Notes: Living in Vincent’s Mind

Notes for the Text

“Never has such tragic and touching expression”: “Constantin Meunier Antwerp Harbour Docks.” Musée d’Orsay. https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/sculpture/commentaire_id/antwerp-harbour-docks-20252.html

“A stillness, a mystery”: BVG 340, 11/2/1883. Context: JLB 402, 11/2/1883: “A silence, a mystery, a peace as only he has painted.” “Nothing but that infinite earth”: BVG 340, 11/2/1883. In an earlier letter, Van Gogh invoked the Golden Age landscapist Jacob van Ruisdael and his most famous image, View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds (c. 1670–75), specifically: “I saw an effect exactly like Ruisdael’s Bleaching fields at Overveen” (JLB 393, 10/7/1883). Context: BVG 340, 11/2/1883: “Journeying through these parts for hour after hour, one feels that there really is nothing but that infinite earth, that mould of corn or heather, that infinite sky. Horses and men seem as small as fleas. One is unaware of anything else, however large it may be in itself; one knows only that there is earth and sky.” JLB 402, 11/2/1883: “When one travels for hours and hours through the region, one feels as if there’s actually nothing but that infinite earth, that mould of wheat or heather, that infinite sky. Horses, people seem as small as fleas then. One feels nothing any more, however big it may be in itself, one only knows that there is land and sky.”

“Misty atmosphere”: BVG 340, 11/2/1883: Van Gogh knew that Mauve had been to Zweeloo and may have meant specifically to invoke the connection to that painter’s commercially proven pictorial trope: “The earth sprouts that young corn as if growing a mold of it. That’s what the good, fertile lands of Drenthe really are—and all in a misty atmosphere” (JLB 402, 11/2/1883). Several paragraphs earlier, he draws the parallel even more explicitly: “The sky smooth and bright, shining, not white but a barely detectable lilac, white vibrant with red, blue and yellow, reflecting everything and felt everywhere above one, hazy and merging with the thin mist below, fusing everything in a gamut of delicate greys” (ibid.). In his description of the trip to Zweeloo, Van Gogh seems to be attempting an heroic act of conflation: (1) the silvery light of Hague School painters like Mauve; (2) the grisaille landscapes of joint favorites like Georges Michel and Corot; and (3) the “slate color dissolving into greyish-yellow and greyish-brown” palette of Max Liebermann’s images of Drenthe—as Vincent imagines them, based on Theo’s descriptions. Context: BVG 340, 11/2/1883: “That’s what the good, fertile lands of Drenthe really are—and all in a misty atmosphere.” JLB 402, 11/2/1883: “That’s what the good, fertile lands of Drenthe really are—and all in a misty atmosphere.”

Elderly women of Israëls: BVG 340, 11/2/1883. Images of old women spinning were omnipresent in Dutch art, but Van Gogh almost surely intends to invoke specifically the works of Jozef Israëls, a prominent and very successful Hague School artist. All of Van Gogh’s references in the description of his trip to Zweeloo, both explicit and implied, are to commercially successful artists—undoubtedly an intentional, if subliminal, encouragement to Theo. Context: JLB 402, 11/2/1883: “In a little inn along the way drew a little old woman at the spinning wheel, little dark silhouette—like something out of a fairy tale—little dark silhouette against a bright window through which one saw the bright sky and a path through the delicate green and a few geese cropping the grass.” “Shaggy”: BVG 340, 11/2/1883: Van Gogh paints an especially vivid picture of an encounter with a flock of sheep on “a broad muddy road” as he returned in the evening from his trip to Zweeloo (JLB 402, 11/2/1883). Context: BVG 340, 11/2/1883: “Imagine that sea of mud at dusk with a whitish sky overhead, thus everything black against white. And in that sea of mud a shaggy figure—the shepherd—and a mass of oval shapes, half wool, half mud, jostling one another, pushing one another out of the way—the flock. You see them coming, you stand in their midst, you turn around and follow them. Laboriously and reluctantly they work their way up the muddy road.” JLB 402, 11/2/1883: “Imagine this muddy mess in the evening twilight with a whitish sky above, so everything black on white. And in this muddy mess a rough figure—the shepherd—a throng of oval masses, half wool, half mud, that bump into one another, jostle one another—the flock. You see it coming—you stand in the midst of it—you turn round and follow them. With difficulty and reluctantly they progress along the muddy road.” “Now you can see”: BVG 340, 11/2/1883. Context: BVG 340, 11/2/1883: “But now you can see what it is like here. One feels just as if one were at, say, an exhibition des cent chef-d’œvres. What does one bring back from such a day? Merely a number of rough sketches. Yet there is something else one brings back—a quiet delight in one’s work.” JLB 402, 11/2/1883: “But that’s how it is here. One feels exactly as if one had been at an exhibition of one hundred masterpieces, for example. What does one get out of a day like that? Just a few scratches. And yet one gets something else out of it, too—a calm passion for work.”

