| | 14 letters relate to feelings - despair... | Excerpt length: shorter longer | |
| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(22 July 1883)
... feels
miserable against one's will.
And now I thought,
I am sorry that I didn't fall ill and die
in the Borinage that time, instead of taking up painting, for I
am only a burden to you. And yet I cannot help it, for one must
go through many phases to become a good painter, and what one
makes in the meantime is not exactly bad if one tries one's
utmost; but there ought to be people who see it in the light of
its tendency and objective, and who do not ask the
impossible.
Things are looking dark right now. If it were only for me,
but there is the thought of the woman and the children, poor
creatures whom one would keep safe, and feels responsible
for.
The woman has been doing well recently.
I cannot talk about it with them, but for myself it became
too much today. Work is the only remedy; if that does not help,
one breaks down.
And you see the trouble is that the possibility of working
depends on selling the work, for there are expenses - the more
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 26 September 1883)
... enough that we must give it up?”
Oh, boy, I am so melancholy - I am in a splendid country, I
want to work, I absolutely need it - at the same time, I am
absolutely at a loss as to how to overcome the difficulties,
when I think that all my things are in a most miserable
condition, and that I am here without a studio or anything, and
shall be handicapped on all sides until I can mend matters.
The models refuse to pose when there are other people
around, and that is the main reason why a studio is
necessary.
I now have the very same feeling I had when I started a
studio in The Hague: “If I don't do it now, I shall never
be able to manage.” And as for The Hague, I am not sorry
I acted then as I did; I only wish that I had come here a year
and a half sooner, and had started a studio here instead of
back there.
Father wrote to ask if he could help me, but I have kept my
cares to myself, and I hope that you too will not mention it to
Father. Father... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 14 August 1888)
... you. I am sure she will enjoy herself.
It is a gloomy enough prospect to have to say to myself that
perhaps the painting I am doing will never be of any value
whatever. If it was worth what it cost to do, I could say,
“I never bothered my head about money.”
But as things are, on the contrary it absorbs me. But there
it is, and anyhow I must go on and try to do better.
Very often I think that it would be wiser to go to Gauguin,
instead of recommending the life here to him. I am so afraid
that after all he will complain of having been upset. Would it
really be possible for us to live at home here, and could we
make both ends meet, seeing that it is a new experiment? We can
figure what it would cost in Brittany, whereas I haven't the
slightest idea about here. I still find life pretty expensive,
and you don't get anywhere complaining to the people here. Beds
and some furniture would have to be bought here, and then there
would be the cost of his journey and... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 29 August 1888)
... still life of
an old pair of shoes .
I have heaps of ideas for my work, and if I go on with
figure painting very industriously, I may possibly find more.
But what's the use? Sometimes I feel too feeble to fight
against existing circumstances, and I should have to be
cleverer and richer and younger to win.
Fortunately for me, I do not hanker after victory any more,
and all that I seek in painting is a way to make life
bearable.
Still no reply from Russell. He can't have a penny just now.
I hope our sister has seen the Luxembourg again by now.
We have had two or three perfect days here, very hot and no
wind. The grapes are beginning to ripen, but I hear that they
will not be good.
I must work again today. I have qualms about the last days
of this week, because of those models.
I am negotiating with some other people to pose for me.
There is something always driving me on to do as many figure
studies as ever I can.
In the future things may well... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(30 April 1889)
... saltpeter were
oozing from the walls.
That was a blow to me, since not only the studio had come to
grief, but even the studies that would have been reminders of
it. It is all so final, and my urge to found something very
simple but lasting was so strong. I was fighting a losing
battle, or rather it was weakness of character on my part, for
I am left with feelings of deep remorse about it, difficult to
describe. I think that was the reason I cried out so much
during the attacks - I wanted to defend myself and couldn't do
it. For it was not to me, it was precisely to painters such as
the poor wretch about whom the enclosed article speaks that the
studio could have been of use.
In fact, we had several predecessors. Bruyas at Montpellier
gave a whole fortune to that, a whole life, and without the
slightest apparent result.
Yes - a chilly room in the municipal gallery where you can
see a troubled face and many fine pictures, where you certainly
feel moved, but, alas,... |
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