Dear Theo,
Your letter and the enclosure were not a little welcome; the
news that you are going to write a little more at length was no
less welcome. I hope you will write me in detail about Les Cent
Chefs-d'Oeuvre [The Hundred Masterpieces] - it must have been a
good thing to have seen such a show.
And when one thinks how at the time there were a few persons
whose character, intention and genius were rather suspect in
the public's opinion - persons about whom the most absurd
things were told, Millet, Corot, Daubigny, etc., who were
thought of the way the village policeman views a stray shaggy
dog, or a tramp without a passport - and time passes, and
voilà “les cent chefs-d'oeuvre,” and if a
hundred are not enough, then innumerable ones. And what becomes
of the policeman? Very little remains of them except a
number of summonses as curiosities. Yet I think the history of
great men is tragic - though it's true that they did not meet
only village policemen in their lives - for usually they are no
longer alive when their work is publically acknowledged, and
for a long time during their lives they are under a kind of
depression because of the opposition and the difficulties of
struggling through life. And so whenever I hear of such a
public acknowledgement of the merits of such and such a one, I
think the more vividly of the quiet, somewhat sombre figures of
those who personally had few friends, and then, in their
simplicity, I find them even greater and more
tragic.
There is an etching by Legros, Carlyle in his study, which I
often have in mind when I want to think of Millet, for
instance, as he really was. Something like what Victor Hugo
says about Aeschylus, “On tua l'homme puis on dit:
élévons pour Aischylos une statue en bronze [They
killed the man, then they said: Let us erect a bronze statue
for Aeschylus], always comes to my mind when I hear of an
exhibition of somebody's works. I care very little for
“la statue de bronze,” not because I do not approve
of public appreciation, but because of the thoughts about the
man which accompany it: Aeschylus was simply banished, but here
too the banishment was a death sentence, as it often is.
Theo, when you come to the studio someday, I shall be able
to show you a collection which you certainly won't find
everywhere. I can show you something which might be called the
“Hundred Masterpieces” in wood engraving by modern
artists. The work of men whose names are unknown even to most
connoisseurs.
Who knows Buckmann, who knows the two Greens, who knows
Régamey's drawings? Only a very few.
Seen together, one wonders at that firmness of drawing, that
personal character, that serious conception and that
penetration and artistic elevation of the most ordinary figures
and subjects found in the streets, in the market place, in a
hospital or an almshouse.
Last year I had already collected something, but what I have
found since has far surpassed my expectations.
When you come, you won't pay too short a visit to the
studio, will you? Since I wrote you, I have worked on those
potato diggers. And I started a second one on the same subject,
with the single figure of an old man.
Further, I am doing a sower in a large field, with lumps of
earth, which I think is better than the other sowers I tried
before.
I have at least six more of them, solely as studies of the
figure, but now I have put him into surroundings more
especially like a real composition, and I have carefully
studied the earth and sky besides. Then I have studies of the
burning of weeds, and of a man with a sack of
potatoes on his back, and one with a wheelbarrow.
I think of Tersteeg's opinion that I must make watercolours;
supposing I myself were wrong, and tried with all good will to
change my mind, yet I cannot understand how these figures of
the man with the sack, of the sower, of the old potato digger,
of the wheelbarrow, of the man burning weeds, would retain
their individuality if I made them in watercolour. The result
would be very mediocre, the kind of mediocrity which I don't
want to surrender myself to. Now there is at all events some
character in them, something which - be it from afar - is in
harmony with what Lhermitte, for instance, seeks.
Watercolour is not the most sympathetic means for him who
particularly wants to express the boldness, the vigour, and the
robustness of the figures. It is different when one seeks tone
or colour exclusively, then watercolour is excellent. Now I
must admit that one could make different studies of those same
figures done from another point of view (namely tone and
colour) and with another intention - but the question is, if my
temperament and personal feeling primarily draw me toward the
character, the structure, the action of the figures, can one
blame me if, following this emotion, I don't express myself in
watercolour, but in a drawing with only black or brown?
But there are watercolours where the outlines are very
strongly expressed - for instance those by Régamey,
those by Pinwell and Walker and Herkomer, which I think of very
often (those by the Belgian Meunier); but even if I tried this,
Tersteeg would not be satisfied with them. He would always say,
“It is not saleable and saleability must come first
now.”
