Relevant paintings: "Lithograph, Old man, head in hands," Vincent van Gogh [Enlarge]
|
Sunday
Dear Theo,
Yesterday I happened to read a book by Murger, namely, Les
Buveurs d'Eau [The Water Drinkers]. I find something in it of
the same charm there is, for instance, in the drawings by
Nanteuil, Baron, Roqueplan, Tony Johannot, something witty,
something bright.
Still, it is very conventional, at least this book is, I
think. I haven't read other books of his as yet, and I think
there is the same difference between him and, for instance,
Alphonse Karr and Souvestre as there is between a Henri Monnier
and a Comte-Calix and the above-mentioned artists. I try to
choose the persons I compare all from the same period. It has a
fragrance of the era of the Bohemian (though the reality of
that time is suppressed in the book), and for that reason it
interests me, but in my opinion it lacks originality and
sincerity of sentiment. However, perhaps his books in which no
artist types occur are better than this one; authors seem to be
always unlucky with their types of painters. Balzac, among
others (his painters are rather uninteresting), Zola, even
though his Claude Lantier is real - there certainly are Claude
Lantiers, but, after all, one would like to see another kind of
painter depicted by Zola than Lantier, who seems to be drawn
from life after somebody who certainly was not the worst
example of that school, which I think is called impressionist.
And it is not they who form the nucleus of the artistic
corps.
On the other hand, I know very few well-drawn or
well-painted types of authors; painters on that point generally
fall into the conventional and make of an author a man who sits
before a table full of papers, that's all, or they do not even
go as far as that, and the result is a gentleman with a collar
and a face devoid of expression.
There is a painting by Meissonier which I think beautiful,
it is a figure seen from behind, stooping over, with his feet I
think on the rung of the easel; one sees nothing but a pair of
up-drawn knees, a back, a neck, and the back of a head, and
just the glimpse of a fist holding a pencil or something
similar. But the fellow is there, and one feels the action of
strained attention just as in a certain figure by Rembrandt, a
little fellow shown reading, who also stoops with his head
leaning on his fist, and one feels at once that he is
absolutely lost in his book.
Take Bonnat's Victor Hugo, fine, very fine, but I still
prefer the Victor Hugo described in words by Victor Hugo
himself, nothing but this: “Et moi je me taisais, tel que
l'on voit se taire un coq sur la bruyère.” [And as
for me, I was silent, like a cock seen keeping silence on the
heath.] Isn't it splendid, that little figure on the heath?
Isn't it just as vivid as a little general of `93 by Meissonier
- of about the size of one centimetre.
There is a portrait of Millet by Millet himself which I
love, nothing but a head with a kind of shepherd's cap, but the
look-from half-closed eyes, the intense look of a painter - how
beautiful it is - also that piercing gleam as in a cock's eye,
if I may call it so.
It is Sunday again. This morning I took a walk on the
Rijswijk road, the meadows are partly flooded, so that there
was an effect of tonal green and silver with the rough black
and grey and green trunks and branches of the old trees
distorted -by the wind in the foreground, a silhouette of the
little village with its pointed spire against the clear sky in
the background there and there a gate or a dungheap on which a
flock of crows sat pecking. How you would like such a thing,
how well you would paint it if you tried.
It was extraordinarily beautiful this morning, and it did me
good to take a long walk, for what with drawing and the
lithography I had scarcely been outdoors this week.
Well, we must see how it turns out.
Tomorrow I hope I shall learn several things about printing
which the printer will show me. I should love to learn the
printer's craft itself. I think it quite possible that this new
method will bring new life into the art of lithography. I think
there might be a way of combining the advantages of the new
with the old way, one cannot tell for certain, but perhaps it
may be the cause of new magazines being published.
Monday
I wrote this far last night, this morning I had to go to the
printing office with my little old man, now I have witnessed
everything, the transfer on to the stone, the preparation of
the stone and the printing itself. And I have a better idea now
of what changes I can still make by retouching. Enclosed you
will find the first print, not counting one spoiled proof.
After a time I hope to do better, this doesn't satisfy me at
all, but well, the progress must come by work and trying. It
seems to me the duty of a painter to try to put an idea into
his work. In this print I have tried to express (but I cannot
do it well, or so strikingly as it is in reality, of which this
is but a weak reflection in a dark mirror) what seems to me one
of the strongest proofs of the existence of “quelque
chose là-haut” [something on high] in which Millet
believed, namely, the existence of God and eternity - certainly
in the infinitely touching expression of such a little old man,
of which he himself is perhaps unconscious, when he is sitting
quietly in his corner by the fire.
At the same time there is something noble, something great
that cannot be destined for the worms. Israëls has painted
it so beautifully. In Uncle Tom's Cabin, the most beautiful
passage is perhaps the one in which the poor slave, knowing
that he must die, and sitting for the last time with his wife,
remembers the words,
Let cares like a wild deluge come,
And storms of sorrow fall,
May I but safely reach my home,
My God, my Heaven, my all.
