Ever yours,
Vincent
371 | The Hague, on or about Tuesday, 7 August 1883 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
My dear Theo,
Pending your arrival there’s hardly a moment that I’m not with you in my thoughts.
These days I’m doing my best to paint some different studies so that you can see something of them at the same time.
And I feel fine when I seek distraction through this change of work, for while I don’t literally do as Weissenbruch does and spend a fortnight with the polder workers, I nonetheless act in the same spirit, and looking at nature has a calming effect.
And, moreover, I have definite hopes of making considerable progress with colour in this way. It seems to me that the latest painted studies are more assured and sounder in colour.
Thus, for example, a few I did recently in the rain of a man on a wet, muddy road better express the mood, I believe. Anyway, we’ll see when you come. Most are landscape impressions. I wouldn’t claim that they’re as good as the ones sometimes found in your letters, since I often run into technical difficulties, but still I believe they have something similar.
For example, a silhouette of the city in the evening as the sun is setting, and a towpath with mills.
Otherwise things are so wretched that I still feel faint if I’m not actually at work, but I believe that is passing. I’m definitely going to do my best to build up a reserve of strength, because I’ll need it if I want to do a lot of painting, including figures. A certain feeling for colour has been aroused in me of late when painting, stronger than and different from what I’ve felt before.
It may be that this recent malaise is connected to a kind of revolution in the working method which I’ve sought for more than once already, and have thought about a great deal. I’ve often tried to work less drily, but each time it came out roughly the same. But these days, now that some weakening prevents me from working as normal, it’s just as if this helps rather than hinders, and letting myself go a little and looking more through my eyelashes instead of looking sharply at the joints and analyzing how things fit together leads me more directly to see things as patches of colour next to each other.
I’m curious as to how this will continue and where it will lead. It has sometimes surprised me that I’m not more of a colourist, because my temperament would certainly lead one to expect that, and yet up to now that has hardly developed at all.
I repeat, I’m curious as to how it will continue — I see clearly that my recent painted studies are different. If I remember rightly, you have another one from last year, of a few tree-trunks in the woods. I don’t think it’s particularly bad, but it’s still not what one sees in studies by colourists. There are even correct colours in it, but although they’re correct they don’t do what they should do, and while the paint is highly impasted here and there, the effect remains too meagre. I take this one as an example, and believe that the recent ones that are less impasted are nonetheless becoming more assured in colour, because the colours are more worked into each other and the brushstrokes are painted over each other, so that it fuses together more, and one captures something of the softness of the clouds or of the grass, for instance.
At times I’ve been very concerned that I wasn’t making progress with colour, and now I have hope again. We’ll see what happens. Now you can imagine how eager I am for you to come, for if you also see that it’s changing I’ll no longer doubt that we’re on course. I don’t dare trust my own eyes when it comes to my work.
For example, the two studies that I did while it was raining, a muddy road with a small figure. It seems to me that it’s the opposite of some other studies — when I look at it I recognize the mood of that sad, rainy day, and in the figure, though no more than a few patches, there’s a kind of life that isn’t due to accuracy of drawing, for it isn’t drawn, so to speak. What I want to say is that I therefore believe that in those studies, for instance, there’s something of that mysteriousness that one gets by looking at nature as if through the eyelashes, so that the forms simplify themselves into patches of colour.
Time will tell, but for the present I see something different in the colour and the tone in several studies.
Lately I’ve thought sometimes of a story that I read in an English magazine, a tale of a painter in which a person featured who had also been weakened during a difficult time, and went to a remote area in the peat fields and found himself in the melancholy nature there, so to speak, and was able to paint nature as he felt and saw it. It was very accurately described in the story, evidently by someone who knew about art, and it struck me when I read it, and I’ve now been thinking of it from time to time these past few days.
Anyway, I hope we’ll soon be able to talk about it and confer together. If you can, write again soon and, of course, the earlier you can send, the more I would welcome it.
With a handshake in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
For no particular reason I can’t help adding something here that’s just a recurring thought of mine.
Not only did I start drawing relatively late, but on top of that I can’t count on living for a great many years, relatively speaking. When I think about that cool-headedly and calculatedly — as if estimating 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 in comparison with whom one believes one sees certain correspondences, one can nonetheless put forward certain propositions that aren’t absolutely without foundation.
So as to the length of time in which to work that lies ahead of me, I believe I may assume the following without being too hasty: that my body will endure for a certain number of years come what may — a certain number, say between 6 and 10. I dare all the more to assume this because at present there’s no immediate come what may.
