| | 31 letters relate to feelings - homesick... | Excerpt length: shorter longer | |
| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(18 February 1878)
... Dear Theo,
Thanks for your letter of February 17; it made me very
happy, as I had been looking forward to it so much. And I am
answering it at once, boy, for I think of you and long for you
so often, and every morning the prints on the wall of my little
study remind me of you - “Christus Consolator”; the
woodcut after Van Goyen, “Dordrecht”; “Le
Four” by Rousseau, etc. - for I received them all from
you. So the pot was calling the kettle black when you wrote me
that I ought not to send you a print for your room sometimes
when I find one that I think you will like. In my turn I say,
Enough of that; but tell me if you have got some new
acquisitions for your collection lately.
Last evening at Uncle Cor's I saw a whole volume of that
magazine, L'Art; you have the issue with the wood engravings
after Corot. I was especially struck by wood engravings after
drawings by Millet, including “Falling Leaves,”
“The Ravens' Wedding,”... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(1 May 1882)
... it first, and then I went to see
it.
And now I close by saying that I assure you I often think of
home, and I suppose when six months have passed by and the
thing I wrote you about has happened, and Father and Mother
come to see me, on both sides this would produce a change in
our feelings. But alas, the moment has not arrived yet, and
first we must try to get things started. For Father and Mother,
whom I consider outsiders in this respect, will like it very
much when it is more finished (has more finesse, as the Belgian
dealers say, according to Mauve); but the rough sketch that you
would understand if you were here would make them dizzy, to say
the least. Adieu, best wishes,
Yours sincerely, Vincent
I will not send the drawings if you intend to come soon. But
it is time you received some of my things now and then; I do my
best, and if these two, for instance, please you, I will send
you some more of various kinds.
If you show those you think suitable to people... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(19 August 1882)
... I hope I shall have the chance sometime.
Then you write about the stretch of heath and the pine wood
close by. I can tell you, I feel an everlasting homesickness
for heath and pine trees, with the characteristic figures - a
poor woman gathering wood, a poor peasant carrying sand - in
short, those simple things that have something of the grandeur
of the sea. I have always had a wish to go and live somewhere
quite in the country, if I had an opportunity and circumstances
would permit. But I have plenty of subjects here - the woods,
the beach, the Rijswijk meadows near by, and so, literally, a
new subject at every footstep.
But it would also be to live more cheaply.
But for the moment, as far as I can see, there is no
immediate reason, and so I am in no hurry.
I only tell you so you'll realize how sympathetic I am to
scenery like that which you describe as Father and Mother's new
surroundings.
It is the painting that makes me so happy these days. I
restrained... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(29 October 1882)
... which were almost the same as mine.
Well, I often long for you, as I already wrote you. If I saw
you more often, and if I could speak to you about my work, I
should make more things, which I am sure might proceed from the
studies I have. But you remember that not long ago I wrote you
(when sending you a sketch in colour of a potato market ),
“I must try to paint the bustle of the streets
again.” The result if this is about twelve watercolours
which I am doing right now, so I do not want to say that
I cannot do anything with my studies or that I make them
without a definite purpose, but only that I believe I could do
more with them and make them more directly effective if
I could sometimes consult you about it.
But however that may be, I work with great pleasure these
days, and I hope there will be some things among my pictures
which will please you too when you come.
I believe that if one wants to make figures, one must have a
warm feeling,... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(20 or 21 August 1883)
...
At this moment you are in Nuenen.
I wish, brother, there were no reasons for me to be absent.
I wish we were walking there together in the old village
churchyard, or looking in at a weaver's. Now that cannot be -
why not? - oh, because I feel I should be a trouble-fête
[killjoy] in my present mood.
I repeat - I do not quite understand it, and think it is
going a little too far - when you as well as Father feel
ashamed just to walk with me. For my part I stay away, though
my heart longs for us to be together.
Because I cannot spare that one little moment of seeing you
or Father without mental reservations, only for the sake of
indissoluble ties, I wish we would never again speak about the
question of manners or clothes when we meet again. You see that
in everything I withdraw as far as possible instead of pushing
myself forward. But don't let decorum breed a general
estrangement. That one bright moment - of seeing each other
once a year - must not be darkened.... |
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