Notes: Peasant Life

Notes for the Text

“A painter of peasants”: BVG 397, 4/1/1885. Context: BVG 397, 4/1/1885: “Don’t forget I am positively convinced that a painter of rural life can do no better than take Barbizon as an example. To dwell and to live in the very midst of what one paints, for in the country nature has a new and different aspect every day.” JLB 489, 4/4/1885: “Don’t forget that I’m definitely convinced that a painter of peasant life can do no better than follow the example of Barbizon—dwelling and living right in the midst of what one is painting, for it’s new and different outside every day.” Encouraged by governments: Juneja, p. 453. “I see paintings”: BVG 218, 7/21/1882. Context: BVG 218, 7/21/1882: “I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners.” JLB 249, 7/21/1882: “In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings.” “My mind is driven”: Ibid.

Patron, collector, and dealer: Sensier, pp. 102-105: Sensier is characteristically petulant and disingenuous on the conflict of interest this presents to the biographer: “I trotted all over Paris, offering dealers and amateurs the paintings of my friend. Some grinned, or sent me off as a madman; others, more rarely, bought, but at laughable prices. I went to my comrades. I told them they could buy with confidence, and that I would take the picture back if, later, they came to the conclusion that they had made a bad bargain. In this way I made some sales, and, after a month or two, back would come the painting, with the words, ‘Decidedly, I don’t care for this artist; I like anything else better’—a new embarrassment for me. I honored my promises, but only by superhuman efforts, loans, combinations. Thus I acquired many pictures of Millet in spite of myself, as it were, and by the mere force of circumstances.”

“Hard toil”: Sensier, p. 126. ”Rough farm-work”: Sensier, pp. 34-35. Vergil’s Aeneid: Sensier, p. 35: “As to Virgil and the Bible, he re-read them, always in Latin, and was so familiar with their language that in his manhood I have never seen a more eloquent translator of these two books.” Later, Sensier recounts a conversation in which Millet’s childhood tutor, Abbé Jean Lebrisseux, inquires about what were, apparently, the artist’s two favorite childhood books: “‘And the Bible, François, have you forgotten it? and the Psalms, do you ever read them?’ ‘They are my breviary,’ said Millet. ‘I get from them all that I do.’ ... ‘[And] you used to love Virgil.’ ‘I love him still.’” (ibid., p. 108.) All of Sensier’s references to Millet’s love of classical literature and art, including his lengthily detailed adoration of Michelangelo, should be seen in the light of the many art reviews of the time that praised Millet for the heroic classicism of his figures, often comparing them to figures out of Homer or Vergil. Sensier was always at pains to refute those critics (both detractors and advocates) who saw social commentary in Millet’s images of impoverished but empowered peasants; and to support those critics, like Jules-Antoine Castagnary, who saw his figures as timelessly monumental, like figures from antiquity (or Michelangelo), or from the Bible.

Experienced sowing and reaping: Sensier substantiates the key claim that Millet came from peasant stock (a claim that Millet made, too [Sensier, p. 189]) in only one passage of his book, concerning Millet’s childhood: “He was soon obliged to be a serious help to his father, and to devote all his time to the rough farm-work. He was the eldest of the sons, and in this lay a duty which François accepted without regret. He began to work beside his father and the ‘hands,’ to mow, make hay, bind the sheaves, thresh, winnow, spread manure, plow, sow—in a word, all the work which makes the daily life of the peasant. So he spent years, the companion of his father and mother in the hardest labor.” (ibid., pp. 34-35.)

There is no direct evidence to contradict this picture, apparently based on Millet’s account. However, Sensier himself provides extensive circumstantial evidence to undermine it. Millet’s mother (with the formidable name Aimée-Henriette-Adelaide Henry du Perron) came from a “race of rich farmers,” according to Sensier, “who at one time were called gentlemen” (ibid., p. 20). She was raised in a large country house “with big buildings of granite, and [a] fine court-yard shaded by old trees” (ibid., p. 21). From an early age, Millet was tutored by the local vicar in a vast array of subjects (ibid., p. 34). This was not school, this was individual tutoring, and the subjects ranged far beyond the kind of rudimentary education provided peasant children, when it was provided at all. He “devoured hungrily the books of the home library,” (ibid., pp. 35, 43) including the classics and the Bible in Latin (ibid., p. 35) and Goethe in German (ibid., p. 43). He “also read with delight Shakspere [sic]” (ibid., p. 43). All this in a period when the vast majority of agricultural workers were illiterate, books were expensive, and Latin was the language of the nobility. Millet was apparently quite proud of the breadth of his learning, and Sensier was eager to dispel rumors circulated by the artist’s critics that he was, in fact, an “ignorant peasant” (ibid., p. 35).

