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"If I should succeed in putting some warmth and love into my work, it will find its friends. The thing is to keep on working."
Vincent van Gogh |
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Letter |
Keywords |
Excerpt / Full Text |
Link to Painting(s) Mentioned in Letter |
| 257
3 January 1883 | Fortuny, Boldini, Brion, De Groux, Israëls | . . . it often makes me sad to think that I must always be a burden to you. But who knows, in time you may be able to find someone who takes an interest in my work, who will take from your shoulders the burden which you took upon yourself at the most difficult time. | --- |
| 258
5 or 6 January 1883 | --- | Full Text | Baby: F 911r, JH 319; Stooping Woman with Net: F 911v, JH 320; Baby: F 912, JH 318 |
| 259
c. 11 January 1883 | Victor Hugo, Barnard, Dickens, Nicolaes Maes, Michelet | Perseverance is the great thing in love, once it has taken hold of us. | --- |
| 260
c. 13 January 1883 | Rappard | Loneliness or idleness is fatal . . . . | Girl with Shawl, Half-Figure: F 1007, JH 299; Girl with Shawl, Half-Figure: F 1008, JH 301 |
| 261
c. 21 January 1883 | --- | I remember a saying of yours last year which I thought very correct and true, "Marriage is such a queer thing." Yes, indeed, it certainly is. | --- |
| 262
c. 25-29 January 1883 | Paterson, Pinwell, Feyen-Perrin, Thijs Maris, Herkomer, Dickens, Boyd Houghton, Daumier, Quakers, Goya, Méryon, Cadart, Daubigny, Bracquemond, Millet, Rappard, Edouard Frère | The truth is that whenever different people love the same thing and work at it together, their union makes strength; combined, they can do more than if their separate energies were each striving in a different direction. | Fisherman with Sou'wester, Sitting with Pipe: F 1010, JH 306; Fisherman with Sou'wester, Sitting with Pipe: F 1013, JH 305; Fisherman with Sou'wester, Head: F 1017, JH 302 |
| 263
3 February 1883 | Punch, Dickens, Ut mine Festungstid, Fritz Reuter, Brueghel, Herkomer, Graphic, Israëls | On such days I am sometimes terribly worried about the future and am melancholy about my work, and feel quite helpless. | Old Man with his Head in his Hands ("At Eternity's Gate"): F 1662, JH 268 |
| 264
5 February 1883 | Heyerdahl, Rembrandt, Lhermitte, Jules Breton, Legros | One cannot rest for the very reason that one must. | --- |
| 265
8 February 1883 | Lhermitte, Rembrandt, Judas, Victor Hugo, Frans Hals, Daumier, Menzel, Balzac, Zola, Père Goriot | I feel older only when I think that most people who know me consider me a failure . . . . | --- |
| 266
11 February 1883 | Michelet, Le Peuple, De Bock, Rembrandt, Erckmann-Chatrian, Michel, Weissenbruch, Daumier, Rappard, Lançon, Herkomer | A sincere and true love is a blessing, I think, though that doesn't prevent occasional hard times. | --- |
| 267
c. 15 February 1883 | Michelet, Israël, Balzac, Ary Scheffer, Victor Hugo, Thomas à Kempis, Bodmer, Théophile Gautier, Courtry, Jean Paul Laurens, Émile Wauters, Hoeterinks, R. Caldecott, Washington Irving, Jacque, Menzel, Eliot's Middlemarch, Zola | Full Text | --- |
| 268
c. 20-24 February 1883 | Fritz Reuter, Rembrandt, Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, Thijs Maris, Leys, De Groux, Lagye, De Vriendt, Henri Pille | Full Text | --- |
| 268a
12 February 1883 | Ary Scheffer, Correszco | When [Sien] saw me, she sat up in bed and became as cheerful and lively as if nothing had happened, and her eyes were radiant with love of life and with gratitude. | --- |
| 269
25 or 26 February 1883 | --- | I think tonight I shall probably dream of fellows in sou'westers and oilskins, on which the light falls and makes piquant highlights, accentuating the shape. | --- |
| 270
c. 2 March 1883 | Whistler | I love watercolour too much ever to give it up entirely, I come back to it again and again. But the foundation of everything is the knowledge of the figure . . . . | --- |
| 271
c. 3 March 1883 | Rappard | I love my studio the way a sailor loves his ship.
