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". . . I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate, and feeling nowhere so much myself a stranger as in my family and country."
Vincent van Gogh |
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Letter |
From |
To |
Keywords |
Excerpt / Full Text |
Link to Painting(s) Mentioned in Letter |
| 9a
London | Vincent | The Van Stockum-Haanebeek family | Rotten Row, Hyde Park, Van Beers, Elisabeth | The neighbourhood where I live is quite beautiful, and so quiet and intimate that you almost forget you are in London. | --- |
| 10a
London | Vincent | The Van Stockum-Haanebeek family | John Keats, Crystal Palace, the Tower, Madame Tussaud's, Tersteeg, Marinus, Iterson | Full Text | --- |
| 11a
London | Vincent | The Van Stockum-Haanebeek family | Anker, Boughton, Muyden, Feyen, Bourguereau, Michelet | Full Text | --- |
| 12a
London | Vincent | Carolien van Stockum-Haanebeek | Theo | All is well with me, but I am up to my ears in work and have only a moment to spare. | --- |
| 13a
London | Vincent | The Van Stockum-Haanebeek family | --- | I live a rich life here, 'having nothing yet possessing all.' At times I am inclined to believe that I am gradually turning into a cosmopolite; that is, neither a Dutchman, nor an Englishman, nor yet a Frenchman, but simply a man. | --- |
| 14a
London | Vincent | The Van Stockum-Haanebeek family | Anna, Poten, Tersteeg | Full Text | --- |
| 60
Ramsgate | Vincent | His parents | Zevenbergen, Mr. Provily, Canterbury, Stokes | We have often parted already; this time there was more sorrow in it than there used to be, but also more courage because of the firmer hope, the stronger desire, for God's blessing. | --- |
| 69a
Welwyn | Anna van Gogh | Theo van Gogh | Vincent | . . . no one can imagine what a happy life I lead here, surrounded by so much love. | --- |
| 81
Isleworth | Vincent | His parents | Gladwell, Jones, Ary Scheffer | Tomorrow I must be in the two remotest parts of London: in Whitechapel – that very poor part which you have read about in Dickens . . . . | --- |
| 87a
Dordrecht | Vincent | Uncle Cor | Scheffer, Theo, Anna | I like being in Holland again, although the work across the Channel, notwithstanding all the trouble and profound disappointment, was dear to me. | --- |
| 91a
Dordrecht | Theodorus van Gogh (Vincent and Theo's father) | Theo van Gogh | --- | Oh, we can make things so pleasant for each other, isn't this a great aim in life? | --- |
| 141
Brussels | Vincent | His parents | Tersteeg | Only if I study drawing thus seriously and thoroughly, always trying to portray truly what I see, shall I arrive; and then, notwithstanding the inevitable expenses, I shall make a living by it. | --- |
| 165a
Etten | Vincent | Uncle Cor | --- | Full Text | --- |
| 334
Drenthe | Vincent | His parents | Heike | And that in my opinion the nearer one gets to the large cities, the further one gets into the darkness of degeneration and stupidity and wickedness. | --- |
| 351a
Nuenen | Vincent | Furnée | Algeria, Egypt, China, Japan | With me things are going fairly well here in Brabant, at least I find nature here very stimulating. | Weaver Facing Left: F 1107, JH 445; Wood Auction, A: F 1113, JH 438; Weaver Facing Left: F 1114, JH 444 |
| 399a
Nuenen | Vincent | Anton Kerssemakers | --- | Full Text | Potato Eaters, The: F 78, JH 734; Peasant and Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes: F 129a, JH 727; Peasant Man and Woman Planting Potatoes: F 1225, JH 729; Two Peasant Women Working in a Field: F 1228, JH 730 |
| 419a
Nuenen | Vincent | Mr. Furnée | --- | I have only one thing, and that is steadily improving: I mean my pictures and my drawings. | --- |
| ---
Nuenen | Wil van Gogh | Line Kruysse | --- | You don't know what a hard life [Vincent] has had, and who can say what is still in store for him. | --- |
| 459a
Paris | Vincent | Horace M. Livens | Delacroix, Degas, Claude Monet, Allen, Briet, Rink, Durant, Millet, Corot, Daubigny, Dupré, Mrs. Roosmalen | . . . I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate, and feeling nowhere so much myself a stranger as in my family and country. | --- |
| 477a
Arles | Vincent | John Russell | McKnight, Sicily, Fabian, Reid, Monticelli, Michel Ange, Rafael, Mantegna, Botticelli, Cimabue, Giotto, Bellini, P. Veronese, Titian, Velasquez, Goya | Full Text | --- |
| 494a (draft)
Arles | Vincent | Paul Gauguin | Russell, Guillaumin, Bernard | But are you willing to share with me here? If we combine, there may be enough for both of us, I am sure of it, in fact. | --- |
| 498a
Arles | Vincent | A. H. Koning | Durand Ruel | I wish you could see the colour here. | View of Arles from a Hill: F 1452, JH 1437 |
| 501a
Arles | Vincent | John Russell | Boccaccio, Monticelli, Zola, Manet, Gauguin, Monet, McKnight, Monticelli, Cimabue | Full Text | Sower, The: F 422, JH 1470; Bridge at Trinquetaille, The: F 426, JH 1468; Head of a Girl: F 1507a, JH 1466 |
| 501b
Belle-Ile-en-Mer | John Russell | Vincent | Gauguin, Bernard, Rodin, Monet | Full Text | --- |
| 544a
Arles | Vincent | Paul Gauguin | Guillaumin, Pissarro, Seurat, Boch, Bernard, Botticelli, Giotto, Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, Laval, Daumier | Now, hope is vaguely beckoning on the horizon again, that flickering hope which used sometimes to console my solitary life.
