776 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 23 May 1889.

metadata

No. 776 (Brieven 1990 778, Complete Letters 592)
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 23 May 1889

Source status

Previous text publication, reproduction and original manuscript

Location

Whereabouts of sheet 1 unknown (see also Additional details)

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b639 V/1962 (sheet 2)

Date

Vincent opens his letter by saying that he has just received Theo’s letter of 21 May (774), so it must have been 22 or 23 May. We have therefore dated the present letter to about Thursday, 23 May 1889.

Additional

The location of the first sheet is unknown; the Van Gogh Museum has reproductions of part of it; see also the Textual Notes.

Ongoing topic

Gauguin’s request for a sunflower painting (736)

Sketches

Triptych with La berceuse and two versions of Sunflowers in a vase (F - / JH -), letter sketch
Trees with ivy in the garden of the asylum (F - / JH 1694), letter sketch
Giant peacock moth (F - / JH 1701), letter sketch

original text

[ 1r:1 ]

Mon cher Theo,

Ta lettre que je viens de recevoir me fait bien plaisir.1 Tu me dis que J.H. Weissenbruch a deux tableaux à l’exposition – mais je me figurais qu’il était mort – est-ce que je me trompe?2 Certes c’est un rude artiste et un brave homme à grand coeur aussi.

Ce que tu dis de la Berceuse3 me fait plaisir; c’est très juste que les gens du peuple, qui se payent des chromos et écoutent avec sentimentalité les orgues de Barbarie, sont vaguement dans le vrai et peut-être plus sincères que de certains boulevardiers qui vont au Salon.

Gauguin, s’il veut l’accepter, tu lui donneras un exemplaire de la Berceuse qui n’était pas monté sur châssis, et à Bernard aussi, comme témoignage d’amitié.4

Mais si Gauguin veut des tournesols ce n’est qu’absolument comme de juste qu’il te donne en échange quelque chôse que tu aimes autant.5 Gauguin lui-même a surtout aimé les tournesols plus tard lorsqu’il les avait vus longtemps.

Il faut encore savoir que si tu les mets dans ce sens ci:

[sketch A]

soit la berceuse au mittanta et les deux toiles des tournesols à droite & à gauche, cela forme comme un triptique.6 Et alors les tons jaunes & orangés de la tête prennent plus d’éclat par le voisinages des volets jaunes. Et alors tu comprendras ce que je t’en écrivais, que mon idee avait été de faire une décoration comme serait par exemple pour le fond d’un cabine dans un navire.7 Alors le format s’elargissant, la facture sommaire prend sa raison d’être. Le cadre du milieu est alors le rouge. Et les deux tournesols qui vont avec sont ceux entourés de baguettes.

Tu vois que cet encadrement de simples lattes fait assez bien et un cadre comme cela ne coûte que bien peu de chose. Ce serait peut-être bien d’en entourer les vignes vertes et rouges,8 le semeur9 et les sillons10 et l’intérieur de la chambre à coucher11 aussi.

1v:2 [sketch B]

Voici une nouvelle toile de 30 encore banale comme un de ces chromos de bazar qui représentent les éternels nids de verdure pour les amoureux.

Des gros troncs d’arbres couverts de lierre, le sol egalement couvert de lierre & de pervenche, un banc de pierre et un buisson de roses palies à l’ombre froide. Sur l’avant plan quelques plantes à calice blanc. C’est vert, violet et rose.12

Il ne s’agit – ce qui manque malheureusement aux chromos de bazar et aux orgues de barbarie – que d’y mettre du style.

Depuis que je suis ici, le jardin desolé planté de grands pins sous lesquels croît haute et mal entretenue une herbe entremêlée d’ivraies diverses m’a suffi pour travailler et je ne suis pas encore sorti dehors.13

Cependant le paysage de S^t Remy est très beau et peu à peu je vais y faire des étapes probablement. Mais en restant ici naturellement le medecin14 a mieux pu voir ce qui en etait, & sera j’ose espérer plus rassuré sur ce qu’il peut me laisser peindre.

