I feel at home with them
Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, c. 4 March 1883
Some time ago I read the following words in Eliot's Felix Holt the Radical:
The people I live among have the same follies and vices as the rich, only they have their own forms of folly and vice - and they have not what are called the refinements of the rich to make their faults more bearable.
It doesn't much matter to me - I am not fond of those refinements, but some people are, and find it difficult to feel at home with such persons as have them not.
I shouldn't have thought of it in these terms, but I have felt the same sometimes. As a painter I not only feel perfectly at home and contented with them, but I find in them a quality that sometimes reminds me of gypsies, at least of something as picturesque.
Letter 272
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
Some time ago I read the following words in Eliot's Felix Holt the Radical:
The people I live among have the same follies and vices as the rich, only they have their own forms of folly and vice - and they have not what are called the refinements of the rich to make their faults more bearable.
It doesn't much matter to me - I am not fond of those refinements, but some people are, and find it difficult to feel at home with such persons as have them not.
I shouldn't have thought of it in these terms, but I have felt the same sometimes. As a painter I not only feel perfectly at home and contented with them, but I find in them a quality that sometimes reminds me of gypsies, at least of something as picturesque.
Letter 272
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
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