I consider my views of art excessively run of the mill compared with yours. | Green Vineyard, The: F 475, JH 1595; Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin): F 476, JH 1581 |
| 553b
Arles | Vincent | Eugène Boch | Jean Baptiste Denis, Joseph Quintet, Gauguin, Milliet | As a matter of fact it was in the Borinage that I first started to work from nature. But of course I destroyed it all a long time ago. | Portrait of Eugene Boch: F 462, JH 1574; Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles, The: F 463, JH 1575; Vincent's House in Arles (The Yellow House): F 464, JH 1589; Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night, The: F 467, JH 1580; Public Park with Weeping Willow: The Poet's Garden I: F 468, JH 1578; Lane in the Public Garden at Arles, A: F 470, JH 1582; Portrait of Milliet, Second Lieutenant of the Zouaves: F 473, JH 1588; Starry Night over the Rhone: F 474, JH 1592; Green Vineyard, The: F 475, JH 1595; Ploughed Field: F 574, JH 1586 |
| 569a
Arles | Vincent | His mother and sister | Jet Mauve | But at the same time I can inform you that I have completely recovered, and am at work again, and everything is normal. | --- |
| 571a
Arles | Vincent | A. H. Koning | Van Eeden, Breitner | Whether I really sang a lullaby in colours is something I leave to the critics, particularly to the aforesaid ones. | Still Life: Vase with Fourteen Sunflowers: F 454, JH 1562; Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers: F 456, JH 1561; Still Life: Vase with Fourteen Sunflowers: F 458, JH 1667; Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey: F 500, JH 1659; La Berceuse (Augustine Roulin): F 508, JH 1671 |
| 572a
Arles | Vincent | Paul Gauguin | Roulin, Berlioz, Wagner, Jeannin, Quost | In my mental or nervous fever, or madness – I am not too sure how to put it or what to call it – my thoughts sailed over many seas. | --- |
| 581a
Arles | Paul Signac | Theo van Gogh | Rey | [Vincent] took me along to see his pictures, many of which are very good, and all of which are very curious. | --- |
| 583a
Cassis | Paul Signac | Vincent van Gogh | --- | Full Text | --- |
| 583b
Arles | Vincent | Paul Signac | --- | Since your visit my head has just about returned to its normal state, and for the time being I desire nothing better than that this will last.
But at times it is not easy for me to take up living again, for there remain inner seizures of despair of a pretty large caliber. | Orchard in Bloom with View of Arles: JH 1684; View of Arles with Trees in Blossom: F 515, JH 1683; La Crau with Peach Trees in Blossom: F 514, JH 1681 |
| 598
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mother | Cor, Gauguin, Transvaal | And yet apples do not fall far away from the tree, nor will stinging nettles grow from their pips. Beyond that I know nothing. | Red Vineyard, The: F 495, JH 1626 |
| 602a
Saint-Rémy | Dr. Peyron | Theo van Gogh | --- | [Vincent's] thoughts of suicide have disappeared, only disturbing dreams remain. | --- |
| 606
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mother | Cor, Wil | Thus it is a great consolation for me that the work is progressing instead of declining, and that I do it with absolute calmness and that in this respect my thoughts are quite clear and conscious. | --- |
| 612
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mother | Cor, Gauguin, De Haan, Toon, Piet Prins | And those high prices one hears about, paid for work of painters who are dead and who were never paid so much while they were alive, it is a kind of tulip trade, under which the living painters suffer rather than gain any benefit. And it will also disappear like the tulip trade. | Vincent's Bedroom in Arles: F 483, JH 1793; Red Vineyard, The: F 495, JH 1626; Self-Portrait: F 525, JH 1665; Wheat Field behind Saint-Paul Hospital with a Reaper: F 619, JH 1792; Enclosed Field with Ploughman: F 625, JH 1768; Portrait of a Patient in Saint-Paul Hospital: F 703, JH 1832; Olive Trees: F 711, JH 1791; Wheat Field with Cypresses: F 743, JH 1790 |
| 614a
Auvers-sur-Oise | Vincent | J.J. Isaäcson | Delacroix, Puvis de Chavannes, Monet, Renoir, Daubigny, Cesar de Cock, Millet, Jules Breton, Rembrandt, Chavannes, Raphael, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Giotto | The effect of daylight, of the sky, makes it possible to extract an infinity of subjects from the olive tree. | Still Life: Vase with Irises against a Yellow Background: F 678, JH 1977; Still Life: Vase with Irises: F 680, JH 1978; Still Life: Vase with Roses: F 681, JH 1976 |
| 616
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mother | Wil, Aunt Mina | . . . and be sure that I think of you often, here where I spend my days more withdrawn into myself than now and then seems to me desirable. | --- |
| 619
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mother | Schelfout, Van de Sande Bakhuysen, Jules Bakhuysen | A French writer says that all painters are more or less crazy, and though quite a lot can be said against this, it is certain that one gets too distrait in it. | Pine Trees against a Red Sky with Setting Sun: F 652, JH 1843; Olive Picking: F 655, JH 1869; Les Peiroulets Ravine: F 661, JH 1871 |
| 622a
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mr. and Mrs. Ginoux | --- | Personally I believe that the adversities one meets with in the ordinary course of life do us as much good as harm.
Diseases exist to remind us that we are not made of wood, and it seems to me this is the bright side of it all. | --- |
| 623a
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | John Russell | Millet, Gauguin, De Haan, the Vingtistes, MacKnight | Though it is not pleasant to be ill, yet I have no right to complain, for it seems to me that nature sees to it that disease is a means of putting us on our legs again and of healing us, rather than an absolute evil. | --- |
| 624
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Johanna van Gogh-Bonger | Gauguin, Wil, Mother | Forgive me if I warn you that in my opinion recovery takes a long time and is no easier than being ill. | --- |
| 626a
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Albert Aurier | Monticelli, Cythère by Watteau, M. Lauzet, Delacroix, Diaz, Ziem, Decameron, Boccaccio, Henri Leys, Gauguin, Rembrandt's Portrait of a Man at the Galerie Lacaze, the Vingtistes, Quost, Jeannin, Meissonier, Mauve, Troyon | I admire [your article] very much as a work of art in itself, it seems to me that you paint with words; in fact, I encounter my canvases anew in your article, but better than they are in reality, richer, more meaningful. | Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers: F 456, JH 1561; Still Life: Vase with Fourteen Sunflowers: F 458, JH 1667; Paul Gauguin's Armchair: F 499, JH 1636; Cypresses with Two Female Figures: F 620, JH 1748 |
| 626b
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mr. Ginoux | Gauguin | . . . there have been articles on my pictures published simultaneously in Belgium and in Paris, where I had them exhibited, in which they speak far better of them than I myself could have wished. | --- |
| 627
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mother | Isaäcson | Full Text | Red Vineyard, The: F 495, JH 1626; Blossoming Almond Tree: F 671, JH 1891 |
| 629a
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mother and sister Wilhelmina (Wil) | --- | . . . I am longing to get away from here; what one has to endure here is hardly bearable.
