The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Page 17
I have had a kind note from C. M. with a promise that he will be coming to The Hague soon and visit me then. Well, it’s just another promise, but perhaps something will come of it. We’ll see.
For the rest I’m going to run after people less and less, dealers or painters, it doesn’t matter who they are. The only people I shall run after will be models, since I’m sure that working without a model is quite wrong, at least for me.
It’s gratifying, isn’t it, Theo, when there’s a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m seeing a little bit of light now. It’s gratifying to draw a human being, something alive - it may be damned difficult, but it’s wonderful anyway.
Tomorrow I shall be giving a children’s party, two children whom I have to entertain and draw at the same time. I want there to be some life in my studio and already have all sorts of acquaintances in the neighbourhood. On Sunday I am having a boy from the orphanage, a real type, but unfortunately I can only get him for a short time.
It may be true that I don’t have the knack of getting on with people who are sticklers for etiquette, but on the other hand perhaps I get on better with poor or common folk, and what I lose on the one hand I gain on the other. Sometimes I just leave it at that and think: after all,2 it’s right and proper that I should live like an artist in the surroundings I’m sensitive to and am trying to express. Honni soit qui mal y pense.3
Here we are at the beginning of another month, and although it’s not yet a month since you sent me something, I would ask you to be kind enough to send me some more soon, if you can. It doesn’t have to be 100 frs. all at once, but just a little to be going on with between now and when you can send the rest. I mention this because you said in a previous letter that you wouldn’t be able to raise any money until after the stocktaking.
It grieves me sometimes when I realize I’m going to have to keep a model waiting, because they need it so badly. So far I have been paying them, but next week I shan’t be able to. But I’ll be able to get a model anyway, either the old woman or the younger one or the child.
Incidentally, Breitner mentioned you to me the other day, saying there was something he was very sorry for and which he thought you might still be cross about. Apparently, he still has a drawing that belongs to you, but I didn’t understand exactly what it was all about. He is at work on a large affair, a market that will be full of figures. Last night I went out with him to look for different types of figures on the street so as to do a study of them later with a model in the studio. I’ve drawn an old woman in this way whom I saw on the Geest, where the madhouse is.
Well, bonsoir, I hope to hear from you soon,
Ever Yours,
Vincent
I had to pay the rent too this week. Good-night, it’s two o’clock already and I haven’t finished yet.
Theo advised Vincent to keep on good terms with Tersteeg, because he was ‘almost like an older brother to us’. Vincent, however, continued to be incensed at Tersteeg’s condescending attitude to his work: ‘For years now he has considered me a kind of duffer & dreamer. He still does, and even says of my drawing that “it’s like a kind of opium you take so you won’t feel the pain at not being able to do any more watercolours”. Now then, that may be fine talk, but it is thoughtless, superficial and unfounded (the main reason for my not being able to do watercolours at this moment being that I must settle down even more seriously to my drawing and pay greater heed to proportion & perspective).’ His own growing aversion to the practices of the art trade set Vincent thinking that Theo, too, would do better to retire from it and become a painter. The independence of an artist was greater than that of the art dealer. As an artist, Theo would experience a second flush of youth. ‘Oh, Theo, why don’t you throw everything overboard and become a painter, old fellow - you can if you want to. I sometimes suspect you of keeping a famous paysagiste [landscape painter] hidden inside you […]. The two of us must become painters.’
In countless letters to come Van Gogh continued to elaborate on his idea that Theo, too, would be well-advised to opt for life as an artist, an idea he was never to give up.
182 [D]
[c. 14–18 March 1882]
My dear Theo,
On second thoughts, it occurred to me that you must have found it odd to see a reference in my last letter to something I have never mentioned before, & a reference made, moreover, in a rather peremptory tone, something like: Theo, throw the whole lot overboard and become a painter, there is a famous paysagiste1 inside you.
