I brought Conté in wood (and pencils as well) from The Hague, and am now working a lot with it.
I’m also starting to work with the brush and the stump. With a little sepia or indian ink, and now and then with a bit of colour.
It’s quite certain that the drawings I’ve been making lately don’t much resemble anything I’ve made up till now.
The size of the figures is more or less that of one of the Exercices au fusain.
As regards landscape, I maintain that that should by no means have to suffer on account of it. On the contrary, it will gain by it. Herewith a couple of little sketches to give you an idea of them.
Of course I have to pay the people who pose. Not very much, but because it’s an everyday occurrence it will be one more expense as long as I fail to sell any drawings.
But because it’s only rarely that a figure is a total failure, it seems to me that the cost of models will be completely recouped fairly soon already.
For there’s also something to be earned in this day and age for someone who has learned to seize a figure and hold on to it until it stands firmly on the paper. I needn’t tell you that I’m only sending you these sketches to give you an idea of the pose. I scribbled them today quickly and see that the proportions leave much to be desired, certainly more so than in the actual drawings at any rate. I’ve had a good letter from Rappard who seems to be hard at work, he sent me some very nice sketches of landscapes. I’d really like him to come here again for a few days.
[Sketch 172A]
172A–C (top to bottom). Storm clouds over a field; Digger; Figure of a woman
This is a field or stubble field which is being ploughed and sown, I have a rather large sketch of it with a storm brewing.
[Sketch 172B]
The other two sketches are poses of diggers. I hope to make several more of these.
[Sketches 172C–D]
172D. Digger
The other sower has a basket.
It would give me tremendous pleasure to have a woman pose with a seed basket in order to find that figure that I showed you last spring and which you see in the foreground of the first sketch.
[Sketch 172E]
172E. Man leaning on his spade
In short, ‘the factory is in full swing’, as Mauve says.
Remember that Ingres paper, if you will, of the colour of unbleached linen, the stronger kind if possible. In any case, write to me soon if you can, and accept a handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
[Sketches 172F–L]
172F. Man sitting by the fireplace (‘Worn out’)
172G–K (left to right, top to bottom). Woman near a window; Woman near a window; Man with a winnow; Woman with a broom; Sower
172L. Sower with a sack
179 | Etten, Thursday, 3 November 1881 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Etten, 3/9 1881
My dear Theo,
There’s something on my mind that I want to tell you. Perhaps you already know something about it, and what I’m telling you isn’t news.
I wanted to tell you that this summer I’ve come to love Kee Vos so much that I could find no other words for it than ‘it’s just as if Kee Vos were the closest person to me and I the closest person to Kee Vos’. And — I said these words to her. But when I told her this, she replied that her past and her future were all one to her and so she could never return my feelings.
Then I was in an awful dilemma about what to do, to resign myself to that no, nay, never, or — not yet to regard the matter as over and done with, and to take courage and not give up yet.
I chose the latter. And until now I haven’t regretted that decision, even though I’m still confronted with that no, nay, never.
Since then, of course, I’ve suffered a great many ‘petty miseries of human life’, which, if they were written down in a book, could perhaps serve to amuse some people, though they can hardly be considered pleasant if one experiences them oneself. Nonetheless, up to now I’ve been glad that I left the resignation or ‘how-not-to-do-it’ method to those who prefer it and, as for myself, plucked up a little courage. You understand that in cases like this it’s surprisingly difficult to know what one can, may and must do. But ‘wandering we find our way’, and not by sitting still.
One of the reasons I haven’t written to you about it before now is that the position in which I found myself was so vague and undecided that I couldn’t explain it to you.
Now, though, we’ve progressed to the point where I’ve spoken about it — in addition to her — to Pa and Ma, to Uncle and Aunt Stricker and to Uncle and Aunt at Princenhage. The only one who said to me, though very informally and in private, that I did indeed have a chance if I worked hard and prospered, is one from whom I didn’t expect it at all, Uncle Cent. He was amused at the way I took Kee’s no, nay, never, i.e. by making light of it and sort of joking about it, bring no grist to Kee Vos’s mill of no, nay, never, for example, I wish her all good things, apart from hoping that the aforementioned flour-mill will go bankrupt. Likewise I didn’t much mind when Uncle Stricker said there was a danger I ‘would sever friendly relations and break old ties’, to which I replied that in my opinion the case in question, far from breaking old ties, could renew the old ties where they were in need of repair. At any rate, I hope to go on like this and to keep well away from melancholy and pessimism. Meanwhile working hard, and since meeting her my work is going much better.
I said that now the situation is becoming somewhat clearer. First, Kee says no, nay, never, and furthermore I believe that I’ll have tremendous difficulty with the elders who already regard the matter as over and done with and will try and force me to give up. For the time being, though, I believe they’ll proceed with caution, keeping me dangling and fobbing me off until Uncle and Aunt Stricker’s big celebration (in December) is over. Because they want to avoid scandal. After that, though, I fear that steps will be taken to get rid of me.
