understand that, you who wrote in your letter something about the matter of health. You talk of having been not quite healthy a while back, it’s very good you’re trying to get yourself straightened out.
Clergymen call us sinners, conceived and born in sin. Bah! I think that damned nonsense. Is it a sin to love, to need love, not to be able to do without love? I consider a life without love a sinful condition and an immoral condition. If there’s anything I regret, it’s that for a time I let mystical and theological profundities seduce me into withdrawing too much inside myself. I’ve gradually stopped doing that. If you wake up in the morning and you’re not alone and you see in the twilight a fellow human being, it makes the world so much more agreeable. Much more agreeable than the edifying journals and whitewashed church walls the clergymen are in love with. It was a sober, simple little room she lived in, with a subdued, grey tone because of the plain wallpaper and yet as warm as a painting by Chardin, a wooden floor with a mat and an old piece of dark-red carpet, an ordinary kitchen stove, a chest of drawers, a large, perfectly simple bed, in short, a real working woman’s interior. She had to do the washing the next day. Just right, very good, I would have found her just as charming in a purple jacket and a black skirt as now in a brown or red-grey frock. And she was no longer young, perhaps the same age as K.V., and she had a child, yes, life had given her a drubbing and her youth was gone. Gone? – there is no such thing as an old woman. Ah, and she was strong and healthy – and yet not rough, not common. Those who value distinction so very highly, can they always tell what is distinguished? Heavens! People sometimes look for it high and low when it’s close by, as I do too now and then.
I’m glad that I did what I did, because I think that nothing in the world should keep me from my work or cause me to lose my good spirits. When I think of K.V., I still say ‘she and no other’, and I think exactly the same as I did last summer about ‘meanwhile looking for another lass’. But it’s not only recently that I’ve grown fond of those women who are condemned and despised and cursed by clergymen, my love for them is even somewhat older than my love for Kee Vos. Whenever I walked down the street – often all alone and at loose ends, half sick and destitute, with no money in my pocket – I looked at them and envied the people who could go off with her, and I felt as though those poor girls were my sisters, as far as our circumstances and experience of life were concerned. And, you see, that feeling is old and deeply rooted in me. Even as a boy I sometimes looked up with endless sympathy and respect into a half-withered female face on which it was written, as it were: life and reality have given me a drubbing. But my feelings for K.V. are completely new and something entirely different. Without knowing it, she’s in a kind of prison. She’s also poor and can’t do everything she wants, and you see, she has a kind of resignation and I think that the Jesuitisms of clergymen and devout ladies often make more of an impression on her than on me, Jesuitisms that no longer impress me for the very reason that I’ve learned a few tricks. But she adheres to them and couldn’t bear it if the system of resignation and sin and God and whatnot appeared to be a conceit. And I don’t think it occurs to her that perhaps God only actually begins when we say those words with which Multatuli closes his prayer of an unbeliever: ‘O God, there is no God’.
Look, I find the clergymen’s God as dead as a doornail. But does that make me an atheist? The clergymen think me one – be that as it may – but look, I love, and how could I feel love if I myself weren’t alive and others weren’t alive? And if we live, there’s something wondrous about it. Call it God or human nature or what you will, but there’s a certain something that I can’t define in a system, even though it’s very much alive and real, and you see, for me it’s God or just as good as God. Look, if I must die in due course in one way or another, fine, what would there be to keep me alive? Wouldn’t it be the thought of love (moral or immoral love, what do I know about it?). And heavens, I love Kee Vos for a thousand reasons, but precisely because I believe in life and in something real I no longer become distracted as I used to when I had thoughts about God and religion that were more or less similar to those Kee Vos now appears to have. I won’t give her up, but that inner crisis she’s perhaps going through will take time, and I have the patience for it, and nothing she says or does makes me angry. But as long as she goes on being attached to the past and clinging to it, I must work and keep my mind clear for painting and drawing and business. So I did what I did, from a need for warmth of life and with an eye to health. I’m also telling you these things so that you don’t get the idea again that I’m in a melancholy or distracted, pensive mood. On the contrary, I’m usually pottering about with and thinking about paint, making watercolours, looking for a studio &c. &c. Old chap, if only I could find a suitable studio.
Well, my letter has grown long, but anyway. I sometimes wish that the three months between now and going back to M. were already over, but such as they’ll be, they’ll bring some good. Write to me, though, now and then. Are you coming again in the winter?
And listen, renting a studio &c., I’ll do it or I won’t, depending on what Mauve thinks of it. I’m sending him the floor plan as agreed, and perhaps he’ll come and have a look himself if necessary. But Pa has to stay out of it. Pa isn’t the right man to get mixed up in artistic matters. And the less I have to do with Pa in business matters, the better I’ll get along with Pa. But I have to be free and independent in many things, that goes without saying.
I sometimes shudder at the thought of K.V., seeing her dwelling on the past and clinging to old, dead notions. There’s something fatal about it, and oh, she’d be none the worse for changing her mind. I think it quite possible that her reaction will come, there’s so much in her that’s healthy and lively. And so in March I’ll go to The Hague again and – and – again to Amsterdam. But when I left Amsterdam this time, I said to myself, under no circumstances should you become melancholy and let yourself be overwhelmed so that your work suffers, especially now that it’s beginning to progress. Eating strawberries in the spring, yes, that’s part of life, but it’s only a short part of the year and it’s still a long way off.
And you should envy me because of this or that? Oh no, old chap, because what I’m seeking can be found by all, by you perhaps sooner than by me. And oh, I’m so backward and narrow-minded about so many things, if only I knew exactly why and what I should do to improve. But unfortunately we often don’t see the beams in our own eye. Do write to me soon, and you’ll just have to separate the wheat from the chaff in my letters, if sometimes there’s something good in them, something true, so much the better, but of course there’s much in them that’s wrong, more or less, or perhaps exaggerated, without my always being aware of it. I’m truly no scholar and am so extremely ignorant, oh, like many others and even more than others, but I can’t gauge that myself, and I can gauge others even less than I can gauge myself, and am often wide of the mark. But even as we stray we sometimes find the track anyway, and there’s something good in all movement (by the way, I happened to hear Jules Breton say that and have remembered that utterance of his). Tell me, have you ever heard Mauve preach?? I’ve heard him imitate several clergymen – once he gave a sermon on Peter’s barque (the sermon was divided into 3 parts: First, would he have bought it or inherited it? Second, would he have paid for it in instalments or parts? Third, did he perhaps (banish the thought) steal it?). Then he went on to preach on ‘the goodness of the Lord’ and on ‘the Tigris and the Euphrates’ and finally he did an imitation of J.P.S., how he had married A. and Lecomte.
But when I told him that I had once said in a conversation with Pa that I believed that one could say something edifying even in church, even from the pulpit, M. said, Yes. And then he did an imitation of Father Bernhard: God – God – is almighty – he created the sea, he created the earth and the sky and the stars and the sun and the moon, he can do everything – everything – everything – and yet – no, He’s not almighty, there’s one thing He cannot do. What is the one thing that God Almighty cannot do? God Almighty cannot cast away a sinner. Well, adieu, Theo, do write soon, in thought a handshake, believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague, on or about Saturday, 14 January 1882.
Dear brother,
As I’ve often done, I sent you an answer in my last letter that was brief and to the point about one thing and another, yet in harsh words that nevertheless truly express what I think about things, but you mustn’t think that I’m always in a gruff, cold-hearted mood which Mauve would perhaps call a yellow soap mood or saltwater mood. But even if I had written a yellow soap letter or a saltwater letter, surely that’s no worse than taking things too sentimentally. You say, ‘you’ll truly regret it some day’. Old chap, I believe that I’ve had many such regrets &c. before now. I saw it coming and tried to nip it in the bud, well that didn’t work, and anyway, what happened, happened. Will I now regret it? No, actually I don’t have time for regrets. Drawing is becoming more and more of a passion, and it’s just like a sailor’s passion for the sea. Mauve has now shown me a new way to make something, namely watercolours. Well, now I’m immersed in that, and I’m daubing and washing out, in short, seeking and striving. For one must make desperate attempts.
Because there’s something diabolical about the execution of a watercolour. Because there’s something good in all energetic movement. So although I was planning to write to you in even more detail about what happened at home, to try and explain how things stand from my point of view, even though I also wanted to tell you this and that about other subjects, I haven’t time for that now, and think it better to write to you again about drawing.
In addition to a couple of small watercolours, I’ve just started a large one, at least as large as one of those figure studies I made at Etten. Naturally it doesn’t automatically go well and easily straightaway. Mauve himself says that I’ll ruin at least 10 drawings or so before I know how to handle the brush a little. But it will lead to a brighter future, so I work on with as much cold-bloodedness as I can muster, and don’t let myself be deterred by my mistakes.
This is a little sketch of one of the small watercolours, it’s a corner of my studio with a girl grinding coffee. You see I’m looking for tone, a head or a hand that glows, with life in it, and that stands out against a drowsy background, twilit, and standing out boldly against that, that fragment of fireplace and stove, iron and brick, and a wooden floor. If I could get that drawing the way I’d like it, I’d make at least 3/4 of it in yellow soap style and treat only that corner where the child is sitting delicately and tenderly and with sentiment. But you understand that I still can’t express all of that as I feel it, but it seems to me the point is simply to attack the difficulties, and the yellow soap passage still isn’t yellow soapy enough and the contrasting tenderness still not tender enough. But anyway, the sketch is still chucked on and its conception is clear, and to me it seems fairly good. Of course one can’t master the technique the first day.
This is the subject of the large drawing, but I’m doing it in a hurry and the sketch is terrible. Even so, perhaps it gives you an idea, and in any case it’s already on paper. I hear that someone called on me today, Mr Tersteeg, I think. I hope so, because he promised me he’d stop by, and I wanted to discuss some things with him. He’s supposed to be coming back tomorrow morning. Theo, I’m having a lot of trouble with the models, I search for them and when I find them it’s a struggle to get them to come to my studio, and sometimes they let me down. Like a smith’s boy this morning, who couldn’t come because his father said that I had to pay a guilder an hour, and of course I wasn’t inclined to do that. Tomorrow I have the little old woman as a model again, but she couldn’t come for 3 days running. Well then, when I go out, I quite often go to sketch in the soup kitchen or the 3rd-class waiting room or such places. But it’s so damned cold outdoors, especially for me, since I don’t yet draw as fast as more practised draughtsmen, and actually have to work my drawings out in more detail for them to be of any use to me.
So you see I’m not standing still and am no longer dwelling on Etten, but am trying to put down roots here. Naturally the models cost me money, and I must tell you that I buy what’s necessary for myself, though the cheapest possible. (I go to the soup kitchen to eat.) And yet I trust you won’t have any objections to my continuing. But I repeat what I said in my last letter: let me know as precisely as possible where I stand, and I think it would be fine if you could come to an agreement with Mr Tersteeg, so that in case of difficulty I can go to him without too many misgivings. For my part I promise you that I’ll work as much as I can, though things like models often depend on the money I do or don’t have in my pocket, whether I can set to work at full speed, half speed or sometimes not at all. Now, for instance, I’m negotiating with a mother with a little child, though I’m afraid it will turn out to be too expensive for me. Be assured that I’d prefer to go full speed but... anyway, you understand it all, I have to restrain myself until I have more resources and freedom. Write to me again soon, and listen, send the money as soon as possible in February, because I’m sure I won’t have a penny by then. I’m planning to go on making small pen drawings whenever possible, but different from the large ones I made this summer. A bit sharper and a bit angrier. This is a sketch of Schenkweg, the view from my window. Well, adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague 13 February 1882
My dear Theo,
Even though I’m rather expecting a letter from you one of these days, I’ll write again anyway. I heard a few things about you from Mr Tersteeg when he returned from Paris. He told me that you were doing well, and he seemed to be rather pleased with his trip. When I went to see him I had a couple of drawings, and he said that they were better than the last ones and told me that I should again make a couple of small ones. I’m working on those now. And I’ve also been working on a new pen drawing of an old woman knitting. And I believe it’s better than last summer’s, at least it has more tone. When I have a couple of pen drawings that have turned out quite well, I believe I know an art lover who will take them. I also wrote to C.M. the other day to say I’d rented a studio here, and hoped that when he came to The Hague he’d let me know, or come and have a look. Uncle Cent also told me last summer that if I have a drawing, a little smaller than those of last summer and with more watercolour, I should simply send it and he would take it. Perhaps the time will soon come when my work will put some money in my pocket, which I’m badly in need of, precisely in order to tackle things more seriously.
If you can find out about it, you must tell me what kind of drawings one might be able to sell to the illustrated magazines. It seems to me they could use pen drawings of types of the people, and I’d like so much to start working on them, in order to make something suitable for reproduction. I don’t think that all drawings are drawn directly on the blocks, there must be some means of getting a facsimile onto the block. Though I don’t rightly know. Sometimes I long so very much to see you and talk to you, will it be a long time before you come to Holland? I believe Pa half expected you to come for his birthday. I was very glad that Mr Tersteeg found the drawings a little better, well, I’m also beginning to feel more at home with my model, and that’s precisely the reason why I must continue with her now. In the last two studies I captured the character much better, everyone who saw them said so. At the moment I quite often go to draw with Breitner, a young painter who’s acquainted with Rochussen as I am with Mauve. He draws very skilfully and very differently from me, and we often draw types together in the soup kitchen or the waiting room &c. He sometimes comes to my studio to look at woodcuts, and I go to see the ones he has as well. He has the studio that Apol used to have at Siebenhaar’s.
Last week I went to an art viewing at Pulchri which had sketches by Bosboom and Henkes. Very beautiful; there were a number of drawings by Henkes, larger figures than one usually sees from him. He ought to make more of them, I think. Weissenbruch also came to see me. I look forward every day to a letter from you, because I hope you’ll send me something one of these days. We must stick it out for a while, old chap, and persevere, you as well as I, and then we’ll both get pleasure from it sometime. I’m really very glad that I’ve gone on with the figure so far. If I’d been making only landscapes, perhaps I’d already be making something that would fetch a price, but later on I’d end up getting stuck anyway. Although the figure is more difficult and a more complicated matter, I believe it’s more solid in the long run. De Bock came here this afternoon just as I was working from the model, and when he saw the model he started saying that he’d quite like to draw figures too; all the same, he doesn’t do it. He recently made a beautiful drawing, though.
In your last letter you told me something about the matter of your not being able to have any money before the inventory was finished. But if you don’t have it, be so good as to write to Mr Tersteeg about it immediately, because I have only three guilders or so left and it’s already nearly the middle of February. So at all events I’m expecting a letter from you any day now. I believe that I’ve got the proportions much better in my last drawings than in the previous ones, and that’s exactly what seemed to me to be the worst fault in my drawings up to now, but that’s changing, thank God, and then I won’t be afraid of anything. Adieu Theo, write soon, accept in thought a hearty handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague, Saturday, 25 February 1882.
My dear Theo,
I received your last letter with the 100 francs enclosed in good order, and I sincerely thank you for sending it. I’d have sent you news of its safe receipt immediately, but I’ve been very busy with a couple of drawings for which I had a model. For I’ll have you know that if you’re busy, so am I, and will be so more and more, because I’m getting more of an eye for my work, and so can tear myself away from it only with a great effort in order to write or to go and visit someone if necessary. What made me happy was that you write that you may be coming to Holland soon. When you’ve seen what I’ve been doing recently, perhaps we’ll have a better idea of the future. When you come, I hope we’ll have some quiet time together in the studio, and I also hope that you’ll write to me in advance, so that I can arrange with the model not to come during the days of your visit.
You write about Pa’s birthday, I must say that I feel so good to have done with everything, it’s such a tranquillity, which I need so much in my work, my head can’t hold more than it does. And now I dread starting up a new correspondence, so much so that I’m quietly leaving things as they are for the present. When I was still at home I worried about it, but now that things have come to this, what can one do? Ignore everything and pretend that nothing happened – Pa and Ma might be able to do that, but I can’t – I feel that, sadly, something did in fact happen. When I think of Etten, a kind of shiver runs down my body as though I were in a church. In short, what can be done, and again, what can be done?
Besides, you mustn’t blame me, Theo, or think that I’m carping, but you wrote something to me which you perhaps thought would make me happy, but it didn’t make me happy. You said that that small watercolour is the best thing of mine you’ve seen – well, that isn’t true, because those studies of mine you have are much better, and the pen drawings of last summer are also better, because that little drawing means nothing; anyhow, I only sent it to you to show that my working with watercolour at some point wasn’t an impossibility. But there’s much more serious study and more substance in those other things, despite the fact that they still look yellow-soap-like. And if I had something against Mr Tersteeg (but I don’t have anything against him), then it would be the same thing. Namely that he encourages me not to undertake difficult study from a model but rather to adopt a procedure that’s actually only half suited to the rendering of what I want to express, according to my own character and according to my own temperament. It goes without saying that I’d be very happy to sell a drawing, but it makes me much happier if a true artist like Weissenbruch says of an unsaleable (???) study or drawing, that’s faithful and I’d be able to work from that. You see, although I place great value on money, especially now, still, for me the No. 1 thing is to make something that’s reasonable. Well, something like what Weissenbruch said of a landscape, a peat moor, Mauve said it of a figure, namely an old peasant sitting by the fireplace, thinking or daydreaming, as though seeing things from the distant past taking shape in the glow of the fire or the smoke. It may take a longer or shorter time, but the way is really to penetrate deeply into nature. To be true is what remains, says Gavarni. One may be caught up for a time in petty pecuniary vexations, but one will surmount them, and the drawings that were rejected earlier will then be sold.
I’ve written to C.M. to tell him that I’d taken a studio here, and he wrote back saying that he expected to be coming to The Hague soon and would come and visit me. Recently I was also given regards from my old friend Wisselingh from London, who’s also supposed to come, and he was glad that I was working. Well, I hope you’ll succeed in escaping, because I’m longing to see you. I think that when you’ve seen my recent studies you’ll agree completely with my taking a model regularly. The better I get to know the models, the better I can draw them, of course. And I’ve been rather lucky in finding models. Today, now as I’m writing to you, I have a child that has to rest once in a while for half an hour, and I’m using that half-hour for this letter. Thanks again for what you sent, and a handshake in thought, adieu,
Ever yours,
Vincent
P.S. I’ve made two studies of the child today. It’s getting dark now. Good-night.
The Hague, Saturday, 11 March 1882.
My dear Theo.
You’ll perhaps find it rather harsh, what I wrote to you about Tersteeg. By no means do I take it back, though. Tersteeg is someone who is extremely hard of hearing, though I don’t consider him deaf. He must be told things very decidedly, otherwise it doesn’t penetrate his armour. For years he’s thought me a kind of blockhead and dreamer, he still views me as such, and even says about my drawings: that’s a kind of opium daze you administer to yourself so as not to feel the pain you suffer at not being able to make watercolours. Now then, that’s very cleverly put, but that expression is actually ill-considered, superficial and doesn’t hold water (the main reason I can’t make watercolours straightaway is that I must draw more seriously and pay attention to proportion and perspective). Similarly, Mr T.’s ‘practical talks’ (say) on art couldn’t be more impracticable. It doesn’t help him even if he uses as arguments some things that could be called conversation killers, because it’s difficult to find an answer to them. Enough – I don’t deserve his reproaches, and if my drawings don’t amuse His Hon. neither does it amuse me to show them to His Hon. like that.
He condemns drawings of mine which contain much that is good, and I hadn’t expected that of His Hon. If I make serious studies from a model it’s a lot more practical than his practical talks about saleability or unsaleability, about which I – having dealt in paintings and drawings myself, for that matter – don’t need to be enlightened by His Hon. to the extent that he thinks. I’d prefer, then, to lose his friendship than agree with him about this.
Although at times I’m overwhelmed by worries, all the same, I’m calm, and my calmness is based on my serious approach to my work and on reflection. Although I have moments of passion, and my disposition tends to make them worse, nonetheless I’m composed, as His Hon., who’s known me long enough, very well knows. Now he even said to me: you have too much patience. Those words aren’t right, one can’t have too much patience in art, that word is beyond the pale. Perhaps in my case Mr H.G.T. has too little patience. Now he must see, once and for all, that I’m setting to work seriously and won’t let myself be forced into sending work into the world that doesn’t bear the stamp of my own character. My own character is beginning to emerge particularly in my last drawings??? studies???, which Tersteeg rejected.
Perhaps – perhaps I’d succeed even now in making something in the genre of watercolour that could perhaps be sold with a great deal of effort. But that would be forcing watercolours to grow in the hothouse. Tersteeg and you must wait for the natural season, and it hasn’t arrived yet. He spoke English when he was here because of the model. I said to him: in due time you shall have your watercolours, now you can’t – they are not due yet. Take your time. And I’m sticking to that. Enough. Since T.’s visit I’ve made a drawing of an orphan boy polishing shoes. It might have been done with a hand that doesn’t exactly obey my will yet, but even so it contains the type of that orphan boy. And no matter how clumsy my hand, that hand will still have to end up doing what my head wants. So I’ve made a study of the studio with the stove, the fireplace, easel, tabouret, table &c., of course not exactly saleable just now, but very good for putting perspective into practice. I’m longing for you to come, you have quite a lot to see, which I’ve made since your visit last summer. Theo, I’m counting on your looking at my work with sympathy and with confidence, and not with two minds or dissatisfaction. Tersteeg thinks, because I work so much, that it’s easy, that’s where he’s also mistaken. But I’m actually a drudge or a draught ox.
If you come, would you be sure and think of the Ingres paper? It’s the thick one in particular that I like to work on, and it seems to me it must lend itself even to studies in watercolour. Believe me that in artistic matters the words hold true: Honesty is the best policy. Better to put a bit more effort into serious study than being stylish to win over the public. Occasionally, in times of worry, I’ve longed to be stylish, but on second thoughts I say no – just let me be myself – and express severe, rough, yet true things with rough workmanship. I won’t run after the art lovers or dealers, let those who are interested come to me. In due time we shall reap if we faint not.
Oh well. Listen, Theo, what a man that Millet was! I have the big work by Sensier on loan from De Bock. It interests me so much that I wake up at night and light the lamp and go on reading. Because during the day I have to work. Do send me something soon if it’s at all possible. I wish that for once Tersteeg had to face a week of doing what I do on what I have to spend, he’d notice that it’s not dozing or dreaming or an opium daze, but that one has to be wide awake to combat the many difficulties that crop up. Nor is it easy to find models and to get them to pose. Most painters are driven to desperation by it. Especially when one has to scrimp – go short of – food, drink, clothing in order to pay them. Well, Tersteeg is Tersteeg and I am I. Nonetheless, rest assured, I’m not opposed to, i.e. hostile towards him, but I must make him understand that he judges me too superficially and – and – I believe that he’ll change his mind – I sincerely hope so, because being at odds with His Hon. pains me very much and makes life difficult for me. I hope your letter comes soon – my last pennies are for posting this letter. It’s only been a few days since I received the 10 guilders from Tersteeg, but that same day I had to pay 6 guilders of it to the model, to the baker, to the girl who sweeps the studio. Adieu, I wish you health and good cheer, in spite of everything I’m not without good cheer either.
I shake your hand.
Vincent
I had a very pleasant visit from Jules Bakhuyzen, and I may go and visit him whenever I wish.
Here you have a few words that struck me and moved me in Sensier’s Millet, sayings of Millet. Art is a battle – you have to put your whole life into art. One must work like a bunch of negroes.
I’d rather say nothing than express myself weakly. It was only yesterday that I read that last saying of Millet, but I’d felt the same before then, which is why I sometimes feel the need to scratch in what I feel not with a soft brush but a hard carpenter’s pencil and a pen. Watch out! Tersteeg! Watch out! You’re clearly wrong.
Theo, it’s almost miraculous!!!
First of all, a message arrives that I must go and fetch your letter. Secondly, C.M. comes, orders 12 small pen drawings from me, views of The Hague, having seen a few that were finished (Paddemoes. The Geest district – Vleersteeg were finished) for a rijksdaalder apiece, the price set by me. With the promise that if I make them to his liking he’ll order 12 more, but for which he’ll fix the price higher than I do. Thirdly, I run into Mauve, successfully delivered of his large painting, promises to come by soon. So, it’s fine – it’s going well – it’ll get even better! And something else moved me, and moved me deeply – I’d said that the model didn’t have to come today – I hadn’t said why – but the poor woman came anyway and I protested. Yes, but I’m not coming to be drawn, I’m just coming to make sure you’ve got something to eat – she had a portion of string beans and potatoes with her. There are indeed things in life that are worth the effort.
The Hague, on or about Thursday, 6 April 1882.
My dear Theo,
It shouldn’t surprise you that I wrote to you: become a painter. For I myself am now in a period in which I’m deriving some benefit from my earlier worries. Because as things are now, every week I make one thing or another that I couldn’t make before, and that’s what I spoke about, that it’s as though one were young again. And it’s the awareness that nothing – (except sickness) can rob me of the strength that’s now beginning to develop, it’s that awareness that gives me faith in the future and enables me to bear many unpleasantnesses in the present. It’s a wonderful thing to look at something and find it beautiful, to reflect on it and hold it fast and then to say: I’m going to draw that, and then to work on it until it’s done. Obviously that’s why I’m not yet content with my work to the extent that I think I needn’t do it any better. But the way to do it better later is to do it as well as one can today, there can’t be anything but progress tomorrow. Naturally I don’t know what you’ll think of my drawings when you finally see them, but this much I do know, I’m greatly longing for you to come.
And if I write to you, become a painter, then it really isn’t because I think that in your present position there isn’t a very great deal that’s beautiful. But I find being a painter more beautiful, and I wish you worked in your own studio instead of at a reading-desk in the office. There you have it. I know for certain that something would awaken in you in your own studio which you don’t know of now – a huge, hidden force of working and creating. And once it’s awake, it’s awake for good. When I hear Tersteeg talking about agreeableness and saleability I can only think: work one has slaved away at and done one’s best to imbue with character and sentiment can be neither disagreeable nor unsaleable. And perhaps it’s better that one doesn’t immediately please everyone. What wonderful weather we’re having – there’s spring in everything. I can’t let go of the figure, for that’s No. 1 for me, but sometimes I can’t keep myself from going outdoors. But I’m busy with difficult things that I can’t let slide. Recently I’ve been making many studies of parts of the figure: heads, neck, breast, shoulder. See the enclosed scratch. I’d very much like to make more studies of the nude. You know I’ve drawn the Exercices au fusain, several times even, but they don’t include any female figures.
Of course, doing it from life is something entirely different. A little drawing like the enclosed is simple enough in line, but it’s difficult enough to capture those simple, characteristic lines when one is sitting in front of the model. Those lines are now so simple that one can outline them with the pen, but I repeat, the problem is finding those broad outlines, so that one can say what’s essential with a couple of strokes or scratches. Choosing the lines in such a way that it’s obvious, as it were, that they must run thus, that’s something that isn’t obvious, however. It’s true, Theo, that recently, since I’ve been in The Hague, I’ve spent more than 100 francs a month, but if I didn’t do that, I couldn’t work with a model, and would remain at the same level, making no progress. I see this in other painters: Breitner, for example. They’re afraid to take a model regularly, and they work little and slowly – if only it were good anyway, but it isn’t even that. Breitner had been taking a model again lately, though, and there was of course more spirit in his work, but then he fell ill. The English painters, certainly the draughtsmen for The Graphic &c., have a model nearly every day. Without that it really doesn’t work, in my opinion. If someone with many years of experience draws figures from the imagination after a great deal of study, fine, but to work systematically from the imagination seems overly rash to me. Israëls and Blommers and Neuhuys don’t do that, even though they have so much experience.
If I’ve spent more than 100 francs a month here, it’s because it’s not possible to spend less. And believe me, I don’t throw it around rashly or too freely. I do wish I didn’t have to give Tersteeg the 25 guilders back yet, because I really need the money to be able to go on working energetically. Tersteeg is none the poorer by it, and in the beginning he himself said that I needn’t worry about it. Even though every 25 guilders less means that my work suffers and that I can’t do what really needs to be done. If I fill my portfolios with studies I’ll get my money’s worth out of them later. And I’d rather earn a bit more later than now. I’d rather see to it that I’m equal to my profession than rush to sell a drawing by the grace of God. The enclosed drawing was scratched after a larger study which has a more sombre expression. There’s a poem by Tom Hood, I believe, in which he tells of a great lady who can’t sleep at night because during the day, when she went out to buy a frock, she saw the poor seamstresses pale, consumptive, emaciated, working in an airless room. And now she has twinges of remorse about her wealth and wakes up at night in panic. In short, it’s a slender, white female figure, restless in the dark night. If I must, I’ll talk no more about it and give Tersteeg the 25 guilders when you send money again, but if it could be arranged, I’d prefer to wait until he takes a drawing for it later, because now I definitely need as much money as I can possibly spare for my studies. Anyway, it seems to me that Tersteeg won’t be so severe as not to understand that at the moment 25 guilders are worth more to me than they are to His Hon. Well, I wish you well, and remember, I hope you’re working in your own studio in the near future. It needn’t happen too quickly – but I believe that after a relatively short time of worry, you’d be happier once and for all. Adieu.
Ever yours,
Vincent
P.S. I don’t have many studies of the nude yet, but there are some that bear a very close resemblance to the Bargues, are they therefore less original? Perhaps it’s because I learned to look at nature through the Bargues.
The Hague, on or about Monday, 10 April 1882.
My dear Theo,
Today I sent you 1 drawing by post which I’m sending to you as a token of gratitude for so much that you’ve done for me during this otherwise hard winter. Last summer, when you had that large woodcut by Millet, ‘the shepherdess’, I thought: how much one can do with one single line! Naturally I don’t presume to say as much as Millet with a single outline. But I’ve nevertheless tried to put some sentiment into this figure. Now I only hope that this figure is to your liking. And now you see at the same time that I’m hard at work. Now that I’ve started, I’d like to make around 30 studies of the nude. The enclosed is, I think, the best figure I’ve drawn, that’s why I thought I’d send it to you.
This isn’t the study from the model and yet it’s directly from the model. You should know that I had two sheets underneath my paper. Well, I’d toiled to get the outlines right and when I took the drawing off the plank it was very cleanly impressed on the two underlying sheets and then I immediately worked it up after the first study, so that this one is even fresher than the first. I’ve kept the other two and wouldn’t like to part with them. At the same time you’ll see from this that it isn’t without reason that I wrote to you that I wished the money for H.G.T. could wait, I need it so much myself now, and working hard with a model seems to me to be the quickest way of getting right on top of it. The model I have isn’t at all expensive, but because the expense recurs day after day it’s often difficult for me to pay it. Anyway, arrange it as best you can, but if it’s convenient for you, send what you spoke of not too late in the month. Adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
It seems to me that this drawing would do well in a simple grey mount.
Naturally I don’t always draw like this. But I’m extremely fond of those English drawings that are done in this style, so it’s no wonder that I tried to do the same for once, and because it was for you, who understands these things, I didn’t hesitate to be somewhat melancholy. I wanted to say something like
But the heart’s emptiness remains That nothing will make full again as it says in Michelet’s book.
The Hague, 26 April 1882
My dear Theo,
My reply to your statement, ‘Tersteeg has been almost like an elder brother to us, be sure and stay friends with him’, whereupon I said that even if that were so as far as you were concerned, I personally had been confronted with his unfriendly and hard side for years – I’d like to elaborate on this a little. In all those years between the time I both handed in and was given my notice at Goupil’s and the moment I finally started to draw (which – and I admit that this was a mistake on my part – I should have done straightaway), in those years, when I was abroad without friends or assistance, in great misery (so that I often had to sleep in the streets in London, and in the Borinage 3 nights in a row), did he ever give me a piece of bread? Did he ever put courage into me, he who had known me for donkey’s years, or give me fresh heart when I’d nearly given up? I think not. Did he ever help me with this or that – no. Except for lending me the Bargues, after I had literally begged him for them no less than 4 times. When I sent him my first drawings he sent me a box of paints – but no money at all. I’m willing to believe that those first drawings weren’t worth anything, but look, someone like Tersteeg could have thought, I’ve known him for such a long time and I want to help him out, and he could have understood that I was so badly in need of it and do indeed have to eat. When I wrote to him from Brussels, ‘wouldn’t it be possible for me to work for a while in The Hague and mix with painters?’, he tried to fob me off and wrote to me, oh no, surely not, you’ve lost your rights. I’d do better to go and teach English and French. Of this he was certain: I was no artist. Or do copying work for Smeeton and Tilly, which wasn’t exactly near by, and I was turned down by various lithographers in Brussels: there wasn’t any work, there was nothing doing, that’s what they said. When I showed him some drawings again last summer, he said: I hadn’t expected this – but he didn’t help me, and wasn’t at all inclined to take back what he’d said.
When I came to The Hague anyway, without asking His Hon.’s advice, he tried to trip me up, I heard that he laughed at my becoming a painter, I noticed that until then Mauve had considered me ‘a bloody bore’, and Mauve was amazed that I was a different person from the one he’d heard about. I didn’t ask Mauve for money, but Mauve said of his own accord, you need money, I’ll make sure you earn some – you can count on your bad years being over and on the sun rising for you, you’ve worked for it and earned it honestly. And, to begin with, Mauve helped me to settle in. But all of that changed – Mauve’s sympathy, which was to me as water to a half-withered plant, dried up. Because Tersteeg whispered something venomous in Mauve’s ear: Watch out – he can’t be trusted with money – drop him – don’t help him any more – as an art dealer I don’t see any point in it – or at any rate something in this vein. And pretended to know nothing when I said: Tersteeg, you must tone down your talk a bit; he said nothing. I was just imagining it, he said. Until one fine day he threatened me: Mauve and I will see to it that you receive no more money from Theo.... I no longer doubted it, and thought, you’re betraying me. Because I knew what Mauve himself had said to me about it, namely that it would be very good if I could continue to receive that money from you for at least another year. When one forsakes someone in the winter, and even tries to rob him of his bread, is that coercion or not....?
It’s inconsiderate, insensitive, those aren’t manners, it’s not humane. And who am I – someone with difficult, painstaking work that demands peace and quiet and some sympathy, otherwise my work is impossible. Theo, think about these things and write to me soon. Even though I was terribly grieved that Mauve left me in the lurch, I’ve battled on this winter as best I could. But is it any wonder that I’m shaken by it and sometimes feel as though my heart is failing? The likes of Tersteeg ‘laugh’ about it – but you are my brother and I hope you won’t laugh about it.
I have more to tell you about my plans for the future, how I intend to continue my work. You must come here first, though, so I’m not writing about that now, seeing as you won’t, I hope, be staying away very much longer. You’ve seen the two drawings I sent you. They didn’t turn out like that by chance; I could deliver such work regularly and it will gradually get better. So it’s not unreasonable for me to urge you to arrange it so that I no longer have to fear that the most necessary things will be taken from me, or always have the feeling that it’s charity.
The most necessary things are bread, clothing, rent, models, drawing materials. And it’s not such a tremendous amount, the way I go about it – and I can make drawings in return, provided someone wants them. I don’t desire wealth, but of course I can’t stand the thought of not having the most necessary things. A workman is worth his wages. I wish it could be arranged for me to receive the money weekly, because it’s so difficult to calculate a month ahead. If Tersteeg takes back the most awful things he said, I’m willing to assume that he said them in a moment of thoughtlessness, and then it’s forgive and forget. If he stands by them, I’ll consider him an enemy who can’t stand the sight of me, rather than a friend. Don’t blame me, Theo, for bothering you with this, but it’s been going on now the whole winter, and what have I done to deserve all this frustration? All that fear and sorrow cannot but make one agitated and nervous in speech and manner, and if Mauve imitates and parrots me, saying ‘that’s the face you pull’, this is how you talk, I’ll reply: My dear fellow, if you had spent damp nights in the streets of London or cold nights in the Borinage as I have done, hungry, roofless, feverish, perhaps you’d also have the occasional ugly tic, and something in your voice, to show for it. Adieu, Theo, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
It’s been impossible for me to make the townscapes for C.M., because of all the rain and wind. So I don’t have the money for them yet either. The rent is due on 1 May, so anything I receive around 1 May will be welcome.
The Hague, Saturday, 27 May 1882.
My dear Theo,
Today, Saturday, I had a visit from Rappard, and I’m glad that now he has been here. He also asked after you with great interest. He saw the drawings I’m doing for C.M. among other things, and they seem to please him, especially a large one of the courtyard or back yard at the house where Sien’s mother lives. I would like you to see that one, as well as another of a carpenter’s shed and yard with small figures at work. The perspective is rather more complicated than in the Laan van Meerdervoort I sent you, and I’ve laboured long and hard on it. I must tell you that these days I’m already out of doors by 4 o’clock in the morning, because during the day it’s too difficult to be on the street on account of the passers-by and the urchins, and because that’s the best time to see the broad outlines while things still have tone. But, old chap, this has been an anxious fortnight for me. When I wrote to you around the middle of May, all I had left was 3 or 3.50 guilders after paying the baker. I had practically nothing else to eat but dry black bread with a little coffee, and Sien too. Because we’d bought linen for her baby and she’d been to Leiden &c.
The rent is due on 1 June, and I have nothing, literally nothing. I hope you’ll send something. A week ago I was terribly weak due to constant sleeplessness. But now I’m making good progress with several drawings, so that the order for C.M. is well advanced, and as a result I’m in better spirits, I’m somewhat calmer again. Still, old chap, write to me soon and save me from the landlord, because, as you know, their kind brook no delay. Rappard’s visit cheered me up; he seems to be working hard. He gave me 2.50 guilders because he saw a tear in a drawing and said, you should have that repaired. I know, I said, but I haven’t got the money and the drawing must be sent off. Then he said straightaway that he’d be glad to give it to me, and I could have had more but I didn’t want to, and I gave him a pile of woodcuts and a drawing in return. It was one of those meant for C.M., and so I was very glad to be able to get it repaired, because it was the best of them all.
That same drawing may be sold later for 50 guilders or so, and now — I hadn’t got the money to have a tear in it repaired. Anyway.
I do hope, brother, that you don’t think badly of Sien and me. That lass has put up with my disagreeable side, and in many respects she understands me better than others. She’s so willing to help in everything that I can’t tell you how useful she is to me. If I get angry while she’s posing or about something else, she knows how to take it, and has seen that it doesn’t go deep with me. Equally, if I fret or grumble about something that isn’t going well, she often manages to calm me down, which I couldn’t do myself. And she’s thrifty and accepts our piece of black bread if need be, without becoming despondent. And so do I, as long as we get by. I hope that you’ve received the drawings I sent around 10 May, I think, two dozen in a portfolio. I’ve heard nothing about it yet. I do wish there were a few more people I could do work for on the same sort of conditions as for C.M. And above all that C.M. perseveres, for these drawings are much better than the first, and gradually I’ll produce even better ones. And at that price, he can’t go wrong.
You know all about it: I’ll be in good spirits as long as you don’t desert me because of Sien. I’m at work on the dot of 4, so with a little sympathy from those who know me I’ll get on top of things. I’m hoping for your letter. Accept a handshake in thought, but above all write soon and save me from the landlord. Adieu.
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague, Tuesday, 30 May 1882.
My dear brother,
To day or tomorrow/ being the 1st of June/ I promised to pay my landlord f_ 5. rent of studio for the month of April + f_ 7.50 for last month – makes f_ 12.50. But not having up to now received any letter of yours since that of May 12th I have nothing to pay him his twelve guilders & 50c with_ The man will surely not give me any longer delay but they can immediately sell my furniture publicly. Whatever may be your opinion concerning the things I told you – do not let it come to this scandal. My drawings for C.M. are ready but I shall not be able to get that money early enough. I say again – let us at all events avoid irregularity & public scandal and talk or write calmly on the subject till we know what ought to be done. Therefore I hope you will sent me what I so greatly want/ & write. I work day & night & have a small drawing ready for you which I will send bye & bye. I have no more money for a stamp, excuse the postcard, & believe me
Yours truly
Vincent
The Hague, 1 July 1882
My dear Theo,
I’ve been back in my studio for a few hours and am writing to you immediately. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be better again, or how beautiful everything looked on the road from the hospital to here. And how the light seemed brighter and the spaces bigger, and all the objects and figures more important. There’s a ‘but’, though, and that ‘but’ is that I’ll again have a catheter or a thick lead probe in my bladder, for next Tuesday I have to go back to the doctor and tell him how I’ve been getting on, and he has prepared me for the fact that I may then have to go into hospital for another fortnight, possibly longer, possibly shorter, depending on what’s needed. At any rate I would be absolutely delighted if I didn’t have to go in again. As soon as I feel anything wrong I have to go back, and even if I don’t notice anything I’ll go on Tuesday to be examined again. The channel through which the urine passes must gradually be widened, but this can’t be forced or rushed. The probes gradually become thicker, and each time a new one goes in everything is stretched a little further, and that’s painful, but above all extremely unpleasant, particularly because the thing is left in place for a time. Blood comes out when it’s removed, and then you feel relatively free for a few days, while the pain it causes disappears. I’m now here in one of those intervals. Meanwhile I can now pass water quite easily once more, which makes me feel on top of the world, as if it were something very special. But it must become entirely normal, and that will take time. Yet the sense of getting better makes you forget all the catheters and probes and instillations... until you see the doctor approaching with them again. And that isn’t a very pleasant moment. Well, such are the petty troubles of life. But what one might call a ‘great trouble’ is pregnancy and delivery — the latest letter from Sien was very melancholy. She hadn’t yet given birth but was expecting to at any hour, and I feel very worried, because this waiting has been going on for days. It was chiefly to be able to visit her that I asked the doctor to change the walks in the garden into a short leave of absence, if it was at all possible. So tomorrow morning I’m going to see her with her mother and child, Sunday being the only day on which she’s allowed visitors. Her last letter to me wasn’t written by herself but by the nurse, who herself asked that we should come sometime. Yet we may still find that we aren’t allowed in. Poor lass, she’s full of courage and not easily frightened, but according to that last letter there was nothing in particular wrong except for inner frailty. I can’t tell you how I longed for her in the hospital and how I long for her now, and at times I wasn’t sorry that I had to cope with some suffering myself, rather than standing there in excellent health, for then it would have been very unevenly divided. If all goes well, though, Sien will be back this month, may that prove to be the case. But the proverb says ‘A mother’s pains are long-lasting’. This casts a dark shadow over the wonderful feeling of getting better. I’m longing for tomorrow and dreading it at the same time.
The first person I came across here in Schenkweg was my friend the carpenter, who has helped me on several occasions with one job or another to do with making instruments for perspective. And who’s also the foreman for the owner of the studio I wrote to you about. His boss was just at the yard (the drawing of which you have, with meadows in the distance), and they coaxed me into going along, and showed me how they had left the room that would be the studio unpapered pending my decision. I said I still couldn’t decide. Fine, said the man, but I could choose what I wanted from a batch of wallpapers, then he would put it up and I wouldn’t be under any obligation. And even though I said I didn’t want that, since I had to go back to the hospital, they’ve already started work, because they insist on showing me it before Tuesday. I must say the house is very comfortable and looks really large and smart. The huge, fully panelled attic alone would make a superb studio if need be, although the room facing north was going to be the studio. And the price is unusually low for here; in the city it would be about double. Three guilders a week for a large upstairs flat is very little, even in comparison with neighbourhoods like Noordwal or the Buitensingels. And the location is excellent for a painter. There’s one view from the attic window that’s enchanting. Still, I didn’t want to take a decision because both Sien and I are sick. But I’ll take the matter up again as soon as we’re better. There is air and space, wonderful to work in and keep healthy. Light from the north, and in the other room roughly from the south. There’s a small kitchen I really hope to draw a lot, also with a little window overlooking a sort of courtyard. I mustn’t forget to tell you that, most unexpectedly, I had a visit in the hospital from Mr Tersteeg, which gave me great pleasure in one sense, although we didn’t talk about anything special, nor is that necessary. But I thought it very kind. Then a few days later Iterson came as well, about which I cared much less.
And then Johan van Gogh, who I thought was in Helvoirt but turns out to be living in Stationsweg these days. He told me that he, too, had had a bunch of catheters and other musical instruments in his bladder once. Given that he appears to be free of them now, I hope there’ll be an end to it in my case as well. It would be too bad if a person had such adornments for a long time — it would be hard to climb stairs or show yourself in public. If you send me something at the beginning of this month, you should address the letter to the hospital. It will be all right, because the porter has promised me to keep letters if I’m away (this is allowed under hospital rules as long as one isn’t finally discharged and puts in a request). On Tuesday I have to pay for the hospital again, and the rent that I owe as well. But the finest thing of all about getting better is that my drawing is coming back to life, together with my feeling for things, which was drugged, so to speak, for a time, and was a great void. I again enjoy everything I see. And then, I haven’t smoked a pipe in about a month — that’s another old friend back. I can’t tell you with what pleasure I sit here again in the studio after spending so long in an environment of chamber-pots &c., even though the hospital is also beautiful, truly beautiful. Especially the garden with all the strollers, men, women, children. I have a few scratches, but as a patient you aren’t free to work as it ought to be done, and not up to it either. Well, adieu, write soon, and believe me, with a handshake
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague, Thursday, 6 July 1882.
Dear brother,
Having received your letter and the 100 francs enclosed, I thank you most sincerely and feel the need to write to you again straightaway. Because I think it would be a good idea if I explained, honestly and to the best of my knowledge and with all the earnestness in me, some matters which it’s important you should be fully aware of and understand. So I hope that you’ll read this letter at your ease and with patience, because for me so much depends on it. Tomorrow morning I’m going back to the hospital and I’ll lay my head down there calmly if I know that you’ve been informed about everything as fully and clearly as the distance permits. I would much, much rather that you’d been present, so that I could have shown you everything here this afternoon and discussed it with you. But let’s hope that will happen in August. Before going on to various other matters, I must tell you that I was very taken by one passage in your letter describing Paris by night. Because it evoked a memory of myself when I too saw ‘Paris all grey’ and was struck by that so very curious effect, with the little black figure and the distinctive white horse that brings out the delicacy of those curious greys exactly like that. That touch of dark and that tonal white are the key to the harmony. But in the hospital just recently, as it happens, an artist who described that Paris all grey with the hand of a master made a great impression on me. In ‘Une page d’amour’ by Emile Zola I found several townscapes painted or drawn in a masterly, masterly fashion — entirely in the sentiment of the simple passage in your letter. And that small book by him is why I’m very definitely going to read everything by Zola, of whom I had only known a few fragments up to now: 1 for which I attempted to make an illustration, ‘Ce que je veux’, and another piece describing an old peasant that was exactly like a drawing by Millet. You have something mightily artistic in you, brother — cultivate it — let it first put down roots one way or another and then flower — don’t give it to just anyone — but seriously, for yourself, think about it, and don’t consider it a misfortune if it concentrates itself through that thinking and comes to occupy quite an important place in your activity. But I may be venturing into forbidden territory, so no more about that for today. Only, again, there is ‘drawing’ in your short description — for me palpable and comprehensible, even though you haven’t yet pursued your impression to the point where it would acquire a more robust body and stand on its feet visibly or palpably for everyone. The true pain and tension of creating begins at the point where you let go of the description – but you have the intelligence of creating in damned good measure. Now you can’t go any further because you don’t yet believe in yourself in this respect, otherwise you would take the plunge, that’s to say venture further. But enough. There’s a certain je ne sais quoi in your description, a scent — a memory — of a watercolour by Bonington, for example, only it’s still faint as if in a mist. Do you know that drawing in words is also an art, and sometimes betrays a hidden force latent inside, just as the blue or grey cloud of smoke betrays the hearth?
I most certainly do appreciate what Pa and Ma did during my illness – you remember I wrote to you about it right away — as much as I value the visit by H.G.T. However, that’s not why I didn’t immediately write to Pa and Ma about Sien or anything else, and only sent a brief word to tell them of my recovery. And here’s why. Because something is left of what happened last summer and this winter that marks the line between past and present like an iron barrier.
It isn’t in the least my intention to go in the same manner as last year to Pa and Ma to ask their advice or opinion, because it became clear to me then that there was a sharp difference in way of thinking and attitude to life. Nonetheless, it is my ardent desire to keep the peace and to convince Pa and Ma that it wouldn’t be right if they were to turn against me, in the belief that I was someone who only dreamed and didn’t know how to act — that, I say, they are mistaken in their view that my approach to situations is so impractical as to make it necessary for them to ‘guide’ me. You see, Theo, believe me, I don’t say this out of bitterness, contempt or disdain for Pa and Ma — or to glorify myself — but only to help you grasp one fact, namely this. Pa and Ma aren’t the sort of people to understand me — neither my faults nor my better side — they can’t put themselves in my position. Reasoning with them only leads to quarrels. What’s to be done??? Here’s my plan, which I hope you will approve. I hope to arrange things so that, next month for example, I can put aside 10 guilders, or preferably 15. Then — but not before — I want to write to Pa and Ma that I have something to say to them, that I invite Pa to repeat his journey at my expense and to stay with me for a few days.
I want to show him Sien and her baby, which he won’t be expecting, as well as the house bright and the studio with all manner of work in progress, and myself, by then fully recovered, I hope. In my view all this will have a better and deeper and more desirable effect than words or writing. I’ll tell him briefly how Sien and I struggled through her anxious pregnancy last winter — how you helped and still help us loyally, even though you only heard about Sien later. That for me she is priceless, first through the love and attachment between us that circumstances have strengthened, and second because from the start she has devoted herself utterly, with great good will, intelligence and practical skill, to helping me in my work. And that she and I dearly hope that Pa will approve of my having taken her as my wife. I can’t put it any other way than ‘having taken’, because the formality of marriage is not what makes her my wife, since this is a bond that already exists — a feeling from both sides that we love, understand and help each other. As for what Pa will say about marrying itself, I believe he’ll say, ‘Marry her’. I would like Pa to have a fresh and clear impression of a new future for me, to see me here in surroundings very different from what he may imagine, for him to be completely reassured about my feelings towards him, for him to have confidence in my future and put wardship or Geel a thousand miles from his thoughts. You see, Theo, I know of no more direct or honest way or means than what I’ve described to restore relations soon and in a practical fashion. Write and let me know your feelings about this.
Now, furthermore, I don’t think it superfluous to tell you again, although it’s difficult to express, what I feel for Sien. I have a sense of being at home when I’m with her, a sense that she brings my ‘hearth and home’ with her, a sense that we have grown together. This is an intensely deep feeling, serious and not without the dark shadow of her and my fairly sombre pasts, a shadow I’ve written to you about before, as if, indeed, something sombre continues to threaten us against which our life must be a constant struggle. At the same time, though, I feel a great calm and clarity and cheerfulness at the thought of her and of the straight path lying before me. You know that last year I wrote to you a great deal about Kee Vos — so that, it seems to me, you have a clear picture of what took place within me. Don’t think that I exaggerated my feelings to you — it was a strong, passionate love I felt for her, unlike that for Sien. When I discovered in Amsterdam that she had a sort of dislike for me, which I didn’t think was the case, to such an extent that she regarded my behaviour as coercion and wasn’t even prepared to see me, but ‘that she went out of the door of her own house as long as I was inside it’, then — but not before — my love for her received a mortal blow. Which I first became aware of when, recovering from my intoxication as it were, I was in The Hague this winter. At that time there was a sense of inexpressible melancholy in me which I find impossible to describe. I know that I then thought very, very often of a manly remark by père Millet: ‘It has always seemed to me that suicide is the act of a dishonest man’.
The emptiness, the inexpressible wretchedness inside, made me think — yes, I can understand why there are people who jump into the water — it’s just that I was far from approving of what those people did, and I found solidity in the words I’ve quoted, and thought it much the better approach to get hold of oneself and seek a medicine in work. The way, as you know, I tackled it then. It’s difficult, terribly difficult, indeed impossible, to think of something like my passion of last year as an illusion. That’s what Pa and Ma do, but I say, ‘Even if it will never be, it could have been’. It wasn’t an illusion, but the attitudes differed and the turn taken by circumstances was such that the ways diverged further and further instead of coming together. This is how I see it — these are my clear and honest thoughts — it could have been but now it never can be. Was Kee Vos right to have a dislike for me, was I wrong to persist? I declare I do not know. And it isn’t without pain and sorrow that I think back on it and write about it. I would like so much to understand better why Kee Vos was like that then and how it was that my parents and hers were so adamantly ominous and opposed, not so much through their words — although very certainly through them too, above all indirectly in the meaning more than the form — as through their complete lack of genuine, warm, living sympathy. I can’t soften these words, but I think of it as a mood of theirs that I would rather forget. Now, in the circumstances, it’s like a large, deep wound in me that has healed but is still palpable.
At that time — in that winter — could I feel ‘love’ again straight afterwards? Certainly not. But was it wrong that the human feeling in me wasn’t extinguished or numbed, and that my sorrow indeed aroused a need for compassion with others??? I think not. So at first Sien was a fellow human being to me, as alone and unhappy as I was. Yet, not being in despair, I was in the right state of mind to be able to give her some practical support, which at the same time was a stimulus to me to carry on. But gradually, slowly, something else developed between her and me. A certain need for each other. So that she and I stayed close together, entering each other’s lives more and more, and then it was love. Theo, I must perhaps touch on a point that may be painful for you that may make you understand what I mean. In the past you had what Pa and Ma also call an ‘illusion’ for a woman of the people, and the fact that nothing came of it wasn’t because you couldn’t take that path in life but because things took a different course, and you have since adapted to life in another class where you are now firmly established, so that for you it wouldn’t again be an illusion if you wanted to marry a girl from your class. In your case that wouldn’t arouse any comment, and although nothing came of that first love, something might come of a new love, and you would succeed. In my opinion, your way is definitely not to take a woman of the people: with you the so-called illusion was the woman of the people; the reality for you has now become the woman from the same kind of class as Kee Vos. For me, though, it’s the other way round: the illusion (ALTHOUGH I DON’T BELIEVE THAT WORD OR DEFINITION WAS APPROPRIATE OR ACCURATE, EITHER IN YOUR CASE OR MINE) was Kee Vos; the reality has become the woman of the people.
There’s a difference between your case and mine in several respects. Your failure was when you were twenty, mine last year. But although both you and I may have had an illusion, failure or whatever — I really don’t know what to call it — that doesn’t rule out something more real, either for you or for me. For I’m quite sure that neither of us is cut out to be celibate. What I want to make clear is this: what there is between Sien and me is real; it’s not a dream, it is reality. I count it a great blessing that my thoughts and capacity for work have found a focus, a particular direction. While it may be that I felt more passion for Kee Vos, and that in some respects she was more charming than Sien, it is certainly not so that the love for Sien is therefore less sincere, for the circumstances are too grave, and it all comes down to taking action and being practical, and that has always been so since I first met her. You can see what the result is... now if you come you won’t find me dejected or melancholy, but you’ll enter a setting with which I believe you’ll be satisfied, or at least like. A young studio, a still young, fully functioning household. Not a mystical or mysterious studio, but one that has rooted itself in real life. A studio with a cradle and a close-stool. Where there’s no stagnation and everything prompts and urges and generates activity.
Now if someone or other comes to tell me that I’m a poor financier, I’ll show him my place here. I’ve done my best, brother, to ensure that you can see (and not just you, but everyone with eyes in his head) that I strive and sometimes manage to tackle things practically. HOW TO DO IT. This winter we had the woman’s pregnancy and my expenses in getting settled. Now the woman has given birth, I’ve been ill for four weeks — and still not better — despite all that the place is clean and cheerful and bright and tidy, and I have a large part of my furniture, bedding and painting materials. It has cost what it cost, to be sure I won’t underestimate it, but your money hasn’t gone down the drain. A young studio has come from it which can’t yet do without your help, but from which more and more drawings will gradually emerge and which requires only essential furniture and tools, which retain their value. You see, old chap, if you come here now to a house full of life and activity, knowing that you are its founder — won’t that give you a proper sense of satisfaction, more so than if I were a celibate spending my life in bars? Would you have it otherwise??? You know that I wasn’t always happy, and sometimes truly wretched, and now through your help my youth is emerging, and my true development.
Now I just hope that you won’t lose sight of this great change, even when people think you’re mad to have helped or to help me. And that you’ll continue to see in the present drawings the seed of later ones. A little longer in the hospital and then I’ll go back to work, and the woman and child will pose. It’s as clear as daylight to me that one must feel what one makes, that one must live in the reality of family life if one wants to portray family life intimately — a mother and child, a washerwoman, a seamstress, whatever.
As a result of stubborn labour, the hand is gradually becoming obedient to that feeling. But if I were to snuff out this feeling, and the strength to have my own household, that would be suicide. That’s why I say — onward — despite dark shadows, cares and difficulties, also, alas, through people interfering and gossiping. Theo — make no mistake — although I, as you rightly say, stay out of it, it often pierces me to the soul. But do you know why I no longer argue with them and why I stay out of it? — because I must work and may not let myself be diverted from my path by the gossip and difficulties. But I don’t stay out of it because I’m afraid of them or am at a loss for words. Also, I’ve often noticed that they say nothing in my presence, and even claim never to have said anything. As for you, knowing that I don’t get involved in order not to make myself nervous and because of my work, you’ll be able to understand my attitude and not think it cowardly of me, won’t you? Don’t imagine that I think myself perfect — or that I believe it isn’t my fault that many people find me a disagreeable character. I’m often terribly and cantankerously melancholic, irritable — yearning for sympathy as if with a kind of hunger and thirst — I become indifferent, sharp, and sometimes even pour oil on the flames if I don’t get sympathy. I don’t enjoy company, and dealing with people, talking to them, is often painful and difficult for me.
But do you know where a great deal if not all of this comes from? Simply from nervousness — I who am terribly sensitive, both physically and morally, only really acquired it in the years when I was deeply miserable. Ask a doctor and he’ll immediately understand entirely how it couldn’t be otherwise than that nights spent on the cold street or out of doors, the anxiety about coming by bread, constant tension because I didn’t really have a job, sorrow with friends and family were at least 3/4 of the cause of some of my peculiarities of temperament — and whether the fact that I sometimes have disagreeable moods or periods of depression couldn’t be attributable to this? But neither you nor anyone else who takes the trouble to think about it will, I hope, condemn me or find me unbearable because of that. I fight against it, but that doesn’t alter my temperament. And even if I consequently have a bad side, well damn it, I have my good side as well, and can’t they take that into consideration too? Write to me to say whether you approve of my little plan for telling Pa and Ma and establishing better relations. I don’t feel in the least like just writing about it or going to discuss it, and would probably then make my usual mistake of putting it in such a way that they take offence at some expression or other. There you are. I think when the woman is back with her child, I fully recovered and back from the hospital, the studio working, then I would like to say to Pa: come and resume your visit and stay with me for a few days to talk things over. And then send the travel expenses as a courtesy. I can’t think of a better plan. Adieu, thank you for everything, and a handshake, and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague, Saturday, 15 and Sunday, 16 July 1882.
My dear Theo,
On Friday I received a message from the hospital in Leiden to say that Sien could go home on Saturday. So I went there today and we came back together and she’s now here at Schenkweg — so far everything is fine, both with her and the baby. Fortunately, she has good milk, the baby is quiet. I would have given a lot to have you see her today. Her appearance has changed enormously, I assure you, since this winter. It’s a complete transformation. I may have had something to do with that this winter, through your help of course, but much, much more of the credit must go to the professor who treated her. But in turn the professor had less to do with the effect on her of the strong attachment between her and me. A woman changes when she loves and is loved; if there’s no one who cares for them the drive and charm goes. It brings out what is in her, and her development most decidedly depends on this. Nature must run its course, follow its normal way. What a woman wants is to be with one man and to stay with him for good. That’s not always possible, but if it is otherwise it goes against nature. So she now has a different look compared to last winter, her eyes are different, her gaze is now steady and calm, and there’s an expression of happiness in her, of peace and rest, which is all the more striking because of course she’s still in pain. I’ve written to you before that the shape of her head, the line of her profile, is precisely that of that figure by Landelle, the Angel of the passion. So that’s far from ordinary, it’s decidedly noble, but it isn’t always immediately apparent. But today it was precisely, precisely that. Before she left, the professor (who has taken a liking to her — also knows her from the past — and gave her special attention this time — and examined her completely and thoroughly at her request, prompted by what I had agreed with her before she went there) took the trouble to have a long talk with her and give her detailed information about what she must do to stay on top of things. 1 Be with one man, since her whole constitution and temperament make her suitable for domestic life and decidedly unsuited to the kind of life she was brought to by her past misery. 2 That she must be out of doors often, and do plenty of walking as soon as she’s strong enough — breathe in lots of air and freshness. 3 As to food, he told her what she must eat and what isn’t good for her. 4 She must wash often with cold water and brandy, and regularly take a hot bath every week. 5 She must avoid emotions that make her nervous: anxiety, tension, agitation.
6 No scrubbing floors or similar really hard work, especially not with the head lowered as when mopping a corridor, also especially no lifting of heavy objects. Thus broadly what he’d already said before, only now he explained it to her in more detail. It’s clear to me from everything that he takes a special interest in her. Naturally, he also talked to her about me at some length; knows about my illness, and says I was quite right to go to the hospital, even told her exactly how he thinks I got it; not once but repeatedly he came back to whether she was really with me permanently – whether I wouldn’t leave her in the lurch – and when she continued to reassure him, even when he said that she was just fooling him, he ended by saying, well, if you’ve really got your man for good, you’ve gained a great deal. He kept hammering on the point that she must have a domestic, regular and quiet life. When she left, not only the nurse on the ward where she was but also the head nurse herself came to say goodbye. I was there, and since I had had three letters from this person telling me how things were going when Sien wasn’t allowed to write, I thanked her for that. And she stayed talking to us for quite a long time. Fortunately, it was very warm, fine weather and the journey went well. Sien’s mother and Sien’s little girl had gone to Schenkweg and were waiting for us. It really was a lovely homecoming, and Sien was in high spirits over everything, especially over the cradle, over her wicker chair, over everything. But above all she was delighted to see her little girl again, who had received a new pair of boots from me for the occasion and looked very nice. In May there was a combination of difficulties, her confinement, my illness, and this was complicated by the question of what to do, where she was to go. In many respects, light and a resolution have come. She’s now still in considerable pain at times, mainly as a consequence of the operation with forceps, and there are other necessary effects of her confinement. There’s the great weakness, but one can see from her appearance that she’s undergoing a renewal and a blossoming, a recovery of her body and a recovery of her soul at the same time. And here there is now an atmosphere of ‘home’, or ‘Home’ or ‘hearth and home’. I can understand that Michelet says ‘Woman is a religion’. She’ll probably continue to be in pain for at least 6 weeks after the birth, and mustn’t overdo things at all. I believe that you can see, for example, from the interest taken in her by the professor and the head nurse that she’s someone for whom serious people feel a sympathy, because it really is something special for them to have cosseted her so much. When I was in the maternity ward and saw various other patients, it struck me that she was a very different type of person from the others, though she’s simple enough. Only there’s more spirit and sensitivity in her; one can see that suffering and going through hard times have refined her.
I hope you won’t feel any scruples about meeting her. I’ve been greatly entertained by what Sien has told me of her conversations with the professor. It really was amusing, and the man seems to go about his work with a good deal of bonhomie. For example, he said: tell me, do you enjoy a glass of bitters and can you smoke cigars? Yes, she replied. I ask, he said, in order to tell you that you don’t need to give that up. On the other hand, she got a terrible dressing down about using vinegar, mustard and pepper. On days when she feels more thirst than hunger, as often happens, she is to take a glass of bitters as a medicine to stimulate the appetite.
He has given her the list of restoratives, having consulted her as to her means. I’ll also keep to what he recommends in this respect. Meat is good for her, but once or twice a week is actually enough; it certainly isn’t required every day. Her principal remedy, her most important restorative, was having a home; he kept coming back to that. I had been rather concerned that Sien might need things that would prove expensive, but the kind of life that he has prescribed is also the thriftiest one could imagine. So I really do believe we’ll be able to manage on 150 francs a month. Sien was also told that for a period of 2 years she can consult the professor in Leiden free of charge if her child is ill, and also get free medicines there for him. My concern, child, is not just to get you through your confinement, said the professor, but also in a year or so I hope to see you a strong, vigorous woman. You have a whole life ahead of you if you don’t ignore what I say. In short, he talked to her and gave her information as if he were her own father, in large things and in small. And so she came home much more cheerful and clear-headed than when she left.
I am well, but I’ve noticed that I’ve become quite weak; this will pass, though. But it isn’t surprising if you reckon that for over two months I have had and still have, to some extent, for instance, poor digestion, little appetite, chronic fever, &c. Passing water was much better until a few particularly raw, wet days had a rather adverse effect on me. For several days the stream on passing water was again strong and, so to speak, entirely normal. While that hasn’t completely continued since, it’s nevertheless a sign of progress, it seems to me, and if the weather stays dry and warm like today it will progress more rapidly. I’ve been drawing again, and although it gave me a headache and soon tired me out, it will gradually improve. Especially since little by little I’ll be able to resume posing the woman and child at home. My weakness is a disappointment, but the sort of things I had always have that effect. The two drawings I’ve done in the past few days are both watercolours. Because I wanted to make an experiment.
It seems to me, though, that I must still keep working mainly at pure drawing, which is the foundation of all the rest. But as you saw in the latest, I’m gradually beginning to use wash. As soon as I’m fully recovered I would like to make a more serious attempt at a particular watercolour on Harding, because that paper (more than Whatman) allows you to apply a solid basis or ground in black and white before starting to wash, without it taking away the look of watercolour. But at present I can’t work for long enough at a time on a piece, which is very frustrating because I long so much to work and to go outdoors. Meanwhile I’m glad that at least I can now do a little again. I began this letter yesterday evening and I can now tell you that we, namely the woman and the two children and I, spent the night in the big attic.
That bedroom looks a lot like a ship’s hold because it’s all panelled, and I believe that to be very healthy. The cradle has to go downstairs during the day. It all went fine, and as long as there’s no unpleasantness from outside, which I have hopes there won’t be, we’ll get along quite well inside. As for me, I don’t find the company of the woman and the children odd, but feel precisely as if I’m more in my element and as if things had been like this for much longer. I’m quite used to rolling up my sleeves to do things that the woman is too weak for, such as making the bed or a thousand other chores. I’ve faced all manner of tasks like that, either for myself or often enough for the sick &c. And that those things aren’t an impediment to the work of painting and drawing is amply proved by the old Dutch paintings and drawings. It can do no harm to have the studio and family blending together, especially as regards figure drawing. I remember studio interiors by Ostade, small pen drawings, probably bits of his own house, which make it clear enough that Ostade’s studio probably bore little resemblance to those studios where there are oriental arms and vases and Persian carpets &c. To continue on the subject of art, I sometimes feel a great desire to get back to painting. The studio is now more spacious, the light better, I have a good cupboard for keeping paint &c. without creating too much mess and dirt. Also, I’ve already straightaway started working with watercolour again. It depends on my recovery, but as soon as I no longer run the risk of collapsing and can go outdoors for long periods and sit quietly in the open, I plan to take all that up again and put all my energy into it. I believe that now that Sien and I are living together and are no longer two separate households, as it were, I’ll be able to save more for painting materials from 150 francs a month than before. Neither Sien nor I mind making do, and as long as I don’t earn more myself by selling drawings we won’t buy much more in the way of furniture or household items, for example. For she and I would both much rather wait for those sorts of things than take more money now, even if we could get it.
For her part, Sien will start posing again seriously as soon as she has recovered, and I assure you her figure is interesting enough. In fact, you can see for yourself in Sorrow, for example, and a few of the others you have, that she knows how to approach posing and is suited to it. I have several nude studies that you haven’t seen yet. I also definitely want to continue with them as soon as she’s ready, because one learns a great deal from that.
Even if I have to give up working out of doors for a considerable time if my health deteriorates (which I hope won’t happen), at any rate now I’ll have enough material indoors to occupy myself. I’ve had a friendly letter from Pa and Ma. Just imagine, again with two money orders enclosed, even. They mustn’t do that any more, though. I know they need it themselves, and I say again that we can manage with the money from you now that things are turning out so well as regards the improvement in Sien’s condition, and mine too. So I really would rather not have the money from Pa and Ma. As I wrote to you, as soon as I can save the money and the woman is better I even wanted to send some to Pa to pay for a journey here so that we can discuss this and that. What pleases me more than the money orders is that they’re in what seems to me the best mood in the circumstances, so that when I speak to them about Sien they won’t, I hope, immediately be against it but respond with good will. I recently saw the exhibition of French art (on the Boschkant) from the collections of Mesdag, Post &c.
There are many beautiful things there by Dupré, Corot, Daubigny, Diaz, Courbet, Breton, Jacque &c. I especially liked the large sketch by T. Rousseau from the Mesdag collection, a drove of cattle in the Alps. And a landscape by Courbet: yellow hilly, sandy ground, with fresh young grass growing here and there, with black brushwood fences against which a few white birch trunks stand out, grey buildings in the distance with red and blue slate roofs. And a narrow, small, light delicate grey band of sky above. The horizon very high, however, so that the ground is the main thing, and the delicate little band of sky really serves more as contrast to bring out the rough texture of the masses of dark earth. I think this is the most beautiful work by Courbet that I’ve seen so far.
The Duprés are superb, and there’s a Daubigny, big thatched roofs against the slope of a hill, that I couldn’t get enough of. The same goes for a small Corot, a stretch of water and the edge of a wood on a summer morning about 4 o’clock. A single small pink cloud indicates that the sun will come up in a while. A stillness and calm and peace that enchants one. I’m glad to have seen all this.
Well, I’m going to close. I hope that you’ll write soon and above all that you really will come to Holland towards August. I’m writing to you ‘in between jobs’ because, as you can imagine, there’s a lot to be done now. I let Sien potter about but I always have to keep an eye on what she’s doing so that I can chance to be at hand if she needs help. For she really is very weak still (so much so that the professor, she told me, said ‘damned’ weak), and yet it’s good that in doing this and that she has a distraction. Anything that cheers her up and makes her light-hearted is medicine for her. The baby, too, is far from out of danger — you know how the child was delivered — that always has an effect on the child, and little can be said as to how it will turn out for another 6 weeks. Much depends on the milk, of course. I hope you’re not too bored reading all this, I wanted to write a brief word and it has turned into a long letter. I’m not yet running short, but if you could send something around the twentieth that would be helpful for the last days of the month.Adieu, with a hearty handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague 26 July 1882. Wednesday morning
My dear Theo,
It matters greatly to me that you shouldn’t get the idea that I’m in a dejected or abnormal mood. That’s why I wrote to you already about work in my last letter, and since I have a few more things to ask in that connection I haven’t waited long before writing again. By the time you come I’ll do my best to have several watercolours done in different ways ready for you to see, then we can discuss which seems best to you.
So I’ll work regularly on this every day, and continue to do so until you come. I now have 3 of Scheveningen — again the Fish-drying barn you know — drawn in as much detail — only now there’s colour as well. As you well know, Theo, it isn’t harder to work in colour than in black and white, the opposite perhaps, but as far as I can see 3/4 comes down to the original sketch, and almost the whole watercolour depends on its quality. It isn’t enough to give an approximation, and my aim has been and still is to make it more intense. I believe that’s already evident in the black-and-white fish-drying barns, because there you can follow everything and see how it all fits together, and look, I think this is why I now work much more fluently in watercolour, because for such a long time I did my best to draw more correctly.
Tersteeg said that what I was doing was a waste of time; soon you’ll see that I’ve saved a great deal of time. I already feel that, and you’ll see it for yourself when you come.
This evening I went from one shop to another searching for thick Ingres, but in vain. They have the thin, but the dense or double is nowhere to be found. At the time I bought all that Stam had left, and it was wonderfully mature. Before you come, oh do your best to find some once more. And if you can’t get any, try asking for ‘papier de la forme’. That is with a yellowish tint — stiff — and you can use wash on it. I believe it’s also much cheaper than Harding or Whatman, so that in the end there’s quite a saving. When you come I know of a few lovely paths through the meadows where it’s so quiet and peaceful that you’ll be delighted. I’ve discovered old and new labourer’s cottages there, and other houses that are distinctive, with small gardens lining the banks of the ditch — really charming. I’m going to draw there early tomorrow morning. It’s a path through the meadows from Schenkweg to Enthoven’s factory or Het Zieke. I saw a dead pollard willow there, just the thing for Barye, for example. It hung over a pond with reeds, all alone and melancholy, and its bark was scaled and mossy, as it were, and spotted and marbled in various tones — something like the skin of a snake, greenish, yellowish, mostly dull black. With white flaking spots and stumpy branches. I’m going to attack it tomorrow morning. I’ve also done a bleaching ground at Scheveningen, on the spot in one go, entirely in wash almost without preparation, on a very coarse piece of torchon. Here are a couple of small sketches of it. I’ll make sure that several things are ready by the time you come. I think you’ll like the Fish-drying barn now that it’s with colours.
Make no mistake, old chap, I’m fully back into my normal routine, and rest assured that everything else depends on work, and I see everything as directly related to that. The new studio makes a huge difference compared to the previous one in that it’s more pleasant to work in; for posing, especially, it’s a great improvement because one can stand further back. I’m sure it will be well worth the extra rent. I have one request for you, though. I would entirely understand and would find it quite natural if, instead of sending the money on 1 August, you were to give it to me yourself when you arrive on, say, 7 August. As soon as I received your last letter, however, I made some purchases of paper and paint and brushes, and by 1 August I’ll certainly need some more things. So I want to ask you to be so kind as to send something all the same just before 1 August, if possible, even though you’ll be coming soon afterwards, because I’ve worked it out exactly, exactly, and after the first few days of August I’ll certainly be absolutely broke. I hope this won’t inconvenience you: of course, more is not the intention; it’s the time that matters, namely 1 August, if possible, and otherwise only a few days later. I also have a second of the Rijswijk meadows in which the same subject takes on an entirely different aspect through being seen from a different height and viewpoint. As you see, I’ve become very caught up in landscapes. The reason is that Sien can’t pose yet, but otherwise the figure must remain the chief concern.
When you come I’ll take care to be close to home as long as you’re in the city and that you know where I am, and otherwise I’ll carry on with my normal routine while you do your business and pay visits. I can find you wherever you suggest a meeting, but for various reasons I believe it’s better for both of us if I don’t go with you to the Plaats, say, or to Mauve, for example. I’m so used to my working clothes, in which I can sit or lie in the sand or grass as I please (for in the dunes, for example, I hardly ever use a chair, except perhaps an old fish basket), that my outfit is rather too Robinson Crusoe-like for me to accompany you much on your rounds. I say this in advance so that you’ll know I won’t be an embarrassment to you, but otherwise you understand that I long for every half hour you can spare. I think we’ll be more at ease if we’re completely taken up by painting and drawing, and talk mainly about that. Unless you’re not bored or embarrassed by other matters, if not, then of course I have no secrets from you, and you have my complete confidence in everything. I also long to show you the woodcuts. I have another splendid one, a drawing by Fildes, ‘Dickens’s empty chair’ from The Graphic of 70. I could have bought 3 etchings by Meryon for 2 guilders for all three, but I let them go. They were good though, but I have so few etchings and want to concentrate on woodcuts if I buy anything else. But I wanted to tell you about them — Blok has them, and I don’t know if all Meryons are rare and valuable. They’re from an old volume of L’Artiste. I’m still under the spell of Zola’s books. How painted those Halles are. My health is good, though I still feel the odd thing and will probably continue to do so, at least for some time yet. Sien and the child are also well; they’re getting stronger and I love them dearly. I must have another go at the cradle (when it’s a rainy day and I can’t go outside), entirely in watercolour. But for the rest, when you come I want to show you — landscape watercolours — nearer winter I hope to have figure watercolours, that is, after I’ve been here a year. First I’ll have to draw more nudes and a lot more in black and white, it seems to me. We’ll discuss all that, and I don’t doubt that your visit will be a great help in keeping things in order and making work go smoothly. Adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
By quietly carrying on with my work I have every hope I’ll gradually acquire a new circle of friends to make up for the loss of the friendliness of Mauve, HGT and others. But I’ll take no steps to bring that about, none at all, for it must come through the work. What has happened to me with H.G.T. is nothing out of the ordinary; everyone experiences things like that in life. It’s impossible to say exactly what the cause is. But in the case of H.G.T. it’s an old grievance. I know now with near certainty that he said things about me long ago which did much to cast me in a bad light. However, I needn’t be concerned about that — what could hurt me in the past can’t do so now. When you come to the studio you’ll see for yourself how utterly absurd it is for him to say: oh, your drawing will never amount to anything. But it’s difficult to counter a pronouncement like that, because as soon as one does so it’s seen as conceit, and people cite the very greatest names and say: he thinks he’s so-and-so or so-and-so.
But, again, anyone who works with love and with intelligence has a kind of armour against people’s opinion in the sincerity of his love for nature and art. Nature is severe and hard, so to speak, but never deceives and always helps you to go forward. So I don’t count it a misfortune if I find myself out of favour with HGT or anyone else, however much I regret it. That can’t be the direct cause of unhappiness — if I felt no love for nature and my work, then I would be unhappy. But the less I get on with people the more I learn to trust nature and to concentrate on it. All these things make me fresher and fresher inside — you’ll also see that I’m not afraid of a fresh green or a soft blue and the thousand different greys, for there’s hardly any colour that isn’t a grey: red-grey, yellow-grey, green-grey, blue-grey. This is what all colour mixing comes down to. When I went back to the Fish-drying barn, a luxuriant and indescribably fresh green from a wild vegetable or oilseed had shot up in the baskets filled with sand in the foreground that serve to stop the sand of the dunes blowing about. Two months ago it was all barren except for a bit of grass in the small garden, and now that rough, wild, luxuriantly sprouting green produced a most pleasant effect as a contrast to the bareness of the rest. I hope you’ll like that drawing. The vista — the view over the roofs of the village with the small church tower and the dunes — was so attractive. I can’t tell you with how much pleasure I drew it. So come soon — I believe you’ll be completely content with the change of studio when you see how infinitely better it is for my work — more space, better light, greater distance.
Yesterday evening I got a parcel from home. Among other things, it contained a sort of demi-saison which is very useful. It was very kind of them. And there were tobacco and cigars, a cake and underwear. In short, a whole package. Don’t you think that’s kind? It’s more that I’m pleased by it showing their warm feelings than by anything else. I’ve also had another letter from Rappard. I take enormous pleasure in the fact that that chap is so fascinated by his English woodcuts. I got him going in the beginning, but now he needs no further encouragement; now he’s almost as enthusiastic as I am.
When you come I’ll show you a few prints which, once seen, won’t lightly fade from memory. Among them there are things very different from the school of Boughton, say, although he’s certainly one of the leaders. I mean things remarkable at once for their reality and their style, drawn like Albrecht Dürer but with lots of local colour and chiaroscuro. You don’t often see those prints any more these days; for you have to look for them in magazines of 10 or 15 years ago. For example, during the war of 70-71.
The Hague 5 August 1882. Saturday.
My dear Theo,
Still very much under the impression of your visit, and more than a little pleased that I can go on painting with new vigour, I’m writing you a few words. I had wanted to take you to the train the next morning — but I thought you had already given me so much time that it would have been impolite if I had asked you for the following morning as well. I’m very grateful to you for visiting me here — it’s wonderful to have the prospect of a year of steady work without disasters, and thanks to what you gave me I now also have a new horizon in painting. I regard myself as privileged above a thousand others in that you remove so many barriers in my way.
It goes without saying that many often can’t carry on because of the expense; well, I can hardly put into words how thankful I am to be able to keep on working steadily. I have to try twice as hard to make up for lost time because I began later than others, and with the best will in the world I would have to give up if I didn’t have you. Let me tell you about everything I’ve bought.
First, a large moist colour box for 12 pieces or tubes of watercolour with a folding lid that serves as a palette when open — there’s also room for 6 brushes.
This is a valuable piece of equipment for working out of doors, in fact absolutely essential, but it’s expensive and in my mind I had postponed it until later, and until now worked with loose pieces on saucers, but they’re awkward to carry, especially if you have other items as well. So it’s a fine thing to have, and once you have one it will last you for a long time. At the same time I bought a supply of watercolour and replaced my brushes and added some new ones. Moreover, I now have all the essentials for proper painting. And a supply of paint — big tubes (which work out much cheaper than small ones), but you will understand that I’ve limited myself to simple colours in both watercolour and oil: ochre (red, yellow, brown), cobalt and Prussian blue, Naples yellow, terra sienna, black and white, supplemented with some carmine, sepia, vermilion, ultramarine, gamboge in smaller tubes. But I refrained from buying colours one ought to mix oneself.
I believe this is a practical palette, with sound colours. Ultramarine, carmine or something else are added if absolutely necessary.
I’ll start with small things — but before the summer ends I hope to practise bigger sketches in charcoal with an eye to painting in a rather larger format later. This is why I’m having a new and, I hope, better perspective frame made, which will stand firmly on two legs in uneven ground like the dunes.
Like this, for example. What we saw together at Scheveningen, sand — sea — sky — is something I certainly hope to express one day. Of course I didn’t spend everything you gave me all at once — although I must say the prices of things greatly took me aback, especially bearing in mind that more items are needed than appears at first sight. It would be a help if you could send the usual around the twentieth, not because everything will be gone by then, but because I think it advisable to keep a little in my pocket in case, while working, I find that I really need something or other. That will help me to work calmly and in an orderly fashion.
The moist colour box fits into the painting box — so that if need be I can carry everything required both for watercolour and for painting in one object. I place great value on having good materials, and would like my studio to look substantial — but without antiquities or tapestries and drapery — but through the studies on the walls and good tools. That will have to come with work and time. On the subject of the village constable style — I feel less like a village constable than like a Delft bargee, for example, and I don’t at all object to my place being like a cosy tow barge. Yesterday afternoon I was in the attic of Smulders’ paper warehouse on Laan. There I found — guess what — double Ingres under the name Papier Torchon: it was a type with an even coarser grain than yours. I’m sending you a sample to show you. There’s a whole batch — already old and mature, excellent. I bought only half a quire for now, but I can always go back later. I was there in search of something else, namely the Honig paper that I have now and then, very cheap, from an undelivered order for the land registry. That is very suitable for charcoal drawing, I believe, and comes in large sheets tinted rather like the Harding type. As you see, this sample has a grain as coarse as a piece of sailcloth. What you brought is a nicer colour and wonderful, for example, for studies of the sides of ditches and soils. However, I’m glad to have discovered this new batch. Well, old chap, many thanks for everything, a handshake in thought; I’m going to start work. Give Pa and Ma my warmest regards, thank them for what they gave you for me, and tell them I’ll write soon — but as agreed not about special matters. Adieu — enjoy yourself, and have a safe return to your ordinary work, and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague, Thursday, 10 and Friday, 11 August 1882.
My dear Theo,
In the days since you left I’ve done some experimenting with painting. And thought you might be curious to know how I’m getting on. I do wish that you could be back in the studio for just an hour — that would be the best way to tell you how it turned out. Since that is, of course, impossible, I just want to say that I have 3 painted studies. One of a row of pollard willows in the meadow (behind the Geestbrug), then a study of the cinder road close to my neighbourhood — and today I was again in the vegetable gardens in Laan van Meerdervoort, where I found a potato field with a ditch. A man in a blue smock and a woman were gathering up the potatoes, and I put their figures in. The field was white, sandy ground — half dug over, half still covered by rows of dried stalks — with green weeds in between. In the distance dark green and a few roofs. I took the greatest pleasure in doing the last study in particular. I must say that painting is not as alien to me as you might think. On the contrary, I find it very appealing on account of it being a powerful means of expression.
And at the same time one can say delicate things with it too — let a soft grey or green speak in the midst of roughness. I’m very glad that I have the necessary equipment, because in the past I often had to restrain myself. It opens up a much broader horizon. Now I would like quietly to amass a good number of painted studies to hang in my studio without referring to this as a change. And should anyone express surprise at seeing painted work by me, to say: Well, did you think I had no feeling for that or couldn’t do it? But I’ve put a lot of work into drawing and will continue to do so, because it’s the backbone of painting, the skeleton supporting everything else. I’m enjoying it so much, Theo, that I’ll have to restrain rather than push myself because of the costs. These studies are of medium size, though slightly larger than the lid of an ordinary painting box, because I don’t work in the lid, but instead pin the painting paper for the study to a frame with canvas stretched across it, which is easy to carry. Before I paint bigger things, I’ll draw them bigger. Or, if I can find out the technique — I’ll look into it — make what they call grisailles of them.
It becomes too expensive a business if you’re not sparing with the paint. But, old chap, it’s wonderful for me that I’ve once again been given so many good tools — thanks again for everything. I’ll do my best to ensure that you need have no regrets, but rather the satisfaction of seeing the progress made. I’m writing now just for the time being to say that I’ve made a start. It goes without saying that the studies must become more beautiful — and that certainly they have their shortcomings too — but I believe that even in these first ones you’ll already see that there’s something of the open air in them, something that proves I have a feeling for nature and the heart of a painter. Herewith a small scratch of Laan van Meerdervoort. The vegetable gardens there have a sort of Old Dutch cachet that always appeals to me. Well, good-night, it’s late, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’m busy with Zola’s ‘La curée’.
When I’d written this letter, I realized that it lacked something. I thought — I must ensure that I can write to him that I’ve tackled a piece of sand, sea and sky like we saw together at Scheveningen. Then I kept my letter back and marched off to the beach this morning, and have just got back with a fairly large painted study of sand, sea and sky, and a few fishing-boats and men on the beach. There’s still dune sand in it, and I assure you this won’t be the last one. I thought you’d be pleased that I’ve tackled this.
As said, I want to make sure that when you come again, in six months or a few months or a year, the studio has become a painter’s studio. These scratches were done in great haste, as you can see. Now that it’s going well, I’ll try to strike while the iron’s hot and carry on painting for a little. If you can send the usual towards the 20th, there’s no question but that I’ll be able to occupy myself exclusively with it for a while. I believe that after a month of regular painting the studio will look completely different. Hoping that this will please you, I shake your hand again, and warmly wish you good fortune in everything.
The Hague, Monday, 18 September 1882.
My dear Theo,
As I write to you, I’m already down to my last guilder. I hope to hear from you soon but, bearing in mind what you last wrote to me I think it very possible that you may not be able to spare the usual precisely on the twentieth. If that’s the case, I want to ask you to send whatever you can spare, be it more or less, even if it’s only a small part. A model is coming on Friday afternoon, a man from the almshouse, and I wouldn’t like to send him away unpaid. I had some extra expenditure because my painting box got broken when I jumped from a high bank and, trying to grab my things as quickly as possible, had to get out of the way of a skittish horse in the Rijnspoor yards where they stockpile the coal. It’s very beautiful there — I had to ask permission to paint there, since it’s not a public area, and now hope to be there often. Meanwhile, on that occasion I painted the mounds of coal there, where men were pottering about, and there was a horse and cart. I also did a study of a courtyard with a bleaching ground and sunflowers.
It’s splendid outdoors. The leaves are all manner of bronze colours — green, yellow, reddish — all warm and rich. I do so wish that you could see everything together — since your visit the studio has taken on a completely different appearance. It’s true that I’ve had to spend quite an amount, but now there are a good number of painted studies on the walls.
The courtyard and all that coal were so beautiful that I couldn’t resist them, although this week I wanted to draw because of the paint. I would very much like, and am working towards this, to put things in my studio that will remind me when I see them each morning of this or that outdoors. So that I immediately know what to do with the day — and immediately take pleasure in something, or have the feeling: I must still go here or there sometime. As regards sending you a painted study, I have nothing against that — but before I do, we must agree on a couple of things.
Someone like Mauve — any artist — undoubtedly has his own distinctive colour range. But no one had it on the first day, and in studies done out of doors it isn’t immediately apparent, even with painters who are much more experienced than I am. Especially the studies by Mauve, which I find very beautiful precisely because of their soberness, and because they’re done with such fidelity. Yet they lack a certain charm which the paintings derived from them have in great measure. And in my case the position is that, for example, the seascape I brought home most recently is already very different in colour from the first or second I started with.
So you must make no judgement about my colour on the basis of what I can send now. And if I would really prefer to wait until things are riper before sending, it’s because I believe I’ll change a great deal in colour. And in composition too. So that’s the first thing, and the second is that studies done out of doors are different from paintings intended to go out into the world. In my view the latter stem from the studies, but may, and indeed must, differ from them markedly. For in the painting the artist presents a more personal idea, and in a study his aim is simply to analyze a piece of nature. Either to give his thought or conception precision, or to arrive at a thought. Thus studies belong more in the studio than in the trade, and shouldn’t be looked at from the same viewpoint as paintings.
Well, I believe that you’ll take the same view and will naturally take these things into consideration. But write and tell me what you’d like me to do, and rest assured that as regards sending or not sending yet I’ll do what seems best to you. But what I would like most of all would be for you to see everything together — is there any possibility that you could come again in the winter sometime? If so, I certainly think it would be better if I don’t send. Anyway. But rest assured that I pay close attention to whatever you say about the work with a view to saleability and bear it in mind, and don’t imagine that I treat your opinion lightly. I regard making studies as Sowing, and making paintings as reaping.
I believe that one thinks much more healthily when the ideas arise from direct contact with things than when one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them. It’s the same with the question of the use of colour. There are colours that are naturally beautiful seen together, but I do my best to make it as I see it, before I set to work to make it as I feel it. And yet, feeling is a big thing, and without that one would produce nothing. Sometimes I can yearn for harvest time, that is, the time when I’ll be so permeated by the study of nature that I myself will create something in a painting, yet analyzing things isn’t a burden to me or something I dislike doing. It’s already late — I sleep so badly at present — but it’s that wonderful nature of autumn that’s on my mind, and the worry about getting something out of it. However, I wish I could get some sleep now and then, and do my best, for it makes me nervous, but nothing helps.
But how are things with you? I do hope you don’t have too many worries, because that doesn’t help really. I believe that I would soon be miserable if I didn’t have so much fresh air and enjoyed painting less. But being outdoors and working on something that stimulates are things that renew and sustain one’s strength. It’s only at times when I’m overtired that I feel thoroughly wretched, yet as to my health, I believe I’ll recover. Adieu, accept a handshake in thought, and write and tell me what I should do — send you a painted study, or not yet. And rest assured that I think of you every day, and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague, Monday, 25 September 1882.
My dear Theo,
Your latest letter with the enclosure reached me in good order, and I thank you right heartily for it. I was and even still am in a bit of a spot — that is, with a view to painting. There are all kinds of costs involved. But that’s also partly because many of the things that I begin don’t come off, and then one has to start again and the effort comes to nothing, except that this is the way to make progress, and that one must persevere.
There was no answer in your last letter to what I said about sending or not sending painted studies. Perhaps it slipped your mind. Now, I decided that it wasn’t a weighty matter after all, and so today I’ve sent you a painted study by post. But, as I said in my last letter, I would of course rather you could see them all together sometime, and it goes without saying that you mustn’t judge the future by this one, since I haven’t been working with the brush long enough for me not to change a great deal. I wanted to send you a different one, but the others I would rather have sent aren’t yet dry enough for me to risk rolling them up.
Like me, you will no doubt have reservations about the background in particular. The only explanation I can offer about this is that the study was done as a study of the foreground, namely the tree roots; a lot of work had already gone into them, and as usual I wasn’t sitting peacefully because of passers-by, and so when I had got the study to the point you see I couldn’t bear it any more. You can’t imagine how wearying and irritating it is that people always gather round so close. It makes me so nervous sometimes that I have to give up. Just yesterday morning, although it was very early and I hoped to be spared, a study of the chestnut trees on Bezuidenhout (which are so splendid now) was a failure because of it. And sometimes they’re so nasty and insolent.
Oh well. But it’s not just the regrets that one has — there’s also the cost of the paint, etc., which can’t be recovered. Of course things like that won’t get on top of me, and I’ll fight my way through them just as others do, but I do so feel that I could reach my goal much faster if there were fewer of these petty vexations. Now, as regards this study — if it’s the case that, on seeing it and knowing that I have many others as well as this one, you don’t regret enabling me to make it, then I’ll be content and shall carry on in good heart. If you’re disappointed, remember that I started only a short time ago; if you’re pleased, so much the better for me, for I would so much like to be able in time to send you something that gave you pleasure.
Now I must tell you that I had a very unexpected and very pleasing visit from Pa, who came to my house and to the studio, which I believe is infinitely better than his only hearing about me through reports from others. If people visit me, then at least their impression is original, but I don’t like opinions based on what people say. It really gave me great pleasure to see Pa and talk to him. I’ve again heard a lot about Nuenen — that churchyard there with the old crosses won’t leave me alone, I do so hope that in time I’ll get round to doing it. I also heard a lot about your visit, and that you had given them that engraving after Israëls, which touched them deeply. — I could send the first, but since then I’ve caught the colour of the sea better, and so I’m waiting until a later one is thoroughly dry. Recently, though, I’ve painted considerably more than in the original plan we discussed. But perhaps it’s necessary to continue doing this if it’s at all possible.
I received a letter from Rappard the other day. I wish he lived a little closer. And rest assured that I’m truly glad to hear your comments, just as they come into your mind. I often feel a desire and need to seek advice from someone on various questions, but after what happened with Mauve I don’t give in to that, and I don’t discuss my work with painters. However brilliant someone may be, what good is it to me if he argues differently from the way he works? I would rather M. had spoken to me about the use of body-colour instead of saying: ‘Above all, you mustn’t use body-colour’, while he himself and all the others, so to speak, nearly always use it, and to the best effect. Well, in many cases one can gradually find out things by looking for oneself as well, and I’m doing that as best I can.
Yes — if it were so that I could do exactly what I wanted, I would take up painting on a somewhat larger scale and, above all, work much more with a model. I draw many figures in my spare moments. The small figure in this study is actually there simply and solely for the size, so that if I do use the study I can find the proportion of any figure, more or less. Of course, a proper figure is a very different matter and involves a great deal more. It’s also there to provide an accent. Make no mistake, old chap, I send you this because, since you said nothing about it, I didn’t know what to do. Of course I intend something very different from this, and I’m sending it in the same way that I make a scratch sometimes, to give you an idea of what I’m working on.
Adieu, accept a handshake in thought. I hope that all is as well with you as possible, and that your headache isn’t something that lasts or keeps coming back. I have it too sometimes, more as a sense of unpleasant dullness than severe pain. Pa and I went for a walk on Rijswijkseweg, it’s lovely there too.
Well, regards again, and believe me
Ever yours, Vincent
If this arrives safely, then this is an easy way of sending you things occasionally. I don’t know whether one can send drawings or paintings by post as printed matter. Another thing, you understand that I could do some things differently, for example some branches &c., if I painted them again — but I think that one shouldn’t tinker with studies if they’re to be of any use. They should be hung up in the studio just as they come out of the woods. For some they may be less pleasing, but there’s more of his impression in them for the painter himself.
The Hague, on or about Sunday, 1 October 1882.
My dear Theo,
Just a word to say that your letter arrived in good order, I thank you heartily for the contents. These last few days I’ve done almost nothing but watercolours. A scratch of a large one is enclosed. You may remember Mooijman’s state lottery office at the beginning of Spuistraat. I passed it one rainy morning when a throng of people were standing there waiting to get lottery tickets. For the most part they were old women and the sort of people of whom it’s impossible to say what they do or how they live, but who evidently potter along and fret and get on with life. Of course, viewed superficially, a crowd of folk who evidently attach so much importance to ‘Draw today’ is something that almost makes you and me laugh, because we’re not in the least bit interested in the lottery. But the group of people — and their waiting expression — struck me, and it took on a larger, deeper meaning for me while I was working on it than in the first moment. It becomes more meaningful, I believe, if one thinks of it as the poor and money.
That, in fact, applies to nearly all figure groups: one occasionally has to think about them for a while before one understands what one is seeing. The curiosity and delusion about the lottery seem more or less childish to us, but it becomes serious when one thinks about the other side: misery and forlorn attempts by these poor souls to be saved, so they think, by buying a lottery ticket, paid for with pennies saved by going without food. Be that as it may, I’m working on a large watercolour of it.
I’m also working on one of a church pew that I saw in a small church in the Geest district where the almsmen go (they’re known here very expressively as ORPHAN men and orphan women). The way things are going, being busily drawing again, I sometimes think there’s nothing so pleasant as drawing. This is part of the bit with pews; there are other men’s heads in the background. Things like this are difficult, though, and won’t come off in one go. Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.
Speaking of orphan men, I was interrupted while writing this by the arrival of my model. And I worked with him until it got dark — wearing a big old overcoat which gave him a curiously broad figure. I believe you might perhaps enjoy this collection of orphan men in their Sunday and working clothes. Then I also tackled him sitting with a pipe. He has an interesting bald head — big ears (NB. Deaf) and white sideboards. I did this scratch half in the dark, but perhaps it can give you an idea of the composition. Once it has been put together, something like this can be quickly scribbled down. Putting it together was less easy, and I don’t claim that it stands now as I wanted to have it. I would enjoy painting it with figures the length of roughly one foot, or slightly less, with the composition then a little broader. However, I don’t know whether I’ll do it. I’d need a large canvas, and if it didn’t work there might be considerable costs involved. I also think — although I would greatly enjoy it — that I’ll come to things like that of my own accord, by continuing to do types of figures. Then later it will come naturally from the studies from the model, either in this or another form, but with the same sentiment.
I’m becoming more and more aware of how useful and very necessary it is to keep studies from the model. Though they have less value for others, the person who has made them recognizes the model in them, and things are brought vividly to mind again. When there’s an opportunity, remember to send some of the old studies back to me. I hope in time to use them to make more beautiful things. It goes without saying that there were wonderful colours in the group of figures of which I’m sending you a black scratch — blue smocks and brown jackets, white, black, yellowish worker’s trousers, faded shawls, an overcoat turned greenish, white caps and black top hats, muddy paving-stones and boots contrasting with pale faces or ones weathered by the elements. And that’s where painting or watercolouring comes in. Well, I’m toiling away at it. I count on you to write again, of course, but thank you again for sending the money in good time, which is badly needed if I’m to carry on vigorously.
Adieu, old chap, accept a hearty handshake in thought, and believe me
Ever yours, Vincent
There’s a little more foreground in the watercolour — here the figures are too far forward and one’s eye doesn’t grasp the foreground enough.
The Hague, Sunday, 8 October 1882.
My dear Theo,
Here’s a scratch of a larger watercolour. I’ve also started another one with many more figures — the last visitors to the seaside — an evening effect. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to get them to a high enough standard, but we must do what we can and struggle on until we get there. Then, the large one of which I sent you a scratch in my last letter is coming along well. I definitely think that you’d be pleased by what I’m working on. Like me, you would also see immediately that I need a mass of figure studies. I’m putting all my efforts into that, and working almost every day with a model. I’ve done more of the orphan man since, and this week I hope to get a woman from the home as well. I’m desperately short of money, though. So many things are needed, I still even owe Stam a little.
Imagine, this week to my great surprise I received a package from home — with a winter coat, warm trousers, and a warm lady’s coat. I was very touched. The churchyard with the wooden crosses is often on my mind, so I may do some studies for it in advance – I would like to do something like that in the snow – a peasant funeral or the like. In short, an effect like the enclosed scratch of miners. Just to complete the seasons, I’m sending a scratch of spring and one of autumn with it, which I thought of while making the first. How beautiful it is outdoors — I’m doing my best to capture autumnal effects.
I’m writing to you in great haste, I assure you that there’s a lot involved in compositions with figures, and I’m very busy. It’s like weaving: you have to give it all your attention to keep the threads apart; you must control and keep an eye on several things at once. The small drawing of the beach is more finished than the others because it was used to determine the size, while the others are less watercolour. Well, I sincerely hope your pockets aren’t too empty — it’s so very beautiful these days that I must get something of it on paper.
Adieu, and write as soon as you can,
and believe me Ever yours, Vincent
The Hague, Sunday, 29 October 1882.
My dear Theo,
It’s Sunday again, and again as rainy as usual. On top of that we’ve had a gale this week and the leaves are thinning out on the trees. Believe me, I’m glad that the stove is in place. This morning, when I at last got round to sorting out my drawings, namely the studies from the model done since about the time of your visit (not counting the older studies nor what I draw in my sketchbook), I found about one hundred. I just mention this figure because I remember that on the occasion of your visit you asked me if I had other studies as well as the drawings you saw then. I don’t know whether all painters work harder than I do, even those who look down on my work very loftily, so much so that they consider it beneath them to take the slightest notice of it. Nor do I know whether they know a better way than working with models, although in my view they do that too little, as I’ve written to you more than once, saying that I couldn’t understand why they don’t make more use of models. (Of course I do not mean people like Mauve or Israëls, although the latter sets an excellent example in my view by always working with a model, but more gentlemen like Bock and Breitner, say.) I haven’t seen anything at all of the latter since I visited him in hospital when he was ill — by chance I heard something about his having become a teacher at a secondary school — but I haven’t had the slightest sign of life from him himself.
This week I received a letter from Rappard, who’s also surprised by the behaviour of many painters here, and had the experience, among other things, of having one of his paintings refused at Arti. I say only this: if the likes of he and I are rated as nothing, is that fair? For I assure you that he works hard; he was in Drenthe this summer, and after that he worked for a long time in the hospital for the blind in Utrecht. I found it curious to hear from him of several experiences that were roughly or exactly the same as my own.
But anyway. As I’ve written to you before, I often long for you. If I saw more of you and we were able to discuss the work more, I could make several things that should be possible to make from the studies I have. I’m convinced of that. Still — you remember that not long ago I wrote (when I sent you a small scratch of a potato market): ‘I must have another go at tackling that bustle on the street’. The result is now some 12 watercolours that I’m working on at the moment. So I do not mean by the above that I can’t achieve anything with my studies or that I do them without any aim, but only that I believe I could achieve more with them and make them more immediately effective if I could discuss things with you more often. But be that as it may, I do work with great pleasure these days, and I do have hope that there will be some things which you too will take pleasure in, when you next come.
I believe that if one wants to do figures one must have a warm sense within oneself of what Punch in the Christmas illustration calls Good will to all, that is, that one must have a real love of people. At least I hope to do my best to be in that kind of a mood as much as possible. That’s exactly why I find it such a pity that I don’t get on better with painters, and, as I wrote to you in the past, that on a rainy day like today one can’t just sit cosily by the stove, look at drawings or prints and liven each other up that way. I must ask you whether there are cheap prints by Daumier for sale, and if so, which. I’ve always believed him to be highly gifted, but it’s only recently that I begin to suspect that he’s of even greater importance than I thought. If you know anything special about him, or know of important things among his drawings, do write about them if you will. In the past I saw caricatures by him, and perhaps because of them got an idea about him that wasn’t the right one. His figures always struck me the most, but I believe that I know only a very small part of his work and that, for instance, the caricatures are definitely not his most typical or main work.
I remember that we talked about this last year on the road to Princenhage, and you said then that you thought Daumier more beautiful than Gavarni, and I took Gavarni’s side and spoke to you of the book about Gavarni that I had read and that you now have. But I must say that, although I still like Gavarni just as much, I begin to suspect that I know only a very small part of Daumier’s work AND THAT IN THE PART OF HIS WORK I DO NOT KNOW are the very things that would interest me most of all (however much I already appreciate what I know by him). And I also dimly remember — but I may be wrong — you telling me about large drawings, types or portraits from the common people, and I’m curious about them. If there were more things by him as beautiful as a print by him I recently found, The 5 ages of a drinker, or as that figure of an old man under a chestnut tree I told you about before, well, then he was perhaps the master of them all. Can you give me any information about this? Do you still remember the figures by Degroux from the Uylenspiegel that I had in the past but not any more, alas? — well, those two prints by Daumier that I just mentioned look like them —and if you know of any more like them — (I care much less about the caricatures) that’s what I’m after.
I’m terribly sorry that I no longer have the Degroux and Rops. I gave them away in England, along with other things, to Richardson, the traveller for the house of G&Cie. Well, old chap, and I promise you this for when you come, apart from the watercolours and painted studies, I’ll ask you to take the trouble to look through a portfolio with one hundred drawn studies — all figures. I have them already, especially if I include some old ones. In the interval between now and your visit, however, I’ll try to make better ones to replace others that can be left out, and try to put even more variety into them.
Adieu in the meantime, I sincerely wish you good fortune and happiness, and believe me, with a handshake in thought,
Ever yours, Vincent
The Hague, Wednesday, 1 November 1882.
My dear Theo,
For several days I’ve been completely taken up by something that may also be of interest to you and I think it well worth writing to you about it especially. In a letter from Rappard I received an extract from a lecture by Herkomer on the subject of the wood engravings of recent times. I can’t tell you about the whole thing in detail, you may have read the article yourself (which was in an English art magazine, perhaps the Art Journal). It was mainly about the drawings in The Graphic. Herkomer relates how he himself worked on them with great ambition and enthusiasm, and he particularly recalls the splendid prints in the first volumes. Feels that no words can express sufficiently forcefully how important he finds the work of those first artists. He reviews the progress made in process and technique, the difference between the old and the modern wood engraving, &c. &c. Then talks about the present day, and that brings him to the real subject of his lecture. He says: the wood engravers are cleverer than ever, but nonetheless I see a decadence if I think back to when The Graphic began. And — he goes on — in my view the reason lies in two things against which I protest. One has to do with the publishers, the other with the artists. Both have their faults, which will ruin things if one doesn’t combat them. The publishers, he says, demand things done for effect: ‘correct and honest drawing is no longer wanted, complete designs are no longer in request, a “bit” just covering an awkward corner of a page, is all that is required’. ‘The managers declare that the public require the representation of a public event or so and are satisfied if it is correct and entertaining, caring nothing for the artistic qualities of the work. I do not believe what they say. The only excuse you may accept is “dearth of good draughtsmen”’. Then he comes to the artists, and says that he regrets that these days all too often it’s the wood engraver, not the draughtsman, who makes the prints beautiful. Urges the artists not to accept this — to draw soberly and forcefully so that the engraver remains what he should be, the translator of the draughtsman’s work, and doesn’t get the upper hand. Then comes his conclusion, a forceful plea to all to continue supporting the cause warmly, and not to allow any weakening.
There’s something of a reproach in his plea, and it isn’t without some melancholy that he speaks, and as one fighting against the indifference he finds intolerable. ‘To you — the public — the art offers infinite pleasure and edification. For you it is really done. Therefore clamour loudly for good work and be sure it will be forthcoming’ — are his closing words. The whole thing is thoroughly sound, firm, honest. His manner of speaking makes the same impression on me as some letters by Millet. It gives me encouragement, and it truly does me good to hear someone talk like that for once. I say that it’s a terrible pity that here there’s no enthusiasm, so to speak, for the art that’s most suitable for the common people. If the painters were to close ranks to ensure that their work (which, after all, is made for the people, in my view — at least I believe that is the highest, noblest vocation for any artist) could also come into the hands of the people and was put within everyone’s reach, that would be something that would produce the same results as were produced in the first years of The Graphic. Neuhuys, Van der Velden and a few others made drawings this year for ‘De Zwaluw’, a magazine that appears monthly and costs 7 1/2 cents. There are some good ones, but one can see that most were done with a weak hand (not the original drawings but the way of popularizing them), and from what I hear the magazine is no more likely to keep going than its predecessors. Why doesn’t it work? — the booksellers say they earn nothing from it, and instead of circulating it they block it. And as for the painters, I believe they haven’t yet made every effort to take the matter to heart. The definition that many a painter here in Holland gives in reply to the question ‘What is a wood engraving?’ is: ‘it’s those things lying in the Zuid-Hollandsch Koffiehuis’. So they rank them among the drinks. And the makers of them among the drunks, perhaps. And what do the dealers say? Suppose I went to anyone here with around 100 sketches that I’ve gathered together. At best I fear I would be told ‘did you imagine those things had commercial value?’
