| | 19 letters relate to art - theory... | Excerpt length: shorter longer | |
| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(4 or 5 May 1885)
... about the Salon is very interesting.
From what you say about the picture by Besnard, I see that
you understood what I wrote about broken colours, orange broken
by blue and the reverse.
However, there are many other colour scales too, but that of
orange against blue is logical; so is yellow against violet, so
is red against green.
The box for the picture is ready, so I am sending it flat.
It is a light box, but it must dry another day or two. I'm
sending ten other painted studies at the same time.
Please tell me some more about the picture by Uhde; you know
Rembrandt painted the same subject in his large picture at the
National Gallery.
I am in all the mess of moving. Once more, thanks for what
you sent. With a handshake,
Ever yours, Vincent
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(2nd half October 1885)
... Burger and Mantz
and Silvestre knew.
Just to explain how that study was painted - simply this:
green and red are complementary colours. Now in the apples
there is a red which is very vulgar in itself; further, next to
it some greenish things. But there are also one or two apples
of another colour, of a certain pink which makes the whole
thing right.
That pink is the broken colour, got by mixing the
above-mentioned red and the above-mentioned green. That's why
there is harmony between the colours.
Added to this is a second contrast, the background forms a
contrast to the foreground, the one is a neutral colour, got by
mixing blue with orange; the other, the same neutral colour
simply changed by adding some yellow.
But I am awfully glad that you notice a combination of
colour, be it through direct or indirect personal perception.
Further, that one of the studies seemed to you a variation on
the brown-grey theme, well, that certainly is the case, but all
three potato... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(early November 1885)
... -
the other in orange - oaks.
I am completely absorbed in the laws of colours. If only
they had taught us them in our youth!
But it is the fate of most people that by a kind of fatality
one has to seek for light a long time. For, that the laws of
colour which Delacroix was the first to use, like Newton did
for gravitation, and like Stephenson did for steam - that those
laws of colours are a ray of light - is absolutely certain.
I have made another autumn study of the pond in the garden
at home . There decidedly is a picture in that spot. I already
tried to get it last year.
The one I made now is a rather stiff composition - to the
right, two trees - orange and yellow; in the centre, two bushes
of grey-green; to the left, two trees of brownish-yellow. In
front of them the black pond - a foreground of withered grass.
The background - a glimpse over the hedge on a very vivid
green. A sky of slate-grey and dark blue to harmonize with this
in strength.
I am sure... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard
(6-11 June 1888)
... See illustration of page with sketches. ]
In another category of ideas - when for instance one composes
a motif of colours representing a yellow sky, then the raw hard
white of a white wall against the sky may be expressed, if
necessary, in a strange way by raw white, softened by a neutral
tone. For the sky itself colours it with a delicate lilac
hue.
Furthermore, imagine in this so naïve landscape, which
is reasonable, a cottage whitewashed all over (the roof too)
standing in an orange field - certainly orange, for the Midi
sky and the blue Mediterranean provoke an orange tint that gets
more intense just as the scale of blues gets more vigorous
tones. The black note of the door, the windows and the little
cross on the ridge of the roof produce a simultaneous contrast
of black and white just as pleasing to the eye as that of blue
and orange.
To take a more amusing motif: let's imagine a woman in a
black and white checked dress in the same primitive landscape
with... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard
(c. 18 June 1888)
... way you can work in the wind.
This is what I wanted to say about black and white. Take the
Sower. The picture is divided in two; one half is yellow, the
upper part, the lower part is purple. Well, the white trousers
help rest the eye and distract it just as the excessive
contrast of yellow and purple starts to jar. There you are,
that's what I wanted to say.
I know a second lieutenant in the Zouaves here; his name is
Milliet. I give him drawing lessons - with my perspective frame
- and he is beginning to do some drawings and, honestly, I've
seen far worse. He is keen to learn, has been in Tonkin,
etc… He is leaving for Africa in October. If you were to
join the Zouaves, he would take you along and guarantee you a
fairly large measure of freedom to paint, at least if you were
willing to help him with his artistic plans. Might this be of
any use to you? If so, let me know as soon as possible.
One reason for working is that the canvases are worth money.
Since... |
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