Notes: Still Life

Notes for the Text

Still life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_life Nature mort: Ibid.

Set up a still life: As Van Heugten discusses with admirable clarity, the question of which painting was Van Gogh’s first has long been clouded with inaccuracies (Van Heugten, pp. 30-35). For many years, it was thought to be Still Life with Cabbage and Clogs (F 1 JH 81, November-December, 1881, oil on paper, 13.4 by 21.7 in., 34 by 55 cm., Van Gogh Museum: Amsterdam) because it is sketched in a letter from c. December 18, and referred to therein as “a white cabbage and some potatoes &c” (JLB 192, 12/18/1881). However, the first mention of a still life occurs in the previous letter: “Well, Mauve immediately installed me in front of a still life consisting of a couple of old clogs and other objects” (JLB 191, 12/1/1881-12/3/1881). This is Still Life with Earthenware, Bottle and Clogs (F 63 JH 920, November-December, 1881, oil on canvas on panel, 15.4 by 16.3 in., 39 by 41.5 cm., Kröller-Müller Museum: Otterlo, the Netherlands). Van Gogh wrote that he had done “5 studies” (JLB 192, 12/18/1881) but neither of the other two known paintings depict clogs. The fourth study, which he also sketched in JLB 192, of a “terracotta head of a child wearing a fur cap,” has disappeared (ibid.). The other is unknown. (See JLB 192, 12/18/1881; n. 1.) “This is how”: BVG 164, 12/21/1881. Context:
BVG 164, 12/21/1881: “Well, the next day we set up a still life and he started by saying, ’This is how you must hold your palette.’” JLB 193, 12/23/1881: “Well, and the next day we set up a still life and he began by saying, This is how you should hold your palette.” “I advise you to make still-lifes”: De Brouwer, p. 59.

Painted dozens of still-lifes: De Brouwer, p. 116. The surviving still lifes from the winter of 1884–85 are Still Life with Pots, Jar and Bottles (R 178r JH 528) and Vase with Honesty (F 76 JH 542). Filling canvas after canvas: BVG 387, 11/10/1884-11/20/1884. Context: JLB 471, 11/24/1884: “Last week I painted still lifes day in and day out with the people who are painting in Eindhoven.” Conventional imagery: Still Life with Jars (F 50 JH 529); Still Life with Jars (F 56 JH 530); Beer Tankards (F 49 JH 534); Still Life with Earthenware and Bottles (F 53 JH 538); Still Life with Pottery, Jar, and Bottle (F 57 JH 539); Still Life with Earthen Pot and Clogs (F 63 JH 920); Still Life with Two Jars and Two Pumpkins (F 59 JH 921); Still Life with Ginger Jar and Fruit (F 104 JH 923); Still Life with Ginger Jar and Onion (F 104a JH 924); and Still Life with Brass Cauldron and Jug (F 51 JH 925). (See Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 182.) Local Catholic priest: De Brouwer, p. 96: De Brouwer gives the names of both Andreas Pauwels, the priest in Nuenen from 1880 to 1889, and Wilhelmus Beekmans, who was chaplain in Nuenen from 1882 to 1890. Van der Heijden, in an opaque construction, appears to give the name of Van Gogh’s priest-nemesis as “Thomas van Luijtelaar,” but Van der Heijden’s evaluation of the Catholic-Protestant divide in Nuenen, unlike his assiduous economic analysis, seems misguided in other ways (Van der Heijden, p. 118).