Pursuing this odd, contrary message (Millet was a peasant, but not really), Sensier’s book spends far more pages on the young Millet’s intellect and learning than on his farm duties. (“He drew the garden, the stables, the fields with the sea for horizon, and often the animals that went by” [ibid., p. 35].) Sensier claims that Millet’s education and art were always subordinated to his farm work (ibid., p. 34), but clearly it was, if anything, the other way round. Millet’s success at securing funding from the town and county councils in his home area, his appearances in the Cherbourg papers (ibid., p. 60), and his steady access to portrait commissions from Cherbourg society (ibid., p. 66), all speak to his family’s status and influence. The greater the family’s status and influence, the less credible Sensier’s picture of a childhood of toil in the fields—for Millet or his parents.

Indeed, Sensier’s portrait of Millet’s father, Jean-Louis-Nicolas Millet, suffers from the same contradictions. “He had a contemplative mind and a musical temperament, highly developed,” according to Sensier (p. 20). Jean-Louis not only sang in the parish church, he directed the choir—a task that required recruiting singers from the countryside and giving singing lessons (his son François was one of his students) (ibid.). He could read and write music. His musical proficiency was significant enough that people “came to listen from miles around” to his choir (ibid.). Millet’s mother, who managed a large household of eight children, always had at least “one or two” servants (ibid., p.18). That figure would not have included the similar complement of agricultural laborers (i.e., peasants) who undoubtedly worked the family’s farm, which they owned.

The possibility that Millet or his father or his brothers occasionally helped out in the fields, especially at busy harvest times, cannot be entirely dismissed, but the evidence points more to a studious, sensitive mother’s (or grandmother’s) boy who would rather draw than plow, and left his country home for the city at the first available opportunity, rarely to return. Although he complained bitterly about the hostile reception he received in the big city of Paris (where he was teased as a bumpkin [ibid., p. 53-54]), Millet only returned to Normandy for brief intervals to make money (ibid., p. 61) and to find wives (he was married twice). After he left for Paris the last time, in 1845 (ibid., p. 66), he came back only once, in 1853, to settle his family’s estate (ibid., p. 106). Nevertheless, Millet claims, and Sensier claims for him, an undying flame of desire “to see again my native place” (ibid., p. 67).

Tending the family garden: Sensier mentions the family garden as one of the first subjects of Millet’s childhood drawings (Sensier, p. 35). In his later life, according to Sensier, Millet had “two occupations”: art and gardening. There is a possibility that, in describing Millet’s adult gardening, Sensier inadvertently reveals the loose way in which he is using the terminology of farm work in his depiction of the artist’s childhood: “in the morning he dug or planted, sowed or reaped” (ibid., p. 84).

Doting grandmother: Sensier, pp. 18-25: This was Millet’s father’s mother, Louise Jumelin. Sensier dutifully describes her as “a worthy peasant woman, talking patois and wearing the dress and cap of La Hague [the region of France]” (ibid., p. 25). For a “peasant woman,” however, she had distinguished siblings (a priest, a miller, and a pharmacist), and a stellar education (Blaise Pascal, Michel de Montaigne, Pierre Charron). Her widowhood with the Millets was surprisingly unconstrained by work or chores. According to Sensier, she spent most of her time praying and doing charitable deeds. “If a peddler passed, he did not need to ask for lodging; he knew the door of the Millet house was always open. The beggars came there as if to a home. The grandmother, with a curtsy, made them draw near the fire, gave them food and lodging, [and] filled their wallets” (ibid., p. 18).

As for her relationship with her grandson, the painter Millet, Sensier describes it in a swoon of sentimental images of the kind so cherished by the era: “the grandmother tended [Millet] as her own child and her heart’s favorite. In the vague recollections of his babyhood, Millet could always see her busy about him, rocking him, warming him in her bosom, and singing all day long songs which delighted him. ... the thought of her face, as nurse and comforter, was an ever-recurring image in the heart of her grandson. While he was still a little child, she would come to his bedside in the morning, and say, gently: ‘Wake up, my little François; you don’t know how long the birds have been singing the glory of God!’” (ibid., p. 20). When his grandmother died in 1851, Millet grieved accordingly: “[He] was overwhelmed with sorrow,” Sensier recounts. “Millet did not speak for days, and his mute grief was pitiful to see. The tears which he was trying to repress would spring at a word, and he could only sob, ‘Oh, why could I not have seen her once more!’” (ibid., p. 95). Still, he did not go home for her illness or her funeral, or for his mother’s two years later. Soon thereafter, however, he did return to Normandy to participate in the settling of the family estate.

