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| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard
(21-28 March 1883)
... window at a landscape in the
snow.
I have found the “black mountain crayon” I wrote
you about here in this city too; it is something which was
virtually unknown to me until recently. But now I discover that
it is not so rare - and perhaps you know it, and have it
already. If not, I think it a suitable material for finishing
drawings up.
Adieu, old fellow, a handshake in thought - write soon and
believe me,
Ever yours, Vincent
See letter 274 to Theo.
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(30 and 1 March-April 1883)
... and White”
exhibition.
I received the crayon - many thanks - it is very good. But
it is softer than the kind you gave me the first time, and the
pieces are half as long. I am still anxious to get that harder
kind in larger pieces, but nevertheless I'm very glad to have
this.
I made a large drawing with it combined with lithographic
crayon. It is a drawing of a digger - my model was the little
old almshouse man you know already - his bald head, bent over
the black earth, seemed to me full of a certain significance,
reminiscent, for instance, of “thou shalt eat thy bread
in the sweat of thy brow.” Now these drawings of the
woman with the spade [JH 337] and this digger have such an
aspect that people won't think they are made in some intricate
way, but rather won't think about how they are made at all.
But I believe that if I had made them with ordinary
conté pencil, they would have got a dull and ironlike
aspect, which would have made people... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(2 April 1883)
... brothers - is this your opinion
too?
Lately I have been working with printer's ink, which is
diluted with turpentine and applied with a brush. It gives very
deep tones of black. Diluted with some Chinese white, it also
gives good greys. By adding more or less turpentine, one can
even wash it in very thinly.
I think it will give good results on that paper Buhot gave
you.
Sometime when you are here we'll talk that matter over, and
I will show you drawings that might be made on it. A year ago
it puzzled me, how to get some very deep tones of black, but I
found a few of them in the printer's office. So now I can
penetrate a little further into seeking for plastic effects and
chiaroscuro.
Thanks for the good wishes on my birthday. It happened to be
a very pleasant day, as I just had an excellent model for a
digger. One thing I can assure you of, the work gets more and
more stimulating, and it gives me, so to speak, more vitality;
and then I always think of you, because... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard
(c. 2-4 April 1883)
... tried
out the other day. 1
It goes without saying that the printer's ink -
diluted with more or less turpentine (you can dilute it until
it is so thin that you can wash with it with the utmost
transparency - on the other hand, one can use it in so thick a
condition that one gets the deepest black tones) - is the
principal ingredient you use. I think this is a method with
which much can be done. Well, more about it later on - I am
still experimenting myself.
The drawing I am working on now with this method is an
orphan man standing near a coffin - in what they call
the “corpses' den.”
Adieu, with a handshake, and thanks again for what you sent
me,
Ever yours, Vincent
It stands to reason that, in order to simplify things, you
could experiment with printers' ink and turpentine only. This
time, however, I don't mean autographic ink, but ordinary
printer's ink. Perhaps you have it already, otherwise you can
get it at any... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 11 April 1883)
... lot.
But now about the drawings.
I have again done a few with printer's ink, and this week I
made some experiments in mixing that printer's ink with white.
I found out that it can be mixed in two ways - that is, with
the white from the tubes of oil paint and, probably even
better, with the ordinary powdered zinc white which can be
obtained at any drugstore; it must be diluted with turpentine,
which doesn't soak into this paper or cause spots on the back
like oil does, because it dries quickly and disappears.
One gets much stronger effects working with printer's ink
than with ordinary ink.
How beautiful Jules Dupré's work is. In Goupil's show
window I saw a small marine which you are sure to know. I went
to look at it nearly every evening. But you are perhaps
somewhat blasé about Dupré and similar works of
art, which one sees so much more in Paris than here; you do not
know what a beautiful impression it makes here, where one sees
so very little... |
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