Instead of posing figures: The literature generally respects Van Gogh’s protest that he turned to still lifes because he wanted to, and, in fact, enjoyed doing them: “I’ve been painting a lot of still lifes lately ... and I like it enormously. I’ll send you some. I know that they’re difficult to sell—but it’s devilish useful and I’ll go on doing a lot to them in the winter.” (JLB 533, 10/4/1885.) But this is hardly credible. In his effort to hide from his brother the depth of the scandal in Nuenen and the breadth of his ostracism, Van Gogh clearly needed to provide a reason for his abrupt turn to an imagery that he had consistently avoided in the past, associating it with beginners’ lessons and women artists (JLB 536, 10/20/1885). The shallowness of his commitment to the “usefulness” of still-life painting, at this point in his career, can be seen in his quick reversion to portrait painting when he arrives in Antwerp. Less than a month after leaving Nuenen, he writes: “I consequently believe that nothing helps one progress so directly as working with a model” (JLB 549, 12/19/1885; emphasis in original). And in 1888, in Arles, he remembers his time in Nuenen this way: “the work wasn’t going badly in Nuenen and it was only a matter of going on with it. I still miss my models who were made for me and whom I still adore; if only I had them here now ...” (JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888; emphasis in original.) Baskets of the potatoes: Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 166: Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop make the point that the potato and apple harvests had just finished, so both were in ample supply.

He took a bat: The painting is Flying Fox, F 177a JH 1192, October-November 1885, oil on canvas, 16.1 x 31.1 in., 41 x 79 cm., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. It was long attributed to Van Gogh’s stay in Paris, but Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop make a convincing argument for this earlier dating (Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, pp. 230-233). Very little about the specific bat Van Gogh used is known: not the species, not the size, nor even where he got it. It seems unlikely that he borrowed it from Antoon Hermans, with whom he had broken by this time. The rough identification of the subject as a fruit-eating type of bat from the tropics (the order of Megachiroptera [ibid., p. 230]) narrows the possibilities for acquisition considerably. If it were a simple barn bat, it could easily have found its way into Van Gogh’s collection of stuffed birds, as observed by Kerssemakers. Even though the painting is wide (16.3 x 31 in., 41.5 x 79 cm.), suggesting a broad wingspan, it was presumably about the size of a bird, or Kerssemakers surely would have noted it. Van Gogh has merely enlarged it to fit the available canvas. It is also possible that Van Gogh borrowed the bat from Johannes van der Harten (Johannes van der Harten. Kerssemakers had offered to introduce Van Gogh to Van der Harten when the former professed a desire to “do sketches of stuffed heron and other water birds.” (See ibid., p. 232, n. 3.) “At present it comes”: BVG 429, 10/15/1885-10/31/1885. Context: BVG 429, 10/15/1885-10/31/1885: “This to show you that when I say that I have perhaps not plodded completely in vain, I dare say this, because at present it comes quite easily to me to paint a given subject unhesitatingly, whatever its form or colour may be.” JLB 537, 10/28/1885: “This to show you that when I say that perhaps I haven’t swotted entirely for nothing I mean it, because these days it really comes quite readily to me to paint a given object, whatever the shape or colour may be, without hesitation.”

Turned to a new subject: Van Tilborgh, in Hendriks and Van Tilborgh, eds., p.74. Small, impacted still lifes: There appear to be two distinct subsets among Van Gogh’s surviving flower paintings from this period. The first is characterized by tighter brushwork, darker over-all tonality, and smaller canvases—all hallmarks of Monticelli’s work. Paintings included in this group are Glass with Hellebores (F 199 JH 1091), Vase with Myosotis and Peonies (F 243a JH 1106), Still Life with Meat, Vegetables and Pottery (F 1670 JH 1119), Ginger Jar Filled with Chrysanthemums (F 198 JH 1125), Vase with Carnations (F 220 JH 1138), White Vase with Roses and Other Flowers (F 258 JH 1141), and Glass with Roses (F 218 JH 1144). Because these images are so derivative of Monticelli’s work, they may represent the first act of Van Gogh’s campaign of flower paintings in the summer of 1886. Van Tilborgh appears to identify the same progression: “it is notable how much more stylized and structured [Van Gogh’s] work is in comparison with that of his example [Monticelli] ... in a relatively short time he was able to broaden both his color repertoire and the variation in his touch” (Van Tilborgh, in Hendriks and Van Tilborgh, eds., p. 74). He painted orange lilies: BVG 460, 8/1/1886. This unidentified painting is being grouped in the early stage of Van Gogh’s Monticelli passion because Van Gogh describes it in a way that directly invokes the Marseilles painter’s dark backgrounds and sharp, vivid highlights (see context). Context: JLB 568, 8/18/1886: “I have a pendant for that bouquet that you have with you, and also a branch of white lilies—white, pink, green—against black, in the spirit of black Japanese lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl that you know—then a branch of orange tiger lilies on a blue ground.” Ocher chrysanthemums: Ginger Jar Filled with Chrysanthemums, F 198 JH 1125, 1886, canvas on panel, 15.7 x 11.6 in., 40 x 29.5 cm., Private collection.

