 |
"I am very glad that I feel my drawing is improving, it gives me courage. Drawing is the principal thing, whatever they may say, and it is the most difficult too."
Vincent van Gogh |
 |
Letter |
Keywords |
Excerpt / Full Text |
Link to Painting(s) Mentioned in Letter |
| 167
1-2 January 1882 | Mauve, De Bock | But now, boy, I have a real studio of my own, and I am so glad. | --- |
| 168
5-6 January 1882 | Mauve, Goupil's, Tersteeg | It is a time of struggle for you and for me, but I think we are making progress. So let us keep courage. | --- |
| 169
5-8 January 1882 | Herkomer, Frank Holl, Walker, Blok, Fildes, Mauve, Tersteeg, Pulchri | But I have to struggle on and, well, in good time I shall understand watercolours better. | --- |
| 170
c. 12-16 January 1882 | Mauve | Drawing becomes more and more a passion with me, and it is a passion just like that of a sailor for the sea. | Waiting Room: F 909, JH 94; Woman at the Window, Knitting: F 910a, JH 90 |
| 171
21 January 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg | What I have done now is far from good, but it is different and has more power and freshness, and is without body colour.
I feel that I am nearer success. I shall do what I can, I shall work hard, and as soon as I have more power over my brush, I shall work even harder than I do now. And if we push on energetically now, it will not be long before you need not send me money any more. | --- |
| 172
22 January 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg, Pulchri | And sometimes one involuntarily becomes terribly depressed, if only for a moment, often just when one is feeling cheerful, as I really am even now. That's what happened this morning; these are evil hours when one feels quite helpless and faint with overexertion.
Now the light is beginning to dawn, and in spite of everything, the sun is rising. | --- |
| 173
26 January 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg, Whatman, Artz, Israëls | It takes a lot of effort before one has a steady eye for the proportions of things. | --- |
| 174
13 February 1882 | Tersteeg, Uncle Cent, Breitner, Bosboom, Henkes, Rochussen, Weissenbruch, De Bock | Perhaps the time is really not far off when I shall earn some money with my work; I need to very much, for no other reason than to go on working seriously. | --- |
| 175
13 February 1882 | Mauve, Weissenbruch, Tersteeg | It is true one can understand it somehow by instinct, but this much I know – I got a clearer insight into many things by having seen artists at work and by trying some things myself. | --- |
| 176
18 February 1882 | Tersteeg | I am very glad that I feel my drawing is improving, it gives me courage. Drawing is the principal thing, whatever they may say, and it is the most difficult too. | Woman at the Window, Knitting: F 910a, JH 90 |
| 177
25 February 1882 | Tersteeg, Weissenbruch, Mauve, Gavarni, Wisselingh | Full Text | Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out"): F 863, JH 34; Girl Standing, Knitting: F 983, JH 107; Girl Sitting, Knitting: F 984, JH 108 |
| 178
3 March 1882 | Breitner | It's gratifying, isn't it, Theo, when there's a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm seeing a little bit of light now. It's gratifying to draw a human being, something alive – it may be damned difficult, but it's wonderful anyway. | Waiting Room: F 909, JH 94; Old Woman Seen from Behind: F 913, JH 109 |
| 179
5-9 March 1882 | Mauve | [Tersteeg] would have the right to reproach me if I did not work, but it is unjust to someone who toils patiently, hard, and continuously on a difficult work, to make reproaches like this:
"Of one thing I am sure, you are no artist." | --- |
| 180
c. 11 March 1882 | Tersteeg, Millet, Sensier, De Bock, Jules Bakhuyzen | . . . in art one cannot have too much patience
