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257 letters found

017 To Theo van Gogh. London, beginning of January 1874.
in translation:
...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...
...of life and the English themselves, and I also have nature and art and poetry, and if that isn’t...
022 To Theo van Gogh. London, Thursday, 30 April 1874.
in translation:
...trees are magnificent. If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere. Yet I sometimes yearn...
028 To Theo van Gogh. London, Monday, 10 August 1874.
in translation:
...s already the beginning of autumn, and that makes nature even more serious and intimate. We’re...
RM05 Pages sent to Theo with a story addressed to several writers and sundry quotations. Between May and June 1875.
in translation:
...then he died. He loved France, Brittany especially, and nature, and he saw God in it; for that...
049 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Friday, 17 September 1875.
in translation:
Feeling, even a fine feeling, for the beauties of nature isn’t the same as religious feeling, although I believe that the two are closely connected. The same is true of a feeling for art. Don’t give in to that too much...
072 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 23 March 1876.
in translation:
...things on your trip; although a feeling for nature isn’t it, it’s nonetheless a wonderful thing...
073 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 28 March 1876.
in translation:
...me that the pilgrims on their way to Emmaus saw nature as Michel does, I always think of them whenever I...
076 To Theodorus van Gogh and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Ramsgate, Monday, 17 April 1876.
in translation:
...need for, blessing. And wasn’t it as though nature sympathized with us? It was so grey and rather...
079 To Theo van Gogh. Ramsgate, Friday, 28 April 1876.
in translation:
...and therefore know so many people and places that I know too, and that you love nature and art so much.
RM09 Copies of poems. Probably Isleworth, about September 1876.
in translation:
How long must I still combat my nature...
090 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, between about Saturday, 2 and Friday, 8 September 1876.
in translation:
...the yoke? How long must I still combat my nature Ere this heart from sinful service be revoked...
093 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Saturday, 7 and Sunday, 8 October 1876.
in translation:
...not in harmony with the freshness and freedom of nature. Oh, there the weary soul finds calm; there...
096 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Friday, 3 November 1876.
in translation:
...of the countenance the heart is made better. Our nature is sorrowful but for those who have learnt...
102 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Wednesday, 7 and Thursday, 8 February 1877.
in translation:
...the human soul and heart and mind – the nature of every true son somewhat resembles that of the...
104 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Wednesday, 28 February 1877.
in translation:
...to ask, with an eye to the beauty of nature, ‘turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity’, and...
108 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Friday, 16 March 1877.
in translation:
...and longsuffering. And be true to your own nature and be separate, distinguish between good and...
RM11 Prose passage copied from ‘Scheveningen’ by Henri Alphonse Esquiros. Probably May 1877.
in translation:
...that alter the level of the continents, that transform living nature and human destinies. The ways of the fishermen who live on the coast share the nature of the Ocean. They have none of the habits...
118 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Thursday, 31 May 1877.
in translation:
...of the season decreased, and spring, which gladdened all of nature, came and made the city’s sad...
...of the fishermen who live on the coast share the nature of the Ocean. They have none of the habits...
119 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 4 and Tuesday, 5 June 1877.
in translation:
...detained him there. His first love, the love of nature in the countryside and the animals that give...
...illusions than his father as to the hereditary nature of his power. He had neither the inclination...
...the afternoon, in the midst of this upheaval of nature. The storm carried him off as it had brought...
125 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Friday, 3 August 1877.
in translation:
...very many and very great catastrophes and accidents. The nature of Odysseus, and the grapes of the...
...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...
126 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Sunday, 5 August 1877.
in translation:
...black care with its spell, and holds all nature in a sweet enchantment; each one falls asleep...
127 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Saturday, 18 August 1877.
in translation:
...said unto the reed, You have good cause ’gainst nature to complain: To you a goldcrest is a heavy...
...found On the damp edges of the windy realms, And nature seems to treat you ill indeed. Your pity...
128 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 27 August 1877.
in translation:
...do read it, it’s full of faith and also of nature, of the heath and of cities like Liverpool, and...
131 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Tuesday, 18 September 1877.
in translation:
...can raise a person above that which is his nature, His strength can be made perfect in our weakness...
136 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 3 and Tuesday, 4 December 1877.
in translation:
...many hearts than in cases of a less serious nature, and then one hears many saying ‘life is short...
137 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Sunday, 9 December 1877.
in translation:
...which their house was founded. Man is depraved by nature, at best a thief — but — with God’s...
...de dessin, Anne of Brittany, yes, man is depraved by nature and at best a thief, but in the battle...
143 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Wednesday, 3 April 1878.
in translation:
...circumstances, one should retain something of the original nature of a Robinson Crusoe or a savage...
...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...
...strengthened and confirmed in that which they are by nature through the grace of God. May it be so...
148 To Theo van Gogh. Laken, on or about Wednesday, 13 and Friday, 15 or Saturday, 16 November 1878.
in translation:
...and that the remembrance of it is of a lasting nature. After we’d taken leave of each other I walked...
151 To Theo van Gogh. Petit-Wasmes, between Tuesday, 1 and Wednesday, 16 April 1879.
in translation:
...one must have a charcoal-burner’s nature and character, and no pretensions, pridefulness or...
152 To Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, on or about Thursday, 19 June 1879.
in translation:
...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...
155 To Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Tuesday, 22 and Thursday, 24 June 1880.
in translation:
...and weakness of character, through the baseness of his nature; you may, if you think fit, take me...
160 To Theo van Gogh. Brussels, Monday, 1 November 1880.
in translation:
...from now on I should concentrate on drawing from nature, i.e. whether plaster or model, but not without...
166 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, on or about Saturday, 30 April or Sunday, 1 May 1881.
in translation:
...for instance, as regards simplicity and faithfulness to nature. Also by him a stoker and a factory...
170 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Friday, 5 August 1881.
in translation:
...It wouldn’t be good if, when drawing from nature, I lapsed into too much detail and overlooked...
172 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, mid-September 1881.
in translation:
...I’m no longer so powerless in the face of nature as I used to be. I brought Conté in wood (and...