My love and respect for the great draughtsmen of both the age of Gavarni and of the present day increases the better acquainted with their work I become, and above all as I do my best myself to make something from what one sees every day on the streets. What I value in Herkomer, in Fildes, in Holl and the other founders of The Graphic, why I find and will continue to find them even more sympathetic than Gavarni and Daumier, is that, while the latter seem to view society more with mockery, the former, like such men as Millet, Breton, Degroux and Israëls, choose subjects which — while as true as those of Gav. or Daum. — have something noble and in which there’s a more serious sentiment. That, above all, must remain, it seems to me. An artist need not be a minister or a collector in church, but he must have a warm heart for people, and I find it a noble thing that, for example, no winter passed without The Graphic doing something to keep alive sympathy for the poor. For instance, I have a print by Woodville showing the distribution of turf tickets in Ireland, another by Staniland entitled Help the helpers depicting various scenes in a hospital — where money was short, Christmas in the workhouse by Herkomer, Homeless and hungry by Fildes &c. I find them even more beautiful than the drawings by Bertall or somebody for the Vie Elégante or other élégances. Perhaps you’ll find this a tedious letter — but everything was once more fresh in my mind. I had gathered together and mounted my 100 or so studies and when I had finished the job a slightly melancholy sense of ‘what’s the good?’ came over me — but then Herkomer’s forceful words calling on people not to weaken and saying that it’s more necessary than ever to keep the hand to the plough did me so much good, and I thought I’d briefly tell you the substance of what he said.
With a handshake in thought, believe me
Ever yours, Vincent
I hope to hear from you in the coming days, I received a good letter from home.
The Hague, Sunday, 5 November 1882.
My dear Theo,
Your letter and its contents were very welcome. A point that will perhaps be raised more and more is the one you refer to. People will be forced to recognize that much of what’s new, in which people at first thought they saw progress, is indeed less sound than the old, and consequently the need will become apparent for strong men to redress the balance. Since I believe arguing about this will make no difference to the matter itself, I think it quite unnecessary to write more about it.
But for my part I can hardly say that I share your idea that you express as follows: ‘in my view it’s in the nature of things that the desired change will come’. Just think of how many great men have died or... won’t be with us much longer — Millet, Brion, Troyon, Rousseau, Daubigny, Corot — and a host of others — are no more. Think further back, I say, Leys, Gavarni, Degroux (to name just a few), or still further, Ingres, Delacroix, Géricault, think how old it already is, modern art. Add to them many who are aged. Nonetheless, there was still progress up to Millet and Jules Breton in my view, but as for surpassing these two men, don’t talk to me of that. Their genius may be equalled in past, present or later ages, but to surpass them isn’t possible. If one reaches that high zone, one is amid an equality of geniuses, but one can’t climb higher than the top of the mountain. Israëls, for example, may equal Millet, but with genius there’s no question of surpassing or being inferior.
Now, though, the top has been reached in art. In the years to come we’ll most certainly see splendid things; something more sublime than what we’ve already seen — no. And for my part I fear that in a few years there may be a kind of panic, in this form: since Millet we have sunk very low — the word decadence, now whispered or pronounced in veiled terms (see Herkomer), will then sound like an alarm bell. Many, like I myself, now keep quiet, because they already have the reputation of being awkward customers, and talking about it doesn’t help. That — namely, talking — isn’t what one needs to do — one must work, though with sorrow in the heart. Those who later cry out the loudest about decadence will themselves belong to it the most. I repeat: by this shall ye know them, by their work, and it won’t be the most eloquent who say the truest things. See Millet himself, see Herkomer, they’re certainly not orators, and speak almost reluctantly.
Enough of this, in you I find someone who understands much about the great men, and I find it delightful to hear things about them now and then that I don’t know, like, for example, what you write to me about Daumier. The series of portraits of politicians &c., the painting of the 3rd-class carriage, the Revolution — I don’t know any of them. Now I haven’t seen them myself through what you say, but in my imagination Daumier’s personality has gained in importance as a result. I would rather hear talk about such men than about the latest Salon, for example.
Now as for what you write about Vie Moderne, or rather about a type of paper that Buhot promised you. This is something that interests me very much. Do I understand correctly that this paper is such that when one does a drawing on it (I assume in autographic ink), this drawing — without using a second draughtsman or engraver or lithographer as an intermediary — can be transferred as it is onto a stone, or that a print can be made of it, so that any number of impressions can be obtained, the latter then being facsimiles of the original drawing? If this is the case, be so good as to give me all the information you can find about how one should work on this paper, and do your best to send me some of it on which I can do some trials. If I could do my trials before you come, then we could discuss what to do with them at that time.
I think it possible that within a relatively short time there may be a demand for employees for illustration, more so than at present. If for my part I fill my portfolios with studies from the models that I can grab or catch, I’ll get something to show so that I’ll be eligible, I hope, to be given employment. To keep on illustrating, like for example Morin, Lançon, Renouard, Jules Ferat, Worms in their day, one must have plenty of ammunition in the form of various studies in different fields. I’m trying to gather these together, as you know, and will see in due course.
By the way, so far I have not yet received the packet of studies which you wrote that you had returned through rue Chaptal. Could they already have arrived at the Plaats? If you think they have, I’ll have them collected, because they’ll be useful to me in connection with things I’ve been doing recently. Do you know who I drew this morning? Blok the Jewish bookseller, not David but the short one who’s on the Binnenhof. I wish I had more from that family, for they are a true type. It’s enormously difficult to get the types one would prefer to have — in the meantime I’m content to draw what I can get, without losing sight of the others I would draw if I had the choice. I’m very pleased with Blok. He reminds me of things from many years ago. I hope he’ll come again some other Sunday morning. Naturally, while working one always feels and ought to feel a sort of dissatisfaction with oneself, a desire to be able to do it much better, but still it’s delightful and enjoyable to gradually assemble all kinds of figures — although the more one makes, the more one realizes one needs.
One can’t do everything at once, but it will be absolutely necessary for me to do a number of horse studies some day, not just scratches on the street but with a model for once. I know of an old white horse, a real nag if ever there was one (at the gasworks), but the man, who makes the poor animal do all manner of heavy jobs and just wants to get what he can out of it, asked a lot for it, namely three guilders to come to me for a morning, a daalder at the very least at his place, provided I came on Sunday. And when you consider that for what I need, namely 30 strong studies, say, I would have to work quite a few mornings, it would cost me too much. But I’ll find a better opportunity sometime. I can get a horse much more easily here and there for a very short time, these people are sometimes willing to do that, but in a very short time one cannot do what really needs to be done, so that’s little help. I try to work quickly, because otherwise it just doesn’t pan out, but a study that’s of some use requires at least half an hour, say, so one always comes back to actual posing. At Scheveningen, for instance, I’ve occasionally had a boy or a man stand still for a moment, as they say, on the beach. The outcome was always a great desire on my part for a longer pose, and standing still for a moment isn’t enough for me, neither for a person nor for a horse. If I’m correctly informed, the draughtsmen for The Graphic whose turn it was always had models at their disposal in a studio at the offices. Dickens has some nice things to say about the painters of his age and their wrong way of working, namely slavishly and yet only half sticking to the model. He says: Fellows, do understand that your model isn’t your ultimate goal but a means for giving body and vigour to your ideas and inspiration.
Look at the French (Ary Scheffer, for example) and see how much better than you they do it. It’s just as if the English listened to him — they continued working with models, but they learnt to see the model in a grander and bolder way, and learnt to take better advantage of it for sounder and nobler compositions than those of Dickens’s painting contemporaries. Two things that remain eternally true and complement each other, in my view are: don’t snuff out your inspiration and power of imagination, don’t become a slave to the model; and, the other, take a model and study it, for otherwise your inspiration won’t take on material form.
When your letter came there were things I had to pay immediately. I hope it won’t inconvenience you to send again no later than 10 Nov. Understand that the question of that process Buhot spoke to you about strikes me as being pretty important. I would be very pleased if I could learn it, and would like to do my best at it.
Adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent.
Do you know the effects one sees here early in the morning these days? It’s splendid — it’s what Brion painted in the painting in the Luxembourg, The end of the flood, namely that band of red light on the horizon with rain-clouds above. This brings me to the landscape painters. Compare those of Brion’s time with now. Is it better now than then? I doubt it. I’ll gladly acknowledge that they’re much more productive in that field than in the past, but although I can’t help admiring what they make now, the old landscapes in a more old-fashioned manner always give me pleasure when I see them. There were a few years when I walked past a Schelfhout, for example, and thought something like: that’s not worth the effort. Yet the new, although it takes someone in, doesn’t always continue to make the same strong, moving impression over time, and a naive painting like a Schelfhout or a Ségé, a Jules Bakhuyzen, is seen again with vivid pleasure after one has long been looking at newer things. I really didn’t deliberately set out to be somewhat disenchanted as regards progress; on the contrary, it began to develop unwittingly in my thoughts very much against my will, because as time passed I felt more and more a kind of emptiness which I can’t fill with the things being made today. While searching for an example, I think of old woodcuts by Jacque that I saw at least 10 years ago at C.M.’s. It was a series, The months. They were done in Jacque’s old manner, in the manner of those etchings that appeared in annual series, or even more old-fashioned. The local tone is less in them than in his later work, but the draughtsmanship and a certain terseness are reminiscent of Millet. You see, with the many croquis in the present magazines it seems to me that a not entirely unconventional elegance threatens to replace that typical, truly rustic quality of which the croquis by Jacque that I mean are an example. Might not the cause of this also lie in the lives and characters of the artists? I don’t know what your experience is, but do you find many people these days prepared to go for a long walk in grey weather, for example? You would do it gladly, and enjoy it too, as I would, but for many it would be a chore. Equally, I was struck by the fact that when one talks to painters, in most cases, by far, the conversation is not interesting. When he wants, Mauve has the power to say something in words so that one sees it, and most certainly others here have that too when they want. Yet, that curious fact that when one talks to a painter one immediately has a sense of the open air — is it your impression that that’s as strong as it used to be? This week I read in Forster, Life of C. Dickens, all kinds of details about long walks on Hampstead Heath &c. outside London, the final goal being, for example, to have bacon and eggs at an old inn way out in the country. Those walks were very jolly and cheerful, but all the same it was usually the case that serious plans for books were made, or else the changes Dickens was to make to one character or another were discussed. The present has something hectic and harried about it for which I do not care, and it’s just as if death has touched everything. I’d like your expectation ‘that the desired change will come’ to prove true, but in my view it isn’t ‘in the nature of things’. Be this as it may, opposing in words is a complete side issue, I believe, and what everyone who considers the matter important should do in his own circle is to try to make or help to make something. Have been working again on women miners carrying sacks of coal in the snow — watercolour. But above all I’ve drawn 12 or so studies of figures for it, and 3 heads, and I’m not yet finished. I’ve got the effect in the watercolour, I believe, but it isn’t yet strong enough in character for my taste. The reality is like Millet’s The gleaners — austere — so you will understand that one shouldn’t turn it into a snow effect, which would only be an impression and have no raison d’être unless the landscape is the whole point. I think that I’ll start all over again — although the studies I have for now may please you — precisely because I was more successful with them than with many others. It would be really suitable, I believe, for the Vie Moderne. If I get the paper, I already have one of the figures, for example, to do as a trial. But it must become a little troop of women, a small caravan.
The Hague, on or about Sunday, 3 December 1882.
My dear Theo,
Accept my cordial thanks for your registered letter and for the roll. In it I found the paper from Buhot. But I’d like to have some information to go with it, for example, With what does one draw on this paper? Perhaps I’ll be told that later. Renouard’s Children in care are wonderful, also his new drawing, The dock — although the latter is less important than his large prints of the Mazas prison, for example. I’m very pleased with them and thank you for them. You’ll have received an impression of a lithograph. Actually it went wrong — but I sent it anyway because there are some bits in it that have turned out as I had intended the whole thing to be. This time the autographic ink ran badly and that had to be corrected later, but there were still black passages everywhere. But look, for example, at the left leg with the muddy boot. There one can see that fabrics can be rendered with this process and curious effects obtained. Hands and head are poor, yet in the other old man they’re the best part.
Again I watched the transfer to stone and the printing carefully, and I must say that I believe a great deal can be done with this process. Today I was at Van der Weele’s — he took considerable pleasure in the old man with his head in his hands and intends to try it himself. He’s someone who makes truly splendid things sometimes. He gave me 4 etchings, a sheepfold, calves in a copse — two sand-carts and an ox-plough, and I hope to get more later when he has impressions made again. He doesn’t seem to like Tersteeg very much. At least, without my saying anything about him, and while we were talking about Van der W.’s own studies, he said, all right, but if I do this or do that and I go to Tersteeg he makes such and such a remark. I believe he was speaking the truth and, honestly, I’m very sorry that things are like this. I would rather that I was mistaken in my opinion of Tersteeg, but I fear he rather discourages many who truly deserve something better. How tiresome these matters are.
Yesterday I received a letter, not from Rappard but from his father, telling me that R. is ill. I don’t know what’s wrong with him — perhaps, perhaps what you and I are also familiar with. The thought occurred to me because of several expressions in his last letter, when he wrote that I should carry on doing experiments and that he felt so feeble that he could do nothing. What a pity for him, isn’t it? It’s so hard if one has to stop one’s work right in the middle for such a feeble reason as illness. I’ll very much want to look him up sometime, if I hear that he isn’t getting better quickly. I’ve corresponded with him quite a lot about work recently. He has taken very great pleasure in collecting woodcuts, for example, and I think it highly likely that with time we’ll be more and more help to each other.
At Van der Weele’s I saw an outstanding sketch by Breitner, a drawing that was unfinished, and perhaps couldn’t be finished. It was of officers deliberating over a map or battle-plan before an open window. Breitner does indeed have a position at the secondary school in Rotterdam. A solution for him. Can one keep that up? Not doing anything else and devoting all one’s time to the work, that’s still preferable in my view. It’s as if there’s something fatal in holding other positions — perhaps it’s precisely the worries, precisely the dark side of the artistic life, that’s the best part of it. It’s risky to say this, and there are moments when one talks differently — many go under because of the worry — but those who struggle through benefit later.
You write about the question of making drawings in a smaller format. I think it good of you that you speak about this question in a calmer manner than others, who have sometimes said the same thing to me in a very different way and told me, if you don’t work smaller then this will happen and that will happen. Talking about it like that seems to me premature and superficial, and I can’t believe that what they say is true. Do you know what I think — all formats have their pros and cons. In general, for my own study, I definitely need to have the figure in fairly large proportions, so that head, hands, feet aren’t too small and one can draw them robustly. So for my own study I took as my example the format of Bargue’s Exercices au fusain, because that size is easy to take in at a glance and yet the details don’t become too small. But most take a smaller format.
For my part, from the beginning I’ve done it like this for myself, sometimes a little smaller, sometimes a little larger, and for my own study I would be going against my convictions if I deviated from that. Yet, so although this is for me the focus of my attention — to have the human figure in my power in a good, substantial size — an enormously difficult thing, I do assure you — it’s still the case that I’m by no means absolutely tied to it. And so in reply to what you write I put to you a question in return: do you have a particular work in mind; has someone said something to you like, for instance, if those figures were half the size, sheets of this kind could be used for this or that? And if you know of anything like that, I, for my part, will take the trouble either to reduce figures I already have to half the size, or to draw completely new ones in a smaller format. Without a specific reason I would think it less important than with a specific reason. If it’s so that, were I to send you some figures, say half the size of the last ones, you’d be willing to make new attempts without being able to say at this stage specifically where or what for, that would be reason enough for me to make them. What I just said is only to point out to you how I’ve tried from the outset to maintain a certain order in my work, set a sort of rule for myself, not to be a slave to that rule but because it helps one to think more clearly. Reducing a certain figure to half the size, for example, isn’t difficult at all — although sometimes one loses something of what makes it distinctive — but sometimes the figure gains by it.
At any rate, I’ll send you a few shortly, but if you have something particular in mind for them, tell me what they’re for — that will help me in the choice of my figures. Thank you again for what you sent. What I wrote to you in my last letter about a plan for making prints for the people is something to which I hope you’ll give some thought one day. I don’t have a fixed plan about this myself as yet, only in order to have it clear in my mind I’ll have things to do relating both to the drawings themselves and to the process of reproduction. But I don’t doubt the possibility of doing something like this, nor its usefulness. Nor can I doubt that people can be found whose heart would be in it. In short, I believe it could be done in such a way that no one would need regret having taken part.
With a handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
I’m re-reading your last letter as I write to you. In particular what you say about format. I’d like to give you an example of a draughtsman you know: Théophile Schuler, who illustrated the works of Erckmann-Chatrian. One clearly sees from those small illustrations that he could work excellently on a small scale. One sees it even better in things he did at that time for L’Illustration and Magasin Pittoresque, for example, among them L’Album des Vosges, to which Brion and Jundt also contributed. I believe, though, that it would be a great mistake to imagine that such things as, for instance, the print The grace (a family of woodcutters or peasants at table) were created at a stroke in their final form. No, in most cases the solidity and pith of the small is only obtained through much more serious study than is imagined by those who think lightly of the task of illustrating. Oh, old chap, you’re one of the best-informed art dealers I know, and you speak about this much more accurately and sensitively than most, but if you knew how much hard graft some things have required — for instance, prints from Album des Vosges or those first things in The Graphic — I believe you would be struck by them. With me, at least, it’s often the case that as I learn more about the life and work of fellows like Schuler, Lançon, Renouard, and so many others, I sense that what one sees of them is only the tiny puff of smoke that comes out of their chimney, and that within their heart and studio there’s a great fire. In the illustrated magazines they undergo something like the small tower in the distance that looks very small and insignificant, and when one gets up close proves to be an imposing mass (I mean, only a small part of their work is made public). Anyway, some paintings in their huge frames look very substantial, and later one is surprised when they actually leave behind such an empty and dissatisfied feeling. On the other hand, one overlooks many an unpretentious woodcut or lithograph or etching now and then, but comes back to it and becomes more and more attached to it with time, and senses something great in it. I know a drawing by Tenniel of ‘two clergymen’ (this isn’t the English title, of course, but it’s the subject). One is a city vicar, splendid and broad and imposing; the other is slightly ‘shabby’, evidently a humble village curate, the father of a large and poor family. I often think that one finds these two types among painters as well, and many ‘illustrators’ belong to the village curates among the painters, while perhaps people like Bouguereau or Makart and some others have something of the first type. Now whether, for my part, I have to work in a smaller or larger format makes relatively little difference to me, but what the illustrated magazines ask is only part of what I demand of myself. Of myself I firmly demand that I can make the figure of a size such that head, hands and feet don’t become too small and the details remain clear. This is still very far from being what I require of myself, but for that very reason I must stand firm on that point. When I require this, I’m not making other demands of myself than very many others make of themselves. For example, with the series of drawings I’m working on now I don’t know what the final form or size will be. After a great deal of thought, I’ve made them about the size of the man with his head in his hands, but I can of course reduce the size of these designs if I wish when it comes to printing. And that there are reasons for drawing the figures fairly large in practice is shown, for example, by Exercices au fusain, Modèles d’après les maîtres, published by G&Cie. I began with them, and so far I haven’t found a better guide to studies from the live model. The book was intended to introduce sound ideas about study, both in the schools and certainly above all in the studios. I’ve listened to what Bargue says in his examples (though my work is far from being as beautiful as his). I believe that they point to a correct way in accordance with what other men taught earlier, among them L. da Vinci — and in any event through it I’ve brought a certain order to my ideas on drawing which results in work proceeding in a better-regulated way than if one imposes no order on one’s actions. You see, that’s something I may not let go of, but, again, if desired, I can reduce the format of this or that figure in my studies. I’d very much like you to see everything I’ve done since this summer all together again. What’s happened to those drawings that you wrote you had sent through rue Chaptal? I haven’t yet received them, but I suspect they’re still with you, since you wrote shortly afterwards that Buhot had seen them. Of course I don’t need them in a hurry, and only mention them in case they may be lying around somewhere. And if you consider it advisable to keep them with you in case you want to talk to someone about them, I have nothing against that, except that I wish you could perhaps make a new selection from the whole lot for that purpose.
The Hague, on or about Monday, 11 December 1882.
My dear Theo,
I just received your registered letter and thank you most cordially for it. What I want to begin with is this. Herewith a folder from the 1883 Xmas No. of The Graphic. Do read it carefully, it’s well worth the effort. What a colossal set-up, isn’t it? What huge sales. That said, what then? The following, among other things. Hubert Herkomer’s words are in singular contrast to those of The Graphic’s editors. The latter say, ‘On referring to our books we find that besides our professional artists we have no less than Two thousand seven hundred and thirty friends scattered over the world, sending us sketches or elaborate drawings.’ HH speaks of a: ‘DEARTH OF GOOD DRAUGHTSMEN.’ And in general his words are the diametrical opposite of those of the publishers in this Xmas issue — the whole producing a result in the following form. Graphic publishers say ‘all right’. H.H. says ‘all wrong’.
Now also see something striking on page 4 of the folder I’m sending: The G. when strong enough to walk alone, rented one house and began to print with six machines. I have every respect for this, I feel something holy here, something noble, something sublime. I’m now looking at that group of great artists and thinking of foggy London and the scurrying about in that small set-up. Deeper in my imagination I see the draughtsmen in their various studios setting to work with the best kind of enthusiasm. I see Millais going up to C. Dickens with the first No. of The Graphic. Dickens was then in the evening of his life, he had a paralyzed foot, walked with a kind of crutch. Millais says, while showing Him the drawing by Luke Fildes, Homeless and hungry — the poor and vagabonds outside a night refuge — Millais says to Dickens, give him your Edwin Drood to illustrate, and Dickens says, ‘Very well’. Edwin Drood was Dickens’s last work, and Luke Fildes, having got in touch with D. through those small illustrations, comes into his room on the day of his death — sees his empty chair standing there, and so it was that one of the old Nos. of The Graphic had that striking drawing THE EMPTY CHAIR.Empty chairs — there are many, more will come, and sooner or later instead of Herkomer, Luke Fildes, Frank Holl, William Small &c. there will only be Empty chairs.
And still the publishers and dealers, not listening to a prophecy like H.H.’s, will go on assuring us in words like those in the enclosed folder that all is well and that we’re making very good progress. How hard-hearted they are, how mistaken, though, if they think they can fool everyone into believing that material greatness is of equal weight as moral greatness, and that without the latter anything good can be done. As with The Graphic, so with more, many more things in the sphere of art. Moral greatness diminishes, material greatness comes in its place. Whether the desired change will come? It seems to me that everyone must reflect on that for himself, but the old comparison speaks of a broad way ending in desolation, and of a narrow one leading to a different result. The Graphic began on the narrow way and has now moved to the broad one. I saw the latest issue this morning. There was almost nothing good in it. I took an old, torn, dirty issue of 1873 from a pile of scrap paper at a Jewish bookseller’s this morning and am keeping almost everything in it. But as for me — what to do? A few years ago I went walking with Rappard outside Brussels at a spot they call the Vallée de Josaphat, an area where Roelofs lives, among others. There was a sandpit there where diggers were at work — there were women looking for dandelion leaves, a peasant was sowing — we looked at all this and at the time I was half despairing: will I ever succeed in making what I consider so beautiful?
Now I’m no longer so despairing, now I can capture those peasants and women better than then, and through carrying on working patiently I can arrive at what I wanted, in a sense. But what’s going on weighs heavily on me, and I don’t think of the magazines with pleasure and enthusiasm. The Graphic forgets to say that many in the group of artists are beginning to refuse to give their work, withdrawing more and more. Why? Because a painter works to do something good and has something honest in his heart that finds all that grandeur loathsome. What more shall I say? — repeat ‘What to do?’ once more. Carry on working, of course, but as if with a dark future. Here in The Hague — there are clever, great men, I readily acknowledge that, but in many respects what a wretched state of affairs it is. What intriguing, quarrelling, envy. And in the personalities of the artists getting rich, who with Mesdag at their head set the tone, also unmistakable signs of material greatness replacing moral greatness.
I begin to feel in myself that if, for example, I went to England and tried right and left, I would indeed have a chance of finding a place. To achieve that was my ideal, was and is, despite everything, still what spurred me on to overcome the enormous initial difficulties. — — — But my heart becomes heavy at times when I think of what’s going on — my pleasure vanishes. I really want to do my best in my drawings, but all those editors and having to present oneself there — bah! I shudder at the thought. You ask about my health. What I had last summer really has gone completely, but I’m a little dejected at present, which is combined with other moments, when I’m making progress with the work, when I feel very cheerful, so that I find it rather like being a soldier who doesn’t feel at home in the guardhouse and thinks to himself: why must I be here in the cooler when I would be more in my rightful place in the ranks? I mean something is weighing on me, since I feel a power in myself which, due to the circumstances, can’t develop as it otherwise would, and the result is that I’m often wretched. A kind of internal battle over what I must do. Not so easy to resolve as may have appeared at first. I wish I had a position through which I could make progress.
Many positions that might lie within my reach would lead me to something entirely different from what I mean. They lie beyond my reach for, although I might be taken on initially, with time I wouldn’t be thought right for them. I would be dismissed and I would myself give notice, as with Goupil. I mean, they’d want current events, the day’s news, whatever, for which someone like Adrien Marie or Godefroy Durand would be perfectly suitable. I begin to see ever more clearly that the illustrated magazines go along with the superficial stream, and I believe that they aren’t concerned with being as good as their duty dictates. No, filling the magazines with things that neither cost much nor take much trouble, now and again putting in something good, but produced in a cheap, mechanized way, apart from that filling their pockets with as much money as possible. I don’t think this is a wise course of action. I believe they’ll go bankrupt as a result and be bitterly sorry at the very end, still a long way off. But this doesn’t alter the fact that things are as they are. Renewing themselves — they never give it a thought. Suppose that The Graphic, L’Illustration, Vie Moderne published an issue containing feeble, insipid things. Nonetheless, umpteen cartloads and shiploads would be sold, the managers rub their hands and say, ‘It sells just as well like this, no questions asked, they swallow it anyway’. Yes, but if their lordships the managers could follow their publications and see how thousands eagerly pick up the magazine and then, when they put it aside, instinctively have a feeling of dissatisfaction and disappointment, maybe they’d be less keen to badger people. This isn’t the case at all, though, and as you see from the Graphic report there’s no lack of self-confidence. In the meantime, people have wormed their way in as employees who wouldn’t have appeared in the difficult but noble time.
What Zola calls the triumph of mediocrity takes place: scoundrels, nobodies, replace workers, thinkers, artists, and no one even notices. The public — yes, on the one hand they’re dissatisfied, but material greatness also garners applause all the same. But don’t forget that this is only a straw fire, and that those who applaud generally do so only because it has become the talk of the town. On the day after the party there’ll be an emptiness and silence, and indifference after all that noise. The Graphic will do Types of beauty (Large heads of women), says this prospectus, no doubt as a replacement for Heads of the people by Herkomer, Small and Ridley. Very well, but some people will not admire the Types of beauty, and will think back with melancholy to the old Heads of the people (a series which has been terminated). The Graphic say they’ll make Chromos!!! Give us back Swain’s studio. You see, Theo, old chap, it truly grieves me, the whole thing is going wrong.
Listen, I would have counted it the greatest honour, an ideal, to have worked on what The Graphic started. What Dickens was as a writer, what the Household edition of his work was as a publication, that was what that sublime beginning of The Graphic was like. And now, everything’s gone — again the material in place of the moral. Do you know what I think of the folder I’m sending you? It’s just like the way of talking that, for example, Obach, the manager of G&C. in London, goes in for. And that is successful — yes, that is successful, yes, it’s listened to and it’s accepted. Do you know, old chap, what I think of this way of talking in this Graphic folder? It’s like Mesdag’s reasoning about the panorama at the time. I have respect for working, I despise neither Obach nor Mesdag, but there are things that I rate infinitely higher than that sort of energy. I would like something more succinct, something simpler, something sounder; I would like more soul and more love and more heart. Rest assured that I will not and cannot shout out against it, that I will not oppose it. It’s just that it makes me sad, it takes away my pleasure, it upsets me, and I no longer know what I, for my part, should or should not do.
What sometimes saddens me is this — in the past, when I began, I thought when I’ve got this or that far I’ll get a position here or there, and I’ll be on a straight path and set for life. Now, though, something else has come up, and I fear, or rather expect, a kind of guardhouse instead of employment. I expect things like: yes, this and that in your work is all right (I doubt whether they really mean it), but you must understand that the kind of work you do is unusable; we need current events (vide The Graphic, we print on the Saturday what happened on the Thursday). See, Theo, old chap — I can’t make any TYPES OF BEAUTY — but I will do my best for HEADS OF THE PEOPLE. See, Theo, I would like to do the same as those who began The Graphic (though I don’t consider myself their equal), that is to take a chap or woman or child from the street and do that in my studio. But no, they’d ask: ‘Can you do chromos by electric light?’ Anyway, instead of dealing with a way of thinking, a feeling, a goal like Dickens’s (The Graphic was like that originally), one is presented with a mode of seeing and thinking like Obach’s. That saddens me, and then I feel powerless. Undertaking something oneself is possible only if one encounters interest and cooperation.
This brings us to another area. Excuse me if I tell you my thoughts and continue to do so. If you don’t have time to write and don’t reply immediately, at least you’ll know when we meet again what preoccupies me, and perhaps we’ll find a passable path. I thought this folder from The Graphic was something through which one can say more clearly what one means, and that’s why I write this for the present.
With a handshake in thought.
Ever yours, Vincent.
The Hague, between about Wednesday, 13 and about Monday, 18 December 1882.
My dear Theo,
Though I’ve nothing special to tell you, I wanted to write to you again. As against what I wrote to you, that I’m often heavy-hearted about many things, can’t see everything as progress, &c., there’s what I also said on a previous occasion: there are things that are worth doing one’s best for, either because they gain approval or because, just the opposite, they have their own raison d’être. Blessed is he who has found his work, says Carlyle, and that’s absolutely true. And as for me, when I say that I want to make figures from the people for the people, then it goes without saying that the course of events will influence me only indirectly, that is to the extent that my work is made harder or easier, but making the drawings themselves is my main preoccupation. And so, as against a feeling of dejection, there’s the fact that it’s a delight to work on something that becomes more interesting the deeper you get into it.
I said in my last letter that I sometimes had a feeling of being in a sort of guardhouse or prison, by which I simply mean that there are many things I can’t pursue which I would like to — they’d only become possible if I could pay for them — but I don’t at all mean by this that I don’t appreciate the present or am discontented. Far from it. It’s precisely by doing what is attainable that one has a chance of working one’s way up, so be assured that if you ever know of work I could do for the illustrated magazines there, I would be happy to do my best for them. When I write: I don’t think the illustrated magazines are going about it the right way, that’s no reason for me not to want to work for them. It’s just that I fear what I do wouldn’t suit them. If this is due to genuine mistakes, I’ll try to correct them, but if it was because of conception or mood in general, there’s little I could do about it. You’ll have received the drawing in a smaller format, and I repeat once more that if you like I’ll make a series in that size to try it out.
I now have two more drawings — one is a man reading the Bible and the other is a man saying his prayers before his midday meal, which is on the table. Both are most decidedly in what one might call an old-fashioned sentiment, they are ditto figures as the old man with his head in his hands. The grace is the best, I believe, but they complement each other. In the one there’s a view through the window of snow-covered furrows. My intention with these two and with the first old man is one and the same, namely to express the special mood of Christmas and New Year. At that time, in both Holland and in England, there’s still always a religious element, everywhere in fact, at least in Brittany and Alsace too. Leaving aside whether or not one agrees with the form, it’s something one respects if it’s sincere, and for my part I can fully share in it and even feel a need for it, at least in the sense that, just as much as an old man of that kind, I have a feeling of belief in something on high even if I don’t know exactly who or what will be there.
I like what Victor Hugo said: religions pass, but God remains. And Gavarni also said a fine thing: the point is to grasp what does not pass in what passes. One of the things that will not pass is the something on high and belief in God, even if the forms change, a change as necessary as the renewal of greenery in the spring. But you will understand from one thing and another that my aim in these drawings is not to pay homage to the form but to show that I greatly respect the Christmas and New Year sentiment. And if there’s any sentiment or expression in it, that’s because I myself share it.
What I feel more and more is that it’s difficult to discover the best way to work. There’s so much that is fine on the one side, and so much on the other side too, moreover so much that is wrong, that sometimes one doesn’t know which way to choose. But at all events one must work. Yet for my part I do not think that I couldn’t make a mistake, am too aware of many mistakes to be able to say: this or that is the right way, that is the wrong one. This goes without saying. But I’m not indifferent, I believe it’s wrong to be so, I believe that it’s a duty — even though one knows that one can’t get through the world without making mistakes, without remorse or sorrows — to try to do right. I once read somewhere, Some good must come by clinging to the right. What do I know of whether I’ll attain this or that goal — how can I know in advance whether or not the difficulties will be insuperable? One must work on in silence and await the outcome accordingly. If one prospect vanishes another will perhaps open up — there must be a prospect and a future too, even though its geography is unknown. The conscience is a man’s compass, and although the needle deviates sometimes, although above all one detects inaccuracies in one’s orientation, one must nevertheless do one’s best to set one’s course by it.
I must copy out something for you that I had in mind when working on that old man, though it doesn’t apply to it literally, since it isn’t nighttime in the drawing, for example. Oft, in the stilly night. Oft in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me; The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimm’d and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain hath bound me, Sad memory brings the light Of other days around me. Laurillard after Moore. When I remember all The friends, so link’d together, I’ve seen around me fall, Like leaves in wintry weather; I feel like one Who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, Whose garlands dead, And all but he departed! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain hath bound me, Sad memory brings the light Of other days around me. Well, I hope that you too will be able to enjoy something of nature in the coming days, either in the appearance of the short winter days or in the winter figures. For how very different passers-by on the street look in winter and in summer.
I’ve studied your information as to the Buhot paper sent. If you think it advisable for me to do some work on it, I would need a few sheets, and I take it that they’re perhaps made in suitable formats so that I can adapt to them. This paper is not obtainable here, otherwise I would already have tried it. After reading your explanation I’m also left with the question: if one takes a photograph of the drawing, and then transfers the photo to zinc, is it only the drawings done on this particular paper that are suitable for this, and isn’t it possible to reproduce all drawings in black and white, even if they’re on ordinary paper? Also: doesn’t the photographer then have it in his power to reduce the format, should the drawing be larger than desirable for the format of the magazine? The latter is certainly what I would deduce from some American reproductions that appeared in Scribner’s Magazine.
Well, adieu, I hope you’ll write again towards the twentieth. With a handshake in thought.
Ever yours, Vincent
The Hague, Wednesday, 3 January 1883.
My dear Theo,
I wrote to you yesterday, but I’m doing so again today to report the safe arrival of your letter and to thank you for it, and to tell you that what you wrote raised my spirits. I was a bit concerned that, because you’ve seen so little of my work recently, this might make you think that I’d begun to slacken off. I have in fact been slogging away lately, and am still wrapped up in various things in which I begin to see light as to how to do them, but which I haven’t yet got the hang of as I would like. In my last letter I told you I was experimenting in Black and White with lithographic crayon. You speak too highly of me in your letter, but the fact that you think highly of me is an added reason for me to try not to be entirely unworthy of it. And as for my saying I believed I had made some progress through those experiments, it may be that I can’t see my own work properly. Perhaps it’s a step forward, perhaps not. Tell me your opinion about that based on the accompanying two studies, which I made in the past few days, together with some others.
While I search for a more powerful process than the one I’ve worked with up to now, I try to be guided to some extent by the English reproductions made using the process you described — together with the black scratches Buhot made on the sample paper — as to the strength of black. And if you get a chance, speak to an expert about whether it would be possible to reproduce drawings like these (as distinct from the second question of whether these or similar ones were to their particular taste). As for their sentiment, I would like to know what YOU think about that, because, as I said, I myself can’t judge whether there’s more in them or not. Or rather, my position is that for my part I’d rather see studies like these, even though they’re unfinished and even if much is completely neglected, than drawings that have a subject, because through them I get a vivid memory of nature itself. You’ll understand what I mean.
True studies have something of life itself, and the person who makes them will respect not himself but nature in them, and hence prefer the study to what he may make of it later. Unless something entirely different arises from it as the final outcome of many studies, namely the type distilled from many individuals. That is the highest art, and in that art is sometimes above nature — — — as, for instance, in Millet’s sower, in which there is more soul than in an ordinary sower in the field.
But what I’d like to know from you is whether you think that this way of working would perhaps remove some of the objections you had to pencil. They’re a few ‘heads of the people’, and my intention would be to find a large number like these to try to form a sort of entity that wouldn’t be entirely unworthy of the title ‘heads of the people’. Through working hard, old chap, I hope to make something good one day. I haven’t got it yet, but I’m hunting it and fighting for it, I want something serious, something fresh — something with soul in it! Onward, onward. You’ll see clearly enough from what I’ve said above that I’m more eager to put together a serious work for reproduction than to have the satisfaction of seeing one drawing printed some day. But any information and tips as to processes are very welcome.
In the window at G&Cie I saw a large etching by Fortuny, An anchorite, as well as his two beautiful The dead Kabyle and Watching over the dead man — then I deeply regretted saying to you not long ago that I didn’t find Fortuny beautiful – this I found extremely beautiful. Well, you’ll understand that yourself. It’s the same with Boldini too. But that seriousness that Fortuny had, for instance, in those three etchings is just what’s missing with many of his followers, who completely follow in his wake with a manner for which F. set the example in, say, ‘The choice of a model’ &c. And that is the direct opposite of the sombre, noble quality of Brion, of Degroux, Israëls &c. When you can, do send me an issue of the current Vie Moderne, look for one with reproductions like the ones you wrote about. The magazine is nowhere to be found here (and what I have ((a few issues)) is years old). I’ll show you more when you come, sooner or later — and then we can talk about the future.
You know well enough how little suited I am to approaching either dealers or art lovers, and moreover how it goes against the grain for me. I so dearly wish that we could always carry on as in the past, but I’m often so sad about having to trouble you again and again. But who knows whether in time it mightn’t be possible for you to interest someone or other who could take the load off your shoulders that you’ve borne in the most difficult time. That could be done when it’s clearly evident that my work is serious, at which time it will have more appeal than this. I’m too fond of my very simple life to want to change it, but later on we’ll have to incur greater expenses to do greater things.
I believe I’ll always work with a model a lot — always and always. And I must get things to the point where not everything rests on your shoulders. This is only a beginning — later you’ll get fine things from me, old chap! For the time being, let me know whether you think some of the objections to using pencil alone could be removed somewhat by using crayon as well. Don’t you also agree that by making these drawings I may also indirectly learn things about lithography proper?
Adieu, thanks again for your letter, with a handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent.
The Hague, Friday, 26 or Saturday, 27 January 1883.
My dear Theo.
The more I reflect upon it, the deeper the impression made on me by your last letter. In broad outline (leaving aside the difference between the two people in question), on a cold, merciless pavement a sombre, sorrowful figure of a woman appeared before you and before me, and neither you nor I passed her by, but both of us stopped and followed the promptings of our human heart. Such an encounter has something of an apparition about it, at least if one thinks back one sees a pale face, a sorrowful look like an Ecce Homo against a dark background; everything else disappears. That is the sentiment of an Ecce Homo and in reality; the same thing is in the expression, but here it’s a woman’s face. Later — things are definitely different — but one doesn’t forget that first moment.
Below an English figure of a woman (by Paterson) is the name Dolorosa, which pretty well expresses it. I’m thinking of the two women now, and at the same time I thought of a drawing by Pinwell, The sisters, in which I find that ‘Dolorosa’. That drawing shows two women in black in a dark room. One has just come home and is hanging her coat on the hatstand. The other briefly smells a primrose on the table while picking up a white piece of needlework. That Pinwell is reminiscent of Feyen-Perrin — in his earlier period — his work also recalls Thijs Maris, but with a yet purer feeling. He was a poet, as strong as could be, he saw the sublime in the most ordinary, everyday things. His work is rare, I saw little by him, but that little was so beautiful that now, 10 years later, it has remained just as clear in my mind as when I first became acquainted with it. At that time it was said of that group of draughtsmen ‘It’s too good to last’. You can see from Herkomer’s words that sadly this has proved to be right, but it isn’t dead yet, and in both literature and art it will be difficult to find a better attitude than the one from those days.
I often felt low in England for various reasons but those, the Black and White and Dickens, are things that make up for it all. I think your meeting with this woman is likely to take your thoughts back many times to the period 10 or even 20 years ago, or still further back. In short, I mean you will rediscover yourself in her, a part of your life that you had almost forgotten, namely the past, and I don’t know whether, when you’ve been with her for a year, you’ll see the present through the same eyes as, for instance, before you knew her. I speak from my own experience, not that I reject everything to do with the present day, far from it, but still it seems to me that something from the past that was good and should have been kept is going, in art particularly, but also in life itself. Perhaps I’m expressing things too vaguely, but I can’t put it another way — I don’t know myself what it is exactly, but it wasn’t only the Black and White that changed direction and strayed from the healthy, noble beginnings. Rather, in general a kind of scepticism and indifference and coldness prevails, despite all the activity. But all this is too vague and ill-defined. I don’t think about it all that much in fact, because I’m thinking about my drawings and have no time to go into it.
Still busy with heads this week, women’s heads mainly — with bags, among other things. Have you ever seen anything by Boyd Houghton? He is one from the beginning of The Graphic who, though little known (he’s now dead), occupies a place of his own. I thought of him when you wrote about the Barricade by Daumier. At the time he also did the pétroleuses and barricades in Paris. But later on he went to America and I know, among other things, drawings of Shakers by him, and a Mormon church, and Indian women &c., and emigrants.In a barricade scene, for example, he can have something ghostly, or rather something mysterious like Goya. He also treated the American subjects in that way, namely Goya-like, but then sometimes all at once something runs underneath that recalls Meryon because of its extraordinary austerity. His woodcuts could almost pass for etchings. Too good to last, they say, but it’s precisely because of that, because it’s rare, that the good lasts. It isn’t produced every day — it will never be obtained mechanically, but what there is of it is there, and that won’t go away but remain. And even if later another kind of good comes, the first will still keep its value. So in my opinion one shouldn’t lament the fact that this or that hasn’t become general; even if it doesn’t become general, whatever there is of the good or beautiful still exists.
What’s the position these days with the etchings Cadart began years ago? Has that also proved to be Too good to last? I know well enough that many etchings, and beautiful ones at that, are published these days too. But I mean the old series Société des Aquafortistes that included The two brothers by Feyen-Perrin and the Sheep pasture by Daubigny and the Bracquemonds and so many others — have they retained their power or have they gone weak? Even if they are weaker, what there is — doesn’t that already have enough substance to remain for ever, thus rather disproving the words too good to last? What the etching needle could do was shown by Daubigny, Millet, Feyen-Perrin, and many others, just as The Graphic &c. showed what the Black and White could do. And this stands as a truth once and for all, and those who wish can always draw energy from it. The pity of it is partly that when several people care for the same cause and work on it together, unity is strength, and united they can do more than their separate energies can, each striving in a different direction.
People strengthen each other when they work together, and an entity is formed without personality having to be blotted out by the collaboration. This is why I wish Rappard was fully recovered. We don’t actually work together, but we have similar ideas about many questions. He’s getting better and we’re again dealing in woodcuts together. Yet I always have hopes that we’ll become even better friends than up to now, and perhaps later visit the miners together or something like that. But for the time being I believe that both he and I must do our best at thorough study of the figure; the more one has mastered that the more attainable such plans become. He says he’s had a fever, nothing more, and is still weak, but he’s tight-lipped about his illness.
We’ve had snow here again that’s now melting. The thaw is very beautiful. I imagine that this spring could be unusually delightful for you. Write soon about how your patient is getting on. Well, I’ll enjoy the spring too. Today, while the snow melts, one feels the spring in the distance, so to speak. I think that we’ll have a real day when you come, sooner or later. Perhaps you’ll agree with me that in times of worry, such as you will certainly have now because of her illness, one can best feel the poetry of things. I long for the spring so that I can get a breath of fresh air instead of working at home, which has made me a little dull. I’m still very happy with my sou’wester.
I’m curious to know whether you’ll find anything good in the heads of fishermen. The last one I did this week was of a chap with a white fringe of beard. I know of one drawing by Boyd Houghton which he calls ‘my models’ and which shows a corridor where several invalids — one on crutches, one blind, one a street urchin &c. — come to visit a painter on Christmas Day. There’s something nice about dealing with models — one learns a lot from them — this winter I’ve had people who will always stay in my memory. I like Edouard Frère’s remark that he had hung on to his models so that ‘those who used to pose as babies now pose as mothers’.
Well, adieu, Theo, write soon. Sincere best wishes. Believe me, with a handshake
Ever yours, Vincent
The Hague, Thursday, 8 February 1883.
My dear Theo,
My sincere congratulations to you too on Pa’s birthday, and thank you for your letter, which I received just now and am delighted by. I congratulate you especially on the operation being behind you. Things such as you describe make one shudder. May it now be overcome — and at least the crisis over. Poor woman! If women sometimes don’t have the same energy and resilience in their thinking as men who have striven to think things through and analyze them — are they to be blamed for that? I believe not, because in general they must devote so much more strength than we to suffering pain. They suffer more and are more sensitive. And even if they sometimes don’t understand what one is thinking, they’re sometimes quite capable of understanding whether one is good for them. Not in every respect perhaps, but ‘the spirit is willing’ and there’s a sort of goodness in women at times that is entirely peculiar to them. It must be a weight off your mind that the operation has been done. What a riddle life is, and love is a riddle within a riddle. Staying the same is the only thing that it certainly doesn’t do in a literal sense, but on the other hand the changes are a kind of ebb and flow and make no difference to the sea itself.
I’ve rested my eyes a little since I last wrote to you and felt better for it, although they still sting. Do you know what I couldn’t help thinking? — that in the first part of life as a painter one sometimes unintentionally makes things difficult for oneself — through a feeling of not yet having mastered the business — through the uncertainty one feels about whether one will master it — through the fierce desire to make progress — through not yet trusting oneself — one cannot put aside a certain feeling of being harried, and one harries oneself despite not wanting to be harried when one works. There’s nothing to be done about it, and this is a time that one also can’t do without, and that should not and cannot be otherwise, in my view. In the studies, too, one sees for oneself the agitation and a certain precision that’s diametrically opposed to the calm breadth one seeks — and yet one feels bad if one works specifically for that breadth and devotes oneself to that. As a result there’s sometimes a bottling up of nervous restlessness and stress, and one feels an oppressiveness as on some summer days before a storm.
I’ve just had that again, and when I feel like that I change to different work, precisely in order to start from scratch. The difficulties one faces in the first phase give the studies a painful quality at times. I don’t regard this as something that discourages me, though, because I’ve noticed it in others as much as in myself, and in them it has increasingly gone away of its own accord. And work remains difficult at times throughout one’s life, I believe, but not always with so few results as in the beginning. What you write about Lhermitte is entirely in accord with what it said in a review of an exhibition of Black and White. That also talks about a rude assault that is almost impossible to compare with anything else except Rembrandt. I’d like to know how someone like that sees Judas — you write about a drawing of Judas before the scribes by him. I believe Victor Hugo could describe that in detail so that one saw it. But it would be even more difficult to paint the expressions. I’ve found a Daumier print, Those who have seen a tragedy and those who have seen a vaudeville. I begin to long for Daumier more and more as time passes. There’s something pithy and ‘considered’ in him. He’s amusing and yet full of emotion and passion. Sometimes, it seems to me I find a passion that might be likened to white-hot iron, in the drunkards, for instance, and probably in the Barricade too (which I don’t know). That’s also in some heads by Frans Hals, for example. It’s so subdued that it seems cold, and when one takes a look at it — — — one is amazed that someone evidently working with so much emotion and becoming completely absorbed and lost in nature at the same time has that presence of mind to set it down with such a steady hand.
I found something similar in studies and drawings by Degroux. Perhaps Lhermitte is another white-hot one. And Menzel too. There are sometimes passages in Balzac and Zola – in Père Goriot, for example – in which one finds a degree of passion in words that’s white-hot. I sometimes think about experimenting with a completely different way of working, namely daring and risking more. But I don’t know whether I ought not to study the figure more directly, definitely with a model. I’m also looking for a way of shutting out the light in the studio or letting it in as desired. At present not enough comes from above, I believe, and there’s too much. I’ve sometimes closed it off with cardboard temporarily, but I’ll see if I can get shutters from the landlord.
What was in the letter I told you I had torn up was in the spirit of what you say. But as one realizes more and more that one isn’t perfect and has shortcomings, and that others do too, and thus there are continual difficulties that are the opposite of illusions, so I believe that those who don’t lose heart and don’t become apathetic as a result mature through it, and one must endure in order to mature. Sometimes I can’t understand all the same that I’m only 30 and feel so much older. I feel older especially when I think that most of the people who know me regard me as a failure, and I believe that if a few things don’t change for the better this really could be the case, and when I think, it could turn out like that, then I feel that with such reality that I’m totally oppressed by it and I lose all enjoyment, as if it were really so. When I’m in a more normal and calm mood, I’m sometimes glad that 30 years are past and haven’t gone by without my learning something in them for the future, and I feel strength and zest for the next 30 — if I last that long. And in my imagination I see years of serious work, and happier ones than the first 30. How it will turn out in reality doesn’t depend on me alone — the world and circumstances must also cooperate. What concerns me, and what I’m responsible for, is that I make the most of the circumstances I’m in, and do my best to make progress.
As a working man, at the age of 30 one is at the beginning of a period in which one feels steadiness in oneself. As such, one feels young and full of zest. Yet at the same time a period of life is over, which makes one sad that this or that will never come back. And it isn’t weak sentimentality to feel a certain sorrow now and then. Anyway, much only begins when one is 30, and it’s certain that not everything is over by then. But one doesn’t expect from life what one already knows from experience that it cannot give. Rather, one begins to see much more clearly that life is only a time of fertilization and that the harvest is not here. This is why one sometimes thinks, what do I care about the world’s judgement?, and if that judgement is too much of a burden, one can shrug it off. Perhaps now I ought to tear up this letter as well. I can understand that you’re very much preoccupied with the woman’s condition, and that’s one of the things needed to save her and to ensure that she makes a good recovery. For one must throw oneself into it, and the saying applies, If you want it well done you must do it yourself, you mustn’t leave it to others. That is to say, one must keep hold of the general care and overseeing of the whole.
We’ve had a couple of true spring days, including last Monday, which I enjoyed. The change of the seasons is something the people feel very much. For example, in a neighbourhood like the Geest district and in the almshouses or so-called ‘gift houses’ winter is always an anxious and difficult and frightening time, and spring a deliverance. If one looks closely, one sees that there’s a kind of gospel on the first day of spring. And on such a day it’s heart-rending to see so many grey, withered faces expressly coming out of doors, not to do anything in particular but as if to convince themselves that spring has come. So, for example, sometimes all kinds of people in whom one wouldn’t expect it crowd round a spot on the market where a trader is selling crocuses, snowdrops, goatsbeard and other bulbs. Sometimes a parchment ministry official, a sort of Josserand evidently, in a threadbare black coat with a felt collar — I find him beside the snowdrops beautiful. I believe that the poor and the painters have the sentiment of the weather and the changing seasons in common. Of course everyone feels that, but for the better-off they’re hardly events at all, and don’t generally make much difference to their state of mind. I like this remark by a polder worker: ‘In the winter I suffer as much cold as the winter corn’.
Now, your patient will certainly welcome the spring too. May she do well. What a difficult operation that is, at least I was shocked when I read the description. Rappard is getting better — did I write to you that he’d had a nervous fever of the brain? It will be some time before he can work as before, but he has started going for walks now and then. I’ll follow your advice to bathe my eyes with tea if it doesn’t go away. It’s lessening, so for the present I’ll let things take their natural course. Because I was never troubled by it in the past, except this winter along with toothache, and so I believe it to be something accidental caused by my unusual exertions. And now I can bear the tired eyes when drawing better than in the beginning.
Write again soon if you can, and believe me, with a handshake,
Ever yours, Vincent
I don’t know if you know the ‘gift houses’ on Brouwersgracht opposite the hospital. I’d like to draw there when the weather permits. I’ve already made a few scratches there this week. They’re some rows of houses with small gardens which belong to the poor board, I believe.
The Hague, Tuesday, 20 or Wednesday, 21 February 1883.
My dear Theo,
I wanted to write to you on Sunday but I waited because I was busy with something that hadn’t yet been decided. A week or so ago I was reading Fritz Reuter’s ‘Uit mijn gevangenistijd’, in which he describes very amusingly how Fritz R. and others serving fortress sentences made life as agreeable as possible and secured various privileges from their ‘field officer’. That book gave me the idea of tackling my landlord with a view to certain improvements that would make my work easier. And I’ve been back and forth to Voorburg, where he lives, several times to get him to do one thing and another. There were some old wooden blinds and planks lying there that I wanted to use, but it wasn’t easy to get them. Still, I have them now.
As you know, there are 3 windows in the studio. They give much too much light, even if I cover them, and I’ve long been thinking about how to remedy this. But he didn’t want to do anything unless I paid him. But now, as the result of tackling him again, I have 6 blinds and about 6 long planks. Those blinds are now being sawn to make shutters that can be manoeuvred so that more or less light is shut out or let in as required, from above or below. From this scratch I think you’ll see that it works very nicely. And the planks are for a big cupboard in the alcove, for storing drawings, prints, books, and as a hatstand for various smocks, jackets, old coats, shawls and hats, not forgetting the sou’wester, which I need for the models. I’ve paid the landlord regularly and have now told him straight out that I wouldn’t contradict him if he thought the rent for the house was low, but I asked him to consider that for me the rent was still a heavy burden. And that I could not work readily or make progress until I had better light. That if he couldn’t change it I, for my part, really would be forced to find another studio. That if I could afford it I would put up with paying for it, but now I wasn’t in a position to pay more than I was already. So my paying more was out of the question, and whether I stayed depended on whether or not he would have this done. If my leaving was a matter of indifference to him, we’d part as good friends and say no more. Well, then he said, no, he did want to do something, and so we finally agreed that I need only pay a few guilders’ worth of labour. He’s been to the studio himself repeatedly and is certainly not a swindler, though he has a pretty sharp tongue (a bit like a Yankee). And it seems that the studio was better than he’d expected (he hadn’t seen it since July last year); at any rate I got it approved while in the studio, and more easily even than I expected. If only one could always deal with people in the studio! But outside it I, for one, can’t get them to do much and can’t get on well with them.
Have been working on some figures, rather large, busts or to the knees, which will be a sort of decoration for the corridor and stairs, together with a few others, though they’re really no more than ordinary studies. Anyway, you see from one thing and another that I’ve once again thrown myself headlong into it, so that I’ll get new ideas in my head through being busy. At Voorburg, for example, when I went with him to sort out that wood, I saw beautiful scenes of labourers in a shed and the excavation of a cellar and the laying of the foundations of a house. I thought of what you once wrote to me about the labourers in Montmartre when you were there, when one of them injured himself in a stone quarry. As you know, I already had something in front of the windows, namely canvas stretched on laths. They’re no longer needed now, but will be highly desirable as backgrounds, with darker or lighter material stretched over them, when one wants to draw heads, for example. You see now that I’ll be able to cover over one or two windows completely and thus obtain one general light that will make the effects much stronger. Otherwise they’d be neutralized by reflections or different lights. The job would have been entirely out of the question if I’d had to pay for it myself, since it was expensive, and I’m very pleased with it. I felt that better light was desirable, especially when doing drawings like those I was working on of late, such as those heads I sent you in which I used a stronger black. I hope everything will work properly but you can see for yourself from this scratch that it’s so simple that it’s bound to work, it seems to me.
Yet how miserable today’s houses often are compared with what they could be if people made an effort to furnish them pleasantly. Compare a modern window with one from Rembrandt’s time. In those days everyone seems to have had a sort of need for a curious, dimmed light that no longer seems to exist, at least there’s a tendency to make it cold, harsh and loveless. A good start was made with workers’ dwellings, but I see no sign of advances being made since those of 20 or 30 years ago. On the contrary, the pleasing aspect is increasingly lost, and it turns into something cold and systematic and methodical that becomes ever more empty with time. If I could have, I would have had the windows altered like this: which wouldn’t have been that much more if we hadn’t been dealing with blinds that already existed. The difference is only that there’s a frame around each square of light, and the blinds are thus slightly smaller. But the latter is an agreeable and easily achieved, pleasing window. But one can’t have everything. And it ought really to have a broad window-sill — where one could sit — which is entirely lacking in this house.
I’m longing for your letter and news of your patient. May she have remained calm and may the recovery be normal and successful. But it doesn’t always go smoothly and rapidly, and something or other almost always comes up, and at all events one must be very much on the alert. Just last week I read Notre-Dame by Hugo, which I had read before over 10 years ago. Do you know who I recognized in it, or at least was so convinced I recognized that I don’t doubt that Victor Hugo intended some such thing? I recognized Thijs Maris in Quasimodo. Most people who read N. Dame probably have an impression of Quasimodo as a sort of clown. But you wouldn’t think Quasimodo ridiculous any more than I would, and like me you would feel that what Hugo says is true. For those who know that Quasimodo existed, now Notre-Dame is empty. For not only was he its inhabitant, but he was its soul. If one takes Notre-Dame as a symbol of the movement in art that found expression in, for instance, Leys and Degroux (sometimes) and Lagye and De Vriendt, Henri Pille, the following can be applied to Thijs Maris: now there’s an emptiness for those who know that he existed, for he was its soul, and the soul of that art, it was he.
Anyway, Thijs Maris still exists but not in his full prime and vigour — not unhurt and disenchanted to the extent that there can be disenchantment with him. One of the enormities committed by the painters here is, I believe, that even now they still laugh at Thijs Maris. I think there’s something as dismal as suicide in that. Why suicide? Because Thijs Maris is such an embodiment of something high and noble that in my view a painter can’t mock that without lowering himself. Those who don’t understand Maris, so much the worse for them, those who do understand him grieve for him, and grieve that such a person has snapped. Noble blade, ignoble scabbard — In my soul I am fair. This is applicable to Thijs M. and to Quasimodo.
Well — write soon if you haven’t written already, and believe me, with a handshake,
Ever yours, Vincent
The Hague, Sunday, 11 March 1883.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter of 9 March and for the enclosure. Is your patient making good progress? I hope that no news about her is good news. If it was as cold in your part of the world as it was here last week, she wouldn’t have been best pleased. While for your part you say you sometimes long for us to be able to talk rather more about various things in art, for my part I feel that longing constantly, and on occasion very strongly. I would so often dearly like to know your opinion about this or that — about some studies &c., for example whether they might be made into something suitable, or whether it was advisable to press on with something for one purpose or another. I would like so often to have more information about matters which you certainly know more about than I do, and would dearly like to hear more about what’s going on, namely what sorts of thing are being made. This can all be dealt with in part by letter, but writing takes time and one doesn’t get round to it easily, nor can one go into things in sufficient detail. And now in particular — because studies are piling up, rather — I’d give a great deal for us to be able to speak to each other again, and I also long for you to see how much more suitable the studio now is.
Anyway, we’ll hope that it won’t be so very, very long before you come to Holland. Rest assured, dear brother, that the sense of the enormous obligation I have to you for your loyal help is always fresh and vivid inside me. It would be difficult for me to express all my many thoughts about that. It remains the cause of a kind of disappointment to me that I don’t yet see in my drawings what I wanted to have in them. The difficulties really are many and great, and not to be overcome at a stroke. Making headway is a kind of miner’s labour that doesn’t go as quickly as one would wish and as others expect. But if one is faced by such labour, the first things one must hang on to are patience and faith. In fact I don’t think much about the difficulties, precisely because if one were to fret about them one would get dizzy or become confused. A weaver who must control and interweave many threads has no time to philosophize about how they fit together, but rather he’s so absorbed in his work that he doesn’t think but acts, and feels how it can and must work out rather than being able to explain it. Even if neither you nor I come up with particular plans etc. when we can speak to each other again, this feeling that something is coming into being may strengthen on both sides. And I would want that.
This morning I was with Van der Weele, who was working on a very beautiful painting of diggers, horses and sand-carts. Big. It was beautiful in tone and colour — a grey morning mist — it was manly in drawing and composition, it had style and character — in short, it was by far the most beautiful and most vigorous work of his I’ve ever seen. He had painted three very beautiful, thorough studies, as well as an old white horse and a fine small landscape in the dunes too. This week he may come to have a look at my studio, which I would like very much. I saw Breitner briefly in the street last week. His position in Rotterdam is reassuring for him — but just this morning Van der Weele had had a note from him to say that he was ill again. To tell you the truth, the impression I got when I saw him again wasn’t very favourable; in fact I found a je ne sais quoi of disappointment in him, and he talked rather oddly about his work.
Now I must tell you about a surprise I’ve had. I received a letter from Pa, very cordial and cheerful it seemed to me, with 25 guilders in it. Pa wrote that he’d received some money he hadn’t expected and that he wanted to let me share in it. Wasn’t that awfully kind? It makes me blush, though. But there’s one thought that instinctively springs to mind. Can it be, perhaps, that Pa has heard from someone or other that I’m living in poverty or some such thing? I wouldn’t care for it if something like that was the motive, for in my opinion this view of my circumstances wouldn’t be accurate. And could cause Pa concern that isn’t entirely appropriate. You will understand my intention better than Pa if I were to try to explain such a thing to him. In my view I’m often very rich, not in money, but rich (although not every day exactly) because I’ve found my work — have something which I live for heart and soul and which gives inspiration and meaning to life. My mood varies, of course, but nonetheless I have a certain average serenity. I have a certain faith in art, a certain trust that it’s a powerful current that drives a person — although he has to cooperate — to a haven, and in any case I consider it such a great happiness if a person has found his work that I don’t count myself among the unfortunate. I mean, even if I were in certain fairly serious difficulties, and even if there were sombre days in my life, I wouldn’t like it and wouldn’t consider it right if someone were to count me among the unfortunate.
You say something in your letter that I also feel on occasion — ‘Sometimes I don’t know how I’ll get through it.’ You see, I often feel that, often and in more than one respect, not only financially but in art itself and life in general. Yet is that unusual? Doesn’t everyone with a little enterprise and energy have such moments? In my view we all have moments of melancholy, of stress, of anguish, to a greater or lesser extent, and this is a condition of every self-conscious human life. Some apparently have no self-consciousness. But those who have such moments, although then sometimes in an anxious state, aren’t unfortunate because of that, and nothing unusual is happening to them. And sometimes there’s a solution, sometimes new inner energy comes and one gets up from them, until perhaps finally, one fine day, one no longer gets up from them – so be it – but there’s nothing unusual in this and, I repeat, it’s inherent in human life, in my view. Pa’s letter was in reply to a letter of mine which I remember very well was cheerful, because I told him about the changes to the studio, and I did not write to Pa about anything that could give rise to the idea that I was in any kind of difficulty of a financial or other nature. Indeed, Pa doesn’t write anything like that, and his letter is cheerful and cordial, but it came so unexpectedly that it may not be too far-fetched to suggest that I instinctively got the idea: can it be that Pa’s worried about me? If I’m mistaken in this, it would hardly be appropriate to write as if that were the chief impression I gained from something so cordial. The chief impression, in fact, being that I have a feeling of gratitude about receiving something that enables me to do various things that I couldn’t have done otherwise. I’m sharing my thoughts about this with you, though, partly because, should you notice at some point that Pa’s worried about me, you’ll be better able than I am to give Pa the reassurance I would wish him to have. You will also gather from this that I’ve had a remarkable windfall. I intend to use it to get everything back in order for watercolours.
I’ll settle up with Leurs and do several more things to the studio to make it more practical. It sometimes seems to me that the prices of the various drawing and painting materials have sometimes been dreadfully inflated. To such an extent that many feel they’re prevented from painting as a result. One of my ideals would be to have more places like the one at The Graphic, say, where people who want to work can find all the materials, on condition that they have a certain evident ability and energy. Just as in the past Cadart enabled many to etch who wouldn’t have been able to etch because of the costs if they’d had to pay for it out of their own pocket. I’m greatly privileged compared with many others, but all the same I can’t do everything that I have the heart and enthusiasm to undertake. The costs are so many, beginning with the model and food and accommodation, and ending with different paints and brushes. And that, too, is a loom where different threads must be kept apart. Yet we all face this — but precisely because anyone who paints or draws is faced with this, and is nearly overwhelmed by it if alone, why don’t more painters join hands to work together like soldiers forming ranks? And, above all, why are those branches of art that are the least expensive so despised?
Regarding the natural chalk — I don’t know whether what I got from you came from the Plaats, but I’m sure that I got it from you at the time of your visit last summer, or perhaps in Etten still. I found a very small remnant at a chemist’s, about six pieces but all in small bits. Bear it in mind. When I asked Leurs about it again he told me that Jaap Maris had often asked him for it. I’ve done two more sketches with it, a cradle and one similar to one I’d already sent in which I used a lot of sepia wash.As to what you write concerning that one sketch about the two figures one above the other, it’s mainly an effect of the perspective. But also of the big difference in size between the small child and the woman on the basket. What bothers me more than that line of the composition is something that you’ve also noticed, by the way — that the two figures are too equal in strength. In part this is because the natural chalk lacks some tones, and one would like to put in greater strengths with lithographic crayon, say. But in my view the main reason is that I don’t always have the time to work as elaborately as I would like. It’s possible to search for the different tones more elaborately if one repeatedly comes back to a drawing. But often I have to work in quite a hurry. I daren’t ask too much of my models. If I paid them more elaborately I could ask for more elaborate poses, that’s to say longer and more. Now I often consider that I receive more from them in effort than I give them in money. Nonetheless, I believe there is moreover another, weightier reason, namely that I must become much more skilled than I am if I’m to be at all content with myself. And I hope that gradually I’ll work more deftly and more elaborately in the same amount of time that I now devote to it.
Well, brother — best wishes with your patient — I long, for instance, for another of your descriptions of an aspect of Paris. And rest absolutely assured that I’ll be very glad to manage as best I can with the means I have through your loyal help, and that I don’t consider them inadequate for ordinary purposes either, and that I think about ways of making even more and better use of them, and lay the blame chiefly on myself if I can’t achieve certain things with them.
Adieu, with a handshake in thought.
Ever yours, Vincent
The Hague Sunday, 18 March 1883.
My dear Theo,
You’ve so often shown me a glimpse of Paris through your descriptions, this time I’m letting you have a look out of my window at the snow-covered yard. I’m adding a glimpse of a corner of the house; they’re two impressions of the same winter’s day. Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but getting it onto paper is something that unfortunately doesn’t go as readily as looking. I did a watercolour of the above after which this scratch is done; however, I don’t think it lively or vigorous enough. I believe I’ve already written to you that I found a little more natural chalk here in town. I’m also working with that. In my view this has been the most real part of this winter, those cold days we had last week. It was mightily beautiful with the snow — and curious skies. The melting of the snow today was almost more beautiful. But it was typical winter weather, if I may call it that — it was the kind of weather that brings back old memories, when the most ordinary things have a look such that one instinctively associates them with stories from the age of diligences and mail-coaches.
Here’s a scratch, for example, that I did in that kind of daydream. It shows a gentleman who has had to spend the night at a village inn due to the late arrival of a diligence or some such reason. Now he has risen early, and while he orders a glass of brandy for the cold he pays the innkeeper’s wife (a woman with a peasant’s cap). But it’s still very early in the morning, ‘the crack of dawn’, — he must catch the mail-coach — the moon is still shining and the glistening snow can be seen through the window of the taproom — and the objects cast oddly whimsical shadows. This story is really nothing at all, and the scratch is nothing too, but from one thing and another you’ll perhaps understand what I mean, namely that of late everything had a je ne sais quoi that made one feel like scribbling it down on paper. In short, the whole of nature is an inexpressibly beautiful Black and White exhibition when there are those snow effects. Now I’m doing scratches anyway, I’m adding a very superficial one of a drawing in natural chalk, the girl at the cradle, done in the same way as the woman and the child you wrote about. This natural chalk really is odd stuff. The other scratch of a skipper is after a drawing which has a lot of washes with neutral tint and sepia. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the little I’ve sent you recently struck you as being a rather meagre result.
Indeed, I believe it could hardly be otherwise. There’s something fated about it: that in order to see the singularity of the work in Black and White, one must always take the whole into account, and it’s impossible to do so all the time. I mean, there’s a certain difference between making 10 drawings and making 100 drawings or sketches or studies. Not, to be sure, because of the quantity — leave the quantity aside — but what I want to say is this: in Black and White there’s a certain mildness which enables one to draw one and the same figure that one finds beautiful in perhaps 10 different poses, whereas with watercolour, say, or if one painted it, one would do it in only one pose. Now assume that in this 10 there are 9 bad ones. I sincerely hope the ratio of good to bad won’t always be like this, but let’s assume for now that it is. If you yourself were to be at the studio now, I don’t think a week would pass without me presenting you with not one but a certain number of studies — and it would amaze me if you couldn’t always pick out from that certain number one or two things in which you found something attractive. While that wouldn’t mean that the rest had been done for nothing, since studies that fail in some respects turn out one day to have a purpose and to be of use for some new composition after all. So for this reason I believe that when you come here again you’ll find certain things about which you can probably give me some tips.
So, for example, for me, who doesn’t have even the slightest knowledge of Lhermitte’s drawings (you know I did enquire about them) and does know Cicéri’s watercolours as well as his old lithographic drawing examples, but nothing at all of his present drawings in black and white — so, as I say, it’s rather difficult for me to understand exactly what you mean when you wrote about a certain scratch: ‘Couldn’t you do something that would be somewhat on the lines of the drawings mentioned?’ I’m sure that both those artists are infinitely more advanced than I am — but still, that idea of yours might be feasible — I believe I’ll learn things myself, won’t I? And it won’t be an impossibility. And I wanted to say this to you again — in my view the position is that once I’ve managed to make something suitable for that purpose, there’s a certain mildness in Black and White that would enable someone to be highly productive in that direction once found. Not without continuous labour, of course, but I face that now anyway. So should it be that the drawings in natural chalk I sent you aren’t what you intended, even though I had your tip in mind when I did them, don’t let that discourage you, and feel at liberty to come back to that point, the more often the better. And be assured that once I’ve grasped your intention I’ll be prepared, for example, to do as I said above — and do 10 of them to get one good one.
Anyway, when you come to the studio sometime, I believe you’ll see that I have a certain level of activity, and I hope you’ll continue to see me in that way, won’t you?, and that you also understand that, although someone with a certain level of activity, even if it’s for himself — or rather without his work having an immediate destination — is nonetheless working, it would be doubly encouraging if one could find a destination. This also applies to possible work for illustrated magazines. These past few days I’ve been re-reading ‘Gedroogde kruiden’ by Fritz Reuter with enormous pleasure. It’s just like Knaus or Vautier, say. Do you know a draughtsman called Régamey? His work has great character, I have woodcuts by him, among them drawings done in prison — and Gypsies and Japanese. When you come you must see my woodcuts again. I’ve got some new ones since last time. It seemed to you perhaps as if the sun shone brighter and everything had acquired a new charm.
At any rate, I believe this is always the effect of a serious love, and that’s a delightful thing. And I believe those who say that one doesn’t think clearly then are mistaken, for it’s then that one thinks very clearly and does more than otherwise. And love is something eternal, it changes its aspect but not its foundation. And there’s the same difference between someone who loves and the same man before as between a lamp that is lit and one that isn’t. The lamp was there and was a good lamp, but now it gives light as well and has its proper function. And one becomes calmer regarding many things, and precisely because of that one is more fit for one’s work. I can find no words for how beautiful the old courtyards are here. And although Israëls does it perfectly, so to speak, I find it strange that so relatively few pay them any attention. Here in The Hague every day, so to speak, I see a world which a great many pass by and which is very different from what most are making. And wouldn’t dare say this if I hadn’t had the experience of figure painters actually passing it by as well, and remembered walking with them and, when I was struck by this or that figure we encountered, hearing repeatedly ‘Oh, but those filthy folk’ or ‘that sort of people’ — in short, expressions one wouldn’t expect from a painter. Yes, that sometimes made me stop and think. I remember, among others, a conversation with Henkes, who often saw and sees so well, which absolutely astonished me. It’s just as if they deliberately avoid the most serious, the most beautiful, in short, voluntarily muzzle themselves and clip their wings. And while I gradually gain more respect for some, with others I can’t help thinking that they’ll lapse into sterility if they carry on in the same way. And the old Bohème was very strong on exactly that point, that it was productive. And — and some say la Bohème is no good, but be careful, there are some who want to grab every last bit in the barrel and — and — and will get the lid on their nose. Put out the candle — so be it — but it will bring no good to snuff it out prematurely.
Adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 11 April 1883.
Dear brother,
Thank you for your letter and the 50 francs enclosed, which were very welcome as always, both the former and the latter. I read what you write about your patient with interest. I understand that you’re in two minds over the matter of posing a certain question — which I shan’t further define here — now or later. And the change of circumstances brought about by her recovery has a more or less critical side because, and this is what you are actually prepared for (and say so yourself), opposition may be aroused — possibly anyway — let’s hope not. How odd that last point really is. One sees what one does as simple and natural in itself — something self-evident — one is more or less puzzled as to why others don’t find the motives in themselves that compel someone to do such a thing. And would almost draw the conclusion that some people have cauterized certain sensory nerves in themselves — in particular those collectively known as the conscience. Anyway, I pity such people: in my view they travel through life without a compass. Love of one’s fellow man is something one would expect to be able to take for granted in everyone as the basis of just about everything. But some believe there are better foundations. I feel little curiosity about them.
This old foundation that has been tested and found good for so many centuries is enough for me. Don’t you find this nicely put? — it’s from Les misérables: If Caesar had given me Glory and war, And if I was forced to forgo My mother’s love, To great Caesar would I say, Take back your sceptre and your chariot, I love my mother more, hey!, I love my mother more. In the context in which this (a student song from the time of the revolution of ’30) occurs, love of my mother stands for love of the Republic, or rather ‘love of mankind’; in other words, quite simply, universal brotherhood. A woman, however good and noble she may be by nature, in my view stands in great and immediate danger in today’s society of sinking into the maelstrom of prostitution if she has no means and isn’t protected by her own family. What is more natural than that one should support such a person? And if there’s no other solution when circumstances lead to it, well, then — you must put your heart and soul into it and marry her. At least it seems to me that one must make it a principle to continue with this protection once offered until rescue is complete, and to protect with one’s own breast if necessary. Even without a particular love? Perhaps, yes — in that case it’s a marriage of convenience, so be it — but not in the sense of a marriage that one enters into for gain.
And now, your particular case differs from the more everyday — such as mine, for instance — because of the singular circumstance that the person in question has a special charm and that there is, I believe, a sympathy of feeling, so that even if the meeting had taken place under entirely different and less dramatic circumstances, you might have been in two minds over the question at issue. In the above you have my thoughts on the question: ‘How far may one go in becoming involved with an unfortunate woman?’ Answer — ‘ad infinitum’. While still emphasizing that staying loyal comes first and foremost in all love, I remind you of your own words that ‘marrying’ (i.e. civil marriage) ‘is such an odd thing’. These words of yours express exactly how it is, and on that point I declare I don’t know which is better or worse, to meddle or not. It’s what they call ‘puzzling’. It puzzles me too — and I for my part wish so much that one had nothing to do with that. I believe it’s well said that ‘when one marries, one marries not only the woman herself but the family too’, which is sometimes more or less fatal and wretched if they’re nasty people.
But now about the drawings — I’ve done some more with printer’s ink, and this week I was investigating how to mix the printer’s ink with white, and found that it can be mixed in at least two ways — namely with the white from the tubes of oil paint — and probably even better with the ordinary zinc white in powder form that one can even get at any chemist — in that case diluting it with turpentine, which doesn’t soak through on this paper or leave marks on the reverse like oil — because it dries so quickly and disappears. Printer’s ink has much livelier effects than indian ink. How beautiful Jules Dupré’s work is. In the window at G&C. I saw a small seascape which you no doubt know, and which I’ve been going to have a look at almost every evening — but as regards Dupré and similar art — of which one sees so much more in Paris than here — you may be rather spoiled — and not know what an almightily beautiful impression it makes here, where one sees so precious little of it.
Have got round to reading the last part of Les misérables — the figure of Fantine — a prostitute — made a deep impression on me — oh, I know as well as anyone that in reality one won’t find an exact Fantine — but all the same this character by Hugo — like all his characters for that matter — is true, being the essence of what one sees in reality. It is the type — of which one encounters only individuals. Should you happen to run into an engraver one of these days, like Girardet or Eichens, for example, who make aquatints, you’d be doing me a great favour if you could ask in passing: what is normally used for the drawings intended to serve as a guide for the engraving? Perhaps they’ll say: printer’s ink. If that’s what they use, what do they dilute that printer’s ink with? How do they use it? It seems to me that if you raised this with some engraver or other in passing and told me what he said, I would probably find something in what he said that would throw light on some questions, even if it wasn’t a direct answer to what printer’s ink is mixed with to make it possible to work with it on paper in various ways. No doubt there are other kinds of printer’s ink apart from the one I have at the moment, and the question may resolve itself in due course. Effects like those in aquatint engravings are produced in the drawings when one works with printer’s ink and turpentine, as I tried now. I’ve seen drawings in the past by Mottram, say, the English engraver who engraved the Boughtons, and I wish I knew what he worked with, for example. It goes without saying that I’m not in a rush to have this information, but if you happen to hear something about different methods of drawing, do let me know.
I too know Soek’s wife and her mother (if she still lives with her) — went there in the past — they’re still very clear in my memory — and find them two sympathetic people — who remind me of the members of my own household — so much so indeed that instinctively I often think of them as members of the same family. They’re just like characters from Souvestre, say, or E. Frère. One sees more people like that in Paris — everywhere for that matter. Such people always remind me of the female figures in the gospel, perhaps because sometimes in their expressions there’s something of, for instance, the figures in Delaroche, Good Friday, or in Landelle, Blessed are they that mourn. I know, this view isn’t complete, there are other aspects — still better than Delaroche — and deeper than he — such as those of Lhermitte and Herkomer. Well, I find that in them too, but I can still understand that this movement became popular in the days of Souvestre, Delaroche, Frère, Landelle &c., even though compared with Millet and others it isn’t entirely correct and true. Is ANKER still alive? I think of his work often, I find it so sound and so delicately felt. He’s one of the genuine old sort, like Brion. Old chap, how I sometimes long for you to be in the studio again. I sincerely hope you’ll get the money back from H. In my case a lot had to be spent right away this time, and I have precious little left. Anyway, write as soon as you can when it’s getting towards the 20th.
Adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
The Hague, on or about Thursday, 10 May 1883.
My dear Theo,
I received your letter in good order with the 50 francs enclosed. Which were a deliverance for me, at any rate a respite. I’ve also heard from friend Rappard — but nothing definite as yet. A letter that’s a reply to my letter, and that he will help me and come as well, but, he writes, my health is letting me down again. Ends with: I enclose the money herewith. Postscriptum: oh, I’ll come immediately and bring it myself — I’ll come tomorrow. This is followed by a telegram the next day. Not coming, letter follows later. So, despite having heard something, it’s still the same as with a game of goose, if you remember how one can land on a goose, thus go forward, but unfortunately just then land on a new goose with its beak pointing in a direction one doesn’t want to take, and so one must count back to one’s original position. Yet it isn’t his fault, for he’s been really very ill and is still feeling the remnants or after-effects of that. Moreover, his sister had a fairly similar illness, and they were most concerned about her, but she recovered too. Nonetheless, I do believe this of friend Rappard, that he does things that cost him a great deal of energy and nervous tension and aren’t worth the powder he expends on them. Thus before his illness I heard about decorations for the centenary of the Utrecht painters’ society, and now this time it was church ornaments. By chance I wrote to him that I thought they were both unwise, and he fell ill last time and now this time. I would approve if he overworked himself on normal things, but, as I said, this isn’t worth the powder expended on it, and I wrote again to him: you’re a soldier and one of the few who have cartridges in their box at the present time. Use them only in cases where a shot is unavoidable.
I fear — dear brother — that the money you loaned to our dear cousin H. has currently taken the form of a vicious gun dog, for instance, or some similar curiosity, since I believe he’s quite often mistaken about such purchases — and then later it’s sometimes impossible for him to bring it back from that form to the state of banknotes or to cash it in because, like other lovers of horses and hounds, he’s caught in the snares of some crooked dealer. I’m one of those who wish him as much good fortune as possible in these negotiations, and would like to see nothing better than that their outcome is that he may speedily return what he owes you. At one time there were big plans to populate the plantation with countless dogs. This livestock farming is highly commendable, but at present I want to say no more about it than that I hope it may prove exceedingly profitable.
Is your patient already discharged from hospital? But there may still be worrying days, no less grave than when she was in there. Michelet says rightly: a woman is an illness. They are changeable, Theo — they are changeable like the weather. Now those with an eye for it see something beautiful and good in all weathers, find snow beautiful and burning sun beautiful and storm beautiful and calm beautiful, cold good and heat, are fond of all seasons and don’t want to miss a single day of the year, and are fundamentally content and resigned to things being as they are — yet even if one looks at the weather and the changing year like this — and the changing female nature in the same way — believing that in the essence of that nature, in its mysteriousness, there is a Reason — accepting where one doesn’t understand — even, I say, if one should view it in that way, our own nature and vision isn’t always and at every moment in harmony and accord with that of the woman with whom we’re united, and individually one feels either concern or dissatisfaction or vacillation, despite the belief and the good spirits or serenity one may have. I was told by the professor who delivered her that the complete cure of my woman would take years. That is, the nervous system remains tremendously sensitive, for example, and she has that changeableness of women very strongly. The great danger is — as you will understand — tumbling back into old mistakes.
This danger, although of a moral nature, has links with the physical constitution. And I have constant and sometimes serious concerns about what I would call these lurches between getting better and lapsing back into old bad habits. Her mood can be such that it’s almost unbearable, even for me, quick-tempered, wilfully wrong, in short, sometimes I despair. It passes — and more than once she has said to me later — I DON’T MYSELF KNOW WHAT I’M DOING THEN. Do you remember writing to me last year that you feared that I would be burdened with the mother? Sometimes I wish things had taken that turn. The mother is very sturdy when she wants to be, and could have done so much better than she has. Now she sometimes obstructs more than she helps. Anyway, when the woman does something wrong it’s sometimes the mother’s fault, and when the mother does wrong it’s sometimes the family who are behind the mother. Things which aren’t so bad in themselves but which prevent progress and overwhelm or neutralize better influences. My woman has certain faults and defects in the way she acts — that’s bound to be the case. THAT DOES NOT MAKE HER BAD in my view. Still, those defects must be eliminated — habits of laxity, indifference, lack of activity and deftness, oh, a mass of things. But all with the same root — wrong upbringing, years of an utterly wrong view of life, fatal influences of bad company.
I tell you this in confidence, mind — and not out of desperation but so that you will understand that for me this love isn’t a bed of roses, but something as prosaic as Monday morning. A small painting by Tissot showed a figure of a woman in the snow amid withered stalks. Way of flowers, way of tears. Well, my woman no longer walks on a way of flowers as she did when she was younger and pleased herself and followed her inclination, but life has become thornier for her and become a Way of tears, especially last year — yet this year has thorns too, and the following years as well — still, by persevering she will overcome them. But sometimes there’s a crisis — particularly when I venture to raise the matter of some fault of hers that I’ve been quietly observing for a long time. For example, just to mention one thing, mending the clothes and making the children’s clothes herself. But that ends with her getting down to it one day, and she’s already much improved in this respect and in other respects. I must change so much in myself too, but I must ensure that in me she has an example of working and of patience, and that’s damned difficult, brother, to be so that one can indirectly show someone how to do something, and I too fall short sometimes, I must raise myself to something better in order to awaken her interest.
The boy, above all, is doing extremely well, though — the girl was very ill in the past and neglected. But the little lad is a miracle of high spirits, already appears inclined to oppose social institutions and conventions. For instance, as far as I know all children are brought up on a kind of bread porridge. But he has refused that with the greatest determination. Although as yet without teeth, he bites firmly into a piece of bread and gets down all kinds of eatables while all the time smiling and crowing and making noises, but his mouth stays firmly shut for porridge &c. &c. He often sits with me in the studio on the floor in a corner on a couple of sacks or something, he crows at the drawings and is always quiet in the studio because he looks at the things on the wall. Oh, he’s such an agreeable little lad.
The number of studies keeps growing — when you come I think you’ll find some to put in a portfolio in your room perhaps, anyway that’s up to you, as long as you clearly understand that you may of course regard anything you take a liking to as your own. Other things must come forth from the studies, though, and better studies come from the old ones. I myself don’t know exactly how. But I do long for you to see them again. I saw with great interest a publication, Le Salon 1883, a first issue of a series of illustrations, some deuced good. Done with that new way of reproduction. I’ve subscribed to it, although I have enough expenses, with a view to what I’m doing myself at present with the printer’s ink and lithographic crayon. Listen, I definitely believe that some of my things would do well if reproduced in that way — particularly those that have the more intense blacks obtained by lithographic crayon and printer’s ink; I can also get the brownish wash that I often come across in the above prints. Well, when you come perhaps we can arrange one thing and another. And perhaps I’ll write down a detailed statement of several matters about which I need information, and you could take some of my studies together with that to show to Buhot, for instance, who would then probably shed light on a few things for me.
Recently read Un mâle by Camille Lemonnier — very strongly done in the manner of Zola. Everything observed from nature and everything analyzed. Saw a big Fromentin, a battle of fellahs, in the window at G&C. Also saw the nouveautés, perhaps not all of them. I again came across Julien Dupré, whom I wrote to you about, in two things that I found less beautiful and more conventional than what I saw by him in an illustrated magazine in the winter. Did you already know that Rappard’s painting has been accepted this time in Amsterdam? Well, it’s late already — thanks for your timely dispatch — I just hope that R’s ‘letter follows’ doesn’t take too long, or that H. v. G.’s livestock farming may prosper.
Adieu — good fortune in all things, especially the woman.
Ever yours, Vincent
Still, Fromentin is clever — and a seeker, and someone who carries through, and conscientious too.
The Hague, on or about Sunday, 20 May 1883.
My dear Theo,
I wanted to let you know in just a word or two that Rappard has been to see me and that I’ve borrowed 25 guilders from him, with the promise of repayment in the autumn. I was delighted by his visit — he came in the morning and stayed until the last train in the evening, and we spent the whole day looking at one thing and another, and he did a sketch using printer’s ink and turpentine to try it out. Now I’m going to him tomorrow to see his work and his studio. It was a truly enjoyable day — he was rather changed in both his appearance and his manner — for my part I find him much better like this than before. He’s broader in the shoulders, and in his views on many matters as well, I believe.
Well, the money from him has helped me to get many things I needed; it was badly needed. I used it, among other things, to have large sketchpads made for outdoors. I had to keep back some money for a pair of trousers, though, and tomorrow there’s the cost of travelling to Utrecht. But it still helps. In addition, I was surprised by a very brief visit from Pa. Neither he nor I mentioned your news about the woman. Pa probably thought I didn’t know yet, and I kept to our agreement. I think Pa was rather taken by the figures of workmen I’m working on. Among the pads I’d made with the money from R. there’s one for watercolours too. I tried it out straightaway, a hut in the dunes with a wheelbarrow &c. in the foreground, a figure of a digger in the background. Ah, Theo. I’ll get the hang of watercolour one day or another.
In the last few days, or rather weeks, I’ve had the very pleasant company outdoors of a young surveyor who was trying his hand at drawing. He showed me drawings which I thought poor, and I told him why I thought they were poor. After that I naturally expected to hear no more from him — but one fine day he approached me again, he had time now and might he come with me outdoors? Well, Theo, that chap has got the hang of landscape drawing so well that these days he brings along truly attractive sketches of meadows and woods and dunes. He has to take an examination in October, however, and his father doesn’t want him to spend so much time on it. But in my view he can easily combine his profession of surveyor with drawing. He’s the same sort of young chap as Rappard when we first met him. What he did before I knew him were horribly botched paintings, generally atrocious. I began by telling him that first he should only draw for a while — I had to make him draw lots of things, which he didn’t enjoy but he trusted me in that. Well, this morning he asked if he might have another go at painting, and that went extremely well now and he has scraped off all his old things.
Am longing for a letter from you. Rappard sends his regards. Are things going well for you, and for your patient? Pa did say that you’d written to them about coming this summer. I can hardly tell you how I long for that. Saw The harvest by Lhermitte in the Salon illustrated catalogue. It looks beautiful; how it captures the truth of the work and of the peasant figure. Well, adieu, I hope your letter comes soon for I have need of it again. I saw Arnold in town with someone else, perhaps Tripp — they were walking with Mauve. But saw them in the far distance. Because Mauve was in the middle I thought of Christ between two thieves, or else the group, in dark silhouette against a sunlit wall, looked like someone being taken in by two gendarmes. Anyway, those are figments of one’s imagination, things as they might be seen.
I wish you well, old chap, with a handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
The Hague 7 July 1883
My dear Theo.
If you’re like me you sometimes have a sudden desire to look up someone you haven’t seen in a long time. This is what happened to me with De Bock, and I wanted to write to you about what I saw at his place. Because you also know him from the past, even better than I do. The first thing I saw there in the hall was a large sketch — an enormous windmill, entirely covered in snow, beside a kind of canal or waterway. Half romantic, half realistic — a combination of styles I find not unsympathetic. But it was far from finished — but energetically tackled, and there was a fine, forceful effect in it. Anyway, something that one always sees with pleasure, and it doesn’t bother me that it isn’t finished — I’d like to have that piece by him hanging in my studio just as it is, because it’s so expressive. Another sketch, that of the painting in the Salon, was also beautiful, I thought, but even more romantic. There were also a few paintings with blonder accents, various pleasing studies.
The impression I got of him himself was just about the same as last year, perhaps a shade more positive and more serious. I thought some sketches maturer and more correct in tone and colour than last year, and the grounds firmer. But in my view too much of the relative proportions of the planes and masses is still left vague; keeping an eye on this sort of proportion is the hallmark of Corot and Rousseau and Diaz, Daubigny, Dupré. What they all have in common, in my view, is that they pay careful attention to that, and with them the backgrounds are always expressive and not so disengaged.
There are very spirited things in De Bock’s work, though, and one would view it with more pleasure if the way things stand in their place was less visionary. He ought to be rather more of a realist and then his work would be more brilliant.
I also can’t understand why he doesn’t have some more variety. To give an example, this week I did a few landscape studies as well, one yesterday at De Bock’s, a potato field in the dunes; the day before a spot under the chestnut trees; another, a yard with heaps of coal. Now it’s relatively rare for me to get round to drawing landscape, but when I get round to it I immediately have 3 very different subjects. Why doesn’t he, a specialized landscape painter, do that much, much more instead of it always being a dune with a tree and a bit of marram grass? All very fine in itself, but there’s so much that is just as fine and ought to attract him, one would imagine.
Anyway, you know all about that, again my impression of him is that he has most certainly not gone downhill. Well, I wrote to you recently that I had been thinking about moving, mainly in order to be closer to the sea. I talked to Bock about houses in Scheveningen, but I must stop saying the rent for my studio is high when I compare it with the costs that others have; for instance, the house where Blommers used to live is to let — the rent is 400 guilders and I pay 170 guilders a year. Moreover, the studio is no bigger than mine, and as for the suitability of the house I would stick to what I have now. De Bock himself pays the same as Blommers. And this is in line with what I heard last year about average rents. If it was a question of going to live by the sea, Scheveningen wouldn’t be possible and one would have to go further away, Hook of Holland, say, or Marken.
Now, though, I’m thinking of asking De Bock to let me have a corner of his attic as a piedàterre and then leaving my equipment there so that I don’t need to lug it around. If one arrives tired (if one didn’t need to work immediately that slight fatigue wouldn’t matter, of course), the work is sometimes weak and the hand is none too steady. One is just hot and tired enough to be bothered by it if one walks and has to lug everything around.
So that piedàterre at De Bock’s and taking the tram more often might perhaps be enough to be able to do something with the sea and Scheveningen after all, more seriously than I’ve done so far. De Bock is to come to my place this week and we’re to discuss it further. He’s thinking of moving himself and has rented until May, and said that his house might stand empty for several months after all. We’ll see. He asked after you warmly, and I said you’d probably visit him this summer. His big painting in the Salon not sold of course. What did you think of that? The reviews were rather mixed. I think it will work out, to be at Scheveningen often this autumn with a piedàterre at his place. We’ll see — but I yearn very much to do something with the beach.
Did a study this week of a barge puller and a peat carrier and I’m still working on the potato grubbers. I hope that, taking a turn now with Bock, I’ll be able to get on with him; it could do both of us no harm, and perhaps we can learn from each other.
He’s bought a lot of antiques and his place looks very attractive, but I imagine it must have cost him a great deal.
Will you write soon? Now I’ve written to you about Bock as I did recently about Rappard, that way you hear something about our acquaintances. Rappard is travelling, still he wrote to me that he had got round after all to using printer’s ink as I told him, and that it worked much better that way, namely with turpentine. You know that I’ve always said my present studio was good, especially after the alterations. Really, if I think now of changing — I would much rather arrange things so that I don’t need to move, because compared with others I’m very well off. Well, one is always attached to something one has furnished oneself and one feels at home there.
See that you send me something soon, old chap, for I need it badly.
De Bock has also taken to reading Zola and had read Le Nabab by Daudet as well. Do you know Germinie Lacerteux by Jules and E. de Goncourt? That’s supposed to be very good, in the manner of Zola. I’m going to get hold of it.
I’ve ordered an instrument that’s known as a fixer which enables one to fix a charcoal drawing out of doors while one works, then one can work it up. Am looking forward to it. With Bock I’ve found splendid potato fields in the dunes behind the lighthouse.
Regards, old chap, I wish you well, and write soon. Adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Of late I’ve been absorbed in a drawing by Régamey of a diamond mine. At first sight it’s no different from one of those superficial drawings the illustrated magazines are full of — one is inclined to skip it — but if one looks at it for a moment everything becomes so beautiful and so curious that one is entirely won over. Régamey is clever. This print is by Félix, who often does the Japanese things.
The Hague 11 July 1883
My dear Theo,
I had already been looking out for your letter, more or less, and was again glad of it. Thank you. I find what you write about the exhibition most interesting. What was that old painting by Dupré that you thought especially beautiful? You must write again to tell me. Your description of Troyon and Rousseau, for instance, is lively enough to give me some idea of which of their manners they are done in.
There were other paintings from the time of Troyon’s municipal pasture that had a certain mood that one would have to call dramatic, even though they aren’t figure paintings. Israëls put it perfectly in the case of a Jules Dupré (Mesdag's large one): ‘It’s just like a figure painting’. It’s that dramatic quality that causes one to find a je ne sais quoi in it that makes one feel what you say, ‘It expresses that moment and that place in nature where one can go alone, without company.’
Ruisdael’s Bush has it strongly too.
Haven’t you ever seen old Jacques that were perhaps a little overdone, a little straining for effect — but not really — and for that reason were thought particularly beautiful, even though not everyone considered them to be among the finest Jacques?
Speaking of Rousseau, do you know Richard Wallace’s Rousseau? An edge of a wood in the autumn after rain, with a vista of meadows stretching away endlessly, marshy, with cows in them, the foreground rich in tone. To me that’s one of the finest — is very like the one with the red sun in the Luxembourg.
The dramatic effect of these paintings is something that helps us to understand ‘a corner of nature seen through a temperament’ and that helps us understand that the principle of ‘man added to nature’ is needed more than anything else in art, and one finds the same thing in Rembrandt’s portraits, for example — it’s more than nature, more like a revelation. And it seems good to me to respect that, and to keep quiet when it’s often said that it’s overdone or a manner. Oh, I must tell you that De Bock came round — very pleasant. Breitner, whom I didn’t in the least expect because he had apparently broken off contact completely some time ago, turned up yesterday. That pleased me because in the past — when I was first here — he was very pleasant to go walking with. I mean to go out together not in the country but in the city itself, to look for figures and nice scenes.
Here in The Hague there isn’t a single person I've ever done that with in the city itself; most think the city ugly and pass by all of it. And yet it’s really beautiful in the city sometimes, don’t you agree?
Yesterday, for example, I saw workmen in Noordeinde pulling down that part opposite the palace, chaps covered in white from the clouds of plaster dust with carts and horses. It was cool, windy weather, the sky grey, and there was great character in the scene. I saw Van der Velden once last year — at De Bock’s one evening when we looked at etchings. I’ve already written to you that he made a very favourable impression on me at the time, although he said little and wasn’t much company that evening. But the impression he immediately made on me was that he was a solid, genuine painter.
It’s a square, Gothic head — something bold or daring, and yet gentle in his look. Very broad build, in fact the exact opposite of Breitner and De Bock. There’s something manly and strong in him, even if he says nothing and does nothing special. I do hope I’ll get in closer touch with him at some point, perhaps through Van der Weele. Was at Van der Weele’s last Sunday; he was working on a painting of cows in the milking yard, for which he has several substantial studies. He’s moving to the country for some time.Of late I’ve done a few watercolours outdoors again for a change, a cornfield and a bit of a potato field. And also drawn a few small landscapes, to have something to go by for the settings of a few figure drawings that I’m looking for.
These are the designs of the figure drawings, very superficially. Above, weed burners, below, coming back from the potato field.
I’m seriously considering painting a number of figure studies, mainly with a view to raising the standard of the drawings. It’s good news for me that you’re planning to come to Holland at the beginning of August, for I’ve said often enough that I dearly long to see you.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you sometime as to how informed your woman is about art. In any event, much will have to be done and cultivated in that respect, I imagine. So much the better. In any case I hope she’ll get a sort of album, for which I hope you’ll find a few sheets among the smaller studies. Sometimes there are sheets in a sketchbook which still say something, even though they’re only scratches. I’ll gather one or two things together before you come.
Well, I’ve spoken to De Bock again and I can leave my stuff with him when I go to do studies in Scheveningen.
I also hope to go and see Blommers again soon. I talked to De Bock about his painting at the Salon, November, which I thought so beautiful, and the reproduction in the catalogue. He should still have a sketch of it, and I’d like to see it.
As for going to London sooner or later for a while, long or short, I too believe that there would be more chance of doing something with my work over there; I also think that I could learn a great deal if I could make the acquaintance of some people there. And there I wouldn’t be short of subjects to do, I assure you. There would be beautiful things to do on the wharves beside the Thames. Anyway, we must talk about various things again when you come. I hope you won’t be in too much of a hurry; we’ll have rather a lot to deal with. I’d like to be able to get some studies in Brabant again in the autumn.
Above all I’d like to have studies of a Brabant plough, of a weaver and of that village cemetery at Nuenen. Again, everything costs money.
Well, regards, and thanks again for your letter and the enclosure. I wish you well. Do you think about bringing the woman to Holland, or is that not advisable as yet? I hope it happens. Adieu, old chap, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’m adding a word here to tell you something more about Breitner as well — since I’ve just come back from his temporary studio here (you know that he really lives in Rotterdam these days). You know Vierge or Urrabieta, the draughtsman for L’Illustration. Well, at times B. reminds me of Vierge, but very rarely.
When he’s good it looks like something done in haste by Vierge; but when he, that is B., is too hasty or doesn’t work things through, which is usually the case, it’s difficult to say what it resembles, for it looks like nothing — except like strips of an old, faded wallpaper from I don’t know which era, but in any event a very singular one, probably from long ago. Imagine, I go to the garret that he has at Siebenhaar’s. It was furnished mainly with various matchboxes (empty), and then with a razor or something, and a cupboard with a bed in it. I see something leaning against the chimney, 3 endlessly long strips that I at first think are sun blinds. But on closer inspection they turn out to be canvases in this format. As you see from the above illustration, painted with a not unmystical scene, probably taken from Revelation, one would imagine at first sight.
Yet I’m informed that they are artillery manoeuvres in the dunes. Off the cuff I would put it at over 4 metres long by 3/4 of a metre.
The second was a story of a man who was leaning against the wall on the extreme left of the painting, while on the far right various types of ghostly women stood gawking at him, while care had been taken to leave a substantial space between these two groups. I was then informed that what was depicted in the lefthand corner was a drunkard, and I wouldn’t venture to doubt that this may just as well have been the maker’s intention as something else.The third is almost better, and is a sketch of the market that he did last year, but since then it seems it’s meant to depict a Spanish instead of a Dutch market, in so far as one can make anything of it.
Whatever merchandise is sold at the market (wherever it’s located, I for one doubt whether it’s meant to be on this earth; it’s much more likely to strike the naive beholder as portraying a scene on one of those planets visited by Jules Verne’s miraculous travellers (by projectile)) – whatever merchandise really is being traded is impossible to make out, but it’s faintly reminiscent of a huge mass of preserves or sweets. You see, try to picture such a thing, but it couldn’t be more absurd, and heavyhanded as well, and you have the work of Friend Breitner.
From a distance they’re areas of faded colour as on bleached and rotting and mouldering wallpaper, and in that sense there are qualities in it that are absolutely unpalatable to me.
I utterly fail to understand how anyone could possibly come up with something like that. It’s the sort of thing one sees when one has a fever — or impossible and meaningless as in a dream that makes no sense at all. I take the view, quite simply, that Breitner isn’t yet cured, and actually did it while he had a fever. Which, given his illness last year, may be considered entirely possible. Last year when I was cured but still couldn’t sleep and was feverish, I too had moments when I wanted to force myself to work all the same and did some things, though thank God not so absurdly big, and later on I couldn’t understand why I’d done them.
This is why I think that B. will be all right in the end, but I find this absurd. In a corner lay a crumpled watercolour study of some birches in the dunes that was much better and had nothing abnormal about it. But those big things are nothing.
I saw another one at Van der Weele’s, very ugly, and a head, very good, but a portrait of Van der W. — that he’d started — again bad.
So he’s making a terrible mess on a very big scale. I like the work of Hoffmann and Edgar Poe on occasion. (Contes fantastiques, Raven &c.) But I find this unpalatable because the fantasy is heavyhanded and without meaning, and there are almost no correspondences to what exists. I find it very ugly.
But I regard it as a period of illness. Van der Weele has two rather curious drawings by him, elegantly done in watercolour, which have a certain je ne sais quoi of what the English call ‘weird’.
I learned a lesson today from that visit, namely that one can count oneself lucky if one is in relatively normal surroundings in today’s society, and doesn’t have to seek refuge in a coffeehouse life which will make one begin to see things ever more cloudily and confusedly. For the latter is his situation, about that I have no doubt. Imperceptibly he has strayed terribly far from a calm, rational contemplation of things, and now he can’t put down a single calm, reasonable line or brushstroke as long as this stress continues.
I wish I could offer him some company and diversion, I wish I could often take a turn with him and perhaps make him a little calmer. You remember the painting The madness of Hugo van der Goes by Wauters? In some things B. faintly reminds me of a state of mind like Van der Goes’s. I’d not like to be the first to say this, but I believe his work has already been discussed in these terms for some considerable time.The remedy would be to look at length at the potato leaves that are so deep and elegant in colour and tone at present, instead of driving himself mad looking at lengths of yellow satin and pieces of gilt leather.
Anyway, we’ll see how it goes. He’s intelligent enough, but it’s a kind of bias towards eccentricity that he persists in regardless. If he deviated from the normal for a reasonable motive, well and good, but here it’s a question of not taking any trouble with his work either. I find it truly wretched and I hope he recovers, but he has lost his way badly.
This week I’m going to start in Scheveningen. I would have liked there to be room for a little extra, then I would have bought some painting materials.
I’m going to have photographs taken of a few drawings in cabinet format or slightly larger (to see how they’d look on a small scale) by a photographer who has photographed those drawings by Ter Meulen, Du Chattel, Zilcken. He does it for 75 cents, that’s not expensive, is it? I’ll have the sower and the Peat diggers done for now, the one with many smaller figures, the other with 1 large figure. And if they work, later on when I have drawings I’ll be able to send you photos to show to Buhot, say, to see if he thinks he can place them. They could have the drawings themselves of the ones they want for reproduction or I can redraw them on their paper.
Regards again, Theo. Best wishes.
Do write again soon. I’ll have the photos taken, for we must stick to our guns with Buhot & Cie. I must try to earn a little so that I can make a start on something new and do some painting too, for I’m just in the mood for that. Mauve not only had some unpleasantness with me but also, to give an example, had unpleasantness with Zilcken. It’s only now that I’ve seen Z.’s etchings, and just now photos of drawings by Zilcken at the photographer’s. Leaving myself out of it, I hereby declare that I don’t understand what M. has against Z. His drawings were good and not in the least bad; it’s capriciousness on Mauve’s part. After all, I don’t think it very nice of C.M. that I haven’t received one syllable in reply to my letter, in which I took the trouble to do two croquis of the drawings in question.
Nor do I think it nice of H.G.T. that he didn’t pay a call after I’d made an attempt to break the ice. It’s rubbish to say that he’s busy, because that’s not the reason in this case, he could find the time to come once a year.I’m adding half a page to talk about Brabant. Among the figures of types from the people that I did there are several with a certain, what many would call oldfashioned, character, also in the approach. For example, a digger who’s more like those one sometimes finds in the basreliefs carved in wood on Gothic pews than a contemporary drawing. I very often think of the Brabant figures, which I find especially sympathetic.
Something I’d like to have terribly much, and which I feel I can do, given certain conditions of patient posing, is the figure of Pa on a path on the heath, the figure severely drawn with character and, as I say, a stretch of brown heath with a narrow, white, sandy path running across it, and a sky applied with some passion and evenly expressed.
Then, for instance, Pa and Ma arm in arm — in an autumn setting — or with a beech hedge with dry leaves.
I’d also like to have the figure of Pa when I do a country funeral, which I’m definitely planning, although it would be a great deal of trouble.
Leaving aside irrelevant differences in religious views, to me the figure of a poor village pastor is one of the most sympathetic in type and character that there is, and I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t attack it sometime.
When you come I’d truly like to consult you on what to do about travelling over there. When you see my drawings of orphan men, for instance, you’ll understand what I want and how I mean it. My aim is to do a drawing that not exactly everyone will understand, the figure expressed in its essence in simplified form, with deliberate disregard of those details that aren’t part of the true character and are merely accidental. Thus it shouldn’t, for example, be the portrait of Pa but rather the type of a poor village pastor going to visit a sick person. The same with the couple arm in arm by the beech hedge — the type of a man and woman who have grown old together and in whom love and loyalty have remained, rather than portraits of Pa and Ma, although I hope they’ll pose for it. But they must know that it’s serious, which they might not see for themselves if the likeness isn’t exact.
And should be a bit prepared, in the event that this happens, for having to pose as I say and not change anything. Well, that will be all right, and I don’t work so slowly as to make it a great effort for them. And for my part I would greatly value doing it. Simplifying the figures is something that very much preoccupies me. Anyway, you’ll see some for yourself among the figures I’ll show you. If I went to Brabant, it should certainly not be an excursion or pleasure trip, it seems to me, but a short period of very hard work at lightning speed. Speaking of expression in a figure, I’m becoming more and more persuaded that it lies not so much in the features as in the whole manner. I find few things as horrible as most academic facial expressions. I would rather look at ‘Night’ by Michelangelo, or a drunk by Daumier, or The diggers by Millet, and that large woodcut by him, The shepherdess. Or at an old horse by Mauve &c.
The Hague 13 July 1883
My dear Theo,
Before going to Scheveningen I wanted to have a brief word with you. I’ve confirmed with De Bock that I’ll have a piedàterre at his place. I may also drop in on Blommers now and again. And then my plan is to regard Scheveningen as absolutely the main thing for a while, going there in the morning and staying there for the day, or otherwise, if I must be at home, allocating that being at home to the afternoon when it’s too hot and then going back there in the evening. I’m sure this will give me new ideas, and rest, not through sitting still but through a change of surroundings and activity. Otherwise, I’m still deeply absorbed in work here. Had the Orphan man again today for something that suddenly occurred to me and that I wanted to press ahead with before beginning on something else. I must tell you that I’ve been to the orphanage again after all on a visiting day. That was when I saw the gardener and drew him from the window. Well, I didn’t want to let that go, and now I’ve got it down in roughly this form, as far as I can remember. Yesterday evening I received a present that gave me enormous pleasure (from those two surveyors — for a second one has since joined in), namely a highly authentic Scheveningen jacket with a standing collar, picturesquely faded and patched.
