| | 3 letters relate to fear - shyness... | Excerpt length: shorter longer | |
| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(24 September 1880)
... thought to the outside, but there
you are, I could not see the inside because I dared not
introduce myself and go in. Elsewhere in Courrières I
looked for traces of Jules Breton or any other artist. All I
was able to find was a portrait of him at a photographer's and
a copy of Titian's Entombment in a corner of the old church
which looked very beautiful to me in the darkness and masterly
in tone. Was it by him? I don't know because I was unable to
make out any signature.
But of any living artist, no trace, just a cafe called Cafe
des Beaux Arts, also of new, inhospitable, stone-cold,
repulsive brick - the café was decorated with a kind of
fresco or mural depicting episodes from the life of that
illustrious knight, Don Quixote.
To tell the truth, those frescoes seemed to me rather poor
consolation, and fairly mediocre at the time. I don't know who
did them.
But anyway I did seen the country around Courrières
then, the haystacks, the brown farmland... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(17 August 1883)
... the end of it, and no more about it.
And now I will tell you once more what I think about selling
my work. My opinion is that the best thing would be to work on
till art lovers feel drawn towards it of their own accord,
instead of having to praise or explain it. At all events, when
they refuse it or do not like it, one must bear it calmly and
with as much dignity as possible.
I'm so afraid that the steps I might take to introduce
myself would do more harm than good, and I wish I could avoid
it.
It is practically always so painful for me to speak to other
people.
I am not afraid of it, but I know I make an unfavorable
impression. The chance of changing this is sometimes destroyed
by the fact that one's work would suffer if one lived
differently. And by sticking to one's work, things will come
out right in the end. For instance, take Mesdag, a real
mastodon or hippopotamus, but he sells his pictures. I am not
that far yet, but the man I mention also began late and... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(12 October 1883)
... Well, let bygones be bygones. It has not been so. I spoke once
or twice to Thijs Maris. I dared not speak to Boughton because
his presence overawed me; but I did not find it there either,
that help with the very first things, the A B C.
Let me repeat now that I believe in you as an artist, and
that you may become so still, yes, that in a very short time
you would think over in all calmness whether you are an artist
or not, whether you succeed in producing something or not, if
you learned to spell the above-mentioned A B C and if at the
same time you wandered through the cornfields and the moors, to
renew what you yourself express as “I used to feel myself
part of nature; now I do not feel that way any
longer.”
Let me tell you, brother, that I myself experienced so
deeply, so very deeply what you say there. That I have been
through a period of nervous, arid overstraining - there were
days when I could not see anything in the most beautiful
landscape just... |
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