175 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, between Wednesday, 12 and Saturday, 15 October 1881.
in translation:
...betray you in this. Nature always begins by resisting the draughtsman, but he who truly takes it seriously doesn’t let himself be deterred by that resistance, on the contrary, it’s one more stimulus to go on fighting, and at bottom nature and an honest draughtsman see eye to eye. Nature is most...
...after spending some time wrestling and struggling with nature, it’s starting to become a bit more...
...to go more smoothly. The struggle with nature sometimes resembles what Shakespeare calls ‘Taming...
176 To Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Saturday, 15 October 1881.
in translation:
...and will have more satisfaction if you work from nature here in the country (whether it be figures...
...do no better than to work from Dutch nature (figure and landscape). Then we’re ourselves, then we...
183 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Saturday, 12 November 1881.
in translation:
...who truly loves. If Pa and Ma were unenergetic by nature, I’d resign myself to it, but if they...
...the following. If she and I were of a sentimental nature and weak of heart, then we’d have taken...
...be lost men. Because, however, either in our human nature or in God, call it what you will, there...
184 To Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Saturday, 12 November 1881.
in translation:
...go and fall madly in love with your true love, Dame Nature or Reality. I’ve also fallen in love like that, madly in love with a Dame Nature or Reality, and have felt so happy ever since, even...
...t have to think that there is but one Dame Nature or Reality, no, that’s only the surname of...
...these two kinds – that is the family of Dames Nature and Reality, but it costs a great deal of...
...also give themselves. However, these true Dames Nature, though harmless as doves, are also wise as...
...she reinvigorates, she gives life! This Dame Nature, this Dame Reality. Rappard, there are people...
...as I feel another, of a more frank and earthly nature. I do need the beautiful and the sublime, I...
188 To Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Monday, 21 November 1881.
in translation:
...academy you can’t deny your true character and nature, and that’s why the gentlemen there don...
...large beam in question was of a rather unartistic nature. I won’t tell you on this occasion what...
193 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, on or about Friday, 23 December 1881.
in translation:
...others the supreme being and others nature is unreasonable and merciless, and...
...wondrous about it. Call it God or human nature or what you will, but there’s...
199 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 8 or Monday, 9 January 1882.
in translation:
...all their faults, but they contain something of nature because they were made with a certain...
203 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 26 January 1882.
in translation:
...overdo that kind of thing and go to excess, but nature has fixed laws and it’s fatal to struggle...
206 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 25 February 1882.
in translation:
...but the way is really to penetrate deeply into nature. To be true is what remains, says Gavarni...
215 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Thursday, 6 April 1882.
in translation:
...therefore less original? Perhaps it’s because I learned to look at nature through the Bargues...
217 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 14 April 1882.
in translation:
...his work, but it’s not easy to define the nature of that connection, and many are badly mistaken...
220 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 23 April 1882.
in translation:
...the struggle and worry with models, drawing from nature and on the spot, is all rough work...
222 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 1 May 1882.
in translation:
...when he tries to follow the receding lines in nature and give an account of them. And I believe that...
...I tried without any philosophizing to be true to nature, which I had before me, something of that...
...any success, hand-to-hand combat with the things in nature. Last year I wrote you a great many...
...may certainly not work without reference to the nature standing before me, thinking the while of No...
232 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Sunday, 28 May 1882.
in translation:
...impression and have that air, whereas when faced by nature they’re as serious and devout as can...
234 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 1 and Friday, 2 June 1882.
in translation:
...so much as immersing myself in the things of nature and drawing, without going into such, to me...
...up to today there has never been anything of a criminal nature in my life and that I’m in full...
235 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 3 June 1882.
in translation:
...numerous things, and in such a manner that by the nature of the matter it cannot be resolved as if...
236 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Tuesday, 6 June 1882.
in translation:
...commercial value, and would rather immerse myself in nature than calculate prices. And that when I...
246 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 15 and Sunday, 16 July 1882.
in translation:
...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...
249 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 July 1882.
in translation:
...one ought to listen to but the language of nature. I can now understand, better than six months ago...
250 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 23 July 1882.
in translation:
...through my little window at the things in nature, and drawing them faithfully and lovingly. For...
...damn me irrevocably and for all time, in the nature of things my profession and my work will open...
251 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 26 July 1882.
in translation:
...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...
...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...
252 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 31 July 1882.
in translation:
As regards black in nature, we are of course in...
...greys — distinct in tone and strength. So that in nature one in fact sees nothing but these tones...
...a colour in nature is able to analyze it coolly and say, for example, that green-grey is yellow with black and almost no blue, &c. In short, knowing how to make up the greys of nature on the palette...
...Just working faithfully from nature and with persistence seems to me a sure way, and one that can’t end up with nothing. The feeling for and love of nature always strike a chord sooner or later with people who take an interest in art. The duty of the painter is to study nature in depth and to...
...suspect me (who am really just a friend of nature, of study, of work — and of people chiefly) of...
255 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 10 and Friday, 11 August 1882.
in translation:
...in them, something that proves I have a feeling for nature and the heart of a painter. Herewith a...
257 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 14 August 1882.
in translation:
...that this much has been gained, that if something in nature strikes me I now have more means at my...
258 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 20 August 1882.
in translation:
...who spread out or repaired the nets. In nature it was as compelling, distinctive, sombre and severe...
...like this that I find most compelling in nature. How beautiful it is outdoors when everything is...
...one pays for later — but through honest study of nature. If you could see from the paintings that...
...principle, tending towards the untrue and the false, because nature is too dear to me. But we’re...
...what matters more to me now is to study nature rather than the prices of paintings. But I believe...
259 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 26 August 1882.
in translation:
...and altering — now making a close comparison with nature, and then introducing a change so that...
...a strength that was greater than that of the nature he inherited from his family, and instead of...
260 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 3 September 1882.
in translation:
...terracottas being made in a studio. I’m describing nature to you — to what extent I conveyed it...
...dissatisfied — because I have that marvellous nature too much in mind for me to be satisfied — but still, I see in my work an echo of what struck me, I see that nature has told me something, has...
...or conventional language which doesn’t stem from nature itself but from a studied manner or a...
...one paints thinly, sometimes the material, the nature of the things, makes it self-evident that...
261 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 9 September 1882.
in translation:
...t tell you how superb that effect was in nature, with the bronze of the greenery and the fallen...
