And then two more no. 30 canvases, the Trinquetaille bridge and another bridge; the railway goes over the road.
[Sketch 703C]
703C–D (top to bottom). The viaduct; The Trinquetaille bridge
That canvas is a little like a Bosboom in coloration.
[Sketch 703D]
Lastly, the Trinquetaille bridge with all its steps is a canvas done on a grey morning, the stones, the asphalt, the cobblestones are grey, the sky a pale blue, the small figures colourful, a puny tree with yellow foliage. Two canvases, then, in grey, broken tones, and two highly coloured canvases.
Forgive these very poor croquis.
I’m knocked out from painting this Tarascon diligence, and I can see that I haven’t a head fit for drawing. I’m off to have supper, and I’ll write to you again this evening.
But this decoration is coming along a bit, and I believe that it will broaden my way of seeing and doing things.
It will be open to a thousand criticisms; very well, but never mind, as long as I manage to put some spirit into it.
But yes, good old Tartarin’s country, I’m enjoying myself there more and more, and it will become like a new homeland for us. I don’t forget Holland, though; it’s precisely the contrasts that make me think of it a lot. I’ll get back to this letter shortly.
Now I’m getting back to this letter again. How I’d like to be able to show you the work that’s in progress!
I’m really so tired that I can see that my writing isn’t up to much.
I’ll write to you better another time, because it’s beginning to take shape now, this idea of the decoration.
I wrote to Gauguin again the day before yesterday, to say once again that he would probably recover much more quickly here.
And he’ll do such fine things here.
He’ll need time to recover. I assure you that I believe that if ideas for work are coming to me more clearly and more abundantly at present, then eating good food has a lot to do with it. And that’s what everybody in painting should have.
How many things that still have to change! Isn’t it true that all painters ought to live like manual workers? A carpenter, a blacksmith, normally produces infinitely more than they do. In painting too, there should be large studios where each person would work more steadily.
I’m really falling asleep standing up, and I can’t see any longer, my eyes are so tired.
More soon, because I still had lots of things to say, and I should make you some better croquis. Probable that I’ll do it tomorrow.
Thank you many times again for your money order. I shake your hand firmly.
Ever yours,
Vincent
It’s 5 canvases that I’ve started on this week; that brings, I believe, to 15 the number of these no. 30 canvases for the decoration.
2 canvases of sunflowers
3 " poet’s garden
2 " other garden
1 " Night café
1 " Trinquetaille bridge
1 " Railway bridge
1 " the house
1 " the Tarascon diligence
1 " the starry night
1 " the furrows
1 " The vineyard.
706 | Arles, Wednesday, 17 October 1888 | To Paul Gauguin (F)
My dear Gauguin,
Thanks for your letter, and thanks most of all for your promise to come as early as the twentieth. Agreed, this reason that you give won’t help to make a pleasure trip of the train journey, and it’s only right that you should put off your journey until you can do it without it being a bloody nuisance. But that apart, I almost envy you this trip, which will show you, en passant, miles and miles of countryside of different kinds with autumn splendours.
I still have in my memory the feelings that the journey from Paris to Arles gave me this past winter. How I watched out to see ‘if it was like Japan yet’! Childish, isn’t it?
Look here, I wrote to you the other day that my vision was strangely tired. Well, I rested for two and a half days, and then I got back to work. But not yet daring to go outside, I did, for my decoration once again, a no. 30 canvas of my bedroom with the whitewood furniture that you know. Ah, well, it amused me enormously doing this bare interior.
With a simplicity à la Seurat.
[Sketch 706A]
706A. The bedroom
In flat tints, but coarsely brushed in full impasto, the walls pale lilac, the floor in a broken and faded red, the chairs and the bed chrome yellow, the pillows and the sheet very pale lemon green, the bedspread blood-red, the dressing-table orange, the washbasin blue, the window green. I had wished to express utter repose with all these very different tones, you see, among which the only white is the little note given by the mirror with a black frame (to cram in the fourth pair of complementaries as well).
Anyway, you’ll see it with the others, and we’ll talk about it. Because I often don’t know what I’m doing, working almost like a sleepwalker.
It’s beginning to get cold, especially on the days when the mistral blows.
I’ve had gas put in the studio, so that we’ll have good light in winter.
Perhaps you’ll be disillusioned with Arles if you come at a time when the mistral’s blowing, but wait … It’s in the long term that the poetry down here soaks in.
You won’t find the house as comfortable yet as we’ll gradually try to make it. There are so many expenses, and it can’t be done in one go. Anyway, I believe that once here, like me, you’ll be seized with a fury to paint the autumn effects, in between spells of the mistral. And that you’ll understand that I’ve insisted that you come now that there are some very beautiful days. Au revoir, then.
Ever yours,
Vincent
709 | Arles, Sunday, 21 October 1888 | To Theo van Gogh (F)
My dear Theo,
Thank you for your letter and for the 50-franc note it contained. Thank you for having written me more about those Dutch artists’ painting.
