|
Auvers-sur-Oise
23 July 1890 My dear brother, (Theo)
Thanks for your letter of today and the 50-fr. note it contained.
Perhaps I'd rather write you about a lot of things, but to begin with, the desire
to do so has completely left me, and then I feel it is useless.
I hope that you will have found those worthy gentlemen well disposed toward
you.
As far as I'm concerned, I apply myself to my canvases with all my mind, I am
trying to do as well as certain painters whom I have greatly loved and admired.
Now I'm back, what I think is that the painters themselves are fighting more and
more with their backs to the wall.
Very well . . . but isn't the moment for trying to make them understand the
usefulness of a union already gone? On the other hand a union, if it should take shape, would founder if
the rest should have to founder. Then perhaps you would say that some dealers might combine on behalf of
the impressionists, but that would be very short-lived. Altogether I think that personal initiative
remains powerless, and having had experience of it, should we start again?
I noticed with pleasure that the from Brittany which I saw was very beautiful, and
I think that the others has done there must be so too.
Perhaps you will look at this sketch of Daubigny's garden. It is one of my most
purposeful canvases. I add a sketch of some old thatched roofs(see above) and the sketches of two
size 30 canvases representing vast fields of wheat after the rain. Hirschig asked me to beg you to be
kind enough to order for him the list of paintings enclosed at the same colour merchant's whose paints
you send me.
Tasset can send them to him direct, cash on delivery, but then he would have to
give him the 20 per cent reduction, which would be simplest. Or else you can put them in with the package
of paints for me, adding the bill, or telling me how much the total is, and then he would send the money
to you. You cannot get anything good in the way of paints here.
I have reduced my own order to the barest minimum. Hirschig is beginning to
understand things a little, it seems to me; he has done a portrait of the old schoolmaster, he has got
him well--and then he has some landscape studies which are like the Konings at your place, almost the
same in colour. They will come to be quite like these perhaps, or like the things by Voerman which we saw
together.
Good-by now and good luck in business, etc., remember me to Jo and handshakes in
thought.
Ever yours, Vincent
|
Saint-Rmy 2 February
1890
|
My dear Theo,
Today I received your good news that you are at last a father, that the most
critical time is over for Jo, and finally that the little boy is well. That has done me more good and
given me more pleasure than I can put into words. Bravo--and how pleased Mother is going to be. The day
before yesterday I received a fairly long and very contented letter from her too. Anyhow, here it is, the
thing I have so much desired for such a long time. No need to tell you that I have often thought of you
these days, and it touch me very much that Jo had the kindness to write to me the very night before. She
was so brave and calm in her danger, it moved me very deeply. Well, it contributes a great deal to
helping me forget the last days when I was ill; at such times I don't know where I am and my mind
wanders.
I was extremely surprised at the article on my pictures which you sent me. I
needn't tell you that I hope to go on thinking that I do not paint like that, but I do see in it how I
ought to paint. For the article is very right as far as indicating the gap to be filled, and I think that
the writer really wrote it more to guide, not only me, but the other impressionists as well, and even
partly to make the breach at a good place. So he proposed an ideal collective ego to the others quite as
much as to me; he simply tells me that there is something good, if you like, here and there in my work,
which is at the same time so imperfect; and that is the comforting part of it which I appreciate and for
which I hope to be grateful. Only it must be understood that my back is not broad enough to carry such an
undertaking, and in concentrating the article on me, there's no need to tell you how immersed in flattery
I feel, and in my opinion it is as exaggerated as what a certain article by Isacson said about you,
namely that at present the artists had given up squabbling and that an important movement was silently
being launched in the little shop on the Boulevard Montmartre. I admit that it is difficult to say what
one wants, to express one's ideas differently--in the same way as you cannot paint things as you see
them--and so I do not mean to criticize Isacson's or any other critic's daring, but as far as we are
concerned, really, we are posing a bit for the model, and indeed that is a duty and a bit
of one's job like any other. So if some sort or reputation comes to you and me, the thing is to try to
keep some sort of calm and, if possible, clarity of mind.