266 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 18 September 1882.
in translation:
...his aim is simply to analyze a piece of nature. Either to give his thought or conception precision...
...I’ll be so permeated by the study of nature that I myself will create something in a painting...
...so badly at present — but it’s that wonderful nature of autumn that’s on my mind, and the...
267 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 19 September 1882.
in translation:
...that aren’t changeable, namely the eternal beauty of nature. I often think of the old story of...
272 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 15 October 1882.
in translation:
...painted in that way too, entirely as befits the nature of the subject. It’s not like Knaus or...
...but it’s precisely the constant looking at nature and the struggle with it that sharpens the...
274 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 22 October 1882.
in translation:
...one seems to be deadened to the things of nature, or when nature no longer seems to speak to us.
280 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 5 November 1882.
in translation:
...express as follows: ‘in my view it’s in the nature of things that the desired change will come...
...true, but in my view it isn’t ‘in the nature of things’. Be this as it may, opposing in...
282 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 14 November 1882.
in translation:
...have seen it as a step of a very different nature, for I found it strange not to have a letter yet...
284 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Friday, 17 or Saturday, 18 November 1882.
in translation:
...conceded that these things are of a fairly similar nature and would yourself do neither the one nor...
288 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 26 and Monday, 27 November 1882.
in translation:
...those effects — it’s as if the whole of nature is speaking — and when one goes home one has...
...and feels it — after all, nature or God does it for everyone who has eyes and ears and a heart to perceive. I think that a painter is happy because he’s in harmony with nature as soon as he can...
291 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between Monday, 4 and Saturday, 9 December 1882.
in translation:
...Something similar — a kind of fixed law of nature — seems to exist as regards working, in the...
...painters don’t have that intimate knowledge of nature possessed by those who have looked at the...
...love is in them, and yet how freely and gaily they are done. Copying nature absolutely isn’t the ideal either, but knowing nature in such a way that what one does is fresh and true — that’s...
292 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 10 December 1882.
in translation:
...your last letter ‘what a riddle there is in nature’, I echo your words. Life in the abstract is...
...to me to be fellows who wrestle physically with nature, fellows who don’t weaken and aren’t...
...a long walk to refresh oneself, and in all of nature, in trees for instance, I see expression and a...
294 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between about Wednesday, 13 and about Monday, 18 December 1882.
in translation:
...you too will be able to enjoy something of nature in the coming days, either in the appearance of...
296 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 27 December 1882.
in translation:
...say? I continue to believe one thing: wrestling with nature is not working in vain, and though I...
297 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 31 December 1882 and Tuesday, 2 January 1883.
in translation:
...a certain unity would prevail. To me this was in the nature of things, and I didn’t know that it...
298 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 3 January 1883.
in translation:
...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...
...art, and in that art is sometimes above nature — — — as, for instance, in Millet’s sower...
300 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 10 January 1883.
in translation:
...contrary, a thing like that has a serious nature that awakes and strengthens all the faculties, and...
...find the same in them as in the first two, for there must be something of nature in them, since I really wrest them from nature, and I work from the model from beginning to end. I have a great desire...
304 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 25 January 1883.
in translation:
...that ‘it’s in the nature of things that the desired change will come’ (isn’t this explanation very satisfactory?), but for my part I don’t see that ‘in the nature of things’ so clearly...
309 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 8 February 1883.
in translation:
...with the woman in question to be ephemeral in nature but for ever. My words about disappointment in...
...were in danger. And though selfish by nature, he forgot the danger to himself and saved the children. One never finds oneself exactly in a book, only some things from nature in general that one finds...
310 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 8 February 1883.
in translation:
...emotion and becoming completely absorbed and lost in nature at the same time has that presence of...
312 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 11 February 1883.
in translation:
...and a budding again in love as in the whole of nature, but not a dying for ever. There’s ebb and...
...Some fragments were evidently done in haste from nature and added to other parts that are more...
...wants, although of course it’s far from his nature to imitate something. But the fact that, for...
316 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 15 February 1883.
in translation:
...breathe in fresh air from a book? It’s La nature chez elle by BODMER with the text by Théophile...
319 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 23 February 1883.
in translation:
...the scratch may be, it was done immediately from nature (but in great haste) while the work on the...
323 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 3 March 1883.
in translation:
...that I won’t immediately do better, since nature is definitely in them, and something I’m not...
325 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Monday, 5 March 1883.
in translation:
...something out of the process that isn’t in its nature. If one wants to work with a fine point and...
326 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 6 March 1883.
in translation:
...outstanding means of depicting some things from nature. This morning I went for a walk outside the city...
327 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 11 March 1883.
in translation:
...kind of difficulty of a financial or other nature. Indeed, Pa doesn’t write anything like that...
330 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 18 March 1883.
in translation:
...it down on paper. In short, the whole of nature is an inexpressibly beautiful Black and White...
331 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 21 March 1883.
in translation:
...he has taken a close look at diggers in nature. When we came to those diggers while looking through...
...anyone with some understanding of how studies from nature are made, and the difference between them...
...Van der Weele as regards seeing space in nature. Adieu, write again soon, best wishes. Ever yours...
333 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 29 March and Sunday, 1 April 1883.
in translation:
...say immediately: that isn’t life or nature. Through certain greys — through a certain warmth of...
336 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 11 April 1883.
in translation:
...woman, however good and noble she may be by nature, in my view stands in great and immediate danger...
342 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 10 May 1883.
in translation:
...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...
...mistakes. This danger, although of a moral nature, has links with the physical constitution. And I...
...the manner of Zola. Everything observed from nature and everything analyzed. Saw a big Fromentin...
347 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 30 May 1883.
in translation:
...2 metre. It’s a wonderfully beautiful sight in nature, from which an infinite number of subjects...
...something eternal, and one can conceive reality, nature, in different ways, and even now recognize...
349 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 3 June 1883.
in translation:
...like everyone else, and which are different in nature, and occur in every life for that matter...
...vexations of various kinds, and the ‘precarious’ nature of such matters has become so evident...
...one finds great inner calm and is in harmony with nature in my view, whereas one goes against the...
...life in harmony with the eternal laws of nature and of morality contributes to reform and progress...