“The miner”: BVG 126, 11/15/1878. Context: JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878: “The Borins … do nothing but mine coal. … The coal-miner is a type peculiar to the Borinage; daylight hardly exists for him, and he scarcely enjoys the sun’s rays except on Sunday. He works with great difficulty by the light of a lamp whose illumination is pale and feeble, in a narrow gallery … he thus works in the midst of a thousand constantly recurring dangers, but the Belgian foreman has a cheerful character, he’s used to this way of life, and when he goes down the pit, his hat topped with a little lamp whose job is to guide him in the darkness, he entrusts himself to his God …” Reverie of scripture: BVG 126, 11/15/1878. Context: JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878: “Paul spent three years in Arabia before he became active as a preacher and began his great missionary journeys and his actual work among the heathens. If I could spend three years or so in a similar region, working in peace and always learning and observing, then I wouldn’t return from there without having something to say that is indeed worth hearing.” “The people who”: The original Isaiah 9:2 is quoted in in the text since Van Gogh evokes this verse, rather than quoting it directly. “Unto the upright”: Psalms 112:4. “It always strikes me”: BVG 126, 11/15/1878. Context: JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878: “You see, it always strikes me and it is remarkable, when we see the image of unutterable and indescribable forsakenness—of loneliness—of poverty and misery, the end of things or their extremity—the thought of God comes to mind.”

“Miles and miles”: BVG 330, 10/3/1883. Context: BVG 330, 10/3/1883: “I don’t think I shall be able to do justice to the countryside because words fail me, but imagine the banks of the canal as miles and miles of, say, [Georges] Michels or Th. Rousseaus, Van Goyens or Ph. [Phillips] de Konincks.” JLB 392, 10/3/1883: “I see no way of describing the countryside to you as it should be done, because words fail me. But imagine the banks of the canal as miles and miles of Michels or Theo. Rousseaus, say, Van Goyens or P. de Koninck.” “It is absolutely”: BVG 339, 10/15/1883. Elements of both translations have been combined. Context: BVG 339, 10/15/1883: “I should like you to try your hand at landscape at once, in the spirit of Michel, which I see here all the time. It is absolutely Michel, that’s what it is here.” JLB 396, 10/15/1883: “I would like you to get down straightaway to landscapes conceived in the spirit of Michel which I see over and over again, wholly and utterly Michel, that is absolutely what it is here.” (Emphasis in original.)

“Too obsessed”: BVG 358, 3/1/1884. To create the paintings in question, “he [would make a] study of the little hut in the dark and about the largest of the sod huts, namely the one with the little green field in the foreground” (JLB 432, 3/2/1884). Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop identify the second of these as Farm with Stacks of Peat (F 22 JH 421), a canvas attached to cardboard that may have been one of the “panels” Van Gogh reported sending in mid-February (JLB 430, 2/18/1884-2/23/1884) (Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 45). The former may have been the painted study that Van Gogh sketched in JLB letter 398 (Peasant Burning Weeds, and Farmhouse at Night [F 335 JH 419]).