And another thing touched me – very, very deeply. I had told the model not to come today – I didn't say why, but nevertheless the poor woman came, and I protested. "Yes, but I have not come to pose – I just came to see if you had something for dinner." She had brought me a dish of beans and potatoes. There are things that make life worth living after all. | Bakery: F 914, JH 112; Old Street (The Paddemoes): F 918, JH 111 |
| 181
c. 11 March 1882 | De Groux, Millet, Gavarni, Breitner, Jules Bakhuyzen, Pulchri, Tony Offermans, Mauve, Rembrandt, Nicolaes Maes, Correggio, Israëls, Thomas Carlyle, Longfellow | It has always seemed to me that when an artist shows his work to the public, he has the right to keep the inner struggle of his own private life to himself . . . . | Bakery: F 914, JH 112; Old Street (The Paddemoes): F 918, JH 111 |
| 182
c. 14-18 March 1882 | Tersteeg, Mauve, Ribera, Salvator Rosa, Decamps, Goya, Gavarni, De Bock | You will no doubt tell me, the moment may well arrive when one regrets having become a painter. | Scheveningen Road: F 920, JH 113; Sand Diggers: F 922, JH 114 |
| 183
24 March 1882 | Tersteeg, Blommers, Herkomer, Frank Holl, du Maurier | Don't I deserve my bread if I work hard? Or am I not worthy of the means which enable me to work? I only wish, brother, that you would come here soon and see for yourself whether I'm cheating you or not. | Houses on Schenkweg where Van Gogh Lived, The: F 915, JH 122; Bridge near the Schenkweg: F 917, JH 115; Scheveningen Road: F 920, JH 113; Ditch along the Schenkweg: F 921, JH 116; Sand Diggers: F 922, JH 114; Van Stolkpark: F 922a, JH 119; Gas Tanks: F 924, JH 118; Factory: F 925, JH 117; Backyards: F 939a, JH 120; Bridge near the Herengracht: F 1679, JH 121 |
| 184
Early April, 1882 | Jaap Maris, Thijs Maris, Pulchri, Blommers, Gavarni, Herkomer | There are two ways of thinking about painting, how not to do it and how to do it: how to do it – with much drawing and little colour; how not to do it – with much colour and little drawing. | --- |
| 185
Early April, 1882 | Bargues, Breitner, Israëls, Blommers, Neuhuys, Thomas Hood | Work which one has plodded hard at and which one has tried to put some character and sentiment into is neither unattractive nor unsaleable. And it is perhaps better not to please everybody at first. | --- |
| 186
c. 10 April 1882 | Millet, Tersteeg, Michelet | In my opinion the enclosed is the best figure I have drawn yet, therefore I thought I should send it to you. | Sorrow: F 929, JH 129; Sorrow: F 929a, JH 130 |
| 187
c. 15 April 1882 | Rappard | Now I have become little more than a half strange, half tiresome person to Father and Mother; and for my part, when I'm at home, I also have a lonesome, empty feeling. | Sorrow: F 929a, JH 130 |
| 188
c. 15-27 April 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg | All this is essentially drawing – once having fairly mastered this, one sees the way out; and I personally go quietly along this way, knowing that if only I persist, before long I shall overtake a few of those who think they can skip such things. | Sorrow: F 929a, JH 130 |
| 189
c. 15-27 April 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg | But you know that in addition to the exertion of drawing, scarcely a day passes without bringing some difficulty or other which in itself would be hard enough to bear. And, you see, there is a sorrow which I think I don't really deserve – at least I don't know in what way I deserve it – and which I should like to get rid of. | Torn-Up Street with Diggers: F 930a, JH 131 |
| 190
c. 15-27 April 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg, Uncle Cent | I, who did not feel at ease in a fine store, who would not feel so especially now, and would certainly be bored and bore others – I am quite a different person when I am at work on the Geest or on the heath or in the dunes. Then my ugly face and shabby coat harmonize perfectly with the surroundings and I am myself and work with pleasure. | --- |
| 191
Late April, 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg | When Mauve imitated me, saying, "This is the sort of face you make," "This is the way you speak," I answered, My dear friend, if you had spent rainy nights in the streets of London or cold nights in the Borinage – hungry, homeless, feverish – you would also have such ugly lines in your face and perhaps a husky voice too. | --- |