With a state stipend: Sensier, pp. 44-46: The municipal council of Cherbourg gave Millet a stipend of 400 francs per year, to which the council of the district (La Manche) added 600 francs annually “which should be paid until the completion of the young artist’s studies.” According to Sensier, this considerable subsidy “came irregularly, if it came at all, and was quite insufficient” (ibid., p. 58). Whether this was true or just cover for Millet’s chronic overspending and resulting indebtedness, is unclear. He eagerly exchanged the pays: Sensier, p. 39: Sensier takes great pains to portray Millet as torn from the countryside he loved: “It was thus that François spent his early days, in the midst of his family, whom he dearly loved, in the heart of a country which was the source of all his inspiration, reading and drawing, and without thinking of leaving his father’s house—his only ambition to accomplish his duties as a son, to plow his furrow in peace, and to turn up the earth whose odor delighted his young senses. His whole life, he thought, would be passed in this way.” Millet’s early departure from home and his poor record of return trips speak more loudly and cogently on the subject than all of Sensier’s straining rhetoric. Goupil star Paul Delaroche: Sensier, pp. 53-54.

“He always had in his heart”: Sensier, p. 126. “He was a peasant”: Ibid. Millet escaped from city life: Sensier, pp. 117-119: Even Sensier acknowledges that Millet’s move to Barbizon had as much to do with the Revolutions of 1848 and 1849, and an epidemic of cholera in Paris, as it did with longing for the country (ibid., p. 81). Moreover, Millet traveled to his new home in the company of Charles Jacque and joined there a number of friends from Paris (ibid.). Gray jersey and sabots: Sensier, p. 146. “Livery of poverty”: Sensier, pp. 89-90. “One of those enthusiastic”: Sensier, p. 146: “He [Millet] wears the gray jersey of the country, and might be one of those enthusiastic peasants, victims of our civil wars, who, vanquished, look at death without flinching. This picture is to me Millet’s whole life; he was pleased when I said: ‘You look like a leader of peasants, who is about to be shot.’”

Millet, a reckless spender: Sensier, pp. 117-119: Again, Sensier provides the details. Less than a year after his successes at the Universal Exhibition and Salon in 1855, Millet sent a letter to Sensier frantic over creditors at his doorstep: “The hour of breaking-down has come, decidedly. I have just found a summons to pay within twenty-four hours. ... He is a vampire, as he promised to take a note till March.” (ibid., p. 112.) The amount due was 607 francs—a considerable sum. Who was this “vampire” creditor, whom Millet describes as “disgustingly rude”? Not his landlord; his tailor. Millet’s solution in crises like this is evident from the letter: he asked friends like Sensier to bail him out; which they did. “When he suffered too much, he would call for help,” Sensier explains. “Then his friends would lay down every other occupation, and without comment or explanation, concert together and endeavor to save him and give him peace.” (ibid., p. 118.) This dependency was only one of many ways in which Van Gogh must have identified with Millet, although he only allows himself to see (or, at least, admit to), the positive parallel between Sensier’s support for Millet and Theo’s support for him. (See JLB 442, 3/24/1884.) Indeed, Sensier entered into an agreement to ensure Millet’s financial security very much like the one between Van Gogh and his brother.

Knew only indebtedness: Sensier’s tale is filled with protestations against the iniquities and perfidies of creditors who do not appreciate the higher value of art. This was another cliché of artists’ biographies that Sensier, apparently, could not resist exploiting. “His material life was a daily fight. He was ready to do anything that chance offered—had endless difficulties to get the most trifling sums paid. He met people who took advantage of his poverty, who wearied him with their refusals, and went to all lengths of cruelty.” (Sensier, p. 62.) Sensier called poverty “the fatal companion of [Millet’s] life” (ibid., p. 97), and apologized for dwelling on a topic so shameful (“Perhaps it may seem that I unveil too much of the secret corner of Millet’s life—of his poverty” [ibid., p. 107]) while using it to praise his subject (“it will be admitted that his poverty ought to raise him in our esteem” [ibid.]).

While frequent sales and commissions and financial support from friends (including Sensier) are reported cursorily, the horrors of debt are catalogued in novelistic detail: “It was at twilight; Millet was in his studio, sitting on a box, his back bent like a man who is chilled. He said ‘Good-day,’ but did not move. It was freezing cold in the miserable room. When the money was handed him, he said: ‘Thank you; it comes in time. We have not eaten for two days, but the important thing is that the children have not suffered. Until today they have had food.’ He called his wife, saying, ‘I am going to get wood; I am very cold.’” (ibid., p. 74.)