. . . this is how things nearly always go in a painter's life: success is about the worst thing that can happen. | Cottages: Reminiscence of the North: F 673, JH 1919; Thatched Cottages in the Sunshine: Reminiscence of the North: F 674, JH 1920; Cottages and Cypresses: Reminiscence of the North: F 675, JH 1921; Pine Trees and Dandelions in the Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital: F 676, JH 1970; Two Peasant Women Digging in Field with Snow: F 695, JH 1923 |
| 634a
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Mr. Ginoux | Roulin family | I vigorously shake your hands in thought, as well as the hands of the neighbors, and believe me when I say that over there I shall often think of you all, for what Mrs. Ginoux said is true – if you are friends, you are friends for a long time. | --- |
| 639
Auvers-sur-Oise | Vincent | Mother | Peyron, Cor, Gachet, Wil | . . . it seems to me, a favourable effect in so far as the symptoms of the disease, which are a sort of thermometer, have quite disappeared these days – though, as I have learned, one must not count too much on this. | --- |
| 640a
Auvers-sur-Oise | Vincent | Mr. and Mrs. Ginoux | --- | The more you feel attached to a spot, the more ruthlessly you are compelled to leave it, but the memories remain, and one remembers – as in a looking glass, darkly – one's absent friends. | --- |
| 641a
Auvers-sur-Oise | Vincent | Mother | Gachet | That is why I at times try my very hardest, although it is this very hard work that turns out to be the least understood, and though for me it is the only link between the past and the present. | --- |
| 643
Auvers-sur-Oise | Vincent | Paul Gauguin | Gachet, Lauzet, Monticelli, De Haan | Full Text | L'Arlesienne (Madame Ginoux): F 543, JH 1895; Road with Cypress and Star: F 683, JH 1982; Portrait of Doctor Gachet: F 753, JH 2007; Ears of Wheat: F 767, JH 2034 |
| 650
Auvers-sur-Oise | Vincent | Mother and sister Wilhelmina (Wil) | --- | For the present I am feeling much calmer than last year . . . . | --- |
| B22
Arles | Vincent | Paul Gauguin | --- | There is still present in my mind the emotion produced by my own long journey from Paris to Arles last winter. How I peered out to see whether it was like Japan yet! Childish, wasn't it? | Vincent's Bedroom in Arles: F 482, JH 1608; Vincent's Bedroom: JH 1610 |
| T1a
Paris | Theo | Mrs. Van Stockum-Haanebeek | Zola's Une Page d'amour, Guy de Maupassant, Loti's Pécheur d'Islande | Full Text | --- |
| T3a
Paris | Theo | Paul Gauguin | Degas | Full Text | --- |
| W10
Arles | Joseph Roulin | Wilhelmina (Wil) | --- | Please set your mind quite at ease as to the health of my good friend Vincent . . . | --- |
| W12
Saint-Rémy | Vincent | Wilhelmina (Wil) | --- | Though it is with an obstinate ingratitude that I feel my health gradually returning, the fact is that I am quite well; but, as I told you, my inclination to take up the joys of life again can hardly be called strong. | Mountainous Landscape behind Saint-Paul Hospital: F 611, JH 1723; Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background: F 712, JH 1740; Green Wheat Field with Cypress: F 719, JH 1725 |
| ---
Arles | Joseph Roulin | Theo van Gogh | --- | I have been to see your brother Vincent. I promised to tell you what I thought of him. I am sorry to tell you that I think he is lost.
(Text and graphic courtesy of Bob Harrison). | --- |
| ---
Brittany | Paul Gauguin | Theo van Gogh | De Haan, Bernard, Degas, Schuffenecker, Tonkin, Manet | It is good to meticulously touch up the model from nature, but be careful lest you smell its odour. | --- |
The Complete Letters: From Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard
Letter |
Keywords |
Excerpt / Full Text |
Link to Painting(s) Mentioned in Letter |
| B1
Paris | Tolstoi's Russian Legends, Delacroix, Guillaumin, Signac, Fantin-Latour | . . . I persist in believing that you will discover that in the studios one not only does not learn much about painting, but not even much good about the art of living . . . . | --- |
| B2
Arles | --- | If the Japanese are not working in their country it is certain that their art continues in France. | Langlois Bridge at Arles with Women Washing, The: F 397, JH 1368; Two Lovers (Fragment): F 544, JH 1369 |
| B3
Arles | Aix, Marseilles, Tangier | A starry sky, for instance – look, that is something I should like to try to do, just as in the daytime I am going to try to paint a green meadow spangled with dandelions. | Orchard in Blossom, Bordered by Cypresses: F 554, JH 1388 |
| B4
Arles | Dürer, Cranach, Van Eyck, Tartarin de Tarascon | There are so many people, especially among our comrades, who imagine that words are nothing – on the contrary, isn't it true that saying a thing well is as interesting and as difficult as painting it? | Orchard in Blossom: F 406, JH 1399 |
| B5
Arles | Gauguin | . . . I have rented a house, painted yellow outside, whitewashed within, in the full sun (four rooms). | Still Life: Bottle, Lemons and Oranges: F 384, JH 1425; Farmhouse in a Wheat Field: F 408, JH 1417; View of Arles with Irises in the Foreground: F 409, JH 1416; Still Life: Blue Enamel Coffeepot, Earthenware and Fruit: F 410, JH 1426; Lane near Arles, A: F 567, JH 1419 |
| B6
Arles | Daudet's Tartarin, Cimabue, Giotto, Fromentin, Gerome | Full Text | --- |
| B7
Arles | Gauguin, Millet, Mauve, Israëls, Anquetin, J. K. Huysman's 'En ménage', Milliet, Baudelaire, Daudet's Nabab, Loti's Madame Chrysanthème, Monet | The symbol of St. Luke, the patron saint of painters, is, as you know, an ox. So you just be patient as an ox if you want to work in the artistic field. Still, bulls are lucky not to have to work at that foul business of painting. | Sower, The: F 422, JH 1470; Sunset: Wheat Fields near Arles: F 465, JH 1473 |
| B8
Arles | Moses, St. Luke, Christ, St. Paul, Delacroix, Rembrandt, Millet, Botticelli, Van Eyck, Cranach, Velásquez, Benjamin Constant, Puvis, Monet, Luther, Dürer, Holbein, Louis XIV, Potter | Christ alone, of all the philosophers, magicians, etc., has affirmed eternal life as the most important certainty, the infinity of time, the futility of death, the necessity and purpose of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as an artist greater than all other artists, scorning marble and clay and paint, working in the living flesh.