| 192
3-12 May 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg | Last winter I met a pregnant woman, deserted by the man whose child she was carrying. A pregnant woman who walked the streets in the winter . . . . | Figure of a Woman with Unfinished Chair: F 932, JH 145; Bent Figure of a Woman (Sien?): F 935, JH 143; Bent Figure of a Woman: F 937, JH 144; Woman with White Bonnet (Sien's Mother), Head: F 1009a, JH 106 |
| 193
14 May 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg, Christien (Sien), Kee, De Groux | To hell with anyone who wants to hinder me. | --- |
| 193a
Nuenen | --- | You say yourself that you want me to leave the woman, yes, leave her completely. All right, but I can't and I won't. Do you understand, my friend? | --- |
| 194
4-12 May 1882 | The Graphic by Frank Holl | But neither she nor I is living in a rose garden or dreaming in the moonlight; we have a hard time ahead of us, so much the better. | --- |
| 195
1 May 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg, Heyerdahl, Michelangelo, Dürer, Ruysdael, Van Goyen, Calame, Roelofs, Weissenbruch | Now I tried to put the same sentiment into the landscape as I put into the figure: the convulsive, passionate clinging to the earth, and yet being half torn up by the storm. I wanted to express something of the struggle for life in that pale, slender woman's figure, as well as in the black, gnarled and knotty roots.
I think nothing in my work indicates I shall fail, if I only can continue to work and do my best. And I am not a person who works slowly or irresolutely. Drawing becomes a passion with me, and I throw myself into it more and more; and where there's a will, there's a way. | Old Woman Seen from Behind: F 913, JH 109; "Sorrow": F 929, JH 129; "Sorrow": F 929a, JH 130; Study of a Tree: F 933r, JH 142; Man Sitting by the Stove (The Pauper): F 1116ar, JH 139 |
| 196
2 May 1882 | --- | Full Text | Study of a Tree: F 933r, JH 142 |
| 197
12 or 13 May 1882 | Christien (Sien), Mauve, Tersteeg | I do not think I should do well to aim for a higher station or to try to change my character. I must have much more experience, I must learn still more, before I shall be ripe, but that is a question of time and perseverance. | --- |
| 198
14 May 1882 | Christien (Sien) | Now the very pace of life is driving and urging me on, as well as the work, and the new things that crop up and which I must tackle with a will if I want to hold my own in the bitter struggle. | --- |
| 199
c. 16 May 1882 | Christien (Sien) | The money you sent has helped me on with my drawing, and moreover, up to now it has saved Christien's and the child's lives. | --- |
| 200
c. 23 May 1882 | Christien (Sien) | Full Text | Study of a Tree: F 933r, JH 142; Sien's Mother's House: F 941, JH 146; Sien's Mother's House, Closer View: F 942, JH 147 |
| 201
2-3 June 1882 | Sien, Leen Veerman, Tersteeg, | I ask nothing, not even an old cup and saucer. I ask but one single thing: to let me love and care for my poor, weak, ill-used little wife as well as my poverty permits, without their trying to separate, worry or hurt us. | --- |
| 202
27 May 1882 | Rappard, Sien, C.M. | Well, I do hope, brother, that you do not think evil of Sien and me; she has learned to put up with my disagreeable side, and in many ways she understands me better than others. | Carpenter's Yard and Laundry: F 939, JH 150; Sien's Mother's House, Closer View: F 942, JH 147 |
| 203
30 May 1882 | C.M. | I work day and night, and have a small drawing ready for you, which I will send by and by. I have no money for a stamp . . . . | 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 |
| 204
