Where is their human feeling?
Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, from The Hague, 18-19 September 1882
I have been to an exhibition of watercolors where there were a good many things by Italians. Clever, very clever - and yet they left me with a feeling of emptiness . . . . Oh, certainly, these Italians are very clever, but where is their sentiment, their human feeling? I would rather see a little grey sketch by Lançon - some rag pickers eating soup, while outside it is raining or snowing - than those brilliant peacock’s feathers by those Italians - who seem to multiply daily, whereas the soberer artists remain just as rare as always.
I mean it, Rappard, I would just as soon be a waiter in a hotel, for instance, than the kind of watercolor manufacturer some of those Italians are.
Letter R13
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
I have been to an exhibition of watercolors where there were a good many things by Italians. Clever, very clever - and yet they left me with a feeling of emptiness . . . . Oh, certainly, these Italians are very clever, but where is their sentiment, their human feeling? I would rather see a little grey sketch by Lançon - some rag pickers eating soup, while outside it is raining or snowing - than those brilliant peacock’s feathers by those Italians - who seem to multiply daily, whereas the soberer artists remain just as rare as always.
I mean it, Rappard, I would just as soon be a waiter in a hotel, for instance, than the kind of watercolor manufacturer some of those Italians are.
Letter R13
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
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