Notes: Academic Art

Notes for the Text

Les Cours de dessin: BVG 136, 9/24/1880. As noted before, Van Gogh references Cours de dessin by Charles Bargue multiple times in his letters. According to JLB, Cours de dessin was primarily known as “a series of drawing examples published by Goupil & Cie as loose leaves” (JLB 136, 12/3/1877-12/4/1877; n. 22). It was also a drawing course (JLB 157, 9/7/1880; n. 9). Bargue’s publication was broken into two volumes: Modèles d’après la bosse and Modèles d’après les maîtres (JLB 136, 12/3/1877-12/4/1877). More than two years earlier, Van Gogh referred already to having “a sheet from Bargue’s Cours de dessin (the drawing examples), 1st part, No. 39, Anne of Brittany” hanging in his room (JLB 136, 12/3/1877-12/4/1877). Context: JLB 158, 9/24/1880: “I’m still working on Bargue’s Cours de dessin, and plan to finish it before undertaking anything else, since day by day it exercises and strengthens both my hand and my mind, and I wouldn’t be able to feel sufficiently indebted to Mr. Tersteeg for having so generously lent them to me. These models are excellent.”

Dessin d’après l’antique: Tralbaut, p. 70. In 1969, Tralbaut reproduced the page from the register of the Academy of Brussels on which Van Gogh’s name was entered with this class listed after it (ibid., p. 74). Much discussion has ensued concerning the nature of Van Gogh’s relationship to the Academy. Hulsker mounts a vigorous attack on Tralbaut’s claim that his discovery proved Van Gogh actually attended classes at the Academy. He argues: “[i]t is not very probable, since [Van Gogh] does not mention a word about them in any of his following letters” (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 91). Hulsker concludes that Van Gogh’s application must not have been approved by the city mayor, which, according to Van Gogh, was required for admission (JLB 160, 11/1/1880). As for Tralbaut’s evidence, Hulsker dismisses it as only “the list of the requests for admission, not the list of students who were admitted” (emphasis in original), and notes that the date indicated next to Van Gogh’s entry (September 15, 1880) must refer to the start date of the course, since Van Gogh was ensconced in Cuesmes on that date with, as far as is known, no thoughts yet of Brussels or the Academy (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 91). Tralbaut maintains that Van Gogh’s registration was “backdated to the beginning of term” (Tralbaut, p. 70). Some sources have missed this subtlety and maintained, “Van Gogh had already enrolled at the Academy when he was in Cuesmes” (Musee des Beaux-Arts de Mons, p. 16). Van Heugten (p. 16) turns down the heat on the debate, pointing out that Van Gogh’s choice of class follows exactly the advice that Roelofs gave him: “he told me that his opinion was that from now on I should concentrate on drawing from nature, i.e. whether plaster or model” (JLB 160, 11/1/1880).

Experience at the Brussels Academy: It is not necessary to resolve the question of Van Gogh’s official admission to the Brussels Academy to believe that Van Gogh probably attended at least a few classes there. The evidence is as follows: (1) In a letter to Van Rappard at the end of 1881, he mentions “those academics ... I’m referring to Stallaert and Severdonck” (JLB 195, 12/30/1881). These are Joseph Stallaert and Jef van Severdonck, both teachers at the Academy at the time (Acadèmie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, p. 100, citing the recollections of James Ensor, who attended the Academy in 1877-1878); (2) A year later, Van Gogh writes Van Rappard again in a vein that suggests shared experiences in a collegial group, which could only have been at the Academy: “You saw the drawings by [Amédee Ernest] Lynen in Brussels—how witty and amusing and clever they were. If you talked to anyone about them, they answered loftily with a certain contempt that yes, they were ‘quite nice’” (JLB 267, 9/19/1882, emphasis added); (3) Hendrik Haverman’s letter to Plasschaert in 1912 which indicates that Van Gogh, although no favorite of Haverman’s, was a familiar presence in the group of Academy students in Brussels (b3028 V/1982, Haverman to “Plasschaert, A.”, 5/10/1912; (4) In 1889, Van Gogh wrote from Arles, “Must however admit that in all the towns there are schools of drawing and masses of art lovers, but you understand that run by invalids or idiots of the fine arts it’s nothing but appearance and show” (JLB 748, 2/25/1889). This could, however, be read as evidence that his application to the Brussels Academy was rejected, or just as general negativity about the academy system. Even at its most persuasive, this evidence could be read to support only the limited proposition that Van Gogh was familiar to some of the students at the Brussels Academy and that he, in turn, was familiar with some of the students and faculty—not necessarily that he was formally admitted. Such a marginal status, however, would have been even more demeaning than an unsuccessful, but registered, attendance.

Never mentioned a word: Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 91: This is the centerpiece of Hulsker’s argument that Van Gogh never attended the Academy in Brussels: “It is not very probable [that Van Gogh followed lessons at the Academy], since he does not mention a word about them in any of his following letters. It must be assumed that he really wanted to try but did not get the mayor’s permission.” Hulsker argues that the Academy register produced by Tralbaut showing Van Gogh’s name must have been “the list of the requests for admission, not the list of students who were admitted.” (Emphasis in original.)