I’ve sorted out my painting materials as far as was practicable, and replaced what I lacked and equipped myself with tram tickets &c.
This morning I saw the negatives of three photos. I’m looking forward to the prints, and have hopes that in this small form they’ll be something with which we’ll be able to make approaches to the illustrated magazines. I’m also considering having today’s gardener done as well, for that figure is much, much more detailed than in this scratch, and the setting isn’t as dull as here. I hope to be able to send you prints of the photos next week.
But, old chap, I would ask you to do your utmost to send me a little more, if at all possible, for I’m already broke because of one thing and another I absolutely had to have to be able to start in Scheveningen. It needn’t be very much, but just something to tide me over so that I’m not absolutely without a thing to drink in the dunes.
The photos are Sower, potato grubbers and Peat diggers; the last seemed to me to come out the best.
Don’t you think that was kind of the surveyors? They’re kind, cheerful fellows who’ve given me a lot of companionship.
They’re beginning to make really charming sketches, but are both about to take their final examinations, one to be a surveyor and the other an engineer.
When I’ve got my bearings in Scheveningen I’ll bring the woman along now and then to pose, or at least to indicate the position and size of figures.
I long for you dearly, old chap, I hope there’ll be something in the work that will give you some pleasure and which you think shows some progress. Bock saw some painted studies from last year and thought they had something, but they please me less and less, I hope to do better ones this year.
On Sunday the photographer is coming to the studio to talk about which of the figures I have would be best for photos.
I’ll be in no little difficulty if you absolutely cannot send anything extra. I’ve only taken what was definitely indispensable for the painting box, but have nonetheless been left with next to nothing.
The Scheveningen jacket is a nice surprise. I once wrote to you that things might turn out as they did years ago when I was also living in The Hague — that at first it would be a miserable time but become more agreeable later on. In many respects it has already become more pleasant and agreeable of late. Well, adieu, do what you can, and believe me, with a handshake
Ever yours,
Vincent
Something I also wanted to say to you is that the figure studies for the large drawings are, in my view, much better than the drawings themselves.
That quite a large number of those figures are something that I at least have in my studio and, I believe, will continue to be of use in the year ahead. It isn’t that I’m dejected about the past year between your last visit and now, but if the income could have been a little more, we’d have made more progress with painting. It’s a question of not losing heart and not weakening.
I’ll have everything in order by the time you come so that we can regularly look through it easily.
But make sure you spend a long time with me, brother.
When times are difficult we must give each other moral courage at the least, so that we don’t give up when trials come.
And if we can preserve our serenity, there’s hope of achieving something good that stands firmly on its feet. In the company of other painters I try to appear offhand and not doubting for a moment.
If next year we can have painted studies, painted as steadily as the present ones are drawn steadily, then I think we can consider the battle won for the time being.
Until then it will be a close thing, and if we can muster some strength we’ll have to exert it to the utmost, and in no case can we have too much of it.
I think friend Rappard won’t be disinclined to give us a helping hand now and then.
He told me recently that he had come back from my studio with new ideas — and I too from his — but the strength I can muster at the moment doesn’t amount to much.
Although I haven’t heard a syllable from C.M. in reply to my letter and croquis of Peat diggers and sand quarry, I’m not giving him up completely. Last year he was in a bad mood about the last consignment of drawings and wrote me a disagreeable note. To that I replied that Rappard had seen the same drawings and instead of thinking them inferior to my earlier ones he found them decidedly better. I was already ill at the time, and received C.M.’s reply in the hospital. He had looked at them again, yes, there were good things in them and when I had something else we would see. But I didn’t want to take him up on that right away, until now. His not wanting to have any contact now must be due to things he has heard about ‘misconduct’, that I live with a woman and children without being married. For a time C.M. also wanted little to do with Franken, his own brotherinlaw, for similar reasons; I know because I was once walking in Paris with C.M. and he said to me ‘that’s where my brotherinlaw lives but I can’t go there because he lives with “a low woman”.’ However, I’ve deliberately kept C.M. in reserve for just such an emergency, and I think it might be good if you were to show him some of the best studies and say to him plainly that there’s hope of victory if we can only get some more rope and persevere, and that I’m not just asking for money but, in accordance with our first agreement last year, would like him to give me money for studies which I myself would be very glad to buy back from him later, or exchange for a watercolour or painting.
In fact, I also have a certain promise from Uncle Cent that he would take drawings from me, but I’ve never spoken to him about it again, and it’s two years ago now.
The Hague 25 July 1883
My dear Theo,
A man comes to me this morning who had repaired the lamp for me 3 weeks ago, and from whom at the same time I bought some earthenware that he himself pressed me to take.
He came to tell me off because I had just paid his neighbour but not him. Accompanied by a lot of noise, swearing, ranting &c. I tell him I’ll pay him as soon as I receive money but that I don’t have it at the moment, and that adds fuel to the flames. I ask him to leave, and in the end I push him out of the door but, perhaps deliberately letting things get to this point, he grabs me by the neck and throws me against the wall and then flat on the floor. You see, this is the sort of thing from which you can see the petty vexations one is faced with. A chap like that is stronger than I am, right? — they aren’t at all ashamed. Well, all the small shopkeepers &c. one deals with for daily necessities belong to the same type. They come themselves to ask you to take this or that from them or, if one goes to someone else, they ask for your custom, but if one must unfortunately put off payment for longer than a week it’s cursing and scolding. Anyway, that’s the way they are, and what can one say? They themselves are sometimes hard pressed. I’m telling you about this to show you that it’s rather urgent that I make some money if possible. When I went to Scheveningen I had to leave one or two others waiting. I’m a little worried, brother, and have considerable sorrow and difficulty. I long for you to come because I want to decide whether or not I should move. To carry on here I would need to earn a bit more in general; the little that I lack makes life here unbearable.
Otherwise, I have so few setbacks in the work that all the petty vexations don’t affect my pleasure in it and don’t prevent me doing one thing and another. There are a couple of small seascapes at De Bock’s, one with a choppy, one with a calm sea, a genre I’d very much enjoy pursuing. Yesterday a peasant cottage with a red roof under tall trees. Well, I believe that painting figure studies would help me with many things, I made a start with one boy in the potato field and one in the garden by a cane fence. I ought to be able to put some effort into them.
The incident this morning is a sign to me that it’s a duty to confer and to take a smaller place in a village if there’s no hope of being a little better off here. Otherwise, the studio here is practical enough, and there’s no lack of beautiful subjects to do here. And it isn’t everywhere that one has the sea.
What I said to you about not feeling strong is true, it has now come down to pain between the shoulders and in the lumbar vertebra, which I’ve had before from time to time, but I know from experience that one must then be careful, otherwise one gets too weak and can’t easily recover.
I’m relatively resigned to things. Circumstances have been a little too much for me recently, and my plan to win back old friends by working constantly and sensibly has been shattered. Theo, there’s one thing that it would be good for us to discuss at some point — I’m not saying that there’s any question of this right now, but the days could become darker still and I would like us to agree on this for that eventuality. My studies and everything in the way of work in the studio is definitely your property. The question doesn’t arise now — I repeat — but in due course, for instance because of unpaid tax, the things may be sold, and in that case I would like to put the work in a safe place and out of the house. It’s my studies that I can hardly do without for later work, things that have taken me a great deal of trouble to do. So far there hasn’t been a soul here in the street who pays tax, yet all have been assessed for various sums, including me, and I have twice had appraisers here; I drew their attention, however, to my 4 kitchen chairs and unpainted table and said I wasn’t eligible to be assessed for so much. That if they found carpets, pianos, antiques &c. at a painter’s, they might not be wrong to assess such a man as being able to pay, but that I couldn’t even pay my paint bill, and that there were no luxury items but only children in my house, and that consequently there was nothing to be had from me. They then sent me demands and final notices but I ignored all that and said, when they came back again, that it was pointless because I simply lit my pipe with them. That I didn’t have it, and my 4 chairs, table &c. wouldn’t raise anything anyway. That they weren’t worth as much new as they wanted to assess me for.
They have indeed left me in peace since, for months now. And other people here in the street aren’t paying either.
Still, now that we’re talking about this, I wish I knew where to store my studies in such an event. Well, I could take them to Van der Weele, say, or someone. Together with my tools. I always have a certain hope that when you come to the studio sometime you will yet find things in which someone might possibly be interested, even though they have no particular commercial value.
There’s no lack of work.
Despite everything, at heart I don’t have a feeling of dejection, and on the contrary I can agree with what I read recently in Zola, ‘If at present I’m worth something, it’s because I am alone and because I hate the ninnies, the incapable, the cynics, the idiotic and foolish mockers’. But none of that can perhaps do away with the fact that I can’t withstand the siege if I stay here. I write about this very matter because it’s at the beginning, and the manoeuvre of moving to a cheaper place may perhaps be the solution, although it’s very urgent in itself purely for the sake of spending less on accommodation.
Van der Weele has the silver medal for his painting that he more than deserves, I’m glad he has got it.
I’ve thought a good deal about that painting by Van der W. because I saw it being done in part, and talked quite a lot about it with him and was immediately attracted by it.
I believe, Theo, that I too could do something like that through carrying on working regularly and calmly in the future.
But in any event, there would have to be a period of constant painting in between, and for that there would have to be means, and at present the prospect of getting them seems to me slight. Van der Weele has managed it by sacrificing half of his time on things he doesn’t do for pleasure but through which he raises the means to keep his painting box filled and to eat &c. Perhaps, perhaps, if there were to be some article in my work that people wanted to have, I might be able to pull it off too. Otherwise I don’t care much about selling in itself, other than as a means of being able to keep going. I tell you plainly that few of the ideas about art with which I became familiar during my time with Goupil — in so far as they had to do with practice — have been borne out, although I’ve kept the same taste. Creating things doesn’t take place as one imagines if one is a dealer, and the life of a painter is different, the study is different. I would find it hard to say in what sense, but Daubigny’s words, ‘my paintings that I value more highly aren’t the ones that bring in the most’ are something I now believe, and if I’d heard them when I was with G&Cie, I would have thought he was just saying that as a manner of speaking. Adieu, old chap — I’m a little worried, you can see from what I’ve written about my skirmish this morning that people don’t treat me with much consideration. They’d probably keep their distance more if one wore a top hat and I don’t know what else besides. One has one’s sense of things after all, and it isn’t pleasant. Anyway, I wish there was something to be found in the work so that a little more leeway would be possible. Adieu, write soon, I long for that so much.
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague 7 August 1883
My dear Theo,
Pending your arrival there’s hardly a moment that I’m not with you in my thoughts.
These days I’m doing my best to paint some different studies so that you can see something of them at the same time.
And I feel fine when I seek distraction through this change of work, for while I don’t literally do as Weissenbruch does and spend a fortnight with the polder workers, I nonetheless act in the same spirit, and looking at nature has a calming effect.
And, moreover, I have definite hopes of making considerable progress with colour in this way. It seems to me that the latest painted studies are more assured and sounder in colour.
Thus, for example, a few I did recently in the rain of a man on a wet, muddy road better express the mood, I believe. Anyway, we’ll see when you come. Most are landscape impressions. I wouldn’t claim that they’re as good as the ones sometimes found in your letters, since I often run into technical difficulties, but still I believe they have something similar.
For example, a silhouette of the city in the evening as the sun is setting, and a towpath with mills. Otherwise things are so wretched that I still feel faint if I’m not actually at work, but I believe that is passing. I’m definitely going to do my best to build up a reserve of strength, because I’ll need it if I want to do a lot of painting, including figures. A certain feeling for colour has been aroused in me of late when painting, stronger than and different from what I’ve felt before.
It may be that this recent malaise is connected to a kind of revolution in the working method which I’ve sought for more than once already, and have thought about a great deal. I’ve often tried to work less drily, but each time it came out roughly the same. But these days, now that some weakening prevents me from working as normal, it’s just as if this helps rather than hinders, and letting myself go a little and looking more through my eyelashes instead of looking sharply at the joints and analyzing how things fit together leads me more directly to see things as patches of colour next to each other. I’m curious as to how this will continue and where it will lead. It has sometimes surprised me that I’m not more of a colourist, because my temperament would certainly lead one to expect that, and yet up to now that has hardly developed at all.
I repeat, I’m curious as to how it will continue — I see clearly that my recent painted studies are different. If I remember rightly, you have another one from last year, of a few treetrunks in the woods. I don’t think it’s particularly bad, but it’s still not what one sees in studies by colourists. There are even correct colours in it, but although they’re correct they don’t do what they should do, and while the paint is highly impasted here and there, the effect remains too meagre. I take this one as an example, and believe that the recent ones that are less impasted are nonetheless becoming more assured in colour, because the colours are more worked into each other and the brushstrokes are painted over each other, so that it fuses together more, and one captures something of the softness of the clouds or of the grass, for instance.
At times I’ve been very concerned that I wasn’t making progress with colour, and now I have hope again. We’ll see what happens. Now you can imagine how eager I am for you to come, for if you also see that it’s changing I’ll no longer doubt that we’re on course. I don’t dare trust my own eyes when it comes to my work. For example, the two studies that I did while it was raining, a muddy road with a small figure. It seems to me that it’s the opposite of some other studies — when I look at it I recognize the mood of that sad, rainy day, and in the figure, though no more than a few patches, there’s a kind of life that isn’t due to accuracy of drawing, for it isn’t drawn, so to speak. What I want to say is that I therefore believe that in those studies, for instance, there’s something of that mysteriousness that one gets by looking at nature as if through the eyelashes, so that the forms simplify themselves into patches of colour.
Time will tell, but for the present I see something different in the colour and the tone in several studies.
Lately I’ve thought sometimes of a story that I read in an English magazine, a tale of a painter in which a person featured who had also been weakened during a difficult time, and went to a remote area in the peat fields and found himself in the melancholy nature there, so to speak, and was able to paint nature as he felt and saw it. It was very accurately described in the story, evidently by someone who knew about art, and it struck me when I read it, and I’ve now been thinking of it from time to time these past few days.
Anyway, I hope we’ll soon be able to talk about it and confer together. If you can, write again soon and, of course, the earlier you can send, the more I would welcome it.
With a handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
For no particular reason I can’t help adding something here that’s just a recurring thought of mine.
Not only did I start drawing relatively late, but on top of that I can’t count on living for a great many years, relatively speaking. When I think about that coolheadedly and calculatedly — as if estimating or measuring something — then it’s in the nature of things that I can’t possibly know anything definite about it.
Yet through comparisons with various people with whose life one is familiar, or in comparison with whom one believes one sees certain correspondences, one can nonetheless put forward certain propositions that aren’t absolutely without foundation.
So as to the length of time in which to work that lies ahead of me, I believe I may assume the following without being too hasty: that my body will endure for a certain number of years come what may — a certain number, say between 6 and 10. I dare all the more to assume this because at present there’s no immediate come what may.
That’s the period that I count on for sure, for the rest I would find it far too airily speculative to dare to determine anything in myself, given that whether or not anything is left after that period will depend precisely on these first 10 years, say. If one goes into a serious decline in those years, one won’t get past 40; if one remains sufficiently well preserved to withstand certain shocks to which a person is likely to be subject, solving more or less complicated physical problems, then from 40-50 one is once more in new, relatively plain sailing.
Calculations about that are not on the agenda now, but plans for a period, as I began by saying, of between 5 and 10 years are. My plan is not to spare myself, not to avoid a lot of emotions or difficulties. It’s a matter of relative indifference to me whether I live a long or a short time. Moreover, I’m not competent to manage myself in physical matters the way a doctor can in this respect. So I carry on as one unknowing but who knows this one thing — ‘I must finish a particular work within a few years’ — I needn’t rush myself, for that does no good — but I must carry on working in calm and serenity, as regularly and concentratedly as possible, as succinctly as possible. I’m concerned with the world only in that I have a certain obligation and duty, as it were — because I’ve walked the earth for 30 years — to leave a certain souvenir in the form of drawings or paintings in gratitude. Not done to please some movement or other, but in which an honest human feeling is expressed. Thus this work is the goal — and concentrating on that thought, what one does and does not do simplifies itself in that it’s not a chaos, but everything one does is one and the same aspiration. Now the work is going slowly — all the more reason not to lose any time.
Guillaume Régamey was, I believe, someone who doesn’t have much of a reputation (as you know, there are two Régameys, F. Régamey paints Japanese and is his brother), but was a character for whom I have great respect all the same. He died at the age of 38, and a period of 6 or 7 years was devoted almost exclusively to drawings that are in a very singular style and were done while working was made difficult by physical problems. He is one of many — a very good person among many good people. I mention him not to liken myself to him — I’m not as good as he was — but to give an example of a certain selfcontrol and willpower that held on to an inspiring idea that showed him the way to produce a good work in serenity despite difficult circumstances.
I see myself in a similar way — as having to do something with heart and love in it within a few years, and do it with willpower. If I live longer, so much the better, but I’m not thinking about that. In those few years SOMETHING MUST BE DONE — that thought is my guiding principle in making plans for the work. A certain desire to make every effort will thus seem to you all the more understandable. At the same time a certain resolve to use simple means. And perhaps you’ll also be able to understand that, for my part, I don’t view my studies in isolation, but always have in mind the work as a whole.
The Hague 17 August 1883
Dear brother.
I wish you could understand that I must be consistent in various things.
You know what an ‘error in the point of view’ is in painting, namely something very different from and much worse than a mistake in drawing this or that detail.
A single point determines the steeper or gentler incline, the way the sides of the objects develop more to the right or to the left throughout the whole composition.
Well, there’s something similar in life.
When I say I’m a poor painter and still face years of struggle — in my daily life I have to arrange things more or less as a farm labourer or factory worker does — then that’s a fixed point from which many things follow, which are thus taken out of their context if they’re viewed other than in general. There are painters in other circumstances who can and must act differently. Everyone must decide for himself.
If I’d had other opportunities, other circumstances, and if nothing of a decisive nature had happened, of course I would have been influenced in my actions.
Now, though — and with all the more reason — because I, should there be the slightest question of seeing it as me arrogating to myself something to which I had no right, even if I had the right after all, but simply because of the question being raised, I withdraw of my own accord from contact with people who keep up a certain position, even from my family — thus we’re faced by this fact, my firm intention to be dead to everything except my work. Yet it’s difficult for me to speak about those otherwise simple, ordinary matters, because they’re unfortunately connected to much deeper things.
There is no greater ‘anguish’ than an inner struggle between duty and love, both raised to a high level.
When I say to you, I choose my duty, you know all about it.
The few words about it that we exchanged on the road made me feel that nothing has changed in me in this regard, that it is and will remain a wound which I live above but which is there deep down and cannot heal — years from now it will be what it was the first day.
I hope you understand what a struggle I had with myself of late — this: whatever happens (not enquiring about that what? for I don’t have the right to investigate it) — I want to be on my qui vive about remaining an honest man and being doubly attentive to duty.
I never suspected nor do I suspect nor shall I suspect her of having financial considerations as her motive, other than what was just and fair. She went as far as was reasonable, others exaggerated. Beyond that, though, you understand that I presume nothing as regards love for me, and that what we said on the road goes no further. Things have happened since that wouldn’t have taken place if at a certain point I hadn’t been faced by a firm no, firstly, and, secondly, a promise that I would keep out of her way. I respected a sense of duty in her — I have never suspected her, shall never suspect her, of anything low. For my part I know one thing, that in the first place what matters is not to deviate from what is duty, and that one can’t compromise on duty.
Duty is something absolute. The consequences? We’re not responsible for them, but for the initiative of doing or not doing one’s duty, yes. Here one sees the exact opposite of the principle that the end justifies the means.
And my own future is a cup that cannot pass away from me except I drink it.
So Thy will be done.
Regards — safe journey — write soon — but you understand how I will approach the future, with serenity and without one sign in my face betraying the struggle in the deepest depths.
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague 18 August 1883
Dear brother,
Coming home just now, the first thing I feel I have to do is to make a request of you — a request which I have no doubt is necessary simply because you’ll see from it that my intentions are the same as yours. It is: not to rush me in the various matters we were unable to deal with all at once this time. For I need some time in order to decide. As for my relative coolness towards Pa, here’s something I want to tell you, because you brought it up.
About a year ago now, Pa came to The Hague for the first time since I’d left home in search of peace, which I didn’t find there. Of course I was already with the woman then and said, ‘Pa, since I don’t blame anyone for finding something shocking in my behaviour, given the present conventions, I stay away of my own accord from those who I believe would be ashamed of me. And you understand that I won’t make it difficult for you, and as long as I haven’t yet got my affairs in order and am not back on my feet, wouldn’t you think it better if I didn’t visit you?’ If to that Pa had said something like ‘No, that’s going too far’, I would have been friendlier since, but Pa’s reply was in between yes and no; it was, Oh, do what you think best.
Well, thinking thus that they were more or less ashamed of me, which tallied with what you told me, I wasn’t a busy correspondent and nor was Pa, and neither his letters nor mine were particularly confiding. This, between you and me, is only to explain, not to draw further conclusions. The opposite of seizing the hand and insinuating one’s way in when someone offers only a finger is to let go of the hand that isn’t offered to us fully and freely. Or voluntarily going away from where one is merely tolerated.Whether or not I was mistaken, what do I know? There’s a bond between you and me which time can only strengthen if we press on with the work, and that is art, and I have hope we’ll continue to understand each other after all.
I fear I’ve said something to you about the work that I ought to have put differently, and have a vague feeling that I must have bothered you with something, because there seemed to be something the matter when you left.
I hope this will resolve itself.
As to the work, what is becoming increasingly clear to me in everything since it caught my attention is the meagreness of the execution. That would worry me if I didn’t think it a natural consequence (which I believe I’ve also seen in the early work of very many people I find sympathetic), a natural consequence of the effort one must make to overcome the very first obstacles. And, looking back on recent years, seeing them full of trouble behind me. That trouble having subsided, there will be another period of working, I hope.This error is so pervasive and its correction so badly needed that we must see to it that we take steps to give us a period of calm. And so work at it; otherwise it will stay like that. I am as my work is, and you must take this into consideration a little. I don’t know whether or not you think it would be better to see someone like Herkomer, Green or Small, for instance, now or to wait until both the work and I myself have calmed down. I’d be in favour of the latter. Things inside me may clear up soon, but at the moment I’d rather not have to navigate through complicated London affairs. As regards one or two things that you said to me when you left, I hope you won’t forget that one or two things about my clothes &c. are somewhat exaggerated. If it were really so, well I’d be the first to admit my fault, but it seems to me that it’s an old piece of gossip dragged up from the past rather than based on recent observation — unless I’m out in the fields or in the studio.You mustn’t rush me if you truly want to make this clear to me. This year I’ve been completely outside any kind of social circle, so to speak.
And in truth haven’t bothered about clothes.
If that’s all, it won’t be so difficult to change, will it?, especially now that I have the new suit from you.
But I sincerely wish that people would forgive me such failings rather than talk about them.
If I get irritated about this, it’s because I’ve already heard so much about it; dressed up one time and less so another, and it’s a story like that of the farmer, his son and the donkey, the moral of which, as you know, is that people are hard to please.
It wasn’t so much that I got angry with you as that you astonished me, because you know how much pain I’ve already suffered over it, and that it has become a piece of gossip that won’t disappear whatever I do. Anyway. At all events I have the new suit from you and the old one, which is certainly still good, and so it’s over for the time being, isn’t it?, and let’s say no more about it.If only I had got a bit further so that it would be easier to sell, I would definitely say, you be the man who takes care of business, I don’t want to have anything to do with selling, and live entirely outside those circles.
Unfortunately, though, I can’t yet say that now, and you aren’t to blame for that, but I ask you for patience in both our interests and for the sake of peace. I’m terribly sorry that I make life difficult for you — perhaps it will clear up by itself — but if you’re faltering, tell me plainly. In that case I would rather give up everything than make you carry a heavier burden than you can bear. Then I would certainly go to London right away to look for anything, no matter what, even carrying bales, and leave art for better times, at least having a studio and painting.When I look back on the past, I always come up against the same fatal points that are still not entirely clear to me and that coincide with the months August 1881 to February 1882. That’s why I can’t help mentioning the same names all the time. Which appeared to astonish you.
Dear brother, don’t think of me as being anything other than an ordinary painter facing ordinary problems, and don’t imagine there’s anything unusual when there are hard times. I mean, don’t picture the future either black or brightly lit; you’ll do better to go on believing in grey.
Which I also try to do, and I consider it a fault if I deviate from that.
Regards, and
Ever yours,
Vincent
As for the woman, I don’t doubt that in any event you’ll understand that for my part I shan’t rush matters.And as for how I think about selling, I wanted to say this again. I believe that the best would be if we carry on working until, instead of having to praise or explain it to art lovers or say something to go with it, they feel drawn to it of their own accord. At any rate, if it’s refused or doesn’t please, one must remain dignified and calm as far as possible. I fear that my efforts when I present myself do more harm than good, and I wish I could be spared that.
It’s so painful for me to talk to most people, I’m not afraid to, but I know I make a disagreeable impression. Attempts to change that may well come up against the difficulty that the work would suffer if one lived differently. And provided one perseveres with the work, it will turn out all right later. Take Mesdag, a veritable mastodon or hippopotamus, all the same he sells his paintings. I haven’t got as far as that yet, but the person I mention also began late and worked his way up by an honest, manly route, whatever else he may be. It’s not in the least because of laziness that I don’t do this or that; rather it’s to be able to work more and to leave aside anything not directly part of the work.Just to return briefly to what you said on leaving: ‘I’m beginning to think more and more like Pa’. Well, so be it, you speak the truth, and I for my part, while as I said not thinking or doing exactly the same, respect this character and know of a weak side to it perhaps, but also a good side. And when I consider that if Pa knew anything about art I would doubtless be able to talk to him more easily and agree with him more; suppose you become like Pa plus your knowledge of art — fine — I believe we’ll continue to understand each other.
I’ve had repeated disagreements with Pa, but the bond has never been completely broken.
So let’s simply allow nature to develop: you will become what you become, I too shan’t stay exactly as I am now. Let us not suspect each other of absurd things and we’ll continue to get by. And let us reflect that we’ve known each other from childhood, and that thousands of other things can bring us ever closer.
I’m a little concerned about what seems to be bothering you, and doubt whether I know exactly what the trouble is. Or rather, I believe the cause lies not so much in a particular, specific matter as in the realization that there are points on which our characters diverge, and that one of us understands one thing better and the other something else. I believe that this is desirable, if you and I try to remain in agreement.
One thing — if I become too much of a burden on you — let the friendship remain, even if you can give less help financially. I’ll complain now and again — I’m in a fix over this or that — but without any ulterior motive, and more just to say it for once than because I demand or expect from you that you can do everything, which indeed I wouldn’t do, old chap!It grieves me that I said things that I, for my part, would like to take back entirely if need be, or wish I had left unsaid — or, supposing you conceded they had a grain of truth in them, would like to have them regarded as highly exaggerated. For be assured that the continuing main thought — compared with which all the rest becomes as little as nothing — is and will remain, whatever the future brings, a sense of gratitude towards you. Furthermore, if I’m ever less fortunate in the future, in no circumstances — I say in NO CIRCUMSTANCES — you understand — not even if you have to withdraw your help entirely — shall I regard it as your fault. Which wouldn’t need to be said, had I not said things more because of the strong effect of my nerves than because I think you should have said something more adequate at the time when I was calm. Forget about that, you’d be doing me a favour if you took that as unsaid. I think that if that turns out all right, it will turn out all right by itself through time when I’m calm, but in nervousness I blame it now on this, now on that.
It’s the same with other things, which I don’t want to drag up now, although I later remember what I say, even in nervousness, and a grain of it may be right, yet not all beginnings have a continuation, and in nervous tension they often seem more than they are.
For my part, although there seemed to be something wrong when you left, shall also not go on about it. I do indeed think about what you say, and have already written to you about clothes that I don’t refuse them and agree with you completely — but would have known even if you hadn’t said it — that attention would be paid to appearance if ever I were to go to Herkomer or someone. Also, what you said about Pa — there was now a reason for writing more to Pa than otherwise, and you will read the letter. And the same with everything else.
In short, if I pass judgement on people, circumstances, circles in which I do not move, it’s understandable that I don’t hit the mark but fantasize beyond nature and see things very fantastically, just as everything becomes strange when seen against the light. You, who are closer, don’t understand how it’s possible that they can appear a little like that when seen at a distance, in retrospect. And even if I saw everything totally wrong, anyone who thought it over would perhaps understand that, given certain events, I can hardly speak otherwise. Where things became confused was a brief period, and that brief period CANNOT but occupy a place in my thoughts constantly, and I regard it as natural that that moment must have a reaction in the future, because people, even if they deliberately avoid each other, still inevitably end up facing each other in the course of time.
The Hague 20 August 1883
My dear Theo,
You’ll understand that I’m rather eager to hear from you whether you’ve read my letter. As for myself, the course that’s the cheapest by our calculations — I believe a village would be the answer — would seem to me the most sensible in the given circumstances.
If the 150 francs a month can continue, I believe we can cover the cost completely, or nearly so. Dear brother, you see that it doesn’t look as if there’ll be any leeway for me, in any event.
I’ll try not to complain, and swallow what I can swallow.
I remain convinced that actually more is required for the work, and that I ought to be able to spend a little more on food and other needs, but if I must manage with less — after all, my life may not be worth the food — why should I make a fuss about it? And it isn’t anyone’s direct fault, not mine either.
I hope, though, that you understand one thing — that one cannot do more than scrimp, even on food, clothes, every kind of comfort, everything that’s really needed. When one has stinted oneself even in those things, there can be no question of unwillingness, can there?
You understand that if someone said to me, do this, do that, do a drawing of this or that, I wouldn’t refuse, indeed I would try repeatedly with pleasure if it didn’t work the first time. But no one says that, or so vaguely, so in general, that it confuses me rather than helps me on my way.Dear brother, regarding clothes, I’ve put on what I got without wishing for more, without asking for more. I’ve worn clothes from Pa and from you that sometimes fit my body differently and I can’t help that, also because the waists may differ.
If you won’t mention that my dress occasionally leaves something to be desired, I’ll be content with what I have and even grateful for it, in no small measure, although of course at a later stage I’ll return to it if I can, and hope to say to you: Theo, do you remember the days when I went round in a long minister’s coat of Pa’s &c.?; and it seems to me that quietly registering things now and laughing about them together later when we’re more on top of them is infinitely preferable to arguing about them now. For the present, if I have to go out I have your suit that you brought, and more that is presentable. Forgive me if I don’t wear it in the studio or out of doors, that would be to ruin it wilfully, because one always gets some stain or other when painting, and particularly when trying to capture an effect in rain and wind.
My view as regards earning money is as simple as can be; it is that it must come through the work, and that in the circumstances I gain nothing by speaking to people about it personally.
Yet if I see a chance, I pursue it, for instance, what I told you about Belinfante, and Smulders. But so far I’ve had little luck. Well, I shan’t grieve about that as long as you don’t upset me by suspecting me of being unwilling.For I believe that if you think about it carefully you won’t doubt that I’m industrious, and if, moreover, you were to demand that I asked people to buy from me, I would do it, but I might then become melancholic. If possible, allow me to go on as before. If not, and if you want me to call on people with my work, I shan’t refuse if you advise that.
Yet, dear brother, human brains can’t withstand everything. Take Rappard, who got brain fever and has now gone all the way to Germany to get rid of it. I become more agitated than is good for me when I take steps like going to people to talk about the work. And what do I come away with? A refusal or a fobbingoff.
It wouldn’t agitate me if it was you, say, who know me and to whom I’m used to speaking.
I tell you, I feel less energetic outdoors when I’ve been among people.
If we don’t waste time with steps of that kind, we’ll make progress slowly but surely, and I know of no better way.
In no case shall I refuse a serious commission, whatever is asked for, to my liking or not, I’ll try to do it as required, or do it again if required.
In short, I resolve not to get impatient in any event, even if people were deliberately to make it difficult for me.
I can’t say more than that, and if you care to commission something from me, you can carry out a test, or several tests. I’m at your disposal.I believe there’s a difference between now and the past. In the past more passion went into both the making and the judging of work. One made a definite choice for this or that movement, one enthusiastically backed one side or another. There was more verve. Now I believe there’s a spirit of caprice and satiety. People are generally more lukewarm. For my part, I wrote to you before that it seemed to me that since Millet a sharp falling off was evident, as if the peak had already been reached and decline had set in.
This affects everyone and everything.
I’m always glad that I saw the collection of drawings by Millet at the Hôtel Drouot.
At the moment you’re in Nuenen.
I wish, brother, that there were no reasons for me to be absent. I wish we were walking together through the old country churchyard or at a weaver’s. Now that isn’t so. Why not? Oh, because I realize that I would seem like a spoilsport in the given atmosphere.
Theo, again — I don’t entirely understand it, and think it has gone rather too far when both you and Pa feel ashamed to walk a little with me. For my part I’ll keep away, though my heart yearns to be together. At least, given that I at any rate can’t do without that brief moment of seeing either you or Pa with no reservations for once — solely because of unbreakable bonds — henceforth I would like us never again to discuss the question of conventions or clothes when we see each other. You see from everything how instead of insinuating my way in I withdraw as far as possible. But conventions mustn’t cause a general cooling. That one point of light that we see each other briefly once a year mustn’t be clouded over. Adieu,
Ever yours,
Vincent
As to the work, I don’t hesitate. You’ve read Fromont Jeune and Risler aîné, haven’t you? I do NOT see you in Fromont Jeune of course, but I do see a resemblance between myself and Risler aîné — in his absorption in his work, his decisiveness in that, while otherwise he was an ‘ordinary chap’ and fairly nonchalant and shortsighted, his few wants for himself, so that he changed nothing for himself when he became rich.
As regards my work all my ideas are so ordered, so definite, that I believe you’d do well to accept what I say: let me get on with it as I am; my drawings will become good if we stay on the normal footing with each other, but because the improvement depends a little on the money for my outgoings and expenses — and not only on my efforts — be as generous as you can with the money, and if you see a chance to add any help from another quarter, don’t let it slip. But in fact these few lines contain everything I have to say.
You mustn’t let yourself be misguided as to my true character by my actions when I left Goupil. If the firm had been for me then what art is for me now, I would have acted more decisively then. But in fact I was unsure then about whether it was my career or not, and I was more passive. When I was asked, wouldn’t you like to leave?, I said, you think I should leave?, then I’ll leave. No more than that. There was more silence then than talk.If it had been dealt with differently, if they’d said: we don’t understand how you acted in this or that case, explain it, it would have turned out differently.
I already told you, brother, discretion isn’t always understood. Too bad, perhaps. It’s better I have the career I have now, I believe, but when I left Goupil there were motives other than clothes, on my side at any rate.
There was a half or whole plan then for me to get a position in paintings at the new branch in London, which in the first place I didn’t consider myself suitable for, and in the second had no interest in. I would have liked to stay with the firm if I’d been given a position that consisted less exclusively of talking to the customers.
In short, if I’d been asked then, do you enjoy the business?, my answer would have been, yes, certainly. Would you like to stay? Yes, if you consider me worth what I earn and don’t consider me a hindrance or harmful. Then I would have asked for a position at the printer’s perhaps, or for the one in London — but slightly altered — and would have got it, I believe.
They didn’t ask me anything, though, just told me, ‘You are an honest and hardworking employee but you set a bad example to the others’, and I said nothing to refute that because I didn’t want to influence whether or not I would stay.
I could have said a great deal to refute that, though, if I had wanted, and indeed things that I believe would have ensured that I could stay. I say this because I don’t understand how you couldn’t know that it was a question not of dress but of very different matters. Well — to you — I say what I don’t doubt is right to say now, given that my profession is my profession and I don’t doubt that I should stay in it.
So I say this to you: not only do I wish to keep things between us as they are, but I’m really so grateful for our relationship that I only enquire about poorer or richer, more or less difficult, taking nothing for granted, that I’m content with all conditions and will fit in, adapt, make do if need be.
But I desire only that you shouldn’t doubt me with respect to good will, application — and grant me a little common sense so that you don’t suspect me of doing silly things, and so quietly let me carry on working in my normal way.
Of course I must seek in order to find, and not everything will come off by a long way, but in the end the work will be good.
Patience until it’s good, not letting go until it’s good, not doubting, is what I would like you and I to have together and to hold on to. If we hold onto that, I don’t know to what extent we’ll benefit financially, but I do believe that — on condition of collaboration and solidarity, however — we’ll be able to persevere for our whole lives, sometimes selling nothing and finding life hard, then at times selling and having it easier.
That’s sufficiently brief and to the point. Persevering depends on our will to stay together. As long as that will exists, it is possible.Now I mention Risler aîné again (I believe you know the book, if not read it sometime, and what I mean will be clear to you) and point out to you how that man’s appearance was more or less like mine, how his life was working in the attic of the factory on his designs and machines, how he had no time for or interest in anything else for that matter, and his greatest luxury for himself was to drink a glass of beer with an old acquaintance.
The story in the book is one that’s of no importance here, other things in the book aren’t relevant. I draw your attention to the character, the way of life of Risler âiné in itself, without any thought of anything else in the story. Really only to explain to you that I think very little about my clothes because of my way of working — of doing business, if you like – is working personally, NOT approaching people.
A few friends I’ll have later will, believe me, take me as I am. I think you’ll understand this letter, and understand that it isn’t a case of me getting angry when something is said to me about clothes. No, inside I’m becoming ever more calm and concentrated, and something very different would be needed to make me angry. Wherever I went, I would be roughly the same — perhaps really making a bad impression everywhere in the beginning. But I doubt whether that would remain for ever with the people I talked to about it face to face.
Well, from this moment on I’m again completely absorbed in the work. Do for me what can be done, think yourself about what could be useful or help us to get somewhere more quickly. I don’t doubt your good will or friendship. Regards, enjoy your days, and write soon.
Adieu.
Vincent
The Hague 6 September 1883
My dear Theo,
I couldn’t yet go into detail about my plans in my last letter, but now I can in some respects.
I’ll begin my telling you that I now know for certain that one thing and another that I already suspected as regards the woman is true — that recently she was negotiating about her future even before I’d come to the decision to separate. I had to decide to separate, precisely because I was almost as certain of that then as I am now that I know more exactly what the plans were.
Having taken the decision, I wanted to go ahead with my travel plans without delay.
The first measure to be taken was to give notice to the landlord — that has now been done.
The second measure is what to do with my things, which would be an encumbrance and lead to costs at a time of not knowing exactly where I’ll stay for long. They’ll stay here in this house in the attic, since I’ve agreed this with my landlord. You will ask, do I have plans to come back to The Hague then? No.
But in, say, 1/2 a year or 1 year I may have to get in touch with some painters here, when I’ve got much further, when I have a batch of studies of the real countryside.
And then for a while I’ll probably take a room or rather an annexe well suited for use as a studio from the same landlord in his own house in VOORBURG, not in The Hague, which will be much cheaper for me than living here in the city, which I shan’t readily do again.
So I’m relieved of superfluous encumbrances, and know at once where to head for if I reach a point (certainly not for the time being, of course, but say in 1 year) when a temporary return here would be feasible. Why? — because, for instance, by that time I might be able to become a member of the Drawing Society, just to mention one thing. Which is one of the things I might desire and could achieve then.
You’ll agree with me that The Hague is a very remarkable place. It really is the centre of the art world in Holland, and at the same time the surroundings are varied and extremely beautiful, so that one can always work there.And so — though certainly not for the time being — after a period of 1 year, say, there will probably be a reason for being here for a brief or a longer stay. And through this arrangement regarding my things I stay in touch with someone who knows me and so can at any rate find me a place to live, if I ask.
So I’m a free man without encumbrances, I can leave when I like.
And I can now do more with the 150 francs from you than when so much had to come out of it. And because I have some relief from worries that were nerveracking.
The travel costs are made much simpler in this way. The only ‘drawback’, ‘disadvantage’ or whatever you want to call it is that, for my part, I really did have hope that the woman would turn out all right in Drenthe, and now have grave doubts about that. It’s certainly her own behaviour that made me decide to act, but if I’d been able to find the means I’d have taken her to Drenthe nonetheless, in a final attempt for her.
Well, I had to decide, because every week of delay got me more entangled in thorns here, without any progress with her.
If I took my things, a 1/2 wagon to Drenthe would certainly cost something more than 25 guilders, according to a revised calculation by Van Gend & Loos, because there’s also the cost of delivering to and collecting from home, although this isn’t all that much.
Well, some packing cases would be needed, which I would have to buy, and that’s another expense.
It would have been convenient to have my things, but it works out too expensive, and especially if one moved about over there. I would first like to have a look at Katwijk, to do some sea studies, and because that at any rate is within reach, even if the journey to Drenthe has to wait a while on account of the money.
Oh, Theo, you’ll understand my feelings in recent days, a great melancholy about the woman and the children, but it couldn’t be otherwise — at the same time all my thoughts are about work and I’m really eager, because now I can do things which would have been impossible for me otherwise.
Dear brother — if you could feel precisely what I’m feeling, and how I’ve devoted a piece of myself, so to speak, to the woman, namely forgetting everything else and concentrating on getting her back on her feet — if you could feel precisely a kind of sadness about life, which doesn’t, however, make me indifferent to it, on the contrary, I would rather have my sorrow about one thing and another than forget or become indifferent — if you could feel precisely the extent to which I draw my serenity from worship of sorrow and not from illusion — perhaps even for you brother, my inner self would be very different and more detached from life than you can now imagine. I’ll certainly not say much more about the woman, but I’ll still continue to think about her often. From the beginning, with her, it was a question of all or nothing when it came to helping. I couldn’t give her money to live on her own before, I had to take her in if I was to do anything of use to her. And in my view the proper course would have been to marry her and take her to Drenthe. But, I admit, neither she herself nor circumstances allow it. She isn’t kind, she isn’t good, but neither am I, and serious attachment existed throughout everything as we were.
I need to work and I also need you to write soon. Adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
The Hague 8 September 1883
My dear Theo,
I’ve got so far with packing &c. that I’ll leave as soon as I have the travel money. It’s best in the circumstances that I set to work straightaway. For during the removals &c. one can’t do anything good in the way of work, and I shan’t get back into my stride until I’m somewhere in the country. So I hope to be able to get away if you send something towards the 10th, if I can’t go straight through I’ll stay in a village close by for a day or two if need be.
I hope things will turn out as you think possible, indeed as I do too, more or less, that it will make the woman change direction for the better. Yet I fear that won’t happen and she’ll go down the old road.
If I judge by my intimate knowledge of her, she’s too weak in spirit and willpower in particular to continue on a proper course.
When I talked about it during your visit I was determined to decide, but in my view there were two roads, and the decision as to how depended more on her than on me. If she had definitely wanted to carry on with me, so that it was something more than words and a turning away from those faults that had made the situation impossible, I believe that it would have been a better lot for her than that awaiting her now, however difficult and poor things might have been for us. But I saw in her something like a sphinx that cannot say either yes or no. And if you were to ask me if I knew what she’s going to do, all I know is this, ‘certainly not as straight as she could have done’.
In recent days I again saw clearly how looking at the advertisements was done merely for the sake of appearances, and that they’re probably waiting for my departure before embarking on something they don’t discuss with me.
All the more reason for me to leave immediately, for otherwise they’d resort to delaying things deliberately. And the mother again has a hand in this.
This plan, which is again a twisting of what they began a few days ago, will almost certainly lead to nothing but wretchedness.
But I would have to be mad to help when they’re not being open with me, wouldn’t I? So I intend simply to leave and to let fourteen days or so go by. Then I’ll write to them and see how things are.
I’m also beginning to think that I must leave in order to make them be serious. But such a test is dangerous, for even in a short time they can spoil a great deal.
Why, why is the woman so unwise? She’s what Musset has called ‘A child of the age’ through and through — and I sometimes think of the ruin of Musset himself when I consider her future.
There was something elevated in Musset; well, in her there’s also a je ne sais quoi, although she’s certainly not an artist. If only she were, a little. She has her children, and there’ll be something solid in her if they become her idée fixe even more than they are now, but that too isn’t what it should be, even though her mother love, although imperfect, is still the best thing in her character, in my view.
It’s a difficult thing for me that I assume that, once I am gone, she’ll regret a few things and want to be better and will need me. I’m ready to help in that case, but I’ll get into her head what you told me about the woman you met, you found me when I had sunk very low, I must climb up again. Instead of I must climb up again, she will say the abyss draws me.
I once heard that there was a relationship between Musset and George Sand. George was composed, positive, highly industrious. Musset was nonchalant, indifferent, and even neglected his work.
Things came to a head and a separation between these two characters. Later a desperate attempt by Musset and remorse, but not before he had sunk still deeper into the mire, and in the meantime George Sand had got her affairs in order and was completely absorbed in a new work, and said ‘it’s too late, it’s impossible now’.
But these are so much questions of inner conflict, and hearts shrink more in pain because of them than appears.
Theo, when I leave I shan’t leave feeling easy about her — on the contrary, uneasy — because I fear so much that she won’t wake up until it’s too late, not have a keen desire for something simpler and purer until the moment for attaining it has passed.
When I see that sphinxlike quality in her, I recognize it of old both in her and in others, and it’s a very bad sign. Then staring melancholically into the abyss is fatal too, and the way to make that go away is hard work. And now — Theo — she’s again too passively resigned to things — well, melancholy, if it can be overcome, must be overcome by toil, and whoever doesn’t feel that is lost for ever and will go straight to the dogs. I’ve told her this, even got a little of it into her at times.
You see, she’s on the edge, isn’t she?
It shan’t be my hand that pushes her in, but nor can I stand beside her forever, holding her back. A person must have enough common sense to cooperate when he is warned and helped.I know, there are cases where the melancholic appears to be unwilling, but later quietly does what he must and recovers. If she’s like that, then that’s fine and she’ll be all right.
The melancholic is helped by nothing more — in the period of recovery — than by a friend. That’s a great deal then, even if the friend is poor. Well, she’ll continue to find that in me — even if now it’s true that she has been and is at times extremely nasty — of course nonetheless.
She’ll need a support, and I’ll still be that support even though I am gone, provided I see a little energy and good will. The people who tried to turn her away from me (in her family) did something that would be as bad as murdering her and her children if it weren’t that they did it in their obduracy and stupidity. For without that she’d be much further along.
Do your best towards the tenth to send me enough for me to be able to leave if need be, because this would be wise.
All the same, don’t put yourself in difficulties for I’ll act according to the circumstances and write to you straightaway to say what I’ve done.
If it’s too little for Drenthe I’ll go to Loosduinen for a day or so and wait there. I’ve found splendid things in Loosduinen, old farmhouses, and the effects in the evening are superb there. In that case I would probably send my things ahead or put them in storage.
But it’s also just the moment at which I can conveniently end the tenancy, and when your letter comes I’ll leave here.
That will be a sign for the woman that she must persevere. I’ll place more advertisements, but these last two days it was idling about again, and I fear they’ve changed the plan fundamentally.
Adieu, Theo, I wish things were already sorted out, for days like these are difficult and little good to anyone. I wish you well and good fortune, believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
I hope you haven’t fallen ill, I also had diarrhoea a while ago but it stopped. Eggs may be the best thing for strengthening the stomach, at least if weakness is the cause.
Hoogeveen 14 September 1883
My dear Theo,
Now that I’ve been here for a few days and have walked around a good deal in different directions, I can tell you more about the region I’ve fetched up in.
I enclose a scratch after my first painted study from this part of the world, a hut on the heath. A hut made of nothing but sods of turf and sticks. I’ve also seen inside about 6 of this type, and more studies of them will follow.
I can’t more accurately describe the way the exterior looks in the twilight or just after sunset than by reminding you of a particular painting by Jules Dupré which I think belongs to Mesdag, with two huts in it on which the mossy roofs stand out surprisingly deep in tone against a hazy, dusty evening sky.
That is here.
Well, it’s very beautiful inside these huts, dark as a cave. Drawings by certain English artists who have worked on the moors in Ireland most realistically convey what I observe. A. Neuhuys does the same with somewhat more poetry than strikes one at first, but he makes nothing that isn’t also fundamentally true.
I saw superb figures out in the country — striking in their expression of soberness. A woman’s breast, for example, has that heaving motion that is the exact opposite of voluptuousness, and sometimes, if the creature is old or sickly, arouses compassion or else respect. And the melancholy which things in general have is of a healthy kind, as in Millet’s drawings.Happily, the men here wear breeches; it shows off the shape of the leg, makes the movements more expressive.
To mention one of the many things that gave me something new to see and to feel during my explorations, I’ll tell you how here one sees, for example, barges pulled by men, women, children, white or black horses, loaded with peat, in the middle of the heath, just like the ones in Holland, on the Trekweg at Rijswijk, for instance.
The heathland is rich. I saw sheepfolds and shepherds that were more attractive than those in Brabant.
The ovens are more or less like the ones in T. Rousseau’s Communal oven; stand in the gardens under old apple trees or among the celery and cabbages.
Beehives, too, in many places.
One can see that many of the people have something wrong with them — it isn’t exactly healthy here, I think — perhaps because of unclean drinking water. I’ve seen some girls of, I would say, 17 or younger who still had something very beautiful and youthful, in their features too, but generally it fades very early. Yet this doesn’t detract from the fine, noble bearing of the figure that some of them have, who prove to be very withered when seen close to.There are 4 or 5 canals in the village, to Meppel, to Dedemsvaart, to Coevorden, to Hollandscheveld.
If you follow them, you see here and there a curious old mill, farmhouse, shipyard or lock. And always the peat barges coming and going.
To give you an example of the authentic character of this region: while I was sitting painting that hut, two sheep and a goat came up and started grazing on the roof of the house. The goat climbed onto the ridge and looked down the chimney.
The woman, who heard something on the roof, shot outside and threw her broom at the said goat, which leapt down like a chamois.
The two hamlets on the heath where I’ve been and where this incident took place are called Stuifzand and Zwartschaap. I’ve also been in various other places, and now you can imagine how unchanged it still is here, since Hoogeveen is a town after all, and yet nearby there are shepherds, those ovens, those turf huts &c.
I sometimes think with great melancholy about the woman and the children, if only they were looked after — oh, it’s the woman’s own fault, one could say, and it would be true, but I fear that her misfortune will be greater than her guilt. I knew from the outset that her character is a ruined character, but I had hopes of her finding her feet and now, precisely when I don’t see her any more and think about the things I saw in her, I increasingly come to realize that she was already too far gone to find her feet.
And that just makes my feelings of pity even greater, and it’s a melancholy feeling because it isn’t in my power to do anything about it. Theo, when I see some poor woman on the heath with a child in her arms or at her breast my eyes become moist. I see her in them; her weakness and slovenliness, too, only serve to intensify the likeness. I know that she isn’t good, that I have every right to do what I’m doing, that to stay with her there wasn’t possible, that bringing her with me really wasn’t possible either, that what I did was even sensible, wise, what you will, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it goes right through me when I see some poor little creature, feverish and miserable, and that then my heart melts. How much sadness there is in life. Well, one may not become melancholy, one must look elsewhere, and to work is the right thing, only there are moments when one only finds peace in the realization: misfortune won’t spare me either. Adieu, write soon, and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
Hoogeveen 21 September 1883
Dear brother,
I’ve just received your letter and thank you right heartily for it. And want to write to you again straightaway to tell you a few things about my experiences. First of all, I’ve had a letter from Rappard in WestTerschelling and he’s hard at work there, having first spent some time here in Drenthe, in Rolde near Assen.
I hope to be able to visit him there myself this winter and to make a few more studies; the trip there, as far as I can make out, there and back, being three guilders, unless the crossing to T. should prove difficult. But it would be worth it to be with a painter again, and will break the isolation.
I’m longing to get your next letter, which I hope won’t get stuck in the pen. Don’t forget to tell me the outcome regarding C.M., whether you’ve told him that I was here and whether your letter has also gone unanswered. If that’s the case I’ll certainly go and see C.M., not now of course but later, and ask him to explain why he didn’t reply. I shan’t write, but I’m unshakeably determined that I shall not put up with his not answering, particularly not answering you, and since this is part of it, also his not answering me.
I’ve NEVER SAID that he must do something, nor do I now. I count what he did or might do as a favour, and as such something for which I’ve always thanked him, and for my part have also given him studies, certainly 50 altogether, with the right to swap them later. And all this being so, I certainly don’t have to tolerate any insults, and it is a gross insult that I haven’t even had word that he received the last packet of studies. Not a syllable. And should your letter remain unanswered on top of this, it would be cowardice to leave it at that, and I must and shall demand an explanation. Which, as said, I shall most certainly do, and in a personal visit, even though some time may elapse. If he isn’t willing to talk to me then, that would by no means finish the matter, because my mind is made up that I shall have satisfaction about it. Should he give it me, well and good, but should he refuse to give it me (I haven’t used a single impolite term to him, I’ve only written in a very cool tone), should, I say, he refuse to give it me, I may say an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and insult him roundly back, which I would do in cold blood.Make no mistake, brother, understand me in this once and for all, however desirable it might be to get financial help — that is far from being No. 1. No. 1 is that he goes too far in losing sight of the rights that I have as a human being, even were I a stranger to him (I never speak of our relationship, nor rely on it), not to be treated as a bad lot, not to be condemned or accused of this or that without being able to speak up for myself. I have the right, every right to demand an answer and to consider silence a very gross insult.
I must speak frankly about this because I had hoped until now that it would come right of its own accord, and that I would receive word in reply.
But there’s a limit to this silent forbearance and, as I say, beyond that limit it would be cowardly and unmanly of me not to protest foursquare against it. So I ask you kindly, simply to tell me what has happened as regards an answer to your letter; then I’ll know for myself what I must do, then I won’t say another word about it, but even if more than a year were to pass I’ll still find deep inside me, as untarnished, clear and bright as I have at this moment, this same feeling that I must have an explanation, and not rest until I’ve settled matters with him one way or another.
I think that you’ll appreciate my feelings, and would do so all the more if you knew precisely what occurred between him and me in years past. When I was very dubious about the plan to study, whether the promise to bring that about was straightforward and wellconsidered — I thought then that they made the plan too hastily and I went along with it too hastily, and in my view it remains an excellent thing that it stopped when it did, which I deliberately brought about myself, contriving it such that the shame of giving up fell on me and not on anyone else. You know that I, who have learned other languages, could have managed to master that miserable little bit of Latin &c., but I said I couldn’t cope. This was an excuse, because I didn’t want to tell my protectors that I regard the whole University (or at least the Theology Faculty) as an unspeakable mess, a breedingground for Pharisees.I tried to prove that I didn’t lack courage by going to the Borinage, where life was most certainly much harder for me than it would have been had I become a student.
I thought that C.M., for example, might have understood me better, and have all the more reason to believe him insensitive when I think how he has treated me with a degree of contempt ever since. Then and now I’ve kept to myself a good many things that I could have said, and if I ever tackle him about them he’ll have to feel a thing or two in his conscience, whatever he may say; how I, neither in the past nor now, have ever committed any base acts against him, so there’s no conceivable reason for this insult of his failure to reply, all the more so since it would have been better if, from the moment when I went to The Hague, all that was in the past had been forgiven and forgotten and we’d resolved to maintain cordial relations, which I discussed with His Hon. at the time. But I do not say, brother, peace at any price, and I would rather have an unpleasant explanation than weakly let things go when doing so would be weak, and it would be now.
Be assured, though, that I shall NOT mention you, even though his insult to you, if he doesn’t set it right (it occurs to me that he’s beginning to use something of the same policy towards you) is what’s making me resolved to have it out with His Hon., and I’ve decided to say a great many things to him.
I promise you that, I’ll make it appear as if I was talking about myself alone, as if I knew nothing about you.
I have the very deepest contempt for this mysterious, sphinxlike silence &c., and I tell you here and now that I think all sorts of things about it, except for something that’s straightforward and honest or true.
It may have something to do with the general politics of the day, I know that, but as you know I don’t agree with the general politics of the day because I regard it as base and bearing all the traits of a decline that will end in a new periwig age.One could weep about what’s presently being spoiled in all sorts of areas, things to which our predecessors devoted their labours, honestly, are now being meanspiritedly neglected and abandoned. The times we live in are perhaps outwardly a little more respectable than earlier days, but too much nobleness is being lost for us to be able to expect the same great things of the future that there have been in the past. Well, everyone has to make up his own mind.
Now to change the subject — but it was necessary to deal with these matters, although I take not the slightest pleasure in writing about them — namely my experiences here. The more I walk around the area, the more I’m coming to like Hoogeveen itself, and I don’t doubt that this will remain so. If C.M. falls through, which I fear, this doesn’t alter the fact that in the long run it will work out cheaper here than in The Hague. But because of C.M. falling through I’ll have to scrimp and save for a while before I can carry out my plans. And perhaps we’ll lose absolutely nothing by it after all.
The fact is that I do need money and a stock of paint and various things before I can expect any results from the trip through the southeast corner of Drenthe.
But in six months or so I hope I’ll have saved enough, and in the meantime I’ll still be able to do things here. So for the present I won’t go further away for good, but will stay and work in this area. Will try to save some money for two trips, one through the southeast corner, one across the heath between here and Assen. And I hope to combine the latter trip to the north with a visit to friend Rappard and spend some time in his lodgings on Terschelling, known as ’t Scheepje. It would be too reckless to go on these two trips if one were to undertake them without supplies and without being prepared for the circumstances. But with patience they’re possible, for I see well enough that I have fewer expenses here than in The Hague. And before I begin on that I’d like to pay Rappard his money back, although it may be that later I’ll perhaps borrow something from him again after I’ve seen him, and if I know for sure that I can make something specific with it.At first I had some trouble here with models on the heath, where people laughed about it and I was ridiculed and couldn’t finish figure studies that I’d started because of the unwillingness of the models, although I had paid them well, at least for these parts. I stood firm, though, and concentrated on a single family in that same place, where I can now get an old woman, a girl and a man, and have hopes that they’ll remain willing.
I have a few studies of the heath, which I’ll send you when they’re thoroughly dry, and have also begun watercolours. And I’ve also started pen drawings again, specifically with a view to painting, because one can go into such details with the pen as painted studies cannot do, and one does well to make two studies, one entirely drawn for the way things are put together, and one painted for the colour. If this can be done, that is, and the occasion permits, this is a way of working up the painted study later.
The heath is rich, and there are marshy meadows that often remind me of T. Rousseau. Well, I can tell you that the open air and the life here are really doing me good. Oh if only the poor woman could have had it — I think of her with such profound sadness — although my common sense tells me quite clearly that it’s impossible now in the circumstances. I’m worried about her because I heard nothing from her, and from that assume that she has been either unwilling or unable to do things that I advised her to do. I can’t even write to her easily, because if she continues to live in Bagijnestraat I know first that my letter will be opened, probably by her brother or her mother, and secondly as long as she lives there I don’t want to have anything to do with it anyway, not even with her. Still, perhaps I’ll hear something yet, but my thoughts will be gloomy if I hear nothing further. I had hoped to get a message from an address other than Bagijnestraat, and that she and her mother had started a little business doing laundry and ironing.Oh Theo, if she hadn’t had any family she’d have behaved herself so much better. Women like her really are bad, but first infinitely, I say infinitely, more pitiable than bad, and secondly they have a certain passion, certain warmth which has something so very human that the respectable could learn a lesson, and I for my part understand the words of Jesus, who said to the superficially civilized, the respectable people of His time, ‘the harlots go BEFORE you’. Women like her, they can be fatally bad (I’m not even speaking here of the Nanas, fullblooded and sensual, but of the more nervous, rational temperaments among them), women like her, they fully justify Proudhon’s words, woman is the desolation of the righteous man — they don’t care about what we call ‘reason’ and go against it directly and culpably, I know that, but on the other hand they still have that genuine humanity, which means that one may not and cannot do without them, and one feels that there’s good in them and even something almighty good, even though one can’t define it other than ‘I don’t know what makes one love them after all’. Gavarni was serious when he said: I felt something die within me with every woman that I have left. And the most beautiful saying and the best that I know on the question of women is the one that you know too, oh woman whom I could have loved, and one would willingly go into the infinite with that, wanting nothing more than that knowledge.
I know that there are women, absurdly enough (they indeed do even more harm to it than the men), who are wholly governed by ambition etc. — Lady Macbeth is this type — these women are fatal, and one must avoid them despite their charm or one becomes a villain and very soon finds oneself faced with terrible evil that one has done and can never put right again — but there was nothing like this in her with whom I was, although she was vain, just as we all are at times. Poor, poor, poor creature is all that I felt at the start and I still feel in the end. Bad? So be it, but who in our times is good? Who feels so pure that he wants to play judge? God forbid. Delacroix would have understood her, I dare say, and God’s misericorde will even, I sometimes think, understand her much more, surely.
As I wrote to you, the little lad loved me very much, and when I was already sitting in the wagon I still had him on my lap. And so we parted, I believe with inexpressible melancholy on both sides, but nothing more.I tell you brother, I’m not good in the way of the ministers, I too, not to mince words, think whores are bad, but I nevertheless feel something human in them that means I don’t have the slightest scruple about consorting with them, I see nothing particularly evil in them, I haven’t the slightest remorse about the acquaintance I have or have had with them. If our society were a pure and ordered one, oh yes, then they were temptresses, now — many times it seems to me they should be regarded more as sisters of charity than anything else.
And now, as in other periods of the fall of a civilization, the relationships of good and evil are often reversed because of the corruption of society, and one reasonably comes back to the old saying: ‘the first shall be last and the last shall be first’.
Like you, I’ve been to Père Lachaise, I’ve seen the graves of men for whom I have indescribable respect; I felt the same respect by the humble little tombstone of Béranger’s mistress, which I visited expressly (if I remember rightly it’s in a little corner behind his), and I also thought there about Corot’s mistress in particular. Such women were silent muses, and I forever, always and everywhere feel the influence of a feminine element in the emotion of these gentle masters, the intimacy, the penetration of their poetry. I’m speaking a bit seriously in this letter, not because I think that Pa’s feelings and views, for instance, are wrong in everything — far from it — you would, for example, do well to follow Pa’s advice in many things — we talked about Pa, you will recall, during your visit and at the moment you left — but something that I felt vaguely then I can now express more clearly, when you speak with Pa, think at the same time of Corot, say, you’ll then automatically avoid some of the extremes into which Pa lapses much too much, and as I see it, on this condition that there’s less stiffness, Pa’s advice is usually good, and I have myself paid heed to it many times. But I point out that Pa and others do not know that besides their upright lives — for Pa’s life is upright — there are other upright lives, more in a milder spirit, in the character of Corot, Béranger, shall I say. You and I also feel that much more in any event. Because Pa and others DO not KNOW THAT, they are frequently and fatally mistaken when judging certain matters. Mistakes along the lines, for example, that C.M. certainly believes that Degroux was a bad man, in which, however sure he is in his belief, he is nonetheless mistaken. I’ll now tell you something else to make it clear to you that I’m not speaking in the abstract but about things that have solidity and substance. If you want an example of someone who originally had the ordinary, good Dutch character and feelings and yet has changed those feelings since, yet has reconsidered, and I think will change even more. Then as an example I give you Rappard, who is now already much gentler and more humane than when I first got to know him, and in my view is much improved, even though he was already good before. Although, I fear, not everyone sees it this way, and he has already had some conflict about it. In the past he really was good, but yet he became dissatisfied with that and is now deeper and more humane than he was then. It doesn’t make things easier for him — he used to have far less conflict — I know that for certain — because at the time I jokingly called him ‘the clear conscience’ and teased him about it, which I definitely no longer do, because I see that there has been a revolution in him. He’s a little less elegant and he’s much less superficial as a person, and a certain germ of genius has begun its development, and he has steered clear of the pitfall of ‘withering’.
In respect of people who genuinely seek good, I think what Hugo says is true, ‘there is the BLACK ray and there is the WHITE ray’.
In my view Pa has more the black ray and Corot has more the white ray, but both of them have a ray from on high.
So I don’t call anyone whom we’ve discussed bad, NO, for all that, but I do say that the black ray has a fatal side, and because I’ve since thought about what you said to me on the station platform when you left, I tell you now in explanation of what I couldn’t readily find words for then, ‘I know that Pa is Pa, but there’s something else besides that, namely what we’ll call “the white ray”’. And I find more that’s positive, more true peace in that, and I’ve fixed my attention on it much more. As to Millet, he’s the man above all others who had the white ray. Millet has a gospel, and I ask you whether there’s a distinction between a drawing by him and a good sermon. It makes the sermon black, it’s the outcome of the comparison, even if it (the sermon, that is) is fine in itself, assuming that it is. I know that you too have a lot of strife at the moment, although I don’t know precisely the ins and outs of it. And in any event it’s out of sympathy that I tell you precisely what I think about a few things, because I’ve also had and still have a lot of strife.
And I wish you more and more of the white ray, you hear! Thanks for what you sent, and a handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Hoogeveen 24 September 1883
My dear Theo,
Today I’m sending a package of 3 studies which I hope are dry enough. However, if they stick to the sheet of paper I laid on them as a precaution, soak them off with lukewarm water. The smallest one, in particular, has sunk in a lot, go over it with the white of an egg in about a week, or some varnish in a month’s time, to lift them. I’m sending them to let you take a look, and better after this — really.
I forgot to reply to what you write about sending the you know what. For the time being would you send a postal order like the last, until I know of an exchange office — deduct expenses, though.
Received a letter from home that Pa had been unwell as a result of a fall — I hope it isn’t more serious than they say. Do you know anything more about it?
Went further into the peat fields last week — marvellous scenes, the longer I stay here the more beautiful I find it, and from the outset I’ll try to stay here in this region. For it’s so beautiful here that at the same time a great deal of study is needed to capture it, and only solid work can give a truer understanding of things as they are at bottom, and of their serious, sober nature. I came across superb figures — but again, a nature that has so much nobility, so much dignity and gravity must be treated with maturity and patience and prolonged work. This is why, in my view, from the outset I mustn’t regard it as just coming to take a look around here, but it’s in the nature of the thing, if all goes well and we’re granted a little good fortune, that I’ll stay for good. Write again soon, won’t you — I’m longing to hear, for despite all the beauty outside I still feel dejected. Adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
My regards to Wisselingh when you see him, and tell him I’m here.
Hoogeveen 26 September 1883
Dear brother,
Because I have a need to speak frankly, I can’t hide from you that I’m overcome by a feeling of great anxiety, dejection, a je ne sais quoi of discouragement and even despair, too much to express. And that if I can find no consolation for it, it might all too easily overwhelm me unbearably.
It really bothers me that I have so little success with people in general, I’m very concerned about this, and all the more so because rising above it and getting on with the work is at stake here. The fate of the woman, moreover, the fate of my sweet, poor little lad and the other child, cut me to the quick. I’d still like to help and I can’t.
I’m at a point where I need credit, trust and some warmth, and you see there’s no trust in me. You’re an exception to this, but precisely because everything falls on you it makes it even more apparent how dismal everything is in my case.
And if I look at my things, they’re too poor, too inadequate, too much exhausted. We’re having gloomy, rainy days here, and when I come into the corner of the attic where I’ve installed myself it’s all remarkably melancholy there — with the light from one single glass roof tile that falls on an empty painting box, on a bundle of brushes with few decent bristles remaining, well it’s so curiously melancholy that luckily it also has a funny enough side not to weep over it but to regard it more cheerfully. But even so, it’s in a very strange relationship to my plans — in a very strange relationship to the seriousness of the work, and — this is where the laughing stops.
What else can I do? — last year ended with an even bigger deficit than I told you, for I’ve already paid off more than I mentioned to you, including Rappard, and still however owe Rappard above all, and that worries me the most because he’s a friend, and although at this moment I’ve paid off everything that was in the slightest bit urgent I’m faced with the problem that I still have to pay for other things before the paint that I would otherwise buy, or rather I don’t dare take it on credit, which would again cause me a considerable bill in time. You know yourself how we weren’t exactly in the mood to be able to say more during your visit, but I tell you now that The Hague has been too much for me, and I had already put off and put off the separation for one particular specific reason, even though the deficit was inevitable if I persisted. This was that, rather than separating, I would have risked one more attempt by marrying her and going to live with her in the country, although not without telling you how things stood. But I believed one thing, that this was the right course, even despite the temporary financial drawbacks, and that not only could it have been her salvation but would also have put an end to great inner struggle for me, which has now, unhappily, doubled for me. And I would rather have seen it through to the bitter end.
If either Pa or you had been able to feel it thus, perhaps — I don’t say that I would have been happier or unhappier as a result, and if the roles had been reversed, you in my place, I in yours, I don’t know whether I would have been able to act other than as you did — but perhaps, I say, she would have been saved because of it. I therefore regard it as something where the decision depended not on you two, but on myself (except that I can’t give myself my father’s consent to marry, this single point is beyond me, and in response to a determined question Pa answered me in generalities in which, however, there was no hint of consent), and so I decided, because I already had debts and the future was dark. But this decision is not yet a renewal, and doesn’t take away the exhaustion that a year of too many cares brings in its train, while I’m also left with a wounded heart and a feeling of emptiness and disappointment and melancholy — not so easy to cure. I may be here now, and may almost have covered the financial deficit, and in a while it could be entirely covered, and nature is wonderful here and exceeds my expectations. Yet I’m far from being comfortably settled again and getting on, because the little glimpse of my attic I’m giving you is drawn from life.
If I’d known all these things in advance, I would have moved here with the woman last year when she came out of hospital, then there would have been no deficit and then we wouldn’t be separated now, for she’s less guilty of her wrongdoing than her family, who have intrigued very meanly, ostensibly for her but fundamentally against her. Meanwhile, I’ve sometimes wondered, for instance, whether the mother wasn’t also being backed in turn by a priest, because too much has been done on their part to influence the woman for me to explain. All the more so because I’ve still heard nothing from her, although before I left I told her that I would give the carpenter next door my address as soon as I knew it myself; I sent it to him and asked him to tell her, and I’ve still heard nothing, except just from this carpenter that she’s collected all her things (more than she brought with her, after all). Now you understand that I’m concerned about her fate, although I believe that if she were simply in need she’d have written, but now there must be something wrong behind it. You will understand my feeling about it, I rather fear that the family is saying to her: he’ll surely write and then... we’ll have him under our thumb — in short they’re presuming on my weakness and I am not going to walk into that trap. And today I’m writing not to her but to the carpenter to tell him that he must make sure she knows my address, but I will not write to her first, and if she writes will see how things actually stand. When I would definitely try to help is if her family were to cast her off entirely, and if it’s the case that her family is helping her, I understand well enough that she’s too much in agreement with them, and has been for a long time, so that I may not or cannot have anything more to do with it. Or, I’ve thought, if there’s a priest behind it, she’s being helped but only on condition that she has nothing more to do with me, and that’s the reason for her silence.
But I’ll say that I haven’t yet got so far that I can resign myself to the idea of separation, at present I’m still very, very concerned about her fate, precisely because she’s leaving me in the dark about it.
And over and above all this, I’ve been overwhelmed these past few days by sombre feelings about the future, and also about the miserable state of my equipment as far as painting materials are concerned, the impossibility of doing the most essential, most useful things as they really should be done.
Since I can already see straightaway that there’s so much beauty here, if I could afford it I would send for my things that are still there in The Hague, and I would either fit up this same attic here as a studio (by letting a bit more light in) or look for another place. And then I’d like to renew and replenish all my equipment. I wish that for once I could do this really thoroughly, and if I could find someone who would trust me that far, my greatest concerns would be allayed. But either everything falls on you or I find no one who trusts me, this is the circle in which my thoughts revolve, and I see no way out.
A painter who has no means of his own can’t get by without sometimes rather large credit with people, credit that not only the profession of painter requires, but that the professions of cobbler, carpenter, smith would equally require, I believe no more nor less, if they had to set themselves up or reestablish themselves somewhere. It’s above all in this rainy weather, of which we have months ahead of us, that my hands are really tied. And then, what else can I do? — sometimes my thoughts take on a form — I’ve worked and economized and still not been able to avoid debt, I’ve been faithful to the woman and yet lapsed into disloyalty, I’ve abhorred intrigues and yet I have virtually no credit or possessions. I don’t regard your trust in me lightly, on the contrary, but I rather wonder whether I shouldn’t say to you, forget about me for we won’t get there — it’s too much for one, and there’s no chance of getting any relief from another quarter — is this not proof enough that we should give up?
Oh, old chap, I’ve become so melancholy — I’m in magnificent countryside, I have a desire, indeed an absolute need to work — at the same time I’m absolutely at a loss as to how we’re going to get on top of it, when I think that my things are in the most miserable state and I’m here without a studio or anything, and will be embarrassed everywhere until I can improve matters. The models — they refuse to pose if there are bystanders around, and this is the greatest difficulty that makes a studio desirable. I have the same feeling now as I did when I set up the studio in The Hague — ‘if I don’t do it, I’ll certainly not be able to manage’. And even now, given The Hague, I don’t regret that I did as I did in those circumstances, only I wish I had come here 1 1/2 years earlier and set up a studio here instead of there.
Pa wrote to me saying that he wanted to help me, but I didn’t let him know anything about my worries, and I hope that you won’t say anything to Pa on this subject either. Pa has his own worries, and would only have even more worries were he to find out that things aren’t going well. So I merely wrote to Pa that everything turned out much better than I expected, which is also perfectly true as far as nature is concerned. As long as the weather was good I wasn’t aware of things because I saw so much that was beautiful, but now that it’s been pouring with rain incessantly for several days I increasingly see how I’m actually stuck here, and I’m embarrassed. What’s to be done? Will things worsen or improve with time? I don’t know, but I feel really miserable and can’t shake it off.In every life some rain must fall
And days be dark and drearythat is true, it cannot be otherwise, yet I wonder if the number of dark and dreary days can’t sometimes get too great? Nevertheless, I’ve had a model again in the barn, but in very trying light. After all, I don’t refuse to do what can be done, but can I do what MUST be done in the circumstances? And this letter is a sigh for space, and if the winter has to be like these days, I would be in a bad way. It’s beautiful, though, indeed extremely beautiful in the rain, but how does one work, how when one lacks too much? Adieu, old chap, I wish everything would turn out all right, but we need more trust from other people, otherwise I fear it won’t work. I hope to hear from you soon. Did you receive studies?
With a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Nieuw-Amsterdam 3 October 1883
My dear Theo,
This time I’m writing to you from the very back of beyond in Drenthe, where I arrived after an endless trip through the heath on the barge.
I see no way of describing the countryside to you as it should be done, because words fail me. But imagine the banks of the canal as miles and miles of Michels or T. Rousseaus, say, Van Goyens or P. de Koninck.
Flat planes or strips differing in colour, which grow narrower and narrower as they approach the horizon. Accentuated here and there by a sod hut or small farm or a few scrawny birches, poplars, oaks. Stacks of peat everywhere, and always barges sailing past with peat or bulrushes from the marshes. Here and there thin cows of a delicate colour, often sheep — pigs. The figures that now and then appear on the plain usually have great character, sometimes they’re really charming. I drew, among others, a woman in the barge with crepe around her cap brooches because she was in mourning, and later a mother with a small child — this one had a purple scarf around her head.
There are a lot of Ostade types among them, physiognomies that remind one of pigs or crows, but every so often there’s a little figure that’s like a lily among the thorns. In short, I’m very pleased about this trip, for I’m full of what I’ve seen. The heath was extraordinarily beautiful this evening. There’s a Daubigny in one of the Albums Boetzel that expresses that effect precisely. The sky was an inexpressibly delicate lilac white — not fleecy clouds, because they were more joined together and covered the whole sky, but tufts in tints more or less of lilac — grey — white — a single small rent through which the blue gleamed. Then on the horizon a sparkling red streak — beneath it the surprisingly dark expanse of brown heath, and a multitude of low roofs of small huts standing out against the glowing red streak. In the evening this heath often has effects that the English would describe as weird and quaint. The spiky silhouettes of Don Quixotelike mills or strange hulks of drawbridges are profiled against the teeming evening sky. In the evening a village like that is sometimes really snug, with the light from the little windows reflected in the water or in mud and puddles.
Before I left Hoogeveen I painted a few more studies there, among them a large farmhouse with a mossy roof. For I’d had paint sent from Furnée’s, because I thought the same about it as you say in your letter, that by making sure I become absorbed in the work and lose myself in it so to speak, my mood would change, and indeed it’s already a good deal better.
But at times — like those moments when you think about going to America I think about going to the East as a volunteer. But they’re those wretched, sombre moments when things overwhelm one, and I would wish that you might see the silent heath that I see through the window here, because such a thing soothes one and inspires more faith, resignation, calm work.
I drew several studies in the barge, but I’m staying here to paint. I’m close to Zweeloo here, where Liebermann, among others, has been, and besides there’s an area here where there are large, very old sod huts where there isn’t even a partition between the barn and the living room. My plan for these first days is to visit that region.
But what tranquillity, what breadth, what calm there is in nature here, one doesn’t feel it until one has miles and miles of Michels between oneself and the everyday. I can’t give you a definite address at the moment because I don’t know exactly where I’ll be for the next few days, but I’ll be in HOOGEVEEN on 12 October, and if you send your letter at the usual time to the same address I’ll find it there in Hoogeveen on the twelfth. The place where I am now is NieuwAmsterdam.
I received a postal order for 10 guilders from Pa, which with what I got from you means that I can now do some painting. I’m thinking of returning to this inn where I am now for a long stay if I can reach the area with the large old sod huts easily from here, since I would have better light and space here. For as to that painting by that Englishman with the thin cat and the little coffin, although the idea first came to him in that dark room, he would have found it very difficult to paint in that same place, at least one usually works too light if one sits in a room that’s too dark, so that when one brings it into the light one sees that all the shadows are too weak. I experienced this only recently, when I painted an open door and the view through into the little garden from inside the barn.
Well, I just wanted to tell you that I’ll also be able to overcome this drawback, because I could get a room here with good light and where a stove can stand in the winter. Now, old chap, if you think no more about America, and I no more about Harderwijk, then I hope things will work themselves out. I admit that your explanation of C.M.’s silence might be the case, but sometimes nonchalance can also be deliberate.
You’ll find a few croquis on the back. I write in haste, or rather it’s already late.
How I wish that we could walk together here and — paint together. I believe that the countryside would win you over and convince you. Adieu, I hope that you’re well and will have a bit of good fortune. I thought about you again and again on this trip. With a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Hoogeveen 12 October 1883
Dear brother,
I just received your letter. I read and reread it with interest, and something that I’ve already thought about sometimes, without knowing what to do about it, is becoming clear to me. It’s that you and I have in common a time of quietly drawing impossible windmills &c., where the drawings are in a singular rapport with the storm of thoughts and aspirations — in vain, because no one who can shed light is concerned about them (only a painter would then be able to help one along the right path, and their thoughts are elsewhere). This is a great inner struggle, and it ends in discouragement or in throwing those thoughts overboard as impractical, and precisely when one is 20 or so, one is passionate to do that. Whatever the truth of the matter that I said something then that unwittingly contributed to throwing those things overboard; at that moment my thoughts were perhaps the same as yours, that’s to say that I saw it as something impossible, but as regards that desperate struggle without seeing any light, I know it too, how awful it is. With all one’s energy one can do nothing and thinks oneself mad, and I don’t know what else. When I was in London, how often I would stand on the Thames Embankment and draw as I made my way home from Southampton Street in the evening, and it looked terrible. If only there had been someone then who had told me what perspective was, how much misery I would have been spared, how much further along I would be now. Well, fait accompli is fait accompli. It didn’t happen then — I did talk to Thijs Maris occasionally (I didn’t dare speak to Boughton, because I felt such great respect in his presence) but I didn’t find it there either, that helping me with the first things, with the ABC.
Let me now repeat that I believe in you as an artist, and that you can still become one, indeed that you should very soon think calmly about whether you are one or not, whether you would be able to produce something or not if you learned to spell the aforementioned ABC, and then also spent some time walking through the wheatfield and the heath, in order to renew once more what you yourself say, ‘I used to be part of that nature, now I don’t feel that any more’. Let me tell you, brother, that I myself have felt so deeply, deeply that which you say there. That I’ve had a time of nervous, barren stress when I had days when I couldn’t find the most beautiful countryside beautiful, precisely because I didn’t feel myself part of it. That’s what pavements and the office — and care — and nerves — do.
Don’t take it amiss if I say now that your soul is sick at this moment — it really is — it isn’t good that you aren’t part of nature — and I think that No. 1 now is for you to make that normal again. I think it’s very good that you yourself feel the difference between your state of mind now and in other years. And don’t doubt that you will agree with me that you must work on it to put it right.
I now have to look back into my own past to see what the matter was, spending years in that stony, barren state of mind and trying to emerge from it, and yet it got worse and worse instead of better. Not only did I feel indifferent instead of responsive to nature but also, which was much worse, I felt exactly the same about people.People said that I was going mad; I myself felt that I wasn’t, if only because I felt my own malady very deep inside myself and tried to get over it again. I made all sorts of forlorn attempts that led to nothing, so be it, but because of that idée fixe of getting back to a normal position I never confused my own desperate doings, scrambling and squirmings with I myself. At least I always felt ‘let me just do something, be somewhere, it must get better, I’ll get over it, let me have the patience to recover’.
I don’t believe that someone like Boks, for instance, who really turned out to be mad, thought like that — so I say again, I’ve thought about it a lot since, about my years of all sorts of scrambling, and I don’t see that, given my circumstances, I could be other than I have been.
Here is the ground that sank beneath my feet — here is the ground which, if it sinks, must make a person miserable, whoever he may be. I was with G&Cie for 6 years — I had put down roots in G&Cie and I thought that, although I left, I could look back on 6 years of good work, and that if I presented myself somewhere I could refer to my past with equanimity.
But by no means; things are done so hurriedly that little consideration is given, little is questioned or reasoned. People act on the most random, most superficial impressions. And once one is out of G&Cie no one knows who G&Cie is. It’s a name like X&Co., without meaning — and so one is simply ‘a person without a situation’. All at once — suddenly — fatally — everywhere — there you have it. Of course, precisely because one has a certain respectability one doesn’t say I’m soandso, I’m this or that. One presents oneself for a new situation serious in all respects, without saying much, with a view to putting one’s hand to the plough. Very well, but then, that ‘person without a situation’, the man from anywhere, gradually becomes suspect. Suppose that your new employer is a man whose affairs are very mysterious, and suppose that he has just one goal, ‘money’. With all your energy, can you really immediately, at once, help him a very great deal in that? Perhaps not, eh? And yet he wants money, money come what may; you want to know something more about the business, and what you see or hear is pretty disgusting.
And soon it’s: ‘someone without a situation’, I don’t need you any more. See, now that’s what you increasingly become: someone without a situation. Go to England, go to America, it doesn’t help at all, you’re an uprooted tree everywhere. G&Cie, where your roots are from an early age — G&Cie, although indirectly they cause you this misery because in your youth you regarded them as the finest, the best, the biggest in the world — G&Cie, were you to return to them — I didn’t do that then — I couldn’t — my heart was too full, much too full — G&Cie, they’d give you the cold shoulder, say it was no longer their concern or something. With all this one has been uprooted, and the world turns it around and says that you’ve uprooted yourself. Fact — your place no longer acknowledges you. I felt too melancholy to do anything about it — and I don’t remember ever having been in the mood to talk to someone about it as I’m talking to you now. Because, and actually to my surprise, for I thought that even if they did it to me they would, however, certainly not have dared to do it to you, I read in your letter the words ‘when I spoke to them this week the gentlemen made it almost impossible for me’. Old chap, you know how it is with me, but if you’re miserable about one thing and another, do not feel you are alone. It’s too much to bear alone, and to some extent I can sympathize with you the way it is. Now, stand your ground and don’t let your pain throw you off balance — if the gentlemen behave like this, stand on your dignity and don’t accept your dismissal except on terms that guarantee you’ll get a new situation. They aren’t worth your losing your temper, don’t do that, even if they provoke you. I lost my temper and walked straight out. Now in my position it was different again from yours; I was one of the least, you are one of the first, but what I say about being uprooted, I’m afraid that you would feel the same if you were out of it, so look at that, too, coldbloodedly, stand up to them and don’t let them push you out without being a little prepared for that difficult situation of beginning again. And know this — given an uprooting, given not making headway again, don’t despair.
Then, in the worst case, do NOT go to America, because it’s exactly the same there as in Paris. No, beware of reaching that point where one says: I’ll make myself scarce; I had that myself, I hope that you won’t have it. If you had it, I say again, beware of it, resist it with great coolness, say to yourself, this point proves to me that I’m running into a brick wall. This is a wall for bulls to run into; I am a bull too, but an intelligent one, I am a bull about becoming an artist. Anyway, get out before you smash your head to pieces, that’s all. I’m not saying that that’s what will happen; I hope that there will be no question whatever of running into a wall. But suppose after all that there was a whirlpool with accompanying sharpedged rocky promontories, well, I would just think that you might avoid it, wouldn’t you? Perhaps you’ll admit that those rocks might be there, since you yourself pulled me out of that whirlpool when I had no more hope of getting out of it and was powerless to fight against it any more.
I mean, give those waters a very wide berth. They’re beginning to drag you down in that one thing — I say no more nor less than I’m sure of — that you aren’t part of nature. Do you think it strange of me that I dare to say as much as this: now, at the very beginning, change course now and no later than now in so far as you work at restoring the bond between yourself and nature? The more you remain in the frame of mind of not being part of nature, the more you play into the hands of your eternal enemy (and mine too), Nerves. I have more experience than you of the sort of tricks they could play on you. You’re now beginning to enter waters that are throwing you off balance, inasmuch as the rapport with nature seems to be broken. Take that very coolly as a sign of aberration; say, oh no, not that way if you please. Seek a new passion, an interest in something; think, for example, after all perspective must fundamentally be the simplest of all things and chiaroscuro a simple, not a complicated matter. It must be something that speaks for itself, otherwise I don’t much care for it. Try to get back to nature in this way. Will you now, old chap, simply take it from me when I say that as I write to you I’ve got something back of what I had years ago. That I’m again taking pleasure in windmills, for example, that particularly here in Drenthe I feel much as I did then, at the time when I first began to see the beauty in art. You’d be prepared to call that a normal mood, wouldn’t you? — finding the outdoor things beautiful, being calm enough to draw them, to paint them. And suppose you were to come up against a brick wall somewhere, wouldn’t you find someone in my present mood composed enough to want to take a little walk with him, precisely in order to have a distraction from thoughts if, through nervousness, these thoughts start to acquire a certain despairing element? You are yourself and not fundamentally changed, but your nerves are beginning to be unstrung by strain. Now, look after your nerves, and don’t take them lightly, because they cause quicktempered manoeuvres — well, you know a thing or two about that yourself.
Make no mistake, Theo, at this moment Pa, Ma, Wil, Marie, and I above all, are supported by you; it seems to you that you have to go on for our sakes, and believe me I fully understand that, or at least can understand it to a very great extent. Just think about this for a moment. What is your goal and Pa’s, Ma’s, Wil’s, Marie’s and mine? What do we all want? We want, acting decently, to keep our heads above water, we all want to arrive at a clear position, not a false position, don’t we? This is what we all want, unanimously and sincerely, however much we differ or don’t differ among ourselves. What are we all prepared to do against fate? All, all of us without exception to work quietly, calmness. Am I wrong in regarding the general situation in this way? Very well, what are we facing now? We’re confronting a calamity which, touching you, touches us all. Fine. A storm is brewing. We see it brewing. That lightning might well strike us. Fine. What do we do now? Do we reach our wit’s end? I don’t think that we’re inclined that way — even if certain nerves that we all have in our bodies, even if certain fibres of the heart, finer than nerves, are shocked or experience pain.
We are today what we were yesterday, even if the lightning strikes or even, perhaps, should it thunder. Are we or are we not the sort who can look at things calmly? That, simply, is the question, and I see no reason why we should not be so. What I also see is the following — that our position towards one another is also straight at this moment. That for the purposes of keeping straight it’s desirable to have a closer connection, and in my view there are a few things in ourselves that we’ll have to work out between us.
In the first place, I would be very pleased if your relationship with Marie were to be put on a firmer footing; in other words a formal engagement if possible.
Secondly, I would consider it desirable that we all understood that circumstances urgently require that Brabant no longer be closed to me. I myself think it better that I do not go there unless there’s no other choice, but in the event of an emergency the rent that I’m obliged to pay could be saved, because Pa has a house there rentfree.
I’m at a point where there will probably be some income from my work soon. And if we could now reduce expenditure to a minimum, even below what it is at present, perhaps I could earn instead of consume, become positive instead of negative.
If it’s a question of our having to earn, I can see a chance in this way — if there’s patience at home, a realization of the necessities, if above all, when it comes to models for me, even the family cooperates. As to the question of models, they’d definitely have to do what I wanted, have to trust that I had my reasons for it. If I were to say to Ma or to Wil or Lies, pose for me, it would have to happen. I wouldn’t make any unreasonable demands, of course. You know how it came about that I left; the fundamental cause was misunderstanding one another, actually in all things. So can we live together? Yes, for a time, if we have to and people on both sides understand that everything has to be subordinated to what the force majeure of circumstances dictates. I had hoped that that was understood at the time, and I didn’t take the initiative to leave — when I was told to go away, though, I went.
Anyway, I broach this because I see that perhaps things will come to pass such that you must have your hands free, and if it might help for me to live at home for a while, I think that Pa and I would both have to reconcile ourselves to that immediately. Although if it isn’t necessary — so much the better. But I’m not saying that I absolutely must be in Drenthe; where isn’t the most important thing.
So be aware of this, that in that respect I would of course do whatever you thought advisable.
Well, I’ll write to Pa today, without more ado, simply this: if Theo were to think it advisable that my expenses should be reduced to a minimum and I should live at home for a while, I hope that both you and I will have the sense not to put a spoke in the wheel through mutual discord, but keeping silent about everything that has passed will reconcile ourselves to what circumstances bring. Nothing more about you or about business nor, should I have to live at home, would I talk about you other than in general terms. And for the time being I would certainly not mention Marie.
Theo, if you had said perhaps a year ago that you would certainly not become a painter, would certainly stay in your present profession, I would have had to accede; now I don’t accede so readily, I still see that repeated occurrence in the history of art of the phenomenon of two brothers who are painters. I know that the future is unpredictable, at least I tell you that I don’t know how things will turn out. However, it’s definitely the case that I believe in you as an artist, and this is actually reinforced by some of the things in your last letter.
Mind now, I advise you of one thing that’s urgently necessary — beware of your nerves — use all means to keep your constitution calm. Consult a doctor daily if you possibly can, not so much because a doctor can do anything about it, as much as would be needed, but because the very fact of going to a doctor to talk about it &c. will show you, this is nerves, that is me.
It’s a question here of selfknowledge, of serenity, despite all the tricks that the nerves must play. I consider the whole idea that it could come to your making yourself scarce to be the effect of nerves. You would do wisely and well to regard it in this way yourself. I hope that you will not bring off a coup, I hope that you will not make a financial invention — I hope that you will become a painter. If, through cool aplomb, you can let the crisis now deliberately being created by the gentlemen run off you like water off a duck’s back, can say to them ‘I am certainly not leaving in this way, certainly not now, never like this’ — if you say to them, I have plans but they aren’t even of a commercial nature, and as soon as they can be put into effect I’ll retire in all tranquillity; until that time, as long as you can’t find fault with what I do, leave things as they are, but know that you’re very much mistaken in me if you think that I would leave because you make things impossible for me, or would part from you in any unreasonable way. If you want to be rid of me, very well, I also want to be rid of you, but amicably and in good order, and it goes without saying that I must keep going. Anyhow, try to make them understand that you’re dead cool and calm and will remain so, however that you have absolutely no desire whatsoever to stay — but that you won’t leave until you see a favourable moment. This seems to me to be the way to counter what they’re now trying to do, to make it impossible for you to stay. Perhaps they suspect that you’ve already established relations elsewhere, and in such a case making it impossible for someone to stay can sometimes be very nasty. If they turn nasty now, there’s nothing for it, cut it short — perhaps the best thing might be to explain calmly that you would retire on certain conditions.
In the meantime, let me know if I should go home for a while so that you have your hands free. And again, Pa, Ma, Wil, Marie, I, in a word all of us, think much more of you yourself than of your money. Making yourself scarce is nothing but sheer nerves.
But — restore — try to restore, even if it doesn’t happen all at once — the rapport between you and nature and people. And if the only way to do this is to become a painter, well then become one, even if you see ever so many objections and impossibilities.
Now listen — write to me very soon — be sure to do that. With a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Nieuw-Amsterdam 12 or 13 October 1883
I’m sending you the enclosed scratches to give you some idea of so many diverse things that the seemingly monotonous countryside has to offer. You see, I just take what’s there, I grab this and that by the neck; it will arrange itself and ripen of its own accord later. But I don’t want to begin here with a preconceived plan; on the contrary, I want my plan to ripen out of my studies. I don’t know the real character of the countryside as yet — now I’m doing everything I come across, and then later, when I have some experience, I want to try to convey it in what is fundamentally its most characteristic aspect. The one so much part of the other that one has to seize everything; however much one would like to concentrate, one may miss nothing.
There’s plenty of work, in other words. I now have a reasonably large room where a stove has been placed, where there happens to be a small balcony. From which I can even see the heath with the huts. I also look out on a very curious drawbridge. Well, downstairs is an inn and a peasant kitchen with an open peat fire, very cosy in the evenings. One can think best by one of those peasant hearths with a cradle beside it. If I feel melancholy or can’t work something out, I just go downstairs.
I can tell you that I’ve heard something indirectly about the woman. After all, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why she hadn’t even written to me. Well then, I wrote to the carpenter next door to us asking whether the woman hadn’t been to him for the address. Well then, the blackguard writes back to me: Oh yes sir, but I thought that you certainly wouldn’t want her to know your address, so I just made out that I didn’t know it. Bastards.
Then I wrote to her directly, although this wasn’t as good as my agreement, which was expressly made with him and with her, but I do not want now or ever to conceal or to have to conceal myself, and I’d rather write to her at her family’s address than have even the semblance of hiding. That’s what I think about it.
And I sent her some money too — if this may have wretched consequences, I’m not responsible for them, I will not play false. I found the letter from that scoundrel in Hoogeveen on my last trip there. Friend Rappard also wrote to me again from Terschelling and — now today — from Utrecht — he’s back again! Has brought studies with him, mostly of the old folks’ home. I don’t quite understand this. He told me that the doctor had advised sea air for him during the winter for his health, that moreover he had such a desire to spend a winter in the country, but it seems to have turned out differently. Anyway. You wrote to me about Liebermann: his coloration consists of slategrey tones with transitions chiefly to brown, to yellowgrey. I’ve never seen anything by him, but now that I see nature here I understand perfectly how reasonable it is that he arrives at it. As to colour, things often remind me of Michel too. You know, he also has a grey sky (slategrey sometimes), a brown earth with yellowgreys. It’s completely true and faithful to nature. There are Jules Dupré effects — yes, there are certainly those, but in autumn like this, it’s exactly that — as you wrote about Liebermann.
And if I find that which I seek — and why shouldn’t I find it? — I’ll certainly often do it thus, in that same spectrum.
That’s to say, in order to see it like this one mustn’t look at the local colour in itself, but consider that local colour in relation to the tone of the sky.
That sky is grey — however so luminous that even our pure white might perhaps not capture it in terms of light and brilliance. But if one starts by painting the sky grey, thus remaining far below the intensity of nature, then all the more, in order to remain consistent, will one have to set the browns and yellowgreys of the earth several tones lower. It seems to me that this is something which, once one analyzes it like this, is so selfevident that one finds it hard to understand that one hasn’t always seen it thus.
But it’s the local colour of a green field or a reddishbrown heath which, viewed in isolation, can easily confuse someone. Write to me again soon because, as letters go, your last missive was remarkably brief — all too brief, but was also evidently written in the office.
How’s the Triennial Exhibition going? There’ll be a lot of beautiful things. I’m really interested to hear something about it, because these too are certainly the characteristic things of the moment, not of much earlier years. So if you have a moment, do write something about it.
According to a current rumour, it appears that Liebermann is somewhere here in the neighbourhood. I’d like to meet him sometime.Well, I’m very pleased that I’ve found a more suitable studio, precisely because it’s rather rainy and the bad weather can be expected any time, so as not to have to sit idle at home. I wish you could just see the countryside; it’s so inexpressibly beautiful in the evening. And it seems to me the snow will be gripping too. I read a very good book by Carlyle, Heroes and heroworship, full of nice things, like for instance, We have the duty to be brave, although this is usually wrongly regarded as something exceptional. It’s also true in life that the good is such a high light that it goes without saying that we can’t reach that. If we set our spectrum lower and nonetheless try to remain bright and not lapse into lifelessness, this is the most reasonable thing to do, and makes life less impossible. There are amazing characters here — nonconformist ministers with pig faces and cocked hats. Also many veritable Jews who look extraordinarily ugly amidst Milletesque types or on this unsophisticated, sad heath. On the other hand, they are genuine. I travelled with a party of Jews who were having theological discussions with a couple of peasants. How are such absurdities possible, one would say, in countryside like this? Why can’t they look out of the window or smoke pipes or something, and at any rate behave as reasonably as their pigs, say, which aren’t a nuisance at all, even though they’re pigs, and remain in harmony with their surroundings and are in place there?
But before the ministers like the ones I saw here achieve the height of civilization and reason of common pigs, they have to improve a good deal more, and it will take centuries before they’re in that position. At the moment, any pig at all is much better, to my mind.
Well, I’m going out again, do write if you get a moment, and look particularly to see whether Liebermann has anything in the exhibition.
Regards — so my address just remains here for the time being — wishing you the best, with a handshake
Ever yours,
Vincent
Nieuw-Amsterdam 15 October 1883
My dear Theo,
Now I’ve already written about it once, I’ve thought about it again since then, out on the heath. The same thing I’ve already thought about many times.
Both among the old and among the modern painters there’s the constantly recurring phenomenon of two brothers who are painters, whose work diverges less than it runs parallel. They’re very different, yet complement each other perfectly. Take the Ostades, Adriaan and Isaac. Anyway, you know very well, of course: a multitude of cases. The Van Eycks as well. And Jules and Emile Breton in the present day, to mention just a few.
And I’ve already thought so very often that it must be so almighty pleasant to work together, and both could be so productive for the very reason that one supports the other and many melancholy times disappear. I can’t repeat to you enough, old chap — one is just beginning in one’s thirtieth year. Look at the history of those people; even many of them who painted from an early age only change then, only become themselves then. I just want you to consider these things. Now I know that one is faced with the question — bread.
I don’t think it wrong, but quite right to reason: I have to eat, live somewhere.
All right, fine, but there’s one thing I ask everyone who says, I don’t have the means — that question is: My friend, what are your demands, how high do you set your standard? Is your character such that you think the same about it as Corot, say, who wasn’t embarrassed, if he could dine out, to buy a loaf from the baker and eat it in the fields? In short, managing to make do and not clinging in the least to life’s routine.
This is precisely what you are au fond, and you would adapt perfectly to a host of things. And even if the question of ‘bread’ hasn’t been resolved, it has been largely cleared up.When I think now about the possibility or impossibility of your coming here, now or later, and start working it out, then I come to the conclusion that together we’d need little more or no more than I alone. And besides, for myself I firmly believe that I would receive stimulation from you in so many things, would find support by talking and discussing things with you, friction of ideas &c., that I would be able to work better.
Now not a day passes, so to speak, but that I make one thing or another. I can’t help but make progress precisely through learning by doing; every drawing one makes, every study one paints is a step. It’s true that it’s like going along a road, one can see the steeple in the distance, but the land undulates, so that when one thinks one is there, there’s another stretch that one didn’t see at first and which is added on. However, one does get nearer. In a while, longer or shorter, I don’t know how long, I’ll reach a point where I start selling. Very well, once I’ve reached that point, it won’t be by halves for I don’t do things by halves. And I’m doing different things at the same time; I’ll have more than one string to my bow, and hence more than one arrow too. So you see what I for my part can throw into the ‘bread’ gulf. Things can change for me, and if I’m still not selling now, with all my hard graft — I repeat, that can change.
We’d have to have, let’s say, 150 francs a month as a minimum, preferably 200.Credit would have to be found for that, not without a security, but that security would be our work.
Let’s say that we’d have to work for another 2 years before we start to earn quickly, and more than the outgoings, so that we can pay off the debt.200 francs a month over 2 years is 24 x 200 francs = 2,400 francs. Let’s call it 1,500 guilders.
The guarantee of this — I’m talking now about you and me working together — is that we’ll already have thrown a lot into it ourselves and have laid a certain foundation. What I can do, I can do, some aspects of drawing, yes and even some aspects of painting are firmly ingrained in me, and not in the least coincidentally but acquired through honest work. I say, yet another guarantee that we aren’t just talking hot air.
Listen Theo, I wouldn’t be able to talk to you if you didn’t have a certain selfconfidence, a certain selfknowledge. I may already have told you before that, au fond, you’re an artist, as time goes by that feeling gets stronger and stronger in me. You’ll say ‘I can’t make anything’ — well of course you can’t now, but just work for a year, wait till the initial things have become a little clearer, and you’ll feel with the greatest serenity that, yes, perhaps not everyone can become a painter through his own hard graft if he doesn’t have a certain turn of mind, but for yourself you would discover that you really do have that turn of mind of reflection, of thinking and analyzing, of feeling the beauty in nature, and that you therefore can be an artist, because you have a desire to work and energy, although they’re now going in another direction, so that nothing can be left for art. But were that same desire to work to be the driving force behind your feeling for beauty, the result would be a true painter.
I’ll just return briefly to the ‘bread’ question. A lot of things that people say can’t be done actually can.Let me just suppose for a moment that you were at a point where you had to change — (you aren’t at that point yet, I’m just supposing it for a moment). Then you could get a position in another firm. Very well, but your more distant future, not the foreground but the background, the horizon, is that bright? It seems to me to be very much in darkness.
Take, similarly, the more distant future if you become a painter; the darkness isn’t there but it’s close by, right in the foreground.
Your own diligence can make you a painter, and other people won’t be able to stop you, but in the art business your own diligence may well not be the article that certain bosses, even new ones, might require, particularly at times when they themselves have got the wind up. With all your own diligence you could end up like Wisselingh, who’s also very diligent and was with G&Cie.I said many things that people say can’t be done actually can be when you come down to it. Why shouldn’t we be able to live with Pa if circumstances meant that we had to? I don’t say for nothing, but in the event that we couldn’t get as much credit as we’d need to last out here in Drenthe. But never mind that and concentrate on the former. We’d have a hard struggle, but the pleasure of being together, living together in this inexpressibly beautiful nature, above all the consciousness of being two craftsmen, old chap, how almighty pleasant it would be. So almighty pleasant that I scarcely dare think of it and yet can’t help myself, although that happiness seems too tremendous to me, for you as well as for me myself, since we aren’t accustomed to having pleasure in our lives, and feel as if that were more for other people — not for us. We’d have to have 1,500 guilders credit. I don’t know where and how it would be possible to come by it. I’ll work out for you what it would buy. We’d make an arrangement for 2 years with the man here, if necessary pay a sum in advance, I think that he’d do it for 1,000 guilders, give us both food for those two years, let us this room I’m living in now; in short, we’d be free of all domestic cares for 2 years and could work in peace and quiet.
Two years is a long time, is all you’ll need in the circumstances to reach a certain level. We’d then have enough left over to lay in a big batch of paint, to set ourselves up properly.
Few things could then upset us or divert us from our plan, or anything else. Then we must and then we can.
We’ll have assured our lives as far as food and shelter are concerned, and can no longer go back but must, must, must go forward and win.
As for you, I would think that you must do other than I did. Mine is in the past, I did what I did up to today, but I wish above all that you would start painting straightaway; I do know what you’d want to make here. I would like you to get down straightaway to landscapes conceived in the spirit of Michel, which I see over and over again, wholly and utterly Michel, that is absolutely what it is here. I’m pretty sure I would be able to help you on the way. Time will tell what you want later but, as I say, I believe I’d be able to help you on the way because I’ve been tackling things in that genre myself in the last few days; I don’t pretend that they’re Michels, but I do dare say that once you’ve gone that far you’ll find your own way from there. For my part, particularly if you were here, I would concentrate more and more on the figure. I’ll just scribble down for you the landscapes I have on the easel.You see here the genre of studies that I’d like you to tackle straightaway. To learn to take a broad view of the landscape in its simple lines and contrast of light and shade. I saw the top one today, was wholly and utterly Michel. That earth was superb in reality. I don’t think my study is mature enough yet, but the effect made an impression on me, and as far as light and shade are concerned it was as I draw it here for you. The bottom one, with a little delicate green wheatfield in the foreground and withered grasses behind the cottage and stacks of peat, is another glimpse of the heath, and the sky very light. You see, what I’m getting at is that you ought to start in that genre, and would do well from the outset, it seems to me, definitely not to draw exclusively.
I mean everything I write to you here in absolute, absolute earnest, I’ve already thought about it for so long.
And wouldn’t have spoken about it if everything had remained well at G&Cie, but now, in the circumstances, it’s only because of my own wretched finances that I don’t say even more decidedly, come here straightaway. Otherwise I wouldn’t say anything more than that. The country is superb, superb, everything calls out to you: paint! So distinctive and so varied. Look, old chap, however things go, aren’t there always financial difficulties everywhere, and where are they less than here, and where or how on earth can a time of struggle lead to a more permanent peace? To a great peace that no one can disturb. For myself, I can say no more than that I’m willing to pledge all my own studies as security for the repayment of what we absolutely need for the first two years. What’s more, we don’t need all the money at once. I think it must be possible to find it. I suggest the minimum because both you and I would arrange things very economically.
Now, as far as I’m concerned, I have a lot of plans, but for myself I do wish that I could spend a hundred guilders to improve my equipment. And I wish that I knew for certain that I would be able to be here for two years, say, come what may. At the moment I have so little security for the future, and I wish that I knew for sure that I wouldn’t have to leave here again in a while. The plan I’m just setting out here can be changed. It seems to me that the fundamental point remains that we must manage things for two years such that we can have peace. Once the two years are up, I’ll have reached a point where I’ll be earning regularly, and I hope I’ll have regular work on such conditions that both you and I could continue in the same way. The plan is simple enough. There would be talk about you, too, but there would be 6 hours’ walking through Michels between the miserable little town of Hoogeveen and you, so you wouldn’t be in the least bit bothered by it, would you? You would be done with all of it, and by the time you’re 30 even the house of Goupil would seem to you to be something out of a dream, and you wouldn’t understand how you were once the boss on the boulevard and were treated civilly, always civilly by M. l’administrateur général. About my coming to Paris, oh, it’s a roundabout way, it seems to me, although if it’s more convenient, very well — but it’s so wholly and entirely bound up with the change you make, and if you change other than becoming a painter, I really fear that it would nevertheless have to come to that in the end, and meanwhile it would have become even more problematic. And would it then not be something for you to refresh yourself and renew yourself wholly and entirely here. Through and through, you know, renew everything, everything, through and through.
I cannot write other than as I write.
