letters from vincent XII

arles/april 1889
to paul signac


When I think of the obsequial pomp of the reception and the lamentable congratulations on the on the part of the two families (still in a state of civilization), not to mention the fortuitous appearancesin those chemist's jars where the antediluvian civil and religious magistrates are kept-- goodness gracious-- musn't one pity the poor wretch who is obliged, after having provided himself with the necessary documents, to repair to a locality, where, with a ferocity unequalled by the cruelest cannibals, he is married alive at a slow fire of receptions and the aforesaid funereal pomp . . . .
But at times it is not easy to take up living again, for there remain inner seizures of despair of a pretty large calibre.
My God, those anxieties-- who can live in the modern world without catching his share of them? The best consolation, if not the best remedy, is to be found in deep friendships, even though they have the disadvantage of anchoring us more firmly to life than would seem desirable in the days of our great sufferings . . . .

*

I have been 'in a hole' all my life, and my mental condition is not only vague now, but has always been so, not that whatever is done for me, I cannot think things out so as to balance my life. Where I have to follow, as here in the hospital, I feel at peace . . . .

*

I throw myself fully into my work again, very good, but I shall always be cracked.

letters from vincent XI

arles/july-september
to brother theo

Painting ought to be done at the public expense, instead of the artists being overburdened with it.
But there, we had better hold our tongues, because no one is forcing us to work, fate having ordained that indifference to painting be widespread and by way of being eternal.

*

In my picture of the the 'Night Cafe' I have tried to express the idea that the cafe' is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. So I have tried to express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low public house, by soft Louis XV green and malachite, contrasting with yellow-green and harsh blue-greens, and all this in an atmosphere like a devil's furnace, of pale sulphur . . . .

If he saw my picture, he would say that it was delirium tremens in full swing . . . .

*

I wrote to you already, early this morning, then I went away to go on with a picture of a garden in the sunshine. Then I brought it back and went out again with a blank canvas, and that also is finished. And now I want to write you again,

Because I have never had such a chance, nature here being so extraordinarily beautiful. Everywhere and all over the vault og heaven is a marvellous blue, and the sun sheds a radiance of pale sulphur, and it is soft and lovely as the combination of heavenly blues and yellows in a Van der Meer (Vermeer) of Delft. I cannot paint as beautifully as that, but it absorbs me so much that I let myself go, never thinking of a single rule.

*

I always think that poetry is more terrible than painting, though painting is a dirtier and much more worrying job. And then the painter never says anything, he holds his tongue, and I like that too.

*

arles/january 1889

It has been a magnificent day with no wind, and I have such a longing to work that I am astonished, as I did not expect it anymore.

*

I thought that there had been nothing wrong with me, but afterward I felt that I had been ill. Well, well, there are moments when I am twisted by enthusiasm or madness or prophecy, like a Greek oracle on the tripod . . .

*

Instead of eating enough and at regular times I kept myself going on coffee and alcohol. I admit all that, but all the same it is true that to attain the high yellow note that I attained last summer, I really had to be pretty well keyed up.

*

These last three months do seem strange to me. Sometimes moods of indescribable mental anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time and the fatality of circumstances seem to be torn apart for an instant.

letters from vincent X

arles/april-may 1888

to brother theo

In the fullness of artistic life there is, and remains, and will always come back at times, that homesick longing for the truly ideal life that can never come true.

And sometimes you lack all desire to throw yourself heart and soul into art, and to get well for that. You know you are a cab horse and that it's the same old cab you'll be hitched up to again: that you'd rather live in a meadow with the sun, a river and other horses for company, likewise free . . . .

And perhaps, to get to the bottom of it, the disease of the heart is caused by this: it would not surprise me. One does not rebel against things, nor is one resigned to them; one's ill because of them, and one does not get better, and it's hard to be precise about the cure . . . .

We do not feel we are dying, but we do feel the truth that we are of small account, and that we are paying a hard price to be a link in a chain of artists, in health, in youth, in liberty, none of which we enjoy, any more than the cab horse which hauls a coachful of people out to enjoy the spring . . .

