| | 84 letters relate to art - technique... | Excerpt length: shorter longer | |
| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard
(c. 21 May 1883)
... in it that you will be able to use.
And try washing with a wet brush in something you have drawn
with litho-graphic crayon. If you take the trouble, you will be
able to find some things in the printer's ink that will be
useful and practical - probably more and better things than I
have found myself up to now.
How beautiful your illustrations by Lhermitte, Perret and
Bastien Lepage are. If I were you, I should make more of those
beautiful heads, like the ones of those blind men. I am going
to try it with a finer pencil too.
Adieu, with a handshake,
Ever yours, Vincent
With reference to novelists, isn't it your opinion too that
one knows such writers as Dickens, Balzac, Hugo, Zola only when
one has a general idea of their works as a whole? I think the
same applies to Michelet and Erckmann-Chatrian.
See letter 286 to Theo.
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard
(c. 25 May 1883)
...
How much beauty one can find, can't one? I have now sketched
the Peat Cutters with charcoal, “black mountain
crayon” and autographic ink [F 1031, JH 363]. I have not
yet used the strong effects of printer's ink in it, so its
aspect is not as vigorous as I imagine it may become. My only
objection against charcoal is that it gets effaced so easily,
which, unless one is very careful, causes one to lose things
one has found. And there is something in my make-up that does
not want to be too careful.
I have some plans for large drawings which, my dear friend,
will perhaps arouse your sympathy.
I wish you had read Les Misérables - then it
would be easier for me to speak to you about it, for you might
be struck by the same things that are continually coming back
to my mind - this would not surprise me. I already knew the
book, but since I've reread it, many things in it keep
returning to my thoughts again and again.
You and I were taught something... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(13 or 14 June 1883)
... not know the place of the joints in a cow. At
present I personally often do it this way: when I draw a digger
putting one leg in front of the other, or one arm in front of
the other, or bending his head, I still draw in detail the leg,
the arm, which disappeared behind the first one and
consequently is out of sight or the neck and back of the head;
and only then do I draw what comes in sight, to get it as
correct as possible.
I hope I shall succeed in having the outline or ghost of the
potato drawing ready by the time you come. I long very much to
see you. Do you know anything more definite about your coming?
Well, I must set to work on my coal men.
For the moment my entire supply of ready cash consists of a
postal order for 1.23 guilders torn in two, which has already
been refused once. So I need not tell you that I am already on
the lookout for your letter. As a diversion I have just fixed
the large frame, and so that I shall be able to work before I
get the money... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 23-28 June 1883)
... from this long period of drudgery.
So, for instance, my dislike for working with charcoal is
disappearing more every day. One reason for this is that I have
found a way to fix the charcoal and then work over it, for
instance, with printer's ink.
Here follows a little sketch of potato diggers, but on the
drawing they are sitting a little wider apart.
As I write you, I think of that evening - perhaps you
remember it, though it is years ago - when you and I together
spent an evening with Mauve, when he was still living near the
barracks, and he gave us a photograph of a drawing of his, a
plough.
Little did I dream at the time that I myself should become a
draughtsman, nor could I think at the time that difficulties
would ever arise between Mauve and me.
I always wonder at our not having made up, the more so
because really, if one considers it thoroughly, there is hardly
any difference of opinion between us. However, it is so long
ago now that my good spirits... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 2 August 1883)
... And Rappard,
too, when he comes back.
The first two figures I painted this year were done in the
way I tried last year, drawing them, and then filling in the
outline. That is what I'd like to call the dry manner. The
other way is to make the drawing last of all, and first find
the tones without caring too much about the drawing, only
trying to put the tones in their right places; and then
gradually make the form and the subdivisions of the colours
more exactly. That surrounds the figure with more atmosphere
and gives it a mellower aspect, while the colours become more
delicate for the very reason that one often brushes them over,
and mixes one colour with another.
You will see the difference when the first two I made now
remain in their present condition.
There is an exhibition of drawings which was held last year
in the Gothic Hall, but I think it very meager this year; there
is little one has not already seen before, and then generally
of a better quality. I counted... |
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