Tomorrow morning I’ll go and look for a subject for one of those for C.M.
I was at Pulchri this evening — Tableaux vivants and a kind of farce by Tony Offermans. I skipped the farce, because I can’t stand caricatures or the fug of an assembly hall, but I wanted to see the tableaux vivants, especially because one of them was done after an etching I gave Mauve as a present, Nicolaas Maes, the stable at Bethlehem. (The other was Rembrandt, Isaac blessing Jacob, with a superb Rebecca who watches to see if her ruse will succeed.) The Nicolaas Maes was very good in chiaroscuro and even colour — but in my opinion not worth tuppence as far as expression goes. The expression was definitely wrong. I saw it once in real life, not the birth of the baby Jesus, mind you, but the birth of a calf. And I still know exactly what its expression was like. There was a girl there, at night in that stable — in the Borinage — a brown peasant face with a white night-cap among other things, she had tears in her eyes of compassion for the poor cow when the animal went into labour and was having great difficulty. It was pure, holy, wonderfully beautiful like a Correggio, like a Millet, like an Israëls. Oh Theo — why don’t you let it all go hang and become a painter? Old chap — you could do it if you wanted to. I sometimes suspect you of keeping a great landscapist hidden inside you. It seems to me you’d be extremely good at drawing birch trunks and sketching the furrows of a field or stubble field, and painting snow and sky &c. Just between you and me. I shake your hand.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Here’s a list of Dutch paintings intended for the Salon.
Israëls, an old man (if he weren’t a fisherman he’d be Tom Carlyle — the author of the French Revolution and Oliver Cromwell — for he definitely has that distinctive head of Carlyle), an old man sits in a hut by the fireplace in which a small piece of peat barely glows in the twilight. For it’s a dark hut the old man sits in, an old hut with a small window with a little white curtain. His dog, who’s grown old with him, sits beside him — those two old creatures look at each other, they look each other in the eye, the dog and the old man. And meanwhile the man takes his tobacco box out of his trousers pocket and he fills his pipe like that in the twilight. Nothing else — the twilight, the quiet, the loneliness of those two old creatures, man and dog, the familiarity of those two, that old man thinking — what’s he thinking about? — I don’t know — I can’t say — but it must be a deep, a long thought, something, though I don’t know what, surfacing from long ago, perhaps that’s what gives that expression to his face — a melancholy, satisfied, submissive expression, something that recalls that famous verse by Long fellow that always ends, But the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts. I’d like to see that painting by Israëls as a pendant to Millet’s Death and the woodcutter. I definitely know of no other painting 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 Millet’s Death and the woodcutter, no other painting that one can see at the same time as this Israëls. 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 lacks is having Millet’s Death and the woodcutter hanging close by, one at one end and the other at the other end of a long, narrow room, with no other painting in that gallery but those two and them alone.
It’s a fabulous Israëls, I couldn’t really see anything else, it made such a deep impression on me. And yet, there was another Israëls, a small one with 5 or 6 figures, I think, a labourer’s family at table.
There’s a Mauve, the large painting of the pink being dragged onto the dunes, it’s a masterpiece.
I’ve never heard a good sermon about resignation nor been able to imagine one, except for this painting by Mauve and the work of Millet. It is indeed resignation, but the true kind, not that of the clergymen. Those nags, those poor, sorry-looking nags, black, white, brown, they stand there, patiently submissive, willing, resigned, still. They’ll soon have to drag the heavy boat the last bit of the way, the job’s almost done. They stand still for a moment, they pant, they’re covered in sweat, but they don’t murmur, they don’t protest — they don’t complain — about anything. They’re long past that, years ago already. They’re resigned to living and working a while longer, but if they have to go to the knacker’s yard tomorrow, so be it, they’re ready for it. I find such a wonderfully elevated, practical, wordless philosophy in this painting, it seems to be saying,
to know how to suffer without complaining, that’s the only practical thing, that’s the great skill, the lesson to learn, the solution to life’s problem.
It seems to me that this painting by Mauve would be one of those rare paintings which Millet would stand in front of for a long time, mumbling to himself, he has a good heart, that painter.
There were other paintings — I must say I scarcely looked at them, I had enough with the above-mentioned.
Listen Theo, wouldn’t you like to ponder whether there’s not a great landscapist in you? We should both of us quite simply become painters, we’d be able to make a living at it. For the figure one must be more of a draught ox or work-horse, more a man of hard labour. There’s a long long thought for you — old boy.
Theo, remain something better than HGT. When I first got to know him, HGT was better than now, he’d been a bigwig only a short time and was newly married. Now he’s been caught, he’s trapped. He’ll grow more and more to have secret regrets about many, many things and will be forced to conceal them. The thing is, Theo, my brother, not to let your hands be tied by anyone, especially not with a gilt chain. I have to say that the chain tying Tersteeg is very beautiful to look at, but anyone who thinks about it doesn’t envy his position. Be that as it may, artist is healthier — pecuniary difficulties are the greatest worry, I repeat, you, and you as a landscape painter, would surmount them sooner than I, though I, too, shall pull through some day. But, if you push off immediately, you’ll overtake me, because the figure is complicated, takes longer. You’ll understand that I speak in all seriousness.
