Trade is no handicraft

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Drenthe, 6-7 October 1883

But some things seem so queer to me that in general I suppose business to be out of joint, though I do not know exactly where and how.

Now you will perhaps say, Yes, but your painter's business is even more wretched, unsafe, and there, too, it may happen that personal energy or activity cannot do everything, for instance provide one with food for some time. All right, admitting this to be true, but if it is a case of providing for the simplest needs, trying a spot where life is cheaper instead of the very expensive city life won't make things worse. If I had just a little luck; if I found a few friends for my work - then, yes, then I would speak quite differently still.

. . . . I do not doubt for a moment that you would consider it a delightful thing to have a handicraft; and though at first it might bring you into the most impossible and queer relations with your real position as far as life in general is concerned, the glimpse of the future would give you a “qu'est-ce que ça me fait” - a future which, though it does not entirely depend on personal activity, nevertheless has a more direct connection with it than trade, which is no handicraft.

Letter 331
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what