Yet our own life is a modest one indeed, our life as painters, languishing under the back-breaking yoke of the problems of a calling that is almost too hard to practise on this ungrateful planet, where 'love of art drives out true love'. | Zouave (Half Length), The: F 423, JH 1486; Seated Zouave, The: F 424, JH 1488; Zouave Sitting, Whole Figure: F 1443, JH 1485 |
| B9
Arles | --- | Full Text | Zouave (Half Length), The: F 423, JH 1486; Sunset: Wheat Fields near Arles: F 465, JH 1473 |
| B10
Arles | Crivelli, Virelli, Breton, Gauguin | And I am still going there, over and over again. All right! I have done two drawings of [la Crau] – of that flat landscape, where there was nothing but . . . infinity – eternity. | La Crau Seen from Montmajour: F 1420, JH 1501; Landscape near Montmajour with Train: F 1424, JH 1502; Newly Mowed Lawn with Weeping Tree: F 1450, JH 1509 |
| B11
Arles | Cézanne, Monticelli, Rembrandt, Paulus Potter, Ruysdael | Moreover, the material problems of the painter's life make it desirable that painters should collaborate and unite (much as they did in the days of the Guilds of St. Luke). | Haystacks near a Farm: F 1426, JH 1514; Fishing Boats at Sea: F 1430, JH 1505; Street in Saintes-Maries: F 1435, JH 1506; Sower with Setting Sun: F 1442, JH 1508; Canal with Women Washing: F 1444, JH 1507; Wheat Field: F 1481, JH 1515; Wheat Field with Sheaves: F 1488, JH 1517; Wheat Field with Sheaves and Arles in the Background: F 1491, JH 1516; Rocks with Tree: F 1554, JH 1518 |
| B12
Arles | Rembrandt, Baudelaire, Millet, Courbet, Degas, Vermeer, Velasquez, Charles Blanc, Thoré, Fromentin, Socrates, Mohammed, Da Vinci, Delacroix | I am showing you a painter who dreams and paints from imagination, and I began by contending that the character of the Dutch painters is such that they do not invent anything, that they have neither imagination nor fantasy. | La Mousmé, Sitting: F 431, JH 1519 |
| B13
Arles | Velasquez, Goya, Rembrandt, Baudelaire, Ostade, Terborch, Delacroix, Zola, Balzac, Silvestre, Daumier, Millet, Frans Hals, Dante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Vermeer of Delft, Nicholaes Maes, Pieter de Hooch, Bol, Potter, Ruysdael, Fabritius, Musset | It is possible that these great geniuses are only madmen, and that one must be mad oneself to have boundless faith in them and a boundless admiration for them. If this is true, I should prefer my insanity to the sanity of the others. | --- |
| B14
Arles | Gauguin, Rembrandt, Vermeer of Delft, Giotto, Daumier, Cimabue, Holbein, Van Dyck, Puvis [de Chavannes], de Goncourt, Degas, Reubens, Courbet, Balzac, Delacroix, Tanguy, Cézanne | Vermeer of Delft, found this extremely solid technique which has never been surpassed, which at present… we are burning .. to find. | Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin: F 432, JH 1522; Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin: F 433, JH 1524 |
| B15
Arles | Socrates, Gauguin, Giotto, Rembrandt | Oh! that beautiful midsummer sun here. It beats down on one's head, and I haven't the slightest doubt that it makes one crazy. But as I was so to begin with, I only enjoy it. | Potato Eaters, The: F 82, JH 764; Portrait of Patience Escalier, Shepherd in Provence: F 443, JH 1548; Thistles: F 447, JH 1550; Two Thistles: F 447a, JH 1551; Quay with Men Unloading Sand Barges: F 449, JH 1558 |
| B16
Arles | Delacroix, Monticelli, Gérôme, Fromentin | Full Text | Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles, The: F 463, JH 1575; Portrait of Milliet, Second Lieutenant of the Zouaves: F 473, JH 1588 |
| B17
Arles | Gauguin, Africa | Art is long and life is short, and we must be patient, while trying to sell our lives dearly.