214 | The Hague, on or about Sunday, 2 April 1882 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
My dear Theo,
I’ve set about writing to you several times, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish the letter, because I wanted to write to you about various reasons why I thought it such a natural thing for you to become a painter. But I didn’t like what I’d written, and I couldn’t find any words that were strong enough.
Your objections are indeed serious, but on the other hand there are a great many things that weigh against them. By your 30th year you could have progressed to the extent that people must respect you as a painter and take your work seriously. And in your 30th year you’ll still be young. What you’ve learned at Goupil, your knowledge of many things, means that you have exactly what it takes to catch up with many who ‘started early’. Because those early starters often have a period of staying at the same level fruitlessly for years, and that period isn’t necessary for someone who starts energetically at a later age. Painting is just as good a profession by which to earn a living 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 corresponds more closely. Now that you write about it, I remember very well that when you spoke to me back then about my becoming a painter, I thought it very inappropriate and wouldn’t hear of it.
What made me stop doubting is that I read a clearly written book on perspective, Cassagne, Guide de l’Abc du dessin, and a week later drew an interior of a little kitchen, with stove, chair and table and window in their place and on their legs, whereas it used to seem to me downright witchcraft or coincidence that one had depth and proper perspective in a drawing. If you drew just one thing as it should be drawn, the desire to attack 1,000 other things would be
irresistible. But the most difficult part is taking that first step. If a painter took you by the arm and said: Look, Theo, this is how you should draw that field, this is how the lines of the furrows run, for this reason or that they run like this and not otherwise, and must be brought into perspective like this. And that pollard willow being this big, the other one further on is by contrast that small, and that difference in size can be measured this way or that and — look! if you fling that down on paper then the broad outlines are immediately correct, and you have firm ground beneath your feet on which to continue.
Such a talk, provided it’s accompanied by practice, would be more appropriate in the circumstances than a lot of discussion about either abstract or financial matters. And so I won’t venture further into that territory, but you’re on the verge of getting an idea of the practice one day soon — and if you should happen to draw something correctly or, in short, if you learn to see things in perspective, then your art dealership has had it, and you’ll feel, just like Correggio: I, too, am a painter, and then you’ll see immediately that you’re in your element and then — then — you’ll be younger and more full of life than ever before, then your second youth will begin, which is better than the first, because the second never ends, thank God — doesn’t end like the other one. But the first youth — has left me and — and — is beginning to leave you.
As regards Cor’s education and Ma’s bread — those two things won’t be lacking, not even if you become a painter. And as far as you’re concerned, your food, drink, sleep, your studio, your model — . . . . . they aren’t far off — and if the idea to paint should awaken in you, you’d see that it could be done.
Nevertheless, so that you won’t suspect me of overlooking the financial side, I’d just like to say — yet with all due respect for your present position as an art dealer: unless one has a certain handicraft and can make something with his own hands, I doubt the soundness of the means of subsistence.
Meaning that I consider the social position of Jaap Maris, for example, more solid and independent than that of H.G.T. — I have a lot of respect for intellect and intelligence, if those are lacking then one comes to nought in spite of one’s handicraft, because one can’t stand up and defend one’s own work — you see this in Thijs Maris. But it’s precisely those people who have the intellect and intelligence, and it goes without saying that I count you among them and I’d like to count myself among them too, it’s fitting that they’re eminently suited to handiwork.
I repeat: if you take up painting you’ll succeed and, by your 30th year, you as a painter will have worked your way up, no less so in any respect than at present. A mediocrity in the bad sense of the word will certainly not be the case with you if you take up painting.
As regards painting, there are two lines of reasoning, how not to do it and HOW TO DO IT. How to do it: with much drawing and little colour. How not to do it: with much colour and little drawing.
Now I see the opportunity to manage very well if you can arrange it this month as you said, namely that around the 15th you give me another 100 francs to last until the beginning of May. From the 100 francs just sent I haven’t yet been able to pay Tersteeg — I have a lot of expenses — and I could wait no longer to buy a pair of trousers and pay the rent, for example. If you send some again around the middle of April, then I could pay him back, and will do so if you really wish it. Though I’d rather pay it back later with a drawing. That’s what I ought to be doing, I mustn’t give any cash back to dealers. My debt to you is something else. We don’t know how things will turn out. If you carry on as an art dealer, then in time you’ll be getting drawings and paintings for it — if you become a painter, then money, and gladly with interest.
Regarding the money owed to Tersteeg, when I first came here, he and Mauve were so friendly and said I didn’t have to worry at all — but in less than a month they’d turned around and were talking completely differently. Perhaps thinking that I’d collapse.
At first that grieved me — and then later it left me rather cold and I thought, I won’t let it upset me any more.
Breitner’s in hospital, I visit him quite often to bring him books or drawing materials. C.M. paid me, and a new order, but difficult enough, 6 detailed, specific, townscapes. I’ll see that I make them in any case, because if I understand correctly I’ll get for these 6 as much as for the first 12. And then perhaps sketches of Amsterdam.
