513 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 12 July 1885.

metadata

No. 513 (Brieven 1990 521, Complete Letters 417)
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 12 July 1885

Source status

Original manuscript

Location

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b455 V/1962

Date

Vincent says in the present letter that he was in too much of a hurry the last time he wrote to Theo, and he is now taking the time to write at greater length; he refers again to the catalogue by Raffaëlli that Theo had sent. This letter was consequently written after letter 512 to Theo. As Van Gogh says that he is finding time to write, we consider it likely that he did so on a Sunday (as he often did). He also says that he had to pay out a lot right at the beginning of the month, that he now only has five guilders left, and that ‘it’s a long time till the end of the month’ (l. 31). Given the above considerations, we have dated the present letter on or about Sunday, 12 July 1885.

Ongoing topics

Serret’s reaction to Van Gogh’s work (508)

Theo’s visit to Nuenen (510)

original text

1r:1

Waarde Theo,

de vorige keer dat ik U schreef was zoo erg in haast. ik heb den heelen dag zoo noodig tegenwoordig, daar ik wel 2 uur van hier aan ’t werk ben. Het is mij te doen om nog eenige mooie hutten midden uit de hei. Ik heb er nu vier zoo groot als de twee laatst gezondenen, en een paar kleinen.1 Zij zijn nog niet droog – en ik zal er te huis nog wel iets aan doen ook.– Maar dan wou ik ze U wel zenden tegelijk met eenige figuurstudies,2 om de laatsten aan Serret te laten kijken.–

Ik wilde U nu echter zeggen dat ik van plan ben, omdat er nu een stuk of 6 groote doeken zijn,3 voorloopig slechts kleine verder te maken. En dat ook wel bepaaldelijk omdat – als ik naga wat Raffaelli en Mantz en andere artikels zeggen – men op den laatsten Salon & in ’t algemeen heel veel kolossale doeken maakt.4 Men zou – al las ik dit in geen der artikels – dezen salon misschien wel kunnen noemen le salon des marchands de couleur.–

Ik wou deze bezending gaarne doen vóór gij naar hier komt omdat anders het wat lang duurt. En daarna zal ik weer aan heel andere dingen gaan werken.

Ik denk dat gij aan de gevallen die ik uit die heide medebragt wel zien zult het daar nog al echt is. De binnenhuizen zijn er weerga’s mooi en ik heb er nu eenige kennissen gemaakt onder de menschen waar ik teregt kan.

Hoe is het U nu gegaan deze maand wat het geld betreft. Ik wou het U wat meegevallen was want het was mij nog al een zorg dat ge schreeft ge zelf krap zoudt zitten.

1v:2

Ik moest veel betalen in ’t begin van deze maand en wat mij rest is precies f. 5.– En ’t is nog lang eer de maand om is.

Terwijl de volgende maand ook alweer ik nog betalen moet. Ik kan of mag niet anders doen dan betrekkelijk heel wat uitgeven aan modellen. Het is hier als overal, de menschen poseeren verre van graag en als ’t niet was om ’t geld zoude niemand willen. Daar de lui echter meestal zeer arm zijn en vooral veel wevers zonder werk zitten, kan ik ’t nog wel gedaan krijgen. Maar om te maken wat ik wil en vooral de figuren beter te krijgen, is nog al een geldkwestie.

Hebt gij in het boek van Sensier wel eens gelezen dat toen Millet het buitenkansje had eenige duizend francs te erven, hij in plaats van dit – hij was toch waarachtig arm genoeg – te gebruiken om het wat makkelijker te hebben – hij integendeel onmiddelijk een reis ging doen naar zijn geboorteplaats om geheel op nieuw de boeren nog eens te gaan schilderen en zijn heele erfenis daar bij doorging – en – Millet had gelijk.–5

Hetzelfde deden anderen – b.v. Paul Dubois, die wat hij van zijn ouders erfde besteedde aan model. en een tijd geheel melankoliek was door geldzorg.6

1v:3

Ik heb nu niet te erven – en ik kan niet in eens doen zoo als ik wil.7 Maar neem het mij niet kwalijk dat ik zeg dat als Serret en gij – en m.i. zeer teregt – nog andere dingen in mijn figuren verlangen te zien – ik nog wat meer aan mijn modellen zal moeten besteden.

