Ever Yours

by Vincent Van Gogh

  How’s your health now? Are you still seeing Gruby?

  What you were saying about that conversation at the Nouvelle Athènes is interesting. You’re familiar with Desboutin’s little portrait that Portier has. It’s certainly a strange phenomenon that all artists, poets, musicians, painters are unfortunate in the material sense — even the happy ones — what you were saying recently about Guy de Maupassant proves it once again. That rakes up the eternal question: is life visible to us in its entirety, or before we die do we know of only one hemisphere?

  Painters — to speak only of them — being dead and buried, speak to a following generation or to several following generations through their works. Is that all, or is there more, even? In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing.

  For myself, I declare I don’t know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream.

  Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France.

  Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star. What’s certainly true in this argument is that while alive, we cannot go to a star, any more than once dead we’d be able to take the train. So it seems to me not impossible that cholera, the stone, consumption, cancer are celestial means of locomotion, just as steamboats, omnibuses and the railway are terrestrial ones.

  To die peacefully of old age would be to go there on foot.

  For the moment I’m going to go to bed because it’s late, and I wish you good-night and good luck.

  Handshake.

  Ever yours,

  Vincent

  642 | Arles, Sunday, 15 July 1888 | To Theo van Gogh (F)

  My dear Theo,

  You’ll already have received my letter of this morning, in which I’d included 50-franc note for Bing, and it’s about this Bing business again that I wanted to write to you. The fact is, we don’t know enough about Japanese art.

  Fortunately, we know more about the French Japanese, the Impressionists. That’s definitely the essence and the main thing.

  So Japanese art, properly speaking, already with its place in collections, already impossible to find in Japan itself, is becoming of secondary interest.

  But this doesn’t mean that if I had a single day in which I could see Paris again I wouldn’t call at Bing’s precisely to go and see the Hokusais and other drawings from the true period. What Bing himself, by the way, also said to me when I so much admired the run-of-the-mill Japanese prints, that later I’d see that there’s also something else. Loti’s book, Mme Chrysanthème, taught me this: the apartments are bare, without decorations or ornaments. And it was that that awakened my curiosity about the excessively synthetic drawings of another period. Which are probably to our Japanese prints what a sober Millet is to a Monticelli. You know well enough that I’m not averse to Monticellis, myself.

  Nor coloured Japanese prints, either, even when people tell me ‘you should get out of that habit’. But it seems to me, at the point we’ve reached, fairly indispensable to know the sober quality that is the equivalent of the colourless Millets.

  That has little or nothing to do with the stock, properly speaking, which may as well stay as it is.

  Because I don’t tire of those figures and landscapes. And he has so many of them!

  If I wasn’t so caught up and absorbed in work, how I’d like to sell all that lot! There’s not much to be earned from it, and that’s why nobody takes it up. Nevertheless, after a few years it will all become quite rare, will be sold more dearly. It’s for that reason that we shouldn’t scorn the small advantage that we have at present, of going through thousands to make our choice.

  Now, if you give a whole Sunday to this yourself, if you choose new stock for about a hundred francs, you can tell yourself beforehand that you won’t sell those, having chosen them yourself (unless you don’t like them) — you can pay for them as and when, replacing them all the time. In the end, when the whole batch has been paid for at your leisure, you still have as many more in stock. And the result is that what we like best in the lot stays with us. And it’s by doing it this way that, in what’s currently at your place, there are already many old sheets that are worth a good 1 franc each.

  So I urge you, keep the advantages of the stock and don’t get rid of the fine sheets; on the contrary, we profit by adding to them.

  There are already some sheets that we have that are definitely worth 5 francs. My God, I wasn’t able to do as I wished, because I was just as excited about this lot of ten thousand Japanese prints to go through as Thoré about a sale of Dutch paintings, among which there were some interesting ones.

  Really, at present my work has kept me busy; I can’t do any more about it but I recommend Bing’s attic to you.

  I learned there myself, and I got Anquetin and Bernard to learn with me.

  Now, there’s still more to learn at Bing’s, and that’s why I urge you to keep our stock there, and access to the attics and cellars, and you see how far I am from seeing it as a speculation.

  Supposing that it costs (myself, I don’t believe that we’d lose by it), it doesn’t cost an enormous amount.

  What’s Reid doing??? He’ll already have been there on his own account, perhaps, as will Russell. I didn’t conceal that there were some at Bing’s, only I said they were 5 sous, which Bing himself had told me — or rather, the manager. If you keep the stock, then tell him once again that we often send people directly to him but that he must therefore keep his Japanese prints at the stated price — of 5 sous — not less. I’m telling you only this — I’ve gone through the lot four or 5 times; the sheets at our place are the result of replenishing the stock several times already.

  Let’s continue in the same way. It has already been a great regret to me, who knows something about the lot, not to have paid at New Year myself, and chosen the new stock myself. Because you’re dazzled, there’s so much of it.

  And in the other shops — it’s not the same thing at all, because people are afraid to go to Bing, thinking him expensive. Now, what I didn’t go through was the library, where there are hundreds, thousands of bound books.

