And — I wish that at the end of our lives we could also walk somewhere together and — looking back, say — we’ve done this — and that’s one; and that — and that’s two; and that — and that’s three. And if we want to and dare to — will there be anything to talk about then?
We can try two things — making something good ourselves — collecting things by other people that we think are good, and dealing in them. But we must both live rather more robustly, and perhaps combining forces is a step towards becoming more robust.
But now allow me to touch on a delicate matter — if I’ve said unpleasant things to you, specifically about our upbringing and our home, this has been because we’re in an area where being critical is essential in order for us to get along with and understand each other and cooperate in business.
Now I can well understand that one can passionately love something or someone that one can’t do anything about.
Very well — I won’t go into that except in so far as it might make a fatal separation between us where reconciliation is needed.
And our upbringing &c. — won’t prove to be so good that we’ll retain many illusions about it — there you are — and we might perhaps have been happier with a different upbringing. But if we stick to the positive idea of wanting to produce and to be something, then we’ll be able, without getting angry, to discuss faits accomplis as such when it’s unavoidable and might perhaps touch on or directly concern the Goupils or the family. And for the rest, these issues between us are for the understanding of the situation and not out of rancour.
But if we undertake something it won’t be a matter of indifference to either of us to improve our health, because we need time alive — some 25 or 30 years of working constantly. There’s so much of interest in the present age when one thinks how very possible it is that we may well yet see the beginning of the end of a society. And just as there is infinite poetry in the autumn or in a sunset, and then there’s so much soul and mysterious endeavour in nature, so it is now. And as for art — decline, if you will, after the Delacroix, Corots, Millets, Duprés, Troyons, Bretons, Rousseaux, Daubignys — very well — but a decline so full of charm — that there truly is still an immense, immense amount of good things to come, and they’re being made every day.
I’m longing dreadfully for the Louvre, Luxembourg etc., where everything will be so new to me.
For the rest of my life I’ll regret that I didn’t see the Cent chefs d’oeuvre, the Delacroix exhibition and the Meissonier exhibition. But there will still be plenty of opportunities to catch up.
It’s true, for instance, that wanting to progress too quickly here, I may actually have progressed less, but what would you? My health is also behind it, and if I regain that as I hope to do, then my taking pains will have been less in vain.
After all, I believe that if one asks permission, one may draw plaster casts in the Louvre, even if one isn’t at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
It wouldn’t surprise me if, once the idea of living together takes hold, you’ll find it odder and odder that we’ve been together so surprisingly little, if you will — for fully 10 years.
Anyway, I most certainly hope that this will be the end of it, and that it won’t begin again.
What you say about the apartment is perhaps really rather expensive. I mean, I’d be just as happy if it weren’t quite as good.
I’m curious as to how those few months in Nuenen will be for me. Since I have some furniture there, since it’s beautiful there, too, and I know the district a little, it might be a good thing for me to keep a pied-à-terre there, if need be in an inn where I could leave that furniture, since otherwise it will be lost — and it could still come in very useful.
There’s sometimes the most to do by returning to old places.
I must finish this now, since I’m going to the club.
Keep thinking about what we can best do. Regards.
Yours truly,
Vincent.
561 | Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 11 February 1886 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
My dear Theo,
I definitely need to tell you that it would reassure me greatly if you were to approve my coming to Paris much earlier than June or July if need be. The more I think about it, the more desirable this appears to me.
Consider that if everything goes well and if I had good food &c. throughout that time, which will certainly not be plain sailing, consider that even in that case it will take 6 months or so before I’m entirely well.
But it would certainly take even longer if things were to be the same for me in Brabant from March to July as they’ve been for the past few months, and it’s likely they’d be no different.
Now at the moment it’s just because of reaction to over-exertion that I feel terribly weak, in fact even worse. Still, that’s the natural course of things and nothing unusual.
But where the issue is — to take better care of oneself — well in Brabant I’d wear myself out again taking models, the same old story would start all over again, and it doesn’t seem to me that any good could come of it. That way — we’d be straying from the path. So please give me permission to come sooner if need be. In fact I’d say right away, if need be.
If I take a garret in Paris, bring my painting box and drawing materials with me — then as far as the work’s concerned I can finish the most pressing things at once — those studies of plaster casts that will certainly help me when I go to Cormon’s. I can go and draw either in the Louvre or in L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
For the rest, we could then also think about it and discuss it so much better before we go about setting ourselves up somewhere else.
Know that I don’t mind going to Nuenen in the month of March if need be and seeing how things are there, and how the people are, and whether or not I can get models.
But if that doesn’t work out, which is likely, then after March I could come straight to Paris and start drawing, in the Louvre, for instance.
I’ve given a lot of thought to what you wrote about taking a studio — but it seems to me that it would be a good thing if we were to look for it together and that before we start living together permanently — did it for a while — provisionally — and I started by renting a garret at the beginning of April, say, until June. Then I’ll be more accustomed to Paris again by the time I go to Cormon’s.
