Notes: Literature and the French Novel

Notes for the Text

With a book: b2509 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/27/1877: “We read in the evening as often as possible; that is so delightful.” The Van Gogh children benefited from an explosion in the number, variety, and availability of books around the middle of the nineteenth century, thanks both to improvements in the production process and to a growing recognition that the Bible no longer provided “sufficient insight into how one ought to behave in this changed world” (Mathijsen, p. 39). Books were still expected to meet standards of “good content”—that is, promote “virtuousness, patriotism, and piety” (ibid., pp. 22-23). Generally, this meant no dissident political opinions, no critical social commentary, no erotica, and no French novels (Meyers, pp. 22-23, 34). Although censorship was not official state policy (Mathijsen, op. cit., p. 23), anyone caught with a book that fell afoul of these unofficial standards risked arrest—especially in rural Catholic areas like Zundert where suspicions lingered about the benefits of reading at all (ibid., pp. 19, 23). Rural illiteracy: Mathijsen, p. 19.

Parents read to each other: b3259 V/1962, “Gogh, Maria Johanna van,” 1899: Dorus, at least, had brought this custom from his side of the family. His sister wrote about their shared childhood: “Those winter evenings often were very cozy because of the reading of the novels of [Edward] Bulwer[-Lytton] etc.” The children read to their parents: b2794 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 11/18/1876: “Come and smoke your pipe and read to us in our lovely small room.” Used to console the sick: b2377 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/5/1875: In 1882, when Theo injured himself, apparently in a fall, and was bedbound, his mother wrote to him: “We wish that we could come to read to you.” And distract the worried: b2794 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 11/18/1876. To entertain: b0968 V/1962, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 3/2/1878: “In the evenings when the Ladies are working, I often read from [Charles Dickens’s Nicholas] Nickleby, that always is very entertaining reading.” Book recommendations: b0954 V/1962, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 3/15/1876: “[We received] a letter from Vincent … He writes about [George Eliot’s] Felix Holt, [so] we read it with interest.” The best example of this passing around of books within the family is Bulwer-Lytton’s Kenelm Chillingly, which the parents read, then gave to Anna’s sister, Cornelia, to give to Vincent; then Cornelia herself read it. Around the same time (1874-75), both Vincent’s sister Anna and his brother Theo were reading the same book.

“The best book”: b2638 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 7/2/1873: “Study the bible faithfully, it’s the best book” (emphasis in original). Next in Anna’s (and Dorus’s) pantheon of “safe” books came the “verbose and cliché-prone clergymen” who had dominated both parents’ childhoods (see Schuchart, p. 37). Vincent’s parents would also no doubt have recommended some of the popular new historical novels and romances by Dutch authors like Jacob van Lennep and Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint (Mathijsen, pp. 28, 81). Although clothed in archaic trappings, these books often made the bourgeois case that “everyone can become something in the world” as long as they observed convention and honored their parents (ibid., p. 85).

German Romantics: Kôdera, “Van Gogh and the Dutch Theological Culture of the Nineteenth Century,” pp. 118-119. Schiller: b2328 V/1982, “Gogh, Elisabeth van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 3/21/1875: “I read Don Carlos by Schiller, and how wonderful it is: each Sunday we pine for reading it.” Molière: Gay, p. 54. Dorus spoke French, but the primary mode of intellectual discourse was German (see Kôdera, pp. 118-119) and the sound of French boots in the street was too recent. Dumas: Mathijsen, p. 26. (Also see Mathijsen, p. 20.) The portraits of Parisian life by Paul de Kock would have been too risqué for Anna van Gogh. The popular works of Eugène Sue (author of The Wandering Jew), which were, like Dickens’s tales, serialized in newspapers, portrayed the social ills of Paris much as Dickens portrayed London’s. Sue’s work, however, shows a socialist sympathy that never unsettled the Englishman’s Victorian sentimentality. Goethe’s Faust: BVG 164, 12/21/1881. Context: JLB 193, 12/23/1881: “Since the Rev. Ten Kate translated Goethe’s Faust, Pa and Ma have read that book, because now that a clergyman has translated it, it can’t be all that immoral (??? what is that?).” Balzac: Mathijsen, p. 20. Zola: Mathijsen, p. 24. “Products of great minds”: b2333 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 4/28/1875.

“Hugo is on”: b2495 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 7/5/1880; emphasis added. “The Last Day”: BVG 136, 9/24/1880. Le Dernier Jour d’un Condamné (JLB 119, 6/4/1877-6/5/1877). “I too read”: BVG 164, 12/21/1881. Context: JLB 193, 12/23/1881: ”I also read the Bible sometimes, just as I sometimes read Michelet or Balzac or Eliot ... But all that drivel about good and evil, morality and immorality, I actually care so little about it.”

