| | 57 letters relate to feelings - ambition or contain ... | Excerpt length: shorter longer | |
| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(January 1881)
... to extremes that they resigned.
As you vaguely spoke to me some time ago about coming to
Paris, I must tell you that I wish no better than to go someday
soon, provided I were sure of finding some work there which
would give me a salary of at least 100 fr. a month. I must also
tell you that as I have begun to draw, I do not intend to drop
it, so I will try chiefly to get on in that line. Not only does
drawing figures and scenes from life demand a knowledge of the
technique of drawing, but it also demands profound studies of
literature, physiognomy, etc., which are difficult to
acquire.
Enough for today; write me when you have a moment to spare,
and believe me, with a handshake,
Yours sincerely, Vincent
72 Bd. du Midi
Someday I hope to go to see Mr. Horta.
Sketches enclosed with letter:
“Devant les Tisons”
and “En Route”
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(12 April 1881)
... thought.
Yours truly, Vincent
I am sending you three krabbelingen [scrawls] which are
clumsy as yet, but from which you will see, I hope, that I am
gradually improving. You should take into account that it is
only a short time since I started drawing, although I made
little sketches when I was a boy. And that during this winter I
thought it most important to make rigidly accurate anatomical
studies, not my own compositions.
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(early April 1882)
... either a blacksmith or a
physician.
I remember quite well, now that you write about it, that at
the time when you spoke of my becoming a painter, I thought it
very impractical and would not hear of it. What made me stop
doubting was reading a clear book on perspective, Cassange's
Guide to the ABC of Drawing; and a week later I drew the
interior of a kitchen with stove, chair, table and window - in
their places and on their legs - whereas before it had seemed
to me that getting depth and the right perspective into a
drawing was witchcraft or pure chance. If only you drew one
thing right, you would feel an irresistible longing to draw a
thousand other things. But one sheep has to cross the bridge to
get the others to follow.
If a painter seized you by the arm and said, Look, Theo, you
must draw that field like this: the lines of the furrows go
this way, for such and such reasons and no other; they are
brought into perspective this way. And that pollard willow
being... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(12 or 13 May 1882)
...
What I wanted to say to you again is this: I have no great
plans for the future; if momentarily I feel rising within me
the desire for a life without care, for prosperity, each
time I go fondly back to the trouble and the cares, to a
life full of hardship, and think, It is better this way;
I learn more from it, it does not degrade me, this is not the
road on which one perishes. I am absorbed in my work and I have
confidence enough so that with the help of such as you, Mauve,
Tersteeg - though we disagreed last winter - I will succeed in
earning enough to keep myself, not in luxury, but as one who
eats his bread in the sweat of his brow. Christine is not a
hindrance or a trouble to me, but a help. If she were alone,
perhaps she would succumb; a woman must not be alone in a
society and during a time like the one in which we live, which
does not spare the weak but treads them underfoot, and crushes
a weak woman under its wheels when she has fallen down.
Therefore,... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 2 or 3 November 1882)
... consult about what we can do with it.
I think it possible that within a relatively short time
there will perhaps be a greater demand for illustrators than
there is at present.
As for me, if I fill my portfolios with studies from every
model I can get hold of, I will have enough of a skill to hope
to get employment. To keep illustrating, as did for
instance Morin, Lançon, Renouard, Jules Ferat, Worms in
their times, one needs quite a lot of ammunition, in the form
of different studies of all kinds of subjects.
Those I try to get together, as you know, and as you will
see when you come.
By the by, I have not so far received the package of
studies, which according to your letter you returned to me via
the Rue Chaptal. Do you think they have already arrived at the
Plaats? If you think so I will send for them, as they will be
of use to me in connection with things which I have recently
produced.
Do you know whose portrait I drew this morning? Blok,... |
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