Will Gauguin do it? It isn’t necessary. For if it must be done it will be done all on its own.
We are merely links in the chain.
At the bottom of our hearts good old Gauguin and I understand each other, and if we’re a bit mad, so be it, aren’t we also a little sufficiently deeply artistic to contradict anxieties in that regard by what we say with the brush?
Perhaps everyone will one day have neurosis, the Horla, St Vitus’s Dance or something else.
But doesn’t the antidote exist? In Delacroix, in Berlioz and Wagner? And really, our artistic madness which all the rest of us have, I don’t say that I especially haven’t been struck to the marrow by it. But I say and will maintain that our antidotes and consolations can, with a little good will, be considered as amply prevalent. See Puvis de Chavannes’ Hope.
Ever yours,
Vincent
747 | Arles, Monday, 18 February 1889 | To Theo van Gogh (F)
My dear Theo,
As long as my mind was so out of sorts it would have been fruitless to try and write to you to reply to your kind letter. Today I’ve just returned home for the time being, I hope for good. There are so many moments when I feel completely normal, and actually it would seem to me that, if what I have is only a sickness peculiar to this area, I should wait quietly here until it’s over. Even if it were to happen again (which, let’s say, won’t be the case).
But here is what I’m saying once and for all to you and to Mr Rey. If sooner or later it were desirable that I should go to Aix, as has already been suggested — I consent in advance and will submit to it.
But in my capacity as painter and workman it isn’t permissible for anyone, not even you or the doctor, to take such a course of action without warning me and consulting me myself about it too, because as up to now I’ve always kept my relative presence of mind for my work, it’s my right to say then (or at least to have an opinion on) what would be best, to keep my studio here or to move completely to Aix. That in order to avoid the expenses and the losses of a move as much as possible, and not to do it except in the event of an absolute emergency.
It appears that the people around here have a legend that makes them afraid of painting and that people talked about that in the town. Good. As for me, I know that it’s the same thing in Arabia, and yet we have heaps of painters in Africa, don’t we? Which proves that with a little firmness one can alter these prejudices, or at least do one’s painting all the same. The unfortunate thing is that I’m rather inclined to be impressed, to feel the beliefs of other people myself and not always to laugh at the foundation of truth that there may be in the absurd.
Besides, Gauguin is like that too, as you were able to observe, and was himself also tired out at the time of his stay by some malaise or other.
As I’ve already been staying here for more than a year, and have heard people say pretty much all the bad things possible about me, about Gauguin, about painting in general, why shouldn’t I take things as they are and wait for the outcome here.
Where can I go that’s worse than where I’ve already been twice — the isolation cell.
The advantages that I have here are, as Rivet would say — first — ‘they’re all sick’ here, and so at least I don’t feel alone.
Then, as you well know, I love Arles so much, although Gauguin is darned right to call it the filthiest town in all of the south.
And I’ve found so much friendship already from the neighbours, from Mr Rey, from everyone at the hospital for that matter, that really I’d prefer to be always ill here than to forget the kindness there is in the same people who have the most incredible prejudices towards painters and painting, or in any case have no clear and healthy idea whatsoever about it as we do.
Then at the hospital they know me now, and if this were to come on again it would pass in silence, and at the hospital they’d know what to do. I have absolutely no desire to be treated by other doctors, nor do I feel the need for it.
The only desire I might have is to be able to continue to earn with my own hands what I spend.
Koning has written me a very kind letter, saying that he and a friend would probably come to the south with me for a long time. That in response to a letter I wrote him a few days ago. I no longer dare to urge painters to come here after what has happened to me, they run the risk of losing their heads like me. The same thing for De Haan and Isaäcson.
Let them go to Antibes, Nice, Menton, it’s perhaps healthier.
Mother and our sister also wrote to me, the latter was very upset about the sick woman she was caring for. At home they’re very pleased about your marriage.
Be well aware that you mustn’t preoccupy yourself with me too much, nor fret yourself.
It must probably run its course, and we couldn’t change very much about our fate with precautions.
Once again, let’s try to seize our fate in whatever form it comes. Our sister wrote to me that your fiancée would come to stay with them for a while. That is well done. Ah well, I shake your hand most heartily, and let us not be discouraged. Believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
Warm regards to Gauguin, I hope he’s going to write to me, I’ll write to him too.
Address next letter place Lamartine.
750 | Arles, Tuesday, 19 March 1889 | To Theo van Gogh (F)
19 March.
My dear brother,
I seemed to see so much restrained brotherly anguish in your kind letter that it seems to me to be my duty to break my silence. I write to you in full possession of my presence of mind and not like a madman but as the brother you know. Here is the truth: a certain number of people from here have addressed a petition (there were more than 80 signatures on it) to the mayor (I think his name is M. Tardieu) designating me as a man not worthy of living at liberty, or something like that.