As in algebra the product of two negatives is a positive, so I hope that the product of failures may be success. | Public Soup Kitchen, The: F 1020a, JH 330 |
| 272
c. 4 March 1883 | Eliot's Felix Holt the Radical, Leurs | Full Text | Public Soup Kitchen, The: F 1020a, JH 330; Public Soup Kitchen, The: F 1020b, JH 331 |
| 273
c. 6 March 1883 | Maris, Rappard, Israëls | Full Text | Public Soup Kitchen, The: F 1020, JH 333; Baby Crawling: F 872, JH 334; Sien, Sitting on a Basket, with a Girl: F 1072, JH 341 |
| 274
11 March 1883 | Cadart, Plaats, Leurs, Jaap Maris | Know it well, dear brother, how strongly and intensely I feel the enormous debt I owe you for your faithful help. | Girl Kneeling in Front of a Cradle: F 1024, JH 336; Sien, Sitting on a Basket, with a Girl: F 1072, JH 341 |
| 275
c. 21 March 1883 | Wisselingh, Herkomer, Lhermitte, Van der Weele | Full Text | Digger: F 1656, JH 262 |
| 276
21-28 March 1883 | Ciceri's water colors, Fritz Reuter's Dried Herbs | Full Text | Snowy Yard: F 1022, JH 344; Girl Kneeling in Front of a Cradle: F 1024, JH 336; Sien, Sitting on a Basket, with a Girl: F 1072, JH 341 |
| 277
30 March and 1 April 1883 | Lhermitte, De Groux, Legros, Millet, Breton, Van Deventer, Van Nakken, Émile Vernier, Corot, Daubigny, Bodmer, Gavarni, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, Abbey, Harper's, Boughton, Heilbuth, Washington, Henri Pille, Dupré, Zola, Au Bonheur des Dames | The act of printing has always seemed like a miracle to me, just such a miracle as a tiny seed's growth to an ear of corn. An everyday miracle, even greater for happening every day: one drawing is sown on the stone or the etching plate, and a harvest is reaped from it. | Sower (with Another Sower in the Background): F 853, JH 274; Prayer Before the Meal: F 1002, JH 281; Sien, Sewing, Half-Figure: F 1025, JH 346; Sien, Sewing, Half-Figure: F 1026, JH 347 |
| 278
2 April 1883 | Hendrik, Buhot, Van der Weele | If I should succeed in putting some warmth and love into my work, it will find its friends. The thing is to keep on working. | --- |
| 279
c. 11 April 1883 | Les Misérables, Jules Dupré, Girardet, Eichens, Mottramb, Boughton, Souvestre, Delaroche's Vendredi Saint, Lhermitte, Herkomer, Frère, Landelle, Brion, Hendrik | I am reading the last part of Les Misérables; the figure of Fantine, a prostitute, made a deep impression on me . . . . | --- |
| 280
c. 21 and 22 April 1883 | Zola, Van der Weele, Van der Velden, Eliot, Rappard, Herkomer, Roll, Israëls | Though I do not sell a single one of my studies, I think they are worth the money I spend on them. | Woman on her Deathbed: F 841, JH 359 |
| 281
30 April 1883 | Heyerdahl, Edelfelt, Wilhelm Leibl, Memling, Quinten Matsys, Thijs Maris, Paul de Gassow, Oberlander, Zola, Balzac, Victor Hugo | Society is full of that: people who strive to make a show instead of leading a true existence. I repeat: those people are not bad, but they are foolish. | Orphan Man, Kneeling in Prayer: F 1027, JH 354 |
| 282
c. 2 May 1883 | Tersteeg, Rappard | When I think back to May of last year, Theo, the year has not been exactly easy or free from care for me, has it? | --- |
| 283
c. 4-6 May 1883 | Rappard, Van der Weele | I have been working in the dunes for some days, but I long for a model: otherwise I cannot go on. | --- |
| 284
9 or 10 May 1883 | Rappard, Michelet, Tissot, Un Mâle by Camille Lemonnier, Zola, Fromentin, Julien Dupré | Full Text | --- |
| 285
c. 20 May 1883 | Rappard, Father, Lhermitte, Mauve | Oh, Theo, some day or other I shall surely get the knack of making watercolours. | --- |
| 286
c. 21 May 1883 | Rappard, Meunier, Van der Weele | I am always afraid of not working enough; I think I can do so much better still, and that is what I am striving for, sometimes with a kind of fury. | --- |
| 287
c. 30 May 1883 | Rappard, Leys, Van der Weele | Full Text | 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 1030, JH 364; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363; Digger: F 1656, JH 262 |
| 288
3 June 1883 | Van der Weele, Herkomer, Green, Boughton, Rappard | The creative power cannot be repressed, one must give vent to what one feels. | Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin near The Hague: F 1028, JH 367; Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin near The Hague: F 1029, JH 366; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1030, JH 364; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363 |