...the current. Well, it lies in a woman’s nature to regress. Yet because your woman is likely to...
352 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 11 June 1883.
in translation:
...the fatherland, and the fatherland isn’t just nature; to that must be added human hearts that...
355 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 16 June 1883.
in translation:
...probably because I’m attracted by such things in nature and they’re done by relatively few, and...
356 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 22 June 1883.
in translation:
...enjoy it just as I do if you saw it. There’s nothing more beautiful than nature early in the morning.
...exists, if one honestly and freely tries to understand nature and doesn’t let go of what one has...
358 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 2 July 1883.
in translation:
...As for living in the country — I find nature beautiful, and yet there are many things tying me to...
361 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 11 July 1883.
in translation:
...say, ‘It expresses that moment and that place in nature where one can go alone, without company...
...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...
363 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Sunday, 22 July 1883.
in translation:
...enough in tone, not yet depicting the emotion nature evokes sufficiently, but if you compare this...
368 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Friday, 27 July 1883.
in translation:
...occur by themselves than black and white do in nature. Now one must take care not to relapse into...
369 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Sunday, 29 and Monday, 30 July 1883.
in translation:
...etc. Scheveningen is undoubtedly very beautiful but nature there has long ceased to be virgin — well, I found the virginity of nature to be outstanding on the walk I told you about. This is something like that mole. Rarely of late has the stillness, nature alone, so appealed to me. Sometimes...
370 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 3 August 1883.
in translation:
...in the intervals, when I’m not sitting before nature. A sort of dizziness sometimes, and headache...
...more or less, and so as I sit before nature I need only think about painting, instead of thinking...
371 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 7 August 1883.
in translation:
...with the polder workers, I nonetheless act in the same spirit, and looking at nature has a calming effect.
...of that mysteriousness that one gets by looking at nature as if through the eyelashes, so that the...
...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...
...or measuring something — then it’s in the nature of things that I can’t possibly know...
374 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 17 August 1883.
in translation:
...I’d had other opportunities, other circumstances, and if nothing of a decisive nature had happened, of...
375 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 18 August 1883.
in translation:
...been completely broken. So let’s simply allow nature to develop: you will become what you become...
...that I don’t hit the mark but fantasize beyond nature and see things very fantastically, just as...
376 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 19 August 1883.
in translation:
...carry on — work faithfully and forcefully from nature — look again deep in the country on the heath or...
...of the city and was confronted with a great deal of nature as a matter of course. After all, I’ve...
378 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 21 August 1883.
in translation:
...But still, I would like to be alone with nature for once — without the city. I can hardly tell...
379 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between about Thursday, 23 and about Wednesday, 29 August 1883.
in translation:
...and being steeped once more in the serenity of nature in a heath area — have no doubt — will...
380 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 2 September 1883.
in translation:
...far, far away in the country, far enough away for nature there to be real. And then I must paint a...
...must be practical subjects too. Fragments of nature with character. Wisselingh will take something...
381 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 5 September 1883.
in translation:
...already bronze, everything is what one can see in nature only at this time of year, or if one stands before...
...out of doors, a long way away, to talk to nature for a while. Well, I came to Voorburg, and went...
...of reform. Yes, for me the drama of a storm in nature, the drama of sorrow in life, is the best. A...
...because what was wrong with her was of such a nature that it would have been fatal both for me and...
...despair of her future. That misericorde must lie in nature itself for such a person is something I...
389 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, Monday, 24 September 1883.
in translation:
...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...
...to take a look around here, but it’s in the nature of the thing, if all goes well and we’re...
390 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, on or about Wednesday, 26 September 1883.
in translation:
...a while it could be entirely covered, and nature is wonderful here and exceeds my expectations. Yet...
...I expected, which is also perfectly true as far as nature is concerned. As long as the weather was...
392 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Wednesday, 3 October 1883.
in translation:
...what tranquillity, what breadth, what calm there is in nature here, one doesn’t feel it until one...
393 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Sunday, 7 October 1883.
in translation:
...s necessary to feel clearly the rapports between nature and painted things in general. I’ve had...
394 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, Friday, 12 October 1883.
in translation:
...you yourself say, ‘I used to be part of that nature, now I don’t feel that any more’. Let me...
...is — it isn’t good that you aren’t part of nature — and I think that No. 1 now is for you...
...only did I feel indifferent instead of responsive to nature but also, which was much worse, I felt...
...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...
...you off balance, inasmuch as the rapport with nature seems to be broken. Take that very coolly as a...
...t much care for it. Try to get back to nature in this way. Will you now, old chap, simply take it...
...I have plans but they aren’t even of a commercial nature, and as soon as they can be put into...
...t happen all at once — the rapport between you and nature and people. And if the only way to do...
395 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Friday, 12 or Saturday, 13 October 1883.
in translation:
...seen anything by him, but now that I see nature here I understand perfectly how reasonable it is...
...It’s completely true and faithful to nature. There are Jules Dupré effects — yes, there are...
...sky grey, thus remaining far below the intensity of nature, then all the more, in order to remain...
396 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Monday, 15 October 1883.
in translation:
...of thinking and analyzing, of feeling the beauty in nature, and that you therefore can be an artist...
...living together in this inexpressibly beautiful nature, above all the consciousness of being two...
...no good now, I’m going to renew myself in nature. At least, that’s how I reason, and although I...
...No, the renewal of life makes your whole nature different, your thoughts and insights different, so...
...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...
397 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Tuesday, 16 October 1883.
in translation:
...you, I just want to say, don’t go against nature. I don’t want anything outrageous, but I have...
...your own work already. Look at a bit of nature — think, I want to paint that. Surrender yourself...
...a moment when, if bread could be found, nature is so extraordinarily interesting that you could get...
398 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Monday, 22 October 1883.
in translation:
...s only by not changing that one goes against nature. There’s an old saying — they have ears but...
400 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Sunday, 28 October 1883.
in translation:
...just the very opposite, because I regard and respect the genuinely human, living with nature — not going against nature — as refinement. I ask, what most makes me a human being. Zola says — I...
...And that if you feel that it’s in your nature and hers even to have a degree of pleasure — a...
