Still, I believe that the least expensive way is to persevere without losing any time.
For one must get through this miserable period. Now I must learn not to do some things which I more or less taught myself, and to look at things in a completely different way. A great effort must be made before one can look at the proportion of things with a steady eye.
It’s not exactly easy for me to get along with Mauve all the time, any more than is the reverse, because I think we’re a match for each other as regards nervous energy, and it’s a downright effort for him to give me directions, and no less for me to understand them and to attempt to put them into practice.
But I think we’re beginning to understand each other quite well, and it’s already beginning to be a deeper feeling than mere superficial sympathy. He has his hands full with his large painting that was once intended for the Salon, it will be splendid. And he’s also working on a winter scene. And some lovely drawings.
I believe he puts a little bit of his life into each painting and each drawing. Sometimes he’s dog-tired, and he said recently, ‘I’m not getting any stronger’, and anyone seeing him just then wouldn’t easily forget the expression on his face.
This is what Mauve says to console me when my drawings turn out heavy, thick, muddy, black, dead: If you were already working thinly now, it would only be being stylish and later your work would probably become thick. Now, though, you’re struggling and it becomes heavy, but later it will become quick and thin. If indeed it turns out like that, I have nothing against it. And you see it now from this small one, which took a quarter of an hour to make from beginning to end, but — after I’d made a larger one that turned out too heavy. And it was precisely because I’d struggled with that other one that, when the model happened to be standing like this for a moment, I was later able to sketch this one in an instant on a little piece of paper that was left over from a sheet of Whatman.
This model is a pretty girl, I believe she’s mainly Artz’s model, but she charges a daalder a day and that’s really too expensive for now. So I simply toil on with my old crone.
The success 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 other takes hold of me, and then it doesn’t work at all.
But then, too, the message is to keep on working — because Mauve, for instance, and Israëls and so many others who are examples know how to benefit from every mood.
Anyway, I have some hope that as soon as I’m completely better things will go well, a little better than now. If I have to rest for a while I’ll do it, but it will probably be over soon.
All things considered, though, I’m not like I was 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 vitality, but I mean the time when one doesn’t feel that one lives, and lives without effort. Actually I say all the better, there are now better things, after all, than there were then. Bear up, old chap — it really is rather petty and mean of Messrs G&Cie that they refused you when you wanted to have some money. You certainly didn’t deserve that, that they were so cold-hearted towards you, because you do a lot of their dirty work and don’t spare yourself. So you have a right to be treated with some respect.
Accept a handshake in thought, I hope that I’ll soon have something better to tell you than I did today and recently, but you mustn’t hold it against me, I’m very weak. Adieu.
Ever yours,
Vincent
204 | The Hague, Monday, 13 February 1882 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
13 Feb. 82
My dear Theo,
Even though I’m rather expecting a letter from you one of these days, I’ll write again anyway.
I heard a few things about you from Mr Tersteeg when he returned from Paris. He told me that you were doing well, and he seemed to be rather pleased with his trip. When I went to see him I had a couple of drawings, and he said that they were better than the last ones and told me that I should again make a couple of small ones. I’m working on those now. And I’ve also been working on a new pen drawing of an old woman knitting. And I believe it’s better than last summer’s, at least it has more tone. When I have a couple of pen drawings that have turned out quite well, I believe I know an art lover who will take them.
I also wrote to C.M. the other day to say I’d rented a studio here, and hoped that when he came to The Hague he’d let me know, or come and have a look. Uncle Cent also told me last summer that if I have a drawing, a little smaller than those of last summer and with more watercolour, I should simply send it and he would take it. Perhaps the time will soon come when my work will put some money in my pocket, which I’m badly in need of, precisely in order to tackle things more seriously.
If you can find out about it, you must tell me what kind of drawings one might be able to sell to the illustrated magazines. It seems to me they could use pen drawings of types of the people, and I’d like so much to start working on them, in order to make something suitable for reproduction. I don’t think that all drawings are drawn directly on the blocks, there must be some means of getting a facsimile onto the block. Though I don’t rightly know.
Sometimes I long so very much to see you and talk to you, will it be a long time before you come to Holland? I believe Pa half expected you to come for his birthday.
I was very glad that Mr Tersteeg found the drawings a little better, well, I’m also beginning to feel more at home with my model, and that’s precisely the reason why I must continue with her now.
In the last two studies I captured the character much better, everyone who saw them said so. At the moment I quite often go to draw with Breitner, a young painter who’s acquainted with Rochussen as I am with Mauve. He draws very skilfully and very differently from me, and we often draw types together in the soup kitchen or the waiting room &c. He sometimes comes to my studio to look at woodcuts, and I go to see the ones he has as well. He has the studio that Apol used to have at Siebenhaar’s.