The chief of police or the chief inspector then gave the order to have me locked up once again.
Anyway, here I am, shut up for long days under lock and key and with warders in the isolation cell, without my culpability being proven or even provable.
It goes without saying that in my heart of hearts I have a lot to say in reply to all that. It goes without saying that I shouldn’t get angry, and that apologizing would seem to me to be accusing myself in such a case.
Only to warn you: to free me — first I don’t ask it, being sure that all of this accusation will be reduced to nothing.
Only I say to you, you would find it difficult to free me. If I didn’t restrain my indignation I would immediately be judged to be a dangerous madman. In waiting let us hope, besides, strong emotions could only aggravate my state.
If in a month’s time, though, you have no direct news of me, then act, but as long as I’m writing to you, wait.
That’s why I now ask you to promise to let them act without getting yourself mixed up in it.
Consider yourself warned that it would perhaps complicate and confuse the matter.
All the more so since you’ll understand that while I’m absolutely calm at the given moment, I may easily fall back into a state of over-excitement through new moral emotions.
So you can imagine how much of a hammer-blow full in the chest it was when I found out that there were so many people here who were cowardly enough to band themselves together against one man, and a sick one at that.
Good. That’s for your guidance; as regards my moral state, I’m badly shaken, but all the same I’m recovering a certain calm so as not to get angry. Besides, humility suits me after the experience of repeated attacks.
So I’m being patient.
The main thing, I couldn’t say it too often, is that you should keep your calm too, and that nothing should disturb you in your affairs. After your marriage we can deal with sorting all this out, and in the meantime, my word, leave me here quietly. I’m convinced that Mr Mayor, as well as the chief of police, are more like friends and that they’ll do everything they can to settle all this
. Here, except for freedom, except for lots of things that I would wish otherwise, I’m not too bad. Besides, I told them that we weren’t in a position to bear expenses. I can’t move without expenses, now I haven’t been working for 3 months, and mind you, I would have been able to work if they hadn’t exasperated and bothered me.
How are Mother and our sister? Having nothing else to distract me — I’m even forbidden to smoke — which, however, the other patients are allowed to do. Having nothing else to do I think about all those I know all day and night long.
What misery — and all of it, so to speak, for nothing.
I won’t hide from you that I would have preferred to die than to cause and bear so much trouble. What can you say, to suffer without complaining is the only lesson that has to be learned in this life.
Now, in all that, if I must resume my task of painting I naturally need my studio, the furniture, which we certainly can’t afford to renew if it’s lost.
To be reduced once again to living in the hotel, you know that my work won’t allow it, I must have a fixed pied-à-terre. If these fellows here protest against me, I protest against them, and they just have to provide me with damages and interest in a friendly way, in short they just have to give me back what I would lose by their fault and ignorance.
If — let’s say — I were to become definitively insane — certainly I don’t say that it’s impossible, in any case they should treat me differently, give me back the fresh air, my work &c.
Then — my word — I would resign myself. But we aren’t even there yet, and if I’d had my tranquillity I’d have been back on my feet long ago. They scold me about what I’ve smoked and drunk, fine.
But what can you say, with all their sobriety they’re actually only giving me new miseries. My dear brother, the best thing remains perhaps to joke about our little miseries, and also a little about the great ones of human life. Take it like a man and walk dead straight towards your goal. We artists in present-day society are no more than the broken pitcher. How I’d like to be able to send you my canvases, but everything is under lock and key, police and keepers of the insane. Don’t free me, it will settle itself on its own — all the same, warn Signac that he shouldn’t get involved until I write again, for he’d be putting his hand into a wasps’ nest. I shake your hand most cordially in thought, regards to your fiancée, to Mother and our sister.
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’ll read this letter as it stands to Mr Rey, who isn’t responsible, having been ill himself — no doubt he’ll write to you himself too. My house has been shut up by the police.
I have a vague memory of a registered letter from you for which I was made to sign but which I didn’t want to accept because they were making such a fuss for the signature, and of which I’ve since had no more news.
Explain to Bernard that I haven’t been able to reply to him, it’s quite a performance to write a letter: at least as many formalities are necessary as in prison now. Tell him to ask Gauguin for advice, but shake his hand firmly from me.
Once again warm regards to your fiancée and to Bonger.
I would have preferred not to write to you yet for fear of compromising you and disturbing you in what must work out above all. It will settle itself, it’s too idiotic to last.
When you move house, address please.
I had hoped that Mr Rey would come to see me in order to talk with him before sending this letter, but although I had made it known that I was waiting for him, nobody came. I urge you again to be cautious. You know what it is to go to the civil authorities to complain. Wait until your journey to Holland at least.