...one not have patience, not learn patience from nature, learn patience from seeing the wheat slowly...
401 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Wednesday, 31 October 1883.
in translation:
...to me that this is something important, because nature like this can sometimes awaken in a mind...
...to reform ourselves through craft and contact with nature, believing that it’s our duty first and...
403 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Monday, 5 November 1883.
in translation:
...of being in touch with nature out of doors — and with the something on high — unfathomable, ‘awfully Unnameable’, because one can’t find a name for it — above that nature. Be a peasant...
...the belief in the need to be in touch with nature, with the belief that if one takes that path one...
...fight as if with a rock; no, you know that nature can’t be conquered or made submissive without a...
...calm and cheerful and full of serenity by nature, one becomes utterly melancholy, feels that this...
...and vitality, I’m going to refresh, renew myself in nature, I’m just going to tackle it very...
...seems to me that it’s to his contact with nature that Pa owes his goodness, and his mistake, to...
...who wrestles directly with the naked truths of nature is more than you. Anyway, old chap, neither...
...of nature. Well, whatever one may say about Millet, at least he brought me back into nature more...
...painting, every new love of and wrestling with nature, happy or unhappy, brings me a faltering step...
405 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Sunday, 11 November 1883.
in translation:
...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...
406 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Monday, 12 or Tuesday, 13 November 1883.
in translation:
...the for(?) of the matter — you see the nature of my considerations. In short, when I wrote as I...
407 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Monday, 26 November 1883.
in translation:
...seem to me to be of a puzzling and ominous nature. And yes — now it must be said — I don’t...
409 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 6 December 1883.
in translation:
...end, or rather my feelings were so in sympathy with nature that it calmed me down more than anything else.
...all the same. I mean, it isn’t in your nature to fish in troubled waters. But I ask you frankly...
413 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 15 December 1883.
in translation:
...business than was in your nature. And that I believe that, even though you’re now so sure of your case that you must remain a dealer, a certain something in your original nature will still keep on...
...believe that there must be some truth in the nature of them, and in the action and direction. That...
414 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 16 December 1883.
in translation:
...be poor, I’ll be a painter, I want to remain human, in nature. To my mind, anyone who turns away from nature, whose head always has to be full of keeping this up or keeping that up, even if things like that take him away from nature, to such an extent that he can’t help saying it — oh — in...
...bound up in the same feeling for the same nature and art — will it ever come to that? The certain...
415 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 December 1883.
in translation:
...who paints, writes or composes must have by the very nature of the thing. Is it the same with Pa...
416 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 21 December 1883.
in translation:
...concerning some scruples that I had about regarding it as something that might be of a permanent nature.
419 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 4 January 1884.
in translation:
...human being and as a workman, you could come to more nature, to more rest, to more ‘your own self...
...of the ‘paternal right’ to prevent something of that nature, a question raised by Pa. I said in...
421 To Antoine Philippe Furnée. Nuenen, between about Sunday, 6 and Friday, 18 January 1884.
in translation:
...if you had stayed in Holland for a long time first, and had painted a lot in Holland. Then, once one is wholly and entirely immersed in the grey sadness here, one might perhaps find it difficult to get to grips with the nature of the East Indies.
428 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 3 February 1884.
in translation:
To some extent it’s in the nature of things, after all, that it’s precisely at a later stage...
430 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between Monday, 18 and Saturday, 23 February 1884.
in translation:
...infinite within a woman’s glance And all of nature blooming in a kiss. Come! — As sailors on a...
433 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 2 March 1884.
in translation:
...the infinite within a woman’s glance And all of nature blooming in a kiss. Come! As sailors on a...
435 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 8 March 1884.
in translation:
...Tis naught – and yet ’tis all. Creating nature, God spreads abroad all its superb effects; He...
...In evening’s rich and dusky tones. When nature rests, Weary of daylight’s brilliance, It opens...
437 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 13 March 1884.
in translation:
...it out. And yet they’re still true enough to nature so that, for instance, the honest natives of...
439 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 March 1884.
in translation:
...convention, always redolent of the studio, not of nature. Those sketches of yours that I saw, for...
...to paint like him — but according to their own nature — I am concerned, he says, with setting...
...that the more one has to do with nature itself — the deeper one penetrates into it — the less...
441 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, between about Friday, 21 and about Friday, 28 March 1884.
in translation:
...to render the effect of light and shade — nature’s mood at that moment — the overall aspect...
449 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 6 June 1884.
in translation:
...full of conversation killers or generalities. Anyway — nature is something that one can still...
450 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, mid-June 1884.
in translation:
...s just one or a very few things of that nature in a book, it’s sometimes worthwhile not just to...
...to gain more respect and admiration for and belief in nature, just so and for the same reasons I...
...the existence of genius, though, nor even its innate nature. But I do deny the inferences of it, that theory and training are always useless by the very nature of the thing. I hope, or rather, I’ll...
...I hear people saying ‘there is no black in nature’ is — there doesn’t have to be any black...
...CALCULATED and yet simple and infinitely deep, like nature itself. That’s what I think about it...
451 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 2 July 1884.
in translation:
...t yet started on what has most struck me in nature these last few days. At present the half-ripe...
452 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 20 July 1884.
in translation:
...see a couple more new weavers when you come. Nature is certainly pure here — I’m still very...
455 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 23 August 1884.
in translation:
...remain good friends — but here it’s in the nature of the thing that it’s not possible; even...
460 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, Sunday, 21 September 1884.
in translation:
...very different from a realistic study from nature. Anyway — after all — I didn’t see your...
469 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 14 November 1884.
in translation:
...to help. Well, there are a thousand things of that nature in her. And to put it very mildly, one...
480 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 26 January 1885.
in translation:
...how he reached this height, by working from nature from the start without imitating other people...
...one just persists in sticking to nature, it gets better every year. What I’m more persuaded of every day is that those people who don’t make wrestling with nature the main consideration do not...
...critics or connoisseurs were more familiar with nature, their judgement would be better than now...
...question, but lacks a solid basis if one forgets nature and doesn’t look deeply into it. Can’t...
...because one has to look long and hard at nature before one arrives at the conviction that what the...
...part I know no other way but to wrestle with nature until such time as she reveals her secret. I...