Ik weet niet hoe de lui het aanleggen om den salon te vullen met doeken van meters hoog bij meters breed. Enfin.–

Er zijn er een paar bij die hutten die ik veel helderder heb geschilderd maar ik zeg nog eens dat, hoeveel ik ook van grijze schilderijen houd, meer en meer ik de lui apprecieer die behalve ’t zilvergrijze gamma ook de somberder effekten weten te maken.

Wat ik nu doen zal is – indien de maand misschien onverhoopt U ietwat meegevallen mogt zijn, als gij – al is ’t weinig – nog iets kunt sturen, dan verzend ik de 4 doeken. Anders – zie boven – kan ik ze niet goed wegkrijgen.–

Maar in dat geval zal ik ze zenden zoodra ik ’t geld van de volgende maand heb en dan in alle geval reeds vroeger de figuurstudies – om aan Serret te laten zien.

1r:4

Die figuurstudies – heb ik echter graag gij mede terugbrengt als gij komt.–

Want er komen er nog veel meer bij die ik noodig heb bij ’t schilderen.

Zij moeten dienen voor figuren die definitief niet grooter zijn dan b.v. een spana en nog minder – zoodat wat er in is nog geconcentreerd wordt.8

Gegroet, met een handdruk.

b. à t.

Vincent

translation

1r:1

My dear Theo,

I was in such a hurry the last time I wrote. I really need the whole day at the moment, since I’m working a good 2 hours from here. I want to get a few more fine cottages in the middle of the heath. I now have four as big as the last two I sent, and a few small ones.1 They aren’t dry yet — and I’ll do a bit more to them at home, too. But then I wanted to send them to you at the same time as some figure studies,2 so you can show the latter to Serret.

I wanted to tell you now, though, that for the time being, because there are now 6 or so large canvases, I plan to make only small ones.3 And that’s quite deliberate because — when I look back at what Raffaëlli and Mantz and other articles say — at the last Salon and in general, people are making a great many enormous canvases.4 One could perhaps — although I didn’t read this in any of the articles — call this Salon the Salon of the colour merchants.

I wanted to send these off before you come here, because otherwise it’ll be rather a long time. And after that I’ll start working again on very different things.

I think you’ll see in the ones that I’m bringing back from the heath that it’s pretty real there. The interiors are deuced fine, and I’ve now made some acquaintances among the people, where I can go.

How did you get on this month as far as the money’s concerned? I hope it was better than you expected, for I was quite worried when you wrote that you would be short yourself. 1v:2

I had to pay a lot at the beginning of this month, and I’m left with precisely 5 guilders. And it’s a long time till the end of the month.

While I’ll also have to pay out again next month. I can or may not do anything other than spend a relatively large sum on models. It’s the same here as everywhere else; people are far from happy to pose and, if it weren’t for the money, no one would. However, as the people are mostly very poor, and many weavers, in particular, have no work, I can still get it done. But to make what I want and, above all, get the figures better, is really a question of money.

Did you read in Sensier’s book that when Millet had the good fortune to inherit several thousand francs, instead of using this — he was poor enough in all conscience — to make things a bit easier for himself — on the contrary he immediately went on a trip to his birthplace to paint the peasants all over again, and went through his whole inheritance like that — and — Millet was right.5

Others did the same thing — Paul Dubois, for instance, spent what he inherited from his parents on models. And was very wretched for a while because of money worries.6 1v:3

I have nothing to inherit now — and I can’t suddenly do as I like.7 But don’t take it amiss of me when I say that if Serret and you — and in my view very rightly want to see other things in my figures — I’ll have to spend rather more on my models.

I don’t know how people manage to fill the Salon with canvases metres high by metres wide. Anyway.

Among these cottages there are a few that I’ve painted much brighter, but I say again that, much as I like grey paintings, I appreciate more and more the people who are able to create the more sombre effects as well as the silver-grey spectrum.

What I’ll do now is — if the month may perhaps have turned out rather better for you than expected, if you could send something more — even if it isn’t much — then I’ll send the 4 canvases. Otherwise — see above — I can’t really get them off.

But in that case I’ll send them as soon as I have the money for the next month, and then in all events the figure studies before that — to show to Serret. 1r:4

These figure studies — I’d like you to bring them back with you when you come, though.

For there are going to be many more that I need for painting.