*

may-june

One night I went for a walk my the sea along the empty shore. It was not gay, but neither was it sad-- it was-- beautiful. The deep blue sky was flecked with clouds of a blue deeper than the fundamental blue of intense cobalt, and others of a clearer blue, like the blue whiteness of the Milky Way. In the blue depth the stars were sparkling, greenish, yellow, white, pink, more brilliant, more sparklingly gemlike than at home-- even in Paris: opals you might call them, emeralds, lapis lazuli, rubies, sapphires. The sea was very deep ultramarine-- the shore a sort of violet and faint russet as I saw it, and on the dunes (they are about seventeen feet high) some bushes Prussian blue . . . .

*

to sister wilhelmina

I am always very dusty, always more bristlingly loaded, like a porcupine, with sticks, painter's easel, canvases and further merchandise . . . .

I live in a little yellow house with a green door and green blinds, whitewashed inside-- on the white walls very brightly coloured Japanese prints, red tiles on the floor-- the house in full sunlight-- and over it an intensely blue sky, and-- the shadows in the middle of the day much shorter than in our country. Well-- can you understand that one may be able to paint something like this with only a few strokes of the brush? . . . .

*

to brother theo

So now when anyone says that such and such is done too quickly, you can reply that they have looked at it too quickly . . . .

letters from vincent IX

antwerp/february 1886

to brother theo

Then I left the house, from which may be inferred as a matter of course that they got what they wanted; for the rest, I think of them extremely, extremely little, and I do not desire them to think of me, as far as that goes . . .

*

One feels instinctively that an enormous number of things are changing and that everything will change.

letters from vincent VIII

nuenen/september 1884

to brother theo

I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of failures, one must not be afraid of making some mistakes. Many people think that they will become good by doing no harm; that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it a lie.

It leads to stagnation, to mediocrity.

Just dash something down when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face with a certain imbecility.

You do not know how paralysing that staring of a blank canvas is; it says to the painter, You can't do anything. The canvas stares at you like an idiot, and it hypnotizes some painters, so that they themselves become idiots. Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the really passionate painter who is daring-- and who has once and for all broken that spell of 'you cannot' . . . .

*

january 1885

And I am also looking for blue all the time. Here the peasants' figures are as a rule blue. That blue in the ripe corn or against the withered leaves of a birch hedge-- so that the faded shades of darker and lighter blue are emphasized and made to speak by contrast with the golden tones of reddish-brown-- is very beautiful and has struck me here from the very first. The people here instinctively wear the most beautiful blue that I have ever seen.

It is a coarse linen which they weave themselves, warp black, woof blue, the result of which is a black and blue striped pattern. When this fades and becomes somewhat discoloured by wind and weather, it is an infinitely quiet, delicate tone that particularly brings out the flesh colour.

Well, blue enough to react to all the colours in which hidden orage elements are to be found and discoloured enough not to jar . . .

letters from vincent VII

drenthe/september 1883

to brother theo

As I feel the need to speak out frankly, I cannot hide from you that I am overcome by a great feeling of anxiety, depression, a 'je ne sais quoi' of discouragement and despair more than
I can tell. And if I cannot find comfort it will be too overwhelming.

I take it so much to heart that I do not get on better with people in general; it worries me a great deal, because so much of my success in carrying out my work depends on it . . . . through one single glass pane the light falls on an empty colour box, on a bundle of worn-out brushes, it is so curiously melancholy that fortunately it also has a comical aspect . . . .

*

With all one's energy one cannot do anything, and thinks oneself crazy, or Heaven knows what.

letters from vincent VI

the hague/august 1883

to brother theo

It may be feverishness, or nerves, or something else, I don't know, but I don't feel well. Perhaps I am thinking more than is necessary . . . . I have an uneasy feeling I can't shake off, though I have tried to overcome it.

*

For I do not know how long I shall be able to hold out. Things are getting too much for me. I feel my strength failing. I tell you plainly that under such circumstances, I am afraid I shall never hold out.

*

The world concerns me only insofar as I feel a certain indebtedness and duty toward it because I have walked this earth for thirty years . . . .