1-2 June 1882 | Tersteeg, Sien, Kee Vos, Frère, Gérôme, Heyerdahl, Henri Pille, Swain, Rappard, Doré | I am a man of 30 with wrinkles on my forehead and lines on my face that make me look 40 and my hands are full of furrows. | "Sorrow": F 929a, JH 130; Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Height: F 938, JH 152; Fish-Drying Barn: F 940, JH 154; Carpenter's Yard and Laundry: F 944, JH 153; Fish-Drying Barn: F 946a, JH 151 |
| 205
3 June 1882 | C.M., Dickens, Barnard, Fildes, Weissenbruch, Albrecht Dürer, Sien | Full Text | Carpenter's Yard and Laundry: F 939, JH 150; Fish-Drying Barn: F 940, JH 154; Sien's Mother's House, Closer View: F 942, JH 147; Carpenter's Yard and Laundry: F 944, JH 153 |
| 206
8 or 9 June 1882 | Breitner, C.M., Tersteeg | Full Text | --- |
| 207
c. 10 June 1882 | Sien, Dickens, Edwin Drood, Ruysdael, Van der Meer | The rest cure does me good and makes me so much calmer, and takes away that nervousness which has troubled me so much recently. | --- |
| 208
22 June 1882 | Sien, C.M., Rappard, Rembrandt, Heyerdahl, Mauve, Breitner, Dickens | There is one old man who would have been a superb St. Jerome – a thin, long sinewy, brown wrinkled body with such very distinct and expressive joints that it makes one melancholy not to be able to have him for a model. | --- |
| 209
1 July 1882 | Sien, Tersteeg, Johan van Gogh | The most delightful thing about the whole recovery is that the love for drawing revives, and also the feeling for things around me which seemed almost extinct for a long time and had left a great void. I am again interested in everything I see. | Carpenter's Yard and Laundry: F 944, JH 153 |
| 210
2 July 1882 | Sien, Albrecht Dürer, C.M. | But let us hope that the grim shadow will remain a passing shadow. | Sien's Mother's House: F 941, JH 146; Sien's Mother's House, Closer View: F 942, JH 147 |
| 211
4 July 1882 | Sien, Dr. van Tienhoven | My fingers are itching to set to work again, and I need not tell you that I would rather go to Scheveningen than to the hospital. | "Sorrow": F 929a, JH 130 |
| 212
6 July 1882 | Une Page d'Amour by Emile Zola, Millet, Bonington, Sien, Kee | Do not imagine that I think myself perfect or that I think that many people taking me for a disagreeable character is no fault of mine. I am often terribly melancholy, irritable, hungering and thirsting, as it were, for sympathy; and when I do not get it, I try to act indifferently, speak sharply, and often even pour oil on the fire. I do not like to be in company, and often find it painful and difficult to mingle with people, to speak to them. But do you know what the cause is – if not at all, of a great deal of this? Simply nervousness; I am terribly sensitive, physically as well as morally, the nervousness having developed during those miserable years which drained my health. Ask any doctor, and he will understand at once that nights spent in the cold street or in the open, the anxiety to get bread, a continual strain because I was out of work, the estrangement from friends and family, caused at least three-fourths of my peculiarities of temper, and that those disagreeable moods or times of depression must be ascribed to this. | --- |
| 213
6 July 1882 | Millet, Breton, Rembrandt, Scheffer, Boughton, Ruysdael, Herkomer, Frank Holl, De Groux | I believe in a God, and that it is His will that man does not live alone but with a wife and child, if everything is to be normal. | Carpenter's Yard and Laundry: F 944, JH 153 |
| 214
7 July 1882 | Mauve, Tersteeg, Sien, Rappard, Emile Zola, Le Ventre de Paris | Full Text | Scheveningen Woman Knitting: F 870, JH 84 |
| 215
15-16 July 1882 | Sien, Landelles, Ostade, Mesdag, Post, Dupré, Corot, Daubigny, Diaz, Courbet, Breton, Jacque, Rousseau | The two drawings I did recently are both watercolours because I wanted to try it. However, it seems to me that even now I must work harder on actual drawing, which is the foundation of all the rest. | "Sorrow": F 929a, JH 130 |
| 216
19 July 1882 | Sien, Tersteeg, Feyen-Perrin | In many respects there is real sympathy between you and me, and it seems to me, Theo, that all your trouble and all my trouble will not be in vain.