Blommers was here to talk about a viewing of the woodcuts. Sat here looking at them for 3 hours, and was angry because Pulchri’s board had complained about ‘those things one sees now and then in the Zuid-Hollandsch Koffiehuis’. If that’s all they know about wood engraving they’re indeed competent to condemn! Still, Pulchri’s board had complained. Blommers wanted to go ahead with it anyway, and told me to have them ready for next Saturday. It’s very strange to hear some painters here discussing what they call ‘illustrators’, Gavarni, for instance, or Herkomer!! This NOT keeping abreast of things is part of what some of them call their ‘general education’. Good luck to them!
Now, with a handshake
Ever yours,
Vincent
Accept my thanks for a wonderful box of Ingres paper and for the studies.
One fine day when people start to say that I can in fact draw but not paint, perhaps I’ll appear with a painting just when they least expect it, but as long as it looks as though I must do it and may not do anything else, then I certainly won’t do it.
220 | The Hague, on or about Sunday, 23 April 1882 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Theo,
Since I wrote to Mauve ‘do you realize that those two months are long past, let’s shake hands and go our separate ways rather than quarrel’, I say, since I wrote such a thing and received no sign of life in return, it’s as though something has been choking me.
Because — and you know this — I do love Mauve, and it’s so awful that nothing much will come of all that happiness he held out to me. For I fear that the better I draw the more trouble and opposition I’ll encounter. Because I’ll have to suffer greatly for various idiosyncrasies that I cannot change. First of all, my appearance and manner of speaking and clothing, and also because later, when I’m earning more, I’ll continue to live in a different sphere from most other painters, because my view of things, the subjects I want to depict, inevitably demand it.
Enclosed is a little sketch of Diggers, I’ll tell you why I’m enclosing it:
Tersteeg says to me: ‘Things didn’t go well for you earlier either, and it was a failure, and now it’s the same all over again’. Stop right there — no, it’s wholly different from before, and that line of reasoning is in fact fallacious. That I wasn’t suited to commerce or professional studies in no way proves that I’d also be unfit to be a painter. On the contrary, if I were fit to be a clergyman or a dealer selling the work of others, perhaps I wouldn’t have been fit for painting and drawing, and wouldn’t have both handed in and been given my notice as such.
It’s precisely because I have a draughtsman’s fist that I can’t keep myself from drawing and, I ask you, have I ever doubted or hesitated or wavered since the day I began to draw? I think you know very well that I’ve hacked my way through and am obviously ever more keen to do battle.
Coming back to that little sketch — it was made in the Geest district in the drizzle, standing in a street in the mud, in all that bustle and noise, and I’m sending it to show you that my sketchbook proves that I try to capture things first-hand. Put Iterson or H.G.T. himself, for example, in front of a sandpit in the Geest district where the dredgers are at work laying a water or gas pipe — I’d like to see the kind of face someone like that would pull and what kind of sketch he’d make. Struggling on wharves and in alleys and streets and inside houses, waiting rooms, even public houses, that’s not a nice job, unless one is an artist. As such one would rather be in the filthiest neighbourhood, provided there’s something to draw, than at a tea party with nice ladies. Unless
one draws ladies, in which case a tea party is nice even for an artist.
I only mean to say that looking for subjects, frequenting the labourers, the struggle and worry with models, drawing from nature and on the spot, is all rough work — sometimes even filthy work, and truly, the manners and clothing of a shop assistant aren’t exactly the most appropriate for me or anyone else who doesn’t have to speak to beautiful ladies and wealthy gentlemen and sell them expensive things and earn money, but instead draws diggers in a pit in the Geest district, for instance.
If I could do what H.G.T. or Iterson can, if I were suited to it, I wouldn’t be fit for my profession, and for my profession it’s better that I am as I am than that I force myself to adopt manners that wouldn’t fit me. I — who wasn’t at ease in a reasonably good coat in a respectable shop and no longer could be, especially now, and would most likely be bored and be a bore — am a completely different person when I’m working in the Geest district, say, or on the heath or in the dunes. Then my ugly face and my weather-stained jacket are perfectly in keeping with my surroundings, and I’m myself and work with pleasure.
Whatever the ‘How to do it’ entails, I hope to battle on. If I wear a nice coat, the workers I need as models are distrustful and fear me like the devil, or else they want a lot of money from me.
Now I’m struggling along as I see fit, and it seems to me I’m not one of those who complain that ‘there are no models in The Hague’. So if remarks are made about my manners in the sense of clothing, face, manner of speaking, what shall I say in reply — — — that such talk bores me.
Am I then someone without manners in another sense, namely rude or tactless? Look, in my opinion all civility is based on kindness towards everyone, especially towards those we know — based on the need felt by anyone with a heart in his breast to mean something to others and to be of some use — on the need one ultimately has to live with others and not alone. It’s for that that I do my best, I draw not to annoy people but to amuse them, or to draw their attention to things that are worth looking at and which not everyone knows. I refuse to believe, Theo, that I’m such a monster of rudeness or incivility as to deserve to be cut off from society or, in the words of Tersteeg at any rate, ‘be unable to remain in The Hague’.
Ever Yours Page 28