I myself fear a little that if I go outside at liberty I wouldn’t always be master of myself if I was provoked or insulted, and one could take advantage of that. The fact remains that a petition was sent to the mayor. I bluntly replied that I was entirely disposed to chuck myself into the water, for example, if that could make these virtuous fellows happy once and for all, but that in any case if in fact I had wounded myself I had done nothing of the sort to these people &c. So courage, then, although the guts fail me at times. Your coming here — my word — for the moment it would precipitate things. I’ll move house when I see the means naturally.
I hope that this reaches you in good condition. Let’s not fear, I’m quite calm now. Leave them to their own devices. You will perhaps do well to write one more time, but nothing more for the moment. If I’m patient, that could only make me stronger so that I won’t be so much in danger of relapsing into a crisis. Naturally I who really have done my best to be friends with the people and didn’t suspect it, it has been a harsh blow to me.
More soon, I hope, my dear brother, don’t worry. It’s perhaps a sort of quarantine I’m being put through. What do I know?
752 | Arles, Sunday, 24 March 1889 | To Theo van Gogh (F)
My dear Theo,
I’m writing to tell you that I’ve seen Signac, which did me a lot of good. He was very nice and very straight and very simple when the difficulty arose of whether or not to force open the door closed by the police, who had demolished the lock. They began by not wanting to let us do it, and yet in the end we got in. As a keepsake I gave him a still life which had exasperated the good gendarmes of the town of Arles because it depicted two smoked herrings, which are called gendarmes, as you know. You know that I did this same still life two or three times before in Paris, and once exchanged it for a carpet back then. That’s enough to say what people meddle in and what idiots they are.
I find Signac very calm, whereas people say he’s so violent, he gives me the impression of someone who has his self-confidence and balance, that’s all. Rarely or never have I had a conversation with an Impressionist that was so free of disagreements or annoying shocks on either side.
For example, he went to see Jules Dupré and reveres him. No doubt you had a hand in his coming to boost my morale a little, and thank you for that. I took advantage of my trip out to buy a book, Ceux de la glèbe by Camille Lemonnier. I’ve devoured two chapters of it — it’s so serious, so profound. Wait for me to send it to you. This is the first time for several months that I’ve picked up a book. That tells me a lot and heals me a great deal.
In fact there are several canvases to send to you, as Signac was able to see — he wasn’t frightened by my painting, or so it seemed to me.
Signac thought I was looking well, and it’s perfectly true.
On top of that, I have the desire and the taste for work. Of course, it’s still the case that if things were to be messed up for me in my work and in my life every day by gendarmes and venomous layabouts of municipal electors who petition against me to their mayor elected by them (and who is consequently keen on their votes) it would be only human on my part that I should succumb once more. Signac, I’m led to believe, will tell you something similar.
In my opinion we must squarely oppose the loss of the furniture &c.
Then — my word — I must have my freedom to practise my profession.
Mr Rey says that instead of eating enough and regularly I have been particularly sustaining myself with coffee and alcohol. I admit all that, but it will still be true that I had to key myself up a bit to reach the high yellow note I reached this summer. That, after all, the artist is a man at work, and that it’s not for the first passer-by who comes along to vanquish him once and for all.
Must I suffer imprisonment or the madhouse — why not? Didn’t Rochefort with Hugo, Quinet and others give an eternal example by suffering exile, and the first even the penal colony.
But all I want to say is that this is above the question of sickness and health.
Naturally one is beside oneself in parallel cases — I don’t say equivalent cases, as I have only a very inferior and secondary place — but I say parallel. And that was the first and last cause of my going out of my mind.
Do you know that expression by a Dutch poet
I am tied to the earth
With
more than earthly bonds.
That’s what I experienced in many moments of anguish — above all — in my so-called mental illness. Unfortunately I have a profession which I don’t know well enough to express myself as I would wish.
I’ll stop dead for fear of relapsing, and move on to something else.
Could you send me before you leave
3 tubes blanc zinc white
1 tube same size cobalt
1 " " " ultramarine
4 " " " Veronese green
1 " " " emerald "
1 " " " orange lead
This in case — probable if I find the means to take up my work again — that in a short while I can set to work again in the orchards.
Ah, if only nothing had happened to mess things up for me!
Let’s think carefully before going somewhere else. You can see that in the south I have no more luck than in the north. It’s about the same everywhere. I’m thinking of squarely accepting my profession as a madman just like Degas took on the form of a notary. But there it is, I don’t feel I quite have the strength needed for such a role.
You speak to me of what you call ‘the real south’. Above is the reason why I’ll never go there. I rightly leave that to people more complete, more entire than myself. As for me, I’m good only for something intermediate and second-rate and insignificant.
However much intensity my feeling may have or my power of expression may acquire, at an age when the material passions are more burned out — never can I build an imposing edifice on such a mouldy, shattered past.
So I don’t really mind what happens to me — even staying here — I think that my fate will be balanced in the long term. Beware of sudden impulses — since you’re getting married, and I’m getting too old — it’s the only policy that can suit us.
Ever Yours Page 98