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| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(3 October 1888)
... make an exchange with the four of them.
He also says that Laval will come too, and that the other
two want to come. I should not ask anything better, but when it
is a question of several painters living a community life, I
stipulate at the outset that there must be an abbot to keep
order, and that would naturally be Gauguin. That is why I would
like Gauguin to be here first (besides Bernard and Laval will
only come in February - Bernard has to see his Military Board
of Appeal in Paris). As for me, I want two things, I want to
earn back the money which I have already spent, so as to give
it to you, and I want Gauguin to have peace and quiet in which
to produce, and to be able to breathe freely as an artist. If I
can get back the money already spent which you have been
lending me for several years, we shall enlarge our enterprise,
and try to found a studio for a renaissance and not for a
decadence. I am pretty sure that we can count on Gauguin
staying with us always, and that neither... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Paul Gauguin
(3 October 1888)
... possible
for you to come here soon.
I must tell you that even while working I think continually
about the plan of setting up a studio in which you and I will
be permanent residents, but which both of us want to turn into
a shelter and refuge for friends, against the times when they
find that the struggle is getting too much for them.
When you left Paris, my brother and I stayed on together for
a time, which will always remain an unforgettable memory for
me. The discussions ranged further and wider - with Guillaumin,
with the Pissarros, father and son, and with Seurat, whom I had
not met before (I visited his studio only a few hours before my
departure).
These discussions often dealt with something so near to my
brother's heart and mine, namely what steps to take in order to
safeguard the material existence of painters, to safeguard
their means of production (paints, canvases) and to safeguard
their true share in the price their pictures fetch these days -
though not... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard
(6 October 1888)
... you would paint much better
pictures.
The idea of turning the painters into a sort of freemasonry
does not please me enormously. I profoundly despise
regulations, institutions, etc.; in short, what I am looking
for is different from dogmas, which, far from settling things,
only give rise to endless disputes. It is all a sign of
decadence. Since a union of painters does not exist yet -
except as a vague but very comprehensive design - well let's
wait quietly and see what will happen that must happen.
It will be a finer thing if all this crystallizes naturally;
the more one talks about it the less it will happen. If you
want to help it onward, you will only have to go on working
with Gauguin and me. This is in progress, so don't let's talk
about it. If it is to come about, it will happen without prolix
discussions but as the result of calm, well-thought-out
actions.
As for exchanges, it is just because I observe that in the
[i.e. your and Gauguin's] letters such frequent... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(7 October 1888)
...
the “Poet's Garden.”
So then I believe that it is your duty and mine to demand
comparative wealth just because we have very great artists to
keep alive. But at the moment you are as fortunate, or at least
fortunate in the same way, as Sensier if you have Gauguin and I
hope he will be with us heart and soul. There is no hurry, but
in any case I think that he will like the house so much as a
studio that he will agree to being its head. Give us half a
year and see what that will mean.
Bernard has again sent me a collection of ten drawings with
a daring poem - the whole is called At the Brothel.
You will soon see these things, but I shall send you the
portraits when I have had them to look at for some time.
I hope you will write soon, I am very hard up because of the
stretchers and frames that I ordered.
What you told me of Freret gave me pleasure, but I venture
to think that I shall do things which will please him better,
and you too.
Yesterday... | Letter from Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh
(19 October 1888)
... What can be the cause of that?
So Gauguin is going to join you; it will mean a great change
in your life. I hope that your project of turning the house
into a refuge, where artists will feel at home, will be
successful.
I'll stop now, for otherwise, the letter will not go off
tonight.
Cordially yours, Theo
See Vincent's letter 555.
Uriel Acosta, originally Gabriel da Costa (c.
1591-1641), a Dutch Jew of Spanish origin, a philosopher
and free-thinker, excommunicated and declared a heretic by
a Rabbinical Court at Venice in 1624, and excommunicated by
the Portuguese-Jewish Community of Amsterdam in 1623 and
again in 1633. He committed suicide.
... |
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