“It is sometimes refreshing”

Vincent van Gogh to his mother, from Saint-Remy, 20 December 1889

The weather here is rather soft these days, though there are also many days of frost and wind, but here the sun shines more strongly than in Holland. Do you remember that Rappard once said, "It is sometimes refreshing," when he was staying with us after he had typhoid fever; I sometimes think of it when I am feeling much stronger and at times more clear-headed than last year.

Letter 619
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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To lead a hard life

Vincent van Gogh to his mother, from Saint-Remy, 20 December 1889

As I told you, I am sometimes sorry that I am often so absent-minded, I struggle against it, but it makes me unable to do many things I ought to do. As for my health, there is literally nothing the matter with it, but the shock of last year makes me feel like not leaving the hospital. Sometimes I imagine that if I gave up painting and had to lead a hard life, say, as a soldier in the East, it would cure me. But it is somewhat late for that, and I am afraid I should be refused. I am thinking this half in jest, half in earnest.

For the present my work is going well, but of course my thoughts are always directed on the colors and on drawing, going around in a rather small circle. So I want only to live by the day - trying to get on from one day to the other. And besides, my painter-friends also often complain that the profession makes one so powerless, or that it is the powerless who follow it.

Letter 619
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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More self-sacrifice than I

Vincent van Gogh to his mother, from Saint-Remy, 20 December 1889

I do not seem to have had a happy character. I discovered that in Paris, how much more Theo did his best to help Father practically than I, so that his own interests were often neglected. Therefore I am so thankful now that Theo has got a wife and is expecting his baby. Well, Theo had more self-sacrifice than I, and that is deeply rooted in his character. And after Father was no more and I came to Theo in Paris, then he became so attached to me that I understood how much he had loved Father. And now I am saying this to you, and not to him - it is a good thing that I did not stay in Paris, for we, he and I, would have become too interested in each other.

And life does not exist for this, I cannot tell you how much better I think it is for him this way than in the past, he had too many tiresome business worries, and his health suffered from it.

Letter 619
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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All painters are more or less crazy

Vincent van Gogh to his mother, from Saint-Remy, 20 December 1889

It is a year since I fell ill, and it is difficult for me to say how far I have or have not recovered. I often feel much self-reproach about things in the past, my illness being more or less my own fault, in any case I doubt if I can make up for faults in any way.

But reasoning and thinking about these things is sometimes so difficult, and sometimes my feelings overwhelm me more than before.

In the beginning when I fell ill, I could not resign myself to the idea of having to go into a hospital. And at present I admit that I should have been treated even earlier, but to err is human.

A French writer says that all painters are more or less crazy, and though quite a lot can be said against this, it is certain that one gets too distrait in it. Whatever the truth of it may be, I imagine that here, where I don't have to worry about anything, etc., the quality of my work is progressing.

And thus, I go on with relative calmness, and do my best in my work, and don't consider myself among the unhappy ones.

Letter 619
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Working very hard and ceaselessly

Vincent van Gogh to Wilhelmina van Gogh, from Saint-Remy, 20 December 1889

I'm adding a word to you in great haste; it is exactly a year ago that I had that attack; I have no reason to complain too much, as things are going better with me at the moment, but it is to be feared that it will come back from time to time. And this leaves the head in a latent state of sensibility.

I have been working very hard and ceaselessly for two weeks.

Life is not always very gay here, and my companions in distress are very often bored, but there is much resignation and patience here. But many of them are doing nothing, and remain absorbed in thought all day long, and now and then I feel inclined to believe that they would be better off in an asylum where manual labor was obligatory.

Letter W18
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Consoling things

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Saint-Remy, 15 December 1889

I remember the picture by Manet you speak of. The “Portrait of a Man” by Puvis de Chavannes has always remained the ideal in figure to me, an old man reading a yellow novel, and beside him a rose and some watercolor brushes in a glass of water - and the “Portrait of a Lady” that he had at the same exhibition, a woman already old, but exactly as Michelet felt, There is no such thing as an old woman. These are consoling things, to see modern life as something bright, in spite of its inevitable griefs.

