1. It is apparent from letter 827 that Bernard had sent six photographs of recent paintings, four of which Van Gogh discusses in the present letter (see nn. 3, 5, 10 and 11 below). Van Gogh probably also received a photograph of Bernard’s Deposition from the cross, 1889-1890 (private collection; see Luthi 1982, p. 44, cat. no. 267).

2. Theo had written about Bernard’s paintings The annunciation and Christ in the Garden of Olives . See letter 819.

3. Van Gogh must have received a photograph of The adoration of the shepherds , 1889 (private collection), which Bernard had recently painted. Ill. 2308 . See Luthi 1982, pp. 36-37, cat. no. 217. An unpublished inventory, drawn up by Bernard in 1895, reveals that the work dates from 1889. With thanks to Fred Leeman.

4. This refers to the painted sketch for Millet’s painting Birth of the calf, c. 1864, which Van Gogh must have seen at the retrospective exhibition of Millet’s work in Paris in 1887. This first, unfinished version (ill. 1170 ) was well known through the engraving that Maxime François Antoine Lalanne made after it for the catalogue of the Alfred Saucède sale in 1879 (Lugt 1938-1987, no. 38966).

5. For Bernard’s The annunciation , see letter 819, n. 3.

6. For Bernard’s Breton women in the meadow , see letter 712, n. 4. Bernard himself claimed that this work had influenced Gauguin: ‘This is the canvas of which I once spoke in the Mercure de France, ‘Breton women in the meadow’, in my article Histoire de l’Ecole dite de Pont-Aven, and which brought about such a change in technique and assumptions in Gauguin. In 1888 he had exchanged it with me for a painting of his of the same size, and had taken it to Arles, where Vincent saw it and made a copy of it’ (Lettres à Bernard 1911, p. 144). Van Gogh made the copy in watercolour in December 1888: Breton women in the meadow (after Emile Bernard) (F 1422 / JH 1654 ).

7. The letter sketch is based on the description (and presumably an accompanying sketch) that Gauguin gave in the autumn of 1888 of Bernard’s painting Madeleine in the Bois d’Amour, 1888 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay). Ill. 2299 .

8. Here Bernard placed another footnote: ‘The exactitude of the description shows how much Gauguin had appreciated the painting’ (Lettres à Bernard 1911, p. 144).

9. The letter sketch is based on the description (and presumably an accompanying sketch) that Gauguin gave in the autumn of 1888 of Bernard’s painting Red poplars, 1887 (private collection). Ill. 2300 .

10. For Bernard’s Christ in the Garden of Olives, see letter 819, n. 4. Bernard also sent a photograph of this painting to Gauguin, who, unlike Van Gogh, reacted positively: ‘the Christ seems to me not only better, but even more beautiful. Overall, the canvas breathes a purposefulness, an imaginative style that I find quite amazing. The disproportionate length of the figure at prayer is very bold and adds to its movement. You were right to exaggerate it, at least one doesn’t think of the model, or of that bloody reality. The soldiers well arranged. In the photograph you can see a head of Judas that vaguely resembles me. Rest assured, I don’t see anything wrong in it’. See Gauguin lettres 1946, p. 178.

11. Emile Bernard’s Christ meeting his mother (private collection). Ill. 2301 . It does not date from 1891, as stated by Luthi, but from 1889 (with thanks to Fred Leeman).

12. While Gauguin was in Arles, Van Gogh had started the first version of La berceuse (F 508 / JH 1671 ), which he finished in January 1889. See Hoermann Lister 2001.

13. Woman reading a novel (F 497 / JH 1632 ).

14. Possibly an allusion to Bunyan; see letter 407, n. 4.

15. Van Gogh seems to be referring to Starry night (F 612 / JH 1731 ), which he had made in June of that year. When mentioning the work in earlier letters, however, he was not so negative about it; he even defended it to Theo (see letters 813 and 816).

a. Read: ‘vert foncé’.

16. A little later in the letter Van Gogh says that he has five no. 30 canvases of olive groves. These were Olive trees (F 710 / JH 1856 ), Olive grove (F 707 / JH 1857 ), Olive trees (F 708 / JH 1855 ), Olive grove (F 586 / JH 1854 ) and Women picking olives (F 654 / JH 1868 ). See exhib. cat. Dallas 2021, p. 132 (n. 8).

b. Read: ‘ce qu’on appelle des abstractions’.

17. In December 1888 Van Gogh and Gauguin had travelled to Montpellier to visit the Musée Fabre. The ‘tiny panel’ Van Gogh refers to is The death and assumption of the Virgin (now no longer attributed to Giotto). See letter 726, n. 12.

18. The canvas Van Gogh describes in such detail is The garden of the asylum. There are two variants, F 660 / JH 1849 and F 659 / JH 1850 ; the one referred to here is probably the second one. See Hendriks and Van Tilborgh 2001, pp. 154-156.

19. This characteristic expression has always been read wrongly as ‘noir-rouge’, and is often cited as such. The expression ‘voir rouge’ (which is easily legible in the manuscript) is still current and means ‘to be in a state of violent psychological or emotional agitation’ (TLF).

20. Wheatfield at sunrise (F 737 / JH 1862 ).

21. Van Gogh cites this merely as an example; as far as we know, Bernard did not paint the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7).

22. According to Sensier, it was the Bible that Millet ‘considered the painters’ book, the book in which the most moving paintings are found in imposing forms’. Sensier 1881, p. 66.

23. For Corot’s Christ on the Mount of Olives, see letter 34, n. 2.

24. The Reaper (F 617 / JH 1753 ) was at Theo’s in Paris, as was the repetition of it, Reaper (F 618 / JH 1773 ), which Van Gogh mentions below.

25. Gauguin had written about Bernard’s father and the deferred military service in letter 817.

26. Van Gogh had requested this information in letter 809.