| | 24 letters relate to health - fatigue... | Excerpt length: shorter longer | |
| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(14 October 1888)
... what I
have done in figure painting.
I have been and still am nearly half-dead from the past
week's work. I cannot do any more yet, and besides, there is a
very violent mistral that raises clouds of dust which whiten
the trees on the plain from top to bottom. So I am forced to be
quiet. I have just slept sixteen hours at a stretch, and it has
restored me considerably.
And tomorrow I shall have recovered from this queer
turn.
But I have done a good week's work, truly, with five
canvases. If that somewhat takes it out of one, well, it's
natural. If I had worked more quietly, you can easily see that
the mistral would have caught me again. If it is fine here you
must take advantage of it, otherwise you would never do
anything.
Say, what is Seurat doing? If you see him, tell him from me
that I am working on a scheme of decoration which has now got
to 15 square size 30 canvases, and which will take at least 15
others to make a whole, and that in this work on a larger
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(28 October 1888)
... have you done anything in
Brussels?
My brain is still feeling tired and dried up, but this week
I am feeling better than during the previous fortnight.
What Gauguin tells of the tropics seems marvellous to me.
Surely the future of a great renaissance in painting lies
there. Just ask your new Dutch friends whether they have ever
thought how interesting it would be if some Dutch painters were
to found a colourist school in Java. If they heard Gauguin
describe the tropical countries, it would certainly make them
desire to do it directly. Everybody is not free and [in]
circumstances [that allow them] to emigrate. But what things
could be done there!
I regret I am not ten or twenty years younger, then I would
certainly go there.
Now it is most unlikely that I shall leave the shore and put
to sea, and the little yellow house here in Arles will remain a
way station between Africa, the Tropics, and the people of the
North.
At present it is rather probable that Bernard... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(19 January 1889)
... I have explained it all clearly enough, I hope. I am
still very weak, and I shall have difficulty in getting my
strength back if the cold continues. Rey will give me quinine
wine, which will have the right effect, I think.
I still have a lot to tell you in reply to your letter, but
I have a picture on the easel and am in a hurry.
You didn't tell me that André B. had been married
before. Jo sent me a note in reply to my congratulation, it is
very kind of her.
It always seemed to me that you owed it to your social
position and to the position you have in the family to get
married, and besides, for a number of years it has been our
mothers' wish too.
And by thus doing what you ought to do, you will perhaps
have more peace, even amidst a thousand and one difficulties,
than before.
All the same, life is not easy for me either.
What wouldn't I have given to be able to spend a day here
with you and show you the work in progress, and the house,
etc., etc.... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(3 February 1889)
... My dear Theo,
I should have preferred to reply at once to your kind letter
containing the 100 francs, but since at that precise moment I
was very tired and the doctor had given me strict instructions
to go out for walks and make no mental exertion, I haven't
written to you until today.
As far as work is concerned, this month hasn't been bad on
the whole, and as the work takes my mind off things, or rather
keeps me in order, I don't deprive myself of it.
I have done “La Berceuse” three
times , and
seeing that Mme. Roulin was the model and I only the painter, I
let her choose between the three, her and her husband, on
condition, however, that I could do a duplicate for myself of
the one she chose, which I am working on at present.
You ask if I have read La Mireille by Mistral - I am like
you, I can only read the extracts that have been translated.
But what about you, have you heard it yet, for perhaps you know
that Gounod has set it to music.... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 9 June 1889)
... which reached me in good condition.
I was very glad of them, for I was feeling a little low
after working. Also I have been out for several days, working
in the neighborhood.
Your last letter, if I remember correctly, was dated May 21.
I have had no more news of you since, except only that M.
Peyron told me he had had a letter from you. I hope you are
well, and your wife too.
M. Peyron intends to go to Paris to see the exhibition and
he will pay you a visit then.
What news can I tell you? - not much. I am working on two
landscapes (size 30 canvases), views taken in the hills, one is
the country that I see from the window of my bedroom. In the
foreground, a field of wheat ruined and hurled to the ground by
a storm. A boundary wall and beyond the grey foliage of a few
olive trees, some huts and the hills. Then at the top of the
canvas a great white and grey cloud floating in the azure.
It is a landscape of extreme simplicity in colouring too.
That will make... |
<< Previous Next >> 24 results found
Showing matches 19 - 23 |
