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RM21 To Joseph Jacob Isaäcson. Auvers-sur-Oise, Sunday, 25 May 1890.

metadata
No. RM21 (Brieven 1990 878, Complete Letters 614a)
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Joseph Isaäcson
Date: Auvers-sur-Oise, Sunday, 25 May 1890

Source status
Original manuscript

Location
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b663 V/1962

Date
This letter must have been written in Auvers, since Van Gogh refers to the exhibition on the Champs de Mars that he had visited some time between 17 and 20 May (see n. 10), as well as to an article by Isaäcson that appeared on 17 May in De Portefeuille (see n. 1). Because there is a good possibility that he sent a letter to Isaäcson along with one to Theo on 25 May (see Additional details), we have also dated the present letter to Sunday, 25 May 1890.

Additional
In letter 875 of Sunday, 25 May, Vincent wrote to Theo: ‘Enclosed is a note which you will please send to Isaäcson’ (l. 42). If Theo actually complied with this request, it is strange that this letter has remained in the family collection. As Hulsker, too, already observed, this letter was probably not sent, a possibility also suggested by the lack of a signature.
The letter that Theo was supposed to forward might have been an altered version of the present letter – its several cross-outs and additions indicate that Van Gogh revised it and possibly rewrote it later (see exhib. cat. New York 1986, p. 201, and Hulsker 1998, pp. 46-47).

original text
 1r:1
Mon cher Monsieur Isaacson,
de retour à Paris j’ai lu la continuation de vos articles sur les impressionistes.1 Sans vouloir entrer en discussion sur les details du sujet entamé par vous, il me semble que vous cherchez à dire consciencieusement à nos compatriotes où en seraient les chôses en vous basant sur des faits. Puisque peutêtre vous direz quelques mots aussi de moi dans votre prochain article je repeterais mes scrupules pour que vous ne disiez juste que quelques mots, etant décidement assuré que jamais je ferai des choses importantes.2 Quoique je croie à la possibilité qu’une génération plus tard on aye à faire encore & toujours à une continuation de recherches intéressantes de couleur et de sentiment moderne, paralèle, équivalentes à celles de Delacroix, de Puvis de Chavannes – et que l’impressionisme en sera la source si vous voulez – et que les Hollandais de l’avenir y seront engagés eux aussi dans cette lutte – tout cela rentre dans le possible et vos articles ont certes leur raison d’être.
Mais j’allais m’égarer dans le vague – voici le pourquoi de cette lettre – je voulais vous faire savoir que j’ai dans les derniers temps de mon séjour dans le midi essayé de prendre quelques vergers d’oliviers. Vous n’ignorez pas les tableaux existants d’oliviers. Il me parait probable que dans l’oeuvre de Claude Monet et de Renoir il doit y en avoir. Mais à part cela – et de cela, que je suppose exister, je n’en ai pourtant pas vu – à part cela ce qu’on a fait des oliviers est bien peu de chose.
 1v:2