Personally I think he means in plainer terms, “You are
a mediocrity and you are arrogant because you don't give in and
you make mediocre little things: you are making yourself
ridiculous with your so-called seeking, and you do not
work.” That is the real meaning of what Tersteeg said to
me the year before last, and last year; and he still means
it.
I am afraid Tersteeg will always be for me “the
everlasting no.”
That is what not only I, but almost everyone who seeks his
own way, has behind or beside him as an everlasting
discourager. Sometimes one is depressed by it and feels
miserable and almost stunned.
But I repeat, it is the everlasting no; in the cases of men
of character, on the contrary, one finds an everlasting
yes, and discovers in them “la foi du
charbonnier.”
But for all that, life sometimes becomes gloomy, and the
future, dark, because the work costs money, so the harder one
works, the deeper one gets into debt, instead of the work
helping one on, so that difficulties and expense may be
surmounted by working harder.
I make progress with my figures, but financially I am losing
ground, and cannot keep it up.
And of late I sometimes think it would be well to move to
the country, either to the seaside or to a spot where the farm
labour is full of character, because I think it would help me
to economize.
Here I could also do what I want if I could earn a little
more and go here and there to make studies. And the advantage
here is that my studio is good, and that after all one is not
quite outside the world of art; one can hardly do without some
intercourse, without hearing and seeing something now and
then.
I only hope you will come soon - a year is a long time not
to see each other, yet to be always thinking of each other. Now
on July 1 our little chap was one year old, and he is the
merriest, jolliest child you can imagine, and I think this
child's doing well and keeping her busy and occupying her
thoughts are impor-tant in saving the woman herself. For the
rest, I sometimes think it would be well for her to live in the
country for a time, far from the city and far from the family;
it would help to bring about a thorough improvement. It's true
she has improved, but her family's influence is a bad drawback
at times: I want to lead her to greater simplicity, whereas
they are driving her to intrigues and duplicity.
Well, she is indeed what one may call an “enfant du
siècle,” and her character has been so much
influenced by circumstances that she will always show the
consequences in the form of a certain discouragement and
indifference, and want of a firm faith in something or other.
Often, often I have thought it would be good for her to live in
the country. But moving also brings a lot of expenses. And then
I should want to be married before I moved if I went either to
the country or to London.
I do miss the necessary intercourse with other people here,
and I don't see any chance of improving this. After all, every
place is alike to me, and I want to move as little as
possible.
As soon as you have decided anything about your coming - do
write me. I am in doubt about several things of late, and it
makes me rather nervous and that will remain so till we have
seen each other and spoken about the future.
Recently I have read articles by Boughton on Holland. They
were the text accompanying illustrations by himself and Abbey,
splendid things some of them. One thing I noted especially - a
description of the isle of Marken - written in such a manner
that I should like to go there, and who knows what a good thing
it might prove to be if one settled someplace which was very
picturesque.
But in such a case one must have at least one point of
contact with the art world, for of course the fishing
population hasn't the slightest notion of it, and one must have
enough to live on.
Don't forget to write the promised letter about Les Cent
Chefs-d'Oeuvre, and if you are very lucky in business, and
could send me something extra, it would be very welcome.
As to living in the country - I love nature, yet there are
many things that tie me to the city, especially the magazines,
the possibility of reproduction.
Not to see any locomotives would mean no hardship for me,
but never to see a printing press would be hard. Adieu, boy,
with a handshake,
Yours sincerely, Vincent
I have been reading Mes Haines by Zola; there are good
things in it, though I think he makes great mistakes - he
doesn't even mention Millet in his general survey. The
following is quite true: “Observez que ce qui plaît
au public est toujours ce qu'il y a de plus banal, ce
qu'on a costume de voir chaque année, on est
habitué à de telles fadeurs, à des
mensonges si jolis, qu'on refuse de toute sa puissance les
vérités fortes.” [Note that what pleases
the public is always utterly banal, just what they are
accustomed to seeing every year; they have got used to such
insipidities, to such pretty lies that they repudiate vigorous
truths with all their might.]
At this time, Vincent was 30 year oldSource: Vincent van Gogh. Letter to Theo van Gogh. Written c. 2 July 1883 in The Hague. Translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, edited by Robert Harrison, number 297. URL: https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/12/297.htm.
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