After death there is resurrection
Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 14 May 1882
Sometimes the thought occurs to me, Why isn't Theo a painter? Will that “civilization” ever begin to bore him? Won't he later regret that he has not left “civilization” for what it is worth, and has not learned a handicraft, taken a wife and put on the painter's smock? But there may be reasons for it which I cannot appreciate. I don't know whether you have yet learned the ABC of love. Do you think that pretentious of me? What I mean is, one feels best what love is when sitting by a sickbed, sometimes without any money in one's pocket. It is no gathering of strawberries in spring - that lasts only a few days, and most of the months are grey and gloomy. But in that gloom one learns something new; sometimes I think you know it and sometimes I think, He does not.
I want to go through the joys and sorrows of domestic life in order to paint it from my own experience. When I came back from Amsterdam, I felt that my love - so true, so honest and strong - had literally been killed. But after death there is resurrection. Resurgam.
Letter 193
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
Sometimes the thought occurs to me, Why isn't Theo a painter? Will that “civilization” ever begin to bore him? Won't he later regret that he has not left “civilization” for what it is worth, and has not learned a handicraft, taken a wife and put on the painter's smock? But there may be reasons for it which I cannot appreciate. I don't know whether you have yet learned the ABC of love. Do you think that pretentious of me? What I mean is, one feels best what love is when sitting by a sickbed, sometimes without any money in one's pocket. It is no gathering of strawberries in spring - that lasts only a few days, and most of the months are grey and gloomy. But in that gloom one learns something new; sometimes I think you know it and sometimes I think, He does not.
I want to go through the joys and sorrows of domestic life in order to paint it from my own experience. When I came back from Amsterdam, I felt that my love - so true, so honest and strong - had literally been killed. But after death there is resurrection. Resurgam.
Letter 193
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
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