680 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 11 September 1888.

metadata

No. 680 (Brieven 1990 684, Complete Letters 535)
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Arles, on or about Tuesday, 11 September 1888

Source status

Original manuscript

Location

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. nos. b577 a-b V/1962

Date

The letter was in any event written after 8 September, since it contains a reference to an article on Dostoevsky that had appeared on the eighth in Le Figaro, and again on the tenth in L’Intransigeant (see n. 5). It probably dates from the first half of the week because Van Gogh has done two new paintings since The night café (which was finished on Saturday, 8 September; see letter 676). Later in the week he must have been working on three paintings, as he reports in letter 681 of Sunday, 16 September. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Tuesday, 11 September 1888. See also the notes to letter 679, Date.

Additional

The letter is not signed, so it may be incomplete.

Ongoing topic

Gauguin coming to Arles (602)

original text

1r:1

Mon cher Theo,

Lorsque Gauguin travaillera avec moi et que de son côté il se montre un peu genereux pour ce qui est de ses tableaux –

Alors est ce que toi tu ne donnes pas de l’ouvrage alors à deux artistes qui n’auraient rien à faire sans toi, et tout en admettant que je te crois parfaitement dans le juste lorsque tu dis que pour ce qui est de l’argent tu n’y vois pas d’avantage. D’un autre côté tu feras quelque chose comme Durand Ruel qui dans le temps avant que les autres eussent reconnus la personalité de Claude Monet, lui a pris des tableaux. Alors Durand Ruel pas non plus y a gagné, à un moment il était plein de ces tableaux-là sans pouvoir les écouler.1 Mais enfin ce qu’il a fait cela reste toujours bien fait et actuellement il peut toujours se dire qu’il a gagné sa cause. Si moi je voyais désavantage cependant d’argent je n’en parlerais pas. Mais il faut que Gauguin soit loyal, or tout en voyant que l’arrivée de son ami Laval lui a ouvert momentanément une autre ressource je crois qu’il hésite entre Laval et nous.2

1v:2

Je ne l’en blame pas; seulement si G. lui ne perd pas de vue son interêt il n’est que comme de juste que toi tu ne perdes pas de vue le tien au point de vue du remboursement en tableaux. On voit déjà que Gauguin nous aurait déjà complètement plantés là si Laval avait eu un tant soit peu le sou. Je suis tres curieux de savoir ce qu’il te dira à toi dans sa prochaine lettre que tu auras certainement sous peu.

Voila je suis sûr que qu’il vienne ou non l’amitié avec lui durera mais que de notre côté il faut avoir un peu de fermeté. Il ne trouvera pas mieux, à moins que cela soit justement en se faisant prévaloir de ce que toi as voulu faire pour lui. Or cela il ne l’osera pas. Saches seulement que si moi je le vois pas venir je ne m’en ferai pas le moindre mauvais sang et que je n’en travaillerai pas moins, que s’il vient il sera fort le bien venu. Mais je vois tellement que compter sur lui 1v:3 serait justement ce qui nous fouterait dedans. Fidèle il le sera si cela est dans son avantage, or s’il ne vient pas il trouvera autre chose mais il ne trouvera pas mieux et il n’y perdra rien en ne faisant pas le malin.

Il me faudra encore 5 mètres de toile ordinaire à fr. 2.50 mais il va sans dire que Tasset en considérant le poids de ce colis devrait envoyer soit un mètre de plus soit un mètre de moins afin que le port ne soit pas double.3

Je crois que l’occasion est bonne maintenant pour que tu demandes carrément à Gauguin lorsqu’il t’écrira, viens tu ou ne viens tu pas?

Si tu n’es pas décidé, de part et d’autre nous ne serons pas tenu à faire la chôse projetée. Si le plan d’une association plus sérieuse doive pas s’exécuter c’est égal mais alors chacun doit reprendre son droit d’agir. Ma lettre à Gauguin est partie, je leur ai demandé un échange s’ils veulent, j’aimerais tant avoir ici le portrait de Bernard par Gauguin et celui de Gauguin par Bernard.4

Ci inclus un article qui t’intéressera, tu aurais bien raison d’aller voir cela.5

Les idées pour le travail me viennent en abondance et cela fait que tout en étant isolé je n’ai pas le temps de penser ou de sentir. Je marche comme une locomotive à peindre.