You’re a man of business; precisely because that’s what you are I don’t believe you’ll reject all this out of prejudice. After all, there are always financial difficulties and concerns, one can’t escape them anywhere, and fundamentally this is something solid, since it will make you into an artisan. Is that a backward step? No, it isn’t a backward step, and it seems to me that it’s the right way. It would be the act of a man, an act that calls for collier’s faith. Well then, I say, have that collier’s faith. Now, old chap, with a handshake
Ever yours
Vincent
Do write again very soon.Think of Barbizon, that’s a wonderful story. The ones who originally started there when they got there – by no means all of them were outwardly what they really were au fond. The country shaped them, all they knew was: it’s no good in the city, I must go to the country; I imagine they thought, I must learn to work, become something entirely different, yes, the opposite of what I am now. They said, I’m no good now, I’m going to renew myself in nature. At least, that’s how I reason, and although I’d go to Paris if it was absolutely necessary, and also find something to do there — I believe my future here is infinitely, infinitely better. Theo, your case is curious, almighty interesting. Dare — risk — yes, that’s what you must do; have collier’s faith all the same and even so, yes, you must have. But think now quite coolly about your highly curious position. I can’t mince my words now, old chap — don’t hold it against me — I just have to say it as it seems to me. You see a way in the art trade — as far as I can see that makes you something like Wisselingh, to mention a good man. I have great respect for Wisselingh, I like him, what you will, but even now I’d like to say to him, old chap, become a painter even now. You’re much too honest for the presentday art trade, much too clever &c. Now is not the time for it. If, on the contrary, you now persevere even more, seek your own diligence, your own craft even more and say, I won’t hesitate, I’ll risk it, I’ll push off from the shore into the open sea, you’ll get a certain sombre seriousness straightaway — something mightily serious rises up from inside — one looks at the calm shore, very well, it’s very pleasant — but the secret of the deep, the intimate, serious charm of the Ocean, of the artist’s life — with the Something on high above it — has taken hold of you. Very well — you aren’t a Wisselingh any more — you’re something very different. You personally are what the little boat is in a seascape by Jules Dupré. You are smaller but you are bigger — you’re an artist and you can do nothing — sure enough, your act of submission has already changed you — your own impotence or power is irrelevant here. No, the renewal of life makes your whole nature different, your thoughts and insights different, so that you would rather keep silent about it, and work. Your work is ugly — fine — let it be ugly — it will annoy but not discourage you. After scrabbling around for a while, lo and behold a scratch with a je ne sais quoi in it — fine — that’s the portent.
It bobs up and down — now you think: it will happen, then you think: it will never work, but the longer you go on the more you’ll learn to have collier’s faith. It will become more resolute even if there are still moments of bitter melancholy.
Matters of art soon become so serious that what people say about it is like the croaking of ravens. The heath speaks to you, you listen to that still voice of nature, and nature sometimes becomes a little less hostile; ultimately you are her friend. Then your work is beautiful and calm too.But nature demands some kind of submission, and she demands a period of wrestling with her.
I can’t do anything else, if I speak honestly through and through I have to say, Theo, become a painter, find a way to break out and come to Drenthe. People may make a fuss, but you won’t hear much of it, a 6hour walk through Michel landscapes lies between you and the everyday world.
You would awaken, and when you got up you would find yourself by a peasant’s open peat fire with a cradle beside it. You would think better there and feel Correggio’s anche io — I too am a painter. They’d say, you aren’t — you would reply, well, well. Now, if you were here — I mustn’t echo you now, but all things considered say the same as you write to me — if you were here, I would have a comrade, and as a result my work would make better progress. You wouldn’t be without friends. You would soon have a very much more jovial rapport with Rappard than before, Wisselingh would also remain loyal to you — although he’d probably advise you against it. If you were here, I would become productive sooner, I say the same, it’s too big for me on my own, I scarcely dare attempt it on my own. I must have someone to discuss things with. Who knows what a painting is. The thing that attracts me most about Paris, that would be of most use in my progress, is actually being with you, having that friction of ideas with someone who knows what a painting is, who understands the reasonableness of the quest. I think Paris is all right because you’re in Paris, and if consequently I were less alone I would get on faster, even there. Enough about this for the moment. I don’t say that it could be done if we couldn’t afford to pay for our coarse bread and our workplace. But with what I mentioned as the minimum, I for one would very definitely cross off the impossibility.
I have a simple plan for myself; I’ll go out and make whatever strikes me, fill my lungs with heathland air, believe that in a while I’ll be fresher, newer, better myself.
Come on, old chap, come and paint with me on the heath, in the potato field, come and walk with me behind the plough and the shepherd — come and stare into the fire with me — just let the storm that blows across the heath blow through you. Break out. I don’t know the future, how it could be different or not, whether everything will go well for us. But all the same I can’t speak otherwise. Don’t look for it in Paris, don’t look for it in America, it’s all the same, always exactly the same. Change indeed, look for it on the heath.
Regards, write soon, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Nieuw-Amsterdam 31 October 1883
My dear brother —
I cannot count the grains of corn in a sack of corn just by smelling it — I cannot see through the planks in the barn door — but I can sometimes see from the bulges whether it’s a sack of potatoes or corn; or again, even if the barn door is shut, I can tell from the squealing that the pig’s being slaughtered.
And so I can only, will only consider the situation in which you presently find yourself in so far as I have information, albeit vague, to make sense of it, and it isn’t by way of prediction.
But to the point. Consider coolheadedly whether what you’re facing here is what they call fatality on the field of battle. Consider the faces of your friends, false friends, enemies, consider all the — je ne sais quoi’s — consider whether a certain void is forming around you so that you no longer have any handholds, at least are able to tie things up less easily. In short, consider whether fatality is For or decidedly Against.
Tell me this one thing, whether it’s a mistake on my part when I think that I see in some phenomena that you’re dealing here with one of those malignant crises that sometimes tend to crop up in big businesses and big cities? Again, is the aspect of the things — fatal? — do you feel: there’s nothing to be done about this? — or do you feel: redress is possible, there’s no reason to change as yet?For myself, unless you were to write to me yourself: no it isn’t that bad — for myself I see that the affair has a fairly fatal look.
Think about it coolheadedly — I know that you have your calmness, your presence of mind — I know that you’re trying to analyze it, and so I just wanted to know whether you yourself see anything of that which I fear is the case.
Now, old chap, as long as the situation was tolerable — as long as business could be done, well I’ve never dared to come right out and say, get out of it, above all respecting your position, because you didn’t do it for your own pleasure but for the sake of the welfare of us all. But your former duties, which, moreover, you assumed voluntarily, cease to be duties in the event that the state of affairs is such that going on wouldn’t only be fighting a losing battle, but at the same time would inevitably result in your being crushed.
In short, there’s a thus far and no further, and my premonition is that you’re close to it.
Look here — about now or ever — making yourself scarce or disappearing — neither you nor I must ever do that, any more than a suicide. I myself also have my moments of great melancholy, but the thought: disappear, make yourself scarce, must, I repeat, be regarded by me and by you as not befitting us.
Against the risk of going on all the same when one feels it isn’t possible, going on with the desperate feeling that it must end in a disappearance, our conscience argues with a BEWARE!!! If I’m wrong, if my premonitions don’t square with the facts I’m asking you about, if they do or do not have the decidedly fatal aspect — well then I’ll believe your simple statement: ‘I do see a chance of one thing and another working out’ (or similar information) when you write to tell me so. If it’s a fait accompli that here you’re dealing with one of those vicious crises such as Paris, London produce — if that’s so decidedly in the air that you feel that it’s a force that would crush, if by trying to oppose it, one would force the worst to happen — then, abandon the wreck and concentrate your attention and energy not on preserving your present position, but on creating something completely new.
For a long time now it has seemed to me that your duty was too complicated — my view is that your duty should be a simple thing, and the present situation would become more complicated the longer it went on, and more doubtful as to whether or not it really was duty; furthermore that through painting you’ll presently find a very clear duty, a very simple, straight path for your feet. My idea is that continuing as at present would prove to be not only more and more intolerable but moreover less and less profitable. I don’t say this about G&Cie alone, but also about you as a dealer in general. I don’t say that you and I will get rich together, but we’ll be able to maintain our aplomb and equilibrium, even though — this I cannot deny — we’ll have a very hard struggle in the first few years.
Yet, above our enterprise of painting I see not fatality against but for, but you would, I fear, crush not just yourself but me too by wanting to go ahead with what, in my opinion, really goes against the grain. In the first place we wouldn’t be able to support each other and each of us would stand too much alone. In the second place, we’d cause each other to waver by working in diametrically opposed directions so that, despite our friendship, we’d turn our backs on each other now and then.
Well, old chap, for me painting is too logical, too reasonable, too straightforward for me to make a change. Well, you yourself helped me carry through the idea of a craft; I know that basically it’s your own idea too, and so it seems to me that we should go on to work together. My reason, my conscience compels me to tell you what in part are also your own ideas, there’s nothing for it but to undertake a radical renewal. I know that my words will stand out oddly against what other people would say if you consulted them; they’d dismiss it with ‘it will turn out all right’, ‘the desired changes will happen’. I wasn’t to flatter you; very well, I don’t flatter. And as far as inspiring you with courage, yes, I do dare to do that, I dare to inspire you with the very highest, most cheerful courage and serenity, but only for painting, and as to Paris only this — take a good look and see whether you don’t have fate against you on that battlefield. Now, with a hearty handshake
Ever yours
Vincent
—Now then, the countryside here is very singular.
Just suppose you were asked whether you’d want to be a painter if you could suddenly be transported to the era 40 years ago, when things were as they were when Corot &c. were young – also that you wouldn’t be alone but would have a comrade. Why I ask this — because in the countryside here, where people haven’t yet progressed beyond diligence and barge, where everything is much purer than I’ve ever seen anywhere, I feel exactly as though I myself had been transported to the aforementioned time.
You have seen Drenthe — from the train, in haste, long ago. But remotest Drenthe, if you come here, will make a very different impression on you, and even you will feel just as if you were living in the age of Van Goyen, Ruisdael, Michel; in short, in what one scarcely finds now even in presentday Barbizon. It seems to me that this is something important, because nature like this can sometimes awaken in a mind things that would otherwise never have woken. I mean something of that free, cheerful spirit of the past, I mean that nervous wavering can be silenced that way.
Yet I believe that alone in a region like this one could be held up and become dull through lack of company. And for myself, I really long for your collaboration.
I think about you, however, not first and foremost for my sake; I think about you first and foremost for your sake, although these also run together, although they also enhance each other. What I see is that hanging on in Paris, even if you could keep it up for years more, will nonetheless not bring you peace, and will also not be as useful to other people as painting. I see that Paris will put you in what I would call a false position in regard to your own duty. I’ll leave being useful to others out of it, I don’t know whether this would truly remain sound in the long term because you focus other, stupider minds on Paris, a thought that upsets those very people, because they’d be intoxicated by it.
Make no mistake: everything had its reason until now, but in my view the signs of the times point to a change of direction now, in a very different and much more decisive way than ever happened before.
This is not about weakening or giving up; on the contrary it’s about striking calamity to the heart, planting in better soil the same energetic principle of wanting to rise.
The calamity leaves us our same courage and serious will.
Let the world spitefully say what it wouldn’t refrain from saying, that can leave you and me cold. And on the contrary, for ourselves, we’re counting on a difficult life which has a goal other than earning as much money as we might perhaps do.
Our goal, first and foremost, is to reform ourselves through craft and contact with nature, believing that it’s our duty first and foremost, precisely so that we can remain straight with other people, and consistent.
Our goal is ‘walking with God’ — as against living amid the affairs of the big cities.
We’ll do no one any harm by it. Our belief is that, yes – although, to some people, it seems hypocritical to say this — our belief, I say, is that God helps those who help themselves in so far as they concentrate their endeavours and attention on that and roll up their sleeves to that end. The longer I think about it the more I see that Millet believes in a something on High.
He speaks of it very differently from Pa, for instance — for he leaves it more vague, yet I see more in Millet’s vagueness than in Pa. And I see the same as in Millet in Rembrandt, in Corot, in Breton, in Brion, in short in the work of several people, although I don’t hear them hold forth about it.
The end of things doesn’t have to be an ability to explain but to base oneself on it effectively.
In short, Theo, a certain indeterminate but nonetheless fixed feeling in me that it’s the first duty to direct the heart upwards leads me, as brother and as friend to a brother and a friend, to ask you to consider directing yourself towards a life founded on simpler principles.
Principles that I can’t define other than: sensing that duty is unlikely to bring someone to the Paris business, but rather points to retiring from it.
Can you share this sense to some extent? Think about it, reflect on it; if you need time for it, put yourself to the test and take your time. Any hesitation along the lines of ‘I’m not an artist’, though, only seems justified to me in so far as it doesn’t stand in the way of doing what you have to do and I have to do to become one. Neither we ourselves nor other people can fully explain the extent to which we are not one, the extent to which we are. Only the How to do it system involves saying I’ll do my best to do it, asking no such questions; in my view the How not to do it system is only that which says ‘I know in advance that I can’t do it anyway’. One isn’t sure of one’s case all at once, one knows nothing in advance other than very vaguely, but nevertheless something called conscience is a sort of compass for man to distinguish between this direction and that — between north and south, between right and left — broadly. Consequently, in spite of chance currents, in spite of deceptively friendly-looking coasts, to say, yes, but fundamentally this isn’t the right direction. And there you have it, earning money in Paris, even for other people, particularly given your recent experiences, seems to me to be a deceptive fata Morgana, a coast that would recede further and further away the more you continued to try to land there, meanwhile carrying you further and further away from your proper direction.
I respect all your hesitations and doubt, I respect your weighing up the pros and cons, I don’t seek to force you to decide at once. But I just point out to you very, very seriously and decidedly that it seems to me to be a fact that you’re standing at a fork in the road and must reflect before you set out, before you just persevere with Paris. The signs of the times, not I, tell you: Hold on! what do you want? If you want Paris, very well — if you can make up your mind to that, so be it — then I wouldn’t interfere in it, but it won’t be that easy, and I’m afraid you could run up against fatality. I strongly doubt whether you’ll preserve your peace as a result.
I see everything against painting except fatality, I see everything for Paris except fatality.
Fatality in which I see with an inexpressible feeling God, Who is ‘the white Ray’ and has the last word: what isn’t good through and through isn’t good and doesn’t endure; and against whom even the black ray is powerless.
What you’re facing is something terrible, something awful — things are so inexpressible that I have no words for them, that were I not your brother and your friend, who would regard keeping silent as ungrateful and hardly humane, I would say nothing. Well, seeing as you say, in the first place inspire me with courage, in the second place don’t flatter me, I say: well then, I see this and that in it, here on the silent heath where I feel God high above you and me. With a hearty handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Nieuw-Amsterdam 2 November 1883
Dear brother,
Just wanted to tell you about a trip to Zweeloo, the village where Liebermann stayed for a long time and made studies for his painting of the washerwomen at the last Salon.
Where Ter Meulen and Jules Bakhuyzen also spent some time.
Imagine a trip across the heath at 3 o’clock in the morning in an open cart (I went with the man where I lodge, who had to go to the market in Assen). Along a road, or ‘diek’ as they say here, which they’d put mud on to raise it instead of sand. It was much nicer even than the barge. When it was only just starting to get a little lighter and the cocks were crowing everywhere by the huts scattered over the heath, the few cottages we passed — surrounded by slender poplars whose yellow leaves one could hear falling — an old squat tower in a little churchyard with earth bank and beech hedge, the flat landscapes of heath or wheatfields, everything, everything became just exactly like the most beautiful Corots. A silence, a mystery, a peace as only he has painted.
It was still very dark, though, when we got to Zweeloo at 6 o’clock in the morning — I saw the real Corots even earlier in the morning. The ride into the village was really so beautiful. Huge mossy roofs on houses, barns, sheepfolds, sheds. The dwellings here are very wide, among oak trees of a superb bronze. Tones of golden green in the moss, of reddish or bluish or yellowish dark lilac greys in the soil, tones of inexpressible purity in the green of the little wheatfields. Tones of black in the wet trunks, standing out against golden showers of whirling, swirling autumn leaves, which still hang in loose tufts, as if they were blown there, loosely and with the sky shining through them, on poplars, birches, limes, apple trees. The sky unbroken, clear, illuminating, not white but a lilac that cannot be deciphered, white in which one sees swirling red, blue, yellow, which reflects everything and one feels above one everywhere, which is vaporous and unites with the thin mist below. Brings everything together in a spectrum of delicate greys. I didn’t find a single painter in Zweeloo, though, and the people said they never come there in the winter. It’s precisely in the winter that I hope to be there. Since there were no painters, I decided to walk back and do some drawing on the way instead of waiting for my landlord’s return.So I started to make a sketch of the very apple orchard where Liebermann made his large painting. And then back along the road we had driven down early on. At the moment that area around Zweeloo is entirely given over to young wheat — vast, sometimes, that most tender of tender greens that I know. With above it a sky of a delicate lilac white that gives an effect — I don’t think it can be painted, but for me it’s the basic tone that one must know in order to know what the basis of other effects is.
A black earth, flat — infinite — a clear sky of delicate lilac white. That earth brings forth that young wheat — it’s as if that wheat is a growth of mould. That’s what the good, fertile fields of Drenthe are, au fond — everything in a vaporous atmosphere. Think of the Last day of creation by Brion — well, yesterday I felt that I understood the meaning of that painting.
The poor soil of Drenthe is the same, only the black earth is even blacker — like soot — not a lilac black like the furrows, and melancholically overgrown with eternally rotting heather and peat. I see that everywhere — the chance effects on that infinite background: in the peat bogs the sod huts, in the fertile areas, really primitive hulks of farmhouses and sheepfolds with low, very low walls, and huge mossy roofs. Oaks around them. When one travels for hours and hours through the region, one feels as if there’s actually nothing but that infinite earth, that mould of wheat or heather, that infinite sky. Horses, people seem as small as fleas then. One feels nothing any more, however big it may be in itself, one only knows that there is land and sky. However, in one’s capacity as a tiny speck watching other tiny specks — leaving aside the infinite — one discovers that every tiny speck is a Millet. I passed a little old church, just exactly, just exactly the church at Gréville in Millet’s little painting in the Luxembourg; but here, instead of the little peasant with the spade in that painting, a shepherd with a flock of sheep came along the hedge. One didn’t see through to the sea in the background but only to the sea of young wheat, the sea of furrows instead of that of the waves. The effect produced: the same. I saw ploughmen, very busy now, a sandcart, shepherds, road workers, dungcarts. In a little inn along the way drew a little old woman at the spinning wheel, little dark silhouette — like something out of a fairy tale — little dark silhouette against a bright window through which one saw the bright sky and a path through the delicate green and a few geese cropping the grass.
And then, when dusk fell — imagine the silence, the peace of that moment! Imagine, right then, an avenue of tall poplars with the autumn leaves, imagine a broad muddy road, all black mud with the endless heath on the right, the endless heath on the left, a few black, triangular silhouettes of sod huts, with the red glow of the fire shining through the tiny windows, with a few pools of dirty, yellowish water that reflect the sky, where bogwood trunks lie rotting. Imagine this muddy mess in the evening twilight with a whitish sky above, so everything black on white. And in this muddy mess a rough figure — the shepherd — a throng of oval masses, half wool, half mud, that bump into one another, jostle one another — the flock. You see it coming — you stand in the midst of it — you turn round and follow them.With difficulty and reluctantly they progress along the muddy road. Still, there’s the farm in the distance — a few mossy roofs and piles of straw and peat between the poplars. Again the sheepfold is like a triangle in silhouette. Dark.
The door stands wide open like the entrance to a dark cave. The light from the sky behind shines through the cracks in the boards at the back. The whole caravan of masses of wool and mud disappears into this cave — the shepherd and a woman with a lantern shut the doors behind them.
That return of the flock in the dusk was the finale of the symphony that I heard yesterday. That day passed like a dream, I had been so immersed in that heartrending music all day that I had literally forgotten even to eat and drink — I took a slice of coarse peasant bread and a cup of coffee at the little inn where I drew the spinning wheel. The day was over, and from dawn to dusk, or rather from one night to the other night, I had forgotten myself in that symphony. I came home and, sitting by the fire, it occurred to me that I was hungry, and I found I was terribly hungry. But that’s how it is here. One feels exactly as if one had been at an exhibition of one hundred masterpieces, for example. What does one get out of a day like that? Just a few scratches. And yet one gets something else out of it, too — a calm passion for work.
Above all, do write to me soon. It’s Friday today but your letter isn’t here yet; I’m looking forward to it eagerly. It takes time to get it changed, since it has to go back to Hoogeveen again and then back here again. We don’t know how it will work out, but apart from that I would now say — the simplest thing perhaps would be to send money once a month. In any event write again soon. With a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Nieuw-Amsterdam 11 November 1883
Theo,
You once wrote to me about a certain difference in our respective physiognomies. Very well. And your conclusion was that I would be more of a thinker. What shall I say about that? I am indeed aware of a mode of thinking within me, but nevertheless I don’t feel that my thinking is really organized within me. I feel that I’m a little different from being a real thinker. When I think about you I see action, very characteristic, so be it, but also so decidedly not in isolation, and on the contrary accompanied by so much feeling and indeed thinking too, that my conclusion is that there’s more similarity than difference between you and me. I don’t say there’s no difference — but having got to know you better of late it seems to me that the difference is less than I thought for a while in years past.
When I look at our temperament and type of physiognomy, I find rapports and very pronounced similarities between, for example, the Puritans and ourselves. I.e. the folk from around Cromwell’s time, a small band of men and women who sailed out to America in the Mayflower, away from an old world, and settled there, determined to live in simplicity. Times change — they cut down forests — we’d turn to painting. I know that the initiative taken by a small band, known to history as the Pilgrim Fathers, however small in itself, had great consequences. And for ourselves I’d think in the first place that we shouldn’t really philosophize about great consequences, should seek nothing but a path for ourselves so that we can travel through life as straight as possible. Premeditating consequences is not our way, neither yours nor mine. When I speak of the Pilgrim Fathers it’s for reasons of physiognomy, to point out to you that certain redheaded folk with square foreheads aren’t thinkers alone nor men of action alone, but usually have both elements combined. I recognize a figure of one of those Puritans in Boughton’s paintings, and if I didn’t know better I would believe that you had posed for it. The physiognomy above all, exact, exact — a little silhouette on a rock against a background of sea and mist — if need be I can also show you myself, i.e. that variation of the same physiognomy, but my profile is less characteristic. Pa sometimes mulled over the story of Jacob and Esau with regard to you and me — not entirely mistakenly — although happily there’s less enmity, to mention just one difference, and in the Bible itself there are examples aplenty of better relations between brothers than existed between the aforementioned venerable patriarchs.
I sometimes thought myself about being a thinker, but I saw more and more that I wasn’t cut out for it, and because now, unfortunately, the prejudice that someone who has a need to think things through is not practical and only belongs among the dreamers, because this prejudice is very respected in society, I usually got into trouble precisely by not keeping things to myself enough.
But since then, the very history of the Puritans and the history of Cromwell, as Carlyle conceived it, for instance, made me see how much thinking and acting don’t rule one another out, and the sharp distinctions between thinking and acting that it’s customary to assume nowadays, as if one rules out the other, don’t actually exist.
As to doubting oneself, whether one is an artist or not — that entire question is too much of an abstraction. I say that I have nothing against thinking about it, though, provided I may also draw and paint. And — my plan for my life is to make paintings and drawings, as many and as well as I can — then, when my life is over, I hope to depart in no other way than looking back with love and wistfulness and thinking, oh paintings that I would have made! But this doesn’t, if you please, rule out making what is possible. Do you have anything against this, either for me or for you? I wish that painting became such a fixed idea with you that the question, am I an artist or am I not an artist, was somewhat consigned to the realm of abstractions, and that more practical questions concerning putting a figure or a landscape together would come to the fore, being more enjoyable.
Theo, I declare to you that I would rather think about how arms, legs, head attach to a torso than whether or not I myself am more of an artist or less. I think that you would rather think about a sky with grey clouds and their shining edges over a muddy piece of land than ponder on the question of yourself.Well, I do know it though, sometimes the mind is full of it, it can’t be helped. Look here, brother, even if our mind is sometimes occupied by the question is there a God or does He not exist, this is no reason for us deliberately to commit a godless act, is it? Likewise the question, artistically, am I an artist or not? shouldn’t lead us not to draw or not to paint. Many things can’t be defined, and in my view wasting too much time on them is wrong. Now, if the work doesn’t go well or one runs up against a lack of knowledge, one becomes bogged down in such thoughts and insoluble questions. And feeling troubled by this, the best thing to do is to overcome the cause of the distraction by getting a fresh view of the practical side of the work. Now for my part, seeing both in you and in me something of that puritanical character that unites thinking and doing so much and is so far from wanting to be only a thinker or only a machine, that has a need both for principles of simplicity and for motivated work at the same time, I do not admit a separation or divergence, much less that you and I should be opposites.
In my view it would be an error of judgement if you were to continue in business in Paris.
So the conclusion, two brothers, painters. Whether it’s in your nature? You could occupy yourself struggling hard and fruitlessly against nature precisely by doubting whether you can, and thus hamper your own liberation. Sadly, I know that all too well in my own case. After all — even despite our being against ourselves, I’m starting to realize more and more, man proposes, God disposes. There’s an infinitely powerful force over our doing right and our doing wrong. Likewise your circumstances — be sensible — perhaps even so sensible that you become a painter for good and all. It would basically reassure me so much if I saw you pick up the brush that I’d reckon the disaster and shipwreck of the moment as being of less importance than the future certainty of heading in a direction you won’t regret.
But I do wish you would find immediate tranquillity for your heart in the matter of women. If that were possible, you would be even stronger, since being loved gives one certain wings, certain surprising courage and energy. Then one is more a whole person than otherwise. And the sooner one is that the better.
In any case, I reckon it among the possibilities that you yourself will come to realize that your path is painting, and then, my dear brother, Puritan without knowing it, it could well be that your time in Paris is coming to an end, an old world closing itself off from you in a less than generous manner — however a new world opening up to you — appearing inhospitable and rough, together with all that, a certain hope and high courage in the heart, one feels the something on High above the barren shore, and so one turns one’s hand to the plough — asking no questions.
Well, think about it, more or less, for a long or short while. But it wouldn’t help if you were to say, Vincent, be quiet about it, for I’d reply, Theo, perhaps it won’t be quiet in yourself.
It is more difficult to contain
Than the source of great rivers.
Theo, I’ve heard from the poor woman a few times since. She seems to be carrying on working, doing washing for people, serving as a temporary help, in short doing her best. Writes almost indecipherably and incoherently. Seems to regret some things from the past. Children healthy and well. My pity and affection for her are certainly not dead, and I do hope that we’ll retain a bond of affection, although I don’t believe that living together again would be desirable or possible. Pity may not be love, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it can go deep.
Well brother, to change the subject, it’s snowing here today in the form of colossal hailstones. I say it’s snowing because of the effect. I’m keeping silent about the beauty of it here, because I would have TOO MUCH to tell you about it. As to work, I’m almost overbrimming because of the idea that you might start on it, which has a surprising hold on me. I wish it could be decided, precisely so that we could make definite plans for working together. Drenthe is so beautiful, it absorbs and fulfils me so utterly that, if I couldn’t stay here forever I would rather not have seen it at all. It’s inexpressibly beautiful. With a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Nieuw-Amsterdam 1 December 1883
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter and the enclosure. Your letter explains your silence to me.
You thought that ‘feeling that I was flush’, I was giving you an ‘ultimatum’ — in the way — similar — that the nihilists, say, might send them to the Tsar. Well, fortunately both for you and for me, there’s no question here of anything of the kind or similar.
However, I do understand your interpretation now that I know what it is, but I had to know. For a start I meant something different — it was simply: ‘I wouldn’t want to flourish if you had to wither in consequence; I wouldn’t want to develop the artistic in me if you had to suppress the artistic in you for my sake. I wouldn’t approve if you were to suppress the artistic in you for anyone’s sake, even for the sake of father, mother, sister, brother or wife’. There you have my meaning — perhaps expressed nervously and in the wrong words — most decidedly there was no more nor anything else behind it than that. You understand it well enough now, don’t you?
As to what I wrote in my last letter, it arose out of your silence, an absolute mystery to me, absolutely inexplicable to me until I knew what the matter was. I already had an answer as far as Marie is concerned before I ever received your letter, simply because I remembered what you wrote to me in the past about your meeting with her and thought, that has to be all right, that can’t be what’s wrong. So even my letter on the subject was meant like this: brother, you seem to abandon me without warning; if you did this on purpose it would be treachery in my view, but I CAN not think that, so ‘explain it to me’ — no more nor less than this was behind that, and as to what I said about Lady Macbeth, you’ve interpreted it correctly, as a hint in general that was not even a question but only to make you feel: either it has to be like this or it is a misunderstanding.
Be aware of this, though, brother, that I’m absolutely cut off from the outside world — except for you — so that for me it was enough to make me crazy when your letter didn’t come at a moment when, far from being ‘flush’, I was in dire straits — although I didn’t mention that — because I reckon that I’m somewhat above the cares that peck at my vitals, regarding this torture as understandable, so be it, although not as deserved. As to ‘I wouldn’t want to flourish if someone else had to wither in consequence’, I hope that I would say this — which lay in what you conceived to be an ultimatum —whether I was ‘flush’ OR in ‘agony’.
It seems to me that the conclusion that I spoke as if I was ‘flush’ was rather shallow or hasty on your part — although it must have been in the way I expressed it, for it was certainly not what I felt. I just want to tell you that since I’ve been here I’ve had to see to it that my equipment was organized, that I had paint, that I went to see this and that, that I paid for my lodgings, that I sent the woman something, that I paid off some debts. All this keeping me very hard up all the time — to put it mildly. Add to this that singular torture... loneliness, and you really will no longer be able to think that there’s any possibility of my feeling ‘flush’ for the time being — or that I felt it then.
I say loneliness and not even in peace — but that loneliness which a painter in an isolated region encounters when every Tom, Dick and Harry takes him to be a madman — a murderer — a vagabond &c. &c. Granted it may be a petty vexation, but a vexation it is. Being a stranger, doubly strange and unpleasant — however stimulating and beautiful the countryside may be.
But I see in this only a bad time that one has to get through. Something, though, which one can do very little about oneself — that is, about the attitude of the people whom one would so much like to have as models and can’t get.
With hindsight, I see clearly enough how you and I came to misunderstand each other. There was a moment when you were very melancholy, and you wrote me the following: the gentlemen are making it almost impossible for me, and I actually believe that they would rather dismiss me than that I should resign (the underlined precisely my case at the time). And you said, ‘sometimes I think I should just disappear’ — and you said — there were things about the idea of painting to which you were at least not averse.Very well — then I candidly told you all my thoughts about the possibility of your becoming a painter, I said you can do it provided you want to, and I believe in you as an artist, from the moment you pick up a brush, even if no one else does.
What I said about that, I’ll say to you in the future should a misfortune — a calamity — strike you — what is now stopping you from ‘a complete renewal’ is indeed a misfortune. If a calamity were to strike you, I believe that you as a person would become a greater person as a result, with — with — with — an eternally painful wound at the same time.
I would expect of you that it would raise you up, not ‘drag you down’, that wound which can only be caused by a calamity. But your later letters differ so much in tone and so much in content that I now say: if your rigged ship is sound, very well, then stay on it.
However I’ll always maintain what I said should a calamity put you in a different position in relation to society. Were that ever to happen, I say in that regard: let it be a sign for you to make a complete change of profession, rather than starting all over again doing the same thing.
But as long as you have your rigged ship, I don’t say that I advise you to put to sea in a fishingboat. Although I wouldn’t wish for G&Cie’s rigged ship back, as far as I personally am concerned. At the time I thought, for God’s sake, calamity — do your worst!
At first I didn’t know what to think about the change in the tone of your letters. Now, looking back, I think as regards your somewhat melancholy but for me so touching letter, written at a time when G&Cie were being terribly nasty to you (a moment COMPARABLE to what I experienced myself) — now in hindsight I think, I say, that you took a different view of that moment when I said to the G&Cie gentlemen ‘if you force me to go, I won’t refuse to go’, and that things really have calmed down, perhaps for good — and with your consent — so be it — I won’t object. Well, I do not take it amiss of you — because I believe that in such a case certain conditions that really are acceptable can be laid down — and I think that you would not have accepted them were there to have been anything dishonest in accepting them. But why I said something like, ‘if you stay then I’ll refuse your financial support,’ was because you had said ‘let me stay where I am because I have to take care of Pa, Ma, Wil and Marie’, and (although you didn’t mention me) me as well. Tact on your part not to mention me, to which I had to respond with tact on my part — I don’t want that — you sacrificing yourself in so far as you would stay there against your will for the sake of others. There you have what you interpreted as giving you an ultimatum.
If you stay there because ‘you have a renewed pleasure in it’ — it’s all to the good as far as I’m concerned, and I congratulate you on your newly rigged ship, although for myself I have no desire to go back. What you write about Serret interests me greatly. A man like that who eventually produces something heartrending as blossom from a hard and difficult life is a phenomenon like the blackthorn, or better yet a gnarled old apple tree which suddenly bears blossoms that are among the tenderest and most ‘pure’ things under the sun.
When a rough man blossoms — it’s indeed a beautiful sight — but HE has had to endure an awful lot of cold winters before then — more than even the later sympathizers know.
The artist’s life and WHAT an artist is, that’s very curious — how deep is it — infinitely deep.
Because of your silence, inexplicable to me, and because I also associated it with the possible resumption of difficulties with the gentlemen, because for my part I was intolerably hardpressed as a result of the mistrust of the people in the lodgings, I dropped Pa a line that, not having heard from you, I didn’t know what to think and asked Pa for a loan. I added that I was uneasy both about you and about myself, particularly when I thought about the future, and I wished that both you and I had become painters when we were boys, and actually saw no reason why we two brothers shouldn’t be painters even now if G&Cie were not to remain what it once was to you. Should Pa ever write to you about it, you know the reason for it, but I’ll write to Pa myself (I haven’t had a reply from Pa yet) that your last letter has made it plain to me that for the time being G&Cie remains G&Cie. I add this to you, not to Pa: since G&Cie exercises an influence on our family, strangely compounded of good and evil; good, certainly, in any event because it prevents much stagnation (evil not being in question for the moment).
That my heart perhaps has and feels bitterness of its own is something that in my view you both understand and consequently forgive me out of yourself.
Ultimatum — YOU speak of it — NOT I (at least my intention was something very different) — if you want to interpret it that way — then it’s all right with me, but I shall not be the first — nor have I been — for the moment your interpretation runs very far ahead of my intention. I would perhaps not contradict you any more than I did G&Cie in the past, if you wanted to carry it through. Then I would say again, you said ultimatum first, NOT I. If you want to interpret it thus, then I don’t oppose this interpretation. With a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Brother — after your last letter all my worst vague anxieties have been quieted — I mean that I have complete confidence in you as a man and in Marie.
But I simply think that you’ll run into certain financial difficulties because of the course of events.
I advise you, if you can economize on something, then economize, that’s to say if you can put something by, then put something by.
I myself have nothing at the moment — but I’ll see if I can arouse some interest in certain plans of mine — or if no one wants to come back to Drenthe with me later on, then at least see if I can’t find some credit for myself so that I can settle there. I’m not flush, I have nothing.
I’ve seen how shaky your finances have been for a long time — you had too much on your shoulders — you think now that the future will put it right — I think you’ll find the future hostile in Paris. Again, if I’m wrong you can all laugh at me and I’ll laugh about it myself. If it’s just my nerves deluding me, well then, it’s my nerves — but I fear you all too effectively have a fatality against you.I’ll be able to write to you more calmly from home. There’s certainly a working environment for me in Drenthe, but preferably I’ll have to be able to look at things rather differently from the outset and have a little more certainty in my finances. I have to watch the cents — on a small scale; at present, for instance, obviously I concede that this is the first time you have definitely skipped — the difference of some 25 guilders is something that may stump me again for 6 weeks perhaps. I can readily believe that you can’t imagine this — you cannot know what sort of difficulties over and over again, each very small in itself, make something possible or impossible. Don’t take it amiss of me, but believe me that I have to try to take some steps in order to accomplish what I want. Last week, for instance, I got a note from my former landlord, who gave me the impression that he could seize my things that I left behind (including all my studies, prints, books — that I could hardly do without) if I didn’t send him 10 guilders that I’ve promised him as payment for the use of an attic room for my belongings, and some rent that it was doubtful he was entitled to claim, but I agreed on condition of an arrangement to store my things. I have to pay for other things by the New Year, I still have to pay Rappard, and I economized on everything I could. In short, it’s not the same as feeling flush. Things can’t remain as they are at present. I have to find a way out. I don’t say that you’re to blame, of course, but even last year I couldn’t have economized more than I did. And the harder I work, the more hardpressed I become. We’re now at a point where I say: at present I cannot go on.
Nuenen 6 December 1883
My dear Theo,
You’ll have been rather surprised that I dropped you a line that I would go home sometime, and am now writing to you from here.
But first I must thank you for your letter of 1 December, which I’ve just received here in Nuenen.
The last 3 weeks I was actually rather unwell — was troubled by various things that arose out of having caught a cold, and nerves as well.
One must try to break something like that, and I felt that I would get worse if I didn’t have a change.Well, I decided to go home for various reasons — something I was actually very loath to do.
My journey began with a walk of more than 6 hours — mostly across the heath — to Hoogeveen. On a stormy afternoon with rain, with snow. This walk cheered me up no end, or rather my feelings were so in sympathy with nature that it calmed me down more than anything else.
I thought that being at home again might give me a more accurate insight into the question of what I should do.
Drenthe is superb, but staying there depends on many things — depends on whether one has the money for it, depends on whether one can endure the loneliness. Pa would consider that question settled, I believe, with a conclusion that one would reach in a conversation, but for my part I’m in no hurry to make a decision about it, and I’ll have to see what I think about it, for instance, when I’ve been here for a week or so.
However, for the time being I’m in the dark as to what I should do in this respect. I see more and more that when one thinks or speaks about something, one by no means arrives at a satisfactory conclusion. At one moment it seems more possible than at another. And for my part I don’t let these things go at once but keep thinking about them, sometimes long after other people consider that they’re already decided.
But, old chap, it’s so difficult for me, because for me it becomes so much a matter of conscience that I would be too much of a burden to you — perhaps abuse your friendship if I accept money for an enterprise that may not pay.
You write again about Moniteur Universel. Do you think it too gloomy of me when I tell you that I regard it as possible that in a relatively few years’ time a number of large art businesses — for example Moniteur Universel — in a word others that have also expanded enormously — will decline — fall into decline as quickly as they came up?
In a relatively short space of time, everything that is the art trade developed in rapport with art itself. But it became all too much a sort of bankers’ speculation and it still is — I do not say entirely — — I simply say much too much. Why, in so far as it’s a bubble company, shouldn’t it go the same way as, for instance, the tulip trade? You’ll point out to me that a painting isn’t a tulip. Of course there’s a universe of difference, and naturally I, who love paintings and tulips not at all, am very well aware of this. But I contend that many rich people who buy the expensive paintings for one reason or another don’t do it for the artistic value that they see in them — the difference between tulip and painting that you and I see isn’t visible to them — they, the speculators and blasé sots and a lot of others, would buy tulips now too, just as in the past, provided there was a certain cachet to it.
True, there are real, sterling art lovers. But it’s perhaps only 1/10th of the total of the business that’s done, perhaps it’s even a much smaller proportion — of which it can be said: this or that transaction was genuinely out of belief in art.
I could expand on this forever of course, but without going on about it any more I believe that you agree with me that there’s a great deal in the art trade that could prove to be hot air in the future. Things that are very highly priced now can go down. If you ask me, can Millet and Corot go down, I say, yes, IN PRICE.
Anyway, from an artistic point of view, Millet is Millet, Corot Corot, fixed — as the sun itself, in my view.
Five years ago I thought differently about it, in so far as I thought that Millet, say, would remain fixed, EVEN in price, but since then — precisely because I see Millet is usually just as much utterly misunderstood now that he’s less concealed and is more in evidence in reproductions, for instance, as when he was despised — I fear he’ll remain somewhat outside public taste and — it isn’t certain that those who understand him best will have to pay as much money for him later as they do now. Rembrandt fell too — in price — in the periwig age. I just want to ask you frankly, do you believe that the prices that are still being paid now will stay? I tell you frankly, I do not believe it.
Yet at the same time, to me Millet is Millet, Rembrandt Rembrandt, Israëls Israëls &c., whether it costs ten cents or a hundred thousand to buy one of his paintings.
Consequently I don’t think about the art trade much.
Only when my thoughts turn to you and I come to ask you whether you can take pleasure in it, or whether, especially later, you won’t see all too much that goes against the grain with you to stay in it.
You’ll say, one can get used to anything, or rather you’ll say, one must endure until the heart breaks in us. So be it, I agree with you in that — but if the heart does break in us, we’re still free to act in one way or another. And as regards you or me, we are what we are, and because we’re enthusiastic about art, we would each in our own way also remain constant in our opinion about Millet, say, even if the most absurd things were to happen.
But I ask: in the event of a gradual cooling off in the expenditure of tremendous sums for paintings, how are the huge firms which have colossal sums in outgoings etc. every year, which cut into their profits, going to succeed? They’ll soon find themselves with enormous deficits. Trees like this don’t fall at the first blow, but they can rot away inside and ultimately fall because of the wind alone, without a single blow from an axe. When? I have absolutely no idea of the exact date. If you will, just write to me about this question in general, for example what you think of the staying power — in the long run — of an establishment such as you say Moniteur Universel is — or Petit — or Arnold & Tripp. I tell you frankly, I don’t see that it can keep going in the long run. I believe something like this has to collapse.
In my view, it can’t be very pleasant to be on hand for this — I’d rather sit by a peat fire, painting. The art trade, one feels a sort of ‘what do I care’ about it, except — except — except — that I personally find it very unpleasant if I’m really very short of money.
You’ve always remained calm in Paris, very simple and certainly cooler than a man like Tripp, say.
You’re out to see things as they are, you — like me — can’t help analyzing. And yet, even you don’t in the first place bring what you know of a situation to bear in order to profit from that situation all the same.
I mean, it isn’t in your nature to fish in troubled waters.
But I ask you frankly, what’s the position? Do you really believe that the people at Moniteur Universel will ask something different of employees from what G&Cie asks?
Moniteur, G&Cie, Tripp, Petit, to me they’re all similar firms. I believe in my own case that, having been thrown out by one, I would be thrown out by them all. If old Goupil says, you’re no good to us, I believe other bosses would also think more or less the same.
Well, as to you, I believe that it would be the same for you with another house as it is with G&Cie. In my opinion, setting up for oneself at a time when a cooling off and decline could be foreseen is something that one cannot do with any enthusiasm.
So do you believe in these times, do you believe that the trade will stay at this level? If you believed this, I would respect your opinion and keep quiet, but I don’t know whether you know that I don’t really believe that the very large firms can keep going. Do write to me about it, then it will be so much easier for me to talk about it. I feel rather embarrassed with you at the moment, and I want you to know my perhaps nervous opinion that firstly I don’t believe that these highly inflated firms can keep going and, secondly, even should they prove to keep going, I wouldn’t enjoy being involved in them, directly or indirectly.
Another thing is, if I can provide for myself by doing this or that here or there, I won’t look such a gift horse in the mouth. If it proves to be my duty to do this or that, very well, I won’t refuse the work, not even unpleasant work.
I thought of you brother, on my long trudge across the heath on that stormy evening. I thought of a passage, I don’t know which book it’s from, two eyes awake, brightened by genuine tears — I thought, I am disillusioned, that is — I thought — I have believed in many things that I now know are in a sorry state at bottom — I thought, these eyes of mine, here on this gloomy evening, awake here in the solitude, if there have been tears in them from time to time, why should they not have been wrung from me by such sorrow that it disenchants — yes — and banishes illusions — but at the same time — awakens one? I thought, is it POSSIBLE that Theo is easy about many things that I’m uneasy about.
Could it be just melancholy, that I can’t take the old pleasure in this or in that?
In short, I thought, can I be mistaking gold for gilding? Am I mistaking something that’s in full growth for something withering? I couldn’t come up with an answer for myself. Can you? Do you know for sure that there isn’t already faradvanced, unrelenting decline on all sides?
Give me courage if you yourself have courage — but I say to you in my turn ‘don’t flatter me’. I tell you that, as far as I’m concerned, even if I become clever (which I am not noticeably as yet), I believe — firmly believe — that I’ll always be very poor — it will exceed my expectations if I manage to keep out of debt.
The coming men in Holland after those mastodons Mesdag, Israëls, Mauve, Blommers, Maris &c. will, under no circumstances, still be able to earn what was earned in those days, that is the last 20 years, say. And especially not if they’re clever. One of the drawbacks of a period like the one we’re entering is that a time when prices are inflated so high is, as it were, taking a lien on the future, which makes the future dark for posterity. So, old chap, perhaps Arnold & Tripp have never treated you personally anything other than very courteously or, in short, with due form. That doesn’t alter the fact that you, who are just as clever as Uncle Cent, for instance, won’t be able to do what Uncle Cent did. Why not? Because there are too many Arnold & Tripps in the world. Insatiable moneygrubbers, that’s to say, compared with whom you are a sheep.
Please don’t take this as an insult, brother, that I make this comparison. It’s better to be a sheep than a wolf, it’s better to be the one who is killed than the one who kills — namely better to be Abel than Cain. And — and — I myself am not a wolf either, I hope, or rather I know.
Suppose that both you and I are ‘sheep’ in society, not in our imaginations but in truth. Very well — given fairly hungry and vicious wolves — it wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility that we’d be gobbled up. Well, even then, although I don’t think this would be exactly pleasant, in short it’s surely still better after all to be ruined than to ruin someone else. I mean, it’s no reason to lose one’s serenity if one should realize that one might have to lead a life of poverty while one had the skills, the talents, the aptitude with which others grow rich. I’m not indifferent to money, but I don’t envy the wolves. Now, with a hearty handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
If you will, answer me some of these things while I’m here at home; I’m here to get some rest and resolution.
Nuenen 8 December 1883
My dear Theo,
It’s still early; I wanted to add a word or two to my letter of yesterday in order to try to make a few things clearer to you. But I ask you to regard what I tell you in this letter as something I would keep silent about if I didn’t think I could rely on your discretion and intelligence.
I haven’t said a word to Pa and Ma about the real question of two years ago. I have, though, spoken about a side issue at that time.
For their part, Pa and Ma don’t even mention her name. Very well — they don’t have to speak to me about it, nor I to them. I did touch on it indirectly, though; I told Pa that in my view it was a great mistake that at a certain point (two years ago) I was forced to leave the house. I said that not only had considerable financial harm been the consequence, but also that, driven to the limit, I had been forced to go to extremes much more, to much greater intransigence than I would have displayed of my own free will alone. I pointed to the example of the Rappard family in contrast to the Van Gogh family. I pointed out how Rappard also has differences with his father about this or that, but that they always avoid extremes not only for the world but also for themselves and, although he doesn’t earn a penny from his work (which is nonetheless very sound, very fine even), Rappard can still always face the world with dignity, also in so far as equipment and studio &c. are concerned. And how the family makes sure there are no debts anywhere with colourmen &c. I told Pa how noble, how stalwart and how clearsighted I thought it was of you, Theo, that you’ve always helped me in so far as it was at all possible for you. I pointed out how, if Pa hadn’t been so steely and obstinate and in short unintelligent then, your help would have been effective, whereas now your help wasn’t effective and we’ve only half succeeded.
So to that extent I certainly did touch on the past. At the same time I pointed out that at this moment it’s again difficult for me to avoid extremes, since the relationship to the family in general in which I feel I stand is so bad that it’s becoming clear to me that the bond between you and me cannot endure if everything is always just left as it is. That when I think about whether it’s right or wrong to accept money from you, I have to take appearances into consideration.I tell you frankly that I find the spirit in our family, particularly Pa’s and also, for instance, C.M.’s, more and more wrong.
My position visàvis you now is this: on the one hand I believe that there’s still a possibility that your character, like mine, will go back on many of the things we were taught; yes, I say, I think it possible that you’ll have a change of heart, be it gradual, be it sudden, so that you’ll find yourself compelled to adopt another outlook on life, and that perhaps the upshot will be that you’ll yet become a painter.
On the other hand, this is in stark contrast, for example, to what you said this summer: ‘I’m becoming more and more like Pa’.
In the event of this last — that is, that you became more and more a ‘Van Gogh’, became a character like Pa or C.M. and by always being involved in business acquired an outlook on life entirely different from mine — a trader’s spirit, that is became a more or less political person — well, to be quite frank, then I’d rather not be intimate with you, then I’d find it better that, rather than strengthening bonds, we should let each other go, understanding we didn’t belong together.
At present I’m observing Pa — I see, I hear, I feel what Pa is — and I don’t like it — decidedly not. If you are thus, if you’re becoming more and more thus — then it’s wise to part. Now I return to what I said to Pa, that it was a mistake that we quarrelled so seriously two years ago that the house has been barred to me since then — (whose fault it was doesn’t even matter that much; it would have been in accordance with Pa’s own principles — if he had maintained them consistently — that the quarrel itself should have been avoided — avoided come what may). What does Pa say to this? Yes, but I can’t take back anything I did then, I’ve always done everything for your own good, and I’ve always acted on my sincere opinion. To which I replied that a person’s ‘opinion’ may sometimes be diametrically opposed to his conscience, I mean what one THINKS one should do and what one ought to do may be diametrically opposed to one another. I told Pa that terms may be found in the Bible itself to judge whether our ‘opinions’ are fair and just.
And that Pa was all too much in the habit of failing to do this and going on hotheadedly — in my view very unjustly, very arbitrarily, very reprehensibly — according to his ‘opinion’ — not — according to his conscience.
Enough, so I was faced with an iron barrier of irreconcilability indeed, although Pa tried to mask it, tried to lead me around it and to divert me from pursuing it. But I didn’t allow myself to be put off by this, and said — Pa, this is about your selfrighteousness, which was and is fatal for you and for me. Then Pa said, ‘did you think I would go down on my knees to you?’ I said I took it very ill of Pa, thought it extremely crude, that Pa saw only that in it, and that I wouldn’t waste my breath on it any longer. Pa doesn’t have to tell me that he acted badly towards me, but Pa should have learnt what I learnt in those two years — that it was a great mistake in itself, and that it should have been redressed immediately without asking whose fault it was. So brother, in my view Pa eternally descends into pettymindedness instead of being more open, more liberal, broader, more humane. It was minister’s vanity that drove things to extremes then, and it’s still the same minister’s vanity that will still cause more mischief in the present and the future.
I don’t ask you to intercede, I ask you for something more personal, I ask you frankly: how do we stand towards each other; are you a ‘Van Gogh’ too?
I always regarded you as ‘Theo’. In character I’m quite different from the various members of the family, and I’m actually not a ‘Van Gogh’. But if you were to become a personality — played a part in the world like Pa or C.M. or Uncle V. even, very well, I wouldn’t interfere with that, I would accept you as you were, I would keep silent about it, but our paths would diverge too greatly for me to be able to continue regarding the financial tie advisable, as it stands now.
I hope you’ll understand me. If not, we’ll have to give it time. Who knows if, in the next 3 years, you won’t start to view some questions more or less as I do. Why? Because you’ll also be influenced by art and by mixing with artists, and in short may perhaps become squarer and broader in consequence instead of narrower and more constricted.
Well old chap — if you can, see to it that I can get away from here — regards and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Nuenen 15 January 1884
My dear Theo,
Yesterday evening I received your letter and the 100 francs enclosed. I can tell you that I’m now at a point where I can cover my deficit of last year, having had fewer expenses because of my stay here.
I point this out to you so that you can see from it how I dislike disorderliness in affairs as much as you do, and also insist on meeting my obligations to people.
And am in no mood to be indifferent to affairs — — on the contrary — that I assure you.
I’ll indeed really try to carry on with my work, and you mustn’t think that I’m any different from before as regards working every day here.
All’s well that ends well, says the proverb.
Now, as to qualms I wrote to you about, concerning continuing to accept money from you on the same footing, we can stop now at a moment when I can come away without a deficit; all the more reason that I cannot and will not do other than regard the way you’ve dealt with me financially as generous. And if I had a deficit at the end of the year, I also in no way pretend that this was your fault. I say, however, that I’m glad that now, at this moment, there’s nothing unpaid to suppliers. I’ve honestly dealt with and paid suppliers of paint or whatever else.
I owe a great debt to you, though, and I would make it worse and worse were I to continue on exactly the same footing.
Now I have a proposal to make for the future. Let me send you my work and you take what you want from it, but I insist that I may consider the money I would receive from you after March as money I’ve earned. And I don’t mind at all if it’s not as much at first as I’ve been receiving up to now.
For my part I say decidedly that, whatever you may think about what I’ve received from you so far, for myself I consider it as something that I’ll repay if possible. If things work out, I really will pay it off. There can be no question of that for the present, and so we won’t mention it.
Towards March I’ll send you some watercolours from here. I’ll take them to somebody else if you don’t want them, but I’d rather do business with you. These watercolours will have errors, but still, I don’t think it’s foolish of me if I make a start on getting my work seen in order to send it into the world. Rappard did the same at a certain point, and carried it through from the moment he started it. As for me, I do it rather reluctantly, but I must do it.
And from March onwards I’ll start to send work here and there regularly. And to you first — but don’t consider yourself obliged to take something from me if you don’t really care for it yourself. I should think that this would mean that, however much our feelings may differ or come to differ, we wouldn’t even have to talk about it, much less quarrel.
Which in my view one does have to do if one has a relationship with someone such as ours has been up to now.I repeat, I’d have qualms about continuing on the same footing. But I’d very willingly continue relations with you in a somewhat altered manner.
I’m not even saying that I want you to consider immediately that anything you might take from me is something that you’ll try to sell.
If, for the time being, you take work from me not so much in your capacity as a dealer but more in your capacity of having it in your heart to do something precisely for people like me, who are just setting out, that’s enough for me. But after March I don’t want to take money from you, or at least absolutely as little as possible, for which I haven’t supplied specific work. I couldn’t continue on the same footing with enthusiasm — but I’ll start on that other with enthusiasm the moment I believe that the former has to be cut off.
If you don’t want to enter into that other proposal, then you must leave it.
I do want to be free with you, but at the same time I want you to feel you’re equally free with me. If there’s something in my work that you like, it will give me great pleasure, and if you don’t like it and you would want to stay out of it, I can have nothing to say about it.
Moreover, whatever differences in feelings there may be about this or that, something that I hope really will remain is that we’re brothers and will conduct ourselves as brothers.
I also hope that you and Pa won’t oppose me if I don’t take any studio other than the little mangle room here for the time being.
I’ll take another and no longer be in Pa’s house as soon as my work produces enough for me to pay for a house again myself.
I don’t think there’s been a day since I’ve been here when I haven’t sat working with the weavers or peasants from morning till night.
I’ll be very pleased if you approve of my proposal. Then, in my view, we’ll avoid extremes and steer a steady course. If you know of something better, I’d like to hear it. Regards, and I thank you for what you sent.
With a handshake.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen 17 January 1884
My dear brother,
There’s something I have to tell you in a word or two.
Ma hurt her leg getting out of the train — at Helmond — high up near the pelvis — in what’s called the head of the femur. I don’t know whether it’s definitely a fracture or just a dislocation of the head of the femur.
The doctor came immediately, has set it, and has assured us that there’s no immediate danger, but that it will take a long time. I didn’t speak to the doctor myself, so I don’t know exactly what it is. I was there when it was set, but it went very easily, relatively speaking.
I give you my word that things are no worse with Ma than I’m telling you, and that we’ll telegraph you should the doctor predict any danger. And I’ll send you word every day. When I asked what the doctor said, Pa said it’s definitely a fracture. So you know about it right away; I thought that better than to delay writing to you. I’ll write to you again tomorrow once the doctor has been. With a hearty handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Nuenen 13 February 1884
My dear Theo,
Today I sent a parcel to your address containing 3 small panels and 9 watercolours. Please let me know whether you’ve received it. If there’s anything in it you like, so much the better. Ma is going on much the same. Am still working on various weavers, which you’ll get later.
Lies has left again, it’s a lot of hard work for Wil.
Regards.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Nuenen 18 to 23 February 1884
My dear Theo,
Just a word to tell you that — partly in response to your letter in which you mentioned pen drawings — I have five weavers for you which I’ve made after my painted studies and are slightly different — and I think livelier — in execution than the pen drawings of mine you’ve seen so far.
I’m working on them from early till late, for have also started more new watercolours of them as well as the painted studies and the pen drawings.
I thought about you a lot these last few days, partly on account of a little book that originally came from you and that I borrowed from Lies — the poems of François Coppée. I knew only a very few by him, and they’d already struck me at the time. He’s one of the true artists — who put their heart and soul into it — evident from more than one painful confession. All the more an artist because he’s touched by so many very different things, and is capable of painting both a 3rdclass waiting room full of emigrants who spend the night there — everything drab and gloomy and melancholy — and yet in another mood draws a little marquise who dances a minuet, as elegant as a little figure by Watteau.
That absorption in the moment — that being so wholly and utterly carried away and inspired by the surroundings in which one happens to be — what can one do about it? And even if one could resist it if one wanted to, what would be the point, why shouldn’t one give oneself over to that which is in front of one, as this, after all, is the surest way to create something?
I was struck by the last one in the little book, entitled Désir dans le spleen, which I copy to remind you of it.
Everything lives, everything loves! And I, sad and alone, Stand like a dead tree against the vernal sky
I can no longer love, I who have lived but thirty years,
And have my mistress lately quit without regrets.
I am like a sick man, his thoughts grown dull
And wearying of his stale, familiar room,
His sole amusement, stupid and mechanical,
To count inside his head his carpet’s flowers.
Sometimes I wish my end were near, And all these recollections — once so sweet,
I thrust away, as from the portrait of an ancestor
Whose gaze disturbs us, we turn away our eye.
Even of that old love, that drew so many tears,
No trace remains in this, my jaded heart.
O, thou figure in my thoughts, veiled and dim, Whom I may meet tomorrow, whom I know not yet,
A courtesan, leaning at table ’mid the remnants of a meal,
Or — a woman, soberminded, eyes downcast and pale.
Appear! — if yet this wretched heart, empty of desire,
Its flame extinct, you can again ignite,
Give me again the infinite within a woman’s glance
And all of nature blooming in a kiss.
Come! — As sailors on a foundering ship
Throw — to win an hour’s respite — a treasure to the deep —
Come! — I promise you all, heart and soul — blood and flesh, All — for but a moment of faith — or yet of drunken rapture.
and then this:
Divine hope that two together come to form
And two together share,
The hope to love long, love always, love
More dearly every day;
Desire eternal — touching and chimerical,
That lovers sigh —
When — blissful moment — searching each other out,
Their lips exchange a mutual breath.
That vain, illusory desire, that cheating hope,
Whereof we never spoke;
It pains me to see we are afraid of it,
Though it be in our souls.
And when to your questioning I, your sweetheart,
Murmur a soft response,
The word is — evermore —
Without my uttering it,
And though its dear echo sounds within your heart,
Your silence is the same
When on your breast, languorous unto death,
I swear I love you.
What signifies the past — what of time to come?
For what is best of all,
Is to believe that it should never end,
That hour’s illusion.
And when I tell you, ‘Evermore!’ — do naught
That might dispel that dream,
And may your kiss on mine
Press all the longer and more tenderly.
and then this —
Sorrow assuaged
You whom I saw as like the blasted oak,
I find you now a father, find you spouse;
And yet to that brow that dreamed of death’s release,
A pistol once was held.
All that you cannot have forgotten quite;
You knew how one suffers and despairs;
You carried in your heart the viper vile Of a great love lost, a great hope — crushed.
Oblivion eluded you — you sought out Tumults, orgy and its songs — fame and its jibes
And the long roaring of the sea and of the wind.
Who, then, unto your sorrow put a silent stop —
O Lonesome one — ’twas but the rhythmic beat
Marked by the cradle of a little child.
and then this —
A wound reopened
O, my heart, are you then so craven and so weak?
And would you be like a convict, dragging his ball and chain, Who, though released, yet hobbles still?
Be silent — well you know the sentence she has passed on you.
I will no longer suffer, and thus I order you:
If I should feel you swell once more and writhe,
May I — with a stifled sob — crush you;
And — no one shall know of it — and — to still my cries,
They’ll see me — for that ghastly minute,
Clench my teeth — just like a soldier during amputation.
This is certainly poetry, and among the best — I find Désir dans le spleen, in particular so true, paints how, in those very souls who are wearied and those who almost fall, there arises at times that infinite renewal of desire, as if they had no past behind them — I thought of Rembrandt’s Jewish bride — and what Thoré says about it. Thoré (in his prime) and Theo Gautier and so many others — how much has changed since them — and how much duller it’s become. If one wants to preserve something of the fire in one, nowadays one must show it to others as little as possible. But anyway.
Did you get the little consignment I sent last week?
I have to keep the pen drawings for another week or so because I still need them to finish off other things that I started at the same time. But you’ll get them soon — but do please let me know whether the parcel arrived safely, and whether there were enough stamps on it. Because drawings possibly count as written matter and more has to be paid on them.
Regards — I hope you’ll be able to do something with all of this.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Pa already wrote to you about Ma a few days ago. All remained normal since, and the doctor said today he hadn’t dared hope at the beginning that it would have gone so well.
Coppée is another one like Heine or Musset — I’ll copy out a few more.
The first one
It’s not that she was so beautiful,
But we were both twenty,
And that day, as I recall
Was a spring morning.
It’s not that she looked so serious,
But here and now I swear
That never have I dared do a more courageous thing
Than when I told her that I loved her.
It’s not that she had a tender heart, But it was so delightful
To talk to her, to listen to her speak,
My eyes would fill with tears.
It’s not that her soul was hard,
But all the same, she left me (or perhaps, I left her) From then my sadness takes its date,
And will continue, everlastingly.
The lost dog.
When we go home, at night, through empty city streets,
And see upon the wet, green, greasy mud
Long streaks of gaslight, more of them every day,
Often a stray dog with matted coat, a dreadful, doleful sight,
An old dog from hereabouts, which its master, penniless,
Has thrown out with a kick — perhaps mourning it —
Will stick its stubborn nose into your heels,
And if you should turn back, give you a look,
And what a look — long, fearful, all cajolery,
A mistress’s, a poor man’s touching gaze,
Yet hopeless, with that uncertain air belonging to
A woman scorned and a poor man who feels his shame.
And if you stop, he’ll stop with you, and
Feebly wag his wet and drooping tail, Timid, knowing his fate lies in your hands.
He seems to say: ‘Come on — take me with you — please?’
We’re moved — and yet we don’t quite dare;
We’re poor ourselves — and rabies is a fearful thing.
And then — unkindly — making as if to raise
Our stick — we tell the dog: ‘Go on, be off with you!’
And — all contrite — he goes to plead his cause elsewhere.
This also applies to art.
Illomened meeting! and what times are these,
These savage Prussians (‘decent people — too wellfed people’ something like that),
what they have done to us
That the poorest folk now cast their dogs aside,
And when, distracted from the public show of grief, we must yet
Pity these animals — who turn upon us their imploring gaze.
To a Second lieutenant.
You carry, my handsome officer,
With perfect grace,
Your sword with hilt of steel,
But I think of our defeat.
This pelisse of finest stuff
Sets off your figure perfectly;
You’re charming; but after all
We lost the battle.
We read your intrepidity
In your black eyes under their slender brows.
Nothing wrong with wearing fancy gloves —
But, they took two provinces from us.
At your age one’s always proud
Of a little bit of braid;
But — do you see — ’twas yesterday
They maimed our motherland.
Lieutenant, I do not know
If of an evening, a finger to your brow,
Holding book and compasses,
You stay up late, beside the lamp.
Are your men your children?
Are you their leader and their father?
I wish to believe that, and would fight off
A doubt that fills me with despair.
Stripes on your sleeve, on your way, Is it of deliverance you think?
— Young man, give me your hand,
Let’s give a little shout — ‘Vive la France!’
A woman alone.
I met her in a bourgeois drawingroom –
Her gentle, timorous eyes, her banished angel’s brow,
First drew me to her – and I was told
She’d separated from a brutal spouse.
Still she kept company with those old friends
Whose home had known her as a growing child
And who, despite the talk that makes folk take offence,
Cared not a jot for all their cruel prejudice.
But she knew well enough – sweet and resigned –
That wider circles were all barred to her, Ever expecting – quiet and calm –
The word that snubs, the greeting that rebuffs.
And so, on evenings when they neither dined nor danced,
She’d come and broider there among them, by the hearth,
And there it was (seeing her so fresh and young)
I was amazed to see she wore a wedding ring.
Stoical, accepting of her curious widowhood
Without a backward thought; naively, too,
To show she kept her faithful vows,
Her hand retained enslavement’s evidence.
Darkhaired and pale she was – twentyfive years old –
Her long, proud hands were veined with blue
And the long lashes fringing her chaste eyes
Cast fluttering veils across her nutbrown gaze.
No gem, no ribbon, not a hint of gaiety,
Never the smallest flower inserted in the chestnutcoloured band,
The little collar – white and demure –
Stood out alone against her dress of mourning silk.
Sewing there, unhurried, with an easy hand,
Confident of shadow’s power to transform,
She kept the darkest corner of the room;
She scarcely spoke, and wished to be forgot.
But when she answered with a casual word or two
The humdrum questions that were put to her,
Painful it was to hear that voice,
Broken by suffering and made for tenderness.
That pure, slow voice, weary from prayer,
Once interrupted by a master’s powerful tones,
And forced, perhaps, to cry aloud from fear and shame
By insults, or an arm upraised.
And when a little child went round the company
Offering its forehead to receive a kiss, how ling’ringly,
With what a keen and melancholy pang
She placed her lips upon the flaxen head.
But straight upon this all too cruel delight
How quick she was to take her needle up again!
And what a sudden blush spread o’er her cheek,
Conscious of regrets made palpable.
For I could see, kindly though we were,
That she was pitied for her miserable choice;
That this community, timid, respectable,
Retained its fear – quite natural, I’d say.
Clearly I observed her humble gaze
Falter if it should meet a sparkling eye,
How she avoided all the younger girls,
And looked none but the old men in the face.
Young man, who could love this unhappy one –
Your paths will surely cross some day –
Don’t look at her, say not a word to her,
Don’t let her love you, that would be unspeakable!
Look, I know the skill, the subtle wiles
Of sophistry as well as you.
I know its piercing eye, its voice that penetrates, And how the blood will surge through your rebellious veins.
I know that quite defenceless, she succumbs,
I know she beats her breast before the Cross,
That she’d adore you like a god, or like a son;
I know your triumph is assured.
Yes, I’m sure for you she’d sacrifice
Her only treasure – honour, faithful, pure.
And that you’d gladly live and die with her.
That’s fine. But equally, I know ‘twould be the death of her.
Sadly
Obsessed by these words, widowhood and autumn,
My reverie seeks no other to express
This melancholy, vast and monotonous,
That robs me of all hope and all desire to love.
Ceaselessly it evokes a long, long avenue
Of plane trees, immensely tall, half bare,
In which a woman in deep mourning, veiled,
Moves slowly forward on the pallid grass.
Her long skirts leave behind a wake,
Trailing and rustling in the fallen leaves;
She follows with her gaze the passage of a cloud
Before the wind, driving from the north, already cold.
She thinks of him, now absent, who was wont to say: I love you!
And under the wide low sky from which the light has gone,
Sees that, with the last chrysanthemum, yesterday
The last butterfly has also died.
And so she walks across the faded grass,
Weary of wishing, weary of submitting,
And always in her path, the planetree leaves
Fall with a sound as sad as sighs.
— In vain — to chase away these gloomy images
Do I call up my youth, and that splendid summer.
I do not trust the sun, no more believe the roses,
And go about, head lowered, like a haunted man.
My heart’s so full of autumn and of widowhood
That I forever dream, under a pure, clear sky —
Of one in mourning — in a chill landscape,
And the leaves falling at first winter’s wind.
Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 2 March 1884.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter — Ma’s doing well — at the outset the doctor said it would be six months before the leg had healed — now he’s talking about a good 3 months — and he said to Ma — ‘but that’s your daughter’s fault, for I seldom, very seldom, see such good care as she gives’. What Wil does is exemplary, exemplary, I shan’t easily forget that.
Almost everything has fallen on her shoulders from the outset, and she’s spared Ma a great deal of misery.
To mention just one thing, it’s definitely her fault that Ma has so few bedsores (which started very badly at the beginning and had deteriorated). And I assure you that the chores she has to do aren’t always pleasant.
Now listen — when I’d read your letter about the drawings, I immediately sent you a new watercolour of a weaver and five pen drawings. For my part, too, I’ll tell you frankly that I think that what you say is true, that my work will have to get much better, but at the same time also that your efforts to do something with it might also be a little more decisive. You have never yet sold a single thing of mine — not for a lot or a little — and IN FACT HAVEN’T TRIED TO YET. As you can see, I’m not getting angry about it — but — there’s no need to beat about the bush. I certainly wouldn’t put up with it in the long run.
For your part, you can also continue to speak frankly.
As far as saleability and unsaleability are concerned, that’s an old file I don’t intend to blunt my teeth on.
Well, you see that my answer is that I send some new ones — and I’ll very willingly go on doing so — Id like nothing better than that. Only you must be totally frank for once — which is what I’d prefer — as to whether you think you’ll bother yourself with them in the future, or whether your dignity won’t permit it. Leaving aside the past — I’m facing the future, and not counting what you think of them, I fully intend to try to do something with them.
You recently told me yourself that you’re a dealer — very well — one doesn’t lapse into sentimentality with a dealer; one says, sir, if I give you drawings on commission, may I count on your showing them? The dealer has to decide for himself whether he wants to say yes — no — or something in between.
But the painter would be foolish to send them on commission if he could tell that the dealer considered his work to be something that shouldn’t see the light of day.
Now, old chap — we both live in the real world — and precisely because we don’t want to put a spoke in each other’s wheels, we must speak candidly. If you say — I can’t be bothered with them — very well, I won’t get angry about it — but then I’m not obliged to believe that you’re an absolute oracle either, am I?
You say: the public will be annoyed by this little spot. Now listen, that may be so, but this or that bothers you, the dealer, much more than the public in question, I’ve already remarked on that so often — and you start with that. I have to fight my way through, too, Theo, and with you I’m still at precisely, precisely the same level as a few years ago. What you say of my current work — ‘it is almost saleable but’ — is word for word the same as what you wrote to me when I sent you my first Brabant sketches from Etten. So I say — it’s an old file. And my reasoning is that I foresee that you’ll always say the same thing — and that I, who until today have been consistently rather chary of making approaches to dealers, will now change tactics and become very assiduous in trying to sell my work.
I do understand that you couldn’t care less about my doings. But if you couldn’t care less, for my part I always find it fairly wretched and rather dread things that will probably crop up — namely that people will ask me: what, don’t you do business with your brother or with Goupil? Well, then I’ll say — it’s beneath the dignity of those Messrs Gie, Van Gogh Co. This will probably create a bad impression of me — which I’m quite prepared for — but which I foresee will consequently make me cooler and cooler towards you too.
I’ve now painted the little old church and another new weaver. Are the studies from Drenthe really so very bad? I don’t feel inclined to send you the painted studies from here, no, let’s not start on that — you can see them if you come here sometime in the spring, perhaps.
What you write about Marie is quite understandable — if a woman isn’t very milk and water I can very well imagine that she has little inclination to mope around with cantankerous fathers and pious sisters, at least a woman as much as a man would feel a fairly pressing temptation to end that stagnation, come what may.
Stagnation that begins with a resignation that is perhaps fine in itself, but which alas one must come to regret, usually, when one feels one would eventually freeze. Read something by Daudet about pious women, ‘Those two faces looked at each other — they exchanged a spiteful, cold, closed look — what’s the matter with him/her? Always the same thing’. There you have it, that singular look of Pharisees and devout ladies. Yes, therefore we always lack — the same thing. Yes — what am I supposed to think about what you say about my work? For example, I’ll now turn specifically to the studies from Drenthe — there are some among them that are very superficial, I said that myself — but what do I get served up for the ones that were simply painted quietly and calmly outdoors, trying to say nothing in them but what I saw? I get in return: aren’t you too preoccupied with Michel? (I’m talking here about the study of the little hut in the dark and about the largest of the sod huts, namely the one with the little green field in the foreground.) You would certainly say exactly the same thing about the little old churchyard.
And yet, neither looking at the little churchyard nor at the sod huts did I think about Michel, I thought about the subject I was looking at. A subject indeed such that I believe, if Michel had passed by, it would have brought him to a halt and struck him.
For my part, I certainly don’t put myself on a par with master Michel — but I definitely don’t therefore imitate Michel either.
Well, I may perhaps try to sell something in Antwerp, and I’d like to put a couple of those selfsame Drenthe studies in black wooden frames — which I’m looking for at a carpenter’s here — I prefer to see my work in a deep black frame, and he makes them cheaply enough. You mustn’t take it amiss that I mention it, brother.
I’m seeking something calm and something cool in my work. No more than I approve of its just lying about, do I want my work to be displayed in fluted frames in the leading galleries, you see. And now it’s time to begin on that middle way, in my view, and I have to know fairly definitely how I stand with you, or rather I tell you that, although you’re still evading the issue in what you say, I believe that you will not in fact show it. And I don’t even believe that you’ll change your mind for the time being.
Whether you’re right or wrong about this — I’m not going into that. You’ll tell me that I’ll be treated by other dealers exactly the same as by you, except that, although you can’t be bothered with my work, you furnish me with money anyway, and other dealers certainly won’t do that, and without money I’ll become completely stuck.
I say in reply that things aren’t as clearcut as that in real life, and that I’ll see how far I get living from day to day. I told you beforehand that I wanted to settle these matters this month, and so it must be done. Well, because you probably plan to come as early as the spring I don’t insist that you make a final decision immediately, but realize that I can’t accept it as it is now — for myself, wherever I go and especially at home, too, I’m always being watched — what I do with my work, whether I get anything for it and, in short in society almost everyone looks out for it all the time and wants to know all about it.
And this is very understandable. Well, it’s very wretched for me always being in a false position.
Come on — things can’t stay the same as they are now. Why not? Because they can’t.
If I’m as cool as can be to Pa — to C.M. — why should I behave any differently towards you were I to observe in you precisely the same tactics of never speaking out. Do I consider myself better than Pa or you? Perhaps not, perhaps I divide things less and less into good and bad — but I do know that these tactics don’t befit a painter and that, as a painter, one must speak out and resolve certain things. In short — I believe that a door should either be open or shut.
Well, I think you do understand that a dealer cannot be neutral towards painters — that it makes exactly the same impression whether you say no with or without mincing your words, and that it may be even more infuriating when it’s said wrapped up in compliments.
Now here’s something that you’ll perhaps understand later on better than you do now — I pity dealers when they get old — even if they’ve already made their piles — that doesn’t solve everything — at least not then. Everything has its price, and an icecold wilderness is what it often becomes for them then.
Well — but you’ll perhaps think differently about it. And you’ll say that it’s also pretty sad when a painter dies miserably in a hospital and is buried with the whores in the common grave — where a lot of them lie, after all — particularly when one considers that dying may not be as difficult as living.
Well, one can’t take it amiss that a dealer doesn’t always have the money to help, but one can, in my view, take it amiss if one notices that this respectable dealer or that speaks very cordially, but he’s ashamed of me in his heart and he completely ignores my work. So frankly, I won’t take it amiss if you say straight out that you don’t think my work is good enough or that there are, moreover, yet other reasons why you can’t be bothered with it, but if you leave it in a corner somewhere and you don’t show it, this isn’t kind if it’s accompanied by the assurance — WHICH IS NOT LIKELY — that you yourself see something in it. I don’t believe that — you mean practically none of it. And precisely because you say yourself that you know my work better than anyone else, I may assume that you must think very badly of it indeed if you don’t want to soil your hands with it. Why should I force myself on you? Well, regards.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Apart from a few years which I find hard to understand myself, when I was confused by religious ideas — by a sort of mysticism — leaving aside that period, I’ve always lived with a certain warmth. Now it’s all becoming bleaker and colder and duller around me. And when I tell you that in the first place I WILL not stand it like this, never mind whether or not I can, I refer to what I said right at the very beginning of our relationship. What I’ve had against you in the last year is a sort of relapse into cold decency, which I find sterile and of no use to one — diametrically opposed to everything that is action, especially to everything that is artistic.
I say it as I see it, not to make you wretched but to get you to see and feel if possible the reason that I no longer think of you as a brother and friend with the same pleasure as before. There has to be more zest in my life if I want to get more brio into my brush — I won’t get a hair’s breadth further by exercising patience. If, for your part, you relapse into the abovementioned, don’t then take it amiss if I’m not the same towards you as I was in the first year, say. About my drawings — at this moment it seems to me that the watercolours, the pen drawings of the weavers, the latest pen drawings I’m working on now, aren’t so dull on the whole that they’re nothing at all. But if I come to the conclusion: they’re no good, and Theo is right not to show them to anyone — then — then — it will be all the more proof that I have good reason to dislike our present false position, and will try all the more to change, come what may — better or worse, but not the same. Now if I saw that, if you didn’t think I’d improved enough, you did something about it to get me further along by introducing me to another capable painter, for instance, because Mauve has dropped out, or anyway something, some sign or other that proved to me that you really believed in my progress or promoted it. But no, there’s — yes, the money — but otherwise nothing except that ‘just keep on working’, ‘be patient’ — as cold, as dead, as arid and as insufferable, just as if, for instance, Pa said it. I can’t live on that — it’s too lonely, too cold, too empty and too lacklustre for me.
I’m no better than anyone else, in so far as I have my needs and desires like everyone, and it’s very understandable that one reacts knowing for sure that one is really being kept dangling, in the dark.
If one goes from bad to worse — this wouldn’t be impossible in my case — what would it matter? If one is badly off, one has to take a chance of making things better.
Brother — I really must remind you of how I was at the very beginning of what we began. Right from the outset I’ve talked to you about the question of women. I still recall that I took you to the station in Roosendaal in the first year, and that I said to you then that I was so against being alone that I would rather be with a common whore than alone. Perhaps you remember that. I found the idea that our relationship might not last almost unbearable at first. And I so very much wished that it had been simple to change things. However I can’t always keep on fooling myself that this can be done against the grain.
The depression about it has thus been one of the reasons I wrote to you so assertively from Drenthe, become a painter yet. Which cooled off immediately when I saw that your dissatisfaction about business matters vanished when you were on better terms with Goupil again.
At first I thought it was only half sincere — then later, and now, still, I think it very understandable and think it more a mistake on my part that I wrote to you, become a painter, than on yours that you resumed your affairs with enthusiasm when they became more possible to resume and the machinations making it impossible for you ceased.
What remains, though, is that I still feel depressed by the falseness of the position between us. At this moment it’s more important for me to sell for 5 guilders than to receive 10 guilders by way of patronage. Well, you repeatedly write, actually most definitely, that you haven’t made, aren’t making, nor believe for the present you’re able to make the least or slightest effort for my work; first, not as a dealer (I let that pass, and at least don’t take it amiss of you) but, secondly, not in private either (and that I do take somewhat amiss of you). In this case I mustn’t sit doing nothing or be a funker, so straight out, if you do nothing with my work, I don’t want your patronage. I state the reason plainly and I’ll state it precisely the same way, when giving a reason for it is hard to avoid.
So it isn’t that I want to ignore or belittle your help from the start until now. It’s a matter of my seeing more benefit in even the poorest, most wretched muddling along than in patronage (which it’s degenerating into).
One can’t do without it at the very, very beginning, but now I must for God’s sake, God knows how, just start muddling along rather than acquiesce in something that would take us no further anyway. Brotherly or not brotherly, if you can do nothing other than absolutely the financial alone, you might as well keep that too. As it has been in the last year, I almost dare to say, it was confined solely to money.
And although you say you give me a completely free hand, it seemed to me, at bottom, that if I do this or that with a woman, for instance, that you and others don’t approve of (perhaps rightly disapprove of, but sometimes I don’t give a damn about that), there comes one of those little tugs on the pursestrings just to make me feel that it’s ‘in my interest’ to go along with your opinion.
So you got your way regarding the woman, and it was finished, but — — — — — — what damn good is it to me to get a bit of money if it means I have to practise morality? Yet in itself I don’t think it something absurd in you when you disapproved this summer of my still wanting to go through with it. But I can foresee the following in the future: I’ll have another relationship in what you people call the lower orders — and again, if I still have a relationship with you, meet the same opposition. Opposition that you people could only carry through with any semblance of fairness if I received so much from you that I could do something different. Which you don’t give and can’t or won’t give, after all — neither you, nor Pa, nor C.M. or the rest, who are always first off the mark to disapprove of this or that — and which I don’t after all want from you either, since I don’t give much thought to the lower or upper orders.
Do you see why it wasn’t an irresponsible action on my part, and wouldn’t be if I were to try it again?
Because first I don’t have any pretension, don’t feel any desire at all, and secondly don’t receive the means from anyone whatsoever, or earn them, to keep up some sort of position or whatever you call it — I consider myself completely at liberty to consort with the socalled lower orders if the opportunity arises. We’d perpetually return to the same questions.
Just ask yourself now if I’m alone among those in the same profession who would most definitely turn down patronage if it entails obligations to maintain some sort of position while the money wasn’t enough to be able to do it, so that one gets into debt rather than make progress. If it could be done on the money, I might perhaps not refuse to bend, any more than others do. But we’re certainly not that far at present — I have a stretch of years in front of me, as you say yourself, when my work will have very little commercial value. Very well — THEN I WOULD RATHER FALL INTO THE HANDS OF MUDDLING ALONG and of living through hard times — which I’ve done more than once — than into the hands of Messrs Van Gogh.
My only regret about arguing with Pa when I did is that I didn’t do it 10 years earlier. If you carry on in the footsteps of Pa and — you’ll just see how you’ll gradually get annoyed — and — how you would also become annoying to certain people. But those are awkward customers and, you’ll say — they’re of no consequence.
Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 20 March 1884.
My dear Theo,
I just received your letter and the 250 francs enclosed. If I may regard your letter as a reply to my proposal, I would certainly be able to accept what you say. For my part I simply wish — in order to avoid correspondence, dispute — in order to be able to say something when one is railed at in daily life by one person or another as being ‘without means of support’ — that if I continue to receive the usual from you, I may regard it as money that I’ve earned. Naturally I’ll send you work every month. That work, as you say, is then your property — and I completely agree with you that in that case you have every right to do nothing with it — indeed, I wouldn’t even be in a position to object if you thought fit to tear it up.
I for my part, needing money, am obliged to accept it even if someone says to me ‘I don’t want to do anything with this drawing of yours or burn it, you can have this much for it’ — in the circumstances I’d say — very well — give me the money — here you have my work — I want to get on — in order to get on I must have money — I’m seeing to it that I get it — and so — if need be, even if I really didn’t give a damn about you, as long as I receive money from you each month that is useful and necessary to me (without conditions that I may not do this, that or the other), I won’t break the ties, and if need be I’ll put up with anything.
This way of mine of regarding you and your money balances your way of regarding me and my work — and as long as it remains in balance — I’ll accept it.
If I receive money from you, you drawings or paintings from me — and I have something to justify myself in the view of society and we otherwise have nothing in common with each other, if need be — don’t write or talk about anything — even then it’s enough for me for the moment and I accept it completely. Even if it pleases you to tear my work up or if you want to do nothing with it, or if you want to do something with it, I no longer have the right to criticize as soon as, for my part, I may regard it as a purchase. Be so good as to tell me which term of abuse I used about your friend Braat in my letter.
In my letter, as far as I know, there was nothing about Braat except that I thought he was already ill in the months that I knew him at Cie in Paris. At that time, as far as I can recall, I got on very well with him, and I really don’t understand how you get the idea that I ‘can’t stand’ him. So many years have passed, so much has changed for me in those years, that the people I knew then are fairly vague and indistinct in my memory and — that I seldom if ever think about them — which nobody can blame me for, I believe. But as to Braat, far from my not wanting to take any special notice of him, now that you’ve written about it that way, will you please assure him that my sympathies are with him, as they would be with any sufferer, and that, if he happens to remember me, I send my regards and wish him as much peace and serenity as one may have in such a situation. Yet what good does such a wish do him — not much — so, unless one is called upon to say something, one keeps such things to oneself. I would ask you though, if you’ve said something to him about my having written about him in the way you reproach me with, to tell him that you had only seen that term of abuse in your imagination. For you definitely won’t find it in my letter.
You write that you had tried to answer my letters, but had left off. For my part, too, I had wanted to write to you since then, but also left off.
Know that if you don’t want to do anything with the work you buy from me, or tear it up if need be, this will be no reason for me not to do my best in it.
For this month I have some pen drawings for you; in the first place the ones that are with Rappard at the moment — about which I have a letter from him that he thought they were all beautiful, and the sentiment in Behind the hedgerows and the Kingfisher particularly beautiful. Then those first 3 Winter gardens too, which he was also taken with. Aside from those, I have some painted studies that are your property — to do with just as you will — which I can send you if you wish — which, if you yourself don’t care to have them, I would ask you if I might keep for a while so as to work from them.
One is a large weaver who is weaving a piece of red cloth — the little church amidst the wheat — a view of a little old village near here.I’d just like to come back to your letter about my drawings — the one you say I’ve interpreted utterly impossibly.
I see in it first that, among the things you say, there are a few whose tenor is that there were things that pleased you in the tone, in the sentiment — so much the better — if you will, that gives me a good deal of pleasure.
Second, in that letter there’s a comparison of the schools of Millet and Lhermitte. I found what you said about Millet better and more sensitive expressions than I am used to from you — this was overshadowed, however, by the way you were again tired of Lhermitte, and I’d also like to say about your whole argument once again, you’re splitting your hairs too thin — why didn’t you take a broader view, why didn’t you feel the same enthusiasm for both (who to my mind are to each other as Rembrandt is to Maes, say) without immersing yourself in barren hairsplitting about who is the greater? Third, there was something that was not in that letter, namely an answer to the question as to whether we’d go on or not.
That was the question that it was all about, and since my work depends on my paint and tools (to an extent that I can’t ignore), and they in turn on whether or not I receive money, I can’t possibly ascribe much usefulness to that letter.
It would be less impossible for me to preserve my composure in our correspondence if, when you don’t have the money on the date, you were to write, I haven’t got it, you’ll get it at such and such a time. Now you wrote not a word in response to my saying: it surprises me that I hear nothing, my having said I’d rather have it at once than later, because you said that if I need it I can get the money by return. If you’d written again then, I’m sorry but I haven’t got it, I shouldn’t have had to get ideas into my head that you’re deliberately being lax in order to make my life a bit more difficult. And — when you haven’t got it, I can’t take it amiss — when you ignore — deliberately or not deliberately — that’s something that I really wish you could cure yourself of, and something about which one really has to get angry. What I said about doing something with my work, in Antwerp, for instance, definitely is my plan. The frame of mind in which you now are about me, the frame of mind in which I now am about you, is cool enough simply to ask and to reply coolly. After all — leaving aside — giving a damn about each other or not — can I count on its being fixed for 1 year that I’ll continue to receive the usual monthly in return for supplying my work? Why I have to know this is because, if I can count on it, I would take a slightly roomier studio somewhere, which I need in order to be able to work with a model.
The one I have at present has the following geographical location,and my powers of imagination aren’t strong enough to think this an improvement on the situation last year. This doesn’t alter the fact that, if I complain about something, there appear in your letters such passages as: I (Theo) think that your position is better now than last summer. Really? And I also draw the little map in response to your expression ‘I’m not aware’, and I would also not be content with this letter of yours if that wasn’t in it. To which I say — I don’t care whether or not you’re aware that this or that isn’t quite in order, as long as you just don’t ask me to walk round befuddled about it, and as long as you give me the means to improve things I have no objection to your being ‘aware’ of all sorts of things.
I hope this letter is as cool as yours — and I thank you very much for what you sent — which makes up for the rest — at least makes it such that, if I could count on its continuing thus for a year, I ask nothing more of you and will right gladly send you my work.
And would just suggest one other small thing to you: that if I can sell something in Antwerp or somewhere, I notify you of it, and it’s deducted from the 150 francs.
I don’t write to Rappard about business matters — at least I haven’t told him that latterly I haven’t been on terms with you as in the past. Just think about whether it’s quite in order that you, who know Rappard, have never seen anything of his work, have absolutely no idea what he’s doing — no longer take any notice whatsoever of him, except perhaps by hearsay from me. Yet he’s one of the people who will amount to something — with whom people will have to reckon — of whose work people will have to take notice. At the time Rappard came to you and felt small in your presence, you who knew so much about art. Since that year he was in Paris — how immensely he has progressed — but you — haven’t you rested on your laurels a bit???
Nuenen, Wednesday, 30 April 1884.
My dear Theo,
Many happy returns of the day.
It really was important news in your last letter — and I think you’ll be glad that the situation has at least become clearer.
Am really looking forward to your next letter.
As regards the work, I’m doing a fairly large painting of a weaver — the loom straight on from the front — the little figure a dark little silhouette against the white wall. And at the same time also the one I started in the winter, a loom on which a piece of red cloth is being woven — there the loom is seen from the side. I’ve also started on two others of effects on the heath. And a thing with Pollard birches.
I’ll have a lot more hard graft on those looms — but in reality the things are such almighty beautiful affairs — all that old oak against a greyish wall — that I certainly believe it’s right that they should be painted. We must make sure that we get them so that the colour and tone match with other Dutch paintings, though. I hope to start on two more of weavers soon, where the figure will appear very differently, that’s to say where the weaver isn’t sitting behind it but is arranging the threads for the cloth. I’ve seen them weaving by lamplight in the evening, which creates very Rembrandtesque effects. Nowadays they have a sort of hanging lamp — but I’ve just got a little lamp from a weaverlike the one in The evening by Millet, for instance. This is what they used to work by.
I recently also saw coloured pieces woven in the evening — where I’ll take you sometime should you come here. When I saw it, they were also just arranging the threads, so dark, bowed figures against the light, which stood out against the colour of the piece. Great shadows cast on the white walls by the laths and beams of the loom.
Regards — do write soon if you can.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 20 July 1884.
My dear Theo,
I was delighted to learn from your letter to Pa and Ma that you plan to go to London on 4 Aug. and then to come on here from there. I’m again looking forward very much to your arrival and to finding out what you’ll think of the work that I’ve done since. The last things I did are a couple of rather large studies of oxcarts, a black ox and a red and white one.
And have also been working again on the old tower in the fields in the evening; I’ve made a larger study of it than my previous ones — with the wheatfields around it.
Rappard sent me back the little book by Vosmaer that belongs to you — I started to read it but — is it just me? — find it almighty boring and actually written in an academic, sermonizing tone. Perhaps you will too when you look at it again. Have you read Sapho by Daudet? It’s very beautiful, and so vigorous, and so close to life that the female figure lives, breathes, and one can hear, literally hear the voice, and forgets that one is reading.
You’ll also see a couple more new weavers when you come.
Nature is certainly pure here — I’m still very pleased with the studio, too.We must visit some farms and weavers together when you come.
Rappard’s plan is to come back again in October; he’s probably in Drenthe again now.
Well, I write in some haste because I’m hard at work. I work a good deal early in the morning or in the evening, and then sometimes everything is so inexpressibly beautiful.
Regards, believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 25 October 1884.
My dear Theo,
Here are a couple of smaller photos of the studies of which you already have the larger ones. I’m sending them because — should it ever come to it — I want you to be able to show something of mine. Rappard is still here and will be staying for another week since the work is going extraordinarily well. He’s making women spinning and various studies of heads, has already made 10 studies or so, all of which I consider fine.
We’ve talked together quite a lot about Impressionism — I think that you would classify his work as that. But here in Holland it’s hard to work out what Impressionism is actually trying to say. But both he and I are greatly interested in what the present aim is. And it’s certain that unexpected new ideas are beginning to emerge. That paintings are once again beginning to be painted in very different tone from a few years ago.
The last thing I made is a rather large study of an avenue of poplars with the yellow autumn leaves, where the sun makes glittering patches here and there on the fallen leaves on the ground, which are interspersed with the long shadows cast by the trunks. At the end of the road a peasant cottage, and the blue sky above it between the autumn leaves.
I think that in a year’s time — having spent that year once again painting a great deal and constantly — I’ll change my manner of painting and my colour a great deal, and that I’m likely to become slightly more sombre rather than lighter. The spectrum of Rappard’s work has also become much lower.
The heads that he’s painting at present are reminiscent in their effect of certain studies of heads by Courbet, say. But it’s becoming devilish good, that I can assure you.
Because of one thing and another I discussed with him, it may well be that I prefer to stay here and carry on working here rather than go somewhere else. As a result of his visit I’ve again got new ideas for my own work, and have so many things in my head which I’d like to make that, after all, I can’t easily postpone getting on with them right away.
Besides, I want to settle my paint bills before the New Year, and can’t afford any extra expenditure. Because if I went to Antwerp I’d obviously want to do a lot of work and would need models for it, which I fear would work out too dear for the moment.
But in general Rappard advises me not to do it right away, but after having painted here for another few months, and to try to get a piedàterre to make nude studies.
But I’ll be able to benefit more from Antwerp if I first paint another 30 heads here — and I’m starting on those 30 heads now, or rather I’ve already started with a large bust of a shepherd.
Rappard has done the same in Drenthe and on Terschelling this summer, and it has helped him to make a good deal of progress.
I’ve just seen a reproduction of a Lhermitte — The inn — two workmen and a woman, do you know it? The last few days R. and I have been on some long excursions, and visited people house by house — we’ve seen lots of beautiful things, just because of the magnificent autumnal effects. And also discovered new models. Perhaps a few other painters might come to this region next year. I wish they would, because one shouldn’t go for too long without ever seeing any painters.
Well — as to that — I’ll get new acquaintances before too long in any event.
Regards, from Rappard too.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Friday, 14 November 1884.
My dear Theo,
You’ll certainly be interested in how things stand with the call to Helvoirt that Pa received. Pa told the people in Helvoirt that he certainly couldn’t even consider it unless the H. stipend was brought up to the level of the Nuenen stipend. And Pa writes today that they don’t seem to be raising any objections to making up the difference in stipend — they have to add 150 guilders to it, I believe. So although nothing has been decided — given the willingness of the good natives of Helvoirt — there’s a real chance that as a result of his own words Pa will have to consider it very seriously. This is important to me, because I would certainly not want to go to Helvoirt with them. I just wanted to tell you exactly how things stand.
These last few days, although it’s freezing quite hard here, I’ve been working outdoors on a rather large study (more than 1 metre) of an old water mill in Gennep, on the other side of Eindhoven. I want to finish the whole thing outdoors — but it will definitely be the last that I paint outdoors this year. Since I wrote to you I’ve also been working on other studies — among them two heads of polder workers.
I now have 3 people in Eindhoven who want to learn to paint and whom I’m teaching to paint still lifes. I can safely say that I’ve progressed in painting technique and in colour since your visit. And that this will continue to improve, too.
In painting, it’s the first steps that count — it gets easier later, and I have some trumps in my hand. And I think there are tricks to be taken with them. Now you know that I made an approach to Mauve and Tersteeg again, to put right what happened in the past.
I don’t regret that approach.
But they’ve refused to have anything to do with it — ‘very definitely’ refused. This doesn’t discourage me.
I regard it as something like sending a painting to an exhibition and having it rejected.
One has to encounter opposition at first, or even several times.
So again, I don’t regret my approach, and shall most likely repeat it — not straightaway, exactly — but before too long. I wanted to tell you now that I’d be very pleased if you didn’t just stay neutral in this matter — but on the contrary helped me to get what I want. I’ve admitted I was wrong, not just to Mauve but to T. as well.
All the more because I believe that later on they themselves will realize that for their part they totally misunderstood things.
Which they don’t see yet.
So for my part, by going so far this time as to very generously and decidedly admit I was wrong in the past, moreover to simply show them work as it gets better, in any event I won’t have to make any more apologies in future. Once is enough, and I didn’t necessarily even have to go as far as I did, namely — unconditionally. Getting them to be generous for their part — is another thing – you could assist in this if you want to. If not — don’t bother about it, but then after a while I’ll return to it again on my own. I don’t know how you’ll have taken my last letter — which wasn’t meant angrily. My affairs can prosper, and in both our interests I wish that we could concentrate the strength we have at our disposal. I’ve replied briefly to both Tersteeg and M. about their refusal, to tell them that ‘I rather agree with Tersteeg that it would be better for me to seek out new people than to try to renew old relationships, that this really is my own idea, too, but above and beyond that, that I nonetheless have enough faith in the future that I will not lightly give up regaining even old relationships, even better than before’. This has been my answer to T. And is also what I tell you — I believe that it’s possible — to get on better terms than the present ones — with you, too.
But — speaking bluntly — I think that you’ve been too neutral towards me the last 1 1/2 or two years, and I wish above all for more warmth, and the friendship was too cool and not animated enough for me.
Find this pedantic of me if you will — yet it isn’t pedantic but it’s for sound practical reasons that I pointed this out to you before and point it out again.Margot Begemann is coming back to Nuenen one of these days — I’ve always remained good friends with her, and it’s on my advice that she did not give in to her sisters, who let it be seen that they’d rather she stayed away and who keep telling her that in their view she has made a hash of things. On the contrary, her family has obligations towards her, and in the past she put her own money into the business when her brother went bankrupt.The issue here is that if she and I choose to love each other, be attached to each other — indeed have been for a long time — this is no wrongdoing on our part nor something for which people may blame us. Either her or me. And in my view it’s absurd that people felt they should get worked up about it — and then — in their opinion — in my interest or in hers. That was a bad turn.
Anyone may do this with the best intentions — yet — — — Louis Begemann — he had his objections, too, but was such and remained such that both she and I could talk to him, and it was precisely because he was humane and calm that it didn’t turn out much worse, and when that happened with her, which only I knew about, he could help and all the others only hindered. And we were in complete agreement about the steps to be taken then.
Three days before, after all, I had already warned him and said, I’m concerned about your sister.
Most certainly, at some time she has done greater or lesser good turns for pretty well all the people here in the neighbourhood, either in sickness or when they were in some trouble or other. And she and I actually became attached during Ma’s illness.
She has just written to me: should there be any people sick in Nuenen, do go and visit them and see if anything can be done to help. Well, there are a thousand things of that nature in her.
And to put it very mildly, one can say that there has been a most deplorable misunderstanding here.
I think that, with hindsight, you would now no longer speak as you did on that evening. That concerned me alone — and I could take it, so there’s no question of my reproaching you in this matter.
Only as an explanation for you, I say, just as you spoke to me, who can take it, so her sisters spoke to her, who was made distraught by it. You have nothing to do with it, because you spoke to me, who can take it, and you did not speak to her.
But the real fault lies with her sisters, or rather one of the sisters in particular, who proves to be very hard, since she’s actually still sulking and bearing a grudge.
You — would have to tell me again yourself that you bear a grudge — before I would suspect you of it.
So much on my part to you.
Nuenen, on or about Monday, 24 November 1884.
My dear Theo,
I suppose you already know that Pa has turned down Helvoirt.
The people here gave Pa a present of about 200 guilders, that’s most kind and I’m pleased for them.
The decision wasn’t a matter of indifference to me — since I wouldn’t have gone with them to H. in any case, and would either have stayed here in my studio — or would have left for Antwerp. Now — as far as I can see, the best thing for me is simply to carry on as things are — and stay here. It has truly not been going too badly for me lately. It’s true that I can’t make anything financially from my work here — but I’m making really good friends here — and I believe they’ll become even better.
Last week I painted still lifes day in and day out with the people who are painting in Eindhoven. The new acquaintance — the tanner — whom I told you about, is really doing his best.
But for my part, I also have to do something to keep on good terms with them.
But I can’t see that I lose by it, since I work more enjoyably because I have some conversation. Hermans has so many beautiful objects — like old jars and other antiques — that I wanted to ask you whether I could oblige you by painting a still life for your room of some of these objects — Gothic things, for instance.
The ones I’ve been making with Hermans so far are simpler. But just today he said to me that if I ever want to make a painting for myself of things that are still too difficult for him to do as a study, I can take the objects with me to the studio. Please let me have an answer to this — and if you would like it, I’ll make it for you and shall select really nice things.
By the way, I’ve already finished a small one.
Now, as to what I asked you about covering the end of this month if possible by sending me 20 francs extra, I wish you could do that.
It’s getting better for me — although my expenses aren’t getting any smaller — but we’re definitely making progress just by working very hard now. So help me with what I asked if it’s at all feasible for you. Because otherwise it will soon become very difficult, and the work will suffer more than necessary.
And I’ll give it back to you with my work. That’s all I can say about it.
At all events I’ll ask Hermans for those objects — and make something for you with them — you’ll see for yourself what I told you about the colour, that it’s getting better.
I’m also working on a watercolour of the water mill.
Regards, with a handshake.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Cor was unwell for a few days, and at home — but he’s better now. I know that it’s a difficult time for you — but we must progress and it will change a little for the good — you’ll see.
Nuenen, on or about Friday, 28 November 1884.
Dear brother,
Thanks for your letter and the money.
Assuming that what you say is true, that you started to write to me repeatedly but didn’t get round to finishing the letter before — I’m in the same position, since I’ve already thrown what I wrote to you into the stove twice — because I found it either too bitter or too tame. What shall I say to you? — your letter sounds very correct to me, and has a tone like that of a good Minister for Fine Arts, say.
But — that doesn’t alter the fact that it isn’t much good to me and it doesn’t satisfy me — and above all your ‘perhaps later, once you have expressed yourself more clearly, we’ll perhaps also find something in your present work — and then not act as we do now’.... fine promise — but — a ministerial fata Morgana — in the eyes of someone like me, who would rather find an outlet at a lower level provided it was in the present.
There you have it — that outlet in the present, with 3rdrate dealers if necessary (not from choice) — is something I can’t ask of you in your position — so be it — but you can’t ask me to acquiesce in a ministerial fata Morgana, I’m too practical for that, after all. Please appreciate that I call you a good minister — and know only too well how damned bad the people above the ground floor are as a rule, so I’m very willing to treasure a few bright spots, even in the ministerial sphere. Which isn’t intransigent, and it’s for that reason that I herewith certainly piss on the sacred shrine of the intransigents — as I often do — on sacred shrines in general.
To business, though — have you ever realized that I presently have more than two guilders in expenses daily — reckon 1 for the model, 1 for canvas, paint — it can’t come out any cheaper.
I still have bills to pay — and — I must go to Antwerp. My position here is rather too strained, I’m not comfortable at the moment and I have enough trouble sticking it out and ‘possessing my soul in patience’, as they say.
At home, after all — although there are no real rows — they don’t find the prospect of my staying here too long a pleasant one. Which I can well understand. And yet I can’t leave — either altogether — or partly (partly if I keep my studio on, which is my plan) unless I make a whole lot more studies and — find something new to settle me in Antwerp. Will you please bear this in mind? And if you’d do your best to make it rather easier for me financially, I believe that then there would be a real chance of keeping the peace later, albeit it far from concord. Which I wish for myself and also for others, that calmness.
What is not can yet come, you say, regarding my work — and I, regarding the perception of something other than a fata Morgana in your saying ‘later we’ll etc. — (see above)’: Today — it’s a fata Morgana to me and I wish, in any event, to try Antwerp. Regards, with a handshake.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 6 December 1884.
My dear Theo,
Many thanks for your letter and the enclosure, and also for what I received for St Nicholas too. I want to start by telling you that your letter really amazed me — because there has been no difference of any significance between Pa and Ma and myself, and that as regards the Begemann ladies, they’ve just very recently been to see Pa and Ma in considerable numbers — not just once but several times. Whether they come as often as or less often than before is something I can’t see that I have anything to do with, nor take the least or slightest interest in.
The fact that I disapprove of their attitude and will certainly continue to do so is something that I told them once — succinctly — without reverting to it again.
But that has nothing further to do with whether or not they come to our house, which concerns not me but Pa and Ma and themselves. I have been courteous to everyone in that family and did not start it but they attacked me and, which bothered me more, Margot — that’s why I’ve absolutely avoided contact with them — precisely because I don’t feel capable of taking back my decided disapproval of their attitude in this matter — or of concealing it.
What you also know yourself — I say this for clarity, not to cause you sorrow — what you also know yourself, that in order to show you how I said what I said with composure I deliberately dropped you a brief line that I thought your own opinion wrong — (whether it is wrong is for you to decide, but I thought and think it wrong).
So this is my subjective conviction — I have my own ideas in these things — my whys and wherefores — which I can feel better for myself than make them clear to you or anyone else — particularly when they have neither your attention nor your sympathy. Consequently, I let people say and think whatever they will of me more than you might imagine — but you can take this much from me ‘for your guidance’ — that just because I failed in something I don’t admit that I shouldn’t have started it — on the contrary, if I fail many times I find this a reason even if it’s sometimes impossible to continue in exactly the same way — nevertheless to try again in the same direction, since my convictions, too, are considered and intended by me, and I believe that there’s a raison d’être for them.
For me personally, there’s a cardinal point of distinction between before and after the revolution — the reversal of the social position of the woman, and the collaboration one wants between men and women with equal rights, with equal freedom.
I have neither the words nor the time to expand on this, nor, in the circumstances, the inclination. But enough, to my mind conventional morality is all backtofront and I hope it will be turned around and replaced in time.
Now — as to what you say about yourself, probably also for my guidance, ‘that you are mistrustful’ — very well — I don’t want to influence that. You’ve most certainly shown me this — and it’s one of those ‘symptoms’ which I told you I didn’t find very attractive nor congratulated you on.
But this, too, is a subjective opinion if you will. So go ahead, be mistrustful or not mistrustful as the mood takes you, I will in any event see to it that I accept the consequences for me, and can otherwise only refer you to what I said about standing on different sides of a barricade. Do what you want according to your principles — but I’ll act according to mine, and only — if possible, let’s avoid aiming at each other because we’re brothers. I’m older than you, and I’ve probably experienced some things differently and interpreted them differently from you. And this is my own responsibility, of course. That I can’t approve of everything I see you do or hear you say is something very different from wanting to bring you round to my point of view. It’s just — I like to lay my cards on the table.
And bearing in mind that we must see to it that we avoid putting a spoke in each other’s wheels, I will, as I said, increasingly try to find other contacts or connections in Eindhoven, in Antwerp, in short, wherever I can.
But this can’t be done all at once — and for my part it’s simply and solely because you’ve shown me all too clearly and unmistakably that I mustn’t imagine that you intend to involve yourself with me personally or with my work other than by way of patronage. Well, you can count me out. And while, without words, without sympathy, I’ve received the money very regularly but very coolly each month, I have — kept working — but — increasingly realizing that a moment could come when we each go our own way instead of the same way together. I don’t suppose in the least that I’ll gain by it financially — but — as soon as some dealer or other, however much of a cheapjack — gives me board and, even if it’s a tiny attic, lodgings and some paint, I’ll sell myself with great pleasure — if you choose to call it selling. Preferable to patronage. There you see my cards on the table. And whether I’ll succeed in this and when? I can’t say precisely, but — I work too hard for me to be so very far away from it. I want, precisely because I foresee that if our paths ever lead us to the same place we might well find ourselves considerably at odds — I want you not to be able to blame me then for being dependent on you. I’m still in two minds as to what I should try to do — but I’ll most probably not stay here after all — and then where to go will be the question.
I don’t think that you’ll approve of my coming to Paris — but what can I do about it? You flatly refuse to look after my interests — very well — but I can’t just leave it at that. I wouldn’t have thought of it if you had written less decidedly that it was beneath you, but now — well, now — I can take no notice of you.
In short, I don’t want to exchange the chance (even if it is only a chance) of making it, not even for the certainty of patronage which is, after all, rather tight.
Since I see that I’m forfeiting my chance of selling by continuing to take the money from you, we must just part. Don’t you find it very understandable that, when I hear you say that you can’t do anything with my work for the next few years, I then get the slight sense that, if you want to remain high and mighty on this point, there’s a rather odd contradiction if — precisely because I’m not selling, however hard I work — I’m forced to say, Theo, I’m 25 guilders short, couldn’t you let me have a bit extra, then this proves not to be possible.
This is very contrary of you: when one sends you something or one asks, please, try to find an opening with the illustrated magazines so that I can earn something extra — one hears no more about it and you don’t lift a finger.
But one may not say, I can’t manage on my money.
And up to now — all right — but to carry on — impossible. I also want to tell you that I shan’t be asking you whether you approve or disapprove of anything I do or don’t do — I won’t be embarrassed and, if I feel like going to Paris, for instance, I shan’t ask you whether or not you object. The drawback to painting is the paint bill. And at the moment I’m having a far from easy time with it. I already immediately paid out 40 guilders (80 francs) of what was sent. Moreover also paid the carpenter for things. So that if, after deduction of what you had to pay, you still had 100 francs left — I have less than 25 francs left, and although I don’t have to live on it at the moment, as you do, I still have to paint on it for a month, which, with models, with paints, is impossible this way.
And I also have this pleasing prospect for January, when I’ll have to pay some more. So what I’m complaining about and why I said that it was actually most decidedly essential that I had something extra now and not later was so that I could for God’s sake at least keep working, and if I’m definitely stuck for financial reasons, it makes me very discontented. And for which I can’t then accordingly blame myself alone, because what I have to pay isn’t caused by extravagance but by working. If you can’t enter into this or sympathize, and choose to be mistrustful — well, old chap — I believe you really mean well and so — I really don’t take your mistrustfulness too much to heart. Except to the extent that if you’re doing it deliberately to get rid of me, you’re truly well on the way to achieving that goal.
In the past you know that I often specifically asked you that we should keep up the relationship — now I could no longer urge it in the same way. Again, I work too hard for me to have to remain for much longer in a dependent position which degenerates too much into patronage, while when I write about it in a businesslike way I don’t even get an answer. No — old chap — seeing something in it that I may continue to regard as lasting is no longer reconcilable with my sense of honour, of justice.
Listen — Pa — has been very often and very seriously — mistrustful — of me. You know your side of that anyway, and I for my part perhaps know even more about it. But — nonetheless — he always called himself ‘my friend’ nonetheless — the man thought that he was right and simply couldn’t see any differently — and — so, after all — meant well if you will — namely.
But for my part, one day I spoke out foursquare and said, don’t call yourself my friend if you think this or that of me — people who think of me like that, they’re not friends but enemies, the worst enemies as sure as 2 x 2 = 4. This also applies to you in answer to what you say about mistrust. With this distinction (which I’m willing to appreciate and take into account), Pa did not add ‘that he was mistrustful’, you add that — which makes up for a lot. Yet at bottom I still see the same thing in it.
Now I don’t want to influence anything, though — and I say bluntly that on my part I don’t in the least undertake to agree with Pa or you. Be aware of that — quite possibly there’s even more than a ditch between the two. And because something of the kind is quite possible, be aware that I absolutely do not urge you to think all sorts of fine and good things about me according to your or Pa’s view of things. It might well be that mine is opposed to them in a revolutionary way. I can’t worry about what people think of me — I must move forward, that’s what I have to think about.And so I go my way with a certain obstinacy, believing in some things and not in others. You — and rightly — set store by your position — don’t you? — by making progress or not making progress — your affairs going poorly or well. Well now, know that I too shall certainly stand up for my profession with no weaker motive than you have for yours. And without going about it all too delicately, must and will persevere. And also very certainly think to keep on my studio here — like Stengelin does, for instance, who has one on the Drenthe heaths — even if he happens to live somewhere else. I’ve rented it as a refuge and it will continue to serve me as such.
So — taking rooms in Eindhoven would be sheer nonsense — and I can’t even think about it. A room in Antwerp later on, all right — that is indeed my intention — but firstly I don’t have any money for it now, and secondly I still want to paint a fairly large number of heads first — with which I’ll make progress — to the extent that it’s at all possible for me to pay the models. Which in the circumstances, as you say, things don’t exactly foster. I can’t do any silly things just like that in the circumstances, and cook my own goose by breaking off here at a moment that doesn’t lend itself to it — just because you’re in a mistrustful period. But be aware of this, that if this mistrustful period endures with you and seems about to take root — even if I don’t do any silly things just like that — I’m nonetheless seriously thinking of seeing to it that we can part in peace and without damage to you or me.However, my very sincere thanks each time for what is sent, and know that if I press for a little extra — it’s precisely in order to continue until we can part, but — in peace — and without harm to you or me.Theo. Although appreciating your proposal to add another 50 francs monthly over and above the 100 francs I asked for, intended as a contribution to Pa towards the cost of my keep, I must most decidedly refuse this (the 50 francs). If I’ve been here at home this long without paying for my board and lodging, you may regard that if you will as arrogance or tactlessness on my part. I did it for the sake of the progress of the painting, and have not profited from it myself in so far as even now I still have a fairly steep paint bill to pay, as surplus expenditure. Apart from that, I acknowledge that it has been advantageous to me after all.
But the reason why I don’t think now is a suitable moment to make a sort of contract with Pa is that under the circumstances it cannot be part of my plans to intend to stay here for very much longer. Which I would like but, I must fear, will prove impossible.
However, if you do want to agree something with Pa to the effect you indicate in your letter, let it be without involving me at all and in other words a matter between you and Pa which concerns me not at all.
So that I can then continue to regard the fact that I live here as tactlessness on my part in all events, thus also in the event of payment by you.
When I’m better I’ll probably go and live in the studio, at least in the daytime.
It’s too much for me all at once, losing you in this respect, and having to pay for my keep again as well. Gradually, though, I’ll see to it that I find another resource of my own accord.
If it can give you any satisfaction that what you call ‘my plans for the future’ are also lying pretty much in ruins, good luck to you. However, this is still no reason for me to approve of your views in this regard, which, I must repeat, I continue to find bad.
I cannot give up the studio yet — I have to have something fixed, and they can’t in any event demand of me that I leave the village. The fact that it can be foreseen that I have to prepare myself for this, though, is precisely the point that makes me regret that I didn’t already realize last year that our arrangement was unsustainable for both of us. Regards.VincentI must object to an underlined section in your letter — which I copy.
‘And I therefore request you, from now on, out of the 150 francs, which I shall keep on sending you, as agreed when we were good friends, it was accepted by us both to give 50 francs to Pa.’
I object to that, it’s not true that ‘when we were still good friends’ and we agreed that I should pay 50 francs. I remember the conversation about it — in the garden — very well, and far from agreeing to something, I wasn’t willing to agree to anything of that sort then, on that occasion, and it ended with my pointing out to you fairly forcefully that I needed money to get started on several larger canvases I was planning, and had other expenses enough. If anything was agreed, it was for later, when I would be more on top of things.
This letter tells you explicitly that I flatly refuse to have anything to do with what you might want to agree with Pa about possible payment for board.
Now in order to avoid further misunderstanding in this regard, about this 50 francs for board, I let Pa read your letter of today and this letter. I don’t want to hear any more about this matter; you settle it with Pa. I tell you once more, it’s not true I agreed to pay 50 francs for my board, if I had promised that I would have kept to it, but I remember the whole conversation about it and it’s simply the opposite, namely that I told you that for the time being I had too much else to pay, that I couldn’t do it yet.
Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 16 December 1884.
My dear Theo,
I’m very busy working on the series of heads of the people that I’ve resolved to make.
I enclose herewith another scratch of the last one — I usually just scribble them from memory on a scrap of paper in the evening, hence this one.
I may perhaps do them in watercolour too, later on. But paint them first.
Now listen — do you remember that right at the very beginning I always spoke to you of my great respect and sympathy for the work of père Degroux? I think about him more than ever these days. One mustn’t look at his few history pieces — although they’re fine, too — nor in the first place at a few paintings that are in the sentiment of the writer Conscience, for instance. But one must see his Saying grace, The pilgrimage, The paupers’ pew and, above all, above all, the simple Brabant types. Degroux is as little appreciated as Thijs Maris, for instance. He’s different, however — but — they have this in common, that they met with fierce opposition.
Now — in this age — whether the public is wiser — I don’t know — but I do know this — that it’s absolutely not superfluous to be serious in what one wants and what one does.
And at this moment I could name you several new names of people who are hammering again on the same old anvil on which Degroux hammered.
If Degroux — at that time — had chosen to dress his Brabant characters in medieval costumes, he would have run parallel to Leys, not just as regards genius but perhaps also — fortune. However, he didn’t do that and now — years later — people have noticeably changed their minds about the medieval — although Leys will always be Leys and Thijs Maris, Thijs Maris — and Victor Hugo’s NotreDame — NotreDame. But — realism — not wanted then — is now — demanded — and — there’s more need of it than ever. For that realism that has character and a sincere sentiment. I want to tell you this, that as for me, I’ll try to steer a straight course — and will paint — the dead simple, most everyday things.
How, for God’s sake, is it possible that you don’t seem to be able or willing to understand that, by setting up my studio here and keeping it on for the time being, I’ve made it possible for me to have enough money for painting — and that if I had acted differently, no good would have come of it either for me or for others?
Had I not done that, I would have had to muddle along for perhaps another 3 years before I had finally swallowed the bitter pill of colour and tone, also simply because of the expense.
It’s now just a year since I arrived here, driven by necessity. I’m certainly not at home for my pleasure — but for my painting — and, this being so, I think it very wrong of you that you should deprive me of an opportunity if I were to leave here now — before ever I have something new. I have to be here for a time for my painting — then — as soon as I’ve conquered that more definitely, I’ll be happy to go anywhere I can earn the same as I now have here.
But I don’t need or deserve to go backwards — nor do I have the slightest desire to — you see? And to seek to be rid of you — I’ve never done that, but where you have only too plainly let me see how little chance there was that we’d actually do business together — I accept it for the future, that’s true. Know this once and for all, when I ask you for money, I don’t ask it for nothing — you can have the work I make with it in return, and if I’m in arrears with it now — I’m on the right road even to get ahead of it.
I write this yet again for the same reason as the previous letters — I’m stuck at the end of the month because I only have enough left to pay my model for 2 or 3 days. And I’m wretched because I’ll be stuck again for 10 days, or 12, this month.
And in the utmost seriousness, once again — can’t you find some way of helping me with 20 francs, say, to cover that little end? It’s my time that will otherwise not be sufficiently occupied that really pains me. Regards.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Monday, 2 March 1885.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for the prompt dispatch of the money for this month, arriving promptly like that actually helps me more. Thanks, too, for the splendid woodcut after Lhermitte — one of the few things by him that I know, for I saw only these — a troop of girls in the wheat — an old woman in church — and a miner or some such in a little bar, and Harvest by him, and otherwise never anything, and nothing ever as much reflecting his actual manner as these woodcutters.
If Le Monde Illustré prints a composition by him every month — this is part of a series of ‘Rural months’ — it would give me mighty great pleasure to collect this whole series, and I’d really like you to send them every time.
Because obviously I never see anything here, and after all I do need to see something really beautiful now and then, and so another time feel free to keep back 20 francs, say, but send me things like this when they appear in the illustrated magazines.Now as to when you write that if I had something ready that I thought was good, you would try to enter it for the Salon — I appreciate your wanting to do this.
This in the first place — and then further that if I’d known it 6 weeks earlier, I would have tried to send you something for this purpose.
Now, though, I don’t have anything that I would care to send in. Recently, as you know, I’ve painted heads almost exclusively. And they are studies in the true meaning of the word — that is, they’re meant for the studio.
Nonetheless, this very day I’ve started to make some that I’ll send you.
Because I think it possible that it might be of use, when you meet a good many people on the occasion of the Salon, if you had something you could show — albeit only studies.So you’ll receive heads of an old and a young woman, and probably more than one of these two models. Given what you write of your feelings about various conceptions of heads, I think that these, which come straight out of a cottage with a mossgrown thatched roof, won’t appear to you to be absolutely inappropriate, although they’re studies and nothing else. If I’d known 6 weeks earlier, I would have made a woman spinning or spooling yarn — full length — of them.
To return for a moment to that question of the female heads in the Jacquet genre, not the earlier ones but of the present day. The reaction against them — certainly with a motive — by people who paint heads of girls like our sisters, for instance — I can well understand that there are painters who do such things — Whistler did it well several times — Millais, Boughton — to mention only people by whom I saw something of the sort in the past. I know little by FantinLatour, but what I saw I thought very good. Chardinesque. And that’s a lot. For my part, though, I’m not the sort of character who has much chance of getting on a sufficiently intimate footing with girls of that sort that they’re willing to pose. Particularly not with my own sisters. And am possibly also prejudiced against women who wear dresses. And my province is more those who wear jackets and skirts.
Though I think what you say about it is true — namely that it’s perfectly possible to paint them — and it has a raison d’être as a reaction against the presentday Jacquets and Van Beers.
Just this, though — Chardin (let’s sum up the aim of the reaction in his name, FantinLatour, at least, would approve), Chardin was a Frenchman and painted French women. And in my view, respectable Dutch women like our sisters really do extraordinarily often lack the charm that the French frequently have.
Consequently, the socalled respectable element among Dutch women isn’t really so very attractive — to paint or to think about. But certain common servant girls, on the other hand, are very Chardinesque.
At present I’m painting not just as long as there’s light, but even in the evening by lamplight in the cottages, if I can somehow make things out on my palette, in order to capture if possible something of the singular effects of lighting at night, for instance with a large shadow cast on the wall.
I’ve certainly not seen anything in the last few years as fine as those woodcutters by Lhermitte.
How his little figures in that composition are felt and wanted.
Thanks again for it.
Yours truly,
Vincent
The Chardinesque is, it seems to me, a singular expression of simplicity and of goodness — both through and through, and I find it a little hard to believe that one would find it in our sisters, say, either one of them. But if Wil were a Frenchwoman rather than a minister’s daughter, she could have it. But as good as always sails to the opposite point of the compass.
Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 4 April 1885.
My dear Theo,
I felt as you did, in so far as when you write that the work didn’t yet proceed as usual the very first few days, I had the same experience.
They have therefore been days that none of us will forget, and yet the overall impression isn’t terrible but only grave. Life isn’t long for anyone, and the question is just — to do something with it.
The painting went better again today; the first two heads went wrong — today’s is a head of a young girl, almost a child’s head.
As to colour, it’s a contrast of bright red and pale green against the colour of the little face; there’s already a head like it among those you took with you. I’d like to hear sometime whether those rolledup ones arrived safely.
If I thought that C.M. meant it when he asked for heads of children, I could send him this one I did today, but..... I can’t say I feel much inclined to enter into correspondence (unless he asks for something more specifically).
It can do no harm, though, that he’s been to the studio. I don’t mind starting a new still life of those honesty heads and dry leaves against blue either, because he said something about that too.
Of course I intend to keep working hard, but it’s very necessary for me to square my paint bill as soon as possible. Every other year, I’ve been able to get square at about this time and buy myself some new equipment. And this year I’ve painted so much the last few months that I actually need it more.
I didn’t want to keep talking about it or contradict you much when you were here — but when you said that I would change some day and, no more than Mauve stayed in Bloemendaal for ever, would I stay here for ever either — maybe — but — I don’t see any advantage myself in moving, because I have a good studio here and the countryside here is very beautiful.Don’t forget that I’m definitely convinced that a painter of peasant life can do no better than follow the example of Barbizon – dwelling and living right in the midst of what one is painting, for it’s new and different outside every day.
In short, the two reasons for living in the country are that one can do more work and has fewer expenses.
There are about 3 months, let’s say, between now and the time you come back here in the summer.
If I work hard day after day, I can have another 20 or so studies for you by then, and moreover another twenty or so to take to Antwerp if you want. But — it’s very necessary for me to pay off my paint bill as soon as possible. You know I didn’t say another word to you about it either in February or in March.
But I didn’t have it easy in those months, I can tell you that.
It has become colder again here. As soon as we have a few fine days, I’ll make something of the churchyard. I think the little head I made today is certainly as good as the one you have with a large white cap, which is something like thisAfter ‘this’ (dit) Van Gogh drew a little arrow pointing to the sketches And could serve as a pendant to it.
If you mount these two on gilded Bristol they might perhaps look good in the gold, do better than by themselves.
Regards, with a handshake, and still thinking often of your visit
Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 28 May 1885.
My dear Theo,
I’ve just received Germinal, which I started on immediately. I’ve read 50 pages of it — which I think splendid. I also walked there once.Here’s a croquis of a head that I just brought back. You received the same one in the last studies I sent, the largest one among them, but painted smoothly.
This time I haven’t smoothed out the brushstroke, and besides the colour is very different too. I haven’t yet made a head that’s so much painted with the soil, and more will certainly follow now.
If all goes well — if I earn rather more so that I can travel more — well then I’ll also, I hope, paint the miners’ heads sometime. However, I’ll keep working until I’m absolutely and utterly sure of my case — such that I’m working even faster than now and will also be able to bring home 30 or so studies in the space of a month, say.
I don’t know whether we’ll earn money, but if it’s just enough to work a tremendous amount then I’m content; doing what one wants is what matters.
Yes, we must do the miners one day!What did Portier say about the potato eaters? I know myself that there are flaws in it; all the same, precisely because I see that the heads I’m doing now are becoming more powerful, I dare assert that the potato eaters will also hold up in association with subsequent paintings.
Last year I was often desperate about colour, but now I’m working much more confidently. You must just write and tell me what you think best; whether I should keep the work I’m doing now for Antwerp or that I send it to you and Portier as soon as possible. Because it’s all the same to me. I have 7 heads and 1 watercolour ready now, so I could make another small consignment. Regards, thanks again for Germinal, I’m still reading it as I write. It’s splendid.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 9 June 1885.
My dear Theo,
Today I sent off that little crate, containing 1 other painting, Peasant cemetery, besides what I already told you.
I’ve left out some details — I wanted to say how this ruin shows that for centuries the peasants have been laid to rest there in the very fields that they grubbed up in life — I wanted to say how perfectly simply death and burial happen, coolly as the falling of an autumn leaf — no more than a bit of earth turned over — a little wooden cross. The fields around — where the grass of the churchyard ends, beyond the little wall, they make a last fine line against the horizon — like the horizon of a sea. And now this ruin says to me how a faith and religion mouldered away, although it was solidly founded — how, though, the life and death of the peasants is and will always be the same, springing up and withering regularly like the grass and the flowers that grow there in that churchyard. Victor Hugo, whom they’ve also just buried, said Religions pass, God remains.I don’t know whether you’ll see anything in these two things — the cottage with the mossy roof reminded me of a wren’s nest. Anyway, you must just look at them.
Now I must take this opportunity of explaining to you again — which I found new, clear words for — why I wrote and write to you that I’m still far from sure whether your present view is your definite conviction. The firm of G(and)Cie isn’t a good school for getting to know paintings, let alone painters. I tell you this as my opinion — that one doesn’t even learn how to look independently there.
Who did they greatly honour? Paul Delaroche. I don’t have to tell you how Delaroche was one of the people who really didn’t stand up to scrutiny — there’s simply no one left who takes his part.
Someone else who won’t stand up to scrutiny — even though he’s better — although he did make something very fine once or twice — who will also fail — that is — Gérôme.His Prisoner, though, his Syrian shepherd are felt, and I think them as fine as anybody, and readily and willingly.
But by far the most often he’s a Delaroche II. Each of them, taking into account the context of their age, is of equal worth. What I’m now asserting is — that I consider it highly likely that the whole situation will bore you more by the year.
What I further assert is that one does both others and especially oneself too a disservice by being bored. In spite of many wise lessons, I’ve never seriously granted that being bored ‘for one’s own good’ can have its good, practical side. Now a MASS of people have reformed themselves at the age of about 30 and changed very considerably.
Just think calmly about this — I tell you that nothing of what I learnt and heard about art at G(and)Cie stood up to scrutiny. How if one reverses the generalities that count there as the conversation killers in judging art — namely praising the old or presentday Delaroche to the skies and discrediting the unorthodox — if, I say, one reverses certain maxims, then — one takes a breath of fresh air. In short — old chap — such curious turns in situations and affairs are possible — not only that — but even the rule. It’s funny, isn’t it — that, after all, I still doubt whether you’ll stay in the trade.
You don’t have to take any notice of this or reply to it — I say it to you just to express my idea frankly, not to start futile exchanges of words.
But it’s — an enchanted land — where one isn’t free.
Anyway — I’ll hear sometime whether you’ve received the little crate and whether you find anything in it.
Tomorrow I’m going to paint a thing in another village — also a cottage — in a smaller size. I found it last Sunday on a long trip I made in the company of a peasant boy — in order to get hold of a wren’s nest. We found 6; without doubt it was a place that Bodmer would have adored. And they were all nests from which the young had already flown, so that one could take them without too many pangs of conscience. It was so real; I also have some other splendid nests. Regards, write soon, with a handshake.Yours truly,
Vincent
I’d like you to give both the paintings a varnish before you show them to Portier or Serret.
The peasant cemetery has sunk in particularly badly, because it was very different on the canvas at first and I scraped the first thing off completely. It was a total failure at first — then I gave it short shrift and started from the beginning, went and sat on another side and painted early in the morning instead of in the evening. Well, and the other — the one of the cottage — was originally a shepherd. The sheep were shorn last week; I saw it — on a table in a barn.
I’m glad that this time I can show Portier something very different again. I’m busy drawing, by the way, so as to send a few fulllength figures in a little while. But working on the cottages — perhaps you’ll say imitations of Michel, although they aren’t — and searching for subjects, I’ve found such splendid cottages that I now really must go bird’s nesting with a number of variations of these ‘people’s nests’, which remind me so much of the nests of wrens — that’s to say, paint them.
Oh — one mustn’t doubt — anyone who paints the peasants nowadays and has his heart in his work, he wins — at least a part, and not the worst although it’s not the largest — of the public.
This doesn’t alter the fact that my end or second half of the month — can still work out remarkably meagre. But the same happens to the peasant lads too, and — they still have fun.
I wish you’d been here on Sunday when we went on that trip. I came back covered in mud because we had to spend a good half hour wading through a stream. But for me painting is now becoming as stimulating and enticing as hunting — it is a hunt, after all, for models, and beautiful places too. Regards again, and best wishes to you. It’s already late and I have to be at the place at 5 o’clock, so — adieu.
Nuenen, on or about Monday, 22 June 1885.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter and the enclosure, which is exactly what I meant and enables me to work at the end of the month just as at the beginning of the month.
I was very pleased to hear that Serret is the painter about whom you had previously written things that I had really remembered, but the name had escaped me. I’d like to write much more to you than I will in this letter, but when I get home nowadays I’m really not in the mood for writing when I’ve been sitting in the sun all day. As to what Serret says, I think so too — I’ll drop him a line, because I’d like to become friends with him. As I already told you, these days I’m hard at work on figure drawings — I’ll send them specifically with an eye to Serret, to show him that I’m far from indifferent to the unity of a figure and the form.
Do you ever see Wallis? Might the watercolour of the auction be something for him? If it were something for Wisselingh, then better he should take it. I once gave Wisselingh a couple of heads and also just sent him the lithograph. But because he didn’t send so much as a word in reply, I think that all I’d get would be an insult if I sent something.It just happened to me that, having not heard anything from him in 3 months or so, I suddenly got a letter from Rappard, with whom I’ve been on good terms for years, so supercilious and so full of insults and, it seemed to me, so obviously written after he’d been in The Hague that I’m as good as certain that I’ve lost him as a friend for good.
It’s precisely because I tried it first in The Hague, that’s to say my own country, that I have every right and reason to forget all that unpleasantness and to think of something else outside my own country.
You know Wallis well, so perhaps you could bring it up sometime apropos of that watercolour, but act as the opportunity arises. If I could earn something with my work, if we had some firm ground, even a little — under our feet, to be able to go on living — and if ever the desire to become an artisan took shape in you — let me say to make it clear — in the manner of, say, discounting all the differences in age (and);c. — Hennebeau in Germinal — what you would be able to paint then! Still, the future’s always other than one thinks, so one can never know for sure. The drawback to painting is that if one doesn’t sell one’s paintings one still has to have money for paints and models to make progress. And that drawback is ugly. But otherwise — painting and, to my mind, particularly painting peasant life, gives peace of mind, even though one has a lot of scraping along and wretchedness on the outside of life. I mean painting is a home, and one doesn’t have that homesickness, that peculiar thing that Hennebeau had.
The passage I copied out then struck me very much because, almost literally at that time, I had just such a longing to be something like a grassmower or polder worker.And I was sick of the boredom of civilization. It is better, one is happier if one puts it into effect — but pretty much literally — at least one feels really alive. And it is something to be deep in the snow in winter, to be deep in the yellow leaves in the autumn, to be deep in the ripe wheat in the summer, to be deep in the grass in the spring. It is something to always be with the mowers and the peasant girls, in summer with the big sky above, in the winter by the black fireplace. And to feel – this has always been so and always will be. One may sleep on straw, eat rye bread — well then, in the long run one is the healthier for it.
I’d like to write more but — as I said — I’m not really in the mood for writing, and I wanted to enclose a note for Serret, which you must just read, since I write in it about what I wanted to send before long, especially because I want to let Serret see my particular figure studies. Regards,
Yours truly,
Vincent
Serret may agree with you that making good things and selling are quite separate. But there’s no truth in that. When the public saw Millet at last, his work collected together — then the public in both Paris and London was enthusiastic. And who was it who had stood in the way and rejected Millet? — the dealers — the socalled experts (and);c. I ask you, would a Mouret have said something like that, to keep talking about business?
Nuenen, Monday, 6 July 1885.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for the money, your letter and Raffaëlli catalogue. I think the drawings in it are masterly. What he himself also says about ‘character’ is interesting.
His writing is a mixture of very simple words that come from the heart and from a nervous artistic emotion — they’re moving — and further — of words that I think Raffaëlli himself understands as little as one who has to read them. Thus it is writing full of very fine things and full of mistakes — I would rather read that than anything else. For what he’s talking about is mightily complicated.
It seems to me, though, that the totality of what he says satisfies — when one has read it — and with all his strange outbursts he nonetheless says something sound and true.
Theo, you mustn’t think that if I saw Uhde’s painting itself I would lose the impression I got of it. I say again that I believe this man will go the same way as Knaus and Lobrichon — namely that after a few things full of character, the very technique will play a dirty trick on him, that’s to say he’ll start working more and more correctly — and — more and more drily. I find Raffaëlli, say, a painter who stands much higher — than Uhde.
You don’t hear me having any pessimistic doubts about Lhermitte, do you? So I’m not someone who always doubts. On the contrary, I have a very firm faith in some people. I had never seen anything by Raffaëlli besides those two blacksmiths when I wrote to you about it. Raffaëlli, and above all specifically Lhermitte, though, have what Raffaëlli’s talking about, ‘conscience’. I’m afraid that that’s where Uhde’s weak spot will be. That he’ll no longer know what he wants.
Anyway. Now you say that Uhde’s silvery grey is so beautiful — and that if I saw the painting I’d think differently about it. No, old chap. I’ve already seen so almighty much grey that I’m not so easily seduced by a bit of silvery grey as I once was. Painting grey as a system is becoming intolerable, and we’ll get the other side of that coin! All the same, to convince you that I want to go on seeing the good in it and am not against it, I have a grey thing going right now.We’ll — inevitably talk about these things again sometime.
Don’t forget, though, that although I have certain reservations about Uhde, I said at the outset that I really do think this painting — as far as the main part is concerned, which is 3/4 of the painting — the children — very fine.
I must get going — didn’t want to wait any longer; am dogtired every day because I’m so far away on the heath.
I’ve got some more figures.
I’m sorry about what you write about the money, that you’ll be short yourself.
Painting is sometimes so damned expensive, and nowadays it just comes down to following one’s own idea at all costs.
We need an art with strength and vigour, says Raffaëlli, and in achieving this in the figure one has so much difficulty finding models.
The time has passed, and I’m not complaining about it. Although it’s enough for a figure to be put together conventionally, academically – or actually, although many people want precisely that, there’ll be a reaction nonetheless — and I hope that will stir things up. The artists are calling for character, well — the public will do the same. I assure you that I find Uhde’s Christ extraordinarily unfortunate, it won’t do — the children are good.
I’m so fond of Lhermitte — Raffaëlli — because it’s thought out through and through, sensible and honest.
I’ve got a few figures here, a woman with a spade seen from behind, another one bending over to glean ears of corn — another one from the front with her head almost on the ground, digging up carrots.
I’ve been spying on these peasant figures here for 1 1/2 years and on their activities, precisely to get some character into it. So I really can’t stand a Santa Claus like Uhde put there in that little school — the little school itself is so fine, though! Uhde himself — well, I wager that he knows it too — and that he did it on account of the fact that the good citizens of that country where he lives desire a ‘subject’ and ‘something conventional to think about’, and otherwise he’d have to starve. If I find another moment one of these days when I’m not too tired to write, I’ll try to tell you how outstandingly good I find some things in Raffaëlli. Regards, with a handshake.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 14 July 1885.
My dear Theo,
I wish that the 4 canvases I wrote to you about were gone. I may work on them again if I keep them here too long, and I think it’s better for you to get them as they come from the heath.
The reason why I don’t send them off is that I don’t want to send them to you with the carriage unpaid at a moment when you say that you might be short yourself, and I can’t pay the carriage myself either.
I’ve never seen the little house where Millet lived — but I imagine that these 4 little human nests are of the same kind.
One of them is the residence of a gentleman who’s popularly known here as ‘the peasant of Rauwveld’ — the other is occupied by a worthy soul who, when I went there, was engaged in nothing more mysterious than turning over her potato patch, but must also be able to work magic, though — at any rate she goes by the name of ‘the witch’s head’. You remember that it says in the book by Gigoux how it came about that Delacroix had 17 paintings rejected at the same time. This shows — at least so it seems to me — that he and others from that period — were faced with connoisseurs and nonconnoisseurs, none of whom either understood it or wanted to buy — this shows that those who are rightly described in the book as ‘the valiant ones’ didn’t talk about fighting a losing battle, but carried on painting.
Something else I wanted to say to you is that we’ll have to paint a lot more if we take that about Delacroix as our startingpoint. I must necessarily be the most disagreeable of all people, that’s to say having to ask for money. And since I don’t think that things will take a turn for the better as regards sales in the next few days, this is bad enough. But I ask you, isn’t it better, after all, for both of us to work hard even though there are difficulties attached to it, than to sit about philosophizing at a time like this?
I don’t know the future, Theo — but — I do know the eternal law that everything changes — think back 10 years and things were different, the conditions, the mood of the people, everything in short. And 10 years on, a great deal is bound to have changed again. But doing something endures — and one doesn’t easily regret having done something. The more active the better, and I’d rather fail than sit idle. Whether Portier is or isn’t the man to do something with my work — we need him now all the same. And here’s what I think – after working for a year, say, we’ll have got more together than now, and I know for sure that my work will do better as I complete one thing with another. The people who have some feeling for it now, who, like him, talk about showing it sometime — they’re consequently useful, because after another year’s work, say, they’ll have a few more things together that will speak for themselves, even if they say nothing at all. Should you happen to see Portier, feel free to tell him that, far from giving up, I’m planning to send him much more. You must also go on showing when you meet people. It won’t be so very long before what we can show will be more important. You can see for yourself — and it’s a phenomenon that gives me surprisingly great pleasure — that people are increasingly starting to stage exhibitions of 1 person or a very few who belong together. This is a phenomenon in the art trade which I dare think has more future than other enterprises. It’s good that people are beginning to understand that a Bouguereau can’t do well beside a Jacque — nor a figure by Beyle or Lhermitte beside a Schelfhout or Koekkoek.
Scatter Raffaëlli’s drawings about — and judge for yourself whether it would be possible to form a good idea of this singular artist. He — Raffaëlli — isn’t like Régamey — but I find him just as much of a personality. If my work stayed with me — I think I’d be constantly working over it. By sending it to you and to Portier as it comes from the countryside or from the cottages, the odd thing that isn’t right will sometimes get through — but things that wouldn’t be improved by frequently working over them will be preserved.
If you had these 4 canvases and a few more, smaller studies of cottages, and someone saw nothing by me other than those, they’d be bound to think that I did nothing other than paint cottages. And likewise with that series of heads. But peasant life involves such diverse things that when Millet speaks of ‘working like a bunch of negroes’, this really does have to happen if one wants to achieve a whole. One may laugh at Courbet’s saying, ‘painting angels! who has ever seen angels!’ But I’d just like to add, for instance, ‘justices in the harem, who has ever seen justices in the Harem?’ (the painting by BenjaminConstant). ‘Bull fights, who has ever seen those?’ and so many other Moorish, Spanish things, Cardinals, and then all those history paintings, which are still always there, metres high by metres wide! What’s the point of it all, and what do people want with it? After a few years most of it becomes stale and dull, and more and more boring.But still. Perhaps they’re well painted — maybe. Nowadays, when connoisseurs stand in front of a painting like the one by BenjaminConstant, or like a reception at a cardinal’s by some Spaniard or other — it’s the custom to say, with a knowing air, something about ‘clever technique’. But — as soon as those same connoisseurs found themselves in front of a scene from peasant life or a drawing by Raffaëlli, say, they would criticize the technique with the same air — à la C.M.
Perhaps you think that I’m wrong to comment on this — but — I’m so gripped by the thought that all these exotic paintings are painted in THE STUDIO. But just go and sit outdoors, painting on the spot itself! Then all sorts of things like the following happen — I must have picked a good hundred flies and more off the 4 canvases that you’ll be getting, not to mention dust and sand (and);c. — not to mention that, when one carries them across the heath and through hedgerows for a few hours, the odd branch or two scrapes across them . Not to mention that when one arrives on the heath after a couple of hours’ walk in this weather, one is tired and hot. Not to mention that the figures don’t stand still like professional models, and the effects that one wants to capture change as the day wears on.I don’t know how it is with you — but for my part, the more I work on it the more peasant life absorbs me. And the less and less I care about either the Cabanelesque things, among which I would also count Jacquet, also BenjaminConstant’s present work — or the highly praised but so unspeakably, hopelessly dry technique of the Italians and Spaniards. Image makers! — what Jacque said, I often think about it. But I’m not biased; I like Raffaëlli who, after all, paints something very different from peasants — I like Alfred Stevens, Tissot, to mention something that’s entirely unlike peasants — I like a fine portrait. Zola who otherwise, to my mind, often makes colossal mistakes in his judgement of paintings — says something beautiful about art in general in ‘Mes haines’. ‘In the painting (the work of art) I look for, I love the man — the artist.’
There you are, I think that’s perfectly true — I ask you, what sort of a man, what sort of a visionary/observer or thinker, what sort of a human character is there behind some of these canvases praised for their technique — often, after all, nothing. But a Raffaëlli — is someone, a Lhermitte is someone, and in many paintings by virtually unknown people one feels that they were made with a will, with emotion, with passion, with love. The TECHNIQUE of a painting from peasant life or — like Raffaëlli — from the heart of urban workers — entails difficulties quite different from those of the slick painting and the rendering of action of a Jacquet or BenjaminConstant. That’s to say, living in those cottages day in and day out, being out in the fields just like the peasants — enduring the heat of the sun in the summer, the snow and frost in the winter, not indoors but outside, and not for a walk, but day in and day out like the peasants themselves.
And I ask you, when you think about it, am I so wrong to criticize the criticism of the connoisseurs, who are presently fencing more busily than ever with the often so meaningless word technique (they’re increasingly giving it a conventional meaning)?
When one counts all the trudging and lugging one has to do to paint ‘the peasant of Rauwveld’ and his cottage, I dare swear that this is a longer and more tiring expedition than many painters of exotic subjects, be it the justice in the harem or the reception at the cardinal’s, make for their choicest eccentric subjects. For in Paris one can get Arab or Spanish or Moorish models simply by ordering and paying for them. But it’s harder for someone like Raffaëlli, who paints the ragpickers of Paris in their own small quarter, and his work is more serious.
Seemingly there’s nothing simpler than painting peasants or ragpickers and other labourers but — no subjects in painting are as difficult as those everyday figures!There isn’t — as far as I know — a single academy where one learns to draw and paint a digger, a sower, a woman hanging a pot over the fire, or a seamstress. But in every town of any consequence at all there’s an academy with a choice of models for historical, Arab, Louis XV and, in a word, all figures, provided they don’t exist in reality.
If I send you and Serret a few studies of diggers or peasant women who are weeding, gleaning corn (and);c. as the start of a whole series about all kinds of work in the fields — then it may be that either Serret or you will discover faults in them which will be useful for me to know about, and which I’ll naturally concede myself. But I want to point out something that’s perhaps worth noting. All academic figures are constructed in the same way and, let’s admit, one couldn’t do better. Impeccable — without faults — you’ll already have seen what I’m driving at — also without giving us anything new to discover. Not so the figures of a Millet, a Lhermitte, a Régamey, a Lhermitte, a Daumier. They’re also well constructed — but not the way the academy teaches, after all. I think that no matter how academically correct a figure may be, it’s REDUNDANT in this day and age, even if it were by Ingres himself (apart from his Source of course, because that indeed was and is and will remain something new) if it lacks that essential modernism — the intimate character, the actual DOING SOMETHING.
When will the figure not be redundant then, even though there were necessarily faults and grave faults in it to my mind, you’ll probably ask.
When the digger digs, when the peasant is a peasant, and the peasant woman a peasant woman. Is this something new? Yes. Even the little figures by Ostade, Ter Borch don’t work the way they do nowadays.I’d like to say a lot more about this and I’d like to say how much I myself want to do what I’ve begun even better — and how much higher than my own I value the work of some others. I ask you — do you know of a single digger, a single sower in the old Dutch school??? Did they ever try to make ‘a labourer’? Did Velázquez try it in his watercarrier? Or his folk types? No. Work, that’s what the figures in the old paintings don’t do. These days I’m slogging away at a woman whom I saw last winter, lifting carrots in the snow. There it is — Millet did it, Lhermitte, and in general the peasant painters of this century — an Israëls — they find that more beautiful than anything else. But even in this century, how relatively few there are among the legion of painters who want the figure — yes — above all — for the sake of the figure (i.e. for the sake of form and modelling) but can’t conceive of it other than working, and also have the need — which the old masters avoided, as did the old Dutch masters who depicted so many conventional actions — and — I say — have the need to paint the action for the action’s sake.
So that the painting or the drawing is a figure drawing for the sake of the figure and the inexpressibly harmonic form of the human body — yet at the same time — is lifting carrots in the snow. Am I expressing myself clearly? I hope so, and just say this to Serret — I can say it in fewer words — a nude figure by Cabanel, a lady by Jacquet and a peasant woman not by BastienLepage himself, but a peasant woman by a Parisian who learnt to draw at the academy, will always show the limbs and the structure of the body in the same way — sometimes charmingly — correct — in proportion and anatomy. But when Israëls or when Daumier or Lhermitte, say, draw a figure, one will feel the form of the body much more and yet — this is why I particularly want to include Daumier — the proportions will sometimes be almost random, the anatomy and structure often completely wrong ‘in the eyes of the academicians’.
But it will live. And above all Delacroix, too.
It still isn’t expressed properly. Tell Serret that I would be desperate if my figures were good, tell him that I don’t want them academically correct. Tell him that I mean that if one photographs a digger, then he would certainly not be digging. Tell him that I think Michelangelo’s figures magnificent, even though the legs are definitely too long — the hips and buttocks too broad. Tell him that in my view Millet and Lhermitte are consequently the true painters, because they don’t paint things as they are, examined drily and analytically, but as they, Millet, Lhermitte, Michelangelo, feel them. Tell him that my great desire is to learn to make such inaccuracies, such variations, reworkings, alterations of the reality, that it might become, very well — lies if you will — but — truer than the literal truth.
And now I must close soon — I did need, though, just to talk about the fact that those who paint the life of the peasants or the common people, although they aren’t counted among the men of the world — will still, however, perhaps endure better in the long run than the makers of the exotic but painted in Paris harems and cardinals’ receptions.
I know that it’s being a disagreeable person when one’s in need of money at inconvenient times — but my excuse is just that painting the seemingly most everyday things is sometimes the most difficult and most expensive.The expenses that I must incur if I want to work are sometimes very heavy in relation to my means. I assure you that if my constitution weren’t becoming virtually like that of a peasant as a result of wind and weather, I wouldn’t stick it out, for there’s simply nothing left over for my own comfort. But I don’t desire that for myself either, any more than many peasants desire to live other than as they live. But what I do ask is both for paint and, above all, for models. You’ll perhaps realize from what I say about the figure drawings that I’m positively passionate about going on with them.
You recently wrote to me that Serret had spoken to you ‘with conviction’ about certain faults in the structure of the figures of the potato eaters. But you’ll have been able to see from my answer that my own criticism also condemns them, considered from that point of view, only I’ve pointed out how this was an impression I had after I’d seen the cottage in the dim lamplight on many evenings, after having painted 40 heads, from which it follows that I was starting from a different point of view. Now we’ve started talking about the figure, though, I have a great deal to say. I find in Raffaëlli’s words, his perception about ‘Character’, what he says about that is good — and in its place — and clarified by the drawings themselves.
People who move in artistic and literary circles, though, as Raffaëlli does in Paris, think differently after all from, say, the way I do out in the country among the peasants. I mean they search for one word that sums up all their ideas — he suggests the word ‘Character’ for the figures of the future. I agree with it, with the intention — I believe — but I believe as little in the accuracy of the word as in the accuracy of other words — as little as in the accuracy or appositeness of my own expressions.Rather than saying there has to be character in a digger — I describe it by saying this peasant has to be a peasant, this digger has to dig, and then there’s something in it that is essentially modern. But I feel that people can draw conclusions I don’t mean even from these words — even were I to add a whole list.
Instead of reducing the expenses for models — which are already quite a burden on me — I think it would be desirable — very desirable — if I could increase them a little. Because I’m concerned with something very different from being able to do ‘a little figure’ drawing. Showing the figure of the peasant in action, you see that’s what a figure is — I repeat — essentially modern — the heart of modern art itself — that which neither the Greeks, nor the Renaissance, nor the old Dutch school have done.
To me, this is a matter I think about every day. However, this difference between both the great and the lesser masters of the present (the great, for instance Millet, Lhermitte, Breton, Herkomer; the lesser, for instance Raffaëlli and Régamey) and the old schools isn’t something I’ve often found expressed truly forthrightly in articles on art.
Just think about whether you don’t find it’s true, though. The figure of the peasant and the workman started more as a ‘genre’ — but nowadays, with Millet in the van as the eternal master, it’s the very heart of modern art and will remain so.
People like Daumier — one has to respect them because they’re among the pioneers. The simple nude but modern figure ranks high — as revived by Henner and Lefebvre, Baudry and, above all, the sculptors like a Mercier, Dalou, they’re also among the very soundest. But peasants and labourers simply aren’t nude, and so one doesn’t have to think nude. The more people who start making figures of workmen and peasants the better I’ll like it. And I myself, I know of nothing else in which I take so much delight. This is a long letter and I still don’t know whether I’ve said what I mean clearly enough. I may perhaps drop Serret a line. If I do, I’ll send the letter to you to read, because I want to make it clear how much I attach to this question of the figure.
Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 6 August 1885.
My dear Theo,
What very much distresses me in our conversation is that when I say that I fear it will be tight for you this year, you reply: ‘that you observe that I’d like to see that’, ‘that you see very well that you can’t rely on me’, ‘that you know very well that I would be returning you no thanks for your pains’. This is not so, and it distresses me that this is how you see it.
My suggestion has been this — don’t regard my little painting business as dead weight and don’t treat it harshly, for the reason that it could prove to be a little boat in a disaster when the big ship is lost. My suggestion is and remains — let’s at any rate keep that little boat in good condition and ready to sail, whether the storm comes or my anxiety proves to be unfounded. At the moment I’m a little vessel which you have in tow and once in a while can only seem to you to be dead weight. Which, by the way — as dead weight — you can leave behind by cutting the rope if you want to. But in this case I, who am the skipper of my small craft, ask that far from having the towrope cut, my little craft should be caulked and provisioned so that it may do better service in time of need.
Should you doubt the good faith of this request, then for my part I can do nothing but repeat it more emphatically. For I notice that on the side of the paint bill, my own little craft is springing leaks here and there.
I’m plugging these leaks as much as I can, though, and am not yet losing my coolheadedness. Am not desperate either. But since we’ll perhaps both be in the same storm, I speak emphatically and, I believe, in both our interests.
I can sum up your answer to my question thus: ‘there may be a storm coming but, even in that case, don’t count on either caulking or provisions, and be aware that I may be compelled by the force of circumstances to cut the towrope’.I can take this answer as a warning, but only in so far as it’s not accompanied by suspicion of my good faith.
But — by means of this letter I cry out to you again that my request for reinforcement may prove to be in both our interests, and I’m not doing it just out of selfishness, as you assume. That in the event of a storm, I in all events am willing but perhaps also able to be of some use and service to you, but that this will be impossible in the event that my own craft fills with water (which I’m trying to prevent, though) before the moment in question. I’m trying to prevent that myself, though, but still I wouldn’t cry out to you without necessity. I’m not afraid in the face of danger either, but nonetheless I try to be prepared in case disaster strikes.
If it seems to you unfounded that I urge that we should gradually let my, but I would rather say our little painting business become the heart of a business that we could go on to undertake together, for my part I insist that it can and will become something if we can remain sufficiently united.If I don’t have the same ideas as you, don’t suspect me of bad faith or base intentions anyway, either towards you or towards those at home. I do nothing to those at home that I have no right to do, since I absolutely and always keep out of their affairs. Don’t ask for or urge advice, keep entirely to my own territory — and even keep my feelings about their affairs to myself too, since we don’t understand one another’s interests anyway.
And to you I speak now, and will go on speaking, as someone whose business is in paintings to someone else whose business is in paintings, and I will not intrude on the other territory.
And the question that I started to discuss with you is this: even if the slump is severe, and even if we both have to take great trouble, we must see to it that we keep an energetic hand on the little painting business that belongs to you as well as to me. I say, it might be a boat that could possibly be of service to you in the storm, although I wish for the storm as little as you can wish for it.
Regards,Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Monday, 17 August 1885.
My dear Theo,
I’ve heard from that colourman — who tells me I can send the paintings. But that he wants me to send them as soon as possible because there are many strangers in The Hague at present.
He’s quite right there. What I want to ask you is that you try to send me enough for me to get the crate made and pay the carriage. Deduct it next month, if you like — but I have nothing, and it’s important to me to get my consignment off immediately.
Your visit really left me with a less than favourable impression — I believe more than ever that more difficulties await you in the next few years than you imagine.
I continue to insist that it’s somewhat fatal that your energy has evidently taken a different direction, rather than working on our getting our heads above water with the painting. And yet it’s such a short while ago that you wrote that you now had more confidence that my work was good. You take it as though I was doing you wrong or was hostile to you, now I most decidedly have rather a lot of remarks to make. And considerable concerns for the future. I can’t speak other than I did, can I?
To my mind you don’t in the least belong among the rising men now. Take this amiss of me — if you will — and treat me as you will accordingly.
I’m willing to take back my remarks should I see very different things in you, but that I made them during your visit — Yes. But even though you say today, ‘I’m selling 500,000 francs’ worth a year’ — this doesn’t make any impression on me at all, since I’m only too convinced of the precariousness of it all — you keeping up even a half or a fifth of that and delivering in the years ahead. It’s too up in the air for me, too little at ground level.
And art itself is solid enough, that’s not the trouble.
But, ‘to be a countinghouse will pass’ was said, not by me, but by someone whose words came dreadfully true. And I wish you were, or would become, a painter. I put it bluntly, more strongly than before, because I believe so firmly that the largescale art trade is, in many respects, too much like tulip mania.
And the positions in it dependent on chance and whim. Make a miscalculation — make what may be an insignificant mistake — and — what’s left of that huge figure you’re turning over now? That figure depends on whim.
And KNOWLEDGE of art, stripped bare, is related, more closely than you think, to the practice of art. TRADE in paintings is something very different when one is on one’s own from when one works for large distributors. And it’s the same with other things, too. Anyway — work hard — but — try to work sensibly too.
The trouble you’ve taken together with me — for providing money is also taking trouble and there’s absolutely no getting away from it — this trouble has at least been an act of personal initiative, and of personal will and energy — but what am I to think or say of it if, little by little, with the decided weakening of the financial aid, something else weren’t to be put in its place? And now, above all, to my mind at any rate, it’s the time to try to push ahead with my work.
I’ve also been looking for addresses in Antwerp, and will hear more precisely about them before long. Then I can probably send things there, too. But if you want these things, help me to bring them about. You said to me yourself, Where there is a will there is a way; well then, I’ll take you at your word a little as to whether you’re really seeking for us to make progress. If I were to ask for extravagant things and you refused, then so be it — but where they’re the most essential, the very simplest necessities, and the lack just becomes more and more, and worse and worse, then I think you’re taking economy too far, and in this respect it’s very far from being useful.
Regards.Yours truly,
Vincent
Just a word about Serret and about Portier. Tell them as it is, that is that I did have studies ready, but that I had to pay a colourman who was making it difficult for me just now. That in order to put a stop to it, I wrote to tell him that I put his paint in my studies, and that I asked him to take the trouble to sell something for me instead of nagging. That I’ll go through with it, and have to send him things.
That as to the drawings which I said I’d show Serret, since I’m in a hurry to do things, I need them myself. But I do still think it’s of some importance that at any rate he knows that I really did have them when you came, and that you tell him that you saw them at my place, and then also tell him exactly what you think. I won’t influence your own opinion. That I’m sad about your thinking that this is all right, though, yes — that is so.
But I don’t refuse to take such measures — and even if one of these colourmen wanted to sell off my bits and pieces, he would be welcome to go to those lengths. It’s certain that the paintdealing gentlemen wouldn’t blush to do it.
However, I’m fed up with talking about it; I’ve said what I had to say — and you — you can deal with my suggestion as you see fit.
And if these fellows want to attack me and sell me up, since they expressly threatened me with collection, and that over matters of less than 30 guilders, then I won’t be able to resist them and will let them do as they please, but it will be as if it happens before your very eyes, since you’ve just been here. That I can’t stop the work at the level I now am, that’s true. I need paint every day. I must make progress, and if I want to pay for what I need today, then an outstanding bill from yesterday will have to wait. For your information, this is how it is with me for the rest of the year, precisely and in detail — I have to pay:three suppliers who are all pestering me, one 45 guilders, the other 25 guilders, the other 30 guilders. These are the exact sums outstanding on accounts which have of course been much higher over the course of the year, but which I pay off in cash, as much as I possibly can with the utmost effort.deficit therefore 100 guilders
Add to this rent in November 25 ,, _________ 125 guilders = 250 francs
Suppose I get 4 x 150 francs from you for Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.= 600 francs. That then leaves 350 francs to last from now until New Year. And then bear in mind that I have literally nothing left this month, and that I also have to live this month.
So that from Aug. – 1 January, in other words almost 5 months, I have to live and paint on 350 francs. Which I can do on 150 francs a month, but not easily, but anyway it’s possible as a minimum.
However, if in the course of 4 months 250 francs has to be deducted to pay for paint and rent, well then, the work is hampered and obstructed so much that one doesn’t know what to do, and would rather say to the fellows sell my things then! But let me work! Without hesitation I’ve just thrown this month in to calm the fellows down. But the hardship that’s caused is bad enough.
And my last word on the subject is that if my work were weak and awful, I would agree with you if you said — ‘I can’t do anything about it’.
Well — since larger and smaller painted studies as well as new drawings were able to make you understand that we’re making progress with it, I’m not so sure whether ‘I can’t do anything about it’ should be your final word. Talk to Serret, talk to Portier about it — and say how much I want to keep working and how little opportunity I have myself to find art lovers, since painting the peasants means that once and for all the countryside, not the city is my place of work.
Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 19 August 1885.
My dear Theo,
I wanted to add to my letter of the day before yesterday that I had a letter from Rappard yesterday, and our quarrel is wholly made up, that he sent me a croquis of a large painting of a brickworks that he’s working on. This looks very original — if one wanted to find other paintings in the same spirit, it would be Meunier, say, whose mineworkers you saw in Antwerp. He’s rented a small house outside Utrecht, just as a studio (and arranged for light from above) near the brickworks, and since he’s also going back to Terschelling he’s deep in nature again, and to my mind that’s better than working in town.
I wanted to tell you, though, that I hope that the quarrel that we have will end like this, too, and that it will be settled. No more than I can accept his criticism, can I fully resign myself to the present situation in which my work is held up so badly by my financial difficulties. I don’t ask you to put this right alone, but I simply want us to do our best together (and not just I alone either) to make headway. It’s an effort for you, too, and not easy; I know that, and as such I appreciate it very much, but making an effort for a goal is no misfortune, and having to fight is the precondition for every honest victory.
The expenses of painting can’t always be avoided, and not incurring them is sometimes not the best policy, because nothing decent could come of it if one hesitated to pay for models or essential painting materials. And since it’s getting harder for me rather than better, it has eventually got to such a pitch that I definitely have to complain.And I say once more, let’s keep my little painting business in order, because sooner or later we might be in sore need of it.
When there’s a storm in the air, one has to keep the boats in good shape. The man I now have in The Hague is Leurs, who doesn’t live in Praktizijnshoek any more but in Molenstraat.
He’s asking me to send him more than one painting in order to have more than one chance, and is offering me his two windows.
And since he’s very hard pressed for money himself, he won’t shrink from making an effort. I’m sending him a couple of cottages, the old tower and smaller ones of figures. And while he shows those, I’ll make a few new ones to keep him going.
I’ve also got a chance of persuading a second in The Hague.
But for me it comes down to being able to go on working.
I’ve made another small painting of the wheat harvest since you left, the same size as the women pulling turnips in the snow: a reaper, a woman binding sheaves, sheaves, and the windmill, like the drawings you saw. An effect in the evening after sunset.
Also more studies of interiors.
Once again I suggest that you just talk it over with Portier and Serret, say that I’m in quite a fix, encourage them to do what they can, that for my part I’ll see about sending them new things.
And let’s see about getting that crate off. I’ve also painted 3 more studies of the women among the potatoes, the first of which you’ve already seen.
Rappard had spoken to Wenckebach, and in his letter there was no longer any trace of the tone he’d started to take. And although he’s going to Terschelling first, he writes that he wants to come and make more studies here. Regards, and wishing you good fortune.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 2 September 1885.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter and 150 francs enclosed. I also received the two new Lhermittes today. He’s a master of the figure. He’s able to do what he likes with it — conceiving the whole neither from the colour nor from the local tone, but rather proceeding from the light — as Rembrandt did — there’s something astonishingly masterly in everything he does — in modelling, above all things, he utterly satisfies the demands of honesty.
A great deal is said about — Poussin. Bracquemond talks about him, too. The French call Poussin their greatest ever painter among the old masters. Well it’s certain that what’s said about Poussin, whom I know so very little about, I find in Lhermitte and in Millet. But with this distinction, that it seems to me Poussin is the original grain, the others are the full ear. For my part, then, I rate today’s superior.This last fortnight I’ve had a great deal of trouble with the reverend gentlemen of the priesthood, who gave me to understand — of course with the best of intentions and, no less than others, believing that it was their duty to interfere — who gave me to understand that I shouldn’t be too familiar with people beneath my station — who, having spoken to me in those terms, spoke in a very different tone to the ‘people of lower station’, that’s to say with threats that they mustn’t allow themselves to be painted. This time I simply went straight to the burgomaster and told him exactly what had happened, and pointed out that this was none of the priests’ business and that they should stick to their own province of more abstract things. In any event, I’m not encountering any more opposition for the time being, and I think it quite possible that that’s how it will remain. A girl I’d often painted was having a child and they thought it was mine, although it wasn’t me. However, knowing the facts of the matter from the girl herself and it being a case in which a member of the priest’s congregation in Nuenen had behaved extremely badly, they can’t get their teeth into me, at least not this time. But you see that it isn’t easy to paint people at home and draw them as they go about their business. Anyway — they won’t easily win in this case, and this winter I do hope to keep the very same models, who are of the old Brabant stock through and through.
Even so, I have a few more new drawings.
But now, in the last few days, I could not get anyone in the fields. Fortunately for me, the priest isn’t yet, but is nonetheless beginning to become, quite unpopular. It’s a bad business, though, and if it were to continue I’d probably move. You’ll ask what’s the point of being a disagreeable person — sometimes you have to be. If I’d discussed it meekly they’d have ground me down without mercy. And when they hinder me in my work, sometimes the only way I know is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The priest went so far as to promise the people money if they didn’t allow themselves to be painted — however, the people replied very pertly that they’d rather earn it from me than go cap in hand to him. But you see, they only do it for the sake of earning money and I don’t get anything done for nothing around here. You ask me whether Rappard has ever sold anything. I know he’s flusher at present than before, that for a long time, for instance, he had a nude model day after day, that for the purposes of a painting of a brickworks he’s now rented a small house actually on the spot and altered it so that he had light from above — I know that he’s been on another trip through Drenthe and that he’s also going to Terschelling. That all of this is pretty expensive, and the money for it has to come from somewhere. That although he may have money of his own, he must be earning as well, because otherwise he couldn’t do what he’s doing. It may be that his family is buying or friends, that’s possible, but at any rate somebody must be.
But this evening I’m much too occupied with Lhermitte’s drawings to go on writing any more about other things.
When I think about Millet or about Lhermitte — then — I find modern art as great — as Michelangelo and Rembrandt — the old infinite, the new infinite too — the old genius, the new genius. Perhaps someone like Chenavard doesn’t see it like this — but for my part I’m convinced — that in this regard one can believe in the present.
The fact that I have a definite belief as regards art also means that I know what I want to get in my own work, and that I’ll try to get it even if I go under in the attempt.
Regards.Yours truly,
Vincent
Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 14 November 1885.
My dear Theo,
I came across the following sentence that you’d underlined in the article on Chardin in De Goncourt’s book. After speaking about painters being badly paid, he says: ‘What to do, what to become. He must abandon himself to the inferior occupations or die of hunger. The first course is adopted’. So, he goes on to say, aside from a few martyrs, the rest ‘become fencing masters, soldiers or comedians’.
That really has remained fundamentally true. Seeing as you’d marked the above, I considered it possible you might want to know what I intend to do next, especially since I’ve just informed you that I’ve given notice on my current studio.
The present day isn’t entirely the same as Chardin’s, and nowadays there are a few things that are hard to argue away. The number of painters is much greater.
Now it immediately makes a fatal impression on the public if a painter ‘does something on the side’. I’m not at all above that in this respect, I should say keep on painting, make a hundred studies, and if that’s not enough, two hundred, and just see if that doesn’t get you over ‘doing something on the side’. Then accustoming yourself to poverty, seeing how a soldier or a labourer lives and stays healthy in wind and weather with the ordinary people’s food and dwelling, is as practical as earning a guilder or a bit more a week. After all, one’s not in the world for one’s comfort and doesn’t have to be any better off than the next man. Being better off helps hardly at all — after all, we can’t hold on to our youth.
If that were possible — but the thing that really makes one happy, being young and staying so for a long time — well, that isn’t here — that isn’t even in Arabia or Italy, although that is better there than here.And for my part, I’m of the opinion that one has the greatest chance of staying strong and renewing oneself — in today’s third estate. Anyway. So I’m saying that I seek to find it in painting, without ulterior motives. But — I’d do well, I think, to bear portrait painting in mind if I want to earn. I know it’s difficult to please people with a ‘likeness’, and I dare not say beforehand that I feel sure of my case. I certainly don’t consider it altogether impossible, though, because the people here will be much the same as people elsewhere. Well then, the peasants and the folk from the village aren’t mistaken and promptly say, even contradicting me if I say they’re wrong, that is Renier de Greef, that’s Toon de Groot and that’s Dien van der Beek (and);c. And sometimes even recognize a figure seen from behind. In town, the bourgeois folk, and certainly no less the tarts, no matter who they are, always value portraits. And Millet — discovered that ship’s captains actually ‘respect someone for it’ if he can do that (those portraits are probably intended for their mistresses ashore). This hasn’t been exploited yet. Do you remember this in Sensier? I’ve always remembered how Millet kept himself going in Le Havre this way.Well roughly, my plan is to go to Antwerp — I can’t possibly calculate the ins and outs beforehand.
I’ve come by the addresses of 6 art dealers, so I’d want to take something with me and further, as to the work, I plan to paint a few views of the city as soon as I get there — reasonably large — — and show them straightaway too.
In other words concentrate everything on doing something there. And going there poor, at any rate I can’t lose much.
Now as regards here — I know the area and the folk too well and love them too much to believe I’m going for good. I’ll see about renting a place to store my things, and then I’m also covered should I want to leave Antwerp for a while — or should become homesick for the country.
As for ‘doing something on the side’ — right from the outset Tersteeg, for instance, nagged me about it. And that was nagging, whatever else one may think of Tersteeg. Those who talk about it the most aren’t at the same time able to explain precisely what. And as to that, in order to clear the whole thing up in my case — if I did ‘something on the side’, then the only thing would be that, if I knew either dealers or painters, I would possibly do something with paintings, for instance by going to England for them .
Things like this, which are obviously directly related to painting, are an exception, but otherwise, as a rule, a painter must be wholly a painter.Don’t forget, either, that I’m not cut out to be a melancholic. The nickname I have around here is generally ‘the little painter fellow’, and it’s not entirely without a measure of malice that I’m going there. I’ve also thought of Drenthe, though, but as more difficult to bring about.
That would be good, though, should my work from the countryside be liked in Antwerp. If the things from here were liked, either now or later, then I would continue with them, and vary them with similar things from Drenthe.
But the issue is that I can only do one thing at a time, that if I’m engaged in painting peasants, I can’t occupy myself with business in town. The present moment is ideal for breaking away, since I’ve had trouble getting models and am going to move in any case. As to that, it’s to be expected that there would never be an end to it in this studio right next door to the priest and the sacristan. So I’m changing that.But anyway, it doesn’t make an absolute impression on people, and by renting another room and letting things lie for a few months, the intrigue will lose a great deal of its force. Wouldn’t it be best if I could spend the next couple of months, December and January, there? In Amsterdam I lodged in a soup kitchen for 50 cents; I’d do the same there, or better yet reach agreement with some painter or other to be allowed to work in his studio. There’s another reason, too — that it’s not absolutely impossible I might find an opportunity somewhere to paint from the nude.
They wouldn’t want me at the academy, nor probably would I — but — with a sculptor, say, there must surely be a few living there, one might readily find some sympathy. It goes without saying that people with money can get as many models as they want, but it’s a difficult matter without it. All the same, there must be people there who use nude models and with whom one could split the cost. I need it for many things.I received your letter while I was writing to you. I’m willing to go to Van de Loo if need be, only you know that doctors sometimes don’t tell you everything, particularly in doubtful cases. You should also understand that what I said about her being rather in a fog will probably recur, is a thing that most people who are getting old have. In any event I think it a very practical idea not to let her stay in the midst of the upheaval of the removal, unless she absolutely insists. For the rest, old chap, for my part I believe that Van de Loo has given Ma all, absolutely all the advice there was to give, and would say nothing new. I mean, he would already have given a warning if a danger that could be averted were threatening. But if he doesn’t say anything it’s a sign that, if there were something, he can’t do anything about it and nothing should be done about it; if he’s letting nature take its course, he’s doing it because that’s the best thing — Van de Loo is enormously scrupulous and — Zola-like cool and calm. Anyhow — I’ll speak to Wil about it, and either I may go there or Ma may come across Van de Loo sometime when he’s in the village; we’ll do something. But I think it will just have to take its course. Now in such cases, you’ll agree with me, worrying and being overanxious is intolerable for the patient if she notices it. And with old people there’s often no way of predicting it, precisely because in so many cases their hearts aren’t normal, because of fatty degeneration, say, and they can just as easily go off suddenly as carry on for another 5, another 10 years. Emotion can have an effect, of course, but precisely because of this there’s much more chance of staying alive if the mind is no longer all too clear, than in periods of lucidity. Something else — I’m quite sure that, from time to time at least, there’s definitely a substratum of deep thoughts in Ma (for her inner life, her life of the mind is fairly complicated and has levels or layers) that she neither wants to nor could express. In many cases she was rather silent, so — I for one would rather say that I don’t always know everything about her. Particularly now that she’s lucid, letting her do as she wants is certainly the easiest, firstly for her and secondly the most sensible for us.Silently understanding how it would by no means be a misfortune for her were it to be that she didn’t live very much longer and departed without much suffering, serenity is justifiable in this regard. Serenity too, though, were it to be that years of relatively mechanical life remained.
You see that I wanted to arrange my going to Antwerp at around the same time as their trip, which will be over around February. Between then and their final move, I’ll either be back in Nuenen or — if something exceptional detained me longer, nonetheless always ready to be present right away if something happened.
This must go off, but I’ll write in a few days and tell you what I’ve arranged with Wil. I’ll suggest she goes to Van de Loo with Ma before the trip; that would go without saying for Ma. Once Van de Loo has seen her, that will be the moment for either Wil or me to ask Van de Loo outright whether he can say anything about her life expectancy. For my part, depending on what you and Wil think about it, I’m willing to prepare Van de Loo before Ma’s visit, and tell him what we’d like to know, so that he gives her a really thorough examination.
Regards.Yours truly,
Vincent
Write soon and tell me what you think about my going to Antwerp — I don’t believe there’s anything against it.
Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 17 November 1885.
My dear Theo,
I’ll tell you in a few words what Van de Loo said about Ma. He says
1) that there’s nothing wrong with her
2) that she can live for another 10 years or so
3) that if she dies before that time, then she would have to have contracted some disease or other.
Lastly, he seemed to find it very natural that she was sometimes a little bit dazed, and didn’t make anything of it.
So she can do whatever she likes and doesn’t have to feel awkward about travelling or moving house.
So much the better, then. In any event it’s reassuring. Because for my part I believe what he says, and with the good care that Ma gets thanks to Wil there’s little chance of ‘contracting some disease or other’.
Wanted to let you know straightaway. It’s reassuring for me, too.I’m really looking forward to Antwerp now. The first thing I’ll do there will probably be to go and see Leys’s paintings in his dining room, if one can see them. You know, that Walk on the ramparts and the one that Bracquemond etched, The table, The servant.
I imagine that it’ll be beautiful there in the winter, too, with snow on the docks. Obviously I’ll take a few paintings with me, and they’ll be the ones that I would otherwise have sent to you in the next few days.
A large mill on the heath in the evening, and a view of the village behind a row of poplars with yellow leaves, a still life and a number of drawings of figures.
I’m at something of a stand with the work here at present. It’s freezing hard, so it’s no longer possible to work outdoors. It’s better if I just don’t use any more models as long as I’m living in this house; at any rate not until I come back. Besides, I’m saving my paint and canvas so as to have ammunition there.SO THE SOONER I CAN GET AWAY, THE BETTER.
I recently received a letter from Leurs about my paintings. He wrote that Tersteeg and Wisselingh had seen them and thought them ‘not suitable for them’.
All the same, I maintain that I’ll make people change their minds — even if Tersteeg and Wisselingh don’t want to.
I’ve just read a few books in the style of Gigoux’s Souvenirs, which my friend in Eindhoven had sent for, in which I found some very interesting things about the fellows of those days, starting with Paul Huet. And which give me confidence that I haven’t tackled nature the wrong way, nor the technique of painting, although I freely admit that I will and must still change.
There you have those heads that are with you, there must be good ones among them, I’m as good as certain of it. So — let’s go.
I don’t think this winter will be dull. It’s obvious that it’ll mainly be a question of working hard. But there’s something singular in the very idea that one has to take the plunge.
I’m taking a stock of the paint that I can easily get ground here myself — but it’ll help me if I can find a few more colours in a better quality there. I’m also taking at least 40 stretching frames the same size as those studies of heads that are with you. And drawing materials and paper so that, however I get on, I’ll always be able to do something. Because I’ve worked entirely alone for years, I imagine that although I will and although I can learn from others and even adopt technical things — all the same I’ll always see through my own eyes and tackle things originally.
However, nothing could be surer than that I’ll try to learn more things. And if I can — particularly the nude figure. I imagine, though, that in order to get models, as many as I want and good, I won’t be done all at once, but will have to find the money for it by making other things. Be it landscapes, be it townscapes, be it portraits, as I said — or — even if it were signboards and decoration. Or — something I didn’t mention in my last letter among the things that I could do ‘on the side’ — give lessons in painting, letting them begin by painting still lifes — which I believe is a different method from that of the drawing masters. I’ve tried it out on those friends of mine in Eindhoven, and I’d dare repeat it.
I’ll certainly leave immediately, as soon as I get the monthly allowance from you. And as to that, should you by chance be in a position to send it a week earlier, I’d leave a week earlier. It goes without saying, though, that I’m not counting on it. I’m glad that I went to see the museum in Amsterdam once more before this, because I’ve seen from the work since that what I saw there has been useful to me. Write soon if you have time. I wanted to tell you Van de Loo’s opinion of Ma straightaway.Since I’m already busy packing up my things, it goes without saying that my thoughts are more there than here.
Here I’ve just kept on ceaselessly painting in order to learn painting, to get firm ideas about colour, without leaving much room in my head for other things. But when I escaped to Amsterdam for a few days, I was really delighted to see paintings once again. For it’s sometimes damned hard to be entirely away from paintings and the world of painters and not to see anything by other people. Since then I’ve had quite a yearning to get back into it, at least for a while.
If one’s entirely out of it for a couple of years and wrestles with nature, that can sometimes help, and at the same time one perhaps gets a new stock of confidence and health out of it, which one can under no circumstances have too much of, though, because the painter’s life is often harsh enough.As regards my work, I’ll have to act according to circumstances, I mean, if I could perhaps make the acquaintance of an art buyer and persuade him to show some of my things. But tomorrow doesn’t mean never, and you’ll soon see something of it, particularly if I succeed in making new studies of heads or figures. The one landscape I’m taking with me — and possibly both — but the one with the yellow leaves: I think you’d like it too. I enclose a quick croquis of it.
The horizon is a dark line against a light line of sky in white and blue. In this dark line little flecks of red, bluish and green or brown, forming the silhouette of the roofs and orchards, the field greenish. The sky higher up, grey, against it the black trunks and yellow leaves. Foreground completely covered with fallen yellow leaves, in which 2 little black figures and one blue. On the right a birch trunk, white and black, and a green trunk with redbrown leaves.
Regards, with a handshake.Yours truly,
Vincent
Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 4 February 1886.
My dear Theo,
I already wrote to you the day before yesterday that on the one hand I was far from well, but that on the other hand I nevertheless thought I could see some light.
However, I regret that I have to tell you even more categorically that I’m most definitely literally exhausted and overworked. When you think that I went to live in my own studio on 1 May — since then it’s perhaps been a matter of 6 or 7 times, so far, that I’ve had my midday meal. For good reasons, I don’t want you to tell Ma that I’m not well — because she might possibly consider that it wasn’t nice that what happened, happened, that’s to say that I didn’t stay there — precisely because of these consequences. I shan’t say anything about it; don’t you say anything either. But I lived then, and since then, here, having nothing for my food because the work cost me too much and I relied too much on the idea that I could stick it out like this.
What the doctor tells me is that I absolutely must live better, and that I have to take more care of myself with my work until I’m stronger. It’s total debilitation.
Well I’ve made it worse by smoking a lot, which I did all the more because then one isn’t troubled by one’s empty stomach.
Anyway, they say — one has to experience lean times, and I’ve had my share of them.
Because it’s not just the food, it’s also all the worry and sorrow that one has.
You know that for one reason or another the time in Nuenen was far from carefree for me. What’s more — here — I’m very pleased to have come here — but it’s been a difficult time all the same.
What we have to do and what is largely lacking — is this. Paying the models ourselves is too much; as long as one doesn’t have enough money, one must take advantage of the opportunities at the studios, like Verlat, like Cormon. And one must be in the artists’ world and work at clubs where one shares the cost of the models.
Now it’s true that I didn’t think of this before, or at least didn’t do it — but I wish now that I’d started on it a year earlier. If we could now find some way of living in the same city it would be far and away the best thing, at least for the time being.
Only, the more I think about it, the more and more I fancy that it might be better not to spend much on a studio in the first year, because I’ll mostly have to draw in that first year.
Because speaking of Cormon — I imagine he would tell me much the same as Verlat says — that I have to draw nudes or plaster casts for up to a year, precisely because I’ve always drawn from life.
This isn’t really a harsh requirement, because I tell you that there are people here who’ve been in the class for 3 years and are still not allowed to stop, who also paint. In that year I have to practise the male and the female figure, both in detail and as a whole, and — then I’ll know it by heart, as it were. Drawing in itself, technically, is easy enough for me — I’m beginning to do it the way one writes, with the same ease. But precisely at this level it becomes more interesting, as one is not satisfied with the facility that one gradually acquires but really looks for originality and breadth of conception. Drawing the masses rather than the outlines. Solid modelling. And I can assure you it’s not a bad sign if people like Verlat or Cormon, let’s say, demand that of someone. For there are enough of them that Verlat simply leaves to get on with it because — they just aren’t the fellows for the loftier figure. You talk about the clever fellows at Cormon’s studio. Precisely because I damned well want to be one of them, I’m setting myself in advance, out of my own conviction, the requirement of spending at least a year in Paris mainly drawing from the nude and plaster casts. For the rest, let’s do whatsoever our hand finds to do in the way of painting, if an effect out of doors strikes us or we happen to have a good model (and);c.
And don’t think that this is the long way, because it’s the short one. Someone who can draw his figures from memory is much more productive than someone who can’t. And by my taking the trouble to spend that year drawing — you’ll just see how productive we become. And don’t think either that the years I worked out of doors were wasted. For it’s the very thing that people who’ve never been anywhere else but at academies and studios lack, that view of reality in which they live, and finding subjects. Anyway.
Might it not be wise if we put off renting a studio at least for the first six months, precisely because it all comes down to the money? But otherwise I like the idea of setting up a studio a great deal, a very great deal. Even, if need be, such that one could combine with other painters to take models together. The more energy the better. And in hard times — one must especially seek a way out in friendship and collaboration.
But Theo, it’s so rotten about this indisposition — I’m dreadfully sorry — but I’m still in good spirits. It will get better. You understand that it would have got worse and worse if I’d delayed doing something about it.
What I think, though, is this — one mustn’t think that people whose constitution is damaged, wholly or half, aren’t fit for painting. It’s desirable for one to make it to 60 at least, and necessary for one to make it to 50, if one begins when one is around 30.
But one absolutely doesn’t have to be perfectly healthy; one may have all sorts of things wrong. The work doesn’t always suffer as a result — on the contrary, nervous fellows are more sensitive and more refined. But Theo, precisely because it has proved in my case that my health leaves something to be desired — I’ve decided to concentrate specifically on the loftier figure and to try to refine myself. It really struck me so unexpectedly — I did feel weak and feverish, but I still kept going. Only it began to worry me that teeth were breaking off one after another. And that I was starting to look worse and worse. Anyway, we’ll see about putting it right.
I think that getting the teeth attended to will help in itself because, as my mouth was usually painful, I just swallowed my food as quickly as possible.
And perhaps it will also help my appearance, at least a little.
As regards this month, I’ve paid 25 francs in advance for my room, 30 francs in advance for my food, and 50 francs to the dentist; also a visit to the doctor and some drawing materials — which leaves 6 francs.
Now the important issue this month is not to be ill, which isn’t easy to resolve — and which could very well happen. But we’ll see — I still think I’ve got a certain toughness in common with the peasants, who also don’t eat anything very special and still go on living and working. So don’t worry too much about it. If you could send a little bit extra, very well — but if you can’t, I’ll wait calmly to see how it goes. What I don’t like is that I’m feverish, and I reason about it thus: although I may be weakened, I’ve still taken some care not to eat any unwholesome food. Overexertion isn’t excessive either — because, despite everything, I keep my spirits up all the time — so that it’s because I’m weak that I overexert myself. It seems to me that it must sort itself out. You understand, though, that if it were to get worse — and took a virulent turn — one might have to contend with typhus or at least typhoid fever.
And actually the only reasons why I certainly don’t expect that are these — 1 that I’ve had a great deal of fresh air, and 2 that, as I said, even though I’ve evidently not fed myself well enough, as a precaution I’ve nonetheless made do with very simple food rather than the muck in the cheap restaurants — and 3 — that I have a degree of calm and serenity in the face of things.
So we must wait and see. Don’t you worry about it, because not even I do — I maintain that, supposing I do get a fever, I’ve lived and eaten too simply for it to become very virulent all that easily. After all, things don’t happen of their own accord, and there’s a reason for everything. Write to me soon, though, because I really do need it.
As regards going to Nuenen too — I want to know what you’d think best.
But I’m not needed there — because someone like Rijken, the gardener, for instance, can see to what needs to be packed or sent at least as well as I can.
If there’s any point in it, though, I can be ready by March if need be.
Regards, with a handshake.Yours truly,
Vincent.
Antwerp, on or about Saturday, 6 February 1886.
My dear Theo,
I’ve received your letter and 25 francs enclosed and I thank you very much for both. I’m really glad that you like my plan to come to Paris. I believe it will help me make progress and at the same time that, if I didn’t go, I might easily get into a mess, keep moving around in the same circle too much, persist in the same mistakes. Furthermore, as for you, I don’t think that coming home to a studio would do you any harm. For the rest, I have to tell you the same about me as you write about yourself — I’ll disappoint you.
And even so, this is the way to combine forces. And even so, much greater understanding of each other can follow from it.
Now what shall I tell you about my health? I still believe that I have a chance of avoiding being really ill; all the same, I’ll need time to get better. I also still have two more teeth to be filled, then my upper jaw, which was most affected, will be all right again. I still have to pay 10 francs for that, and then another 40 francs to get the bottom half right too.
Some years of those 10 years that I appear to have spent in prison will disappear as a result. Because bad teeth, which one so seldom sees any more as it’s so easy to get them put right, since bad teeth give a physiognomy a sort of sunken look.
And then — even eating the same things, one can naturally digest better when one can chew properly, and so my stomach will have a chance to recover.
I really do notice that I’ve been at a very low ebb, though — and as you wrote yourself, all sorts of things that are even worse could arise out of neglecting it. However, we’ll see that we get it put right.
I haven’t worked for a few days, gone to bed early a couple of nights (otherwise it was usually 1 or 2 o’clock because of drawing at the club). And I feel that it’s calming me.
I’ve had a note from Ma, who writes that they’re going to start packing in March.
Further, since you say you’ll have to pay rent until the end of June — well then, perhaps it would be best after all if I were to return to Nuenen, starting in March, only — if I encountered opposition and scenes like I got before I left, I would be wasting my time there and so, even if it were only just for those few months, I’d make a change anyhow, since I want to have some new things from the country ready to bring to Paris with me.
That Siberdt, the teacher of the antique, who spoke to me at first as I told you, definitely tried to pick a quarrel with me today, perhaps with a view to getting rid of me. Which didn’t work inasmuch as I said — Why are you trying to pick a quarrel with me? I have no wish to quarrel, and in any case I have absolutely no desire to contradict you, but you deliberately try to pick a quarrel with me.
He evidently hadn’t expected that and couldn’t say much to refute it this time, but — next time, of course, he’ll be able to start something.
The issue behind it is that the fellows in the class are talking about things in my work among themselves, and I’ve said, not to Siberdt but outside the class to some of the fellows, that their drawings were completely wrong.
Bear in mind that if I go to Cormon and run into trouble sooner or later either with the master or the pupils, I wouldn’t let it worry me. If need be, even if I didn’t have a master, I could also go through the antique course by going to draw in the Louvre or somewhere. And so I’d do that if I had to — although I’d far rather have correction — as long as it doesn’t become DELIBERATE provocation; that correction without one giving any cause other than a certain singularity in one’s manner of working which is different from the others. If he starts on me again, I’ll say out loud in the class, I’m happy to do mechanically everything that you tell me to do, because I’m determined to pay you back what is your due, if need be, if you insist on it, but — as far as mechanizing me as you mechanize the others is concerned, that has not, I assure you, the slightest hold over me.
Besides, you started by telling me something quite different, that’s to say, you told me: tackle it as you wish.
The reason why I’m drawing plaster casts — not to start from the outline, but to start from the centres— I haven’t got it yet, but I feel it more and more and — I’ll certainly carry on with it, it’s too interesting.
I wish that we could spend a few days together in the Louvre and could just talk about it. I believe it would interest you.
This morning I sent you Chérie, mainly for the preface, which will certainly strike you.
And — I wish that at the end of our lives we could also walk somewhere together and — looking back, say — we’ve done this — and that’s one; and that — and that’s two; and that — and that’s three. And if we want to and dare to — will there be anything to talk about then?
We can try two things — making something good ourselves — collecting things by other people that we think are good, and dealing in them. But we must both live rather more robustly, and perhaps combining forces is a step towards becoming more robust.
But now allow me to touch on a delicate matter — if I’ve said unpleasant things to you, specifically about our upbringing and our home, this has been because we’re in an area where being critical is essential in order for us to get along with and understand each other and cooperate in business.
Now I can well understand that one can passionately love something or someone that one can’t do anything about.
Very well — I won’t go into that except in so far as it might make a fatal separation between us where reconciliation is needed.
And our upbringing — won’t prove to be so good that we’ll retain many illusions about it — there you are — and we might perhaps have been happier with a different upbringing. But if we stick to the positive idea of wanting to produce and to be something, then we’ll be able, without getting angry, to discuss faits accomplis as such when it’s unavoidable and might perhaps touch on or directly concern the Goupils or the family. And for the rest, these issues between us are for the understanding of the situation and not out of rancour. But if we undertake something it won’t be a matter of indifference to either of us to improve our health, because we need time alive — some 25 or 30 years of working constantly. There’s so much of interest in the present age when one thinks how very possible it is that we may well yet see the beginning of the end of a society. And just as there is infinite poetry in the autumn or in a sunset, and then there’s so much soul and mysterious endeavour in nature, so it is now. And as for art — decline, if you will, after the Delacroix, Corots, Millets, Duprés, Troyons, Bretons, Rousseaux, Daubignys — very well — but a decline so full of charm — that there truly is still an immense, immense amount of good things to come, and they’re being made every day.
I’m longing dreadfully for the Louvre, Luxembourg etc., where everything will be so new to me.
For the rest of my life I’ll regret that I didn’t see the Cent chefs d’oeuvre, the Delacroix exhibition and the Meissonier exhibition. But there will still be plenty of opportunities to catch up. It’s true, for instance, that wanting to progress too quickly here, I may actually have progressed less, but what would you? My health is also behind it, and if I regain that as I hope to do, then my taking pains will have been less in vain. After all, I believe that if one asks permission, one may draw plaster casts in the Louvre, even if one isn’t at L’Ecole des BeauxArts.
It wouldn’t surprise me if, once the idea of living together takes hold, you’ll find it odder and odder that we’ve been together so surprisingly little, if you will — for fully 10 years.
Anyway, I most certainly hope that this will be the end of it, and that it won’t begin again.
What you say about the apartment is perhaps really rather expensive. I mean, I’d be just as happy if it weren’t quite as good.
I’m curious as to how those few months in Nuenen will be for me. Since I have some furniture there, since it’s beautiful there, too, and I know the district a little, it might be a good thing for me to keep a piedàterre there, if need be in an inn where I could leave that furniture, since otherwise it will be lost — and it could still come in very useful.
There’s sometimes the most to do by returning to old places. I must finish this now, since I’m going to the club.
Keep thinking about what we can best do.
Regards.Yours truly,
Vincent.
Antwerp, on or about Tuesday, 9 February 1886.
My dear Theo,
I have to write to you one more time because the sooner we can take an outright decision the better. As regards a studio — if we could find, in one and the same house, a room with an alcove and also a garret or a corner attic — then you could have that apartment of room and alcove, and we could make it just as comfortable as possible. And during the day the room could serve as studio, and the garret could serve for various more unsightly tools or for dirty work, and I could also sleep there — and you in the studio alcove.
It seems to me that such an arrangement or something similar would be perfectly satisfactory for the first year. What I’m not sure about is whether we’ll get on personally, although I don’t despair of it — but it’ll be much more agreeable for you to come home to a workplace than to an ordinary room, which always has something gloomy about it. And it’s that gloom that’s our worst enemy. When the doctor tells me that I have to take better care of myself, physically — well, who knows whether such a measure mightn’t do you good too. For you’re also neither happy nor in good spirits — let’s not mince words, you have too much worry and too little prosperity.
But perhaps it’s because of our policy that we’re each too much alone and our forces and resources are too divided, and in that form insufficient. So — unity is strength — would certainly be much better.
So there has to be more life, it seems to me, and we have to throw out all sorts of doubts and a certain lack of confidence.
Do you want a reason on which one can rely to preserve one’s serenity, even when one stands alone and isn’t understood and one’s material wellbeing has gone by the board? Well there’s still this — I believe — one feels instinctively that a tremendous amount is changing, and everything will change. We’re in the last quarter of a century that will end with another colossal revolution.But suppose we both yet see the beginning of it at the end of our lives.
We’ll certainly not experience the better times of clear air and refreshment of the whole of society after those great storms. All the same, it’s something not to be taken in by the falseness of one’s time, in so far as one detects in it the unhealthy closeness and mugginess of the hours that precede the thunderstorm.
And says — it’s oppressive for us — but the next generations will be able to breathe more freely. Men like Zola and the De Goncourts believe in it with the simplicity of overgrown children. They, the most rigorous analysts — whose diagnosis is both so merciless and so accurate.
And particularly the one you mentioned, Turgenev, and Daudet — they don’t work without a goal or without looking towards the other side.
Only they all, and rightly, avoid prophesying utopias and are pessimists in so far as if one analyzes, one sees so terribly in the history of this century the way the revolutions fail, no matter how nobly they begin.
You see, where one gets support is when one doesn’t always have to walk alone with one’s feelings and thoughts, when one works and thinks in a group of people together. Then at the same time one can do more — and one is infinitely happier.
Well I’d already wanted to have that between us for a long time, and you see, I imagine that if you stayed on your own you’d become depressed because the times aren’t encouraging unless one finds satisfaction in one’s work. I’m sending you that novel by De Goncourt specifically for the introduction above all — which contains a résumé of their works and aims.
You’ll see that these fellows haven’t been precisely happy, in the same way as Delacroix said about himself, I haven’t been happy at all in the sense in which I understood it / wanted it in the past.
Well, whether or not it comes soon — a moment will come for you, too, when you’ll be sure that material wellbeing has gone by the board, fatally and irrevocably. I’d safely dare say that, but adding this, that I think that at that same moment there will be a certain compensation of feeling a capacity for work.
What touches me is the magnificent serenity of the great thinkers of the present day, like, say, the last walk of the two De Goncourts, which you’ll find described. The last days of the ageing Turgenev were like that, too — he was with Daudet a great deal then. Sensitive, subtle, intelligent as women, sensitive to their own suffering, too, and always still full of life and selfassurance, no indifferent stoicism, no contempt for life — I say again, those fellows, they die like women die. No idée fixe about God or abstractions — always on the ground floor of life itself and attached only to that, again, like women who have loved much — touched and — as Silvestre says of Delacroix — thus died, almost smiling.
Meanwhile, we haven’t yet reached that point, on the contrary we’re at the point of working first, living first — most likely with the normal kind of wellbeing going by the board. But whatever the future may be, you can be sure that I’d be very pleased indeed if I could work with Cormon for a year or so, unless there’s somewhere better for drawing in L’Ecole des BeauxArts or other studios I’ve heard about here.
The ancients won’t prevent us from being realistic, come on — on the contrary. Of course I’m also desperately longing for French paintings.
Apropos, don’t you like this?Everything that is bad came from woman — Clouded Reason, an appetite for lucre, betrayal Golden cups in which wines are mixed with lees. Every crime, every happy lie, every kind of madness
Comes from her..... Adore her none the less, since the gods Made her... and — she is the best thing that they have made. After all, working has the secret of being able to give someone a second youth.
Tell me, have you ever read anything by Carlyle? Actually that’s not necessary when one sees the fellow’s face and knows his work is something like Michelet. Whistler and Legros have both made his portrait. That’s another one who dared a great deal and had a different insight on many things from the rest. But the more I look into it, always the same story — lack of money, poor health, opposition, isolation, in short, trouble from beginning to end.
Mantz’s piece about Paul Baudry was very good, and I found that ‘he worked on the renewal of the smile’ particularly singular.
Could one say of Delacroix ‘he worked on the renewal of passion’? Perhaps so. Anyway — do write soon in any event, and regards.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 11 February 1886.
My dear Theo,
I definitely need to tell you that it would reassure me greatly if you were to approve my coming to Paris much earlier than June or July if need be. The more I think about it, the more desirable this appears to me.
Consider that if everything goes well and if I had good food throughout that time, which will certainly not be plain sailing, consider that even in that case it will take 6 months or so before I’m entirely well.
But it would certainly take even longer if things were to be the same for me in Brabant from March to July as they’ve been for the past few months, and it’s likely they’d be no different.
Now at the moment it’s just because of reaction to overexertion that I feel terribly weak, in fact even worse. Still, that’s the natural course of things and nothing unusual.
But where the issue is — to take better care of oneself — well in Brabant I’d wear myself out again taking models, the same old story would start all over again, and it doesn’t seem to me that any good could come of it. That way — we’d be straying from the path. So please give me permission to come sooner if need be. In fact I’d say right away, if need be. If I take a garret in Paris, bring my painting box and drawing materials with me — then as far as the work’s concerned I can finish the most pressing things at once — those studies of plaster casts that will certainly help me when I go to Cormon’s. I can go and draw either in the Louvre or in L’Ecole des BeauxArts.
For the rest, we could then also think about it and discuss it so much better before we go about setting ourselves up somewhere else.
Know that I don’t mind going to Nuenen in the month of March if need be and seeing how things are there, and how the people are, and whether or not I can get models.
But if that doesn’t work out, which is likely, then after March I could come straight to Paris and start drawing, in the Louvre, for instance. I’ve given a lot of thought to what you wrote about taking a studio — but it seems to me that it would be a good thing if we were to look for it together and that before we start living together permanently — did it for a while — provisionally — and I started by renting a garret at the beginning of April, say, until June. Then I’ll be more accustomed to Paris again by the time I go to Cormon’s.
And — I think this way I’ll remain more cheerful. I also have to tell you that although I still go there — it’s often insupportable for me, the carping of the fellows at the academy, for it has proved that they’re still spiteful. However, I make a point of avoiding any quarrel, and go my own way. And I think I’m getting on the track of what I’m looking for, and perhaps I might find it even sooner if I were to sit in front of the plaster casts entirely on my own. All the same, I’m glad I went to the academy, if only because I have ample opportunity to observe the results of starting from the outline, because they do that systematically and they pick petty quarrels with me about it. Make an outline first — your outline isn’t right — I won’t correct that if you model before having conscientiously finished your outline. You see, it all comes down to that. And you really should see!!! how flat, how dead and how bloody boring the results of that system are. Oh, I tell you, I’m very glad to have seen it properly at close quarters — David or even worse — Pieneman in full bloom. I must have wanted to say at least twentyfive times — your outline’s just a trick — but I haven’t thought it worthwhile arguing. All the same, even though I don’t say anything, I irritate them — and they me.
This doesn’t matter so much, though — the issue is to really go on trying to find a better system of working. So, patience and perseverance.
They go so far as to say — colour and modelling, that’s nothing, one learns that very quickly — it’s the outline that’s the essential thing and the most difficult. You see, one can learn something new at the academy — I never knew before that colour and modelling came of their own accord. Just yesterday I finished a drawing that I’ve made for the competition in the evening class. It’s the Germanicus figure that you know. Very well — I know for sure that I’ll certainly come last, because all the drawings by the others are the same, and mine is completely different. But I saw the drawing that will be considered to be the best being done — I was sitting just behind — and it’s correct, it’s anything you like, but it’s dead and so are all those drawings that I saw.
Enough about this — just let it bore us so much that we become enthusiastic about something nobler. And that we make haste to achieve it.
You also need to take better care of yourself, and should we succeed in uniting, the two of us would know more than each one individually, and could do more.
Tell me, did you notice that subtle remark of Paul Mantz’s — women are perhaps the supreme difficulty in life — it was in the article on Baudry? We’ll certainly experience our share of that, aside from what we may already have experienced. It struck me in a chapter from Zola’s L’oeuvre in Gil Blas — that the painter — Manet, of course — had a scene with a woman who had posed for him and had then cooled to the idea; oh curiously well described. What one can learn at the academy in this regard is — just don’t paint women then. They hardly ever use nude female models, not at all in class at any rate — very occasionally individually.
Even in the plaster cast class, 10 male figures as against 1 female figure. That’s nice and easy.
That must surely be better in Paris — and it occurs to me that one actually learns so much by constantly comparing male and female, which are always so very different in everything. It may be the supreme difficulty, but what would art and what would life be without that? Regards, write back about this soon, with a handshake.
Yours truly,
Vincent
My being in Nuenen, at least for the month of March, would be because of the move, and I ought to go there for myself because of changing my abode. But if need be, as far as I’m concerned, I’d be prepared not to go back at all.
Paris, between about Sunday, 17 and Tuesday, 19 July 1887.
My dear friend,
Enclosed a letter that arrived yesterday but which the concierge didn’t pass on to me straightaway.
I’ve been to the Tambourin, because if I didn’t go there people would have thought I didn’t dare.
So I told Miss Segatori that I wouldn’t pass judgement on her over this affair, but that it was up to her to judge herself.
That I’d torn up the receipt for the paintings — but that she had to give everything back.
That if she hadn’t had something to do with what happened to me she would have come to see me the next day.
That as she didn’t come to see me I would take it that she knew people were trying to pick a fight with me, but that she’d tried to warn me by saying — go away — which I didn’t understand, and besides would perhaps not have wanted to understand. To which she replied that the paintings and all the rest were at my disposal.
She claimed that I’d tried to pick a fight — which doesn’t surprise me — knowing that appalling things would be done to her if she took my side.
I also saw the waiter on my way in, but he made himself scarce.
Now I didn’t want to take the paintings straightaway, but I said that when you got back we’d have a chat about it, because those paintings belonged to you as much as to me, and while waiting I urged her to think again about what had happened.
She didn’t look well and she was as pale as wax, which isn’t a good sign. She didn’t know that the waiter had gone up to your place. If that’s true — I would be even more inclined to believe it was more the case that she’d tried to warn me people were trying to pick a fight with me, than that she’d been up to something herself. She can’t do as she’d like. Now I’ll wait till you get back before doing anything.
I’ve done two paintings since you left.
Now I have two louis left, and I fear I won’t know how to get through the days from now till you get back.
Because remember when I started working at Asnières I had lots of canvases and Tanguy was very good to me. He still is, when it comes down to it, but his old witch of a wife noticed what was going on and objected to it. Now I gave Tanguy’s wife a piece of my mind and said it was her fault if I wouldn’t buy anything else from them. Père Tanguy’s wise enough to keep quiet, and he’ll do what I ask of him all the same.
But with all that it isn’t easy to work.
I saw Lautrec today, he’s sold a painting, through Portier, I think.
Someone brought in a watercolour by Mrs Mesdag, which I find very beautiful.
Now I hope you’ll enjoy your visit over there, give my mother, Cor and Wil my warm regards. And if you can see that I’m not in too much trouble from now till you get back by sending me something more, I’ll try to make some more paintings for you — because I’m perfectly calm as far as my work goes.
What bothered me a bit in this business was that by not going (to the Tambourin) it looked cowardly. And having gone there restored my peace of mind.
I shake your hand.
Vincent
Arles, on or about Friday, 24 February 1888.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your kind letter and the 50-franc note. So far I’m not finding living here as profitable as I might have hoped, but I’ve finished three studies, which I would probably not have been able to do in Paris these days. I was glad the news from Holland was fairly satisfactory. As far as Reid goes, I wouldn’t be very surprised if — (wrongly, however) — he took it badly that I went to the south before him. For us to say we’d never have benefited from knowing him would be relatively unfair since, 1, he made us a gift of a very fine painting (which painting, let it be said by the way, we intended to acquire), 2, Reid made Monticellis go up in value, and since we own 5 of them the result for us is that these paintings have increased in value — 3, he was good and pleasant company in the first months.
Now for our part we wanted him to take part in a bigger deal than the Monticelli one, and he pretended not to understand very much about it. It seems to me that in order to be even more clearly entitled to stay masters on our own terrain regarding the Impressionists — so that there can be no doubt about our good faith towards Reid — we could leave him alone and let him do as he thinks fit regarding the Marseille Monticellis. Making the point that dead painters are only of indirect interest to us from the monetary point of view. And if you agree with this, if need be you can tell him on my behalf too that if he intends to come to Marseille to buy Monticellis he has nothing to fear from us, but that we’re entitled to ask him his intentions in this regard, given that we came to this territory before he did.
About the Impressionists — it would seem fair to me that they should be introduced into England through you, if not by you in person. And if Reid made a move first, we’d be justified in thinking he had acted in bad faith towards us, all the more so since we’d have left him free regarding the Marseille Monticellis. You would definitely be doing our friend Koning a favour if you let him stay with you — his visit to Rivet must have proved to him that it wasn’t we who advised him badly. If you did feel like taking him in — and it seems to me that it would get him out of a mess, you’d just have to get things straight with his father, so that you wouldn’t have any responsibilities, even indirect ones. If you see Bernard tell him that so far I’m having to pay more than at Pont-Aven, but that I think if you live here in furnished rooms with middle-class people it must be possible to save money, which I’m trying to do, and as soon as I’ve found out I’ll write and tell him what seem to me the average expenses.
At times it seems to me that my blood is more or less ready to start circulating again, which wasn’t the case lately in Paris, I really couldn’t stand it any more. I have to buy my colours and canvases from either a grocer or a bookseller, who don’t have everything one might wish for. I’ll definitely have to go to Marseille to see what the state of these things is like there. I had hoped to find some beautiful blue &c., and in fact I haven’t given up, seeing that in Marseille you should be able to buy raw materials first hand. And I’d like to be able to do blues like Ziem — which don’t change as much as the others, well, we’ll see. Don’t worry, and give the pals a handshake for me.
Yours truly,
Vincent
The studies I have are an old woman of Arles, a landscape with snow, a view of a stretch of pavement with a butcher’s shop. The women really are beautiful here, it’s no joke — on the other hand, the Arles museum is dreadful and a joke, and fit to be in Tarascon — there’s also a museum of antiquities, they’re genuine.
Arles, Saturday, 10 March 1888.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter and the 100-franc note enclosed with it. I very much hope that Tersteeg will come to Paris soon, as you’re inclined to believe. That would be very desirable in the circumstances you describe, in which they are all at bay and hard up. I find what you write about the Lançon sale and the painter’s mistress very interesting. He’s done things of really great character, his drawing has often made me think of Mauve’s. I’m sorry not to have seen the exhibition of his studies, just as I’m really sorry not to have seen the Willette exhibition either. What do you say to the news that Kaiser Wilhelm is dead? Will that speed up events in France, and will Paris stay calm? It seems doubtful. And what effect will all this have on the trade in paintings? I’ve read that it seems there’s a possibility of abolishing import duty on paintings in America, is that true? Perhaps it would be easier to get a few dealers and art lovers to agree to buy Impressionist paintings than to get the artists to agree to share equally the price of paintings sold. Nevertheless, artists won’t find a better way than — to join together, give their pictures to the association, and share the sale price in such a way that at least the society will be able to guarantee the possibility of existence and work for its members. If Degas, Claude Monet, Renoir, Sisley and C. Pissarro were to take the initiative and say: here we are, each of the 5 of us gives 10 paintings (or rather, we each give to the value of 10,000 francs, the value estimated by expert members, for example, Tersteeg and yourself, appointed by the society, and these experts also invest capital in the form of paintings), and, furthermore, we commit ourselves to give to the value of... each year. And we also invite you, Guillaumin, Seurat, Gauguin &c. &c. to join us (your pictures being put to the same assessment from the point of view of value).
Then the great Impressionists of the Grand Boulevard, giving paintings that become common property, would retain their prestige, and the others wouldn’t be able to criticize them for keeping to themselves the benefits of a reputation gained without any doubt by their own efforts and by their individual genius in the first place — but — nevertheless, in the second place, a reputation that is growing and is now also being consolidated and supported by the paintings of a whole battalion of artists who have so far been working while constantly broke. Whatever happens — it’s really to be hoped that the thing comes off, and that you and Tersteeg become the society’s expert members (with Portier perhaps?).
I have two more studies of landscapes, I hope the work will continue steadily and that in a month I’ll get a first consignment to you — I say in a month because I want to send you nothing but the best, and because I want it to be dry, and because I want to send at least a dozen or so all at once because of the cost of transport. Congratulations on buying the Seurat — with what I send you you’ll have to try to make an exchange with Seurat as well.
You’re well aware that if Tersteeg joins you in this venture, the two of you will easily be able to persuade Boussod Valadon to extend substantial credit for the purchases needed. But it’s urgent, because without that other dealers will cut the ground from under your feet. I’ve made the acquaintance of a Danish artist who talks about Heyerdahl and other people from the north, Krøyer, &c. What he does is dry but very conscientious, and he’s still young. Saw the exhibition of the Impressionists in rue Laffitte at the time. He’ll probably come to Paris for the Salon, and wants to tour Holland to see the museums.
I think it’s a very good idea that you put the books in the Independents’ too. This study should be given the title: ‘Parisian novels’. I’d be so happy to know you’d succeeded in persuading Tersteeg — well, patience. I was obliged to buy supplies for 50 francs when your letter arrived. This week I’ll start work on 4 or 5 things.
I think about this association of artists every day, and the plan has developed further in my mind, but Tersteeg would have to be involved, and a lot depends on that. Nowadays, the artists would probably allow themselves to be persuaded by us, but we can’t go ahead before we have Tersteeg’s help. Without that we’d be on our own, listening to everybody moaning from morning till night, and each of them individually would be constantly coming to ask for explanations — axioms — &c. Shouldn’t be surprised if Tersteeg took the view that we can’t do without the Grand Boulevard artists — and if he advised you to persuade them to take the initiative in an association by giving paintings that would become common property and cease to belong to them individually. It seems to me that the Petit Boulevard would be morally obliged to join in response to a proposal from that side. And those Grand Boulevard gentlemen will only retain their current prestige by forestalling the partly justified criticism of the minor Impressionists, who’ll say: ‘you’re putting everything in your pocket’. They can easily reply to that: not at all, on the contrary, we’re the first to say: our paintings belong to the artists. If Degas, Monet, Renoir and Pissarro say that — even leaving plenty of room for their individual ideas about putting it into practice — they could — say worse, unless — they say nothing and let things ride.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, on or about Sunday, 25 March 1888.
My dear Theo,
Your letter gave me great pleasure, I thank you for it as well as for the 50-franc note. I congratulate you heartily on Tersteeg’s letter — I think it’s absolutely satisfactory.
I’m convinced there’s nothing hurtful in his silence towards me, in any case he’d have expected you to give me his reply to read. And it’s much more practical for him having only to write to you, and as far as I’m concerned, if he doesn’t think what I’m doing is utterly bad, you’ll see, he’ll write me a line as soon as he’s seen my work. So once again, I’m happier with his simple and friendly reply than I could tell you. You’ll have noticed that he states his willingness to make a purchase of a good quality Monticelli for his own collection. If you told him that we have a bouquet of flowers in our collection that is more artistic and more beautiful than a bouquet by Diaz. That Monticelli would sometimes take a bouquet of flowers in order to put on a single panel the whole range of his richest and most perfectly balanced tones. And that you have to go straight to Delacroix to find such an orchestration of colours.
That — I’m referring to the painting at the Delarebeyrettes’ — we currently know of another bouquet of very good quality and at a reasonable price, and that in any case we think it’s much finer than the Monticellis with figures, which are all over the place these days and belong to a period of decline in Monticelli’s talent. I hope you’ll send him Gauguin’s fine seascape. But how pleased I am that Tersteeg has replied in this way.
When you write to him, say a word about Russell. When I write to Russell myself, I’ll talk about his paintings and I’ll ask him to do an exchange with me, because we’d want to mention him and show his paintings when it comes to the question of the modern-day Renaissance school. I’ve just done a clump of apricot trees in a little fresh green orchard. Had some trouble with the sunset with figures and a bridge that I was talking to Bernard about. As the bad weather prevented me from working on the spot, I completely worked this study to death trying to finish it at home.
However, I started the same subject again immediately afterwards on another canvas, but as the weather was quite different, in a grey palette and without figures. I wouldn’t think it a bad idea if you sent Tersteeg one of my studies — do you mean the Clichy bridge with the yellow sky and two houses reflected in the water?
That one, or the butterflies or the field of poppies might do. However, I hope to do better things here. If you happen to feel that way, you could tell Tersteeg that I myself think I have a better chance of sales in Holland with the studies of nature in the south, and that when Tersteeg comes to Paris in May he’ll find a consignment with some subjects from down here. And again, many thanks for all the initiatives you’ve taken for the Independents’ exhibition, all in all I’m really pleased that they’ve put them with the other Impressionists. But — although this time it makes no difference at all — in future my name must be put in the catalogue the way I sign it on the canvases, i.e. Vincent and not Vangogh, for the excellent reason that people here wouldn’t be able to pronounce that name.
I’m returning herewith the letter from Tersteeg and the one from Russell — it will perhaps be interesting to keep the artists’ correspondence. If you included the little head of a Breton woman by our friend Bernard in your consignment, that wouldn’t be a bad idea. We must show him that all the Impressionists are good and that what they do is very varied. I think our friend Reid regrets falling out, unfortunately there can be no question of offering him the same advantages again — that is, trying to let him have paintings on commission. It’s not enough to love paintings, and it seemed to me that he lacked warm feelings for painters. If he changes in that respect it won’t be overnight. Tersteeg was a personal friend of Mauve and many others, and he has that je ne sais quoi that wins art lovers over. You’ll see that what gives self-confidence is knowing people. I’ll write more in the next few days, but wanted to congratulate you right away on the renewal of your relations with Holland. Handshake.
Yours truly,
Vincent
The city of Paris pays practically nothing, would be sorry to see the Seurats in a provincial museum or a cellar — these paintings must stay in living hands. If Tersteeg was willing — — —. If we do the 3 permanent exhibitions, we’d need a large Seurat for Paris, one for London and one for Marseille.
Arles, on or about Friday, 13 April 1888.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter containing the samples of absorbent canvas. Will be very glad to receive — but it’s not at all urgent — 3 metres of the sort at 6 francs. As for his consignment of colours, there were only 4 large tubes of white in it, while all the other tubes were half-size (of white). If he has charged for them in the same proportions, that’s very good, but pay attention to that. 4 tubes of white at 1 franc, but the rest should only be half the price. I find his Prussian blue poor, and his cinnabar. The rest is good. Now I’ll tell you that I’m working on the 2 paintings of which I wanted to make repetitions. The pink peach tree is giving me the most trouble.
You can see from the four squares on the other side that the three orchards go together, more or less. I now also have a small pear tree, vertical, also flanked by two other horizontal canvases. That will make 6 canvases of orchards in blossom. At the moment I’m trying to finish them a little every day, and to make them go together. I dare hope for 3 more, also going together, but those are still only in the state of embryos or foetuses.
I’d really like to do this group of 9 canvases. You understand that we’re free to consider the 9 canvases as the initial idea for a much larger, definitive decoration (this one consists of no. 25 and no. 12 canvases), which would be done after exactly the same subjects, at the same time next year.
Here’s the other middle piece of the no. 12 canvases. The ground purple — in the background a wall, with straight poplars — and a very blue sky. The small pear tree has a purple trunk and white flowers, a large yellow butterfly on one of the clumps. On the left, in the corner, a little garden with a border of yellow reeds and green bushes and a flowerbed. A small pink house.
So there are the details of the decoration of orchards in blossom, which I was intending for you. But the last 3 canvases exist only in a provisional state, and are supposed to represent a very large orchard with a border of cypresses and large pear trees and apple trees. The ‘Pont de Langlois’ for you is going well, and will be better than the study, I think. Am in a real hurry to get back to work. As for the Guillaumin, if it’s possible, it’s certainly a good deal to buy it. But since they’re talking about a new method for fixing pastel, would perhaps be wise to ask him to fix it in this way, in case of purchase. Handshake to you and to Koning.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’ve had a letter from Bernard with some sonnets that he’s made, some of which are successful; he’ll succeed in making a good sonnet, for which I almost envy him. As soon as the Langlois bridge and the repetition of the other painting (the pink peach tree) are dry, will make a consignment.
Arles, on or about Wednesday, 25 April 1888.