Je t’assure que je suis bien ici et que provisoirement je ne vois pas de raison du tout de venir en pension à Paris ou environs. J’ai une petite chambre à papier gris vert avec deux rideaux vert d’eau à dessins de roses très pâles ravivées de minces traits de rouge sang. Ces rideaux, probablement des restes d’un riche ruiné et défunt, sont fort jolis de dessin. De la même source provient

probablement un fauteuil tres usé recouvert d’une tapisserie tachetée à la Diaz ou à la Monticelli, brun rouge, rose, blanc crème, noir, bleu myosotys et vert bouteille.

à travers la fenêtre barrée de fer j’apercois un carré de blé dans un enclos, une perspective à la v. Goyen au-dessus de laquelle le matin je vois le soleil se lever dans sa gloire.

1v:3

Avec cela – comme il y a plus de 30 chambres vides j’ai une chambre encore pour travailler.

Le manger est comme ci comme ça. Cela sent naturellement un peu le moisi comme dans un restaurant à cafards de Paris ou un pensionnat. Ces malheureux ne faisant absolument rien (pas un livre, rien pour les distraire qu’un jeu de boules et un jeu de dames) n’ont d’autre distraction journaliere que de se bourrer de pois chiches, d’haricots, de lentilles et autres épiceries et denrées coloniales par des quantites reglées et à des heures fixes.

La digestion de ces marchandises offrant de certaines difficultés ils remplissent ainsi leur journées d’une façon aussi inoffensive que peu coûteuse. Mais sans blague, la peur de la folie me passe considerablement en voyant de près ceux qui en sont atteints, comme moi peux dans la suite tres facilement l’être.

Auparavant j’avais de la repulsion pour ces êtres et cela m’était quelque chose de desolant de devoir y réflechir que tant de gens de notre metier, Troyon,15 Marchal,16 Meryon,17 Jundt,18 M. Maris,19 Monticelli,20 un tas d’autres, avaient fini comme cela. Je n’etais pas à même de me les représenter le moins du monde dans cet etat-là.

Eh bien à present je pense à tout cela sans crainte, c.à.d. je ne le trouve pas plus atroce que si ces gens seraient crevé d’autre chose, de la phtysie ou de la siphylis par exemple.

Ces artistes je les vois reprendre leur allure sereine et crois tu que ce soit peu de chose que de retrouver des anciens du métier.

C’est là sans blague ce dont je suis profondement reconnaissant.

Car quoiqu’il y en ait qui hurlent ou d’habitude deraisonnent, il y a ici beaucoup de vraie amitié qu’on a les uns pour les autres. ils disent, il faut souffrir les autres pour que les autres nous souffrent, et autres raisonnements forts justes qu’ils mettent ainsi en pratique. Et entre nous nous nous comprenons tres bien, je peux par exemple causer quelquefois avec un qui ne répond qu’en sons incoherents parcequ’il n’a pas peur de moi.21 [ 1r:4 ]

Si quelqu’un tombe dans quelque crise les autres le gardent et interviennent pour qu’il ne se fasse pas de mal.

La même chose pour ceux qui ont la manie de se fâcher souvent. Des vieux habitués de la ménagerie accourent et séparent les combattants, si combat il y ait.

Il est vrai qu’il y en a qui sont dans des cas plus graves, soit qu’ils sont malpropres, soit dangereux.22 Ceux-là sont dans une autre cour. Maintenant je prends 2 fois par semaine un bain où je reste 2 heures,23 puis l’estomac va infiniment mieux qu’il y a un an, je n’ai donc qu’à continuer pour autant que je sache. Ici je dépenserai moins je crois qu’ailleurs, comptant qu’ici j’ai encore du travail sur la planche, car la nature est belle.

Mon espérance serait qu’au bout d’une année je saurai mieux ce que je peux et ce que je veux que maintenant. Alors peu à peu une idée me viendra pour recommencer. Revenir à Paris ou n’importe où actuellement ne me sourit aucunement, je me trouve à ma place ici. Un avachissement extrême est ce dont souffrent à mon avis le plus ceux qui sont ici depuis des années. Or mon travail me préservera dans une certaine mesure de cela.

La salle où l’on se tient les jours de pluie est comme une salle d’attente 3me classe dans quelque village stagnant, d’autant plus qu’il y en a d’honorables aliénés qui portent toujours un chapeau, des lunettes, une canne et une tenue de voyage, comme aux bains de mer à peu près, et qui y figurent les passagers.24

Je suis obligé de te demander encore quelques couleurs et surtout de la toile.