And — I think this way I’ll remain more cheerful. I also have to tell you that although I still go there — it’s often insupportable for me, the carping of the fellows at the academy, for it has proved that they’re still spiteful. However, I make a point of avoiding any quarrel, and go my own way.
And I think I’m getting on the track of what I’m looking for, and perhaps I might find it even sooner if I were to sit in front of the plaster casts entirely on my own. All the same, I’m glad I went to the academy, if only because I have ample opportunity to observe the results of starting from the outline, because they do that systematically and they pick petty quarrels with me about it. Make an outline first — your outline isn’t right — I won’t correct that if you model before having conscientiously finished your outline. You see, it all comes down to that. And you really should see!!! how flat, how dead and how bloody boring the results of that system are. Oh, I tell you, I’m very glad to have seen it properly at close quarters — David or even worse — Pieneman in full bloom. I must have wanted to say at least twenty-five times — your outline’s just a trick &c. — but I haven’t thought it worthwhile arguing. All the same, even though I don’t say anything, I irritate them — and they me.
This doesn’t matter so much, though — the issue is to really go on trying to find a better system of working. So, patience and perseverance.
They go so far as to say — colour and modelling, that’s nothing, one learns that very quickly — it’s the outline that’s the essential thing and the most difficult. You see, one can learn something new at the academy — I never knew before that colour and modelling ca
me of their own accord. Just yesterday I finished a drawing that I’ve made for the competition in the evening class. It’s the Germanicus figure that you know. Very well — I know for sure that I’ll certainly come last, because all the drawings by the others are the same, and mine is completely different. But I saw the drawing that will be considered to be the best being done — I was sitting just behind — and it’s correct, it’s anything you like, but it’s DEAD and so are all those drawings that I saw.
Enough about this — just let it bore us so much that we become enthusiastic about something nobler. And that we make haste to achieve it.
You also need to take better care of yourself, and should we succeed in uniting, the two of us would know more than each one individually, and could do more.
Tell me, did you notice that subtle remark of Paul Mantz’s — women are perhaps the supreme difficulty in life — it was in the article on Baudry? We’ll certainly experience our share of that, aside from what we may already have experienced. It struck me in a chapter from Zola’s L’oeuvre in Gil Blas — that the painter — Manet, of course — had a scene with a woman who had posed for him and had then cooled to the idea; oh curiously well described. What one can learn at the academy in this regard is — just don’t paint women then. They hardly ever use nude female models, not at all in class at any rate — very occasionally individually.
Even in the plaster cast class, 10 male figures as against 1 female figure. That’s nice and easy.
That must surely be better in Paris — and it occurs to me that one actually learns so much by constantly comparing male and female, which are always so very different in everything. It may be the supreme difficulty, but what would art and what would life be without that? Regards, write back about this soon, with a handshake.
Yours truly,
Vincent
My being in Nuenen, at least for the month of March, would be because of the move, and I ought to go there for myself because of changing my abode. But if need be, as far as I’m concerned, I’d be prepared not to go back at all.
Paris, c. 28 February 1886–late October 1887
567 | Paris, on or about Sunday, 28 February 1886 | To Theo van Gogh (F)
My dear Theo,
Don’t be cross with me that I’ve come all of a sudden. I’ve thought about it so much and I think we’ll save time this way. Will be at the Louvre from midday, or earlier if you like. A reply, please, to let me know when you could come to the Salle Carrée. As for expenses, I repeat, it comes to the same thing. I have some money left, that goes without saying, and I want to talk to you before spending anything. We’ll sort things out, you’ll see. So get there as soon as possible. I shake your hand.
Yours truly,
Vincent
569 | Paris, September or October 1886 | To Horace Mann Livens (E)
My dear Mr Livens,
Since I am here in Paris I have very often thought of your self and work. You will remember that I liked your colour, your ideas on art and litterature and I add, most of all, your personality.
I have already before now thought that I ought to let you know what I was doing, where I was.
But what refrained me was that I find living in Paris is much dearer than in Antwerp and not knowing what your circumstances are I dare not say Come over to Paris, without warning you that it costs one dearer than Antwerp and that if poor, one has to suffer many things. As you may imagine. But on the other hand there is more chance of selling.
There is also a good chance of exchanging pictures with other artists.
In one word, with much energy, with a sincere personal feeling of colour in nature I would say an artist can get on here notwithstanding the many obstructions. And I intend remaining here still longer.
There is much to be seen here — for instance Delacroix to name only one master.
In Antwerp I did not even know what the Impressionists were, now I have seen them and though not being one of the club yet I have much admired certain Impressionist pictures — DEGAS, nude figure — Claude Monet, landscape.
