Letters from his Parents to Theo van Gogh (1877) ... help
of the best tailor from Breda. Would you be so kind as to do
another work of mercy and have his chevelure metamorphosed by a
clever hairdresser - here in Etten we don't have such people. I
suppose a barber of The Hague might be able to do something
about it, therefore try to coax him into coming with you to
one.
It is not clear how we will manage; the teacher costs 1.50
guilders per lesson, and every day a lesson makes nine guilders
per week, and lessons in other subjects will probably also be
necessary. We insist that Vincent pays visits to Tersteeg,
Haanebeek and Mauve. Please collaborate! We hope Mrs. Tersteeg
will be all right. Vincent hopes to arrive in The Hague on
Monday afternoon around six o'clock. We wish him all the
best!
Mrs. van Gogh to Theo.
7 June 1877
Letters from his Parents to Theo van Gogh (1879) ... hello
mother,” and there he was. We were glad; although seeing
him again we found he looked thin; that is over now; it must
have been the walking and bad food etc. - things, by the way,
he does not talk about, but he looks well, except for his
clothes.
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 15-27 April 1882) ... more difficulty and opposition I shall meet. Because I shall
have to suffer much, especially from those peculiarities which
I cannot change. First, my appearance and my way of
speaking and my clothes; and then, even later on when I earn
more, I shall always move in a different sphere from most
painters because my conception of things, the subjects I want
to make, inexorably demand it.
Enclosed is a little sketch of diggers, I will tell you why
I'm sending it. Tersteeg said to me, “You failed before
and now you will fail again - it will be the same story all
over again.” Stop - no, it is quite different now, and
that reasoning is really nothing but a sophism.
My not being fit for business or for professional study does
not prove at all that I am not fit to be a painter. On the
contrary, if I had been able to be a clergyman or an art
dealer, then perhaps I should not have been fit for drawing and
painting, and I should neither have resigned nor accepted...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (late April 1882) ... have I done to deserve all this trouble? All the anxiety and
worry cannot but make me nervous and flurried in speech and
manner. When Mauve imitated me, saying, “This is the sort
of face you make,” “This is the way you
speak,” I answered, My dear friend, if you had spent
rainy nights in the streets of London or cold nights in the
Borinage - hungry, homeless, feverish - you would also have
such ugly lines in your face and perhaps a husky voice too.
Adieu, Theo, with a handshake,
Yours sincerely, Vincent
It was impossible to make the views of the city for C. M.
because of all the rain and wind, so I didn't receive the money
for them. Therefore, as I have to pay the rent on the first of
May, if you could send something about that time, it would be
very welcome.
...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Wilhelmina van Gogh (c. 22 June 1888) ... resemblance than the photographer's.
However, at the present moment I look different,
insofar as I am wearing neither hair nor beard, the same having been
shaved off clean. Furthermore, my complexion has changed from
green-greyish-pink to greyish-orange, and I am wearing a white
suit instead of a blue one, and I am always very dusty, always
more bristlingly loaded like a porcupine, with sticks,
painter's easel, canvases and further merchandise. Only the
green eyes have remained the same, but of course another colour
in the portrait is the yellow straw hat, like a
hannekenmaaier's, 3 and a very black little
pipe - I live in a little yellow house with a green door and
green blinds, whitewashed inside - on the white walls very
brightly coloured Japanese prints, red tiles on the floor - the
house in the full sunlight - and over it an intensely blue sky,
and - the shadows in the middle of the day much shorter than in
our country. Well - can you understand that one...