Lorsque je t’enverrai les 4 toiles que j’ai en train du jardin25 tu verras que, comptant que la vie se passe surtout au jardin, ce n’est pas si triste. J’y ai dessiné hier un tres grand papillon de nuit assez rare qu’on appelle la tête de mort, d’une coloration d’un distingué étonnant: noir, gris, blanc, nuancé et à reflets carminés ou vaguement tournant sur le vert olive; il est très grand.26

[sketch C]

Pour le peindre il aurait fallu le tuer et c’était dommage tellement la bête était belle.27 Je t’en enverrai le dessin avec quelques autres dessins de plantes.28

2r:5

Tu pourrais oter des chassis les toiles chez Tanguy ou chez toi qui ont assez sechés et puis remettre sur ces chassis les nouvelles que tu en jugerais digne. Gauguin doit pouvoir te dire l’adresse d’un rentoileur pour la chambre à coucher qui sera pas cher.29 Cela je me l’imagine doit etre une restauration de 5 francs, si c’est plus alors ne le faites pas faire, je ne crois pas que Gauguin payait davantage lorsqu’assez souvent il a fait rentoiler des toiles de lui, de Cezanne ou de Pissarro.30

Je suis encore – parlant de mon etat – si reconnaissant d’autre chose encore. J’observe chez d’autres qu’eux aussi ont entendu dans leurs crises des sons et des voix etranges comme moi, que devant eux aussi les choses paraissaient changeantes. Et cela m’adoucit l’horreur que d’abord je gardais de la crise que j’ai eue,31 et que lorsque cela vous vient inopinément ne peut autrement faire que de vous effrayer outre mesure. Une fois qu’on sait que c’est dans la maladie on prend ca comme autre chôse. Je n’aurais pas vu d’autres aliénés de près que je n’aurais pu me debarasser d’y songer toujours. Car les souffrances d’angoisse sont pas drôle lorsqu’on est pris dans une crise. La plupart des epileptiques se mordent la langue et se la blessent. Rey me disait qu’il avait su un cas où quelqu’un s’etait blessé ainsi que moi à l’oreille et j’ai cru entendre dire un medecin d’ici qui venait me voir avec le directeur que lui aussi l’avait deja vu.32 J’ose croire qu’une fois que l’on sait ce que c’est, une fois qu’on a conscience de son état et de pouvoir être sujet à des crises, qu’alors on y peut soi-même quelque chose pour ne pas être surpris tant que ça par l’angoisse ou l’effroi. Or voila 5 mois que cela va en diminuant, j’ai bon espoir d’en remonter ou au moins de ne plus avoir des crises de pareille force. Il y en a un ici qui crie et parle toujours comme moi pendant une quinzaine de jours, il croit entendre des voix et des paroles dans l’echo des corridors, probablement parceque le nerf de l’ouie est malade et trop sensible et chez moi c’etait à la fois et la vue et l’ouie, ce qui est habituel, à ce que disait Rey un jour, dans le commencement de l’epilepsie.

2v:6

Maintenant la secousse avait été telle que cela me dégoutait de faire un mouvement même et rien ne m’eut été si agréable que de ne plus me reveiller. A présent cette horreur de la vie est moins prononcée déjà et la mélancolie moins aiguë. Mais de la volonte je n’en ai encore aucune, des désirs guère ou pas et tout ce qui est de la vie ordinaire, le désir par exemple de revoir les amis auquels cependant je pense, presque nul. C’est pourquoi je ne suis pas encore au point de devoir sortir d’ici bientôt, j’aurais de la melancolie pour tout encore. Et meme ce n’est que de ces tous derniers jours qu’un peu radicalement la répulsion pour la vie s’est modifiée. De là à la volonté et à l’action il y a encore du chemin.

C’est dommage que toi tu sois toujours condamné à Paris et que tu ne vois jamais la campagne autre que celle des environs de Paris encore.

Je crois que pour moi il n’est pas plus malheureux d’etre dans la compagnie où je suis, que pour toi toujours les fatalites Goupil & C^ie. Sous ce point de vue-là nous sommes assez égaux. Car toi ce n’est qu’en partie que tu peux faire selon tes idées. Puisque cependant nous avons une fois l’habitude de ces désagrements cela devient une seconde nature.