Keen eye for the market: Van Tilborgh, Van Heugten, and Conisbee, p. 15: According to Van Tilborgh, Van Heugten, and Conisbee, “Van Gogh’s image of Millet as a misjudged but courageous artist who did not paint for profit was also incorrect.” They cite the report of an American visitor: “Millet had an eye for business, and had commercial art resources been as widespread in his day as they are now, he certainly would have escaped much trouble. If art and its production never had a more exacting and devoted worshipper, so did its commercial relationships in their best sense never have a more ardent advocate.”

Society portraits: Sensier, pp. 66-67: It appears that one reason Millet returned to Normandy several times in the 1840s was to earn money painting portraits for an upper class in which he obviously had family connections. In the provinces, portrait-painting was often the only way for an artist to earn a living. According to Sensier, Millet painted “portraits of captains, ship-owners, commanders, and people employed in the port, even sailors. He painted, among other things, a senora in blue and pink, languidly stretched on a divan, a commission given him very specially by a sea-captain. For a moment he became really popular.” (Sensier, p. 66.) Sensier does not approve of these works, probably because they do not fit his narrative of defiant idealism. “These portraits all have a brilliant side, but are too hastily executed” (ibid. p. 67).

Nubile young women: Millet started painting these very young, no doubt to the consternation of his pious grandmother. In his early career in Cherbourg, Sensier reports images such as A Sewing-Woman Asleep, Gypsies, and “also a charming Daphnis and Chloe, full of youth, freshness, and naivèté” (Sensier, p. 67). Millet’s early work, St. Jerome Tempted by Women, sums up the young artist’s preoccupations (ibid., p. 68). Sensier concedes that “Millet had a sensuous organization and delighted in flesh,” but prudishly insists, “he had an honest soul. In the midst of all our decadence he kept a pure heart” (ibid., p. 72). Sensier blames years of similar images on the decadent influence of eighteenth-century artists like François Boucher and Jean-Antoine Watteau and bad advice from associates other than himself (ibid., p. 58). He argues that Millet was embarrassed by these works and by his growing reputation for painting voluptuous nudes. He urges that argument in a series of surely fabricated vignettes: “One evening, standing before [a dealer’s] window, [Millet] saw two young men examining one of his pictures, Women Bathing. ‘Do you know who painted that?’ said one. ‘Yes,’ replied the other, ‘a fellow called Millet, who paints only naked women.’ These words cut him to the quick—his dignity was touched.” (ibid., p. 78.) According to Sensier, it was Millet’s second wife who granted her husband permission to abandon these sensual images and obey his inner muse: “‘If you consent,’ said he [to his wife], ‘I will do no more of that sort of pictures. Living will be harder than ever, and you will suffer, but I will be free to do what I have long been thinking of.’ Mme. Millet answered, ‘I am ready. Do as you will.’ And from that time on, Millet, relieved in a sense from all servitude, entered resolutely into rustic art.” (ibid.)

“What has so rightly”: BVG 405, 5/1/1885-5/15/1885. Context: JLB 499, 5/2/1885: “While I was doing it I thought again about what has so rightly been said of Millet‘s peasants—’His peasants seem to have been painted with the soil they sow’”. “When I say that I’m a peasant painter”: BVG 400, 4/13/1885. Context: JLB 493, 4/13/1885: “When I say that I’m a peasant painter, that is really so, and will become clearer to you in future; I feel at home there. And it’s not for nothing that I’ve spent so many evenings sitting pondering by the fire with the miners and the peat-cutters and the weavers and peasants here—unless I had no time to think—because of the work. I’ve become so absorbed in peasant life by continually seeing it at all hours of the day that I really hardly ever think of anything else.” Little garden byways: Brekelmans, “Vincent van Gogh in Zundert,” p. 50. The paths followed the ”tuintjes” (little gardens) behind the main roads, the Molenstraat and Caterstraat. No decent person would dare to venture: Tralbaut, p. 29. Kools adds that, among proper society, only hunting parties would have ventured into some of the wild territory around Groot Zundert (Kools, p. 75). “Intercourse with the peasant boys”: Bonger-Van Gogh, p. xx.

“I have made some friends”: BVG 417, July 1885. Context: BVG 417, July 1885: “The interiors are splendid, and now I have made some friends there among the people, with whom I am always welcome.” JLB 513, 7/12/1885: “The interiors are deuced fine, and I’ve now made some acquaintances among the people, where I can go.” Black bread and straw beds: BVG 413, 6/15/1885-6/30/1885. Context: JLB 509, 6/22/1885: “One may sleep on straw, eat rye bread—well then, in the long run one is the healthier for it.”