1r:4

Or je crois que cela ne s’arrètera plus guère. Et mon idée est qu’un atelier vivant, on ne le trouvera jamais tout fait mais par le travail et en patientant dans le même endroit cela se crée de jour en jour. J’ai une etude de vieux moulin peinte à tons rompus6 comme le Chêne sur le rocher, cette étude que tu disais avoir encadrée avec le semeur.7 L’idee du semeur me hante toujours encore. Les etudes outrées comme le semeur, comme maintenant le café de nuit,8 me semblent à moi atrocement laides et mauvaises d’habitude mais lorsque je suis émotionné par quelque chôse comme ici ce petit article sur Dostoievsky9 alors ce sont les seules qui me paraissent avoir une signification plus grave.

J’ai une troisieme étude maintenant d’un paysage avec usine et un soleil enorme dans un ciel rouge au-dessus des toits rouges où la nature semble être en colère un jour de mistral méchant.10

Pour ce qui est de la maison cela continue de m’apaiser beaucoup qu’elle va être habitable. Est ce que mon travail sera plus mauvais parceque en restant dans le même endroit je reverrai les saisons aller et venir sur les memes motifs. En revoyant au printemps les même vergers, en eté les mêmes blés, involontairement je vois mon travail regulierement devant moi d’avance et peux mieux faire des plans. Puis en gardant ici de certaines etudes pour faire un tout qui se tienne, cela te fera au bout d’un certain temps une oeuvre plus calme. Je sens que en tant que quant à cela nous sommes assez bien dans le juste. Je voudrais seulement que tu fusses plus près d’ici.

2r:5

Considerant que je ne peux pas rapprocher le nord du midi, que faire.

Alors je me dis que moi-meme seul je ne suis pas capable de faire de la peinture importante assez pour qu’elle motive ton voyage dans le midi deux ou trois fois par an. Mais – Si Gauguin venait et si nous étions un peu connus comme restanta ici et aidant les artistes à vivre et à travailler je ne vois toujours pas l’impossibilité que le midi devienne pour toi comme pour moi une seconde patrie en quelque sorte.

Je suis bien aise d’avoir fini ma lettre à Gauguin sans dire que cela me desoriente un peu qu’il doit hésiter à aller resterb avec Laval ou avec moi. Il serait injuste de ne pas lui laisser pleine liberté de choisir et de faire comme il peut. Mais je lui ai ecrit que j’etais persuadé que même s’il ne venait pas ici parceque le voyage lui serait pas possible alors il ne resterait pas plus longtemps dans un hôtel.

2v:6

Et que c’etait alors deux ateliers fixes au lieu d’un seul.

Je reviens toujours là-dessus qu’une fois fixé on travaille plus tranquillement. et dans cette position-là on peut à l’occasion toujours aider davantage les autres aussi. Bernard dit que cela lui fait souffrir de voir combien Gauguin est souvent empêché de faire ce qu’il peut pourtant pour des questions toutes materielles de couleur, de toile &c. Enfin dans tous les cas cela ne durera pas. Le pire qui pourrait lui arriver ne serait ce pas qu’il soit forcé de laisser ses tableaux en gage chez son logeur pour sa dette et de se refugier soit chez toi soit chez moi en faisant le voyage simple. Mais dans ce cas s’il voudrait pas perdre ses tableaux il doit bien nettement attaquer son logeur. Un cas comme cela où la marchandise dans tous les cas vaut bien plus que la dette peut etre jugé d’urgence par le président du tribunal civil de l’arondissement. en cas que le logeur pretend garder le tout, ce dont il n’a pas le droit.

translation

1r:1

My dear Theo,

When Gauguin comes to work with me, and when for his part he shows himself a little bit generous as far as his paintings are concerned —