To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one's fling from time to time, smoke one's pipe and drink one's coffee in peace. | --- |
| B18
Arles | Gauguin, Laval, Moret | Painting a picture is as difficult as finding a large or a small diamond. | Sunny Lawn in a Public Park: F 428, JH 1499; Thistles: F 447, JH 1550; Quay with Men Unloading Sand Barges: F 449, JH 1558; Pair of Shoes, A: F 461, JH 1569; Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles, The: F 463, JH 1575; Vincent's House in Arles (The Yellow House): F 464, JH 1589; Public Park with Weeping Willow: The Poet's Garden I: F 468, JH 1578; Starry Night over the Rhone: F 474, JH 1592; Green Vineyard, The: F 475, JH 1595; Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin): F 476, JH 1581; Ploughed Field: F 574, JH 1586; Newly Mowed Lawn with Weeping Tree: F 1450, JH 1509 |
| B19
Arles | Gauguin, Laval, Moret | I strongly urge you to study portrait painting, do as many portraits as you can and don't flag. We must win the public over later on by means of the portrait; in my opinion it is the thing of the future. | Quay with Men Unloading Sand Barges: F 449, JH 1558; Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles, The: F 463, JH 1575; Brothel, The: F 478, JH 1599; Old Mill, The: F 550, JH 1577 |
| B19a
Arles | Le rêve, Zola, Milliet | As for me, with my presentiment of a new world, I firmly believe in the possibility of an immense renaissance of art. | Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles, The: F 463, JH 1575; Les Alyscamps: Falling Autumn Leaves: F 486, JH 1620; Les Alyscamps: F 487, JH 1621; Les Alyscamps: F 568, JH 1622 |
| B20
Saint-Rémy | Gauguin, Corot, Garnier, Violet le Duc, Millet | . . . for the great thing is to give the sun and the blue sky their full force and brilliance, and the scorched – and often melancholy – fields their delicate aroma of thyme. | Entrance to a Quarry near Saint-Remy: F 635, JH 1767; Enclosed Wheat Field with Peasant: F 641, JH 1795; Les Peiroulets Ravine: F 662, JH 1804 |
| B21
Saint-Rémy | Millet, Baudelaire, Daumier, Gauguin, Giotto, Corot, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Delacroix, Anquetin | My ambition reaches no further than a few clods of earth, sprouting wheat, an olive grove, a cypress – the last, for instance, far from easy to do. | Novel Reader, The: F 497, JH 1632; La Berceuse (Augustine Roulin): F 508, JH 1671; Olive Grove: Orange Sky: F 586, JH 1854; Olive Grove with Picking Figures: F 587, JH 1853; Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun: F 617, JH 1753; Wheat Fields with Reaper at Sunrise: F 618, JH 1773; Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital, The: F 660, JH 1849; Olive Grove: F 707, JH 1857; Olive Grove: Pale Blue Sky: F 708, JH 1855; Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun: F 710, JH 1856; Enclosed Field with Rising Sun: F 737, JH 1862 |
The Complete Letters: From Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard
Letter |
Keywords |
Excerpt / Full Text |
Link to Painting(s) Mentioned in Letter |
| R1
Etten | Gavarni, Thackeray, Dickens, Balzac, Mauve, Karl Robert's Le fusain, De Leur | At present I am working a good deal with charcoal and black crayon, and I have also tried sepia and watercolour. Well, I do not venture to say that you will see progress in my drawings, but most certainly you will see a change. | Pollard Willow: F 995, JH 56 |
| R2
Etten | Mauve, Baudry, Lefebvre, Henner, Mesdag's "Panorama", De Bock, Destrée, Tom Hood, Jules Breton, Feven-Perrin, Millet, Ulysse Butin, Mauve, Artz, Israëls, Lantsheer, Arti | The more we know of what is happening abroad, the better, but we must never forget that we have our roots in the Dutch soil. | Sower with Hand in Sack: F 857, JH 32; Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out"): F 863, JH 34; Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out"): F 864, JH 51 |
| R3
Etten | Dr. Kam | The fact that my being conscious of my own fallibility will keep me from making many mistakes will certainly not prevent my making a great many mistakes after all. | Boy Cutting Grass with a Sickle: F 851, JH 61; Farmer Sitting at the Fireside, Reading: F 897, JH 63; Woman Sitting at the Fireside: F 1216, JH 64 |
| R4
Etten | Dame Nature, Dame Reality, Nucingen, Michelet | My dear fellow, never be resigned, and never get disappointed, this is the best advice I can give you . . . . | --- |
| R5
Etten | Ten Cate | Full Text | --- |
| R6
Etten | --- | The man who damn well refuses to love what he loves dooms himself. | --- |
| R7
The Hague | Stallaert, Severdonk | Of course my letters don't pretend to be invariably right, always to explain things correctly – oh no, I am often mistaken. | --- |
| R8
The Hague | Mrs. Edwards, Green, Rochussen, Dürer, Holbein, Du Maurier, Fred Walker, Mauve, Millais, Dickens, Eliot, Currer Bell, Balzac, Herkomer, Fildes, Israëls, Tersteeg, Millet, Sensier | When the earth is not ploughed, you can get no harvest from it. [Sien] has been ploughed – and so I find more in her than in a crowd of unploughed ones. | Nursery on Schenkweg: F 930, JH 138; Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Height: F 938, JH 152; Carpenter's Yard and Laundry: F 939, JH 150; Sien's Mother's House, Closer View: F 942, JH 147 |
| R9
The Hague | De Groux | Art is jealous, and demands our whole strength; and then, when one devotes all one's powers to it, to be looked upon as a kind of unpractical fellow and all kinds of other things – yes, that leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth.