These words might well have escaped me at a moment when my passions were aroused. But that doesn’t alter the fact that it happens like that with other things that I allow to slip out in spite of myself sometimes, once I’ve got in a passion or have been aroused in some way or other. In other words, what I say at such times is what I’ve been bottling up for a long time and then blurt out, sometimes quite bluntly. But although in a calmer mood I would put it better, or keep it to myself, the fact is that, especially in a calm mood, I am most decidedly of that particular opinion.
Now it is out, and out it must stay, I have said it at last in spite of myself - inadvertently - in short, bluntly - but now you know my innermost thoughts. And when I wrote, ‘remain something better than H. G. T.’, and when I intimated that I do not hold art dealers in general in high esteem - it’s true, I could well have kept these things to myself, but now that my silence is broken and I have spoken - well then, that is how I will speak.
As to H. G. T., I knew His Hon. during a curious period of his life, when he had just ‘worked his way up’ as they say, and, moreover, was newly married. At the time he made a strong impression on me - he was a practical man, tremendously able and good-humoured, energetic in small & large things, in addition he radiated poetry, so to speak, but poetry of the genuine, unsentimental sort. I felt so much respect for him at the time that I always kept my distance & looked upon him as a being of a higher order.
Since - since - since then - I have come - more & more - to have my doubts - but I lacked the courage to take up an analytical scalpel to dissect him more closely. Now, however, having reached a point at which I must be very much on the qui vive and not allow my career to be ruined for no matter whom, the above-mentioned scalpel has not spared him. And all the time I sat in his small office or talked to him in the gallery with a perfectly natural expression on my face and asked him some very ordinary questions, I was taking his measure as cold-bloodedly as I knew how.
I used to think he was the sort of person who put on the air of a man of means, of an homme du monde,2 I don’t know how to put it in one word, I’m sure you’ll take my meaning, and who hid a great deal of feeling and a warm heart behind that iron mask. But I found his armour enormously thick, so thick that I cannot make up my mind for sure whether the man is made of solid metal, be it steel or silver, or whether deep, deep down inside the iron there is one small corner in which a human heart still beats. If there is no heart in him, then my affection for him has truly run its course, making way for a ‘Qu’est ce que tu me fais - toi? Tu m’agaces’.3 So that in six months or a year he will either leave me utterly cold, or, or I will perhaps have found a way of getting on better with His Hon. Meanwhile - he is still His Hon. to me. Those are not the terms in which one thinks of somebody for whom one feels warm sympathy. ‘His Hon.’ expresses something trite. Enough, suffit.4
Theo, I am definitely not a landscape painter, when I do landscapes there will always be something of the figure in them. However, it seems to me a very good thing that there are also people who are essentially ‘paysagistes’. And - the thought that you might be just such a person - sans le savoir5 - greatly preoccupies me. I am just as preoccupied with the antithesis, namely whether you, Theo, are really cut out to be a dealer.
If I had to prove the thesis, I might perhaps try to do so by indirect reduction. Quoi qu’il en soit,6 do think it over. I don’t need to tell you to consider carefully before you begin to paint, but perha
ps you won’t take it amiss if I add: Theo, until now you were free to do as you please but should you ever come to an arrangement with Messrs G. & Cie and promise to stay on in their business for the rest of your life, then you would be a free man no longer. And - it seems quite possible to me that there may come a moment in life when one regrets having committed oneself in that way.
You will no doubt tell me, the moment may well arrive when one regrets haying become a painter. And what could I then reply on my own behalf? They who have such regrets are those who neglect solid study in the beginning and who race hurry-scurry to be top of the heap. Well, the men of the day are men of just one day, but whoever has enough faith and love to take pleasure in precisely what others find dull, namely the study of anatomy, perspective & proportion, will stay the course and mature slowly but surely.