Well, then, won’t you then give work to two artists who without you would have nothing to do, and at the same time admitting that I believe you to be completely in the right when you say that as far as money’s concerned, you see no advantage in it. From another point of view you’ll be doing something like Durand-Ruel, who in the past, before other people recognized Claude Monet’s individuality, bought paintings from him. And Durand-Ruel didn’t earn from it either; at one point he had quantities of those paintings without being able to dispose of them.1 But after all, what he did will always remain well done, and today he can always say to himself that he won his case. If I saw a financial disadvantage, however, I wouldn’t mention it myself. But Gauguin will have to be loyal, but seeing that the arrival of his friend Laval has opened up another resource for him for the time being, I believe he’s hesitating between Laval and us.2 1v:2

I don’t blame him for it; only if G. doesn’t lose sight of his interest, it’s only right that you don’t lose sight of yours from the point of view of repayment in paintings. We can already see that Gauguin would have ditched us completely by now if Laval had had a sou or two. I’m very curious to know what he’ll say to you in his next letter, which you’ll certainly have before long.

There you have it, I’m sure that whether he comes or not, our friendship with him will endure, but that we must show a little firmness on our side. He won’t find anything better, unless it was precisely by taking advantage of what you’ve wished to do for him. Now, that he won’t dare to do. You should just know that if I don’t see him come I won’t be the least bit upset about it and that I won’t work any the less because of it; that if he comes he’ll be very welcome. But I can see so clearly that counting on him 1v:3 would be just what would do us in. He’ll be loyal if it’s to his advantage, now if he doesn’t come he’ll find something else, but he won’t find anything better and he’ll lose nothing by not trying to be clever.

I’ll need another 5 metres of ordinary canvas at 2.50 francs, but it goes without saying that Tasset, taking the weight of this package into account, should send either a metre more or a metre less, so that the carriage isn’t double.3

I believe that now it’s a good opportunity for you to ask Gauguin bluntly when he writes to you, are you coming or are you not coming?

If you haven’t made up your mind, on neither side will we be bound to do the thing envisaged. If the plan for a more serious association isn’t to come about, no matter, but then each person must regain his freedom of action. My letter to Gauguin has gone off; I asked them for an exchange if they wish; I would so much like to have here Gauguin’s portrait of Bernard and Bernard’s of Gauguin.4

Included herewith an article that will interest you; you’d be well advised to go to see that.5

Ideas for work are coming to me in abundance, and that means that even though isolated I don’t have time to think or to feel. I’m going like a painting-locomotive. 1r:4

Now I believe that this is never going to stop. And my idea is that a living studio, you’ll never find one ready-made, but it’s created from one day to the next through work and staying patiently in the same place. I have a study of an old mill, painted in broken tones6 like the Oak on the rock; that study which you said you had framed with the sower.7 The idea of the sower still continues to haunt me. Exaggerated studies like the sower, like the night café8 now, usually seem to me atrociously ugly and bad, but when I’m moved by something, as here by this little article on Dostoevsky,9 then they’re the only ones that seem to me to have a more important meaning.

I have a third study now, of a landscape with factory, and an enormous sun in a red sky, above red roofs, in which nature seems to be in a rage, on a day of nasty mistral.10

As far as the house is concerned, the fact that it will be habitable continues to soothe me very much. Will my work be worse because by staying in the same place I’ll see the seasons come and go on the same subjects? Seeing the same orchards again in spring, the same wheatfields in summer, I’ll inevitably see my work regularly before me in advance, and can plan better. And by keeping certain studies here to make an ensemble that will hold together, after a certain time that will make a calmer body of work for you. I feel that as far as that goes, we’re pretty well on the right road. I could only wish that you were nearer here. 2r:5

Considering that I can’t bring the north closer to the south, what’s to be done?

So I say to myself that on my own I’m not capable of doing sufficiently important painting to justify your travelling to the south two or three times a year. But — if Gauguin came and if it was fairly well known that we were living here and helping artists to live and work, I still don’t see the impossibility of the south’s becoming for you, as for me, a second native country in some sense.