| 289
4 or 5 June 1883 | Van der Weele, Cottier, Wisselingh, Tersteeg | Well, Theo, we must keep good courage and try to work on energetically. We may be hard up sometimes and not know how to make both ends meet, but that does not matter and cannot be avoided; he who perseveres often conquers. | Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin near The Hague: F 1029, JH 366; Horse at the Garbage Dump: F 1032, JH 369 |
| 290
3 June 1883 | Correggio, Tersteeg, Mauve | We are called on to preserve life, to respect life; that is our duty, and we can always justify it – even if the world puts us in the wrong and things do not turn out to our advantage. | Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin near The Hague: F 1028, JH 367; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363 |
| 291
5 or 6 June 1883 | Father, Bingham, Meissonier | Full Text | --- |
| 292
c. 10 June 1883 | Van der Weele, Mauve, Rappard | One cannot always live away from one's native land, and one's native land is not nature alone – there must also be human hearts who search for and feel the same things. | Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin near The Hague: F 1029, JH 366; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363 |
| 293
13 or 14 June 1883 | Rappard, Mauve | But I believe it was a good thing after all that I drudged so long on the studies; for it is true in all things, especially with regard to figures, that one must study seriously, and not suppose that one knows it already. | --- |
| 294
c. 15-17 June 1883 | Rappard, Zola, Daudet, Lemonnier | In composing a drawing almost more than in painting thought and concentration play a part . . . . one must stick to it till one drops with exhaustion, so to speak. | Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin near The Hague: F 1028, JH 367; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363 |
| 295
c. 22 June 1883 | Daubigny, Corot, Bargue, Tersteeg, Rappard, Taine, Dickens, Carlyle, De Groux, Daumier, Van der Weele, Mauve, Iterson, Eerelman, Gavarni, Lantsheer | Yes, boy, one perseveres and works on without minding the rest, if one tries honestly and freely to fathom nature, and does not lose hold of what one has in mind whatever people may say, then one feels calm and steady and faces the future quietly. | Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin near The Hague: F 1028, JH 367; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363 |
| 296
c. 23-28 June 1883 | Ulysse Butin, Legros, Blommers, Mauve | But I hope so much that my hand will become more skilful from this long period of drudgery. | Potato Grubbers, Four Figures: F 1034, JH 372 |
| 297
c. 2 July 1883 | Millet, Corot, Daubigny, Legros, Carlyle, Millet, Victor Hugo, Aeschylus, Buckmann, Green, Régamey, Tersteeg, Pinwell, Walker, Herkomer, Meunier, Boughton | 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. | 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 |
| 298
c. 6-8 July 1883 | De Bock, Corot, Rousseau, Dias, Daubigny, Dupré, Blommers, Rappard, Zola, Daudet, Germinie Lacerteux, Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, Régamey, Felix | Full Text | Potato Grubbers, Four Figures: F 1034, JH 372; Potato Field in the Dunes: F 1037, JH 390 |
| 299
c. 11 July 1883 | Dupré, Troyon, Rousseau, Rembrandt, Israëls, Mesdag, Ruysdael, Jacques, Rousseau, De Bock, Breitner, Van der Velden, Blommers, Vierge, Urabietta, Van der Weele, Edgar Poe, Fantastic Tales, Raven, Wauters, Ter Meulen, Duchâtel, Zilcken, Mauve, Zilcken, Daumier, Millet | I want to do a drawing that not quite everybody will understand, the figure simplified to the essentials, with a deliberate disregard of those details that do not belong to the actual character and are merely accidental. | Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363; Sower: F 1035, JH 374; Weed Burner, Sitting on a Wheelbarrow with his Wife: F 1035a, JH 375; Potato Field in the Dunes: F 1037, JH 390 |
| 300
c. 13 July 1883 | De Bock, Blommers | Full Text | Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363; Potato Grubbers, Four Figures: F 1034, JH 372; Sower: F 1035, JH 374 |
| 301
22 July 1883 | Tersteeg, Blommers, Buhot, Leurs, Stam, Mauve, Breitner, Soeur Philomène, de Goncourt, Gavarni | Thanks for your letter, thanks for the enclosure, though I cannot repress a feeling of sadness at your saying, "I can give you little hope for the future."