Last year around this time I certainly did not think that I should ever get over it as much as this.

Letter 617
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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I am still full of remorse

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Saint-Remy, 15 December 1889

If I could one day prove that I have not impoverished the family, that would comfort me. For now I am still full of remorse at spending money with no return. But as you say, patience and work are the only chance of getting away from that.

However, I often think that if I had done as you did, if I had stayed with Goupils', if I had confined myself to selling pictures, I should have done better. For in business, even if you yourself do not produce, you make others produce. Just now so many artists need support from the dealers, and only rarely do they find it.

Letter 617
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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At last I myself feel calmer

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Saint-Remy, 15 December 1889

I think that probably I shall hardly do any more things in impasto; it is the result of the quiet, secluded life that I am leading, and I am all the better for it. Fundamentally I am not so violent as all that, and at last I myself feel calmer.

You tell me not to worry too much and that better days will yet come for me. I must tell you that these better days have already begun for me, as soon as I get a glimpse of the possibility of completing my work in some way or other, so that you would have a series of really sympathetic Provencal studies, which will somehow be linked, I hope, with our distant memories of our youth in Holland.

Letter 617
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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It will be best to stick to my work

Vincent van Gogh to his mother, from Saint-Remy, 10 December 1889

Be sure that I think of you often, here where I spend my days more withdrawn into myself than now and then seems to me desirable.

Yet I have decidedly no reason at all to complain, feeling stronger and healthier and quieter than before, and compared with this time last year, when I really had no thought of recovering. Yet I shall always keep on feeling the shock, and it will be best to stick to my work, leaving the rest alone as hardly being compatible with it, and as worrying cannot do much good.

Letter 616
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Painting, as it is called

Vincent van Gogh to his mother, from Saint-Remy, 10 December 1889

As for the exhibition in Brussels, it does not leave me indifferent because I shall have a few pictures from here in it which, though made in quite a different region, remain just as if they were painted say in Zundert, or Calmpthout, and I think they could also be understood by people who haven't any knowledge of painting, as it is called. And so one may say, It would have been simpler if I had stayed quietly in North Brabant - but it is as it is, and what can one do?

Letter 616
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Misfortune and disease

Vincent van Gogh to To Wilhelmina van Gogh, from Saint-Remy, 10 December 1889

While I was writing this letter I got up to order to put a few brush strokes on a canvas I'm working on - well, I don't know what thoughts came into my head while I was writing, but when I looked at my canvas I told myself it was not right. Then I took a color that was there on the palette, a dull dirty white, which you get by mixing white, green and a little carmine. I daubed this greenish tone all over the sky, and behold, at a distance it softens the tones, whereas one would think that one would spoil and besmirch the painting. Don't misfortune and disease do the same thing to us and to our health; and if fate ordains that we be unfortunate or sick, are we not in that case worth more than if we were serene and healthy according to our own vague ideas and desires with regard to possible happiness? I don't know…

When I compare them with others, some of my pictures certainly show traces of having been painted by a sick man, and I assure you that I don't do this on purpose. It's against my conscious will that all my calculations end in broken tones.

Letter W16
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Sometimes I think they are very ugly

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Saint-Remy, 7 December 1889

Among the studies you will find the following which are for Mother and our sister: "Olives", "Bedroom", "Reaper", "Ploughing", "Wheat Field with Cypresses", "Orchard in Blossom", "Portrait". The rest are mostly studies of autumn, and I think that the best is the yellow mulberry tree against a bright blue sky - then the study of the house and the park, of which there are two variations. They are giving me a lot of trouble, and sometimes I think they are very ugly, sometimes they seem good to me; perhaps you will have the same impression when you see them.

I hope you are well. For myself I have nothing to complain of, I am feeling absolutely normal, so to speak, but without an idea for the future, and really I do not know what is going to happen, and perhaps I rather avoid facing this question, feeling that I can do nothing about it.

Letter 618
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Victory will come to us one day

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Arles, 4 December 1888

If we can stand the siege, victory will come to us one day, in spite of our not being among the people who are talked about. It is rather a case that makes you think of the proverb - joy in public, sorrow at home.

