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Dear Theo,
Your letter and its contents, literary as well as financial,
were very welcome, and I thank you warmly for it. In the first
place, I was especially glad to hear that perhaps it will not
be so very long before you come to Holland again. I should like
very much to know as soon as it is possible for you to decide
whether it will be before or after New Year's. Am very glad
that you sent off the studies. These days, when I am making
many new ones, I feel so strongly that I must try to keep my
studies after the model together. How delightful it would be if
I could consult with you about the work more, but we are too
far away from each other.
Recently I saw, and I also have it in my collection, a large
wood engraving after a picture by Roll, “Une Grève
de Charbonniers” [Miners' Strike]. Perhaps you know that
painter, and if so, what have you seen of his work? This one
represents the entrance to a mine, before which there are
groups of men and women and children who have evidently stormed
the building. They are standing or sitting around an overturned
cart, and are kept in order by mounted police. One fellow is
about to throw a stone, but a woman is trying to seize his arm.
The characters are excellent, and it is drawn roughly and
vigorously; I am certainly sure it is painted quite in
accordance with the nature of the subject. It is not like Knaus
or Vautier, but done with more passion, as it were - hardly any
details, everything massed and simplified - but there is much
style in it. There is such expression and atmosphere and
feeling, and the movements of the figures - the different
actions - are masterfully expressed. I was greatly impressed by
it, so was Rappard, to whom I also sent one. It was in
L'Illustration, but in an old number.
By chance I have another one by an English draughtsman,
Emslie, whose subject is men going down into a mine to assist,
if possible, the injured, while women stand waiting. One seldom
comes across such subjects.
As to the one by Roll, I myself was once present at such a
scene, complete in every detail, and I think the beauty of his
picture is that it expresses such a situation so accurately,
though one finds but very few of the details in it. I thought
of a saying by Corot, “Il y a des tableaux où il
n'y a rien et pourtant tout y est.” [There are
pictures in which there is nothing and yet everything is in
them.] There is something grand and classic in the whole,
in the composition and in the lines, in a beautiful historical
painting; and that is a quality which is as rare nowadays it
always has been and always will be. It reminds me a little of
Géricault, namely, “Le Radeau de la
Méduse” [The Raft of The Medusa], and at the same
time of Numkaczy, for instance.
This week I have drawn a few heads and also some children's
figures and a few old men from the almshouse.
I agree with you in what you say about those small drawings,
namely that the one of the little bench is done in more of an
old-fashioned manner. But - I did it more or less on purpose,
and will perhaps do it again sometime. However greatly I may
admire many pictures and drawings that are made especially with
a view to the delicate grey harmonious colour, and the local
tone, yet I believe that many artists, who aimed less at this,
and are called old-fashioned now, will always remain green and
fresh because their manner had, and will keep, its own
raison d'être.
To tell you the truth, I couldn't spare either the old- or
the new-fashioned manner. Too many beautiful things have been
done too unusually well for me to prefer one to the other
systematically. And the changes which the moderns have made in
art are not always for the better; not everything means
progress - neither in the works nor in the artists themselves -
and often it seems to me that many lose sight of the origin and
the goal, or in other words, they do not stick to the
point.
Your description of that night effect again struck me as
very beautiful. It looks very different here today, but
beautiful in its own way, for instance, the grounds near the
Rhine railway station: in the foreground, the cinder path with
the poplars, which are beginning to lose their leaves; then the
ditch full of duckweed, with a high bank covered with faded
grass and rushes; then the grey or brown-gray soil of spaded
potato fields, or plots planted with greenish purple-red
cabbage, here and there the very fresh green of newly sprouted
autumn weeds above which rise bean stalks with faded stems and
the reddish or green or black bean pods; behind this stretch of
ground, the red-rusted or black rails in yellow sand; here and
there stacks of old timber - heaps of coal - discarded railway
carriages; higher up to the right, a few roofs and the freight
depot - to the left a far-reaching view of the damp green
meadows, shut off far away at the horizon by a greyish streak,
in which one can still distinguish trees, red roofs and black
factory chimneys. Above it, a somewhat yellowish yet grey sky,
very chilly and wintry, hanging low; there are occasional
bursts of rain, and many hungry crows are flying around. Still,
a great deal of light falls on everything; It shows even more
when a few little figures in blue or white smocks move over the
ground, so that shoulders and heads catch the light.
I think, however, that in Paris everything probably looks
much cleaner and less chilly. For the chilliness even
penetrates the house, and when one lights a pipe, it seems damp
from the drizzling rain. But it is very beautiful.
I had a model for a few hours today, a boy with a spade,
hod-carrier by trade, a very intriguing type - flat nose, thick
lips and very coarse, straight hair - yet whenever he does
something, there is grace in the figure, at least style and
-character. I think I shall have some good
models this winter; the owner of the yard has promised to send
me the ones who come to ask for work, which often happens in
the slack season. I am always glad to give them a few sixpences
for an afternoon or morning, for that is just what I want. I
see no other way than to work from the model. Of course one
must not extinguish one's power of imagination, but the
imagination is made sharper and more correct by continually
studying nature and wrestling with it. Next Sunday I hope to
have the same boy again. Then I should like to draw him as if
he were towing one of the boats filled with stones, which one
often sees in the canal here.
Working out-of-doors is over now - I mean, sitting quietly,
for it is getting too chilly - so we shall have to take up our
winter quarters.
I look forward to the winter with pleasure; it is a
delightful season, when one can work regularly. I have some
hope I shall get on well. I need not tell you that I sincerely
hope you will get back the money in question. As you know, I
carried painting and watercolours further than I originally
intended, and now I have to pay for it by being hard up. But we
shall get over that, and it must not be a reason for slacking
off. I now vary my work by drawing a great deal from the model,
though that is also rather expensive, but it fills my
portfolios in proportion to its emptying my purse.
If you do not have the whole sum by the twentieth of the
month, send me part of it; but I would rather receive it a day
sooner than later, as I have to pay the week's rent on that
day.
The house continues to please me, except that one wall is
very damp. I can work here with a model much better than at the
other studio. I can even work with several people at the same
time, for instance, two children under an umbrella, two women
standing talking, a man and woman arm-in-arm, etc.
But how short a spring and summer we have really had.
Sometimes it seems to me as if there had been nothing between
last autumn and this one, but perhaps it is because of my
illness lying between. I feel quite normal now, except when I
am very tired; then I sometimes have a day or half a day when I
feel indescribably weak and faint, much more so now than
before. However, I do not pay attention to it any more, for I'm
getting sick of it, and I can't afford to be ill, as I have too
much work to do. At such times taking a long walk to
Scheveningen or somewhere often helps me.
A handshake in thought, and believe me,
Yours sincerely, Vincent
At this time, Vincent was 29 year oldSource: Vincent van Gogh. Letter to Theo van Gogh. Written c. 10 October 1882 in The Hague. Translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, edited by Robert Harrison, number 238. URL: https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/11/238.htm.
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