You tell me not to give myself too many worries and that better days will come again for me. I’d say that these better days have already begun for myself, when I glimpse the possibility of completing, to some extent, the work in such a way that you’ll have a series of Provençal studies done with feeling which will hold up, this is what I hope, with our far-off memories of youth in Holland, and thus I’m treating myself by redoing the olive trees again for our mother and sister. And if I could one day prove that I wouldn’t impoverish the family, that would relieve me. For at present I always have a great deal of remorse in spending money that doesn’t come back. But as you say, patience and working is the only chance of getting out of that.
However, I often tell myself that if I’d done like you, if I’d stayed at the Goupils’, if I’d restricted myself to selling paintings, I would have done better. For in the trade, if one doesn’t produce oneself one makes others produce, now that so many artists need support among the dealers and only rarely find it.
The money that was with Mr Peyron has run out, and a few days ago he even gave me 10 francs in advance. And in the course of the month I’ll certainly need another ten, and at New Year I’d consider it right to give something to the servant lads who work here, and to the porter, which will make another ten francs or so.
As regards winter clothing, what I have isn’t very much, as you’ll understand, but it’s warm enough and so we can wait until spring with that. If I go out it’s to work, so then I put on the most worn-out things I have, and I have a velvet waistcoat and trousers for here. In the spring, if I’m here, I’m planning to go and make a few paintings in Arles as well, and if I get something new around then, that will suffice.
I’m sending you enclosed an order for canvas and colours, but I still have some and it can wait until next month if this one is too heavily burdened already.
I remember the painting by Manet you speak of. As to figure, the portrait of a man by Puvis de Chavannes has always remained an ideal for me, an old man reading a yellow novel, with beside him a rose and watercolour brushes in a glass of water — and the portrait of a lady that he had in the same exhibition, a woman already old but completely as Michelet felt, that there’s no such thing as an old woman. These are consolatory things, to see modern life as bright despite its inevitable sadnesses.
Last year around this time I was certainly not thinking that I would recover as much as this.
Give my kind regards to Isaäcson if you see him, and to Bernard.
I regret not being able to send the olive trees one of these days, but it’s drying so badly that I’ll have to wait.
I think it’ll be a good course of action to have our sister come in January. Ah, if that one could get married, that would be a good thing.
I shake your hand warmly in thought, I’m going to work some more outside, the mistral’s blowing. It usually dies down by the time the sun’s about to set, then there are superb effects of pale citron skies, and desolate pines cast their silhouettes into relief against it with effects of exquisite black lace.
At other times the sky is red, at other times a tone that’s extremely delicate, neutral, still pale lemon but neutralized by delicate lilac.
I have an evening effect of a pine again against pink and green-yellow. Anyway, shortly you’ll see these canvases, of which the first, the Wheatfield, has just left. More soon, I hope, warm regards to Jo.
Ever yours,
Vincent
836 | Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Saturday, 4 January 1890 | To Theo van Gogh (F)
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter. Although I just wrote to you yesterday I’m replying immediately.
The fact is that I’ve never worked more calmly than in my latest canvases — you’re going to receive a few at the same time as this letter, I hope. For the moment I’ve been caught unawares by a great discouragement. But since this attack ended in a week, what’s the good of telling oneself that it can in fact recur? First we don’t know, nor can we foresee how and in what form.
So let’s continue the work as much as possible as if nothing were amiss. I’ll soon have the opportunity to go outside when the weather isn’t too cold, and then I’d rather like to try to finish the work undertaken here.
To give an idea of Provence it’s vital to do a few more canvases of cypresses and mountains.
The ravine and another canvas of mountains with a path in the foreground are types of this. And especially the Ravine that I still have here because it isn’t dry. As well as the view of the park too, with the pines. It took me all the time to observe the character of the pines, cypresses &c. in the pure air here, the lines that don’t change and which one finds again at every step.
It’s perfectly true that last year the crisis recurred at various times — but then, too, it was precisely by working that the normal state returned little by little. It will probably be the same on this occasion too. So act as if nothing were amiss, for we can do absolutely nothing about it. And what would be infinitely worse is to let myself slide into the state of my companions in misfortune who do nothing all day, week, month, year, as I’ve told you many times and repeated again to Mr Salles, making him promise never to recommend this asylum. The work makes me retain a little presence of mind still, and makes it possible that I can get out one day.
At the moment I have the paintings ripe in my mind, I see in advance the places that I still want to do in the coming months. Why would I change means of expression.
Once I’m back from here, let’s suppose, we’ll have to see a little if there’s really nothing to be done with my canvases, I would have a certain number of mine, a certain number of other people’s, and perhaps I’d try to do a little dealing. I don’t know in advance, but I see no reason not to do more of the canvases here that I’ll need were I to get out of here. Once again, I can foresee absolutely nothing, I see no way out, but I also see that my stay here cannot be prolonged indefinitely. Then, in order not to hurry anything or break it off suddenly, I’d wish to continue as usual as long as I’m here.