No doubt because it constituted such a roundhouse rejection of Vincent’s campaign to lure Theo to Drenthe—as well as a rejection of the identity between brothers that Vincent had so often argued—this criticism sparked a furious, defensive rebuttal. “You would certainly say exactly the same thing about the little old churchyard. And yet, neither looking at the little churchyard nor at the sod huts did I think about Michel, I thought about the subject I was looking at. A subject indeed such that I believe, if Michel had passed by, it would have brought him to a halt and struck him. For my part, I certainly don’t put myself on a par with master Michel—but I definitely don’t therefore imitate Michel either” (JLB 432, 3/2/1884; emphasis in original). The irony, of course, is that Van Gogh, by his own telling, was inspired by Michel and clearly intended to invoke this beloved imagery. Nor are the lines between inspiration, invocation, and imitation nearly so bright as Van Gogh tries to make them. Context: BVG 358, 3/1/1884: “So, what am I to make of what you say about my work—say, the studies from Drenthe. Some of them are very superficial, and I said as much myself. But why do I get chided for those painted out of doors, quietly, calmly and simply, in which I was trying to express nothing but what I saw? What I get is: aren’t you too obsessed with Michel?” JLB 432, 3/2/1884: “Yes—what am I supposed to think about what you say about my work? For example, I’ll now turn specifically to the studies from Drenthe—there are some among them that are very superficial, I said that myself—but what do I get served up for the ones that were simply painted quietly and calmly outdoors, trying to say nothing in them but what I saw? I get in return: aren’t you too preoccupied with Michel?” (Emphasis in original.)

“Enormous variety of moods”: BVG 429, 10/15/1885-10/31/1885. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 429, 10/15/1885-10/31/1885: “Jules Dupré is in landscape rather like Delacroix, for what enormous variety of mood did he express in symphonies of colour.” JLB 537, 10/28/1885: “Jules Dupré is like Delacroix in landscape, for what enormous diversity of mood he expressed in symphonies of colour.” “Symphonies of color”: BVG 429, 10/15/1885-10/31/1885. Context: BVG 429, 10/15/1885-10/31/1885: “Jules Dupré is in landscape rather like Delacroix, for what enormous variety of mood did he express in symphonies of colour.” JLB 537, 10/28/1885: “Jules Dupré is like Delacroix in landscape, for what enormous diversity of mood he expressed in symphonies of colour.”

Came back many evenings: In addition to the Dupré seascape that Van Gogh returns to the window to see again and again, there are other references to similar sightings in the Goupil gallery window (JLB 334, 4/2/1883). “This week it pleased me very much indeed to see (in the window at G&C) a painting by De Bock” (JLB 286, 11/24/1882). “In the window at G&Cie I saw a large etching by [Mariano] Fortuny, An anchorite, as well as his two beautiful The dead Kabyle and Watching over the dead man” (JLB 298, 1/3/1883). A small seascape: BVG 279, 4/11/1883. According to JLB, “On 9 March 1883 Goupil’s branch in The Hague received a seascape by Jules Dupré from Paris. The painting—measuring 54 by 45 cm—was bought for 6000 francs. It was to be sold on to Goupil’s in London for £ 250 on 27 November 1883” (JLB 336, n. 11). The seascape by Dupré illustrated in the text is 55 by 66 cm. If the information in the Goupil Ledgers is accurate, and no other Dupré seascape was owned by Goupil during this period, it is unlikely that the illustrated painting is the one Van Gogh saw. Nevertheless, the composition in the illustrated painting is identical to the one Van Gogh describes. There are many similar seascapes in Dupré’s oeuvre, but no other known painting by the Barbizon artist has a composition that fits Van Gogh’s description. Moreover, given the predominance of horizontal formats in Dupré’s seascapes, it is odd that the one in the Goupil Ledgers is taller than it is wide. If the Goupil painting was 65 cm wide instead of 45 cm wide, then the illustrated painting could indeed be the one sold by Goupil in London and the one described by Van Gogh. It is worth noting that the illustrated seascape was sold in The Hague by Van Wisselingh during the nineteenth century. Context: JLB 336, 4/11/1883: “In the window at G&C. I saw a small seascape which you no doubt know, and which I’ve been going to have a look at almost every evening ...”