That’s the period that I count on FOR SURE, for the rest I would find it far too airily speculative to dare to determine anything in myself, given that whether or not anything is left after that period will depend precisely on these first 10 years, say. If one goes into a serious decline in those years, one won’t get past 40; if one remains sufficiently well preserved to withstand certain shocks to which a person is likely to be subject, solving more or less complicated physical problems, then from 40–50 one is once more in new, relatively plain sailing.
Calculations about that are not on the agenda now, but plans for a period, as I began by saying, of between 5 and 10 years are.
My plan is not to spare myself, not to avoid a lot of emotions or difficulties. It’s a matter of relative indifference to me whether I live a long or a short time. Moreover, I’m not competent to manage myself in physical matters the way a doctor can in this respect. So I carry on as one unknowing but who knows this one thing — ‘I must finish a particular work within a few years’ — I needn’t rush myself, for that does no good — but I must CARRY ON working in calm and serenity, as regularly and concentratedly as possible, as succinctly as possible. I’m concerned with the world only in that I have a certain obligation and duty, as it were — because I’ve walked the earth for 30 years — to leave a certain souvenir in the form of drawings or paintings in gratitude. Not done to please some movement or other, but in which an honest human feeling is expressed. Thus this work is the goal — and concentrating on that thought, what one does and does not do simplifies itself in that it’s not a chaos, but everything one does is one and the same aspiration. Now the work is going slowly — all the more reason not to lose any time.
Guillaume Régamey was, I believe, someone who doesn’t have much of a reputation (as you know, 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 devoted almost exclusively to drawings that are in a very singular style and were d
one while working was made difficult by physical problems. He is one of many — a very good person among many good people. I mention him not to liken myself to him — I’m not as good as he was — but to give an example of a certain self-control and willpower that held on to an inspiring idea that showed him the way to produce a good work in serenity despite difficult circumstances.
I see myself in a similar way — as having to do something with heart and love in it within a few years, and do it with willpower. If I live longer, so much the better, but I’m not thinking about that. In those few years SOMETHING MUST BE DONE — that thought is my guiding principle in making plans for the work. A certain desire to make every effort will thus seem to you all the more understandable. At the same time a certain resolve to use simple means. And perhaps you’ll also be able to understand that, for my part, I don’t view my studies in isolation, but always have in mind the work as a whole.
375 | The Hague, Saturday, 18 August 1883 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Dear brother,
Coming home just now, the first thing I feel I have to do is to make a request of you — a request which I have no doubt is necessary simply because you’ll see from it that my intentions are the same as yours. It is: not to rush me in the various matters we were unable to deal with all at once this time. For I need some time in order to decide. As for my relative coolness towards Pa, here’s something I want to tell you, because you brought it up.
About a year ago now, Pa came to The Hague for the first time since I’d left home in search of peace, which I didn’t find there. Of course I was already with the woman then and said, ‘Pa, since I don’t blame anyone for finding something shocking in my behaviour, given the present conventions, I stay away of my own accord from those who I believe would be ashamed of me.
And you understand that I won’t make it difficult for you, and as long as I haven’t yet got my affairs in order and am not back on my feet, wouldn’t you think it better if I didn’t visit you?’ If to that Pa had said something like ‘No, that’s going too far’, I would have been friendlier since, but Pa’s reply was in between yes and no; it was, Oh, do what you think best.
Well, thinking thus that they were more or less ashamed of me, which tallied with what you told me, I wasn’t a busy correspondent and nor was Pa, and neither his letters nor mine were particularly confiding. This, between you and me, is only to explain, not to draw further conclusions. The opposite of seizing the hand and insinuating one’s way in when someone offers only a finger is to let go of the hand that isn’t offered to us fully and freely. Or voluntarily going away from where one is merely tolerated.
Whether or not I was mistaken, what do I know? There’s a bond between you and me which time can only strengthen if we press on with the work, and that is art, and I have hope we’ll continue to understand each other after all.
I fear I’ve said something to you about the work that I ought to have put differently, and have a vague feeling that I must have bothered you with something, because there seemed to be something the matter when you left.
I hope this will resolve itself.