Oh well, we must try to carry on. | Nursery on Schenkweg: F 923, JH 125; Nursery on Schenkweg: F 930, JH 138; Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Height: F 938, JH 152; Carpenter's Yard and Laundry: F 939, JH 150; Sien's Mother's House: F 941, JH 146; Sien's Mother's House, Closer View: F 942, JH 147; Fish-Drying Barn: F 946a, JH 151 |
| R10
The Hague | De Groux | It is very pleasant here in this hospital; I am lying in a ward with ten beds, but, as I had to keep quiet, I have not been able to draw until today, and even now it is only a very faint and feeble start; I cannot do what I want and penetrate to the core of things. | Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Height: F 938, JH 152; Fish-Drying Barn: F 940, JH 154; Fish-Drying Barn: F 946a, JH 151 |
| R11
The Hague | Mauve, ter Meulen, Heike, Neuhuys, Duchâtel, Weissenbruch, Israëls, Mesdag, Willem Maris, Jaap Maris, Vermeer, Daubigny, Corot, Jules Dupré, Jules Breton, Courbet, Diaz, Jacque, Th. Rousseau, Millet | Painting is so sympathetic to me that it will be very difficult for me not to go on painting forever. | Beach at Scheveningen in Calm Weather: F 2, JH 173; Dunes: F 2a, JH 176 |
| R12
The Hague | McQuoid, Renouard, Lançon, Doré, Morin, Gavarni, Du Maurier, Ch. Keene, Howard Pyle, Hopkins, Herkomer, Frank Hol | I know that there are so many beautiful things to do which have hardly, if ever, been painted by others. | Bench with Four Persons (and Baby): F 951, JH 197 |
| R13
The Hague | Vautier, Knaus, Jundt, Georg Saal, Van Muyden, Brion, Anker, Th. Schuler, Erckmann-Chatrian, Auerbach, Lançon, Goya, Fortuny, Morelli, Tapero, Heilbuth, Zues, Rochussen, Mauve, Israëls, Thomas Faed, Pinwell, Morris, Small, Gilbert, Dickens, Zola, Shakespeare, Menzel, Whistler, Régamey, Heilbuth, Marchetti, Jacquet, Wyllie, Boughton, Millet, Robinson Crusoe, Karl Robert's Le fusain, Marchal, Balzac, Gavarni, Eliot, Doré, Daumier, Jacque, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Morin, Victor Hugo, Bohème, Lynen | Well, speaking for myself – provided I remain active and productive too – as long as I may have my daily bread, I shall not mind being relatively poor all my life. | --- |
| R14
The Hague | Renouard, Caton Woodville, Monthard | As for watercolours, I have started several, but I have not been as successful with them as I should wish, although I enjoy doing them more than formerly. | Orphan Man with Long Overcoat and Umbrella, Seen from the Back: F 968, JH 213 |
| R15
The Hague | Harper's Weekly, Howard Pyle, Harper, Rogers, Abbey, Alexander, Caton Woodville, Overend, Nash, Dodd, Gregory, Watson, Stamland, Smythe, Hennessy, Emslie, Graphic, London News, Small, British Workman and the Cottage and Artisan, Shakespeare, Menzel, Knaus, Birket Forster, Read, Oliver Twist, J. Mahoney, Story of a Feather, Du Maurier, Certain Lectures, Ch. Keene, Félicien Rops, De Groux | How beautiful it is out-of-doors; sometimes I long for a country where it is always autumn, but then we should not have snow and apple blossoms, and no wheat and fields of stubble. | --- |
| R16
The Hague | Arti, Punch, Thomas a Kempis, Erckmann-Chatrian, Tenniel, Holbein, Robinson, Caldecott, Dagnan, Montbard, Emslie, Gavarni, "Bénédicité" by De Groux, the "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci, Harry Furniss, Daumier, Andersen's Fairy Tales | One must have a warm sympathy with human beings, and go on having it, or the drawings will remain cold and insipid.
I am trying to push on energetically, and yet I am looked down upon, and considered a nonentity, by fellows who are certainly working less hard than I am – which by the way leaves me pretty cold – and nobody here pays the slightest attention to my work. | Women Miners: F 994, JH 253 |
| R17
The Hague | Herkomer, Small, Ridley, Swain, Chr. Green, Caton Woodville, Howard Pyle, Dickens, Chuzzlewit, Israëls, Mauve, Maris, Neuhuys, Weissenbruch, De Groux | And believe me – whoever has seen the prominent artists of today ten years ago, both as men and as artists, when all of them were much poorer – they have made an enormous amount of money these last ten years – regrets those days ten years ago. | --- |
| R18
The Hague | Van der Weele, Frank Hol | Full Text | Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out"): F 864, JH 51; Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee: F 996a, JH 264; Old Man with his Head in his Hands: F 997, JH 267; Old Man with his Head in his Hands, Half-Figure: F 998, JH 269; "Sorrow": F 1655, JH 259; Digger: F 1656, JH 262; Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee: F 1657, JH 266; Old Man with his Head in his Hands ("At Eternity's Gate"): F 1662, JH 268; Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee: F 1682, JH 263 |
| R19
The Hague | Herkomer, Boughton, Renouard | . . . I cannot agree with what you say about the way the public looks at things, namely being struck by faulty drawing before seeing the character. | Orphan Man: F 1658, JH 256 |
| R20
The Hague | De Groux, Lançon, Herkomer, Lhermitte, Millet, Jules Breton, Daumier, Gregory, Boks, Diaz, Breitner, Frank Hol, Fred. Walker, Fildes | It does not surprise me very much that I had my share of botheration with former friends who did not want to see me any longer. But fortunately this was not the case with my best friend – I mean my brother – for he and I are far more friends than brothers, and he is a man who can understand such things – more than that, who has helped and is still helping many unfortunates. | Workman Sitting on a Basket, Cutting Bread: F 1663, JH 272 |
| R21
The Hague | Frank Hol, Jacque, Daumier, Oberländer, Edmond Morin, John Lewis Brown, Doré, Valerio, Renouard, Harper's Christmas Papers, Swain, Caldecott, Dagnan, Montbard, Heilbuth, Washington Irving, Menzel, De Groux, Lhermitte, Paterson, Hugo, Dickens's The Haunted Man | The changes in my household, instead of causing me to work less, have caused me to work more; I worked even with a sort of fury, but a quiet fury, if you will allow me to use the expression. | --- |
| R22
The Hague | Graphic, Percy Macquoid, Gavarni's La Mascarade Humaine | Full Text | --- |
| R23
The Hague | Ridley, Whistler, Seymour Haden, Boyd Houghton, Herkomer, Pinwell, Fred. Walker, Ch. Green, Buckmann, Brentall, Small, H. Woods, Macbeth, Gregory, Frank Hol, Du Maurier | There is something stimulating and invigorating like old wine about those striking, powerful, virile drawings [in the Graphic]. | --- |
| R24
The Hague | (Vincent cites dozens of artists and their works found in the volumes of The Graphic that he had recently purchased). | Oh, Rappard – in many respect it's like this – much that has great value nowadays is ignored and looked down upon as worthless rubbish, garbage, wastepaper. | --- |
| R25
The Hague | Heilbuth, Lucas, Andersen, Marchetti, Gussow, Ed. Frère, Vautier, Herkomer, Pinwell, Walker | I used to think years ago that most artists had the same kinds of feelings and ideas about art as you and I, but in some sense this is not true at all. | --- |
| R26
The Hague | Graphic, Régamey, Hopkins, Percy Macquoid, Jules Férat, Heilbuth, Dodd, Green, Barnes, Corot | Full Text | --- |
| R27
The Hague | Graphic, Small, Herkomer, Green, Frank Hol, Fritz Reuter, Bräsig, Havermann, Knaus, Vautier, Houghton, du Maurier, Miss Edw. Edwards, J. D. Linton | Full Text | --- |
| R28
The Hague | (Vincent cites dozens of artists and their works found in the volumes of The Graphic that he had recently purchased). | I hope you do not object to my considering you my friend, and I suppose that you on your part think of me in the same way.