...position. And for the rest, the mood of nature outdoors and the interiors here is magnificent at...
485 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Monday, 9 March and about Monday, 23 March 1885.
in translation:
...of searching — that is, always directly from nature or in the poor, smoke-blackened cottage...
492 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Thursday, 9 April 1885.
in translation:
...that? That the beautiful effects of the light in nature require one to work very fast. Now I know...
...exactly — rather never exactly — for one sees nature through one’s own temperament. What I...
493 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Monday, 13 April 1885.
in translation:
...there isn’t even more stirring and more dramatic nature in Brittany, say, in Katwijk, say, in the...
494 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 18 April 1885.
in translation:
...We must therefore acknowledge with Antiquity that in nature there are only three truly elementary...
496 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 28 April 1885.
in translation:
...I think I’ll also send a few more studies from nature soon. It’s the second time that I’ve...
500 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Monday, 4 and Tuesday, 5 May 1885.
in translation:
...and seeking myself, and thinking about it in front of nature, as I’ve written to you before, this...
...accomplished in Holland, that is, restored nature over convention, feeling and impression over...
...and there will always be water in it by the nature of the thing. But too much water in it — and...
...think about it, searching for certain effects in nature myself, the less I’m inclined to believe...
502 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 22 May 1885.
in translation:
...d also like to read everything you find of that nature. These days I’m working on putting what...
506 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 2 June 1885.
in translation:
...sometime. It’s just that one needs both nature and paintings. It’s above all the question of...
...maintain that all dogmas are absurd by the very nature of the thing. Pity that this is just another...
516 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 15 July 1885.
in translation:
...m someone who has enough understanding of human nature, when someone of your position and standing...
526 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, between about Saturday, 8 and about Saturday, 15 August 1885.
in translation:
...with a friend about the question of working absolutely from nature, and said on that occasion that one should take one’s studies from nature — but that the actual painting had to be made by...
528 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 August 1885.
in translation:
...go together, their influence on each other. Of which nature is as full as of light and shade...
529 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 19 August 1885.
in translation:
...also going back to Terschelling he’s deep in nature again, and to my mind that’s better than working...
533 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Sunday, 4 October 1885.
in translation:
...4 of them. I think that some people who know nature well might like them because of the colours of...
536 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 20 October 1885.
in translation:
...their natural setting. A — living nest in nature is — something very different; one hardly sees...
...emphatically enough that the background and setting in nature are very different — so I made the...
...one makes colours lighter or darker, whatever their nature and their red, yellow or blue content...
...so where I pitch my study lower than in nature I still maintain the relationship between the tones...
537 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 28 October 1885.
in translation:
...in nature? I mean, when one wants to paint a head, say, and one looks closely at the nature one...
...from nature a certain sequence and a certain correctness of placement of the tones, I study nature...
...beautiful against one another that tones have in nature; one preserves it by re-creating it in a...
...of colours, isn’t the same as copying nature mechanically and slavishly. Now here’s another...
...love for the colourist’s palette than for nature, well then, so be it. Delacroix, Millet, Corot...
...with lower values than nature than one that’s exactly the same as nature. Rather a watercolour...
...to it, derive from it. Making studies from nature, wrestling with reality — I don’t want to...
...nature, and everything is contrary. One ends by quietly creating from one’s palette, and nature...
...s apparently in vain, gives a familiarity with nature, a sounder knowledge of things. And a fine...
...with the idea that one can’t study nature, swot even, too much. The greatest, most powerful...
539 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 7 November 1885.
in translation:
...people that a painting is something other than nature in a mirror, something other than imitation...
541 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 14 November 1885.
in translation:
...should be done about it; if he’s letting nature take its course, he’s doing it because that’s...
542 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 17 November 1885.
in translation:
...give me confidence that I haven’t tackled nature the wrong way, nor the technique of painting...
...of it for a couple of years and wrestles with nature, that can sometimes help, and at the same time...
543 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 20 November 1885.
in translation:
...the canvas, which he looked at as one looks at nature, in a single glance. Since I don’t know...
545 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Saturday, 28 November 1885.
in translation:
...quiet as a mouse, small, like a bedbug by nature. What a contrast to the group of Flemish mussel...
547 To Theo van Gogh, Antwerp, Monday, 14 December 1885.
in translation:
...as good as none. And how this goes against nature! Why aren’t there any still lifes hanging there...
551 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Saturday, 2 January 1886.
in translation:
...of the two has to wait, which is in the nature of human things. A creditor is not a friend, that...
552 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, between Tuesday, 12 and Saturday, 16 January 1886.
in translation:
...else is needed when working absolutely from nature — facility of composition — knowledge of the...
557 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Tuesday, 2 February 1886.
in translation:
...of serenity, require that one already knows nature, require tenderness and patience. Otherwise they...
559 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Saturday, 6 February 1886.
in translation:
...there’s so much soul and mysterious endeavour in nature, so it is now. And as for art — decline...
562 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Sunday, 14 February 1886.
in translation:
...that in moments when one doesn’t care about nature any more, one still cares about people. If you...
563 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Tuesday, 16 or Wednesday, 17 February 1886.
in translation:
...though I found it in a different way in nature itself, then I’d always have trouble with fellows...
565 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Monday, 22 February 1886.
in translation:
Because I’ve always worked from nature, I may perhaps be...
569 To Horace Mann Livens, Paris, September or October 1886.
in translation:
...with a sincere personal feeling of colour in nature I would say an artist can get on here...
574 To Willemien van Gogh. Paris, late October 1887.
in translation:
...plants and the rain? You see for yourself in nature that many a flower is trampled, freezes or is...
...can’t do anything else and is following one’s nature, than to say one is doing it for a good...
588 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 21 or Thursday, 22 March 1888.
in translation:
...a novel a more beautiful, simpler, more consoling nature, and explaining what Flaubert’s phrase...
589 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 25 March 1888.
in translation:
...chance of sales in Holland with the studies of nature in the south, and that when Tersteeg comes to...
590 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 30 March 1888.
in translation:
...regrets about having come here, since I find nature here almighty beautiful. By next year — when...
...I reckon it by no means immaterial to work in nature which, although it’s the same as at home in...