“Where nothing will be”: BVG 358, 3/1/1884: This is a thought from a year earlier, but helps explain Van Gogh’s resort, in 1885, to the companionship of people with whom he could barely communicate but, through a combination of natural superiority and money, could always control. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 358, 3/1/1884: “What’s more, let me also tell you that I never behaved towards Father, nor do I want to be aggressive towards you, my brother. I have often restrained myself—when with strangers I would have fought quite differently and more fiercely. But this is just what ties my hands in the circumstances. There is a new field over there for me and one where I can do as I please, as a stranger among strangers—over there, I shall have neither rights nor duties. And I shall be able to be more offhand—bonne volonté d’être inoffensif, certitude de resister [willingness not to cause offense, confidence to stand firm], that is my goal and I am in search of it with all there is in me.” JLB 432, 3/2/1884: “Know moreover—that I haven’t been aggressive in my actions towards Pa, nor should want to become aggressive towards you, my brother. I’ve often restrained myself—whereas I would have fought very differently and more fiercely with strangers. This very fact, though, also makes me powerless in the circumstances. Yonder I have a new field, and one where I can behave as I see fit, as stranger to stranger—yonder I have neither rights nor obligations. And can then be more brusque—willingness not to give offence, confidence to resist, that’s my ideal, and I’m searching for that so far as is in me.” (Emphasis in original.)

“Sick of the boredom”: BVG 413, 6/15/1885-6/30/1885. Context: BVG 413, 6/15/1885-6/30/1885: “And I was sick of the boredom of civilization.” JLB 509, 6/22/1885: “And I was sick of the boredom of civilization.” (Emphasis in original.) Less and less of his family: BVG 400, 4/13/1885: Van Gogh presents this as a unilateral withdrawal, maintaining that “things are all right with Ma and the sisters” (JLB 493, 4/13/1885). He attributes his withdrawal instead to “the irreconcilability of the ideas of people who keep up a position and—a peasant painter—who doesn’t think about it” (ibid.). This story is face-saving fiction. Van Gogh was driven out of the parsonage by a consensus of his family, led by his sister Anna. Context: JLB 493, 4/13/1885: “I’m thinking of moving about 1 May—although, of course, things are all right with Ma and the sisters—nevertheless I see and feel it’s so much for the better—for living together would become insupportable in the long run.”

“Observing peasant life”: BVG 400, 4/13/1885. Context: BVG 400, 4/13/1885: “By continually observing peasant life, at all hours of the day, I have become so involved in it that I rarely think of anything else.” JLB 493, 4/13/1885: “I’ve become so absorbed in peasant life by continually seeing it at all hours of the day that I really hardly ever think of anything else.” “Musing by the fire”: BVG 400, 4/13/1885. Context: BVG 400, 4/13/1885: “It was not for nothing that I spent so many evenings musing by the fire in their homes with the miners and the peat cutters and the weavers and the peasants—unless I was working too hard for that.” JLB 493, 4/13/1885: “And it’s not for nothing that I’ve spent so many evenings sitting pondering by the fire with the miners and the peat-cutters and the weavers and peasants here—unless I had no time to think—because of the work.” Liquor to earn: b2257 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/2/1884: “He seems to give his models a drink when he is in the field with them and he said he himself had one as well once in a while.” “Sniffed the wind”: BVG 408, 5/11/1885. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 408, 5/11/1885: “For instance, when a digger looks up and sniffs the wind or speaks.” JLB 506, 6/2/1885: “The sniffing of the wind when a digger looks up, say, or speaking.”

“She was up to nothing”: BVG 418, 7/1/1885: According to Van Gogh, the sorceress went by the name de heksenkop—literally “the witch’s head.” The pedestrian activity that Van Gogh finds her occupied with is actually “digging her potato-clamp.” A potato clamp is a pile of potatoes that has been covered with straw and earth as a means of preservation, especially through the winter. The original has been altered to avoid the confusion caused by a term that has fallen well out of general use. Context: BVG 418, 7/1/1885: “One is the residence of a gentleman popularly known as ‘the mourning peasant’—the other is inhabited by a worthy soul who, when I went there, was up to nothing more mysterious than digging her potato-clamp, but who must be capable of practicing witchcraft—she goes by the name of ‘the witch’s head,’ anyway.” JLB 515, 7/14/1885: “One of them is the residence of a gentleman who’s popularly known here as ‘the peasant of Rauwveld’—the other is occupied by a worthy soul who, when I went there, was engaged in nothing more mysterious than turning over her potato patch, but must also be able to work magic, though—at any rate she goes by the name of ‘the witch’s head.’”