I’ve had gas put in, in the studio and the kitchen, which is costing me 25 francs for installation. If Gauguin and I work every evening for a fortnight, won’t we earn it all back again? But since, what’s more, G. may come any day now, I’ll absolutely absolutely need at least another 50 francs.
I’m not ill, but I’d become so without any doubt if I didn’t take hearty food and if I didn’t stop painting for a few days. In fact, I’m once again nearly reduced to the state of madness of Hugo van der Goes in Emile Wauters’s painting. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I had something of a dual nature, something of both the monk and the painter, I should be — and that long since — utterly and entirely reduced to the above-mentioned state.
But even for all that, I don’t believe that my madness would be of the persecution kind, since my feelings in a state of excitement have more to do with preoccupations about eternity and eternal life.
But even so, I must be wary of my nerves, &c.
I only say that because you’d be wrong to believe that I’d have had the slightest wariness about these two Dutch painters. But in truth, it’s only after your second letter that I can form an idea of what they’re doing, and I’m very curious to see the photographs of their drawings.
I have a great urge to write you a letter just so that you can have them read it, to explain once again why I myself believe in the south for the future and the present.
And at the same time to say how strongly I believe that we’re right to see in the Impressionist movement a tendency towards great things, and not only a school that would limit itself to making optical experiments. Similarly with those who do history painting, then, or at least have done it in the past; while there are some very bad history painters, like Delaroche and Delort, are there not also good ones, like E. Delacroix and Meissonier?
Well then, since I have the firm intention not to paint for at least 3 days, perhaps I’ll rest by writing to you and to them at t
he same time. Because you know that that interests me a good deal, the influence that Impressionism will have on Dutch painters and on Dutch art lovers.
[Sketch 709A]
709A. Row of cypresses with a couple strolling (‘The poet’s garden’)
Here’s very rough croquis of my last canvas. A row of green cypresses against a pink sky with a pale lemon crescent moon.
Foreground a piece of waste land, and some sand and a few thistles. Two lovers, the man pale blue with a yellow hat, the woman has a pink bodice and a black skirt. That makes the fourth canvas of the ‘poet’s garden’, which is the decoration for Gauguin’s bedroom.
It horrifies me to have to ask you for money again, but I can do nothing about it, and what’s more, I’m worn out again. However, I’d believe that the work that I’m doing while spending a little more will one day seem to us less costly than my previous work.
Besides, I’d already told you that if the thing had been possible, to do a deal with Thomas, I’d have had a strong desire to be able to put even 200 more into the work before Gauguin’s arrival.
As that couldn’t be done, I nevertheless pressed ahead as far as I could with what I had on the go, in a strong desire to be able to show him something new. And not to fall under his influence (because of course he’ll have an influence on me, I hope) before being able to show him beyond any doubt my own originality. He’ll see that anyway from the decoration as it is now.
Please, at least if the thing’s possible for you, send me another fifty francs right away; I don’t quite know how I’ll be able to get by otherwise. I’m pleased that you’ve read Tartarin again. Anyway. I hope you’ll be able to write to me no later than by return of post. I shake your hand firmly.
Ever yours,
Vincent
712 | Arles, on or about Thursday, 25 October 1888 | To Theo van Gogh (F)
My dear Theo
Thank you for your letter and for the 50-franc note. As you learned from my telegram, Gauguin arrived in good health. He even gave me the impression of being in better shape than me.
He’s naturally very pleased with the sale that you made, and I no less, since that way certain other expenses absolutely necessary for moving in needn’t wait nor will fall on your shoulders alone. G. will certainly write to you today. He’s very, very interesting as a man, and I have every confidence that with him we’ll do a great many things. He’ll probably produce a great deal here, and perhaps I shall too, I hope.
And then I dare believe that for you the burden will be a little less heavy, and I dare believe much less heavy.
I myself feel, to the point of being mentally crushed and physically drained, the need to produce, precisely because in short I have no other means, none, none, of ever recouping our outlay.
I can do nothing about it if my paintings don’t sell.
The day will come, though, when people will see that they’re worth more than the cost of the paint and my subsistence, very meagre in fact, that we put into them.
I have no other wish nor other concern regarding money or finances than in the first place not to have debts.
But my dear brother, my debt is so great that when I’ve paid it, which I think I’ll succeed in doing, the hardship of producing paintings will, however, have taken my entire life, and it will seem to me that I haven’t lived. The only thing is that perhaps the production of paintings will become a little more difficult for me, and as far as the number goes, there won’t always be as many.
The fact that they don’t sell now makes me anxious that you’re suffering too, but it would be of little concern to me if you didn’t become too hard up by my bringing nothing in.
But in money matters it’s enough for me to feel this truth, that a man who lives for 50 years and spends two thousand a year spends a hundred thousand francs, and that he must bring a hundred thousand in, too. To make a thousand paintings at a hundred francs during one’s life as an artist is very, very, very hard, but when the painting is at a hundred francs . . . . . . and again . . . . our task is very heavy at times. But nothing about that can be altered.
