Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (2 April 1883) ... brothers - is this your opinion
too?
Lately I have been working with printer's ink, which is
diluted with turpentine and applied with a brush. It gives very
deep tones of black. Diluted with some Chinese white, it also
gives good greys. By adding more or less turpentine, one can
even wash it in very thinly.
I think it will give good results on that paper Buhot gave
you.
Sometime when you are here we'll talk that matter over, and
I will show you drawings that might be made on it. A year ago
it puzzled me, how to get some very deep tones of black, but I
found a few of them in the printer's office. So now I can
penetrate a little further into seeking for plastic effects and
chiaroscuro.
Thanks for the good wishes on my birthday. It happened to be
a very pleasant day, as I just had an excellent model for a
digger. One thing I can assure you of, the work gets more and
more stimulating, and it gives me, so to speak, more vitality;
and then I always think of you, because...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard (c. 2-4 April 1883) ... tried
out the other day. 1
It goes without saying that the printer's ink -
diluted with more or less turpentine (you can dilute it until
it is so thin that you can wash with it with the utmost
transparency - on the other hand, one can use it in so thick a
condition that one gets the deepest black tones) - is the
principal ingredient you use. I think this is a method with
which much can be done. Well, more about it later on - I am
still experimenting myself.
The drawing I am working on now with this method is an
orphan man standing near a coffin - in what they call
the “corpses' den.”
Adieu, with a handshake, and thanks again for what you sent
me,
Ever yours, Vincent
It stands to reason that, in order to simplify things, you
could experiment with printers' ink and turpentine only. This
time, however, I don't mean autographic ink, but ordinary
printer's ink. Perhaps you have it already, otherwise you can
get it at any...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 11 April 1883) ... lot.
But now about the drawings.
I have again done a few with printer's ink, and this week I
made some experiments in mixing that printer's ink with white.
I found out that it can be mixed in two ways - that is, with
the white from the tubes of oil paint and, probably even
better, with the ordinary powdered zinc white which can be
obtained at any drugstore; it must be diluted with turpentine,
which doesn't soak into this paper or cause spots on the back
like oil does, because it dries quickly and disappears.
One gets much stronger effects working with printer's ink
than with ordinary ink.
How beautiful Jules Dupré's work is. In Goupil's show
window I saw a small marine which you are sure to know. I went
to look at it nearly every evening. But you are perhaps
somewhat blasé about Dupré and similar works of
art, which one sees so much more in Paris than here; you do not
know what a beautiful impression it makes here, where one sees
so very little...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard (c. 25 May 1883) ... have been able
to do it right now.
I had a wooden passe-partout made, something like yours but
without a frame. I am thinking of giving this as yet unpainted
passe-partout a walnut colour, the same colour as your
frame. The work gets on nicely when the drawing
is shut off; and as soon as I saw your drawings I decided to
get such a passe-partout too.
I saw an illustration in Harper's Weekly by Reinhardt - by
far the best thing I have seen of his so far - “Washed
Ashore.” A corpse has been washed ashore, a man is
kneeling beside it to see who it is, a number of fishermen and
women are giving information about the shipwrecked man to a
gendarme. So it somewhat resembles “Une
Épreuve” [A Questioning], which you have, but
there is something of, say, Régamey in this drawing by
Reinhardt; it is a very beautiful sheet.
How much beauty one can find, can't one?
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard (c. 14-15 June 1883) ... was too
overworked to be continued.
Besides I have not ventured to work too much in them with
printer's ink and turpentine; instead I have used charcoal,
lithographic crayon and autographic ink so far.... Except in
the case of the dunghill that became too overworked; I attacked
this one with it and not unsuccessfully; it became rather
black, it's true, but for all that the freshness returned
somewhat, and now I see my way again to working on it some
more, although I thought it hopeless before I put on the
printer's ink.
I have been working very hard since I visited you; I had not
done any compositions for such a long time - only a lot of
studies - that when I once started I went quite wild about it.
I was pegging away at it many mornings as early as four
o'clock. I am extremely eager for you to see them, for I can
make neither head nor tail of what Van der Weele, the only one
who has seen them, said.
Van der Weele's opinion was rather sympathetic, but he said
about...