Je crois que quoique les tableaux coutent la toile, la couleur &c., cependant au bout du mois il est plus avantageux de dépenser ainsi un peu plus et d’en faire avec ce que j’ai appris en somme, que de les délaisser alors que quand bien même il faudrait payer pour une pension. Et c’est pourquoi que j’en fais. Ainsi ce mois ci j’ai 4 toiles de 30 et deux ou trois dessins.

Mais la question d’argent, quoi qu’on fasse, reste toujours là comme l’ennemi devant la troupe et la nier ou l’oublier on ne saurait.

2v:7

moi tout aussi bien que qui que ce soit vis à vis de cela je garde mes devoirs. Et je serai peutêtre encore à même de rendre tout ce que j’ai dépensé car ce que j’ai depensé je le considère si non pris à toi au moins pris à la famille alors conséquemment j’ai produit des tableaux et j’en ferai encore. Cela c’est agir comme tu agis toi-même aussi. Si j’etais rentier peutêtre aurais je la tête plus libre pour faire de l’art pour l’art, maintenant je me contente de croire qu’en travaillant avec assiduité quand même, sans y songer on fait peutetre quelque progrès.

Voici les couleurs dont j’aurais besoin

3	Vert emeraude	grands tubes.
2	Cobalt
1	Outremer
1	mine orange
6	blanc de zinc
5	mètres toile

En te remerciant de ta bonne lettre je te serre bien la main ainsi qu’à ta femme.

t. à t.

Vincent.

translation

1r:1

My dear Theo,

Your letter which I’ve just received gives me great pleasure.1 You tell me that J.H. Weissenbruch has two paintings in the exhibition — but I thought he was dead — am I mistaken?2 He certainly is one hell of an artist and a good man, with a big heart too.

What you say about the Berceuse gives me pleasure;3 it’s very true that the common people, who buy themselves chromos and listen with sentimentality to barrel organs, are vaguely in the right and perhaps more sincere than certain men-about-town who go to the Salon.

Gauguin, if he’ll accept it, you shall give him a version of the Berceuse that wasn’t mounted on a stretching frame, and to Bernard too, as a token of friendship.4

But if Gauguin wants sunflowers it’s only absolutely fair that he gives you something that you like as much in exchange.5 Gauguin himself above all liked the sunflowers later, when he had seen them for a long time.

You must know, too, that if you put them in this order:

[sketch A]

that is, the Berceuse in the middle and the two canvases of the sunflowers to the right and the left, this forms a sort of triptych.6 And then the yellow and orange tones of the head take on more brilliance through the proximity of the yellow shutters. And then you will understand that what I was writing to you about it, that my idea had been to make a decoration like one for the far end of a cabin on a ship, for example.7 Then as the size gets bigger, the summary execution gets its raison d’être. The middle frame is then the red one. And the two sunflowers that go with it are those surrounded by strips of wood.

You see that this framing of simple laths does quite well, and a frame like that costs only very little. It would be perhaps good to frame the green and red vineyards,8 the sower9 and the furrows10 and the interior of the bedroom11 with them too. 1v:2

[sketch B]

Here’s a new no. 30 canvas, commonplace again, like one of those chromos from a penny bazaar that depict eternal nests of greenery for lovers.

Thick tree-trunks covered with ivy, the ground also covered with ivy and periwinkle, a stone bench and a bush of roses, blanched in the cold shadow. In the foreground a few plants with white calyxes. It’s green, violet and pink.12

It’s just a question — which is unfortunately lacking in chromos from a penny bazaar and barrel organs — of putting in some style.

Since I’ve been here, the neglected garden planted with tall pines under which grows tall and badly tended grass intermingled with various weeds, has provided me with enough work, and I haven’t yet gone outside.13

However, the landscape of St-Rémy is very beautiful, and little by little I’m probably going to make trips into it. But staying here as I am, the doctor14 has naturally been in a better position to see what was wrong, and will, I dare hope, be more reassured that he can let me paint.