“What an almightily beautiful”: JLB 336, 4/11/1883. Context: JLB 336, 4/11/1883: “... but as regards Dupré and similar art—of which one sees so much more in Paris than here—you may be rather spoiled—and not know what an almightily beautiful impression it makes here, where one sees so precious little of it.” “When my worries”: BVG R20, 2/4/1883. Context: BVG R20, 2/4/1883: “I have lost some friends through it, all the same, but on the other hand I have more light and shade in my own house, although at times, when my worries become too great, I feel as if I were on a ship during a hurricane.” JLB 307, 2/4/1883: “Nonetheless, I’ve lost some friends because of it, but I’ve gained more light and shade in my own house and more of a Home, even though sometimes when cares weigh heavily on me it’s as if I were on a ship in a storm.” (Emphasis in original.)

“A picture by”: BVG 130, 6/1/1879. Van Gogh makes this comment in the context of a discussion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, so he is not using “nature” in the sense of landscape, but in a more embracing sense. Immediately following the line quoted in the text, he writes: “… in Uncle Tom’s cabin in particular, things have been put in a new light by the artist, ... It’s so subtly felt, it’s so well worked out, it’s so masterly. It was written with so much love, so much seriousness and so faithful to the truth and with knowledge of the subject. It’s so humble and simple but at the same time so truly sublime, so noble and so distinguished” (JLB 152, 6/19/1879). Context: JLB 152, 6/19/1879: “A painting by Mauve or Maris or Israëls speaks more and more clearly than nature itself.” “beautiful hovel”: BVG 417, 7/10/1885-7/20/1885. Context: BVG 417, 7/10/1885-7/20/1885: “What I want is to have some more beautiful hovels far away on the heath.” JLB 513, 7/12/1885: “I want to get a few more fine cottages in the middle of the heath.”

Handsome, affluent: BVG 138, 11/1/1880. Context: JLB 160, 11/1/1880: “He has a fine appearance, ... he lives rather sumptuously.” “Very witty”: BVG 142, 4/2/1881. Context: BVG 142, 4/2/1881: “His pen-and-ink drawings of landscape are very witty and charming, but in these, also, a little more passion, please.” JLB 164, 4/2/1881: “I find his landscape drawings in pen very witty and pleasing, in those too, though, gradually a bit more passion please!” Favored medium: BVG 146, 6/1/1881. Van Gogh had first tried the reed pen in October, for figure drawings, but without much success, and used it primarily to highlight pencil sketches (JLB 159, 10/15/1880). After meeting Van Rappard, who used such a pen frequently and with some facility, Van Gogh’s interest in the medium revived and it is used extensively in the surviving landscapes from 1881 (Landscape [F 874v JH 3], Marsh with Water Lilies [F 845 JH 7], Marsh, [F 846 JH 8], and Landscape with Trees [F 902a JH 10]), although Van Gogh still is insecure about using it without pencil sketching in advance (JLB 168, June 1881). It is possible that Van Gogh’s longtime obsession with “Ingres” paper (a term he consistently misapplied to the kind of white laid paper that he preferred [see Van Heugten, p. 21]), which Van Gogh considered more suitable for pen drawing, also followed Van Rappard’s lead (JLB 169, 7/15/1881-7/20/1881). Van Rappard was working on Ingres paper as early as 1879 (see Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, p. 57, cat. no. 15). Subsequently, it appears that Van Gogh followed Van Rappard in the use of both watercolor and sepia, although he had done some timid experiments in the former previously. Context: JLB 168, June 1881: “Because up to now I’ve been drawing with pencil only, worked up or heightened with the pen, if necessary with a reed pen, which makes broader lines. That manner of working was implicit in what I’ve been drawing lately, for they were subjects which required a lot of drawing, also drawing in perspective.” Short, quick pen strokes: Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, pp. 32-33: “It was only natural that van Gogh be especially interested in his friend’s draftsmanship. Of the few surviving drawings that could be from van Gogh’s Brussels period, only two are landscapes [Landscape (F 874v JH 3) and Winter (F 1235)]. The former, which Vanbeselaere dates to January 1881, is similar in drawing technique to van Rappard’s Vallée de Josaphat, dated March 17, 1881, in that both are built up of short, quick strokes.” Hulsker (The New Complete Van Gogh, p. 490), JLB (letter 196, n. 3), and others argue persuasively that a third extant landscape—Hut (F 875 JH 4)—also originates from the Brussels period (October 1880-April 1881).