“He spoke to me”: BVG 189, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882. Context: BVG 189, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882: “Once he spoke to me about drawing from casts in a way such as the worst teacher at the academy would not have spoken ...” JLB 219, 4/21/1882: “Once he spoke to me about drawing from plaster casts in a tone that even the worst teacher at the academy wouldn’t have used ...” The plaster casts he had: Why these casts were in Van Gogh’s studio is a bit of a mystery. He told Theo in no uncertain terms: “I utterly detest drawing from plaster casts” (JLB 219, 4/21/1882). Yet he “had a couple of hands and feet hanging in the studio, though not for drawing” (ibid.). If not for drawing purposes, then for what? As decoration? Two possibilities suggest themselves, both unflattering of Van Gogh, but in different ways. He may have bought the plaster casts with his very limited money as a way of making his apartment look more like an artist’s studio. This might have been necessary (in his view) to persuade the “models” he recruited that he was, in fact, an artist. If true, this may relate to Mauve’s presumed accusation that Van Gogh was play-acting being an artist; and it would help explain Van Gogh’s sensitivity to Mauve’s criticism on this subject. The other possibility is that Mauve lent Van Gogh the plasters (in support of his instruction to draw from them) and that Van Gogh’s destruction of them was a very targeted blow against his teacher. Coalbin, smashing them: BVG 189, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882. Context: JLB 219, 4/21/1882: “Once he spoke to me about drawing from plaster casts in a tone that even the worst teacher at the academy wouldn’t have used, and I held my peace, but at home I got so angry about it that I threw the poor plaster mouldings into the coal-scuttle, broken.”

Antwerp Academy: Formally known as the Royal Academy of Art. Van Looij, p. 11: The Academy was founded in 1663 primarily as the result of the efforts of David Teniers the Younger. Van Looij, p. 17: Only the Papal Academy in Rome (founded in 1588) and the École Académique (with the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture) in Paris (founded in 1648) preceded the Antwerp Academy in Europe. According to Van Looij, the academy in Rome was the “prototype” for Antwerp’s school, not the Parisian school (ibid., p. 25). Soon fell into conflict: Many of the letters from Van Gogh’s time at the Academy are insecurely dated, which makes sequencing them largely deduction and estimating the time between events mere guesswork. Van Gogh first mentions “drawing in the daytime” (i.e., Siberdt’s class) in letter JLB 557, 2/2/1886, recently re-dated by Jansen to “on or about February 2.” (There is a mention of Siberdt in an earlier letter dated c. January 28 [JLB 555, 1/28/1886], but the context does not indicate that Van Gogh was a student in his class at the time.) Exactly when he entered the class would depend on whether he did so in an orderly way or was hastily “sent down” from Verlat’s painting class, as some accounts have it. The Venus de Milo incident described in Hageman’s account likely took place around February 11 or 12. If JLB 557, 2/2/1886 is accurately re-dated, then the two events (starting class and the fight with Siberdt) could have been as much as ten days apart (i.e., the end of the following week). Given the provocative and antagonistic behavior attested to by Van Gogh’s classmates, this short interval seems completely likely. Van Gogh took his pencil: Baseleer, in Van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh: Volume II, pp. 508-509: According to Baseleer’s account, the Venus drawing “issued from Vincent’s drawing pencil.” “I can still see”: Baseleer, in Van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh: Volume II, pp. 508-509: Richard Baseleer is quoted in an interview with Charles Bernard.

Incident: Hageman, “Van Gogh in Antwerp,” in Stein, ed., p. 70: Not surprisingly, Van Gogh did not report this particular incident to Theo, but there are clear signs of the blow-up in his correspondence with Theo. “That Siberdt, ... definitely tried to pick a quarrel with me today,” he wrote in a letter dated to the first two weeks of February, “perhaps with a view to getting rid of me” (JLB 559, 2/6/1886; emphasis in original). This likely refers to the confrontation over the Venus de Milo recalled by his classmates. Van Gogh does not provide any details that would confirm this connection. Instead, he uses the incident as an opportunity to reassure Theo about his poise under pressure. “I said—Why are you trying to pick a quarrel with me? I have no wish to quarrel, and in any case I have absolutely no desire to contradict you, but you deliberately try to pick a quarrel with me. He evidently hadn’t expected that and couldn’t say much to refute it this time, but—next time, of course, he’ll be able to start something” (ibid.). This clever, if improbable, version of the incident not only turns the whole thing into a Gandhian triumph for Van Gogh, it prepares his brother for the fate that may have already befallen him: a class-ending confrontation. (Van Gogh inadvertently reveals that he and Siberdt have had previous fights [“this time”].)

Although he says nothing more about the fight, in the same letter he muses tellingly on the right way and the wrong way for teachers to criticize their students: “if I go to Cormon and run into trouble,” he says, ostensibly referring to the possibility of going to Cormon’s studio in Paris, “I wouldn’t let it worry me. ... I’d far rather have correction—as long as it doesn’t become DELIBERATE provocation; that correction without one giving any cause other than a certain singularity in one’s manner of working which is different from the others.” (ibid.; emphasis in original.)