We’ll let Tasset down completely, probably, because to a large extent at least, we’ll use less expensive colours, both Gauguin and I. As for canvas, we’ll also prepare it ourselves.
For a time I had the slight feeling that I was going to be ill, but Gauguin’s arrival has so taken my mind off it that I’m sure it will pass. I mustn’t neglect my diet for a while, and that’s all. And absolutely all.
And after a time you’ll have some work.
Gauguin has brought a magnificent canvas that he exchanged with Bernard, Breton women in a green meadow. White, black, green and a red note, and the matt tones of the flesh. Anyway, let’s all be of good heart.
I believe that the day will come when I’ll sell too, but I’m so far behind with you, and while I spend I bring nothing in.
That feeling sometimes makes me sad.
I’m very, very happy at what you write, that one of the Dutchmen will come and live with you, and that that way you won’t be alone any more, either. It’s perfectly, perfectly good, especially as we’ll soon have winter.
Anyway, I’m in a hurry, and have to go out to get back to work on another no. thirty canvas.
Soon, when Gauguin writes to you, I’ll add another letter to his.
Of course, I don’t know in advance what Gauguin will say about this part of the world and about our life, but in any case he’s very happy with the good sale that you made for him.
More soon, and I shake your hand firmly.
Ever yours,
Vincent
716 | Arles, Thursday, 1 or Friday, 2 November 1888 | Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin to Emile Bernard (F)
My dear old Bernard,
We’ve done a great deal of work these past few days, and in the meantime I’ve read Zola’s Le rêve, so I’ve hardly had time to write.
Gauguin interests me greatly as a man — greatly. For a long time it has seemed to me that in our filthy job as painters we have the greatest need of people with the hands and stomach of a labourer. More natural tastes — more amorous and benevolent temperaments — than the decadent and exhausted Parisian man-about-town.
Now here, without the slightest doubt, we’re in the presence of an unspoiled creature with the instincts of a wild beast. With Gauguin, blood and sex have the edge over ambition. But enough of that, you’ve seen him close at hand longer than I have, just wanted to tell you first impressions in a few words.
Next, I don’t think it will astonish you greatly if I tell you that our discussions are tending to deal with the terrific subject of an association of certain painters. Ought or may this association have a commercial character, yes or no? We haven’t reached any result yet, and haven’t so much as set foot on a new continent yet.
Now I, who have a presentiment of a new world, who certainly believe in the possibility of a great renaissance of art. Who believe that this new art will have the tropics for its homeland.
It seems to me that we ourselves are serving only as intermediaries. And that it will only be a subsequent generation that will succeed in living in peace. Anyway, all that, our duties and our possibilities for action could become clearer to us only through actual experience.
I was a little surprised not yet to have received the studies that you promised in exchange for mine.
Now something that will interest you — we’ve made some excursions in the brothels, and it’s likely that we’ll eventually go there often to work. At the moment Gauguin has a canvas in progress of the same night café that I also painted, but with figures seen in the brothels. It promises to become a beautiful thing.
I’ve made two studies of falling leaves in an avenue of poplars, and a third study of the whole of this avenue, entirely yellow.
I declare I don’t understand why I don’t do figure studies, while theoretically it’s sometimes so difficult for me to imagine the painting of the future as anything othe
r than a new series of powerful portraitists, simple and comprehensible to the whole of the general public. Anyway, perhaps I’ll soon get down to doing brothels.
I’ll leave a page for Gauguin, who will probably also write to you, and I shake your hand firmly in thought.
Ever yours,
Vincent
Milliet the 2nd lieut. Zouaves has left for Africa, and would be very glad if you were to write to him one of these days.
[Continued by Paul Gauguin]
You will indeed do well to write him what your intentions are, so that he could take steps beforehand to prepare the way for you.
Mr Milliet, second lieutenant of Zouaves, Guelma, Africa.
Don’t listen to Vincent; as you know, he’s prone to admire and ditto to be indulgent. His idea about the future of a new generation in the tropics seems absolutely right to me as a painter, and I still intend going back there when I find the funds. A little bit of luck, who knows?
Vincent has done two studies of falling leaves in an avenue, which are in my room and which you would like very much. On very coarse, but very good sacking.
Send news of yourself and of all the pals.
Yours,
Paul Gauguin
718 | Arles, Saturday, 10 November 1888 | To Theo van Gogh (F)
My dear Theo,
I’ve received a letter from Mr E. Dujardin regarding the exhibition of some canvases of mine in his dark hole. I find it so disgusting to pay for the planned exhibition with a canvas that in reality there aren’t two answers to this gentleman’s letter. There’s one, and you’ll find it enclosed. Only I’m sending it to you and not to him so that you know my thoughts and so that you can simply tell him that I’ve changed my mind and haven’t the slightest desire to exhibit at this moment. It’s no use at all getting angry with the chap, it’s better to be tritely polite.
So no exhibition at the Revue Indépendante, I make so bold as to believe that Gauguin is of the same opinion. In any case he doesn’t at all urge me to do it.
Ever Yours Page 93