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896 letters found

001 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 29 September 1872.
in translation:
...days together, and actually did go for some walks and see a thing or two whenever we had the chance.
001a To Hendrik Verzijl. The Hague, Saturday, 26 October 1872.
in note 3:
...in the University of Amsterdam Library, call number OTM: KVB NV 2223:3. Van Stockum was the...
003 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, mid-January 1873.
in translation:
...brother Vincent. You know that my address is Lange Beestenmarkt 32 or Maison Goupil & Cie, Plaats.
in note 3:
...Theo was earning a starting salary of 30 francs, or approximately 15 guilders a month (FR b2604, 19...
in note 4:
...of Emile Vernier. Douze lithographies d’après Corot. Notice par Philippe Burty. Paris, Librairie...
in note 6:
The Palais des Académies – also called the Palais Ducal – in rue Ducale housed the Musée des Plâtres and the Musée Moderne.
004 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 28 January 1873.
in translation:
...whether that other painting is by Alfred Stevens, or otherwise what his Christian name is. I know...
005 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 17 March 1873.
in original text:
nouveautés, waar Iterson mede op reis gaat. Voor hij terug is zal ik niet...
in translation:
...will depend on the nouveautés that
in note 4:
...I wasn’t sure whether or not he meant the ladies, but Uncle Cent says that...
008 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 9 May 1873.
in translation:
...you have to be at the Station du Nord or du Midi.
009 To Theo van Gogh. London, Friday, 13 June 1873.
in translation:
...new has been published in the way of etchings or lithographs. You must keep me well informed about...
...s comparatively quiet. It’s a bit like Tilburg or some such place. I spent some very pleasant...
...is magnificent, completely different from Holland or Belgium. Everywhere one sees splendid parks...
in note 1:
...had started working – presumably on Monday, 19 May or shortly thereafter – at Goupil’s London branch.
in note 6:
...the annual exhibition of Living Masters, which had opened on 5 May 1873 in the Palais des Champs-Elysées.
010 To Willem and Caroline van Stockum-Haanebeek. London, Wednesday, 2 July 1873.
in original text:
Voor...
in translation:
...front of every house is a small garden with flowers or a couple of trees, and many houses are built...
...Here, ’twas a farmer, dragging homeward a harrow or plough On a sledge, whistling a tune and...
...on top, happily waving branches of alder, Or scattering flowers and leaves, which rained down on...
...upon which the soul Feasts in the fields; or with his artist’s mind reconstructing In silent...
in additional details:
...London. W.C. 6 JY 3 73’, and on the back ‘’S GRAVENHAGE 4 JUL 73 12M-4A’. It is addressed to...
011 To Theo van Gogh. London, Sunday, 20 July 1873.
in translation:
As to the photogravure, I know more or less how they’re...
...as a farmer, dragging homeward a harrow or plough On a sledge, whistling a tune and...
...on top, happily waving branches of alder, Or scattering flowers and leaves, which...
...which the soul Feasts in the fields; or with his artist’s mind reconstructing...
in note 7:
...Renié, ‘Tissot, Bingham, Goupil: le peintre et ses éditeurs’, James Tissot et ses maîtres. Cyrille Sciama. Exhib. cat. Nantes (Musée des Beaux-arts...
in note 8:
...Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts) and Mary of Burgundy begging mercy of the magistrates of Ghent for her advisers Hugonet and Humbercourt, 1870 (Liège, Musée d’art moderne et d’art contemporain (Mamac) Ill. 447 and Ill. 448. In 1872 Wauters made another version of Mary of Burgundy (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. 5070). Both works were shown at the Brussels Salon of 1872, which Van Gogh visited (see letters 4, 6 and 13...
in note 9:
...lesson (The school or The lesson), 1872 and The atlas (The geographer...
012 To Willem and Caroline van Stockum-Haanebeek. London, Thursday, 7 August 1873.
in original text:
...Sometimes the learned eremite, With golden star, or dagger bright, Referr’d to pious poesies...
...Until they think warm days will never cease,─ For summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells...
...in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft. Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; & now...
in translation:
...who have their business in L. live in some village or other outside L. and come to the city every...
...ll do well. I was glad he wrote to me. A day or two ago I had a visit from a brother of Iterson who...
...Sometimes the learned eremite, With golden star, or dagger bright, Referr’d to pious poesies...
...a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft. Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now...
in note 1:
It is not entirely clear what ‘piece’ refers to; presumably it was a tableau vivant or short play.
013 To Theo van Gogh. London, Saturday, 13 September 1873.
in original text:
...den Aartsengel Michael den Satan doodende” voor.─ à Dieu Kerel, heb het goed & schrijf eens...
in translation:
...Some time ago I saw one with a sort of fish or dragon no less than 6 ells long. It was ghastly. And...
in note 2:
...11, n. 16. Van Gogh sometimes enclosed letters or prints in shipments sent from Goupil’s London...
in note 16:
...time. I sympathize with you. You’re attached to Mr S., and that is your perfect right, because he is such...
in note 17:
...cannot be ascertained which painting by Jean-François Millet Theo had described; evidently Vincent was not...
014 To Willem and Caroline van Stockum-Haanebeek. London, between about Thursday, 16 October and Friday, 31 October 1873.
in original text:
...jà rentrés dans la serre. Les feuilles tombées dévoilent quelques statues.─ Luxe d’art qui...
...Mais ne l’ai je pas vue déja aux musées d’Amsterdam ou de la Haye? Elle me rappelle une dame...
...Cette femme m’est restée trente années, me revenant obstinément, m’inquiétant, me faisant...
in translation:
...well for me here, and also know a thing or two about my new lodgings...
...There are no more than 4 or 5 copies of this photograph, because...
...sees behind our cliffs in France or the dunes of Holland. The exotic...
...modest, grave — the black (or grey) silk of which is barely...
...before in the museums of Amsterdam or The Hague? She reminds me of a...
in date note:
...not have heard about it any earlier than on or about 16...
in note 6:
...Gogh had in mind. Boughton made a number of depictions of ‘The...
in note 13:
...eyes and ears to the full’ (FR b2668, on or about 4 October 1873).
in note 19:
...Gogh. Exhib. cat. Paris (Institut Néerlandais). Paris 1972, p...
015 To Theo van Gogh. London, Wednesday, 19 November 1873.
in original text:
Hoe gaan de nouveautés in Holland. Hier is met...
...Roos & vertel Betsy Tersteeg wat van mij als ze éens beneden komt. En nu kerel, het ga je goed...
in translation:
...means at our disposal. How are the nouveautés selling in Holland? Here there’s literally almost...
...at the Paris exhibition. Is Somerwil still with the firm, or has he left now that you’re coming...
...Betsy Tersteeg news of me sometime when she comes downstairs. And now, old chap, I wish you well. Write to me soon. Vincent Do you have my room at the Rooses’, or the one you slept in last summer?
in note 5:
...was further described as ‘Suite aux six planches Départ, Retour et suite, cataloguées aux 40e, 41e, 43e suppléments’ (Series of six plates, Departure, Return etc., catalogued in the 40th, 41st, 43rd...
in note 7:
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Vénus anadyomène, 1848 (Chantilly, Musée Condé). This was published by Goupil & Co. as a burin engraving by Auguste Achille Morse, dated 1 October 1873 (London, Trustees of the...
in note 8:
...coloured works, including ‘Photogravures imprimées en couleur et fac-similé d’aquarelles...
in note 9:
...that the photographs were sold in a paper wrapper or packaging, possibly with a view to increasing their...
in note 11:
...collections in Europe. Van Gogh owned the guides for the Netherlands: Musées de la Hollande. Amsterdam et La Haye (Paris 1858) and Musées de la Hollande, ii. Musée Van der Hoop à Amsterdam et Musée de Rotterdam...
017 To Theo van Gogh. London, beginning of January 1874.
in translation:
...Israëls, Anker...
in note 3:
Jean-François Millet, The angelus (The evening angelus), 1857-1859 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay). Ill. 1697. Van...
in note 5:
Probably Charles François Jalabert; cf. letter 128.
RM02 Between 1874 and December 1876. Probably sent to Theo van Gogh. Copy of the poem ‘Soirée d’hiver’ by André Lemoyne.
in original text:
Dans le recueillement, touffes de chênes roux...
...vu le soleil comme une grosse orange Qui là-bas, s’enfouit dans l’herbe et disparaît.– Il...
...Mais il a sur l’épaule un riche feu de hêtre Pour égayer les coins de toute la maison.– Là sous un toit moussu, fenêtre et porte close A l’heure du berceau, les enfants réjouis Ouvriront de grands yeux par la flamme éblouis Quand il déchaussera leurs petits pieds roses.– A. Lemoyne
in note 1:
...d’hiver’, included in André Lemoyne, Poésies 1855-1870. Paris 1873, pp. 89-90. There are a few...
018 To Caroline van Stockum-Haanebeek. London, Monday, 9 February 1874.
in translation:
...to turn into a true cosmopolitan, meaning not a Dutchman, Englishman or Frenchman, but simply a man.
in note 1:
Borrowed, consciously or otherwise, from ‘Der Spinnerin Nachtlied’ (The spinner’s lullaby) by Clemens Brentano, which contains the line ‘Da wir zusammen waren’ (For we were together), as well as the...
019 To Theo van Gogh. London, Friday, 20 February 1874.
in note 1:
Probably E.J.T. Thoré (under the pseudonym W. Bürger), Musées de la Hollande, i; see letter 15, n. 11.
in note 3:
...bronnen voor Nederlanders geschetst. Deventer 1865; or the second edition of the same: Aesthetika of leer...
in note 6:
The precise meaning of ‘de peen hanniken�� or ‘peenhanniken’ is unclear. Neither the WNT nor dialect dictionaries contain this expression. In North Brabant dialect the word ‘pee’ is still used as a synonym of ‘biet’ (beet) or ‘wortel’ (carrot). The plural ‘peeën’ is pronounced the same as ‘peen’. In all likelihood ‘hanniken’ is a dialect variant of ‘hakken’ (to hack or to hoe). Sugar beets or mangel-wurzel (mangold) plants grow so close together that they have to be thinned out to prevent crowding. The literal meaning of ‘de peen hakken�� or ‘hanniken’ could therefore be ‘to thin out a row of beets’. In the figurative sense it could mean ‘to make room, or to give oneself the space, to blossom better’, but because the context is unclear, the meaning of this expression remains a mystery.
in note 7:
...the Van Gogh children from Zundert, who occurs a number of times in the family correspondence. In the eyes...
020 To Caroline and Willem van Stockum-Haanebeek. London, Tuesday, 3 March 1874.
in translation:
...regards to everyone in the Poten, and if someone or other asks after me. Have you kept up your...
022 To Theo van Gogh. London, Thursday, 30 April 1874.
in translation:
...to Holland, I’ll also come to The Hague for a day or two if possible, because The Hague is like a second...
...directly. I fear, however, that it will be around 4 weeks or so before it can happen. Write soon.
023 To Theo van Gogh. London, Tuesday, 16 June 1874.
in translation:
I think I’ll be leaving here on Thursday, 25 or Saturday, 27 June, if nothing unforeseen happens. I’m...
in note 4:
...private collection), is thought by M. Vellekoop and S. van Heugten of the Van Gogh Museum not to be by his...
025 To Theo van Gogh. Helvoirt, Friday, 10 July 1874.
in note 1:
...referring to the catalogue James S. Forbes, London (Christie’s), 23 May 1874, compiled when Forbes had c. 150 works from his country estate – including ten paintings by Israëls – put up for auction. See exhib...
026 To Theo van Gogh. London, Tuesday, 21 July 1874.
in original text:
...in Michelet gelezen hebt & wat je daarvan denkt.─ Voor mij was dat boek eene revelatie.─ Adieu...
in note 2:
...at the pump, 1872 (Groningen, Groninger Museum) or The spinner, 1873 (Otterlo, Kröller-Müller...
027 To Theo van Gogh. London, Friday, 31 July 1874.
in translation:
...from a man, and a being that we do not yet know, or at least only very superficially, as you say, yes...
...Mr Obach is in Paris at the moment, deciding whether or not we’ll take over that gallery. Don’t...
in note 10:
The phrase ‘zei Jochem’ (‘Jochem said’) or ‘Meester Jochem’ (‘Master Jochem’) occurs often in Dutch proverbial sayings. Cf. also letter 826.
028 To Theo van Gogh. London, Monday, 10 August 1874.
in original text:
Blijf dus bij je eigen idées & als je twijfelt of die wel goed zijn, toets ze dan aan die van hem die zeggen durfde “Ik ben de waarheid” of aan die van een of ander humaan mensch, Michelet...
in translation:
...I am the truth’, or against those of some humane person, such as Michelet.
RM03 Copied poems: H.W. Longfellow, ‘Afternoon in February’ and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ‘Three kings’ daughters fair’. Probably between December 1874 and March 1876.
in note 1:
...J.J. van der Maaten, a print which he gave in 1877 or 1878 to his teacher M.B. Mendes da Costa. See letter...
in note 2:
...keep my love for him, So sweet: Oh! let him lose or win, He hath it still complete.’ See Poems...
029 To Theo van Gogh. London, between Monday, 4 January and Friday, 5 March 1875.
in translation:
...Jules Dupré, Michel, Daubigny, Maris, Israëls, Mauve, Bisschop, &c. We’re going to hold an...
in note 15:
...as evidenced by an anonymous review: ‘There are a number of Titians...A landscape (127) is also a work of great beauty, whether by Titian or not’. See ‘The Royal Academy. Exhibition of works by old...
030 To Theo van Gogh. London, Saturday, 6 March 1875.
in translation:
...road leads over the hill to the village, with mud or whitewashed huts with green, moss-covered roofs and...
in note 2:
...horizon...For the first few miles out of Stoniton she walked on bravely, always fixing on some tree or gate or projecting bush at the most distant visible point in the road as a goal, and feeling a faint joy when...
in note 4:
...Jésus, a monograph on Christ, as the first volume in Histoire des origines du christianisme. The book presented a completely new – positivist – approach to the historical figure of Jesus. In addition to the original version, Renan published a less expensive, abridged version: Jésus (Paris 1864). Both versions were reprinted many times; it is not clear which of the two Van Gogh was referring to...
in note 5:
...Jeanne d’Arc (1853), Jules Michelet described the eventful life of the fifteenth-century maid of Orléans.
031 To Theo van Gogh. London, Tuesday, 6 April 1875.
in translation:
...and tall flights of steps, grey roofs, and white or yellow doors, window-frames and cornices; canals...
...the other is genius. I’ve again copied out one or two things for you, which I’ll send when I...
in note 3:
...in associating ‘Meeresstille’ with Maris' s painting, because ‘Seegespenst’ (Sea monster) is...
in note 4:
...Schreierstoren Van Gogh had in mind. Maris made a number of them from 1872 onwards. (See exhib. cat. Paris...
in note 6:
This refers to something that Theo must have written about or sent.
032 To Theo van Gogh. London, between Tuesday, 13 and Sunday, 18 April 1875.
in original text:
...ou dorant la hauteur!” Cette idylle à nos yeux peut encore reparaître, Si vous le voulez bien:─ n’êtes vous pas le maître Qui l’avez recréée après le créateur? Ville d’Avray...
in translation:
...more golden light Trembling in the trembling water or touching tops with gold!’ This idyll may...
in note 3:
The poetry of Edmond Roche was published in Poésies posthumes. Paris 1863 (with a preface by M. Victorien...
in note 6:
...to the poem ‘L’étang’ in Roche’s Poésies posthumes (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. p290...
RM05 Pages sent to Theo with a story addressed to several writers and sundry quotations. Between May and June 1875.
in original text:
...partit pour l’Angleterre. Après la mort de son père ses frères se disputaient l’heritage...
...bien plus jeune que lui; il eut 1 enfant, une fille. Après avoir été marié 7 ou 8 ans, sa...
...une chambre à des pauvres gens demeurant près de la mer. Le soir il se faisait porter sur la grève & regardait le soleil se coucher dans la mer. Un soir, voyant qu’il était près de mourir, les...
...ont pleuré, en entendant cette vie juste & pure. Après il voulut qu’on le laissât seul avec sa...
...il y voyait Dieu; à cause de cela c’est à vous de le regretter comme un frère. Sous bien des...
...ceci, à vous mon ami l’auteur du Voyage autour de mon jardin & de Clovis Gosselin, à vous qui...
...sur le bateau de Lyon, à vous qui aimez les chaumieres normandes entourées de pommiers en fleur...
...noires doublées de blancs. Les moutons attardés aux maigres pâturages des glacis, qui surplombent la grève de 80 ou de 100 pieds l’attristaient de bêlements plaintifs. Michelet, La Mer Or le...
in translation:
at Courrières...
...either when walking down to the already darkened beach, or when from the top of the town that...
...of the slopes that overhang the beach from 80 or 100 feet would make it sad with their plaintive...
in additional details:
...at the same time), but whether this was done before or after the addition of the pencilled postscripts...
in date note:
...tense: ‘I don’t know whether it was Gréville or Granville where the man I once told you about...
in note 7:
...A look at the seas), chap. 2: ‘Plages, grèves et falaises’ (Beaches, shores and cliffs). Ed...
in textual note 48:
mis : < mis.
033 To Theo van Gogh. London, Saturday, 8 May 1875.
in note 4:
...or not there are some among those wilted flowers which, when handled with care, are not quite rubbish yet. I’m very sorry that I visited him during the Christmas holidays and was a burden to him. If I had had any reason beforehand to suppose that he would be like that, I’d certainly have found some way or other of arranging things differently. I haven’t told this to Pa and Ma, they think he’s a great support to me and that appears to reassure them greatly’ (FR b2333). Van Gogh’s remark is probably also connected with his impending transfer to Paris, which he seems not to have wanted. On 24 May 1875, Mr van Gogh wrote to Theo: ‘[Uncle Vincent] also told me that Vincent is in Paris. Mr Tripp [Richard Howard Tripp (Trip)] – an Englishman – replaced him temporarily, during the exhibition in London – in Paris he’s in charge of the gallery. It will have been a disappointment to Vincent not to have been able to work in London just then.’ Mrs van Gogh wrote: ‘We have letters from Vincent himself in Paris. He writes nothing more than: the gentlemen have found it best to let Tripp replace me for 6 to 8 weeks. It’s certainly a change he didn’t expect and perhaps isn’t easy for him’ (FR b2338). During his short spell in Paris in 1874, Van Gogh did not write to his parents very often, and they regretted the resulting estrangement (FR b2735, to Theo, 3 December 1874...
in note 6:
...121, 393. See also Ernest Renan, Oeuvres complètes. Ed. H. Psichari. Paris 1947-1961, vol. 7, pp. 109...
034 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 31 May 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
...hem op de Luxembourg. Une procession dans les blés, Les glaneuses, & Seule.─ à Dieu. Vincent
in translation:
...Women cutting wood’, will probably appear as a woodcut in L’Illustration or Le Monde Illustré.
in note 3:
...whereabouts unknown). The wood engraving Bûcheronnes (Women cutting wood) by Auguste Joliet was later...
035 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 19 June 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in note 2:
...Van Gogh uses occurred in a sermon delivered by François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénélon in 1685.
in note 4:
...5): ‘Cette femme m’est restée trente années, me revenant obstinément, m’inquiétant’ (see...
in note 5:
Charles-François Daubigny, Le buisson (The bush), etching (after Jacob van Ruisdael) of 1855. Ill. 1717. In...
in note 6:
...of Le batelier à la rive (Soleil couchant) (Boatman on the shore (sunset)), 1845-1850 (in reverse) was published by Louis-François Français in Les artistes anciens et modernes. A lithograph of Le petit berger (The little shepherd) (titled Landscape, sunset at the Salon of 1840, no. 308) was published by Louis-François Français in L’Artiste of 1840. See Robaut 1965, vol. 2, pp. 216-217, no. 615; and p. 138, no. 374.
in note 8:
...he could be referring either to two etchings by or after Charles Emile Jacque. In Theo’s scrapbook...
in note 9:
...I believe in a sickly condition, whether of body or mind. We are concerned but believe in God’s...
036 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 29 June 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in translation:
...that you were out of The Hague. Don’t you sometimes long for that as well? Write and tell me, yes or no?
...Well, I don’t know whether it was Gréville or Granville where the man I once told you about died...
in note 9:
Jean-François Millet, The church at Gréville, 1871-1874 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay). Ill. 1723. This painting...
037 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 6 July 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
...bois 4fls) v.d. Maaten Enterrement dans les blés Daubigny L’aurore (coq chantant) Charlet...
...porte.─ Ed. Frère Couturières do Un tonnelier.─ nu jongen houdt je goed...
in translation:
...reading the Bible; an old woman listens, it’s something that recalls: Verily I say unto you, ‘for where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them’, it’s an old copper...
in note 3:
...Overveen Van Gogh possessed. Ruisdael painted a number of panoramas of Haarlem and its environs...
in note 4:
...still on offer in the Catalogue des estampes gravées par...Vivant Denon. See Fizelière 1873, no. 23 and...
in note 8:
...by Auguste-Paul-Charles Anastasi after Pêcheurs tendant leurs filets, le soir (Fishermen casting...
in note 12:
The lithograph Effet du matin (Morning effect), made by Louis-François Français after Troyon’s painting Morning (Paris, Musée du Louvre), was published in Les artistes anciens et modernes 1853, no. 68 (Paris...
in note 15:
...in sepia of this work (The Hague, Kunstmuseum) or after The baptismal procession, 1873 (Utrecht...
in note 16:
...day, consisting of four sheets (the fls in the original letter stands for feuilles), was published as Les quatre heures du jour. Scènes rustiques gravées par Adrien Lavieille, d’après les dessins originaux de J.-F. Millet. Lavieille’s wood engravings, which Van Gogh owned, also appeared in 1873 in L’Illustration...
in note 18:
Charles-François Daubigny, L’Aurore, coq chantant (Dawn, cock crowing) was published around 1858 by...
in note 19:
...enfans [sic] par Charlet 1835. Paris, Gihaut frères. Editeurs, boulevard des Italiens. Appearing below the print is the text: ‘Although he’s not a Scottish highlander, the Frenchman is hospitable’ (Quoiqu’il ne soit pas montagnard écossais, le français est hospitalier) (Paris, BNF, Cabinet des Estampes...
in note 22:
Cf. Gal. 5:22, Eph. 4:2 and Col. 3:12. Van Gogh often used the words ‘longsuffering’ and ‘meek’ (or ‘meekness’), either singly or in combination (see letters 51 and 89), sometimes even hyphenated (letter 108). In connection with this conscious play on words, see Van Gogh’s remark about the spelling of weemoed...
038 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 15 July 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in translation:
...hesitate to ask him openly to have you sent here or to London. I thank you for your letter of this...
in note 3:
...or there has existed some fine flower of feelings, of desires, some primal dream, which soon vanishes into humdrum works and expires in the course of life’s business. It is found, in a word, in three-quarters of mankind, like a poet who dies young, while the man lives on.’ (Il y a mieux. En nous tous, pour peu que nous soyons poètes, et si nous ne le sommes pourtant pas décidément, il existe ou il a existé une certaine fleur de sentiments, de désirs, une certaine rêverie première, qui bientôt s’en va dans les travaux prosaïques...
in note 4:
...Or your blaspheming in the language of the Gods. Read your work again; I send you back to your affronted Muse. Remind yourself that in us often lives A sleeping poet, ever alive and young.’ (Tu l’as bien dit, Ami, mais tu l’as trop bien dit. Tu ne prenais pas garde, en traçant ta pensée, Que ta plume en faisait un vers harmonieux, Et que tu blasphémais dans la langue des Dieux. Relis-toi; je te rends à ta Muse offensée. Et souviens-toi qu’en nous il existe souvent Un poëte endormi, toujours jeune et vivant.) Sainte-Beuve published Musset’s poem in September 1837 in his own collection titled Pensées d’août. See Poésies complètes de Sainte-Beuve. Paris 1845, p. 379. It was also included in the 1850 edition of the Poésies nouvelles by Alfred de Musset. See De Musset 1957, pp. 378-379, 795-796. Van Gogh was familiar with the poetry of both men, as evidenced by the poetry albums he made for Theo; see Pabst 1988, pp. 13, 22-24. It can no longer be ascertained whether he knew these passages from the work of Sainte-Beuve or that of Musset, but it seems likely that he picked up both passages from the new magazine L’Art, first published shortly before this time in Paris. See L’Art. Revue Hebdomadaire Illustrée 1-1 (1875), pp. 86-87...
in note 5:
...the reader a guide to devotional practice. A number of French translations of this book were...
in note 7:
Philippe de Champaigne, Mother Catherine-Agnès Arnauld and Sister Catherine de Sainte Suzanne Champaigne...
039 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 24 July 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in note 2:
Rückert’s ‘Aus der Jugendzeit’ (From childhood) expresses a yearning for lost youth; ‘Mitternacht...
040 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Friday, 13 August 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
...s do Un tonnelier Francais Dernier beau jour Ruyperez L’imitation de Jesus Christ Bosboom Cantabimus & Psallemus Ik doe mijn best om nog eene gravure “Rembrandt, Lecture de la bible” voor U...
...u gezonden eene lith. Troyon, effet de matin? Français, derniers beaux jours? Zoo niet schrijf mij...
in translation:
...for good to them that love God’ (in Dutch it says ‘for those who love God all things will work...
...Français Last fine day Ruipérez The imitation of Jesus Christ Bosboom Cantabimus and psallemus I’m doing my best to find another engraving of ‘Rembrandt, Reading the Bible’ for...
...sent you a lithograph of Troyon, Morning effect? Français, Last fine days? If not, write and tell...
in note 2:
...the right place’ and ‘offered too little’ for Vincent’s sister Willemien, it was decided that...
in note 4:
...de l’Opéra branch. The village of Ville-d’Avray is south-west of Paris, between Sèvres and Versailles.
in note 10:
...des Eglises Wallonnes, vol. 1. The Hague 1887, pp. 199-200; F.H. Gagnebin, Liste des églises wallonnes des Pays-Bas et des pasteurs qui les ont desservies établie d’après les actes originaux. Leiden 1888, p. 31.
in note 11:
...sale in 1873 in the Catalogue des estampes gravées par...Vivant Denon (Paris, BNF, Cabinet des...
in note 15:
Louis-François Français made a print after his own Last fine days (Salon 1851); Derniers beaux jours appeared in Les artistes anciens et modernes, vol. 3, no. 73 (Paris, BNF, Cabinet des Estampes). Ill. 1688.
in note 16:
...15 November 1860), between p. 232 and 233. Ill. 1689. Cf. Carlos Reyero, ‘Los orígenes del fortunysmo en París y la obra de Luis Ruipérez’, Boletin del Museo e Instituto ‘Camón Aznar’ 40 (1990), pp...
041 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, between Monday, 16 August and Wednesday, 1 September 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in note 2:
This utterance of Eugène Bersier could be based on Matt. 13:22 or Mark 4:18-19.
in note 8:
...Gogh was referring to. The painting exists in a number of versions, made between 1845 and 1855; prints by...
RM06 Note to Theo van Gogh. Paris, probably September or October 1875.
in title:
RM06 Note to Theo van Gogh. Paris, probably September or October 1875.
in date note:
This small sheet probably dates from September or October 1875, in a period when the subject of bread came...
042 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 2 September 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in translation:
...pictures by Jules Breton and Corot; I’ll write ‘for Helvoirt’ on the back. I’ve never heard...
...in the Louvre (on Sunday I often go either there or to the Luxembourg); I wish you could see the...
...can, I mean of course to visit Caroline van Stockum, the Carbentuses, Haanebeeks, Borchers &c.; not to Kraft’s or Marda’s, you understand! Or it would have to be because you couldn’t do otherwise, just once or twice can do no harm. How are things at the gallery? I know all about how it can be...
in note 2:
...Gogh; see letter 113. Van Gogh quoted this text a number of times: see letters 89, 92, 98, 102, 103, 104...
in note 5:
...de la Haye (Mauritshuis). Catalogue raisonné des tableaux et des sculptures. The Hague 1895, pp...
in note 9:
Rembrandt, Les pélerins d’Emmaüs (The pilgrims at Emmaus), engraving from 1875 by Amadée and Eugène Varin (Bordeaux, Musée Goupil). Ill. 1735. Below the engraving appears the text in French of Luke 24:30-31.
in note 11:
...had a somewhat suspect reputation, being referred to in popular parlance as ‘Bagijnejacht�� or the ‘Jacht’ (the hunt), which might explain Vincent’s word of caution. In the nineteenth century, a...
044 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 4 September 1875.
in note 2:
...of a detailed biography, a catalogue raisonné and etchings after his paintings. The number of etchings per copy vary in number from seventeen to twenty. Michel is described in the biography as an artist of humble...
045 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 7 September 1875.
in original text:
...er meer te komen. Vandaag ontvingen wij de nouveautés waarbij de prent naar Rembrandt. Die ziet er mooi...
in translation:
...go there more often. Today we received the nouveautés, which included the print after Rembrandt. It looks...
046 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Thursday, 9 September 1875.
in title:
046 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Thursday, 9 September 1875.
in translation:
Read no more Michelet or any other book (except the Bible) until we’ve seen each other again at Christmas...
in date note:
...reacted almost immediately, which is why we have dated the letter on or about Thursday, 9 September.
047 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Sunday, 12 September 1875.
in original text:
Flügel, Flügel über’s Leben...
in note 1:
Close of the second stanza of Friedrich Rückert’s poem ‘Flügel! Flügel um zu fliegen’ from the...
048 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 13 September 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
050 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 25 September 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
...créature; les choses vieilles sont passées; voici, toutes choses sont devenues nouvelles.─ II...
...was toch maar niet al te druk maken. Vindt gij dit niet een mooi woord: I Cor. II:4&5 Je n’ai pas jugé que je dusse savoir autre chose parmi vous que Jésus Christ, et Jésus Christ crucifié.─ Ma parole & ma prédication n’a point consisté dans des discours pathétiques de la sagesse humaine, afin que votre foi fût fondée, non sur la sagesse des hommes, mais sur la puissance de Dieu...
in note 8:
...in her three books, the Bible, Thomas-à-Kempis, and the “Christian Year...that they filled...
051 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 27 September 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
052 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 29 September 1875.
in translation:
...I’d like for us to be able to breakfast together or drink a cup of chocolate in my room. Keep well, old...
053 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 30 September 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in note 2:
...number of paintings in which Margaret (from Goethe's Faust) figures (see Ewals 1987, p. 517). In letter 28 Van Gogh had already mentioned Margaret at the fountain, after which the engraving Marguerite à la fontaine, made by Léopold Flameng, was published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts of 1 March 1864 (vol. 16, facing p. 196). (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum). Ill. 1739. Other known engravings in which Margaret features are Marguerite (Margaret) by Hermann Eichens of 1862 and Marguerite à l’église (Margaret at church) by Alphonse François of 1864 (both in Bordeaux, Musée Goupil); for the reproductions after Margaret at the spinning wheel, Margaret at church, Margaret leaving church, Margaret on the sabbath, Faust and Margaret in the garden and Margaret at the fountain, see Ewals 1987, pp. 258, 262, 283, 296, 308, 339...
054 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 6 October 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
...ets naar Chaigneau, Bergère & moutons, en dan Dupré, Le soir, Troyon, Le matin, Bodmer, Fontainebleau, Français, Derniers beaux jours, Frère, Couturières, & Un tonnelier, Daubigny, Après le coucher du soleil, &c. &c. ook een paar phot., n.l. Delaroche, Ghetsemané No 424, Vendredi Saint...
...on a ses beaux jours” zei Jules Dupré dikwijls, laat ons dat ook maar gelooven.─ Heel gaarne...
...leads to it be thine Else I must surely stray. Choose Thou for me my friend My sickness, or my health; Choose Thou my cares for me, My poverty my wealth. Not mine, not mine, the choice In things or great or small Be Thou my Guide my strength My wisdom and my all. en het volgende: Nearer my God...
in translation:
...Evening, Troyon, Morning, Bodmer, Fontainebleau, Français, Last fine days, Frère, Seamstresses...
...leads to it be thine Else I must surely stray. Choose Thou for me my friend My sickness, or my health; Choose Thou my cares for me, My poverty my wealth. Not mine, not mine, the choice In things or great or small Be Thou my Guide my strength My wisdom and my all. and the following: Nearer my...
in note 5:
For Reading the Bible, see letter 37, n. 4. The etching Les pélerins d’Emmaüs after Rembrandt’s Pilgrims at Emmaus is indeed by Johannes Pieter de Frey and is dated 1802. De Frey made two versions, one of which...
in note 7:
...painter of sheep’ and ‘the Raphael of sheep’. The edition Eaux-fortes modernes, publiées par la Société des Aquafortistes contains three etchings of shepherdesses with sheep; Moutons en plaine (Sheep in...
in note 8:
This print of Evening by Jules Dupré is most likely the lithograph mentioned in letter 37. Other prints Van...
in note 11:
Regarding Français’s Last fine days, see letter 40, n. 15.
in note 12:
Regarding Frère’s ‘Cooper’, see letter 37, n. 21.
in note 14:
The comma Van Gogh placed after the number 424 indicates that the photographs of the works by Delaroche were...
in note 16:
...That this utterance stems from Jules Dupré emerges from Karl Eugen Schmidt, Künstlerworte. Leipzig...
in note 19:
Hymn no. 291. By Henry K. White and Frances S. Fuller-Maitland. Van Gogh leaves out the second, third and...
055 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 11 October 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
...blés, Rappel des glaneuses Brion, Noé, Les pèlérins de St Odille. Bernier, Les champs en hiver Cabat. L’étang en Soir d’automne Emile Breton, Soir d’hiver. Bodmer, Fontainebleau Duverger, Le laboureur & ses enfants Millet, L’église de Gréville Daubigny, Printemps & Automne. Français...
in translation:
...the firm. Every evening we go home together, eat something or other in my room, and the rest of the...
...at Gréville Daubigny, Spring and Autumn Français, The end of winter and The cemetery Gleyre, Lost...
...of it, lest it disagree with you’ it says in Proverbs, or something to that effect. Do you know...
in note 14:
Charles-François Daubigny, Spring, 1857 (Paris, Musée du Louvre). Ill. 1755. Autumn is probably Lock in the...
in note 15:
Louis-François Français, The end of winter, 1853 (Manilla, French Embassy). Ill. 1757. Van Gogh’s mention of The cemetery actually refers to the painting Orpheus of 1863, which has an antique tomb in the...
in note 19:
...s agite et diev le mène. – / Qvi vous recoit / me recoit / et qvi me / recoit, recoit celvi qvi m’a envoye / – St Mat Che X.UT XXXX’. ‘Man proposes and God disposes. He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.’ For the source of the first part, see letter 35, n. 2; the second part is Matt. 10:40...
in note 24:
...de l’Alsace-Lorraine’, Quarante-huit/Quatorze. Conférences du Musée d’Orsay 7 (1995), pp. 27-38.
056 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 14 October 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in translation:
...eat enough, and if occasionally you’re terribly hungry, or rather have a terrible urge to eat, be...
...me. Let’s hope we see each other in 10 weeks or so. I shake your hand heartily in thought, and am...
057 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 9 November 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
059 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 4 December 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
060 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 9 December 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
061 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Friday, 10 December 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in note 1:
...pais, Vers le premier asile où, jeune et dans la paix, Il s’écoutait chanter au milieu du silence. Avec quelle âpre ardeur, âme, tu te repais Du toit natal, des prés et des fleurs bordant l’anse De l’étang où l’oiseau sur les joncs se balance; Et pourtant, ô Chimère, alors tu nous trompais! Car dans ton beau mirage un avenir superbe, Comme un été splendide ouvrait sa riche gerbe Dont les épis flottants étaitent de vrais soleils. Tu mentais.– Mais qu’ils ont d’irrésistibles charmes Ces fantômes qu’on voit dans les lointains vermeils S’iriser à travers le grand prisme des larmes!) See Breton 1875, pp. 75-76...
062 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 13 December 1875.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in translation:
...surely you know that I’m not lecturing you or preaching a moralizing sermon. I know you have in...
063 Willemien van Gogh to Vincent and Theo van Gogh. Welwyn, Sunday, 19 December 1875.
in note 2:
...parents in Etten. Vincent arrived on Thursday, 23 or Friday, 24 December and left for Paris on Monday, 3...
065 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 10 January 1876.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in note 2:
...or 3 months (this in confidence...There is so much good in Vincent. For that reason, though, it might be better to make a change in his position.’ The letter closes with a postscript: ‘Vincent is back. Uncle Cor advised against it. We shan’t hurry things – all of this in complete confidence between the two of us!’ (FR b2385). Vincent returned to Paris on Monday, 3 January, and the next day Mr van Gogh wrote to Theo: ‘But how happy and grateful we are that you take pleasure in your work. If only V. had that too! His outlook on life does tend to be a bit too morbid. When he enthuses so much about the pale hues of Maris’s paintings, I wish his taste would incline more towards the expression of more vigorous life, of stronger or more vivid colours, even if it were below the norm. He left yesterday morning at half past eight, and thought it better not to decide straightaway about changing jobs. He has promised, however, to keep a close eye on what awaits him there, and to try and act wisely. We hope for the best, but are not without worry. There is a lot of eccentricity in him, but much good as well. We keep our sights fixed on God. He can put worries and troubles to shame’ (FR b2225, 4 January 1876). Mr van Gogh also wrote about this matter to Lies, who then told Theo: ‘Pa says that although he is irreproachable, he lacks the strength to get ahead on his own and to get a grip on himself’ (9 January 1876, FR b2226). When Vincent had had his talk with Boussod and had told his parents of his dismissal, Mr van Gogh again poured his heart out to Theo: ‘This business with Vincent continues to worry us terribly. On the 4th of this month he wrote to say that when he went to wish Mr Boussod a happy new year, the meeting turned very unpleasant. For one thing, his going home at the end of the year had been very much resented. Indeed, he should not have done so, but it seems he was very determined. After that meeting, according to him, he had no choice but to resign as from April 1st. ... Though we do not forget that God can be our support and help even now, we are terribly grieved about everything. How much he has spurned! What bitter sorrow for Uncle Cent. What a bitter experience. We are glad that we live in relative isolation here and would really like to shut ourselves in. It is an unspeakable sorrow. I advised him today – after making it clear to him that he should not have left his work for any reason whatsoever at the end of the year, when it became apparent to him that he was needed – that he should tell Mr Boussod frankly that he regretted his error.’ Later in the letter Mrs van Gogh takes the pen: after first expressing her disappointment, she writes: ‘what a disappointment for you too, dear Theo, we can understand you commiserate with us, we see no light, but know that the good Lord has so often given it, when things were very bleak. We will hope for it; Uncle Cor, to whom Vincent also wrote, sent us a very sympathetic answer, but could offer no help either, certainly not in his firm’ (FR b2227). The close of the letter seems to indicate that Uncle Cor had said he had no place for Vincent in his own art dealership in Amsterdam. Four days later it became apparent that Vincent had had another talk with Boussod, about which Mr van Gogh wrote: ‘I had advised him to speak to Mr Boussod, and he did so, and was not received unfavourably ... There is certainly a lot of good in him. If only he could acquire a bit more tact to make an agreeable impression’ (FR b2228). Vincent had not intended to resign, as emerges from a remark made by Mr van Gogh on 3 January 1876 in a letter to Theo: ‘he means to stay there, but will decide later what seems best’ (FR b2224). His dismissal was not rescinded, however....
066 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Monday, 17 January 1876.
in title:
066 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Monday, 17 January 1876.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
...langs een water en een paar groote eikeboomen. Die ets naar Jules Dupré is mooi, ’t is er eene uit een cahier van 6 met Duprés portret. Hij heeft zoo’n eenvoudig en nobel gezicht, ’t doet mij...
in translation:
...of large oak trees. That etching after Jules Dupré is beautiful, it’s one from an album of 6...
in date note:
...letters, we have placed them at equal intervals in the intervening period and dated them on or about Monday, 17 and on or about Monday, 24 January 1876. In the case of letter 67, this does accord with the fact that...
in note 7:
...had written Psalm 42 (FR 2741) – could be one of the above-mentioned prints after Bodmer or Jacque.
in note 8:
In January 1876 Dupré was 64, whereas Mauve was only 37.
067 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Monday, 24 January 1876.
in title:
067 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Monday, 24 January 1876.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
...mijn vriend Gladwell gaat verhuizen; een van de employés in de drukkerij heeft hem bepraat om bij...
in note 2:
In 1876 the studio of Mari(n)us or Martinus Boks was possibly still in the Hospice Wallon on...
068 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 2 February 1876.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
069 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 7 February 1876.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in note 8:
Ps. 23:6; the text differs in a number of places from the King James version.
070 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 19 February 1876.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in translation:
...that you’ll be making the trip with the nouveautés in the spring, you’ll surely have nothing against...
071 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 15 March 1876.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
...mij een mooi boek ter lezing, “Kenelm Chillingly” door Bulwer. Daar is veel moois in. ’t Zijn...
in translation:
...happens I’ll go to Etten first. I’m thinking of leaving here on 1 April or perhaps 31 March.
...the son of a rich Englishman who can find no rest or peace among his peers and goes to seek it in...
in note 5:
...adventures and opinions (1873) was reprinted a number of times. In this popular novel’s year of...
072 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 23 March 1876.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in translation:
...that are going to the Salon, including two very beautiful, large Gabriëls, a morning in the meadows...
073 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 28 March 1876.
in original text:
Estampes Françaises...
in translation:
...how I wish you’d been there, sunken roads through sandy soil leading to a mill, or a man going home over the heath or sandy ground with a grey sky above, so simple and so fine. It seems to me that the...
...fewer than 25 etchings after Millet, and the same number after Michel, and masses after Dupré and...
in note 2:
...exactly which works he is referring to, because a number Michel’s works, displaying similar motifs, were...
in note 4:
...to here, because at the time Durand-Ruel had a number of titles with similar motifs in stock (written...
in note 5:
...gravées à l’eau-fort. See Galerie Durand-Ruel. Receuil d’estampes. Preface by Armand Silvestre. Paris and London 1873. This series contains 300 etchings. Van Gogh’s subsequent estimates are fairly accurate, since there were 27 etchings after works by Millet, 29 after Georges Michel, the same number after Jules Dupré, and 28 after Camille Corot. The complete series is to be found in the library of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam...
in note 6:
...L’Angélus made by Martinez after Jean-François Millet’s The angelus was sold as no. 10. Ill. 1766...
in note 7:
...The Hague (BR Leiderdorp). This Willem occurs a number of times in the family correspondence (FR b2767...
074 Anna van Gogh-Carbentus, Vincent van Gogh and Theodorus van Gogh to Theo van Gogh. Etten, Tuesday, 4 April 1876.
in original text:
...maar ’t meeste van alles wenschen wij U goed succès en zijn nieuwsgierig er van te hooren. Zaturdag is...
in note 1:
...is an edifying text written on calenders or in booklets for the pious to reflect upon. The text...
in note 12:
Béraldi’s description of Théophile-Narcisse Chauvel’s etching Après la pluie, à Vaujours (After the rain at Vaujours) is similar to Van Gogh’s description: ‘Sheep, led by a shepherdess, come towards the foreground on a path; on the left, elm trees, overcast weather...For L’Album Cadart. 1876. Eight states’....
076 To Theodorus van Gogh and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Ramsgate, Monday, 17 April 1876.
in translation:
...stay together today. Which would be better, the joy of seeing each other again or the sadness of parting?
in date note:
...De brieven 1990 dated the letter ‘17 [or 18] April’, but we see no reason to give it that...
in note 7:
This should be 3½ hours. Brown assumes that Van Gogh left London at 9.00, taking the train from Victoria...
078 To Theo van Gogh. Ramsgate, Friday, 21 April 1876.
in translation:
...for Anna for that amount in some newspaper or other, you decide which one. If it’s not enough I’ll send you the rest, and if it’s too much, buy some photograph or other for Etten, for 21 May. But in any event...
...is looking for a situation as lady’s companion or nurse to a sickly lady. Address: G.H.M. Post...
079 To Theo van Gogh. Ramsgate, Friday, 28 April 1876.
in translation:
...stood old, gnarled hawthorn bushes. Their black or grey, lichen-covered stems and branches had all...
080 To Theo van Gogh. Ramsgate, Monday, 1 May 1876.
in translation:
...so more and more. Last Saturday night I washed 6 or so of the young gentlemen; I did this for fun...
081 To Theo van Gogh. Ramsgate, Saturday, 6 May 1876.
in translation:
...Early this morning it was also beautiful, everything was clear, where now it’s more or less hazy.
in note 3:
These letters did not result in work for Anna; on or about 11 May 1876, she wrote to her parents: ‘The...
082 To Theo van Gogh. Ramsgate, Friday, 12 May 1876.
in original text:
...zien heenstroomen.─ Uw plan om Pa en Moe “Après le départ” van Sadee te geven vind ik zeer...
in translation:
...in those big cities. Many a worker in a factory or shop has had a remarkable, pure, pious youth. But...
...Ma’s last letter, in which she wrote a word or two about the necessity of our being so far from...
in note 5:
...took George Eliot, the pseudonym of Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans, to be a man. He refers here to Silas...
in note 6:
Goupil and Co. published a photogravure of Philip Sadée’s Après le départ. Plage de Scheveningue (Pays-bas) (After the departure. Beach at Scheveningen (Netherlands)), which was exhibited at the 1875 Salon...
in note 7:
...93) implies that he was either older than Van Gogh or had a more important position, which means that this...
in note 8:
...seen for some time’, (vol. 15, NS, 1876, p. 241); or the catalogue of the Royal Academy’s annual summer...
083 To Theo van Gogh. Ramsgate, Wednesday, 31 May 1876.
in translation:
...sight, to be sure. How I’d like to spend or to have spent a winter with them, to know what it’s...
084 To Theo van Gogh. Welwyn, Saturday, 17 June 1876.
in translation:
...and lodging and some free time in which to teach, or if there’s no free time, at most 20 pounds a...
in note 6:
The wording of this prayer recurs in a number of psalms; cf. also Luke 18:13.
in note 7:
...If he truly has a passion for the church or evangelizing and is really serious about it, I should think that he could start his studies here and we could see if funds could be obtained, but it would take at least 8 years. For that matter, it would perhaps be best for him to look either there or here, but possibly better here, for a position as a bookkeeper, or an office clerk or shop assistant. He continually makes journeys...
RM08 Prose passage copied from Henri Conscience’s Le conscrit (The conscript). Ramsgate or Isleworth, between about July and November 1876.
in title:
...Le conscrit (The conscript). Ramsgate or Isleworth, between about July and November 1876.
in original text:
...L’heure du départ a sonné! Devant les chaumières se tient un beau jeune homme, le bâton de...
...cris perçants.– Le grand-père et Cathérine font à l’intérieur les derniers préparatifs du...
...abrita son berceau, la bruyère et les bois témoins de son enfance et les champs arides si souvent...
...Dieu, que les paroles déchirantes de l’à Dieu échapperont à leurs lèvres tremblantes...Déj...
...yeux, et ne manque jamais à dire tes prières avant d’aller te coucher. Aussi longtemps que tu...
...mon cher enfant.– Je penserai toujours, toujours à vous, mà mère, dit le jeune homme avec un...
...qui te sera ordonné? Alors Dieu t’aidera, tes officiers et tes camarades t’aimeront. Trine, sa mère et le petit garçon étaient déjà sous le tilleul, priant agenouillés sur le banc de gazon...
...se mirent à genoux et prièrent les mains levées au ciel.– Le vent murmure doucement dans les...
...en poussant des plaintes déchirantes, et bien que les autres aient déjà les bras ouverts pour la...
in translation:
...all too dearly. And then you mustn’t swear, you know, or lead a bad life. You’ll go to church...
in note 1:
...Scènes de la vie flamande, by Henri Conscience, translated by Léon Wocquier. First series, new edition. Paris 1864. Van Gogh himself must have added the phrase ‘et elle pleure sur son épaule’ (and she weeps on his shoulder) (ll. 95-96); it does not occur in either Conscience’s manuscript or the editions consulted. Remarkably, the early Dutch edition includes, precisely in the place where this sentence occurs, a print by Eduard Dujardin depicting a girl crying on the conscript’s shoulder. It is therefore possible that Van Gogh had read this version of the book earlier, and had remembered the illustration while copying out the passage. An indication of this is that his version does not correspond thematically: in the print, it is the girl Trien who cries, whereas in the text it is the conscript’s mother. There might indeed be an edition in which this phrase occurs as a caption below an illustration...
085 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Monday, 3 or Tuesday, 4 July 1876.
in title:
085 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Monday, 3 or Tuesday, 4 July 1876.
in original text:
...Vinci, kartons van Mantegna, een mooi Schij van S. Ruijsdael, vruchten van Cuijp enz. enz. Ik had...
...zijns harten. Hebt gij “Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres”, daar vindt gij die lijkrede in, er is...
in translation:
...track down and seek to help foreigners looking for work, or other people who are in some sort of...
...da Vinci, cartoons by Mantegna, a beautiful painting by S. Ruysdael, fruit by Cuyp and so on and so...
...his heart. Do you have ‘Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres’, you’ll find that eulogy there, there...
in date note:
...have been the date of receipt. We have accordingly dated this letter to Monday, 3 or Tuesday, 4 July 1876.
in note 6:
...secondary school teacher of English or French, but Pa says that they give preference to those with a qualification as an assistant teacher. Would he be averse to all business or only to the art business?’ (FR...
in note 9:
Hanging in Hampton Court Palace were a number of portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger, including Lady...
in note 14:
...is, they were not designed as models for frescoes or tapestries, but were painted in tempera on twilled...
in note 18:
...funèbres by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet: ‘How often in this place did she humbly thank God for two great favours: the first, for having made her a Christian, the second – Gentlemen, what are you expecting? For having restored the position of her son the king, perhaps? No. It was for having made her an unhappy queen. Ah! I begin to regret the narrow confines of the place in which I speak.’ (Combien de fois a-t-elle en ce lieu remercié Dieu humblement de deux grandes grâces: l’une, de l’avoir fait chrétienne; l’autre, Messieurs, qu’attendez-vous? peut-être d’avoir rétabli les affaires du roi son fils? Non. C’est de l’avoir fait reine malheureuse. Ah! je commence à regretter les bornes étroites du lieu où je parle.) See J.B. Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres. Paris 1998, p. 139. Oraisons funèbres (Funeral Orations) is a collection of eulogies delivered by Bishop Bossuet on persons famous at the time. The book, which was compiled in 1689, was reprinted in various versions containing added sermons and panegyrics...
in note 21:
...50-centimes edition has not been found. Oraisons funèbres. Bibliothèque d’éducation et de récréation. Paris n.d. (Collection des classiques français dédiée à la jeunesse), which sold for 3 francs...
in note 22:
...rançois Guizot, L’amour dans le mariage. Etude historique, 1855 (Love in marriage. Historical study). This little book sketches the blissful relationship of the English politician Lord William Russell and his wife Rachel Wriothesley. Lady Russell demonstrated lifelong devotion to her husband, who was executed on 21 July 1683. Guizot pays particular attention to the constant, modest, virtuous and, above all, pious Lady Russell, a truly ‘great Christian lady’. He makes no mention whatsoever of Hampton Court. Guizot’s text first appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes (May 1855). See François Guizot, L’amour dans le mariage. Etude historique. 6th ed. Paris 1858, quotation on p. 92...
086 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Saturday, 8 July 1876.
in translation:
...on me, and I have a mind to write a word or two to him, perhaps it would give him pleasure. Go and...
087 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Wednesday, 2 August 1876.
in original text:
...de geboden des Heeren verlaten hebt en de Baäls nagevolgd zijt. Nu dan, zend henen, verzamel tot...
...Baäl. Zoo zond Achab onder alle kinderen Israëls, en verzamelde de profeten op den berg Karmel...
...en hij riep: Mijn vader! Mijn Vader, wagen Israëls en zijne ruiteren! En hij zag hem niet meer; en...
in translation:
...These are now full of new branches, pure white or yellowish, with a small pink leaf here and there...
...life and loftier feeling. The sea may have made itself, or an oak tree itself, but men like Pa are...
...villas with their gardens. It was a sky like Ruisdael or Constable paint it. And now a handshake in...
...And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a God; but he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the...
...down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob...
...you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to...
in note 14:
A memento mori, probably derived from ‘Hodie mihi, cras tibi�� or ‘Mihi heri & tibi hodie’ (Ecclesiasticus [Jesus Sirach] 38:23); in the English Apocrypha 38:22. As a pictorial device it is placed in the mouth of a skeleton or as an inscription in churchyards.
088 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Friday, 18 August 1876.
in original text:
...ik “uit het leven voor het leven”, door de schrijfster van John Halifax, dat zoudt Gij zeer...
in translation:
...I can’t leave the house for a whole day, or at least no further than the garden, then I sometimes...
...history with the boys to walking; one feels more or less safe doing the former. And now, regards to...
in note 18:
...days it was not unusual for a book’s title page or binding to display a phrase such as ‘from the...
089 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Saturday, 26 August 1876.
in translation:
...starts humming a snatch of melody from some hymn or other, and there’s something of that ‘faith...
...have not Charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift...
...ask after me, in any case Borchers if you see him or any of his family. A handshake in thought from...
...that sticketh closer than a brother. There is no safer or better way to get through life than Love...
in note 3:
...before 1876 (the year in which this letter was written), and there were a number of French translations.
in note 12:
...and there is no sign of either the evening sun or mountains in the distance. Moreover, Van Gogh refers...
RM09 Copies of poems. Probably Isleworth, about September 1876.
in translation:
...light. In like way, foretells my heart, Soon or late, when I, death-stricken, Leave this life, my...
in note 1:
...earlier edition. He occasionally omitted lines or stanzas. The first poem is ‘Het Orgel’ (Van Gogh...
090 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, between about Saturday, 2 and Friday, 8 September 1876.
in original text:
...en klimop en hulst en mos in den winter.─ Dor hout geeft meer warmte, helder vuur en licht, als...
in translation:
...a drink from the brook during a walk or from a fountain in the hot streets of London and Paris, to her also belongs ‘I shall make your bed in sickness’, ‘as one whom his Mother comforteth, so...
...closer than a brother. ‘Stablish your hope’, for there is much that is good in life, for him...
...They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. (Try and send that page from Michelet.) Don’t be afraid, when you’re out walking in the evening and there’s no one near by, to sing a psalm: ‘The panting hart, the hunt escapèd’, or ‘O why art thou cast down, my soul?�� or ‘Centre of our longing�� or ‘I know in Whom my faith is founded’. The years between 20 and 30 are full of all sorts of dangers, full of great danger, yea, the danger of sin and death, but also full of light and God’s comfort. Wrestling, you will emerge victorious, and when they’re...
in note 17:
...Maar dat woord mislukking heeft geen vat op mij.’ For Felix Holt, the radical, see letter 66, n. 1.
in note 67:
Van Gogh underlined the verse numbers 53 55 58 63 twice, and number 61 three times.
in note 82:
...victorious), the Latin version of which (‘Luctor et emergo’) is part of the coat of arms of the...
091 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, between Saturday, 16 and Friday, 22 September 1876.
in date note:
...1990 and Hulsker 1993-1 date this letter ‘16 or 17 August’, it must have been written a month...
092 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Tuesday, 3 October 1876.
in original text:
...his heart As showers from the clouds of summer Or tears from the eyelids start. Who through long...
in translation:
...many a Sunday evening. In London I visited one or two people and also went to the gallery of Messrs...
...his heart As showers from the clouds of summer Or tears from the eyelids start. Who through long...
093 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Saturday, 7 and Sunday, 8 October 1876.
in original text:
...s des bouquetières; le foule a repris ses promenades sur les quais, sur les boulevards. Après...
...où Paris se montre dans toute sa beauté. Pendant la journée, le plâtre des façades fatigue l’oeil par sa blancheur monotone, les chariots pesamment chargés font trembler les pavés sous leurs...
...pre, d’inquiet et de haletant; mais dès que les étoiles se lèvent, tout change; les blanches...
...mètre et le tablier, après la journeé livrée au travail, il veut la soirée pour jouir; comme les maîtres de Thèbes, il a remis au lendemain les affaires sérieuses. J’aime à partager cette...
...se superposent, et sur lesquels de hautes cheminées dressent leurs pitons. Hier encore je leur...
...tuyaux de poêle. Les pigeons qui m’aidaient à mes illusions agrestes ne me semblent plus que de...
...là l’homme épuisé retrouve une force juvenile. Ainsi se sont passés mes jours de maladie...
...qu’elle adresse au ciel; parcourir bruyères et forêts; interroger mon âme ─ et penser...
in translation:
...wheels of carriages as they bowl along on their way to some party or other; nothing is to be seen but people strolling idly or gaily by; work gives way to leisure. Now everyone draws breath from that...
...high through the chimney-top, as if calling out to me; or, sunk in a vague reverie, to look at the...
...were a lot of people on the street, coming from or going to their offices. First of all, I met a...
...himself, in those days I went to their house once or twice – he already has two children – and...
...the small houses and gardens there are open places covered with grass and usually with a church or school or poorhouse between the trees and shrubbery in the middle, and it can be so beautiful there...
...a path that he must traverse whether he wants to or not, and will cry out in anguish, God help me...
in note 3:
...we love one another?) and chapter 1, ‘Les étrennes de la mansarde’ (The garret’s Christmas gifts...
in note 4:
...and in l. 82 he wrote ‘The world is strong’ where the source text has ‘For hate is strong’.
in note 5:
Possibly an allusion to Deut. 12:15 or rhy. ps. 34:11.
in note 7:
...A comparison with the French version in Scènes de la vie flamande (Scenes of Flemish life) by Henri...
in note 9:
...at the end of 1873 when the latter visited a number of studios in The Hague, as emerges from letters...
094 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus and Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Friday, 13 October 1876.
in original text:
...jà rentrés dans la serre. Les feuilles tombées dévoilent quelques statues qu’on regarde plus...
...Mais ne l’ai-je pas vue déjà aux musées d’Amsterdam ou de La Haye. Elle me rappelle une dame...
in translation:
...but a short visit, I could stay with you one or two days. Last Monday I was in Richmond again and...
...One of these days, perhaps, I’ll go to London or Lewisham again. I just gave Mr Jones’s girls a...
...the same where you are. I’ll have two or three weeks around Christmas to go to Holland, should...
...in the Lord than to put confidence in man. ‘For he knoweth not that which shall be.’ May our...
...what it ever will be, or rather, in which there is no ‘having been�� or ‘what must still be...
...our thoughts as we spoke. Augustine For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there...
...have not Charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift...
...like the ones one sees behind our cliffs in France or the dunes of Holland. The exotic shrubs have...
...attire of the lady — modest, grave — the black or grey silk of which is barely brightened by a...
...have I not seen her before in the museums of Amsterdam or The Hague? She reminds me of a lady by...
in arrangement:
...or November 1877 (see letter 92, n. 2). Moreover, Van Gogh used the expression ‘Thank God’ a number of times in the same context during this period (see letters 93 and 96; cf. also n. 20 below). The sheet could not have been part of letter 92, because in that letter Vincent said that he had just heard – for the...
in note 6:
...eyes prevent them from seeing anything but ugliness or evil. The boy Kay falls under the spell of the snow...
in note 9:
...hoog van de Alpen neer.) Van Gogh’s version (or the version his father had once sent him – see...
in textual note 217:
rentrés < entrés Corresponding to the original text.
095 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, between Monday, 23 and on or about Wednesday, 25 October 1876.
in title:
095 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, between Monday, 23 and on or about Wednesday, 25 October 1876.
in date note:
...23 October. We have therefore dated it to between Monday, 23 and on or about Wednesday, 25 October 1876.
in note 22:
...question was perhaps Mr Hicks, who is mentioned a number of times in the Minutes of Resolutions of the...
in note 31:
...editions of Camphuysen’s poetry, including Stichtelijcke rijmen (Edifying verses), but Van Gogh was likely referring to a later version – whether or not adapted �� or else quoting from memory. See Stichtelijcke rijmen. Rotterdam 1655, part 1, p. 412. It is not clear whether the variant last line, based on hymn 20:9...
096 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Friday, 3 November 1876.
in original text:
...that all of us have such things in our hearts or forebodings of such things.─ There is sorrow in...
...they may beam with Gods spirit. The hair turns grey or we loose it ─ ah ─ indeed we only pass...
...on the sea of our lives. Does not everyone of you feel with me the storms of life or their forebodings or their recollections? And now let us read a description of another storm at sea in the New...
...So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea...
...we shall hear His voice, It is I, be not afraid.─ And if after an hour or season of anguish or distress or great difficulty or pain or sorrow we hear Him ask us “Dost Thou love me” then let us...
...early days at home, and since we left that home ─ for many of us have had to leave that home and...
...constrain us. Entreat us not to leave Thee or to refrain from following after Thee. Thy people...
...and gold and purple. The landscape is a plain or heath covered with grass and heather, here and...
in translation:
...nd Van Iterson and if you should see someone or other whom I know. Your brother was indeed moved...
...that all of us have such things in our hearts or forebodings of such things. There is sorrow in the...
...they may beam with Gods spirit. The hair turns grey or we loose it – ah – indeed we only pass...
...on the sea of our lives. Does not everyone of you feel with me the storms of life or their forebodings or their recollections? And now let us read a description of another storm at sea in the New...
...So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea...
...if after an hour or season of anguish or distress or great difficulty or pain or sorrow we hear Him...
...early days at home, and since we left that home – for many of us have had to leave that home and...
...constrain us. Entreat us not to leave Thee or to refrain from following after Thee. Thy people...
...and gold and purple. The landscape is a plain or heath covered with grass and heather, here and...
in arrangement:
...editions have included it as a separate document, or as a letter in its own right, numbered separately...
in note 17:
...In his sermon, Van Gogh referred to this image a number of times. Cf. also his appreciation for the book...
in note 43:
...from the first verse of hymn 196 by Peter Willkims or Peter Williams: ‘Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer...
in textual note 251:
page number ‘4’ omitted
in textual note 295:
page number ‘5’ omitted
in textual note 329:
page number ‘6’ omitted
097 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Friday, 10 November 1876.
in translation:
...t have it easy here and she couldn’t stand it any longer – indeed, everyone, richer or poorer, stronger or weaker, has moments when he can go no further, when ‘all these things seem to be...
in note 9:
...looking hard for a position as an assistant teacher or something similar and am very busy. I hope so much...
in note 12:
...ashes on one’s head’ is a sign of mourning or humiliation. Cf. 2 Sam. 13:19, where Tamar puts...
098 To Theodorus van Gogh and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Isleworth, Friday, 17 and Saturday, 18 November 1876.
in translation:
...to the boys: I do so every day until 1 o’clock, and then after 1 o’clock I usually have to go out for Mr Jones, or sometimes also teach Mr Jones’s children or a couple of boys in town. And then in the evening...
...yet what I’ll talk about, the prodigal son or Ps. 42:1. Mornings and evenings Sunday school at...
099 To Theo van Gogh. Isleworth, Saturday, 25 November 1876.
in translation:
...a surprisingly muddy road over a kind of embankment or rise on the hill covered with gnarled elm...
...me. At Mr Obach’s I saw the painting, or rather the sketch, by Boughton: the pilgrim’s progress...
100 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Sunday, 31 December 1876.
in translation:
...so far away from one another in cases of illness or anxiety, as we felt, for example, during your...
in note 4:
...without intercession or mediation: ‘You can understand that we positively recognize it as a ray of light from above and the answer to our prayers. By no means did we or anyone else, Uncle Cent included...
in note 10:
...already knew Vincent’s new address in Dordrecht or that he could send his letters in care of the...
101 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Sunday, 21 January 1877.
in note 6:
...with the cloak of love), meaning to keep silent about something or to explain it away out of mercy.
in note 14:
...View of a beach in Holland with a storm approaching or Hilly landscape with cloudy sky (Dordrecht...
in note 24:
...Katholieke Illustratie’ at ’s-Hertogenbosch. It was eight pages long and every issue contained a number of illustrations. One could buy an annual subscription through a bookseller or the publisher of the magazine, which was sent to subscribers weekly or collected monthly from a bookshop; the price was 7 cents per week or 30 cents per month. See Hemels and Vegt 1993, pp. 262-267; and L.A.C. Jentjes, Van strijdorgaan tot...
in note 25:
...The series’ sequel also contained a number of illustrations by Doré, hence Van Gogh’s...
in note 26:
...assistant schoolmaster in Dordrecht. For Görlitz’s recollections of his contact with Van Gogh, see...
in note 29:
...conducted by ministers professing the ethical or modern movement, to which group Keller van Hoorn...
102 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Wednesday, 7 and Thursday, 8 February 1877.
in translation:
...this a feeling that one ought to avoid and repress, or it is rather ‘the godly sorrow’ that one...
...road with the beech trees – O Jerusalem Jerusalem! or rather O Zundert O Zundert! Who knows but...
...in Him who is able to do above all that we ask or think – who can say to what heights grace can...
...is why they have to keep them for another week or so. You’ll get them back as soon as possible...
in note 4:
...to May 1877. They sometimes had as many as four or five lodgers at a time. See Verzamelde brieven 1973...
103 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Monday, 26 February 1877.
in original text:
...beneath the sky.– There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars And the first...
in translation:
...down beneath the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars And the...
...worth. For who is closer than thy Father In Heaven or on earth? And He passed through the midst of...
104 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Wednesday, 28 February 1877.
in translation:
...one saw was a little light here and there in one or two upstairs rooms and, in the snow, the black...
...the stars that Thou bringest out their host by number and that Thou callest all by name. We love...
...our heart is burning within us when we read them or when we are mindful of them. We quake at Thy...
...Thou alone art able to do above all that we ask or think, and if mercy is shown us, who can say to...
...this life without having professed openly in one way or other our Love of Thee. O Lord, join us...
...us not go before giving us Thy blessing, not now or ever. Amen, yea, Amen. Psalm 42 As the hart...
in arrangement:
...Vincent says he has enclosed something ‘for us’ (l. 5). Cf. also n. 2. Powers Erickson 1992...
in note 96:
Biblical, meaning: ‘holiness�� or ‘sanctification’.
105 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, on or about Tuesday, 6 March 1877.
in title:
105 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, on or about Tuesday, 6 March 1877.
in date note:
...that this note was a postscript to letter 103 or 104, since both of these letters already had texts...
106 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Thursday, 8 March 1877.
in original text:
...qui ne permettra point que vous soyez tenté au-dessus de vos forces, mais avec la tentation Il donnera...
107 To Cornelis Marinus van Gogh. Dordrecht, Thursday, 8 March 1877.
in translation:
...the afternoon or evening.
in note 2:
...refers to the sales trip intended to promote Goupil’s new prints and editions (the so-called nouveautés).
108 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Friday, 16 March 1877.
in translation:
...sad and alone, especially when I walk around a church or a parsonage. ‘A poor man in the kingdom...
...leave this life without having given evidence in one way or other of your love for Christ’, says...
in note 4:
...or God everywhere: a new Christmas story). This 32-page book cost 0.25 guilders. Another edition is Het kerstfeest aan de pool, of God overal. Een nieuw kersverhaal, translated from the French by J.P. Hasebroek, Utrecht n.d. [possibly 1873]. The original title was Noël au Pôle ou Dieu partout: quelques pages pour les enfants. Lausanne 1864 (Christmas at the Pole or God everywhere: a few pages for children). This edifying children’s book tells the story of the crew of a ship stranded on the North Pole. Several members of the crew have already died, and the morale and faith of the survivors is seriously weakened. By putting up a Christmas tree, the crew’s leader manages to restore trust and faith in Christ...
in note 18:
Based on the chapter ‘La vérité nous enseigne’ (The truth teaches us) in Thomas a Kempis, L’imitation...
109 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Friday, 23 March 1877.
in translation:
...of them whom I name – the more, the better – for behold, that old wine is good and I desire not...
...and who is able to do above all that we ask or think, for His ways are higher than our ways and His...
111 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Sunday, 15 April 1877.
in translation:
...who is closer than thy Father, is he nearer In Heaven or on earth? By all means go there again if...
in date note:
...22 and 23 April (letter 112) helps to clarify a number of things: for example, the remark about the books...
in note 2:
...Thoré (under the pseudonym of W. Bürger), Musées de la Hollande, ii. Musée Van der Hoop, à Amsterdam...
in note 4:
Theo had given Vincent a number of prints. See letter 109.
in note 12:
...heard nothing more from Amsterdam from Uncle Cor or Uncle Stricker, whom we long to hear from. This...
in note 17:
...suggests that the letter to Theo contained one or more of the flowers that Görlitz had brought back...
112 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Sunday, 22 and Monday, 23 April 1877.
in original text:
...artist.─ Het 1o boek van Burger, Musées, heb ik zelf nog.─ Nu Theo, heb een goeden Zondag van daag. Als ik naar Amsterdam ga hoop ik U nog te zien.─ Voor een “zaaijer des woords” zoo als...
in translation:
...I still have the first book by Bürger, Musées. Now, Theo, have a nice Sunday today. I hope to...
in note 11:
...sc.’, is ‘Furne, Pagnerre, Perrotin, Éditeurs’. See 12th edition. Paris 1844, between pp...
in note 20:
See letter 111 concerning Görlitz’s application for this position.
in note 24:
...writing under the pseudonym W. Bürger), Musées de la Hollande, i. Amsterdam et La Haye; Vincent had...
113 To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Monday, 30 April 1877.
in original text:
...ik dus te Etten. Hebt gij de Plancy, Légendes des artistes met houtsneden naar Rochussen, dat hoop...
in translation:
...be in Etten. Do you have De Plancy, Légendes des artistes, with woodcuts after Rochussen? I hope...
in note 17:
Jacques Albin Simon Collin de Plancy, Légendes des artistes. Dessins-croquis de C. Rochussen. The Hague...
RM11 Prose passage copied from ‘Scheveningen’ by Henri Alphonse Esquiros. Probably May 1877.
in original text:
...Scheveningen Les côtes de la Hollande sont masquées par des chaînes de dunes qui dérobent au...
...vents éternels et comme peuplée de monstres. La verité est que ses côtes sont tempêteuses, sa...
...pour les fusées et les chandelles romaines; mais ici la vulgarité de ces fêtes se relevait par...
...son fracas sublime, à ces nuages déchirés, aux catastrophes trop réelles dont l’imagination...
...tte grande rue, ces bains, ces cafés, ces hôtels, tout cela n’est pourtant point Scheveningen...
...eux, jouent à travers toute cette detresse, comme si c’était un des priviléges de leur âge...
...pêcheurs sont reformés. Il y a pour le village deux ecoles de l’état que nous avons visitées...
...qui respire un air de santé, des yeux bleus dont les paupières sont peu ouvertes, et des membres...
...des traits physiques, ces caractères de race qui se conservent par le soin qu’ont les garçons...
...qui transforment la nature vivante et les destinées humaines, il oppose, lui, sa mobile stabilit...
in translation:
...the mouth of the Maas and Den Helder, a number of fishing villages. The most interesting of these...
...of effects found on other shores. A fishing fleet, whose smacks are beached on the sand, or riding at anchor, or scattered out at sea like the thoughts of the sea’s brain, associates the image of...
...of a ship. I am not especially fond of rockets or Roman candles, but in this case the vulgarity of...
...majesty. And yet this main street, these baths, these cafés, these hotels – all of that is not...
...In the winter, they wear a bodice of serge or calico, a brown serge skirt, a long cape of the same...
...like a boat, enables them to hold up to three or four baskets on their heads. These women are tall...
...on their religious beliefs. As we have seen, all, or almost all, of the fishermen of the coast are...
114 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Saturday, 19 May 1877.
in translation:
...be starting General History from the book by Streckfuss, or rather, I’ve already started it. It...
...took only forty years of work, thought and care.’ For the work of men like Pa and the Rev. Keller...
...into that of the mean as well as that of the mighty, into that of Aertsen as well as that of Pa or Uncle Jan or Uncle Cor — Rembrandt, Millet, Bosboom and how many others experienced the same thing. Yes, we can observe it, or at least traces of it, in nearly everyone, to a greater or lesser extent. He is not far from every one of us. Is Mrs Tersteeg continuing to do well, and have you already...
in note 10:
...in ’t leven (Winter, in life, too) by Jozef Israëls, in Kunstkronijk 4 (1863), NS, no. 17. Also included...
in note 22:
...for 12,000 francs. In Corot’s words: ‘the buyer was so pleased to have it that he gave a party for its unveiling. I was graciously invited and showered with kindnesses… And yet, it was the same thing as before, when nobody wanted it; I’m doing the same sort of thing at present, but one has come to accept it, and that has taken only forty years’ work. It is not I who have changed, but the consistency of my principles that has triumphed, and I am overjoyed!’ (l’acquéreur était si heureux de l’avoir qu’il donna une fête pour son inauguration. J’y fus convié gracieusement et comblé de gentillesses...C’était pourtant la même chose qu’autrefois quand on n’en voulait pas, à présent je fais encore de même, seulement on y est venu, et il n’a fallu pour cela que quarante ans de travail. Ce n’est pas moi qui ai changé, mais bien la constance de mes principes qui a triomphé, et je nage dans le bonheur!) See Dumesnil 1875, p. 52...
in note 42:
...to the Oude Kerk (De Nederlands Hervormde Kerk, or Dutch Reformed Church) in Keizerstraat; the Badkapel...
in note 43:
...exactly which portrait Van Gogh saw, since a number of portraits of Michelet were in circulation...
115 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 21 and Tuesday, 22 May 1877.
in translation:
...in brotherly fashion. You’ll receive them in a day or two as ‘samples without value’, because...
...rooms, there is nothing hanging like Christus Consolator or Ecce Homo. The latter is hanging in...
...evenings, when I’ve finished my work for the day, or early in the morning – after all, that’s...
...that when I walk the streets of The Hague or Zundert, for example, I shan’t easily forget that...
...ones. Now, Theo, give my regards to one person or another you might see, write soon, I wish you the...
in note 12:
The Jewish cemetery (the ‘Hoogduitsche Joden-Kerkhof’, or High German Jewish Cemetery) near Zeeburgerdijk (now called Flevoweg).
in note 16:
...referred to as Kee Vos) in 1872; Kee was a daughter of J.P. Stricker and W.C.G. Carbentus, referred to as ‘Uncle Stricker’ (or ‘J.P.S.’) and ‘Aunt Mina’. Christoffel Vos suffered from tuberculosis.
in note 18:
...or, The vicar’s daughter. A tale. London 1824 (London, British Library). This anonymous engraving was made in the style of Thomas Stotthard. Another possibility is The vicar’s daughter by George Dunlop Leslie, after which a woodcut was published in the Christmas number of The Illustrated London News in 1878 (p. 24). There are steel-plate engravings after Leslie’s work, such as News from the war (1877); perhaps there was also one of The vicar’s daughter...
in note 19:
...songs that have the word Abendglocke(n) or Abendglöcklein (Evening bell) in the title or in the first line. Eleven of them became known through popular literature or were passed on by word of mouth. The one most likely intended here is the folk song Die Abendglocke (also Die Abendglöcklein), known from 1825 and set to music by Friedrich Silcher. Not only is it included in a number of songbooks and pamphlets (by 1877 it had...
in note 24:
...think one has to look at this print in silence, or at least one mustn’t speak loudly, for fear of...
116 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 28 May 1877.
in translation:
...and heard a sermon on Isaiah 55:8 and 9, ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your...
...as’ after Rembrandt, a small engraving, for six cents. Uncle Jan sends you many regards, write him a word or two, or else write a sentence in a letter to me that I can read to him to thank him for...
in note 9:
...estate) (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. p109) or after The archangel Raphael leaving Tobias, of which...
117 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Wednesday, 30 May 1877.
in translation:
...on his way – there is nothing else he may or can do – and when he arrives at the...
in note 24:
...was either Cornelia Aertsen, born on 15 April 1837, or Adriana Aertsen, born on 3 March 1851...
118 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Thursday, 31 May 1877.
in original text:
...par des réfugiés français, qui, après la Saint Barthelemy et après la revocation de...
...jours d’octobre ils furent attaqués et cernés par les Espagnols. Le prince d’Orange...
...l’ecorce des arbres, le poil des bêtes tuées et devorées depuis longtemps, la terre même...
...t ebranlés. L’ennemi, au contraire, quoique chassé de quelques positions avancées par...
...s violentes et continues, qui, dans les temps ordinaires, causent de si vives inquiétudes...
...e sur les côtes. La mer, n’étant plus retenue, elargit les brèches déjà pratiquées...
...place forte, aujourd’hui dechirés par les lézardes, percés de maisons neuves qui s’encadrent...
...repoussés à deux reprises et après sept mois d’hostilités infructueuses, après...
...t encombrés de malades et de mourants. Les amis des assiégés essayèrent à plusieurs...
...s, les victimes qui restaient dans les prisons furent liées deux à deux et jetées dans...
in translation:
...one meets with there, there’s also much that I hate �� or at least don’t love as much as the...
...16,000 residents who closed up the citadel, six or seven thousand perished. All that was to be seen...
...the mouth of the Maas and Den Helder, a number of fishing villages. The most interesting of these...
...fleet, whose smacks are beached on the sand, or riding at anchor, or scattered out at sea like the...
...And yet the main street, the baths, the cafés, the hotels – all of that is not Scheveningen...
...In the winter, they wear a bodice of serge or calico, a brown serge skirt, a long cape of the same...
...like a boat, enables them to hold up to three or four baskets on their heads. These women are tall...
...round faces, short necks, usually brown or curly hair. Their great treasures are their shirt-buttons and the silver buckles which they attach to their feet or their belts. This conservatism in their...
...on their religious beliefs. As we have seen, all, or almost all, of the fishermen of the coast are...
119 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 4 and Tuesday, 5 June 1877.
in original text:
...dans toutes vos adversités! Qu’Il égale vos forces aux grandes choses que le Très Haut vous a...
...de ces profondes forêts, luxe de la terre cher à la race Saxonne. Les chênes séculaires de son...
...daims apprivoisés. Des portes étroites, basses, cintrées en ogives, semblables à des ouvertures...
...donnent accès à des souterrains, à des corps de garde, à des salles voûtées, tapissées de...
...les médecins appelés de Londres l’attribuèrent à l’air marécageux des bords mal endigués...
...jour et nuit, font assister à toutes ses pensées et à toutes ses paroles. Les paroles de cette...
...secrète des républicains. Ludlow assura Richard qu’il n’était venu à Londres que pour une...
...nt des lèvres du protecteur mourant et les transmit longtemps après à l’histoire: Seigneur, je...
...quelque bien ici-bas et de quelques services à mes frères. Beaucoup d’entre eux ont eu de moi...
...Des toits furent emportés, des arbres séculaires d’Hyde Park déracinés et balayés sur le sol...
in translation:
...and the lights from the windows. You spoke then (or rather it was that Sunday when you arrived...
...Amstelkerk that you know on 2 Cor. 4:18b, ‘for the things which are seen are temporal; but the...
...space around kings, whether out of respect or terror. Hampton Court was Cromwell’s favourite...
...said during his long illness have been misrepresented or interpreted a thousand times, at the will of those who had reason to seek revenge for his life or to enhance their own position through his...
...repeat this act; but he showed either indifference or repugnance towards doing so. At last, when he...
...nor envy upon themselves through their arrogance or their pride. The mutual tenderness, and the...
...a moment later, but I have loved God, praised God, or rather, I am beloved of God! There was a...
...sleeplessness, he was asked if he wished to drink or to sleep. Neither to drink nor to sleep now...
in additional details:
...side (ll. 53 ff.). The next day Van Gogh added a number of lines to the letter part (ll. 41b-52). He later...
in note 4:
...and 1859), in Lamartine’s Oeuvres complètes (1863) and as a separate work, one such edition being...
in note 16:
...number of differences between Van Gogh’s copy and Lamartine’s text as it appears in the sources consulted. The following differences are the most striking with respect to the 1864 Paris edition (in which the text appears on pp. 8-9, 211-214, 235-236, 242-243, 245-257): l. 56 une contrée ingrate et triste sort la foi vivre, ardente et profonde ] des contrées ingrates et tristes (p. 9) l. 114 maladie ] agonie (p. 246) l. 178 capitaine ] républica in (p. 252) l. 201 repos ] paix (p. 254) l. 205 nuit d’agonie ] nuit (p. 255) l. 216 herbe ] paille (p. 256) Van Gogh’s copy of the text is a combination of a passage from the beginning and parts from the end of the book. Van Gogh added ‘Jeunesse de Cromwell’ as a title for the passages he copied...
120 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Tuesday, 12 June 1877.
in original text:
...un jeune l’autre âgé, mais robuste encore, appuyés contre une barque de pêcheur, attendaient...
...d’écume blanche. Le vieillard près du gouvernail regardait les voiles qui tantôt s’enflaient, tantot s’affaissaient comme des ailes fatiguées. Son regard alors semblait chercher un signe à l’horizon et dans les nuées stagnantes. Puis retombant dans ses pensées on lisait sur son front...
...jet de lumière, variait l’aspect de ces scènes changeantes. Le jeune homme replié en soi, les...
...bois, au pêcheur la mer et ses flots, et ses récifs et ses orages. Le ciel au-dessus de sa tête...
...bleues, jaunes, pourprées, éclosent en leur sein, et pour charmer ses regards, les nuages lui offrent de vastes plages, de beaux lacs azurés, de larges fleuves, et des montagnes et des vallées et des villes fantastiques tantôt plongées dans l’ombre, tantôt illuminées de toutes les...
...le tourbillon dans les ténèbres vers les écueils où l’on entend les plaintes des trépassés...
in translation:
...today I again saw a corner for Thijs Maris or Allebé, namely houses behind the Oosterkerk, on a...
...the depths of the waters. He has flocks beyond number which grow fat for him in pastures covered by...
...words. How is Mrs Tersteeg? If you run into Mauve or go to see him, give him my regards, also to...
...best, if you ever go to the Scheveningen Bosjes or to the beach, give them my regards. When you...
in note 2:
...what can be done. Do not therefore act hastily or rashly, I’ll take the subject up with Uncle again...
in note 24:
...on to live life assertively. In the Oeuvres complètes titled ‘Bahman à Schahriver’ (chapter 53). Ed...
in note 27:
Van Gogh is referring to Nieuwendam or Schellingwou, to the north-east across the River IJ.
in note 29:
...Winter (Old age), 1836 (Stuttgart, Württembergisches Landesmuseum). This was the fourth marble relief in...
in note 32:
...see letter 4, n. 3. In June, apparently, a number of rooms were closed, including the one with...
121 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 9 July 1877.
in translation:
...is it coming along? Give my regards to your housemates and if someone or other should ask after me.
in note 2:
...May 1875 and March 1876 – Van Gogh copied a number of pages from Ten Kate’s translation. See Pabst...
122 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Sunday, 15 July 1877.
in original text:
...Oom Stricker in de Oude Zijds kapel over de woorden “Wacht u voor den zuurdeessem der Pharizeërs en der Saduceërs”, n.l. waarschuwing tegen het al te veel hechten aan uitwendige vormen en plegtigheden zonder...
in translation:
...one of the heart of London, like Booksellers’ Row or some such place. May it be granted me in...
in note 1:
...minister Gerrit Jan Vos Adr.zn. in the Noorderkerk or the sermon preached by Theodorus Matthijs Looman in...
in note 6:
...Street in London (near the Strand), where a large number of booksellers and publishers were concentrated...
in note 7:
...fact become an architect. The other one (‘attending the gymnasium here’) could have been Reinier or Willem or even Leonard. From letter 136 it emerges that in December Reinier was undergoing training in Den...
in note 16:
...Harper’ had been the head of a London bookshop or that the character in the novel had been patterned...
123 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Friday, 27 July 1877.
in translation:
...more oppressive than a walk on the beach or in the Brabant wheatfields, which will certainly be...
...let all the members be glad with her. Next week, or perhaps even tomorrow, Uncle and Aunt Pompe are...
...on a sermon on ‘He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good’, or on ‘Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light’, or on ‘It is a good thing to praise the Lord in the morning’ and ‘It is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun’ – I hope so. All the same, it seems that the sun never shines so beautifully as it does in a parsonage or in a church. It’s wonderful to work on ‘the writings’ early in the morning. If you...
in note 15:
...one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with...
124 To Hermanus Gijsbertus Tersteeg. Amsterdam, Friday, 3 August 1877.
in original text:
...God der heirscharen, want de kinderen Israëls hebben uw verbond verlaten, Uwe altaren afgebroken...
in translation:
...the words fell from his lips as the snow or the rain cometh down from heaven, one thing followed...
125 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Friday, 3 August 1877.
in original text:
...fois, à d’autre temps il avait quelque chose soit de très décidé ou d’ému et d’agité. A...
...l’on craint Dieu et où l’on exerce l’hospitalité mais il n’y est plus et vous le chercheriez inutilement, il est parti pour Ithaque, si les Dieux irrités souffrent enfin qu’il puisse revoir ses Dieux pénates.─ Télémaque le regardait fixement, plus il le regardait, plus il était...
...Il s’en va tout droit à Ithaque, déjà il est bien près du port et il revoit enfin ces lieux si longtemps desirés. Vos yeux l’ont vu mais sans le connaître, bientôt vous le verrez et vous...
...hors d’Ithaque. Son coeur n’a pas été moins ému que le vôtre, il est trop sage pour se...
...té, et ne dit jamais rien qui la blesse, mais il ne la dit que pour le besoin et la sagesse comme un sceau tient toujours ses lèvres fermées à toutes paroles inutiles. Combien a-t-il été emu en vous parlant! combien s’est il fait de violence pour ne point se decouvrir! que n’a-t-il point...
in translation:
...others he had something that was either very determined or excited and agitated. At first he hardly...
...receive me well; he hardly deigned to listen to me, or to reply. And so Mentor said to him, I am...
in note 12:
...presumably to Deut. 23:24, Deut. 24:21, Isa. 5:4 or Rev. 14:18-19. He could have become familiar with...
in note 20:
...François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon, a narrative in the form of a heroic poem, is the story of a wise tutor and his obedient pupil. It is, in the words of Fénelon, ‘a useful teacher of morals’. The adventure story, which went through numerous editions and translations, was a sequel to the fourth book of Homer’s Odyssey and can be seen as one long moral and spiritual odyssey: Mentor guides and directs Telemachus towards a moral victory, whereby Simplicity and Naturalness are the most important virtues, the message being that through suffering one learns to be compassionate. See James Herbert Davis, Fénelon. Boston 1979, pp. 90-111. In the passage from Les aventures de Télémaque that Van Gogh quotes –with a few adaptations and modifications, such as changing the heathen ‘Jupiter’ into ‘Dieu’), Mentor draws Telemachus’ attention to the wisdom of his father, Odysseus, and explains to him Odysseus’ taciturn and despondent nature. See Fénelon 1995, pp. 399, 405-406 (book 18...
in note 21:
The source text has ‘apaisés’ (reassured).
126 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Sunday, 5 August 1877.
in original text:
...pas, car leurs enfants dès leur plus tendre jeunesse, commencent à les secourir. Les plus jeunes conduisent les moutons dans les pâturages, les autres qui sont plus grand mènent déjà les grands troupeaux, les plus agés labourent avec leur père. Cependant la mère de toute la famille prépare un repas simple à son époux et à ses chers enfants, qui doivent revenir fatigués du travail de la journée; elle a soin de traire ses vaches et ses brebis et on voit couler des ruisseaux de lait; elle fait un grand feu: autour duquel toute la famille innocente et paisible prend plaisir à chanter tout le soir, en attendant le doux sommeil, elle prépare des fromages, des châtaignes et des fruits conservés dans la meme fraîcheur que si on venait de les cueillir. Le berger revient avec sa flûte, et chante à la famille assemblée les chansons qu’il a apprises dans les hameaux voisins. Le laboureur rentre avec sa charrue et ses boeufs fatigués marchent, le cou penché, d’un pas...
in translation:
...if you can find the words to cheer her up or give her courage and remind her what important reasons...
in note 7:
...intention. It is not the same thing, going to Baarn or going to see you, but it’s possible he’ll shrink...
in note 13:
...away like that’ (FR b2561, 6 October 1877). ‘Poor Caroline Haanebeek. She wrote such a sweet letter...
in note 26:
...by the Rev. J.P. Hasebroek in the Noorderkerk or the service taken by the Rev. Ph.J. Hoedemaker in...
in note 27:
Charles-François Daubigny, Le pont Marie (The Marie bridge). Lithograph by Emile Louis Vernier, 1870 (Bordeaux, Musée Goupil). Ill. 1844. Which woodcut (or rather wood engraving) Van Gogh is referring to here has...
in note 28:
...96 was the printing house of De Roever-Kröber-Bakels (UBA, Bibliotheek van de Koninklijke Vereniging ter...
in note 30:
...the book. Bij brood en beker is a ‘guide’ for families wishing to celebrate the Lord’s Supper...
in note 33:
...departures from the source text) from Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque (The adventures of...
127 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Saturday, 18 August 1877.
in original text:
...que les ans, Gemissant et courbé, marchait à pas pesants, Et tâchait de gagner sa chaumière...
...de repos, Sa femme, ses enfants, les soldats, les impôts, Le créancier et la corvée, Lui font...
...guère Le trépas vient tout guérir Mais ne bougeons d’où nous sommes Plutôt souffrir que...
...enfants, leur parla sans témoins Gardez vous, leur dit-il, de vendre l’héritage Que nous ont laissé nos parents Un trésor est caché dedans.─ Je ne sais pas l’endroit, mais un peu de courage Vous le fera trouver, vous en viendrez à bout Remuez votre champ dès qu’on aura fait l’août...
...Il en rapporta davantage D’argent point de caché, mais le Père fut sage De leur montrer avant...
...n’auriez pas tant à souffrir; Je vous défendrais de l’orage Mais vous naissez le plus souvent...
...s Resisté sans courber le dos Mais attendons la fin, comme il disait ces mots Du bout de l’horizon accourt avec furie Le plus terrible des enfants Que le Nord eût portés jusque là dans ses...
in translation:
...or two and didn’t seem dissatisfied. In everything I often think of the words in Acts, ‘we came’, we too must simply go on walking, try to get ahead, looking forward step by step to the goal and keeping it in sight, and when we have made an effort for a while in that way, ‘striving on’, as Uncle Jan says, then we notice through one thing or another that we’ve come a long way...
...look at them often, to see whether one might find it or something of it. Did I write to you that I...
...Mendes, and so work on it late in the evening or, for example, today until late at night and in the...
in note 3:
...number of portraits of Ludwig Uhland are known, including the one by C. Schuler in Gedichte (1842) and a youthful likeness of 1818, made by ‘Worff’, which appeared in the front of Uhlands Tagebuch of 1898, after which engravings or etchings had no doubt previously been made...
in note 5:
There were a number of portrait prints of Dickens in circulation, including the etching made by H.K. Browne...
in note 6:
A number of portraits of J.J.L. ten Kate were known, including engravings by J.P. de Lange and D.J. Sluyter...
in note 12:
...there is no explicit mention of suicide, dry bread or beer in Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby...
in note 24:
...from Oliver Goldsmith, She stoops to conquer, or the mistakes of a night (London 1773), one of...
128 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 27 August 1877.
in original text:
...Pa, zij had het druk doordien er zooveel logés waren, maar scheen zeer gelukkig te zijn en Moe is...
...verlang zoo naar U, kom maar spoedig met de nouveautés en zie het zoo te schikken wij eenigen tijd...
...Gij ooit gelezen “A life for a life” door de schrijfster van John Halifax, kunt Gij dat eens...
in translation:
...to speak well on the ‘sycamore trees’ and the Mount of Olives and, for example, on a text like ‘bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance and reform’, or ‘godly sorrow worketh a choice of salvation not to be repented of’, or on Zacchaeus. You surely understand what I mean, one can tell where his heart and thoughts always are and of what mind he is; when one looks at him one...
...hearts, our desires and our minds on one good thing or another, for life, and ask that of the Lord...
...I long for you so, do come soon with the nouveautés, and make sure to arrange it so that we can...
...hear one of the ministers like the Rev. Laurillard or Uncle Stricker. Do try to arrange it. I don...
in note 2:
Charles François Jalabert, Christ walking on the waves. The price mentioned means that Vincent must be...
in note 5:
...have been caused by mistaking the Bible’s place reference (the letter ‘a’) for a verse reference.
in note 18:
...the sales trips for Goupil, to present the new editions (nouveautés) to potential customers (see l. 78).
in note 38:
...to his teacher M.B. Mendes da Costa in 1877 or 1878. He copied out biblical texts, some of them in...
129 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Tuesday, 4 September 1877.
in original text:
...Ben voorts bezig om l’Imitation de Jésus Christ geheel over te schrijven, van eene Fransche...
...hoofd te krijgen. Ook heb ik Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres maar weer eens gekocht (voor 40cts ben ik...
...et is een eigenaardig boek, dat van Thomas à Kempis, daar zijn woorden zoo diep en ernstig dat men...
...er in Thomas à Kempis en dat is het wat men doen moet en niet opgeven, ook niet als men schrikt van al het verkeerde dat in ons is dat ons teregt doet zeggen, ik alleen heb deze ellende over mij zelven en anderen gebragt ─ juist wie zoo gestemd is ─ voor dien is het tijd, dat is “the very man”. Voor zulken is er geschreven “gij lieden moet wederom geboren worden”. Voor zulken zal het...
in translation:
...copying out the whole of L’imitation de Jésus Christ from a French edition I’ve borrowed from...
...of it into my head. I also bought Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres again (I got it for 40 cents), I feel...
...good and thought to have found something of it – for God, too, is the same as He was in the...
...who feels that, for him it is time, that is ‘the very man’. For such people it is written ‘Ye must be born again’. For such people the word of the Lord shall be a lamp and He himself through...
...homes and in their families, and then you will say or at least think of the man who beheld a mote...
...It was a pleasant evening, he asked a thing or two about London, about which I could tell quite a...
...him at home on winter evenings, very good, Israëls would have liked it, the congregation was made...
...family, 6 or 7 children, his wife has something indescribable – something of Ma �� or of the...
...so when we saw the paintings of Michel and others or talked of ‘many things’. Yes, it wouldn...
in note 5:
For Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres, see letter 85, n. 18.
in note 50:
...1886-1891, vol. 5, p. 107. Van Gogh wrote ‘one hour’ (l. 169) where Longfellow has ‘for one hour’.
130 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Friday, 7 September 1877.
in original text:
...the pilgrims progress, dat is eene aanwinst evenals Bossuet, Oraison funèbres die ik onlangs zeer goedkoop heb gekocht en de Imitation van Th. à Kempis in het Latijn die ik van Vos kreeg en die ik...
...Hij vertelde mij dat Gij zeker de reis met de nouveautés zult doen en wel over een week of 4, dan...
in translation:
...that is an asset, as is Bossuet, Oraison funèbres, which I recently bought very cheaply, and The...
...one must make a choice about life, have chosen for their part ‘the love of Christ and poverty’, or rather ‘give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with bread convenient for me’. The time...
...that you will certainly make the trip with the nouveautés, probably in about 4 weeks’ time, so I...
in note 14:
For the purchase of Bossuet’s Oraisons funèbres, see letter 129; regarding Bunyan’s The pilgrim’s...
131 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Tuesday, 18 September 1877.
in translation:
...travels at night, carrying a lantern, to a sick or dying person, for example, to speak to him about...
...wakes from time to time and asks his mother for this or that, it’s an idyll, but they also know...
...streets: or ever the silver bowl be loosed, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall turn unto God Who gave it.’ For whatsoever a...
...this subject in the spirit of Michelet or Rückert, or as many have also painted it, including...
...on the water, namely a barge with arrack or something similar. Was with Uncle on the Wassenaar...
...when two or three are gathered together in harmony of mind, and like the scribes bring forth out of their treasure old and new things just like a householder. Blessed twilight when two or three are...
...is in the room busy with something or other, stirring up the fire or something like that, if I...
...had come here the previous evening from Utrecht – for Nieuwediep to say goodbye to them on board...
in note 7:
...by old masters, including 25 drawings attributed at that time to Rembrandt; a number of those attributions have now been revised or cast into doubt. See cat. Amsterdam 1863 and Broos 1981, pp. 7-12. The collection...
in note 24:
There are no details of either Vincent’s or Theo’s visit to Antwerp, 33 km south of Zundert.
in note 25:
...which was viewed by Vosmaer and Thoré as an autograph replica by Rembrandt. See cat. Antwerp...
in note 47:
Van Gogh knew Ruipérez’s La Imitación de Jesucristo from a print; see letter 40, n. 16.
132 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Sunday, 21 October 1877.
in original text:
...herfstkleuren hebben, en ging toen naar de Engelsche kerk en hoorde eene zeer goede preek over “Take no thought (for your life) saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
...van de omwenteling zooals Les Girondins & Dernières victimes de la Terreur & Marie Antoinette van...
in translation:
...trees have the colours of autumn, and then went to the English church and heard a very good sermon on ‘Take no thought (for your life) saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or Wherewithal shall we be...
...things and places that aren’t unfamiliar to me either. Have you ever seen or read the book by Esquiros, La vie Anglaise (or L’Angleterre et la vie Anglaise?)? I haven’t, but I think it must be...
...His Excellency immediately reminded me of old Mr Goupil, or someone like Guizot. It’s good to...
in note 6:
Henri François Alphonse Esquiros, L’Angleterre et la vie anglaise. 5 vols. Paris 1859-1869. The book...
in note 10:
...of the letter took place on Saturday, 13 and/or Sunday, 14 October; the surprise of Theo’s visit...
in note 16:
François Guizot, known as a historian and statesman; cf. letter 85, n. 22.
in note 21:
...Goupil produced the photogravure Les dernières victimes de la terreur and also published a...
in note 22:
...révolutionnaire made after it by Alphonse François (Bordeaux, Musée Goupil). Ill. 760. There were also...
133 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Tuesday, 30 October 1877.
in original text:
...mij, hetzij van dien Geestelijke op Les dernières victimes de la Terreur of van dien nederigen en...
...Max, de opwekking van het dochtertje van Jaïrus & eene non in een kloostertuin, vooral het eerste...
in translation:
...shall the righteous shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father), or also when one very often has muddy boots or wet, dirty clothes. May we all at sometime enter into that kingdom which is...
...and also ‘be like an iron pillar or like an old oak tree’. It’s also good to love thorns, such as the thorn-hedges around the little English church or the roses in the cemetery, they’re so...
...cast (especially in foggy weather in the autumn, or during the dark days before Christmas), and...
...priest in The last victims of the terror or of that humble and faithful manservant one sees in ‘The women of the boarding-house’. That painting by Israëls you describe must be beautiful, I can...
in note 2:
There are a number of works by Hippolyte Adolphe Taine in which Van Gogh could have encountered passages...
in note 3:
...the Dutch Republic (1865), which was reprinted a number of times. It is possible that Van Gogh quoted from...
in note 12:
...the pietistic Protestant movements. Free-thinking or esoteric streams, which dismissed the dogma and...
in note 19:
...numerous illustrations, was translated into a number of languages, including French (1843) and English...
in note 20:
...La bergerie ou Le grand troupeau (The sheepfold or The large flock) after Charles Emile Jacque...
in note 23:
...La vie et l’oeuvre de Gustave Doré. Paris 1983, pp. 170-171. A photograph was published in...
in note 25:
...provided prints with inscriptions (cf. Verzamelde brieven 1973, vol. 1, p. 171 and vol. 4, p. 330) �� or he might have had a copy on which the text was already added (cf. the Pilgrims at Emmaus from Goupil’s...
in note 28:
...je passerai’ (I shall go), ‘toutes les années de ma vie’ (all my years) and ‘dans l’amertume...
in note 59:
Charles Frédéric Henriet, C. Daubigny et son oeuvre gravé. Paris 1875. The detailed introduction gives an overview of the career of Charles-François Daubigny as a painter and engraver. It is followed by catalogues of his etchings, his glass clichés and the works he exhibited at the Salon. The book contains nine...
in note 62:
...bookshop of J.M. Schalekamp at Haarlemmerstraat 69 or the bookshop belonging to the firm of Schalekamp...
in note 72:
François Claudius Compte-Calix’s Les amies de pension (The women of the boarding house) was included in...
in note 73:
In the autumn of 1877, Jozef Israëls, The potato harvest, 1877 (present whereabouts unknown) was on display...
in note 74:
It is not known which work by Israëls Vincent is referring to here.
in textual note 146:
...Gogh put an insertion mark after ‘gebragt’; for a better understanding of the text we inserted...
134 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 19 November 1877.
in original text:
...par les Croisés devant les murs d’Antiochie se trouverent faibles et douces comparées aux maux...
...on les garda pour boire leur sang, quelques jours après, on se vit contraint de les tuer pour se...
...infime des Croisés qui se trouvait plongeé dans cet état de dénûment, les mêmes souffrances...
...la situation pénible des Chrétiens d’Antioche.─ Quelques heures après le retour de Pierre...
...Chrétiens, révoltés des paroles altières du Chef turc. Leurs visages pâles et défaits, leurs...
...s s’étaient ranimés tout à coup, et leurs corps voûtés et amaigris s’étaient redressés...
...et on s’y prepara par des prières et des processions réligieuses.─ C’était le jour de la...
...Juillet 1099 que les Croisés se rendirent maîtres de la Cité Sainte. Près de 3 ans s’étaient...
...les yeux fixés sur les tourelles qui flanquaient les murs crénelés et dont les flèches aiguës...
...on et quelques étoiles pointaient dans l’azur comme des regards d’or. Dans une vaste cour...
in translation:
...study and practice in preaching and speaking) more or less comes down to the history, languages and...
...he were thinking about that passage from The imitation, On the monastic life, or as though he were contemplating some difficult but good work or plan, as only a soul in need can. Such work isn’t...
...Do you approve of giving it on Pa’s birthday or before then, along with some small photos of the...
...of the Count of Toulouse and a small number of soldiers from Provence, who were left behind to hold...
in note 3:
...involved in the care of the poor. See SAAm; I. van S. Mulder, Verslag van de commissie belast met het...
in note 6:
...revised in 1871-1875 and subsequently reprinted a number of times. The complete atlas comprised 90 maps...
in note 16:
...schoolbooks that were put on the market simultaneously by a number of publishers in various countries.
in note 27:
...history of England, of which there were a number of editions. See Master Humphrey’s clock and A...
135 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Saturday, 24 and Sunday, 25 November 1877.
in original text:
...dat van anderen die het ernstig opnemen zie ─ t’is een loop en strijd voor mijn leven ─ niet...
in translation:
...went into the Van Gend & Loos delivery service, or the Hollandsche Spoor, there in Dam Square, and...
...been rightly said: If you desire to learn or know anything to your advantage, then take delight in...
...Italy for Mendes, or rather two, because I also made one of Central Italy, more or less from Rome...
...reminded me of that of Landseer’s Highlander (or is the engraving called ‘The mountain top...
...just like an old, moss-covered apple tree or a rosebush from the cemetery or an elm tree with crows...
...in the gallery, a divine service, in Lapland or thereabouts, and also that one by Meyer von Bremen...
...I look at it so often, it has a stormy or thundery expression, something like the way I imagine...
...ancient Roman history I read how a raven or eagle would sometimes settle on the heads of certain...
...Pa or like Uncle Jan or Uncle Cor. God, the only One that is True, is not of yesterday or today...
...so far they haven’t had any news from him or from Mr Scheffer. Uncle wasn’t well this week, a...
in note 9:
There were a number of portrait prints of Dickens in circulation; see letter 127, n. 5.
in note 40:
Johann Georg Meyer von Bremen painted a number of domestic scenes, several of which were published by Goupil...
in note 42:
...of the portrait as having ‘a stormy or thundery expression’ suggests that he is referring...
136 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 3 and Tuesday, 4 December 1877.
in original text:
...ze, ik zie ze nog weer graag eens terug.─ t’Is een aardig gezin dat van Ds Meyes ─ maar zoo...
in translation:
...success can depend on little things. If one says or writes a wrong word in an exam it can be the cause...
...to go to Dordrecht again together the Friday or Saturday before Christmas? It’s good to benefit...
in note 21:
...from one another by three wide canals and a number of side-streets. None of the bookbinders listed...
in note 22:
...J.-L. Gérôme. Paris 1868-1870 by Charles Bargue was a series of drawing examples published by Goupil & Cie as loose leaves. Vol. 1, Modèles d’après la bosse, which consisted of 70 plates, concentrated on the drawing of plaster casts. The example of Anne of Brittany, after the sculpture by Jean Juste de Tours, came from this volume (no. 39). Ill. 527. Vol. 2, Modèles d’après les maîtres, comprised 67 drawn copies after great masters. See Chetham 1976, pp. 255, 259; and ‘Modèles et ouvrages spéciaux pour l’enseignement...
in note 25:
...of Brittany, the daughter of the last duke François ii (of Brittany), married King Charles viii, and...
in note 28:
Read: ‘indefessus (or indefessi)’. This line is quoted again in letter 143. It is not known how Mendes...
in note 34:
...modernes & aquarelles. Catalogue des cabinets importants formés par Mr. J. Wurfbain par Mr. Dr. A.W.C. Brens (Collection mise aux enchères à cause de départ) et par Mr. C.M. van Gogh (Cabinet mis en vente, le propiétaire s’étant retiré des affaires). Amsterdam (Frederik Muller & Co.), 23 February 1892, p. 3...
in note 35:
...no. 293). The others are Sacristy at Boxmeer (1850 or slightly later, ‘large watercolour’), Sacristy...
in note 38:
...perhaps supplemented by other liturgical texts or hymns), and Elisabeth received H.C. Andersen’s...
137 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Sunday, 9 December 1877.
in original text:
...Van Oom Cor ontving ik Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres in zeer goede en prettige handige uitgaaf, zeer...
...eenvoudige waarheid was en zegt dat ook Thomas à Kempis niet: als hij spreekt over zich zelven te...
...van anderen.─ Zie een man als Thomas à Kempis maar aan die dat boekske schrijft door de liefde...
...eens of dat van een Stieler of Les grands Chênes van Jules Dupré.─ Die hebben het gedaan: “la...
in translation:
...grow dizzy — but then such a familiar voice, or rather familiar handwriting, makes one feel firm...
...Cor I received Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres, in a very good and handy edition, very complete, it includes, among other things, the fine sermon about Paul on the text ‘for when I am weak, then am I...
...began to fall. Had a talk with Mendes this week, or rather last week, about ‘He who hate not...
...at a man like Thomas a Kempis, constrained by the love of Christ to write that little book, sincere and simple and true as few others were, either before or since. Or in another sphere, just take a look at the work of a Millet or that of a Stieler or The large oaks by Jules Dupré. They did it: ‘let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is...
...Christmas. So goodbye for now, if I hear nothing more from you I’ll come on Thursday or Friday, 20 or 21 December. I finally decided to hang up that page again from Bargue’s Cours de dessin, Anne...
in note 1:
...writer, painter or sculptor, and included a photograph of an art work or a facsimile of a manuscript. The issue on Frère contained a portrait and an article by Flor O’Squarr (the pseudonym of Oscar Charles Flor), ‘Édouard Frère, né a Paris en 1819’. The reverent biography stresses Frère’s perseverance in...
in note 6:
For J.B. Bossuet, Oraisons funèbres, see letter 85, n. 18.
in note 8:
...the sermon on Paul is Les oraisons funèbres de Bossuet, suivies du sermon pour la profession de...
in note 10:
...completely full of quotations, which had something or other to do with the subject, from Thomas a Kempis...
in note 16:
For Jean-François Millet, The church of Gréville, see letter 36, n. 9.
in note 18:
...The sentence preceding the quotation says: ‘For this is why so few become enlightened and inwardly...
in note 21:
Jules Dupré, Les grands chênes (The large oaks), 1844 (present whereabouts unknown). Known from a lithograph by Louis-François Français, published in Les artistes anciens et modernes. Ill. 78 Louis Marvy also made an etching after it. See Aubrun 1974, p. 91, cat. no. 162.
138 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Sunday, 30 December 1877.
in translation:
...is related to Brittany, namely Ribot, The prayer, a number of children kneeling in a corner of a...
...for instance, the most important things about the Middle Ages, or the time of the 80 Years’ War, and so on. One must hold on to what one has seen or what one knows, for it always comes in useful...
in note 9:
The motif of the sewing school was depicted by a number of artists, including Jozef Israëls: Sewing school at Katwijk (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum).
in note 10:
...which measures 18 x 24 cm, was published in the first series of Eaux-fortes modernes, publiées par la Société des Aquafortistes (September 1862), no. 5. The print, which is also known as L’école maternelle...
in note 11:
...Catalogue de ses eaux-fortes et pointes sèches. Paris 1866, p. 36, no. 11 (Alliance des Arts, no...
139 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Wednesday, 9 and Thursday, 10 January 1878.
in original text:
...meisje en een man als Parker of Th. à Kempis of zoo als die Meissonier schilderde en evenmin als...
in translation:
...s or Millet or a little old woman by E. Frère, for what does a beautiful body such as Phryné’s really matter? Animals have that too, perhaps more so than people, but animals don’t have a soul like the one that animates the people painted by Israëls or Millet or Frère, and hasn’t life been given to us to become rich in our hearts, even if our appearance suffers from it? I feel very little sympathy for that statue after Gérôme, for I see not one sign of reason in it, and a couple of hands that bear the signs of work are more beautiful than such as are seen on that statue. And much greater still is the difference between such a beautiful girl and a man like Parker or T. a Kempis or...
...for a woman or a girl who was beautiful, but I said I would have more feeling for and would prefer to be involved with one who was ugly or old or impoverished or in some way unhappy, who had acquired understanding and a soul through experience of life and trial and error, or sorrow. At C.M.’s...
in note 7:
...Monday, 7 January, when Vincent was in The Hague, or during his stay there shortly before Christmas 1877...
in note 10:
...to. Although J.H. Weissenbruch painted a number of canals with tow-paths, the depiction referred to here is most likely a print after either View of the Trekvliet (1870), or View near the Geestbrug (1868). Another...
in note 13:
...François Millet)’ (Returning from the fields (to François Millet)). See Breton 1875, pp. 51-53.
in note 14:
...no. 132 and cat. no. S.2. At the exhibition held to mark the opening of Goupil’s London branch in 1875 (see letter 29), the sculpture by Prosper d’Epinay after Gérôme’s Phryné was on display. See The Art...
140 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Sunday, 10 February 1878.
in translation:
...bringing Pa to the station and watching the train or even only the smoke for as long as it was in sight...
...3 o’clock and saw his books and heard a thing or two about his life, where he had been previously...
...I’m currently taking lessons from Uncle Stricker once or twice a week, that is a bonus. Uncle is...
in note 2:
...nouvelle avec les dessins de Gustave Doré. Tours 1866. This work was available in all kinds of...
141 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 18 and Tuesday, 19 February 1878.
in original text:
...chûte des feuilles (berger gardant son troupeau), La nuée de corbeaux, ânes dans un marecage (effet de brume), Les bûcherons, Ménagère balayant sa maison, Cour de ferme (effet de nuit) &c., ook...
in translation:
...and tell me whether you’ve added some good thing or other to your collection, do continue with it...
...me to try and make the acquaintance of a person or two. I did find it pleasant to speak French and...
...he has with Mr Braat will expire in October or November, so he is free, but also compelled by...
...has worked diligently for some years in a bookshop or similar position – is almost sure to find, after a time of searching and difficulties in London or some other large English city, a position in...
...day). I heard music in the house, so apparently something or other was going on. I left what I’d...
...what the cost. Onwards, then, because standing still or going downhill are things I’d rather not...
in note 7:
...François du Mont after a pastel by Millet (vol. 2, p. 71; ill. 284); Anes dans une plaine par la pluie (Donkeys on a plain in the rain), facsimile of a drawing by Théophile-Narcisse Chauvel after a pastel by Millet (vol. 2, p. 70; ill. 265); Le bucheron (The woodcutter), drawing by Edmond Charles Joseph Yon after a painting by Millet, engraved by George Léon Alfred Perrichon (vol. 1, p. 156; ill. 271) or Bucheron et sa femme dans le forêt: L’hiver (Woodcutter and his wife in the forest: winter), facsimile of a drawing by François du Mont after a painting by Millet (vol. 2, p. 335; ill. 1871); Ménagère balayant sa maison (Housewife sweeping her house), facsimile of a drawing by François du Mont after a painting by Millet (vol. 2, p. 359; ill. 281); and Cour de ferme: La nuit (Farmyard: Night), facsimile of a drawing by Théophile-Narcisse Chauvel after a pastel by Millet (vol. 2, p. 71; ill. 274...
in note 23:
...leanings – and the result is a greater number of mistakes in his work than before, and they were...
142 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Sunday, 3 March 1878.
in original text:
...in de stem van den een of anderen ouden dominé wiens woorden komen uit een hart dat even als dat van een...
...jetant dans le travail sans arrière pensée, qu’alors il avait fait beaucoup et s’était retrouvé plus tard fortifié et avancé dans ce qu’il s’était proposé et éclairé dans son esprit. Que cependant, même maintenant, personne n’en savait rien combien ses sermons lui coûtaient de...
...ook dat hij heeft gemaakt eene ets “les bêcheurs”, als Gij die ooit tegenkomt zult Gij die...
in translation:
...one dies, to be conscious of having done a thing or two in truth, knowing that as a result one will...
in note 3:
Charles-François Daubigny died on 19 February 1878 in Paris.
in note 8:
...n. 5. This print and his Le coup de soleil (d’après Ruysdael) (The ray of sunlight (after Ruisdael)) were...
in note 17:
Jean-François Millet, Peasant bringing in dung (Man with a wheelbarrow), 1855-1856, etching (Boston, Museum...
in note 18:
Jean-François Millet, The two diggers (Two men turning over the soil), 1855-1856, etching (New Haven, Yale...
in note 21:
...records do not show that any of them had moved away or died. See SAAm, Adresboek 1877-1878, and Groot and...
143 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Wednesday, 3 April 1878.
in original text:
Over hetgeen wij bespraken heb ik nog gedacht, en onwillekeurig dacht ik aan het woord “nous sommes aujourd’hui ce que nous étions hier”. Dat wil niet zeggen dat men moet stilstaan en niet mag trachten zich te ontwikkelen, integendeel is er een drangreden om dat wel te doen en te...
...anders) of zijn apothécaire of Les grands chênes van Dupré of de molens en zandvlakten van...
...vous souffrez dans la vie, laboureurs vous êtes bienheureux”, het zijn zulken die de teekenen...
...Nous sommes aujourd’hui ce que nous étions hier, namelijk “honnêtes hommes” maar die in het...
in translation:
...or deviate from that. They who said ‘we are today what we were yesterday’, those were honnêtes...
...and returned to his work, no longer doubting or wavering. As far as being an homme intérieur et...
...of Dickens and Michelet? And couldn’t one learn something from the work of the likes of Rembrandt or from Weeds by Breton, or The four times of the day by Millet, or Saying grace by Degroux, or Brion, or The conscript by Degroux (or else by Conscience), or his Apothecary, or The large oaks by Dupré, or even the mills and sand flats by Michel? It’s by persevering in those ideas and things...
...well done. If one is moved by some book or other, for instance, just to mention something, ‘The...
...one is actually obliged and called upon to do so, or it can be one way of ‘throwing oneself into...
...never trust it when one is without difficulties or some worry or obstacle, and one shouldn’t make...
...something of the original nature of a Robinson Crusoe or a savage, for otherwise one hath not root...
in note 15:
For Jean-François Millet, The four times of the day, see letter 37, n. 16.
in note 16:
...Degroux, Saying grace>, c. 1861 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). Ill. 135. There were various...
in note 20:
...for the doctor’s visit, The doctor’s visit or The quack (present whereabouts of all three...
in note 22:
Georges Michel painted numerous landscapes, a number of which appear in the series of reproductions...
in note 25:
...une vie dure dans le monde...O laboureurs! vous souffrez dans la vie; laboureurs, vous êtes bien heureux! ... frères la vie est triste). Van Gogh copied this passage into one of the poetry albums. See Pabst...
in note 27:
Read: ‘indefessus (or indefessi)’ – ‘tirelessly with God’s grace’. See also letter 136, n. 28.
in note 33:
...regard sur les mers’, chapter 2, ‘Plages, grèves et falaises’, which describes the pleasant seaside...
144 To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Monday, 13 May 1878.
in original text:
...denken aan “un tonnelier” of Les couturières of andere schilderijen van Ed. Frère, en het...
in translation:
...here, and you’ll probably see stormy skies like those Bonington painted. It’s really a nice neighbourhood where you live. If one roams the streets there, whether in the morning or evening, or walks in the direction of Montmartre, one is struck by many workshops and many rooms that recall ‘a cooper�� or The seamstresses or other paintings by E. Frère, and it does one good sometimes to see such things, which are simple, as one occasionally sees a good many people who for various reasons...
...an eagle, especially then, when he was stricken by what had just happened. You must try to read some beautiful book or other over there, by Michelet, for instance, on the Revolution or something by Thoré or T. Gautier on Paris and the time of the young painters and writers. Oh, old boy, how I’d...
in note 14:
...well-known In memoriam (1849) by Alfred Tennyson, or the poem ‘In memoriam’ by P.A. de Génestet. Cf...
in note 24:
...Littératures, peintres, sculpteurs, artistes dramatiques (1874). Van Gogh did not specify which Salon reports and art reviews by E.J.T. Thoré he had in mind; he had previously sent Theo Musées de la Hollande...
145 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Monday, 22 July 1878.
in original text:
...Un regard qui a vu le spectacle de l’affreuse guillotine, une pensée qui a survécu à toutes les scènes de la révolution.─ Il est presque étonné de se trouver encore vivant après tant de catastrophes.” ’t Is eene merkwaardige verschijning geweest in de kunst en zal eene dergelijke...
in translation:
...talent to give easy, warm-hearted and popular lectures or speeches to the people, better short and...
...to pay a visit to the Rev. Pieterszen in Mechelen or the Rev. De Jonge in Brussels, in so doing...
...wants me to write, to the best of my ability, a theme or two to have on hand (I’m now busy, for...
...didn’t bother him so much working in the field or the garden, only in the morning the pain drove...
...for high art, like a portrait by Fabritius or some other rather mystical paintings from the school...
...natural food for a good part, as well as a thing or two to fill a flower basket. We sat for a while...
...weak — poor sister — it seems to me that it’s better to be well and truly married than to be engaged, and I should sincerely wish for her sake that she were already safely three years or so...
in note 2:
...Belgium are not required to obtain a certain degree or qualification after earlier training, but can be...
in note 6:
...college and was a member of the Evangelisatie-Comité, as was the above-mentioned Rev. H. van den Brink.
in note 11:
...Markt 24 (formerly no. 23) in Zundert). See Janus Mertens and Jan Pinxteren, Het Land aan de Breede AA...
in note 16:
...regard que n’a pas ému le spectacle de l’affreuse guillotine, une pensée qui a survécu, froide et languissante, à toutes les scènes de la Révolution...il est bien de ceux que nous peignent les mémoires contemporains, presque étonnés de se trouver encore vivants au lendemain de tant de catastrophes) (p. 271).
in note 19:
...Marechaussées / Marechaussées (military police) [11] Binnenweg naar de Hoeve. / By-road to Hoeven [12] Weg naar de Hoeve / Road to Hoeven [13] Nil [or Nel] v. Eekelen. / Nil (or Nel) v. Eekelen / If the Christian name is in fact Nil, this person could be the farmer Jan Cornelis van Eekelen (1837-1918); in the case of Nel, it could be Cornelia van Eekelen (1850-1923). Both are recorded as farmers living at Bankenstraat I 104. [14] Bankenstraat. / Bankenstraat [15] Lam v. Eekelen / Lam v. Eekelen / Lambregt van Eekelen (1845-1912), Geerstraat I 83. [16] Kees v. Eekelen / Kees v. Eekelen / Cornelis van Eekelen (1833-1879), farmer, Geerstraat I 82. [17] naar de heide & Zundert / to the heath and Zundert [18] naar Rijsbergen / to Rijsbergen [19] Döritz / Döritz / The family of Karel Willem (Wilhelm) Doelitzsch (1830-1908), born in Saxony and without profession, married to Adelaida Paulina Ellinga (1832-?). They had two daughters and two sons. Dorp A 120. [20] School / School [21] Klaas / Klaas / The carpenter Johan Daniël Claas (1833-1906), married to Gerardine Catharina van Aken (1832-1888), living at Dorp A 187. [22] Raat / Raat / Possibly Anna Cornelia Boot (1822-?), widow of Adriaan van Raak (1813-1873), Dorp A 65. [23] Jan Kerst / Jan Kerst / The farmer Joannes Kerstens (1840-1900), Haansberg I 74. He is the son of Cornelis [26] and was married to Maria Cornelia van Uijthoven (1852-1911). [24] Slikgat / Slikgat [25] Haansberg / Haansberg [26] Kerst / Kerst / The farmer Cornelis Kerstens (1806-1886), living at the corner of Goorstraat and Haansberg I 34, on a farm belonging to the Maatschappij van Welstand (Welfare Society). He was married to Joanna Maria Sagius (1819-1903). [27] Ko van Put / Ko van Put / The farmer Jacobus van der Put (1836-1911) was married to the farm-woman Cornelia Bakker (1834-?). They lived at Haansberg I 66 (now Haansberg 41) and had a daughter called Francijna Cornelia (1874) and a son named Jacobus (1877). Also living with them were several children from Cornelia Bakker’s previous marriage to Rombout van Eekelen. Jacobus’s father was Frans van der Put [43]. [28] Willem v. Eekelen / Willem v. Eekelen / The farmer Willem van Eekelen (1808-1887), married to Maria van Eekelen (1806-1884) and living at Haansberg I 61. [29] Geestestraat / Geestestraat / Probably meant to be Geerstraat. [30] Kerst / Kerst / Cornelis Kerstens (1806-1881), married to Maria Hendrikx (1804-?), living at Geerstraat I 86. [31] Dries Oostenrijk / Dries Oostenrijk / Driver and church organist Johannes Andries Oostrijck (1843-1888), widower since 28 February 1878 of Cornelia Verhoeven (1832-1878), lived with his father, Johannes Oostrijck (1804-1880), and his sisters Marie (1832) and Cornelia (1846) at Dorp, A 142. He remarried Cornelia Kaufmann (1850-?). It is not clear when his brother-in-law Arie Schuurwater [48] came to live with them. [32] Johanna / Johanna / The farm-woman Johanna Claas (1827-1898) was married to the farmer, shopkeeper and elder Lambrecht Oostrijck (1836-1903); they lived with their sons Johannes Andries (1870-1944) and Jacob Benjamin (1875-1956) at Dorp A 141. [33] Dien Klaas / Dien Klaas / The seamstress and cap-maker Gerardina (Dien) Maria Claas (1840-1922), married to the carpenter Alexander de Graaf (1848-1938), who was the sexton of the Nederlands Hervormde (Dutch Reformed) Church. He stood model for Man with a saw (F 878 / JH 16). See Stokvis 1926, pp. 9, 19. They lived with her mother, Johanna Oostrijck (1798-1881), sextoness, and their two sons Reinier (1875) and Jacob (1876), at Dorp A 142. [34] Breda / Breda / This perhaps refers to the ‘maker of fretwork’ Jacobus van Breda (1801-1879), widower of Adriana Leeflang (1789-1874), at Dorp A 143. Living at this address later on were the carpenter Servaas van Breda (1810-1888), his wife Adriana de Visser (1809-?), their daughters Elisabeth (1847) and Maria Wilhelmina (1849) and their son Marinus Wilhelmus (1853), who was registered as living at Dorp A 150 before their move. Andries van Breda and his wife Anna Maria van Eekelen, Dorp A 153 had died by 1878. [35] Lips / Lips / The carpenter Marinus Lips (1848-1921), married to the farm-woman Cornelia Oostrijck (1846-?), living at Dorp A 173a. They had three children: Jacobus (1873), Johannes Cornelis (1875) and Maria Leentje (1877). [36] Kaufman. / Kaufman / The farmer Cornelis Kaufmann (1817-1902), married to Catharina Gelijns (1821-1906) and their son Piet Kaufmann (1864-1940), Leurse weg, Dorp A 102. For Piet Kaufmann, see also letters 170 and 172. [37] Station / Station [38] Hackstroo / Hackstroo / Stationmaster Marinus Hackstroh (1830-1901), married to Elisabeth Clara de Bock (1827-after 1895). They lived at Baai F 25. See also letter 138. [39] Prins (Piet) / Prins (Piet) / The labourer – later railway employee – Pieter Prins (1851-1892), married to Tanneke van Eekelen (1854-?), living at Baai F 26. Brother of Adam Prins [47]. [40] Slagveld / Slagveld [41] Marinus v Eekelen / Marinus v Eekelen / The farmer Marijn van Eekelen (1821-1888), married to Francijna van Eekelen (1831-?), Slikgat I 64. [42] Zure of oude Lam v Eekelen / Sour or old Lam v. Eekelen / The farmer Lambregt van Eekelen (1809-1894), married to Willemijna Kerstens (1811-1894), Slikgat I 65. [43] Oude van Put / Old van Put / The farmer Frans Adriaan van der Put (1798-1882), who lived at Sander I 56. He was the widower of Cornelia Kerstens and had six sons: Hendrik (1831), Servaas (1834), Jacobus [27], Johannes (1838), Lambregt (1840) and Frans [6]. [44] Dirk Kerst / Dirk Kerst / The farmer Dirk Kerstens (1834-1896), married to Catharina van Eekelen (1833-1913), Slagveld F 44. [45] Ko v. Eekelen / Ko v. Eekelen / The farmer Jacobus van Eekelen (1821-1895), married to Cornelia Brouwers (1834-1909), Slagveld F 43. [46] Willem de Bakker / Willem de Bakker / The veterinary Willem de Bakker (1822-1880), Slagveld F 49. [47] Prins (Adam) / Prins (Adam) / The labourer Adam Prins (1839-1892), married to Catharina Kaufman (1844-1927), Slagveld F 52. Brother of Piet Prins [39]. [48] Schuurwater / Schuurwater / The farmer Arie Schuurwater (1822-1915), married to Maria Oostrijck (1832-1910), living since 27 November 1877 at Dorp A 154b. [49] naar de Leur / to Leur [50] Lips / Lips / The farmer Willem Lips (1842-1907), married to Adriana Johanna Kerstens (1840-?), living at Bremberg, G 10, a farm belonging to the Maatschappij van Welstand (Welfare Society). [51] Bremberg / Bremberg [52] de Leur / Leur [53] naar Prinsenhage / to Princenhage Brother Cor wrote on it: ‘Dit hebben Vincent en ik in ’t mastbosch gemaakt / van Cor / Ik moet naar bed, goeden nacht.’ (Vincent and I did this in the pine wood, from Cor. I must go to bed, good night...
146 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Monday, 5 August 1878.
in translation:
...that work of his; has he made anything special this year, or do you see much of him? Wrote a theme...
...even take it to be fear, which one usually has to keep to oneself, in which others can hardly share or give reassurance. As you can imagine, Pa and I quite often take walks together around the parish or to Hoeven or Leur, and Cor and I make many excursions to the heath, either to Zundert Heath or the one near Sprundel. You can understand that I really long to know how it will be in Brussels, may...
...and if you hear something interesting about this or that, but better still would be your own...
147 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Thursday, 15 August 1878.
in translation:
...of making a journey through Belgium, first to Brussels and from there probably south to Liège or Chaudfontaine or the cave in Han. Wrote and told the Rev. De Jonge that I was ready to come to Brussels straightaway if work or duty should call me, but that if there were no sound reasons that made it desirable for me to go...
148 To Theo van Gogh. Laken, on or about Wednesday, 13 and Friday, 15 or Saturday, 16 November 1878.
in title:
148 To Theo van Gogh. Laken, on or about Wednesday, 13 and Friday, 15 or Saturday, 16 November 1878.
in original text:
...is “Licht dat opgaat in de duisternis”. Door duisternis tot Licht. Welnu wie hebben zeer zeker...
...celui de ces mines de houille ouvertes à 300 mètres sous terre, et où descend journellement une population ouvrière digne de nos égards et de nos sympathies. Le houilleur est un type particulier...
...lampe destinée à le guider dans les tenèbres, il se fie à son Dieu Qui voit son labeur et Qui le protège, lui, sa femme et ses enfants. Ses vêtements se composent d’un chapeau de cuir bouilli...
in translation:
...and that at the end of human life there are tears or grey hair. What lies beyond is a great mystery...
...seemed to be sunk or rooted in poverty almost more deeply than that long row or rather group of...
...of poverty and misery, the end of things or their extremity — the thought of God comes to mind...
...old. You surely know that one of the root or fundamental truths, not only of the gospel but of the...
...among the heathens. If I could spend three years or so in a similar region, working in peace and...
...talked about it. There are already a number of small Protestant congregations in the Borinage, and...
...like Montmartre. There are old houses with ivy or Virginia creeper and charming inns, among the...
...appetite for work and stimulates us, we know not how or why. That day I walked on, past Forest, and...
...Death and the Devil’. Have you ever seen a painting, or rather a photo of it, by Carlo Dolci, The...
...can remember what one has seen, one is never empty or truly lonely, and never alone. Adieu Theo, I...
in sketch A:
...JH Juv. 9), enclosed sketch. Beside the café is a shed where, according to the sideboard ‘Charbons...
in note 11:
...words: General Pierre Jacques Etienne Cambronne or General Claude Etienne Michel. This remark...
in note 12:
...painting of 1854 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, acquired in 1930). Ill. 134. In 1869, Uncle Vincent van Gogh bought the watercolour The paupers’ pew (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). A third...
in note 15:
...1869-1870) and Head of an old woman (presumably lost or destroyed). See cat. Brussels 1984, pp. 255-258.
in note 17:
...artists’ path at Barbizon, 1878 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts) was not purchased until 1889...
in note 25:
...copied almost literally from Adolphe Siret, Récits historiques Belges, Brussels 1855, pp. 217-218. See...
in note 32:
Johannes Bosboom made a number of dune landscapes, mostly in watercolour. Cf. Marius and Martin 1917, pp...
in note 33:
François Antoine Verkissen, registered as a ‘mustard merchant’, lived at Chaussée de Waterloo 117 in...
in note 36:
Van Gogh probably saw a photograph or photogravure after the painting by Carlo Dolci, Christ in the Garden...
149 To Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, Thursday, 26 December 1878.
in original text:
...M. van der Haegen, Colporteur à Pâturages près de Mons (Borinage Haînaut). Zooeven bezocht ik...
in translation:
...are going and how you are, also perhaps to hear if you have recently seen anything beautiful or remarkable.
...here reminds one of the work of Thijs Maris or Albrecht Dürer, for example. There are sunken roads...
...and suffering and fatigue on his face, without form or glory but with an immortal soul that has...
...a village like Scheveningen, especially the poor quarters, or to those villages in Brittany that we...
...necessary. I also attended a service in a stable or barn, so it’s quite simple and novel. Write...
...letter care of M. Vanderhaegen, Colporteur à Pâturages près de Mons (Borinage Haînaut). I just...
in note 1:
...with a Protestant farming family at Pâturages. For 30 francs a month – so little because he...
in note 3:
The description suggests that Van Gogh has Dürer’s Ritter, Tod und Teufel (Knight, Death and the Devil) in...
in note 23:
...dans le Borinage) [p. 173]. The minutes go on to say: ‘The Chairman introduces the application for employment from Mr van Gogh, son of a minister from Holland, who has come to the Borinage with the aim of working there. From what Mr Pieterszen and Mr Péron say, it emerges that this devout young man, completely devoted to work, would make a good Bible reader and would do useful work in that capacity, in Wasmes and Warpignies. Mr Péron suggests employing him in this way, at the modest salary of 600 francs. There will be a trial period of 6 months’ (M. le Président fait connaître la demande d’emploi de Mr van Gogh, fils d’un pasteur de Hollande et venu dans le Borinage dans le but d’y travailler. Il résulte de ce que disent M.M. Pieterszen et Péron que ce jeune homme pieux, dévoué dur au travail, ferait un bon lecteur de la Bible et travaillerait utilement à ce titre, à Wasmes et à Warpignies. M. Péron propose de l’employer ainsi avec le sobre traitement de 600 francs. On fera un essai de 6 mois’) (Brussels, Eglise protestante unie de Belgique, Bureau du Synode). The minutes of 15 April 1879 report the situation to date: ‘Attention is drawn to Mr Vincent and his work. The details, both regrettable and encouraging, that have been given persuade the committee to authorise the Hainaut sub-committee to extend Mr Vincent van Gogh’s trial period for three [months], if it sees fit .’ (L’attention est attirée sur M. Vincent et sur son oeuvre. Les détails à la fois regrettables et encourageants qui sont donnés déterminent le comité à autoriser le sous-comité du Hainaut à prolonger l’essai de M. Vincent van Gogh pendant trois [mois], s’il le juge bon’) [p. 177]. (Brussels, Archives of the Eglise protestante unie de Belgique). Cf. also Lutjeharms 1978, p. 105...
in note 25:
...he lived at rue de la place St Pierre 12 in Pâturages; Mr van Gogh, who corresponded with Vanderhaegen...
150 To Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, between Tuesday, 4 and Saturday, 15 March 1879.
in translation:
...or tying it in with a business trip. I recently found in the house of an elderly man who had worked in the mines for many years a list of all the seams of coal south of Mons, which are 155 in number...
...has here a familiar feeling as though on the heath or in the dunes, there’s something simple and...
...and change their subject matter. What did Israëls make this winter? How much they would notice...
...mine, one sees things that remind one of Israëls’s shipwreck, and over and over again there is...
...my own, but which now serves only as a workplace or study, because Pa thinks it better that I board...
in note 2:
...separés, qui sont encore divisés en deux bandes.) Van Gogh fulfilled this function between January and July 1879: ‘In 1877, a singing group was set up within the church at Grand-Wasmes. As it met in the same premises as the Sunday school, and wished to occupy them at the same time, Lefèvre advised them to look for another place in which to practise, or to change the time. That caused discontent, and two factions formed in the church, one supporting the evangelist, the other supporting the choirmaster. An inquiry was even undertaken in the name of the administrative Committee of the Belgian Christian Missionary Church, and the authorities retained Lefèvre at the head of the community. There was a split. The dissidents joined other Protestants in the church at Pâturages...
in note 5:
The number Van Gogh mentions is close to the number recorded in Gonzalès Decamps, Mémoire historique sur l’origine et les développements de l’industrie houillère dans le bassin du couchant de Mons. Mons 1880, vol. 1, p. 84: ‘In the Couchant de Mons there are between 160 and 180 known seams of coal, of which it is thought that between about 125 and 135 might profitably be exploited.’ (Il existe dans le Couchant de Mons...
in note 6:
Jozef Israëls, The shipwrecked man (The drowned fisherman), 1861 (London, National Gallery). Ill. 203.
151 To Theo van Gogh. Petit-Wasmes, between Tuesday, 1 and Wednesday, 16 April 1879.
in translation:
...going down or coming up, or by suffocation or gas exploding, or because of water in the ground, or...
...hidden corners of that underworld. The maintenages or gradins (cells where the miners work) that...
...or less like the cells in a beehive, or like a dark, sombre passageway in an underground prison, or...
...small looms, or actually they look like a row of ovens such as one sees among the peasants, or like...
...antiquated passageways to prevent them from caving in, or are making new passageways in the coal...
...nature and character, and no pretensions, pridefulness or imperiousness, otherwise one can’t get...
...everyone is sick with fever, and they have little or no help, which means that there the sick are...
...eagerly longing for a letter from you. Has Israëls been working a lot lately, and Maris and Mauve...
...a mine is an unpleasant business, in a kind of basket or cage like a bucket in a well, but then a...
...dread that stays with them, not without reason or unjustifiably. Once down there, however, it isn...
152 To Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, on or about Thursday, 19 June 1879.
in title:
152 To Theo van Gogh. Wasmes, on or about Thursday, 19 June 1879.
in original text:
...hier aan huis en maakte kennis met hem. Sedert kwam ik er enkele malen. Hebt Gij ooit gelezen Legouvé, Les pères et les enfants, dat is een merkwaardig boek, vond het daar aan huis en las het met...
in translation:
...often one doesn’t even have time to think or do things that would otherwise appeal to one. But...
...a day here, or longer if possible? I’d so much like you to know this country, because there’s so very much that’s unique to be noticed by those who look at things closely. Wouldn’t it be remarkable for someone who had never seen a seaside village to see Scheveningen or Katwijk or some other...
...sort of fog hangs over it, or else there’s the fanciful effect of light and shade owing to the shadows of clouds that remind one of paintings by Rembrandt or Michel or Ruisdael. But on the occasion...
...character that the artist brings out and to which he gives expression, which he sets free, which he unravels, releases, elucidates. A painting by Mauve or Maris or Israëls speaks more and more clearly than nature itself. So it is with books as well, and in Uncle Tom’s cabin in particular, things...
...times. Have you ever read Legouvé’s Les pères et les enfants, that’s a remarkable book, found...
in date note:
...Royal de Bruxelles, publiées aux Frais de l’Etat. 2nd series. Annales météorologiques. Brussels 1877-1879, vol. 2, pp. 35-36. The present letter must therefore date from on or about Thursday, 19 June. It was...
in note 8:
...un jour de fort chaleur un violan orage fut déchainer sur notre régions. Que fi notre ami il alla se placer en plain champs pour regardé les grandes merveilles du Dieu et ainsi revenant mouillé jusque os.) See...
in note 9:
Uncle Tom’s cabin: or life among the lowly (1851-1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe was reprinted numerous...
in note 15:
...pères et les enfants au xixe siècle; the individual volumes were titled Enfance et adolescence (1867) and La jeunesse (1869). In both educational works (with imaginary conversations), Legouvé discusses in...
153 To Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Tuesday, 5 August 1879.
in original text:
...Frs 1.25, uitgaaf Hachette, Bibliothèque des meilleurs romans étrangers. Dat is meesterlijk, daar is eene figuur in van een arbeider, Stephen Blackpool, die treffend is en sympathiek in de hoogste mate. Ben onlangs te Brussel geweest en te Maria Hoorebeeke en te Tournay, gedeeltelijk te voet. Ben op ’t oogenblik aan ’t onderstaand adres M. Frank. Evangéliste à CUESMES (au Marais, près...
in translation:
...soon now? If so, write and tell me which day and what time, and in all likelihood I’ll see you at the station. If you have time to stay here for a day, or longer or shorter, I sincerely wish that this could happen.
...s, who paints in the style of Schelfhout or Hoppenbrouwers and really understands art. He asked me...
in note 1:
...Pâturages coal-mine, no. 10 shaft, Grisoeuil’, ‘The Decrucq family picking potatoes: the men digging, the women gathering up the potatoes’, ‘Miner outside his cottage’, ‘Portrait of Madame Denis’, and ‘A pair of miners carrying bags on their backs.’ (‘La Cage: charbonnage de Pâturages...
in note 4:
...les résultats qu’on en attendait. Si aux admirables qualités qu’il déployait auprès des malades et des blessés, au dévouement et à l’esprit de sacrifice dont il a fourni maintes preuves en leur consacrant ses veilles et en se dépouillant pour eux de la meilleure partie de ses vêtements et de son linge, s’était joint le don de la parole, indispensable à quiconque est placé à la tête d’une congrégation, M. Van Gogh aurait certainement été un évangéliste accompli. Sans doute il ne serait pas raisonnable d’exiger des talents extraordinaires. Mais il est constant que l’absence de certaines qualités peut rendre l’exercice de la principale fonction de l’évangéliste tout à fait défectueux. C’était malheureusement le cas de M. Van Gogh. Aussi le temps d’essai expiré, a-t-il fallu renoncer à l’idée de le conserver plus longtemps. L’évangéliste actuellement à l’oeuvre, M. Hutton, a pris possession de sa charge le 1er octobre 1879. Son activité jusqu’ici a été grande et a déjà porté des fruits. M. Hutton a rétabli à Warquignies la réunion qui avait été inaugurée par M. Péron et était tombée sous M. Van Gogh. Mais son abandon parait l’avoir sérieusement compromise, car elle se soutient avec peine.) See Vingt-troisième rapport du Comité synodal d’évangélisation 1879-1880. Etterbeek-Bruxelles 1880, pp. 17-18 (Union des églises protestantes de Belgique). Excerpts printed in the Verzamelde brieven 1973, vol. 1, pp. 227-228. In his recollections of the l’Eglise Protestante of Petit-Wasmes, the chronicler Antoine Denis remarked that Van Gogh was ‘losing his mind [and] becoming...a responsibility’ (perdait la tête [et] devenait ... une charge). (An extract from the archives of this church was kindly supplied by minister Ruben Quenon in 1973; a copy of the manuscript is to be found in the Dossier Pièrre Secretan-Rollier, Amsterdam, Vincent van Gogh Foundation). Vincent’s parents saw no way out of the situation, and Mr van Gogh complained to Theo: ‘We are sorely tried by this and are literally at our wits’ end’ (FR b2487, 19 July). A letter written by Mr van Gogh to Theo on 5 August makes it possible to reconstruct events: ‘We’ve had another letter from Vincent. He has left Wasmes, and is now at Cuesmes, near Mons. He writes that last Friday he went to Maria-Horebeke in Flanders, arriving there Sunday afternoon – mostly on foot – to meet Rev. Pieterszen, who was in Brussels. He then went there and met him on Monday morning – after consulting him, he is now back in Cuesmes, and there he’s found accommodation and hopes in future to find a small room ... In Brussels he visited the various families he had become acquainted with there. What kind of impression will he have made? Like a ?.... Oh, we can imagine almost anything! His letter was written in a rather cheerful tone – mixed with bitterness. Tomorrow it will be ten years since he left our house and I brought him to The Hague to work in Goupil’s firm. What troubles we’ve had since! ... We are tired and all but despondent ... I wrote this morning to Vincent and to others in his behalf. In the main I do not object to or condemn what he is doing. I think it best to leave him to his own devices, but we watch him with trepidation and remain ready to come to his aid if necessary. We invited him to come home, but he definitely doesn’t want that’ (FR b2488). One of the ‘others’ to whom Mr van Gogh had written in Vincent’s behalf was the Rev. Abraham van der Waeyen Pieterszen, whose answer arrived in Etten on Sunday, 7 August (FR b2491, 10 August, Mrs van Gogh to Theo). Pieterszen had no solution. Vincent had arrived at his place on Sunday evening [i.e. 3 August], weary and flushed: ‘He was given good accommodation and invited to breakfast the following morning. He made the impression on everyone who saw him that he is someone who gets in his own way. He had lost a lot of weight. I sent Pieterszen 50 francs to give him, without his knowing that the money had come from me. Pieterszen had advised him to go to us, but he didn’t want to. Then, however, he went to Cuesmes ... Can he go on evangelizing on his own account? P. thought that would be best. But where would the financial means come from? Should I go and visit him to try and get him to come here? What will become of him?’ (FR b2488). This letter was probably one of the reasons Theo decided to visit Vincent (see letter 154). In Brussels, Van Gogh had also gone to see the family of Otto Geerling, at whose house he showed up looking dirty and bedraggled. See Lutjeharms 1978, p. 106. Vincent knew Geerling from the time he and his father had stayed with them during their visit of 16-17 July 1878 (see letter 145, n. 2). It is assumed that Van Gogh went to Tournai to visit the Rev. David Bonte. Cf. Lutjeharms 1978, p. 106. The family lived at Rue de l’Activité (Werkzaamheidstraat) 24, Sint-Lambrechts Woluwe (SAB, municipal register, 1876 - U fol. 47). Bonte’s recollections make no reference to this visit, however (quoted in Verzamelde brieven 1973 vol. 1, pp. 224-225)....
in note 5:
Edouard Joseph (or Joseph Edouard) Francq, ‘traceur maître’ (a foreman in the coalmine) at Cuesmes, was...
in note 9:
...of drawing materials, but something Van Gogh wrote or sent him must have prompted him to make this...
154 To Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Monday, 11 and Thursday, 14 August 1879.
in original text:
...juist omdat ik daar naar verlang ben ik bang voor remèdes pire que le mal. Kunt gij het een zieke...
...adres J.Bte Denis, Rue du Petit Wasmes à Wasmes (Hainaut). Wandelde s’avonds na Uw vertrek naar...
in translation:
...and superfluous but perhaps good for one thing or another, considering that we need one another and...
...everyone else, I have need of relationships of friendship or affection or trusting companionship, and am not like a street pump or lamp-post, whether of stone or iron, so that I can’t do without...
...Improvement in my life — should I not desire it or should I not be in need of improvement? I...
...to be treated wrongly or by a quack? Does someone who has consumption or typhus do wrong by maintaining that a stronger remedy than barley water might be useful or even necessary, or, finding that...
...invoice headings and visiting cards, or a bookkeeper or a carpenter’s apprentice — likewise that of my very dear sister Anna to devote myself to the baker’s trade or many other things of that...
...to assume the guise of a baker or hair-cutter or librarian with lightning speed) and yet actually a...
...I must seriously feel that I’m annoying or burdensome to you or those at home, useful for neither...
in note 2:
...a word about anything else – his work, his past or future – we’re not in a hurry, for he must...
in note 3:
...Benjamin Luther Andry, born in Pâturages, was a ‘Protestant minister’ living at rue Mitoyenne de Wasmes 10 (Pâturages). Between 1876 and 1889 he was secretary of the Synode de L’Eglise évangélique protestante de Belgique (Synod of the Evangelical Church of Belgium). See J.J. Sourdeau, Les pasteurs de l’église protestante francophone de Tournai à travers les siècles. Tournai 1995, pp. 43-46; ACCD and Verzamelde...
in note c:
Barber or hairdresser (though perhaps he means an artisan who cuts animal hair, which is used in making...
155 To Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, between about Tuesday, 22 and Thursday, 24 June 1880.
in original text:
...du temps, il est vrai que mes études sont elles mêmes dans un état assez triste et désesperant...
...s messieurs évangeliques??? se trouvent par étrange rencontre (peut être seraient ils eux mêmes...
...s qui ne sont pas comme ces academiciens-là, mais les respectables sont plus clairsemés qu’on...
...années j’ai été hors de place, cela est tout bonnement parceque j’ai d’autres idées que...
...e visite l’été passé lorsque nous nous sommes promenés à deux près de la fosse abandonnée...
...y avait un temps où nous étions aussi à nous promener à deux près du vieux canal et moulin de...
...s. Voilà ce dont je suis content, je le dis en vérité et cela me réjouira toujours. Si tu étais...
...pas mais puisque je pense que tu es très sérieux et très profond je me sens porté à croire que...
...pouvons avoir à certains égards des manières de voir différentes mais néamoins à telle heure...
...est chez Ch. Decrucq Rue du Pavillon 8 à Cuesmes, près de Mons, et saches qu’en écrivant tu me...
in translation:
...for the best. Without wishing to, I’ve more or less become some sort of impossible and suspect...
...feel rather sorry. I do often find myself speaking or acting somewhat too quickly when it would be...
...know) what Rembrandt was or what Millet was, or Jules Dupré or Delacroix or Millais or M. Maris...
...I don’t know exactly, I’ve been more or less without a position, wandering hither and thither...
...less warm now towards Rembrandt or Millet or Delacroix, or whomever or whatever, because it’s the...
...in the Gospels or of the Gospels in Rembrandt, as you wish, it comes to more or less the same...
...or later. Now for the moment all my affairs are going badly, so it would seem, and that has been so for a not so inconsiderable period of time, and it may stay that way for a future of longer or...
...wasn’t there some cause; it was for this or that reason that I was absorbed, preoccupied, anxious...
...d’être for one reason or another which one doesn’t always see right away, or which one forgets...
in note 1:
...cause of letters being withheld from publication or destroyed. One gathers from remarks made by Vincent...
in note 2:
...to the next sentence in the present letter – ‘As you may perhaps know, I am back in the Borinage, my...
in note 9:
...or more profound mark – probably on his thinking as well.’ See exhib. cat. Vienna 1996, pp. 32-33 (quotation on p. 32). Van Gogh had sent his parents one of Hugo’s books in an attempt to make them understand his ideas. Mrs van Gogh, however, found the work of the Frenchman ethically reprehensible and wrote on 5 July to Theo: ‘We think it’s true, what you write about Vincent, but if reading books yields such impractical results, is it good? And what kind of ideas does his reading give him? He sent us one by Victor Hugo, but he takes the side of criminals and calls no evil by its real name. What would the world be like if one were to call evil good? Even with the best will in the world, that is not possible’ (FR b2495). Vincent perhaps sent Le dernier jour d’un condamné, which he mentions in letter 158. Hulsker assumes that it was Les misérables (Hulsker 1990-1, p. 85...
in note 15:
This is the mine ‘Petite Sorcière�� or ‘Turlupu’ in Jemappes, a few kilometres to the west of Mons. This mine was not worked on a permanent basis. See Statistique des houillères en France et en Belgique publiée sous la direction d’Emile Delecroix. Mons 1891, p. 301.
in note 18:
...Musées de la Hollande. See Thoré 1858-1860, vol. 2, pp. 166 ff. and exhib. cat. The Hague 2004, pp. 111-115, cat. no. 7. Van Gogh names the Haarlem Museum as the place where he saw this portrait, though before 1880 it had no Fabritius (not even on loan), and the portrait in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen – still housed at the time in the Schielandshuis – was, as far as we know, never lent to another museum. This could mean that Vincent and Theo had once gone to Rotterdam, or else that they saw, in Haarlem, another portrait that is no longer attributed to Fabritius...
in note 19:
...Bibliothèque des meilleurs Romans étrangers’ (the same series Van Gogh mentions in letter 154...
in note 31:
...to Jeanne Heeren (he gives the correct house number in letters 156 and 157). The Decrucq family thus...
in textual note 126:
se trouvent plantés < de se trouvent plantés Van Gogh’s correction led to a repetiton of ‘se trouvent’.
in textual note 137:
aux < Deleted after this: ‘chiens muselés’.
156 To Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Friday, 20 August 1880.
in original text:
...en traîn de griffonner de grands dessins d’après Millet et que j’ai fait les heures de la...
...par ou d’après Millet, J. Breton, Feyen Perrin, &c., n’en achète pas exprès mais prête moi...
...les heures du jour, le format à peu près celui d’une feuille du Cours de dessin Bargue. Tu comprendras assez toi-même ce qu’il me faut pour que cela soit nécessaire que je te le dise, mais pourtant je le dirai pour que tu connaisses ma pensée. Ce sont des études de figure surtout, tel que les bêcheurs de Millet ou la lithographie d’après lui, le Vanneur. puis des figures de Brion...
...st la grande eau forte de Daubigny d’après Ruysdael, le buisson, qui se vend à la calcographie...
...figure sur des maîtres tels que Millet, Breton & Brion ou Boughton ou autre. Qu’est ce que tu dis du croquis, l’idée te parait elle bonne? Il y a dans les photographies d’après J. Breton de...
...il s’agit d’un effet de silhouettes brunes frisés de lumière contre un ciel de couchant tigr...
in translation:
...you could also add some other sheets by or after Millet, J. Breton, Feyen-Perrin, &c. Don’t buy...
...me by doing this. If you pay a visit to Holland sooner or later, I hope you won’t pass by without...
...ve done are The four times of the day, the format more or less that of a sheet from the Bargue drawing course. You’ll understand well enough yourself what I need to make it unnecessary for me to tell you, but I’ll tell you nevertheless, so that you can know my thinking. They’re mainly figure studies, such as Millet’s The diggers, or the lithograph after his Winnower. And figures by Brion or Frère or Feyen-Perrin or Jules Breton. I believe you could find just what I need at...
...for yourself. But I feel the need to study figure drawing from masters like Millet, Breton and Brion or Boughton, or someone else. What do you think of the croquis? Does the idea seem good to you? In...
...familiar with. I don’t know if he’ll do it or not, that’s to say send me them, but supposing...
in note 1:
...Les tondeurs de mouton; Le bûcheron; La fileuse (Reaper wielding a sickle; Reaper wielding a scythe; Peasant woman binding sheaves; Woman making hay; Hay baler; Woman grinding flax-seed; The wheat thresher; The sheep shearers; The woodcutter; Woman spinning). The estate contains two copies: one with all ten prints on one sheet, Ill. 1887, and the other with the depictions cut out (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, t*913 and t*1002-1003). The woodcuts appeared in L’Illustration 21 (5 February 1853), no. 519, pp. 92-93 – Van Gogh’s estate also contains several of these (t*247-250) – and they were published in Dessins de J.-F. Millet, gravés par Adrien Lavieille. Paris 1855. See Sensier 1881, pp. 386-387, and exhib. cat. Paris 1998, pp. 128-141, cat. nos. 55-70...
in note 7:
...et lithographies. Reproduction des tableaux et dessins des maîtres de l’école moderne. Ornements de tous les styles et de toutes les époques. Paris 1861 (Paris, Bibliothèque d’art et d’archéologie...
in note b:
Sclôneurs and sclôneuses were usually children who worked deep underground in the passages immediately behind a miner and dragged the coal away in baskets. Those baskets were known as sclônes in the local patois. With thanks to Freddy Godart. The term ‘sclôneuse’ (a woman who worked in the pits) is also found in...
in note 8:
...n. 5, for the etching The bush by Charles-François Daubigny after Jacob van Ruisdael; cf. Chalcographie...
in note 11:
...1860 (Omaha, (Nebraska), Joslyn Art Museum), or a replica of this work dating from 1868 (New York...
in note 12:
...préparer à l’étude de l’académie d’après nature. Paris (Goupil & Cie), 1871. The loose-leaf...
157 To Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Tuesday, 7 September 1880.
in original text:
...que tu m’as envoyées il y a quelque temps, je les ai bien reçues & je t’en remercie beaucoup...
...d’une fle Cours de dessin Bargue à peu près) & que j’en ai tout à fait achevé une, soit le...
...me soyez venu en aide avec de bons modèles; car je crois beaucoup mieux faire de copier d’abord...
...J’espère bien qu’après avoir encore copié les deux autres séries de Bargue, je serai à m...
...y en a ici. Je trouve très belle la lithographie d’après Bosboom, intérieur d’étable. Tu as...
...t. Si tu possèdes encore le livre avec des eaux fortes d’après Michel, à l’occasion prête-l...
...bien que la grande eauforte des bêcheurs est rare mais néamoins ayez l’oeil dessus et dites moi...
...J’ai travaillé sur les premières pendant à peu près une quinzaine de jours, du matin de fort...
...maintenant. Recevez donc mes sincères remerciments de les avoir envoyés et sachez que tout ce...
...adresse Ch. Decrucq. 3 Rue du pavillon Cuesmes (près Mons) Voici les Millet que j’ai Le...
in translation:
...that after copying Bargue’s two other series as well I’ll be able to draw a more or less reasonable miner or female thrutcher, when one of these days it will be possible for me to have a model...
...well understood my thinking when you added Hébert’s Malaria to our collection. If you still own...
...get it. One of these days I’ll earn a farthing or two with some scratch of a miner, and I’d be...
...2.50 francs, in which there are a fair number of interesting wood engravings, including 3 Millets...
...ve worked on the first ones for a fortnight or thereabouts, from very early in the morning until...
...haunts me so. When you write to me, sooner or later (which by way of distraction would give me...
in note 10:
...a watercolour sketch and a painting – a number of barns and the watercolour Stal met vrouw aan...
in note 23:
...probably refers to a reproduction of Jean-François Millet’s pastel Buckwheat harvest, 1868-1870...
in textual note 6:
(dans … près) < Added later; parentheses added by us. Insertion uncertain.
158 To Theo van Gogh. Cuesmes, Friday, 24 September 1880.
in original text:
...autre chose, l’une d’après cette eauforte – l’autre d’après le Four dans les Landes de...
...après. Tu me parles de Lessore. Je crois me rappeler des aquarelles de paysage très élégantes...
...s consciencieusement fait avec l’intention évidente de rendre témoignage à la vérité sans...
...ié certains ouvrages d’Hugo cet hiver dernier. Soit le dernier jour d’un condamné & un très...
...t café des beaux Arts, également en briques neuves inhospitalières & glaçantes & mortifiantes...
...s là où aparaît la marne, ce qui pour nous autres qui sommes habitués à des terrains noirâtres...
...les figures caractéristiques & pittoresques des travailleurs: divers bêcheurs, bûcherons, varlet...
...dans les rudes épreuves de la misère même. J’ai gagné quelques croûtes de pain en route...
...j’ai là laissé dans mon grand découragement & je me remettrai au dessin et dès lors à ce qui...
...en sorte que ces types encore inédits ou presque inédits fussent mises au jour. L’homme du fond...
in translation:
...s. I made a trip on foot mainly in the Pas de Calais, not the Channel but the department. Or...
...in. I looked elsewhere in Courrières for some trace of Jules Breton or of some other artist; all I...
...a café, the so-called Café des Beaux-Arts, also in inhospitable and chilly and mortifying new brick, which café was decorated with some sort of frescoes or mural paintings depicting episodes from...
...at any rate I saw the Courrières countryside then, the haystacks, the brown farmland or the almost...
...white bonnet. Even there, at Courrières, there was a coal-mine or pit; I saw the day-shift coming...
...to Paris or the surrounding area. Sooner or later, when it would be possible and when I felt like it. Of course, it would be my great and ardent desire to come either to Paris or to Barbizon or...
...on a large scale of my trip to Courrières, where I’d hoped perhaps to meet some living being of...
...well, to be master either of my pencil or my charcoal or my brush; once that’s achieved I’ll do...
in note 3:
...books Tersteeg sent were most probably A. de Zahn, Esquisses anatomiques à l’usage des artistes pour servir aux études d’après nature et d’après l’antique (see letter 160, n. 2) and Guide de l’alphabet du dessin ou l’art d’apprendre et d’enseigner les principes rationnels du dessin d’après nature by Armand Théophile Cassagne. Paris 1880. This book, consisting of 43 lessons, contained much on perspective, and...
in note 4:
...figure studies from Algiers (mainly watercolours), or the work of his son, Jules Lessore, who worked as a...
in note 7:
...Virgile Diaz de la Peña, Constant Troyon, Antoine Chintreuil, Henri Harpignies and Jean-François Millet.
in note 8:
Courrières is c. 20 km south of Lille in the departement Pas de Calais. Van Gogh added ‘non pas la...
in note 9:
...du passé. Bulletin du Club d’histoire locale de Courrières (1996), no. 8, pp. 25-27. Cf. The garden of ‘The brewery’ at Courrières, 1861 (private collection) in exhib. cat. Cleveland 1980, pp. 187...
in note 12:
...in Courrières was Mr Gourlet. He was an amateur draughtsman and a friend of Jules Breton. (Communicated by Francine Lhost, chairperson of the ‘Club d’histoire locale de Courrières’). A portrait...
in note 13:
...Bulletin du Club d’histoire locale de Courrières (1996), no. 8, p. 25 and (1997), no. 11, pp. 10-11...
in note 14:
This ‘Café des Beaux-Arts’ was located at the corner of present-day rue Louis Breton and rue Massenet.
in note 17:
...Bulletin du Club d’histoire locale de Courrières (1996), no. 8, p. 27 and (1996), no. 9, p. 4 (with...
in note 21:
Here Van Gogh lists a number of regions and provinces in the north(west) of France; Brie is east of Paris.
in note 23:
...be referring to the engravings Une vieille maison, à Blois (An old house at Blois) (Ill. 1895) and Beffroi (Belfry) (Ill. 1896), both made by Fortuné Louis Méaulle after drawings by Hugo. They were reproduced in...
in note 24:
...similar buildings in the work of Meryon, see Richard S. Schneiderman (with the assistance of Frank W...
in textual note 152:
difficultés), < difficultés,
in textual note 193:
a mêmes < même
159 To Theo van Gogh. Brussels, Friday, 15 October 1880.
in original text:
...les modèles d’après la bosse de Bargue, je les ai pourtant dessinés là, soit dans le petit cabinet soit dehors dans le jardin, mais maintenant que j’en suis aux portraits d’après Holbein...
...la vue seule de quelques bonnes choses ici à Bruxelles m’a remonté le coeur pour ainsi dire & a...
...e un petit mot à M. S. J’ai encore fait un dessin à la plume d’après le bûcheron de Millet...
...pas au premier coup. Quant au dessin d’après le buisson de Ruysdael, principalement je voudrais...
...te. Surtout puisque j’ai fait deja deux séries des Bargue & ai la 3me en mains, ce que je...
...tôt possible à faire des dessins présentables & vendables, en sorte que je commencerai à gagner...
...charbonniers ou tisserands pour mieux faire d’après nature que jusqu’ici. Mais d’abord il...
...du passage d’Hubert & certainement ce magasin est très beau pour autant que j’ai pu le voir...
...ai & ne me souviendrai que du bon côté des choses, qui si on veut l’observer existe aussi. Mais...
in translation:
...true that for the Exercices au fusain and Les modèles d’après la bosse from Bargue, I did draw them there all the same, either in the little study or outside in the garden, but now that I’ve...
...a long time now I haven’t seen enough paintings or drawings &c., and the mere sight of a few good...
...kindness to speak seriously to someone or other I have no doubt that things could work out rather effectively. He received me warmly, but nevertheless, if you would say a word or two in my favour to...
...to that effect, i.e. write a short line to Mr S.? I’ve done a pen drawing after Millet’s...
...as long as I’m here, if it’s free or not expensive. But my goal must, for the moment at least...
...or short time in my present lodgings. I believe that you’ll approve of what I’m telling you, because in order to make progress it’s necessary to continue with a certain amount of energy. Once I am master of my pencil or of watercolour or of etching, I can return to the region of the miners or...
in note 3:
Vincent’s mention of the third part of Cours de dessin actually refers to the second part, Modèles d’après les maîtres de toutes les époques et de toutes les écoles; he took Exercices au fusain to be the first part, even though it appeared independently. The second part of Cours de dessin contains many portraits, the majority of which (at least 22) are after Hans Holbein. The copy consulted by the Van Gogh Museum contains a total of 60 sample sheets (this series appeared from October 1868 to April 1870), but there must have been...
in note 7:
Charles Bargue’s Cours de dessin contained two sample drawings of the head of Dante Alighieri. In vol. 1, Modèles d’après la bosse (‘Heads in profile’), no. 34 is a drawing from a plaster cast. Ill. 1897. In vol. 2, Modèles d’après les maîtres de toutes les époques et de toutes les écoles, no. 32 is Raphael’s Head of Dante Alighieri (after The disputation of the Holy Sacrament in the Vatican). Ill. 1898.
in note 9:
It is not certain exactly which course by Auguste Allongé Van Gogh is referring to here. By this time there were several on the market, in both book and loose-leaf form, such as the Collection de 30 paysages au fusain par A. Allongé. Paris 1877; Collection de 18 facsimilés d’après A. Allongé. Paris 1877; and La forêt de Fontainebleau. Douze compositions facsimilés par Allongé. Paris 1879. There was, moreover, an advertisement in Karl Robert, Le fusain sans maitre: Traité pratique et complet sur l’étude du paysage au fusain. Followed by lessons reproduced by means of heliogravure by the house of Goupil & Cie after Allongé, with the...
160 To Theo van Gogh. Brussels, Monday, 1 November 1880.
in original text:
...in gelaatstrekken & Schedelvorm. Heb geteekend Les bêcheurs van Millet naar een phot. van Braun...
...s d’après les Maîtres zijn prachtig, dat merk ik nu, ze teekenende, nog veel meer dan vroeger. Maar ze zijn niet makkelijk dat verzeker ik U. Dat de hr. Schmidt niet oningewikkeld was in een geldkwestie waarin de familie v. G. niet onbetrokken zou wezen & weshalve hij, n.l. de Hr. S. niet ongeregtelijk zou vervolgd worden, daarvan wist geen haar op mijn hoofd iets af toen ik naar hem toeging & heb ik eerst uit uw brief vernomen. Dus heb ik dat niet heel gelukkig getroffen hoewel de Hr S...
in translation:
...concentrate on drawing from nature, i.e. whether plaster or model, but not without guidance from someone who understands it well. And he, and others too, seriously advised me definitely to go and work at a drawing academy, at least for a while, here or in Antwerp or anywhere I could, so I think I...