Yesterday I sent 2 canvases to Marseille, i.e. I made a present of them to my friend Roulin, a white farmhouse among the olive trees and a wheatfield with a background of lilac mountains and a dark tree, as in the large canvas I sent you. And I’ve given Mr Salles a little canvas with pink and red geraniums on a completely black background, like I used to do in Paris.
As regards the money you sent, 10 francs of it were owing to Mr Peyron, which he’d advanced me last month, I gave 20 francs in New Year’s gifts, and I took 10 for the postage on the canvases and other expenses, so 10 francs still remain in the cash-box.
At the moment I’ve just done a little portrait of one of the lads from here which he wanted to send to his mother, that’s to say I’ve already started work again, and Mr Peyron would probably not have allowed me to if he saw any obstacles there. What he said to me was ‘let’s hope that this doesn’t happen again’ — so absolutely the same thing as always. He talked to me with great kindness and these things scarcely surprise him, but since there’s no ready remedy it’s time and circumstances alone that can perhaps have influence.
I’d very much like to go to Arles one more time, not immediately, but towards the end of February for example, first to see friends, which always cheers me up, and then to test whether I’m capable of risking the journey to Paris.
Am very pleased that our sister has come. Warm regards to her and to Jo, and as for you and me, let’s not worry ourselves. In any event, it didn’t last as long as the other year, and so we can still hope that little by little time will make all of this pass. Well, be of good heart, and good handshake
Ever yours,
Vincent
839 | Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, on or about Monday, 13 January 1890 | To Theo van Gogh (F)
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter, I hope that Wil has recovered from her indisposition and that it was no more serious than you say. Than
ks very much, too, for the consignment of canvases and colours, which has just arrived. I have enough subjects for paintings in my head for when the weather permits me to work outside.
What you say about the copy after Millet, The evening, pleases me. The more I think about it the more I find that there’s justification for trying to reproduce things by Millet that he didn’t have the time to paint in oils. So working either on his drawings or the wood engravings, it’s not copying pure and simple that one would be doing. It is rather translating into another language, the one of colours, the impressions of chiaroscuro and white and black. In this way I’ve just finished the three other ‘times of the day’ after the wood engravings by Lavieille. It took me a lot of time and a lot of trouble. For you know that this summer I’ve already done The labours of the fields. Now these reproductions — you’ll see them one day — I haven’t sent, because more than the former ones they were gropings, but they have, however, served me well for The times of the day. Later, who knows, perhaps I could do lithographs of them. I’m curious as to what Mr Lauzet will say about them. They’ll take a good month more to dry, the last three, but once you have them you’ll clearly see that they were done through a most profound and sincere admiration for Millet. Then, even if they’re criticized one day or despised as copies, it will remain no less true that it’s justifiable to try to make Millet’s work more accessible to the ordinary general public.
Now I’m going to talk to you again about what I think we could do for the future so as to have fewer expenses. At Montevergues there’s an asylum where one of the employees here used to be a warder. He tells me that there they only pay 22 sous a day, and that then the patients are even dressed by the establishment. Then they’re put to work on the lands that belong to the house, and there’s also a forge, a carpenter’s workshop &c. Once they’d got to know me a little I don’t think I’d be forbidden to paint, then for one thing there’s still the fact that it’s less expensive, and second, that one can work at something. So with good will one isn’t unfortunate there, nor is one to be pitied too much. Now, even leaving Montevergues aside, returning to Holland, aren’t there establishments in our native country where people work too and where it isn’t expensive, and which one has the right to benefit from, while I’m not too sure if there might not be a slightly higher rate at Montevergues for foreigners, and above all admission difficulties which it’s better to avoid. I must tell you that it reassures me a little to tell myself that we can simplify things if we need to. For at present it costs too much, and the idea of going to Paris then to the country, having no other resource to combat the expenses than painting, means manufacturing paintings that come quite expensive.
You must talk about it one day with C.M., should you see him, and tell him frankly that I’ll willingly try to do what’s for the best, that I have no preference whatsoever.
I saw Mr Peyron again this morning, he says that he’s allowing me complete freedom to distract myself, and that I must react against the melancholy as much as I can, which I’m gladly doing. Now, it’s a good reaction to ponder resolutely, and it’s also a duty. Now, you understand that in an establishment where the patients work in the fields I would find hosts of subjects for paintings and drawings, and that I wouldn’t be at all unhappy there. Anyway, it’s necessary to ponder while we have the time to ponder.
I think that if I came to Paris I wouldn’t do anything but draw Greek casts again at first, because I must always keep on studying.
For the moment I feel very well, and I hope that it’ll remain like that.
And I even have hopes that it will be dispelled even more if I return to the north. Just mustn’t forget that a broken pitcher is a broken pitcher, and so I have no right at all to entertain pretensions.
I tell myself that at home in Holland people always value painting more or less, that in an establishment they’d hardly make difficulties about letting me do it. Now, it would still be a lot, however, to have the opportunity to occupy oneself over and above painting, and it would cost less. Hasn’t the countryside and working there always been to our taste? And aren’t we a little indifferent, you as much as I, to the life of a big city?
I must tell you that at moments I still feel too well to be idle, and in Paris I fear I wouldn’t do anything good.
So when you see C.M., and it seems very likely to me that he will indeed drop by in February to see the little one you’re expecting, let’s try a little to act firmly.
I can and I indeed want to earn some money with my painting, and we ought to ensure that my expenses don’t exceed its value, and even that the money spent comes back little by little. Well, that can be done with energy, and it’s a duty. With good behaviour I think that one can arrive at some relative freedom, even in an establishment for the insane. And it seems to me that the attacks have been too frequent, too decisive, to cease considering myself as ill.
To talk of something else — I can’t manage to see the south like the good Italians, Fortuny, Jiménez, Tapiró and others — how on the contrary it makes me see more with my northern eyes!
It isn’t, believe me, that I wouldn’t wish to be able to live like before, without this preoccupation with health. Anyway, we’ll make the attempt once but probably not twice in the spring if it goes away completely.
Today I took the ten francs that were still with Mr Peyron. When I go to Arles I’ll have to pay 3 months’ rent on the room where my furniture is. That’ll be in February. This furniture, it seems to me, will be of use, if not to me then to another painter wanting to settle in the country.
Wouldn’t it be wiser, in the event of leaving here, to send it to Gauguin, who’ll probably spend more time in Brittany, than to you, who’ll have nowhere to put it. This is another thing we need to consider in time.
I think that in giving up two very old, heavy chests of drawers to someone, I could exempt myself from paying the remainder of the rent and perhaps the packing costs. They cost me around thirty francs. I’ll drop a line to Gauguin and De Haan to ask if they’re planning to stay in Brittany and if they’d like me to send the furniture, and then if they want me to come too. I won’t commit myself to anything, only say that I’m very probably not staying here.
This week I’m going to start on Millet’s ‘Snow-covered field’ and ‘First steps’ in the same format as the others. Then there’ll be 6 canvases forming a series, and I assure you that I’ve worked on them, these last three of the ‘Times of the day’, with much thought to calculate the colour.
You see, these days there are so many people who don’t feel made for the public but who support and consolidate what others do. Those who translate books, for example. The engravers, the lithographers. Take Vernier, for example, and Lerat. So that’s to say that I don’t hesitate to make copies. If I had the leisure to travel, how I’d like to copy the works of Giotto, this painter who would be as modern as Delacroix if he weren’t primitive, and who’s so different from the other primitives. I haven’t seen much of his work, though. But there’s one who is consolatory.
So what I’m pondering doing in painting is Daumier’s Drinkers and Régamey’s Penitentiary. You’ll find them in among the wood engravings. I’m busy with the Millets for the moment, but this is to say that I’ll find no lack of things to work on. Thus even half locked up I’ll be able to occupy myself for a long time.
What the Impressionists have found in colour will develop even more, but there’s a link that many forget which links this to the past, and I’ll make efforts to show that I have little belief in a rigorous separation between the Impressionists and the others. I find it a very happy thing that in this century there have been painters like Millet, Delacroix, Meissonier, who cannot be surpassed. For although we don’t like Meissonier as much as certain individuals do, there’s no getting away from it, when one sees his Readers, his Halt and so many other paintings — that really is something. And then one’s leaving aside his strongest point, i.e. military painting, because we l
ike that less than the fields. Nevertheless, to be fair we must say that what he’s done cannot be surpassed or changed. Once again I hope that our sister has recovered.
Warm regards to all.
Ever yours,
Vincent.
841 | Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Monday, 20 January 1890 | To Willemien van Gogh (F)
My dear sister,
The other day I saw some people sick with influenza and I’m so curious to know if you’ve had it too, as I’m inclined to believe. I saw a female patient who had a rather worrying nervous complication, and a distressing change of life.
Are you enjoying yourself in Paris? I could very well imagine that it would strike you as being an over-large city, too muddled. That’s what always vexes us, we who are rather accustomed to simpler surroundings.
Write to me one of these days if you’d like to, for I very much want to hear you say that you’re better.
I fear a little the effect that Paris will have on me should I return there, as will probably be the case in the spring. For all through the year I’ve forced myself to forget Paris as much as I could from the point of view of the disturbance and excitement a prolonged stay causes.
No matter what people say; we painters work better in the country, everything there speaks more clearly, everything holds firm, everything explains itself, now in a city when one is tired one no longer understands anything and feels as if one is lost.
Ever Yours Page 108