Relevant paintings: "Old tower in the fields," Vincent van Gogh [Enlarge]
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Saturday evening
Dear Theo,
My sincere thanks for your letter and the enclosed. As soon
as I received your letter I bought 7 guilders' worth of colours
immediately, so as to have some provisions and to replenish my
box. All during the week we have had a great deal of wind,
storm and rain, and I went to Scheveningen several times to see
it.
I brought two small marines home from there.
One of them is slightly sprinkled with sand - but the
second, made during a real storm, during which the sea came
quite close to the dunes, was so covered with a thick layer of
sand that I was obliged to scrape it off twice.
The wind blew so hard that I could scarcely stay on my feet,
and could hardly see for the sand that was flying around.
However, I tried to get it fixed by going to a little inn
behind the dunes, and there scraped it off and immediately
painted it in again, returning to the beach now and then for a
fresh impression. So I brought a few souvenirs home after
all.
In the meantime, I have painted a few studies of the figure
- I'm sending you two sketches.
Painting the figure appeals to me very much, but it must
ripen - I must get to know the technique better - what is
sometimes called “la cuisine de l'art.” In the
beginning I shall have to do much scraping, and shall often
have to begin anew, but I feel that I learn from it and that it
gives me a new, fresh view of things.
The next time you send money, I shall buy some good marten
brushes, which are the real drawing brushes, as I have
discovered, for drawing a hand or a profile in colour.
Also, I see they are absolutely necessary for very delicate
branches, etc. No matter how fine, the Lyon brushes make too
broad stripes or strokes. My painting paper is also almost used
up - toward the first of September I shall have to buy a few
more supplies, but I shall not need more than the usual
allowance.
Then I want to tell you that I quite agree with several
points in your letter.
Personally, I do indeed appreciate them. I am only afraid
that the feeling about which you reassured them for the time
being would come back, especially if they saw me again. They
will never be able to understand what painting is. They cannot
understand that the figure of a labourer—some furrows in
a ploughed field - a bit of sand, sea and sky—are serious
subjects, so difficult, but at the same time so beautiful, that
it is indeed worth while to devote one's life to expressing the
poetry hidden in them.
In the future, whenever they saw me toiling and pegging away
at my work — scraping it out and changing it — now
severely comparing it to nature then changing it a little so
they can no longer exactly recognize the spot or the figure
— it would always be a disappointment to them. They will
not be able to understand that painting cannot succeed at
once, and over and over again they will think, “He
doesn't really know anything about it,” and that real
painters would work in quite a different way.
Well, I dare not allow myself any illusions, and I am afraid
that Father and Mother may never really appreciate my art. This
is not surprising, and it is not their fault; they have not
learned to look at things as you and I have learned to look at
them. They look at different things than we do; we do not see
the same things with the same eyes, nor do the same thoughts
occur to us. It is permissible to wish this were otherwise, but
in my opinion it is not wise to expect it.
They will hardly be able to understand my frame of mind, and
they will not know what urges me on. When they see me doing
things which they think strange and eccentric, they will
ascribe them to discontent, indifference, or carelessness,
whereas in reality there is something quite different at the
bottom of it, namely, the wish to pursue, coùte que
coùte, what I need for my work. Now they are perhaps
looking forward to the “painting in oil.” Now at
last it will come — and oh! how disappointed they would
be, I am afraid, if they could see it; they would notice
nothing but daubs of paint—besides, they consider drawing
a “preparatory study” an expression which
many years ago I learned to hate inexpressibly, and think as
incorrect as it can be. As you well know. And when they see me
still at it, the way I was before, they will think I am going
to be doing that preparatory study forever.
Well, let us hope for the best and try to reassure them.
What you tell me about their new surroundings is very
interesting. I should certainly love to paint such a little old
church, and the churchyard with its sandy grave-mounds and old
wooden crosses. I hope I shall have the chance sometime.
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 myself up to now, and stuck to drawing just because
I know so many sad stories of people who threw themselves
headlong into painting - who sought the solution of their
problems in technique and awoke disillusioned, without having
made any progress, but having become up to their ears in debt
because of the expensive things they had spoiled.
I had feared and dreaded this from the start: I have
considered drawing, and still do, the only way to avoid such a
fate, and I have grown to love drawing instead of considering
it a nuisance. Now, however, painting has unexpectedly given me
much scope: it enables me to see effects that were unattainable
before - just the ones which, after all, appeal to me most -
and it enlightens me so much more on many questions and gives
me new means by which to express effects. All together, these
things make me very happy.
It has been so beautiful in Scheveningen lately. The sea was
even more impressive before the gale, than while it raged.
During the gale, one could not see the waves so well, and the
effect was less of a furrowed field. The waves followed each
other so quickly that one overlapped the other, and the clash
of the masses of water raised a spray which, like drifting
sand, wrapped the foreground in a sort of haze. It was a fierce
storm, and if one looked at it long, even more fierce, even
more impressive, because it made so little noise. The sea was
the colour of dirty soapsuds. There was one fishing smack on
that spot, the last of the row, and a few dark little
figures.
There is something infinite in painting - I cannot explain
it to you so well - but it is so delightful just for expressing
one's feelings. There are hidden harmonies or contrasts in
colours which Involuntarily combine to work together and which
could not possibly be used in another way.
Tomorrow I hope to go and work in the open air again.
I have read most of Zola's La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
and Son Excellence Eugène Rougon, both beautiful. I
think Pascal Rougon, the doctor who appears in his series of
books, but always in the background, a noble figure. He really
proves that no matter how degenerate a race may be, it is
always possible for energy and will-power to conquer fate. In
his profession he found a force stronger than the temperament
he had inherited from his family; instead of surrendering to
his natural instincts, he followed a clear, straight path, and
did not slide into the wretched muddle in which all the other
Rougons perished. He and Madame François of Le Ventre de
Paris are to me the most sympathetic figures.
Well, adieu, I often think of you, and how I should love to
see you now and then. A handshake in thought and believe
me,
Yours sincerely, Vincent
While writing this I have done another study, of a boy -
grey, charcoal, oil, and very little colour, just for the
tone.
At this time, Vincent was 29 year oldSource: Vincent van Gogh. Letter to Theo van Gogh. Written 19 August 1882 in The Hague. Translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, edited by Robert Harrison, number 226. URL: https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/11/226.htm.
This letter may be freely used, in accordance with the terms of this site.
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