...l’usage des artistes. And it includes a number of other illustrations which seem to me very...
...hard, which I certainly do — that either Uncle Cent or Uncle Cor will do something, if not as a...
...consists mainly of dry bread and some potatoes or chestnuts which people sell on the street corners...
...s expensive everywhere here. The Holbeins from the Modèles d’apres les maitres are splendid, I...
...the Van Gogh family and for which he, namely Mr S., would be justly prosecuted, I knew not the...
in note 2:
A. de Zahn [Albert von Zahn], Esquisses anatomiques à l’usage des artistes pour servir aux études d’après nature et d’après l’antique. Leipzig (Librairie Arnold) 1865. This book contains 29 illustrations of anatomical models. The ones Van Gogh mentions are ills. 3094, 3095, 3096, 3097 and 3098...
in note 3:
...Arts) at Brussels for the course ‘Dessin d’après l’antique: torse et fragments’ (Drawing from antiquity: torso and fragments), under registration number 8488. See exhib. cat. Brussels 1987, pp. 239-242; and...
in note 5:
Van Gogh’s goal was to become an illustrator of books or magazines (see letters 162 and 164).
in note 6:
...his current address. Cf. exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, pp. 11 (with a different house number), 59 and 68.
in note 8:
...features and skull structure and their character or disposition. These theories were summed up in...
in note 10:
...Jean-François Millet, The two diggers (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, t*52). Ill. 1899. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1988, pp. 11, 30-31, 91-94, cat. nos. 2, 29-30; and exhib. cat. Paris 1998, pp. 142-144, cat. nos. 71-72. Braun was a publisher who ran an international business in reproductions after paintings and other photographs. After the death of Adolphe Braun, the firm was taken over by his son Gaston and associates. See M. Auer, Encyclopédie internationale des photographes de 1839 à nos jours / Photographers encyclopaedia international 1839 to the present. 2 vols. Hermance 1985...
in note 13:
The family correspondence makes no mention whatever of this money matter, which presumably concerned Uncle Vincent or Uncle Cor van Gogh, or perhaps the take-over of Uncle Hein’s Brussels branch.
161 To Theo van Gogh. Brussels, end of December 1880 - beginning of January 1881.
in original text:
...Ne pas écrire est bien, mais toutefois écrire à propos n’est pas toujours mal non plus, même dans certains cas c’est chose très désirable. Car, mon très-cher, prenons y garde, ne filons...
...S’il craint de se compromettre vis à vis de ces Messieurs G&Cie en ayant des rapports avec moi, sa position à l’égard des sieurs susmentionnés est elle donc si chancelante & ébranlable qu...
...m’avertir par un petit mot & je ne lui écrirais point, mais maintenant je ne sais à quoi m’en...
...moments me passent dans la tête lorsque je réflechis aux motifs que tu pourrais avoir eu pour ne...
...re. Je crois en général avoir fait du progrès mais il faudrait pouvoir y aller plus vite que ça...
...changer d’idee. Qu’en penses tu. J’ai très peu vu M. van Rappard parce que j’avais cru...
in translation:
...If he’s afraid of compromising himself vis à vis those Messrs G&Cie by keeping in touch with me...
...was afraid of compromising himself in one way or another, why not warn me with a brief line and I wouldn’t write to him, but now I don’t know where I stand. Or is it because he’s afraid that I...
in date note:
...letter was written around the end of December 1880 or the beginning of January 1881. In January 1881 he...
162 To Theo van Gogh. Brussels, January 1881.
in original text:
...ressemble vaguement à certains dessins de Lançon ou à certaines gravures s. bois anglaises, mais...
...10 fois mieux ces études de moeurs parfois d’effrayante vérité tels que Gavarni, Henri Monnier...
...Felicien Rops &c. &c. les ont dessinées si magistralement. Maintenant sans osant en aucune manière prétendre monter si haut que ceux là, toutefois en continuant à dessiner ces types d’ouvriers...
...davantage des modèles & aussi des modèles de femmes, je ferai encore des progrès, je le sens...
...eux mêmes étaient animés d’un esprit supérieur & plus noble que celui qu’avaient ceux qui maintenant enfin viennent de décamper. Peutêtre la position que les derniers nommés ont occupé si...
...employés que ces Messieurs auraient peutêtre bien fait de conserver, mais qui, poussés à bout...
...s de moeurs demande des connaissances du dessin en tant que metier mais en outre de fortes études...
...te serre la main, as tu un moment de disponible, écris moi & crois moi t. à t. Vincent 72 Bd du...
in translation:
...at least a dozen drawings, or rather, pencil and pen croquis, which are, it seems to me, already a little better. They vaguely resemble certain drawings by Lançon or certain English wood engravings...
...see that it’s not good yet; it’s beginning to emerge, though. I have a model almost every day, an old delivery man or some labourer or lad whom I have pose. Next Sunday I’ll perhaps have one or two soldiers who’ll come to pose. And so, since I’m no longer in a bad mood now, I have a quite...
...to draw these types of workmen &c., I’m confident of succeeding in becoming more or less capable of working in magazine or book illustration. First and foremost, when I’ll be able to pay more for...
...time being, while waiting for you to have something or other to offer me, perhaps. But write to me...
in date note:
...reply to letter 161 (dating from late December or early January), for which Vincent apologizes in this...
in note 1:
...Illustrated London News (1870); later in the decade he became a ‘special artist’ for L’Illustration.
in note 2:
...leader of a secret society called ‘Les Dévorants’. When his involvement in this society indirectly...
in note 3:
...road (F 1105 / JH -) correspond to ‘A miner’ and ‘A walk in the snow’. For In front of the embers Van Gogh might have been inspired by John Leech’s illustration John’s reverie in Charles Dickens, ‘The cricket on the hearth�� or Felix Octavius Carr Darley’s illustration in Dickens, Christmas books. See...
in note 5:
...thinking of Henry Bonaventure Monnier’s Mémoires de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme (1857), which he...
in note 12:
...live in Brussels in 1880. See Victor Horta, Mémoires. Ed. C. Dulière. Brussels 1985, pp. 7-8, 316; and...
163 To Theodorus van Gogh and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Brussels, on or about Wednesday, 16 February 1881.
in title:
163 To Theodorus van Gogh and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Brussels, on or about Wednesday, 16 February 1881.
in translation:
...him whether he’d give it to me for a day or two in order to copy it. At first he objected, probably because he thought that I wouldn’t be able to do it or that it would take me too long, but I...
...trousers from the same man. I was of course more or less provided for by the first one, but having...
...or brown velvet that’s very picturesque and characteristic — furthermore, a red doublet or vest...
...cap and that of Blankenberge, for example, or Scheveningen or Katwijk. However, it’s by no means...
...who earn 10 or 15 francs a day, and in London and elsewhere just as much or even more, but one...
...extraordinarily eager to know what Theo’s proposal could possibly be, or perhaps to hear something from Mr Tersteeg. Because one way or another I must know anyway sometime in the month of March...
...later on, whether it takes a long time or not. Models are expensive, relatively expensive at any...
...you this because you might think they were tawdry or out of the ordinary. This material is worn...
in date note:
...parents on the birthday of Anna, which was 17 February (l. 138), so he must have written this letter on or shortly before that date. The manuscript bears the number ‘16’, added later by another hand in darker ink.
in note 4:
...it be convenient for you to take care of it then or should I do it? Tell me frankly’ (FR b2235, 14...
in note 7:
...jacket (‘doublet’) without tails, with one or two rows of buttons, and made of thick, coarse...
164 To Theo van Gogh. Brussels, Saturday, 2 April 1881.
in original text:
...Nous devons faire des efforts de perdus, de désespérés. Voilà ce qu’il ne fait pas encore...
in translation:
...or almost no idea, what ‘proportions for the purpose of design’ are, or beautiful lines or...
...Heist, Kalmthout, Etten, Scheveningen, Katwijk or wherever. Or even, which is closer, Schaarbeek...
...C.M., or to go and see His Hon., there would be a chance that he wouldn’t read my letter or would...
...or anything else, and I’d most likely run into C.M. there this summer, if he were to go there or...
...ll always be judged or talked about in differing ways, whether within or outside the family, and...
...people know why a draughtsman does this or that. Peasants and townsfolk, however, generally impute...
...not to visit, in order to find picturesque places or figures. A peasant who sees me drawing an old...
...t understand, of course, why anyone visits the Borinage or Heist and goes down a coal-mine all the...
...I shouldn’t be able to go to Etten, for example, or to The Hague, if it should work out that way...
...opinion of me, and then I could profit directly or indirectly from the artists in Holland. As far...
in note 5:
...departure, c. 1869-1870 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). Ill. 138. Van Gogh refers to...
in note 6:
Charles Degroux, The drunkard (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). Ill. 139. This watercolour ‘in...
in note 12:
Veloutine is cotton or silk velvet.
in note 17:
...Bargue’s Exercices au fusain and Cours de dessin in late August or early September 1880 (see letter 157).
165 To Theo van Gogh. Brussels, Tuesday, 12 April 1881.
in translation:
...the burden’, the further execution of which I wanted to discuss with you. To finish them I must, one way or another, have the necessary models, and then I’m confident that something good will come of them, namely a couple of compositions that I can show to Smeeton Tilly or the people from L’Illustration or suchlike.
166 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, on or about Saturday, 30 April or Sunday, 1 May 1881.
in title:
166 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, on or about Saturday, 30 April or Sunday, 1 May 1881.
in translation:
...watercolours in Brussels and it was quite interesting. There were 4 or 5 Mauves, woodcutters, 1 J. Maris, dunes, just like a painting by Ruisdael or Van de Velde. Then J.H. Weissenbruch, superb, 5 large drawings...
...happen to hear of a position for a draughtsman somewhere or other. And now it’s time for the post...
in date note:
...a happy birthday; in previous years he did this on or shortly before 1 May, the day itself (cf. letters 26...
in note 5:
The catalogue lists the following watercolours by Anton Mauve: Le chariot à bois (The wood-cart), Petit chariot à bois (Small wood-cart), Le chargement du bois (Loading wood ) and Le jardinier (The gardener) (cat...
in note 6:
...dunes (Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland) or to Dune landscape (Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet...
in note 10:
...Gabriël: Matin (Morning), Dans les tourbières (In the peat) and Environs de Schiedam (Environs of...
in note 18:
...lists the following watercolours by François Pieter ter Meulen: Moutons quittant la bergerie...
167 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, second half of May 1881.
in translation:
I’m enclosing a word or two because they’re writing to you, for I thought you’d like to hear from me...
in date note:
...this letter was written in Etten, some time after Theo’s visit at Easter. In letter 166 of on or about 30 April or 1 May, the plans for Van Rappard’s visit are not yet mentioned, which means that the present...
168 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, end of June 1881.
in translation:
I must tell you that Rappard was here for 12 days or so, and has now left. Naturally he sends you his...
...now I’ve been drawing with pencil only, worked up or heightened with the pen, if necessary with a...
...sign that he’s no longer thinking about it or whether, on the contrary, he’s hatching his plan...
in date note:
...left Etten on Thursday, 16 June (at the earliest) or by Saturday, 25 June (at the latest). Another clue...
in note 3:
The Passievaart, or Pagnevaart, is between the parishes of Hoeven and Bosschenhoofd, about 5 km from...
in note 20:
The catalogue of the Salon, Explication des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, architecture, gravure et lithographie des artistes vivants exposés au Palais des Champs-Elysées le 2 mai 1881. Paris 1881.
in note 21:
...such as Guide de l’alphabet du dessin, Eléments de perspective, Traité pratique de perspective and...
RM12 Probably Etten, second half of 1881. Possibly sent to Anna van Gogh. Copy of the poem ‘St Jerome’s love’ by Thomas Moore.
in note 1:
...or the records of an unfashionable street. A novel, in which the poem appears. See ed. London 1877, p. 86. There are several differences between Van Gogh’s copy and the printed version. The most striking are: 5 of calm delight < of this world’s light 9 That light < It’s beam 11 ’Mongst those that < From those who 16 dress < vest 21 dress < grace 22 bloom < dawn 24 wavering < trembling Van Gogh copied the poem, again with more or less the same differences, twice in Saint-Rémy: at the end of letter 832 to Willemien van Gogh, and on a loose sheet belonging to the estate. Torn on purpose all around the text, the sheet contains part of a letter to Theo on the back (see RM18...
169 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, between about Friday, 15 and on or about Wednesday, 20 July 1881.
in title:
169 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, between about Friday, 15 and on or about Wednesday, 20 July 1881.
in translation:
...I find it even more unnecessary to send you a thing or two, which I would readily have done if you...
...were to take thin Whatman or Harding, but that’s a bit too expensive for sketches, Ingres paper costs 10 centimes a sheet, I think). So do your best to stuff a smaller or larger quantity into your...
...by Holbein &c. from the Bargues. Prompted by a thing or two you once said, I’ve also tried to...
in date note:
...presumably took place between about 23 July and on or about 31 July (see letter 170, n. 1). This means...
in note 3:
Three drawings after the Holbeins in Bargue’s Cours de dessin (Modèles d’après les maîtres) are known; the one referred to here is probably Daughter of Jacob Meyer, after Holbein (F 833 / JH 13). See letter 160, n. 12.
170 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Friday, 5 August 1881.
in original text:
...dan kan ik U zeer recommandeeren “Shirley” door Currer Bell, schrijfster ook van een ander boek...
...heeft gemerkt. Waarlijk dat is een van de petites misères de la vie d’un dessinateur. Nu, adieu...
in translation:
...be worth the bother, but rather because in general, well or not well, I like to speak to a doctor...
...notions about such matters, and if one knows more or less what one should take care not to do, and...
...Bell, the author of another book, Jane Eyre. This is as beautiful as the paintings of Millais or Boughton or Herkomer. I found it at Princenhage and read it in three days, even though it’s quite a...
...labourer, though I think it will be better not to have him pose here at the house, but either in the yard at his place or in the field with a spade or plough or something else. But what a business it is to get people to understand what posing is! Peasants and townsfolk desperately cling to an idea...
...other part of the body has made its characteristic dent or hump. Truly, this is one of the petty...
in note 8:
Le père Goriot (1835) is part of the series Scènes de la vie privée from the cycle of novels La comédie...
in note 12:
...misères de la vie humaine (1843) by Old Nick and Grandville, repeated almost exactly in letter 178; secondly, considering the earlier references to Balzac in this letter, to his Petites misères de la vie...
171 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Friday, 26 August 1881
in original text:
...op de tentoonstelling hadden mogelijk meer défauts maar wekten onmiddelijk sympathie, althans zoo...
in translation:
...as to my copying a figure by Millet, Boughton or others now and then, and most people think that...
...them to me — not sketches for drawings or designs for paintings but true study sheets, apparently...
...but, did those two take pains over the figures, yes or no? Corot’s figures may not be so well...
...respect. It put me in mind of what Bürger or Thoré, I think, said about Rembrandt’s Anatomy...
...that exhibition, there was a superb drawing by Israëls, Sewing school at Katwijk. Mauve, a plough...
...others and getting them to understand it. He had 3 or 4 good drawings in the exhibition. I was in...
...that is something like the colour of unbleached cotton or linen? Like a few of the sheets that were...
...I might not have done it, because of the expense, or at least put it off. Ever yours, Vt De Bock...
in note 10:
...Musées de la Hollande: ‘George Sand wrote: “Masterpieces have defects.” The Anatomy lesson has none. But perhaps to have none is itself a defect. As a painting, it is an accomplished work in its genre. Senza errore.’ (George Sand a écrit: “Les chefs-d’oeuvres ont des défauts...
in note 12:
Jozef Israëls, The sewing school at Katwijk (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Ill. 200. This was exhibited as...
in note 19:
...drawings: Salzburg, Lagny (Seine et Marne) (Salzburg, Lagny (Seine et Marne), Sint Marcuskerk te Venetie (St Mark’s in Venice) and De brug te Naäs (Zweden) (The bridge at Naäs (Sweden)) (p. 12, cat. nos. 77-80).
in note 21:
...or The duet (The Hague, Kunstmuseum). It is not certain whether the reproduction in Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandblad 1-2 (1891) was based on this watercolour or on a variant. Cf. exhib. cat. Amsterdam 2002, pp. 136-138, cat. no. 75, and exhib. cat. The Hague 2005, pp. 29-30 (ill. 27). Maris made a number of...
in note 27:
...estate contained four etchings by Jean-François Millet. It was possibly these etchings (and not...
172 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, mid-September 1881.
in translation:
Prompted as well by a thing or two that Mauve said to me, I’ve started working again from a live model...
...with the brush and the stump. With a little sepia or indian ink, and now and then with a bit of...
...up till now. The size of the figures is more or less that of one of the Exercices au fusain. As...
...again for a few days. This is a field or stubble field which is being ploughed and sown, I...
in date note:
...large number of drawings (ll. 18-25) and to conclude that the working method and the results both show changes (ll. 5-6). The following letter to Van Rappard dates from 12 October (letter 174), and the number of...
in note 1:
...as a man with a spade... under the apple tree at “De IJzeren Pot”, the farm where I lived’, and ‘in Roosendaalseweg with a hoe’ ... Whenever I posed and the work was finished, Vincent asked how much he owed me. I answered: “Nothing, Vincent”. “Well, Piet, then we’re done,” he would say, satisfied...’. Kaufmann, in any case, is assumed to have posed for the following drawings: Boy cutting grass with a sickle (F 851 / JH 61), Digger (F 855 / JH 43) and Digger (F 859 / JH 29). It is also possible that he appears in Sower (F 866a / JH 27) and Kneeling man, planting (F 879 / JH 62). Kaufmann also names another model: ‘On Minus van Oostenrijk’s land, where he was ploughing, he drew Minus as a ploughman’. Although Minus’s son later stated that Van Gogh had made a ‘large painting’ of his father ploughing, as well as a portrait of his mother, it is very doubtful whether Van Gogh was already making paintings during this period. See [Anonymous], ‘Tuinman van dominee Van Gogh vertelt zijn herinneringen over Vincent’, Gazet van Antwerpen, 8 December 1953; Stokvis 1926, included in Verzamelde brieven 1973, vol. 1, pp. 291-293; and Kerstens 1990. The Minus referred to is either Johannes Andries Oostrijck or Lambregt Oostrijck, who were both peasants living in Etten at Dorp, A 140 and A 141 (RAZ)....
in note 3:
At this time Van Gogh made a number of figure drawings of sowers on large sheets. Letter sketch K is derived...
in note 10:
...a pencil. The mention of the brand name Conté does not necessarily mean that the chalk was actually made...
in note 11:
A rolled-up piece of chamois or paper, pointed at both ends, used to rub the drawing medium in pencil or chalk drawings in order to obtain nuances, such as shadow effects.
173 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, beginning of October 1881.
in note 6:
...Almanach du commerce de Paris 1886 and AP, Listes électorales, 9e arrondissement; Calepins du cadastre).
in note 10:
...Gogh enclosed with one from their parents (l. 2) or to the sketches he sent, which Theo subsequently...
174 To Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Wednesday, 12 October 1881.
in translation:
...for the winter. Supposing you go to Antwerp, Brussels or Paris, be sure to come and visit us on...
...then working from a model in the house of some peasant or other. I’ve been drawing a lot from the...
...Mauve again soon to discuss the question of whether or not I should start painting. If I start...
in note 2:
...or less the same thing happened with Dickens, whom the misanthrope kept at a distance with his coldness’ (trouvait Gavarni affaissé au coin d’un énorme feu de charbon de terre, les yeux rouges et larmoyants de la fatigue du travail nocturne, répondant à peine à ses avances et comme un homme loin de ce qu’on lui dit. Thackeray l’invitait à dîner, Gavarni le contre-invitait pour le lendemain, blessant par ce procédé le gentleman qui, dans ses rapports futurs avec l’artiste, se tint sur la réserve. Cela se passait à peu près de même avec Dickens, que le misanthrope tenait à l’écart par sa froideur) (Goncourt 1873, pp. 310-311...
in note 8:
...Meusnier, wrote Le fusain sans maitre. Traité pratique et complet sur l’étude du paysage au fusain. Suivi de leçons réproduites par l’héliogravure de la maison Goupil & Cie d’après Allongé. 4th ed. Paris 1879 (editions also appeared in 1874 and 1881). It is a concise manual intended for private study. Cf...
in note 10:
This is Leursestraatje, or Leurseweg; the road and the pollard willows appear on the map that Vincent and...
175 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, between Wednesday, 12 and Saturday, 15 October 1881.
in original text:
...in ’t teekenen meen ik dat Serrer de près vaut mieux que lâcher.─ Hoe langer hoe meer gevoel...
in translation:
...it actually is, then the surroundings follow more or less naturally, if only one has focused all...
...we’ll go backwards. If we don’t draw figures, or else trees as though they were figures, then we’re like people who have no spine, or at least one that’s too weak. Millet and Corot, whom we both like so much, could they paint a figure or couldn’t they? I mean, those Masters balked at...
...De Bock replied: My dear Mr Destrée, what is easier, painting a panorama or refusing to paint a panorama? What is more artistic, doing it or not doing it? I don’t know whether those were his exact...
176 To Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Saturday, 15 October 1881.
in translation:
...see you soon, whether you come by way of Breda or whether you come by way of Roosendaal. First of...
...only have to write, I’m coming then or then on this or that train. If it’s impossible for you...
...the station in Breda or the station in Roosendaal, and on your writing a letter or postcard to tell...
...Whether you go to Brussels or whether you don’t, something new will ignite in you. It’ll be fine, and your going or not going to Brussels will make little difference one way or the other, but the...
...field, a digger, a sower, a lady in the street or at home, you find them all too beautiful not to...
...no pretension of being anything else. Only in a year or two will I get down to making a sower who...
...a panorama or refusing to paint a panorama? What is more artistic, doing something or not doing it...
...he song of the shirt’, do you know it perhaps, or could you manage to get hold of it? If you know...
...Feyen-Perrin, Millet, Ulysse Butin, Mauve, Artz, Israëls &c. &c. And it’s expressly because I...
in note a:
...actually ‘een hart onder de riem steken’, meaning ‘to give someone encouragement or moral support’.
in note 8:
...appeared in Punch (16 December 1843, Christmas Number). Evidently Van Gogh had just heard of the poem...
177 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, on or about Monday, 17 October 1881.
in title:
177 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, on or about Monday, 17 October 1881.
in translation:
...t particularly distinguish himself, whether in business or in knowledge, but as a person and...
in date note:
...we have dated this letter to shortly thereafter: on or about 17 October 1881. Cf. exhib. cat. Vienna 1996...
178 To Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Wednesday, 2 November 1881.
in original text:
...staan in een zekere mate, doch malheur à nous als we overmoedig & zorgeloos zouden worden omdat we...
in translation:
...in him. You mustn’t think that I enjoy or take pleasure in observing something wrong, it grieves...
...not by any means take me for a headstrong person or partisan. I dare to take sides as much as the...
...m far from thinking you a Pharisee, whether morally or artistically. But that doesn’t alter the...
...make strong studies of nudes, whether at the academy or elsewhere, like those of yours that I’ve...
...But now I wish that you’d also draw or paint ordinary people with clothes on. It wouldn’t...
in note 6:
...title of the popular, humorous book Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville (1843...
179 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Thursday, 3 November 1881.
in original text:
...Natuurlijk heb ik sedert heel wat “petites misères de la vie humaine” ondervonden, die, als ze...
...het waart want geloof me dat ook de “petites misères” er van hun waarde hebben. Men is soms in...
in translation:
...to do, to resign myself to that no, nay, never, or — not yet to regard the matter as over and...
...I’ve been glad that I left the resignation or ‘how-not-to-do-it’ method to those who prefer...
...understand very well that if we were to see, speak or write to one another there would be a chance...
...far from my thoughts. But it’s not unfair or unreasonable to wish that Kee and I, instead of...
...better, we’ll be able to see for ourselves whether or not we’re suited to each other. A year of...
...me to promise not to say or write anything more on this subject, but I wouldn’t promise that; no one in the world, in my opinion, can reasonably demand such a thing of me (or of anyone else in the...
in note 2:
A reference to Petites misères de la vie humaine, a book by Old Nick and Grandville; see letter 178, n. 6.
in note 10:
During this period Van Gogh made a number of drawings of women sewing in which he used watercolour: Woman...
in textual note 33:
spoor” < spoor
180 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Monday, 7 November 1881.
in original text:
...N’étiez vous des amis, je vous nommerais lâches Car je n’accepte point le joug du désespoi...
...eene mogelijke nieuwe liefde. Er is een woord evenwel en ge kent het, Il faut avoir aimé, puis desaimé, puis aimer encore! Aimer encore! ma chere, ma trois fois chère, ma bien aimée.─ Theo...
in translation:
...found, we dust off the charcoal with a handkerchief or a wing and search more intimately for the...
...who will win, the coldness of that piece of ice or my warmth of life, that’s a delicate matter on...
...If I were faced with an iceberg from Greenland or Nova Zembla, I don’t know how many metres...
...so firmly in that no, nay, never and to attach little or no power to the ‘love on’! And I swear...
...as friends those who want to upset me or distract me or thwart me or fob me off. Don’t you find...
...my best beloved. Theo, don’t think it rash or reckless of me that I’m full of enthusiasm for the victory of the Love on! Not that I’ve got it already or that she already loves me, but I’m...
...first it was as shattering as damnation. And yes — for a moment it cast me to the ground, as it...
...to me, What will you live on if you win her?, or perhaps, You won’t get her. But no, you won’t...
...strange feeling, that strange discovery of ‘loving’? For it’s truly the discovery of a new...
in note 4:
...A Alfred de Musset’ in Stances et poèmes (1865). Ed. Paris 1877, p. 306. Also quoted in letter...
181 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Tuesday, 8 or Wednesday, 9 November 1881.
in title:
181 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Tuesday, 8 or Wednesday, 9 November 1881.
in original text:
...sluit meer dan wie ook al uwe grandes et petites misères de la vie humaine in Uw zelf op en als ge...
...is”. Voilà, mon cher, une de leurs manières de souffler sur un monstre et voilà le monstre qui...
...le pense très certainement.─ Me demandes-tu, Comment souffler sur elle. Voici ma réponse simple et claire, En opposant à son “jamais” cette autre parole, “ma chère, je t’aime et tu m’aimeras, que Dieu nous soit en aide”. Il faut avoir aimé, puis désaimé, puis aimer encore! As...
...touché”.─ Entre nous! entre nous! soit dit!─ hoor Theo, zij mag ’t niet weten dat ik in...
...ik zoo zijn”. Dat is mijn houding vis à vis haar. Erg boetvaardigen en nederigen brief aan Oom...
in translation:
...t make head or tail of it and don’t know what to think. Is there anything serious or not? And...
...of mind and the actual circumstances of either you or me. They love us, especially you, with all...
...no matter how hard they try. It’s not that they or we are to blame as much as the difference in...
...both with a kind of despondency. That we felt, or thought we felt, something like, Woman is the...
...in question’. Whether the above words are true or not I’m in no position to say, because since...
...don’t mean to say that I did not, do not or will not do any clumsy, awkward things, but that the...
...misery of human life’ for me that I can’t even occasionally visit her or write to her, and that those who, with me, might exert a wholesome influence on the undermining or bankrupting of that...
...I would that she found no sympathy, anywhere or from anyone, for her ‘no, nay, never’, and...
...again in some way or other. But how to approach her? How to get near her? Some time or other, very...
in date note:
...letter, which must therefore have been written on 8 or 9 November, since letter 182 was written before 12...
in note 4:
A reference to Petites misères de la vie humaine, a book written by Old Nick and Grandville; see letter 178...
in note 10:
...Rousseau, tous raisonneurs, ergoteurs, éloquents. Et pas un n’avait entraîné le monde. Une femme...
in note 18:
...En ’t was met het vinkje gedaan. En de ander? – hij scheurde zijn kleêrtjes En liet er een bundeltje veêrtjes...Maar vloog toch weêr op in de sfeertjes, En spoedig ook groeiden zijn veertjes Veel...
in note 20:
Van Gogh must have drawn a fairly large number of rural types at this time. Cf. the remark he made in letter...
182 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Thursday, 10 or Friday, 11 November 1881.
in title:
182 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Thursday, 10 or Friday, 11 November 1881.
in original text:
...nu wel eens weten. Wat voor soort van petites misères houdt ge er op na. Sommigen ken ik ten deele of geheel, anderen niet. Hebt gij ook petites misères met een dame somwijlen. Natuurlijk, doch ik...
...op de hand.– Wel, Uwe petites misères met de dames interesseeren me bizonder.– Bepaaldelijk...
...hij voorbarig zich inbeeldt “zij is de mijne”, voor dat hij den zielstrijd van ’t liefhebben...
in translation:
...think that someone who has no courage or refuses to commit himself or wouldn’t dare risk his life...
...But does it matter to me if the chance is larger or smaller? I mean, must I, can I, take that into...
...of miseries. Surely nothing like no, nay, nevers? Or, conversely, too many depressing yea and amens...
...to find and secure it. Those petty miseries, or great ones, are riddles; looking for the solution...
...question’, that’s what the Rev. calls it, or rather doesn’t even demand them because he (also...
...means of subsistence, that he obtains them in one way or another and that he works for them. Thus I...
...before his eyes, not to attack him with it, though, or even to threaten him. We then have to use...
...and doesn’t need to be turned inside out or upside down. This latter kind is, however, very rare...
...If you ever love, don’t refuse to commit yourself, or I’d rather say, if you ever love, you...
...open or close with the front door key? I think not, only God and love are capable of opening or...
in date note:
...must precede that one. We have therefore dated this letter to Thursday, 10 or Friday, 11 November 1881.
in note 6:
A reference to Petites misères de la vie humaine, a book by Old Nick and Grandville, see letter 178, n. 6.
in note 18:
...Peter, who is consequently depicted – often together with Paul – with one or more keys as attributes.
183 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Saturday, 12 November 1881.
in original text:
...zeg ik alleen, ja zooveel wist ik ook doch nu, après ça, que sais-tu encore? Want ge moet niet vergeten...
...echte ware, dat is datte, en nu de beide extrêmes, 1o alles vragen zonder iets te geven. 2o niets...
...zoo ware ik de verdomdste aller jesuiten en phariseërs (mag ik u “intusschen” zeggen dat het...
in translation:
...that there is love, thank God, and that we, old or young, must feel its warmth and see its light...
...grounds for my assertion? Or am I tilting at windmills? How can one know whether or not someone has...
...Second when one notices the lack of love, or contentment with love that is wholly deficient. Please don’t get all too angry now, but count to 10 or 20 or 30, slowly and calmly, if I make it sound...
...capsized in his 20th year or thereabouts and perished, did it not? �� or no – surfaced again...
...neighbour as thyself. One can turn aside to the right or to the left, and that’s just as bad. It...
...there are those who praise one or other of these extremes to a greater or lesser extent, the first...
...motives, money, for example, or lust, and thought, she can’t escape me for this or that reason, I...
...in that house, and that whether or not that woman’s heart opened or closed depended on that front...
...fashion plate for a figure by Boughton, Millais or Tissot. Am I as short-sighted as that??? Surely...
184 To Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Saturday, 12 November 1881.
in original text:
...geven. Elles sucent le sang. Ces maîtresses-là elles glacent les hommes, et les pétrifient. Doch...
...en dédis pas. quand bien même tu voudrais prendre mes paroles en sens non figuré. As tu compris...
...designées sous le nom de collet montées &c. &c. C’est bien ça, justement, tu la décris fort...
...e sachiez aimer à moins que ce ne soit dans certains ciels académiques, va encore – mais soit...
...s, d’où elle vient? – je suis loin de nier sa divinité, son immortalité, j’y crois très...
...Ah! mais tout ça est très beau, très sublime. Oui mais elle ne savait pas que ça s’appelait ainsi, elle croyait que c’etait tout simple, elle ne le fait pas exprès, ce n’etait pas son...
...lle, vois tu, sont peu brillants, peu cherchés. Son sentiment est toujours juste. To know what...
...c’est “la résignation dans les désappointements”. Encore une invention pharisienne d’un...
...que celui d’envoyer à tous les diables ta froide maîtresse, à plus forte raison puisque ces...
in translation:
...to what extent my reasoning is right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate. But I do know this...
...you will surely see and feel when calmly reading or re-reading my letter – the person who speaks...
...that I speak or write to you as I do? Could it be because I want to lay a trap for you or am a kind...
...I’d prefer to see such a one walking on a footpath or street. Don’t get angry now – read on...
...Dame Nature or Reality. I’ve also fallen in love like that, madly in love with a Dame Nature or...
...to think that there is but one Dame Nature or Reality, no, that’s only the surname of various...
...those who freeze and petrify, with academic reality or �� or – if you want me to gild the pill...
...consciously or unconsciously, they’ve had mistresses of one or other of these dispositions, or...
...from the arms of that woman of marble (or is it but plaster??? how horrible!), otherwise you’ll...
...academic heavens, of course — but on the heath or in private, by the fireside, no, not at all...
in note 2:
Quinine is a febrifuge, i.e. a substance used to dispel or reduce fever.
in note 5:
...et misères des courtisanes, he says: ‘Le tiaple n’egssisde boinde’ (le diable n’existe point – the devil doesn’t exist). See Balzac, La comédie humaine vi. Etudes de moeurs. Scènes de la vie...
in note 7:
...a point de vieille femme’, Michelet writes: ‘For the rest, a lady is a lady’ (Du reste, une dame...
in note 8:
...submitted one of his works that was shown at the ‘Levende Meesters’ (Living Masters) exhibition at Arti; the archives of Arti give no further information (cf. letter 176, n. 10). The number eleven has to do with ‘Carnaval’, or Shrovetide, the pre-lenten festivities beginning as early as St Martin’s Day (11-11).
185 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Friday, 18 November 1881.
in translation:
...I on the other don’t agree about what should or should not be done about that certain ‘no, nay...
...and took not the slightest notice of either Pa or Ma. Reluctantly, but still, I wanted to make them...
...Pa and Ma said to me calmly, leave, of course I would leave. There are things that a man cannot take lying down. If one were to let himself be told ‘you’re a madman�� or ‘you’re someone who breaks family ties�� or you’re ‘indelicate’, then anyone with a heart in his body would protest with all his might. I also said something to Pa and Ma, namely that in the matter of this love of...
...Well, I’ll gladly believe that at times I couldn’t hide my indignation upon hearing ‘indelicate�� or ‘breaking ties’, but who would remain calm if it didn’t stop? In any event, Pa, in...
186 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Friday, 18 November 1881.
in original text:
...worden soms wat driftig en zij hebben hun prejugés en verouderde denkbeelden die noch gij noch ik...
in translation:
...For a moment I’d hesitated, should I tell him or not? But thinking it over later it seemed to me...
...that I don’t obey the ‘rules of decorum�� or whatever, it’s all just idle talk), so because...
...s view that I shouldn’t write or speak either to her or to Uncle Stricker; indeed, I feel the...
...myself one iota to leaving off writing to her or her parents or you. If Pa curses me for it, then...
...ever to think that they didn’t care one way or the other. Anyhow, I’m writing to you about it...
...of decorum or that I have an indelicate way of expressing myself or that I’m breaking ties or...
...t obey the rules of decorum or expresses himself indelicately or other things, assuming this were...
...thing’ in the sense of so weak, so nervous or whatever. But be assured that lurking in ‘that...
...of many towards her, and I maintain that sooner or later one might see things from ‘that poor...
...I have but 20 or 30 francs, at least I can see her face once again. And write a word or two, if you...
187 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Saturday, 19 November 1881.
in original text:
...regel met uitzonderingen) geen ongelooviger en verstokter en wereldscher menschen dan dominés en bovenal dominésvrouwen doch zelfs dominés hebben soms onder eene wapenrusting van triple airain een...
...meer en veel duidelijker dingen dan ik kunnen die lui U zeggen. Il faut avoir aimé, puis desaimé, puis aimer encore. Aimer encore quant même, “onherroepelijk” is ons ongelijk voor zooveel wij...
in translation:
...the eyes and took a few hesitant steps, more or less decided. Then Mister X said, very forcefully...
...at do I know? – strong or weak, boisterous or serious, flippant or solemn, wretched in any case...
...I’d call taking a Brochart or something similar to be a Boughton, Millais or Tissot. But I doubt...
...My wife and I and Our neighbours by Beecher Stowe. Or Jane Eyre and Shirley by Currer Bell. Those...
...I actually don’t believe for a minute that you or I were born for that; on the contrary, I think...
...of all, though, we must say, no matter what, happy or unhappy, I want to go on loving! Thanks, old...
...or their tone, and are often confused as to my actual meaning and think that I want to insult or...
...no better than by loving sincerely (not naїvely or sentimentally, but manfully) and by loving only...
...who calls my love “indelicate”, does he love me or not, does he have a father’s heart in his...
...t contradict them with the intention of distressing or insulting them but because it’s sometimes...
in note 15:
...will come back through the windows’ (Qu’on lui ferme la porte au nez, il reviendra par les fenêtres).
in textual note:
...were added while the second part of the letter was being written, or after it had been completed.
188 To Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Monday, 21 November 1881.
in original text:
...en veroorzaakt veel groote en kleine petites misères de la vie humaine. Maar toen ze mij dat juk...
in translation:
...the same thoughts. Is he small of stature, with black or at least dark hair and a rather pale...
...half and much more satisfactory. Assuming that sooner or later you’ll leave the academy for good...
...of his element when, instead of knowing in advance, today I have to do this or that, he must daily improvise or rather create his working environment. Looking for and finding work isn’t at all easy...
...as we’d like, but if we don’t drown or get battered against the rocks by the breakers, we’ll...
...time of drudgery and toil. We start out catching few or no fish, but we get to know the waters and...
...in our own eye’, confusing a seeming or would-be conscience with our real conscience. The person...
...impossible that there might be more whose existence or otherwise might not be completely clear to...
...provided we don’t take ‘not being too dismayed’ so far that it becomes carelessness or indifference or obduracy on that score. I recently received a nice letter from my brother Theo, who also...
in note 5:
...of this phrase, which was taken from Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville, see...
189 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, Wednesday, 23 November 1881.
in original text:
...In God gelooven daar bedoel ik mee (niet dat ge gelooven zoudt al de preekjes der predikanten en de redenaties en jesuitismes der bégueules, dévotes, collet montées, dat zij verre), in God gelooven daar bedoel ik mee gevoelen dat er een God bestaat, niet een dooden of opgezetten God (empaill...
...zal hij niet zachtjes denken “o IMPIES! o, imbéciles!” En zie, dit vertrouw ik van J.P.S., dat...
...toch gelijk. Het is ook op de boeken van Michelet zelf toepasselijk, il faut les avoir aimé, puis desaimé, puis aimé encore. Zou dit zachte weder zacht genoeg zijn om een dezer dagen het “neen...
...seule et errante et désolée et j’ai couru après elle – les autres – qu’est ce que ça me...
in translation:
...ng’ and destroying J.P.S. or playing a mean trick on His Hon. or deceiving him, I’d certainly...
...I say, that he’s been a bit too ambitious or has been carrying too much sail, in any case he’ll...
...things — in my registered letter, and to have more or less said to His Hon., though not in the...
...you prefer that I don’t write to you so often or so much, just say Stop! But perhaps another Stop...
...the least. But that isn’t enough in itself, or rather, there are other things I must deal with...
...prevent me from seeking to form relationships elsewhere, or even from living elsewhere for a while...
...s cheating you, Messrs Goupil & Cie? The immoral women or the chaste women? Although I’ve always...
...have an influence? Will I be chucked out during or shortly after ‘the big celebration’? God...
...with Kee Vos and J.P.S., I told them a thing or two about my view of ‘the case in question’. S...
...first ‘demoralizing’ myself, second going mad or dying of despair, third ‘meanwhile’ looki...
in note 12:
...gospel of freedom for a race’ (Le plus grand succès du temps est celui d’un livre de femme, le roman de...
in note 25:
...célibataires qui restent tels par l’effroi des dépenses du mariage, mais dépensent infiniment plus.) And he goes on to say: ‘These “marriages of a moment”, that are women’s wretchedness, are not for that reason the less dearly beloved by men’ (Ces mariages d’un moment, qui sont la misère de la femme, n’en sont pas moins très-chers pour l’homme) (Michelet, L’amour, pp. 39-40...
in textual note 258:
imbéciles!” < imbéciles!
190 To Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Wednesday, 23 November 1881.
in translation:
...the above-mentioned things. So the sea and that haven, or that haven and the sea. And as regards...
...we may in fact take as proved the logic or the reasonableness of the proposition ‘people, let us...
...proposition.) We now come to remarkable conclusions or ‘consequences’ of this basic principle...
...conversion wouldn’t be great. Yes, and whether I say it or don’t say it, I think you’ll understand in any case that I’m more or less insinuating: Rappard, that by sticking so close to the...
in note 3:
...falsity of a premiss, principle, etc., by showing that the conclusion or consequence is absurd’ (OED).
191 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between Thursday, 1 and Saturday, 3 December 1881.
in original text:
...van dien tijd door de allereerste petites misères van het schilderen & ga dan naar ’t Heike terug.
...denk ik. Zij is Goddank ook iets erg réeels. Nu weest gegroet, ook van Mauve & Jet en geloof me...
in translation:
...or that it would be all too short and thought, I’ll go and try it another way, and if possible deal with it somewhat more drastically. I spoke to Mauve and said, would you approve if I were to come and trouble you for a good month or so – then when that time is up I’ll be past the first petty vexations of painting and will go back to Het Heike...
...in love than I went. Not because she encouraged me, though. On the contrary, for a moment or rather 24 hours or so she made me extremely miserable. But on reflection, I thought I’d noticed from a...
...and cheerful. What a sweet girl she’s becoming, or rather is. I’ve also been to see Mr...
192 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 18 December 1881.
in title:
192 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 18 December 1881.
in translation:
...the types and figures. But the models there cost 1.50 or 2 guilders a day, some of them even more...
...clothes, without consulting the person and without fitting or measuring. Pa sent the coat here, but...
...t any money to go back. I’ll wait a day or so in any case and do whatever you want. Do you think...
...your answer. But if your answer doesn’t come within 3 or 4 days, I’ll ask Pa for the money to...
in date note:
...or Thursday, 24 November (see letter 191). This offers no basis for an exact dating, although the letter must have been written around 20 December. On Monday, 19 December Mrs van Gogh wrote to Theo that there had been positive reports from Vincent (cf. n. 3) and that he would probably come home ‘at the end of the week’. She goes on to talk about the search for a studio in Etten (FR 2239), which is a point Vincent discusses in the present letter (ll. 17-21). He also mentions his intention of returning home in three or four days (he actually returned on c. 23 December) and expresses the same optimism about his work. These parallels suggest that the letter to his parents and this letter to Theo were written at approximately the same time. The letter to his parents arrived on 19 December in Etten, so we assume that this letter to Theo was written around Sunday, 18 December 1881...
193 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, on or about Friday, 23 December 1881.
in title:
193 To Theo van Gogh. Etten, on or about Friday, 23 December 1881.
in original text:
...te digt bij Uw model”. Daardoor wordt het in veel gevallen zoo...
...genegenheid en liefde voor die vrouwen die de dominés zoo verdommen en uit de hoogte van af den...
...in orde te komen. De dominés noemen ons zondaars, in zonde...
...en gewitte kerkmuren waarop de dominés verliefd zijn. Het was een stemmig...
...als dezen zomer. Maar die vrouwen die door de dominés veroordeeld en veracht en vervloekt worden...
...dat dikwijls de jesuitismes van dominés en devote dames meer impressie op haar...
...God”. Zie, die God van de dominés, ik vind hem zoo dood als een pier. Maar ben ik daarom een athéist. De dominés beschouwen me zoo – que soit – maar...
...propos ik hoorde dat Jules Breton toevallig zeggen en heb dat gezegde van hem onthouden). Zeg eens, hebt ge ooit Mauve hooren preeken?? ik heb hem verschillende dominés hooren...
in translation:
...the sake of criticizing. Or if someone says ‘you’re ill with this or that’, that...
...or bad sign. This much I do know, that I’ve never seen her so seemingly or...
...I’ll stay four weeks or so, or six weeks or so, or as long or as short as you...
...Who’s the master, logic or I? Is logic there for me or am I there for logic...
...in my unreasonableness or my stupidity? And whether I act rightly or wrongly, I...
...I need a woman or I’ll freeze or turn to stone, or anyway be overwhelmed. In...
...resembled a nice figure by Chardin or Frère or possibly Jan Steen. Anyhow, that...
...wondrous about it. Call it God or human nature or what you will, but there’s...
...s God or just as good as God. Look, if I must die in due course in one way or...
...it or inherited it? Second, would he have paid for it in instalments or parts...
in date note:
...194). We have therefore dated the letter to on or about Friday, 23...
in note 5:
...source of this phrase, borrowed from Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville, see...
in note 16:
...in this letter in Amsterdam or The Hague, though the latter venue is more likely...
194 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 29 December 1881.
in translation:
...better. It’s a daring move, and a question of sink or swim. But some day I’d have set up house...
...one’s feet. The light comes from the south, more or less, but the window is large and high, and I...
...my head and heart must be expressed in drawings or paintings. Mauve himself is very busy with a...
in note 2:
...a small street off Schenkweg, though it was considered part of the same street. The house number was 138 (from 1884 number 9). The owner of the house was Adrianus Johannes van der Drift. Van Gogh made a drawing of...
195 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Friday, 30 December 1881.
in translation:
...as you yourself say, you weren’t quite normal. Nothing or next to nothing in your letter holds water.
...I don’t want to hear another syllable or utter another syllable about the whole academy ever...
...ll send them on – I’m wavering between 2 or 3 studios and will decide which one to take before...
in note 1:
...to that letter (in which he must have announced his return) or to another letter written after his return.
196 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 3 January 1882.
in title:
196 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 3 January 1882.
in original text:
...vind ik het best en gij ook hoop ik.– Hoor eens, ge weet er alles van, mijn uitgaven zullen wat...
in translation:
...as large as an ordinary window), and it’s more or less facing south. I’ve bought furniture in true...
...now have thought that I’m merely dabbling, idling or loafing about. I hope that you’ll be able...
...dressing a bit better now, though. Now I know more or less the direction I must take, and can stand...
in date note:
...Year’s greetings to Theo (ll. 2-3) suggest that the letter was written at the very beginning of the month, since the following letter dates from 5 or 6 January. Possible dates are therefore 2, 3 or 4 January 1882.
in note 3:
...Tillet in La Maison Nucingen (1838) by Honoré de Balzac. See Oeuvres complètes. Paris 1879, vol 8, p. 605.
198 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 5 or Friday, 6 January 1882.
in title:
198 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 5 or Friday, 6 January 1882.
in translation:
...truly haven’t had a penny in my pocket for a day or two. Of course I’d really counted on your having...
...he hasn’t been here yet. If for one reason or another you can’t send the 100 francs all at...
in date note:
...letter 196 of on or about 3 January 1882 had already been sent, though he had not yet received Theo’s letter of 5 January (letter 197) (see ll. 21-23). That letter probably arrived on 6 January, or possibly 7 January, which means that the present letter could have been written on Thursday, 5 or Friday, 6 January...
199 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 8 or Monday, 9 January 1882.
in title:
199 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 8 or Monday, 9 January 1882.
in original text:
...4) Dat het zich niet gaauw redresseeren zal.– Voor het uiterlijke heb ik de zaak in orde gebragt...
...anders, maar die is voorafgegaan door andere scènes, doch als wanneer ik op bedaarder ofschoon...
...de moraal en het godsdienstig systeem van de dominés en de akademische opvattingen voor mij geen...
...de Graphic, gedeeltelijk afdrukken niet van de clichés maar van de blokken zelf. Precies de dingen...
in translation:
...then I refrain from saying them out of diplomacy or I say them in another way. But all diplomacy...
...financial reasons, and so as not to cause you or anyone else any more trouble, I wouldn’t have...
...said to Pa ‘do consider this or that fully’, or ‘this or that doesn’t hold water in my...
...or suchlike are repeated to others, who then start to look upon me as something of a murderer or...
...picking and choosing my words and actually saying nothing? Or do you want me to go on writing just...
...mincing my words or holding back. I prefer to do the latter, namely write or say plainly what I...
...wonderful for words. When will you come and have coffee or tea with me? Soon I hope. You can stay...
...The Graphic, some of them prints not of the clichés but of the blocks themselves. Just what I’ve...
...I don’t know what yet, but whether it’s now or later, I must do it sometime, because I took a...
...it out in advance, and know that I can or cannot do this or that. So you’ll be doing me a great...
in date note:
...in The Hague on Friday, 6 or possibly Saturday, 7 August, but it was addressed to Mauve, so Vincent received it only ‘later’ (ll. 246-247). His reply must therefore date from Sunday, 8 or Monday, 9 January 1882.
in note a:
Read: ‘tijdens welke scènes echter’ (during which scenes, however; translated here as ‘when’).
in note 15:
...or 5 guilders, depending on the type of membership. Later on the categories were expanded to include ‘special members’ and ‘outside members’. Mauve was a member of the board from 1878 to 1883. See S. de...
200 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 14 January 1882.
in title:
200 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 14 January 1882.
in translation:
...cold-hearted mood which Mauve would perhaps call a yellow soap mood or saltwater mood. But even if I had written a yellow soap letter or a saltwater letter, surely that’s no worse than taking...
...himself says that I’ll ruin at least 10 drawings or so before I know how to handle the brush a...
...coffee. You see I’m looking for tone, a head or a hand that glows, with life in it, and that...
...running. Well then, when I go out, I quite often go to sketch in the soup kitchen or the 3rd-class waiting room or such places. But it’s so damned cold outdoors, especially for me, since I don’t...
...things like models often depend on the money I do or don’t have in my pocket, whether I can set to work at full speed, half speed or sometimes not at all. Now, for instance, I’m negotiating with...
in date note:
...8 or Monday, 9 January 1881. The number of days cannot be determined exactly, but the letter appears to have been written at the latest during the weekend starting Saturday, 14 January, because the following letter (201 of Saturday, 21 January) tells about the then past week. We have therefore dated the letter to on or about...
in note 6:
This ‘mother with a little child’ was most likely Clasina Maria Hoornik, called ‘Christien�� or ‘Sien’, and her four-year-old daughter Maria Wilhelmina Hoornik; cf. letter 207, n. 2 and letter 228: ‘at the...
201 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 21 January 1882.
in translation:
...is what determines whether I can work at full speed or half speed. And now that I’m here, all...
...discouraged if I couldn’t go on working just as hard or even harder. If you write to Mr Tersteeg about it, he’ll gladly give you credit for an amount you set yourself, and if he wants to he can check and see what I spend it on if he or you don’t trust me. But it would be terrible not to go on working as I have been the last three weeks or so. With regard to the size of the drawings or the subjects, I’ll gladly listen to what Mr T. or Mauve has to say about it. I’ve been working on...
...should I do now? If I were to go to Mauve or Mr Tersteeg and ask them, I don’t think they’d...
...as to where I stand. So answer me soon and, if you will, do either one or the other: send me something to keep me going or write about it to Mr Tersteeg. Theo, I feel an energy in me and I’m...
202 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 22 January 1882.
in translation:
...Then, too, I have relatively few drawing materials, or otherwise inadequate ones. Well, I have my...
...there are heaps of things I still have to get or replace, and naturally it needn’t be all at once...
...regarding which Mauve has already told me a thing or two, which I’ll certainly do, though not all...
...going to pay and whether I’ll continue the next day or won’t be able to. And I must, I must be...
...that my strength was beginning to ebb, not my desire or my courage, and that’s why I’m telling...
...that I’ve found that little old woman, it needn’t be so expensive as it was those first few days when I was bargaining with this one or that one, for I’ve already had a number of models, but they’re too expensive or they think it too far to come, or they complain later and can’t come back regularly. But I think I’ve done well to find this woman. Yesterday I had a lesson from Mauve on...
203 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 26 January 1882.
in original text:
...zeg ik, tant mieux, er zijn nu betere dingen après tout dan toen. Houd u goed kerel ─ het is...
...Dus hebt ge ’t regt dat men wat égards voor U hebbe. Ontvang een handdruk in gedachten, ik hoop...
in translation:
...namely that I fell ill and spent three days or so lying in bed with fever and anxiety. Accompanied...
...last winter, I had baths as often as I could, 2 or 3 times a week in the bathhouse, and I felt very...
...necessary. You speak of fine promises. It’s more or less the same with me. Mauve says it will go...
...I must learn not to do some things which I more or less taught myself, and to look at things in a...
...or failure of a drawing also has a lot to do with one’s mood and condition, I believe. And that’s why I do what I can to stay clear-headed and cheerful. But sometimes, like now, some malaise or...
...on working – because Mauve, for instance, and Israëls and so many others who are examples know...
...a year or so ago, when I never had to stay in bed for a day, and now there’s something thwarting me at every turn, even if it isn’t so bad. In short, my youth is past, not my love of life or my...
204 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 13 February 1882.
in translation:
...when he came to The Hague he’d let me know, or come and have a look. Uncle Cent also told me last...
...we often draw types together in the soup kitchen or the waiting room &c. He sometimes comes to my...
...Bosboom and Henkes. Very beautiful; there were a number of drawings by Henkes, larger figures than...
...about it immediately, because I have only three guilders or so left and it’s already nearly the...
206 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 25 February 1882.
in translation:
...an eye for my work, and so can tear myself away from it only with a great effort in order to write or to...
...what can be done? Besides, you mustn’t blame me, Theo, or think that I’m carping, but you wrote...
...artist like Weissenbruch says of an unsaleable (???) study or drawing, that’s faithful and I’d...
...Mauve said it of a figure, namely an old peasant sitting by the fireplace, thinking or daydreaming, as though seeing things from the distant past taking shape in the glow of the fire or the smoke. It may take a longer or shorter time, but the way is really to penetrate deeply into nature. To be...
in note 6:
...complète et la plus large des professions de foi. Gavarni, quelques jours après, écrit cette autre phrase: C’est d’après la nature qui faut tout peindre’). Gavarni 1881, p. 6. In letter 302 Van Gogh says...
207 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 3 March 1882.
in original text:
...de oude vrouw hetzij de jongere hetzij het kind. à propos, Breitner heeft mij onlangs eens over U...
in translation:
...have, although I’d drawn her before superficially. Or rather it’s more than one model, because I’ve already had 3 people from the same family, a woman of about 45 who’s just like a figure by E. Frère, and her daughter, 30 or so, and a younger child of 10 or 12. They’re poor people and, I...
...a thing or two now and then, if necessary on the condition that he can exchange them if they don’t sell. Mr Tersteeg promised to come and see me as soon as he can find the time. The reason I’d like to keep them is simply this: when I draw individual figures it’s always with an eye to making a composition with a number of figures, for instance, a 3rd-class waiting room or a pawnshop or an...
...the other hand I perhaps have more feeling for poor or simple folk, and if I lose on the one hand I...
...t be able to do it. But I can in fact have the model, be it the older woman or the younger or the child. By the way, Breitner spoke to me about you recently, that there was something he very...
208 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between about Monday, 6 and on or about Thursday, 9 March 1882.
in title:
208 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between about Monday, 6 and on or about Thursday, 9 March 1882.
in translation:
...not keep waiting. So I kept quiet. However, for half a year I won’t go to Tersteeg any more or talk to him or show him my work. I’m not telling him that, but I’m saying it to you. My dear Theo...
...soon, and then Mauve will again have a thing or two to say to me about making watercolours. But...
...that enough, and merely talks about ‘saleability’. For this I don’t deserve his reproaches...
...other again – for half a year we won’t speak to each other. If you can, send me the money for this month soon. I’m progressing with my work, but I can’t work without money, or with too little...
in date note:
...present letter (and letter 209). Even though this does not offer an exact date, we assume that this letter was written on or about Monday, 6 March at the earliest and on or about Thursday, 9 March 1882 at the latest.
209 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, between about Monday, 6 and on or about Thursday, 9 March 1882.
in title:
209 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, between about Monday, 6 and on or about Thursday, 9 March 1882.
in translation:
...I now have permission, so long as Mauve is ill or too busy with his large painting, to go to...
...As soon as Mauve is better and comes to see me again or I go to him, he’ll again tell me useful...
...re in a position to see someone painting or drawing, pay attention, because I believe that many an...
in date note:
...number of things that argue against this date. First of all, the letter that preceded the present letter must have been written in the morning (cf. l. 3). Letter 204, however, was written in the afternoon or evening of 13 February, because it contains the information that De Bock had visited Van Gogh ‘this afternoon’ (l. 85). Secondly, Van Gogh says that he mentioned Weissenbruch’s visit in ‘a’ previous letter (ll. 14-15); if that had been letter 204 written that same morning, it would have been more logical for Van Gogh to refer to it as ‘the’ previous letter. Finally, the opening of the letter refers to a tense situation of which there is no trace in letter 204. It is therefore more reasonable to view this letter as the continuation of letter 208. The subjects discussed would then concur: Mauve puts the finishing touches on his large canvas (l. 40); Theo has not yet written that month (March), so Vincent has not yet received any money (ll. 73-74); Tersteeg criticizes Van Gogh’s pen drawings; and the striking word ‘twijfelmoedigheid’ (here translated as being ‘in two minds’) (l. 3) is used again in letter 210 (l. 79), which follows this letter in any case. Finally, this is the only way to explain the multiple ‘letters’ that Theo is presumed to have received when Vincent sits down to write letter 211 (l. 2). Since the letter therefore appears to have been written on the same day as letter 208, we have given it the same date: between about Monday, 6 and on or about Thursday, 9 March 1882...
210 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 11 March 1882.
in original text:
...sa peau. Il s’agit de travailler comme plusieurs nègres. J’aimerais mieux ne rien dire que de...
in translation:
...practical than his practical talks about saleability or unsaleability, about which I – having...
...and not with two minds or dissatisfaction. Tersteeg thinks, because I work so much, that it’s easy, that’s where he’s also mistaken. But I’m actually a drudge or a draught ox. If you come...
...workmanship. I won’t run after the art lovers or dealers, let those who are interested come to me...
...week of doing what I do on what I have to spend, he’d notice that it’s not dozing or dreaming or an opium daze, but that one has to be wide awake to combat the many difficulties that crop up. Nor...
in note 3:
...son repos et jusqu’à sa vie que la dureté des temps n’a que trop abrégée...Sa vie fut celle...
in note 6:
...Van Gogh’s remark, made earlier in the letter: ‘I’m actually a drudge or a draught ox’ (l. 82).
in note 8:
...eight drawings, as evidenced by their provenance or internal evidence, including the handwriting on the...
211 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 11 March 1882.
in original text:
...t uit mijn pen komt, beschrijf ik U die kleine scènes zoo als ze zich voordoen. Te meer omdat ge...
...maar de echte soort, niet die van de dominés. Die knollen, die arme gehavende knollen, zwart, wit...
in translation:
...either he’s hard of hearing in that ear or my explanation was a little confused because of the...
...the bread and model drawing, either in the morning or the evening, and during the day I’ll study...
...beautiful like a Correggio, like a Millet, like an Israëls. Oh Theo – why don’t you let it all...
...a list of Dutch paintings intended for the Salon. Israëls, an old man (if he weren’t a fisherman...
...than this Israëls that can stand up to Millet’s Death and the woodcutter, that one can see at the same time, on the other hand I know of no other painting that could stand up to this Israëls than...
...s. Moreover, I feel in my mind an irresistible desire to bring together that painting by Israëls and that other by Millet and make them complement each other. It seems to me that what this Israëls...
...me. And yet, there was another Israëls, a small one with 5 or 6 figures, I think, a labourer’s...
...the figure one must be more of a draught ox or work-horse, more a man of hard labour. There’s a...
in note 3:
...sombres et les mouvements placidement désespérés: son moi se reflétait partout. La note gaie...
in note 13:
Jozef Israëls, An old man – Fisher (Old friends) (Philadelphia Museum of Art, William L. Elkins...
in note 14:
...definitely bears some resemblance to the head of the man in Israëls’s painting (see letter 325, n. 33).
in note 16:
Jean-François Millet’s Death and the woodcutter, 1859 (Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek). Ill. 283. It is possible that Van Gogh knew Pierre Edmond Alexandre Hédouin’s print La mort et le bûcheron after this...
in note 17:
...Israëls’s Peasant family at table, 1882 (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum) Ill. 188. This canvas measures 71 x 105 cm, however, and he speaks of ‘a small [one]’, so perhaps he is referring to one of the two variations of it, namely the version with six figures which was formerly in the Alexander Young Collection, 53.5 x 85 cm (present whereabouts unknown) or a smaller variation on panel, 48 x 69 cm (Sotheby’s London, 17 November 1985, no. 224). See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1993, pp. 78-80, cat. no. 3 and Van Gogh Museum Journal 1995. Amsterdam and Zwolle 1995, p. 189. Cf. in this context the composition in the photogravure Peasants at table, published by Goupil (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Ill. 193. This print was made after the painting The frugal meal (Glasgow, Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove); see also letter 257, n. 18. Silent dialogue was, incidentally, the only work by Israëls at the Salon...
in textual note 232:
There’s < There s’
212 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between about Thursday, 16 and on or about Monday, 20 March 1882.
in title:
212 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between about Thursday, 16 and on or about Monday, 20 March 1882.
in original text:
...Ribera achtig zou geweest zijn als naakt model. Doch après tout zoek ik niet Ribera en vooral niet...
...woord?? “Nada” beteekent dunkt me net precies hetzelfde als dat woord van Salomo, Vanité des vanités, tout est Vanité, doch daarop kan ik ’t hoofd niet neer leggen zonder nachtmerrie. Enfin...
...tenzij – ik vind iets uitgeputs, iets blasé, iets onopregts in hem dat mij beklemt, er is iets...
in translation:
...my lips in spite of myself, in anger or if some emotion or other is aroused. The fact is that what...
...him. And while I was sitting in his little office or speaking to him in the gallery with a very...
...man is made of solid metal, be it steel or silver, or whether deep, deep down in that iron there...
...that in half a year or a year he’ll either leave me completely cold or �� or perhaps – I’ll...
...ve learned, whether through practising on my own or through Mauve or others, as if I had to explain...
...studies of the nude one way or another. Not exactly academic poses. But I wanted, for instance, so very, very much to have, for example, a nude model for a digger or seamstress. From the front, from...
...a clear idea of the movement. I reckon that 12 or so studies, 6 men, 6 women, would already give me...
...that I’m missing or losing sight of something. I’d sooner Goya or Gavarni, then, even though...
...is demanded that nowadays painting is almost an offensive, a military campaign, a battle or war.
in date note:
...the same models (l. 178), which suggests that a number of days have elapsed. That the period between this letter and the following one again encompassed a number of days is indicated by the opening of the...
213 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 24 March 1882.
in translation:
...that Tersteeg and others who claim to be fond of me or willing to help me would ask me for things I...
...my head above water at this difficult time, or make me faint-hearted by reproaching me because of...
...work hard, do I not earn my bread? Or am I not worth the means to carry out my work? I just wish, old chap, that you’d come here soon and see whether or not I’m deceiving you. Blommers has asked...
...work. I have to draw for about a year more, or at least several months yet, until my hand is steady...
...me is reasonable. It can’t happen faster than that, or else I’d produce poor work and that’s...
...in Schenkweg. Since when, I’d like to know, is one allowed to force or try to force an artist to change either his working method or his ideas? I find it very rude to try such a thing, especially...
214 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 2 April 1882.
in title:
214 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 2 April 1882.
in translation:
...as, for example, smith or doctor. An artist, in any case, is the exact opposite of someone living a life of leisure, and as I said, if one wants to draw a parallel, then either a smith or a doctor...
...it used to seem to me downright witchcraft or coincidence that one had depth and proper perspective...
...how the lines of the furrows run, for this reason or that they run like this and not otherwise, and...
...and that difference in size can be measured this way or that and – look! if you fling that down...
...than a lot of discussion about either abstract or financial matters. And so I won’t venture...
...and if you should happen to draw something correctly or, in short, if you learn to see things in...
...I visit him quite often to bring him books or drawing materials. C.M. paid me, and a new order, but...
...call ‘illustrators’, Gavarni, for instance, or Herkomer!! This NOT keeping abreast of things is...
in date note:
...caused by Mauve and Tersteeg’s negative attitude towards him (letters 218-220). It is impossible to date these letters precisely, so we have distributed them evenly over the month, providing them with a more exact time frame when allowed to do so by certain details (e.g. the weather conditions mentioned in letters 215, 218, 219 and 222. This strategy has yielded the following dates: on or about 2 April (214), on or about 6 April (215), on or about 10 April (216), on or about 14 April (217), 18 or 19 April (218), on or about 21 April (219), on or about 23 April (220) and on or about 26 April (221); the weather conditions mentioned do not contradict these dates). The present letter must date from the very beginning of April, as suggested by ll. 117-125, which undoubtedly refer to the allowance for the first half of April, mentioned here for the first time.
215 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Thursday, 6 April 1882.
in title:
215 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Thursday, 6 April 1882.
in translation:
...as things are now, every week I make one thing or another that I couldn’t make before, and that’s...
...say what’s essential with a couple of strokes or scratches. Choosing the lines in such a way that...
...from the imagination seems overly rash to me. Israëls and Blommers and Neuhuys don’t do that...
...less. And believe me, I don’t throw it around rashly or too freely. I do wish I didn’t have to...
in date note:
...or about 2 April: ll. 3-4 refer to an idea proposed there that Theo should become a painter; moreover, Vincent accounts for the money he has spent since receiving the 100 francs that was the first of two allowances for April. This letter must therefore precede letter 216, in which Vincent mentions the money sent for the second half of April which has meanwhile arrived. Regarding the date assigned to this letter – on or about Thursday, 6 April 1882 – see letter 214, Date. The remark ‘What gorgeous weather we’re having’ (l. 56) accords with the rise in temperature of several degrees occurring at this time in the coastal region (KNMI...
216 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 10 April 1882.
in title:
216 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 10 April 1882.
in date note:
...As regards the date assigned to this letter – on or about Monday, 10 April 1882 – see letter 214...
in note 2:
Jean-François Millet, La grande bergère assise (The large shepherdess seated), engraved by Jean Baptiste...
in note 4:
...strip of grey paper’ (‘ces dessins, arrivés à bon port, il faudra les faire recartonner et...
in note 6:
...153). This is an adaptation of Friedrich Rückert’s ‘Aus der Jugendzeit’: Once the heart is...
217 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 14 April 1882.
in title:
217 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 14 April 1882.
in original text:
...Want kerel, ik werk ondanks de petites misères met veel pleizier. Ik ontvang daarnet een brief van...
...geweest onlangs. de kunstbeschouwing van houtsneden is après tout niet doorgegaan maar ik heb er...
in translation:
...t fix your drawing �� or if I worked on it here and there after fixing it, so that there are some places with an unpleasant sheen – go ahead and pour a large glass of milk, or water and milk...
...like: you don’t earn your bread, or: you’ve lost your rights, or: you should have been given a...
...buys or not, I consider that an entirely different matter, and one that ought to be completely separate from personal disputes or differences of opinion about this or that. Whether His Hon. buys or...
...my work or not according to whether I progress or whether or not he wants it, either for himself or...
...of a work or, conversely, to let oneself be led by the personal appeal of this artist or that to...
...different that we hinder one another without either the one or the other meaning to do so – but I...
...I don’t know, though, if this would be best or if something else would be better. I wish I knew...
...it’s impossible for me to put enough time or effort into finding them, since I’m more engrossed...
in date note:
...As regards the date assigned to this letter – on or about Friday, 14 April 1882 – see letter 214...
in note 2:
...line in a metal plate (whether a drypoint engraving or an etching plate (re)worked with a steel needle) if...
in note a:
After ‘Sorrow’ Van Gogh repeated the Dutch equivalent ‘of Smart’ (or Sorrow).
218 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 18 or Wednesday, 19 April 1882.
in title:
218 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 18 or Wednesday, 19 April 1882.
in translation:
...without saying that it gives me great displeasure and doesn’t make my life any easier when those whose sympathy I more or less thought I could count on, such as Mauve and H.G.T., become indifferent or hostile and hateful. I haven’t heard anything from Mauve, sometimes he’s ill, at other times he needs to rest or is...
219 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 April 1882.
in title:
219 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 April 1882.
in translation:
...though I said to him: Sir, it grieves me so if this or that is said of me, for example, you don’t earn your bread or you idle, you must realize that things like that are too...
...I was free. When the two months were more or less up, I wrote to him to congratulate him...
...s shake hands and not bear a grudge or any bitterness towards one another, but it’s...
...to rob anyone of his means of subsistence or to undermine his friends. Sometimes I’ve...
...soul? And that I really won’t go to Mauve or Tersteeg, not even if it’s suggested that I...
...to rob someone of his means of subsistence or attempt to turn his friends against him...
...on a drawing of a street in which the sewerage or the water pipes are being dug up, i.e...
in date note:
...Regarding the date assigned to this letter – on or about Friday, 21 April 1882 – see...
220 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 23 April 1882.
in title:
220 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 23 April 1882.
in original text:
...niet gedeugd hebben en had niet mijn congé als zoodanig zoowel genomen als gekregen. Het is juist...
in translation:
...drawing and, I ask you, have I ever doubted or hesitated or wavered since the day I began to draw...
...assistant aren’t exactly the most appropriate for me or anyone else who doesn’t have to speak...
...Geest district, for instance. If I could do what H.G.T. or Iterson can, if I were suited to it, I...
...I’m working in the Geest district, say, or on the heath or in the dunes. Then my ugly face and my...
...a monster of rudeness or incivility as to deserve to be cut off from society or, in the words of...
...of painting or drawing are entitled to find fault with it. I ask this: where do the draughtsmen for The Graphic, Punch &c. get their models? Do they or don’t they go themselves to round them up in the poorest alleyways of London? And the knowledge they have of the people, is it innate �� or did...
...remembering what many forget? When I go to see Mauve or Tersteeg, I can’t express myself as I’d...
...tell them from me how matters stand, that if I said or did anything to hurt them, I hope they’ll...
in date note:
...or about 21 April 1882, because in this letter Van Gogh reiterates the desire expressed in that letter to re-establish contact with Mauve (ll. 1-7). Financial matters are not mentioned, whereas the need for the following month’s allowance is voiced again in letter 221. We therefore assume that letter 220 was written before letter 221. As regards the date assigned to this letter – on or about Sunday, 23 April 1882 – see letter 214, Date...
221 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 26 April 1882.
in title:
221 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 26 April 1882.
in translation:
...in those years, when I was abroad without friends or assistance, in great misery (so that I often...
...me, he who had known me for donkey’s years, or give me fresh heart when I’d nearly given up? I think not. Did he ever help me with this or that – no. Except for lending me the Bargues, after I...
...Of this he was certain: I was no artist. Or do copying work for Smeeton and Tilly, which wasn’t...
...rob him of his bread, is that coercion or not...It’s inconsiderate, insensitive, those aren�...
...the most necessary things will be taken from me, or always have the feeling that it’s charity...
...if you had spent damp nights in the streets of London or cold nights in the Borinage as I have done...
in date note:
...makes sense if Vincent sent the letter to Theo on or about Wednesday, 26 April. His remark that he could...
222 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 1 May 1882.
in original text:
...mee. Maar eerst, voor alle succes, den strijd corps à corps met de dingen in de natuur. Nu heb ik...
in translation:
...to do is go on working calmly without dwelling on it or taking it to heart as much as I did. If I...
...but on the man viewing them (whether he stoops or stands on top of something), so too the change in...
...Let me know. Perhaps H.G.T. would find it impertinent or priggish if I asked him to pack them in a...
...whether I’m acting consistently or inconsistently. Suppose I were to start today on a drawing of a digger, for example – but the man says, I have to leave and won’t or can’t pose again – I...
...effort. And I’m not one to work slowly or fretfully. Drawing is becoming a passion with me, and...
...and for those who have or may acquire sympathy for me, the will is selling or buying those things...
...beginning of selling them, and particularly when a number of them are shown together, and various...
...I feel ‘that will remain’. For the time being it’s better for you to keep the ones that ‘will remain’ than for me to give them to someone here for 10 guilders or so, and then only by the...
in note 21:
...JH 139). A ‘boarder’ was a person living in a hostel or boarding-house at the community’s expense.
in note 25:
The quotation marks indicate that this is direct speech (or a quotation). The source is unknown.
223 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 2 May 1882.
in original text:
But the paper has been slightly damaged in 2 or 3 places as I worked through it, please have this seen to at...
in translation:
But the paper has been slightly damaged in 2 or 3 places as I worked through it, please have this seen to at...
224 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 7 May 1882.
in title:
224 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 7 May 1882.
in translation:
...Mauve has gone so far that he can’t retract it, or at least certainly wouldn’t want to. I asked him...
...more sensitive, more manly: to forsake a woman or to take on a forsaken one? This winter I met a...
...woman is now attached to me like a tame dove – for my part, I can marry only once, and when would...
...my livelihood in your hands, will you leave me penniless or turn your backs on me – now I’ve...
...back in any case. You see that they’ve been made with care. If I later have an interior or a waiting room or some such thing, these will be of use to me because I’ll have to consult them for the...
in date note:
...written on 12 or 13 May, so letters 224 and 225 (in this order) must have been written in the intervening period. Because Van Gogh says in letter 226 that he has written ‘so often these last few days’ (ll. 27-28), we have decided to date letter 224 to on or about Sunday, 7 May 1882 and letter 225 to on or about...
in note 9:
...are probably: 1. Seated woman (F 935 / JH 143) or Seated woman (F 937 / JH 144); 2. Woman sewing (F...
225 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 10 May 1882.
in title:
225 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 10 May 1882.
in translation:
...fail to suggest, if I were to ask their advice or merely to inform them of the matter. Sentiment and...
...want to cajole. Now then, is this woman worse off or am I worse off because it turned out this way...
...I’ve got to have things just this way or that, and if there’s nothing but bread and coffee she...
...she nor I are living on a bed of roses or dreaming in the moonlight, we’re facing hard things...
...in life for which, moreover, I feel no calling or desire. You know what I’m seeking, the barest...
in date note:
...letter 226 of 12 or 13 May, in which Vincent again asks Theo to say what he thinks about the present situation. Because he writes in letter 226 that he has written ‘so often these last few days’ (ll. 27-28), we have decided to date letter 224 to on or about Sunday, 7 May 1882 and letter 225 to on or about Wednesday, 10...
226 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 12 or Saturday, 13 May 1882.
in title:
226 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 12 or Saturday, 13 May 1882.
in translation:
...you’ll abandon me altogether for that or any other reason of etiquette or whatever. But is it any...
...appear with lightning speed. It’s no use hesitating or doubting, and the hand may not tremble and...
...something quickly takes shape on the sheet of paper or the canvas, where at first there was nothing...
...doing it there’s little space for reflecting or reasoning. And acting quickly is a man’s work...
...thy face’. Christien isn’t a millstone round my neck or a burden, but a help. If she were alone...
...I’d do well to strive for a higher station or to change much in my character. I must experience...
...yours, Vincent If I thought I could do someone or other a favour by moving away from The Hague...
...you frankly: Theo, do these things mean a change or separation between you and me? If not, I find...
...I’m up against, whether it be good fortune or ill fortune. I have your answer regarding the...
...after what I told you I need to be reassured or else to know the worst. Adieu. I hope that the air...
in date note:
...must therefore have been written on Friday, 12 or Saturday, 13 May 1882. The date of 11 May that Jo...
in note 1:
In letter 231 Van Gogh specifies the number: ‘two dozen in a portfolio’. It is not known which drawings...
227 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 May 1882.
in title:
227 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 May 1882.
in translation:
...or respects the ‘human’ in the human being, but only the greater or smaller value in money or...
...I too let things pass, thinking I shan’t do or say this or that so as not to offend someone. But...
...with me is this. I do not want to deceive or abandon any woman. If a woman refuses to have anything...
...my way through to become a capable painter, or perhaps just a draughtsman. But I shan’t visit my family at home or anything like that, either alone or with her, but shall stay in the circles my...
...be utterly inappropriate. Yet the question of loyalty or disloyalty to Christien is something about...
...to Amsterdam, I was unable to speak to her or to get any firm undertaking, anything I could rely on...
...illicitly. If we did not marry, people could say this or that is in fact false – if we marry...
...and you’ll see that it isn’t ‘pigheadedness�� or ‘recklessly wanting to get my own way...
...up, Theo! – don’t let yourself be overwhelmed or influenced by Jesuitisms. Do I deserve to be...
in date note:
...letter of 13 May arrived (l. 166). This means that it must date from Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 May 1882.
in note a:
Expression meaning that the validity, tenor or effect of something may be limited (WNT).
in note 4:
Van Gogh often writes ‘Xtien�� or ‘Xn’ for ‘Christien’ (this spelling no doubt derives from the convention of using ‘X’ for ‘Christ’).
in textual note 262:
...written on p. 5 (below l. 161); Van Gogh added ‘P.S’ to distinguish it from the letter text on that...
228 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 16 May 1882.
in title:
228 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 16 May 1882.
in original text:
...van den regten weg net als H.G.T. en de dominés. Maar C.M. noemt de Groux ook een gemeene kerel...
...ik eens moedeloos ben dan kijk ik naar Les bêcheurs van Millet en le banc des pauvres van de Groux...
...ge mij veroordeelt schuldig en zal niet protesteeren.– Voor Uw geld lever ik werk maar is ’t...
in translation:
...of ‘I shan’t buy anything by him any more�� or ‘I won’t help him again’. This being the...
...said, officially or unofficially, that nothing but rijksdaalders would have any effect. Official or...
...yes or no? Am I at liberty to put on a working man’s clothes and to live as a working man, yes or...
...is there a hint or shadow of remorse or an honest turning back to say, I did this or that, it was...
...my pipe and looking at the deep blue sky...or at the moss or the grass. That calms me down. And I feel equally calm when, for example, Christien or her mother poses and I work out the proportions...
...s time, or I don’t know how much longer or shorter, I can draw that Geest district or another...
...and I ask you: are these expenses unreasonable or excessive? Especially since you know what else...
...despaired at that point? Jumped into the water or something like that? God forbid. I would have...
...know whether it’s to be ‘POLLICE VERSO’, yes or no??? If it’s yes: ‘Morituri te salutant...
in date note:
...was written shortly after letter 227. The interval cannot be determined exactly, but we assume it was one or two days after letter 227, thus on or about Tuesday, 16 May 1882. (See also under Additional details.)
in note 7:
For this meeting, cf. letter 200 of on or about 14 January: ‘I’m negotiating with a mother with a little...
in note 18:
...were poor and depended on public assistance or church charity...For a time Sien and three of her...
229 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 18 May 1882.
in title:
229 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 18 May 1882.
in translation:
...give birth, but thought it would be the end of May or beginning of June. Now he says it will probably be...
...I am faced here not by an illusion or abstraction but by reality, which requires firm action. In...
...t weighty enough to make me change my mind, although in one or two of your remarks there is much that, particularly on its own, is wholly or partly true. Now, to tell you the truth, a little more...
in date note:
...or about 16 May, since he assumes that Theo is now aware of the background to his plans for Sien described there, so that he can talk about more intimate matters. Given that not much time can have passed since letter 228, we date this letter to on or about Thursday, 18 May 1882...
in note b:
Means: ‘ingeslagen’, or: ‘verkregen’ (got in, or: bought).
230 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 23 May 1882.
in title:
230 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 23 May 1882.
in translation:
...they are in Princenhage — having little else to do. Of course they regard this as a ‘demoralization’, or something even worse. Fine. As long as I don’t have to listen to them and am not present, they can...
...of Christien (which I’ll definitely do in 3 weeks or so — when she’s in Leiden and I can get...
...their refusal would hurt but wouldn’t make me stop or stand still. I’m working again on the...
...in with me, wherever I am, whether in better or worse circumstances. It’s a small house with a...
...this — I want to avoid any unpleasantness, gossip or dispute as far as possible — and it was...
in date note:
...or about Thursday, 18 May, because Vincent now asks again and more urgently than in that letter whether Theo has received the drawings he sent. Some time has passed between the last letter and the present one: he is drawing again, he discusses his recent illness (l. 32) etc. Moreover, he mentions Sien’s stay in Leiden ‘in 3 weeks or so’ (l. 17) – that stay was planned for mid-June (letter 229). Thus letter 230 must have been written between 18 and 27 May (letter 231), evidently with an interval of several days between the letters; so we date it to on or about Tuesday, 23 May 1882...
231 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 27 May 1882.
in translation:
...please him, especially a large one of the courtyard or back yard at the house where Sien’s mother lives...
...the middle of May, all I had left was 3 or 3.50 guilders after paying the baker. I had practically...
...That same drawing may be sold later for 50 guilders or so, and now — I hadn’t got the money to...
...If I get angry while she’s posing or about something else, she knows how to take it, and has seen that it doesn’t go deep with me. Equally, if I fret or grumble about something that isn’t going...
232 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Sunday, 28 May 1882.
in translation:
...it, or perhaps you do already; I’ve never seen all of yours together, only the small Dürers and...
...if I may put it like that, that it’s as powerful as, say, a drawing by Herkomer or Fildes or Israëls. And Dickens himself sometimes used the expression, I have sketched. Personally, I detest scepticism as much as sentimentality. I don’t mean to insinuate that artists here are sceptics or cynical, but they often give that impression and have that air, whereas when faced by nature they’re...
...I’ve seen wonderful things: sites being levelled or raised, sheds, planks, huts, fences &c. &c...
...say ‘It isn’t worth a damn’, or even much harsher things than that, she doesn’t take it as an insult, as most people naturally would, but lets me calm down and start again from scratch. And she has the patience to put up with the tedious searching for this or that position or pose. And so I think it’s precious. If I need to have the size of a figure outside or if I’m looking for the...
in note 12:
For Dürer’s engraving Knight, Death and the Devil, see letter 148, n. 35.
in note 15:
...Jr – it is not quoted in Forster’s biography or in Dickens’s dictionary of London, which Dickens...
in note 18:
...des Beaux-Arts 1875; in 1876 Alexandre Piedagnel’s J.-F. Millet had been published; and in 1877 Philippe Burty included an essay on Millet in his Maîtres et petits maîtres. See exhib. cat. Paris 1998, p. 34.
233 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 30 May 1882.
in original text:
To day or tomorrow, being the 1st of June, I promised to pay my landlord f. 5. rent of studio for the month of April + f. 7.50 for last month – makes f...
in translation:
Today or tomorrow, being the 1st of June, I promised to pay my landlord 5 guilders rent of studio for the month of April + 7.50 guilders for last month — makes 12.50...
234 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 1 and Friday, 2 June 1882.
in original text:
...ch weet gij vroeger of later dat men démarches doet, laat mij het weten. Ik bedoel natuurlijk niet...
...kunst krijgt en dat zal nooit gebeuren. De dominés brengen “het schoone” dikwijls in een preek...
...helsch maken. Laat Pa dus maar zijn “wachten” voor zich houden want als hij het zeide zou ik...
...van tot iets nuttig te kunnen zijn après tout, ondanks die teleurstelling toch, hetgeen mij tot...
...de fransche of Engelsche constitutie. Niet alleen nú pas maar ook in vroeger jaren toen ik sommige...
in translation:
...rid of people thought to be ‘troublesome�� or ‘disagreeable’ (awkward customers) aren’t...
...if sooner or later they take advantage of, for example, a possible sickness or indisposition on my...
...not allow myself to be molested or made a ward of court or anything like that. I’m aware that...
...of the law shouldn’t be viewed in isolation or taken out of context, but should be seen in the...
...or decision about someone, sometimes entirely without having informed the person in question or...
...If I really were a bad or spiteful, trouble-making person or an intriguer or dimwit, then I really...
...it. Since when is there any need to waver or hesitate or be faint-hearted? That’s why people fail...
...being taken to separate or hinder us or cause us sorrow. No one cared for her or wanted her, she...
...grown stronger, or rather is in the process of growing stronger. You know the old fable or parable...
...like, stay calm, don’t interfere, or if you manage one way or another to calm them, they’ll...
in note 4:
...meanings such as ‘black sheep’, ‘undesirable or disagreeable person’, ‘awkward customer’ and...
in note 6:
One could be made a ward of court by relatives on the grounds of ‘foolishness, insanity or frenzy�� or of ‘wastefulness’. See Burgerlijk wetboek. Official edition. The Hague 1837, p. 107, art. 487. In the case of insanity, the ward of court could be cared for at home, or in a hospital or institution (pp. 111-112, art. 509). If the person had been made a ward of court because of wastefulness, one consequence could be confinement in a house of correction (p. 112, art. 511). See Carel Asser, Het Nederlandsch burgerlijk wetboek...
in note 15:
Van Gogh is referring here to Jozef or David Blok; see letter 199, n. 7.
in note 16:
...of Salon works. In Troisième et quatrième années Album Boetzel. Le Salon 1872-1873. (Paris...
in note 17:
...of six relatives of the minor (under the age of 21) or the ward of court. The council was in charge of appointing guardians, giving minors permission to marry or to manage assets, advising on making people wards of...
in note 19:
Goupil published a number of photographs after Charles Zacharie Landelle, among them Les anges de la passion...
in note 22:
‘Those who are about to die salute you’; for this phrase from Suetonius’ (Claudius, 21), see letter...
235 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 3 June 1882.
in original text:
...wordt in een anderen vorm. Mijn leven en misschien après tout het Uwe ook is niet meer zoo zonnig...
...meer te geven. En dat ik er over spreek is après tout vooral om te weten wat te doen omtrent eene...
...teekeningen van anderen & door portretten 1 ,, Scènes uit het Londonsche volksleven vanaf de opium...
...of Westminster Park. Hier bijgevoegd zijnde correspondeerende scènes uit Parijs & New York is het...
...zijnde aparte uitgaaf van afdrukken niet van de clichés doch de blokken zelf van eenige houtsneden...
in translation:
...idea whether he wants to order something new from me or whether the drawings are to his taste. But...
...of the wrong side of the bed the day he received them, or that they failed to please for some reason or another. I readily admit that, to an eye used only to watercolours, drawings which have been scratched by pen or had lights scraped off or put back on in body-colour may seem a little harsh. But...
...wouldn’t find these two drawings disagreeable or dull. In the circumstances, should I learn that...
...the price. And if he wants me to start on another 6 or 12, I’m ready to do that because I don’t...
...to know what to do as regards a new order that is or is not to follow. It may also be that His Hon. will write to me himself later. In a few days, or today if I have time, I’ll send you a brief...
...be as practical as possible for working in the dunes or indoors, but my clothes for going out are...
...the most elegant ladies and Rotten Row or Westminster Park. Together with corresponding scenes from...
in note 8:
...mean typical scenes of London (working-class) life or the topographical backgrounds depicted in Fildes’s...
in note 18:
In the estate are Emile Adélard Breton’s Cimetière de Courrières (Churchyard at Courrières) from La Vie Moderne 1 (20 September 1879), p. 373, and Jules Breton’s Le soir (Salon de 1880) (The evening (Salon of...
in note 19:
There are no prints by François Nicolas Auguste Feyen-Perrin in the estate.
in note 24:
...14, p. 108. Ill. 1923. (t*468); Les grandes étapes de l’électricité (The great steps in the development of electricity) by Henry Linton, from Le Monde Illustré 25 (22 October 1881) (t*635); Les dieux tombés, Hercule (The fallen gods, Hercules) by Fortuné Louis Méaulle, from Le Monde Illustré 26 (28 January...
in note 25:
There are 35 Doré prints in the estate.
in note 27:
...although – when talking in July 1888 about the number of sheets by Keene he thought he had – Van Gogh...
in note 30:
...and the prime minister in 1868, and from 1874 to 1880. Any number of caricatures of him appeared in Punch.
in note 38:
...Lançon, Les chinois fumeurs d’opium à Londres (The Chinese opium smokers in London), from La Vie...
236 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Tuesday, 6 June 1882.
in original text:
...verwachtte ofschoon mijne verwachting f. 30.– voor 7 stuks niet te boven ging. Ik ontving f. 20 met nog...
in translation:
...of no commercial value, I had no desire to contradict or question that, that for my part I attached...
...friend Rappard, I really don’t know whether to laugh or weep at this sort of thing. I find it so...
...drawing, whether out of doors, on the street, or in the studio, sometimes in the early morning...
in note 2:
...a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill...
237 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 8 June 1882.
in title:
237 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 8 June 1882.
in translation:
...and from time to time have instillations of pure water or alum water, thus as harmless as could be...
...immediately, because neglect can make it incurable or exacerbate matters. Take the case of Breitner...
...people sometimes think it’s terribly serious or make it sound serious by telling exaggerated...
...nursing costs. There’s no difference in food or treatment between those whose nursing is paid for...
...not the sort of person who should be sent to Geel or made a ward of court. And if that isn’t...
...get it into their heads to declare that the family or society would be so much better off if someone like me were to be declared mad or made a ward of court are so extraordinarily brilliant that in...
...don’t discuss family matters with the doctor here or the professor in Leiden — but because I...
in date note:
...his brother about his situation fairly quickly, we date the letter to on or about Thursday, 8 June 1882.
in note 11:
...be made a ward of court on the grounds of insanity or wastefulness. It can be deduced from this remark...
238 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 9 June 1882.
in translation:
...all by the light effect like, for example, a Ruisdael or Vermeer. But I’m not allowed to draw it...
in note 4:
...Thoré (under the pseudonym W. Bürger) in his Musées de la Hollande (1860) and many of his contemporaries...
239 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 22 June 1882.
in translation:
...goes well I’ll be allowed to leave in a week or 10 days and will then get part of my money back...
...Until the last day she was here she visited me regularly and brought me a little smoked meat or sugar or bread, which is now finished, leaving me feeling very faint. But now I’m so sorry that I...
...passing so emptily. Sometimes I think I can do this or that, but find I’m too weak. It pleases...
...crushing if you don’t even occasionally hear: this or that is right and felt and meant. It’s so...
...studies here in the wards. I’m now in a different ward with beds or cots without curtains, and especially in the evening or at night there are curious effects. The doctor is just the way I like...
...of us. Now it was very strange for me, and seemed more or less like a dream — as does this whole...
...and more ready, for example, to stick a catheter in someone’s bladder without a lot of ‘good manners�� or compliments. Well, all the better in my view, and I repeat it’s as good here as in the...
in note 3:
For this loan on 27 May, which was repaid on 4 or 5 June, see letters 231 and 236.
in note 6:
...Grand Prix de Florence – worth 5000 francs – for the painting The dead child (Riom, Musée Régional...
in note 7:
...or from your letters. At 2 o’clock I spoke to the doctor. When I enquired about the patient, he said that his illness was catarrhal in nature, and that he appeared to be in need of rest. But he saw no objection and allowed me to go to him and to speak to him again (the doctor) after my visit. Vincent was somewhat surprised to see me, a little touchy, but I put him into a normal mood and promised to return the next day. He does not look at all wasted, his pulse is calm and otherwise quite normal. He had complaints about Uncle Cor, that he had judged his drawings so coolly. Van Rappard had seen them and thought them very good. That Rappard remains loyal to him and had later written to him again to encourage him. We spoke for quite a long time and then it was time for me to go to Leiden. I told Vincent that when he was allowed to leave the hospital he could come to us to get his strength back but, while he appreciated the offer, he thought it better not to avail himself of it, because he wanted to get back to work. Yesterday morning at 10 o’clock I returned from Leiden and went to see him again. And I asked the doctor to let me know if, Heaven forbid, there was a change for the worse. Before that, however, I drove to his house, where the people said they didn’t really know where the gentleman was. He had said he was leaving the city for 14 days, but they believed he was in the hospital. They couldn’t show me his studio because they hadn’t got the key. Now I heard from him that he had heard from his model about that package we had sent. He had got my letter and the enclosure, but that letter was inside the package, so the model must have opened the package. Can there be any danger in that so-called model? When I left I secretly gave him a piece of paper from Anna with some ox-tongue, but not a lot, to which I added a 10-guilder coin. He had refused to take money from me. There he pays 10.50 guilders per 14 days, always in advance. He had been there eight days and he showed me his receipt. As I left I whispered to him that he must be careful with the small packet I had given him because there was something else in it (I meant that coin). He stuffed the packet under his mattress. He remains singular, and I have no great expectations. But if only he does not sink lower and lower and does not throw himself away on an unworthy person. That avoidance of people who want to help him along is an unfavourable sign. When the time came for other visitors to arrive, I noticed him looking towards the door uneasily. Can it be that he was expecting a visitor, someone that he would rather I did not meet? Don’t say that I think the worst. I say this to no one else but you and you will understand – how I mean it, truly not to burden him, but in part out of fear. There is in him an inclination towards the lower classes, and sometimes a person can enter into an improper connection out of perversity or a sense of desolation. You understand, though we are not now afraid of this illness turning out badly, we continue to be concerned about him and that concern has not diminished. He also talked about wanting to take another house – in the same neighbourhood – where he would have better opportunities...What a support you are for Vincent. Bye, old chap!’ (FR b2240)....
240 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Saturday, 24 June 1882.
in translation:
...faint and weak beginning and can’t pursue anything or go deeper into things. But I’m allowed in...
...again in a little while, of the fish-drying barns or a courtyard, for instance, I would dearly like...
...So whether it’s the fault of my drawing or the fault of the possible buyer, let the two of us...
in date note:
...brieven 1990 and Hulsker 1993-1 this letter is dated on or about 28 June. This date is no doubt based on Vincent’s remark that he has been in hospital ‘for three weeks now’ (l. 8). Van Gogh was admitted on 7...
241 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 1 July 1882.
in translation:
...or how beautiful everything looked on the road from the hospital to here. And how the light seemed brighter and the spaces bigger, and all the objects and figures more important. There’s a ‘but’, though, and that ‘but’ is that I’ll again have a catheter or a thick lead probe in my bladder, for next Tuesday I have to go back to the doctor and tell him how I’ve been getting on, and he has prepared me for the fact...
...be widened, but this can’t be forced or rushed. The probes gradually become thicker, and each...
...who has helped me on several occasions with one job or another to do with making instruments for...
...even in comparison with neighbourhoods like Noordwal or the Buitensingels. And the location is...
...time — it would be hard to climb stairs or show yourself in public. If you send me something at...
in note 1:
For the origin of this borrowing from Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville, see...
242 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 2 July 1882.
in translation:
...proves entirely accurate. There’s no tearing or anything, which can easily happen in such a case...
243 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 4 July 1882.
in translation:
...then that I won’t pay him any rent until either I or the woman actually moves in, for Sien may be back...
...I hope to get away with paying for 1 week or a fortnight, anyway I’m not planning to give him the...
...hot sand with the sea very far off in a blue mist or haze, for it was a day with sun, but it’s...
in note 1:
...Gogh’s new address was Schenkweg 136 (from 1884 number 13), an upstairs flat immediately next to his...
244 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 6 July 1882.
in original text:
...zit “teekening” in je korte beschrijving – voor mij voelbaar en begrijpelijk ofschoon je je...
...ie neemt noch voor U noch voor mij iets meer réeels weg. Want ik meen zeer zeker dat noch gij noch...
in translation:
...more robust body and stand on its feet visibly or palpably for everyone. The true pain and tension...
...as last year to Pa and Ma to ask their advice or opinion, because it became clear to me then that...
...say this out of bitterness, contempt or disdain for Pa and Ma �� or to glorify myself — but only...
...or Geel a thousand miles from his thoughts. You see, Theo, I know of no more direct or honest way or...
...BELIEVE THAT WORD OR DEFINITION WAS APPROPRIATE OR ACCURATE, EITHER IN YOUR CASE OR MINE) was Kee...
...dejected or melancholy, but you’ll enter a setting with which I believe you’ll be satisfied, or...
...even when people think you’re mad to have helped or to help me. And that you’ll continue to see...
...t you? Don’t imagine that I think myself perfect �� or that I believe it isn’t my fault that...
...be otherwise than that nights spent on the cold street or out of doors, the anxiety about coming by...
...to think about it will, I hope, condemn me or find me unbearable because of that. I fight against...
in note 5:
...not known whether Van Gogh read the story in French or in Dutch. See Zola 1976, pp. 621-627, 1484-1485, and...
in note 10:
...comme s’il se répondait à lui-même...Et, après... et la femme et les enfants?.. Belle...
245 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 6 and Friday, 7 July 1882.
in translation:
...didn’t know at the time what course it would take or where we’d end up. And now, thank God, the...
...difficult thing was the bedding — all made or altered by us — bought straw, bought eel-grass...
...moments, that causes one to feel a kind of sigh or lament rising up from within: My God, where is...
...know whether you believe I’m right or wrong, seeing correctly or incorrectly, when I say that I...
...and not regard it as a case of deceiving or being deceived. And, old chap, when you come — and if...
...so 3 sets, but then I thought — and another for Theo or for Pa when they come to have a look. So...
...came across to draw my attention to one point or another while I was working. I would have liked to...
...mustn’t be subjected to any emotions from without now, or be tense about anything for the time being, most decidedly not. But in a month or six weeks, depending on how she progresses. She saw Pa...
...serenity. With a handshake. Ever yours, Vincent P. S. That Emile Zola is a superb artist. I’m...
in note 2:
...Carpenter’s yard and laundry (F 944 / JH 153) or another, unknown drawing of the same subject (see...
246 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 15 and Sunday, 16 July 1882.
in original text:
...wat ik tot nog toe van Courbet gezien heb. De Duprés zijn superbe en er is een Daubigny, groote...
in translation:
...anxiety, tension, agitation. 6 No scrubbing floors or similar really hard work, especially not...
...a recovery of her soul at the same time. And here there is now an atmosphere of ‘home’, or ‘Home�� or ‘hearth and home’. I can understand that Michelet says ‘Woman is a religion’. She...
...this respect. Meat is good for her, but once or twice a week is actually enough; it certainly isn...
...your confinement, said the professor, but also in a year or so I hope to see you a strong, vigorous...
...than Whatman) allows you to apply a solid basis or ground in black and white before starting to...
...that the woman is too weak for, such as making the bed or a thousand other chores. I’ve faced all manner of tasks like that, either for myself or often enough for the sick &c. And that those things...
...won’t buy much more in the way of furniture or household items, for example. For she and I would...
...by Courbet that I’ve seen so far. The Duprés are superb, and there’s a Daubigny, big thatched...
in note 5:
...wrote: ‘Objet sacré, ne craignez rien. Vous êtes une réligion’ (Sacred object, fear nothing. You...
in note 7:
...Carpenter’s yard and laundry (F 944 / JH 153), or another, unknown drawing of the same subject (see...
in note 10:
...in letter 224: Seated woman (F 935 /JH 143) or Seated woman (F 937 / JH 144) and Woman sewing (F...
in note 12:
...The following artists were represented (number of works between brackets): Bergeret (1), Rosa...
in note 16:
Van Gogh’s description doubtless refers to Charles-François Daubigny’s Dorp in Frankrijk (Un chemin à Auvers) (Village in France (A road in Auvers)) (present whereabouts unknown). See exhib. cat. The Hague...
247 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 18 July 1882.
in original text:
...ook voor mij is het wenschelijk zulke scènes niet meer gebeuren. De vrouw te verontrusten is haar...
...nu graag gelooven hij eigentlijk beter is – voor mij is hij onuitstaanbaar. Als Tersteeg zijn zin...
...dan dat we niet alles zouden doen om extrêmes te vermijden. Doch als er veel menschen – vooral...
in translation:
...and I don’t want to have anything to do with him or speak to him as long as he’s in this police...
...you know her. But there was a nasty expression of pain or I don’t know what in her when she heard...
...by surprise — still I can’t consider it nice or entirely excuse it. Whatever he may be for...
...he does it because he thinks he will please or be of service to Uncle Cent or Pa. He doesn’t spare or take the slightest account of my interests or feelings. He comes in here, takes in the woman...
...her) he says to me ‘Is that your model or is it something else?’ You see, that’s neither...
...at all that few things can do either the woman or me more harm than visits like the one we’ve...
...I couldn’t think or that I wasn’t right in the head. Never in the past, or now, has a doctor...
...so touching a mother, like an etching or drawing or painting by Feyen-Perrin. I long for drawing, for posing, for her and me to be completely better — for order and tranquillity and some sympathy...
248 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 19 July 1882.
in translation:
...it’s useful to me. Even if we disagree about this or that, there’s always a middle way to be found...
...infernal outcry, and you can no longer reason with them or get a word in edgeways. I shan’t wait...
...will no longer imagine that she’s deceiving me or something like that. Once we’d got that far...
...you to think that I regard her as a kept woman or as someone with whom I’m having an affair with...
...that has happened in recent months, to want to detach or part me from her. We are chained and tied...
in note 7:
...� or another mill, such as the popular Oude Koren mill at Hoornbrug at the end of the Trekvliet or the Broeksloot mill – had disappeared. There were plans in 1882, however, to replace the Laak mill by a steam pumping station. These plans came to nothing, but modifications were made to the mill instead. It may be that Van Gogh saw this activity as a sign of impending demolition. Another possibility is that he means that the café was (temporarily) closed, possibly because of this work. At this time Van Gogh painted a watercolour of the underside of this mill (Archief Rijswijk and Archief Delftland; see also exhib. cat. The Hague 1990, pp. 34, 36-37...
249 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 July 1882.
in title:
249 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 July 1882.
in translation:
Today I made an agreement with myself, which was to regard my illness, or rather what’s left of it, as non-existent. Enough time has been lost, the work must be carried on...
...straight from my own feelings. Whether in figures or in landscapes, I would like to express not...
...but that’s why I want to push on. What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little...
...house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as...
...I can now understand, better than six months ago or more, why Mauve said: don’t talk to me about Dupré, talk to me instead about the side of that ditch, or something like that. It sounds crude and...
in date note:
...with a letter from Theo. For this reason letter 249 may be dated to on or about Friday, 21 July 1882.
in note 13:
...referring to Holl’s ‘Gone’ – Euston station or FitzGerald’s Irish emigrants leaving Queenstown...
250 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 23 July 1882.
in original text:
...ik ontvangen alsmede ingesl. biljet frs 50.– Voor beiden dank ik U regt hartelijk en zeer verheugt het...
...hebt gelezen. Ik ook nog bovendien Nanna.– Hoor eens, Zola is eigentlijk Balzac II. Balzac I...
...zullen wezen waar geen oude prejugés omtrent mijn verleden de boel verkoelen, verstijven en stériel maken. Connecties met zulken als Tersteeg die hun prejugés houden zijn absoluut steriel en...
in translation:
...to take life seriously. This is now perhaps, or rather certainly, more firmly rooted in me than in...
...him that it would please me not to visit him or see him here for the next six months. Since that...
...go on bivouacking with my things in meadows or dunes very calmly, or to work in the studio with a...
...begins where Balzac leaves off and goes on to Sedan or rather to the present day. I think it’s...
...gutter,’ &c. The figure of Mme François stands against the background of the Halles throughout...
...and a grey sky as still, as peaceful as Corot or Van Goyen. That view over the ridges of the...
...person, as in Mme François in the book by Zola. But I have no humanitarian plans or ideas, as if I...
...to love one creature or another, and will continue to do so. Preferably an unfortunate or spurned or abandoned creature, I don’t know why. Once I nursed a poor burnt miner for six weeks or 2 months...
...to this day I don’t believe that this was foolish or bad, I see it as so natural and self-evident...
in date note:
...from Theo that has crossed with letter 249 of on or about 21 July 1882. Thus the day on which the letter...
in note 7:
See letter 219 of on or about 21 April 1882.
in note 12:
The character Mme François is a vegetable seller at the market of Nanterre. At the beginning of Zola’s Le...
251 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 26 July 1882.
in original text:
...heele aquarel af. Het is niet voldoende een à peu près te geven en ’t was & is mij te doen om...
in translation:
...t get the idea that I’m in a dejected or abnormal mood. That’s why I wrote to you already...
...but in vain. They have the thin, but the dense or double is nowhere to be found. At the time I...
...it. I believe it’s also much cheaper than Harding or Whatman, so that in the end there’s quite...
...if I don’t go with you to the Plaats, say, or to Mauve, for example. I’m so used to my working clothes, in which I can sit or lie in the sand or grass as I please (for in the dunes, for example...
...talk mainly about that. Unless you’re not bored or embarrassed by other matters, if not, then of...
...names and say: he thinks he’s so-and-so or so-and-so. But, again, anyone who works with love...
...if I find myself out of favour with HGT or anyone else, however much I regret it. That can’t be...
...see that I’m not afraid of a fresh green or a soft blue and the thousand different greys, for...
...and indescribably fresh green from a wild vegetable or oilseed had shot up in the baskets filled...
in note 3:
...Enthoven in particular acquired a considerable number of works by Van Gogh. Cf. P.H. Enthoven, Kroniek...
in note 11:
...Gad’s Hill, Ninth of June 1870’), The Graphic, Christmas Number, 1870, after p. 24. Ill. 1934.
in note 13:
...brébis et les deux agneaux (The sheep and the two lambs), 1849-1850 (after Adriaen van de Velde); Pêcheurs de la mer du sud (Fishers of the Zuiderzee), 1849-1850 (after R. Zeeman) – on a single page in L’Artiste of 15 December 1861; Le petit pont (The little bridge), 1849-1850 (L’Artiste, 5 December 1858); La tour de l’horloge (The clock tower), 1852 (L’Artiste, 31 October 1858) and La pompe Notre-Dame (Pumping-station Notre-Dame), 1852 (L’Artiste, 28 November 1858). The last three sheets were printed in an edition of 600 for L’Artiste; Beaux-Arts et Belles-lettres. Ill. 1936, Ill. 1937, and Ill. 1938. See Richard S...
in note 14:
...jaws.’ (Maintenant il entendait le long roulement qui partait des Halles. Paris mâchait les bouchées à ses deux millions d’habitants. C’était comme un grand organe central battant furieusement, jetant le sang de la vie dans toutes les veines. Bruit de mâchoires colossales). See Zola 1960-1967, vol. 1, p. 631.
in note 16:
A ‘demi-saison’ is a coat or overcoat that is worn in the transitional seasons, that is, spring and...
252 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 31 July 1882.
in translation:
...for I’m working hard and again need one or two things. As regards black in nature, we are of...
...on the palette. To make notes out of doors, however, or make a small scratch, a highly developed...
...well as that of others. Whether that happens now or later, well, I’m not bothered about that too...
...and love of nature always strike a chord sooner or later with people who take an interest in art...
...know of, I can’t regard him either as a friend or as someone of use to me in any way, but quite...
...correct. And if I got into debt or surrounded myself with canvases and papers daubed all over...
...you must do this or that — if you don’t do it, or not immediately or exactly, or if you object...
...neither side can move forwards or backwards. The least odious outcome of this is if one of the two parties has the presence of mind to keep silent and in one way or another quickly slip away through...
...interests, each one at odds with the rest, two or more of whom share the same feelings only when...
in note 1:
...sent this letter to Etten. Theo’s visit of a day or two to The Hague must have taken place in the period...
in note 2:
...dans la variété de ses dégradations, comme la base de toutes les colorations que présente la nature...Par le mélange du noir avec les trois couleurs primitives, on obtient les tons rompus suivants: Avec le bleu, le gris bleu; Avec le rouge, le gris rouge; Avec le jaune, le gris jaune. Si au gris bleu nous ajoutons le rouge, nous aurons le gris violacé, par conséquent moins froid. Si au gris bleu nous ajoutons le jaune, nous aurons un gris plus chaud ... Or,...
in note 4:
Cassagne too complained about the number of ready-made colours on the market: ‘Colour-makers in general...
in note 5:
In Van Gogh’s estate there is no work (or reproduction of a work) by Willem Roelofs. The description is...
253 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 5 August 1882.
in translation:
...First, a large moist colour box for 12 pieces or tubes of watercolour with a folding lid that...
...palette, with sound colours. Ultramarine, carmine or something else are added if absolutely...
...while working, I find that I really need something or other. That will help me to work calmly and...
...to look substantial — but without antiquities or tapestries and drapery — but through the...
in sketch A:
...Ochre red, Burnt ochre, Terra sienna, Cobalt or Prussian blue, Ivory black, vermilion’), letter...
in date note:
...certainly precedes letter 254 (which dates from 5 or 6 August), because it refers back to the question of...
in note 1:
...visit to Vincent must have taken place on 2, 3 or 4 August; at all events before the weekend of 5-6...
in note 3:
...Cf. for possible models the chapter ‘Les boîtes de couleurs’ in Cassagne’s Traité d’aquarelle...
in note 9:
...whether the printing works was also at Laan 3. See S. de Vries, 125 jaar vakmanschap. The Hague 1969...
in note 10:
A quire consists of 24 or 25 folded sheets of paper.
254 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 5 or Sunday, 6 August 1882.
in title:
254 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 5 or Sunday, 6 August 1882.
in original text:
...ge weet het lag aan verscheiden oorzaken maar après tout, het kan beschouwd worden als eene averij...
in translation:
...long legs: The frame is fixed to them by means of strong wooden pegs , either horizontally or vertically. The result is that on the beach or in a meadow or a field you have a view as if through a window. The perpendicular and horizontal lines of the frame, together with the diagonals and the cross �� or otherwise a grid of squares — provide a clear guide to some of the principal features...
...of masses and planes. Without that, the frame is little or no help, and makes your head spin when you look through it. I expect you can imagine how delightful it is to train this view-finder on the sea, on the green fields �� or in the winter on snow-covered land or in the autumn on the fantastic network of thin and thick trunks and branches, or on a stormy sky. With CONSIDERABLE practice and...
...a brush must be used for sky, ground, sea. Or, rather, to render them through drawing alone, it’s...
...can be seen as a fault in the machine, a screw or a rod that wasn’t strong enough and had to be...
in date note:
...2 ff.). So the letter can only have been written later on the same Saturday, 5 or on Sunday, 6 August 1882.
255 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 10 and Friday, 11 August 1882.
in translation:
...say delicate things with it too — let a soft grey or green speak in the midst of roughness. I’m...
...Now I would like quietly to amass a good number of painted studies to hang in my studio without...
...to say: Well, did you think I had no feeling for that or couldn’t do it? But I’ve put a lot of...
...I paint bigger things, I’ll draw them bigger. Or, if I can find out the technique — I’ll look...
...tackled this. As said, I want to make sure that when you come again, in six months or a few months or a year, the studio has become a painter’s studio. These scratches were done in great haste...
in note 4:
Grisailles are monochrome drawings or paintings, generally in grey or brown.
256 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Sunday, 13 August 1882.
in original text:
...Daubigny – Corot – Jules Dupré, Jules Breton, Courbet, Diaz, Jacque, Th. Rousseau, waar ik...
in translation:
...An old mother by Israëls ditto. Neuhuys, Maris, Du Chattel, Ter Meulen and a mass of others, not forgetting Weissenbruch. There’s a lovely portrait of Weissenbruch by Israëls; I can’t tell you...
...collections — Daubigny, Corot, Jules Dupré, Jules Breton, Courbet, Diaz, Jacque, T. Rousseau...
...matter here in the neighbourhood. I sincerely hope you’ll come here sooner or later, and I very much want to see some of your work or hear about it by letter. My brother sends his regards. I told...
in note 2:
...letter 175. It is not known where and when François Pieter ter Meulen spent time in Drenthe, only that he...
in note 8:
...Pulchri Studio, among them B.J. Blommers, J. Israëls, J.H. Maris and A. Mauve. The aim was to obtain...
in note 10:
Jozef Israëls, Moeder Jopje in hare woning (Mother Jopje in her dwelling), p. 10, cat. no. 49 (present...
in note 17:
Jozef Israëls, The painter J.H. Weissenbruch (Groningen, Groninger Museum). Ill. 202. (p. 10, cat. no. 51).
257 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 14 August 1882.
in translation:
...hold myself back — I couldn’t leave it alone or take a break from it. As you may know, there...
...at Tersteeg’s. There are wonderful works by Israëls — among them the portrait of Weissenbruch...
...heavy-handed. But the large seascape is splendid. Israëls has another 4 large drawings, a girl at...
...worst painters who can’t work for a week or a fortnight now and then. Sometimes the reason for...
...one’s studies, just like the farmer does his corn or hay. Now for my part I’m not yet thinking...
in note a:
Means: ‘Alles overziend’ (all things considered); cf. Van Gogh’s use of ‘Après tout’.
in note 8:
For Jozef Israëls, The painter J.H. Weissenbruch, see letter 256, n. 17.
in note 16:
Jozef Israëls, Denken en droomen (Thinking and dreaming), p. 10, cat. no. 47 (present whereabouts unknown).
in note 17:
Jozef Israëls, Kindervermaak (Children’s pleasures), p. 10, cat. no. 50 (present whereabouts unknown...
in note 18:
...Israëls, Een middagmaal (A midday meal), p. 10, cat. no. 48. Israëls painted four watercolours after his popular The frugal meal, 1876 (Glasgow, Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries), which was shown at the Salon of 1876. In fact, at 88.9 x 138.7 cm it was not particularly small. Cf. letter 211, n. 17. The print after it, Intérieur de village (Village interior), appeared in L’Art. Revue Hebdomadaire Illustrée 3-3 (1876), and in 1882 Eigen Haard also published an engraving of it (p. 71 and 76). Cf. Dekkers, 1993, pp. 76-78, cat. no. 2. For Israëls’s Mother Jopje in her dwelling in Kunstkronijk, see letter 256, n. 10...
in note 20:
Van Gogh added the comparison ‘just like the farmer does his corn or hay’ later.
258 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 20 August 1882.
in translation:
...the finest one could imagine by Millet, Israëls or Degroux. Above the landscape a plain grey sky...
...better result, whether it takes more time or less, more effort or less. Landscape the way I’ve...
...rather read the life of père Millet or T. Rousseau or Daubigny. When you read Sensier’s book...
...mess of things — and went to this or that concert or play which left me feeling even worse.’ Wh...
...to say: work on those views of woods or landscapes or seascapes, then that needn’t get in the way...
...but that the costs could be recouped. If that was or could become the case, it might be a way of...
...better. What will work out cheapest: drawing or painting those studies? If the paintings are unsaleable, it will certainly be cheaper to draw in charcoal or something else. The reason why I myself...
...of selling. I don’t want to put either you or me to great expense for no good purpose, but I see...
...or later, it will be to find out whether you have any tips to give me, not to say: I reckon this or...
in note 10:
In 1872 Sensier had published Souvenirs sur Théodore Rousseau. Philippe Burty’s Maîtres et petits maîtres contained an article on the life of Théodore Rousseau (Burty 1877, pp. 120-160). It is not known, however...
in note 11:
...for example, the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and other art journals, or from monographs, such as Henriet 1875.
259 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 26 August 1882.
in original text:
...grijpen vroeger ongenaakbaar, juist die welke mij toch après tout ’t meest sympathiek zijn en...
in translation:
...I’ll get some good sable brushes. They’re the proper drawing brushes, I find — for drawing a hand or profile in colour. For delicate tree branches, &c. they’re really essential, I find. The...
...they can no longer exactly recognize the spot or the figure, that will always be a disappointment...
...will blame them on dissatisfaction, indifference or nonchalance, while the cause lies elsewhere...
...a joy. In the colours there are hidden harmonies or contrasts which contribute of their own accord...
...all the other Rougons drowned. He and Mme François in Le ventre de Paris are the most sympathetic...
in note 11:
For Mme François in Le ventre de Paris, see letter 250, n. 12.
260 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 3 September 1882.
in translation:
...over it — I wish I’d painted it on panel or canvas. I tried to get more colour into it, namely...
...shadows of trees that threw bands across, weaker or stronger, half blotted out. The problem, and I...
...errors or gaps — yet something remains of what the wood or the beach or the figure said — and...
...tame or conventional language which doesn’t stem from nature itself but from a studied manner or...
...felt or tackled a figure that looks like an unfinished terracotta. But now, I feel I’m on the high seas — painting must proceed with all the strength that we can muster. If I work on panel or...
...pay the retail price. Are you in touch with Paillard or someone like that? If so, it seems to me it...
...one mustn’t worry about a tube more or less. Sometimes the subject requires that one paints...
...with Millet or Jules Dupré — in the corners of the studio there are nevertheless cigar boxes with the remains of tubes as numerous as the empty bottles in the corners of rooms at a soirée or meal...
in note 9:
Earlier by ‘board’ (or ‘plank’) Van Gogh always meant a drawing board (letters 202, 216 and 245); here he means painting paper that was pinned to a board. Later in the letter he talks about panel and canvas as...
in note 11:
...Dans un coin de la boutique, le tas des négresses mortes grandissait, un cimetière de bouteilles sur...
261 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 9 September 1882.
in original text:
...de buurt, komt dan aanloopen. Steeds zijn daar dergelijke scènes, nu is ’t een schuit met turf...
in translation:
...of the countryside at Nuenen. It does seem to be really beautiful there. I’ve asked her for more information on one or two points about the weavers, who especially interest me. I saw that at the time in the Pas de Calais — inexpressibly...
...sight. These are things I would like to paint or draw forcefully. The life and movement of such a...
...the bustle of workmen I see on the street or outdoors. The place where I saw the potato market is...
...barge with peat, then one with fish, then with coal or something else. I have a host of sketches by...
in note 3:
Van Gogh is referring to Man stooping with a stick or spade (F 12 / JH 185), in which the sunlight falls on...
in note 4:
...sketches were made, but one of them would have been Man stooping with a stick or spade (F 12 / JH 185).
in note 7:
...Besides this print, Van Gogh also had Lançon’s Paris sous la neige – La charrue à glace du...
in note 9:
The ‘Engraving Commission’ for the Household Edition of Dickens’s work was given to the Dalziel...
262 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 11 September 1882.
in translation:
...a drawing in the genre known as ‘saleable’. You must forgive me, however, for not knowing exactly when a drawing may or may not be classed in this genre. I believe I used to be able to see this, but now I do realize daily that I get it wrong...
...succeed in carrying it out or completing it. The other was done after a painted study. Now I’d very much like to hear from you whether in your view this little drawing is more or less in the spirit...
...demonstrated by the fact that a fellow behind me, or probably at a window, suddenly spat a wad of...
in note 6:
...No clues have been found in the June-November 1880 or February-May 1881 issues, so it is impossible to...
263 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, between about Tuesday, 12 and Sunday, 17 September 1882.
in translation:
...I would like to do studies of them myself sooner or later. Write to me if you would, Rappard, in...
...ve often worked on the beach recently, either drawing or painting. And the sea attracts me more and...
...to be persuaded, or rather chose not to even take the trouble to look at a few things. Or if they...
...an impression they made on me. And especially while I myself toil away to make something of the things that interest me more and more on the street, in the 3rd-class waiting room, on the beach, in a hospital, my respect grows for the great portrayers of the people such as, for example, Renouard or Lançon or Doré or Morin or Gavarni or Du Maurier or C. Keene or Howard Pyle or Hopkins or Herkomer and Frank Holl and countless others. Perhaps this has been your experience to some extent too. Well – whatever the case — I find it highly interesting that you’re toiling at various subjects that I also think are most appealing, and sometimes I regret that we live quite far apart and can see...
in note 3:
...Thomas Macquoid appeared in the special Christmas number of The Illustrated London News of 1874 (vol. 65...
in note 4:
The ‘book Jew’ David or Jozef Blok: see letter 199.
264 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 17 September 1882.
in translation:
...the crowd trooped off home like a flock of sheep or a caravan, with the fellow on the camel, I mean...
...to refresh me after the din of the Geest district or the potato market. Apart from that, this week...
...I’m searching for. Groups of people doing something or other. But how hard it is to get life...
...some detail. Then to right and left, depending on the viewpoint, the extension or shortening of the sides. As to composition, all possible scenes with figures, be it a market or the arrival of a boat, or a crowd of people at the soup kitchen — in the waiting room, the hospital, the pawnshop, the groups on the street, talking or strolling, are based on that same principle of the flock of sheep...
...on the beach — a flurry of strollers. I would be really pleased if sooner or later, after even more or even less effort, I could supply drawings for illustrated magazines. One might follow from the...
265 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 17 or Monday, 18 September 1882.
in title:
265 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 17 or Monday, 18 September 1882.
in original text:
...te oogsten. Dezer dagen las ik les deux frères van Erckmann Chatrian, wat wel mooi is. Het was...
in translation:
...if I had done a watercolour like the small bench or the present one with the orphans, he would have...
...many people’s watercolours or paintings it’s even the case that some painter or other does some...
...disapprove of more skilled painters either giving tips or even doing some work (mainly because it...
...village hall who appear to be demanding papers or information from the mayor and the councillors...
...at will whatever one sees on a larger or smaller scale. We’re having very beautiful bad weather...
...If there’s something you would like to keep, or if there’s something you would like among what...
...it comes to actual paintings or drawings. In short, I think of the studies as seed, and the more one sows the more one may hope to reap. In the last few days I’ve been reading Les deux frères by...
...Auerbach. Personally, I prefer that to Tapiró or Capobianchi, or the host of other Italians who...
...make notes regularly, either drawn or painted, of the scenes of workmen or fishermen that strike me...
in date note:
...266, which was written on Monday, 18 September. This means that either on Sunday or on Monday Vincent wrote two letters to Theo, and that the present letter thus dates from Sunday, 17 or Monday, 18 September 1882.
in note 12:
...le dessin à l’enfant comme il apprend à lire et à écrire, par des principes très élémentaires et parfaitement gradués, en créant en quelque sorte pour lui un alphabet des formes des objets usuels qui le conduise pas à pas, simplement et clairement, à la lecture et à l’interprétation de la nature. 2o De...
in note 14:
Les deux frères (1873) by Erckmann-Chatrian is about two wealthy brothers in a village in the Vosges. Their...
266 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 18 September 1882.
in original text:
...den twintigsten het gewone niet missen kunt.– Voor dat geval wilde ik U verzoeken toch te sturen...
...mijn best om het te maken zoo als ik het zie – voor ik er op ga werken het te doen zoo als ik het...
in translation:
...to ask you to send whatever you can spare, be it more or less, even if it’s only a small part. A...
...quite an amount, but now there are a good number of painted studies on the walls. The courtyard and...
...morning of this or that outdoors. So that I immediately know what to do with the day — and immediately take pleasure in something, or have the feeling: I must still go here or there sometime. As...
...is already very different in colour from the first or second I started with. So you must make no...
...of nature. Either to give his thought or conception precision, or to arrive at a thought. Thus...
...me to do, and rest assured that as regards sending or not sending yet I’ll do what seems best to...
...when one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them. It’s the same with the...
...yet analyzing things isn’t a burden to me or something I dislike doing. It’s already late — I...
...me what I should do — send you a painted study, or not yet. And rest assured that I think of you...
267 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 19 September 1882.
in title:
267 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 19 September 1882.
in original text:
...ar zijn net twee duitsche bij van Marchal. De Lançons zijn dunkt me mooi en vooral de Green, en de...
...voeg ik bij zeer mooie Morins en oude Dorés – bladen die hoe langer hoe zeldzamer worden. Gij...
in translation:
...Duez. When I first saw some of this work 10 or 12 years ago, I was with Goupil at the time, I...
...the Germans or, for example, the English draughtsmen or, for example, Rochussen or Mauve. I’ve...
...their song, whereas I feel more sympathy for larks or nightingales that have more to say with less...
...s, and a drawing by Pinwell, Morris or Small looks different from one by Mauve, and a Gilbert or Du...
...to. I would very much like it if sooner or later you had an opportunity to quietly look through my...
...draughtsmen forms. Just as one must read Dickens or Balzac or Zola in their entirety to know them...
...me, without my being able to explain exactly how or why. I’m made out to be everything peculiar...
...German ones by Marchal, as it happens. The Lançons seem beautiful to me, and especially the Green...
...s splendidly beautiful and noble in sentiment — for example in the room in the night refuge for...
...Hals or Rembrandt. I’m also adding some very beautiful Morins and old Dorés — prints...
in date note:
...number of wood engravings earlier in September (see letter 263 of between about Tuesday, 12 and Sunday, 17 September). He responds to Van Rappard’s thank-you letter ‘at once’ (l. 3). This letter will have been written shortly after letter 265 of Sunday, 17 or Monday, 18 September 1882, to which reference is made (l. 6) and in which similar phrasing is used. The next letter to Van Rappard dates from on or about 23 September (letter 268). Since, moreover, there was another letter from Van Rappard between that letter and the present one, we have dated letter 267 to on or about Tuesday, 19 September 1882...
in note 5:
A reference to Lançon’s print A rag-pickers’ tavern in Paris: see letter 261, n. 5; also mentioned in...
in note 6:
Mariano José Maria Bernardo Fortuny y Carbó was strongly influenced by Spanish Old Masters, particularly...
in note 22:
...he is sending wood engravings by Charles Marchal, or prints in the style of his work. The term...
in note 23:
This might be the work of Henry Towneley Green or of Charles Green. Van Gogh earlier sent “Restoring the...
in note 27:
...672-675. Rochussen made a lithograph of Léonore’s despair for De Nederlandsche Spectator (22 January...
in note 33:
...Daumier’s Physiologie du buveur – Les quatre âges (The physiology of the drinker – The four ages...
in note 34:
...still attributed to Frans Hals at that time or reproductions after them somewhere; no original...
in note 36:
...L’Essor (1876-1891). Van Gogh is referring to the drawings by Lynen at the sixth annual exhibition by this society, from 7 January to 8 February 1882 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, namely Un livre (7 dessins), Mon vieux (7 dessins), L’hiver (7 dessins), Dessins, Marée basse (A book (7 drawings), Old chap (7 drawings), Winter (7 drawings), Drawings, At low tide). Van Rappard, himself a member of L’Essor, was represented by two (unidentified) paintings, Jardin botanique à Bruxelles (Botanical Garden at Brussels) and En Hollande (In Holland). See L’Essor Bruxelles. Catalogue de la vie exposition annuelle. Exhib. cat. Brussels 1882, p. 13, cat. nos. 137-141 (Lynen) and 201-202 (Van Rappard...
268 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 23 September 1882.
in title:
268 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 23 September 1882.
in original text:
...en Un discours de M. Gambetta en nog bladen Enfants assistés. Maar vooral weet ik zeker ge veel pleizier zoudt hebben in een paar groote Lançons. Caton Woodville is ook wel erg knap, ik begin meer...
in translation:
...and have never regretted that. Whether I paid more or less for them, though, has nothing to do with...
...example, L’Illustration or The Graphic regularly, that’s to say this year’s issues. This is because I’m in negotiations with someone who’s selling a number of magazines that come from a subscription library. I’ve decided to take them in any case, but I already have one or two from the...
...fortnight or so, perhaps even sooner — so let me know, if you would, what your position is as regards magazines in 1882. Of course I don’t yet know whether I’ll have a lot of duplicates or not...
...you something again if it’s worth the trouble, or we can settle it when the opportunity arises...
...take great pleasure in a couple of large Lançons. Caton Woodville is also very good. The more I...
...know soon about the woodcuts, whether you have them or not. With a handshake, Ever yours, Vincent...
in date note:
...or about Tuesday, 19 September 1882 (letter 267). Letter 269 of Monday, 25 September says: ‘I received a letter from Rappard the other day’ (l. 87); this must have been the one mentioned in the present letter. Because Vincent wrote to Theo that he had begun drawing his new model (letter 266 of Monday, 18 September) and reports to Van Rappard that he is ‘busy’ (l. 80) with that, this letter must date from a few days after letter 266. Based on this, we date it to on or about Saturday, 23 September 1882...
in note 6:
...assistés (The orphanage) are in the estate: La crèche (The crèche), engraved by Charles Baude. Ill. 1956 (three copies: t*61, t*644 and t*768); Le change (The change) engraved by Charles Baude. Ill. 1957 (three copies: t*761, t*765 and t*766), in L’Illustration 79 (25 March 1882), p. 192 and p. 197; Le repas des sevrés – Scrofuleux – Rachitique – On apprend a marcher (The meal of the weaned babies – A scrofulous child – A rachitic child – They learn to walk) Ill. 1970 (t*762); L’heure de la bouillie (Time for porridge) engraved by Henry Thiriat. Ill. 1959 (t*763); La première division passe au réfectoire (The first group goes to the dining room), engraved by Henry Thiriat. Ill. 396 (t*747) and Le numéro 68,782 (Number 68.782), engraved by Henry Thiriat. Ill. 395 (t*767), all from L’Illustration 79 (1 April 1882), pp. 209, 213, 212. Van Gogh must also have had Aux enfants trouvés...
in note 13:
...213). The legend ‘N 199’ refers to the number that residents of the Old Men’s and Women’s Home were required to wear visibly. Van Gogh also sketched this number on the right sleeve – which eventually made...
269 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 25 September 1882.
in original text:
...t U door ’t hoofd gegaan. Nu dacht ik het après tout geen kwestie van bepaald gewigt is en heden heb...
...kunnen bereiken als er minder van die petites misères waren. Nu wat deze studie betreft – als...
in translation:
...no answer in your last letter to what I said about sending or not sending painted studies. Perhaps it...
...you had given them that engraving after Israëls, which touched them deeply. I wanted to enclose a...
...study I can find the proportion of any figure, more or less. Of course, a proper figure is a very...
...and that your headache isn’t something that lasts or keeps coming back. I have it too sometimes...
...don’t know whether one can send drawings or paintings by post as printed matter. Another thing...
in date note:
...before that he was expecting the money on the 20th (or soon afterwards) (see letter 266 of Monday, 18...
in note 4:
For the origin of this borrowing from Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville, see...
in note 6:
It is not known which engraving by Jozef Israëls is meant (it is not mentioned in the family...
in note a:
Saying: ‘door gebruik te maken van de gunstige momenten’ (to make the most of an opportunity).
270 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 1 October 1882.
in title:
270 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 1 October 1882.
in original text:
...zwarte, geelachtige arbeidersbroeken, verkleurde châles, een groenachtig geworden overjas, witte...
in translation:
...of whom it’s impossible to say what they do or how they live, but who evidently potter along and...
...curiosity and delusion about the lottery seem more or less childish to us, but it becomes serious...
...with figures the length of roughly one foot, or slightly less, with the composition then a little...
...from the studies from the model, either in this or another form, but with the same sentiment. I...
...black top hats, muddy paving-stones and boots contrasting with pale faces or ones weathered by the elements. And that’s where painting or watercolouring comes in. Well, I’m toiling away at it. I...
in date note:
...that it must have arrived around 1 October. So the letter dates from on or about Sunday, 1 October 1882.
271 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 8 October 1882.
in translation:
...like that in the snow – a peasant funeral or the like. In short, an effect like the enclosed...
in date note:
...272). The letter is a continuation of 270 of on or about Sunday, 1 October, as is shown by ll. 9-10 and...
in note 7:
...mentioned at the beginning of the letter as representing summer or whether here he meant another subject.
272 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 15 October 1882.
in translation:
...possible for you to determine whether it will be before or after the New Year, I’d very much like...
...on it, then the grey or brown-grey earth of dug-over potato fields or patches planted with greenish...
...them beanpoles with wilting stalks and the reddish or green beanpods — beyond this strip of land...
...is especially evident when a few figures in blue or white smocks potter about in the yards, when...
...on such days it would be nice to look up a friend or to be in the company of one, and on such days...
...I feel what the work is; how, regardless of approval or disapproval, it gives tone to life, and how...
...he does something there’s grace in the figure, or rather expression at any rate, and character. I...
...like to give them half a guilder for an afternoon or morning, because that’s just what I need. I...
...I’m very tired, then I sometimes have a day or half a day when I’m indescribably faint and weak...
...if I take a brisk walk to Scheveningen, or something like that. Well, do write again towards the...
in note 7:
...la toile, et tout y est!). Quoted in Corot 1946, p. 102, and in L. Roger-Milès, Corot. Paris 1891, p. 38.
in note 8:
A ‘history painting’ is a painting on a subject taken from classical antiquity, the Bible or history.
in note 9:
...were various prints after this work. See Lorenz Eitner, Géricault’s raft of the Medusa. London 1972.
273 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 22 October 1882.
in title:
273 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 22 October 1882.
in translation:
...know who they were by if I couldn’t make head or tail of the monograms many English draughtsmen use.
...to see the portrait of Shakespeare by Menzel sooner or later. Tell me, how are you getting on with...
...Empress of Austria in whose honour a hunting party or something is being given. If you don’t have...
...tre. Wyllie and others with him are more colourists, or rather seek the tone more. Especially in...
...snow effects &c., corners of a garden or street. Routledges Sixpenny series includes, among others...
...by Degroux especially, that were as beautiful as Israëls. Well, old chap, I must get to work. I...
in date note:
...or about 29 October 1882, which results in a very high density of letters to Van Rappard in the last days of October. Moreover, it leads to the strange situation that, at a time when Van Gogh and Van Rappard are corresponding with great frequency about illustrations, for four weeks (roughly from the end of September to the end of October) no letters pass between them. This is why we have placed the letter a little earlier in October. Van Gogh wrote on or about 23 September that within 14 days (‘perhaps even sooner’) he expected to have a collection of prints in his possession (letter 268, ll. 49-50). The postscript in letter 274 of 22 October shows that by then he had received the new woodcuts, whereas in letter 272 of 15 October he doesn’t yet mention them, so we assume that the acquisition came into his hands in the intervening week. The obvious conclusion is that the list of monograms in the present letter was drawn up wholly or partly because of this acquisition. Whether this was done after Sunday, 22 October (and thus before or after letter 274) is impossible to determine, but it must have been around then, so we date the letter to on or about Sunday, 22 October. This earlier date helps to explain the sequence of several passages in the following letters. Van Rappard must have reacted (in a letter that has not survived) to this list and to a remark about the artist Wyllie (ll. 73-78), which Van Gogh in turn comes back to in letter 275 with his question about Wyllie (in l. 167) and with the statement ‘I would have to see the monogram FD or whatever it is to see whether I could decipher it from the way it was done.’ Van Rappard had evidently written about that monogram after seeing the list in the present letter...
in note 16:
...both The Illustrated London News and The Graphic in the 1870s. The estate has no prints after or by him.
in note 18:
...the prints Tenement-house life in New York – Mayor Grace’s tour of inspection, in Harper’s Weekly...
in note 32:
...Grange, in The Illustrated London News, Christmas number 1880, p. 29 (Ill. 1985) and Christmas reflections...
in note 35:
...Twist appeared between 1 and 15 June 1882 as number 11, with illustrations by James Mahoney. Van...
in note 37:
...le pavé (On the street) (Ill. 1989) and Les métiers désagréables (Unpleasant professions), (Ill. 1990...
274 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 22 October 1882.
in original text:
...onder de kastanjeboomen in de Champs Elysées (een illustratie voor Balzac), ofschoon die teekening...
in translation:
...much more struck by a painting or drawing in which a light effect or the mood of a landscape was...
...than meadows or clouds. And similarly the figures of either the English draughtsmen or the...
...making the slightest effort to put them into practice or even giving that a thought. For the latter...
...without allowing oneself to be lured from it or distracted, unless one reflects and organizes one...
...to principles in a person or principles lead to deeds is something that seems to me as unanswerable and as little worth answering as the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. But I...
...when you see them sooner or later. It’s the same with them as with the question of the chicken and the egg: should one make figures for a composition one has done first, or combine the figures made...
...the scenes or, in other words, are inclined to analyze things. Now this, I believe, is exactly the quality one must have in order to paint — one must exercise this power when painting or drawing...
in note 3:
...Ferragus’ in Balzac’s Histoire des Treize. Ill. 54. It appeared in Le Charivari (20 November 1846) and was included in several editions of Balzac’s Oeuvres complètes and Oeuvres illustrées. See Bouvy 1995, cat. no. 735 and Honoré de Balzac, La comédie humaine v. Etudes de moeurs. Scènes de la vie de province. Scènes de la vie parisienne. Histoire des treize. Ed. Rose Fortassier. Paris 1977. Cf. also letter 162, n. 2.
in note 7:
...Scènes de la vie de bohème (1851), a highly successful book with a mix of romanticism and realism. The main characters are a painter, a musician, a philosopher and a poet. The life of these bohémiens in the...
in note 10:
Nicolas François Octave Tassaert was obsessed by death; it ‘foreshadowed his own later self-destruction by...
275 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, between about Tuesday, 24 and about Friday, 27 October 1882.
in original text:
...heenbrengen.– Sapperloot wat was dat prachtig – voor Buckmann – b.v. Ik krijg morgen eenige...
...den inhoud natuurlijk. Herinnert ge U de établissements de bouillon te Brussel?– Er werd er...
in translation:
...and I’d be delighted to have it if possible. Today or tomorrow I’ll send you the Holiday No. 82...
...hymn. Overend In the conservatory. You have just two or three Frank Holls that I lack, but how...
...by Dollmann. I would have to see the monogram FD or whatever it is to see whether I could decipher...
...the place where the dustmen bring the rubbish &c. By Jove, how splendid that was — for Buckman, for example. Tomorrow I’ll get some interesting objects from the rubbish dump, including broken lamp-posts, to view �� or to pose if you like, rusting and twisted — the dustman is going to bring...
...which in my view strongly resembles rue Haute or rue Blaes in the Walloon quarter of Brussels, for...
...a free soup place is in Brussels, in London or in The Hague, its character is always rather like...
in date note:
...or about Friday, 27 October 1882 to be the terminus post quem. Based on the words ‘this week’, the earliest date would seem to be Monday, 23 October, but we assume that Van Rappard’s question about ‘the monogram FD’ (see l. 88) refers to letter 273 with the list of monograms, which dates from on or about 22 October, so that the letter from Van Rappard probably dates from a little later in the week. The exact date cannot be established, so we give on or about 24 October 1882 as the earliest possible date...
in note 4:
Van Gogh means the 48-page ‘Holiday Number’ of The Illustrated London News which – according to an advertisement in the 24 June number (p. 606) – had appeared on 27 June 1882. It contains illustrations to the...
in note 7:
...match, in The Graphic 12 (1875), Christmas number, p. 23. Ill. 1964. It is an illustration for the...
in note 8:
...London News 65 (16 December 1874), Christmas number, p. 12. It is an illustration for the story ‘The...
in note 9:
...the “Wave”, in The Illustrated London News 65 (16 December 1874), Christmas number, p. 17. Ill. 1281.
in note 11:
...among them Overend’s Le thé dans la serre (see n. 27 below), here he probably means the anonymous portrait engraving George Washington, premier président des Étas-Unis d’Amérique (George Washington, first...
in note 12:
...Hopes and fears, in Harper’s Weekly 25 (‘for the week ending December 17’, 1881), ‘Extra...
in note 18:
...Eugène Fromentin appeared in Harper’s Weekly 25 (‘for the week ending Sept. 3’, 1881), pp. 600-601.
in note 22:
...engraved by Eugène Froment, in The Illustrated London News 77 (1880), Christmas Number, p. 12. Ill. 813.
in note 24:
Paul Adolphe Kauffmann, Les élections en Alsace-Lorraine – Maison d’école à Wissembourg pendant le...
in note 27:
W.H. Overend, Le thé dans la serre (Teatime in the conservatory), engraved by William James Palmer, in...
in note 37:
Félix Régamey or Guillaume Régamey.
in note 39:
Charles Paul Renouard, Les régates d’automne à Argenteuil – Les dernières courses à la voile (Autumn regatta at Argenteuil – The last sailing races), engraved by Frederick William Moller, in Le Monde...
in note 41:
G. Montbard, Mendiants algériens à la porte d’une mosquee (Algerian beggars at the door of a mosque...
in note 51:
...t*33) and Une séance du tribunal à Claremorris (A session of the Claremorris court) (t*35); engraved...
276 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 29 October 1882.
in title:
276 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 29 October 1882.
in original text:
...wil mijns inziens primo moet hebben wat op een Xmas Number van Punch staat: Good will to all – in...
in translation:
...absolutely cold. I may occasionally long for one friend or another to come to the studio to look at...
...counting what I drew in my sketchbook. Although the number isn’t that important, I mention it to...
...that first of all one must have what’s on a Xmas Number of Punch: Good will to all — to a high...
...person (such as Erckmann-Chatrian in their works or The Graphic draughtsmen for The Graphic) that...
...the phantom standing beside it are covered in snow or glazed frost. It’s marvellous, and I find...
...at them. I find the reasoning of your friend, or rather critical visitor (how should one put that...
in note 1:
...Swain, in Punch 77 (27 December 1879), Christmas number, p. 295. Ill. 1369. (t*1281). The print shows...
277 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 29 October 1882.
in original text:
...een blad dat ik onlangs van hem vond, les 5 âges d’un buveur, of als dat figuur van een oud man...
in translation:
...why they don’t make more use of models. (Of course I do not mean people like Mauve or Israëls, although the latter sets an excellent example in my view by always working with a model, but more...
...to hear from him of several experiences that were roughly or exactly the same as my own. But anyway...
...above that I can’t achieve anything with my studies or that I do them without any aim, but only...
...t just sit cosily by the stove, look at drawings or prints and liven each other up that way. I...
...thought. If you know anything special about him, or know of important things among his drawings, do...
...the caricatures are definitely not his most typical or main work. I remember that we talked about...
...drawings, types or portraits from the common people, and I’m curious about them. If there were more things by him as beautiful as a print by him I recently found, The 5 ages of a drinker, or as...
in note 7:
...Van Gogh literally wrote: ‘where I can express the bustle of workmen I see on the street or outdoors’.
in note 12:
For Daumier, Physiologie du buveur – Les quatre âges (The physiology of the drinker – The four ages...
in note 14:
...1857-July 1857, Charles Degroux provided twelve illustrations with several Daumier-like figures for the satirical weekly Uylenspiegel, Journal des Ebats Artistiques et Littéraires. They are all reproduced in exhib. cat. Ypres 1995, pp. 149-152. See also letter 273, n. 37. On this magazine: Nathalie Eeckman, Uylenspiegel. Journal des ébats artistiques et littéraires (1856-1860). Rôle et conceptions littéraires. Louvain 1985.
278 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 1 November 1882.
in original text:
...the public require the representation of a public event or so and are satisfied if it is correct...
in translation:
...the public require the representation of a public event or so and are satisfied if it is correct...
...men as Millet, Breton, Degroux and Israëls, choose subjects which — while as true as those of Gav. or Daum. — have something noble and in which there’s a more serious sentiment. That, above all, must remain, it seems to me. An artist need not be a minister or a collector in church, but he...
...find them even more beautiful than the drawings by Bertall or somebody for the Vie Elégante or other élégances. Perhaps you’ll find this a tedious letter — but everything was once more fresh in my mind. I had gathered together and mounted my 100 or so studies and when I had finished the job...
in note 1:
...with what Herkomer wrote. There is no way of knowing whether Van Rappard enclosed the extracts from the article in his letter (cf. letter 276) or sent them separately, with or without an accompanying letter.
in note 8:
...with a small one. The short texts were moralistic or didactic in character. The magazine appeared only in...
in note 10:
Jules or Emile Adélard Breton, Charles Degroux and Jozef Israëls.
in note 11:
...in his interpretation of the print; the accompanying text speaks of the ‘distribution of relief tickets for small portions of “yellow meal�� or maize flour doled out by the local Relief Committees’ (p. 227).
in note 13:
...by Charles Roberts, in The Graphic 14 (25 December 1876), Christmas Number, p. 30. Ill. 166. (t*93).
in note 15:
...illustrated an edition of Balzac’s Petites misères de la vie conjugale (1845). As far as can be made...
279 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Wednesday, 1 November 1882.
in original text:
...tentoonstelling van die dagen, in welke de Sommités van tegenwoordig rising men waren. De rising...
...En geloof me dat zoo wie de sommités van tegenwoordig als menschen zoowel als artisten gezien...
in translation:
...Types of beauty that The Graphic later published, or take another print by Ridley, the children’s...
...if art lacks that then art has meningitis or spinal consumption. Yet I don’t believe that he condemns Small himself and Chas Green, for instance, or others — I know of reproductions of drawings...
...of turf tickets in Ireland by Caton Woodville or Xmas in olden times by Howard Pyle, even though...
...not a single artist who doesn’t have a spoken or silent complaint against them in his heart. They...
...splendid Pictura exhibition that although Israëls, Mauve, Maris, Neuhuys, Weissenbruch and many...
...remain strict and put our shoulders to the wheel, but there’s absolutely no reason to let oneself be discouraged or upset by what’s said about our work by those who think they know a better direction than we who make or try to make what strikes us in domestic life or on the streets or in the hospital &c. If you knew what Degroux, for example, has endured by way of criticism and malice, you...
in note 9:
...or honest drawing is no longer wanted; complete designs are no longer in request; a “bit,” just covering an awkward corner of the page, is all that is required. And if the dress of a lady hangs into the letter-press, or a tree grows out of the margin of the drawing, breaking the margin line, people are made to believe that it is the newest and most enlightened style of illustration’ (Herkomer 1882, p. 167, col. 2...
in note 15:
Jozef Israëls; Albert or Jozef Neuhuys; Jacob or Willem Maris; Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch.
280 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 5 November 1882.
in original text:
...tijd er misschien vraag zal zijn naar employés voor illustratie, meer dan momenteel. Als ik voor...
...krijgen zooals ge weet & bij gelegenheid zien zult. à propos. tot heden ontving ik nog niet ’t...
in translation:
...Leys, Gavarni, Degroux (to name just a few), or still further, Ingres, Delacroix, Géricault, think...
...Israëls, for example, may equal Millet, but with genius there’s no question of surpassing or...
...ut using a second draughtsman or engraver or lithographer as an intermediary — can be transferred as it is onto a stone, or that a print can be made of it, so that any number of impressions can be...
...with studies from the models that I can grab or catch, I’ll get something to show so that I...
...will be absolutely necessary for me to do a number of horse studies some day, not just scratches on...
...At Scheveningen, for instance, I’ve occasionally had a boy or a man stand still for a moment, as...
...over time, and a naive painting like a Schelfhout or a Ségé, a Jules Bakhuyzen, is seen again...
...of those etchings that appeared in annual series, or even more old-fashioned. The local tone is...
...books were made, or else the changes Dickens was to make to one character or another were discussed...
in note a:
Probably should be read as ‘spijt�� or ‘droefheid’ (regret, or sorrow). Cf. letter 211 for almost the same phrase.
in note 7:
...clay called Les célébrités du Juste Milieu, also from the 1830s (Paris, Musée d’Orsay), of which lithographs exist. In 1848-1849 Daumier did designs for the series Les représentants représentés. See Delteil...
in note 8:
...suggests that either through his own contributions or from others Buhot knew of a special type of paper on...
in note 24:
Jean-François Millet’s The gleaners, 1857 (Paris, Musée d'Orsay). Ill. 1891. This was published as an...
281 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 7 November 1882.
in title:
281 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 7 November 1882.
in original text:
...bij ’t geen ik van Smulders kocht. Het is bij S. zeer duur, f. 1.75 per vel, maar werkt wel prettig.
...me erg dat ik niet vroeger van dit procedé kennis heb gehad. Ik heb te Brussel nog moeite gedaan...
in translation:
...what I bought from Smulders. It’s very expensive at S., 1.75 guilders a sheet, but is nice to work with.
...up a stock of drawings than that I rush or chivvy myself to find employment, although it would be...
...on that paper, reduce the drawings to 1/2 or 1/3 that size without losing accuracy — namely...
in date note:
...or 6 days now’, thus from about 9 November. In the present letter this money crisis does not appear to be acute yet, so it is unlikely that the letter dates from after 8 November. For this reason the date chosen is on or about Tuesday, 7 November...
in note 10:
...was to draw several diggers over the course of a number of weeks. Only three of them are known: Digger F...
282 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 14 November 1882.
in original text:
...betreffende dezelfde zaak, n.l. iets omtrent procedés kunt zeggen. Op hetgeen mij resteerde van...
in translation:
...have perhaps been lost, or that your letter has been lost, is that I’ve heard nothing from you since, and moreover today is already 14 Nov. I have been literally without money for 5 or 6 days now...
...and am then afraid that perhaps I wrote or did something of which you disapprove. So last night I...
...we might have printed should be exploited by me or you. I had and have not the slightest thought of...
...or later I have something that forms a whole and has an import and says something, then I might be persuaded to publish it myself if I couldn’t find anyone else, although not without informing or...
...of art and not firstly or chiefly for my own benefit. If I ever did it, you would know all about it, and in no sense at all — in connection either with the work or with the publication — would...
...or lithograph or reproduce their drawings in one way or another must carry out to learn about the processes and the strengths of black and white. Should a certain number of copies of one sheet or...
in date note:
...for example a ‘proof of a lithograph’ (l. 5), mentioned in letter 281 of on or about 7 November 1882.
283 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 16 or Friday, 17 November 1882.
in title:
283 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 16 or Friday, 17 November 1882.
in original text:
...aan het zoeken ben naar de verschillende procedés en de reproducties in Vie moderne mij mogelijk...
in translation:
...a drawing done in this way? Also, would such drawings or similar ones done in autographic ink be of...
...t know whether you’ll find it conceited of me or something like that when I tell you that the...
...men should hang such prints in their room or workplace. I believe Herkomer speaks the truth when he...
in date note:
...forth could have taken slightly longer, the letter is dated to Thursday, 16 or Friday, 17 November 1882.
in note 4:
...the impression of Old man (‘an earlier one’) for Buhot. See Van Heugten and Pabst 1995, pp. 42, 90...
in note 5:
...plural ‘very first ones’ indicates that there were a number of copies with the note ‘1re épreuve’.
in note 9:
...Lançon, Les chinois fumeurs d’opium à Londres (Chinese opium smokers in London); Auguste Lançon, Au music-hall (At the music hall) and Jean-François Millet, Le berger (The shepherd) (t*1348 (2 prints on 1...
in note 14:
...but do so to conceal their poverty, adultery or opportunism. A recurring theme is their...
284 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Friday, 17 or Saturday, 18 November 1882.
in title:
284 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Friday, 17 or Saturday, 18 November 1882.
in original text:
...liet in der tijd op de zelfde wijs de enfants assistés van Renouard komen. Ja – nu moet ge ’t...
in translation:
...L’Illustration, but they either didn’t have them or only ones without them. On condition that I...
...it often happens that the orders aren’t placed or the issue is sold out. Given that haste, it...
...still had a daalder of yours in hand for woodcuts or suchlike when the occasion arises, and on that...
...so quickly, and be assured that when I say something about the decoration or don’t entirely agree with you about this or that, I speak my mind frankly precisely because I appreciate your aims and...
...which I see no good at all, either for the artists or for the public, and which I don’t regard as...
in date note:
...to Theo, and this is why the order is now the reverse of that in De Brieven 1990: letter 283 is now dated 16 or 17 November, and the present letter Friday, 17 or Saturday, 18 November 1882. Cf. also letter 283, Date.
in note 7:
...work had evidently been a subject of conversation or correspondence between Van Gogh and Van Rappard in...
in note 11:
...de Montceau-Les-Mines – Le banc des accusés, (The Court of Assizes of Chalon-sur-Saône: the...
285 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 22 November 1882.
in translation:
...Today or tomorrow, however, I’ll run out of money. If it’s possible for you to do something, do it — if not, then it isn’t your fault or mine, but the days would be hard. Anyway, nonetheless, as long as we can lift up our hearts as high as we can and as long as we can, above melancholy or...
in note 7:
...that Theo had again enclosed money with his letter that arrived on 16 or 17 November (see letter 283).
in note c:
‘Hachure’ is another word for hatching or shading of short lines.
286 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 24 November 1882.
in original text:
...nouveautés grif verkoopen kan (déballer des ballots de marchandises sur les trottoirs de Paris), andere aspiraties schijnt hij niet te hebben, behalve dan conquêtes van vrouwen. en toch had hij die niet werkelijk lief want Zola ziet met juistheid dunkt me als hij zegt “où perçait son mépris...
in translation:
...with it, and up to today, Friday, I don’t have it. Has the post made a mistake again, or do you...
...the post here had forgotten to deliver it, or something like that. You also received the small...
...last. That’s entirely different territory. It’s painted, I mean written, like Decamps or Jules Dupré, with expressions as in old Ary Scheffers, such as The man in tears and The cutter of the tablecloth �� or the figures in the background of Christus Consolator. I strongly recommend that you...
...painting by Heyerdahl done in the sentiment of Murillo or Rembrandt that he didn’t want to buy...
...Jacque, Breton, were young, in Holland Israëls, Mauve, Maris, &c. One thing reinforced the other...
in note 6:
...mademoiselle, this one or that, every hovel’s like every other one. In this day and age, whoever has done one of them has done the other. They’re all a shoddy lot.”’ (Elle haussa les épaules et conclut par cette réponse philosophique: “Mon Dieu! mademoiselle, celle-ci ou celle-là, toutes les baraques se...
in note 7:
...Yet she had come to hold him in high esteem, won over by his expansive ideas, his dreams of large modern counters, unpacking millions of goods on the pavements of Paris.’ (Elle avait fini pourtant par lui témoigner une véritable estime, gagnée à ses idées larges, à ses rêves de grands comptoirs modernes, déballant des millions de marchandises sur les trottoirs de Paris.) Zola 1960-1967, vol. 3, p. 165 (chapter 9).
in note 8:
...p. 245) and ‘then he rose, full of contempt’ (alors, il se leva, plein de mépris) (chapter 4, p. 72).
in note 15:
Jules Breton or Emile Adélard Breton.
287 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Friday, 24 November 1882.
in translation:
...the stones are in his hands and he runs no risk, or very little. So as to your proposal — in an...
...great deal to me to make an effort with the lithographs. If I can manage to assemble a number of good stones (one or two are bound to go wrong now and again!), this will enable me to apply for work...
in note 3:
...was probably Old man drinking coffee (F 996a / JH 264), or F 1682 / JH 263. See letter 285, n. 2.
in note a:
‘Hachure’ is another word for hatching or shading of short lines.
in note 7:
...don’t let that hold you back, and count on me if you can’t carry on or need something’ (ll. 7-8).
in note 13:
...was still sending letters to the old address (at number 138), although in letter 256 to Van Rappard Van...
288 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 26 and Monday, 27 November 1882.
in original text:
...Que le malheur, sombre déluge que des tempêtes de malheur S’abbattent sur moi – mon refuge...
in translation:
...witty, something lively. Yet it’s highly conventional, or at least so this book seems to me (I...
...something intended to bring peace, to say sursum corde or ‘lift up your hearts’, then it’s...
...I, for my part, think of Millet, of Israëls, Breton, Degroux — so many others, Herkomer among...
...isn’t understood, or at least that the position is that, as you say, it isn’t certain a buyer will be found, even at a low price. For many a painter this is something intolerable, or almost...
...oneself as somebody who can be of benefit to others or who has an idea for a business that’s...
...Yet this is the time to combine and to speak. Or is it rather that, given that many have fallen...
...paintings? I say this coolly, not even adding: this or that would be preferable in my view, and...
...my means. If I found others interested in this or a similar enterprise, I would risk it. Precisely...
...I’m not leaving it in order to spare myself or anything like that. I hope it’ll be possible for...
in note 3:
...1839), Dubourdieu and Léon de Lora in Les comédiens sans le savoir (1846), Hippolyte Schinner in La...
in note 5:
...did several studio scenes in which a painter or draughtsman is seen from behind. Van Gogh probably...
in note 8:
...probably go back to Victor Hugo’s poem La légende des siècles (1859), in which the following passage occurs: ‘I watched him in the funereal mists / As one might see a blackcock keep silent in the gloom’ (Je le considérais dans les vapeurs funèbres / Comme on verrait se taire un coq dans les ténèbres). Ed. Paris 1950, p. 735 (chapter 60). It is not known whether Van Gogh read La légende des siècles; it is possible that he knew these lines – whether or not in the divergent form he quotes – via an intermediate source...
in note 10:
...une barbe épaisse; de longs cheveux surmontés d’un bonnet de laine comme celui des cochers...
in note 17:
Van Gogh probably means Jozef Israëls, Old friends, which he cited earlier in connection with Millet: see...
in note 18:
...La cabane de l’oncle Tom, ou la vie des nègres en Amérique. Translated by Alfred Michiels. Paris...
in note 22:
Read: ‘corda’. For this expression, see letter 143, n. 49.
in note 23:
Jozef Israëls, Jules or Emile Adélard Breton and Charles Degroux.
289 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 1 December 1882.
in translation:
...ploughman, washerwoman, plus on occasion a cradle or orphan man, in short, the whole vast field...
...may one undertake it or may one not? It goes even deeper: is it a duty and just, or is it wrong...
...do just as my colleagues do or they’ll call me an awkward customer or a man with a reputation &c...
...a thousand like him say, it can’t be done, or do it too feebly and without enough energy. I don...
...The price of the prints is not to exceed 10 or at the most 15 cents. Publication shall begin when a...
...of 30 there must be a debate and decision on whether or not to continue, and at that point, but not...
...completely equal — with no regulations or president or this or that — just a memorandum laying...
...for the cause: A undertakes to make this or that, B gives this or that for it &c., nothing more. In...
...an association for doing, not for debating — for acting decisively and without losing time, seeing the whole venture as ‘for charity’, not ‘for bookshops’. Now something else. One must...
290 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 3 December 1882.
in title:
290 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 3 December 1882.
in original text:
De Renouards, Enfants assistés zijn prachtig, ook zijn nieuwe teekening Banc des accusés – ofschoon die laatste minder important is dan b.v. zijn groote bladen van de gevangenis Mazas. Ik ben er erg blij mee...
...eene teekening van Teniel, voorstellende “twee dominés” (dit is de Engelsche titel niet natuurlijk doch wel het motief), de eene is een stadsdominé, glorieus en breed en imposant – de andere...
...raison d'être heeft in de praktijk de figuren tamelijk groot te teekenen, daarvoor spreken wel b.v. de Exercices au fusain, de Modèles d'après les maîtres, door G&Cie uitgegeven. Ik ben daarmee begonnen en heb tot heden geen beter leiddraad voor studies naar het levend model gevonden. Men wilde...
in translation:
...It was of officers deliberating over a map or battle-plan before an open window. Breitner does...
...could be used for this or that? And if you know of anything like that, I, for my part, will take the trouble either to reduce figures I already have to half the size, or to draw completely new ones...
...some things have required — for instance, prints from Album des Vosges or those first things in...
...hand, one overlooks many an unpretentious woodcut or lithograph or etching now and then, but comes...
...while perhaps people like Bouguereau or Makart and some others have something of the first type. Now whether, for my part, I have to work in a smaller or larger format makes relatively little...
...on now I don’t know what the final form or size will be. After a great deal of thought, I’ve...
...example, by Exercices au fusain, Modèles d’après les maîtres, published by G&Cie. I began with...
...again, if desired, I can reduce the format of this or that figure in my studies. I’d very much...
in date note:
...on or about Monday, 11 December, Van Gogh also wrote letter 291 (of between 4 and 9 December) and 292 (of 10 December), in which he again returns to the question. Thus the present letter must date from on or about...
in note 2:
For Renouard’s Banc des accusés (The dock), which appeared in L’Illustration in November, see letter...
in note 11:
...frères (1873). The others were: Confidences d’un joueur de clarinette (1865); La maison forestière (1866); Le blocus (1867); L’histoire du plébiscite (1871); Une campagne en Kabylie (1873); Les années de...
in note 15:
...of an adjoining village. It appeared in Punch, or The London Charivari 83 (15 July 1882), p. 23. Ill...
291 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between Monday, 4 and Saturday, 9 December 1882.
in original text:
...van Jules Dupré, of van hem zelf of facsimilés van zijn croquis. Maar wat een pit en wat een...
in translation:
...ve naturally thought not so much ‘Who will do this or that?’ as ‘What shall I do for it...
...to assume, even if it isn’t successful immediately or at once: The thing is as true today as it...
...one also needn’t doubt or despair of — provided one doesn’t weaken or lose heart. I said to...
...make me say instinctively, I’ve never seen this or that painted like that. In order to paint it...
...Michel. How beautiful an Isaac Ostade or a Ruisdael is. Do I want them back, or do I want them to...
...lithographs by Jules Dupré, either by himself or facsimiles of his croquis. But what spirit and...
...comes to mind. Then you have Mme Collart — for instance that painting of an apple orchard with an...
...But then I don’t know much of Chintreuil’s work, or of Goethals’s either, for that matter...
...say here, they make great play of this word – for my part I don’t know the true meaning of it...
...E. Frère or Emile Breton, for example, rather than stalwarts like Boldini or Fortuny coming. Frèr...
in date note:
...in letters 289 and 290 (the latter dates from on or about 3 December). Moreover, it precedes letter 292...
292 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 10 December 1882.
in original text:
...getroffen heeft. Ik zag reproducties van Julien Dupré (is dit een zoon van Jules Dupré???), ’t...
...twee zijn dunkt me kerels die corps à corps worstelen met de natuur, kerels die niet verflaauwen...
...niet in het oorspronkelijk werk zelf gelegd was. à propos, het heeft bij mij lang geduurd eer ik...
in translation:
...of which we ask, Where is it going, to the devil or to God? Yet the sun rises, says V. Hugo. Long...
...are serious. For one may not become nonchalant or indifferent, even if one is disappointed by one...
...impression on me? I saw reproductions of Julien Dupré (is this a son of Jules Dupré???). One was...
...to life. It perhaps resembles Pierre Billet, say, or Butin. Then I also saw various figures...
...is to find thirty or so that together will form some sort of whole — for that one has to draw considerably more than 30. If I first have them, reproduction will be a second step which may then be easier than if one had started reproducing before one had the whole. Perhaps, or rather certainly...
...an ocean — in the expression in the eyes of a baby — when it wakes in the morning and crows �� or laughs because it sees the sun shine into its cradle. If there is a ‘ray from on high’, it...
in note 2:
...Père Lachaise is described in ‘Les funérailles’ (chapter 19); for the scene with Balzac’s bust...
in note 5:
...that case, he answers: ‘Il veut que nous méritions le bonheur, et cela fait une grande différence...
in note 9:
The French landscape painter Julien Dupré was a nephew of the artist Jules Dupré. The work referred to with...
in note 14:
...Arnhem, G.J. Thieme, 1866. The volumes cost 15 or 20 cents (see Brinkman). As far as is known no...
293 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 11 December 1882.
in title:
293 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 11 December 1882.
in original text:
...seven hundred & thirty friends scattered over the world, sending us sketches or elaborate drawings.”
...zag heden morgen het laatste nummer, er was ± niets goeds in, ik haalde uit een troep scheurpapier...
...oe te komen was mijn ideaal, was en is ook après tout nu nog dat wat mij prikkelde om de enorme...
...aan zelfvertrouwen. Intusschen dringen zich lui als employés in die niet zouden opgedokt zijn in...
in translation:
...friends scattered over the world, sending us sketches or elaborate drawings.’ HH speaks of a...
...there are many, more will come, and sooner or later instead of Herkomer, Luke Fildes, Frank Holl...
...whatever, for which someone like Adrien Marie or Godefroy Durand would be perfectly suitable. I...
...me, and I no longer know what I, for my part, should or should not do. What sometimes saddens me is this — in the past, when I began, I thought when I’ve got this or that far I’ll get a position here or there, and I’ll be on a straight path and set for life. Now, though, something else has come up, and I fear, or rather expect, a kind of guardhouse instead of employment. I expect things...
...as those who began The Graphic (though I don’t consider myself their equal), that is to take a chap or woman or child from the street and do that in my studio. But no, they’d ask: ‘Can you do...
in date note:
...from between about 13 and about 18 December, and the present one from on or about Monday, 11 December 1882.
in note 1:
...supplement’) accompanying the Christmas number of The Graphic of 1882. This prospectus gives a...
in note 3:
...by Van Gogh – is on p. 1. The Christmas number says: ‘actual professional artists’, ‘good...
in note 6:
...J E Millais RA forwarded a copy (of the first number of the Graphic containing Fildes’s ‘Houseless...
in note 8:
...misérables (book 1, chapter 4), where the essence of socialism is summed up. In a society based on such principles as equality, sharing of property, brotherhood, democracy and justice both forms of ‘grandeur’ would be attainable; see Hugo 1951, p. 882. It is not until the end of March that Van Gogh writes in letter 333 that he is reading the book, but it is clear from the various times it is mentioned that he was occupied with this long novel for a considerable length of time. He also read many other works by Hugo during this period. On Les misérables...
in note 11:
...via Schaarbeek in a northeastern direction and more or less borders on Josefatwetering (La vallée de...