Why not say what he said of my sunflowers, with far more grounds, of those
magnificent and perfect hollyhocks of Quost's, and his yellow irises, and those splendid peonies of
Jeannin's? And you will foresee, as I do, that such praise must have its opposite, the other side
of the medal. But I am glad and grateful for the article, or rather "le cœur l'aise," as the song
in the Revue has it, since one may need it, one may really need a medal. Besides, an article like
that has its own merit as a critical work of art; as such I think it is to be respected, and the writer
must heighten the tones, sythetize his conclusions, etc. But from the beginning you must beware of
putting your young family too much into artistic surroundings. Old Goupil managed his household
pretty well even in the Parisian thorns and thistles, and I expect you will think of him many a time.
Things have changed so, the cold pride would be startling today, but his power to resist so many storms,
that was really something.
proposed, very vaguely it is true, to found a studio in his name, he, De Haan and
I, but he said that he is insisting on going through with his Tonkin project, and seems to have cooled
off greatly, I do not exactly know why, about continuing to paint. And he is just the sort to be off to
Tonkin in earnest, he has a sort of need to expand, and he finds--and there's some truth in it--the
artistic life paltry. With his experience of travel, what can I say to him?
But I hope he feels that you and I are indeed his friends, without counting on us
too much, which indeed he in no way does. He writes with much reserve, more gravely than last year. I
have just written a note to Russell once more, to remind him a little of , for I know that Russell as a
man has much gravity and strength. and Russell are countrymen at heart; not uncouth, but with a certain
innate sweetness of far-off fields, probably more so than you or I, that is how they look to me. It is
necessary--I admit--sometimes to believe in it a little in order to see it.
If for my part I wanted to go on--let's call it translating certain pages of
Millet, then, to prevent anyone from being able, not to criticize me, which wouldn't matter, but to make
it awkward for me or to hinder me by pretending that it is just copying--then I need someone among the
artists like Russell or to carry this thing through and make a serious job of it.
I have scruples of conscience about doing the things by Millet which you sent me,
for instance, and which seemed to me perfectly chosen, and I took the pile of photographs and
unhesitantly sent them to Russell, so that I shall not see them again until I have made up my mind. I do
not want to do it until I have heard a little of your own opinion, and other people's too, on the ones
you will soon be getting.
Without that I should have scruples of conscience, a fear lest it should be
plagiarizing. And not now, but in a few months' time, I shall try to get a candid opinion from Russell
himself on the usefulness of the thing. In any case Russell is quick-tempered, he gets angry, he says
something true, and that is what I sometimes need. You know I think the "Virgin" so dazzling. I have
not dared to look at her. All at once I felt a "not yet." My illness makes me very sensitive now, and
for the moment I do not feel capable of continuing these "translations" when it concerns such
masterpieces. I am stopping at the "Sower," which I am working on, and which is not coming off as I
should wish. Being ill, however, I have thought a lot abut continuing this work and when I do it,
I do it calmly, as you will soon see when I send the five or six finished canvases.
I hope that M. Lauzet will come, I very much wish to make his acquaintance. I have
confidence in his opinion when he says it is Provence, there he touches on the difficulty, and like the
other one he indicates a thing to be done rather than a thing already done. Landscapes with cypresses!
Ah, it would not be easy. Aurier feels it too when he says that even black is a colour, and as for their
appearance--I am thinking about it, but don't dare go further, and I say with the cautious Isacson--I do
not yet feel that we have got to that. You need a certain dose of inspiration, a ray from on high, that
is not in ourselves, in order to do beautiful things. When I had done those sunflowers, I looked for the
contrast and yet the equivalent, and I said--It is the cypress.
I will say no more--I am a little worried about a friend who it appears is still
ill, and whom I should like to go and see; it is the one whose portrait I did in yellow and black, and
she had changed so much. It is the nervous attacks and complications of a premature climacteric,
altogether very painful. Last time she was like an old grandfather, I promised to return within a
fortnight, and was taken ill again myself.
Anyway, the good news you have sent me and this article and lots of things have
made me feel quite well personally today. I am sorry too that M. Salles did not find you. I thank Wil
once more for her kind letter. I should have liked to answer today, but I am putting it off to several
days from now; tell her that Mother has written me another long letter from Amsterdam. How happy she will
be, and Wil too.
Meanwhile I remain with you in thought, though I am finishing my letter. May Jo
long remain for us what she is. Now as for the little boy, why don't you call him Theo in memory of our
father, it would certainly give a great deal of pleasure to me.
A handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
|