Forgive the rather harsh terms I’m using to make my position clear to you. I admit that the colours are a little harsh and the lines drawn a bit too hard, but it will nevertheless give you a clearer picture of the situation than if I were to beat about the bush. So don’t suspect me of lack of respect for those Elder persons.
Only I believe that they’re decidedly against it, and I want to make you see this. They’ll try and see to it that Kee and I can neither see nor speak nor write to one another, just because they understand very well that if we were to see, speak or write to one another there would be a chance of a change of heart in Kee. Kee herself thinks she‘ll never change her mind and, though the elder persons are trying to convince me that she can’t change, they fear that change nonetheless.
The elder persons will change their minds about this matter not when Kee changes her mind but when I become someone who earns at least 1,000 guilders a year. Again, forgive the hard contours with which I outline things. While I find little sympathy from the elders, I think that some of the younger ones will be able to understand my attitude. Perhaps you, Theo. Perhaps you’ve heard it said of me that I want to force the issue and suchlike expressions. But who doesn’t understand how senseless it is to try and force love! No, that’s far, far from my thoughts. But it’s not unfair or unreasonable to wish that Kee and I, instead of not being allowed to see one another, will see, speak and write to one another so that, getting to know each other better, we’ll be able to see for ourselves whether or not we’re suited to each other. A year of contact with one another would be beneficial for her and for me, yet the elders won’t budge on this point. If I were rich they’d talk altogether differently.
Yet by now you understand that I mean to leave no stone unturned in my endeavours to bring me closer to her, and I declare that
I shall love her so long
That in the end she’ll love me too.
The more she disappears, the more she appears.
Theo, aren’t you in love too, at times? I wish yo
u were, for believe me, the ‘petty miseries’ of it are also of some value. Sometimes one is desolate, there are moments when one is in hell, as it were, but — it also brings with it other and better things. There are three stages, first not loving and not being loved, second loving and not being loved (the case in question), third loving and being loved.
I’d say that the second stage is better than the first, but the third! That’s it.
Now, old boy, go and fall in love and tell me about it sometime. Keep quiet about the case in question and sympathize with me. I’d much rather have a yea and amen, of course, but meanwhile I’m really rather happy with my ‘no, nay, never’. I consider that something, but older and wiser people say it’s nothing. Rappard was here, brought along watercolours that are becoming good. Mauve is coming soon, I hope, otherwise I’ll go to him. I’m drawing a great deal and think it’s getting better, I’m working much more with the brush than I used to. Now it’s so cold that practically all I do is draw figures inside, seamstress, basket-maker &c.
A handshake in thought, and write soon, and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
They wanted 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 same situation). I’ve only given assurances to Uncle Cent that I would stop writing to Uncle Stricker for the time being, until unforeseen circumstances should make it necessary. A lark can’t help singing in the spring.
If you should ever fall in love and receive a no, nay, never, by no means resign yourself to it! But you’re such a lucky dog that something like this will probably never happen to you, I hope.
186 | Etten, Friday, 18 November 1881 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Friday evening.
Dear Brother,
When I sent my letter to you this morning, meaning when I put it in the post-box, I had a feeling of relief. For a moment I’d hesitated, should I tell him or not? But thinking it over later it seemed to me that it really wasn’t unwarranted. I’m writing to you here in the little room that’s now my studio because the other is so damp. When I look round it’s full of all kinds of studies that all relate to one and the same thing, ‘Brabant types’.
So that is work started, and if I were wrenched from this environment I’d have to start all over again doing something else and this would come to a standstill, half-finished! That mustn’t happen! I’ve now been working here since May, I’m getting to know and understand my models, my work is progressing, though it’s taken a lot of hard work to get into my stride. And now that I’ve got into my stride, should Pa say, because you’re writing letters to Kee Vos, thereby causing difficulties between us (because this is the fundamental cause, and no matter what they might say: that I don’t obey the ‘rules of decorum’ or whatever, it’s all just idle talk), so because difficulties have arisen I curse you and drive you out of the house.
That’s really too bad, after all, and it would indeed be ridiculous to stop working for such a reason on a project that’s already started and progressing well.
No, no, one can’t just let that happen. Anyway, the difficulties between Pa and Ma and myself aren’t so terrible, aren’t at all of the kind that would keep us from staying together. But Pa and Ma are getting old, and sometimes they get a little angry, and they have their prejudices and old-fashioned ideas that neither you nor I can share any more.
If, for example, Pa sees me with a French book by Michelet or V. Hugo in my hand, he thinks of arsonists and murderers and ‘immorality’. But that’s just too silly, and of course I don’t let idle talk of that kind upset me. I’ve already said so often to Pa: just read a book like this, even if only a couple of pages, and you’ll be moved by it. But Pa stubbornly refuses to do so. Just now, when this love was taking root in my heart, I read Michelet’s books L’amour and La femme again, and so many things became clear to me that would otherwise remain a mystery. I also told Pa frankly that in the circumstances I valued Michelet’s advice more than his, and had to choose which of the two I should follow. But then they come with a story about a great-uncle who had become obsessed with French ideas and had taken to drink, thus insinuating that such will be my career in life. What misery!