...book by Pierre Loti, Le mariage de Loti, where nature in Otaheite is described. A book that I can...
596 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Thursday, 12 April 1888.
in translation:
...us to create a more exalting and consoling nature than what just a glance at reality (which we...
602 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 1 May 1888.
in translation:
...today or tomorrow morning. I’m still convinced that nature here is just what’s needed to do...
...standards seem to me less inhuman and contrary to nature than in Paris. But with my temperament, to...
603 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 4 May 1888.
in translation:
...and what dejection. Working in this magnificent nature kept up my morale, but there too, after a...
605 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 7 May 1888.
in translation:
...I have no doubts that I’ll always love nature here, it’s something like Japanese art, once you...
607 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 10 May 1888.
in translation:
...I’m still far from that. But I feel that nature here has everything you need to make good things...
610 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 14 May 1888.
in translation:
...Now the appearance of things has changed and nature has become much harsher. But what greenness and...
611 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 20 May 1888.
in translation:
...year of living in the country and close to nature, that would make Gruby’s treatment much easier...
...in that respect, but here, since I have work and nature, and if I didn’t have that I’d become...
615 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 28 May 1888.
in translation:
...need to immerse yourself again even more, both in nature and among artists. And would prefer to see...
...view of the sums handled, but living closer to nature. For myself, I’m definitely recovering, and...
618 To Arnold Koning. Arles, Tuesday, 29 or Wednesday, 30 May 1888.
in translation:
...because the lines with a quill pen are more in the nature of those with a reed. I’m glad you’ve...
624 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 12 or Wednesday, 13 June 1888.
in translation:
...spring, but I certainly have no less love for nature that is starting to get scorched as early as...
...on the right track and my eye’s adapting to nature here. Let’s wait a little longer to be sure...
628 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 19 June 1888.
in translation:
...one may feel vis-à-vis the ineffable perfections of nature’s glorious splendours. But how I’d...
...will pick up — and you’ll find the surrounding nature so beautiful that you’ll have no other...
629 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 21 June 1888.
in translation:
...when I look around me there are many things in nature that hardly leave me time to think about anything...
630 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 23 June 1888.
in translation:
...that the region isn’t beautiful. All the same, nature here must be very different from Bordighera...
631 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 25 June 1888.
in translation:
...the emotion, the sincerity of our feeling for nature, that leads us and — if these emotions are...
636 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 5 July 1888.
in translation:
...ve found the stronger sunshine and its effect on nature so interesting. Write to me a day or two...
638 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 July 1888.
in translation:
...ladies have, by some strange freak of nature, brains of flintstone or gunflint. Certainly these...
639 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 13 July 1888.
in translation:
...you a true idea of the simplicity of nature in these parts. Lastly — because of Gauguin, what if...
643 To Emile Bernard. Arles, between Tuesday, 17 and Friday, 20 July 1888.
in translation:
...way you’ll see some of the subjects from this nature that inspires père Cézanne. Because La Crau near...
644 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, between Tuesday, 17 and Friday, 20 July 1888.
in translation:
...Without meaning to — is it the effect of nature down here, so Ruisdaelesque? — I quite often...
645 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 22 July 1888.
in translation:
...s saleable to those who buy things because there’s nature in them. Look, a canvas that I cover is...
650 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 29 July 1888.
in translation:
...point of view of a whole number of laws of nature, he’s pretty well hopeless. He ends by saying...
653 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 31 July 1888.
in translation:
...there in the painting as it is in nature. However, I imagine it would disappoint you and appear...
657 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 8 August 1888.
in translation:
...a school of painting here. But you’ll say that nature is beautiful everywhere if one goes into it...
660 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 13 August 1888.
in translation:
...work as our ruling passion, giving up well-being. Nature, the fine weather down here, that’s the...
663 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 18 August 1888.
in translation:
...works as the nightingale sings, because that’s his nature. This man will be blond. I’d like to...
665 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 21 August 1888.
in translation:
...let’s anyway enjoy with our eyes, shall we? Alas, nature gets paid in kind, and our bodies are...
677 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 9 September 1888.
in translation:
...appearance of Japanese gaiety and Tartarin’s good nature. But what would Mr Tersteeg say about...
678 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 9 and about Friday, 14 September 1888.
in translation:
...a pink lilac, since you can’t make out the nature of the tone clearly. But it’s the only way of...
...I believe that at present we must paint nature’s rich and magnificent aspects; we need good cheer...
680 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 11 September 1888.
in translation:
...an enormous sun in a red sky, above red roofs, in which nature seems to be in a rage, on a day of...
683 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 18 September 1888.
in translation:
Because I’ve never had such good fortune; nature here is extraordinarily beautiful. Everything and...
685 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 21 September 1888.
in translation:
...existence of a Japanese painter, living close to nature like a petit bourgeois. So you can easily...
686 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 23 or Monday, 24 September 1888.
in translation:
...than people who can paint freely and who grasp nature from the point of view of colour. That will...
...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...
687 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 25 September 1888.
in translation:
...I have a terrible clarity of mind at times, when nature is so lovely these days, and then I’m no...
690 To Emile Bernard. Arles, between Thursday, 27 September and Monday, 1 October 1888.
in translation:
...ll work there and you’ll see just the kind of nature you have to see in order to develop your...
693 To Eugène Boch. Arles, Tuesday, 2 October 1888.
in translation:
...was in the Borinage that I began to work from nature for the first time. But I destroyed all that...
...away other studies. Because I tell you, nature has been extraordinarily beautiful. More than once I...
695 To Paul Gauguin. Arles, Wednesday, 3 October 1888.
in translation:
...it ugly in my painting, and coarse, whereas nature seems perfect to me. Now, however, the energy of...
709 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 21 October 1888.
in translation:
...for the fact that I had something of a dual nature, something of both the monk and the painter, I...
718 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 10 November 1888.
in translation:
...have a more artistic look than the studies from nature, especially when I’m working in mistral...
721 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 19 November 1888.
in translation:
...good reason, that everything I’ve done from nature is chestnuts pulled out of the fire. Gauguin...
736 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 17 January 1889.
in translation:
...would do well to see in it only a study of nature. All the same, it will continue to be a pity that...
