1. It is impossible to say with certainty which cottages Van Gogh wanted to send. See letter 513, n. 1, and n. 2 below. In the end the four were never sent.
2. Van Hoek has identified two people that this could refer to: Johan van Lith, the owner of a piece of land in Tongelre (near Nuenen) known as ‘Rouwveldje’ or ‘Raauwvelden’, and Catharina Helena Bruininga, who lived at this time in Huis te Coll in Tongelre. See Van Hoek 1995. In Dutch ‘coll’ means witch.
The first work, with the peasant (cf. l. 171), must have been Cottage with a man coming home (F 170 / JH 824 [2520]); the second Cottage with woman digging (F 89 / JH 803 [2517]) – or possibly Cottage with tumbledown barn and a stooping woman (F 1669 / JH 825 [3024]).
[2520] [2517] [3024]
3. Gigoux mentions these ‘dix-sept de refusés’ in Causeries sur les artistes de mon temps: see letter 490, n. 12.
4. ‘Les vaillants’ is taken from Gigoux’s Causeries sur les artistes de mon temps: see letter 492, n. 4.
5. One-man exhibitions developed in part as a reaction against the way exhibitions were organized at the Salon and during the World Exhibitions. Since the mid-nineteenth century the usual retrospectives of dead artists had been joined by growing numbers of ‘monographic’ exhibitions. Shows like these were usually staged by art dealers, and one important function of them was therefore to promote the artist concerned. See Ekkehard Mai, Expositionen. Geschichte und Kritik des Ausstellungswesens. Munich and Berlin 1986, pp. 32-42, and DoA, under ‘Display of art’ and ‘Exhibition’.
6. See for this saying by Millet, quoted in Sensier, La vie et l’oeuvre de J.F. Millet : letter 210, n. 6.
7. Van Gogh took this expression from Paul Mantz’s article ‘Le Salon ii’ in Le Temps of 17 May 1885 (p. 1), which Theo had sent him (letter 506). Mantz wrote: ‘We remember the language so often used by this robust workman of painting. “Angels, he cried, who has ever seen angels?” This saying, which is spiritually absurd, was used to mean that the world of art is very restricted and that one must restrict oneself to painting things which the eye can see and the hand can touch.’ (On se rappelle le language qu’a tenu si souvent ce robuste ouvrier de la peinture. “Des anges, s’écriait-il, qui est-ce qui a vu des anges?” Ce mot, spirituellement absurde, voulait dire que le domaine de l’art est fort restreint et qu’on doit se borner à peindre les choses que l’oeil peut voir, que la main peut toucher.)
Félix Bracquemond wrote in similar terms in Du dessin et de la couleur: ‘“Angels! Who has ever seen angels? No one!” said Courbet. The master painter of Ornans was wrong: there are people who have seen them’ (“Des anges! Qui est-ce qui a vu des anges? Personne!” disait Courbet. Le maitre peintre d’Ornans se trompait: il y a des gens qui en ont vu), but it appears that Theo brought Vincent this book later in the month, so he could not yet have known of the expression from this source (see Bracquemond 1885, p. 183 and letters 531 ff.).
8. Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, La justice du chérif (Shereef’s justice) (also known as La justice au harem (Justice in the harem)), 1885 (Lost). Ill. 705 [705]. Mantz had discussed this painting in his article ‘Le Salon iii’, in Le Temps of Sunday, 24 May 1885 (p. 2); the Salon issue of L’Illustration 85 (25 April 1885), no. 2200, which Theo had sent to Vincent, printed an illustration of it, with an addition to the title: ‘Espagne mauresque, xve siècle’ (Moorish Spain, fifteenth century) (p. 522).
[705]
9. Van Gogh may have been thinking here of Alfred Dehodencq, Course de taureaux en Espagne (The bull fight in Spain), 1850 (Pau, Musée des Beaux-Arts), at that time in the Musée du Luxembourg.
10. See for ‘imagiërs’ in reference to Charles Emile Jacque, formulated by Pierre Véron: letter 496, n. 8.
11. The quotation is taken from Zola’s ‘Le moment artistique’ in Mon Salon: ‘What I look for above all in a painting is a man and not a painting.’ (Ce que je cherche avant tout dans un tableau, c’est un homme et non pas un tableau.) See Zola 1966-1970, vol. 12, p. 797. Cf. letter 190, n. 5, and see also letter 804.
12. Raffaëlli’s work includes numerous ragpickers; most of them were known through black and white reproductions. See Schinman Fields 1979, pp. 102, 125, 158-170; figs. 19, 23, 33, 36. In the catalogue that Theo had sent shortly before (letter 512) there are ten works with the word ‘chiffonnier’ in the title.
Schinman Fields said: ‘Thus by the 1870s and 1880s, the ragpicker in literature had evolved from a picturesque character to a symbol of the outcast human debris of industrial society. In the visual arts, however, this change would have to wait for Raffaëlli. ... His figures [of ragpickers] are always depicted before a landscape as if he were commenting on the circumstances of the existence of these marginal members of society’ (pp. 158, 160).
13. The French style under Louis xv.
14. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Source, 1856 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay). Ill. 983 [983].
[983]
15. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, The waterseller, c. 1620 (London, Wellington Museum. The Board of the Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum). Ill. 441 [441].
[441]
16. The fact that Van Gogh painted the subject as well as drawing it emerges from letter 529. It is only known from the drawing Woman stooping, with a spade (F 1691 / JH 835 [2522]).
[2522]
17. Silvestre had also observed that Michelangelo made sublime figures which did not accord with reality. See Silvestre, Histoire, p. 73
18. The potato eaters (F 82 / JH 764 [2510]).
[2510]
19. One of the main themes of Raffaëlli’s essay in the catalogue (see n. 12 above and letter 512, n. 2) is that art must have ‘caractère’; it includes illustrations of figures, among them Labourer with basket and Couple in the open air. Ill. 2150 [2150] and Ill. 2151 [2151].
[2150] [2151]
a. Here means: ‘Reeks’ (series, list).
20. Michel Louis Victor Mercier was known for his busts of aristocrats.
21. Jules Dalou made numerous public monuments, chiefly in Paris.
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