If all remains quiet, we shall continue our struggle here by working, and though this may seem humdrum and commonplace, it is far from easy; one needs courage and energy to attack things vigorously and to persevere. We have got through the whole winter, and with God's help we shall be able to carry on for a bit. I say with God's help, because I am grateful to God, as well as to you, for the help I have received, and am still receiving, from you. | --- |
| 217
19 July 1882 | Sien, Tersteeg, Heyerdahl | I want her to feel and to know in every way that I feel tender love for her and affection for the children. And – whoever may disapprove of this – you will understand and not try to prevent it. I attribute her recovery to you, as I credit myself with only a small part. I have only been the means of bringing it about. | --- |
| 218
21 July 1882 | Millais, Ruysdael, Holl, Rembrandt, Swain, Millet | What am I in the eyes of most people – a nonentity, an eccentric or an unpleasant person – somebody who has no position in society and never will have, in short, the lowest of the low.
All right, then – even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love malgré tout [in spite of everything], based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. | "Sorrow": F 929a, JH 130; Rooftops: F 943, JH 156 |
| 219
23 July 1882 | Le Ventre de Paris; Nana, Zola, Balzac, Mauve, Sien | Tersteeg always starts with the fixed idea that I can do nothing and am good for nothing. I heard it from his own lips, "Oh, that painting of yours will be like all the other things you started, it will come to nothing." | "Sorrow": F 929a, JH 130; Rooftops: F 943, JH 156; Fish-Drying Barn: F 945, JH 160 |
| 220
26 July 1882 | Tersteeg, Harding, Whatman, Mauve, Robinson Crusoe, Fildes, "The Empty Chair of Dickens", Méyron, Van Rappard, Boughton, Albrecht Dürer | But I repeat, everyone who works with love and intelligence finds a kind of armour against the opinion of other people in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art. | Meadows Near Rijswijk: F 927, JH 161; Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Height: F 938, JH 152; Fish-Drying Barn: F 940, JH 154; Fish-Drying Barn: F 945, JH 160; Bleaching Ground: F 946r, JH 158; Fish-Drying Barn: F 946a, JH 151; Pollard Willow: F 947, JH 164 |
| 221
c. 1 August 1882 | Roelofs, Millet, Ostade, Breughel, Tersteeg | As to the money value of my work, I do not pretend to anything else than that it would greatly astonish me if my work were not just as salable in time as that of others. | "Sorrow": F 929a, JH 130; Pollard Willow: F 947, JH 164 |
| 222
5 August 1882 | --- | Of course many a painter cannot go on because of the expenses, and I cannot express to you in words how thankful I am to be able to go on working regularly. I began later than others, and I must work doubly hard to make up for lost time; but in spite of my ardour, I should have to stop if it were not for you. | --- |
| 223
5 or 6 August 1882 | --- | Full Text | --- |
| 224
c. 10-12 August 1882 | Zola's La Curée | I must tell you that painting does not seem so strange to me as you would perhaps suppose; on the contrary, I like it very much, as it is a very strong means of expression. | Beach at Scheveningen in Calm Weather: F 2, JH 173 |
| 225
14 August 1882 | Émile Breton, Black and White Society, Mauve, Tersteeg, Weissenbruch, J. Maris, W. Maris, Neuhuys, Duchâtel, Mesdag, Millet, Rappard | But this much I want to tell you – while painting, I feel a power of colour in me that I did not possess before, things of broadness and strength. | Beach at Scheveningen in Calm Weather: F 2, JH 173; Dunes: F 2a, JH 176 |
| 226
19 August 1882 | Zola's La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret and Son Excellence Eugène Rougon, Le Ventre de Paris | It is the painting that makes me so happy these days. | Beach at Scheveningen in Calm Weather: F 2, JH 173 |