294 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between about Wednesday, 13 and about Monday, 18 December 1882.
in original text:
...met ’t hoofd in de handen. De Benedicité is geloof ik de beste, doch ze vullen elkaar aan. Op de...
in translation:
...s best for, either because they gain approval or because, just the opposite, they have their own...
...to the extent that my work is made harder or easier, but making the drawings themselves is my main...
...by this that I don’t appreciate the present or am discontented. Far from it. It’s precisely by...
...correct them, but if it was because of conception or mood in general, there’s little I could do...
...at least in Brittany and Alsace too. Leaving aside whether or not one agrees with the form, it’s...
...on high even if I don’t know exactly who or what will be there. I like what Victor Hugo said...
...too aware of many mistakes to be able to say: this or that is the right way, that is the wrong one...
...get through the world without making mistakes, without remorse or sorrows — to try to do right. I...
...I’ll attain this or that goal — how can I know in advance whether or not the difficulties will...
...either in the appearance of the short winter days or in the winter figures. For how very different...
in date note:
The letter is a continuation of letter 293 of on or about 11 December, because when Van Gogh refers to his...
in note 6:
...as Hugo: see letter 300, n. 10. Cf. also Merlhès 1989, p. 108 (n. 1). Quoted again in letter 507, n...
in note 7:
...Débats, said that while it was legitimate and necessary to take one’s models from life, one had to be able to grasp what is not happening through what is happening...If Gavarni is not merely a fine draughtsman, if he is a great painter of human behaviour, it is precisely because he has been able to grasp what is not happening through what is happening’ (Seulement, le vrai, il ne suffit pas de le chercher, il faut savoir le chercher. Prevost-Paradol, parlant un jour des romans de madame Sand dans le Journal des Débats, disait que, s’il était légitime et nécessaire de prendre ses modèles dans la nature, il fallait savoir atteindre ce qui ne passe à travers ce qui passe ... Si Gavarni n’est pas seulement un admirable dessinateur, s’il est un grand peintre des moeurs, c’est qu’il a su précisément atteindre ce qui ne passe pas à travers ce qui passe). Gavarni 1881, pp. 6-7. In letter 302 Van Gogh says he has this book. Quoted again in letter 480....
295 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 22 December 1882.
in title:
295 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 22 December 1882.
in original text:
...er een blad in.– De mooisten die er bij zijn zijn teekeningen van Abbey – het zijn vooral scènes...
in translation:
...I’ll have some more information to ask from you or from Buhot. But I see clearly enough that the...
...without the aid of paper or anything else, that is simply drawing straight onto the stone itself. For however beautiful I find those sheets in Harper’s Xmas number, for example, or in Vie Moderne, there’s still something mechanical about them, something of a photograph or photogravure, and I would rather see an ordinary lithograph by Daumier or Gavarni or Lemud. Anyway, a steady drawing hand...
...etching, an ordinary wood engraving or an ordinary lithograph has a charm of originality that can’t be replaced by anything mechanical. So too with engraving — the reproduction through photogravure of the needlework school by Israëls, say, or the painting by Blommers or the one by Artz, is...
...it? I don’t know — perhaps brain fever or infection? His father says nothing about that. Well...
...time later with a few descriptions of Montmartre or something like that. Adieu, with a handshake...
in date note:
...enjoy the festive season (l. 72). Accordingly, we date the letter on or about Friday, 22 December 1882.
in note 6:
Jozef Israëls, Ecole de couture à Katwyk (Hollande) (The sewing school at Katwijk (Holland)), 1881...
296 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 27 December 1882.
in title:
296 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 27 December 1882.
in translation:
...luck making saleable drawings in the new year, or finding work for an illustrated magazine, say? I...
...studio again, not because I can’t make progress or don’t know what to do, but mainly because...
...so that one can work just as well on a large or a small scale.’ Not only do I agree about that...
...an almshouse for old men, then a pub or a soup kitchen. I haven’t got that far yet, but perhaps it’s a long process precisely because I search for the root or origin of many things at the same...
in date note:
...one of the last days of 1882. Based on this, we date the letter on or about Wednesday, 27 December 1882.
in note 3:
...and first appears in Scènes populaires dessinées à la plume (1830). He also figures in Grandeur et décadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme. Comédie en cinq actes et en prose. Par MM. G[ustave] Vaez [= Jean Nicolas van Nieuwenhuysen] et H[enry] Monnier. Brussels 1853, and in Mémoires de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme. 2...
297 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 31 December 1882 and Tuesday, 2 January 1883.
in translation:
...whereas ordinary crayon does not, or only poorly. Having done the sketch in this way, one can confidently work in the lithographic crayon where necessary without having to search or rub out a lot. So...
...were, reinforcing them here and there with a brush or pen with lampblack, and working with white...
...the painters here would form a sort of circle or society in which warmth and open-heartedness and a...
298 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 3 January 1883.
in original text:
...en daar is soms de kunst boven de natuur – – – als b.v. in Millets zaaier meer ziel is dan in...
...te zien.– Maar alle informatie en wenken omtrent procedés zijn mij hoogst welkom. Ik zag in de...
in translation:
...as distinct from the second question of whether these or similar ones were to their particular taste). As for their sentiment, I would like to know what YOU think about that, because, as I said, I myself can’t judge whether there’s more in them or not. Or rather, my position is that for my part...
...and my intention would be to find a large number like these to try to form a sort of entity that...
...of the sombre, noble quality of Brion, of Degroux, Israëls &c. When you can, do send me an issue...
...ll show you more when you come, sooner or later — and then we can talk about the future. You know well enough how little suited I am to approaching either dealers or art lovers, and moreover how it...
...it mightn’t be possible for you to interest someone or other who could take the load off your...
in note 2:
...or in Homer. And truly, he has grandeur, by dint of sheer simplicity. And yet he also lacks a certain distinction of taste, which holds him back, like Courbet, on a rung of the ladder that the great artists have climbed’. (Millet n’a pas l’éclat de Courbet comme coloriste; il est plus monotone, mais non moins juste dans sa sobriété. La pratique ne semble pas le préoccuper, quoiqu’il arrive à une solidité de formes qui tient de la statuaire; ses figures sont pleines et en quelque sorte modelées jusqu’à au fond. Ce qui le préoccupe, c’est le caractère essentiel du personnage qu’il entend créer. Faisant un semeur, par exemple, il aurait l’ambition que ce fût le Semeur en général, le type même de la chose, toujours comme dans la Bible ou dans Homère. Et vraiment, il a de la grandeur, à force de simplicité. A lui aussi cependant manque je ne sais quelle distinction de goût, ce qui l’arrête, comme Courbet, à un certain degré de l’échelle qu’ont escaladée les grands artistes). See Salons de W. Bürger, 1861 à 1868, vol. 1. Paris 1870, pp. 100-101. It is evident from letter 534 that Van Gogh had read this review. In a letter of 15 February 1873 to Camille Lemonnier Millet said that he wanted to express the true in the type: ‘I assure you, sir, that if it were only a matter of my purpose, I would express very forcefully the type, which is, to my mind, the most potent truth. You are entirely right in attributing to me the intention of doing so’. (Je vous assure, monsieur, que, s’il n’en tenait qu’à ma volonté, j’exprimerais bien fortement le type qui est, à mon sens, la plus puissante vérité. Vous êtes bien dans le vrai en m’attribuant l’intention de le faire). Sensier 1881, p. 354...
299 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 5 or Saturday, 6 January 1883.
in title:
299 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 5 or Saturday, 6 January 1883.
in translation:
...the advantage would be that when you come, sooner or later, you would already have seen some things that...
...chap, I hope that the sketches will be more or less to your taste. With a handshake. Ever yours...
in date note:
Referring back to this letter in letter 300, Van Gogh says that it was written on 5 or 6 January 1883.
300 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 10 January 1883.
in title:
300 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 10 January 1883.
in translation:
...that is inexplicable and obscure in them. And even though now, in the society in which we find ourselves, such actions are regarded as ill-considered or reckless or foolish or I don’t know what all — what shall we say once the hidden forces of sympathy and love have been awakened deep inside us...
...one sometimes literally doesn’t know what one should or should not do. Yet isn’t this conflict...
...too am faced by realities and can tell you what has befallen me since we last talked this over, to hear a thing or two about it, or if you want to talk about the future or confer about anything at all, I’m always entirely at your disposal. The fact that you write that you’re thinking of coming...
...won’t hold it against me if I say one or two things about the drawings. It really pleases me that...
...WHICH THERE WERE 5 MORE HEADS (sent from here on 5 or 6 January, I think) — as well as the first...
...it is too. If you received my letter of 5 or 6 January with the second roll, you will recall that I...
in date note:
...or 6 January’ (l. 119). These letters evidently crossed, so that the date of the present letter must be shortly after 5 or 6 January. Furthermore, he is expecting the second remittance of the month and says that ‘in the last days of the 10 I am always absolutely broke’ (l. 144). So the date of this letter must be on or about Wednesday, 10 January 1883...
in note 10:
...Viallaneix. Paris 1966, pp. 285-286. Cf. also Merlhès 1989, p. 108 (n. 1) and letter 695, n. 5. Van Gogh...
301 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 13 January 1883.
in title:
301 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 13 January 1883.
in original text:
...anders kunnende aarzelde ik evenwel niet. En après tout is alles voorspoedig gegaan tot dusverre...
...zomer zou ik liever tegen alle mogelijke prejugés, al waren er nog meer geweest, gezondigd hebben...
in translation:
...somewhere other than in an empty room in a hotel or something like that, and for her to be in more...
...everyday things that keep her occupied. Solitude or idleness is absolutely fatal. She should be...
...and not because you want to spirit her away or keep her concealed, but for her it’s essential...
...it’s good to be careful vis-à-vis the world, which otherwise sometimes ruins everything. And...
...or occupation, then I believe that could be quite fatal for her. And a kind of hospital (ordinary or...
...in her, or should I definitely choose this woman as my wife with whom I want to live always? Is she the one? Or is she not? You see, I believe that you haven’t avoided this conflict, or perhaps...
...Whether or not this puts you in difficulties, I respect the noble feelings that prompted you to help, and because I respect that I hope that if you do run up against difficulties, large or small...
...it likely that a crisis will come sooner or later, consisting of a kind of mutual disappointment...
in arrangement:
...or signature and was previously published as letter 305 [261], to be a postscript to this letter. We base this both on the fact that Van Gogh clarifies his standpoint as regards Theo’s love affair and on the remark ‘Tomorrow I’ll be getting a sou’wester for the heads’ (ll. 74-75). On or about 18 January 1883 he wrote to Van Rappard that ‘lately’ he had been toiling at fishermen’s heads with sou’westers (letter 302), so the fragment must date from before then. The number ‘2’ written on the sheet at the top left presumes an earlier number ‘1’, but this is never found in the nearby letters. See also cat. Amsterdam 1996, pp. 197-198. Nonetheless, the possibility that this is part of a lost letter cannot be entirely excluded. Jo van Gogh-Bonger made the following comment about the separate fragment published as letter 261: ‘The first and last part of this letter is wanting; probably it was the answer to the money remittance of the 20th of January’ (Letters 1927-1929, vol. 2, p. 71). Whether this was correct can no longer be determined, but it is fairly certain that several letters or parts of letters from this period have not been preserved – perhaps because of the intimate nature of Theo’s affair. Further evidence of this is provided by the absence of letters in which Vincent explicitly confirms the receipt of the remittances of around the 10th and the 20th and the extra amount which he requested twice and did indeed receive, as letter 304 shows. There is also the absence of a question to Theo about Lhermitte, which Vincent says he has asked (letter 307...
in date note:
...not yet received, l. 185). This letter must therefore date from on or about Saturday, 13 January 1883.
in note 3:
...aged 5½ years, are known, including Girl with a shawl (F 1007 / JH 299), Girl in a pinafore (F 1685 / JH 300) and Girl with a shawl (F 1008 / JH 301). Whether Van Gogh is referring to one of these or to another...
302 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 18 January 1883.
in title:
302 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 18 January 1883.
in original text:
...York Thulstrup Workroom in Sailors hospital or home Abbey Wintergirl ,, Peter Stuyvesandt...
...Gathering poppies Walker Tip girls (Charbonnières). Ik heb die Graphic niet zonder moeite...
in translation:
...and White drawings, and I hope to learn a thing or two from these Graphics about the strengths of black...
...about the batch that you bought, not just whether or not there are duplicates but also in general...
...New York Thulstrup Workroom in Sailors hospital or home Abbey Winter girl ,, Peter Stuyvesandt...
in date note:
...or about Saturday, 13 January 1883, Vincent wrote: ‘Rappard is getting better, I have a letter from him’ (ll. 194-195). In the present letter to Van Rappard he hopes that he is continuing to make a good recovery (l. 2). Furthermore, around 14 January Van Gogh must have got hold of a sou’wester (see letter 301). Given that he says that ‘lately’ he has been ‘toiling’ at heads with sou’westers, several days at least must have passed. Accordingly, this letter is dated on or about Thursday, 18 January 1883. See also cat. Amsterdam 1996, pp. 197-198...
in note 9:
Which print by Henry Towneley Green or Charles Green this is has not been established. The street life in...
in note 10:
...life in Blackwell’s Island, New York – Outdoor work, in The Illustrated London News 68 (17 June...
in note 19:
Francis S. Walker, Group of tip girls; engraved by William James Palmer, in The Illustrated London News 66...
303 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 20 January 1883.
in title:
303 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 20 January 1883.
in translation:
...one way or another you must also get them for your collection. For example, they contain a series of drawings from coal-mines by Ridley — done in a way that brings to mind etchings by Whistler or...
...by him from the days of the Commune, pétroleuses, a barricade &c. Herkomer is superb — today I...
...back to Boyd Houghton again — a Shaker or Mormon church, unbelievably real. A few fine prints by...
...impression if you see them at my place sooner or later. For me, looking through them brought back...
...But how are you? Do write soon, at length or in brief. And if you’re still weak sometimes, and...
in date note:
...or about 18 January he said that he had bought them and that they would be delivered ‘this week’ (i.e. by Sunday at the latest) (letter 302, l. 65). Because he says he has been looking at them until deep into the night (ll. 3-4), the reaction in this letter must be from not long after he received them. We therefore date the letter on or about Saturday, 20 January 1883...
in note 3:
...1869 for a commission for The Graphic, he did a number of illustrations for the series ‘Graphic...
in note 12:
...thought that the monogram ‘FSW’ – of Francis S. Walker – was that of Frederick Walker. Nine prints...
in note 20:
Van Gogh added ‘do Sight seeing’ later, without correcting the number of sheets, hence the discrepancy.
304 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 25 January 1883.
in title:
304 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 25 January 1883.
in original text:
...liggen” nog zoo heel klaar niet in. Après tout, het is niet onaangenaam zoo’n Graphic door te...
in translation:
...print is unbelievably good; it resembles Dürer or Quinten Massys, for example. You know the...
...solid prints. But something new by him is a series of 6 or 7 prints, miners, pits and pitmen, that recall etchings by Whistler or Seymour Haden, Staniland, The rush to the pit’s mouth, also in the...
...a prison where policemen are holding onto a thief or murderer so that his photograph can be taken...
...well, by whom — by Fortuny perhaps, or Whistler. Most curious. Edwin Edwards, The foundling...
...is paid no attention nowadays, and looked down upon as ballast, rubbish or scrap paper. Don’t you find something very dull about these times? Or is it my imagination? A certain lack of passion and...
in date note:
...21 volumes of The Graphic were delivered to him on or about Saturday, 20 January 1883 (see letter 303), so...
in note 14:
Howard Pyle, The creche, or baby’s home, in Stepney (double engraving): The play room and The nursery, in...
in note 49:
...not certain whether Van Gogh wrote ‘en’ (and) or ‘in’ (in), but there is a good chance that two...
in note 63:
...is no work by John Evan Hodgson depicting navvies, or labourers. Most likely he is mistaken about the...
in note 70:
...hand of Queen Victoria during a ceremony attended by a number of women (London, Witt Library). Ill. 1341.
in note 77:
For Fildes, The empty chair, in The Graphic, Christmas number, 1870, see letter 251, n. 11.
in note 83:
Samuel Luke Fildes, Miss or Mrs?, in The Graphic 4 (25 December 1871), Christmas number, p. 19. Ill. 841 (t*167). This is an illustration to the story Miss or Mrs? by Wilkie Collins.
in note 84:
...Gogh glued most of them onto large dark green, grey or brown sheets of rough paper. This is how they are...
in note c:
...en dus verscheurd kan worden’ (printed or written-on paper that no longer fulfils its purpose...
305 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 26 or Saturday, 27 January 1883.
in title:
305 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 26 or Saturday, 27 January 1883.
in original text:
...etsen uitkomen. Maar ik bedoel de oude series Societé des aquafortistes waar les deux freres van Feyen Perrin in staat en de Parc à moutons van Daubigny en de Bracquemonds en zooveel anderen, zijn...
...pour les bébés posent maintenant pour les mères”. Nu adieu Theo, schrijf spoedig. ’t beste U...
in translation:
...back many times to the period 10 or even 20 years ago, or still further back. In short, I mean you...
...by Daumier. At the time he also did the pétroleuses and barricades in Paris. But later on he went...
...for example, he can have something ghostly, or rather something mysterious like Goya. He also...
...one shouldn’t lament the fact that this or that hasn’t become general; even if it doesn’t become general, whatever there is of the good or beautiful still exists. What’s the position these...
...Société des Aquafortistes that included The two brothers by Feyen-Perrin and the Sheep pasture by Daubigny and the Bracquemonds and so many others — have they retained their power or have they...
...to now, and perhaps later visit the miners together or something like that. But for the time being...
...that we’ll have a real day when you come, sooner or later. Perhaps you’ll agree with me that in...
...always stay in my memory. I like Edouard Frère’s remark that he had hung on to his models so...
in date note:
...rose above zero. So the letter must have been written on that Friday, 26 or on Saturday, 27 January 1883.
in note 6:
...on the barricades (Prague, Národní Galerie) or about The revolt (Washington D.C., Phillips Collection). ‘Numerous imitations exist which are mostly based on one or two figures taken from this composition’. See...
in note 8:
Van Gogh may be referring to one or more of the six illustrations by Houghton depicting the Shakers which...
in note 12:
The Société des Aquafortistes was founded in Paris in May 1862 by the engraver and publisher Alfred Cadart. Each month five etchings by artists who were either French or living in France were published. As a result...
in note 13:
François Feyen-Perrin, Les deux frères (The two brothers) (London, Victoria and Albert Museum) – also known as a proof before letters (Paris, BNF, Cabinet des Estampes). There is also an etching, in a slightly...
in note 14:
Charles-François Daubigny, Le grand parc à moutons (The large sheep pasture), after the painting at the Salon of 1861, appeared in the first volume of Eaux-fortes modernes, publiées par la Société des Aquafortistes (September 1862), no. 2; the etching was exhibited at the Salon of 1865 (Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet). Ill. 47. See Bailly-Herzberg 1972, vol. 1, pp. 54, 72; vol. 2, pp. 60-63.
in note 19:
...to us, ‘those who today pose as mamas themselves once posed as babies’ (Voyez, nous dit-il, ceux qui posent aujourd’hui pour les mamans ont elles-mêmes posé autrefois comme les bébés). See letter 137, n. 1.
306 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 3 February 1883.
in translation:
...to speak too much of this or to keep thinking about it, so enough. I’ve nevertheless been working on a watercolour sketch, again of diggers, or rather road-menders, here in Schenkweg, but it’s...
...lived and painted for a time in an empty house, or perhaps one that wasn’t even finished, for he...
...A little like The sewing school at Katwijk by Israëls. Well, write soon if you haven’t already...
in note 10:
...with The sewing school at Katwijk by Jozef Israëls (see letter 295, n. 6), he must have in mind Old age...
307 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 4 February 1883.
in title:
307 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 4 February 1883.
in original text:
...in ’t lokaal eener komedie) en later meer tot scènes aan boord van schepen zich bepaalde – en...
in translation:
...7 or 8 months old. I fetched his cradle from a junk shop on my shoulders, and that child — for me...
...this, you will understand that he wasn’t best pleased, or rather didn’t know what to think, not...
...it seems to me. A battle with paintings or drawings is good in a sense, and at any rate fair, but we shouldn’t become personal enemies of each other or use other means for fighting. Anyway, if...
...and, since this can certainly be settled one way or another, it seems to me that perhaps we may...
...because I’ve now put together a large number of studies from this winter which I’d like to speak to you about. I would have written to you before about one or two things that I’m telling you...
...always afraid that the landlord will raise the rent or find tenants who can pay more than I. Still...
...had both illusions and disappointments with other women once or twice, and in the past I didn’t...
...need. This is a figure like those done by Holl or Fildes. If you do come before long, don’t make...
in date note:
...of Van Rappard’s letter. The present letter must therefore date from on or about Sunday, 4 February 1883.
in note 4:
...or those grave, prayerful women (259), kneeling round the rude coast-shrine (the Ker-Saint, or “holy-house”), on the naked rock that goes plumb down to the angry sea of Finisterre; or – almost more remarkable for its strong, simple grasp on the picturesque elements of the subject – that corner of a Breton market-place (194), with the satisfying harmony got out of the white caps and dark dresses of its gossiping and bargaining commères, the deep hollows of the doorways, and the light and shadow playing on stalls and booths, and overhanging pent-house roofs; or the “Procession” (114), with the canopied host, marshalling cross, and waving banners, the white-veiled communicants at the head of the train, and the more darkly and humbly clad forefathers and foremothers of the hamlet bringing up the rear, on the winding way along the hollow road up the hill-side to the rustic church that crowns its brow; or those robed and tonsured priests in the cloistral half-shadow of their stalls at Notre-Dame (172); or that gaunt and grim Breton beggar-woman over her never-grudged écuille of soup, or that Breton house-wife at her sleepless wheel. It is impossible to forget Lhermitte’s work. He is at once the Millet and Jules Breton of Black and White; and it would be a curious and not useless artistic problem to work out upon his drawings what is the secret of the pathetic effect obtained without delineation – indeed, with hardly even indication – of feature, and only the rudest suggestions of form. A. Legros has something of this power, but his style is at once dryer and more distinct (see his “Beggar and Worshippers at a church-porch of Bruges”) (92).’ Van Gogh uses the plural ‘comptes rendus’, which may be a reference to other favourable reviews of Lhermitte’s work, such as those by Tom Taylor in The Graphic 15 (23 June 1877), p. 594 and The Graphic 18 (6 July 1878), p. 6, and the anonymous contribution to The Illustrated London News 72 (22 June 1878), p. 582. For the works exhibited, see Le Pelley Fonteny 1991, p. 508...
in note 5:
...of LHERMITTE’ (letter 308), shows that a letter or part of a letter to Theo has been lost, because...
in note 6:
...This remark proves that Van Gogh (either earlier or with the present letter) sent several lithographs to...
308 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 5 February 1883.
in translation:
...There’s much that comes to mind when I read or re-read your letters about your patient. And I’d...
...the shepherd, or something better?’ quite typical — don’t you think it likely that it will vary considerably from time to time? In one and the same love there are so many different states or...
...get an idée fixe such as ‘I must do this or that’ — this does happen with women who are ill...
...in, for example, the Hille Bobbe by Frans Hals or some heads by Rembrandt. Now, as for Heyerdahl, I...
...only with the most outstanding, most excellent drawings or etchings by Legros, which are also very...
...he’s better. I’ll rest for about a week or so sometime, and continue to go for walks out of...
...that are superb if one is walking on Bezuidenhout or Boschkant, for example. You’ll remember that. It’s also beautiful from the window of the studio or in the meadow — one feels spring in the...
...patient — I hope that I’ll soon find a drawing or a study again with something in it. It’s so...
in note 4:
...Augustin Lhermitte. This could mean that a letter or part of a letter has been lost. It is also...
in note 6:
...Les chantres espagnols), (The lectern (Spanish precentors)) in Eaux-fortes modernes, publiées par la Société des Aquafortistes 3 (January 1865), no. 141. Below the etching: ‘Par Cadart & Laquet’ (Amsterdam...
309 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 8 February 1883.
in title:
309 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 8 February 1883.
in translation:
...in town (including my own) who have fallen or been deceived and have illegitimate children, and...
...is something like white-hot steel or iron. To feel that one is irrevocably and absolutely disappointed, and to carry the awareness of that in one like a mortal, or at least irreparable, wound, and to...
...and felt a special sympathy, quite unwittingly and without himself seeking it? And if this sympathy or love or tie, arising from chance as it were, were nonetheless strong and remained so? If ‘love...
...especially the chestnut trees in the Champs Elysées and a boat race and Vintage. John Lewis Brown...
...not working very hard, for after slogging away almost without pause or rest for several months, mainly on heads, I felt a kind of weakness or fatigue that I couldn’t overcome. In my eyes, too, so...
...intended, I believe, to brand all young women or girls absolutely (that goes without saying), but...
in date note:
...or so sometime, and continue to go for walks out of doors’ (ll. 124-125), and also said that his eyes had troubled him that night (ll. 94-98). Yet in the meantime he can tell Van Rappard here, ‘In the past few days I’ve done a lot of walking out of doors and not much drawing, and my eyes are back to normal now’ (ll. 142-144), so the present letter must date from a few days after 5 February, hence from on or about Thursday, 8 February 1883...
in note 4:
...Charles Emile Jacque’s Les ramasseurs de traînes (The wood gatherers) (1851), engraved by Adrien...
in note 22:
...tafereel of De koffietrommel (A winter scene, or The coffee tin), 1857 (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum...
310 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Thursday, 8 February 1883.
in original text:
...dacht – dat in den eersten tijd van het schildersleven men het zich zelf onwillekeurig soms moeielijk maakt.– door ’t gevoel van de zaak nog niet meester te zijn – door de onzekerheid waarin men verkeert of men die overmeesteren zal – door den grooten lust om vooruit te komen – door dat men zich zelf nog niet vertrouwt – kan men eene zekere gejaagdheid niet van zich afzetten en men...
...en voel kracht en lust voor de volgende 30 – voor zoover ik ze haal. En zie in mijn verbeelding...
...ik evenveel kou als het winterkoren”. Nu – voor Uw zieke zal de lente zeer zeker ook welkom...
in translation:
...a way of shutting out the light in the studio or letting it in as desired. At present not enough...
...of life is over, which makes one sad that this or that will never come back. And it isn’t weak...
...like the Geest district and in the almshouses or so-called ‘gift houses’ winter is always an...
311 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 10 February 1883.
in title:
311 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 10 February 1883.
in translation:
...in white against a tonal brown background of dune or heath, and the walk in the snow too, the old...
...or lesser pangs of conscience about accepting these and other prints, just consider — do you regret having taken those first ones last year? I think not, for, whether it was because of that or...
in date note:
...or about Thursday, 8 February 1883. It is impossible to say exactly how quickly Van Rappard sent the illustrations after Van Gogh’s previous letter. Given the tempo of the correspondence in the month of February (before letter 321 of between about Friday, 23 and Monday, 26 February, two other letters followed, namely 314 and 317, between which, moreover, about a week passed), we assume that Van Rappard’s reply followed fairly quickly, so we date the present letter to on or about Saturday, 10 February 1883...
in note 3:
...Lucas, John Seymour Lucas, John Templeton Lucas or Richard Cockle Lucas. It is possible that the print...
in note 8:
...by the fact that the same volume contains a number of illustrations that are stylistically closely...
in note 12:
Van Gogh must refer to Walker’s The old gate or The harbour of refuge from The Graphic: see letter 304...
312 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 11 February 1883.
in original text:
...Enfin. Dezer dagen las ik “le Peuple” door Michelet, of liever las het een tijd geleden, reeds...
in translation:
...the sea. And in love, whether for a woman or for art, for instance, there are times of exhaustion...
...to talk to you — for I’m not despondent about the work, not apathetic or powerless, but I am...
...or the ‘mending’ wouldn’t be unwelcome. Anyway. Lately I read ‘Le peuple’ by Michelet, or...
...ue�� or generally accepted forms, except in so far as he casts it into one form or another such...
...view, though, Le peuple is less a first thought or impression than an unfinished but yet deliberate...
...don’t say what your real feeling is about this or that in art, then I would be more melancholy...
...one doesn’t get irritated with each other lightly, or if one does one makes it up. Where there is...
...if it were possible to suddenly go back 30, 40 or 50 years I believe one would feel more at home in that period than in this — that’s to say, you or I, for example, would feel at home there, I...
...they want, then the whole period will be good, or at least energetic. Yes, I think a great deal...
in note 1:
...de la Vierge, et c’est un câble à la fin qui défierait les tempêtes) (Michelet, L’amour, p. 397).
in note 10:
...d’un instant elle ouvrit les yeux, et nous regarda l’un après l’autre, comme étonnée, puis le fond de l’alcôve, puis les fenêtres blanches de neige, l’armoire, la vieille horloge, puis le chien qui...
313 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 12 February 1883.
in original text:
...reden van alles wat gij voor haar gedaan hebt – door de gedachte gekweld wordt dat vroeger of later zij...
in translation:
...t be the doctor but you. If the depression or anxiety persists, the cause, I fear, is that the...
...for her — is tormented by the thought that sooner or later she’ll be parted from you. We are...
...mortal fear, over the question of whether you love her or not. Has deep inside her a sea of love...
...complete and she’s freely and completely herself. Or doesn’t want to repeat oneself and thinks...
...or Correggio. Again, if I’m mistaken in thinking that there’s a kind of delirium or inner...
...letters from which I see, or at least believe I see, that as regards the future you’re in doubt as to the question of whether or not she will love you now and for ever — for my part I have only a...
...now and for ever, or have you said nothing about that, either out of discretion or because you were...
...abandon her, less through words, though, than through one or two things that I did for her as best...
...to today my eyes were closed by fluid each night or morning when I awoke, but last night nothing in...
314 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 13 February 1883.
in title:
314 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 13 February 1883.
in date note:
The letter was sent ‘8 days’ (or about a week) before letter 317; given that the latter dates from on or about Tuesday, 20 February (see Date there), the present letter must date from on or about Tuesday, 13 February 1883.
in note 1:
For Félix Régamey, Prison life in Blackwell’s Island, New York – Outdoor work, see letter 302, n. 10.
in note 2:
For Félix Régamey’s Prison life on Blackwell’s Island – no. 1. Returning from work and for his...
315 To Michiel Antonie de Zwart. The Hague, Tuesday, 13 February 1883.
in additional details:
...letter has been preserved. It is postmarked ‘’S GRAVENHAGE 4-5 N, 13 FEB 83’ on the front, and...
in note 1:
...landlord at this time was Pieter Willem de Zwart, or his son Michiel Antonie de Zwart. We assume that it...
316 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 15 February 1883.
in title:
316 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 15 February 1883.
in original text:
...ligt achten. Als men goed leest zijn de petites misères de la vie conjugale van Balzac zeer, zeer...
...s – natuurlijk de oorspronkelijke uitgaaf, niet het verknoeide wat door de geestelijkheid verdraaid is. Doch van Fransche literatuur weet ge al ligt meer dan ik. Het boek van Thomas à Kempis is...
in translation:
...A distressing sight — yes, as you said, like a spirit or a ghost. Look, if you were gone I fear...
...to me one shouldn’t make fun of women or think lightly of them. If one reads carefully, Balzac...
...desirable for a woman is L’imitation de Jésus Christ by Thomas a Kempis — the original version...
...e Gautier. The old series, available from L’Illustration or Monde Illustré. But recently I saw a...
...that you’ll have had on your walk to the hospital or clinic the day you visited her after she’d...
...about a certain Laurens who generally made large drawings or paintings. Now I didn’t know who he...
...that, it’s a pity. To stay bold — like Israëls, say — how few there are who bring it off...
...drawings are as pithy as those by Jacque, say, or Menzel. When you come, you must see the...
...more in the evenings or on Sundays. So that we could look through ‘those things’ that many pass by. I’m reading Eliot, Middlemarch. Eliot analyzes like Balzac or Zola, but English situations...
in date note:
...as shown by letter 318, l. 2). We therefore date the letter on or about Thursday, 15 February 1883.
in note 4:
Honoré de Balzac, Petites misères de la vie conjugale (1846) consists of a number of sketches of married life and is divided into two parts. The first focuses on man, in the person of Adolphe, and the second on...
in note 8:
...Paris (G. Charpentier) 1882. It seems unlikely that Van Gogh’s criticism was provoked by this edition, since apart from the title page it is identical to the previous one. Only the first edition, however, mentions L’Illustration on the title page. These are the only two editions known from before 1883. See Claudine Lacoste, ‘Oeuvres de Théophile Gautier annoncées dans la bibliographie de la France de 1830 à 1935’, Bulletin de la Société Théophile Gautier, no. 11. Montpellier 1989, p. 171; and Charles Spoelenberch de Lovenjoul, Histoire des oeuvres de Théophile Gautier. 2 vols. Paris 1887, vol. 2, p. 388, no. 2275...
in note 9:
Which heads of fishermen with a sou’wester these are is not known; Van Gogh drew a number of them.
317 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 20 February 1883.
in title:
317 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 20 February 1883.
in translation:
Another point is that I think it desirable to have the work of, say, Small or Herkomer, of Green or Frank Holl, together instead of dispersed between things that absolutely do not go with them. Now it’s possible to...
...a lot of work but still a cheerful task — for I count myself lucky to have something so pleasing...
...Lately I’ve been working on large figures (busts, or rather to the knees) with which I intend to...
in date note:
...engravings with the letter (314). That letter has been dated to on or about Tuesday, 13 February, so that the present letter must date from on or about Tuesday, 20 February 1883. This agrees with Van Gogh’s remark...
318 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 20 or Wednesday, 21 February 1883.
in title:
318 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 20 or Wednesday, 21 February 1883.
in original text:
...gezellig mogelijk maakten en van hun “plaatsmajoor” verschillende privileges bemagtigden. Dat boek...
in translation:
...with something that hadn’t yet been decided. A week or so ago I was reading Fritz Reuter’s ‘U...
...so that more or less light is shut out or let in as required, from above or below. From this...
...heavy burden. And that I could not work readily or make progress until I had better light. That...
...out of the question, and whether I stayed depended on whether or not he would have this done. If my...
...Have been working on some figures, rather large, busts or to the knees, which will be a sort of...
...with darker or lighter material stretched over them, when one wants to draw heads, for example. You see now that I’ll be able to cover over one or two windows completely and thus obtain one general light that will make the effects much stronger. Otherwise they’d be neutralized by reflections or...
...sign of advances being made since those of 20 or 30 years ago. On the contrary, the pleasing aspect...
...doesn’t always go smoothly and rapidly, and something or other almost always comes up, and at all...
in date note:
...and subjects that are also found in the previous letter to Van Rappard (letter 317), which was written on or about Tuesday, 20 February; moreover, Vincent says he is ‘longing’ for Theo’s letter (this was the third remittance of the month), so the present letter must date from Tuesday, 20 or Wednesday, 21 February 1883.
in note 9:
Van Gogh may mean Albert or Julien de Vriendt.
in note 11:
...Act 4, scene 2). See Victor Hugo, Oeuvres complètes. Drame. Vol. 4. Paris 1880, p. 61. The lines are also...
319 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 23 February 1883.
in title:
319 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 23 February 1883.
in original text:
...maar half heil in – doch zooals gij zegt – voor zij beter is valt er weinig over de toekomst te...
in translation:
...that it couldn’t be dimmed sufficiently with screens or cardboard. But now I’m in the process...
in date note:
...or about 22 February 1883 (see letter 320). Vincent thanks Theo for the remittance (ll. 1*-3); this must have been the third remittance of the month, which generally arrived around the 20th (there seems to have been no question of an unusual delay). Later in the letter, moreover, he asks for the next remittance to be sent before rather than after ‘1 March’ (ll. 87-91); this in a month with only 28 days. The letter must therefore date from on or about Friday, 23 February 1883...
320 To Michiel Antoine de Zwart. The Hague, Friday, 23 February 1883.
in translation:
...which Giesenb. can first collect the 4.48 guilders, or let’s say 4.50, and then on the 1st, 10th and 20th...
321 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, between about Friday, 23 and Monday, 26 February 1883.
in original text:
...Hunting field Renouard Enfants assistés ,, Régates Frère Snowballing Heilbuth Au bord de l’eau Deze week kocht ik eenige gedeelten van jaarg. illustr., Monde ill. en univers ill. Nu heb ik al de zes bladen enfants assistés van Renouard dubbel en om zeker te zijn gij er...
in translation:
...for one can hardly imagine anything more beautiful in woodcut than Harbour of refuge or Low lodging house.
...and it may encourage him to press ahead vigorously with work in Black and White, whether in lithograph or etching or drawings. With him in mind, I’d also like to ask you for other prints that you...
...that you’re not missing any. 1 Abandonment 4 Number 68.762 2 The crèche 5 Going to the...
in date note:
...to the studio (ll. 87-89), which were completed on or about 22 February. Given that Van Rappard replies to...
in note 1:
In letter 317 of on or about 20 February Van Gogh told Van Rappard that he had sent a roll of wood...
in note 4:
...A study at the Westminster Union (letter 303, n. 5) or Low lodging house St. Giles’s is meant. The...
in note 8:
...possibility is that he means Félix Elie Régamey’s En route pour la foire (Going to the fair) in...
in note 17:
Van Gogh was mistaken about the number; it should be Les enfants assistés – Le numéro 68.782 (The orphanage �� Number 68.782).
in note 22:
...L’hiver (Winter), engraved by Fortuné Louis Méaulle, in Le Monde Illustré 23 (8 March 1879...
in note b:
...whether he meant this to be in the singular or the plural. It is possible that ‘illustr...
322 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 2 March 1883.
in title:
322 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 2 March 1883.
in original text:
...koppen. Juist ook met het oog op dergelijke scènes als deze schets voorstelt, waar het afmaken daarin...
in translation:
...few months ago, and since then it has had a lick or two now and again. Has remained in a rough-hewn...
...in it you can see more clearly than in a number of other sketches that I’ve done in watercolour...
...the kind I try to depict in the Geest district or the Jewish quarter. This sketch isn’t a chance...
...by one — no, one has to do those 20 or 30 heads practically at once, one after the other. Here...
...a thing or two but that new difficulties have arisen. I then start slogging away once more to overcome them. As to the paint, it really is finished, and what’s more, because of one or two fairly...
...purely to see whether I’ve found this or that and how far I’ve got. But I have hope and interest again now precisely because I have a large number of studies behind me. I think the changes to...
in date note:
...answer to a question in his last letter. So the present letter dates from on or about Friday, 2 March 1883.
323 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 3 March 1883.
in title:
323 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 3 March 1883.
in original text:
...rigting bleven, n.l. de figuren uit het volk, scènes in een gaarkeuken, Gasthuis &c. en hij komt...
in translation:
...You will have many expenses because of your patient — for my part I needn’t sit still if you...
...better drawings soon, whether you can send something or whether it’s inconvenient. The changes to...
...Otherwise I foresee that I’ll come up against various things, whether drawing materials or taking a model or making some more changes. I say ‘better drawings’; that is relatively. There are...
...dare say that I’ll do it so much better tomorrow or the day after. But by better drawings I mean...
...Adieu, and best wishes for your patient, or rather your convalescent. Ever yours, Vincent...
in date note:
...This letter supplements my letter of yesterday’ (ll. 127-128); that letter (322) dated from on or about Friday, 2 March, so that the present letter must have been written on or about Saturday, 3 March 1883.
in note 1:
...get food for very little money. There were also private establishments, the so-called ‘soepkeukens�� or spijskokerijen’, at Westeinde 175 among other places. See Visser 1973, pp. 73-76. In earlier editions...
324 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 4 March 1883.
in title:
324 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 4 March 1883.
in original text:
...met intelligentie en gehoorzaamt, en het conté is onverschillig en werkt niet mee. Het bergkrijt...
...behaagde onder de actualiteiten te rangschikken scènes uit het alledaagsche volksleven zoo heb ik...
in translation:
...or less the same on the outside — when they’re played one sometimes turns out to have a beautiful sound that the other doesn’t have. Natural chalk has lots of sound or tone. I would almost say that natural chalk understands what one wants, listens with intelligence and obeys, while conté is...
...that time. I must do that before I can get one or two things that I’ll be needing. The fact is...
in date note:
...or about Saturday, 3 March Van Gogh says he is expecting several models ‘tomorrow’, among them a boy (ll. 119-123 and ll. 129-131); the present letter says that he began work on a watercolour with these models ‘this morning’. He also says: ‘Since I’ve been so busy writing letters of late, I’ll probably not write again before the tenth’ (ll. 104-106). On these grounds we have dated this letter to on or about Sunday, 4 March 1883. (Another point is that the children would have been most likely to pose on a Sunday...
325 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Monday, 5 March 1883.
in title:
325 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Monday, 5 March 1883.
in original text:
...ook echter, maar Swain is de baas. De Lançons gegraveerd door Moller vind ik echter ook een zeer...
...uit Graphic. ik lees op ’t moment “Sartor resartus” – de philosophie van oude kleeren – v...
in translation:
...ll have seen that it’s the same paper for ink or crayon. I get this paper from Jos. Smulders & Co...
...Year’s Day too. Have found 2 beautiful >Régameys, a Foundling hospital in Japan by F. Régamey...
...some military paintings that resembled Bellangé. Afterwards he became rather reclusive, seems to...
...the master. I think, though, that the Lançons engraved by Moller are highly original in character...
...ne, and about the greatness, broadness, of Millet — for example, out of doors too; I once spoke...
...who’s sitting eating, his spade at his side? Or would that small part of the panorama where the...
...Bilders, for example, than of Millet or Ruisdael. Still, I may be mistaken or see more in him later...
...so far I don’t exactly see the likes of Millet or Ruisdael in him. For the time being I find it...
...because of the costs, and with a piece of chalk or a pencil one has only the costs of the model and...
...At the moment I’m reading his ‘Sartor resartus’ — the philosophy of old clothes — under...
in date note:
...chalk. This is F 1020 a/ JH 330, which he sent to Theo (evidently on this Monday). Since that letter dates from on or about 4 March 1883, the present one must have been written on or about Monday, 5 March 1883.
in note 11:
...in L’Illustration 72 (21 December 1878), p. 397, or one of the 17 etchings in A. Lançon, Guerre de...
in note 16:
...Chine – La cour de l’hospice des enfants trouvés de Canton (China – The courtyard of the orphanage...
in note 17:
...men of the 9th division), engraved by Fortuné Louis Méaulle, in Le Monde Illustré 23 (19 April 1879...
in note 23:
In the estate there are eight Lançons that were engraved by Frederick William Moller: besides the four...
in note 31:
...Thoré (under the pseudonym W. Bürger) in Musées de la Hollande. See Thoré 1858-1860, vol. 2, p. 138.
in note 33:
...1870), p. 516. Ill. 2084. The commentary with it reads in part: ‘What he says may be true, or it may be false, or it may be exaggerated; but still there is something in it, and at least it is one aspect of a...
in note 36:
...brings in Jesus and Goethe; the motto of the book is derived from the latter: ‘Mein Vermächtniss, wie herrlich weit und breit! / Die Zeit ist mein Vermächtniss, mein Acker is die Zeit’. See Carlyle 1987, p. 1.
in note 39:
A ‘cartoon’ is a design drawn on thick paper or cardboard that is used to make a wall painting, tile tableau, stained-glass window or pattern for woven fabrics and suchlike.
in note 40:
...or with greater energy, every part and every colour of a painting...Dickens has the passion and the patience of his nation’s painters; he counts the details, one by one, he notes the different colours of old tree-trunks; he sees the split barrel, the broken, greenish cobblestones, the crevices in damp walls; he distinguishes the unusual smells they give off; he notes the size of patches of moss, he reads the names of schoolchildren inscribed on the door and dwells on the shape of the letters ... He’ll lose himself, like his country’s painters, in the minute and passionate observation of small things; he will never have any love for beautiful forms or beautiful colours.’ (Il y a en lui un peintre, et un peintre anglais. Jamais esprit, je crois, ne s’est figuré avec un détail plus exact et une plus grande énergie toutes les parties et toutes les couleurs d’un tableau ... Dickens a la passion et la patience des peintres de sa nation: il compte un à un les détails, il note les couleurs différentes des vieux troncs d’arbres; il voit le tonneau fendu, les dalles verdies et cassées, les crevasses des murs humides; il distingue les singulières odeurs qui en sortent; il marque la grosseur des taches de mousse, il lit les noms d’écoliers inscrits sur la porte et s’appesantit sur la forme des lettres ... Il se perdra, comme les peintres de son pays, dans l’observation minutieuse et passionnée des petites choses; il n’aura point l’amour des belles formes et des belles couleurs). See ed. Paris 1874, vol. 5, pp. 6, 16, 22 (‘Dickens’, chapter 1). Cf. letter 232, n. 14....
326 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 6 March 1883.
in title:
326 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 6 March 1883.
in original text:
...mijn streven. Namelijk serrer la forme de plus près.– Ofschoon nu deze dat nog niet voldoende...
...ben. maar ik zou ook zoo graag verschillende procedés kennen omdat zulks een opwekking is om veel...
in translation:
...things. It’s also not as hard as conté, that’s to say that it doesn’t scratch as much. It...
...those two large etchings by Israëls, a man lighting his pipe and an interior of a labourer’s dwelling? How beautiful they are. I think it mightily good of Israëls that he carries on etching, the...
...progress in etching, and when they make one now it’s no better or more complete than what they made years ago. Yet old Israëls is still young enough to make progress despite his grey hairs, and...
...into the world. I have 2 small etchings by Israëls, perhaps even his very first, a girl with a...
in date note:
...to Van Rappard (325), which dates from on or about 5 March; Van Gogh writes ‘I wrote to Rappard...yesterday’ (l. 46). The present letter thus dates from on or about Tuesday, 6 March 1883. When Vincent tells...
in note 3:
...to. Vincent either sent the drawing seperately or enclosed the letter with the drawing. It was...
in note 6:
Jozef Israëls, Man die zijn pijp aansteekt (De roker) (Man lighting his pipe (The smoker)), etching (1882...
in note 7:
The likeliest candidate for Israëls’s ‘Interior of a labourer’s dwelling’ is the etching Binnenhuis or ‘De moeder’ (Interior, or ‘The mother’), although at 15.9 x 23.9 cm it cannot be described as large (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Ill. 190. See Hubert 1909, p. 37, no. 21.
in note 8:
...published two albums with etchings by Jozef Israëls, Auguste Danse and the Countess of Flanders, the...
in note 9:
Jozef Israëls, Meisje leunende op een schop (Girl leaning on a spade) and Vrouw met een mand op de rug...
327 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 11 March 1883.
in original text:
...noodige uitvoerigheid aan geven. En juist nu – door een soort opeenstapeling van studies zou ’t...
...Vergis ik mij hierin zoo zou het weinig à propos zijn te schrijven als ware dat de hoofdindruk...
in translation:
...I would so often dearly like to know your opinion about this or that — about some studies &c., for example whether they might be made into something suitable, or whether it was advisable to press on with something for one purpose or another. I would like so often to have more information about...
...one were to fret about them one would get dizzy or become confused. A weaver who must control and...
...that instinctively springs to mind. Can it be, perhaps, that Pa has heard from someone or other that I’m living in poverty or some such thing? I wouldn’t care for it if something like that was...
...of melancholy, of stress, of anguish, to a greater or lesser extent, and this is a condition of...
...I was in any kind of difficulty of a financial or other nature. Indeed, Pa doesn’t write anything...
...face this — but precisely because anyone who paints or draws is faced with this, and is nearly...
...it from you at the time of your visit last summer, or perhaps in Etten still. I found a very small...
328 To Michiel Antoine de Zwart. The Hague, Wednesday, 14 March 1883.
in additional details:
...letter has been preserved. It is postmarked ‘’S GRAVENHAGE 14 MRT 83, 4-5 N.’ on the front. On the...
329 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Thursday, 15 or Friday, 16 March 1883.
in title:
329 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, Thursday, 15 or Friday, 16 March 1883.
in original text:
...mogt. Voorloopig voeg ik van kleinere slechts 2 Lançons er bij die me, daar ’t Fransche zijn...
in translation:
...was of several sand-carts by the side of a channel or canal. In the mist. It perhaps bore some resemblance...
...bringing him those prints sooner or later (I mean the Herkomer, and whatever else you may find), or through them becoming his with me as intermediary, I may name you as the donor and tell him that you’ve seen something of his work and would like to make his acquaintance, or something like that. In short, I just mean that if you’re put in touch with him one way or another I believe you’ll...
...you already had them. And you can verify whether or not you already have them and if you do, return...
...think you may not have for further verification as to whether or not you do. For now from the smaller ones I’m adding just 2 Lançons which, since they’re French, might get forgotten later when...
in date note:
...again on the 17th and 18th (KNMI). We therefore date this letter to Thursday, 15 or Friday, 16 March 1883.
330 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 18 March 1883.
in translation:
...village inn due to the late arrival of a diligence or some such reason. Now he has risen early, and...
...making 10 drawings and making 100 drawings or sketches or studies. Not, to be sure, because of the...
...in perhaps 10 different poses, whereas with watercolour, say, or if one painted it, one would do it...
...me presenting you with not one but a certain number of studies — and it would amaze me if you couldn’t always pick out from that certain number one or two things in which you found something...
...enquire about them) and does know Cicéri’s watercolours as well as his old lithographic drawing...
...level of activity, even if it’s for himself �� or rather without his work having an immediate...
...with enormous pleasure. It’s just like Knaus or Vautier, say. Do you know a draughtsman called...
...beautiful the old courtyards are here. And although Israëls does it perfectly, so to speak, I find...
...by this or that figure we encountered, hearing repeatedly ‘Oh, but those filthy folk�� or ‘th...
in note 9:
...in his Cours élémentaire & progressif pour tous les genres de dessin. Paysages à teintes graduées par Eug. Cicéri. New York, Paris and London n.d. and the sequel Le paysage par E. Cicéri. ‘Etudes et croquis d’après nature, lithographié à deux teintes, par lui même’, announced in the first publication...
in note 12:
For Régamey’s American sketches, see letter 302, n. 10.
331 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 21 March 1883.
in title:
331 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 21 March 1883.
in original text:
...de aanplakbiljetten daarop is werkelijk erg best – t’is eeuwig jammer ge het niet teekent. Van...
...Zoo ook au rendez vous de la fraternité is het uithangbord van een estaminet waar eenige dronken...
...doe het werk zoo goed mogelijk te krijgen. Les extrêmes se touchent – in naijver zie ik niet het...
...ik er een geheel van kon aansmeeren.– Door een eenvoudige aangeving van enkele lijnen en enkele...
in translation:
...perfect. One must have analyzed what one sees inside or outside as regards the light in such a way...
...or observed them at work somewhere — anyway, he has taken a close look at diggers in nature. When we came to those diggers while looking through my studies, the way he spoke about them was very different from what it was this winter — at least he didn’t say so readily ‘this or that is different’. This time I myself said nothing at all about them. But more and more I begin to see both in myself and others how mistaken one can often be when one thinks this or that ‘isn’t so�� or...
...the bill, or the other way round. To mention just one of many — at the entrance to the Lombard or...
...and the difference between them and a painting or definitive composition, won’t expect to find...
...Because the studies are done for the figures, horses or people, it doesn’t matter, the setting is...
...sooner or later you see what I still have here. This week, for the fun of it, I set down one or two...
in date note:
...of the week have already passed. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 21 March 1883.
in note 14:
...second version of it (one in 1883 and one in 1884), or that he later made changes to the 1883 work and...
in note 15:
...also quoted in letter 333, based on Blaise Pascal, Pensées: ‘Les sciences ont deux extrémités qui se touchent.’ See Blaise Pascal, Pensées et opuscules. Ed. Léon Brunschvicq, 5th revised edition. Paris...
332 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 21 March 1883.
in title:
332 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 21 March 1883.
in original text:
...sommigen de drukken uit het boek zelf, die dus niet van clichés doch van de blokken zelf zijn afgedrukt.
in translation:
...ut whether or not they go to an exhibition matters as little to me as what kind of frame you have them in. Well, adieu — write again soon. Ever yours, Vincent I dislike writing or talking about...
...how to realize some idea or other that I might have, be it with you or with someone else, and I...
...larger and loftier than our own skill or learning or knowledge. That art is something which...
...I see the soul most at work. Israëls, for instance, is a clever technician, but Vollon is equally so — I like Israëls even more than Vollon, though, because in Israëls I see something more and...
...different’, which I see, as I said, in Israëls much more than in Vollon, and Dickens has it too...
...say: perhaps one improves by reading these books �� or, these books have the power to invigorate...
...whether they fall into good or into bad — into honest or dishonest hands — something good...
...and various scenes are described exactly as Frank Holl or someone like him would draw them. It’s...
in date note:
...painting Tile painters, we have dated this letter, like letter 331, on or about Wednesday, 21 March.
in note 7:
...Niagara, in The Graphic 1 (16 July 1870), p. 57, or to The Grand Duke Alexis of Russia under Niagara...
in note b:
Read: ‘door middel van’ (by means of).
333 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 29 March and Sunday, 1 April 1883.
in title:
333 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 29 March and Sunday, 1 April 1883.
in original text:
...niet en de natuur niet. Door zekere grijzen – door een zekere levenswarmte en pit in ’t zwart...
...zou zijn gekomen. Ge kent immers les misérables toch – en zeker ook wel de illustraties die...
...zijn. Dat integendeel daar ook al les extrêmes se touchent en er naast een massa lawaaimakers en...
...dorens. Nu, ik ga nog een beetje in les misérables lezen ofschoon ’t reeds laat is – men wordt...
in translation:
...had done them in ordinary conté, something deathly or iron-like would have entered into them that...
...on as well, or Monde Illustré. Respect for and a need and desire for advice or correction by...
...everyday. One sows a single drawing on the stone or in the etching plate and one reaps a multitude...
...I have more time to write. I’m reading Les misérables by V. Hugo. A book of which I have old...
...them, apart from doing their own work. You know Les misérables, don’t you? — and no doubt the...
...The Tile Club or The tile painters and some of whose drawings I’ve seen, in a Xmas number of...
...have something of Boughton. Boughton is also a member or honorary member of the club, but is I...
...of a Christmas party in the age of Washington or slightly earlier recalls Henri Pille, for instance...
...or a snowdrop among thorns. Now I’m going to read a little more of Les misérables, although it’s already late. A book like that warms one up, just like paintings by Dupré and old Millets �� or...
in date note:
...or about 21 March, in which Van Gogh talked about that drawing. There is no question of a remittance, and because receipt of the remittance of 1 April is confirmed in letter 334 of on or about 2 April, the present letter must have been written before it arrived. It was written in two sessions, the second of which was on a Sunday, and the first ‘a few days’ earlier (l. 139). Supposing the intervening period to be c. three days (Van Gogh had begun a new drawing and read a great deal of Hugo), the letter was written on or about Thursday, 22 March and Sunday, 25 March, or on or about Thursday, 29 March and Sunday, 1 April. It is impossible to say for certain which set of dates is correct. But given that Van Gogh presses for a speedy reply (and hence money) from Theo (l. 136), we have opted for the dates closest to the next remittance, on or about Thursday, 29 March and Sunday, 1 April 1883...
in note 7:
In November-December 1882 Van Gogh had had a number of lithographs printed by Smulders; see letters 281 ff.
in note 12:
Victor Hugo’s novel Les misérables (1862) tells the story of the ex-prisoner Jean Valjean against a...
in note 13:
In Les misérables the poor peasant bishop Bienvenu Myriel is a symbol of Christian charity and mercy. It is...
in note 14:
...illustrated, edition of Les misérables in 1862 there have been various reprints, often illustrated, such as the Paris edition of 1870 whose title page reads: ‘Illustrés de deux cents dessins par Brion. Gravures...
in note 25:
...lithographs implies that Van Gogh attached a certain value to them, then here he may have in mind Old man with a stick (F 962 / JH 212) or Old man drinking coffee (F 996a / JH 264) �� or the corresponding lithographs. Adrianus Jacobus Zuyderland often modelled for Van Gogh. It may also be that the drawings referred to have...
in note 28:
...Tile Club, see letter 295, n. 2. In the Christmas Number of Harper’s Weekly of 1882 there were various...
334 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 2 April 1883.
in title:
334 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 2 April 1883.
in translation:
So Hendrik is back from the East Indies — were he and his family well? Or was illness the reason for their return? In the past Hendrik made a much less favourable impression on me than his two brothers — is that your impression too...
...poor folk for whom the studio could be a kind of harbour of refuge on cold days, or when they’re out of work or in need. Where they know that there are fire, food, drink and a few quarters to be...
in date note:
...was the first remittance of April. Accordingly, we have dated the letter on or about Monday, 2 April 1883.
335 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 3 April 1883.
in title:
335 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 3 April 1883.
in translation:
...in Black and white? Make a drawing in either pencil or charcoal. Work it up — as far as possible...
...that the printer’s ink — diluted with more or less turpentine (one can make it so thin that one...
in date note:
...So we have dated the letter a day later than the one to Theo, namely on or about Tuesday, 3 April 1883.
in note 7:
A quire consists of 24 or 25 folded sheets of paper.
336 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 11 April 1883.
in title:
336 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 11 April 1883.
in original text:
...meer alledaagsche – zooals ’t mijne b.v. – door de eigenaardigheid de persoon in kwestie een...
...en vlekken geeft op den achterkant als olie – door dat ze zoo snel op droogt & weg trekt. De...
...lezen van ’t laatste gedeelte van les misérables – ’t figuur van Fantine – eene prostituee...
in translation:
...now or later. And the change of circumstances brought about by her recovery has a more or less...
...in itself — something self-evident — one is more or less puzzled as to why others don’t find...
...find this nicely put? — it’s from Les misérables: If Caesar had given me Glory and war, And...
...declare I don’t know which is better or worse, to meddle or not. It’s what they call ‘puzzli...
...but the family too’, which is sometimes more or less fatal and wretched if they’re nasty...
...which doesn’t soak through on this paper or leave marks on the reverse like oil — because it...
...round to reading the last part of Les misérables — the figure of Fantine — a prostitute — ma...
...an engraver one of these days, like Girardet or Eichens, for example, who make aquatints, you’d...
...to me that if you raised this with some engraver or other in passing and told me what he said, I...
...family. They’re just like characters from Souvestre, say, or E. Frère. One sees more people like...
in date note:
...10 April 1883, as is shown by ll. 1*-3 and l. 162, and so dates from on or about Wednesday, 11 April 1883.
in note 3:
...sings this song in Victor Hugo’s Les misérables, part 3, book 4, chapter 5. It derives from Molière...
in note 5:
Immediately after the song in Les misérables the character Enjolars says that ‘l’amour de ma mère...
in note 17:
...qui pleurent parce qu’ils seront consolés (Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted) was shown at the Salon of 1852. The reproduction of it, engraved by Alexis François Girard in 1857, appeared as Beatitude (Bienheureux ceux qui pleurent car ils seront consolés) in the Goupil list (Bordeaux, Musée...
337 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 21 April 1883.
in title:
337 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 21 April 1883.
in original text:
...zonder ’t expres te doen – vrouwen als bij S. (ge zegt teregt ze echter op zich zelf goed zijn...
...in dezen vorm, “Ces femmes ne sont cependant pas mauvaises, l’impossibilité d’une vie droite dans les commérages et les médisances des faubourgs est la cause de leurs fautes & de leurs chûtes”. Als er zooveel ontwikkeling in de vrouw is dat in gedachten en begrippen zij U volgen kan en...
in translation:
...that — without meaning to do so — women like S. (you rightly say that they, though, are good in...
...if I began them. But it’s sometimes a sad thing when one thinks, I could do one thing or another this way or that way, and to come up against the costs. Then there remains undischarged energy in a...
...that it’s hard to see time passing in which this or that could have been done if I’d had the...
...week I drew a few recumbent figures, I’ll need figures of corpses or sick people eventually, both men and women. I passed by Israëls’s house lately — I’ve never been inside it — the front...
in date note:
...or about Wednesday, 11 April 1883 because Theo must have responded to Vincent’s remarks about the widow of Frans Soek and her mother in letter 336. Since Vincent says thanks for the money received, it must be assumed that this was the next remittance, that of 20 April. We therefore date the letter on or about Saturday, 21 April 1883...
in note 3:
...mother to have reactionary ideas’ (presque toujours elle est élevée par sa mère dans les pensées rétrogrades) (Michelet, L’amour, p. 167). There is a similar passage in La femme on the danger that a woman can...
in note 4:
...par le milieu de rude besogne et de misère où ils vivent). See Zola 1960-1967, vol. 2, p. 374. Also...
in note 7:
...misérables, vol. 1, book 1, chapter 4: ‘He whom man kills, God brings back to life; he whom the brothers drive away, find the Father’ (Celui que l’homme tue, Dieu le ressuscite; celui que les frères chassent...
in note 12:
Jozef Israëls had lived since 1873 in an elegant building with a studio on Koninginnegracht 2 in The Hague...
338 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 30 April 1883.
in translation:
Do you think it will be about the same time as last year that you come �� or will it be postponed because you think it undesirable, perhaps, to leave your patient...
...in sentiment and drawn like Memling or Quinten Massys. Apparently, that painting caused a...
...with the woman had their origin there, directly or indirectly. And yet, although their actions are...
...on with reading Balzac? I’ve finished Les misérables. I know that Victor Hugo analyzes in a...
in note 14:
For Victor Hugo’s novel Les misérables, see letter 333, n. 12.
339 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 2 or Thursday, 3 May 1883.
in title:
339 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Wednesday, 2 or Thursday, 3 May 1883.
in translation:
...That you’ve written home about it, or rather will write, is something that will give you peace and is right. Naturally, I’ve never said a word about the matter, and you can rest assured that I won’t let on at home or elsewhere that I already knew something of it or am aware of more intimate...
...H.G.T. say anything to you about me, that you should cut him off more or less in this manner: Has V. obstructed you since then or bothered you? — given that he hasn’t, you shouldn’t make things...
...H.G.T., not because I want to hide from him or anything like that, but because I don’t want to...
...lead to more peace or better mutual understanding, which would be far from a matter of indifference to me. If I count from last May, Theo, this year hasn’t been exactly easy or free of care, eh. But that’s nothing; convenience or being without cares isn’t...
...ought to meet in connection with the work, directly or indirectly. And I wish it was all cleared up...
in date note:
...must have been written after letter 338 of 30 April, we have dated it Wednesday, 2 or Thursday, 3 May 1883.
340 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 7 May 1883.
in title:
340 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 7 May 1883.
in translation:
...your way a bit, old chap — for I understand that things are difficult for...
...worried about this too. Write soon, old chap — for it’s very nasty to be completely broke. And...
in date note:
...during Van Gogh’s visit to Van der Weele’s studio on Sunday, 6 May (see letter 341), the letter must date from later that day or shortly after it. Because he is fairly desperate and is counting on help even before the second remittance of on or about 10 May (ll. 13-14), we date the letter on or about Monday, 7 May 1883.
341 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 9 May 1883.
in title:
341 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 9 May 1883.
in original text:
...12 maandel. afl. compleet zal zijn. Het spijt me après tout erg ge niet gekomen zijt. doch ’t is...
in translation:
...not because I thought his advice was wrong or that I knew better, but because I reasoned to...
...confidence about everything going well, which is more or less the convention at present, and could...
...in my mind over one’s own private concerns or private difficulties. These last are also not the...
...Now at the moment I have many studies and 2 or 3 more important compositions are dawning in my mind...
...new movement, it isn’t at all that of Israëls, Mauve and Maris. No, that’s simply the best in...
...I think is the best, that of let’s say Israëls, Mauve, Maris. I don’t even know how far I’ve...
...from the south to do this in a schoolmasterly way or tone, but only as one who is himself searching...
...a view to what concerns practice, and not about theory or philosophy, that I want to talk to you...
...If you mean a composition that recalls Ter Borch or Nicolaes de Keyser — Penn and the colonists...
...the prejudice of those who are just observing or trying to observe social conventions and accept...
in date note:
...there is no mention of this in letter 340 of on or about 7 May, at least two days must have passed since that letter. We therefore date the present letter on or about Wednesday, 9 May 1883. It is unlikely to have...
in note 8:
Which Maris (Jacob, Matthijs or Willem) Van Gogh means here is impossible to say for sure.
in note 12:
...it: ‘From 1st May 1883, Paris Illustré – Twelve numbers per year, illustrated with engravings in several colours...One franc per number’ (A dater du 1er mai 1883 Paris Illustré – Douze numéros par an illustrés de gravures en plusieurs tons ... Un franc le numéro). The first number covered the Salon of 1883. The following issues dealt with such subjects as ‘Villégiature et bains de mer’ (Holidays and bathing)...
342 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 10 May 1883.
in title:
342 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 10 May 1883.
in original text:
...in de vitrine van G&C. Zag ook de nouveautés, misschien niet allen. Julien Dupré over wien ik U...
in translation:
...very ill and is still feeling the remnants or after-effects of that. Moreover, his sister had a...
...the form of a vicious gun dog, for instance, or some similar curiosity, since I believe he’s...
...it back from that form to the state of banknotes or to cash it in because, like other lovers of...
...with whom we’re united, and individually one feels either concern or dissatisfaction or vacillation, despite the belief and the good spirits or serenity one may have. I was told by the professor...
...themselves but which prevent progress and overwhelm or neutralize better influences. My woman has...
...a couple of sacks or something, he crows at the drawings and is always quiet in the studio because he looks at the things on the wall. Oh, he’s such an agreeable little lad. The number of studies...
...in the window at G&C. Also saw the nouveautés, perhaps not all of them. I again came across...
...s ‘letter follows’ doesn’t take too long, or that H. v. G.’s livestock farming may prosper...
in date note:
...212-213). The letter must therefore date from on or about Thursday, 10 May 1883. This tallies with the...
in note 13:
...Van Gogh saw ‘perhaps not all’ of the nouveautés implies that he went into the branch on De Plaats...
343 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 20 May 1883.
in title:
343 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Sunday, 20 May 1883.
in translation:
I wanted to let you know in just a word or two that Rappard has been to see me and that I’ve borrowed 25 guilders from him, with the promise of repayment in the autumn. I was delighted by his visit — he came in the morning and stayed until the...
...a digger in the background. Ah, Theo. I’ll get the hang of watercolour one day or another. In the last few days, or rather weeks, I’ve had the very pleasant company outdoors of a young surveyor...
...the middle I thought of Christ between two thieves, or else the group, in dark silhouette against a...
in date note:
...for I have need of it again’ (ll. 94-95). The remittance of 20 May has evidently not arrived yet. In the meantime Van Rappard has paid him a visit, so the letter dates from after about 10 May, when this had yet to take place. Moreover, the letter was written one day before letter 344: in the present letter it is said that Van Gogh is going to Utrecht ‘tomorrow’; letter 344 says that he has ‘just’ got back from Utrecht and found Theo’s letter with an enclosure. Since that letter is dated on or about Monday, 21 May, this one dates from on or about Sunday, 20 May 1883...
in note 5:
...in the Catalogue illustré du Salon. Publié sous la direction de F.-G. Dumas. Paris 1883, p. 189. Ill...
in note 6:
...or Trip; cf. letter 33, n. 4) were the owners of Maison Arnold et Tripp, located at 8 rue Saint-Georges. See Almanach du commerce de Paris 1885. Mauve had dealings with them in the 1880s. See Stolwijk 1998, pp. 214-215 (n. 96). From time to time Arnold visited Jozef Israëls’s studio in The Hague. Tripp replaced Van Gogh at Goupil in London in 1875 (FR b2338...
344 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 21 May 1883.
in title:
344 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 21 May 1883.
in translation:
...is that the studies stay together, either with you or with me — let us keep our spirits up and...
in date note:
...on the day on which Van Gogh received the third remittance of May, thus on or about Monday, 21 May 1883.
345 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Monday, 21 May 1883.
in title:
345 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Monday, 21 May 1883.
in original text:
...geloof ik ietwat gebukt gaat onder hollandsche prejugés – ofschoon in zijn groote schij hij zich...
...is. Eenige franschen zijn er ook nog bij.– Voor de rest kunnen we nog verifieeren als gij vroeger...
in translation:
...some respects in that state. Yet the Black and White or Light and Shade of it acquires a peculiar...
...to me. Do you agree that we hereby more or less resolve to visit each other again, turn and turn...
...the imagination as it were — on a piece of paper or an old study, just for the effect. But gently...
...until one has more or less full knowledge of their work? I think that the same applies to Michelet and Erckmann-Chatrian too. I refuse to accept that a painter may or must do nothing but paint. I mean that while many regard, for instance, reading books or something else as what they’d call a waste of time, it seems to me on the contrary that — far from working less or less well if one...
...too. We can check the rest when you come, sooner or later. Then you’ll certainly have a lot more...
in date note:
...he has seen him ‘today’ (l. 57). This means that the letter dates from on or about Monday, 21 May 1883.
in note 4:
...Gogh knew the version in the Library Edition (1859) or the Cheap Edition (1861 and 1865). There the opening...
in note 5:
...copy of Histoire d’un paysan – 1789 – Les états géneraux – par Erckmann-Chatrian. Illustrée par...
in note 6:
...number so explicitly has to do with the renumbering of the years in France after the Revolution. The subtitle of one of the editions of Histoire d’un paysan is L’an I de la République (Paris 1869). Van Gogh may have borrowed the comparison of the gospel to the French Constitution from Carlyle or Michelet. See Sund 1992, pp. 260-261 (nn. 89-92...
346 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Friday, 25 May 1883.
in title:
346 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Friday, 25 May 1883.
in translation:
...have some sympathy. I wish you had read Les misérables, then I would be better able to discuss it...
...from, say, the time when the first street-lamps were put up or from before they existed? Just imagine a pew or a funeral, say, from the year 1815. A removal, a promenade, a street on a winter’s day from that period or a little later. In Les misérables, although it deals with a later period, I find what I am seeking, aspects of the past that stimulate me to imagine how things looked in the age of my great-grandfather, or no further back than my grandfather even. Quatre-vingt-treize by Hugo...
...to see what impression Quatre-vingt-treize and Les misérables made on you. I don’t doubt for a...
in date note:
...or about Monday, 21 May 1883. Inspired by that visit, Van Gogh is now working on a large drawing, and has had a wooden passepartout made, so that a few days must have passed. For this reason the letter is dated on or about...
in note 5:
For Victor Hugo’s Les misérables, see letter 333, n. 12.
in note 10:
...and cotton lamps, though regularly trimmed twice or trice in the long winter nights, burnt feebly at the...
in note 11:
Les misérables begins in 1815 and is set in the time of the Restoration, the July Revolution and the Workers...
347 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 30 May 1883.
in title:
347 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 30 May 1883.
in translation:
...beautiful sight in nature, from which an infinite number of subjects can be taken. I went there...
in date note:
...Theo was thanked on 3 June). Accordingly, we have dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 30 May 1883.
348 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 3 June 1883.
in original text:
...en radicaal goddeloos. Eigentlijk zijn de dominés al mee de meest goddelooze menschen in de...
...Nu weet ik zeer wel dat plus minus alle dominés zóó zouden spreken als Pa – en daarom reken ik...
...we niet op gevallen of zwakke vrouwen als de dominés, als was het alles hun eigen schuld. En nu is...
in translation:
...because of the lack of money, I could more or less accept that, and at least understand their...
...and know how these things work, we don’t scold fallen or weak women as the ministers do, as if it...
...bread; reducing it would lead to something like suffocating or drowning, I mean I can no more do...
...to establish relations in England with The Graphic or London News. Now that I’m making progress...
...are together doing drawings of ‘picturesque Holland’ for Harper of New York (also the agent for...
...on the easel or from others that I’ll add. I would think it advisable to go to London myself with studies and drawings and to look up the managers of the various organizations, or preferably the draughtsmen Herkomer, Green, Boughton (some, however, are in America at present) or others, if they...
...like that needs to be done, I believe, with or without changes to the plan. I would dare, I believe...
...the format smaller or bigger, I’m not daunted by that. If I know definitely that this or that is...
349 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 3 June 1883.
in original text:
...die uit principe slechts relaties sans conséquences aanknoopen. Door eene vaste verbindtenis vindt...
...protectie doch wint in werkkracht en blijft staande après tout. Doch weet ge wat een gevaar is dat...
...tot nadeel zij – kerel ik geloof ge er après tout niet anders dan door winnen kunt. Dus zegen op...
in translation:
...she has learned to put up with things from you, or in other words you have both let some things go...
...see, then Pa himself wouldn’t know what to do, or rather I believe that then his heart too would...
...justify that even if the world says we’re wrong or even if it doesn’t bring us good fortune...
...who say, ‘you should never have started’, for it goes without saying that this will be the...
...she can turn out good or bad depending on how she takes things, gain or lose in character as a...
...and perhaps of putting things right with C.M. or Tersteeg, say, or Mauve. Adieu, old chap, with a...
...to use me for illustration work of one kind or another. For, although this is seemingly humble, I...
...For you mustn’t think that I’ve put watercolour or painting out of my mind. I certainly have it...
...convinced that nothing can be foreseen with certainty or sufficient accuracy. Yet what you wrote to...
...be the case — whether it’s an advantage or a disadvantage socially — old chap, I believe that...
in additional details:
...for his letter and the money implies that he has already expressed his gratitude earlier; that is not the case in the present letter, so he must be referring here to the first lines of letter 348. The phrase ‘what you wrote to me today’ (ll. 285-286) thus refers to the same letter from Theo. The simultaneous sending of letters 348 and 349 raises the question whether they should be seen as one letter or as two. They each have a salutation and a signature, which argues in favour of their being two separate letters. On the other hand, Van Gogh clearly wrote the second to follow on from the first, in the knowledge that they would go to Theo as one delivery. We have let the formal features (salutation and signature) tip the balance, and thus opted for separate letters, not for a continuation...
in note 4:
...makes me struggle, he gives me rest earned in care or sweat; he is my Burden, he is my Joy, my Scourge and...
in note 5:
...from the popular, humorous book Petites misères de la vie humaine (1843) by Old Nick and Grandville...
350 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 5 June 1883.
in title:
350 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 5 June 1883.
in translation:
...ck already. My plan is to tackle the rag-pickers, or rather I’ve already begun tackling it. For...
in date note:
...or about 11 June 1883 (the dates of letters 348, 349 and 352 respectively). In 350 Van Gogh writes about a sketch for Uncle Cor of the drawing of the sand diggers; Theo knew this drawing from an enclosed sketch in letter 348. Moreover, it appears from letter 352 that Theo responded to letter 351. So at least a few days must have passed between these two letters; we therefore date letter 351 on or about Thursday, 7 June. Consequently, the present letter must date from on or about Tuesday, 5 June 1883...
in note 3:
Van Gogh added the sentence ‘For supposing...decorative character’ later.
351 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 7 June 1883.
in title:
351 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 7 June 1883.
in original text:
...meer bedoeld zijn als raad of waarschuwing (m.i. après tout een raad die niet op een soliden grond...
...meening zijnde in zooverre ik ’t niet àpropos reken in dit geval bezwaren in zake van geld en...
...humaan oogpunt bekeken neem ik terug mijn opinie: “door zóó te spreken hebben zij getoond Uw...
in translation:
...tension or anything abnormal; rather, I got the impression that Pa’s mood was more passive or...
...words were intended more as advice or warning (advice that in the end has no solid grounds in my view, and doesn’t hold water) and less as a sign of definite resistance or opposition to your firm decision. They may think that you haven’t yet made up your mind, or they may believe that you...
...yet couldn’t possibly accept estrangement from you or having less contact, etc. And adopting a...
...eyes you needn’t confide in them any further’, or something similar that I wrote then, I don...
...of having gone a little too far, or worried about how you’ll take it, or afraid that you won’t...
...as far with the sketch of the dung-heap as more or less getting into it that sheep-shed effect of...
...cold’. Now, probably the same in your case: ‘that poor papist woman shouldn’t be alone even so’, or something like that. So don’t be concerned, be of good heart, and put their minds at ease...
in date note:
...to the present letter. We therefore date it on or about Thursday, 7 June 1883. Cf. also letter 350...
352 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 11 June 1883.
in title:
352 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Monday, 11 June 1883.
in translation:
...tackle that or the nets being mended in a large drawing sometime. It certainly is an improvement, Theo, that I had those stretching frames and frame made for charcoal drawings or whatever it may be...
in date note:
...reaction to that letter (ll. 3-6). We have therefore dated the letter on or about Monday, 11 June 1883.
in note a:
...a brownish yellow dye – so that the nets become more durable and take on a yellow or brownish colour’.
353 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 15 June 1883.
in title:
353 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 15 June 1883.
in translation:
...be just a row of dark shapes at first sight or from a distance, but highly finished and varied in...
...space. And one has to do each one perhaps 3 or more times before it works out. But I’ll make a...
...are on a cow’. For my part, what I often do these days is that if I’m drawing a digger who has one leg in front of the other, or his one arm in front of the other, or his head leaning forwards, I first draw in detail the leg, the arm or the neck and back of the head that’s behind the one in front and hence out of view, and only afterwards on top of that what’s in sight, to get it as accurate as possible. I hope I’ll succeed in getting down the shadow or the ghost of the potato...
in date note:
...letter 355 Vincent asks Theo to send money earlier (than 20 June) if possible, and consequently it dates from on or about 16 June (see also Date there), so we date the present letter on or about Friday, 15 June 1883.
in note 6:
...Dirk Laarman, located at Paveljoensgracht 27a, or Cornelis Johan Laarman, at Visschersdijk 41 (close...
in note 7:
...phrasing is derived from a quotation from Hugo’s Les misérables that Van Gogh cited in letter 397, n. 4.
354 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Friday, 15 June 1883.
in title:
354 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Friday, 15 June 1883.
in original text:
Neem de ets van Millet, les bêcheurs, neem een gravure van Albert Durer, neem bovenal de groote houtsnee...
in translation:
...as well. Israëls himself and sometimes, sometimes Mauve and Maris too, cannot resist forceful outline, but don’t do it like Leys or like Herkomer. And when one hears them, they really don’t want to know, and talk most about tone and colour. Yet in some charcoal drawings Israëls used lines...
...can only speak personally. And that’s not what I like or what I look at. Well, I thought that was...
...you’re now on a road and not on byways or side roads seems to me absolutely right. Have a similar...
...that what will cheer you up more than the baths or whatever it is they do there in Soden is to make...
...in finding models, I’ll certainly do one or two things in large drawings this summer. Now I want...
...like that. I wish I had done it. In the same number after Abbey two girls fishing on the bank of a...
355 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 16 June 1883.
in title:
355 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Saturday, 16 June 1883.
in translation:
...s drawing is like? It’s as if one were reading a description of a factory by Zola or Daudet or Lemonnier. I’ve marked a passage in his letter — the one about painting like drawing. Well, it...
...I’ve now started work on the fifth large one, or rather the sixth, because I did the dung-heap twice. And when you come you’ll see the number of studies required for them. R. has not drawn with...
...tremendous strengths sometimes, which still make the greatest strengths of charcoal very clear. These strengths are obtained through printer’s ink or autographic ink or lampblack or neutral tint and other blacks from watercolour. You shouldn’t be surprised that I’ve done so many in a short...
in date note:
...or about 15 June 1883 and this letter, Van Gogh began work on the planned drawing of a row of diggers (ll. 15-16). He has worked on it for at least one day and ‘last night’ (ll. 17-20). He also asks Theo to send the third remittance ‘earlier’ if possible (l. 85). There would be no point in this unless the letter reached Paris by 18 June at the latest. Accordingly, we have dated it on or about Saturday, 16 June 1883...
in note 5:
...and realism of the writers named; they did not idealize the hard reality of a factory or workshop.
356 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 22 June 1883.
in original text:
...laten tot b.v. gij weer eens hier komt, en heb après tout geen spijt er van er eens heen gegaan te...
in translation:
...here and there by darker or lighter masses of cloud, neutral tint or yellowish white, which shift...
...completely. But even if he thought it absurd or mad, I still believe I shouldn’t let myself be upset by that or regard his judgement as decisive or conclusive. I still think it possible that the...
...one can lapse into errors, into exaggerations of this or that perhaps, but one arrives at something...
...I’ll have to have a lot of modelling for it or it certainly won’t work. Otherwise I do have a...
...something extra from you and now since February or since March, I believe, you yourself have been...
...and I’ll come round and have a look sometime, or something like that — in my view the above was...
...the painter, was also there and was more or less in agreement with Iterson, which seemed to me...
...if Tersteeg doesn’t want to immediately. One or other must take a step towards reconciliation...
...them, I’d like to see this one or that one in this or that format in watercolour. In that case I...
in date note:
...must come after letter 355, which dates from on or about Saturday, 16 June 1883. This is because the...
in note 4:
...was probably a matter of lending books for drawing or painting instruction and suchlike, as mentioned in...
357 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 27 June 1883.
in title:
357 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 27 June 1883.
in original text:
...raisonable en juist in zijn teekening is gebleven après tout. Hij is een van die mannen die ik...
in translation:
...has. At the moment I have no fewer than 7 or 8 drawings measuring about 1 metre that I’m working...
...the same, and feeling melancholy when such people disapprove or say that what one is doing is the...
in date note:
...the week began several days ago. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 27 June 1883.
358 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 2 July 1883.
in original text:
...Millet, Corot, Daubigny enz., die men aanzag ± zooals de veldwachter een losloopenden ruigen hond of een...
...men niet geheel en al buiten de kunstwereld is après tout. Een zekere mate van wrijving, nu en dan...
...en ik zie niet in dat dat verbeteren zal. Après tout is de eene plaats of de andere mij goed en...
...année, on est habitué à de telles fadeurs, à des mensonges si jolis, qu’on refuse de toute sa...
in translation:
...things were said, Millet, Corot, Daubigny, etc., who were regarded more or less the way the village constable regards a stray shaggy dog or a tramp without a passport, and time passes and lo and...
...ch often comes to mind when I want to imagine Millet or anyone else as he was. What V. Hugo says...
...of the two Greens, who knows of Régamey’s drawings? Only a few. Seeing them all together, one is...
...on the street, on the market, in a hospital or orphanage. I already had some last year, but what...
...figures. If one is looking more exclusively for tone or colour, then it’s rather different, then...
...their own way have something like this behind or beside them as a perpetual discourager. Sometimes...
...of moving to the country, either on the seashore or somewhere where work on the land is real...
...it came to going to the country or to London. Here I miss the necessary friction with others, and I don’t see how that will get any better. In the end, one place or another will do for me, and I...
in note 3:
...faut élever à Eschyle une statue de bronze. Athènes, qui avait chassé l’homme, éleva la statue). Hugo...
in note 20:
...ils l’ont habituée à de telles fadeurs, à des mensonges si jolis, qu’elle refuse de toute sa...
359 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 3 July 1883.
in title:
359 To Anthon van Rappard. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 3 July 1883.
in original text:
...kennen – onvoldoende begrippen in zake schilderkunst – préjugés in plaats van jugement juste in die...
...die ietwat egoiste Erckmann Chatrian subliem worden en dès lors is hij voor mij hors ligne. Zola...
...Van Howard Pyle een heel mooi vrouwenfiguur. Van S. Read ook mooie landschappen. misschien nog meer...
in translation:
...Now I don’t want to insist on the greater or lesser accuracy, but just say that such words are...
...an uncommonly beautiful print by T. Green, the brother or something of C.G. It’s a party at the...
...to decipher but whom I assume to be a brother or at least a relative of W. M. Ridley. Both good...
...and The New Year’s presents. Then Régameys — beautiful Japanese subjects and a very large...
...By Howard Pyle, a very beautiful female figure. By S. Read, fine landscapes too. Yet more perhaps...
...Then I also have another sower, perhaps the seventh or eighth figure I’ve done for it. This time...
...a red ochre dish with a cod on it and, say, the figure of a digger or a sower? Is there or is there not a distinction between Rembrandt and Van Beijeren (just as gifted technically), between Vollon...
in date note:
...or about 2 July 1883, such as Zola’s Mes haines, the drawings that Van Gogh is working on, and the exhibition ‘Cent chefs d’oeuvre’. Theo had written about this exhibition in his letter with the remittance. We assume– although we cannot be certain – that Vincent thanked his brother for the money sent soon after receiving it, and only after that wrote to Van Rappard. We therefore date the present letter a day later, thus on or about Tuesday, 3 July 1883...
in note 3:
...the giants of the past, or the simple inhabitants of a lost province; he could not handle our Parisian world...I do not know this world of Alsace that permeates the work.’ (Mais, à défaut de coeur, l’auteur leur a donné une penseé morale. Ils marchent poussés par un souffle puissant de justice et de liberté ... Il est seulement à l’aise avec les géants d’autrefois ou les habitants naïfs d’une province perdue;...
in note 24:
...or two prints. In the first case it could be Matthew White Ridley’s Landing of French refugees at London Bridge, engraved by Horace Harral, in The Graphic 2 (8 October 1870), p. 340. Ill. 1277. In the second case it could be London Bridge, in The Illustrated London News 61 (16 November 1872), pp. 464-465 (Ill. 2104) and On board an emigrant ship – Land ho!, engraved by Horace Harral, in The Graphic 3 (6 May 1871), p. 413, or On Board an emigrant ship, in The Graphic 4 (2 December 1871), p. 536. The last two are in the estate. Ill. 1274 and Ill. 2105 (t*121 en t*441...
in note 31:
...scene) in The Illustrated London News, Christmas number 1848 and Christmas eve – The cottager’s return...
in note 34:
...trennes (January. The New Year presents), 1839. Above the print it says ‘Zodiac of the people of the earth’ (Zodiaque des gens du monde); below it is the dialogue: ‘– Look, Virginie, here’s sugar for your New Year gift / – and I, my good Henri, I’ve bought you a nice hat for myself’ (– Tiens, Virginie, voilà du sucre pour tes etrènnes / – Et moi, mon bon Henri, je t’ai acheté un joli chapeau pour moi) (Paris, BNF, Cabinet des Estampes). Ill. 124. Various versions were published, but they show only slight differences. See J. Armelhault and E. Bocher, L’Oeuvre de Gavarni. Lithographies originales et essais d’eau-forte et de procédés nouveaux. Catalogue raisonné. Paris 1873, pp. 78 (no. 318), 430...
in note 47:
...by four sheets in the (otherwise undated) summer number of The Graphic of 1883 (vol. 27); which one Van...
in note 49:
...represented by four sheets in the Graphic summer number of 1883. They serve as illustrations to the story...
in note 50:
The ‘Holiday Number’ of The Illustrated London News in 1883 had twelve prints by Richard Caton Woodville...
360 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Saturday, 7 July 1883.
in title:
360 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Saturday, 7 July 1883.
in translation:
...entirely covered in snow, beside a kind of canal or waterway. Half romantic, half realistic — a...
...have to go further away, Hook of Holland, say, or Marken. Now, though, I’m thinking of asking De...
in date note:
...week’ (l. 36). This wording suggests that he was writing at the end of the week. Partly because the following letter must date from on or about 11 July, we date the present letter on or about Saturday, 7 July 1883.
in note 2:
...March 1907 by Frederik Muller & Cie; 70 x 100 cm) or a related work. Ill. 2111. Cf. Arnold Lighthart...
361 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 11 July 1883.
in title:
361 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 11 July 1883.
in original text:
...begrijpen “un coin de la nature vu à travers d’un temperament” en “l’homme ajouté à la...
...geenszins slecht, ’t is wispelturigheid van Mauve. après tout vind ik niet heel aardig van C.M...
...dingen zoo afschuwelijk als de meeste akademische têtes d’expression.– ik kijk liever eens...
in translation:
...paintings. Israëls put it perfectly in the case of a Jules Dupré (Mesdag's large one...
...it. As for going to London sooner or later for a while, long or short, I too believe that there...
...well. Do you think about bringing the woman to Holland, or is that not advisable as yet? I hope it...
...in Rotterdam these days). You know Vierge or Urrabieta, the draughtsman for L’Illustration. Well...
...of thing one sees when one has a fever �� or impossible and meaningless as in a dream that makes...
...can’t put down a single calm, reasonable line or brushstroke as long as this stress continues. I...
...photographs taken of a few drawings in cabinet format or slightly larger (to see how they’d look...
...themselves of the ones they want for reproduction or I can redraw them on their paper. Regards...
...and Ma arm in arm — in an autumn setting �� or with a beech hedge with dry leaves. I’d also...
...or a drunk by Daumier, or The diggers by Millet, and that large woodcut by him, The shepherdess. Or...
in date note:
...so it must have been that of 10 July. We therefore date the letter on or about Wednesday, 11 July 1883.
in note 5:
This remark by Israëls is quoted again in letter 483.
in note 9:
...d’art est un coin de la création vu à travers un tempérament). See Zola 1966-1970, vol. 10, p. 38...
in note 22:
...Charge of the hussars, also known as De charge or Cavalerie), c. 1882-1884 (The Hague, Kunstmuseum...
in note 28:
...means here. Van der Weele owned several paintings and watercolours by Breitner, dated before or in 1883.
in note 31:
...many times (including in the Oeuvres complètes). ‘The raven’ (1845) by Edgar Allan Poe was...
in note 37:
...A. Pit, Catalogue descriptif des eaux-fortes de Ph. Zilcken, mentionnant 633 pièces. Amsterdam 1918.
in textual note 207:
après...ontving. < In the right margin on p. 6 (het derde ... absurd) l. 170-206.
362 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Friday, 13 July 1883.
in title:
362 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Friday, 13 July 1883.
in translation:
...there in the morning and staying there for the day, or otherwise, if I must be at home, allocating that...
...me enormous pleasure (from those two surveyors — for a second one has since joined in), namely a...
...I’ll bring the woman along now and then to pose, or at least to indicate the position and size of...
...than the drawings themselves. That quite a large number of those figures are something that I at...
...money for studies which I myself would be very glad to buy back from him later, or exchange for a watercolour or painting. In fact, I also have a certain promise from Uncle Cent that he would take...
in arrangement:
...or about 11 July 1883: that letter already has a postscript, and Van Gogh would then have had to have used the same phrasing twice in relation to Uncle Cor, from whom he had not received ‘a syllable in reply’ (l. 59). Furthermore, the present postscript contains a reference to renewing acquaintance with a number of painters in The Hague (cf. letter 361), in front of whom he says he tries ‘to appear offhand’ (l. 38). On these grounds we have placed this postscript with letter 362...
in date note:
...or about 11 July 1883, since there he wrote that he wanted to work in Scheveningen. It must also have been written before the coming Sunday, when he is expecting a photographer (l. 79; in letter 363 this photographer indeed turns out to have come). We therefore date the letter on or about Friday, 13 July 1883...
in note 6:
It is not known who this ‘second’ surveyor – in addition to Antoine Philippe Furnée – was. As...
in note 12:
...visited Van Gogh in mid-May; Van Gogh returned the courtesy on or about 21 May: see letters 343 and 345.
363 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Sunday, 22 July 1883.
in original text:
...toonen aan den een of ander zamen met Uw “voor ’t vervolg kan ik U weinig hoop geven”. Is er...
...me lui van stadswege aan ’t werk gezet – voor een stuk duingrond dat omgespit moet worden. Maar...
...gelapt en kapot van allen & meer andere petites misères die maken men rimpels krijgt. Enfin...
...kan voor ’t vervolg u weinig hoop geven” voor mij iets als “the hair that breaks the camels...
in translation:
...in me, that I wasn’t making progress or something. As for financial matters, you’ll remember...
...more leeway by one means or another. So do show the photos to Buhot or someone if you can’t...
...rate not explain why Mauve, say, or Tersteeg or C.M. are so cool as not to want to see anything or say a word. I find it human that a coolness may arise over one thing or another, but to maintain the...
...it was right that I should become a painter (or draughtsman then, what difference does it make?)? I...
...to create such a scene in the dunes in one form or another. But now I often feel so wretched when I...
...for philosophizing about the future, either to upset me or to console me. Holding on to the present...
...brother, retain some sympathy for the work, saleable or unsaleable. As long as that’s the case...
...all sides. When I read the life story of one painter or another, I see that in fact they all needed...
...right up to the bailiff, and some went to prison or had to move hither and thither, yet I don’t...
in note 10:
...of this borrowing from the book Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville, see...
in note 14:
...Theo had suggested to Vincent that he should become a painter or draughtsman was mentioned in letter 214.
364 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Sunday, 22 July 1883.
in original text:
...meer kracht te hebben gespendeerd dan men missen kan en min of meer épuisé te zijn in krachten.
in translation:
Whether it’s fever or nerves or something else I don’t know — but I don’t feel well. I think of that remark in your letter in connection with various things, more than necessary I hope, and have an uneasy feeling I can’t shake off, although I’ve tried to distract myself...
...case, if possible by return of post, and say whether or not there is something. I can’t help it...
...but I may have caught a chronic fever or something, and have suddenly fallen ill. I’ve had...
...and again, a general weakness that’s a reaction to exertion and keeps recurring, but which I must do something about or it will get worse. I wouldn’t say this to De Bock or someone like that — but I trust you enough to say it. It’s not a question of losing heart or giving something up, but of having expended more strength than one should and of having more or less exhausted one’s powers.
365 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Monday, 23 July 1883.
in original text:
...is dan ook al weer in ’t water. Enfin, après tout, ik hoop me, wat er ook komen moet, niet zwak...
...zijn de plek te kunnen omzeilen met wat laveeren. Après tout, als ’t mislukt, wat is er aan me...
...ge er toch niet in, niet waar. daar ben ik après tout te kalm en te koelbloedig voor, adieu, een...
in translation:
...kept me awake. It is: will I be able to go on or will I not be able to go on? That, in a nutshell...
...other’s heart strong instead of weak or upset. I’ve talked to Blommers about painting. He wants me to carry on; I myself also feel that after having done these 10 or 12 large drawings I’m now...
...wrote, our thoughts have crossed again), the meagreness or what they call the dryness is what must...
...more leeway, not for the sake of my pleasure or convenience but for the sake of the order and the...
...like the sea, the bronze potato leaves, stubble fields or ploughed earth. So as to gain time I...
...I had hoped that perhaps a few of the 10 or 12 drawings could be placed, but that too has fallen...
...the worst, as a boat can be hurled over a reef or a sandbank by the swell and can take advantage of...
...And one feels oneself sinking and can’t have or can’t pay for necessary things. And then the inner conflict: will I be able to persevere in that way and carry on, or where am I going, what can be...
366 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 24 July 1883.
in title:
366 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 24 July 1883.
in translation:
...your reverses. Nonetheless, at the beginning of the winter, or rather at the end of the autumn, I...
...studies it was absolutely impossible to buy paint or to do watercolours. For if you think back, you...
...do something about it. My health doesn’t suffer (fundamentally or chronically) due to excesses, but due to a long period of too little or too insubstantial food. Well, the urgent thing for making...
...for you to get hold of paint from Paillard or someone like that in a certain quantity at the net...
...you give this some thought? I believe it would be a good measure. Whether it’s Paillard or Bourgeois or whoever isn’t important. As a dealer you’re probably eligible to buy at net prices. I...
...again and again it was a question of either fasting or working less, and as far as possible I chose...
in date note:
...28 July 1883; the order is clear thanks to the course of events, but the exact days on which they were written cannot be determined. We have therefore divided them over the five days – letter 366: on or about Tuesday, 24 July, letter 367: on or about Wednesday, 25 July and letter 368: on or about Friday, 27 July 1883.
in note 9:
...rançois Alexandre Joseph Léon Bourgeois was a paint dealer. His shop was at 31 rue de Caire in Paris. In 1882 Bourgeois was the owner of a paint factory at 22 passage Tocanier (= 22 rue Claude Tillier). See AP. Listes électorales...
in note 10:
...maken om me den juisten netto prijs te zeggen après tout’). Given this crossing out and in view of what...
367 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 25 July 1883.
in title:
367 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 25 July 1883.
in original text:
...bepaalde handelswaarde. Aan werk mankeert het niet. Après tout heb ik in den grond geen gevoel van...
...impuissants, les cyniques, les railleurs idiots et bêtes”. Maar dat alles zou misschien niet...
in translation:
...for daily necessities belong to the same type. They come themselves to ask you to take this or that from them or, if one goes to someone else, they ask for your custom, but if one must unfortunately...
...I had to leave one or two others waiting. I’m a little worried, brother, and have considerable sorrow and difficulty. I long for you to come because I want to decide whether or not I should move...
...Well, I could take them to Van der Weele, say, or someone. Together with my tools. I always have a...
in date note:
We have dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 25 July 1883; see Date at letter 366.
in note 3:
...of this borrowing from the book Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville, see...
in note 8:
The personal tax was levied according to outward signs of wealth: the rental value, the number of doors and windows, the fireplaces, the value of the furniture, the number of servants and the number of horses. See Stolwijk 1998, pp. 285-286. Nothing about Van Gogh’s assessment for the poll tax has been found in the...
in textual note 107:
bêtes”. < bêtes.
368 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Friday, 27 July 1883.
in title:
368 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Friday, 27 July 1883.
in original text:
...ik, breeder dan dat afgepaste dat den dominés eigen is als specialiteit. Men moge zoodoende nog...
in translation:
...one’s conscience — for me conscience is the very highest form of reason — the reason within the reason — one is tempted to think one has acted wrongly or foolishly, one gets particularly...
...it would be better or worse to do this or that. While I’m working I feel an unlimited confidence in art and that I’ll succeed, but on days of physical exhaustion or when there are financial...
...to tug at my jacket or works his way up my leg until I take him on my lap. In the studio he crows at everything, sits playing silently with a piece of paper for hours, a bit of string or an old brush...
...There remain imponderables, there remains sorrow or melancholy, but against that eternally negative...
...actually worked as in the story of dutiful Hendrik or an ordinary, routine sermon by a minister, it...
...not be regarded as of any significance by either one side or the other, and be accounted one of the...
...ordinary I. And one won’t relapse into scepticism or cynicism, not become one of the vile mockers...
in date note:
We have dated the letter on or about Friday, 27 July 1883; see Date at letter 366.
in note a:
Means: ‘waar belangstelling voor zou zijn’ (for which there would be a demand).
369 To Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Sunday, 29 and Monday, 30 July 1883.
in original text:
...daar eenige zeeweeringen of hoofden – piers, jetées – en heele goede ook, van verweerde steenen en...
in translation:
...a study on the beach. There are some sea walls or breakwaters — moles, jetties — and very good...
...and so it can be reached even if one has baggage or must bring wet studies home. See, this is a...
...thing, are taking on a more frivolous character, more so each year. Now, not just 10 but 30 or even 40 or 50 years ago was when the painting of the dunes &c. in their true character started. At that...
...between a rather sombre mood and those surroundings, or will I have the same impressions there...
...I reflect less on the future than on the more or less present, I still have hopes that when you come we’ll take the decision that I should do a number of small watercolours for you just to try it...
...That I had no doubt that there must be a fair number of tubes in his stock that were no longer in...
...this again when you come. Naturally, I needn’t take or pay for the 300 tubes all at once, but in...
in note 6:
In 1838, at the age of 21, Charles-François Daubigny became a pupil of Paul Delaroche. In that year a...
in note 10:
This means that the extra amount Theo sent on or about 25 July was 50 francs. Cf. letter 368.
370 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 3 August 1883.
in title:
370 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 3 August 1883.
in translation:
...you won’t talk about problems in the future or the limited chances of placing the work. At least...
...a great deal, looking and doing landscape studies or seascape studies to have a distraction from...
...and I’ll do my best. I hope to paint one or two things in the days to come between now and your...
...from making a thing or two that can be sold, even if for relatively little. The work is becoming much clearer to me. And when I think about it, it’s only a question of accelerating or delaying, and...
...those fields behind Loosduinen, in the early morning or in the evening towards dusk. I believe that...
...other and form a dark silhouette against a light sky �� or sky and ground must form more of a grey...
...be completely different but the composition can stay, more or less. It gives me a certain calm to...
...finally begin to give up the idea that I intend or am doing something absurd. You will see what I...
...I had a lot of trouble then, now fall into place more or less, and so as I sit before nature I need...
in date note:
...to the receipt of Theo’s remittance, the present letter is dated on or about Friday, 3 August 1883.
in note 3:
...to add to his parents’ concern about his future or cause friction. On 2 August 1883 Mr van Gogh wrote...
371 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 7 August 1883.
in title:
371 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 7 August 1883.
in translation:
...one captures something of the softness of the clouds or of the grass, for instance. At times I...
...or measuring something — then it’s in the nature of things that I can’t possibly know anything definite about it. Yet through comparisons with various people with whose life one is familiar, or...
...will endure for a certain number of years come what may — a certain number, say between 6 and 10...
...to determine anything in myself, given that whether or not anything is left after that period will...
...person is likely to be subject, solving more or less complicated physical problems, then from 40-50...
...emotions or difficulties. It’s a matter of relative indifference to me whether I live a long or a...
...the form of drawings or paintings in gratitude. Not done to please some movement or other, but in...
...there are two Régameys, F. Régamey paints Japanese and is his brother), but was a character for whom I have great respect all the same. He died at the age of 38, and a period of 6 or 7 years was...
in date note:
...8 August at the latest. We therefore date it on or about Tuesday, 7 August 1883. This tallies with Van...
in note 5:
...may have been working on Edge of a wood (F 903 / JH 12) or a similar piece. See cat. Otterlo 2003, p. 39.
372 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 12 or Monday, 13 August 1883.
in title:
372 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 12 or Monday, 13 August 1883.
in translation:
...but I do know that you mustn’t mention it at home or to anyone else for fear of it being misconstrued in...
...bringing that about if we keep our serenity, dark future or no dark future. I could meet you if I...
...there’ll be anything which you think has something or not. Well, we’ll see. I keep thinking...
...extent to which my feeling unwell has a physical cause or is due to nervous tension. It seems to me...
...one must choose between working and not eating, or eating and letting the work go hang (namely when...
in date note:
...must have arrived on Sunday, 12 or Monday, 13 August and that Mr van Gogh wrote his letter on the 13th. It must have crossed with the present letter, which therefore dates from Sunday, 12 or Monday, 13 August 1883.
373 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 14 August 1883.
in additional details:
The text is written on a postcard (2½ cents). Postmark: ‘’S GRAVENHAGE / 3-4 N/ 14 AUG 83’ and ‘NUENEN 8-12N 14 AUG 83’. It is addressed to: ‘Monsieur Th. van Gogh/ Nunen/ bij Eindhoven.’
374 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 17 August 1883.
in original text:
...dagelijksch leven moet ik ’t inrigten à peu près zòò als een boerenarbeider of een fabrieksarbeider...
...en à plus forte raison – wegens ik, als er maar eenigzins kwestie zou kunnen zijn van het te beschouwen als mij iets aanmatigen waarop ik geen regt had, zelfs al had ik après tout het regt...
in translation:
You know what an ‘error in the point of view’ is in painting, namely something very different from and much worse than a mistake in drawing this or that detail...
...responsible for them, but for the initiative of doing or not doing one’s duty, yes. Here one sees...
in date note:
...or Monday returned to Nuenen. He would have visited Vincent that same Friday; during their conversation Theo must have suggested that Vincent should leave Sien. We see letter 374, which begins in medias res, as an immediate reaction to this conversation that was delivered to Theo at the address where he was staying the same day, i.e. Friday, 17 August 1883. Vincent wishes his brother a ‘safe journey’ (l. 84), which refers to Theo’s visit to Amsterdam and shows that he did not expect to see him again. But the letter was (in part) the reason for a second meeting, because the brothers spoke to each other again, most probably on Saturday, 18 August, just before Theo’s departure for Amsterdam (see also letter 388, l. 298). When he got home after that meeting, Vincent immediately wrote letter 375. Theo was most likely in Amsterdam on the Sunday, where he spoke to Uncle Cor (see the beginning of letter 378). Letter 376 follows letter 375; it was sent together with a letter to Mr van Gogh to Nuenen, where he wishes Theo a few more ‘beautiful sunsets’ (ll. 181-182). Letter 381, in which Vincent thanks Theo for the third remittance of the month (see ll. 1*-2 and notes), must date from on or about 21 August. Since letter 377 comes before it (Vincent asks Theo’s opinion about letter 376), we have dated letter 377 to Monday, 20 August...
375 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Saturday, 18 August 1883.
in original text:
...is de kunst, en heb ik wel hoop we après tout elkaar zullen blijven verstaan. Ik ben bang dat ik...
in translation:
...think best. Well, thinking thus that they were more or less ashamed of me, which tallied with what...
...fully and freely. Or voluntarily going away from where one is merely tolerated. Whether or not I...
...know whether or not you think it would be better to see someone like Herkomer, Green or Small, for...
...one or two things that you said to me when you left, I hope you won’t forget that one or two...
...until, instead of having to praise or explain it to art lovers or say something to go with it, they...
...the least because of laziness that I don’t do this or that; rather it’s to be able to work more...
...doubt whether I know exactly what the trouble is. Or rather, I believe the cause lies not so much...
...and again — I’m in a fix over this or that — but without any ulterior motive, and more just to say it for once than because I demand or expect from you that you can do everything, which indeed...
...take back entirely if need be, or wish I had left unsaid �� or, supposing you conceded they had a...
in note 1:
...and that Theo was in a hurry, it seems likely that Theo left The Hague on the same or the following day.
in note 8:
...by letter 376, the brothers had discussed whether or not the relationship with Sien should be continued.
376 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 19 August 1883.
in translation:
...also writing a letter to Pa in which there are one or two things I shan’t repeat now. Be so good...
...to those who see it, since they’re more or less startled by it, so to speak — carry on — work...
...that there are reasons to doubt whether London can or should be done right away. I’m unable to...
...m eager to know whether Pa and you can more or less follow my feelings as regards staying with the...
...in the hospital and I hadn’t yet decided whether or not to take her into my house. She asked for...
...work. I wish I had fellows like Mauve or, to mention someone else, Herkomer as friends, although...
...working on, whether for a long or a short time, whether with more or less success, sooner or later among the painters one is bound to meet a friend for life, such as M. or H., say, might be. And...
...one goes and asks him or visits him, which with me has less chance of success because of one or two...
...I can’t do something that now seems to me cruel or merciless. I don’t know whether I’ll be...
in note 5:
...he knew it from the lithograph by Célestin François Nanteuil-Leboeuf (see letter 686, n. 3). Cf. Johnson...
377 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 20 August 1883.
in original text:
...doch als ik het met minder moet doen – après tout, mijn leven is misschien het eten niet waard...
...weet gij nog wel den tijd toen ik met een langen dominés jas liep van Pa &c.; en ’t komt me voor...
...ik er een geest van grilligheid en satiété is. Men is laauwer in het algemeen. Ik voor mij...
...me echter niets gevraagd doch alleen gezegd “vous êtes un employe honnête et actif mais vous...
in translation:
...studio or out of doors, that would be to ruin it wilfully, because one always gets some stain or...
...is asked for, to my liking or not, I’ll try to do it as required, or do it again if required. In...
...choice for this or that movement, one enthusiastically backed one side or another. There was more...
...we don’t understand how you acted in this or that case, explain it, it would have turned out...
...clothes, on my side at any rate. There was a half or whole plan then for me to get a position in...
...a hindrance or harmful. Then I would have asked for a position at the printer’s perhaps, or for...
...refute that because I didn’t want to influence whether or not I would stay. I could have said a...
...that I only enquire about poorer or richer, more or less difficult, taking nothing for granted...
...designs and machines, how he had no time for or interest in anything else for that matter, and his...
...be useful or help us to get somewhere more quickly. I don’t doubt your good will or friendship...
in textual note 19:
– après...waard – < Dashes added by us.
378 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 21 August 1883.
in translation:
...satisfactory in itself, even in the future. A number of studies, no matter how diverse, will still...
...if you again proposed to C.M., say, in your words or mine, what was raised last year, the outcome...
...whether moving all the things would be easy or difficult. Through Van Gend & Loos one could even...
...than here that I believe it would save me 150 or 200 guilders a year in any case, on housing...
...across the blank area. Around that blank area a number of black dots with the names of villages, a...
...over there in the sense that for the same amount I could get more and better models or the same number for less money. I think that if I were to settle somewhere there, Rappard would come even more...
...a nuisance that my stomach can’t take even normal things, or what I’d have an appetite for if I...
379 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, between about Thursday, 23 and about Wednesday, 29 August 1883.
in original text:
...d’une vie droite dans les commérages & les medisances des faubourgs corrompus – ge weet...
...karakter van haar, dan zeg ik voor mij – après tout kan zij niet anders zijn dan ze is, en van...
...wat de pastoor Bienvenu uit Victor Hugos Misérables gewoon was tegen leelijke, zelfs vergiftige...
in translation:
...understand that there is evil in what she does �� or doesn’t want to understand it, I sometimes...
...up the only thing that’s now keeping her more or less on the right path — her children. It’s...
...s nothing to be done about it �� or, well, yes, I’m a whore, or ‘it’s bound to end up with...
...what the priest Bienvenu in Victor Hugo’s Misérables used to say to ugly, even poisonous beasts...
...that I wasn’t trying to conceal my motives or anything like that, but understood myself that it...
...He’s taken it more as a complaint by me or a request for advice — and that was not the tone of...
...along or not depends on her. i know she’s consulting her mother. I don’t know what about. Nor do I ask. So right up to the last, very last moment of leaving she can come up with this or that...
...On leaving I’ll say to the woman: are you coming or are you staying? If she comes, then I believe...
...a certain personal character in this figure or that fragment of landscape. Anyway, if everything...
in date note:
...taking shape. It must also precede letter 380 of on or about Sunday, 2 September, which contained the...
in note 6:
The passage goes back to Victor Hugo, Les misérables, book 1, chapter 13, which describes how Bienvenu sees...
RM13 To Hendrik Jan Furnée, crossed-out fragment of an order for paint. Hoogeveen, September 1883.
in additional details:
...this crossed-out fragment. The order was probably intended for the Hague colourman Hendrik Jan Furnée (cf. letters 369 and 391). In letter 392 Van Gogh remarks: ‘For I’d had paint sent from Furnée’s’.
in note 1:
...determined whether the following list refers to watercolours or oil paints. Van Gogh used both types of paint in Drenthe; but judging by the number of tubes, this order was most likely for oil paints. It is...
380 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Sunday, 2 September 1883.
in translation:
...and making it worse by staying together, we’ll separate for a while or forever, depending on how things turn out. I say ‘or forever’ because we have reasons for having to live nonetheless, she...
...t be able to see a woman with a big belly or in a stew without drawing my own conclusions about it...
...say, I don’t know how it will turn out for her or for me if I keep on working hard, but it will...
...t mind. To stay for a time with a farmer or someone, far, far away in the country, far enough away...
...more of his time to tell me a thing or two. Wisselingh, too, came for a morning. Very pleasant...
...autumn or towards the winter, anyway when I’ve been in the country for a while, I hope to send him something. And to continue doing that. So that he’ll be abreast of what I’m doing, whether or...
381 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 5 September 1883.
in title:
381 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Wednesday, 5 September 1883.
in original text:
...plek waar alles Ruysdael, Daubigny of Jules Dupré was. Ik kwam terug met een studie van kromme, verwaaide...
...Een “paradou” is mooi doch Ghetsemané is toch mooier. Och een klein beetje lucht, een klein...
in translation:
...rain at a spot where everything was Ruisdael, Daubigny or Jules Dupré. I came back with a study of...
...on with Drenthe, whether we can spend a great deal or a little for the time being. I’ll go there...
...don’t know how it will appear in years to come, or whether that wouldn’t have been better than...
...my work and, on the contrary, I’ve strengthened a number of weak points. There are more that need...
...her mother, those two must go together down the wrong or the right road. And it will come down to...
...in short all the things whereby I can be of use or assistance. And if I can I’ll pay several weeks’ rent for them when I go, as well as a loaf a day or some such to give them yet more time to set...
...to her a marriage of convenience with a widower or someone, to which I add that she’ll have to be...
...in the least, because I know that an improvement or reform doesn’t succeed all at once but has...
...needn’t take her mistakes with me to heart or become despondent, just try to make amends by being...
in date note:
...This means that the present letter was written on or about Wednesday, 5 September 1883 at the latest.
382 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 6 September 1883.
in title:
382 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Thursday, 6 September 1883.
in translation:
...to The Hague then? No. But in, say, 1/2 a year or 1 year I may have to get in touch with some...
...then for a while I’ll probably take a room or rather an annexe well suited for use as a studio...
...be a reason for being here for a brief or a longer stay. And through this arrangement regarding my...
...were nerve-racking. The travel costs are made much simpler in this way. The only ‘drawback’, ‘disadvantage�� or whatever you want to call it is that, for my part, I really did have hope that...
...have my sorrow about one thing and another than forget or become indifferent — if you could feel...
...the beginning, with her, it was a question of all or nothing when it came to helping. I couldn’t...
in date note:
This letter goes back to the subject of the travel plans mentioned in letter 381; Van Gogh can now give more details (ll. 2-4). Since the previous letter can be dated to on or about 5 September and the next one to 7 or 8 September, we date the present letter on or about Thursday, 6 September 1883.
383 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 7 or Saturday, 8 September 1883.
in title:
383 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 7 or Saturday, 8 September 1883.
in translation:
...and I shan’t get back into my stride until I’m somewhere in the country. So I hope to be able to get away if you send something towards the 10th, if I can’t go straight through I’ll stay in a village close by for a day or two if need be.
...saw in her something like a sphinx that cannot say either yes or no. And if you were to ask me if I...
...So I intend simply to leave and to let fourteen days or so go by. Then I’ll write to them and see...
...a day or so and wait there. I’ve found splendid things in Loosduinen, old farmhouses, and the effects in the evening are superb there. In that case I would probably send my things ahead or put them...
in date note:
...on the 10th, which means that the letter dates from no later than Friday, 7 or Saturday, 8 September 1883.
384 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Monday, 10 September 1883.
in translation:
...address will be, I can only inform the post here or the landlord later on. Friend Rappard is also...
...and another. For my part I must press on or I myself will sink without getting her any further by...
...enough to get something from C.M., I’ll have one or two things I’ve picked out sent there by...
...where I will and to stay in one place for as long or as short as I please. So I’m very glad that...
...your duty will induce you to behave differently or something’. That’s something I immediately...
in note 2:
...Whether the advance – probably 100 francs – was sent all at once or in two parts is not known.
385 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, Tuesday, 11 and Wednesday, 12 September 1883.
in translation:
I’ve been talking to people here, and in a day or two I’ll take the barge and travel all the way down...
...you receive this be so good as to pop a postcard or something in the post to see if it arrives all...
...more paint, and will go from one hamlet or village to another. However this remains the address...
...Hartsuiker lodging-house keeper at Hoogeveen. The village or town here is mainly one long row...
386 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, on or about Friday, 14 September 1883.
in title:
386 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, on or about Friday, 14 September 1883.
in original text:
...van zwoegen die lijnregt het tegenovergestelde van volupté is en soms, als het schepsel oud is of...
...wat een oorspronkelijkheid hier nog is, daar après tout Hoogeveen nog eene stad is en daar vlak...
in translation:
...describe the way the exterior looks in the twilight or just after sunset than by reminding you of a...
...that is the exact opposite of voluptuousness, and sometimes, if the creature is old or sickly, arouses compassion or else respect. And the melancholy which things in general have is of a healthy kind...
...for example, barges pulled by men, women, children, white or black horses, loaded with peat, in the...
...than those in Brabant. The ovens are more or less like the ones in T. Rousseau’s Communal oven; stand in the gardens under old apple trees or among the celery and cabbages. Beehives, too, in many...
...I’ve seen some girls of, I would say, 17 or younger who still had something very beautiful and...
...There are 4 or 5 canals in the village, to Meppel, to Dedemsvaart, to Coevorden, to Hollandscheveld. If you follow them, you see here and there a curious old mill, farmhouse, shipyard or lock. And...
...poor woman on the heath with a child in her arms or at her breast my eyes become moist. I see her...
in date note:
...been written on 16 September 1883, we have dated the present letter on or about Friday, 14 September 1883.
387 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, Sunday, 16 September 1883.
in original text:
...heb waar ik nu nog niet ben geweest – voor de twee eerste keeren dus b.v. Hollandsch geld te...
...zou ik erg graag zien – er is te Courrières nog een steenkolen mijn, toen ik er op een regendag...
...de Borinage waar de “loques de fosse” voor allen ’t zelfde zijn. Nu kerel Uw...
in translation:
...I dropped you a line a couple of days ago to tell you a thing or two about the countryside here. Everything is beautiful here, wherever one goes. The heath is much vaster than it is in Brabant, near Zundert or...
...short avenue and then one comes upon a number of graves overgrown with bent-grass and heather. Many...
...and you will have your share of it. When I came here I had a number of half-used tubes of paint with me and a few new ones, enough for 6 studies or so, but certainly no more. So I’ll immediately send for something or other with the next money, again for some studies. Otherwise I’m drawing, but...
...do it here, I could get it changed in Assen or somewhere, but should you be in a position, for the...
...occasions could you send, for example, Dutch money or a postal order, that would be good, because...
...s daughter — there’s still a coal-mine in Courrières; when I went there on a rainy day the...
in note 13:
Van Gogh visited the village of Courrières in Northern France in the winter of 1879-1880; see letter 158.
388 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, on or about Friday, 21 September 1883.
in title:
388 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, on or about Friday, 21 September 1883.
in original text:
...onuitsprekelijken knoeiboel beschouw, een kweekerij van Phariséers. Dat aan durven het mij niet...
...kan uitvoeren. En misschien verliezen we daar après tout volstrekt niets bij. Het is nu eenmaal...
...je ne sais quoi qui fait qu’on les aime après tout”.– Gavarni was serieus toen hij zei, avec...
in translation:
...as a bad lot, not to be condemned or accused of this or that without being able to speak up for...
...him about them he’ll have to feel a thing or two in his conscience, whatever he may say; how I...
...except for something that’s straightforward and honest or true. It may have something to do with...
...the south-east corner of Drenthe. But in six months or so I hope I’ll have saved enough, and in...
...from that assume that she has been either unwilling or unable to do things that I advised her to do...
...my letter will be opened, probably by her brother or her mother, and secondly as long as she lives...
...are fatal, and one must avoid them despite their charm or one becomes a villain and very soon finds...
...t the slightest remorse about the acquaintance I have or have had with them. If our society were a...
...by the humble little tombstone of Béranger’s mistress, which I visited expressly (if I remember...
...do not know that besides their upright lives — for Pa’s life is upright — there are other...
in date note:
...about his latest experiences (l. 2), we have dated the letter on or about Friday, 21 September 1883.
in note 10:
...mariage’ (Love and marriage). See Oeuvres complètes. Ed. C. Bouglé et H. Moysset. Paris 1935, p. 207...
in note 11:
...it’. (Toutefois, il ne pouvait pas se tenir toujours à ces jolis préludes, on le forçait souvent à aller plus loin, et il lui arrivait de faire la remarque que les affections sont parfois gênantes. Mais il avait tellement l’habitude d’en être enveloppé, de vivre dans leur caresse et leur aimable agitation, elles étaient devenues si nécessaires au sentiment de sa vie, qu’il lui semblait, quand l’une venait...
in note 12:
...p. 418). In his ‘Notes et éclaircissements’ Michelet says that the quotation is by Etienne de...
in note 18:
...in any event Van Gogh visited the famous Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris in the summer or autumn of 1875. Béranger’s mistress, whom he called Lisette in his verse, was Nicole Françoise Judith Frère. Their...
in note 24:
Theo was having problems in �� or because of – his relationship with Marie, but no details of these difficulties are known. His parents were aware of this; from a few passages in the family correspondence it is...
389 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, Monday, 24 September 1883.
in original text:
...vernisje op om ze uit te halen. Ik zend ze om U even een kijkje te laten nemen & hierna beter – hoor.–
in translation:
...over it with the white of an egg in about a week, or some varnish in a month’s time, to lift them...
390 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, on or about Wednesday, 26 September 1883.
in title:
390 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, on or about Wednesday, 26 September 1883.
in original text:
...dat zij al haar goed (meer dan ze meebragt après tout) heeft gehaald. Nu begrijpt gij wel ik op...
in translation:
...things before the paint that I would otherwise buy, or rather I don’t dare take it on credit...
...or you had been able to feel it thus, perhaps — I don’t say that I would have been happier or...
...time, so that I may not or cannot have anything more to do with it. Or, I’ve thought, if there...
...here as a studio (by letting a bit more light in) or look for another place. And then I’d like to...
...would be allayed. But either everything falls on you or I find no one who trusts me, this is the...
...less, if they had to set themselves up or re-establish themselves somewhere. It’s above all in...
...intrigues and yet I have virtually no credit or possessions. I don’t regard your trust in me...
...state and I’m here without a studio or anything, and will be embarrassed everywhere until I can...
...m embarrassed. What’s to be done? Will things worsen or improve with time? I don’t know, but I...
...it cannot be otherwise, yet I wonder if the number of dark and dreary days can’t sometimes get...
in date note:
...issues in it – the present letter must have been written on or about Wednesday, 26 September 1883.
391 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, Friday, 28 September 1883.
in original text:
...de kaart hoe ver het is van Mons tot Courrières, dien weg deed ik te voet van af Valenciennes heen...
...t land in waagde zonder ruggesteun.– Voor ik begin – het is geen wantrouwen, geen verdenking van U doch eenvoudig een maatregel van gezond verstand – voor ik begin – zeg ik – (en vrage...
...het is een jaar van hard werk geweest en après tout met kalmte zie ik er op terug.– En wat er...
in translation:
...regardless. Only it wasn’t possible, I was missing 4 or 5 colours, and so I came back again very...
...tramp on and tramp on like a vagabond into infinity without finding either rest or food or shelter anywhere, moreover without the possibility of doing any work. See for yourself on the map how far it is from Mons to Courrières, I covered that road there on foot from Valenciennes, and back to Mons...
...and their relationship to what you might have available or be able to find for it. I must speak of...
...countryside despite the season, not doubting that everywhere (or where I’ll go, at any rate) I...
...the countryside and must be prepared for everything or, I repeat, it would be madness. I wouldn’t...
...� or rather this ignorance. And yet last year is not wasted or not fruitless — it has been a year of hard work and, after all, I look back on it with tranquillity. And as to my not having my hands as free as I’d wish at the moment — they’re not free anyway — even if help comes — for a...
in note 3:
See for this walk to Courrières: letter 158.
392 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Wednesday, 3 October 1883.
in title:
392 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Wednesday, 3 October 1883.
in translation:
...the canal as miles and miles of Michels or T. Rousseaus, say, Van Goyens or P. de Koninck. Flat planes or strips differing in colour, which grow narrower and narrower as they approach the horizon. Accentuated here and there by a sod hut or small farm or a few scrawny birches, poplars, oaks. Stacks of peat everywhere, and always barges sailing past with peat or bulrushes from the marshes. Here and...
...types among them, physiognomies that remind one of pigs or crows, but every so often there’s a...
...and covered the whole sky, but tufts in tints more or less of lilac — grey — white — a single...
...The spiky silhouettes of Don Quixote-like mills or strange hulks of drawbridges are profiled...
...in the water or in mud and puddles. Before I left Hoogeveen I painted a few more studies there, among them a large farmhouse with a mossy roof. For I’d had paint sent from Furnée’s, because I...
...find a few croquis on the back. I write in haste, or rather it’s already late. How I wish that we...
in date note:
...all he writes that he cannot yet provide a permanent address because he doesn’t know where he will be ‘for the next few days’ (l. 69). We have therefore dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 3 October 1883.
in note 2:
...starch, the young stems are edible as salad plants or vegetables. Even the immature, still-green flowering...
in note 3:
...clothes and veils. A cap brooch is a casque or clasp made of precious metal worn under a woman’s...
in note 8:
...Charles-François Daubigny – engraved by Ernest Philippe Boetzel – are known to have appeared in the Album Boetzel; they are Effet de lune (Moonlight effect) (1865), Une mare dans le Morvan (A pond in the Morvan) (1869) and Le pré des Graves; Villerville (The meadow at Graves; Villerville) (1870). Cf. Henriet 1875. In view of the nature of the picture, Effet de lune would seem to be the most likely. Ill. 48...
in note 14:
...Gogh meant the so-called ‘straw village’, a number of huts to the south of the de Verlengde...
393 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Sunday, 7 October 1883.
in title:
393 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Sunday, 7 October 1883.
in translation:
...just like Ruisdael, just like Jules Dupré. Here’s a little scratch from the peat fields...
...the best relations there, that’s to say with Knoedler or anyone else. Even if it’s only in...
...know where or how things are disjointed the worst. Now you’ll say, yes, but the painter’s affairs are much worse, less secure, and there too it could be that personal energy or personal passion...
...by someone who is further along. It comes down to personal effort, but the road is easier or harder depending on whether one is alone or not. And the worst thing is this absolutely having to know this or that, and if one asks for something the other turns his back on you. This is something beastly...
in date note:
...formulations, words and expressions can be a reason for placing letters close to or after one another. Below we give an overview of the dating of the letters in question; we set out the arguments for this dating in the notes to the individual letters. In the present letter Van Gogh writes that he had walked around in Nieuw-Amsterdam ‘for a couple of days’ (l. 3). Some days had therefore passed since the previous letter written on or about Wednesday, 3 October, which was the first from this village. Moreover the letter was written at least a few days before 12 October, because he says that this is when he will be back in Hoogeveen again (l. 161). Although no exact date can be derived from this information, the letter has been dated on or about Sunday, 7 October 1883. The other attributed dates are then: 394 Friday, 12 October 395 Friday, 12 or Saturday, 13 October 396 on or about Monday, 15 October 397 on or about Tuesday, 16 October 398 on or about Monday, 22 October 399 on or about Friday, 26 October 400 Sunday, 28 October 401 on or about Wednesday, 31 October 402 Friday, 2 November 403 on or about Monday, 5 November 404 on or about Thursday, 8 November 405 Sunday, 11 November 406 Monday, 12 or Tuesday, 13 November 407 Monday, 26 November 408 Saturday, 1...
in note 5:
...rise of the art world in America. Knoedler at 150. S. Hunter and M. de Medeiros. Exhib. cat. New York...
in note 7:
The reading of ‘Bock’ is uncertain; it may say ‘Back�� or ‘Buck’.
in textual note 64:
als vriend Bock/ < Added later; possibly it reads ‘Back�� or ‘Buck’.
394 To Theo van Gogh. Hoogeveen, Friday, 12 October 1883.
in original text:
...koelen schouder toedraaijen, een nous n’avons plus à nous en occuper, of zoo.– Met dat al is...
...whatever zal zijn. Maar gesteld ergens was après tout een draaikolk met bijbehoorende puntige rots...
...Nous sommes aujourd’hui ce que nous étions hier, al valt die bliksem of al mogt het eens...
in translation:
...or in throwing those thoughts overboard as impractical, and precisely when one is 20 or so, one is...
...whether you are one or not, whether you would be able to produce something or not if you learned to...
...doesn’t say I’m so-and-so, I’m this or that. One presents oneself for a new situation serious...
...something more about the business, and what you see or hear is pretty disgusting. And soon it’s...
...our sakes, and believe me I fully understand that, or at least can understand it to a very great...
...want, unanimously and sincerely, however much we differ or don’t differ among ourselves. What are...
...heart, finer than nerves, are shocked or experience pain. We are today what we were yesterday, even if the lightning strikes or even, perhaps, should it thunder. Are we or are we not the sort who...
...reasons for it. If I were to say to Ma or to Wil or Lies, pose for me, it would have to happen. I...
...leave because you make things impossible for me, or would part from you in any unreasonable way. If...
in note 9:
The question of whether or not to become a painter came up in letter 274 of 22 October 1882.
395 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Friday, 12 or Saturday, 13 October 1883.
in title:
395 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Friday, 12 or Saturday, 13 October 1883.
in original text:
...ik indirekt iets weet van de vrouw. Ik kon après tout er geen touw aan vast maken waarom zij mij...
...Er zijn hier verbazende types van afgescheiden dominés met varkensgezigten en steeken. Ook veel...
...entourage en er op hun plaats zijn. Maar eer de dominés, zóó als ik er hier zag, de hoogte van...
in translation:
...with a cradle beside it. If I feel melancholy or can’t work something out, I just go downstairs...
...as my agreement, which was expressly made with him and with her, but I do not want now or ever to conceal or to have to conceal myself, and I’d rather write to her at her family’s address than...
...and faithful to nature. There are Jules Dupré effects — yes, there are certainly those, but in...
...it’s the local colour of a green field or a reddish-brown heath which, viewed in isolation, can...
...who look extraordinarily ugly amidst Milletesque types or on this unsophisticated, sad heath. On...
...possible, one would say, in countryside like this? Why can’t they look out of the window or smoke pipes or something, and at any rate behave as reasonably as their pigs, say, which aren’t a...
in arrangement:
...scratches’ (l. 1); we do not know which these were or whether there was any letter text on them.
in date note:
...address in Nieuw-Amsterdam. The sheet consequently dates from Friday, 12 or Saturday, 13 October 1883.
396 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Monday, 15 October 1883.
in title:
396 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Monday, 15 October 1883.
in original text:
...het dan niets zijn dat gij geheel & al zoudt opfrisschen en U vernieuwen hier.– Door & door, weet ge – door en door alles, alles vernieuwen. Ik kan niet anders schrijven dan ik schrijf.– Gij...
in translation:
...resolved, it has been largely cleared up. When I think now about the possibility or impossibility of your coming here, now or later, and start working it out, then I come to the conclusion that together we’d need little more or no more than I alone. And besides, for myself I firmly believe that...
...so to speak, but that I make one thing or another. I can’t help but make progress precisely...
...on. However, one does get nearer. In a while, longer or shorter, I don’t know how long, I’ll...
...in a big batch of paint, to set ourselves up properly. Few things could then upset us or divert us from our plan, or anything else. Then we must and then we can. We’ll have assured our lives as...
...and where are they less than here, and where or how on earth can a time of struggle lead to a more...
...has already changed you — your own impotence or power is irrelevant here. No, the renewal of life...
...t know the future, how it could be different or not, whether everything will go well for us. But...
in date note:
...or about Sunday, 14 October; letters 394 and 395). The present letter must moreover precede letter 397 because Van Gogh included a letter sketch in that one, noting ‘This was a very different field from the one I scribbled for you yesterday, but this is the singular thing about it here, always precisely the same and yet just that variation’ (ll. 203-205). We suggest that he is referring there to the first sketch in the present letter. On these grounds we have dated the letter on or about Monday, 15 October 1883...
in note 1:
...soleil couché, comme cela m’est arrivé plus d’une fois. Le lendemain matin, je me regardais...
397 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Tuesday, 16 October 1883.
in title:
397 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Tuesday, 16 October 1883.
in original text:
...was ver gevorderd. Wisselingh heeft gewacht – voor hij ging reeds.– En dat is te vergeefs geweest...
...dat hij een tijd malende was.– Nu, maar après tout, over toestand der zaak – het negatieve van...
...gebeuren wat gebeuren moet” heeft.– Werkt – et après – ’k weet het niet.– Ik wil U...
...de moeielijkheden wegneemt aan de uitvoering verbonden, en après tout ’t leven serieus is en men...
in translation:
...It’s not a crazy, not a bombastic piety or fanaticism, it’s something simple and solid. I’m...
...about becoming a painter than about a new post, or easier than at G&Cie even. And now, old chap...
...keep trusting me — trust me a little bit more, or rather not me, but trust in the same thing in...
...at once people, even your best friends, become more or less like strangers. You’re involved with...
...feels them, are very deep. Naturally one says little or nothing about them, it would be a mistake...
...strong, broad view. Not doubting, sitting dozing or letting ourselves be disconcerted. I’d feel...
...speaking it mattered less how things stood with this or that. But what I say is, you’ll most...
...company — I’m not interested in what will happen or how it will end, and actually I don’t...
...by coming to Paris or perhaps by having to stay at home for a time until circumstances improve. If it has to be so, I naturally hope I’ll be able to go along reasonably with one or the other. But...
in date note:
...was ‘yesterday’ (l. 203) and of which he sent sketches. If ‘yesterday’s’ letter was written on or about Monday, 15 October (letter 396), the present letter must be dated on or about Tuesday, 16 October 1883.
in note 3:
...les cinq mille francs, sans lesquels, d’une prudence de juif sous les dehors d’un étourdi aimable, il ne se serait jamais risqué à Paris.) Mouret thinks of large businesses and modern shops: ‘It was the bold venture that he sought...he became heated, showed himself full of contempt for the old way of trading, in the depths of dark, damp shops with no window displays, described in gestures a new way of trading, piling up every kind of feminine luxury into palaces of crystal.’ (C’était l’affaire d’audace qu’il cherchait... Il s’échauffait, se montrait plein de mépris pour l’ancien commerce, au fond des boutiques humides noires, sans étalage, évoquait du geste un commerce nouveau, entassant tout le luxe de la femme dans des palais de christal.) See Zola 1960-1967, vol. 3, chapter 1, p. 13 and chapter 9, p. 171. Cf. for Pot-bouille also letter 283....
in note 4:
Taken from Victor Hugo, Les misérables, part 4, book 1, chapter 4: ‘A revolution is a return from the...
in note 6:
...used’ this expression is not confirmed by Sensier or Burty 1877. See for the only time that the...
in note 13:
...from Victor Hugo’s poem La légende des siècles (1859), (see letter 288, n. 8). It appears that Van...
398 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Monday, 22 October 1883.
in title:
398 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Monday, 22 October 1883.
in original text:
...ie, al was ik er maar een van de minste employés, toch zelfs nu nog na 10 jaren minstens voel hoe...
...Zij zijn begonnen tijdens Oom V. met weinig employés, die zij lang niet zóó uit de hoogte...
...ge wel. Ik geloof ook nog bovendien dat après tout als men ’t handwerk kent, een handwerk het...
...Stakkers. Courage moeten we toch maar hebben – malgré als ’t niet van zelf gaat.– Ik krabbel...
...hij is evenmin wakker als een slaapwandelaar.– Voor zichzelf moet men niet twijfelen, het ligt in...
...zien. Gij en ik zijn geloof ik eerlijk genoeg après tout om niet te behoeven te vreezen onze oogen...
in translation:
...one did feel so obliged, one could wait forever, or rather, until the point when a young employee...
...s character (although he never told me this, or anyone else); but I came to this conclusion myself...
...But if I were to work at a printer’s or something, it would help rather than hinder me — althou...
...that it might do some good or was more appropriate for one reason or another. Well, I am not...
...I’ve seen and, in questions of reproduction or publishing, yes I also know what’s beautiful. If...
...in Paris for one reason or another, because there was no choice or it was more convenient, then I...
...to see light ahead of me and, one way or another, by practising on my own, by learning anything I...
...Corot — wouldn’t have painted any less, or less beautifully, if that huge boom hadn’t taken...
...will turn out, it’s all the same to me, one way or the other. And as for you, I still don’t see...
...out as a boy — but with more maturity. Dick or Harry, who just sits there dozing, thinks this is...
in date note:
...than we should otherwise have done, that is on or about Monday, 22 October 1883. We have no indication...
in note 8:
...whether this sketch, Workmen beside a mound of peat (F - / JH 416), was based on a drawing or a painting.
in note 12:
...or publishing. A formulation a few letters later points in the same direction: ‘I wouldn’t have thought that if, say, you’d been able to write, I’m on to something in the sphere of printing, for instance, or...
399 To Theodorus van Gogh and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Friday, 26 October 1883.
in title:
399 To Theodorus van Gogh and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Friday, 26 October 1883.
in original text:
...bijenkorf. Ziedaar de dingen in ’t groot – voor mij bewonderenswaardig zoo als ze zijn – en...
in translation:
...sometimes thought that she wasn’t entirely happy, or rather, for my part I don’t doubt it for a moment...
...as attractive and orderly as an ants’ nest or beehive. So there you have things writ large — I...
...for one moment in saying that these heathland people or peat workers seem better to me. Yes, the...
in date note:
...on to Theo that day – we have dated the letter on or about Friday, 26 October 1883. In Brieven 1914 Jo...
400 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Sunday, 28 October 1883.
in original text:
...en” met zijn grandes & petites misères, met zijn calamiteiten, met zijn Sorrows & griefs – dit...
...jour – als wij niet werken “comme plusieurs nègres” dan moeten we van honger sterven en het...
...zoo vol goeden wil en goeden moed, zelfs bij misères. Denk gij over een & ander, schrijf over een...
in translation:
...Do I say this because I despise refinement or something? — just the very opposite, because I...
...1? For myself, I don’t even think about whether I lose or don’t lose by it, I only know that my...
...to become thus, I don’t claim that either you or I are already sufficiently thus — I say, let...
...the merrier. And I say — if this was so or came to pass, this joining together to work one’s...
...here don’t seem to me to be unpleasant or scheming. There’s something benevolent here, and I...
...t know then how things were regarding teaching or evangelism — knew nothing about them — and...
...is Barbizon, is the Dutch school of painters, a fact or not a fact? Whatever else the art world may...
...We say, we made a mistake when we were children, or rather we had to do what we were told then, and...
...something reasonable, like the peasant guiding his plough or like our friend in the scratch, who is...
...but to the school of Millet, Israëls, Breton, Boughton, Herkomer, several others. In short, those...
in note 3:
See for this derivation from the book Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville: letter...
in note 18:
This saying by Gustave Doré has not been identified.
in note 20:
This phrase is taken from Hugo’s Les misérables: see letter 397, n. 4.
in textual note 252:
...inserted later; it is uncertain whether the quotation should be placed here, or at the end of the sentence.
401 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Wednesday, 31 October 1883.
in title:
401 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Wednesday, 31 October 1883.
in translation:
...the bulges whether it’s a sack of potatoes or corn; or again, even if the barn door is shut, I...
...easily. In short, consider whether fatality is For or decidedly Against. Tell me this one thing...
...to be done about this? �� or do you feel: redress is possible, there’s no reason to change as yet? For myself, unless you were to write to me yourself: no it isn’t that bad — for myself I see...
...it. Look here — about now or ever — making yourself scarce or disappearing — neither you nor...
...if they do or do not have the decidedly fatal aspect — well then I’ll believe your simple statement: ‘I do see a chance of one thing and another working out’ (or similar information) when you...
...it went on, and more doubtful as to whether or not it really was duty; furthermore that through...
...than ever happened before. This is not about weakening or giving up; on the contrary it’s about...
...speaks of it very differently from Pa, for instance — for he leaves it more vague, yet I see more...
in date note:
...dates from Friday, 2 November, we have dated the present letter on or about Wednesday, 31 October 1883.
in note 7:
...Drenthe during one of the sales trips with nouveautés that he undertook for the Hague branch of Goupil in...
402 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Friday, 2 November 1883.
in original text:
...wijd open als den ingang eener donkere spelonk.– Door de reten der planken er achter schijnt het...
in translation:
...had to go to the market in Assen). Along a road, or ‘diek’ as they say here, which they’d put mud...
...hedge, the flat landscapes of heath or wheatfields, everything, everything became just exactly like...
...wide, among oak trees of a superb bronze. Tones of golden green in the moss, of reddish or bluish or yellowish dark lilac greys in the soil, tones of inexpressible purity in the green of the little...
...but that infinite earth, that mould of wheat or heather, that infinite sky. Horses, people seem as...
...wheel. The day was over, and from dawn to dusk, or rather from one night to the other night, I had...
in note 14:
What Theo sent had to be cashed or changed at a post office or bank in Hoogeveen. Cf. Dijk and Van der Sluis 2001, pp. 301-303.
403 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Monday, 5 November 1883.
in title:
403 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Monday, 5 November 1883.
in original text:
...denkende mannelijke ziel – vredig – goed – voor gij dat in Uw werk uitdrukken kunt, moet er...
...meer van ouderen & nieuweren tijd. staan Pa prejugés die hij doorvoerde zijn leven lang met een...
...waarheid zie.– Nu beste broer – voor Millet, Corot, Daubigny, Breton, Herkomer, Boughton, Jules...
...dan naar dat van Vader, meester of wie verder.– Voor mij is Pa & Tersteeg iets als de rigting...
in translation:
...as you pick up a brush or a piece of chalk and, clumsily or not clumsily, make something. Before...
...people think it conceited of me or anything else — all the same I say, you’ll show me the way and I’ll pay more heed to your example than to that of Father, master or anyone else. To me, Pa...
...t alter the fact that I say, the least painter or human being who wrestles directly with the naked...
...neither do I want to conceal myself from you or do anything other than speak out forthrightly. I...
...other name for it but the white ray or goodness. Not regarding ourselves as already having acquired...
...me as being influenced by hatred or malice towards them. I don’t envy them, in my view they’re not happy themselves, and at bottom I’m certainly not their enemy or their hater, nor do I regard...
...new love of and wrestling with nature, happy or unhappy, brings me a faltering step closer. As to...
...with as many pent-up tears as the figures by Mantegna or Giotto, at the same time we can have a...
in arrangement:
...number of reasons, however, we do not believe that it dates from that period. It was written on a type of squared paper which Van Gogh did not use in Nuenen, and it contains no references – direct or indirect – to the situation in Nuenen. In the wording ‘when we had a bit of an argument in The Hague not long ago’ (l. 209), where Van Gogh refers to Theo’s visit to The Hague in early August, ‘not long ago’ is a rather improbable choice of words were this to have been written in the middle of December: it would then have to relate to a visit that must have taken place at an entirely different time of the year – over the Drenthe period. This last consideration is also an argument for moving the fragment to the Drenthe period, when Theo’s future was a dominant theme. Furthermore, the same squared notepaper occurs several times then. In the closing passage Vincent also uses the expression that he resorted to more than once in Drenthe to give Theo the courage to change his profession and become a painter: ‘collier’s faith’ (see letters 396 and 397). And on these pages he talks about an argument with his father and with H.G. Tersteeg – the latter was not a factor in the conflict in Nuenen. Aside from this, we see two further reasons for placing this section with the present letter. In it Van Gogh names a number of painters whose attitudes and views he holds in respect, and contrasts them with his father (ll. 125-127). The same comparison using some of the same painters’ names occurs in the new section (ll. 172-173). And that section begins with an apology for the clumsiness which with Van Gogh puts his thoughts into words – something that echoes what he says a little earlier in the letter, namely that he can only express himself ‘falteringly, chaotically and roughly...
in date note:
...In the absence of any further points of reference we have spaced the letters evenly during this period, so we have dated letter 403 on or about Monday, 5 November and letter 404 on or about Thursday, 8 November 1883.
404 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Thursday, 8 November 1883.
in title:
404 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, on or about Thursday, 8 November 1883.
in translation:
...lose more by it than you gain. If you still want to take this route and engage in Parisian or American or whatever business again, well then I would quietly let you go your own way, but I’ve stated...
...other things will work out well. It was perhaps, or rather certainly, a mistake on our part not to...
405 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Sunday, 11 November 1883.
in original text:
...mits ik maar tevens teekenen en schilderen mag. En – voor mijn leven is mijn plan zoo veel en zoo...
...Ik weet daar helaas het mijne van.– Après tout – zelfs ondanks ons eigen tegen ons zelf zijn...
in translation:
...As to doubting oneself, whether one is an artist or not — that entire question is too much of an...
...that more practical questions concerning putting a figure or a landscape together would come to the...
...attach to a torso than whether or not I myself am more of an artist or less. I think that you...
...a God or does He not exist, this is no reason for us deliberately to commit a godless act, is it? Likewise the question, artistically, am I an artist or not? shouldn’t lead us not to draw or not to...
...them is wrong. Now, if the work doesn’t go well or one runs up against a lack of knowledge, one...
...to be only a thinker or only a machine, that has a need both for principles of simplicity and for motivated work at the same time, I do not admit a separation or divergence, much less that you and I...
...no questions. Well, think about it, more or less, for a long or short while. But it wouldn’t help...
...believe that living together again would be desirable or possible. Pity may not be love, but that...
in note 2:
...time, intelligence’ (Les fronts sensiblement carrés annoncent en général un caractère ferme et sûr...
406 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Monday, 12 or Tuesday, 13 November 1883.
in title:
406 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Monday, 12 or Tuesday, 13 November 1883.
in translation:
...of ideas, everything that isn’t specific things or facts, to be superfluous and even nonsense in...
...of other doubtful benefits, such as direct or indirect relationships with influential people &c...
...might perhaps take a chance in Paris or in London or The Hague, in short at a printer’s or illustrated magazine in a city, at the same time trying to make drawings or paintings and to sell them of...
...no benefit in being there for good, either for me or for you. Perhaps I might have to be there for...
...and I regard anything that isn’t painting or drawing as an irrelevance to me. Adieu, old chap, in...
...I mean by saying ‘staying at G&Cie permanently or decidedly’? Look — winter is almost upon us...
...this staying permanently or definitely, and then seek to take another direction, or rather force...
...a sort of fatal doom rests on moral weakness or lack of courage. Consequently, my plan is always to...
...in a profession against your will with my knowledge, more or less for my sake; I certainly don’t...
in date note:
...or about Monday, 12 November, but because the previous letter dates from 11 November and there is no reason to suppose that Van Gogh wrote the present letter on the same day, we have ruled out Sunday, 11 November as a possibility. We consequently date the letter Monday, 12 or Tuesday, 13 November 1883...
in note 6:
After an initial shipment of three studies on or about 23 September (see letter 389), this was the second...
in note 11:
Possibly a quotation or derived from one.
407 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Monday, 26 November 1883.
in original text:
...Mijn woorden mogen somber zijn – goed.– Voor mij zelf heb ik wel oogenblikken dat alles mij...
in translation:
...however, I already hinted that it only half pleased me, or rather that it worried me much more than...
...opposite, I also believe that, despite good fortune or ill fortune, you are safe, albeit only in...
...make or whatever decision you take or don’t take — that whether you’d become better or worse in my view — and also whether or not more or less direct rapport with regard to money or business...
...at one doesn’t blame the other or is hostile or becomes malicious, or makes the other’s life...
...things will, thank God, remain free of fantasy or intrigue. Which sadly isn’t always the case...
...which, however, aren’t yet fatal or irreparable in any event — and which I don’t even want to touch on now. Don’t regard this letter or previous letters as mistrustful, as suspicious...
...she simple, does she stand on the ordinary ground, or is there a little weed of a rather dangerous...
...should have any. Let people think something of it or talk about it, fine, I’ve long since ceased...
in note 5:
In view of what follows, this means a new idea for financial investment or speculation.
408 To Theo van Gogh. Nieuw-Amsterdam, Saturday, 1 December 1883.
in original text:
...ik heenga, ik weiger niet heen te gaan”, door U anders is opgevat en het werkelijk gecalmeerd is...
in translation:
...no question here of anything of the kind or similar. However, I do understand your interpretation...
...for the sake of father, mother, sister, brother or wife’. There you have my meaning — perhaps...
...make you feel: either it has to be like this or it is a misunderstanding. Be aware of this, though...
...be an ultimatum —whether I was ‘flush�� OR in ‘agony’. It seems to me that the conclusion that I spoke as if I was ‘flush’ was rather shallow or hasty on your part — although it must...
...s any possibility of my feeling ‘flush’ for the time being �� or that I felt it then. I say...
...difficult life is a phenomenon like the blackthorn, or better yet a gnarled old apple tree which...
...I shall not be the first — nor have I been — for the moment your interpretation runs very far...
...I can arouse some interest in certain plans of mine �� or if no one wants to come back to Drenthe...
...each very small in itself, make something possible or impossible. Don’t take it amiss of me, but...
in date note:
...The letter must therefore have been written on or about Sunday, 2 December. Since Jo van Gogh-Bonger...
in note 4:
...of this borrowing from the book Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville, see...
in note 7:
...children, in which the influence of Jean-François Millet can be traced. Little is known about his life...
in note 8:
...if it was possible to advance him the 14 guilders or if needs be half of it. I sent him a 14-guilder...
409 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 6 December 1883.
in title:
409 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 6 December 1883.
in original text:
...reis begon met een wandeling van ruim 6 uur – door de heide meestal – n. Hoogeveen.– Op een...
...doen die ze er in zien – voor hun is ’t onderscheid dat gij en ik zien tusschen tulp en schilderij niet zigtbaar – zij, de speculateurs en pochards blasés en een boel anderen, zouden ook nu...
...zeker “qu’est ce que ça me fait” voor, behalve – behalve – behalve – dat ik voor mij...
...universel als zullende men daar van employés iets anders vragen dan G&Cie vraagt. Moniteur, G&Cie...
...gaat, het U zou gaan in een ander huis.– Voor zich zelf beginnen in een tijd dat een verkoeling...
...ik weet niet uit welk boek, deux yeux éclaircies par de vraies larmes veillaient – ik dacht, ik...
...precies pleizierig, denk ik, enfin ’t is toch après tout nog beter te gronde te gaan dan een...
...de bekwaamheden had waarmede anderen rijk worden.– Voor geld ben ik niet onverschillig maar ik...
in translation:
...few years’ time a number of large art businesses — for example Moniteur Universel — in a word...
...proportion — of which it can be said: this or that transaction was genuinely out of belief in art...
...Rembrandt Rembrandt, Israëls Israëls &c., whether it costs ten cents or a hundred thousand to buy...
...we’re still free to act in one way or another. And as regards you or me, we are what we are, and...
...such as you say Moniteur Universel is �� or Petit �� or Arnold & Tripp. I tell you frankly, I...
...directly or indirectly. Another thing is, if I can provide for myself by doing this or that here or there, I won’t look such a gift horse in the mouth. If it proves to be my duty to do this or that...
...that I can’t take the old pleasure in this or in that? In short, I thought, can I be mistaking...
...men in Holland after those mastodons Mesdag, Israëls, Mauve, Blommers, Maris &c. will, under no...
...and — I myself am not a wolf either, I hope, or rather I know. Suppose that both you and I are...
in date note:
...or 11.39, whereas he writes of ‘my long trudge across the heath on that stormy evening’ (ll. 199-201). If he left by the early train on 5 December, he had a choice of two connections: one, via Utrecht, would have got him to Nuenen at 17.10; the other, via Nijmegen, at 15.50. (See Dijk and Van der Sluis 2001, pp. 183-184 and Tjeu Hermans and Jack van Hoek, ‘Wanneer arriveerde Vincent van Gogh in Nuenen? Een reis van Veenoord naar Nuenen in December 1883’, De Drijehornickels. Heemkundekring Nuenen 7-1 (1998), pp. 69.) Vincent writes that he had ‘just’ (l. 5) received Theo’s letter of 1 December in Nuenen. This letter from Paris, via Drenthe, could not reasonably have arrived before 5 or 6 December. We have consequently dated the letter on or about Thursday, 6 December 1883...
in note 6:
...Musées de la Hollande by E.J.T. Thoré (writing under the pseudonym W. Bürger): ‘If Rembrandts have left Holland, it is decidedly the fault of the debased taste of the Dutch amateurs of the eighteenth century. At public sales then, Rembrandts sold for 20 florins! but Van der Werffs and Lairesses fetched as much as 3 or 4,000 florins!’ (Si les Rembrandt ont quitté la Hollande, c’est bien la faute du goût dégradé des amateurs hollandais au XVIIIe siècle. Les Rembrandt se payaient alors en vente publique...20 florins! mais les van der Werff et les Lairesse montaient à 3 ou 4,000 florins!). See Thoré 1858-1860, vol. 2, p. 170, n. 1. The ‘periwig age’ is a reference to the latter part of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. Huge sums were paid for Millet’s work – his Angelus had fetched very high prices in 1867 and 1872. See letter 17, n. 3....
410 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 7 December 1883.
in title:
410 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 7 December 1883.
in translation:
...that this was something so important to my succeeding or not succeeding that it was made ten times...
...something in Pa that grates like dry sand, glass or tin — despite all his outward mildness — if...
...and our view, weighty or less weighty, takes nothing from and adds nothing to the essence of things. That’s how I think about it when I’m lying awake at night, for instance, or that’s how I...
...I was younger I used to think much more than now that the problem lay in coincidences or little things or misunderstandings that were groundless. But as I get older I draw back from that more and...
...normal life — as if nothing had happened or nothing would happen. The burden didn’t weigh on...
...AS they feel. Our actions, our swift readiness or our hesitation, that’s how we can be recognized — not by what we say with our lips — friendly or unfriendly. Good intentions, opinions, in fact...
...I don’t care so much about a friendly or unfriendly reception, what grieves me is that they...
in date note:
...was written the day after letter 409. Since that has been dated on or about Thursday, 6 December, we are placing the present letter on or about Friday, 7 December 1883. It precedes letter 411, which is a direct...
in note 5:
...and in my view often lack the suppleness or elasticity that most ordinary pens have to some...
411 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 8 December 1883.
in title:
411 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 8 December 1883.
in original text:
...dat op dit moment ik al weer moeielijk extrêmes vermijden kan, daar de verhouding waarin ik mij...
in translation:
It’s still early; I wanted to add a word or two to my letter of yesterday in order to try to make a few...
...also has differences with his father about this or that, but that they always avoid extremes not...
...it is. That when I think about whether it’s right or wrong to accept money from you, I have to...
...C.M.’s, more and more wrong. My position vis-à-vis you now is this: on the one hand I believe...
...a character like Pa or C.M. and by always being involved in business acquired an outlook on life entirely different from mine — a trader’s spirit, that is became a more or less political person...
...Van Gogh’. But if you were to become a personality — played a part in the world like Pa or C.M. or Uncle V. even, very well, I wouldn’t interfere with that, I would accept you as you were, I...
...years, you won’t start to view some questions more or less as I do. Why? Because you’ll also be...
in date note:
...written the day after letter 410. Because that letter has been dated on or about Friday, 7 December, we are dating the present letter on or about Saturday, 8 December 1883. It precedes letter 413, in which the...
in note a:
Means: ‘voor me houden, verzwijgen’ (keep to myself, withhold).
413 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 15 December 1883.
in title:
413 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 15 December 1883.
in original text:
...de famielie zijn zoo bijster fijn (niet gevoelig er achter evenwel) en – en – het zijn dominés – veel dominés. De hond ziet dus in dat indien men hem hield het te veel een hem verdragen, een...
...s sauvage”.– En wegens nu ik in dezen tijd van mijn leven weet van mij zelf dat ik sterke hartstogten heb en ook m.i. moet hebben – zoo zie ik mij zelf er dan ook op aan ik misschien “très...
in translation:
...so that I don’t ‘make it difficult’ for you or for Pa any more. I’m now prepared to make it...
...perhaps much more even than you know or feel, your friend and even Pa’s friend. With a handshake. Ever yours, Vincent. In any event I’m not an enemy of Pa’s or yours, nor shall ever be that...
...to stay here — regardless of how it would be taken or what might come of it — when, though, the...
...I have to decide. A door has to be open or shut. I don’t understand anything in between, and in...
...may not seem so to you or you may not believe it of me. I mean that I probably humour Pa in some things that I would take amiss in a man with his full faculties — for the aforementioned reason. I...
...Although, for that matter, taking issue in words or about principles with a man who, mark you...
...I’m not doing it in the first place or primarily out of self-interest. In this I see that...
...acted capriciously or recklessly or, well, you know it better than I do, whereas I was more or less...
in date note:
...or shortly after 11 December. This can be deduced from the words: ‘because I received money from you twice here’, and from Van Gogh’s remark that he had sent the 10 December money on to Van Rappard to repay an earlier loan from him (ll. 50-51 and l. 136). He also writes: ‘Send me the usual by return, if you can’, (ll. 132-133). From this request we can infer that he expected the third remittance in December slightly earlier than usual (on the 20th). We have therefore dated the letter on or about Saturday, 15 December 1883...
414 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 16 December 1883.
in title:
414 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 16 December 1883.
in translation:
...as strangers, other people, don’t think of yourself or of me or Pa). One of them says, ‘I’m...
...and, man or dog, in short a being with feeling’. So, the one, a certain position or affluence...
...to read &c. &c. — by the mill in Rijswijk. Or, for example, on an outing to Chaam in the winter...
...head always has to be full of keeping this up or keeping that up, even if things like that take him...
...precisely the opposite of what one is taken to be or thinks oneself to be. For instance — at this...
...me here were in no way intended to cause Pa or you expense, but on the contrary to make better use...
...Rappards who, although they’re wealthier than Pa or you or I, go about things more sensibly and...
...am not content with a sham or too feeble a reconciliation? Reconciliation with reservations, conditions etc., bah! — I refuse to accept it. Readily or not at all; willingly, or else it’s utterly...
...t believe that there’s anything to reconcile or make up, Pa thinks about other things — very...
in date note:
...413, in which he had compared himself to a dog – he repeats this metaphor now. Since that letter was written on or about Saturday, 15 December, we have dated the present letter on or about Sunday, 16 December 1883.
in note 1:
...is an important memory in the relationship between the brothers, on a number of occasions. See letter 11.
415 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 December 1883.
in title:
415 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 December 1883.
in original text:
...ik U mijn laatsten brief waarin ik zeg au fond “après tout kan het niet en ik vind een bepaalde...
...is Pa – dat is “een domine”. Voor mij onuitsprekelijk desperaat om mee te spreken. Was Pa...
in translation:
...though they cause it from time to time, or deliberately placing obstacles in my path, even though I...
...once reminded you), there’s something very narrow-minded, or rather icy cold, about Pa. I can’t...
...I cannot say that I think Pa is straightforward, or simple and clear enough. And now there’s a...
...the frequent absorption that everyone who paints, writes or composes must have by the very nature...
...feel and understand these words even if one has absolutely no pretensions to being ‘a righteous man�� or of passing oneself off as one. Although a minister in general, but more specifically Pa in...
...no other or more correct definition than Hugo’s words, ‘he has the black ray’, or the words...
...principles. A normal person, you or I, if we’d done something like that, we would, I believe, I hope, I trust, have regretted it long, long since, whether we were at fault or were right. Should you...
...talk to you first, not to Pa, about other changes or matters — and you and I together will get Pa...
in date note:
...or about 15 December, he asked Theo to send the usual ‘by return’. We know from a letter from Mr van Gogh to Theo that Vincent went to Utrecht on Thursday, 20 December 1883: ‘left with 25 guilders on him – including the 23 guilders you just sent’ (FR b2250), which means that the present letter must date from before his departure, in other words before the 20th. It is therefore dated on or about Tuesday, 18 December 1883...
in note 5:
...on Ernest Renan: See Pierre Mille, Anthologies des humoristes Français contemporains. Paris 1920, p. 50.
416 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 21 December 1883.
in translation:
...want to act as if I didn’t know her or something. And I wished that at home they could realize...
in note 6:
...16 was the address of Lodging-House number 1 of the Haagsche Maatschappij voor Kosthuizen...
417 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 26 December 1883.
in title:
417 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 26 December 1883.
in translation:
...now there remains a mutual attachment that has roots or grounds that go too deep to be transitory...
...which you’re at liberty to reflect about or to dismiss — that’s not my business — you...
...with her, you helped me to keep her alive. I don’t say that no change or alteration was necessary, but — I think we (or rather I) went too far. Now that I have a studio here, perhaps more than...
...to you about a possible change in your circumstances or career. For I see as it were two natures in...
in date note:
...spent a night back in Brabant (l. 2), we have dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 26 December 1883.
418 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 28 December 1883.
in title:
418 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 28 December 1883.
in original text:
...meebragt voor mij – meer dan gij weet – voor zoo ver ’t me persoonlijk raakte is dat niet iets...
...triesten brief aan ’t eind van dit jaar – voor mij triest om te schrijven, voor U triest om te...
...Ik zeg dit, U wijzende op de extrêmes van toestanden. geenszins verwar ik b.v. mijn eigen lot met...
in translation:
...that you can fool yourself that it was nothing, or just my imagination; don’t think that it will...
...yes, leave her completely. Very well, but I won’t or can’t do it, do you understand, my friend...
...you choose to presume that I want to do this or that, think exactly what you like, I shall do what...
...m not saying that I don’t want to associate with Pa or you at all any more — I’m not such a...
...I would even sacrifice my own pride over this principle or that as far as taking money is concerned...
...I really do ask: will I harm someone with this or that before I act? But unless people really prove...
...her. And now I should in some way undertake, tacitly or not tacitly, to abandon her? No, I won’t...
in date note:
...another letter from Sien (ll. 89-91), we have dated the letter on or about. Friday, 28 December 1883.
419 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 4 January 1884.
in title:
419 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 4 January 1884.
in original text:
...een lot dat ik verdien, want ik geloof dat ik après tout niets heb gedaan of doen zal dat maakt ik...
...van Corot vind ik het volgende over den invloed door hem uitgeoefend op Français. Daar staat “à trente ans Français ignorait ce que c’est qu’un ton neutre”. Ik bedoel, tot laat toe en in...
in translation:
...seems to me that this depends very much on whether or not people look at things with the same eyes...
...will do anything that means that I have forfeited or will forfeit my right to feel myself a human...
...as I said, is nevertheless not what the one party or the other who have the say wants. Isolation is...
...in Drenthe, which I found beautiful. Very gloomy — for these weavers are very poor people. I’ve...
...opinions have little or no effect, and which I hope I don’t confuse with mine or others’ opinio...
...The weathercocks don’t make the wind east or north, any more than any opinions whatsoever make...
...he book’, that isn’t only all books, or literature, it’s also conscience, reason — and it...
...that either. And for the rest, however becoming isolated or not may turn out, I’ll try to steer...
...influence he had on Français. It says, ‘at the age of thirty, Français did not know what a...
...by me as your fixed and irrevocable character or state of mind, but as a curious phenomenon. Which...
in date note:
...dated the present letter a little later in the first week of the year, on or about Friday, 4 January 1884.
in note 2:
...but it is uncertain whether this was done in Drenthe or in Brabant. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, p. 83.
in note 7:
...on peut réserver de soi ce qu’on juge à propos d’en réserver.) See Taine 1874, vol. 5, p. 4...
in note 8:
...Louis-François Français ten years older in the anecdote, is referring to the following tradition: ‘Français was twenty when he met Corot through Buttera, after he had made his first study in the Meudon woods, and when he did not yet know what a neutral tone is.’ (Français avait vingt ans lorsqu’il a connu Corot par l’intermédiaire de Buttera, après qu’il eut fait sa première étude dans les bois de Meudon, et quand il ignorait encore ce que c’est qu’un ton neutre.) See Dumesnil 1875, p. 59...
420 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Sunday, 6 and about Sunday, 13 January 1884.
in original text:
...niet bestaanbaar of verstandig. Veronderstellende dat après tout en Uw en mijn karakter vermijden...
...die niemand anders raken dan mij persoonlijk alleen, après tout niet vrij ben. Gij moet hier niet...
in translation:
...between you and me isn’t viable or wise. Supposing that, after all, both your character and mine want to avoid disorder or commotions, then we’ll break it off quietly and calmly — but definitely in such a way that neither you nor I can be criticized for folly or rashness. I would wish it to...
in date note:
...or about 11 March 1884. However, it fits more logically at the beginning of the year – Van Gogh looks back on the previous year (l. 58). In any event it was certainly written before March, as is clear from ll. 51-52: ‘I would wish it to remain the usual until March’. It precedes letter 422, which dates from about 15 January 1884. In that letter Van Gogh wrote about how things should proceed in terms of Theo’s financial contributions, and what changes might possibly take place in that regard from March onwards. The use of the notion of ‘disorder’ in letter 420 (l. 46) and ‘disorderliness’ in letter 422 (l. 10) is a further indication that the two letters were written at around the same time. Since Van Gogh is somewhat less fierce in letter 422 and promises to send watercolours, we think that the present letter preceded that one. This means that it then follows letter 419 of around 4 January, and this is in line with what it says at the beginning of the letter: Van Gogh now writes in a calm tone (while he says that he was rather rash in the previous letter). It is not possible to say for certain whether there was yet another letter at the beginning of January or whether that was letter 419, which crossed Theo’s in the post. For all these reasons we believe that letter 420 dates from between about Sunday, 6 and about Sunday, 13 January 1884. See also Dorn in exhib. cat. Vienna 1996, pp. 154 (n. 1), 162 (nn. 2-3...
