The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

by Vincent Van Gogh

  What are we, we other painters?

  Oh, well, I’m sure Richepin is quite right, for instance when he brutally bursts in and consigns them straight back to the madhouse with his profanities.

  However, I assure you that I know of no hospital where they would be willing to take me in for nothing, even supposing that I myself shouldered the painting expenses and left the whole of my work to the hospital.

  And that is, I don’t say a great, but still a small injustice. Even so, I should feel resigned if one took me in. If I were without your friendship, they would drive me remorselessly to suicide, and coward that I am, I should end by committing it. At this point, I hope, we are permitted to protest against society and to defend ourselves.

  You can be fairly sure that the Marseilles artist who committed suicide in no way did it under the influence of absinthe, for the simple reason that no one is likely to have offered him any and he could not have had anything to buy it with. Besides, he would not have drunk it purely for pleasure, but because, being ill already, he kept himself going with it.

  M. Salles has been to Saint-Rémy - they are not willing to give me permission to paint outside the institution, nor to take me for less than 100 francs.

  So this is pretty bad news.

  If I could get out of this mess by joining the Foreign Legion for 5 years, I think I should prefer that.

  For on the one hand, being locked up and not working, I should find it hard to get better, and on the other hand, they would make us pay 100 francs a month during the whole long life of a madman.

  It’s a bad business, and what are we to make of it? But would they be willing to have me as a soldier?

  I feel very tired after the conversation with M. Salles, and I don’t quite know what to do. I myself advised Bernard to do his service there, so it’s hardly surprising that I’m considering going to Arabia as a soldier myself.

  I say that so you will not blame me too much if I do go. Everything else is so vague and so strange. And you know how doubtful it is that one will ever get back what it costs to paint. For the rest, it seems I am physically well.

  Supposing I am only allowed to work under supervision! And in the institution - my God, is it worth paying money for that? In that case I could certainly work just as well, even better, in the barracks.

  Anyway, I’m thinking about it. You do so as well. Let us remember that all is for the best in the best of all worlds - it’s not impossible.

  A really good handshake,

  Ever yours,

  Vincent

  Here is what I think is worth putting on stretchers from the consignment:

  The Night Café - The Alyscamps (lane of tombs)

  The Green Vineyard - ditto

  The Red Vineyard - Garden with large conifer bush and oleanders

  The Bedroom

  The Furrows - ditto with cedar & geraniums ditto

  ditto- Sunflowers

  Portrait of Boch Flowers, scabious, &c.

  “ ” Laval ditto, asters, marigolds, &c.

  “ ” Gauguin

  “ ” Bernard

  The packing case contains some studies by Gauguin which belong to him, and his two fencing masks and some fencing gloves.

  If there is room in the packing case, I’ll add some stretchers.

  Saint-Rèmy

  On the same day that he sent his birthday letter to Theo, Van Gogh also wrote to his sister Wil, ‘I am going to an asylum in St Rémy, not far from here, for at least three months. In all, I have had 4 major attacks, during which I had no idea what I said, what I wanted or what I did, not to mention the three times before when I had fainting fits for inexplicable reasons, being quite unable to recall what I felt at the time.’

  On 8 May, after finishing another four orchard studies and two paintings of the interior of the hospital at Aries, Van Gogh was accompanied by the Protestant pastor, Dr Frédéric Salles, to his new quarters in the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole. Pastor Salles sent Theo the following report on 10 May: ‘Our journey to Saint-Rémy went exceptionally well. M. Vincent was perfectly calm and explained his case himself to the director [Dr Theophile Peyron]. […] He seemed rather excited at the thought of the completely new life that lay ahead of him in this house.’

  Theo sent painting equipment and kept Vincent informed by letter of the latest items of news from the Parisian art world, the Salon, the world exhibition and his meetings with friends. The brothers also corresponded about the paintings Vincent would be entering for the important exhibition of the Independants.

  At first Van Gogh’s doctor confined his freedom of movement to the walled garden of the asylum. There he painted irises, lilac bushes and tree trunks overgrown with ivy. Just as in his Hague days, when he had described the view from his studio in the Schenkweg as a view by Corot, he now compared the prospect from his barred window to a painting by Van Goyen. He observed his fellow patients with interest, and tried to come to terms with his illness, in the knowledge that many fellow artists had preceded him along the same path.

  592 [F] [part]

  [22 May 1889]

  My dear Theo,

  […] Here is a new size 30 canvas, again as run of the mill as a cheap chromo, depicting age-old love nests in the greenery. Large tree trunks covered with ivy, the ground similarly covered with ivy & periwinkle, a stone bench and a bush of roses, pale in the cool shadow. In the foreground, some plants with white calyxes. It is green, violet and pink.

  It’s all a question - and this is unfortunately missing from the cheap chromos as well as from the barrel organs - of putting some style into it.

  Since I’ve been here, there’s been enough work for me to do, what with the neglected garden with its tall pines and long, unkempt grass mixed with all sorts of weeds, and I haven’t even been outside.

  However, the countryside around S’ Rémy is very beautiful, and little by little I shall probably make a few short trips.

  But while I stay here, the doctor is of course in a better position to see what is wrong, & will have his mind set at rest, I hope, about what he can let me paint.

  I assure you that I am all right here, and that for the time being I see no reason at all to take lodgings in or around Paris. I have a small room with greenish-grey paper and two sea-green curtains with a design of very pale roses, brightened with touches of blood red.

  These curtains, probably the legacy of some deceased and ruined rich person, are very pretty in design. A very worn armchair, probably from the same source, is covered with a tapestry speckled like a Diaz or a Monticelli in brown, red, pink, white, cream, black, forget-me-not blue and bottle green. Through the iron-barred window I can see an enclosed square of wheat, a prospect like a Van Goyen, above which, in the morning, I watch the sun rise in all its glory.

  In addition - as there are more than 30 empty rooms - I have another room for doing my work.

  The food is all right as far as it goes. It tastes a bit musty, of course, as in a cockroach-infested restaurant in Paris, or in a boarding house. The poor wretches here, having absolutely nothing to do (not a book, nothing more to distract them than a game of boules or a game of draughts), have no other daily distraction than to stuff themselves with chick peas, haricot beans, lentils and other groceries and colonial produce, in set amounts and at stated hours.

  As the digestion of these foodstuffs offers certain difficulties, they fill their days in a manner as inoffensive as it is costly.

  But joking apart, my fear of madness is wearing off markedly, since I can see at close quarters those who are affected by it in the same way as I may very easily be in the future.

  Previously, I was repelled by these individuals, and I found it distressing to have to reflect that so many in our trade, Troyon, Marchal, Méryon, Jundt, M. Maris, Monticelli, and a whole lot more finished up like that. It was quite impossible for me to picture them in that condition.

  Well, now I can think of all that without fear, that’s to say, I find it no more drea
dful than if those people had died of something else, consumption or syphilis, for example. I see these artists being reinvested with their old serenity, and don’t you think it’s quite something to meet these old colleagues of ours again? That, joking apart, is what I am profoundly thankful for.

  For though there are some who howl or rave a great deal, there is much true friendship here. They say we must tolerate others so that the others may tolerate us, and other very sound arguments, which they put into practice, too. And we understand each other very well. Sometimes, for instance, I can talk with one of them - who can only reply in incoherent sounds - because he is not afraid of me.

  […]

  You could take the canvases at Tanguy’s or at your place off he stretchers, if they’re dry enough, and then put on any new ones you think are worth it.

  Gauguin ought to be able to tell you the address of someone who could reline the Bedroom and who won’t be too expensive. The restoration ought, I imagine, to cost 5 francs. If it is more, then don’t have it done. I’m sure Gauguin didn’t pay any more on the many occasions when he had his canvases, or Cezanne’s, or Pissarro’s, relined.

  Again - speaking of my condition - I am so grateful for yet another thing. I’ve noticed that others, too, hear sounds and strange voices during their attacks, as I did, and that things seemed to change before their very eyes. And that lessened the horror with which I remembered my first attack, something that, when it comes upon you unexpectedly, cannot but frighten you terribly. Once you know it is part of the illness, you accept it like anything else. Had I not seen other lunatics close to, I should not have been able to stop myself from thinking about it all the time. For the suffering and the anguish are not funny when you are having an attack.

  Most epileptics bite their tongues and injure themselves. Rey told me that he had seen a case who had injured his ear, just as I did, and I think I heard a doctor from here, who came to see me with the director, say that he too had seen it before. I like to think that once you know what it is, once you are conscious of your condition, and of being subject to attacks, then you can do something to prevent your being taken unawares by the anguish or the terror. Now that it has all been abating for 5 months I have high hopes of getting over it, or at least of no longer having such violent attacks.

  There is someone here who has been shouting and talking like me all the time for a fortnight. He thinks he hears voices and words in the echo of the corridors, probably because his auditory nerve is diseased and over-sensitive, and in my case it was both sight and hearing at the same time, which is usual at the outset of epilepsy, according to what Rey said one day.

  Now, the shock was such that even moving made me feel sick, and nothing would have pleased me more than never to have woken up again. At present this horror of life is already less pronounced, and the melancholy less acute. But I still have no will, and hardly any desires, or none at all that are to do with ordinary life, for example, almost no wish to see friends, although I do think of them. That is why I am still not ready to leave here now or in the near future. I should feel depressed about everything again.

  And anyway, it is only recently that my loathing of life has been drastically changed. There is still a long way to go from that to willing and doing.

  What a pity that you’re condemned to stay full-time in Paris and that you never see any part of the countryside other than that around Paris. I’m sure it’s no worse for me to be in the company I now find myself than for you to be with that ill-fated Goupil & Cie all the time. In that respect, we are pretty equal. For you, too, are only able to act partly in keeping with your ideas. However, once we’ve got used to these difficulties, it all becomes second nature.

  Although the pictures swallow up canvas and paint, &c, nevertheless at the end of the month I’m sure it’s more profitable to spend a little more on those, making use of what I’ve learned, than to abandon it all, when you have to pay for my board and lodging anyway. And that’s why I’m carrying on. So this month I have 4 size 30 canvases and two or three drawings.

  But the question of money, whatever one does, is always with us, like the enemy facing the troops, and cannot be denied or ignored.

  As much as anyone, I know where my duties lie in that respect. And I may yet be able to pay back everything I’ve spent, for I consider it to have been, if not taken from you, at least taken from the family. So that’s why I’ve been producing pictures and shall be doing some more. This is acting as you yourself are acting. If I were a man of means, perhaps my mind would be freer to produce art for art’s sake. Now I content myself with the thought that by working diligently, one may perhaps make some progress even without thinking about it.

  Here are the paints I need:

  3 emerald green

  2 cobalt

  1 ultramarine

  large tubes

  1 orange lead

  6 zinc white

  5 metres of canvas

  Thanking you for your kind letter, I shake your hand warmly, as I do your wife’s.

  Ever yours,

  Vincent

  In the middle of June, Vincent ventured beyond the garden to paint a wheat field and his first olive grove - a subject that had been intriguing him for a long time - in the immediate vicinity of the asylum. Despite his speedy recovery, he told his sister Wil that he had little zest for life and that he was anxiously awaiting a letter from Theo. Theo, however, was obviously so taken up by his honeymoon with his bride, Johanna, that the correspondence, which had become Vincent’s lifeline, ground to a temporary halt. Many people have speculated on the effect Theo’s marriage had on Vincent and to what extent it worsened his condition.

  When Theo eventually did write, he was full of praise for Vincent’s latest consignment of canvases from Aries (and the first from Saint-Rémy), including such works as View of Aries with Poplars, Irises and Lilacs: ‘They all have an intensity of colour you have not attained before, which is a rare quality in itself, but you have gone even further than that, & while others do violence to the form in order to pursue symbolic ideas, I see that you have achieved that in many of your canvases by conveying the quintessence of your thoughts about nature and living beings, which, you feel, are so closely bound up with them. But how that brain of yours must have laboured, and how you have risked everything in venturing to the very brink, where vertigo is inevitable.’ In his answer, Vincent tried to reassure his brother: ‘Never fear that I shall venture upon dizzy heights of my own free will. Unfortunately, we are exposed to the conditions and illnesses of our age, whether we like it or not. But with all the precautions I am taking, I am not likely to have a relapse, and I have hopes that the attacks will not recur.’

  A month later, Theo wrote just as enthusiastically about a further consignment of paintings. He was also most impressed by some of the drawings he had received: ‘The hospital at Aries is outstanding, the butterfly and the branches of eglantine are very beautiful too: simple in colour and very beautifully drawn. The last drawings look as if they were done in a frenzy and are a little further removed from nature […]. I have hung one of the Sunflowers in our dining room against the chimney breast. It looks like a piece of cloth embroidered with satin and gold.’

  Despite the weary tone of his letters, Van Gogh was producing one masterpiece after another during this period. In addition to the series of enclosed fields, he also painted The Reaper, The Starry Night and the ‘bottle-green’ Cypresses. He had been preoccupied with the thought of depicting cypresses since soon after his arrival in Aries, and was astonished to discover that they ‘have not yet been painted as I see them. They are as beautiful as an Egyptian obelisk in their line and proportions. And the green has such a distinctive quality. It is a black patch in a sunny landscape.’

  As reading matter he chose Shakespeare’s historical plays, with which he was less familiar than with the rest. In them, as in Rembrandt, he found ‘that sorrowful tenderness, that momentary revelation of superhuman infinitude whic
h then seems so natural’. But reading Shakespeare’s plays, full of dramatic incident and the clash of ambitions, was often far from relaxing. When he put the book down, he had always to ‘contemplate a blade of grass, a branch of pine, an ear of corn […] to calm myself down again […]. Hours of worry and strife know how to find us, without our going out looking for them.’

  His descriptions of the flora and fauna betrayed a growing nostalgia for the Netherlands. He sent Theo a sketch of three cicadas, adding, ‘Their chirping in the great heat has the same charm for me as the cricket on the hearth for the peasants at home. Don’t let us forget, old fellow, that the minor emotions are the guiding lights of our lives.’ In the first letter he had written to his mother for seven months, he summed up what he was missing in the Provence landscape. The fields offered less variety than those in the Netherlands, and he looked in vain for ‘those moss-covered farm roofs on the barns or cottages as at home, or any oak copses, any corn spurrey, or any beech hedges with their russet leaves and tangled old whitish trunks. Or any real heather or any birches, which were so lovely in Nuenen.’ However, the beauty of the vineyards and the olive groves made up for much.

  In her first attempt to write a letter in French, Johanna van Gogh told her brother-in-law on 5 July 1889 that she was expecting a baby. If it turned out to be a boy, and she was certain it would, the child would be called Vincent after him. In Paris, the Belgian impresario Octave Maus had meanwhile called on Theo to invite Vincent to exhibit with the Vingtistes.

  In the middle of July Van Gogh had a new attack while out painting in the countryside. Not until 22 August was he well enough to describe the circumstances: ‘For days my mind has been wandering wildly, just as in Aries, as bad if not worse, and it must be expected that the attacks will recur in the future. It is frightful […]. I apparently pick up dirt from the ground and eat it.’ A swollen throat made taking food difficult. Because he had also put paint into his mouth and had drunk turpentine, he was ordered not to do any painting until further notice, and Vincent pleaded with Theo to urge Dr Peyron to let him get back to work. He found idleness intolerable and a bar to his recovery. Moreover, the asylum was beginning to get on his nerves. The exaggerated piety of the nuns irritated him and he went in fear of several patients.