My dear Theo,
I’ll start by telling you that the letter you didn’t receive was wrongly addressed by me and as such came back to me. I had — in a moment of distraction — a classic case — addressed it rue de Laval instead of rue Lepic. That being so I’m repeating for you what was in the letter — what was new — the visit by Macknight, Russell’s friend, who came back last Sunday by the way. I must go to see him at home and see what he’s making, of which I’ve seen nothing so far. He’s a Yankee who probably does much better than the ordinary run of Yankees. But a Yankee all the same.
Is that saying enough? When I’ve seen his paintings or drawings I’ll concede about the work. But about the man, still the same. The main point of this letter is to know if you’ve left, and how. And after — that — what comes after — you perhaps don’t know yourself. Anyway, it always seems that those Boussod Val. gentlemen don’t care in the least for what the artists themselves will say about it.
But I won’t hide from you that I thought the news was bad and that, I assure you, I’ve thought about it every day, quite in spite of myself. Because I daren’t continue with things that are going to cost you more than they’ll bring in at present. Because it’s something of a sign, all this conversation with those B&V gentlemen, that Impressionism isn’t catching on sufficiently. As for me, I immediately stopped doing paintings and I’ve carried on with a series of pen drawings of which you’ve had the first two, but in a smaller format. Because I said to myself that a falling-out with those gentlemen could make lower expenses on my part desirable for you.Not being so very attached to my paintings I’d leave them there without grumbling too much.
Not being, fortunately for me, one of those people whose only love in this world is paintings. On the contrary, believing that an artistic thing can be made at less cost than a painting requires — I’ve started a series of pen drawings. While waiting, I have some annoyances. I don’t now think that I’ll benefit from staying where I am, I’d rather take a room or two rooms, if need be, one to sleep in, one to work in. Because the people here, in order to make me pay pretty high rates for EVERYTHING, make too much of the fact that I take up a little more room with my paintings than their other customers who aren’t painters. For my part, I’ll make the point that I’m staying longer and spend more in the guest-house than labourers who just stay a short time. And they won’t get a sou out of me so easily any more. But — it’s always a really miserable thing dragging your equipment and paintings along behind you, and that makes coming in and going out more difficult.
Being forced, determined anyway, to move, do you want or rather do you think it more suitable, to go to Marseille now? I can do a series of seascapes there like the orchards in blossom series here. And I’ve also bought 3 strong cloth shirts and two pairs of sturdy shoes, with the idea of moving. In Marseille I would be more willing to try to obtain a showcase for the Impressionists, if you for your part would give me an assurance that you’d supply it, this showcase, with Impressionist paintings if people ask you to exhibit them. Which will be easy. I sometimes have serious anxieties that you, and I too, will be rooked again by those Boussod Valadon & Cie gentlemen, who give us a hard time. But I resist it. Don’t let yourself be rooked by them. Enough for today. So let me know your address in case you travel. When will you be in Holland? Still same address for me but would like to move, as I don’t feel comfortable here. Will send you pen drawings shortly, I already have 4 of them.
Handshake.
Vincent
Will be very hard up end of month but should get by, only it’s being able to move right away that bothers me.
Arles, Friday, 4 May 1888.
My dear Theo,
I’m writing you another line to tell you that on reflection I think the best thing will be quite simply to take a mat and a mattress and make a bed in the studio on the floor. Because for the whole summer it’s going to be so hot it’ll be more than enough like that. Then in the winter we could see if we’ll need to take a bed, yes or no. About the bed you have at home, I think the arrangement of having a painter living with you is good for the painter and for you too, from the point of view of conversation and company. So even if Koning were to leave, there would perhaps be someone else who could replace him. So why don’t you keep the bed at home in any case?
It’s quite possible that as far as houses go I’ll find an even better one, either at Martigues, beside the sea, or in some other place. But the delightful thing about this studio is the gardens opposite. But there you are, as for doing repairs or furnishing it reasonably well, let’s wait — that will be wiser — all the more so since if we had to have cholera here in the summer, it could be that I’d up sticks and go to the country. It’s dirty, this town, with its old streets! As for the Arlésiennes they talk about so much, don’t they, do you know what I think of them, in short? Certainly, they’re truly charming, but it’s not what it must have been once. And there you are, it’s often more Mignard than Mantegna, since they’re in decline, but be that as it may, it’s beautiful, really beautiful, and here I’m only talking about the Roman type — a bit boring and ordinary. But what exceptions! There are women like Fragonards and — like Renoir. And something you can’t fit into what’s already been done in painting! The best thing one could do, from all points of view, would be to paint portraits of women and children. But it seems to me that it won’t be I who does that, I don’t feel I’m enough of a Mr Bel-ami for that. But I’d be mightily pleased if that Bel-ami of the south — which Monticelli – wasn’t — but was preparing the ground — which I can feel in the air while at the same time feeling that it isn’t me — I’d be, I tell you — mightily pleased if in painting a man like Guy de Maupassant came along and cheerfully painted the beautiful people and things in these parts.
As for me, I’ll work, and here and there some of my work will last — but what Claude Monet is in landscape, the same thing in figure painting — who’s going to do that? Yet like me you must feel it’s in the air. Rodin? Rodin doesn’t do colour — it’s not him. But the painter of the future is a colourist such as there hasn’t been before. Manet prepared the ground, but you’re well aware that the Impressionists have already used stronger colour than Manet’s. This painter of the future, I can’t imagine him living in small restaurants, working with several false teeth and going into Zouave brothels like me. But it seems to me that I’m in the right when I feel it will come in a later generation and that in our case we have to do what our means allow us in that direction, without having doubts and without flinching.
Please let Guillaumin know that Russell wants to go and see him at home and intends to buy another painting from him. I’m writing to Russell today. I was hearing yesterday from Macknight and from the Dane that in Marseille there was never anything good in the dealers’ windows, and that they thought that nothing at all was being done there. I’m very keen to see something of that for myself, but for the very reason that I don’t want to get all worked up I’ll do it when my nerves are settled. In the letter I addressed wrongly, I was actually talking about Bonger. He probably dares say as much, since the Russians are having such success at the Theâtre Libre, &c. But that’s no reason, is it, to try to use that success to run the French down?
I’ve just read Zola’s Au bonheur des dames again and I find it more and more beautiful. Now that’s news, that Reid’s back. I told Russell that since it was I who had introduced him into his home it was partly up to me to tell him why we’d fallen out. That Reid was ambitious, and being hard up for money like all of us, he was beside himself when it came to earning money. That I saw all that as involuntary acts (and him not responsible, therefore, and to be forgiven for these acts) of an over-excited nervous system. But that with Reid the vulgar dealer is stronger than the distinguished artist.
That won’t suit Reid, but is it too much to tell the truth? It’s surely no better than that now, and worse, in fact. Russell’s friend, Macknight, is a cold and not very nice character, too bad if I have both of them against me.
However, I’ve said nothing about Macknight, although I imagine he has no more heart than Reid. If he found his painting style that would do him good, and it’s not impossible that it will come — he’s still young. 27, I think. Let’s assume then, if you think it’s right, that we won’t be in a hurry yet to put the studio in order. It’s already good enough for the time being. And if I sleep there the way I’ve said above it won’t cost me anything. I save 30 francs at the hotel and pay 15 in rent, so there’s nothing but benefit in that. Handshake to you and to Koning. I have another drawing.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’ve seen a whole lot of crates for my consignment at the penny bazaar, I’ll go back to take measurements. Was the Degroux you speak of the same subject as the one in the museum in Brussels, the Saying grace? True what you say about De Braekeleer. Have you heard that he was suffering from a brain disease that’s supposed to have reduced him to helplessness??? I’ve heard that, but wasn’t it temporary? You mention the name of someone else, whom I don’t know.
Arles, Thursday, 10 May 1888.
My dear Theo,
For the time being I have to pay my bill, but at the same time it’s stated on the receipt that this payment is only to recover possession of my things, and that the inflated bill will be submitted to the justice of the peace. But with all that I have practically nothing left, I bought what I need to make a little coffee or broth at home, and two chairs and a table. That means I have just 15 francs left. So I’m asking you to send me some more money no later than when you get back to Paris, in any case. It’s very annoying, as this business is seriously interfering with my work — and the weather’s beautiful just now.
I regret not having taken this studio sooner. With what those people overcharged me I could already have furnished it. But I really count on it I’ve now paid my dues to misfortune and it’s better that should come at the beginning than at the end of the expedition. I feel sure I’ll soon have several new canvases on the easel. My consignment is packed up and will go off today. But it’s discouraging to work hard and see your profit going into the hands of people you detest.
And we’ll put an end to that. I’ll make a studio here that will last, and where if need be we can fit another painter in. Foreigners are exploited here and — for their part, the people around here aren’t wrong — it’s considered a duty to get all you can out of them. Right out in the country like Macknight you pay less, but Macknight is very bored and is working very little so far. And it’s better to work hard and spend more, if it’s absolutely necessary.
If you put aside what’s best in the consignment — and if you were to think of these paintings as a payment on my part to be deducted from what I owe you — Then the day when, from my side, I would have contributed something like 10 thousand francs in this way, I would feel more at ease. The money already spent in other years should also come back into our hands, in value at least. I’m still far from that. But I feel that nature here has everything you need to make good things. So it would be my fault if I didn’t succeed. In a single year Mauve made and sold watercolours for 6,000 francs, according to what he told me at the time. Ah well, there are strokes of luck of that kind for which I can sense a possibility, even through my present worries. In this consignment there are the pink orchard on coarse canvas and the horizontal white orchard and the bridge, which, if we keep them, I think could go up in value later, and about fifty paintings of that quality would compensate us in a way for the fact that we’ve had too little luck in the past. So take these three for your collection at home and don’t sell them because later on they’ll be worth 500 each. And if we had 50 like that put aside, then I’d breathe a bit more easily. Anyway — write to me soon.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, Saturday, 12 May 1888.
My dear Theo,
I’m writing you another few lines to tell you that I’ve been to see the gentleman whom the Arab Jew in Tartarin calls ‘the shustish of the beace’. I still got 12 francs back and my host was reprimanded for keeping my trunk; as I wasn’t refusing to pay, he had no right to hold it. If they’d found in favour of the other party, that would have done me harm, because he wouldn’t have failed to go around saying that I had not been able or not been willing to pay him, and that he’d been forced to take my trunk. Whereas now — because I left at the same time as him — he said as we went that he’d been angry but hadn’t really wished to insult me. But that’s just what he was trying to do, probably seeing that I had seen enough of his shack — and that he couldn’t make me stay — he’d have gone to tell tales where I am at the moment. All right. If I’d wanted to get the actual reduction, I’d probably have claimed more in damages, for example. If I let myself be annoyed by just anybody I’d soon not know where to turn, you understand.
I’ve found a better restaurant where I eat for 1 franc. My health’s been better these days. Now I have two new studies like this:
You already have a drawing of it, a farmhouse beside the wide road in the wheatfields.
A meadow full of very yellow buttercups, a ditch with iris plants with green leaves, with purple flowers, the town in the background, some grey willow trees — a strip of blue sky.
If they don’t mow the meadow I’d like to do this study again, because the subject matter was really beautiful and I had trouble finding the composition. A little town surrounded by countryside entirely covered in yellow and purple flowers. That would really be a Japanese dream, you know. Having asked the price for sending the consignment that went off by goods train, it will be 7 francs at the station in Paris. As I don’t have very much left I didn’t put postage on it here — but if they asked more you’d have to complain. The crate is marked UV and W1042. We’ve had the mistral again yesterday and today. I hope my consignment arrives before Tersteeg comes to Paris. Handshake, write to me soon.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, on or about Monday, 14 May 1888.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter containing 100 francs. I’m very glad to have left those people’s place, and my health is much better since. It was their bad food more than anything that made it drag on, and their wine, which was real poison. I now eat very well for one franc or 1.50 francs. Tasset’s absorbent canvas would be just the thing for me if the canvas itself was three times as coarse. If you run into that gentleman see if you can find out what he uses as primer. It wouldn’t surprise me if his canvas is prepared with pipeclay. If I had information about it I think I’d prepare the canvas myself. It’s not urgent — but see what you can find out. I still have 4 metres of canvas 1 metre 20 wide that I bought here, but it isn’t prepared yet. As soon as there’d be another consignment of colours, he could add primer to that consignment, enough to prepare 4 metres. But anyway, it’s not urgent yet.
On your return did those gentlemen speak again about making you travel? In the next few days you’ll see the Danish painter who was here arrive in Paris, I don’t know how to write his name (Moriés?). He’s going to see the Salon and will then go back to his country and come back to the south, in a year perhaps. His last three studies were better and more colourful than what he was doing before. I don’t know what he’ll do later. But he has a good character and I’m sorry he’s going away. I told him a Dutch painter was living with you, and if Koning would like to take him up the Butte Montmartre he’ll probably do some studies there. I’ve talked to him a lot about the Impressionists, all of whom he knew by name or from having seen their paintings, and he’s very interested in the subject. He has a letter of introduction to Russell. He regained his health here and is now very well — he’s good for two years — but after that it would do him good to come back for this same reason of health. What’s this new book on Daumier, L’homme et l’oeuvre? Have you seen the exhibition of the caricaturists?
I have two new studies, a bridge and the verge of a wide road. Many of the subjects here are just — in character — the same as in Holland — the difference is in the colour. There’s sulphur everywhere where the sun beats down. You know that we saw a magnificent rose garden by Renoir. I imagined I would find similar subjects here, and that was indeed the case when the orchards were in blossom. Now the appearance of things has changed and nature has become much harsher. But what greenness and what a blue! I must say that the few landscapes by Cézanne that I know render it very, very well, and I regret not having seen more of them. The other day I saw a subject just like Monticelli’s beautiful landscape with the poplars that we saw at Reid’s. To find more of Renoir’s gardens you’d probably have to go towards Nice. I’ve seen very few roses here, although there are some, among others the big red roses they call Roses de Provence.
To find plenty of subjects is perhaps already something in itself. Provided the paintings are worth what they cost. If the Impressionists go up in value that may become the case. And after a few years’ work we could recoup the past to some extent. And after a year I’ll have a quiet home of my own. I’m curious about what you’ll say about my consignment, I think it takes 10 days to go from here to Paris by goods train. If the consignment includes some that are too poor, don’t show them. The reason I sent you the whole lot is that it will give you an idea of the things I’ve seen. I need to go and look for a new subject, so thanking you very warmly for writing to me so soon, handshake to you and to Koning.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, on or about Sunday, 20 May 1888.
My dear Theo,
What you write about your visit to Gruby has upset me, but at the same time it reassures me that you went there. Have you considered that your lethargy — a feeling of extreme lassitude — could have been caused by this heart condition, and that in that case potassium iodide couldn’t be blamed for these periods of stupefied exhaustion? If you remember how stupefied I was myself this winter, to the point of being quite incapable! of doing anything whatsoever, apart from a little painting, although I wasn’t taking potassium iodide at all. So if I were you, I’d have it out with Rivet if Gruby tells you not to take it. And it will in any case — I have no doubt about it — be your intention to be friends with both the one and the other. I often think of Gruby here and now, and in short I feel well, but it’s because here I have the pure air and the heat, which make things more possible for me. Among all the trials and the bad air of Paris, Rivet takes things as they are without trying to create a paradise and without in the slightest way trying to make us perfect. But he forges a suit of armour, or rather, he inures us to illness and keeps morale up, I find, by making fun of the trouble we have.
So if you could now have just one year of living in the country and close to nature, that would make Gruby’s treatment much easier. So I think he’ll urge you not to see women except in case of necessity, but as little as possible. Now for myself, I feel fine here in that respect, but here, since I have work and nature, and if I didn’t have that I’d become melancholy. As long as work has some appeal for you over there, and the Impressionists are going well, that would be a great gain. Because loneliness, worries, vexations, the need for friendship and fellow-feeling not sufficiently met, that’s what’s very bad, the mental emotions of sadness or disappointments undermine us more than riotous living: us, that is, who find ourselves the happy owners of troubled hearts. I think potassium iodide purifies the blood and the whole system, doesn’t it — will you be able to do without it? Anyway, you’ll have to have a straight talk about it with Rivet, who shouldn’t be jealous. I could wish you had near you something more rudely alive, warmer than the Dutch — but all the same, Koning with his whims is an exception for the better. Anyway, it’s always good to have somebody. But I could still wish you had one or two good friends among the French. Would you do me a great favour: my friend the Dane, who leaves for Paris on Tuesday, will give you 2 small paintings — nothing much — that I’d like to give to Mme the Countess De la Boissière at Asnières. She stays in boulevard Voltaire, on the first floor of the first house at the end of the Clichy bridge. Père Perruchot’s restaurant is on the ground floor. Would you take them to her personally on my behalf, saying I had hopes of seeing her again this spring and that even here I haven’t forgotten her; I gave them 2 small ones last year as well, her and her daughter. I’d have hope that you wouldn’t regret making these ladies’ acquaintance. After all, they’re a family. The countess is far from young but she’s first of all a countess, then a lady, the daughter ditto.
And it makes sense for you to go, since I can’t be sure that the family’s staying in the same place this year (however, they’ve been coming there for several years, and Perruchot must know their address in town). Perhaps I’m deluding myself — but I can’t help thinking of them, and perhaps it will be a pleasure for them and for you too, if you meet them. Listen — I’ll do all I can to send you some new drawings for Dordrecht. This week I’ve done two still lifes.
A blue enamelled tin coffee-pot, a royal blue and gold cup (on the left), a pale blue and white chequered milk jug, a cup — on the right — white, with blue and orange designs, on a yellow grey earthenware plate, a blue barbotine or majolica jug with red, green, brown designs, and lastly 2 oranges and 3 lemons; the table is covered with a blue cloth, the background is yellow green, making 6 different blues and 4 or 5 yellows and oranges. The other still life is the majolica jug with wild flowers.
I thank you very much for your letter and for the 50-franc note. I hope the crate will reach you in the next few days. The next time I think I’ll take the canvases off the stretching frames and send them rolled, by fast service. I think you’ll soon make friends with this Dane — he doesn’t do much but — he has intelligence and a good heart, and he probably started painting not long ago. Take him out a bit one Sunday to get to know him. For myself, I feel infinitely better, my blood is circulating well, and my stomach’s digesting. I’ve found very, very good food now, which had an immediate effect on me. Have you seen Gruby’s face when he pinches his lips tight and says ‘No women’? It would make a really good Degas, that face, like that. But there’s nothing to be said against it, because when you have to work all day long with your brain, calculating, thinking, planning business, that’s quite enough in itself for your nerves. So go off now and visit women in the world of artists and suchlike, you’ll see you’ll succeed — really. You’ll see it’ll work out like that and you won’t lose much, will you? I still haven’t been able to make a deal with the furniture dealer, I’ve seen a bed but it’s dearer than I thought. I feel the need to get more work done before spending more on furniture. My lodgings cost me 1 franc a night. I’ve bought more linen and colours as well.
I’ve bought some very strong linen. Just as my blood is returning to normal, so the idea of succeeding is returning to me too. I shouldn’t be too surprised if your illness was also a reaction to this dreadful winter, which lasted an age. And then it will go the same way as with me; take as much spring air as possible, go to bed very early because you’ll need to sleep; and then food, lots of fresh vegetables and no bad wine or bad liquor. And very few women and a great deal of patience. If it doesn’t clear up at once that doesn’t matter. And now Gruby will give you a heavy meat diet over there. Here, for myself, I couldn’t take very much, and it’s not necessary here. It’s just my stupefaction that’s going away, I don’t feel as much need to amuse myself, I’m less at the mercy of my passions and I can work more calmly, I could be alone without being bored. I came out of it feeling a little older, but no sadder. I wouldn’t believe you if in your next letter you told me there was nothing wrong with you any more; it’s perhaps a more serious change and I shouldn’t be surprised if, during the time it will take you to recover, you had some dejection. There is and there remains and it always comes back at times, in the midst of the artistic life, a yearning for — real life — ideal and not attainable.
And we sometimes lack the desire to throw ourselves head first into art again and to build ourselves up for that. We know we’re cab-horses and that it’ll be the same cab we’re going to be harnessed to again. And so we don’t feel like doing it and we’d prefer to live in a meadow with a sun, a river, the company of other horses who are also free, and the act of generation. And perhaps in the final account your heart condition comes partly from there; it wouldn’t greatly surprise me. We no longer rebel against things, we’re not resigned either — we’re ill and it’s not going to get any better — and we can’t do anything specific about it. I don’t know who called this condition being struck by death and immortality. The cab we drag along must be of use to people we don’t know. But you see, if we believe in the new art, in the artists of the future, our presentiment doesn’t deceive us. When good père Corot said a few days before he died: last night I saw in my dreams landscapes with entirely pink skies, well, didn’t they come, those pink skies, and yellow and green into the bargain, in Impressionist landscapes? All this is to say there are things one senses in the future and that really come about. .
And we, who, I’m inclined to believe, are by no means so close to dying, nevertheless feel the thing is bigger than us and longer-lasting than our lives. We don’t feel we’re dying, but we feel the reality of the fact that we’re not much, and that to be a link in the chain of artists we pay a steep price in health, youth, freedom, which we don’t enjoy at all, any more than the cab-horse that pulls a carriage full of people who, unlike him, are going out to enjoy the springtime. Well then — what I wish you as well as myself is to succeed in recovering our health, because we’ll need it. That Hope of Puvis de Chavannes is such a reality. There’s an art in the future and it will surely be so beautiful and so young that, really, if at present we leave it our own youth, we can only gain in tranquillity. Perhaps it’s too silly to write all this, but it’s what I felt; it seemed that like me, you suffered to see your youth going up in — smoke — but if it comes back and appears in what we do, there’s nothing lost, and the power to work is a second youth. So be serious about getting better, because we’ll need our health. I shake your hand firmly, and Koning’s too.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, Saturday, 26 May 1888.
My dear Theo,
I read an announcement in L’Intransigeant that there’s going to be an exhibition of the Impressionists at Durand-Ruel — there’ll be some works by Caillebotte —I’ve never seen anything of his, and wanted to ask you to write and tell me what they’re like — there are certainly other noteworthy things too. I sent you some more drawings today, and I’m adding two more. They’re views taken from a rocky hill from which you can see in the direction of the Crau (an area from which a very good wine comes), the town of Arles and in the direction of Fontvieille. The contrast between the wild and romantic foreground — and the broad, tranquil distant prospects with their horizontal lines, shading off until they reach the chain of the Alpilles — so famous for the great feats of climbing of Tartarin, P.C.A., and the Alpine Club. This contrast is very picturesque. The two drawings that I’m now adding afterwards will give you an idea of the ruin that crowns the rocks. But is it worth the trouble of making frames for this Dordrecht exhibition? I find it so silly and I’d prefer not to be part of it. I prefer to believe that Bernard or Gauguin will exchange drawings with us in which the Dutch will see nothing. Have you met the Dane Mourier-Petersen — he’ll have brought you another two drawings as well.
He studied to be a doctor, but I suppose he was discouraged in that by the student life, discouraged by both his pals and his professors. He never said anything to me about it, though, except that he once declared: ‘but doctors kill people’. When he came here he was suffering from a nervous condition that came from the strain of the examinations. How long has he been doing painting — I don’t know — he’s certainly made little progress as a painter, but he’s good as a pal and he looks at people and often judges them very accurately. Could there be a possible arrangement whereby he could come to live with you? As far as intelligence goes, I think he’d be far more preferable to that Lacoste, of whom I don’t think highly, I don’t know why. You’ve absolutely no need of 6th-rate Dutchmen or worse, who when going back to their country do nothing but say and do idiotic things. A dealer in paintings is, unfortunately, more or less a public figure. Anyway, there’s no serious harm done. The Swede is from a good family, he has order and regularity in his means of support, and as a man he makes me think of those characters Pierre Loti creates. For all that he’s phlegmatic, he has a good heart.
I plan to do a lot more drawing. It’s already jolly hot, I can assure you. I must add an order for colours to this letter — however, if you’d prefer not to get them immediately I’d do a few more drawings and wouldn’t lose anything by it. I’ll also divide the order into two according to what would be more urgent or less. What’s always urgent is to draw, and whether it’s done directly with a brush, or with something else, such as a pen, you never do enough. I’m trying now to exaggerate the essence of things, and to deliberately leave vague what’s commonplace.
I’m delighted that you’ve bought the book on Daumier — but if you could add to that by buying some more of his lithographs that would be absolutely good — because in the future Daumiers won’t be easy to get hold of. How’s your health, have you seen père Gruby again? I’m inclined to believe he exaggerates your heart condition a bit, to the detriment of the need to treat you rigorously for your nervous system. Well, he’ll certainly realize it as you follow his treatment; with Gruby you’ll last, but unfortunately for us père Gruby himself won’t last, because he’s getting old and when we need him the most he won’t be there any more. I’m thinking more and more that we shouldn’t judge the Good Lord by this world, because it’s one of his studies that turned out badly. But what of it, in failed studies — when you’re really fond of the artist — you don’t find much to criticize — you keep quiet. But we’re within our rights to ask for something better. We’d have to see other works by the same hand though. This world was clearly cobbled together in haste, in one of those bad moments when its author no longer knew what he was doing, and didn’t have his wits about him. What legend tells us about the Good Lord is that he went to enormous trouble over this study of his for a world. I’m inclined to believe that the legend tells the truth, but then the study is worked to death in several ways. It’s only the great masters who make such mistakes; that’s perhaps the best consolation, as we’re then within our rights to hope to see revenge taken by the same creative hand. And — then — this life — criticized so much and for such good, even excellent reasons — we — shouldn’t take it for anything other than it is, and we’ll be left with the hope of seeing better than that in another life. Handshake to you and to Koning.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I hope to have news from you tomorrow, otherwise I’d be in quite a tight corner as I only have money left for tomorrow, Sunday. Have you received the crate at long last? It doesn’t much surprise me that it takes time, though, as the crate had to be transported from one station to another — but — all the same.
Arles, Monday, 28 or Tuesday, 29 May 1888.
My dear Theo,
I thought of Gauguin and here we are — if Gauguin wants to come here there’s Gauguin’s fare, and then there are the two beds or the two mattresses we absolutely have to buy. But later on, as Gauguin’s a sailor, there’s a likelihood we’ll manage to make our grub at home. And the two of us will live on the same money as I spend on myself alone.
You know I’ve always thought it ridiculous for painters to live alone &c. You always lose when you’re isolated. Well, it’s in response to your wish to help him out. You can’t send him what he needs to live on in Brittany, and me what I need to live on in Provence. But you may agree that we should share, and set a sum of, let’s say, 250 a month if every month, in addition to and apart from my work, you were to have a Gauguin.
As long as we didn’t exceed that amount, wouldn’t there even be a benefit? Besides, I’m speculating about joining forces with others. So herewith rough draft of a letter to Gauguin, which I’ll write if you approve, with the changes that will doubtless have to be made to turns of phrase. But I wrote that way first. Think of it as a simple business arrangement, that’s best for everyone, and let’s treat it straightforwardly that way. Only, given that you’re not in business on your own account, you may, for example, think it right that I take it upon myself, and Gauguin would join forces with me as a pal.
I thought that you had a wish to come to his aid, as I suffer myself at the thought that he’s in a tight corner — something that won’t change overnight. We can’t offer better than that, and others wouldn’t do as much. For my part, it worries me to spend so much on myself alone, but to find a remedy for that there’s none other than that of finding a wife with money or pals who associate with one another for paintings. Now I don’t see the wife, but I do see the pals. If that suited him, wouldn’t do to keep him waiting.
This would be the beginnings of an association, then. Bernard, who’s coming to the south too, will join us, and be sure of this, I still see you in France, at the head of an association of Impressionists. And if I could be useful in putting them together, I’d willingly see them abler than myself. You must feel how much it vexes me to spend more than they do; I have to find a partnership that’s more advantageous, both to you and to them. And that’s how it would be. However, think it over carefully, but isn’t it true that in good company you could live on little as long as you spent your money at home? Later on there may be days when we’ll be less hard up, but I’m not counting on it. It would please me so much if you had the Gauguins first. I’m not good at cooking &c., but they’ve had different training in that, having done their service &c. Handshake and best wishes to Koning, after all, it’s a source of satisfaction for you to deliver him in good condition, which might not have been the case if you hadn’t taken him with you. It’s also satisfactory that the Goupils have been interested in taking that room you suggested.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Has Tersteeg come to Paris yet? In order to prepare things, and to expand on this letter, I’m writing to Gauguin, but without saying anything about all this, just to talk about work. You have to think it over very, very, very carefully before starting to travel. It seems so likely to me that your job is to stay in France.
Appendix: draft letter to Paul Gauguin
My dear old Gauguin,
I’ve thought of you very often and if I’m only writing now it’s because I didn’t want to write empty phrases. The deal with Russell hasn’t come off yet, but Russell has bought some Impressionists all the same, Guillaumin and Bernard and — wait for your moment — he’ll come of his own accord, but I couldn’t press the point further, having had two refusals, but always with a promise for the future. Wanted to write now to tell you I’ve just rented a four-room house here in Arles. And that it seems to me that if I find another painter who feels like getting the most out of the south, and who like me was sufficiently absorbed in his work to be able to resign himself to living like a monk who’d go to the brothel once a fortnight — apart from that, bound up in his work and not inclined to waste his time — then the thing would be good. On my own, I suffer a bit from this isolation.
So I’ve very often thought about talking to you about it straight out. You know that my brother and I have a high regard for your painting and that we’d very much wish to know you were a little at your ease. But all the same, my brother can’t send money to you in Brittany and at the same time money to me in Provence. But would you like to share with me here? Then by joining forces, there would perhaps be enough for two; I’m sure of it, even. Having once attacked the south, I see no reason to give it up. I was ill when I came, I’m better now and in fact, I feel rather attracted to the south, where outdoor work is possible almost all the year round.
Living here seems more expensive, though, but isn’t it also the case that the opportunities for gaining paintings are greater? In any event, if my brother were to send us 250 francs a month for both of us, would you like to come, and we would share. But in that case we’d have to make up our minds to eat at home as much as possible; we’d take on some kind of charwoman for a few hours a day, avoiding all the costs of a hotel that way. And you would give my brother one painting a month, while you’d be free to do whatever you liked with the rest. Now the two of us would start exhibiting in Marseille straightaway, thus opening the way for other Impressionists as well as for ourselves. We mustn’t forget that there would now be the cost of travel and of buying a bed, which would also have to be paid for with paintings.
You are, of course, free to correspond with my brother about this matter, but I warn you that he’ll most probably refuse to take responsibility for it. He’ll just assure you that the only means we’ve found up to now of helping you in a more practical way would be this arrangement, if it suits you. We’ve thought about it a good deal. It seems to me that what you need for your health’s sake is peace and quiet above all. If I’m wrong, and if the heat in the south turned out to be too much — well — we’d have to see. For myself, so far I feel very well in this climate. There’s plenty more I could tell you — but here we are, business first. Reply to both of us soon.
Arles, on or about Tuesday, 5 June 1888.
My dear Theo,
Many thanks for your kind letter and the 50-franc note that was enclosed with it. We’ll still have to write to Gauguin. The problem is this bloody journey, since we urge him to make it, and afterwards we’d be in an awkward position if it doesn’t suit him. I think I’ll write to him today and will send you the letter. Now that I’ve seen the sea here I really feel the importance there is in staying in the south and feeling — if the colour has to be even more exaggerated — Africa not far away from one. I’m sending you by same post some drawings of Saintes-Maries. I did the drawing of the boats as I was leaving, very early in the morning, and I’m working on the painting, a no. 30 canvas with more sea and sky on the right. It was before the boats cleared off; I’d watched it all the other mornings, but as they leave very early, hadn’t had time to do it. I have another 3 drawings of huts that I still need and which will follow; these ones of the huts are a bit harsh, but I have some more carefully drawn ones.
I’ll make you a consignment of rolled-up paintings as soon as the seascapes are dry. Do you see the cheek of these idiots in Dordrecht, do you see that self-importance, they’re very happy to condescend to Degas and Pissarro — of whose work they’ve seen nothing, by the way, any more than of the others. But it’s a very good sign that the young ones are furious, perhaps it proves that there are some old ones who’ve spoken well of it. About staying in the south, even if it’s more expensive — Look, we love Japanese painting, we’ve experienced its influence — all the Impressionists have that in common — and we wouldn’t go to Japan, in other words, to what is the equivalent of Japan, the south? So I believe that the future of the new art still lies in the south after all. But it’s bad policy to live there alone when two or three could help each other to live on little.
I’d like you to spend some time here, you’d feel it — after some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently. I’m also convinced that it’s precisely through a long stay here that I’ll bring out my personality. The Japanese draws quickly, very quickly, like a flash of lightning, because his nerves are finer, his feeling simpler. I’ve been here only a few months but — tell me, in Paris would I have drawn in an hour the drawing of the boats? Not even with the frame. Now this was done without measuring, letting the pen go. So I tell myself that gradually the expenses will be balanced by work. I’d like us to earn a lot of money to bring good artists here who too often get despondent in the mud on the Petit Boulevard. Fortunately it’s extremely easy to sell the right sort of paintings in the right sort of place to the right sort of gentleman. Since the distinguished Albert gave us the formula, all our difficulties have disappeared by magic. You only have to go down rue de la Paix — there strolls, just for that purpose — the good art lover. If Gauguin came here, he and I could perhaps accompany Bernard to Africa when he goes there to do his service. What have you decided about our two sisters?
Anquetin and Lautrec — I think — won’t like what I’m doing. Apparently an article on Anquetin has appeared in the Revue Indépendante in which he seems to have been called the leader of a new movement in which Japonism was even more marked, &c. I haven’t read it, but after all — the leader of the Petit Boulevard is without any doubt Seurat, and young Bernard has perhaps gone further than Anquetin in the Japanese style. Tell them I have a painting of boats, that and the Langlois bridge could suit Anquetin. What Pissarro says is true — the effects colours produce through their harmonies or discords should be boldly exaggerated. It’s the same as in drawing — the precise drawing, the right colour — is not perhaps the essential element we should look for — because the reflection of reality in the mirror, if it was possible to fix it with colour and everything — would in no way be a painting, any more than a photograph. More soon, handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, Tuesday, 5 or Wednesday, 6 June 1888.
My dear Theo —
If Gauguin wants to accept, and if the only obstacle to going into business would be the travel, it’s better not to keep him waiting. So I’ve written, although I hardly had the time, having two canvases on the easel. If you think the letter’s clear enough, send it, if not, it would be better for us, too, to abstain when in doubt. And the things you would do for him shouldn’t upset the plan to bring our sisters over, and especially not our needs, yours and mine. Because if we ourselves don’t keep ourselves in a state of vigour, how can we claim the right to get involved in other people’s troubles? But at present we’re on the way to remaining vigorous, and so let’s do the possible, what’s right in front of us. I’m sending you enclosed herewith canvas sample for Tasset; however, I don’t know if we should go on with his canvas.
If you send me the next letter by Sunday morning, I’ll probably go off to Saintes-Maries again at 1 o’clock that day and spend the week there. I’m reading a book about Wagner which I’ll send you afterwards — what an artist — one like that in painting, now that would be something. It will come. Do you know that at 6 rue Coëtlogon, rue de Rennes, on 7 and 8 June from 1 to 7 o’clock there’s an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Régamey that could be very interesting; now there’s two who’ve travelled all over the place, he and his brother.
Handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
I believe in the victory of Gauguin and other artists — but — between then and now there’s a long time, and even if he had the good fortune to sell one or two canvases — it would be the same story. While waiting, Gauguin could peg out like Meryon, discouraged. It’s bad that he’s not working — well, we’ll see his reply.
Arles, Tuesday, 12 June 1888.
My dear Theo,
On Monday morning I received your telegraphed money order for 50 francs, for which I thank you kindly. But I haven’t yet received your letter, which surprised me a little. I’ve received a letter from Gauguin, who said he’d received a letter from you containing 50 francs, by which he was very touched, and in which you said a few words about the plan. As I had sent you my letter to him, he hadn’t yet received the more clear-cut proposal when he wrote. But he says that he has the experience that when he was in Martinique with his friend Laval, the two of them together managed better than either one of them alone, and that he therefore fully agreed on the advantages a life in common would have. He says the pains in his bowels are still continuing, and he seems quite unhappy to me. He talks about a hope he has of finding capital of six hundred thousand francs to set up a dealer in Impressionist paintings, and that he would explain his plan and that he’d like you to be at the head of this business. I shouldn’t be surprised if that hope is a fata Morgana, a mirage that goes with being broke. The more broke you are — especially when you’re ill — the more you think of such possibilities. So I see first and foremost in this plan yet another proof that he’s despondent, and that the best thing would be get him back on his feet as quickly as possible.
He says that when sailors have to move a heavy load or raise an anchor, in order to be able to lift a greater weight, to be able to make an enormous effort, they all sing together to support each other and to give each other energy. That it’s just what artists lack. So I’d be really surprised if he weren’t glad to come. But the costs of the hotel and the journey are made even more complicated by the doctor’s bill, so it will be jolly hard. But it seems to me that he should ditch the debt and leave some paintings as security if he’s going to come here, and if the people don’t agree to that, leave the debt in the lurch without any paintings as security. Wasn’t I forced to do the same thing in order to come to Paris? And although I suffered the loss of many things then, it can’t be done otherwise in cases like that, and it’s better to go forward anyway than to go on being depressed. I haven’t left for Saintes-Maries — they’ve finished painting the house and I had to pay, and I also have to buy quite a considerable supply of canvas. And out of the fifty francs I’ve got one louis left and we’re only Tuesday morning, and so it was hardly possible for me to leave and I fear it won’t yet be possible next week either.
I was pleased to learn that Mourier has come to lodge with you. If Gauguin would prefer to take the risk of throwing himself back into business at this point — if he really has hopes of doing something in Paris — for Heaven’s sake let him go there, but I think he’d be wiser to come here for a year at least; I’ve seen someone here who had been to Tonkin and was ill when he came back from that delightful region — he recovered here. I have two or three new drawings and also 2 or three new painted studies.
I went to Tarascon one day, unfortunately there was so much sun and dust that day that I came home empty-handed. I’ve had reports of 2 Monticellis in Marseille, a bouquet of flowers at 250 francs and figures. It was Russell’s friend, Macknight, who had seen them there. I’d very much like to go there sometime, to Marseille. I still continue to find the subjects here very beautiful and interesting, and despite the vexations of expenses, I nevertheless think there’s a better chance in the south than in the north. If you saw the Camargue — and many other places — like me, you’d be very surprised to see that it has a character absolutely à la Ruisdael.
I have a new subject on the go, green and yellow fields as far as the eye can see, which I’ve already drawn twice and am starting again as a painting, just like a Salomon Koninck, you know, Rembrandt’s pupil who made the vast flat landscapes. Or it’s like something by Michel or like Jules Dupré, but it’s really quite different from rose gardens. It’s true that I’ve only visited one part of Provence, and in the other part there’s the countryside that Claude Monet does, for example. I’m very curious to know what Gauguin will do. He says that in the past he got people to buy Impressionists to the tune of 35 thousand at Durand-Ruel’s, and that he hopes to do the same thing again for you. But it’s so bad, when you start having trouble with your health you can no longer risk sudden impulses, and I think Gauguin’s most solid asset is now his painting, and the best business he could do, his own paintings. It’s likely that he’ll have written to you in the past few days; I answered his letter last Saturday. I believe it would be pretty hard to pay all he owes over there and his fare, &c. &c. If Russell bought a painting from him — but he has the house he’s building, which puts him in financial difficulties. But I’ll still write to that effect, I think. I have to send him something myself for our exchange, and if Gauguin wishes to come, then I’ll be able to ask with confidence. It’s certain that if in exchange for the money we’d give G. we buy his paintings at the current price, it’s in no way money wasted. I’d very much like you to have all his paintings of Martinique. Anyway, let’s do what we can. Handshake, I hope you’ll write soon.
Ever yours,
Vincent
What’s Rodin’s bust of a woman in the Salon? It can’t possibly be the bust of Mrs Russell — which he must be working on, though. Doesn’t our friend Mourier have a terrific accent? He bropaply alvays trinks brendy viz vater.
Arles, on or about Friday, 15 and Saturday, 16 June 1888.
My dear Theo,
When in doubt, it’s better to abstain — that, I believe, is what I said in the letter to Gauguin, and that’s what I believe now, having read his reply. If he, for his part, returns to the proposal — he’s perfectly free to return to it — but we’d look I’m not quite sure what, if for the moment we pressed the point, to make him say yes. You see that I’ve received your letter; I thank you very much for it and there were many things in it, I thank you very much for the 100-franc note — as for the delay with the telegram, it was dated Sunday, so it’s the postman’s fault, but it hardly mattered, since the coach for Saintes-Maries leaves every day. But what stopped me was the need to buy canvases and pay the rent. I have already mentioned to you that I didn’t like Tasset’s canvas very much for outdoor work. In future I think we’ll take the ordinary kind. I bought 50 francs’ worth of canvas with stretching frames — also because I need stretching frames of different sizes to stretch canvases on, even though I’ll send them to you rolled up. They’re the rather large sizes, 30, 25, 20, 15, all square. It seems to me that the large sizes (after all, it’s not very large) suit me better. But I speak about what you write in your letter. I congratulate you on having the Monet exhibition at your premises, and I much regret not seeing it. It will certainly do Tersteeg no harm to have seen this exhibition; he’ll still come round to it, but as your idea was too, very late. It’s indeed curious that he’s changed his mind on the subject of Zola. I know from experience that he couldn’t bear to hear him spoken about. What an odd character Tersteeg is; we shouldn’t give up hope with him — the splendid thing about him is that however rigid and fixed his opinions may be, once he has acknowledged that something is in fact different from what he had imagined — as with Zola — then he changes and becomes bold for the cause. Unfortunately, we don’t get to be old in modern times, and Mr Tersteeg has lived longer now than he still has to live. And where is his successor? My God, what a sad thing it is that you and he are not entirely as one in business matters these days. But what can you say — it’s what I believe they call a fatality. You were fortunate to meet Guy de Maupassant — I’ve just read his first book, Des vers, poems dedicated to his master, Flaubert. There’s one, ‘Au bord de l’eau’, that’s already him. So you see, what Vermeer of Delft is beside Rembrandt among painters, he is among French novelists beside Zola. In short, Tersteeg’s visit isn’t at all what I’d dared hope, and I make no secret of it to myself that I miscalculated the odds on his cooperating. And perhaps on the business with Gauguin, too. Let’s take a look at that: I thought he was at bay and I blame myself for having money and the pal who works better than I, not — I say, he’s entitled to half if he wishes. But — if Gauguin isn’t at bay, then I’m not in too much of a hurry.
And I categorically withdraw from it, and the only question for me remains quite simply this: If I looked for a pal to work with, would I be doing the right thing, would this be more beneficial to my brother and me, would the pal lose or would he gain by it? So these, then, are questions that certainly preoccupy me, but which need to come face to face with reality in order to become actual facts. I don’t wish to discuss Gauguin’s plan, having considered the situation once — last winter — you know the results. You know that I believe that an association of the Impressionists would be something along the lines of the associations of the 12 English Pre-Raphaelites, and that I believe that it could come into being. That I’m therefore inclined to believe that the artists would guarantee their livelihood amongst themselves, mutually, and independently of the dealers, each agreeing to give a substantial number of paintings to the society, and that earnings as well as losses would be shared. I don’t believe that this society would last indefinitely, but I believe that during its lifetime we would live courageously and would produce. But if tomorrow Gauguin and his banker Jews come and ask me for nothing but 10 paintings for a society of dealers and not a society of artists, well, I don’t know if I’d trust them — I who would be glad, on the other hand, to give 50 to a society of artists. Isn’t it a bit the way it was with Reid — why say that Gabriel de la Roquette’s a scoundrel if you do the same yourself? Why say artistic Society if it’s made up of bankers? Enough, for Heaven’s sake, let our pal do as his heart tells him, but his plan is far from making me enthusiastic. I prefer things as they are — to take them the way it is, without changing anything about them, to half-baked reforms. The great revolution, art for the artists, my God, perhaps it’s a utopia, and too bad, then.
I think life’s so short and goes by so fast. Now, being a painter you have to paint, all the same. And you’re also well aware that because at that time — last winter with Pissarro and the others, we happened to talk about it a lot, I’m now making a big effort to add nothing more except this, that speaking for myself, before next year I want to make my contribution of 50 paintings. If I manage to do that then I’ll stick to my opinion. I’ve sent you 3 drawings by post today.
The one with the wheat stacks in a farmyard will seem too bizarre to you, but it was done in great haste as a project for a painting, and it’s to show you what it’s like. Now, the harvest is a bit more serious. And that’s the subject I’ve been working on this week, on a no. 30 canvas — it’s hardly done at all — but it kills the rest of what I have, apart from a still life, worked on with patience. Macknight and one of his friends who’s been in Africa too saw this study today and said it was the best I’d done. Like Anquetin and our friend Thomas — you’re really not sure what to think of yourself when you hear people say that, but I say to myself: the rest must look bloody awful, to be sure. Well then — on days when I bring back a study I say to myself, if it was like this every day things could work — but on days when you come home empty-handed and you eat and spend money all the same, you don’t feel content with yourself, and you feel like a madman, a scoundrel or an old fool. And dear old Doctor Ox, I mean our Swede, Mourier, I liked him well enough because, with his spectacles, he went naїvely and benignly about this wicked world, and because I presumed he had a heart that was purer than many a heart, and even with more of a leaning towards rectitude than many of the cleverest people have. And as I knew he hadn’t been painting for very long it made not a bit of difference to me that his work was the very height of inanity. And I saw him every day for months. All right. So what can be the reason for his losing his qualities? This is how I imagine the case to be. Bear in mind that he came to the south to get over a nervous disorder caused by a whole lot of problems he’s had, and as a result of which he changed career.
He was perfectly well here, he was very calm, &c. But the shock of Paris was too great, the change too sudden, he didn’t find the Paris of his dreams, and there he is, worried and perhaps disagreeable, and in any case doing silly things. He’ll soon have sown his wild oats, I hope. While waiting, let him do whatever he likes without attaching any importance to it. He’s placing huge hopes in Russell (I believe), he’s looking for an adviser and a teacher — now — no need to tell you that Russell will perhaps not be everything he needs, but I believe that Russell will see that he’s someone who doesn’t know the circles of people with whom he’s dealing, and I think that Russell will take him seriously and will try to be good for him. I believe that Russell is making a name for himself among those who have an instinctive fear of Paris. It’s hard to explain what I mean by that. Russell is such a good man — but you know, you can’t recommend that people love Paris, or force them to, any more than you can recommend a pipe or black coffee with cognac. And Russell’s rich and has lost money in Paris, so he can and does say to people: ‘see what I’ve had to deal with’. But in any event, I’ll write a word to Russell. It seems that Macknight wasn’t very pleased with me but that Russell indicated to him in reply that he should shut up. All this to tell you I understand very, very well — seeing he has turned out like that — that you’re not in complete agreement with the Swede, who probably, according to what you write, has had a recurrence of his nervous trouble and is irritated by Paris. If he has money to waste in taking a studio like Gérôme’s, it would be serious. As I’m slightly doubtful that he has a huge amount to waste, he’s in for a bit of a drubbing that’s not undeserved, I’d say. There’s nothing to be done if he won’t listen, but you can’t live with him. I won’t write to Gauguin direct — I’ll send you the letter — because when in doubt, it’s better to abstain. IF WE SAY NO MORE, if the reply shows we’ve said something like that but that there has to be an initiative in the matter from his side too, then we’ll see if he’s keen on it. If he isn’t keen on it, if it’s all one to him, if he has something quite different in mind, let him remain independent, and me too. Handshake to you and to Mourier.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I find this in particular rather strange in this plan of Gauguin’s: the society offers its protection in exchange for 10 paintings that the artists will have to give, if ten artists do that, the Jewish company clearly pockets 100 paintings ‘for a start’. The protection of this society that doesn’t even exist costs a lot of money.
Here’s the letter for Gauguin — I’m well aware that in his there is this passage ‘I ask (underlined) if, the capital having been raised for the most part, your brother would use his efforts to make a success of the business and to be its director’. I’m well aware that he also writes, ‘I accept your proposal in principle’. But I believe that it could lead us too far if we weren’t a little firm in showing him that our proposal was without all these afterthoughts, and that we ourselves are too hard up to be able to risk anything other than setting up house together and sharing the month’s money. And it’s true I didn’t know he had so large a family; he’ll more likely wish to stay in the north for that reason. The most radical thing we could do would be for me to give up the south, and if that would get him out of trouble, go and join him in Brittany myself. And the desire I have to work in the south is naturally subordinate to the interests of people like him. All the same, we shouldn’t change lightly.
And I’m a little afraid of getting a dressing-down for having separated him from his family, or a hornet’s nest like that. Dear God, if he has such a large family his obligations are probably not to be absent from them any more. And perhaps he’d be much happier if you simply bought a painting from him from time to time.
If now I haven’t mentioned these two passages and other passages in his letter it’s because it seems far too difficult to me to say yes to that in all honesty. However, if it was the case that his whole plan is nothing but a fata Morgana, and as such will vanish, he’ll speak of it again of his own accord. But there’s the fare, the debt at the inn, the doctor’s bill; now he’s talking about another debt of 300 francs which he’ll settle with that painting if his collector agrees. But if he doesn’t agree? Well now, it wouldn’t be very prudent to give him hopes beyond our resources and commit ourselves to doing more than we could stick to. It’s all very well for Gauguin to say, he’s very very upset and it’s a pity, and it can’t be good for his work. No, we shouldn’t change what we’ve said and consider that the thing isn’t going ahead because of doubts and changes whose presence isn’t a good sign. The more I calm myself here and the more I regain my strength, the more I feel that work is the most secure thing. I admit that if living in Brittany is much less expensive, if necessary I must sacrifice my plan to work here, and I’ll do it willingly if it’s to his benefit. But all the more reason to work hard on the 50 paintings I wished to have before talking again about projects of the kind we discussed last winter. A letter from home arrives just now. You know I feel so well now that it isn’t indispensable that I stay here for my health alone. We have to act so that you aren’t completely overwhelmed by expenses, that’s what’s necessary and that’s serious enough in itself.
Arles, Saturday, 23 June 1888.
My dear Theo,
Many thanks for your letter and the 50-franc note it contained. I didn’t know that the article on Claude Monet was by the same hand as the one on Bismarck. It does you good to read things like that, more than the majority of articles by the Decadents, with their fondness for saying the most banal things in strangely convoluted ways. I’m really unhappy with what I’ve done these past few days, because it’s very ugly. And yet the figure interests me much more than landscape. I’ll send you a drawing of the Zouave today all the same.
To do studies of figures, to attempt them and to learn would still after all be the shortest route for me to do something of value. Bernard’s in the same position. Today he sends me a croquis of a brothel that I’m sending you enclosed herewith to pin up next to the acrobats by him that you have. On the back of the drawing there’s a poem with very much the same tone as the drawing, it’s likely that he has a more finished painted study of it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to make an exchange with me for the head of a Zouave, although that one’s very ugly. But as I wouldn’t wish to deprive him of saleable studies I wouldn’t suggest an exchange unless at the same time we could buy something from him for a small sum. It’s still raining a lot here, which does a lot of damage to the wheat, which is still standing. But luckily I had a model these past few days.
I’ll need a book, A B C D du dessin by A. Cassagne. I requested it at the bookshop here, and after waiting a fortnight they tell me they need the name of the publisher, which I don’t know. If you could send me it I’d be very pleased. The negligence, the lazy carelessness of people here is indescribable and one is really put out by the least things. That’s the reason I’ll have to go to Marseille one of these days, to be able to get what I need from over there. The cost of carriage from Paris isn’t always pleasant, and makes things dearer, but there you are, to go to Marseille specially, that makes them even dearer. It quite often makes me feel sad that painting’s like a bad mistress one might have, who’s always spending, spending and it’s never enough, and to say to myself that even if there happens to be a passable study from time to time, it would be much less expensive to buy them from others. The rest, the hope of doing better, is also a bit of a fata Morgana.
Well, there’s not much remedy for all that, unless some day or other one could enter into an association with a good worker and produce more together. As for the publisher of Cassagne’s book — you probably have his treatise on perspective, and the address should be in it. Besides, they have these books at Latouche’s, and in rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, at the place of that man who always has works by Allongé. It’s very good that Claude Monet found a way of making these ten pictures between February and May. To work quickly isn’t to work less seriously, it depends on the confidence and experience one has. In the same way, Jules Gérard the lion-hunter says in his book that at the beginning young lions have a lot of trouble killing a horse or an ox, but old lions kill with a single well-judged strike from a claw or a tooth, and have an amazing sureness for that job.
I don’t find the southern gaiety here that Daudet talks about so much, on the contrary, an insipid affectation, a sordid carelessness, but that doesn’t mean that the region isn’t beautiful. All the same, nature here must be very different from Bordighera, Hyères, Genoa, Antibes, where there’s less mistral, where the mountains give a quite different character. Here — except for a more intense colour, it reminds one of Holland, it’s all flat — only one thinks more of the Holland of Ruisdael and Hobbema and Ostade rather than the Holland of today. What amazes me is how few flowers there are, so no cornflowers in the wheatfields, seldom any poppies.
What was the cost of the carriage for the crate of pictures recently? The impastos on some canvases are dry on the surface but not enough to roll them up; if it wasn’t for that I’d send them. Macknight has a friend with him now, I never see any of his work, yesterday I showed him and his friend four or five new studies, which they looked at in icy silence. I think for their part they’re preparing a big surprise, which I hope will be a good one. Because it would please me greatly to see that they’d found a direction. Handshake to you and to Mourier if, that is, he hasn’t yet moved into the studio like Gérôme’s.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, on or about Thursday, 28 June 1888.
My dear Theo,
Probably in order to convince myself that, as I myself am one of the most absent-minded of mortals, I have no right to criticize the people of the south for their carelessness — I once again made the mistake of addressing my letter to 54 rue de Laval instead of 54 rue Lepic. So when they returned the letter to me opened, the people at the Post Office had the pleasure of being able to edify themselves by contemplating Bernard’s brothel. I’m hurrying to send you back the letter as it is. I’ve just received — this morning — part of the order for colours, from Tanguy. His cobalt is too poor to order more from him. His chromes are quite good, so we could continue from now on to ask him for them. But instead of carmine he sends dark madder, which doesn’t matter much — but neither is the carmine very reliable in his poor run-down hole. It’s not his fault, but in future I’ll write Tanguy next to the names of the colours, if they can be had from him. Yesterday and today I worked on the sower, which has been completely reworked.
The sky is yellow and green, the earth purple and orange. There’s definitely a painting like that to be made of this splendid subject, and I hope it will be done one day, either by someone else or by me. The question remains this — Christ’s boat by Eugène Delacroix and Millet’s sower are of entirely different workmanship. Christ’s boat — I’m talking about the blue and green sketch with touches of purple and red and a little lemon yellow for the halo, the aureole — speaks a symbolic language through colour itself. Millet’s sower is colourless grey — as are Israëls’s paintings too.
Can we now paint the sower with colour, with simultaneous contrast between yellow and purple for example (like Delacroix’s Apollo ceiling, which is precisely yellow and purple), yes or no? Yes — definitely. So do it then! — yes — that’s what père Martin says too, ‘you must make the masterpiece’. But get down to it — and you fall into a whole metaphysics of colours à la Monticelli, a mess from which it’s damned awkward to escape with credit. And that makes you absent-minded, like a sleep-walker. If only one was doing something good. Well, let’s keep our courage and let’s not despair. I hope soon to send you this effort, with some others. I have a View of the Rhône — the Trinquetaille iron bridge, where the sky and the river are the colour of absinthe — the quays a lilac tone, the people leaning on the parapet almost black, the iron bridge an intense blue — with a bright orange note in the blue background and an intense Veronese green note. One more effort that’s far from finished — but one at least where I’m attempting something more heartbroken and therefore more heartbreaking. Nothing from Gauguin. I very much hope to receive your letter tomorrow, forgive my carelessness. Handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Many thanks for the colours — more soon.
Arles, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 July 1888.
My dear Theo,
I’ve just come back from a day at Montmajour, and my friend the second lieutenant kept me company. So the two of us explored the old garden and we stole some excellent figs there. If it had been bigger it would have made you think of Zola’s Paradou, tall reeds, grape vines, ivy, fig trees, olive trees, pomegranate trees with fat flowers of the brightest orange, hundred-year-old cypresses, ash trees and willows, rock oaks. Half-demolished staircases, ruined Gothic windows, clumps of white rock covered in lichen, and pieces of collapsed wall scattered here and there in the undergrowth; I brought back another large drawing of it. Not of the garden, though. That makes 3 drawings; when I have half dozen, will send them. Yesterday I went to Fontvieille to pay a visit to Boch and Macknight, but those gentlemen had left for a week for a short trip to Switzerland.I think the heat is still doing me good, in spite of the mosquitoes and flies.
The cicadas — not those at home but like this,
you see them in Japanese albums. And golden and green Cantharides swarming on the olive trees. These cicadas (I think their name is cicada) sing at least as loudly as a frog.
I had the further thought that if you care to recall that I painted portraits of père Tanguy (which he still has), of mère Tanguy (which they sold), of their friend (it’s true that I was paid 20 francs by him for the latter portrait), that I bought 250 francs worth of colours from Tanguy without a discount, on which he of course made a profit, that after all, I was no less his friend than he was mine, I have the most serious of reasons to doubt his right to demand money from me, which is actually settled with the study of mine that he still has, all the more so since there’s the clearly expressed condition that he would be paid with the sale of a painting. Xanthippe, mère Tanguy and some other ladies have, by some strange freak of nature, brains of flintstone or gunflint. Certainly these ladies are much more harmful in the civilized society in which they move than the citizens bitten by rabid dogs who live at the Institut Pasteur. So père Tanguy would be right a thousand times over if he killed his lady.... but he doesn’t do it, any more than Socrates..... And for that reason père Tanguy is more closely connected — in terms of resignation and long patience — with the early Christian martyrs and slaves than with present-day Paris pimps. Which doesn’t mean there’s any reason to pay him 80 francs, but there are reasons for never losing your temper with him, even if he might lose his temper when, rightly so in this case, you kick him out, or at least send him packing in no uncertain terms.
I’m writing to Russell at the same time — we probably know, don’t we, that the English, the Yankees &c. have this in common with the Dutch, that their charity — — .................... is very Christian. Now, the rest of us not being very good Christians........... That’s what I can’t stop myself thinking as I write once again. That Boch looks a bit like a Flemish gentleman from the time of the compromise of the nobles in the time of the Silent one and of Marnix. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was good. I’ve written to Russell that for our exchange I’d send him my consignment rolled up, straight to his home, if I knew he was in Paris. This way he should in any case reply to me in the next few days.
And now I’ll need more canvas and paint soon. Only I don’t yet have the address for that canvas at 40 francs for 20 metres. I believe that at this moment I’m doing the right thing by working chiefly on drawings, and seeing to it that I have colours and canvas in reserve for the time when Gauguin comes. I very much wish we could rein ourselves in as little with paint as with pen and paper.
Because I’m afraid of wasting paint, I often spoil a painted study. With paper — if it’s not a letter I’m writing but a drawing I’m doing — it hardly ever goes wrong: so many sheets of Whatman, so many drawings. I think if I were rich I’d spend less than now. Ah well — père Martin would say — then we’ll have to make sure we get rich — and he’s quite right, just as he is about the masterpiece.
Do you remember in Guy de Maupassant the gentleman who hunted rabbits and other game and who had hunted so hard for 10 years and was so worn out with running after game that at the point when he wanted to get married he couldn’t get a hard-on, which caused him the greatest anxieties and consternation. Without being in this gentleman’s position as far as having or wishing to get married, in the physical sense I’m beginning to resemble him. According to the excellent master Ziem, a man becomes ambitious the moment he can’t get a hard-on. Now, while it’s more or less the same to me whether or not I can get a hard-on, I protest when it must inevitably lead me to ambition. There is no one but the greatest philosopher of his time and of his country, and therefore of all countries and all times — the excellent master Pangloss — who could — if here were there — give me advice and calm my soul.
There we are — the letter for Russell is in its envelope — and I’ve written as I thought. I asked him if he had news of Reid, and I put the same question to you. I told Russell that he was perfectly at liberty to take what he might want, and from the first consignment too. And that I was only waiting for a categorical answer to know whether he wanted to choose at his home or yours. That in the first case, if he wanted to see them at his home — you’d send him some orchards too. And that you’d have all of them brought back, once he’d made his choice. So he can’t say anything to that. If he doesn’t buy a Gauguin it’s because he can’t. If he can do it, I’d be inclined to hope he will do it. I told him that if I was bold enough to insist on a purchase, it wasn’t that without him the thing wouldn’t come about, but that Gauguin having been ill, and given the complication that he’d been in bed and had to pay his doctor, the business was rather hard for us and we were all the more eager to find a collector for a painting. I think about Gauguin a lot, and would have plenty of ideas for paintings and for work in general. At the moment I have a charwoman, who sweeps and scrubs the house twice a week for 1 franc; I place great hopes in her, to be able to count on her making the beds if we decide to sleep at home. On the other hand, there’s a possible arrangement with the chap where I’m lodging at the moment. Anyway, we’ll try to ensure that in the end it’ll be a saving instead of an expense. How’s your health now? Are you still seeing Gruby? What you were saying about that conversation at the Nouvelle Athènes is interesting. You’re familiar with Desboutin’s little portrait that Portier has. It’s certainly a strange phenomenon that all artists, poets, musicians, painters are unfortunate in the material sense — even the happy ones — what you were saying recently about Guy de Maupassant proves it once again. That rakes up the eternal question: is life visible to us in its entirety, or before we die do we know of only one hemisphere?
Painters — to speak only of them — being dead and buried, speak to a following generation or to several following generations through their works. Is that all, or is there more, even? In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing. For myself, I declare I don’t know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream. Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France. Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star. What’s certainly true in this argument is that while alive, we cannot go to a star, any more than once dead we’d be able to take the train. So it seems to me not impossible that cholera, the stone, consumption, cancer are celestial means of locomotion, just as steamboats, omnibuses and the railway are terrestrial ones. To die peacefully of old age would be to go there on foot. For the moment I’m going to go to bed because it’s late, and I wish you good-night and good luck. Handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, between Tuesday, 17 and Friday, 20 July 1888.
My dear Theo
Many thanks for your letter, which gave me great pleasure, coming just at the moment when I was still dazed by the sun and the strain of handling a rather large canvas. I have a new drawing of a garden full of flowers; I also have two painted studies of it. I must send you a rather large new order for canvas and colours. Only it’s not at all urgent. What, if anything, would be urgent would rather be the canvas, seeing that I have a whole lot of stretching frames from which I’ve removed the studies, and on which in the meantime I must put other canvases.
You’ll see from this croquis the subject of the new studies; there’s one vertical and one horizontal one of the same subject — no. 30 canvases. There’s definitely a subject for a painting among them — as in some other studies that I have. And truly, I don’t know if I’ll ever do tranquil and calmly worked paintings, myself, as it seems to me that it will always remain disjointed. Have you any news from Gauguin? I wrote to him again last week, to know how it was going with his health and his work. No reply from Russell, who’s probably not in Paris, judging by what Macknight was saying, who has come back with Boch. Still icy silence about the work when they come. What you say about Princenhage, it’s true that it’s the same story all over again — but when at long last the fellow isn’t there any more, then for his little circle it will be one more emptiness and desolation. And even the rest of us would feel it, because there’s something heartbreaking in the fact that when we were younger we saw so much of him, and we were even influenced by him.
So, seeing someone whom one has known as very active reduced to that state of suspicious helplessness and constant suffering, it certainly doesn’t give you an appealing or cheerful notion of human life, and doesn’t add to the joy of living. Our mother in Breda, she must be getting on a bit, too. Without meaning to — is it the effect of nature down here, so Ruisdaelesque? — I quite often think of Holland, and with the double separation of distance and time that has passed, these memories have something heartbreaking about them. What you write about Reid isn’t very cheerful either — at times he used to speak so often of making himself a painter, and of retiring to live with an aunt in the country, that it’s just possible that he’s carrying out this plan now. What does Maria say? But perhaps she’s disappeared too. I believe all the same that the constant wind here must have something to do with the fact that the painted studies have that wild look. Because you also see it in Cézanne.
What must make it easier for the Japanese to stuff their works of art into drawers and cupboards is that you can roll kakemonos but not our painted studies, which would eventually flake. Nothing would make it easier for us to place our canvases than to get them widely accepted as decorations in bourgeois homes. As in Holland in the old days. And here in the south it would do a hell of a lot of good to see paintings on the white walls. But go and look: big, coloured Julien medallions everywhere — horrors. And alas, we won’t change anything in this state of affairs. However — cafés — perhaps we’ll decorate them later on. More soon, handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, Tuesday, 24 or Wednesday, 25 July 1888.
My dear Theo,
I’m sending you Gauguin’s letter enclosed herewith; fortunately he’s regaining his health. How is yours?
I’d very much like it if Russell were to do something — however, he has a wife, children, a studio, a house under construction, and I can very well imagine that even a rich man may not always be able to spend 100 francs — were it only that — on paintings. I believe that it would make an enormous difference to me if Gauguin was here, because the days pass now without saying a word to anyone. Ah, well. In any case, his letter gave me tremendous pleasure. Being too long alone in the country you become dull-witted, and not just yet — but this winter, I could become sterile from that. Now this danger will no longer exist if he comes, because we won’t be short of ideas.
If work goes well and if we don’t lack guts, there’s the hope of seeing very interesting years in the future. Is Mourier still with you? Would it be possible for me to have your letter on Sunday? I’m not counting on it, though, knowing that it’s the end of the month. It’s just that I’ll probably have a model this week.
I have a really great need for some studies of figures. At the moment I have something like an exhibition at my place, in the sense that I’ve taken all the studies off the stretching frames and have nailed them to the wall to finish drying. You’ll see that when there’s a large number of them, and we make a choice among them, it will come to the same thing as if I’d studied them more and worked on them longer. Because to do a subject over and over again on the same canvas or on several canvases comes, in short, to the same degree of seriousness. I’m somewhat rushed, so handshake and
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles, Sunday, 29 July 1888.
My dear Theo,
Many thanks for your kind letter. If you recall, mine ended with: we’re getting old, that’s what is and the rest is imagination and doesn’t exist. Now, I said that even more for myself, than for you. And I said it feeling the absolute necessity for me to act accordingly, to work, not more, perhaps, but with a more serious conception. Now you talk about the emptiness you sometimes feel; that’s just the same thing that I have, too. Considering, if you will, the times in which we live as a true and great revival of art, the moth-eaten and official tradition, which is still on its feet, but which is at bottom powerless and bone-idle, the new painters, alone, poor, treated like madmen and as a result of this treatment becoming so in fact, at least as far as their social life is concerned. Then remember that you do exactly the same work as these primitive painters, since you provide them with money and you sell their canvases for them, which enables them to produce others. If a painter ruins his character by working hard at painting, which makes him sterile for many things, for family life, &c. &c. If as a consequence he paints not only with paint but with self-denial and self-abnegation and a broken heart. Not only are you not paid for your own work either, but it costs you exactly the same as this effacement of personality, half deliberate, half accidental, costs a painter. This is to say that if you do painting indirectly, you’re more productive than me, for example. The more completely you become a dealer, the more you become an artist. Just as I very much hope to be in the same case... The more I become dissipated, ill, a broken pitcher, the more I too become a creative artist in that great revival of art of which we’re speaking. These things are indeed so, but this eternally existing art and this revival — this green shoot growing from the roots of the old felled trunk — these are things so spiritual that a kind of melancholy remains with us when we reflect that at less expense we could have made life instead of making art. You really ought, if you can, to make me feel that art is alive, you who perhaps love art more than I do. I say to myself that that doesn’t have to do with art, but with me, that the only way for me to regain self-confidence and tranquillity is by doing better. And here we are again at the end of my last letter — I’m getting old, but it’s only imagination if I were to believe that art is an old, stale thing.
Now, if you know what a ‘mousmé’ is (you’ll know when you’ve read Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème), I’ve just painted one. It took me my whole week, I wasn’t able to do anything else, having been not too well again. That’s what annoys me, if I’d been well I’d have knocked off some more landscapes in between times. But in order to finish off my mousmé I had to save my mental powers. A mousmé is a Japanese girl — Provençale in this case — aged between 12 and 14. That makes 2 figures, the Zouave, and her, that I have.
Look after your health, take baths, especially if Gruby recommends that you do. Because you’ll see in 4 years, the years by which I’m older than you, how far relative health is necessary in order to be able to work. Now we who work with our heads, our only and unique means of avoiding being finished too soon is the artificial prolongation of modern hygiene, rigorously followed, as far as we can endure it. Because I for one don’t do everything that I should do. And a little good cheer is better than any other remedy.
I have a letter from Russell. He says that he would have written to me before had it not been that his move to Belle-Île had absorbed him. He’s there now, and says that he’d be pleased if sooner or later I came to spend some time there. He still wants to do my portrait again. He even says, ‘I would have gone to Boussod’s to see the Gauguin, negresses talking, had it not been that I was prevented from doing so for the same reason’. In short, he’s not refusing to buy one, but is making it understood that he wouldn’t want poorer quality than ours. You see that this is in any case better than nothing at all. I’ll write this to Gauguin and will ask him for croquis of paintings. We shouldn’t push this business and give up on R. for the time being, but consider the thing as an ongoing piece of business that will come off. And the same for Guillaumin, I’d like him to buy a figure by G. He says he’s received a very fine bust of his wife from Rodin, and that on that occasion he lunched with Claude Monet and that he saw the 10 paintings of Antibes then. I’m sending him Geffroy’s article. He makes a very good critique of the Monets, first of all liking them very much: the difficulty attacked, the envelope of coloured air, the colour. Now after that he says, what must be repeated is that it all lacks construction everywhere, for example, with him a tree will have far too much foliage for the size of the trunk, and so always and everywhere, from the point of view of the reality of things, from the point of view of a whole number of laws of nature, he’s pretty well hopeless. He ends by saying that this quality of attacking difficulties is what everyone should have.
I’ve received from Bernard 10 croquis like his brothel; there are 3 of them that are in the style of Redon; the enthusiasm that he has for that I don’t much share myself. But there’s a woman washing herself, very Rembrandtesque, or in the style of Goya, and a very strange landscape with figures. He expressly forbids me to send them to you, but you’ll receive them by the same post. I think Russell will buy something else from Bernard. Now I’ve seen work by this Boch; it’s rigorously Impressionist but not powerful, at this moment when this new technique is still preoccupying him too much to allow him to be himself. He’ll become stronger and will bring out his individuality, I think. But Macknight does watercolours of the power of those by Destrée, you know, that vile Dutchman we knew back in the old days. However, he’d washed some small still lifes, yellow jug on purple foreground, red jug on green, orange jug on blue: better, but it’s pretty poor. The village where they’re staying is pure Millet, small peasants, nothing but that, totally rustic and intimate. That character completely escapes them. I believe that Macknight has civilized and converted to civilized Christianity his lout of a landlord. At least, when you go there that scoundrel and his worthy spouse shake your hand — it’s in a café, of course — when you ask for a drink they have ways of refusing the money, ‘Oh, I couldn’t take money from an artiss’ (with two s’s). Anyhow, it’s their own fault that it’s appalling, and this Boch must be getting pretty dull-witted with Macknight. I think Macknight has money, but not much. So they contaminate the village; if it weren’t for that, I’d go there often to work there. What one ought to do there is not talk to civilized people; but they know the stationmaster and a score of bloody nuisances, and that’s largely why they don’t do a damned thing. I’ve already said that to Mourier, who once used to believe that Macknight got on highly intelligently with the ‘man of the fields’. Naturally, these simple and naive people of the fields make fun of them, and despise them. On the contrary, if you do your work there without worrying about the village idlers with their stiff collars, then you can go into the homes of the peasants, enabling them to earn a few sous. And then that bloody Fontvieille would be a treasure to them, but the natives are — Zola’s small peasants, innocent and gentle beings, as we know.
It’s likely that Macknight will shortly do little landscapes with sheep, for boxes of sweets. Not just my paintings, but I myself most of all, I had recently become wild-eyed, a bit like Hugo van der Goes in the painting by Emile Wauters. But having had all my beard carefully shaved off, I believe that I have as much of the very placid abbot in the same painting as of the mad painter so intelligently depicted in it. And I’m not unhappy to be somewhere between the two, because you have to live. Especially as there’s no getting away from the fact that one day or another there could be a crisis if you changed as far as your position with the Boussods was concerned. One more reason for maintaining relations with artists on my part as well as on yours. Besides, I believe I’ve told the truth, all the same. If I succeeded in bringing back in prices the money spent, I would be doing no more than my duty. And the practical thing I can do is the portrait. As far as drinking too much goes... I don’t know if it’s bad. But just look at Bismarck, who in any case is very practical and very intelligent. His little doctor told him he was drinking too much and that he’d overtaxed himself all his life, from his stomach to his brain. B. stopped drinking there and then. Since then he’s lost ground and is dragging along. He must really be laughing inside at his doctor, whom fortunately for him he didn’t consult too soon.
Anyway, good handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
Remember that with Gauguin we should in no way change the idea of coming to his aid if the proposal is acceptable as it stands, but we don’t need him. So, as far as working alone goes, don’t believe that it bothers me, and don’t press the matter for me, be fully assured of that. The portrait of a young girl is on a white background strongly tinted with Veronese green, the bodice is striped blood-red and purple. The skirt is royal blue with large orange-yellow stippling. The matt areas of flesh are yellow grey, the hair purplish, the eyebrows black, and the eyelashes, the eyes orange and Prussian blue; a sprig of oleander between the fingers, because the 2 hands are included.
Arles, Monday, 6 August 1888.
My dear Theo,
It seems to me that you did well to go to our uncle’s funeral, as our mother seemed to expect you. The best way of dying otherwise is to esteem the illustrious departed just as he is, as being the best man in the best of possible worlds, where everything is always for the best. Which being uncontested and thus incontestable, we are then no doubt at liberty to return to our own business afterwards. I’m pleased that our brother Cor has grown bigger and stronger than the two of us. And he’ll be stupid if he doesn’t marry, because he has only that and his hands. With that and his hands, or his hands and that, and what he knows about machines, I for one would like to be in his position if I had any sort of desire to be somebody. Meanwhile, I’m in my skin, and my skin in the gear-wheels of the Beaux-Arts like the grain between the millstones.
Did I tell you that I sent some drawings to our friend Russell? At the moment I’m doing the same ones, more or less, for you; there’ll be 12 of them too. You’ll see better then what there is in the painted studies in the way of drawing. I’ve already told you that I always have to struggle against the mistral, which absolutely prevents one being in control of one’s touch. Hence the ‘wild’ look of the studies. You’ll tell me that instead of drawing them I ought to repaint them at home on other canvases. That’s what I sometimes think about, because it’s not my fault that in the case given the execution lacks a more spiritual touch. What would Gauguin say about it if he was here? Would he be in favour of looking for a more sheltered place?
I must now tell you something disagreeable again about money; it’s that I won’t manage this week, because this very day I pay 25 francs; I’ll have money for 5 days and not for seven. It’s Monday — if I have your next letter on Saturday morning, no need then to increase the contents. Last week I did not only one but even two portraits of my postman, one half-length, with hands, and a life-size head. The chap, not accepting money, was more expensive, eating, drinking with me, and in addition I gave him Rochefort’s La Lanterne. But there you are, a minor and unimportant problem compared with the fact that he posed for it very well, and that I also plan to paint his newborn baby shortly. Because his wife has just given birth. At the same time as the drawings that I have on the go I’ll send you two lithographs by De Lemud, ‘Wine’ and ‘Coffee’; in ‘Wine’ there’s a Mephisto character who makes you think a little of C.M. when younger, and in Coffee —.. it’s absolutely Raoul — you know that perpetual old bohemian student type whom I knew last year. What a talent, in the style of Hoffmann or Edgar Poe, this De Lemud has. And yet there’s somebody who’s spoken of so rarely. You’ll perhaps not like these lithographs very much at first glance — but it’s precisely when looking at them longer that they grow on you. I have no more canvas or paint and have already had to buy here. And I have to get even more. So I beg you to send your letter so that I have it on Saturday morning.
Today I’m probably going to start on the interior of the café where I’m staying, in the evening, by gaslight. It’s what they call a ‘night café’ here (they’re quite common here), that stay open all night. This way the ‘night prowlers’ can find a refuge when they don’t have the price of a lodging, or if they’re too drunk to be admitted. All these things, family, native country, are perhaps more appealing in the imagination of such as us — who do fairly well without a native country, as well as a family — than in any reality. It always seems to me that I’m a traveller who’s going somewhere and to a destination. If I say to myself, the somewhere, the destination don’t exist at all, that seems well argued and truthful to me. When he kicks somebody out, the brothel-keeper has a logic of the same kind, argues well, too, and is always right. I know that. And at the end of my career I’ll be wrong. So be it. Then I’ll find that not only the fine arts but the rest as well were nothing but dreams, that we were nothing at all ourselves. If we’re as lightweight as that, so much the better for us, as nothing would then stand in the way of the limitless possibility of future existence. Which is why in the present case of our uncle’s death, the dead man’s face was tranquil, serene and grave. When it’s a fact that, while living, he was scarcely like that, neither when young nor when old. So often I’ve noticed an effect like that when looking at a dead man as if to question him. And that’s one proof for me — not the most weighty — of an existence beyond the grave. And a baby in its cradle, also, if you look at it at your ease, has the infinite in its eyes. In fact, I know nothing about it, but precisely this feeling of not knowing makes the real life that we’re living at present comparable to a simple journey by train. You go fast, but you can’t distinguish any object very close up, and above all, you can’t see the locomotive.
It’s rather odd that our uncle, like our father, believed in the future life. Not to mention our father, I’ve heard our uncle debating it several times. Ah — for example, they were more certain than us, and asserted themselves, getting angry if one dared go into it more deeply. I don’t see much of the future life of artists through their works. Yes, artists perpetuate themselves, passing on the torch, Delacroix to the Impressionists, &c. But is that all? If a kind old mother of a family, with pretty limited ideas that are tormented in the Christian system, were immortal, just as she believes — and this seriously. And I for one in no way deny it. Why should a consumptive or nervous cab-horse, like Delacroix or De Goncourt, with broad ideas though, be any less so? Seeing that it appears that it is precisely the most worn-out people who feel the germ of this indefinable hope. That’s enough, what’s the use of worrying about it? But living in the heart of civilization, in the heart of Paris and the heart of the fine arts, why shouldn’t one keep this self of an old woman? If women themselves, without their instinctive belief in an ‘it’s there’, wouldn’t find the strength to create and to act? Then the doctors will tell us that not only Moses, Mohammed, Christ, Luther, Bunyan and others were mad, but also Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Delacroix and all the good, narrow-minded old ladies like our mother as well. Ah — that’s serious, that is. We could ask these doctors, where, then, are the sensible people? Are they, the brothel-keepers, always in the right? It’s probable. What to choose, then? Fortunately we don’t have to choose.
Handshake and
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Thursday, 9 August 1888.
My dear Theo,
I thank you very much for sending the canvas and the colours, which have just arrived. This time there was carriage of 9.80 francs to pay, so I won’t go to collect them until after I’ve received your next letter, as I don’t have the money at the moment. But we’ll have to check whether Tasset, who in most cases pays postage and certainly then shows postage on his invoice, hasn’t done so in this case. Also, I paid 5.60 francs for the last consignment but one, and so if carriage charges are shown on the last invoice but one, it would be too much. Now if he’d made 2 separate consignments (the cost of carriage is usually about 3 francs), there should only be 5.60 francs to pay for this consignment. Provided I don’t paint anything on these 10 metres of canvas but masterpieces measuring half a metre, which I’ll sell for cash and at an exorbitant price to the distinguished art lover of rue de la Paix — nothing should be easier — than to earn a lot of money with this consignment.
I think it’s likely that we’re going to have great heat now, with no wind, the wind having blown for 6 weeks. In that case, it’s excellent that I have colours and canvases in stock, because I can already spot half a dozen subjects, especially this little farmhouse garden of which I sent you the drawing yesterday. I think about Gauguin a lot, and I assure you that one way or another, whether it’s he who comes here, or I who go to him, he and I will both like more or less the same subjects. I’ve no doubts about being able to work at Pont-Aven, and on the other hand, am convinced that he’ll like this scenery here enormously. Ah well, at the end of a year, even giving you one canvas a month, which will make a dozen a year in all, he’ll still have made money, not having run up debts during this year, and having produced without interruption he’ll lose nothing. While the money that he’ll have received from us will be to a large extent recovered through the savings that become possible if we live at home at the studio, he and I, instead of living in cafés. The fact remains that provided we lived in harmony and with an understanding not to quarrel, we’d gain a firmer position as far as reputation goes. Each of us living alone, we live like madmen or criminals, in appearance at least, and to some extent in reality, too.
I’m happier to feel my old strength coming back than I would have thought I could be. I owe that largely to the people at the restaurant where I eat these days, who are extraordinary. I have to pay there, of course, but it’s something you don’t find in Paris, that they actually give you something to eat for your money. And I’d very much like to see Gauguin there too, for a fair length of time. What Gruby says — do without women and eat well — it’s true that does you good, and if you spend your brains and your marrow working with your mind, it’s very logical not to spend yourself making love any more than necessary. But that’s easier to do in the country than in Paris. Is the desire for women that one picks up in Paris not in part the effect of the malady of nervous exhaustion itself, of which Gruby is the sworn enemy, rather than a sign of vigour? So one sees this desire disappear at the very moment when one is recovering. The root of the problem being found in our very constitution, in the inevitable weakening of families from generation to generation, in our lousy profession as well, and the sad Paris life; the root of the problem indeed lies there, and we seem unable to cure ourselves of it. I believe that the day when you’d no longer have to do idiotic accounting and ridiculously complicated administration at the Goupils, you’ll gain a great deal in terms of power with art lovers; it’s a thing cursed a thousand times, these complicated administrative tasks, and there isn’t, I imagine, a single brain, a single clerk’s temperament that doesn’t lose 50% in them. In that, our uncle was quite right when he said: much work with few staff, and not little work with many. Unfortunately for him, he got caught up in the gear-wheels himself. Working among people, in order to sell, it’s a job that requires observation, a cool head. But if one is forced to give too much attention to the books, one loses self-confidence. That’s why Tersteeg was fortunate to have that greedy swine Iterson at his side, who carries this troublesome load of mechanical administration for him. I would really like to know just how you are. Anyway, as long as the Impressionists produce fine things, and find friends, there’s always a chance and possibility of a more independent position for you later on. A pity that it can’t exist right now.
Isn’t it true that in this business with Gauguin, with him spending 2.75 a day (at least, I think I recall that he mentioned that amount, he or Bernard), we know for a firm fact the price of a day at the hotel there, while here it still remains to be seen. So at the price there we’re sure of being able to stay within the limits proposed. About health, now; mine is basically even good enough for the north, these days. Assumption, therefore, that he can’t find the money; let’s not hesitate. In fact, we’re only tying ourselves up in this business for a year, let’s say. Still no letter from Russell, but he’s bound to reply, having doubtless received the drawings.
This restaurant where I am is very odd, it’s grey all over, the floor is of grey bitumen, like a pavement, grey paper on the wall. Green blinds, always closed. A big green curtain in front of the ever-open door stops the dust coming in. It’s altogether a Velázquez grey, as in women spinning. Not even the very narrow and very violent shaft of sunlight through a blind, like the one that falls across V’s painting, is missing. Of course, small tables with white cloths. Now behind this Velázquez-grey room you can see the old kitchen, clean as a Dutch kitchen; very red brick floor, green vegetables, oak cupboard, cooking- stoves with gleaming copperware, with blue and white tiles and the big, bright orange fire. Now there are two women who serve, also in grey, more or less like the painting by Prévost that you have at home, really comparable in every respect. In the kitchen, an old woman and a short, fat, serving-woman, also in grey, black, white. I don’t know if I’m describing it clearly enough, but that’s what I’ve seen here of real Velázquez. In front of the restaurant, a covered courtyard, paved with red bricks, and on the walls, vines growing wild, convolvulus and climbing plants. It’s still the real old Provence style, while the other restaurants are so much on Paris lines that even though there’s no concierge of any sort there’s still her lodge, and the notice, ‘speak to the concierge’. So not everything is brilliantly coloured all the time. For example, I saw a cowshed with 4 cows the colour of café au lait, and a calf the same colour, the cowshed a blue white, covered in cobwebs, the cows very clean and very beautiful, a big green curtain, against dust and flies, in the outside door. Grey too, Velázquez grey. There was a tranquillity about it — this café au lait and tobacco brown of the cows’ hides, with the soft white bluish grey of the walls, the green curtain and the yellow and sparkling green of the sunny exterior making a brilliant contrast. You see how there are other things still to do, quite different from what I’ve done. I have to go to work. I saw another very tranquil and quite beautiful thing the other day, a young girl with a café au lait complexion — if I remember rightly — ash-blonde hair, grey eyes. Bodice of pale printed calico, under which you could see her high, firm little breasts. This against the emerald foliage of the fig trees. A real countrywoman, a great virginal look. Not completely impossible that I might have her pose in the open air, and her mother as well — a gardener — colour of earth, who was thus dirty yellow and faded blue. The young girl’s café au lait complexion was darker than the pink of her bodice. The mother was marvellous, her dirty yellow and faded blue figure stood out in the full sun against a brilliant square of snow-white and lemon-yellow flowers. A real Vermeer of Delft, then. It’s not ugly, the south.
Handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Thursday, 23 or Friday, 24 August 1888.
My dear Theo,
Would you ask Tasset his opinion on the following question? It seems to me that the more finely a colour is ground, the more it is saturated by oil. Now we’re not over-fond of oil, that goes without saying. If we painted like Monsieur Gérôme and the other trompe-l’oeil photographic ones, we’d no doubt ask for colours ground very fine. We, on the contrary, don’t strongly object to the canvas having a rough look. So if instead of having the colour ground on the stone for God knows how many hours, we grind it just long enough to make it workable, without bothering too much about the fineness of the grain, we’d have colours that were fresher, perhaps darkening less. If he wishes to do a test with the 3 chromes, Veronese, vermilion, orange lead, cobalt, ultramarine, I’m almost certain that at greatly reduced cost I would have colours that were both fresher and longer-lasting. At what price, then? I’m sure that could be done. Probably for the reds, for emerald, which are transparent, too.
I add here an order that’s urgent. I’m now on the fourth painting of sunflowers. This fourth one is a bouquet of 14 flowers and is on a yellow background, like a still life of quinces and lemons that I did back then. Only as it’s much bigger, this one creates quite an unusual effect, and I believe that this time it’s painted with more simplicity than the quinces and lemons. Do you remember that one day at the Hôtel Drouot we saw a quite extraordinary Manet, some large pink peonies and their green leaves on a light background? As much in harmony and as much a flower as anything you like, and yet painted in solid, thick impasto and not like Jeannin. That’s what I’d call simplicity of technique. And I must tell you that these days I’m making a great effort to find a way of using the brush without stippling or anything else, nothing but a varied brushstroke. But you’ll see, one day. What a pity painting costs so much. This week I had fewer money worries than other weeks, so I let myself go. I’ll have spent the hundred-franc note in a single week, but at the end of this week I’ll have my four paintings and even if I add the price of all the colours that I’ve used up, the week won’t have been wasted. I got up very early every day, I dined and supped well, I was able to work assiduously without feeling myself weaken. But there you are, we live in times when there’s no market for what we do; not only do we not sell, as you see with Gauguin, we’d like to borrow against paintings done and we find nothing, even when the amounts are insignificant and the works substantial. And that’s how we fall prey to all the whims of fortune. And I fear that it will scarcely change during our lifetime. As long as we were preparing the way for richer lives for the painters who will walk in our footsteps, that would already be something. Life is short, though, and especially the number of years when one feels strong enough to brave everything. And in the end, there’s the fear that as soon as the new painting is appreciated, the painters will weaken.
In any case, here’s what’s positive, we aren’t the ones who represent decadence today. Gauguin and Bernard are now talking about doing ‘children’s painting’. I prefer that to the painting of the decadents. How does it come about that people see something decadent in Impressionism? It’s actually quite the reverse. I enclose a line for Tasset. The difference in price should be quite considerable, and it goes without saying that I hope to use fewer and fewer finely ground colours. I shake your hand firmly. (One of the decorations of sunflowers on a royal blue background has a ‘halo’, that’s to say, each object is surrounded by a line of the colour complementary to the background against which it stands out).
More soon.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Sunday, 26 August 1888.
My dear Theo,
Many thanks for your letter and for the 50-franc note it contained. Certainly, it isn’t impossible that our sister will come later and live with us. It’s a good sign as far as her taste goes that she likes sculpture; that really did please me. Painting as it is now promises to become more subtle — more music and less sculpture — in fact, it promises colour. As long as it keeps this promise. The sunflowers are progressing; there’s a new bouquet of 14 flowers on a green-yellow background, so it’s exactly the same effect — but in larger format, no. 30 canvas — as a still life of quinces and lemons that you already have, but in the sunflowers the painting is much simpler.
Do you remember that one day at the Hôtel Drouot we saw a bouquet of peonies by Manet? Pink flowers, very green leaves, painted in thick impasto and not glazed, like Jeannin’s. Standing out against a simple white background, I believe. Now there’s something that was really healthy. As for stippling, making halos or other things, I find that a real discovery, but it can already be foreseen that this technique won’t become a universal dogma any more than another. Another reason why Seurat’s La Grande Jatte, Signac’s landscapes with coarse stippling, Anquetin’s boat, will in time become even more personal, even more original.
As far as my clothes are concerned, they were certainly starting to suffer — but only last week I bought a black velvet jacket of quite good quality for 20 francs, and a new hat, so that’s not at all urgent. But I consulted this postman whom I painted, who has very often set up his little household and dismantled it again, moving house for roughly the price of the indispensable pieces of furniture, and he says that here you can’t get a good bed that will last, for less than 150 francs, if you want to have something solid, of course. However, that hardly upsets the calculation that by saving the money for lodgings, at the end of a year you find you own furniture without having spent any more during the year. And as soon as I’m able, I won’t hesitate to do that. If we were to refrain from setting ourselves up like that, Gauguin and I could drag on from year to year in small lodgings where one can’t fail to become dull-witted. I’m more or less that way already, because it goes back a long, long way. And at present that has even ceased to be a source of pain, and perhaps at first I won’t feel at home in my own home. Never mind.
However, let’s not forget Bouvard et Pécuchet, let’s not forget À vau l’eau, because all of that is very, very profoundly true. Au bonheur des dames and Bel-ami, that’s no less true, however. It’s ways of seeing things — now, with the first one, we’re less in danger of behaving like Don Quixote; it’s possible, and with the last idea we go the whole hog. Now I have the old peasant again this week. Ah — Macknight has cleared off at last — I don’t regret it in the least. His pal the Belgian didn’t seem greatly saddened by it either when he came yesterday to tell me about it, and we spent the evening together. He’s very reasonable in his ideas, and knows what he wants, at least. At the moment he’s doing timid Impressionism, but very much by the rules, very exact. And I told him that it was the best thing he could do, although he would lose 2 years on it perhaps, delaying his originality, but after all, I told him, it’s as necessary now to pass through Impressionism properly as it once was to go through a Paris studio. He accepted that absolutely in its entirety, precisely because that way you shock nobody, and you can’t later be accused of not being abreast of things. He’s thinking seriously of going to paint the coal-miners in the Borinage, and if he’s still here when Gauguin comes, not impossible then that we’ll ask him to do for us in the north what we’d do for him in the south — do our utmost to enable him to live more cheaply than on his own.
More soon.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Wednesday, 29 or Thursday, 30 August 1888.
My dear Theo,
On 1 September I’ll have my rent to pay, and if you could send me the money for the week the same day as you receive yours for the month, first of all I would pay the rent the same day, then the outlay would cover both weeks for me. Lastly, if there was some way that you could send me the money on Sunday in your letter or by money order, it wouldn’t leave me indifferent to gain a day that way. I have two models this week, an Arlésienne and the old peasant, whom I’m doing this time against a bright orange background, which, although it doesn’t pretend to represent a red sunset in trompe l’oeil, is perhaps a suggestion of it, all the same. Unfortunately, I fear that the little Arlésienne will stand me up for the rest of the painting. The last time she came she had innocently asked for the money in advance that I’d promised her for all the sittings, and as I made no difficulty about that she scarpered without my seeing her again. Anyway, one of these days she owes it to me to come back, and it would be a bit rich if she didn’t turn up at all. I have a bouquet on the go as well, and also a still life of a pair of old shoes.
I have a mass of ideas for my work, and by continuing the figure very assiduously, I’d possibly find something new. But what can you do, sometimes I feel too weak in the face of the given circumstances, and I’d have to be wiser and richer and younger to win the fight. Fortunately for me, I no longer count at all on any victory, and in painting I look for nothing more than the means of getting by in life.
I’ve still had no reply whatsoever from Russell. He probably doesn’t have a sou at the moment. I really hope that our sister will also have seen the Luxembourg by now. We’ve had two or three glorious days here, very hot, with no wind. The grapes are beginning to ripen, but you hear people saying they won’t be good. I must do some more work today. Because of the models, I’m dreading these last days of the week a little. I’m still negotiating with some other people about posing; there’s something that’s urging me always to do as many figure studies as possible. Circumstances could get even worse in future, and well, whatever the case may be, once I’ve mastered the figure, work will seem more serious to me.
Handshake to you and to our sister.
Ever yours, Vincent
Vexations with models continue all the same, and what with the tenacity of the mistral down here, that doesn’t cheer me up.
Arles, Saturday, 1 September 1888.
My dear Theo,
A line in haste to thank you very, very much indeed for the prompt dispatch of your letter. In fact, my chap had already come first thing this morning for his rent. Of course, I had to make my decision known today whether or not I’d keep the house on (because I rented it until Michaelmas, and you have to renew or withdraw beforehand). I told my chap that I’d take it on again for 3 months only, or preferably by the month. That way, supposing that our friend Gauguin arrived, we wouldn’t have a very long lease ahead of us should he not like it. Far too often I become thoroughly discouraged, thinking about what Gauguin will say about this part of the country in the long run. Isolation here is quite considerable, and while paying, you have to hack each step out of the ice in order just to get from one day’s work to the same the next day. The difficulty about models is there, but patience, and especially always having a few sous, can help there, of course. But this difficulty is real. I feel that even at the present time I could be an entirely different painter if I was able to settle the question of models.
But I also feel the possibility of getting dull-witted and of seeing the time of potency in artistic production disappearing, just as in the course of life our balls start to let us down. That’s inevitable, and of course, here as there it’s self-confidence and striking while the iron’s hot that’s pressing. And so I very often feel despondent. But Gauguin and so many others are in exactly the same position, and we must above all look for the remedy within ourselves, in good will and patience. By being content to be no more than mediocrities. Acting like that, perhaps we’ll open up a new path.
I’m very curious to receive your next letter, reporting more fully on your visit to Bing. It doesn’t surprise me that you say that after our sister’s departure you’ll feel an empty gap. You must above all try to fill it. And what could there be against Gauguin’s coming to live with you? That way he could satisfy himself on the subject of Paris while working at the same time. But in that case it would only be fair that he should also reimburse you in paintings for what you would do for him. For me, it’s a constant sorrow to do so comparatively little with the money I spend. My life is restless and anxious, but then, moving house and moving around a lot, perhaps I would only make things worse. It makes enormous trouble for me that I don’t speak the Provençal patois.
I’m still thinking very seriously about using coarser colours, which would be no less solid for being less finely ground. At present I often stop myself when planning a painting, because of the paint it costs us. Now, that’s rather a pity, all the same, for this good reason, that perhaps we have the power to work today, but we don’t know if it’ll still be there tomorrow. All the same, rather than losing physical strength, I’m regaining it, and my stomach, especially, is stronger.
I’m sending you 3 volumes of Balzac today; it’s really a bit old, etc., but the work of Daumier and De Lemud is no uglier for belonging to a period that doesn’t exist any more. At the moment, I’m at last reading Daudet’s L’immortel, which I find very beautiful but hardly consoling. I believe that I’ll have to read a book about elephant hunting, or a totally mendacious book of categorically impossible adventures, by Gustave Aimard for example, in order to get over the heartbreak that L’immortel will leave in me. Particularly because it’s so beautiful and so true, in making one feel the emptiness of the civilized world. I must say that for real power I prefer his Tartarin though.
Warm regards to our sister, and once again, thank you for your letter.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Saturday, 8 September 1888.
My dear Theo,
Thank you a thousand times for your kind letter and the 300 francs it contained — after some weeks of worries I’ve just had a much better one. And just as worries don’t come singly, nor do joys, either. Because actually, always bowed down under this money problem with lodging-house keepers, I put up with it cheerfully. I’d given a piece of my mind to the said lodging-house keeper, who isn’t a bad man after all, and I’d told him that to get my own back on him for having paid him so much money for nothing, I’d paint his whole filthy old place as a way of getting my money back. Well, to the great delight of the lodging-house keeper, the postman whom I’ve already painted, the prowling night-visitors and myself, for 3 nights I stayed up to paint, going to bed during the day. It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly coloured than the day.
Now as for recovering the money paid to the landlord through my painting, I’m not making a point of it, because the painting is one of the ugliest I’ve done. It’s the equivalent, though different, of the potato eaters. I’ve tried to express the terrible human passions with the red and the green. The room is blood-red and dull yellow, a green billiard table in the centre, 4 lemon yellow lamps with an orange and green glow. Everywhere it’s a battle and an antithesis of the most different greens and reds; in the characters of the sleeping ruffians, small in the empty, high room, some purple and blue. The blood-red and the yellow-green of the billiard table, for example, contrast with the little bit of delicate Louis XV green of the counter, where there’s a pink bouquet. The white clothes of the owner, watching over things from a corner in this furnace, become lemon yellow, pale luminous green. I’m making a drawing of it in watercolour tones to send you tomorrow, to give you an idea of it.
I’ve written to Gauguin and to Bernard this week, but I didn’t talk about anything but paintings, just so as not to quarrel, when there’s probably no reason to. But whether or not Gauguin comes, if I buy furniture, then we have, in a good place or a bad, that’s another question — a pied-à-terre, a home that lifts from the mind this melancholy of being on the street. Which is nothing when you’re a 20-year-old adventurer, but which is bad when you’ve turned 35. I see in L’Intransigeant today the suicide of Mr Bing Lévy. Not possible, is it, that that could be Bing’s manager, Lévy?? I think it must be somebody else. It gives me great pleasure that Pissarro found something in the young girl.
Did Pissarro say anything about the sower? Later on, when I’ve taken those experiments further, the sower will still be the first attempt in that genre. The night café is a continuation of the sower, as is the head of the old peasant and of the poet, if I manage to do the latter painting. It’s a colour, then, that isn’t locally true from the realist point of view of trompe l’oeil, but a colour suggesting some emotion, an ardent temperament. When Paul Mantz saw Delacroix’s violent and exalted sketch, Christ’s boat, at the exhibition that we saw in the Champs-Elysées, he turned away from it and cried out in his article, ‘I did not know that one could be so terrifying with blue and green’. Hokusai makes you cry out the same thing — but in his case with his lines, his drawing, since in your letter you say to yourself: these waves are claws, the boat is caught in them, you can feel it. Ah well, if we made the colour very correct or the drawing very correct, we wouldn’t create those emotions. Anyway, soon — tomorrow or the day after — I’ll write to you again on this subject and will reply to your letter, sending you croquis of the night café. Tasset’s consignment has arrived; I’ll write to you tomorrow on the subject of this coarse paint.
Milliet will come to say hello to you one of these days; he writes me that he’s going to come back. Thank you once again for the money sent. If I was first going to look for another place, isn’t it likely that then there would be new expenses in that, at least equivalent to the costs of moving? And moreover, would I find better right away? I’m very glad indeed to be able to furnish my house, and that can only help me get on.
So many thanks and good handshake; till tomorrow.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Sunday, 9 September 1888.
My dear Theo,
I’ve just put the croquis of the new painting, the ‘Night café’, in the post — as well as another one that I did some time ago. I’ll perhaps end up making some Japanese prints. Now yesterday I worked at furnishing the house. Just as the postman and his wife told me, the two beds, if you want something sturdy, will come to 150 francs each. I found that everything they’d told me about prices was true. As a result I had to change tack, and this is what I did: I bought one bed in walnut and another in deal, which will be mine, and which I’ll paint later. Then I bought linen for one of the beds, and I bought two palliasses. If Gauguin or somebody else were to come, there you are, his bed will be made in a minute. From the start, I wanted to arrange the house not just for myself but in such a way as to be able to put somebody up. Naturally, that ate up most of my money. With what was left, I bought 12 chairs, a mirror, and some small indispensable things. Which in short means that next week I’ll be able to go and live there. For putting somebody up, there’ll be the prettiest room upstairs, which I’ll try to make as nice as possible, like a woman’s boudoir, really artistic. Then there’ll be my own bedroom, which I’d like to be exceedingly simple, but the furniture square and broad. The bed, the chairs, table, all in deal. Downstairs, the studio and another room, also a studio, but a kitchen at the same time. One of these days you’ll see a painting of the little house itself, in full sunshine or else with the window lit and the starry sky. Then you’ll be able to believe you own your country house here in Arles. Because I myself am enthusiastic about the idea of arranging it in such a way that you’ll like it, and that it’ll be a studio in a style absolutely meant to be that way.
Let’s say that in a year you come to spend a holiday here and in Marseille, it will be ready then — and the way I envisage it, the house will be just full of paintings from top to bottom. The room where you’ll stay then, or which will be Gauguin’s if Gauguin comes, will have a decoration of large yellow sunflowers on its white walls. Opening the window in the morning, you see the greenery in the gardens and the rising sun and the entrance of the town. But you’ll see these big paintings of bouquets of 12, 14 sunflowers stuffed into this tiny little boudoir with a pretty bed and everything else elegant. It won’t be commonplace. And the studio — the red floor-tiles, the white walls and ceiling, the rustic chairs, the deal table, with, I hope, decoration of portraits. That will have character à la Daumier — and it won’t, I dare predict, be commonplace.
Now I’m going to ask you to look for some Daumier lithographs for the studio, and some Japanese prints, but it’s not at all urgent, and only when you find duplicates of them. And some Delacroixs too, ordinary lithographs by modern artists. It’s not the least little bit urgent, but I have my idea. I really want to make of it — an artist’s house but not precious, on the contrary, nothing precious, but everything from the chair to the painting having character. So for the beds I bought local beds, two wide double beds, instead of iron beds. It gives a look of solidity, durability, calm, and if it takes a bit more bed-linen, that’s too bad, but it must have character. Most fortunately I have a charwoman who’s very loyal; without that I wouldn’t dare begin the business of living in my own place. She’s quite old and has a mixed bunch of kids, and she keeps my tiles nice and red and clean. I wouldn’t be able to explain to you how pleased I am to find a big, serious job this way. Because I hope it’ll be a true decoration that I’m going to undertake there. So, as I’ve already told you, I’m going to paint my own bed, there’ll be 3 subjects. Perhaps a naked woman, I haven’t decided, perhaps a cradle with a child; I don’t know, but I’ll take my time. I now no longer feel any hesitation about staying here, because ideas for work are coming to me in abundance. I now plan to buy some article for the house every month. And with patience, the house will be worth something for the furniture and the decorations.
I must warn you that very shortly I’ll need a big order for colours for the autumn, which I believe is going to be absolutely marvellous. And on reflection, I’ll send you the order enclosed herewith. In my painting of the night café I’ve tried to express the idea that the café is a place where you can ruin yourself, go mad, commit crimes. Anyway, I tried with contrasts of delicate pink and blood-red and wine-red. Soft Louis XV and Veronese green contrasting with yellow greens and hard blue greens. All of that in an ambience of a hellish furnace, in pale sulphur. To express something of the power of the dark corners of a grog-shop. And yet with the appearance of Japanese gaiety and Tartarin’s good nature. But what would Mr Tersteeg say about this painting? He who, looking at a Sisley — Sisley, the most tactful and sensitive of the Impressionists — had already said: ‘I can’t stop myself thinking that the artist who painted that was a little tipsy’. Looking at my painting, then, he’d say that it’s a full-blown case of delirium tremens. I find absolutely nothing to object to what you speak of, to exhibit sometime at the Revue Indépendante, as long as I’m not a cause of obstruction for the others who usually exhibit there. Only we’d then have to tell them that I’d like to reserve a second exhibition for myself, after this first one of what are in fact studies. Then next year I’d give them the decoration of the house to exhibit, when there would be an ensemble. Not that I insist, but it’s so that the studies shouldn’t be confused with compositions, and to say beforehand that the first exhibition would be one of studies. Because there’s still hardly more than the sower and the night café that are attempts at composed paintings.
As I write, the little peasant who looks like a caricature of our father is just coming into the café. The resemblance is amazing, all the same. The receding profile and the weariness and the ill-defined mouth, especially. It continues to seem a pity to me that I haven’t been able to do him. I’m adding to this letter the order for colours, which isn’t exactly urgent. Only I’m so full of plans, and then the autumn promises so many superb subjects that I simply don’t know if I’m going to start 5 or 10 canvases. It’ll be the same thing as in the spring, with the orchards in blossom, the subjects will be innumerable. If you gave père Tanguy the coarser paint, he’d probably do that well. His other fine colours are really inferior, especially for the blues. I hope, when preparing the next consignment, to gain a little in quality. I’m doing comparatively less, and coming back to it longer. I’ve kept back 50 francs for the week; thus there has already been 250 for the furniture. And I’ll recoup them anyway, doing it this way. And from today you can say to yourself that you have a sort of country house, unfortunately a bit far away. But it would cease to be very, very far if we had a permanent exhibition in Marseille. We’ll see that in a year, perhaps.
Handshake and
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, on or about Monday, 10 September 1888.
My dear Theo,
Enclosed herewith letter from Gauguin, which arrived at the same time as a letter from Bernard. At last, it’s the cry of distress.... my debt is increasing from day to day. I won’t dwell on what he has to do. You offer him hospitality here, and you accept the only means of payment he has, his paintings. But if in addition to and apart from that, he demanded that you pay for his journey, he’s going a bit far, and at least he should very openly offer you some of his paintings, and appeal to you as well as to me in terms less vague than ‘my debt increasing from day to day, my journey is becoming more and more unlikely’. He would have a better sense of things if he said, I prefer to leave all my paintings in your hands, because you’re kind to me, and to run up debts with you, who are fond of me, rather than living with my landlord. But he has a stomach-ache, and when you have a stomach-ache, you don’t have free will.
Now I don’t have a stomach-ache, at present. And as a result I feel my head freer, and I should hope more lucid. I find it absolutely unfair that you, who’ve just sent the money that you yourself have had to borrow for furnishing the house, should also have to bear the expense of the journey, and especially when this journey is complicated by the payment of the debt. Unless Gauguin, sharing absolutely everything, were to give you the whole of his work. In such a way that, ceasing to keep count, we’d share absolutely everything. If we shared expenses and made common cause, I myself believe that everyone would profit from it after some years’ working in common. Because, if the association is created under these conditions, you will feel, I don’t say happier, but more of an artist and more productive than with me alone. For him, as for me, we’ll feel very clearly that we must succeed, because the honour of all three of us is involved there, and because we’re not working just for ourselves. That seems to me to be the case. And I say to myself that even if we must tumble into the inevitability of things, we should still do it that way.