And it happens to me, too: when I am sitting in the dunes or somewhere else, I have a faint feeling in my stomach because there isn't enough to eat. | Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin near The Hague: F 1028, JH 367; Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363; 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 |
| 302
22 July 1883 | --- | In fact, I have no real friend but you, and when I am in low spirits, I always think of you.
And now I thought, I am sorry that I didn't fall ill and die in the Borinage that time, instead of taking up painting, for I am only a burden to you. | --- |
| 303
23 July 1883 | Blommers, École de Rome, Tersteeg | Well, I hope to keep courage after all, whatever may happen, and I hope that perhaps a certain frenzy and rage for work may carry me through, like a ship is sometimes thrown over a cliff or sandbank by a wave, and can make use of a storm to save herself from wrecking. | Peat Diggers in the Dunes: F 1031, JH 363; Potato Grubbers, Four Figures: F 1034, JH 372; Sower: F 1035, JH 374 |
| 304
24 or 25 July 1883 | Leurs, Rappard | As a matter of fact, I have been living on hope for a long time. | --- |
| 305
25 or 26 July 1883 | Zola, Van der Weele, Daubigny, De Bock | The future would seem brighter if I were less awkward in my dealings with people. Without you, finding buyers for my work would be almost impossible; with you, it will eventually be possible. And if we do our utmost, it will stand firm and not perish. But we must stick together. | --- |
| 306
27 July 1883 | Michelet, Socrates | When I am at work, I have an unlimited faith in art and the conviction that I shall succeed . . . . | --- |
| 307
29 and 30 July 1883 | Ruysdael, Daubigny, Corot, Millet, Breton, Troyon, Michel | If I could only manage to have money enough to carry on my painting vigorously this year. | --- |
| 308
c. 2 August 1883 | Van der Weele, Rappard, Schipperus | The work becomes more and more clear to me.
I should be very astonished if, in the long run, some people did not alter their opinion about my doing or planning absurd things. | Potato Digging (Five Figures): F 9, JH 385 |
| 309
c. 4-8 August 1883 | Weissenbruch, Regamey | At times I have been greatly worried that I made no progress with colour, but now I am hopeful again.
That is how I regard myself, as having to accomplish in a few years something full of heart and love, and to do it with a will. Should I live longer, tant mieux, [so much the better] but I put that out of my mind. | Girl in White in the Woods: F 8, JH 182; Three Figures near a Canal with Windmill: F 1666, JH 383 |
| 310
c. 11 August 1883 | Ruysdael, Rappard | I am not competent to ascertain to what extent my illness has a physical cause, or if it is only the consequence of overstrained nerves. | Potato Digging (Five Figures): F 9, JH 385 |
| 311
14 August 1883 | --- | Full Text | Potato Digging (Five Figures): F 9, JH 385 |
| 312
17 August 1883 | Mesdag | There is a bond between you and me which continuous work can only strengthen in the course of time – this is art, and I hope we shall continue to understand each other after all. | --- |
| 313
18 August 1883 | --- | There is no anguish greater than the soul's struggle between duty and love, both in their highest meaning. | --- |
| 314
19 August 1883 | Mauve, Herkomer, C. M., Delacroix, Ary Scheffer | Now about the work, I do not doubt it has its faults, but neither do I doubt that I am not entirely wrong, and that I shall succeed, though it be after a long period of seeking. | --- |
| 315
20 or 21 August 1883 | Father, Rappard, Millet, Fromont Jeune et Riszler ainé, Belinfante, Smulders | All my ideas about my work are so well ordered, so definite, that I think you would do well to accept what I say: let me go my own way, just as I am.
Of course I must experiment to find things, and suffer failures, but in the end the work will come out all right. | --- |
| 316
c. 21 August 1883 | C. M., Rappard | As to the money, I would rather deal with an art lover who buys cheaply but regularly than with one who buys only once, even if he paid well then. | --- |
| 317
22 or 23 August 1883 | Gelderland, Zola, L'Assommoir, Victor Hugo's Misérables, C.M., Rappard, Van der Weele, Weissenbruch | [Sien] is an intensely unhappy creature, and because of her erratic temperament, little fitted for regular employment, whatever it may be. | --- |
| 318
2 September 1883 | Van der Weele, Wisselingh, C.M. | So that, in short, [Sien] and I must be wise and separate as friends. | --- |
| 319
c. 4 September 1883 | Ruysdael, Daubigny, Jules Dupré, Ed. Frère, Henrietta Browne | Yes, for me, the drama of storm in nature, the drama of sorrow in life, is the most impressive. | Wind-Beaten Tree, A: F 10, JH 384; Farmhouses in Loosduinen near The Hague at Twilight: F 16, JH 391 |
| 320
6 or 7 September 1883 | --- | Oh, Theo, you will understand how I feel these days, so very melancholy about the woman and the children--but it could not be helped; at the same time, all my thoughts are concentrated on the work, and I feel a great energy, because now I can do things which were impossible before. | --- |
| 321
7 or 8 September 1883 | Musset, George Sand | And that melancholy staring into the abyss is just as fatal, and the way to avoid that is to work hard. | Farmhouses in Loosduinen near The Hague at Twilight: F 16, JH 391 |
| 322
10 September 1883 | C.M., Rappard | But [Sien's] children I am so fond of? I could not do all that was necessary for them . . . . | --- |
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