| 227
20 August 1882 | Millet, Israëls, De Groux, Letters and Diary of Gerard Bilders, Th. Rousseau, Daubigny, Sensier, Mauve | However, I am in doubt - painting comes easier to me than I expected . . . . | Women Mending Nets in the Dunes: F 7, JH 178; Girl in White in the Woods: F 8, JH 182 |
| 228
3 September 1882 | Gavarni, De Groux, Millet, Jules Dupré, J. Maris, Zola | In a way I am glad that I never learned painting . . . . I just sit down with a white board in front of the spot that appeals to me, I look at what is in front of my eyes, and I say to myself: that white board has got to turn into something. | --- |
| 229
9 September 1882 | A. Lançon, L'Illustration, Paul Renouard, G. Mahoney, Household Edition of Dickens | I always try my best to put al my energy into my work, for my greatest desire is to make beautiful things. But making beautiful things costs trouble and disappointment and perseverance. | Girl in White in the Woods: F 8, JH 182; Potato Market: F 1091, JH 252 |
| 230
11 September 1882 | Harper's Monthly, Howard Pyle | Recently I have also been very busy drawing horses in the street. I would love to have a horse for a model sometime. Yesterday, for instance, I heard someone behind me say, That's a queer sort of painter – he draws the horse's ass instead of drawing it from the front. I rather liked that comment. | Bench with Four Persons (and Baby): F 951, JH 197; Bench with Four Persons: F 952r, JH 194; Studies of Donkey Carts: F 952v, JH 193; Potato Market: F 1091, JH 252 |
| 231
17 September 1882 | --- | Full Text | Bench with Four Persons (and Baby): F 951, JH 197; People Walking on the Beach: F 980, JH 204 |
| 232
18 September 1882 | Mauve, Rochussen, Napoleon, Erckmann-Chatrian, Allebé, Brion, Marshall, Jundt, Vautier, Knaus, Schuler, Saal, Van Muyden, Auerbach, Tapiró, Capibianchi | In short, I reckon the studies to be the seed, and the more one sows, the more one may hope to reap. | Bench with Four Persons (and Baby): F 951, JH 197 |
| 233
19 September 1882 | Mauve | I consider making studies like sowing, and making pictures like reaping. | --- |
| 234
25 September 1882 | Father, Israëls, Rappard, Mauve | If people come to see me, well, then their impression is at least original, but I do not like opinions which are based on what people say.
Yes, if I could do exactly what I wanted, I should undertake painting on an even larger scale, and especially with more models. | Girl in White in the Woods: F 8, JH 182 |
| 235
c. 1 October 1882 | --- | Once again hard at work drawing. I sometimes think there is nothing nicer than drawing. | Orphan Man with Cap, Eating: F 956a, JH 210; Orphan Man with Cap and Stick: F 958, JH 251; Orphan Man with Long Overcoat, Glass and Handkerchief: F 959, JH 244; Orphan Man with Long Overcoat and Stick: F 962, JH 212; Orphan Man with Cap and Walking Stick: F 963, JH 297; Orphan Man with Cap, Seen from the Back: F 965, JH 298; Church Pew with Worshippers: F 967, JH 225; Orphan Man with Long Overcoat Cleaning Boots: F 969, JH 211; State Lottery Office, The: F 970, JH 222 |
| 236
8 October 1882 | --- | I am deep in my work. It is like weaving – one needs all one's attention to keep the threads apart – one must manage to keep an eye on several things at once. | State Lottery Office, The: F 970, JH 222; People Walking on the Beach: F 980, JH 204; People Strolling on the Beach: F 1038, JH 228; Miners in the Snow ("Winter"): F 1202, JH 229; Orchard ("Spring"): F 1245, JH 230 |
| 237
22 October 1882 | Daumier, Balzac, Zola, Daudet's Les Rois en Exil, La Bohème, Gavarni | What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. | State Lottery Office, The: F 970, JH 222; Beach with People Walking and Boats: F 982, JH 247 |
| 238