They’re to serve for figures that are definitely not larger than a span, say, or even less — so that what’s in them becomes even more concentrated.8

Regards, with a handshake.

Yours truly,

Vincent

notes

1. As well as The cottage (F 83 / JH 777 ), which measures 64 x 78 cm, Vincent therefore sent another cottage of a similar size. Cottage and woman with a goat (F 90 / JH 823 ) and Cottage with peasant coming home (F 170 / JH 824 ), which measure 60 x 85 and 64 x 76 cm respectively, fit the bill, but they could also have been among the four that Van Gogh now says he has painted. He also made Village at sunset (F 190 / JH 492), which measures 57 x 82 cm.

We also know of six smaller cottages from this period – in his next letter (515), Van Gogh refers to Cottage with woman digging (F 89 / JH 803 ), which measures 30.5 x 40 cm. He probably also counted Cottage (F - / JH add 23), 33 x 43 cm, as one of them. On the shipment: letters 506-507; cf. cat. Amsterdam 1999, p. 162 (n. 1).

2. Cf. the drawn figure studies mentioned in letter 512.

3. These were The potato eaters (F 82 / JH 764 ), The cottage (F 83 / JH 777 ) and The old church tower at Nuenen (‘The peasants’ churchyard’) (F 84 / JH 772 ), and probably Cottage (F 91 / JH 809 ), 35.5 x 67 cm; Cottage and a woman with a goat (F 90 / JH 823 ), which measures 60 x 85 cm, and Cottage with tumbledown barn and a stooping woman (F 1669 / JH 825 ), which measures 62 x 113. See cat. Amsterdam 1999, pp. 160-163, and n. 1.

4. In his ‘Etude des mouvements de l’art moderne et du beau caractériste’ Raffaëlli criticized the ‘vast canvases’ at the Salon (Catalogue illustré des oeuvres de Jean-François Raffaelli. Paris 1884, p. 35). Mantz had written in Le Temps about the large paintings at the Salon, which were intended as decorations for town halls (‘Le Salon i’, p. 1). In ‘Le Salon ii’, published in Le Temps of 17 May 1885, he wrote: ‘Our painters are criticized for giving their canvases exaggerated proportions’ (On reproche à nos peintres de donner à leurs toiles des dimensions exagérées) (p. 2). Theo had sent Vincent these articles (see for Raffaëlli: letter 512, n. 1 and for Mantz: letters 502 ff.).

5. Sensier writes that Millet did not receive any money when his mother died; he renounced his inheritance and only accepted the books and the bookcase that were passed down from father to son, together with a few more pieces of furniture. He gave his inheritance – a share in the house and the land – to one of his brothers, who continued to live in Gruchy, the village where their parents had lived. See Sensier 1881, pp. 149-153.

The stroke of good fortune that Van Gogh is referring to is the 2000 francs that Millet was paid by the collector Letrône for Femme qui met du pain (Peasant woman baking bread), Femme cousant à la lampe (Woman sewing by lamplight) and Femme qui donne à manger aux poules (Woman feeding chickens). Millet used this money to take a four-month trip to the area he was born, La Haye in Normandy, in 1854. See Sensier 1881, pp. 152-153.

6. Van Gogh may have known the anecdote about the inheritance of the French painter and sculptor Paul Dubois from the article ‘Paul Dubois’ by Emile Bergerat (without page numbering) in Galerie Contemporaine, Littéraire, Artistique (1875). It says that Dubois, despite his success, was short of money and even had to broach his inheritance prematurely: ‘To subsidize his production costs, he had even had to make serious inroads into his inheritance’ (Il avait même été obligé, pour subvenir aux frais de sa production, d’entamer fortement son patrimoine). He managed to some extent to provide for his basic needs from the sale of reproductions of his popular statue Chanteur florentin (Florentine singer).

7. Van Gogh doubtless raised the issue of Millet’s and Dubois’ inheritances because he himself had decided to give up his own share of their father’s estate: see letter 506.

a. A span is the distance between the tips of the thumb and little finger on one hand, when spread as wide as possible, in other words about 20 cm.

8. ‘A total of ten painted figure studies are known from this period. Most of the men and women depicted are indeed about the size of a span’. Cat. Amsterdam 1999, pp. 160-163, cat. no. 29, with an overview of these works.