A huge Bible sat: Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 218: The Bible, which is on loan to the Van Gogh Museum, is an 1882 reprint of a 1712 edition. Kept the pulpit Bible: According to Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, the church’s “kanselbijbel” (i.e., chancel Bible, lecturn Bible) was a different edition than the one Van Gogh painted (Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 222, n. 6). In fact, the Nuenen Reformed Church still owns the Bible that Dorus van Gogh used in the service. Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop hypothesize that “[t]he book was probably a gift to the reverend, given to him on some special occasion” (ibid.). Set the Bible on it: Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 220: Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop believe that Van Gogh did not have any precedent for this arrangement of subject matter: “Some 17th-century Dutch vanitas still lifes include similarly large books, occasionally in combination with extinguished candles, but it seems unlikely that these were Van Gogh’s source of inspiration. This type of still life was rare, and the museums he had visited did not contain any examples at the time.” As Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop point out, the candlestick—the least original element of the composition—was added very late in the painting’s creation (ibid.).

Zola’s La joie de vivre: The question of whether Van Gogh chose this book for its yellow cover, for its title, for its story, or for some combination of these reasons, is a point of controversy in the literature. He undoubtedly had many similar paperbacks from the same series in his studio, and at least several of them were by Zola. Even if he had started only with the instinct to bring a bright highlight into the foreground to balance the big, dark Bible, he obviously used the actual book, La joie de vivre, as a model for the elaborate cover design. Van Gogh was not confident enough as a draftsman to have added those details without the model in front of him. However, the commentary that finds meaning relevant to the painting in the story of La joie de vivre, Zola’s dark, ironically-titled tale of unrequited love, faithless wandering, and Christ-like suffering and sacrifice, is problematic. (See, e.g., Druick and Zegers, pp. 9, 37.) Van Gogh chose the title pointedly, but only in its larger and lighter sense—the un-ironic, Octave Mouret sense—the sense in which he had used the phrase only six months earlier: “fortune favours the bold, and be this as it may—about fortune or ‘la joie (?) de vivre’, that is—one must work and be bold if one really wants to live” (JLB 492, 4/9/1885). Not insignificantly for the painting, this is also the impious, unprincipled sense in which Van Gogh’s father would have understood the title—and disapproved of it.

“That great and powerful”: BVG B14, 8/4/1888. Context: BVG B14, 8/4/1888: “Ah! Balzac, that great and powerful artist, has rightly told us that relative chastity fortifies the modern artist.” JLB 655, 8/5/1888: “Ah, Balzac, that great and powerful artist, already told us very well that for modern artists a certain chastity made them stronger.” This Émile Zola”: BVG 214, 7/7/1882. Context: JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: ”That Emile Zola is a superb artist.” He devoured: BVG 212, 7/6/1882. After Une page, the eighth and relatively brief installment in the Rougon-Macquart series, Van Gogh read both Le ventre de Paris (the third volume in the series) and Nana (the ninth), both long books, within about three weeks. Sund argues that Van Gogh’s “confident overview” of the Rougon-Macquart series at this time (“Zola begins where Balzac leaves off and goes on to Sedan” [JLB 250, 7/23/1882]) suggests a broader understanding of Zola’s project than could be acquired just from the books he explicitly mentions (Sund, pp. 59-60). Context: JLB 244, 7/6/1882: “And that small book by him is why I’m very definitely going to read everything by Zola” (emphasis in original).

“Read as much”: BVG 219, 7/23/1882. Context: BVG 219, 7/23/1882: “P.S. Read as much of Zola as you can; that is good for one, and makes things clear.” JLB 250, 7/23/1882: “P.S. Read lots of Zola, it’s healthy stuff and clears the mind.” Le ventre de Paris: BVG 214, 7/7/1882. In a postscript apparently added soon after he began reading Le ventre de Paris (he had only the day before written at length about Une Page d’amour), Van Gogh writes: “That Emile Zola is a superb artist. I’m now reading ‘Le ventre de Paris,’ it’s mightily clever.” (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882.) Since the scene of rescue that so moved Van Gogh—and applied most directly to his situation with Sien and Theo—occurs in the opening pages of the Le ventre de Paris, it must have been what prompted him to add the postscript. The effect, no doubt intended, was that Theo would follow Vincent’s lead. Which is exactly what happened. In a letter two weeks later, Van Gogh writes: “what I find rather pleasing is that you too have read Le ventre de Paris recently” (JLB 250, 7/23/1882). It is interesting that Vincent does not similarly lead Theo to read Nana nor make any comment about it even though he read it immediately after Le ventre de Paris. Nana is the story of a Parisian prostitute who rises to wealth and notoriety through cunning and sexual amorality—a story that does not fit at all with Van Gogh’s narrative of rescue. Context: JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: “I’m now reading ‘Le ventre de Paris,’ it’s mightily clever.” Madame François: BVG 219, 7/23/1882. Context: JLB 250, 7/23/1882: “You see, Theo, I believe Mme François’ act showed true humanity, and in relation to Sien I have done and will continue to do what I believe someone like Mme François would have done for Florent if he hadn’t cared more about politics than about her. So there you have it, and that humanity is the salt of life, without that I wouldn’t care about life. Enough.”