“Distinctive, reasoned”: BVG R43, 3/15/1884-3/31/1884: This is part of an extended comparison between Van Rappard’s work and the work of Hendrik Johannes Haverman, a young Dutch artist who had already begun to make a reputation as a student of August Allebé, working, at this time, in the popular genre of Orientalism. (Van Rappard and Haverman were friends, and Van Gogh, always jealous of his friends’ friends, no doubt saw an opportunity to drive a wedge between them.) “In my view, your technique is better than, say, Haverman’s—because already your brushstroke often has something singular, distinctive, reasoned and deliberate about it, which in Haverman is endless convention, always redolent of the studio, not of nature. Those sketches of yours that I saw, for instance, the little weaver and the old women of Terschelling, appeal to me—they get to the heart of things. I get little but malaise and boredom from Haverman. ... [I’m afraid that in the future, too—and I congratulate you on it—you will ALSO hear the same comments about technique, as well as about subject and. ... everything, in fact, even when that brushstroke of yours, which already has so much character, gets even more” (JLB 439, 3/18/1884; emphasis in original).

Van Gogh works himself into such an extravagance of flattery that he then compares Van Rappard’s works to Corot’s: “If I didn’t see more technique in your little peasant cemetery than in Corot’s studies—I’d liken it to them. In sentiment it’s identical—an endeavour to express only the intimate and the essential.” (ibid.; emphasis original.) This stream of fulsome commentary continues into subsequent letters. Referring to a painting of Van Rappard’s that he had seen in December, Van Gogh writes solemnly: “there are surprising forces in” (JLB 448, 5/29/1884). Context: BVG R43, March 1884: “Why I say this is because I think I have noticed that you sometimes disapprove of things in your own work which in my opinion are rather good. In my view, your technique is better than, say, Haverman’s, because your brushstroke often has an individual, distinctive, reasoned and deliberate touch, while what one invariably gets with Haverman is convention, redolent at all times of the studio, and never of nature.” JLB 439, 3/18/1884: “In my view, your technique is better than, say, Haverman’s—because already your brushstroke often has something singular, distinctive, reasoned and deliberate about it, which in Haverman is endless convention, always redolent of the studio, not of nature.” (Emphasis in original.)

“The heads of the blind men”: BVG R35, 5/21/1883. Context: “The heads (studies) of the blind men seem outstanding to me” (JLB 345, 5/21/1883). “Highly serious”: BVG 286, 5/21/1883. Context: “Now, as to my visit to Rappard—I’m very glad I went. We’ll visit each other in turn more often now. I found one painting by him, a woman spinning, and above all the large sketch for it, the same size, highly serious and truly sympathetic” (JLB 344, 5/21/1883).

Léon Lhermitte: Theo gravitated to Lhermitte as an example to his brother partly because of his considerable and consistent success, partly because Lhermitte shared Van Gogh’s affinity for black-and-white imagery, and partly because he shared Van Gogh’s interest in peasant subjects. At exactly this time, Lhermitte was enjoying a particular success d’estime after his series of agricultural workers was warmly received in 1882 (Harvesters’ Payday), 1883 (The Harvest), and 1884 (Grape Harvest). In 1884, at the age of forty, Lhermitte was awarded the Legion d’honneur. “Superb”: BVG 403, 4/15/1885-4/30/1885. Context: BVG 403, 4/15/1885-4/30/1885: “The Lhermittes are superb. I am quite enthusiastic about them.” JLB 496, 4/28/1885: “The Lhermittes are superb. I adore them.” “Full of sentiment”: BVG 403, 4/15/1885-4/30/1885. Context: BVG 403, 4/15/1885-4/30/1885: “They are full of sentiment, calculated both in general and in detail, but especially broadly conceived and treated vigorously.” JLB 496, 4/28/1885: “It is felt, in the sense of being studied on a large and on a small scale at the same time, but above all largely imagined and broadly conceived too.”