748 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 25 February 1889.
in translation:
...for it’s so difficult to explain the nature of the difficulties one might encounter here, and...
754 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Thursday, 4 April 1889.
in translation:
...were too heavy. As he has a strong peasant nature, that doesn’t prevent him from always looking...
761 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Wednesday, 24 April 1889.
in translation:
...well believe that. And I think that for me, nature alone will do more good than remedies. Here I...
772 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Thursday, 9 May 1889.
in translation:
...to consider what I’ve had as an attack of an epileptic nature. But I haven’t made any enquiries.
...may be, besides, that everything there seems against nature, dirty and sad. Anyway, if you don’t...
...But what can you do, there are people who love nature while being cracked or ill, those are the...
776 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 23 May 1889.
in translation:
...since here I still have work on my plate, for nature is beautiful. My hope would be that at the end...
...used to these inconveniences, it becomes second nature. I think that although the paintings cost...
779 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 9 June 1889.
in translation:
...faint, and I felt very ill. In the face of nature it’s the feeling for work that keeps me going...
780 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 16 June 1889.
in translation:
...left unfinished there, when so many things in nature remain parallel. Although I feel with an obstinate...
...seems most deplorable to me, all the more so since nature isn’t ungenerous and the air is so pure...
782 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 18 June 1889.
in translation:
...trompe-l’oeil precision, one might express a country nature that is purer than the suburbs, the...
...or doesn’t exist, but we believe that nature extends beyond St-Ouen. Perhaps, while reading Zola...
783 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 25 June 1889.
in translation:
...against the blue, in the blue, rather. To do nature here, as everywhere, one must really be here...
784 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 2 July 1889.
in translation:
...of his friends, which contained this phrase ‘you who love nature, I who love all that the hand of...
787 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 6 July 1889.
in translation:
...an old saying has it, and with good will. Let nature take its course. As to what you say about Theo...
...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...
788 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, between about Monday, 8 July and about Friday, 12 July 1889.
in translation:
...of our own confidence in ‘something reassuring’ in nature in general. It occurs to me that in...
789 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 July 1889.
in translation:
...another 7 studies which are dry but which are studies after nature rather than subjects for paintings.
...that one takes on a kind of second nature in Paris, that moreover preoccupations with business and...
...all the same to that simpler and truer nature whose ideal sometimes haunts us. What a business...
790 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 July 1889.
in translation:
...spleens and melancholies nor our feelings of good nature and good sense are our sole guides, and...
...s to say, take your fatherhood there, from your nature as an exile and a foreigner and a poor man...
798 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 2 September 1889.
in translation:
...good Bodmer for example. Was he not able to study nature as a hunter, a savage, did he not love it...
800 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Thursday, 5 and Friday, 6 September 1889.
in translation:
...it’s an image of death as the great book of nature speaks to us about it – but what I sought is...
...it’s that the family will be for you what nature is for me, the mounds of earth, the grass, the...
801 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 10 September 1889.
in translation:
...to see another light, to believe that looking at nature under a brighter sky can give us a more...
805 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Friday, 20 September 1889.
in translation:
...family concerns. For you’ll feel more in nature. When one thinks of Millet and Delacroix, what a...
810 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 8 October 1889.
in translation:
...there. There are moments between times when nature is superb, autumnal effects glorious in colour...
...been by simplifying and accentuating the proud, unchanging nature of the pines and the cedar bushes...
811 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 21 October 1889.
in translation:
...is friendship for one another and love of nature, and anyway, when one’s taken the trouble to...
812 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 21 October 1889.
in translation:
...but that the crises I have are of an epileptic nature. So it isn’t alcohol either that was the...
815 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Friday, 25 October 1889.
in translation:
...the moment you yourself are fully in the midst of nature, since you write that Jo already feels her...
820 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 19 November 1889.
in translation:
...and this something else one neglects and nature seems to avenge itself then, and besides, fate is...
823 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 26 November 1889.
in translation:
...soil. How I’d like to see the studies from nature by Gauguin and Bernard, the latter tells me of...
...more my opinion that by working assiduously from nature, without saying to oneself in advance, I...
831 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 23 December 1889.
in translation:
...others, and I don’t seem to have had a happy nature. I started to realize that in Paris, how much more...
833 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 31 December 1889 or Wednesday, 1 January 1890.
in translation:
...to look at the landscape – never, never has nature appeared so touching and so sensitive to me...
834 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Friday, 3 January 1890.
in translation:
...study (more coloured with more solemn tones) from nature. The fields. Fields of young wheat with...
...main street or boulevard of St-Rémy, study from nature – I have a repetition of it here which is...
849 To John Peter Russell. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 1 February 1890.
in translation:
...as regards drawing, and hold his way of loving nature in high, very high esteem. For in my opinion...
...to complain about it, for it seems to me that nature sees to it that illness is a means of getting...
853 To Albert Aurier. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 9 or Monday, 10 February 1890.
in translation:
...emotions that take hold of me in the face of nature go as far as fainting, and then the result is a...
868 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 4 May 1890.
in translation:
...if I was seized by a crisis of the same nature I’d wish to change asylums. And I’ve delayed too...
RM21 To Joseph Jacob Isaäcson. Auvers-sur-Oise, Sunday, 25 May 1890.
in translation:
...I tell you as a friend, before such a nature I feel powerless, my northern brain having been seized...
...Millet reopened our thoughts to see the inhabitant of nature. But no one has yet painted for us...
879 To Willemien van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Thursday, 5 June 1890.
in translation:
...with a white town and a river. All humanity, all nature simplified, but how it could be, if it isn...
891 To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Tuesday, 24 June 1890.
in translation:
...Indeed, you must come here as soon as possible, nature is very, very beautiful here, and I’m longing to...
893 To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur Oise, Saturday, 28 June 1890.
in translation:
...relationships that exist between one piece of nature and another, which however explain and bring...
...as any past era, and I even think that often in nature there is currently all the grace of Puvis’s painting, Between art and nature. Thus yesterday I saw two figures, the mother in dark carmine...
896 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, Wednesday, 2 July 1890.
in translation:
...still rather lifeless, but however he does observe nature. He has been here in Auvers for months...

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257 letters found

257 letters found

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters