The Greeks don’t start from the outline, they start from the centres, from the cores.
Géricault took that from Gros, who took it from the Greeks, but Géricault himself wished to take it from the Greeks, too, and he studied them for that very thing — afterwards Delacroix did the same as Géricault.
This question — Millet draws like that too — more than anyone else — is perhaps the root of all figure painting — is extremely closely related to modelling by drawing directly with a brush — conceived totally differently from Bouguereau and others, who lack interior modelling, are flat compared with Géricault and Delacroix, and who don’t go beyond the paint.
In which latter, Géricault &c., the figures have backs, even when one sees them from the front, air around the figures — beyond the paint.
It’s to search for this — which I wouldn’t want even to talk about with Verlat or with Vinck — that I’m working; there’s no risk that they could show it to me, because the fault with both of them is in the colour which, as you know, isn’t true with either of them.
It’s strange that when I compare my study with those of other people, it has almost nothing in common with them. Theirs have more or less the same colour as the flesh — and so look very accurate from close to — but if one steps back a bit, it becomes painful and flat to look at — all that pink and delicate yellow etc., etc., soft in itself, produces a hard effect.
The way I do it, from close to it’s greenish red, yellow-grey, white, black and a lot of neutral, and mostly colours one can’t put a name to. But if one steps back a little it’s indeed beyond the paint — and then there’s air around it and a restrained undulating light falls on it. At the same time, the least little lick of colour with which one might glaze it is telling.
But what’s lacking in it is — practice — I must paint 50 or so like that — I believe that I’ll have something then. I make the business of putting on the paint too difficult because I haven’t yet sufficiently got into the way of it, have to search too long, work it to death. But this is a question of keeping on painting for a while, so that the touch is effective straightaway as one gets it more fixed in one’s mind.
There are some fellows who’ve seen my drawings — after seeing my peasant figures one of them immediately started drawing the model in the life class with more vigorous modelling, putting the shadows in strongly.
He showed me the drawing and we talked about it. It was full of life and it was the finest drawing that I’ve seen by any of the fellows here. Now do you know what they think about it? The teacher, Siberdt, purposely sent for him and said that if he dared to do it again in that manner it would be considered that he was making a fool of the teacher. And I tell you, it was the only drawing that was generously done, like Tassaert or Gavarni.
So you see how it is. But it’s not bad, though, and one mustn’t get angry about it, and must keep quiet just as if one would really like to break oneself of it, that bad manner, but unfortunately keeps slipping back into it.
The figures that they draw — are virtually always top-heavy and topple forwards, headlong — there’s not one that stands on its feet.
And this standing, this really must already be there in the initial design.
Anyway — I’m still really pleased that I came here — however it goes and however it turns out — whether or not I get along with Verlat. I find the friction of ideas that I’m looking for here — I’m getting a fresh eye for my own work, can judge better where the weak points are and thus make progress in order to correct them.
What I ask you very earnestly for the sake of things working out well, is not to lose your patience, nor above all your optimism, for we’d be cutting our own throats if our courage were to fail us precisely as the moment presents itself when we could acquire a degree of influence if we show that we know what we want, and dare to do something and manage to see it through.
And as to the money — if I worked in a studio and so saved a good part of the cost of models, even then 150 francs still wouldn’t be much, because painting is very expensive — but it CAN BE DONE, provided one economizes even on food &c.
If models have to come out of it, then it definitely CAN’T BE DONE on 150 francs, and one wastes time &c.
So at the same time it’s cheapest to stay in a studio — because for more finished nude studies, above all, it’s not possible to pay the cost of the model oneself.
I don’t consider it impossible that in due course, especially if some of the other fellows couldn’t help starting to put in more powerful shadows, that Verlat or someone else will seek a row with me, even if I systematically avoid it. Which I’ll do systematically because it’s to my advantage to stay here for a bit.
Anyway — I’m curious as to what will happen with your apartment. As to me, though, if I come I’ll be perfectly content to take a cheap little room or a garret in a hotel somewhere in an out-of-the-way quarter (Montmartre). But that’s pretty much by the way and we’re not there yet. Let’s stay here for a while first — and then, all in good time. The winter course ends on 31 March. Regards.
Yours truly,
Vincent
558 | Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 4 February 1886 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
My dear Theo,
I already wrote to you the day before yesterday that on the one hand I was far from well, but that on the other hand I nevertheless thought I could see some light.
However, I regret that I have to tell you even more categorically that I’m most definitely literally exhausted and overworked. When you think that I went to live in my own studio on 1 May — since then it’s perhaps been a matter of 6 or 7 times, so far, that I’ve had my midday meal. For good reasons, I don’t want you to tell Ma that I’m not well — because she might possibly consider that it wasn’t nice that what happened, happened, that’s to say that I didn’t stay there — precisely because of these consequences. I shan’t say anything about it; don’t you say anything either. But I lived then, and since then, here, having nothing for my food because the work cost me too much and I relied too much on the idea that I could stick it out like this.
What the doctor tells me is that I absolutely must live better, and that I have to take more care of myself with my work until I’m stronger. It’s total debilitation.
Well I’ve made it worse by smoking a lot, which I did all the more because then one isn’t troubled by one’s empty stomach.
Anyway, they say — one has to experience lean times, and I’ve had my share of them.
Because it’s not just the food, it’s also all the worry and sorrow that one has.
You know that for one reason or another the time in Nuenen was far from carefree for me. What’s more — here — I’m very pleased to have come here — but it’s been a difficult time all the same.
What we have to do and what is largely lacking — is this. Paying the models ourselves is too much; as long as one doesn’t have enough money, one must take advantage of the opportunities at the studios, like Verlat, like Cormon. And one must be in the artists’ world and work at clubs where one shares the cost of the models.
Now it’s true that I didn’t think of this before, or at least didn’t do it — but I wish now that I’d started on it a year earlier. If we could now find some way of living in the same city it would be far and away the best thing, at least for the time being.
Only, the more I think about it, the more and more I fancy that it might be better not to spend much on a studio in the first year, because I’ll mostly have to draw in that first year.
Because speaking of Cormon — I imagine he would tell me much the same as Verlat says — that I have to draw nudes or plaster casts for up to a year, precisely because I’ve always drawn from life.
This isn’t really a harsh requirement, because I tell you that there are people here who’ve been in the class for 3 years and are still not allowed to stop, who also paint.
In that year I have to practise the male
and the female figure, both in detail and as a whole, and — then I’ll know it by heart, as it were. Drawing in itself, technically, is easy enough for me — I’m beginning to do it the way one writes, with the same ease. But precisely at this level it becomes more interesting, as one is not satisfied with the facility that one gradually acquires but really looks for originality and breadth of conception. Drawing the masses rather than the outlines. Solid modelling. And I can assure you it’s not a bad sign if people like Verlat or Cormon, let’s say, demand that of someone. For there are enough of them that Verlat simply leaves to get on with it because — they just aren’t the fellows for the loftier figure. You talk about the clever fellows at Cormon’s studio. Precisely because I damned well want to be one of them, I’m setting myself in advance, out of my own conviction, the requirement of spending at least a year in Paris mainly drawing from the nude and plaster casts. For the rest, let’s do whatsoever our hand finds to do in the way of painting, if an effect out of doors strikes us or we happen to have a good model &c.
And don’t think that this is the long way, because it’s the short one. Someone who can draw his figures from memory is much more productive than someone who can’t. And by my taking the trouble to spend that year drawing — you’ll just see how productive we become.
And don’t think either that the years I worked out of doors were wasted. For it’s the very thing that people who’ve never been anywhere else but at academies and studios lack, that view of reality in which they live, and finding subjects. Anyway.
Might it not be wise if we put off renting a studio at least for the first six months, precisely because it all comes down to the money? But otherwise I like the idea of setting up a studio a great deal, a very great deal. Even, if need be, such that one could combine with other painters to take models together. The more energy the better. And in hard times — one must especially seek a way out in friendship and collaboration.
But Theo, it’s so rotten about this indisposition — I’m dreadfully sorry — but I’m still in good spirits. It will get better. You understand that it would have got worse and worse if I’d delayed doing something about it.
What I think, though, is this — one mustn’t think that people whose constitution is damaged, wholly or half, aren’t fit for painting. It’s desirable for one to make it to 60 at least, and necessary for one to make it to 50, if one begins when one is around 30.
But one absolutely doesn’t have to be perfectly healthy; one may have all sorts of things wrong. The work doesn’t always suffer as a result — on the contrary, nervous fellows are more sensitive and more refined. But Theo, precisely because it has proved in my case that my health leaves something to be desired — I’ve decided to concentrate specifically on the loftier figure and to try to refine myself.
It really struck me so unexpectedly — I did feel weak and feverish, but I still kept going. Only it began to worry me that teeth were breaking off one after another. And that I was starting to look worse and worse. Anyway, we’ll see about putting it right.
I think that getting the teeth attended to will help in itself because, as my mouth was usually painful, I just swallowed my food as quickly as possible.
And perhaps it will also help my appearance, at least a little.
As regards this month, I’ve paid 25 francs in advance for my room, 30 francs in advance for my food, and 50 francs to the dentist; also a visit to the doctor and some drawing materials — which leaves 6 francs.
Now the important issue this month is not to be ill, which isn’t easy to resolve — and which could very well happen. But we’ll see — I still think I’ve got a certain toughness in common with the peasants, who also don’t eat anything very special and still go on living and working. So don’t worry too much about it. If you could send a little bit extra, very well — but if you can’t, I’ll wait calmly to see how it goes. What I don’t like is that I’m feverish, and I reason about it thus: although I may be weakened, I’ve still taken some care not to eat any unwholesome food. Over-exertion isn’t excessive either — because, despite everything, I keep my spirits up all the time — so that it’s because I’m weak that I over-exert myself. It seems to me that it must sort itself out. You understand, though, that if it were to get worse — and took a virulent turn — one might have to contend with typhus or at least typhoid fever.