421 To Antoine Philippe Furnée. Nuenen, between about Sunday, 6 and Friday, 18 January 1884.
in translation:
...and other painters profited by going to Algiers or Egypt, and I imagine that the Indies must produce...
in date note:
...Since Van Gogh writes that he would pay Furnée’s father, to whom he owed money for artists...
422 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 15 January 1884.
in title:
422 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 15 January 1884.
in translation:
...I’ve honestly dealt with and paid suppliers of paint or whatever else. I owe a great debt to you...
...would mean that, however much our feelings may differ or come to differ, we wouldn’t even have to...
...I don’t want to take money from you, or at least absolutely as little as possible, for which I...
...differences in feelings there may be about this or that, something that I hope really will remain...
...when I haven’t sat working with the weavers or peasants from morning till night. I’ll be very...
in date note:
...or about 1 February 1884. There are, however, several reasons for placing it two weeks earlier. First of all, Van Gogh writes that since arriving in Nuenen he has spent every day from ‘from morning till night’ working among weavers and peasants (ll. 119-121). This means that he must have been there for some time. And then he does not refer anywhere in this letter to Mrs van Gogh’s accident – which happened on 17 January – whereas he mentions it in every letter after this date. It therefore seems reasonable to assume that the letter dates from shortly before the seventeenth. The remittance for which he thanks Theo must have been the mid-January instalment (on 18 January Vincent also mentioned the money that Theo sent (letter 425), and later he referred once again to money sent ‘about the middle of January’ (letter 428). This means that the present letter was written on or about Tuesday, 15 January 1884. See also Dorn in exhib. cat. Vienna 1996, p. 162 (nn. 2-3...
423 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Thursday, 17 January 1884.
in translation:
...same post so that you’ll know as soon as possible, whether you’re at home or you’re in the office.
in additional details:
...been published before; this is incorrect; it has been known since the 1914 edition, under number 352.
424 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Thursday, 17 January 1884.
in translation:
There’s something I have to tell you in a word or two...
in additional details:
...Th van Gogh/ 25 Rue de Laval / Paris’. For the order relative to letter 423, see there under...
425 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Friday, 18 and Saturday, 19 January 1884.
in original text:
...zal nog veel in te voorzien zijn broer – voor alles weer op orde is. Willemien houdt zich fameus...
in translation:
...as to how I could earn some money one way or another. Money will be needed, and we should also look...
in note 2:
...told the son of the supplier Furnée that he would send money on or about 20 January (see letter 421).
426 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 20 January 1884.
in title:
426 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 20 January 1884.
in date note:
...letter 425) – leads to the assumption that this letter was written on or about Sunday, 20 January 1884.
427 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Monday, 21 and Thursday, 24 January 1884.
in translation:
...always depend on that. Of course, whether you come or not is a question that can absolutely only be...
...in my view, because it might be a shock to Ma, or the emotion of the later parting be too strong.
428 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 3 February 1884.
in title:
428 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 3 February 1884.
in original text:
...100 van Oom Stricker, wat ik heel aardig van oom S. vind. In het finantieele heb ik dus door mijn...
...trachten iets met mijn werk ook te doen. Après tout zijn Pa en Moe persoonlijk voor hun leven...
...geld te trouwen niet groot is in de maatschappij – voor hun kon ’t leven wel eens graauw en...
in translation:
...which I think very kind of Uncle S. So I have not profited financially from being here. And my plan is to press ahead vigorously with the work. In a year or so the financial difficulties that Ma...
...in society to marry girls without money — for them life could well remain drab and sad, and their...
...the better for the time being. Lying quietly is number 1. Fortunately Ma’s mood is very equable...
...about him is in the volume ‘Mes haines’. For myself I can’t share the conclusions that Zola...
in date note:
...or about 2 February. The detail that Uncle Stricker had ‘just’ sent 100 guilders (ll. 54-55) moreover dates from after 1 February, for Mr van Gogh does not mention it in his letter of that date to Theo (FR b2251); he does, however, refer to it in his letter of 10 February (FR b2252). We have therefore dated the letter a day later than we would otherwise have done, that is to say on or about Sunday, 3 February 1884...
in note 3:
Van Gogh had told Furnée’s son that he would pay by the twentieth of January: see letter 421 and cf...
in note 11:
...tellement certain que M. Manet sera un des maîtres de demain, que je croirais conclure une bonne...
430 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between Monday, 18 and Saturday, 23 February 1884.
in original text:
...e aux débris d’un repas Ou – femme sérieuse aux pâles paupières baissées Parais! – si...
...lèvres se respirent Ce désir décevant, ce cher espoir trompeur, Jamais nous n’en parlâmes...
...rencontre! et quels temps sont les nôtres Et quel mal nous ont fait ces féroces Prussiens...
...Vous êtes charmant; mais enfin Nous avons perdu la bataille On lit votre intrépidité Dans vos...
...longues et fières Et – nerveux, les longs cils de ses chastes paupières Voilaient ses regards...
...la ronde Son front à nos baisers, oh, comme lentement Mélancoliquement et douloureusement Ses lèvres s’appuyaient sur cette tête blonde Mais aussitôt après ce trop cruel plaisir Comme elle...
...aux instincts timorés & bourgeois Conservait une crainte – après tout naturelle – J’avais...
...e! Va, je connais l’adresse et les subtilités Du sophisme, aussi bien que tu peux les connaitre...
...voque sans cesse une très longue allée De platanes géants dépouillés à demi Dans laquelle...
in translation:
...at table ’mid the remnants of a meal, Or — a woman, sober-minded, eyes downcast and pale...
...blood and flesh, All — for but a moment of faith �� or yet of drunken rapture. and then...
...to still my cries, They’ll see me — for that ghastly minute, Clench my teeth — just like a...
...of Rembrandt’s Jewish bride — and what Thoré says about it. Thoré (in his prime) and Theo...
...I have to keep the pen drawings for another week or so because I still need them to finish off...
...gone so well. Coppée is another one like Heine or Musset — I’ll copy out a few more. The...
...soul was hard, But all the same, she left me (or perhaps, I left her) From then my sadness takes...
...forgot. But when she answered with a casual word or two The humdrum questions that were put to her...
...to cry aloud from fear and shame By insults, or an arm upraised. And when a little child went...
...the Cross, That she’d adore you like a god, or like a son; I know your triumph is assured. Yes...
in arrangement:
...François Coppée, belonged with this letter. Not only do the texts fit together in terms of content, the two sheets also display a similar, irregular duct. Van Gogh’s comment at the beginning of this loose sheet: ‘I’ll copy out a few more’ – after which the poems follow – is a logical continuation of the verses quoted before the signature, and is also entirely consistent with the three times repeated formula ‘and then this’, preceding the poems copied out in the letter (l. 62, l. 91 and l. 107) . There are several asides throughout the poems, including the insertion in the poem ‘La première’: ‘Mais pourtant elle m’a quitté (or perhaps je l’ai quittée)’ (But all the same, she left me (or perhaps I left her)) – a further indication that the text was targeted at Theo (l. 165). The same applies to the tentative remarks in ll. 195-197 and the assertion, in a box, ‘This also applies to art’ (l. 223). The sheet was printed, with pages 3 and 4 reversed, in Pabst 1988, pp. 91-94. Van Gogh wrote these poems out again (with the exception of ‘Une femme seule’) in letter 433 to Van Rappard...
in note 3:
All the poems by François Edouard Joachim Coppée that Van Gogh mentions can be found in the edition Poesies de François Coppée (Paris 1875, reprinted in 1878 and 1880 – referred to hereafter as Coppée 1880). He...
in note 6:
...sur la rose / L’ombre du papillon qui vient de l’effleurer.’ (‘No more than on the rose has left a mark / The shadow of the butterfly that lately brushed against it.’) l. 53 femme sérieuse aux pâles paupières ] jeune fille blanche aux paupières (grave woman with pale eyelids ] pure young girl with eyelids)
in note 7:
...l. 77 toujours – ] toujours!” sur les lèvres que j’ai, Van Gogh did copy the striking layout of...
in note 11:
...in Musées de la Hollande; he praised it both for the expression of the figures and for Rembrandt’s virtuoso execution. See Thoré 1858-1860, vol. 2, pp. 7-13. The association between Coppée’s poem and the painting is based on Van Gogh’s intense admiration for both works, not on any similarity in subject or sentiment...
431 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, Tuesday, 26 February 1884.
in original text:
...een ander deeltje fransche verzen, van François Coppée, les humbles en Promenades & interieurs...
in translation:
...this time. Assuming that you’ll also think more or less the same yourself, however, this subject...
...the same time as another little volume of French verse by François Coppée, Les humbles and Promenades et intérieurs. Coppée’s really very beautiful too. Character sketches of workers — the demi-monde, too, in which there’s a great deal of sentiment. A very great deal. Have you been working so hard on your Dominican monk, or what was the reason that you haven’t written? Regards. Ever...
in note 7:
Les humbles and Promenades et intérieurs (Humble folk and Walks and interiors) are chapter headings in Poesies de François Coppée (Coppée 1880).
432 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 2 March 1884.
in title:
432 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 2 March 1884.
in original text:
...hebt nog nooit een enkele van me verkocht – voor veel of voor weinig niet – en het EIGENTLIJK...
...zal zich ergeren aan dit en dat vlekje &c. &c.– Hoor eens – dat kan wel zijn doch U, handelaar...
...chose.– ziedaar dien eigenaardigen blik der phariséers en devote dames.– Ja wij mankeeren dan...
...de hoeren in de fosse commune – waar er après tout veel liggen – dit ook zoo tamelijk triest...
...Ik geloof dat niet – ge meent daar zoo ± niets van. En juist omdat ge zelf zegt dat ge beter dan...
...geeft en niet geven kunt of wilt après tout – noch gij noch Pa noch C.M. of zoo, die haantje de voorste zijn om dit of dat niet goed te vinden – en ik après tout ook niet van U begeer, daar den...
in translation:
...himself whether he wants to say yes — no �� or something in between. But the painter would be...
...exactly the same impression whether you say no with or without mincing your words, and that it may...
...amiss if one notices that this respectable dealer or that speaks very cordially, but he’s ashamed...
...you don’t think my work is good enough or that there are, moreover, yet other reasons why you...
...or anyway something, some sign or other that proved to me that you really believed in my progress or...
...avoid. So it isn’t that I want to ignore or belittle your help from the start until now. It’s a...
...that would take us no further anyway. Brotherly or not brotherly, if you can do nothing other than...
...Which you don’t give and can’t or won’t give, after all — neither you, nor Pa, nor C.M. or the rest, who are always first off the mark to disapprove of this or that — and which I don’t...
...means from anyone whatsoever, or earn them, to keep up some sort of position or whatever you call...
in date note:
...over three months to heal (see letter 431, ll. 8-9, and this letter, ll. 5-7). This makes it very likely that the letters were written in quick succession. He has moreover meanwhile sent Theo five pen-and-ink drawings (ll. 21-22); in letter 430, which dates from between 18 and 23 February, he wrote that wanted to keep them ‘for another week or so’. For these reasons we have dated the letter on or about Sunday, 2 March 1884.
in note 10:
...paules: “Toujours la même chose...” Elle ajouta: “Tu diras à Jégu de remettre un verrou à ma chambre... Celui qui y est ne tient plus. – L’orage de cette nuit, sans doute, dit Anne de Beuil... toute la maison sautait.” Et elles se regardaient avec leurs faces fermées et froides.) See Daudet 1986-1994, vol. 3, p. 299. Originally Van Gogh noted immediately after ‘women’: ‘Et elles se regardèrent de leurs visages froides et fermées...
in note 15:
...Van Gogh had already written: ‘A door must be open or shut’ (‘Een deur moet open zijn of digt’).
433 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 2 March 1884.
in title:
433 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 2 March 1884.
in original text:
...voque sans cesse une très longue allée De platanes géants dépouillés à demi Dans laquelle...
...Vous êtes charmant; mais enfin Nous avons perdu la bataille. On lit votre intrepidité Dans vos...
...une lumière. Sans cesse attiré vers elle, il s’en approchait. Mais dès que le bout de son aile...
...Il est furieux – Laissez faire On est très patient ici; Puis il y règne une atmosphère Qui...
...s se respirent – Ce désir décevant – ce cher espoir trompeur Jamais nous n’en parlâmes...
...st le mot: – Pour toujours! – sur les lèvres que j’ai Sans que je le prononce. Et bien...
...voilée et vague en mes pensées Rencontre de demain que je ne connais pas Courtisane accoudée aux debris d’un repas Ou – jeune femme pensive au paupières baissées oh – parais! si tu peux...
...s Et depuis, ma tristesse dure, Et c’est pour une éternité. Dans la rue – le soir Neuf heures. On entend la retraite aux tambours Les grisettes s’en vont du côté des faubourgs Après...
in translation:
...to keep the leg horizontal for another 6 weeks or so. Yesterday, though, we carried her into the...
...that doesn’t really interest me one way or the other, my attention being on making progress. All...
...savage Prussians, what they have done to us, (or, failing Prussians, drunken sots) That the poorest...
...at table ’mid the remnants of a meal, Or — a young woman, pensive, eyes downcast and pale. Oh...
...s respite — a treasure to the deep — Come! — I promise you all — heart and soul, blood and flesh, All — for but a moment’s faith �� or yet of drunken rapture. Sorrow assuaged You whom I saw as like the blasted oak, I find you now a father, find you spouse...
...and, to still my cries, They’d see me — for that ghastly minute, Clench my teeth — just like...
in date note:
...in letter 432 to Theo. That letter was written on or about Sunday, 2 March 1884; we have therefore given...
in note 7:
...Le cahier rouge, in: Coppée 1880, pp. 148-149. The most important differences are: l. 79 vêtements ] vêtements noirs l. 92 J’évoque ] J’invoque The poem has been linked with Van Gogh’s painting Avenue of...
in note 15:
The poem ‘Désir dans le spleen’, from the collection Le cahier rouge, in: Coppée 1880, pp. 230-232. The most important difference is: l. 271 femme pensive au paupières ] fille blanche aux paupières
in note 18:
...A significant difference is: l. 320 nous nous sommes quittés ] elle m’a quitté (we parted ] she left me)
434 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Wednesday, 5 and about Sunday, 9 March 1884.
in translation:
...for yourself, in order to bring together a number of pen drawings of Brabant artisans, with this as...
...and you for her, this period of love is a stroke of luck in life. Whether the woman is beautiful or ugly, young or old, should she prove better or worse, only indirectly has anything to do with it. The plain fact remains that you have loved each other. On parting now — don’t extinguish that or try not to forget it — and the rock to avoid then is that of self-righteousness — one shouldn...
...as we are — whether one does one’s very best or acts more indifferently, it always becomes something else — works out differently — from what one actually wanted. But whether it turns out better or worse, happier or unhappier, doing something is better than doing nothing. Well, provided...
...of making comparisons between Rembrandt and Nicolaas Maes or Vermeer — nonsense, eh? — so stop...
in date note:
...batch of five pen-and-ink drawings of weavers on or about Sunday, 2 March (letter 432), which Theo must...
in note 6:
...the notion that God blesses large families from Sensier’s biography. He may have based the expression on the emphasis that Sensier placed on the fact that Millet, the father of nine children and devoted to the family from which he himself came, was unarguably a family man: ‘All these scenes of family life were very innocent and very full of emotion: Millet spoke of children, house and home in tender words unknown to Parisian bachelors’. (Toutes ces scènes familières étaient bien naïves et bien émues: Millet a parlé des enfants, de la maison, du foyer avec des tendresses inconnues aux célibataires parisiens). Sensier 1881, p. 346.
in note 8:
...que souffrir et se consumer, et elle mourut à Paris le 21 avril 1844.) His second wife was Catherine...
435 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 8 March 1884.
in title:
435 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 8 March 1884.
in original text:
...poudre d’or Bordés d’un trait de feu, nagent dans l’ombre grise Par délà les toits noirs...
...t les épis alourdis qui se penchent; Et j’errais évoquant mes rêves envolés. Ah! qui n’a...
...larmes étanchent La soif des liserons à leurs pieds enroulés! Et je sentais mon coeur, d’o...
...zones Où les arbres plongeant leurs dômes et leurs cônes Tremblent, comme agités par des...
...les coteaux voilés ondulent – larges flots Les villages, perdus comme de noirs îlots, Emergent...
...s ailes sur l’airain de leurs folles cymbales. Frémissantes, debout sur les longs épis d’or...
...des blés. Elles emigreront sur les buissons brûlés Qui se meurent de soif dans les déserts de...
...miracle, Transfiguration qui change tout en or; Aux yeux charmés tout offre un ravissant spectacle...
...A plongé dans l’eau noire un lumineux rayon; Tombant de tous côtés, des étincelles blanches...
...en cet état, les âpres agonies De tant de nobles coeurs jetés aux gémonies; Et le lépreux qui...
in translation:
...have them I’m sure they’ll really touch you. Today, or rather in the last few days, I’ve painted a...
...something of the sort relating to some special case or other — he having carried on painting in...
...will still their tireless cries; Banished from the oats or from the wheat They’ll find a new home...
...nd yet ’tis all. Seeing it, I forget – Poor little ditch that thus affects me so – My heart...
...to throw thee into a wall’s dark cleft, Or, final insult, that the disrespectful scrub Would mix...
...hearts, – for me the vast and boundless plain When fire’s lascivious tongue licks round its rim, Making it writhe in a demented dance. Return from the fields (To François Millet) ’Tis...
...Can only call it purple. Across the flat or gently sloping mead, Losing their furrows, finding...
...his labour done. Bearing on his shoulder scythe or spade, Slowly he goes, Moistening his dry chest...
in arrangement:
...Louis Cabat)’ (Evening (for Louis Cabat)), ‘Les deux croix’ (The two crosses), (recto and verso of a half sheet in Paris, Fondation Custodia), as well as ‘Crépuscule (à Charles Daubigny)’ (Twilight (for Charles Daubigny)), ‘Dans la plaine’ (On the plain) and ‘Le retour des champs (à François Millet)’ (Returning from the fields (for François Millet)) (the last ones have only partly survived). These half sheets were once joined together, since the last – missing – verse of ‘Le soir’ was added in the space below ‘Le retour des champs’, as a photocopy of this sheet shows. We too assume that these fragments were originally part of the present letter. In 1957 L.H.M. Brom of Utrecht had this sheet in his possession and sent a photocopy of it to V.W. van Gogh. (Correspondence between L.H.M. Brom and V.W. van Gogh, April-September 1957, Van Gogh Museum, Documentation). Van Rappard was a leading member of the Kunstliefde association in Utrecht, where he became friends with the silversmith Jan Hendrik Brom; this Jan Brom, father of Leo, owned a study by Van Rappard, who also made his portrait. Brom probably acquired the sheet with the five poems through Van Rappard. Cf. exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, pp. 20, 85, 91. The formulation ‘Here, too, are some of the poems by Jules Breton; if you don’t have them I’m sure they’ll really touch you’ (ll. 3-4) does not mean that he had sent poetry by Breton before (‘too’ must refer to the fact that he had previously sent poems by Coppée (letter 430)). As far as we know there are no missing letters from Van Gogh to Van Rappard in these two months. We see no grounds for placing the poems with a later letter. In 1977 the Fondation Custodia in Paris bought half of this sheet from a French private collection through the bookseller André Jammes...
in date note:
...or about 2 March (letter 433). We therefore regard this letter as the first of the three. The order of the other two letters is determined by what Van Gogh writes about sending his drawings to Van Rappard: in the first he says that he will send them, and in the second he thanks Van Rappard for his reply. Van Gogh must have received this reply by 20 March at the latest, because he told Theo about it on that date (letter 440). Since these three letters to Van Rappard cannot be dated more accurately, we have spaced them evenly through the period 3-19 March. We therefore date the present letter on or about Saturday, 8 March, letter 437 on or about Thursday, 13 March and letter 439 on or about Tuesday, 18 March 1884...
in note 7:
The poem ‘Automne (à Jules Dupré)’, in: Breton 1875, pp. 29-30.
in note 13:
The poem ‘Crépuscule (à Charles Daubigny)’ in: Breton 1875, pp. 91-94.
436 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Monday, 10 March 1884.
in original text:
...als wel voor une amitié traînante – et très traînante. de vriendschap tusschen U en mij is...
...schelen hoe gij het van me vinden zult.– Voor mij zelf weet ik dat ik juist omdat we begonnen zijn als vrienden en met een respect van weerskanten – voor mijzelf weet ik dat ik niet wil dulden...
...Julien Brochart en Monsieur Paul Delaroche – voor mij geen erge Monsieur, Delaroche niet. Zooveel...
...kon hernieuwen met G&Cie, G&Cie jegens wie ik après tout niets misdreven heb dan dat ik 6 jaar...
...oorspronkelijke artisten met de nachtschuit, wie hun protegés geweest zijn – va – ’k weet...
in translation:
...send the rest too, but it suits me better to do it at the end of the month if it doesn’t inconvenience you’ �� or something of the kind. So, do you still have to ask that, whether or not it’s convenient to me? You know yourself that last month I used at least 3/4 in one go to pay things off...
...very much to heart, this question of being brotherly or not brotherly. And now — I won’t take...
...out as friends and with respect on both sides — for myself I know that I won’t tolerate its...
...is, intolerable. Be that as it may, whether I do well or ill by speaking as I speak, the risk is on...
...up. And perhaps — although there’s no inconvenience or worry associated with it for you — you...
...I’m so stupid that I’d believe such bêtises? — Well, well. You could sometimes do with a...
in note 1:
...responded to the question as to whether Theo should or should not continue his relationship with Marie, an...
in note 10:
See for the character of Prudhomme in Monnier’s Scènes populaires dessinées à la plume, Grandeur et décadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme, Mémoires de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme, and Croquis à la plume. letter 296, n. 3.
437 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 13 March 1884.
in title:
437 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 13 March 1884.
in original text:
...v. werktuigen begrijpen niets van Uw kunst. Doch – voor zich zelf – als men zoo’n werktuig...
in translation:
...in the centre of it, sits a black ape or goblin or apparition, and clatters with those slats from...
...give the slightest thought to the proportions of arms or legs at the time. When my machine drawing...
...it (even if I absolutely did not draw him in, or even if I drew him out of proportion), every now...
...loom by a mechanical engineer. A sort of sigh or lament must sometimes come out of all that clutter...
...for machines understand nothing about your art. Yet — for oneself — if one draws a machine like...
...some day or another I’ll find an art lover who would like to take them off me — not one or two...
...without exception) one finds absolutely no feeling, faith or trust, but always the same old files...
...it in 3 or more variations, whether it’s a figure or a landscape, but — every time I always involve reality for each one. And I even do my best not to give any details THEN — because then the reverie goes out of it. If Tersteeg and my brother &c. then say: so what’s that, grass or cabbages...
in note 13:
...in Paris in the hope that they were marketable, or at any rate that they would build up his...
in note 15:
...time and several of these De Louws were labourers or farmers. We consider it most likely that Van Gogh...
438 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Saturday, 15 and about Wednesday, 19 March 1884.
in original text:
Mijn brief was juist er over dat waar er iets wat al te traînants begon te komen m.i. in onze vriendschap, dit niet opwekkend was &c., wat ik niet hoef te...
...verwaarloozen van mijn eigen zaken waarvoor later après tout ik verantwoordelijk zou zijn.– Wilt...
in translation:
...give me information about the extent to which you do or don’t want to change it in that way. Ma...
...is creeping into your life than because I attach great value to whether an agreement is more or less fixed. The essence of the question is whether we understand each other or not — a matter of coldness or warmth towards each other. And I find what Zola says about dragging things on as true as you...
in date note:
...the letter before letter 440, which was written on or about 20 March. On the other hand, some days must...
in note 2:
...existence.’ (Et ils restaient par lâcheté, ils restaient et se traînaient misérablement dans...
439 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 March 1884.
in title:
439 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 March 1884.
in original text:
...niet aan de natuur.– Voor de schetsen van U b.v. die ik zag, het wevertje en de Terschellingsche wijven, voel ik iets – het is een greep in ’t hart der dingen.– Voor Haverman voel ik al heel...
...dat nog meer krijgt. Er zijn echter liefhebbers die après tout juist voor het geen met emotie is...
...zeide toen hij een eigen art-school opende – voor een aantal lui die reeds schilderen kenden...
...hier een dorp Zon en Breugel, dat verbazend op Courrières lijkt, waar de Bretons wonen – toch de...
in translation:
...to say — and where I can’t do it yet, or not well enough, I work on it to improve myself. But I...
...understand, what good would it be to either speaker or audience?). I want to stay with this point...
...such. He may consider himself lucky if there is one, or a very few at most, who are edified by him...
...a Corot, a Daubigny, a Dupré, a Millet or an Israëls — fellows who are certainly the great...
...Roumestan) is something very different from a prayer or — a good poem. One must therefore work on...
...said when he opened his own art school — for a number of people who could already paint — he...
...s not because I’m saving myself trouble or trying to avoid difficulties. Because that’s not my...
...Son en Breugel, which is amazingly like Courrières, where the Bretons live — yet the figures...
...the connoisseurs } Perhaps my inserting painters or connoisseurs as equals shocks you. But...
...like when one hears someone singing off-key or is pursued by a barrel-organ with a grudge against...
in additional details:
The letter has no conclusion or signature, so in all likelihood it is incomplete.
in note 3:
...of them vanishes and the impression is that of life or reality, in other words when the physical media do...
in note 4:
...in his image’. (Sur le balcon, l’orateur s’exaltait, arrivait aux grandes effusions dont on n’entendait que les départs accentués à la méridionale, “Mon âme...Mon sang... Morale... Religion... Patrie...” soulignés par les hurrahs de cet auditoire fait à son image). See Daudet 1986-1994, vol. 3, p. 214.
in note 7:
...with the school: ‘All of these are able to draw or paint fairly well from the life, and for the next...
in note 13:
...comme imprégnée de toutes les nobles pensées qu’il évoquait). See exhib. cat. Paris 1875-2, p...
in note 15:
An allusion to the first verse of P.A. de Génestet’s poem ‘Waar en hoe’ (Where and how): No, I found...
440 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 20 March 1884.
in title:
440 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 20 March 1884.
in original text:
...vrede kunnen nemen met hetgeen ge zegt.– Voor mij verlang ik kortaf – om geschrijf, om getwist...
...om er niet mijn best op te doen.– Voor deze maand heb ik voor U eenige penteekeningen, vooreerst...
...om eens koelweg te vragen en te antwoorden. Après tout – maling aan elkaar of niet – daargelat...
in translation:
...t want to do anything with this drawing of yours or burn it, you can have this much for it...
...me (without conditions that I may not do this, that or the other), I won’t break the ties, and if...
...it. If I receive money from you, you drawings or paintings from me — and I have something to...
...pleases you to tear my work up or if you want to do nothing with it, or if you want to do something...
...want to do anything with the work you buy from me, or tear it up if need be, this will be no reason...
...we’d go on or not. That was the question that it was all about, and since my work depends on my paint and tools (to an extent that I can’t ignore), and they in turn on whether or not I receive...
...it amiss — when you ignore — deliberately or not deliberately — that’s something that I...
...leaving aside — giving a damn about each other or not — can I count on its being fixed for 1...
...I say — I don’t care whether or not you’re aware that this or that isn’t quite in order, as...
in arrangement:
...In it Vincent again thanks Theo ‘very much’ for what he sent (ll. 189-190), something that he only...
in date note:
...as soon as he received the letter (l. 2). We therefore date the letter on or about Thursday, 20 March 1884.
in note 10:
...is not known. The little village may have been Son or Breugel, about which Van Gogh had previously written...
441 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, between about Friday, 21 and about Friday, 28 March 1884.
in translation:
...he shape of them — hasn’t been systematically or deliberately neglected — but I had to make a...
...resume with a number of new ones if you like. It’s always good to let the work circulate a bit — and if people don’t take it, it doesn’t matter — show it again anyway. If you’ve now shown these to a few people perhaps, and they’ve rejected them or laughed at them or said what they...
in date note:
...tells Theo about this request on or about 28 March (letter 443), the present letter cannot have been written later than that. The previous letter to Van Rappard was written on or about 18 March; because Van Gogh...
442 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 24 March 1884.
in title:
442 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 24 March 1884.
in original text:
...zou.– Het komt mij – in mijn herinnering – voor dat er bij de Drenthsche eenigen zijn die als ik er weer voorzat ik juist zoo zou doen.– Voor de loopende maand, wat ik U anders in April zou...
in translation:
...misunderstood something or anything like that, I say it again. At the end of January or beginning...
...not my private life) should be what determined whether or not I stayed on my feet financially, at...
...view either I’m not worthy of your patronage or you think only too flippantly about my drawings...
...150 francs or whatever it may be, more or less as the equivalent of what I send you, in this respect it’s still a very private affair, and we leave aside altogether the question of whether or not...
...anticipate accusing me of living off private means or — absolutely regarding me as ‘having NO...
...your own accord whether or not our relationship will endure in the future — for the current year...
...do whatever you like with that work as regards whether or not you deal in it, although I do in any...
...is at stake — so either this change or — finished. Regards. Yours truly, Vincent What I...
...for my part I may also ask for a plain yes or a plain no. The reason I haven’t sent you the...
in date note:
...or the next (443). We can say, however, that they were both written in March 1884. In the case of the present letter this is clear from the passage: ‘For the current month...which I would otherwise have sent you in April’ (ll. 144a-c). The letter is a direct continuation of the negotiations to come to a business arrangement with Theo on which Vincent had embarked in letter 440, which was written on or about 20 March after Theo’s allowance arrived. It can be inferred that the letter precedes letter 443 from the fact that the tension, which has clearly abated in the latter, is still very evident in the present letter. On these grounds we have spaced the two letters evenly in the remaining 11 days in March: on or about Monday, 24 March and on or about Friday, 28 March 1884 respectively....
443 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 28 March 1884.
in title:
443 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 28 March 1884.
in original text:
...dan als “consul” of op een “notariskantoor” &c., of “de posterijen”, allemaal overigens...
in translation:
...at present. However, just think again for a moment whether or not you’d be being unkind to him if...
...in order not to allow oneself to be overwhelmed or upset. Friends who make up for the...
...nd in any event he’d be better off there, learn more, see more, than as a ‘consul�� or in a ‘notary’s office’ &c., or ‘the post office’, all highly respectable anyway, and much of a muchness. Cor himself, as far as I know, has no particular idea about wanting to enter this profession or that — because he’s probably seen little else at close quarters but books, the main road &c...
in date note:
The drawings for Theo ‘for this month’ (l. 1*), which had already been discussed for some time, are the March drawings. See for the reasons for dating this letter on or about 28 March: notes to letter 442, Date.
444 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, early April 1884.
in translation:
...and half old-fashioned, half rustic character of this garden. And the reason that I made no fewer than 3 pen drawings of the same little corner, as well as making several studies of it which I destroyed, was precisely because I wanted to convey this character in some intimate details that aren’t expressed easily or as a matter of course or by chance.
...t have to be guided by what the majority say or do, though. (Do you know that Aunt Bertha has been...
445 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Wednesday, 30 April 1884.
in note 8:
See for the engraving after Jean-François Millet, La veillée (Evening) from the series The four times of...
446 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Monday, 12 and about Thursday, 15 May 1884.
in original text:
...En wat de coloristen aangaat – het is met mij après tout zoo als met U – ik kan in een Puvis...
in translation:
...for Mauve’s landscape with cows and Israëls’s paintings as you feel for them. As regards my...
...again for a little longer. He’s bringing a number of drawings of mine, which I’ll then send you...
...Nuenen are generally better than those in Etten or Helvoirt — there’s more sincerity here...
...like that can collapse, we have to see whether or not it would be an illusion. Anyway, I have...
in date note:
...of this week’ (ll. 39-40); he actually arrived on or about 17 May. We have therefore dated the letter...
in textual note 72:
dominésstandpunt < dominés standpunt
447 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 28 May 1884.
in title:
447 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 28 May 1884.
in translation:
...10 days or so, and sends you his regards.
in date note:
...had told Theo that Van Rappard had won a medal in London, this letter must precede letter 448 written on or about Thursday, 29 May. This letter must therefore have been written on or about Wednesday, 28 May 1884.
448 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 29 May 1884.
in title:
448 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 29 May 1884.
in date note:
...on or about 27 May, and after he had subsequently written to Van Gogh telling him that he had won a medal. The letter moreover dates from a day or two before 1 June (Whitsun), since Vincent writes: ‘Perhaps my brother Theo will come briefly at Whitsun’ (ll. 36-37). We have therefore dated the letter on or about...
in note 4:
...de mon temps and Eugène Fromentin, Les maîtres d’autrefois: Belgique – Hollande; see letter 459.
449 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 6 June 1884.
in title:
449 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 6 June 1884.
in original text:
...nous le rencontrâmes dans les galeries du Palais Royal, sur les dix heures du soir, Paul Chenavard et moi. C’était au sortir d’un grand dîner où l’on avait agité des questions d’art, et...
...discussions inutiles. Nous en étions à la couleur, et je disais “Pour moi, les grands coloristes sont ceux qui ne font pas le ton local.”– et j’allais developper mon thème, lorsque nous aperçumes Eugène Delacroix dans la galerie de la Rotonde. Il vint à nous en s’écriant: je suis...
...st pas, je crois, un paradoxe, et dont vous êtes en tout cas meilleur juge que personne: je disais...
in translation:
...brownish red, of dark blue or of olive green — it can express the very tender and fresh green of a meadow or a little wheatfield. And yet I believe that De Bock, who christened certain colours ‘snot colours’, certainly wouldn’t contradict the above, actually — for I myself once heard him...
...sky or a blonde woman with a dirty colour like the grey of cobblestones; if one thinks about it, this question is actually a double one. For firstly one has a dark colour that can seem light (or...
...red, will appear more or less red depending on the colours that are next to it. And the same with blue, and the same with yellow likewise. One only has to add a very little bit of yellow to a colour to make it appear very yellow, if one puts that colour into or next to a violet or lilac tone. I...
...bottom are either full of conversation killers or generalities. Anyway — nature is something that...
in date note:
...60-61). It is not possible to give a precise date; we place the letter on or about Friday, 6 June 1884.
450 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, mid-June 1884.
in original text:
Ik las met veel pleizier les maîtres d’autrefois van Fromentin. En in dat boek vond ik weer op...
...En gevolgelijk doet het figuur er heel anders tegen.– Voor mij is het als ik U over veel nieuwe...
...altijd deed.– Dupré is misschien nog meer colorist dan Corot & Daubigny, ofschoon die beiden ’t ook zijn en wel degelijk Daubigny veel durft in kleur. Maar bij Dupré is er in de kleur iets van...
in translation:
...I mean, Israëls paints a white wall quite differently from Regnault or Fortuny. And consequently...
...s, for instance, that I’m not particularly curious about or eager for something different or...
...Cabat said has become untrue or superfluous? No. The same with Israëls, too — with Degroux, too...
...too, be it as a practitioner when painting or as an expert talking about colour. Most people...
...useless by the very nature of the thing. I hope, or rather, I’ll try to do the same thing that...
...red or yellow is added to black, it becomes a grey, that is a dark red, yellow or blue grey. Among other things I thought what C. Blanc says in Les artistes de mon temps about Velázquez’s...
...which neutral, colourless parts the least little dash or hint of red, say, is immediately apparent...
...instinctively. Dupré is perhaps even more of a colourist than Corot and Daubigny, although they both are too, and Daubigny really is very daring in colours. But with Dupré there’s something of a...
in date note:
...Van Gogh had raised in letter 449 written on or about Friday, 6 June, that is to say his work on a...
in note 3:
Les maîtres d’autrefois (1876) by Eugène Fromentin contains an overview of the old Dutch and Flemish...
in note 6:
...this remark on a passage in Fromentin’s Les maîtres d’autrefois (1876) where he argues that the...
in note 8:
...prompted to write this by a remark in Les maîtres d’autrefois to the effect that some people worship...
in note 12:
...is pure and the other broken’ (deux complémentaires, dont l’une est pure et l’autre rompue’) (p...
in note 14:
...brilliant genius), of ‘Les grands génies’ (the great geniuses) and stated ‘Poëte...
in note 15:
...colourless grey.’ (Ainsi, lorsqu’on mêle ensemble du bleu et de l’orangé à quantités égales, l’orangé n’étant pas plus orangé, que le bleu n’est bleu, le mélange détruit les deux tons...
451 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 2 July 1884.
in title:
451 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 2 July 1884.
in original text:
...t. Vincent ’t best wat ik er op weet – voor de lijst – is eenige raampjes van die grootte te...
in translation:
...nothing that one could locate either in reality or in an imaginary world. Still, a few watercolours...
...wheatfields have a dark, golden blond tone, ruddy or golden bronze. This is brought out to maximum...
...violet with some green weeds among the wheat, with hoes on their shoulders, or a loaf of rye bread under their arms, a pitcher or a copper coffee-pot. These last few days I’ve repeatedly seen that...
...expresses Summer well — in my view summer isn’t easy to express. Usually, or often at least, a summery effect is either impossible or ugly that’s my feeling, at least — it’s offset by the...
...to use her eyes and to make what she really saw or felt. It’s stuck at I don’t know what kind...
...truly, Vincent The best I can think of — for the frame — is to take some little stretching...
in date note:
...this must have been for July (see n. 8) – the letter is dated on or about Wednesday, 2 July 1884.
452 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 20 July 1884.
in title:
452 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 20 July 1884.
in original text:
...en zoo hoog opgevoerd en zoo de natuur serré de près, dat het vrouwenfiguur leeft, ademt en men de stem...
in translation:
...I work a good deal early in the morning or in the evening, and then sometimes everything is so...
in date note:
...the present letter – was written shortly afterwards, we have dated it on or about Sunday, 20 July 1884.
453 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 4 August 1884.
in title:
453 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 4 August 1884.
in translation:
...how I, for my part, always keep thinking about some English paintings — for instance, Chill October by Millais — for instance, the drawings by Fred Walker and Pinwell. Look out for the Hobbema in...
...into him. When you come here you’ll find all the peasants busy ploughing — and sowing spurrey �� or — it will just be coming to an end then. I’ve seen magnificent sunsets over the stubble...
in date note:
...he was given to visit various places in London, we have dated the letter on or about Monday, 4 August 1884.
454 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, between mid-August and early September 1884.
in original text:
...muren in plaats van mystieke laatste avondmalen, scènes uit het boerenleven uit den omtrek waren...
in note 15:
...or not he had already written to Van Rappard about them. The painting of a woman spinning must have been the same one he referred to in letters 449 ff. The weaver he means was probably Weaver near an open window (F 24 / JH 500) or Weaver, interior with three small windows (F 37 / JH 501), which he wrote about in letters 451 and 452...
in note 16:
...either from Theo (during his visit to Nuenen) or from Hermans (with whom he had a great deal of...
455 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 23 August 1884.
in title:
455 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 23 August 1884.
in date note:
...attach too much to it’ (FR b2256), we have dated this letter on or about Saturday, 23 August 1884.
in note 4:
...face of what could disrupt calm! He is very touchy or overwrought. Just let some time pass and consider...
in note 5:
...petit bourgeois Joseph Prudhomme in Monnier’s Mémoires de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme: letter 296, n. 3.
456 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 16 September 1884.
in title:
456 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 16 September 1884.
in translation:
...able to find the right words. Something has happened, Theo, which most of the people here know or suspect nothing about — nor may ever know, so keep as silent as the grave about it — but which is...
...of marriage here it would have to be very soon or not at all. Well Theo, you’ve read Mme Bovary...
...said to me when we were taking a quiet walk or something, ‘I wish I could die now’ — I’d...
...de Loo. It was strychnine that she took, but the dose must have been too small, or she may have taken chloroform or laudanum with it to numb herself, which would actually be an antidote to strychnine...
...what form this will manifest itself — more serious or less serious – is very much the question...
...is the best remedy for suicide in the future. But if she has a nervous breakdown or brain fever or something, then — — — Still, everything’s gone fairly well with her these first few days...
in date note:
...her. On the basis of the above details, we have dated the letter on or about Tuesday, 16 September 1884.
457 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 16 September 1884.
in title:
457 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 16 September 1884.
in translation:
...than to treat her kindly as if nothing had happened or, if they can’t do that, just keep silent...
...nervous breakdown or brain fever. On the other hand there’s a danger of melancholia or religious...
...as a guest — in private — with a doctor she’s known for a long time, him and his wife — for these reasons there’s hope that a crisis in one form or another can be forestalled or averted or neutralized by timely opposition — that it will blow over in the end, blow over in the form of...
...most of the time sits in her room with a book or something or other that she has got from me’. I...
...day she left by no means all of them were affectionate or even just good — although they didn’t...
...cool. But anyway, no one will, except possibly Pa or Ma sometime. You do understand that when I...
...sort of thing. Anyway — in a relatively short time, in about a fortnight or 3 weeks, it will become clear whether or not a dangerous nervous disease will manifest itself. Regards, I’m still very...
in date note:
...clearly. The present letter is consequently a direct continuation of letter 456 and must have been written on the same day as that one or shortly thereafter. Hence the dating of on or about Tuesday, 16 September 1884.
in note b:
Read: ‘Om iemand’ (for bringing someone).
458 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 21 September 1884.
in title:
458 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 21 September 1884.
in translation:
...or shouldn’t do here in the interests of the patient’s health and future, either go on or...
...tip as to what’s best for her, to part or not to part. Obviously I’ll always remain friends...
...I don’t consider it impossible that when, sooner or later, you put your theory of marriage into...
...mildness and not as a reproach, not in the least or slightest as such. I often think that there’s...
...she was so weak, after all (and defeated by 5 or 6 other women) that she took poison, as if she’d...
...makes me ill, that won’t be distracted or numbed, but anyway. I’ve always, very far-sightedly...
...her to do so — but she doesn’t always understand, or not until too late. Anyway. It’s a pity that I didn’t meet her earlier — say 10 years ago or so. Now she gives me the impression of a...
...theologians), is sometimes a breaking of stagnation or melancholy that comes over many people and...
...But Mouret calls anyone who doesn’t think about it or mocks it ‘dupe’ and in his anger even...
in date note:
...same day as the two to Van Rappard; we have consequently dated it on or about Sunday, 21 September 1884.
in note b:
...have been derived from the French ‘bitumeux’ (of the nature of or resembling tar). Also in letter 537.
459 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, Sunday, 21 September 1884.
in translation:
...I wanted to talk about your visit to us, whether or not you feel like it. I already wrote to you...
...to specific dimensions, and also because my art lover preferred compositions with 5 or 6 figures, say, whereas I would rather have had 2 or 3. But anyway, I still worked on them with a great deal of...
in note 1:
...de mon temps and Eugène Fromentin, Les maîtres d’autrefois. Van Rappard had sent them after his...
in note 14:
This increase in the number of figures is evident from Van Gogh’s original design for Planting potatoes (F...
460 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, Sunday, 21 September 1884.
in original text:
...t Is overigens niet – zoo als ge veronderstelt – door mij uit ’t oog verloren dat niet ik...
...realistische studie naar de natuur.– Enfin – après tout – ik heb uw aanleg niet gezien dan...
in translation:
...that are in it, and will either become paint or else irresolute and woolly — what they call...
461 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Monday, 22 and about Sunday, 28 September 1884.
in translation:
...of 1848. I wish that you could just imagine that you and I had lived in that year, 1848 �� or a similar period, for there was also something of the kind with Napoleon’s coup d’état. I won’t...
...start with Guizot and Louis-Philippe. Were they bad or tyrannical? Not exactly — they were people...
...I got this wrong??? Quinet now, say, or Michelet or V. Hugo (later), was the difference between...
...of the government, I behind it as a revolutionary or rebel. Now in 1884 — by chance the figures...
...it can’t be helped. And whether you like it or not, you must go on, I must go on. Yet because...
...be inside it. Think about this if you will — for I don’t believe that you can contradict very...
...we’ve ended up in opposing camps. And you — for your part, perhaps hoped that I’d change to...
...to one thunderstorm or the other? Whether they are carriers of positive or negative electricity...
...of circumstances, that one belongs to one opposing party or the other? Anyway, it was 48 then, it...
in note 2:
...de la souscription destinée à éléver à Paris un monument sa mémoire. Ecole Nationale des...
in note 3:
Eugène Delacroix, La barricade (The barricade), or: La Liberté guidant le peuple (Liberty guiding the...
in note 6:
François Guizot took part in the July revolution of 1830 and then became one of the pillars of the July...
in note 9:
...the Revolution featured, among them Les misérables (1862), Quatre-vingt-treize (1874), and Histoire...
in note 10:
...misérables, book 1, chapter 10. See Hugo 1951, p. 67. It is said by a former revolutionary (‘le conventionnel’) in a conversation with Bishop Bienvenu about the achievements of the French Revolution: ‘We brought down the ancien régime in deeds, we did not entirely succeed in doing away with it in ideas.’ (Nous avons démoli l’ancien régime dans les faits, nous n’avons pu entièrement le supprimer dans les idées...
in textual note 75:
...few scratches in the shape of a square. It is not clear whether text or a drawing were struck through here.
462 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, between about Wednesday, 24 and about Monday, 29 September 1884.
in original text:
...met dat later ik meen te weten ze andere logés verwachten, om reden waarvan in November ik zelf...
...in Brabant.– Maar aangezien ik meen zij logés verwachten dan, wier gewoonte ’t juist is in...
in translation:
...Utrecht early in the morning you’ll be in Eindhoven shortly before or after 12. That would be the very best time to go there together, and go to Nuenen by train or on foot in the early evening.
463 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Tuesday, 30 September 1884.
in translation:
I was planning to send them to a few illustrated magazines to see if I could get work, or at least become...
...and persists in society. In that lithograph by Daumier or De Lemud, whichever of them it may be...
in additional details:
...over two 5-cent postage stamps and one for 2½ cents, and on the back ‘PARIS 3 (60) / [x]e/1 OCT 84...
464 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Thursday, 2 October 1884.
in original text:
Dank voor Uw brief, dank voor het ingeslotene.– Hoor nu eens...
...ar ik wreek me sedert.– waardoor.– door de liefde die zij – de theologen – zonde noemen, te aanbidden, door een hoer te respecteeren enz. en veel would be eerwaardige, godsdienstige dames niet. De vrouw is voor de eene partij altijd ketterij en duivelsch.– Voor mij ’t tegenovergestelde...
...de suite. mais, lorsqu’il se fut rappelé leurs conversations anciennes sur la bêtise vide et...
...par eux, toute la joie et toute la santé humaines sont là!” Simple façon de s’étourdir...
...b.v. Tersteeg geen Mouret. misschien is hij het après tout. Maar wat daar ook van zij, er blijven...
in translation:
...neither of us. Look here — I certainly believe or know for sure that she loves me, I ,, believe...
...this simply by way of explanation, not hostilely or nastily. You say you like Octave Mouret, you...
...the Bourdoncle side over the last 1 1/2 years or so? Would have done better to stick with Mouret...
...dusk, that same infinite emotion �� or that solitary figure by Breton in the Luxembourg, or his Spring. You’ll say that I’m not successful. I don’t care, vanquish or be vanquished, in all...
...to create — to struggle against facts, vanquish them or be vanquished by them, all human joy and...
...Or if they’d left it at that and not driven her to distraction again!, this time with 5 or 6 or...
...by the emotions. Still, we’ll see what can be done or what’s made impossible by fate. I’ll do...
...happened that I was asked to make a drawing or painted sketch for 20 guilders. Which I duly acceded...
...have a lot of work — believe me — I have no intention of being bored — do a great deal or die.
in date note:
...statement that ‘a call came just now’ for their father (ll. 7-8) also points to this...
465 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Thursday, 9 October 1884.
in original text:
...eer zijn prijs verminderen dan vermeerderen. Vooral waar après tout de som niet zóó is dat ’t...
...iets anders dan een eigentlijk gierigaard maar après tout – ik verdien minder (heel wat minder...
in translation:
...a change of scene, since I’ve been either in Drenthe or here in Nuenen for a full year and more...
...on that occasion that Stracké is definitely not ill-disposed or indifferent to anyone in this area...
...are people he gives the opportunity to draw the nude or to model in clay. One probably has to pay...
...laws that one must and can study like chemistry or algebra. This is by no means the easiest view of...
...after all, the sum isn’t such that receiving it or not makes a great deal of difference. If I get...
...absolutely no intention of becoming less passionate in ideas or in life than I am. By no means...
...the best people — in which there are no errors or bias. And again, although these may seem to be...
...somewhere, stand either on the right or on the left, don’t we, whether or not we’re aware of it...
...minister dropped dead, I know nothing more about whether or not they’ll call Pa. But would think...
...about that. Sooner or later it ends with one openly standing either on the right or on the left. It...
in note 3:
...Royal School for Applied and Fine Arts), at number 173 Sint Jorisstraat (district G) in...
in note 6:
...by J. and G. Nicholls after drawings by J.-S. Cuthbert. The second edition, at the same price...
in note 17:
...brother-in-law Abraham Anthonie ’s Graeuwen at number 25-k Molenstraat (Huis ‘Rozen-Haeghe’) in...
466 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Wednesday, 22 October 1884.
in translation:
...if I really wanted someone to take this thing or that. And perhaps you’re right that I should...
in date note:
...25 October he had meanwhile done ‘10 studies or so’ (letter 467). Since Jo van Gogh-Bonger gave...
in note 3:
...it could equally well have been painted in Drenthe or Terschelling, where Van Rappard was working before...
467 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 25 October 1884.
in title:
467 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 25 October 1884.
in original text:
...in mijn hoofd die ik graag maken zou, dat après tout ik moeielijk kan uitstellen er direkt op door...
in translation:
...spinning and various studies of heads, has already made 10 studies or so, all of which I consider fine.
...and I’m starting on those 30 heads now, or rather I’ve already started with a large bust of a...
in date note:
...1 November 1884, we have dated the letter on or about Saturday, 25 October 1884. This must therefore...
468 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 2 November 1884.
in title:
468 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 2 November 1884.
in original text:
...Als ik U schreef AGIR, is dat geen WOORD Theo – hoor! maar dan is het om u te zeggen: gaan we...
in translation:
...outside and has to refresh oneself. You never feel or understand that and say ‘just keep on...
...part. Do it generously and resolutely, not hesitating or being non-committal when it comes to the...
...me, though — I haven’t written to M. or to Tersteeg in a complaining tone. On the contrary, but...
...100 francs, because I won’t be going for long �� or if you absolutely can’t, Pa will have to...
...either I’ll exhibit or I’ll sell. When I wrote to you, ACT, it isn’t just a WORD, Theo — you hear! But it’s to say to you, are we going onward together or would you rather stay behind...
...course, I may hear nothing from M. or T. If I hear anything, I’ll write to you immediately. And if it takes too long, it will have to be repeated, either by me alone or by both of us, just as you...
...ve learned some new things, but I need Mauve again, or someone else who’s very clever — not to...
...this result — but — as I see it — for your part you can just do something you said you’d do...
in date note:
...must be the allowance for November; we have therefore dated the letter on or about Sunday, 2 November 1884.
469 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 14 November 1884.
in title:
469 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 14 November 1884.
in translation:
...it rejected. One has to encounter opposition at first, or even several times. So again, I don’t...
...ve been too neutral towards me the last 1 1/2 or two years, and I wish above all for more warmth...
...people may blame us. Either her or me. And in my view it’s absurd that people felt they should get worked up about it — and then — in their opinion — in my interest or in hers. That was a bad...
...I’m concerned about your sister. Most certainly, at some time she has done greater or lesser good turns for pretty well all the people here in the neighbourhood, either in sickness or when they were in some trouble or other. And she and I actually became attached during Ma’s illness. She has...
...to her. But the real fault lies with her sisters, or rather one of the sisters in particular, who...
in date note:
...ll. 16-17) – we have dated the present letter on or about Friday, 14 November 1884 (KNMI). See also...
470 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 17 November 1884.
in title:
470 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 17 November 1884.
in original text:
...hun eens een woordje zegt.– Hermans heeft après tout bepaald me beloofd me vrij te houden voor...
in translation:
...insist upon. I’ve resolved to make a certain number of studies for which, however I calculate it...
...I approached Mauve and T. and they refuse, directly or indirectly I must show — and that very...
...of tubes of paint. Hermans is preposterously miserly or rather beastly selfish, not just to me but...
in date note:
...We have therefore dated the present letter on or about Monday, 17 November 1884. Van Gogh’s...
in note 3:
Kerssemakers lived at number 283 Kloosterdijk (district B), opposite the then station and outbuildings (De...
471 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 24 November 1884.
in title:
471 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 24 November 1884.
in original text:
...of naar Antwerpen zou zijn vertrokken.– Nu – voor zoover ik zien kan, is en blijft het ’t beste voor...
in translation:
...I wouldn’t have gone with them to H. in any case, and would either have stayed here in my studio �� or would have left for Antwerp. Now — as far as I can see, the best thing for me is simply to carry on as...
in date note:
...or about Monday, 17 November. Assuming that the still lifes painted ‘last week’ were done in the week of 17 to 22 November, it would mean that the present letter dates from the week of Sunday, 23 to Saturday, 29 November 1884. Van Gogh moreover repeats the request he made in letter 470, that is for an extra 20 francs to cover ‘the end of this month if possible’ (l. 48). This remark implies that the letter must have been written at least a few days before the end of the month, otherwise Theo would not have had time to accede to the request. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Monday, 24 November 1884...
in note 3:
...he talks of ‘really nice things’ (l. 45). A number of items from Hermans’s collection are listed in...
472 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 28 November 1884.
in title:
472 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 28 November 1884.
in original text:
...fata morgana, ik ben daar te praktisch voor après tout. Wil s.v.p. apprecieeren ik u een goed...
...al zijn er geen bijzondere standjes – après tout ook geen prettig vooruitzigt ik hier al te...
in translation:
...twice — because I found it either too bitter or too tame. What shall I say to you? — your letter...
...here too long a pleasant one. Which I can well understand. And yet I can’t leave — either altogether �� or partly (partly if I keep my studio on, which is my plan) unless I make a whole lot more...
in date note:
...arrived in Paris on or about Wednesday, 26 November; assuming that Theo did not delay in sending the money because it was almost the end of the month, we have dated the present letter on or about Friday, 28...
473 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 6 December 1884.
in title:
473 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 6 December 1884.
in original text:
...houd dat er raison d’être voor is.– Voor mij persoonlijk is een cardinaal punt van onderscheid...
...zelfs niet voor de zekerheid eener protectie die après tout wel wat naauw is. Waar ik zie dat ik...
...nu eenmaal niet anders zien – en – dus après tout – meende ’t goed – – als ge wilt...
...uitgaven. Overigens erken ik dat het mij après tout voordeelig geweest is. Doch de reden waarom ik...
in translation:
...decided disapproval of their attitude in this matter �� or of concealing it. What you also know...
...I said, increasingly try to find other contacts or connections in Eindhoven, in Antwerp, in short...
...t be asking you whether you approve or disapprove of anything I do or don’t do — I won’t be...
...don’t call yourself my friend if you think this or that of me — people who think of me like...
...don’t in the least undertake to agree with Pa or you. Be aware of that — quite possibly there...
...of fine and good things about me according to your or Pa’s view of things. It might well be that...
...by making progress or not making progress — your affairs going poorly or well. Well now, know...
...and secondly I still want to paint a fairly large number of heads first — with which I’ll make...
...can part in peace and without damage to you or me. However, my very sincere thanks each time for...
...lodging, you may regard that if you will as arrogance or tactlessness on my part. I did it for the...
in arrangement:
...of paper, both letters were probably written in a number of sessions. Although the subjects in the two...
in date note:
...arrived in Nuenen on 5 December (see n. 1), we have dated the letter on or about Saturday, 6 December 1884.
in note 4:
This ‘barricade’ metaphor was introduced in letters 461-465.
474 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 10 December 1884.
in title:
474 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 10 December 1884.
in translation:
...I don’t care whether you’re mistrustful or not) — to speak out completely frankly — that...
...in Paris with you — either to study or for financial reasons — however useful and necessary...
...Only — failing relations with you yourself, with Tersteeg or with whoever else I knew in the past...
...don’t think that I want to quarrel with you or with them at home — because this is not in my...
...as friends, though. Even if they were my father or my brother a thousand times over — if they...
...why, what about, and what use is this to you or me? Does mistrust make you any the wiser? I hope...
in date note:
...on or about Tuesday, 16 December, 474 and 475 must date from between about 6 and about 16 December; we have spaced them evenly over this span of nine days and have consequently dated the present letter on or about...
475 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 14 December 1884.
in title:
475 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 14 December 1884.
in translation:
...of this month. I don’t need much, 20 francs or 30 francs will go a long way towards covering it...
...our quarrelling. Regards — if you have borrowed or can borrow, help me with this. Since I...
in date note:
...to letter 474, Date. We have consequently dated the present letter on or about Sunday, 14 December 1884.
in note 1:
...Van Gogh is referring to here, how many there were or which paintings they were of. He did numerous heads...
in note 3:
...on the title page) and the double-page spread Après l’aquittement (After the acquittal) (pp. 184-185...
476 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 16 December 1884.
in title:
476 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 16 December 1884.
in original text:
...geleden ik hier door den nood gedrongen arriveerde.– Voor mijn pleizier ben ik hier zeker niet in...
...gelegenheid zoudt ontnemen indien ik hier nu wegging – voor en aleer ik iets nieuws heb.– Ik...
in translation:
...history pieces — although they’re fine, too — nor in the first place at a few paintings that...
...it possible that you don’t seem to be able or willing to understand that, by setting up my studio...
...no good would have come of it either for me or for others? Had I not done that, I would have had to...
...happy to go anywhere I can earn the same as I now have here. But I don’t need or deserve to go backwards — nor do I have the slightest desire to — you see? And to seek to be rid of you — I...
...because I only have enough left to pay my model for 2 or 3 days. And I’m wretched because I’ll be stuck again for 10 days, or 12, this month. And in the utmost seriousness, once again — can’t...
in date note:
...said how concerned he was about his finances in the last month of the year. Now he writes: ‘I’m stuck at the end of the month because I only have enough left to pay my model for 2 or 3 days. And I’m wretched because I’ll be stuck again for 10 days, or 12, this month.’ (ll. 101-105). This means that the letter must have been written 14 or 15 days before 31 December, in other words on or about Tuesday, 16 December 1884.
in note 4:
...in Anderlecht), c. 1856-1857 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). Ill. 140. The Museum acquired...
477 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Tuesday, 30 December 1884.
in original text:
...penteekeningetjes naar studiekoppen. Ik voel me après tout ’t meest t’huis als ik aan figuur werk. En...
...mit `la bonté´ dans l’expression des têtes humaines”.– Giotto schilderde Dante en met veel...
in translation:
In 3 days or so you’ll receive 12 little pen drawings after studies of heads. After all, I feel most at...
...m curious to see that painting you got, sooner or later. I don’t exactly understand the legend...
...good and tender. I therefore can’t imagine Satan or Mephistopheles as Dantean at all. So all the...
in note 8:
...de l’art italien: “Dans l’expression des têtes, le premier il mit la bonté.”) (Michelet...
478 To Anton Kerssemakers. Nuenen, between Thursday, 1 and about Thursday, 8 January 1885.
in translation:
...results again every time. So I say, let’s devote 3 days or so to it, because the question of chiaroscuro and colour and deep tone in the shadow is an eternally difficult question. And whether or not a study is painted better or less well — its artistic value — depends to a very considerable...
...t get when they have work out in the fields, or only with more difficulty. Anyway, I’m working...
...when I’ll be able to get away for three days or so, but I’ll send you a postcard as soon as I...
in date note:
...before one of the first Sundays in 1885: Sunday, 4 or Sunday, 11 January. We have consequently dated the...
in note 2:
...I abandoned the company and went to sit with him, or we went to my house together.’ Letter from Anton...
in note 4:
...glass, pewter ware, floor covering etc., at number 302 (now 18) Rechtestraat, district C, in...
479 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 23 January 1885.
in title:
479 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 23 January 1885.
in original text:
...de charbonniers die ik bijwoonde in een jaar van grèves en veel ongelukken. Dat was nog wel erger...
in translation:
...that, as a result of the collapse of one or other of the large houses, for instance, some things...
...time, relatively speaking — in, let’s say, 40 years or so at most. And would it need more time...
...that he can only bring a new piece in a week or a fortnight’s time. So not only wages low, but...
...But they look as little cheerful as the cab-horses or the sheep that are transported by steamer to...
in date note:
...probably received on the 22nd. On these grounds, and because the next letter must have been written on or about Monday, 26 January (letter 480), we have dated the present letter on or about Friday, 23 January 1885.
480 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 26 January 1885.
in title:
480 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 26 January 1885.
in translation:
...And so I also believe this — if the critics or connoisseurs were more familiar with nature, their...
...you understand that I may not be wrong in this — and to say even more clearly what I mean by it, isn’t it a pity, for instance, that you seldom �� or hardly ever now — go into those interiors, or associate with those people, or see those moods in the landscape that are painted in the paintings you find most beautiful? I don’t say that you can do this in your position — just because...
...other way round too. In any event — whether people like or don’t like what I do and how I do it...
...enough self-confidence and independent opinion to know whether or not I could see now what there...
...for you to send a few days before the first — for the same reason that the ends of the months are...
in date note:
...days before the end of the month; we have therefore dated the letter on or about Monday, 26 January 1885.
481 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 30 January 1885.
in title:
481 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 30 January 1885.
in original text:
...evenwel met volle kracht kon worden doorgezet. Enfin ik doe wat ik kan en ik vorder er ook après tout mede.
in translation:
...you at length about how my intention of painting 50 or so heads means that I have to incur even more...
...the means lie, whatever may happen about being more or less in sympathy with each other, of being...
482 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 2 February 1885.
in title:
482 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 2 February 1885.
in original text:
...is toch waarachtig zooveel moeite niet. En – après tout – weet wel dat wat die achterdocht...
in translation:
...though, that was a bit too much for me, and I repeatedly asked you to take it back or to explain...
...hear me say, ‘I’d like to be thus or so’ — is — because I believe that those who make the greatest parade of ‘I’d like to be thus or so’ do the least to improve themselves. Those who...
...it isn’t so much because I won’t allow you or others, if need be, to think of me exactly as you...
...It may take me longer than I’d like for you or for me, but keeping on working is a path that can...
in date note:
...that the regular remittance was delayed, so we have dated the letter on or about Monday, 2 February 1885.
483 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Thursday, 5 and about Thursday, 26 February 1885.
in original text:
...Emile Levy, Japonaise, en ’t Schij van Beyle, Brûleuses de Varech en dat van Collin, l’Ete, 3...
in translation:
...draw in the evening. I’ve already painted at least 30 or so this way, and drawn as many. With the...
...the ripe wheat or against the withered leaves of a beech hedge, so that the hidden nuances of darker and lighter blue are brought alive again and made to speak by contrast with gold tones or reddish...
...of the figure. In short — the figure first — for my part, I can’t understand the rest without...
...satisfied by sky and soil and a pool of water and a bush. However, I think what Israëls said about a Dupré is a mighty clever saying — it’s just like a painting of a figure. Regards, and thanks...
in note 4:
Armorica (Armorica) and Le bain (The bath) by François Feyen-Perrin, engraved by Meisenbach, are on p. 289...
in note 6:
Pierre Marie Beyle, Brûleuses de Varech (Women burning seaweed), engraved by Meisenbach, is on p. 305. Ill...
in note 11:
Van Gogh had quoted this remark by Israëls before – in letter 361.
484 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 2 March 1885.
in title:
484 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 2 March 1885.
in translation:
...by him that I know, for I saw only these — a troop of girls in the wheat — an old woman in church — and a miner or some such in a little bar, and Harvest by him, and otherwise never anything, and nothing ever as much reflecting his...
...weeks earlier, I would have made a woman spinning or spooling yarn — full length — of them. To...
...isn’t really so very attractive — to paint or to think about. But certain common servant girls...
in date note:
...February issue of Le Monde Illustré. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Monday, 2 March 1885.
in note 5:
Léon Augustin Lhermitte’s Les bûcherons (The woodcutters), engraved by Clément Edouard Bellenger, is the...
in note 11:
Van Gogh added ‘or to think about’ (om te...denken) later.
485 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Monday, 9 March and about Monday, 23 March 1885.
in translation:
...suppose that only 1 in 10 or 20 of the studies that I make have something that makes them worth the trouble of looking at them — those few, be it more, be it fewer in number — although they’re worth...
...it certainly doesn’t have to stop there — for since I’ve devoted myself almost exclusively to...
...that is, always directly from nature or in the poor, smoke-blackened cottage — seeing his work...
...whole figure several times, seamstress winding yarn, or peeling potatoes. Full face and in profile...
in date note:
In letter 484 written on or about 2 March, Vincent promised to paint some heads and send them to Theo. Now...
in note 1:
...in return for a monthly allowance, Vincent made a number of works for Theo; see letters 440 ff. Because of...
489 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 4 April 1885.
in title:
489 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 4 April 1885.
in translation:
...it more. I didn’t want to keep talking about it or contradict you much when you were here — but...
...I can have another 20 or so studies for you by then, and moreover another twenty or so to take to Antwerp if you want. But — it’s very necessary for me to pay off my paint bill as soon as possible. You know I didn’t say another word to you about it either in February or in March. But I didn...
in date note:
...6 April (490), we have dated the present one on or about Saturday, 4 April 1885. This is borne out by...
490 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Monday, 6 April 1885.
in original text:
...voorloopig nog al afleiding. Maar natuurlijk nog erg bedroefd.– Cor is weer naar Helmond gegaan zooeven.
...ik in ’t atelier zal gaan wonen.– Voor mij worden zoodoende de dingen al weer nog moeielijker...
...mogt vallen, dan zijn zij nog vrijer met logés &.c. Ik blijf echter zeer betreuren het incident...
...hem werden geweigerd, “dix sept de refusés” vertelde hij zelf vierkantweg aan zijn vrienden...
in translation:
...to take in a lodger this summer, if possible, who wanted to be in the country for his health �� or should this not come about, then they’re still freer with regard to guests &c. However, I still...
...his paintings were rejected; ‘dix-sept de refusés’, he himself told his friends straight out...
...Awaiting or, rather, while I toil away on more important compositions, I’m sending you the studies as they come straight from the cottages. Of course people will say they’re not finished or...
...that I’ll continue to take something like that amiss or hold a grudge about it — but only, it...
...it was and remained with Pa too. Anyway — I plan to make a start this week on that thing with the peasants around a dish of potatoes in the evening, or — perhaps I’ll make daylight of it, or both, or — ‘neither one’ — you’ll say. But should it succeed or should it fail, I’m going to start on the studies for the different figures. Regards, with a handshake. Yours truly, Vincent...
in date note:
The previous letter was written on or about 4 April (489). In the present one Van Gogh says he is still very...
491 To Anton Kerssemakers. Nuenen, Thursday, 9 April 1885.
in additional details:
Postcard (2½ cents). Postmarks: ‘NUENEN 8-12 V / 9 APR 85’ and ‘EINDHOVEN 12-1 N / 9 APR 85’. The...
492 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Thursday, 9 April 1885.
in original text:
...gebeurt het niet dat zulks beroerd eindigt – voor beide partijen onaangenaam. Eenerzijds omdat de...
in translation:
...Not always literally exactly — rather never exactly — for one sees nature through one’s own...
...just tackle whatever I see the people doing in the fields or at home. As I do now anyway. You’re...
...t yet made a name, I’d just try once to put painted studies on the market proper — not as paintings, but mounted somehow or other, on gilt Bristol, say, or black or dark red. But I spoke there about giving security. Not all painters make a lot of studies — but many do, and the young ones in...
...patron is dissatisfied about money that’s wholly wasted, or at least seems to be. On the other...
...the bold, and be this as it may — about fortune or ‘la joie (?) de vivre’, that is — one...
in note 3:
An allusion to ‘Un coin de la nature vu à travers d’un temperament’ in Zola’s Mes haines. See letter...
in note 6:
Van Gogh added ‘or...vivre’ (of ... vivre) later. This may be an allusion to Zola’s novel La joie de...
in note 7:
...it was associated with the cabaret of the same name in Paris’s rue Laval. Each issue was four pages; one or more drawings or prints were reproduced on page three. Van Gogh probably hoped to be considered for this.
493 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Monday, 13 April 1885.
in original text:
...weinig in tel zijnde gewone lithografisch procedé is toch – vooral te Eindhoven misschien – he...
...avonden bij ’t vuur heb zitten peinzen – tenzij ik geen tijd had om te denken – door het werken.– Door op alle uren van den dag voortdurend het boerenleven te zien ben ik er zoo ingeraakt dat...
in translation:
...feel it’s so much for the better — for living together would become insupportable in the long...
...isn’t encouraging, either for the artists or for those who have to sell paintings. I agree...
...being he has shown painters a way that Israëls and Mauve, say, who live quite luxuriously, do not...
...that anyone who really wants to accomplish something good or useful should neither count on nor wish for general approbation or appreciation, but on the contrary should expect nothing other than...
in date note:
...letter 491 that he would go either on Saturday, 11 or Monday, 13 April, but on the Saturday he had worked...
in note 6:
...au coeur la compassion, la pitié pour les misérables des campagnes. Il n’était ni socialiste ni...
in note 7:
...about the exhibition ‘Les pastellistes français’ (French pastellists) which opened on 2 April in...
in note 13:
Van Gogh had read both Vie de Jésus and Etudes d’histoire religieuse by Ernest Renan at the beginning of...
494 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 18 April 1885.
in title:
494 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 18 April 1885.
in original text:
...en effet, sont les seules indecomposables et irréductibles. Tout le monde sait que le rayon...
...composées, dites binaires, l’orangé, le vert et le violet.– Ces rudiments, developpés par...
...ug. Delacroix possedait scientifiquement et à fond, après l’avoir connu par instinct. (Voir...
...cette couleur binaire atteindra son maximum d’eclat dès qu’on la rapprochera de la troisième...
...du contraste simultané.– Si les couleurs complémentaires sont prises à égalité de valeur...
...singulier, ces mêmes couleurs qui s’exaltent par leur juxtaposition se detruiront par leur melange. Ainsi – lorsqu’on mêle ensemble du bleu et de l’orangé à quantités égales, l’orang...
...si l’on mêle ensemble deux complementaires à proportions inégales, elles ne se detruiront que...
...les semblables à l’état pur, mais à divers degrés d’énergie, par exemple le bleu foncé et...
...des couleurs. Enfin, si deux semblables sont juxtaposées, l’une à l’état pur, l’autre...
in translation:
...centres’; that is, beginning with the circular or elliptical bases of the masses instead of the...
...indifferent as to whether people think it very ugly or better. That’s not to say that it would be...
...And could perhaps be one that Portier could show or that we could send to an exhibition. At least...
...one in the pure state, the other broken — for example, pure blue with grey blue, the result will...
...but equally infallible, of strengthening, supporting, attenuating or neutralizing the effect of a...
in date note:
...to Theo is dated 21 April; we have therefore dated the present letter on or about Saturday, 18 April 1885.
in note 1:
...of adjacent colours on one another in Les maîtres d’autrefois (see Fromentin 1902, chapter 6, pp. 235...
495 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Tuesday, 21 April 1885.
in original text:
...betreft – die eeuwige kwesties – wat b.v. de eerste vraag was die Corot rigtte tot Français toen Français (die reeds naam had) vroeg aan Corot (die nog geen naam had dan alleen een negatieven...
in translation:
...My dear Theo, You’ll receive a number of impressions of the lithograph by the same post. Do give...
...there are rules or principles or basic values for both drawing and colour — which one — proves to arrive at — when one finds something true. As regards drawing — for instance, that question...
...first question that Corot addressed to Français when Français (who already had a reputation) asked Corot (who didn’t yet have a reputation, or only a negative or fairly bad one) when he (F.) came...
...working on is different from lamplights by Dou or Van Schendel — it’s perhaps not superfluous...
...life one has to be master of such an enormous number of things. But on the other hand — I know of...
...woman by someone who’s directly or indirectly a pupil of the Hague School. But both in drawing and in colour a certain hesitancy, a certain narrow-mindedness, much more — it seemed to me — than one discerns when one sees an old Blommers or Mauve or Maris. And this phenomenon is threatening to...
in note 11:
Matthijs, Jacob or Willem Maris.
in note 12:
...réalistes du Salon’ (Mon Salon): ‘I have no time for realism, in the sense that the word has no clear meaning for me...that all I ask of the artist is to be personal and powerful’ (Je me moque du réalisme, en ce sens que ce mot ne représente rien de bien précis pour moi ... que je demande uniquement à l’artiste d’être personnel et puissant), and: ‘Therefore no more realism than anything else. Truth, if you like, and life, but above all, different flesh and different hearts interpreting nature in different ways. The definition of a work of art can only be as follows: A work of art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament.’ (Donc pas plus de réalisme que d’autre chose. De la vérité, si l’on veut, de la vie, mais surtout des chairs et des coeurs différents interprétant différemment la nature. La définition d’une oeuvre d’art ne saurait être autre chose que celle-ci: Une oeuvre d’art est un coin de la création vu à travers un tempérament.) Zola 1966-1970, vol. 12, pp. 807-810. Van Gogh alluded to this sentence on other occasions: see letter 361, n. 9....
496 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 28 April 1885.
in title:
496 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 28 April 1885.
in original text:
...qu’à présent je n’ai fait que des études – mais – les tableaux vont venir.– En daar...
in translation:
...I let my own head, in the sense of idea or imagination, work, which isn’t so much the case with...
...to assure you that your Mr Ingres is nothing but an image maker and that Daumier infinitely surpasses him’, or something of the kind. I shan’t send it unless I hear further from you, and anyway...
...Rappard also often draw like that, and Allebé. Regards, with a handshake. Yours truly, Vincent
in date note:
...letter dates from Thursday, 30 April, we have dated the present letter on or about Tuesday, 28 April 1885.
in note 4:
...for March and April, both engraved by Clément Edouard Bellenger. The first is Le labourage (Ploughing), published in Le Monde Illustré 29 (28 March 1885), Supplement to no. 1461 (Ill. 2138). We know from letter 500 that the print for April, Hirondelles ou le jardinage (Swallows or gardening), which appeared in Le Monde Illustré 29 (25 April 1885), Supplement to no. 1465 (Ill. 2137) was certainly in this parcel...
in note 8:
...après avoir péroré pour et contre pendant des heures. Tout à coup, Jacque qui venait de se mettre au lit, se revelait, prenait une plume et écrivait à celui qui l’avait contredit: “Votre M. Ingres n’est qu’un imagier, j’ai tenu à vous le redire avant de m’endormir et à constater que Daumier lui est infiniment supérieur.” Après quoi il réveillait son fils aîné et lui donnait à porter sur-le-champ la missive à laquelle le contradicteur faisait naturellement une réponse. La correspondance durait ainsi une partie de la nuit et l’on riait à se tordre.) Quoted from Fanica 1995, p. 176. Cf. for ‘imagiers’ also letter 515, n. 10...
in note 10:
...comédiens sans le savoir (1846) and Un début dans la vie (1844) from La comédie humaine; he is also mentioned several times in other novels in the series. It is in Honorine (1845) that he is described as ‘the most malicious man in Paris today’ (l’homme le plus malicieux de Paris actuel). See Balzac, La comédie humaine ii. Etudes de moeurs: scènes de la vie privée. Ed. Pierre Citron. Paris 1976, p. 528...
497 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Thursday, 30 April 1885.
in translation:
...get singular broken colours and greys in the cheviots �� or to get the very brightest colours in...
...exactly easy for the weaver, or rather the designer of the pattern or the colour combination, to work out his calculation of the number of threads and their direction — nor is it easy to weave...
...enclose it by placing something in a deep gold or copper colour around it. Please bear that in mind...
...a dull or black background. The shadows are painted with blue, and the gold colour works with that. Yesterday I took it to an acquaintance of mine in Eindhoven, who is painting. In 3 days or so, I...
...he also knows very well what a peasant’s head or fist entails, and as to the hands, he said that...
...certainly don’t want everyone just to admire it or approve of it without knowing why. I’ve had...
...if the field has an odour of ripe wheat or potatoes or — of guano and manure — that’s really...
...the material difficulties will also hinder but not destroy or weaken me. Anyway. I believe that the...
in note 6:
...In Les maîtres d’autrefois, which Van Gogh had read not long before this (letter 450), Fromentin observed that Ruisdael’s The mill at Wijk bij Duurstede, composed of ‘deep browns and sombre slate-grey colours’ (bruns foncés et de couleurs ardoisées sombres) with a ‘single glimmer in the centre of the picture’ (seule lueur au centre du tableau) looked so ‘marvellous in gold’ (merveilleux dans l’or) (see...
in note 10:
...Here Sensier is quoting La Bruyère, Les caractères de Théophraste (1688). See Sensier 1881, pp...
498 To Anton Kerssemakers. Nuenen, early May 1885.
in translation:
...certainly like the one by Rovers with the little etching by Israëls, and the drawings by Menzel too.
in note 1:
...woord door A.C. Loffelt en een teekening van Israëls. Leiden 1881 (Etchings from life. With an introduction by A.C. Loffelt and a drawing by Israëls). Ill. 2136. H. Hollidee is the pseudonym of Elard Albert...
499 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 2 May 1885.
in title:
499 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 2 May 1885.
in translation:
...do more things to it from life. I believe I’ll finish it though — in a manner of speaking — for I myself will actually never think my own work finished or ready. I can make a smaller version of it or a drawing, though, if you would rather have that, for I feel the thing in such a way that I...
...in recent years. But I’ve thought a great deal about the question. Corot, Millet, Daubigny, Israëls, Dupré, others — also paint light paintings — that is, one can see into all the corners and...
in date note:
...send The potato eaters) on 4 and 5 May, we have dated the present letter on or about Saturday, 2 May 1885.
in note 6:
...JH 775). The ‘cottage’ he refers to, at number 4 Gerwenseweg (in the continuation of De Berg...
in note 12:
...that Van Gogh did not know about the Salon des Indépendants, staged for the first time in 1884. He must have been thinking of the Salon des Refusés (1863). Ironically, the painting was eventually shown at the...
500 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Monday, 4 and Tuesday, 5 May 1885.
in original text:
...ook den Fantin Latour– ook les Côtes de Cornouailles, Vernier, en enkele anderen nog – wees er...
...ij ziet zooveel Daubignys, Corots, Millets, Dupré, Israels, Herkomer, Breton &c. En ik geen.– Ma...
...schilderijen als zekere oude Cabats b.v., zekere Duprés – al zijn zij misschien haast enkel met...
in translation:
...Régameys and Renouard — then it’s a loss and leaves an empty place. But Lançon’s drawings...
...not reproduced. But when I think about a Salon of 70 or 74, to give an example — it seems to me...
...that pink into the sea. I hear and see so little, or nothing, so I’m not in a position to test...
...in Holland people use more white than Millet or Dupré or Daubigny or Corot. You’d be doing me a...
...about this? Wine, of course, contains moisture or water particles naturally — and there will...
...by no means my assertion that one can or should paint without white or light, any more than I would...
...perhaps a little or some but probably not much white. I haven’t seen it in 10 or 12 years — yet...
...s good to paint, too, yes indeed. But peasants or fishermen in small villages and far from the...
...face in the middle — magnificent — and any number of Dutch paintings with snow, mist and sky...
...little crate, however it still has to dry for 1 or 2 days. I’m also sending another 10 painted...
in date note:
...that the painting still had to dry for another day or two (l. 203). In the next letter, 501, which was...
in note 9:
...J.-J. Tissot: Quinze tableaux sur la femme à Paris ran from 19 April to 15 June 1885 in Galerie...
501 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Wednesday, 6 May 1885.
in translation:
Yesterday I sent a number of painted studies by post, and today, Wednesday, a crate marked V1, free...
...to be seen against a tone like gold or copper. Because then the marbling effect disappears and it...
...this canvas. I think that once we have, say, 3 or 4 paintings of a certain size, it would then be...
in date note:
...in the previous letter still had to dry for a day or two, has meanwhile been sent ‘today, Wednesday...
502 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 22 May 1885.
in title:
502 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 22 May 1885.
in original text:
...in 4 woorden weet te zeggen, als hij spreekt over “des bleus cendrés que nous aimons” en “les herbes de la prairie sont très vertes, le taureau est brun roux, la jeune fille est rose, voila...
in translation:
...t sit on chairs like in one of Duval’s cafés, say. The finest thing I saw was that the woman...
...to read it and will send it back within a fortnight or so. Is Lhermitte’s month of May in yet? In...
...Besnard must be interesting. I’ll add another word or two here — I cannot advise you enough...
...in a manly and forceful way. Just as Israëls won’t be surpassed here in Holland but, it seems to...
...I know you’re already taking pains — for example by reading good things like the one by...
...expression. The sniffing of the wind when a digger looks up, say, or speaking. Life, in short.
in date note:
...did not want to delay thanking Theo either, we have dated the letter on or about Friday, 22 May 1885.
in note 11:
...après la longue nuit d’hiver (Lapps greet the return of the sun after the long winter night) by the Norwegian Otto Sinding, described by Mantz: ‘The delighted and grateful air given to his Laplanders by the Norwegian artist is the same as that which would be taken by the group of salon visitors smitten with light if the sky in art which had become so dreary with the disappearance of the great stars were suddenly to be lit up with golden crimsons’ (L’attitude enchantée et reconnaissante que l’artiste norvégien a donnée a ses Lapons, c’est celle-là même que prendrait le groupe des salonniers épris de lumière si le ciel de l’art si morne depuis l’effacement des grandes étoiles, s’illuminait soudain de pourpres dorées...
in note 12:
...into history, and there he will remain’ (Millet est entré dans l’histoire, et il y restera) (p. 1).
in note 13:
Among other things Mantz writes of Lhermitte: ‘Despite the differences, easily visible, which separate him from his predecessors, he belongs to the same intellectual movement’ (Malgré les différences, aisément appréciables, qui le séparent de ses prédécesseurs, il appartient au même mouvement intellectuel) (p. 1).
in note 19:
...de Marie à Chartèves (The month of May at Chartèves) (present whereabouts unknown) as the month of May in...
in note 20:
Mantz wrote: ‘He always drew on those ash blues that we love, but today he goes further’ (Il y puisait déjà des bleus cendrés que nous aimons, mais aujourd’hui il va plus loin) (p. 1).
in note 21:
...of the spectacle’ (L’animal est d’un brun roux, la femme est d’un blond rosé, les herbes de la prairie sont très vertes: on voit d’ici l’accord des trois notes et la jolie du spectacle) (p. 2). A...
503 Anthon van Rappard to Vincent van Gogh. Utrecht, Sunday 24 May 1885.
in translation:
...think that I had so little interest in your father or in the events in your family that a common...
...s that pot doing, for that matter; it isn’t standing, it isn’t being held, but what then? And why may that man on the right not have a knee or a belly or lungs? Or are they in his back? And why must his arm be a metre too short? And why must he lack half of his nose? And why must the woman on...
505 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 28 May 1885.
in title:
505 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 28 May 1885.
in translation:
...even faster than now and will also be able to bring home 30 or so studies in the space of a month, say.
...I should keep the work I’m doing now for Antwerp or that I send it to you and Portier as soon as...
in date note:
...506) he had finished it. We have therefore dated the present letter on or about Thursday, 28 May 1885.
in note 1:
...saw this setting during his trip to Courrières (letter 158), which is only about 20 km from...
in note 5:
...Several people saw his work, either at my place or Mr Portier’s and the painters, in particular...
506 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 2 June 1885.
in title:
506 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 2 June 1885.
in original text:
...t elle est morte? Qui donc? Ma femme là-bas en Russie. Etienne eut un geste vague, étonné du...
...r une borne et elle m’a vu, nos yeux ne se sont plus quittés. Deux fois, j’ai eu envie de crier, de m’élancer par-dessus les têtes, pour la rejoindre. Mais à quoi bon, un homme de moins, un...
...rase des champs de betteraves sous la nuit sans étoiles, d’une obscurité et d’une épaisseur...
...sillons – grandissant pour la recolte des siècles futurs et dont la germinaison allait bientôt...
...Een passage toch: du pain! du pain! du pain! Imbéciles! répéta M. Hennebeau, est ce que je suis...
...les avaient culbutés avant lui! Il aurait tout donné, son éducation, son bien-être, son luxe, sa puissance de directeur, s’il avait pu être, une journée, le dernier des misérables qui lui...
...en brute, ne rien posséder à soi, battre les blés avec la hercheuse la plus laîde, la plus sâl...
in translation:
...in the gloomy cottages I see effects against the light or in the evenings in the dusk that are so...
...as dark and thick as ink’. Standing out against this the head of a female coal-pit drawer �� or female thrutcher with something of a cow that’s lowing. As to expression — an individual from...
...in it the most dust from the cottages or from the field will, I don’t know how or why myself, find a few very loyal friends. That he must therefore not lose heart too soon, because you and I combined won’t take it amiss of him should it not succeed for a longer or shorter time, but that he must...
...and the Luxembourg once again, and that sooner or later I really should study the technique and...
...many do, who are so anxious to understand their tones and colours that the fear itself makes them insipid. Well, the real fellows, Israëls or Maris or Mauve or Neuhuys, do that very differently, for they say ‘just slap it on’. Well then — because people have snuffed out enthusiasm, they’ll...
in date note:
...for sending the money for this month so promptly’ (ll. 1*-2). In view of the comments about the reactions to Vincent’s work, this must have been the month of June. The second sheet cannot possibly have been written before Monday, 1 June 1885 since there is a reference in it to an article that had appeared in Le Temps on Sunday, 31 May and had been sent to Nuenen (see Arrangement). We have therefore dated the letter on or about Tuesday, 2 June 1885...
in note 16:
...fervour and luminous architecture’ (des élans enthousiastes et des architectures lumineuses) (p...
in note 27:
...d’après les notes manuscrites et les lettres du maître. Paris 1870, pp. 123-126, 138-139, and Cassagne’s Traité d’aquarelle (Cassagne 1875, p. 89). The ‘wire’ (fil de fer) occurs in Silvestre’s Eugène Delacroix (Silvestre 1864, p. 38). He also repeated this description in his Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers (1853) (see Silvestre, Histoire, p. 53). See also Ingres raconté par lui-même et par ses amis – Pensées et écrits du peintre. 2 vols. Vésenaz-Genève 1947-1948, vol. 1, pp. 56, 60, 76...
507 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 9 June 1885.
in title:
507 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 9 June 1885.
in original text:
...regel.– Het is toch mal – dat ik tevens après tout betwijfel of ge in den handel blijft.– Ge...
in translation:
...although he did make something very fine once or twice — who will also fail — that is...
...I’ve never seriously granted that being bored ‘for one’s own good’ can have its good...
...in judging art — namely praising the old or present-day Delaroche to the skies and...
...the trade. You don’t have to take any notice of this or reply to it — I say it to you just to...
...a varnish before you show them to Portier or Serret. The peasant cemetery has sunk in particularly...
...I now really must go bird’s nesting with a number of variations of these ‘people’s nests...
...public. This doesn’t alter the fact that my end or second half of the month — can still work...
in date note:
...or about Tuesday, 2 June (506), Van Gogh wrote that he hoped to send a small crate of paintings ‘this week’. This crate was sent, he says here, ‘today’ (l. 1*). Since he moreover says in letter 508, which dates from Monday, 15 June: ‘In all likelihood you’ll have received the little crate in the last few days’, we have dated the present letter on or about Tuesday, 9 June 1885...
508 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Monday, 15 June 1885.
in translation:
...the figure drawings; however I’ll have to make 100 or so before I paint them, since that will save...
...town halls with subjects from rural life, like a number of the paintings that were at the Salon. I...
...of his sympathy &c. Is Serret a painter, a dealer or an art lover? As of today, I don’t know. I...
...and be damaged. I’ll put it in the next one, though, or return it by post. I think it magnificent.
in note 6:
...que plusieurs salles des édifices municipaux, particulièrement celle des Mariages, pourraient être embellies par des peintures. On a même jugé que les citadins seraient réjouis par le spectacle des choses...
509 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 22 June 1885.
in title:
509 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 22 June 1885.
in translation:
...having not heard anything from him in 3 months or so, I suddenly got a letter from Rappard, with...
...such a longing to be something like a grass-mower or polder worker. And I was sick of the boredom...
in date note:
...francs again – around the twentieth; we have therefore dated the letter on or about Monday, 22 June 1885.
in note 8:
...dans la stricte exécution des ordres reçus, il faisait de la discipline militaire où il vivait...
510 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Sunday, 28 June 1885.
in original text:
...van Decamps of Isabey. Enfin er is iets après tout teringachtigs in en ik vind een Corot, een Dupr...
in translation:
...Israëls, like Artz, better than this, where one gets a mystical Christ into the bargain. The children are very fine characterizations — but are they better than those by Lobrichon, Frère or even...
...painting, it makes me nostalgic for Decamps’s or Isabey’s less orthodox manner of painting. In...
...never seem to go for a walk very early in the morning, or in the evening at sunset, that they don’t want to see anything but midday light or gaslight, and that has to be electric! No — the effect...
...original. I’m working hard on figure drawings every day. I must have at least a hundred, though �� or even more, before I can stop again. I’m trying to find something different from my old...
...long, anyway. And I’ll also send another 3 cottages or so — painted studies like the last ones...
...very bright fellows, where they later become chalky or oily. It’s because I’ve observed this so...
in date note:
The last letter to Theo, letter 509, was written on or about 22 June. In it Van Gogh mentioned Serret and...
in note 7:
...or at least quiet objects: they call him a still-life painter.’ (Les academiciens de l’avenir ont forgé un mot pour désigner le peintre qui, comme les Hollandais d’autrefois et comme Chardin, fait profession de représenter des objects inanimés ou du moins tranquilles: ils l’appellent un nature-mortier) (Le Temps, Sunday, 14 June 1885, p. 2...
in note 8:
See for the character of Joseph Prudhomme in Monnier’s Scènes populaires dessinées à la plume, Grandeur et décadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme, Mémoires de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme, and Croquis à la plume: letter 296, n. 3.
in note 11:
...and spiritual habits.’ (A mes yeux, la difficulté de l’oeuvre était surtout là, dans cette chasse aux modèles, aux renseignements vrais, dans l’ennui de tout ce reportage commandé par la nouveaut...
in note 12:
On small figures or figures at work from this period, see cat. Amsterdam 1997, pp. 203-210.
in note 18:
Jean-François Raffaëlli, The blacksmiths, 1884 (Douai, Musée de la Chartreuse). Ill. 1235. Theo must have...
511 To Anton Kerssemakers. Nuenen, Friday, 3 July 1885.
in translation:
...away, as you observe. If you do come either Sunday or later — would you just tell Van der Harten, who...
512 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Monday, 6 July 1885.
in translation:
...all specifically Lhermitte, though, have what Raffaëlli’s talking about, ‘conscience’. I’m...
...about it. Although it’s enough for a figure to be put together conventionally, academically �� or actually, although many people want precisely that, there’ll be a reaction nonetheless — and I...
in note 1:
...des oeuvres de Jean-François Raffaelli, exposées 28 bis, avenue de l’Opéra. Suivi d’une étude des mouvements de l’art moderne et du beau caractériste. Paris 1884. Facsimile printed in: Exhibitions of Impressionist Art ii. New York and London 1981. This exhibition ran from 15 March to 15 April 1884; Portier was responsible for organizing it. One of the categories was ‘Portraits-types de gens du bas peuple’ (Portrait heads of the lower classes). The catalogue contains five illustrations followed by Raffaëlli’s lengthy essay, titled ‘Etude des mouvements de l’art moderne et du beau caractériste’ in which he puts into words what makes up the essence of art for him (pp. 21-70). Theo handled several works by Raffaëlli from 1886 onwards...
in note 2:
...Raffaëlli’s essay is the concept of ‘character’; expressing this well in the work of art is the most important task of the modern artist; the concept is discussed in particular on pp. 21-30, 43, 66-68. The piece begins with a number of pithily formulated contentions: ‘Character is the essential beauty, in a positivist era. Characteristic beauty must at the same time be natural beauty, intellectual beauty and artistic beauty, finally leading to moral beauty. Characteristic beauty must be a means of judicial action in all manifestations of freedom.’ (Le caractère est le beau essentiel, à une époque positiviste. Le beau caractériste doit être en même temps le beau naturel, le beau intellectuel, et le beau artistique, menant comme fin au beau moral.– Le beau caractériste doit être un mode d’action judiciaire de toutes les manifestations de la liberté) (p. 21). Cf. also Schinman Fields 1979, pp. 60, 102-118...
in note 4:
See for Raffaëlli’s The blacksmiths: letter 510, n. 18.
in note 7:
...new, poetic, critical, natural and scientific manifestations; whether damnable or praiseworthy.’ (Il nous faut un art de force vive s’adressant à l’idée par la reproduction et par l’attention portée à des spectacles nouveaux, poétiques, critiques, naturels, scientifiques; condamnables ou à louanger (p. 25).
513 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 12 July 1885.
in title:
513 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Sunday, 12 July 1885.
in translation:
...that for the time being, because there are now 6 or so large canvases, I plan to make only small ones...
...also have to pay out again next month. I can or may not do anything other than spend a relatively...
...figures that are definitely not larger than a span, say, or even less — so that what’s in them...
in date note:
...l. 31). Given the above considerations, we have dated the present letter on or about Sunday, 12 July 1885.
in note 4:
...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...
514 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 13 July 1885.
in title:
514 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 13 July 1885.
in original text:
...niet eens aan beginnen.– Zijne kunst – voor zoover mij bekend – blijkt vooral toepasselijk te...
in translation:
...have been justified in condemning my work in such an insulting manner, or rather in ignoring it as you did.
...applicable to subjects that are pretty much completely and utterly opposite to Millet or Lhermitte — and sooner run parallel to Cabanel — who for all his what I call — craftsmanship — has said little that lasted �� or contributed to progress. And — this I beg of you — don’t confuse this with the way a Millet or Lhermitte paints. What I said and still say — the word — technique...
in date note:
...wrote back immediately, we have dated letter 514 on or about Monday, 13 July 1885. See also letter 515...
515 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 14 July 1885.
in title:
515 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 14 July 1885.
in original text:
...Maar ik vraag het U, is het niet voor ons beiden après tout beter om hard te werken al zijn er...
...of ik dat ik er telkens aan zou verschilderen.– Door het aan U te sturen en aan Portier zoo als...
...Millet spreekt van “travailler comme plusieurs nègres”, dit waarachtig dient te gebeuren wil...
...zoo moeielijk als die alledaagsche figuren! Er bestaat – voor zoo ver ik weet – geen enkele...
...maar anders dan de akademie het leert après tout.– Ik geloof dat hoe correct akademisch een...
...kringen bewegen als Raffaelli te Parijs, denken echter après tout anders dan b.v. ik buiten in...
in translation:
...nor a figure by Beyle or Lhermitte beside a Schelfhout or Koekkoek. Scatter Raffaëlli’s...
...one by Benjamin-Constant, or like a reception at a cardinal’s by some Spaniard or other — it...
...count Jacquet, also Benjamin-Constant’s present work �� or the highly praised but so unspeakably...
...of a man, what sort of a visionary/observer or thinker, what sort of a human character is there...
...subjects. For in Paris one can get Arab or Spanish or Moorish models simply by ordering and paying...
...who want the figure — yes — above all — for the sake of the figure (i.e. for the sake of form...
...for the action’s sake. So that the painting or the drawing is a figure drawing for the sake of...
...proportion and anatomy. But when Israëls or when Daumier or Lhermitte, say, draw a figure...
...a great deal to say. I find in Raffaëlli’s words, his perception about ‘Character’, what he...
...their ideas — he suggests the word ‘Character’ for the figures of the future. I agree with it...
in date note:
...or about Thursday, 16 July 1885. Letters 518 and 519, which were written on the same day (the day Willem Wenckebach visited Van Gogh), have consequently been given this date. In the present letter Vincent reiterates that he wants to send Theo four works. This makes the present letter a follow-up to letter 513 of about 12 July, where he mentions this for the first time (ll. 4-8). Since the next letter dates from about 16 July (519), we have dated 515 on or about Tuesday, 14 July 1885...
in note 2:
...in Tongelre (near Nuenen) known as ‘Rouwveldje�� or ‘Raauwvelden’, and Catharina Helena Bruininga, who lived at this time in Huis te Coll in Tongelre. See Van Hoek 1995. In Dutch ‘coll’ means witch. The first work, with the peasant (cf. l. 171), must have been Cottage with a man coming home (F 170 / JH 824); the second Cottage with woman digging (F 89 / JH 803) �� or possibly Cottage with tumbledown barn and a...
in note 3:
Gigoux mentions these ‘dix-sept de refusés’ in Causeries sur les artistes de mon temps: see letter 490...
in note 12:
Raffaëlli’s work includes numerous ragpickers; most of them were known through black and white...
in note 19:
One of the main themes of Raffaëlli’s essay in the catalogue (see n. 12 above and letter 512, n. 2) is...
516 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 15 July 1885.
in title:
516 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 15 July 1885.
in translation:
...s clear, isn’t it, and it’s up to you whether or not you make use of it. And for my part I’d...
...stone later. Originally — although faults in an arm or nose that caused you to fly off the handle...
...that your letter of today is at all useful or necessary to me. Be assured, though, that your saying...
...concerning oneself, concerning one’s own bad or good tendencies, everyone — and I begin with...
...broad and noble as a human being, too, if you want to be like Millet — and otherwise? Don’t ask me �� or if you want to ask — what one is as a human being affects what one is as a painter. The...
in date note:
...on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885 (see letters 519 and 515, Date), and Van Gogh says in the present letter that he will probably see Wenckebach ‘tomorrow’ (ll. 17-18), so we have dated this letter on or about...
517 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885.
in title:
517 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885.
in translation:
...good thing that it happened like this, though — for you won’t so easily undergo what you called...
...I don’t want a grudging friendship. Either cordial or over. So there you have my final word. I...
in date note:
We have dated the letter on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885, see letter 515, Date. Letters 518 and 519 were...
518 To Anton Kerssemakers. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885.
in title:
518 To Anton Kerssemakers. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885.
in translation:
...of a screw. And then you can also use it to draw or to paint heads, and for figures outdoors. And I...
...me know whether I should order one for you here or whether you want to make one yourself at home...
in date note:
We have dated the letter on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885. See for this letter 515, Date. Letters 517 and...
519 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885.
in title:
519 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885.
in translation:
...it would look completely red. And the same about Israëls, too. I may be doing more harm than good...
in date note:
We have dated the letter on or about Thursday, 16 July 1885. For this see letter 515, Date. Letters 517 and...
520 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, between about Tuesday, 21 and Friday, 24 July 1885.
in translation:
...you not write this week — then I will no longer desire your answer. And time will just have to tell whether your comments on my work and on my person will prove to be justified or not — in good faith or not.
521 To Anthon van Rappard. Eindhoven, Monday, 27 July 1885.
in translation:
...when you’re thinking of coming here to make a number of studies. I would then see to it that you...
522 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Wednesday, 29 July 1885.
in note 1:
...to leave for Amsterdam on the Thursday evening or Friday morning. Theo followed him on 7 August to...
523 To Hendrik Jan Furnée. Nuenen, Wednesday, 5 August 1885.
in translation:
...a number of things to you for your consideration.
...on your part to place some of my work for me, or if you wait until I sell something of what I have...
...could be more suitable for getting out of a number of small debts by letting you draw your bill...
524 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 6 August 1885.
in title:
524 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Thursday, 6 August 1885.
in original text:
...trouw, kan ik me voor gezegd houden.– Maar – door dezen brief roep ik nog eens U toe dat mijn...
in translation:
...condition and ready to sail, whether the storm comes or my anxiety proves to be unfounded. At the...
...in that case, don’t count on either caulking or provisions, and be aware that I may be compelled...
...as you, don’t suspect me of bad faith or base intentions anyway, either towards you or towards those at home. I do nothing to those at home that I have no right to do, since I absolutely and always keep out of their affairs. Don’t ask for or urge advice, keep entirely to my own territory — a...
in date note:
...letter after Theo’s departure, we have dated the present letter on or about Thursday, 6 August 1885.
525 To Cornelis Marinus van Gogh. Nuenen, Thursday, 6 or Friday, 7 August 1885.
in title:
525 To Cornelis Marinus van Gogh. Nuenen, Thursday, 6 or Friday, 7 August 1885.
in date note:
...cold�� or ‘warm’, something that suggests he was studying Félix Bracquemond’s Du dessin et de la couleur, which Theo must have given him (see letter 530, n. 5 and letter 531). This supports a dating to the summer of 1885, after Theo’s arrival. Because we cannot say with certainty at what point (preceding Theo’s departure for Amsterdam) Vincent wrote the letter, we suggest a date of Thursday, 6 or Friday, 7 August 1885...
526 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, between about Saturday, 8 and about Saturday, 15 August 1885.
in original text:
...pour faire parler mon tableau.– J’ai été obligé alors de peindre dans le cadavre du Christ les ombres avec du bleu de prusse, les lumières avec du jaune de chrôme pur”.– Daar zegt de...
...reden hij heeft.– Tenez – mon ami – c’est très beau mais c’est pris par la ligne, et les...
in translation:
...a friend: ‘the chapel where I painted my Pietà was so dark that at first I didn’t know how to...
...Corot, Troyon, Daubigny, Rousseau, and a Daumier or a Jacque, and above all not forgetting Jules...
...SAME in response to the assertion that Mauve, Israëls, Maris don’t draw! Something else — the...
...as I do, because the birds — like the wren or golden oriole — can also truly be counted among...
in note 2:
...forty years, and whose grandiose brush, fearsome or mellow, went from saints to warriors, from warriors...
in note 4:
...travailler de verve, quatre heures par jour, à sa Pietà: “J’ai eu là les plus grandes difficultés, à cause de l’obscurité. Pour qu’il fût possible de distinguer le corps du Christ mort, j’ai été forcé de peindre les lumières avec du jaune de chrôme pur, les ombres et les demi-teintes avec du bleu de...
in note 8:
...plutôt qu’il ne dessine pas comme les autres...see Silvestre 1864, p. 42). He had already quoted this in 1853 in Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers (see Silvestre, Histoire, pp. 54-55).
in note 9:
...and Géricault on Silvestre, where the wording occurs again (p. 39). Silvestre had already published part of this passage in Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers (see Silvestre, Histoire, pp. 49-50).
in note 10:
...Césars que je venais de rapporter d’Italie quelques jours auparavant. – “Je trouve ceci très beau, lui dis-je; mais je doute que ce soit un antique.” Il l’examina attentivement et me répondit alors: – “Non, cher ami, c’est de la Renaissance. Voyez-vous, les antiques prenaient par les milieux, au lieu que la Renaissance prenait par la ligne. Tenez...Là-dessus, il prit une plume, et traça sur une feuille de papier une série d’ovales, grands, moyens et petits; puis, d’un trait léger, mais bien intelligent, c’est clair, il rejoignait le dessus de ces ovales, – de ces oeufs, si vous voulez; – puis enfin, ajoutant encore un petit coup par-ci par-là, il vous montrait, comme par enchantement, un cheval superbe, se cabrant, piaffant, ne laissant rien à désirer pour le mouvement et la vie... – “Mais, dites-moi, comment avez-vous trouvé cela? lui demandai-je. – Oh! voici: M. Gros l’avait pris des Grecs; Géricault le tenait de M. Gros; puis, ne s’en contenant pas, il l’a repris aussi des Grecs et des Étrusques”’...
527 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 17 August 1885.
in title:
527 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Monday, 17 August 1885.
in translation:
...You take it as though I was doing you wrong or was hostile to you, now I most decidedly have rather...
...of it all — you keeping up even a half or a fifth of that and delivering in the years ahead...
...words came dreadfully true. And I wish you were, or would become, a painter. I put it bluntly, more...
...trouble you’ve taken together with me — for providing money is also taking trouble and there...
...will and energy — but what am I to think or say of it if, little by little, with the decided...
in date note:
...of these three letters consequently cannot be pinned down; the dating is moreover related to the margin of about five days in the dating of letter 530. With these caveats, we have dated letter 527 on or about Monday, 17 August; letter 528 on or about Tuesday, 18 August; and letter 529 on or about Wednesday, 19 August 1885.
in note 5:
...or actually went to Antwerp himself. Had he gone in person, one would expect him to have shown some canvases to dealers and reported their reactions to Theo. Moreover, the wording in letter 541 of about 14 November, in which Van Gogh writes that he has ‘come by’ the addresses of six art dealers, would seem to indicate that he did not have them before. And lastly, several months later, after a visit to the Rijksmuseum (letter 534), he writes that he does not intend to be cut off from paintings by other artists for so long in future. Had he been to Antwerp he would undoubtedly have gone to the World Exhibition and/or the Museum voor Schone Kunsten. On the other hand, we do know for certain that Van Gogh went to Antwerp with Anton Kerssemakers. According to Kerssemakers’s memoirs, however, this was after their visit to Amsterdam on 6-8 October 1885. (Cf. Verzamelde brieven 1973, vol. 3, p. 95.) In a letter of 1912 Kerssemakers also recalled that Van Gogh had once been to Antwerp on his own and had brought back a nice surprise. The story is preceded by a brief introduction about a visit to a pharmacist: ‘They then asked the old pharmacist Vrijman for Copahu Balsam, and as a curiosity Van Gogh told me that, when they asked him whether they could dilute this Copahu with turpentine, the pharmacist, believing that they had contracted a venereal disease, snarled at them, “haven’t you done enough damage to your carcass already?” which the two visitors naturally found very funny.’ Kerssemakers himself wrote: ‘In my memoirs in De Amsterdammer I spoke of the singular revenge he had wreaked on that parson in Nuenen, but I didn’t want to specify it, deeming it not really suitable for the general public; however, I will tell it to you personally, counting on your discretion. He came to see me once after a trip to Antwerp, and said I’ve brought something back from my trip to do that tiresome fellow in Nuenen a favour. Obviously I was very curious as to what this could be, and then he showed me a few dozen sheaths (gants d’amour); I shall hand them out to the peasant lads in Nuenen, and see what that does. You can see that the missionary zeal was already long gone.’ Letter from Anton Kerssemakers to Albert Plasschaert, Eindhoven, 27 August 1912 (FR b3038...
528 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 August 1885.
in title:
528 To Anthon van Rappard. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 August 1885.
in original text:
...figuren zouden ontstaan. En dat doet er minder toe après tout. Maar de eerste opmerking is wat ik...
...ik ben te vast en zeker overtuigd dat ik après tout op een regten weg ben – wanneer ik wil...
in translation:
...in the evening by the light of a small lamp, or the lithograph. I also wanted to tell you that...
...reapers. That in all this, either directly or indirectly, the great question occupied me — colour...
...wasn’t that I despotically wanted to bend or break your opinions. That wasn’t my intention in...
...or as a means — to take our studies from reality. And that — is having a lot in common with each other. And at bottom, as to whether we’re opposed in regard to either drawing technique or...
...whichever study or drawing of mine you like, even the one I’d point out to you myself with relative equanimity. And — there’ll be mistakes both in the drawing and in the colour or tone that a...
...severely than other people. Inaccuracies sometimes, or imperfections. And yet I believe that...
...either the things they said about me, or the opposition or indifference with which they plagued me...
...live in a cottage, so that I no longer hear or see anything of those who call themselves civilized...
in date note:
We have dated the letter on or about Tuesday, 18 August 1885; for this see letter 527, Date.
in note 7:
...prints by Léon Augustin Lhermitte: Les bûcherons (letter 484), Hirondelles ou le jardinage (letter 496...
529 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 19 August 1885.
in title:
529 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 19 August 1885.
in translation:
...of it if one hesitated to pay for models or essential painting materials. And since it’s getting...
...keep my little painting business in order, because sooner or later we might be in sore need of it...
in date note:
We have dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 19 August 1885; for this see letter 527, Date. The present...
in note 6:
W.J. Leurs had moved from number 1 Praktizijnshoek in The Hague to number 5 Molenstraat (GAH, Adresboek 1885).
530 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Friday, 21 and about Wednesday, 26 August 1885
in translation:
...enough that I don’t mean it reproachfully or insultingly. I speak as having known strife myself...
in date note:
...and the second two days later (letters 527 and 529 respectively), which we have dated on or about 17 and on or about 19 August (cf. letter 527, Date). We therefore date the present letter between about...
531 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 2 September 1885.
in title:
531 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 2 September 1885.
in translation:
...doing. It may be that his family is buying or friends, that’s possible, but at any rate somebody...
...more about other things. When I think about Millet or about Lhermitte — then — I find modern...
in date note:
...on 8 September 1885 (FR b902). We have therefore dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 2 September 1885.
532 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, between about Friday, 25 and about Tuesday, 29 September 1885.
in note 6:
...everything to good use, made many objects himself or had them made by an ordinary carpenter working to...
533 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Sunday, 4 October 1885.
in note 10:
...ne retient des formes qu’il représentera complètes dans l’oeuvre définitive que le strict...
534 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 10 October 1885.
in title:
534 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 10 October 1885.
in original text:
...dit de manier zou zijn. Ik heb er te veel aan – voor mijn werk, en als ik de oude schilderijen bekijk die...
...jk verkregen met oranje & blaauw zoo gemengd dat ze elkaar neutraliseeren – door die grondtoon te varieeren op zich zelven – door ’t hier wat lichter te maken, daar wat donkerder, is met èèn...
...de gewonen met puur wit gemengd.– Bah.– Hoor eens – de techniek, de kleurmenging, het model...
...van deze, tegen een muur van uw kamer hangt – door elkaar maar – dan zult ge zien, geloof ik...
in translation:
...until now — by Frans Hals and P. Codde, 20 or so officers full length. Have you noticed it??? In...
...goes into it. I saw two paintings by Israëls in Amsterdam, that is the Zandvoort fisherman and...
...varnishing. If you use drawing pins to hang a large number of my studies on a wall in your room...
...with brown (all well mixed and broken) or not? When Israëls says that one mustn’t be black, he...
...about Rembrandt, about Frans Hals, about Israëls, than about that respectable impotence. I’m...
...is very ugly grey, even if you think me pessimistic or worse still when I also condemn the smooth...
...went with me to Amsterdam, bought Bürger, Musées de la Hollande, Van der Hoop et Rotterdam at C.M.’s, but C.M. didn’t have the first volume, Musées de la Haye et d’Amsterdam. We must have...
...done? Couldn’t you send an extra twenty francs or something? I have to pay for paint again next...
...ENOUGH as regards finding a chance to exhibit. LET´S PAINT A VERY GREAT DEAL. That’s the message...
in date note:
...was back on Thursday (l. 4). This means that the letter was written on or about Saturday, 10 October 1885.
in note 10:
Thoré wrote about Jan Vermeer of Delft in Musées de la Hollande (Thoré 1858-1860, vol. 1, pp. 272-273...
in note 12:
Thoré wrote about the works of Frans Hals in the Rijksmuseum in Musées de la Hollande. He called him a ‘Dutch Tintoretto’ (Thoré 1858-1860, vol. 1, pp. 58-60, quotation on p. 58).
in note 14:
...del Sarto in the Louvre: ‘You can only talk or paint like that when you have died several times...
in note 15:
...maîtres d’autrefois: ‘He was a spiritualist through and through; in a word: an ideologist, I mean a soul whose world is that of ideas and language is that of ideas. Therein lies the key to the mystery’ (C’était un pur spiritualiste, disons-le d’un seul mot: un idéologue, je veux dire un esprit dont le domaine est celui des idées et la langue celle des idées...
in note 16:
Van Gogh borrowed the description ‘magician’ for Rembrandt from Jules Michelet, L’amour (book 5...
in note 19:
The two works by Jozef Israëls referred to here are The way past the graveyard, 1856 (Amsterdam, Stedelijk...
535 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 13 October 1885.
in title:
535 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 13 October 1885.
in translation:
...great deal sounder and more solid technique in Israëls — for instance in that very old work, the...
...by Israëls and those who have a direct affinity with Israëls, which the newer ones do not. They are, rather, diametrically opposed to Israëls. And I think I’ve observed that Israëls himself...
...lot that’s good — resembles Jules Breton or Bastien-Lepage — but — Jules Breton is warm...
...t look at the half-light in the early morning or in the evening, it seems nothing exists other...
...masterfully well many French painters, how an Israëls understood precisely that. At the museum...
...that if I ever have to do with those gentlemen or come across one of them, I’ll play the innocent...
...think these things are wrong because I think Israëls, for instance, so good, because there are so...
...your impressions of things in the Louvre or Luxembourg or of anywhere else. Write soon, if you will...
...or any of your acquaintances have it? I don’t suppose you do, but do you perhaps know whether or...
in date note:
...been sent early in the week of 12 October. We have therefore dated it on or about Tuesday, 13 October 1885.
in note 1:
...been able to picture in his mind’s eye. It is unclear whether he is referring to one or more still lifes here. Still life with birds’ nests (F 111 / JH 939; F 112 / JH 938; and F 109r / JH 942) fit the bill.Going by what is �� or was once – in the family estate, the following works may also have been in this batch...
in note 3:
Discussing Rembrandt’s Syndics in Les maîtres d’autrefois, Fromentin referred to the rapid execution...
in note 6:
...in the Catalogue de vingt-trois tableaux des écoles flamande et hollandaise provenant de la galerie San...
in note 9:
...the painting The road to Calvary (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). See for A nymph with cupids...
in note 16:
...ne constituent pas deux professions différentes, dessinateur et coloriste; mais ils mettent en présence deux principes, deux conventions, deux méthodes particulière à la peinture, tout en n’étant pas...
in note 17:
...I indeed knew Vincent van Gogh in Brussels (1881 or thereabouts). But didn’t meet him often, because...
in note 18:
See for Jozef Israëls’s The Zandvoort fisherman: letter 534, n. 19.
in note 19:
...some months earlier (see letter 449) (Blanc 1876, p. 29). In Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers Silvestre quoted Thiers, who spoke of ‘the horrible tint’ (l’horrible teinte) and ‘the...
in note 24:
French proverb, based on François Rabelais, Gargantua 1, 46.
in note 27:
...number of important eighteenth-century French artists through extracts from letters and anecdotes. These biographical sketches are accompanied by discussions of their work and exhibitions. The essay on Chardin is on pp. 91-192; on Boucher on pp. 195-314; on Watteau on pp. 1-90 (all in Goncourt 1881-1914, vol. 1); on Fragonard on pp. 241-342 (vol. 3). In Goncourt 1948, pp. 107-155; 55-105; 1-54 and 259-312 respectively. As well as the artists Van Gogh mentions here, the De Goncourts also discuss La Tour, Greuze, Saint-Aubin, Gravelot, Cochin, Eisen, Moreau, Debucourt and Prudhon. Several editions of this book, in a number of volumes, were available in 1885...
536 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 20 October 1885.
in title:
536 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 20 October 1885.
in original text:
...geelachtig op violet en violetachtig op geel.– Hoor eens – gesteld men wil zoo’n slijktoon...
in translation:
...is more neutral, and they become either redder or yellower against that neutralized colour. The...
...were also painted on a black background on purpose — for the reason that I simply want it to be...
...to a reddish green or greenish red, by adding white I then get Pinkish green or greenish pink. And...
...green or greenish brown. Isn’t this clear? If I mix yellow with violet to a lilac yellow or...
...makes colours lighter or darker, whatever their nature and their red, yellow or blue content may be...
...light or for the deepest shadow, but made something of that mud that either glittered like light or...
...suppose one wants to make a muddy tone or snot colour like this look light in the painting, what...
...except by opposing great forces in blue-blacks or violets or reddish browns? You — who look to...
...really do have the strongest forces of blue or violet blacks in them. Rembrandt and Hals, didn’t...
...is the most important. And if you find some book or other on colour questions that is good, do be...
in date note:
...or about Tuesday, 13 October (letter 535). Theo responded as soon as he received the crate of paintings sent that day, and the present letter is Vincent’s immediate reply to that letter (l. 1*). We estimate that the time involved here would have been about a week; this also tallies with Vincent’s thanks for the money Theo had sent, which must have been the extra allowance for October. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Tuesday, 20 October 1885...
in note 1:
...number of still lifes can be identified in the light of the colour references later in the letter. See cat. Amsterdam 1999, pp. 167-176. The work referred to here is Basket of apples (F 99 / JH 930). It is clear from what Theo wrote to his sister Elisabeth on 13 October 1885 that he had faith in Vincent’s work during this period: ‘You ask me about Vincent. He is one of those people who has seen the world at close quarters and has withdrawn from it. Now we shall have to wait and see whether he proves to have genius. I believe it and several with me, Bonger among them. When his work comes right he will be a great man. As far as success goes, it may be the same for him as Heyerdahl, appreciated by some, but not understood by the general public. Those, however, who care whether there really is something in an artist, or if it’s just pinchbeck, will esteem him and in consequence he will have had sufficient revenge for the displeasure expressed by so many’ (FR b903...
in note 9:
Van Gogh is referring to Portrait of a man or Young man with a walking stick, 1651 (Paris, Musée du...
in note 11:
...may mean Rembrandt’s Bathsheba bathing, 1654, or Susanna bathing, 1647 (now regarded as a copy after...
in note 17:
Fromentin in Les maîtres d’autrefois had also called Hals, Veronese, Rubens and Velázquez true colourists...
in note 18:
...Rembrandt n’est pas un coloriste, mais un harmoniste). See Charles Baudelaire, Curiosités esthétiques. L’art romantique et autres oeuvres critiques. Paris 1962, p. 104. A year earlier he had used the...
in note 20:
...or less pure or as grey – acting as non-colours, are used to rest and refresh the eye, softening the dazzling impact of the whole thing.’ (Si le coloris du tableau est d’une extrême magnificence et d’une grande variété, le blanc et le noir – soit à l’état plus ou moins franc, soit à l’état de gris, – agissant comme non-couleurs, serviront à reposer l’oeil, à le rafraîchir, en modérant l’éblouissant éclat du spectacle entier) (Blanc 1870, p. 609). He also wrote in Les artistes de mon temps: ‘he uses the interaction of whites and blacks in turn as foils and mordants and to provide rest...One of Eugène Delacroix’s most precious resources was the introduction of black and white. White and black are, so to speak, non-colours which, by separating other colours, serve to rest and refresh the eye, especially when the eye is fatigued by the extreme variety as much as by the extreme magnificence. According to the proportions one gives them, according to the environment in which one uses them, black and white soften or enhance nearby colours; sometimes the role of white in a dark painting is like the sudden beating of a tom-tom in an orchestra’ (il emploie l’action des blancs et des noirs, qui est tour à tour un repoussoir, un mordant et un repos ... Une des ressources les plus précieuses d’Eugène Delacroix, c’est l’introduction du noir et du blanc. Le blanc et le noir sont, pour ainsi parler, des non-couleurs qui servent, en séparant les autres, à reposer l’oeil, à le rafraîchir, alors surtout qu’il pourrait être fatigué par l’extrême variété autant que par l’extrême magnificence. Suivant les proportions qu’on leur donne, suivant le milieu où on les emploie, le blanc et le noir atténuent ou rehaussent les tons voisins; quelquefois le rôle du blanc dans un tableau sinistre est celui qui joue en plein orchestre un coup de tam-tam) (see Blanc 1876, pp. 69, 71)....
in note 25:
See for Jozef Israëls’s The Zandvoort fisherman: letter 534, n. 19.
in note 26:
...maîtres d’autrefois: ‘There are men, witness Velázquez, who colour beautifully, with the dreariest of colours. What wonderful masterpieces were created with such dull hues of black, grey, brown and bitumen-shaded white! (Il y a des hommes, témoin Velasquez, qui colorent à merveille avec les couleurs les plus tristes. Du noir, du gris, du brun, du blanc teinté de bitume, que de chefs-d’oeuvre n’a-t-on pas exécutés avec ces quelques notes un peu sourdes!). On the blacks in Rubens he says: ‘If you look at his blacks, they are taken from the pot of ivory black and serve, with white, for every combination imaginable of his muted and tender greys’ (Si vous examinez ses noirs, ils sont pris dans le pot du noir d’ivoire et servent avec du blanc à toutes les combinaisons imaginables de ses gris sourds et de ses gris tendres). See Fromentin 1902, chapter 13, p. 341 and chapter 4, p. 63...
in note 28:
...contrast of colours’ (la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs). He treated the subject at length in his book De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs (1839). Van Gogh was familiar with the concept from...
537 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 28 October 1885.
in title:
537 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 28 October 1885.
in original text:
...men er leven in krijgen kan.– Jules Dupré is in landschap wel wat Delacroix is, want wat enorme...
in translation:
...REMAINS. And for my part I’m content, for better or worse, to be a little gardener who loves his...
...one can get life into it. Jules Dupré is like Delacroix in landscape, for what enormous diversity...
...the face with hideous precision. A man’s head or a woman’s head, looked at very composedly, is...
...in a colour spectrum PARALLEL to, but not necessarily exactly, or far from the same as the subject...
...a symphony in yellow, what does it matter whether or not my basic yellow colour is the same as...
...days of 30-48, a Paul Huet, an old Israëls like the Zandvoort fisherman, a Cabat, an Isabey. But I...
...I wouldn’t want to have missed that — error. Always carrying on in the same way would be folly...
...me to paint a given object, whatever the shape or colour may be, without hesitation. Lately I made...
in date note:
...or 4 November, the present letter must have been written somewhere between these two dates. Given the remark ‘lately I made several studies outdoors, of the autumn landscape’ (ll. 241-242) we can say that some time has in any event elapsed since the previous letter. Moreover he knew that the November allowance was due, because he says ‘I’ll write again in the next few days anyway’ (ll. 244-245). Although it is not possible to give a precise date, in the light of the above we have dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 28 October 1885...
in note 1:
...replied to letter 536, in which the question of whether or not it was permissible to use black was raised.
in note a:
An anglicism, derived from the English expression ‘for better or worse’.
in note 10:
See for this question about whether colours should or should not be painted true to life, the quotation from...
in note 14:
See for Israëls’s The Zandvoort fisherman: letter 534, n. 19.
538 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Tuesday, 3 or Wednesday, 4 November 1885.
in title:
538 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, Tuesday, 3 or Wednesday, 4 November 1885.
in translation:
...fellows, preferably about the most prosaic things or about nothing, there’s an alertness and a...
...Don’t let it bother you if I just leave the brushstrokes on my paintings as they are, with smaller or larger protrusions of paint. This doesn’t mean a thing — if one leaves them a year or so (or half a year is enough) and scrapes over them quickly with a razor blade, one gets much more...
...well I’d say like, for instance, Ary Scheffer or Delaroche painted in terms of technique — and...
in date note:
...or about Monday, 2 November 1885, but since Jo van Gogh-Bonger noted ‘Nuenen 4 November 85’ on the manuscript and may therefore have had a postmark to go on, we assume that the letter was written on Tuesday, 3 or Wednesday...
in note 12:
...français et étrangers Silvestre said of Delacroix: ‘He worries terribly about his pictures and takes great care to prevent them deteriorating; he treats them like sick children, bathing them in oil, agonizing over vagaries in the atmosphere and about the dangers involved in travel, he carries out all sorts of experiments on the quality of paints and canvas, he shudders at the thought that they might be destroyed, redoubling his working activities and relentlessly increasing his subjects’ (Il se donne mille chagrins et mille soins afin de prévenir l’altération de ses tableaux; il les traite comme des enfants malades, les fait baigner dans l’huile, se tourmente pour eux des caprices de l’atmosphère, du hasard des voyages; fait toute sorte d’expériences sur la qualité des couleurs et des toiles, frémit l’idée de la destruction, redouble d’activité au travail, et multiplie ses sujets avec acharnement) (see Silvestre, Histoire, p. 68...
539 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 7 November 1885.
in title:
539 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 7 November 1885.
in original text:
...bouche démeublée qui a d’infinies délicatesses. Cela n’est fait que de quelques traînées...
in translation:
...portraits of his wives in which he is, or surpasses, himself. But Chardin. I’ve often longed to...
...to). In that respect, Chardin is as great as Rembrandt. Israëls has something of the same, and for my part I always find Israëls admirable, specifically in his technique. It would be too good if...
...decidedly go on trying to encourage you either to draw or to paint. I know you won’t fail. I know...
...glow, between clouds of a smoky colour with orange, or rather, reddish reflections. The bulk of the...
...one could blow away. I don’t know what I’ll do or how things will go for me, but I hope I won...
...brush. They — didn’t fill in. A Van Goyen — for instance — I’ve just seen the one of his...
in date note:
...or 4 November (letter 538) Van Gogh asked for L’art du dix-huitième siècle by the De Goncourts; he says here that he received it ‘yesterday evening’ (l. 2) and wanted to let Theo know how pleased he was with it ‘right away’ (l. 201). The last letter before Van Gogh went to Antwerp dates from about 20 November 1885 (letter 543). Between 3 or 4 and 20 November Van Gogh wrote another four letters altogether: 539, 540, 541 and 542. The last of these must have been written on or about 17 November, but there are no points of reference for a more precise dating of the three intervening letters. We have therefore spaced them evenly over the period and dated them on or about Saturday, 7, on or about Wednesday, 11 and on or about Saturday, 14 November 1885...
in note 4:
...paints, something of the common people in some respects’ (Sans éducation, sans humanités, il est, comme les ménages pauvres qu’il peint, peuple par certaines côtés) (p. 148). Chardins ‘bonhomie’ is...
in note 7:
...Musées de la Hollande, in which he contrasted Rembrandt’s work with that of Bartholomeus van der Helst; to him the realism of the latter represented ‘the common view’: ‘in contrast, Van der Helst’s way of looking at things is more general or more vulgar, which is the same thing. It is more in line with the common view of the masses. The scene depicted in The Banquet would come across the same, or almost the same, to everyone’ (La manière de voir de van der Helst, au contraire, est plus générale, ou plus vulgaire, c’est le même mot. Elle s’accorde mieux avec le sens commun à la foule. La scène du Banquet apparaîtrait ainsi, ou à peu près...
in note 14:
...and watercolourist of the two. Van Gogh may already have borrowed Philippe Burty’s Maîtres et petits maîtres (1877) (cf. letter 542). In it, in the essay ‘Les eaux-forts de Jules de Goncourt’ it says...
in note 18:
...le peintre est avide)) on the basis of a number of anecdotes about the exorbitant prices he...
540 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 11 November 1885.
in title:
540 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Wednesday, 11 November 1885.
in translation:
...these two possibilities, either quickly without suffering, or the other. Regards, with a handshake...
541 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 14 November 1885.
in title:
541 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 14 November 1885.
in translation:
...a soldier or a labourer lives and stays healthy in wind and weather with the ordinary people’s food and dwelling, is as practical as earning a guilder or a...
...want to leave Antwerp for a while �� or should become homesick for the country...
...be that, if I knew either dealers or painters, I would possibly do something...
...things from here were liked, either now or later, then I would continue with...
...the same there, or better yet reach agreement with some painter or other to be...
...about it, and either I may go there or Ma may come across Van de Loo sometime...
...mind is fairly complicated and has levels or layers) that she neither wants to...
...I’ll either be back in Nuenen or — if something exceptional detained me...
...that will be the moment for either Wil or me to ask Van de Loo outright whether...
in note 1:
...or die of hunger. One chooses the former and, with the exception of about twenty people who come here every two years to exhibit themselves to fools, the others, equally unknown but perhaps less unfortunate, wear their breastplate at some fencing-master’s, or carry a musket on their shoulder in some regiment or tread the boards in stage costume’ (Que faire, que devenir? Il faut se jeter dans quelques-unes de ces conditions subalternes, dont la porte est ouverte à la misère, ou mourir de faim. On prend le premier parti; et à l’exception d’une vingtaine, qui viennent ici tous les deux ans s’exposer aux bêtes, les autres ignorés...
in note 6:
...employés du port, voir même de matelots. Il peignit, entre autres, une señora en costume de soie rose et bleue, étendue nonchalamment sur un canapé, qu’un capitaine lui avait recommandée tout spécialement. Cette peinture plut à tous...
542 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 17 November 1885.
in title:
542 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 17 November 1885.
in translation:
...her 2) that she can live for another 10 years or so 3) that if she dies before that time, then she would have to have contracted some disease or other. Lastly, he seemed to find it very natural that...
...and doesn’t have to feel awkward about travelling or moving house. So much the better, then. In...
...s little chance of ‘contracting some disease or other’. Wanted to let you know straightaway...
...poplars with yellow leaves, a still life and a number of drawings of figures. I’m at something of...
...will have to find the money for it by making other things. Be it landscapes, be it townscapes, be it portraits, as I said �� or — even if it were signboards and decoration. Or — something I didn’t mention in my last letter among the things that I could do ‘on the side’ — give lessons...
...if I succeed in making new studies of heads or figures. The one landscape I’m taking with me...
...dark line little flecks of red, bluish and green or brown, forming the silhouette of the roofs and...
in date note:
...16 November (see n. 13). The last letter from Nuenen was written on or about 20 November (543). On this basis we have dated the present letter on or about Tuesday, 17 November 1885. This dating is confirmed by Van...
in note 10:
...Maîtres et petits maîtres (see Burty 1877, pp. 179-229). In the breadth of the artists covered (including Delacroix, Rousseau, Meryon, Gavarni, Hugo and Millet) and biographical details it does resemble Gigoux’s book. Since it includes the saying ‘Japonaiserie forever’, which Van Gogh quotes (see letter 545, n. 2), there is a good chance that it was one of the books Van Gogh read. In view of the quotation about Gainsborough in letter 543, E.J.T. Thoré (under the pseudonym W. Bürger), Trésors d’art en Angleterre (1865) must have been another of them, as must Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers by Théophile Silvestre: see letter 557...
in note 11:
Theo had taken with him a number of heads, including Head of a woman (Gordina de Groot) (F 130 / JH 692) and...
543 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 20 November 1885.
in title:
543 To Theo van Gogh. Nuenen, on or about Friday, 20 November 1885.
in original text:
...sur de petits fragments, sans s’obstiner aux détails, car il cherchait l’effet général et il...
...près d’eux, semaine par semaine, Le temps a dévasté, tour à tour, fleurs & fruits. Les vieillards ont, ainsi que la cité romaine Au coeur un forum mort plein de temples détruits Silencieux...
...touffé l’orgueil des fastes & des bruits; Où des frontons muets la légende effacée Sous la...
in translation:
...order to leap up and to act in one way or another. Rembrandt does it differently, his Christ in the...
...aiding their digestion. Thus with everything religious or philosophical he is flat and hollow, but...
in date note:
...wrote his letter of thanks immediately, we have dated the letter on or about Friday, 20 November 1885.
in note 3:
...in Les maîtres d’autrefois: he asserted that one had enough in strong figure of Christ alone, in which ‘things inspired one knows not where and produced one knows not how’ (choses inspirées on ne sait...
in note 5:
...Thoré (under the pseudonym W. Bürger), Trésors d’art en Angleterre. Paris 1865, p. 394. After...
in note 6:
...b2268). The poem was collected in Oeuvres poétiques. Les champs et la mer / Jeanne. Paris 1887, p. 76...
544 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 26 November 1885.
in title:
544 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 26 November 1885.
in original text:
...zoo. Jordaens, zoo de ouden zongen. v. Goyen. S. Ruysdael. En de Quenten Matsys. de Teekening S.te...
in translation:
...fine, two small Rembrandts that are perhaps not by R. but by N. Maes?? or someone. Jordaens, As the old sing. Van Goyen.S. Ruysdael. And the Quinten Massys. The drawing of St Barbara by Van Eyck. &c...
in date note:
...letter was written on 28 November (545), we date the present letter on or about Thursday, 26 November 1885.
in note 4:
...of the photographs show only parts of the paintings or figures taken from them, the decoration in its...
in note 20:
Jean Pierre François Lamorinière, Prinsenvijver on the island of Walcheren, 1876. Ill. 1024.
in note 31:
...Eugène’s brother Louis titled Cows; however, it only measures 125 x 135 cm. See cat. Antwerp 1977, pp. 457-458. Nothing in Verboeckhoven’s biography would seem to indicate that he was particularly pious. Van Gogh may have been thinking of the painting Flock frightened by the storm, 1839 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts) – in which a shepherd, with a clear Christian allusion, stands beside a prominent field cross with a lamb in his arms �� or by ‘God-fearing’ he may have been commenting ironically on all the extremely ‘good’ and ‘virtuous’ motifs in Verboeckhoven’s oeuvre. See P. and V. Berko, Eugène Verboeckhoven. Brussels 1981...
545 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Saturday, 28 November 1885.
in original text:
...heb ook gezien dat er een Figaro illustré is met een mooie teekening van Raffaelli. Ge weet mijn...
in translation:
...my things from the customs office. The different entrepôts and hangars on the wharves are very fine.
...as hides and buffalo horns are being unloaded by monstrous docker types or foreign sailors; by the window, looking at this or at something else, stands a very fair, very delicate English girl. The...
...nt as a desert. The overall effect of the port or of a dock — sometimes it’s more tangled and...
...eyes and no eyebrows, and sparse, greasy, thin hair, colour of pure pig’s bristle or slightly yellower — Swedish or Danish types. It would be good to work there — but how and where? Because one...
...You know, those little female figures in gardens or on the shore, horsemen, flowers, gnarled thorn...
in note 2:
...from Trouville on 1 August 1867: ‘A revoir donc. Japonaiserie for ever!’ Quoted in Maîtres et petits maîtres (Burty 1877, p. 274). Van Gogh probably borrowed the book from Kerssemakers: see letter 542, n...
in note 9:
The drawing Les vieux officiers by Jean-François Raffaëlli was published in Le Figaro Illustré 6 (25...
546 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Sunday, 6 December 1885.
in title:
546 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Sunday, 6 December 1885.
in translation:
...Scala café concert, something like the Folies Bergères — I thought it was tedious and hackneyed...
...would say, that one sees at the café concerts. It seems that one sees that same breed everywhere...
...girls there, the best-looking of whom was ugly. I mean, a figure that struck me like an amazingly beautiful Jordaens or Velázquez or — Goya — was one in black silk, probably some inn landlady or other, with an ugly and irregular face, but with vivacity and piquancy à la Frans Hals. She danced...
...subjects — large — 1 metre by 1/2 a metre or 3/4, say, a canvas like that would cost me 50...
...to my guns. And one can’t afford to look hungry or wretched. On the contrary, one must see to it...
in date note:
...week of 29 November to 5 December. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Sunday, 6 December 1885.
in note 4:
...is of the De Ruyterkade in Amsterdam and was painted on 6, 7 or 8 October 1885. See letter 534, n. 17.
in note 5:
Van Gogh is referring to a work in Raffaëlli’s style that he mentioned in letter 544.
in note 10:
The Folies Bergères was and is a famous revue theatre in rue Richer in Paris.
in note 14:
...he must have had in mind paintings for shop windows or interiors rather than advertising signs to go on...
547 To Theo van Gogh, Antwerp, Monday, 14 December 1885.
in original text:
...in de cafes, de restauraties, de café chantants – men ziet er geen schilderijen, althans zoo...
in translation:
...features in a face with strokes of pure red or, in the hands, modelling the fingers with similar...
...as Manet. One was a woman in a studio or other interior with Japanese objects, the woman had on a...
...something like an old Israëls. What else shall I tell you about these new paintings? I think many of them very fine, and by that I mean precisely the work of the Colourists or those who try to be...
...regards paintings — it’s the fisher boy by Frans Hals, Rembrandt’s Saskia, a number of countenances by Rubens, smiling or weeping, that come most to my mind. Ah — a painting has to be painted...
...I came, because I’m already full of ideas — for when I’m back in the country, too. I read an...
...that so much more might still be done. To mention just one thing — in the cafés, the restaurants, the cafés chantants — one sees no paintings, at least as good as none. And how this goes...
in date note:
...and the next letter (548) must have been written on or about Thursday, 17 December, the present letter was...
in note 7:
...Hoofd’, which was also known as Sint-Anna or Sint-Anneke. In the period from 1880 to 1930 it was...
in note 9:
Petrus (Piet) Joannes Tyck, paint merchant and manufacturer at number 8 Rubensstraat (district 3). On 31 December 1885 he moved to number 35 Blindenstraat (SAA).
in note 13:
...of Jef Dillen), The adornment (private collection) or The meal (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone...
in note 22:
...for the paper headed ‘La loi sur les récidivistes’ about how to proceed against criminals who...
in note 23:
...who had been in Amsterdam for a few days in September, must have heard or read about this topical issue.
548 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 17 December 1885.
in title:
548 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 17 December 1885.
in original text:
...eens een idee krijgen om werk te bezorgen.– Hoor eens Theo, nog iets – ik geloof dat het U niet...
in translation:
...What the dealers say is that they still think women’s heads or figures of women are most likely to sell. This spring I’ll have to decide whether or not I’ll stay in the Nuenen area. I’d like...
in date note:
...the month left to go ll. 11-13). We have therefore dated the letter on or about Thursday, 17 December 1885.
in note 1:
...no hot food (l. 66) and, as he says a week or two later, his appetite was suppressed during this...
in note 11:
Jean François Portaels, Paul Delaroche, c. 1850 (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten). Ill. 1220.
in note 13:
Van Gogh could have read about Courbet’s ‘caprices burlesques’ in Silvestre’s Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers (see Silvestre, Histoire, pp. 242-277 (quotation on p. 247).
549 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Saturday, 19 December 1885.
in original text:
...naar Engeland heen & weer te gaan. Waarom – voor den handel – zijn alle schilderijen altijd in...
in translation:
...don’t put off writing, and send me a lot or a little, such as you have — but know that I’m starving, literally. If I succeed in getting 50 or so heads together, there’s a chance of getting...
...soul of a person, even if it’s a poor tramp or a girl from the streets, is more interesting. I...
...money to be earned with either women’s portraits or imaginary women — heads and figures. It’s...
...that’s what gives it vitality. As to whether or not I’d live here permanently — given that...
...studio here. If you have any thoughts or wishes about it, either for or against, let me know as frankly as possible. But it strikes me right away that — if you should ever get to the point of working for yourself, independently of the Goupils, either sooner or later — Antwerp could perhaps be...
...back and forth to England from here. Why — for the trade — are all paintings always in frames...
550 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Monday, 28 December 1885.
in original text:
...voor ik hier heen ging bij hem was, dat ik après tout redelijk sterk ben. Dat ik niet hoefde te...
...wij accordeerden meer dan nu, meer ’t eens konden zijn – waarom dan niet – wij ook. à propos – wegens ik après tout aan ’t eind van dit jaar een stuk of 4 of 5 vastendagen heb van zoowat...
in translation:
...question is simply whether one takes the soul or the clothes as one’s starting-point, and whether...
...or whether one should regard the form as a means of expressing an impression, a sentiment, or...
...dexterity — they don’t have much time or patience — for that matter, the work doesn’t have...
...t at the end yet. Personal initiative with little or no capital is perhaps the seed for the future...
...hat with feathers, probably red. Probably also red or a yellow in the little décolleté jacket...
...� or soldiers’ heads. One pays 20 or 30 centimes to go in and drinks a glass of beer — for...
...myself intellectually, and now I look like a bargee or someone who works in the iron trade. And...
...t one search for something high — for the real, for something distinguished? The women’s...
...women, I want them to be peasant women — for the same reason, when they’re whores, I want a...
...and I’ve got over caring what people say about me or my work. It seems to be difficult to get a...
in date note:
...the letter acknowledges that he will have ‘some 4 or 5 fast days’ before the end of the month (ll...
in note 9:
...Bust of a young woman smiling (possibly the artist´s wife Saskia van Uylenburgh), 1633 (Dresden...
in note 12:
...tions, mon frère et moi, tout seuls, sous les coups de tout le monde. Je suis fatigué, j’en ai assez, je laisse place aux autres). For a description of their contribution to the art and literature of their day he quotes his brother Jules: ‘the search for truth in literature, the revival of eighteenth-century art, the triumph of Japonism: these are... the three great literary and artistic movements of the second half of the nineteenth century… and we will have led them, these three movements… us, poor unknown us. Well! when you have done that … it will be really difficult not to be someone in the future’ (la recherche du vrai en littérature, la résurrection de l’art du XVIIIe siècle, la victoire du japonisme: ce sont ... les trois grands mouvements littéraires et artistiques de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle... et nous les aurons menés,...
551 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Saturday, 2 January 1886.
in title:
551 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Saturday, 2 January 1886.
in original text:
...dat ge rondkomt tot ’t eind van de maand.– Hoor eens, dit heb ik er tegen te zeggen en denk er...
...onvereenigbare dingen tegelijk te behartigen en – – – was niet zoo vast van karakter als hij...
...die twee zijn erg schilder en dat is het waar après tout ’t bij ’t schilderen op aan komt. Zij...
in translation:
...the painting by Franck or Francken in St Andrew’s. Which I saw today. I think it a good painting — above all fine in sentiment — in sentiment it’s not very Flemish or Rubenesque. One thinks...
...have fallen in love with it, or James Tissot in his old manner, or Thijs Maris. I saw a few...
...Fish Market. Also an Emile Wauters — Cairo or somewhere, a marketplace. The Verhas works well, is...
...Am I less than your creditors? Who should wait, they or I??? if one of the two has to wait, which...
...I’m telling you is plain and simple. Do you or do you not understand that it makes perfectly good...
...ll show that we are someone. Either one is brave �� or one is cowardly. We must get to the point...
...ll see whether I can do anything with him directly, or whether I’ll go and talk directly to his...
...Are such things necessary or not??? Does anything depend on them, yes or no??? Well, given this...
...a woman — superb, something like Paul Dubois, say, or anyway the first-rate fellows. It’s been...
in date note:
...to send on 1 January (letter 550), we have dated the present letter on or about Saturday, 2 January 1886.
in note 18:
...a retrospective of the work of Nicolas François Octave Tassaert with 122 paintings. It was widely...
552 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, between Tuesday, 12 and Saturday, 16 January 1886.
in original text:
...al zijn zijn figuren soms hol enz. – door de combinatie der kleuren. Zoo in l’elevation de la...
...de kennis van ’t figuur – maar après tout – ik geloof niet dat ik voor absoluut niets...
in translation:
...that one would find in a Rembrandt or in a painting by Delacroix or in a drawing by Millet. Nothing...
...not even Manet or Courbet, set as their aim, any more than Rubens or Veronese did. I’ve...
...interesting to study Rubens, precisely because he is, or rather seems, so supremely simple in his...
...without any hesitation. But portraits and — heads or figures of women, that’s his forte. There...
...from memory. I’d like to work either with Verlat or at another studio for a while, and for the...
...far too long. You get cross if I make a comment, or rather you take no notice of it, and all the...
...and for heaven’s sake don’t lose heart or weaken. I don’t think that you can reasonably ask...
...I have to establish in town, either here in Antwerp or later in Paris. And I wish I could make you...
...you we must put more force into this or that, and if we don’t have it ourselves we’ll have to find friends and new contacts. I have to earn a bit more or have a few more friends — preferably...
in date note:
...that he does not report until letter 553 of 19 or 20 January. Since he wrote ‘last Sunday’ rather...
in note 3:
...for the origin of this borrowing from Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville letter...
553 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Tuesday, 19 or Wednesday, 20 January 1886.
in title:
553 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Tuesday, 19 or Wednesday, 20 January 1886.
in translation:
...and in the drawing class. And certainly if I were to become a little friendly with Verlat or Vinck or whomever, it would save me money for models. Anyway — that’s mainly the practical side of the...
...that I’ll have to go and work either there or elsewhere at someone’s home etc., I’ll have to...
...Verlat says that I have to purchase some painting gear or other, I also have to be prepared to do...
in date note:
...means it is either the evening of Tuesday, 19 (after the second drawing lesson) or Wednesday, 20 January.
in note 3:
...a sensation. See Louis Piérard, ‘Van Gogh à Anvers’, Les Marges 13 (1914), pp. 47-53 and Verzamelde...
in note 4:
...bust’ (‘Dessin ombré d’ornements de différents style et de buste’) was a part. The Jaarlijksch...
in note 6:
...been prompted in part by reading ‘Sur une Vénus’ by Guy de Maupassant in the most recent Gil Blas...
554 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Friday, 22 January 1886.
in title:
554 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Friday, 22 January 1886.
in translation:
...the best for me to stay there for a long time — for the models there are good and it’ll work out...
...there are all sorts of people of all ages, at least 5 or so even older than me. At the moment I’m...
...an old man, one would say like a Fortuny or Regnault. I don’t think that I can take a shorter route to progress, and whether I go to the country later or come to a studio in Paris, in any event...
in date note:
...or on Wednesday, 20 January 1886. In it Vincent says he will be starting the painting class ‘tomorrow’. In the present letter he says that he has meanwhile been painting at the Academy ‘for a few days’ and needs new materials. He also hopes that Theo is sending extra money and that he will have it ‘by Monday’ (l. 37). Allowing for the two days that this letter and Theo’s reply will take in the post, the present letter must have been written on or about Friday, 22 January...
555 To Theo van Gogh, Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 28 January 1886.
in title:
555 To Theo van Gogh, Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 28 January 1886.
in original text:
...als ge mij beoordeelt op algemeenheden en op prejugés die te oppervlakkig zijn en te zeer mis dan dat ik...
...lt a pris cela à Gros qui lui l’avait pris des Grecs mais Gericault a voulu lui-même le prendre aux Grecs aussi et les a étudiés pour cela même – après Delacroix a fait comme Gericault...
in translation:
...ll return very differently to my other work outdoors or my portraits. And I think it’s true...
...I wouldn’t want even to talk about with Verlat or with Vinck — that I’m working; there’s no...
...almost nothing in common with them. Theirs have more or less the same colour as the flesh — and...
...s lacking in it is — practice — I must paint 50 or so like that — I believe that I’ll have...
...the only drawing that was generously done, like Tassaert or Gavarni. So you see how it is. But it...
...er it goes and however it turns out — whether or not I get along with Verlat. I find the...
...starting to put in more powerful shadows, that Verlat or someone else will seek a row with me, even...
...come I’ll be perfectly content to take a cheap little room or a garret in a hotel somewhere in an...
in date note:
...a few days after Monday, 25 January. We have therefore dated it on or about Thursday, 28 January 1886.
in note 7:
...Siberdt was one of those responsible for the elements Dessin d’après la figure antique (‘Classical Statues’) and Dessin d’àprès le model vivant (‘Life’) (Antwerp, Bibliotheek Koninklijke Academie...
556 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Friday, 29 January 1886.
in title:
556 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Friday, 29 January 1886.
in original text:
...goed als de mijnen, tot hun dispositie zijn.– Après tout kan het mij niet schelen doch ik zeg U...
in translation:
...dare assert that your own situation is also more or less critical — critical enough, at any rate...
...and by bullying — will they be able to hold out or not? As they’re being weakened in the second...
...the present situation or not? Must one be on the qui vive for a general decline and various crashes in prices and in consequence a possible stagnation of the routine trading of recent years, or not...
...ought not to be possible when it comes to rent or unnecessary travelling expenses. And at home — I know perfectly well that Rijken, the gardener, or Huizing, and not I, are the best people to pack...
...letter is this — Carry on calmly either here or much better yet with Cormon. Moreover, I’m ill...
in date note:
...the first. We therefore date the present letter on or about 29 January 1886. The next ten letters centre...
557 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Tuesday, 2 February 1886.
in title:
557 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Tuesday, 2 February 1886.
in original text:
...en, vous ne serez pas long à faire du progrès, vous y gagneriez beaucoup – il faut un an mais...
...ie ook de naaktklas dirigeert – quant à vous, vous dessinerez comme il vous plaira, puisque je...
...tandis que sur fond blanc ils sont bien obligés de les faire – c’est donc un camisole de force...
...mais je vous dis que Verlat en a formé plusieurs de forts et nous y tenons de former des élèves...
...te werken – l’energie pour l’énergie – er après tout bij al de goede lui wel erg bijkomt...
...is er een zekere confiance en soi noodig, après tout overgebleven na heele reeksen van verloren...
in translation:
...than here — for instance a drawing in a day or every two days. And we know, or rather you know...
...whether I stayed here for a while longer or came to you. Anyway, Cormon would very probably say...
...can go and work at the Louvre or at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts or at another studio where drawing is...
...whose cause lies in the fact that for 10 years or so I’ve had a both difficult and turbulent time...
...I have no fewer than 10 teeth that I’ve either lost or am losing. And that’s too many and too...
...to choose between two evils and is stuck on one side or on the other. It was the last month that...
...into it) — I would drop dead or, worse still, become mad or slow-witted. This is simply the way...
...beginning of March. But — let’s consider whether or not any help they might get from me would...
...to make progress. And by adding on a stay in Paris or extending it here, we’ll be on surer ground...
...a passion for doing everything from models, summarizing 5 or 6 models in a type. I’m not familiar...
in date note:
...at the beginning of the week. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Tuesday, 2 February 1886.
in note 1:
...number 104 boulevard de Clichy in 1882. While he did receive his students there, corrections were also done in the studio in rue La Bruyère. The syllabus did not differ much from that of his predecessor Léon Bonnat. Cormon’s was less rigidly structured, though, and it was above all this more liberal attitude that won him a favourable reputation among a younger generation of artists. Students drew (classical) plaster casts and from life, and Cormon demanded from his students an extremely accurate, lifelike drawing. He advocated a painting technique based on a dark design, on which the painting was worked up with transparent and light colours. He also encouraged his students to work en plein air; sketching trips were a regular feature of the timetable. The studio was particularly popular with foreign artists. See Gauzi 1992, pp. 16-32; exhib. cat. Paris 1988, pp. 10-27; Welsh-Ovcharov 1976, p. 13; Galbally 1977, pp. 29-30; Destremau 1997. From the subsequent letters it emerges that Theo’s willingness to let Vincent study with Cormon was linked to Theo’s move at the end of June, since the lease on his apartment ran out then (see letter 559). Theo must have recognized that this marked the start of a new situation, in terms both of his accommodation and of Vincent’s studio. The precise solution was the subject of discussion in the next few months, with Vincent pressing increasingly hard to be allowed to go to Paris, on the pretext that he would be able to prepare himself to go to Cormon better there than he could in, say, Antwerp or Nuenen. See also Van Tilborgh 2007...
in note 6:
The phrase ‘neither teeth nor breath’ (ni dents ni soufflé) is derived from what Silvestre said about Delacroix in Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers: ‘The very writer who, with all the fervour of youth and emotion, is confused and muddled, that is to say mediocre and even bad, can turn out to be...
in note 7:
...evidence that he was supported by teachers or benefactors, but what we do know is that Jenny le...
in note 10:
...may have been prompted by reading ‘Sur une Vénus’ by Guy de Maupassant in Gil Blas of 12 January...
in note 13:
From 1845 to April 1847 Jozef Israëls was in Paris, where among other things he studied at the Ecole des...
558 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 4 February 1886.
in title:
558 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 4 February 1886.
in original text:
...kan worden zoo heel ligt.– De dingen komen après tout niet van zelf en alles heeft zijn reden...
in translation:
...since then it’s perhaps been a matter of 6 or 7 times, so far, that I’ve had my midday meal...
...that one has. You know that for one reason or another the time in Nuenen was far from carefree for...
...Now it’s true that I didn’t think of this before, or at least didn’t do it — but I wish now...
...as Verlat says — that I have to draw nudes or plaster casts for up to a year, precisely because...
...you it’s not a bad sign if people like Verlat or Cormon, let’s say, demand that of someone. For...
...of painting, if an effect out of doors strikes us or we happen to have a good model &c. And don’t...
...think that people whose constitution is damaged, wholly or half, aren’t fit for painting. It’s...
...turn — one might have to contend with typhus or at least typhoid fever. And actually the only...
...for instance, can see to what needs to be packed or sent at least as well as I can. If there’s...
in date note:
...in letter 557, ll. 167-169. Since he wrote this preceding letter ‘the day before yesterday’ (l. 1*) and we have dated it on or about 2 February, we date the present letter on or about Thursday, 4 February 1886.
in note 6:
This could mean either ‘hard�� or ‘expensive’ times.
559 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Saturday, 6 February 1886.
in title:
559 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Saturday, 6 February 1886.
in original text:
...en tevens dat, ging ik niet, ik ligt in een gâchis zou raken, in een zelfde kring te veel blijven...
...tot en met Junij – welnu misschien is het dan après tout ’t beste dat ik van maart te beginnen...
...ne veux pas me disputer et en tout cas je n’y tiens aucunément à vous contredire, seulement vous me cherchez dispute exprès.– Hij was hier blijkbaar niet op verdacht en kon niet veel er tegen...
...me direz de faire parce que j’y tiens à vous rendre ce qui vous revient, à la rigueur, si vous...
...wil, na de Delacroix, Corots, Millets, Duprés, Troyons, Bretons, Rousseaux, Daubignys – que soit...
in translation:
...early a couple of nights (otherwise it was usually 1 or 2 o’clock because of drawing at the club...
...or later either with the master or the pupils, I wouldn’t let it worry me. If need be, even if I didn’t have a master, I could also go through the antique course by going to draw in the Louvre or...
...well understand that one can passionately love something or someone that one can’t do anything...
...discuss faits accomplis as such when it’s unavoidable and might perhaps touch on or directly concern the Goupils or the family. And for the rest, these issues between us are for the understanding...
...health, because we need time alive — some 25 or 30 years of working constantly. There’s so much...
...in the autumn or in a sunset, and then there’s so much soul and mysterious endeavour in nature, so it is now. And as for art — decline, if you will, after the Delacroix, Corots, Millets, Duprés...
...together so surprisingly little, if you will — for fully 10 years. Anyway, I most certainly hope...
in date note:
...of about 4 February and letter 563 of Tuesday, 16 or Wednesday, 17 February Vincent wrote Theo a further...
in note 3:
...IDÉES ET SENSATIONS… do they not make us the first propagators of that art… of that art, which, without doubt, is revolutionizing the perspective of western peoples? And that’s three! Now the search for truth in literature, the revival of eighteenth-century art, the triumph of Japonism: these are, do you know, – he added after a silence, and with an awakening of intelligent life in his eye, – these are the three great literary and artistic movements of the second half of the nineteenth century… and we will have led them, these three movements… us, poor unknown us. Well! when you have done that… it will be really difficult not to be someone in the future.” And it’s true, the dying man taking a walk along the avenue of the Bois de Boulogne could perhaps be right.’ (Tout à coup brusquement mon frère s’arrêta, et me dit: “Ça ne fait rien, vois-tu, on nous niera tant qu’on voudra...il faudra bien reconnaître un jour que nous avons fait GERMINIE LACERTEUX... et que ‘Germinie Lacerteux’ est le livre-type qui a servi de modèle à tout ce qui a été fabriqué depuis nous, sous le nom de réalisme, naturalisme, etc. Et d’un! Maintenant par les écrits, par la parole, par les achats... qu’est-ce qui a imposé à la génération aux commodes d’acajou, le goût de l’art et du mobilier du XVIIIe siècle... Où est celui qui osera dire que ce n’est pas nous? Et de deux! Enfin cette description d’un salon parisien meublé de japonaiseries, publiée dans notre premier roman, dans notre roman d’EN 18.., paru en 1851 ... oui, en 1851 ... – qu’on me montre les japonisants de ce temps-là... – et nos acquisitions de bronzes et de laques de ces années chez Mallinet et un peu plus tard chez Mme Desoye... et la découverte en 1860, à la Porte Chinoise, du premier album japonais connu à Paris... connu au moins du monde des littérateurs et des peintres... et les pages consacrées aux choses du Japon dans MANETTE SALOMON, dans IDÉES ET SENSATIONS... ne font-ils pas de nous les premiers propagateurs de cet art... de cet art en train, sans qu’on s’en doute, de révolutionner l’optique des peuples occidentaux? Et de trois! Or la recherche du vrai en littérature, la résurrection de l’art du XVIIIe siècle, la victoire du japonisme: ce sont, sais-tu, – ajouta-t-il après un silence, et avec un réveil de la vie intelligente dans l’oeil, – ce sont les trois grands mouvements littéraires et artistiques de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle... et nous les aurons menés,...
in note 4:
...this ‘jewel of an exhibition’: ‘A small number of masterpieces by Bastien-Lepage, Cazin...
in note 5:
...de la souscription destinée à éléver à Paris un monument sa mémoire at the Ecole nationale des...
560 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Tuesday, 9 February 1886.
in title:
560 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Tuesday, 9 February 1886.
in original text:
...x dans le sens où je l’entendais , le désirais autrefois. Welnu en ’t moge spoedig komen of...
...vind gij dit niet aardig: Tout le mal est venu de la femme – Raison Obscurcie, appétit de lucre, trahison Coupes d’or où les vins sont melangés de lie Tout crime, tout mensonge heureux, toute folie Vient d’elle...Adorez-la pourtant, puisque les dieux L’ont faite... et – c’est...
in translation:
...same house, a room with an alcove and also a garret or a corner attic — then you could have that...
...for various more unsightly tools or for dirty work, and I could also sleep there — and you in the studio alcove. It seems to me that such an arrangement or something similar would be perfectly...
...Daudet — they don’t work without a goal or without looking towards the other side. Only they...
...I understood it / wanted it in the past. Well, whether or not it comes soon — a moment will come...
...die like women die. No idée fixe about God or abstractions — always on the ground floor of life...
...pleased indeed if I could work with Cormon for a year or so, unless there’s somewhere better for drawing in L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts or other studios I’ve heard about here. The ancients won’t...
in date note:
See for our dating of on or about Tuesday, 9 February 1886: letter 559, Date.
in note 3:
Taken from the essay ‘Eugène Delacroix’, in Silvestre, Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers: ‘I feel happy no longer to be happy as I understood it in the past’ (Je me sens heureux de ne plus...
in note 5:
...written to Vincent about this article or sent it to him. In it, Daudet stresses Turgenev’s gentle character and his love of nature, and he describes their conversations: ‘When we were done with the books and issues of the day, the conversation widened and we came back to ever-present arguments, ideas and talked of love and death’ (Quand on en avait fini avec les livres et les préoccupations du jour, la conversation s’élargissait, on revenait au thèses, aux idées toujours présentes, on parlait de l’amour et de la mort).
in note 8:
...or newspaper. The final two lines, for example, were quoted in a review in L’Art moderne. Revue critique des arts et de la littérature 6 (7 February 1886), p. 43. Theo knew what Vincent was talking about. He and Andries Bonger had seen a performance of Socrate et sa femme at the Théâtre Français on 25 December 1885 (FR b1832...
in note 9:
...Van Gogh may mean Legros’s Carlyle in his study or one of the other portraits of Carlyle by Legros that...
in note 11:
...fait son devoir). Theo must have drawn Vincent’s attention to this article or sent it to him.
in textual note 118:
lucre, < The comma can also be intended as an accent aigu on the first ‘e’ in ‘melangés’ (l. 119).
561 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 11 February 1886.
in title:
561 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 11 February 1886.
in original text:
...c’est peu de chose, cela s’apprend très vite – c’est le contour qui est l’essentiel et...
in translation:
...to Paris much earlier than June or July if need be. The more I think about it, the more desirable this appears to me.
...s. I can go and draw either in the Louvre or in L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts. For the rest, we could...
...things are there, and how the people are, and whether or not I can get models. But if that doesn...
...have seen it properly at close quarters — David or even worse — Pieneman in full bloom. I must...
in date note:
See for our dating of on or about Thursday, 11 February 1886: letter 559, Date.
in note 3:
Probably something Van Gogh put into the mouth of his teacher Verlat or Siberdt by way of example.
in note 4:
...Koninklijke Akademie in Amsterdam, Jan Willem Pieneman, or his son, the history painter Nicolaas Pieneman.
in note 5:
...studio his first drawing was ‘a study after the Germanicus’ (une étude d’après le Germanicus) according to Sensier 1881, p. 60. Van Gogh was already familiar with it through Charles Bargue’s Cours de dessin. Modèles d’après la bosse (‘Ensembles. Germanicus’), no. 69. Ill. 2173. Van Gogh’s drawing of the...
in note 6:
...difficulty in art and sometimes in life’ (Vis-à-vis des femmes, qui sont dans l’art et quelquefois dans...
in note 7:
...colère le prenait à son tour, un juron jeté dans le vide, un terrible haussement d’épaules, comme...
562 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Sunday, 14 February 1886.
in original text:
...de stelling dat een groote reden van veel misères onder de artisten gelegen is in hun onderlinge...
...diverse greves &c. van overal donker inziet.– Voor latere geslachten zijn ze zeker niet nutteloos...
in translation:
...we could both have acquired a wife, one way or another. Because it’s high time, and because we...
...the balance. One may not be able to cure or save, but one can nonetheless sympathize and share in...
...can send me a bit more this month, be it a lot or be it little, but even if it’s only five francs...
in note 4:
...et fait argent de tout pour venir en aide aux misères du siège. Il parcourt les ambulances, les hôpitaux...
563 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Tuesday, 16 or Wednesday, 17 February 1886.
in title:
563 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Tuesday, 16 or Wednesday, 17 February 1886.
in translation:
...models and for paint. So there’s no choice — for that matter what need is there for a choice...
...I can go to the Louvre or L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts for that drawing, and that way it’ll be all the more successful at Cormon’s. So let’s not delay or get involved in long-winded discussions. We...
...to you, and leave on the last day of this month or even a few days earlier. But not stay on into...
...use to them. And if I could do a little painting or drawing there, so much the better. But — the...
...trouble with fellows who had been at some academy or other — that I couldn’t draw — according...
...or less the same, but still I think it’s beginning to improve. With a handshake. Yours truly, Vincent If I didn’t do it — go to Paris, that is — then I wouldn’t get any better — for I...
in date note:
...any doubts about his going to Paris; we have therefore dated it Tuesday, 16 or Wednesday, 17 February 1886.
564 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, Thursday, 18 February 1886.
in translation:
...of myself the figures have something of the peasant or woodcutter about them. If I hadn’t been...
...At Cormon’s I’ll have to paint some test or other of a nude figure from life — probably — a...
in note 2:
...Classical Statues evening class taught by François Vinck, where shaded drawings were made after plaster...
in note 6:
In the novel La dame aux camélias (1848) by Alexandre Dumas fils, the courtesan Marguerite Gautier is...
565 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Monday, 22 February 1886.
in title:
565 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Monday, 22 February 1886.
in original text:
...hadden. Maar daar ik er niet over wil twisten après tout, wilde ik U alleen verzoeken nog eens op nieuw...
...ik om zijnentwil eenige dagen langer in Maart hier blijf. Après tout is er op de wereld niets zoo...
...b. à t. Vincent Het is juist omdat après tout ik nut van mijn naar Antwerpen gaan meen te hebben...
in date note:
...Gogh mentions in ll. 2-3, the present letter must have been written on or about Monday, 22 February 1886.
in note 4:
...Until then he wanted to practise drawing after plaster casts in the Louvre or in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
566 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Wednesday, 24 February 1886.
in title:
566 To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Wednesday, 24 February 1886.
in original text:
...te schuiven.– Antwerpen is mij goed bevallen – après tout. Natuurlijk wou ik dat ik er gekomen...
in translation:
...ve always used the models in some studio or other in town — precisely because of the cost. And...
...we should perhaps have taken this step a good two or two and a half years ago — all the more...
...too, in the shape of numerous fraudulent or common bankruptcies. Think carefully about whether we...
in date note:
...letter 565 of about 22 February, we have dated the present letter on or about Wednesday, 24 February 1886.
567 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Sunday, 28 February 1886.
in title:
567 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Sunday, 28 February 1886.
in translation:
...time this way. Will be at the Louvre from midday, or earlier if you like. A reply, please, to let me know...
in date note:
...would be able to meet him that same morning. We assume that Vincent wanted to avoid having to spend money on boarding-houses in Antwerp or Paris, and that he had to communicate by note because he was unwilling or unable to speak to Theo straightaway. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Sunday, 28 February 1886.
in note 2:
The Salon Carré is the large gallery in the southern wing of the Louvre, where numerous masterpieces of...