And now for what regards what I myself have been doing, I have lacked money for paying models, else I had entirely given myself to figurepainting but I have made a series of colour studies in painting simply flowers, red poppies, blue corn flowers and myosotys. White and rose roses, yellow chrysantemums — seeking oppositions of blue with orange, red and green, yellow and violet, seeking THE BROKEN AND NEUTRAL TONES to harmonise brutal extremes.
Trying to render intense COLOUR and not a GREY harmony.
Now after these gymnastics I lately did two heads which I dare say are better in light and colour than those I did before.
So as we said at the time in COLOUR seeking LIFE, the true drawing is modelling with colour.
I did a dozen landscapes too, frankly green, frankly blue.
And so I am struggling for life and progress in art.
Now I would very much like to know what you are doing and whether you ever think of going to Paris.
If ever you did come here, write to me before and I will, if you like, share my lodgings and studio with you so long as I have any. In spring — say February or even sooner — I may be going to the south of France, the land of the blue tones and gay colours.
And look here, if I knew you had longings for the same we might combine. I felt sure at the time that you are a thorough colourist and since I saw the Impressionists I assure you that neither your colour nor mine as it is developping itself, is exactly the same as their theories but so much dare I say, we have a chance and a good one of finding friends.
I hope your health is all right. I was rather low down in health when in Antwerp but got better here.
Write to me, in any case remember me to Allan, Briët, Rink, Durand, but I have not so often thought on any of them as I did think of you — almost daily.
Shaking hands cordially.
Yours truly,
Vincent
My present adress is
Mr Vincent van Gogh
54 Rue Lepic
Paris
What regards my chances of sale, look here, they are certainly not much but still I do have a beginning.
At this present moment I have found four dealers who have exhibited studies of mine. And I have exchanged studies with several artists.
Now the prices are 50 francs. Certainly not much but — as far as I can see one must sell cheap to rise, and even at costing price. And mind my dear fellow, Paris is Paris, there is but one Paris and however hard living may be here and if it became worse and harder even — the french air clears up the brain and does one good — a world of good.
I have been in Cormon’s studio for three or four months but did not find that as useful as I had expected it to be. It may be my fault however, any how I left there too as I left Antwerp and since I worked alone, and fancy that since I feel my own self more.
Trade is slow here, the great dealers sell Millet, Delacroix, Corot, Daubigny, Dupré, a few other masters at exorbitant prices. They do little or nothing for young artists. The second class dealers contrariwise sell those but at very low prices. If I asked more I would do nothing, I fancy. However I have faith in colour, even what regards the price the public will pay for it in the longer run.
But for the present things are awfully hard, therefore let anyone who risks to go over here consider there is no laying on roses at all.
What is to be gained is PROGRESS and, what the deuce, that it is to be found here I dare ascertain. Anyone who has a solid position elsewhere, let him stay where he is but for adventurers as myself I think they lose nothing in risking more. Especially as in my case I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate and feeling nowhere so much myself a stranger as in my family and country.
Kindly remember me to your landlady Mrs Roosmaelen and say her that if she will exhibit something of my work I will send her a small picture of mine.
572 | Paris, between about Saturday, 23 and about Monday, 25 July 1887 | To T
heo van Gogh (F)
My dear friend,
I thank you for your letter and for what it contained.
I feel sad that even if successful, painting won’t bring in what it costs.
I was touched by what you wrote about home — ‘they’re doing quite well, but it’s sad to see them nevertheless’. But a dozen years ago or so one would have sworn that the family would continue to prosper after all, and that things would work out well. It would please our mother greatly if your marriage came off, and for your health and business affairs you shouldn’t remain single anyway.
Myself — I feel I’m losing the desire for marriage and children, and at times I’m quite melancholy to be like that at 35 when I ought to feel quite differently. And sometimes I blame this damned painting.
It was Richepin who said somewhere
the love of art makes us lose real love.
I find that terribly true, but on the other hand real love puts you right off art.
And sometimes I already feel old and broken, but still sufficiently in love to stop me being enthusiastic about painting.
To succeed you have to have ambition, and ambition seems absurd to me. I don’t know what will come of it. Most of all, I’d like to be less of a burden to you — and that’s not impossible from now on. Because I hope to make progress in such a way that you’ll be able to show what I’m doing, with confidence, without compromising yourself.
And then I’m going to retreat to somewhere in the south so as not to see so many painters who repel me as men.
You can be sure of one thing, and that’s that I won’t try to do any more work for the Tambourin. I think it’s going to change hands, too, and of course I’m not against that.
As far as Miss Segatori is concerned, that’s another matter altogether, I still feel affection for her and I hope she still feels some for me.
But now she’s in an awkward position, she’s neither free nor mistress in her own house, and most of all, she’s sick and ill. Although I wouldn’t say so in public — I’m personally convinced she’s had an abortion (unless of course she had a miscarriage) — whatever the case, in her situation I wouldn’t blame her.
Ever Yours Page 73