Last week I went to an art viewing at Pulchri which had sketches by Bosboom and Henkes. Very beautiful; there were a number of drawings by Henkes, larger figures than one usually sees from him. He ought to make more of them, I think.
Weissenbruch also came to see me.
I look forward every day to a letter from you, because I hope you’ll send me something one of these days.
We must stick it out for a while, old chap, and persevere, you as well as I, and then we’ll both get pleasure from it sometime.
I’m really very glad that I’ve gone on with the figure so far. If I’d been making only landscapes, perhaps I’d already be making something that would fetch a price, but later on I’d end up getting stuck anyway. Although the figure is more difficult and a more complicated matter, I believe it’s more solid in the long run.
De Bock came here this afternoon just as I was working from the model, and when he saw the model he started saying that he’d quite like to draw figures too; all the same, he doesn’t do it. He recently made a beautiful drawing, though.
In your last letter you told me something about the matter of your not being able to have any money before the inventory was finished. But if you don’t have it, be so good as to write to Mr Tersteeg about it immediately, because I have only three guilders or so left and it’s already nearly the middle of February.
So at all events I’m expecting a letter from you any day now.
I believe that I’ve got the proportions much better in my last drawings than in the previous ones, and that’s exactly what seemed to me to be the worst fault in my drawings up to now, but that’s changing, thank God, and then I won’t be afraid of anything.
Adieu Theo, write soon, accept in thought a hearty handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
207 | The Hague, Friday, 3 March 1882 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Friday, 3 March
My dear Theo,
Since receiving your letter and the money I’ve taken a model every day and I’m up to my ears in work.
It’s a new model I 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 must say, invaluably willing. I got them to pose for me, though not without difficulty and on the condition that I’d promise them steady work. Well, that was exactly what I wanted so very much, and I consider it a good arrangement. The younger woman doesn’t have a pretty face because she had smallpox, but her figure is very graceful and I find it charming. They also have good clothes. Black woollens and nicely shaped caps, and a pretty shawl &c.
You needn’t worry too much about the money, because we’ve agreed to compromise in the beginning. I’ve promised them a guilder a day as soon as I sell one. And that I’ll make it up to them later for giving them too little now.
But I must manage to sell something.
If I could do so, I’d keep everything I’m now making of them for myself, because if I only kept them for a year I’m sure I could get more for them then than now.
But anyway, in the circumstances, it would be very nice if Mr Tersteeg bought 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 interior. But those larger compositions must ripen gradually, and for a drawing with 3 seamstresses, for example, one must draw at least 90 seamstresses. That’s how it works.
I had a friendly letter from C.M. promising to come to The Hague soon and to visit me too. Well, that’s just a promise, yet again, but perhaps something after all. Oh well.
For the rest I’ll run after people less and less as time goes on, whoever they may be, neither art dealers nor painters, the only ones I’ll run after are models, because I find working without a model totally wrong, at least as far as I’m concerned.
I say, Theo, it really is nice to see a tiny bit of light, and I do see a bit of light. It’s nice to draw a person, something that lives, it’s damned difficult but wonderful anyhow.
Tomorrow two children are coming to visit whom I must amuse and draw at the same time. I want some life in my studio, and already have all kinds of acquaintances in the neighbourhood. On Sunday an orphan boy is coming, a perfect type, but unfortunately I can have him only for a short time.
Perhaps it’s true that I don’t have the ability to mix with people who are keen on etiquette, but on the other hand I perhaps have more feeling for poor or simple folk, and if I lose on the one hand I win on the other hand, and sometimes I simply give up and think, after all it’s right and reasonable that I, as an artist, live in what I feel and try to express. Evil be to him who evil thinks.
Now it’s the beginning of the month again. Even though it hasn’t been a full month since you sent me something, all the same, I’d like to ask you kindly to send me something if you can one of these days. It needn’t be the 100 francs all at once, just as long as it’s something to be getting along with between now and the time when you can send something. I say this because in a previous letter you mentioned that you couldn’t get any money until the inventory had been finished.
Sometimes it grieves me to think that I might have to let the model wait, because they need it so much. I’ve paid them up to today, but next week I wouldn’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 much regretted, for which he thought you might still be angry at him. For he still has a drawing that belongs to you, I believe, though I didn’t rightly understand the matter. He’s working on a large thing, a market scene which must accommodate a lot of figures. Yesterday evening I went out with him to look for figure types in the street in order to study them later in the studio with a model. In that way I drew an old woman I’d seen in the Geest district where the madhouse is — like this:
[Sketch 207A]
207A. Old woman with a shawl and a walking-stick
Well, good evening, I hope to hear something from you soon.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I also had to pay the rent this week. Good-night. It’s already two o’clock and I’m not finished yet.