568 Vincent van Gogh and Andries Bonger to Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Wednesday, 18 August 1886.
in title:
568 Vincent van Gogh and Andries Bonger to Theo van Gogh. Paris, on or about Wednesday, 18 August 1886.
in original text:
...mondes. Maar nu, kerel, de oplossing van het vraagstuk S. die ge in Uw brief van heden geeft, n.l...
...van vertellen als ge terugkomt. Dat gij niet bij S. en S. niet bij U hoort is dunkt me vast en...
...zijzelve er in berusten wildet dan ben ik bereid S. van U over te nemen, liefst echter zonder haar...
...t welligt wenschelijk tot er beslist is met S. het huishouden op den zelfden voet te laten wat...
...s in een blaauwen vaas tegen licht geel. Bonger is bezig te lezen au Bonheur des dames en ik heb gelezen Bel ami van Guy de Maupassant. Weet ge dat en Bonger en S. hier slapen en het zijn curieuse dagen, soms zijn we erg, erg bang voor haar en soms zijn we almagtig vrolijk en opgewekt. Maar S. is...
...ge weer terugkomt, aux grands maux les grands remèdes. Bonger schrijft hier zeker bij, tenzij hij...
...redeneering is ook mijne overtuiging. De kwestie is S. de oogen te openen. Ze is hoegenaamd...
...Holland.– Het zal niet minder moeielijk zijn S. van de hare te overtuigen, dan rust...
in translation:
...of possible worlds. But now, old chap, the solution to the S. question that you give in your letter of today, that’s to say ‘Either she goes or I go’, would be very short, sweet and conclusive...
...you get back. That you don’t belong with S. nor S. with you is absolutely certain, it seems to me...
...her you could simply either provoke her to suicide or send her mad, and the effect of that on you...
...accept it, then I’m prepared to take S. over from you, preferably, though, without marrying her...
...as regards Lucie until something is decided with S. If you could enter into this arrangement...
...know that Bonger and S. are sleeping here, and these are strange days, sometimes we’re very, very afraid of her, and sometimes we’re almighty merry and cheerful. But S. is terribly deranged, and...
...Holland. It will be no less difficult to convince S. of hers than to calm the emotions over there...
...that. He keeps replying: but I wanted to get this or that colour contrast into it. As if I gave a...
in date note:
...stay must already have elapsed. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 18 August 1886.
in note 7:
Theo had taken a flower still life by Vincent with him on his trip to show it (or sell it?) – possibly to his uncles or to H.G. Tersteeg �� or to use as an exchange for two watercolours by Isabey (see n. 14 below). The works in question cannot be identified.
in note 15:
...whereabouts unknown) and Sous les châtaigniers (Under the chestnut trees) (sold for 395 guilders to...
in note 17:
Very probably François Spijker, a colleague and friend of Bonger’s in Paris. He is mentioned repeatedly in...
569 To Horace Mann Livens, Paris, September or October 1886.
in title:
569 To Horace Mann Livens, Paris, September or October 1886.
in original text:
...There is much to be seen here – for instance Delacroix to name only one master. In Antwerp...
...you so long as I have any. In spring – say February or even sooner I may be going to the South of...
...good.– I have been in Cormons studio for three or four months but did not find that so useful as...
...other masters at exorbitant prices. They do little or nothing for young artists. The second class...
in translation:
...longer. There is much to be seen here – for instance Delacroix to name only one master. In...
...so long as I have any. In spring – say February or even sooner – I may be going to the south of...
...of good. I have been in Cormons studio for three or four months but did not find that as useful as...
...other masters at exorbitant prices. They do little or nothing for young artists. The second class...
in date note:
...or in autumn 1887. Van Heugten places the letter in the period ‘summer-autumn 1887’, primarily on the basis of two similar subjects touched on in a letter from Van Gogh to his sister Willemien written at that time (letter 574): his intended departure for the south of France, which was to happen the following spring; and the use of colour in the landscapes he made at Asnières. Van Gogh did indeed go to Arles in the spring of 1888, and the Asnières landscapes mentioned in the letter to Willemien do date from the spring and summer of 1887, so that the letter must certainly have been written after that. We believe, however, that the present letter contains indications that point to the autumn of 1886; in other words the similar subjects are in fact different. Van Gogh writes that since he has been in Paris he has thought about Livens, whom he met at the Antwerp Academy in January-February 1886, very often, even ‘almost daily’ (l. 96). It would seem unlikely that his thoughts would have turned to his former fellow-student at the Academy quite so often after a year and a half in Paris; the same applies to the period of time within which asking to be remembered to four other students is still plausible (l. 94). Van Gogh’s account of what he has been up to would moreover be very perfunctory were it to relate to what he had been doing in Paris for a period of a year and a half; by the autumn of 1887 he was acquainted or friendly with a number of avant-garde artists, he had exhibited on various occasions and even organized exhibitions himself. Japanese prints were a major element of his artistic preoccupations, and in 1887 his view of modern art was so much broader that he is much less likely to have referred to Degas and Monet, as he does here in ll. 36-37, than to Signac, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bernard. The fact that he gives himself and Livens a chance of joining the colourists also tends to place the letter in 1886 rather than 1887. It gives the distinct impression of being a report of a much shorter stay in Paris. What Van Gogh says about painting numerous flower still lifes tallies with what we know of this period (in other words March 1886 - autumn 1886): from the summer of 1886 until mid-September this was one of his main subjects. Several pictures of the windmills in and around Montmartre are candidates for the landscapes with ‘frank’ colours (ll. 61-62). He could moreover have simply meant here that he had started to work in a more colourist manner, and he does not necessarily have to have had specific works in mind. By the ‘two heads’ he may have meant two self-portraits (see n. 7). And on top of all this, he does not reckon himself to be one of the Impressionists (l. 34) – he would certainly not have said that in 1887. This leaves us with the trip to the south; it emerges from a letter Theo wrote to his mother in February 1887 that Vincent had already started to think about this in the winter of 1886-1887 (see n. 10). As far as Van Gogh’s time in Cormon’s studio is concerned, this dating means that he must have gone there very soon after his arrival in March, as Van Tilborgh also argues (cf. n. 14). See cat. Amsterdam 2001, pp. 21-23, Van Tilborgh 2007. The literature reference in exhib. cat. Paris 1988, p. 398: B. Welsh-Ovcharov, ‘Vincent to Livens, when and why?’, Vincent van Gogh’s letter to Horace Mann Livens. London 1987, turns out to be an unpublished typescript (according to an e-mail received from the author in 2004...
in note 2:
...de peinture at Georges Petit (15 June - 15 July 1886) and the IIe exposition de la Société des Artistes Indépendants (20 August - 21 September 1886). See Rewald 1978, p. 12 and Welsh-Ovcharov 1976, pp. 218-219...
in note 11:
...Van Gogh was in Antwerp, Briët was living at number 20 Korte Beeldekensstraat, in other words just...
in note 14:
The period (or periods) when Van Gogh worked at Cormon’s studio has been the subject of debate. We agree...
in note 15:
...On 6 March 1893, Mrs van Roosmaelen moved to number 16 Blindenstraat in Antwerp, near the entrance to...
570 To Charles Angrand. Paris, Monday, 25 October 1886.
in original text:
Monsieur, J’ai parlé à M. Boggs de l’entrevue que j’ai eue avec vous et si vous aimeriez à faire un échange avec lui allez-y hardiment parceque vous verrez de belles choses chez lui et il sera très content de faire votre...
in note 1:
...where Angrand held a teaching position); see François Lespinasse, Charles Angrand 1854-1926. S.l. 1982, pp...
in note 5:
...Van Gogh had finished several works in which one or more of these mills can be seen. He may have had two...
571 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, between about Sunday, 17 and Tuesday, 19 July 1887.
in original text:
...nt que si elle prenait parti pour moi on lui ferait des atrocités.– J’ai vu le garçon aussi en entrant mais il s’est éclipsé.– Maintenant je n’ai pas voulu prendre les tableaux tout de...
...ton retour.– Car remarquez que lorsque j’ai commencé à travailler à Asnieres j’avais beaucoup de toiles et que Tanguy était très bon pour moi.– Cela à la rigueur il l’est tout autant...
...ui, il a vendu un tableau, je crois par Portier.– On a apporté une aquarelle de Mme Mesdag que je trouve très belle. Maintenant j’espère que ton voyage là-bas t’amusera, dites bien des chôses de ma part à ma mère, à Cor & à Wil. Puis si tu peux faire de façon que je ne m’embête...
in translation:
...back. Because remember when I started working at Asnières I had lots of canvases and Tanguy was...
in date note:
...p. 250). This would mean that his leave started on or about Thursday, 14 July. Earlier – and hence a...
in note 2:
...vol. 1, p. 242. We do not know how serious it was or how long it lasted. See also cat. Amsterdam 2011.
in note 3:
...toutes ces peintures, mises en tas, furent adjugées pour un somme dérisoire.) See Bernard 1994, vol. 1...
in note 7:
Asnières was a village on the Seine immediately to the north of Paris, just a few miles from rue Lepic...
in note 8:
...philosophie pratique tout ce monde “d’écervelés et de beaux parleurs”.) See Bernard 1994, vol. 1...
572 To Theo van Gogh. Paris, between about Saturday, 23 and about Monday, 25 July 1887.
in original text:
Je me sens triste de ce que même en cas de succès la peinture ne rapportera pas ce qu’elle...
...l’envie de mariage et d’enfants et à des moments je suis assez melancolique d’etre comme ça...
...impossible dorénavant. car j’espère faire du progrès de façon à ce que tu puisses hardiment...
...conviction qu’elle s’est fait avorter (à moins encore qu’elle ait eue une fausse grossesse...
...i ou me ferait du tort quelconque, je ne la ménagerais pas – mais cela ne sera pas nécessaire...
...se faire du bon sang que de se suicider. Bien des choses à tous à la maison. b. à t. Vincent
in translation:
...to see them nevertheless’. But a dozen years ago or so one would have sworn that the family would...
...and in cold blood to give me back what’s mine, or did me any kind of harm, I wouldn’t be easy...
...the whole lot will make a decoration for a dining room or a house in the country. And if you really...
in note 4:
It has not been possible to establish exactly when or to whom Segatori transferred her business. See further...
in note 5:
This was possibly the riverscape from Asnières which Van Gogh said that Tanguy had in his possession in a...
in note 6:
...about; they were probably landscapes from Asnières. The large canvas Van Gogh says he has in hand was...
573 To Johannes van Hombergh, Mayor of Nuenen. Paris, Thursday, 1 September 1887.
in translation:
or directly to my...
574 To Willemien van Gogh. Paris, late October 1887.
in original text:
...idees zijn geweest. Maar juist omdat ik het oude mooi vind vind ik het nieuwe à plus forte raison mooi. à plus forte raison omdat wij zelf handelen kunnen in onzen eigen tijd, en ’t verleden...
...die aardappels eten, wat ik in Nuenen maakte, après tout het beste is dat ik maakte. Alleen ik heb...
in translation:
...Why seek ye the living among the dead? If the spoken or written word is to remain the light of the...
...dear little sister, learn to dance or fall in love with one or more notary’s clerks, officers, in...
...more sacred, more than now. Why are religion or law or art so sacred? People who do nothing other...
...other than little green landscapes or flowers. Last year I painted almost nothing but flowers to accustom myself to a colour other than grey, that’s to say pink, soft or bright green, light blue, violet, yellow, orange, fine red. And when I painted landscape in Asnières this summer I saw more...
...I don’t want to be one of the melancholics or those who become sour and bitter and morbid. To...
...rather than too little, and don’t take art or love too seriously either — one can do little...
...often inadequate or the work is made impossible by circumstances. One should be able to do two or...
...to us that art should be something sacred or good. Anyway, think carefully about whether it isn’t...
in date note:
...remark ‘when I painted landscape in Asnières this summer’ (l. 170) also points in this...
in note 2:
...rançois Rabelais, famous for his entertaining books Gargantua (1535) and Pantagruel (1533). In his note ‘to the Reader’ in Gargantua Rabelais writes that he is not presenting any scholarly or literary feats, but a healthy dose of humour, for ‘laughter is peculiar to man’ (rire est le propre de l’homme). See François Rabelais...
in note 15:
...suspected that one of her cousins was the father, or that one of them would give the fallen woman the...
in note 19:
...Paris 1886. Van Gogh read either this edition or the 1887 reprint. We know from a letter from Theo to...
in note 20:
...first buildings are open for business, Brétigny’s ardour has cooled to such an extent that he marries...
575 To Emile Bernard. Paris, about December 1887.
in original text:
...donc sans tarder. Je te recommande de lire les légendes russes de Tolstoï et je t’aurai aussi...
...uer revient à ceci.– Pour eviter les généralités permets moi de prendre un exemple sur le vif...
...ose je retire mes toiles – et si tu le dénigres, alors il me semble que tu agis pas aussi bien...
...du pointillé font avec cela assez souvent de très belles choses – Au lieu de dénigrer celles-l...
...les plus indépendants existants. Je voulais encore te dire un mot pour ce qui regarde le service militaire que tu seras obligé de faire.– Il faut absolument que tu t’occupes dès à présent de...
...nervé si tu y tiens à sortir de là plus fort.– Je ne considère pas cela comme un tres grand...
...très grave de laquelle si tu en sors tu en sortiras un très grand artiste. D’ici là fais tout...
...des modèles. Volontiers je ferai mon possible pour faire que ce que l’on a commencé dans la salle reussisse mais je crois que la premiere condition pour reussir c’est de laisser là les petites...
in translation:
...I recommend that you read Tolstoy’s Les Légendes Russes, and I’ll also let you have the article on...
...t think your portrait of yourself will be your last, or your best — although all in all it’s...
...your health. You mustn’t arrive there too anaemic or too agitated if you want to emerge from it...
in date note:
...organized an exhibition that was held in November or December 1887. The formulation ‘I’ll gladly do...
in note 5:
...Armand Guillaumin’s address. It had previously been the studio of the painter Charles-François Daubigny.
in note 9:
...prendre sans retard une charette à bras et à porter toute l’exposition à son atelier de la rue Lepic. Evidemment l’art du petit boulevard n’avait pas été compris de son barnum). See Lettres à Bernard...
576 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, December 1887.
in original text:
...convenait pas faites m’en part en venant vous-même choisir. Excusez-moi si je ne viens pas moi-même chercher les vôtres, je vais si peu dans votre quartier. Je les prendrai 19 Boulevd Montmartre si vous voulez bien les déposer à cet...
in date note:
On the basis of the kind of paper and the handwriting, Merlhès dates the letter to December 1887. See Merlhès 1989, p. 56. This dating is supported by the contents of the letter: the exchange, which was prompted by...
in note 1:
...Anquetin, Gauguin’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français 1995, pp. 239-247.
577 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 21 February 1888.
in original text:
Seulement je me dis que plus tard tu viendras peutêtre toi-meme souvent ici. Il me semble presque impossible de pouvoir travailler à Paris à moins que l’on n’aie une retraite pour se refaire et pour reprendre son calme et son aplomb. Sans cela on serait fatalement...
in translation:
Arles doesn’t seem any bigger than Breda or Mons to me...
...a little walk round the town, as I was more or less completely done in last night. I’ll write to...
in note 4:
...balcony on the first floor’ (maison à deux étages, petite terrasse au-dessus et balcon au premier). See...
in note 5:
...books do not record any in rue Amédée-Pichot or rue de la Cavalerie. The closest antique dealer was...
578 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 24 February 1888.
in title:
578 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 24 February 1888.
in original text:
...t de mauvaise part que je l’aie dévancé dans le midi. Dire de notre part que nous n’aurions...
...u tableau (lequel tableau soit dit entre paranthèses on avait l’intention d’acquérir), 2...
...que pour avoir davantage encore le droit de rester maîtres de notre terrain en tant que quant aux...
...Insistant sur ceci que les peintres décédés ne nous intéressent qu’indirectement au point de...
...n que tu n’aies pas de responsabilités, indirectes mêmes.– Si tu vois Bernard dis lui alors...
...des économies à faire, ce que je cherche, et dès que j’aurai vérifié je lui écrirai ce qui me paraîtra la moyenne des dépenses. Il me semble par moments que mon sang veuille bien plus ou moins se remettre à circuler, cela n’ayant pas été le cas dans les derniers temps à Paris, je...
...tat de ces chôses serait par là. J’avais espérer trouver du beau bleu &c. et en somme je n’en désespère pas vu qu’à Marseille on doit pouvoir acheter les matières brutes de première...
in translation:
...is more or less ready to start circulating again, which wasn’t the case lately in Paris, I really couldn’t stand it any more. I have to buy my colours and canvases from either a grocer or a...
in date note:
...this would probably have taken a few days, we are dating the letter on or about Friday, 24 February 1888.
in note 3:
...93. Fowle thought it likely that Reid had gone to Marseille himself as early as 1886 or 1887 to look for work by Monticelli, or in any event that he had contacts there (Fowle 1993, p. 36). In view of the Van Gogh...
in note 14:
...Arles, that he has loved’ (Un jeune homme voit dans Paris une belle demoiselle de traits réguliers. Il est épris. Il épouse, puis est curieux de connaître le pays de sa femme, la ville d’Arles...Il voit cent...
in note 16:
...Saint-Trophime at place de la République. The museum was ‘especially rich in ancient and Christian sarcophagi, made of marble and with bas-reliefs, that came from the Alyscamps’ (surtout très riche en sarcophages antiques et chrétiens, en marbre et à bas-reliefs, provenant des Aliscamps). Baedeker 1889-2, p. 212.
579 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 24 February 1888.
in title:
579 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 24 February 1888.
in translation:
...dared to laugh at the ‘highly serious life which we ought only to devote to or spend on the best ends’.
...that it’s fairly impossible for the white potato or salad grubs that turn into May bugs later to...
...throw light on this question, since the gardener or others interested in salad and vegetables would...
...clearly that I cannot prosper with either my work or my health in the winter — moreover, nowadays...
in date note:
...one. Given these facts, we have dated this letter, like letter 578, on or about Friday, 24 February 1888.
in note 4:
...maybug who, searching for a ‘serious calling’ for which he will be rewarded with eternal happiness...
580 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 27 February 1888.
in title:
580 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 27 February 1888.
in original text:
...ce. Mais il te faut du soutien d’autres employés de la maison. Si Tersteeg refuse de s’en...
...ce moment le droit de mettre son adversaire la-bàs au courrant. Mais si Wisselingh s’en occupe...
...en post scriptum, soit que vu la modicité des prix en rapport avec l’intérêt que présentent...
...d’en avoir parceque si deja à Anvers et à Bruxelles on en parle, on en parlera également...
...nouvelle école. Si pourtant tu juges la lettre mal à propos tu as mon plein pouvoir de la brûler...
...marche de ces nouveaux tableaux là-bas. Vraiment de cette façon Tersteeg et le gerant de Londres feraient l’exposition permanente des impressionistes à Londres – toi tu aurais celle de Paris...
...fera à plus forte raison puisque Tersteeg ne s’y opposera pas que nous ayons les interêts des...
...de là-bas, ou bien les artistes s’associeront et choisiront eux mêmes des agents intelligents...
...j’aurais une grande envie de voir Tersteeg là-dedans parce qu’il a l’aplomb nécessaire. je...
in translation:
...But if Wisselingh ever gets involved, and especially if today or tomorrow you have a chat with W...
...letter is by no means unpleasant either for Tersteeg or for you: you’ll show him round all the...
...over there at miserable prices, or artists will get together and themselves choose intelligent agents who aren’t usurers. Now think the matter over — and send the letter or burn it, as you think...
in date note:
...Theo should get in touch with Tersteeg. We have therefore dated this on or about Monday, 27 February 1888.
in note 6:
...Rijsselberghe and Octave Maus, founded Le Groupe des Vingt in Brussels. Like the Société des Artistes Indépendants set up in Paris the same year, Les Vingt’s aim was to promote modern art in various ways...
581 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, on or about Wednesday, 29 February 1888.
in title:
581 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, on or about Wednesday, 29 February 1888.
in original text:
...e encourageant si c’est possible.– Tout à vous Paul Gauguin Pont Aven chez Made Gloanec...
in translation:
I don’t want to put pressure on your brother, but a brief word from you on this subject would set my mind at rest, or at least enable me to hold on. My God, how terrible these money matters are for an...
in date note:
...mention Gauguin’s letter in his letter to Theo of around Monday, 27 February (letter 580). We, like Merlhès, have therefore dated it on or about Wednesday, 29 February 1888. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 172.
in note 1:
...Gogh had gone to Arles; he himself having left Paris for Brittany on 26 January. See Merlhès 1989, p. 61.
582 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 2 March 1888.
in title:
582 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 2 March 1888.
in original text:
...serait momentanément à l’abri. C’est maintenant très bien que tu ayes pris le jeune Koning...
...petites études d’une branche d’amandier déjà en fleur pourtant. Voici pour aujourd’hui, j’ecris encore un petit mot à Koning. Vraiment je suis bien content que tu aies écris à Tersteeg...
in date note:
...allowance. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Friday, 2 March 1888. This is borne out by...
in note 7:
...In the Netherlands he had read the poetry of François Coppée, who had written a poem, ‘Cheval de...
in note 8:
The fourth exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants was due to be staged in Paris from 22 March to 3 May 1888. This society, founded in 1884 by Odilon Redon, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Georges Seurat, Paul...
in note 9:
...was Piles of French novels and roses in a glass (‘Romans parisiens’) (F 359 / JH 1332); see letter 584, n. 13. See Société des Artistes Indépendants. Catalogue des Oeuvres exposés. 4e Exposition. Exhib. cat. Paris 1888, p. 42, cat. nos. 658-660. Theo interpreted Vincent’s offhand attitude towards the selection...
583 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 9 March 1888.
in original text:
...a fait fondre à tant soit peu près toute la quantité de neige – mais le vent était si froid et si sec qu’on en avait la chair de poule. Mais néamoins j’ai vu de bien belles choses – une...
...ci c’est des oranges. Cela fait jusqu’ici huit études que j’ai.– Mais cela ne compte pas...
...avec d’autres papiers, l’ayant retrouvée après, je te l’envoie ci-inclus. Seulement je lui...
...et surement nous serons de ce nombre nous mêmes – l’avenir est encore difficile.– Je crois...
...effets mats, je puis avoir tout maintenant à peu près au prix de Paris. Samedi soir j’ai eu la...
...pourtant. Si à Paris le temps s’adoucit aussi cela te fera du bien.– Quel hiver! Je n’ose pas rouler mes études encore car cela n’a guère séché et il y a des empâtements qui ne seront...
...pas qu’on nous traite comme si nous étions des morts.– Enfin, il est probable que Tersteeg...
...passé et j’espère qu’il en sera de même à Paris. Poignee de main. b. à t. Vincent
in translation:
...for matt effects, I can now get everything, more or less, at Paris prices. On Saturday evening I...
...myself because it isn’t good enough to be iller or less ill than others, the ideal thing would be...
in note 1:
...is a cold, dry katabatic wind from the north-west or north, which blows in the Rhône valley and the...
in note a:
Conflation of the expressions ‘à peu près’ and ‘tant soit peu’, which both mean ‘almost’.
in note 6:
...know, Gauguin and Russell never got in touch. Merlhès suggests that Gauguin was too proud to approach...
584 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 10 March 1888.
in original text:
...Paris sous peu. Ce serait à désirer dans ces circonstances dont tu parles, où ils sont tous aux...
...que tu écris de la vente Lançon et de la maîtresse du peintre. Il a fait des chôses d’un bien...
...galement le prix des tableaux vendus. Néamoins les artistes ne trouveront pas mieux que – de...
...C. Pissarro prenaient l’initiative disant: voici à nous 5 nous donnons chacun 10 tableaux (ou...
...Guillaumin, Seurat, Gauguin &c. &c. à vous joindre à nous (vos tableaux passant au point de vue...
...er sérieusement un crédit pour les achats nécessaires. Mais c’est pressé puisque sans cela...
...Il va probablement venir à Paris pour le Salon et désire faire un tour en Hollande pour voir les musées. Je trouve très-bien que tu mettes les livres aussi aux Indépendants. faudra donner comme...
...s des petits impressionistes qui diront: “vous mettez tout dans votre poche”. Ils peuvent très...
...cela en pratique – ils pourraient – dire pis, à moins de – ne rien dire et de laisser aller...
in translation:
...here we are, each of the 5 of us gives 10 paintings (or rather, we each give to the value of 10,000...
...dry, and because I want to send at least a dozen or so all at once because of the cost of transport...
...arrived. This week I’ll start work on 4 or 5 things. I think about this association of artists...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1888 Indépendants exhibition (582)
in note 1:
...5-6 March 1888 (Lugt 1938-1987, no. 47131). No information about Lançon’s mistress has been found.
in note 2:
...magazines, Le Chat Noir and Le Courrier Français, had a retrospective of drawings and paintings in...
in note 5:
...Evidently there was a discussion about reduction or abolition, but it was not until 1892 that the rate...
in note 6:
...or near the chic boulevards around place de l’Opéra. Van Gogh saw opportunities for an association of these artists with the younger generation of artists of the ‘Petit Boulevard’, among whom he counted Guillaumin, Seurat and Gauguin, as well as Bernard, Anquetin, Angrand, Toulouse-Lautrec, Signac, Lucien Pissarro and himself. By ‘Petit Boulevard’ he was referring to the neighbourhood around boulevard de Clichy and boulevard de Rochechouart in Montmartre, where the younger men had their studios and exhibited in cafés. See Richard Thomson, ‘The cultural geography of the Petit Boulevard’, in exhib. cat. Saint Louis 2001, pp. 65-108, esp. 66. It emerges from letter 625 that the Van Gogh brothers had already made plans for a society of this kind in the winter before Vincent’s departure – each artist would hand over fifty paintings. Van Gogh set himself the goal of having his share of fifty paintings ready by the following year. He refers to this number again in letters 625, 626 and 631...
in note 8:
...dessin que Seurat y avait mis, il a été payé tres bon marché, car tu sais comme il est chien, il n’y...
in note 10:
...at the moment I can’t remember his name: Van Prut or something of the kind.’ See Larsson 1993, pp. 14...
585 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 16 March 1888.
in title:
585 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 16 March 1888.
in original text:
...berges orangées avec verdure, un groupe de laveuses aux caracos & bonnets barriolés. Puis autre...
...je suis ici 12 études. Le temps est variable, souvent du vent & des ciels brouillés – mais les...
...s. Tu feras bien d’aller voir Signac chez lui. j’étais bien content de ce que tu écrivais...
...et intelligent. Il a dans le temps commencé des études de médecine, il connait les livres de...
...d’un an, ou de revenir après une courte visite à ses concitoyens. Mais, mon cher frère – tu...
...se bornent mes exploits amoureux vis à vis des Arlésiennes. La foule à manquée (le méridional...
...dis je, a manquée lyncher les meurtriers emprisonnés à l’hôtel de ville mais sa représaille...
...tait bien beau. J’ai fait mes trois dernières études au moyen du cadre perspectif que tu me...
...ile on obtient aujourd’hui des effets très différents de ceux des inventeurs du procédé, J...
...les épreuves ne puissent faire que du bien, au contraire cela ne fera désormais que l’éreinter...
in translation:
...he’d do well to put off returning home for a year, or to come back after a short visit to his...
...advantage of the opportunity to go into one of the brothels in the little street called ‘des Récollets’. Which is the limit of my amorous exploits vis-à-vis the Arlésiennes. The crowd almost (the southerner, following Tartarin’s example, being braver in good intentions than in action), the...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1888 Indépendants exhibition (582)
in date note:
...before Sunday, 18 March. For these reasons we have dated the letter on or about Friday, 16 March 1888.
in note 5:
Van Gogh exhibited three works with the Indépendants; see letter 582, n. 9.
in note 6:
In 1888 Signac lived at 130 boulevard de Clichy, where he also had his studio. Theo could have visited him there, or it might have been in his mother’s house in Asnières, where Signac often received his friends.
in note 8:
...in rue des Récollets after a row with three Italian labourers. This brothel, the ‘maison de tolérance’ no. 14 on the corner of the rue du Bout d’Arles and rue des Récollets, must have been the one...
in note 9:
Rue des Récollets opened off rue de la Cavalerie, where Van Gogh’s boarding-house was.
586 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, between about Saturday, 17 and about Monday, 19 March 1888.
in original text:
Mon cher Vincent Merci de m’avoir répondu; je vois que vous êtes en bon endroit pour étudier le soleil qui vous charme et vous travaillez d’autant mieux que le sujet vous empoigne.– Merci encore de vos bonnes intentions à mon égard; le...
in date note:
...the present letter to about 19 March 1888; Merlhès to about 14-16 March; but neither put forward any...
587 To Emile Bernard. Arles, Sunday, 18 March 1888.
in original text:
...arrangements de couleur très-naïfs et bien trouvés. Et cela aussi sans doute s’égayera encore en...
...peu coûteuse. Puis si on était à plusieurs on obtiendrait, je suis porté à le croire, des...
...le midi. Si les Japonais ne sont pas en progrès dans leur pays il est indubitable que leur art se...
in date note:
...off with one to Theo dating from Wednesday, 21 or Thursday, 22 March (letter 588). It emerges from...
in note 3:
...a ‘crépon’ is a woodcut printed on crepe paper or crepe fabric, Van Gogh uses the term for Japanese...
588 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 21 or Thursday, 22 March 1888.
in title:
588 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 21 or Thursday, 22 March 1888.
in original text:
...de réponse, si j’étais de toi je lui écrirais un mot très-court et très-calme mais exprimant...
...té des contrariétés humaines et pourtant il se sent condamné à la dêche à perpétuité. Ces...
...les buveurs d’absinthe, me paraissent aussi des êtres d’un autre monde. C’est pas pour dire...
...pas toutes chôses par le côté blague. Tu as encore eu de la neige en abondance à Paris à ce...
...au général Boulanger de se servir désormais, pour donner le change à la police secrète, de...
...néamoins un peu voir ce qu’il y a dans ce fameux monsieur Tersteeg. Faut qu’il se prononce – vraiment – dans l’intérêt des copains nous sommes à ce qu’il me semble un peu obligés de...
...t renseignés sur ses intentions. Si nous tenons comme désirable la création d’une exposition permanente des impressionistes à Londres et à Marseille il va sans dire que nous chercherons à les...
...il me semble, se produira probablement dès que les impressionistes auront la hausse. Remarquez que...
in translation:
...let ourselves be treated as if we were dead or outlaws. Enough. Let’s hope that you’ve received...
...the Zouaves, the brothels, the adorable little Arlésiennes going off to make their first communion...
...it remains to be seen, will Tersteeg be part of it? Yes or no? And if not, what are his intentions as regards an offensive, do they exist, yes or no? And has he calculated, like us, the effect of a...
in date note:
...We have therefore dated the letter Wednesday, 21 or Thursday, 22 March 1888.Because Vincent refers here...
in note 6:
...or touch the reader’ (Le romancier qui transforme la vérité constante, brutale et déplaisante, pour en tirer une aventure exceptionnelle et séduisante, doit, sans souci exagéré de la vraisemblance, manipuler les événements à son gré, les préparer et les arranger pour plaire au lecteur, l’émouvoir ou l’attendrir). See Maupassant 1987, pp. 708, 706 respectively...
in note 7:
...or spoken of. There is an element of the unexplored in everything, because we are in the habit of using our eyes only with the memory of what people before us have thought about the things which we are looking at. The smallest thing contains a little of what is unknown. Let us find it...It is in that way that we become original.’ (Le talent est une longue patience. Il s’agit de regarder tout ce qu’on veut exprimer assez longtemps et avec assez d’attention pour en découvrir un aspect qui n’ait été vu et dit par personne. Il y a, dans tout, de l’inexploré, parce que nous sommes habitués à ne nous servir de nos yeux qu’avec le souvenir de ce qu’on a pensé avant nous sur ce que nous contemplons. La moindre chose contient un peu d’inconnu. Trouvons-le ... C’est de cette façon qu’on devient original.) See Maupassant 1987, p. 713....
in note 11:
...first communion of Catholic children had taken place shortly before, on 18 March. See Merlhès 1989, p. 260.
in note 13:
...2 and 10 March; on the latter two occasions in disguise (wearing dark glasses and affecting a limp).’ (Malgré ces ordres formels, M. le général Boulanger est venu trois fois à Paris: le 24 février, le 2 et le 10 mars; ces deux dernières fois sous un déguisement (portant des lunettes foncées et affectant de boîter).) Boulanger denied this story of a disguise in an interview with L’Intransigeant published on 18...
589 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 25 March 1888.
in title:
589 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 25 March 1888.
in original text:
...collection.– Si tu lui disais que nous possédons dans notre collection un bouquet de fleurs qui...
...jugeons en tout cas très-supérieur aux Monticelli à figures qui courent les rues actuellement et...
...tu lui écriras, dis lui un mot de Russell.– Quand moi j’écrirai à Russell, je lui parlerai de ses tableaux et je lui demanderai de me faire un échange parce que nous désirerions le nommer et...
...la finir chez moi. Seulement j’ai aussitôt après recommencé le meme motif sur une autre toile...
...tudes de la nature du midi, et que lorsque Tersteeg viendra à Paris au mois de Mai il trouvera un envoi de quelques motifs d’ici. Merci bien encore aussi de toutes les démarches que tu a faites pour l’exposition des Indépendants, je suis en somme bien content qu’ils les ont placés avec...
...ls font est très varié. Je crois que notre ami Reid regrette de s’être brouillé, malheureusement il ne peut pas être question de lui offrir encore une fois les mêmes avantages – soit de...
in translation:
...bridge with the yellow sky and two houses reflected in the water? That one, or the butterflies or the field of poppies might do. However, I hope to do better things here. If...
...sorry to see the Seurats in a provincial museum or a cellar — these paintings must stay in living...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1888 Indépendants exhibition (582)
in date note:
Van Gogh confirms the receipt of 50 francs. The letter must date from after 22 March 1888 because this was when the Indépendants exhibition opened (ll. 89-93; cf. also nn. 13 and 14). He received the next instalment on or about 1 April (see letter 591); we therefore date the present letter on or about Sunday, 25 March 1888.
in note 3:
In the 1880s François Joseph Delarebeyrette’s gallery was located at 43 rue de Provence in Paris. He was...
in note 4:
...582, n. 5. Tersteeg had asked Theo to send him a number of ‘modern’ paintings (see letter 592). At the...
in note 6:
...with apricot trees in blossom (F 553 / JH 1387) or Orchard with apricot trees in blossom (F 556 / JH...
in note 13:
Van Gogh exhibited three works at the Indépendants; see letter 582, n. 9. Angrand, Anquetin, Lucien...
590 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 30 March 1888.
in title:
590 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 30 March 1888.
in translation:
...you mustn’t imagine that I do exactly what I want or leave what I’d rather not do. The work has me in...
...a great many interesting things on hand. Not that I or any of the painters with whom I’m more...
in date note:
...upon receipt’ (ll. 2-3), we have dated the present letter on or about Friday, 30 March 1888.
in note 4:
...pp. 41-42. The fifth exhibition of the Indépendants was also held in 1889, as a counterpart to the...
in note 5:
...destroyed (see letter 606); in letter 591 to Theo he refers to ‘4 or 5’ studies plus F 394.
591 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 1 April 1888.
in title:
591 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 1 April 1888.
in original text:
...en roseaux – deux pêchers roses contre un ciel glorieux bleu et blanc. Probable le meilleur paysage que j’aie fait. Au moment où je l’ai rapporté chez moi je reçois de la part de notre...
...quel nous l’enverrons à nous deux à Mme Mauve. J’ai exprès pris la meilleure etude que j’aie fabriquée ici, je sais pas ce qu’ils en diront chez nous mais cela nous est égal. Il me semblait qu’il fallait en mémoire de Mauve quelque chôse et de tendre et de très gai et non pas une...
...cela j’ai maintenant encore 4 ou 5 autres études de vergers et vais commencer une toile de 30 du...
...ai beaucoup de mal en peignant à cause du vent mais j’attache mon chevalet à des piquets plantés dans le terrain et travaille quand même, c’est trop beau.– Maintenant continue ferme les...
...le prix etait déjà derisoire. Ou bien Reid, après ce qui s’est passé, doit acheter ferme, ou...
...compromet les ventes prochaines, mais c’est très malheureux.– Y a-t-il moyen que tu l’ach...
in translation:
...poor and saying nothing — pretty etching. But something or other grabbed hold of me and made my...
...that. In addition to that I now have another 4 or 5 studies of orchards and I’m going to start a...
...Now be steadfast in keeping up relations with Tersteeg. Success or not, in a year I’m inclined to...
...Reid, after what has happened, should buy outright, or the artists should shut the door in his face...
in date note:
...must therefore have been written later. We have consequently dated it on or about Sunday, 1 April 1888.
in note 5:
...sad, soft voice, through the rain and through her tears’ (une voix triste et douce, à travers la pluie et à travers ses larmes). 5th ed. Paris n.d., livre quatrième, p. 237. The poem was set to music by Ernst...
in textual note 78:
arrangés < arranger
592 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 3 April 1888.
in title:
592 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 3 April 1888.
in original text:
...te reposé présente des difficultés serieuses, hier j’ai écrit des lettres que j’ai anéanties ensuite. Je continue à sentir tous les jours que nous sommes obligés de faire quelque chôse en...
...traitant plus ou moins comme si nous étions déjà morts, et une revanche de ton voyage de l’ann...
...la Haye, les 2 paysages Montmartre exposés aux Independants. Reste encore une chôse pas commode...
...jaune et groupe de laveuses, une etudes où les terrains sont orangé vif, l’herbe tres verte, le...
...calculé expres en bleu de roi et or de ce modèle, le plat bleu, la baguette exterieure or. au...
...te ferai t’arrive avant que Tersteeg vienne à Paris et tu pourras mettre les pommiers en fleurs...
...Vignon, sans doute que M. Gendre était là-dedans, je lui souhaite à M. Gendre bien du mal, il en...
...etudes destinees pour la Hollande, puis après laisser la Hollande tranquille pour toujours. j’ai...
...qu’on fera quelques tableaux pour là-bas. Puis après je les oublierai et ne penserai plus qu...
in translation:
...more or less as...
...s suppose we also gave our sister some study or other. Let’s suppose we gave the modern museum...
...here is better than my campaign in Asnières last spring. Nothing is absolutely decided in the...
in sketch A:
...sketch. There are two words on the sketch: ‘or’ (gold) in the border of the frame and ‘bleu...
in ongoing topic 1:
Entry for the 1888 Indépendants exhibition (582)
in date note:
...the consignment to Tersteeg. We have therefore dated the present letter on or about Tuesday, 3 April 1888.
in note 14:
...painted a great deal in the neighbourhood of Asnières to the north of Paris. See for the works from this...
in note 19:
...pear trees and apple trees)); see letter 597), or else he was using the word ‘pommiers’ here for...
in note 20:
...has not been possible to ascertain which question (or questions) Vincent is talking about here...
593 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Thursday, 5 April 1888.
in title:
593 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Thursday, 5 April 1888.
in original text:
...père l’Hôte le tout dernier prix de 10 mètres de sa toile au plâtre ou absorbante – et me...
...m petits tubes } 12 ,, ordinaire ,, ,, } 2 Carmin ,, ,, } Crosswise after lines r. 38-40: nouvellement broyés, s’ils sont graissés je les renverrais. 4 Bleu de Prusse petit tubes 4 cinabre VERT très clair petit tube 2 Mine orange petit tube 6 Vert emeraude petit tube...
...f, pour moi, de la toile absorbante, 10 mètres s.v.p.– Le marchand de couleurs d’ici me...
...en faire faire.– (En attendant une toile de 30 absorbante j’en ai peintes deux sur toile non absorbante.) Il va sans dire que si tu achètes des couleurs pour moi mes dépenses ici diminueront de plus que 50%. Jusqu’à présent j’ai dépensé plus pour mes couleurs, toiles &c. que pour moi.– J’ai encore un nouveau verger pour toi – mais au nom de dieu fais moi parvenir la couleur...
...le resultat Gare de Lyon) je t’expedie les études.– Suis sans le sou pour le moment comme déj...
in translation:
You’ll ask — please — père Tasset or père Lhote the lowest price for 10 metres of his primed or absorbent canvas — and you’ll let me know the outcome of the discussion you’ll probably have with that...
...I’ve decided to have everything sent from Paris or Marseille, and give up — having lost all...
in date note:
...or about 1 April (letter 591) on paint and canvas (see letter 592); now he says he is broke. In the next letter (594, of 9 April) he thanks Theo for sending 100 francs. He has finished another orchard since he wrote the previous letter (592). The present letter must have been written some time between these two letters; we have therefore dated it on or about Thursday, 5 April 1888...
in note 4:
...that are now known have already been mentioned or are referred to later in the correspondence. The...
594 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 9 April 1888.
in original text:
...envoyé des croquis des tableaux destinés pour la Hollande. Va sans dire que les études peintes...
...les pêchers roses – des abricotiers d’un rose très pâle. Actuellement je travaille à des...
...celui de Tersteeg ou de Mauve, mais les études pourront nous servir pour des echanges j’espère...
...or, absolument comme le petit cavalier dans notre Monticelli à 3 figures dans un bois. Les arènes...
...ne durera pas toujours.– Après ce sera possiblement les arènes.– Puis j’ai ÉNORMEMENT...
...travail dans les mêmes proportions j’ai bien du mal à arriver. Seulement le travail est excessif. S’il y arrive un mois ou une quinzaine où tu te sens gêné, avertis moi – dès lors je me...
...st un garçon intelligent et très bien comme fidelité et manières, mais sa peinture est encore bien mince.– Tu le verras probablement quand il sera à Paris de passage. C’est bienfait que tu...
...fini maintenant l’hiver à Paris? Je crois que ce que dit Kahn est très vrai, que je n’aie...
in translation:
...be one that would make a painting like Tersteeg’s or Mauve’s, but we’ll be able to use the...
...s, because it’s better than the Asnières studies. Yesterday I saw a bullfight where five men...
...too many if I could knock off twice the number. Because I believe that could perhaps melt the ice...
...passion. I also need a starry night with Cypresses or — perhaps above a field of ripe wheat...
...to manage. But the work’s excessive. If a month or a fortnight comes when you feel hard up let me...
...blossom are subjects we have a chance of selling or exchanging. But I thought about the fact that...
in note 5:
See for Asnières: letter 592, n. 14.
in note 6:
...had to be abandoned because the torero, Eugène Hélias, was injured. See Clébert and Richard 1989, p. 72.
in note 14:
...family had lived at 5 avenue de Beaulieu in Asnières, where Bernard had his studio in the garden. See...
in note 15:
...Kahn discussed Van Gogh’s paintings at the Indépendants exhibition (see letter 582, nn. 8 and 9). In his article ‘Peinture: Exposition des indépendants’, he wrote: ‘Mr van Gogh paints large landscapes with...
in note 16:
The darkening of Rousseau’s paintings was caused to a significant extent by his use of ‘bitumen�� or ‘drying oil’. In his Souvenirs sur Th. Rousseau (1872) Sensier cited as examples of ‘this deplorable...
595 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Wednesday, 11 April 1888.
in title:
595 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Wednesday, 11 April 1888.
in original text:
...dehors, qu’en diront ils? Enfin attendons. Alors après diner j’ai mis en train le même...
...vue qu’il faut chercher à en rattraper, de cet argent qui file vite. J’ai après regretté de ne pas avoir demandé les couleurs au Pere Tanguy tout de même quoiqu’il n’y aie pas le moindre...
...le coeur des affaires, il faut conquerir des amitiés en Hollande ou plutôt les ranimer. De plus...
...notre côté il faut avoir de bonnes manières et faire tout cela avec calme. J’aurais bien voulu...
...ne femme accoudée sur une petite table de café?– Si je réussis à apprendre à travailler sur une autre toile les études faites sur nature, nous y gagnerions pour ce qui est de la possibilit...
...avait la rage des deux couleurs les plus condamnées et pour les meilleures raisons, le citron et...
in translation:
...painting I intend for Tersteeg, ‘The Langlois bridge’, for you. And I’d really like to make a...
...it would be better to work in flesh itself than colour or plaster, in the sense that it would be better to make children than to make paintings or to do business, at the same time you feel you’re...
...business, we have to conquer friendships in Holland, or rather, revive them. All the more so since...
...found in the Dutch palette, Maris, Mauve and Israëls. But it’s found in that of Delacroix, who...
in date note:
...with washerwomen (F 571 / JH 1392), on which he is still working in letter 597. In the absence of any further clues we have spaced the three letters evenly over the week between 9 and about 15 April, and dated 595 on or about Wednesday, 11 April, 596 on or about Thursday, 12 April and 597 on or about Friday, 13 April 1888.
in note 1:
...order from Tasset & Lhote in Paris; he had left it up to Theo to place either a limited or a large order.
in note 4:
...bridge with washerwomen (F 1480 / JH 1382). The official name was Pont de Réginelle (or Réginal).
in note 8:
...was the wife of the Greek philosopher Socrates; her name is synonymous with a spiteful woman or shrew.
in note 14:
...l’or, et verdissant avec le temps). See letter 526, n. 4. His assertion that Prussian blue was ‘disapproved of’ is confirmed by the manuals by Karl Robert and others, who warn against the use of Prussian blue in large quantities or unmixed. See M. Rummens, ‘Van Goghs expressieve onhandigheid’, Jong Holland 10-4 (1994), pp. 32-33. See also cat. Amsterdam 2011...
596 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Thursday, 12 April 1888.
in title:
596 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Thursday, 12 April 1888.
in original text:
...y arriver à moins de me résoudre à travailler chez moi et d’imagination.– Ceci donc à ma critique et à ta louange. Actuellement je suis pris par les arbres fruitiers en fleur, pêchers roses, poiriers blancs-jaunes. Ne suis aucun système de touche, je tape sur la toile à coups irréguliers que je laisse tels quels, des empâtements, des endroits de toile pas couvertes – par ci par là des coins laissés fatalement inachevés – des reprises, des brutalités, enfin le résultat...
...s, salades jaunes, oignons & ail & poireaux émeraudes. Tout en travaillant toujours directement sur place je cherche à saisir dans le dessin ce qui est essentiel – puis les espaces limitées par des contours (exprimés ou non) mais sentis dans tous les cas, je les remplis des tons simplifiés...
...pos ai vu des combats de taureaux dans les arênes ou plutôt des simulacres de combats vu que les...
...magnifique, les grandes foules bariolées. Superposées à 2, 3 étages de gradins avec l’effet...
in translation:
...fill the spaces demarcated by the outlines (expressed or not) but felt in every case, likewise with...
...sky will have a blue tonality, that the greenery will either be blue greens or yellow greens, deliberately exaggerating the yellow or blue values in that case. Anyway, my dear pal, no trompe l’oeil...
...By the way, have seen bullfights in the arenas, or rather, simulated fights, seeing that the bulls...
in date note:
See for our dating of on or about Thursday, 12 April 1888: letter 595, Date.
in note 1:
...for Bernard in his parents’ garden in Asnières. There may be a connection with the paintings of...
in textual note 33:
inachevés – < inachevés
597 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 13 April 1888.
in title:
597 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 13 April 1888.
in original text:
...s de toile absorbante. Serai bien-aise de recevoir – mais cela ne presse aucunément – 3 mètres...
...gros (de blanc).– S’il les a comptés dans les mêmes proportions c’est fort bien mais fais...
...carrés de l’autre côté que les trois vergers se tiennent plus ou moins. J’ai maintenant aussi un petit poirier en hauteur flanqué egalement de deux toiles en largeur. Cela fera 6 toiles de vergers en fleur. Je cherche actuellement tous les jours à les achever un peu et à les faire...
...et de 12) qui serait executée d’après les mêmes motifs absolument, l’année prochaine à la...
...n’existent qu’à un état provisoire et devraient représenter un très grand verger avec bordure de cyprès et grands poiriers & pommiers. Le “pont de l’anglais” pour toi marche bien...
...Vincent J’ai eu une lettre de Bernard avec des Sonnets qu’il a fabriqués parmi lesquels il y en a qui sont réussis, il arrivera à faire un bon sonnet, ce que je lui envie presque. Aussitôt...
in translation:
...the other side that the three orchards go together, more or less. I now also have a small pear tree...
...but those are still only in the state of embryos or foetuses. I’d really like to do this group of...
...trees and apple trees. The ‘Pont de Langlois’ for you is going well, and will be better than...
in date note:
See for our dating of on or about Friday, 13 April 1888: letter 595, Date.
in note 8:
...or the large study of a cherry tree which Van Gogh reported a week later he had ‘worked to death’ (letter 600). He evidently abandoned the notion of a triptych, since later he regarded F 513 / JH 1389 and F 551 / JH 1396 as a pair in their own right (see letters 608 and 615). Cf. for the description ‘the state of embryos or foetuses’ in conjunction with the ‘initial idea’ a few lines later in the letter, the following note made by Eugène Delacroix in his Journal of 23 April 1854: ‘The first idea, the sketch, which is in some ways the egg or embryo of the idea, is usually far from complete; it contains everything if you like, but all this has to be brought out’ (L’Idée première, le croquis, qui est en quelque sorte l’oeuf ou l’embryon de l’idée, est loin ordinairement d’être complet; il contient tout si l’on veut, mais il faut dégager ce tout). See Delacroix 1996, p. 414...
598 To John Peter Russell. Arles, Thursday, 19 April 1888.
in original text:
...did the same in Sicily. I wished you would one day or another, when I shall send over some work to...
...say if they like that you are not always serious or that you have done work of a lighter sort...
...much taken in by him during the first 6 weeks or 2 months but after that period he was in pecuniary...
...gives us not, neither pretends to give us, local colour or even local truth. But gives us something...
...and not by forms or lines in themselves as the ancient artists did formerly, by pure form greeks & Michel Ange, or by pure line or delineation Rafael, Mantegna, Venetian primitifs. (Botticelli, Cimabue, Giotto, Bellini.) Contrariwise the thing undertaken by P. Veronese & Titian – Colour. The thing undertaken by Velasquez and Goya to be continued and – more fully or rather more universally...
in translation:
...did the same in Sicily. I wished you would one day or another, when I shall send over some work to...
...say if they like that you are not always serious or that you have done work of a lighter sort. So...
...was very much taken in by him during the first 6 weeks or 2 months but after that period he was in...
...battle I do not yet know the result. So much – for your information – as I had the pleasure of...
...gives us not, neither pretends to give us, local colour or even local truth. But gives us something...
...not by forms or lines in themselves as the ancient artists did formerly, by pure form greeks and Michelangelo, or by pure line or delineation Raphael, Mantegna, Venetian primitifs. (Botticelli, Cimabue, Giotto, Bellini.) Contrariwise the thing undertaken by P. Veronese and Titian – Colour. The thing undertaken by Velázquez and Goya to be continued and – more fully or rather more universally...
in note 14:
...450, n.15. ; see letter 450. Velázquez’s work, with sketchy handling of the paint and strong...
599 To Emile Bernard. Arles, Thursday, 19 April 1888.
in original text:
...néant, du vide, de la trahison des chôses désirables, bonnes ou belles, et malgré cette science...
...et heureusement pour nous nous restons bêtes et espérants ainsi. maintenant j’aime aussi “l’hyver n’avoir ni sou ni fleurs” et Mépris. Coin de chapelle & Dessin d’Albert Durer, je les...
...mais là-dedans des passages excellents neamoins. “Venus des plaines bleues, Blémis par la...
...Paris. Le spleen n’est pas dans l’air d’ici. Actuellement je me tiens encore très coit et...
...ux propriétaire mais après il faudra faire beaucoup de bruit car j’y aspire à partager la gloire de l’immortel Tartarin de Tarascon. Cela m’a énormément intéressé que tu aies l’intenti...
...er faire des marines aussi à Marseilles et je ne languis pas ici d’après la mer grise du Nord...
...de manger des chôses saines et simples un an d’avance, oui.– Dès maintenant. Parceque il vaut...
...j’étais dans ce cas et quoique je guéris je guéris lentement et je regrette de ne pas avoir...
in translation:
...For hope has poured its neurosis into my breast’, but it seems to me that what you want to evoke isn’t stated clearly enough: the certainty that we seem to have and which anyway we can prove, of nothingness, of emptiness, of the treachery of desirable, good or beautiful things, and despite this knowledge we forever allow ourselves to be deceived by...
...that, either in the pensioners of the little carriages, or in poets and artists. But all in all...
...a bluish limewash — like a village school — a good fifty or so red soldiers and black civilians, with faces of a magnificent yellow or orange (what tones in the faces down here), the women in...
...s better not to come here with a ruined stomach or spoiled blood. That was the case with me, and...
in note 2:
...Poèmes d’évolution: In winter, have neither a sou nor a flower, To freeze under the roof, on the sixth floor; To drown your pillow in your tears While crying that you suffer and you love. Never to see her: as you burn, To long for her with love’s keenest desire, Resigned to decent stratagems To bring the problem to an end. To stay within doors, closely penned up, alone; To waste, to die, to turn a deathly pale, Or see the snow, that dismal sign, Cast o’er the earth a shroud; To muse that it’s for you, perhaps… – ’Twere better had you not been born. 1887 (L’hiver, n’avoir ni sou, ni fleurs, Glacer sous le toit, au sixième; Noyer son oreiller de pleurs En criant qu’on souffre et qu’on aime. Ne la voir jamais: plein d’ardeurs La désirer d’amour extrême, Et se résoudre à des pudeurs Pour la conclusion du problème. Rester chez-soi, bien claustré, seul; Maigrir, mourir, devenir blême...Ou voir la neige, sombre emblême, Jeter sur la terre un linceul; Songer qu’il est pour soi, peut-être... – Mieux aurait valu ne pas naître. 1887) See Bernard 1898, p. 36...
in note 3:
...très intéressante que j’ai lue et relue pour me distraire car avec le vent qu’il fait, la pluie et le froid, le pays quoique très sauvage est encore bien triste. Vincent me félicite de ma décision pour l’Algérie et me dit que lui-même ira peut-être aussi pour m’y voir. Il me donne le conseil de me fortifier avant d’aller au service, ce que je crois aussi très nécessaire quoique je sois d’une constitution moins gaillarde que j’en ai l’air. C’est en somme un très bon ami, très sincère et toute son exubérance méridionale se traduit (en homme du nord) par une profonde sincérité. Seulement, (il y a toujours un seulement), il s’emporte trop vite pour des choses insignificantes. Il m’a parlé beaucoup des vers que je lui ai envoyés et me dit “ce n’est pas si bien que ta peinture, mais il faut sûrement continuer les sonnets. Il y a beaucoup de copains qui croient qu’écrire est mauvais. Eh bien! Moi je dis qu’il est aussi intéressant de peindre avec la parole qu’avec le pinceau. Continue donc”). See Harscoët-Maire 1997, pp. 162-163. According to Gauguin, one of Van Gogh’s favourite sayings was ‘stone will perish, the word will remain’ (la pierre périra, la parole restera). See Pickvance 1992, p. 133...
in note 5:
...or a study of a cherry tree. Van Gogh had meanwhile spoiled that one, as he writes a little later in the letter, so the ninth work here must be his new painting, Orchard with pear trees in blossom (F 406 / JH 1399), or Orchard (F 552 / JH 1381). In letter 600 to Theo written the next day he refers to ten orchards...
600 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 20 April 1888.
in title:
600 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 20 April 1888.
in original text:
...ou deux jours avant que je n’aie envoyé les deux dessins. Ces dessins sont faits avec un roseau...
...de Koning de laquelle veuille le remercier – très volontiers je veux lui échanger les deux...
...le procedé et lui enverrai des roseaux taillés pour qu’il puisse en faire aussi. Maintenant...
...s. Tu seras à même de juger comment marche l’ancienne marchandise à haut prix là-bas. Mais...
...après à cause du changement de vie que cela te causerait. Quand on sort de prison après y avoir...
...on se trouve desorienté dans la liberté, ainsi probablement nommée puisque la tâche quotidienne éreintante pour gagner sa vie ne laisse guère de liberté. Mais tu sais tout cela.– Certaineme...
...en Hollande et là-bas tu verras peutêtre ce jour-là les mêmes arbres en fleur. Quel dommage de...
...aies pris des leçons de manger au jeune Koning, il est très malin là-dedans et c’est amusant...
...2 oeufs le matin. L’estomac chez moi est très faible mais j’espère y arriver à le retablir...
in translation:
...and I also wrote telling you that the day before or two days before I sent the two drawings. These...
in date note:
...at the latest. We have therefore dated it on or about Friday, 20 April 1888. This means that Theo...
in note 2:
...to say exactly when he used a reed, a quill or a metal nib’. See exhib. cat. New York 1984, p. 54...
in note 12:
...or had some other problem. On 18 March his mother had told Theo that she had received good reports about her youngest son (FR b2417). Vincent himself had little contact with him: Cor wrote to Theo from Lincoln on 16 October 1888: ‘How’s Vincent getting on? I never hear anything from him now, except something about he’s going to Algiers or is there...Don’t think that even though I don’t write often I’ve forgotten you, because in fact you’re my only brother’ (FR b3706)....
in note 14:
...Van Gogh meant the wife of the art dealer François Joseph Delarebeyrette, who carried on the trade in...
in textual note 45:
civilisé < civilsé
601 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Wednesday, 25 April 1888.
in title:
601 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Wednesday, 25 April 1888.
in original text:
...savoir si tu es parti et comment. Et après – ce – l’après – tu ne le sauras peutêtre pas...
...re, bien malgré moi j’y ai pensé tous les jours. Puisque je n’ose pas continuer dans des...
...toi des dépenses moindres de mon côté. Ne tenant pas tant que ca à mes tableaux je les laisserais là sans trop murmurer. N’étant heureusement pour moi pas de ceux qui n’aiment dans ce monde que les tableaux. Par contre, croyant qu’une chôse artistique puisse se faire à moins de frais...
...la plume.– En attendant j’ai des contrarietés. Je ne crois plus y gagner en restant où je...
...une bien grande misère que de traîner après soi l’attirail du travail et les tableaux, ce qui...
...plutôt trouves tu plus convenable d’aller à Marseilles maintenant.– J’y peux faire série...
...messieurs Boussod Valadon & Cie qui nous font des misères. Seulement je m’y oppose. Ne te laisse...
...Pour moi toujours même adresse mais désirerais changer, ne m’y trouvant pas bien. T’enverrai...
in translation:
...that saying enough? When I’ve seen his paintings or drawings I’ll concede about the work. But about...
...from staying where I am, I’d rather take a room or two rooms, if need be, one to sleep in, one to...
...Being forced, determined anyway, to move, do you want or rather do you think it more suitable, to...
in date note:
...of the letter. Given all these indications, we have dated the letter on or about Wednesday, 25 April 1888.
602 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 1 May 1888.
in original text:
...vois l’avenir mais je le vois très hérissé de difficultés et par moments je me demande si ces...
...de la ville. et au fond une batisse à peu près comme ceci.– Eh bien – j’ai aujourd’hui...
...ai mon indépendance des chicanes des hôtelleries qui sont ruineuses et m’attristent. Justement...
...nouveau dessin, mieux que le premier croquis. Et dès maintenant j’ose t’en parler que j’ai...
...mangeant guère et ne buvant guère je suis très faible mais le sang se refait au lieu de se gâte...
...pu me procurer ce que je demandais de chôses pourtant très simples chez ces gens-là. Et c’est...
...me disais que cela avait mal tourné. Mais bien des choses ont changées depuis et me sentant sur un terrain plus sûr – allons en avant. Seulement nous avons dépensé déjà tant d’argent dans...
...du tout compatibles et dans les circonstances données faudra se contenter de faire des tableaux...
...choses mediocres. Bernard m’a ecrit et envoyé croquis. Cela me fait grand plaisir que tu aies...
in translation:
...And in the background a house more or less like this one. Ah, well — today I rented the right-hand wing of this building, which contains 4 rooms, or more precisely, two, with two little rooms...
...from Russell, who has bought a Guillaumin and 2 or 3 Bernards. I’m extremely pleased about that...
...man, more or less, half a dozen out of a dozen I have anyway, but the other 6 aren’t as good, and I’m sorry I didn’t rather do 2 of them instead of the last 6. Anyway, I’ll send you ten or so...
...people for. And it’s the same everywhere in these little restaurants. Yet it’s not hard to boil potatoes. Impossible. And no rice or macaroni either, or else it’s ruined with fat or they don’t do it, and make the excuse: it’s for tomorrow, there’s no room on the stove, &c. It’s silly...
...in cash, then in value. And now if you agree, I’ll rent or buy furniture for the bedroom. I’ll go and have a look today or tomorrow morning. I’m still convinced that nature here is just what...
in note 3:
...known as the Yellow House, from 1 May. It was at number 2 place Lamartine, on the northern edge of the...
in note 14:
Jean-François Raffaëlli, Edmond de Goncourt, 1888 (Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts). Ill. 1232. The painting...
in note 15:
...Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art). Gabriël Séailles discussed these works in his article ‘Salon de...
in note 18:
...those sad or happy feelings which are so often awakened in man in times of solitude, without any clearly defined cause.’ (De même que pendant la période de la crise juponnière où il demandait à des livres...
in note 19:
...François Damase Crévoulin and his wife Marguerite Favier; the right-hand side was the accommodation rented by Van Gogh. The address books L’indicateur marseillais of 1888 and 1889 mention an ‘E. Brunel, spirit merchant, avenue de Montmajour 72 (near place Lamartine)’. These premises may also have been part of lot number 398, owned by Verdier, and could have been the ‘quite large house’ Van Gogh mentions. Verdier owned no other buildings in Arles. A second possibility is that by the ‘assez grand hôtel’ Van Gogh meant Bernard Soulè’s house. Soulè was the managing agent for the Yellow House and owned the building diagonally opposite at 53 avenue de Montmajour, where he lived with his daughter and son-in-law. In letter 745, however, Van Gogh refers to ‘the landlord’s agent’, which indicates that he knew Soulè was not the owner. In the summons of February 1889, Soulè is described as ‘landlord, of 53 avenue Montmajour...managing agent of the house occupied by Mr Vincent van Gogh’ (see Documentation, 27 February 1889). The land register records only one building in his name: 53 avenue de Montmajour (lot number 373), diagonally opposite the Yellow House, in the block where the police station was also located. Soulè was therefore not the owner of the Yellow House but the agent who collected the rent on behalf of Mme Verdier – who did not live in Arles....
603 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 4 May 1888.
in original text:
...après avoir vu le Salon comme je crois que d’abord c’était son intention, tu pourrais après...
...ici des figures d’hommes très pittoresques malgré leurs costumes modernes.– Maintenant j’o...
...e a été paralysé et cela sans être si buveur que ça – moi à plus forte raison ne pourrais...
...er une paralysie quand j’ai quitté Paris. Ça m’a joliment pris après! Quand j’ai cessé de...
...ne pas penser – mon dieu quelles mélancolies et quel abattement.– Le travail dans cette...
...moral probable mais que la guérison serait très douloureuse. tandis que la maladie même, on ne...
...il faut être très prudent et nous soigner.– De l’eau froide, de l’air, nourriture simple et bonne, être bien vêtu, etre bien couché et ne pas avoir des embêtements. Et pas se laisser...
...des caleçons de même que j’ai fait faire des chemises et des chaussures, et que je dois donner faire nettoyer et reparer presque tous les vêtements. Alors ils seront encore très bons. Cela...
in translation:
...to say in advance: I’ll stay here for such or such a length of time; however, I have many reasons...
...pure, clean drawing. That’s just the way objects or figures are here, in the clear light. We have...
...figures here as lovely as those of Goya and Velázquez. They know how to stick a touch of pink on a black suit, or make a white, yellow, pink or green and pink, or blue and yellow outfit, in which nothing needs to be changed from the artistic point of view. Seurat would find some very picturesque...
...all be to spend every day drawing, with two or three paintings a month in addition. In — the...
...more or less for good and for a long period of time. Having no need at all now of space at the hotel, since I have the studio elsewhere, I’ll tell the people it’s 3 francs a day, take it or leave...
...in case I’d have to go to Marseille or see people here. With all these precautions we’re taking...
in ongoing topic 4:
Entry for the 1888 Indépendants exhibition (582)
in date note:
...to go and look for furniture for his house ‘today or tomorrow morning’. In the present letter he wrote...
in note 2:
...cannot be identified. With the exception of a number of pastels dating from the 1880s and early 1890s...
in note 12:
...we learn that the organizers of the Indépendants exhibition had announced that the paintings that had...
604 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 4 May 1888.
in original text:
...en fait de maison je trouve encore mieux, soit à Martigues au bord de la mer soit dans un autre...
...sale cette ville dans les anciennes rues! Les arlésiennes dont on parle tant n’est ce pas, sais...
...meilleur que l’on pourrait faire, cela serait à tous les points de vue de faire des portraits de...
...en a pas encore eu. Manet l’a preparé mais tu sais bien que les impressionistes ont déjà fait...
...se servir de ce succes pour denigrer les Français.– Je viens de relire encore le Bonheur des...
...de ces actes) d’un systeme nerveux surexcité. Mais que chez Reid le marchand vulgaire est plus...
in translation:
...be more than enough like that. Then in the winter we could see if we’ll need to take a bed, yes or no.
...at Martigues, beside the sea, or in some other place. But the delightful thing about this studio is the gardens opposite. But there you are, as for doing repairs or furnishing it reasonably well...
...this town, with its old streets! As for the Arlésiennes they talk about so much, don’t they, do...
in note 8:
...got his information about it from these articles, or he might have seen it himself before he left for...
in note 12:
Macknight was born in 1860, so he was 27 or 28.
605 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 7 May 1888.
in original text:
...reçues en bon ordre. Seulement il doit y avoir au moins 2 lettres que je t’ai écrites à Paris...
...disant que si les tableaux n’étaient pas retirés entre le 5 & 6 Avril ils seraient déposés...
...aussi naturellement. Le coco qui est venu à Paris de la part des vingtistes, tu sais, Los Rios de...
...ai loué un atelier, maison entiere à 4 pièces (fr. 180 par an). Il s’agit maintenant d’aller...
...moi. Tu trouveras détails dans les lettres que je t’ai déjà écrites. Il a fait beaucoup de mistral ici, alors j’ai fait la douzaine de petits dessins que j’ai envoyés. Maintenant il fait...
...part demain j’espère. je t’envoie à Bruxelles ces 5 petits dessins aujourd’hui. Tu verras...
...et la campagne plus loin que la colonne du congrès s’appelle Schaerbeek. je me rappelle d’un...
...et je ne doute pas – qu’à ton retour à Paris ce sera enfin le printemps. Ce sera pas trop t...
...quelques mois seulement, la question devient tout autre dès qu’il s’agit d’un long séjour...
in translation:
...of Les Vingt, you know, Los Rios de Guadalquivir or an even more sonorous name than that, made out...
...and the countryside beyond the Colonne du Congrès called Schaarbeek? I recall a place called, I...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1888 Indépendants exhibition (582)
in date note:
...weekly allowance; as a rule we would date this on or about Sunday, but because he writes that the weather...
in note 5:
...meant the Spanish artist Dario de Regoyos (y Valdés), who was one of the founders of Les Vingt and showed...
in note 11:
The ‘Colonne de la Constitution’ (or ‘Colonne du Congrès’) erected in 1859 on the place du Congrès on rue Royale, which in turn opens into the said boulevard du Jardin Botanique.
606 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 7 May 1888.
in original text:
...pu constater que j’y étais carrotté. Je leur ai proposé de s’arranger, ils n’ont pas voulu, alors lorsque je voulais prendre mes effets ils s’y sont opposés. C’est fort bien mais alors...
...ve pas à me débrouiller aux mêmes frais que ceux qui sont allés en Bretagne, Bernard et Gauguin...
...tant dépensé d’argent. Maintenant dans la caisse je t’envoie toutes les études que j’ai...
...s, mais je ne les signe pas toutes et il y en a une douzaine que j’ai ôté des chassis et il y en a 14 sur chassis. il y a un petit paysage avec une masure blanche rouge verte et un cyprès à c...
...tableaux comme des crepons. Enfin nous en causerons après que tu auras vu. Pour le moment c’est...
...pour travailler. Enfin les premières etudes parties je commence une nouvelle serie. Je t’avais expliqué toute cette affaire dans les lettres qui sont encore à Paris. C’etait mon intention de...
...e partir ma caisse encore aujourd’hui. J’espère que tu écriras bientôt. t. à t. Vincent
in translation:
...moment it’s annoying that it means I’m more or less forced to take the step of living at the...
in note 1:
...fait remarquer qu’il aurait pu remettre cela à plus tard; sur ce, Vincent se serait rendu chez le “juge...
607 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 10 May 1888.
in original text:
...plus tard que ton retour à Paris dans tous les cas. Cela m’embête beaucoup puisque cette affaire me dérange considérablement pour travailler – et il fait très beau justement. Je regrette de...
...puisse encore caser un autre peintre. Les étrangers sont exploités ici et – les gens d’ici de...
...deja depensé dans d’autres années doit aussi revenir dans nos mains au moins en valeurs. Je suis encore loin de cela. Mais je sens que dans cette nature ci il y a tout le nécessaire pour faire de bonnes choses. Ce serait donc de ma faute si je ne réussissais pas. Mauve a dans un seul mois fait et vendu pour 6000 francs d’aquarelles à ce que lui-même me racontait dans le temps. Eh bien il y a de telles veines dont à travers les soucis actuels je sens pourtant la possibilité. Dans cet...
...de cette qualité nous dedommagerait en quelque sorte de ce que dans le passé nous avons eu trop...
...nous en avons 50 comme cela de côté alors je respirerais un peu plus à mon aise. Enfin – ecris...
in translation:
...left, I bought what I need to make a little coffee or broth at home, and two chairs and a table. That...
...painter in. Foreigners are exploited here and — for their part, the people around here aren’t...
in note 2:
...rose’ (Van Gogh Museum, Documentation, Typescript). However, F 511 is not painted on ‘coarse canvas�� or ‘absorbent canvas’; it is moreover stylistically more akin to the orchards in blossom done in the...
608 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 10 May 1888.
in original text:
...Theo, je t’ai encore une fois ecrit à Bruxelles. pour te dire que j’esperais que tu serais à même de m’envoyer encore de l’argent à ton retour à Paris au plus tard. Vu que pour rentrer en possession de...
...avec un copain. Des répétitions de ces deux études il me semblait que le pont etait mieux que...
...Après la serie des vergers – je pense que le verger blanc dont je t’ai envoyé dessin à la plume et le plus grand de tous en rose et vert sur une toile absorbante sont les meilleures. Une grande étude sans chassis et une autre sur chassis où il y a beaucoup de pointillé sont inachevées, ce que je regrette car la composition donnait l’ensemble des grands vergers entourés de cyprès...
in translation:
...same time be of use to our pals, if they come, or if there are painters here. In the crate you’ll...
609 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 12 May 1888.
in original text:
...il disait en route qu’il s’était faché mais enfin qu’il n’avait pas voulu m’insulter...
...j’aurais dû par exemple comme dommages intérets réclamer davantage. Si je me laissais embêter...
...tu en as un dessin deja, d’une ferme au bord de la grande route dans les blés. Une prairie pleine de boutons d’or tres jaune, un fossé avec des plantes d’Iris au feuilles vertes à fleurs violettes, dans le fond la ville, quelques saules gris – une bande de ciel bleu. Si on ne coupe...
...par petite vitesse, cela sera 7 francs en gare à Paris. Vu qu’il ne me reste pas grand chose je...
...mon envoi arrivera avant que Tersteeg ne vienne à Paris. Poignée de main, ecris moi bientôt. t...
in translation:
...failed to go around saying that I had not been able or not been willing to pay him, and that he’d been...
610 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 14 May 1888.
in title:
610 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 14 May 1888.
in original text:
...pas. Si j’étais renseigné là-dessus je crois que je préparerais la toile moi-même. Cela ne presse pas – mais cherches un peu à savoir. J’ai encore 4 mètres de toile de 1.m20 de large que...
...e à cet envoi, assez pour préparer 4 mètres. Enfin cela ne presse pas encore. Est ce que ces...
...ci arriver à Paris le peintre Danois, je ne sais comment écrire son nom (Moriés?), qui était...
...dans un an. Ses trois dernières études etaient meilleures & plus colorées que ce qu’il faisait...
...y fera probablement des études. Je lui ai beaucoup parlé des impressionistes qu’il connaissait...
...il est bon pour deux ans – mais après cela lui ferait du bien de revenir pour cette meme...
...se diriger probablement vers Nice. Ici j’ai vu très peu de roses quoiqu’il y en ait, entre...
...devenir le cas. Et au bout de quelques années de travail on pourrait un peu rattrapper le pass...
...que cela prend 10 jours pour aller d’ici à Paris petite vitesse. S’il y en a dans le nombre de...
in translation:
...made it drag on, and their wine, which was real poison. I now eat very well for one franc or 1.50 francs.
...Paris, I don’t know how to write his name (Moriés?). He’s going to see the Salon and will then...
...the Impressionists, all of whom he knew by name or from having seen their paintings, and he’s...
in date note:
...of time must have elapsed, and we have therefore dated the present letter on or about Monday, 14 May 1888.
in note 1:
...see Hélène Lafont-Couturier, ‘“Le bon livre” ou la portée éducative des images publiées et diffusées par la maison Goupil’, Etat des lieux 1994, pp. 9-36, esp. pp. 30-34. See also Fidell-Beaufort...
611 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 20 May 1888.
in title:
611 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 20 May 1888.
in original text:
...des femmes qu’en cas de nécessité mais le moins possible. Or moi je me trouve ici fort bien de...
...et or, un pot à lait carrelé bleu pâle & blanc, une tasse – à droite – blanche à dessins...
...est jaune vert, donc 6 bleus différents et 4 ou 5 jaunes & orangés. L’autre nature morte est le...
...ac digère. J’ai trouvé à manger très très bien maintenant, ce qui m’a fait de l’effet...
...que possible, couche toi très de bonne heure car il te faudra dormir; et puis la nourriture, beaucoup de legumes frais et pas de mauvais vin ou du mauvais alcool. Et très peu de femmes et beaucoup...
...te donnera une forte nourriture de viande là-bas. Ici moi je ne pourrais pas en prendre beaucoup...
...plus contre les choses, on n’est pas résigné pas non plus – on en est malade et cela ne se...
...que l’on traine, ça doit être utile à des gens qu’on ne connait pas. Et voilà si nous...
...et jaunes et verts par dessus le marché, dans le paysage impressioniste. Ceci pour dire qu’il y...
in translation:
...us perfect. But he forges a suit of armour, or rather, he inures us to illness and keeps morale up...
...very bad, the mental emotions of sadness or disappointments undermine us more than riotous living...
...somebody. But I could still wish you had one or two good friends among the French. Would you do me...
...Mme the Countess De la Boissière at Asnières. She stays in boulevard Voltaire, on the first floor...
...barbotine or majolica jug with red, green, brown designs, and lastly 2 oranges and 3 lemons; the table is covered with a blue cloth, the background is yellow green, making 6 different blues and 4 or...
...then food, lots of fresh vegetables and no bad wine or bad liquor. And very few women and a great...
in date note:
...Theo for 50 francs he had sent him (ll. 120-121), we have dated the letter on or about Sunday, 20 May 1888.
in note 3:
...ground floor; he was also a wine merchant in Asnières. See exhib. cat. Martigny 2000, pp. 142-146. Van Gogh...
in note 4:
...Asnières during the summer. He says that the countess is ‘far from young’, but he has either seriously overestimated her age or is referring to an older woman, possibly the count’s mother, so that the ‘daughter’ – who is also ‘a lady’ – is the count’s 29-year-old wife, not the 12-year-old girl. No further details have been found in the records in Asnières. It emerges from a note dated 9 November 1929 in the archives of the Thannhauser art gallery that the Charpentier gallery had sold five small paintings by Van Gogh that belonged to ‘a family from Asnières with whom Van Gogh had lived and to whom he had given them’ (‘einer Familie aus Asnières...
in note 10:
...roses. C’était délicieux. Je me le rappelle très bien. Ce sera admirable à peindre.”) See exhib...
612 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 22 May 1888.
in title:
612 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 22 May 1888.
in original text:
...st ce que ça fait? Les blancs, très crétiens etc., pour mettre fin à cette barbarie? réellemen...
...re les prisonniers de guerre mangeables nécessaires). Ensuite on a annexé les deux îles, qui sont devenus d’un lugubre!!! Ces races tatouées, ces nègres, ces indiens, tout tout tout disparaît...
...poètes. Mon cher copain je t’aurais déjà écrit plus tôt, seulement ai eu pas mal de chôses...
...soleil (4 pieces). Avec tout cela de nouvelles études en train.– Et le soir j’étais souvent...
...maraude Ceux qu’elle emmenera coucher le soir très tard.” quelque chôse comme ca – c’est...
...dans la journee ou le soir et – très tard c’est cet honorable carnivore, leur maquereau, qui...
...t pâle et blanc, une tasse avec dessins orangés et bleus sur fond blanc, un pot en majolique bleu...
...d’innombrables boutons d’or – une mer jaune.– Ces prairies sont coupés sur le premier plan...
...aux jolies femmes. Puis deux études de bords de route – après – faites en plein mistral. Si...
in translation:
...those Indians, everything, everything, everything disappears or is corrupted. And the frightful...
...of our boulevard — le petit — usually sleep alone at night because they screw 5 or 6 times during the day or the evening and — late at night it’s that honourable carnivore, their pimp, who...
...bed alone, and sleeps a leaden sleep. But with two or 3 lines redone, it’ll be there. What have...
in additional details:
...whitewashed… He’s not in very good health, he says. Let’s hope it won’t be serious… He’s an excellent friend.’ (Vincent m’a écrit une très jolie lettre. Il a loué une maison à Arles. Ce qui l’a séduit c’est qu’elle est jaune, avec tous les murs peints à la chaux...Il n’est pas très bien portant, dit-il. Espérons que cela sera pas grave... C’est un excellent ami). See Harscoët-Maire 1997, p. 171.
in date note:
...them to Bernard. For these reasons we have dated the present letter on or about Tuesday, 22 May 1888.
in note 1:
...during that period’ (Cette oeuvre par ses qualités de style et de couleur, par son dessin...
in note 2:
...since 1842. We have been unable to discover which book Van Gogh means here. Merlhès suggested that it was Max Radiguet, Les derniers sauvages. Souvenirs de l’occupation française aux îles Marquises: 1842-1859 (1861). See Merlhès 1989, p. 189 (n. 3). However, the events described by Van Gogh are not found in that...
in note 5:
...jeunes maraude Ceux qu’elle emmènera coucher ce soir, très tard. Certes, si sa beauté n’est exquise comme Aude Elle n’en est pas moins très séduisante, car Qu’importe la beauté si la femelle est...
613 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 26 May 1888.
in original text:
...te opposition est très pittoresque. Les deux dessins que j’y ajoute après coup maintenant te...
...ou Gauguin nous échangeront les dessins où les hollandais ne verront rien. Est ce que tu as...
...je suppose qu’il a été découragé là-dedans par la vie d’étudiant, decouragé et par ses...
...et comme homme il me fait penser à ces caractères que fait Pierre Loti. Avec tout son phlegme il...
...exagérer l’essentiel, à laisser dans le vague exprès le banal. Je suis bien aise que tu aies...
...ne seront pas commode à avoir. Comment va ta santé, as tu revu le père Gruby. je suis port...
...qui est mal venue. Que veux tu, dans les études ratées – quand on aime bien l’artiste – on...
...l’étude est ereintée de plusieurs façons alors. Il n’y a que les maîtres pour se tromper ainsi, voila peutêtre la meilleure consolation vu que dès lors on est en droit d’espérer voir prendre sa revanche par la même main creatrice. Et – dès lors – cette vie ci – si critiquée et...
in translation:
...part of it. I prefer to believe that Bernard or Gauguin will exchange drawings with us in which the...
...no need of 6th-rate Dutchmen or worse, who when going back to their country do nothing but say and do idiotic things. A dealer in paintings is, unfortunately, more or less a public figure. Anyway...
...order into two according to what would be more urgent or less. What’s always urgent is to draw, and whether it’s done directly with a brush, or with something else, such as a pen, you never do...
in note 1:
...Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte. Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels. Paris 1994, p. 283 and cat...
in note 9:
...therefore have known Lacoste from the time he was living in Paris or met him when he was visiting the city.
in note 11:
...alone’ (Voyez ces peuplades immobiles et rêveuses; – voyez au pied des grands arbres ces groupes...
in textual note 92:
as < às
614 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 27 May 1888.
in original text:
J’ai obtenu qu’on peindra la maison, la facade, les portes & les fenêtres à l’exterieur et à l’interieur à neuf. Seulement je dois de mon côté payer 10 francs pour cela.– Mais je crois que cela en vaut bien la...
615 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 28 May 1888.
in original text:
...dans l’interêt de Boussod & Co. Après tu partirais le sang & les nerfs plus tranquilles et...
...messieurs me payeraient mon voyage. Bien des chôses me seraient égales mais non pas celle là de...
...chers qui appartiennent à ces messieurs. Lorsque notre oncle était leur associé il s’est dans de certaines années fait très bien payer – comptes pourtant ce que cela lui a couté. Or toi tes...
...s pareilles. Je ne m’y oppose pas et notre famille a une vie tenace. Tout ce que je désirerais...
...les deux soeurs seront bien contentes de venir à Paris et cela ne leur fera aucun mal c’est bien...
...les troncs & feuillages de pins enracinés dans un amas de rochers, colorant d’orangé feu les troncs et les feuillages tandis que d’autres pins sur des plans plus reculés se dessinaient bleu de...
...bien – mais alors demandes à ces Goupil de me reprendre moi à mes gages de dans le temps, et...
...une position à Paris crâne. Tu joueras un bon rôle de cette façon. Réflechis et consulte Gruby...
in translation:
...out, don’t send any, send that one with or without a dedication, send another one, it makes no...
...many things that wouldn’t matter to me one way or the other, but not that — that you didn’t...
...such distances, see that you’re well paid, or refuse, and throw yourself into the Impressionists...
...I still suffer from unaccountable, involuntary feelings, or a stupor on some days, but it’s...
...give you two more pen drawings. Do you know what we should do with these drawings? Albums of 6 or 10 or 12, like the albums of original Japanese drawings. I’m very keen to make such an album for...
...But don’t wear yourself out now, either for me or for others. You know the portrait of Six as an...
in sketch A:
...front of the album: ‘couverture / orangé / ou jaune / citron’ (cover / orange / or yellow / lemon).
in note 15:
...Fromentin had also written about Six in Les maîtres d’autrefois: ‘He is going out’ (Il va sortir...
616 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 28 or Tuesday, 29 May 1888.
in title:
616 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 28 or Tuesday, 29 May 1888.
in original text:
...nt ou des copains qui s’associent pour les tableaux. Or je ne vois pas la femme mais je vois les...
...gêné mais je n’y compte pas. Cela me ferait tant plaisir que tu eusses les Gauguin d’abord. Moi je ne suis pas malin pour faire de la cuisine &c. mais eux sont autrement exercés à cela ayant...
...ce que Tersteeg est déjà venu à Paris. pour preparer la chose et completer cette lettre j’ecr...
...mais Russell a tout de même acheté des impressionistes, Guillaumin et Bernard et – attends ton...
...que je viens de louer une maison de 4 pièces ici à Arles. Et qu’il me semble que si je trouve...
...grand désir serait de te savoir un peu tranquille. Or pourtant mon frère ne peut pas t’envoyer...
...ce que tu voudrais. Or à nous deux immediatement nous commencerions à exposer à Marseille, frayant ainsi un chemin à d’autres impressionistes aussi bien qu’à nous mêmes. Il ne faut pas...
...affaire avec mon frère, toutefois je te préviens que selon toute probabilité il en déclinera la...
in translation:
...Gauguin’s fare, and then there are the two beds or the two mattresses we absolutely have to buy.
...other than that of finding a wife with money or pals who associate with one another for paintings...
in date note:
...28 May (Hulsker and Pickvance gave it this date), or on Tuesday, 29 May 1888 (the date Dorn gave). We...
617 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 29 or Wednesday, 30 May 1888.
in title:
617 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 29 or Wednesday, 30 May 1888.
in original text:
...y va en dilligence, c’est à 50 kilomètres d’ici. On traverse la Camargue, des plaines d’her...
...dont tu parlais dans ta derniere lettre – les chôses d’ici ont tant de style. Et je veux...
...dommage que plusieurs peintres ne s’etaient pas combinés pour une campagne. Il faut compter que cela trainera peut être des années avant que les tableaux impressionistes ayent une valeur ferme...
...très serieusement que si tu veux j’irai en Amerique avec toi si toutefois ce voyage serait de longue durée et si cela en vaut la peine. Pour nous il faut chercher à ne pas être malades car si nous l’etions – nous sommes plus isolés que par exemple le pauvre concierge qui vient de mourir – ces gens ont de l’entourage – et voient le va et vient du menage et vivent dans la bêtise. Mais nous sommes là seuls avec notre pensée et desirerions parfois etres bêtes.– Etant donnés...
in translation:
...little worried about your plans for travelling, or rather, the proposals about travelling they’re...
...begin to hope that soon I’ll be selling one or two paintings a month — BECAUSE THINGS WILL GET...
in date note:
...Merlhès, the editors of De brieven 1990 and Dorn in: Dorn 1998, p. 25. Dorn is the only one to suggest that Van Gogh did not stay in Saintes-Maries until the week of 10 to 16 June 1888. We do not think that his main argument, namely that when he wrote ‘refiler’ (‘go back’) in letter 621 Van Gogh simply meant ‘filer’ (‘go’), implying that he had not yet been to the town, holds water. We subscribe to the criticism in Hulsker 1999 (see further letter 621, n. 6). Van Gogh writes twice that he spent a week in Saintes-Maries (see letters 622 and 627). Although this does not have to be regarded as exactly seven days, we see no reason to assume that his stay was significantly shorter or longer. Admittedly it initially appears that he only meant to stay for about four days and wanted to come back in the evening of Saturday, 2 June (letter 617), but his plans were evidently quite fluid: in letter 619 he says he wants to set off ‘tomorrow afternoon’, but in the event he went early in the morning (letter 620). As far as the dates are concerned, we base our arguments on letters 620 and 621. They were written after Van Gogh got back from Saintes-Maries, on about 5 June 1888 (see the notes to letter 621, Date). Since we regard it as plausible that letter 620 was written on the day he returned (see Date in the notes to that letter), we believe that Vincent’s stay by the sea was roughly the week prior to about 5 June. The present letter and letter 618 were written the day before he left (see ll. 10-11 and ll. 14-15 respectively) and sent to Theo at the same time. They also date from after letter 616 of 28 or 29 May, since as he writes in the present letter (see ll. 54 ff.) Van Gogh has meanwhile carried out the plan to write to Gauguin he outlined in that letter. Given that Van Gogh was very preoccupied with Gauguin’s situation at this time, we date this one no more than a day after letter 616, in other words on Tuesday, 29 or Wednesday, 30 May 1888. Bearing in mind that letters 617 and 618 were written the day before he set out, we assume that Van Gogh’s excursion to Saintes-Maries lasted from 30 or 31 May to about 4 June...
in note 3:
Van Gogh went to Saintes-Maries on 30 or 31 May (according to Pickvance and Hulsker on 30 May; according to Dorn on 10 June). He returned to Arles on 4 or 5 June (according to Pickvance and Hulsker on 3 June; according...
618 To Arnold Koning. Arles, Tuesday, 29 or Wednesday, 30 May 1888.
in title:
618 To Arnold Koning. Arles, Tuesday, 29 or Wednesday, 30 May 1888.
in original text:
...de gradins waar de toeschouwers zaten. maar de arènes van hier zijn zoo hoog dat het geen kwaad...
in date note:
...617, so we have dated it the same day: Tuesday, 29 or Wednesday, 30 May 1888. See further letter 617...
619 To Theo van Gogh. Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, on or about Sunday, 3 or Monday, 4 June 1888.
in title:
619 To Theo van Gogh. Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, on or about Sunday, 3 or Monday, 4 June 1888.
in original text:
...je reviendrai probablement encore faire quelques études ici. La plage ici est sabloneuse, pas de...
...manger tous les jours vu que les pêcheurs s’en vont vendre à Marseille. Mais quand il y en a...
...nos bruyères & tourbières de Drenthe, tu en verras des specimens dans les dessins. Je suis obligé de laisser mes trois études peintes ici car elles ne sont pas assez sèches naturellement pour...
...ou trois études. Si tu n’as pas encore ecrit j’attendrai ta lettre naturellement à Arles. Un...
...curé – les gens ne doivent pas être bien méchants ici car même le curé avait presque l’air...
...de 20 à 50. Je reste jusqu’à demain après midi, ai encore des dessins à prendre. Je me suis...
...s. Dans le fond bleu les etoiles scintillaient claires, verdies, jaunes, blanches, rosees – plus claires, plus diamantées, davantage comme des pierres précieuses que chez nous – même à Paris...
...lapis, rubis, saphirs. La mer d’un outremer très profond – la plage d’un ton violacé et...
in translation:
...mackerel, in other words, changing — you don’t always know if it’s green or purple — you don’t always know if it’s blue — because a second later, its changing reflection has taken on a pink or grey hue.
...studies here. The beach here is sandy, no cliffs or rocks — like Holland — without the dunes...
...t believe there are 100 houses in this village or town. The main building after the old church, an...
...I’d like to go to Tarascon to do two or three studies. If you haven’t already written I’ll...
...fellow. Next month will be the public bathing season. Number of bathers varies from 20 to 50. I’m...
in date note:
...or postponed his departure. If the former is the case, the letter was written on or about 4 June, a day before the date we assume Van Gogh went back to Arles (see for this letter 617, Date). If he went later than he says here, the letter must date from about 3 June. We think it unlikely that this letter could have been written any longer before his departure than this, because he had already done the great majority of the works that he eventually took back with him from Saintes-Maries (see nn. 2 and 11). We therefore date the letter on or about Sunday, 3 or Monday, 4 June 1888...
in textual note 51:
assez sèches < sèches assez
620 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 5 June 1888.
in title:
620 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 5 June 1888.
in original text:
...e, lorsqu’on l’engage à le faire et si après cela ne lui va pas on serait mal pris. Je pense...
...je l’avais observé tous les autres matins mais comme ils partent très de bonne heure avais pas...
...plus soignés. Je te ferai un envoi de peintures roulées aussitôt les marines sèches. Vois tu...
...vu, pas plus que des autres. Seulement c’est très bon signe que les jeunes soient furieux, cela...
...degagerai ma personalité. Le japonais dessine vite, très vite, comme un eclair, c’est que ses...
...des bateaux? Même pas avec le cadre, or ceci c’est fait sans mesurer, en laissant aller la plume. Je me dis donc que peu à peu les frais seront balancés par le travail. Je voudrais qu’on gagne...
...t nous a donné la recette toutes les difficultés ont disparues par enchantement. Il n’y a qu...
...la japonaiserie le petit Bernard a été plus loin peut etre qu’Anquetin. Dites leur que j’ai...
...que produisent par leur accords ou leur désaccords les couleurs.– C’est comme pour le dessin...
in translation:
...But it’s bad policy to live there alone when two or three could help each other to live on little...
...he effects colours produce through their harmonies or discords should be boldly exaggerated. It’s...
in date note:
...Saintes-Maries to Arles on or about Tuesday, 5 June 1888 in the morning; see letter 617, Date. We assume that Van Gogh wrote the same day, both to let Theo know that he was back and to thank him for the weekly allowance, which would normally have reached Arles on or about Monday the 4th, or else must have arrived the...
in note 4:
...took the paintings back to Arles with him after all or had them sent on later; the wording in the present...
in note 5:
...him have ‘some 50 etchings and 20 drawings’ for the exhibition, but Veth evidently only wanted work...
in note 6:
...1883). On Hokusai he wrote: ‘When Hokousaï draws an engraving, he is concise, swift, impulsive, often...
in note 12:
...Indépendants. Le cloisonnisme’, La Revue Indépendante 6 (March 1888), no. 17, pp. 487-492. Dujardin calls Anquetin’s submission for the exhibitions of Les Vingt and the Indépendants ‘the first appearance of a rather new and special manner’ (la première manifestation d’une manière assez nouvelle et spéciale), and compares his paintings with Japanese art and the ‘images d’Epinal’, cheap, coloured, popular prints. The new style is characterized by ‘the strict distinction between drawing and colouring...And the task of the painter will be something like painting in compartments, as in cloisonné work, and his technique will be a sort of cloisonnism’ (la distinction très rigoureuse du dessin et de la coloration. ... Et le travail du peintre sera quelque chose comme une peinture par compartiments, analogue au cloisonné, et sa technique consistera en une sorte de cloisonnisme). Cf. also letter 575, n. 7. Van Gogh probably knew about the contents of Dujardin’s article from Bernard. Although Bernard and Anquetin had developed the new style together and Bernard had actually taken it further (as Van Gogh says later in the letter) he is not mentioned in the article. Rewald suggests that Bernard had complained about this in a letter to Van Gogh. See Rewald 1978, pp. 176-177....
621 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 5 or Wednesday, 6 June 1888.
in title:
621 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 5 or Wednesday, 6 June 1888.
in original text:
...s’abstenir. Et faudrait pas que des chôses que tu ferais pour lui dérangent le projet de faire venir les soeurs et surtout pas nos besoins à toi & à moi. Car si nous ne nous maintenons pas en état de vigueur nous mêmes, comment prétendre se mêler des dérangements des autres. Mais actuellement nous sommes sur...
...il est probable que je refile ce jour-là à 1h à Stes Maries pour y passer la semaine. je lis un livre sur Wagner que je t’enverrai après – quel artiste – un comme ca dans la peinture, voila...
...et dessins de Regamey cela peut être très intéressant, en voilà qui ont voyagé partout lui...
in translation:
...even if he had the good fortune to sell one or two canvases — it would be the same story. While...
in date note:
...and she may have had a postmark to go on, we have dated the letter Tuesday, 5 or Wednesday, 6 June 1888.
in note 1:
...Row of cottages in Saintes-Maries (F 420 / JH 1462) or Cottages in Saintes-Maries (F 419 / JH 1465).
in note 2:
...who in turn sent it on to Emile Schuffenecker in the second week of June (see Merlhès 1989, p. 68).
in note 6:
...because he had already spent too much. Dorn took the verb ‘refiler’ to mean ‘go’, not ‘go back�� or ‘go again’; his reading is an important element of his argument for dating the visit to Saintes-Maries...
in note 7:
It is generally assumed that Van Gogh is referring to Richard Wagner, musiciens, poètes et philosophes. Aperçus et jugements précédés de lettres inédites en France et traduits de l’Allemand pour la première fois par Camille Benoit. Paris 1887. Benoit wrote a 64-page study which precedes Wagner’s writings in this book. Cf. letter 686, n. 19. See for the possible influence of Wagner’s vocabulary on Van Gogh: exhib. cat...
in note 8:
...Régamey’s studio (his brother Guillaume was not mentioned). As well as some paintings destined for the Musée Guimet, due to open shortly, there were ‘a great many’ drawings and watercolours of scenes from the Far East on show, as well as a number of portraits in pastel...
in note 9:
...their Journal on several occasions, among them 19 October 1856 and 12 January 1869 (see Goncourt 1887-1906, vol. 1, p. 148; vol. 3, pp. 258-259). Burty’s Maîtres et petits maîtres, which Van Gogh had read in 1885, also contained details of Meryon’s ‘painful years’ (a nnées douloureuses) (Burty 1877, pp. 110-119).
622 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Thursday, 7 June 1888.
in title:
622 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Thursday, 7 June 1888.
in original text:
...qu’il faudrait faire, les tableaux nécessaires, indispensables pour que la peinture actuelle...
...té de l’autre – des traits caractéristiques arrêtant naivement des mouvements ou des formes...
...dans ce paysage si naif, lequel est censé nous représenter une cabane blanchie entièrment à la chaux (le toit aussi), posée sur un terrain orangé certes, car le ciel du midi et la mediterranée...
...ne. Justement à Arles on porte souvent du carrelé blanc & noir. Suffit que le noir et le blanc sont des couleurs aussi, plutôt dans bien des cas peuvent être considerés comme couleurs car leur...
...tu franchiras avant moi. ai passé une semaine à Saintes Maries et pour y arriver ai traversé en...
...jolis comme forme & couleur qu’on pensait à des fleurs, un seul homme les monte, ces barques-l...
...votre main & si vous allez regarder cela de près. l’eau aussi, l’air aussi, considerée de...
...vas me dire que je ne t’écris que des banalités. Poignée de main en pensée. t. à t. Vincent...
in translation:
The other overflows with new, harrowing or charming conceptions, but is unable to express them in a way...
...characteristic lines naively marking off movements or shapes. In another category of ideas...
...In short, black and white are colours too, or rather, in many cases may be considered colours...
in sketch H:
...or & blanc’ (royal blue/gold and white cup); on the orange in the left background: ‘chrome 3’; above the milk jug on the left: ‘carrelé / bleu & cobalt’ (blue and cobalt check); on the tablecloth, centre foreground: ‘bleu myosotys’ (forget-me-not blue); on the foremost of the three lemons: ‘chrome / N° 1’; on the two other lemons: the numeral ‘1’ (for ‘chrome 1’); beside the coffee pot in the middle: ‘émaillé / bleu’ (blue enamel); on the edge of the saucer on the right: ‘chrome 2’; beside the cup on the right: ‘tasse blanche / dessins bleu / orangé’; (white cup / patterns blue / orange); beside the jug on the right: ‘pot en majolique / bleu à flammes / brunes à fleurs / roses & vertes’ (blue majolica jug / with wavy / brown decoration with / pink and green flowers...
in date note:
...We have consequently dated the present letter on or about Thursday, 7 June 1888. This is also borne out...
in note 1:
...him. Probably Camille Benoit’s Richard Wagner, musiciens, poètes et philosophes (see letter 621, n. 7).
in note 8:
...worn on feast days – a dress of black cotton or satin worn beneath a skirt of violet lace. The...
in note 9:
...Arles, il est allé ces derniers temps en Camargue où il a vu des filles Mystiques, qui l’ont fait penser à Cimabuë et Giotto. C’est un garçon d’un tempérament artistique très large, mais trop indépendant, d’un côté scientifique approfondi, malgré cela je ne désespère pas de le voir revenir avec de fort bonnes choses. Il a la compréhension facile et en somme a le côté artiste très développ...
in textual note 61:
censé < sensé
623 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 12 June 1888.
in original text:
...une lettre contenant 50 fr. ce dont il etait très touché et dans laquelle tu lui disais un mot du...
...on est malade – plus on pense à des possibilités pareilles. J’y vois donc dans ce plan...
...frais de l’hotel & de voyage sont encore compliqués de la note du medecin, ainsi ce sera bien...
...gé de faire la même chose pour venir à Paris et quoique j’ai eu une perte de bien des choses...
...s’il a reellement des espérances de faire quelque chôse à Paris – mon dieu qu’il y aille...
...is grande envie d’y aller une fois à Marseilles. Je continue toujours à trouver les motifs d’ici tres beaux et tres interessants et malgré les contrariétés des frais, tout de même il me...
...et bien d’autres endroits – tu serais comme moi très surpris de voir que cela a un caractere...
...c’est comme du Michel ou comme Jules Dupré mais enfin c’est tout autre chose que des jardins...
...nous pouvons. Poignee de main, j’espère que tu écriras bientôt. t. à t. Vincent Qu’est ce...
in translation:
...He says that when sailors have to move a heavy load or raise an anchor, in order to be able to lift...
...in Paris — for Heaven’s sake let him go there, but I think he’d be wiser to come here for a year at least; I’ve seen someone here who had been to Tonkin and was ill when he came back from that delightful region — he recovered here. I have two or three new drawings and also 2 or three new...
...a Salomon Koninck, you know, Rembrandt’s pupil who made the vast flat landscapes. Or it’s like something by Michel or like Jules Dupré, but it’s really quite different from rose gardens. It...
in note 2:
...or 6 June. Gauguin forwarded the Van Gogh brothers’ letter, in which they suggested he might go to Arles, to Emile Schuffenecker to read, as we learn from a letter written in the second week of June. See Merlhès 1989...
in note 4:
...him with capital to the tune of 500,000 francs. See Wildenstein 2001, p. 610 and Merlhès 1989, p. 70.
in note 10:
...of the same subjects. The description ‘two or three’ could indicate that the subjects were not...
in note 11:
...km to the north of Arles, probably took place on 10 or 11 June: the weather was hot and sunny then, and the...
624 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 12 or Wednesday, 13 June 1888.
in title:
624 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 12 or Wednesday, 13 June 1888.
in original text:
...probablement à Stes Maries. Puisque et le loyer de la maison et la peinture des portes & fenêtres et l’achat de toiles sont venues simultanément m’épuiser, tu me rendras très grand service...
...paysages Butte Montmartre qui ont été aux Indépendants mais je crois que c’est plus solide et...
...nir mais la peinture avance lentement et là-dedans on doit bien calculer d’avance. Gauguin pas...
...en plus personnels justement parceque nous aurons étudié les choses de ce pays plus à fond. Je...
...tre brulée dès maintenant. Dans tout il y a maintenant du vieil or, du bronze, du cuivre...
...tout vus seuls mais que raprochés d’autres toiles cela enfoncait la couleur des autres. Et aussi que les Cezanne faisaient bien dans l’or, ce qui suppose une gamme très montée. Alors peutêtre...
...très rouge la couleur du tableau ne devient pas creuse ou blanchâtre. La nature près d’Aix...
...interieurement le même calcul pour arriver à des tons pareils. Va sans dire que vus ensemble cela...
in translation:
...that the Cézannes that he’d had looked like nothing at all seen on their own, but put next to other canvases they’d beat the colour of the others hollow. And also that the Cézannes did well in...
...colour of the painting doesn’t become hollow or white-looking. The countryside near Aix — where...
...look, I’ve arrived precisely at père Cézanne’s tones, I only want to say this, that Cézanne...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1888 Indépendants exhibition (582)
in date note:
...his money at the weekend – the letter must have been written on Tuesday, 12 or Wednesday, 13 June 1888.
625 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 15 and Saturday, 16 June 1888.
in title:
625 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 15 and Saturday, 16 June 1888.
in original text:
...s. C’est les formats un peu grands, les 30, 25, 20, 15, tous carrés. Il me semble que les grands formats (après tout c’est pas bien grand) me vont mieux. Mais je te parle de ce que tu écris...
...cette semaine sur une toile de 30 – c’est pas très fait du tout – mais ça me tue le reste...
...je crois), il cherche un conseiller et un maître �� or – pas besoin de te dire que Russell ne...
...Paris donc il peut dire aux gens et il le dit: “voila ce à quoi j’ai eu affaire”. Seulement en tous les cas je vais un peu écrire à Russell. Il parait que Mac Knight n’était pas très...
...d’accord avec le Suedois qui probablement alors d’après ce que tu ecris est repris par son mal...
...sans toutes ces arrière pensées et que nous sommes nous mêmes trop gênés pour pouvoir risquer...
...Si maintenant je n’ai pas relevé ces deux passages et d’autres passages dans sa lettre c’e...
...on ne pourrait tenir. Gauguin a beau dire, il est très très agité et c’est dommage et cela ne...
in translation:
...beneficial to my brother and me, would the pal lose or would he gain by it? So these, then, are...
...of the dealers, each agreeing to give a substantial number of paintings to the society, and that...
...with yourself, and you feel like a madman, a scoundrel or an old fool. And dear old Doctor Ox, I...
...man — but you know, you can’t recommend that people love Paris, or force them to, any more than you can recommend a pipe or black coffee with cognac. And Russell’s rich and has lost money in...
...the Jewish company clearly pockets 100 paintings ‘for a start’. The protection of this society...
...a dressing-down for having separated him from his family, or a hornet’s nest like that. Dear God...
in arrangement:
...or signature, and functioning as an accompanying note to a letter from Van Gogh to Gauguin which he sent Theo to read first – was published on its own among the letters written in September 1888. Hulsker regarded it as an enclosure with letter 679 and dated it 11-15 September (Hulsker 1973, p. 152). Pickvance then suggested placing it after letter 625, but it is not clear whether he meant as an enclosure to this letter or on its own after it. Hulsker later changed his mind and suggested – at A. Karagheusian’s instigation, he says – placing it as a postscript to letter 629 (memo to the Van Gogh Museum, February 1987). This must have been the reason why the sheet followed immediately after letter 629 in De brieven 1990, albeit as a letter in its own right (632 [535a]). The subjects discussed are not much help in establishing the sequence because in this period of intensive correspondence the same issues crop up several times; they include Gauguin’s plans, Van Gogh’s aim of painting fifty canvases and so forth. In our view, however, there are two arguments for placing the sheet – in line with Pickvance – before letter 629. The surprise evident in the phrase ‘I didn’t know he had so large a family’ (ll. 199-200) is absent in letter 629 of 21 June; by then Van Gogh obviously knew that Gauguin had a large family (l. 113). He also writes in that letter that he expects the plans to become clearer once Gauguin has answered the letter enclosed with the present one, which must consequently already have been sent by then. We have taken the fact that the accompanying letter – the second sheet discussed here – has no salutation or signature as a reason to regard it as an addition to the present letter. The assumption is that Vincent would have opened and closed his accompanying letter with a salutation and a signature had he sent Theo the letter for Gauguin separately. This cannot be established with absolute certainty; it remains conceivable that the letter for Gauguin was sent to Theo with a sheet as an accompanying letter without the usual formalities, because its imminent arrival had been announced shortly before...
in date note:
...or about Friday, 15 June 1888. In view of the importance to Van Gogh of Gauguin’s decision about going to Arles, the (unknown) letter to Gauguin we think was enclosed with this letter, including the second sheet (ll. 183 ff.), would certainly have been written not long after the promise he made in ll. 168-169 (‘I won’t write to Gauguin direct – I’ll send you the letter’). We assume that it would have been about a day later, which makes the dating of the two sheets together on or about Friday, 15 and Saturday, 16 June 1888...
in note 2:
...yes’ (j’ai répondu presque oui). See Merlhès 1989, p. 68. Later in the present letter it...
in note 8:
...drained away through all [their] senses’ (frappés de l’amour dont on meurt / et que par tous [leurs...
626 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, between Saturday, 16 and Wednesday, 20 June 1888.
in original text:
...dat le meilleur traitement pour toutes les maladies c’est de les traiter avec le plus profond mépris.
...ik wat meer noodig hebben om iets te maken, après tout maar al te dikwijls vrij suf.– Kunt ge U...
in translation:
...oneself to it, or have some sort of patronage or captivate a rich woman or something, otherwise one...
...Nieuwenhuis or other socialists a moment later. And yet — you know — in the space of 10 or 15...
...of the laws of colour. You understand that Israëls and Mauve, who didn’t use whole colours, who...
...hour or so can paint a portrait with character in it — people hardly ever ask for one — 20 or...
...isn’t the work or...I dare not elaborate on that ‘or’ because becoming nothing but a work machine, unfit for and indifferent to all the rest, could be either better or worse than that average...
...the human race because they think I’m this or that — I freely admit in advance that they’re...
...Paris mightily well, ladies in boudoirs dressed or undressed, has painted powerful landscapes and...
...violet really speaks — a wicker fence or grey thatched roof or a ploughed field look much more...
...in so far as I no longer have either hair or beard, both being always shaved off close; further, my...
627 To John Peter Russell. Arles, on or about Sunday, 17 June 1888.
in title:
627 To John Peter Russell. Arles, on or about Sunday, 17 June 1888.
in original text:
...my time in painting and drawing landscapes or rather studies of colour. The actual inhabitants of...
...I wished I were in the same place with him or he here with me. My brother has an exhibition of 10...
...by the seaside. The red sun casts an orange or blood red reflection on the blue green trees and...
in translation:
...my time in painting and drawing landscapes or rather studies of colour. The actual inhabitants of...
...I wished I were in the same place with him or he here with me. My brother has an exhibition of 10...
...by the seaside. The red sun casts an orange or blood red reflection on the blue green trees and...
in date note:
...We have therefore dated the present letter on or about Sunday, 17 June 1888. Cf. exhib. cat. New York...
in note 3:
...old bones, bits of coal, scraps of metal – that they might possibly be able to sell or barter for food.
RM15 Fragment of a letter on the back of the sketch Head of a girl (F 1507a / JH 1466). To John Peter Russell. Arles, on or about Sunday, 17 June 1888.
in title:
...Head of a girl (F 1507a / JH 1466). To John Peter Russell. Arles, on or about Sunday, 17 June 1888.
628 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 19 June 1888.
in title:
628 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 19 June 1888.
in original text:
...suite. Sais tu que nous avons été très bêtes, Gauguin, toi et moi, de ne pas aller dans un mêm...
...Si nous étions parti tous ensemble vers ici ce n’aurait pas été si bête car à trois nous...
...semeur. Grand terrain de mottes de terre labourés, franchement violet en grande partie. Champ de...
...du ciel est jaune de chrome 1 et 2 melangés, très jaune donc. la blouse du semeur est bleue et...
...y ayant été elevé, des bouffées de souvenirs d’autrefois, des aspirations vers cet infini...
...bleu vert, les blés ont tous les tons: vieil or, cuivre, or vert, or rouge, or jaune, bronze jaune...
...er à Paris. il dit qu’il croyait que tu serais venu à Pont Aven. Mon dieu si nous étions ici...
...mon dieu j’etais arrivé à un etat de chôses que chez moi le sang ne marchait plus du tout...
...en Afrique. Or plus que tu te fais du sang et du bon sang avant, mieux c’est car là-bas dans la...
...le même sens qu’en peinture. tu es après des choses excentriques arrivé à en faire qui ont un...
in translation:
...I was enthusiastic about grey, or rather, absence of colour. I was always dreaming about Millet, and then I had acquaintances in Holland in the category of painters like Mauve, Israëls. Here’s...
...however incompetent one may feel vis-à-vis the ineffable perfections of nature’s glorious...
...melancholy will go away, which may darned well come from the fact that you have too little blood �� or tainted blood, which I don’t think, however. It’s that bloody filthy Paris wine and the...
in sketch A:
...the background, in a box: ‘jaune / rompu / vieil or’ (yellow / broken / old gold); diagonally in the...
in date note:
...have passed since he wrote that letter, so we have dated the present one on or about Tuesday, 19 June 1888.
in note 1:
Van Gogh regarded Israëls’s work as the counterpart of Millet’s. Nothing is known about any contacts between Van Gogh and Israëls, although they very probably met when Vincent was working in the Goupil gallery in The Hague (in July 1883 he quoted something Israëls said; see letter 361). Israëls sold much of his work through Goupil.
in note 14:
...the relationship between social or artistic ambitions and creativity on the one hand, and sexual activity and procreation on the other. He admired men who were very active sexually or who had families, but believed...
in note 19:
...or Madame Chrysanthème. In reality the marriage is a paid, temporary concubinage. The Frenchman has no real feelings of love for her; it is more a question of his amazement at how doll-like she is. Loti describes the setting and the customs. The underlying message is that it is difficult for Europeans to penetrate the mysterious closed nature and morals of the Japanese, or the artificial refinement of objects.Van Gogh probably read an illustrated version that he borrowed from Milliet. The way in which he portrayed himself in Self-portrait (F 476 / JH 1581) could derive from an illustration of bonzes in the edition of Madame Chrysanthème published in Paris in 1888 by Calmann-Lévy. See Kōdera 1990, p. 56. It emerges from letter 718 that Milliet gave Gauguin this copy of the book in November 1888 in exchange for a drawing...
629 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 21 June 1888.
in original text:
...le rejoindre à Pont Aven; je leur ai donné les adresses de part et d’autre déjà auparavant...
...raide dans les blés en plein soleil, il en est resulté des études de blés, paysages et – une...
...a déjà depuis si longtemps été mon désir de faire un semeur mais les désirs que j’ai depuis...
...des casseroles emaillées bleues, à passementerie d’un rouge orangé fané avec deux étoiles citron sur la poitrine, un bleu commun et bien dur à faire.– La tête feline très bronzée coiff...
...e me parait très dure et pourtant je voudrais toujours travailler à des portraits vulgaires et...
...assis; en pied contre mur blanc. As tu remarqué Dessins Raffaëlli – La rue edité par le Figaro...
...un nouvel envoi puisque pour ces études des blés et de zouaves j’ai mangé pas mal de tubes. Seulement un tiers ou la moitié est pressé. Parmi les études des blés il y a les meules, dont je...
...serais pas étonné du tout si c’etait très beau. La toile n’est pas pressée absolument non...
in translation:
...I’ve eaten up plenty of tubes. Only a third or half is urgent. Among the studies of wheatfields...
in additional details:
...badly in need of a new consignment...Only a third or half is urgent’ (ll. 87-91) and ‘The canvas...
in note 9:
‘La rue par Jean-François Raffaëlli’, Raffaëlli illustrations lithographed by S. Krakow, accompany an article by Félicien Champsaur about Paris street life, published in Le Figaro. Supplement Litteraire 14 (3...
in note 11:
...he received two weeks ago – in other words on or about 8 June – was probably the second part of...
in note 12:
...1441) to Theo (letter 625). This was ‘the first idea’ for the painting Wheat stacks (F 425 / JH 1442).
in note 14:
...his acquaintance through Second Lieutenant Milliet or the Zouave who was sitting for him at this time. The...
630 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 23 June 1888.
in original text:
...contournés. je suis bien mécontent de ce que j’ai fait de ces jours ci car c’est très laid...
...faire des études de figures pour chercher et pour apprendre ce serait encore après tout pour moi...
...t’envoie ci-inclus pour l’accrocher à côté des saltimbanques que tu as de lui. Derriere le...
...e de zouave quoique celle là soit très laide. Mais comme je n’aimerais pas à le priver d’études vendables je ne proposerais pas un échange à moins qu’on puisse lui acheter pour une petite...
...et on est bien gêné pour les moindres des chôses. C’est là la raison pourquoi il faudra aller...
...etre très differente de Bordiguera, Hyères, Genes, Antibes, où il y a moins de mistral, où les...
...st la rareté des fleurs, ainsi pas de bluets dans les blés, rarement des coquelicots. Combien a couté la caisse de tableaux de port dernierement. les empatements de certaines toiles sont sèches...
...e de main à toi et à Mouries si toutefois il n’est pas encore installé dans l’atelier à la...
in translation:
...not much remedy for all that, unless some day or other one could enter into an association with a...
...that man who always has works by Allongé. It’s very good that Claude Monet found a way of making...
...at the beginning young lions have a lot of trouble killing a horse or an ox, but old lions kill with a single well-judged strike from a claw or a tooth, and have an amazing sureness for that job. I...
...here must be very different from Bordighera, Hyères, Genoa, Antibes, where there’s less mistral...
...work, yesterday I showed him and his friend four or five new studies, which they looked at in icy...
in note 6:
...très retiré Un cabaret sombre qu’attriste Le jour bas d’un volet tiré. La marchande est specialiste Et vend comme en un débit clair De la boisson et de la chair...Avec un regard où s’étale Toute la misère d’un coeur Chaque femme comme à la halle La viande qu’habille une fleur Dans la soie et l’or bien peignée Vend sa pauvre âme résignée II Société voici ton crime. Homme jette un regard clément Sur la putain, cette victime. Femme qui sait bien que tout ment A qui plus rien ne fait envie Pas même la fin de la vie, Qui ne voit qu’un grand vide autour De tout son être et de son âme Triste victime de l’amour! – Société tu es infâme Quand tu courbes pour ton Désir Des enfants au joug du Plaisir. 19 Juin 1888. Although Van Gogh talks about ‘sonnets’, strictly speaking this is not what they are. Cf. exhib. cat. New Brunswick 1988, p. 23...
in note 9:
...l’alphabet du dessin: letter 214, n. 2. It was published by Ch. Fouraut et fils, éditeurs, at 47 rue Saint-André des Arts in Paris. Van Gogh needed the book for the drawing lessons he was giving the Zouave...
in note 10:
...Eléments de perspective, Traité pratique de perspective and La perspective du paysagiste. Madame Latouche had a ‘magasin de couleurs fines et tableaux modernes’ (shop selling fine colours and modern paintings) at 34 rue Lafayette. She had run the business alone since the death of her husband, the painter Louis Latouche, in 1884. She did framing and lining and exhibited the work of the Impressionists in her shop window. Her business was taken over by Contet in 1886. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 332 (n. 24) and Distel 1989, pp. 33-34. Gauguin had paintings lined there (see letter 776, n. 30). The plaster cast of a Dante mask from Van Gogh’s collection (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum) has a Latouche label on it. See cat. Amsterdam 2011. There were several art shops in rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, but since Van Gogh refers to a colourman in this context in letter 657, ‘that man who always has works by [Auguste] Allongé’ is probably Léon Berville, 25 rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. In the address books Berville is the only paint merchant in rue de la Chaussée d’Antin; he is moreover listed in 1886 and 1887 as ‘marchand de tableaux’ (dealer in pictures) (Almanach du commerce de Paris 1886-1888). We learn from an advertisement on the back of the catalogue Musée national du Luxembourg. Peintures, sculptures et dessins de l’école moderne of 1886 that Berville sold ‘all the supplies’ for...
in note 11:
...or herds of goats which come to the area surrounding where they live during the day. Sometimes they take on cattle but are still so unskilful that for every one they kill, ten are injured and the father has to intervene. It is only when they reach two that the young lions can kill a horse, a bullock, a camel with a single snap of the jaws to the throat and leap over the two metre high hedges which are supposed to protect the doyars’ (De huit mois à un an, les lionceaux commencent à attaquer les troupeaux de moutons ou de chèvres qui, pendant le jour, viennent dans le voisinage de leur demeure. Quelquefois ils s’en prennent aux boeufs; mais ils sont encore si maladroits, qu’il y a souvent dix blessés pour un mort, et que le père est obligé d’intervenir. Ce n’est qu’à deux ans que les jeunes lions savent étrangler un cheval, un boeuf, un chameau, d’un seul coup de gueule à la gorge, et franchir les haies de deux mètres de haut qui sont réputées protéger les douars) (Paris 1855, p. 31...
in note 13:
...on the coast of Liguria (northwestern Italy). Hyères is the most southerly town in Provence, 18 km to the...
631 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 25 June 1888.
in title:
631 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 25 June 1888.
in original text:
...grain No 0. Largeur deux mètres Piece entière 10 mètres de long Prix 40 francs la remise est...
...Laissant de côté ou non les 5 mètres que j’avais demandées, le mieux serait de prendre une piece entière.– Ayant récemment acheté des toiles dont je garderai les chassis l’avantage est...
...barres forgées de côté.– Je n’ai pas encore la moitié des 50 toiles présentables en public...
...i – ceci – que mes désirs personnels sont subordonnés à l’interet de plusieurs et qu’il...
...tre trompé vu que s’ils font des difficultés pour travailler je les connais aussi ces difficultés.– et je saurais ce qui en était peut-être. Or on aurait parfaitement le droit – et même...
...le besoin ou plutôt je travaillerais à des choses plus compliquées. Mais isolé je ne compte que...
...n’y a vraiment pas longtemps sont à peu près toutes couvertes. Lorsque je t’enverrai des toiles roulées tu pourras peut-être ôter des chassis pas mal de chôses sans conséquence. De façon...
in translation:
...an opportunity to check Tasset’s prices. Leaving aside, or not, the 5 metres that I’d requested...
...relation one to another like the words in a speech or a letter — then we have to remember that...
...of artists. Not that I still have a great desire or hope to bring it about, but as it was a serious...
...then that I have a certain ambition, not about the number of canvases, but that these canvases as a...
...to the interests of a number of people, and that it always seems to me that another person could benefit from the money I spend by myself. Either Vignon, or Gauguin, or Bernard, or someone else. And...
...of finished works — there would be the satisfaction for you of providing for two or three people instead of one. This for sooner or later. And as long as I’m as strong as the others. You can be...
...I’d feel a bit less need to do that, or rather, I’d work on more complicated things. But in...
...thoroughly dried, we can keep them in a portfolio or in a cupboard without their taking up a lot of...
in date note:
...in which Vincent asked for new paint from Tasset. For all these reasons we, like Merlhès, have dated the letter on or about Monday, 25 June 1888. The letter has given rise to various datings. Pickvance put the...
632 To Emile Bernard. Arles, Tuesday, 26 June 1888.
in original text:
...grand soleil de là-bas, les égyptiens, les indiens, les éthiopiens, Babylone, Ninive. Que n’o...
...celle là les produits littéraires qui à coté de l’évangile de Luc, des épitres de Paul...
...aux possibilités de faire de la peinture dans des conditions supérieures et changées d’existen...
...surtout ronde. Ce qu’actuellement personne ne conteste.�� Or actuellement on en est malgré-ça...
...est probablement ronde et très supérieure en étendue et capacités à l’hemisphère unique qui...
...déplaise – arriver à des conclusions plus ou moins paralèles aux dictions du christ relatives...
...reinté de ce côté-là, mes yeux sont fatigués, si ma cervelle ne l’est pas. Dis donc – te...
...Delacroix. Le passage que tu as deniché dans l’evangile concernant Jean Baptiste est absolument...
...non plus Salomon et aussi pas du tout les méthodistes.– Salomon me semble un payen hypocrite, je...
...et bande – désolé sous un ciel gros d’orage – navré dans l’immensite verte tendre d’u...
in translation:
...Paul’s epistles — so simple in their hard or warlike form — are few and far between. This...
...it still is today — from Paris to Asnières, for example. But that didn’t prevent science...
...th all due respect — reach conclusions more or less parallel to Christ’s words concerning the...
...were it not that having drawn and painted for three or four days with a model — a Zouave – I...
...IS VERY VERY INTERESTING and I do thank you for it — for my part I’ll send you a drawing one of...
...would be in our day to ask Impressionism or one of its searcher-representatives, ‘have you found...
...where you stand as far as your military service is concerned; should I talk to that second lieutenant of Zouaves or not? Are you going to Africa or not? In your case, do the years count double in Africa or not? Most of all, see that your blood’s in order — you don’t get very far with anaemia...
...Potter, for example — who makes — on a no. 4 or no. 6 panel, a white stallion alone in a meadow...
in note 2:
Van Gogh wrote either ‘outre�� or ‘autre’, but neither reading is entirely clear. The version printed here corresponds with the one in Lettres à Bernard 1911, p. 109. The alternative would be: ‘Mais la...
in note 4:
Whether he knew it or not, Van Gogh’s ideas tied in with the Renaissance view that Christ was an artist...
in note 10:
Asnières lies to the north of Paris and was where Bernard’s parents lived. Van Gogh would have cited this...
in note 22:
...wanted to protect Van Gogh from his supposed errors or exaggerations and consequently replaced Van Gogh’s...
in note 24:
...Gogh’s letters. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 216, 498-499 (n. 272) and Merlhès 1989, pp. 87-89.
633 To Emile Bernard. Arles, Wednesday, 27 June 1888.
in original text:
...côté. et c’est pourquoi j’ai fourré dans la lettre un autre feuillet à la place de celui-ci...
...vu qu’il a exécuté les dites études probablement lorsque le mistral soufflait. Ayant affaire...
...e de ton essai de bordel.– Si à nous deux nous exécutions un bordel je suis sûr que comme...
...chôses.– L’art de l’avenir pourrait nous montrer des exemples de cela.– Les tableaux nécessaires maintenant, c’est qu’il faudrait être à plusieurs pour en supporter les difficultés...
...voir si les études soient bonnes ou mauvaises. J’ai sept études des blés, malheureusement toutes bien contre mon gré rien que des paysages.– Des paysages jaunes vieil or – faits vite vite...
...Egyptienne, Persane, lesquelles ont été si loin. Or je le repète – ce Christ est plus artiste...
...bien parlé. car le rythme sonore des mots colorés m’évoque la réalité brutale du bouge avec une grande intensité. Mais les reproches adressées à la fin à “la societe”, pour moi abruti...
in translation:
...Cézanne’s almost...
...half the time, I can explain why Cézanne’s touch is sometimes so sure and sometimes seems...
...can’t see whether the studies are good or bad. I have seven studies of wheatfields, unfortunately...
...first strong enough to dispel my lethargy. Is that true or not? To report the facts, as you do at...
in note 6:
...however, is not so much iconographical accuracy or completeness as Van Gogh’s view that one must...
634 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Thursday, 28 June 1888.
in title:
634 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Thursday, 28 June 1888.
in original text:
...54 rue de Laval au lieu de 54 Rue Lepic. Les employés de la poste ont donc eu en me renvoyant la lettre...
...chôse – mais le carmin pas non plus est très serieux dans sa pauvre baraque. C’est pas de sa faute mais dans la suite je mettrai à côté des noms des couleurs Tanguy si chez lui elles sont...
...e ciel est jaune & vert, le terrain violet & orangé. Certes il y a un tableau à faire comme cela...
...en pleine métaphysique de couleurs à la Monticelli, gâchis d’où sortir à son honneur est...
...es quais d’un ton lilas, les personages accoudés sur le parapet noiratres, le pont de fer d’un...
in translation:
...it will be done one day, either by someone else or by me. The question remains this — Christ’s...
...s sower is colourless grey — as are Israëls’s paintings too. Can we now paint the sower with...
...Apollo ceiling, which is precisely yellow and purple), yes or no? Yes — definitely. So do it then...
in date note:
...ll. 12-13), which means that this one must have been written on or about Thursday, 28 June 1888.
635 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 1 July 1888.
in title:
635 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 1 July 1888.
in original text:
...il y fera une affaire ce qui serait très heureux. Ci joint la réponse. Je tiens seulement à dire...
...pension pour si peu – au point de vue des dépenses je suis décidément prêt à revenir vers le...
...renouvelle souvent – comme cela a été lors de cette moisson – je deviens absolument abstrait...
...ir en buvant un bon coup ou en fumant très fort. Ce qui est sans doute peu vertueux mais c’est...
...de poursuivre les calculs les plus ramifiés et subdivisés relatives aux gammes de tons qu’il...
...pas fait – leurs nerfs revoltés leurs auraient joué d’autres tours.– Ainsi Jules et Edmond de Goncourt disent mot à mot ceci – “nous prenions du tabac très fort pour nous abrutir” da...
...d’où résultent vite l’une après l’autre des toiles faites vites mais longtemps calcul...
...a pas été plus commode que celui des paysans qui font cette moisson eux mêmes. Loin de m’en...
...r aider aux dépenses, mais ayons courage, malgre les difficultés en travaillant pour sauvegarder...
in translation:
...a stiff drink or smoking very heavily. Which is no doubt not very virtuous, but it’s in order to go back to Monticelli. I’d really like to see a drinker in front of a canvas or on the boards...
...we could make the thing more serious by suggesting to him that he puts all his paintings in common, with mine, to share profits or losses. But that won’t happen or will happen of its own accord, depending on whether he found my painting good or bad, and also on whether or not we did things in collaboration. Have to write to Russell now, and I’ll hasten my exchange with him. We’ll have to...
...you again soon. I’m going to the Camargue for 2 or 3 days, to do some drawings there. Ever yours...
in date note:
...letter he has ‘just’ received. For this reason we date the letter on or about Sunday, 1 July 1888.
in note 3:
...Pouzin pour me liberer d’ici et filer dans le midi. Je ne reçois aucune nouvelle de Van Gog ce qui m’étonne et de Made Pouzin j’en reçois une mauvaise ce qui fait que de tous côtés c’est mauvais, signe...
in note 8:
...le laudanum du système nerveux), included in the collection Idées et sensations. Paris 1866, p. 213.
636 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 5 July 1888.
in original text:
...dans une bruyère pierreuse où croissent des chênes tres petits et tordus, dans le fond une ruine...
...et le terrain, absolument une pluie d’or. Et toutes les lignes etaient belles, l’ensemble d’une noblesse charmante. On n’aurait pas du tout été surpris de voir surgir soudainement des...
...m’en trouve très bien de l’employer mais il a le désavantage de sécher très lentement, ainsi par exemple des études faites à Stes Maries ne sont pas encore sèches. J’avais compté aller...
...En somme celles ci nous reviennent assez chères sans compter le mal qu’elles donnent. Pourtant...
...le gazon qu’on vient de faucher avec les longues trainées de foin qui sèche au soleil. Un petit...
...illusion. En tout cas j’ai cessé de spéculer un peu là-dessus. Un grand nombre de journées se passe donc sans que je dise un mot à personne que pour demander à diner ou un café. Et cela a été ainsi dès le commencement. Jusqu’à présent la solitude ne m’a pourtant pas beaucoup gên...
in translation:
...at all surprised to see knights and ladies suddenly appear, returning from hunting with hawks, or to...
...my saying a word to anyone except to order supper or a coffee. And it’s been like that from the...
...effect on nature so interesting. Write to me a day or two earlier if you can; the end of the week...
in date note:
...the month (ll. 40-41). In letter 637 of Sunday, 8 or Monday, 9 July he says – referring to the present...
637 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 8 or Monday, 9 July 1888.
in title:
637 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 8 or Monday, 9 July 1888.
in original text:
...pas un sou d’argent. Entrer en discussion là-dedans c’est discusser avec la mère Tanguy ce...
...l’on compte que souvent j’ai envoyé des gens chez Bing directement il vaut mieux que Bing nous...
...s.– Et si je ne demande pas de commission à Bing c’est justement qu’en cas de réclamations...
...et en buvant comme si cela était un droit. Or c’est assez raide car quoique j’aie dans ce...
...les frais d’exécution me rendent très très pauvre malgré tout cela – je n’insisterais...
...dis que si les études ont du mal à sécher ici dans la chaleur, à plus forte raison cela aurait...
...très vulgaire à côté de lui. Après ce que tu me dis de lui je vais le voir cet après midi...
...puisqu’on n’y peut rien et puisqu’après tout, tout marche toujours pour le mieux dans le...
...chose que Jeudi dernier, la fin semaine sera très raide, si tu peux envoyer la prochaine lettre un...
...vignes, pour tout. Je voudrais t’envoyer les 30 études dans ce moment pour que peut être cela...
in translation:
...Monet, Gauguin, all owe them money; is that true or not?? In any case, if they don’t pay, why...
...4 times as much. Leave Tanguy the study he has of Asnières — a bank of the Seine. It’s his, if...
...in my opinion too if Gauguin came here — for that reason of the coming winter. Still no reply...
...tight, if you can send the next letter a day or two earlier, so much the better. Have you been...
...e Thomas — he really ought to buy from me or from Gauguin for a hundred francs — then we’d be...
in date note:
...Paris Illustré on the same day. We have therefore dated the letter Sunday, 8 or Monday, 9 July 1888.
in note 2:
...of a bank of the Seine in Asnières. If Tanguy did indeed have the work in his possession, it must have been sold before his death since there was no view of the river in Asnières in the Tanguy sale in 1894, nor...
in note 5:
...S. Bing et Cie, with himself as the major shareholder. See exhib. cat. Richmond 1986 and exhib. cat. Amsterdam 2004-1. Van Gogh refers on several occasions to his ‘stock’ at Bing’s: prints that he had set aside to buy for his own collection, use as an exchange or sell. It is not clear what the business arrangement with Bing was. Van Gogh himself says here (and in letter 640) that he sometimes sent Bing clients and got a discount in return...
in note 16:
...at rue de Provence, and I was received by Mr Lévy or ‘Father Lévy’, as he was affectionately...
in textual note 81:
des études < d’études
638 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 July 1888.
in title:
638 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 July 1888.
in original text:
...nous deux exploré le vieux jardin et y avons volé d’excellentes figues. Si c’eût été plus...
...des cyprès centenaires, des frênes et des saules, des chênes de roche. des escaliers démolis...
...et des pans de murs écroulés épars cà et là dans la verdure, j’en ai encore rapporté un...
...lé par l’étude qu’il tient encore de moi, à plus forte raison puisqu’il y a condition bien...
...est très chrétienne.�� Or nous autres n’étant pas de très-bons chrétiens...Voil...
...directement chez lui si je savais qu’il fut à Paris. De cette façon il doit bien en tout cas...
...de cette toile à 40 francs les 20 mètres. Je crois bien faire en travaillant surtout les dessins...
...plus, ce qui lui causait les plus grandes inquiétudes et consternations.– Sans être dans le cas...
...me devient ambitieux du moment qu’il ne bande plus. Or si cela m’est plus ou moins égal de...
...nt morts et enterrés, parlent à une génération suivante ou à plusieurs générations suivantes...
in translation:
...strange freak of nature, brains of flintstone or gunflint. Certainly these ladies are much more...
...when, rightly so in this case, you kick him out, or at least send him packing in no uncertain terms...
...in this gentleman’s position as far as having or wishing to get married, in the physical sense...
...get a hard-on. Now, while it’s more or less the same to me whether or not I can get a hard-on, I...
...to know whether he wanted to choose at his home or yours. That in the first case, if he wanted to...
...about that conversation at the Nouvelle Athènes is interesting. You’re familiar with Desboutin...
...is life visible to us in its entirety, or before we die do we know of only one hemisphere? Painters — to speak only of them — being dead and buried, speak to a following generation or to several following generations through their works. Is that all, or is there more, even? In the life of the...
...France. Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star. What...
in date note:
...or Monday, 9 July, Van Gogh says that he is going to see Boch in Fontvieille ‘this afternoon’. Since he writes in the present letter that he was there ‘yesterday’, we may safely assume that it was written a day later. We have therefore dated it Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 July 1888...
in note 8:
...had: The Seine with moored boats (F 300 / JH 1275) or Bank of the Seine with a boat (F 353 / JH 1271).
in note 15:
...que je fais ici même, mes plus beaux tableaux: le fruit automnal des veilles, des préoccupations, des macérations qui figent le sperme pour solidifier la matière cérébrale. Matière est jolie. Votre Zanzibar...
in note 19:
...was the subject of the portrait, the painter, or both, and it is therefore not possible to identify...
in note 20:
...hereafter has been linked to the story ‘Les étoiles’ in Daudet’s Lettres de mon moulin and to...
639 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 13 July 1888.
in title:
639 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 13 July 1888.
in original text:
...avoir à moins de 100 fr. pièce. Dussé-je lui donner les trois autres comme cadeau dans ce cas, puisque nous sommes pressés d’avoir de l’argent. Mais nous ne pouvons les donner à moins, cela...
...u mistral continuel, sans compter que j’ai passé les journées dehors avec un peu de pain et de...
...les 20 mètres carrées). Eh bien – encore une fois Tasset n’a pas compté plus cher, c...
...bien de prendre celle là qui pour les études est certes assez bonne. Ecris moi un petit mot s.v.p. de suite pour savoir si les dessins soient arrivés en bon état, on m’a encore engueulé à la...
...les ont pris ce qui m’a fait plaisir car après la fête du 14 Juillet tu ne seras pas mécontent...
...n’ai senti aucun ennui malgré des circonstances essentiellement ennuyeuses, le mistral et les...
...il n’y a rien (les dessins, curiosités, sont cachés dans des tiroirs). Ah c’est donc comme...
...les dessins, aussi la moisson et le Zouave, à Thomas. Poignée de main et merci des 12 tubes blanc...
in translation:
...on their walls. The description of the cloister or pagoda where there’s nothing (the drawings...
...fact? Look at them in a nice bright café where there’s nothing else in the way of paintings �� or out of doors. There should perhaps be a reed frame like a thin strip of wood. Myself, I work here...
in date note:
...or 10 July: in that one Van Gogh wrote that he had three finished drawings, now he has five. He also says that ‘after the 14 July holiday’ (l. 47) Theo will probably be glad to refresh his eye on the drawings he has just sent. The letter in any event dates from before letter 640, which was written on Sunday, 15 July – in that one Van Gogh reiterates that he has sent the drawings. On these grounds we have dated the present letter on or about Friday, 13 July 1888...
in note 11:
...or disappear if required – and one whole side of the apartment opens up into a veranda looking out over the green countryside and the grey sky’ (Ce qui frappe dès l’abord, dans ces intérieurs japonais, c’est la propreté minutieuse, et la nudité blanche, glaciale. Sur des nattes irréprochables, sans un pli, sans un dessin, sans une souillure, on me fait monter au première étage, dans une grande pièce où il n’y a rien, absolument rien. Les murs en papier sont composés de châssis à coulisse, pouvant rentrer les uns dans les autres, au besoin disparaître, – et tout un côté de l’appartement s’ouvre en véranda sur la campagne verte, sur le ciel gris) (see Loti 1990, chapter 3, p. 60). ‘The description of the cloister or pagoda where there’s nothing’ refers to chapter 40, where it says that the monks’ cells are completely empty, with just a few unframed sketches on the walls: ‘nothing else, no seats, no cushions, no furniture. It is the ultimate in desired simplicity, in elegance crafted from nothing’ (rien de plus; pas de sièges, pas de coussins, pas de meubles. C’est le comble de la simplicité cherchée, de l’élégance faite avec du néant) (Loti 1990, pp. 172-173). Van Gogh’s fascination with the Japanese approach to art derives from the following passage: ‘For he who has a few notions of Japanese style, my mother-in-law’s interior will reveal to him alone a refined person; total starkness, just two or three little screens placed here and there – a teapot, a vase containing lotus flowers, nothing else...There are little hiding places everywhere, small niches and cupboards, ingeniously and unexpectedly hidden behind the immaculate uniformity of white paper panels ... In France, we have objets d’art to enjoy them; here they shut them away, neatly labelled in a sort of mysterious, underground apartment, with iron gratings, which is called a godoun’ (Pour qui a quelques notions de japonerie, l’intérieur de ma belle-mère révèle à lui seul une personne raffinée: nudité complète; à peine deux ou trois petits paravents posés çà et là, – une théière, un vase où trempent des lotus; rien de plus ... Il y a partout des petites cachettes, des petites niches, des petits placards, dissimulés de la manière la plus ingénieuse et la plus inattendue sous l’uniformité immaculée des panneaux de papier blanc ... En France, on a des objets d’art pour en jouir; ici, pour les enfermer, bien étiquetés, dans une sorte d’appartement mystérieux, souterrain, grillé en fer, qu’on appelle godoun) (Loti 1990, chapter 35, p. 157)....
640 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 15 July 1888.
in original text:
...Or un mois plus tard avant mon depart je n’avais plus l’argent et j’avais encore donné pas...
...gens. Moi j’ai toujours espéré etant à Paris avoir une salle d’exposition à moi dans un...
...tirerai comme cela ce mois ci. Je travaille à des dessins pour Bernard pour qu’il m’envoie des...
...qu’une facture que je monterais de mon côté dans ces termes ci: portrait de Tanguy 50...
...t de ce compte n’est pas pressé, toutefois un acompte me serait agréable. Donc suffit. Poignee...
...Cassagne, les 100 cahiers que tu connais sans aucun doute. Or j’y ai réflechi que le livre doit...
...un peu basée sur la japonaiserie et si je me suis tu là-dedans envers Bing c’est que je crois que après mon voyage dans le midi je pourrai reprendre la chose peutêtre plus serieusement. L’art...
...commerce des japonaiseries. Toutefois ce commerce est interessant à plus forte raison à cause de la direction que tend à prendre l’art Français. Ecris moi un petit mot si les dessins t’arrive...
in translation:
Or else Bing will replace the merchandise represented by the enclosed 50 francs. But. If it was possible...
...we’ll have a new stock of 660 Japanese prints. Or half of them for the 50 francs enclosed. I...
...this moment for our wanting to do a deal. Or again, Thomas could buy something from Gauguin if...
in note 2:
...and/or the second series in black and white A hundred views of Mount Fuji (1833-1834), which were published in three albums. There is a copy of the second album in the estate, but it is not known whether Theo and Vincent bought it or it came into the collection later (inv. no. n561). See cat. Amsterdam 1991, p. 316. Hokusai produced countless genre scenes, so it is not possible to tell which ones Van Gogh means here...
in note 13:
...The portrait is Père Tanguy (F 263 / JH 1202) or Père Tanguy (F 363 / JH 1351). The portrait of Mrs...
in note 14:
...number of instalments of 16 pages each: Étude du paysage, Fleurs et fruits, Figure, Animaux, L’ornement, Genre, Abécédaire du dessin, Marme. In 1881, in other words when Van Gogh was familiar with it, Le dessin pour tous consisted of 61 instalments altogether; L’alphabet du dessin took up 32 instalments (Van Gogh says here that there were 100). At that time, the Guide de l’alphabet du dessin cost six francs, as we learn from an advertisement in Cassagne’s Eléments de perspective. Paris 1881 (cf. letter 214, n. 2...
in note c:
Read: ‘là-dessus’.
641 To Emile Bernard. Arles, Sunday, 15 July 1888.
in original text:
...peu importe.– Enfin – en tout cas à tes citations j’ai voulu répondre avec la plume mais...
...un personnage microscopique de laboureur, un petit train qui passe dans les blés, voila toute la vie qu’il y a là-dedans. Ecoutez j’ai passé – les premiers jours de mon arrivee – à cet...
...soldat. j’y dis “est ce que ca t’epate que moi je trouve cela aussi beau que la mer”? Or il connaissait la mer – lui. “Non – cela ne m’épate pas – dit-il – que tu trouves cela...
...Maintenant c’est à moi de te dire, réponds moi vite cette fois ci par retour du courrier...
...mets d’ailleurs au travail de mon côté sans savoir même si tu veux faire cela. Maintenant ces...
...avoir des choses de toi ici. Gauguin une fois ici, à nous deux nous chercherons à faire quelquechose à Marseille et y exposerons probablement. Or je désirerais avoir des chôses de toi aussi, toutefois sans te faire perdre des chances de vente à Paris. En tous cas je ne crois pas t’en faire...
in translation:
...of flowers and woven greenery’ of Crivelli or Virelli, doesn’t much matter. Ah, well — in any...
...ocean because it’s inhabited.’ Which of the spectators was more the artist, the first or the second, the painter or the soldier — I myself prefer that soldier’s eye. Isn’t that true? Now...
...of is that if we exhibit in Marseille, sooner or later Gauguin and I will encourage you to join us...
in note 1:
...de zouave qui m’a étonné. Vincent devient très fort. En même temps que c’est un excellent...
in note 2:
...fleurs et verdure tissus.En estendant tappis velus,De vert herbe par le païs,Les fourriers [d’Esté sont venus.]Cueurs d’ennuy pieça morfondus,Dieu mercy, sont sains et jolis;Alez vous ent, prenez païs,Yver, vous ne demourrés plus;Les fourriers [d’Esté sont venus!]) See D’Orléans 1923-1927, vol. 2, p...
642 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 15 July 1888.
in original text:
...sans décorations & ornements. Et justement cela a reveillé ma curiosité pour les dessins excessivement synthetiques d’une autre periode. qui sont probablement à nos crepons à nous ce qu’un...
...les vendras pas, les ayant toi-même choisis (à moins qu’elles ne te deplaisent) – tu peux les...
...t et ne te défais pas des belles feuilles, au contraire nous y gagnons à les augmenter. Il y a...
...je n’ai pas pu comme je voulais car j’en étais si enthousiaste de ce tas de dix mille crepons...
...t du dépot plusieurs fois déjà renouvelé. Continuons de la même façon. Cela a été déja un...
...travailler à Paris. J’ai aujourd’hui envoyé 6 dessins d’après études peintes à Bernard, je lui en ai promis 6 autres et ai demandé échange de croquis d’après ses études peintes. Voil...
...Est ce que tu ne trouves pas qu’il parle très mal Boulanger. il ne fait pas d’effet en paroles...
...toiles étaient pareilles!!!!!! Ce ne serait pas très gai, enfin ce serait à recommencer.�� Or...
in translation:
...me this: the apartments are bare, without decorations or ornaments. And it was that that awakened...
...equivalent of the colourless Millets. That has little or nothing to do with the stock, properly...
...told me �� or rather, the manager. If you keep the stock, then tell him once again that we often send people directly to him but that he must therefore keep his Japanese prints at the stated price — of 5 sous — not less. I’m telling you only this — I’ve gone through the lot four or 5...
...it, and at the end of it all, whether you sell or you don’t sell, you lose money on it. And you...
...practical purposes, to explain things to his officers or to the managers of arsenals. But he makes...
...therefore a star or celestial globe. And what if all these other stars were the same!!!!!! It wouldn’t be very jolly, in fact you’d have to start all over again. For art, now — for which you...
in note 3:
...French art; see Frances Suzman Jowell, ‘Thoré-Bürger’s art collection: “a rather unusual...
in note 8:
...besoin de deux cents francs pour demain après midi. Il n’y a que vous à qui je puisse me...
643 To Emile Bernard. Arles, between Tuesday, 17 and Friday, 20 July 1888.
in original text:
...ui encore 9 croquis d’après des études peintes. De cette façon tu verras des motifs de cette nature qui inspire le père Cézanne. Car la Crau près d’Aix c’est à peu près la même chôse...
...de tamaris et des herbes dures qui sont à ces maigres pâturages ce que l’alfa est au désert...
...j’ai plutot voulu entendre par là des oeuvres divergentes mais qui se tiennent & se complètent...
...erie”. Or actuellement les impressionistes aussi forment groupe malgré toute leur désastreuses...
...les animaux en rut et passionnés dans des paysages également passionnés – sous l’orage, sous...
...ue Hollande à travers leur tempérament.– Il y a ensuite que les difficultés matérielles de la...
...s incomplètement, nous naviguons sur la haute mer dans nos petites & mechantes barques isolées...
...tant trop près pour ne pas être induits en erreur par les déformations de la perspective. Les...
...des proportions exagerées probablement en tant que quant à nos malheurs et nos mérites. Je te...
in translation:
...by collaboration I didn’t mean that in my view two or more painters should work on the same paintings.
in location:
...Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, inv. no. 8727. A donation to the Institut Néerlandais in 1966.
in note 3:
...animals to be found in Potter’s oeuvre, at most a bull mounting a cow or a quadruped urinating.
644 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, between Tuesday, 17 and Friday, 20 July 1888.
in original text:
...un tas de chassis dont j’ai détaché les études et où entre temps je dois remettre d’autres...
...un motif de tableau là-dedans – comme dans d’autres etudes que j’ai.– Et vraiment je ne sais point si jamais je ferai des tableaux calmes et tranquillement travaillés moi, puisqu’il me...
...de reponse de Russell qui ne doit pas être à Paris à ce que raccontait Mc Knight qui est revenu...
...souvent à la Hollande et à travers le double éloignement de la distance et du temps écoulé ces souvenirs ont un certain navrant.– Ce que tu écris de Reid n’est pas bien gai non plus – il parlait tellement à des moments de se faire peintre et de se retirer auprès d’une tante à la...
...e pour quelque chôse dans ce que les études peintes ont cet air hagard. Puisque chez Cezanne on...
...allez y voir, partout des grands medaillons Julien colorés, des horreurs. Et helas, nous n’y changerons rien à cet état de choses. Pourtant – les cafés – peutêtre plus tard on les decorera...
in translation:
...it certainly doesn’t give you an appealing or cheerful notion of human life, and doesn’t add to...
...anything in this state of affairs. However — cafés — perhaps we’ll decorate them later on...
in sketch A:
...To the right of the sketch the following notations: ‘ciel bleu vert/ maisons blanches à toits rouges/ cyprès noir/ laurier rose et figuier/ tournesols’ (blue-green sky, white houses with red roofs, black...
in note 8:
...prints in vertical format on a hanging roll of silk or paper, with rods at the top and bottom. Van Gogh had...
in note 9:
...suckling her child. He could also mean replicas of them or coloured reproductions after these medallions.
645 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 22 July 1888.
in title:
645 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 22 July 1888.
in original text:
...père Boussod de nous envoyer toi et moi à Londres sans salaire autre que 200 francs par mois de...
...plus jeunes et une entreprise d’aller à Londres dénicher de l’argent pour les impressionistes...
...mais hélas, je sens ne plus pouvoir ce que j’aurais pu.– Mais brisé et tel quel, moi je n’y vois aucun malheur que tu irais à Londres; s’il y a du brouillard, ma foi à Paris cela parait...
...devenus plus agés et qu’il faille agir selon – tout le reste n’existe point.�� Or il y a le...
...de difficultés. Comme avec Gauguin cela serait si simple – mais le déplacement – après – e...
...je songeais, si je réfléchissais aux possibilités désastreuses je ne pourrais rien faire – je...
...st être toqué vis à vis de ce que l’on devrait être. Mais auparavant je me sentais moins peintre, la peinture devient pour moi une distraction comme la chasse aux lapins aux toqués qui la font...
...s (le jardin de fleurs) et en causant très longtemps. Enfin – mais sais tu que si tu étais pour...
in translation:
...to achieve that. I’ve just taken thirty or so painted studies off their stretching frames. If in...
...again that I put aside any preference for either the north or the south. All the plans we make have...
...I came here, I can no longer make plans or anything else; I’m definitely better now, but hope...
in date note:
...23 July at the earliest. Accordingly, we have dated the present letter on or about Sunday, 22 July 1888.
in note 8:
...de s’anoblir avec une collection, des goûts artistiques, une liaison avec Jules Dupré) (Goncourt...
in textual note 146:
études; < études
646 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, on or about Sunday, 22 July 1888.
in title:
646 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, on or about Sunday, 22 July 1888.
in original text:
...incompris.– Je voudrais bien que nous arrivions à nos fins, c’est à dire à mon voyage en...
...la liberté dans mes facultés: ma maladie m’avait affaibli et dans mes dernieres études j’ai...
...s japonais. En haut cascade d’eau bouillonante blanc rose et arc en ciel sur le bord près du...
...et blouse bleue. à propos de Russel, Granchi m’a dit l’avoir vu il y a 2 mois à Paris et que Russel avait une grande admiration pour moi et qu’il devait aller à Belle Isle.– Je ne comprends pas très bien qu’un homme riche n’achète pas ce qu’il admire.– Enfin espérons.– Quel...
...ins que ce ne soit le marchand qui demeurait près de la place Vendôme.– Mon ami Laval est revenu de la Martinique; il a rapporté quelques aquarelles très-curieuses. Je vous en ferai voir que vous aimerez, c’est de l’art. Je parle comme si nous étions dejà ensemble.– Il faut vous dire...
...un besoin de lutte; de tailler à coups de massue – après toutes les recherches que je viens de...
in translation:
...I don’t know why, but for the past ten days or so I have lots of painted follies in my head which...
in date note:
...24 or Wednesday, 25 July (see letter 648), and we can assume that he forwarded it fairly soon after he got it, Gauguin must have written to him a few days earlier. We have therefore dated the letter on or about...
in note 5:
...8, and letter 640, n. 16. Louis Nicolas André Thomas, Duke of Bojano, was the managing director of the...
647 John Peter Russell to Vincent van Gogh. Belle-Île-en-Mer, Sunday, 22 July 1888.
in original text:
Excuse not answering your letter of some week or two ago. I’ve been much worried by the changing to this island. packing up & other...
in translation:
Excuse not answering your letter of some week or two ago. I’ve been much worried by the changing to this...
in note 4:
...delighted with the bust of Mrs R’ (Nous sommes très contents du buste de Mme R.). See Claude-Guy Onfray...
648 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 24 or Wednesday, 25 July 1888.
in title:
648 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 24 or Wednesday, 25 July 1888.
in original text:
...enfants, atelier, maison en construction et je puis très bien me figurer qu’un homme même riche...
...e si Gauguin était ici parceque les journées se passent maintenant sans dire mot à personne...
...is cet hiver je pourrais devenir stérile par là. Or ce danger n’existera plus si lui vient car les idees ne nous manqueront pas. Si le travail marche et si le coeur ne nous manque pas, il y a de l’espoir de voir des années bien intéressantes dans l’avenir. Est ce que Mouries est encore...
...besoin de quelques études de figures. Dans ce moment j’ai comme une exposition chez moi dans ce sens que j’ai detaché toutes les etudes des chassis et que je les ai cloué au mur pour achever de sécher. Tu verras que lorsqu’il y en aura un grand nombre et qu’on fasse là-dedans un choix cela reviendra au même que si je les avais étudiés davantage et travaillés plus longtemps. Car...
in translation:
...drying. You’ll see that when there’s a large number of them, and we make a choice among them...
...subject over and over again on the same canvas or on several canvases comes, in short, to the same...
in date note:
...on 22 July, and his letter must have arrived on 24 or 25 July (647). Since Van Gogh does not mention it...
649 To Emile Bernard. Arles, Sunday, 29 July 1888.
in original text:
...ose supposer surtout d’après ces vers-l... qu’il ignorait Rembrandt à peu près complètement.– Je viens de trouver et d’acheter ici une petite eauforte d’après Rembrandt, une étude...
...le corps vrai et senti dans son animalité. Mais voyons, as tu jamais bien regardé “le boeuf...
...Meer qui par exemple a peint une dame Hollandaise très belle, enceinte; la palette de cet étrange...
...sont eparpillés dans les musées et collections et ce n’est pas très facile de s’en faire une idee si on ne connaît que le Louvre. Pourtant ce sont des Français, Ch. Blanc, Thoré, Fromentin, certains autres qui ont mieux que les Hollandais ecrits sur cet art-là. Ces Hollandais-l...
...fé d’un bonnet de coton – 1° tableau d’après nature dans un miroir – il rêve, rêve et...
...de la même façon que Delacroix avec les couleurs. Or il y a loin entre le procedé de Delacroix...
...rayé de violet, jupe bleue à gros pointillé orangé, dans la mignonne petite main une fleur de...
in translation:
...knew more or less nothing about Rembrandt. I’ve just found and bought here a little etching after Rembrandt, a study of a nude man, realistic and simple; he’s standing, leaning against a door or...
...for the body, true and felt in its animality. But see, have you ever looked closely at ‘the ox�� or the interior of a butcher’s shop in the Louvre? You haven’t looked closely at them, and...
...a Dutch portrait, a nude woman by Courbet or Degas, these calm and modelled perfections are the...
...on that art. Those Dutchmen had scarcely any imagination or fantasy, but great taste and the art of...
...sadder and more saddening; he dreams, dreams on, and why or how I do not know, but just as Socrates...
in note 7:
...Bredius 1969, no. 591), was included in Catalogue des tableaux anciens de toutes les écoles composant la très importante collection de M. Le Baron de Beurnonville. Paris 1881, lot 435, facing p. 264. The...
in note 9:
...case of Dutch naturalism’ (mes préoccupations des procédés italiens et allemands primitifs; du...
in note 12:
...Musées de la Hollande, the writer and critic E.J.T. Thoré (writing under the pseudonym of W. Bürger), who was an important source for Van Gogh’s taste and art-historical knowledge, thought that there were two or three...
in note 13:
...Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles (Paris 1861-1876). See n. 12 for Thoré, who described collections in the Netherlands. Eugène Fromentin wrote Les maîtres d’autrefois (1876), a survey of old Dutch...
in note 14:
...footnote to this remark in the 1911 edition Bernard wrote: ‘Strange assertion!… The Pilgrims of Emmaus or the Good Samaritan, not much in Rembrandt’s oeuvre!…’ (Etrange assertion...Les Pèlerins d’Emmaüs ou le Bon Samaritain, peu de chose dans l’oeuvre de Rembrandt!...). See Lettres à Bernard 1911, p. 107....
in note 15:
...maîtres d’autrefois that in difficult times Rembrandt depicted himself in ‘graver, more modest, more veracious garb...in dark garments with a handkerchief around his head, his face saddened, wrinkled, emaciated, his palette in his rugged hands’ (tenues plus graves, plus modestes, plus véridiques …...
650 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 29 July 1888.
in original text:
...Considérant si tu veux le temps où nous vivons comme une renaissance vraie et grande de l’art...
...de l’art de laquelle nous parlons. Ces chôses certes sont ainsi mais cet art éternellement...
...allé chez Boussod pour voir le Gauguin, négresses causant, si ce n’etait pas pour la même...
...et partout au point de vue de la realité des chôses, au point de vue d’un tas de lois de la...
...faire là c’est pas causer avec les gens civilisés, or eux connaissent le chef de gare et une...
...les indigènes sont – des petits paysans de Zola, êtres innocents et doux comme nous savons. Il est probable que Mc Knight fera sous peu des petits paysages avec moutons pour bonbonnières. Non...
...le tableau d’Emile Wauters à peu près. Seulement m’étant fait soigneusement raser toute ma...
...pourtant. Si je réussissais à faire rentrer en valeurs l’argent dépensé je ne ferais que mon...
...roi à gros pointillés orangé jaune. Les chairs mates sont gris jaune, les cheveux violacés, les...
in translation:
...I had to save my mental powers. A mousmé is a Japanese girl — Provençale in this case — aged...
...now, and says that he’d be pleased if sooner or later I came to spend some time there. He still...
...of things, from the point of view of a whole number of laws of nature, he’s pretty well hopeless...
...But there’s a woman washing herself, very Rembrandtesque, or in the style of Goya, and a very...
...s no getting away from the fact that one day or another there could be a crisis if you changed as...
in note 2:
...is a word meaning a young girl or a very young woman. It is one of the prettiest words in the Japanese language; it seems to reflect both moue (meaning a young girl’s funny and pretty pout) and frimousse (meaning a young girl’s pert and sweet little face). I will use it often, not knowing any word in French that comes close to expressing the meaning’ (Mousmé est un mot qui signifie jeune fille ou très jeune femme. C’est un des plus jolis de la langue nipponne; il semble qu’il y ait, dans ce mot, de la moue (de la petite moue gentille et drôle comme elles en font) et surtout de la frimousse (de la frimousse chiffonnée comme est la leur). Je l’emploierai souvent, n’en connaissant aucun en français qui le vaille) (see Loti 1990, pp. 90-91, chapter 11...
in note 20:
...de l’Alcazar on the Cours in Fontvieille. The café was run by Jean Peyrol and his wife Emilie Peyrol-Girard (Mairie de Fontvieille; Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, letters from Macknight to Boch...
in note 25:
...avalant une bouteille de n’importe quoi, d’un coup, à la régalade, sans toucher les lèvres) (p. 25).
651 To Emile Bernard. Arles, Monday, 30 July 1888.
in original text:
...leur pays et tant de belles choses qui sont restées dans le midi. N’empêche que ce que l’on...
...a, vraiment ça en vaut mille fois la peine. Or si par exemple je pretends que l’Ostade du Louvre...
...et trouve les plus etonnants, sont très souvent oubliés par les artistes mêmes qui vont voir les...
...des français ne sauraient avoir. Mais si avec toi par exemple je differerais d’opinion à ces...
...s d’officiers, portraits de magistrats assemblés pour les affaires de la republique, portraits de matrones à peau rose ou jaune, de blancs bonnets coiffés, de laine et de satin noir habillées...
...amoureux dans un jardin sur un banc de gazon après la premiere nuit de noce. il a peint les voyous...
...e par ces deux féconds portraitistes, reconstituée à grands traits, nous conservons tres amples...
...les influencés par lui, Potter, Ruysdael, Ostade, Terburg. Je te nomme là Fabritius, duquel nous...
...aurons affaire un peu à de la magie, à des christs et des femmes nues, c’est fort intéressant...
in translation:
...painter’s family, the man, the wife, the ten or so kids, is a painting infinitely deserving of...
...is an effect of deterioration through humidity or other causes, instances of which I could point...
...paint Christs, annunciations to shepherds, angels or crucifixions and resurrections; never did he...
...of the republic, portraits of matrons with pink or yellow skin, wearing white bonnets, dressed in wool and black satin, discussing the budget of an orphanage or an almshouse; he did portraits of good...
in note 15:
We do not know which work or works Van Gogh is referring to here.
in note 16:
Frans Hals, Willem van Heythuysen, c. 1638 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). Ill. 2208.
in note 19:
Hals made a number of paintings of musicians, so it is impossible to identify the one Van Gogh is referring...
in note 23:
...paintings to him in the second volume of his Musées de la Hollande. According to Thoré, the brothers...
in textual note 26:
mêmes < même
652 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 31 July 1888.
in original text:
...notre oncle ne souffre plus – ce matin je reçois la nouvelle de notre soeur. Parait qu’on...
...dur pour Russell. j’ai pensé que je ferais pour lui une série de dessins d’après mes études peintes, j’ai la conviction qu’il les regardera avec bonne volonté et cela, j’espère du...
...t ne devons nous pas le garder jusqu’à que ses prix aient triplés ou quadruplés – ce qui arrivera – nous croyons. Si après cela Russell veut faire une offre claire et ferme, ma foi.… on...
...ci mon ami ce sous lieutenant Zouaves va aller à Paris. Il m’a proposé de se charger de mon...
...sont plus on ne se souvient que de leurs bons moments et bonnes qualités. Il s’agit pourtant surtout de chercher à les voir pendant qu’ils y sont encore. Ce serait si simple et expliquerait si...
...re faire pour toi aussi de ces croquis d’après des etudes peintes, tu verras que cela a un...
...un effet magnifique et tres étrange ce soir. un très grand bateau chargé de charbon sur le Rhone...
in translation:
...sister this morning. It seems that they’re more or less expecting you for the funeral, and perhaps...
...good. I really don’t know if he has money or not. Now I’m working with another model, a...
...we not keep it until his prices have tripled or quadrupled — which will happen — we believe? If...
...to know if you were able to go to Holland, yes or no. For the moment I won’t write any more. The...
653 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 31 July 1888.
in translation:
...of this morning straightaway. I’ll probably hear from Paris tomorrow what Theo’s doing, whether he can get away or not. I don’t doubt that he’ll come over if he can. It’s always affecting when someone one knows makes the great...
...of economy and for each other’s company. If he or I sells something one of these days so that he...
...trouble here with not being able to eat, something more or less like you had in the past. But I...
654 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 3 August 1888.
in title:
654 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Friday, 3 August 1888.
in original text:
je presume plus ou moins que tu sois allé en Hollande. Je suis un peu porté à croire qu’on t’attendait en Hollande d’après la lettre reçue de notre soeur, d’ailleurs parceque je n’ai pas eu de tes nouvelles à ce...
...nouvelle toile de Tasset à fr 5:50. Elle est très belle et bien ce que je voulais. Si je fais un...
...venant de prendre le parti de me servir pour les études de la toile à bon marché. Si son envoi...
in translation:
I’m more or less assuming that you went to Holland. From the letter received from our sister I’m somewhat inclined to believe they were expecting you in Holland, also because I haven’t had news from you on this...
...quite what I wanted. If I did a portrait or just something that I’m determined should last, he...
...that’s interesting to paint. There’s no better or shorter way to improve my work than to do...
in date note:
...therefore written between these two dates. Accordingly we have dated it on or about Friday, 3 August 1888.
655 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Sunday, 5 August 1888.
in title:
655 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Sunday, 5 August 1888.
in original text:
...3 ou 4 études: Le je ne sais quoi de volontaire, de très sage, le je ne sais quoi de fixe et ferme et sûr de soi dont ils faisaient preuve. Jamais tu n’as été plus près de Rembrandt, mon cher...
...monde telle qu’en ont portraicturé les de Goncourt. Or les Hollandais, nous les voyons peindre...
...rare force cérébrale en de stériles méditations métaphysiques qui ne sauraient mettre en bocal...
...ces chôses viriles, le portrait de ta grandmère et les natures mortes – d’après tes dessins...
...e, que je ne la désirais – Si dans cette lettre tu découvres que j’ai quelques inquietudes...
...assez bien de continence. Ca suffit à nos faibles cervelles impressionables d’artistes de donner...
...s de l’activité cérébrale. Pourquoi nous efforcer à écouler toutes nos sèves créatrices l...
...x de la putain soumise dans ce cas, que nous mêmes. La putain soumise en question a davantage ma...
...t’en dit écris moi bientôt, suis fort encombré et ai pas encore trouvé temps pour croquis des...
in translation:
...something. Do you know what made me like these 3 or 4 studies so much? That je ne sais quoi of...
...was a competition for the execution of some painting or other of a Virgin. Lots of proposals were...
...Virgin in question — to Giotto. Whether it’s true or not I don’t know, but I rather like the...
...be, according as our temperament demands, soldiers or monks. The Dutchmen, once again, had morals...