This is far from theology, simply the fact that the poorest
little wood-cutter or peasant on the heath or miner can have
moments of emotion and inspiration which give him a feeling of
an eternal home to which he is near.
Returning from the printing office, I find your letter; I
think your Montmartre splendid, and I certainly would have
shared your emotion, in fact I think that Jules Dupré
and Daubigny have often tried to conjure up these thoughts by
their work. There is at times something indescribable in those
aspects, all nature seems to speak, and on going home one has a
feeling of the same sort as when one has finished a book by
Victor Hugo, for instance. As for me, I cannot understand that
not everybody sees it and feels it, nature or God does it for
everyone who has eyes and ears and a heart to understand. For
this reason I think a painter is happy because he is in harmony
with nature as soon as he can express a little of what he
sees.
And that's a great thing, one knows what one has to do,
there are subjects in abundance, as Carlyle rightly says,
“Blessed is he who has found his work.”
If that work like that of Millet, Dupré,
Israëls, etc., strives to bring peace, sursum
corda, lift up your heart to Heaven, then it is
doubly stimulating - one is then less alone also, because one
thinks. It's true I'm sitting here lonely, but whilst I am
sitting here in silence, my work perhaps speaks to my friend,
and whoever sees it will not suspect me of being heartless.
But I tell you that dissatisfaction about bad work, the
failure of things, the difficulties of technique can make one
dreadfully melancholy. I can assure you that I am sometimes
terribly discouraged when I think of Millet, Israëls,
Breton, de Groux, so many others, Herkomer for instance; one
only knows what these fellows are worth when one is oneself at
work. And then to swallow that despair and that melancholy, to
hear with oneself as one is, not in order to sit down and rest
but to struggle on notwithstanding thousands of shortcomings
and faults and the doubtfulness of conquering them, all these
things are the reason why a painter is not happy either.
The struggle with oneself, the trying to better oneself, the
renewal of one's energy, all this is complicated by material
difficulties.
That picture by Daumier must be beautiful. It is a mystery
why a thing that speaks as clearly as that picture, for
instance, is not understood, at least that the situation is
such that you are not sure of finding a buyer for it even at a
low price.
This is for many a painter also something unbearable, or at
least almost unbearable. One wants to be an honest man, one is
so, one works as hard as a slave, but still one cannot make
both ends meet; one must give up the work, there is no chance
of carrying it out without spending more on it than one gets
back for it, one gets a feeling of guilt, of shortcoming, of
not keeping one's promises, one is not honest as one would be
if the work were paid for at its natural reasonable price. One
is afraid of making friends, one is afraid of moving, like one
of the old lepers, one would like to call from afar to the
people: Don't come too near me, for intercourse with me brings
you sorrow and loss; with all that great load of care on one's
heart, one must set to work with a calm, everyday face, without
moving a muscle, live one's ordinary life, get along with the
models, with the man who comes for the rent, with everybody in
fact. With a cool head, one must keep one hand on the rudder to
continue the work, and with the other hand try to do no harm to
others.
And then storms arise, things one had not foreseen, one
doesn't know what to do, and one has a feeling that one may
strike a rock at any moment.
One cannot present oneself as somebody who comes to propose
a good business transaction or who has a plan which will bring
great profit. On the contrary, it is clear that it will end
with a deficit, and still one feels a power surging within, one
has work to do and it must be done.
One would like to speak like the people of `93: this and
that must be done, first these have to die, then those, then
the last ones, it is duty, so it is unarguable, and nothing
more need be said.
But is it the time to combine and to speak out?
Or is it better, as so many have fallen asleep and do not
like to be aroused, to try to stick to things one can do alone,
for which one is alone liable and responsible, so that those
who sleep may go on sleeping and resting.
Well, you see that for this once I express more intimate
thoughts than usual, you yourself are responsible for it as you
did the same.
About you I think this, you are certainly one of the
watchers, not one of the sleepers - wouldn't you rather watch
while painting than while selling pictures? I say this in all
coolness without adding what in my opinion would be
preferable, and with full confidence in your own insight into
things. That there is a great chance of going under in the
struggle, that a painter is something like a “lost
sentinel,” these and other things need no saying. You
must not think of me as so readily scared - for instance, to
paint the Borinage would be something so difficult, so
relatively dangerous as to make life a thing far removed from
any rest or pleasure. Yet I would undertake it if I could, that
is, if I didn't know sure, as I do now, that the expenses would
surpass my means. If I could find people who would interest
themselves in such an enterprise, I would risk it. But just
because you are really the only one for the moment who has a
concern over what I do, the thing has to he put on the shelf
for the present and must remain there, and meanwhile I will
find other things to do. But I do not give it up to spare
myself.
I hope you will be able to send the money not later than the
1st of December. Well, boy, hearty thanks for your letter and a
warm handshake in thought, believe me,
Yours, Vincent
At this time, Vincent was 29 year oldSource: Vincent van Gogh. Letter to Theo van Gogh. Written 26 and 27 November 1882 in The Hague. Translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, edited by Robert Harrison, number 248. URL: https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/11/248.htm.
This letter may be freely used, in accordance with the terms of this site.
|