When, pressed for money, I forgot myself for a moment and thought, I’ll try to produce something with a particular appeal, the result was dreadful, I couldn’t do it. And Mauve rightly became angry with me and said, that’s not how to do it, tear that stuff up. At first I found that too hard to do, but later I did cut them up. Then when I began to draw more seriously, Tersteeg took exception and became angry - and overlooked the good things in my drawings and asked straight out for ones that were ‘saleable’.
Well, you can see immediately from this that there is a difference between Mauve & Tersteeg. Mauve appears more and more serious the more one thinks about him, but is Tersteeg going to be able to pass this test? I hope so, but doubt if he will stand up to it as well as M. And how about those who are serious at heart, although they often have something disagreeable about them? One gets to like them and to feel at home with them - one quickly gets bored with those who are not serious enough.
You mustn’t imagine that I have overlooked the change in your financial circumstances which a change of career would entail. But what makes me mention this matter to you at all is that although I find myself in financial difficulties, I nevertheless have the feeling that there is nothing more solid than a ‘handicraft’ in the literal sense of working with one’s hands. If you became a painter, one of the things that would surprise you is that painting & everything connected with it is quite hard work in physical terms. Leaving aside the mental exertion, the hard thought, it demands considerable physical effort, and that day after day.
Well, I shall say no more about it now, except to add just this: when you come to Holland, I should like to speak to you alone, not just for half an hour but for, say, a whole morning, about some practical things which I have picked up - either from my own experience or from Mauve and others - just as if I had to explain them to you, teach them to you. I hope you won’t have any objection - at worst you will be bored for a morning, but perhaps you won’t be bored. I only hope that in the meantime you won’t be thinking about the ‘selling’ of pictures, but about the ‘how to do it’.7 And that you won’t consider it being tempted by Satan. Enfin, nous verrons.8
If you could send me some money towards the end of this month, it would be very welcome. By then I also hope to have finished the 12 for C. M.! If he pays for them straight away, that will put 30 guilders in my pocket. If something from you were added to that, I would risk buying a few shirts & drawers which I need very, very badly, seeing that the shins, &c, I own are really getting into a deplorable state and I have only a very few of them.
Since I wrote to you I have been working with the same models the whole time and I must say I’m glad to have found them. I am busy drawing heads, and I urgently need to draw hands and feet as well (but it can’t be done all at once). And when summer comes & the cold is no longer a handicap, I must needs in one way or another do some studies of the nude. Not exactly academic poses. But I would, for example, be tremendously pleased to have a nude model for a digger or a seamstress. From the front, from the back, from the side. To learn to see and sense the shape properly through the clothes and to have an idea of the movement. I estimate that about 12 studies, 6 men, 6 women, would throw a lot of light on the matter. Each study takes a day’s work. However, it is difficult to find models for this purpose, and if I can I shall avoid having a nude model hanging about in the studio in case I frighten the other models away.
The fear ‘that they will have to strip naked’ is usually the first scruple one has to overcome when approaching people about posing. Or at least that has been my experience here already more than once. Actually it even happened with a very old man, who would probably have been very Ribera-like as a nude model. But aprés tout,9 I am not looking for a Ribera, still less a Salvator Rosa, I don’t see things that way. I am not even enthusiastic about Decamps. I am ill at ease in front of their pictures and cannot visualize them without the feeling that I am missing something and losing sight of something. I’d rather have Goya or Gavarni, although both of them say ‘Nada’.10 As the last word? ‘Nada’, it seems to me, means precisely the same as Solomon’s saying: ‘Vanite des vanites, tout est vanite’,11 but that is something on which I cannot lay down my head without having nightmares. So there you are.
However, it’s too late to philosophize, seeing that I must be up at half-past five tomorrow morning, because the carpenter is coming round to do a job for me before he goes off to work. So good-night & believe me, I mean it very seriously when I talk about your becoming a painter. Goodbye,
Ever yours,
Vincent
I’ve done two more small drawings for C. M., a bit of the Scheveningen road and workers in the sand dunes.