211 | The Hague, Saturday, 11 March 1882 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
My dear Theo,
You will have received my letters, I’m answering yours, received this afternoon. In accordance with your request, I immediately sent Tersteeg 10 guilders, lent to me this week by His Hon. I wrote to you about C.M.’s order, this is what happened. C.M. appeared to have spoken to Tersteeg before he came to see me, at any rate began talking about things like ‘earning your bread’. My answer suddenly came to me, quickly and, I believe, correctly. Here’s what I said: earn my bread, what do you mean by that? — to earn one’s bread or to deserve one’s bread — not to deserve one’s bread, that is to say, to be unworthy of one’s bread, that’s what’s a crime, every honest man being worthy of his crust — but as for not earning it at all, while at the same time deserving it, oh, that! is a misfortune and A great misfortune. So, if you’re saying to me here and now: you’re unworthy of your bread, I understand that you’re insulting me, but if you’re making the moderately fair comment to me that I don’t always earn it because sometimes I’m short of it, so be it, but what’s the use of making that comment to me? It’s scarcely useful to me if it ends there. I recently tried, I continued, to explain this to Tersteeg, but either he’s hard of hearing in that ear or my explanation was a little confused because of the pain his words caused me.
C.M. then kept quiet about earning one’s bread.
The storm threatened again because I happened to mention the name Degroux in connection with expression. C.M. suddenly asked, But surely you know there was something untoward about Degroux’s private life?
You understand that there C.M. touched a tender spot and ventured on to thin ice. I really can’t let that be said about good père Degroux. So I replied, it has always seemed to me that when an artist shows his work to people he has the right to keep to himself the inner struggle of his own private life (which is directly and inextricably connected with the singular difficulties involved in producing a work of art) — unless he unburdens himself to a very intimate friend. It is, I say, indelicate for a critic to dig up something blameworthy from the private life of someone whose work is above criticism. Degroux is a master like Millet, like Gavarni.
C.M. had certainly not viewed Gavarni, at least, as a master.
(To anyone but C.M. I could have expressed myself more succinctly by saying: an artist’s work and his private life are like a woman in childbed and her child. You may look at her child, but you may not lift up her chemise to see if there are any bloodstains on it, that would be indelicate on the occasion of a maternity visit.)
I was already beginning to fear that C.M. would hold it against me — but fortunately things took a turn for the better. As a diversion I got out my portfolio with smaller studies and sketches. At first he said nothing — until we came to a little drawing that I’d sketched once with Breitner, parading around at midnight — namely Paddemoes (that Jewish quarter near the Nieuwe Kerk), seen from Turfmarkt. I’d set to work on it again the next morning with the pen.
Jules Bakhuyzen had also looked at the thing and recognized the spot immediately.
Could you make more of those to
wnscapes for me? said C.M. Certainly, because I amuse myself with them sometimes when I’ve worked myself to the bone with the model — here’s Vleersteeg — the Geest district — Vischmarkt. Make 12 of those for me. Certainly, I said, but that means we’re doing a bit of business, so let’s talk straightaway about the price. My price for a drawing of that size, whether with pencil or pen, I’ve fixed for myself at a rijksdaalder — does that seem unreasonable to you?
No — he simply says — if they turn out well I’ll ask for another 12 of Amsterdam, provided you let me fix the price, then you’ll earn a bit more.
Well, it seems to me that that’s not a bad way to end a visit I had rather dreaded. Because I actually made an agreement with you, Theo, simply to tell you things like this in my own way, as it flows from my pen, I’m describing these little scenes to you just as they happen. Especially because in this way, even though you’re absent, you get a glimpse of my studio anyway.
I’m longing for you to come, because then I can talk to you more seriously about things concerning home, for instance.
C.M.’s order is a bright spot! I’ll try to do those drawings carefully and put some spirit into them. And in any case you’ll see them, and I believe, old chap, that there’s more of such business. Buyers for 5-franc drawings can be found. With a bit of practice, I’ll make one every day and voilà, if they sell well, a crust of bread and a guilder a day for the model. The lovely season with long days is approaching, I’ll make the ‘soup ticket’, i.e. the bread and model drawing, either in the morning or the evening, and during the day I’ll study seriously from the model. C.M. is one buyer I found myself. Who knows whether you won’t succeed in turning up a second, and perhaps Tersteeg, when he’s recovered from his reproachful fury, a third, and then things can move along.
Ever Yours Page 27