| | 48 letters relate to business - selling... | Excerpt length: shorter longer | |
| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(13 February 1882)
... that I have seen your
work.”
I do not care so much about that “taking my
part,” but I must say that sometimes I cannot bear
Tersteeg's saying to me over and over again, “You must
begin to think about earning your own living.” I think it
is such a dreadful expression, and then it is all I can do to
keep calm. I work as hard as I can and do not spare myself, so
I deserve my bread, and they ought not to reproach me with not
having been able to sell anything up to now.
I tell you these details because I do not understand why you
have neither written nor sent me anything this month.
Is it possible that you have heard something from Tersteeg
that has influenced you?
I can assure you once more that I work hard to make progress
on things which would be easy to sell, that is, watercolours,
but I cannot succeed immediately. If I succeed in making them
by and by, it would still be rapid progress, considering the
short time I have been working.... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 17 September 1883)
... line
of trees with a few roofs.[Lost]
It is a pity you have not heard anything from C. M.
Of course he need not do anything, but I think it
rather rude never to send a word in reply.
But you must understand one thing - it is increasingly
apparent to me that we are living in a time in which things
have got rather mixed up (I personally don't think it
rather but enormously mixed up, but I won't force that
opinion on you). As to C. M., he as well as many others would
be very polite to a stranger, but “on ne hait que ses
amis.” [One only hates one's friends.] And as he is quite
absorbed in the ebb and flow of trade and the art-dealing
business, he is so engrossed by very abstract things that a
very natural thing, such as, for instance, the fact that I have
spoken to him and still do speak to him about my affairs
strikes him as disagreeably as an open door that lets in a
draught, for his thoughts are far, far away - always - and he
knows no... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 22 October 1883)
... course
I shall not mention to anybody else. If my affairs might change
somewhat for the better, if I could count on C. M.'s buying my
studies for instance, then the best thing for me would be to
stay here, as it is cheaper here; and after I had made some
more progress, and if you decided to become a painter, it would
be an excellent place for study here - excellent.
Has C. M. been to see you already? Once more, keep good
courage, I will try to do the same; and if you ever decide to
become a painter, do so with inner cheerfulness and all
possible optimism. Then, taking a broad view of things, you
would have to consider the time between now and your thirtieth
year as a rather hard experimental time; but at the end of it
you would find all things renewed, and a rich future before
you. Think of what you told me when those Swedish painters were
in Paris; one must have pluck, the more so because one sees how
shaky and tottering everything is. “Efforts de perdu, que
soit”... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 1 February 1884)
... been treated
honestly and are paid.
I owe a great debt to you, however, and if I continued in
exactly the same way, it would grow worse and worse. Now I want
to make you a proposal for the future. Let me send you my work,
and keep what you like for yourself, but I insist on
considering the money I receive from you after March as money I
have earned. And I quite approve of it being, in the beginning,
less than I have received up to now. Toward the end of January
or in the beginning of February I wrote you that, on my coming
home, I was struck by the fact that the money I was in the
habit of receiving from you was looked upon in the first place
as something precarious, and secondly as what I will
call charity for a poor fool. And I could establish the fact
that this opinion was even communicated to people who had
absolutely nothing to do with it - for instance, the
respectable natives of this region - and I was asked at least
three times in one week by absolute... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 1 March 1884)
... of a weaver and five pen
drawings. I must also tell you frankly that for my part I'm
sure you're right to say that my work must improve a great
deal, but at the same time I also think that your efforts to do
something with it could become a bit more determined. You have
never yet sold a single thing I have done -
whether for a lot or a little - in fact, you haven't even
tried.
Look, I'm not angry about it, but we need to speak
our minds now for once. I could certainly not put up with it in
the long run. You, for your part, can also continue to speak
frankly.
As far as saleability or unsaleability is concerned, that's
a dead horse I don't intend to go on flogging. Anyway, as you
can see, my answer is to send you some new ones - and I shall
be very happy to go on doing so - I should like nothing better.
Only be unsparing for once with your candour - which is what I
much prefer - about whether you intend to bother with them or
whether your... |
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