“Miserable little rooms”: BVG 355, 1/24/1884. Context: BVG 355, 1/24/1884: “I have painted that thing exactly as it was in reality, the loom with the little weaver, the little window and the baby chair in the miserable little room with the loam floor.” JLB 428, 2/3/1884: “I’ve tackled that affair just as it is in reality, the loom with the little weaver, the small window and that high chair in the wretched little room with the clay floor.” “Disgusting”: BVG R44, 3/10/1884-3/20/1884. Context: BVG R44, 3/10/1884-3/20/1884: “When I had finished drawing the apparatus pretty carefully, I thought it was so disgusting that I couldn’t hear it rattle that I let the spook appear in it.” JLB 437, 3/13/1884: “When my machine drawing had been finished fairly carefully, I found it so unbearable that I couldn’t hear it clatter that I let the apparition appear in it after all.” “They are but poor”: BVG 351, 1/2/1884. Context: BVG 351, 1/2/1884: “In Drenthe, Rappard painted a study of it which I like very much. It is very gloomy—they are but poor creatures, those weavers.” JLB 419, 1/4/1884: “Rappard painted a study of it in Drenthe, which I found beautiful. Very gloomy—for these weavers are very poor people.”

“I consider myself”: BVG 358, 3/1/1884. Context: BVG 358, 3/1/1884: “I consider myself absolutely free to consort with the so-called lower orders if the opportunity should arise.” JLB 432, 3/2/1884: “I consider myself completely at liberty to consort with the so-called lower orders if the opportunity arises.” Brought his paintings: Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 36: “He shared the family meals in a strange fashion. Seated in a corner of the room, his plate on his knee, he would be absorbed in studying a newly painted canvas which stood facing him on a chair.” In an interview published in an unidentified newspaper under the title “Vincent van Gogh Herdenking” on file at the Van Gogh Foundation Archives, Lies provided a slightly different version: “When the house mates were sitting together, he distanced himself in a corner where he had a good view of the painting he had been working on that day.” Lies does not specify which paintings Vincent brought into the dining room in this manner.

“Perfumed”: BVG 404, 4/30/1885. Context: BVG 404, 4/30/1885: “But a painting of peasant life should not be perfumed.” JLB 497, 4/30/1885: “But a peasant painting mustn’t become perfumed.” “Polished”: BVG 404, 4/30/1885. Context: BVG 404, 4/30/1885: “And similarly, in my opinion, it would be wrong to give a painting of peasant life a conventional polish.” JLB 497, 4/30/1885: “And likewise, one would be wrong, to my mind, to give a peasant painting a certain conventional smoothness.” “Smelling of bacon”: BVG 404, 4/30/1885. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 404, 4/30/1885: “And similarly, in my opinion, it would be wrong to give a painting of peasant life a conventional polish. If a peasant painting smells of bacon, smoke, potato steam, fine—that’s not unhealthy—if a stable reeks of manure—all right, that’s what a stable is all about—if a field has the smell of ripe corn or potatoes or of guano and manure—that’s properly healthy, especially for city dwellers.” JLB 497, 4/30/1885: “One would be wrong, to my mind, to give a peasant painting a certain conventional smoothness. If a peasant painting smells of bacon, smoke, potato steam—fine—that’s not unhealthy—if a stable smells of manure—very well, that’s what a stable’s for—if the field has an odour of ripe wheat or potatoes or—of guano and manure—that’s really healthy—particularly for city folk.” “Reeking of manure”: BVG 404, 4/30/1885. The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 404, 4/30/1885: “And similarly, in my opinion, it would be wrong to give a painting of peasant life a conventional polish. If a peasant painting smells of bacon, smoke, potato steam, fine—that’s not unhealthy—if a stable reeks of manure—all right, that’s what a stable is all about—if a field has the smell of ripe corn or potatoes or of guano and manure—that’s properly healthy, especially for city dwellers.” JLB 497, 4/30/1885: “One would be wrong, to my mind, to give a peasant painting a certain conventional smoothness. If a peasant painting smells of bacon, smoke, potato steam—fine—that’s not unhealthy—if a stable smells of manure—very well, that’s what a stable’s for—if the field has an odour of ripe wheat or potatoes or—of guano and manure—that’s really healthy—particularly for city folk.”

“Dust of the cottages”: BVG 410, 6/1/1885. Context: BVG 410, 6/1/1885: “Tell him [Portier] my idea is that part of the public in Paris will not always remain the dupe of convention, however attractive it may be, but, on the contrary, things which have kept the dust of the cottages or of the fields most will find there some very faithful friends, though I cannot say why or how.” JLB 506, 6/2/1885: “Tell him that my idea is that in the long run a part of the public in Paris won’t be fooled by convention, however seductive, but on the contrary that that which still has in it the most dust from the cottages or from the field will, I don’t know how or why myself, find a few very loyal friends.”

“Bright painters”: BVG 414, 6/21/1885-6/28/1885: Van Gogh professes to like “those bright fellows” but says “it goes too far” (JLB 510, 6/28/1885). Quoting a passage from an article by Paul Mantz, he excoriates them for “regard[ing] every effect against a strong and coloured light, every shadow, as heresy—that they never seem to go for a walk very early in the morning, or in the evening at sunset, that they don’t want to see anything but midday light or gaslight, and that has to be electric!” (ibid.). The reference to electric lights is probably a dig at his cosmopolite brother.

The Mantz reference is just the latest fusillade in an argument over color and Theo’s sponsorship of Impressionism. Van Gogh clearly anticipated this particular form of objection to The Potato Eaters (F 82 JH 764, April 1885, oil on canvas, 32.3 by 44.9 in., 82 by 114 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). On the eve of sending the final version to Paris, he initiates an elaborate exchange on the issue of “bright” vs. dark palettes, focusing on the use of white—perhaps in response to a comment from Theo. He formulates an exhaustive metaphor comparing lightening a palette using white to diluting wine with water: “Wine, of course, contains moisture or water particles naturally—and there will always be water in it by the nature of the thing. But too much water in it—and it becomes weak. It’s by no means my assertion that one can or should paint without white or light, any more than I would ever assert that one should dry wine. I do definitely say, though, that one may well watch out a little in our so pure? and light? times that one doesn’t put too much water in the wine, too much white in the wine of colour. So that fieriness remains, and the effects don’t become too tame and weaken the whole thing.” (JLB 500, 5/4/1885-5/5/1885; emphasis in original.)

His argument appears to be that the Impressionists have added too much water (white) to the “wine” of Millet (ibid.). This leads to a strange, extended (presumably two-way) conversation on the use of white paint by various schools. On his side of the argument, Van Gogh maintains that the best Dutch painters used white sparingly, even in their paintings of snow (ibid.). It is on this basis only—i.e., that the best “bright” paintings are really not that bright—that Van Gogh allows that he “likes” bright pictures (ibid.). A month later, however, he adds a new criticism of “bright fellows” that seems to come out of the blue: “I say again that there are examples, only too many, by the very bright fellows, where they later become chalky or oily. It’s because I’ve observed this so often that I have certain reservations.” (JLB 510, 6/28/1885.) Context: BVG 414, 6/21/1885-6/28/1885: “You know how much I like the bright painters too, but you see it goes too far, and Mantz expresses it very subtly when he says, ‘Ceux qui rêvent toujours partout le maximum des clairs, trouveraient d’une intensité un peu noire les verts de M. Harpignies’ [those who are forever and everywhere dreaming of the maximum of light tones would find Mr. [Henri Joseph] Harpignies’s greens somewhat black].” JLB 510, 6/28/1885: “You know how much I like those bright fellows too—but—you see—it goes too far, and Mantz puts it very well—he says, those who are always dreaming of the maximum of bright colours everywhere will find Mr Harpignies’ greens of a rather blackish intensity.” (Emphasis in original.)

“Flithy, stinking”: BVG 404, 4/30/1885. Context: BVG 404, 4/30/1885: “Millet, De Groux, so many others, have set an example of character by turning a deaf ear to such taunts as ‘sale, grossier, boueux, puant’ [nasty, crude, filthy, stinking], etc., etc., so it would be a disgrace should one so much as waver.” JLB 497, 4/30/1885: “Millet, Degroux, so many others, have set examples of character, of taking no notice of the reproaches of—nasty, crude, muddy, stinking &c. &c., that it would be a disgrace if one were even to have misgivings.” (Emphasis in original.)