I assure you that I’m very well here, and that for the time being I see no reason at all to come and board in Paris or its surroundings. I have a little room with grey-green paper with two water-green curtains with designs of very pale roses enlivened with thin lines of blood-red. These curtains, probably the leftovers of a ruined, deceased rich man, are very pretty in design. Probably from the same source comes a very worn armchair covered with a tapestry flecked in the manner of a Diaz or a Monticelli, red-brown, pink, creamy white, black, forget-me-not blue and bottle green.

Through the iron-barred window I can make out a square of wheat in an enclosure, a perspective in the manner of Van Goyen, above which in the morning I see the sun rise in its glory. 1v:3

With this — as there are more than 30 empty rooms — I have another room in which to work.

The food is so-so. It smells naturally a little musty, as in a cockroach-ridden restaurant in Paris or a boarding school. As these unfortunates do absolutely nothing (not a book, nothing to distract them but a game of boules and a game of draughts) they have no other daily distraction than to stuff themselves with chickpeas, haricot beans, lentils and other groceries and colonial foodstuffs by the regulated quantities and at fixed times.

As the digestion of these commodities presents certain difficulties, they thus fill their days in a manner as inoffensive as it’s cheap. But joking apart, the fear of madness passes from me considerably upon seeing from close at hand those who are affected with it, as I may very easily be in the future.

Before I had some repulsion for these beings, and it was something distressing for me to have to reflect that so many people of our profession, Troyon,15 Marchal,16 Meryon,17 Jundt,18 M. Maris,19 Monticelli,20 a host of others, had ended up like that. I wasn’t even able to picture them in the least in that state.

Well, now I think of all this without fear, i.e. I find it no more atrocious than if these people had snuffed it of something else, of consumption or syphilis, for example.

These artists, I see them take on their serene bearing again, and do you think it’s a small thing to rediscover ancient members of the profession.

Joking apart, that’s what I’m profoundly grateful for.

For although there are some who howl or usually rave, here there is much true friendship that they have for each other. They say, one must suffer others for the others to suffer us, and other very true reasonings that they thus put into practice. And between ourselves we understand each other very well, I can, for example, chat sometimes with one who doesn’t reply except in incoherent sounds, because he isn’t afraid of me.21 1r:4

If someone has some crisis the others look after him, and intervene so that he doesn’t harm himself.

The same for those who have the mania of often getting angry. Old regulars of the menagerie run up and separate the fighters, if there is a fight.

It’s true that there are some who are in a more serious condition, whether they be filthy, or dangerous.22 These are in another courtyard. Now I take a bath twice a week, and stay in it for 2 hours,23 then my stomach is infinitely better than a year ago, so I only have to continue, as far as I know. I think I’ll spend less here than elsewhere, since here I still have work on my plate, for nature is beautiful.

My hope would be that at the end of a year I’ll know better than now what I can do and what I want. Then, little by little, an idea will come to me for beginning again. Coming back to Paris or anywhere at the moment doesn’t appeal to me at all, I feel that I’m in the right place here. In my opinion, what most of those who have been here for years are suffering from is an extreme sluggishness. Now, my work will preserve me from that to a certain extent.

The room where we stay on rainy days is like a 3rd-class waiting room in some stagnant village, all the more so since there are honourable madmen who always wear a hat, spectacles and travelling clothes and carry a cane, almost like at the seaside, and who represent the passengers there.24

I’m obliged to ask you for some more colours, and especially some canvas. When I send you the 4 canvases of the garden25 I have on the go you’ll see that, considering that life happens above all in the garden, it isn’t so sad. Yesterday I drew a very large, rather rare night moth there which is called the death’s head, its coloration astonishingly distinguished: black, grey, white, shaded, and with glints of carmine or vaguely tending towards olive green; it’s very big.26

[sketch C]

To paint it I would have had to kill it, and that would have been a shame since the animal was so beautiful.27 I’ll send you the drawing of it with a few other drawings of plants.28

2r:5

You could take the canvases which are dry enough at Tanguy’s or at your place off the stretching frames and then put the new ones you consider worthy of it onto these stretching frames. Gauguin must be able to give you the address of a liner for the Bedroom who won’t be expensive.29 This I imagine must be a 5-franc restoration, if it’s more then don’t have it done, I don’t think that Gauguin paid more when he quite often had canvases of his own, Cézanne or Pissarro lined.30