...some anxieties — concerns in any case — for your health, foreseeing the hard ordeal that you...
...case impractical and would be fatal for her. I’ve just made a portrait of a postman �� or rather, two portraits even — Socratic type, no less Socratic for being something of an alcoholic, and...
in date note:
...that he has started on new work, so we have dated the present letter on or about Sunday, 5 August 1888.
in note 5:
...Musées de la Hollande, who said of Vermeer: ‘The sphinx again!’ (Encore le sphinx). And when giving ‘the biography of the sphinx’ (la biographie du sphinx) wrote: ‘He comes from Rembrandt...The boldness of the pure tones which are combined with virtuoso gradations of chiaroscuro, the deep sincerity of the expressions, the firm placing of the impasto in the light areas, the transparent scumbles in the shadows, it was Rembrandt who taught those secrets.’ (Il sort de chez Rembrandt ... L’audace des tons francs combinés avec des dégradations prodigieuses de clair-obscur, la sincérité profonde des expressions, la pose de la pâte ferme dans les lumières,...
in note 13:
Van Gogh could have read about Courbet’s sex life in Théophile Silvestre’s Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers. Etudes d’après nature (1853). It quotes Courbet’s saying: ‘A man cannot restrict himself to a single woman if he wishes to know woman’ (L’homme ne peut s’en tenir à une seule...
in note 17:
For Delacroix’s ‘no teeth nor breath’ (ni dents, ni souffle), taken from Silvestre’s Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers (see letter 557, n. 6.)
656 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 6 August 1888.
in original text:
...il nous demeure après sans doute loisible de retourner à nos affaires. Cela me fait plaisir que...
...ai envoyé des dessins à l’ami Russell. Dans ce moment je refais à peu près les mêmes pour toi, il y en aura 12 également. Tu vas voir mieux alors ce qu’il y a dans les études peintes comme...
...sa touche. De là le “hagard” des études. Tu me diras qu’au lieu de les dessiner je devais...
...un “café de nuit” (ils sont assez fréquents ici) qui restent ouverts toute la nuit.– Les...
...ient que des rêves, que soi-même on était rien du tout. Si nous sommes si légers que ça tant...
...On marche vite mais ne distingue aucun objet de très près et surtout on ne voit pas la locomotive...
...l’oncle raisonner là-dessus. Ah – par exemple ils étaient plus sûrs que nous et affirmaient...
...mère de famille à idées passablement bornées et martyrisées dans le système crétien serait...
...cela.– On pourrait demander à ces medecins où alors seraient les gens raisonables. Sont ce les...
in translation:
...only that and his hands. With that and his hands, or his hands and that, and what he knows about...
...At the moment I’m doing the same ones, more or less, for you; there’ll be 12 of them too...
...last year. What a talent, in the style of Hoffmann or Edgar Poe, this De Lemud has. And yet there...
...that they grow on you. I have no more canvas or paint and have already had to buy here. And I have...
...when they don’t have the price of a lodging, or if they’re too drunk to be admitted. All...
...heard our uncle debating it several times. Ah — for example, they were more certain than us, and...
...nd this seriously. And I for one in no way deny it. Why should a consumptive or nervous cab-horse, like Delacroix or De Goncourt, with broad ideas though, be any less so? Seeing that it appears that...
in note 8:
...Roulin is not clear. It may have been one or more copies of the popular political satire weekly La Lanterne, founded by Henri Rochefort, which appeared in 1868 and 1869, or of the radical socialist anticlerical daily...
657 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 8 August 1888.
in original text:
...ai fait des études peintes aussi. Sous le ciel bleu les taches orangés, jaunes, rouges des fleurs...
...d’après etudes peintes. Je crois que toutes ces idées sont bonnes mais les études peintes...
...ce qu’on a comme font les médecins et les mécaniciens. Une fois quelquechose de découvert et...
...de même le désir de faire des chôses que la génération d’avant, Delacroix, Millet, Rousseau...
...et un petit grenadier à fleurs du plus éclatant orangé rouge, à fruits verts jaune, le terrain...
...le simple voyage, et les prix de là-bas qu’il a nommés sont dans tous les cas considérablement...
...Puis avec les piments sucrés, les glaces frites et les bonbons salés. Je me porte fort fort bien...
...espagnol. Cela se trouvait dans un bosquet de cyprès et c’était tout à fait Monticelli. Ah...
...rnel soleil fort malgré lequel la verdure reste très verte. La citerne d’où sort une eau...
...il est. Si jamais il m’arrive de donner des leçons de dessin ou d’avoir à causer avec des...
in translation:
...Anyway, even having already produced about fifty drawings or painted studies here, I feel as though...
...yes, there’s Lhermitte, it’s true there are one or two more, Meunier...and have we now more...
...Isabey, Decamps, Dupré, Jongkind, Ziem, Israëls, Meunier, a heap of others, Corot, Jacque...
...for 10 years doing nothing but studies, then do one or two figure paintings. The old plan, so often...
...fig trees and reeds. If Quost was there, or Jeannin...What can you say, to encompass everything...
...Macknight and Boch don’t understand much of it, or rather, nothing. Now if I myself am beginning...
...book by Cassagne was no longer in existence. They’d certainly know it at Latouche’s or at the artists’ colourman in Chaussée d’Antin. Or know where it is. If I should ever happen to give drawing lessons, or have to talk with painters about the principles of technique, I’ll have to have...
in note 4:
...the architecture in rue du Grand-Prieuré does not resemble that in Van Gogh’s drawing. See cat...
in note 17:
...Chrysanthème’s circle. Among other things he is referred to as ‘the friend of a surprising height’ (l’ami d’une surprenante hauteur) (see Loti 1990, pp. 118, 218). On ‘sugared peppers’ and ‘salted sweets’ Loti writes: ‘sparrow mince, a stuffed shrimp, seaweed in sauce, a salted sweet, a sugared pepper’ (un hachis de moineau, une crevette farcie, une algue en sauce, un bonbon salé, un piment sucré) (p. 113). Although he describes ‘strange icy and snowy drinks, tasting of perfume or flowers’ (des boissons étranges à la neige et à la glace, ayant goût de parfums ou de fleurs) (p. 98) and ‘funny little water-ices, flavoured with flowers’ (des petits sorbets drôles, parfumés aux fleurs) (p. 160), there is no mention of ‘fried ices’ (glaces frites); Van Gogh must have dreamt them up for himself...
in note 18:
Van Gogh’s neighbours, François Damase Crévoulin and Marguerite Crévoulin-Favier ran a grocer’s shop...
658 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 9 August 1888.
in original text:
...marquées des frais de transport ce serait de trop. Maintenant s’il avait fait 2 envois separés...
...payer que f. 5.60. Pourvu que sur ces 10 mètres toile je ne peins que des chefs d’oeuvre d’un...
...lui, nous aimerons lui et moi à peu près les mêmes motifs. Je ne doute aucunément de pouvoir...
...ier au lieu de vivre lui et moi dans les cafés. Reste encore que pourvu que nous vivions en bon...
...en disant: beaucoup de besogne avec peu d’employés et non pas peu de besogne avec beaucoup...
...de là-bas nous sommes ainsi surs de pouvoir rester dans les limites proposées. Or pour la sant...
...de soleil très mince et très violent à travers un store comme celui qui traverse le tableau de V. n’y manque même pas. Naturellement les petites tables à nappes blanches. Maintenant derrière...
...s rouges, légumes vertes, armoire de chene, fourneaux de cuisine à cuivres luisants, à briques...
...si je me souviens bien – cheveux cendrés, yeux gris. Corsage d’indienne rose pâle sous...
in translation:
...which I sent you the drawing yesterday. I think about Gauguin a lot, and I assure you that one way or another, whether it’s he who comes here, or I who go to him, he and I will both like more or less the same subjects. I’ve no doubts about being able to work at Pont-Aven, and on the other hand...
...studio, he and I, instead of living in cafés. The fact remains that provided we lived in harmony...
...Each of us living alone, we live like madmen or criminals, in appearance at least, and to some...
...I think I recall that he mentioned that amount, he or Bernard), we know for a firm fact the price...
...there are two women who serve, also in grey, more or less like the painting by Prévost that you...
in note a:
The sentence construction is ambiguous – this clause may belong with ‘gagné’ (in which case there should be a comma after ‘annee’) or with ‘il n’y perdra rien’ (subordinate).
659 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 12 August 1888.
in title:
659 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 12 August 1888.
in original text:
...et surexités cherchent des voluptés, des tendresses à la Vinci. Pas moi qui par exemple n’ai guere vu que des espèces de femmes à 2 francs originalement destinées à des Zouaves. Mais les...
...une très glorieuse forte chaleur sans vent ici qui fait bien mon affaire. Un soleil, une lumiere que faute de mieux je ne peux appeler que jaune – jaune souffre pâle, citron pâle, or. Que c’e...
...la vérité, il aurait étonné les examinateurs par l’aplomb de ses réponses, aplomb qu’il se serait affermi par la veille de l’examen passé dans un bordel. Comme dit je crois François...
...bien cela pour mes leçons. Il ne fera que passer une ou deux journees à Paris allant dans le Nord mais à son retour il s’y arrêtera plus longtemps. C’est certes après tant de froideur encore...
...gêné. Enfin mon cher frère dans ce moment tu étais prêt de ton côté pour t’établir...
...n’as pas gagné, tu as mérité, or lorsque les hollandais confondent toujours ces deux questions...
in translation:
...a living marvel, while a painting by Da Vinci or Correggio only exists on other accounts. Why am I...
...drawing by Rowlandson of two women, as beautiful as Fragonard or Goya. At the moment we have a very...
...in a brothel. As I believe François Coppée says in a sonnet, on the subject of ‘my lieutenant on his way’, we may have ‘a doubt that fills us with despair’. For, continues Coppée...I...
...I’ll write to you, or he’ll send you a telegram to tell you by which train he’ll arrive on the 16 or the 17. He’ll give you the painted studies then, which will save us carriage charges. He owes me that much, anyway, for my lessons. He’ll do no more than spend one or two days in Paris on...
...Without their help, the business won’t be done, or will be done in a different way. You may not...
in date note:
...in on 11 August (Météo-France). We have therefore dated the letter on or about Sunday, 12 August 1888.
in note 3:
...to tell whether he sent the dramatized version or the novella. In the stage version of La fin de Lucie...
in textual note 108:
différentes < différentent
660 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 13 August 1888.
in title:
660 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 13 August 1888.
in original text:
...selon toutes probabilités. Le rouleau qu’il t’apportera contient 36 études, dans le nombre il...
...je crois que cela m’a fait perdre des modèles qu’on trouvait que c’etait “mal fait”, ce...
...deux bouts. lorsque cela c’est un essai nouveau. Or en Bretagne nous pouvons calculer ce que cela...
...chôses. Et si on peut croire étant plus jeune que par le travail assidu on puisse suffire à ses...
...très beau la gloire mais là, voilà, c’est à l’artiste ce que l’épingle de toilette est à ces insectes. Vous voulez réussir et briller, savez vous au juste ce que vous désirez. Or j’ai...
...le enfin pour soutenir le siege de l’insuccès qui durera toute notre existence. et nous devons...
...même en vendant peu ou pas. mais si les dépenses excedaient les revenus nous aurions tort de trop...
...obligés de nous en défaire à tout prix au mauvais moment. Je conclus. Vivre à peu près en...
...les vieux moines, les frères de la vie commune de nos bruyères Hollandaises. Je m’aperçois d...
in translation:
...to let you know that it would be refused, or some other unpleasantness. Naturally, I wouldn’t get...
...are and will remain too poor to buy. Will Gauguin or I work less for that — no — but we’ll be...
...we sell little or nothing. But if expenses exceeded income, we’d be wrong to hope too much that everything would work out through the sale of our paintings. On the contrary, we’d be obliged to part with them at any price at the wrong time. I conclude. Living more or less like monks or hermits...
...you’re a painter, you’re taken either for a madman or for a rich man. A cup of milk costs you...
...s absolutely one and the same to me to stay here or to leave. We have to allow him to fight his...
...let’s keep a total indifference regarding success or failure. I’d begun to sign my canvases...
in date note:
...had meanwhile arrived. For all these reasons we have dated the letter on or about Monday, 13 August 1888.
in note 14:
...tes quittes pour vous efforcer d’en faire une meilleure, personne ne vous accable; tandis que nous, les vieux, nous qui avons donné notre mesure, qui sommes forcés d’être égaux à nous-mêmes, sinon de progresser, nous ne pouvons faiblir, sans culbuter dans la fosse commune... Va donc, homme célèbre, grand artiste, mange-toi la cervelle, brûle ton sang, pour monter encore, toujours plus haut, toujours plus haut; et, si tu piétines sur place, au sommet, estime-toi heureux, use tes pieds à piétiner le plus longtemps possible; et, si tu sens que tu déclines, eh bien! achève de te briser, en roulant dans l’agonie de ton talent qui n’est plus de l’époque, dans l’oubli où tu es de tes oeuvres immortelles, éperdu de ton effort impuissant à créer davantage!). See Zola 1960-1967, vol. 4, p. 181; for the novel L’oeuvre: letter 552, n. 11. Van Gogh refers to Bongrand-Jundt because he erroneously assumed that Zola modelled the character of Bongrand on the painter Gustave Jundt (as he was also mistaken when he thought that Edouard Manet was the model for Claude Lantier; see letter 561). His assumption is probably based on the similarity between Jundt and the character in the novel inasmuch as they are both successful but unhappy painters of peasant life. Bongrand owes his success to his painting La noce au village, which hangs in the Musée du Luxembourg. Jundt painted genre works with titles like La fête au village voisin and Pendant la noce. Zola’s character is tormented by his inability to equal his masterpiece; gout forced Jundt to stop working and he committed suicide (see also letter 776, n. 18). Brady says that the models for Bongrand were Gustave Flaubert, Charles-François Daubigny, Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet. See Patrick Brady, ‘L’oeuvre’ de Emile Zola. Roman sur les arts. Geneva 1967, p. 243...
in note 15:
...little creatures with fame and its opposite (‘for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a...
in note 16:
...of the common life’ (Fratres vitae communis or Fratres bonae voluntatis) was one of the three...
661 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 15 August 1888.
in original text:
Paris Arles 664 18 15 2H30 S milliet remettra tableaux vendredi matin 7H précises cercle militaire avenue opéra Vincent
in translation:
Paris Arles 664 18 15 2h30 s...
in note 1:
The Cercle national des armées de terre et de mer in avenue de l’Opéra was set up in 1887 and was a club...
662 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 15 August 1888.
in original text:
...savoir que le sous lieutenant Milliet arrivera à Paris Vendredi matin, il arrive à la gare de...
...le voir là à 7 heures du matin précises. Naturellement tu pourrais aussi le rencontrer à la...
...Paris pour une semaine mais passe la plus grande partie de ses vaccances dans le Nord. Je suis bien content de voir l’expédition faite et la soeur verra ainsi mes études ce qui ne m’est pas indifférent parceque ainsi elle assistera à une chôse enfin essentiellement de notre vie française à nous, crue et telle quelle. Je veux dire, elle verra la peinture à l’état brut. Mais fais moi le grand plaisir de lui montrer une ou deux études remises sur chassis et encadrées de blanc...
...sais que moi je ne suis pas de ces gens-là, mais les Flaubert et les Balzac n’ont ils pas fait...
...je travaille maintenant, les bateau avec déchargeur de sable. Si certaines études n’étaient pas tout à fait sèches ce serait tant pis pour elles, il faudrait les laisser sècher complètement...
in translation:
...do me the great pleasure of showing her one or two studies put back on stretching frames and framed...
...ve reached the Hundred mark, we’ll choose around twelve or fifteen of them to frame. Now, I’ve...
...your hand firmly, and I do hope to have news from you on Friday or Saturday. Ever yours, Vincent
663 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 18 August 1888.
in original text:
...d’après cette peinture ainsi que le dessin du portrait du facteur Rollin. la couleur de ce portrait de paysan est moins noire que les mangeurs de pommes de terre de Nunen – mais le très civilis...
...question. Maintenant toi depuis as changé mais tu verras que lui n’a pas changé et vraiment c’est dommage qu’il n’y ait pas davantage de tableaux en sabots à Paris. Je ne crois pas que mon...
...parisiens n’ont pas pris assez gout aux chôses rudes, aux Monticelli, à la barbotine. Enfin je...
...ce que j’ai appris à Paris s’en va et que je reviens à mes idées qui m’etaient venues à l...
...un ami artiste qui rêve de grands rêves, qui travaille comme le rossignol chante parceque c’est...
...De là des orangés fulgurants comme du fer rougi, de là des tons de vieil or lumineux dans les...
...s comme Paris où en depensant 5 ou 6 francs par jour on n’a pas grand chôse. Ai je des modèles...
...non pas l’artiste devrait en être surchargé. mais voilà, il faut encore se taire car personne...
in translation:
...these days are extremely hard. Whatever I do, living is pretty expensive here, more or less like Paris, where, while spending 5 or 6 francs a day, you don’t have much. If I have models, then I...
...I only have the choice between being a good painter or a bad one. I choose the former. But the...
in additional details:
...the notes are split into four short columns of two or three lines. They read: 1st column: 2 64 x 54...
in date note:
...that he has lived on biscuits, milk and eggs ‘for 3 weeks of the month’ (ll. 105-106), which would...
in note 1:
...François Casimir Escalier (1816-1889) from the nearby village of Eyragues may have been Van Gogh’s model (Murphy 2016, p. 98). Van Gogh compares the gardener with the man portrayed in Jean-François Millet, Man...
in note 7:
...or liquid clay that had been used since time immemorial for joining together parts of statues and pottery. Ernest Chaplet used the technique in the early 1870s for underglaze painting in coloured slips on pottery, and went on to develop it further for the Haviland porcelain factory. The German chemist Herman Seger described the process as follows in 1878: ‘Barbotine means engobe or paste, and barbotine painting stands for a method of decoration which is essentially plastic in character, bringing out the colors by means of paste...The decoration consists usually of flowers and animal pieces, preferably birds, which are in a manner painted plastically, so to speak.’ Quoted in Gray 1963, p. 10 (n. 32). Gauguin had made a series of pots and vases together with Chaplet in the winter of 1886-1887, some of which were displayed in Theo’s gallery in December 1887. Van Gogh is referring here to his own deliberate use of heavy impasto; in letter 693 he also described the two views of the park as ‘impasted like barbotine’ and in letter 694 his decoration was ‘almost barbotine...
664 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 19 or Monday, 20 August 1888.
in title:
664 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 19 or Monday, 20 August 1888.
in original text:
...t aven. Dans cette lettre qui d’ailleurs est très bonne il n’est cependant pas dit une syllabe...
...bas. Toutefois la lettre était tres amicale. De Gauguin lui-même pas un mot depuis à peu près...
...que 200 après, jusqu’à que les 300 depensés d’un coup fussent payés. J’acheterais alors...
...s sur l’annee mais cela me donnerait des meubles et la possibilité d’arriver à joindre les deux bouts. Alors, que Gauguin vienne ou pas c’est son affaire et du moment que nous soyons prêts...
...pour une pension juste suffisante et ma tranquilité dans mon atelier toute ma vie. Eh bien, si je...
...s mon parti est bien pris et je ne veux pas céder sur ce point-là. Dans les conditions présentes...
...en mère de famille et calculer les dépenses réelles. Si on l’écoutait on espérerait quelque...
...me mieux me cloitrer comme des moines, libre à nous d’aller egalement comme les moines au bordel...
...pour Pont aven, il accepte par son silence à mes lettres ma proposition de venir à lui au besoin...
in translation:
...north, and if by good luck he sells a painting, or several, he could have ideas other than those of...
...at home, and to be able to put up Gauguin or another person there as well. That would give me a...
...managing to make ends meet. So, if Gauguin comes or not, it’s his business, and from the moment...
...plan remains as true and as firm whether Gauguin comes or not, as long as our goal doesn’t change...
...more indifferent as to whether I settled in Pont-Aven or in Arles — I mean to be inflexible on...
...Handshake Ever yours, Vincent Lastly, vis-à-vis Gauguin, however much we appreciate him, I...
...monks, free to go to the brothel, just like the monks, or to the wine shop if our heart tells us to...
...ways of finding a studio of our own there, or the price that furniture would cost. And that does...
in date note:
...on or about Sunday, 19 August, given the receipt of the allowance of 100 francs. It emerges from letter 663, however, that the money had not arrived by Saturday; so we have dated the letter Sunday, 19 or Monday...
in note 2:
...or 10 August, and Gauguin wrote to Schuffenecker on 14 August 1888: ‘Young Bernard is here and has brought some interesting things back from St-Briac’ (Le petit Bernard est ici et a rapporté de St-Briac des choses intéressantes) (see Harscoët-Maire 1997, p. 180 and Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 210). After Gauguin left for Arles, Bernard went back to Paris at the beginning of November (see exhib. cat. Mannheim 1990, p. 98). The ‘someone else’ in the company was either Henry Moret, whose studio acted as a meeting place for the group surrounding Gauguin, or Ernest Ponthier de Chamaillard, whom Van Gogh referred to in later letters as ‘the other one’ and ‘the other young one’. In 1906 Chamaillard said in Mercure de France: ‘In 1888, when Gauguin was in Pont-Aven with Laval, Moret and me, he told us of the arrival of a very young painter called Bernard, whose early work he liked and from whom he hoped to see some good art’ (En 1888, alors que Gauguin se trouvait à Pont-Aven avec Laval, Moret et moi, il nous annonça l’arrivée d’un tout jeune peintre nommé Bernard, dont il appréciait les débuts...
in note 3:
...d’Or, and the penniless painters at the Auberge Gloanec. See exhib. cat. Paris 2003, p. 24. Gauguin had written to Van Gogh about his relations with the academic artists in letter 646; he wrote to Schuffenecker on 14 August 1888: ‘All the Americans here are violently against Impressionism. I was obliged to threaten to hit them, and now we have peace’ (Ici tous les Américains sont furieux contre l’impressionisme. J’ai été obligé de menacer de cogner et maintenant nous avons la paix). See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 210...
665 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 21 August 1888.
in title:
665 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 21 August 1888.
in original text:
...de têtes faites en Hollande, je te les ai un jour montrees avec un tableau de ce temps-là, des...
...voulu t’en envoyer un dessin tres grand et très soigné. Bon – cela devenait tout autre chôse...
...c.à.d. il y a deux bateaux, rose violacé, dans une eau verte véronese avec du sable gris jaune...
...e et je ne doute aucunément qu’on en devienne toqué. Or l’étant déja auparavant je ne fais qu’en jouir. J’y songe de decorer mon atelier d’une demi douzaine de tableaux de Tournesols. Une décoration où les chrômes crûs ou rompus éclateront sur des fonds divers bleus depuis le véronèse le plus pâle jusqu’au bleu de roi, encadrés de minces lattes peintes en mine orange. Des espèces d’effets de Vitraux d’eglise Gothique. Ah mes chers copains, nous autres toqués, jouissons nous tout de même de l’oeil n’est ce pas. Hélas la nature se paye sur la bête et nos corps sont méprisables et une lourde charge parfois. Mais depuis Giotto, souffreteux personnage, il...
in translation:
...bird’s-eye view. No sky. It’s just a sketch, or rather, a rough sketch done out in the mistral...
...of Sunflowers. A decoration in which harsh or broken yellows will burst against various blue...
in date note:
...or 20 August. Both these letters must have been written at about the same time, but because the one to Theo says nothing about the plan for a sunflower series outlined here (ll. 58-60), we assume that the letter to Bernard is the later of the two, and we have therefore dated it on or about Tuesday, 21 August 1888. The letter is the first of a series that were written during the period when Van Gogh was working on his decoration. The dating of some of the letters is somewhat arbitrary, but the sequence of letters 665 to 671 is definite. Van Gogh must have embarked on his sunflower series around 20 August. The plan is mentioned for the first time in the present letter, and work has only just started; he is also working on a study of thistles. Sunflowers and thistles are also mentioned in letter 666, but there Van Gogh refers to a letter he had had from Gauguin, which is not mentioned in this one. Letter 666 must therefore have been written after the present one (though probably not long after), so we have dated it Tuesday, 21 or Wednesday, 22 August. Letter 667 was enclosed with 666 and has consequently been given the same date. In letter 668 there is no further mention of the thistles and Van Gogh is working on a fourth painting of sunflowers. This letter must have preceded letter 669 because in that one the fourth and – for the time being – last in the series appears to be finished or nearly so. Van Gogh says in letter 668 that he expects to be strapped for cash by the end of the week (l. 51), which implies that the letter was written before the weekend; we have therefore dated it Thursday, 23 or Friday, 24 August. In letter 669 Van Gogh confirmed receipt of 50 francs, the fourth instalment of his allowance for August, so it can be dated on or about Sunday, 26 August (it emerges from letter 672 that the money arrived on Saturday); letter 670 has been given the same date on the assumption that it was enclosed with it. Letter 671, lastly, was written shortly before the end of the month, and must date from Wednesday, 29 or Thursday, 30 August 1888. By then Van Gogh was working on other studies...
in note 6:
...or at least unpolished, with an expression that seems to admit that the human being is not always so very superior to the animal’ (Il ne craignait point de donner place dans ses compositions rustiques à des figures...
in note 9:
...the Revue Indépendante. He bought frames for a number of the paintings, see letter 673, n. 16, and...
in note 12:
...his description of Giotto as ‘a sickly character’ on Henry Cochin, ‘Boccace d’après ses oeuvres et les témoignages contemporains’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 58 (15 July 1888), 3rd series, vol. 88, pp...
666 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 21 or Wednesday, 22 August 1888.
in title:
666 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 21 or Wednesday, 22 August 1888.
in original text:
...sera le meilleur j’espère. Je ne m’arrêterai probablement pas là. Dans l’espoir de vivre dans un atelier à nous avec Gauguin je voudrais faire une decoration pour l’atelier. Rien que des...
...et est très bien préparée. J’en suis bien content que Gauguin se porte bien. je commence à aimer le midi de plus en plus. J’ai encore une etude en train de Chardons poussiereux avec un inombrable essaim de papillons blancs et jaunes. J’ai encore manqué des modèles que j’espérais...
...la Haye, il a l’intention de t’envoyer des études. J’ai un tas d’idées pour de nouvelles...
in translation:
...if I carry out this plan there’ll be a dozen or so panels. The whole thing will therefore be a...
in note 4:
...F 456 / JH 1561). See Dorn 1999, p. 49; Van Tilborgh and Hendriks 2001, p. 22, on the number of flowers.
in note 9:
...This morning I packed up the best of my studies or paintings, call them what you will, and I shall send...
667 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 21 or Wednesday, 22 August 1888.
in title:
667 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 21 or Wednesday, 22 August 1888.
in additional details:
...fourth page there is a small drawing of a house or church. It is unlikely that this was made by Van...
in date note:
...as letter 666 and is accordingly dated Tuesday, 21 or Wednesday, 22 August 1888. See also letter 665...
in note 2:
...F 456 / JH 1561). See Dorn 1999, pp. 49; Van Tilborgh and Hendriks 2001, p. 22, on the number of flowers.
668 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 23 or Friday, 24 August 1888.
in title:
668 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 23 or Friday, 24 August 1888.
in original text:
...fine, plus aussi elle est saturée d’huile. Or nous n’aimons pas enormement l’huile, cela va...
...nous demanderions sans doute des couleurs broyées très fines. Au contraire nous ne detestons pas...
...du grain, on aurait des couleurs plus fraîches, peutêtre noircissant moins. S’il veut en faire...
...je me suis donc laisser aller. J’aurai dépensé le billet de cent dans une seule semaine mais au...
...pu travailler assidument sans me sentir faiblir. Mais voilà, nous vivons dans des jours où ce que...
...sommes sont insignifiantes et les travaux importants. Et voilà comment nous sommes livrés à tous les hasards. Et de notre vie je crains que cela ne changera guère. Pourvu que nous préparions des vies plus riches à des peintres qui marcheront sur nos traces, ce serait déjà quelque chôse...
...J’aime mieux cela que la peinture des décadents. Comment se fait il que les gens voient dans...
...re me servir de moins en moins de couleurs broyées fines. Je te serre bien la main. (une des...
in translation:
...a way of using the brush without stippling or anything else, nothing but a varied brushstroke. But...
...something. Life is short, though, and especially the number of years when one feels strong enough...
in additional details:
...he bases this on the fact that Van Gogh repeats one or two phrases almost verbatim in letter 669 (about his...
669 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 26 August 1888.
in title:
669 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 26 August 1888.
in original text:
...les paysages à gros pointillés de Signac, le bateau d’Anquetin, par le temps deviendront encore plus personelles, encore plus originaux. Pour ce qui est de mes vêtements, certes ils commencaient...
...pas avoir ici un bon lit qui soit durable à moins de 150 francs si on veut avoir du solide bien...
...nous négligerions de nous etablir ainsi, Gauguin et moi nous pourrions trainer d’annee en année dans des petits logements où on ne peut pas manquer de s’abrutir. Cela je le suis déjà pas mal...
...pas moins vrai. C’est des façons de voir les chôses – maintenant avec la premiere on risque...
...s non plus lorsqu’il est venu hier me le raconter et que nous avons passé la soirée ensemble. Il est très raisonable dans ses idees et sait au moins ce qu’il veut. Il fait maintenant de l’impressionisme timide mais très en règle, très juste. Et je lui ai dit que c’était la meilleure chose qu’il pouvait faire quoiqu’il y perdrait 2 ans peutêtre retardant son originalité, mais...
in translation:
...was really healthy. As for stippling, making halos or other things, I find that a real discovery...
...one can’t fail to become dull-witted. I’m more or less that way already, because it goes back a...
in date note:
...of allowance payments, we have dated the letter on or about Sunday, 26 August 1888. See also the notes to...
in note 1:
Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562). See letter 668, n. 2, for the number of flowers.
in note 6:
...the second and third exhibitions of the Indépendants (21 August - 21 September 1886 and 26 March - 3 May...
in note 10:
...of the high life, but he is poor, eats in cheap cafés and seeks relief in brothels to satisfy his yearning...
in note 13:
...investment that will save money in the long run), or stay in cheap lodgings (the rash solution à la Don...
670 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 26 August 1888.
in title:
670 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 26 August 1888.
in original text:
si tu me laisses t’écrire en français vraiment cela me simplifie ma...
...n’a pas toujours. Mais je suis tout de même très curieux de savoir l’effet que te fera le...
...on ne trouve pas sous verre dans les musées. Pauvre miss Harriet de Guy de Maupassant, elle était...
...bien des peintres meurent ou deviennent fous de désespoir ou paralysés dans leur production parce que personne ne les aime personellement. As tu déjà lu les poésies americaines de Whitman. Theo doit les avoir et je t’engage bien à les lire parceque c’est réellement beau d’abord et puis...
...ne sait appeler que Dieu et l’éternité remis en place au-dessus de ce monde. Cela fait sourire...
...e beaucoup – rêvant soleil et amour et gaité mais toujours embêté par la pauvreté, un goût...
...u. Aussi moi j’ai déjà prêt exprès un tableau en plein jaune de tournesols (14 fleurs) dans...
in translation:
...not. In life there’s always a fate that’s very annoying. And many painters die or go mad from despair, or become paralyzed in their production because nobody loves them personally. Have you read...
...that’s at Theo’s, and about Prévost’s Spanish woman? There are two real paintings of the...
...if I were his son or his brother. We were talking just now about a fate that seemed sad to us. But isn’t there another, delightful fate? And what is it to us if there is or isn’t a resurrection...
...ll see that there’ll be some Marseillais or other who will remember what Monticelli once said and...
in date note:
...enclosed with letter 669, so we have dated it on or about Sunday, 26 August 1888. See also the notes to...
in note 2:
...has spoiled my taste for lighter poetry altogether, or rather taken it away. Those verses are so solid and...
in note 5:
See letter 658, n. 9, for Prévost’s Lady with a dog.
in note 8:
...or the similar drawing on the cover of the weekly La Provence Artistique et Pittoresque 1 (21 August 1881), no. 12. Ill. 2235. In the accompanying article A. Meyer described Monticelli as follows: ‘I can still see him striding up and down the Avenues, dressed in a baggy black velvet jacket, over immaculate white trousers, dazzling long cuffs showing above his yellow gloves, dispensing good humour all along this fashionable walk of the time.’ (Je le vois encore arpentant les Allées; vêtu d’un grand sac en velours noir, sur un pantalon d’un blanc immaculé, avec de longues manchettes éclatantes qui tranchaient sur ses gants jaunes, étalant sa belle humeur sur cette promenade alors à la mode.) Since Monticelli wears a flat black cap in the portrait, the ‘enormous yellow hat’ must be Van Gogh’s own embellishment, probably because he had one himself; in his previous letter (669) he wrote that he had bought a hat and a black velvet jacket...
in note 11:
Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562). See letter 668, n. 2, for the number of flowers.
in note 12:
...F 456 / JH 1561). See Dorn 1999, pp. 49; Van Tilborgh and Hendriks 2001, p. 22, for the number of flowers.
in note 13:
For ‘barbotine’ (slip or liquid clay) and the association with Monticelli, see letter 663, n. 7.
671 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 29 or Thursday, 30 August 1888.
in title:
671 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 29 or Thursday, 30 August 1888.
in original text:
...de gagner ainsi un jour. J’ai deux modèles cette semaine, une arlesienne et le vieux paysan que...
...ne faisais à cela aucune difficulté elle a filé sans que je l’aie revue. Enfin un jour ou un...
...travail et en continuant la figure très assidument je trouverais possiblement du neuf.– Mais que veux tu, parfois je me sens trop faible contre les circonstances données et il faudrait être et...
...use des modèles je redoute un peu ces derniers jours de la semaine. Je suis en pourparler encore avec d’autres personnes pour la pose, il y a quelque chôse qui me presse de faire des études de...
...t. Vincent les contrariétés avec les modèles continuent tout de même, avec la tenacité du...
in translation:
...could send me the money on Sunday in your letter or by money order, it wouldn’t leave me indifferent...
...seen the Luxembourg by now. We’ve had two or three glorious days here, very hot, with no wind...
in date note:
...have consequently dated the letter Wednesday, 29 or Thursday, 30 August 1888. This date is also borne out by what Vincent says about the weather: ‘We’ve had two or three glorious days here, very hot, with no...
672 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 1 September 1888.
in original text:
...ici et toujours en payant il faut se tailler des degrés dans la glace pour aller de la journée de...
...si j’etais capable de forcer la question des modèles. Mais je sens aussi la possibilité de...
...préparons nous une nouvelle voie. Je suis bien curieux de recevoir ta prochaine lettre rendant compte plus amplement de ta visite chez Bing. Cela ne m’étonne pas que tu dises qu’après le...
...e ne ferais je qu’empirer les chôses. Cela me fait énormement du tort que je ne parle pas le patois provençal. Je pense toujours très sérieusement à me servir de couleurs plus grossieres qui n’en seraient pas moins solides pour être moins broyées. Maintenant je m’arrête souvent devant un projet de tableau à cause de la couleur que cela nous coûte. Or cela est tout de même un...
...enfin l’immortel de Daudet que je trouve très beau mais bien peu consolant. Je crois que je...
...comme force vraie son Tartarin pourtant. Bien des chôses à la soeur et encore une fois merci de...
in translation:
...for his rent. Of course, I had to make my decision known today whether or not I’d keep the house on (because I rented it until Michaelmas, and you have to renew or withdraw beforehand). I told my chap that I’d take it on again for 3 months only, or preferably by the month. That way, supposing that our friend Gauguin...
...to read a book about elephant hunting, or a totally mendacious book of categorically impossible...
in date note:
...that day and Van Gogh had to let him know whether or not he wanted to go on renting the Yellow House (l...
RM16 Crossed-out, unsent fragment of a letter to Paul Gauguin. The verso contains the sketch enclosed with letter 693 to Eugène Boch. Arles, probably September or October 1888.
in title:
...contains the sketch enclosed with letter 693 to Eugène Boch. Arles, probably September or October 1888.
in original text:
écrivez donc plutôt à mon frère de garder vos tableaux à prix au lieu de les offrir à bas prix...
in note 1:
...rates it too highly. If he found a collector or speculator who was tempted by low prices, let him do...
in note 2:
...painting, previously described as ‘a round cedar or cypress bush’ (689) and shortly thereafter as...
673 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 3 September 1888.
in original text:
...nous nous sommes promenés et avons tout de même encore vu de bien belles chôses aux courses de...
...s dans une seule journée. Hier j’ai reçu une lettre de la soeur qui a vu bien des chôses. Ah...
...subtiles et justes aux désolants tableaux de Jean Béraud, si secs, si froids. Or Tartarin est si...
...mes études d’ici qui ne sont pas encore sèches au fond. Si elles restaient enfermées ou...
...si frustré dans cette puissance physiquement, on cherche à créer des pensées au lieu d’enfan...
...et des lithographies de Daumier. Pour ces dernières, les Daumier, il serait bon d’en prendre...
...fort mal logés, non pour leurs lits mais pour la possibilité de travailler chez eux. Je suis ainsi toujours entres deux courants d’idées, les premières les difficultés materielles, se tourner...
...e là-dedans. Exprimer l’amour de deux amoureux par un mariage de deux complémentaires, leur melange et leurs oppositions, les vibrations mystérieuses des tons rapprochés. Exprimer la pensée...
in translation:
...it makes me think of Jean Béraud’s disheartening paintings, so dry, so cold. Tartarin, now, is...
...as far as possible. If they stayed shut away or in the dark, the colours would deteriorate. So, the...
...like a piece of music. I’d like to paint men or women with that je ne sais quoi of the eternal...
in note 3:
...heroic in history (in ‘The hero as poet’ he saw him as a prophetic poet (Carlyle 1993, pp. 83-85)), or on what Cochin said of him in his article on Boccaccio (‘Boccace d’après ses oeuvres et les témoignages contemporains’) – at any rate it is evident from a letter written later in the month that Vincent was...
in note 6:
...or three times, I know what it is...look, when you’re smoking you sometimes happen to pick up your cigar by the wrong end. Well, then, that’s fame. A good cigar with the lit end and the ash in your mouth...’ (La gloire... j’en ai goûté deux ou trois fois, je sais ce que c’est... tiens, il t’arrive en fumant de prendre ton cigare à rebours...
in note 22:
Van Gogh says that he pays 45 francs ‘for my lodging alone’; in other words his meals were not included...
674 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 4 September 1888.
in original text:
...fréquentation des fainéants, alors il se trouve à l’entrée tout juste d’une carrière de vrai peintre. Il est bien de son pays car dans son parler et dans ses manières moi je reconnais fort...
...Or pour arriver à cela il faudrait qu’elle soit un peu dans le mouvement. Si la soeur à Bock va effectivement en Hollande il n’y aurait qu’à dire à Bock que si elle veut faire des études...
...l’urgence de venir à son aide.�� Or soyons prudents là-dedans. Si cela ne lui va pas ici il...
...normes. d’ici par ex. à Bordighera ou ailleurs à la hauteur de Nice. Une fois installés nous...
...Or nous l’aurions à moins de mille en tant que d’avoir un atelier dans le midi où nous...
...névrosé au moment d’entrer dans ce repos et cela est pire que l’etat actuel où nous pouvons...
...de quoi vivre chez les logeurs mais que nous prétendons ne pas pouvoir nous rejoindre tout en nous...
...ici une quinzaine de nouvelles études. Couleurs broyées à plus gros grain en grands tubes...
in translation:
...I feel myself that I’ll always be among that number. True that it would probably be better to go...
...t be enormous. From here to Bordighera, for example, or somewhere near Nice. Once we’d settled...
...and you must have done the same with yours, or you’ve gone into debt for 100 francs. Which by now...
...at the moment. Is that true or not? In fact, the truth is even more serious. If he’s not in need of changing his way of life, he’s either much richer than me or he has considerably better luck...
...Boch will probably be with you in a week or ten days. Including the sunflowers, I still have about...
in note 6:
...and letter for Tasset with letter 668, sent on 23 or 24 August, in other words rather more than ‘a week...
in note 7:
...funds, we offer two thousand francs, which is more than the Emperor or de Rothschild would pay for a passing fancy, for a Japanese monstrosity, a fascinating bronze, which something told us we just had to have’. (Après l’achat de cette maison de près de cent mille francs, cette maison si déraisonnable au point de vue...
in note 8:
...poet’) (F 462 / JH 1574). This brings the number of studies to fourteen; two other flower still...
675 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, on or about Saturday, 8 September 1888.
in title:
675 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, on or about Saturday, 8 September 1888.
in original text:
...reçois votre lettre au moment où j’allais vous écrire. Excusez si j’écris si peu souvent et si court. Je m’ennuie terriblement et je souffre de l’estomac; nous avons de la pluie constamment. Je travaille et je ne fais rien, en ce sens que je dessine de la main, de la tête et de coeur en vue de ce que je veux faire plus tard. Oui vous avez raison de vouloir de la peinture avec une coloration suggestive d’idées poetiques et en ce sens je suis d’accord avec vous avec une différence. Je ne connais pas d’idées poétiques...
...conduites en harmonies produisent d’elles mêmes une poesie. Sans me laisser surprendre par le...
...s’en dégagent. Inutile d’ergoter là-dessus; nous en causerons longuement. À ce propos je...
...s unis de coeur et d’intelligence si nous voulons que l’avenir nous mette à notre vraie place. Est-ce que votre frère est en voyage, je n’ai plus de ses nouvelles.– cordialement à vous...
in date note:
...Vincent sent the present letter on to Theo on or about 11 September (679). On the assumption that he did this soon after he received it, we have dated the letter on or about Saturday, 8 September. The Météo-France...
676 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 8 September 1888.
in original text:
...pas seules, de mêmes les joies pas non plus. Car justement toujours courbé sous cette difficult...
...n gaie. J’avais engueulé le dit logeur qui après tout n’est pas un mauvais homme et je lui...
...Gauguin vienne ou non, si je prends des meubles, dès lors on possède dans un bon endroit ou dans...
...ce qui est mauvais lorsqu’on en a 35 bien sonnés. Aujourd’hui sur l’Intransigeant je vois le...
...semeur. Plus tard lorsque j’aurai poussé plus loin ces recherches-là, le semeur sera toujours...
...ion que nous avons vue aux Champs Elysées l’esquisse violente et exaltée de Delacroix, la...
...est pris là-dedans, on le sent.– Eh bien si on faisait la couleur tout juste ou le dessin tout juste on ne donnerait pas ces émotions-là. Enfin bientôt – demain ou après demain – je...
...je t’écrirai demain au sujet de cette couleur à gros grain. Milliet viendra te voir et te dire...
...probable qu’alors il y aurait des dépenses nouvelles à cela, au moins equivalentes aux frais...
in translation:
...not to quarrel, when there’s probably no reason to. But whether or not Gauguin comes, if I buy furniture, then we have, in a good place or a bad, that’s another question — a pied-à-terre, a...
...the first attempt in that genre. The night café is a continuation of the sower, as is the head of...
...boat, at the exhibition that we saw in the Champs-Elysées, he turned away from it and cried out in...
...made the colour very correct or the drawing very correct, we wouldn’t create those emotions. Anyway, soon — tomorrow or the day after — I’ll write to you again on this subject and will reply to your letter, sending you croquis of the night café. Tasset’s consignment has arrived; I’ll...
in date note:
...letter Van Gogh had read the report of Lévy-Bing’s suicide in L’Intransigeant (ll. 53-54). This was...
in note 5:
...Van Gogh was familiar. On Delacroix’s landscapes he wrote: ‘The outside world, reflected or rather transformed by the imagination, is either bright or gloomy in these landscapes, light and colour either harmonize with or contrast with the nature of human emotions’ (La nature ectérieure, réfléchie ou plutôt...
677 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 9 September 1888.
in original text:
...voilà, son lit sera fait dans une minute. Dès le commencement j’ai voulu arranger la maison non...
...tableaux des bouquets de 12, de 14 tournesols fourrés dans ce tout petit boudoir avec un lit joli...
...J’ai fort heureusement une femme de chambre qui est très fidèle, sans cela je n’oserais pas...
...hésitation maintenant pour rester ici car les idées me viennent en abondance pour le travail. Je...
...et les decorations. Je dois te prevenir que sous très peu il me faudra une grosse commande de...
...me réserver une deuxieme exposition après cette première d’études proprement dites. Alors...
...y tienne mais c’est pour que les études ne soient pas confondues avec des compositions et pour...
...de nuit qui soient des essais de tableaux composés. Pendant que je t’écris il y a justement le...
...Ses autres couleurs fines sont réellement inférieures, surtout pour les bleus. J’espère en...
...tout de même je les regagnerai ainsi faisant. Et dès aujourd’hui tu peux te dire que tu as une...
in translation:
...the beds, and I bought two palliasses. If Gauguin or somebody else were to come, there you are, his...
...a painting of the little house itself, in full sunshine or else with the window lit and the starry...
...to bottom. The room where you’ll stay then, or which will be Gauguin’s if Gauguin comes, will...
...ve tried to express the idea that the café is a place where you can ruin yourself, go mad, commit...
...simply don’t know if I’m going to start 5 or 10 canvases. It’ll be the same thing as in the...
in note 4:
The symbolic number 12 may refer to the apostles – Van Gogh’s ideal was that artists should live together like monks �� or to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which Van Gogh erroneously thought had twelve members (see letter 625). See for this purchase in relation to Van Gogh’s ‘Gemeinschaftsideal’: Kōdera 1990...
in note 10:
On the number of flowers, see Dorn 1999, pp. 49; Van Tilborgh and Hendriks 2001, p. 22.
in note 17:
...JH 1332), which had been shown at the Indépendants in the spring. Kahn’s comment was that it could...
678 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 9 and about Friday, 14 September 1888.
in original text:
...de te répondre tranquillement. Ainsi ta visite à Paris a bien réussie, je voudrais bien que...
...fourrer au moins 6 très grandes toiles, surtout les énormes bouquets de tournesols. Tu sais que...
...des piments sucrés, des bonbons salés et des glaces frites et des fritures glacées. Alors aussi...
...tendre, faisant opposition à autant de verts pâles ou foncés. J’en ai aujourd’hui envoye un...
...feras attention tu verras que de certaines étoiles sont citronnées, d’autres ont des feux roses...
...a jamais assez pénétré, nous autres du nord. Il y a déjà plusieurs jours que j’ai commenc...
...pourtant une simple bougie déjà nous donne les jaunes, les orangés les plus riches. J’ai aussi...
...ne nuit étoilée à Paris avec les cafés illuminés du Boulevard et c’est à peu près ce même...
...er. Dis lui bien des chôses de ma part à la mère, je pense souvent à vous deux et j’en suis...
...s. Puis il y aura beaucoup d’autres peintres qui vont bientot rentrer à Paris avec leurs études...
in translation:
...gaslight, the green billiard table, which casts an immense shadow over the floor. In this canvas there are 6 or 7 different reds, from blood-red to delicate pink, contrasting with the same number of pale or dark greens. Today I sent Theo a drawing of it, which is like a Japanese print. Theo wrote...
...under the blue sky studded with stars are dark blue or violet, with a green tree. Now there’s a...
...of a starry night in Paris, with the lighted cafés of the boulevard, and it’s something like the...
...contrasts, that’s something like arranging jewels or — designing costumes. You’ll see now...
in date note:
...a start on this work, we dated the second part on or about Friday, 14 September 1888 (see exhib. cat. New...
in note 7:
...1888 Willemien wrote to Theo and told him that she got great pleasure from the Japanese prints. There must have been a considerable number, since she said that she had given fifteen or so to a friend (FR b2275).
in note 9:
...was probably of the primitive Shinto goddess Okame or Otafuku, whose full name is Ame no Uzume no Mikoto...
in note 12:
...at night (F 467 / JH 1580). The pavement café is the Grand Café du Forum in the place du Forum in...
in note 15:
...cafés, full of people, overflowed out on to the pavements, displaying their clientele of drinkers in the harsh, bright lights of their illuminated facades’. (Les grands cafés, pleins de monde, débordaient sur le trottoir, étalant leur public de buveurs sous la lumière éclatante et crue de leur devanture illuminée.) He also pictures the ‘sandy paths, lit by electric light’ (allées bien sablées...
679 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 10 September 1888.
in title:
679 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 10 September 1888.
in original text:
...tes bon pour moi et de faire des dettes chez vous qui m’aimez que de vivre avec mon logeur. Mais il a mal à l’estomac et lorsqu’on a mal à l’estomac on n’a pas la volonté libre. Or...
...honneur à tous les trois y est compromis et qu’on ne travaille pas pour soi seul. Le cas me parait être ainsi. Et je me dis que même s’il faut dégringoler dans la fatalité des chôses il...
...calme tout de même. quoiqu’il laisse inexpliquées ses intentions à notre égard. Seulement si...
...je lui réponds absolument comme je sens mais je ne veux pas dire des chôses melancoliques ou...
...sûr que les interets divers seront compatibles. Or c’est pourquoi il faudrait justement pour ne...
...avec sa femme et ses enfants. Certes je le désirerais pour lui. Eh bien il faut donc avoir sur la...
...r que je compte garder ici à l’atelier plusieurs études au lieu de te les envoyer. Je crois que...
...tard une serie d’etudes qui se tiendra. à propos Russell a répondu – negativement pour ce qui...
in translation:
...to you himself; I’ll reply to him exactly as I feel, but I don’t want to say melancholy or sad or mean things to so great an artist. But from the point of view of money, the affair is taking on...
in date note:
...or about 11 September (letter 680, l. 71). We, like Merlhès and Dorn, have consequently dated the present letter on or about Monday, 10 September 1888. In Brieven 1914 Jo van Gogh-Bonger reversed the order of the present letter and the next (680), and dated them 11 and 10 September respectively. It is not clear why she did this. If she based her dating on postmarks, it might be that she misinterpreted the posting and receipt marks or that the letters were put back in the wrong envelopes; it is also conceivable that Van Gogh did not send the two letters in the order he wrote them...
680 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 11 September 1888.
in title:
680 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 11 September 1888.
in original text:
...un moment il était plein de ces tableaux-là sans pouvoir les écouler. Mais enfin ce qu’il a...
...en parlerais pas. Mais il faut que Gauguin soit loyal, or tout en voyant que l’arrivée de son...
...jà que Gauguin nous aurait déjà complètement plantés là si Laval avait eu un tant soit peu le...
...moins que cela soit justement en se faisant prévaloir de ce que toi as voulu faire pour lui. Or...
...e il le sera si cela est dans son avantage, or s’il ne vient pas il trouvera autre chose mais il...
...aurais bien raison d’aller voir cela. Les idées pour le travail me viennent en abondance et cela...
...moulin peinte à tons rompus comme le Chêne sur le rocher, cette étude que tu disais avoir encadrée avec le semeur. L’idee du semeur me hante toujours encore. Les etudes outrées comme le semeur...
...les même vergers, en eté les mêmes blés, involontairement je vois mon travail regulierement...
...le juste. Je voudrais seulement que tu fusses plus près d’ici. Considerant que je ne peux pas...
in translation:
...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...
...a metre more or a metre less, so that the carriage isn’t double. 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...
...though isolated I don’t have time to think or to feel. I’m going like a painting-locomotive...
...painting to justify your travelling to the south two or three times a year. But — if Gauguin came...
...he should hesitate between going to stay with Laval or with me. It would be unfair not to leave him...
...for his debt, and to take refuge either with you or with me, travelling one way? But in that case...
in date note:
...16 September. We have therefore dated the letter on or about Tuesday, 11 September 1888. See also the notes...
in note 5:
...on Dostoevsky. It must have been Jules Prével’s article, ‘Courrier des théâtres’, which...
681 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 16 September 1888.
in original text:
...la maison demain, seulement ayant encore acheté des choses et en ayant encore à ajouter – et je...
...Et pour le travail je me sens déjà plus libre et moins travaillé par le chagrin innécessaire...
...plus longtemps. Pour qu’il y ait des chôses qui se tiennent et se complètent. Aussi parcequ...
...les couleurs ont des richesses et des intensités d’automne. Ensuite c’est bien davantage en...
...de moi même presque décoloré, des tons cendrés sur un fond véronèse pâle. J’ai acheté expres un miroir assez bon pour pouvoir travailler d’après moi-même à défaut de modèle car si...
...je pourrai bien aussi peindre les têtes des autres bonshommes et bonnes femmes. La question de...
...dormir et prendre mes repas. Cela veut dire des séances de douze heures, de 6 heures et selon, et...
...en briques de verres bombés – de verre violet. Le soleil là-dedans se refletant, les reflets...
...représentant des sarments de vigne étranges et autres plantes grimpantes. Cette maison violette...
in translation:
...on it, and in part I’ve saved on one bed or the other by making one of them a little plainer. I...
...of my work, it will go a little more slowly, or rather, I’ll be obliged to keep the paintings...
...women as well. The question of painting night scenes or effects, on the spot and actually at night...
...Without changing anything at the house, either now or later, I’d nevertheless like to make it...
in note b:
Read: ‘comme seraient bombés’.
in note 6:
...l’emploi de matériaux jusqu’à présent peu usités, le goût de coloriste qui a présidé à la conception d’ensemble, certains détails ingénieux). Fleury referred to Edmond de Goncourt because he...
682 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 18 September 1888.
in original text:
...verdure aperçus par les fenêtres. Maintenant l’entourage du jardin public, des cafés de nuit...
...st du Daumier, du Zola en plein. Or c’est bien suffisant pour y trouver des idées n’est ce pas...
...ai déjà acheté plus que cela c’est que, si j’ai deja mis là-dedans la moitié de l’argent...
...la maison ce sera pour te rembourser les dépenses antérieures. Je reste en effet un peu marchand...
...fonds de roulement or celui là c’est moi qui l’ai mangé dans mes années d’improduction et...
...des affaires qui resteront non seulement de notre temps mais qui pourront encore après nous etre...
...sous un soleil plus fort et dans une limpidité plus japonaise. Or si moi je fonde un atelier abri...
...s tout autant que moi et c’est que nous les fabriquons à deux. Mais je n’insiste pas là-dessus...
...très ferme et très categorique dans tout cela. Et sans dire ses raisons parler très clairement...
...francs dix ans après est encore vendu au prix coutant parcequ’il a resté sans rien faire. Enfin...
in translation:
...surroundings, with the public garden, the night cafés, the grocer’s shop, aren’t Millet, of...
...to see me through the week, or 50 francs, if it’s possible. One way or another, this month I’d...
...sure that he’ll write to you one way or another. Bernard’s letter speaks of Gauguin with great...
...that Gauguin has done Bernard good. Whether Gauguin comes or not, he’ll still be one of our...
...days he does a bunk from Pont-Aven with Laval or Maurin without paying his debt, in my opinion he...
...speculator, stockbroker — if he wishes to risk something in business, only I myself wouldn’t be part of it, I’d a thousand times sooner continue with you, whether you’re with the Goupils or...
...little by little you regain a love of business, or at least that you’ll be reconciled with your...
...Did you read an article in the number of Le Courrier Français that you sent, ‘la truie bleue...
...really interesting; you’ll read them some day or other; they already make quite a bundle. This...
in date note:
...Français that he had sent (see n. 1). From the strap-line of this newspaper – ‘published every Saturday’ (paraissant tous les samedis) – it would appear that this issue had actually come out on Saturday, 15 September. The letter was written early in the morning, as we learn from the opening words of letter 683, which was written later the same day. Van Gogh repeats what he wrote in ‘yesterday’s’ letter (ll. 21 and 38). He would not have been referring here to the date of writing (Sunday evening) but the date of posting, in other words 17 September (see letter 681) – for he also says that he paid the hotel keeper yesterday, and from what follows it transpires that he used the 50 francs he had just received to do it (he now has only 5 francs left). He also announced in letter 681 that he was moving into the Yellow House the next day; in the present one he has already spent the night there. We have therefore dated it Tuesday, 18 September 1888...
in note 1:
...as a ‘Supplément’ in Le Courrier Français of 16 September 1888. The engraver was ‘SGap...
in note 2:
...at no. 2 place Lamartine, was the grocer’s shop run by François Damase and Marguerite Crévoulin.
in note 12:
...The blue sow) appeared in Le Courrier Français 5 (16 September 1888), no. 38, pp. 5, 8. The story is...
in textual note 261:
aux mêmes conditions < Text lost due to paper damage.
683 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 18 September 1888.
in original text:
...en face de ma maison. Puis les deux cafés. Puis les tournesols. Puis le portrait de Bock et le...
...prête deux ou trois cents francs sur mes études? Cela m’en ferait gagner plus que mille car je...
...de ces gens-là. Or Petrarque etait ici tout près à Avignon et je vois les mêmes cyprès et...
...dans la bouche du mauvais côté. Nous serons obligés de chercher à vendre pour pouvoir refaire...
...la joie de rue qui est douleur de maison. Cet après midi j’ai eu un public choisi...de 4 ou 5...
...deja envoyées mais celles des tournesols et des cabarets et des jardins je voudrais qu’il les voie – je réflechis souvent à son systeme et toutefois je ne le suivrai pas du tout mais lui est coloriste original et c’est la meme chose pour Signac mais à un autre degré, les pointilleurs ont...
...plutôt à ce que je cherchais avant de venir à Paris et je ne sais si quelqu’un avant moi aie...
...et n’engage à rien. et je n’ai pas, là-dedans en copain, à me formuler.– Mon dieu il faut...
in translation:
...the gardens facing the house. Then the two cafés. Then the sunflowers. Then Boch’s portrait, and...
...garden is also, for the same reason of chastity or morality, empty of flowering shrubs such as the...
...absolutely impossible for Thomas to lend me two or three hundred francs on my studies? That would...
...go to see Claude Monet when he’s in Antibes, or you’ll find some opportunity, anyway. When the...
...audience...of 4 or 5 pimps and a dozen kids who found it particularly interesting to watch the colours come out of the tubes. Ah, well, that sort of audience — that’s fame, or rather, I have...
...frames, because you have to have a certain number to be able to dry the canvases thoroughly, which...
in note 11:
...from the Roubine du Roi Canal to rue des Récollets; the ‘maisons de tolérance’ (brothels) were in...
in note 12:
...sensual nature, which Van Gogh had read about in the article ‘Boccace d’après ses oeuvres et les témoignages contemporains’ by Cochin discussed later in the letter (see n. 15 below). Cochin said...
in note 14:
...que me fit M. Gauguin fut un des plus glacés, et cette année-là il ne se manifesta entre nous...
in note 15:
...d’après ses oeuvres et les témoignages contemporains’, Revue des Deux Mondes 58 (15 July 1888), 3rd series, vol. 88, pp. 373-413 (see also letter 665, n. 12). It discusses Boccaccio’s friendship with Francesco Petrarch at length. The author quotes from their letters several times. Dante is also referred to often in the article; Giotto is mentioned twice and Botticelli only once (and then very much in passing). Aside from Botticelli – whom Van Gogh added later – his summing up accords with that on the last page of the article: ‘Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Giotto, all the men were dead who had, after ten centuries, revived classical Latin glory’ (Dante, Petrarque, Boccace, Giotto, tous les hommes étaient morts, qui avaient, après dix siècles...
in note 18:
...d’après ses oeuvres et les témoignages contemporains’; see n. 15 above); he also referred to the passage in question in letter 665. It reads in full: ‘Giotto, ugly and sickly but radiating natural genius, was painting scenes from the Divine Comedy at the Château de l’Oeuf. The king, full of respect and admiration, spent his days with the painter, delighting in the brazen charm of his Florentine speech and putting up with the most caustic witticisms from him. He heaped honours on him and wanted to keep him in Naples and make him “the first man of his kingdom”.’ (Giotto, laid et chétif, mais rayonnant de génie naturel, peignait au château de l’OEuf des scènes de la Divine Comédie. Et le roi, plein de respect et d’admiration, passait ses journées auprès du peintre, prenant plaisir à la grâce hardie de son language florentin, souffrant de lui les saillies les plus mordantes, le comblant d’honneurs, voulant le retenir à Naples et en faire “le premier homme de son royaume”.) (p. 378...
in note 21:
...palace at Versailles in 1684. The sculptor François Girardon restored the statue, adding arms and placing...
in note 29:
...of the piano with Prussian blue and dark green or dark ochre to bright cadmium, and so the poor man...
in note 35:
...même les actes les plus extraordinaires, par des équations bien faites) (see 4th ed. Paris 1888, p. 258).
684 To Emile Bernard. Arles, between Wednesday, 19 and Tuesday, 25 September 1888.
in original text:
...de Gauguin pas moyen!” Pourquoi pas moyen, bêtises tout cela. Mais je n’insiste pas et aussi...
...dis que tu y songes à venir passer l’hiver à Arles. Moi je me suis installé ici expres d’une...
...ne vois pas que tu puisses bien te nourrir ici à moins de 3 francs par jour. et j’aimerais mieux...
...tu aies ton uniforme, les soldats y peuvent là-dedans ici et ailleurs un tas de choses à l’oeil...
...Nous irions prendre des bocks là-dedans, nous y ferions des connaissances, nous travaillerions...
...jour sans parti-pris on fait un tas de choses imprévues. Je ne peux donc aucunément t’engager...
685 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 21 September 1888.
in original text:
...deux, pour moi je prefererais la methode à quelques centaines de francs pourvu que chaque meuble...
...ceci que dès maintenant je me sens travailler en prenant des precautions d’avenir, après moi un...
...n qui vaudra l’argent que j’ai dépensé dans les années dans lesquelles je n’ai pas produit. Le portrait de la mère m’a fait un très grand plaisir parceque l’on voit qu’elle se porte...
...moins qu’on ne nous fasse avec de la couleur on ne donnera de nous qu’une idee peu parlante. Justement comme je m’etais donné un mal terrible pour trouver la combinaison des tons cendrés et...
...ou plutot je ne veux pas non plus le peindre sans modèles. Mais j’ai cela en tête avec de la...
...tard. J’espère que tu me donneras des détails de ta visite chez Maurin. J’aime énormement le...
...qui sont calmes et non pas vivre comme les décadents. Ici j’aurai de plus en plus une existence...
...bientot et bien bien merci de toutes tes bontés. Je crois que je mettrai les japonaiseries en bas...
in translation:
In the other one — Gauguin’s or another lodger’s — we’ll still need a dressing-table and a chest...
...here I see real olive trees. But I can’t, or rather, I don’t wish, to paint it without models...
in note 12:
...address is given in the catalogue of the Indépendants’ fourth exhibition (1888). On 17 September, Maurin...
686 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 23 or Monday, 24 September 1888.
in title:
686 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 23 or Monday, 24 September 1888.
in original text:
...peinte avec le modèle de ces mêmes maîtres ou d’autres maitres portraitistes. Enfin – si...
...qu’on dise, les crepons plus vulgaires colorés à tons plats pour moi sont admirables pour la...
...sont restés infiniment plus riches en couleur que ceux dans le Nord. Les ruines, exposés au plein...
...s ils seraient maintenant bien plus ternes. Je commence maintenant à mieux voir la beauté des...
...as, les amoureux qu’avait Reid, c’est là des figures complètes où quant au dessin il n’y a...
...où les belles figures dessinees de lui seront estimés comme du tres grand art. Je crois que la ville d’Arles a ete autrefois infiniment plus glorieuse quant à la beauté des femmes, quant à la...
...place et en me contentant de voir passer les chôses comme une araignée dans son filet attend les...
...autre. Milliet a de la chance, il a des arlésiennes tant qu’il veut, mais voilà il ne peut pas...
...r et à connaitre les chôses pour nous que de les enseigner aux autres. Or les deux peuvent aller...
in translation:
...masters would be, or other master portraitists. Ah well — if inevitably we’re too often faced with a shortage of models, and especially of intelligent models, we mustn’t despair or grow weary...
...the Géricault. If you come across the Delacroix Pietà, or the Géricault, I urge you to buy as...
...A weaver, a basket-maker, often spends entire seasons alone, or almost alone, with his work as his...
...of colour. That will always be rarer, and whether or not the paintings are slow to be appreciated...
...the old saying that one should study for ten years or so, and then produce a few figure paintings...
...to time. Milliet’s lucky, he has all the Arlésiennes he wants, but there you are, he can’t...
...in people, from which a new religion, or rather, something altogether new, will be reborn, which...
...terrible thunderbolts, through a revolution or a war or the bankruptcy of moth-eaten governments...
...Monticellis have never been reproduced in fine lithographs or vibrant etchings? I’d like to see...
in date note:
...must therefore have passed, so we have dated the present letter Sunday, 23 or Monday, 24 September 1888.
in note 2:
...1888 that there was an impression of this lithograph in the Yellow House. See Merlhès 1989, pp. 241-243.
in note 3:
The lithograph by Célestin François Nanteuil-Leboeuf after Delacroix’s Pietà is in the Van Goghs’ estate. Ill. 75. (t*622) It bears the stamp: ‘Les artistes anciens et modernes’. This series of lithographs...
in note 6:
Paul Edmé Lerat’s etching after Millet’s Sower appeared in the series Recueil d’estampes gravées à l’eau-forte, published by the art dealer Durand-Ruel in 1873-1874. Cf. also letter 156, n. 3.
in note 8:
This long article by Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu appeared on 15 September 1888 in the Revue des Deux Mondes. It is the fifth part of the series ‘La Religion en Russie’, and is subtitled ‘Les Réformateurs. Le comte Léon Tolstoï, ses précurseurs et ses émules.’ See Revue des Deux Mondes 58-3. Paris 1888, vol. 89, pp. 414-443.
in note 10:
...Jews or Muslims’ (Suivant eux, l’église est la réunion de tous ceux qui marchent dans la lumière et la justice, à quelque religion, à quelque nation qu’ils appartiennent, chrétiens, juifs ou...
in note 11:
...graminées. Fac-similé d’une esquisse au pinceau. Copié d’après nature le 14e jour du 8e mois, dans la 2e année de Kokwa (1845)). Ill. 2251; Study of carnations (‘taken from a flower album by (Kawamura) Bumpo (1800)’) (tirée d’un album de fleur par Boumpo (1800)) Ill. 2252; and the double page with Crabs in seaweed and Figures in a shower of rain (‘Two compositions taken from the Gouashiki, a series of 3 volumes by Hokusaï signed Taïto, one of several brush names used by Hokusaï’) (Deux compositions tirées du Gouashiki, série de 3 volumes par Hokusaï signée Taïto, l’un des nombreux noms de pinceau adoptés par Hokusaï). Ill. 2253. See also the print Portrait of Ousoukoumo: letter 768, n. 19...
in note 14:
...maîtres Espagnols et l’art naturaliste’ by S. Jacquemont, particularly the following passage: ‘Surely everyone knows how much more understandable, lifelike and pleasing works of art are really when seen under the skies which saw them come into being? And surely everyone knows that the pure air of Florence or Madrid preserves paint differently from the air of northern climes...The incomparable Rubenses are so fresh, and that crowd of Italian, French and Dutch masterpieces, stacked up there as if to facilitate comparisons to be made there and then.’ (Qui ne sait combien les oeuvres d’art sont plus intelligibles, plus vivantes, plus sympathiques, enfin, sous le ciel qui les a vues naître? Et qui ne sait aussi que l’air pur de Florence ou de Madrid conserve autrement la peinture que les climats du Nord? … Aussi frais sont les incomparables Rubens, et cette foule de chefs-d’oeuvre italiens, français, hollandais, amassés là comme pour permettre sur place toutes les comparaisons.) Revue des Deux Mondes 58-3. Paris 1888, vol. 89, pp. 378-413 (quotation on p. 382). Cf. Dorn 1990, p. 554....
in note 19:
...book about Wagner, Richard Wagner, musiciens, poètes et philosophes, was by Camille Benoit; see letter...
in note 22:
...to a single artist here. Given the large number of engravers of prints after Velázquez, it is not...
687 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 25 September 1888.
in original text:
...Cela m’a un peu contrarié mais dans les intervalles ensoleillées tout de même je viens de...
...labourées. Un ciel bleu avec nuages blancs. Un immense terrain d’un lilas cendré, des sillons...
...toits orangés. C’en est encore un qui prendra long à sécher, pour les tableaux empatés il...
...car j’aurais trop besoin de quelques études d’après lui parcequ’il est beau garcon, bien...
...une douzaine de toiles de 30 carrées et cela peut très bien s’accomplir pour autant que je...
...trouve toujours frustré dans mes meilleures capacités par le manque de modèles mais je ne m’en...
...mois prochain il y aura encore un tas de chôses qui me tomberont sur le dos ensemble: les cadres...
...montrer – si je veux ou si toi tu le désires – à cette époque de l’exposition. Moi je n...
...qu’on n’expose pas, il faut être productif et dès lors on a le droit de fumer sa pipe en paix...
...ma religion, a été publié en français en 1885 dejà mais je ne l’ai jamais vu sur aucun...
in translation:
...lasts I won’t have enough hands, canvas or colours to paint the beautiful things that I see. I’m also working on the portrait of Milliet, but he poses badly, or else it’s my fault, which I...
...warn you right away that I’ll need another 5 or even 10 metres of canvas. And that at the same...
...tube of Prussian blue goes as far as 6 ultramarine or cobalt and costs 3 times less. Now, it fades...
...the autumn I’d very much like to do a dozen or so square no. 30 canvases, and that may very well...
...or not come, I couldn’t offer Bernard hospitality for free, or even paid for with paintings or...
...were to make savings eating at the studio, with or without Gauguin. But that in any case, I wasn...
...days, Gauguin writes to you categorically, either to you or to me, we could still see about Bernard...
...paintings to be able to show myself — if I wish, or if you so desire — at that time of the...
...to believe much in resurrection, either of the body or of the soul. In particular, he seems not to...
in arrangement:
...Merlhès and Dorn – pointed out that a sheet that has until now been regarded as the second sheet of letter 691 actually belongs with this letter. We go along with this suggestion for two reasons. Firstly letter 691 now has a different second sheet from the one it originally had (see Arrangement in the notes to that letter). Moreover, placing the old closing part of letter 691 at the end of the present letter means that Vincent’s asking in ll. 215-217 if he can receive his allowance from Theo on Friday again fits logically in the sequence of the letters in this period, since Vincent had received his allowance on Friday, 21 September (see letter 685). Cf. exhib. cat. New York 1984, p. 260; Merlhès 1989, p. 192 (n. 3); and Dorn 1990, p. 512 respectively...
in date note:
...refers to his previous letter, 686 of Sunday, 23 or Monday, 24 September, in which he wrote about the...
in note 14:
...Meadow with figures and animals, Idyll at Asnières, Figures by the riverside and the sheet Brothel scene...
in note 20:
...Réformateurs. Le comte Léon Tolstoï, ses précurseurs et ses émules’ by Leroy-Beaulieu in the Revue des Deux Mondes; see letter 686, n. 10. In it Tolstoy’s thinking is associated with Nihilism several times. His doctrine is described as ‘Christian Nihilism’ (nihilisme chrétien) (p. 438; in this connection see also pp. 431, 434). Leroy-Beaulieu also wrote: ‘Tolstoy lives in the country, he ploughs, makes hay and harvests with his own hands...he produces boots which sell well ... he still knows how to mend pots ... the broad hand that wrote War and Peace enjoys driving a plough’ (Tolstoï vit à la campagne; il laboure, il fane, il moissonne de ses mains ... Il fait des bottes qui se vendent bien ... il sait encore réparer les poêles ... la large main qui a écrit Guerre et Paix se délecte à conduire la charrue) (p. 436)....
688 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, on or about Wednesday, 26 September 1888.
in title:
688 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, on or about Wednesday, 26 September 1888.
in original text:
...vie vous comprendriez qu’après avoir tellement lutté (de toutes les façons) je suis en train...
...choses.– Je viens de faire un tableau religieux très mal fait mais qui m’a interessé à faire...
...bretonnes groupées prient, costumes noir très intense. Les bonnets blancs jaunes très lumineux...
...grande simplicité rustique et superstitieuse. Le tout très sévère. La vache sous l’arbre est...
...distance les mots ne peuvent être interpretés dans leur juste valeur).– autre chose.– Vous...
...aucun tableau, aucun vêtement et sont vis à vis de moi parfaits – je ne puis les lâcher sans...
...drai donc.– Par exemple si ce jour arrivé vous étiez autrement disposé et que vous deviez me...
...dans peu de temps plusieures toiles de moi à Paris.– Laval compte venir me retrouver dans le...
...penser au fruit promis. Attendre des jours meilleurs à moins que je ne sois debarrassé de cette sale existence qui en dehors du travail me pèse si horriblement. Cordialement à vous P. Gauguin...
in translation:
...would trouble me enormously. If they were either rich or thieves, it would mean nothing to me. So I...
...rates it too highly. If he found a collector or speculator who was tempted by low prices, let him...
in date note:
...or about Saturday, 29 September, Vincent told Theo he had received this letter from Gauguin – there was no mention of it on Wednesday, 26 September (letter 689). Assuming that the letter took two days to get from Pont-Aven to Arles and that Vincent would have wanted to tell his brother about it as soon as possible, we have dated the present letter on or about Wednesday, 26 September 1888...
in note 2:
...franchement la fameuse lutte! mais ces énormes bonnets, ces dos de paysannes remplissant la toile, et la chose capitale réduite, au loin, à des proportions si insignifiantes...Ce n’était pas...
689 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 26 September 1888.
in original text:
...un buisson de cèdre ou de cyprès en boule – planté dans l’herbe. Tu le connais déjà ce...
...l’herbe est très très verte, du veronèse citronné, le ciel est très très bleu. La rangée...
...Elles sont chargées de fleurs fraiches et puis de tas de fleurs fanées, leur verdure également...
...Un funebre cyprès tout noir se dresse là-dessus et quelques figurines colorées se baladent sur...
...tout le jardin est coloré de verts très différents sous un ciel jaune citron pâle. Mais n’e...
...que j’ai retranché des arbres mais ce que j’ai gardé dans la composition se trouve reellement...
...Seurat a de quoi, avec 2 ou 3 de ses énormes toiles, de quoi exposer à lui seul, Signac qui est...
...ne le choquait pas – avec le ciel myosotys à flocons de nuages blancs. S’il posait mieux il me...
...belles chôses nouvelles, je n’en doute pas et je voudrais bien les voir. Les études actuelles...
...ne la ferai pas non plus avant quelques études sérieuses sur nature. Mais cela n’est pas press...
in translation:
...was, after all, nothing special — a round cedar or cypress bush — planted in grass. You know this...
...completely black, stands above them and a number of small coloured figures are strolling along a...
...like that. Only they’ve overcrowded it with a number of bushes that aren’t in character; and so...
...now? At the moment I have a clear head, or a lover’s blindness toward my work. Because being...
...for the year ’89. Seurat has enough, with 2 or 3 of his enormous canvases, to exhibit all by...
...by that time — whether we were to exhibit it or not — the series of studies: Decoration. That...
...I knock out a no. 30 canvas every two or three days, I’ll earn blenty of thousand-frenk pills...
in note 3:
...and the letter sketch of this ‘round cedar or cypress bush’ were done is not known. Soon after...
690 To Emile Bernard. Arles, between Thursday, 27 September and Monday, 1 October 1888.
in original text:
...que cela soit juste. Mais moi je te vois près de ton depart pour faire ton service et desirerais...
...avant cette epreuve Africaine. Se faire des forces là-bas c’est guère possible et si on va dans...
...cela en vous debilitant trop. Là-dessus j’ose bien me fonder pour croire que celui qui aime le travail artistique verra dans le midi ses capacités productrices se developper mais gare au sang et...
...nous ferons tout notre possible pour t’eviter des dépenses. Mais de son côté ton père devrait...
...du bon travail il faut bien manger, etre bien logés, tirer son coup de temps en temps, fumer sa...
in translation:
...it possible for you to avoid becoming anaemic or to catch debilitating dysentery through lack of...
...and strong enough for a whole career as an artist or — broken. In any event, I’d like you to...
...brain clearer, on one condition, though: that dysentery or something else doesn’t spoil all that...
in additional details:
...sketch sent to Boch on 2 October 1888 (letter 693), or by some other letter to Gauguin in reply to letter...
691 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Saturday, 29 September 1888.
in title:
691 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Saturday, 29 September 1888.
in original text:
...discrète contraste avec l’or brutal du gaz. Deux figurines colorées d’amoureux à l’avant...
...de Gauguin qui parait bien triste et dit que dès qu’il a fait une vente certes il viendra mais...
...e debrouiller là-bas. Il dit que les gens où il loge sont et ont été parfaits pour lui et que...
...d’ailleurs si tu pouvais vendre ses toiles à bas prix il serait lui content. Je t’enverrai sa...
...que mon travail seul, sans augmentation des dépenses tu aurais plus de satisfaction. Plus tard si...
...croyais que dans le midi il ne pourrait vivre à moins de 3.50 ou 4 francs par jour rien que pour...
...e. Je voudrais seulement qu’on trouvat à nous prouver quelque chose de tranquillisant et qui...
...tu aimerais la nuit etoilée et les champs labourés – cela est plus calme que d’autres toiles...
...aller et j’ai moins à lutter contre des impossibilités. L’envoi de Tanguy est arrivé et je...
...e 10 mètres de toile. Je t’écris encore et t’enverrai lettre Gauguin avec la réponse. Très...
in translation:
...a tremendous need for, shall I say the word — for religion — so I go outside at night to paint...
...I believed that he couldn’t live on less than 3.50 or 4 francs a day in the south, for board and...
...to us, that would console us so that we’d cease to feel guilty or unhappy, and that just as we are we could proceed without getting lost in loneliness or nothingness, and without having at each step to fear or nervously calculate the harm which, without wishing to, we might cause others. That...
...That can happen much more easily in the country or a small town than in that Parisian furnace. I...
...the next exhibition. What’s most urgent now is 5 or even 10 metres of canvas. I’ll write to you...
...I’m convinced, to make a good painting than to find a diamond or a pearl; it requires effort, and you stake your life as a dealer or an artist on it. So once you have good stones, it’s important...
in date note:
...soon after receiving it (ll. 1*-2), we have dated this letter on or about Saturday, 29 September 1888.
in note 6:
...premises at 2 place Lamartine, was the grocer’s shop run by François Damase and Marguerite Crévoulin.
in note 8:
...Comme il faisait une chaleur de 33 degrés, le boulevard Bourdon se trouvait absolument désert. Plus bas, le canal Saint-Martin, fermé par les deux écluses, étalait en ligne droite son eau couleur...
in note 16:
...It emerges from that letter that he also wanted Theo to order the 5 or 10 metres of canvas from Tasset.
692 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Pont-Aven, Monday, 1 October 1888.
in original text:
...tous, pauvres victimes de la societé, nous en vengeant en faisant le bien – ah! mon cher Vincent vous auriez de quoi vous divertir à voir tous ces peintres d’ici confits dans leur mediocrité comme les cornichons dans le vinaigre. Et ils ont beau être gros, longs ou tordus à verrues...
...st Habert, Habert c’est celui qui a tué Dupuis vous savez...Et sa jolie femme et sa vieille...
...que Jésus soit mort pour tous ces sales pantins.– En tant qu’artiste oui, en tant que réformateur je ne crois pas. Le copain Bernard travaille et tire des plan pour venir aussi à Arles. Laval que vous ne connaissez pas mais qui vous connaît par vos lettres et nos racontars se joint à nous...
in translation:
...Makes no difference whether they’re fat, long or twisted and warty, they’re still, and will...
in note 1:
...with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’, 1888 (W309/W239) (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum...
in note 3:
...misérables’ and dedicated it ‘to my friend Vincent’ (à l’ami Vincent). He also described it in a letter to Schuffenecker of 8 October 1888. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 248-249. At the beginning of Victor Hugo’s Les misérables the central character, Jean Valjean, has just been released after serving a term of hard labour. Because of his shabby appearance he is viewed with suspicion and regarded as dangerous. This rejection and exclusion reminds him of the injustice of his prison term and brings his hate to the surface. He turns against the church. Through contact with the bishop, who stands by him in his moral reform, his goodness gradually returns. The desire for vengeance gives way to compassion. Valjean has now become a father to everyone and assumes the care of Cosette, the little daughter of a prostitute. Cf. also letter 333, n. 12. Merlhès believes that Gauguin derived the inspiration for his self-portrait from Hugo’s descriptions of Jean Valjean’s appearance. The contrast of warm and cool colours in the painting reflects the ‘dualism of light and shade, of good and evil’ (dualisme de l’ombre et de la lumière, du bien et du mal) which defines Jean Valjean’s character and plays an important part in Hugo’s oeuvre. See Merlhès 1989, p. 103...
in note 6:
...Gauguin wrote the little rhyme himself, and he probably made the changes too. See Gauguin lettres 1983, p. 249 (n. 4). Merlhès does not comment on this question in Correspondance Gauguin 1984 and Merlhès 1989.
693 To Eugène Boch. Arles, Tuesday, 2 October 1888.
in original text:
...toujours encore envie de le revoir. Maintenant j’ai à vous raconter du neuf c.à.d. que j’ai...
...superbe. Aussi ai je en train 7 toiles de 30 carrées. Tout d’abord le café de nuit où j’ai...
...plus simple qu’auparavent. Puis des terres labourées, un paysage avec rien que les mottes de...
...vue du café sur la Place du forum où nous avions l’habitude d’aller, peint la nuit.– Puis...
...Si je viens à Paris l’année prochaine alors je suis à peu près decidé de pousser jusqu...
...Et puis la cour de l’Agrappe chez vous à Frameries. C’est en somme dans le Borinage que j’ai...
...les idées vous viendront. Je vous ecris très à la hâte mais je voulais répondre de suite. Ci inclus un bien mauvais croquis de la nuit etoilée. Tous ces tableaux sont des toiles de 30 carrées...
...30 dans la journée mais alors c’etait que dès le matin jusqu’au coucher du soleil je n’ai...
...cela sera excellent de travailler avec continuité dans les charbonnages et puis, pour voir tout...
in translation:
...I immediately furnished a bedroom for Gauguin as well, or for whoever will come. The house is much...
...Here’s one of those views. A round cypress or Cedar bush in bottle green. In the lemony green...
...then I’m more or less determined to push on as far as Mons. And perhaps to my own country, to do places there that I knew before. Thus, in the Borinage, Marcasse or St-Antoine at Petit-Wasmes. And...
...to write me your address if you move house, or give me your precise permanent address — at la...
in note 1:
...Additional details). This ‘Moriau’ was François Eugène Morriaux. He lived at 42 rue de la Station in...
in note 2:
...he was married to Amélie Thiébaut, with whom he had previously lived at number 29 rue de Louise (AEM).
in note 4:
...he had previously described as ‘a round cedar or cypress bush’ (689) and soon after this as ‘the...
694 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 3 October 1888.
in original text:
...ayant à passer à Paris son conseil de révision). Pour moi je veux deux chôses, je veux regagner...
...déjà et que tu m’as prêté depuis des années nous agrandirons la chôse et nous chercherons...
...je me sois fâché, mettons que c’est à tort mais voilà toujours que Gauguin a accouché d’un...
...de gens intéressants et artistes mais je n’ai encore osé espérer.– Après l’effort continu...
...de la mienne. AVANT TOUT. Toutes ces dépenses que j’ai nommées seraient toutes dans le but de...
...rien en dessous de 500. Qu’il aie confiance en toi �� or cela il l’aura.– Je sens que nous...
...pas absolument improbable que les difficultés matérielles puissent s’aplanir. Parcequ’on...
...ne causent actuellement que de cela, on en causera à Paris aussi; et encore une fois, plus que ce...
...jaunes – à grappes violettes, à sarments noirs et orangés. A l’horizon quelques saules gris...
...n des fois montré ces splendeurs-là. Puis un court hiver – et après nous en serons encore une...
in translation:
...ask him to let us have it for his first month or in repayment of his fare. But you can clearly see...
...difference whether you stay with the Goupils or not, you’ll stand solidly behind Gauguin and his crowd. That way, you’ll be one of the first apostle-dealers, or the first. For myself, I can see...
...it possible for us to put Bernard up for nothing, seeing that we’ll put a palliasse or a mattress on the floor for me or for him, as we choose. The kitchen stove will heat the studio for us at the...
...help Bernard, Laval, others, in exchange for studies or paintings, while I’ll be under the same...
in note 5:
For Gauguin, Self-portrait with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’, see letter 692, n. 1.
in note 15:
...knowledge thanks to reports in the press – for instance it was mentioned in Daumier’s obituary in...
695 To Paul Gauguin. Arles, Wednesday, 3 October 1888.
in original text:
...pour les copains au moments où ils se trouveront acculés dans leur lutte. Lorsque vous etes parti...
...actuellement que longtemps après avoir cessé d’etre la propriété des artistes. Lorsque vous...
...ma vie solitaire m’a parfois consolée. Or je désirerais vous faire une part fort large de cette...
...de ces jours étranges de discussions dans les ateliers pauvres et les cafés du petit boulevard et...
...savez peut-etre que moi aussi j’ai passé des années dans le commerce et je ne dedaigne pas un...
...verte pourpre jaune, à sarments noirs & orangés. Des figurines de dames à ombrelles rouges, des...
...Arles. Je trouve excessivement communes mes conceptions artistiques en comparaison des vôtres...
...et inhabile. Je crois que si dès maintenant vous commenciez à vous sentir le chef de cet atelier...
...le peut aussi. Pour la chambre où vous logerez j’ai bien exprès fait une décoration, le jardin...
...et la renaissance qui dort. Or en tant que quant à celles là libre à vous de les ressuciter...
in translation:
...days of discussions in the poor studios and the cafés of the Petit Boulevard, and you’ll see in...
...few years will either be just what we said, or something similar to it. So unshakeable a basis will...
...think both of the old poet of this place (or rather, of Avignon), Petrarch, and of its new poet...
in additional details:
...Cl.-R. Marx, ‘Van Gogh et Gauguin. Lettres inédites de Van Gogh’, Europe. Revue mensuelle, 17e année...
in note 2:
For Gauguin, Self-portrait with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’, see letter 692, n. 1.
in note 3:
Gauguin left Paris for Brittany on 26 January. See Merlhès 1989, p. 61.
in note 9:
...no. 88, pp. 340-372. Van Gogh was in any event familiar with Henry Cochin’s article on Boccaccio (‘Boccace d’après ses oeuvres et les témoignages contemporains’) in the same issue; see letter 683, n. 15. Merlhès regards Burnouf’s article as the direct source for the self-portrait; see Merlhès 1989, pp. 114-118, however the words Van Gogh used do not occur in the article. Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème might also...
in note 12:
...and Boccaccio and the painters Giotto and Botticelli, whom he discussed in letter 683 after reading Cochin’s article ‘Boccace d’après ses oeuvres et les témoignages contemporains’. See letter 683, n. 15.
in note 16:
...or engraved by members of societies of artists, poets and tea-drinkers, are called surimonos...At New Year, the members of these societies were normally in the habit of giving each other presents. It was also good manners to make a drawing for the occasion, which one would have engraved and of which one would print a limited number of proofs for selection. In the hands of members, these proofs, called surimonos, perpetuated the memory of their periodic meetings.’ (On appelle sourimonos, de petites feuilles dessinées ou gravées par des membres de sociétés d’artistes, de poètes et de buveurs de thé ... Au retour de la nouvelle année, les membres de ces sociétés avaient généralement l’habitude de s’offrir quelque présent. Il était aussi de bon ton de composer quelque dessin de circonstance que l’on faisait graver et que l’on tirait à un nombre limité d’épreuves de choix. Ces épreuves, dites sourimonos, perpétuaient entre les mains des sociétaires le souvenir de leurs réunions périodiques.)...
696 To Emile Bernard. Arles, Wednesday, 3 October 1888.
in original text:
...Mon cher copain Bernard, Cette fois ci tu mérites de plus grands compliments pour le petit croquis...
...avait un fils chercheur et trouveur d’or brut dans les cailloux et sur le trottoir, certainement ton père ne dedaignerait pas ce talent. Or tu possèdes selon moi absolument l’equivalent de cela...
...t pas enormement, je méprise profondement les règlements, les institutions &c. enfin je cherche...
...par des actions tranquilles et réflechies. Pour les échanges c’est bien justement parceque j...
...avec les échanges celles dont on ne voudra pas. Rien ne nous presse et dans des échanges il vaut...
...sec assez pour le rouler, un paysage de déchargeurs de sable, également un projet et essai de...
...de part et d’autre chercher à echanger de bonnes chôses que de les faire trop à la hâte. Le...
...e mon portrait, contre les invraisemblabilités ci dessus mentionnées.– La décoration de la...
...ce soit certes très different de ce que tu fais. Mais ainsi que tu m’as parlé dans le temps de...
in translation:
...as rare and as valuable on the market as rare stones or rare metal. That’s absolutely true — a painting is as difficult to make as a large or small diamond is to find. Now while everyone acknowledges the value of a gold louis or a real pearl, unfortunately those who set store by paintings and...
...these studies aren’t found pleasing, and if one or other preferred not to take part, all you have...
...your letter, who resembles me — is that me or somebody else? He certainly looks like me as far...
in note 14:
...been either Field with farmhouses (F 576 / JH 1423) or Landscape with the edge of a road (F 567 / JH 1419...
in note 18:
...or with the landscape studies he had worked on in the spring of 1888. On 16 May he wrote telling his mother about a ‘very big’ study ‘showing Saint-Briac in bloom’ (très grande [étude] qui représente Saint-Briac en fleurs). See Harscoët-Maire 1997, p. 168. Bernard said later that he had given Van Gogh the idea of making decorative ensembles: ‘I explained to him my idea for executing studies in series: the sea, the flowers, the trees, the fields. He agreed with me, and got down to doing just that.’ (Je lui exposai mon idée d’exécuter des études par séries...
697 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 4 or Friday, 5 October 1888.
in title:
697 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 4 or Friday, 5 October 1888.
in original text:
...du vrai vrai Manet. Le Gauguin est plus étudié, poussé loin. C’est ce qu’il dit dans la...
...permis à moi aussi d’agrandir ma personalité dans un portrait j’avais, en tant que cherchant...
...il doit redevenir le Gauguin plus riche des négresses. Je suis tres content d’avoir ces deux...
...des sous dans la communauté. J’ai plus dépensé qu’eux, cela m’est en voyant leur peinture...
...en faire. J’ai enfin une confiance là-dedans. Je sais que cela fera du bien à de certains gens...
...t ces chôses mais je t’enverrai les portraits après les avoir regardé pendant quelque temps. J’espère que tu m’enverras ta lettre bientôt, je suis bien gêné à cause des chassis & cadres que j’ai commandés. Ce que tu dis de Freret me fait plaisir. mais j’ose croire que je ferai des chôses qui lui plairont mieux et à toi aussi. Hier j’ai peint un coucher de soleil. Gauguin a l’air malade dans son portrait et torturé!! Attends, cela ne durera pas et ce sera très curieux...
in translation:
...artists to feed. But at present you’re as happy, or at least happy in the same way as Sensier, if...
...of it. Bernard has sent me another collection of ten or so drawings, with a gallant piece of verse...
in date note:
...Monday (699). On these grounds we have dated the present letter Thursday, 4 or Friday, 5 October 1888.
in note 2:
...with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’, and Bernard, Self-portrait with portrait of...
in note 7:
...Castillan n’apparaîtrait pas avec un lingot d’or, et, en attendant, il se débattait avec ses ventes...
in note 10:
...or a title. Bernard wrote the following poem on the inside back cover of the album (we have restored any missing accents): Disgust is the healthiest, and to the red ray of dusk I prefer a gas-lamp in a sordid bar, With girls on green couches, bare-breasted, Kissing stupid strangers’ lips. Ugliness is the infernal thing that can stir the soul, And we have truly ceased loving women With a languid gaze, like a nude by Fragonard. –. Let us prefer flaunted flesh to great art (Which, as we know, consists of great machines In which queens, virgins, murderesses move, Joan of Arc or Catherine de’ Medici,) I don’t dispute their indefinable charms, That’s everyone’s right –. But the more we plunge into the chasm, The more the concept pervades our brain; For beneath the oceans’ eternal depths, In the blackest, bitterest of abysses, The pearl sleeps among the monsters and the weeds; The violet, beneath the rotted heap of bouquets, Exudes a sweet scent that intoxicates intensely.– It’s the hideous, then, that’s the sole element – The crucible from which a world of an abyss escapes Whose form is ugliness, whose essence the Sublime. – . – That is why I like recreating myself in ghastliness, And when my weary mind refuses to create, I go to those forbidden haunts where drunkenness is flaunted To find for my brain the divine caress Given to our gaping heart by the misunderstood –. Bleak, vast revelation of Nothingness. (L’horreur c’est le plus sain, et je préfère au rouge Rayon d’un crépuscule un bec de gaz de bouge Avec, sur des bancs verts des filles les seins nus Baisant les lèvres de stupides inconnus. Le laid c’est l’infernal qui sait remuer l’âme, Et nous avons vraiment fini d’aimer la femme A l’oeil languide ainsi qu’un nu de Fragonard. –. Qu’on préfère la chair à l’étal, au grand art (Qui consiste l’on sait en de grandes machines Où se meuvent des reines, vierges, assasines Jeanne Darc ou Cathérine de Medicis,) Je n’en discute pas les charmes indécis, C’est le droit de chacun –. Mais plus au gouffre on plonge Plus dans notre cerveau le conceps s’allonge; Car sous les profondeurs eternelles des mers Dans les abîmes les plus noirs, les plus amers, La perle dort parmi les monstres et les herbes; La violette sous le tas pourri des gerbes Répand un doux parfum qui grise fortement.– Donc c’est que le hideux c’est l’unique élément – Le creuset d’où s’échappe un monde d’un abîme Dont la forme est le laid et le fond le Sublime. – . – C’est pourquoi dans l’affreux j’aime a me recréer Et quand mon esprit las se refuse a créer Je vais aux lieux bannis où s’étale l’ivresse Pour mon cerveau chercher la divine caresse Que donne l’incompris à notre coeur béant –. Révélation morne et grande du Néant.) Emile Bernard published the poem, with some changes, in Le voyage de l’être. Poèmes d’évolution, under de title ‘A Vincent van Gohg’ [sic] with above it the note ‘On sending him croquis’ (En lui envoyant des croquis). See Bernard 1898, pp. 76-77. Cf. exhib. cat. New Brunswick 1988, p. 24...
in note 13:
...referring here to Sand barges (F 437 / JH 1570) and/or Sand barges (F 438 / JH 1571). Cf. letter 652, n...
698 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Friday, 5 October 1888.
in title:
698 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Friday, 5 October 1888.
in original text:
...enir selon moi est là-dedans. Mais ne déraillons pas dans les hypothèses maintenant. Puisque nous en sommes à te remercier ensuite du recueil de pochades intitulées au bordel. Bravo. La femme...
...Ecris moi quand tu seras à Paris – il y a que je t’ai déjà écrit mille fois que mon café de nuit n’est pas un bordel, c’est un café où les rodeurs de nuit cessent d’etre rôdeurs de...
...et d’une putain qui se raccomodaient après une brouille. La femme faisait l’indifférente et...
...toile de 4 ou de 6 �� or si tu pars vite – je te l’enverrai à Paris, si tu restes encore, dis...
...en tant que quant à la forme. Plus tard après encore dix ans d’études je ne dis pas, mais vrai...
...r de mes études abstraites. D’autres peuvent avoir pour les études abstraites plus de lucidit...
...soleil rouge, le Soleil doit être supposé plus haut, hors du tableau, mettons juste à la hauteur...
...et écris moi le jour de ton depart pour que je sache quand tu sera à Paris, adresse à Paris...
in translation:
...paint it for you from memory — on a little no. 4 or no. 6 canvas — now if you’re leaving soon...
...an abandonment to reality, without thinking about this or that. Goes without saying that if you...
...need more money than I have; I’m not young or womanizer enough for them to pose for me for free...
...and what really exists that I have so little desire or courage to search for the ideal, in so far...
in date note:
...speaks of receiving self-portraits from Gauguin and Bernard, which he also mentions in letter 697 of 4 or 5 October. We have therefore dated this letter to around that same day, on or about Friday, 5 October 1888.
in note 1:
...misérables’, and Bernard, Self-portrait with portrait of Gauguin. Bernard had suggested an exchange with the group in Pont-Aven (see letter 694). Van Gogh sent seven studies (see letter 704). Two of them – Self-portrait (F 476 / JH 1581) and Quay with sand barges (F 449 / JH 1558) respectively – were intended for Bernard and Gauguin in return for their self-portraits. See letter 697, n. 4, and n. 11 below. The other five works were intended for the new exchange with Bernard, Laval, Moret and Chamaillard. Two can be identified for certain: Thistles (F 447 / JH 1550) and The old mill (F 550 / JH 1577), which went to Moret and Chamaillard respectively. See letter 696, n. 12, and n. 10 below. Two of the other three studies probably went to Bernard, and one to Laval, both of whom sent work in exchange (see letter 719, nn. 2 and 3). There was certainly a ‘red sunset’ (l. 130); going by Van Gogh’s descriptions in letter 696 of the studies he was thinking of sending, the remaining two could have been chosen from the following three: ‘a study of a little garden of multicoloured flowers’, ‘a still life of old peasants’ shoes�� or ‘a small landscape of nothing at all, in which there’s nothing but a bit of an expanse’. The ‘study of a little garden’ was Garden with flowers (F 578 / JH 1538), which Van Gogh probably did send to Pont-Aven, given the provenance, which is not the family collection. See Roskill 1971, p. 159 (n. 89). Feilchenfeldt identified Garden with flowers (F 578 / JH 1538) as the painting of a garden that Jo van Gogh-Bonger sold to Cassirer in March 1908, but that was another work: Daubigny’s garden (F 814 / JH 2107). See Feilchenfeldt 1988, p. 105, and Account book 2002, pp. 52, 148. It is impossible to identify the last work that he sent. The ‘still life of old peasants’ shoes’ was Shoes (F 461 / JH 1569), but since that was owned by Jo van Gogh-Bonger one can conclude that it was not sent. It is not clear what the ‘small landscape of nothing at all, in which there’s nothing but a bit of an expanse’ was (see letter 696, n. 13). Cf. also Dorn’s identification of the works in the batch in exhib. cat. Essen 1990, pp. 110-112...
in note 16:
5 avenue de Beaulieu was the Bernards’ address in Asnières.
699 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 8 October 1888.
in original text:
...vigne. Quoi; des paysages poétiques. N’insiste pas trop sur les études qui certes coûtent plus...
...st très très pressé, veuillez en commander 10 ou au moins 5 mètres immediatement. C’est très...
...qui n’est pas le cas ces dernières journées – du mistral impitoyable qui balaye les feuille...
...cela après 4 jours de jeûne rigide. Juste 6 francs.– C’est le lundi le jour que je reçois ta...
...meme etre juste. Car en effet à côté des Corot, les Mauve, Mesdag, Maris sont lourds en effet...
...avons vus pour y être encadrés chez l’encadreur des Monticelli de Reid. Bague, j’en suis presque sûr, aimerait mes grandes etudes Ciel etoilé, Sillons, &c. il aimera beaucoup moins certaines...
...pleine pâte, je l’ai assez entendu là-dessus dans le temps. Je n’y compte aucunement qu’ils...
...haleine avec cela. Je dirais, montre lui et à Thomas le verger blanc, la moisson toile de 30, pas...
...me pas ces atrocités de “l’oeuvre” qu’en tant que quant à nous montrant notre chemin...
in translation:
...in the past I never quarrelled either with Tripp or with Bague. Only, while not making too much of...
...urgent; please order 10 or at least 5 metres of it immediately. It’s very urgent because I already bought some canvas here just today, in order to be ready for tomorrow or the day after, depending...
...it’s vital that he cheers up now. Or otherwise...But no otherwise; let’s assume — he�...
...possible moment if he’s sent it, 10 metres or at least 5 metres of ordinary canvas at 2.50 francs...
...it all goes into nothing else but either the house or the paintings. Because for at least 3 weeks I...
in arrangement:
...In earlier editions this sheet was regarded as the first part of a separate letter (as number 703 in De brieven 1990, as number 546 in previous editions), and the second sheet of the present letter was printed as the...
in note 6:
...Merlhès, on the other hand, suggests that this remark has to do with Theo’s sale on 3 October 1888 of a Parisian self-portrait by Vincent to the dealers Lawrie & Co. in London, together with a Corot landscape, and he assumes that Bague – possibly working with Tripp – acted as the intermediary in this sale. See Merlhès 1989, pp. 71-72 (n. 1); see also in this connection Martin Bailey, ‘Van Gogh’s first sale. A self-portrait in London’, Apollo (March 1996), pp. 20-21. Athanase Bague and his partner Maurice Gouvet dealt in work by the Barbizon School and the Hague School and were competitors of the firm of Boussod, Valadon & Cie, which only occasionally bought art from them (GRI, Goupil Ledgers). Cf. exhib. cat. Paris 1988, p. 343...
in note 7:
...a new order for paint and canvas, specifying ‘5 or even 10 metres of canvas’. From the rest of the...
in note 8:
...See letter 692, n. 1, for Gauguin, Self-portrait with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’.
in note 14:
...mean ‘a few’; cf. letter 689, l. 114: ‘deux trois jours’ (two or three days)) rather than ‘23’.
700 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 9 or Wednesday, 10 October 1888.
in title:
700 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 9 or Wednesday, 10 October 1888.
in original text:
...je reçois avis de l’arrivée de la toile de Tasset. Parfait.– Les cadres en noyer font bien pour les études. Et je crois que le prochain envoi décidera quelque chôse et que nous brûlons de vendre. Soyons prudent et comme nous sommes ne bougeons pas de l’idée que non pas seulement pour nous mais aussi pour faire réussir cet atelier il faut que nous regagnons l’argent dépensé duran...
...toute nouvelle pour moi j’ai commencé à faire des études à droite à gauche dont je t’ai fait deux envois. Mais que si tableaux il y a là-dedans c’en sont tout au plus 2 ou trois. ainsi le...
...faudra qu’ils y mettent ce que cela vaut. Espérons que nous ne soyons pas trop aux abois, avec...
...cela tant que nous pourrons. Avec cette idée-là nous pouvons travailler avec calme et volonté et...
...e de dur travail mais nous aurons des bons moments après et même entre temps. Je fais de tête...
in translation:
...that if there are paintings among them, there are 2 or three of them at most. So, the white orchard...
...too difficult for us to do the same as Mauve or Mesdag, who, being able to wait and keep things a...
...be worth ten thousand, whether it’s easy for me or not; that’s my firm and fixed aim; we’ve...
in date note:
...or certainly on Tuesday. This date tallies with his asking Theo in the present letter – not once, but twice – to be sure to see to it that the allowance got to Arles by Sunday (ll. 6 and 85-86). We consequently date it Tuesday, 9 or Wednesday, 10 October 1888...
701 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 10 or Thursday, 11 October 1888.
in title:
701 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 10 or Thursday, 11 October 1888.
in original text:
...avoir besoin de rester là-bas pour se guérir! Quelle betises! tout de même. Merci de ton mandat de 20 francs. Je t’avais dit dans ma liste d’achats nécessaires 35 francs pour la commode table...
...Puisqu’il ne vient pas tout de suite, à plus forte raison je veux chercher à avoir tout en bon...
...la maison. Allez cela fait du bien de rentrer chez soi et cela donne des idées pour le travail. Gauguin écrit très gentiment mais enfin il ne dit pas pourquoi il ne vient pas tout de suite. Il dit...
...songez y donc que nous autres prétendons vous guérir ici plus vite que ça. Allons, tout va toujours pour le mieux dans ce meilleur des mondes – où nous avons – toujours selon l’excellent...
...vrai que le voyage à Arles soit si éreintant que vous dites. Va donc. puisque les pires poitrinaires le font.– Vous savez bien que le PLM est pour cela.– Ou bien êtes vous encore plus malade...
...je serais pour leur publication. Est ce à nos frais et pour notre propre plaisir et usage alors...
in translation:
...then, it’s his business. But isn’t it clear, or shouldn’t it be, that he’s coming here precisely...
...You know very well that the PLM is for that. Or are you even iller than you say? I fear so, and if there is reason to, reassure me on this subject, or else write frankly that you’re in a bad way...
...too blunt, but it’s up to him to say yes or no. HE IS ill, but look, he’ll recover much better...
in date note:
...or Wednesday, 10 October Van Gogh said that the previous day – in other words Monday, 8 or Tuesday, 9 October – he had sent Theo a telegram asking for 20 francs (letter 700). Theo had evidently not replied on the day he received it, but he would not have delayed long in sending the money order, so we assume he did so on 9 or 10 October. In the present letter Vincent thanks Theo for the money order for 20 francs. He has meanwhile used it to buy a dressing table. In letter 703 of 13 October Van Gogh lists a large number of works that he had made in the preceding days; none of these works is mentioned in the present letter (he simply refers to a painting of the park (ll. 41-42)), which means that it must have been written some days prior to 13 October. We have therefore dated the letter Wednesday, 10 or Thursday, 11 October 1888. Letter 702 was written later on the same day; see Date in the notes to that letter...
in note 8:
Van Gogh wrote ‘P.S. to Gauguin’ so that Theo would understand that this remark belonged with the letter...
702 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 10 or Thursday, 11 October 1888.
in title:
702 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 10 or Thursday, 11 October 1888.
in original text:
...de ces jours ci j’y pense très souvent que toutes les dépenses de la peinture pèsent sur toi...
...de l’air. Voilà peutêtre que je crois trop près ce qui pourrait être encore loin et alors je...
...et mieux si tu te soigne que lorsque tu te gênes. Et ayant l’âge que nous avons, quoi, nous...
...père de famille qu’il est reellement. Je suis tres très curieux de savoir ce qu’il a fait en...
...beaucoup à désirer. Je regrette d’avoir dépensé de l’argent pour cette commode mais cela...
...s qui prendraient trop de place chez toi et te gêneraient, on pourrait les ôter des chassis et les envoyer ici où nous avons de la place assez pour les garder. Je dis cela pour certaines chôses...
...la nuit le ciel me parait ici, et c’est très drôle, plus noir qu’à Paris. Et si jamais je...
...et dans les cafés. Mon ami le postier par exemple vit beaucoup dans les cafés et certes est plus...
...n’est pas mort avachi sur les tables des cafés de la Cannebière tout à fait mais que petit...
in translation:
...Or much rather, we must be on the point of being able to find some help, either from Thomas or from...
...t know if you’ve ever read Les frères Zemganno by the De Goncourts, who perhaps loosely retrace...
...does no good for the dead, either. But what of it; that may leave us more or less cold, not having a duty to change what exists or to battle against a wall. Anyway, we’d have to get our share of...
...I feel that we’re on the point of selling or of finding help that will give us breathing space...
...for that. Be sure of this. If you were ill or if you had too much pain and trouble, nothing would...
...I’m more attached to my work than to our well-being, or at least to our peace of mind, above all...
...that about certain things from the past year, or, indeed, for everything that might be in your way...
...cafés. My friend the postman, for example, lives a great deal in cafés and is certainly more or...
...t quite die, slumped over the tables of the cafés along La Canebière, but that the little old...
in date note:
...ll. 103-104). We have therefore dated this letter, like 701, Wednesday, 10 or Thursday, 11 October 1888.
in note 3:
Edmond de Goncourt’s Les frères Zemganno (1879) tells the life story of the acrobats Nello and Gianni...
703 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 13 October 1888.
in original text:
...simple de sable gris. fond aussi très simple, murailles roses et jaunes avec fenetres à persiennes vertes, coin de ciel bleu. Les deux voitures tres colorées, vert, rouge, roues jaune, noir, bleu...
...empâtements. Tu avais dans le temps un bien beau Claude Monet representant 4 barques colorées sur...
...les pavés sont grises, le ciel d’un bleu pâle, des figurines colorées, un malingre arbre à feuillage jaune. Donc deux toiles dans les tons gris et rompus et deux toiles tres colorées. Pardonne...
...cette lettre.– Comme je désirerais pouvoir te montrer le travail qui est en train. Je suis réellement si fatigué que je vois que l’écriture ne marche pas très fort. Je t’ecrirai mieux une...
...plus vite ici. Et il fera de si belles chôses ici. Pour se guérir il lui faudra du temps. Je t’assure que je crois que si actuellement les idées pour le travail me viennent plus claires et plus...
...mes yeux sont fatigués. à bientôt car j’avais pourtant encore bien des chôses à dire et je...
in translation:
...this week; that brings, I believe, to 15 the number of these no. 30 canvases for the decoration. 2...
in date note:
...a money order for 20 francs as early as Tuesday or Wednesday; see letter 701.) He now looks back over...
704 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 15 October 1888.
in original text:
...nd qu’il t’a fait un envoi de tableaux & études. Serais bien content si tu pouvais trouver le temps de m’ecrire quelques détails sur ce que c’est. Sa lettre etait accompagnee d’une lettre...
...mais d’ailleurs il fait un mistral de très grande violence qui soulève des nuages de poussière...
...c’est naturel. Si j’avais travaillé plus tranquillement tu vois bien que le mistral m’aura...
...n qui actuellement monte à 15 toiles de 30 carrées et qui pour former un tout en prendra au moins...
...moi exprès je n’en voulais pas en échange considerant la chose trop importante. Il écrit pour dire qu’absolument il veut que je la prenne en échange. Sa lettre est encore très complimenteuse...
...s sont une réunion litteraire et artistique, Clovis Hugues, Mistral, d’autres qui ecrivent en provencal et parfois en francais des sonnets assez bien, meme de fort bien parfois. Si les félibres...
...Monticelli a commencé. Si Gauguin et moi écrivons un article dans un des journaux d’ici cela...
in translation:
...Félibres are a literary and artistic circle: Clovis Hugues, Mistral, others, who write quite good, even sometimes very good sonnets in Provençal and sometimes in French. If one day the Félibres...
...right, it will be so that my work remains here or in Marseille, where, as you know, I’d like to...
in note 1:
...or 8 October that he would give Bernard’s mother, who was going from Pont-Aven to Paris, several canvases to take with her. Bernard was to bring the rest of the paintings, among them The vision after the sermon (see letter 688); he left for Paris about 10 November. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 247, 266, 275. We know from a letter Theo wrote to his sister Willemien (6 December 1888) that he had received twenty paintings from Gauguin altogether; they included winter and spring landscapes and views of the village. ‘Do you remember that painting of the negresses by Gauguin that hangs above the sofa? He recently sent me at the gallery twenty paintings that he did in Brittany last year. If you can call the painting to mind, you know what strange poetry it has in it. Well there’s the same in these new paintings, but since the subjects are more within our reach they’re easier to understand and are, if not more beautiful, at any rate more enjoyable from the first moment. There are winter landscapes with the greyish green hills against the leaden sky where the colour is altogether muted and one thinks of nothing but the bleakness of the sloping fields. Or the same landscape, but with a single beech tree with shrivelled russet foliage as a counterpoint to the green. There are also spring landscapes with the slender branches of the trees on which all the young leaves hang like little bells and tell of the rejoicing of rejuvenated nature. Or a little village in the first days of spring veiled in a purple mist behind the deeper coloured tree trunks whose bright green leaves are echoed in the green fields that one sees behind the village, stretching away to the hill in the distance. You’d have to see them to get an idea of the diverse way he’s expressed himself and above all to feel the different moods in which he did them. Usually the calm nature that fills his innermost being with resignation, but sometimes also the violent welling up of all his suffering and strife, which he expresses through the most powerful, deepest tones that resound above all when he saw nature swelling under the beneficent and creative power of the sun. It’s impossible to describe everything that’s in these paintings, but it appears that he’s greater than anyone had thought. It could just be with him the way it used to be with Millet, who is now understood by everyone because the poetry he proclaims is so powerful that everyone from great to small finds satisfaction in it. Monet also makes magnificent pictures of nature, but one has to be happy and healthy oneself to be able to enjoy them, otherwise one is likely to find oneself thinking “Oh if only I were there, I would be happier”. Whereas from Gauguin come as it were whispered words of comfort to those who are not happy or not healthy. In him nature itself speaks, whereas in Monet one hears the maker of the paintings speaking’ (FR b916). Theo showed the following of these works at Boussod, Valadon & Cie in November: Spring in Lézaven (W279/W249), Dogs running in a meadow (W282/W265), Inlet opposite the fishing port of Pont-Aven (W276/W266) and Breton girls dancing (W296/W251) (letter from Theo to Gauguin of 13 November 1888). Shepherd and shepherdess in the meadow (W280/W250) was also among them (letter from Gauguin to Theo, 14 November 1888). See Wildenstein 2001, pp. 386, 390, 393-394, 414-416, and Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 280-282...
in note 6:
...already had the drawing Mousmé (F 1722 / JH 1521); according to Merlhès this is a letter sketch in a lost letter to Gauguin written in late July or early August. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 491 (n. 266).
in note 12:
See letter 692, n. 1, for Gauguin’s Self-portrait with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’.
in note 13:
...There they visited Antoine Crousillat, nicknamed ‘the nestor of the Félibres’ (le doyen des Félibres). Arles, Montmajour and Fontvieille are among the places mentioned in the section Van Gogh is...
in note 14:
...Provençal poets who called themselves the Félibres (‘they who know’). They were Théodore Aubanel...
705 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 16 October 1888.
in original text:
J’ai encore les yeux fatigués mais enfin j’avais une nouvelle idée en tête et en voici le croquis. Toujours toile de...
...vert très clair. La couverture rouge écarlate. La fenêtre verte. la table à toilette orangée, la cuvette bleue. Les portes lilas. Et c’est tout – rien dans cette chambre à volets clos. La...
...le mur et un miroir et un essuie mains et quelques vêtements. Le cadre – comme il n’y a pas de...
...e demain mais tu vois comme la conception est simple.– Les ombres et ombres portées sont suprimées, c’est coloré à teintes plates et franches comme les crepons. Cela va contraster avec par...
in translation:
...job here, and through its being simplified by giving a grander style to things, to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In short, looking at the painting should rest the mind, or rather, the imagination.
706 To Paul Gauguin. Arles, Wednesday, 17 October 1888.
in original text:
...m’a causé le trajet cet hiver de Paris à Arles. Comme j’ai guetté “si cela etait déjà du...
...A teintes plates mais grossierement brossées en pleine pâte, les murs lilas pâle, le sol d’un rouge rompu & fané, les chaises & le lit jaune de chrome, les oreillers et le drap citron vert très pâle, la couverture rouge sang, la table à toilette orangée, la cuvette bleue, la fenetre verte. J’avais voulu exprimer un repos absolu par tous ces tons très divers vous voyez, et où il n...
...nous chercherons à la rendre. Il y a tant de dépenses et cela ne peut pas se faire d’une seule...
in additional details:
...number 22, and subsequent editions consequently retained this misleading B number. Bernard explained his reason for including it: ‘I did not believe I should omit this interesting letter, decorated with a drawing’ (Je n’ai pas cru devoir omettre cette intéressante missive orné d’un dessin) (Lettres à Bernard 1911, p. 151). Merlhès has suggested that the letter came into Bernard’s possession because it arrived after Gauguin had left Pont-Aven (Merlhès 1989, p. 124). Another possibility is that Gauguin gave it to Bernard...
707 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 17 October 1888.
in original text:
...et même d’eux mêmes.– Je ne suis donc pas encore au courant et désirerais savoir donc: “va...
...Mais si nous y etions pourtant obligés, certes après les antecedents nous n’avons plus...
...en définitive dans le cadre. Et à nos nouveaux amis bien des chôses et de la chance que je leur...
...les cas bien plaisir que tu aies rencontré ces Hollandais. Il se pourrait tout juste que j’aie...
...ai après car j’ai toujours la vue encore fatiguée. Et dans ces moments-là, juste après le...
...laissons les études tranquilles et seulement si on n’y trouve rien, bon, si on y trouve ce qu’on appelle du bon, ma foi tant mieux. Enfin, n’y réflechissons pas trop profondement au bien et...
...lu Cesarine de Richepin, il y a des chôses bien là-dedans – la marche des soldats en déroute...
...même. Cela ne finit pas par du sang, des atrocités tant que cela, allez. Je préfère bien Guy de...
...e des tableaux comme les crepons et restons là-dedans sans plus. (as tu deja lu Mme Chrysantème...
in translation:
...good luck, which I wish them. If they want to see something new, certainly, let them go to the south or Africa or to Sicily if it’s winter. But it’s only — if they have originality — the real...
...you’ll always be condemned to trade, without rest or variation, and I that mine is also without...
in note 5:
...studio (see letter 589, n. 19), at the Indépendants in March of that year in an austere white frame with...
in note 11:
...son. From then on Henri leads an unstable and lonely existence and spends most of his time in cafés.
in note 13:
...with a rod of iron. Eugénie inherits Félix’s fortune on his death, and this makes her a very...
708 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Friday, 19 October 1888.
in original text:
...sont. Le grand tableau je ne l’ai pas vu mais à juger selon une photographie prise d’après un dessin
...est certain qu’il a subi l’influence de celui là mais il y a tout de même dans ce que j’ai...
...en Hollande. Je t’envoi deux phot. d’après des dessins pour que tu puisses juger, les phot...
...rien vu d’Isacson que ses croquis qui sont très bien & tres originals. Il attent des dessins qui...
...que son cadre calculé valait bien tout espèces de cadres couteux. Dans ces derniers temps j’ai...
...a de faire de ta maison un endroit où les artistes se sentiront chez eux. Je finis car sans cela...
in translation:
...they put him above J. Maris, but well above Israëls. I believe that if you knew them you’d share...
in note 1:
Vincent had asked about De Haan and Isaäcson’s work in letter 707.
709 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 21 October 1888.
in original text:
...jours. Enfin je suis encore une fois à peu près reduit au cas de la folie d’Hugue van der Goes...
...t d’exaltation donnent plutôt dans les préoccupations d’éternité et de vie éternelle. Mais...
...Seulement ce n’est en vérité qu’après ta deuxieme lettre que je puisse me former une idée de ce qu’ils font et je suis bien curieux de voir les photographies d’après leurs dessins. J’ai bien envie de t’ecrire une lettre exprès que tu pourras leur faire lire pour expliquer encore...
...une école qui se bornerait à faire des expériences optiques. Ainsi pour eux qui font alors de la...
...de ma derniere toile. Une rangée de cyprès verts contre un ciel rose avec un croissant citron...
in translation:
...Similarly with those who do history painting, then, or at least have done it in the past; while...
in note 2:
...correspondence that Arles had street lighting and the cafés had gaslight (see e.g. letters 656 and 691).
in note b:
Read: ‘un peu plus�� or ‘plus’.
710 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 22 October 1888.
in original text:
...une toile de 30, jardin d’automne, deux cyprès verts bouteille et forme bouteille, trois petits...
...chercher à les faire. Eh bien l’argent que tu me donnes et que d’ailleurs je te demande plus que jamais, je te le rendrai en travail et non seulement le present mais aussi le passé. Mais laisse...
...x pouvaient en faire de telles chôses que Seurat se joigne à nous! Mais à mon avis il faut au...
...sentiments je tombe si souvent dans les mêmes résultats en partant de points de vues absolument...
...Dès que tu pourras et meme aussitôt si la chôse serait possible il faudrait encore 10 mètres...
...nous ne fussions pas à même de vaincre N’IMPORTE QUELLES difficultés de production. Mais à plus fortes raison les présentes. Si cela clochait il faudrait tenir conseil aussitôt Gauguin venu...
...comme elles viendront. à propos, as tu jamais lu les frères Zemganno des de Goncourt. Si non lis le. Si je n’avais pas lu cela j’oserais peut être davantage. et même après l’avoir lu la...
in translation:
...my dear brother, if I could do such a thing, or if Gauguin and I together could do such things that...
...come. By the way, have you ever read Les frères Zemganno, by the De Goncourts? If not, read it. If...
...eventuality, because I would either go into the business or I would write, but as long as I’m in...
...to send it by money order, whether it’s more, or less, as you were able. I shake your hand firmly...
in note 5:
See letter 702, n. 3, for Edmond de Goncourt’s Les frères Zemganno.
711 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 23 October 1888.
in original text:
...ui eût fait la démarche, & encore. Maintenant tâchons de nous en tirer tout de même, les autres...
...un vrai savant. Ils ont reçu des tableaux & études faites en Hollande, fort bien, mais un peu noir. Ils ont l’intention de rester l’hiver à Paris & de partir pour la campagne aussitôt que le...
in translation:
...I expect to be back from Brussels on Friday or Saturday, and I’ll write to you shortly at greater...
712 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Thursday, 25 October 1888.
in title:
712 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Thursday, 25 October 1888.
in original text:
...encore absolument nécessaires pour l’installation n’ont ni besoin d’attendre ni porteront sur ton dos seulement. G. t’écrira certes aujourd’hui. Il est très très interessant comme homme et j’ai toute confiance qu’avec lui nous ferons des tas de chôses. Il produira probablement...
...lourd. Je sens moi, jusqu’à en etre écrasé moralement et vidé physiquement, le besoin de...
...prix de la couleur et de ma vie en somme très maigre que nous y mettons. Je n’ai d’autre dési...
...souffres mais à moi cela me serait, si tu n’en étais pas par trop gêné de ce que je rapporte...
...toile nous allons également la préparer nous mêmes. J’ai eu un moment un peu le sentiment que...
...je vendrai aussi mais vis à vis de toi je suis tellement en retard et tout en depensant je ne rapporte rien. Ce sentiment-là m’attriste quelquefois. Je suis tres très content de ce que tu ecris...
...et de notre vie mais dans tous les cas il est très content de la bonne vente que tu lui as faite...
in translation:
...I have no other wish nor other concern regarding money or finances than in the first place not to...
...a little more difficult for me, and as far as the number goes, there won’t always be as many. The...
in note 2:
...he told Schuffenecker on 25 October 1888. See Merlhès 1989, pp. 124-127. For the route he took see...
713 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 27 October 1888.
in original text:
...j’adressais à Pont Aven, le croyant encore là-bas, la possibilité existe que vous ne l’ayez...
...vois que tu es malade & que tu te fais des quantités de soucis. Une fois pour toute il faut que je...
...ou probablement plusieurs révolutions, la question argent ne disparaitra pas, il faut la traiter comme la vérole si on l’a. C’est à dire prendre les précautions contre les accidents qui...
...faut que je travaille pour de l’argent. Comme à nous deux nous n’en avons pas beaucoup il faut...
...je ne comprends pas le calcul de tant de tableaux à fs 100, si l’on veut qu’ils valent fr 100...
...de grace avertis moi à temps pour que je ne sens pas que tu aies été dans la misère & que tu...
...Gauguin te soit agréable & que tu te remettras très prochainement. Je n’ai pas encore reçu ses...
...très discuté mais aussi approuvé là-bas & il serait bon de créer à Bruxelles aussi une exposition permanente. Demain de Haan vient rester avec moi dont je suis très content, je suis très...
in translation:
...when, as just recently, I’m not there, or am unable to send you money immediately? I’m very...
...side doesn’t exist, or rather, that it exists like an illness. Since it’s certain that the money question won’t disappear before a tremendous revolution, or probably several revolutions, we...
...hold out for some time yet, even without selling this or that. If you feel the need to do a great...
...doing by myself and which you, however, have more or less created since you’ve been in France. If...
...t received his canvases yet. Did he send them, or should they reach me via someone? In Brussels...
in note a:
Read: ‘excès’.
in note 4:
...as the laughable vase of sunflowers by Mr Vincent, or by any other agent provocateur’ (ne voulant pas...
714 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 27 or Sunday, 28 October 1888.
in title:
714 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 27 or Sunday, 28 October 1888.
in original text:
...que je viens de recevoir. Je savais bien que Gauguin avait voyagé mais j’ignorais qu’il était vrai marin, il a passé par toutes les difficultés, il a été vrai gabier dans la hune et vrai...
...quelque chôse, des rapports avec ces pêcheurs d’Islande de Loti. Je crois que cela te fera le...
...voit et surtout est intrigué par les arlésiennes. Cette semaine j’ai fait une nouvelle étude...
...vas tu et as tu fait quelque chôse à Bruxelles. Je suis toujours bien content de savoir que tu ne...
...ir d’une grande renaissance de la peinture. Démandes un peu aux nouveaux amis Hollandais s’ils...
...des chôses à faire. Je regrette de ne pas avoir dix ou vingt ans de moins, certes j’irais. Maintenant peu probable que je bouge du littoral et la petite maison jaune ici à Arles demeurera ce...
...je crois que le soir nous y amènerons des voisins et amis et que le soir nous travaillerons comme le jour tout en causant.– Des portraits de gens eclairés au gaz cela me parait toujours une chose...
in translation:
...what he sees, and is particularly intrigued by the Arlésiennes. This week I did a new study of a...
...there would be to do! I regret not being ten or twenty years younger; I’d certainly go. Now not...
in additional details:
...on from my letter’. (Votre frère vient de recevoir votre mandat télégraphique mais comme il a beaucoup de choses à vous écrire il fera suite à ma lettre). See Merlhès, Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 266.
in date note:
...same day – the 27th. We have therefore dated the present letter Saturday, 27 or Sunday, 28 October 1888.
715 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 29 October 1888.
in title:
715 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 29 October 1888.
in original text:
...tre mais je le serais devenu si mes dépenses avaient dû continuer. Puisque j’étais dans une...
...bout la chose commencée, d’engager Gauguin à nous joindre, et d’autre part, comme tu peux le...
...crainte de ce que j’aurais des préoccupations d’argent. Gauguin venu le but est provisoirement atteint. Lui et moi en combinant nos dépenses à deux ne dépenserons même pas ce que me coutait...
...pas eu les mêmes idées j’aurais occasionné d’assez fortes dépenses pour rien. Mais Gauguin...
...retomber dans la dette fatale. Nous ne dépenserons à deux pas plus de 250 par mois. Et dépenserons beaucoup moins en couleur puisque nous allons en faire nous mêmes. N’ayes donc toi de ton côt...
...certes monteront. Alors après si tu gardes mes tableaux pour toi soit à Paris soit ici, je serai...
...je sais seulement qu’il y a déjà quelques études qu’il aime reellement, ainsi le semeur, les...
...déjà en être là. mais de mon côté je trouve très facilement le paysage ici et assez vari...
in translation:
...or move in, it’s the case that it’s more difficult than you think. Now I dare breathe at last, as we’ve all had a stroke of darned good fortune with the sale you were able to make for Gauguin. One way or another...
...if you keep my paintings for yourself, either in Paris or here, I’ll be much happier to be able...
...will continue to be an essential stopping-off point or station, useful at least to all those who...
in date note:
...after he received it. We have consequently dated the present letter on or about Monday, 29 October 1888.
716 Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin to Emile Bernard. Arles, Thursday, 1 or Friday, 2 November 1888.
in title:
716 Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin to Emile Bernard. Arles, Thursday, 1 or Friday, 2 November 1888.
in original text:
...s plus amoureux et plus charitables – que le boulevardier parisien décadent et crevé.�� Or ici sans le moindre doute nous nous trouvons en présence d’un être vierge à instincts de fauve. Chez Gauguin le sang et le sexe prevalent sur l’ambition. Mais suffit, tu l’as vu de près plus...
...ns point encore mis le pied sur un continent nouveau. Or moi qui ai un pressentiment d’un nouveau...
...que nous mêmes ne servons que d’intermédiaires. Et que ce ne sera qu’une genération suivante qui réussira à vivre en paix. Enfin, tout cela, nos devoirs et nos possibilités d’action ne...
...de ne pas encore avoir reçu tes études promises en échange des miennes. Maintenant ce qui...
...devenir une belle chôse. Moi j’ai fait deux études d’une chûte des feuilles dans une allée...
...Vincent a fait deux études de feuilles tombantes dans une allée qui sont dans ma chambre et que vous aimeriez bien. sur toile à sac très grosse mais très bonne. Envoyez de vos nouvelles et de...
in translation:
...to deal with the terrific subject of an association of certain painters. Ought or may this association have a commercial character, yes or no? We haven’t reached any result yet, and haven’t so...
in additional details:
Bernard gave this letter to Aurier when he was writing the article ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’ for the Mercure de France (see letter 845), in which he incorporated a passage from this letter (see n. 2).
in date note:
...and letter 714). For these reasons we have dated the letter to Thursday, 1 or Friday, 2 November 1888.
in note 2:
...isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, which appeared in the Mercure de France of January 1890, to provide the following characterization of Van Gogh: ‘a dreamer, an exalted believer, a devourer of beautiful Utopias, who lives on ideas and illusions. For a long time he has taken delight in imagining a renovation of art made possible through a displacement of civilization: an art of tropical regions.’ (un rêveur, un croyant exalté, un dévoreur de belles utopies, vivant d’idées et de songes. Longtemps, il s’est complu à imaginer une rénovation d’art, possible par un déplacement de civilisation: un art des régions tropicales). See also Rewald 1978, p. 342 and n. 74...
in note 4:
Paul Gauguin, Night café, Arles, 1888 (W318/W305) (Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts). Ill. 2240...
in textual note 11:
des tempéraments < Des tempéraments
717 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Saturday, 3 November 1888.
in title:
717 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Saturday, 3 November 1888.
in original text:
...fr. et également de ta lettre. Gauguin est très heureux de ce que tu aimes son envoi de Bretagne...
...le laisse là inachevé cela sera très beau et très étrange. Egalement un tableau du même caf...
...divers ustensiles de ménage puis 20 mètres de toile très forte, un tas de choses dont nous...
...et alors la commode &c. naturellement serait à nous. Je trouve cela juste en somme puisque lui a...
...travaillons beaucoup et la vie à deux marche très bien. Je suis bien heureux de savoir que tu...
...nouveaux essais de couleur comme absolument des études. Mais selon moi il a plusieurs fois raison...
...aucun tort, ils trouveront certes des chôses intéressantes. Gauguin et moi vont diner aujourd’h...
...lilas coupés par le cadre là où commencent les feuilles. Ces troncs d’arbres comme des piliers bordent une allée où sont à droite & à gauche alignés de vieux tombeaux romains d’un lilas bleu.�� Or le sol est couvert comme d’un tapis par une couche epaisse de feuilles orangées et...
in translation:
...entirely from memory, but if he doesn’t spoil it or leave it there unfinished it will be very fine and...
...francs, which we’d pay him back at New Year, or in the month of March for example, and then the...
...In any case, to come here at some time or another would do them no harm, they’ll certainly find...
...that we will manage this as often as it seems preferable or cheaper to us. So as not to delay this...
...painting is a very green meadow and no sky, or almost none. The second canvas is the same avenue...
in date note:
...the last allowance of 50 francs, received on 27 or 28 October. Cf. also n. 9.The letter, moreover, must have been written shortly after the letter to Bernard of 1 or 2 November (716), because Van Gogh mentions the...
in note 3:
For Gauguin’s Night café, Arles, see letter 716, n. 4. Van Gogh’s painting of the Café de la Gare is...
in note 10:
The Alyscamps (‘Leaf-fall’) (F 487 / JH 1621). The location described by Van Gogh is the Roman burial ground Les Alyscamps (the Elysian Fields or Champs-Elysées), to the south-east of Arles.
718 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 10 November 1888.
in original text:
...la lettre de ce monsieur il n’y a pas deux réponses à faire. Il y en a une et tu la trouveras...
...chez Tanguy d’abord, chez Thomas, chez Martin ensuite. Or moi ici je déclare absolument ignorer...
...toile des vendangeuses, c’est aussi beau que les négresses et si tu la payais le même prix que...
...vu les choses Bretonnes. Il m’en a expliqué plusieurs. et cela doit etre beau. j’ai fait une...
...tu pourras mettre cette toile à côté des paysages de Monticelli. Je vais me mettre à travailler...
...pour porter les toiles à Paris et Gauguin lui a donné un petit dessin en échange d’une édition illustrée de Mme Chrysanthème. Je n’ai toujours pas reçu les échanges de Pont aven. mais...
...de simples baguettes clouées sur le chassis et peints, ce que moi j’ai commencé. Sais tu que...
...s sur le chassis coûte 5 sous et nous allons certainement le perfectionner. Cela fait très bien...
...somme necessaire aux chassis qu’il désire à clefs et en plus ce que te demandera Bernard pour...
in translation:
...Now with regard to the few canvases at Tanguy’s or Thomas’s place...that’s a matter of such...
in note 2:
...Après Signac Dubois-Pillet ce serait arriver comme un nouveau venu tout jeune. En outre ces messieurs me veulent plutôt du mal, quand même leur clientèle est insignifiante et dans un sens contraire au mien.) Moreover, Gauguin sent Theo a copy of his letter to Dujardin: ‘I am embarrassed by the honour you do me in inviting me this time to exhibit at the premises of the Revue Indépendante. I regret that I am unable to accept an invitation that my friend Schuffenecker sought in vain for himself. Having felt for 3 years that my powers as an artist were utterly inadequate for the modern forms of progress introduced among the Impressionist artists, so quickly replaced by the Neo-Impressionists, I decided to work in isolation, without being promoted by any group. My studies made in the tropics are inadequate as precise renderings of nature, and I believe that the Revue Indépendante would be powerless to give them the brightness and luminosity they lack.’ (Je suis confus de l’honneur que vous me faites en m’invitant cette fois à exposer au local de la Revue Indépendante. Je regrette de ne pouvoir accepter une invitation que mon ami Schuffeneker a sollicitée vainement pour lui. Sentant depuis 3 ans mes forces comme artiste tout à fait insuffisantes aux progrès modernes introduits chez les artistes impressionistes si vite remplacés par les néo-impressionistes, j’ai résolu de travailler à l’écart en dehors de toute publicité de groupes. Mes études de tropique sont insuffisantes comme donnée exacte de la nature et je crois que la Revue Indépendante serait impuissante à leur donner la clarté et la luminosité qui leur manquent.) See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 294-295. He also sent a copy of the letter to Schuffenecker, adding: ‘You see that I do not beat about the bush, and that I take the opportunity to obtain revenge for you – and to say what I think about all these coteries. I should like to see the look on these gentlemen’s faces when they read my letter’. (Vous voyez que je n’y vais pas par 4 chemins et que j’en profite pour vous venger – et pour dire ce que je pense de toutes ces coteries. Je voudrais voir la tête de ces messieurs quand ils liront ma lettre). See Merlhès 1989, p. 182...
in note 6:
Gauguin had sent Theo a number of his Pont-Aven paintings; see letter 704, n. 1.
in note 12:
For Gauguin’s Night café, Arles, see letter 716, n. 4.
in note 15:
...de Vincent et je veux celles de Tanguy). Merlhès places this letter between about 9 and about 12...
719 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 11 or Monday, 12 November 1888.
in title:
719 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 11 or Monday, 12 November 1888.
in original text:
Une lettre très bien et où elle parle d’autrefois. Je vais y répondre et j’enverrai encore quelques...
...moi. Le portrait de Laval est tres crâne, très distingué et sera justement un des tableaux dont...
...es portraits sont toujours bons. Gauguin travaille à une femme nue très originale dans du foin avec des cochons. Cela promet de devenir très beau et d’un grand style. Il a fait revenir de Paris...
...notre jardin à Etten avec des choux, des cyprès, des dahlias et des figures. puis une Liseuse de...
...de Tasset est arrivé avant hier et nous en etions très contents. Tasset pourrait il envoyer encore, mais c’est pressé 1 très grand tube Vermillon (format comme les grands blanc d’argent) 3...
in date note:
...mention the money (letter 718), we have dated the present letter to Sunday, 11 or Monday, 12 November 1888.
in note 6:
...cornes qui est chez Van Gog et un petit pot mat qui est chez vous avec Cléopâtre et envoyez-les moi. Nous sommes ici dans une petite maison assez gentille et je voudrais avoir devant mes yeux un peu de poterie.) See Merlhès 1989, p. 127...
in note 9:
...Les cabinets de lecture, la lecture publique à Paris sous la restauration. Paris 1982. Van Gogh’s...
720 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 12 November 1888.
in title:
720 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 12 November 1888.
in original text:
...des dames &c. Il y a tant de chôses là-dedans comme dans Guy de Maupassant aussi. Je t’ai déj...
...un châle écossais carrelé vert et orangé et un parasol rouge. La vieille a un châle violet bleu presque noir. Mais un bouquet de dahlias, jaune citron les unes, panachées roses et blanches les...
...cyprès d’un vert émeraude. Derrière ces cyprès on entrevoit un parterre de choux vert pâles...
...verdure de deux parterres de geraniums écarlates est très verte. Enfin au deuxieme plan se trouve...
...e et vert se détachant sur le vert sombre du cyprès, ce contraste encore exagéré par le parasol...
...de même les lignes bizarres cherchées et multipliées serpentant dans tout le tableau doivent non...
...aussi une liseuse de romans. de grands cheveux très noirs, un corsage vert, des manches lie de...
...vit maintenant avec moi et que nous sommes très heureux ensemble, il m’encourage beaucoup à travailler souvent en pleine imagination. Tu diras bien des chôses à la mère de ma part et ecris...
in translation:
...figure. Behind them a few emerald-green cedar or cypress bushes. Behind these cypresses one catches...
in date note:
...to Theo in letter 719, written on Sunday, 11 or Monday, 12 November 1888, this letter must have been...
721 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 19 November 1888.
in title:
721 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 19 November 1888.
in original text:
...Bretons, est arrivée et il l’a très très bien changée. Mais quoique j’aime assez cette...
...es chôses vues. Qu’importe-t-il donc d’en vendre si nous ne sommes pas absolument pressés...
...et d’autre après avoir pourtant travaillé là-dedans 6 ans nous étions absolument mécontent...
...jamais vendre que d’y entrer autrement que très carrement. Or eux c’est pas des gens à agir...
...empatées, Gauguin m’a dit comment les degraisser par des lavages de temps à temps.– d’aill...
...le ne le sera plus tard. Ce que j’ai envoyé, ils trouvent tous que c’est fait trop à la hâte...
...me. Ses deux dernieres toiles que tu vas voir sont très fermes dans la pâte, il y a du travail...
...re, sans cela j’aurais déjà écrit à ces Hollandais. J’ai encore eu une lettre de Bock, tu...
...tableau de tournesols dans un grand vase japonais très beau. mais – il aime mieux les miens...
...cela t’est connu, la rareté des modèles, les mille contrarietes pour vaincre cette difficult...
in translation:
...is that G. is beginning to overcome his liver or stomach trouble that has bothered him lately. Now...
...if you yourself would like to place either a bad or good thing of mine there, my word if that will make you happier, then of course you have and will have carte blanche either now or later. But if, on the other hand, it’s either for my pleasure or for my own benefit, I’d be of the opinion that...
...with my previous behaviour to come back there with a canvas of such innocence as this little peach tree or some other thing like it. No. If in a year or two I have enough to make an exhibition of my own, let’s say thirty or so no. thirty canvases — And if I said to them, will you do it for me...
...honestly, and that’s worthy of respect. If one or the other wants to buy however, fine, all they...
...ones which, however, will serve me as documents �� or those that are cluttering up your apartment...
...to the Goupils, which is more than likely, or I’ll return straightforwardly, which is quite...
in date note:
...or Monday, 12 November and letter 722, written on or about 21 November. Van Gogh reports that he and Gauguin are managing well with 150 francs each per month (ll. 113-114); Gauguin had been in Arles since 23 October. Furthermore, Gauguin has retouched the painting that Theo sent on 13 November; the retouching did not take long (see n. 1). It had taken four or five days for the painting, which Theo had sent rolled up, to reach Arles (see Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 288 and Dorn 1990, p. 522). On the basis of this information we have dated the present letter to about Monday, 19 November 1888...
in note 1:
...S. But since these are the whims of a painter and not a collector, I shall try to remedy, or rather, attenuate it.’ (Je vais m’occuper du tableau à retoucher; evidemment la main qui arrive dans le cadre prend beaucoup d’importance et je la croyais necessaire ainsi pour équilibrer la danse qui a la forme d’un S...
in note 7:
...Degas, tous gens que j’admire; moi je réponds brigadier vous avez raison pour avoir la...
in note 11:
On or about 13 November 1888, Gauguin wrote the following to Schuffenecker about Guillaumin’s letter: ‘Guillaumin has written me a distressing letter; he tells me about his wish to exhibit with the Indépendants this year’ (Guillaumin m’a écrit une lettre désolante; il me parle de son désir d’exposer cette année aux Indépendants). See Merlhès 1989, p. 139. A daughter, called Madeleine, had been born to Guillaumin on...
in note 15:
...1881, and at the exhibition of the Indépendants in 1882. See Wildenstein and Walter 1974-1991, vol...
722 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Wednesday, 21 November 1888.
in title:
722 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Wednesday, 21 November 1888.
in original text:
...100 fr. qu’elle contenait. Suis très content de ce que le succès de Gauguin en tant que quant...
...l’eau sous le pont. Ce que tu écris des Hollandais m’intéresse beaucoup. J’espère un jour...
...disque citron comme soleil. Ciel vert jaune à nuages roses. le terrain violet, le semeur et...
...les toiles une fois bien sèches à fond jusque dans les empâtements. Si à quarante ans je fais...
...que cela vaudra mieux qu’un succès plus ou moins sérieux maintenant. As tu vu les études que Bernard a rapportées de Bretagne. Gauguin m’en a racconté bien des chôses. Lui en a une qui est...
...pour par exemple des draps ou des chôses qui resteraient à l’atelier. Car des deux côtés on...
...vivra alors verra. Gauguin a en train un très beau tableau de laveuses et aussi une grande nature...
...mysterieux, d’extraordinaire beauté – des cyprès bleu de prusse, des arbres à feuilles mortes de tous les tons rompus là contre, c’était pas piqué des vers. Tu ne saurais t’imaginer...
in translation:
...he wouldn’t leave alone but with one other or several others, and would found a lasting studio...
...or a little later. In the meantime it will dry thoroughly here, and I can go over all the canvases again once they’re thoroughly dry, even the impasted areas. If at the age of forty I do a painting of figures or portraits the way I feel it, I think that will be worth more than a more or less...
...Only we mustn’t forget that either at New Year or in March, Gauguin will have to be repaid the money he may have laid out, for example for sheets or things that would remain in the studio. For on...
in note 5:
...dessin et de la couleur’ (On drawing and colour), or ‘Colour being what more particularly distinguishes...
in note 9:
...of a canal, 1888 (W322/W302) (New York, The William S. Paley Collection at the Museum of Modern Art). Ill...
723 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Saturday, 1 December 1888.
in title:
723 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Saturday, 1 December 1888.
in original text:
...fr. qu’elle contenait. Nos journées passent à travailler, travailler toujours, le soir nous sommes éreintés et nous allons au café pour nous coucher de bonne heure après. Voilà l’existence...
...re insister là-dessus et pouvoir obtenir des poses plus sérieuses payables en portraits. Et si...
...je suis en pleine merde, des études, des études, des études et cela durera encore – un...
...la qualité et non tant que ça la quantité. Or rien ne nous empêche d’avoir beaucoup d’etud...
...s. Et si nous soyons tot ou tard obligés de vendre, alors de vendre un peu plus cher des chôses...
...avais envoyés en Bretagne. Mais la mère Bernard se les était simplement appropriées.– Parlant...
...le porte déjà à songer à se fixer à Bruxelles ce qui certes serait un moyen de se retrouver...
...succès dans les arlésiennes je ne considérerais pas cela comme absolument sans conséquenses. il...
...s enfants qui d’après les portraits sont très beaux. Nous autres ne sommes pas malins là-dedans...
in translation:
...a whole heap of things for sale. And if sooner or later we’re obliged to sell, then selling at...
...Very interesting that you met Chatrian. Is he blond or dark? I’d like to know that, since I know...
...again. Since he has some success with the Arlésiennes in the meantime, I wouldn’t consider that...
in note 2:
...or beginning of August 1888. Van Gogh says that the new portraits are no. 15 canvases, meaning approximately 65 x 54 cm, so he could be referring to the following ones: Joseph Roulin (F 434 / JH 1647), Augustine Roulin (F 503 / JH 1646), Marcelle Roulin in her mother’s arms (F 491 / JH 1638), Camille Roulin (F 665 / JH 1879), Armand Roulin (F 492 / JH 1642) and/or Armand Roulin (F 493 / JH 1643). On the series of Roulin portraits, see also Dorn 1990, pp. 446-454...
in note 12:
...27). See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 291, 294; Merlhès dated it to some time between 4 and 7 December.
in note 13:
...For me it was a question of going to see them [= the children] over 6 months ago; (all of a sudden) you people in Copenhagen, you thought it wasn’t responsible to go to that sort of expense’ (Il était question pour moi d’aller les voir il y a plus de 6 mois (tout d’un coup) vous avez trouvé vous autres de Copenhague que ce n’était pas sérieux de faire pareille dépense). See Gauguin lettres 1946, pp. 158-159...
724 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 11 December 1888.
in title:
724 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 11 December 1888.
in original text:
Je crois moi que Gauguin s’était un peu decouragé de la bonne ville d’Arles, de la petite maison jaune où nous travaillons et surtout de...
in translation:
...think personally that he’ll either definitely go or he’ll definitely stay. I told him to think and do...
in date note:
...Merlhès and Dorn – that the order of these letters should be reversed. See exhib. cat. New York 1984, p. 262; Merlhès 1989, pp. 226-227; and Dorn 1990, pp. 525-527. In the present letter Vincent thanks Theo for the money he sent (ll. 2-4). Previous editions have assumed that this was the third instalment of the December allowance, namely the payment due on the 23rd (on this subject, see letter 736). This would mean that there is no confirmation of receipt of the second instalment, and that Van Gogh wrote this letter on 23 December, shortly before mutilating his ear. We think it more plausible that this is confirmation of the second instalment of the December allowance and that Vincent was prevented from sending confirmation of the third payment in the aftermath of his self-mutilation. We have therefore dated this letter to about Tuesday, 11 December 1888. This agrees with the assumption that the letter was enclosed in a letter from Gauguin, who had written to Theo to tell him that he wanted to return to Paris (see Additional details), whereas he changed his mind in a letter that was sent later, together with 726 of 17 or 18 December (see n. 28 to that letter...
in note 1:
...Tout calcul fait je suis obligé de rentrer à Paris; Vincent et moi ne pouvons absolument vivre côte...
725 Paul Eugène Milliet to Vincent van Gogh. Guelma, Tuesday, 11 December 1888.
in original text:
...occupé dans la mesure du possible. Le chef de Bataillon qui me commande, est tres bien disposé en sa faveur après ce que je lui en ai dit. Que votre ami vienne au 3e Zouaves, il viendra surement près de moi en suite, et là nous tâcherons de lui rendre la vie aussi douce que le métier le permettra. C’est grand dommage qu’il n’y soit pas maintenant, parceque étant chargé des recrues...
...e parfaitement plate, d’une couleur assez douteuse, les plans les plus rapprochés de l’oeil sont jaunâtres; les parties fuyantes se fondent dans des gris violets (cette couleur existe-t-elle...
...hélas. Comment allez vous mon cher Ami, et Goguin, comment trouve-t-il l’existence de là-bas. S’y fait-il? Ecrivez moi, si vous avez le temps, vous me ferez un tres grand plaisir. Bien entendu, je n’ai pas le moindre bouquin à me mettre sous l’oeil, pas même des Balzac à 1f 2 s. Quel...
...ami, votre tout dévoué, et fidèle P. Milliet SsLieutt 3° Zouaves Guelma. Pce de Constantine.
in note 3:
...Compare the editions in the series ‘Oeuvres complètes’ of Honoré de Balzac, which cost ‘1 franc 25 centimes per volume’ in 1884 at Calmann Lévy’s in Paris (this price appears on the cover of Le médecin...
726 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 17 or Tuesday, 18 December 1888.
in title:
726 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 17 or Tuesday, 18 December 1888.
in original text:
...par Verdier, par Tassaert, par d’autres encore. Après il y a des tableaux de Delacroix, de...
...a terre – un malheureux vêtu de noir auprès de nous venait s’asseoir qui nous regardait comme...
...me d’y avoir sans frais considérables la lithographie d’après Delacroix “le Tasse dans la...
...au nom de dieu. Je t’écris cela rapport à nos amis les Hollandais de Haan et Isaacson qui ont...
...j’ai dit à Gauguin que pour moi je voyais là-dedans un certain trait de famille ou de race avec...
...près d’une fenetre dans un rayon de soleil, pour ton passé et ton présent. Voilà où nous en...
...voies ce musée de Montpellier, il y a des chôses bien belles! Dis cela à de Gas, que Gauguin et...
...la vie en copains des peintres, on voit des chôses si drôles et je termine par ce que tu dis toujours, qui vivra verra. Tu peux leur dire tout cela à nos amis Isaacson et de Haan et même leur...
...se découragent pas plus que nous dans leurs difficultés, c’est que je leur souhaite et à toi...
in translation:
...with a beard, red hair, who looks damnably like you or me, and who made me think of that poem by...
...Anyway, you must know that this collection exists, or else know people who have seen it, and...
...the strange and superb portrait of a man by Rembrandt at the La Caze gallery, I told Gauguin that, for me, I saw in it a certain family or racial resemblance to Delacroix, or to him, Gauguin. I don’t know why, but I always call that portrait ‘the traveller�� or ‘the man coming from far away’. That’s an equivalent and parallel idea to what I’ve already told you, always to look at the...
...you all. Ever yours, Vincent If you think that Gauguin or I have a facility in our work, the work...
in note 1:
...après: ‘I made, as a young man, a journey to the south, and at Montpellier I visited that famous museum, constructed by and endowed with the entire collection of Mr Bruyas’ (Je fis, jeune homme, un voyage dans le Midi, et à Montpellier je visitai ce fameux musée construit et donné avec toute la collection par M. Brias). After describing the masterpieces on display there, including paintings mentioned by Van Gogh in the present letter, he goes on to say: ‘A good many years later I returned in the company of Vincent to visit the museum again. What a change! Most of the old drawings had disappeared, and everywhere in their place [were] the Acquisitions of the State, 3rd prize. Cabanel and all his school had invaded the museum’ (Bien des années plus tard, je revins en compagnie de Vincent visiter à nouveau ce musée. Quel changement! La plupart des dessins anciens avaient disparu et de toutes parts à leur place, des Acquisitions de l’État, 3e médaille. Cabanel et toute son école avaient envahi le musée). See Gauguin 1923, pp. 221-222. Following Merlhès, as well as Druick and Zegers, we have placed the visit to Montpellier on Sunday, 16 or Monday, 17 December. The railway journey lasted 2½ to 3 hours, so Van Gogh and Gauguin probably travelled back and forth in one day to avoid paying for a hotel. On Sunday and Monday the museum was open to the public both morning and afternoon, on Thursday only from 9.00 to 11.00. Although Baedeker also says that the museum was open ‘to foreign visitors on other days as well’ (encore les autres jours pour les étrangers), it is less likely that Van Gogh and Gauguin took advantage of this opportunity. See Baedeker 1889-2; Merlhès 1989, pp. 227, 228 (n. 1), and exhib. cat. Chicago 2001, pp. 390 (n. 256), 391 (n. 258, 259, 265...
in note 4:
...Bruyas by Courbet, one dating from 1853, half-length: Alfred Bruyas, or Tableau-Solution, Ill. 732, and two from 1854, namely Alfred Bruyas, or Bruyas unwell, Ill. 2266 and Alfred Bruyas in profile, Ill. 2267...
in note 25:
...n. 16). Fromentin spoke of Rembrandt in Les maîtres d’autrefois – possibly in imitation of Théophile...
in note 26:
...too, later referred to the painting in Avant et après as ‘Rembrandt’s portrait of a traveller’ (le...
in note 28:
...Paris comme une chose imaginaire et par conséquent la lettre que je vous ai écrite comme un mauvais rêve...Nous avons été à Montpellier et Vincent vous écrit ses impressions.’ See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 301-302. On 22 December Gauguin wrote to Schuffenecker, telling him why he had decided to stay in Arles after all: ‘You await me with open arms, I thank you for that, but unfortunately I am not coming yet. My situation here is difficult; I owe Van Gogh and Vincent a great deal and despite certain differences of opinion, I cannot resent a good heart that is sick, and that needs me. Do you remember the life of Edgar Poe, who became an alcoholic as a result of grief and a nervous condition? One day I shall explain it fully. In any case I am staying here, but my departure will always be slumbering.’ (Vous m’attendez à bras ouverts, je vous en remercie mais malheureusement je ne viens pas encore. Ma situation ici est pénible; je dois beaucoup à Van Gog et Vincent et malgré quelque discorde je ne puis en vouloir à un coeur excellent qui est malade qui souffre et me demande. Rappelez-vous de la vie d’Edgar Poë qui par suite de chagrins, d’état nerveux était devenu alcoolique. Un jour je vous expliquerai à fond. En tous cas je reste ici, mais mon départ sera toujours à l’état latent.) See Merlhès 1989, p. 238....
in note 29:
...dealing in the work of Degas. It emerges from a number of undated letters written by Degas to Theo (FR...
728 Vincent van Gogh and Félix Rey to Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 2 January 1889.
in original text:
...avait d’ailleurs besoin de revoir Paris et à Paris peutêtre il se sentira plus chez lui qu’ici. Dis...
...fera du bien à lui.– Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, mes salutations les plus empressées.– Rey F.
in note 1:
...nécessaires pour le faire admettre dans un asile spécial) (unsigned transcript of a letter to the mayor of Arles, ACA). The copy is not signed. The same day Dr Rey informed Theo of Vincent’s condition and told him about Urpar’s certificate (see Documentation, 29 December 1888). The incident was reported in the column ‘Chronique locale’ in the weekly newspaper Le Forum Républicain on Sunday, 30 December 1888: ‘Last Sunday, at half past eleven in the evening, one Vincent van Gogh, a painter and native of Holland, presented himself at brothel no 1, asked for one Rachel, and handed her...his ear, telling her: “Keep this object carefully.” Then he disappeared. Informed of this act, which could only be that of a poor lunatic, the police went the following day to the home of this individual, whom they found lying in his bed, by then showing hardly any sign of life. The unfortunate was admitted to the hospital as a matter of urgency.’ (Dimanche dernier, à 11 heures ½ du soir, le nommé Vincent Vangogh peintre, originaire de Hollande, s’est présenté à la maison de tolérance no 1, a demandé la nommé Rachel, et lui a remis.... son oreille en lui disant: “Gardez cet objet précieusement.” Puis il a disparu. Informée de ce fait qui ne pouvait être que celui d’un pauvre aliéné, la police s’est rendue le lendemain matin chez cet individu qu’elle a trouvé couché dans son lit, ne donnant presque plus signe de vie. Ce malheureux a été admis d’urgence à l’hospice.) As late as 1929, the policeman Alphonse Robert described his recollection of the incident (quoted in Doiteau and Leroy 1939, p. 6). Gauguin later declared that on the evening in question he had decided to sleep in a hotel because of Van Gogh's aggressive, threathening behaviour. The exact circumstances of the supposed incident between Gauguin and Van Gogh are not known, however. Van Gogh says nothing in his letters about its immediate cause, and Rey reported the following to Theo on 30 December: ‘When I tried to get him to talk about the motive that drove him to cut off his ear, he replied that it was a purely personal matter’ (Lorsque j’ai voulu le faire causer sur le motif qui l’avait poussé à se couper l’oreille; il m’a répondu que c’etait un affaire tout à fait personnelle) (FR b1056; Documentation, 30 December 1888). Van Gogh remembered little of what happened. This is evident from a note made by Dr Peyron in the asylum at Saint-Rémy on 8 May 1889: ‘During that attack he cut off his left ear, but he has no more than a vague memory of all that, and is not aware of it.’ (Pendant cet accès il se coupa l’oreille gauche mais il ne conserve de tout cela qu’un souvenir très vague, et ne peut s’en rendre compte.) See Documentation, 8 May 1889. In Avant et après, Gauguin wrote that, before finally wounding himself, Van Gogh had wanted to attack him that evening: ‘I had already gone almost all the way across place Victor-Hugo [place Lamartine], when I heard behind me a little step that was very familiar, quick and jerky. I turned at the very moment when Vincent rushed at me with an open razor in his hand. My look must at that moment have been very powerful, because he stopped, and lowering his head he ran back in the direction of the house.’ (J’avais déjà traversé presque entièrement la place Victor-Hugo, lorsque j’entendis derrière moi un petit pas bien connu, rapide et saccadé. Je me retournai au moment même où Vincent se précipitait sur moi un rasoir ouvert à la main. Mon regard dut à ce moment être bien puissant car il s’arrêta et baissant la tête il reprit en courant le chemin de la maison.) See Gauguin 1923, pp. 20-21. Gauguin wrote these words in 1903, long after the events themselves, and doubt has frequently been cast on his reliability as a witness. His account will, all the same, have been based on the truth. In Bernard’s summary of what Gauguin had told him directly after returning to Paris, no mention is made of the attack, however. In his letter of 1 January 1889 to Albert Aurier, Bernard wrote: ‘Gauguin returning precipitately, 4 days ago, and the news about Vincent in the hospital. I rushed to see Gauguin, who told me this. The day before my departure (for he had to leave Arles) Vincent ran after me (he was going out, it was night). I turned around because for some time he had been acting strangely, but I was wary of him. Then he told me: You are silent, but I will also be silent. Ever since I had been going to leave Arles, he was so bizarre that I couldn’t take it any more. He had even said to me: “Are you going to leave?” And when I said “Yes” he tore this sentence from a newspaper and put it into my hand: “the murderer took flight”. I spent the night in a hotel, and when I came back all of Arles was in front of our house. Then the police arrested me, because the house was covered in blood. This is what had happened: Vincent had returned home after my departure, had taken a razor and cut his ear clean through. Then he put a big beret over his head and went to a brothel to take the ear to a wretched girl, telling her: “You will remember me, truly I tell you this.” The girl fainted immediately. The police set out and came to the house. Vincent was hospitalised. His state is worse, he wants to sleep with the patients, chases the nurse, and washes himself in the coal-bucket. In other words, he is performing biblical mortifications. They had to lock him up in a room.’ (Gauguin revenant précipitamment, il y a 4 jours, et la nouvelle de Vincent à l’hôpital. J’ai couru voir Gauguin qui m’a dit ceci. La veille de mon départ (car il devait quitter Arles) Vincent a couru après moi (il sortait c’était la nuit) je me suis retourné car depuis quelques temps il devenait très drôle, mais je m’en défiais. Alors il m’a dit: Vous êtes taciturne, mais moi je le serai aussi. Depuis que je devais quitter Arles il était tellement bizarre que je ne vivais plus. Il m’avait même dit: “Vous allez partir?” Et comme j’avais dit “Oui” il a arraché d’un journal cette phrase et me l’a mise dans la main: “le meurtrier a pris la fuite”. Je suis allé coucher à l’hôtel et quand je suis revenu tout Arles était devant chez nous. Alors les gendarmes m’ont arrêté, car la maison était pleine de sang. Voici ce qui s’était passé. Vincent était rentré après mon départ, avait pris le rasoir et s’était tranché net l’oreille. Alors il s’était couvert la tête d’un berret profond et était allé dans une maison publique porter à une malheureuse son oreille en lui disant: Tu te souviendras de moi, en vérité je te le dis. Cette fille s’est évanouie immédiatement. Les gendarmes se sont mis sur pied et on est venu au logis. Vincent a été mis à l’hôpital. Son état est pis, il veut coucher avec les malades, chasse la soeur et se lave dans la boîte à charbon. C’est à dire qu’il continue les macérations bibliques. On a été forcé de l’enfermer dans une chambre.) See Jacqueline Albert Simon and Lucy D. Rosenfeld, A century of artists’ letters. Notes to family, friends, and dealers. Delacroix to Léger. From the Pierre F. Simon Collection at the New York Public Library. Atglen (PA) 2004, pp. 64-70. Cf. also exhib. cat. Chicago 2001, p. 260. According to the people in Arles who were immediately involved (Gauguin, Dr Rey and the policeman Robert), Van Gogh cut off his entire ear, which is what was reported in Le Forum Républicain. Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Paul Gachet Jr (the son of Dr Paul-Ferdinand Gachet) and Paul Signac all later stated that it was only the lower part of the ear. For the various testimonies, see also Doiteau and Leroy 1939. However, since the discovery of a short letter from Dr Rey to the writer Irving Stone, which includes two drawings, we can now conclude that Van Gogh did indeed cut off his entire ear. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 2016, pp. 35-40, and Murphy 2016, pp. 140-149. On 4 January Theo wrote the following to Jo Bonger about the present letter: ‘A good letter from Vincent today, he appears to have recovered, isn’t that wonderful? There is no longer any question of committing him to an asylum and even the doctors have abandoned the idea.’ See FR b2023; Brief happiness 1999, p. 83. Doctor Rey, Roulin and the Rev. Frédéric Salles kept Theo informed about Vincent’s recovery. The letters from Roulin and Salles are published in Hulsker 1970. See also exhib. cat. Amsterdam 2016, pp. 30-56. For Rey’s letter, see Documentation, 12 February 1889....
729 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 4 January 1889.
in original text:
...moi, Place Lamartine 2. J’enverrai à Gauguin ses tableaux restés à la maison aussitôt qu’il le désirera. Nous lui devons les dépenses faites par lui pour les meubles. Poignée de main, je...
in arrangement:
...and the one to Gauguin, were included under one number. Here we have separated them. For the second...
in note 4:
...bought ‘a chest of drawers’ and ‘various household utensils’ for the Yellow House; see letter 717.
730 To Paul Gauguin. Arles, Friday, 4 January 1889.
in original text:
alors je désire que vous disiez bien des chôses de ma part au bon Schoeffenecker...
in additional details:
...It is not certain whether Theo let Gauguin read the letter in this form or whether he made a copy for him.
731 Theo van Gogh and Jo Bonger to Vincent van Gogh. Paris/Amsterdam, on or about Sunday, 6 January 1889. Printed announcement of engagement.
in title:
...Jo Bonger to Vincent van Gogh. Paris/Amsterdam, on or about Sunday, 6 January 1889. Printed announcement...
732 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 7 January 1889.
in original text:
...amis médecins et eux comprennent au moins bigrement vite ce que c’est que des complémentaires...
...té saches aussi que je travaille à la même chôse que toi-même. Ah comme je désirerais que tu...
...dans le midi avant nous. Vrai, il m’est assez difficile de croire que nous nous soyons devoyés...
...Ce sont là les pensées qui me viennent en rentrant chez moi. Je suis très desireux de savoir...
...modernes &c. Je ne veux pas les plus chères décidemment. Comment vont nos amis Hollandais de Haan...
...ser en Belgique et ayant présentement du succes à Paris, j’aime à croire qu’il a trouvé sa...
...le petit mot que je leur ai fait avaler là-bas à la maison en Hollande. Et ainsi faisant il leur...
...Si jamais tu veux rendre l’interne Rey très heureux voici ce qui lui ferait bien plaisir: il a...
...est très curieux pour connaitre l’impressionisme. J’ose espérer de faire plus amplement connaissance. Je crois que cette gravure de la lecon d’anatomie est du fonds de François Buffa & fils...
in translation:
...up for it as far as possible by correspondence or however you can, and tell the Bongers how much I...
...a fright and that I was only in the aforesaid or mentioned hospital for a few days. Thus you’ll...
...get back to work tomorrow, I’ll begin by doing one or two still lifes to get back into the way of...
...engraving of The anatomy lesson is published by François Buffa and Sons, and that the net price...
in note 6:
...Theo had been asked to submit works by Vincent to the fifth exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, to be held in Paris from 3 September to 4 October 1889. At their 1888 exhibition Van Gogh had...
in note 14:
...letter Van Gogh mentions the publisher François Buffa. An undated publisher’s catalogue of Buffa lists the etching that C.L. Dake made after Rembrandt’s Anatomy lesson. The large print (64 x 84 cm) was available on various kinds of paper, the most expensive costing 60 guilders (c. 120 francs). See Catalogue des éditions de François Buffa & fils. Fournisseurs de la cour, éditeurs, marchands de Beaux-arts, tableaux, aquarelles, gravures, eau-fortes, encadrements, ouvrages illustrés, restauration et vernissage de tableaux, etc...
733 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus and Willemien van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 7 January 1889.
in translation:
But so that there can’t be any worrying about it, or any question of it, I’m writing to you...
in additional details:
...about this letter to Theo at the end of January or beginning of February 1889: ‘A couple of weeks ago...