As to the work, what is becoming increasingly clear to me in everything since it caught my attention is the meagreness of the execution. That would worry me if I didn’t think it a natural consequence (which I believe I’ve also seen in the early work of very many people I find sympathetic), a natural consequence of the effort one must make to overcome the very first obstacles. And, looking back on recent years, seeing them full of trouble behind me. That trouble having subsided, there will be another period of working, I hope.
This error is so pervasive and its correction so badly needed that we must see to it that we take steps to give us a period of calm. And so work at it; otherwise it will stay like that. I am as my work is, and you must take this into consideration a little. I don’t know whether or not you think it would be better to see someone like Herkomer, Green or Small, for instance, now or to wait until both the work and I myself have calmed down. I’d be in favour of the latter. Things inside me may clear up soon, but at the moment I’d rather not have to navigate through complicated London affairs. As regards one or two things that you said to me when you left, I hope you won’t forget that one or two things about my clothes &c. are somewhat exaggerated. If it were really so, well I’d be the first to admit my fault, but it seems to me that it’s an old piece of gossip dragged up from the past rather than based on recent observation — unless I’m out in the fields or in the studio.
You mustn’t rush me if you truly want to make this clear to me. This year I’ve been completely outside any kind of social circle, so to speak.
And in truth haven’t bothered about clothes.
If that’s all, it won’t be so difficult to change, will it?, especially now that I have the new suit from you.
But I sincerely wish that people would forgive me such failings rather than talk about them.
If I get irritated about this, it’s because I’ve already heard so much about it; dressed up one time and less so another, and it’s a story like that of the farmer, his son and the donkey, the moral of which, as you know, is that people are hard to please.
It wasn’t so much that I got angry with you as that you astonished me, because you know how much pain I’ve already suffered over it, and that it has become a piece of gossip that won’t disappear whatever I do. Anyway. At all events I have the new suit from you and the old one, which is certainly still good, and so it’s over for the time being, isn’t it?, and let’s say no more about it.
If only I had got a bit further so that it would be easier to sell, I would definitely say, you be the man who takes care of business, I don’t want to have anything to do with selling, and live entirely outside those circles.
Unfortunately, though, I can’t yet say that now, and you aren’t to blame for that, but I ask you for patience in both our interests and for the sake of peace. I’m terribly sorry that I make life difficult for you — perhaps it will clear up by itself — but if you’re faltering, tell me plainly. In that case I would rather give up everything than make you carry a heavier burden than you can bear. Then I would certainly go to London right away to look for no matter what, even carrying bales, and leave art for better times, at least having a studio and painting.
When I look back on the past, I always come up against the same fatal points that are still not entirely clear to me and that coincide with the months August 1881 to February 1882. That’s why I can’t help mentioning the same names all the time. Which appeared to astonish you.
Dear brother, don’t think of me as being anything other than an ordinary painter facing ordinary problems, and don’t imagine there’s anything unusual when there are hard times. I mean, don’t picture the future either black or brightly lit; you’ll do better to go on believing in grey.
Which I also try to do, and I consider it a fault if I deviate from that.
Regards, and
Ever yours,
Vincent
As for the woman, I don’t doubt that in any event you’ll understand that for my part I shan’t rush matters.
And as for how I think about selling, I wanted to say this again. I believe that the best would be if we carry on working until, instead of having to praise or explain it to art lovers or say something to go with it, they feel drawn to it of their own accord. At any rate, if it’s refused or doesn’t please, one must remain dignified and calm as far as possible. I fear that my efforts when I present myself do more harm than good, and I wish I could be spared that.
It’s so painful for me to talk to most people, I’m not afraid to, but I know I make a disagreeable impression. Attempts to change that may well come up against the difficulty that the work would suffer if one lived differently. And provided one perseveres with the work, it will turn out all right later. Take Mesdag, a veritable mastodon or hippopotamus, all the same he sells his paintings. I haven’t got as far as that yet, but the person I mention also
began late and worked his way up by an honest, manly route, whatever else he may be. It’s not in the least because of laziness that I don’t do this or that; rather it’s to be able to work more and to leave aside anything not directly part of the work.
Just to return briefly to what you said on leaving: ‘I’m beginning to think more and more like Pa’. Well, so be it, you speak the truth, and I for my part, while as I said not thinking or doing exactly the same, respect this character and know of a weak side to it perhaps, but also a good side. And when I consider that if Pa knew anything about art I would doubtless be able to talk to him more easily and agree with him more; suppose you become like Pa plus your knowledge of art — fine — I believe we’ll continue to understand each other.
Ever Yours Page 49