Eh bien probablement le jour n’est pas loin où l’on peindra de toutes les façons l’olivier ainsi qu’on a peint le saule et le tétard Hollandais, ainsi qu’on a peint depuis Daubigny et César de Cocq le pommier Normand.3 L’effet du jour, du ciel, fait qu’il y a à l’infini des motifs à tirer de l’olivier.– Or moi j’ai cherché quelques effets d’opposition du feuillage changeant avec les tons du ciel. Parfois le tout est de bleu pur enveloppé à l’heure où l’arbre fleurit pâle et que les grosses mouches bleues, les cétoines émeraudes, les cigales enfin, nombreuses, volent alentour.–4 Puis lorsque la verdure plus bronzée prend des tons plus mûrs le ciel resplendit et se raye de vert et d’orangé;5 ou bien encore plus avant dans l’automne, les feuilles prenant les tons violacés vaguement d’une figue mûre, l’effet violet se manifestera en plein par les oppositions du grand soleil blanchissant dans un halo de citron clair et pali.6 Parfois aussi après une averse j’ai vu tout le ciel coloré de rose et d’orangé clair, ce qui donnait une valeur et une coloration exquises aux gris verts argentés. Là-dedans il y avait des femmes roses aussi qui faisaient la cueillette des fruits.– –7
Ces toiles-là avec quelques etudes de fleurs, voilà tout ce que j’ai fait depuis notre dernière correspondance. Ces fleurs sont une avalanche de roses contre un fond vert8 et un tres grand bouquet d’Iris violets contre fond jaune, contre fond rose.9
Je commence à sentir de plus en plus que l’on peut considérer Puvis de chavannes comme ayant l’importance de Delacroix, enfin qu’il equivaut aux gens desquels le genie atteint un jusqu’ici et pas plus loin à tout jamais consolant.  1v:3 Sa toile actuellement au Champ de Mars entre autres parait faire allusion à une équivalence, à une rencontre étrange et providentielle des antiquités fort lointaines et la crue modernité.10 Plus vagues, plus prophetiques encore que les Delacroix si possible, devant ses toiles de ces dernieres années on se sent ému comme assistant à une continuation de toutes chôses, une renaissance fatale mais bienveillante. Mais sur ce chapitre aussi mieux vaut ne pas insister alors que l’on se recueille avec gratitude devant une peinture définitive comme le sermon sur la montagne.11 Ah Lui les ferait les oliviers du midi, Lui le voyant. Moi je vous le dis en ami, devant une telle nature je me sens impuissant, mon cerveau du nord ayant pris le cauchemar dans ces endroits paisibles parceque je sentais qu’il fallait etre meilleur pour le faire. Pourtant je n’ai pas voulu tout à fait rester sans tenter un effort mais il se borne à nommer ces deux chôses – les cyprès – les oliviers.– Que d’autres meilleurs et plus puissants que moi en expriment le langage symbolique. Millet c’est la voix du blé et Jules Breton aussi. Or je vous l’assure, je ne peux plus songer à Puvis de Chavannes sans pressentir qu’un jour peutêtre lui ou un autre va nous expliquer les oliviers.
Moi je peux voir de loin la possibilité d’une nouvelle peinture mais c’était trop pour moi et c’est avec plaisir que je reviens dans le nord.
Voyez vous, la question à mon esprit se presente ainsi. Quels sont les êtres humains qui actuellement habitent les vergers d’oliviers, d’oranges, de citrons. Le paysan de cela est autre chose que l’habitant des grands blés de Millet. Mais Millet nous a rouvert les idees pour voir l’habitant de la nature. Mais on ne nous a pas encore  1r:4 peint l’être actuel meridional. Mais alors que Chavannes ou un autre nous montrera cet etre humain-là, il nous reviendra ces vielles paroles avec un sens nouveau, bienheureux les pauvres en esprit, bienheureux ceux qui ont le coeur pur,12 paroles d’une telle portee que nous autres élevés dans les vieilles villes du Nord, confus et défaits, devons nous arreter à grande distance du seuil de ces demeures-là. Alors quelque convaincus que nous puissions être de la vision de Rembrandt, pourtant se demande t-on: et Raphael voulait il cela et Michel Ange et le Vinci. Je ne sais mais je crois que Giotto moins païen en sentait davantage, ce grand souffreteux13 qui reste familier comme un contemporain.

