Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 29-2 Oct-Nov 1883) ... upside down, that won't do for me!
I feel my own incurable melancholy, caused by certain
developments in the past, and then they want to tell me that my
mood is “the rash fanaticism of youth”! Far, very
far from it. In your mood one is “in damned
earnest,” as the English say. You do not expect to find
something soft or sweet, no, you know that you are in for a
fight against something like a rock, no, you know that it is
impossible to conquer nature and to make her more amenable
without a terrible struggle and without more than ordinary
patience.
And when speaking of your being a painter, they would describe
your state of mind as that of a dreamer, imagining himself on a
bed of roses. I ask you, what do those who represent things
that way know? But people being what they are, this is only one
of their enormities and not even the worst by a long shot. This
hopeless absurdity of public opinion makes it only natural for
one to want to avoid the...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (late September 1884) ... and a beautiful
landscape with sheep.
Recently I have been working very hard; I believe, what with
other emotions, I have even overworked myself. For I am in a
melancholy mood, and all these things have combined to upset me
in such a way that there are many days when I am almost
paralyzed.
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (mid November 1885) ... a painter must be only a painter.
And then, don't forget that I am not a born melancholic. The
general nickname I have in this neighborhood is “ `t
schildermenneke,” [The little painter fellow] and it is
not without a certain dose of malice that I go abroad.
Now I have also thought of Drenthe, but it is more difficult
to carry out. That, however, would be a good thing, in case my
painting of rural life might please in Antwerp. Sooner or later
when the things from here have some success, I would go on with
them and vary them with the same kind of things from
Drenthe.
But the fact is that I can do only one thing at the time,
that when I am busy painting peasants, I cannot occupy myself
with business in town. Now is just the moment to break free for
a while, as I have had trouble with my models, and in any case
I am going to move.
In this Studio, just next door to the priest and the sexton,
the trouble would never end, that is clear, so I am going to
...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 3 May 1888) ... Paris. I paid for it nicely afterward! When I stopped drinking,
when I stopped smoking so much, when I began to think again
instead of trying not to think - Good Lord, the depression and
the prostration of it!
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard (c. 18 June 1888) ... weeks it has started to circulate again.
However, my dear friend, at the same time I have had, just like you, a fit of
melancholy, from which I would have suffered as much as you,
had I not welcomed it with great pleasure as a sign that I was
recovering - which is indeed what happened.
So, don't go back to Paris but stay in the countryside, for
you will need your strength to come through the trial of
serving in Africa. Well then, the more blood you produce
beforehand, good blood, the better it will be, for over there
in the heat you may not be able to do it quite so easily.
Painting and fucking a lot don't go together, it softens the
brain. Which is a bloody nuisance.
The symbol of St. Luke, the patron saint of painters, is, as
you know, an ox. So you just be patient as an ox if you want to
work in the artistic field. Still, bulls are lucky not to have
to work at that foul business of painting.
But what I wanted to say is this: after the period of
melancholy...