c. 10 October 1882 | Roll, Knaus, Vautier, Emslie, Géricault | But it's on days like this that one would like to go and see some friend or would like a friend to come to the house; and it's on days like this that one has an empty feeling when one can go nowhere and nobody comes. | Boy with Spade: F 986, JH 231; Two Women: F 988, JH 232; Man and Woman, Arm in Arm: F 991, JH 233 |
| 239
29 October 1882 | Mauve, Israëls, De Bock, Breitner, Rappard, Punch, Daumier, Gavarni, De Groux, Rops | Good will to all – that means one must have real love for one's fellow creatures. I for one hope to try my best to be in such a mood as much as possible. | Potato Market: F 1091, JH 252 |
| 240
1 November 1882 | Rappard, Graphic, Herkomer, Millet, Neuhuys, Van der Velden, Gavarni, Fildes, Holl, Daumier, Breton, De Groux, Israëls, Staniland | I say that it is a great pity there is little or no enthusiasm here for the art which is most suitable for the general public. | --- |
| 241
c. 2 or 3 November 1882 | Millet, Brion, Troyon, Rousseau, Daubigny, Corot, Leys, Gavarni, De Groux, Delacroix, Géricault, Jules Breton, Israëls, Herkomer, Daumier, Morin, Lançon, Renouard, Jules Ferat, Worms, Blok, Graphic, Ary Scheffer, Buhot, Schelfout, Ségé, Jules Bakhuysen, Jacque, Mauve, Forster's Life of Charles Dickens | It also struck me that when one talks with painters, the conversation in most cases is not interesting. | Bookseller Blok: F 993, JH 254; Women Miners: F 994, JH 253 |
| 242
5 November 1882 | Le Nabab, Daudet, Daumier, Histoire d'un Crime, Victor Hugo, L'Ami Fritz, Erckmann-Chatrian, David Sechel, Julien Dupré, Dagnan Bouveret, Millet, Thomas Faed | I feel a power in me which I must develop, a fire that I may not quench, but must keep ablaze, though I do not know to what end it will lead me, and shouldn't be surprised if it were a gloomy one. | --- |
| 243
c. 6-8 November 1882 | Buhot, De Groux, Rop, Charlet, Raffet, Lemud | When I was in Brussels, I tried to find employment with some lithographer, but was rebuffed everywhere. I asked there for any kind of work, as I only wanted to see something of lithography and especially to learn. But they didn't want people like that. | Young Man with a Broom: F 979a, JH 257; Orphan Man: F 1658, JH 256 |
| 244
14 November 1882 | Rappard | For the last five or six days I have been literally without money, and consequently I cannot go on with my work, at least not as I should wish. | "Sorrow": F 929, JH 129; "Sorrow": F 1655, JH 259; Orphan Man: F 1658, JH 256 |
| 245
c. 16 November 1882 | Heyerdahl, Buhot, Whatman, Vie Moderne, Rappard, Paul Renouard, L'Illustration, Herkomer, Daumier, Zola's Pot-Bouille | No result of my work could please me more than when ordinary working people hang such prints in their room or workshop. | "Sorrow": F 1655, JH 259; Orphan Man: F 1658, JH 256 |
| 246
22 November 1882 | Van der Weele | Even if you don't have the money, boy, do write, for I need your sympathy, which is not worth less to me than the money. | Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee: F 996a, JH 264; "Sorrow": F 1655, JH 259; Digger: F 1656, JH 262; Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee: F 1657, JH 266; Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee: F 1682, JH 263 |
| 247
24 November 1882 | Buhot, Schuitemaker, Zola's Pot-Bouille, Josserand, Octave Mouret, Quatre-Vingt-Treize, Victor Hugo, Heyerdahl, Mesdag, De Bock, Goupil, Corot, Millet, Daubigny, Jacque, Breton, Israëls, Mauve, Maris | How beautiful such an old workman is, with his patched fustian clothes and his bald head. | Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out"): F 863, JH 34; 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; Digger: F 1656, JH 262; Old Man with his Head in his Hands ("At Eternity's Gate"): F 1662, JH 268 |
| 248