translation
 1r:1
My dear Mr Isaäcson,
On returning to Paris I read the continuation of your articles on the Impressionists.1 Without wanting to get into a discussion on the details of the subject you have broached, it seems to me that you are conscientiously trying to tell our fellow-countrymen how matters stand, basing yourself on facts. Since perhaps you will also say a few words about me in your next article I would repeat my scruples, so that you say just only a few words, as I am decidedly certain that I shall never do important things.2 Although I believe in the possibility that a later generation will again and always be concerned with a continuation of interesting researches into colour and modern sentiment, parallel, equivalent to those of Delacroix, Puvis de Chavannes – and that Impressionism will be the source of it, if you like – and that the Dutch of the future will also be engaged in this struggle – all this is in the realm of the possible, and your articles certainly have their raison d’être.
But I was going to wander off into vagueness – this is the why of this letter – I wanted to inform you that in the last part of my stay in the south I tried to capture a few olive groves. You are not unaware of the existing paintings of olive trees. I think it likely that there must be some in the work of Claude Monet and Renoir. But apart from this – and although I assume this exists I have not seen any of it – apart from this, what people do of olive trees is very little.  1v:2
Well, the day is probably not far off when people will paint the olive tree in every way as they have painted the willow and the Dutch pollard willow, as they have painted the Norman apple tree since Daubigny and César de Cock.3 The effect of daylight, of the sky, means that there is an infinity of subjects to be drawn from the olive tree. Now I looked for some effects of opposition between the changing foliage and the tones of the sky. Sometimes the whole thing is wrapped in pure blue at the time when the tree bears pale blossoms and the numerous big blue flies, the emerald rose beetles, finally the cicadas, fly around it.4 Then, when the more bronzed greenery takes on riper tones the sky is resplendent and is striped with green and orange;5 or even further on in the autumn, the leaves take on the violet tones vaguely of a ripe fig, the violet effect will be displayed in full by the oppositions of the large whitening sun in a halo of clear, fading lemon.6 Sometimes, too, after a shower, I have seen all the sky coloured in pink and bright orange, which gave an exquisite value and coloration to the silvery greenish greys. In there, there were women, also pink, who were picking the fruit.7
These canvases, with a few studies of flowers, that is all I have done since our last correspondence. These flowers are an avalanche of roses against a green background,8 and a very large bouquet of violet Irises against yellow background, against pink background.9
I am increasingly beginning to feel that one may consider Puvis de Chavannes as having the importance of Delacroix, anyway that he has equal worth with the people whose genius attains a thus-far-and-no-further, forever consoling.  1v:3 His canvas currently at the Champ de Mars, among others, appears to allude to an equivalence, to a strange and providential meeting of the very distant antiquities and raw modernity.10 Even more vague, more prophetic than the Delacroixs if possible, one feels moved before his canvases of recent years as though present at a continuation of all things, an inevitable but benevolent rebirth. But it is as well not to press the point on this subject when one is meditating gratefully before a painting as definitive as the sermon on the mount.11 Ah, He would do the olive trees of the south, He the seer. Myself, I tell you as a friend, before such a nature I feel powerless, my northern brain having been seized by a nightmare in these peaceful places, because I felt one must be better to do it. However, I did not want to remain completely without attempting an effort but it is limited to naming these two things — the cypresses – the olive trees. Let others better and more powerful than me express their symbolic language. Millet is the voice of the wheat, and Jules Breton also. Now I assure you, I can no longer think of Puvis de Chavannes without having a presentiment that one day perhaps he or another will explain the olive trees to us.
Myself, I can see from afar the possibility of a new painting but it was too much for me, and it is with pleasure that I return to the north.
See here, the question presents itself to my mind thus. Who are the human beings who currently inhabit the groves of olive trees, of oranges, of lemons? The peasant from there is a different thing from the inhabitant of the great wheatfields of Millet. But Millet reopened our thoughts to see the inhabitant of nature. But no one has yet  1r:4 painted for us the current human being of the south. But when Chavannes or someone else shows us this human being, these old words will come back to us with a new meaning, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the pure in heart,12 words of such impact that those of us brought up in the old towns of the north, confused and defeated, must halt a long way from the threshold of these dwellings. Then, however convinced we may be by Rembrandt’s vision, yet one asks oneself: and did Raphael want this, and Michelangelo and Da Vinci? I do not know, but I believe that Giotto, less pagan, felt it more, that great sickly fellow13 who remains as familiar as a contemporary.
notes
1. Van Gogh is referring here to J.J. Isaäcson’s recent writings on the analytical methods and laws of colour adopted by the neo-Impressionists: ‘De revolutionaire schildersgroep in Frankrijk’ (The revolutionary group of painters in France), De Portefeuille. Kunst- en Letterbode of 10 May 1890, pp. 75-76 and of 17 May 1890, pp. 88-89. Isaäcson mentions Van Gogh twice in a list of ‘emotional-impressionistic artists’, as he characterized them. In his closing sentence he says that he will discuss this ‘anti-official salon group’ in a subsequent article (p. 89). This explains Van Gogh’s remark later on in the letter that Isaäcson will perhaps mention him in a coming article.
Van Gogh views these articles as a ‘continuation’ of the series titled ‘Parijsche brieven’ (Paris letters), which Isaäcson had written in August-September 1889. On this subject, see letter 807, n. 2.
2. In October 1889 Van Gogh had made a similar request to Isaäcson; see letter 811.
3. Charles-François Daubigny is considered a forerunner of Impressionism. Normandian apple trees are a recurring theme in his extensive oeuvre. De Cock was influenced by the Barbizon School, to which Daubigny belonged. His influence is particularly discernible in De Cock’s Normandian landscapes.
4. Here Van Gogh is probably thinking of Olive trees (F 715 / JH 1759 ) and Olive grove (F 585 / JH 1758 ), see letter 805, n. 23.
5. Van Gogh is presumably referring here to Olive grove (F 586 / JH 1854 ) and Olive grove with two olive pickers (F 587 / JH 1853 ), to which he gave the same colour indications as in letter 834.
6. This description applies to the painting Olive trees (F 710 / JH 1856 ); see letter 863.
7. Van Gogh had painted three variants of the olive trees ‘against a pink sky’: Women picking olives (F 654 / JH 1868 ), Women picking olives (F 655 / JH 1869 ) and Women picking olives (F 656 / JH 1870 ). See letter 834.
8. Roses in a vase (F 681 / JH 1976 ) and Roses in a vase (F 682 / JH 1979 ).
9. Irises in a vase (F 678 / JH 1977 ) and Irises in a vase (F 680 / JH 1978 ).
10. For Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Inter Artes et Naturam (Between art and nature), see letter 879, n. 15.
11. Reference to the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). Van Gogh means that Puvis de Chavannes’s recent works contain the essence of his vision of society, just as the Sermon on the Mount is a summary of Christ’s teachings. Thus Van Gogh again endorses his old notion (formulated in letter 155) that modern art is a continuation of the gospel.
12. Matt. 5:3 and Matt. 5:8.
13. For the source of this statement about Giotto, see letter 683, n. 18.