What can you expect? Supposing that the fight is still before us, we must just try to mature quietly.

You always told me to work more for quality than quantity.

Letter 560
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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I feel in my element

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Arles, 4 December 1888

Our days pass in working, working all the time, in the evening we are dead beat and go off to the cafe, and after that, early to bed! Such is our life.

I have made portraits of a whole family, that of the postman whose head I had done previously - the man, his wife, the baby, the young boy, and the son of sixteen, all of them real characters and very French, though they look like Russians. You know how I feel about this, how I feel in my element, and that it consoles me up to a certain point for not being a doctor. I hope to get on with this and to be able to get more careful posing, paid for by portraits. And if I manage to do this whole family better still, at least I shall have done something to my liking and something individual.

Letter 560
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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I want to be myself

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 28 December 1884

I think you value the truth enough for me to speak freely to you. For much the same reasons that if I paint peasant women I want them to be peasant women - so I want to get a whore's expression when I paint whores.

That is precisely why a whore's head by Rembrandt struck me so forcefully. Because he had caught that mysterious smile in such an infinitely beautiful way, with a gravity of his very own - the magician of magicians.

This is something new for me, and I want to achieve it at all costs. Manet has done it and Courbet - well, sacrebleu, I've the same ambition too, the more so as I've felt the infinite beauty of the study of women by the giants of literature - Zola, Daudet, de Goncourt, Balzac - in the very marrow of my bones.

Well, be that as it may - I want to get on at all costs, and - I want to be myself. I am feeling obstinate, too, and no longer care what people say about me or about my work.

Letter 442
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Painting is more than enough

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 28 December 1884

You may well find it difficult to imagine, but it is a fact - when I receive the money my greatest craving will not be for food, though I shall have been fasting, but even more so for painting - and I shall immediately go on a hunt for models and continue until all the money has gone. Meanwhile what will be keeping me going is my breakfast with the people where I live, and a cup of coffee and some bread in the cremerie in the evening. Supplemented, when I can, by a second cup of coffee and bread in the cremerie for my supper or else some rye bread I keep in my trunk. As long as I am painting that is more than enough, but when my models have left, a feeling of weakness does come over me.

Letter 442
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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One should aim at something lofty

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 28 December 1884

As far as my present work is concerned, I feel I can do better - however, I do need more air and space, in other words I must be able to spread my wings a little. Above all, above all, I still haven't enough models. I could soon produce work of higher quality, but my expenses would be heavier. Still, one should aim at something lofty, genuine, something distinguished, shouldn't one?

I am again reading de Goncourt's book, it is first-rate. In the preface to "Cherie," which you should read, there is an account of what the de Goncourts went through - and of how, at the end of their lives, they were pessimistic, yes - but also sure of themselves, knowing that they had done something, that their work would last. What fellows they were! if only we got on together better than we do now, if only we too could be in complete accord - we could be the same, couldn't we?

Letter 442
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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An ordinary worker

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 28 December 1884

Something about my constitution that has pleased me a great deal is that a doctor in Amsterdam, with whom I once discussed a few things that sometimes made me think that I wasn't long for this world, and whose opinion I didn't ask for directly, wanting simply to gauge the first impression of someone who didn't know me at all and availing myself of a small upset I had at the time to bring the conversation round to my general constitution - I was absolutely delighted that this doctor took me for an ordinary worker, saying, "I daresay you're an ironworker by trade." That's exactly what I'd been trying to achieve - when I was younger you could tell that my mind was overwrought, and now I look like a bargee or an ironworker.

And changing one's constitution so that one gets a thick skin is no easy matter. However, I must go on being careful, try to hold on to what I have and to improve on it still.

Letter 442
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Painting wears one out

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 28 December 1884

I've discovered that my appetite has been held in check a bit too long and when I received your money I couldn't stomach any food. But I shall certainly do my best to remedy that. it doesn't take away from the fact that I have all my wits and energy about me when I'm painting. But when I'm out of doors, work in the open air is too much for me and I come over all weak.