26 and 27 November 1882 | Murger, Les Buveurs d'Eau, Nanteuil, Baron, Roqueplan, Tony Johannot, Alphonse Karr, Souvestre, Henri Monnier, Comte-Calix, Balzac, Zola, Claude Lantier, Meissonier, Rembrandt, Victor Hugo, Millet, Israëls, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Jules Dupré, Daubigny, Carlyle, De Groux, Daumier | 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." | Old Man with his Head in his Hands: F 997, JH 267; Old Man with his Head in his Hands ("At Eternity's Gate"): F 1662, JH 268 |
| 249
1 December 1882 | Rappard, The Swallow, Millais, Elsevier | By helping me, you have shown that you do not spare yourself either. But others think it both wrong and foolish of you to have anything to do with me . . . . | Old Man with his Head in his Hands ("At Eternity's Gate"): F 1662, JH 268; Workman Sitting on a Basket, Cutting Bread: F 1663, JH 272 |
| 250
2 or 3 December 1882 | Buhot, Renouard, Van der Weele, Tersteeg, Rappard, Breitner, Exercices au Fusain, Bargue, Theophile Schuler, Erckmann-Chatrian, Brion, Jundt, Schuler, Lançon, Renouard, Tenniel, Bouguereau, Makart | . . . though my work is far from being as beautiful as [Bargue's], I believe the examples indicate a straight road in keeping with what other artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, have taught before. | Old Man with his Head in his Hands: F 997, JH 267; Old Man with his Head in his Hands ("At Eternity's Gate"): F 1662, JH 268; Workman Sitting on a Basket, Cutting Bread: F 1663, JH 272 |
| 251
c. 3-5 December 1882 | Dickens's Little Dorrit, Rappard, Émile Breton, Van Goyen, Crome, Michel, Isaac Ostade, Ruysdael, Jules Dupré, Edwin Edwards, Lavieille, Collard, Chintreuil, Goethals, Boldini, Fortuny, Frère, De Groux | I often think that I should like to be able to spend more time on the real landscape! | Sower, The: F 852, JH 275; Sower (with Another Sower in the Background): F 853, JH 274; Man Carrying Peat: F 964, JH 273; Old Man with his Head in his Hands: F 997, JH 267 |
| 252
c. 11 December 1882 | Hubert Herkomer, Millais, Charles Dickens, Luke Fildes, "Homeless and Hungry", Edwin Drood, "The Empty Chair", Frank Holl, William Small, Godefroid, Durand, Mesdag | Of course, continue to work, but conscious of a dark future.
I mean, I feel depressed because I have a strength in me which circumstances prevent from developing as well as it could; the result is that I often feel miserable. A kind of internal struggle about what I must do – which is not as easy to solve as might seem at first. | --- |
| 253
c. 12-18 December 1882 | Carlyle, Gavarni, Victor Hugo, Thomas Moore, Buhot | Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities when directing one's course by it, one must still try to follow its direction. | Old Man with his Head in his Hands: F 997, JH 267; Man, Sitting, Reading a Book: F 1001, JH 278; Prayer Before the Meal: F 1002, JH 281 |
| 254
c. 21 December 1882 | Boughton, Buhot, Vie Moderne, Daumier, Gavarni, Lemud, Israëls, Blommers, Artz | Full Text | Orphan Man with Top Hat: F 954, JH 287; Orphan Man with Top Hat, Head: F 954a, JH 288 |
| 255
c. 28-30 December 1882 | Daumier, Henri Monnier | Thanks for all your faithful friendship, boy, which has again upheld me for a whole year. I wish that for my part I could give you some pleasure, too. Sometime I shall succeed in this. | Orphan Man with Top Hat: F 954, JH 287; Orphan Man with Top Hat, Head: F 954a, JH 288 |
| 256
31 December 1882 and | Lemud, Daumier, Lançon, Gavarni, Bodmer, Millet | Please do not let my having done nothing salable this year worry you; you once said the same thing to me, and if I say so now, it is because I see a few things within my reach in the future which I couldn't see before. | Man, Sitting, Reading a Book: F 1001, JH 278; Orphan Man in Sunday Clothes with Eye Bandage, Head: F 1003, JH 285 |
Return to main Van Gogh letters page
Return to main Van Gogh Gallery page