But increasingly I’m dismissing the idea of that tumble when I think of the serenity that we see on faces in Frans Halses and Rembrandts, as in the portrait of old Six, as in his own, as in those Frans Halses that we know so well in Haarlem, of old men and old women.It’s better to have serenity than to be too fearful. Why, then, make such a noise on the subject of this affair with Gauguin? If he comes with the two of us he’ll do well, and we really want him to come. But neither he nor we should be crushed. Anyway, there’s a beautiful calm in his letter all the same. Although he leaves his intentions towards us unexplained. But if we wish to do this thing well, it will require loyalty on his part. I’m quite curious to know what he’ll write to you himself; I’ll reply to him exactly as I feel, but I don’t want to say melancholy or sad or mean things to so great an artist. But from the point of view of money, the affair is taking on serious proportions; there’s the journey, there’s the debt, and there’s the fact that the furnishing isn’t complete. Only it’s already complete enough that if Gauguin were to drop in here unexpectedly there would be a way to manage while waiting to get our breath back. Gauguin is married, and it’s very important to be aware beforehand that in the long run it’s not certain that different interests will be compatible. Now that’s why, in the case of some sort of association, we have to have the conditions settled well and clearly, precisely so that we don’t fall out later. If all goes well for Gauguin, you’ll see at this point that he’ll go back to his wife and children. Certainly I’d wish that for him. Ah well, we must therefore have more confidence in the value of his paintings than his landlord does, but he mustn’t calculate them to be so expensive to you that instead of your having some benefit from the association, you’d have nothing but responsibilities and costs. That must not be, and anyway, will not be. But you must have from him the best of what he has.
I must warn you that I plan to keep several studies here at the studio, instead of sending them to you. I believe that if I very firmly continue this project of turning the house here into something that’s a little bit truly artistic, later on you’ll have a series of studies that will hold together. Russell replied, by the way — negatively as far as buying a Gauguin is concerned, but he invites me to spend some time with him, which would start and finish with costing the money for the journey. I’m not saying, though, that he won’t buy a Gauguin, because he himself will feel that he’s not being very helpful at present. But after all, by building himself a house, as long as he puts people up there, he’s doing the very thing that’s needed from the moment our landlords kick us out.
More soon, and good handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Tuesday, 11 September 1888.
My dear Theo,
When Gauguin comes to work with me, and when for his part he shows himself a little bit generous as far as his paintings are concerned — Well, then, won’t you then give work to two artists who without you would have nothing to do, and at the same time admitting that I believe you to be completely in the right when you say that as far as money’s concerned, you see no advantage in it. From another point of view you’ll be doing something like Durand-Ruel, who in the past, before other people recognized Claude Monet’s individuality, bought paintings from him. And Durand-Ruel didn’t earn from it either; at one point he had quantities of those paintings without being able to dispose of them. But after all, what he did will always remain well done, and today he can always say to himself that he won his case. If I saw a financial disadvantage, however, I wouldn’t mention it myself. But Gauguin will have to be loyal, but seeing that the arrival of his friend Laval has opened up another resource for him for the time being, I believe he’s hesitating between Laval and us. I don’t blame him for it; only if G. doesn’t lose sight of his interest, it’s only right that you don’t lose sight of yours from the point of view of repayment in paintings. We can already see that Gauguin would have ditched us completely by now if Laval had had a sou or two. I’m very curious to know what he’ll say to you in his next letter, which you’ll certainly have before long. There you have it, I’m sure that whether he comes or not, our friendship with him will endure, but that we must show a little firmness on our side. He won’t find anything better, unless it was precisely by taking advantage of what you’ve wished to do for him. Now, that he won’t dare to do. You should just know that if I don’t see him come I won’t be the least bit upset about it and that I won’t work any the less because of it; that if he comes he’ll be very welcome. But I can see so clearly that counting on him would be just what would do us in. He’ll be loyal if it’s to his advantage, now if he doesn’t come he’ll find something else, but he won’t find anything better and he’ll lose nothing by not trying to be clever.
I’ll need another 5 metres of ordinary canvas at 2.50 francs, but it goes without saying that Tasset, taking the weight of this package into account, should send either a metre more or a metre less, so that the carriage isn’t double. I believe that now it’s a good opportunity for you to ask Gauguin bluntly when he writes to you, are you coming or are you not coming? If you haven’t made up your mind, on neither side will we be bound to do the thing envisaged. If the plan for a more serious association isn’t to come about, no matter, but then each person must regain his freedom of action. My letter to Gauguin has gone off; I asked them for an exchange if they wish; I would so much like to have here Gauguin’s portrait of Bernard and Bernard’s of Gauguin. Included herewith an article that will interest you; you’d be well advised to go to see that. Ideas for work are coming to me in abundance, and that means that even though isolated I don’t have time to think or to feel. I’m going like a painting-locomotive. Now I believe that this is never going to stop. And my idea is that a living studio, you’ll never find one ready-made, but it’s created from one day to the next through work and staying patiently in the same place. I have a study of an old mill, painted in broken tones like the Oak on the rock; that study which you said you had framed with the sower. The idea of the sower still continues to haunt me. Exaggerated studies like the sower, like the night café now, usually seem to me atrociously ugly and bad, but when I’m moved by something, as here by this little article on Dostoevsky, then they’re the only ones that seem to me to have a more important meaning. I have a third study now, of a landscape with factory, and an enormous sun in a red sky, above red roofs, in which nature seems to be in a rage, on a day of nasty mistral.
As far as the house is concerned, the fact that it will be habitable continues to soothe me very much. Will my work be worse because by staying in the same place I’ll see the seasons come and go on the same subjects? Seeing the same orchards again in spring, the same wheatfields in summer, I’ll inevitably see my work regularly before me in advance, and can plan better. And by keeping certain studies here to make an ensemble that will hold together, after a certain time that will make a calmer body of work for you. I feel that as far as that goes, we’re pretty well on the right road. I could only wish that you were nearer here. Considering that I can’t bring the north closer to the south, what’s to be done? So I say to myself that on my own I’m not capable of doing sufficiently important painting to justify your travelling to the south two or three times a year. But — if Gauguin came and if it was fairly well known that we were living here and helping artists to live and work, I still don’t see the impossibility of the south’s becoming for you, as for me, a second native country in some sense. I’m very pleased to have finished my letter to Gauguin without saying that it bewilders me somewhat that he should hesitate between going to stay with Laval or with me. It would be unfair not to leave him total freedom to choose and to do as he can. But I wrote to him that I was sure that even if he didn’t come here because the journey wouldn’t be possible for him, then he wouldn’t be staying much longer at a hotel. And that then it was two permanent studios instead of one. I always come back to this, that once settled one works more calmly. And in that position one can always be of more help to others, too, if the opportunity arises. Bernard says that it makes him suffer to see how Gauguin is often prevented from doing what he can, after all, by purely material questions of paint, canvas, &c. But in any case, that won’t continue. Wouldn’t the worst thing that could happen to him be that he’d be forced to leave his paintings with his landlord as security for his debt, and to take refuge either with you or with me, travelling one way? But in that case, if he didn’t wish to lose his paintings, he must confront his landlord quite directly. A case like that, where the merchandise is in any case worth considerably more than the debt, can be heard as a matter of urgency by the president of the district civil court. If the landlord claims the right to keep everything, which he has no right to.
Good handshake,
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Tuesday, 18 September 1888.
My dear Theo,
Many thanks for your letter and for the 50-franc note it contained. I’ve also received Maurin’s drawing, which is superb. That man’s a great artist. Last night I slept in the house, and although there are still things to be done, I feel very happy there. Besides, I feel that I can make something of it that will last, and from which someone else will also be able to benefit. Now money spent will no longer be money wasted, and I believe it won’t be long before you see the difference there. At present it makes me think of Bosboom’s interiors, with the red tiles, the white walls, the furniture in deal or walnut, the patches of intense blue sky and greenery visible through the windows. Now the surroundings, with the public garden, the night cafés, the grocer’s shop, aren’t Millet, of course, but failing that, it’s pure Daumier, pure Zola. Now that’s quite enough to find ideas in, isn’t it?
I already wrote to you yesterday that, if I count the two beds at 300 francs, the price can’t be reduced any further. If, however, I’ve already bought more than that, it’s because, if I already put half of last week’s money into it, yesterday I had to pay another 10 francs to the lodging-house keeper and 30 francs for a palliasse. At the moment I have 5 francs left in my pocket. So I’m going to ask you to send me another louis, depending on what you can manage — but by return of post — to see me through the week, or 50 francs, if it’s possible. One way or another, this month I’d like to be able to count on receiving 100 instead of 50, again, over the whole month, as I asked you in my letter yesterday. If I save 50 francs over the month myself, if I add to that the other 50, it means that in total I’ll have spent 400 francs on furniture. My dear Theo, here we are, at last, more on the right road! It’s true that it doesn’t matter not having hearth nor home as long as you’re young, and living like a traveller, in cafés, but that was becoming intolerable to me now, and most of all, it wasn’t compatible with thoughtful work. So my plan is all worked out. I’ll try to do painting for what you send me every month, and then I want to do painting for the house. What I do for the house will be to reimburse you for previous expenditure. I’m still something of a tradesman, in fact, in the sense that I’m anxious to prove that I pay my debts, and know what I want for the merchandise that the lousy trade of a poor painter forces me to labour at.
Ah well, I feel more or less sure of succeeding in making a decoration that will be worth 10 thousand francs in time. Let me say — If here we set up a studio-refuge for one or other of our pals who are broke, no one will ever be able to reproach us, neither you nor me, with living and spending for ourselves alone. Now to set up such a studio you need a working capital; now it’s I who have eaten it up in the course of my unproductive years, and I’ll pay it back now that I’m beginning to produce. I assure you that, for you as well as for me, I judge it to be indispensable, but what’s more our right, always to have a louis or a few louis in our pocket, and a certain stock of merchandise to handle. But my idea would be that in the end we’d have set up and would leave to posterity a studio in which a successor could live. I don’t know if I’m expressing myself clearly enough, but in other words: we’re working at an art, at matters that won’t be of our times only but which may also be continued by others after us. You’re doing that in your business; it’s undeniable that it will increase in future, even though you have many vexations at present. But for me, I foresee that other artists will wish to see colour under a stronger sun and in a more Japanese clarity. Now if I set up a studio-refuge right at the entrance to the south, that’s not so silly. And precisely that means that we can work calmly. Ah, if others say, it’s too far from Paris &c.? Let them, too bad for them. Why did the greatest colourist of all, Eugène Delacroix, judge it indispensable to go to the south, and as far as Africa? Obviously because not only in Africa but even from Arles onwards you’ll naturally find fine contrasts between reds and greens, blues and oranges, sulphur and lilac. And all true colourists will have to come to admit that there exists another coloration than that of the north. And I don’t doubt that if Gauguin came, he would love this part of the country; if Gauguin didn’t come, it’s because he has already had this experience of more colourful countries, and he’d still be one of our friends and in agreement in principle. And another one of them would come in his place. If what we’re doing looks out toward the infinite, if we see our work having its raison d’être and continuing on beyond, we work with more serenity. Now you have that twice over.
You’re kind to painters, and be sure that the more I think about it the more I feel that there’s nothing more genuinely artistic than to love people. You’ll say to me that then we’d do well to do without art and artists. That’s true on the face of it, but after all, the Greeks and the French and the old Dutchmen accepted art, and we see art always recover after inevitable periods of decline — and I don’t believe that we’d be more virtuous for this reason, that we had a horror of artists and their art. At present I don’t yet find my paintings good enough for the benefits I’ve had from you. But once they’re good enough, I assure you that you will have created them just as much as I, and the fact is that we make them together. But I won’t labour the point, because it will become as clear as daylight to you if I succeed in doing things a little more seriously. moment I have another no. 30 square canvas on the go, a garden again, or rather a walk under plane trees, with green turf and black clumps of pines. You did very well to order the colours and the canvas, because the weather is superb, superb. The mistral is still there, but there are intervals of calm, and then it’s wonderful. If we had less mistral, this part of the country would really be as beautiful, and would lend itself as much to art, as Japan. As I write, very kind letter from Bernard, who’s thinking of coming to Arles this winter — whim — but then, perhaps it’s also that Gauguin is sending him to me as a substitute, and would himself prefer to stay in the north. We’ll know soon, because I’m sure that he’ll write to you one way or another. Bernard’s letter speaks of Gauguin with great respect and sympathy, and I’m convinced that they have mutually understood one another. And I certainly believe that Gauguin has done Bernard good. Whether Gauguin comes or not, he’ll still be one of our friends, and if he doesn’t come now he’ll come at another time. I instinctively feel that Gauguin is a calculating person, who, seeing himself at the bottom of the social ladder, wishes to regain a position by means that will be honest, to be sure, but which will be very shrewd. Gauguin has little idea that I’m able to take account of all that. And he perhaps doesn’t know that he must at all costs gain time, and that he’ll gain it with us, if he were to gain nothing else thereby. Now if one of these days he does a bunk from Pont-Aven with Laval or Maurin without paying his debt, in my opinion he would still be in the right in his case, just like any animal at bay. I don’t believe that it’s wise to offer Bernard 150 francs for one painting a month immediately, as we’ve offered Gauguin. And isn’t Bernard, who has clearly talked at length with Gauguin about the whole business, rather counting on replacing Gauguin? I believe that it’ll be necessary to be very firm and very categorical in all of this. And without giving our reasons, to speak very clearly. I can’t blame Gauguin — speculator, stockbroker — if he wishes to risk something in business, only I myself wouldn’t be part of it, I’d a thousand times sooner continue with you, whether you’re with the Goupils or not. And the new dealers are, as you know full well, exactly the same as the old ones in my opinion. In principle, in theory, I’m for an association of artists protecting their livelihood and their work, but in principle and in theory I’m equally against attempts to destroy old firms, once established. Just let them rot in peace and die a natural death. It’s pure presumption to try to revive the trade. Have nothing to do with it, protect your livelihoods among yourselves, live as a family, as brothers and companions; splendid; even in a case where that didn’t succeed, I’d like to be part of it, but I’ll never be part of a manoeuvre against other dealers.
I shake your hand firmly; I hope that what I’m forced to ask of you won’t cause you too much financial trouble. But I didn’t want to delay going to sleep at my house. And if you’re in financial difficulties yourself, I’ll get through the week with 20 francs more, but that will be urgent.
Ever yours, Vincent
The letter that Gauguin will send you shortly will, I’m inclined to believe, clear the matter up. I myself don’t blame an artist of his merit for saying, you’ll pay my journey and my debt if you wish me to come, because I don’t have any — any money. But on the other hand, in that case he’d have to be very generous with his paintings. Then — but we’d still have to have the money — I wouldn’t see any harm in the thing. But these paintings, which will be sold one day, will tie up the interest on what they cost, perhaps for many years to come. And in fact, a painting for which we pay 400 francs today and which we sell for 1,000 francs ten years later is still sold at cost price, because it has sat there doing nothing. But you know this better than I do. I shouldn’t be surprised if little by little you regain a love of business, or at least that you’ll be reconciled with your present position when you’ll feel that those who invent new things in business don’t know how to make a great revolution in it. You’re kind to artists, you are, in fact, right at the heart of the trade, you do what you can, you’re damned right. Only take care of your health if you can, and don’t get upset about nothing. That will come quite of its own accord now, if it must come. I only want to emphasize this, that it seems to me that Gauguin, by giving you alone his paintings on deposit, and quietly waiting for his moment while working here with me and repaying our advances with his work, would be pursuing a policy that I would respect more than any other position he could take.For Bernard, if Bernard wished to come here, it wouldn’t be on the same conditions as Gauguin — it would seem to me. If there was a benefit in living together, there’s nothing to prevent you agreeing to buy something from him from time to time, if it’s possible. But no sort of contract with him, he’s too changeable. If Gauguin doesn’t come, he’ll succeed all the same, but he won’t succeed through his contrivance, but through the real merit of his canvases. As long as he keeps the time and the money and the freedom needed to do them, that’s all. I can assure you that I would certainly not be a better dealer than you; in the given circumstances you do perfectly well, and I’d only wish to send you better paintings. I’m trying to do that, and I’ll continue to try to do so. I expect to return to my garden canvas again soon. It’s an immense advantage that I have, not to be short of canvases and colours, and so it’s certainly my duty to work without respite. If Gauguin came, I’m inclined to believe that we’d make our colours at home ourselves; I daren’t do it on my own, because I fear that it would discourage me if it didn’t work straightaway. I’m very curious to know what Tanguy will charge for his tubes. Did you read an article in the number of Le Courrier Français that you sent, ‘la truie bleue’? Very good, and it reminds you precisely of La Segatori. You’ll enjoy reading that article. I’ll see Milliet today, I think. Thank you in advance for the Japanese prints. I’m keeping all Bernard’s letters, they’re sometimes really interesting; you’ll read them some day or other; they already make quite a bundle.This firmness I was speaking of, that it will be necessary to have with Gauguin, it’s solely because we already made our position clear when he described his plan of action in Paris. You replied well then without committing yourself, but also without wounding him in his amour propre. And it’s the same thing that could be necessary again.
Arles, Sunday, 23 or Monday, 24 September 1888.
My dear Theo,
The fine weather of these past few days has disappeared and has been replaced by mud and rain. But it will surely return before the winter. Only it’ll be a matter of taking advantage of it because —the fine days — are short —Especially for painting. I plan to do a lot of drawing this winter. If only I could draw figures from memory, I’d always have something to do, but — take a figure by the most skilful of all the artists who sketch from life — Hokusai, Daumier, for me this figure is never what the figure painted from the model by these same masters would be, or other master portraitists. Ah well — if inevitably we’re too often faced with a shortage of models, and especially of intelligent models, we mustn’t despair or grow weary of the struggle for that reason.
I’ve arranged all the Japanese prints in the studio, and the Daumiers and the Delacroixs and the Géricault. If you come across the Delacroix Pietà, or the Géricault, I urge you to buy as many of them as you can. Another thing that I’d very much like to have in the studio is Millet’s Labours of the fields — and Lerat’s etching of his Sower that Durand-Ruel is selling for 1.25 francs. And lastly the little etching by Jacquemart after Meissonier, The reader. A Meissonier that I’ve always found admirable. I can’t help liking Meissoniers.
I’m reading an article on Tolstoy in the Revue des Deux Mondes — it appears that Tolstoy takes an enormous interest in his people’s religion. Like George Eliot in England. There’s said to be a religious book by Tolstoy, I believe it’s called ‘Ma religion’; it must be very beautiful. From what I gather from that article, in it he’s searching for what will remain eternally true in the religion of Christ, and what all religions have in common; it appears that he admits of neither the resurrection of the body nor even that of the soul, but says like the nihilists that after death there’s nothing more, but when a man’s dead, and well and truly dead, living humanity remains for ever. Anyway, not having read the book itself, I couldn’t say exactly how he conceives of the matter, but I believe that his religion cannot be cruel and increase our sufferings, but on the contrary, it must be very consoling and must inspire serenity, and energy, and the courage to live, and a whole lot of things.
Among Bing’s reproductions I find the drawing of the blade of grass, and the carnations, and the Hokusai admirable. But whatever one may say, for me the more ordinary Japanese prints, coloured in flat tones, are admirable for the same reason as Rubens and Veronese. I know perfectly well that this isn’t primitive art. But the fact that the primitives are admirable isn’t in the very least a reason for me to say, as is becoming a habit, ‘when I go to the Louvre I can’t go beyond the primitives’. Supposing one were to say to a serious collector of Japanese art — to Lévy himself — sir, I cannot help finding these 5-sous Japanese prints admirable — It’s more than likely that that person would be a bit shocked and would pity my ignorance and my bad taste. Exactly as in the past it was in bad taste to like Rubens, Jordaens, Veronese. I believe that eventually I’ll stop feeling lonely in the house, and that on days of bad winter weather, for example, and in the long evenings, I’ll find an occupation that will absorb me completely. A weaver, a basket-maker, often spends entire seasons alone, or almost alone, with his work as his only pastime. But what makes those people stay where they are is precisely the feeling of the house, the reassuring, familiar look of things. Of course I’d like company, but if I don’t have it I won’t be unhappy on that account, and then, above all, the time will come when I’ll have someone. I have little doubt about that.
Now in your home too, I believe that if one is willing to put people up one can find plenty among artists, for whom the matter of somewhere to stay is a very serious problem. And for me, I believe that it’s my absolute duty to try to earn money with my work, and so I see my work quite clearly ahead of me. Ah, if only all artists had enough to live on — enough to work on — but that not being so, I wish to produce, and to produce a great deal, and with intense effort and determination. And perhaps the day will come when we can expand our business and be more influential for others. But that’s a long way off, and there’s a great deal of work to be got through first. If we were living in wartime we’d possibly have to fight, we’d regret it, we’d bemoan not living in peacetime, but at all events, the necessity being there — we’d fight. And in the same way, we surely have the right to wish for a state of affairs in which money wouldn’t be needed in order to live. However, since everything’s done with money now, we must think hard about making some while we spend it. But I have a better chance of earning from painting than from drawing. In short, there are many more people who can skilfully make a croquis than people who can paint freely and who grasp nature from the point of view of colour. That will always be rarer, and whether or not the paintings are slow to be appreciated, they’ll find their collector one day. But I believe that as for the paintings with rather thick impasto, they’ll have to dry longer here. I’ve read that Rubenses in Spain have remained infinitely richer in colour than those in the north. Ruins, even exposed to the open air, remain white here, whereas in the north they turn grey, dirty, black, &c. You can be sure that if the Monticellis had dried in Paris they’d now be very much duller.
I’m beginning now to see better the beauty of the women here, and so always, always I think again of Monticelli. Colour plays an immense part in the beauty of the women here — I’m not saying that their forms aren’t beautiful, but that’s not where the local charm lies. It’s the broad lines of the colourful costume, worn well, and it’s the tone of the flesh more than the form. But I’ll have trouble before I’ll be able to do them in the way I’m beginning to feel it. But what I’m certain of is making progress while staying here. And a certain skilfulness isn’t enough to make a painting that would be truly of the south. It’s looking at things for a long time that matures you and makes you understand more deeply. I hadn’t thought when leaving Paris that I would have found Monticelli and Delacroix so true. It’s only now, after months and more months, that I’m beginning to realize that they didn’t imagine anything. And I think that next year you’ll see the same subjects again: orchards, the harvest, but — with a different colour and above all, altered execution. And that will still continue, these changes and these variations. Even while working, I feel that I needn’t rush. After all, what would it do to put into practice the old saying that one should study for ten years or so, and then produce a few figure paintings? That’s what Monticelli did, though. Think of several hundred of his paintings as no more than studies. Then, however, figures the way the yellow woman was, the way the woman with the parasol is, the small one that you have, the lovers that Reid had, those are complete figures, in which as far as the drawing goes there’s absolutely nothing to do but to admire it. Because there Monticelli achieves a way of drawing that’s as rich and superb as Daumier and Delacroix. Certainly, at the prices Monticellis are at, it would be an excellent speculation to buy some. The day will come when his fine drawn figures will be valued as very great art. I believe that the town of Arles was once infinitely more glorious for the beauty of its women, for the beauty of its traditional dress. Now it all looks sickly and faded as far as character goes. But if you look at it for a long time, the old charm reveals itself. And that’s why I understand that I’m losing absolutely nothing by staying where I am, and contenting myself with watching things go by, the way a spider in its web waits for flies. I can’t force anything, and as I’m settled now I can take advantage of all the fine days, all the opportunities to catch a real painting from time to time.
Milliet’s lucky, he has all the Arlésiennes he wants, but there you are, he can’t paint them, and if he was a painter he wouldn’t have any. I must bide my time now, without rushing anything. I’ve read an article on Wagner — L’amour dans la musique, by the same author who wrote the book on Wagner, I believe. What a need we have of the same thing in painting! It seems that in the book Ma religion, Tolstoy suggests that whatever may occur in the way of a violent revolution, there will also be a private, secret revolution in people, from which a new religion, or rather, something altogether new, will be reborn, which will have no name but which will have the same effect of consoling, of making life possible, that the Christian religion once had. It seems to me that that book must be very interesting. We’ll eventually have enough of cynicism, scepticism, mockery, and we’ll want to live — more musically. How will that come about, and what will we find? It would be curious to be able to predict it, but it’s even better to have a feeling of what it will be, instead of seeing in the future absolutely nothing but disasters, which will nevertheless be sure to fall into the modern world and civilization like so many terrible thunderbolts, through a revolution or a war or the bankruptcy of moth-eaten governments. If we study Japanese art, then we see a man, undoubtedly wise and a philosopher and intelligent, who spends his time — on what? — studying the distance from the earth to the moon? — no; studying Bismarck’s politics? — no, he studies a single blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw all the plants — then the seasons, the broad features of landscapes, finally animals, and then the human figure. He spends his life like that, and life is too short to do everything. Just think of that; isn’t it almost a new religion that these Japanese teach us, who are so simple and live in nature as if they themselves were flowers? And we wouldn’t be able to study Japanese art, it seems to me, without becoming much happier and more cheerful, and it makes us return to nature, despite our education and our work in a world of convention. Isn’t it saddening that up to now Monticellis have never been reproduced in fine lithographs or vibrant etchings? I’d like to see what artists would say if an engraver like the one who engraved the work of Velázquez were to do a fine etching of them. Be that as it may, I believe it’s still more our duty to try to admire and to know things for ourselves than to teach them to others. But the two things can go together. I envy the Japanese the extreme clarity that everything in their work has. It’s never dull, and never appears to be done too hastily. Their work is as simple as breathing, and they do a figure with a few confident strokes with the same ease as if it was as simple as buttoning your waistcoat. Ah, I must manage to do a figure with a few strokes. That will keep me busy all winter. Once I have that, I’ll be able to do people strolling along the boulevards, the streets, a host of new subjects. While I’ve been writing you this letter, I’ve drawn a good dozen of them. I’m on the track of finding it. But it’s very complicated, because what I’m after is that in a few strokes the figure of a man, a woman, a kid, a horse, a dog, will have a head, a body, legs, arms that will fit together.
More soon, and good handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Wednesday, 26 September 1888.
My dear Theo,
I’m well aware that I wrote to you only yesterday, but the day has been so beautiful again. My great sorrow is that you can’t see what I see here. From 7 o’clock in the morning I sat in front of what was, after all, nothing special — a round cedar or cypress bush — planted in grass. You know this round bush already, since you already have a study of the garden. By the way, included herewith a croquis of my canvas — a square no. 30 again. The bush is a variegated green, slightly tinged with bronze, the grass is very, very green, Veronese tinged with lemon, the sky is very, very blue. The line of bushes in the background are all raving mad oleanders. These bloody plants flower in such a way that they could surely catch locomotor ataxia! They’re covered in fresh blooms, and then in masses of faded blooms; their foliage also keeps on putting out strong new shoots, apparently inexhaustibly. A funereal cypress, completely black, stands above them and a number of small coloured figures are strolling along a pink path. It makes a pendant for another no. 30 canvas of the same place, only from a quite different viewpoint, in which the whole garden is coloured in very different greens under a pale lemon yellow sky. But isn’t it true that this garden has a funny sort of style that means that you can very well imagine the Renaissance poets, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, strolling among these bushes on the flowery grass? Now it’s true that I’ve left out some trees, but what I’ve kept in the composition is really like that. Only they’ve overcrowded it with a number of bushes that aren’t in character; and so to find this truer and more fundamental character, this is the third time I’m painting the same spot. Now that’s the garden that’s right in front of my house, after all. But this corner of a garden is a good example of what I was telling you, that to find the real character of things here, you have to look at them and paint them for a very long time. Because perhaps you’ll see from the sketch alone that the line is now simple. Again, this painting is heavily impasted, like its pendant with yellow sky.
Tomorrow I hope to work with Milliet again. Today I worked again from 7 o’clock in the morning until 6 o’clock in the evening without moving except to eat a bite a stone’s throw away. And that’s why the work’s going fast. But what will you say about it — how will it seem to me, too, some time from now? At the moment I have a clear head, or a lover’s blindness toward my work. Because being surrounded by colour like this is quite new to me, and excites me extraordinarily. Fatigue doesn’t come into it; I could do another painting tonight, even, and I could bring it home. If I tell you that it’s very urgent that I receive 6 large tubes lemon chrome yellow I 6 ,, ,, Veronese green 3 ,, ,, Prussian blue. 10 ,, ,, zinc white large tubes like the zinc and silver whitethen it’s to be deducted from yesterday’s order. Also 5 metres of canvas. I can’t help it, I feel in a clear frame of mind and I want as far as possible to make sure that I have enough paintings to maintain my position when the others will also be making a great effort for the year ’89. Seurat has enough, with 2 or 3 of his enormous canvases, to exhibit all by himself; Signac, who’s a good worker, also has enough, Gauguin too, and Guillaumin. So I’d like, myself, to have by that time — whether we were to exhibit it or not — the series of studies: Decoration. That way we’ll be entirely original, because the others won’t be able to find us pretentious when that’s all we have. But be assured that I’ll try to give it a style.
Milliet was pleased today that I’d done the ploughed field; usually he doesn’t like what I do, but because the clods of earth were soft in colour, like a pair of clogs, it didn’t offend him — with the forget-me-not sky with its flecks of white cloud. If he posed better he would please me greatly, and he would have a smarter portrait than I’ll be able do now, although the subject itself is beautiful: his face with its pale, matt complexion, the red képi against an emerald background. Ah, how I’d like you to see everything that I see these days! With so many beautiful things before me, I can’t help letting myself go. Especially because I feel that it’ll turn out a little better than the last consignment. But the last consignment was of studies that made me ready to be able to work with confidence these days that are windless. Why is it that our good père Thomas isn’t willing to lend me something on my studies? He’d be wrong not to do it — and I hope that he will do it. I’m fearful of overburdening you, and yet I’d like to order a good two hundred francs worth of colours and canvases and brushes. It’s not for something else, it’s for that. The whole autumn may be good, and if I knock out a no. 30 canvas every two or three days, I’ll earn blenty of thousand-frenk pills. I have a concentrated strength still, which asks for nothing but to be used up in work. But I’ll inevitably begin to use up a quantity of colours, and that’s why we’d need Thomas. If I continue working as I am these days, I’ll have my study full of really sound studies, the way it is at Guillaumin’s. Guillaumin must have some fine new things, of course, I don’t doubt it and I’d very much like to see them. The present studies actually consist of a single flow of impasto. The brushstroke isn’t greatly divided, and the tones are often broken. And in the end, without intending to, I’m forced to lay the paint on thickly, à la Monticelli. Sometimes I really believe I’m continuing that man’s work, only I haven’t yet done figures of lovers, like him. And it’s probable that I won’t do it, either, before some serious studies from life.
But that’s not urgent; now I’m determined to work hard until I’ve surmounted it. If I want this letter to go off, I must hurry. Have you any news of Gauguin? I expect a letter from Bernard at any moment, which will follow the croquis, probably. Gauguin must have another partnership in mind; I’ve felt that for weeks and yet more weeks. He’s certainly free to do so. Being alone won’t bother me for the time being, and later on we’ll find some company anyway, and perhaps more than we’ll want. Only I believe that we mustn’t say anything unpleasant to Gauguin if he were to change his mind, and take the thing entirely in good part. Because if he joins up with Laval, that’s only fair, since Laval’s his pupil and they’ve already kept house together. If it came to it, well, they could both come here and we’d find a way of putting them up. As for the furnishing, if I’d known in advance that Gauguin wasn’t coming, I’d still have wanted to have two beds in case I had to put someone up. So he’s definitely quite free. There will always be those who have a wish to see the south. What has Vignon been doing?? Ah well, if it all turns out for the best everyone will be sure to make great progress, and me too. If you can’t see the beautiful days here, you’ll still see the paintings of them. And I’m trying to make them better than the others.
Handshake and
Ever yours, Vincent.
Arles, Saturday, 13 October 1888.
My dear Theo,
I had hardly dared hope so soon for your new 50-franc money order, for which I thank you very much. I have many expenses, and it sometimes distresses me greatly when I increasingly come to realize that painting is a craft that is probably practised by extremely poor people, since it costs a lot of money. But the autumn still continues to be so fine! What a funny part of the country, this homeland of Tartarin’s! Yes, I’m happy with my lot; it isn’t a superb and sublime country, it’s all something out of Daumier come to life. Have you re-read the Tartarins yet? Ah, don’t forget to! Do you remember in Tartarin the lament of the old Tarascon diligence — that wonderful page? Well, I’ve just painted that red and green carriage in the yard of the inn. You’ll see. This hasty croquis gives you its composition. Simple foreground of grey sand. Background very simple too, pink and yellow walls with windows with green louvred shutters, corner of blue sky. The two carriages very colourful: green, red, wheels yellow, black, blue, orange. A no. 30 canvas once again. The carriages are painted in the style of Monticelli, with impastos. You once had a very beautiful Claude Monet, of 4 colourful boats on a beach. Well, here it’s carriages, but the composition is of the same kind. Now imagine a huge green-blue fir tree spreading its horizontal branches over a very green lawn and sand dappled with light and shade. This very simple corner of a garden is enlivened by beds of orange lead geraniums in the background areas, under the black branches. Two figures of lovers stand in the shade of the big tree. No. 30 canvas. And then two more no. 30 canvases, the Trinquetaille bridge and another bridge; the railway goes over the road. That canvas is a little like a Bosboom in coloration. Lastly, the Trinquetaille bridge with all its steps is a canvas done on a grey morning, the stones, the asphalt, the cobblestones are grey, the sky a pale blue, the small figures colourful, a puny tree with yellow foliage. Two canvases, then, in grey, broken tones, and two highly coloured canvases. Forgive these very poor croquis. I’m knocked out from painting this Tarascon diligence, and I can see that I haven’t a head fit for drawing.
I’m off to have supper, and I’ll write to you again this evening. But this decoration is coming along a bit, and I believe that it will broaden my way of seeing and doing things. It will be open to a thousand criticisms; very well, but never mind, as long as I manage to put some spirit into it. But yes, good old Tartarin’s country, I’m enjoying myself there more and more, and it will become like a new homeland for us. I don’t forget Holland, though; it’s precisely the contrasts that make me think of it a lot. I’ll get back to this letter shortly.
Now I’m getting back to this letter again. How I’d like to be able to show you the work that’s in progress! I’m really so tired that I can see that my writing isn’t up to much. I’ll write to you better another time, because it’s beginning to take shape now, this idea of the decoration. I wrote to Gauguin again the day before yesterday, to say once again that he would probably recover much more quickly here. And he’ll do such fine things here. He’ll need time to recover. I assure you that I believe that if ideas for work are coming to me more clearly and more abundantly at present, then eating good food has a lot to do with it. And that’s what everybody in painting should have.
How many things that still have to change! Isn’t it true that all painters ought to live like manual workers? A carpenter, a blacksmith, normally produces infinitely more than they do. In painting too, there should be large studios where each person would work more steadily. I’m really falling asleep standing up, and I can’t see any longer, my eyes are so tired. More soon, because I still had lots of things to say, and I should make you some better croquis. Probable that I’ll do it tomorrow. Thank you many times again for your money order.
I shake your hand firmly.
Ever yours, Vincent
It’s 5 canvases that I’ve started on this week; that brings, I believe, to 15 the number of these no. 30 canvases for the decoration. 2 canvases of sunflowers 3 ,, poet’s garden 2 ,, other garden 1 ,, Night café 1 ,, Trinquetaille bridge 1 ,, Railway bridge 1 ,, the house 1 ,, the Tarascon diligence 1 ,, the starry night 1 ,, the furrows 1 ,, The vineyard.
Arles, Monday, 15 October 1888.
My dear Theo,
Letter from Gauguin, who tells me that he’s sent you a consignment of paintings and studies. Would be very pleased if you could find the time to write and give me some details of what they are. His letter was accompanied by a letter from Bernard, to say that they’d received my consignment of canvases, that they’re going to keep all 7 of them. Bernard will make another study for me in exchange, and the three others, Moret, Laval and a young chap, will also send portraits, I hope. Gauguin has my portrait, and Bernard says that he’d like to have one like it, although he already has one of me, which I exchanged with him at the time for the portrait of his Grandmother. And it pleased me that they weren’t averse to what I had done in figure painting.
I was, and still am, almost knocked out by last week’s work. I still can’t do anything, but in any case there’s a very violent mistral, which raises clouds of dust that turns the trees on boulevard des Lices white from top to bottom. So I’m pretty well forced to take it easy. I’ve just slept for 16 hours at a stretch, which has gone a long way to making me myself again. And tomorrow I’ll have got over this exhaustion. But I made a good week of it, eh, with 5 canvases; if it gets a bit of its own back this week, well, it’s natural. If I’d worked more calmly, you can see clearly that the mistral would have caught me out again. Ah, if the weather’s fine here you have to take advantage of it, otherwise you’d never do anything.
But tell me what Seurat’s doing. If you see him, tell him on my behalf that I have in progress a decoration which at present amounts to 15 square no. 30 canvases, and which, to make an ensemble, will take at least 15 more, and that in this work on a broader scale it’s often the memory of his personality and of the visit that we made to his studio to see his beautiful big canvases that gives me courage in this task. I’d very much like us to have Seurat’s portrait of himself. I had told Gauguin that the reason I had urged him to make an exchange of portraits was because I believed that he and Bernard would certainly have made several studies, each of the other. That as that wasn’t the case and he had done the portrait especially for me, I didn’t want it as an exchange, considering the thing too important. He writes to say that he really does wish me to take it as an exchange. His letter is again very complimentary, as I don’t deserve it, let’s pass over it.
I’m sending you article on Provence which seemed well-written to me. These Félibres are a literary and artistic circle: Clovis Hugues, Mistral, others, who write quite good, even sometimes very good sonnets in Provençal and sometimes in French. If one day the Félibres stop being unaware of my existence, they’ll all visit the little house. I prefer that it not happen before I’ve finished my decoration. But loving Provence as whole-heartedly as they do, I perhaps have a right to their interest. If ever I insist on that right, it will be so that my work remains here or in Marseille, where, as you know, I’d like to work, believing that the Marseille artists would do well to continue what their Monticelli started. If Gauguin and I write an article in one of the papers here, that will be enough to make contact.
Handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Monday, 22 October 1888.
My dear Theo
I have another no. 30 canvas, autumn garden, two bottle-green and bottle-shaped cypresses, three little chestnut trees with tobacco-coloured and orange foliage. A small yew with pale lemon foliage, with purple trunk. Two small bushes with blood-red and scarlet purple foliage. A little sand, a little lawn, a little blue sky. There you are, and yet I’d sworn not to work! But it’s like that every day, sometimes in passing I find such beautiful things that in the end you have to try to do them anyway. Ah well, the money that you give me and which, besides, I’m asking from you more than ever, I’ll return it to you in work, and not only the present but the past as well. But let me work as long as it isn’t absolutely impossible. Because if I don’t take advantage of the opportunities, it would be even worse.
Ah, my dear brother, if I could do such a thing, or if Gauguin and I together could do such things that Seurat would join us! But in my opinion, at the very least we must reckon his large paintings of the models and the Grande Jatte but — let’s see — at 5,000 each, shall we say... Ah well, if we were to join together, Gauguin and I should each also be capable of a nominal contribution of 10 thousand. Once again that falls right in line with what I was telling you, that I wished absolutely absolutely to do 10 thousand francs worth of painting for the house. Well, it’s funny, although I don’t calculate in figures but in feelings, I so often happen upon the same results while starting from totally divergent standpoints. I daren’t dream about it, I daren’t say any more about this Seurat partnership. First I must try to get to know Gauguin better. With whom one can’t go wrong, no matter what.
And listen to this. As soon as you can, and even right away if the thing were possible, I need another 10 metres of canvas at 2.50 francs. Then large tubes like the silver white and zinc white.zinc white 20 of the largest tubes Silver ,, 10 ,, ,, ,, ,, Chrome Yellow I 10 ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, 2 5 ,, ,, ,,, ,, Prussian Blue 5 Geranium Lake 10 medium tubes Veronese Green 10 largest tubes. Ah well, I must say nevertheless that it would absolutely astonish me if we weren’t able to overcome NO MATTER WHAT difficulties of production. But the present ones all the more so. If it went wrong we’d have to have deliberations as soon as Gauguin arrived, which I hope will be any day now. I believe it possible that things could get jolly lively at the ’89 exhibition. It might be better if they didn’t get lively, but after all, we’ll just have to take things as they come.
By the way, have you ever read Les frères Zemganno, by the De Goncourts? If not, read it. If I hadn’t read it I would perhaps be more daring. And even after reading it, the ONLY fear that I have is of asking you for too much money. If myself I were to break myself down in the effort, it would mean absolutely nothing to me. I still have resources for that eventuality, because I would either go into the business or I would write, but as long as I’m in painting I see nothing but the association of several people, and the communal life. The leaves are starting to fall; the trees are visibly yellowing, the yellow increasing every day. It’s at least as beautiful as the orchards in blossom, and as for the work that we may do, I dare believe that indeed far from losing by it, we could gain by it. But anyway. In any case, would you please send me some more money (50 if possible, and otherwise less) by return of post and certainly no later. And if you didn’t have time to write, I’d ask you please to send it by money order, whether it’s more, or less, as you were able.
I shake your hand firmly.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Thursday, 25 October 1888.
My dear Theo
Thank you for your letter and for the 50-franc note. As you learned from my telegram, Gauguin arrived in good health. He even gave me the impression of being in better shape than me. He’s naturally very pleased with the sale that you made, and I no less, since that way certain other expenses absolutely necessary for moving in needn’t wait nor will fall on your shoulders alone. G. will certainly write to you today. He’s very, very interesting as a man, and I have every confidence that with him we’ll do a great many things. He’ll probably produce a great deal here, and perhaps I shall too, I hope. And then I dare believe that for you the burden will be a little less heavy, and I dare believe much less heavy. I myself feel, to the point of being mentally crushed and physically drained, the need to produce, precisely because in short I have no other means, none, none, of ever recouping our outlay. I can do nothing about it if my paintings don’t sell. The day will come, though, when people will see that they’re worth more than the cost of the paint and my subsistence, very meagre in fact, that we put into them. I have no other wish nor other concern regarding money or finances than in the first place not to have debts. But my dear brother, my debt is so great that when I’ve paid it, which I think I’ll succeed in doing, the hardship of producing paintings will, however, have taken my entire life, and it will seem to me that I haven’t lived.
The only thing is that perhaps the production of paintings will become a little more difficult for me, and as far as the number goes, there won’t always be as many. The fact that they don’t sell now makes me anxious that you’re suffering too, but it would be of little concern to me if you didn’t become too hard up by my bringing nothing in. But in money matters it’s enough for me to feel this truth, that a man who lives for 50 years and spends two thousand a year spends a hundred thousand francs, and that he must bring a hundred thousand in, too. To make a thousand paintings at a hundred francs during one’s life as an artist is very, very, very hard, but when the painting is at a hundred francs...... and again.... our task is very heavy at times. But nothing about that can be altered. We’ll let Tasset down completely, probably, because to a large extent at least, we’ll use less expensive colours, both Gauguin and I. As for canvas, we’ll also prepare it ourselves. For a time I had the slight feeling that I was going to be ill, but Gauguin’s arrival has so taken my mind off it that I’m sure it will pass. I mustn’t neglect my diet for a while, and that’s all. And absolutely all.
And after a time you’ll have some work. Gauguin has brought a magnificent canvas that he exchanged with Bernard, Breton women in a green meadow. White, black, green and a red note, and the matt tones of the flesh. Anyway, let’s all be of good heart. I believe that the day will come when I’ll sell too, but I’m so far behind with you, and while I spend I bring nothing in. That feeling sometimes makes me sad. I’m very, very happy at what you write, that one of the Dutchmen will come and live with you, and that that way you won’t be alone any more, either. It’s perfectly, perfectly good, especially as we’ll soon have winter. Anyway, I’m in a hurry, and have to go out to get back to work on another no. thirty canvas. Soon, when Gauguin writes to you, I’ll add another letter to his. Of course, I don’t know in advance what Gauguin will say about this part of the world and about our life, but in any case he’s very happy with the good sale that you made for him.
More soon, and I shake your hand firmly.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Saturday, 27 or Sunday, 28 October 1888.
My dear Theo,
Thank you for your money order for 50 francs, which I’ve just received. I did know that Gauguin had travelled, but I didn’t know he was a real seaman; he’s been through all the difficulties, he was a real topman on the topmast and a real sailor. That gives me a tremendous respect for him, and an even more absolute confidence in his personality. He has — if he’s to be compared with something — links with those Icelandic fishermen of Loti’s. I believe that it’ll make the same impression on you as on me. Now we’ve done some work already, of course; he has a negress on the go, and a big landscape of this region. What he tells me about Brittany is very interesting, and Pont-Aven is a quite amazing part of the world. Of course, everything there is better, bigger, more beautiful than here. Of a more solemn character, and above all more of a whole and more defined than the small, stunted, scorched countryside of Provence. Be that as it may, he, like me, nevertheless likes what he sees, and is particularly intrigued by the Arlésiennes.
This week I did a new study of a sower; the landscape utterly flat, the figure small and blurred. Then I did another study of ploughed field with the stump of an old yew. Like this. And that’s all. How are you, and did you do anything in Brussels? I’m still very glad to know that you’re no longer alone in the apartment. My brain feels tired and dry again, but I’m better this week than the previous fortnight. What Gauguin has to say about the tropics seems wonderful to me. There, certainly, is the future of a great renaissance of painting. Just ask your new Dutch friends if they’ve ever thought how interesting it would be if a few Dutch painters were to found a colourist school in Java. If they heard Gauguin describe the hot countries they’d certainly feel like doing that straightaway. Not everyone is free and in a position to be able to emigrate. But what things there would be to do! I regret not being ten or twenty years younger; I’d certainly go. Now not very likely that I’ll move from the coast, and the little yellow house here in Arles will remain what it is, a halfway house between Africa and the tropics and the people of the north.
It’s now quite likely that Bernard will go to Africa, where he’ll be with Milliet, who greets you warmly and will leave on the 1st November. In the evening especially, with the gaslight, I like the look of the studio very much. If you ever find any more Daumiers, don’t forget to get your hands on them. And I believe that in the evening we’ll bring neighbours and friends here, and that in the evening we’ll work as in the daytime, chatting as we do so. Portraits of people lit by gaslight — that always seems to me a thing to do.
I shake your hand firmly, and write to us soon.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Monday, 29 October 1888.
My dear Theo,
As for ill, I already told you I didn’t think I was, but I would have become so if my expenses had had to continue. Since I was in a state of terrible anxiety about making you make an effort beyond your strength. On the one hand, I felt that I couldn’t do better than push to complete what we started, to urge Gauguin to join us, and on the other hand, as you may know from experience, when you furnish a house or move in, it’s the case that it’s more difficult than you think. Now I dare breathe at last, as we’ve all had a stroke of darned good fortune with the sale you were able to make for Gauguin. One way or another, all three of us, he, you and I, will still be able to pull ourselves together a bit, in order to calmly take in what we’ve just done. Have no fear that I may have money worries. Now that Gauguin has come, the goal has been achieved for the time being. By combining our expenses, he and I, the two of us won’t even spend what living here was costing me just on my own. He’ll even be able to put some money aside, the more he sells. Which, in a year, let’s say, he can use to settle in Martinique, and which he couldn’t put aside otherwise. You’ll have my work, and a painting by him in addition, every month. And I’ll do the same work without having so much trouble, and without running up so many expenses. But in the past it seemed to me that the partnership that we’ve just entered into was a good policy.
The house is going very, very well and is becoming not only comfortable but also an artists’ house. So have no fears for me, nor for yourself, either. I had, in fact, a terrible feeling of anxiety for you, because if Gauguin hadn’t had the same ideas, I would have caused you some rather heavy expenses for nothing. But Gauguin is astonishing as a man; he doesn’t get worked up, and he’ll wait here, very calmly, while at the same time working hard, for the right moment to take a huge step forward. He needed rest as much as I did. With the money that he’s just earned, he would have been able to pay for rest in Brittany, too, of course, but as things are now, he’s sure to be able to wait without falling into the inevitable debt again. We won’t spend more than 250 a month between the two of us. And will spend much less on paint, since we’re going to make it ourselves. So have no worries about us on your part, and catch your breath, too, which you’ll darned well need. For my part, I’d wish just to ask you too that I’m asking for no more than to continue at a very ordinary sum per month of 150 (and the same for Gauguin). Which in any case reduces my personal spending. While his paintings will certainly go up. Later, then, if you keep my paintings for yourself, either in Paris or here, I’ll be much happier to be able to say bluntly that you prefer to keep my work for us than to sell it, than to have to get involved in the struggle for money at this moment. Most certainly. Besides, if what I do is good, then we’ll lose nothing by it, in terms of money, because, like wine that you would have in the cellar, it would quietly ferment. On the other hand, it’s only fair that I give myself a little trouble to make a painting such that even from the point of view of the money, it was preferable that it should be on my canvas rather than in the tubes.
Now in closing I dare hope that in 6 months’ time Gauguin, you and I, we’ll see that we’ve founded a little studio that will last and that will continue to be an essential stopping-off point or station, useful at least to all those who’ll wish to see the south.
I shake your hand very firmly.
Ever yours, Vincent
I don’t yet know what Gauguin thinks about my decoration in general; I only know that there are some studies that he really does like, namely, the Sower, the Sunflowers, the Bedroom. And the whole thing, I don’t know anything about it myself yet, because I need more canvases of the other seasons. Gauguin has already just about found his Arlésienne, and I could wish that I too had got as far. But for my part, I find the landscape here very easily, and quite varied. So at last my little work potters along. I dare believe that you’ll like the new Sower. I’m writing in haste, we have heaps of work. He and I plan to go to the brothels a lot, but only to study them.
Arles, Monday, 19 November 1888.
My dear Theo,
Gauguin’s canvas, Breton Children, has arrived, and he’s altered it very, very well. But although I quite like this canvas, it’s all the better that it should be sold, since the two he’s going to send you from here are thirty times better. I’m speaking of the women picking grapes and the woman with the pigs. The reason for this is that G. is beginning to overcome his liver or stomach trouble that has bothered him lately. Now I’m writing to you in reply to what you were telling me, that you would frame a small canvas of a pink peach tree I think, to place it with those gentlemen. I don’t want to leave any doubt about what I think of that. First, if you yourself would like to place either a bad or good thing of mine there, my word if that will make you happier, then of course you have and will have carte blanche either now or later. But if, on the other hand, it’s either for my pleasure or for my own benefit, I’d be of the opinion that it’s completely unnecessary. If you were to ask me what would give me pleasure, it’s quite simply one single thing, that you keep for yourself what you like from what I do, in the apartment, and that you don’t sell any of it now. The rest, the stuff that gets in the way, send it to me here for this good reason, that everything I’ve done from nature is chestnuts pulled out of the fire. Gauguin, in spite of himself and in spite of me, has proved to me a little that it was time for me to vary things a bit – I’m beginning to compose from memory, and all my studies will still be useful to me for that work, as they remind me of former things I’ve seen. So what does selling any of it matter if we’re not absolutely pressed for money? For in addition, I’m sure even now that you’ll eventually see things that way.
As for you, you’re with the Goupils, but I certainly am not, after however working there for 6 years we were absolutely dissatisfied on both sides with everything, them with me, me with them. It’s an old story, but all the same that’s how it is. So continue on your way, but as far as the business is concerned it seems to me incompatible with my previous behaviour to come back there with a canvas of such innocence as this little peach tree or some other thing like it. No. If in a year or two I have enough to make an exhibition of my own, let’s say thirty or so no. thirty canvases — And if I said to them, will you do it for me, Boussod would certainly send me packing. Knowing them alas a little too well, I think that I won’t approach them. Not that I’d ever try to ruin anything, on the contrary, you must admit that I urge on all the others there zealously. But as for me, my word I have an old grudge against them. Be sure and certain that I consider you, as a seller of Impressionist paintings, to be very independent of the Goupils, that it will therefore always be a pleasure for me to urge artists to go there. But I don’t want Boussod ever to have a chance to say ‘this little canvas isn’t too bad for this young beginner’, as if never before... On the contrary, I won’t come back to them, I’d prefer never to sell than to enter into it other than very straightforwardly. Now they’re not people to act straightforwardly, so it isn’t worth beginning again. Be assured that the more clear-cut we are about this the more they’ll come to you to see them. You don’t sell them, so in showing my work you aren’t trading outside the firm of Boussod, V. & Cie. Thus you’re acting honestly, and that’s worthy of respect. If one or the other wants to buy however, fine, all they have to do is approach me directly. But be sure of this: if we can withstand the siege my day will come. I cannot and must not at this moment do anything other than work. One thing however perhaps, I’m going to reply to Jet Mauve, tell her a whole heap of things about Gauguin &c. &c., send her some croquis, and indirectly Tersteeg will prick up his ears again.
Gauguin and I often talk about the need to hold exhibitions in London, and perhaps we’ll send you a letter for Tersteeg to read. The thing is, should Tersteeg have an energetic successor — that day is approaching — the latter won’t be able to work with anything but new paintings. Handshake — we’ll need some more colours. I must also tell you that the month with the two of us together is going better on 150 each than I did on 250 just for myself. At the end of a year you’ll notice that this is working after all. I can’t say anything more yet. I rather regret having the room full of canvases and having nothing to send when Gauguin sends his. The thing is, regarding the impasto things, Gauguin has told me how to get rid of the grease by washing them from time to time. What’s more, when that’s done I must work on them again to retouch them. If I sent you any of them now, their colour would be duller than it will be later. They all think that what I’ve sent was done too hastily. I wouldn’t deny it, and I’ll make certain changes. It does me enormous good to have company as intelligent as Gauguin and to see him work. You’ll see that certain people are going to reproach G. for no longer doing Impressionism. His two latest canvases which you’re going to see are very firm in the impasto, there’s even some work with the knife in them. And that will put his Breton canvases into the shade a little, not all, but some of them. I hardly have the time to write, otherwise I’d already have written to those Dutchmen.
I’ve had a letter from Boch, you know that Belgian who has a sister in the Vingtistes. He’s enjoying working up there. I really hope that we’ll always remain friends with Gauguin, and in business with him, and if he succeeds in setting up a tropical studio that would be magnificent. But that will take more money by my calculations than by his. Guillaumin has written to Gauguin, he seems very hard up but must have done some fine work. He has a child now, but he was terrified by the confinement and says he’ll always have ‘the red vision’ of it before his eyes. Only Gauguin has replied to him very well, saying that he, G., had seen it 6 times. Jet Mauve is in much better health, and as you perhaps know has been living in The Hague since last August, near the Jewish cemetery, so almost in the country. You won’t lose anything by waiting a little while for my work, and we’ll calmly leave our dear pals to scorn the present ones. Fortunately for me I know what I want better than they believe and am, basically, extremely indifferent to the criticism of working hurriedly. In reply I’ve produced work these last few days even more hurriedly. Gauguin was telling me the other day — that he’d seen a painting by Claude Monet of sunflowers in a large Japanese vase, very fine. But — he likes mine better. I’m not of that opinion — only don’t think that I’m weakening. I regret as always, as you know, the scarcity of models, the thousand obstacles to overcome that difficulty. If I were a completely different man and if I were wealthier I could force it, at present I’m not giving up and am plodding on quietly. If at the age of forty I do a painting of figures like the flowers Gauguin was talking about I’ll have a position as an artist alongside anything. So, perseverance. In the meantime I can tell you anyway that the last two studies are rather funny. No. 30 canvases, a wooden and straw chair all yellow on red tiles against a wall (daytime). Then Gauguin’s armchair, red and green, night effect, on the seat two novels and a candle. On sailcloth in thick impasto. What I say about sending back studies, there’s no hurry at all, and I’m referring to the bad ones which, however, will serve me as documents — or those that are cluttering up your apartment. As to what I say in general about the studies, I’m set on just one thing: that the position is quite clear. Don’t trade on my behalf outside the firm; as for me, either I’ll never return to the Goupils, which is more than likely, or I’ll return straightforwardly, which is quite impossible.
One more handshake, and thanks for everything you’re doing for me.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles, Wednesday, 21 November 1888.
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your kind letter and for the 100-franc note it contained. Am very happy that Gauguin’s success as regards selling continues. If in a year’s time he could have made enough to carry out his plan of going and setting himself up in Martinique, I’d think that his fortune would be made. Only, to my mind he shouldn’t risk going back there before he has 5 thousand put aside, according to him he would need 2,000. But then to my mind he wouldn’t leave alone but with one other or several others, and would found a lasting studio there. Anyhow, a lot more water will flow under the bridge before then. What you write about the Dutchmen interests me greatly. I hope one day to get to know both of them personally. How old are they? I dare to believe that in the final reckoning they’ll feel their coming to France was a good thing. The trouble they’re having with colour — my goodness — that doesn’t surprise me. May De Haan never lose touch with the serious study of Rembrandt, to which the two drawings of his that I’m currently looking at testify! Have they read Silvestre’s book on E. Delacroix, and the article on colour in C. Blanc’s Grammaire des arts du dessin? So ask them that on my behalf, and if they haven’t read it they should.
As for me, I think more about Rembrandt than may appear from my studies. Here’s a croquis of the latest canvas I’m working on, another sower. Immense lemon yellow disc for the sun. Green-yellow sky with pink clouds. The field is violet, the sower and the tree Prussian Blue. No. 30 canvas. Let’s calmly wait to exhibit until I have around thirty no. 30 canvases. Then we’ll exhibit them once in your apartment for the friends, and not exerting any pressure even then. And let’s not do anything else. There are lots of reasons for not stirring now. Besides, it won’t take long, I think I’ll be able to send it to you at the time of the exhibition or a little later. In the meantime it will dry thoroughly here, and I can go over all the canvases again once they’re thoroughly dry, even the impasted areas. If at the age of forty I do a painting of figures or portraits the way I feel it, I think that will be worth more than a more or less serious success now.
Have you seen the studies that Bernard brought back from Brittany? Gauguin has told me many things about them. He himself has one which is simply masterly. I think that buying one from him, from Bernard, would be doing him a service, and that he really deserves it. Only we mustn’t forget that either at New Year or in March, Gauguin will have to be repaid the money he may have laid out, for example for sheets or things that would remain in the studio. For on both sides I think we’ll find it best to change nothing, absolutely nothing, in the financial arrangement we’ve established. If at the end of a year we continue to find it satisfactory, time will tell. Gauguin’s working on a very beautiful painting of washerwomen, and also a big still life of an orange pumpkin and some apples and white linen on a yellow background and foreground. The weather here is cold, but we see some really beautiful things all the same. Such as yesterday evening, a sickly lemon yellow sunset, mysterious, of extraordinary beauty — Prussian blue cypresses, trees with dead leaves in every broken tone against that, not half bad. You couldn’t imagine how pleased I am that you have painters with you and aren’t staying alone in the apartment, just as I too am very pleased to have such good company as Gauguin’s.
More soon, and thanks once again for your kind letter.
Ever yours, Vincent
Arles 18 December 1888
My dear Theo,
Yesterday Gauguin and I went to Montpellier to see the museum there, and especially the Bruyas room — there are many portraits of Bruyas, by Delacroix, by Ricard, by Courbet, by Cabanel, by Couture, by Verdier, by Tassaert, by others too. After that there are paintings by Delacroix, Courbet, Giotto, Paul Potter, Botticelli, T. Rousseau, very fine.
Bruyas was a benefactor to artists, and this is all I’ll say to you: in the Delacroix portrait, he’s a gentleman with a beard, red hair, who looks damnably like you or me, and who made me think of that poem by Musset... everywhere I touched the earth, an unfortunate man dressed in black came to sit beside us, a man who looked at us like a brother. It would have the same effect on you, I’m sure.
I’d really ask you to go and see, at that bookshop where they sell lithographs of ancient and modern artists, if you could manage to get the lithograph after Delacroix’s ‘Tasso in the madhouse’ without great expense, since it would seem to me that this figure (by Delacroix) must have some relationship to this fine Bruyas portrait.
They have other Delacroixs there, a study of a mulatto woman (which Gauguin once copied), the Odalisques, Daniel in the lions’ den.
By Courbet, first, The village girls, magnificent, a nude woman seen from the back, another on the ground, in a landscape. Second, The woman spinning (superb), and a whole load more Courbets. Anyway, you must know that this collection exists, or else know people who have seen it, and consequently be able to talk about it. So I shan’t insist on the museum (except for the Barye drawings and bronzes!)
Gauguin and I talk a lot about Delacroix, Rembrandt &c.
The discussion is excessively electric. We sometimes emerge from it with tired minds, like an electric battery after it’s run down.
We’ve been right in the midst of magic, for as Fromentin says so well, Rembrandt is above all a magician and Delacroix a man of God, of God’s thunder and bugger off in the name of God.
I’m writing this to you with reference to our friends, the Dutchmen De Haan and Isaäcson, who have so sought and loved Rembrandt, in order to encourage you to pursue the researches.
One mustn’t get discouraged about that. You know the strange and superb portrait of a man by Rembrandt at the La Caze gallery, I told Gauguin that, for me, I saw in it a certain family or racial resemblance to Delacroix, or to him, Gauguin.
I don’t know why, but I always call that portrait ‘the traveller’ or ‘the man coming from far away’.
That’s an equivalent and parallel idea to what I’ve already told you, always to look at the portrait of old Six. The fine portrait with the glove for your future, and the Rembrandt etching, Six reading by a window in a ray of sunlight, for your past and your present.
That’s the stage we’re at.
Gauguin said to me this morning, when I asked him how he felt: ‘that he could feel his old self coming back’, which gave me great pleasure.
As for me, coming here last winter, tired and almost fainting mentally, I too suffered a little inside before I was able to begin to remake myself.
How I’d like you to see that museum in Montpellier some day, there are some really beautiful things there!
Say so to Degas, that Gauguin and I have been to see the portrait of Bruyas by Delacroix at Montpellier, for we must boldly believe that what is, is, and the portrait of Bruyas by Delacroix resembles you and me like a new brother.
As regards setting up a life with painters as pals, you see such odd things and I’ll end with what you always say, time will tell.
You can tell all this to our friends Isaäcson and De Haan, and even boldly read them this letter, I would already have written to them if I’d felt the necessary electric force.
On behalf of Gauguin as well as myself, a good, hearty handshake to you all.
Ever yours,
Vincent
If you think that Gauguin or I have a facility in our work, the work isn’t always accommodating. And for the Dutchmen not to get discouraged in their difficulties any more than we do, that’s what I wish for them, and for you too.
Arles 9 Janurary 1889
My dear Theo,
Even before receiving (this very moment) your kind letter, I received a letter from your fiancée this morning announcing the engagement. So I’ve already replied to her with my sincere congratulations, as I repeat them here to you.
My fear that my indisposition might prevent your very necessary journey, which I’ve hoped for so much and for so long — now that this fear has disappeared I feel completely normal.
This morning I went to the hospital again to have my wound dressed, and walked for an hour and a half with the house physician, and we talked a little about everything, even natural history.
What you tell me about Gauguin gives me enormous pleasure, that’s to say that he hasn’t abandoned his plan to return to the tropics. That’s the right path for him. I think I can see clearly into his plan, and I approve of it with all my heart. Naturally I have regrets about it, but you can understand that provided it goes well for him that’s all I need.
If you can do so, talk a little to C.M. about the future of his business and the fact that his son can continue it, provided C.M. himself does his full duty as regards listening to you and putting you and his son together. All the same C.M. must wish that the firm he founded continues — hasn’t he introduced into Holland the very artists who were not with the Goupils, &c. &c.?
Then Tersteeg must admit the Impressionists, or at least believe in E. Delacroix, and then Tersteeg and you joining hands would be a great force that Boussod would have to reckon with.
What is the 89 exhibition going to be?
Don’t forget The anatomy lesson for Mr Rey. He had already told me before this morning that he likes painting, although he knows little about it, and that he would like to learn. I told him that he should become an art lover but that he shouldn’t try to do painting himself. This means that perhaps we’ll find 2 doctor friends here, Rey and the Parisian doctor I spoke to you about before.
I told them that Bruyas of Montpellier shares a certain family characteristic with the two of us, and that we’re therefore simply continuing what Monticelli and Bruyas began in the south.
When I came out of the hospital I had quite a few things to pay, and while they aren’t at all urgent for a few days, I’d be pleased if you could send me about fifty francs within the next few days.
The mistake in pal Gauguin’s calculations was, in my opinion, that he’s a little too accustomed to closing his eyes to the inevitable expenses of house rental, charwoman and a whole heap of earthly things of that kind. Now, all these things weigh a little heavily on the shoulders of the two of us. But once we bear them, other artists could lodge with me without having those costs.
I’ve just been told that in my absence the owner of my house here apparently made a contract with a fellow who has a tobacco shop, to turn me out and give him, the tobacconist, the house.
That worries me a little, for I’m not much inclined to have myself turned out of this house almost shamefully when it was I who had it repainted inside and out and had gas put in &c., in short who made habitable a house that had been locked up and uninhabited for quite a long time, and which I took on in very poor condition. This is to warn you that perhaps at Easter, for example, if the owner persists, I’ll ask you for advice about it, and that in all of this I consider myself merely an agent, defending the interests of our artist friends.
Besides, it’s more than likely that water will flow under the bridge between now and then. And the main thing is not to worry about it.
Has Bernard returned the Silvestre book to you yet? I’ll need the exact title to get those doctors to read this book.
Physically I am well, the wound is closing very well and the great loss of blood is balancing out, since I’m eating and digesting well. The most fearsome thing is the insomnia, and the doctor didn’t talk to me about it, nor have I spoken to him about it yet. But I’m fighting it myself.
I’m fighting this insomnia with a very, very strong dose of camphor in my pillow and my mattress, and I recommend it to you if you ever have trouble sleeping. I was very fearful of sleeping alone in the house, and I felt anxious that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but it went very well and I dare to believe that it won’t recur.
My suffering in that way in the hospital was appalling, and yet in the midst of it all, though I was more than insensible, I can tell you as a curiosity that I kept thinking about Degas.
Gauguin and I had talked about Degas before, and I pointed out to Gauguin that Degas had said this:... ‘I’m saving myself for the Arlésiennes.’
Now, you who know how subtle Degas is, once you’re back in Paris, tell Degas that I admit to you that up until now I’ve been powerless to paint them as other than poisonous, the women of Arles, and that he mustn’t believe Gauguin if Gauguin says good things too soon about my work, which has only been done under the influence of illness.
Now, if I recover I must start again, and I can’t again attain those peaks to which sickness imperfectly led me.
I would very much have liked to give another painting to Rivet precisely because I wholly agree with you that it would be good to put Mr Rey in touch with Rivet.
But you could indeed tell Rivet that it would be good to send Mr Rey back here to the hospital with the doctor’s qualification he’s going to try and get. He’s very, very useful here, and we’ll darned well be in need of doctors again here in Arles in days to come, as long as cholera and the plague &c. continue to menace the area around Marseille. Now Rey was born here and would be worthless in Paris or elsewhere, while once he was armed with the full medical power of Paris,
he could perform real miracles here in a time of calamity.
Of course we have no right to get involved in the question of medicine, only Rivet himself will perhaps be of the same opinion as regards the feeling that an Arlesian isn’t a Parisian and vice versa.
Did you pass through Breda, I’m naturally inclined to think so. Above all, reassure Mother about me.
Have you seen the portrait of me that Gauguin has, and have you seen the portrait that Gauguin did of himself during those final days?
If you were to compare this portrait which Gauguin did of himself then with the one I still have of him, which he sent to me from Brittany in exchange for mine, you would see that all in all he grew more serene here, personally.
What have De Haan and Isaäcson been doing? I had vaguely hoped to see them here one day had Gauguin himself stayed longer with me, and with a view to that I’d even rented two little rooms which were coming vacant in the house which I currently have the whole of (the rent is 21.50 francs a month). I daren’t press the point any more, seeing as Gauguin has gone, especially when one considers that the journey to the south costs quite a lot. Anyway, give them my kind regards when you see them again.
Roulin sends his warm regards, he was very pleased with what you said about him in your letter today, and besides, he amply deserves it.
Handshake, and naturally you’ll feel how much I wish you good days with your fiancée.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Warm regards to André Bonger if he’s there too.
Arles 19 January 1889
My dear Theo,
I must write you another line today. Yesterday they also presented the gas bill for ten francs (or 9.90), which I also paid.
That, added to the accounts I did for you in my previous letter, reduces to very, very little what I have left of the 50franc note to feed myself. If you can, send me a bit more, I’ve explained everything about it clearly enough, I hope.
I’m still very weak, and I’ll have difficulty in regaining my strength if the cold continues. Rey will give me some quinine wine, which I dare believe will have some effect.
I would have a lot more things to say to you in response to your letter, but I have a painting on the easel and am in a hurry.
You hadn’t told me yet, before now, that André Bonger was married. It can’t be very jolly when he complains about the high cost of running a home. Jo Bonger wrote me a line in response to the fact that I had congratulated her, that’s very kind of her. It has always seemed to me that you owed it to your social position and to the one you have in the family to marry, and it has been Mother’s wish for years.
And by doing thus what you must do, you’ll perhaps have more tranquillity than before, even amidst a thousandandone difficulties.
However, life isn’t easy for me either.
What wouldn’t I have given to be able to spend a day here with you and to show you the work in progress and the house, &c. &c.
Now I would prefer that you hadn’t yet seen anything of what I have here than to leave with an impression of it in such distressing conditions. Ah well.
What is Guillaumin doing? You know he has a son now.
Bernard is being pestered more and more by his father, it’s becoming even more of a hell in that house.
And the worst is that there isn’t much one can do about it, as soon as you put your hand in there you put it into a real wasps’ nest.
They’re now going to try, Gauguin and Bernard, to exempt Bernard from military service because of narrowness (?) of the chest. Good — but it would be a thousand times better for him if he did his service straightforwardly in Algeria with Milliet.
I’m becoming ridiculous as regards Milliet, because the latter constantly asks me for news about it.
Roulin is on the point of leaving. His salary here was 135 francs a month, to raise 3 children with that and live on it, himself and his wife! You can imagine what that was like. And that isn’t all, the pay rise is a remedy worse than the ill itself... What a civil service. And in what times we live. I’ve rarely seen a man of Roulin’s stamp, there’s an enormous amount of Socrates in him, ugly as a satyr as Michelet said... until on the last day a god was to be seen there, by whom the Parthenon was illuminated, &c. &c. If Chatrian, whom you met, had seen that man...
Write to me at once at once. Please, because what you sent was really not entirely sufficient, as I’ve tried to explain to you with absolute clarity.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
I forget to say that yesterday I had a letter from Gauguin, still about the fencing masks and gloves. Full of varying and varied plans. And already he sees the end of his money on the horizon.
Naturally...
He already fears not being able to go to Brussels for that reason. And after that, if he can’t even go to Brussels, how will he go to Denmark and to the tropics?
The best thing he could still do and the very one which he won’t do. That would be quite simply to return here.
Anyway, we haven’t got to that yet, for he doesn’t yet tell me that he glimpses penury on the horizon, only it’s more than readable between the lines.
He’s still at the Schuffeneckers’ temporarily, and is going to do portraits of the entire family. So he still has time to think things over.
I haven’t replied to him yet. What is fortunately certain is that I dare believe that at heart Gauguin and I like each other enough as characters to be able to start over again together if necessary.
It gives me great pleasure that you haven’t forgotten The anatomy lesson for Mr Rey. Later I myself will always have need of a doctor from time to time, and precisely because he knows me well now would be one more reason for me to remain quietly here.
I’ll write to you again soon, but as for the monthly money, draw your own conclusions; I won’t spend more net than any other month.
Arles 30 January 1889
My dear Theo,
Although I have nothing very, very unexpected to tell you I still want to let you know that last Monday I saw our friend Roulin again. There was good reason for it too — the whole of France having shivered. Certainly in our own eyes the election and its results and its representatives are only symbols. But one thing that has been proved once again is that worldly ambitions and glories pass — but that up to now the beating of the human heart remains the same and as much in touch with the past of our buried fathers as with the generation to come.
This morning I had a very friendly letter from Gauguin to which I replied without delay. When Roulin came I had just finished the repetition of my sunflowers, and I showed him the two examples of the Berceuse between these four bouquets.
Roulin sends you his warm regards.
On Sunday in Marseille he was present at the crowd’s demonstration when the election result was telegraphed from Paris.
Like Paris, Marseille was moved to the very depth of the depths of the souls of the common people, all together and taciturn. Ah well, who will now dare order any cannon, machine gun or Lebel rifle to fire when so many hearts have been given in advance to serve as stoppers for the cannons?
All the more so since certainly the victorious politicians of this great day today, Rochefort and Boulanger, are with one common accord more ambitious for the cemetery than for any throne.
Anyhow, that was our interpretation of the event, not just Roulin’s and mine but that of many others. We were very moved all the same. Roulin told me that he almost wept when he saw that silent Marseille crowd, and that he hadn’t recovered his composure until he turned round and saw some very, very old friends, who hesitated to recognize him, by sheer chance. They then went off to have supper together until late into the night.
Although he was very tired he wasn’t able to resist the desire to come to Arles to see his family again and, almost falling over with tiredness and very pale, he came to shake our hands. I could just show him the two examples of the portrait of his wife, which pleased him.
From what people tell me I’m very obviously looking better; on the inside my heart is a little too full of so many diverse emotions and hopes, for it astonishes me that I’m getting better.
Everyone here is good towards me, the neighbours &c., good and attentive as in one’s native country.
I know already that several people here would ask me for portraits if they dared ask for them. As Roulin, poor povertystricken devil and lowly employee as he is, is held in very, very great esteem here, people found out that I had done all his family.
My dear brother, in times to come we may indeed fall into suffering again, into errors, into misfortune, I don’t deny it.
But we’ll always have worked in this 89 here with the French we love so much, as on their side, too, they make us feel the fatherland.
Now we have experienced that, at any rate.
Don’t talk to your fiancée about this matter between us, leave me as I’ve asked you, to work until the last day of March. And from now until then I’ll have done a few Impressionist canvases, come on. Today I started work on a third Berceuse. I do know that it’s neither drawn nor painted as correctly as a Bouguereau, which I almost regret, as I seriously have the desire to be correct — but although it isn’t therefore fated to be a Cabanel or a Bouguereau, I yet hope that it’s French.
The weather today has been magnificent with no wind, and I wanted so much to work that I’m astonished by it, as I hadn’t expected it any more.
I’ll end this letter like the one to Gauguin by telling you that there are indeed still signs of the previous overexcitement in my words, but that there’s nothing surprising about that, since in this good Tarascon country everyone is a touch cracked.
Good handshake, to De Haan and Isaäcson as well.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’ll expect your letter as early as possible after 1 February.
Arles 3 February 1889
My dear Theo,
I would have preferred to reply to you immediately about the very kind letter containing 100 francs, but as I was very tired at that precise moment, and as the doctor had absolutely ordered me to go for walks without mental work, because of that it’s only today that I write to you. As for work, the month hasn’t been bad after all, and the work distracts me, or rather keeps me in order, so I don’t deprive myself of it.
I’ve done the Berceuse three times, now since Mrs Roulin was the model and I was only the painter, I let her choose between the three, her and her husband, only on condition that I’d do a repetition for myself of the one she took, which I’m working on at present.
You ask me if I’ve read Mistral’s Mireille – I’m like you, I can only read it in fragments of the translation. But have you heard it yet, for perhaps you know that Gounod has set it to music. I think so anyway. Naturally I don’t know this music, and even if I was listening to it I would rather be looking at the musicians than listening.
But I can tell you this, that the original language from here in words sounds so musical in the mouths of the Arlésiennes that my word yes, from time to time I catch fragments of it.
Perhaps in the Berceuse there’s an attempt at a little music of colour from here, it’s badly painted, and chromos bought at the penny bazaar are infinitely better painted technically, but all the same.
Here – the socalled good town of Arles is a funny place which for good reasons friend Gauguin calls the filthiest place in the south.
Now Rivet, if he saw the population, would certainly be sorry at times, saying over and over, ‘you’re all sick’ – as he says of us. But if you catch the local sickness, my word, afterwards you won’t be able to catch it again.
This is to tell you that as for myself, I don’t have any illusions. It’s going very, very well and I’ll do everything that the doctor says but...
When I came out of the hospital with good Roulin I fancied that I hadn’t had anything, only afterwards did I have the feeling that I’d been ill. What can you say, I have moments when I’m twisted by enthusiasm or madness or prophecy like a Greek oracle on her tripod.
Then I have a great presence of mind in words and talk like the Arlésiennes, but I feel so weak with all that. Especially when my physical powers return. But I’ve already told Rey that at the slightest serious symptom I’d come back and then subject myself to the alienist doctors of Aix or to himself.
What else can it do to us but bad things, and only cause us pain, you and me, if we aren’t well.
Our ambition has sunk so low. So let’s work very calmly, look after ourselves as much as we can and not wear ourselves out in sterile efforts at reciprocal generosity.
You’ll do your duty and I’ll do mine, as far as that’s concerned both of us have already paid for it other than in words and, at the end of the road, possibly we’ll see each other calmly again. But myself, whereas in my delirium all things I love so much are in turmoil, I can’t accept that as reality and am not acting the false prophet.
Sickness or mortality, my word, that doesn’t surprise me, but ambition isn’t compatible, fortunately for us, with the professions we follow.
Besides, there are so many people who think this way, in several categories of society, from the highest to the lowest.
But how come that you’re thinking about the little clauses of marriage and the possibility of dying at this moment, wouldn’t you have done better quite simply to have screwed your wife in advance? Anyway, that’s part of the customs of the north, and I’m not the one to say they don’t have good customs in the north.
It will come back, really.
But as for me without a sou, in this case I still say that money is one kind of currency and painting another. And I’m already able to send you a consignment in the sense mentioned in the previous writings. But it will get bigger if my strength comes back to me.
So I would like only, should Gauguin, who has a complete infatuation with my sunflowers, take these two paintings from me, that he gives your fiancée or you two of his paintings, not mediocre ones but better than mediocre. And if he takes a version of the Berceuse all the more reason why he should also give something good on his part.
Without that I couldn’t complete this series I was telling you about, which must be able to go into the same little shop window we’ve looked into so often.
The value of a painting in a case like this doesn’t come into it and I declare that I’m no expert. It remains that my social position may be as dear to me as yours as a good employee is to you.
And let me say just this, I attach as much importance as you do to a brotherly honesty as regards Boussod’s money. We have never served it ill. And we’ve worn ourselves out too much to do the right thing to be able to get angry at being called thieves or incompetents, what’s more, I won’t go on about it.
For the Independents, it seems to me that six paintings is too many by half. To my taste the harvest and the white orchard are enough, with the little Provençal girl or the sower if you want. But it’s all the same to me. I just really want one day to give you a more consolatory impression in our trade of painting in which we work, by means of a collection of around 30 more serious studies.
In any case, that will prove to our real friends like Gauguin, Guillaumin, Bernard &c. that we’re engaged in the work of production.
Ah well, as for the little yellow house, when I paid my rent the landlord’s agent was very nice and behaved like an Arlesian, treating me as an equal.
So I told him that I had no need of a lease, nor of a written statement of intent, preferably in writing, and that in the case of illness I would only pay by friendly agreement.
Here the people have their hearts in the right place, and a spoken word is more binding than a written one. So I’m keeping the house for the time being, since I need to feel at home here for the sake of my mental recovery.
Now as regards your move from rue Lepic to rue Rodier I can’t have an opinion, not having seen it, but the main thing is precisely that you also lunch at home with your wife. By staying in Montmartre you’ll be decorated and Minister for Fine Arts more quickly, but as you don’t much care about that it’s better to have tranquillity at home, so I think you’re completely right.
I too am a little like that – to the local people who ask after my health I always say that I’ll begin by dying of it with them and that afterwards my sickness will be dead.
That doesn’t mean to say that I won’t have considerable periods of respite.
But once you’re seriously ill you well know that you can’t catch the sickness twice, being healthy or sick is the same thing as being young or old.
Only be well aware of the fact that like you, I’m doing what the doctor tells me as much as I can. And that I consider that as a part of the work and the duty one has to carry out.
I must say this, that the neighbours &c. are particularly kind towards me, everyone here suffering either from fever or hallucinations or madness, we get along like members of the same family.
Yesterday I went back to see the girl I went to when I went out of my mind. I was told there that things like that aren’t at all surprising around here. She had suffered from it and had fainted but had regained her composure. And what’s more, people say good things of her.
But as to considering myself completely healthy, we shouldn’t do it.
The local people who are ill like me indeed tell me the truth. You can live to be old or young, but you’ll always have moments when you lose your head.
So I don’t ask you to say of me that there’s nothing wrong with me, or won’t be.
Only the Ricord of that is probably Raspail. I haven’t yet had the local fevers, and I could still catch them too. But here they’re already wellversed in all that at the hospital, and so from the moment when you have no false shame and say frankly what you feel, you can’t go wrong.
I’m closing this letter for this evening, with good handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Arles 18 February 1889
My dear Theo,
As long as my mind was so out of sorts it would have been fruitless to try and write to you to reply to your kind letter. Today I’ve just returned home for the time being, I hope for good. There are so many moments when I feel completely normal, and actually it would seem to me that, if what I have is only a sickness peculiar to this area, I should wait quietly here until it’s over. Even if it were to happen again (which, let’s say, won’t be the case).
But here is what I’m saying once and for all to you and to Mr Rey. If sooner or later it were desirable that I should go to Aix, as has already been suggested – I consent in advance and will submit to it.
But in my capacity as painter and workman it isn’t permissible for anyone, not even you or the doctor, to take such a course of action without warning me and consulting me myself about it too, because as up to now I’ve always kept my relative presence of mind for my work, it’s my right to say then
(or at least to have an opinion on) what would be best, to keep my studio here or to move completely to Aix. That in order to avoid the expenses and the losses of a move as much as possible, and not to do it except in the event of an absolute emergency.
It appears that the people around here have a legend that makes them afraid of painting and that people talked about that in the town. Good. As for me, I know that it’s the same thing in Arabia, and yet we have heaps of painters in Africa, don’t we? Which proves that with a little firmness one can alter these prejudices, or at least do one’s painting all the same. The unfortunate thing is that I’m rather inclined to be impressed, to feel the beliefs of other people myself and not always to laugh at the foundation of truth that there may be in the absurd.
Besides, Gauguin is like that too, as you were able to observe, and was himself also tired out at the time of his stay by some malaise or other.
As I’ve already been staying here for more than a year, and have heard people say pretty much all the bad things possible about me, about Gauguin, about painting in general, why shouldn’t I take things as they are and wait for the outcome here.
Where can I go that’s worse than where I’ve already been twice – the isolation cell. The advantages that I have here are, as Rivet would say – first – ‘they’re all sick’ here, and so at least I don’t feel alone.
Then, as you well know, I love Arles so much, although Gauguin is darned right to call it the filthiest town in all of the south.
And I’ve found so much friendship already from the neighbours, from Mr Rey, from everyone at the hospital for that matter, that really I’d prefer to be always ill here than to forget the kindness there is in the same people who have the most incredible prejudices towards painters and painting, or in any case have no clear and healthy idea whatsoever about it as we do.
Then at the hospital they know me now, and if this were to come on again it would pass in silence, and at the hospital they’d know what to do. I have absolutely no desire to be treated by other doctors, nor do I feel the need for it.
The only desire I might have is to be able to continue to earn with my own hands what I spend.
Koning has written me a very kind letter, saying that he and a friend would probably come to the south with me for a long time. That in response to a letter I wrote him a few days ago. I no longer dare to urge painters to come here after what has happened to me, they run the risk of losing their heads like me. The same thing for De Haan and Isaäcson.
Let them go to Antibes, Nice, Menton, it’s perhaps healthier.
Mother and our sister also wrote to me, the latter was very upset about the sick woman she was caring for. At home they’re very pleased about your marriage.
Be well aware that you mustn’t preoccupy yourself with me too much, nor fret yourself.
It must probably run its course, and we couldn’t change very much about our fate with precautions.
Once again, let’s try to seize our fate in whatever form it comes. Our sister wrote to me that your fiancée would come to stay with them for a while. That is well done. Ah well, I shake your hand most heartily, and let us not be discouraged. Believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
Warm regards to Gauguin, I hope he’s going to write to me, I’ll write to him too.
Address next letter place Lamartine.
Arles 30 April 1889
My dear Theo,
On the occasion of the first of May I wish you not too bad a year, and above all good health.
How I’d like to be able to pass on some physical strength to you, I have a feeling of having too much of it at the moment. Which doesn’t prevent my mind from not yet being at all what it ought to be.
How right Delacroix was, who lived on bread and wine alone, and who succeeded in finding a way of life in harmony with his profession. But the inevitable question of money always remains – Delacroix had a private income. Corot too.
And Millet – Millet was a peasant and the son of a peasant. You’ll perhaps read with some interest the article I’m cutting out of a Marseille newspaper, because in it one glimpses Monticelli, and I find the description of the painting of a corner of the cemetery extremely interesting. But alas, it’s another stilllamentable story.
How sad it is to think that a painter who succeeds, even half succeeds, in his turn pulls along half a dozen artists who are even greater failures than himself.
However, think of Pangloss, think of Bouvard and Pécuchet, I know, then even that can be explained, but those people perhaps don’t know Pangloss, or else one forgets everything one knows about him under the inevitable bite of real despairs and great pains.
And what’s more, under the name of optimism we fall back into a religion which to me has the look of being the rear end of a kind of Buddhism. Nothing bad about that, quite the opposite, if you like.
I don’t much like the article on Monet in Le Figaro, how much better that other article in Le 19ième Siècle was! There one saw the paintings, and this one contains only banalities that make me melancholy.
Today I’m packing up a crate of paintings and studies.
There’s one which is flaking, onto which I’ve stuck newspapers – it’s one of the best and I think that when you look at it you’ll see more clearly what my studio, now foundered, could have been. This study, as well as a few others, was spoiled by damp during my illness.
The water from a flood rose up to a few feet from the house and, more importantly, when I came back water and saltpetre were oozing from the walls because the house had been without a fire during my absence.
That had an effect on me, not only the studio having foundered, but even the studies which would have been the memories of it damaged, it’s so final, and my urge to found something very simple but durable was so strong. It was fighting against insurmountable odds, or rather it was weakness of character on my part, for I still have feelings of grave remorse difficult to define. I think that was the cause of my crying out so much during the crises, that I wanted to defend myself and could no longer manage to. For it wasn’t for me, it was for the very painters like the unfortunate one spoken of in the enclosed article that this studio could have been of use.
Anyway, there have been more than us before, Bruyas in Montpellier gave an entire fortune to it and an entire existence and without the least apparent result.
Yes – a cold room in a municipal museum where one sees a deeply saddened face and lots of fine paintings, where certainly one is moved, but alas moved as in a cemetery.
However, it would be difficult for one to walk in a cemetery demonstrating more clearly the existence of that Hope that Puvis de Chavannes painted.
The paintings fade like flowers – thus even some Delacroixs had suffered, the magnificent Daniel, the Odalisques (quite different from those in the Louvre, it was in a single purplish range), but how that impressed me, those paintings that were fading there, little understood, it’s true, by the majority of visitors who look at Courbet and Cabanel and Victor Giraud &c.
What are we, we painters? Well, I think that Richepin is often right, for example, when going at it pointblank he simply sends them back to the madhouse in his blasphemies.
Now, though, I assure you that I know no hospital where one would want to take me for nothing, even supposing that I would take upon myself the expenses of my painting and would leave all my work to the hospital.
And that is perhaps, I don’t say a great but anyway a small injustice. I would be resigned if I thought that. If I was without your friendship I would be sent back without remorse to suicide, and however cowardly I am, I would end up going there. There, as you will see I hope, is the point where we’re permitted to protest against society and to defend ourselves.
You can be reasonably sure that the Marseille artist who committed suicide did not at all commit suicide from drinking absinthe, for the simple reason that nobody will have offered him any and that he wouldn’t have had
the means to buy any. Besides, it won’t have been solely for his pleasure that he drank, but because being ill already he kept himself going that way.
Mr Salles has been to StRémy – they don’t want to allow me painting outside the establishment, nor to take me for less than 100 francs.
So this information is bad indeed. If I could get out of it by enlisting for 5 years in the Foreign Legion, I think I’d prefer that.
For on the one hand being locked up, not working I would recover with difficulty, on the other hand we’d be made to pay 100 francs a month all through a madman’s long life.
It’s serious, and what can one do, let’s think about it. But will they want to take me on as a soldier? I feel very tired by the conversation with Mr Salles, and I don’t quite know what to do. I myself advised Bernard to do his military service, so is it so astonishing that I should think of going to Arabia myself as a soldier.
I say this just in case; you shouldn’t blame me too much if I go. The rest is so vague and so strange. And you know how doubtful it is that one ever recovers what it costs to do painting. Besides, it seems to me that physically I am well.
If I can’t work there except under supervision! and in the establishment – is it by God worth paying money for that!
Certainly in the barracks I could then work as well and even better.
Anyway, I’m thinking, do the same, let’s be aware that everything always happens for the best in the best of worlds, that isn’t impossible. I shake your hand very firmly.
Ever yours,
Vincent
This is what I consider worthy of being put on stretching frames in the consignment.
the night café
the green vineyard
the red vineyard
the bedroom
the furrows
ditto
portrait of Boch
,, Laval
,, Gauguin
,, Bernard
The Alyscamps (lane of tombs)
ditto
Garden with large conifer bush and oleanders
ditto cedar and geraniums
Sunflowers
flowers: Scabious &c.
ditto: asters and marigolds &c.
The crate contains some studies by Gauguin which belong to him, then his two fencing masks and fencing gloves.
If there’s room in the crate I’ll add some stretching frames.
Arles 3 May 1889
My dear Theo,
Your kind letter did me good today, my word – let’s go for StRémy then, but I tell you one more time, if after due consideration and consultation with the doctor it would be perhaps either necessary or simply useful and wise to enlist, let’s consider that with the same eye as the rest, and without prior prejudice against it. That’s all. For dismiss the idea of sacrifice in it – I was writing to our sister the other day that throughout my life, or almost at least, I’ve sought something other than a martyr’s career, of which I’m not capable.
If I find annoyance or cause it, my word I remain stunned by it. Certainly I would gladly respect, I would admire martyrs &c., but you must know that in Bouvard et Pécuchet, for example, quite simply there is some other thing that adapts itself more to our little existences.
Anyway, I’m packing my trunk, and probably Mr Salles will go there with me as soon as he can.
Ah, what you said about Puvis and Delacroix is darned right, those fellows have well demonstrated what painting could be, but let’s not confuse things when there are immense distances. Now, myself as a painter, I’ll never signify anything important, I sense it absolutely. Supposing everything were changed, character, upbringing, circumstances, then this or that could have existed. But we’re too positive to confuse. I sometimes regret not having simply kept the Dutch palette of grey tones, and brushed landscapes in Montmartre without pressing the point.
Also, I’m thinking of beginning to draw more with the reed pen again which, like last year’s views of Montmajour, is less expensive and distracts me just as much. Today I’ve made one of those drawings which became very dark and quite melancholic for springtime, but anyway, whatever happens to me and in whatever circumstances I find myself, that’s something that I could keep as an occupation for a long time, and in some way could even become a means of earning a livelihood.
Anyway, all in all what does it matter to you or to me to have a little more or a little less annoyance.
Certainly you joined up much earlier than I did, if we come to that, at the Goupils’, where all in all you spent some pretty bad moments often enough, for which you weren’t always thanked. And indeed you did it with zeal and devotion, because then our father rather had his back to the wall with the big family at the time, and it was necessary for you to throw yourself into it completely in order to make everything work. I’ve thought again with much emotion of all these old things during my illness.
And in the end the main thing is to feel ourselves closely united, and that hasn’t yet been disturbed.
I have a certain hope that with what I know of my art in total, a time will come when I’ll produce again, although in the asylum. What use would the more artificial life of an artist in Paris be to me – one by which, all in all, I would only be half duped and for which I consequently lack primitive enthusiasm, indispensable for launching myself into it. Physically it’s amazing how well I am, but that isn’t enough of a basis for going on believing that it’s the same mentally.
I would happily, once I was known there a little, try and make myself a male nurse little by little, in short to work at anything and take up an occupation again – the first one that comes along.
I’ll have terrible need of père Pangloss when it naturally comes about that I become amorous again. Alcohol and tobacco have after all this good or bad point – it’s a bit relative, this – that they’re antiaphrodisiacs, one should call it that I think. Not always to be despised in the exercise of the fine arts.
Anyway, that will be the ordeal in which one mustn’t forget completely how to jest. For virtue and sobriety, I’m only too afraid, would lead me again into those parts where usually I very quickly lose the compass completely, and where this time I must try to have less passion and more bonhomie.
The possible passionate thing is no great thing for me, although the power remains, I dare believe, to feel oneself attached to the human beings with whom one lives. How is père Tanguy – you must give him my warm regards.
I hear in the newspapers that there are good things at the Salon. Listen – don’t make yourself a completely exclusive Impressionist after all, if there’s good in something let’s not lose sight of it. Certainly colour is making progress, precisely by the Impressionists, even when they go astray. But Delacroix was already more complete than they are.
And my goodness, Millet, who has hardly any colour, what work his is!
Madness is salutary for this, that one becomes perhaps less exclusive.
I don’t regret having wanted to know a little technically about this question of the theories of colours.
As an artist one is merely a link in a chain, and whether you find or you don’t find, you can console yourself with that.
I’ve heard talk of a completely green interior with a green woman at the Salon which people were saying good things about, as well as a portrait by Mathey, and another by Besnard, ‘The siren’. People were also saying that there’s something extraordinary by a fellow called Zorn, but they didn’t say what, and that there was a CarolusDuran there, Triumph of Bacchus, bad. However, I still find his ‘Lady with a glove’ in the Luxembourg so good; anyway, there are things that aren’t serious that I like a lot, such as a book like Belami. And Carolus’s work is a little like that. Our epoch has been like that, though, and all Badinguet’s time too. And if a painter does as he sees, he always remains someone.
Ah, to paint figures like Claude Monet paints landscapes. That’s what remains to be done despite everything, and before, of necessity, one sees only Monet among the Impressionists.
For after all in figures, Delacroix, Millet, several sculptors have otherwise done better than the Impressionists, and even J. Breton.
Anyway, my dear brother, let’s be just, and I say to you as I retire, let’s think, just when we’re getting too old to class ourselves with the young ones, of what we have loved in our time, Millet, Breton, Israëls, Whistler, Delacroix, Leys. And be fully assured that I myself am sufficiently convinced that I shan’t see a future beyond that, nor moreover desire one.
Now society is as it is, naturally we can’t wish for it to adapt itself just to our personal needs. Anyway, however while finding it really really good to go to StRémy, however with people like me it would really be more just to stuff them into the legion. We can’t do anything about it, but more than probably they’d refuse me there, at least here where my adventure is too well known, and above all exaggerated. I say this very, very seriously, physically I’m better than I have been for years and years, and I could do military service. So let’s think again about that while going to StRémy. I shake your hand heartily, and your wife’s too.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Ah, when I wrote to you that we mustn’t forget to appreciate what’s good in those who aren’t Impressionists, I didn’t exactly mean to say that I was urging you to admire the Salon beyond measure, but rather a heap of people like, for example, Jourdan, who has just died in Avignon, Antigna, FeyenPerrin, all those whom we knew so well before, when we were younger, why forget them or why attach no importance to their presentday equivalents? Why are Daubigny and Quost and Jeannin not colourists for example? So many distinctions in Impressionism do not have the importance one wanted to see in them.
Crinolines also had something pretty and consequently good about them, but anyway the fashion was fortunately shortlived all the same. Not for some people.
And thus we’ll always retain a certain passion for Impressionism, but I sense that I’m returning more and more to the ideas I already had before coming to Paris.
Now that you’re married we no longer have to live for great ideas but, believe it, for little ones only. And I find that a real relief which I don’t complain about at all.
(In my room I have the famous portrait of a man (the wood engraving) that you know, a mandarin woman by Monorou (the large print from the Bing album), the blade of grass (from the same album), the Pietà and the good Samaritan by Delacroix, and Meissonier’s reader, then two large reed pen drawings.)
At the moment I’m reading Balzac’s Le médecin de campagne, which is really fine, in it there’s a character of a woman, not mad but too sensitive, who is really charming, I’ll send it to you when I’ve finished it. Wil wrote me a kind letter, still very firm and calm.
They have a lot of room here at the hospital, there’d be enough to make studios for thirty or so painters.
I really must make up my mind, it’s only too true that an awful lot of painters go mad, it’s a life which makes you very distracted, to say the least. If I throw myself fully into work again, that’s good, but I still remain cracked. If I could enlist for 5 years I would recover considerably and would be more rational and more the master of myself.
But one or the other, it’s all the same to me.
I hope that in the heap of canvases I’ve sent you there may be some which will end up giving you pleasure. If I remain a painter, then sooner or later I’ll probably see Paris again, and I firmly promise myself that I’ll thoroughly touch up several old canvases on that occasion. What’s Gauguin doing, I’m still avoiding writing to him until I’m completely normal, but I think of him so often, and I’d so much like to know if everything is going relatively well for him.
If I hadn’t been in such a hurry, if I’d kept my studio, this summer I would have worked again on all the canvases I’ve sent you. As long as the impasto isn’t dry all the way through, naturally it can’t be scraped.
You’ll clearly see that the two women’s expressions are different from the expressions one sees in Paris.
Is Signac back in Paris yet?
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 7 May 1889
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter. You’re quite right to say that Mr Salles has been perfect in all of this, I’m much obliged to him.
I wanted to tell you that I think I’ve done well to come here, first, in seeing the reality of the life of the diverse mad or cracked people in this menagerie, I’m losing the vague dread, the fear of the thing. And little by little I can come to consider madness as being an illness like any other. Then the change of surroundings is doing me good, I imagine.
As far as I know the doctor here is inclined to consider what I’ve had as an attack of an epileptic nature. But I haven’t made any enquiries.
Have you by chance yet received the crate of paintings, I’m curious to know if they’ve suffered more, yes or no.
I have two others on the go — violet irises and a lilac bush. Two subjects taken from the garden.
The idea of my duty to work comes back to me a lot, and I believe that all my faculties for work will come back to me quite quickly. It’s just that work often absorbs me so much that I think I’ll always be absentminded and awkward in getting by for the rest of life too.
I won’t write you a long letter — I’ll try to answer the letter from my new sister, which greatly touched me, but I don’t know if I’ll manage to do it.
Handshake, and ever yours,
Vincent
My dear sister,
Thanks very much for your letter, in which I above all looked for news of my brother. And I find it very good. I can see that you have already observed that he loves Paris and that this surprises you a little, you who don’t like it, or rather who above all like the flowers there, such as, I suppose, for example, the wisterias which are probably beginning to flower. Could it not be the case that in liking a thing one sees it better and more accurately than in not liking it.
For him and for me Paris is certainly already a cemetery in a way, where many artists have perished, whom we knew directly or indirectly.
Certainly Millet, whom you’ll learn to like a lot, and with him many others, have tried to get out of Paris. But Eugène Delacroix, for example, it’s difficult to portray him ‘as a man’ other than as a Parisian.
All this to urge you — with all caution, admittedly — to believe in the possibility that there are homes in Paris, and not just apartments.
Anyway — fortunately you are now his home yourself.
It’s quite odd perhaps that the result of this terrible attack is that in my mind there’s hardly any really clear desire or hope left, and I’m wondering if it is thus that one thinks when, with the passions somewhat extinguished, one comes down the mountain instead of climbing it. Anyway my sister, if you can believe, or almost, that everything is always for the best in the best of worlds then you’ll also be able to believe, perhaps, that Paris is the best of the towns in it.
Have you noticed yet that the old cabhorses there have big, beautiful heartbroken eyes, like Christians sometimes. Whatever the case, we’re not savages nor peasants, and we perhaps even have a duty to love civilization (socalled). Anyway, it would probably be hypocritical to say or believe that Paris is bad when one lives there. The first time one sees Paris it may be, besides, that everything there seems against nature, dirty and sad. Anyway, if you don’t like Paris, above all do not like painting nor those who directly or indirectly are engaged in it, for it’s only too doubtful whether that’s beautiful or useful.
But what can you do, there are people who love nature while being cracked or ill, those are the painters, then there are some who love what is done by the hand of man, and those even go as far as liking paintings.
Although there are a few people here who are seriously ill, the fear, the horror that I had of madness before has already been greatly softened.
And although one continually hears shouts and terrible howls as though of the animals in a menagerie, despite this the people here know each other very well, and help each other when they suffer crises. They all come to see when I’m working in the garden, and I can assure you are more discreet and more polite to leave me in peace than, for example, the good citizens of Arles.
It’s possible that I’ll stay here for quite a long time, never have I been so tranquil as here and at the hospital in Arles to be able to paint a little at last. Very near here there are some little grey or blue mountains, with very, very green wheatfields at their foot, and pines.
I shall count myself very happy if I manage to work enough to earn my living, for it makes me very worried when I tell myself that I’ve done so many paintings and drawings without ever selling any. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to consider this an injustice, I don’t know anything at all about it.
Thanking you again for writing to me, and being very happy to know that now my brother doesn’t return to an empty apartment when he comes home in the evening, I shake your hand in thought, and believe me
your brother
Vincent
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 23 May 1889
My dear Theo,
Your letter which I’ve just received gives me great pleasure. You tell me that J.H. Weissenbruch has two paintings in the exhibition — but I thought he was dead — am I mistaken? He certainly is one hell of an artist and a good man, with a big heart too.
What you say about the Berceuse gives me pleasure; it’s very true that the common people, who buy themselves chromos and listen with sentimentality to barrel organs, are vaguely in the right and perhaps more sincere than certain menabouttown who go to the Salon.
Gauguin, if he’ll accept it, you shall give him a version of the Berceuse that wasn’t mounted on a stretching frame, and to Bernard too, as a token of friendship.
But if Gauguin wants sunflowers it’s only absolutely fair that he gives you something that you like as much in exchange. Gauguin himself above all liked the sunflowers later, when he had seen them for a long time.
You must know, too, that if you put them in this order:
that is, the Berceuse in the middle and the two canvases of the sunflowers to the right and the left, this forms a sort of triptych. And then the yellow and orange tones of the head take on more brilliance through the proximity of the yellow shutters. And then you will understand that what I was writing to you about it, that my idea had been to make a decoration like one for the far end of a cabin on a ship, for example. Then as the size gets bigger, the summary execution gets its raison d’être. The middle frame is then the red one. And the two sunflowers that go with it are those surrounded by strips of wood.
You see that this framing of simple laths does quite well, and a frame like that costs only very little. It would be perhaps good to frame the green and red vineyards, the sower and the furrows and the interior of the bedroom with them too.
Here’s a new no. 30 canvas, commonplace again, like one of those chromos from a penny bazaar that depict eternal nests of greenery for lovers.
Thick treetrunks covered with ivy, the ground also covered with ivy and periwinkle, a stone bench and a bush of roses, blanched in the cold shadow. In the foreground a few plants with white calyxes. It’s green, violet and pink.
It’s just a question — which is unfortunately lacking in chromos from a penny bazaar and barrel organs — of putting in some style.
Since I’ve been here, the neglected garden planted with tall pines under which grows tall and badly tended grass intermingled with various weeds, has provided me with enough work, and I haven’t yet gone outside.
However, the landscape of StRémy is very beautiful, and little by little I’m probably going to make trips into it. But staying here as I am, the doctor has naturally been in a better position to see what was wrong, and will, I dare hope, be more reassured that he can let me paint.
I assure you that I’m very well here, and that for the time being I see no reason at all to come and board in Paris or its surroundings. I have a little room with greygreen paper with two watergreen curtains with designs of very pale roses enlivened with thin lines of bloodred. These curtains, probably the leftovers of a ruined, deceased rich man, are very pretty in design. Probably from the same source comes a very worn armchair covered with a tapestry flecked in the manner of a Diaz or a Monticelli, redbrown, pink, creamy white, black, forgetmenot blue and bottle green.
Through the ironbarred window I can make out a square of wheat in an enclosure, a perspective in the manner of Van Goyen, above which in the morning I see the sun rise in its glory.
With this — as there are more than 30 empty rooms — I have another room in which to work.
The food is soso. It smells naturally a little musty, as in a cockroachridden restaurant in Paris or a boarding school. As these unfortunates do absolutely nothing (not a book, nothing to distract them but a game of boules and a game of draughts) they have no other daily distraction than to stuff themselves with chickpeas, haricot beans, lentils and other groceries and colonial foodstuffs by the regulated quantities and at fixed times.
As the digestion of these commodities presents certain difficulties, they thus fill their days in a manner as inoffensive as it’s cheap. But joking apart, the fear of madness passes from me considerably upon seeing from close at hand those who are affected with it, as I may very easily be in the future.
Before I had some repulsion for these beings, and it was something distressing for me to have to reflect that so many people of our profession, Troyon, Marchal, Meryon, Jundt, M. Maris, Monticelli, a host of others, had ended up like that. I wasn’t even able to picture them in the least in that state.
Well, now I think of all this without fear, i.e. I find it no more atrocious than if these people had snuffed it of something else, of consumption or syphilis, for example.
These artists, I see them take on their serene bearing again, and do you think it’s a small thing to rediscover ancient members of the profession.
Joking apart, that’s what I’m profoundly grateful for.
For although there are some who howl or usually rave, here there is much true friendship that they have for each other. They say, one must suffer others for the others to suffer us, and other very true reasonings that they thus put into practice. And between ourselves we understand each other very well, I can, for example, chat sometimes with one who doesn’t reply except in incoherent sounds, because he isn’t afraid of me.
If someone has some crisis the others look after him, and intervene so that he doesn’t harm himself.
The same for those who have the mania of often getting angry. Old regulars of the menagerie run up and separate the fighters, if there is a fight.
It’s true that there are some who are in a more serious condition, whether they be filthy, or dangerous. These are in another courtyard. Now I take a bath twice a week, and stay in it for 2 hours, then my stomach is infinitely better than a year ago, so I only have to continue, as far as I know. I think I’ll spend less here than elsewhere, since here I still have work on my plate, for nature is beautiful.
My hope would be that at the end of a year I’ll know better than now what I can do and what I want. Then, little by little, an idea will come to me for beginning again. Coming back to Paris or anywhere at the moment doesn’t appeal to me at all, I feel that I’m in the right place here. In my opinion, what most of those who have been here for years are suffering from is an extreme sluggishness. Now, my work will preserve me from that to a certain extent.
The room where we stay on rainy days is like a 3rdclass waiting room in some stagnant village, all the more so since there are honourable madmen who always wear a hat, spectacles and travelling clothes and carry a cane, almost like at the seaside, and who represent the passengers there.
I’m obliged to ask you for some more colours, and especially some canvas. When I send you the 4 canvases of the garden I have on the go you’ll see that, considering that life happens above all in the garden, it isn’t so sad. Yesterday I drew a very large, rather rare night moth there which is called the death’s head, its coloration astonishingly distinguished: black, grey, white, shaded, and with glints of carmine or vaguely tending towards olive green; it’s very big.
To paint it I would have had to kill it, and that would have been a shame since the animal was so beautiful. I’ll send you the drawing of it with a few other drawings of plants.
You could take the canvases which are dry enough at Tanguy’s or at your place off the stretching frames and then put the new ones you consider worthy of it onto these stretching frames. Gauguin must be able to give you the address of a liner for the Bedroom who won’t be expensive. This I imagine must be a 5franc restoration, if it’s more then don’t have it done, I don’t think that Gauguin paid more when he quite often had canvases of his own, Cézanne or Pissarro lined.
Speaking of my condition, I’m still so grateful for yet another thing. I observe in others that, like me, they too have heard sounds and strange voices during their crises, that things also appeared to change before their eyes. And that softens the horror that I retained at first of the crisis I had, and which when it comes to you unexpectedly, cannot but frighten you beyond measure. Once one knows that it’s part of the illness one takes it like other things. Had I not seen other mad people at close hand I wouldn’t have been able to rid myself of thinking about it all the time. For the sufferings of anguish aren’t funny when you’re caught in a crisis. Most epileptics bite their tongues and injure them. Rey told me that he had known a case where someone had injured his ear as I did, and I believe I’ve heard a doctor here who came to see me with the director say that he too had seen it before. I dare to believe that once one knows what it is, once one is aware of one’s state and of possibly being subject to crises, that then one can do something about it oneself so as not to be caught so much unawares by the anguish or the terror. Now, this has been diminishing for 5 months, I have good hope of getting over it, or at least of not having crises of such force. There’s one person here who has been shouting and always talking, like me, for a fortnight, he thinks he hears voices and words in the echo of the corridors, probably because the auditory nerve is sick and too sensitive, and with me it was both the sight and the hearing at the same time which, according to what Rey said one day, is usual at the beginning of epilepsy.
