757 Paul Signac to Vincent van Gogh. Cassis, Friday, 12 April 1889.

metadata

No. 757 (Brieven 1990 761, Complete Letters 584a)
From: Paul Signac
To: Vincent van Gogh
Date: Cassis, Friday, 12 April 1889

Source status

Original manuscript

Location

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b1325 V/1962

Date

The letter is headed: ‘Cassis – Vendredi’. On Wednesday, 10 April Signac’s previous postcard had arrived in Arles (it had taken two days to get there (see letter 755)). Assuming that Van Gogh replied immediately on the 10th (letter 756), and that Signac, in turn, also wrote the present letter at once, then the Friday in question must have been Friday, 12 April 1889. This is also in keeping with Signac’s complaint that it had been raining for a couple of days (ll. 25-26) – between 5 and 11 April there had in fact been some precipitation (Météo-France). Moreover, Friday, 19 April can certainly be ruled out: in letter 758, written between about Sunday, 14 and about Wednesday, 17 April, Vincent tells of Signac’s invitation to come to Cassis, which means that he had already received the present letter.

original text

1r:1

Cassis – Vendredi

Mon cher ami

Je suis bien heureux d’avoir reçu de vos bonnes nouvelles et d’apprendre que vous vous etes remis au travail.1

Comme je vous le disais en ma carte hative2 je suis installé à Cassis, un joli petit port à une heure de Marseille.– Du blanc, du bleu, de l’orangé harmoniquement dispersés dans de jolis mouvements de terrain. Tout autour des montagnes aux 1v:2 courbes rythmiques.

Je me donne beaucoup de mal. Arriverai-je à rendre le dixième de ce que je vois, j’en serais deja fort aise.

Notre Vert Veronese et notre bleu de cobalt – pas celui du brave Tanguy – hors de cause, sont de la merde à côté de ces flots mediterranéens.

Je suis bien gêné par le temps: pluie ou mistral depuis quelques jours. Je profite de ce contre-temps pour mettre à execution les planches d’un ouvrage que me fut commandé 1v:3 en collaboration avec M. Ch. Henry (peut-etre en la Revue Independante avez vous lu certains des articles de mon collaborateur) par la librairie de l’Art.–3

C’est un livre sur l’esthetique des formes, dont un instrument – le rapporteur esthetique de C. Henry – permet d’étudier les mesures et les angles. On voit alors si la forme est harmonieuse ou pas.–

Cela aura une grande portée sociale au point de vue surtout de l’art industriel. Nous apprenons à voir juste et beau aux ouvriers apprentis, etc. dont jusqu’ici on n’a fait l’education esthetique 1r:4 qu’au moyen de formules empiriques et de conseils malhonnetes ou niais. Je vous adresserai une de ces brochures lorsqu’elles auront vu le jour.

Pourquoi ne viendrez vous pas faire une etude ou deux en ce joli pays.

Tres souvent, n’est-ce pas, de vos bonnes nouvelles.–

Cordiales poignées de mains.

P. Signac

2 Place de la Republique

Cassis.

translation

1r:1

Cassis – Friday

My dear friend,

I’m really happy to have received good news of you and to learn that you have set to work again.1

As I told you in my hasty card,2 I’ve settled in Cassis, a pretty little port an hour from Marseille. Some white, some blue, some orange harmonically dispersed in pretty undulations. All around mountains with 1v:2 rhythmic curves.

I’m giving myself a great deal of trouble. Should I manage to render a tenth of what I see, I’d be most content.

Our Veronese Green and our cobalt blue – not that of that good fellow Tanguy – are without doubt shit beside these Mediterranean waves.

I’m much hindered by the weather: rain or mistral for several days. I’m taking advantage of this setback to do the plates of a work that was ordered from me 1v:3 in collaboration with Mr C. Henry (perhaps you’ve read certain of my collaborator’s articles in the Revue Indépendante) by the Librairie de l’Art.3

It’s a book on the aesthetics of shapes, whose measurements and angles can be studied by means of an instrument – C. Henry’s aesthetic protractor. One then sees if the shape is harmonious or not.

This will have a great social bearing, above all from the point of view of industrial art. We’re teaching the art of seeing correctly and beautifully to apprentice workmen etc. whose aesthetic education has only been conducted up to now 1r:4 by means of empirical formulae and dishonest or silly advice. I’ll send you one of these brochures when they’ve seen the light of day.

Why don’t you come to do a study or two in this pretty country?

Good news of you very often, eh?

Cordial handshakes.

P. Signac

2 place de la République

Cassis.

notes

1. Van Gogh had written this in letter 756.

2. This is letter 755.

3. Signac produced illustrations for two books written by a friend of his, the chemist and colour theoretician Charles Henry: Application de nouveaux instruments de précision (cercle chromatique, rapporteur et triple décimètre esthétique) à l’archéologie. Paris 1890, and Education du sens des formes. Paris 1890. See exhib. cat. Paris 2001, pp. 10, 21 (n. 24).

Henry had published the following articles on colour theory in La Revue Indépendante: ‘Rapport esthétique et sensation de forme’ (Avril 1888), ‘Cercle chromatique et sensation de couleur’ (May 1888) and ‘Harmonies de couleurs’ (June 1888). The Revue Indépendante of March 1889 contained a piece of literary criticism by his hand, ‘Le troisième volume de M. Henri Doniol’.