Both rescuer and rescued: At times, Van Gogh is quite explicit in his identification with Sien, and he often draws the parallel between his rescue of the fallen prostitute and Theo’s rescue of him (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, sometimes inadvertently). He repeatedly describes her in terms that mirror his perception of himself: “She and I are two unfortunates who keep each other company and bear the burden together” (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). “I would rather she had ugly speech and was good than cultured in her speech and without a heart” (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). Van Gogh calls his love for Sien, “an intensely deep feeling, serious and not without the dark shadow of her and my fairly sombre pasts, a shadow I’ve written to you about before, as if, indeed, something sombre continues to threaten us against which our life must be a constant struggle” (JLB 244, 7/6/1882). He claims that “at first Sien was a fellow human being to me, as alone and unhappy as I was” (ibid.; emphasis in original). Later, he recounts a speech he gave Sien: “even if you’re only a poor maidservant, even if you’re only a poor whore, … I don’t doubt for a moment that I have similarly attractive points, will be no different” (JLB 380, 9/2/1883). Lubin notes that “Sien’s similarity to Van Gogh’s view of himself helped draw him to her” (Lubin, p. 58). Mauron writes, “Vincent’s letters show the extent to which he identified with this fraternal prostitute” (Mauron, p. 41). Even Hulsker inadvertently recognizes that Van Gogh at once formed an alliance of the flawed and wounded with Sien: “He did not idealize her—nor himself” (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 122). “What do you”: BVG 219, 7/23/1882. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 219, 7/23/1882: “I just want to ask you what you think of Mme. François, who lifted poor Florent into her cart and took him home when he was lying unconscious in the middle of the road where the greengrocers’ carts were passing.” JLB 250, 7/23/1882: “Now I must ask you what you think of Mme François, who picks up poor Florent as he lies unconscious in the middle of the road where the vegetable carts are passing, and lets him ride with her.”

Thirtieth birthday alone: BVG 278, 4/2/1883. The only activity on his birthday that Van Gogh reports is a visit from “an excellent model” who posed for one of his digger drawings (JLB 334, 4/2/1883). If there had been any birthday visits or other greetings, it seems likely that Van Gogh would have mentioned them in this letter, from three days later. By now, the subject of Sien was no longer forbidden, so if he had wanted to mention anything Sien had done to mark his thirtieth birthday, he could have—and, indeed, probably would have, as part of his ongoing effort to convince Theo that he had done the right thing by taking her in. Context: JLB 334, 4/2/1883: “Thank you for your good wishes on my birthday. As it happened, I had a very pleasant day, because just then I had an excellent model for a digger.” Re-reading Hugo’s tale: BVG 277, 3/30/1883-4/1/1883. In characteristic fashion, Van Gogh is drawn to a single minor character in Hugo’s vast tale: Monseigneur Myriel. “That Mgr Myriel reminds me of Corot or Millet—although he was a priest and the other two painters” (ibid.). Context: JLB 333, 3/29/1883 and 4/1/1883: “I’m reading Les misérables by V. Hugo. A book of which I have old memories, but at the same time I felt a need to read it again. ... A book like that warms one up, just like paintings by Dupré and old Millets—or several Decamps’—it’s written with what’s called verve.” (Emphasis in original.) “Sometimes I cannot”: BVG 265, 2/8/1883. Context: JLB 310, 2/8/1883: ”Sometimes I can’t understand all the same that I’m only 30 and feel so much older.”

“I love the night”: Sund, p. 193. “And the stars!”: Sund, p. 194. “Powdered with”: Zola, Une Page d’amour (A Love Affair), pp. 148-149. “Behind these thousands”: Zola, Une Page d’amour (A Love Affair), pp. 148-149. “Zola creates”: BVG 429, 10/15/1885-10/31/1885. Context: JLB 537, 10/28/1885: “Zola creates, but doesn’t hold a mirror up to things, creates them amazingly, but creates, poetizes. That’s why it’s so good.”

Notes for the Plates

Take the Victor Hugo: BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882 | JLB 288 11/26/1882, 11/27/1882. Zola … says something beautiful: BVG 418, 7/1/1885 | JLB 515, 7/14/1885. The work of the French [writers]: BVG W1, 6/21/1887-12/21/1887 | JLB 574, October 1887. Just as in literature: BVG W4, second half of June-July 1888 | JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888. Ah! Balzac: BVG B14, 8/4/1888 | JLB 655, 8/5/1888.