Now the shock had been such that it disgusted me even to move, and nothing would have been so agreeable to me as never to wake up again. At present this horror of life is already less pronounced, and the melancholy less acute. But I still have absolutely no will, hardly any desires or none, and everything that has to do with ordinary life, the desire for example to see friends again, about whom I think however, almost nil. That’s why I’m not yet at the point where I ought to leave here soon, I would still have melancholy for everything. And it’s even only in these very last days that the repulsion for life has changed quite radically. There’s still a way to go from there to will and action.
It’s a shame that you yourself are still condemned to Paris, and that you never see the countryside other than that around Paris.
I think that it’s no more unfortunate for me to be in the company where I am than for you always the fateful things at Goupil & Cie. From that point of view we’re quite equal. For only in part can you act in accordance with your ideas. Since, however, we have once got used to these inconveniences, it becomes second nature.
I think that although the paintings cost canvas, paint &c., at the end of the month, however, it’s more advantageous to spend a little more thus, and to make them with what I’ve learned in total, than to abandon them while one would have to pay for board and lodging all the same anyway. And that’s why I’m making them. So this month I have 4 no. 30 canvases and two or three drawings.
But no matter what one does, the question of money is always there like the enemy before the troops, and one can’t deny it or forget it.
I retain my duties in that respect as much as anyone. And perhaps some day I’ll be in a position to repay all that I’ve spent, because I consider that what I’ve spent is, if not taken from you at least taken from the family, so consequently I’ve produced paintings and I’ll do more. That is to act as you too act yourself. If I had private means, perhaps my mind would be freer to do art for art’s sake, now I content myself with believing that in working assiduously even so, without thinking of it one perhaps makes some progress.
Here are the colours I would need
3 emerald green
2 cobalt
1 ultramarine
1 orange lead
6 zinc white
5 metres canvas
large tubes.
Thanking you for your kind letter, I shake your hand warmly, as well as your wife’s.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence Between 31 May and 6 June 1889
My dear Theo,
I still have to ask you to send me a few ordinary brushes as soon as possible, of more or less these sizes
Half a dozen of each please.
I hope that you’re well and your wife too, and that you’ll enjoy a little of the good weather. At least here we have splendid sunshine.
As for me, my health is good, and as for the head it will, let’s hope, be a matter of time and patience.
The director had a few words with me to say that he’d received a letter from you, and that he’d written to you. To me he says nothing and I ask nothing of him, which is simplest. He’s a little gouty man — widowed a few years ago — who has very dark spectacles. As the establishment is a little moribund, the man appears to take only a rather halfhearted enjoyment in this profession, and besides there’s reason enough for it.
A new person has arrived who is so agitated that he breaks everything and shouts day and night, he also tears the straitjackets and up to now he scarcely calms down, although he’s in a bath all day long, he demolishes his bed and all the rest in his room, overturns his food &c. It’s very sad to see — but they have a lot of patience here and will eventually get there, however.
New things become old so quickly — I think that if I came to Paris in the state of mind I’m currently in, I wouldn’t make any distinction between a socalled dark painting or a bright Impressionist painting, between a varnished painting in oils and a matt picture done with thinned paint.
I mean by this that having reflected as time passed — I believe more than ever in the eternal youth of the school of Delacroix, Millet, Rousseau, Dupré, Daubigny, just as much as in the current one or even in artists to come. I scarcely believe that Impressionism will ever do more than the Romantics, for example.
It’s certainly a far cry between that and admiring people like Léon Glaize or Perrault.
This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big. Daubigny and Rousseau did that, though, with the expression of all the intimacy and all the great peace and majesty that it has, adding to it a feeling so heartbreaking, so personal. These emotions I do not detest.
I still have remorse, and enormously when I think of my work, so little in harmony with what I’d have wished to do. I hope that in the long run it will make me do better things, but we aren’t there yet.
I think that you would do well to wash the canvases that are quite quite dry with water and a little spirits of wine to remove the oil and the thinner from the impasto. The same for the night café and the green vineyard, and above all for the landscape that was in the walnut frame. The night also (but that one has recent retouchings which might run with the spirits of wine).
I’ve been here almost a whole month, not one single time have I had the slightest desire to be elsewhere; just the will to work again is becoming a tiny bit firmer.
I don’t notice any very clear desire to be elsewhere in the others either, and this may very well come from the fact that one feels too decidedly broken for life outside.
What I don’t really understand is their absolute idleness. But that’s the great defect of the south, and its ruin. But what a beautiful land and what beautiful blue and what a sun. And yet I’ve only seen the garden and what I can make out through the window.
Have you read the new book by Guy de Maupassant, Fort comme la mort, what is its subject? What I read last in this category was Zola’s Le rêve, I found the figure of the woman, the embroiderer, very, very beautiful, and the description of the embroidery all in gold. Precisely because it’s like a question of colour, different yellows, whole and broken. But the figure of the man struck me as rather lifeless, and the great cathedral also made me as melancholy as hell. Only that lilac and dark blue repoussoir makes, if you will, the blonde figure stand out. But anyway, there are already things by Lamartine like that.
I hope that you’ll destroy a heap of things that are too bad in the heap I sent, or at least will only show the most passable ones.
As regards the exhibition of the Independents, it’s all the same to me, act as if I wasn’t there at all. To not be indifferent and not exhibit something too mad, perhaps the starry night and the landscape with yellow greenery which was in the walnut frame. Since these are two of contrary colours,
and that might give others the idea of doing night effects better than I do.
Anyway you must absolutely stop worrying with regard to me now. When I receive the new canvas and the colours I’ll go out a bit to see the countryside.
Since it’s just the season when there are lots of flowers and thus colour effects, it will perhaps be wise to send me another 5 metres of canvas in addition.
For the flowers will be shortlived and will be replaced by the yellow wheatfields. The latter, above all, I would like to capture better than in Arles. The mistral (since there are a few mountains here) appears far less annoying than in Arles, where you always get it at first hand.
When you receive the canvases I’ve done in the garden you’ll see that I’m not too melancholy here.
More soon, good handshake in thought to you and to Jo.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 2 July 1889
My dear Theo,
Enclosed I’m sending you a letter from Mother, naturally you know all the news it contains. I think it’s very logical of Cor to go there. What is different there from staying in Europe is that down there one doesn’t have to undergo the influence of our large cities, as one does here, so old that everything in them seems to be in its dotage and tottering. So instead of seeing one’s vital forces and natural, native energy evaporate in circumlocution, it’s possible that one might be happier far from our society. Even if it were otherwise, the fact remains that it’s to act uprightly and in accordance with his upbringing for him not to hesitate to accept this position. So now it isn’t to tell you all this news that you know that I’m sending you the letter. But it’s for you to observe in it a little how remarkably firm and regular the writing is when one thinks that it’s true what she says, that she’s ‘a mother approaching 70’. And as you’ve already written to me, and our sister has too, that she seems to have got younger, I see it myself from this very clear writing and in her tighter logic in what she writes, and the simplicity with which she appreciates facts. I believe now that this rejuvenation has obviously come to her from the fact that she’s happy that you’ve got married, which she’d wanted for so long; and I congratulate you that your marriage can give you and Jo the rather rare pleasure of seeing your mother growing young again. It’s really for that that I’m sending you this letter. Because, my dear brother, it’s sometimes necessary later to remember – and it’s so timely that, at the very moment when she’ll have the great pain of being separated from Cor – and it will be hard on her, that – she should be consoled by knowing that you’re married. If the thing were possible you shouldn’t wait fully a whole year before returning to Holland, for she’ll be longing to see you again, you and your wife.
At the same time, having married a Dutchwoman, that could in a few years, sooner or later, warm up business relations with Amsterdam or The Hague again.
Anyway, once again I haven’t seen a letter from Mother indicating so much inner serenity and calm contentment as this one – not for many years. And I’m sure that this comes from your marriage. It’s said that pleasing one’s parents brings a long life.
I now thank you very much for the consignment of colours, deduct them from the order placed since, but if it’s at all possible, not for the quantity of white. I thank you also very cordially for the Shakespeare. It will help me not to forget the little English I know – but above all it’s so beautiful.
I’ve begun to read the series I know the least well, which before, being distracted by something else or not having the time it was impossible for me to read, the series of the kings. I’ve already read Richard II, Henry IV and half of Henry V. I read without reflecting on whether the ideas of the people of that time are the same as ours, or what becomes of them when one places them face to face with republican or socialist beliefs &c. But what touches me in it, as in the work of certain novelists of our time, is that the voices of these people, which in Shakespeare’s case reach us from a distance of several centuries, don’t appear unknown to us. It’s so alive that one thinks one knows them and sees it.
So what Rembrandt alone, or almost alone, has among painters, that tenderness in the gazes of human beings we see either in the Pilgrims at Emmaus, or in the Jewish bride, or in some strange figure of an angel as in the painting you had the good fortune to see – that heartbroken tenderness, that glimpse of a superhuman infinite which appears so natural then, one encounters it in many places in Shakespeare. And then serious or gay portraits like the Six, like the traveller, like the Saskia, it’s above all full of that. What a good idea Victor Hugo’s son had of translating all of it into French so that it’s thus within the reach of all. When I think of the Impressionists and of all these presentday questions of art, how many lessons there are precisely for us in there.
So from what I’ve just read the idea comes to me that the Impressionists are right a thousand times over. Yet even they must think about it for a long time and always. If it follows from that that they have the right or the duty to do themselves justice,
and if they dare call themselves primitives, certainly they’d do well to learn to be primitive as people a little, too, before pronouncing the word primitive like a title that would give them rights to whatsoever. But those who would be the cause of the Impressionists being unhappy, well naturally the case for them is serious, also when they make light of it.
And then it would appear that waging a battle seven times a week couldn’t go on.
It’s amazing, though, how L’abbesse de Jouarre, when you think of it, holds its own even beside Shakespeare.
I think that Renan treated himself to that in order to be able to say beautiful words for once in full and at his ease, because these are beautiful words.
So that you may have an idea of what I have on the go I’m sending you ten or so drawings today, all after canvases on the go.
The latest one begun is the wheatfield where there’s a little reaper and a big sun. The canvas is all yellow with the exception of the wall and the bottom of purplish hills. The canvas with almost the same subject differs in coloration, being a greyish green and a white and blue sky.
How I think of Reid as I read Shakespeare, and how I’ve thought of him several times when I was iller than at present. Finding that I’d been infinitely too harsh and perhaps discouraging towards him in claiming that it was better to love painters than paintings. It isn’t up to me to make distinctions like that, not even when faced with the problem that we see our living friends suffering so much from the lack of enough money to feed themselves and pay for their colours, and on the other hand the high prices that are paid for the canvases of dead painters. In a newspaper I was reading a letter from a collector of Greek objects to one of his friends, which contained this phrase ‘you who love nature, I who love all that the hand of man has made, this difference in our tastes deep down creates the unity in it’. And I found that better than my reasoning.
I have a canvas of cypresses with a few ears of wheat, poppies, a blue sky, which is like a multicoloured Scottish plaid. This one, which is impasted like the Monticellis, and the wheatfield with the sun that represents extreme heat, also thickly impasted, I think that this would explain to him more or less, however, that he couldn’t lose much by being our friend. But that’s true on our side too, and precisely because we were perhaps right to disapprove of his method we ought on our side to take a step towards reconciliation. Anyway, I daren’t yet write now for fear of saying too many foolish things, but when I’m more certain of my pen I’d very much like to write to him one day. It’s the same for other friends, but I really have told myself that I should wait as long as possible before being able, even in the best of circumstances, to arrive at this ‘being a little more certain of myself’.
I still have canvases in Arles that weren’t dry when I left, I very much want to go and get them one of these days in order to send them to you. There are half a dozen of them. The drawings appear to me to have little colour this time, and this is very probably due to the oversmooth paper.
Anyway, the Weeping tree and the Courtyard of the hospital at Arles are more coloured, but that though will give you an idea of what I have on the go. The canvas of the reaper will become something like the Sower of the other year.
As later the books of Zola will remain beautiful precisely because they have life.
What also has life is the fact that Mother is happy that you’re married, and I think that this cannot be disagreeable to yourselves, you and Jo. But the separation from Cor will be so hard for her that it’s difficult to imagine. It is precisely in learning to suffer without complaining, learning to consider pain without repugnance, that one risks vertigo a little; and yet it might be possible, yet one glimpses even a vague probability that on the other side of life we’ll glimpse justifications for pain, which seen from here sometimes takes up the whole horizon so much that it takes on the despairing proportions of a deluge. Of that we know very little, of proportions, and it’s better to look at a wheatfield, even in the state of a painting. I shake your hands firmly and will have news of you soon I hope. Good health to you both.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 6 July 1889
Dear brother and sister.
Jo’s letter tells me a very great piece of news this morning, I congratulate you on it, and am very pleased to hear it. I was very touched by your reasoning when you say that as neither of you are in as good health as appears desirable on an occasion like this, you had a kind of doubt, and in any case a feeling of pity for the child to come traversed your soul. This child in this case, has it, even before its birth, been less well loved than the child of very healthy parents, whose first impulse would have been a keen joy? Surely not. We know so little about life that we’re not really in a position to judge between good and bad, just or unjust, and to say that one is unhappy because one suffers hasn’t been proved. You should know that Roulin’s child came to them smiling and very healthy, while the parents were at bay. So take it as it is, wait with confidence and possess your soul with a long patience as an old saying has it, and with good will. Let nature take its course.
As to what you say about Theo’s health, my dear sister, while sharing your anxieties with all my heart I must nevertheless reassure you, precisely because I’ve seen that his health is changeable and uneven rather than weak, as is mine, for that matter.
I very much like to believe that illnesses sometimes cure us, i.e. that when the illness comes to a crisis it’s a thing necessary to the recovery of a normal state of body. No, subsequent to the marriage he’ll regain his strength, still having the reserve of youth and power to restore him.
I’m very pleased that he’s no longer alone, and truly I don’t doubt that he’ll regain his former temperament after a while. And then above all when he’s a father and the feeling of fatherhood comes to him, that will be a considerable gain.
In my life as a painter, and above all when I’m in the country, it’s not so difficult for me to be alone, because in the country one feels the bonds that unite us all more easily. But in town, as he has done his ten consecutive years with the Goupils in Paris, it isn’t possible to live alone. So with patience it will return.
I’m going to Arles tomorrow to fetch the canvases that are still over there, which I’ll send you shortly. And I’m going to send you some as soon as possible to try to give you peasant thoughts, even though you’re in town.
This morning I talked a little with the doctor here – he told me – which was absolutely what I had already thought – that one must wait a year before believing oneself to be cured, since the smallest thing could bring on another attack.
Then he offered to take my furniture here so that we don’t have double expenses. Tomorrow I’ll go and talk about that in Arles with Mr Salles.
When I came here I left 50 francs with Mr Salles to settle up with the hospital in Arles, he’ll certainly have some over. But having again quite often needed various things, the surplus that Mr Peyron had here is exhausted. I’m a little surprised myself that in living with the greatest possible sobriety and regularity for the last 6 months, without having my independent studio, I’m not spending less or producing more than the previous, relatively less sober year. And inwardly I feel neither more nor less remorse &c. if you like. Suffice to say that everything one calls good and bad is however quite relative, it seems to me. I live soberly here because I have the opportunity to. I drank before because I no longer knew how to do otherwise. Anyway it’s all the same to me!!! Sobriety, very calculated it’s true, nevertheless leads to a state of being in which thought, if you have any, flows more easily. Anyway it’s a difference like painting grey or coloured. I’m in fact going to paint more greyly.
Only instead of paying money to a landlord we’re giving it to the asylum, I don’t see the difference – and it’s scarcely cheaper. The work is a thing apart, and has always cost me a lot.
I thank you very much for the consignment of colours and canvas, which I’m very pleased with. I hope to go and redo the olive trees. There are unfortunately very few vineyards here.
My health is good, though, and I have a feeling quite similar to the one I had when I was much younger, when I was also very sober, too much so, I believe they used to say. But it’s all the same, I’ll try to get by.
As regards being godfather to a son of yours, while first of all it could be a girl, truly, in the circumstances I would prefer to wait until I’m no longer here. Then Mother would certainly set her heart a little on him being called after our father, I for one would find that more logical in the circumstances.
I enjoyed myself very much yesterday reading Measure for measure. Then I read Henry VIII, in which there are such beautiful passages, like the one about Buckingham, and Wolsey’s words after his downfall.
I think I’m lucky to be able to read or reread this at my leisure, and then I very much hope to read Homer at last. Outside the cicadas are singing fit to burst, a strident cry ten times louder than that of the crickets, and the scorched grass is taking on beautiful tones of old gold. And the beautiful towns of the south are in the state of our dead towns along the Zuiderzee, which were formerly lively. While in the downfall and the decline of things, the cicadas dear to good old Socrates have remained. And here, certainly, they’re still singing old Greek.
If our friend Isaäcson heard them, his face would light up.
What Jo writes about you always eating at home, that’s perfect. Anyway, I think that’s going very well, and once again, while sharing with all my heart all possible worries about Theo’s health, within me the hope predominates that in this case a more or less sickly condition is only the result of the efforts of nature to right itself. Patience. Mauve always claimed that nature was good, and even a lot more than one usually thought. Is there anything in his past that proves that he was wrong. His fits of melancholy in his last days, do you think? I myself would be inclined to believe otherwise.
More soon, but I wanted to write to you straightaway that this morning’s news gives me great pleasure. Handshakes and
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 14 or 15 July 1889
My dear Theo,
Tomorrow I’ll send you a roll of canvases by goods train. There are four of them, i.e. the following
1 View of Arles, orchards in blossom
2 The ivy
3 The lilacs
4 Pink chestnut trees in the botanical gardens in Arles
which will hold their own with the ones you already have, such as the red and green Vineyard, The garden, The harvest, The starry sky.
I’m also enclosing another 7 studies which are dry but which are studies after nature rather than subjects for paintings.
And that’s how it always is, you have to do several of them before you find a whole with character. Now here are the subjects of these 7 studies.
The irises – View of the asylum at StRémy, no. 30 canvases. Peach trees in blossom (Arles), Meadows (Arles), Olive trees (StRémy), Old willows (Arles), Orchard in blossom.
Now the next consignment, which will follow shortly, will consist mainly of wheatfields and olive groves.
As you can see, I’ve been to Arles to fetch these canvases. The orderly from here accompanied me. We went to Mr Salles’s house, who had gone away on holiday for two months, then to the hospital to see Mr Rey, whom I didn’t find either. So we spent the day with my former neighbours, as well as my charwoman from those days and a few others.
One becomes very attached to people one has seen while ill, and it did me a world of good to see some people again who were kind and indulgent towards me then. Someone told me that Mr Rey had taken an examination and had been to Paris, but the porter at the hospital said he didn’t know. I’m curious to know if you might have seen him, for he had planned to go and see the exhibition and then pay you a visit. The doctor from here will perhaps not go to Paris, he suffers a great deal from his gout.
I’ve also received the second consignment of canvases and colours, and I thank you very much for them. The latest canvas I’ve done is a view of mountains with a darkish hut among olive trees at the bottom.
I imagine that you’ll be very absorbed by thoughts of the child to come, I’m very pleased that this should be so, with time I dare believe that you’ll thus find much inner serenity. The fact that one takes on a kind of second nature in Paris, that moreover preoccupations with business and art make one less strong than the peasants, doesn’t prevent one, through the bonds of having wife and child, from reattaching oneself all the same to that
simpler and truer nature whose ideal sometimes haunts us.
What a business, that Secrétan sale.
It always pleases me that the Millets are holding their own. But how I would like to see more good reproductions of Millet. So that it can reach the common folk. The body of work is above all sublime considered as a whole, and it will become more and more difficult to form an idea of it when the paintings are dispersed.
I’m sorry not to be able to add the Wheatfield with the reaper to this consignment.
Write me a line soon.
Handshake to you and Jo.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 14 or 15 July 1889
My dear Theo,
If I’m writing to you again today it’s because I’m enclosing a few words that I’ve written to our friend Gauguin, feeling sufficient calm return to me these last few days for my letter not to be absolutely absurd, it seemed to me. Besides, there’s no proof that by overrefining one’s scruples of respect or feeling one thereby gains respectfulness or good sense. That being so, it does me good to talk with the pals again, even if at a distance. And you – my dear fellow – how are things, and so write me a few words one of these days – for I can imagine that the emotions which must move the forthcoming father of a family, emotions of which our good father so loved to speak, must be great and of sterling worth in you, as in him, but for the moment are almost impossible for you to express in the rather incoherent mixture of the petty vexations of Paris. Realities of this sort must anyway be like a good gust of the mistral, not very soothing, but healthgiving. As for me, it gives me very great pleasure I can assure you, and will contribute greatly to bringing me out of my moral fatigue and perhaps from my listlessness.
Anyway, there’s enough to bring back the taste for life a little when I think that I myself am going to be promoted uncle of this boy planned by your wife. I find it quite funny that she’s so convinced that it’s a boy, but anyway, we’ll see.
Anyway, in the meantime I can do nothing but fiddle with my paintings a little. I have one on the go of a moonrise over the same field as the croquis in the Gauguin letter, but in which stacks replace the wheat. It’s dull ochreyellow and violet. Anyway, you’ll see in a while from now.
I also have a new one with ivy on the go. Above all, dear fellow, I beg of you, don’t fret or worry or be melancholy on my account, the idea that you would do so, certainly in this necessary and salutary quarantine, would have little justification when we need a slow and patient recovery. If we manage to grasp that, we spare our forces for this winter. I imagine that winter must be quite dismal here, anyway will however have to try and occupy myself. I often imagine that I could retouch a lot of last year’s studies from Arles this winter.
Thus, having kept back these past few days a large study of an orchard which was very difficult (it’s the same orchard of which you’ll find a variation in the consignment, but quite a vague one), I’ve set to reworking it from memory, and have found a way better to express the harmony of the tones.
Tell me, have you received any drawings from me? I sent you some once, by parcel post, half a dozen, and then later ten or so. If by chance you haven’t received them, they must have been at the railway station for days and weeks.
The doctor was telling me about Monticelli, that he had always considered him eccentric, but as for mad, he had only been a little that way towards the end. Considering all the miseries of M’s last years, is it any surprise that he bowed beneath a weight that was too heavy, and is one right in trying to deduce from that that he failed in his work, artistically speaking? I dare to believe not. There was some very logical calculation about him, and an originality as a painter, so it remains regrettable that one wasn’t able to sustain it so as to make its blossoming more complete.
I enclose a croquis of the cicadas from here.
Their song in times of great heat holds the same charm for me as the cricket in the peasant’s hearth at home. My dear fellow – let’s not forget that small emotions are the great captains of our lives, and that these we obey without knowing it. If it’s still hard for me to regain courage over faults committed and to be committed, which would be my recovery, let’s not forget from that moment on that neither our spleens and melancholies nor our feelings of good nature and good sense are our sole guides, and above all not our final custodians, and that if you yourself also find yourself facing hard responsibilities to venture, if not to take, my word let’s not be too concerned with each other, while it so happens that life’s circumstances in situations so far removed from our youthful conceptions of the life of the artist would render us brothers after all, as being companions in fate in many respects. Things are so closely connected that here one sometimes finds cockroaches in the food as if one were really in Paris, on the other hand it can happen in Paris that you sometimes have a real thought of the fields. It’s certainly not much, but it’s reassuring anyway. So take your fatherhood as a good fellow from our old heaths would take it, those heaths that remain ineffably dear to us through all the noise, tumult, fog, anguish of the towns, however timid our tenderness may be. That’s to say, take your fatherhood there, from your nature as an exile and a foreigner and a poor man, henceforth basing himself with the poor man’s instinct on the probability of the real existence of a native country, of a real existence at least of the memory, even while we’ve forgotten every day. Thus sooner or later we find our fate. But certainly for you, as well as for me, it would be a little hypocritical to forget completely our good humour, the confident sloppiness we had as the poor devils we were as we came and went in that Paris, so strange now – and to place too much weight upon our cares.
Truly, I’m so pleased with the fact that if sometimes there are cockroaches in the food here, in your home there is wife and child.
Besides, it’s reassuring that Voltaire, for example, left us free to believe not absolutely all of what we imagine. Thus while sharing your wife’s concerns about your health I’m not going so far as to believe what momentarily I was imagining, that worries about me were the cause of your relatively rather long silence in respect of me, although this is so well explained when one thinks of how preoccupying a pregnancy must necessarily be. But it’s very good and it’s the path where everyone walks in life. More soon, and good handshake to you and to Jo.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
In haste, but didn’t want to delay sending the letter for our friend Gauguin, you must have the address.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 22 August 1889
My dear Theo,
I thank Jo very much for writing to me, and knowing that you wish me to write you a line I’m letting you know that it’s very difficult for me to write, so disturbed is my mind. So I’m taking advantage of an interval.
Dr Peyron is really kind to me and really patient. You can imagine that I’m very deeply distressed that the attacks have recurred when I was already beginning to hope that it wouldn’t recur.
You’ll perhaps do well to write a line to Dr Peyron to say that working on my paintings is quite necessary to me for my recovery.
For these days, without anything to do and without being able to go into the room he had allocated me for doing my painting, are almost intolerable to me.
I’ve received catalogue of the Gauguin, Bernard, Schuffenecker &c. exhibition, which I find interesting. G. also wrote me a kind letter, still a little vague and obscure, but anyway I must say that I think they’re quite right to have exhibited among themselves.
For many days I’ve been absolutely distraught, as in Arles, just as much if not worse, and it’s to be presumed that these crises will recur in the future, it is ABOMINABLE. I haven’t been able to eat for 4 days, as my throat is swollen. It’s not in order to complain too much, I hope, if I tell you these details, but to prove to you that I’m not yet in a fit state to go to Paris or to PontAven unless it were to Charenton.
It appears that I pick up filthy things and eat them, although my memories of these bad moments are vague, and it appears to me that there’s something shady about it, still for the same reason that they have I don’t know what prejudice against painters here.
I no longer see any possibility for courage or good hope, but anyway it wasn’t yesterday that we found out that this profession isn’t a happy one.
All the same it gives me pleasure that you’ve received that consignment from here, the landscapes. Thank you above all for that etching after Rembrandt. It’s surprising, and yet it makes me think again of the man with the staff in the La Caze gallery. If you want to do me a very, very great pleasure, then
send a copy of it to Gauguin. Then the Rodin and Claude Monet brochure is really interesting.
This new crisis, my dear brother, came upon me in the fields, and when I was in the middle of painting on a windy day. I’ll send you the canvas, which I nevertheless finished. And it was precisely a more sober attempt, matt in colour without looking impressive, broken greens, reds and rusty ochre yellows, as I told you that from time to time I felt a desire to begin again with a palette like the one in the north.
I’ll send you that canvas as soon as I can. Goodday, thank you for all your kindnesses, good handshake to you and to Jo, and naturally to Cor if he’s still there.
Vincent
Mother and Wil have also written me a very nice letter.
Whilst not liking Rod’s book excessively, I’ve nevertheless done a canvas of that passage in which he speaks of the darkish mountains and huts.
(Our friend Roulin has written to me too.)
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 5 and 6 September 1889
My dear brother,
Although I’ve already written to you, there are still many things you have told me and to which I haven’t yet replied. First that you’ve rented a room in Tanguy’s house and that my canvases are there, that’s most interesting – provided you’re not paying a lot for it – the expenses still continuing and the canvases still taking their time to bring anything back in, that often frightens me.
Be that as it may, I think it’s a very good step, and I thank you for it, as for so many other things. It’s curious that Maus has the idea of inviting young Bernard and me for the next Vingtistes exhibition, I would really like to exhibit there, while feeling my inferiority alongside so many Belgians who have an enormous amount of talent. That Mellery, for instance, is a great artist. And he’s also been holding up for a number of years now. But I would do my best to try to do something good this autumn. I’m working nonstop in my room, which is doing me good and driving away, I imagine, these abnormal ideas.
Thus I’ve redone the canvas of the Bedroom. That study is certainly one of the best – sooner or later it will definitely have to be lined. It was painted so quickly and dried in such a way that, as the thinner evaporated immediately, the painting doesn’t adhere at all firmly to the canvas. This will also be the case with other studies of mine that were painted very quickly and with a thick impasto. Besides, this thin canvas perishes after a while and can’t take a lot of impasto.
You’ve taken some excellent stretching frames, damn it, if I had some like that here to work on that would be better than these strips of wood from here that warp in the sun.
People say – and I’m quite willing to believe it – that it’s difficult to know oneself – but it’s not easy to paint oneself either. Thus I’m working on two portraits of myself at the moment – for want of another model –
because it’s more than time that I did a bit of figure work. One I began the first day I got up, I was thin, pale as a devil. It’s dark violet blue and the head whiteish with yellow hair, thus a colour effect.
But since then I’ve started another one, threequarter length on a light background.
Then I’m retouching some studies from this summer – anyway I’m working from morning till night.
Are you well – darn it, I really wish for you that you were 2 years further on, and that these early days of marriage, however beautiful they may be at times, were behind you. I believe so firmly that a marriage becomes good above all in the long run, and that then one recovers one’s temperament. So take things with a certain northern phlegm and take care of yourselves, both of you. This bloody life in the fine arts is exhausting, so it seems.
Strength is coming back to me day by day, and once again it seems to me that I already have almost too much of it. For to remain hardworking at the easel it isn’t necessary to be a Hercules.
What you told me about Maus having been to see my canvases has made me think a lot about Belgian painters lately and during my illness. Then memories come to me like an avalanche, and I try to rebuild for myself that whole school of modern Flemish artists to the point of being as homesick as a Swiss.
Which isn’t good, for our path is – onward – and retracing one’s steps is forbidden and impossible. That’s to say that one could think about it without getting lost in the past through an overmelancholy nostalgia.
Anyway, Henri Conscience isn’t a perfect writer at all, but here and there, more or less everywhere, what a painter! And what kindness in what he said and wished for. All the time I have a preface in my head – (the one to Le conscrit) to one of his books in which he says that he’d been very ill and that in his illness, despite all his efforts, he had felt his affection for mankind withering away, and that long walks out in the open fields brought his feelings of love back to him.
This inevitability of suffering and despair – anyway, here I am again, recovered for a period – I’m thankful for it.
I’m writing you this letter bit by bit in intervals when I’m tired of painting. Work is going quite well – I’m struggling with a canvas begun a few days before my indisposition. A reaper, the study is all yellow, terribly thickly impasted, but the subject was beautiful and simple. I then saw in this reaper – a vague figure struggling like a devil in the full heat of the day to reach the end of his toil – I then saw the image of death in it, in this sense that humanity would be the wheat being reaped. So if you like it’s the opposite of that Sower I tried before. But in this death nothing sad, it takes place in broad daylight with a sun that floods everything with a light of fine gold. Good, here I am again, however I’m not letting go, and I’m trying again on a new canvas. Ah, I could almost believe that I have a new period of clarity ahead of me.
And what should I do – continue here for these months, or move – I don’t know. The thing is, when the crises present themselves they aren’t amusing, and to risk having an attack like that with you or others is serious.
My dear brother – I’m still writing to you between bouts of work – I’m ploughing on like a man possessed, more than ever I have a pentup fury for work, and I think that this will contribute to curing me.
Perhaps something will happen to me like the thing E. Delacroix speaks of – “I found painting when I had neither teeth nor breath left”, in this sense that my sad illness makes me work with a pentup fury – very slowly – but from morning till night without respite – and – this is probably the secret – work for a long time and slowly. What do I know about it, but I think that I have one or two canvases on the go that aren’t too bad, first the reaper in the yellow wheat, and the portrait on a light background. This will be for the Vingtistes, if indeed they remember me when the time comes. Now, it would be absolutely the same to me, if not preferable, if they forget me.
Since I myself don’t forget the inspiration that I gain from giving free rein to my memories of certain Belgians. That’s the positive thing, and the rest is so secondary.
And here we are in September already, we’ll soon be in the middle of autumn, and then winter.
I’ll carry on working very hard, and then if the crisis returns towards Christmas we’ll see, and once that’s over then I wouldn’t see any disadvantage in sending the management here to all the devils and coming back to the north for a fairly long time. Leaving now would perhaps be too unwise, when I consider a new crisis likely in the winter, i.e. in 3 months.
I haven’t set a foot outside for 6 weeks, not even in the garden.
I’ll try, though, next week, when I’ve finished the canvases in progress.
But another few months and I’ll be so flabby and stupefied that a change will probably do a lot of good.
That, for the moment, is my idea on the subject, of course it isn’t a fixed idea.
But am of the opinion that we shouldn’t put ourselves out any more with the people of this establishment than with the owners of a hotel. We’ve rented a room from them for a certain amount of time, and they’re well paid for what they give, and that’s absolutely all.
Not to mention the fact that perhaps they’d like nothing better than for the situation to be chronic, and one would be culpably stupid if one gave in to them on that.
For my taste, they make far too many enquiries about not only what I but you earn &c.
So let’s give them the slip. Without quarrelling.
I’m still continuing this letter between times. Yesterday I began the portrait of the chief orderly, and perhaps I’ll also do his wife, for he’s married and lives in a little farmhouse a stone’s throw from the establishment.
A most interesting figure. There’s a beautiful etching by Legros of an old Spanish nobleman, if you remember it that will give you an idea of the type. He was at the hospital in Marseille during 2 episodes of cholera, anyway he’s a man who has seen an enormous number of people die and suffer, and there’s an indefinable contemplation in his face, such that I can’t help recalling the face of Guizot – for there’s something of that one in this head – but different. But he’s a man of the people, and simpler. Anyway, you’ll see it if I succeed in it and if I do a repetition of it.
I’m struggling with all my energy to master my work, telling myself that if I win this it will be the best lightning conductor for the illness. I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away; it’s selfish if you like, not to become accustomed to my companions in misfortune here instead, and to go to see them, but anyway I feel none the worse for it, for my work is progressing and we have need of that, for it’s more than necessary that I do better than before, which wasn’t sufficient.
Isn’t it better that if I were to come back from here again, sooner or later, I come back decidedly capable of doing a portrait that has some character, than to come back as I left? It’s coarsely expressed, for I really feel that one can’t say ‘I can do a portrait’ without telling a lie, because that is infinite. But anyway you’ll understand what I want to say, that I must do better than before.
At the moment my mind is functioning regularly and I feel absolutely normal – and if I think rationally at present about my condition with the hope of having in general between the crises – if, unfortunately, it’s to be feared that this will always recur from time to time – of having periods of clarity and work between times – if I think rationally
at present about my condition then certainly I tell myself that I mustn’t have the idée fixe of being ill. But that I must continue my little career as a painter firmly. To remain for good in an asylum from now on would probably be exaggerating things.
I was reading in Le Figaro a few days ago a story of a Russian writer who lived with a nervous illness from which he, moreover, sadly died, which caused him terrible attacks from time to time.
And what can one do, there’s no remedy, or if there is it’s to work passionately. I dwell on that more than I should. And all in all I prefer to have a proper illness like this than to be as I was in Paris when it was brewing.
Also you’ll see this when you put the portrait with the light background which I’ve just finished beside those I did of myself in Paris, that at present I look healthier than then, and even a great deal more so.
I’m even inclined to believe that the portrait will tell you better than my letter how I am, and that it will reassure you – it cost me some trouble.
And then the reaper is working too I think – it’s very, very simple.
At the end of the month you can rely on 12 no. 30 canvases I dare say, but there will be almost the same ones twice, the study and the final painting.
Anyway later – perhaps my journey into the south will bear fruit however, because the difference of the stronger light, the blue sky, that teaches one to see, and then above all and even only when one sees that for a long time.
The north will certainly appear completely new to me, but I’ve looked so much at the things that I’ve become strongly attached to them, and
I’ll remain melancholy for a long time.
I’m thinking of a funny thing. Modern art is discussed in Manette Salomon, and some artist or other speaking of ‘what will remain’ says: what will remain are ‘the landscape artists’ – that had a grain of truth, because Corot, Daubigny, Dupré, Rousseau – Millet as a landscape painter, that lasts, and when Corot says on his deathbed: in a dream I saw landscapes with completely pink skies, it was charming; then – very good – in Monet, Pissarro, Renoir we see those completely pink skies, so the landscape painters do last well, that was darned true. Let’s leave aside the figure painting of Delacroix, of Millet.
Afterwards, what are we beginning to glimpse timidly at the moment that is original and lasting – the portrait. That’s something old, one might say – but it’s also brand new. We’ll talk more about this – but let’s still continue to seek out portraits, above all of artists, like the Guillaumin and Guillaumin’s portrait of a young girl, and take good care of my portrait by Russell, which means a lot to me.
Have you framed the Laval portrait, you haven’t told me what you thought of it I think, I found it marvellous, that gaze through the pincenez, such an honest gaze.
The will that I have to do portraits these days is terribly strong, anyway Gauguin and I used to chat about that and about similar questions in such a way as to stretch our nerves to the extinction of all vital warmth.
But out of that, however, a few good paintings must emerge I dare think, and we’re seeking them and they must, I imagine, be doing good work in Brittany. I’ve received a letter from G., I think I’ve already told you, and I’m very curious to see what they’re doing one day.
I must ask you for the following painting items. 10 metres canvas
Large tubes 6 tubes zinc white
,, ,, 2 ,, emerald green
2 ,, cobalt
Small tubes
2 Carmine
1 vermilion
1 Large tube crimson lake
6 fitch brushes, black hair.
Then I’ve promised the orderly here an issue of Le Monde Illustré, Issue 1684, 6 July 1889, in which there’s a very pretty engraving after DemontBreton.
Phew – the reaper is finished, I think it will be one that you’ll place in your home – it’s an image of death as the great book of nature speaks to us about it – but what I sought is the ‘almost smiling’. It’s all yellow except for a line of violet hills – a pale, blond yellow. I myself find that funny, that I saw it like that through the iron bars of a cell.
Ah well, do you know what I hope for once I set myself to having some hope, it’s that the family will be for you what nature is for me, the mounds of earth, the grass, the yellow wheat, the peasant. That’s to say that you find in your love for people the wherewithal not only to work but the wherewithal to console you and restore you when one needs it. So please don’t let yourself be exhausted too much by business matters but take good care of yourselves, both of you – perhaps in a nottoodistant future there’s still some good.
I really want to redo the reaper one more time for Mother, if not I’ll make her another painting for her birthday, that will come later, for I’ll send it with the rest.
For I’m sure that Mother would understand it – for it’s indeed as simple as one of those coarse wood engravings that one finds in country almanacs.
Send me the canvas as soon as you can, because I want to do some more repetitions for the sisters too, and if I undertake new autumnal effects I’ll have the wherewithal to fill my time from one end to the other for this month.
I’m eating and drinking like a wolf at present. I must say that the doctor is very kindly towards me.
Yes, I think it’s a good idea to go and make a few paintings for Holland, for Mother and the two sisters that will make three, i.e. the reaper, the bedroom, the olive trees, wheatfield and cypress, that will make four even, for then I have yet another person for whom I’ll make one too. I’ll work on that with as much pleasure and more calm than for the Vingtistes, that goes without saying, since I’m feeling strong you can be sure that I’m going to try to get through a lot of work. I’m taking the best there are from 12 subjects, so they’ll still have things that are a little studied and chosen. And then there is good in working for people who don’t know what a painting is.
Good handshake to you and Jo.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’m opening this letter once more to tell you that I’ve just seen Mr Peyron, I hadn’t seen him for 6 days. He tells me that he’s planning to go to Paris this month and that he’ll see you then. That gives me pleasure, for he has, there’s no doubt about it, a lot of experience, and I think he’ll tell you what he thinks of it quite frankly.
To me he only said – ‘let’s hope that it won’t recur’, but anyway I’m counting on it recurring for quite a long time, for a few years at least. But I’m also counting on the fact that work, far from being impossible for me, can go along steadily in the meantime, and is even my remedy. And so I say once more – excluding Mr Peyron the doctor absolutely – that as regards the management here we should probably be polite, but that we should limit ourselves to that but bind ourselves to nothing.
It’s very serious that wherever I were to stay here for a little longer I would perhaps come up against popular prejudices – I don’t even know what these prejudices are – which would make my life with them unbearable.
But anyway, I’m awaiting what Mr Peyron will say to you, myself I have no idea what his opinion is. I worked this afternoon on the portrait of the orderly, which is progressing. If it weren’t very much tempered – completely – by an intelligent gaze and an expression of kindness – he would be a real bird of prey. He really is a southern type.
I’m curious if Mr Peyron’s planned journey will indeed take place this time, I’m very curious to know what may come of it.
With another year’s work, perhaps I’ll arrive at a feeling of selfsecurity from the artistic point of view. And that’s always something worth seeking.
But for that I must have good luck. What I dream of in my best moments aren’t so much dazzling colour effects as the halftones once again.
And certainly the visit to the Montpellier museum contributed to turning my thoughts in that direction. For what touched me there more than the magnificent Courbets, which are marvels, the young ladies of the village, the sleeping spinner – were the portraits of Bruyas by Delacroix and by Ricard, then the Daniel, Delacroix’s odalisques, all in halftones. For these odalisques are something quite different from those in the Louvre. It’s above all purplish.
But in these halftones what choice and what quality!
It’s time for me to send off this letter at last – I could tell you in two pages what it contains, i.e. nothing new. But anyway, I don’t have time to redo it.
Good handshake once again, and if it doesn’t put you out too much let me have the canvas as soon as possible.
Ever yours,
V.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 10 Spetember 1889
My dear Theo,
I think your letter is really good, what you say about Rousseau and artists like Bodmer, that they are men in any case, and of such a kind that one would wish the world populated with people like that – yes indeed, that’s what I myself feel too.
And that J.H. Weissenbruch knows and does the muddy towpaths, the stunted willows, the foreshortenings and the learned and strange perspectives of the canals ‘as Daumier does his lawyers’, I think that’s perfect. Tersteeg did well to buy some of his work from him, the fact that people like that don’t sell, according to me that’s because there are too many sellers who try to sell other things, with which they deceive the public and mislead them.
Do you know that today, still, when I read by chance the story of some energetic industrialist or above all a publisher, that the same feelings of indignation then come to me again, the same feelings of anger from the old days when I was with G.&Cie.
Life goes on like that, time doesn’t come back, but I’m working furiously, because of the very fact that I know that the opportunities to work don’t come back.
Above all, in my case, where a more violent crisis may destroy my ability to paint forever. In the crises I feel cowardly in the face of anguish and suffering – more cowardly than is justified, and it’s perhaps this very moral cowardice which, while before I had no desire whatsoever to get better, now makes me eat enough for two, work hard, take care of myself in my relations with the other patients for fear of relapsing – anyway I’m trying to get better now like someone who, having wanted to commit suicide, finding the water too cold, tries to catch hold of the bank again.
My dear brother, you know that I came to the south and threw myself into work for a thousand reasons.
To want to see another light, to believe that looking at nature under a brighter sky can give us a more accurate idea of the Japanese way of feeling and drawing. Wanting, finally, to see this stronger sun, because one feels that without knowing it one couldn’t understand the paintings of Delacroix from the point of view of execution, technique, and because one feels that the colours of the prism are veiled in mist in the north.
All of this remains somewhat true. Then when one also adds to it an inclination of the heart towards this south that Daudet did in Tartarin, and the fact that here and there I’ve also found friends and things that I love here.
Will you then understand that while finding my illness horrible I feel that all the same I’ve entered into attachments that are a little too strong here – attachments which could mean that later on the desire to work here will take hold of me again – while all the same it may well be that I’ll return to the north relatively soon.
Yes, for I don’t hide from you the fact that in the same way that I’m taking my food avidly at present, I have a terrible desire that comes to me to see my friends again and to see the northern countryside again.
Work is going very well, I’m finding things that I’ve sought in vain for years, and feeling that I always think of those words of Delacroix that you know, that he found painting when he had neither breath nor teeth left.
Ah well, I myself with the mental illness I have, I think of so many other artists suffering mentally, and I tell myself that this doesn’t prevent one from practising the role of painter as if nothing had gone wrong.
When I see that crises here tend to take an absurd religious turn, I would almost dare believe that this even necessitates a return to the north. Don’t speak too much about this to the doctor when you see him – but I don’t know if this comes from living for so many months both at the hospital in Arles and here in these old cloisters. Anyway I ought not to live in surroundings like that, the street would be better then. I am not indifferent, and in the very suffering religious thoughts sometimes console me a great deal. Thus this time during my illness a misfortune happened to me – that lithograph of Delacroix, the Pietà, with other sheets had fallen into some oil and paint and got spoiled.
I was sad about it – then in the meantime I occupied myself painting it, and you’ll see it one day, on a no. 5 or 6 canvas I’ve made a copy of it which I think has feeling – besides, having not long ago seen the Daniel and the Odalisques and the Portrait of Bruyas and the Mulatto woman at Montpellier, I’m still under the impression that it had on me. This is what edifies me, as does reading a fine book like one by Beecher Stowe or Dickens. But what disturbs me is constantly seeing those good women who believe in the Virgin of Lourdes and make up things like that, and telling oneself that one is a prisoner in an administration like that, which very willingly cultivates these unhealthy religious aberrations when it ought to be a matter of curing them. So I say, it would be even better to go, if not into penal servitude then at least into the regiment.
I reproach myself for my cowardice, I ought to have defended my studio better, even if I had to fight with those gendarmes and neighbours. Others in my position would have used a revolver, and indeed, had one killed onlookers like that as an artist one would have been acquitted. I would have done better in that case then, and now I was cowardly and drunk.
Ill too, but I wasn’t brave.
Then in the face of the Suffering of these crises I feel very fearful too, and so I don’t know if my zeal is something other than what I say, it’s like the man who wants to commit suicide, and finding the water too cold he struggles to catch hold of the bank again.
But listen – to be in a lodginghouse like I saw Braat back then – fortunately that time is far off, no and again no.
It would be different if père Pissarro or Vignon, for example, wanted to take me into their home. Well I’m a painter myself – that can be sorted out, and better that the money goes to feed painters than to the excellent nuns.
Yesterday I asked Mr Peyron point blank: since you’re going to Paris, what would you say if I suggested that you be good enough to take me with you? He answered in an evasive way – that it was too quick, that he must write to you beforehand.
But he’s very kind and very indulgent towards me, and whilst he isn’t the absolute master here, far from it, I owe him many freedoms.
Anyway, one must not only make paintings but one must also see people and – from time to time, by associating with others too, recover one’s temperament and furnish oneself with ideas. I leave aside the hope that it wouldn’t recur – on the contrary I must tell myself that from time to time I’ll have a crisis. But then one might for that time go into an asylum or even to the town prison, where there’s usually an isolation cell. Don’t worry yourself in any case – work is going well and look, I can’t tell you how much it gives me a warm glow sometimes to say, I’m going to do this and that again, wheatfields &c.
I’ve done the portrait of the orderly, and I have a repetition of it for you. It makes quite a curious contrast with the portrait I did of myself, in which the gaze is vague and veiled, while he has something military about him, and dark eyes that are small and lively. I made him a present of it, and I’ll also do his wife if she wants to pose. She’s a faded woman, an unfortunate, quite resigned one, and really not much, and so insignificant that I myself have a great desire to do that dusty blade of grass. I spoke with her from time to time when I was doing olive trees behind their little farmhouse, and then she told me that she didn’t think that I was ill – anyway, you would say that too at present if you saw me working, with my thoughts clear and my fingers so sure that I drew that Delacroix Pietà without taking a single measurement, though there are those four outstretched hands and arms – gestures and bodily postures that aren’t exactly easy or simple.
Please send me the canvas soon, if that’s possible, and then I think I’ll need 10 tubes of zinc white as well.
However, I know quite well that recovery comes, if one is brave, from inside, through the great resignation to suffering and death, through the abandonment of one’s own will and one’s selflove. But it’s not coming to me, I love to paint, to see people and things and everything that makes up our life – artificial – if you like. Yes, real life would be in something else, but I don’t think I belong to that category of souls who are ready to live and also at any moment ready to suffer.
What a funny thing the touch is, the brushstroke. Out of doors, exposed to the wind, the sun, people’s curiosity, one works as one can, one fills one’s canvas regardless. Yet then one catches the true and the essential – that’s the most difficult thing. But when one returns to this study again after a time, and orders one’s brushstrokes in the direction of the objects – certainly it’s more harmonious and agreeable to see, and one adds to it whatever one has of serenity and smiles.
Ah, I’ll never be able to render my impressions of certain figures I’ve seen here. Certainly the road to the south is the road where there’s something brand new, but men of the north have difficulty in getting through. And I can see myself already in advance, on the day when I have some success, longing for my solitude and distress here when I see the reaper in the field below through the iron bars of the isolation cell. Every cloud has a silver lining.
To succeed, to have lasting prosperity, one must have a temperament different from mine, I’ll never do what I could have and ought to have wanted and pursued.
But as I have dizzy spells so often, I can only live in a situation of the fourth or fifth rank. While I clearly sense the value and originality and superiority of Delacroix, of Millet, for example, then I make a point of telling myself, yes I am something, I can do something. But I must have a basis in these artists, and then produce the little I’m capable of in the same direction.
So père Pissarro has been really cruelly struck by those two misfortunes at the same time.
As soon as I read that I had this idea of asking you if there would be a way of going to stay with him.
If you pay him the same thing as here, he’ll find it worth his while, for I don’t need much – except for working.
So do it directly, and if he doesn’t want to I would willingly go to Vignon’s.
I’m a little afraid of PontAven, there are so many people there. But what you say about Gauguin interests me a lot. And I still tell myself that G. and I will perhaps work together again. I myself know that G. can do things even better than what he has done, but how to reassure him! I still hope to do his portrait. Have you seen that portrait he did of me painting sunflowers? My face has lit up after all a lot since, but it was indeed me, extremely tired and charged with electricity as I was then.
And yet to see the country one must live with the common people and in the little houses, the bars &c. And that was what I said to Boch, who complained of seeing nothing that tempted him or made an impression on him. I go walking with him for two days and I show him thirty paintings to do, as different from the north as Morocco would be. I’m curious to know what he’s doing at the moment.
And then do you know why the paintings of E. Delacroix – the religious and historical paintings, Christ’s barque – the Pietà, the Crusaders, have this allure? Because E. Delacroix, when he does a Gethsemane, went to see on the spot beforehand what an olive grove was like, and the same for the sea whipped up by a hard mistral, and because he must have said to himself, these people whom history talks to us about, doges of Venice, crusaders, apostles, holy women, were of the same type and lived in a manner analogous to those of their presentday descendants.
So I must tell you it, and you can see it in the Berceuse, however failed and weak that attempt may be. Had I had the strength to continue, I’d have done portraits of saints and of holy women from life, and who would have appeared to be from another century and they would be citizens of the present day, and yet would have had something in common with very primitive Christians.
The emotions that that causes are too strong though, I wouldn’t survive it – but later, later, I don’t say that I won’t mount a fresh attack.
What a great man Fromentin was – for those who want to see the orient he will always remain the guide. He was first to establish relationships between Rembrandt and the south, between Potter and what he saw himself.
You’re right a thousand times over – one mustn’t think about all that – one must do – even if it’s studies of cabbages and salad to calm oneself down, and after being calmed then – what one is capable of.
When I see them again I’ll do repetitions of that study of the Tarascon diligence, the Vineyard, the Harvest and above all the Red bar, that night café which is the most characteristic as regards colour. But the white figure in the middle, correct as regards colour, must be redone, better constructed. But I dare say that this is a bit of the real south, and a calculated combination of the greens with the reds.
My strength has been exhausted too quickly, but I can see from afar the possibility for others to do an infinity of beautiful things. And again and again that idea remains true, that to facilitate the journey of others it would have been good to found a studio somewhere in these parts.
To make the journey from the north to Spain in one go, for example, isn’t good, one won’t see there what one ought to see – one must first and gradually accustom one’s eyes to the different light.
I myself have no great need to see works by Titian and Velázquez in museums, I’ve seen certain living types who have made me know better now what a painting of the south is than before my little journey.
My God, my God, the good people among artists who say that Delacroix is not of the true orient! Look, is the true orient then what Parisians like Gérôme do?
Because you paint a bit of sunny wall, even from life and well and true according to our northern way of seeing, does that also prove that you’ve seen the people of the orient? Now that’s what Delacroix was seeking there, which didn’t prevent him at all from painting walls in the Jewish wedding and the Odalisques.
Isn’t that true – and then Degas says that it’s too expensive to drink in the bars while doing paintings, I don’t say no, but would he then have me go into the cloisters or the churches, there I’m the one who’s afraid.
That’s why I make an effort at escape through the present letter, with many handshakes to you and Jo.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I still have to congratulate you on the occasion of Mother’s birthday, I wrote to them yesterday but the letter hasn’t gone off yet, because I wasn’t in the mood to finish it.
It’s funny that the idea had already come to me 2 or 3 times before to go to Pissarro’s, this time, after you’ve told me of his recent misfortunes, I don’t hesitate to ask it of you.
Yes we must be done here, I can no longer do both things at once, working and doing everything in my power to live with the odd patients here – it’s unsettling. I’d like to force myself to go downstairs, but in vain. And yet it’s almost 2 months since I’ve been out in the open air.
In the long run here I would lose the faculty to work, now there I begin to call a halt, and so I’ll send them packing, if you agree. And paying for it what’s more, no, then one or the other of the artists fallen in misfortune will consent to set up house with me.
Fortunately, you can write that you’re well, and Jo too, and that her sister is with you. I’d very much like to be back myself when your child arrives – not with you, certainly not, that isn’t possible, but in the area around Paris with another painter.
I could, to mention a third, go and stay with the Jouves, who have a lot of children and a whole household.
You’ll understand that I’ve tried to compare the second crisis with the first, and I say only this to you: it appears to me to be some kind of influence from outside rather than a cause that comes from within myself. I may be mistaken, but whatever the case I think you’ll consider it right that I’m a little horrified by all religious exaggeration. I can’t help thinking of good André Bonger, who himself let out loud shouts when anyone wanted
to try out some unguent or other on him. Good Mr Peyron will tell you heaps of things, about probabilities and possibilities of involuntary actions. Good, but if he’s specific I’ll believe none of it. And we’ll see then what he specifies, if it’s specific. The treatment of the patients in this hospital is certainly easy to follow, even on a journey, for they do absolutely nothing about it, they leave them to vegetate in idleness and feed them with stale and slightly spoiled food. And I’ll tell you now that from the first day I refused to take this food, and until my crisis I ate nothing but bread and a little soup, which I’ll continue to do as long as I remain here. It’s true that after this crisis Mr Peyron gave me some wine and meat, which I willingly accept in these first days but wouldn’t want to make an exception to the rule for a long time, and it’s right to respect the establishment according to their ordinary regime. I must also say that Mr Peyron doesn’t give me much hope for the future, which I find justified, he makes me really feel that everything is doubtful, that nothing can be ensured in advance. But I myself am counting on it recurring, but only work preoccupies me so thoroughly that I think that with the body I have it will continue like this for a long time. The idleness in which these poor unfortunates vegetate is a plague, and there you are, it’s a general evil in the towns and country areas under this stronger sun, and having learned differently it’s a duty to resist it, certainly for me. I finish this letter by thanking you again for yours and asking you to write to me again soon, and many handshakes in thought.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 20 Spetember 1889
My dear Theo,
Thanks very much for your letter. First, it gives me very great pleasure that you, for your part, had also already thought of père Pissarro.
You’ll see that there are other possibilities, if not there then elsewhere. Now business is business, and you ask me to answer categorically – and you’re right to do so – if I would consent to go into an asylum in Paris in the event of moving immediately for this winter.
I answer yes to that, with the same calmness and for the same reasons as I entered this one – even though this asylum in Paris might not be ideal, which might easily be the case, for the opportunity to work isn’t bad here, and work my only distraction.
But that being said, I’ll point out to you that in my letter I gave a very serious motive as a reason for wishing to move.
And I insist on repeating it – I’m astonished that with the modern ideas I have, I being such an ardent admirer of Zola, of De Goncourt and of artistic things which I feel so much, I have crises like a superstitious person would have, and that mixedup, atrocious religious ideas come to me such as I never had in my head in the north.
On the assumption that, very sensitive to surroundings, the already prolonged stay in these old cloisters which are the Arles hospital and the home here would be sufficient in itself to explain these crises – then – even as a stopgap – it might be necessary to go into a lay asylum at present.
Nevertheless, to avoid doing or appearing to do anything rash, I declare to you, after having thus warned you of what I might desire at a given moment – that is, a move – I declare to you that I feel sufficiently calm and confident to wait
a while longer to see if there’ll be a new attack this winter.
But if then I was to write to you: I want to get out of here, you wouldn’t hesitate and it would be arranged in advance, for you would know then that I’d have a serious reason, or even several, to go into a home that wasn’t run like this one by the nuns, however excellent they might be.
Now if by some arrangement or another we might move sooner or later, then let’s begin as if almost nothing was wrong, at the same time being very prudent and ready to listen to the least thing that Rivet has to say, but let’s not set ourselves immediately to taking overly official measures as if it were a lost cause.
As regards eating a lot, I’m doing so – but if I was my doctor I would forbid it.
Not seeing any good for myself in really enormous physical strength, for if I absorb myself in the idea of doing some good work and wanting to be an artist and nothing but that, that would be the most logical thing.
Mother and Wil, each for their part after Cor’s departure, have changed surroundings – they were darned right. Grief mustn’t build up in our souls like the water of a swamp. But it’s sometimes both costly and impossible to move.
Wil wrote very well, it’s a great grief for them, Cor’s departure.
It’s funny, just at the moment when I was making that copy of the Pietà by Delacroix I discovered where that canvas has gone. It belongs to a queen of Hungary or another country around there who has written poems under the name of Carmen Sylva. The article which talked of her and of the painting was by Pierre Loti, who made one feel that this Carmen Sylva was as a person yet more touching than what she writes – and yet she
writes things like this: A woman without a child is like a bell without a clapper – the sound of the bronze would perhaps be very beautiful, but no one will hear it.
At present I have 7 copies out of ten of Millet’s Travaux des champs.
I can assure you that it interests me enormously to make copies, and that not having any models for the moment it will ensure, however, that I don’t lose sight of the figure.
What’s more, it will give me a studio decoration for myself or another.
I would like also to copy the Sower and the Diggers.
There’s a photo of the Diggers after the drawing.
And Lerat’s etching of the Sower at DurandRuel’s.
In these same etchings is the Field under the snow with a harrow. Then The four times of the day, there are examples of them in the collection of wood engravings.
I would like to have all of this, at least the etchings and the wood engravings. It’s a study I need, for I want to learn. Although copying may be the old system, that absolutely doesn’t bother me at all. I’m going to copy Delacroix’s Good Samaritan too.
I’ve done a portrait of a woman – the orderly’s wife – which I think you’d like. I’ve done a repetition of it which wasn’t as good as the one from life.
And I fear that they’ll take the latter, I would have liked you to have it. It’s pink and black.
Today I’m sending you my portrait of myself, you must look at it for some time – you’ll see, I hope, that my physiognomy has grown much calmer, although the gaze may be vaguer than before, so it appears to me.
I have another one which is an attempt from when I was ill. But I think this one will please you more, and I’ve tried to create something simple, show it to père Pissarro if you see him.
You’ll be surprised what effect the Travaux des champs take on in colour, it’s a very intimate series of his.
What I’m seeking in it, and why it seems good to me to copy them, I’m going to try to tell you. We painters are always asked to compose ourselves and to be nothing but composers.
Very well – but in music it isn’t so – and if such a person plays some Beethoven he’ll add his personal interpretation to it – in music, and then above all for singing – a composer’s interpretation is something, and it isn’t a hard and fast rule that only the composer plays his own compositions.
Good – since I’m above all ill at present, I’m trying to do something to console myself, for my own pleasure.
I place the blackandwhite by Delacroix or Millet or after them in front of me as a subject. And then I improvise colour on it but, being me, not completely of course, but seeking memories of their paintings – but the memory, the vague consonance of colours that are in the same sentiment, if not right – that’s my own interpretation.
Heaps of people don’t copy. Heaps of others do copy – for me, I set myself to it by chance, and I find that it teaches and above all sometimes consoles.
So then my brush goes between my fingers as if it were a bow on the violin and absolutely for my pleasure. Today I attempted the Sheep shearer in a colour scale ranging from lilac to yellow. They are small canvases, around no. 5.
I thank you very much for the consignment of canvases and colours. On the other hand, I’m sending you a few canvases with the portrait, the following
Moonrise (wheatsheaves)
Study of fields
,, of olive trees
Night study
The mountain
Field of green wheat
Olive trees
Orchard in blossom
Entrance to a quarry
The first four canvases are studies that don’t have the effect of an ensemble like the others. Myself I quite like the Entrance to a quarry which I did when I felt this attack beginning, because to my taste the dark greens go well with the ochre tones, there’s something sad in them that’s healthy, and that’s why it doesn’t annoy me. That’s perhaps also the case with the Mountain. People will tell me that mountains aren’t like that, and that there are black contours as wide as a finger. But anyway it seemed to me that it expressed the passage in Rod’s book – one of the very rare passages of his in which I find something good – on a lost land of dark mountains in which one noticed the darkish huts of goatherds, where sunflowers bloomed.
The olive trees with white cloud and background of mountains, as well as the Moonrise and the Night effect –
These are exaggerations from the point of view of the arrangement, their lines are contorted like those of the ancient woodcuts. The olive trees are more in character, just as in the other study and I’ve tried to express the time of day when one sees the green beetles and the cicadas flying in the heat.
The other canvases – the Reaper &c. aren’t dry. And now in the bad season I’m going to make a lot of copies, for really I must do more figure work. It’s the study of the figure that teaches one to grasp the essential and to simplify.
When you say in your letter that I’ve never done anything but work, no – that’s not right – I myself am very, very discontented with my work, and the only thing that consoles me is that experienced people say that one must paint for 10 years for nothing. But what I’ve done is only those 10 years of unfortunate studies that didn’t come off. Now a better period could come, but I’ll have to strengthen the figure work, and I must refresh my memory by very close study of Delacroix, Millet. Then I’ll try to sort out my drawing. Yes, every cloud has a silver lining, it gives one more time for study.
I’m also adding a study of flowers to the roll of canvases – not much, but anyway I don’t want to tear it up.
All in all the only things I consider a little good in it are the Wheatfield, the Mountain, the Orchard, the Olive trees with the blue hills and the Portrait and the Entrance to the quarry, and the rest says nothing to me, because it lacks personal will, feeling in the lines. Where these lines are close together and deliberate the painting begins, even if it may be exaggerated. That’s what Bernard and Gauguin feel a little bit, they won’t ask for the correct shape of a tree at all, but they absolutely insist that one says if the shape is round or square – and my word, they’re right –
Exasperated by certain people’s photographic and inane perfection. They won’t ask for the correct tone of the mountains but they’ll say: for Christ’s sake, were the mountains blue, then chuck on some blue and don’t go telling me that it was a blue a bit like this or like that, it was blue wasn’t it? Good – make them blue and that’s enough! Gauguin is a genius sometimes when he explains that, but as for the genius Gauguin has, he’s very timid about showing it, and it’s touching how he likes to say something really useful to young folk. What an odd fellow all the same.
It gives me great pleasure that Jo is well, and I think you’ll feel much more in your element thinking of her pregnancy, and naturally having concerns about it too, than if you were alone without these family concerns. For you’ll feel more in nature.
When one thinks of Millet and Delacroix, what a contrast. Delacroix without a wife, without children, Millet completely in his family, more than anyone.
And yet what similarities there are in their work.
So Jouve has still kept his big studio and he’s working on decorations.
That one came very close to being an excellent painter. It’s money troubles with him, in order to eat he’s forced to do a thousand things other than painting, which costs him more money than it brings in when he makes something beautiful.
And he quickly loses his touch for drawing with the brush. This probably comes from the old training method, which is the same as the current one – in the studios – they fill in outlines. And Daumier was always painting his face in the mirror to learn how to draw!
Do you know what I think about quite often – what I used to say to you back in the old days, that if I didn’t succeed I still thought that what I had worked on would be continued. Not directly, but one isn’t alone in believing things that are true. And what does one matter as a person then? I feel so strongly that the story of people is like the story of wheat, if one isn’t sown in the earth to germinate there, what does it matter, one is milled in order to become bread.
The difference between happiness and unhappiness, both are necessary and useful, and death or passing away... it’s so relative – and so is life.
Even in the face of an illness that’s unsettling or worrying, this belief is absolutely unshaken.
I’d have liked to see those Meuniers.
Well, let it be understood that if I were to write to you again expressly and briefly that I wanted to come to Paris, I would have a reason for that, which I’ve explained above, that in the meantime there’s no great hurry, and I’m quite confident, after warning you, to wait for the winter and the crisis which may recur then. But if I have another fit of religious exaltation, then no delay, I’d like to leave immediately without giving a reason. Only we have no right, at least it would be indiscreet, to meddle in the nuns’ management or even to criticize them. They have their own belief and ways of doing good to others, sometimes it works very well. But I don’t warn you lightly. And it isn’t to regain more freedom or something else that I don’t have. So let’s wait very calmly until an opportunity presents itself to find a place.
It’s a great advance that my stomach is working well, and so I don’t think that I’ll be as sensitive to the cold. Then I know what to do when the weather is bad, as I have this plan to copy several things that I like.
I’d very much like to see Millet reproductions in schools, I think there would be children who became painters if only they saw good things.
Give my warm regards to Jo, and handshake, more soon.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 5 October 1889
My dear Theo,
I was longing for your letter and so I was very happy to receive it, and to see from it that you’re well, as are Jo and the friends you speak of.
I must ask you to send me the whites I asked for as soon as possible, and to add to them some canvas, 5 metres or 10, whichever suits. Then I must begin by telling you a piece of rather vexing news, as I see it. It’s that during the stay here there have been a few expenses which I thought Mr Peyron had notified you about as they occurred, which he told me the other day he hadn’t done, with the result that it has mounted up to around 125 francs, deducting from it the 10 you sent by postal order.
It’s for paint, canvas, frames and stretching frames, my trip the other day to Arles, a piece of linen clothing, and various repairs.
I’m using two colours here, lead white and ordinary blue, but in quite large quantities, and the canvas, that’s for when I want to work on unprepared, stronger canvas.
This comes unfortunately just at this time when I would gladly have repeated my trip to Arles etc.
That said, I’ll tell you that we’re having some superb autumn days, and that I’m taking advantage of them. I have a few studies, among others a mulberry tree, all yellow on stony ground standing out against the blue of the sky, in which study I think that you’ll see that I’ve found Monticelli’s track. You’ll have received the consignment of canvases I sent you last Saturday.
It surprises me a lot that Mr Isaäcson wants to do an article on studies of mine. I’d willingly urge him to wait a little longer, his article would lose absolutely nothing by it, and with another year of work I could hope to put more characteristic things in front of him with more willpower in the drawing, more knowledge of the Provençal south.
Mr Peyron was very kind to talk of my case in those terms – I haven’t dared ask him to go to Arles one of these days, which I’d very much like to do, believing that he would disapprove. Not, though, that I suspected that he believed there was a connection between my previous trip and the crisis that closely followed it. The thing is that there are a few people over there whom I felt and once again feel the need to see again.
While I don’t have here in the south, like good Prévost , a mistress who holds me captive, I couldn’t help becoming attached to people and things.
And now that I’m staying on here for the time being, and will most probably spend the winter here – in the spring – in the fine season, shall I not stay here too? That will depend on my health above all.
What you say of Auvers is nevertheless a very agreeable prospect to me, and sooner or later that ought to be fixed without seeking further. If I come to the north, even supposing that there’s no room in this Doctor’s home, it’s probable that he would, on père Pissarro’s recommendation and your own, find either board with a family or quite simply at the inn. The main thing is to know the doctor so that, in the event of a crisis, one doesn’t fall into the hands of the police and isn’t forcibly carried off into an asylum.
And I can assure you that the north will interest me like a brandnew country.
But anyway, for the moment there’s therefore nothing that’s absolutely hurrying us.
I reproach myself for being so behind with my correspondence, I’d like to write to Isaäcson, Gauguin and Bernard. But writing doesn’t always come, and what’s more, work is pressing. Yes, I’d like to say to Isaäcson that he would do well to wait longer, there isn’t yet that in it that I hope to attain if my health continues. It’s not worth mentioning anything about my work at the moment. When I’m back, at best it will form a kind of ensemble, ‘Impressions of Provence’.
But what does he want to say now when the olive trees, the fig trees, the vineyards, the cypresses must be more accentuated, all characteristic things, the same as the Alpilles, which must get more character.
How I’d like to see what Gauguin and Bernard have brought back.
I have a study of two yellowed poplars on a background of mountains, and a view of the park here, autumnal effect, some of the draughtsmanship of which is more naive and more – at home.
Anyway, it’s difficult to leave a land before having something to prove that one has felt and loved it.
If I come back to the north I plan to do a whole lot of Greek studies, you know, painted studies with white and blue and only a little orange, just like in the open air.
I must draw and seek style. Yesterday at the almoner’s here I saw a painting that made an impression on me. A Provençal lady with an intelligent, purebred face, in a red dress. A figure like the ones Monticelli thought of.
It wasn’t without great faults, but there was simplicity in it, and how sad it is to see how much they have degenerated from it here, as we have from ours in Holland.
I’m writing to you in haste so as not to wait to answer your kind letter, hoping that you’ll write again without delaying long.
I’ve seen more very beautiful subjects for tomorrow – in the mountains.
Kind regards to Jo and to our friends, above all when you get the chance thank père Pissarro for his information, which will certainly be useful.
Shaking both your hands, believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 8 October 1889
My dear Theo,
I’ve just brought back a canvas I’ve been working on for some time, once again of the same field as the one of the reaper. Now it’s mounds of earth and the background parched lands, then the rocks of the Alpilles. A bit of bluegreen sky with small white and violet cloud. In the foreground: A thistle and some dry grass. A peasant dragging a bundle of straw in the middle. It’s another harsh study, and instead of being almost entirely yellow it makes an almost completely violet canvas. Broken and neutral violets.
But I’m writing you this because I think that this will complement the reaper and will make it easier to see what it is. For the reaper appears done at random, and this with it will balance it. As soon as it’s dry I’ll send it to you with the repetition of the bedroom. I seriously ask you to show them together, if someone or other comes to see the studies, because of the opposition of the complementaries.
Then this week I’ve done the entrance to a quarry, which is like a Japanese thing, you’ll well remember that there are Japanese drawings of rocks where grasses and little trees grow here and there. There are moments between times when nature is superb, autumnal effects glorious in colour, green skies contrasting with yellow, orange, green vegetation, earth in all shades of violet, burnt grass where the rains have nevertheless given a last vigour to certain plants, which again start to produce little violet, pink, blue, yellow flowers. Things that make you quite melancholy not to be able to render them.
And the skies – like our northern skies, but the colours of the sunsets and sunrises are more varied and more pure. As in works by Jules Dupré and Ziem.
I also have two views of the park and the asylum in which this place appears most agreeable. I tried to reconstruct the thing as it may have been by simplifying and accentuating the proud, unchanging nature of the pines and the cedar bushes against the blue.
Anyway – if they should happen to remember me – which I’m not keen on – there’ll be enough to send something coloured to the Vingtistes. But I’m indifferent to that. What I’m not indifferent to is that a man who is far superior to me, Meunier, has painted the female thrutchers of the Borinage and the shift going to the pit and the factories, their red roofs and their black chimneys against a delicate grey sky – all things I’ve dreamed of doing, feeling that it hadn’t been done and that it ought to be painted. And still, there’s an infinite number of subjects there for artists, and one should go down into the depths and paint the light effects.
If you haven’t yet sent the canvas and the colours, you should know that I now have absolutely no canvas.
And I was going to ask you if you would find it difficult to send the amount of what I owe to Mr Peyron immediately, if it was possible for you then to send me about fifteen francs by postal order, I would go to Arles one of these days.
It often seems to me that if Gauguin had remained here he wouldn’t have lost anything, for I clearly see, also in the letter he wrote me, that he isn’t entirely at the top of his form. And I know well the cause of that – they’re too hard up to find models, and living as cheaply as he thought possible at the beginning won’t have lasted. However, with his patience, next year will perhaps be dazzling. But then he won’t have Bernard with him if the latter does his military service.
Do you sense how much the figures of Jules Breton and Billet and others will remain? Those people overcame the difficulty of models, and that’s a lot. And a painting like that by Otto Weber from the good period (not the English) is bound to hold its own. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one new idea doesn’t in any way destroy works that have been done and perfected. That’s the terrible thing about the Impressionists, that the development of the thing gets stuck, and that for years they’re left facing obstacles that the preceding generation had overcome, the difficulty of money and models. And so Breton, Billet and others really are certain to mock it and be astonished and say: ‘come on, when are we going to see your peasants and your peasant women?’ As for me, I feel ashamed and defeated.
I’ve copied that woman with a child sitting beside a hearth by Mrs DemontBreton, almost all violet, I’m certainly going to continue copying, it will give me a collection of my own, and when it’s
sufficiently large and complete I’ll give the whole lot to a school.
I can also tell you that next consignment you’ll become better acquainted with good Tartarin’s Alpilles, which up to now – apart from the canvas of the mountains – you haven’t yet seen unfold, except in the distant background of the canvases. I have a study, rougher than the previous one of the mountains. A very wild ravine where a slender stream weaves its way along its bed of rocks.
It’s all violet. I could certainly do an entire series of these Alpilles, for having seen them for a long time now I’ve got used to it a little. You remember that fine landscape by Monticelli that we saw at Delarebeyrette’s, of a tree on some rocks against a sunset. There are a lot of effects like that at the moment, only I can’t ever be outside at the time the sun sets, otherwise I would have tried it.
Does Jo continue in good health? I think that all in all this year is happier for you than the preceding ones. As for me, my health has been good lately – I really think that Mr Peyron is right when he says that strictly speaking I’m not mad, for my thoughts are absolutely normal and clear between times, and even more than before, but during the crises it’s terrible however, and then I lose consciousness of everything. But it drives me to work and to seriousness, as a coalminer who is always in danger makes haste in what he does. Our mother and sister will be making their preparations to move house.
I’m enclosing a note for Isaäcson, Bernard and Gauguin. Naturally there’s no urgency at all to get it to them. The first time they come to see you will suffice. In the evenings I’m bored to death, my God the prospect of winter isn’t a cheery one.
I hope that you’ll have received the canvases sent about ten days ago in good order.
I’m going off for a long hike in the mountains to look for sites. More soon – above all send the paint and the canvas if it hasn’t been sent, for I’ve no canvas left at all, nor any zinc white.
Kind regards to Jo.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Sunday, 3 November 1889.
My dear Theo,
Enclosed I’m sending you a list of colours I need as soon as possible.
You gave me very great pleasure by sending me those Millets, I’m working on them zealously. I was growing flabby by dint of never seeing anything artistic, and this revives me. I’ve finished The evening and am working on The diggers and the man who’s putting his jacket on, no. 30 canvases, and The sower, smaller. The evening is in a range of violets and soft lilacs, with light from the lamp pale citron, then the orange glow of the fire and the man in red ochre. You will see it. It seems to me that doing painting after these Millet drawings is much rather to translate them into another language than to copy them. Apart from that I have a rain effect on the go, and an evening effect with tall pines. And also a leaffall.
My health is very good – except often a lot of melancholy however – but I feel much much better than when I came here, and even better than in Paris. Also, as for the work the ideas are becoming firmer, it seems to me. But then I don’t quite know if you’d like what I’m doing now. For despite what you say in your previous letter, that the search for style often harms other qualities, the fact is that I feel myself greatly driven to seek style, if you like, but I mean by that a more manly and more deliberate drawing. If that will make me more like Bernard or Gauguin, I can’t do anything about it. But am inclined to believe that in the long run you’d get used to it. For yes, one must feel the wholeness of a country – isn’t that what distinguishes a Cézanne from something else. And Guillaumin, whom you mention, he has so much style and a personal way of drawing. Anyway, I’ll do as I can.
Now that most of the leaves have fallen the landscape looks more like the north, and then I really feel that if I went back to the north I would see it more clearly than before.
Health is a big thing, and a lot depends on it, as regards work too.
Fortunately those abominable nightmares no longer torment me.
I hope to go to Arles in the next few days.
I’d very much like Jo to see The evening, I think that I’ll send you a consignment shortly, but it’s drying very badly because of the dampness of the studio. Here the houses have scarcely any cellar or foundations, and one feels the damp more than in the north.
At home they’ll have moved by now, I’ll add 6 canvases for them to the next consignment. Is it necessary to have them framed, perhaps not, for it isn’t worth it. Above all, don’t frame the studies I send you from time to time, that can be done later, pointless for them to take up too much room. I’ve also done a canvas for Mr Peyron, a view of the house with a tall pine tree.
I hope that your health and Jo’s continue to be good.
I’m so happy that you’re no longer alone, and that everything’s more normal than before.
Is Gauguin back, and what’s Bernard doing?
More soon, I shake your hand firmly, and Jo’s, and our friends’, and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’m trying to simplify the list of colours as much as possible – thus I very often use the ochres as in the old days.
I know very well that the studies drawn with long, sinuous lines from the last consignment weren’t what they ought to become, however I dare urge you to believe that in landscapes one will continue to mass things by means of a drawing style that seeks to express the entanglement of the masses. Thus, do you remember Delacroix’s landscape, Jacob’s struggle with the angel? And there are others of his! For example the cliffs, and the very flowers you speak of sometimes. Bernard really has found perfect things in there. Anyway, don’t be too swift to adopt a prejudice against it.
Anyway, you’ll see that there’s already more character in a large landscape with pines, red ochre trunks defined by a black line than in the previous ones.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 26 November 1889.
My dear Theo,
I have to thank you very much for a consignment of colours, which was also accompanied by an excellent woollen waistcoat. How kind you are to me, and how I’d like to be able to do something good in order to prove to you that I’d like to be less ungrateful. Your colours reached me at the right moment, for what I brought back from Arles is almost exhausted. The thing is, I’ve been working this month in the olive groves, for they’d driven me mad with their Christs in the garden, in which nothing is observed. Of course there’s no question of me doing anything from the Bible – and I’ve written to Bernard, and also to Gauguin, that I believed that thinking and not dreaming was our duty, that I was therefore astonished when looking at their work by the fact that they give way to that. For Bernard has sent me photos of his canvases. The thing about them is that they’re sorts of dreams and nightmares, that there’s some erudition there – one can see that it’s someone who’s mad about the primitives – but frankly the English PreRaphaelites did this much better, and then Puvis and Delacroix are much healthier than those PreRaphaelites. So this doesn’t leave me cold, but it gives me an uncomfortable feeling of a tumble rather than progress. Well, to shake this off, I’ve been messing about in the groves morning and evening on these bright and cold days, but in very beautiful, clear sunshine, and the result is 5 no. 30 canvases which, with the 3 studies of olive trees that you have, at least constitute an attack on the problem. The olive tree is variable like our willow or pollard in the north. You know that willows are very picturesque, despite the fact that it appears monotonous, it’s the tree typical of the country. Now what the willow is in our native country, the olive tree and the cypress have exactly the same importance here. What I’ve done is a rather harsh and coarse realism beside their abstractions, but it will nevertheless impart the rustic note, and will smell of the soil. How I’d like to see the studies from nature by Gauguin and Bernard, the latter tells me of portraits which doubtless would please me more. I hope I’ll get used to working in the cold – in the morning there are very interesting effects of white frost and fog, and I still have the great desire to do for the mountains and for the cypresses what I’ve just done for the olive trees, have a really good go at them.
The thing is, the olive tree and the cypress have rarely been painted, and from the point of view of placing the paintings this ought to go to England, I know well enough what they’re looking for over there. Whatever the case, I’m almost sure that in this way I’ll do something passable from time to time. As I said to Isaäcson, it’s really more and more my opinion that by working assiduously from nature, without saying to oneself in advance, I want to do this or that, by working as if one were making shoes, without artistic preoccupations, one won’t always do well, but on the days when one thinks about it the least one finds a subject that holds its own with the work of those who came before us. One learns to know a country that’s basically quite different from what it appears at first sight. On the contrary, one will say to oneself, I want to finish my paintings better, I want to do them with care; in the face of the difficulties of the weather, of changing effects, a heap of ideas like this finds itself reduced to being impracticable, and I end up resigning myself by saying, it’s experience and each day’s little bit of work alone that in the long run matures and enables one to do things that are more complete or more right. So slow, long work is the only road, and all ambition to be set on doing well, false. For one must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with when one mounts the breach each morning. To paint, the tranquil, regulated life would therefore be absolutely necessary, and at present what can one do when one sees that Bernard, for example, is always put under pressure, pressure, pressure by his parents. He can’t do as he wants, and many others with him. One says to oneself, I shan’t paint any more, but what will one do then? Ah – a more expeditious painting process should be invented, less expensive than oil and yet durable. A painting... it will end up becoming as commonplace as a sermon, a painter like someone who’s a century behind the times. It’s a shame, though, that it should be so. Now if the painters had better understood Millet as a man – now some like Lhermitte and Roll have grasped him – things wouldn’t be so. One must work as hard and with as few pretensions as a peasant if one wants to last. And instead of putting on grandiose exhibitions, it would have been better to address oneself to the common people, and work so that everyone may have paintings or reproductions at home, which are lessons like the work of Millet.
I’m completely at the end of my canvas, and when you can please send me 10 metres. Then I’m going to attack the cypresses and the mountains. I think that this must be the centre of the work I’ve done here and there in Provence, and then we can conclude the stay here when it’s convenient. Which isn’t urgent, for Paris only distracts, after all. I don’t know, though, not always being a pessimist – I keep telling myself that I still have it in my heart to paint a bookshop one day with the shop window yellowpink, in the evening, and the passersby black – it’s such an essentially modern subject. Because it also appears such a figurative source of light. I say, that would be a subject that would look good between an olive grove and a wheatfield, the sowing of books, of prints. I have that very much in my heart to do, like a light in the darkness. Yes, there’s a way of seeing Paris as beautiful. But anyway, bookshops aren’t hares, and there’s no hurry, and I have a good will to work here for another year, which will probably be wiser.
Mother must have been in Leiden for a good fortnight by now.
I’ve delayed sending you the canvases for them because I’ll include them with the canvas of the wheatfield for the Vingtistes.
Warm regards to Jo, she’s very good, continuing to be well. Thank you once again for the colours and for the woollen waistcoat, and good handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 7 December 1889.
My dear Theo,
Yesterday I sent three packets by parcel post containing studies which I hope you’ll receive in good order. I really must thank you for the 10 metres of canvas, which have just arrived.
Among the studies you’ll find the following, which are for our mother and sister. Olive trees – Bedroom – Reaper – Working with plough – Wheatfield with cypresses – Orchard in blossom – Portrait.
The remainder is above all autumn studies and I think the best one is the yellow mulberry tree against a very blue sky. Then the study of the house and of the park, of which there are two variants. The studies on no. 30 canvases weren’t yet dry and will follow later. They’re giving me a lot of trouble, and sometimes I find them very ugly, sometimes they look good to me – perhaps you’ll have the same impression when you see them. There are a dozen of them, so it’s more substantial than what I’ve just sent.
In spite of the cold I’m continuing to work outside up to now, and I think that it’s good for me and for the work.
The last study I did is a view of the village – where people were at work – under enormous plane trees – repairing the pavements. So there are piles of sand, stones and the gigantic treetrunks – the yellowing foliage, and here and there glimpses of a housefront and little figures. I often think of you and Jo, but with a feeling as if there was an enormous distance from here to Paris and as if it were years since I saw you. I hope that your health is good, for myself I can’t complain, I feel absolutely normal, so to speak, but without ideas for the future, and truly I don’t know what it’s going to be, and perhaps I’m avoiding going into this question deeply, sensing that I can do nothing about it.
I’ve finished, or almost, the copy of The diggers too.
You’ll see that there are no more impastos in the large studies. I prepare the thing with sorts of washes with spirits, and then proceed with touches or hatchings of colour with spaces between them. This imparts atmosphere and uses less paint.
If I want to send this letter off today I must hurry, so handshake in thought and warm regards to Jo.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Friday, 3 January 1890.
My dear Theo,
Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised by a visit from Mr Salles who, I believe, had had a letter from you. I was completely well when he came so we were able to talk calmly. But I’m most confused that he should have put himself out for me, the more so because I hope that I’ve regained my presence of mind for a while. For the moment it seems to me that the best thing will be to carry on here. I’ll see what Mr Peyron says when I have a chance to speak to him; he’ll probably say that he absolutely cannot guarantee anything in advance, which seems quite right to me.
Today I’m dispatching a few canvases, the following:Ploughed field with background of mountains – it’s the same field of the reaper from this summer and can be a pendant to it; I think that one will set off the other.
The ravine. This is the study done on a day when the mistral was blowing – I had wedged my easel in place with large stones – the painting of this isn’t dry, it’s in a tauter drawing style, and there’s more suppressed passion and it has more colour.
This can go with another study of mountains, summer effect, with a road in the foreground and a black hovel.
Women picking olives – I’d intended this painting for our mother and sister so that they might have something a little studied.
I also have a repetition of it for you, and the study (more coloured with more solemn tones) from nature.
The fields. Fields of young wheat with background of lilac mountains and yellowish sky.
Olive trees. Orange and green sunset sky (there’s also a variant of it here with figures).
ditto, neutral effect.
ditto ,, ,,.
The tall plane trees, the main street or boulevard of StRémy, study from nature – I have a repetition of it here which is perhaps more finished.
Copy after Millet, The diggers.
ditto The evening. I was forgetting the rain. Please don’t look at them without putting them on stretching frames and framing them in white.
That’s to say, you’ll remove the nails from other canvases and mount these on the stretching frames, one by one if you like, to appreciate the effect. For the colourings absolutely need to be set off by the white frame to judge the ensemble. Thus the rain, the grey olive trees, one can scarcely see them without the frame.
This will somewhat fill the hole left by the canvases that have gone off to the Vingtistes – you must ask Tanguy to remove the nails from other canvases and to mount these on stretching frames so that they dry all the way through.
In your previous letter you talk of Hugo’s drawings – I’ve just seen a volume of Michelet’s (illustrated) Histoire de France. I saw admirable drawings in it by Vierge which were completely like something by Victor Hugo, astonishing things. Do you know that? When you see Mr Lauzet ask him if he knows them, there’s also a resemblance with Hervier’s talent, but more complete, with more dramatic figures and effects – it also resembles the illustrations for The life of Frederick the Great by Menzel. Most curious.
I think that Vierge has also gone to Charenton, but how that fellow has worked. At one time Boggs had a magnificent wood engraving of his, probably published by L’Illustration, Seabathing – a crowd of men and women – drawing in the manner of Doré, who one day did precisely the same subject very well on a page also published by L’Illustration – but then with Vierge there’s Daumier’s rich execution in full.
I hope that Jo’s health and yours are good, and that you no longer have any anxiety on my account.
Write to me if you can soon after receiving the canvases. Good handshake in thought to you and your wife.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Wednesday, 12 February 1890.
My dear Theo,
I was in the middle of writing to you to send you the reply for Mr Aurier when your letter arrived. Am very pleased that Jo and the newborn are well and that she expects to be able to get up in a few days from now. Then what you write about our sister also interests me a great deal. I consider that she was lucky to see Degas at his home. I still think that she would above all make a good doctor’s wife. Anyway, one can’t exactly force these things, nevertheless it’s good to have one’s eyes open if the opportunity were to present itself.
And so Gauguin has come back to Paris – I’m going to copy my reply to Mr Aurier to send it to him, and you can let him read the article from the Mercure. For really I consider that one should say things like that about Gauguin, and about me nothing except very secondarily.
Gauguin wrote to me that he’d exhibited in Denmark and that this exhibition had been very successful. To me it seems a shame that he didn’t continue here a bit longer. The two of us together would have worked better than myself all alone this year. And at present we’d have a little cottage of our own to stay in and work, and could even accommodate others.
Did you notice in that newspaper you sent me an article on the fruitfulness of certain artists. Of Corot, Rousseau, Dupré; do you remember how many times when Reid was there that we talked about that, even of the necessity to produce a lot.
And that shortly after I came to Paris I said to you that before I had two hundred canvases I wouldn’t be able to do anything. What would appear to some people to be working too fast is in reality completely the ordinary run of things, the normal state of regular production, considering that a painter must work really just as hard as a shoemaker, for example. Would it not be a good idea to send Reid, and perhaps also Tersteeg, or rather C.M., a copy of Aurier’s article?
The thing is that it seems to me that we ought to take advantage of it to try to place something in Scotland, either now or later.
I think you’ll like the canvas for Mr Aurier, it’s in terribly thick impasto and worked like certain Monticellis, I’ve kept it for almost a year.
But I consider that I must try to give him something good for that article, which is in itself a very artistic thing; and it really serves us well for the day when we, like everyone, will be obliged to try and recover what the paintings cost.
Everything beyond that leaves me quite cold, but recovering the money it costs to produce, that’s the very condition of being able to continue.
For the Impressionists’ exhibition in March I hope to send you a few more canvases which are drying at the moment. If they didn’t arrive in time you would have to make a choice from those that are at père Tanguy’s. I’ve tried to copy Daumier’s Drinkers and Doré’s Penitentiary, it’s very difficult.
In the next few days I hope to begin on Delacroix’s Good Samaritan and Millet’s Woodcutter.
Aurier’s article would encourage me, if I dared let myself go, to risk emerging from reality more and making a kind of tonal music with colour, as some Monticellis are. But the truth is so dear to me, trying to create something true also, anyway I think, I think I still prefer to be a shoemaker than to be a musician, with colours. In any event, trying to remain true is perhaps a remedy to combat the illness that still continues to worry me. Lately my health is quite good, however, and I’d dare to believe that if I were to spend a while with you that would have a lot of effect upon me to counteract the influence that the company I have here necessarily exerts. But it seems to me that there’s no hurry about this, and that we must consider calmly if this is the moment to spend money on the journey. Perhaps by sacrificing the journey one could be useful to Gauguin or Lauzet.
A few days ago I bought a suit that cost me 35 francs, I must pay for it towards the end of March. With this I’ll have sufficient for the year, for when I came here I also bought a suit for around 35 francs, and it has served me all year. But I’ll need a pair of shoes and a few pairs of drawers in March as well.
All things considered, life here isn’t very expensive, I think that in the north one would spend rather more.
And that’s why – even if I came to you for a while – the best policy might still be to continue the work here. I don’t know – and either is good to me – but we mustn’t hurry to move.
And don’t you think that in Antwerp, if we put Gauguin’s plan into practice, one would have to maintain a certain rank, furnish a studio, in short do as the majority of established Dutch painters do? It’s not as simple as it appears, and would fear for him as well as for myself a regular siege by the established artists, and he would have the same story as he had before in Denmark. Anyway, we’d have to begin to say to ourselves that it’s still through the same procedure that the established painters can cause troubles for adventurers, as we’d be in Antwerp, and even oblige them to decamp. And as for the dealers there, we mustn’t count on them at all.
The academy there is better, and they work more vigorously there than in Paris. And then Gauguin is still in Paris at the moment, his reputation is holding up there, and if he leaves for Antwerp he could find that it’s rather difficult to come back to Paris. Going to Antwerp I would fear for Gauguin rather than for myself, for naturally I can get by in Flemish, I resume the studies of peasants I began before and abandoned with much regret – there’s no need to tell you that I have a great love of the Kempen. But I foresee that for him the battle could be very tough. I think that you’ll tell him the pros and cons of this absolutely as I would tell him, I’ll write to him one of these days, especially to send him the reply to Mr Aurier’s article, and I’d think that if he wanted we could still work here together if his steps to find a position were to come to nothing. But he’s skilful, and perhaps he’ll come through it in Paris itself, and if he holds on there for his reputation he does well, for he always has this, that he was the first one of all to work in the heart of a tropical land. And one will necessarily come back to that matter. Above all, give him my warm regards, and if he wants he can take the repetitions of the Sunflowers and the repetition of the Berceuse in exchange for something of his that would give you pleasure.
If I came to Paris I would have to rework several canvases done in the beginning here, I wouldn’t have any lack of work then. Warm regards to Jo, and good handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
Please send the enclosed letter to Mr Aurier after you’ve read it.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 17 March 1890.
My dear Theo,
Today I wanted to try and read the letters that had come for me, but I wasn’t yet clearheaded enough to be able to understand them.
However, I’m trying to answer you straightaway, and am hoping that it will lift within a few days from now. Above all I hope that you’re well, and your wife and your child.
Don’t worry about me, even if it should last a little longer, and write the same thing to those at home and give them my warm regards.
Warm regards to Gauguin, who wrote me a letter for which I thank him very much, I’m terribly bored but must try to be patient. Once again warm regards to Jo and to her little one, and handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’m picking up this letter again to try and write, it will come little by little, it’s just that my mind has been so affected – without pain, it’s true – but totally stupefied. I must tell you that there are – as far as I can judge – others who have this like me; who having worked during a period of their life are reduced to powerlessness even so. One doesn’t easily learn anything good between four walls, that’s understandable, but nevertheless it’s true that there are also people who can no longer be left at liberty as if they had nothing wrong with them. And so I almost or entirely despair of myself. Perhaps, perhaps I would indeed get better in the country for a time.
Work was going well, the last canvas of the branches in blossom, you’ll see that it was perhaps the most patiently worked, best thing I had done, painted with calm and a greater sureness of touch. And the next day done for like a brute. Difficult to understand things like that, but alas, that’s how it is. I have a great desire to get back to my work, though, but Gauguin also writes that he, who is nevertheless robust, also despairs of being able to continue. And isn’t it true that we often see the story of artists like that. So, my poor brother, take things as they are, don’t grieve on my account, it will encourage me and support me more than you think to know that you’re running your household well. Then, after a time of trial, perhaps days of serenity will return for me too. But in the meantime I’ll send you some canvases soon. Russell also wrote to me, and I think it’s good to have written to him so that he doesn’t forget us completely – for your part speak of him from time to time so that people may know that although he works in isolation he’s a very good man, and I think he’ll do good things as one used to see in England, for example. He’s right a thousand times over to barricade himself in a little.
Give my regards to the Pissarros, later I’m going to read your letters more calmly, and hope to write again tomorrow or the day after.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 1 May 1890.
My dear brother,
Today, as Mr Peyron had come back, I read your kind letters, then the letters from home as well, and that did me an enormous amount of good in giving me back a little energy, or rather the desire to climb back up again from the dejected state I’m in. I thank you very much for the etchings – you’ve chosen some of the very ones that I’ve already liked for a long time, the David, the Lazarus, the Samaritan, and the large etching of the wounded man, and you’ve added the blind man and the other very small etching, the last one so mysterious that I’m afraid of it and dare not wish to know what it is. I didn’t know it, the little goldsmith. But the Lazarus! Early this morning I looked at it and I remembered not only what Charles Blanc says of it, but indeed even that he doesn’t say everything about it.
The unfortunate thing is that the people here are too curious, idle and ignorant about painting for it to be possible for me to practise my profession. This is what one could always observe, that you and I made an effort here in the same direction as some others who weren’t understood either, and were bitterly saddened by circumstances. If ever you go to Montpellier you would see that what I tell you here is true.
Now, rather, you propose coming back to the north, and I accept.
I’ve had too hard a life to kick the bucket as a result, or to lose the power to work.
So Gauguin and Guillaumin, the two of them, want to do an exchange for the landscape of the Alpilles. Besides, there are two of them, only I think that the one finished last, which I’ve just sent, is done with more determination and is more accurate in expression.
I’m perhaps going to try to work from the Rembrandts, above all I have an idea to do the man at prayer in the range of tones running from bright yellow to violet.
Included is Gauguin’s letter, do what you think best as regards the exchange, take the ones you like for yourself; I’m sure that our taste is increasingly becoming the same.
Ah, if I’d been able to work without this bloody illness! How many things I could have done, isolated from the others, according to what the land would tell me. But yes – this journey is well and truly finished. Anyway, what consoles me is the great, the very great desire that I have to see you again, you, your wife and your child, and so many friends who have remembered me in my misfortune, as, for that matter, I don’t stop thinking of them either.
I’m almost sure that I’ll soon get better in the north, at least for quite a long time, while still apprehensive of a relapse in a few years’ time – but not immediately. That’s what I imagine after having observed the other patients here, some of whom are considerably older than I am or, among the young ones, were more or less idlers – students. Anyway, what do we know about it?
Fortunately the letters from our sister and mother were very calm. Our sister writes very well, and describes a landscape or an aspect of the town as if it were a page from a modern novel. I always urge her to busy herself with domestic rather than artistic things, for I know that she’s already too sensitive, and at her age would have difficulty in finding the way to artistic development. I’m really afraid that she too will suffer from a thwarted artistic will. But she’s so energetic that she’ll make up for it. I talked with Mr Peyron about the situation, and told him that it was almost impossible for me to bear my fate here, that not knowing anything very clear regarding the line to take, it seemed preferable to me to return to the north.
If you think this is a good idea, and if you suggest a date when you expect me over there in Paris, I would have someone from here accompany me part of the way, as far as Tarascon or Lyon. Then you would wait for me, or have someone wait for me, at the station in Paris. Do what seems best to you. For the time being I would leave my furniture behind in Arles. It’s with friends, and I’m sure they’d send it the day I wanted it. But the carriage and packing would be almost what it’s worth. I consider this as a shipwreck, this journey, well, one can’t do as one wants, and as one ought to either. Once I got out a little into the park I recovered all my clarity for work, I have more ideas in my head than I could ever put into action, but without it dazzling me. The brushstrokes go like a machine. So based on that I dare believe that in the north I would rediscover my confidence once freed from surroundings and circumstances which I neither understand nor wish to understand. It was very kind of Mr Peyron to write to you, he’s writing to you again today, I leave him regretting that I have to leave him. Good handshake to you and to Jo, I thank her very much for her letter.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Friday, 2 May 1890.
My dear Theo,
Once again I’m writing to you to say that I’m staying well, yet I feel a little worn out by this long crisis, and I dare believe that the planned move will refresh my ideas more.
I think that it’ll be best for me to go myself to see this doctor in the country as soon as possible; then we can soon decide if I’m going to lodge with him or temporarily at the inn; and thus we’ll avoid an overlong stay in Paris, a thing that I would fear. You remember that 6 months ago I told you after a crisis that if it happened again I would ask you to let me move? We’re at that point – although I don’t feel capable of passing judgement on the way they have of dealing with the patients here – it’s enough that I feel that what remains to me of reason and capacity for work is absolutely in danger. While, on the contrary, I’m confident that I can prove to this doctor you speak of that I still know how to work logically, and he’ll treat me accordingly, and since he likes painting there’s sufficient chance that a solid friendship will result from it.
I don’t think Mr Peyron will oppose a very prompt departure. Besides, I tell myself that the pleasure of spending a few days with you will do me a lot of good. And from that moment on we can really count on a period of relative health. So don’t delay in taking the necessary steps so that this doesn’t drag on. Once I’m there I can send for my bed, which is in Arles.
Besides, I would move anyway, preferring to be in an asylum where the patients worked to this awful idleness here, which really seems to me quite simply a crime. Anyway, you’ll tell me that this is seen more or less everywhere, and that there’s even plenty of it in Paris. Whatever the case, I hope that we’ll see each other again very soon.
The etchings you sent me are really beautiful. Opposite this I’ve scribbled a croquis after a painting I’ve done of three figures which are in the background of the Lazarus etching.
The dead man and his two sisters.The cave and the corpse are violet, yellow, white. The woman who is taking the handkerchief from the resurrected man’s face has a green dress and orange hair, the other has black hair and a striped garment. Green and pink. Behind a countryside, blue hills, a yellow rising sun. The combination of colours would thus itself speak of the same thing expressed by the chiaroscuro of the etching. If I were still to have at my disposal the model who posed for the Berceuse and the other whose portrait you’ve just received after Gauguin’s drawing, then certainly I’d try to execute it in a large size, this canvas, the personalities being what I would have dreamed of as characters. But leaving aside subjects of this kind, there will still remain the study from life of peasants and landscapes when I’m back in the north.
As regards the order for colours. Should I remain here for another few days, please send off part of it at once. If, however, I leave in the next few days – which I hope – you can keep it in Paris.
In any event, write to me in the next few days; I hope that you’ll have received the canvases in good order. I’ve done another one of a nook of greenery which seems to me to have some freshness. I’ve also attempted a copy of Delacroix’s Good Samaritan. I think from a note in Le Figaro that père Quost must have a darned good painting in the Salon.
Warm regards to your wife, I’m very much looking forward to making her acquaintance at last, and good handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 11 May 1890.
My dear brother,
Thanks very much for your registered letter containing 150 francs, which arrived this morning. I also received canvases and colours from Tasset Lhote (were those from Tanguy in the same consignment?), and I can’t thank you too much for them, for if I didn’t have my work I’d have sunk far deeper long since. At the moment the improvement is continuing, the whole horrible crisis has disappeared like a thunderstorm, and I’m working here with calm, unremitting ardour to give a last stroke of the brush. I’m working on a canvas of roses on bright green background and two canvases of large bouquets of violet Irises, one lot against a pink background in which the effect is harmonious and soft through the combination of greens, pinks, violets. On the contrary, the other violet bouquet (ranging up to pure carmine and Prussian blue) standing out against a striking lemon yellow background with other yellow tones in the vase and the base on which it rests is an effect of terribly disparate complementaries that reinforce each other by their opposition. These canvases will take a good month to dry, but the man who works here will take care of sending them after my departure.
I’m planning to leave as soon as possible this week, and I’m starting to pack my trunk today.
I’ll send you a telegram from Tarascon.
Yes, it seems to me, too, that there’s been a very long period between the day when we said our goodbyes at the railway station and these present days. But – strange thing again that, just as that day we were so struck by Seurat’s canvases, these last days here are once again like a revelation of colour to me. My dear brother, I feel I have more confidence in my work than when I left, and it would be ungrateful of me to speak ill of the south, and I confess that it’s with great sorrow that I turn my back on it.
If your work prevented you from coming to get me at the station, or if it was at a difficult time or if the weather was too bad, don’t worry, I’d certainly find my way, and I feel so calm that it would greatly astonish me if I lost my composure. How much I want to see you again, and meet Jo and the baby.
It’s likely that I’ll arrive in Paris around 5 o’clock in the morning. But anyway, the telegram will tell you precisely.
The day I leave depends on my having packed my trunk and finished my canvases, I’m working on the latter with so much enthusiasm that packing my trunk seems more difficult to me than doing the paintings. Anyway it won’t be long. I’m very glad that it hasn’t dragged on, which is always lamentable when one makes a resolution. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the Japanese prints, and also I don’t at all disdain seeing the Salon, in which it seems to me that there’ll be interesting things all the same, although having read Le Figaro’s account, indeed it leaves me more or less cold.
Warm regards to Jo, and good handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Thursday, 10 July 1890
Dear brother and sister,
Jo’s letter was really like a gospel for me, a deliverance from anguish which I was caused by the rather difficult and laborious hours for us all that I shared with you. It’s no small thing when all together we feel the daily bread in danger, no small thing when for other causes than that we also feel our existence to be fragile. Once back here I too still felt very saddened, and had continued to feel the storm that threatens you also weighing upon me. What can be done – you see I usually try to be quite goodhumoured, but my life, too, is attacked at the very root, my step also is faltering. I feared – not completely – but a little nonetheless – that I was a danger to you, living at your expense – but Jo’s letter clearly proves to me that you really feel that for my part I am working and suffering like you.
There – once back here I set to work again – the brush however almost falling from my hands and – knowing clearly what I wanted I’ve painted another three large canvases since then. They’re immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, and I made a point of trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness. You’ll see this soon, I hope – for I hope to bring them to you in Paris as soon as possible, since I’d almost believe that these canvases will tell you what I can’t say in words, what I consider healthy and fortifying about the countryside.
Now the third canvas is Daubigny’s garden, a painting I’d been thinking about ever since I’ve been here.
I hope with all my heart that the planned journey may provide you with a little distraction.
I often think of the little one, I believe that certainly it’s better to bring up children than to expend all one’s nervous energy in making paintings, but what can you do, I myself am now, at least I feel I am, too old to retrace my steps or to desire something else. This desire has left me, although the moral pain of it remains.
I very much regret not having seen Guillaumin again, but it pleases me that he’s seen my canvases.
If I’d waited for him I would probably have stayed to talk with him in such a way as to miss my train.
Wishing you luck and good heart and relative prosperity, please tell Mother and Sister sometime that I think of them very often, besides this morning I have a letter from them and will reply shortly.
Handshakes in thought.Ever yours,
Vincent
My money won’t last me very long this time, as on my return I had to pay the baggage costs from Arles. I retain very good memories of this trip to Paris. A few months ago I little dared hope to see our friends again. I thought that Dutch lady had a great deal of talent.
Lautrec’s painting, portrait of a female musician, is quite astonishing, it moved me when I saw it.
Auvers-sur-Oise, Wednesday, 23 July 1890.
My dear brother,
Thanks for your letter of today and for the 50franc note it contained.
I’d perhaps like to write to you about many things, but first the desire has passed to such a degree, then I sense the pointlessness of it.
I hope that you’ll have found those gentlemen favourably disposed towards you.
As regards the state of peace in your household, I’m just as convinced of the possibility of preserving it as of the storms that threaten it. I prefer not to forget the little French I know, and certainly wouldn’t see the point of delving deeper into the rights or wrongs in any discussions on one side or the other. It’s just that this wouldn’t interest me.
Things go quickly here – aren’t Dries, you and I a little more convinced of that, don’t we feel it a little more than those ladies? So much the better for them – but anyway, talking with rested minds, we can’t even count on that.
As for myself, I’m applying myself to my canvases with all my attention, I’m trying to do as well as certain painters whom I’ve liked and admired a great deal. What seems to me on my return – is that the painters themselves are increasingly at bay.
Very well. But has the moment to make them understand the utility of a union not rather passed already? On the other hand a union, if it were formed, would go under if the rest went under. Then you’d perhaps tell me that dealers would unite for the Impressionists; that would be very fleeting. Anyway it seems to me that personal initiative remains ineffective, and having done the experiment, would one begin it again?
I noted with pleasure that the Gauguin from Brittany that I saw was very beautiful, and it seems to me that the others he’s done there must be too.
Perhaps you’ll see this croquis of Daubigny’s garden – it’s one of my most deliberate canvases – to it I’m adding a croquis of old thatched roofs and the croquis of 2 no. 30 canvases depicting immense stretches of wheat after the rain. Hirschig asked me to ask you please to order the attached list of colours for him from the same colourman you send me. Tasset can send them directly to him, cash on delivery, but then he would have to be given the 20%.
Which would be simplest.
Or you’d put them into the consignment of colours for me, adding the invoice or telling me how much they cost, and then he’d send you the money. Here one can’t find anything good in the way of colours.
I’ve simplified my own order to a very bare minimum.
Hirschig is beginning to understand a little, it has seemed to me, he’s done the portrait of the old schoolmaster, which he gave him, good – and then he has landscape studies which are a little like the Konings at your place as regards colour. It will become completely like that, perhaps, or like the things by Voerman that we saw together.
More soon. Look after yourself, and good luck in business . Warm regards to Jo, and handshakes in thought.
Yours truly,
Vincent
Daubigny’s garden
Foreground of green and pink grass, on the left a green and lilac bush and a stem of plants with whitish foliage. In the middle a bed of roses. To the right a hurdle, a wall, and above the wall a hazel tree with violet foliage.
Then a hedge of lilac, a row of rounded yellow lime trees. The house itself in the background, pink with a roof of bluish tiles. A bench and 3 chairs, a dark figure with a yellow hat, and in the foreground a black cat. Sky pale green.