Little that has proved lasting

Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, from Nuenen, June 1885

Repeatedly and ad nauseam in your previous letters you wrote about "technique," which was the reason for the letter to which you did not reply. What I answered to that, and what I answer again is, There is the conventional meaning, which is being given more and more to the word technique, and the real meaning - science. . . .

For instance, they say of Haverman - and so do you - that he has so much technique. . . . What I assert is simply this, that drawing a figure academically correctly - that an even, premeditated stroke of the brush - have little to do - at least less than is generally supposed - with the urgent necessities of the domain of the painting art nowadays.

. . . Perhaps you will understand what I mean if I say that, when Haverman sits before a nice ladylike girl's head, he will make it more beautiful than almost anybody else, but put him before a peasant - and - he won't even start in, his art seeming to apply (as far as I know) principally to subjects that are just about exactly antipodean to Millet's or Lhermitte's - and that are on the contrary rather analogous to Cabanel's, who for all his, what I call, métier, has produced little that has proved lasting, or contributed to progress. And - I beseech you - don't confuse this with the style of painting of a Millet or Lhermitte.

Letter R52
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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