  Look, you’ll do well out of paying a visit to their manager — his name continues to escape me — make my profound excuses to him, please, but tell him that I was there three times at New Year to pay up, that afterwards came my journey to the south. And that will procure you a Claude Monet and other paintings, because if you take the trouble to dig out the Japanese prints, you certainly have the right to do exchanges with them, with the painters, for paintings.

  But to break off our relations with Bing — oh no, never that.

  Japanese art is something like the primitives, like the Greeks, like our old Dutchmen, Rembrandt, Potter, Hals, Vermeer, Ostade, Ruisdael. It doesn’t end.

  If, though, I saw Bing’s manager, I’d say to him that when you put yourself out to find collectors for his Japanese prints — you waste your whole day there without thinking about it, and at the end of it all, whether you sell or you don’t sell, you lose money on it.

  And you, if you don’t want to lose on it, I would urge you to make some exchanges with painters whom you know — as Besnard still owes you a study, to tell the truth.

  Anyway, that’s perfectly natural, and the difficulty of working in Paris.

  Today I sent Bernard 6 drawings after painted studies; I promised him 6 more and asked for an exchange of croquis after his painted studies.

  And there you have it, General Boulanger’s gone and done it again. It seems to me that both of them were right to fight, being unable to get along. That way at least there’s no stagnation, and both of them can only gain by it. Don’t you find he speaks very badly, Boulanger? He makes no impression in words at all. I don’t think him any the less serious for that, since he’ll be in the habit of us
ing his voice for practical purposes, to explain things to his officers or to the managers of arsenals. But he makes no impression at all in public.

  All the same, it’s a funny city, Paris, where you have to live by wearing yourself out, and as long as you’re not half dead you can’t do a damned thing, and still. I’ve just read Victor Hugo’s L’année terrible. There’s hope there, but — . . . . that hope’s in the stars. I find that true, and well said, and beautiful; and what’s more, I readily believe it myself, too.

  But let’s not forget that the earth’s a planet too, therefore a star or celestial globe. And what if all these other stars were the same!!!!!! It wouldn’t be very jolly, in fact you’d have to start all over again.

  For art, now — for which you need time, it wouldn’t be bad to live more than one life. And it’s not without appeal to believe in the Greeks, the old Dutch and Japanese masters, continuing their glorious school on other globes. Anyway, that’s enough for today.

  And look, there’s another Sunday got through, writing to you and writing to Bernard; however, I must say it didn’t seem long to me. Handshake.

  Ever yours,

  Vincent

  If our sisters could bring us some more wood engravings and things like Gavarni’s La masquerade humaine, 100 lithographs, the Charles Keenes, of which there were a good 200, it wouldn’t be bad. There’s also a very fine book, Anatomy for artists.

  645 | Arles, on or about Sunday, 22 July 1888 | To Theo van Gogh (F)

  My dear Theo,

  If I was younger I’d certainly feel like suggesting to père Boussod to send us, you and me, to London, without any salary other than 200 francs credit a month, but half of the profit on Impressionist paintings, for which they could deduct this salary of 200. Now — our carcasses are no longer young, and an enterprise to go to London to unearth money for the Impressionists would be a sort of thing in the style of Boulanger, in the style of Garibaldi, in the style of Don Quixote.

  And besides, père Boussod would really send us packing if we suggested such a thing to him. Only I’d really rather see you go to London than to New York.

  My painter’s fingers are loosening up, though, just at the very time my carcass is breaking down. And your head as a dealer, a salesman, another trade that takes long to learn, is gaining in experience.

  In our position—which is, as you rightly say, so precarious — let’s not forget our advantages, and let’s try to keep our patience for doing well, and our acumen. Is it not, for example, true that in every case it’s still better if they were to say to you one day, go off to London, than to kick you out and not to want your services?

  I’m ageing faster than you, and what I’m striving for is to be less of a burden to you. Now as far as that goes, if not too monumental a catastrophe occurs, and if it doesn’t rain toads, I hope to achieve that.

  I’ve just taken thirty or so painted studies off their stretching frames.

  If in business affairs we looked only for our livelihood — would it be such a great misfortune to go to London — where it seems to me that there’s more chance of selling than elsewhere? In any case, I tell myself that, for example, in the case of the thirty studies that I’ll send you, you won’t be able to sell a single one in Paris. But then again, as our uncle from Princenhage used to say, ‘everything sells’. And in our case — what I do isn’t saleable like the Brocharts, say, but it’s saleable to those who buy things because there’s nature in them. Look, a canvas that I cover is worth more than a blank canvas. There — my pretensions go no further — don’t doubt that — my right to paint, my reason for painting, I do have it!

  It’s only cost me my broken-down carcass — my mind pretty well cracked as far as living as I could and should goes — living like a philanthropist. It’s only cost you, let’s say, around fifteen thousand francs that you’ve advanced me.

  Now — — . . there’s no reason to make monkeys of us.