“Diggers that dig”: BVG 418, 7/1/1885: Van Gogh’s syntax has been slightly altered: “When the digger digs, when the peasant is a peasant, and the peasant woman a peasant woman. Is this something new? Yes. Even the little figures by Ostade, Ter Borch don’t work the way they do nowadays. ... I ask you—do you know of a single digger, a single sower in the old Dutch school??? Did they ever try to make ‘a labourer’? ... No. Work, that’s what the figures in the old paintings don’t do.” (Emphasis in original.) Interestingly, only two months earlier, Van Gogh had given the highest possible accolade to the seventeenth-century Dutch painter of peasants Adriaen van Ostade: “And then, although it’s done differently, in a different century from the old Dutchmen, Ostade, for instance, it’s nevertheless out of the heart of peasant life and—original” (JLB 500, 5/4/1885-5/5/1885). Three months later, he repeats the same thought in almost exactly the same words: “I describe it by saying this peasant has to be a peasant, this digger has to dig, and then there’s something in it that is essentially modern” (JLB 515, 7/14/1885). The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 418, 7/1/1885: “You may ask, when will the figure not be superfluous, for all its faults, and grave faults to my way of thinking? When the digger digs, when the peasant is a peasant and the peasant woman is a peasant woman, is this anything new? Yes, even the little figures by Ostade and Terborch don’t work as people do today.” JLB 515, 7/14/1885: “When will the figure not be redundant then, even though there were necessarily faults and grave faults in it to my mind, you’ll probably ask. When the digger digs, when the peasant is a peasant, and the peasant woman a peasant woman. Is this something new? Yes. Even the little figures by Ostade, Ter Borch don’t work the way they do nowadays.” (Emphasis in original.)

“Truer truth”: BVG 418, 7/1/1885: “My great desire is to learn to make such inaccuracies, such variations, reworkings, alterations of the reality, that it might become, very well—lies if you will—but—truer than the literal truth” (JLB 515, 7/14/1885). To resolve the paradox of “inaccuracies” that are more accurate than reality and lies that are truer than truth, Van Gogh reaches into the artist’s purity of purpose. In a necessarily murky passage, he indicts artists who do not paint the figure “for the sake of the figure (i.e. for the sake of form and modeling) but can’t conceive of it other than working, and ... have the need to paint the action for the action’s sake. So that the painting or the drawing is a figure drawing for the sake of the figure and the inexpressibly harmonic form of the human body—yet at the same time—is lifting carrots in the snow. ” (ibid.; emphasis in original.) Whether Van Gogh was convinced by this tangle of reasoning, or just desperately reaching for arguments, is not clear. He concludes, almost guiltily, by inquiring, “Am I expressing myself clearly?” (ibid.). The translation has been slightly altered. Context: BVG 418, 7/1/1885: “Tell him that I long most of all to learn how to produce those very inaccuracies, those very aberrations, reworkings, transformations of reality, as may turn it into, well—a lie if you like—but truer than the literal truth.” JLB 515, 7/14/1885: “Tell him that my great desire is to learn to make such inaccuracies, such variations, reworkings, alterations of the reality, that it might become, very well—lies if you will—but—truer than the literal truth.”

“Everything”: BVG 406, 5/4/1885-5/5/1885. The translation has been slightly altered; emphasis added. Context: BVG 406, 5/4/1885-5/5/1885: “It all depends on how much life and passion an artist is able to express in his figure; if there is real life in it, then a lady’s figure by Alfred Stevens for instance or some Tissots are certainly beautiful too.” JLB 500, 5/4/1885-5/5/1885: “It all comes down to the degree of life and passion that an artist manages to put into his figure. So long as they really live, a figure of a lady by Alfred Stevens, say, or some Tissots are also really magnificent.”

Notes for plates

Millet is father Millet: BVG 400, 4/13/1885 | JLB 493, 4/13/1885. How he painted humanity: BVG W20, 2/20/1890 | JLB 856, 2/19/1890. I am trying: BVG 503, 6/28/1888 | JLB 634, 6/28/1888. [Zola’s Octave] Mouret: BVG 378, 10/1/1884 | JLB 464, 10/2/1884. The more I think about it: BVG 623, 1/12/1890-1/15/1890 | JLB 839, 1/13/1890. How beautiful the Millet is: BVG 611, 10/25/1889 | JLB 815, 10/25/1889. What has so rightly: BVG 402, 4/21/1885 | JLB 495, 4/21/1885. Art sometimes rises: BVG 257, 1/3/1883 | JLB 298, 1/3/1883. You gave me very great pleasure: BVG 613, 11/2/1889 | JLB 816, 11/3/1889. These little wood engravings: BVG 135, 9/7/1880 | JLB 157, 9/7/1880. Lhermitte’s secret: BVG 277, 3/30/1883-4/1/1883 | JLB 333, 3/29/1883, 4/1/1883. I’ve become so absorbed: BVG 400, 4/13/1885 | JLB 493, 4/13/1885. Dark silhouettes: BVG 241, 11/2/1882 or 11/3/1882 | JLB 280, 11/5/1882. There was another Israëls: BVG 181, 3/11/1882 | JLB 211, 3/11/1882. It seems to me: BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882 | JLB 288, 11/26/1882, 11/27/1882.