Adolphe Monticelli: Shoen describes the Monticelli market on the eve of the artist’s death in June 1886 (Shoen, pp. 56-58). In addition to Paris, where the dealer Joseph Delarebeyrette anchored the market out of his three-room gallery at 43, rue de Provence, Monticelli’s work sold especially well to English dealers and collectors. In fact, Theo’s first sale of a Monticelli, in February 1886, was to a London dealer, Thomas Richardson (ibid., p. 58). Other sales were recorded to Glasgow, Edinburgh, New York, and Boston (ibid.). In addition, in December 1885, the Belgian group Les XX invited Monticelli to show three of his late works at the group’s exhibition in Brussels in July 1886 (ibid., p. 56). “Our Monticelli”: BVG 474, 4/9/1888. Context: BVG 474, 4/9/1888: “He was dressed in sky blue and gold, just like the little horseman in our Monticelli, the three figures in a wood.” JLB 594, 4/9/1888: “He was dressed in sky-blue and gold, just like the little horseman in our Monticelli with the 3 figures in a wood.”

“A logical colorist”: BVG 507, 6/29/1888. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 507, 6/29/1888: “Monticelli, the logical colorist, able to pursue the most complicated calculations, subdivided according to the scales of tones that he was balancing.” JLB 635, 7/1/1888: “Monticelli the logical colourist, able to carry out the most ramified and subdivided calculations on the ranges of tones that he balanced.” “Local color or even”: BVG 477a, 4/21/1888. This letter—from Van Gogh to Australian artist John Peter Russell—was written in English. Context: BVG 477a, 4/21/1888: “Surely Monticelli gives us not, neither pretends to give us, local colour or even local truth. But gives us something passionate and eternal—the rich colour and rich sun of the glorious South in a true colourist way parallel with Delacroix’ conception of the South …” JLB 598, 4/19/1888: “Surely Monticelli gives us not, neither pretends to give us, local colour or even local truth. But gives us something passionate and eternal—the rich coulour and rich sun of the glorious south in a true colourists way parralel with Delacroix’ conception of the south.” “Something passionate and eternal”: Ibid.

“Resurrected”: BVG W8, 8/27/1888. Context: BVG W8, 8/27/1888: “We just spoke of the hour of fatality which seems sad to us. But isn’t there another fatality which is charming? And what do we care whether there is a resurrection or not, as long as we see a living man arise immediately in the place of the dead man?” JLB 670, 8/26/1888: “We were talking just now about a fate that seemed sad to us. But isn’t there another, delightful fate? And what is it to us if there is or isn’t a resurrection, when we see a living man rise up immediately in a dead man’s place?” “I am continuing his work”: BVG W8, 8/27/1888. Context: BVG W8, 8/27/1888: “Now listen, for myself I am sure that I am continuing his work here, as if I were his son or his brother.” JLB 670, 8/26/1888: “Ah well, I myself am sure that I’ll carry him on here as if I were his son or his brother.”

“Beautiful things”: BVG R15, 11/22/1882. Context: “In Harper’s Weekly there are beautiful things by Howard Pyle, [William St John] Harper, [William Allen] Rogers, [Edwin Austin] Abbey, [John White] Alexander among others …” (JLB 273, 11/22/1882). Always suffering”: BVG 539, 9/17/1888. Context: “Giotto touched me the most — always suffering and always full of kindness and ardour as if he were already living in a world other than this” (JLB 683, 9/18/1888).

Notes for the Plates

Meunier was the only: BVG 144, 4/30/1881 | JLB 166, 5/1/1881 or 4/30/1881. The heath: BVG 123, 7/22/1878 | JLB 145, 7/22/1878. [I am] longing: BVG 425, 9/4/1885 | JLB 533, 10/4/1885. How beautiful: BVG 279, 4/11/1883 | JLB 336, 4/11/1883. Mauve gave me courage: BVG R2, 10/15/1881 | JLB 176, 10/15/1881. Mauve’s sympathy: BVG 191, 4/15/1882-4/30/1882 | JLB 221, 4/26/1882. I love Mauve: BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882 | JLB 220, 4/23/1882. Your brushstroke: BVG R43, March 1884 | JLB 439, 3/18/1884. [Monticelli] died: BVG W8, September-first half of October 1888 | JLB 670, 8/26/1888. It seems to me: BVG 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890 | JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890. There is something infinite: BVG 226, /8/19/1882 | JLB 259, 8/26/1882. Do you see: BVG B14, 8/4/1888 | JLB 655, 8/5/1888.