  And that’s the end of my reasoning on the subject of Mister Boussod. Keep your calm and your nerve.

  And if they talk to you about London — do not say the thing to them bluntly, the way I put it at the beginning of this letter.

  But you’re right not to contradict the powers that be (what powers!).

  My dear brother, if I wasn’t all washed up, and driven crazy by this bloody painting, what a dealer I’d still make, with the Impressionists, I mean. But there we are, I’m all washed up. London’s good, London’s just what we need — but alas, I feel I can no longer do what I could have done. But broken as I am, I myself see no misfortune if you were to go to London; if there’s fog, well, it seems to be increasing in Paris, too.

  What it is — in fact — is that we’ve grown older, and that we’ve got to behave accordingly — none of the rest exists. Now, there’s the pro of this con, and — — we’ll have to turn it to account.

  It seems really strange to me that at present you should have had no news from Gauguin either — and I presume he’s both ill and discouraged.

  If I was reminding you just now what painting costs us, it was only to emphasize what it is that we have to say to ourselves, that we’ve gone too far to turn back — and for the rest, I don’t put the emphasis on anything. Because other than material existence, what could be indispensable to me from now on?

  If G. can’t pay his debt nor pay for his journey —

  If he guarantees me a cheaper life in Brittany —

  Why should I not, for my part, go and live with him, if we want to help him?

  If he says ‘I’m alive and well and my talent’s in full flow’ — why should I not say the same thing myself? But there you are, our funds aren’t in full flow. And so what works out least expensive is what we must do.

  A lot of painting, few expenses is the course we must take.

  This to repeat once again that I put aside any preference for either the north or the south.

  All the plans we make have deep-rooted difficulties behind them.

  How simple it would be with Gauguin — but the move — afterwards — will he still be happy? But as making plans can’t be done, I’m not worrying that the situation is precarious. Knowing it to be such, and feeling it, is what makes us open our eyes and work. If we do things that way and make a balls of it — I dare think it unlikely myself — we’ll be left with something. But look, I declare I’m not expecting anything, when you see people like Gauguin as if up against a wall. Let’s hope there’ll be a way out, for him and for us.

  If I thought about, if I dwelled on the disastrous possibilities, I could do nothing — I throw myself into work with abandon, I re-emerge from it with my studies; if the storm within roars too loudly, I drink a glass too many to stun myself.

  It’s being crazy, compared with what one ought to be.

  But earlier on, I felt less of a painter, painting is becoming a distraction for me, like hunting rabbits for the crazy people who do it to distract themselves.

  My attention is becoming more intense, my hand steadier.

  And that’s why I dare almost give you an assurance that my painting will become better. Because that’s all I have left.

  Have you read in De Goncourt that Jules Dupré also gave them the impression that he was crazy?

  Jules Dupré had found some art lover who was paying him.

  If only I could find that, and not be such a burden on you.

  After the crisis I went through when I came here, I can no longer make plans or anything else; I’m definitely better now, but hope, the desire to achieve, is broken and I work from necessity, so as not to suffer so much mentally, to distract myself.

  Yesterday MacKnight broke his silence a little by saying he very much liked my last two studies (the flower-garden), and chatting about it for a very long time.

  Well then — but do you know that if you were in business on your own account, you would perhaps be obliged to look for English connections? This to repeat once again, would it be so great a misfortune to go to
London — if, however, it was inevitable, should we be sorry about that? Anyway, there’s no comparison. Except the climate — it’s infinitely better than the Congo. Good handshake, and many thanks for your letter and for the 50-franc note.

  Ever yours,

  Vincent.

  650 | Arles, Sunday, 29 July 1888 | To Theo van Gogh (F)

  My dear Theo,

  Many thanks for your kind letter. If you recall, mine ended with: we’re getting old, that’s what is and the rest is imagination and doesn’t exist. Now, I said that even more for myself, than for you. And I said it feeling the absolute necessity for me to act accordingly, to work, not more, perhaps, but with a more serious conception.

  Now you talk about the emptiness you sometimes feel; that’s just the same thing that I have, too. Considering, if you will, the times in which we live as a true and great revival of art, the moth-eaten and official tradition, which is still on its feet, but which is at bottom powerless and bone-idle, the new painters, alone, poor, treated like madmen and as a result of this treatment becoming so in fact, at least as far as their social life is concerned.

  Then remember that you do exactly the same work as these primitive painters, since you provide them with money and you sell their canvases for them, which enables them to produce others.

  If a painter ruins his character by working hard at painting, which makes him sterile for many things, for family life, &c. &c.

  If as a consequence he paints not only with paint but with self-denial and self-abnegation and a broken heart.

  Not only are you not paid for your own work either, but it costs you exactly the same as this effacement of personality, half deliberate, half accidental, costs a painter.

  This is to say that if you do painting indirectly, you’re more productive than me, for example. The more completely you become a dealer, the more you become an artist. Just as I very much hope to be in the same case . . . The more I become dissipated, ill, a broken pitcher, the more I too become a creative artist in that great revival of art of which we’re speaking.