He had seen a bouquet: BVG 526, 8/21/1888. Context: JLB 666, 8/21/1888 or 8/22/1888: “In the hope of living in a studio of our own with Gauguin, I’d like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large Sunflowers. Next door to your shop, in the restaurant, as you know, there’s such a beautiful decoration of flowers there; I still remember the big sunflower in the window.” (Emphasis in original.) The pan-sized composite flowers: The sunflower bloom is actually a composite flower (or “head”) consisting of both ray florets—the petals—and disc florets, which are arranged in a spiral in the central disc of the flower. “Savage”: BVG 501, 6/21/1888. Van Gogh described the vivid color contrasts of his first Zouave portrait The Zouave (Half-Length) (F 423 JH 1486) as “a coarse combination of disparate tones ... very hard ... vulgar, even garish” (JLB 629, 6/21/1888). Context: BVG 501, 6/21/1888: “So it’s a savage combination of incongruous tones, not easy to manage. The study I made of it seems to me very harsh, but all the same I’d like always to be working on vulgar, even loud portraits like this.” JLB 629, 6/21/1888: “So it’s a coarse combination of disparate tones that isn’t easy to handle—the study I did of it seems very hard to me, and yet I’d always like to work on portraits that are vulgar, even garish like that one.”

Painted a still life: Still Life with Drawing Board, Pipe, Onions, and Sealing Wax, F 604 JH 1656, January 1889, oil on canvas, 19.7 by 15.2 inches, 50 by 64 cm., Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo. F.V. Raspail’s: Crissey and Parish, pp. 64, 66: François Vincent Raspail. Healthful foods: Weiner, p. 144: “[Raspail] advised that patients be fed appetizing food, liberally seasoned with onion, garlic, clove, cinnamon, or nutmeg.” Every malady: Weiner, pp. 143-144: Weiner attempts a comprehensive list of the ills for which Raspail prescribed some form of camphor treatment. This list includes: “migraine, infections of the nose, eyes, and ears, toothache, cough, cold, asthma, grippe, whooping cough, incipient tuberculosis, heartburn, rheumatism, and skin diseases.” Camphor-scented: The literature sometimes sees the lighted candle as a symbol of Van Gogh’s new claim to life after his brush with death, and we do not mean to preclude this possibility. However, Van Gogh’s primary program for this painting does not appear to be deeply symbolic but intentionally prosaic and thereby reassuring. This is consistent with Van Gogh’s tremendous attention to specific details like the postal markings on the letter and the cover of the Raspail Annuaire. If one assumes the program is quotidian, then the lighted candle portrayed in what appears to be full sunlight would suggest an intent to invoke a scent, not a light. Doused with camphor: This is a deduction based on the proven validity of Raspail’s long claims for the antiseptic properties of camphor as of 1889 and on the fact that Rey’s doctoral thesis related to antisepsis in the urinary tract. It is quite possible that Rey introduced Van Gogh to Raspail and that Van Gogh, who was always vulnerable to promises of miracle cures, seized on Raspail’s more extravagant claims for camphor. Antiseptic properties: Weiner, pp. 144-145.

