Something of the Brabant fields
Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 24 November 1882
How well constructed Zola's "Pot-Bouille" is, and how bitter the words it closes with: "Nowadays all firms are worth the same, the one is equal to the other, everywhere it is Swine and Co." Don't you think Octave Mouret, really the principal figure, can be considered typical of those persons whom you recently wrote about, if you remember? . . .
He is satisfied when he can readily sell his bales of "nouveautes" unloading his bales of goods on the sidewalks of Paris; he doesn't seem to have any other aspiration except the conquest of women, and yet he does not really love them, for Zola perceives correctly, I think, when he says, "where his contempt for women broke through." . . .
Could he have done otherwise? - perhaps not, but you and I can and must act differently, I think. For we have our roots in a different kind of family life than Mouret, and besides, I hope there will always remain in us something of the Brabant fields and heath, which years of city life will not be able to wipe out, especially as it is renewed and strengthened by art.
Letter 247
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
How well constructed Zola's "Pot-Bouille" is, and how bitter the words it closes with: "Nowadays all firms are worth the same, the one is equal to the other, everywhere it is Swine and Co." Don't you think Octave Mouret, really the principal figure, can be considered typical of those persons whom you recently wrote about, if you remember? . . .
He is satisfied when he can readily sell his bales of "nouveautes" unloading his bales of goods on the sidewalks of Paris; he doesn't seem to have any other aspiration except the conquest of women, and yet he does not really love them, for Zola perceives correctly, I think, when he says, "where his contempt for women broke through." . . .
Could he have done otherwise? - perhaps not, but you and I can and must act differently, I think. For we have our roots in a different kind of family life than Mouret, and besides, I hope there will always remain in us something of the Brabant fields and heath, which years of city life will not be able to wipe out, especially as it is renewed and strengthened by art.
Letter 247
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
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