Speaking of my condition, I’m still so grateful for yet another thing. I observe in others that, like me, they too have heard sounds and strange voices during their crises, that things also appeared to change before their eyes. And that softens the horror that I retained at first of the crisis I had,31 and which when it comes to you unexpectedly, cannot but frighten you beyond measure. Once one knows that it’s part of the illness one takes it like other things. Had I not seen other mad people at close hand I wouldn’t have been able to rid myself of thinking about it all the time. For the sufferings of anguish aren’t funny when you’re caught in a crisis. Most epileptics bite their tongues and injure them. Rey told me that he had known a case where someone had injured his ear as I did, and I believe I’ve heard a doctor here who came to see me with the director say that he too had seen it before.32 I dare to believe that once one knows what it is, once one is aware of one’s state and of possibly being subject to crises, that then one can do something about it oneself so as not to be caught so much unawares by the anguish or the terror. Now, this has been diminishing for 5 months, I have good hope of getting over it, or at least of not having crises of such force. There’s one person here who has been shouting and always talking, like me, for a fortnight, he thinks he hears voices and words in the echo of the corridors, probably because the auditory nerve is sick and too sensitive, and with me it was both the sight and the hearing at the same time which, according to what Rey said one day, is usual at the beginning of epilepsy. 2v:6

Now the shock had been such that it disgusted me even to move, and nothing would have been so agreeable to me as never to wake up again. At present this horror of life is already less pronounced, and the melancholy less acute. But I still have absolutely no will, hardly any desires or none, and everything that has to do with ordinary life, the desire for example to see friends again, about whom I think however, almost nil. That’s why I’m not yet at the point where I ought to leave here soon, I would still have melancholy for everything. And it’s even only in these very last days that the repulsion for life has changed quite radically. There’s still a way to go from there to will and action.

It’s a shame that you yourself are still condemned to Paris, and that you never see the countryside other than that around Paris.

I think that it’s no more unfortunate for me to be in the company where I am than for you always the fateful things at Goupil & Cie. From that point of view we’re quite equal. For only in part can you act in accordance with your ideas. Since, however, we have once got used to these inconveniences, it becomes second nature.

I think that although the paintings cost canvas, paint &c., at the end of the month, however, it’s more advantageous to spend a little more thus, and to make them with what I’ve learned in total, than to abandon them while one would have to pay for board and lodging all the same anyway. And that’s why I’m making them. So this month I have 4 no. 30 canvases and two or three drawings.

But no matter what one does, the question of money is always there like the enemy before the troops, and one can’t deny it or forget it. 2v:7

I retain my duties in that respect as much as anyone. And perhaps some day I’ll be in a position to repay all that I’ve spent, because I consider that what I’ve spent is, if not taken from you at least taken from the family, so consequently I’ve produced paintings and I’ll do more. That is to act as you too act yourself. If I had private means, perhaps my mind would be freer to do art for art’s sake, now I content myself with believing that in working assiduously even so, without thinking of it one perhaps makes some progress.

Here are the colours I would need

3	emerald green	large tubes.
2	cobalt
1	ultramarine
1	orange lead
6	zinc white
5	metres canvas

Thanking you for your kind letter, I shake your hand warmly, as well as your wife’s.

Ever yours,

Vincent.

notes

1. This was letter 774.

2. Weissenbruch exhibited two watercolours at the World Exhibition The old mill and Canal, moonlight effect ; see letter 774, n. 10. Van Gogh was in fact mistaken: Weissenbruch did not die until 1903.

3. The last consignment of paintings (letter 767) had included four versions of the Berceuse: F 504 / JH 1655 , F 506 / JH 1670 , F 508 / JH 1671 and F 507 / JH 1672 .

4. Gauguin did in fact receive a painting of the Berceuse, as revealed by his letter of 29 March 1894 to Jo van Gogh-Bonger (GAC 43). See Gauguin lettres 1983, p. 331. We know that Bernard also had a Berceuse in his possession from a letter he wrote to his mother from Cairo in September 1894, in which he reported that the Berceuse he had left with Tanguy had been sold for 600 francs. See Bernard lettres 2012, no. 147, p. 338.