An imminent departure: BVG 633, 5/11/1890-5/12/1890. Curiously—but not surprisingly—Van Gogh reports only a few days later that Peyron has given him permission to pack: “After a last discussion with Mr. Peyron I obtained permission to pack my trunk, which I’ve sent by goods train.” (JLB 872, 5/13/1890.) Peyron may have turned a blind eye to the anticipatory shuttering of the studio. Context: JLB 870, 5/11/1890: “I’m planning to leave as soon as possible this week, and I’m starting to pack my trunk today.” “Like a man in a frenzy”: BVG W20, 2/20/1890: Vincent reported this to Wil in June, about two weeks after leaving Saint-Rémy. Context: BVG W20, 2/20/1890: “But during the last weeks at St. Rémy I worked like a man in a frenzy, especially on bunches of flowers, roses and violet irises.” JLB 879, 6/5/1890: “But in the last few days at St-Rémy I worked like a man in a frenzy, especially on bouquets of flowers. Roses and violet Irises.” Won many accolades: BVG T20, 11/16/1889. Context: JLB 819, 11/16/1889: “However bad the Independents’ exhibition was, The Irises [Irises (F 608 JH 1691)] were seen by a lot of people who talk to me about them.” From his brother Theo: BVG T16, 9/5/1889. Context: JLB 799, 9/5/1889: “Now I must also tell you that the Independents’ exhibition is open and that in it there are your two paintings, ‘The irises’ and the Starry night. The latter is badly placed, for one can’t position oneself far enough away, as the room is very narrow, but the other one looks extremely well. They’ve placed it on the narrow side of the room and it strikes you from a long way off. It’s a fine study, full of air and life.”

Argument for success: BVG 632, 5/3/1890: In addition to the praise directed at his paintings of sunflowers and irises, Van Gogh had this additional commercial reason for returning to the subject of garden flowers at this time. The painting praised in the April 30, 1890, issue of Le Figaro was Ernest Quost’s Easter Flowers. (See JLB 866, 5/2/1890; n. 10.) Quost was one of the predecessors in color to whom Van Gogh paid deferential tribute in his response to the Aurier article, singling out the very two flowers to which Van Gogh turned his attention in May 1890, roses and irises: “[Are my sunflowers] any different from so many paintings of flowers that are more skillfully painted and which people do not yet sufficiently appreciate, père Quost’s Hollyhocks, Yellow Irises?” (JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890.) Van Gogh had already made the same argument to Theo: “Why not say, WITH MORE REASON, what he says about my sunflowers about Quost’s magnificent and so-complete Hollyhocks and about his yellow irises, about Jeannin’s splendid peonies?” (JLB 850, 2/1/1890; emphasis in original.) Context: JLB 866, 5/2/1890: “I think from a note in Le Figaro that père Quost must have a darned good painting in the Salon.” “Pure Prussian blue”: BVG 633, 5/11/1890-5/12/1890. Context: BVG 633, 5/11/1890-5/12/1890: “On the other hand, the other violet bunch (ranging from carmine to pure Prussian blue) stands out against a startling citron background, with other yellow tones in the vase and the stand on which it rests, so it is an effect of tremendously disparate complementaries, which strengthen each other by their juxtaposition.” JLB 870, 5/11/1890: “On the contrary, the other violet bouquet (ranging up to pure carmine and Prussian blue) standing out against a striking lemon yellow background with other yellow tones in the vase and the base on which it rests is an effect of terribly disparate complementaries that reinforce each other by their opposition.”

Notes for the Plates

The Chardinesque: BVG 395, 3/1/1885 | JLB 484, 3/2/1885. The best paintings: BVG 431, 11/8/1885-11/12/1885 | JLB 539, 11/7/1885. Take, for example, a painting: BVG B1, 9/22/1887-12/21/1887 | JLB 575, December 1887. Monticelli sometimes made a bunch of flowers: BVG 471, 3/24/1888 | JLB 589, 3/25/1888. Gauguin was telling me: BVG 563, 11/23/1888 | JLB 721, 11/19/1888. Do you remember: BVG 527, 8/27/1888 | JLB 668, 8/23/1888 or 8/24/1888.