How beautiful the mud is, and the withering grass! | State Lottery Office, The: F 970, JH 222 |
| R29
The Hague | Herkomer, Van der Weele, Régamey, Menzel, Renouard, Frère, Heilbuth, Fildes's "Charles Dickens Empty Chair", Daziel, Green, Giacomelli, Bodmer | Full Text | --- |
| R30
The Hague | Smulders, Album des Vosges, Lançon, Renouard, F. Régamey, Guillaume Régamey, Boulanger, Walker, Boetzel, Lavieille, Swain, Moller, Feyen-Perrin, Millet, De Bock, Ruysdael, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Carlyle, Goethe, Barnard, Dickens, Fildes' "Empty chair", John Leech, Cruikshank, Frank Hol | There is no writer, in my opinion, who is so much a painter and a black-and-white artist as Dickens. His figures are resurrections. | Baby Crawling: F 872, JH 334; Public Soup Kitchen, The: F 1020a, JH 330 |
| R31
The Hague | Van der Weele, Mauve, Herkomer, Frank Hol, Lançon, Small | Full Text | --- |
| R32
The Hague | Herkomer, Boyd Houghton, Van der Weele | . . . let's encourage each other to do it, and let's inspire each other as much as we can to work, on, not in the manner the dealers want us to, but with virile strength, truth, good faith and honesty. | --- |
| R33
The Hague | Thomas, Gilbert, Oberlander, Smulders | You make a drawing, either with lead pencil or with charcoal. Put as much vigour into it as you can, but without worrying about the weakness or inadequacy of the effect. | --- |
| R34
The Hague | Israëls, Mauve, Maris, Howard Pyle, Terborch, Nicolaas Keyzer, King, Dumas, Van der Weele | I cannot conceal the fact that, speaking for myself, I do not see the future very clearly, and that I deem it doubtful whether I shall be able to carry out what I intend to do.
I believe that the more one loves, the more one will act; for love that is only a feeling I would never recognize as love. | --- |
| R35
The Hague | Dickens, Hugo, Zola, Erckmann-Chatrian's Histoire d'un Paysan, Robe, Van der Weele, Lhermitte, Perret, Bastien Lepage, Balzac, Michelet | Full Text | --- |
| R36
The Hague | Harper's Weekly, Reinhardt, Régamey, Les Misérables, A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, Howard Pyle, Caldecott | The French Revolution is the very greatest modern event, and everything in our own time hinges on it too. | Digger: F 906, JH 260; Man Carrying Peat: F 964, JH 273; Orphan Man with Top Hat and Hands Crossed: F 975, JH 235; Fisherman with Sou'wester, Head: F 1014, JH 310; Scheveningen Woman with Wheelbarrow: F 1021, JH 362; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363; Digger: F 1656, JH 262 |
| R37
The Hague | Millet, Albrecht Dürer, Leys, De Groux, Daumier, Israëls, Mauve, Maris, Van der Weele, Caldecott, Tersteeg, Faber, Boughton, Abbey, Howard Pyle, Erckmann-Chatrian, Schüler, Green, Harper's, Zola, Manet, Fritz Reuter's Dried Herbs, Smedley | What you write about feeling that you are now on a road, and not on little by-paths and crossroads, is very true, in my opinion. I have a similar feeling myself, because during the past year I have been concentrating on figures even more than I used to. | Orphan Man in Sunday Clothes with Eye Bandage, Head: F 1003, JH 285; Man with Pipe and Eye Bandage, Head: F 1004, JH 289; Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin near The Hague: F 1029, JH 366; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363 |
| R38
The Hague | Zola, Hugo, Manet, Erckmann-Chatrian, Claude Lantier, Balzac, Taine, Dickens, Carlyle, Boughton, Abbey, Millet, Green, Braemar, Ridley, A. Hunt, Barnard, Hopkins, Birken Forster, Gavarni, Régamey, Howard Pyle, Read, Rembrandt, Van Beyeren, Volton, Reinhardt, Graphic, London News, Caldecott, Caton Woodville | Full Text | Potato Grubbers, Four Figures: F 1034, JH 372; Sower: F 1035, JH 374; Weed Burner, Sitting on a Wheelbarrow with his Wife: F 1035a, JH 375 |
| R39
Nuenen | --- | My mother had a pretty serious accident getting off the train . . . . | --- |
| R40
Nuenen | O'Kelly, Emslie, Jules Breton, François, Coppée | I have mostly been painting these past weeks – those weavers – it was rather a laborious job. | Old Tower at Nuenen with a Ploughman, The: F 34, JH 459; Weaver Facing Right: F 1108, JH 451; Weaver Facing Right: F 1121, JH 453; Weaver Facing Right (Half-Figure): F 1122, JH 454; Weaver Facing Left: F 1123, JH 455 |
| R41
Nuenen | Coppée, Hippolyte Boulanger, De Lesseps | I am asked quite often, "Why do others sell and you don't?" I answer that I certainly hope to sell in the course of time, but that I think I shall be able to influence it most effectively by working steadily on, and that at the present moment making desperate "efforts" to force the work I am doing now upon the public would be pretty useless – and consequently that the problem leaves me rather cold, as I am concentrating on getting on. | Old Tower at Nuenen with a Ploughman, The: F 34, JH 459; Parsonage Garden: F 1133, JH 485 |