734 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, between Tuesday, 8 and Wednesday, 16 January 1889.
in original text:
...e et peut être très bonne pour vos toiles à retoucher – vous collez des journeaux sur votre toile avec de la colle de pâte. Une fois secs vous mettez votre toile sur une planche lisse et avec des fers à repasser très chauds vous appuyez dur dessus.– Tous vos accrocs de couleur resteront mais seront applatis et vous aurez une surface très belle.– Après vous trempez bien votre dessus...
...u mes clefs – à la prochaine occasion si vous pouvez m’envoyer par colis postal mes 2 masques et gants d’armes que j’ai laissés dans le petit cabinet d’en haut sur la planche.– mes amitiés à tout le monde.– Cordialement à vous Paul Gauguin chez Mr Schuffenecker 29 Rue Boulard...
in note 9:
...to tension a stretcher, but he could also have meant the stretchers themselves (‘chassis à clefs’).
in note 10:
...given fencing lessons in Pont-Aven. In Avant et après he writes in detail on the art of fencing, boasting...
735 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 9 January 1889.
in original text:
...Aussi lui ai-je déjà adressé en réponse mes sincères félicitations ainsi que je te les repèt...
...s de loyer de maison, de femme de ménage et un grand tas de chôses terrestres de ce genre.�� Or...
...là-dedans et que je ne me considère en tout cela qu’un gérant pour défendre les interêts de...
...livre aux médecins en question. Physiquement je vais bien, la blessure se ferme très bien et la...
...pas non plus. Mais je la combats moi-même. Cette insomnie je la combats par une dose très très...
...pour les Arlésiennes”. Or toi qui sais combien de Gas est subtil, de retour à Paris dis un peu...
...Il est très très utile ici et on aura bigrement besoin de médecins ici à Arles encore dans la...
...du côté de Marseille. Or Rey est né ici et ne vaudrait rien à Paris ou ailleurs tandis qu’une...
...assez cher. Enfin dis leur toujours bien des chôses de ma part lorsque tu les reverras. Roulin te...
...de bonnes journées avec ta fiancée. t. à. t. Vincent. bien des chôses à André Bonger s’il...
in translation:
...c. &c.? Then Tersteeg must admit the Impressionists, or at least believe in E. Delacroix, and then...
...said this...I’m saving myself for the Arlésiennes.’ Now, you who know how subtle Degas is...
...was born here and would be worthless in Paris or elsewhere, while once he was armed with the full...
in note 11:
...François Vincent Raspail, who believed that illnesses were caused by parasites. He prescribed camphor as a general cure for all ailments, writing that ‘camphor has sleep-inducing properties’ (le camphre a la propriété de ramener le sommeil); to have this effect, however, the medicine must be ingested. The method described by Van Gogh was recommended by Raspail as a means of curbing masturbation. See Manuel annuaire de la santé. Paris 1886, pp. 89-92, 373. Raspail’s books were especially popular among labourers. His best-known work was Manuel annuaire de la santé, which had been published every year since 1845. Van Gogh depicted such an Annuaire in the still life he made shortly after leaving the hospital: Still life with onions and Annuaire de la santé (F 604 / JH 1656...
in note 14:
...previously given a painting to Rivet, the brothers’ doctor in Paris. It is not known which work this was.
in note 19:
...with a portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’, see letter 692, n. 1. Van Gogh sent in exchange...
736 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 17 January 1889.
in original text:
...façons, mes tableaux sont sans valeur, ils me coutent il est vrai des dépenses extraordinaires...
...Nous en étions à peine au dix. J’éspérais vers le dix une lettre de toi, or cette lettre...
...le 17, je reçois 50 francs enfin. Là-dessus je paye d’abord les 5 francs empruntés au cafetier...
...d’avoir dépêché. Les dépenses ainsi faites de travers sont elles inférieures à 200 francs...
...chôses qu’on disait de lui dans ce même genre – mais moi qui l’ai vu de très très près...
...t pas.– Après ma maladie j’ai eu naturellement l’oeil très très sensible. J’ai re regard...
...juge personne là-dedans espérant moi-même ne pas être condamné dans des cas où les forces me...
...st après rendu à Paris. et qui toujours abandonnait les armees dans la dêche. Heureusement Gauguin, moi et autres peintres ne sommes pas encore armées de mitrailleuses et autres très nuisibles...
...a néamoins réclamé dans sa derniere lettre “Ses masques et gants d’armes” cachés dans le...
in translation:
...letter again &c. But before discussing what I might or might not spend in a whole year, it would...
...I got back, is there an error on my part or could I have economized more? Now today, the 17th, I...
...but anyway, I glimpse hope in it. Mustn’t he, or at least shouldn’t he begin to see a little...
...in Paris or have himself examined by a specialist doctor, my word I don’t really know what the result of it would be. Several times over I’ve seen him do things that you or I wouldn’t permit ourselves to do, having consciences that feel things differently – I’ve heard two or three things...
...of sunflowers from me, offering me in exchange I suppose, or as a gift, a few studies that he left...
...as I regain my strength. I so dread a change or moving house precisely because of new expenses. For...
...one remain at one’s post once one has taken it, or does one desert it? I don’t judge anyone in...
...his vanishing let’s say from Arles is comparable or parallel to the Return from Egypt of the...
in note 5:
...l. 23). His handwriting is recognizable, and the number ‘67’ in the postmark refers to place des...
in note 11:
In Avant et après Gauguin quoted from a letter (no longer extant) which Van Gogh had written to him ‘well after the catastrophe’ (bien longtemps après la catastrophe), probably from Saint-Rémy: ‘How lucky you are to be in Paris. It’s still there that the leading medical men live, and you should certainly consult a specialist to cure you of insanity. Aren’t we all that?’ (Que vous êtes heureux d’être à Paris. C’est encore là où se trouvent les sommités, et certainement vous devriez consulter un spécialiste pour...
in note 12:
...See Dorn 1999, pp. 60-61. At the end of April or beginning of May 1889, Van Gogh sent Theo the...
in note 13:
...with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’ and had sent him in return his Self-portrait (F...
in note 15:
...lorsque j’irai passer ma thèse de doctorat à Paris; je serais heureux moi aussi, que quelqu’un pût...
in note 19:
...après: ‘From the first month I saw our shared finances take on the same appearance of disorder. What was to be done? The situation was delicate, since the kitty was modestly filled by his brother who works for the firm of Goupil; in my case, in combination with exchanges of paintings. Speak out: it had to be done, and to clash with a very sensitive nature. It was therefore only with great care and many gentle approaches somewhat at odds with my nature that I broached the question. I must confess, I succeeded much more easily than I had imagined. In a box, so much for nocturnal excursions of a hygienic sort, so much for tobacco, and also so much for unexpected expenses, including the rent. On top of all that a piece of paper and a pencil to write honestly what each of us took out of this box. In another box, what was left of the total, divided into four parts for the cost of food each week.’ (Dès le premier mois je vis nos finances en commun prendre les mêmes allures de désordre. Comment faire? la situation était délicate, la caisse étant remplie modestement par son frère employé dans la maison Goupil; pour ma part en combinaison d’échange en tableaux. Parler: il le fallait et se heurter contre une susceptibilité très grande. Ce n’est donc qu’avec beaucoup de précautions et bien des manières câlines peu compatibles avec mon caractère que j’abordai la question. Il faut l’avouer, je réussis beaucoup plus facilement que je ne l’avais supposé. Dans une boîte, tant pour promenades nocturnes et hygiéniques, tant pour le tabac, tant aussi pour dépenses impromptu y compris le loyer. Sur tout cela un morceau de papier et un crayon pour inscrire honnêtement ce que chacun prenait dans cette caisse. Dans une autre boîte le restant de la somme divisée en quatre parties pour la dépense de nourriture chaque semaine.) See Gauguin 1923, pp. 16-17...
737 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 17 January 1889.
in original text:
...Mon cher Vincent Ne vous occupez pas des études que j’ai laissées exprès à Arles comme ne valant pas la peine du transport. Par contre les albums à dessin contiennent des notes qui me sont utiles et j’accepte l’offre que vous me faites de les envoyer. Ainsi que les 2 masques et gants...
...tre publiées afin de me faire connaître. C’est du reste d’après le conseil et sous les auspices de votre frère.– Je vais m’atteler aux portraits de toute la famille Schuffeneker, lui, sa femme et ses 2 enfants en tablier vermillon.– Il fait un rude froid en ce moment à Paris – je...
...là-dessus. Je ne sais pas si j’irai à Bruxelles, tout dependra de la monnaie et celà c’est la bouteille à l’encre. En tous cas si j’y vais je me souviendrai des conseils que vous me donnez là-dessus – je ne sais par exemple si ma faible voix sera entendue. en tous cas le bien commun m’intéresse énormément et je tâcherai de faire juste. Cordialement à vous Paul Gauguin
in note 3:
...and gloves. Vincent sent them at the end of April or beginning of May 1889 in a consignment of paintings...
738 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Saturday, 19 January 1889.
in original text:
...tout expliqué là-dessus j’espère clairement assez. Je suis encore très faible et j’aurai du...
...et j’ose croire. J’aurais encore bien des chôses à te dire en reponse à ta lettre mais j...
...marié avant maintenant. Cela ne doit pas être très gai lorsqu’il se plaint de la cherté du...
...depuis des années c’etait le désir de la mère. Et en faisant ainsi ce que tu dois faire, tu auras peutêtre plus de tranquilité, même dans mille & une difficultés, qu’auparavant. Cependant...
...on la foure dans de vrais guêpiers. Ils vont maintenant essayer, Gauguin & Bernard, d’exempter...
...vis à vis de Milliet parceque celui là ne cesse de me demander des nouvelles là-dessus. Roulin...
...que tu as rencontré avait vu cet homme-l...Ecris moi de suite de suite. Je t’en prie car ce...
...et gants d’armes. plein de projets variants et variés. et déjà à l’horizon il voit la fin...
...Bruxelles pour cette raison. Et puis après s’il ne peut meme pas aller à Bruxelles, comment...
in translation:
...another line today. Yesterday they also presented the gas bill for ten francs (or 9.90), which I also paid.
in note 2:
...which he mentioned working on in letter 736, or Blue gloves and a basket of oranges and lemons (F...
in note 7:
Van Gogh compared Roulin to Socrates a number of times; see letter 652, n. 7. The passage on Socrates and...
739 To Paul Gauguin. Arles, Monday, 21 January 1889.
in original text:
...ne vous etonnera pas. Or moi aussi, témoin de ça et d’autres chôses navrantes.– Sa voix en...
...tant pour que vous restiez ici attendre les évenements et vous donnais tant de bonnes raisons pour...
...e au besoin recommencer si la dèche, hélas toujours là pour nous autres artistes sans capital...
...ce qui est à vous en vous faisant observer que c’est mon intention, après ce qui s’est pass...
...les rouges allant jusqu’aux purs orangés, s’exaltant encore dans les chairs jusqu’aux...
...un bateau de pêcheurs même d’Islande, il y en aurait qui sentiraient là-dedans la berceuse. Ah! mon cher ami, faire de la peinture ce qu’est déjà avant nous la musique de Berlioz et de Wagner...un art consolateur pour les coeurs navrés! Il n’y a encore que quelques uns qui comme vous et moi le sentent!!! Mon frère vous comprend bien et lorsqu’il me dit que vous êtes une espèce...
...attendront jusque-là. Je vous ecris maintenant très tranquillement mais l’emballage de tout le...
in translation:
...was a hint of a woman rocking a cradle or a distressed wet-nurse, and then another sound of bronze...
...until then. I now write to you very calmly, but I haven’t yet been able to pack up all the rest. In my mental or nervous fever or madness, I don’t know quite what to say or how to name it, my thoughts sailed over many seas. I even dreamed of the Dutch ghost ship and the Horla, and it seems that...
in note 5:
...très fraîche au milieu de tous les gris sombres de cette pauvre maison de bois. Elle avait dû écouter plus d’une ardente prière à des heures d’angoisses; on avait cloué à ses pieds deux bouquets de fleurs artificielles et un chapelet). See Loti 1988, p. 54. Cf. Dorn 1990, pp. 155-156 and Sund 1992, pp. 220-222. At the end of Loti’s novel, the maternal instincts of the sea are evoked. The sea is compared to a woman rocking a child, when the protagonist, Yann Gaos, drowns and ‘weds’ the sea: ‘Out there, one August night, off the dark mass of Iceland, in the midst of a great sound and fury, his marriage to the sea had been celebrated. To the sea that once had been his nurse; it was she who had rocked his cradle, who had made of him a tall, strong youth – and then she had taken him back, in the glory of his manhood, for herself alone’ (Une nuit d’août, là-bas, au large de la sombre Islande, au milieu d’un grand bruit de fureur, avaient été célébrées ses noces avec la mer. Avec la mer qui autrefois avait été sa nourrice; c’était elle qui l’avait bercé, qui l’avait fait adolescent large et fort, – et ensuite elle l’avait repris, dans sa virilité superbe, pour elle seule). See Loti 1988, p. 294. Cf. Sund 1992, p. 309 (n. 128). Van Gogh wrote to Theo that he had had ‘intimate conversations’ with Gauguin about the fishermen of Iceland (see letter 743). Gauguin knew Loti’s book and presumably also knew of the shipwreck of a Breton fishing boat in 1887, which made it a subject of current interest. Two of the zincographs from his ‘Suite Volpini’, on which he was working in January 1889 (see letter 737), were based on Pêcheur d’Islande; he gave them the title Tragedies of the sea – Brittany. See Lauren Soth, ‘Gauguin, Van Gogh and the fishermen of Iceland’, The Burlington Magazine, april 1989, pp. 296-297...
in note 6:
...Love in music), which Van Gogh talks about in letter 686, also mentions Berlioz a number of times.
in note 10:
...or rather ‘drawn’, in similar fashion) occurs in Gauguin’s watercolour Ictus of 1889 (Daniel Malingue Collection). For a reproduction, see exhib. cat. Chicago 2001, p. 279. His Carnet also contains two mentions of ‘ictus’ (Gauguin 1952, pp. 220-221). Ichthus (Greek for fish) is a well-known symbol of Christ, but there may be an intentional double meaning, prompted by Van Gogh’s account of his mental confusion (Van Gogh spoke of his ‘mental or nervous fever or madness’, in ll. 102-103). ‘Ictus’ is a ‘sudden manifestation of a morbid condition affecting the nervous system: amnesiac, epileptic ictus’ (manifestation brutale d’un état morbide affectant le système nerveux: ictus amnésique, épileptique) (TLF). This may well have been a conscious play on the words ‘ictus’ (the illness) and ‘ichthus’ (fish/Christ) on Gauguin’s part...
740 To Arnold Koning. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 22 January 1889.
in title:
740 To Arnold Koning. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 22 January 1889.
in translation:
...at the time because of an attack of brain or some other fever that had already pretty much passed...
...as to whether or not I have been or still am — mad, fancy myself mad, or regarded as mad in a...
...I already was before that time; am or am not at present, or will be hereafter. Having thus informed...
...have a portrait of a woman on the go, or rather on the easel. Which I’ve called ‘la berceuse’, or as we say in Dutch with Van Eeden (you know, who wrote that book I got you to read) �� or would simply call in Van Eeden’s Dutch ‘our lullaby’, or the woman by the cradle. It’s a woman...
...at the bottom (simply representing a tiled floor or brick floor). The wall is covered with...
...obviously I’ve painted a lot more other studies or paintings in all this time. Among other things...
...at your disposal for further correspondence by letter or painted study. Theo went to see Breitner...
...If you see Breitner, you may let him read this epistle or tell him about it just as I write it...
in additional details:
...to several additions in ink, Van Gogh made a number of even later additions in pencil (see nn. 5 and...
in note 5:
...or a lullaby occur in Frederik van Eeden’s De kleine Johannes. This is not the case. He wants to translate the French word ‘berceuse’ into the language of the writer whose book is a point of reference shared by him and Koning: the Dutch of Van Eeden’s De kleine Johannes (on this book, see letter 626, n. 17). Van Gogh later added in pencil ‘of de wiegster’ (or the woman rocking the baby...
741 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 22 January 1889.
in original text:
...de ta femme qui d’ailleurs se joindra à nous autres pour travailler avec les artistes. Si je ne...
...tout cela à Paris. Puis cela ferait connaitre les toiles qui seraient fanés et discutées en bas...
...et sujets à toutes les maladies possibles, qu’y pouvons nous lorsque ces dernières ne sont pas...
...r d’aller à Paris pour l’exécution de ses plans et la vie à Arles. Que resultera-t-il de...
...un nouveau groupe, tombé peut etre déjà. Ils ne sont pas de mauvaise foi mais c’est là une...
...les assurances que tu seras tout droit transporté dans un paradis.– Et avec ta femme tu cesseras...
...etre la faire rencontrer un peintre. Cela, après ton propre mariage, serait ce que je desirerais...
...pere et notre mère ont été exemplaires comme gens mariés. Et je n’oublierai jamais la mère...
...la vieille mère ensuite. Enfin comme gens mariés nos parents étaient exemplaire comme Roulin et...
...cela me fera un plaisir de continuer les échanges avec Gauguin, meme si quelquefois cela me coûte...
in translation:
...for I didn’t know if you were still in Amsterdam or back in Paris. It is, with the rest, over now, and...
...also worth 500 francs to one of those Scots or Americans. Now, to be sufficiently heated up to melt...
...goes on I’m always trying to strike more or less a balance through production, at least relative...
...result of — emptiness. I think that at Pont-Aven 5 or 6 of them had already formed a new group...
742 Christian Vilhelm Mourier-Petersen to Vincent van Gogh. Holbaekgaard, Friday, 25 January 1889.
in original text:
...et je serais très content si j’ai pu contribuer à diminuer autour de lui cet vide qu’on éprouve si façilement à Paris.– Dans votre pays j’ai fait deux copies d’après Rembrandt, “la...
...m’ont très interéssé, seulement il me semble, qu’ils ne s’efforçent pas assez de voir de leurs propres yeux.– Quant aux peintres scandinaves je les ai trouvés les mêmes qu’avant mon...
...e tout progrès.– Je crois q’une exposition impressioniste ferait du bien à Copenhague en nous débarassant de certaines conventions. Nous avons déjà vu Claude Monet et Besnard – qu’il viennent d’autres! À présent on prépare l’envoi pour l’exposition à Paris – on le dit très bien.– Je serais content de savoir, si vous restez encore à Arles, si tout va bien là-bas etc. mais probablement vous en avez assez, et cette lettre vous trouvera à Paris.– Quant à moi, je dois rester içi cet été au moins. S’il est possible à l’hiver prochain j’irai à Paris et...
in translation:
...your compatriots, and the works of Mauve, Israëls and Breitner interested me very much, only it seems...
in note 1:
Abbreviation of the French ‘près’ (near). Holbækgaard, the country estate of the Mourier-Petersen...
in note 5:
...The saviour, Scottish ballad) (cat. no. 27), Après le bain (After bathing) (pastel, cat. no. 28), Soleil...
743 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 28 January 1889.
in original text:
...causé des pêcheurs d’Islande et de leur isolement mélancolique, exposés à tous les dangers...
...he contre un fond vert à fleurs roses. Maintenant ces disparates aiguës de rose cru, orangé cru...
...ai ce que je t’ai dès le commencement promis.�� Or ces tableaux peut être fatalement devront...
...de ça nous pourrons nous ressentir frères encore davantage après que cela sera reglé. Tu auras...
...nos propres ressources ce sera encore nous qui n’aurons pas bronchés.– Ma foi qu’après la...
...et n’aurons pas oublié tant que cà les chôses de coeur pour avoir un peu calculé.– C’est...
...Que veux tu, nous nous sommes emballés pour les impressionistes, or en tant que quant à moi je...
...de ton mariage. Après toi et ta femme fonderont une maison de commerce à plusieurs générations...
...se voyait, dans la pièce, précedemment. Or celle là, dans la piece, ammenée devant la crêche...
...volonté etre considérés comme amplement prévalents. Voir l’esperance de Puvis de Chavannes...
in translation:
...lamps or candelabra at the sides, of the same size; and thus the whole is composed of 7 or 9...
...straightaway, I won’t resist if I’m wrong, or let me work with all my strength, while taking...
...Good. My great desire would be that sooner or later you should have a series of canvases from me...
...I hope I’ll have finished the calm repetitions of a number of studies I did last year. And these...
...the time to feed me, but I’ll return the money or turn up my toes. Now your wife will come, who...
...to pay my month’s rent to interrogate the manager or the owner face to face. But to chuck me...
...Arlésiennes, the budding theatre here — it was the first time I’ve slept without a serious nightmare. They were performing — (it was a Provençal literary society) what they call a Noel or...
...Mrs Tanguy would be, with a head of flint or gun flint, false, treacherous, mad, all that could be...
...have neurosis, the Horla, St Vitus’s Dance or something else. But doesn’t the antidote exist...
in note 6:
Van Gogh had meanwhile finished six canvases: two of Berceuses and four of Sunflowers. These formed two triptychs: one for Theo and one for Gauguin. Van Gogh says they number ‘7 or 9’ canvases, because he intends in any case to paint another Berceuse for Holland (ll. 49-51), which would bring the total up to 7, possibly followed by two more canvases of sunflowers, giving rise to a third triptych. A few days later he did indeed have a third version of the Berceuse (see letter 745). Whether or not Van Gogh, when mentioning the number 7, actually intended to hang the three Berceuses (B) with sunflowers (S) on either side – in the order S B S B S B S – is unclear. For another suggestion, see Dorn 1990, p. 306.
in note 10:
During his first stay in hospital, Van Gogh had been in isolation (in a ‘cabanon’, or padded cell) for two or three days, as emerges from Dr Félix Rey’s letter of 17 March 1922 to Gustave Coquiot (FR b3282). Rey described the cell to Theo as ‘un appartement isolé’ (separate quarters) (FR b1055; Documentation, 29...
in note 15:
...when). Here Van Gogh is referring to Uncle Cor and/or Uncle Vincent – both of whom had refused in 1886...
in note 17:
...letter 750). Gauguin described him in Avant et après as ‘the gentleman with the derby hat’ (le...
in note 20:
...Félibres’, see letter 704, n. 14. The ‘Folies arlésiennes’, where Van Gogh had seen the play, was a café-concert with a ‘salle des fêtes’ in Arles. It was located at 4 avenue Victor Hugo. See René Garagnon, ‘Odéon, Van Gogh et les Folies Arlésiennes’, Bulletin des Amis du Vieil Arles (September 1995), no. 90, pp. 14-18. A number of pastoral plays were performed in Arles in this period. Given the dating of the letter, Van Gogh must have seen the play titled La Pastorale that was mentioned in L’Homme de Bronze of 10 February and was performed on 25, 26 and 27 January by a company from Marseille. The texts of the Provencal pastoral plays were often unpublished; the text of La Pastorale has not been traced. Silverman assumes that Van Gogh saw the performance of Riboun: Pastouralo, Opéra coumique en 5 ate (Pastorale, a comic opera in 5 acts), performed by the theatrical company Orphéon des Alpines from Eyguières...
in textual note 41:
aiguës < aigues
744 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Wednesday, 30 January 1889.
in original text:
...bien imprévu à te raconter j’y tiens néamoins à te faire savoir que lundi passé j’ai revu...
...frémi. Certes à nos yeux à nous l’election et ses résultats et ses représentants ne sont que...
...en rapport autant avec le passé de nos pères enterrés qu’avec la génération à venir. J’ai...
...on de mes tournesols et je lui ai montré les deux exemplaires de la Berceuse entre ces quatre...
...de moi mais de bien d’autres. Nous étions bien émus quand même. Roulin me disait qu’il avait...
...en étant très fatigué il n’avait pas pu résister au désir de venir à Arles pour revoir sa...
...A ce qu’on me racconte je me porte très visiblement mieux; intérieurement j’ai le coeur un peu trop plein de tant d’émotions & espérances diverses car cela m’étonne de guérir. Tout le...
...diable et petit employé qu’il est, étant très très estimé ici, on a su que j’avais fait...
...Mais nous aurons toujours travaillé dans ce 89 ci avec les Français que nous aimons tant, comme...
in translation:
...who will now dare order any cannon, machine gun or Lebel rifle to fire when so many hearts have...
...although it isn’t therefore fated to be a Cabanel or a Bouguereau, I yet hope that it’s French...
745 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 3 February 1889.
in original text:
...lettre contenant 100 francs mais justement étant très fatigué à ce moment-là et le medecin...
...en somme pas été mauvais et le travail me distrait ou plutôt me tient reglé, alors je ne m’en...
...sale endroit du midi. Or Rivet, s’il voyait la population serait certes à des moments désolé e...
...Alors travaillons bien tranquillement, soignons nous tant que nous pouvons et ne nous épuisons...
...pas médiocres mais mieux que médiocres. Et s’il prend une édition de la berceuse à plus forte...
...tiens autant que toi à une honetteté de frères vis à vis l’argent de Boussod. Ça nous n’y...
...es plus serieuses. cela prouvera toujours à nos vrais amis comme Gauguin, Guillaumin, Bernard &c...
...déjeunes chez toi avec ta femme. En restant à Montmartre tu auras plus vite été décoré et...
...après ma santé je dis toujours que je commencerai par en mourir avec eux et qu’après ma...
...fille où j’étais allé dans mon égarement. On me disait là que des chôses comme ça ici dans...
in translation:
...in words sounds so musical in the mouths of the Arlésiennes that my word yes, from time to time I...
...when I’m twisted by enthusiasm or madness or prophecy like a Greek oracle on her tripod. Then I have a great presence of mind in words and talk like the Arlésiennes, but I feel so weak with all...
...and then subject myself to the alienist doctors of Aix or to himself. What else can it do to us but...
...paintings from me, that he gives your fiancée or you two of his paintings, not mediocre ones but...
...to be able to get angry at being called thieves or incompetents, what’s more, I won’t go on...
...white orchard are enough, with the little Provençal girl or the sower if you want. But it’s all...
...the sickness twice, being healthy or sick is the same thing as being young or old. Only be well...
...everyone here suffering either from fever or hallucinations or madness, we get along like members...
...say of me that there’s nothing wrong with me, or won’t be. Only the Ricord of that is probably...
in ongoing topic 4:
Entry for the 1889 Indépendants exhibition (732)
in note 18:
...The brothel was on the corner of rue des Glacières and rue du Bout d'Arles. Police officer Alphonse...
746 Arnold Koning to Vincent van Gogh. The Hague, Friday, 15 February 1889.
in original text:
...en Willem en Thijs Maris en Israëls geen lui die de roem van de Hollandsche schilderschool met eere handhaven? Ik heb laatst een studie van Israëls gezien. Op de tentoonstelling te Rotterdam, een...
in translation:
...Jaap and Willem and Thijs Maris and Israëls fellows who uphold the fame of the Dutch school of painting with honour? I recently saw a study by Israëls. At the exhibition in Rotterdam, an impression...
...lousier city than The Hague. As regards sending one or more of my studies: I’ll be delighted to...
in note 7:
Jozef Israëls, The shepherd (The Hague, Gemeentemusem). Ill. 189. It was shown at the exhibition Levende...
in note 9:
...It can no longer be ascertained which drawings or reproductions of drawings are referred to here.
747 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Monday, 18 February 1889.
in original text:
...me prévenir et me consulter moi là-dedans aussi, parceque ayant jusqu’à présent toujours gard...
...lors de son séjour par je ne sais quel malaise. Moi ayant déjà sejourné plus d’un an ici, ayant entendu dire à peu près tout le mal possible de moi, de Gauguin, de la peinture en général, pourquoi ne prendrais je pas les chôses telles quelles en attendant l’issue ici.– Où puis...
...er la bonté qu’il y a dans les mêmes gens qui ont les préjugés les plus incroyables à l...
...s je n’en ai aucunément le désir ni en sens le besoin. Le seul désir que j’aurais c’est de pouvoir continuer à gagner de mes mains ce que je dépense. Koning m’a écrit une lettre très...
...engager les peintres à venir ici après ce qui m’est arrivé, ils risquent de perdre la tête...
...cours et nous ne pourrions pas avec des précautions changer grand chôse à notre sort. Encore une...
...pas. crois moi t.à.t. Vincent bien des chôses à Gauguin, j’espère qu’il va m’écrire...
in translation:
...and for all to you and to Mr Rey. If sooner or later it were desirable that I should go to Aix, as...
...or the doctor, to take such a course of action without warning me and consulting me myself about it too, because as up to now I’ve always kept my relative presence of mind for my work, it’s my right to say then (or at least to have an opinion on) what would be best, to keep my studio here or...
...with a little firmness one can alter these prejudices, or at least do one’s painting all the same...
...out at the time of his stay by some malaise or other. As I’ve already been staying here for...
...have the most incredible prejudices towards painters and painting, or in any case have no clear and...
in note 1:
...For three days he has thought he is being poisoned and just sees poisoners and victims of poison everywhere. The cleaning woman, who is showing considerable devotion in caring for him, faced with his more than abnormal condition, felt it her duty to tell others, and neighbours brought it to the attention of the police... Today, according to the cleaning woman, he has refused all food; he hardly spoke yesterday and this morning and sometimes his behaviour frightened this poor woman who told me that she wouldn’t be able to go on looking after him in this state’ (Depuis trois jours il se croit empoisonné et ne voit partout que des empoisonneurs ou des empoisonnés. La femme de ménage qui le soigne avec un certain dévouement, en présence de son état plus qu’anormal, a cru de son devoir de signaler la chose, qui a été par les voisins portée à la connaissance du commissaire central ... Aujourd’hui, à ce qui m’a dit la femme de ménage, il s’est réfusé à prendre la moindre nourriture; toute la journée d’hier et la matinée d’aujourd’hui il a peu parlé et son attitude a quelquefois inspiré de crainte à cette pauvre femme qui m’a déclaré qu’en l’état elle ne pouvait plus continuer à lui accorder ses soins.) (FR b1046). On 12 February Dr Rey wrote to Theo: ‘The first day, he was greatly overexcited, and his delirium was general. He no longer recognised me or Mr Salles. Since yesterday, however, I have noted a perceptible improvement. He is less delirious, and he recognises me. He talks to me about painting, but sometimes he loses his train of thought and speaks nothing but disjointed words and jumbled phrases’ (FR b1057). For this letter, see Documentation, 12 February 1889. Acting on the orders of chief of police Joseph d’Ornano (see letter 750), the doctor Albert Delon examined Van Gogh on 7 February. Delon was a member of the hospital board and employed as a doctor by the Bureau de bienfaisance (L’indicateur marseillais 1889). He wrote the following in his report: ‘I found this man in a state of extreme excitement, suffering from a true delirium, pronouncing incoherent words, only momentarily recognising the people around him. He is subject in particular to auditory hallucinations (he hears voices uttering reproaches against him) and to an idée fixe, according to which he is supposed to have been the victim of an attempted poisoning. This patient’s condition appears very serious to us, and appears to require close surveillance and treatment in a special asylum, as his mental faculties are profoundly impaired.’ (J’ai trouvé cet homme dans un état d’exaltation complet, en proie à un véritable délire, prononçant des paroles incohérentes, ne reconnaissant que par instants les personnes qui l’entourent. Il est particulièrement en proie à des hallucinations de l’ouïe (il entend des voix qui lui adressent des reproches) et à une idée fixe, d’après laquelle il aurait été victime d’une tentative d’empoisonnement. L’état de ce malade nous paraît fort grave et nous semble nécessiter une surveillance vigilante ainsi qu’un traitement dans un asile spécial, car ses facultés mentales sont profondément altérées.) (ACA). For a photograph of the report, see Van Gogh à Arles....
in note 4:
...Merlhès quotes a letter written by the painter Henri Regnault 20 years earlier, in which he writes about a superstition prevailing among the gypsies in Spain, which forbade them to have their portraits made, fearing it would cause them to die. See Merlhès 1989, p. 221 (n. 2...
in note 7:
...of 15 February; Van Gogh’s letter of ‘a few days ago’ was letter 740, written on or about 22 January.
748 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 25 February 1889.
in title:
748 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Monday, 25 February 1889.
in original text:
...peste, même déjà ici, et fausse les caractères. Mais heureusement s’il y va il n’y ira pas...
...difficile d’expliquer le caractère des difficultés qu’on pourrait rencontrer ici et avec nos...
...y a des écoles de dessin et des amateurs en masse mais tu comprends que dirigés par des invalides...
...suivre ce que diraient les médecins et ne m’y oppose pas. Mais ce jour-là peut ne pas être demain ou après demain. Maintenant il n’est pas rare parait-il dans ces contrées de voir toute une...
...s d’ici il y avait de nouveau eu des secousses légères de tremblement de terre. Alors à plus...
...t qu’après cela se rassérénera. à un autre moment, si j’etais moins impressionable, je me moquerais probablement pas mal de ce qui me parait de travers et de détraqué dans les habitudes du...
...en somme il y a tant de peintres qui sont toqués d’une façon ou d’une autre que peu à peu...
...il y a tant de sympathie et de communauté d’idées entre nous tu ressens un peu la même chôse...
in translation:
...one might encounter here, and with our northern or Parisian customs and ways of thinking it’s...
...art lovers, but you understand that run by invalids or idiots of the fine arts it’s nothing but...
...t oppose that. But that day may not be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Now it isn’t rare in...
...are so many painters who are cracked in one way or another that little by little I’ll be consoled...
...who try to remain calm whatever happens, adversity or prosperity? I shake your hand firmly in...
in date note:
...his allowance through the Rev. Salles on the 17th or 18th (see n. 7). On the basis of this information...
in note 5:
...correctly rendered and in that respect did not resemble the work of Cabanel or Bouguereau in the slightest.
749 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 16 March 1889.
in original text:
...tu l’as toujours été pour moi. Nous espérons du fond de notre coeur que tu puisses revenir à une...
...avec tant de plaisir tes tableaux. Ils rendent les pièces si gais et il y a un tel accent de véri...
...moi une exposition de Claude Monet, qui a beaucoup de succès. D’içi quelque temps pour sûr le...
in translation:
...If you could you would be very kind in giving me or having me given news of you, for apart from the...
750 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 19 March 1889.
in original text:
...moi tout en étant absolument calme au moment donné, puis facilement retomber dans un état de surexitation par de nouvelles émotions morales. Aussi tu conçois combien cela m’a été un coup de...
...r. D’ailleurs l’humilité me convient après l’expérience d’attaques répetées. Je prends...
...sauf la liberté, sauf bien des chôses que je désirerais autrement, je ne suis pas trop mal. Je...
...me résignerais. Mais nous n’en sommes même pas là et si j’eusse eu ma tranquilité, depuis...
...que veux tu, avec toute leur sobriété ils ne me font en somme que de nouvelles misères. Mon cher frère le mieux reste peut-être de blaguer nos petites misères et aussi un peu les grandes de la...
...crire une lettre: il faut au moins autant de formalités qu’en prison maintenant.– Dis lui de...
...avais aucunément fait à ces gens là. &c. Courage donc quoique le coeur me défaille à des moments. Ta venue – ma foi – pour le moment elle brusquerait les chôses. Je deménagerai quand j...
in translation:
...certain number of people from here have addressed a petition (there were more than 80 signatures on it) to the mayor (I think his name is M. Tardieu) designating me as a man not worthy of living at liberty, or something like that.
...always be master of myself if I was provoked or insulted, and one could take advantage of that. The...
...at times. Your coming here – my word – for the moment it would precipitate things. I’ll move...
in note 2:
...before 27 February 1889 and Ill. 2278. Thus the number was considerably smaller than that mentioned by...
in note 3:
...or what he is saying’ (se livre à des excès de boissons après lesquels il se trouve dans un état de surexcitation tel qu’il ne sait plus, ni ce qu’il fait, ni ce qu’il dit). In the report, he was accused of lewd behaviour: ‘The women, especially, no longer feel comfortable, because he is prone to touching them inappropriately, and makes obscene remarks in their presence’ (Les femmes surtout ne sont plus rassurées car il se livre sur elles à des attouchements et tient des propos obscènes en leur présence). Ornano’s conclusion reads as follows: ‘Mr Vincent van Gogh is truly suffering from mental disturbance; however, we have noted on several occasions that this madman has moments of lucidity. Van Gogh is not yet a threat to public safety, but there are fears that he may become so. All his neighbours are frightened, and with good cause, because a few weeks ago, the madman concerned cut off an ear in a fit of insanity, a crisis that could be repeated and be harmful to somebody in his vicinity.’ (Le Mr Vincent Van Goghe est réellement atteint d’aliénation mentale; cependant nous avons constaté à différentes reprises que cet aliéné a des moments de lucidité. Van Goghe n’est pas encore dangereux pour la sécurité publique, mais on craint qu’il ne le devienne. Tous ses voisins sont effrayés, et cela à juste titre, car il y a quelques semaines l’aliéné dont il s’agit s’est coupé une oreille dans un accès de folie; crise qui pourrait se produire à nouveau et être funeste à quelque personne de son voisinage.) See Documentation, 27 February 1889 and Ill. 2280. On 26 February Salles had informed Theo of Vincent’s admission to hospital; in his letter of 2 March he went into the contents of the report (FR b1047 and FR b1051). This report, the petition and Dr Delon’s report (see letter 747, n. 1) were sent to the mayor on 6 March. A letter was also written around this time on behalf of the mayor, stating that Van Gogh should be transferred to the asylum at Aix-en-Provence: ‘Considering that it follows from these various documents [the report, among others] that far from improving, the mental state of the said insane person is deteriorating day by day and that the unfortunate individual is committing acts of raving madness that threaten his life and that of the persons around him...The said Vincent van Gogh ... who is currently confined at the hospital in Arles, will immediately be taken to Aix and placed in the mental asylum of that town pending the decision of the prefect regarding his permanent admission to that institution.’ (Considérant qu’il résulte de ces divers documents que l’état mental du dit aliéné loin de s’améliorer s’aggrave de jour en jour et que ce malheureux se livre à des actes de folies furieuses qui compromettent son existence et celle des personnes qui l’entourent ... Le nommé Vincent Van Gogh ... actuellement sequestré à l’hospice d’Arles, sera conduit immédiatement à Aix pour y être déposé dans l’asile d’aliénés de cette ville en attendant que M. le Préfet ait prononcé son admission définitive dans cet établissement.) (ACA). This letter was ready to be signed, so that things could be set in motion quickly should it prove necessary. In the end, however, it did not come to that. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 2016, pp. 53, 152-155....
in note 7:
...he drinks heavily (the proprietor of the café, his neighbour, who had told me precisely the opposite...
in note 8:
...origin of this allusion from the book Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville, see...
751 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 22 March 1889.
in original text:
...tu écrirais, cherche à influencer que j’aie le droit de sortir en ville néamoins. Pour autant...
...e probable, à quoi bon qu’il se dérange exprès pour venir me voir. Ce que je trouve excellent...
...de tirer au bordel un coup (n’ayant pas de femme).�� Or ils se mêlent de tout cela. Mais quand...
...et pour le retard dans le travail &c. Ces émotions répétées et inattendues, si elles devraient...
...nous laissons pas trop marcher sur le pied. Dès le commencement j’ai eu de l’opposition bien...
...pour un tas de cons et de lâches. Il y a de quoi garder son indignation pour soi n’est ce pas. Déjà j’ai vu sur un journal ici un article très bien reellement sur la litterature décadente ou...
...nous pouvons peutetre retrouver une voie plus paisible après ton marriage.– Si tôt ou tard je...
...nt, comme tu le conçois, je n’ai pas cette ressource. l’administration de l’hospice est – comment dirai je – jesuite, ils sont très très fins, très savants, très puissants, même...
in translation:
...I could certainly make a trip as far as Marseille or further to find better. Mr Salles is very kind...
...I’m in the middle of painting, eating or sleeping or having a fuck in the brothel (not having a wife). Yet they meddle with all that. But despite all that I don’t give a damn at all – were it not for the pain I’m quite involuntarily causing you thus, or rather that they’re causing – and...
...here a really very good article on decadent or Impressionist literature – but what do these...
...At least one would wish to know for what or for whom, wouldn’t one? Then one couldn’t oppose...
...a more peaceful path after your marriage. If sooner or later I became really mad I think I wouldn...
in note 4:
Van Gogh later added ‘ou de tirer...tout cela’ (or having ... all that).
in note 6:
...décadents’ by Adrien Frissant, which had been published in instalments in Le Forum Républicain of 3, 10 and 24 February and 3 March 1888. Frissant ridicules the basic principles, use of language and the conduct of the ‘Ecole décadente’, attacking in particular the incomprehensibility of symbolist poetry. In the last instalment he quotes the poet René Ghil, who had written in his foreword to his Légendes d’âmes et de sang not to seek words ‘which narrate’ but rather words ‘which impress’. Frissant therefore speaks of ‘the “Impressionist” language’ to which Van Gogh refers...
752 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 24 March 1889.
in original text:
...les bons gens d’armes de la ville d’Arles parceque cela représentait deux harengs fumés...
...de part & d’autre à tel point sans désaccords ou chocs agacants. Ainsi lui a été voir Jules Dupré et l’honore. Sans doute tu auras eu la main là-dedans qu’il vienne un peu me fortifier le...
...dans mon travail et dans ma vie par des gensdarmes et des vénimeux fainéants électeurs municipaux qui pétitionnent contre moi à leur maire élu par eux (et qui en consequent tient à leurs voix...
...t on est hors de soi dans des cas paralèlles – je ne dis pas equivalents n’ayant qu’une...
...prouvé dans bien des angoisses – avant tout – dans ma maladie dite mentale. J’ai malheureusement un métier que je ne connais pas assez pour m’exprimer comme je le désirerais. Je m’arr...
...r, à un âge où les passions materielles soient éteintes davantage – jamais sur un passé tant...
...de retard et crois moi, après t’avoir prié de dire bien des chôses de ma part à la mère, la...
in translation:
...very simple when the difficulty arose of whether or not to force open the door closed by the police, who...
...You know that I did this same still life two or three times before in Paris, and once exchanged it...
...has his self-confidence and balance, that’s all. Rarely or never have I had a conversation with an Impressionist that was so free of disagreements or annoying shocks on either side. For example, he...
...to see – he wasn’t frightened by my painting, or so it seemed to me. Signac thought I was...
...him once and for all. Must I suffer imprisonment or the madhouse – why not? Didn’t Rochefort...
...However much intensity my feeling may have or my power of expression may acquire, at an age when...
in note 1:
...ensemble hier après midi et encore ce matin. Il m’a mené voir ses tableaux dont plusieurs sont fort bien et tous tres curieux. Son gracieux docteur, l’interne Rey, croit que s’il avait une vie très methodique, mangeant et buvant normalement et à des heures régulières, il y aurait toutes les chances pour ne point se voir repetées ses terribles crises. Il est très disposé à le garder le temps qu’il faudra. Il pense que les frais de ce séjour doivent incomber à la municipalité, puisque c’est sur la demande de l’administration qu’il est gardé a l’hospice. En tous cas s’il ne revient pas à Paris, ce qui serait...
753 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 29 March 1889.
in original text:
...fait venir encore quelques livres pour avoir quelques idées solides dans la tête. j’ai relu la...
...très très prévenants pour moi de ces jours ci, ce qui – comme bien d’autres chôses – me...
...s. Tantot des angoisses morales sans nom, puis des moments où le voile du temps et de la fatalité des circonstances pour l’espace d’un clin d’oeil semblait s’entre ouvrir. Certes après...
...ie de te dire une chôse à laquelle j’ai très souvent pensée. Par hasard tout à fait dans un...
...environs d’ici à Carpentras. Voici cette epitaphe très très très vieille, du temps mettons de...
...tude de cette femme qui avait des yeux si étranges, que j’avais rencontree par un autre hasard...
...mais n’oublions pas que la réalité dans les vieux siècles a cela... “et elle ne s’est...
...enfin il me semblait que c’était plutôt à des gens plus complets que moi d’y aller.– Le...
...vous deux, d’avoir intérieurement ce vrai midi-là dans l’âme. Si je veux que cette lettre...
in translation:
...merit of being photographically correct in the proportions or in anything. But anyway, I’m trying...
...them as much as possible. If you see Koning or others, and above all cousins Mauve and Lecomte...
in note 8:
...Bénie sois-tu Taba, fille de Tahapi, parvenue à la perfection auprès du dieu Osiris. Tu n’as accompli aucune mauvaise action et tu n’as jamais calomnié personne sur cette terre. Qu’Osiris en personne te bénisse. Reçois les eaux chez Osiris. [Sois reçue à la table d’Osiris[?]. Prie, mon amour, et [sois parfaite[?] parmi les âmes chères au dieu). Van Gogh probably copied the deviant spellings of the names from...
754 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Thursday, 4 April 1889.
in title:
754 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Thursday, 4 April 1889.
in original text:
...de fête j’éprouve généralement des difficultés à formuler une félicitation mais de là il...
...voir – il m’a dit de te dire bien des chôses de sa part et de te feliciter.– Sa visite m’a...
...moi qui en apprends toujours du nouveau avec lui, quelles leçons pour l’avenir il y a dans sa...
...qu’ayant fait bien des chôses pour mettre cette maison en bien meilleur état que je ne l’avais prise et surtout pour le gaz que j’y ai fait mettre, je considérais cela comme un travail qu...
...pas du tout l’inquiétude qui a regné ici à Arles cet hiver, considéré même tout à fait en...
...ne marchent pas fort, les expédients usés, les gens decouragés et – – – – comme tu le...
...peu davantage, les dépenses séparées ayant augmentées en proportion, ils ne sont en realité pas un liard plus riche et il n’était pas sans soucis très pénibles. Heureusement le temps est...
...je te souhaite à toi et à Jo bien du bonheur et en pensee poignées de main.– t. à t. Vincent
in translation:
...I also don’t know whether it’s in Breda or Amsterdam that you’ll be getting married. But if...
...gas — to make a fuss for damages or something else, certainly there would be justification but I...
...nothing promises us better luck. Roulin was saying, or rather made it understood, that he didn’t...
...through lack of occupation. If someone still laughs or works, they come down on him fast. Anyway...
in note 7:
...or shine. The article also mentioned the exhibition of Monet’s paintings held at Boussod, Valadon & Cie (see letter 749, n. 3). Theo wrote to Jo Bonger on 11 March 1889 that this article was of great importance to the reputation of Monet and the Impressionists, and that it had exerted a positive influence on the number of visitors to his exhibition (FR b2046). See Brief happiness 1999, p. 212...
755 Paul Signac to Vincent van Gogh. Cassis, Monday, 8 April 1889.
in original text:
Après avoir erré sur la côte, je me suis fixé à Cassis. Je vous envoie mon adresse afin que vous me...
756 To Paul Signac. Arles, Wednesday, 10 April 1889.
in original text:
...est en Hollande où il se marie de ces jours ci.�� Or, tout en ne niant pas le moins du monde les...
...funèbres de réception &c., les félicitations lamentables de deux familles (civilisées encore...
...de pharmacie où siègent des magistrats antédiluviens civils ou religieux – ma foi – n’y...
...petit feu de receptions pompes funebres susmentionnées, tout vivant. Je vous demeure bien oblig...
...s de vergers. En voici croquis hatif – le plus grand est une pauvre campagne verte à petits...
...Bien aise de ce que vous dites que vous vous êtes fixé, et serai désireux d’avoir encore de...
...a d’un régime très sobre surtout. Pour les premiers mois au moins je me propose de rester encore ici, j’ai loué un apartement de deux très petites pièces. Mais par moments il ne m’est pas...
...ces inquiétudes l...qui peut vivre dans la vie moderne sans en atrapper sa part. La meilleure consolation sinon le seul remède c’est à ce qu’il me semble encore les amitiés profondes, mêm...
in translation:
...those pharmacist’s jars where antediluvian civil or religious magistrates sit – my word – isn’t...
...well now and I’m working in the hospital or its surroundings. Thus I’ve just brought back two...
in note 6:
...or part of it, at Van Gogh’s disposal. Rey’s address was Rampe du Pont, near the Pont de Trinquetaille (ACA; L’indicateur marseillais 1889). In the end Van Gogh decided against taking this apartment, as Salles informed Theo on Friday, 19 April 1889: ‘he was coming to an arrangement with a landlord when all of a sudden he confessed to me that for the time being he did not feel he had the courage to take possession of himself again and that it would be infinitely better for him, that it would be more sensible for him to go and spend two or three months in an asylum’ (il était sur le point de conclure avec un propriétaire quand tout à coup il m’a fait l’aveu qu’il ne se sentait pas pour le moment le courage de rentrer en possession de lui-même et qu’il lui conviendrait infiniment mieux, qu’il serait plus sage pour lui d’aller passer deux ou trois mois dans une maison de santé) (FR b1050...
in textual note 19:
antédiluviens < antidiluviens
757 Paul Signac to Vincent van Gogh. Cassis, Friday, 12 April 1889.
in original text:
...dispersés dans de jolis mouvements de terrain. Tout autour des montagnes aux
...n’est-ce pas, de vos bonnes nouvelles.– Cordiales poignées de mains. P. Signac 2 Place de la...
in translation:
I’m much hindered by the weather: rain or mistral for several days...
...protractor. One then sees if the shape is harmonious or not. This will have a great social bearing...
...of empirical formulae and dishonest or silly advice. I’ll send you one of these brochures when they’ve seen the light of day. Why don’t you come to do a study or two in this pretty country...
758 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, between about Sunday, 14 and about Wednesday, 17 April 1889.
in original text:
Maintenant j’espère que toutes ces chôses se soient bien passées pour...
...2 Laque géranium tubes moyens J’ai 6 études du printemps dont deux grands vergers. Cela presse...
...propriétaire. Et c’est pourquoi j’ai été plus ou moins stupéfait que tu ne m’avais rien envoyé.– Mais enfin.– Espérant encore une fois que toutes ces chôses du mariage se soient passées à votre gré, en vous souhaitant de coeur bien du bonheur à toi & à ta femme t. à v. Vincent Signac m’a demandé de le rejoindre à Cassis mais vu que nous ayons assez de frais sans cela...
in translation:
...I’ve taken an apartment of 2 small rooms at 6 (or 8 francs a month, water included) which belong to Mr...
...the other landlord. And that’s why I was more or less stunned that you hadn’t sent me anything...
...seeing as we have enough expenses without that, whatever I do or you do it isn’t within our means.
760 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 21 April 1889.
in original text:
...s pour le reste du mois de l’argent que j’y ai encore en dépot. A la fin du mois je désirerais...
...s comme pensionnaire interné. Recommencer cette vie de peintre de jusqu’à présent, isolé dans...
...Enfin commencons par 3 mois, nous verrons après. Or la pension doit y etre d’environ 80 francs...
...e que les résultats matériels seraient nuls cela te reste pourtant à plus forte raison mais je...
...r que des vertus dans une societé dans laquelle nous sommes très indubitablement enracinés, qu’elle soit bonne ou mauvaise. Je t’assure que de ces jours étranges où bien des choses me...
...ré, c’est à savoir comment seront les règlements d’une institution comme cela. Sache que Rey...
...trop de mal de Paris et d’un tas de chôses. Te sens tu d’avance tout à fait capable de garder...
...Toutes tes bontes pour moi je les ai trouvé plus grandes que jamais aujourd’hui. je ne peux pas...
...peutêtre malgré cela encore des années à peu près ordinaires devant moi: C’est une maladie...
in translation:
...to go to the mental hospital at St-Rémy or another institution of that kind, which Mr Salles has...
...there alone, here in Arles or elsewhere – it comes down to the same thing – for the moment – I’ve nevertheless tried to make up my mind to begin again – for the moment not possible. I’d...
...other source of entertainment than to go to a café or a restaurant with all the criticism of the...
...drink or smoke. We’re already advised not to lie or steal and not to commit other great or small...
...which we’re very indubitably rooted, be it good or bad. I assure you that these strange days in...
...be able to go out in the daytime to go and draw or paint outside. Seeing as I go out here every day...
...that Rey is overburdened with work, overburdened. If he or Mr Salles writes to you, it’s better...
...having lived for years in relatively good health, sooner or later we have our share of them. As for...
...What people today’s doctors are! If you see Gauguin or if you write to him, give him my kind...
in note 4:
...For the time being the furniture has been sent to the house of a neighbour, to whom your brother has paid three months’ rent for this purpose, 18 francs in all’ (Pour le moment les meubles sont remises chez un voisin auquel votre frère a payé trois mois de location pour cet objet, en tout 18 f.) (FR b1050...
RM17 Envelope addressed to Theo van Gogh. After Sunday, 21 April 1889.
in additional details:
...it was most likely enclosed with a shipment or entrusted to someone to deliver, considering it has...
761 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Wednesday, 24 April 1889.
in title:
761 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Wednesday, 24 April 1889.
in original text:
...t que cela m’a travaillé déjà depuis tres longtemps et que d’autres, apercevant des...
...c’est sans doute dommage que ces réflexions me viennent à l’état de sentiment un peu tard.– Et que je ne peux naturellement rien changer au passé. Mais je te prie de bien considérer cela...
...crises repetées me paraissent avoir été graves assez pour ne pas avoir à hésiter. D’ailleurs quant à mon avenir ce n’est pas comme si j’avais 20 ans puisque j’en ai 36 passées. Voil...
...contestable. Et la chose que je regrette c’est de ne pas etre allé dans un asile plus tôt, c’aurait eté plus simple. Reste cependant que l’idee d’association des peintres, de les loger en...
...a beaucoup de gens plus ou moins aisés d’internés desquels quelques uns depensent beaucoup d’argent. Ce qui leur est souvent plus nuisible qu’utile. Je crois cela volontiers. Et je crois que chez moi la nature à elle seule fera davantage de bien que des remèdes. Ici je ne prends rien. Il...
in translation:
...me a great deal in many judgements that, with more or less presumption, I’ve too often made about...
...which, however, I’ve already explained to you two or three times, that it’s thus for the best...
...to consider that many people are committed who are more or less well off, some of whom spend a lot...
762 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 24 April 1889.
in original text:
...de santé est déjà assez grave. Espérons que cela ne sera qu’à titre préventive. Comme je te...
...car certainement la vie là-dedans ne doit pas être agréable. Sâches donc bien ce que tu fais...
...Arles au bout de quelque temps si le coeur t’en dit. M. Salles m’a envoyé des prospectus de...
...dernier, nous sommes installés à peu près et tous les jours, l’appartement prend un aspect plus habité grace à toutes sortes d’inventions de Jo. Nous nous entendons très bien ensemble de...
...repartie maintenant à Breda après une absence d’un mois à peu près. Mon mariage lui a fait...
...sincère dans ses manières qu’il y a beaucoup de personnes sur qui elle fait une très agréable...
...faire que je ne crains plus les désillusions que je redoutais avant notre mariage. Jusqu’à pr...
...les F. Hals à Haarlem que j’ai trouvé plus beau que jamais & le portrait de vieille femme de...
...cadeau d’un de ces dessins, dont je suis très très content. Ecris moi bientôt ce que tu auras...
in translation:
...you wouldn’t make another try first. Either by coming back here for a while, or by going to Pont-Aven during the summer, or by trying to board with people who would take care of you. If you had no...
in note 7:
Now ‘Circle of Rembrandt’, The dead woman (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). Ill. 364.
763 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 28 April 1889.
in original text:
...du billet de 100 francs. J’ai été très très heureux d’aprendre que tu te sens un peu rassur...
...ce que je ne refuse pas du tout. Pour venir à Paris ou pour aller à Pont aven je ne m’en sens...
...rs Rey et moi en avons déjà blagué quelquefois car il dit que l’amour est aussi un microbe ce...
...servira dans les etablissements Duval appellés les eglises protestantes, catholiques ou n’impor...
...un verger d’oliviers a quelque chose de très intime, d’immensement vieux. C’est trop beau...
...es chôses mais c’est comme je t’ai deja écrit, mes idées ne sont pas rangées. J’enverrai...
...s’en retourne chez Mm Duquesne, une lettre très bien. Ah le cancer – c’est dur et difficile.– à propos sais tu que c’est très curieux que durant tout cet étrange et inexpliquable mouvement qui a eu lieu à Arles et où j’ai eté mêlé, il etait continuellement question du cancer. Je crois que selon leur croyance, à ces vertueux indigènes qui savent si bien l’avenir, il parait...
in translation:
...s getting younger. In a little while, of course, or already, she’s going to be worrying about...
...it will be settled. I myself wouldn’t be unhappy or discontented if in a little while from now I...
...rest. Anyway, I don’t say that one must or can do that without thought and without consulting a...
...goes well I can always paint or draw, which I do not refuse in the least. To come to Paris or to go to Pont-Aven I don’t feel up to it, besides I have no keen desire or keen regret most of the time...
...Christs one is served up with in the Duval establishments called Protestant, Catholic or whatever...
...be, but I think in advance that I’ll find one or two ineffable things in it. Ah, my dear Theo, if...
...Dutch meadows or the oak bushes of our dunes, that’s to say the murmur of an olive grove has something very intimate, immensely old about it. It’s too beautiful for me to dare paint it or be able...
...You mustn’t feel awkward about destroying a good number of them. I’ve had a letter from Wil...
in note 4:
In Ernest Renan’s Vie de Jésus, Jesus is portrayed as a good-natured and somewhat fanatical idealist...
764 To Willemien van Gogh. Arles, between about Sunday, 28 April and Thursday, 2 May 1889.
in original text:
...lorsque je pense à ces chôses. me sentant gauche, lourd et maladroit là-dedans. Nous avons si...
...Il y a pas très loin d’ici une tombe très très très ancienne, plus ancienne que le Christ...
...très content de ses experiences matrimoniales et s’est considérablement rassuré. Des illusions...
...ce. l’un une salle, une très longue salle avec les rangées de lits à rideaux blancs où se...
...très très simple. Et alors comme pendant, la cour intérieure.– C’est une galerie à arcades...
...de noël, des anémones, des renoncules, de la giroflée, des marguérites &c. Et sous la galerie...
...que ma vie a été pas assez calme, tous ces déboires, contrariétés, changements font que je ne...
...quatre, ainsi le travail ne va pas très fort. Si tu possèdes le livre de Drône dont tu parles...
...er exprès pour moi dans ce moment. J’ai vu ici des religieuses très intéressantes, la plupart...
...du cancer par exemple. Et vois tu, les médecins desquels tu dis, quelquefois ils ne peuvent pas...
in translation:
...the ceiling with the large beams, everything is white in a lilac white or green white. Here and there a window with a pink or bright green curtain. The floor tiled with red bricks. At the far end a...
...me in the uncomfortable and unenviable hours and days or nights. I’ve re-read Beecher Stowe’s...
...I repeat, I do not believe to be my duty or my ideal. I haven’t re-read those excellent books by...
...best of worlds’. Last year I did about ten or a dozen orchards in blossom and this year I have...
...a glass of water or eating a piece of bread. Certainly it’s quite indispensable to kiss, otherwise serious disorders arise. Now must cerebral sympathies always go with or without what precedes. Why...
...that my ideas may be futile or incoherent this time too. Only I wanted to write to you in any case while you were there. I can’t precisely describe what the thing I have is like, there are terrible fits of anxiety sometimes – without any apparent cause �� or then again a feeling of emptiness...
in note 9:
...and smiles and shouts’. See Uncle Tom’s cabin; or, life among the lowly. London n.d. (The Lily...
in note 11:
Van Gogh must be referring to Renan’s Vie de Jésus, which he mentioned in letter 763, together with his...
in note 12:
...who does not stay in the same place for long or does not practise the same trade long enough will...
765 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 30 April 1889.
in original text:
...d’artistes encore plus ratés que lui-même. Cependant songe à Pangloss, songe à Bouvard et...
...y en a une sur laquelle j’ai collé des journeaux qui s’ecaille – c’est une des meilleures...
...seulement l’atelier sombré, mais même les etudes qui en auraient été le souvenir abimées, c’est si définitif et mon élan pour fonder quelque chôse de très simple mais de durable était...
...que cela a été cause que j’ai tant crié dans les crises que je voulais me défendre et n’y...
...un visage navré et bien des beaux tableaux, où certes on est emu mais helas emu comme dans un...
...violacée) mais comme cela m’a impressionné ces tableaux qui se fanaient là, peu compris certes...
...les renvoie simplement au cabanon dans ses blasphèmes. Maintenant pourtant je t’assure que je ne...
...hors de l’etablissement ni me prendre à moins de 100 francs. Ces renseignements sont donc bien...
...voudra-t-on me prendre comme soldat? Je me sens très fatigué par la conversation avec m. Salles...
in translation:
...but those people perhaps don’t know Pangloss, or else one forgets everything one knows about him...
...so strong. It was fighting against insurmountable odds, or rather it was weakness of character on...
in note 3:
...him a ‘peasant’ and ‘true peasant’ a number of times. He also remarks that in Barbizon Millet...
in note 4:
...resting on his spade, for he has just dug a grave, wiping his brow. Here and there, a few clédas [wooden hurdles] that the mistral and the March rain have knocked down, forgotten in this lonely place. (Ce cimetière, il était difficile de le rendre avec un sentiment plus vrai de désolation. Un pan de terre morne, aride, que clôturent des murailles grises et sur lequel le soleil torride de juillet jette sa dévorante lumière. Nulle fleur sur les tombes nues, pas un arbuste qui les abrite, pas un cyprès qui les protège. Des pierres poudreuses donnant naissance, à travers leurs fissures, à quelques herbes sauvages au milieu desquelles courent de petits lézards. Là-bas, dans le coin, un fossoyeur, le pied sur sa bêche, car il vient de creuser une fosse, et s’épongeant le front. Çà et là des clédas que le mistral et la pluie de mars ont bouleversés dans l’oubli de cette solitude.) Nandyfer, ‘Chronique’, Le Petit Provençal. Journal Politique...
in note 17:
...to Richepin’s volume of poetry Les blasphèmes (1884), though nowhere in that book does Richepin...
in note 27:
For Gauguin’s Self-portrait with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’, see letter 692, n. 1.
in note 29:
...paintings were part of the decoration, as were a number of other works which he here describes as...
766 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 2 May 1889.
in original text:
...entièrement & que je vais te dire, tu feras après ce que tu voudras. C’est tes projets pour la...
...cette idé provient d’une crainte excessive de me causer des frais & des ennuis & inutilement tu te crées des casse têtes. L’année dernière n’a pas été mauvaise pour moi au point de vue...
...qu’un mois, tu aurais été examiné par des médecins spécialistes & probablement aurais tu pu profiter de leur conseils. D’un autre côté dans une lettre que m’a écrit le Directeur de...
...le désirera avant de t’avoir examiné, mais je suppose qu’après t’avoir vu il n’y a pas...
...ton existance matérielle a été trop négligé. Dans un établissement comme à St Remy il y a à peu près la même régularité dans les heures de repas etc. & je crois que cette régularité ne...
...toute la désilusion quand tu es rentré dans ton atelier par exemple après qu’il fût moisi par l’humidité. Tiens encore courage, tes désastres surement prendront fin. Bien des choses de ma...
in translation:
...or less the same regularity in mealtimes etc., and I think that this regularity will do you no harm, on the contrary. Now if you prefer, we could obtain information about the institution at Aix or...
in note 3:
...c’est que lorsque j’aurai observé votre malade pendant quelque temps et que j’aurai acquis la certitude qu’il peut sans inconvénients jouir d’une liberté plus grande, je serai le premier à la lui accorder. Quant à faire de la peinture et à ne pas le laisser séquestré dans l’établissement, je vous promets de lui faciliter tous les moyens de se livrer à ses goûts naturels et à lui laisser dans la maison, la plus grande liberté compatible avec son état mental) (see FR b1059; Hulsker 1993-2, pp. 176-177).
767 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday, 2 May 1889.
in original text:
...reçoives.– Il y a un tas de croutes dedans qu’il faudra détruire mais je les ai envoyés tel...
...tre passable. J’y ai ajouté des masques d’escrime et des études à Gauguin et le livre de...
...j’ai en train une allée de maronniers à fleurs roses avec un petit cérisier en fleur et une...
...4000 seulement internés et qu’ainsi c’est pas si extraordinaire) peutêtre que à Paris en le...
...j’ai passablement de la bonne volonté. Mais l’argent que coute la peinture cela m’écrase...
...rien, pas même d’aller à St Remy malgré ces obstacles de pension plus elevée que d’abord on...
...le café de nuit où j’ai remisé mes meubles mais...journellement on est en contact alors juste...
...autrement que par de la curiosité des passants. J’ai relu l’article sur Monet du Figaro et il me parait maintenant beaucoup mieux que d’abord. Pour les choses materielles ne nous decourageons pas trop mais tâchons au moins d’etre raisonnables là-dedans. C’est toujours bon qu’à la...
in translation:
...I will be turned down – but what I dread, or rather what makes me timid, is the possibility, the...
...that I’m doing it with an idea of sacrificing myself or doing good. I’m ‘in a hole’ in life...
...armed forces it would be more or less the same thing. Now if here I certainly run a strong risk of being rejected because they know that I’m a madman or an epileptic, probably for good (although...
...perhaps in Paris by telling it for example to Detaille or Caran d’Ache I would soon be found a...
768 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 3 May 1889.
in original text:
...loigne de toi l’idée de sacrifice là-dedans – je l’écrivais encore l’autre jour à la...
...ne confondons pas les chôses alors qu’il y a des distances immenses. Or moi comme peintre je ne...
...me servirait une vie plus factice d’artiste à Paris – de laquelle en somme je ne serais dupe...
...nous nous faisons trop vieux pour nous ranger dans les jeunes, à ce que nous avons aimé dans le...
...pourquoi n’attacher aucune importance à leurs équivalents d’aprésent. Pourquoi Daubigny et...
...Paris. Maintenant que tu es marié nous n’avons plus à vivre pour de grandes idées mais crois...
...guérirais considérablement et serais plus raisonable et davantage maitre de moi. Mais l’un ou l’autre, cela m’est égal. J’espere qu’il y ait dans le tas de toiles que je t’ai envoyés...
...toutes les toiles que je t’ai envoyées. Tant que les pâtes ne sont pas sèches à fond...
...femmes sont autres que les expressions qu’on voit à Paris. Signac est il deja de retour à Paris?
in translation:
...with the doctor it would be perhaps either necessary or simply useful and wise to enlist, let’s...
...our sister the other day that throughout my life, or almost at least, I’ve sought something other...
...what does it matter to you or to me to have a little more or a little less annoyance. Certainly you...
...again. Alcohol and tobacco have after all this good or bad point – it’s a bit relative, this...
...merely a link in a chain, and whether you find or you don’t find, you can console yourself with...
...have loved in our time, Millet, Breton, Israëls, Whistler, Delacroix, Leys. And be fully assured...
...well before, when we were younger, why forget them or why attach no importance to their present-day...
...there’d be enough to make studios for thirty or so painters. I really must make up my mind, it...
...one or the other, it’s all the same to me. I hope that in the heap of canvases I’ve sent you there may be some which will end up giving you pleasure. If I remain a painter, then sooner or later...
in note 8:
...is also very charming, but it does not have the same unity and does not please the eye to the same degree.’ (Ce sont des intérieurs modestes, tout parfumés d’intimité, dans une note charmante. Le salon vert, orné de poteries vertes, assombri de rideaux verts, où glisse une faible lumière par une porte...
in note 9:
...jeunes femmes sont interprétées avec un art très subtil. Je leur préfère cependant l’aqua-fortiste...
in note 10:
...or otherwise, is admirably painted, and that there emanates from it a profound and disturbing poetry.’ (Aussi on criera fort contre M. Besnard. Je n’ai pas besoin d’attendre. C’est certain. Il est de fait que M. Bernard [sic] n’a pas peint une chose ordinaire. Sa Sirène, c’est une jeune fille à l’oeuil étrange, adossée à un arbre, sur le bord d’un lac. Ce ne serait rien, s’il n’y avait que cela. Mais l’artiste a choisi l’heure où, par un effet de coucher de soleil, le lac – c’est celui d’Annecy – prend une coloration rose, absolument rose. Ce phénomène dure peu, mais il se renouvelle régulièrement chaque soir. Tous les voyageurs l’ont observé. N’importe! c’est l’exception, et l’on criera, je le repète. Eh bien, moi, je ne crierai pas pour deux motifs: le premier, c’est que je suis sûr de la sincérité du maître; le second, c’est que ce morceau, voué d’avance à toutes les exclamations boulevardières et autres, est admirablement peint, et qu’il s’en dégage un poésie profonde et troublante.) The painting is A siren, 1889 (Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glypothek). Ill. 579. Exhib. cat. Paris 1889-2, p. 20, no. 237...
in note 18:
Adolphe Jourdan had died on 22 February 1889 in Nîmes, a city not far from Avignon.
769 Frédéric Salles to Vincent van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 5 May 1889.
in original text:
Devant m’absenter demains et étant occupé les Mardi, je me mets à votre disposition pour vous accompagner Mercredi à St Remy. Nous partirions par le train de 8 heures 51, si cela vous convient. Ayant déjà vu M. Peyron, il est convenable que...
770 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 8 May 1889.
in original text:
...beaucoup. Dans la Rue des petits caraux je voyais un attelage très lourd qui devait monter cette rue. Le cocher tapait à coup redoublés sur ses quatre chevaux, mais au beau milieu les chevaux éreintés...
...tu me dises un peu comment tu es traité dans la maison & comment est la nouriture etc. Mr Salles...
...le proposait.– Il y a au Salon un très beau tableau de Raphaelli, deux buveurs d’absinthe. Je...
...le genre d’en Arcadie de Harrison que tu te rappèles peut être. Il y a une naissance du Christ...
in note 4:
...Notre voyage à St. Rémy s’est effectué dans d’excellentes conditions. M. Vincent était...
in note 5:
Jean-François Raffaëlli, The absinthe drinkers, c. 1880-1881 (private collection). Ill. 1230. See exhib...
in note 7:
Zorn’s painting Ute, 1888 (Göteborgs Konstmuseum) was exhibited at the Salon under the title A l’air...
771 Jo van Gogh-Bonger to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 8 May 1889.
in original text:
...want over een paar minuten komt Theo t’huis – voor vandaag zeg ik je dus maar goedendag – ik...
in translation:
when I find a nice little jug or a vase or something, then it’s always: Vincent bought that or V. liked that so much — scarcely a day passes when we don’t speak of...
...a time — how she’d laugh at me — for she’s such a clever little housekeeper herself. She...
in note 5:
...1889 to her sister Mien: ‘there are always two or three unframed paintings standing around our place...
772 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Thursday, 9 May 1889.
in original text:
...la réalité de la vie des fous ou toqués divers dans cette ménagerie je perds la crainte vague...
...j’ai surtout cherché les nouvelles de mon frère. Et je les trouves très bonnes. Je vois que...
...y ait à Paris des maisons et non pas seulement des apartements. Enfin – heureusement vous êtes...
...s on descend la montagne au lieu de la monter. Enfin ma soeur si vous pouvez croire, ou à peu près...
...est la meilleure des villes là-dedans. Avez vous déjà remarqué que les vieux chevaux de fiacre y ont des grands beaux yeux navrés comme des chrétiens quelquefois. Quoi qu’il en soit nous ne...
...gens qui aiment la nature tout en etant toqués ou malades, voilà les peintres, puis il y en a qui...
...comme des bêtes dans une ménagerie, malgré cela les gens d’ici se connaissent très bien entre...
...qu’ici et à l’hospice à Arles pour pouvoir enfin peindre un peu. Tout près d’ici il y a des petites montagnes grises ou bleues ayant à leur pied des blés très très verts et des pins. Je...
in translation:
...the reality of the life of the diverse mad or cracked people in this menagerie, I’m losing the...
...I’m curious to know if they’ve suffered more, yes or no. I have two others on the go — violet...
...you a little, you who don’t like it, or rather who above all like the flowers there, such as, I...
...artists have perished, whom we knew directly or indirectly. Certainly Millet, whom you’ll learn...
...in my mind there’s hardly any really clear desire or hope left, and I’m wondering if it is thus...
...it. Anyway my sister, if you can believe, or almost, that everything is always for the best in the...
...Anyway, it would probably be hypocritical to say or believe that Paris is bad when one lives there...
...those who directly or indirectly are engaged in it, for it’s only too doubtful whether that’s beautiful or useful. But what can you do, there are people who love nature while being cracked or ill...
...Very near here there are some little grey or blue mountains, with very, very green wheatfields at...
in note 2:
...mais cependant il lui paraît utile d’être soigné dans un asile d’aliénés.) The asylum’s physician, Dr Peyron, examined Van Gogh and recorded his findings on 9 and 25 May 1889. On 9 May 1889 he wrote in the admissions register: ‘I consider that Mr Van Gogh is subject to attacks of epilepsy, separated by long intervals, and that it is advisable to place him under long-term observation in the institution.’ (J’estime...que M. Van Gogh est sujet à des attaques d’Epilepsie fort éloignées les unes des autres et qu’il y a lieu de le soumettre à une observation prolongée dans l’établissement.) See Documentation, 8 May 1889....
773 Joseph Roulin to Vincent van Gogh. Marseille, Monday, 13 May 1889.
in original text:
Si j’ait tarder à vous écrirre, je croyais pouvoir disposé de ma journée de repos pour aller vous voir; comme ne je n’ai pu me rendre à Arles, je viens vous demander des nouvelles de votre santé, êtes vous bien rétabli depuis notre dernière entrevue. vous me paraissiez disposé à bien reprendre vos traveaux, la campagne est belle, les modèles ne doivent pas vous manquer. Si vous me fésiez l’honneur d’une réponse vous me fériez un grand...
in translation:
...all the friends who are interested in me, give them my best regards, or tell Mr Ginoux to do it for you.
774 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 21 May 1889.
in original text:
...ces enragés ne doit pas être agréable. Ce que je voudrais, c’est que nous découvrions quelque...
...ne craignais pas de revenir à Paris ou les environs, je tâcherais de trouver une pension dans ce...
...le charme qu’ils voient là-dedans n’est pas aussi bien une sensation évoqués que quand les prétentieux regardent les tableaux des musées. Maintenant il y a dans tes toiles une vigueur que l’on ne trouves certes pas dans les chromos, par le temps cela deviendra très beau comme pâte et...
...pas toujours & que le temps pourrait bien changer très prochainement. Si tu voyais comme le Salon...
...tiendront plus longtemps. L’école Hollandaise y fait très bien. Il y a deux aquarelles de J.H...
...lune. C’est un rude artiste que celui là, mais Tersteeg dit qu’il n’est pas vendable. J’ai...
...t il y aura une exposition des Indépendants, j’aimerais bien savoir ce que tu en penses & quelles toiles tu crois le mieux pour être exposées. J’ai entendu dire que chacun pourra exposer 4...
in translation:
...to find. If you didn’t fear returning to Paris or its surroundings, I would try to find somewhere like...
...the simple people who buy images in loud colours? Or rather, isn’t the charm they see in them as...
...also some W. and J. Maris and Bosboom, Israëls and Breitner. One of the Weissenbruchs is a...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1889 Indépendants exhibition (732)
in note 4:
...sun (F 450 / JH 1627), which measures 73.5 x 93 cm, or Sower with setting sun (F 451 / JH 1629), which...
in note 13:
Jozef Israëls exhibited three paintings: Les travailleurs de la mer (Workers of the sea), Paysans à table...
775 Joseph Roulin to Vincent van Gogh. Marseille, Wednesday, 22 May 1889.
in original text:
...que je les ai trouvé tous en bonne santé. mon épouse va très bien, Armand, notre forgerrons, je...
...un peu tiré la barbe. je suis très satisfait de mon voyage, il faut expéré qu’à la St Michel nous serons tous réunis à Marseille car j’ai loué des appartements pour cette époque. je suis...
...re que de votre propre volonté vous aviez quitté Arles pour aller à St Rémy. continuez vos tableaux, vous êtes dans un beau pays, la campagne est très belles, le sol est très bien travailler, vous trouverrez un grand changement dans la culture là-bas, vous ne trouverrez pas des jardins qui ressemble à un cimétières comme à Arles. continuez à vous bien soigner, suivez bien les bon...
...faire de très beau tableaux, vous habitez le jardin des B. du Rhône, les modèles que la nature...
...e au sujet de mon dernier voyage à Arles. quand je lui écrirrais que j’ai reçu une de vos...
...qu’une caresse de Marcelle qui grâce à vous peut faire un bonjour à mon Portrais soir et matin...
in textual note 16:
tiré < tirais
in textual note 20:
arrivé < arrivais
in textual note 45:
qui grâce à vous < que grasse a vous il
776 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 23 May 1889.
in title:
776 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 23 May 1889.
in original text:
...les orgues de Barbarie, sont vaguement dans le vrai et peut-être plus sincères que de certains...
...sur châssis, et à Bernard aussi, comme témoignage d’amitié. Mais si Gauguin veut...
...de St Remy est très beau et peu à peu je vais y faire des étapes probablement. Mais en restant...
...deux rideaux vert d’eau à dessins de roses très pâles ravivées de minces traits de rouge sang...
...vert bouteille. à travers la fenêtre barrée de fer j’apercois un carré de blé dans un enclos...
...et autres épiceries et denrées coloniales par des quantites reglées et à des heures fixes. La...
...avis le plus ceux qui sont ici depuis des années. Or mon travail me préservera dans une certaine...
...et à reflets carminés ou vaguement tournant sur le vert olive; il est très grand. Pour...
...mélancolie moins aiguë. Mais de la volonte je n’en ai encore aucune, des désirs guère ou pas...
...nous sommes assez égaux. Car toi ce n’est qu’en partie que tu peux faire selon tes idées...
in translation:
...reason at all to come and board in Paris or its surroundings. I have a little room with grey-green...
...had snuffed it of something else, of consumption or syphilis, for example. These artists, I see...
...for. For although there are some who howl or usually rave, here there is much true friendship that...
...to me for beginning again. Coming back to Paris or anywhere at the moment doesn’t appeal to me at...
...the canvases which are dry enough at Tanguy’s or at your place off the stretching frames and then...
...often had canvases of his own, Cézanne or Pissarro lined. Speaking of my condition, I’m...
...or the terror. Now, this has been diminishing for 5 months, I have good hope of getting over it, or...
...But I still have absolutely no will, hardly any desires or none, and everything that has to do with...
...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. I retain my...
in date note:
...letter of 21 May (774), so it must have been 22 or 23 May. We have therefore dated the present letter...
in note 21:
...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...
in note 23:
...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 note 28:
...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...
777 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, between about Friday, 31 May and about Thursday, 6 June 1889.
in original text:
...va bien et pour la tête cela sera, espérons le, une affaire de temps & de patience. Le directeur...
...veuf depuis quelques années et qui a des lunettes très noires. L’etablissement etant un peu...
...dans sa chambre, renverse son manger &c. C’est très triste à voir – mais ils ont beaucoup de...
...e où je suis actuellement je viendrais à Paris, je ne ferais aucune difference entre un tableau...
...de vin pour enlever l’huile et l’essence des pâtes. Ainsi le café de nuit et la vigne verte...
...net désir d’être ailleurs et cela peut très bien venir de ce qu’on se sente trop décidemmen...
...et la description de la broderie toute en or. Justement parceque cela est comme une question de...
...y a déjà des chôses de Lamartine comme cela. J’espère que tu détruiras un tas de choses trop...
...st absolument égal, fais comme si je n’y étais point. Pour ne pas être indifférent et ne pas...
...mètres de toile en plus. Car les fleurs seront passagers et seront remplacés par les blés jaunes...
in translation:
...or less these sizes
...any distinction between a so-called dark painting or a bright Impressionist painting, between a...
...or even in artists to come. I scarcely believe that Impressionism will ever do more than the Romantics, for example. It’s certainly a far cry between that and admiring people like Léon Glaize or...
...of things that are too bad in the heap I sent, or at least will only show the most passable ones...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1889 Indépendants exhibition (732)
in date note:
...that he has been working outside the asylum ‘for a few days now’, whereas in this letter he has yet...
778 Joseph Ginoux to Vincent van Gogh. Arles, Friday, 31 May 1889.
in original text:
Arles s,Rhone...
779 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 9 June 1889.
in original text:
...ta femme. M. Peyron a l’intention d’aller à Paris voir l’exposition et alors te rendra une...
...de la toile un grand nuage blanc & gris noyé dans l’azur. C’est un paysage d’une simplicit...
...en parterres par des rangées de briques – l’habitation des êtres que nous ne connaissons qu...
...et d’instinct, expriment toutes ces chôses insaisisables: la bonté, la patience infinie, la...
...eux que dans l’ancienne maison Hollandaise. Or les impressionistes – c’est toujours encore...
...déjà existants. Etait ce de cette exposition-là que tu me parlais. Quelles tempêtes dans des...
...Je m’ennuie à mourir à des moments après le travail et pourtant je n’ai aucune envie de recommencer. Le médecin qui vient de passer dit qu’il n’ira à Paris que dans quelques semaines...
...ye de me raisonner pour me rendre compte des chôses – pourquoi je suis venu ici et qu’en somme...
...qui peutêtre a été expulsé déja depuis de longues années avec toute sa famille. Ecris moi...
in translation:
...of the people we know only in the state of mummies or in granite. But there you are, to get back to...
...in Leys’s great fresco, when she’s engraved by Braquemond, becomes a new work of art �� or Meissonier’s little reader when it’s Jacquemart who engraves him – since the manner of engraving...
...calmer since, I can indeed redo it now. The thing is, among the number of things that one makes there are always some that one has felt or wanted more and which one wants to keep all the same. When I...
...if the Impressionists are worth more than their time, or rather aren’t yet worth as much. In a...
...that you’re no longer living alone. If one month or another it should be too difficult for you to...
...all in oils with very little neutral colour, or a Michel? My undergrowth with ivy is completely...
in date note:
...b1060). Furthermore, he said about Vincent that ‘for several days now he has been leaving the house to...
in note 5:
...F 662 / JH 1804), which he copied in late June or early July in the drawing Wild vegetation (F 1542...
in note 9:
...or hut represented a culture and a stage in the history of habitation from prehistory to modern times. The dwellings, which were nearly lifesize, were built with authentic materials. This part of the exhibition (‘Dessins et modèles d’architecture’) was titled ‘Histoire de l’habitation’. See exhib. cat. Paris 1889, p. 104, and Paul Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas. The Expositions Universelles, great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851-1939. Manchester 1988, p. 20. Garnier's first name was Charles, not Jules. Letter 809 reveals that Van Gogh had obtained the information about the Egyptian house from an illustrated journal, though it is not known which one...
in note 13:
...pseudonym). See exhib. cat. Paris 1889-5 and Merlhès 1995, pp. 26-32. Theo had been approached to exhibit...
in textual note 166:
chôses – < chôses
780 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 16 June 1889.
in original text:
...ce matin de dimanche pendant que des toiles commencées sèchent un peu au soleil, j’attendrais...
...inachevé là-bas quand tant de chôses dans la nature demeurent paralèles. Quoique je sens avec...
...u près celles des saules, leur ombres portées violettes sur le sable ensoleillé. Puis encore un...
...sombre cyprès qui se détache sur les lointaines collines violacées et bleuies, et sur un ciel bleu myosotys strié de rose dont les tons purs contrastent avec les épis hâlés déjà lourds aux...
...on veut là-dedans – hélas nous nous connaissons si peu nous-mêmes.– D’ailleurs je croirais...
...sûr n’attendent pas qu’elles soient aimées pour aimer elles mêmes – ce qui – et je suis...
...passablement absorbé dans sa lune de miel ce qui est fort bien. il m’a envoyé des couleurs et...
...crit il y a quelque temps une lettre très bien qui me prouvait qu’elle est bien serieuse. Elle...
...et d’oublier ce qu’elle sait déjà des chôses hollandaises. Je m’en vais encore un peu...
in translation:
...a landscape of an olive grove with grey foliage more or less like that of the willows, their cast...
...in a position to state or prove, please don’t lose sight of that), I think that you asked me if there are people who would have the said bacillus and others who wouldn’t have it, or if on the...
...to have herself inoculated with the said bacillus according to the Pasteur or some other method. Joking apart, I believe that a man or woman inevitably has to be in love with something, and that the...
...in these matters; that the wise ones among them, or rather those who have the most correct and sure...
781 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Sunday, 16 June 1889.
in original text:
...Goupil & C° imprimeurs éditeurs Boussod, Valadon & Cie successeurs 19, Boulevard Montmartre...
...t’écrire mais je ne pouvais pas formuler mes idées. Il y a des moments qu’on sent bien, mais...
...déjà une qualité rare, mais tu es allé plus loin & s’il y en a qui s’occupent de chercher...
...e tes pensés sur la nature et les êtres vivants, que tu y sens si fortement attachés. Mais comme...
...il ne faut pas te risquer dans ces régions mystérieuses qu’il parait que l’on peut effleurer...
...est vrai qu’après il a eu une réaction en faisant l’éducation de la vierge, et il n’est pas dit qu’en faisant comme je te le dis tu ne feras pas un chef d’oeuvre après. Mais diriges tes...
...jaune. Les ombres étaient beaucoup plus colorées qu’il les fait d’habitude et ont été probablement de bleu, de vert & de violet très prononcés, mais d’un ensemble et d’une harmonie...
...k qui connait bien l’Espagne et les tableaux là-bas. Il disait que c’était beau comme un des...
in note 2:
...of the painting, titled The education of the Virgin or Saint Anne (Tokyo, The National Museum of Western...
in note 3:
...Bernard when he left. See Gauguin lettres 1983, pp. 92-107 (GAC 13B, GAC 14), and Merlhès 1995, pp. 26-28.
782 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 18 June 1889.
in title:
782 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 18 June 1889.
in original text:
...moi cela va bien – tu comprends qu’après maintenant bientôt un demi an de sobrieté absolue...
...trouvé des choses dans mon envoi qui lui plaisent. Lui et de Haan paraissent bien fidèles, ce qui...
...du grand et reel mérite. Qu’à des êtres comme eux bien vivants et jeunes et qui doivent vivre...
...pourtant fort compréhensible. En exposant dans les cafés on est cause de bruit, qu’il est, je...
...a déjà fait quelques toiles absolument étonnantes. où il y a une douceur et quelquechose...
...On chercherait à peindre des êtres humains également plus séreins et plus purs que Daumier n...
...ou n’existe pas nous le laissons de côté mais nous croyons que la nature s’etend au dela de...
...que celles à bon marché sont moins changées que celles plus chères. Dans tous les cas je n’en...
...cela vaut. Je t’envoie un rouleau de dessins. Poignées de main à toi, à Jo et aux amis. t...
...poque bon gré mal gré. Mais avec tant de précautions que maintenant je prends, je retomberai...
in translation:
...to know if you now still eat together at the restaurant or if you live at home more. I hope so, for...
...if I had some from time to time like that one, or like the woman who posed for the Berceuse, I’d...
...pickle. One causes a stir by exhibiting in the cafés, which I don’t say isn’t in bad taste...
...I haven’t seen the latest canvases either by Gauguin or Bernard, I’m fairly sure that these two...
...us. It’s not a return to the romantic or to religious ideas, no. However, by going the way of...
...of it. We’ll leave aside whether that exists or doesn’t exist, but we believe that nature...
...Gauguin, Bernard or I will all remain there perhaps, and won’t overcome but neither will we be overcome. We’re perhaps not there for one thing or the other, being there to console or to prepare...
...will show up better by being part of a smaller number of canvases. The rest, if you put them in a...
...my own free will, unfortunately, whether we like it or not, we’re subject to circumstances and to...
in date note:
...of 16 June, which must have reached Vincent on 17 or 18 June. In Brieven 1914, Jo van Gogh-Bonger dated...
in note 14:
...Complete works, which was reprinted a number of times. A letter in the Bookseller of 1868...
783 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 25 June 1889.
in original text:
...Deux études de cyprès de cette difficile nuance vert bouteille. J’en ai travaillé les avant...
...dans la compagnie de sa femme ce qui est très bien vu mais enfin pour mon propre usage il ne...
...conversation que les chôses de ce monde n’allaient pas toujours au gré des plus sages”. Pour...
...les mêmes, des idées je n’en ai pas d’autres que de penser qu’un champ de blé ou un cyprès valent bien la peine de les regarder de près et ainsi de suite. J’ai un champ de blé tres jaune et très clair, peutetre la toile la plus claire que j’aie faite. Les cyprès me preoccupent...
...aussi. je crois que des deux toiles de cyprès celle dont je fais le croquis sera la meilleure...
...plan surtout est tres empâté, des touffes de ronces à reflets jaunes, violets, verts. Je t’en...
...dans le temps chez Braun dans sa vitrine une phot. d’après un tableau qui doit être de la belle...
...Aussi touchant que par ex. les pèlerins d’Emmaüs. Si jamais il serait question de donner...
in translation:
...doing, you don’t mention him in your last two or three letters. As for me, my health is still...
...first of all working here or elsewhere appears to me more or less the same thing, and since I’m here, staying here the most simple. Only there’s a lack of news to write to you, for the days are all the same, as for ideas I have no others except to think that a wheatfield or a cypress are well...
in date note:
...about Gauguin and Bernard in letter 782, dated on or about 18 June. In the meantime there have been a few...
in note 2:
...canvas could be Olive trees (F 715 / JH 1759) or Green wheatfield with rising sun (F 720 / JH 1728).
in note 6:
...318-383. The connection between Carnot and Halévy’s L’abbé Constantin probably has to do with Van...
784 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 2 July 1889.
in original text:
...s consequent en allant là.– Ce que cela a de différent avec rester en Europe c’est que là-bas...
...contentement que celle ci – pas depuis bien des années. Et je suis sûr que cela vient de ton...
...il y a justement pour nous autres des lecons là-dedans. Ainsi de ce que je viens de lire l’idée...
...aujourd’hui une dizaine de dessins, tous d’après des toiles en train. La dernière commencée...
...J’ai une toile de cyprès avec quelques épis de blé, des coquelicots, un ciel bleu, qui est...
...raison de desapprouver son procès il faudrait de notre côté faire une démarche de rapprochement. Enfin je n’ose pas encore ecrire maintenant de peur de dire trop de bêtises mais plus sûr de...
...possible. J’ai encore à Arles des toiles qui n’étaient pas sèches lorsque je partis, j’ai...
...la cour de l’hospice d’Arles sont plus colorés mais cela te donnera pourtant une idée de ce...
...les mains et à bientôt de vos nouvelles j’espere. Bonne santé tous deux. t. à t. Vincent
in translation:
...a few years, sooner or later, warm up business relations with Amsterdam or The Hague again. Anyway...
...well, which before, being distracted by something else or not having the time it was impossible for...
...as ours, or what becomes of them when one places them face to face with republican or socialist...
...so alive that one thinks one knows them and sees it. So what Rembrandt alone, or almost alone, has among painters, that tenderness in the gazes of human beings we see either in the Pilgrims at Emmaus, or in the Jewish bride, or in some strange figure of an angel as in the painting you had the good...
...in many places in Shakespeare. And then serious or gay portraits like the Six, like the traveller...
...it follows from that that they have the right or the duty to do themselves justice, and if they...
...what I have on the go I’m sending you ten or so drawings today, all after canvases on the go. The...
...I think that this would explain to him more or less, however, that he couldn’t lose much by being...
in note 2:
...near Johannesburg. See M.H. van Meurs, ‘Cor van Gogh en de boerenoorlog’, Journal for...
in note 13:
...by François-Victor Hugo, the Oeuvres complètes, appeared between 1859 and 1866 in 17 volumes...
in note 16:
These ‘ten or so drawings’ (in letter 785 Van Gogh says ‘a dozen’) were the following ten drawings...
785 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 2 July 1889.
in original text:
...il avait sans trop d’excès préalablement menée. C’est très gentil sans doute. En effet...
...devant ma propre vie et d’ailleurs vis à vis de plusieurs autres vies d’ouvriers dans mon...
...quelque raison d’être. De ces jours où nous vivons on risque de revenir d’une bataille...
...Hélas souvent le souffle et la foi nous font défaut, à tort certes mais – et voila où nous...
...dur à supporter comme l’exil. Or devant nous, après nos années ainsi relativement perdues, la...
...tre dans les ambitieux. Je suis assez absorbé dans la lecture de Shakespeare que Theo m’a envoy...
...ces boutons s’élevant sur des tiges à courbes gracieuses. Les heures de trouble et de combat...
...désire, et à etre fauché lorsque nous serons mûrs comme lui. Je te le dis, pour moi je crois...
...de prendre racine l’un dans l’autre. Et après elle aura bien, j’ose encore espérer, trouv...
...la relire. Ainsi si j’ai dit trop de bêtises tu voudras m’excuser. Porte toi bien, ne t’emb...
in translation:
...resemblance to Souvestre’s Le philosophe sous les toits or with Monsieur, madame et bébé by...
...at a boarding school where I learned absolutely nothing. An enormous number of painters who certainly couldn’t do my 12 canvases either in 2 months or in 12 are regarded as artists and as intelligent people in town or in the countryside. But believe me, I say this in order to be explanatory and not because I would see any urgency or possibility or desire to change things. We scarcely know life...
...don’t know if we ought to laugh or cry about it, and doing, my word, neither one thing or the other, we are happiest when we find ourselves in possession of a little paint and canvas, the thing we also lack sometimes and which at least we can work on. But any idea of a regular life, any idea of awakening in ourselves or in others gentle ideas or sensations, all of this must necessarily appear...
...feel what was in Millet’s soul. Or that middle-class people or workers will begin to put in their...
in note 5:
...see letter 784, n. 16. Vincent wrote twice to Theo that it was ‘ten or so’ (letters 784 and 790).
786 Jo van Gogh-Bonger to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Friday, 5 July 1889.
in original text:
...i je tâcherai de vous écrire en Français, d’abord je sais que vous l’aimez plus et puis en...
...ai pas du tout l’habitude d’écrire en Français et je crains que je ne ferai des fautes qui...
...mieux m’exprimer – si maintenant les étrangers que je rencontre ne parlent pas l’Anglais la...
...que cet hiver, vers février probablement, nous espérons avoir un bébé, un joli petit garçon...
...tais pas du tout contente, au contraire j’étais très malheureuse et Theo a eu bien de la peine...
...pense que ni Theo ni moi nous ne sommes en très bonne santé, j’ai grand peur que nous ne ferons...
...Mais le medecin m’a beaucoup rassuré là-dessus et puis une bonne nourriture et de bons soins...
...un jour faire son portrait! Dans une de vos dernières lettres vous avez demandé à Theo s’il...
...fils sont venus aussi. Generalement nous sommes très fatigués le soir et nous nous couchons de...
...monde n’a pas beaucoup avancé dans ce temps. Quand j’étais à Londres j’ai vu une fois au...
in translation:
...dinner. Often in the evening someone comes. Isaäcson or Nibbrig – Mr Tersteeg has dined with us...
787 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 6 July 1889.
in original text:
...sa naissance été moins aimé que l’enfant de parents très sains desquels le premier mouvement...
...pas doubles frais. Demain j’irai causer de cela à Arles avec M. Salles. Lorsque je suis venu ici...
...eu besoin de différentes choses, ici le surplus qu’avait M. Peyron est épuisé. Je suis un peu...
...très content. J’espère aller refaire des oliviers. Des vignes il y en a malheureusement très...
...beaucoup plus jeune alors que j’étais aussi très sobre, on disait alors trop je crois. Mais...
...certes y tiendrait un peu qu’on l’appèle après notre père, moi pour un trouverais cela plus...
...ainsi celui de Buckingham et les paroles de Wolsey après sa chute. Je trouve que j’ai de la...
...de vieil or. Et les belles villes du midi sont à l’etat de nos villes mortes le long de la Zuyderzee autrefois animées. Alors que dans la chute et la decadence des choses, les cigales chères au...
...qui prouve qu’il se soit trompé. Ses mélancolies des derniers temps croiriez vous? Je serais...
in translation:
...in a position to judge between good and bad, just or unjust, and to say that one is unhappy because...
...my independent studio, I’m not spending less or producing more than the previous, relatively less...
...easily. Anyway it’s a difference like painting grey or coloured. I’m in fact going to paint...
...I think I’m lucky to be able to read or re-read this at my leisure, and then I very much hope to...
...the hope predominates that in this case a more or less sickly condition is only the result of the...
in note 11:
...Henry viii (1623), act 2, scene 1, is a ‘mirror for magistrates’. While Henry viii tries to...
788 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, between about Monday, 8 July and about Friday, 12 July 1889.
in translation:
...I wish they lived outside Paris and not on the 4th or 5th floor etc., and yet I wouldn’t dare...
...since he’s been deprived of it for 10 years or so at a stretch, and fed on restaurant food...
...may be, I should simply leave the disquiet about whether or not Theo’s constitution is strong to her, and let her worry and work at it for a year or so before we concern ourselves about it, and it...
...in leaf like pollard willows. Then I never tire of the blue sky. One never sees buckwheat or rape here, and generally speaking there’s rather less variety than at home. And I’d so much like to paint a field of buckwheat in flower or rape in flower, or flax. But I’ll probably find the opportunity to do it later in Normandy or Brittany. Then here one also never sees the mossy peasant roofs on the barns or cottages like at home, and no oak coppices and no spurry and no beech hedges with...
...are the vineyards, where they’re on the flat land or the hillsides. I’ve seen it, and come to...
in note 1:
...or Brittany. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that letter. May God grant that things will improve for him and that things will go well for Cor and you too, dear children’ (FR b2406). Willemien van Gogh also wrote about this letter to Jo on 29 July 1889: ‘I shall ask Vincent for a small painting. He recently wrote such a nice letter to Ma, as he hasn’t written to Ma in years. He had been to Arles for a day, so he is indeed going out more. Has Theo been hearing occasionally from the director or doctor or some such person at Saint-Rémy?’ (FR b2932...
789 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 July 1889.
in title:
789 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 July 1889.
in original text:
...3 Les lilas 4 Maronniers roses au jardin des plantes à Arles qui se tiendront avec les autres que tu as déjà tels que la vigne rouge & verte, le jardin, la moisson, le ciel étoilé. J’y joins encore 7 études qui sont sèches mais qui sont plutôt des études d’après nature que des motifs de tableaux. Et ainsi est-il toujours, il faut en faire plusieurs avant qu’on trouve un ensemble ayant de la tenue. Maintenant voici les sujets de ces 7 études. Les iris – Vue de la maison de Santé à St Remy, toiles de 30. Pêchers en fleur (Arles), Prairies (Arles), Oliviers (St Remy...
...té prendre à Arles ces toiles. le surveillant d’ici m’a accompagné. Nous avons eté chez M...
...revoir de certaines personnes qui ont été bons & indulgents pour moi alors. Quelqu’un m’a dit...
...Le médecin d’ici n’ira peutêtre pas à Paris, il souffre beaucoup de sa goutte. J’ai encore...
...que les Millet se tiennent. mais combien désirerais je voir davantage de bonnes reproductions de...
in date note:
...to the letters on 16 July (see letter 792), they must date from Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 July 1889.
790 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 July 1889.
in title:
790 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 July 1889.
in original text:
...ne que les émotions qui doivent remuer le prochain père de famille, émotions dont notre bon pèr...
...du croquis dans la lettre de Gauguin mais où des meules remplacent le blé. C’est jaune d’ocre...
...fin seulement. Considérant toutes les misères des dernières années de M., y a-t-il de quoi s...
...motions sont les grands capitaines de nos vies et qu’à celles là nous y obéissons sans le...
...encore dur, n’oublions pas dès lors que soit nos spleens et mélancolies soit nos sentiments de...
...gardes définitifs et que si tu te trouves toi aussi devant de dures responsabilités à risquer...
...les circonstances de vivre dans des états de chôses si éloignés de nos conceptions de jeunesse...
...le manger parfois comme si on était vraiment à Paris, par contre il se pourrait qu’à Paris tu...
...bonhomme de nos vieilles bruyères, lesquelles à travers tout bruit, tumulte, brouillard, angoisse...
...tendresse, ineffablement chères. C’est à dire prends la ta paternité dans ta qualité d’exil...
in translation:
...proof that by over-refining one’s scruples of respect or feeling one thereby gains respectfulness or good sense. That being so, it does me good to talk with the pals again, even if at a distance. And you – my dear fellow – how are things, and so write me a few words one of these days – for I can imagine that the...
...have a new one with ivy on the go. Above all, dear fellow, I beg of you, don’t fret or worry or be melancholy on my account, the idea that you would do so, certainly in this necessary and salutary...
...by parcel post, half a dozen, and then later ten or so. If by chance you haven’t received them...
...even while we’ve forgotten every day. Thus sooner or later we find our fate. But certainly for...
in date note:
...our reasons for dating the letter to Sunday, 14 or Monday, 15 July 1889, see letter 789, Date. Cf. also...
in note 1:
...write him a reply to his letter’ (Je suis très heureux de votre bonne lettre et celle de votre frère. Il va mieux mais c’est très relatif car ayant la force de lutter contre sa maladie il peut résister longtemps et avoir pourtant des reprises, comme les fièvres intermittentes les plus dures à guérir. Je vais...
in note 4:
...and was not included in the catalogues raisonnés. Moreover, by ‘reworking’ Van Gogh must have...
791 Henriette Lamblot-Gaudin to Vincent van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 16 July 1889.
in note 2:
The bookshop owned by Anaïs Jauffret, 12 rue de la Poissonnerie, was taken over in 1889 by Marie Henriette...
792 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 16 July 1889.
in original text:
...je suis remis à peu près, pour de bon j’espère. Je te remercie bien de tes lettres et des beaux dessins que tu as envoyé. L’hospice à Arles est très remarquable, le papillon et les...
...Ce dernier est le secretaire des XX à Bruxelles. Il venait demander si tu voulais exposer à leur...
...un morceau d’étoffe brodé de satin et d’or, c’est magnifique. Comme à partir du 15 de ce...
...une bon coup de main et il va être très facile de lui renouveler continuellement ce qu’il peut...
...Il est maintenant avec Gauguin. Isaacson est tout dépaysé depuis que de Haan n’y est plus. Je...
...perdu. de Haan racontait que Gauguin a fait de très belles choses. Tu n’as pas eu de chance...
...que Jo est enceinte a donné de l’émotion à ses parents. Le père & la mère vont venir içi la semaine prochaine. Moe aussi est très contente. C’est très juste que tu dis que sa lettre est...
...ils ne savent pas s’accorder. Comme ils restent très loin de chez nous, nous ne les voyons pas...
in translation:
...everything tired me out extremely. Now I’m more or less recovered, for good I hope. I thank you very...
...when you went to Arles not to find Mr Salles, or Rey either. I’ve had a letter from the former...
in note 7:
...by the works Deux frères (Two brothers), Grande mère (Grandmother), Paysage (Landscape) and Enterrement à la campagne (Burial in the country). He received the ‘Grand Prix’ for the last painting, Peasant...
in note 8:
...Paul Signac, Alfred Sisley, Charles Storm van 's Gravesande, William Thornley, Henri de...
in note 16:
...and ceramics on display; in a footnote the editor (or Gauguin himself?) expresses his surprise at the fact...
793 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 29 July 1889.
in original text:
...Goupil & C° imprimeurs éditeurs Boussod, Valadon & Cie successeurs 19, Boulevard Montmartre...
...un bon de fr 10.– Généralement tu écris de suite après réception, sans cela je dirais que tu...
...les arbres entourés de lierre, la promenade à Arles & les champs avec les jardins au printemps sont bien beaux, ceux çi et encore d’autres sont montés maintenant sur des chassis dont nous avons enlevé ceux qui s’y trouvaient et sont actuellement chez Tangui. Ils font très bien dans le...
...arbres touffus pleins de fraîcheur et baignés dans la lumière du soleil sont merveilleusement...
...tu étais entourés de gens que tu aimais & qui te rendaient ton amitié, je serais très content...
...t qu’il trouvait ton état très satisfaisant. Espérons que cela ira de mieux en mieux. Les...
...té voir Rivet qui m’a donné toute espèces de drogues qui ont cependant cela de bon qu’elles...
...reprendre des forces. Hier nous avons été tous à St Germain. oh que la campagne est pourtant...
in note 1:
...shortly after his trip to Arles, probably on 16 or 17 July, for otherwise he would have been able to...
in note 4:
...blossom with a view of Arles (F 516 / JH 1685) and/or Orchard in blossom with a view of Arles (F 515 / JH...
796 Joseph Roulin to Vincent van Gogh. Marseille, Monday, 19 August 1889.
in original text:
...de vos amis. je suis très content que votre frère se trouve très heureux en ménage, il paraît...
...mes amitiés ainssi que de celle de ma famille quand vous lui écrirrez. nous somme très charmé de l’accueil qu’il a fait à nos Portraits, tant pour l’amitié qu’il présente pour moi et ma famille que pour la louange qu’il fait de votre travail. Reçevez nos sincères félicitations...
...e vous savez que c’est sacré pour moi. espérrons qu’un jour nous pourrons encore nous voir et...
...visite. Je suis était très content de la démarches qu’a fait l’ami Gauguin à votre frère pour vous faire participer à leur exposition, c’est très bien de sa part. je vous filicite de votre résolutions de ne vouloir rien exposer sans que vous soyez était à Paris. d’ici là en y...
...travail la santé reviendras. Recevez cher Monsieur Vincent mes sincères salutations ainssi que de...
...N° 57 quand vous aurez le temp de m’honoré d’une lettre vous me ferez toujour un grand...
797 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Thursday, 22 August 1889.
in original text:
...beaucoup de m’avoir écrit et sachant que tu désires que je t’ecrive un mot je te fais savoir...
...est bien bon pour moi et bien patient. Tu conçois que j’en suis affligé très profondement de...
...le travail à mes tableaux m’est un peu nécessaire pour me remettre. Car ces journées sans rien...
...j’ai été absolument egaré comme à Arles, tout autant sinon pire et il est à présumer que...
...pour trop m’en plaindre, j’espère, que je te dis ces détails mais pour te prouver que je ne suis pas encore en état d’aller à Paris ou à Pont Aven à moins que ce serait à Charenton. Il parait que je ramasse des saletés et que je les mange, quoique mes souvenirs de ces mauvais moments...
...cette eau forte d’après Rembrandt. C’est surprenant et pourtant cela me fait encore penser à l’homme au baton de la galerie Lacaze. Veux tu me faire un tres très grand plaisir, alors envois...
...t’enverrai cette toile dès que pourrai. Bonjour, merci de toutes tes bontés, bonne poignée de...
in translation:
...not yet in a fit state to go to Paris or to Pont-Aven unless it were to Charenton. It appears that...
...here. I no longer see any possibility for courage or good hope, but anyway it wasn’t yesterday...
in note 2:
...news from Vincent is very bad these last few days, or rather for about two weeks we had nothing but a...
in note 13:
...of stone, pierced only by narrow windows through which barely pass thin rays of light and faint breaths of air’ (leurs chalets de bois sont petits et noirs, minces abris contre les froids terribles de leurs hivers, chauffés par d’énormes poêles en pierre étouffants, troués seulement d’étroites fenêtres où filtrent à peine de minces rayons de lumière et des filets d’air). See Le sens de la vie, book 3 (‘Altruisme’), chapter 5 (‘A la montagne’). Paris 1889, p. 223. The painting in question is The Alpilles with a...
798 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 2 September 1889.
in title:
798 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 2 September 1889.
in original text:
...ité d’avoir des modèles, un tas d’autres chôses, empêchent de parvenir cependant. Enfin il...
...tard revenir à Paris ou en Bretagne pour un temps. Mais d’abord ils sont ici très chers et puis...
...demander la permission de faire des tableaux à des médecins. Il est d’ailleurs à espérer que...
...d’aller dans les montagnes peindre des journées entières, j’espère qu’ils me laisseront de...
...Parlant de cela – il n’y a pas très longtemps à Arles je lisais je ne sais plus quel livre de...
...regardé et c’est plus rare que des pavés. Or un Meissonnier si on le regarde un an durant, il y...
...que ce soit mal d’employer des tons purs et heurtés, non pas qu’au point de vue du coloris je...
...jusqu’à la fougère et du brin d’herbe. Or une chose comme çà, ne la sent, ne la trouve pas...
...lui-même alors qu’on se rend compte d’après ses achats de ce qu’il a cherché à être pour...
...pas mal de petites misères de la vie humaine – mais de certaines grandes misères de spleen etc...
in translation:
...And how very different this is from Michelangelo or Giotto, although the latter however comes close...
...be better and simpler than to put all my furniture here at the hospital and quietly continue. If I were to recover, or in the intervals, I could sooner or later come back to Paris or Brittany for a time. But first they’re very expensive here, and then I’m afraid of the other patients at the...
...me and not in the circumstances or other people. Anyway, it isn’t fun. Mr Peyron has been kind to me and he has long experience, I shan’t scorn what he says or considers good. But will he have a...
...it’s to be hoped that if I recover sooner or later, up to a certain point it’ll be because I...
...to come along who goes to the suburbs knows as much or more about it because he’ll do a landscape...
...like that, not anyone who wants to can feel it or find it. And Brion – oh a maker of Alsatian...
...When no one is up to illustrating Les Misérables, he however does it in a manner unsurpassed up to...
in additional details:
...lines for Theo at the bottom of Vincent’s letter. See Documentation, On or about 2 September 1889.
in note 10:
...JH 600), and after Vincent’s death received a number of Paris works as well (FR b2002). As far as we...
in note 13:
...grimpait une vigne dont les rameaux entrelacés entouraient les fenêtres de festons, et couvraient si complétement la façade peinte en bleu et les tuiles rouges du toit, qu’on eût cru voir un berceau de verdure. Lorsque, dans l’arrière-saison, les deux vignes montraient leurs raisins blancs et bleus à travers le feuillage d’un vert éclatant, nous nous arrêtions, tout enfant, sur le chemin de l’école, devant...
in note 15:
...français, pendant la retraite de Russie, et peignant cette farine avec la conscience que l’on sait, fait un métier quelconque, inférieur à celui du menuisier qui emboîte exactement un tiroir sur ses coulisses...Théodore Rousseau, pour ne parler que de lui, ne résiste pas à une analyse, même superficielle. L’atmosphère qu’il peint est irrespirable; ses châtaigniers et ses chênes ont beau avoir de solides embranchements, ses terrains une lourde et robuste ossature, ils ne vivent point; ses feuillages luisent, mais l’air ne circule pas à travers ce maçonnage grossier et canaille; aucune sève ne court sous ces végétations inertes et desséchées, aux consistences de métal’. See exhib. cat. Paris 1889-6, p. 13....
in note 19:
Regarding Brion’s illustrations to Victor Hugo’s Les misérables, see letter 333, n. 14.
in note 24:
...expression deriving from the book Petites misères de la vie humaine by Old Nick and Grandville, see...
in note 25:
...with the ‘ideas of suicide’ mentioned by Dr Peyron (see Documentation, On or about 2 September 1889).
799 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 5 September 1889.
in original text:
...on rencontre des gens qui certes sont intéressants aussi, mais on en a quelquefois assez & quand...
...les espèces d’arbres avec de la vraie bruyère et de la vraie fougère à leurs pieds. Certes si...
...Londres, il parait que là il y a des écoles où on apprend la décoration et où les élèves...
...s dans la nature & il pourra s’en suivre bien des changements pour les décorations intérieures...
...s nouvelles toiles. Il dit qu’il hésitait à les envoyer comme ce qu’il cherche n’y est pas comme il le voulait. Il dit l’avoir trouvé dans d’autres toiles qui ne sont pas encore sèches...
...sur la toile comme les grosses têtes dans les crépons japonais, il y a le portrait en buste avec...
...on de la tête et l’attitude sont très trouvés. La femme ressemble un peu à une jeune vache...
...Lautrec qui font très bien, entre autres un bal au Moulin de la galette qui est très bien. On ne...
...de Seurat mais plus harmonieux.– Nous nous portons très bien, je ne tousse presque plus & je me...
in translation:
...or potatoes are harvested. It’s true that in town one meets people who are certainly interesting too, but one sometimes has enough of it, and then when one can’t go away a painting of the real countryside does one good, and in those moments, certainly, a Bodmer will give as much or more pleasure as some painting that is technically clever but which doesn’t have that something true and healthy like a slice...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1889 Indépendants exhibition (732)
in note 8:
...month to a collector; the others remained in Paris or were sent to the branches in London and New York...
in note 10:
...autre chose mais j’aprehende de beaucoup à les faire voir attendu qu’elles ne sont qu’un état...
in note 13:
...Indépendants that made a very good impression. A field of irises and the starry night, view of Arles with the street-lamps and the stars reflecting in the Rhône’ (FR b926, 27 November 1889). In his review of the exhibition for La Vogue (September 1889), the art critic Félix Fénéon wrote the following about Van Gogh’s paintings: ‘His Irises violently shred their purple parts over their lath-like leaves. Mr van Gogh is a diverting colourist even in eccentricities like his Starry Night: on the sky, criss-crossed in coarse basketwork with a flat brush, cones of white, pink and yellow, stars, have been applied straight from the tube; orange triangles are being swept away in the river, and near some moored boats strangely sinister beings hasten by’ (Les Iris de celui-ci déchiquètent violemment leurs pans violets sur leurs feuilles en lattes. M. Van Gogh est un amusant coloriste même dans des extravagances comme sa Nuit étoilée: sur le ciel, quadrillé en grossière sparterie par la brosse plate, les tubes ont directement posé des cônes de blanc, de rose, de jaune, étoiles; des triangles d’orangé s’engloutissent dans le fleuve, et, près de bateaux amarrés, des êtres baroquement sinistres se hâtent). See Fénéon 1970, vol. 1, p. 168. On 26 August 1889, Theo paid 10 francs for Vincent’s contribution to the Société des Indépendants, and in March 1890 another 10 francs via Tanguy for the exhibition of the Indépendants...
in note 15:
...de Grenelle (Saint-Germain); in 1887 and 1888 in the Pavillon de la Ville de Paris on the Champs-Elysées.
in note 19:
...was shown at the 1888 exhibition of the Indépendants, cat. no. 614. In La Vogue Fénéon also compared...
800 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Thursday, 5 and Friday, 6 September 1889.
in original text:
...c’est une très bonne mesure et je t’en remercie comme de tant d’autres chôses.– C’est...
...es études de moi aussi qui ont été peintes très vite et en pleine pâte. D’ailleurs après...
...r très raide et puis si vers Noel la crise revient nous verrons, et cela passé alors je n’y...
...s lors de rester dès maintenant pour de bon dans un asile serait probablement exagerer les chôses...
...se dire mais il y aura deux fois les mêmes à peu près, l’etude et le tableau définitif. Enfin...
...fait nouveau mais j’ai tellement regardé les chôses que je m’y suis fortement attaché, et...
...de Millet.– Après, actuellement qu’est ce que nous commençons timidement à entrevoir...
...sur bois grossières qu’on trouve dans les almanachs de campagne. Envoie moi la toile dès que tu...
...dans 12 motifs donc ils auront toujours des chôses un peu etudiées et choisies. Et puis il y a du...
...très grave que partout ici où je demeurerais un peu longtemps j’aurais peutêtre affaire à des...
in translation:
...great artist. And he’s also been holding up for a number of years now. But I would do my best to...
...ue here for these months, or move – I don’t know. The thing is, when the crises present themselves they aren’t amusing, and to risk having an attack like that with you or others is serious. My...
...I know about it, but I think that I have one or two canvases on the go that aren’t too bad, first...
...who has seen an enormous number of people die and suffer, and there’s an indefinable contemplation in his face, such that I can’t help recalling the face of Guizot – for there’s something of...
...if I were to come back from here again, sooner or later, I come back decidedly capable of doing a...
...time. And what can one do, there’s no remedy, or if there is it’s to work passionately. I dwell...
...art is discussed in Manette Salomon, and some artist or other speaking of ‘what will remain’ sa...
...For I’m sure that Mother would understand it – for it’s indeed as simple as one of those...
in date note:
...doors for six weeks (i.e. since his breakdown on 16 or 17 July), so the letter must date from the first...
in note 13:
...The tall Spaniard), etching made for Maîtres contemporains, by Edouard Lièvre, 2nd series, c...
in note 15:
...by the emotional turmoil he had to endure in the last years of his life.’ (Kraëwsky, le fondateur de la presse politique en Russe, vient de s’éteindre après une longue maladie de coeur, qui a été aggravée par les émotions qu’il a eu à supporter pendant les dernières années de sa vie.) Van Gogh’s remark that the only thing to do was to ‘work passionately’ (l. 230) is presumably connected with the passage about Kraëwsky’s ‘long career as a relentless worker’ (longue carrière de travailleur acharné) (p. 4).
801 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 10 September 1889.
in original text:
...il me vient encore les mêmes indignations, les mêmes colères d’autrefois quand j’etais chez...
...qui sont prêts à vivre et aussi à tout moment prêts à souffrir. Quelle drole de chôse que la touche, le coup de brosse. En plein air exposé au vent, au soleil, à la curiosité des gens, on...
...nous parle l’histoire, doges de Venise, croisés, apôtres, saintes femmes, étaient du meme type...
...de salade pour se calmer et après avoir été calmé alors – ce dont on sera capable.– Lorsq...
...tait venue d’aller chez Pissaro, cette fois-ci après que tu me racontes ses recents malheurs je...
...voudrais m’efforcer de descendre. Et voila pourtant près de 2 mois que je n’ai pas ete en plein air. A la longue ici je perdrais la faculté de travailler or là commence mon halte-là et je les...
...raconteras des tas de chose, de probabilités et possibilités d’actes involontaires.– Bon mais...
...je continuerai cela ainsi. Il est vrai que M. Peyron après cette crise m’a donné du vin et de...
in translation:
...I read by chance the story of some energetic industrialist or above all a publisher, that the same...
...then one might for that time go into an asylum or even to the town prison, where there’s usually...
...es and bodily postures that aren’t exactly easy or simple. Please send me the canvas soon, if...
...I can only live in a situation of the fourth or fifth rank. While I clearly sense the value and...
...Boch, who complained of seeing nothing that tempted him or made an impression on him. I go walking...
...a fresh attack. What a great man Fromentin was – for those who want to see the orient he will...
...but would he then have me go into the cloisters or the churches, there I’m the one who’s afraid...
...s funny that the idea had already come to me 2 or 3 times before to go to Pissarro’s, this time...
...And paying for it what’s more, no, then one or the other of the artists fallen in misfortune will...
...shouts when anyone wanted to try out some unguent or other on him. Good Mr Peyron will tell you...
in note 3:
For Delacroix’s ‘neither teeth nor breath’, derived from Silvestre’s Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers, see letter 557, n. 6.
in note 23:
...maîtres d’autrefois; see letter 450, n. 3. Van Gogh’s remark about Potter is possibly connected with the following description: ‘The very tone and workmanship of these vigorously observed areas have the effect of rendering nature as it truly is, in its contours, its nuances, its power, almost penetrating its mysteries’ (Le ton même et le travail de ces parties violemment observées arrivent à rendre la nature telle qu’elle est vraiment, dans son relief, ses nuances, sa puissance, presque jusque dans ses mystères...
in note 25:
The green vineyard (F 475 / JH 1595) and/or The red vineyard (F 495 / JH 1626). In letter 806 Van Gogh says...
in note 30:
Since his attack on 16 or 17 July (the first in Saint-Rémy), Van Gogh had not been out of doors, not even...
802 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 18 September 1889.
in original text:
...les voisins, mais cela n’a pas donné de résultats. J’en ai parlé à Jouve qui m’a promis...
...ir de remonter sur l’eau, il a trouvé des travaux de décoration. C’est un homme de beaucoup...
...de plus que de te fortifier le corps et les idées noires s’en iront quand tu auras un peu plus...
...passé & veux tu après aller à la campagne pour peindre. Réponds moi cathégoriquement à cela...
...le second envoi de blanc il t’arrivera très prochainement car il n’en avait pas en magasin...
...est une étude de toits rouges surmontés de cheminées d’usine qui toutes ont leur lourd panache...
...deux à deux en se rendant à l’usine à travers des tas de scorilles et de charbon, des pieux...
...gas. Ils sont vêtus de même mais elle est bien femme, au-dessus de leurs têtes un gros poutre...
...tout de même, tous les trois tableaux sont hissés en haut de la salle. Il a aussi un pudeleur...
...gène un peu mais à part quelquefois des nausées cela va bien. Elle n’est plus inquiète & n...
in translation:
...health will improve when you’re staying with one or other of these people, that’s the big question...
in note 3:
...lava and ceramic frescoes’ (émaux sur lave et fresques céramiques) (Almanach du commerce de Paris 1888).
in note 8:
...exhibited the bronze statue Puddler (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). Ill. 1149. See exhib. cat...
803 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Thursday, 19 September 1889.
in translation:
...it comes down to much the same thing. And among artists there are so many who, despite nervous diseases �� or seizures from time to time — nevertheless go their own way, and in the life of the...
...condition permits me to go back to Paris again, or in the vicinity, that will become the main thing...
804 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Thursday, 19 September 1889.
in original text:
...raison à toutes les deux la mère et toi d’avoir quitté Breda pour quelque temps après le...
...la mère je lui enverrai mettons dans à peu près un mois un tableau et il y en aura un pour toi...
...les mains en avant sur le côté gauche, le cadavre épuisé et la femme se tient derrière. C’est une soirée après l’orages et cette figure desolée vêtue de bleu se détache – ses vêtements flottants agités par le vent – contre un ciel où flottent des nuages violets bordés d’or...
...que ces deux têtes paraitraient une fleur sombre avec une fleur pâle, arrangées exprès pour se...
...e que ses paroles quoi qu’elle dise des chôses comme ceci: Une femme sans enfant c’est une...
...la doit être très pratique et reellement utile. Va donc bien à fond là-dedans puisque tu aimes...
...des chôses rares qui se tiendraient à côté des vieux Hollandais Rembrandt et Hals mêmes. Je...
...me. Ces portraits-là d’abord sont fanés plus vite que nous mêmes tandis que durant bien des...
in translation:
...her poems. She’s a queen – she’s queen of Hungary or another country (I don’t know which), and in describing her boudoir, or rather her studio where she writes and where she makes paintings...
...ve just finished the portrait of a woman of forty or more, insignificant. The face faded and tired...
...portrait is a thing of feeling made with love or respect for the being represented. What remains to...
...there may be to go and live with some artist or another. But as we know several of them and it’s...
in note 10:
...The passage comes from Carmen Sylva, Les pensées d’une reine (The thoughts of a queen): ‘A house...
in note 14:
...Because we do not know if Theo received the first or the second version, we cannot tell whether the...
in note 22:
Van Gogh had not been out of doors since his attack on 16 or 17 July 1889 (see letter 793, n. 1).
805 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Friday, 20 September 1889.
in title:
805 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Friday, 20 September 1889.
in original text:
...s déjà pensé aussi au père Pissarro. Tu verras qu’il y a encore des chances sinon là alors...
...réponds à cela oui, avec le même calme et pour les mêmes motifs que je suis entré dans celle...
...vec les idées modernes que j’ai, moi si ardent admirateur de Zola, de de Goncourt et des chôses...
...que, très sensible aux entourages, le séjour déjà prolongé dans ces vieux cloîtres que sont...
...en étant très prudent et prêts à écouter Rivet à la moindre des chôses mais ne nous mettons...
...Je désirerais copier aussi le semeur et les bêcheurs. il y a des becheurs une phot. d’après le...
...lequel on apercevait des cabanes noirâtres de chèvriers, où fleurissaient des tournesols. Les...
...des exagérations au point de vue de l’arrangement, les lignes en sont contournés comme celles...
...t’écrirais encore exprès et tout court que je désirais venir à Paris, j’aurais une raison...
...et des façons de faire du bien aux autres à elles, quelquefois c’est très bien.– Mais je ne...
in translation:
...lay asylum at present. Nevertheless, to avoid doing or appearing to do anything rash, I declare to...
...a serious reason, or even several, to go into a home that wasn’t run like this one by the nuns, however excellent they might be. Now if by some arrangement or another we might move sooner or later...
...own pleasure. I place the black-and-white by Delacroix or Millet or after them in front of me as a...
...of people don’t copy. Heaps of others do copy – for me, I set myself to it by chance, and I...
...insist that one says if the shape is round or square – and my word, they’re right – Exasperat...
...telling me that it was a blue a bit like this or like that, it was blue wasn’t it? Good – make...
...both are necessary and useful, and death or passing away...it’s so relative – and so is life. Even in the face of an illness that’s unsettling or worrying, this belief is absolutely unshaken...
...be indiscreet, to meddle in the nuns’ management or even to criticize them. They have their own...
in note 12:
...to Theo: Jeanne Trabuc (F 631 / JH 1777). It is not known whether this was the first or the second version.
in note 23:
This was either Olive trees (F 715 / JH 1759) or Olive grove (F 585 / JH 1758). Whichever painting remained...
in note 31:
...recouverte de couleurs en un certain ordre assemblées). See Maurice Denis, ‘Paul Sérusier. Sa vie...
806 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 28 September 1889.
in original text:
...3 études puisque le rouleau en les ôtant coutait fr. 3.50 de moins de transport. Je les enverrai donc prochaine occasion – ou plutôt ils partent aujourd’hui avec d’autres toiles – les suivantes. Champ de blé Champ de blé et cyprès idem. le lierre Etude de Cyprès Faucheur idem les oliviers plus alors les trois études susmentionnées, Coquelicots – Effet de nuit – lever de lune. Bientôt je t’envoie quelques toiles plus petites avec les 4 ou 5 études que...
...de cette fournaise d’été sur les blés chauffés à blanc et donc l’exagération n’y est...
...jours. Avec le travail et une nourriture très regulière cela durera probablement pendant assez...
...me va et m’attire de travailler en plein dans de l’or ou de l’argent. Et un jour peutêtre en...
...faire ce qu’on sent pouvoir cependant. Patience cependant me diras tu et il le faut bien. Dis bien des chôses à Jo et porte toi bien et écris bientôt s.v.p. poignées de main. t. à t. Vincent
in translation:
...So I’ll send them next opportunity �� or rather they’re leaving today with other canvases – the following.
...me some pleasure to ensure that our sister or sisters have a small collection of paintings. I’ll...
...ground that is yellow, pink, purplish or orangeish to dull red ochre. But very difficult, very difficult. But that suits me and attracts me to work fully in gold or silver. And one day perhaps I’ll...
in note 8:
Olive trees (F 715 / JH 1759) or Olive grove (F 585 / JH 1758). See letter 805, n. 23.
in note 17:
...the Rhône (F 474 / JH 1592). The last-mentioned painting was on display at the fifth exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants; see letter 799. In the end Van Gogh did not make a repetitions of these.
807 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Friday, 4 October 1889.
in original text:
...en bon ordre. J’aime beaucoup le champ de blé & les montagnes qui sont d’une dessin bien expressif. Il...
...dit que ton voyage à Arles ayant provoqué une crise il faudrait voir avant de changer de demeure si tu peux maintenant supporter un changement. Si tu supportes bien ces épreuves il n’y voit pas...
...a maison où sa femme porte la culotte. Après quelques jours il m’a dit que chez lui ce n’était pas possible mais qu’il connait quelcun à Auvers, qui est médecin & fait de la peinture dans...
...changement de domicile t’ammenait d’abord à Paris cela me ferait bien plaisir. Nous avons de...
in translation:
...reproductions of Millet I’ll enclose Isaäcson’s articles, I don’t like his researches into new...
in note 2:
...style – titled ‘Paris letters’, for De Portefeuille. Kunst- en Letterbode: ‘Parijsche...
in note 6:
...avec nous au printemps prochain, les médecins où il se trouve ont déclaré qu’il était guéri, que son mal cependant peut revenir, mais par petits accès. J’ai dit à Van Gogh que cela ne nous était pas...
808 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 5 October 1889.
in original text:
...chassis, mon voyage de l’autre jour à Arles, un vetement de toile et reparations divers. J’use...
...e où volontiers j’aurais repété mon voyage à Arles. etc. Cela dit je te raconterai que nous avons quelques journees d’automne superbes et que j’en profite. J’ai quelques études, entre...
...i demander d’aller à Arles de ces jours ci, ce dont j’aurais très grande envie, croyant qu...
...s que lui crut à un rapport entre mon voyage précédent et la crise qui l’a suivi de près...
...je me suis attaché aux gens et aux chôses. Et à présent que provisoirement je reste encore ici...
...dis d’Auvers m’est neamoins une perspective très agreable et soit plus tot soit plus tard sans...
...il ferait bien, il n’y a pas encore là-dedans ce que avec continuation de santé j’espère...
...les oliviers, les figuiers, les vignes, les cyprès, toutes choses caracteristiques ainsi que les...
...demain – dans les montagnes. Bien des chôses à Jo et aux amis, surtout remercie à l’occasion...
in translation:
...possible, and to add to them some canvas, 5 metres or 10, whichever suits. Then I must begin by telling...
...a very agreeable prospect to me, and sooner or later that ought to be fixed without seeking further...
...and your own, find either board with a family or quite simply at the inn. The main thing is to know...
in note 7:
For Isaäcson’s plans to write an article about Van Gogh, see letter 807. It can no longer be ascertained whether there was any connection between Isaäcson’s efforts to publish a piece on Van Gogh and the...
809 To Emile Bernard. Saint-Rémy, on or about Tuesday, 8 October 1889.
in title:
809 To Emile Bernard. Saint-Rémy, on or about Tuesday, 8 October 1889.
in original text:
...viendriez voir mes toiles, je sais donc que vous êtes de retour et cela me fait bien plaisir que...
...de cet été que mon frère vous aura montrées. Il y a parmi ces etudes une entrée de carrière...
...Pont Aven. J’ai été plus maître de moi dans ces dernières études parceque mon état de sant...
...rudes et rochers avec un chardon et herbes sèches dans un coin et un petit homme violet et jaune...
...bleu sa force et son eclat, aux terrains brulés et si melancoliques souvent, leur fin arome de...
...st de l’argent sur terrain orangeatre ou violacé sous le grand ciel bleu. J’en ai ma foi vu...
...le marocain, il doit y en avoir qui sont à peu près cela mais pas cela.– Enfin pour moi en fait...
...les chôses d’alors et si on pouvait peindre les gens d’alors qui ont vécu là-dedans – ce...
...en Novembre les études d’automne. Et si possible faites moi savoir ce que vous avez rapporté de Bretagne car je tiens à savoir ce que vous croyez vos meilleures chôses vous-même. Alors bient...
in translation:
...s my intention. It’s silver against orangeish or purplish earth, under the great blue sky. Well...
...of all the nations; I think it was Garnier or Viollet-le-Duc who organized it. Well, could you, who...
...Please inform me without fail! And it mustn’t be confused with the Persian or the Moroccan; there must be some that are more or less it, but not it. Anyway, for me the most wonderful thing that I...
in date note:
...with letter 810 to Theo, which was written on or about Tuesday, 8 October 1889. In the letter to...
in note 2:
...Valadon & Cie at ‘retouching photo-engraving or some other procedure taking place’ (FR b827...
810 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 8 October 1889.
in title:
810 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 8 October 1889.
in original text:
...ensemble à cause de l’opposition des complémentaires. Puis j’ai fait cette semaine l’entr...
...avec des végétations jaunes, orangées, vertes, des terrains de tous les violets, l’herbe brûlée où les pluies ont néamoins rendu une derniere vigueur à certaines plantes qui se reprennent...
...rouges et leurs cheminées noires contre un ciel gris fin – toutes chôses que j’ai rêvées de...
...Ces gens-là ont vaincu la difficulté des modèles et c’est beaucoup cela. Et un tableau d’Ot...
...e cloche et qu’ils restent des années devant des obstacles dont la génération précédente avait triomphé, la difficulté d’argent et de modèles. Et ainsi Breton, Billet et autres doivent...
...ai copié cette femme avec un enfant assise auprès d’un foyer de Mme Dumont Breton, presque tout...
...que la précédente des montagnes. Un ravin très sauvage où se faufile un mince ruisseau dans son...
...fait. La mère et la soeur feront leurs préparatifs de déménagement. Je t’envoie ci inclus un...
in translation:
...of the bedroom. I seriously ask you to show them together, if someone or other comes to see the...
...be painted. And still, there’s an infinite number of subjects there for artists, and one should...
811 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 21 October 1889.
in title:
811 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 21 October 1889.
in translation:
...but I did write to him recently because he more or less intended to write about my work in a Dutch...
...so many other large cities, and that for years at a time, I still look more or less like a peasant from Zundert, Toon or Piet Prins, say, and I sometimes imagine that I feel and think like that too...
in date note:
...Gogh sent her sons news of their brother at more or less the same time, and that Vincent responded...
in note 2:
For a while there was talk of Isaäcson’s going to the Transvaal. On 27 November 1889, he wrote from Amsterdam to Theo and Jo that he was planning to leave in three or four weeks (FR b1901). However, it emerges from...
in note 13:
Portrait of a man (F 703 / JH 1832) or Portrait of a one-eyed man (F 532 / JH 1650). The latter portrait was...
812 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 21 October 1889.
in title:
812 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 21 October 1889.
in original text:
...t’écrirai à Breda. Très prochainement j’enverrai à Theo les études peintes que j’avais...
...Champs de blé et cyprès – Intérieur – Terrains labourés, effet du matin – Verger en...
...j’ose croire, bientôt d’autres études aux miennes. Ne te gènes pas de les accrocher dans un...
...s murailles nues, blanches ou jaunes ou bien ornées de papiers peints à grandes fleurs colorées...
...je m’engage volontiers à continuer à t’envoyer des études à toi et à la mère, j’aurais...
...ces études à Leyde je ne sais quand. Theo en fera probablement encadrer une à Paris pour que tu...
...les cafés ou les auberges mauvaises. Les Japonais ont vécu dans des intérieurs très simples et...
...notre société alors il vit dans une maison qui ressemble à un magasin de curiosités et cela non...
...puis derrière la salle très longue dallée de rouge avec les deux rangées de lits blancs, les murailles blanches mais d’un blanc lilas ou vert et les fenêtres à rideaux roses, à rideaux verts...
in translation:
...reaper – Wheatfields and cypresses – Interior – Ploughed fields, morning effect – Orchard...
...or yellow, or decorated with wallpaper with big coloured flowers. So it seems to me that it’s a matter of proceeding by means of oppositions of bright colours. It’s the same with the frames – the frames I use cost me 5 francs at the most, while the less solid gilded frames would cost 30 or...
...begin by saying, it’s too yellow, too blue or too green. You’ll receive these studies in Leiden...
...should give an artist, it seems to me, whereas nowadays one is obliged to live in the cafés or low inns. The Japanese have lived in very simple interiors, and what great artists have lived in that...
...stove around which a few grey or black shapes of patients, then behind the very long ward, tiled with red with the two rows of white beds, the walls white, but a lilac or green white, and the windows...
...do I then seem to see in them pleasant or unpleasant resemblances to people I’ve known in other...
in note 12:
...in the absence of all elegance, luxury, gaiety or romance’ and ‘has chosen his lot. He means...
in note 17:
Quotation from Carmen Sylva’s Les pensées d’une reine (see Sylva 1888, p. 80, ‘La douleur’). Unlike...
813 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 22 October 1889.
in original text:
...Peyron & pour ton voyage à Arles. J’avais dit dans mes lettres à Mr Peyron qu’il devait me dire s’il avait eu des frais supplémentaires, il n’en a jamais parlé. Demandes lui donc, si tu...
...personnes pour voir tes tableaux. Le fils Israëls, qui habite Paris pendant quelque temps, Veth...
...ils sont déjà plus habitués à la peinture colorée, l’exposition des 20 a fait du bien à cela, malgré cela on n’y achète rien. L’exposition des Indépendants est terminé & j’ai de...
...le dernier envoi de Gauguin il y a les mêmes préoccupations que chez toi, mais chez lui il y a...
...quelques bonnes toiles. Lui il ne cherche pas beaucoup de nouveau dans la coloration. Il se contente de ce qu’il a trouvé et on retrouve toujours ses mêmes taches roses, orangés & bleus violets...
...est parti & doit s’occuper de ce bravhomme à Auvers. J’espère qu’il réussira & qu’au...
...faut que ma lettre parte. Jo te dit bien bonjour. Reçois une bonne poignée de mains et t.t. Theo
in translation:
Enclosed you’ll find 150 francs – for Mr Peyron and for your journey to Arles. I had said in my letters to Mr Peyron that he ought to tell me if he’d had additional expenses, he has never spoken of them. Ask him then, if you will, to tell me...
...I consider that you’re strongest when you’re doing real things, like that, or like the Tarascon diligence, or the child’s head, or the upright undergrowth with the ivy. The form is so well defined and the whole is full of colour. I clearly sense what preoccupies you in the new canvases like the village in the moonlight or the mountains, but I feel that the search for style takes away the...
in ongoing topic 1:
Entry for the 1889 Indépendants exhibition (732)
in note 2:
The painter Isaac Israëls, the son of Jozef Israëls, spent five weeks in Paris in September-October 1889. See Isaac Israëls. Hollands Impressionist. Saskia de Bodt et. al. Exhib. cat. Rotterdam (Kunsthal), 1999-2000. Schiedam and Rotterdam 1999, p. 15.
in note 11:
...or 21 November 1889, in which he speaks of ‘the storm raised by my last canvases’ and after giving a detailed explanation of the meaning of his art, remarks: ‘Do you have better news of Vincent? I’m sorry he isn’t sometimes there near you, to give you a little guidance on painting. You hear too many different opinions’. (Avez-vous de meilleures nouvelles de Vincent. Je regrette qu’il ne soit pas là quelquefois près de vous pour vous guider un peu dans la peinture. Vous entendez trop de voix différentes...
in note 12:
...travelled from there to Pontgibaud in the Auvergne, where his wife’s family lived. In the nearby village of Peschadoire he painted a number of landscapes. See Armand Guillaumin 1841-1927: un maître de l’Impressionnisme français. François Daulte. Exhib. cat. Lausanne (Fondation de l’Hermitage). Lausanne 1996, p. 72.
814 Joseph Roulin to Vincent van Gogh. Marseille, Thursday, 24 October 1889.
in original text:
...La première semaine d’octobre ils sont arrivés en tres bonne santé, Marcelle est toujours que plus belle, elle appelle tout le monde par leurs noms, enfin c’est un petit perroquet, elle fait la joie de la maison, enfin à force de patience je suis arrivé d’être en famille. cette absence je l’ai trouvée bien longue, heureusement que j’ai passé mon été malgré les grandes chaleurs en très bonne santé. Mon épouse a été tres contente de trouver en arrivant votre aimable lettre, d’apprendre par elle que vous êtes en bonne santé. Dans votre lettre vous me dites que vous...
...chose est presque décidée de votre retour à Paris, j’en suis charmé. j’ai comme vous le coeur bien gros de vous voir éloigner de nous; espérons qu’un jour encore, nous aurons le bonheur...
...Veuillez recevoir mon cher Mr Vincent les sincères salutations de toute ma famille ainsi de celui...
in note 2:
Van Gogh mentions the same number of canvases in letter 809 to Bernard; see n. 4 to that letter for the...
815 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Friday, 25 October 1889.
in title:
815 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Friday, 25 October 1889.
in original text:
...y voit aucun inconvenient à ce que j’aille à Arles de ces jours ci. Cependant la melancolie me...
...Et dans tous ces articles je trouve à côté de choses très fines je ne sais quoi qui me parait malade. Il est resté longtemps à Paris – je le suppose plus sage que moi, ne buvant pas &c. mais...
...qu’il dit que c’est un être tres souffrant et très bon, content quand il peut admirer. J’ai commencé ce matin les bêcheurs sur une toile de 30. Sais tu que cela pourrait être interessant...
...j’ai fait de longues courses en tout sens à travers le pays – je commence à sentir davantage...
...sur les mêmes motifs de Provence. Ce que tu dis de Guillaumin est très vrai, il a trouvé une chose vraie et il se contente de ce qu’il a trouvé sans aborder à tort et à travers des chôses disparates et comme cela il reste juste et devient plus fort, toujours sur ces mêmes motifs fort...
...Jo. Je vais encore travailler aux becheurs, les journées sont très courtes. à bientot. t. à t...
in translation:
...you each month if there have been expenses, yes or no – so that it doesn’t mount up. I must also...
in note 3:
For Isaäcson’s ‘Parijsche brieven’ (Paris letters), see letter 807, n. 2. Van Gogh is referring to the...
in note 4:
...accounts characterised by a sometimes ironical or critical tone but also betraying a romantic spirit.
in note 7:
For Isaäcson’s plans to go to the Transvaal, see letter 811, n. 2.
in note 10:
...amassed in his Chateau d’Orrouy at Crépy-en-Valois (Oise) an extensive collection of art, which was sold...
RM18 Fragment of a letter to Theo van Gogh containing a copy of the poem ‘St Jerome’s love’ by Thomas Moore. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, about November-December 1889.
in original text:
...dans l’oeuvre. Que des parents ignorants au point de vue de la peinture cessent d’aimer un enfant un peu autrement que le reste – c’est certes un malentendu terrible – mais même s’ils comprenaient la peinture – comment le leur trop reprocher dans cette societe d’argent et de militaires.– C’est pourquoi s’il faisait son service ce ne serait pas plus malheureux pour lui, ce serait s’avouer vaincu par la fatalité encore à temps...
in translation:
...it’s not a matter of putting on a proud front or having great hopes for what comes next. Let’s take...
in date note:
...letter 823 of 26 November 1889 and letter 827 of 9 or 10 December 1889). Van Gogh also copied the poem in...
816 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Sunday, 3 November 1889.
in title:
816 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Sunday, 3 November 1889.
in original text:
...ai fini la Veillée et ai en train les bêcheurs et l’homme qui met sa veste, toiles de 30, et le...
...il me semble que faire de la peinture d’après ces dessins de Millet soit les traduire dans une...
...qu’à Paris. Aussi pour le travail les idées deviennent à ce qu’il me parait plus fermes...
...du style fait souvent du tort à d’autres qualités, le fait est que je me sens beaucoup pouss...
...present que la plupart des feuilles sont tombées le paysage ressemble davantage au nord et alors...
...cauchemars ne me tourmentent plus. J’espère aller à Arles de ces jours ci. Je voudrais bien que...
...les ocres. Je sais bien que les études dessinées avec de grandes lignes sinueuses du dernier...
...le paysage on continuera à chercher à masser les chôses par le moyen d’un dessin qui cherche...
...reellement trouvé des choses parfaites là-dedans. Enfin ne prends pas trop vite un parti pris contre. Enfin tu verras que dans un grand paysage avec des pins, des troncs ocre rouge arretés par un...
in translation:
...drawing. If that will make me more like Bernard or Gauguin, I can’t do anything about it. But am...
...studio. Here the houses have scarcely any cellar or foundations, and one feels the damp more than...
in note 15:
It cannot be ascertained which work or works by Delacroix Van Gogh is referring to here. Two paintings are...
817 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, between about Sunday, 10 and Wednesday, 13 November 1889.
in original text:
...là-dessus a fait de réels progrès ici sur ce rapport. J’ai peu de nouvelles à vous donner des...
...s.– Le moins de métier possible et par ci par là des accessoires très-peu executés pour...
...des applications différentes). Tout celà (mon cher Vincent) me fait crier dessus à Paris (et je...
...très bon marché l’hiver. Le haut est une immense terrasse, 15 mètres sur 12 et 5 mètres de...
...té des sables rouges, des champs et quelques fermes entourées de leurs arbres. Des modèles tous...
...e nous nous avons une petite auberge où nous mangeons très bien, pas cher.– Voilà pour le côt...
...ainsi que les maîtres hollandais.– Il y a chez les maîtres anciens une relation intellectuelle...
...et fleurs jaunes, des cheveux or, quelques figures verdâtres.– Car malgré l’inscription les...
...de la richesse.– Je vais l’envoyer à Paris dans quelques jours. Peut être celà plaira...
...plaisir que j’ai à vous lire).– Le service militaire de Bernard a été remis à un an (pour...
in translation:
...every day of women, men coming to herd the cows, or gather the seaweed from the sea. You can pose...
in textual note 41:
différentes). < différentes.
818 Octave Maus to Vincent van Gogh. Brussels, Friday, 15 November 1889.
in original text:
...dans le but d’organiser chaque année à Bruxelles, une exposition internationale comprenant des oeuvres de ses membres et de vingt artistes belges et étrangers choisis parmi les plus sympathiques aux principes...
...un mois. Les peintres invités disposeront chacun d’environ quatre mètres de rampe. Le catalogue du dernier Salon que vous recevrez en même temps que la présente invitation, vous permettra d’apprécier le caractère des expositions des XX., fondées dans un but exclusivement artistique et...
...Les frais de transport aller et retour sont supportés par la caisse des XX. Blank...
...Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l’expression de nos sentiments de confraternite artistique et de très haute considération. Pour les XX Le Sécrétaire Octave Maus Avocat près la Cour d’Appel...
in translation:
...you do it the honour of participating in its seventh annual Salon by sending one or more of your works.
...as possible if you accept its invitation, as the number of these is strictly limited, and to inform...
819 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 16 November 1889.
in original text:
...très belle, en bois ciré, tandis que les figures environnantes sont en bois rude & coloriées...
...il a fait beaucoup de progrès. Son dessin est moins déterminé mais n’existe pas moins. Il y a...
...ré d’anges. Le terrain est à grands carraux et les figures sont posées comme sur un échiquier...
...venant des XX à Bruxelles, j’ai mis ton adresse dessus. Un mot de Maus que je reçois en même...
...ce que tu cherches dans les choses plus récentes. Le portrait de Roulin, les tournesols etc. Il...
...5 à 7 mètres de cimèse. Cette année ils ont invité Puvis de Chavanne, Bartholomé, Cézanne...
...s, Les Iris ont été vu par beaucoup de personnes qui m’en parlent. Si on pouvait avoir à Paris...
...s une pension pour toi, mais il dit qu’il croit que tu seras mieux chez ce Dr à Auvers; il dit...
...mieux cela vaut. Ecris moi une fois comment sont tes vêtements, est ce que tu n’as pas besoin de...
...ce que le mistral souffle à St Remy comme à Arles? Bonne poignée de mains & tout à toi Theo
in translation:
...schools or abstract ideas. You’ll perhaps tell me that any work of art must be the result of a quantity of complicated combinations, that’s right, but with the painter also there must be moments when he’s so inspired by his motif or his subject that he renders it as one might grasp it, or...
...a way that you can’t see either the bottom or the top of the tree. I like it enormously. That...
in note 13:
...Pissarro est bien aimable de s’en occuper aussi. Il me semble que s’il pouvait rester à Auvers, près de ce médecin dont vous m’avez parlé, cela serait excellent). Pissarro must have been reluctant to...
820 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 19 November 1889.
in title:
820 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 19 November 1889.
in original text:
...souvent à vous autres. Pour toi, lorsque tu écris voir tant de tableaux que tu désirerais pour...
...dans ce moment. Gauguin m’a écrit une très bonne lettre et parle avec animation de de Haan et...
...ma réponse que tu liras – les idées commencent à s’enchainer avec un peu plus de calme mais...
...un olivier.�� Or il évite donc de se faire la moindre idee du possible et de la realité des chôses et ce n’est pas là le moyen de synthetiser.– Non de leurs interprétations bibliques jamais...
...là-dedans, ça y ferait peutêtre songer. Avant d’en avoir fait des études plus serieuses que...
...là-bas ne m’en veut à ce que je m’aperçoive, au contraire ils etaient très aimables et...
...e. Si j’avais su à temps qu’il y a eu des trains d’ici à Paris à 25 franc seulement je...
...r, à faire des échanges, peutêtre y aura-t-il quelque progrès pour t’être moins à charge...
...s dans mon cas, j’en ai encore trop tel que c’est. Gauguin dit qu’ils ont des modèles...
in translation:
...home is often a hell for him. Isaäcson’s letter gives me great pleasure, I enclose my reply...
...don’t know if I should continue to paint or leave painting alone. If I continue, certainly I’m...
...on whether this suits you or not, and I think it’s wise not to rush things. Perhaps by waiting a little we won’t even have need of the doctor at Auvers or the Pissarros. If my health...
in note 19:
...it from Theo, possibly in exchange for work of his own, or only acquired it later. See letter 776, n. 4.
821 To Octave Maus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Wednesday, 20 November 1889.
in original text:
Je dépasse peutêtre les 4 mètres de place mais croyant que les 6 ensemble feront ainsi choisi un effet de...
822 To Emile Bernard. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 26 November 1889.
in title:
822 To Emile Bernard. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Tuesday, 26 November 1889.
in original text:
...têter, les grosses grenouilles éclesiastiques agenouillés comme dans une crise d’épilepti...
...qui portent à la ferme un veau né dans les champs.�� Or – mon ami – cela depuis en France...
...avec deux cyprès que j’aime beaucoup, il y a là énormement d’air, de clart...mais enfin...
...faisiez un tableau d’après ce que me disait Gauguin à peu près je suppose ainsi. Sur un...
...sol couvert de feuilles rouges tombées, les troncs vert de grisés le barrant verticalement – la...
...est atroce. Sont elles harmonieuses, les tâches de couleur là-dedans? je ne te fais pas grace...
...dis pas, après toute une vie mâle de recherches, de lutte avec la nature corps à corps, on peut...
...vue et n’est dépassé que par une colline violette et ocre jaune.�� Or le premier arbre est un...
...notre vie nous arrachent à ces meditations, et nos aventures à nous nous rejettent de force dans...
...la bible – Millet dès son enfance etait eduqué là-dedans, ne faisait que lire ce livre-là e...
in translation:
...kneeling as if in an epileptic fit, God knows how or why they’re there, but I myself don’t find...
...was telling me, you were doing a painting more or less like this, I imagine. Against a foreground of grass, a figure of a young girl in a blue or white dress, lying full length. Behind that: edge...
...composition. When Gauguin was in Arles, I once or twice allowed myself to be led into abstraction...
...around from life, hardly thinking of Impressionism or of this or that. However, once again I’m...
...of his in Montpellier, the death of some sainted woman or other. The expressions in it of pain and...
...joy, boredom, suffering, anger or smiling. The Bible — the Bible — Millet was brought up on it from his childhood, used to read only that book and yet never, or almost never, did biblical...
...avenge yourself by painting your garden as it is, or anything you like. In any case, it’s good to...
...I would still have liked to know if it was larger or smaller than a cottage back home — the size...
in date note:
...26 November 1889. We have therefore dated the present letter to on or about Tuesday, 26 November 1889.
in note 4:
...well known through the engraving that Maxime François Antoine Lalanne made after it for the catalogue of...
in note 10:
...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. Bernard told Gauguin about the criticism voiced by Van Gogh in this letter. Gauguin reacted in a letter written to Bernard in late 1889: ‘Vincent wrote much the same to me, that we were becoming affected etc...I replied to him!’ (Vincent m’a écrit à peu près la même chose qu’à vous; que nous allions au maniéré etc... Je lui ai répondu!) See Gauguin lettres 1946, p. 194 (incorrectly dated to June 1890. See also exhib. cat. Washington 1988, p. 128, n. 3...
in note 19:
...is still current and means ‘to be in a state of violent psychological or emotional agitation’ (TLF).
823 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 26 November 1889.
in original text:
...a envoyé photos d’après ses toiles. Ce que cela a c’est que ce sont des espèces de rêves...
...5 toiles de 30 qui avec les 3 études d’oliviers que tu as constituent au moins une attaque de...
...c’est l’arbre dans le caractère du pays. Or ce que le saule est chez nous, exactement la même...
...le terroir.– Que je voudrais voir les études sur nature de Gauguin et de Bernard, le dernier me...
...on voit que par ex. Bernard est pressé pressé toujours pressé par ses parents. Il ne peut pas...
...en soit ainsi. Or si les peintres eussent mieux compris Millet comme homme �� or de certains tel...
...es chôses n’en seraient pas ainsi. Il faut travailler autant et avec aussi peu de prétentions...
...de m’en envoyer 10 mètres.– Alors je vais attaquer les cyprès et les montagnes. Je crois que...
...un verger d’oliviers et un champ de blé, les semailles des livres, des estampes.– Cela je l...
...Mais enfin les librairies ne sont pas des lièvres et ca ne presse pas et j’ai bonne volont...
in translation:
...problem. The olive tree is variable like our willow or pollard in the north. You know that willows...
...saying to oneself in advance, I want to do this or that, by working as if one were making shoes...
...and enables one to do things that are more complete or more right. So slow, long work is the only...
...and work so that everyone may have paintings or reproductions at home, which are lessons like the...
in note 11:
...down. Jo wrote to her sister Mien: ‘Make sure nobody writes a single word about it or alludes to it in any way – for heaven’s sake make sure they do not do that’ (FR b4294, 28 October 1889; Brief...
in textual note 62:
�� or...saisi – < Dashes added by us.
824 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 7 December 1889.
in original text:
...tudes que j’espère que tu recevras en bon ordre. J’ai bien à te remercier des 10 mètres...
...avec cyprès – Verger en fleur – portrait.– Le reste c’est surtout des études d’automne...
...ciel très bleu. puis l’étude de la maison & du parc dont il y a deux variantes.– Les études...
...sèches et suivront plus tard. Elles me donnent bien du mal et tantôt je trouve que c’est très...
...n était en train – sous des platanes énormes – à reparer les trottoirs. Il y a donc des amas...
...Paris et des années que je ne t’avais pas vu. J’espère que la santé va bien chez toi, pour moi j’ai pas à me plaindre, je me sens pour ainsi dire absolument normal mais sans idées pour...
...ou à peu près la copie des bêcheurs aussi. Tu verras que dans les grandes études il n’y a...
...et puis procède par touches ou hâchures colorées et espacées entre elles. Cela donne de l’air...
...que je me dépêche donc poignée de main en pensée et bien des chôses à Jo. t. à t. Vincent.
in translation:
...or almost, the copy of The diggers too. You’ll see that there are no more impastos in the large studies. I prepare the thing with sorts of washes with spirits, and then proceed with touches or...
in note 11:
...and 891, Van Gogh uses the word ‘variantes’ for two works with the same composition, so that must...
825 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Sunday, 8 December 1889.
in original text:
...cherché dans des tons moins éclatants que généralement; il y a cependant beaucoup d’air. Comme je suis d’accord avec toi quand tu dis dans ta dernière lettre que tu veux travailler comme un savetier, certes cela n’empêchera pas de faire des toiles qui se tiennent à côté de celles des maîtres. Ce que je trouve que le temps moderne a fait pour l’art c’est que actuellement chacun peut faire comme il l’entend et n’est plus tenu de travailler selon des règles établis par...
...tu as fait pour Bruxelles. J’ai commandé des cadres. Pour les tournesol je laisse le petit bord...
...j’ai vu une vingtaine de très belles lithographies d’après lui faites par un nommé Lauzet...
...bon pour les Anglais et les Ecossais. Les lithographies sont imprimées en différents tons & ressemblent comme procédé un peu à des eaux fortes sur pierre, comme Marvy en faisait dans le temps...
...peut me porter les frais en compte. Je suis très content que tu puisses dire que tu te portes bien...
in translation:
...as one sees it, without being obliged to cut it like this or like that. The fondness the artist has for...
...and a white frame around that. For the others, white or natural wood frames. You don’t tell me if...
...don’t worry yourself more than necessary. One day or another there will indeed be better days for...
in note 8:
...up in pencil. This last term was recorded below a number of prints he made in the 1840s. For this...
in note 9:
...or no? 14 rue Clauzel; an ugly-looking shop, and so small! But with little caskets, fine ointments. Go in and you’ll see treasures out of the Arabian Nights...This père Tanguy, what an astute spotter of masterpieces! How good he’s been at discovering today’s unknowns, tomorrow’s masters... But let’s go in with no more ado... Look, here are some incomparable marvels by Cézanne! Look, here are some canvases by Vincent, extraordinarily fiery, intense, sunny’. (Connaissez-vous Tanguy? Oui, non. Rue Clauzel, 14; vilaine boutique et si petite! mais aux petites boëtes, les bons onguents. Entrez et vous verrez des trésors mille-et-une-nuitesques... Ce père Tanguy, quel fin dénicheur de chefs-d’oeuvre! Comme il a su les découvrir les méconnus d’aujourd’hui, les maîtres de demain!... Mais entrons sans plus tarder... Tenez, voici d’incomparables merveilles de Cézane! tenez, voici des toiles de Vincent, formidables de fougue, d’intensité, d’ensoleillement). In the summer of 1889, Bernard had prepared a short article about Van Gogh for the same magazine and sent it to Aurier. See Van Gogh 2007, pp. 360-365 and exh. cat Mannheim 1990, pp. 381-382....
826 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 December 1889.
in title:
826 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 December 1889.
in translation:
...as if they were painted in Zundert, say, or Kalmthout, and I believe could also be understood by...
...one finds hard to make head or tail of in order to understand the reason for them. Anyway, I think she’s absolutely right — and yet she must have been or still is attached to Princenhage. And...
in date note:
...with a letter to Willemien (letter 827 of Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 December 1889), we have assigned it the...
827 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 December 1889.
in title:
827 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 December 1889.
in original text:
...et vaisseaux amarrés et l’usine aux fenêtres illuminées le soir. Ce sont là des effets que je...
...très bleu et un terrain pierreux blanc ensoleillé derrière. Je compte envoyer à Bruxelles des...
...grands pins ravagés contre un ciel de couchant rouge. Je viens de recevoir une très bonne lettre...
...viendras peutêtre chez eux. Espérons toujours que sa santé dans quelque temps se redressera tout...
...et très colorées. Mais je n’admire cela que médiocrement parceque les prérafaelistes anglais...
...ton portrait lorsque tu seras à Paris, il le ferait certainement et très bien je t’assure, je...
...s frais – des tons purs et éclatants – eh bien en t’écrivant je ne sais quelles pensées me...
...nous emporte, que séreins et bien portants selon nos propres idées et désirs vagues de bonheur...
...je ne le fais pas exprès. Mais c’est malgré moi à des tons rompus qu’aboutissent mes calculs...
...Enfin c’est un brave garçon bien parisien, très élégant. il devait partir soldat cette année...
in translation:
...do modern figures as elegant as ancient Greeks or Egyptians. A grace in the expressive movements, a...
in date note:
...whether that remark means that Theo’s letter had ‘just’ arrived at that very moment or whether a day had elapsed since its arrival. We have therefore dated the latter to Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 December 1889.
in note 2:
...Leiden, where Mrs van Gogh and Willemien lived at number 100. On the same (west) side of the canal, the...
in note 12:
...which he sent to Theo in January, along with a number of the above-mentioned works (see letter 834...
828 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, on or about Friday, 13 December 1889.
in title:
828 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, on or about Friday, 13 December 1889.
in original text:
...votre longue lettre; je sais combien vous êtes isolé en Provence et que vous aimez à recevoir...
...arrivait aussitot et je remettais ma lettre à plus tard – maintenant causons.– de tableaux...
...re craintifs du seigneur et du curé les bretons tiennent leurs chapeaux et tous leurs ustensiles...
...Ce sont comme des boîtes étagées de distance en distances, vêtements bleus et coiffes noires...
...e manieré mais dans le tableau, où est le naturel?– Tout depuis les âges les plus reculés est...
...t bien manieré.– Ils ont, les maîtres anciens, direz-vous, le genie.– C’est vrai et nous ne...
...ous avez-vu à Arles le portail de St Trophine, vu et exécuté bien différent des hommes du nord avec des proportions bien loin de la nature, et celà vous l’avez admiré, sans cauchemar – non...
...dans la nature.– Un Indien sauvage ne verra jamais en rêve un homme habillé comme à Paris...
...parlé dans une lettre à Isaacson.– Je n’ai pas trace de votre dessin d’après Rembrandt...
in translation:
...from the mass because of race, temperament or other cause, he is unnatural and consequently...
...is what one feels, in the state of mind one’s in). Let him who wishes or who can, dream. Let him who wants to or who can, drift along. And the dream always comes from the reality in nature. In a...
829 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 19 December 1889.
in title:
829 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 19 December 1889.
in original text:
...s autres. C’est très intéressant ce que tu racontes d’une publication de lithographies coloriées avec un texte sur Monticelli, cela me fait franchement un plaisir très vif et je serais très...
...probable que je ne ferai plus guère des chôses empâtées, c’est le resultat de la vie calme de...
...t que le premier endroit venu – les bonnes idées germent maintenant un peu et faudra les laisser...
...que rarement. L’argent qui était chez M. Peyron est épuisé et même il m’a il y a quelques...
...de donner à Nouvel an quelque chôse aux garçons de service d’ici et au concierge, ce qui fera encore une dizaine de francs. Pour ce qui est des vêtements d’hiver, ce que j’ai n’est pas...
...si je suis ici, aller faire quelques tableaux à Arles aussi et si vers cette époque-là je prends...
...Ce sont là des chôses consolantes, voir la vie moderne claire malgré ses inévitables tristesses...
...en reviendrais encore tant que cela. Dis bien des chôses à Isaacson si tu le vois et à Bernard...
in translation:
...colour. One day I’d very much like to do a print or two myself in this vein after my canvases. Thus...
...each other, oppose each other. I’ll probably do 2 or three repetitions of it, for in fact it’s...
...to the porter, which will make another ten francs or so. As regards winter clothing, what I have...
in note 4:
...13. Van Gogh says later on (l. 19) that he intends to make two or three repetitions. In fact he made one more repetition – Women picking olives (F 655 / JH 1869) – for his mother and Willemien (see n. 12 below).
830 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Sunday, 22 December 1889.
in original text:
...bien reçu ton envoi du champ de blé & des deux chambres à coucher. Surtout j’aime le dernier...
...Monticelli. Il venait pour voir les nôtres et les trouve très beaux. Pour les fleurs, il ne croit...
...que tu as fait tout au commencement quand tu étais à St Remy. À gauche un petit bosquet d’arbr...
...il le terminera, Cottier & Reid ont souscrit à plusieurs exemplaires de sorte qu’il est couvert...
...en, superstitieux comme les premiers & avancé d’idées comme certains de ces derniers, ne peut...
...que là-bas il fait aussi froid qu’à Arles? Je suis curieux de voir tes oliviers. Cela peut être beau. Les tournesols étaient en montre chez Tangui cette semaine & faisaient très bien. Tes...
...que tu as envoyés. Veux-tu que j’en envoie quelques uns à Bruxelles? Réponds moi de suite à c...
...Jo te dit bien des choses, elle va relativement très bien. J’espère que tu feras le portrait du...
...fin d’année. à toi Theo Je reçois ta carte postale, les tableaux seront prêts à temps.
in translation:
...there can’t be much fun. There are no plants or flowers. If the heat isn’t torrid, it rains so...
in note 10:
...La Roquette’ refers to Evelina Delarebeyrette or her son Gabriel Delarebeyrette. The gallery they ran...
in note 14:
...of my boys fell from the 3rd floor. He was picked up in a terrible state and at the moment he’s in the hospital, more or less out of danger.’ (Un de mes garçons est tombée du 3em étage. On l’a relevé en capilotade et il est à l’hôpital a peu près sauvé en ce moment.) See Gauguin lettres 1983, p. 177 (GAC 23).
in note 18:
For Isaäcson’s plans to go to the Transvaal, see letter 811, n. 2. It could not be ascertained which...
831 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 23 December 1889.
in title:
831 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 23 December 1889.
in translation:
...or haven’t recovered. I often have terrible self-reproach about things in the past, my illness being pretty much my own fault, and in any event it’s doubtful whether I can make amends for faults in any way. But reasoning or thinking about this is sometimes so difficult, and sometimes my feelings overwhelm me more than in the past. And then I can think so much of you and of the past. You and Pa have been so much, so very much to me, possibly more even than to...
...between the stones. The rocks are solid lilac grey or pink, with bushes here and there: box and a...
...that if I abandoned painting and had some hard life or other, as a soldier going to the east, say...
...complain that the profession makes one so powerless. Or that it’s the powerless who practise it...
832 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 23 December 1889.
in title:
832 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 23 December 1889.
in original text:
...d’entre eux ne font rien, ils restent absorbés toute la journée et moi je crois quelquefois que...