Pa and Ma are extremely good to me inasmuch as they do what they can to feed me well &c. I appreciate that very much, but that doesn’t alter the fact that eating and drinking and sleeping isn’t enough, that one yearns for something nobler and higher, indeed, one simply can’t do without it.
That higher thing I can’t do without is my love for Kee Vos. Pa and Ma reason, She says no, nay, never, so you must remain silent.
I can’t accept that at all, on the contrary. And if I write to her or something like that then there are ugly words like ‘coercion’ and ‘it won’t help anyway’ and ‘you’ll spoil things for yourself’. And then they’re surprised if someone doesn’t just resign himself to finding his love ‘indelicate’! No, truly not! In my opinion, Theo, I must stay here and quietly go on working and do everything in my power to win Kee Vos’s love and to melt the no, nay, never. I can’t share Pa and Ma’s view that I shouldn’t write or speak either to her or to Uncle Stricker; indeed, I feel the exact opposite. And I’d rather give up the work started and all the comforts of this house than resign myself one iota to leaving off writing to her or her parents or you. If Pa curses me for it, then I can’t prevent His Hon. from doing so. If he wants to throw me out of the house, so be it, but I’ll continue to do what my heart and mind tell me to do with respect to my love.
Be assured, Pa and Ma are actually against it, because otherwise I can’t explain why they went so far this morning, so it now seems to me that it was a mistake for me ever to think that they didn’t care one way or the other. Anyhow, I’m writing to you about it because, where my work is involved, that is definitely your concern, since you’re the one who has already spent so much money on helping me to succeed. Now I’ve got into my stride, now it’s progressing, now I’m starting to see something in it, and now I tell you, Theo, this is hanging over me. I’d like nothing better than simply to go on working, but Pa seems to want to curse me and put me out of the house, at least he said so this morning. The reason is that I write letters to Kee Vos. As long as I do that, at any rate, Pa and Ma will always find something to reproach me with, whether that I don’t obey the rules of decorum or that I have an indelicate way of expressing myself or that I’m breaking ties or something of the kind.
A forceful word from you could perhaps straighten things out. You will understand what I tell you, that to work and be an artist one needs love. At least someone who strives for feeling in his work must first feel and live with his heart.
But Pa and Ma are harder than stone on the point of ‘a means of subsistence’, as they call it.
If it were a question of marrying at once, I’d most certainly agree with them, but NOW it’s a question of melting the no, nay, never, and a means of subsistence can’t do that.
That’s an entirely different matter, an affair of the heart, for to make the no, nay, never melt, she and I must see each other, write to each other, speak to each other. That’s as clear as day and simple and reasonable. And truly (though they take me to be a weak character, ‘a man of butter’), I won’t let anything in the world deter me from this love. May God help me in this.
No putting it off from today to tomorrow, from tomorrow to the next day, no silent waiting. The lark can’t be silent as long as it can sing. It’s absurd, utterly absurd, to make someone’s life difficult for this reason. If Pa wants to curse me for it, that’s his business — my business is to try and see Kee Vos, to speak to her, to write to her, to love her with everything in me.
You’ll understand that a father shouldn’t curse his son because that son doesn’t obey the rules of decorum or expresses himself indelicately or other things, assuming this were all true, though I think it’s actual
ly very different.
But unfortunately it’s something that happens all too often in many families, that a father curses his son because of a love the parents disapprove of.
THAT’s the rub, the other — rules of decorum &c., expressions, the tone of my words — those are just pretexts. What should we do now?
Wouldn’t it be foolish, Theo, not to go on drawing those Brabant folk types, now that I’m making progress, just because Pa and Ma are vexed by my love?
No, that mustn’t happen. Let them accept it, for God’s sake, that’s what I think. It really would be mad to expect a young man to sacrifice his energy to the prejudice of an old man. And truly, Pa and Ma are prejudiced in this.
Theo, I still haven’t heard one word of love towards her, and to tell you the truth that is what bothers me more than anything else.
I don’t think that Pa and Ma love her deep down, at any rate in the mood they’re in now they can’t think of her with love. But I hope this will change in later and better days. No, no, no, there’s something wrong with them, and it can’t be good that they curse me and want me out of the house at this very time. There are no grounds for it and it would thwart me in my work. So it can’t be allowed to happen for no good reason.
What would she think if she knew what happened this morning? How would she like it, even though she says no, nay, never, if she heard that they called my love for her indelicate and spoke of ‘breaking ties’ &c. No, Theo, if she’d heard Pa cursing me, she wouldn’t have approved of his curse. Ma once called her ‘such a poor wee thing’ in the sense of so weak, so nervous or whatever.
But be assured that lurking in ‘that poor wee thing’ is strength of mind and pride, energy and resoluteness that could change the minds of many towards her, and I maintain that sooner or later one might see things from ‘that poor wee thing’ that very few now expect! She’s so good and friendly that it pains her deeply to say one single unfriendly word, but if such as her, so gentle, so tender, so loving, rebel — piqued to the quick — then woe betide those they rebel against.
Ever Yours Page 22