Within a few days, this sort of fatalistic brooding over the “quarrel” has taken its toll. By about February 14, 1886, Van Gogh’s determinedly optimistic tone has changed dramatically: “I’m not getting on very well with the work,” he writes (JLB 562, 2/14/1886). This is followed a few days later by another despairing assessment: “I’d always have trouble with fellows who had been at some academy or other—that I couldn’t draw—according to them” (JLB 563, 2/16/1886 or 2/17/1886). He also hints, for the first time, at some cloud over his future at the Academy: (“I still don’t know how things will turn out for me in the end at the academy here” [ibid.]) All during this slow reveal, Van Gogh conducts a campaign to cover up the seriousness of the altercation with Siberdt and cast the blame for it on his teacher: “I heard yesterday that Siberdt—the teacher—had said somewhere that I had a good understanding of drawing and that he’d been rather too hasty” (JLB 563, 2/16/1886 or 2/17/1886). He also attempts to explain why he has not seen Siberdt since the incident: “Since he doesn’t come into the class all that often, I haven’t seen him in several days” (ibid.).

In his last letter from Antwerp, he announces a complete reconciliation with his teacher: “since I wrote and told you that the teacher had indirectly let it be known that he hadn’t meant to be so harsh I haven’t had any more trouble with him, and he even said that the drawing I did today needed virtually no change in proportion and none at all in tone” (JLB 566, 2/24/1886). If nothing else, this confirms the substance of the dispute with Siberdt in a way that corroborates Hegeman’s Venus de Milo account (bad proportions and misuse of toning). Whether it can be trusted substantively is another matter. When Van Gogh first arrived in his class, Siberdt did, apparently, try to placate him, so he may well have returned to a more conciliatory tone after a cooling-off period. (Piérard gives Siberdt a “disposition less irritable than his director’s [i.e., Verlat’s]” [Piérard, p. 93].)

More likely is that Van Gogh has merely imagined or invented the reconciliation. His assurance that Siberdt found nothing that “needed virtually no change” in his drawing is belied by the results of the concours that he entered for Vinck’s antiek class. When the judges saw Van Gogh’s entry, they recommended that he be demoted to the “elementary” level, which included children eight to ten years old (Tralbaut, Vincent van Gogh, p. 198). This does not bespeak the competence implied by Van Gogh’s account. Since the latest dating of JLB 559 is February 14 (a Sunday), the incident could not have occurred any later than the end of the previous work week (i.e., February 11 or 12), and may well have occurred earlier in February.

“Flew into a violent”: Hageman, “Van Gogh in Antwerp,” in Stein, ed., p. 70; emphasis in original. In a letter probably written soon after this incident, one can hear Van Gogh desperately trying to slough off Siberdt’s angry attack—chalking it up to his own odd work habits and Siberdt’s intolerance (the same strategy he used to undercut Tersteeg’s attacks in The Hague)—without revealing any specifics to Theo, of course. Contemplating the possibility of going to Paris for additional academic training, Van Gogh writes, “if I go to Cormon and run into trouble sooner or later either with the master or the pupils, I wouldn’t let it worry me. ... I’d far rather have correction—as long as it doesn’t become DELIBERATE provocation; that correction without one giving any cause other than a certain singularity in one’s manner of working which is different from the others.” (JLB 559, 2/6/1886, emphasis in original.)

“He worked in a chaotic fury”: Destremau, p. 177. Fell silent with anticipation: Gauzi, “Lautrec et son Temps,” in Stein, ed., p. 72: “But the moment Cormon had placed himself in front of Van Gogh’s study, the silence became absolute, oppressive; everyone looked at his drawing and listened closely: What would the master say?” Placid master would react: Schimmel, p. 73: Despite his seeming complacency, Cormon was known to occasionally throw fits. In 1883, Toulouse-Lautrec complained of being on the receiving end of “Cormon’s thunderbolts.” Since Toulouse-Lautrec is the primary source for generalizations about Cormon’s easy-going pedagogical style, this is persuasive evidence of a contrary streak. Bernard, who, unlike Toulouse-Lautrec, did not like Cormon, spread the rumor that he was a drinker. (See Destremau, p.174.) Cormon only criticized: Gauzi, “Lautrec et son Temps,” in Stein, ed., p. 72: “Situated not far from Vincent, I watched Cormon from the corner of my eye. Impassively he looked at Van Gogh’s painting without uttering a word. Finally he spoke, and the correction he gave, neglecting color, was solely directed at the drawing.” Advised him to work more: Van Heugten, p. 24: “As was customary in academic teaching, Cormon laid great stress on getting proportions right. Writing from Arles, Van Gogh reminded Theo that he utterly disagreed with Cormon’s view that everything had to be measured.” Van Heugten is referring to JLB 683, 9/18/1888. In the afternoons: Bernard, “Émile Bernard on Vincent (1886-1887),” pp. 38-40. His eraser wore holes: Bernard, “Émile Bernard on Vincent (1886-1887),” pp. 38-40.

Notes for the Plates

[Uncle Cor] asked me: BVG 117 1/9/1878 | JLB 139, 1/9/1878, 1/10/1878.