And actually the only reasons why I certainly don’t expect that are these — 1 that I’ve had a great deal of fresh air, and 2 that, as I said, even though I’ve evidently not fed myself well enough, as a precaution I’ve nonetheless made do with very simple food rather than the muck in the cheap restaurants — and 3 — that I have a degree of calm and serenity in the face of things.
So we must wait and see. Don’t you worry about it, because not even I do — I maintain that, supposing I do get a fever, I’ve lived and eaten too simply for it to become very virulent all that easily. After all, things don’t happen of their own accord, and there’s a reason for everything.
Write to me soon, though, because I really do need it.
As regards going to Nuenen too — I want to know what you’d think best.
But I’m not needed there — because someone like Rijken, the gardener, for instance, can see to what needs to be packed or sent at least as well as I can.
If there’s any point in it, though, I can be ready by March if need be.
Regards, with a handshake.
Yours truly,
Vincent.
559 | Antwerp, on or about Saturday, 6 February 1886 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
My dear Theo,
I’ve received your letter and 25 francs enclosed and I thank you very much for both. I’m really glad that you like my plan to come to Paris. I believe it will help me make progress and at the same time that, if I didn’t go, I might easily get into a mess, keep moving around in the same circle too much, persist in the same mistakes. Furthermore, as for you, I don’t think that coming home to a studio would do you any harm. For the rest, I have to tell you the same about me as you write about yourself — I’ll disappoint you.
And even so, this is the way to combine forces. And even so, much greater understanding of each other can follow from it.
Now what shall I tell you about my health? I still believe that I have a chance of avoiding being really ill; all the same, I’ll need time to get better. I also still have two more teeth to be filled, then my upper jaw, which was most affected, will be all right again. I still have to pay 10 francs for that, and then another 40 francs to get the bottom half right too.
Some years of those 10 years that I appear to have spent in prison will disappear as a result. Because bad teeth, which one so seldom sees any more as it’s so easy to get them put right, since bad teeth give a physiognomy a sort of sunken look.
And then — even eating the same things, one can naturally digest better when one can chew properly, and so my stomach will have a chance to recover.
I really do notice that I’ve been at a very low ebb, though — and as you wrote yourself, all sorts of things that are even worse could arise out of neglecting it. However, we’ll see that we get it put right.
I haven’t worked for a few days, gone to bed early a couple of nights (otherwise it was usually 1 or 2 o’clock because of drawing at the club). And I feel that it’s calming me.
I’ve had a note from Ma, who writes that they’re going to start packing in March.
Further, since you say you’ll have to pay rent until the end of June — well then, perhaps it would be best after all if I were to return to Nuenen, starting in March, only — if I encountered opposition and scenes like I got before I left, I would be wasting my time there and so, even if it were only just for those few months, I’d make a change anyhow, since I want to have some new things from the country ready to bring to Paris with me.
That Siberdt, the teacher of the antique, who spoke to me at first as I told you, definitely tried to pick a quarrel with me today, perha
ps with a view to getting rid of me. Which didn’t work inasmuch as I said — Why are you trying to pick a quarrel with me? I have no wish to quarrel, and in any case I have absolutely no desire to contradict you, but you deliberately try to pick a quarrel with me.
He evidently hadn’t expected that and couldn’t say much to refute it this time, but — next time, of course, he’ll be able to start something.
The issue behind it is that the fellows in the class are talking about things in my work among themselves, and I’ve said, not to Siberdt but outside the class to some of the fellows, that their drawings were completely wrong.
Bear in mind that if I go to Cormon and run into trouble sooner 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 somewhere. And so I’d do that if I had to — although I’d far rather have correction — as long as it doesn’t become DELIBERATE provocation; that correction without one giving any cause other than a certain singularity in one’s manner of working which is different from the others. If he starts on me again, I’ll say out loud in the class, I’m happy to do mechanically everything that you tell me to do, because I’m determined to pay you back what is your due, if need be, if you insist on it, but — as far as mechanizing me as you mechanize the others is concerned, that has not, I assure you, the slightest hold over me.
Besides, you started by telling me something quite different, that’s to say, you told me: tackle it as you wish.
The reason why I’m drawing plaster casts — not to start from the outline, but to start from the centres — I haven’t got it yet, but I feel it more and more and — I’ll certainly carry on with it, it’s too interesting.
I wish that we could spend a few days together in the Louvre and could just talk about it. I believe it would interest you.
This morning I sent you Chérie, mainly for the preface, which will certainly strike you.
Ever Yours Page 72