4. In the Netherlands, an anonymous article did discuss Van Gogh’s work, as well as Theo’s role as a champion of modern artists. The
Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of Friday, 4 April 1890 included an enthusiastic article on the exhibition:
‘One of the exhibitors at this gathering is a Dutchman, Mr Vincent van Gogh, who is celebrated by the true devotees of the new light as the best among their adepts, and who deserves this honour in many respects. He does not dot his landscapes, but paints them with facets approximately the size of a segment of a finger.
If one stands up close, one doesn’t know what one sees; one is confronted with inexplicable chaos. But if one moves some distance away, one must admire the bold and original idea; then trees and paving stones and clouds take on shapes that one hadn’t understood at first glance and hadn’t discovered. This style of painting is indeed the last word in oddness.
But there is something in it, that is certain. One may call the means coarse and unpolished, but the painter would not boast about putting on white kid gloves. Mr van Gogh, the art buyer in boulevard Montmartre, the brother of this painter, is ever on the look-out for these innovators of painting, and it is mainly owing to his tireless efforts that justice is done to such painters as Monet and Raffaëlli and Pissarro ... and that they find acceptance among the public, who are starting to buy their work more and more.’
This was written by
Adrien Louis Herman Obreen, with whom Theo had been in touch in July 1890 in any case. The article was sent to Theo from the Netherlands (See FR b2864, b2862, and b928;
Brief happiness 1999, p. 253, and
letter 862, n. 2).