833 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 31 December 1889 or Wednesday, 1 January 1890.
in title:
833 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 31 December 1889 or Wednesday, 1 January 1890.
in original text:
...regrette de t’avoir peutetre, bien involontairement néamoins, causé de l’inquiétude, car M...
...3 Janvier seulement, tu recevras celle–ci à temps encore. Quel malheur pour Gauguin cet enfant...
...s celui là malgré son activité et tant de qualités hors ligne. Je trouve parfait que la soeur vienne t’assister lorsque Jo accouchera. Puisse cela marcher bien – je pense beaucoup à vous...
...que les autres. Enfin inutile hélas de se faire du mauvais sang sur cela – et il faut faire comme on peut. Drôle que j’avais travaillé avec un calme parfait à des toiles que tu verras bient...
...t’ecris avec un calme relatif. Très intéressant ce que tu écris de la visite de M. Lauzet. je...
...a paru si touchante et si sensitive. Les idées relativement superstitieuses qu’on a ici sur la...
...un mauvais passage à passer. Mais ce sont de ces chôses sans quoi la vie ne serait pas la vie et...
...r avec droiture sans trop d’arriere pensées qui troublent la conscience. Un tableau, un livre...
in translation:
...you, and if I wanted to exhibit my paintings, yes or no. So I told him that I’d much rather not exhibit...
...still have retained. Not that I’m set on this or that by preference, I’ve become used to life...
in date note:
...24). For this reason we have dated the letter to Tuesday, 31 December 1889 or Wednesday, 1 January 1890.
834 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Friday, 3 January 1890.
in original text:
...causer avec calme. Mais j’en suis tout confus qu’il se soit dérangé pour moi, à plus forte raison...
...j’en ai une repetition peutêtre plus faite ici. Copie d’après Millet, les bêcheurs. idem la veillée j’oublie encore la pluie. Veuille ne pas les regarder sans...
...vu des dessins de Vierge admirables qui étaient tout à fait comme du Victor Hugo. des chôses étonnantes. Connais-tu cela. Lorsque tu verras m. Lauzet demandes lui un peu s’il les connait, cela...
...on mais comme il a travaillé celui là. Boggs dans le temps avait de lui une magnifique gravure...
...dessin à la Doré qui un jour a très bien fait juste le meme motif dans une page publiée aussi...
...n égard. Ecris moi si tu peux bientôt après avoir reçu les toiles. Bonne poignée de main à to...
in translation:
...ditto ,, ,,. The tall plane trees, the main street or boulevard of St-Rémy, study from nature...
in note 23:
...had a stroke, after which he could not speak, draw or paint for two years. Nothing has been found about...
835 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Friday, 3 January 1890.
in original text:
J’étais agréablement surpris par ta lettre car après avoir reçu un mot de Mr Peyron je n’osais pas espérer qu’il te fût possible d’écrire & je ne te cache pas que cela me chagrinait beaucoup. C’est curieux que cela t’ait repris juste un an après la première attaque & cela prouve qu’il faut rester sur tes gardes. Ainsi si tu sais qu’il est dangereux...
836 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 4 January 1890.
in original text:
...s aussitôt. Il y a que je n’ai jamais travaillé avec plus de calme que dans mes dernières...
...pins, cyprès &c. dans l’air pur d’ici, les lignes qui ne changent pas et qu’on retrouve à chaque pas. Il est parfaitement juste que l’année passée la crise est revenue à diverses epoques...
...sorte un jour. A présent j’ai les tableaux mûrs dans ma tête, je vois d’avance les endroits...
...Alors pour ne rien hâter, brusquer, je désirerais continuer comme d’habitude tant que je suis...
...géraniums roses et rouges sur un fond tout noir comme dans le temps j’en ai fait à Paris. Pour...
...s donc il reste en caisse encore 10 francs. A présent je viens de faire un petit portrait d’un des garçons d’ici qu’il voulait envoyer à sa mère, c’est pour dire que j’ai déjà repris...
...Arles, pas immediatement mais vers la fin de Fevrier par exemple, d’abord pour revoir des amis, ce qui me ranime toujours et puis pour essayer si je suis capable de risquer le voyage à Paris...
in translation:
...a little if there’s really nothing to be done with my canvases, I would have a certain number of mine, a certain number of other people’s, and perhaps I’d try to do a little dealing. I don’t...
...indefinitely. Then, in order not to hurry anything or break it off suddenly, I’d wish to...
837 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 4 January 1890.
in original text:
Quelques mots pour te dire que je suis bien content que tu sois à Paris avec Theo & Jo. Et pas besoin de te dire que je pense à vous autres tous les...
in translation:
Fortunately, a quite violent attack of exaltation or delirium is again behind me and I don’t feel any...
838 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 8 January 1890.
in original text:
...Goupil & C° imprimeurs éditeurs Boussod, Valadon & Cie successeurs 19, Boulevard Montmartre, Paris Adr · Télégr · Boussoval · Paris. le 8 Janv. 1890 Mon cher Vincent, Quand je t’écrivais la dernière fois c’était sous l’impression de la première lettre du Dr Peyron...
...entendu dire, lui même étant malade. Espérons donc que tu puisses continuer à travailler comme...
...une des choses que j’aime le mieux c’est le soir d’après Millet. Copié comme cela ce n’est plus une copie. Il y a un ton là-dedans et tout est si bien dans l’air. C’est vraiment bien...
...que tu viennes un peu içi ce printemps, quitte à aller après à la campagne si la vie içi ne te...
...quelque temps. L’accouchement de Jo doit avoir lieu entre le 1er & le 15 Fevrier et après cela sa mère reste environ un mois mais après son départ, la petite chambre est libre & à ta disposition. Jo va très bien et ne sent pas beaucoup de malaise par sa grossesse. Le médecin aussi croit...
in translation:
...I hope that she’ll be rid of it with a day or two’s care. It’s kind of Mr Salles to go and...
839 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 13 January 1890.
in title:
839 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 13 January 1890.
in original text:
...champs. Or ces reproductions-là – tu les verras un jour – je ne les ai pas envoyées parceque...
...moins de frais. à Montevergues il y a un asile où a été gardien un des employés d’ici. Celui...
...que ça à plaindre. Or même en laissant de côté Montevergues, en retournant en Hollande, n’y...
...s pour les étrangers il n’y aurait pas un tarif un peu plus élevé et surtout des difficultés...
...les chôses. Car à présent cela revient trop cher et l’idée d’aller à Paris puis à la...
...volontiers.�� Or c’est une bonne réaction de réflechir ferme et c’est aussi un devoir. Or tu...
...guere de difficulté dans un établissement de m’en laisser faire. Or ce serait pourtant beaucoup...
...que mes dépenses ne dépassent pas la valeur de cela et même que l’argent dépensé rentre peu...
...que les attaques aient été trop fréquentes, trop décisives pour cesser de me considérer comme...
...de place où les mettre. Voilà encore une chôse à laquelle il faudra réfléchir à temps.– Je...
in translation:
...things by Millet that he didn’t have the time to paint in oils. So working either on his drawings or...
...Millet. Then, even if they’re criticized one day or despised as copies, it will remain no less...
...home in Holland people always value painting more or less, that in an establishment they’d hardly...
...painting is Daumier’s Drinkers and Régamey’s Penitentiary. You’ll find them in among the...
...say that what he’s done cannot be surpassed or changed. Once again I hope that our sister has...
840 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, on or about Friday, 17 January 1890.
in title:
840 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, on or about Friday, 17 January 1890.
in original text:
...a été bouleversée et que les dépenses faites pour cet accident jettent le désordre (désordre...
...en étant débarrassé quelque temps des tracas d’argent. de Haan travaille toujours ici avec moi et fait de sérieux progrets mais ne veut retourner en Hollande que quand il se sentira assez fort pour river le clou à ses compatriotes qui vont lui en dire de dures à propos de sa transformation.– Ces nouvelles questions de couleur l’avaient beaucoup tourmenté, mais aujourd’hui qu’il...
in note 3:
...something other than painting, because I have to heave to for a time. Or otherwise, I’ll press the finance minister to give me something or other in France’. (Et si je ne réussi pas pour le Tonkin je vais...
in note a:
Read: ‘progrès’.
841 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Monday, 20 January 1890.
in original text:
...e pénible. Est ce que tu t’amuses à Paris? je pourrais très bien me figurer que cela te ferait...
...nous autres qui sommes plutôt habituées à des entourages plus simples. Ecris moi, si tu en as...
...nettement, tout s’y tient, tout s’y explique, or dans une grande ville lorsqu’on est fatigu...
...ses oeuvres et on se demande si c’est exprès qu’il les ait ainsi faites pour nous consoler. A...
...culture et les travaux des champs sont pas les mêmes que dans nos bruyeres et champs du nord. Je...
...passer plus vite, et plus sérieuses les responsabilités, plus critique la question de travailler...
...Je me figure que Theo va probablement être très heureux de ces jours ci, seulement je m’en fais...
...rs qu’il faudrait toujours prendre les chôses. J’aime tant l’ami Gauguin parcequ’il a...
...les medecins, les mécaniciens, enfin un tas de gens ont des idées plus pratiques, plus solides...
...re que tu verras beaucoup de belles chôses et surtout que tu sois bien portante maintenant. As tu...
in translation:
...well now. Have you read anything these last few days or lately: I haven’t at all. If you have a...
in date note:
...or 19 January (see n. 1), as emerges from Theo’s letter 843 of 22 January. It is likely that the present letter to Willemien, who was staying with Theo and Jo, was enclosed with that one, and was thus written on the same day. We assume that Theo replied quickly (the first lines of his letter reveal how relieved he is that everything went so well), which means that the letter to Theo (no longer extant) and the present letter must have been written on 20 or 21 January 1890. Because letter 842 to the Ginouxs (in which Van Gogh referred to his visit) dates from 20 January, and Van Gogh had another attack, certainly no later than the 21st (see n. 1), 21 January is less likely as a date for the present letter. For these reasons we have dated it to 20 January 1890...
in note 1:
...visited her in Arles, where he must have gone on 18 or 19 January, since he was back in Saint-Rémy on 20...
in note 5:
...un poète qui exalte les grandeurs ignorées, un homme de bien qui encourage et console’. Sensier schreef ook: ‘Quand la vie m’apportait des inquiétudes, j’allais voir la peinture de Millet, et je...
842 To Joseph Ginoux and Marie Ginoux-Julien. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Monday, 20 January 1890.
in original text:
...continuant à redouter toujours les rechûtes – presque contrarié – vous dis-je – telleme...
...Eh, je me sens si lâche là-dedans, la santé revenant même. Je redoute encore. Alors qui...
...Ginoux soit très passagère et qu’elle en remontera tout à fait ragaillardie. Mais elle n’ignore pas combien nous tenons tous à elle et désirons la voir bien portante. Pour moi, la maladie m’a fait du bien – ce serait ingrat de ne pas en convenir; cela m’a calmé et très différent...
...quitter le midi, je vous l’assure à vous tous qui êtes devenus des amis pour moi – des amis...
...les boîtes.– Je vous écris donc, chers amis, pour essayer de distraire pour un moment notre chère malade pour qu’elle reprenne son sourire habituel, pour nous faire plaisir à tous qui la...
...me parait le bon côté de tout cela. Puis après on s’en reva à son travail de tous les jours...
...meilleurs souhaits pour la prompte guérison de Mme Ginoux. croyez moi bien à vous Vincent.
in translation:
...been so again since – just around Christmas – for a few days I was again taken quite badly this year...
...my health – to be better for a longer or shorter time – continuing always to fear relapses...
...have been, I think I would have pegged out or that I would have completely lost my reason. Business...
in note 1:
...from nervousness and menopausal complaints. Van Gogh had visited her on 18 or 19 January (see letter 841).
843 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 22 January 1890.
in original text:
...le voyage à Arles s’est effectué sans mauvaises suite. J’ai différentes choses à t’appren...
...toiles & son exclamation après avoir vu quelques toiles était “Comme c’est bien la Provence”. Lui qui est de là-bas connait le pays & déteste les choses sucrées qu’en rapportent les...
...de passer chez toi. Si tu le verras, tu lui diras s. te p. que j’ai encore un souscription à son...
...versé dans la litérature moderne. Il parait que l’exposition des 20 à Bruxelles est ouverte...
...attendre avec patience jusqu’à ce que le succès vient, tu le verras surement. Il faut se faire...
...mieux les vendre à Arles. Je m’informe quels sont les établissements en Hollande qui pourraient...
...Jo va heureusement très bien, cela marche vers la fin maintenant car nous espérons qu’elle sera...
...de soleil est superbe. Comme tu as travaillé depuis l’année dernière, c’est prodigieux. Je...
...est venu nous voir mais malheureusement nous étions sorti. J’avais bien voulu le voir chez moi...
in note 5:
...curiosity, Paul Cézanne’s engaging open-air studies, Vincent van Gogh’s vivid symphonies, Sisley’s landscapes, Renoir’s new compositions and the entries of the Neo-Impressionist group, whose technique is becoming ever more sure.’ (On cite notamment, parmi les toiles appelées à exciter la curiosité artistique, les attachantes études de plein air de Paul Cézanne, les symphonies éclatantes de Vincent van Gogh, les...
in note 6:
The sixth exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants was held in Paris from 20 March to 27 April 1890. Van Gogh had participated in the exhibitions of 1888 and 1889; see letter 582, nn. 8 and 9, and letter...
in note 10:
Regarding Isaäcson’s plans to go to the Transvaal, see letter 811, n. 2.
844 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, Wednesday, 22 or Thursday, 23 January 1890.
in title:
844 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, Wednesday, 22 or Thursday, 23 January 1890.
in original text:
...de votre lettre et de vos propositions projetées; elles m’ont donné beaucoup à réflechir et je vous avoue que je trouve la vie ensemble possible, très possible mais avec beaucoup de précautions. Votre état maladif qui n’est pas encore tout à fait guéri demande du calme et beaucoup de ménagements. Vous dites vous-même que lorsque vous allez à Arles des souvenirs vous agitent.– Ne...
...où vous trouviez isolement et par suite manque de soins immédiats au cas où vous retomberiez...
...Province.– Ensuite parcequ’il y a des musées qui ne sont pas à dédaigner pour des peintres...
...de moi avec des oeuvres qu’on a refusées autrefois comme je vous l’ai raconté. Eh bien elle a eu beaucoup de succès.– C’est un indice que le 1er travail que j’avais fait avait son grain qui germait lentement.– De même à Anvers, en se remuant, 3 gaillards de talent et solides dans...
...mon opinion sur votre projet. Répondez-moi là dessus votre opinion franche.– En tous cas tout...
in date note:
...or 19 January (see letter 841). Gauguin remarks that Le Pouldu is now experiencing ‘spring tide storms’ (ll. 73-74). The spring flood tide took place on 22 and 23 January (Service hydrographique et océanographique de la marine, Brest). For this reason we have dated the present letter to Wednesday, 22 or Thursday, 23 January 1890...
845 Jo van Gogh-Bonger to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 29 January 1890.
in translation:
...if I have to leave him — you tell him — for there’s no one in the world whom he loves as...
...waves of pain which mean that I can’t think or write properly. When you get this it will all be...
in note 2:
...isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, Mercure de France (January 1890), pp. 24-29. For the text, with commentary and an English translation, see exhib. cat. New York 1986, pp. 310-315. In his article Aurier praises Van Gogh’s ‘strange, intense and feverish work’ (oeuvres étranges, intensives et fiévreuses) and calls him a worthy successor to the seventeenth-century Dutch masters. In his eyes, Van Gogh is not only a realist with a great love for nature and for truth, but also a symbolist who uses his idiom to express ‘an Idea’ (une Idée). He dreams of artistic innovation in the form of an ‘art of the tropical regions’ (art des régions tropicales), striving to produce naïve, primitive art that appeals to simple souls. With regard to Van Gogh’s technique, he writes that it matches his artistic temperament: ‘vigorous, exalted, brutal, intense’ (vigoureuse, exaltée, brutale, intensive). His palette is ‘incredibly dazzling’ (invraisemblablement éblouissante) and his brushstrokes ‘fiery, very powerful and full of tension’ (fougueux, très puissants et très nerveux). Aurier closes his article by lamenting that Van Gogh will never be completely understood, for he is ‘too simple and at the same time too subtle for the contemporary bourgeois mind’ (à la fois trop simple et trop subtil pour l’esprit-bourgeois contemporain). Aurier published a shortened version of his article under the title ‘Vincent van Gogh’ in L’Art Moderne. Revue Critique des Arts et de la Littérature 10 (19 January 1890), no. 3, pp. 20-22, as is apparent from the first paragraph: ‘One of the artists who will be most widely discussed at the Salon of Les Vingt, around whom a great mass of ignorant nonsense will accumulate, Vincent van Gogh, has recently been studied very closely by Mr G. Albert Aurier, in a subtle and very interesting article published in the Mercure de France (the former Pléiade), January 1890 number. As we are unable to print the whole article, because of its length, we believe it useful to provide extracts from it’ (L’un des artistes qui seront les plus discutés au Salon des XX, celui devant lequel s’accumuleront en tas les ignorances et les inepties, Vincent Van Gogh, vient d’être étudie de très près par M. G. Albert Aurier, dans un subtil et très intéressant article publié par le Mercure de France (ancienne Pléiade), numéro de janvier 1890. Ne pouvant reproduire l’étude complète, en raison de son étendue, nous croyons utile d’en donner des extraits) (pp. 20-21). Theo sent both articles to Vincent (see letter 849, n. 3), possibly with the present letter from Jo (since she writes that he had brought the article home that morning) or a day earlier, along with the papers sent to Peyron, the receipt of which he confirms in a letter dated 29 January (FR b1061). Theo also sent the article to Mrs van Gogh (see letter 850, n. 2), his sister Lies and the art critic Jan Veth. Mrs van Gogh wrote to Theo on 1 February 1890: ‘I was so happy to receive the article about Vincent. Wonderful that appreciation expressed publicly, so fortunate also for you, you did after all receive my postcard, I wrote it after reading the article’ (FR b3247). Lies wrote to Theo: ‘How appreciative and beautiful that article is! I thank you for sending it. It is certainly someone who knows Vincent well, I don’t mean outwardly, but inwardly’ (FR b3235). For Veth’s reaction, see letter 620, n. 5...
846 To Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Friday, 31 January 1890.
in note 2:
...or 19 January (see letter 841, n. 1), so he must have suffered the attack on 20 or 21 January. On the 29th he was still in bad shape, as emerges from Peyron’s letter: ‘He is incapable at present of any kind of work, and only responds with incoherent words when asked questions’ (Aujourd’hui, il est incapable de se livrer à un travail quelconque et ne répond que par des paroles incohérentes aux questions qu’on lui adresse) (see FR b1061; Hulsker 1971, p. 41...
847 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Friday, 31 January 1890.
in original text:
imprimeurs éditeurs...
...n excellent avec une patience extraordinaire car tout autre à sa place aurait certainement employé les fers. Jo se porte très bien & n’a pas encore eu de fièvre, mais cela pourrait bien venir...
...aussi courageux que toi. Aussitôt que tu pourras écris moi pour me dire comment tu vas & s’il...
849 To John Peter Russell. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 1 February 1890.
in original text:
...s Millet que peutêtre vous ne connaissiez pas. Quoi qu’il en soit c’est pour nous rappeler, mon frère et moi, à votre bon souvenir.– Savez vous que mon frère s’est marié depuis et que juste de ces jours ci il attend son premier né. Puisse cela aller bien – il a une bien brave femme hollandaise. Que cela me fait plaisir de vous ecrire après un long silence. Vous souvenez vous du temps que, simultanement presque, vous je crois le premier et moi après, rencontrâmes l’ami...
...e qu’ayant dû aller dans un asile d’aliénés nous nous sommes séparés lui et moi. Mais que...
...de moi aux Vingtistes, je vous assure que moi je dois beaucoup à des choses que Gauguin me disait pour le dessin et tiens en haute, très haute estime sa façon d’aimer la nature. Car à mon avis...
...t qu’un mal absolu. Si jamais vous venez à Paris, prenez si vous voulez une toile de moi chez...
...moi, avec poignée de main en pensée bien à vous Vincent van Gogh c,o Docteur Peyron St Remy en...
in translation:
...Gauguin? He’s still struggling on – and alone, or almost alone, like the good fellow he is. Am sure...
...is our friend Macknight? If he’s still with you, or if there are others with you whom I’ve had...
in note 3:
This was Aurier’s article ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’ (see letter 845, n. 2). Evidently Theo had...
850 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 1 February 1890.
in original text:
...et très sereine. Enfin voilà ce que depuis longtemps certes j’ai tant souhaité. Pas besoin de...
...pas besoin de te dire combien je me sens logé dans le flatteur et c’est à mon avis aussi exag...
...s forte raison ce qu’il dit de mes tournesols des magnifiques et si complètes Roses tremières...
...tant de tempêtes, cela a pourtant été quelque chôse. Gauguin proposait, très vaguement il est...
...le voir. Si pour moi je voulais continuer à appelons le traduire certaines pages de Millet, alors...
...quand j’enverrai les cinq ou 6 toiles terminées. J’espère que M. Lauzet viendra, j’ai...
...e qu’une de faite.– Les paysages aux cyprès! ah ce serait pas commode.– Aurier le sent aussi...
...qui n’est pas à nous, pour faire les belles choses. Lorsque j’avais fait ces tournesols je cherchais le contraire et pourtant l’équivalent et je disais, c’est le cyprès.– Je m’arête l...
...y répondre aujourd’hui mais je le remets à quelques jours d’ici, dis lui que la mère m’a...
in translation:
...just as one can’t paint as one sees – and it’s therefore not to criticize Isaäcson’s boldness or that of the other critic, but as regards us, well, we’re posing a little for the model, and my word, that’s a duty and a job like any other. So if you or I were to gain some reputation or other, it’s a matter of trying to retain a certain calm, and if possible presence of mind. Why...
...coin. But gladly I’m very grateful for the article, or rather ‘glad at heart’, as the revue...
...of the far-off fields, probably much more than you or I, that’s how I find them. One must – it...
...couldn’t care about that, but bothering or obstructing me under the pretext that I’m manufacturing copies – then among the artists I need people like Russell or Gauguin to carry this task to a...
...you’ll see it soon when I send the five or 6 finished canvases. I hope that Mr Lauzet will come...
in note 4:
For Aurier, ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, see letter 845, n. 2.
in note 5:
...gape at canvases by Bouguereau’ (p. 233). Isaäcson’s irony obviously escaped Van Gogh.
in note 6:
...the other three paintings of sunflowers at Theo’s or Tanguy’s; with regard to this, see letter 783, n...
in note 8:
...several still lifes with peonies. It is not known which work or works Van Gogh is referring to here.
in note 19:
...in flames, which would be black’ (des cyprès dressant leurs cauchemardantes silhouettes de...
in note 20:
...Isaäcson’s previously cited article (see n. 5 above) about several Dutch artists whom he numbered among ‘those who strive to render symbolically a picture of their vision’. About their work he writes: ‘It is lacking a certain ineffable something, there are not yet symbolical representations of natural forces, but rather a partly slavish imitation of nature’s forms blended with colour or tonal sentiments, which testify to sufficient artistry to make their work enjoyable. In representative art, one must symbolize that which the senses perceive inside or outside, and this holds true not only for the content but also for the form: the personal form; and that is exactly what is lacking in the work of the last-mentioned gentlemen’ (p. 233...
in note 22:
...Ginoux from Arles; Van Gogh had visited her on 18 or 19 January (see letter 841, n. 1). He had painted...
851 To Joseph Ginoux. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Sunday, 2 February 1890.
in title:
851 To Joseph Ginoux. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Sunday, 2 February 1890.
in original text:
...Ginoux, certes je préfererais venir en personne vous demander comment va votre malade ainsi que j’avais espéré revenir vous revoir de ces jours ci. Mais ayant été indisposé moi-même cette...
...J’ai des bonnes intentions assez pour venir néamoins semaine prochaine pourtant. J’ai eu des...
...bien content que cela marche bien, à plus forte raison parceque le travail ne va pas trop mal pas non plus ayant eu des articles sur mes tableaux à la fois en Belgique et à Paris où je les avais exposés et qu’on en dit beaucoup plus de bien que moi-même n’en désirais.– De ces jours ci...
...pourrai venir vous voir. Sans cela pour moi l’attaque que j’ai encore eue est tout à fait passée encore et je travaille comme d’habitude. Enfin vous ne me ferez j’espère pas languir après votre réponse. Bien des chôses à vous et à Madame Ginoux et tous mes voeux pour sa prompte guérison. Poignée de main à vous deux et aux autres amis et croyez moi bien à vous Vincent v. Gogh
in translation:
Please don’t fail to let me know how she is – for would be worried if I didn’t have news from you by...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1889 Indépendants exhibition (732)
in note 1:
On 18 or 19 January, Van Gogh had visited Joseph Ginoux and his wife Marie, who was suffering from nervous...
in note 4:
...isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, which had appeared in Mercure de France and in the Belgian journal L’Art Moderne (see letter 845, n. 2). Theo had also informed Vincent of an earlier article about the Brussels exhibition in L’Art Moderne; see letter 843, n. 5. Félix Fénéon had written in La Vogue about Van Gogh’s works at the exhibition of the Indépendants in Paris; see letter 799, n. 13. There is no indication, however, that Van Gogh knew about this article...
852 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Sunday, 9 February 1890.
in original text:
...de lait & le petit quelquefois est couché les yeux larges ouverts & les poings au visage. Alors il...
...mais cela parait inévitable & elle le supporte très bien. d’Ici quelques jours elle va pouvoir...
...d’aller voir les musées chez nous. Il a sorti plusieurs choses pour lui faire voir, ce qui lui plaisait beaucoup. Les femmes nues, elle les comprenait très bien. Nous étions aussi un matin dans...
...les petits philosophes de Rembrandt sont un peu nettoyés, ce qui permet de les voir comme jamais...
...bonne pour se marier. Néamoins je serais bien aise si elle l’était.– Hier Gauguin est venu à Paris & il demandait beaucoup après toi. Il vient içi pour voir s’il peut trouver à se placer pour faire n’importe quoi pour gagner sa vie, car il parait que de Haan est très gêné aussi. Sa...
...orangés, des pommes vertes & un pot en terre. C’est très étudié comme valeurs & influence de tons les uns sur les autres. J’aimerais y voir un peu plus de laisser aller mais c’est très...
in note 7:
...the Salon Carré, see letter 567, n. 2. Velázquez’s painting formerly hung in the room containing the La...
in note 9:
...who have been cutting off his allowance for some time!’ (De Haan est à Paris en ce moment pour tâcher de se débrouiller vis-à-vis de sa famille qui lui coupe les vivres depuis quelque temps!). See Gauguin...
in note 10:
...français, belonged to the so-called ‘petits Salons’, which were organized in the first months of the year by the artists’ associations. In contrast to the Salon, these were small exhibitions for an aristocratic public, where established artists were given the opportunity to exhibit their ‘informal’, more personal or unfinished works. See Martha Ward, ‘Impressionist installations and private exhibitions’, The Art Bulletin 73 (December 1991), pp. 605-609. All that is known about the exhibition of the Cercle de l’Union artistique is that it took place in rue Boissy d’Anglais and ran from 3 February to 12 March 1890 (Moniteur des Arts, 7 February 1890, p. 46, column on ‘Expositions ouvertes’). The exhibition of the Cercle Volney, which was held from 27 January to 24 February 1890, was reviewed in detail in the Moniteur des Arts of 31 January. Of the several dozen artists who took part, Toulouse-Lautrec was one of the most modern. On display at the twelfth exhibition of Société d’Aquarellistes français (founded in 1879), held at Georges Petit’s at 8 rue de Sèze, were 194 watercolours and drawings by 38 artists, including Albert Besnard and Jean-Georges Vibert. A facsimile of the catalogue appears in G. Dugnat, La Société d’Aquarellistes français 1879-1896: catalogue illustrés des expositions. Dijon 2002, vol. 2 (unpaginated...
853 To Albert Aurier. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 9 or Monday, 10 February 1890.
in title:
853 To Albert Aurier. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 9 or Monday, 10 February 1890.
in original text:
...avec lequel j’ai travaillé durant quelques mois à Arles et que d’ailleurs je connaissais déj...
...donc peut-être que votre article eût été plus juste et – il me semblerait – en conséquence...
...it sectaire que nous avons vu ces dernières années, mais j’en redoute le ridicule.– Et en...
...Ce que Mauve répétait souvent était à peu près ceci, “si l’on veut faire de la couleur il...
...ai pas pu les faire comme je le sens; les émotions qui me prennent devant la nature vont chez moi...
...une fois revenir à la charge pour attaquer les cyprès. L’étude que je vous ai destinée en...
...de ces jolis tissages écossais carrelés: vert, bleu, rouge, jaune, noir, qui à vous comme à moi...
...enverrai sera sèche à fond, aussi dans les empâtements, ce ne sera pas le cas avant un an – je...
...vous obtiendrez les tons noirs très noirs nécessaires pour faire valoir les differents verts...
...penser à ces chères étoffes écossaises, j’ai remarqué qu’un cadre plat très simple, mine...
in translation:
...before talking about me. For the share that falls or will fall to me will remain, I assure you...
...you must also know how to draw a fireside or an interior like Meissonier’. I shall add a...
...note. You will see that this constitutes more or less the combination of tones of those pretty...
in location:
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (gift of Mr. and Mrs. Cheung Chung Kiu), inv. no. b9119 S/2019
in note 1:
For Aurier, ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, see letter 845, n. 2.
in note 9:
...d’après ses oeuvres et les témoignages contemporains’ by Henry Cochin, which he had read in August 1888 (see letter 665, n. 12). Cochin writes that Boccaccio had a ‘jovial complexion’ (complexion joviale), but at the same time ‘that anxious inclination to grumble, which always made his fits of sadness alternate with the wildest bursts of gaiety’ (cette inquiète disposition à se plaindre, qui fit toujours alterner ses accès de tristesse avec ses plus folles boutades de gaîté) (p. 374). He was proud, suspicious and quick-tempered, but ‘his anger is brief and infrequent. As long as his sensitive pride has not been wounded, he is the most peaceable of men. With a smile, he lets everything go by, with the result that people have been able to accuse him of indifference’ (sa colère est courte et rare. Tant que son sensible orgueil n’a pas été atteint, il est le plus pacifique des hommes. Il laisse tout passer en souriant, si bien qu’on a pu lui reprocher de l’indifférence) (p. 381). Boccaccio’s Decameron (1349-1353) is a frame story in which a company consisting of three men and seven women withdraw to the countryside to escape plague-ridden Florence. In ten days they tell one another 100 stories, alternating with songs sung by the women...
in note 13:
...For a long time, he delighted in imagining a renovation of art, made possible by displacing the centre of civilization: an art of the tropical regions... Wouldn’t he, the intense and fantastic colourist, grinder of golds and precious stones, in fact have been the worthiest painter of these lands of radiance, of dazzling suns and blinding colours, rather than the Guillaumets, the insipid Fromentins and the muddy Gérômes?’ (Longtemps, il s’est complu à imaginer une rénovation d’art, possible par un déplacement de civilisation: un art des régions tropicales ... N’eût-il pas été, en effet, lui, l’intense et fantatisque [read: fantastique] coloriste broyeur d’ors et de pierreries, le très digne peintre, plutôt que les Guillaumet, que les fadasses Fromentin et que les boueux Gérôme, de ces pays des resplendissances, des fulgurants soleils et des couleurs qui aveuglent?) (p. 28)....
in textual note 86:
carrelés: < carrelés
854 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Wednesday, 12 February 1890.
in original text:
...devrait dire des chôses comme cela de Gauguin, et de moi rien que très secondairement.– Gauguin...
...nous pour y demeurer et travailler et pourrions même en loger d’autres. As tu remarqué dans ce...
...maintes fois lorsque Reid était là nous avons parlé de cela, même de la nécessité de produire beaucoup. Et que peu de temps après que je suis venu à Paris je te disais qu’avant que j’eus...
...article qui en soi est une chôse très artistique; et il nous rend réellement service pour le jour où nous serons bien comme tout le monde obligés de chercher à faire rentrer ce que les tableaux...
...comme nous le serions à Anvers. Et pour ce qui est des marchands de là-bas, faut pas du tout y...
...s. Allant à Anvers je craindrais plutôt pour Gauguin que pour moi car moi naturellement je me débrouille avec le flamand, je reprends les études de paysans commencés dans le temps et abandonnés...
...te le dire.– Mais je prévois que pour lui la bataille pourrait être très rude. Je crois que tu...
in translation:
...also Tersteeg, or rather C.M., a copy of Aurier’s article? The thing is that it seems to me that we ought to take advantage of it to try to place something in Scotland, either now or later. I think...
...by sacrificing the journey one could be useful to Gauguin or Lauzet. A few days ago I bought a suit...
in note 2:
...letter to Aurier. Regarding Aurier’s article ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, see letter 845, n. 2.
in note 4:
...article ‘La fécondité des maîtres’ (The fecundity of the masters) in L’Art Moderne. Revue Critique des Arts et de la Littérature 10 (19 January 1890, no. 3), p. 22. This piece, which comes immediately after the shortened version of Aurier’s ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, quotes a list published in the Guide de l’amateur d’oeuvres d’art of the number of paintings supposedly made by ‘the masters of the School of 1830’. Corot, for example, is estimated to have made 6,000 ‘canvases or panels’, Dupré 3,000 and...
in note 7:
...des Artistes Indépendants was held in the Pavillon de la Ville de Paris on the Champs-Elysées from 20 March to 27 April 1890. Van Gogh exhibited ten paintings. See exhib. cat. Paris 1890-2, p. 41, cat. nos. 832-841. Eight of these can be identified on the basis of the titles in the catalogue. ‘Le cyprès’ must be Cypresses (F 613 / JH 1746), considering that Van Gogh intended to give his second painting of this subject, F 620 / JH 1748, to Aurier (see letter 853). ‘Rue à Saint-Rémy’ is Road menders (‘The tall plane trees’) (F 657 / JH 1860); the other version, F 658 / JH 1861, was still with Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy (see letter 834). ‘Les Alpines’ is Ravine (F 662 / JH 1804); the second version, F 661 / JH 1871, was still with Van Gogh (see letter 836). ‘Promenade à Arles’ is most likely Avenue of chestnut trees in blossom (F 517 / JH 1689), which Theo thought very beautiful and referred to by the same title in letter 793 (as well as in the list recorded below). ‘Mûrier en automne’ is Mulberry tree (F 637 / JH 1796). ‘Sous bois’ is Trees with ivy in the garden of the asylum (F 609 / JH 1693), and ‘Lever de soleil en Provence’ is Wheatfield at sunrise (F 737 / JH 1862); the last two canvases were being shown at that time at the exhibition of Les Vingt in Brussels. ‘Les Tournesols’ is either Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562) or Sunflowers in a vase (F 456 / JH 1561), which were also shown at the exhibition of Les Vingt. The other two canvases, ‘Paysage montagneux en Provence’ and ‘Verger d’oliviers en Provence’ can also be identified with certainty, thanks to a list that Theo made on the back of a letter from Dr Peyron dated 24 February 1890 (see FR b1062; Hulsker 1971, pp. 42-43). In addition to the above-mentioned titles, which were listed in the catalogue in the order given by Theo, he wrote down ‘Champs de blé (avec les nuages tourmenté)’ (Wheatfields (with billowy clouds)) and ‘Oliviers (soleil couchant)’ (Olive trees (setting sun)). These descriptive titles tell us that the paintings in question were Wheatfield after a storm (F 611 / JH 1723) and Olive grove (F 586 / JH 1854), which Vincent himself described as ‘Olive trees. Orange and green sunset sky’ (see letter 834...
855 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Wednesday, 19 February 1890.
in translation:
...so why an article about me and not about those 6 or 7 others etc.? Now I must confess that later...
...north. Anyway, I’ll start by trying a week or so in Paris. Embraced in thought by your loving...
in note 3:
For Aurier, ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, and for Mrs van Gogh’s reaction to the article, see letter...
856 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Wednesday, 19 February 1890.
in original text:
...dernières lettres, celle datée de Paris & celle d’aujourd’hui.– Ce que tu m’écris encore de l’accouchement de Jo me touche, oui tu as été bien brave & bien bonne de rester auprès. Je...
...Je vais essayer demain ou après demain d’aller encore une fois à Arles pour voir si je supporte...
...ce qu’il dit de moi – en soi très artistique, très curieux – mais c’est plutot comme cela...
...reviendrait ne serait que secondaire, tres secondaire. Ces idées dont il parle ne sont pas à moi...
...rend très sensible à la couleur et à son langage particulier, ses effets de complémentaires, de...
...des dispositions d’amitié suffisantes. Ou bien on exagère les qualités de quelqu’un ou bien...
...Ah c’est pourquoi j’etais content du succès de Bruxelles à cause de cette Campine d’Anvers...
...en restant bien avec les gens sans nos écarts d’orgueil, d’excentricité. Donc plutot un peu...
...ton goût. Encore une fois bien des chôses et bonne poignée de main. b. à t. Vincent. Je ne...
in translation:
...the end of March. I’m going to try to go to Arles once more tomorrow or the day after tomorrow to...
...drink, when one is praised and has drunk one becomes sad, or anyway I don’t know how to say how I...
...or he’s over-neglected. However, I very much want to believe that basically Justice is in better health than it appears to be. One really must be able to laugh sometimes, and make merry a little or...
in note 2:
For Aurier, ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, see letter 845, n. 2.
in note 4:
...Arles: Madame Ginoux (study for ‘Night café, Arles’), 1888 (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco). Four...
in note 6:
...mes pleurs qu’en me jetant au visage des poignées d’eau que je pris à une fontaine de la rue). See...
in note 7:
...faire sa prière, à l’imitation des vieux maîtres, qui, eux, se mettaient à genoux avant de commencer...
857 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 17 March 1890.
in title:
857 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 17 March 1890.
in original text:
...e chôse à la maison et dis leur bien des chôses pour moi. Bien le bonjour à Gauguin qui m’a...
...tout à fait de moi. Peut-être, peut-être je guérirais en effet à la campagne pour un temps. Le...
...e touche plus grande. Et le lendemain fichu comme une brute. Difficile de comprendre des chôses comme cela mais hélas, c’est comme cela. J’ai grand désir de reprendre mon travail pourtant mais...
...que tu gouvernes bien ton ménage. Alors après un temps d’épreuve, pour moi aussi peut-être il...
...oublie pas tout à fait – de ton côté parles de temps en temps de lui pour qu’on sache que...
...je vais lire plus tranquillement tes lettres. et demain ou après demain espère ecrire de nouveau.
in translation:
...nothing wrong with them. And so I almost or entirely despair of myself. Perhaps, perhaps I would...
...him so that he doesn’t forget us completely – for your part speak of him from time to time so...
...I’m going to read your letters more calmly, and hope to write again tomorrow or the day after.
in date note:
...that this letter from Vincent was written shortly before Theo’s reply, i.e. on or about 17 March 1890.
in note 1:
...après un voyage à Arles. Je remarque que les accès se rapprochent et surviennent après chaque déplacement qu’il fait en dehors de la maison. Je ne crois pas qu’il se livre à aucun excès lorsqu’il est libre de ses mouvements, car je l’ai toujours vu sobre et réservé. Mais je suis obligé de reconnaître que chaque fois qu’il fait une petite excursion, il devient malade...J’ai été obligé d’envoyer deux hommes avec une voiture pour le prendre à Arles, et l’on ne sait pas où il a passé la nuit de samedi à dimanche. Il avait emporté avec lui un tableau représentant une Arlésienne; on ne l’a pas retrouvé). See FR b1062; Hulsker 1971, p. 43. Van Gogh had apparently taken along the portrait, one of the five he had painted on the basis of Gauguin’s drawing Madame Ginoux (study for ‘Night café, Arles’), with the intention of giving it to Madame Ginoux. Van Gogh did not recover from this latest attack until the end of April 1890 (see letter 863). On 14 March 1890 Theo wrote to Willemien: ‘No news from Vincent himself, but a letter from Dr Peyron to say that he was still unable to read or write, but that he hoped to get him on his feet again. Still, he says he shouldn’t conceal the fact that, now that the crisis has lasted so long, it will be more difficult for him to pull through’ (FR b927)....
858 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 19 March 1890.
in original text:
...le 19 Mars 1890 Mon cher Vincent, Nous étions bien content de recevoir ta dernière lettre mais...
...doux te remette entièrement, espérons le & ne te fatigue pas de trop. Comme j’aurais été content si tu avais été là à l’exposition des Indépendants. C’était le jour de vernissage où Carnot est venu. J’y étais avec Jo. Tes tableaux sont bien placés & font très bien. Il y en a...
...s généreux comme idées. Guillaumin expose plusieurs choses parmi lesquelles il y en a de très bonnes, de Lautrec a un excellent portrait de femme au piano & un grand tableau qui se tient très...
...que nous espérions. Dimanche prochain Bernard & Aurier doivent venir voir tes dernières toiles...
...au Salon des XX où il a trouvé dans la mêlée des discussions, de vives sympathies artistiques...
...petit filleul tu te sentirais plus heureux. Tâches de savoir du Dr Peyron si quand tu seras remis de cette crise il ne voit pas de danger que tu viennes à Paris. Jo te dit bien bonjour & se joint...
in translation:
...young Impressionists, there are at least a certain number of art lovers who are beginning to buy...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1890 Indépendants exhibition (854)
in note 2:
...in his present condition I’d prefer to keep back “Ghosts” for a while’ (FR b941). Theo is referring here to Henrik Ibsen’s plays Nora or A Doll’s House and Ghosts. The latter is considered Ibsen’s...
in note 3:
...this month opens the exhibition of the Indépendants here, with ten paintings by him. I had hoped that he...
in note 5:
Ravine (F 662 / JH 1804). It is possible that Theo did exchange the painting with Gauguin, or perhaps he (or Jo) gave it to him, because in 1905 the painting was in the possession of Amedée Schuffenecker and before...
in note 9:
...récentes de Camille Pissarro. Exhib. cat. Paris (Boussod, Valadon & Cie), Février 1890. Paris 1890. The invitation has been preserved (FR b1498). See also Pissarro and Durand-Ruel Snollaerts 2005, vol. 1, pp. 218-219, 363. The following five paintings were sold by Theo in the first months of 1890, for a total of 4,800 francs: Paysage à Auvers (Landscape at Auvers), on 3 January 1890 for 600 francs to Oppenheim; Prairie à St. Charles (Meadow at Saint Charles) 1889 (Girl tending cattle, Saint-Charles, Eragny, private collection), on 4 March 1890 for 1,200 francs to L. Bouglé; L’abreuvoir (The watering place), 1889 (Peasant girl raking hay at Eragny, private collection), on 8 March 1890 for 1,200 francs to Thiébault; Paysanne gardant chèvres (Peasant woman tending goats), on 22 March 1890 for 800 francs to Gallimard; Meules et moutons (Wheat stacks and sheep), on 28 March 1890 for 1,000 francs to Marcigny. See GRI, Goupil Ledgers, nos. 20005, 20342, 20364, 20405 and 20419; and Pissarro and Durand-Ruel Snollaerts 2005, vol. 3, pp. 566-567, 572-573, cat. nos. 866, 872. Pissarro was highly pleased. See Correspondance Pissarro 1980-1991, vol. 2, pp. 329-334 and Jampoller 1986, pp. 53, 57-58...
859 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, on or about Thursday, 20 March 1890.
in title:
859 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, on or about Thursday, 20 March 1890.
in original text:
...on vos travaux depuis que nous nous sommes quittés; chez votre frère d’abord et à l’exposition des Indépendants.– C’est surtout à cette dernière place qu’on peut bien juger ce que vous faites, soit à cause des choses à côté les unes des autres, soit à cause du voisinage.– Je...
...es vous êtes dans l’exposition le plus remarquable. Avec des choses de nature vous êtes là le...
...une couleur très sugestive.– Par ci par là des notes rouges comme des lumières, le tout dans...
...Guillaumin seul hausse les épaules quand il entend parler de celà.– Je le comprends du reste étant donné que lui ne voit que la matière avec un oeil sans cerveau.– Pour ma peinture de ces dernières années il est de même et n’y comprend rien. J’hésitais beaucoup à vous écrire sachant que vous veniez d’avoir une crise assez longue, aussi je vous prie de ne me répondre que lorsque vous vous sentirez tout à fait en force. Espérons qu’avec les chaleurs qui vont revenir...
in translation:
...because of things positioned beside each other, or because of the neighbouring works. I offer you my...
in ongoing topic 1:
Entry for the 1890 Indépendants exhibition (854)
in date note:
...at the recently opened exhibition of the Indépendants. In this letter Gauguin suggests the exchange that...
860 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 29 March 1890.
in original text:
...J’espérais après ta dernière lettre que tu étais entré en convalescence & que bientot après tu aurais écrit que tu allais mieux. Mon chèr frère comme c’est triste d’être si loin l’un de l’autre & de savoir si peu ce que l’autre fait. C’est pourquoi je suis très heureux de...
...içi nous irons le voir, il vient consulter à Paris plusieurs fois dans la semaine. Il me disait...
...plus de sureté. C’est un homme qui pourra nous être très utile si tu viens içi. En as tu déj...
...Indépendants, mais Pissarro qui y allait tous les jours me dit que tu as un vrai succès parmi les artistes. Il y a aussi des amateurs qui m’en ont parlé avant que je les leur avait signalé. Les...
...Cet après midi Jo & l’enfant étaient dans le petit square devant la Trinité. Les arbustes...
...drole dans ses mouvements. Mon cher frère j’ai un très grand désir d’apprendre si tu vas mieux & d’avoir des détails sur ta santé. Aie bon courage & conserve l’espoir que prochainement...
in translation:
...on your birthday. Will it be a celebration for you, or are you still in a state where you find yourself...
in ongoing topic 3:
Entry for the 1890 Indépendants exhibition (854)
861 Jo van Gogh-Bonger to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 29 March 1890.
in ongoing topic 1:
Entry for the 1890 Indépendants exhibition (854)
in note 3:
It is not known which print by or after Rembrandt is referred to here. Several have been preserved in the...
862 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Wednesday, 23 April 1890.
in original text:
...j’ai eu une chance énorme en la trouvant. Nous nous entendons très bien & notre intérieur est très agréable. Le petit donne à Jo surtout beaucoup de travail, mais il pousse étonnament. Il est de nature nerveuse mais très doux. Il peut rester éveillé pendant des heurres sans crier & il...
...Tes tableaux à l’exposition ont beaucoup de succès. L’autre jour Duez m’arrêtait dans la...
...demeurer avec lui içi & il a dû aider à les déménager & n’avait pas le sou pour s’écarter...
in translation:
...and I’m counting on you, the day you need me, or feel that it could do you some good to talk with me...
in ongoing topic 2:
Entry for the 1890 Indépendants exhibition (854)
in note 2:
...accès met plus longtemps à disparaître que les précédents, par moments, on dirait qu’il va revenir à lui; il rend compte des sensations qu’il éprouve, puis quelques heures après la scène change, le malade redevient triste et soucieux et ne répond plus aux questions qu’on lui adresse. J’ai confiance qu’il reviendra à la raison comme les autres fois, mais c’est beaucoup plus long à venir). See FR b1063; Hulsker 1971, pp. 43-44. On 15 April Theo had written the following to his mother and his sister Willemien: ‘It is now more than a month since I received a letter from Vincent’s own hand. The doctor wrote the last time that it is still very rare for him to be his old self. He usually sits with his head in his hands, and if someone speaks to him, it is as though it hurts him, and he gestures for them to leave him alone. How sad that condition is, and Dr Peyron says that although he has hope that the crisis will soon be over, it will leave its mark on his constitution. If only we could do something for him, but having him come here would be irresponsible unless one were sure that there is not one moment of danger that the crisis will return during the journey or while here. It is such a pity, just now when he is having such success with his work. Many people have taken notice of his work, including Obreen, the writer of the article in the N. Rotter. Nice of those people in Nuenen to send it to you’ (FR b928). Regarding this article, see letter 860, n. 4...
863 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 29 April 1890.
in original text:
...t’envoie avec mes remerciments pour toutes les bontés que tu as pour moi, car sans toi je serais bien malheureux. Tu verras qu’il y a d’abord des toiles d’après Millet. Ceux là n’étant pas destinés au public peutêtre en feras tu cadeau à nos soeurs tot ou tard. Mais d’abord tu en...
...et tu le lui feras parvenir. Puis les cyprès sont pour M. Laurier. J’aurais voulu les refaire...
...de suite de suite car j’ai perdu trop de temps. Puis il me faudrait 6 brosses 6 putois à peu près de ces grandeurs. et 7 mètres toile ou même 10. Que te dire de ces deux mois passés, cela va pas bien du tout, je suis triste et embêté plus que je ne saurais t’exprimer et je ne sais plus où j’en suis. La commande de couleurs étant un peu...
...Charenton ou à Montevergues. Si tu ecris à la maison dites leur bien des chôses de ma part...
...Tu m’enverras surtout les glaneuses et des bêcheurs s’il y en a encore. Puis si tu veux je...
in translation:
...perhaps you’ll make a present of them to our sisters sooner or later. But first you must keep the ones...
...well get from Tanguy’s if he’s hard up, or if that would please him. But of course he mustn’t...
...fitch brushes around these sizes, and 7 metres of canvas, or even 10. What can I tell you of these...
...situation, as for me I don’t know what to do or think. But I have a great desire to leave this...
...t pretend to leave you free, such as at Charenton or Montevergues. If you write home, give them my...
in note 8:
...Albert Aurier, presumably as a present from Vincent or Theo. See cat. Otterlo 2003, pp. 341-343. That...
in note 14:
For Aurier’s article ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, see letter 845, n. 2.
864 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus and Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 29 April 1890.
in note 1:
...and a book from Wil this week around Wednesday or Thursday...May the 30th of March not be too...
in note 4:
...Reminiscence of Brabant’) (F 673 / JH 1919) or Cottages at sunset (‘Reminiscence of Brabant...
in note a:
The word ‘groen’ is a shortened form of ‘groenknol’ (‘stoppelknol’), or turnip – a catch crop raised as cattle fodder after the wheat was harvested.
in note 7:
For Aurier’s article ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, see letter 845, n. 2.
865 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 1 May 1890.
in title:
865 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Thursday, 1 May 1890.
in original text:
...même sens que quelques autres qui n’ont pas été compris non plus et ont été navré par les...
...on. Je vais peutêtre chercher à travailler d’après les Rembrandt, surtout j’ai une idee pour...
...que de chôses j’aurais fait isolé des autres selon que le pays m’en dirait. mais oui – c’est bien fini ce voyage ci.– Enfin ce qui me console c’est le grand, le très grand désir que...
...années – mais pas tout de suite. Voila ce que je m’imagine après avoir observé les autres...
...plus agés que moi. ou ont été un peu ou beaucoup, en tant que quant au jeunes, des faitnéants...
...de la soeur et de la mère étaient très calmes. La soeur ecrit fort bien et décrit un paysage ou...
...une date pour quand tu m’attends là-bas à Paris, je me ferais accompagner un bout de chemin...
...s. Fais comme cela te semblera le mieux. Provisoirement je laisserais mes meubles en plan à Arles...
...ma clarté pour le travail, j’ai des idées en tête plus que jamais je ne pourrais exécuter...
in translation:
...amount of good in giving me back a little energy, or rather the desire to climb back up again from the...
...hard a life to kick the bucket as a result, or to lose the power to work. So Gauguin and Guillaumin...
...of whom are considerably older than I am or, among the young ones, were more or less idlers – students. Anyway, what do we know about it? Fortunately the letters from our sister and mother were very calm. Our sister writes very well, and describes a landscape or an aspect of the town as if it...
...I would have someone from here accompany me part of the way, as far as Tarascon or Lyon. Then you would wait for me, or have someone wait for me, at the station in Paris. Do what seems best to you...
in note 3:
...in the series Eaux-fortes et gravures des maîtres anciens, an engraving and a reproduction (Amsterdam...
in note 4:
...Samaritan woman, 1658 (B70) and The Samaritan woman or At the ruins, 1634 (B71) (Amsterdam...
866 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Friday, 2 May 1890.
in title:
866 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Friday, 2 May 1890.
in original text:
...le changement projeté me rafraichira davantage les idées. Je crois que le mieux sera que j’ail...
...M. Peyron s’opposera à un très prompt départ. je me persuade d’ailleurs que le plaisir de passer quelques jours avec toi me remettra beaucoup.– Et dès lors nous pouvons bien compter sur une...
...nécessaires pour que cela ne traîne pas.– Une fois là-bas je pourrai faire venir mon lit qui est à Arles. D’ailleurs je changerais quand même, préférant être dans un asile où les...
...on voit cela un peu partout et que même à Paris cela abonde. Quoi qu’il en soit j’espère que...
...s. Mais laissant de côté des motifs de ce genre, il restera là-bas l’étude d’après nature...
...ici encore quelques jours, expédies en je te prie une partie de suite.– si toutefois je pars de ces jours ci – ce que j’espère – tu peux bien la garder à Paris. Ecris moi de ces jours ci...
...doit avoir un tableau rudement bien au salon. Bien des chôses à ta femme, je me fais une fête de...
in translation:
...we can soon decide if I’m going to lodge with him or temporarily at the inn; and thus we’ll avoid an...
...you’ll tell me that this is seen more or less everywhere, and that there’s even plenty of it in...
in date note:
Vincent wrote to Theo on 29 April and on or about 1 May (863 and 865). In the present letter he says...
in note 6:
...drawing Madame Ginoux (study for ‘Night café, Arles’), 1888 (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco...
in note 10:
...all in yellow’ (M. Quost peint avec virtuosité des fleurs en plein air, en pleine lumière, en plein...
867 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 3 May 1890.
in original text:
...fleurs montre que dans ces sujets tu n’es pas épuisé. Si cette année tu as manquée la saison des arbres en fleurs, une prochaine fois espérons que cela ne sera pas. Les copies de Millet sont...
...tes projets de venir par içi. Je suis très heureux que tu te sens la force pour entreprendre un...
...sur toi cette responsabilité. Ton voyage à Arles t’était absolument funeste, est ce que cette...
...pendant quelque temps & si tu fais tout pour te ménager il est très probable que tout marchera bien. Tu dis que les gens là-bas ne comprennent rien à la peinture, mais içi c’est absolument la...
in translation:
I can’t tell you how pleased I was by your letter, or rather your two letters; I was saying to Jo the day...
in note 1:
...them...I forgot to tell you that Vincent sent a number of new paintings, including some very beautiful...
868 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 4 May 1890.
in original text:
...fort joli & très réussi comme pose. Voici je serai dans ma réponse très simple & aussi pratique...
...faire dans pareil cas.– Tu te fais là des inquiétudes qui me pèsent si lourdement que cela me...
...des détails – mais veuilles te souvenir que je t’ai averti il y a 6 mois à peu près que si...
...pourrait suffire pour prendre les mesures nécessaires pour changer. Je me ferai accompagner jusqu...
...prolongé dans le midi son état menacerait de devenir plus aigu.” Voilà, tu lui écrirais de la sorte, on lui enverrait une dépêche le lendemain ou surlendemain de mon arrivée à Paris et...
...que son travail, sans distraction. Cela m’a creusé des rides qui ne s’effaceront pas de sitôt...
...ce serait prévu et selon la gravité nous pourrions voir si je peux continuer en liberté ou bien...
...lettre j’irais dans une maison où les malades travaillent aux champs & à l’atelier. Je crois...
...e. M. Peyron dit des chôses vagues pour dégager dit-il sa responsabilité mais ainsi on n’en...
in translation:
...I’ve just had have always been followed by three or four months of complete calm. I wish to take...
...accompany me as far as Tarascon – even one or two stations further if you insist. Once I’ve...
...would only stay at your place for let’s say 2 or 3 days, then I’d leave for this village. Where...
...him a telegram the day after my arrival in Paris, or the day after that, and he’d probably wait...
...since I’ve been here I’ve seen people fall over or lose their mind every day – what’s more...
...it was we could see if I can continue at liberty or if I must stick myself in an asylum for good...
869 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 10 May 1890.
in original text:
...viter en cas où la crise te reprenait toutes les misères qui sortiraient en cas où à une gare inconnue tu aies à faire à des gens que tu ne connais pas & qui te traiteraient on ne sait pas...
...te contenter de la petite chambre où nous avons logé Wil & plusieurs autres. J’ai écrit hier au Dr Gachet pour lui demander quand il vient à Paris, car il donne consultation alors. & je lui ai...
...tâches de ne pas le froisser. J’avais commandé à Tangui & à Tasset les couleurs que tu demandais, me disant que cela ne serait jamais perdu. Si les couleurs n’étaient pas encore arrivées...
...qu’en tous les cas ceçi soit une amélioration mais les gens son partout à peu près les mêmes & quand les choses d’art vous préoccupent on trouve bien peu de gens qui vous comprennent. C’e...
...e dit on, mais il y a une exposition de dessins & crépons japonais que tu verras quand tu viendra, qui est superbe. Je voudrais que tu étais déjà içi, n’oublie pas de me télégraphier. Bien...
in translation:
...might be an improvement, but people are more or less the same everywhere, and when artistic things...
in note 2:
...to let him make the journey alone. I should very much like to have your opinion on the matter’ (Il est très bien en ce moment & m’écrit des lettres très raisonnables. Il a un grand désir de venir à Paris pour quelques jours & ensuite pour aller travailler à la campagne...Croyez vous qu’il serait prudent de le...
in note 4:
...gravure Japonaise à L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts à Paris du 25 avril au 22 mai. Catalogue. Paris 1890 and...
870 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sunday, 11 May 1890.
in original text:
...Ces toiles prendront bien un mois à sécher mais l’employé d’ici se chargera de les expédier après mon départ. Je compte partir cette semaine le plus tôt possible et je commence aujourd’hui à faire ma malle. Je t’enverrai de Tarascon une dépêche. Oui, à moi aussi il me semble qu’il y a une époque très longue entre le jour où nous avons pris congé à la gare & ces jours ci. Mais – etrange de nouveau que, de même que ce jour-là nous étions si frappés des toiles de Seurat, ces derniers jours ici me sont de nouveau comme une révélation de couleur. Pour mon travail...
...qu’il ferait trop mauvais temps, ne t’en inquiètes pas, je trouverais bien mon chemin et je me...
...ve à Paris le matin vers 5 heures. mais enfin la dépêche te le dira au juste. Le jour de mon départ dépend de ce que j’aie fait ma malle et que j’aie fini mes toiles, à ces dernieres je...
in translation:
...turn my back on it. If your work prevented you from coming to get me at the station, or if it was at a difficult time or if the weather was too bad, don’t worry, I’d certainly find my way, and I...
...read Le Figaro’s account, indeed it leaves me more or less cold. Warm regards to Jo, and good...
871 To Joseph Ginoux. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 12 May 1890.
in title:
871 To Joseph Ginoux. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 12 May 1890.
in original text:
...tre tombé malade le jour que je suis venu à Arles pour prendre congé de vous tous – j’ai...
...e je vous serre la main bien fortement ainsi qu’aux voisins et croyez que là-bas je penserai encore souvent à vous tous car c’est vrai comme dit Mme Ginoux que quand on est amis on l’est pour...
...la main. Croyez moi tout à vous Vincent Veuillez adresser les lits Monsieur V. van Gogh Paris Petite vitesse au dépot en gare. Je ne compte rester à Paris qu’une quinzaine tout au plus...
...si vous aviez à m’écrire mon adresse à Paris est 18 Boulevard Montmartre Maison Boussod & C...
in note 3:
Van Gogh is mistaken about the number: the address of Boussod, Valadon & Cie was 19 boulevard Montmartre.
872 To Theo van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 13 May 1890.
in original text:
Après une dernière discussion avec Monsieur Perron j’ai obtenu de pouvoir faire ma malle, que j’ai fait...
...Dans tous les cas j’espère être à Paris avant Dimanche pour passer la journée, que tu auras...
...Ce matin comme j’ai été affranchir ma malle j’ai revu la campagne – après la pluie bien fraiche et toute fleurie – que de chôses que j’aurais encore faites. J’ai écrit également à Arles pour qu’ils expédient les deux lits et les garnitures de lit par petite vitesse.– J’es...
...Tu verras que dès le lendemain de mon arrivée je serai en train. Je te dis, pour le travail je me sens la tête sereine absolument et les coups de brosse me viennent et se suivent très logiquement. Enfin à Dimanche AU PLUS TARD, je te serre bien la main en attendant, bien des chôses à Jo. t...
in translation:
...a way that I may make the journey on Friday or Saturday at the latest to spend Sunday with you...
...For either I’d plunge into new works here, or it’s now that I have the leisure for the journey. Spending days doing nothing, here or elsewhere, that’s what would make me miserable in my...
in note 5:
...temps a eu pendant son séjour dans la maison plusieurs accès qui ont présenté une durée de quinze jours à un mois, pendant ces accès le malade est en proie à des terreurs terrifiantes, et il a essayé à diverses reprises de s’empoisonner soit en avalant de la couleur dont il se servait pour la peinture, soit en absorbant de l’essence de pétrole qu’il avait soustraite au garçon au moment où il garnissait ses lampes. Le dernier accès qu’il a eu s’est déclaré après un voyage qu’il fit à Arles et il a duré environ deux mois. Dans l’intervalle des accès le malade est parfaitement tranquille et lucide, il se livre...
873 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, Tuesday, 20 May 1890.
in original text:
...et chère Jo Après avoir fait connaissance avec Jo il me sera désormais difficile d’écrire à Theo seul mais Jo me permettra j’espère d’ecrire en français parceque après deux ans dans le...
...moins aussi gravement que moi. Il m’a piloté dans une auberge où l’on demandait 6 francs par...
...y rester. Lorsque j’aurai fait quelques études je verrai si il y aurait avantage à changer...
...a un très beau Pissaro, hiver avec maison rouge dans la neige. et deux beaux bouquets de Cezanne. Aussi un autre Cezanne du village. Moi à mon tour je veux volontiers, très volontiers donner ici...
...mais que 6 était 2 francs trop cher pour les dépenses que je fais. Il a beau dire que j’y serai...
...l’exeption des quelques esquisses d’impressionistes nommées. Malgré que c’est un drôle de...
...j’ai eu. J’ai bien senti à Paris que tout le bruit de là-bas n’est pas ce qu’il me faut...
...bonne chance et santé et espérant vous revoir sous bien peu, bonnes poignées de main Vincent.
in translation:
...of recouping some of the costs of my stay – for really it’s gravely beautiful, it’s the heart of...
in note 1:
...p. 197, but in rue de Pontoise (now rue François Villon). Van Gogh, however, preferred the less...
874 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Wednesday, 21 May 1890.
in title:
874 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Wednesday, 21 May 1890.
in original text:
...je vois des violets davantage où ils sont. Auvers est décidemment fort beau. Tellement que je crois que ce sera plus avantageux de travailler que de ne pas travailler malgré toutes les mauvaises chances qui sont à prévoir dans les tableaux. C’est très coloré ici – mais comme il y a de...
...plus longtemps. Je te demanderais également 10 mètres toile si cela ne te dérangeait pas mais si...
...les gens, est très secondaire parceque je n’ai pas de talent pour çà. A cela je n’y peux rien. Ne pas travailler ou travailler moins coûterait le double, voilà tout ce que je prévois SI on...
...qui sont ici viendront tout aussi bien chez moi sans que j’aille les voir exprès que si je faisais des démarches pour faire des connaissances. C’est en travaillant que l’on se rencontre et ca...
...je souffre un peu de ces jours ci – c’est qu’après cette longue reclusion les journées me paraissent des semaines. J’avais ça à Paris et ici aussi. Mais le travail marchant un peu, la...
in translation:
...I can’t do anything about that. Not working or working less would cost double, that’s all I can...
in note 5:
...p. 356. Marie Alexandrine Daumier, née Dassy (or d’Assy), the widow of Honoré Daumier, was living...
in textual note 54:
je prévois < ce prévois
RM19 To Willemien van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Wednesday, 21 May 1890.
in title:
RM19 To Willemien van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Wednesday, 21 May 1890.
in original text:
...reçue encore à St Remy. Cela n’allait plus là-bas et j’y devenais plustot malade davantage par le...
...ce que je suis parti. Mais j’aurais bien voulu que tu eusses encore vu les vergers d’oliviers que j’ai rapporté à présent, à ciels jaunes, roses, bleus, assez différents, je crois que c’est là des toiles qui n’ont encore guère été peints comme cela. Les autres jusqu’à present les peignaient toujours en gris. J’ai vu avec un immense plaisir l’exposition du champ de Mars...
in additional details:
...one of Van Gogh’s first days in Auvers, which is why we have dated it on or about Wednesday, 21 May 1890.
in note 6:
At the time of the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français an exhibition was also held at the Champs de Mars by the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, under the direction of Meissonier, showing the work of...
RM20 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, Saturday, 24 May 1890.
in original text:
...n petit mot de vous déjà. Mais considérant les chôses comme des faits accomplis – ma foi...
...mois, déjà le lait devient rare, déjà vous etes comme Theo fatiguée trop. Je ne veux pas dire...
...en Hollande cette année ci, c’est très très couteux toujours le voyage et jamais cela a fait...
...ces jours ci je vais très bien, je travaille dur et ai quatre études peintes et deux dessins. Tu...
...il m’a paru, ou mettons juste autant, voilà. Or lorsqu’un aveugle mènera un autre aveugle, ne...
...mieux, en tout cas est preferable au trou à punaises chez Tanguy et d’ailleurs j’y trouverais...
...Jeannin qui s’etaient egarés là – c’est pas leur place. Or des toiles comme celles l...
...es une partie au moins de mon mois dès le commencement. Mais je ferai encore mon possible de...
...que dire que je pense qu’il nous faut du repos à tous. Je me sens – raté – voilà pour mon...
...is qu’il y eût une possibilité de se revoir bientot à têtes plus reposées. Vincent.
in translation:
...in the country and stay there until the child is 3 or 4 months old. At present – it seems to me that...
...place he’s iller than I am, it seemed to me, or let’s say just as much, there you have it. Now...
in date note:
...sure, this letter and letter 875 have a striking number of subjects in common, but letter 875 is obviously...
in note 1:
Cf. Jer. 4:3: ‘ne semez plus parmi les épines’ (and sow not among thorns).
875 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, Sunday, 25 May 1890.
in original text:
...après il viendrait voir ma peinture. Il me parait très raisonable mais est aussi decouragé dans...
...pour que ce soit la vraie campagne mais combien néamoins changé depuis Daubigny. Mais non pas changé d’une façon déplaisante, il y a beaucoup de villas & habitations diverses modernes et bourgeoises, tres souriantes, ensoleillées et fleuries. Cela dans une campagne presque grasse, juste...
...puis je proposerais l’échange de deux de mes études contre une de chacun d’eux. Ci inclus un...
...st pas desagréable de revoir ces effets-là. Les lits ne sont pas arrivés non plus. Mais quoi qu’il en soit de ces embêtements, je me sens heureux de ne plus être si loin de vous autres et des amis. J’espère que ta santé ira bien. Cela m’a pourtant paru que tu avais moins d’apetit que dans le temps et d’après ce que disent les medecins pour nos temperaments il faudrait une nourriture très solide. Sois donc sage là-dedans, surtout Jo aussi ayant son enfant à nourrir. Vrai il...
in translation:
...with him. He told me, besides, that if melancholy or something else were to become too strong for me to...
...it; there’s a lot of well-being in the air. I see or think I see a calm there à la Puvis de...
RM21 To Joseph Jacob Isaäcson. Auvers-sur-Oise, Sunday, 25 May 1890.
in original text:
...dire consciencieusement à nos compatriotes où en seraient les chôses en vous basant sur des...
...recherches intéressantes de couleur et de sentiment moderne, paralèle, équivalentes à celles de...
...tirer de l’olivier.�� Or moi j’ai cherché quelques effets d’opposition du feuillage...
...et que les grosses mouches bleues, les cétoines émeraudes, les cigales enfin, nombreuses, volent...
...et une coloration exquises aux gris verts argentés. Là-dedans il y avait des femmes roses aussi...
...trange et providentielle des antiquités fort lointaines et la crue modernité. Plus vagues, plus...
...de ces dernieres années on se sent ému comme assistant à une continuation de toutes chôses, une...
...mais il se borne à nommer ces deux chôses – les cyprès – les oliviers.– Que d’autres...
...et Jules Breton aussi. Or je vous l’assure, je ne peux plus songer à Puvis de Chavannes sans...
...et défaits, devons nous arreter à grande distance du seuil de ces demeures-là. Alors quelque...
in translation:
...is resplendent and is striped with green and orange; or even further on in the autumn, the leaves...
...without having a presentiment that one day perhaps he or another will explain the olive trees to us...
...human being of the south. But when Chavannes or someone else shows us this human being, these old...
in note 1:
Van Gogh is referring here to J.J. Isaäcson’s recent writings on the analytical methods and laws of colour...
in note 3:
Charles-François Daubigny is considered a forerunner of Impressionism. Normandian apple trees are a...
RM22 Paul Gachet to Vincent van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Monday, probably June-July 1890.
in date note:
...wrote it when Van Gogh had been in Auvers for a while, i.e. some time in June or July 1890, on a Monday.
876 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 2 June 1890.
in original text:
...route. On y mangeait fort bien à cette époque-là & pas chèr. Il faut que j’y vienne une fois...
...de vacances à peu près nous irions d’abord chez toi et ensuite en Hollande. Ce serait au commencement du mois d’Aout probablement. Il ferait beaucoup de bien à nous tous d’être un peu à la...
...aujourd’hui huit jour, nous étions allé à St Cloud et là nous avons été surpris par un torrent de pluie comme je n’en ai jamais vu. Le café où nous nous sommes refugiés était inondé, il y avait bien un pied d’eau. Cela & la bousculade le soir pour avoir le train nous a donné des inquiétudes mais il n’en a eu qu’un fort rume & Jo n’a rien eu quoiqu’il eût été probable que son lait n’eût plus été bon. Cela arrive par les pieds mouillés. Il est arrivé içi un paquet de retour de St Remy que je t’expédie. Dr Peyron m’en a avisé en demendant de tes nouvelles. Nous serons heureux d’avoir de tes bonnes nouvelles. Si tu étais içi le petit te sourierait...
in translation:
...mère Siron’s in Barbizon people paid 5 francs, or 4 francs 50 if they stayed there a long time, and it...
in note 1:
An exhibition of 61 works by Jean-François Raffaëlli was held between 27 May and 21 June at Boussod...
in note 4:
...in rue de Pontoise (see letter 873, n. 1) or Café-Auberge Chez Colignon in rue Rémy, which...
in textual note 51:
inquiétudes < Text lost due to the edge of the paper.
877 To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Tuesday, 3 June 1890.
in original text:
...saufs à Paris dans un quatrième étage. Mais enfin il faut prendre les chôses comme elles sont...
...années sa femme mais il est très médecin et son métier et sa foi le tiennent pourtant. Nous sommes déjà très amis et par hasard il a connu encore Brias de Montpellier et a les mêmes idées...
...tête avec une casquette blanche, très blonde, très claire, les mains aussi à carnation claire...
...lui deux études que je lui ai données semaine passee. Un aloes avec des soucis et des cyprès puis Dimanche dernier des roses blanches, de la vigne et une figure blanche là-dedans. Je ferai très...
...belle, il a aussi un très ancien portrait de Guillaumin par lui, très different du nôtre, noir...
...comme un marchand d’antiquités, de chôses pas toujours intéressantes, c’est même terrible...
...on lui payerait en argent nous le dédomagerons pourtant toujours de ce qu’il ferait pour nous...
...payés dans les derniers temps pour des Millets &c. ont encore empiré l’etat de chôses quant...
in translation:
...He certainly appears to me as ill and confused as you or I, and he’s older and a few years ago he...
...continue to invite me to dinner each Sunday or Monday. But up to now, however agreeable it is to do...
...trouble of making dinners in which there are 4 or 5 courses, which is as abominable for him as it...
...always be what I need there for arranging flowers or still lifes. I’ve done studies for him, to...
...make sure not to stain or dirty it. If I neglected to keep on studying proportions and the nude I’d find myself in a bad position later on. Don’t think this absurd or futile. Gachet also told me...
in note 5:
...took along to Auvers must have been F 540 / JH 1892 or F 541 / JH 1893. Van Gogh speaks of ‘the last...
in note 10:
For Gauguin’s Madame Ginoux (study for ‘Night café, Arles’), see letter 866, n. 6.
878 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Auvers-sur-Oise, Thursday, 5 June 1890.
in translation:
...to keep on top of it. Well, in the last fortnight or 3 weeks that I was in St-Rémy I worked from...
in note 8:
Gachet had 26 paintings by Van Gogh in his possession. We know that he received a number of them from Van Gogh himself. Of the others, it is not known whether he received them from Vincent or from Theo (after Vincent’s death), or whether he acquired them elsewhere. For Gachet’s collection, see exhib. cat. Paris 1999.
879 To Willemien van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Thursday, 5 June 1890.
in original text:
...m’a beaucoup intéressé que tu aies soigné des malades à l’hôpital Wallon, certes c’est ainsi que l’on apprend un tas de chôses, des meilleures & des plus nécessaires que l’on puisse...
...ls viendront ici à Auvers pour quelques jours bientôt. Pour moi le voyage & le reste jusqu’ici se sont bien passés et de revenir dans le nord me distrait beaucoup. Puis j’ai trouvé dans le Dr...
...a quelques années ce qui a contribué à beaucoup le casser. Nous avons été amis pour ainsi dire...
...déjà peint deux études, l’une avec des plantes du midi, aloès, cyprès, soucis, l’autre des...
...figure et j’espère me trouvera quelques modèles intéressants à faire. Ce qui me passionne le...
...photographique mais par nos expressions passionnées, employant comme moyen d’expression et...
...s de l’antiquité; deux femmes causent (toujours en longues robes simples) d’un côté, des...
...une rencontre étrange et heureuse des antiquités fort lointaines avec la crue modernité. J’ai...
in translation:
...is frightening, they certainly couldn’t have done better or otherwise than they did. I hope that...
...to speak, immediately, and I’ll go and spend one or two days a week at his house working in his...
...t know if they’re costumes from now or clothes from antiquity; two women are talking (also in...
in note 13:
...him to Auvers and that Gachet therefore knew was F 540 / JH 1892 or F 541 / JH 1893. See letter 877, n. 5.
880 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Thursday, 5 June 1890.
in original text:
...que tu va toujours bien & que le séjour à Auvers a eu plustôt une bonne influence sur ta santé. Hier...
...de même que Jo le promette d’une façon absolue. Nous sommes allé à St Cloud le Dimanche de Pentecôte & là nous avons eu ce terrible averse qui doit être tombé chez toi aussi. Le petit sans attraper froid a été tout dérangé depuis, probablement par la foule où nous étions obligé de passer. Veux tu aller voir le Dr Gachet et lui dire que s’il fait beau nous acceptons avec grand...
...on mais aussi de la satisfaction. Tasset a envoyé les couleurs aujourd’hui & elles partent demain avec les Bargue. Guillaumin à mis à ta disposition un magnifique tableau qui était chez Tanguy...
...voir. Aurier viendra aussi un jour. Il est très content de ton tableau & viendra un Dimanche avec...
in note 1:
...6.7 centimes/km (i.e. 4.50, 3.68 and 2.68 francs, respectively). Paris, Musée français du chemin de fer.
in note 2:
For the exhibition of Raffaëlli’s work, see letter 876, n. 1.
in note 6:
...misfortune obliged him to exchange for three or four 100-franc notes’. See Sans remords, ni...
881 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers, Tuesday, 10 June 1890.
in original text:
...reverrons souvent. Depuis Dimanche j’ai fait deux études de maisons dans la verdure; à côté d...
...ne serait pas à mon avis d’importance très grande et alors j’aimerais bien que vous autres...
...où ils sont, à ce que je m’imagine ne se dérangeront pas pour me les envoyer moi n’étant plus là. C’est surtout la paresse traditionnelle et la vieille histoire traditionnelle que de leur côté les étrangers de passage laissent des meubles provisoires à l’endroit où ils sont. Mais...
...st pas là. Du moment qu’on est à Paris on est comme dans l’autre monde. et je crois qu’ils ne se dérangeront probablement pas, à plus forte raison qu’ils n’aimeront pas à se mêler...
...la direction de celui là qui pourtant est très capable et me voulait décidemment du bien, cela...
...y en a pas d’ici directement à Paris mais il y en a de Pontoise. Or de Pontoise à ici il y en...
...er avec Cheret qui doit avoir des idées là-dessus certainement. A bientôt. Je vous serre bien la...
in translation:
On reflection, as regards taking that house or another one, here’s what there is. Here I pay one franc a...
...and don’t give themselves the trouble of thinking or paying attention to others if one isn’t...
...Then either I’ll send the carrier from Pontoise or else I’ll come in a fortnight one time with...
...those drawings on cretonne, as you were saying. One day or another I believe I’ll find a way to...
in note 10:
For the exhibition of Raffaëlli’s work, see letter 876, n. 1.
in note 12:
...café-chantants. Perhaps this is why Van Gogh associates an exhibition in a café with him in particular. Chéret’s work was exhibited in Paris: in 1888 at Theo’s in boulevard Montmartre (three posters), in 1889 at Durand-Ruel’s, and in 1889-1890 in the Théâtre d’Application. See K.G. Saur, Allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon. Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. Munich and Leipzig 1998, vol. 18, pp. 439-443, Merlhès...
882 Marie Ginoux-Julien to Vincent van Gogh. Arles, Tuesday, 10 June 1890.
in original text:
Je fais réponse à vos deux lettres, si nous avons tant tardé c’est que mon mari a été malade, il lui est arrivé un petit accident, il avait des amis, l’occasion a fait qu’ils ont été à l’arrivée des boeufs, et le boeuf lui a donné un coup de tête sur les côtes, il ne pouvait pas marcher, cela l’a bien fait souffrir, moi je suis beaucoup mieux, mais je suis encore bien fatiguée, je ne peux rien faire. Samedi il vous expédiera ce que vous nous demandez...
in translation:
...compliments from all the neighbours. Mrs Bressy says they will go and see you for a day or two in Paris.
in note 2:
...he had stored with them in Arles. He confirmed receipt of it in letter 898, written on or about 10 July.
883 To Joseph and Marie Ginoux. Auvers-sur-Oise, Wednesday, 11 June 1890.
in original text:
...j’y compte que vous expédierez Samedi car j’attends après. Oui, moi aussi j’ai bien regretté de ne pas pouvoir revenir à Arles pour prendre congé de vous tous. Car vous savez bien que je...
...que de guérir la mienne, la société des autres malades m’influençait mal et enfin je n’y...
...fois dans un journal Parisien et l’autre fois à Bruxelles où j’avais exposé et maintenant...
...de boire j’ai fait du meilleur travail qu’auparavant, il y a toujours cela de gagné. Mais je pense souvent à vous tous encore, on ne peut pas comme on veut dans la vie, là où l’on se sent...
in note 1:
...Gogh is referring to Aurier’s article ‘Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh’, which appeared not only in...
in note 2:
For Isaäcson’s article ‘De revolutionaire schildersgroep in Frankrijk’, in De Portefeuille. Kunst- en...
884 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, on or about Friday, 13 June 1890.
in title:
884 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, on or about Friday, 13 June 1890.
in original text:
...J’ai vu la toile de madame Ginoux.– Très belle et très-curieuse, je l’aime mieux que mon...
...nécessaires à une oeuvre d’art, à une époque justement où l’art est une affaire reglée d’avance par de froids calculs.– Vous souvenez-vous de nos conversations d’autrefois à Arles o...
...une peuplade douce sans argent qui vit du sol. De divers côtés j’ai des renseignements très précis. D’une petite hutte en terre et bois j’en ferai une maison confortable avec mes dix doigts...
...qui plus tard voudront y venir trouveront là tous les matériaux pour travailler à très-peu de...
...r le Calme nécessaire au bon travail.– Pour le moment je vais en Bretagne passer deux mois avec de Haanm.– Toujours la même adresse au Pouldu, près Quimperlé (Finistère). Esperons que vous allez arriver complètement à vous rétablir à Auvers.– Cordialement T. A V. P. Gauguin
in note 2:
...Madame Ginoux (study for ‘Night café, Arles’), on which Van Gogh based the portrait, see letter...
885 To Anna van Gogh-Carbentus. Auvers, Friday, 13 June 1890.
in original text:
Als door een spiegel in een duistere rede – t’is zoo gebleven; het leven en het waarom van het scheiden en heengaan en t’blijven der onrust, men begrijpt er niet meer van dan...
in translation:
...Last year I read somewhere that writing a book or making a painting was the same as having a child. I...
886 To Willemien van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Friday, 13 June 1890.
in original text:
...exprimer le passage désespérément rapide des chôses dans la vie moderne. Hier dans la pluie...
...différentes, un champ de pommes de terre vert sombre, entre les plants réguliers la terre grasse et violette, un champ de pois en fleur blanchissant à côté, un champ de luzerne à fleurs roses avec une figurine de faucheur, un champ d’herbe longue et mûre d’un ton fauve, puis des blés...
...route une petite voiture et des maisons blanches à toits rouge cru au bord de cette route. De la...
...au premier plan, les toits du village venant après. Et encore un avec rien qu’un champ vert de...
...anciens, il y a de l’expression dans nos têtes actuelles et de la passion et comme de l’atten...
...effet à des moments sur les gens. Il y a des têtes modernes que l’on regardera encore longtemps, qu’on regrettera peutêtre cent ans après. Si j’avais dix ans de moins, avec ce que je sais maintenant, comme j’aurais de l’ambition pour travailler à cela. Dans les conditions données je...
in translation:
...this road. Fine rain streaks the whole with blue or grey lines. There’s another landscape with...
887 To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Saturday, 14 June 1890.
in original text:
Enfin j’ai reçu des nouvelles quant à mes meubles, l’homme où ils sont a été malade tout le temps, ayant reçu un coup de corne d’un taureau en aidant à les débarquer. Donc sa femme m’écrit que c’était pour cela que du jour au lendemain ils l’avaient remis mais que samedi, donc aujourd’hui, on les...
...vous voir arriver et de revoir le petit. Je vous serre bien la main à tous deux. t. à v. Vincent.
888 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Sunday, 15 June 1890.
in original text:
...tranquille pour toi quand tes meubles seront arrivés aussi pour que tu puisses peut-être trouver un...
...matin voir tes tableaux, il est très occupé avec ses Monticelli qui vont paraître dans une dizaine de jours. Il aime beaucoup le portrait de femme que tu as fait à Arles. Pour son projet de la...
in note 7:
...Theo could be referring here to either Lauzet or Gauguin, to whom the rest of the paragraph refers...
in note 8:
...constantly refers to the second series of Arlésiennes that Van Gogh painted in Saint-Rémy. Assuming that...
in note 10:
...inventor’ was a certain Charlopin. The ‘payment’ mentioned by Theo, on which Gauguin’s project supposedly depended, was the money that Charlopin was meant to receive for an invention he had sold. Gauguin wanted to sell him 38 paintings and 5 ceramic pieces for 5,000 francs, hoping in this way to fund his voyage to the tropics. This emerges from a lost letter from Gauguin to Theo of 30 or 31 May 1890 (quoted in part in Gauguin lettres 1983, p. 183, n. 3). Gauguin’s plan came to nothing...
889 To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Tuesday, 17 June 1890.
in original text:
...t mal, lui aussi, – certes sans le faire exprès – les tubes de cobalt par ex. comme j’en ai...
...lorsque comme moi on ignore la chimie. Je trouverais néamoins fort bien que dans le cas où le...
...les conditions actuelles. Si néamoins il persiste à vouloir en faire je lui ai dit qu’il ferait bien d’aller en Bretagne avec Gauguin et de Haan parcequ’il vivra là-bas de 3 francs par jour...
...là-bas. Certes tu as raison que cela vaut mieux pour Gauguin que de rester à Paris. Très content...
...nt et surtout pour le reste des chôses de la Martinique. Lesquelles planches M. Gachet nous tirera...
...M. Gachet viendra un jour voir mes toiles à Paris et alors nous en choisirions pour la gravure...
...epis, des feuilles différentes de verdure. l’une presque rouge, l’autre très verte, l’autre...
...ou trois. Mais nous ne sommes pas encore là. Certes l’avenir est bien dans les tropiques pour la...
...avec Paris, un coup de tête alors que des années durant on s’est rouillé en vegetant ici. Bon...
in translation:
...to Madagascar I’d be able to follow him there. For one should go there in twos or threes. But we aren’t there yet. Certainly the future is very much in the tropics for painting, either in Java or in Martinique, Brazil or Australia, and not here, but you feel that it hasn’t been proved to me that you, Gauguin or I are those people of that future. But certainly once again, there and not here...
...but going there without the means of existence or a relationship with Paris, a mad impulse when for...
RM23 To Paul Gauguin, Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Tuesday, 17 June 1890.
in title:
RM23 To Paul Gauguin, Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Tuesday, 17 June 1890.
in original text:
...bien cette nuance. J’ai encore de là-bas un cyprès avec une étoile. un dernier essai – un...
...fenêtres illuminées orangées et un très-haut cyprès tout droit, tout sombre. Sur la route une voiture jaune attelée d’un cheval blanc et deux promeneurs attardés. Tres romantique si vous...
...j’espère y retourner pour quelques jours. Très content d’apprendre par votre lettre que vous...
...la connaissance de de Haan. De ces jours-là nous chercherons à faire quelque chôse de voulu et...
...là-bas. Tenez, une idée qui peutetre vous ira. je cherche à faire des études de blé ainsi, je ne peux cependant pas dessiner cela – rien que des épis, tiges bleus verts, feuilles longues comme des rubans vert & rose par le reflet, épis jaunissant légerement bordés de rose pâle par la floraison poussiereuse. un liseron rose dans le bas enroulé autour d’une tige. Là-dessus, sur...
...qui ferait par sa vibration songer au bruit doux des épis se balançant à la brise. C’est pas...
in translation:
...a synthesis of an Arlésienne if you like, as syntheses of Arlésiennes are rare, take it as a work by...
...that will be understood by you, me and just one or two others, as we’d like it to be understood...
...come for a month to join you there to do a seascape or two, but especially to see you and make the...
in note 2:
...Madame Ginoux (study for ‘Night café, Arles’), on which Van Gogh based the portrait, see letter...
in note 9:
...about the portrait could refer to either Lauzet or Gauguin; we assume, however, that he was referring...
890 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 23 June 1890.
in original text:
...qu’il préférait la toile que tu as faite après la lecture du livre de Rod, je lui ai dit qu...
...il y avait là-dedans une toile de 20 environ faite à Frameries dans le Borinage, représentant...
...de soleils très vifs sur un côté contre les blés verts. Le ciel est très lumineux. Je trouve...
...sont remarquables. Ce n’est pas très habile ni puissant, mais très sincère, comme le garçon...
...prendrais. Ce sont des fleurs de paques. C’est très doux & harmonieux & tout de même il y a de...
...il. Si tu viens à Paris tu ne dois pas manquer d’aller le voir, il sera très content quand tu...
...de peintre. Pas de raffinement de procédé, mais un dessin fait sur métal. J’aime beaucoup ce...
...aquafortistes se plaignent toujours qu’ils sont forcés d’aller chez l’imprimeur pour les...
...Nous nous réjouissons déjà dans l’idée de venir bientôt chez toi. Pour différents raison, 1...
...je ne perds pas beaucoup de ne pas être là. Sous ce pli je te mets fr 50.– La semaine dernière...
in translation:
...when you come to see him, either in the garden or at his place. And now I must tell you something...
in note 3:
...Quost, Easter flowers, which was exhibited at the Salon des Artistes français, see letter 866, n. 10.
in note 7:
For the exhibition of Raffaëlli’s work, which had lasted until 21 June 1890, see letter 876, n. 1.
891 To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Tuesday, 24 June 1890.
in original text:
...de fr. 50 qu’elle contenait. L’échange que tu as fait avec Bock est très bien et suis bien curieux de voir comment il fait à présent. J’espère que la santé de Jo va mieux puisque tu dis qu’elle a été indisposé. Certes il faut venir ici le plus tôt possible, la nature est bien bien...
...aux garçons une dizaine de francs. Maintenant les toiles de là-bas sont arrivées, les Iris ont...
...une petite toile avec montagnes et enfin un cyprès avec une étoile. Cette semaine j’ai fait un portrait d’une jeune fille de 16 ans ou à peu près, en bleu contre fond bleu, la fille des gens...
...bois, des troncs lilas de peupliers et là-dessous de l’herbe fleurie rose, jaune, blanche et...
...dans la verdure sombre. Le Hollandais travaille assez assidument mais se fait encore illusion sur l’originalité de sa manière de voir, considérablement. Il fait des études à peu près comme...
...is beaucoup un peu plus tard venir à Paris quelques jours, précisement pour aller une fois chez...
in translation:
...ago. His letter is enclosed. I told him that it seemed to me sufficient to give the lads ten francs or so.
...ve done a portrait of a young girl of 16 or so, in blue against a blue background, the daughter of...
...assiduously every day, he might get there. But alone or with painters who work little he wouldn’t...
...order to go and see Quost once, to see Jeannin, one or two others. I’d very much like you to have...
892 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, on or about Saturday, 28 June 1890.
in title:
892 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh. Le Pouldu, on or about Saturday, 28 June 1890.
in original text:
...re lettre ne me dit pas grand chose – Si vous avez vu mes études à Paris chez Goupil, ce que vous en pensez! Si mon voyage projeté pour Madagascar vous parait déraisonnable. J’en rêve tous les jours au point que je ne travaille presque pas en ce moment, voulant me reposer un peu, prendre des forces nouvelles pour là-bas.– Et vous, vous êtes insatiable; je vois que vous n’avez pas perdu de temps à Auvers.– Il est bon cependant de se reposer quelquefois l’esprit et le corps...
...plaisir je verrais l’ami Vincent près de nous. Je ne connais pas le docteur Gachet mais j’ai entendu parler de lui souvent par le père Pissarro. Et ce doit être pour vous agréable d’avoir près de vous quelqu’un qui sympatise avec votre travail, vos idées.– Hélas, moi je me vois...
...destinée écrite ne peut se renverser.– Amitiés de l’ami de Haan. Cordialement T. A V. Paul...
in note 1:
...après: ‘The last letter I had was dated from Auvers, near Pontoise. He told me that he had hoped to recover sufficiently to come and meet me in Brittany, but that now he was forced to acknowledge the impossibility of a cure. “Dear master (the only time he uttered this word), it is more worthy, after having known you and having caused you trouble, to die in a good state of mind than in a degraded state.”’ (La dernière lettre que j’ai eue était datée d’Auvers près Pontoise. Il me disait qu’il avait espéré guérir assez pour venir me retrouver en Bretagne, mais qu’aujourd’hui il était obligé de reconnaître l’impossibilité d’une guérison. “Cher maître (la seule fois qu’il ait prononcé ce mot), il est plus digne après vous avoir connu et vous avoir fait de la peine, de mourir en bon état d’esprit qu’en état qui dégrade.”) See Gauguin 1923, pp. 23-24. The letter Gauguin claims to quote is not known...
893 To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur Oise, Saturday, 28 June 1890.
in original text:
...orgue. J’en ferai un pour toi – j’ai remarqué que cette toile fait très bien avec une autre en largeur de blés, ainsi – l’une toile étant en hauteur et rose, l’autre d’un vert pâle...
...deux figures, la mère en robe carmin foncé, la fille en rose pâle avec un chapeau jaune sans ornements aucun, des figures très saines, campagnardes, bien hâlés par le grand air, brulés par le soleil, la mère surtout avait un visage très très rouge et des cheveux noirs et deux diamants dans les oreilles. Et j’ai encore pensé à cette toile de Delacroix, l’education maternelle. Car...
...bois dans l’illustration – avec les cheveux coupés courts. Bonne poignée de main en pensée...
in translation:
...of the month, anyway at the most convenient moment, there’s no urgency for a few days earlier or later.
in source status:
Facsimile in Paul Gachet, Van Gogh à Auvers. Histoire d’un tableau. Paris 1953, (unpaginated) ills. 9 and...
894 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 30 June and Tuesday, 1 July 1890.
in original text:
...le 30 Juin 1890. Mon très cher frère, Nous avons été dans la plus grande inquiétude, notre...
...ses forces & ne pas avoir de nouvelles épreuves à subir. En ce moment heureusement elle dort...
...la même maison au premier? Devons nous aller à Auvers, en Hollande ou non. Dois je vivre sans...
...la tête pour moi ou pour nous mon vieux, sâches le que ce qui me fait le plus grand plaisir c’e...
...les paquerettes & les mottes de terre fraichement remuées, et les branches de buisson qui germent...
...dans la mer à Scheveningen, ni la lune & les étoiles une belle nuit d’été ou d’hiver, non...
...viennent de très loin mais qui ont été transmis par notre père & notre mère bien aimés, ils...
...d’orangé dans le fond. Le croquis du paysage me fait penser à quelque chose de très beau. Je...
...dimanche & quelques jours de plus. Les salons sont fermés mais tu n’y perds pas grand chose car...
...matin je me suis réveillé avec les mêmes idées. C’est déçidé d’une façon inébranlable...
in translation:
...first floor? Ought we to go to Auvers, to Holland or not. Ought I to live without worrying about...
...up as a dealer on my own account? I think that as I write to you I’m reaching this conclusion, that it’s my duty, and that if Ma or Jo or you or I tighten our belts a little, it won’t get us anywhere, and that on the contrary, you and I by moving in the world not as poor down-and-outs who...
...this old chap? Don’t bother your head about me or about us, old chap, be aware that what gives me...
...and we’ll still gaze with admiration at the sun or the moon, according to the time of day. We...
...moon and the stars one fine night in summer or winter, no, whatever happens, that is our possession...
in textual note 26:
épreuves < preuves
895 Théophile Peyron to Vincent van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Tuesday, 1 July 1890.
in original text:
je me conforme à vos instructions et vous adresse un Bon de poste de 20 f. restant de la somme que j’avais entre les mains. je vois avec plaisir que votre santé se maintient dans un état satisfaisant, et que votre existence au milieu de ce...
896 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, Wednesday, 2 July 1890.
in original text:
...tre très éreintant et voudrais pouvoir donner un coup de main. En venant de but en blanc je crains d’augmenter la confusion. De tout mon coeur je partage vos inquiétudes pourtant. C’est bien dommage que chez M. Gachet la maison est si encombrée de toutes sortes de chôses.– Sans cela je...
...Dans la rue ici il y a des gosses nés à Paris et réellement maladifs – qui pourtant vont bien...
...rge ont resté dans le temps à Paris; là ils etaient constamment indisposés, parents et enfants...
...ici on pourrait se passer des vaches, ânes & autres quadrupèdes. Et pour Jo, pour que dans la...
...la vie mais quant à jamais avoir une femme à moi je n’y crois pas très fort. Je crains plutôt...
...davantage ici où il y a des enfants, des bêtes, des fleurs et du bon air. Je vous serre bien la...
...de 50 fr. et de l’article sur les Indépendants. Il viendra probablement te voir un Anglais...
...tudes, qui sont encore assez ternes mais il observe pourtant la nature. Il a été ici à Auvers...
in translation:
...true. So that you aren’t too alone I could come myself to stay at your place for a week or fortnight.
in note 7:
This inn was perhaps Auberge Saint-Aubin or Café-Auberge Chez Colignon. See letter 873, n. 1, and letter...
in note 8:
...néo-impressionistes. Pavillon de la Ville de Paris (Champs-Elysées)’, L’Art et Critique. Revue Littéraire, Dramatique, Musicale et Artistique 2 (29 March 1890), no. 44, pp. 203-205. The following is an excerpt from what Lecomte wrote about the works on display: ‘Mr Vincent Van Gogh’s wild impastoes and his exclusive use of colours with flowing harmonies create powerful effects: the purple backgrounds of “Cypresses” and the symphony of greens in a patch of undergrowth make a vivid impression’. (Les empâtements farouches de M. Vincent Van Gogh et son emploi exclusif de couleurs aux harmonies aisées aboutissent à des effects puissants: les fonds violets de «Cypres...
897 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Saturday, 5 July 1890.
in original text:
...t’apporte de bonnes nouvelles du petit. Après quelques jours de souffrance il a recommenc...
...chez Tangui, ensuite un Bouda japonais que j’ai vu chez un brocanteur & après cela nous allons déjeuner chez nous pour voir tes études à toi. Tu resteras chez nous tant que tu voudras & tu nous...
...pour boucher des trous. Il a eu un abcès à l’oeil. Pauvre vieux! Bonjour frère, nous comptons...
RM24 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, Monday, 7 July 1890.
in original text:
...peu ahuris tous et d’ailleurs tous un peu en travail, il importe relativement peu d’insister pour avoir des définitions bien nettes de la position dans laquelle on se trouve. Vous me surprenez un peu, semblant vouloir forcer la situation...
in translation:
Can I do anything about it – perhaps not – but have I done something wrong, or anyway can I do something or other that you would...
898 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Thursday, 10 July 1890.
in title:
898 To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Thursday, 10 July 1890.
in original text:
...laborieuses pour nous tous que j’ai partagées avec vous.– C’est pas peu de chôse lorsque...
...mais un peu pourtant – que je vous étais redoutable étant à votre charge – mais la lettre...
...es étendues de blés sous des ciels troublés et je ne me suis pas gêné pour chercher à exprimer de la tristesse, de la solitude extrême. Vous verrez cela j’espère sous peu – car j’espère vous les apporter à Paris le plus tôt possible puisque je croirais presque que ces toiles vous diront ce que je ne sais dire en paroles, ce que je vois de sain et de fortifiant dans la campagne. Maintenant la troisieme toile est le jardin de Daubigny, tableau que je méditais depuis que je suis...
...elles bien souvent, d’ailleurs j’ai ce matin une lettre d’elles et répondrai sous peu. Poignées de main en pensée. t. à v. Vincent mon argent ne me durera pas bien longtemps cette fois ci, ayant à mon retour eu à payer les frais de bagages d’Arles. Je garde de ce voyage à Paris de...
in translation:
...extreme loneliness. You’ll see this soon, I hope – for I hope to bring them to you in Paris as...
...least I feel I am, too old to retrace my steps or to desire something else. This desire has left me...
900 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Monday, 14 July 1890.
in original text:
Nous sommes très content que tu n’es plus autant sous l’impression des affaires en suspens que quand tu étais içi. Vraiment le danger n’est pas aussi grave que tu le croyais. Si nous pouvons tous avoir une bonne santé, qui nous permette d’entreprendre ce qui dans nôtre tête petit à petit devient une nécessité, tout ira bien. Déceptions certes mais nous ne sommes pas à nos débuts & nous sommes...
...i chez Mesdag pour lui parler du Corot, ensuite à Anvers avec un tab. de Diaz. Quoique les huit...
...n franchement que tout ce que je faisais vis à vis de lui était de l’attirer dans l’apparteme...
...il se retire au moment décisif & cependant tu étais là quand nous en causions & il me répondait...
...sa femme. Que bien lui fasse. Sous ce pli tu reçois fr 50–. Si j’avais le bonheur de faire des...
901 Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh. Paris, Tuesday, 22 July 1890.
in original text:
...le 22 Juillet 1890 Mon cher Vincent, Jo m’envoit de Hollande ta lettre qui nous avait suivie & je la lis un peu avec surprise. Où as tu vu ces violentes querelles domestiques? Que nous étions très fatigués par des préoccupations ininterrompues au sujet de l’avenir de nous tous, oui; qu’avec cette affaire vis à vis de la maison je ne savais pas très bien ce qui était mon intérêt, oui, mais vraiment je ne vois pas les querelles domestiques intenses dont tu parles. Est ce la...
...santé va bien & comme tu disais que tu écris difficilement & ne me parle pas de ton travail, j...
...elle le prenait & le rendait content. Wil aussi allait bien & était très gentile pour nous. Jo est rester chez eux encore un jour après mon départ & alors est parti à Amsterdam où elle est...
...plus que celle de ses parents. Je serai très content quand elle sera de retour car la maison est...
...me reposer, dont j’avais bien besoin. Espérons que la santé à nous tous puisse s’améliorer...
in translation:
...afraid that there’s something that’s bothering you or that isn’t going right. In that case...
in note 4:
For Prévost’s Lady with a dog, see letter 658, n. 9.
902 To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Wednesday, 23 July 1890.
in original text:
...e t’écrire sur bien des chôses mais d’abord l’envie m’en a tellement passée, puis j’en sens l’inutilité. J’espère que tu auras retrouvé ces messieurs dans de bonnes dispositions...
...ité d’approfondir le tort ou la raison dans des discussions éventuelles de part ou autre. Seulement cela m’intéresserait pas. Ici les chôses vont vite – Dries, toi et moi n’en sommes nous...
...semble en revenant – c’est que les peintres eux mêmes sont de plus en plus aux abois.– Bon...
...avec plaisir que le Gauguin de Bretagne que j’ai vu etait très beau et il me semble que les autres qu’il a fait là-bas doivent l’être aussi.– Peut-être verras tu ce croquis du jardin de...
...de 2 toiles de 30 représentant d’immenses étendues de blé après la pluie. Hirschig a demand...
...les Konink qui sont chez toi à peu près comme couleur. Cela deviendra peutêtre tout à fait...
...les affaires &c. bien le bonjour à Jo et poignées de main en pensée. b. à v. Vincent. le...
in translation:
...not to forget the little French I know, and certainly wouldn’t see the point of delving deeper into the rights or wrongs in any discussions on one side or the other. It’s just that this wouldn’t interest me.
...he would have to be given the 20%. Which would be simplest. Or you’d put them into the consignment of colours for me, adding the invoice or telling me how much they cost, and then he’d send you...
...colour. It will become completely like that, perhaps, or like the things by Voerman that we saw...
in note 2:
...We’ve not fallen out, either with him or with each other. He wasn’t even aware that Dries...
RM25 To Theo van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, Wednesday, 23 July 1890.
in original text:
Je voudrais bien t’écrire sur bien des chôses mais j’en sens...
...chôses de moindre importance? Ma foi avant qu’il y ait chance de causer affaires à têtes plus reposées il y a probablement loin. Voilà la seule chose qu’à present je puisse dire et que cela pour ma part je l’ai constaté avec un certain effroi, je ne l’ai pas caché déjà mais c’e...
...qui même dans la débacle gardent leur calme. Car là nous en sommes et c’est là tout ou au moins le principal que je puisse avoir à te dire dans un moment de crise relative. Dans un moment où les chôses sont fort tendues entre marchands de tableaux – d’artistes morts – et artistes...
...je sache et puisse prendre parti je te trouve agissant réellement avec humanité mais que veux tu
in translation:
...calm. For that’s where we are, and that’s all, or at least the main thing I can have to tell...

top

25 essay items found

Correspondents / Artist friends
...There are also a few surviving letters from or to other artists: John Peter Russell, Arnold Koning...
...to handle and insert in portfolios arranged by subject or the artist’s name. Van Rappard’s...
...Although he eventually accepted Van Rappard’s criticism, or rather put it aside, and wrote to...
...in 1890, Bernard said that he saw Van Gogh ‘for the first time in Cormon’s studio...Then at...
...same fluency as would a Hokusai or an Utamaro’. They wrote to each other almost continuously between March and October 1888, but after Van Gogh’s letter of 1 or 2 November of that year, when...
...and Gauguin must have met in Paris in November or December 1887. Gauguin had returned in the middle...
in note 36:
...Obreen on 1 May 1889. On Annie’s behalf they tried to sell the letters in New York ‘for not less than three or four thousand guilders’ (FR b6996-5). In 1954, a year after Annie’s death, the letters were...
in note 42:
...Renoir, Sisley and Camille Pissarro among their number. The ‘petit boulevard’ consisted of...
in note 45:
...meeting with the Van Gogh brothers see Merlhès 1984, pp. 470-471, and exhib. cat. Chicago 2001, pp...
in note 46:
...Little by little they’re going to force us on their clientele’; see Merlhès 1984, p. 166.
in note 48:
...from Pissarro and the Neo-Impressionists see Merlhès 1984, pp. 139-141, and exhib. cat. Chicago 2001, pp...
in note 49:
It is clear from Gauguin’s letter 581 of on or around 29 February 1888, in which he writes ‘I have left...
in note 51:
...with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’ (both Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Bernard...
in note 55:
The ‘draft letter’ for Gauguin, which Van Gogh sent for Theo’s approval at the end of May 1888...
Correspondents / Family members
...in the fullest sense of the word, from a distance or close by. That hope has now vanished and both...
...then on. There were no longer any heated exchanges or differences of opinion, but instead mutual...
...Vincent’s life is almost complete, with only two or three of Theo’s letters missing between the...
...indirectly – either from Vincent’s letters or sometimes from the family correspondence.The...
...times when they were simply not on speaking, or indeed writing terms. After the Reverend Van Gogh...
...He also gave her advice about love: ‘No, my dear little sister, learn to dance or fall in love with one or more notary’s clerks, officers, in short whoever’s within your reach; rather, much rather commit any number of follies than study in Holland’ (574). He hoped that she would marry an...
...who had such a powerful influence in the Van Gogh family: the art dealers Cornelis Marinus (‘Uncle Cor�� or ‘C.M.’) and Vincent van Gogh (‘Uncle Cent’). One such written to Uncle Cor in...
in note 7:
...Jo could be a reaction to what Theo had written, or equally to the latter’s earlier letter 820. One...
in note 11:
...letters from Cor van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, 30 April 1875 and undated (on or around 7 December 1875?).
in note 26:
See Kept or thrown away.
Publication history / De brieven 1990: a large edition for a small readership
...or merged with) his immense popularity. In the first decades after his death, the various activities of Jo van Gogh-Bonger, avant-garde artists and admirers, art dealers and newspaper editors worked together to make the public, little by little, more receptive to Van Gogh’s work, but in the second half of the twentieth century the disparate aspects that governed his fame and reputation – his work, his personality and his letters – each took on its own publicity dynamic, without a great deal of interdependence.This did not prevent all the stops from being pulled out in such an important year as the centenary of his death. A number of major Van Gogh exhibitions were staged in 1990, and the artist suddenly became even more of a focus of attention than usual. Alongside monographic exhibitions there were also initial steps to explore Van Gogh’s artistic...
in note 151:
...Spiegel (22 January 1990, pp. 178-179). This was done without the knowledge or cooperation of the museum.
Publication history / A flood of supplementary publications
...letter 821), in Madeleine Octave Maus, Trente années de lutte pour l’art, 1884-1914. Brussels...
...letter 695/687), in Claude Roger-Marx, ‘Lettres inédites de Vincent van Gogh et de Paul Gauguin...
...of Van Gogh’s letters. Jo van Gogh-Bonger had previously made a number of attempts to interest British or American publishers, without success. The English edition contained the letters up to 1886...
...the letters were later given the distinguishing B number. This, and his improvements to the text...
in note 82:
...only first publications, not reprints, repeats or translations. Likewise it does not include the...
in note 95:
The three-volume edition Lettres illustrées de Vincent van Gogh (1888-1890) (Lettres illustrées 2003) is to some extent similar. The second volume contains the texts of the letters with explanatory notes in the...
Correspondents / Preservation of the letters
...that Theo did not keep his belongings in this period, or that they were lost, but it is by no means...
...in Geel, Belgium. It is also possible that letters, or parts of letters from early 1883 have been...
...not a hoarder, and he is known to have thrown or burned letters he received. The letters from Theo...
...other people packed up his belongings or cleared up after him and gave or sent them to Theo (such...
...the 903 extant letters there must have been a considerable number from and to Van Gogh that we no...
...a few dozen of them, as well as a similar number from Van Gogh’s sister Willemien. It can be...
...Just as Van Gogh cleared up by burning letters or throwing them away, so many of the letters that...
...ng to Tersteeg’s son Johan, those ‘two or three hundred letters’ were thrown into the stove...
...not for sharing his ideas about life and art or going into deep discussions about artistic matters...
...to demonstrate his affection’. A very small number of letters, eleven in all, can be described...
in note 60:
...support and protection that we got from you – for me, in particular, it was critical’. It is...
Biographical & historical context / The financial backgrounds
...in the Borinage in Belgium was not renewed.His decision to become an artist was largely due to Theo...
...event, he received his basic salary in more or less monthly instalments of 333.35 francs, which he...
...hold out for some time yet, even without selling this or that. If you feel the need to do a great...
...In 1873 his salary was 50 guilders a month, or roughly 100 francs. By way of comparison, Theo, who...
...melancholy feeling, but I’m in some sort of impasse or mess; what else can one do? And so it’s...
...ld it be convenient for you to take care of it then or should I do it? Tell me frankly.’ It turns...
...rate in the period 1880-1888 was on average around 47 or 48 guilders for 100 francs. This was a...
...1882 Theo sent money three times a month on or around the 1st, 10th and 20th. For Vincent these...
...had written to say that his funds were low, or even that he was completely broke. The reason why...
...bought canvas and stretchers (the latter costing 1.50 or 1 franc each, depending on the size) and...
in note 120:
...he earns it’ (FR b939, Theo to Mrs Van Gogh, on or around 1 June 1885). In April 1888 Vincent felt that...
Biographical & historical context / The immediate family circle
...Museum / Vincent van Gogh Foundation) Cornelis (‘Cor’) Vincent van Gogh (1867-1900) attended...
in note 153:
...berühmter Männer. Zwölf biographische Porträts. Ed. Louise F. Pusch. Frankfurt 1985, pp. 453-491.
in note 154:
On Cor see M.H. van Meurs, ‘Cor van Gogh en de boerenoorlog’, Journal for contemporary history. Joernaal...
Publication history / The early publications of the letters
...had they not been preceded by a number of different events. In January 1890 the avant-garde critic Albert Aurier published in his series of articles ‘Les isolés’, an article praising Van Gogh...
...to his mother: ‘Last week we had a painter or a friend of Vincent’s to dinner three times, one...
...from Amsterdam) where several Dutch artists and writers lived or spent part of the year. Among the...
...Le Pelletier in Paris, where sixteen paintings and a number of drawings were on show for a month...
...friend, an implacable judge, utterly without egoism or ambition, as his so simple letters show, in...
...to protect Van Gogh from his supposed mistakes or exaggerations, and in the Mercure version he...
...from including personal issues relating to himself or other people. ‘Rather than publishing all...
...reveal little if anything about private circumstances or intimacies; the scabrous tone in some of...
...forms (differing numbers of illustrations, de luxe or cheaper book designs and the like). Bruno...
in note 41:
...of Julius Meier-Graefe’s writings about Van Gogh or the prestigious Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne in...
Publication history / The first standard editions
...him another 840 francs on 23 January 1912 ‘for full payment regarding the edition of Van Gogh’s...
...replacing names with initials or with an X, or by rendering offensive or indelicate words simply by...
...Gogh-Bonger’s introduction suffers from a considerable number of errors and omissions, but given...
...is very factual – a great contrast, deliberate or otherwise, to Julius Meier-Graefe’s rapturous...
...also put in an occasional literature reference or historical explanation. Most of these insertions...
...or a whole passage, short or long. Sometimes she abridged a long string of edifying quotations or...
...or part of long enumerations, probably on the grounds that one can have too much of a good thing, or...
...passages about issues that impinged on family sensitivities or might cast a slur on the reputation...
...but known to the public as De Wereldbibliotheek or WB, after a series of publications for which it...
...fact that he made Jo van Gogh-Bonger a number of specific financial proposals without having the...
in note 52:
...him above all others through abstract argumentation or enthusiastic words, but to demonstrate his greatness...
Publication history / The first collected edition of 1952-1954 and thereafter
...to Theo, Bernard and Van Rappard, Theo to Vincent) or a miscellany of extracts; the centenary of...
...for themselves, rather than add even more anecdotes or interpretations to the existing Van Gogh...
...able to lay my hand have been brought together. A number have been added to those in the published...
...As in the first volume, a significant number of new ones [i.e. letters] and documents omitted...
...marks have a tendency to become smaller or even barely visible. Someone like Vincent leaves capital...
...where he quotes extensively, under number 143a, from Louis Piérard’s La vie tragique de Vincent...
...Bonger wrote to his parents from Paris, a number of passages from Gustave Coquiot, Vincent van Gogh...
...he used elsewhere, but gave each item a new T number. There were, and this is indicative of his...
...period in question – to be precise to Willemien, or to Willemien and Mrs van Gogh together, to...
...the letters without any commentary or explanatory notes, at most a number and pagination – as if...
in note 121:
Verzamelde brieven 1952-1954, vol. 3, pp. 170-176. Number 462b is missing. This may be a printer’s error...
in note 136:
Leymarie had a number of publications on Van Gogh to his name and held various eminent posts in the...
in note 140:
These were letters 583, 654 and 859, parts of which were reproduced in facsimile in the catalogue to the exhibition Oeuvres écrites de Gauguin et Van Gogh in the Institut Néerlandais in Paris in 1975.
in note 141:
...576; letter 24 in Cooper’s book). See also Merlhès 1989, p. 56, and Roland Dorn’s book review in Oud...
About this edition / Introduction
...numbers of people we believe would prefer to study or enjoy the letters by reading them in the...
...as possible and is consequently not literary or interpretive.The commentary, and in particular the...
...in a very nuanced or detailed manner – for modern readers. For the first time we have substantiated the dating of each letter and, if necessary, explained the arrangement (the sequence of pages or...
...principal text running over one or more sheets, and there may be one or more postscripts. The great...
...maintain or establish contact between the writer and an identified person or number of persons with whom he or she has a connection and which is not intended in the first instance for publication or...
...and a signature. The text is meant to be sent or given to the person to whom it is addressed...
...a letter was put aside, then continued or added to later and sent as a single entity, we have regarded it as one letter, regardless of the presence or absence of formal elements (particularly blank...
in note 8:
...background information: ‘One may, if appropriate, regard an unsent letter as a “rough version�� or as a sort of rejected text and include it in the apparatus’ (Mathijsen 1987, vol. 3, p. 14). We have not...
About this edition / The reading texts
...corrected inconsistencies in spelling or the use of capitals, or introduced missing punctuation.Th...
...the word or there is a superscript; thus ‘phot_’; ‘&c_’ ; ‘Matth_’; but ‘Mr’; ‘Ds...
...them where they cause words or expressions to lose their meaning or the spelling could give rise to...
...not intervened when Van Gogh incorrectly adds or omits the case endings -n or -r, as in the case of...
...actual reading in the manuscript or comments on the constitution of the text, or both. For example...
...try to give an indication of the number of illegible words or letters, thus: [xxx xx]. Where...
...be doubt as to the intended meaning of a word or all or part of a sentence, we explain this in the...
...and/or readability to prevail over other considerations. Examples include différentes...
...of là with an indication of place (là bas, là haut, là dessus and so on), because bas, haut and...
...page; the page number (assigned by us) follows the sheet number and the recto or verso indication...
in note 18:
Similar solutions were used in Merlhès 1989 and in Correspondance de Nicolas Poussin. Ed. C. Jouanny. Paris...
About this edition / The annotations
...25 or 26). ‘On or about’ includes a day earlier and a day later (in other words ‘on or about...
...If the text was written on a postcard or lettercard, or an envelope has survived, the details of...
...edition or similar.We have been cautious in identifying the sources of sayings or colourful...
...or the English translation. These are usually concerned with explaining grammatical problems or...
...either by omitting what was not relevant, or by embellishing or changing the text. He must also...
...that he must have owned or at least been familiar with a number of translations and editions. In...
...own purpose or amended them somewhat (the term for this is ‘internalized’) – these can be inversions, changes to personal or possessive pronouns, the omission of (context-dependent) clauses or...
...or a list of anomalies in the annotation. For example: ‘See P.J. de Béranger, Oeuvres complètes...
...and documents described as ‘in the estate�� or ‘in the family correspondence’ (Family...
in note 39:
...other six are in the hands of private individuals or other institutions: three from Vincent to Theo...
in note 48:
The F number refers to Faille 1970, the JH number to Hulsker 1996. Dimensions of works of art are always given height x width.
About this edition / The transcriptions
...punctuation marks immediately preceding or following them. In some cases one or more characters are...
...M, o/O, s/S, u/U, v/V, w/W, z/Z, while for some letters – A/a, D/d, F/f, G/g, M/m and S/s – Van...
...consistently transcribed this as ij. The long s (always as the second letter in the double s combination) is transcribed as s. When Van Gogh clarified a letter or letters we have not commented this...
...as factual as possible and contain no hypotheses or motivations. They also indicate where in the...
...text or vertical lines in the margin, typesetting instructions and even comments on the contents, such as Theo’s remark ‘très belle lettre’ (letter 854). Additions in another hand are not part of the reading text; where we consider them relevant they are referred to in Additional details or...
...of the letters in Jo van Gogh-Bonger’s possession or date indications that she wrote at the top...
...je vous l’assure, fort secondaire’ (For the share that falls or will fall to me will remain, I...
About this edition / Note on the translation
...to expect one translator to work full-time for two or three years on a single project like this, so...
...wrote ‘het�� or ‘il/le’ (‘it’), then ‘it’ it was, not ‘it [the money]�� or ‘the...
...The Langlois bridge’ for Van Gogh’s ‘Pont de l’Anglais’. Nor were antiquated forms of...
...inconsistencies, errors or un-French French, since the solutions would be arbitrary and result in unnatural English.There are awkward passages – but they are awkward in the original Dutch or French...
...of styles depending on the addressee, that his or her use of language changes over the years, and...
...either side, even when Van Gogh uses two or four stops instead of three. Occasionally he uses far more stops, and in those cases we reproduce the number of stops faithfully using full stops and not...
...of paintings or books unless Van Gogh does so. Similarly, they were not italicized if there are no italics in the source text. Allusions and implicit (even if unintentional) references to literary or...
Van Gogh as a letter-writer / A new edition
...and were not burdened with extensive textual or content-related elucidations, and the rationale for...
...the origin of allusions to (explicit or otherwise) or quotations from novels and poems, the Bible, publications of art criticism or art history, and other reading matter like newspapers and periodicals. Contemporary circumstances and events relating to biographies, cultural history and art history are also explained. These were either known or self-evident to the correspondents, but outsiders...
in note 5:
...Munich 1971, p. 9. Besterman, in turn, puts this number into perspective by pointing out that Lewis...
Van Gogh as a letter-writer / The letters: from conventional to personal
...that had come to the gallery or was on its way, and once or twice they asked each other practical...
...of the correspondence such as ‘Thanks for you letter�� or ‘It’s time you heard from me again...
...moods, or from criticizing artists or circumstances, or speaking of his happiness or satisfaction...
...that number which he must have read but which remain unmentioned. He must have visited many cafés...
...was going on or threatened to go wrong which would impede Vincent’s progress or if he needed more...
...defended his behaviour or views by referring to admired artists who had done or said something...
...to pithy remarks like ‘beautiful’, ‘splendid�� or ‘dazzling’, and if he disliked...
...Bürger (the pseudonym of Théophile Thoré) was Musées de la Hollande. Amsterdam et La Haye (1858...
...imitatione Christi, the Oraisons funèbres by Bossuet and Fénelon’s Télémaque were among his...
...of living or thought, he could find himself in a naturalism in which they were absent, or at least...
Van Gogh as a letter-writer / Language and spelling
...s tone he sometimes adopts when he starts moralizing or feels that he has his back to the wall in...
...reason that he took French lessons for his work, or was obliged to take them. Moreover, he spent a...
...wallows in the coarseness of the Paris studios or the slang of its drinking-dens, that language, I...
...dropped many of the conventions. Spelling mistakes or shifting spellings were not uncommon in Dutch...
...for example, ‘gezigt’ instead of ‘gezicht’). But he also made genuine spelling mistakes, such as ‘nog’ for ‘noch’ ‘knechs’ for ‘knechts’, ‘slechs’ for ‘slechts�� or...
...when the vowels in the definite articles ‘le�� or ‘la’ had to be elided. Generally, too, the...
...the beginning of a sentence or the titles of works of art or publications. So Van Gogh often...
...printed publications. That he did not copy slavishly or automatically, but was very well aware of...
...minor or more radical changes that he introduced in order to fit the quotation into his context or...
in note 37:
...français, des continuels: ici, mais, cela, en tant que quant à, maintenant, etc. Cette tournure de phrase lourde, enfantine, étrangère, où la pensée se fait quand même jour, ce langage plein d’éclairs de tendresse, de grâce, de bonté, qui parfois semble prendre des ailes et parfois se vautre dans la vulgarité des ateliers de Paris ou dans l’argot des bouges, ce langage, dis-je, aura toutes les excuses et toutes les sympathies, parce que, malgré les ornières où il choit, les flots d’alcool auxquels il se mélange, la prose réaliste qui le pollue, il débouche tout à coup dans une prairie pleine de soleil et de fleurs, dans une ville silencieuse où se mire un ciel d’étoiles, dans un monde inconnu où retentit la parole du Christ, où résonnent les symphonies de l’art...Qu’importe donc si son style n’est pas correct, il est vivant, et notre indulgence y saura mettre sa délicate attention, comme lorsqu’il nous arrive de sentir des êtres supérieurs qui ne peuvent point parler notre langue.’ Lettres à Bernard 1911, pp. 41-42....
Van Gogh as a letter-writer / Strategies and rhetoric
...There was sometimes a very definite calculation or strategy involved, and he adjusted his style in...
...mind at ease. He broached a new subject each time, or asked after other members of the family. With...
...a following generation or to several following generations through their works. Is that all, or is...
...with meaning. He could express sad feelings or observations in the most everyday words, which makes...
...here. I no longer see any possibility for courage or good hope, but anyway it wasn’t yesterday...
...Gogh usually wrote only if he had something to report or request, and he never beat about the bush...
...a higher idiom or intellectual terms, and when he has to he makes his excuses for doing so. The reader’s involvement is increased because he addresses the recipient with ‘ge�� or ‘gij’ (the...
...please return them when you get the chance’ (267). Or to Willemien in June 1888: ‘If I didn’t...
...for others and take genuine pity on poor or unfortunate souls. Nowhere is there an indication that...
in note 49:
...mixture of an apologia for his own standpoint or behaviour with that of someone he admired in the...
in note 50:
...Theo had followed his brother into the art trade, or perhaps he just had different tastes. As soon as...
in note 58:
...a stopgap for dealing with the setbacks in his life, not as typifying his natural disposition or character.
in note 62:
This unintellectual or anti-intellectual tendency is also reflected in the books he read, which were usually...
in note 64:
...Delacroix. Documents nouveaux, and Jean-François Gigoux’s Causeries sur les artistes de mon temps...
Van Gogh as a letter-writer / Manuscripts
...sheets of paper written on with pen and ink or pencil. The regularity and clarity of the printed...
...is grey or brown, but that says little about its original colour. A black ink can turn brown or...
...and has now discoloured to violet, greyish blue or light brown, but so unevenly that while one part...
...in the margin marking the importance or special nature of a passage, or crosses that had a similar...
...added emphasis by highlighting the beauty, profundity or particular interest of his words. There...
...and he often placed additions in the margin or between the lines. He also crossed out many mistakes...
...more than once with his unconventional way of writing.His handwriting is not that difficult to read...
...up to four or five times. This is mainly found in vehement passages written when he was clearly agitated. He often combined that technique with individual letters written larger or more thickly. One...
...either by writing the name or title in slightly larger letters or by making them more upright...
in note 68:
...unfolded and in a Melinex cover, stacked five or six to a drawer on top of each other. They are...
in note 80:
...at home and prepared the edition of 1952-1954, or possibly even Jan Hulsker, who said that he was...
in note 83:
...written in the margin. It is impossible to make out whether this was done by Theo or someone else.
Van Gogh as a letter-writer / Sketches
...of the attractive and valuable features of Van Gogh’s letters is that he regularly embellished them with a small drawing or enclosed a freehand sketch which he called a ‘scratch�� or a ‘croquis’. He was not the only person to do this, for adding drawings in letters was (and still is...
...in his letters with the object of charming or impressing the recipient. With Van Gogh it was...
...an idea of something that he was working on or had finished. Another factor at the beginning of his...
...him to depict the essence of a drawing or painting. He usually drew them with ordinary writing ink...
...in that they depict an earlier version of a work or one that has since been lost. This applies...
...drawings illustrating the materials he worked with or the conditions under which he was working...
...how he used his perspective frame on the beach, or how he envisaged the arrangement of a triptych...
...milk, the quality of the colours made by père Tanguy, or an order for paints that he sent to Theo.
Van Gogh as a letter-writer / Conclusion
...a network within which the significance of a letter or passage cannot be seen in isolation from the whole...
Biographical & historical context / The family and children of the Reverend and Mrs Van Gogh
...and well-behaved, but would not strive for riches or high positions on earth. She repeated many...
...of’ took the form of money, merchandise or a good word. Just how influential and paternalistic...
...path, each plant in the garden, the views round about’. Sooner or later they all left those ‘good days of the past’ behind them. One or two returned to the nest, but rarely for long. Life was...
...of Hoeven. His calling also entitled him to a number of benefits, such as the parsonage and its...
...reading ethical novels and poems, either to themselves or out loud, could strengthen the mind. All...
...The Reverend Van Gogh quoted De Génestet’s poems, adding his own minor variations. Both Vincent...
...received reading matter from Uncle Cor’s shop, or from his own collection. In 1876, in any event...
in note 17:
...not the slightest interest in the Impressionists or avant-garde art. On this see Tempel 1999. In 1888...
in note 51:
‘Without wishing to, I’ve more or less become some sort of impossible and suspect character in the...
in note 66:
...a little on your guard with people you don’t know or trust. There will certainly be all kinds of odd fish...
About this edition / The web edition
...schema was created for the Van Gogh edition. A number of non-standard tags were used, some of which...
...It holds letter-level metadata (title, number, date, correspondents, etc.), the full transcription...
...Other data sources for the edition include a number of databases. The editors created databases...
...to refer to the original-language version) or https://vangoghletters.org/en/let001...
Biographical & historical context / The letter-writing culture and Van Gogh’s position within it
...characterized by a number of formal conventions and substantive features, many of which can be found in the letters of Vincent van Gogh.The style and the subjectsIt emerges from the large number of...
...their use. Like an anecdote, literary quotation or pithy saying, they could enliven letters and...
...pay increases, windfalls and setbacks), festive or sad events within the family (birthdays...
...s letters, requesting that they be returned after reading, or be sent on to someone else. On 9...
...or were written collectively in relay, with enclosures in the form of flowers, bits of seaweed or...
...postage and, when sending consignments of paintings or drawings, whether he had chosen the right...
...writing, known as ‘writing to the moment’. For example, it is too dark to see properly, or the postman is due so the letter has to end hurriedly, or Van Gogh describes what he sees around him as...
...patient and mine then’. For a long time it was uncertain whether Theo was or was not going to...
in note 100:
Letter 755. Cf. Merlhès, Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 484, n. 1: ‘Précisons...qu’un pli posté à Paris pouvait être distribué le lendemain à Arles ou Pont-Aven et inversement, mais qu’entre ces deux dernières localités l’acheminement exigeait quarante-huit heures’ (To be precise, ... a letter posted in Paris could be delivered in Arles or Pont-Aven the following day, and vice versa, but it took 48 hours for letters between the latter two destinations).
in note 102:
...or prints for Theo in crates containing art that were being sent from one branch to another. For the French postal rates and regulations see J-P. Alexandre, C. Barbey, J-F. Brun, G. Désarnaud, R. Joany, Les tarifs postaux français...

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4 other items found

Chronology
in 1873:
...131, 361, 453). #Reads poetry by Keats, Musées de la Hollande by Thoré-Bürger and Cromwell by...
in 1875:
...and Goethe, and fairytales by Andersen in verse. 11 or 12 June *Admires drawings and pastels by Millet from...
in 1877:
...Reads Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque (125). September #Transcribes the whole French edition of Thomas a Kempis’s De imitatione Christi and reads Bossuet’s Oraisons funèbres (129). 7 September...
in 1878:
...FR b2446). Early December Leaves for Pâturages in the Borinage (Hainaut), a mining area. Lodges...
in 1880:
...Early March Travels on foot to Courrières in northern France and sees the studio of Jules Breton, but does not dare make himself known (158, 391). 11 March-May or June (?) In Etten (FR b2496). June Theo makes a...
in 1881:
...number of French and English novels, among them Shirley and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Illusions perdues and Le père Goriot by Balzac, and the Goncourts’ Gavarni - l’homme et l’oeuvre (174). Around mid-June Van Rappard comes to stay in Etten for 12 days (168). Last weeks of July Theo is in Etten (170). Summer Falls in love with his cousin Kee Vos (Uncle Stricker’s widowed daughter), who is staying in the parsonage with the Van Gogh family. He makes a marriage proposal to her, but she turns him down (179, 180). #Re-reads Michelet’s L’amour and La femme (186). 23-25 August Visits Mauve in The Hague. Meets Théophile de Bock and shows his studies to Johannes Bosboom. *Goes with De Bock to see the Panorama Mesdag and the sixth exhibition of the Hollandsche Teeken-Maatschappij (Dutch drawing society). Travels on to Dordrecht and visits the Schielandhuis in Rotterdam (175). End of October Visit from Anthon van Rappard (176, 178). 10 or 11 November @Vincent sends Theo several drawings (182). 23 November @Tells Theo he has sent Mauve a drawing (189). 24-27 November In Amsterdam, where he visits his uncle and aunt Stricker, and tries in vain to see Kee Vos (193). #Reads Michelet, Du prêtre, de la femme, de la famille (193). 27 November-about 21 December Stays in The Hague. Mauve gives him lessons in watercolouring and painting in oils (191, 192). About 22 December Back in Etten (193). 25 December Moves to The Hague following a furious row with his father (194). From now on receives his allowance directly and solely from Theo...
in 1882:
...or 19 April @Sends Theo a drawing (218). 2 May @Sends Theo a drawing (223). About 7 May @Sends Theo 3 drawings (224). 12 or 13 May @Sends Theo ‘two dozen’ drawings (226, 231). 27 May Visit from Van Rappard (231). End of May @Sends the second series of cityscapes (7 drawings) to Uncle Cor (232). @Sends Theo a drawing (233, 234). Summer #Reads Zola’s Une page d’amour, quickly followed by Le ventre de Paris, Nana, La curée, La faute de l’abbé Mouret, Son Excellence Eugène Rougon and L’assommoir (244, 245, 250, 255, 259, 260). 1 or 2 June Reports to Theo that his collection now comprises more than 1,000 prints, mainly from English and French illustrated magazines (234). 3 June @Sends Theo 2 drawings (235).7 June-1 July In the Municipal Hospital in The Hague to be treated for gonorrhoea (237, 241). 4 July Moves to Schenkweg 136 (243, 245). 7 July @Sends his doctor a watercolour as thanks for his treatment (245). Shortly before 9 July *Visits an exhibition of French art from private collections at the Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague (246). 15 July Sien, her five-year-old daughter Maria and her newborn son Willem move in with him (246). Early August His parents move from Etten to Nuenen, to which the Reverend Van Gogh has been called. They live at De Berg F523. About 2-4 August Visit from Theo (252). August *Visits the seventh exhibition of the Hollandsche Teeken-Maatschappij (256), and a showing of works from the Koninklijk Genootschap van Nederlandsche Aquarellisten (Royal Dutch Society of Watercolourists) (265 and 267). Autumn #Reads Erckmann-Chatrian’s Les deux frères...
in 1883:
...or 6 January @Sends Theo 5 drawings (299, 300). 3 February @Has sent his father a drawing (306). About 1 March @Sends Theo a watercolour (322). About 4 March @Sends Theo a drawing (324). About 21 March #Re-reads George Eliot’s Felix Holt, the radical (332). Spring #Reads Eliot’s Middlemarch (316). Re-reads Carlyle’s Sartor resartus (274, 325) and Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris and Les misérables (318, 333). Shortly before 20 May Visit from Van Rappard (343). About 21 May Visits Van Rappard at his studio in Utrecht (344). May-July Paints with Herman van der Weele in the dunes, and works in De Bock’s studio in Scheveningen (347, 360). About 25 July Writes to tell Theo that all his paintings and drawings are henceforth Theo’s property (367). August *Visits the second exhibition of work from the Koninklijk Genootschap van Nederlandsche Aquarellisten (370). 17 August Visit from Theo (373). Shortly before 21 August Visit from Van Rappard (378). 23-29 August @Sends more than 20 drawings to Uncle Cor, who takes them on commission (379, 380, 384). Early September Decides to leave The Hague for the countryside, and ends his relationship with Sien (382, 383). 11 September Departs for Hoogeveen, Drenthe, where he stays in Albertus Hartsuiker’s lodging-house, Grote Kerksteeg 51 (385). 24 September @Sends Theo 3 paintings (389). October #Re-reads Carlyle’s On heroes, hero-worship and the heroic in history (395). 2 October-4 December Stays in Nieuw-Amsterdam/Veenoord in the lodging-house run by Hendrik Scholte, E34 (392, 409). 12 or 13 November @Sends Theo 6 paintings to be shown to the art dealer E.J. van Wisselingh (406). 5 December Goes to live with his parents once again. They are now living in Nuenen, where they had moved the previous year. (409). 7 December @Sends Theo 2 drawings (FR b2248). Mid-December The mangle room is turned into his studio (413). 20-24 December Visits Van Rappard in Utrecht. Travels on to The Hague to collect drawings and studies and to see Sien (416, FR b2250...
in 1884:
...François Coppée and Jules Breton in letters to Theo and Van Rappard (430, 433, 435). End of February @Sends Theo a watercolour and 5 drawings (432). Early March @Sends Van Rappard several drawings (437). Second week of March @Sends Theo a drawing (434). About 13 March @Sends Van Rappard 7 drawings (437). About 21-28 March @Sends Van Rappard 3 drawings (441). First half of May Rents studio space from the Catholic sacristan Johannes Schafrat at Heieind 540 in Nuenen (446). About 17 May Van Rappard comes to stay in Nuenen for around ten days (446, 447). About 28 May @Sends Theo the drawings that Van Rappard has returned (447). Spring-Summer #Reads Blanc’s Les artistes de mon temps and Grammaire des arts du dessin, architecture, sculpture, peinture, and Fromentin’s Les maîtres d’autrefois (449, 454, 450). 1 June Theo spends Whitsun in Nuenen (449). Summer Has a relationship with a neighbour, Margot Begemann, who has taken over his mother’s sewing class while she is recovering from a broken leg (469). Early August Retired goldsmith Antoon Hermans commissions a series of paintings from him (453). August Gives painting lessons to Dimmen Gestel (FR b3039). About 15-20 August Theo is in Nuenen (453, b2256). Mid-September-early October Margot tries to commit suicide and is taken to a doctor in Utrecht. Vincent visits her there and thinks of marrying her (456, 458, 469, FR b2257). Early October #Reads Zola’s Au bonheur des dames (464). About 14 October-1 November Van Rappard comes to stay in Nuenen (FR b2259, b2260). Mid-November Gives lessons in still-life painting to Hermans, Anton Kerssemakers, a tanner, and Willem van de Wakker, telegraph operator (469, 471...
in 1886:
...François Vinck in the evenings (553). End of January Joins two drawing clubs in order to draw from the model in the evenings. At the end of the painting course he joins the daytime drawing class given by Eugène Siberdt (555, 557). About 28 February Arrives in Paris and moves in with Theo, 25 rue Laval in Montmartre (567). Early March-early June Works at the studio of Fernand Cormon at 104 boulevard de Clichy, where he meets John Peter Russell, Emile Bernard, Louis Anquetin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, among others (569). 30 March Mrs Van Gogh and Willemien move to Breda, Nieuwe Ginnekenstraat 649bis. 1 May-30 June *Visits the Salon, and lists the names of 21 painters who exhibited there in his sketchbook of the period (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). 15 May-15 June *Visits the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition (569). Early June Vincent and Theo move to 54 rue Lepic in Montmartre (569, FR b727). 5 June *Vincent and Theo visit the exhibition of works for sale, the Saulnier Collection in the Hôtel Drouot (668, 676). 15 June-15 July *Vincent probably visits the ‘Ve Exposition internationale de peinture et sculpture’ at the Georges Petit gallery (569). Mid-August #Reads Maupassant’s Bel-ami (568). About 18 August #Cites from Voltaire’s Candide, which he had probably just finished reading (568). Mid-August-26 August Andries Bonger stays with Vincent while Theo is away in the Netherlands (568, FR b1844). 20 August-21 September *Probably visits the ‘IIe Exposition de la Société des Artistes Indépendants...
in 1887:
...des Artistes Indépendants’. 1 May-30 June *Probably visits the Salon. May Is in touch with Paul Signac in Asnières. May-June *Vincent and Theo visit the ‘VIe Exposition internationale de peinture et sculpture’ at the Georges Petit gallery (798). Visits the Millet retrospective at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts (822). May-July Is in touch with Camille Pissarro and his son Lucien (FR b886). July Exhibits a recent painting in Tanguy’s shop window (572). His relationship with Agostina Segatori is over, and there is an argument about his paintings that hang in her restaurant (571, 572). Autumn Works with Bernard at the latter’s studio in Asnières...
in 1888:
...des Artistes Indépendants’ in Paris (582, 584). 15 April Meets the American artist Dodge Macknight, who is staying in Fontvieille near Arles (598). Mid-April @Sends 2 drawings to Theo (600). 22 April-12 May Theo is on a working trip to Brussels (600). End of April Mrs Van Gogh and Willemien move to Nieuwe Haagdijk in Breda. The works that Vincent had left behind in Nuenen are put in storage with a carpenter in Breda. 1 May Rents the east wing of the ‘Yellow House’ (2 place Lamartine), and sets up his studio there (602). @Sends around 12 drawings to Theo (602). 3 May Visits Macknight in Fontvieille (603). First week of May @Sends 2 drawings to Theo (594). 7 May Takes a room in the Café de la Gare run by Joseph and Marie Ginoux, 30 place Lamartine (606). @Sends 7 drawings to Theo (605). 10 May @Sends at least 26 paintings to Theo (606, 607). 26 May @Sends several drawings to Theo (613). 29 or 30 May @Sends a drawing to Theo (617). 30 or 31 May-4 or 5 June Visits Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (617). About 5 June @Sends several drawings to Theo (620). About 15 June Meets the Belgian painter Eugène Boch through Macknight (625). Gives drawing lessons to Paul Eugène Milliet, a lieutenant in the Zouaves (628). @Sends 3 drawings to Theo (625). 15-19 June @Sends a drawing to Willemien (626). About 19 June #Has read Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème (628). 23 June @Sends a drawing to Theo (630). July #Reads Balzac’s César Birotteau. Decides to re-read all of Balzac’s novels (636, 637). 8 or 9 July Is in Fontvieille (638). About 13 July @Sends 5 drawings to Theo (639). 15-20 July @Sends 15 drawings to Bernard, and receives drawings in exchange (641, 643, 650). Early August @Sends 12 drawings to Russell (654). 8 August @Sends several drawings to Theo (657). 17 August @Milliet brings Theo 36 paintings and a drawing by Vincent (660, 662). 9 September @Sends 2 drawings to Theo (677). 17 September Moves into the Yellow House (682). Early October Theo sells a study to the Paris art dealer Bague (699). @Vincent sends 2 paintings to Bernard and Gauguin, who are in Pont-Aven, and adds another 5 for Bernard, Charles Laval, Hanri Moret and Ernest de Chamaillard (680, 698). @Sends a drawing to Theo (700). 23 October Gauguin arrives in Arles and moves into the Yellow House (712). End of October #Reads Zola’s Le rêve (716). 16 or 17 December Together with Gauguin visits the Musée Fabre in Montpellier (726). 23 December Suffers his first mental breakdown. Cuts off his ear and is admitted to hospital the next day (728). His doctor is Félix Rey. 24 December Theo travels to Arles, visits Vincent in the hospital, and returns to Paris the next day with Gauguin...
in 1889:
...11 drawings to Theo (784). 7 July Travels to Arles with an escort to collect paintings (787, 789). 15 or 16 July @Sends 11 paintings to Theo (789). 16 or 17 July-end of August Suffers a mental breakdown (793, 798). September-October Represented with two paintings at the ‘Ve Exposition de la Société des Artistes Indépendants’. About 20 September @Sends 8 paintings to Theo (805). 28 September @Sends 11 paintings to Theo...
in 1890:
...or 19 January Visits Arles (841). 20 or 21 January-31 January Suffers a mental breakdown (846, FR b1061). 28 January-23 February Represented with 6 paintings at the ‘VIIe Exposition des Vingt’ in Brussels (820). The Belgian artist Anna Boch buys his painting The red vineyard (855). 31 January Birth of Vincent Willem, the son of Theo and Jo. 22 February-about 17 March Suffers a mental breakdown (857, FR b1062). 20 March-27 April Represented with 10 paintings at the ‘VIe Exposition de la Société des Artistes Indépendants’ in Paris (854). 29 April @Sends at least 30 paintings to Theo (863, 867). 16 May Leaves the asylum. 17-19 May With Theo and Jo in Paris (FR b2012). *Visits the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (879), the Japanese prints exhibition (870) and the Salon des Artistes français (890). 20 May Travels on to Auvers-sur-Oise, where he lodges at the Auberge Ravoux, place de la Mairie. Meets Dr Paul Gachet (873, 874). 8 June Visit from Theo, Jo and the infant Vincent (881, FR b1853). 6 July Pays a brief visit to Theo in Paris, and also meets the art critic Albert Aurier and Toulouse-Lautrec. Returns to Auvers the same evening. 15-18 July Theo is in the Netherlands. 27 July Vincent shoots himself in the chest. 28 July Theo receives the news and travels to Auvers. 29 July Vincent dies of his wounds with Theo by his bedside. 30 July Is buried in Auvers. September Theo’s health deteriorates rapidly. He is suffering from syphilis. 9 October Theo suffers a mental and physical collapse and is hospitalized three days later...
Glossary of materials and techniques
...or stretchers that could be enlarged by tapping out). The three basic rectangular shapes available in France were known as figure, paysage and marine (figure, landscape and seascape). For each numbered size, the three shapes would have one dimension the same, but the other would differ, figure being the widest and marine the narrowest. By ‘toile de 25 carrée’ (square no. 25 canvas), ‘30 carrée’ (30 square) etc., Van Gogh meant the squarest variant of that particular size, those being ‘toile de 25 figure’, ‘30 figure’, etc. (81 x 65 cm and 92 x 73 cm respectively). Standard French canvas sizes, in centimetres (as listed in Bourgeois Aîné 1906): Size number Figure Landscape Marine 1 22 x 16 22 x 14 22 x 12 2 24 x 19 24 x 16 24 x 14 3 27 x 22 27 x 19 27 x 16 4 33 x 24 33 x 22 33 x 19 5 35 x 27 35 x 24 35 x 22 6 41 x 33 41 x 27 41 x 24 8 46 x 38 46 x 33 46 x 27 10 55 x 46 55 x 38 55 x 33 12 60 x 50 60 x 46 60 x 38 15 65 x 54 65 x 50 65 x 46 20 73 x 60 73 x 54 73 x 50 25 81 x 65 81 x 60 81 x 54 30 92 x 73 92 x 65 92 x 60 40 100 x 81 100 x 73 100 x 65 50 116 x 89 116 x 81 116 x 73 60 130 x 97 130 x 89 130 x 81 80 146 x 114 146 x 97 146 x 89 100 162 x 130 162 x 114 162 x 97 120 195 x 130 195 x 114 195 x 97 See also Callen 2000; Carlyle 2001, and Hendriks and Geldof 2005 (which lists of all the traceable dealers from whom Van Gogh bought canvas in Paris...
...a composition onto another support, such as canvas or a lithographic stone. WhatmanMade since the...
...d’après nature. Paris 1871. (Van Gogh Museum Library, shelf mark BVG 3297). Charles Blanc, Grammaire des arts du dessin, architecture, sculpture, peinture. Paris 1870 (Van Gogh Museum Library, shelf mark BVG 1429). Charles Blanc,Les artistes de mon temps. Paris 1876 (Van Gogh Museum Library, shelf mark BVG 2410). Félix Bracquemond, Du dessin et de la couleur. Paris 1885 (Van Gogh Museum Library, shelf mark BVG 1688). Armand-Théophile Cassagne, Traité d’aquarelle. Paris 1875 (Van Gogh Museum Library, shelf mark BVG 1524). Armand-Théophile Cassagne, Guide de l’alphabet du dessin ou l’art d’apprendre et d’enseigner les principes rationnels du dessin d’après nature. Paris 1880 (Van Gogh Museum Library, shelf mark BVG 11986). John Marshall, Anatomy for artists. Illustrated by two hundred original drawings by J.S. Cuthbert. London 1878 (2nd edition, 1883; Van Gogh Museum Library, shelf mark BVG 12146). Karl Robert, Le fusain sans maitre: traité pratique et complet sur l’étude du paysage au fusain. Paris 1874 (Van Gogh Museum Library, shelf mark BVG 12279). A. de Zahn [Albert von Zahn], Esquisses anatomiques à l’usage des artistes pour servir aux études d’après nature et d’après l’antique. Leipzig 1865...
Documentation
...were sometimes written on Van Gogh’s notepaper or were enclosed with a letter of his are also...
...or about Friday 2 January 1874. ‘Monday morning at breakfast I found a letter from London, which contained a letter from Vincent and one from Ursula Loyer, both were very kind and amiable. She asks me to write her and Vincent wished very much we should be friends. I’ll tell what he writes about her. “Ursula Loyer is a girl with whom I have agreed that we’ll be each other’s brother and sister. You must also look on her as a sister and write to her, and I think that you will then soon discover what she is. I say no more than that I have never seen or dreamt of anything like the love between her and her mother.” Then there follows a discription of Christmas and New-year and then still the following phrase. “Old girl, you mustn’t think that there’s anything more behind it than what I have written to you. But don’t say anything about it at home, I must do that myself. Just this again, love that girl for my sake.” I suppose there will be a love between those two, as between Agnes and David Copperfield. Although I must say, that I believe there is more than a brother’s love between them; I send you here Ursula’s letter so you can judge for yourself...
...that country. He thinks that it is not impossible. Or at least a place as an evangelist might fall vacant...
...he obstinately refuses to receive money from me or to be supported by me, knowing that I am far from...
...the acquaintance of many there who ask him to speak or where he offers to do so. There was one place that...
...a day longer for once. It is getting a bit busier, or doesn’t that start until September? Pa has gone to...
...invited to visit the studios of painters of repute, or people come to him. He also has acquaintances from...
...or children of the same class? You can hardly imagine the great loneliness there can be in a big city. Now, you will say: have you no hope, then, that that will change? Yes, but in the meantime it’s rough. Perhaps you can’t understand how it is that there are no folk with whom I mix, but remember that people here are busy from morning till night, and then don’t feel that the day is long enough to do what has to be done, and then I dislike mixing with just anyone and find it absurd to say that people turn out better than expected after a while and that everyone has his good qualities. I find that one very quickly discovers the kind of a person that one is dealing with, and that as a rule mixing with mediocrities doesn’t lead anywhere. There’s an enormous difference between that and being a misanthrope, because I find that on the contrary there are people whom I love very much and who are so good and special that I feel myself so small compared to them that I have difficulty mixing with them and above all to take the first step to becoming intimate with them. I don’t remember when I last wrote to you and whether I’ve already told you my secret. To come straight to the point, if you don’t know. I plan to propose to Jo Bonger some time. It’s true that I don’t know her well enough to be able to tell you much about her. As you know, I’ve only seen her a few times, but what I know of her pleases me. She gave me the impression that I can place my trust in her completely unreservedly, as I wouldn’t with anyone else. I would be able to speak to her about everything, and I believe that if she wanted to she could mean oh so much to me. Now the question is whether she, for her part, has the same idea, and whether it isn’t a completely egotistical business I’m embarking on. You girls usually think that there are heroes of every kind in the world, and that the man who proposes to you naturally ought to be one of those beings. I find that very beautiful and don’t want to rob you of the illusion, but for my part I believe that many are taken in if they count on that. In any event, in this case I don’t wish anyone to take me for what I am not, and if I get to know her a little better I’ll let her know that she mustn’t have too many illusions, and I’m still very doubtful whether she will have me. However, I can’t get her out of my thoughts. She is always with me, and how often I curse the impossibly great distance that lies between us. Why can I not see her more often and get to know her, to discover what she would wish and how she thinks about oh so many things? What can I do to come into contact with her in some other way than being in Amsterdam for a day or two once a year and then finish? I’ve already thought about starting to write to her, but even that wasn’t possible at that time because I was foolish enough not to ask her last year whether she wanted to correspond with me. If I do so now, or have someone ask her, then I’d be surrendering myself to her completely, and you’ll perhaps agree with me that she shouldn’t buy a pig in a poke. So I can ask your advice and so you must begin by telling me if you still correspond with her. Now there’s something else. At the moment I’m absolutely unable even to get engaged, since a change in my circumstances is imminent, which I’ll write to you about some other time. I hope that everything will be in order by this summer, but before then I don’t have enough certainty. So keep what I’m writing to you about to yourself, for I’ve written to no one about it and I’ve only spoken to her brother, who feels I should wait a little, at least until my affairs are settled. And how are things with you, little sister. Are you living happily, or rather are you really into life? For my part I feel that I’ve lived too much through the eyes and feelings of others, and that although I like reading and paintings there is something more that I know exists and that I’m not into it. Living simply with nature without poetry that comes from somewhere other than your own heart and own thoughts, that is the true thing. Certainly, everyone has that well-spring and it’s just a question of arranging life so that that spring wells up. Certainly, encouragement from outside is part of it, and that consists of two large components. In the first place mixing with congenial souls, and secondly, but that is an aid, by seeking it from other poets. That seeking is so difficult, and is actually sterile if one isn’t into real life oneself. I hope for your sake that you find much sympathy and some happiness in your life. How is your work and your writing getting along? Do you still have a great love of nature? How is it at home? And how is your health? There, a whole lot of questions, and I’m sure that you’ll soon answer them. Spring is slowly coming here, but it was raw and cold for oh so long. Now it’s becoming lovely, and people, like nature, sometimes thaw out when the sun shines. I needed that oh so much. Now little sister, a hearty kiss, and don’t grumble too much that I kept you waiting so long. Just think that it was winter and that that’s over now. Good-day and ever yours, Theo...
...number of years yet to live he’ll make a name for himself. It was through him that I came into contact with many painters who regarded him very highly. He’s one of the champions of new ideas, that’s to say there’s nothing new under the sun and it would therefore be more correct to speak of the regeneration of old ideas that have been corrupted and diminished by the daily grind. In addition, he has such a big heart that he’s always looking to do something for others, unfortunately for those who cannot or will not understand him. Since I had put my letter to one side, which I do more often if they’re not thrown straight into the fire, I can now tell you a little more about him and also send you a letter from him. He has arrived in Arles, and found 50 centimetres of snow there, which isn’t exactly what he’d been expecting, but he writes that he has made three studies all the same, which he wouldn’t have been able to do in Paris at this time, and he goes on to say: “At times it seems to me that my blood is more or less ready to start circulating again, which wasn’t the case the last few months, I really couldn’t stand it any more.” I hope that the milder air will do him good. I think that I’ll be getting a young painter, “Koning”, to come and live with me at the beginning of next month. He isn’t nearly as skilful as Vincent, but it will be more companionable than being on my own. How is your drawing coming along? Is it a success, or have you given it up? Will you let me know if there’s anything you need? I would so much like to know if there’s anything I can do for you. You mustn’t be angry if you don’t get any more letters. Vincent started writing to you ten times and I’ve read more letters to you than you’ve received from him, but sometimes one begins rattling away if one has finally got started, and then it’s better to start afresh. But his letters are always interesting, which is why it’s a pity that he doesn’t write more. Bid Ma good-day from me, and tell her that I’ll write to her this week. Warm regards, and believe me your loving Theo...
...Or the same landscape but with a few beech trees with the reddish brown withered leaves as a contrast to the green. There are also spring landscapes with the delicate branches of the trees from which the young leaves hang like little bells and tell of the jubilance of nature rejuvenated. Or a small village in the first days of spring hidden in a purple haze behind the more deeply coloured tree-trunks, the bright green leaves of which find their echo in the green fields that one sees stretching out against the hill in the distance beyond the village. You’d have to see them to get an idea of how diversely he expresses himself, and above all to sense the different moods in which he made them. Mostly the calm nature that fills his inner being with resignation, but sometimes also the fierce upwelling of all his suffering and struggles, which he expresses through the most powerful, deepest tones that reverberate above all when he saw nature swelling up under the benevolent and creative power of the sun. It’s impossible to describe everything that there is in those paintings, but it turns out that he’s even greater than anyone had supposed. The same thing could happen with him as formerly happened with Millet, who is now understood by everyone because the poetry he proclaimed is so powerful that everyone, from great to small, finds it satisfying. Monet, too, makes superb scenes of nature, but one has to be happy and healthy oneself to enjoy them, otherwise one might think: “Oh, if only I was there, then I’d be happy”. While from Gauguin consoling words are whispered, as it were, to those who are not happy or healthy. With him, nature itself speaks, while with Monet one hears the maker of the paintings speaking. Degas is surprisingly taken with Gauguin’s work. So much so that he wants to go to Arles to visit him. “Lucky dogs,” says Degas of Vincent and Gauguin, “that’s the life”. I don’t need to tell you what that means coming from the lips of the great Degas, who himself has such an understanding of life in its fullness. Vincent hasn’t sent me anything in a long time, but I suspect from his letters that he has made beautiful things. Gauguin’s company is naturally worth a great deal to him, and it’s absorbing him quite a lot at the moment. He recently painted portraits, and above all he seems to be satisfied with them. It’s in the figure that he finds the highest expression of his art...
...Israëls and the others had said about his work, and for the New Year, because don’t think I forgot him. Oh Theo, what will happen now, how will things turn out? I would almost say, if only he would become really ill, it would bring things to a head, but he already is very ill, you might say, the worst that one could imagine. My consolation is that he is a child of our heavenly Father, and He will neither fail nor forsake him. If it was for me to say, I would ask, ‘Take him unto Thee’, but we must take things as God gives them. Oh Theo, if it is borne out, you remember what Prof. Ramaar in The Hague said – when Pa so much wanted him to go with him as a nerve patient, and Vincent said he was willing to go and ask for medicine, and just when they were supposed to leave, he refused and Pa went anyway to tell him – and he said, from what I now hear something is missing or wrong in the little brain. Poor thing, I believe he was always ill, and what he and we have suffered are the consequences of it. Poor brother of Vincent, sweet, dearest Theo, you too have been very worried and troubled because of him, your great love, wasn’t it too heavy a burden, and now you’ve again done what you could, Wil went to The Hague today, how disappointed she will be too, I am grievously saddened and anyway you will no doubt send me news as often as possible, honestly Theo, if things get even worse and Aix has to happen, tell me everything, otherwise I’ll think even worse. What a coincidence, your hoping for happiness now, and this deep sorrow, may she be a comfort to you, but Theo, I didn’t say anything, I wrote nothing to Jo before you had your answer from Amsterdam. Write to me as soon as you know anything, although I am saddened with grief, I can however be glad about happiness and being the bearer of good news, Jo and Anna also wanted to write. Oh Theo, must the year end with such a disaster? Where is Aix? Such suffering for both of you, how he must feel it all, how touching about Zundert, together on one pillow. Goodbye, dear Theo, may God be near with His comfort, and if possible bring help. God bless the remedies. Thanks for your love, God bless your endeavours. Anna is also sad, Jo and Wil are not at home. A kiss from your ma...
...or do they fear for his life? It is those very moments of consciousness, and that he is alone then, that I find so terrible. Did you get the impression that he feels his own suffering very badly? I find it so fortunate for you that it didn’t happen last year when you were so alone. Now, with De Haan with you, and Jo, it’s surely easier to bear. How your whole heart must be with him. Touching, that story about the little room you two had in Zundert. Could I write to him? Do tell me where he is. And the exact truth about how he is. Do you hear something from a doctor now and then? Could it have been foreseen, did Gauguin see it coming, did he notice more than usual recently, or did something happen to cause the outburst? And you just happened to write that he himself was satisfied with what he’d made. I’m re-reading your letter about that, who is the man who has taken an interest in him, is it that postman? Fortunate that there’s at least someone. Sadness and happiness go together in a strange way...I think of Vincent all the time, if only he wasn’t so far away. Ma is also so upset about it. But what a difficult life, and how difficult things have always been for him. If only he could ever find some peace. That is possible, isn’t it, or is it too much a physical illness? I feel so awfully sorry for him, and I wish he knew that. Now dear Theo, the new year will also bring light and darkness, but I hope that there will be much light for you through all things. With a hearty kiss, ever your Wil One of these days you’ll get Vincent’s money that I have for safe-keeping.’...
...will give instructions for him to be taken to Aix or Marseille. I myself was a house physician in...
Overview of all the letters
...number of surviving letters by Vincent van Gogh 2: The number of surviving letters to Vincent van Gogh 3: Related manuscripts 4: The unknown letters The correspondents: an overview in numbers Total of the surviving correspondence: 903 Letters by Van Gogh: 820 Letters to Van Gogh: 83 1 The number of surviving letters by Vincent van Gogh 659 to Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger, brother and sister-in-law (651 to Theo, 1 to Jo, 7 to Theo and Jo) 58 to Anthon van Rappard, Dutch artist whom Van Gogh met in Brussels 22 to Emile Bernard, French artist whom Van Gogh met in Paris 21 to Willemien van Gogh, sister 12 to Anna van Gogh-Carbentus, mother (8 to her, 1 to her and Theo, 3 to her and Willemien) 6 to Willem van Stockum and Caroline van Stockum-Haanebeek, acquaintances in The Hague (4 to Caroline and Willem, 2 to Caroline) 5 to Theodorus van Gogh and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus, parents 5 to Anton Kerssemakers, an amateur artist to whom Van Gogh gave lessons in Nuenen 4 to Paul Gauguin, French artist whom Van Gogh met in Paris 4 to Joseph Ginoux and Marie Ginoux-Julien, managers of the Café de la Gare in Arles (2 to Joseph and Marie, 2 to Joseph) 4 to Michiel de Zwart, Van Gogh’s landlord in The Hague 3 to John Peter Russell, Australian artist whom Van Gogh met in Paris 2 to Cornelis Marinus van Gogh, uncle 2 to Arnold Hendrik Koning, Dutch artist whom Van Gogh met in Paris 1 to Charles Angrand, French artist whom Van Gogh met in Paris 1 to Albert Aurier, French art critic 1 to Eugène Boch, Belgian artist whom Van Gogh met in Arles 1 to Egbert Borchers, acquaintance in The Hague 1 to Hendrik Jan Furnée, seller of artists’ materials in The Hague 1 to Antoine Philippe Furnée, surveyor, amateur artist to whom Van Gogh gave lessons in The Hague (son of the above) 1 to Johannes van Hombergh, mayor of Nuenen 1 to Horace Mann Livens, English artist whom Van Gogh met in Antwerp 1 to Octave Maus, secretary of the avant-garde Les Vingt artists’ society, Brussels 1 to Paul Signac, French artist whom Van Gogh met in Paris 1 to Hermanus Gijsbertus Tersteeg, Vincent and Theo’s superior at Goupil & Cie in The Hague 1 to Betsy Tersteeg, daughter of the above 1 to Hendrik Verzijl, retired tutor of Helvoirt 2 The number of surviving letters to Vincent van Gogh 46 from Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger (39 from Theo, 2 from Theo and Jo, 5 from Jo) 16 from Paul Gauguin >4 from Joseph Roulin, postal worker in Arles and Marseille 2 from Joseph Ginoux and Marie Ginoux-Julien (1 from Joseph, 1 from Marie) 2 from Arnold Hendrik Koning 2 from Paul Signac 1 from Willemien van Gogh 1 from Anna van Gogh, sister 1 from Hendrik Bonger and Hermine Bonger-Weismann (Jo’s parents) and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus 1 from Henriette Lamblot-Gaudin, bookseller in Arles 1 from Octave Maus 1 from Paul Eugène Milliet, French soldier whom Van Gogh met in Arles 1 from Christian Mourier-Petersen, Danish artist whom Van Gogh met in Arles 1 from Théophile Peyron, medical director of the asylum in Saint-Rémy 1 from Anthon van Rappard 1 from John Peter Russell 1 from Frédéric Salles, clergyman in Arles 3 Related manuscripts Included in this edition are 25 letters that are either unfinished, crossed out, incomplete and/or were not sent which have been grouped together in this edition as ‘Related manuscripts’: a one-line note from Paul Gachet, Van Gogh’s doctor in Auvers, and 24 letters by Van Gogh. Thirteen of the latter were addressed to Theo, two to Theo and Jo, one to Willemien, one to Russell, one to the Dutch art critic Joseph Isaäcson, and one to Hendrik Jan Furnée. The addressee of one fragment, RM14, is not known. Another fragment of a letter and a copied-out poem (RM1 and RM12) may have been intended for Vincent’s sister Anna. 4 The unknown letters In addition to the 903 surviving letters there must have been at least 550 to Van Gogh and 290 from him that we no longer have. Van Gogh is known to have corresponded with the people listed below, but the letters have not survived. That they must have existed at one time is clear from remarks in Van Gogh’s own correspondence, that of the family, or other sources. The section ‘Lost correspondence’ (4.2) takes a closer look at this group of correspondents. Known correspondents whose letters to Van Gogh (and vice versa) are lost Margot Begemann, girlfriend in Nuenen Elisabeth Petronella van der Burg, acquaintance in Zundert Louise Christina van der Burg, acquaintance in Zundert Edouard Dujardin, French writer and art critic Lodewijk Cornelis Enthoven, factory owner in The Hague Dimmen Gestel, amateur artist to whom Van Gogh gave lessons in Nuenen Harry Gladwell, colleague at Goupil & Cie in Paris Henry William Gladwell, father of the above Cor van Gogh, brother Lies van Gogh, sister Hein van Gogh, uncle Jan van Gogh, uncle Vincent van Gogh and Cornelie van Gogh-Carbentus, uncle and aunt Carl Adolph Haanebeek, uncle by marriage Sien Hoornik, girlfriend in The Hague Nicolaas de Jonge, clergyman in Brussels Wilhelmus Johannes Leurs, seller of artists’ materials in The Hague Nico Mager, colleague at the Blussé & Van Braam bookshop in Dordrecht Anton Mauve and Jet Mauve-Carbentus, cousin by marriage and cousin Maurits Benjamin Mendes da Costa, teacher in Amsterdam Charles Obach, manager of Goupil & Cie in London Alphonse Portier, art dealer in Paris Frans Alexander Lodewijk van Rappard, father of Anthon van Rappard Emile Rochedieu, clergyman and chairman of the Comité d’Evangélisation in Laeken (Brussels) Willem Marinus Roos, with whom Vincent and Theo lodged in The Hague Charles Emmanuel Serret, French artist, acquaintance of Theo in Paris Thomas Slade-Jones, schoolmaster and clergyman in Isleworth and his wife, Annie Slade-Jones-Dawson Maria van Stockum, acquaintance in The Hague, sister of Willem van Stockum Marinus van Stockum, acquaintance in The Hague, brother of Willem van Stockum William Port Stokes, schoolmaster and clergyman in Ramsgate Johannes Paulus Stricker and Mina Stricker-Carbentus, uncle and aunt Guillaume Charles Tasset, seller of artists’ materials in Paris Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French artist whom Van Gogh met in Paris Willem Valkis, fellow lodger with the Roos family in The Hague Kee Vos, cousin Abraham van der Waeyen Pieterszen, clergyman in Mechelen Possible correspondents George Hendrik Breitner, Dutch artist whom Van Gogh met in The Hague Félix Hilaire Buhot, French artist, acquaintance of Theo in Paris Willem Kiesenberg, acquaintance of Van Gogh in The Hague Frans Soek, colleague at Goupil & Cie in Paris Elbert-Jan van Wisselingh, Dutch art dealer in London, Paris and The Hague...

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896 letters, 25 essay items, 95 bibliographic items and 4 other items found

896 letters found

25 essay items found

95 bibliographic items found

4 other items found

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters