V
THE LETTERS OF A
POST-IMPRESSIONIST
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
BY
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI
VINCENT VAN GOGH
BY HIMSELF
THE LETTERS OF A
POST-IMPRESSIONIST
BEING
THE FAMILIAR CORRESPONDENCE
OF VINCENT VAN GOGH
LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD.
1912
Glfli
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND co.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON VAN
GOGH AND HIS ART.
THOUGH the collection of letters contained in Cas-
sirer's publication, " Vincent Van Gogh. Briefe," is
not a complete one, from my knowledge of a very large
number of the letters which are not included in this volume,
I feel able to say that the present selection is in any case
very representative and contains all that is essential in
respect to Van Gogh's art-credo and general attitude of
mind.
For reasons into which it is unnecessary for me to
enter here, it was found convenient to adopt the form of
Cassirer's publication arranged by Margarete Mauthner,
and my translation has therefore been made from the Ger-
man (Fourth Edition, 1911). Still, with the view of avoid-
ing the errors which were bound to creep into a double
translation of this sort, I took care, when my version was
complete, to compare it with as many of the original
French letters as I was able to find, and I am glad to say
that by this means I succeeded in satisfying myself as to
the accuracy of every line from page 39 to the end.
The letters printed up to page 38 , some of which I fancy
must have been written in Dutch — a language which in
any case I could not have read — have not been compared
with the originals. But, seeing that the general quality of
the German translation of the letters after page 39 was
v
so good that I was able to discover only the small handful
of inaccuracies referred to in the appendix, I think the
reader may rest assured that the matter covering pages i
to 38 is sufficiently trustworthy for all ordinary purposes.
I say that " I fancy" some of the letters which occur
between pages i and 38 were written in Dutch ; for I am
not by any means certain of this. In any case I can vouch
for the fact that the originals of all the letters after page 38
were in French, as I have seen them. But in this respect
Paul Gaugin's remark about his friend Van Gogh is not
without interest : " II oubliait meme," wrote the famous
painter of ne"gresses, " d'6crire le hollandais, et comme on
a pu voir par la publication de ses lettres a son frere, il
n'£crivait jamais qu'en frangais, et cela admirablement,
avec des 'Tant qu'a, Quant a,' a n'en plus finir."1
Rather than disfigure my pages with a quantity of
notes, I preferred to put my remarks relative to the di-
vergencies between the original French and the German
in the form of an appendix (to which the Numbers i to 35
in the text refer), and have thus kept only those notes
in the text which were indispensable for the proper under-
standing of the book. Be this as it may, the inaccuracies
and doubts discussed in the appendix are, on the whole, of
such slight import, that those readers who do not wish to
be interrupted by pedantic quibbles will be well advised if
they simply read straight on, without heeding the figures
in the text. To protect myself against fault-finders, how-
ever, such readers will understand that it was necessary
for me to prepare some sort of a list referring to those
passages which, in the German, differed even slightly from
the French original.
1 See " Mercure de France," vol. 48, p. 127 (Oct. 1903), Article,
" Paul Gauguin," by Charles Morice.
vi
In the letters not included in Cassirer's publication, there
are, of course, a few passages which, for obvious reasons,
could never have been brought before the German or
English reading public; as will be seen, however, the
present letters in themselves are but more or less lengthy
fragments, carefully edited by the friends of the deceased
painter, while the almost complete omission of dates and
other biographical information usually accompanying a
volume of this sort, may also at first be felt as a rather
disturbing blemish.
I would like, however, to seize this opportunity to de-
fend Margarete Mauthner against the charge of having
made a "fantastic arrangement" of these letters; for, if
the person who made this charge had only been acquainted
with the facts of the case, he would have known that she had
done no more (at least from page 39 onwards) than faith-
fully to follow Emile Bernard's original arrangement of his
friend's correspondence in the " Mercure de France " ; and
surely we must assume that Emile Bernard, Van Gogh's
devoted admirer, was the best judge as to what should, or
should not, appear of all that his friend had written.
With regard to dates, however, Emile Bernard does
give a little more information than Margarete Mauthner ;
but it is very little, and it is as follows : the letters to
E. Bernard from page 39 to page 73 were written during
1887; those from page 73 to page 86 were written during
1888; those from page io8to page 112 were written during
1889, and the remainder, as Margarete Mauthner also tells
us, were written during 1890. Of the letters to Van
Gogh's brother, I am afraid I can say nothing more definite
than that all those which occur after page 87 were written
in Aries, and probably San Remy, between 1887 and 1890.
Now, postponing for a moment, the discussion of Van
vii
Gogh's actual place in the history of the art of the nine-
teenth century, and bearing in mind the amount of adverse
criticism with which his work has met for many years, it does
not seem irrelevant here to lay stress upon the fact that
these letters are all private, intimate communications,
never intended to reach the public eye. And I feel all the
more inclined to emphasize this point, seeing1 that, to the
lay student of art, as also to the art-student himself, it is
often a difficult task to take the sincerity of the art-in-
novator for granted. Confronted with a new technique
and an apparently unprecedented conception of the outer-
world — faced, in fact, by a patch of strange blood ; for that
is what it comes to after all — we are prone to doubt that
our man is bond fide. Filled with the prejudices and pre-
possessions of centuries, and knowing from sad experience
that the art-world is not without its arch-humbugs, we
find it difficult to believe that such a strange and foreign
grasp of reality could actually have been felt by the in-
novator in our midst. And, rather than question our own
values and our own grasp of reality, we instinctively, and,
as I think, very healthily, incline to doubt the sincerity of
the representative of this new standpoint which is offensive
to us.
In Van Gogh's case, however, we are particularly fortu-
nate ; for we possess these letters wrhich are proof enough
of the sincerity with which he pursued his calling. And, as
I say, he did not write them for the press, nor did he com-
pose them as a conscious teacher. They simply took shape
quite naturally in his moments of respite, when he felt the
need of unburdening his heart to some sympathetic listener ;
and in writing them he was as ingenuous and as unem-
barrassed as a child. He wrote to his brother and to a
bosom friend, Emile Bernard. As I have mentioned, a
viii
good deal in these letters had to be suppressed — and very
naturally too. For if this correspondence had not contained
much that was of too intimate a character for publication,
it is obvious that the very parts that were considered publish-
able, would not have had a quarter of the value which we
must now ascribe to them. It is precisely because these
letters are, as it were, soliloquies which Van Gogh held in
the presence of his own soul, that they seem to me to
be of such incalculable value to all who think and work
in the domain of art, and even in the domain of psychology
and morality to-day.
For everyone who is acquainted with the literature of
Aesthetic, must know how poor we are in human documents
of this nature, and how comparatively valueless the greater
part even of our poor treasure is, when it is compared
with the profound works which men who were not them-
selves painters or sculptors, have contributed to our litera-
ture on the subject. ,
Who has not been disappointed on reading Ghiberti's
commentaries, Leonardo's note books, Vasari's discourses
on "Technique," Antoine Raphael Mengs's treatises,
Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty, Reynolds' Discourses, Alfred
Stevens' Aphorisms, etc. ? But who has not felt that he
was foredoomed to disappointment in each case ? For an
artist who could express the "why" and the "how" of
his productions in words would scarcely require to wield
the chisel or the brush with any special power. The way
in which one chooses to express oneself is no accident ; it
is determined by the very source of one's artistic passion.
A true painter expresses himself best in paint.
With Van Gogh's letters, however, we are not concerned
with a painter who is writing a text-book for posterity, or
undertaking to teach anybody his art, or to reveal the
ix
secrets of it to his fellows. The communications to his
brother and his friend, printed in this volume, partake much
more of the nature of a running commentary to his life-
work, a Sabbath's meditation upon and contemplation of
his six days' labour, than a series of technical discourses
relating to his procedure and its merits. True, technical
points arise, but they are merely the fleeting doubts or
questionings of an expert chatting intimately with an in-
timate, and are quite free from any pedagogic or didactic
spirit. On the other hand, however, that which he gives
us, and which the others above-mentioned scarcely touch
upon, is the record of his misgivings and fears concerning
the passion that animated him, the value of this passion,
and the meaning of his function as a painter in the midst
of civilised Europe of the nineteenth century. These letters
are not only a confession of the fact that he participated
heart and soul in the negative revolution of the latter half
of that century, they are also a revelation of the truth that
he himself was a bridge leading out of it, to better and
more positive things.
He touches upon these questions lightly, as is only
fitting in letters that bear other tidings of a more prosaic
nature, but he never can conceal the earnestness with
which he faced the problems that were present in his
mind, and as a stenographic report of these problems
these letters make the strongest claim upon our atten-
tion.
With regard to his ultimate dementia, I have little doubt
myself as to how it was brought about. As in the case of
Nietzsche and many another foreign or English poet or
thinker, I cannot help suspecting it was the outcome of
that protracted concentration of thought upon one or two
themes (the chief characteristic of all mania, by-the-bye),
x
which he and a few other unfortunate and whole-hearted
men found it necessary to practise in the midst of a
bustling, changing, and feverishly restless age, if anything
of lasting worth was to be accomplished.
Imagine a man trying to study the laws governing a
spinning top in the midst of the traffic of the city, and you
have a fair image of the kind of task a sincere artist or
thinker undertakes at the present day, if he resolve, in the
midst of the rush and flurry of our age, to probe the deep
mystery of that particular part of life to which he may
happen to feel himself drawn by his individual tastes and
abilities. Not only is he foredoomed to dementia by the
circumstance of his occupation, but the very position he
assumes — bent over his task amid the racket and thunder
of the crowded thoroughfare of modern life — gives him at
least the aspect of a madman from the start.
And Van Gogh himself was perfectly aware of this. For
he realized that the claims which nowadays are put upon
the energy of one individual concentrated seeker, are so
enormous that even the complication of marriage may
prove one strain too many for him. He admits that the
Dutch artists married and begat children; but, he adds:
"The Dutchmen led a peaceful, quiet, and well-ordered
life" (page 61 ). " The trouble is, my dear old Bernard,"
he says, "that Giotto and Cimabue, like Holbein and Van
Eyck, lived in an atmosphere of obelisks — if I may use
such an expression — in which everything was arranged
with architectural method, in which every individual was
a stone or a brick in the general edifice, and all things
were interdependent and constituted a monumental social
structure. . . . But we, you know, live in the midst of com-
plete laisser aller and anarchy ; we artists who love order
and symmetry isolate ourselves and work at introducing a
xi
little style into some particular portion of the world "
(Pa§re 59)-
And this is no empty lament ; it is a plain statement of
the fact that in the disorder and chaos of the present day,
not only has the artist no place allotted to him, but also
that the very position he tries to conquer for himself, is
hedged round with so many petty obstacles and minor
personalities, that his best and most valuable forces are
often squandered in a mere unproductive attempt at " at-
taining his own." That he should need, therefore, to
practise the most scrupulous economy with his strength
— a precaution which in a well-ordered age, and in a
healthier age, would not be necessary — follows as a matter
of course.
"I should consider myself lucky," sighed Van Gogh, " to
be able to work even for an annuity which would only just
cover bare necessaries, and to be at peace in my own studio
for the rest of my life " (page 88).
Without Jhis brother Theodor's devotion and material
help it is impossible to think without alarm of what might
have become of this undoubted genius. For it must be
remembered that his brother practically kept him from his
Hague days in 1881 until the very end in 1890, at Auvers-
sur-Oise. It is only when we think of the irretrievable
loss which we owe to the fact that Monet himself had to
remain idle for six months for want of money, that we can
possibly form any conception of what the result would
have been if Theodor Van Gogh had ever lost faith in his
elder brother, and had stopped or considerably reduced his
supplies, or had ever accepted his offer to change his call-
ing (see page 129).
On the other hand, we have evidence enough in these
letters to show that Vincent took this self-sacrifice on his
xii
brother's part by no means lightly. We have only to see the
solicitude with which he speaks of his brother's exhausting-
work (pages 127-30, 146) and of his health, in order to
realize that it was no mean egoism that prompted him to
accept this position of a dependent and of a protege". In
fact, if we value his art at all, it is with bated breath
that we read of the cheerful and stoical manner with
which for his brother's sake Vincent stopped painting for
a while (page 102). But the words will bear being re-
peated :
"I am not so very much attached to my pictures," he
says, " and will drop them without a murmur ; for, luckily,
I do not belong to those who, in the matter of works of
art, can appreciate only pictures. As I believe, on the con-
trary, that a work of art may be produced at much less
expense, I have begun a series of drawings " (see also
page 50).
Again and again he complains of the cost of paint and
canvas, and to have allowed him carte blanche in the pur-
chase of these materials, the brother must, considering
his circumstances, have been capable not only of very ex-
ceptional generous feeling, but of very high artistic emotion
as well. For it must have been no easy matter for this
employee of Messrs. Boussod and Valadon to have worked
year in and year out and, without any certain prospect of
recovering his outlay, to have paid these monthly bills for
Vincent's keep and Vincent's work. It is true that occasion-
ally a picture of Vincent's would sell ; but in those days
prices were low, and even Vincent himself was often will-
ing to accept a five-franc piece for a study. Besides, the
expenses must have been made all the heavier thanks to
Vincent's inveterate carelessness and lack of order in little
things, and there can be no doubt that a fair portion of the
xiii
materials purchased must have been literally wasted, if not
lost.
Gauguin, speaking of his meeting with Van Gogh in
Aries, writes as follows :
" Tout d'abord je trouvai en tout et pour tout un d^sordre
qui me choquait. La boite de couleurs suffisait a peine a
contenir tous ces tubes presses, jamais referme"s, et malgre"
tout ce d^sordre, tout ce gachis, un tout rutilait sur la toile. " l
Still both Van Gogh and his brother had an indomitable
faith in the former's work — a faith which touches upon the
sublime — though neither of them lived to see their highest
hopes realized.
"As to the market value of my pictures," Vincent wrote
(pages 8 and 9), * ' I should be very much surprised if, in time,
they did not sell as well as other people's. Whether this
happens directly orlater on does not matter to me " a (see also
page 17, line 20).
The finest words concerning this ideal brotherly relation-
ship, however, have been written by Vincent's great friend,
Emile Bernard.
"Mais ce que je veux dire, avant tout," says Bernard,
" c'est que ces deux freres ne faisaient pour ainsi dire
qu'une id6e, que 1'un s'alimentait et vivait de la vie et de la
pense"e de 1'autre, et que quand ce dernier, le peintre,
mourut, 1'autre le suivit dans la tombe, seulement de
quelques mois, sous 1'efFet d'un chagrin rare et e'difiant."
1 " Mercure de France/' vol. 48 (Oct. 1903), p. 127.
2 That Vincent also often felt depressed about his work may be
gathered from the following- passage, taken from a letter to his
brother, not included in this volume : "C'est une perspective assez
triste de devoir se dire que jamais la peinture que je fais n'aura une
valeur quelconque."
3 See Emile Bernard's preface to his publication of Van Gogh's
letters in the " Mercure de France," vol. 7, p. 324.
xiv
Thus Theodor and Vincent died, perhaps hoping, but
little believing1 that Van Gogh's present triumph would
ever be realized. And, indeed, even to the calm and re-
flecting student of art to-day, there must be something sur-
prising, something not altogether sound and convincing,
in this stupendous leap into fame which the work of this
poor, enthusiastic, and thoughtful recluse, has made within
recent years. If the means or the measure for placing him
had been to hand, if all this posthumous success had been
based upon a definite art-doctrine which knew what to
select and what to leave aside, nothing could have been
more imposing than this sudden exaltation of one whom a
former generation had spurned. But who would dare to
maintain for a moment that Van Gogh's present position
is in itself a proof of his value as an artist ?
It is an empty illusion to suppose that history necessarily
" places " a man, or even a whole age, and gives to both
their proper level. What history has shown and probably
will continue to show is, that whereas time very often
elevates true geniuses to the dignity which is their due,
and confers upon them the rank that they deserve, it also
certainly raises vast numbers to the position of classics,
who never had a tittle of a right to that honour, and fre-
quently passes over others in silence who ought to have
had a lasting claim upon the respect and appreciation of
their fellows. Such things have happened so often, and
sometimes with such a disastrous effect, that one can but
feel surprised at the almost universal support that the
doctrine of the infallibility of posterity enjoys.
All posthumous fame, however, should be weighed in
relation to the quality of the period that concedes it, and
before we concur too heartily with the verdict of an age
subsequent to the man it lionises, we ought, at least, to
xv
analyze that age and test its health, its virtues, and its
values.
The fact that Van Gogh's pictures are now selling for
twice as many sovereigns as he, in his most hopeful and
sanguine moments thought that they would realize in
francs, is the most deceptive and the most misleading
feature about his work. In any case it should neither pre-
possess us in in his favour, nor prejudice us against, him.
In a world governed largely by the commercial principle
which places quantity before quality, at a period in history
when journalism with all its insidious power can, like the
famous Earl of Warwick, make and unmake kings at will
— finally, on a continent in which all canons in respect of
right living, religion, art, morality, and politics, have been
blasted to the four winds, what does it signify that a work
of art which thirty years ago was not thought to be worth
25 francs, now sells for £200 sterling? It signifies simply
nothing whatsoever. Would anybody venture to assert
that everything which to-day is selling at 200 times the
price at which it was selling thirty years ago, is on that
account worthy of particular admiration and respect — I
mean, of course, from people of taste, not from hawkers,
pedlars, and chapmen ?
A vast and unprecedented revolution has been convulsing
the art-world for almost a century now, a revolution in
which men like Gauguin, Van Gogh, C&zanne, Rodin, and
others, have fought like Titans. Who has ever heard
of a revolution enduring for almost a century? Even
the Grand Rebellion lasted only for six years. And this
revolution of art has seen its heroes and its traitors,
its kings, and its usurpers, its romance and its squalor
— all beneath the very nose of the layman, all beneath
the very walls of his fool's paradise, without his ever
xvi
having suspected that something even significant was
brewing.
For art is always the expression of the most sensitive
men of an age. They, the artists, are the first, by their
movements and by the manner in which they garner their
treasure, to prophesy meteorological changes of a nature
vast enough to shake even the layman into a state of gasp-
ing wonder. But, as a rule, it is only when these highly
sensitive men have manifested their signs, and have more
or less depicted the first lightning flash of the tempest that
is imminent, that the sky really does become dark and
overcast — patently overcast even to the layman's eyes —
and that the storm which they felt was coming actually
begins to rage in the concrete world of politics and of
national life. And then the pictures, poems, and parables
already stored away, classified and catalogued in public
museums, are but the crystallized harbingers of a fact that
has become patent to all.
The general truth that nearly all the principal figures in
this Grand-Rebellion Drama were themselves innovators,
renovators, and subverters, does not in itself justify us in
summarily disposing of them as noisy revolutionaries and
nothing more. One can revolt against sickness in an age
of sickness, and assume the title of a revolutionary or a
rebel with both pride and dignity. On the other hand, a
resentful valetudinarian, who feels rebellious at the sight
of sleek, fragrant and rosy healthiness, may also claim the
title " revolutionary" ; but woe then to the age that allows
itself to be lured over to his side by his intellect and his art.
It is important, therefore, that we should know with
whom we are dealing.
We are aware that in the majority of cases all the noise
of this art - revolution has been concentrated around
xvii b
questions of technique. The purpose of art was tacitly
assumed to be to obtain as faithful a transcript as possible
of nature and of reality, pure and simple — not nature linked
up with a higher idea, or reality bathed in the atmosphere
of a love that transcended mere actualities — but simply
nature and reality as they were felt by anybody and every-
body. And the milestones along the highway covered by
this revolutionary band, do not mark the acquisition of
new passions or new loves, but rather the adoption of new
technical methods and mannerisms for accomplishing this
transcript in ever more perfect and more scientific ways.
Nature with its light and its atmospheric effects roused
men like Manet and his friends to heroic deeds of determi-
nation. Peasants, "innocent" and "unsophisticated,"
seemingly belonging to nature and not to town or ' * arti-
ficial " life, were included in the category nature, from
which it was legitimate to make a transcript. Cafe scenes,
scenes of town life, glimpses "behind the scenes," were
included in the category reality, provided their "artifici-
ality" and " unnaturalness " were mitigated by a certain
"character" of which it was also legitimate to make a
transcript. And all this was done, not because the peasant
or the scenes from town life were linked up with any higher
purpose or any definite scheme of life which happened to
fire the hearts of the painters of last century ; but because,
as a matter of fact, all life-passions, all life-schemes were
at an end, and anything was good enough, picturesque
enough, trivial enough, for these artists (whose general
scepticism drove them to technique as the only refuge), to
tackle and to try their new technique, their new method,
or new watchword upon. Light, the play of comple-
mentaries, the breaking up of light, the study of values ! —
little things please little minds !
xviii
It was these preoccupations that usurped the place of
the rapidly vanishing "subject" in pictures. But what
was the subject? What part had it played? It is true that
the subject picture in Manet's time was rapidly becoming" a
mere farce, an empty page filled arbitrarily with any senti-
ment or mood that happened to be sufficiently puerile, or
at least sufficiently popular. But it had had a noble past.
It had had a royal youth. The subject picture was merely
the survival of an age when men had painted with a deep
faith. It was the last vestige of an historical period in
which men had been inspired to express their relationship
to life by something higher and greater than both them-
selves and their art. In fact, it had always flourished in
periods when humanity had known of a general direction,
a general purpose in life, and of a scheme of life which
gave their heart-beats and their breath some deeper mean-
ing than they have at present.
The degeneration of the subject picture, then, into a
mere illustration of some passing event or ephemeral senti-
ment, had a deeper significance than even its bitterest
enemies recognized. For while they, as new technicians
seeking light and complementaries and values, deplored
the spiritless and uninspired " oliographs " of their acade-
mical contemporaries, they completely overlooked the
deeper truth; their artistic instincts were not strong
enough to make them see that the spiritless and uninspired
subject picture was the most poignant proof that could be
found of the fact that mankind no longer possessed, to any
passionate or intense degree, that which made the subject
picture possible — that is to say, a profound faith in some-
thing greater and more vital either than the artists them-
selves or their art, something which gave not only art but
also life a meaning and a purpose.
xix
This, as I have pointed out elsewhere, was the great
oversight of the revolutionary movement in Art of the
second half of the nineteenth century. In abusing the de-
generate " subject" picture, these innovators were simply
inveighing against a pathological symptom. In saying the
subject did not matter, they deliberately scouted the re-
sponsibility of eradicating or even of confronting the evil ;
while in concentrating upon technique and in finding their
inspiration in such secondary matters as the treatment of
light, values, and complementaries, besides revealing the
poverty of their artistic instincts they merely delayed the
awakening which was bound to come and which already to-
day is not so very far distant — the awakening to the fact
that the artist, the architect, the painter, the poet, and the
preacher, are bankrupt unless some higher purpose and
direction, some universal aim and aspiration, animate their
age, inspire them in their work, and kindle in them that
necessary passion for a particular type of man, on which
they may lavish their eloquence, their chromatic, musical,
architectural, or religious rhetoric with conviction, power,
and faith.
Where does Van Gogh stand in this revolutionary drama
which I have attempted briefly to sketch in the above
lines ?
Without esteeming him nearly so highly as many of his
most enthusiastic admirers do, and without sharing in the
least in that hysterical exaggeration of the value and beauty
of his works which has characterized the attitude of large
numbers of his followers on the Continent — an exaggera-
tion which, as I shall show, he would have been the first
to deprecate and to condemn — I must still confess that, as
an impressionist, i.e., as a revolutionary of the 'eighties who,
to my mind, strove to surpass impressionism , as also so-
XX
called post-impressionism, he is a painter for whom I feel
a much greater respect than I can feel for Manet, Monet,
Renoir, Degas, and Whistler. Let me make it quite plain
that I realize the superiority in some respects of the latter's
art-forms ; let me emphasize the fact that in my opinion
Van Gogh was by no means so mature in his procedure as
any one of these artists (save, perhaps, in so far as his draw-
ing far excelled Renoir's) ; but that his aims were higher
and more vital, that he realized more keenly what was
wrong and what was desirable, that he was a thousand
times more profound than his predecessors — of all these
things, after careful consideration, and I must admit grave
doubts, I have at last grown quite convinced.
Before proceeding with my argument, let me lay stress
on the point that I feel very little sympathy whatever with
any of these impressionists, art-form-maniacs , and their
followers inasmuch as they obscured the issues at the very
moment — half way through the last century — when the
issues were growing so plain that they must have found a
solution sooner or later. But, if we are going to speak of
preferences, if in a gingerly manner we are going to put
on gloves and draw out from among this crowd the men
whom we feel we can tolerate most readily, then, from the
sculptor Rodin to his friend Renoir, of all the names that
are now household words in the impressionistic and post-
impressionistic movement of the late nineteenth century, I
for my part, certainly select Van Gogh and, perhaps a little
way before him, his friend Gauguin, as the only two whom
I can contemplate with equanimity — not to speak of
approval.
In judging Van Gogh, one of the critic's greatest diffi-
culties is, in the first place, to see a sufficient number of
his pictures; for he passed through so many phases that
xxi
isolated examples of his work may prove merely mislead-
ing. Now, thanks to the Post-Impressionist Exhibition of
1910-1911 in London, the Sonderbund Austellung in Cologne
(1912), and a visit to Amsterdam, I have been able to see
about 200 of Van Gogh's paintings, and about a quarter as
many drawings ; but when one remembers that the largest
exhibition of his work which has ever been held contained
some 450 pictures alone, not to speak of drawings, it will
be seen that to be acquainted with 200 of his works is a
long way from possessing a complete knowledge of what
he achieved. Still the specimens I have seen I believe to
have been thoroughly representative, and in any case
sufficient to warrant my forming an opinion as to his
merits.
Van Gogh died when he was only thirty-seven years of
age, and Emile Bernard reminds us that though he always
used to draw*, he really did not give his attention wholly to
painting until the year 1882 — that is to say, when he was
fully twenty-nine years old. About this time he writes to
his brother: "In a sense I am glad that I never learned
to paint ... I really do not know how to paint. Armed
with a white panel I take up a position in front of the spot
that interests me, contemplate what lies before me, and
say to myself, ' that white panel must be turned into
something ! ' " And concerning two studies finished at this
period, he says : "I feel quite certain that on looking at
these two pictures, no one will ever believe that they are
the first studies I have ever painted " (pages 15 and 4).
It is true that in the early 'eighties he studied a little
with Mauve, who was a distant relative, and later on spent
some time at the Academy at Antwerp ; but, on the whole,
like Gauguin, he was self-taught, and when we reckon the
number of years during which this self-tuition lasted, we
xxii
can but be amazed at the result, and believe him when he
says that painting was in his very marrow (page 16).
A still more remarkable fact about Van Gogh is, how-
ever, that during the last eight years of his life — the only
years, that is to say, in which he may really be said to
have devoted himself entirely to painting, whether at the
Hague, Drenthe, Nuenen, Antwerp, Paris, Aries, San
Remy, or Auvers-sur-Oise — he practically epitomised in his
own work the whole of the development of modern paint-
ing, from the academical manner of his own day, to a style
which I maintain was on the point of bearing him far
beyond the impressionists and so-called post-impression-
ists. And when I say "far beyond the impressionists and
so-called post-impressionists," I do not mean it in the
accepted sense of this phrase, I do not mean that with
Gauguin he promised to land in any of the futile absurdities
with which those artists that were hung beside them pro-
voked the mirth of London at the famous exhibition at the
Grafton Galleries in 1910-1911. I mean it in this case as
something peculiar to Van Gogh and Gauguin alone —
something which I shall explain in due course and which I
regard as valuable and worthy of a more sound artistic
instinct than that possessed by all their contemporaries.
I have myself seen pictures which I could not help think-
ing must have been painted in Van Gogh's academic
period ; Meier Graefe even thinks that Van Gogh's work of
this period is likely to rise in public esteem ; I have little
doubt, therefore, that Van Gogh did go through an academic
stage, however short or however undistinguished it may
have been.1
1 As to how he overcame his academic period, see Meier Graefe's
work, * ' Impressionisten " (p. 122) where the author has some in-
teresting things to say.
xxiii
And as for his purely impressionistic period, pictures of
this stage of his development abound. "The Moulin de la
Galette," and a still-life, " Basket and Apples," in the
possession of Frau A. G. Kroller, the " View of Paris from
Montmartre," belonging probably to the family, and the
wonderful "Apples in a Basket" dedicated to his friend
Lucien Pissaro, in the possession of Frau Kroller — all seem
to belong to this period; and they are by no means incom-
petent or unworthy examples of the school of which they
are examples.
At this stage he had the same contempt as all modernists
had for academicians, and we find him endorsing Jacques'
words that they are "mere illustrators ! " It is now that
he feels that light, and truth, and transcripts of nature
matter tremendously. He says he has done with "grays"
and with Mauve and Israels as well (page 48).
He enters heart and soul into a study of nature — no
pains are too great, no sacrifices too heavy, provided only
that he may become " absorbed in nature," and thoroughly
at ease as her interpreter. Possessed as he was of a remark-
able gift of observation, nature fortunately did not take
long to tell him all that she has to tell the truly instinctive
artist; for a man who could paint that still-life, "Apples
in a Basket," dedicated to Pissaro, and the still-life "A
Statuette, a Rose and Books," belonging, I believe, to
Van Gogh's family — not to speak of dozens of other
marvels of observation, such as the " Chestnut in Bloom,"
belonging to Frau Kroller, in which the essential character
of the tree is beautifully seized by the happiest of con-
ventions— would necessarily be a rapid and courageous
learner of all that nature can teach, and would soon be-
come conscious of having reached that decisive Rubicon,
the imperative crossing of which means one of two alterna-
xxiv
tives — either the continuation of the old attitude to nature,
which at this stage becomes mere slavery and no longer
discipleship, or the mastering of nature which is the first
step that reveals the mature artist of sound instincts.
Van Gogh writes: " I do not wish to argue studying
from nature, or struggling with reality, out of existence.
For years I myself worked in this way with almost fruitless
and in any case wretched results. I should not like to have
avoided this error, however.
" In any case I am quite convinced that it would have
been sheer foolery on my part to have continued to pursue
these methods — although I am not by any means so sure
that all my trouble has been in vain " (p. 30).
So far, then, Van Gogh's sole excuse — and it is an
adequate one — for having concerned himself wholly with
such subordinate things as art-forms and nature transcripts,
is that he was a learner. A time comes, however, when in
the case of the mature artist, we must take technical com-
petency for granted, and graybeards, as many of the im-
pressionist sculptors and painters grew to be, who continue
to concentrate upon technical questions and to regard
them as ends in themselves, merely reveal the fact that
they never were artists at all. In this respect I cannot help
quoting some fine words of Gauguin's. Writing to Charles
Morice in April 1903, he said :
" Nous venons de subir, en art, une tres grande pe"riode
d'^garement caused par la physique, la chimie, la me"canique
et 1'etude de la nature. Les artistes, ayant perdu tout de
leur sauvagerie, n'ayant plus d'instinct, on pourrait dire
d'imagination, se sont e"gar£s dans tous les sentiers pour
trouver des e"le"ments producteurs qu'ils n'avaient pas la
force de cr£er. "
1 " Mercure de France," vol. 48 (1903), p. 105.
XXV
The reader who is familiar with my aesthetic views, will
understand that I do not regard " la physique, la chimie et
la me'canique," as sufficient causes of this state of affairs;
nevertheless Gaugin adds that the painters of this " pe>iode
d'^garement," had lost their instincts, and here, of course,
I am with him.
The fact, however, that a painter or a sculptor has not
lost his instincts is not sufficient to reform the civilization
or the culture in which he lives. A still greater and more
powerful artist must set to work first, and he is the legis-
lator. The most a painter or a sculptor of sound instinct
can do, is to recognize the lack of the great legislator, and
reveal by his work and by the things upon which he con-
centrates his mind, that he realizes where the fault lies.
Now I maintain that Van Gogh and Gauguin took up
this position. — But I am anticipating. — Van Gogh passed
through another stage before he reached this final one. It
suddenly flashed across his mind that he had something to
bestow, something to bequeath, and that an artist's life
was not all taking, robbing, or copying. He felt a richness
in him which bade him dispense and no longer receive.
He writes: " One begins by plaguing oneself to no pur-
pose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by
working quietly from one's own palette alone, and then
nature is the result" (page 30).
And again : "I often feel sorry that I cannot induce my-
self to work more at home from imagination. Imagination
is surely a faculty one should develop " (page 44).
And listen to this ! " How glad I should be, one day to
try to paint the starry heavens, as also a vast meadow
studded with dandelions in the sunlight. But how can one
ever hope to succeed in doing these things unless one
resolves to stay at home and to work from imagination ? "
xxvi
He also begins to throw off the technique of transcript
painting. He recognizes that chiaroscuro with its essential
11 study of values," is part of the equipment of the mere
slavish transcripist, and he writes: "It is impossible to
attach the same importance both to values and to colours.
Theodore Rousseau understood the mixing of colours
better than anyone. But time has blackened his pictures,
and now they are unrecognizable. One cannot be at the
Pole and at the Equator at once. One must choose one's
way ; at least this is what I hope to do, and my way will
be the road to colour" (page 137).
And again: " Tell him (Seurat) it is my most fervent
desire to know how to achieve such deviations from reality,
such inaccuracies and such transfigurations, that come
about by chance. Well yes, if you like, they are lies ; but
they are more valuable than real values " (page 23).
These are the thoughts of his most prolific period — the
period during which he produced perhaps all his most strik-
ing pictures — the last three years of his life. Such pages of
beauty as the "Orchard in Provence," belonging to Madame
Cohen Gosschalk-Bonger, "A Street in Aries," in the
possession of the Municipal Museum at Stettin, "A Street
in Auvers," belonging to A. von Jawlensky, Munich, hail
from this period, as also "The Lawn," probably in the
possession of the family — a finished masterpiece of beauty ;
" The Sunset " belonging to FrauTilla Durieux-Cassirer —
excellent ; and a number of other landscapes belonging to
Frau Kroller, Frau Mauthner, Frau Cohen Gosschalk-
Bonger, etc. — all of great splendour and mastery.
The fact that he was never able to work successfully
from imagination alone, proves nothing against the art of
working from imagination. I have heard some artists
argue as if their individual incapacity to produce great work
xxvii
from imagination were a sufficient proof of the fallacy of
the principle. Such argumentation is, of course, beneath
contempt. On such lines any incompetence, impotence,
ignorance, or incapacity, could be glorified and exalted.
Van Gogh, (however, is more honest. He says working
from imagination is an " enchanted land" (page 112).
Although he recognizes the desirability, the superiority, of
such methods, he feels that he is not good enough for
them. He says: "Others may be more gifted for the
painting of abstract studies, and you [Bernard] are certainly
one of these, as is also Gauguin." And he concludes by
saying that when he is older he too may do the same.
All his imagination could do, therefore, was to introduce
something into his landscapes and studies that made them
more than mere transcripts, that constituted them new
gifts rather than repetitions, placed in the hand of the
grateful public. And this "something" which he intro-
duced, was the step to higher things, which I believe to be
the chief characteristic of his final period — the period at
the very threshold of which he unfortunately met with his
tragic end.
But before I proceed let me explain why I use the adjec-
tives "beautiful, excellent, splendid, masterful" in regard
to these pictures. I am not in the habit of lavishing
epithets of this vague description indiscriminately upon
works of art. A vague adjective is a wonderful thing to
help lame arguments over stiles. It is an indispensable
helpmeet when one is not quite clear concerning any par-
ticular thing : but in regard to Van Gogh, this is not pre-
cisely my position. Not so much for my own sake, then,
as for the sake of clarity in these questions, in which diffi-
culties are so often smoothed over with empty phrases , it
would seem desirable to explain why I speak of " beauty,"
xxviii
"mastery," "excellence," in regard to these pictures of
what, in my opinion, may be called Van Gogh's pen-
ultimate period, and which all critics, save myself, re-
gard as belonging to his ultimate or post-impressionist
period.
In the first place, then, let me pronounce this funda-
mental principle, as far as I personally am concerned — that
there is no beauty, no mastery, and no excellence, which
cannot in the end be interpreted in the terms of humanity.
There is no such thing as beauty per se, mastery per se,
and excellence per se. All these qualities can ultimately be
traced to man and to man's emotion ; and without man
I maintain that such qualities would cease to exist on
earth.
A beautiful poem is one that can be linked up rapidly or
by degrees, consciously or unconsciously, with things
which are desirable in humanity, or in a certain kind or
part of humanity. The poem that praises Pity in rhythmic
cadence, for instance, will charm the Christian of the
twentieth century; for him, Pity is a desirable attribute
of the modern human creature, and rhythm is a convincing
and commanding art-form in which to cast a desirable
thought. On the other hand, it would either revolt the
pagan or leave him indifferent, while he might regard it as
a sacrilegious act to squander such a precious art-form as
rhyming verses upon so futile a subject.
All beauty, then, in the end, is human beauty, all
ugliness is human ugliness. No healthy people of the
world have ever considered youth (I do not mean infancy)
in any manifestation of nature, as ugly ; because youth is
the sure promise of human life and of a multiplication of
human life. On the other hand, no healthy people have
ever considered ulcers, gangrenous limbs, or decay in any
xxix
form, as beautiful ; because ulceration, gangrene, and de-
cay, are the end of human life and the reduction of it. It
is true that the " beautiful consumptive," the "love of
consumptives," the "captivating cripple," are notions
which can be found in Bulwer Lytton and George Eliot,
not to speak of a host of minor English writers. But then,
let us remember from what part of the world they hail —
from the most absurdly sentimental, over-Christianized,
and over-Puritanized country on earth — England. But the
whole of North-Western Europe is now quite able to vie
with England in this sort of nonsense, otherwise the
Eugenic Society, which ought to be superfluous, would not
require to be so active.
But all this by the way. The beauty, mastery, and excel-
lence of Van Gogh's penultimate period, then, in my
opinion, is twofold. Its content is beautiful and its form is
beautiful. Its content is only just beginning to be beautiful,
because we must remember that this is the work of a man
who started in a school that scorned content. But is it not
written that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner
that repenteth than over ninety-nine just persons which
need no repentance " ? And the beauty of his content is,
that it is turning ever more and more definitely towards
humanity. It is true that the importance of the content in
general is only creeping into his works ; but the little of it
that there is, is human. No longer negative to man, he
begins to introduce human moods into his landscapes, and
with human virtues he anthropomorphizes the ground, the
trees, the sky, and the distance. There is as much differ-
ence between his work now and the work of his im-
pressionistic days as there is between these two descrip-
tions of the rising sun : (i) "The yellow sun ascends into
a pink and pale yellow sky which fades away into watery
XXX
green and finally into a puie azure, "and (2), " Rosy-fingered
dawn stands tip-toe on yonder hill."
He himself writes concerning a certain study: "My
desire was to paint it in such a way that the spectator must
read and sympathize with the thoughts of the signalman
. . . who seems to say : ' Oh, what a gloomy day it is ! ' '
(page 8).
And again, in regard to the other study, he writes:
" While working upon it, I said to myself: * Do not put
down your palette before your picture seems to partake of
the mood of an autumn evening, before it is instinct with
mystery and with a certain deep earnestness ' " (page 14).
See also the passage about Provence on page 109.
It is now, too, that he writes to his friend Bernard : " I
have painted seven studies of corn ; unfortunately quite
against my will,1 they are only landscapes" (page 75),
and that he feels sympathy with a soldier who prefers a
landscape to the sea, because the former is inhabited (page
85). This alone is already a sign that he is turning his
back on the sentimental and negative love of landscape as
landscape, peculiar to the modern English, French, and
Germans, inspired by Rousseau and Schiller — that love of
landscape in which man or the hand of man is entirely
absent.
With regard to the beauty of his technique in the
pictures of this period, the characteristic I chiefly admire
in them is their gradual glorification of colour, and neglect
of values. But why should one admire colour more than
values? In the first place it should be remembered that
technique is important only as a means of betraying how
a man approaches and deals with reality ; while all the
virtues of a good technique will once more be traceable to
1 The italics are mine. — A. M. L.
xxxi
human standards, and be human virtues. Now the technique
which places colour above values, is admirable for three
reasons : first, because inasmuch as its results are simpler
and more definite than those of the " values-technique," it
implies a much more masterful grasp of reality ; secondly,
since its results betray far less compromise and blended,
grey, or democratic harmony, than those of the values-
technique, it implies a much braver and less tolerant atti-
tude towards reality; and, thirdly, because its results are
so much more luminous and more bright than those of
the values-technique, it betrays a much greater love of
sunshine, a much more hearty yea-saying and positive
attitude towards life. And these reasons are independent
of the fact that the painting of both Greece and Egypt in
their best period are based entirely upon colour and line
technique free from all values and chiaroscuro.
Compare Van Gogh's pictures of this period with any of
those ridiculously funereal fiascos produced by the Glasgow
school within the last twenty-five years, and you will be
convinced of the difference between the bright, laughing,
yea-saying attitude to life, and the dark, gloomy, negative,
churlish, Puritanical, and, in many respects, essentially
British attitude to life.
How sincere and how deep Van Gogh's love of colour
was at this period may be judged from a note written in
August 1887 to his brother. He says: " I am at work
upon a portrait of our mother; as I could no longer endure
the sight of the black photograph. I do not wish to
possess black photographs, and yet I certainly wish to
have a portrait of our mother." x
The fact that, occasionally, his whole-hearted devotion
to colour led him to produce what I cannot help regarding
1 Not included in this collection of letters.
xxxii
as an absolute failure, cannot, of course, be denied. More
than once, at Cologne and Amsterdam, I was conscious in
the presence of some of his pictures of being before a man
who was trying to enjoy the glory of fireworks at mid-
day, under a brilliant sun, and the result was naturally dis-
appointing. I cannot, however, say that I had this feeling
often. By far the worst examples of such failures (although
I am sure their fanatical owners do not think so) are the
"Cornfield with the Reaper," belonging to Frau Kroller,
the "Sunflower against a Yellow Background," belong-
ing to Frau Cohen Gosschalk-Bonger, and "A Cornfield
in Sunshine," at the Amsterdam Museum of Modern
Art.1
And now I am going to express what will perhaps seem
to many the most daring of all the views advanced in this
essay, the view that Van Gogh, towards the end, became
quite positive not only in his attitude towards life itself,
but above all in his attitude towards man. After much
tribulation, and the gravest and most depressing doubts,
he at last realized this fundamental truth, that art, sound
art, cannot be an end in itself, that art for art's sake is
simply the maddest form of individualistic isolation — not
to use a less sonorous but more drastic term — and that art
can find its meaning only in life, and in its function as a
life force. The highest art, then, must be the art that
seeks its meaning in the highest form of life. What is the
highest form of life ? Van Gogh replies to this question
as emphatically and uncompromisingly as every sane and
healthy artist has done in all the sanest and healthiest
periods of history. He says " Man."
1 I could not discover who the owner was ; but the present number
of the exhibit is 984F and the picture is marked " In Bruikleen "— lent.
xxxiii c
Now all that he has acquired — art-forms, technique,
stored experience, practised observation — is but a means,
a formidable equipment which he is deep enough, artist
enough, human enough, to wish to lay at the feet of some-
thing higher. Now his storehouse of knowledge becomes
an arsenal which he consecrates solemnly to the service
of a higher cause and a higher aim than the mere im-
mortalizing of "decorative pages of colour" — " interest-
ing and strong colour-schemes" and " exteriorisations
of more or less striking impressions." When these things
are pursued as ends in themselves, as they were by the
Impressionists and the Whistlerites, they are the signs of
poverty, both of instinct and intelligence. They are also
signs of the fact that the mere craftsmen, the simple hand-
workmen, or the mere mechanic — in other words, the pro-
letariat of the workshop, has been promoted to the rank of
artist, and that matters of decoration, technique and treat-
ment (which are fit subjects for carpenters, scene-painters,
and illustrators to love and to regard as the end of their
mediocre lives) have ursurped the place of higher and
holier aims.
In about as many years as it takes some painters to
learn their palette, Van Gogh had learnt the great and
depressing truth at the bottom of all the art of his age —
the truth that it was bankrupt, impoverished, democratized,
and futile. Divorced from life, divorced from man, and
degraded by the great majority of its votaries, art was
rapidly becoming the least respected and least respectable
of all human functions.
He realized that art was an expression of life itself, that
pictorial art was an expression of life's satisfaction at her
passions become incarnate. All expression is self-revelatory.
Pictorial art, then, is the self-revelation of life herself look-
xxxiv
ing into her soul and upon her forms. It is life pronouncing
her judgment on herself. Alas ! it is less than that : it is a
certain kind of life pronouncing its judgment on all life.
Where life is sick and impoverished, her voice speaking
through the inferior man condemns herself, and paints her-
self bloodless and dreary, probably with a sky above de-
picted in a lurid and mysteriously fascinating fashion, cal-
culated to make the earth seem gray and gloomy in com-
parison. Where life is sound and exuberant, her voice,
speaking through the sound man, extols herself and paints
herself in bright, brave colours, which include even bright
and brave nuances for pain and the like.
The sound, healthy artist, then, once he has attained to
proficiency in his metier — a result which, if he be really
wise and proud, he will not attempt to accomplish before
the public eye as every one is doing at present — naturally
looks about him for that higher thing in life to which he
can consecrate his power. His passion is to speak of life
itself, and life in its highest manifestation — Man. But,
alas, whither on earth must the poor artist turn to-day in
order to find that type which would be worthy of his love
and of his pictorial advocacy?
Is the hotch-potch, democratic, democratized, hard-work-
ing, woman-ridden European a subject to inspire such
an artist ? True, he can turn to the peasant, as many
artists, and even Van Gogh himself, did. At least the
peasant is a more fragrant and nobler type than the under-
sized, hunted-rat type of town-man, with his wild eyes
that can see only the main chance, with his moist finger-
tips always feeling their way tremblingly into another's
hoard, and with his womenfolk all trying to drown their
dissatisfaction with him by an endless round of pleasure
and repletion ; but, surely there is something higher than
XXXV
the peasant, something greater and nobler than the horny-
handed son of toil ?
Gauguin and Van Gogh knew that there was someone
nobler than the peasant. But the tragedy of their existence
was that they did not know where to find him.
Fortunately for himself Van Gogh died on the very eve
of this discovery. Gauguin suffered a more bitter fate than
death ; he went searching the globe for a nobler type than
his fellow-continentals, at whose feet he might lay the
wonderful powers that nature, study, and meditation had
given him. But in doing this he was only doing what the
whole of Europe will soon be doing. The parallel is an
exact one. The prophecy of the artist will be seen to have
been true. And Gauguin's search for a better type of
humanity is only one proof the more, if such were needed,
of the intimate relationship of art to life, and of the
miraculous regularity with which art is always the first to
indicate the direction life is taking.
I have shown how, from a negative and futile impression-
ist, Van Gogh became more and more positive and human in
his content, and ever more positive, brave and masterly in
his technique, and that this healthy development naturally
led him to the only possible goal that lies at the end of the
path he had trodden — Man himself.
In 1886 he writes to Bernard : " I want to paint hu-
manity, humanity and again humanity. I love nothing
better than this series of bipeds, from the smallest baby in
long clothes to Socrates, from the woman with black hair
and a white skin to the one with golden hair and a brick-
red sunburnt face " (page 85).
At about the same time he writes to his brother : " Oh,
dear ! It seems ever more and more clear to me that
mankind is the root of all life" (page 89); and " Men are
xxxvi
more important than things, and the more I worry myself
about pictures the colder they leave me " (page 131).
But the finest words in all these letters, words which at one
stroke place Van Gogh far above his contemporaries and
his predecessors, at least in aim, are the following; "I
should like to prepare myself for ten years, by means of
studies, for the task of painting one or two figure pictures
. . ." (page 152).
In his heart of hearts, however, Van Gogh was des-
perate. There can be little doubt about that. Not only
did he feel that his was not, perhaps, the hand to paint the
man with the greatest promise of life ; but he was also very
doubtful about the very existence of that man. Not only
did he ask : " But who is going to paint men as Claude
Monet painted landscape ? " (page 103) ; he also shared
Gauguin's profound contempt of the white man of modern
times.
Indeed, what is his splendid tribute to Christ as a mar-
vellous artist, a modeller and creator of men, who scorned
to immortalize himself in statues, books, or pictures (pages
65 et seq.} if it is not the half-realized longing that all true
artists must feel nowadays for that sublime figure, the
artist-legislator who is able to throw the scum and dross
of decadent civilizations back into the crucible of life, in
order to mould men afresh according to a more healthy
and more vigorous measure? The actual merits of Christi-
anity as a religion do not come into consideration here ;
for Van Gogh was not a philosopher. All he felt was
simply that craving which all the world will soon be feeling
—the craving for the artist-legislator, which is the direst
need of modern times. For, in order that fresh life and a
fresh type can be given to art, fresh vigour and a fresh
type must first be given to life itself.
xxxvii
Personally, although I am prepared to do all honour to
Van Gogh for having been profound enough and brave
enough to come face to face with the tragic dilemma of
modern art and modern times, I must say that I am almost
inclined to share his own doubts as to whether his was
precisely the hand to limn the man of great promise even
if he could have found him.
Only fanatical disciples could praise and value his figure
pictures to the extent to which they have been praised and
valued; for in all but one or two cases, they are, in my
opinion, the most incompetent and the most uninviting
examples of his art.
Of thirty-eight figure-pictures of his which I myself have
seen, two only pleased me a little ("Old Man Weeping,"
probably in the possession of the family; and "An Asylum
Warder," belonging to Frl. Gertrud Miiller of Solothurn),
and one ("Fair Girl's Head and Shoulders," probably in
the possession of the family) l pleased me so exceedingly
that I would willingly give all the rest for it. It is a most
genial piece of work, mature and rich in conception, and
full of a love which will come to expression. Nothing
obtrudes in the technique. Indeed, the means seem to be
so well mastered that one feels not the slightest inclination
to consider them ; while the content is so eloquent of the
sleek, smooth bloom of youth, and of the half-frightened
eager spirit of the young girl who is just beginning to see
and to realize who she is and where she is, that this
picture alone would make me hesitate to say definitely that
Van Gogh could not have achieved his ideal if only he had
1 I have reasons to believe that this wonderful picture was sold by
the Sonderbund people at the very time, of my visit to Cologne for
the sum of ^450. But I was unable to discover the name of the new
owner.
xxxviii
lived, and if only he had found the type whose pictorial
advocacy he might have undertaken.
Here in this picture, all the dramatic effect of budding-
womanhood, of which Schopenhauer spoke so scornfully,
is concentrated into a head and a pair of shoulders. All
the mystery and charm of mere potentialities, undefined
and still untried, is told in a thrilling and fairy-like combi-
nation of lemon yellow, black, Prussian blue, and the most
delicate of pinks. The freshness is that of an old Dutch
master like Johannes Hannot, for instance, who could
paint fruit to look cold and raw on a pitch-black ground.1
This virgin, too, like all virgins, is cold and raw — and the
effect is due to the masterly and almost devilish skill with
which her qualities have been marshalled in her portrait,
against a pitch-black ground.
It is a wonderful work.2 Maybe it stands as the only
justification of all Van Gogh's otherwise overweening aspi-
rations. In any case it makes me feel that if he had lived,
he would have learnt to regret even more than he already
did, that no artist-legislator existed to inspire his brush
and give his art some deeper meaning.
With regard to the rest of his figure work, I can only
say I am unsympathetic. And to all those who may accuse
me of Philistinism and the like for my refusal to agree with
the extravagant encomiums they lavish upon his figure
pictures, I can only reply by pointing to Van Gogh's own
modest and very sensible words : "Any figure that I paint
is generally dreadful, even in my own eyes. How much
1 See particularly his picture No. 1105 at the Ryksmuseum,
Amsterdam.
2 I wonder if it is to this work that Gauguin refers when, speaking-
of the progress Van Gogh was making- under his tuition, he asks
Morice : " Avez-vous vu la figure et les cheveux, jaune de chrome? "
xxxix
It
eyes of other
more hideous must
people " (p£ge 69).
And now what did the admirable Gauguin have to do with
all this ? What part did he play in this final development
of his friend's genius and in directing his brother artist**
last thoughts and hopes ?
We do not need to be told, we feel sure from our know-
ledge ofHti.^ two men's work, that Gauguin played a great
part in Van GrCJgfh's life at this time. We also know that
Gauguin was an older, more able, and more experienced
painter than the Dutchman, with a^p'eTseJiaJii^whose in-
"W have byen irresistible. ^^^^^^
vain that Van Gogh tried to hold him at arm's
It was in vain that he pointed to the narrowness
Gauguin's forehead, which he held to be a proof of
imbecility; in the end he had, to yield, and was, as
Gauguin declare^: u force de me reconnaitre une grande
intelligence."1 7^'^J^
" ^uand je stiis arrive* & Aries," says Gauguin, " Vincent
se chercnait, tandis que moi, beaucoup plus vieux, j'e"tais
un homme fait . . . Van Gogh sans perdre un pouce
de son originalite", a trbuve" de moi un enseignement
fecond."2
And Van Gogrh was as ready to admit this as we are
ipelled to recognize its truth. Writing to Albert Aurier,
once said : " Je; dois beaucoup a Paul Gauguin." But
his latest and best \yprk, as also the ideals and aims of his
last years constitute the most convincing evidence we have
of the great influence Gauguin exercised over him, and
although the older man was ready to acknowledge that the
V
" Mercure de
2 Ibid., p. 129.
•ranee
48 (1903), p. 127.
xl
\
seeds he sowed in Van Gogh fell upon " un terrain riche et
fe"cond," it is impossible to overlook the great value of
these seeds.
For, who was this magician, the painter of those sub-
limely beautiful canvases " L'esprit veille," "Portrait de
M. X. " l and " Enfarrfci^^^
He was a man whqjiad-felt more keenly than any other
European painter of his day the impossibility of consecrating
his powers,,to the exaltation .ajnTd glory of the modern white
.. man wkn whom he was " fj^ally contemporaneous." He
' was a deep and earnest- 'thinker who was both clear and
b.r_aye enougjhijto--ct5nfront even a tragic fact. And there
can be no doubt that comparatively early in life he came
face to face with the truth that the modern European and
his like all over the , globe, certild not and must not, be the
type of^the future. Anything rather than that ! Even
blacjk men and women were better than that — cannibals,
idolaters, savages, anything ! And this' parched thirst for
a nobler and more positive type-drove him like a haunted
explorer all over the wo*4d7~imtil at last he thought he had
found what he wanted. It was an illusion, of course, and
hgjjsetfftTprobably have admitted this ; but it was the love
and not the hatred of man that drove him even to that
err°r- 1=8^ ^^
""" Charles Morice ascribes Gauguin's lust of travel to the
nature of hrs origin. He argues that inasmuch as Gauguin's
father was a Breton and his mother a Pe"ruvienne, the great
painter, was born with the desires of two continents already
his soul — a fact which somehow or other Morice links
up with Gauguin's visit to the Marquesans and the
Tahitans.
1 Both belonging1 to Galerie E. Druet in 1911.
2 Belonging to Bernheim Jeune in 1911.
xli
But, probable as it may be that Gauguin's double soul con-
tributed greatly to his ability for making a clear-sigh ted analy-
sis and condemnation of Europe, it can scarcely be regarded
as the principal, or even as the partial cause of his visit to
the Marquesas Isles and Tahiti. That his mission to these
places was a supremely artistic one is proved by the manner
in which he spent his time there, while the fact that it was
discontent with, and scorn of, European conditions and
people that drove him in search of better climes and nobler
types, is proved by his behaviour both in Tahiti and in the
Marquesas Islands.
Although we do not forget that Gauguin had been a
sailor, if it were merely a sort of restless " Wanderlust " a
1'Americaine that sent him to Oceania, why did he do all
in his power to fight Occidental civilization in these parts ?
If in his heart of hearts he had not been utterly without
hope and without trust where Europe was concerned, why
did he start a paper at Papeete, in which he sought to
convert the colonists and educated natives to his hostile
attitude towards the European? Why, too, did he jeo-
pardize his peace of mind as well as his safety, by taking
the side of the Marquesans when they implored him to
defend them against their white oppressors? For we know
that he was not only arrested but heavily fined for this action.
It is obvious that Gauguin was much more than a mere
itinerant painter out for "new material." He was above
the modern senseless mania for rugged landscape as an
end in itself, or for "tropical sunsets" and "dramatic
dawns," in the South Pacific. And when we read Van
Gogh's words on the natives of the Marquesas (page 42)
we can no longer doubt, not only that Gauguin influenced
him, but also that this influence was deep and lasting.
Personally, I feel not the slightest hesitation in accepting
xlii
Gauguin's own words, quoted above, concerning his rela-
tionship to Van Gogh, and though I ascribe the latter's
final positive and human attitude in art very largely to the
soundness of his own instincts, I cannot help feeling also
that the spirit of that half-Breton and half-Peruvian magi-
cian was largely instrumental in determining the less-
travelled and less-profound Dutchman to assume his final
phase in art.
If Van Gogh had had more opportunities for figure paint-
ing, and if his hand and eye had grown more cunning in
the art of depicting his fellows, I am of opinion that he
might have surpassed even his master and inspirer. For
that isolated event, that " sport," the portrait of the
" Fair Girl," which was, alas, the one swallow that did
not make a summer, remains stamped upon my memory
as a solid guarantee of his exceptional potentialities. Un-
fortunately, however, he came to figure-painting all too
late, and his opportunities for practising his hand were
rare and more or less isolated. In these letters he
says : "I suffer very much from having absolutely no
models" (page 116); while in a letter to his brother, not
included in this volume, he writes rather amusingly as
follows : "Si on peignait lisse comme du Bouguereau les
gens n'auraient pas honte de se laisser peindre. Je crois
que cette id£e que c'e"tait * mal fait,' que c'^tait que des
tableaux pleins de peinture que je faisais, m'a fait perdre
des modeles. Les bonnes putains ont peur de se com-
promettre et qu'on se moque de leur portrait." x
There is now only one more point to be discussed, and I
shall draw this somewhat lengthy essay to a close. I feel,
however, that it would be incomplete without some re-
ference to Van Gogh's personal appearance. Whatever
1 " Mercure de France," vol. 13 (1895).
xliii
democratic and over-Christianized people may say to the
contrary, a man can be neither ugly nor good-looking with
impunity. Looks are everything. " Appearances are de-
ceptive," is a proverb fit only for those who are either
too corrupt or too blind to use with understanding and
profit the precious sense that lies beneath their super-
ciliary arches. Van Gogh's personal appearance is, there-
fore, in my opinion a most important matter, for I ab-
solutely refuse to believe that beauty can proceed from
ugliness or vice versa. I leave such beliefs to those who
have ugly friends or relatives to comfort or console.
Then the doctrine that a fine mind or a fine soul can
sanctify or transfigure any body — however foul, ugly,
or botched — is, I admit, an essential and very valuable
sophism.
Now, I am in the unfortunate position of one who has
only portraits to judge from. But although I have seen
only portraits, perhaps the number of these is sufficiently
great to justify my forming an opinion. In all I have seen
seven portraits of Van Gogh painted by himself, and one
painted by Gauguin. The best and by far the most beauti-
ful of all these is Van Gogh's portrait of himself now in the
possession of Leonhard Tietz of Cologne. If we take this
as a trustworthy record of Van Gogh's features, he cer-
tainly must have been what I would call a good-looking
man. His brow was thoughtful, his eyes were deep, large,
and^intelligent, his nose was not too prominent and it was
shapely, while his lips, both full and red, gave his face that
air of positiveness towards life and humanity, which we
find both in ancient Egyptian and present Chinese counte-
nances. The only faults I find with his features and
general colouring are, first, that they are inclined to be a
little too northern and too Teutonic in type — a fact which
xliv
suggests that his positive attitude to life was more intel-
lectual than physiological — and, secondly, that his furtive
eye suggests more timidity than mastery. This portrait is,
however, a remarkable piece of work, and taking all its
other qualities into consideration, I see no reason to doubt
precisely the accuracy of the likeness. A genial work of
this sort is not genial only in particulars.
If, however, we are to judge from the other portraits,
especially from the one in the possession of H. Tutein
Nolthenius (of Delft), then we must certainly agree with
Meier Graefe, that Van Gogh was ' * by no means engaging
in appearance."1 I mean by the expression " unengag-
ing " that a face is negative, chaotic, misanthropic, resent-
ful. And in two or three of the portraits by himself, Van
Gogh certainly does give the impression of being all these
things. I should only like to remind the reader that in
each of the "ugly" portraits, the technique and general
treatment is so inferior to the work in the picture belonging
to Tietz of Cologne, that one is justified in suspecting that
the likeness has also suffered from inadequate expression.
If we now turn to Gauguin's portrait of his friend, in
the possession of Frau Gosschalk-Bonger, we do indeed
find an interesting, if not a good-looking face, though the
northern and barbarian features are perhaps a little marked.
The question is, was Gaugin able to seize a likeness ? I
have every reason to believe that he could, and I am even
prepared to accept his uncorroborated testimony on this
point.
Speaking of his first arrival in Aries, on a visit to his
friend Van Gogh, he says :
" J'arrivai a Aries fin de nuit et j'attendais le petit jour
1 " Impressionisten," p. 128. By-the-bye, Meier Graefe does not
say why he thinks this, nor does he reveal the source of his judgment.
xlv
dans un cafe de nuit. Le patron me regarde et s'e"cria :
4 C'est vous le copain ! Je vous reconnais ! '
11 Un portrait de moi que j'avais envoy£ a Vincent est
suffisant pour expliquer I'exclamation du patron. Lui
faisant voir mon portrait, Vincent lui avait explique" que
c'^tait un copain qui devait venir prochainement. "
*****
Thus I have attempted to make clear what I personally
have learnt from Van Gogh, and what I believe to have
been the course of his development and [of his aspirations.
In the process of my exposition I have spoken about stages
and periods in his development and life, as if they were
well-defined and plainly to be detected in his work, and I
have eve.n instanced particular pictures which I regard as
more or less characteristic of his four manners or styles. I
should like to warn the reader, however, that he must not
expect to find these stages and periods as clearly defined in
the mass of Van Gogh's life-work, as this essay may have
led him to suppose he would. For the purpose of tracing
this Dutch artist's career it was necessary to speak of
these periods and stages as if they had been more or less
definite. But, as a matter of fact, not only do they overlap
each other to such an extent as completely to invalidate
any claim to the effect that Van Gogh's progress was
regular and gradual, but often his pictures as well as his
thoughts of the first and second period, after the manner
of harbingers, tell so plainly what will be the aim and the
triumph of the next or even ultimate period, that it is im-
possible to fix or even to find exact boundaries.
All that there now remains for me to do is, in the first
place, to offer an explanation as to the inordinate length
of this introductory essay, by pointing to the fact that
1 " Mercure de France," vol. 48, p. 126.
xlvi
nothing of the kind has previously been done for the
English-reading1 public, and that I therefore felt my task
of introducing Van Gogh might be done both conscien-
tiously and exhaustively without my running the risk
wearying the reader ; and, secondly, to express the hope of
that this introduction may prove as helpful to the student
interested in Van Gogh's works, as I feel it would have
been to me at the time when I first set out to study the life,
the aims and the works of this remarkable and much mis-
understood Dutch painter.
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.
xlvii
PREFACE
VINCENT VAN GOGH was born in 1853, at
Groot-Zundert, a village in the province of North
Brabant in Holland, and was the son of a clergyman.
Like his two uncles, he was destined to be an art dealer,
and from the time when he finished his education, until
his twenty-third year, he worked for the firm of Goupil
at The Hague, in London, and in Paris. He left Paris
to return to England, where for a short time he was
engaged as a schoolmaster in the country. But this
did not satisfy him either; and he now wished to study
theology at Amsterdam. When, however, he dis-
covered that these studies also failed to give him pre-
cisely what he was seeking he left for Belgium, where
he went among the miners as an evangelist.
There among the coal-mines he began to draw. After
going to Brussels he returned in 1881 to his home,
I B
where he began to pursue independent studies until he
moved to The Hague, and for the first time entered
into relations with other painters. In 1883 he went into
the province of Drenthe, and very shortly afterwards
back again to Brabant, where he worked strenuously
until 1885. The things he drew and painted there, in
Zundert, were already stamped with an exceedingly
strong personal character, though they are very different
from the works belonging to his later French period.
In 1885 he attended the Academy of Antwerp for a
few months, and in the spring of 1886 we find him in
Paris, where, thanks to his brother, Theodore van
Gogh, an art dealer with exceptionally good taste, he
became acquainted with the art of the Impressionist
school, and entered into personal relations with one or
two of its exponents.
Very soon after this he travelled southward, and
worked first at Aries and later at St. Remy. In the
works of this period he approached much more closely
to the modern French school than to the art of his
native land.
The remainder of his life was spent in a Hospital for
Diseases of the Nerves at Auvers-sur-Oise, where he
died in 1890.
His art was appreciated during his life only by a
very few and it is but within recent years that it has
found admirers who in many cases have been most
ardently enthusiastic.
Of the following letters, some were addressed to his
brother and the remainder to his friend E. Bernard.
LETTERS TO HIS BROTHER
DEAR BROTHER,
You must not take it amiss if I write to you again
so soon. I do so only in order to tell you how extra-
ordinarily happy painting makes me feel.
Last Sunday I began something which I had had
in mind for many a day:
It is the view of a flat green meadow, dotted with
haycocks. A cinder path running alongside of a ditch
crosses it diagonally. And on the horizon, in the
middle of the picture, there stands the sun. The whole
thing is a blend of colour and tone — a vibration of the
whole scale of colours in the air. First of all there is
a mauve tinted mist through which the sun peers,
half concealed by a dark violet bank of clouds with a
thin brilliant red lining. The sun contains some ver-
milion, and above it there is a strip of yellow which
shades into green and, higher up, into a bluish tint
that becomes the most delicate azure. Here and there
I have put in a light purple or gray cloud gilded with
the sun's livery.
The ground is a strong carpet-like texture of green,
3
gray and brown, full of light and shade and life. The
water in the ditch sparkles on the clay soil. It is in the
style of one of Emile Breton's paintings.
I have also painted a large stretch of dunes. I put
the colour on thick and treated it broadly.
I feel quite certain that, on looking at these two
pictures, no one will ever believe that they are the
first studies I have ever painted.
Truth to tell, I am surprised myself. I thought my
first things would be worthless ; but even at the risk
of singing my own praises, I must say that they really
are not at all bad. And that is what surprises me so
much.
I believe the reason of it is that before I began to
paint, I made such a long and careful study of drawing
and perspective that I can now sketch a thing as I
see it.
Now, however, since I have bought my brushes and
painting materials, I have slaved so hard that I am
dead tired — seven colour studies straight off! ... I
literally cannot stand, and yet I can neither forsake
my work nor take a rest.
But what I also wanted to say is that when I am
painting things present themselves to me in colour,
which formerly I never used to see — things full of
breadth and vigour.
All this looks as if I were already satisfied with my
own work; but I feel just the contrary. Up to the
present, however, I have progressed to the extent that
when anything in Nature happens to strike me, I have
4
more means at my command than I had formerly for
expressing that thing with force.
Nor do I think that it would matter much if my
health played me a nasty trick. As far as I am aware,
they are not the worst painters who from time to time
feel as if they can do no work for a week or two. For
their compulsory idleness is probably due chiefly to the
fact that they are the very ones who, as Millet says,
"y mettent leur peau" That does not matter, and no
one should pay any heed to such lapses. For a while
you are utterly exhausted, but you soon get right
again ; and then at least you are the richer for having
garnered a number of studies, as the peasant garners
a load of hay. But for the moment I am not yet con-
templating a rest.
I know it is late, but I really must write you a few
lines. You are not here and I miss you, though I feel
as if we were not so very far from each other.
I have just decided to pay no further heed to my
indisposition, or rather to all that is left of it. Enough
time has been lost and I must not neglect my work.
Therefore, whether I am well or not, I shall again
draw regularly from morn till night. I do not want
anybody to be able again to say of my work: " Ah,
those are all old drawings! "
... In my opinion my hands have grown too
delicate; but what can I do? I shall go out again,
even if it cost me a good deal ; for my chief concern
5
is that I should not neglect my work any longer. Art
is jealous; she will not allow illness to take precedence
of her. And I give in to her.
. . . Men like myself really have no right to be ill.
But you must understand what my attitude is to Art.
In order to attain to real Art one must work both hard
and long. The thing I have set my mind upon as the
goal of all my efforts is devilish difficult, and yet I do
not think that I am aiming too high. I will make
drawings that will amaze some people.
In short I will bring it to such a pitch, that they
will say of my work : 1 1 The man feels deeply and he
is subtle withal" ; in spite of my so-called coarseness,
do you understand? maybe precisely on that account.
At present it sounds presumptuous to speak in this
way ; but it is for this very reason that I wish to put
vigour into my work.
For what am I in the eyes of most people? A non-
entity, or an oddity, or a disagreeable man, some one
who neither has nor ever will have any place in society
— in short something less than the least.
Well, granting that this is so, I should like to show
by my work what the heart of such a nonentity, of
such an insignificant man, conceals.
This is my ambition which for all that is the out-
come more of love than of resentment, more of a feel-
ing of peaceful serenity than of passion. And even
though I often have to contend with all kinds of
difficulties, yet I feel within me a calm, pure harmony
and music.
6
Art requires resolute and unremitting industry, as
well as incessant observation. By resolute industry I
mean, in the first place, constant industry, as also the
power of maintaining one's own point of view against
the assertions of others.
Latterly I have had precious little intercourse with
other painters and have not felt any the worse for it.
One should not pay so much heed to the teaching of
painters as to the teaching of Nature. I can under-
stand better now than I did six months ago that
Mauve should have been able to say: " Do not speak
to me about Dupre; speak to me rather about the
edge of your ditch, or things of that sort." It certainly
sounds strange, but it is absolutely right. A feeling
for things in themselves, for reality, is much more
important than a sense of the pictorial. It is more
fruitful and animating.
In regard to the difference between ancient and
modern Art, I should like to say that I think modern
painters are perhaps greater thinkers.
Rembrandt and Ruysdael seem to us great and
sublime, just as they did to their contemporaries; but
there is something more personal and more intimate
in the modern painter, which makes a stronger appeal
to us.
I made another study of the little child's cradle to-
day, and have put in colour here and there. I trust I
may yet be able to draw the little cradle a hundred
times over resolutely.
In order to make studies out of doors, and to paint
a small sketch, a very strongly developed feeling for
form is a pre-requisite. And this feeling is equally
necessary for the subsequent further elaboration of
one's work.
In my opinion, however, this is not acquired auto-
matically, but chiefly through observation, and fur-
thermore through strenuously working and seeking.
A study of anatomy and perspective is undoubtedly
necessary as well.
At my side there hangs a landscape study by Roeloffs
(a pen-and-ink drawing) ; but I cannot describe the
full expressiveness of its simple silhouette. For every-
thing depends upon that.
Another and even more stiking example is the large
wood-engraving of Millet's Bergere, which I saw at
your place last year, and of which I still have the most
vivid recollection. While there are also Ostade's and
Bauern-Breughel's small pen-and-ink drawings, for
instance.
I have once more tackled the old pollard-willow,
and I believe that it is the best of my water-colours.
It is a dark landscape. My desire was to paint it in
such a way that the spectator must read and sympathize
with the thoughts of the signal man with his red flag,
who seems to say, "Oh, what a gloomy day it is! "
I am deriving great pleasure from my work just
now, although from time to time I feel the after-
effects of my illness somewhat severely. As to the
market value of my pictures, I should be very much
8
surprised if, in time, they did not sell as well as other
people's. Whether this happens directly or later on
does not matter to me. But to work faithfully and
earnestly from Nature is, to my mind, a safe and sure
road which must lead to one's goal.
Sooner or later a love of Nature always meets with
response from people interested in Art. Therefore it
is the painter's duty to become absorbed in Nature, to
exercise all his intelligence, and put all his feeling
into his work so that it may be comprehensible to
others. But to work with a view to sell is, in my
opinion, not the proper way, neither should we con-
sider the taste of the art-lover — the great painters'
never did so. For the sympathy which sooner or later
rewarded their efforts, they had to thank only their
own honesty. That is all I know about it, and I do
not believe that I require to know any more. To work
in order to find people who will appreciate one, and
in order to kindle love in them, is a very different
thing, and naturally a very right one too. But nothing
of the nature of a speculation should be attempted;
for this might turn out wrong, and then much time
would have been spent in vain.
Among the water-colours I have just painted, you
will find many things that ought to be eliminated —
but that will come in time. But please understand me,
I have not the remotest idea of abiding by a system,
or anything of the sort.
Now farewell! And believe me that I often have a
hearty laugh at the thought that people should re-
9
proach me with certain absurdities and iniquities which
have never so much as entered my head ; for what am
I but a friend of Nature, of study, of work, and above
all of man?
DEAR THEO,
A day or two ago I paid another visit to Scheven-
ingen, and in the evening had the pleasure of seeing a
fishing smack enter the harbour. Near the monument
there is a wooden hut on which stood a man who was
waiting. As soon as the smack sailed into view, this
man appeared with a large blue flag, and was followed
by a number of little children who did not reach to his
knees. Apparently it was a great joy for them to stand
near the man with the flag. They seemed to think that
their presence contributed largely to the successful
entry of the fishing smack. A few minutes after the
man had waved his flag, another man came along on
an old horse, who was to heave in the cable. Men
and women, and mothers with their children, now
joined the little group, in order to welcome the vessel.
As soon as the boat had drawn sufficiently near, the
man on horseback entered the water and soon returned
with the anchor.
Then the boatmen were carried ashore on the
shoulders of men wearing jack-boots, and happy cries
of welcome greeted each new arrival.
When they were all assembled on land, the whole
10
•
party walked to their homes like a flock of sheep or a
caravan, led by the man on the camel — I mean on the
horse — who soared above the little crowd like a huge
shadow.
I naturally made the most frantic efforts to sketch
the various incidents. I also painted a little, especially
the small group, of which I give you a thumb-nail
sketch herewith. . . . From the accompanying draw-
ing you will be able to tell what I am endeavouring
to do — that is, to represent groups of people pursuing
this or that occupation. But how hard it is to make
things look busy and alive, and to make the figures take
their place and yet stand out from one another! It is a
difficult thing to render the swaying of the crowd and
a group of figures of which some are head and
ii
shoulders above the rest, though they all form a
whole when seen from above. Whereas the legs of
the nearest figures stand out distinctly in the fore-
ground, the coats and trousers behind and above form
a most bewildering muddle, in which, however, there
is plenty of drawing. And then right and left, accord-
ing to the point of vision, there is the further expansion
or foreshortening of the sides. Every kind of scene
and figure suggests a good composition to me — a
market, the arrival of a boat, a group of men outside
a soup-kitchen, the crowds wandering and gossiping
in the streets — on the same principle as a flock of
sheep — and it is all a matter of light and shade and
perspective.
It really is strange that you and I should always
have the same thoughts. Last night, for instance, I
returned from the wood with a study — for this week I
have been particularly busy investigating the question
of increasing the intensity of colour — and I should
have been glad to discuss this matter with you in
connection with the study I had made, when lo and
behold! in your letter this morning, you just kappen
to mention the fact that you were struck with the
strong and yet harmonious colouring in Montmartre.
. . . Yesterday evening I was busy painting the gently
rising ground in the wood, which is all strewn with
dry withered beach leaves. It varied in colour from a
light to a dark red-brown, and the cast shadows of the
12
trees fell across it in faint or strongly marked stripes.
The difficulty was — and I found it very trying — to
succeed in getting the depth of the colour and the
enormous strength and solidity of the ground — and I
noticed while I worked how much light there was even
in the dark shadows! The thing was to render the
effect of light and also the glow, and not to lose the
depth of rich colour. For one canno.t imagine a more
magnificent carpet than that deep red-brown ground,
bathed in the glow of the autumn evening sunlight,
softened by its passage through trje trees.
Beech trees grow here, the trunks of which look
bright green in the clear light and a warm black-green
in the shade. Behind the trunks, above the red-brown
ground one could see the delicate blue and warm gray
of the sky — it was scarcely blue — and in front of it a
diaphanous haze of green, and a maze of trees with
golden leaves. The forms of a few peasants gather-
ing wood crept about like dark mysterious shadows,
while the white bonnet of a woman bending to gather
a few dried twigs suddenly stood out from the deep
red-brown of the earth. A coat caught the light, a
shadow was cast, and the dark silhouette of a man
appeared high on the e'dge'of the wood. The white
bonnet, the shoulders, and bust of a woman stood out
against the sky. The figures were large and full of
poetry and, in the twilight of the deep shadows, seemed
like gigantic terracottas fashioned in a studio. That is
how I describe Nature to you. How far I have rendered
the effect in my sketch, I do not know. I can only say
13
that I was struck by the harmony of green, red, black,
yellow, blue, and gray. It was quite in the style of de
Groux; the effect was like that in the sketch of the
" Depart du Consent."
To paint it was a herculean task. On the ground
alone I used one and a half large tubes of white ; and
yet it is still very dark. I also used red, yellow, brown,
yellow-ochre, black, raw sienna and bistre — and the
result is a red-brown, which varies from a deep wine-
red to a delicate pale pink. It is very difficult to succeed
in getting the colour of the moss and the effect of the
small border of fresh grass which shone so brightly in
the sunlight. Believe me, this is a sketch which, if I
may say so, people will think something of, for it makes
a decided appeal.
While working upon it, I said to myself: " Do not
put down your palette before your picture seems to par-
take of the mood of an autumn evening, before it is
instinct with mystery and with a certain deep earnest-
ness."
But, in order not to lose the effect, I have to paint
quickly. The figures are painted in rapidly with a few
vigorous and firm brush-strokes. I was struck with the
sturdy manner in which the tree-trunks strike their roots
into the ground. I began painting them with the brush
and I did not succeed in rendering the character of the
ground which was already laid on with thick colour,—
a stroke of the brush vanished to nothing upon it.
That is why I pressed the roots and trunks out of the
tubes direct, and then modelled them a little with the
14
brush. And now they do indeed stand in the soil, and
grow out of it, and strike firm roots into it.
In a sense I am glad that I never learnt to paint.
If I had I should perhaps have learnt to overlook such
effects. Now I say, " No! — this and only this must I
have, and if it is impossible, well then, it is impossible,
that's all. I will have a shot at it although I do not
know the right way to do it.'*
I really do not know how I paint. Armed with a
white panel I take up a position in front of the spot
that interests me, contemplate what lies before me,
and say to myself " That white panel must be turned
into something." Dissatisfied with my work I return
home, put my panel out of sight, and after taking a
little rest, go back to my work, almost with qualms to
see what it looks like. But even then I am not yet
satisfied, for glorious Nature is still too vividly stamped
upon my mind. Nevertheless I find in my work a cer-
tain reverberation of that which fascinated me. I know
that Nature told me something, that she spoke to me,
and that I took down her message in shorthand.
Perhaps my stenographic transcript contains words
that are undecipherable; belike there are faults and
omissions in it too ; still it may possess something that
the wood, the beach, or the figures said. And this is
never in a tame or conventional language that did not
spring from Nature herself.
As you perceive, I am entering heart and soul into
painting, and I am deeply engaged in the study of co-
lour. Hitherto I had held myself aloof from it, and I
15
am not sorry that I did. Had I not drawn, I could
have no feeling for a figure that looks like an unfinished
terracotta, nor could I have undertaken to paint such
a thing. Now, however, I feel that I am in mid-sea —
now I must set about painting with all the strength at
my command.
... I am certain that I have the feeling for colour,
that I shall acquire it more and more, and that painting
is in my very marrow.
It is not the extravagant use of paint that makes the
painter. But, in order to lend vigour to a piece of
ground and to make the air clear, one should not be
particular about a tube or two. Often the very spirit
of the thing one is painting leads one to paint thinly;
at other times the subject, the very nature of the things
themselves, compels one to lay the colour on thickly.
At Mauve's studio — who compared with J. Maris,
and to an even greater extent with Millet or Jules
Dupre, uses paint very moderately — there are as many
old cigar boxes filled with empty tubes as there are
empty bottles in the corner of a room after an evening's
bout (as Zola describes such a function, for instance).
You inquire after my health. How is yours? I should
say that my treatment ought to suit you — i.e.9 to be out
in the air and to paint. I am quite well. I have to pay
for a little fatigue, but still on the whole I feel if any-
thing rather better. I believe it is a good thing for me
to lead such a temperate life. But that which does me
the most good of all is painting.
*
16
DEAR THEO,
I wish that the three pictures, about which I wrote
to you, had already been despatched. I fear that if I
keep them here much longer, I may paint them over
again, and I believe it would be better for you to get
them just as they are.
Don't you think that, after all, it is better for us two
to work diligently, even though we have to put up
with a good deal in so doing, than to sit down and
philosophize, especially at a time like the present? I do
not know the future, Theo ; but I know the eternal law
of change. Think how different things were ten years
ago — the circumstances of everyday life, the attitude of
men's minds, in fact everything; and ten years hence
many other things will have changed also. But fancy
having created something lasting! And one does not
repent so soon for having created something. The
busier I am the better ; I prefer a piece of work that is
a failure to inactivity.
We shall not have to wait so very long before what
we are now producing will have become important.
You yourself can see well enough — and it is one of
the signs of the times with which I am most pleased —
that there is a growing tendency for people to give one-
man shows, or exhibitions of the work of a few men
who belong to the same school. In my opinion this is
a development in the art-dealing world which will have
a far greater future than other enterprises. What a
good thing it is that people are beginning to understand
that the effect is bad when a Bouguereau is placed
17 c
beside a Jacques, or a figure by Beyle or Lhermitte is
hung close to a Schelfhout or a Koekkoek.
If I kept my work by me for long, I feel sure I should
paint many of the pieces over again. But owing to the
fact that I send them either to you or to Pottierthe in-
stant they are free from my brush, a number of them
will probably not be worth much, — though by this
means many studies will be preserved which otherwise
would not have been improved by repeated retouching.
Peasant life provides such abundant material that
"travailler comme plusieurs negres" as Millet says, is
the only possible way of accomplishing anything.
People may laugh at Courbet's having said : " Paint
angels? But who on earth has ever seen an angel?"
Yet on the same principle I should like to say of
Benjamin Constant's " La Justice au Harem," for in-
stance, who has ever seen a court of justice in a harem?
And the same thing applies to so many other Moorish
and Spanish pictures, — "The Reception at the Car-
dinal's, etc." And then there are all the historical pic-
tures which are always as long as they are broad—
what is the good of them all? And what do their painters
mean by them? They will all lose their freshness and
look like leather in the space of a few years, and will
grow ever more and more tedious.
. . . When, nowadays, connoisseurs stand before
a picture like the one by Benjamin Constant, or before
a reception given by a Cardinal, painted by some
18
Spaniard or other, they have acquired the habit of
gravely mutteringsomethingabout" clever technique."
If, however, the same men were to stand before
a scene from peasant life — a drawing by Raffaelli —
they would criticize the technique with thesame gravity.
... I do not know what you think, but as far as
I am concerned, the more I study peasant life, the
more it absorbs me, and the less I care for the kind of
thing painted by Cabanel (with whom I also reckon
Jacques and the modern Benjamin Constant) and for
the highly respected and unspeakably dry technique
of the Italians and the Spaniards. ' ' Mere illustrators ! "
I am always reminded of these words of Jacques. Still,
I am not prejudiced; I can appreciate Raffaelli, who is
something very different from a painter of peasants ; I
can also appreciate Alfred Stevens and Tissot. And,
to speak of something which has nothing in common
with peasant life, I can appreciate a beautiful portrait.
Zola, who, by-the-bye, in my opinion, is stupendously
at sea in regard to painting, says something very fine
about art in general in "Mes Haines": "Dans Poeuvre
dartje cherche, fa ime Vhomme, V artiste. " No w I t'h i n k
that is absolutely right. Just tell me what sort of a
man, what sort of an observer, thinker and character,
is at the back of these pictures, the technique of which
is held in such high esteem? Very often nobody. But
a Raffaelli is somebody, a Lhermitte is somebody.
And in the presence of a number of pictures by almost
unknown painters, one is conscious of the great energy,
feeling, passion and love with which they are painted.
19
When one thinks how far one has to go and how
much one must slave in order to paint an ordinary
peasant and his cot, I almost believe that this journey
is longer and more fatiguing than that which many
painters undertake in order to get their outlandish
subjects — "La Justice au Harem" or "The Reception
at the Cardinal's," for instance — and to paint their
frequently far-fetched and eccentric stories. Fancy
living the daily life of the peasants in their cots and
in the country, enduring the heat of summer and the
snow and frost of winter — not indoors but out in the
fields, and not for a leisurely walk — no ! but for daily
work like that of the peasants themselves.
Apparently nothing is more simple than to paint a
rag-picker, a beggar or any other kind of workman ;
but there are no subjects which are so difficult to paint
as these everyday figures. I do not think there is a
single academy where one can learn to draw or paint
a man digging or sowing seed, a woman hanging a
pot over the fire or doing needlework. But in every
city, however insignificant it may be, there is an
academy with a whole selection of models for historical,
Arabian, and in short, all kinds of figures, which do
not exist in the real everyday world of Europe.
All academic figures are grouped together in the
same manner, and we will readily acknowledge that on
20
nepeutmieux. Quite impeccable — faultless! But you
are already aware of what I mean: they teach one
absolutely nothing new.
Not so the figures painted by a Millet, by a Lher-
mitte, by a Regamey, or a Daumier. All their figures
are also well grouped, but in a very different way
from that taught by the academy. My belief is that
an academical figure, however accurate it may be, is at
present quite superfluous — even though it be painted
by Ingres himself (I would in any case except his
" Source," which was indeed something new, and will
remain so) — if it lackthat essential quality of modernity,
that intimate feeling, that quality of having been
created to meet a need.
In what circumstances, then, do figures cease from
being superfluous, however faulty, and grossly sa,
they may be? When the man who digs is really
digging, when the peasant is a peasant, and the
peasant woman a peasant woman. Is that something
new? Yes, even the figures of Ostade and Terborch
have not the same effect as those in modern pictures.
I should like to say a good deal more about these
things, but in any case I feel I must tell you how
many of the studies that I have started I should like
to improve, and how much higher than my own work
I consider that of a few other artists. Now tell me, do
you know of a single picture of a man digging or sow-
ing seed in the old Dutch School? Did they ever at-
tempt to paint a workman? Did Velasquez attempt it in
his * ' Water Carrier" or in his types of the people? No !
21 '
The figures of the old masters do not " work." At
present I am very busy with the figure of a woman
whom I saw pulling mangels out of the snow. Now,
this is what Millet and Lhermitte did, and this is
practically what the peasant painters of this century
and Israels did. They thought it was more beautiful
than anything else. But even in this century, among
the host of painters who pay particular attention to
the figure, i.e., for the sake of form and of the model,
there are precious few who cannot conceive their
figures otherwise than at work, and who feel the need
of representing activity as an end in itself. The
ancients did not feel this need, nor did the old Dutch
masters, who concerned themselves extensively with
conventional forms of activity.
Thus the picture or the drawing ought to be not
only a study of a figure for the sake of the figure, and
the incomparably harmonious form of the human body
— but at the same time " a gathering of mangels in the
snow " ! Have I made myself clear? I hope so, for, as
I once said to Seurat, a nude by Cabanel, a lady by
Jacques, and a peasant woman, not by Bastien-Lepage
himself, but by a Parisian painter who has learnt
drawing at the academy, will always have her limbs
and body expressed in the same way — often quite
charmingly, and, as far as proportions and anatomy are
concerned, quite correctly. When, however, Israels,
Daumier or Lhermitte, for instance, draw a figure,
one is much more conscious of the form of the body,
although — and that is why I include Daumier in the
22
number — the proportions will tend to be almost arbi-
trary. The anatomy and structure of the body will
not always seem quite correct in the eyes of the
academician. But it will have life, particularly if it
come from the brush of Delacroix.
I have not expressed myself quite satisfactorily yet :
tell Seurat that I should despair if my figures were
correct ; tell him that if you take a photograph of a
man digging, in my opinion, he is sure to look as if
he were not digging; tell him that I think Michel-
angelo's figures magnificent, even though the legs are
certainly too long and the hips and the pelvis bones
a little too broad ; tell him that in my opinion Millet
and Lhermitte are the true painters of the day, because
they do not paint things as they are, dryly analysing
them and observing them objectively, but render them
as they feel them ; tell him it is my most fervent desire
to know how one can achieve such deviations from
reality, such inaccuracies and such transfigurations,
that come about by chance. Well yes, if you like, they
are lies ; but they are more valuable than the real values.
Men who move in artistic and literary circles, like
Raffaelli in Paris, ultimately think very differently
about such things from what I do, who live in the
country. I mean that they are in need of a word which
is expressive of their ideas. Raffaelli proposes the
word " character" as the feature of the figures of the
future. I think I agree with the intention here, but I
question the correctness of the word, just as I question
the correctness of other words, and j ust as I question the
23
accuracy and appropriateness of my own expressions.
Instead of saying, there must be character in a man
who is digging, I paraphrase the thing and say, the
peasant must be a peasant, the digging man must dig,
and in this way the picture acquires a quality which is
essentially modern. But I am well aware that con-
clusions may be drawn from these words which I do
not in the least intend.
You see, to render "the peasant form at work " is,
I repeat, the peculiar feature, the very heart of modern
art, and that is something which was done neither by
the Renaissance painters, nor the old Dutch masters,
nor by the Greeks.
At the start the figure of the peasant and of the
workman constituted a " genre " picture; but at the
present moment, with Millet, the immortal master in
the van, this theme has become the very soul of modern
art and will remain so.
People like Daumier ought to be esteemed very
highly, for they are pioneers. . . . The more artists
would paint peasants and workmen the happier I
should be. And as for myself, I know nothing that I
would do more gladly.
This is a long letter, and I do not know whether I have
expressed my meaning clearly enough. Maybe I shall
write just a few lines to Seurat. If I do so, I shall
send them to you to read through, as I should like
them to contain a clear statement of the importance I
attach to figure painting.
. . . What impressed me most on looking back at
the old Dutch pictures, was the fact that in the majority
24
of cases they were painted rapidly, and that great
masters like Hals, Rembrandt, Ruysdael, and many
others, painted as much as possible du premier coup
and avoided overmuch retouching.
What I admired above all were hands by Rembrandt
and Hals, hands full of life, though unfinished; for
instance, some of the hands in the " Syndics of the
Cloth Hall," and in the " Jewish Bride." And I felt
much the same in regard to some heads, eyes, noses
and mouths, which seemed to be laid on with one
single stroke of the brush, and without any sign of
retouching. Bracquemond has made such good en-
gravings of them that one can appreciate the painter's
technique in the print.
But, Theo, how necessary it is, especially at the
present day, to study the old Dutch pictures, and such
of the French as those by Corot, Millet, etc. At a pinch
one can well dispense with the others, for they often
lead one further astray than one imagines. The thing is
to keep at it, and to paint everything as far as possible
at one go! What a real joy it is to see a Franz Hals!
How different these pictures are from those in which
everything seems to be painted in the same smooth
way, like lacquer.
On the very same day on which I saw the old Dutch
masters, Brouwer, Ostade, and above all Terborch, I
just chanced to see a Meissonier — the one of the Fodor
Museum.1 Now Meissonier worked in exactly the same
1 At Amsterdam. The picture here referred to, which, as far as
as I was able to judge, measured 10 in. by 6 in., represents a
monk seated by the side of a sick or dying man's bed.— Tr.
25
way as they did ; his pictures are very deeply thought
out and deliberated, but painted at one stroke, and
probably with every touch quite right from the start.
I believe it is bettter to scrape an unsuccessful por-
tion of one's picture completely away and to begin
again, than to keep on trying to improve it.
I saw a sketch by Rubens and another by Diaz
almost at the same time. They were certainly not
alike, but the creed of the artists who painted them
was the same — the conviction that colour expresses
form when it is in the right place with the right associa-
tions. Diaz in particular is a painter to the backbone,
and is conscientious to the finger-tips.
I must refer once more to certain modern pictures,
which are becoming ever more and more plentiful.
About fifteen years ago people began to speak about
" luminosity " and u light." Even if this was right in
the first place — and one cannot deny that the system
produced very masterful works — it is now beginning
to degenerate ever more and more throughout the
whole of the art-world into an excessive production of
pictures which have the same lighting on all four sides,
the same general atmosphere as I believe they call it, and
the same local colour. Is that good??? I do not think so.
Does the Ruysdael of van der Hoop (the one with
the Mill) give one the impression of open air? Is there
any atmosphere in it — any distance? The earth and the
air constitute a whole and belong to each other.
26
Van Goyen is the Dutch Corot. I stood for a long
while before the monumental picture in the Dupper
collection.
As for Franz Hals's yellow, you can call it what
you like, citron amorti orjaune chamois, but what have
you gained? In the picture it appears to be quite
light, but just you hold something white against it.
The great doctrine bequeathed to us by the Dutch
masters is, I think, as follows: Line and colour should
be seen as one, a standpoint which Bracquemond also
holds. But very few observe this principle, they draw
with everything, save with good colour.
I have no desire to make many acquaintances among
painters.
But to refer to technique once more. There is very
much more sound and skilful stuff in Israel's technique
— above all in the very old picture "The Zandvoort
Fisherman," for instance, in which there is such
splendid chiaroscuro, than in the technique of those
who, owing to their steely cold colour, are uniformly
smooth, flat, and sober throughout.
"The Zandvoort Fisherman " may safely be hung
beside an old Delacroix, such as "La Barque de
Dante," as they are both members of the same family.
I believe in these pictures, but grow ever more and
more hostile to those which are uniformly light all
over.
It irritates me to hear people say that I have no
" technique." It is just possible that there is no trace
of it, because I hold myself aloof from all painters. I
27
am, however, quite right in regarding many painters
as weak precisely in their technique — more particu-
larly those who talk most nonsense about it. This
I have already written to you. But if ever I should
happen to exhibit my work with either the one
or the other in Holland, I know beforehand with
whom I shall have to deal, and with what order of
technicians. Meanwhile I much prefer to remain
faithful to the old Dutchmen, the pictures of Israels
and his school. This the more modern painters do
not do ; on the contrary, they are diametrically op-
posed to Israels.
That which they call " luminous " is, in many
cases, nothing else than the detestable studio lighting
of a cheerless town studio. They do not seem to see
either the dawn or the setting sun ; all they appear to
know are the hours between n a.m. to 3 p.m. — quite
pleasant hours forsooth, but often quite uninteresting
ones too !
This winter I wish to investigate many things which
have struck me in regard to the treatment in old
pictures. I have seen a good deal that I lack. But
above all that which is called enlever^ and which the
old Dutch masters understood so perfectly.
No one nowadays will have anything to do with
enlever in a few strokes of the brush. But how con-
clusively its results prove the correctness of it! How
thoroughly and with what mastery many French
1 A word suggesting bold virtuosity in expressing an im-
pression.— Tr.
28
painters and Israels understood this! I thought a
good deal about Delacroix in the Museum. Why?
Because, while contemplating Hals, Rembrandt,
Ruysdael, and others, I constantly thought of the
saying, that when Delacroix paints, it is exactly like
a lion devouring a piece of flesh. How true that is!
And, Theo, when I think of what one might call
" the technique crew " how tedious they all are ! Rest
assured, however, that if ever I have any dealings
with the gentlemen, I shall behave more or less like a
simpleton, but a la Vireloque — with a coup de dent to
follow.
For is it not exasperating to see the same dodges
everywhere (or what we call dodges) — everywhere the
same tedious gray-white light, in the place of light
and chiaroscuro, colour, local colour instead of shades
of colour. . . .
Colour as colour means something; this should not
be ignored, but rather turned to account. That which
has a beautiful effect, a really beautiful effect, is also
right. When Veronese painted the portraits of his
beau monde in the "Marriage at Cana," he used all
the wealth of his palette in deep violets and gorgeous
golden tones for the purpose, while he also introduced
a faint azure blue and a pearly white which do not
spring into the foreground. He throws it back, and
it looks well in the neighbourhood of the sky and of
the marble palaces, which strangely complete the
figures ; it changes quite of its own accord. The back-
ground is so beautiful that it seems to have come into
29
being quite naturally and spontaneously out of the
colour scheme.
Am I wrong? Is it not painted differently from
the way an artist would have painted it who had
conceived the figures and the palace as a simultaneous
whole?
All the architecture and the sky are conventional
and subordinate to the figures, they are simply calcu-
lated to throw the latter into relief.
This is really painting, and it yields a more beautiful
effect than a mere transcript of things does. The point
is to think about a thing, to consider its surroundings,
and to let it grow out of the latter.
I do not wish to argue studying from Nature or the
struggling with reality, out of existence; for years I
myself worked in this way with almost fruitless and,
in any case, wretched results. I should not like to
have avoided this error however.
In any case I am quite convinced that it would have
been foolery on my part to have continued to pursue
these methods — although I am not by any means so
sure that all my trouble has been in vain.
Doctors say, " On commence par tuer, on finit par
guerir." One begins by plaguing one's self to no pur-
pose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes
by working quietly from one's palette alone, and then
nature is the result. But these two methods cannot be
pursued together. Diligent study, even if it seem to
be fruitless, leads to familiarity with nature and to a
thorough knowledge of things.
30
The greatest and most powerful imagination has
also been able to produce things from reality, before
which people have stood in dumb amazement.
... I will simply paint my bedroom. This time the
colour shall do everything. By means of its simplicity
it shall lend things a grand style, and shall suggest
absolute peace and slumber to the spectator. In short,
the mere sight of the picture should be restful to the
spirit, or better still, to the imagination. The walls
are pale violet, the floor is covered with red tiles, the
wood of the bed and of the chairs is a warm yellow,
the sheets and the pillow are a light yellow-green,
the quilt is scarlet, the window green, the washstand
is orange, the wash-basin is blue, and the doors are
mauve. That is all — there is nothing more in the
room, and the windows are closed. The very square-
ness of the furniture should intensify the impression
of rest. As there is no white in the picture, the frame
should be white. This work will compensate me for
the compulsory rest to which I have been condemned.
I shall work at it again all day long to-morrow ; but
you see how simple the composition is. Shadows
and cast shadows are suppressed, and the colour is
rendered in dull and distinct tones like crape of many
colours.
I have already taken many walks along the docks
and dikes. The contrast is very strange, especially
when one has just left the sand, the hearth, and the
peace of a country farm behind one, and when one
has lived for some time in quiet surroundings. It is
an abyss of confusion.
Once the war-cry of the Goncourts was, "Japon-
aiserie for ever." Now the docks are a splendid piece
of Japonaiserie, both odd, peculiar, and terrific. At
least they may be looked at in this way.
All the figures are constantly moving. They are
seen in the very strangest environment — everything
is monstrous, and the whole is full of the most varied
and most interesting contrasts.
Through the window of a very stylish English
restaurant one obtains a glimpse of the dirty mud of
the harbour and of a ship of the horrid cargo type,
from which foreign seamen are unloading hides and
bullocks' horns. And close by, in front of the window,
there stands a very dark, refined, and shy-looking
girl. The room with the figure, all tone and light, the
silvery sheen over the mud and the bullocks' horns —
all these things produce the most striking contrasts.
Flemish seamen with extravagantly healthy faces,
broad shoulders, powerfully and strongly built, and
Antwerpian to the backbone, stand there eating mus-
sels and drinking beer, and there is plenty of shouting
and movement. On the other side, a short little form,
dressed in black, with her hands on her hips, steals
silently alongside of the gray wall.
Her little face, encircled in a halo of jet-black hair, is
a note of tawny or orange yellow? — I don't know which.
32
She has just looked up and cast a bashful glance with
a pair of coal-black eyes. She is a Chinese girl, mys-
terious and as quiet as a mouse, small and beetle-like l
in character, a contrast to the great Flemish con-
sumers of mussels.
Thank Heaven! my digestion has so far recovered
that I have been able to live on ships-biscuit, milk
and eggs for three weeks. The beneficent heat is
restoring my strength to me. It was wise of me to
go South just now, when my bad state of health
needed a cure. I am now as healthy as other people —
a thing I have but seldom been able to say of myself —
not since I was at Nuenen. It is very gratifying
(among " other people," I mean, the miners on strike,
old Tanguy, old Millet, and the peasants).
The healthy man should be able to live on a piece
of bread and keep at work all day. He should also be
able to bear a pipe of tobacco and a good drink; for
without these things nothing can be done. And withal
he ought to have some feeling for the stars and the
infinite heavens. Then it is a joy to live!
1 The German is wanzenartig, but the above rendering gives,
I think, a better idea of Van Gogh's meaning than a literal
translation would. — Tr.
33 D
I should like to make copies of "The Tarascon
Diligence," "The Vineyard, "The Harvest," and
"The Red Cabaret," especially of the night cafe, for
its colouring is exceptionally characteristic. There is
only one white figure in the middle which will have
to be painted in afresh and improved in drawing,
although it is good as far as its colour is concerned.
The South really looks like this, I cannot help saying
so. The whole scheme is a harmony in reddish
green.
I do not need to go to the Museum and to see
Titian and Velasquez. I have studied my trade in
Nature's workshop, and now I know better than I did
before I took my little journey, what is above all
necessary if one wishes to paint the South. Heavens!
what fools all these painters are ! They say that Dela-
croix does not paint the Orient as it is. Only Parisians
— Gerome, etc. — can paint the Orient as it is — is that
their claim? It really is a funny thing, this business
of painting, out in the wind and the sun. And when
the crowd looks over one's shoulder, one simply sets
to like mad, as if the devil himself were at one's back,
until the canvas is covered. It is precisely in this way
that one discovers what everything depends upon.
And this is the whole secret.
After a while one takes the study up again and
attends a little more to the form. Then, at least, the
thing looks less rough and more harmonious, and one
also introduces something of one's own good cheer
and laughter into it.
34
I am well aware of the fact that, to be healthy, one
must resolutely wish to be so. Pain and even death
must be faced, and all individual will and self-love
must be renounced. That is nothing to me. I wish to
paint and see men and things, the whole of pulsating
life, even if it be only deceptive appearance. Aye \
The true life is said to consist of something else : but
I am not one of those who do not love life, and who
are ready at all times to suffer and to die.
A man with my temperament can scarcely have
success, lasting success. I shall probably never attain
as much as I might and ought to attain.
I still believe that Gauguin and I will one day work
together. I know that Gauguin is capable of greater
things than he has given us already. Have you
seen the portrait he painted of me while I was paint-
ing some sunflowers? My expression has certainly
grown more cheerful since then, but at that time I
looked just like that — absolutely exhausted and charged
with electricity. If; I had then had the strength to
pursue my calling, I should have painted saintly
figures of men and women from nature. They would
have looked as if they belonged to another age. They
would have been creatures of to-day and yet they
would have borne some resemblance to the early
Christians.
But that sort of thing is too wearing, it would have
35
killed me. Nevertheless, I will not swear that later
on, perhaps, I may not take up the struggle again.
You are quite right, a thousand times right ! One
should not give a thought to such things. Painting
studies is simply a taking of herbs to calm one, and
when one is calm, well . . . then one does what one
is fitted for.
It really is a pity that there are so few pictures of
poor people in Paris. I think that my peasant would
look quite well by the side of your Lautrec. I even
flatter myself that the Lautrec would look all the
better for the strong contrast, while my picture would
necessarily profit too from the peculiar juxtaposition ;
because sunniness and scorched tawny colouring, the
hot sun and the open air, are thrown into stronger
relief by the side of the powdered faces and the smart
dresses. What a shame it is that the Parisians show
so little taste for vigorous things, such as the Monti-
celli's, for instance.
Of course I am well aware of the fact that one must
not lose courage because Utopias do not come true.
All I know is this, that everything I learnt in Paris is
going to the deuce, and I am returning to that which
seemed to me right and proper in the country, before
I had become acquainted with the impressionists. I
should not be at all surprised if, within a short time,
the impressionists found a great deal to criticize in my
36
work, which is certainly much more under the sug-
gestion of Delacroix' painting than of theirs. For,
instead of reproducing exactly what I see before
me, I treat the colouring in a perfectly arbitrary
fashion. What I aim at above all is powerful ex-
pression. But let us drop theory, and allow me rather
to make my meaning clear to you by means of an
example.
Just suppose that I am to paint the portrait of an
artist friend — an artist who dreams great dreams and
who works as the nightingale sings, simply because it
it is his nature to do so.
Let us imagine him a fair man. All the love I feel
for him I should like to reveal in my painting of the
picture. To begin with, then, I paint him just as he
is, as faithfully as possible — still this is only the begin-
ning. The picture is by no means finished at this stage.
Now I begin to apply the colour arbitrarily. I exag-
gerate the tone of his fair hair ; I take orange, chrome,
and dull lemon yellow. Behind his head, instead of
the trivial wall of the room — I paint infinity. I make
a simple background out of the richest of blues, as
strong as my palette will allow. And thus, owing to
this simple combination, the fair and luminous head
has the mysterious effect, upon the rich blue back-
ground, of a star suspended in dark ether.
I proceed in much the same way with the portrait
of the peasant. But one ought to picture this sort of
fellow in the scorching noonday sun, in the midst of
the harvest. Hence this flaming orange, like a red-
37
hot iron ; hence the luminous shadows like old gold.
Ah, dear friend, the public will see only a caricature
in this exaggeration. But what do we care? We
have read "La Terre " and "Germinal," and when
we paint a peasant, we wish to show that this reading
has become part of our flesh and blood.
I can only choose between being a good and a bad
painter. I choose the former.
LETTERS TO E. BERNARD
I STILL believe that in studios one learns next to no-
thing about painting and certainly nothing about life,
and that one should do all one can to learn to live and
to paint without having recourse to those old fools and
wiseacres, [i] l
When our relations with a painter are so strained as
to make us say: "If that fellow exhibits any of his
pictures by the side of mine, I shall withdraw mine,"
and then proceed to abuse him, it seems to me that
this is not the proper way to act; for, previous to
arriving at such drastic conclusions one should make
quite sure, and give the matter careful thought. After
due reflection we are almost sure to find — particularly
when we happen to be at loggerheads with the artist —
that there is as much to criticize in our own work as
in the other man's. He has as much right to exist as
we have. When it is remembered that this man or
that — be he a pointilliste or a member of another school
—has often done good work, instead of disparaging
1 These numbers in brackets refer to the notes at the end of
the book.— TR.
39
him, we should speak of him with respect and sym-
pathy, more particularly if he happen to be in dis-
agreement with us. Otherwise we become too narrow-
minded and are no better than those who can say no
good of others and regard themselves alone as right.
The observance of this principle ought even to be ex-
tended to the academicians. Take one of Fantin-
Latour's pictures, for instance, or even the whole of
his life-work! In any case he is not a revolutionary,
and yet there is something restful and confident in his
work, which elevates him to the rank of the most in-
dependent characters. For the good of all concerned,
it is worth while abandoning the selfish principle:
" Everyone for himself."
MY DEAR BERNARD,
As I promised to write to you, I shall at once begin
by saying that the country in these parts seems to me
just as beautiful as Japan, as far as the clearness of the
air and the cheerful colouring are concerned. In the
landscape the water looks like sheets of fine emerald or
of a rich blue of the shade with which we are familiar
in crape prints.1 Pale sunsets make the ground appear
quite blue. Glorious golden suns ! And I have not yet
seen the country in the usual splendour of its summer
1 Van Gogh must be referring, here, to Japanese prints which
have undergone a process of craping. For details of this process
see "Japanese Colour Prints " by E. F. Strange (pp. no, in).
— TR.
40
garb. The costume of the women is pretty, and on
Sundays especially very simple and happy combina-
tions of colour may be seen on the boulevard. And
there can be no doubt that in summer things will be
even gayer still. I only regret that living here is not
so cheap as I had hoped it would be, and up to the
present I have not succeeded in finding such inexpen-
sive quarters as are to be found in Pont-Aven. At
first I had to pay five francs a day, and now I pay
four. If one could only speak the local dialect and eat
bouillabaisse and atoli, one might certainly find an in-
expensive pension in Aries. . . . Even if the Japanese
do not make any headway in their own land, their art is
certainly being continued in France. At the beginning
of this letter I send you a small sketch of a study on
which I am now engaged, and of which I should like to
make something. Seamen with their sweethearts are
going to the town, which, with its drawbridge, stands
in wonderful outline against the yellow disc of the sun.
I have also another study of the same drawbridge,
with a group of washerwomen.
I should be very glad to have a word from you, just
to know how you are and where you are going. With
best wishes to you and our friends.
Your old friend
VINCENT.
I have just read a book about the Marquesas Islands.
It was neither beautiful nor well-written, but it was
heartrending inasmuch as it described the extermina-
tion of a whole tribe of aborigines — cannibals\ They
were cannibals in the sense that they ate one man, say
once a month (what did that matter?)
The thoroughly Christian whites could think of no
better way of putting an end to this barbarity, which
on the whole was only mildly bloodthirsty, than by
exterminating not only the tribe of aboriginal canni-
bals, but also the tribe with which they used to fight
the battles calculated to provide both sides with the
necessary prisoners of war to be eaten.
Then the two islands were annexed, and since then
they have been unspeakably gloomy !
These tattooed races, niggers, Indians — everything,
everything is either disappearing or degenerating.
And the dreadful white man with his brandy, his
purse, and his syphilis! — when will the world have
had enough of him? The horrible white man, with his
hypocrisy, his lust of gold, his sterility! And these
poor savages were so full of gentleness and love !
There is real poetry in Gauguin's negresses. And
everything that comes from his brush has something
charming, something heartrending and astounding
about it. He is not yet understood, and he suffers
greatly from not being able to sell his work like other
true poets.
42
I have just taken a house. It is painted yellow out-
side and whitewashed within, and it stands right in
the sun.
I have painted the following still-life : a blue-
enamelled coffee pot, a royal blue cup and saucer, a milk
jug decorated with pale-cobalt and white squares, a
vase with a blue and orange pattern on a white ground
and a blue majolica pot decorated with pink flowers
and greeny brown leaves, the whole upon a blue table-
cloth against a yellow background. There are in
addition two oranges and three lemons. The result is
a symphony of blue tones, animated by a scale of
yellows ranging to orange. And I have another still-
life: lemons in a basket against a yellow background.
Besides this, a view of Aries. Of the town itself only
a few red roofs and a tower are visible, the rest is
hidden by the foliage of fig trees, all of it quite in the
background, and a thin strip of blue sky above. The
town is surrounded by meadows covered with dande-
43
lions, [2] a sea of gold. Right in the foreground a ditch
which is full of purple irises cuts through the meadows.
While I was busy painting this view, the grass was
cut, that is why it is only a study and not the finished
picture I intended it to be. But what a lovely theme —
eh? A sea of yellow flowers with the reef of purple
irises, and in the background the charming little town
with its beautiful women !
I grow ever more and more convinced that the pic-
tures which ought to be painted, the pictures which
will be necessary and inevitable if painting is ever to
attain to the serene heights of Greek sculpture, German
music and French fiction, will be beyond the strength
of one individual. They will therefore have to be
executed by a group of painters, who will collaborate
in order to carry out an idea which they hold in com-
mon. Suppose, for instance, that this man were a
brilliant colourist who lacked ideas, while another
overflowed with a number of perfectly new, harrowing,
or charming inspirations, which, however he did not
know how to express adequately. This would be a
sufficient reason to deplore the absence of esprit de
corps among artists, who criticize and persecute one
another, though fortunately without being able to
exterminate their kind. You probably think this is all
very trivial? Who knows? But the thing itself,
the possibility of a Renaissance, is surely no trivial
matter !
I often feel very sorry that I cannot induce myself to
work more at home, from imagination. Imagination
44
I
is surely a faculty that one should develop ; for it
alone enables us to create a more inspiring and com-
forting world than we can apprehend by meaus of a
fleeting glance at reality, which is for ever changing
and which vanishes like a flash of lightning. How
glad I should be one day to try to paint the starry
heavens as also a meadow studded with dandelions in
the sunlight. But how can one ever hope to succeed
in doing these things unless one resolves to stay at
home and to work from imagination?
In painting I observe no system ; I lash the canvas
with irregular strokes and let them stand. Impasto —
bare patches here and there — some places left quite
unfinished — others overpainted — brutal touches, and
the result is (at least I must assume that this is so)
sufficiently disconcerting and irritating to displease
people who have preconceived notions about tech-
nique. [3]
When I paint direct from nature, I always try to
seize what is essential by means of line. Then I
fill up the defined spaces (whether they have been ex-
pressed or not ; for they have been felt at all events)
with simple flat tones as follows: all ground or soil
will contain the same violet tone, practically the whole
of the sky will be kept blue in tone, while foliage will
be blue-green or yellow-green (either the blue or the
yellow may be deliberately intensified) in short, no
photographic imitation, that is the chief thing!
45
Here is a question of technique for you! Just tell
me your view of the matter ! I wish to put black and
white, as I buy them at the colourman's, boldly on my
palette, and to use them as they are. If in a green
park with pink footpaths, I see (please to remember
that I have in mind the Japanese method of flat simple
colouring) a man dressed in black — a magistrate, for
instance, reading the " Intransigeant," and the sky
above him is pure cobalt, why on earth should I not
paint the said legal gentleman in pure black, and the
" Intransigeant" in pure white?
For the Japanese pays no heed to the play of light,
and paints flat tones one beside the other — character-
istic lines, which seize the movement or the form in a
simple manner.
Now, apropos of another idea: in a scheme of colour
which contains a golden evening sky, for instance, one
might at a pinch paint a crude white wall against the
sky with pure white, or with the same crude white
modified by a neutral tone ; for the sky itself will lend
it a pale mauve tinge.
In this very simple landscape, consisting of a com-
pletely white cottage (even the roof is whitewashed),
standing on orange-coloured ground (for the southern
sky and the Mediterranean both tend to produce very
intense orange colouring, as their blue is very strong),
the black note of the door, the window and the small
cross on the roof makes a contrast of black and white,
which is just as agreeable to the eye as the contrast of
orange and blue.
46
On the same principle, here is another still more
amusing theme : a woman in a black and white check
dress, standing in the same simple landscape, with the
sky blue, and the ground orange. The black and the
white can quite adequately play the part of colours
(at least, in many cases they may be considered as
such), for their contrast is just as piquant as that of
green and red, for instance. Moreover, the Japanese
made use of the same tones ; with magic beauty they
render the dull pale complexion of a little girl and its
fetching contrast with her black hair, by means of
four strokes of the pen on white paper; and they do
the same thing with their black bramble bushes, which
they cover with countless white flowers.
At last I have seen the Mediterranean Sea and have
spent a week in Saintes-Maries. I went there in the
diligence, via la Camargue, through vineyards and
meadows, and across plains, like those in Holland.
In Saintes-Maries I saw some little girls who reminded
me of Cimabue and Giotto— very much so, in fact ; they
were thin, rather sad, and mystic. On the beach, which
is quite flat and sandy, I saw a number of green, red
and blue boats, which were so delightful both in form
and colour, that they made me think of flowers. One
man alone can navigate a boat of this sort, but they do
not go far out. They only venture into deep water
when the wind is low and they return as soon as it rises.
47
I should also very much like to see Africa. But I
will not make any definite plans for the future. Every-
thing will depend upon circumstances. What I wanted
to experience was the effect of a deep blue sky. Fro-
mentin and Gerome see no colour in the South, and
a number of others are like them. But good Heavens !
— if you take a little dry sand up in your hand and hold
it close to your eyes, of course it is colourless, just as
water and air would be. There is no blue without
yellow and orange, and when you paint blue, paint
yellow and orange as well — am I not right?
I feel decidedly better in the South than in the North.
I work even during the hour of noon, in the glaring
sunlight, without a scrap of shade ; and, believe me, I
feel as happy as a cricket. Heavens! why did I not
get to know this country at 25 instead of at 35 years of
age! In those days, however, I was mad on grays, or
rather on the absence of colour. I always dreamt of a
Millet, and had my friends in the artistic circle of Mauve
and of Israels, etc.
I have painted the " Sower." Oh, how beautiful the
illustrations in the old calendars were ! — with the hail,
the rain, the snow and fine weather always rendered in
the perfectly primitive manner which Anquetin favoured
for his " Harvest."
48
I may as well tell you that I do not dislike country
life — for I grew up in the midst of it. Sudden recol-
lections of old times and a longing for that infinite
of which the " Sower " and the " Sheaf of Corn " are
evidence, still enchant me now, just as they did form-
erly. But when shall I paint the starry heavens? — that
picture which is always in my mind? Ah, what the
worthy Cyprian says in J. K. Huysmans' " En Menage,"
is very true! — "The most beautiful pictures are those
of which one dreams when one is smoking a pipe in
bed but which one never paints." And yet one must
tackle such pictures, however incompetent one may
feel in the presence of the inexpressible perfection and
triumphant splendour of nature.
49 E
Here is another landscape for you! — A setting sun,
a rising moon? In any case, a summer's evening. A
violet city, yellow stars, a green-blue sky, crops of all
colours, old-gold, copper, green-gold, red-gold, yellow-
gold, yellow-bronze, green and red. I painted it in the
midst of a North wind.
I should like to say the following about black and
white: — take my "Sower"! The picture is divided
into two halves, the upper portion is yellow and the
lower portion violet. Now you observe that the white
trousers are both restful and cheering to the eye while
the strong and glowing contrast of the yellow and the
violet might at the same time irritate it.
One reason for working is that the pictures are worth
money. You will say, in the first place, that this reason
is prosaic, and secondly that it is untrue. But it really
is true. One reason for not working is that, in the first
place, canvas and colour cost a lot of money. Drawings
are the only things that can be produced cheaply.
My chief reason for being so fond of this part of the
country is that here I am not in such fear of the cold
which retards my circulation, and thus prevents me
from thinking and doing anything at all. You will
realize this only when you are a soldier and chance to
come to these parts. Your melancholy will take wing,
— for it is very probable that it is only the outcome of
your having too little blood. And all this is the result
of the confoundedly bad wine and infamous beef ot
Paris. Things had gone so far with me that my blood
had almost ceased to circulate, or practically so in the
50
true sense of the word. But here, in about a month's
time, it began to flow again. And, my dear fellow,
at that time I had a fit of melancholy like the one you
have at present, and I would have suffered from it as
much as you are suffering from yours, had I not greeted
it joyfully as a sign of my recovery, which, by the by,
was soon an established fact.
To paint and to love women are incompatible. This
is really a confounded nuisance!
The symbol of St. Luke, the patron saint of painters,
is as you know an ox. Thus one must be as patient as
an ox if one would wish to cultivate the field of art.
But how lucky oxen are to have nothing to do with
this confounded business of painting !
But let me tell you this, that after your fit of melan-
choly you will feel fresher than you did before. Your
health wiH^grow stronger, and you will find the world
about^ou soBe^autiful, that you will have but one
wish — to paint. I E>elieve that your poetry will also
change in the same way. After many eccentricities you
will succeed [4] in producing things full of Egyptian
repose and grand simplicity.
You will doubtless agree that neither you nor I can
form a complete image of what Velasquez or Goya were
as men and painters ; for neither you nor I have seen
Spain, their native land, and all the lovely pictures which
have remained in the South. But this does not alter the
fact that the little we do know is really very great
indeed.
In order to understand the painters of the North,
and above all Rembrandt, it is unquestionably of
paramount importance to know and understand their
country — and the somewhat petty and intimate history
of their age, as well as the customs of their ancient
fatherland. I must repeat that you and Baudelaire
have not a sufficiently thorough knowledge of Rem-
brandt, and as for you, I still feel that I should like to
induce you to make a long study of the greater and
lesser Dutch Masters, before you form a definite
opinion about them. For it is not a matter only of
rare and costly jewels, one has to select precious
stones from out a mass of precious stones, and many
a false diamond will be found among genuine speci-
mens. Thus, although I have studied the schools of
my fatherland for over twenty years, a discussion
concerning the painters of the North is usually con-
ducted in such a false spirit, that I should in most cases
hold my peace whenever the conversation chanced
to turn upon them.
I can only urge you, therefore, in Heaven's name,
to examine them a little more thoroughly; your
trouble will be repaid a thousandfold.
If, for instance, I declare that the Ostade of the
Louvre, representing the family of the artist — the man
himself, his wife and his ten children — like the " Con-
gress of Miinster," by Terborch, is a picture which
though infinitely worth being studied and deeply
52
thought about [is sadly neglected] ; l and that precisely
those pictures in the Louvre collection which I par-
ticularly value and regard as the most remarkable, are
very -often overlooked by artists — even by those who
come on purpose to see the Dutch School — these mis-
takes do not surprise me. For I know that my choice is
based upon specialised knowledge which the majority
of French people cannot acquire. If, however, I dis-
agree with you on these points, I am nevertheless
convinced, that in time to come you will share my
view of the matter.
What always makes me so desperate in the Louvre,
is to be compelled to look on while the asinine authori-
ties allow their Rembrandts to be spoilt, and ruin so
many beautiful pictures.
For the disagreeable jaundiced tone of some of the
Rembrandts is the result of discolouration brought
about by dampness or other causes (heating, dust,
etc.), a thing I could easily prove to you.
And that is why it is just as difficult to ascertain
Rembrandt's colouring as it is to discover accurately
what greys were used by Velasquez. For the want of
a better expression one might overcome the difficulty
by speaking of Rembrandt's gold; but it is very
vague.
1 This sentence does not seem to make sense, even in the
French, without this interpolation.— Tr.
53
When I came to France I learnt to understand
Delacroix and Zola perhaps better than many a
Frenchman. And my admiration for both of these
men is now as unbounded as it is sincere. Armed
with an almost complete mastery of Rembrandt, I
discovered that Delacroix obtained his effects by means
of his colour, and Rembrandt by means of his values ;
but they are worthy of each other.
Zola and Balzac, who are, among other things, the
painters of a whole epoch, afford their admirers many
rare artistic delights owing to the fact that they express
the whole of the age which they describe.
Even though Delacroix paints only mankind and
life, instead of a whole age, he belongs none the less
to the class of universal geniuses. I particularly like
the closing words of an article which, if I am not mis-
taken, was written by Theophile Silvestre, who ended
a hymn of praise as follows: "Thus, almost with a
smile on his lips, did Eugene Delacroix die. A noble
painter, he bore the sun in his head and a tempest in
his heart, and he could turn from warriors to saints,
from saints to lovers, from lovers to tigers, and from
tigers to flowers."
Daumier is also a great genius, while Millet is like-
wise the painter of a whole generation and of its
atmosphere. Maybe, these great geniuses are a little
crazy, and it is possible that we may be a little crazy
too, to have such faith in them and to feel such un-
bounded admiration for their art. If this be so, I
prefer my folly to the cold wisdom of others.
54
Perhaps the most direct way is to study Rembrandt.
But, first of all, let me tell you something about
Franz Hals, who has never painted the Saviour, the
Angel announcing Christ's birth to the shepherds,
the Crucifixion or the Resurrection, and who has
never painted naked, voluptuous, or cruel [5] female
figures.
He always painted portraits and nothing else —
soldier pictures, officers' banquets, portraits of magis-
trates assembled to discuss affairs of State, and por-
traits of matrons with pink or sallow complexions,
wearing white caps and dressed in black wool or satin,
discussing the budget of an orphanage or a hospital.
He also painted a drunken toper, an old fishwife as
a lively witch, a beautiful Bohemian courtesan, un-
weaned babies in arms, and an elegant [6] cavalier — a
bon-vivant, with a bristly moustache, top-boots, and
spurs.
He painted himself and his wife as young lovers,
sitting on a grassy bank in the garden, after the
wedding night.
He painted tramps and laughing street-boys, musi-
cians, and a fat cook.
We cannot do anything else; but all this is worthy
of Dante's " Paradise," the masterpieces by Michel-
angelo and Raphael, and even the Greeks; it is as
beautiful as Zola, but more healthy and more cheerful,
though equally true to life. For the age of Hals was
healthier and less wretched. What then is Rembrandt?
Precisely the same, a portrait painter! One must first
55
have this sound, clear and comprehensive idea of
these two Dutch masters, who are worthy of each
other, and then one can enter more deeply into this
subject. If one can picture the whole of this glorious
state, revealed in grand outline by both of these pro-
lific portrait painters, plenty of room is left for the
landscapes, interiors, pictures of animals and philo-
sophical subjects. But I implore you to follow my
reasoning closely ; I am trying to make it as simple
and as clear as possible.
Let every corner of your brain be permeated with
that master, Franz Hals, who painted the portraits of
an entire, important, living, and immortal state. Also
let every corner of your brain be permeated with that
other by no means minor great master of the Dutch
state, Rembrandt van Ryn, a man of mighty gifts,
and just as naturalistic and healthy as Hals. And
now from this source — Rembrandt, we see arise as
direct and genuine pupils : Jan van der Meer of Delft,
Fabritius, Nicholas Maes, Pieter de Hooch, Bol; as
also such artists as Potter, Ruysdael, and Ostade,
who are under his influence. I have mentioned Fabri-
tius to you, only two of whose pictures we possess. But
in all this I have not referred to a whole host of good
painters, and above all not to the false diamonds.
And it is precisely with these spurious stones that the
French man in the street is best acquainted. Have I
made myself clear? I have tried to reveal the great and
simple fact: the painting of mankind, or, preferably,
of a whole state, by means of portraits. Much later we
56
shall have to deal with magic art, with the pictures of
Saviours and of nude women — these things are ex-
tremely interesting, but they are not everything.
I do not think that the question of the Dutch masters
which we raised a day or two ago, is without interest.
In all matters of humanity, originality, or naturalism,
it is very interesting to consult them. But, in the
first place, I must speak about you and two still-life
pictures you have painted, as also two portraits of
your grandmother. Have you ever succeeded better in
anything else? Were you ever more yourself, more
individual, in any other work? My answer is No!
The thorough study of the first subject, the first per-
son, that was at hand, sufficed to make you work with
earnestness. Do you know what it was that made
these three or four studies so valuable to me ? Some-
thing inexplicably arbitrary, something very clever,
deliberate, firm and self-reliant — that is what it was.
Never, dear friend, have you been closer to Rem-
brandt than while painting those studies. It was in
Rembrandt's studio, under the eyes of that incom-
parable Sphinx, that Vermeer of Delft found that
extraordinarily sound technique which was never to
be surpassed, and which people are so ardently long-
ing to find to-day. I know, of course, that we are
now engaged in the problem of colour, whereas they
were concerned with chiaroscuro and values. But
what do these slight differences matter when that
57
which is, above all, necessary is to be able to express
oneself with vigour and strength?
At the present moment you are investigating the
technique of the early Italians and Germans, and
the question of the symbolic significance which the
spiritualized and mystic painting of the Italians may
possess — by all means continue ! . . .
A certain anecdote about Giotto strikes me as being
very neat. There was a prize competition opened for
the best picture of the Virgin, and a host of sketches
were sent in to the judging committee of fine arts of
the day. The one signed by Giotto was a simple oval,
a plain, egg-shaped space. The jury entirely confid-
ent, although perplexed, gaveGiottothecommission for
the picture. Whether it is true or not, I like the story.
58
Now, however, let me return to Daumier and to the
portrait of your grandmother. When will you again
send us studies of such sterling value? I urge you
most earnestly to do so, although I by no means
underestimate your attempts at line composition, and
am far from indifferent to the effect of contrasted lines
and forms. The trouble is, my dear old Bernard, that
Giotto and Cimabue, like Holbein and Van Eyck,
lived in an atmosphere of obelisks — if I may use such
an expression — in which everything was arranged with
architectual method, in which every individual was a
stone or a brick in the general edifice, and all things
were interdependent and constituted a monumental
social structure. If the Socialists construct their edifice
in the same logical manner — a thing they are very far
from doing — the above-mentioned order of society will
certainly come back to life in a similar way. But we,
you know, live in the midst of complete laisser-aller
and anarchy; we artists who love order and symmetry,
isolate ourselves and work at introducing a little style
into some particular portion of the world.
Puvis knew this very well, and when — clever and
honest man that he was — he forgot his Elysian fields,
and descended into our age, he painted a very beautiful
portrait, "The Jovial Old Man " — a figure of a man
sitting in a blue room, reading a yellow covered
book, with a glass of water, containing a water-
colour brush and a rose, at his side. And he also
painted a stylish lady such as the Goncourts might
have described.
59
Yes, the Dutch painted things as they were, certainly
without reflecting much upon them ; as Courbet painted
his naked beauties, so they painted portraits, land-
scapes and still-life subjects. And it is not by any
means the most foolish way. But if, owing to the fact
that we do not know what to do, we imitate them, we
do so only to avoid squandering our modest powers in
fruitless metaphysical brooding which cannot press
chaos into a tumbler; for that is precisely why it
is chaos, because it cannot enter into a tumbler of our
calibre.
We are only able — and this is just what these Dutch-
men did, who for people with a system were infernally
clever, — to paint an atom out of the chaos: a horse, a
portrait, a grandmother, apples or a landscape. [6 *]
Degas' painting is manly and impersonal simply
because, for his part, he was content to be a simple
bourgeois who did not wish to have anything to do with
the enjoyment of life. All around him he saw human
animals . . . living and enjoying themselves, and he
painted them well, because, unlike Rubens, he made
no pretensions of being a good cavalier or a society
man. . . .
Yes, yes, Balzac, that great and powerful artist, said
quite rightly that the modern artist is strengthened by
being, relatively speaking, chaste. The Dutchmen
were married and begat themselves children. That is a
fine, in fact a very fine way of filling a life, and quite
60
a natural way too ! . . . One swallow does not make
a summer. There may be a good deal of virility in
your new Brittany studies; but I am unable to judge
as I have not yet seen them. However, I have already
seen virile works of yours — the portrait of your grand-
mother and the still-life. To judge from the drawings
I have a slight suspicion that your new Brittany
studies do not possess the same power, regarded pre-
cisely from the standpoint of virility.
The studies which I mentioned first constitute the
spring of your artistic life. If we wish to keep all our
strength for our life-work, we must only have very
little to do with women and according as our tempera-
ment demands, live either like soldiers or monks. For
the Dutchmen led a peaceful, quiet and well-ordered
life. Delacroix — ah ! he was a fine fellow — he used to
say: "I discovered the art of painting when I no
longer had any more teeth or breath." And those
who had seen him painting said: " When Delacroix
paints, he looks like a lion devouring a piece of flesh."
He had very little to do with women, and indulged
only in loose love affairs [7] so as not to waste any of
the time consecrated to his life's task. To judge from
the opinions expressed in this letter, it would appear
to be less in keeping than I should like it to be with our
correspondence and friendship of former years; but if
from its contents you gather that I am rather anxious
about your health, you are right. I know that the
study of the Dutchmen must be beneficial ; for their
works are so full of virility, power and health.
61
A short time ago I discovered a small etching by
Rembrandt and I bought it. It was of a nude figure
of a man, realistic and simple. He stands leaning
against a door or a pillar, in a dark room, and a ray
of sunshine from above strikes the bowed head and its
abundant red locks. The body is conceived with so
much truth, and is so vigorous, [8] that it almost re-
minds me of Degas.
I say, have you carefully studied " The Ox, "or "The
Inside of a Butcher's Shop " at the Louvre? I doubt
it. I should really greatly enjoy spending a morning
with you in the Dutch Galleries. These things are
hard to describe; but in front of the actual pictures I
could call your attention to such splendid and wonder-
ful things, that beside them the very Primitives them-
selves take a second place in my admiration. But then
I have such a very slight strain of eccentricity in my
composition !
A Greek statue, a peasant by Millet, a Dutch por-
trait, a naked woman by Courbet or Degas; it is
beside the serene and elaborate perfection of these
things that the works of the Primitives and the Japan-
ese seem only like written characters as compared with
painting. It really interests me immensely, but a
complete work of art, a piece of perfection enables us
to conceive infinity; and to enjoy beauty to the full [9]
gives one a feeling of eternity. . . . Do you know a
painter called Jan van der Meer? He painted a very
distinguished and beautiful Dutch woman, in preg-
nancy. The scale of colours of this strange artist con-
62
sists of blue, lemon-yellow, pearl-grey, black and
white. It is true, in the few pictures he painted the
whole range of the palette is to be found ; but it is just
as characteristic of him to place lemon-yellow, a dull
blue, and light grey together, as it is of Velasquez to
harmonize black, white, grey and pink. Of course
the Dutch painters are too widely distributed over the
Museums and collections of the world for us to be able
to form any adequate idea of their work, and this is
still more difficult when one knows only the Louvre.
And yet it is precisely the Frenchmen, Ch. Blanc,
Thore and Fromentin, who have written the best
things about them.
The Dutchmen had no imagination, but they had
tremendous taste and an unerring sense of composi-v
tion ; they painted no pictures of the Saviour or of the
Saints. . . . Rembrandt did ! That is true ; but he is
the only one, and even with him pictures containing a
genuine Biblical feeling are comparatively rare occur-
rences ;[io] he was the only one to paint pictures of
Christ, etc. But his pictures resemble no other kind of
religious painting; in his case it is a sort of meta-
physical sorcery.
This is how he painted angels: He made a portrait
of himself, toothless and with a cotton cap on his head.
The first picture he painted from nature, by means
of a looking glass. He dreamt and dreamt, and his
hand painted his portrait once again, but from imag-
ination, and the impression became more harrowed
and more harrowing.
63
Second picture. He continued to dream and dream
and, how it happened I do not know, but just as
Socrates and Muhammed had their guardian spirits,
behind the hoary patriarch who is not unlike himself,
Rembrandt painted an angel with the enigmatical
smile of a head by Leonardo. . . ^[n] But now I am
calling your attention to an artist who dreams and
works from his imagination, after having declared
that the characteristic feature of the Dutch painters is
that they have no inventive genius and no imagination.
Am I therefore illogical? No! Rembrandt invented
nothing; he knew and felt this angel and these peculiar
saints perfectly well.
Delacroix painted a crucified Christ for us, by set-
ting, quite unexpectedly, a light lemon-yellow tone
on the canvas. This vivid note of colour lent the
picture that indescribable and mysterious charm as of
a solitary star in a dark evening sky. Rembrandt
works with values in the same way as Delacroix does
with colours. A long distance, however, separates
Delacroix' and Rembrandt's methods from those of all
the rest of religious painting.
I have just finished the portrait of a little girl of
twelve. Her eyes are brown, her hair and eyebrows
are black, she has an olive skin, and stands before a
1 The writer is undoubtedly referring to the St. Matthew in the
Louvre.
64
white background containing a strong tinge of emerald
green, in a blood-red jacket with violet stripes, a blue
skirt with large orange-coloured spots, and an oleander
flower between her dainty little fingers. This study
has exhausted me to such an extent that myjiead does
not feel like writing.
The Bible is Christ, for the Old Testament works
up to this climax. St. Paul and the Evangelists live
on the other side of the Mount of Olives. How small
this history is! Heavens! here it is in a couple of
words. There seem to be nothing but Jews on earth —
Jews who suddenly declare that everything outside
their own race is unclean. Why did not all the other
Southern races under the sun — the Egyptians, the
Indians, the Ethiopians, the Assyrians and the Baby-
lonians— write their annals with the same care? It
must be fine to study these things, and to be able to
read all this must be about as good as not being able
to read at all. But the Bible which depresses us so
much, which rouses all our despair and all our deepest
discontent, and whose narrow-mindedness and parlous
folly [12] tear our hearts in two, contains one piece
of consolation like a soft kernel in a hard shell, a
bitter core, and that is Christ. The figure of Christ, as
I conceive it, has been painted by Delacroix and
Rembrandt, and only Millet painted Christ's teaching.
At the rest of their religious painting I can only smile
commiseratingly — not from the religious but from the
65 F
pictorial standpoint. The early Italians, Flemings and
Germans are, in my opinion, pagans, who interest me
only as much as Velasquez and so many other natural-
istic painters do.
Of all philosophers, sages, etc., Christ was the only
one whose principal doctrine was the affirmation of im-
mortality and eternity, the nothingness of death, andthe
necessity and importance of truth and resignation [13].
He lived serenely as an artist, as a greater artist than
any other; for he despised marble, clay and the palette,
and worked upon living flesh. That is to say, this
marvellous artist, who eludes the grasp of that coarse
instrument — the neurotic and confused brain of modern
man — created neither statues nor pictures nor even
books; he says so himself quite majestically — hecreated
real living men, immortals. That is a solemn thing,
more particularly because it is the truth. This great
artist, then, wrote no books. There can be no doubt
that Christian literature, on the whole, would only
make him indignant. For how seldom is anything to be
found among its productions that could find favour be-
side the Gospel of St. Luke and the Epistles of St. Paul,
which are so simple in their austere and warlike form?
But even if this great artist, Christ, scorned to write
books about his ideas and sensations, he certainly did
not despise either the spoken word or still less the
parable. (What vigour there is in the parable of the
sower, the harvest, and the fig tree!) And who would
dare tell us that he lied when, in predicting the down-
fall of the Roman State, he declared: " Heaven and
66
earth shall pass away : but my words shall not pass
away."
These spoken words which he, as a grand seigneur did
not even think it necessary to write down, are the high-
est pinnacle ever attained by art ; in such pure altitudes
art becomes a creative force, a pure creative power.
Such meditations lead us far afield, very far afield
(they even elevate us above art). They give us an insight
into the art of moulding life, and of being immortal in
life itself, and still they are not unrelated to painting.
The patron saint of painting, St. Luke — doctor, painter
and evangelist, whose device, alas ! is an ox — is there
to give us hope. But our true and real life is really a
humble one ; we poor unhappy painters are vegetating
beneath the besotting yoke of a craft which is barely
practicable on this ungrateful planet, whereon the
love of art makes us unable to taste of real love.
As, however, there is nothing to gainsay the sup-
position that there are similar lines, colours and forms
on innumerable other planets and suns, we may be
allowed to retain a certain amount of good spirits in
view of the possibility that we shall be able to paint
among higher conditions and in another and different
life, and that we shall reach that life by a process
which perhaps is not more incomprehensible or sur-
prising than the transformation of a caterpillar into a
butterfly, or of a grub into a cockchafer. The scene of
this existence for the painter-butterfly could be one of
the innumerable stars which, when we are dead, might
perhaps be as accessible to us as are the black spots
67
that in this terrestrial life represent the cities and
towns on our maps.
Science ! Scientific reasoning seems to me to be a
weapon which with time will develop in quite an un-
suspected manner; in the old days, for instance, the
world was supposed to be flat. This was perfectly
right too. It is still flat between Paris and Asnieres.
This, however, does not alter the fact that science
proves the earth to be round — a fact no one any
longer disputes. Now, in the same way, it is assumed
that human life is flat and that it leads from birth to
death. Probably, however, life also is round, and
much vaster in its extent and its capacities than we
have suspected heretofore. Later generations will
probably enlighten us concerning this interesting
problem, and then possibly science might — with all
due respect to her — come almost to the same con-
clusions as those which Christ summed up in his
doctrine concerning the other half of life. However
this may be, the fact remains that we painters are
living in the midst of reality, and that we should
breathe our spirit into our creations as long as we
ourselves continue to breathe. [14]
Oh, what a beautiful picture that is of Eugene
Delacroix — " Christ on the Lake of Gennesaret ! " He,
with his pale yellow halo — asleep and luminous,
bathed in a glow of dramatic violet, dark blue, reddish
blue — and the group of frightened disciples upon the
terrible viridian sea, with waves reaching up to the
top of the frame. What a splendid conception!
68
I would make a few sketches for you were it not
for the fact that I have just been busy with a model
for three days — drawing and painting a Zouave — and
simply cannot do anything more. Writing, on the
other hand, rests and distracts me. What I have done
is hideous; a drawing of the Zouave sitting; then an
oil sketch of him against a perfectly white wall ; and
then a portrait of him against a green door and a few
yellow bricks of a wall — it is all hard, ugly, and badly
done. Albeit, as I tackled real difficulties in its pro-
duction, it may pave the way into the future. Any
figure that I paint is generally dreadful even in my
own eyes, how much more hideous it must be there-
fore in other people's ! And yet one derives most
experience from the study of the figure, when one sets
about it in a manner that is different from that which
M. Benjamin Constant used to teach us, for instance.
I say, do you remember Puvis de Chavannes' "John
the Baptist"? I think it is simply wonderful and just
as magic as Eugene Delacroix' work.
My brother-in-law is at present holding an exhibi-
tion of Claude Monet's work— ten pictures painted at
Antibes between February and May. It appears that
it is extraordinarily beautiful. Have you ever read the
life of Luther? It is necessary to do this in order to be
able to understand Cranach, Holbein and Dtirer. He
and his powerful personality are the high light of the
Renaissance. If ever we happened to be in the Louvre
together I should very much like to see the Primitives
with you. At the Louvre my greatest love is, of
course, the Dutch school, Rembrandt above all, whom
I studied so much in the past. Then Potter. Upon a
surface from about four to six metres he gives you a
white stallion, neighing passionately and desperately,
with a dark and stormy sky above it, and the animal
sadly isolated upon a pale green infinity of moist
meadow land. Altogether there are glories to be found
in these Dutchmen, which can be compared with
nothing else.
70
To-day I am sending you one or two sketches
painted from oil studies. In this way you will be-
come acquainted with themes drawn from the nature
which inspired old Cezanne. For the Crau near Aix
is much the same as the country in the neighbourhood
of Tarascon and the Crau of this district. Camargue
is even simpler still, for there vast stretches of waste
ground are covered with nothing but tamarind bushes
and stiff grasses, which bear the same relation to these
lean meadows as alfa grass does to the desert.
As I know how very fond you are of Cezanne, I
thought that these sketches from Provence would
please you. Not because there is any trace of re-
semblance between my drawings and Cezanne's — God
forbid that I should mean that — any more than there
is between Monticelli and myself; but I passionately
love the same country as they loved so much, and for
the same reasons — the colouring and the definite
drawing.
When I used the word " collaboration " some time
ago I did not mean that two or three painters should
work at the same picture, but that they should each
produce different works which nevertheless should
belong to and complete one another. Look at the
early Italians, the German Primitives, the Dutch
School, and the later Italians — do not all their works
together quite involuntarily constitute a group, a
series ?
As a matter of fact, the Impressionists also con-
stitute a group, despite all their wretched domestic
warfare, in which both sides, with an enthusiasm
worthy of a better cause, endeavour to eat each other
up. In our northern school Rembrandt is lord and
master, for his influence is felt by every one who ap-
proaches him. For instance, we find Paul Potter
painting animals at rut, and passionate, in storm,
sunshine, and the melancholy of autumn ; while this
same Potter, before he knew Rembrandt, was dry
and feeble.
Rembrandt and Potter are two men who are as
closely related as brothers, and even if Rembrandt
never put a brush stroke on Potter's pictures, Potter
and Ruysdael nevertheless have to thank him for all
the best qualities their work possesses — that intan-
gible something which thrills us to the core when
we succeed in recognizing a corner of old Holland
a tracers leur temperament.
Besides, the material difficulties of the painter's life
render something in the way of collaboration and
combination between artists a very desirable thing
(such as existed at the time of the St. Luke Guilds ) ; *
for if only they would appreciate each other as good
comrades instead of being always at logger-heads,
they might considerably alleviate one another's diffi-
1 In the Middle Ages these were corporations consisting of all
people engaged in the writing and general production of books,
as at Antwerp, for instance. These guilds, which in other places,
as at Bruges, were also called St. John Guilds, were often joined
by the first printers, until their numbers in any particular town
allowed them to form a guild of their own. — Tr.
72
culties. Painters would then be happier, and, in any
case, less ridiculous, foolish and vile. But — I don't
wish to insist on this point — I know well enough at
what a frantic pace life travels nowadays, and that
one has not the time to discuss things and to act as
well. And that is why, in view of the remoteness of
any possible artistic association, we painters are now
in mid-sea, and are sailing alone in our wretched little
craft, on the great billows of our age. Is it an age of
development [15] or of decay? We cannot judge of
this; for we are too closely connected with it to be
able to avoid being led astray by the distortions of
perspective. Contemporary events probably assume
exaggerated proportions in our eyes, whether they be
to our advantage or disadvantage.
I have had another very busy day to-day. I wonder
what you would say about my present work? In any
case you would seek in it in vain for Cezanne's con-
scientious and almost timid brush stroke. As, how-
ever, I am painting the same stretch of country, La
Crau and La Camargue, although from a somewhat
different standpoint, you might after all find some of
my colouring reminiscent of his work. How do I
know? At times I have thought involuntarily of
Cezanne, when I happened to recall his clumsy brush-
strokes (excuse the word " clumsy ") in many a study
which, probably, he painted in a strong north wind.
73
As half the time I have to contend with the same
difficulties, I can understand how it is that Cezanne's
brush-stroke is sometimes firm and steady, and at
other times clumsy — his easel shook. Once or twice
I have worked at a mad speed ; if it is wrong to do so,
I cannot help it. For instance, I painted " The Sum-
mer Evening," on a canvas about 35 in. by 35 in. l at
one sitting. Could I work on it again? — Impossible!
Why should I spoil it? — more particularly as I set
out to paint it in the midst of a strong north wind.
Are we not much more keenly in search of strength
of conception than of sober brush-work, and, after all,
is it always possible to work in a quiet and perfectly
regular manner when painting a study which is a first
impression, on the spot itself, and from nature?
Ton my soul, this would seem to me just as im-
possible as in fencing. [16]
If only painters could unite in order to collaborate
in the production of great things ! The art of the
future might then give us examples of their work.
For the execution of their pictures, painters would
then have to collaborate, in order to be able to bear
the material difficulties. Unfortunately, however, we
are not so far advanced, things do not go so fast with
the fine arts as with literature. To-day, like yester-
day, I am writing to you in great haste, and quite
exhausted with work. For the moment I do not feel
1 The German is "No. 30 Quadrat," which is rendered ap-
proximately by the above. — Tr.
74
equal to making any drawings, my morning in the
fields has worn me out completely. How this southern
sun fatigues one ! I am quite incapable of judging
my own work; I cannot see whether my studies are
good or bad. I have painted seven studies of corn ;
unfortunately, quite against my will, they are only
landscapes. They are all of a yellow tone, and
were executed at a frantic speed, just as the reaper
works silently in the sweltering sun, with only one
thought in his mind — to cut down as much as
possible.
I can well understand that you were a trifle sur-
prised to hear how little I liked the Bible, although I
have often tried to study it more thoroughly. Only
its kernel — Christ — seems to me, from an artistic
point of view, to stand higher than, or at any rate to
be somewhat different from Greek, Indian, Egyptian,
and Persian antiquities, although these also stood on
a very high plane. But, I repeat, this Christ is more
of an artist than all artists — he worked in living spirits
and bodies — he made men instead of statues. When I
think of this I feel a regular beast in the field ; for am
I not a painter? And I admire the bull, the eagle,
and man with such an intense adoration, that it will
certainly prevent me from ever becoming an ambitious
person.
I grow ever more and more convinced that cooking
has something to do with our capacity for thinking
and for painting pictures. I know, for instance, that
if my digestion is upset, my work does not by any
75
means improve. In the south the powers of the senses
are intensified; one's hand is more nimble, one's eyes
are more acute, and one's brain is clearer. All this, of
course, on condition that no dysentery or any other in-
disposition arises to spoil everything and to pull one
down. On this account, I venture to declare, that he
who would fain devote himself to artistic work will
find his capacities increase in the South.
Art is long and life is fleeting, and one must try
with patience to sell one's life as dearly as possible. I
should like to be your age, and, with all I know, to
go to Africa to serve as a soldier there. In order to
work well, one must be well lodged, well fed, and
able to smoke one's pipe and drink one's coffee in
peace. I do not wish to imply that there are not
many other good things; let everyone do as he
pleases ; but my system seems to me better than
many others.
Almost at the same moment as I was dispatching
my studies, Gauguin's and your parcel arrived. I
was overjoyed, my heart became really all aglow
when I saw your two faces. Your portrait, as you
must know, pleased me greatly. But you don't require
to be told that I like everything you do. Before I
came on the scene nobody, perhaps, appreciated your
work as much as I do now. Let me urge you to make
a special study of portrait painting ; work at it as
hard as you can and do not give in ; we must in time
conquer the public by means of the portrait — in my
opinion the future lies there. But do not let us be-
come involved in hypotheses.
I have ruthlessly to destroy a large picture of Christ
with the angel in Gethsemane, and another represent-
ing a poet standing under the starry heavens; for,
although the colour was good in both, the drawing
was not studied in the first place from the model,
which in such cases is essential.
Maybe, my last studies are not impressionistic at
all, but that I cannot help. I paint what I paint, in
complete subjection to nature, and without thinking
of anything else.
I cannot work without models. I do not mean that
I never turn my back boldly upon nature . . . ;[i7]
but I am frightened to death of losing accuracy of
form. Perhaps later on, after ten years of study, I
shall try; but really and truly, I am so devoured by
curiosity for the possible and the actual, that I have
neither the wish nor the courage to seek an ideal
which could arise out of my abstract studies. Others
may be more gifted for the painting of abstract studies,
and you are certainly one of these, as is also Gaugin.
Maybe, I shall be the same, some day, when I am
old; meanwhile I feed on nature. At times I do in-
deed exaggerate or alter a theme ; but I never invent
77
a whole picture — on the contrary, I actually find it at
hand and complete — all I have to do is to extract it
from nature.
My house will seem less empty to me now that I
have these pictures of you both. How glad I should
be to have you here, even this winter ! It is true that
the journey is rather expensive. But could we not
risk the expense and try to recover it by painting? In
the winter it is so difficult to work in the North.
Possibly it is so here, as well; I cannot speak from
experience on this point. I shall have to wait and
see; but the better to understand the Japanese it is
deuced necessary to know the South, where life is led
more in the open air. Besides this, a good many
places here have something mysteriously sublime
and noble about them, which would please you
immensely.
I ought to have sent you some sketches long ago,
in return for those you sent me. But just lately,
during the lovely weather, I have been wholly occupied
by a few canvases about 36 in. by 27^ in. in size,1
which simply exhaust me, and which I intend using
for the decoration of my house.
If your father had a son who sought and found
gold in stones or on the pavement, he would certainly
not think lighty of this talent. Well, in my opinion,
you possess a talent which is, at least, equally valuable.
Your father might deplore the fact that what you found
1 German " No. 30."— Tr.
78
was not brand new and glittering gold, already stamped
like the coin of the realm ; but he would, nevertheless,
collect all your findings and sell them only at a good
price. Well, then, that is what he should do with
your pictures and drawings, which are just as valuable
as marketable commodities as stones or metal ; for to
paint a picture is just as difficult as to find a small or
large diamond. At present the world recognizes the
value of a gold piece, or of a genuine pearl. Unfortu-
nately, however, those who paint pictures and those
who believe in the painting of pictures, are ex-
tremely rare. Still there are a few such people, and
in any case we cannot do better than bide our time
patiently, even though we have to wait a long
while.
The idea of forming a sort of freemasonry among
artists does not please me particularly ; I am a great
enemy of all regulations and institutions, etc. I am
in search of something very different from dogmas,
for they never by any chance set things in order, and
only lead to endless disputes. That is a sign of decay.
As, for the present, a union of painters exists only in
very vague outline why not leave things as they are
at least provisionally? It is much nicer when an
organization of the sort we have in our minds crystal-
lizes all of its own accord. The more things are dis-
cussed, the less will be done. If you wish to take a
part in helping the cause, all you have to do is to
continue working away with me and Gauguin; the
affair is now started ; do not let us say a word more
79
about it. If it is to come it will do so without any
elaborate negotiations, but simply by means of calm
and well-considered action.
I am sending five studies, and must also include
at least two attempts at somewhat more important
pictures — a portrait of myself and a landscape painted
in a most terrible north wind. There are also a study
of a small garden with flowers of all colours, a study
of grey, dusty coal, and finally another still life, " A
Pair of Peasant's Shoes," and a little landscape, a
trifle, just a small stretch of country.
In the event of these studies not meeting with any
appreciation, and one or the other of our friends not
being able to take a fancy to any of them, please keep
those that are liked and return the others together
with the pictures sent in exchange for those that are
retained.
There is no hurry, and when business is done by
barter, it is but right and proper for both sides to
try and offer only good work.
If in the morning it is sufficiently dry to be rolled
up, I shall also send you a landscape containing
figures unloading sand, and in addition to that the
rough sketch of a picture which is full of a mature will.
80
What about the gentleman so diligently engaged
in art whom I found in your last letter, and who
looked so like me — was he supposed to be me or some-
body else? As far as the face is concerned he looks
very like me ; but in the first place I always smoke a
pipe, and then I positively dread sitting on a thin
ledge of rock overlooking the sea, for I suffer from
giddiness. In the name of these presents I therefore
protest most solemnly against the other resemblances
I have already mentioned. [18]
The decoration of my house is absorbing me entirely,
and I hope and believe that it will be very tasteful even
if it be very different from everything you do.
81 G
That reminds me that on one occasion some time
ago you spoke to me of certain pictures which were
to represent flowers, trees, and fields, respectively.
Now I have the " Poet's Garden " (two canvases), the
" Starry Night," the "Vineyard," the " Furrows," the
44 View from my House," which might also be called
"The Street." As you see, without any intention on
my part, a certain natural sequence seems to connect
them together.
I should be very curious to see sketches of Pont-
Aven ; but you must send me a more finished study.
You are, however, sure to do everything in the best
possible way; for I am so fond of your talent that in
time I shall make quite a little collection of your
works. I have always been very much moved by the
thought that Japanese artists often bartered their
pictures among themselves. That does indeed show
that they loved one another and were united, that 'a
kind of harmony prevailed among them, and that
they lived in brotherly concord instead of in intrigues.
The more we resemble them in these things the more
we shall prosper. It also appears that a few of these
Japanese artists earned very little money and lived
like simple workmen. I have the reproduction of a
Japanese drawing (Bing's publication) representing
a single blade of grass. What a paragon of con-
scientiousness it is 1 I shall show it to you when I get
the chance.
82
What surprised me in your letter were your words :
" Ah, as for painting Gauguin's portrait — that is im-
possible!" Why impossible? That's all nonsense. But
I will not press you further. And has not Gauguin,
for his part, ever thought of painting your portrait?
You are a funny pair of portrait painters, I must say!
You live all day long shoulder to shoulder and cannot
even agree so far as to act as each other's models.
The end of it will be that you will part without having
painted each other's portraits. All right, I will not
urge you any more. But I hope that one day I shall
be able to paint both your portrait and Gauguin's. I
shall do it as soon as we all come together, which is
sure to happen some day.
Whereas the finest plans and calculations so often
come to naught, if only one work on the off chance
and take advantage of the happy accidents the day
brings with it, one can accomplish a host of good and
astonishing things. Make a point of going to Africa
for a while — you will be enraptured with the South,
and it will make you a great artist. Even Gauguin is
greatly indebted to the South for his talent. [19]
For many months now I have been contemplating
the strong sun of the South, and the result of this
experiment is that, in my opinion, and chiefly from
the standpoint of colour, Delacroix and Monticelli,
who are nowt wrongly reckoned among the pure
83
romanticists and the artists with fantastic imaginations,
are entirely justified. Think of it, the South which
Fromentin and Gerome have depicted so^dryly, is even
in these parts a land the intimate charm of which can
be rendered only with the colours of the colourist.
In my sketch of " The Garden," there may be some-
thing like Des tapis velus — de fleurs et verdure tissus.
I wished to reply to all your quotations with the pen,
even if I dispensed with words. My head does not
feel very much like discussing to-day; I am head over
ears in work. I have just done two large pen-drawings,
for instance, a bird's-eye view of an endless plain seen
from the top of a hill : vineyards, and fields of stubble
reaching to infinity, and extending like the surface of
the sea to the horizon, which is bounded by the hills
of La Crau. It does not look Japanese, and yet, truth
to tell, I have never painted anything so essentially
Japanese. A tiny figure of a labourer and a small
train running through the cornfields, constitute the
only signs of life in the picture. Think of it! on one
of my first days at this place, a painter friend of mine
said to me: " It would be absurdly tedious to paint
that! " I did not attempt to answer, but thought the
spot so beautiful that I could not even summon the
strength to upbraid the idiot. I returned to the locality
again and again, and made two drawings of it — this flat
stretch of country which contains nothing save infinity,
eternity. And then, while I was drawing, a man
walked up to me — not a painter this time, but a
soldier. " Does it surprise you," I asked him, " that
I should think this as beautiful as the sea?" " No, it
does not surprise me in the least that you should think
this as beautiful as the sea," came the reply (the fellow
knew the sea, by-the-bye); " for I think it even more
beautiful than the ocean, because it is inhabited."
Which of the two men understood the most about
art, the painter or the soldier? According to my way
of thinking, the soldier did ; am I not right?
I want to paint humanity, humanity and again
humanity.
I love nothing better than this series of bipeds, from
the smallest baby in long clothes to Socrates, from
the woman with black hair and a white skin to the
one with golden hair and a brick-red sun-burnt face.
Meanwhile I am painting other things.
But among my studies I have one of a figure which
is a perfect continuation of my Dutch pictures. On
one occasion I showed these to you, together with
various other pictures of my Dutch days, the * ' Potato-
Eaters," etc., and I should like you to see these as well.
They are all studies in which colour plays such an im-
portant part that the black and white of a drawing could
not give you any idea of them. I had actually thought
of sending you a very large and careful drawing of
85
the one in question. But, however accurate it might
be, it would result in something totally different; for
colour is the only thing that can suggest the effect of
the hot parched air of a midsummer's day at noon, in
the midst of harvest-making ; and if this effect is lack-
ing, the whole picture is altered. You and Gauguin
know what a peasant is, and how much of the beast
must lie in his constitution if he belong to the right
race.
Oh, how the gorgeous sunlight gets to one's head
here in the country! I do not doubt but what it can
drive a man a little crazy. As, however, I was already
a little inclined that way, now I have only the enjoy-
ment of it.
I am thinking of decorating my studio with half a
dozen sunflowers. It will be a decorative effect in
which the glaring or broken tones of chromes will
stand out vividly against a background of variegated
blue, ranging from the most delicate emerald green to
royal blue, enclosed in narrow strips of golden yellow.
It will produce the sort of effect that Gothic church-
windows do.
Oh we crazy-pates! What joys our eyes give us —
don't they? Nevertheless nature takes her revenge on
the animal in us, and our bodies are pitiable, and often
a terrible burden. This has been so ever since the time
of Giotto, who was a sickly sort of man. But what a
delightful sight and what amusement we get from the
toothless laughter of that old lion, Rembrandt, with a
cloth round his head and his palette in his hand.
86
FURTHER LETTERS TO HIS
BROTHER
r I ""HE city of Paris does not pay. It would break
J_ my heart to see Seurat's pictures buried in a
provincial museum or in a cellar; they ought to
remain in living hands. If T. were only willing! . . .
If the three permanent exhibitions are established
an important work of Seurat's will be required for
each of the following places — Paris, London and
Marseilles.
How kind it is of you to promise G. and myself to
make the realization of the projected union a possible
thing! I have just received a letter from B., who for
the last few days has been on a visit to G., L., and
another man in Pont-Aven. In this letter, which, by-
the-bye, is very friendly in tone, there is not a single
word about G.'s having the intention of joining me
here, nor is there any hint that they are expecting me
there. Nevertheless the letter is a very friendly one.
I have not received a line from G. himself for a month.
I really believe that G. prefers to come to an under-
standing with his friends in the North, and if hehave the
87
good fortune to sell one or more pictures, he will pro-
bably no longer wish to join me here.
Whether G. comes or not is his affair ; for, provided
that we are ready to receive him, and that his bed and
his quarters are prepared, we shall have kept our
promise. I insist upon this, because, in so doing, my
object is to release myself and a friend from the evil
that thrives on our work, and that is the necessity of
living in expensive hotels without our deriving any
advantage from the arrangement — which is sheer mad-
ness. The hope of being able to live without money
troubles, and of one day escaping from these eternal
straits — what a foolish illusion this is ! I should con-
sider myself lucky to be able to work even for an
annuity which would only just cover bare necessaries,
and to be at peace in my own studio for the rest of my
life.
Now it is definitely decided that I shall not go to
Pont-Aven if I have to live in an hotel with these
Englishmen and men of the Ecole des Beaux Arts,
with whom one has to argue every evening — much
ado about nothing!
This morning I was working at an orchard gay
with plum-blossom, when suddenly there came a gust
of wind and with it a peculiar effect which hitherto I
had not observed in these parts, and which recurred
from time to time. Now and again a shaft of sunlight
would pierce the clouds and set all the little white
blooms aglow — it was too beautiful for words! My
friend the Dane joined me, and, at the risk of seeing
88
all my paraphernalia fall to the ground at every gust
of wind, I continued to paint. In this white light, there
is a good deal of yellow, blue and mauve ; the sky is
white and blue. But what will people say of the
execution when one works in the open air in this way?
Afterwards I thoroughly regretted not having ordered
my colours at dear old Tanguy's ; not that I should
have gained anything, but he is such a comical little
body ! I often think of him. Do not forget to remem-
ber me to him when you see him, and tell him that if
he would like some pictures for his shop-window, he
can have some — and of the best.
Oh dear! It seems ever more and more clear to me
that mankind is the root of all life. And even if the
feeling that one has no share in real life remains
a melancholy one (for it would surely be preferable to
deal with living flesh and blood than with colour and
clay, and one would sooner beget children than work
at art or at the commerce of art), one feels notwith-
standing that one does at least live, for among one's
friends are there not numbers who also have no share
in real life? We should try to do the same with busi-
ness matters as with the human heart — that is to say,
acquire or revive friendships [20]. As we no longer
have anything to fear in regard to the ultimate fate of
Impressionism, and as our victory is assured, we
should behave decently and settle everything with
calmness.
89
I cannot help thinking of Marat as the equivalent
of Xanthippe in a moral sense (even though he be
more powerful). That woman with the embittered
heart remains, in spite of all, a stirring figure.
You were right to order from the colourman's the
geranium lake which I have just received. All the
colours that Impressionism has brought into fashion,
are rather prone to lose some of their strength. That
is why they should be laid on boldly and glaringly ;
for time will be sure to deaden them more than
necessary.
Not one of the colours I have ordered : three chromes
(deep, medium and pale), Prussian blue, veridian,
emerald green etc. [21] is to found on the palettes of
the Dutch painters Maris, Mauve and Israels. On
the other hand they were on Delacroix' palette, as he
had a passion for the most prohibited colours — lemon
yellow and Prussian blue ; and with very good reason,
for to my mind he created really magnificent things
with this lemon yellow and blue.
Now I must tell you that I am working at two pic-
tures of which I wished to make copies. The pink
peach tree gives me most trouble.
You observe, from the four squares on the back,
that the three orchards are more or less related. I am
now painting an upright of a small pear-tree, which will
90
be flanked by two landscape-shaped canvases.1 Alto-
gether, then, that will make six pictures of orchards in
blossom, and I hope that there will be three more to
come, also related to each other in character. I should
like to paint this series of nine pictures together. There
is nothing to prevent us from regarding the nine pic-
tures of this year, as the first rough plan of a final and
much larger scheme of decoration which will have to
be carried out at the same time next year, according
to exactly the same themes.
1 The German is : zuuei Bilden in Breitformat. The only Eng-
lish term which appears to be used to designate a picture the
horizon line of which runs parallel to the longest sides of the
canvas, and which is therefore the reverse of an "upright," is
"landscape shape."— TR.
91
My drawings are done with a reed which is cut
after the manner of a goose quill. I am thinking of
doing a series of them, and hope the others will be
better than the first two. That is my method. I had
already tried it in Holland ; but there I had not such
good reeds as I have here.
Do you remember, just before my departure, our
speaking about the Universal Exhibition and the fact
that, in connection with it, Bouguereau, Lefebvre,
Benjamin Constant and the whole set intended going
to Boussod's to make a complaint and to insist upon
the firm B.'s (the first in the world) -unflinchingly
adhering to the principles of the highest and only
desirable art (naturally their own art). And the up-
shot of it is, that we must be very careful ; for it would
be more than sad if you were to quarrel with these
gentlemen. When one is released after having spent
a long time in prison, there are moments in which
one yearns for the walls of one's cell again, simply
because one is no longer quite at* home in a state of
freedom — probably so called owing to the fact that the
exhausting hunt after daily bread does not leave one
a moment of liberty.
But you yourself know all this as well as I do, and
you will have to forsake a good many things in order
to attain to others.
Is it not true that Daumier is hung in the Beaux-Arts
92
and Gavarni as well? Bravo to Daumier, but by no
means to the Beaux-Arts !
I grow ever more and more doubtful about the
legend concerning Monticelli, who is said to have
drunk such great quantities of absinthe. With his
life-work before one, it seems to me impossible that a
man enervated by drink could possibly have produced
such work.
In a day or two you will receive a call from the
Danish painter who has been staying here. He wishes
to see the Salon and then to go back home, perhaps
with the view of coming South again next year. His
three last studies were better and more full of colour
than anything he has done hitherto. I do not know
whether he will ever do anything great, but he is a
nice fellow, and I am sorry he is going. I told him
that a Dutch painter is staying with you, and if K.
would only conduct him up to the Butte Montmartre,
he would probably make a few studies. I have told
him a good deal about the Impressionists, all of whom
he knew by name, and he was also acquainted with
some of their pictures. The question interested him
immensely. He has a letter of introduction to R. He
recovered his health here and now feels uncommonly
well. It will last for two years, and then he will be
wise to come back here for the same reasons of
health.
93
What is the new book like, about Daumier, the
Artist and his Work?
According to what you say, I hope that I will
shortly come to Paris. In the circumstances which
you have mentioned, it would be a real stroke of luck,
now that everything is going to the dogs, and they are
not doing well.
Possibly it would be easier to bring a few picture-
dealers and amateurs to an understanding with the
object of buying impressionist pictures, than to get
the painters to divide among themselves the pro-
ceeds of the pictures sold. And yet the artists could
not do better than to stick together, hand their pic-
tures over to the association and share the proceeds
of the sales, if only for the reason that the society
guarantees the means of work and existence to its
members. Degas, Claude Monet, Renoir, Sisley,
C. Pissaro should take the initiative and say: Each of
us five will give ten pictures (or better still, each of
us will contribute works to the value of 10,000 francs,
which value must be decided by experts — for instance,
by T. and you — whom the society would appoint.
And these experts would also have to invest in pic-
tures). In addition to that we undertake to make a
yearly contribution to the value of so much. And we
invite you all, Seurat, Gauguin and Guillaumin to
join us, and the value of your pictures will be assessed
by the same jury.
By this means the great Impressionists of the Grand
Boulevard would preserve their prestige, and the others
94
would not be able to reproach them with enjoying alone
the advantages of a reputation for which there can be
no doubt they are indebted, in the first place, to their
personal efforts and their individual genius — but which
in the second place is also increased, consolidated and
maintained by a regiment of artists who up to the
present have been in constant straits for money. It is
only to be hoped that something will come of it all,
and that T. and you will be chosen as experts (together
with Portier perhaps). You, too, must surely be of the
opinion that if T. and you join together you could
persuade both Boussod and Valadon to grant credit
for the necessary purchases. But the matter is press-
ing, otherwise other dealers will cut the grass from
under your feet.
There are several themes here which have exactly
the same character as in Holland : the only difference
lies in the colour. Everywhere a cadium yellow, pro-
duced by the burning sun, and in addition a green
and blue of such extraordinary intensity! I must say
that the few landscapes by Cezanne which I happen
to have seen, give an excellent idea of it ; but it is a
pity I have not seen more of them.
95
I think you are quite right to take the " Books " to
the " Independents " also; you ought to call this
study " Paris Novels."
I should be so glad if you could succeed in convinc-
ing T. ! But only have patience ! Every day I think of
this artists' union, and the plan has developed further
in my mind ; but T. ought really to belong to it, and
much depends upon that. For the moment the artists
might possibly be convinced by us ; but we can pro-
ceed no further without T.'s help. Without him we
should have to listen to every one's complaint from
morning till night; and then every member would
come singly to ask for explanations concerning the
rules [22].
I think that, on the whole, I live like a workman
here and not like an effeminate foreigner who is
travelling for pleasure ; and I should show no strength
of will at all if I allowed myself to be taken advantage
of as he does. I am beginning to set up a studio
which will be able to serve the purpose of local
painters or of friends who come this way.
I believe that you will soon make a friend of my
Dane. It is true that he has not yet done anything
good; but he is clever and his heart is in the right
place, and he has probably begun to paint only quite
recently. Do please avail yourself of a Sunday to
make his acquaintance.
96
Do you know G.'s expression when he compresses
his lips and says " no women?" That would make a
fine Degas head. It cannot, however, be gainsaid;
for to spend one's whole day at mental work, reckon-
ing and meditating and thinking over business, is in
itself enough for the nerves.
In the midst of an artistic life there arises again and
again the yearning for real life, which remains an un-
realizable ideal. And often enough the desire to devote
one's self completely to art, with ever fresher strength,
entirely disappears. One feels exactly like an old cab
horse, and one knows that one must always return to
the same old shafts when all the while one would so
love to live in the fields, in the sun, near the river, in
the country, with other horses, also free, and have the
right to procreate one's kind. And I should not be at
all surprised if this were whence the heart trouble
comes. One offers no resistance, neither does one re-
sign one's self; the fact is, one is ill; the thing will
not go away of its own accord, and yet there is no
remedy for it. I really do not know who called the
state "a case of death and immortality."
The cart one draws must be useful to people whom
one does not know. If we believe in the new art, and
97 H
in the artists of the future, our presentiment does not
deceive us. Shortly before his death good old father
Corot said: " Last night in my dream I saw land-
scapes with pink-coloured skies." And, as a matter
of fact, are not pink and even yellow and green skies
to be found among impressionist landscapes? This is
only to show how many things of whose coming one
has a presentiment, actually do come to pass in the
future. We do not, however, yet stand on the edge
of the grave, and we feel that art is greater and longer
than our lives. We do not feel moribund, but of
little account; and in order to be a link in the chain
of artists we pay a heavy price in youth, health, and
freedom. And we no more enjoy the latter than the
poor cab-horse does, that has to convey people, who
wish to enjoy the spring, out into the open country.
That hope of Puvis de Chavannes' should and must
be realized : there is an art of the future, and it must
be so beautiful and so young that even if we now
sacrifice our own youth to it, we must make up our
loss in the joy of living and in peace. [23]
I do not see the future black, but full of difficulties,
and often I ask myself whether these will not prove
stronger than I. This thought occurs chiefly in times
of physical weakness, as for instance, during the week
when I suffered so infernally with toothache that I
was forced to waste time. Nevertheless I have just
dispatched a roll of small pen-and-ink-drawings to
you — I think about a dozen — and from these you will
be able to see that even if I have ceased from painting,
I have not given up work. Among them you will
find a rapid sketch on yellow paper ; a stretch of grass
on the open space at the entrance of the town, and in
the background a house, of which I have rented the
right wing (four rooms, or rather two rooms and two
little closets). The house is painted yellow outside
and whitewashed within. It stands right in the sun
and I have taken it at a rental of fifteen francs a
month.
If our hopes do not prove false — which I am con-
vinced they will not — and the impressionist pictures
rise in price, we ought to paint a large number and
avoid selling them too cheaply. This is one more
reason for being careful of the quality and for losing
no time. Then in a few years I see the possibility of
holding the disbursed capital, if not in money, in any
case in treasure, in our own hands.
I am convinced that in this place nature seems to
have been made for the very purpose of being painted
chromatically, and that is why the chances of my ever
being led away from the spot, grow fewer every day.
*
99
Raffaelli has painted Edmond de Goncourt's por-
trait ; it must be very beautiful, is it not?
The studio is in such a prominent position here
that I do not think my establishment is likely to attract
any female ; and an affair with a petticoat might too
easily lead to a binding relationship. Moreover, it
seems to me as if the morality here were far more
human and natural than in Paris. But with my tem-
perament it would be impossible to lead a loose life
and to work as well, and circumstances being as they
are, one must be content to paint pictures, which is by
no means real happiness or real life. But, after all,
even the artistic life, though we know it is artificial,
seems to me so vigorous and vital, that we should be
ungrateful not to be satisfied with it.
I shall hang a few Japanese knick-knacks on my
walls.
At Claude Monet's you will see some beautiful
things, and what I am sending you will appear bad
beside them. I am dissatisfied with myself and with
my work ; but I see the possibility of doing better in
IOO
the future. Later on, I hope that other artists will
appear in this beautiful land, who will create an art
like that which the Japanese have created in their own
country; and to pave the way to this is not so bad
after all.
I feel certain that I shall always love the scenery of
this place. It is like Japanese art, once it has found a
place in one's heart one can never cast it out. [24]
The other day I received a visit from M. K., R.'s
friend, who, by the by, came back last Sunday. I
must really call on him one day, and look at his
work; for I have not yet seen anything he has done.
He is a Yankee who probably does better work than
mostof his countrymen ; but in spite of it all — a Yankee !
Does that not cover everything? I shall be able to
judge of his capacities only when I have seen his
pictures and drawings.
It seems to me as if Messrs. B. and V. cared nothing
for the good opinion of artists. But, to be quite open,
I thought the news was bad, and I could not help
breaking into a cold sweat on hearing of it. I have
been thinking about it ever since; for this conversa-
tion with the said gentlemen is to a certain extent a
symptom of the fact that Impressionism has not taken
deep enough root.
101
As for me, I immediately stopped painting pictures,
and continued work upon a series of pen-drawings;
for, I said to myself, a breach with these gentlemen
might make a reduction in my expenses a desirable
thing from your point of view. I am not so very
much attached to my pictures, and will drop them
without a murmur ; for, luckily, I do not belong to
those who, in the matter of works of art, can ap-
preciate only pictures. As I believe, on the contrary,
that a work of art may be produced at much less
expense, I have begun a series of pen-drawings.
The people here take too much advantage of the
fact that with my canvases I need a little more room
than other customers, who do not happen to be
painters, and they improve the occasion by extorting
exorbitant payments from me ..... It is always a
nuisance to have to cart all one's materials and pic-
tures about with one, and it considerably impedes
one's movements.
Very often I am obsessed by the discomfiting feel-
ing that we are both being duped by Messrs. B. V.
and Co. But I try to quell this feeling. [25] Above
all, do not let them make you their dupe. . . . This is
enough for to-day.
IO2
Do you know what I think, on the whole, of the
women of Aries, and of their much vaunted beauty?
They are certainly very attractive ; but they are surely
no longer what they must have been. And as their
race is degenerating they are now much more like
a Mignard than a Mantegna. Nevertheless they are
beautiful (I here refer only to the Roman type, which
is somewhat monotonous and trivial) and by way of
exception there are women like those whom Renoir
and Fragonard paint, and some who cannot be classi-
fied according to any school of painting of the past.
Taking all these facts into consideration the best thing
to do here would be to paint portraits of women and
children. But — I do not feel that this is my allotted
task — I am not enough of a " Bel-Ami " for the work.
But I should be mightily glad if this Bel-Ami of the
South (Monticelli was not the man, although he pre-
pared the way for him, and I feel that he is in the air,
even if I myself am not the man) — I should be mightily
glad, I say, if an artist could be born among painters,
such as Guy de Maupassant was among writers, who
could joyfully paint the beautiful people and things
which are to be found here. As for me, I shall go on
working, and now and again I shall paint something
lasting. But who is going to paint men as Claude
Monet painted landscapes? Be] this as it may, you
must feel the same as I do about it — it is in the air.
Rodin ? He is no colourist. He is not the painter
of the future. For the painter of the future will have
to be a colourist such as has never yet been seen.
103
Manet prepared the way for him ; but you know that
the Impressionists have already shown themselves
even stronger than Manet in their colour. I cannot
imagine this painter of the future leading the life I
lead. He would not have to go to small restaurants,
wear false teeth and visit third-rate cafes frequented
by Zouaves. [26] But I have a feeling that all this
will come in a later generation. And we must do all
we possibly can to promote its advent, without doubt-
ing or flinching.
I have just read Zola's " Au Bonheur des Dames"
again ; and it seems to me more beautiful every time.
I am writing to you again to-day, because, when I
wanted to pay my bill at my hotel, I again discovered
that I had been robbed. I suggested an arrangement
which, however, has not been accepted, and when I
wished to remove my things they refused to allow me
to do so. " Very well," I said, " we shall discuss the
matter before the Justice of the Peace " (where I shall
probably be declared in the wrong). Now I must
retain enough money to be able to pay in the event
of my being held to be wrong — 67 '40 francs instead of
40 francs, which is the sum I owe. A thing that often
makes me feel sad is that living is dearer here than I
had reckoned, and that I cannot manage to subsist on
the same amount as our friends in Brittany. But now
that I am feeling better I refuse to think that I am
104
defeated. After all, you have not yet seen any of my
work here, and I have already spent a good deal of
money. I am therefore sending you a case containing
all the work I have done, with the exception of one or
two studies which I had to destroy. I have not signed
them all ; a dozen of them are off their stretchers, and
fourteen of them are still stretched. One is a little
landscape with a white, red and green cottage, and
a cypress. You have the drawing of that one, and I
painted it all in my studio. It will show you that if
you like I can paint you small pictures, after the
manner of crape prints,1 from all my drawings.
Meanwhile I must pay my hotel bill, but there is a
note upon it to the effect that the payment is being
made only in order that I may recover possession of
my things, and that the exorbitant charges will be
laid before the Justice of the Peace. But with all this
I have scarcely a halfpenny left. It is very annoying,
for this business interferes considerably with my work,
and it is very beautiful out of doors just now.
Strangers are bled in these parts; on the other hand
the natives are quite justified in regarding them as fair
game and in extorting as much as possible from them.
But it is discouraging to work hard and to see how
the money pours into the pockets of people one abhors.
But we must put a stop to it. I am going to set up a
1 See note on p. 40.
105
l\ « « 1
studio here which is to be more than a temporary
affair, and in which, if necessary, I shall be able to ac-
commodate another painter. It is cheaper to live right
in the heart of the country, like M. K., but he is ex-
ceedingly lonely, and up to the present has done very
little work. In that case it is better to work hard and
to pay more, if there is no other way out of it.
If you will lay aside the best pictures in the batch
I have sent you and regard them as in part" payment
of my debt to you, on the day when I shall have sent
you 10,000 francs in pictures, I shall feel much more
at ease. The money already spent during former
years must return our way, at least in the form of
articles of value. It is true that I am still very far
from having achieved all that is necessary ; but I feel
that in the midst of the beautiful scenery here, every-
106
thing is at hand to make me do good work. It will
only be my fault, therefore, if I do not succeed. You
once told me that in the space of one month Mauve
had painted and sold 6000 francs' worth of water-
colours. So such strokes of luck are possible, and in
spite of all my monetary troubles I do not see why
they should not happen to me.
In the batch I am sending you there are the " Pink
Orchard," painted on coarse canvas, the " White
Orchard" (landscape shape);1 and the " Bridge." I
am of opinion that these pictures will rise in value
later on. And fifty or so pictures like these would
compensate us for the small amount of luck we have
had hitherto. Take these three pictures for your col-
lection and do not sell them ; for later on each one of
them will certainly fetch 500 francs. I shall begin to
breathe freely only when we have collected fifty such
pictures.
Just a few lines to tell you that I have called upon
the gentleman whom the Jew in " Tartarin " called
the "Zouge de paix." I have, at least, saved twelve
francs, and my landlord was reprimanded for having
detained my box despite the fact that I had not refused
to pay. It would have been very disastrous for me if
the other party had won his case, for he would cer-
tainly have told everybody that I could not, or would
1 See note on p. 91.
107
not, pay, and that he was compelled to detain my
box. As it was, however, when we were walking out
of the place together, he said to me that the whole
thing had happened in a moment of anger, and that
he had no intention of offending me. Of course this
was precisely what his object had been, for he had
probably seen that I had had enough of his place and
did not wish under any circumstances to remain a day
longer in it. In order to obtain the reduction which
was actually due to me I ought probably to have
claimed very much more. You can well understand
that if I were to allow anybody and everybody to do
as they pleased with me, I should soon be robbed of
my last farthing. [27]
TO E. BERNARD.
MY brother wrote to me the other day saying that
you intended coming here to have a look at my
pictures. From this I gather that you are back, and
I am very glad that you should have thought of
coming down here to see what I have done. I, for my
part, am very keen to see what you have brought
back from Pont-Aven. My head is not in a fit state
for writing, but I feel so out of it because I have not
the least idea what you, Gauguin and the others are
doing. I must, however, be patient. I still have
about a dozen studies here, which are possibly more
108
to your taste than the others painted in the summer,
which my brother must have shown you. Among
these studies there is one of an entrance to a quarry :
light mauve-coloured rocks on a ruddy soil, such as
one very often sees in Japanese drawings. In regard
to the drawing and the division of the colours over
large surfaces, it bears some relation to your things
from Pont-Aven. In these last pictures I show more
self-mastery, because while painting I felt much
stronger. For instance, there is a canvas about 36 in.
by 27^ in. among them of a ploughed field painted in
a broken mauve tone, with a background of hills
which reach right up to the edge of the frame. Thus
it contains nothing save rough ground and rocks with
a thistle and dry grasses in one corner; by way of a
figure there is a little violet and yellow man. I trust
that this will prove to you that I am not yet effete.
Heavens ! what a miserable little stretch of country
this is! It is all very difficult to render, especially if
one wishes to bring out its intimate character, and
make it not merely approximately right, but the
genuine soil of La Provence. To accomplish this one
must work hard, for the qualities to be seized are
naturally a little abstract. It is a matter, for instance,
of giving the sun and the sky their proper strength,
and the scorched and melancholy soil its glow and
its subtle scent of thyme.
109
The olive trees here are really just what you would
like. I have not been lucky with them this year; but
I have quite resolved to tackle them again. They are
fine silver on orange-coloured or violet-blue ground,
beneath the broad blue heavens. I have seen olive
trees by certain painters, and by myself as well, which
do not give this effect at all. This silver grey is pure
Corot, and what is still more important, it has not
been painted yet; whereas various artists have already
been successful with apple-trees and willows. There
are also relatively few pictures of vineyards, which are
nevertheless so variegated in their beauty. There is
quite enough here to keep me busy.
By-the-bye, there is something which I am very
sorry not to have seen at the exhibition — a series of
dwellings from all lands, organized I believe by
Gamier. Do you think you could give me an idea, or
better still, a coloured sketch of a primitive Egyptian
house, for you surely must have seen the exhibition.
It must be quite simple: a rectangular block on a sort
of terrace; but I would give anything to know the
colour. I read in a certain article that it was blue,
red, and yellow. Did you notice this? Please do not
forget to give me details about it. ... I for my part
know nothing more delightful in the way of architec-
ture than the peasant's cottage, with its moss-clad
thatched roof and its smoke-blackened hearth. As
you see, I am very exacting. In an illustrated work I
saw a sketch of some old Mexican houses which also
seemed to me very primitive and beautiful. Oh, if
no
one could only know all about those times, and could
paint the people that lived in those houses, the result
might be pictures as beautiful as Millet's. After all,
everything we really know for certain, at present, is to
be found in Millet, not perhaps in the colour, but in
the character, in the content — that is to say, in some-
thing which is animated by a strong faith. . . .
I trust you will have another look at my pictures
when I send my autumn studies in November; if
possible, let me know what you have brought with
you from Brittany ; for I am anxious to know which
of your works you yourself think the most highly of.
And then I shall quickly reply.
I am at work on a big picture, a quarry. As a
matter of fact it is exactly the same theme as that
study which I have of yours with the yellow tree. It
in
represents the lower portions of two mighty rocks,
with a little spring of water running between them,
and in the background there is a third mass of rock
which closes in the quarry. Such themes are seduc-
tively melancholy, and it is so amusing to paint in
thoroughly wild scenes where one has to fix one's
easel deep down in the stones to prevent the wind
from blowing everything over.
1890.
When Gaugin was at Aries I allowed myself, as
you know, to be led into working from imagination,
and I painted a woman in black reading a novel. At
that time I thought that working from imagination
was very delightful. But, my dear friend, it is an
enchanted land, and suddenly one finds oneself con-
fronted with an insurmountable wall. Maybe after a
life spent in manly effort and endeavour, and after a
hard struggle shoulder to shoulder with nature, one
might venture to try it ; but for the present I shall
not crack my brains over it, and I have slaved all the
year round painting from nature, and thinking neither
of impressionism nor anything else. And yet, in
spite of it all, I let myself go again, but it only
resulted in another failure, and I have had enough
of it. For the time being, therefore, I am working at
the olive trees, and trying to seize the various effects
of the gray sky over the yellow ground, together with
112
the black and green note of the foliage, or of the deep
violet ground and foliage against a yellow sky, or
again, of the yellow-red ground against a pale green
and pink sky. After all, these things interest me more
than the abstractions referred to above. If I have not
written for so long, it is because I had no wish to
enter into any discussion, and scented a danger in all
this reflection, inasmuch as I must guard against my
illness and keep my head calm. By dint of quiet and
steady work, the subjects will come of their own
accord. The chief thing is to strengthen one's self
entirely through reality, without any pre-conceived
plan and without any watchword hailing from Paris.
By-the-bye, I am very dissatisfied with this year's
work ; maybe, however, it will prove a sound founda-
tion for what is to come. I have allowed myself to be
completely saturated with the air of the hills and of
the orchards ; time will show what this has done for
me. The whole of my ambition is at present concen-
trated upon a little handful of earth, sprouting corn,
an olive garden, a cypress (the latter, by the way, not
easy to paint).
Here is the description of a picture which now lies
before me (a view in the park belonging to the Hospital
for Nervous Diseases of which I am now an inmate) :
to the right, a grey terrace, a piece of wall and a few
faded rose-trees, to the left the park ground (English red)
the soil of which is scorched by the sun and covered
with pine-needles. The edge of the park is planted
with tall pine-trees, the trunks and branches of which
113 i
are English red, and the green of which is all the
more vivid for having a touch of black. These trees
stand out against the evening sky, the yellow ground
of which is streaked with violet stripes. Higher up the
yellow shades off into pink and then into green. A
low wall, also English red, obstructs the view and is
overtowered only at one spot by a little violet and
yellow-ochre hill. The first tree has a gigantic trunk
which has been struck and split by lightning; one side
branch alone still projects high up into the air, and
lets showers of dark green needles fall down. This
gloomy giant — a vanquished hero — which one can
regard as a living being, is a strange contrast to the
pale smile of a belated rose that is fading away on a
rose bush right opposite. Under the pines there are
some lovely stone seats and dark box-trees. The sky
produces yellow reflections — after a shower — in a pool
of water. In a ray of sunshine — the last reflection —
the dark yellow ochre is intensified to a glowing
orange. Dark figures steal in and out between the tree
trunks. You can well imagine that this combination
of red ochre, of green bedimmed with grey, and of
black lines, defining the forms, may help to call forth
that feeling of fright which often seizes many of my
fellow-sufferers. And the theme of the great tree struck
by lightning, and the sickly smile of that last autumn
bloom in green and pink, enhanced this effect. An-
other picture represents a sunrise over a field of young
corn, the converging lines of the furrows rise in the
picture as far as a wall and a row of mauve-coloured
114
hills — the field is violet and yellow-green. The glaring
white sun is encircled by a large yellow halo. In this
picture, I tried, as a contrast to the other, to express
repose and perfect peace. I have described these two
pictures to you, in order to show you that one can
give the impression of fear, without going direct to
the historical Gethsemane, and that one can paint a
comforting and gentle subject without depicting the
chief actors in the Sermon on the Mount. It is un-
questionably a good and proper thing to seek inspira-
tion in the Bible, but modern reality has taken such
possession of us that even if we try to divorce ourselves
from it, in order to revive the old memory of former
days, the incidents of our life tear us from such con-
siderations, and our individual experiences again fill
us with personal sensations of joy, vexation, suffering,
anger or laughter. Heavens! the Bible! Millet was
brought up on it entirely in his childhood, and read
nothing else; and yet he never, or scarcely ever
painted real Biblical subjects.
Corot painted Christ in an olive grove with the
shepherds' star, and it was sublime; in his works one
feels the spirit of Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus and
Sophocles and often of the Gospels; but only dis-
creetly suggested ; for modern sensations, which are
possible and common to us all, always preponderate.
Even if painting be detestable and much too full of
hardships nowadays, he who in spite of all chooses
this craft must on that very account be a man full of
devotion and firmness. Society so often makes our
"5
life very hard indeed, and that is the cause of our
shortcomings and of the imperfection of our work
[28]. ... I suffer very much from having absolutely
no models; but on the other hand there are some
beautiful landscape subjects here.
Have you seen a study of mine of a small reaper, a
yellow cornfield and a golden sun? Although I did
not solve it, I at least attacked the infernal question of
yellow in this picture. I speak of the study painted in
impasto, which I did direct from nature, not from the
copy, which is painted in diagonal brush-strokes and
in which the effect is very much weakened. I wanted
to paint it in pure cadmium [29].
MORE LETTERS TO HIS
BROTHER
DURING the journey I thought just as often of you
as of the new country through which I was travelling,
and I said to myself, that later on you would perhaps
come here frequently. It seems to me almost impos-
sible to work in Paris, if one has not got at least a
haven of refuge, where one can rest and recover one's
calm and one's self-reliance. Otherwise one must be-
come quite stupefied.
116
Before I reached Tarascon I saw a beautiful land-
scape: mighty yellow rocks with remarkably compli-
cated lines and imposing forms ; in the narrow coves
between them there were a number of small round
trees standing in rows, and to judge from their grey-
green foliage they must have been lemon trees.
Here in Aries the ground is a magnificent red colour
and is planted with vineyards. The background of the
hills is of a delicate mauve, and many a stretch of the
country lying under the snow, together with the white
peaks, against a sky as luminous as the snow itself,
looked like the winter landscape of the Japanese.
For the present I do not find living as inexpensive
here as I hoped it would be; but — I have finished
three studies — a feat which would probably have been
impossible in Paris just now.
As for the Impressionists, I should think it right
and proper if they were introduced into England if
not directly through you, at least through your agent.
It seems to me as if my blood were beginning to
circulate a little more actively. As this was not the
case during the latter part of my time in Paris, I
literally could not hold out any longer.
I was hoping to be able to paint a beautiful blue,
and I do not yet despair of doing so; for in Marseilles
one ought surely to be able to obtain the raw materials
first hand. I should like to procure the sort of blue
that Ziem paints, which is stronger and more decided
than that of other painters.
The studies I now have are: " An Old Woman of
117
Aries," " A Snow Landscape," " A Piece of the Street
with a Pork-Butcher's Shop." The women here are
really beautiful. I say this in all sincerity. On the
other hand, the Aries Museum is appalling, and it is
such a piece of humbug that it would be much more
at home in Tarascon. I have also seen a museum of
antiquities — the latter were genuine.
The draft of your letter to T. is perfect. I trust that
in copying it you did not water it down too much. It
seems to me that your letter to T. completes the one I
wrote; as I was very much annoyed at having sent it
in that form. For you must have observed that the
idea of inducing T. to take the initiative in introducing
the Impressionists into England occurred to me only
while writing, so that I was only able to refer to it
inadequately in a postscript. Whereas in your letter
you discuss the question more in detail.
As to the Exhibition of the " Independents," I leave
you an absolutely free hand. What do you say to
exhibiting the two great landscapes of the Butte Mont-
martre? I am more or less indifferent about it; I am
relying more upon this year's work.
Here it is freezing hard and the ground is continu-
ally under snow. I have painted a study of the snow-
118
covered ground with the town in the background. I
have also made two small studies of a branch of an
almond tree, which, despite the wintry weather, is
already blossoming.
At last, after all this time, the weather has changed.
This morning early it became quite mild. I have thus
had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of
the Mistral. I have already taken several walks in the
neighbourhood; but the wind was so strong on each
occasion that it was impossible to paint. The sky was
a vivid blue and the great sun shed such powerful
rays that it melted almost all the snow away. But the
wind was so dry and piercing that it made me have
goose-skin all over. However, I saw some beautiful
things; the ruin of an abbey on a hill, covered with
holly, pines and gray olive trees. I hope to be able to
tackle this very shortly.
For Gauguin — as for many of us, and certainly for
ourselves — the future presents many great difficulties.
I firmly believe that we shall triumph in the end ; but
will the artists themselves ever be able to taste of that
triumph and enjoy happier days? Has T. written to
you? In any case, believe me, your letter will do good.
Even if he does not answer, he will at least hear about
us, etc.
119
Poor Gauguin is unfortunate ; I am afraid that con-
valescence in his case will last longer than the fort-
night he has had to spend in bed. When shall we see
a generation of artists with healthy bodies? At times
I feel really wild with myself; for, after all, it is no
good being either more sick or more sound than the
others; the ideal thing would be to have a tempera-
ment strong enough to reach the age of eighty and to
have healthy blood withal. Still without all this one
would be consoled if only one were sure that a more
happily constituted generation of artists was going to
follow the present one.
I see that you -have not yet had an answer from T.
I do not think it necessary that we should petition
him further by another letter. All the same, in the
event of your having to discuss any matter of business
with him, you might let him feel in a postscript that
you are surprised he has not let you know whether or
not he has received the letter in question.
To refer to my work once more : to-day I painted a
picture on a canvas about 25^ in. by 19 in.1 It repre-
sents a drawbridge across which a small cart is being
drawn, that stands out distinctly against the blue sky.
The river is also blue, the banks are orange, and
there is much green vegetation about them. A group
1 Ger. "No. 15."— Tr.
1 2O
of washerwomen are standing on the bank with corsets
and caps of many colours. I have also painted another
landscape with a small rustic bridge and some more
washerwomen, and in addition to this, a grove of
plane-trees close to the station. Since I have been
here I have painted, in all, twelve studies.
Do you know, dear brother, I feel just as if I were
living in Japan. I will say no more. And this not-
withstanding the fact that I have not yet seen anything
in its accustomed glory. And even if I feel sad about
the expenses being so heavy and the pictures not
121 v
being any good, I do not despair, for I am certain
that my long sojourn in the south will be successful.
Here I see and learn many new things, and if I am
gentle with my body, it will not play me a bad turn.
For many reasons I wish to found a home of refuge
here, which in case of complete exhaustion might
serve the purpose of putting one or two poor Paris
cab-horses like yourself and many of our friends
among the Impressionists, out to grass.
I painted my last three studies with the help of a view-
finder divided into squares [30], which, as you know,
I often use. I attach some importance to it, because I
do not think it unlikely that, sooner or later, more
artists will make use of it, just as the old German,
Italian, and, I believe, the Flemish painters did. The
modern way of using it may differ slightly from the
old way; but is it not exactly the same with oil-paint-
ing? To-day absolutely different effects are aimed at
from those which were sought by J. and H. van Eyck,
the inventors of technique. This is to show you that
I hope always to work independently and for myself
alone. I believe in the absolute necessity of a new art
of colour and drawing, as also of the whole of artistic
life. And if we work with this strong faith, we may
hope that it will not prove to be an illusion.
But what are we hearing from T.? Nothing at all?
If I were you I would write him a few short lines,
122
couched in sober language, in order to express your
surprise at not having received an answer from him.
I say this more particularly for you ; for even if he
does not reply to me, he must to you. And you must
press him to do so, otherwise you would lose your
prestige, and this excellent opportunity ought really
to be seized. . . . What you must particularly avoid
is to allow yourself to be treated like a dead man or a
pariah.
I have received a few lines from G., who complains
about the bad weather. He is still unwell, and says
that of all the vicissitudes of life, none is more haras-
sing to him than straits for money. And yet he feels
that he is to be cursed with this condition for ever.
We have had rain and wind every day of late. I
have been working at home upon the study of which
I made a sketch in my last letter to Bernard. I have
tried to make the colours like that of stained glass
windows, and the drawing direct and firm.
I am just reading Guy de Maupassant's " Pierre et
Jean." It is very fine. Have you read the preface to
it, in which he declares the artist free to exaggerate
and to create a more beautiful, more simple, and more
comforting life in the novel, and explaining what
Flaubert wished to express with the words, " talent is
a long trial of patience," and originality an act of will-
power and of most intense observation ?
12.
There is a porch here — that of St. Trophime —
which I am beginning to think extremely beautiful.
It is, however, so cruel, so monstrous, and so like
a terrifying and grotesque spectre of dreamland,
that, beautiful monument though it is, and great
as is its style, it seems to me to be part of another
world, to which I am just as pleased not to belong
as I am not to have lived in the glorious world of
Nero.
Shall I admit the truth, and add that the Zouaves,
the houses of ill-fame, the charming little girls of
Aries who go to their confirmation, the priests in
their surplices, in which they look like dangerous
antediluvian animals, [31] and the drinkers of absinthe
also seem to me like creatures from another world?
All this does not mean that I should feel more at my
ease in an artistic world, but simply that I prefer to
laugh about it than to feel isolated; because I have
the idea that I should be sad if I could not look at
everything in a humorous light.
In the evenings I have company; for the* young
Danish painter who is here is a very nice fellow. His
pictures are dry, correct, and sober; but in my opinion
this is not a serious fault, provided that the artist be
young and intelligent. He began by studying medi-
cine ; knows Zola's, Goncourt's, and Guy de Maupas-
sant's works, and has enough money to lead a pleasant
life. In addition to this he is animated by the earnest
desire one day to do better work than he is now doing.
I believe he would do well to postpone his return to
124
his Fatherland for a year, or to return here after only
a short visit to his home.
One of these days we must certainly try to find out
how the case stands with this Mr. T. In the interests
of our friends he ought really to say something definite.
It seems to me that we are all to some extent bound
to see that we are not looked upon as dead. It is not
our cause alone that is at stake, but the common cause
of all Impressionists. Consequently, as he has been
appealed to by us, he owes us a reply. You will agree
with me that we cannot make any progress before we
receive a categorical statement of his intentions. If we
consider that a permanent exhibition of impressionist
work in London and Marseilles is a desirable thing it
is obvious that we shall strain every nerve to bring it
about. Now the question is, will T. come in with us
or not? . . . And has he reckoned, as we have done,
on a possible depression of the market in pictures
which now stand at high prices, a depression which,
in my opinion, will very probably occur the moment
the prices of impressionist pictures begin to rise. You
must perceive that the purchasers of expensive pictures
will only achieve their own ruin by opposing the tri-
umphal progress of a school which, owing to its
energy and perseverance, has for years shown itself
worthy of a Millet or a Daubigny, etc.
I congratulate you heartily on your letter from T.
125
I think it entirely satisfactory. I am convinced that
his silence concerning me was not intended as a
slight. Besides, he must have taken it for granted
that you would let me read his reply.
Moreover, it is much more practical for him to write
to you ; and as for me, you will see that, provided he
does not think too poorly of my work, he will write to
me soon enough when he has seen it. I can only
repeat that I am more pleased about his simple and
kindly letter than I can tell you. You will have
noticed that he says he wants to purchase a good
Monticelli for his own collection. What do you say
to telling him that in our collection we possess a
picture of a bunch of flowers which is more artistic
and more beautiful than a bouquet by Diaz; that
Monticelli often painted a bouquet of flowers, in order
to be able to unite the whole scale of his richest and
most harmonious colours in one picture, and that one
would need to go back to Delacroix to find a similar
wealth and play of colours ; that — and I am now
thinking of the picture which is at the Delarbeyrettes
— we know of another bouquet picture, excellent in
quality and moderate in price, which we consider, in
any case, far more valuable than his figure pictures,
which are to be found for sale at every corner, and
which belong to the period when Monticelli's talent
was declining. I hope you are sending him G's lovely
seascape. Heavens! how glad I am that T. has
answered in this way !
I have just painted a group of blossoming apricot-
126
trees in a small fresh-green orchard. I really had a
good deal of trouble with the picture of the sunset, the
figures and the bridge, about which I wrote to Bernard.
The bad weather prevented me from finishing the
picture on the spot, and when I tried to finish it at
home I completely spoilt the study. I immediately
started painting the same subject again on another
canvas; but the weather had changed completely, and
all the tones were grey.
Many thanks for all the steps you have taken with
the " Independents, "but — although it does not matter
at all this time — in future please print my name in the
catalogue just as I sign it on my pictures, i.e.,
Vincent, and not van Gogh ; and this for the simple
reason that in this country no one can pronounce our
surname. Enclosed I return you T.'sand R.'s letters;
perhaps it would be interesting to keep the cor-
respondence of the artists for some future time. It
would not be a bad plan to include B.'s small head of
of the Brittany girl in your next parcel. One ought
to show that all Impressionists are good and that their
work shows versatility.
Would you like me to go to America with you? It
would only be natural for the gentlemen to defray my
travelling expenses. I could be indifferent to a good
deal, but not to all things ! And among the things
about which I am not indifferent is, above all, your
127
health, which you must recover completely. Now I
believe that you ought to seek more refreshment than
you do from Nature and from artists. And I would
prefer to see you independent of Goupil's and estab-
lished on your own account with the Impressionists,
rather than that you should adopt this alternative and
be constantly travelling with valuable pictures belong-
ing to the gentlemen in question. When our uncle
was the partner, he made them pay him very well for
many years ; but see what it cost him ! Yes, yes, your
lungs are good, but . . . just try a year at looking
after yourself properly, and then you will realize the
danger of your present life. You now have ten years
of life in Paris behind you. That is more than enough.
To this you will probably reply that Detaille, for
instance, has perhaps thirty years of Paris life behind
128
him, and that he is as straight as a die. Very well, do
as he has done, if your constitution is anything like
his; for in our family we are very tough. All I should
like to say may be summed up as follows: If these
gentlemen want you to do their dirty work for them,
and at such a great distance too, then either demand
a high price for the work, or else decline it and devote
yourself entirely to the Impressionists. For even if
you do less business with their work and turn over
less money, you will at least be able to spend more of
your time with nature. My health is decidedly im-
proving and my digestion has been getting much
better during this last month. I often suffer from un-
accountable and involuntary fits of excitement or of
apathy; but they pass away when my nerves grow
calm again.
I constantly reproach myself with the fact that my
painting does not bring in as much as it costs, and
yet one must work. You must, however, remember
that if ever it should become necessary for me to go
into business, in order that your lot may be lighter, I
should do so without regret.
It is strange; on one of my last evenings in Mont-
Majour I saw a red sunset; the trunks and needles of
129 K
pines which were growing on a mass of rock, were
vividly illuminated. The rays of the sun bathed the
trunks and the needles in a fiery orange-yellow light,
while the other pines in the background formed a
mass of Prussian blue against a pale blue-green sky.
That is surely precisely the same effect as that picture
of Claude Monet's of which you spoke to me. It was
simply glorious. The white sand and the layers of
white rock beneath the trees were bluish in colour.
How glad I should be to paint the panorama of which
you have the first drawings. Its expanse is so vast !
And it does not get grey in the background, but
remains green to the farthermost line.
You must understand that I would prefer to drop
my art than to think that you were slaving your life
out to earn money. It is certainly necessary; but are
we so situated that we must go to all these pains to
get it? If you realize so well that to prepare for death
(a " Christian idea" which in my opinion Christ
fortunately did not share at all — he who according to
the view of such people as considered him crazy, loved
men and things on earth not wisely — but too well) ; if
then, I say, you realize so well that to prepare for
death is a thing one would prefer to leave severely
alone, do you not also see that self-denial, and sacri-
fice for others is an error too, especially if it is as good
as suicide, for in that case one turns one's friends into
murderers. If things have come to such a pass that
you have to travel about in this way without being
able to take a rest, I really feel as if I no longer had
130
any desire ever to be quiet again. And if you accept
these proposals, well and good ; but in that case make
a stipulation with these Goupils that they should take
me back into their employ as soon as they can, and
that they should let me join you on these journeys.
Men are more important than things, and the more I
worry myself about pictures, the colder they leave me.
My reason for trying to paint them is that I would
fain be reckoned among the artists.
I have painted a canvas in the open, in an orchard.
The ground was ploughed and mauve in colour,
there was a fence of reeds and two pink peach trees
against a bright blue and white sky. Perhaps it was
the best landscape I have ever painted. The very
moment I had brought it home, our sister sent a Dutch
essay to me in memory of Mauve (the portrait in it
is very good — a fine etching — the text is bad). I do
not myself know what moved me so profoundly and
made my throat feel tight, but on my picture I wrote :
" In memory of Mauve. Vincent and Theo." And if
you also like it, send it as it is to Madame Mauve. I
purposely selected the best study I have painted here ;
who knows what they will say about it at home ; but
we do not mind that. I had the feeling that something
cheerful and delicate would be fitting in memory of
Mauve, and not a heavy, serious study.
Ne crois pas que les morts soient morts,
Tant qu'il y aura des vivants
Les morts vivront, les morts vivront.
That is how I look upon it — no more sadly than
that.
Now you must be more careful to keep in touch
with T. Whether we are all successful or not, I am
beginning to think that within a year or so, every-
thing will be all right. It seems to me as if T. and
not R. should found the Impressionists' exhibition in
England.
You can tell G. quite frankly that my decided
opinion is that in his own interests as well as in the
interests of the firm, his prices were ludicrous. After
all that has happened, R. must either pay handsomely
or the artists must shut the door in his face. I have
seen enough of that sort of thing already, and after
mature consideration that is my opinion. With a price
of 300 francs one spoils one's subsequent sales, and
that is a thousand pities.
I am in a frenzy of work, for the trees are blossom-
ing, and I wished to paint a Provence orchard in all
its unbounded cheerfulness and beauty. To keep a
clear head for writing in the midst of it all, is there-
fore no easy matter. Yesterday, for instance, I wrote
some letters which I afterwards tore up. Every day I
132
feel more strongly that we must do something in
Holland, and it must be done with the utmost verve
and with that French gaiety which is worthy of the
cause for which we stand. This is therefore a plan of
campaign which will cost us the best pictures which we
have produced together, pictures which are certainly
worth a few thousand franc notes, or which have cost
us, at least, something in money and a great deal in
health and life. It would be a clear and sonorous reply
to all the whispered suggestions that we are already half
dead, and a revenge for your journey last year, and
your cold reception, etc. But enough of this. Well,
then, suppose we give Jet Mauve the picture in memory
of Mauve, a study to Breitner (I happen to have
got one which is like the study I exchanged with R.
and Pissaro : oranges on a white ground, with a blue
background) then a few studies to our sister, and to
the Modern Museum at the Hague (as so many
memories are connected with it) the two Montmartre
landscapes which are at the Independants' exhibition.
There still remains one other unpleasant thing. When
T. wrote: "Send me impressionist pictures, but only
those which you consider very good " you put one of
my pictures among the batch. And now I am in the
infernal positioni of having to convince T. that I am
and will remain a real Impressionist of the petit boule-
vard. What do you say to my giving him a picture
for his collection? Just lately I have been thinking
things over, and have found something ever so much
more amusing than my usual kind of study; it is a
133
drawbridge, with a small yellow carnage upon it and
a group of washerwomen. In this study the ground
is a glaring orange, the grass is very green, and the
sky and the water are blue. It must have a frame of
royal blue and gold, the inside blue and outside a gilt
moulding. The frame might be made of blue plush ;
but it would be better to paint the wood blue ... I
cannot find time to write a quiet letter; my work
absorbs me too much. But what I particularly wished
to say to you is that I should like to paint a few
studies for Holland, so as to have done with it. Quite
recently, whilst thinking of Mauve, T., our mother
and Will, I got more excited than was good for me,
and I was comforted by the thought of painting a few
pictures for home. After that I shall think no more
about them, and think only of the petit boulevard.
I am once again in the midst of work and am still
painting blossoming orchards.
The air here is decidedly good for me, I only wish
you could fill your lungs full of it. One of its effects
is very strange; a small glass of cognac makes one
drunk here. But as I do not feel the need of such
stimulants in these parts to keep my blood circulating,
my constitution will not suffer so much.
I hope to be able to make real progress this year ;
for I sorely need to do so.
134
I have a new orchard which is just as good as the
pink peach trees. It is an orchard of apricot trees,
most delicately pink in colour. At present I am work-
ing at some plum-trees with yellow-white blossom and
a maze of black branches.
I am using an enormous amount of canvas and
paint; but I trust that the money will not be wasted.
Yesterday I witnessed a bull fight in which five men
tormented the animal with banderillas and cockades.
One of the toreadors was badly wounded while spring-
ing over a barricade. He was a fair man with blue
eyes and displayed tremendous coolness. It was said
that he had had enough for some time. He was
dressed in light blue and gold, just like the three figures
in the wood, in our picture " Le Petit Cavalier," by
Monticelli. The arena is superb when it is crammed
full of men and the sun is shining.
This month will be hard for you and me ; and yet if
we can only see our way to doing so, it would be to
our advantage to paint as many blossoming orchards
as possible. I am now in full swing, and I believe I
shall have to paint the same subject ten times over.
You know that, in my work, I like variety ; my passion
for painting orchards will not last for ever. After them
it will probably be the turn of the arenas. I also have
a tremendous amount of drawing to do; for I should
like to make drawings after the manner of Japanese
135
crape prints.1 For I must strike the iron while it is
hot, and after the orchards I shall be completely
exhausted, for the sizes of the canvases are, 32 in. by
24^ in., 36 in. by 27^ in., and 29 in. by 22^ in.2 We
should not have too many with twice the number; for I
have an idea that these might break the ice in Holland.
Mauve's death was a hard blow to me, and you will
notice that the pink peach trees were painted with
some agitation.
I must also paint a starry night, with cypresses, or,
perhaps, over a field of ripe corn. We get wonderful
nights here. I am possessed by an insatiable lust for
work. I shall be glad to see the result at the end of
the year. I trust that by that time I shall be less tor-
mented by a certain feeling of ill-ease that is troubling
me now. On some days I suffer terribly! but I am
not greatly concerned about it, for it is simply the re-
action of the past winter, which was certainly not
normal. My blood renews itself, and that is the most
important thing of all.
*
My ambition is to make my pictures worth what I
spend on them ; or something more, because one must
think of past expenses. But we shall succeed even in
this ; and even if everything does not turn out all right,
work is at least progressing all the while.
1 See note, p. 40.
2 These figures are approximate only. The German equivalents
are Nos. 25, 30, and 20. — Tr.
136
I am constantly meeting the Danish painter; but he
is soon going home. He is an intelligent fellow and
his character and manners are impeccable, though his
painting is still very weak. You will probably see him
when he passes through Paris. You were quite right
to visit Bernard. If he is going to do his military-
service in Algiers — who knows but what I may go to
keep him company there.
I do believe that what K. says is quite right, I do
not pay sufficient attention to values. But later on they
will have even more to complain about, and they will
say things that are no less true. It is impossible to
attach the same importance both to values and to
colours. Theodore Rousseau understood the mixing
of colours better than any one. But time has blackened
his pictures and now they are unrecognizable. One
cannot be at the Pole and at the Equator at once. One
must choose one's way ; at least this is what I hope to
do, and my way will be the road to colour.
If you think the picture " In Memory of Mauve"
will pass muster, you ought to put it in a plain white
frame and include it in the next batch of pictures you
send to the Hague. If you should find among the
other studies, one which you think would be suitable
for T. you might send it too, without dedication, and
then you could keep the study on which there is a
dedication, and all you would have to do would be to
137
scratch the words out. It is better to send him a
picture without any dedication ; for then if he should
prefer not to have a picture of mine he can appear as
if he did not know that we wished to present him with
one and quietly send it back. In any case I must offer
him something, just to prove that I am interested in
the cause, and that I know how to value to the full the
fact that he has taken it in hand. But, after all, do
everything as chance ordains. . . . As Mauve and he
were very great friends, in the excitement of the
moment it seemed to me the most natural thing in
the world to paint something for T. at the same time
as I painted the picture "In Memory of Mauve." And
that is all I thought about the matter.
Your Moslem notion that death comes when it must,
might be looked into a little more deeply. It seems to
138
me that we have no proof of such a distinct control of
destiny by a power above. On the contrary, it strikes
me that a reasonable and hygienic mode of life can not
only lengthen existence but can also render it both
merry and bright, whereas the neglect of hygiene in
addition to disturbing the even course of our life may
also bring it to a premature end. Have I not with my
own eyes witnessed the death of a noble creature,
simply because he had no intelligent doctor to attend
him? He was so clear and so calm through it all, and
kept repeating: " If only I had another doctor! " And
he died with a shrug of his shoulders, and an expression
on his face which I shall never forget.
I have been thinking of Gauguin and have come to
the following conclusion : if he cares to come here, it
will only cost him his journey and the two beds or two
mattresses which we shall be compelled to buy. But,
as G. is a seaman, we might perhaps be able to cook
our food ourselves, and live together for the same sum
as that which it costs me to live alone. You know
that I have always thought it exceedingly foolish for
painters to live alone ; one always loses when one is
quite isolated. You cannot manage to send him the
wherewithal to live in Brittany, and me all that I need
in Provence ; but you might think it a good plan for
us to share a common lot, and then you might fix a
certain sum (let us say 250 francs per month) for which,
139
in addition to my work, you would receive a Gauguin
once a month.
Just a line in great haste to tell you that I have this
minute received a note from Gauguin. He says that
he has been too hard at work to write before, but is
ready to come south at any moment, as soon as he can
see the possibility of so doing. They are having an
amusing time over there, painting, discussing, and
contending with the virtuous Englishmen. He speaks
in high praise of Bernard's work, and B. is equally
flattering about Gauguin's. I am now painting here
with as much enthusiasm as the man of Marseilles eats
his bouillabaisse, and this will not surprise you seeing
that my subject consists of sunflowers. I have three
pictures in progress: (i) Large flowers in a green
vase; (2) Three flowers, two in the bud and one in
bloom, on a royal blue ground; (3) Twelve flowers
and buds in a yellow vase (the latter being light against
light), will I hope be the best of the three. I shall pro-
bably not leave it at that. Pending the time when I
shall share my studio with G., I should like to decorate
it with a scheme consisting only of large sunflowers.
In a restaurant near your shop (in the Boulevard
Montmartre), there is, as you know, a beautiful decora-
tion of this sort. In my mind's eye I can still see the
great sunflower in the shop window before me. The
whole scheme is to be a symphony of yellow and blue.
140
I set to work every morn-
ing from daybreak on-
wards; for the flowers
fade quickly and the
whole thing must be
done at one go. I have
a host of ideas for new
pictures. To-day I saw
the same collier being
unloaded by coal-
heavers as that which I
have already mentioned
to you. At the same
time I also saw vessels
with cargoes of sand, of
which I have sent you a drawing. That would be a
splendid subject! But at present I am trying to discover
a more simple technique which perhaps is not impres-
sionistic. I should like to paint in such a way that
everyone with eyes to see could not help but read a
clear message from my pictures.
I have received a letter from G. in which he mentions
the — francs which you sent him and over which he was
deeply touched. He also refers to your having made
suggestions concerning our project (he had not yet
received the definite proposal at the time of writing).
He says that when he was with his friend L. in
141
Martinique, he discovered that they were able to live
more cheaply together than apart, and that he is quite
convinced of the advantages of a joint establishment.
His abdominal pains are as bad as ever, and he seems
to be very sad. He hopes to be able to collect 600,000
francs with the view of founding an art-dealer's estab-
lishment for Impressionists, of which he will give you
more explicit details ; he also says that he would like
to have you at the head of the undertaking. I should
not be at all surprised if all this did not prove to be a
Fata Morgana — castles in the air inspired by hunger.
The greater one's straits for money — more particularly
if one is ill besides — the more readily one thinks of
possibilities of this sort. In this very idea, therefore,
I seem to see the proof that he is broken down, and
that he must be put on his legs again as soon as
possible. He says that when seamen have to lift a
heavy weight, or when they are weighing anchor,
they all sing together, in order to increase their
strength and to raise their spirits — and that is just
what the artists do not do.
I should be very much surprised, therefore, if he
were not glad to come here. But in addition to his
hotel and travelling expenses, there will also be his
doctor's bill to pay ; so it will be somewhat difficult.
It seems to me that he will have to escape from the
place with his debts, and leave pictures there as a
pledge. I had to do the same thing in order to go to
Paris; although I lost a heap of things on that
occasion, one cannot do otherwise in such circum-
142
stances. For it is better to step forward than to stand
still and rot. If G. prefers to run the risk of plunging
into business ; if he really hopes to achieve something
in Paris, in Heaven's name let him go there! But I
think it would be wiser for him to come here, at least
for a year. I have seen some one here who came back
from Tongking quite ill through his stay in that
delightful country. But he has completely recovered
his health here.
If you were to see La Camargue, and many other
places in this part of the world, you would be as sur-
prised as I am at the country being so exactly in the
character of Ruysdael. I am at work upon a new
theme: fields as far as the eye can see, both green
and yellow. I have drawn them twice already and am
beginning a picture of them. It is just in the style of
a Salomon Konink — you know, the pupil of Rembrandt
who used to paint those vast and endless plains — or of
a Michel or a Jules Dupre. In any case it is something
very different from rose-gardens. It is true that I have
studied only one side of Provence, and that on the
other side nature has another aspect, such as Claude
Monet used to render, for instance. I am really
anxious to know what G. is going to do. He says that
on one occasion he had 35,000 francs' worth of impres-
sionist pictures bought by Durand-Ruel, and hopes to
be able to do the same for you. In my opinion
143
Gauguin's safest line of business would be the painting
and sale of his own pictures.
I still have in my possession "A Starry Night,"
"The Furrows," "The Poet's Garden," "The Vine-
yard." What! poetical landscapes? We will not attach
too much importance to these studies, which, though
the painting of them certainly cost one more in heart's
blood than the others, are nevertheless not so market-
able. If you had sent me 100 francs I should also have
painted the sea at Saintes-Maries. The ruthless Mistral
is now blowing, which is bad for work; but before real
winter comes, we shall have some more fine weather,
and in any case I hope to be able to add a few more
studies to the series I now have in hand.
I can only finish a picture when it is framed.
The pitiless Mistral is blowing! but I have to keep
myself constantly ready; for I have to paint during
the short intervals and then everything must be in
order for the battle to be fought. The canvas has not
yet been sent, and the matter is most urgent. Do
please order ten or at least five metres at once. It is
pressing. To-day I bought some here in order,
weather permitting, to be ready to-morrow or the day
after. I am wholly absorbed in my work, and I will
certainly not give in if only I can keep in the vein.
144
All these large pictures are good, but very trying.
Enclosed I send you a letter I wrote yesterday. In it
you will see what I think of the portrait of G. which
he has sent me. It is too black and too sad. Even so,
I must confess that I like him. But he will change
and must come here. One should not work Prussian
blue into one's drawing of a face ; for then it ceases to
be flesh and becomes wood. I think and hope, how-
ever, that the other Brittany pictures are better, as
regards colour, than this portrait, which after all was
painted in a hurry.
Believe me, I exaggerate neither in regard to G. nor
to his portrait. He must eat, take walks with me, see
our house as it is, and give a helping hand, [32] and,
in a word, thoroughly divert himself. He has lived
cheaply, it is true, but it has made him so ill that he
can no longer distinguish a bright from a sombre
tone. In any case it is exceedingly distressing, and
it is high time for him to come here, where he will
soon get well again. Meanwhile, forgive me if I
exceed my allowance; I shall work all the more for it.
Since Thursday I have been so hard up that from then
until Monday I had only two real meals. At other
times I had only bread and coffee, which I had to have
on credit and I paid for it to-day. If you can, there-
fore, send me something quickly.
H5
This time things have gone pretty hard with me ;
I got to the end of my money on Thursday, and it
seemed an age to wait until noon on Monday. During
these four days I have lived principally upon 23 [33]
cups of coffee, and the bread I ate with them is not
yet paid for. That is not your fault but mine — if
one speak of fault at all in the matter. For I was
frantically anxious to see my pictures in their frames
and had paid a little more than I could afford, more
particularly as the month's rent and attendance had
to be settled as well. As far as I am concerned,
old chap, it would not matter, but I feel how you
too must suffer under the stress which work imposes
upon us; and my only consolation is to think that
you would approve of my using every possible
effort, so long as the fine weather lasts. I cannot
say it has been fine for the last few days, as a ruth-
less north wind has been blowing and has driven
all the faded leaves furiously before it. But between
this and winter, the finest days and the most beautiful
effects of light will come, and then I shall have to
devote all my energies to my work. I am so much
in the mood for painting that I simply could not stop
suddenly.
Do you know how much I have left for the week,
and after four days of fasting? Exactly six francs.
I had something to eat at midday; but this even-
ing all I shall have will be a crust of bread. And
all my money is spent on the house and on the
146
pictures. For I have not even got three francs left in
order to ... [34]
One ought not to attach most importance to those
studies which give one a great deal of trouble, and
which nevertheless are not so pleasing as the pictures
which are the result and fruit of those studies, and
which one paints as if in a dream, without nearly
so much trouble. Inclosed I send you a letter which
I wrote a day or two ago on G.'s portrait. I have not
the time to write it again ; but I lay the most stress on
the following points : I do not like all this ugliness in
our work, save in so far as it shows us the way. Our
duty is, however, neither to tolerate it on our own
account, nor to make others tolerate it ; on the con-
trary. I also send you herewith a letter from G. ; for-
tunately he is getting well again. I should be ex-
tremely glad if R. were to do something for him ;
still — R. has a wife, children, and a studio, and he is
building a house ; so I can well understand that even
a rich man cannot always spend money on pictures,
even if it were only a hundred francs. I believe it
would be a great change for me, if G. were here, for
day after day goes by now without my ever exchanging
a word with a soul. In any case his letter was a great
joy to me. If one live too long in the country, one
gets quite besotted, and even if this has not hap-
pened to me yet, it might make me unproductive
in the winter. This danger would vanish if he came,
for we should never be at a loss for ideas. If work
progresses favourably and courage does not fail us,
we may reckon on a number of interesting years in
the future.
At the present moment I am holding an exhibition,
for I have taken all my studies off their stretchers, and
nailed them on the wall to dry. You will see that
once I am in possession of a whole number of them,
and a selection is made from them, it will come to the
same thing as if I had lavished more work and study
upon them; for whether one paint the same subject
again and again on the same canvas or on several
canvases does not make any difference to the serious-
ness of the work.
148
So our uncle is dead! Our sister wrote me the
news this morning. They seem to have expected you
at the funeral, so probably you were there. Life is
short and vanishes like smoke ! But that is no reason
for despising the living. And we are right after all
to think more of the artists than of the pictures.
M. K. returned here yesterday, and liked my pic-
tures of the little girl and my garden. But I do not
know whether he has any money. I am now busy
painting a postman in a blue uniform with gold trim-
mings; he is a fanatical Republican like old T., and
much more interesting than most people are.
If it were possible to call R.'s attention to it, he
might perhaps take the picture by G. which you
bought; and if there is no other way of helping G.
what shall we do ? I will say to him (R.) : " Look here,
our picture pleases you very much just as it is, and
I believe we shall see even better work by this painter;
why do you not do as we do ? We believe in the man
as he stands and like everything he does." And then
I will add : " that, if it has to be, we shall naturally
let him have the large picture, but that as G. is sure
to be constantly in need of money, it would not be
right for us in his interests to keep back the picture
until his prices had risen three or four fold, which
they are certain to do sooner or later." If R. then
makes a plain and definite offer, we shall be able to
149
consider it — and G. might say that although he had
let you, his friend, have the picture at a certain price,
he would not think of letting an art lover have it for
the same sum. But let us first wait to hear what he
will say.
The change that I am trying to introduce into my
work is to attach more importance to the figure. In
painting this is really the only thing which moves me
to the depths, and which gives me a more vivid idea
of infinity than anything else.
To-day I shall write to our sister; how sad they
must be! As she herself says: " As soon as a man
has left us, we can remember only his happy moments
and his good points." And yet, the most important
thing would be to see these things while he is living.
It would be so simple, and would so enlighten us
concerning the cruelties of life, which surprise us now
and make our hearts so sore. If life had another in-
visible half, on which one landed when one died, we
should then give those who started on this solemn and
interesting journey our best wishes and our most
hearty sympathy on the road thither.
I have just dispatched the large drawings: the up-
right of the small peasant garden seems to me the
150
best. The garden with the sunflowers belongs to a
bathing establishment. As to the third garden, which
is landscape shape,1 1 have also made oil sketches of it.
The orange-coloured, yellow patches of flowers grow
exceedingly brilliant under the blue sky, and every-
thing is bathed in a happier and more loving atmo-
sphere than in the north : it vibrates, like your bunch
of flowers by Monticelli. Although I have done about
150 drawings and oil-sketches I feel as if I had done
absolutely nothing. I would readily content myself
with being a precursor of the painters of the future
who will paint here in the south.
There are a number of fine lithographs to be seen :
Daumiers, reproductions of Delacroix, Decamps,
Diaz, Rousseau, Dupre, etc. Soon, however, this
will cease, and what a pity it is that this art is about
to disappear !
Why do we not stick to what we have once dis-
covered in our art, as the doctors and the engineers
do? With them, when anything is discovered, the
knowledge of it is carefully preserved. But in the
wretched fine arts everything is forgotten ; we hold
fast to nothing. Millet created the synthesis of the
1 See note p. 91.
peasant, and now ? Oh, of course, there are Lhermitte
and perhaps one or two others as well — Meunier, for
instance. But have painters really learnt to see a
peasant in the proper way ? Not at all ! Scarcely one
of them is capable of such a thing. And does not the
fault lie a little with the Parisians, who are changeable
and deceptive as the sea? You are quite right in say-
ing that we must go our own way, quite unconcerned,
and work for ourselves. Do you know that even if Im-
pressionism were sacrosanct, at times I should, never-
theless, like to be able to paint things which the
former generation, Delacroix, Millet, Rousseau, Diaz,
Monticelli, Isabey, Decamps, Dupre, Ziem, Jonkind,
Israels, Mauve, and a host of others, Corot, and
Jacques . . . would be able to understand.
Manet and Courbet got very near to treating colour
and form together as equal in importance. I should
like to prepare myself for ten years by means of
studies for the task of painting one or two figure
pictures. The old and eternal plan — so very often
recommended and so seldom carried out !
The small upright of the peasant garden, as I saw
it in nature, is glorious in colour. The dahlias are a
deep and severe purple, and on one side there is a
double row of flowers which is a mass of pink and
green, and on the other there is a mass of orange with
scarcely any green. In the centre there is a low white
152
dahlia and a small pomegranate tree with greenish
yellow fruit, and blossom of an ardent orange red
colour. The ground is grey, the tall reeds are blue
green, the trees viridian, the sky blue, the houses white
with green window frames and red roofs. That is how
it looks in the morning in full sunlight; at evening it
is all immersed in the deep shadows cast by the fig
trees and the tall reeds. That is the whole thing. To
seize all these beauties, a whole school of artists would
be necessary, who would work together and complete
one another in the same country, like the old Dutch-
men : portrait painters, painters of genre pictures,
landscapists, animal painters, painters of still-life, etc.
I have now received the two portraits. In B's
portrait of himself a portrait of G. hangs on the wall,
and in G's. portrait of himself there is a portrait of B.
in the background. At first one can only see G. ; but
B's. picture appeals to me very much indeed too.
It is only a painter's idea, only a few summary tones
and a few black lines; but it is as chic as a genuine
Manet. The G. shows more study and is more care-
fully carried out, and that is exactly what makes one
feel as if it were the representation of a captive. It
shows no trace of good cheer, no particle of flesh; but
all this may be ascribed simply to his intention, which
was to produce something melancholy. Those parts
of the skin which are in shadow are a sombre blue.
153
Now at last I have the opportunity of comparing my
painting with my friends'. There is no question that
my portrait which I am sending to G. in exchange for
his, holds its place quite well beside the latter. I wrote
to G. that if I might be allowed to lend unmerited
importance to my personality in a picture, I had
tried to paint, not exactly myself, but the portrait of
an impressionist, and had therefore conceived this
picture as that of a bonze in abject adoration before
his great Buddha. And when I place my conceptions
and G's. side by side, I find mine just as serious as
his but not so full of despair. And G's. portrait seems
to say to me: this must go on no longer, he must
grow contented again, he must become the old G. of
yore, who meanwhile has grown richer, through the
south [35] and the negresses.
I am extremely glad that I have the portraits of our
friends at this period. They will not remain as they
are ; in time they will have a cloudless life, and I feel
plainly that it is my duty to do everything in order to
reduce our poverty. Poverty is impossible in our pro-
fession. I feel that he is more like Millet than I am,
but I am more like Diaz than he is.1 And like Diaz I
will try to please the public in order to help him. My
work has cost more than theirs; but I do not mind
this now that I have seen their painting ; they worked
amid too much poverty to have success; for, believe
me, I have better and more saleable work than that
which I sent to you, and I feel that I am capable of
1 Reference to Diaz's self-sacrificing friendship for Millet.
154
even better things. I feel quite confident that there are
many people to whom the poetical subjects in particular
will appeal. The " Starry Sky," the " Vine-Branch,"
the " Furrows," the " Poet's Garden." For I consider
it our duty, yours as well as mine, to aim at compara-
tive wealth, as we shall have great artists to provide
for. If you have Gauguin, you can be as happy as
Sensier. He will be so pleased with the house as a
studio, that he will even want to rule and manage it.
B. has sent me a collection of ten drawings. . . . You
will soon see all these things; but I shall keep the
portraits by me, and enjoy them for a little while
longer, before I send them to you. Some day you
will probably see the portrait of myself which I sent
to G., for I hope G. will keep it: it looks quite ashen-
grey against a pale emerald green (not yellow) back-
ground. I am wearing the brown jacket with the blue
edging. I intensified the brown to a purple, and I
broadened the edging. The head is modelled entirely
in light colour, light on a light ground, almost free
from shadows ; but I have painted the eyes somewhat
oblique, a la japonaise.
Letter from G. . . . who tells me that he has sent
you a batch of pictures and studies. I should be very
glad if you could find the time to write me a few details
about them. With G's. letter I also received a note
from B. in which he confirms the receipt of my pictures,
155
all seven of which they mean to keep. B. is making
me a present of one more study in exchange, and the
three others, M., L., and another young painter, will,
I hope, also send portraits. G. has my portrait and
B. writes that he would very much like to have one in
the same style, although he already possesses one
which I gave him in exchange for his portrait of his
grandmother. And I was glad to hear that they were
not displeased with my figure pictures.
I have been and still am half dead, after my last
week's work. I cannot do anything yet but, as it
happens, a terrific north wind is blowing at present,
which whirls up clouds of dust and covers the trees
from top to bottom in a coat of white. Willy-nilly,
therefore, I am obliged to remain idle. So I have slept
sixteen hours at a stretch ; it has done me a tremendous
amount of good, and to-morrow, thanks to this
thorough rest, I shall be well again. But I have a
good week behind me: five canvases are no small
matter; if one suffer a little for that sort of thing it
really is no wonder. If I had worked more slowly,
however, the storm would only have interrupted me.
When the weather is fine one should take advantage
of it, otherwise one can make no headway.
156
What is Seurat doing? If you see him, tell him that
I have a scheme of decoration in view which, as far as
I can tell at present, will extend to fifteen pictures, and
which, in order to be complete, will require another
fifteen. Tell him also that I am encouraged in my
labours upon this serious scheme by recollections, not
only of his own good self, but also of the fine large
pictures which I saw in his studio.
We ought also to have a portrait of Seurat by himself.
I wrote to G. that when I suggested an exchange of
portraits between us, I had naturally taken it for
granted that he and B. had made studies of each
other ; and that as this did not prove to be the case,
and that he had painted one specially for me, I could
not accept this picture in exchange, as I regarded it as
too important a work of art for the purpose. Never-
theless, he replied that I absolutely must accept it in
exchange, and his letter contained a host of compli-
ments which, as they were undeserved, I pass over.
I am sending you an article about Provence which,
in my opinion is well written. The "Felibres" are
a literary and artistic society, composed of Clovis
Hugues, Mistral, and others, who write excellent
sonnets in the Proven£al dialect and in French. If
157
ever the "Felibres" deign to take any notice of me
here, they will all come into my little house. But I
should like this to occur only when I have finished
my decorations. As I love Provence just as whole-
heartedly as they do, I feel that I have some right to
their consideration. If ever I avail myself of this
right, it will be in order that my pictures may remain
here or in Marseilles, where, as you know, I should
like to work. For the artists of Marseilles would do
well to continue the work begun by their fellow-
townsman Monticelli. If G. or I were to write an
article for one of the local papers here, it would suffice
to open up relations with them.
I must tell you that I have made a very interesting
expedition through various local farm properties, in
the company of some one who knows this part of the
country very well. They are all small peasant hold-
ings, a la Millet, translated into Proven9al. M. K.
and B. cannot make head or tail of it all, and even
though I am beginning to feel a little clearer in re-
gard to it all, I should have to live here a jolly long
time in order to be able to paint it.
I often feel that the only possible way of carrying
out our plan will be for me to set out on a journey, in
case Gauguin does not succeed in escaping from the
place. And, then, after all, I should still remain with
the peasants. I even believe that we should hold our-
158
selves in readiness to go to him ; for sooner or later
he is sure to be in dire distress, if, for instance, his
landlord refuses to allow him any more credit. This
is more than probable, and then his need might be so
great, that our plans would have to be carried out with
all possible dispatch. As far as I am concerned the
only expense would be my journey thither; for, accord-
ing to him, the cost of bare necessaries is much lower
there than it is here.
People are better off in this place than in the north,
even when they are quite hard up. For the weather is
always fine, and the Mistral itself makes no difference
to it. That glorious sun, in the rays of which Voltaire
used to bask while sipping coffee, continues to shine
notwithstanding. In all directions one is reminded
quite involuntarily of Zola and Voltaire. There is
such an abundance of vital energy everywhere. It is
like Jan Steen and Ostade's work. The conditions for
the formation of a school of painting are certainly to
be found here. You will reply, however, that nature
is beautiful everywhere, if only one enters sufficiently
deeply into her spirit.
Have you read " Madame Chrysantheme," and
made the acquaintance of Monsieur Kangourou, that
159
pander, so overwhelmingly obliging-, with the sugared
spices, the fried ices, and the salted sweetstuffs?
I have seen a wooden figure of a woman, in a peasant
garden here, which came from the prow of a Spanish
ship. It stood in the midst of a group of cypresses,
and the whole effect was very like Monticelli. Oh!
what a lot of poetry there is in these farm-gardens,
with their abundance of lovely red Proven9al roses,
these vineyards, these fig trees, and the perennially
powerful sun, in spite of which the green of the vege-
tation remains so fresh ! There are also the reservoirs
with their clear water running over the orchards
through diminutive channels which constitute a regular
canal system on a small scale; and the old grey horse
of " la Camargue" which sets the machine in motion.
No cow is to be found in these farmyards. My neigh-
bour and his wife (who are grocers) are extraordinarily
like the Buteaux. But in these parts the peasant hold-
ings, the inns, and even the lowest cafes, are less
gloomy and less tragic looking than they are in the
north ; for the heat makes poverty less cruel and less
lugubrious. I wish to Heavens you had seen this
country ! But our first concern must be to await de-
velopments in Gauguin's quarter.
V
Gauguin responded to the call of his friend and came
to join him in his work in sunny and gay-coloured
1 60
?
Provence. A fit of insanity, however, seized Van
Gogh and broke up the companionship of the two
artists. From that time onward, Van Gogh lived in an
asylum, where in his moments of lucidity he was still
able to paint beautiful pictures.
Concerning the last days of his friend, Gauguin
writes as follows: " In his last letter from Auvers,
near Pontoise, he said that he had always hoped that
his health might so far improve as to permit him to
paint with me in Brittany, but that he was then con-
vinced that recovery was out of the question. * My dear
master, after having known you and grieved you, it is
more dignified to die while I am fully conscious of
what I am doing, than to take leave of this world in a
state which degrades me.' He fired a bullet at himself,
and, a few hours later, while lying in bed smoking
his pipe, with all his wits about him, full of passionate
love for his art, and without any feelings of resentment
towards humanity, he quietly passed away."
161 M
NOTES
1, page 39. The translation of the original French would be:
" without having recourse to the old dodges and delusions of
intriguers " (aux meux trues et trompe-T ceil d*1 intrigants).
2, p. 44. The French is boutons d'or (buttercups). The German
translation has Ldisuenzahn.
3, p. 45. The German is, Leute die auf Technik sehen; but my
rendering is more faithful to the French original.
4, p. 51. According to the French this should be : "After many
eccentricities you have succeeded in producing," etc. The German,
however, is, wirst Du dahin gelangen Sachen von dgyptischer
Ruhe> etc.
5, p. 55. The French word is bestiales, which the German
translator rendered by grausame.
6, p. 55. The French is crane (swaggering); the German
translation has elegant.
6a, p. 60. The French has, your grandmother.
7, p. 61. The French is, amours faciles.
8, p. 62. The French is, senti dans son animalite.
9, p. 62. From this point the original French continues, "is
like the consummation of sexual love — a moment of infinity."
10, p. 63. In his original publication of these letters in Le
Mercure de France, E. Bernard inserts a note here to the effect
that Van Gogh meant that Rembrandt used religious subjects
only as a means of expressing philosophical ideas.
u, p. 64. The French is, peint un ange surnaturel au sourire a
la Vinci.
12, p. 65. The French \s,folie contagieuse.
163
13, p. 66. The French is, sincerite et devotion.
14, p. 68. The German translator took what I believe to be a
justifiable liberty here ; for the original French reads : et il sagit
de souffler de son souffle tant qtfon a le souffle.
15, p. 73. The French word is renaissance.
1 6, p. 74. The German translation (beim Fechteri) misses the
point here ; for the French original is not Vescrime^ but Tescrime
a Vassaut.
17, p. 77. In the German translation there are no dots here to
show that a passage has been omitted ; as however, this passage
seems to me important, I thought it advisable to give the trans-
lation of it in these notes. After the word " nature," the French
original proceeds: " in order to convert a study into a picture by
arranging the colour, adding here, and simplifying there ; . . . "
18, p. 81. E. Bernard says that this refers to a caricature by
Gauguin of Van Gogh sitting on a ledge of rock drawing the
sun.
19, p. 83. The French word is not talent but superiorite.
20, p. 89. I confess that I did not understand the proper mean-
ing of this passage, either in the French or in the German, so
here it is, as it stands in the French original : Mais justement a
cause de ce que c'est dans le cceur des gens qu'est aussi le cceur des
affaires, ilfaut conquerir des amities ou plutot les ranimer.
21, p. 90. It may be of interest to painters to know that the
other colours mentioned in the French original are: rose de
garance, and mine orange.
22, p. 96. I may be wrong here. The German word is Axtomen,
the French original is, axiomes.
23, p. 98. The French original contains simply the word strtnitt,
which the German translator paraphrased as "the joy of living,
and peace."
24, p. 101. The French original has, onnes^en repent pas, in the
place of " one can never cast it out."
25, p. 102. It is not clear whether Van Gogh meant that he
opposed the firm B. and V. or that he quelled the feeling in his
heart. The French original is simply : Seulementje m'y oppose.
26, p. 104. The French original is, des ttablissements pour
164
Zouaves. On this point see also p. 23, vol. 12, of the " Mercure de
France."
27, p. 1 08. The original reads : Sije me laissais embeter parle
premier venu ici, tu comprends que je ne saurais bientot plus ou
donner la tete. The German rendering was therefore a little too
free.
28, p. 1 1 6. A passage is omitted here in the German translation,
which I think is of sufficient interest to be quoted. In the French
original the passage reads : Je crois que Gauguin lui-meme souffre
beaucoup et ne peut pas se developper comme pourtant Jest en
dedans de lui de pouvoir lefaire.
29, p. 116. On both occasions when in the German text I found
the word Schwefelgelb, I translated it by "cadmium." The word
in the French original is simply sou/re. (See also page 73.)
30, p. 122. The German word is Quadratnetz, and the French
original has cadre perspectif. I am not sure that my rendering
gives an adequate idea of the instrument.
31, p. 124. The French is, rhinoceros dangereux.
32, p. 145, " and give a helping hand," is a somewhat free
rendering, through the German, of et comme nous laferons.
33, p. 146. The number "28" seems to be a misprint in the
German.
34, p. 147. E. Bernard, himself, leaves one to guess at what
this means ; for in the original French we read : Carje n'ai m&me
pas, depuis un mots trois semaines, de quoi aller . . . pour 'S/r.
35, p. 154. In the French original there is no mention of " the
south."
165
CH1SWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
NOV 1
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
Live Music
Archive
Librivox
Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Internet
Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American
Libraries
TV News
Understanding
9/11