Now that I’ve paid the money back to Tersteeg, I’m afraid that when the landlord comes round at the end of March I shan’t have much left for him. So if you can, I do hope you will send me what you can towards the end of March.
Theo, on Sunday I went round to De Bock’s again - I don’t know why, but every time I go and see him I get the same feeling: the fellow’s too weak, he’ll never make good - unless he changes, unless - unless - I see something weary, something blase, something insincere in him that oppresses me, there is something consumptive about the atmosphere in his house.
And yet - it doesn’t hit you in the eye - and there are probably few among his acquaintance who think of him as I do.
Well, anyway, he does do things that are nice sometimes, or at least not without charm and grace, but, ça suffit-il?12 So much is demanded nowadays that painting seems like a campaign, a military campaign, a battle or a war.
Van Gogh continued to harp on the theme of Theo’s artistic calling, especially in the letters he wrote from Drenthe.
Quite soon after the Kee Vos affair he threw himself into another emotional adventure. The social implications of his befriending the pregnant prostitute Sien Hoornik and her child once again put his good relationship with his brother and his parents at risk. Moreover, the affair led to an abrupt break with Mauve and Tersteeg. It is fascinating to follow the way in which Van Gogh pulled out every emotional stop in his attempts to convince Theo of the tightness of his course of action.
192 [D]
[3–12 May 1882]
Please feel free to tell
Mauve anything you like
about the contents of this
letter, but there’s no need for
it to go any further.
My dear Theo,
I met Mauve today and had a most regrettable conversation with him, which made it clear to me that Mauve and I have parted for good. Mauve has gone too far to retract, and anyhow he certainly wouldn’t want to.
I invited him to come and see my work, and then to talk things over. Mauve flatly refused: ‘I will certainly not be coming to see you, that’s all over.’
In the end he said, ‘You have a vicious character.’ I turned away then - it was in the dunes - and walked home alone.
Mauve takes it amiss that I said, ‘I am an artist,’ which I won’t take back, because it’s self-evident that what that word implies is looking for something all the time without ever finding it in full. It is the ver
y opposite of saying, ‘I know all about it, I’ve already found it’ As far as I am concerned, the word means, ‘I am looking, I am hunting for it, I am deeply involved.’
I have ears, Theo - if somebody says, ‘You have a vicious character,’ what am I supposed to do? I turned away and went home alone, but with a very heavy heart that Mauve should have been prepared to say that to me. I shall not ask him for an explanation, nor shall I apologize.
And yet - and yet - and yet. I wish Mauve did feel some compunction. I am suspected of something… it is in the air… I am keeping something back, Vincent is concealing something that mustn’t see the light of day.
Well, gentlemen, I shall say to you, you people who prize manners and culture, and rightly so, provided it is the genuine article - which is more cultured, more sensitive, more manly: to desert a woman or to concern oneself with one who has been deserted?
Last winter I met a pregnant woman, deserted by the man whose child she was carrying. A pregnant woman who walked the streets in the winter - she had her bread to earn, you’ll know how. I took that woman on as a model and have worked with her all winter. I couldn’t pay her a model’s full daily wages, but I paid her rent all the same, and thus far, thank God, I have been able to save her and her child from hunger and cold by sharing my own bread with her.
When I first came across this woman, she caught my eye because she looked ill. I made her take baths and as many restoratives as I could manage, and she has become much healthier. I have been with her to Leiden, where there is a maternity hospital in which she will be confined.*
It strikes me that any man worth his salt would have done the same in a case like this. I consider what I did so simple and natural that I thought I could keep it to myself. She found posing difficult, yet she has learned, and I have made progress with my drawing because I have had a good model. The woman is now attached to me like a tame dove. For my part, I can only get married once, and when better than now, and to her, because it is the only way to go on helping her and she would otherwise be sent back by want on to the same old path which leads to the abyss. She has no money, but she is helping me to earn money with my work.