| R42
Nuenen | Jules Breton, Jaap Maris | Full Text | --- |
| R43
Nuenen | Jesuits, Corot, Daubigny, Dupré, Millet, Haverman, Thoré, Théophile Gautier, Herkomer, Israëls, Vollon, Eliot, Dickens, Frank Holl, Adam Bede, De Genestet | . . . art is something which, though produced by human hands, is not wrought by hands alone, but wells up from a deeper source, from man's soul . . . . | --- |
| R44
Nuenen | --- | I work every day, of course--and not a week passes without my doing some studies like these. I always consider it possible that some day I shall find an art lover who would like to buy them from me--not one or two but fifty for instance. | Parsonage Garden: F 1128, JH 466; Behind the Hedges: F 1129, JH 461; Parsonage Garden: F 1130, JH 465; Parsonage Garden: F 1133, JH 485; Pond with a Kingfisher: F 1135, JH 468; Lane of Poplars with One Figure: F 1139, JH 464; Pollard Birches with Woman and Flock of Sheep: F 1240, JH 469 |
| R45
Nuenen | --- | If some people you've happened to show these studies to have disapproved of them or laughed at them or said of them no matter what, they will change their minds if they continue to see them over and over again – not all of them, but some. | Houses with Thatched Roofs: F 1242, JH 474; Ditch: F 1243, JH 472; Firs in the Fen: F 1249, JH 473 |
| R46
Nuenen | --- | And a picture – whoever the artist may be – you or anyone else – should express preferably one thing only and that quite clearly. | --- |
| R47
Nuenen | J. F. Millet by Sensier, Blanc, Grammaire des Arts du Dessin | Full Text | Shepherd with a Flock of Sheep: F 42, JH 517; Potato Planting: F 172, JH 514; Potato Harvest with Two Figures: F 1141, JH 510; Ploughman: F 1142, JH 512; Sower: F 1143, JH 509; Oxcart in the Snow: F 1144, JH 511 |
| R48
Nuenen | Blanc, Fromentin, Artistes de mon Temps, Grammaire des Arts du Dessin | Full Text | Farmers Planting Potatoes: F 41, JH 513; Shepherd with a Flock of Sheep: F 42, JH 517; Wood Gatherers in the Snow: F 43, JH 516; Potato Planting: F 172, JH 514; |
| R49
Nuenen | --- | Full Text | --- |
| R50
Nuenen | --- | Full Text | Water Mill at Kollen near Nuenen: F 48a, JH 488 |
| R51
Nuenen | --- | Full Text | --- |
| R51a
(from Rappard to Vincent) | --- | And after that, while working in such a manner [on The Potato Eaters], you dare invoke the names of Millet and Breton? Come on! in my opinion art is too sublime a thing to be treated so nonchalantly. | --- |
| R52
Nuenen | Meissonier, Haverman, Jacquet, Millet, Breton, Lhermitte, Cabanel | I do not say this because you were very useful to me as a friend – for, amice, you were distressingly little useful to me – and don't think ill of me if for the first and last time I tell you flatly--I don't know a drier friendship than yours. | The Potato Eaters: F 1661, JH 737 |
| R53
Nuenen | Wenkebach, Messrs. Goupil & Co. | My parents, my teachers, Messrs. Goupil & Co., and furthermore all kinds of friends and acquaintances have said so many unpleasant things to me for own good and with the best intentions that in the end the burden has become a little too heavy for me; and since I let people talk without paying any attention to it . . . . | The Potato Eaters: F 1661, JH 737 |
| R54
Nuenen | Wenkebach, Tersteeg | So this is my last word: I want you to take back, frankly and without reservation, what you wrote in your last letters – beginning with the one I sent back to you. | --- |
| R55
Nuenen | --- | Our dispute has a decidedly ridiculous side, in my opinion, and it is bound to get more and more so, for which reason I won't go into the subject any further. It is too absurd. | --- |
| R56
Nuenen | --- | In case you do not write this week – I no longer desire your reply. And then time will tell whether your remarks about my work and my person were justified or not – were made in good faith or not. | --- |
| R57
Nuenen | Millet, Delacroix, Wenkebach, Raffaelli, Claude Monet | I know too well what my ultimate goal is, and I am too firmly convinced of being on the right road after all, to pay much attention to what people say of me – when I want to paint what I feel and feel what I paint. | Potato Eaters, The: F 78, JH 734; Potato Eaters, The: F 82, JH 764; Two Peasant Women Digging Potatoes: F 97, JH 876; The Potato Eaters: F 1661, JH 737 |
| R58
Nuenen | Eugène Delacroix, Silvestre, Millet, Corot, Troyon, Daubigny, Rousseau, Daumier, Jacque, Jules Dupré, Lhermitte, Gigoux, Bracquemond, Mauve, Israëls, Maris, Géricault, Wenkebach, Paul Mantz | . . . for really and truly birds – such as the wren and the golden oriole – rank among the artists too. At the same time they are beautiful stuff for still lifes. | --- |
Origin and Date |
From |
To |
Excerpt / Full Text |
| Paris
1 August 1890 | Theo | His mother | Life weighed so heavily upon him . . . . |
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