A certain real human feeling
Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Drenthe, 28 October 1883
In order to maintain a certain rank, one is obliged to commit certain villainies, falsehoods - willingly and knowingly, premeditatedly. That's what I call the fatal side, even of the rayon noir, let alone when there is no rayon at all.
Now take, for instance, the painters of Barbizon: not only do I understand them as men, but in my opinion everything - the smallest, the most intimate details - sparkles with humor and life. The “painter’s family life,” with its great and small miseries, with its calamities, its sorrows and griefs, has the advantage of having a certain good will, a certain sincerity, a certain real human feeling. Just because of that not maintaining a certain standing, not even thinking about it.
Letter 336
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
In order to maintain a certain rank, one is obliged to commit certain villainies, falsehoods - willingly and knowingly, premeditatedly. That's what I call the fatal side, even of the rayon noir, let alone when there is no rayon at all.
Now take, for instance, the painters of Barbizon: not only do I understand them as men, but in my opinion everything - the smallest, the most intimate details - sparkles with humor and life. The “painter’s family life,” with its great and small miseries, with its calamities, its sorrows and griefs, has the advantage of having a certain good will, a certain sincerity, a certain real human feeling. Just because of that not maintaining a certain standing, not even thinking about it.
Letter 336
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
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