I’m very pleased to have finished my letter to Gauguin without saying that it bewilders me somewhat that he should hesitate between going to stay with Laval or with me. It would be unfair not to leave him total freedom to choose and to do as he can. But I wrote to him that I was sure that even if he didn’t come here because the journey wouldn’t be possible for him, then he wouldn’t be staying much longer at a hotel. 2v:6

And that then it was two permanent studios instead of one.

I always come back to this, that once settled one works more calmly. And in that position one can always be of more help to others, too, if the opportunity arises. Bernard says that it makes him suffer to see how Gauguin is often prevented from doing what he can, after all, by purely material questions of paint, canvas, &c. But in any case, that won’t continue. Wouldn’t the worst thing that could happen to him be that he’d be forced to leave his paintings with his landlord as security for his debt, and to take refuge either with you or with me, travelling one way? But in that case, if he didn’t wish to lose his paintings, he must confront his landlord quite directly. A case like that, where the merchandise is in any case worth considerably more than the debt, can be heard as a matter of urgency by the president of the district civil court. If the landlord claims the right to keep everything, which he has no right to.

notes

1. After noticing Monet’s work at the 1870 Salon, Durand-Ruel exhibited a painting by the artist in his London branch that same year. In 1872 he bought 29 paintings directly from Monet, and a further 34 the following year. He was taking a significant risk, for many of them remained in his stock for years. See Wildenstein 1996, vol. 1, pp. 86, 99-100.

2. Charles Laval had been in Pont-Aven since July; see letter 646.

3. Van Gogh had complained before that Tasset did not distribute the weight of the parcels sensibly, making the cost of carriage higher (see letters 658 and 659). See letter 625, n. 4, for Tasset’s standard canvas.

4. In this letter to Gauguin and Bernard, which has not survived, Van Gogh had suggested that the two should paint each other’s portraits in Pont-Aven in exchange for work by him. The exchange is mentioned several times in subsequent letters. Gauguin and Bernard complied with Van Gogh’s request in early October, but instead of painting each other’s portrait they opted to paint a self-portrait with the other’s portrait in the background (see letter 692). In exchange Gauguin got Self-portrait (F 476 / JH 1581 ) and Bernard Quay with sand barges (F 449 / JH 1558 ); see letters 697 and 698.

5. Later in the letter it transpires that this is about a short report on Dostoevsky. It must have been Jules Prével’s article, ‘Courrier des théâtres’, which discussed the Russian writer and his play Crime and Punishment. This piece was in Le Figaro on Saturday, 8 September 1888, p. 4, and in L’Intransigeant on 10 September 1888, in the ‘Theatres’ column by Dom Blasius. Vincent’s advice to Theo to ‘go to see that’ must relate to the performance in Paris a week later: ‘In a week’s time, the re-opening of the Odéon with Crime and Punishment, divided not into acts but scenes’ (Aujourd’hui en huit, récouverture de L’Odéon avec Crime et Châtiment, divisé non en actes, mais en tableaux.) It is not certain which of the two papers Van Gogh took the enclosed cutting from; he read both of them during this period.

6. The old mill (F 550 / JH 1577 ).

7. The study in question is Rocks with a tree (F 466 / JH 1489 ); the sower is Sower with setting sun (F 422 / JH 1470 ). Both were in the second consignment of paintings from Arles; see letter 660.

8. The night café (F 463 / JH 1575 ).

9. Van Gogh would have been moved above all by the description of Dostoevsky’s hard life; he was epileptic and lived in great poverty for years. He was condemned to death for treason, but was granted a last-minute reprieve. He was then sent to a forced labour camp in Siberia, where he wrote The house of the dead (see letter 812, n. 16).

10. This painting is not known. Van Gogh sent it to Bernard in Pont-Aven in October; see letter 696, n. 10. Pickvance’s identification of the exchanged work as Wheatfield with setting sun (F 465 / JH 1473 ) in exhib. cat. New York 1984, p. 135, is not tenable, given its provenance. See Account book 2002, p. 174.

a. Read: ‘demeurant’.

b. Read: ‘vivre’.