De la Faille gives the provenance of F 506 / JH 1670 as Paul Gauguin and the provenance of F 508 / JH 1671 as Julien Tanguy. Assuming this is correct, F 508 / JH 1671 must have been the version in Bernard’s possession, because the other versions of the Berceuse were with Jo van Gogh-Bonger (F 504 / JH 1655 and F 507 / JH 1672 ) and Roulin (F 505 / JH 1669 ).

5. Van Gogh wanted Gauguin to have the two repetitions: Sunflowers in a vase (F 455 / JH 1668 ) and Sunflowers in a vase (F 458 / JH 1667 ). See letter 745.

a. Read: ‘mitan’.

6. Van Gogh says that the paintings of sunflowers are framed with strips of wood; these were the first two versions of Sunflowers in a vase, which had hung in Gauguin’s room in the Yellow House and were intended for Theo. The still life on the left in the letter sketch is F 454 / JH 1562 ; the still life on the right is F 456 / JH 1561 . See Van Tilborgh and Hendriks 2001, p. 21 (n. 18). The idea of the triptychs had been on Van Gogh’s mind for some time; see letter 736, n. 12.

Van Gogh is suggesting that Gauguin and Bernard should each be given a version of the Berceuse not on a stretching frame; these works were therefore unframed. Because we assume that Gauguin and Bernard received F 506 / JH 1670 and F 508 / JH 1671 (see n. 4 above), there remain two possibilities for the Berceuse with the red frame: F 504 / JH 1655 and F 507 / JH 1672 . Of these, F 504, the fifth and last version of the series, is the most likely candidate, because it is signed and bears the inscription ‘La berceuse’. This is not true of F 507, which, moreover, remained unfinished. See Hoermann Lister 2001, p. 78.

7. Vincent told Theo this in letter 743. Van Gogh’s idea to hang his painting of the Berceuse in a fishing boat derives from Pierre Loti’s Pêcheur d’Islande (Icelandic fisherman); see letter 739, n. 5.

8. The green vineyard (F 475 / JH 1595 ) and The red vineyard (F 495 / JH 1626 ).

9. Sower with setting sun (F 450 / JH 1627 ).

10. Ploughed fields (‘The furrows’) (F 574 / JH 1586 ) and – assuming that ‘the furrows’ refers, as it did in letter 765, to two works – Ploughed field with a tree-trunk (‘The furrows’) (F 573 / JH 1618 ).

11. The bedroom (F 482 / JH 1608 ).

12. The letter sketch Trees with ivy in the garden of the asylum (F - / JH 1694) was made after the painting of the same name F 609 / JH 1693 .

13. Van Gogh means that he has not yet been outside the grounds of the asylum.

14. Théophile Peyron, the medical director of the asylum.

15. Constant Troyon began to notice the onset of paralysis at the end of 1863, and in April 1864 his intellectual faculties began to decline. After a spell in the madhouse in Vanves, his mother took him into her home, where he died in 1865, utterly insane. See Walther Gensel, Corot und Troyon. Bielefeld 1906, pp. 82-83 and A. Hustin, Constant Troyon. Paris 1893, p. 28.

16. Charles Marchal, whose progressive blindness caused him to suffer from depression, ended his life with a rifle-shot in 1877. See Schurr and Cacan de Bissy 1972-1989, vol. 2, pp. 32-33.

17. Regarding Meryon’s mental illness, see letter 621, n. 9.

18. Gustave Adolphe Jundt had died in 1884: having suffered for a long time from gout, which prevented him from working, he had thrown himself from his studio window in a fit of madness. See the obituaries in Chronique des arts et de la curiosité (24 May 1884), no. 21, pp. 169-170 and in Courrier de l’art 4 (6 June 1884), no. 23, p. 276.

19. Van Gogh had become acquainted with Matthijs Maris during his stay in London, when Maris was suffering from depression. See letter 318, n. 10. Maris, incidentally, did not die until 1917.

20. For Monticelli’s last years, see letter 603, n. 3.

21. This patient ‘who doesn’t reply except in incoherent sounds’ was a 23-year-old man who ‘spoke nothing but inarticulate words... he had never been able to learn anything and sometimes presented a state of nervous over-excitement that led him to acts of violence for the most trifling reasons’ (ne prononçait que des mots inarticulés... il n’avait jamais pu rien apprendre et présentait parfois un état de surexcitation nerveuse qui le portait à des actes de violence pour les motifs les plus futiles). Quoted from the admissions register, in Doiteau and Leroy 1928, p. 60.