Well, painting is something that wears one out. However, Van der Loo said, when I consulted him shortly before I came here, that I am reasonably strong after all. That I needn't despair of reaching the requisite age to produce a complete body of work. I told him that I knew several painters who, for all their nervousness, etc., had reached the age of 60, or even 70, fortunately for themselves, and that I should like to do the same.

I also believe that if one aims for serenity, and retains one's zest for living, one's state of mind helps a great deal. And in that respect I have gained by coming here, for I've new ideas and new means of expressing what I want; the better brushes are going to prove a great help, and I'm very excited by those two colors carmine and cobalt.

Letter 442
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Just watching the people's high spirits

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 28 December 1884

My thoughts are full of Rembrandt and Hals these days, not because I see many of their paintings but because I see so many types among the people here that remind me of that period. I still keep going to those dance halls to look at the heads of the woman and of the sailors and soldiers. One pays an entrance fee of 20 or 30 centimes and drinks a glass of beer - for there isn't much hard drinking and one can have a firs-rate time all evening, or at least I can, just watching the people's high spirits.

Letter 442
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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I haven't lost heart yet

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 28 December 1884

Well, you can see that I am working with a will. If I could sell something so that I could earn a bit more, I should work even harder.

As for Portier - I haven't lost heart yet - but poverty is dogging my steps and at present all dealers are suffering a little from the same defect, that of being more or less "a people withdrawn from society" - they are so much sunk in gloom that how is one really to feel inspired to go grubbing about in all that indifference and apathy - the more so as the disease is contagious.

For it's just a lot of nonsense that business is slack, one has to work even so with self-confidence and enthusiasm, in short with some zeal.

Letter 442
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Aiming for the truth

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 28 December 1884

She's a girl from a cafe-chantant and yet the expression I was looking for was somewhat "ecce homo-like." But that was because I was aiming for the truth, especially in the expression, though I also wanted to put my own thoughts into it. When the model arrived, it was obvious she had had quite a few busy nights - and she said something that was fairly characteristic: "For me, champagne doesn't cheer me up, it makes me very sad." Then I knew how matters stood and tried to produce something voluptuous and at the same time heart-rending.

I imagine that no matter what the girls may be, one can make money painting them, sooner than anything else. There's no denying that they can be damned beautiful, and that it is in keeping with the times that just that kind of painting should be gaining ground. Nor can there be any objections to that from even the highest artistic standpoint - painting human beings, that was the old Italian art, that was Millet and that is Breton.

The only question is whether one should start from the soul or from the clothes.

Letter 442
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Beginning with practically nothing

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, c. 19 December 1884

Trade is so old-fashioned and…three times moldy.

There must be renovation, for the old systems no longer work.

The prices, the public, everything needs renovation, and the future is to work cheaply for the people, because the ordinary art lovers seem to get more and more tight-fisted.

Starting with capital so very often leads only to losing everything at first, including one's courage and energy; whereas beginning with practically nothing rather makes one's character firmer and more decided.

Letter 441
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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I prefer people's eyes to cathedrals

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, c. 19 December 1884

I showed my view of “Het Steen” to another dealer, who liked its tone and color, but he was too engrossed in making up his inventory, and besides, he has little room, but he asked me to come back after New Year's. It is just the thing for foreigners who want to have a souvenir of Antwerp, and for that reason I shall make even more city views of that kind.

So yesterday I made a few drawings of a spot with a view of the Cathedral. I also made a little one of the Park.

But I prefer painting people's eyes to cathedrals, for there is something in the eyes that is not in the cathedral, however solemn and imposing the latter may be - a human soul, be it that of a poor beggar or of a streetwalker, is more interesting to me.

Letter 441
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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One can be mistaken

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, c. 15 December 1884

At the museum there is a portrait of Delroche painted by Portaels. During his life he seemed such a big man, but how hollow and empty he proved to be afterward! and Courbet did not seem serious during their lives, yet how they proved themselves to be real painters!

By a curious mishap an accident has happened to the portrait of Delaroche, so that a hole was cut right in the middle of the forehead. It looks well, and really seems to belong to it. Ah! there is quite a curious race of people of whom one would not oppose at certain moments that they are actually absolutely hollow and empty. One can be mistaken. And sometimes it is quite refreshing to perceive one has been mistaken, though then one has to begin all over again from the very beginning.

Letter 440
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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I’m always in a bad fix

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 8-15 December 1884

I cannot get on when I must spend more on color than I receive, and I am not the least bit, literally not the least bit, better off than I was years ago, that winter in Brussels.

I do not feel faint as long as I am painting, but in the long run those intervals are always sometimes rather too melancholy, and it grieves me when I don't get on, and am always in a bad fix. Do you know, for instance, that in the whole time I've been here, I've only had three warm meals, and for the rest nothing but bread? In this way one becomes vegetarian more than is good for one.

Painting is expensive, yet one must paint a great deal.

Letter 439
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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Straight from the painter's soul

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 8-15 December 1884

I won't let that idea of painting portraits go, for it is a good thing to fight for, to show people that there is more in them than the photographer can possibly get out of them with his machine.

I have noticed the great number of photographers here, who are just about the same as everywhere, and seem to be pretty busy.

But always those same conventional eyes, noses, mouths - waxlike and smooth and cold.

It cannot but always remain lifeless.

And the painted portraits have a life of their own, coming straight from the painter's soul, which the machine cannot reach. The more one looks at photographs, the more one feels this, I think.

Letter 439
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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I want my things to be seen

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 6-7 December 1884

My best chance is in the figure, because there are relatively very few who do it, and I must seize the opportunity. I must work myself into it here, until I get into touch with good figure painters - Verhaert, for instance, and then I imagine portrait painting is the way to earn the means for greater things.

I feel a power within me to do something, I see that my work holds its own against other work, and that gives me a great craving for work; lately, when I was in the country, I began to doubt, because I noticed that Portier does not seem to care for my things any more.

One thing is certain, that I want my things to be seen. Later on we may lose courage, but we will try and put it off for a long time.

Letter 438
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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The artists very often starve

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Antwerp, 6-7 December 1884

It is hard, terribly hard, to keep on working when one does not sell, and when one literally has to pay for one's color out of what would not be too much for eating, drinking and lodgings, however strictly calculated. And then the models besides. But all the same there is a chance, and even a good one, because comparatively speaking, there are only a few painters at work nowadays.

In my opinion they are only half to blame for that (for the other half, they are), for sometimes it is too hard.

All the same they are building State museums, and the like, for hundreds of thousands of guilders, but meanwhile the artists very often starve.

Letter 438
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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I will try to keep a straight course

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Nuenen, 15-17 December 1884

Do you remember how in the very beginning I always spoke to you about my great respect and sympathy for the work of Father de Groux? Of late I think of him more than ever. De Groux is appreciated as little as, for instance, Thijs Mans. He is different though, but this they have in common, that they met with violent opposition.

In these days - whether the public is wiser now I can't tell, but this much I know, that it is not at all superfluous to weigh seriously one's thoughts and one's actions.

If it had pleased de Groux at that time to dress his Brabant characters in medieval costumes, he would have run parallel with Leys in genius, and also in fortune. However, he did not do so, and now, years afterwards, there is a considerable reaction against that medievalism. But the realism not wanted then is in demand now, and there is more need of it than ever. The realism that has character and a serious sentiment.

I can tell you that for my part I will try to keep a straight course, and will paint the most simple, the most common things.

Letter 390
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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A certain obstinacy

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Nuenen, 7 December 1884

I let people say and think what they like of me, more than you perhaps suppose, but be sure of this, when a thing turns out wrong, that's no reason for me to admit that I ought not to have begun it; on the contrary, if it fails many a time, it is a reason for me to try again if the very same thing is not possible yet, and always in the same direction, as my views are well considered and calculated, and in my opinion have their raison d'etre.

I cannot bother about what people think of me, what I have to think of is getting on.

So I go my own way with a certain obstinacy, believing in some things and not believing in others.

Letter 388
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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