22. At the time of Van Gogh’s stay in the asylum, there were ten other patients in the ‘gentlemen’s quarters’ (quartier des Messieurs), several of whom were very aggressive. For descriptions of these patients based on the admissions register, see Doiteau and Leroy 1928, pp. 56, 61-63.

23. Hydrotherapy had been used to treat the mentally ill since the mid-nineteenth century. Because this method involved alternating hot and cold baths, as well as cold showers, the asylum at Saint-Rémy had ‘bathing rooms provided with different shower systems’ (cabinets de bains pourvus de différents systèmes de douche). See the brochure from 1866, quoted in Coquiot 1923, p. 203. For a photograph of the baths in the asylum, see Tralbaut 1969, p. 274.

24. This room was on the ground floor, to the left of the entrance hall. See Doiteau and Leroy 1928, p. 63.

25. These four paintings of the garden – later in the letter Van Gogh says that they are no. 30 canvases – are Irises (F 608 / JH 1691 ), Lilacs (F 579 / JH 1692 ), Trees with ivy in the garden of the asylum (F 609 / JH 1693 ) and The garden of the asylum (F 734 / JH 1698 ).

26. The letter sketch Giant peacock moth (F - / JH 1701) was made after the drawing of the same name F 1523 / JH 1700 . It actually depicts a ‘great peacock moth’, also known as Saturnia pyri (Information provided by John Rawlins, an entomologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA).

27. This passage has been interpreted by various authors as an allusion to the painting Giant peacock moth (F 610 / JH 1702), but Van Gogh’s wording ‘to paint it I would have had to kill it’ reveals that he had not yet painted the moth. He produced the painting later, on the basis of the drawing. See cat. Amsterdam 2007, pp. 182-190, cat. nos. 351-353.

28. Later in the letter Van Gogh says that he has two or three drawings. In addition to Giant peacock moth (F 1523 / JH 1700 ) (see n. 26 above), these were probably Periwinkle (F 1614 / JH 2060 ) and Tassel hyacinth (F 1612 / JH 2059 ). Arums (F 1613 / JH 1703) presumably originated in the last week of May or early June; see cat. Amsterdam 2007, pp. 191-200, cat. nos. 354-356.

29. The painting The bedroom (F 482 / JH 1608 ) had to be lined because it had been damaged by moisture as the result of a flood; see letter 765. Theo had received it in the third consignment of paintings from Arles (letter 767). Eventually, at his brother’s request, Theo did not have it lined but sent it back to Vincent, who painted a repetition of it in September. See letters 779 and 800.

30. Gauguin was once in the possession of the following paintings by Cézanne: Female nude, before 1870; Mountains in Provence (near l’Estaque), c. 1879; The avenue, c. 1879; Still life with a bowl of fruit, c. 1879-1880, and The Château of Médan, c. 1880. See Rewald 1996, vol. 1, pp. 119-120, cat. no. 140, pp. 259-262, cat. no. 391, pp. 271-272, cat. no. 409, pp. 277-280, cat. no. 418, and pp. 292-294, cat. no. 437. It is possible that The harvest , c. 1877, was also in his possession; see letter 624, n. 6. A letter written by Gauguin to Pissarro in the summer of 1883 reveals that he had two paintings by Cézanne lined by Latouche at 34 rue Lafayette. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 50-51, 386 (n. 115). Regarding Latouche, see letter 630, n. 10.

Gauguin once owned the following paintings by Pissarro: View from the Côte des Gratte-Coqs, Pontoise, 1878; Landscape with tall trees, 1878; Peasant woman riding a donkey, Auvers-sur-Oise, 1879 and Peasant women chatting, c. 1881. See Pissarro and Durand-Ruel Snollaerts 2005, vol. 2, pp. 383, 392, 407, 410-411, 434, cat. nos. 561, 579, 605, 610, 651.

31. Van Gogh is referring to the first attack of his illness; see letter 728, n. 1.

32. This was possibly a certain Dr Mercurin. See Doiteau and Leroy 1928, p. 64.