Notes

Notes

 

Chapters

Chapters
304 1. fifty miles an hour

Although the records show that the wind gusted up to force ten on the Beaufort Scale of Wind Force (55-63 mph) during the storm on August 10-24, we have chosen the lower figure because the Beaufort speeds are calculated at 10 meters (about 30 feet) above ground level. For the same reason, we have assumed a higher wind speed on the crest of the dune where Vincent was positioned. (See Ch. 18, n. 26.)

2. city dwellers who overran

Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 61: The fishing village of Scheveningen had only recently (in the 1870s) become a mecca of bourgeois leisure. The text is meant to convey the resentment of the year-around local inhabitants at the invasion of the much wealthier summer people, who annually paraded their very modern forms of frolic and decadence before a still largely impoverished citizenry. According to Van der Mast and Dumas: "The local population which was very religious did not entirely approve of all of this, but on the other hand, they profited from the newly created jobs" (ibid., p. 63). It is interesting that, despite his claims to being a peintre de peuple, Vincent never mentions the crowded, squalid conditions in which the fishermen and their families often lived (whole blocks sharing a single communal toilet), separated from the grand new hotels and fashionable bains by only a narrow isthmus of sand. Always preferring imagery to reality, Vincent rarely saw beyond the picturesqueness and "nobility" of poverty. (See, for example, the drawings he made of a fish-drying barn in Scheveningen [Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Heigh (F 938 JH 152), Fish-Drying Barn (F 940 JH 154), and Fish-Drying Barn (F 945 JH 160]), and the watercolor, View of Scheveningen [F 1041 JH 167], painted the same summer.)

3. saltwater cures Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 63: "Doctors were convinced of the wholesome effect of the seawater." Van der Mast and Dumas make the interesting point that "swimming for fun did not exist yet." 4. hotel porches and parlors Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 63: "[In the late nineteenth-century] the city of The Hague itself built a municipal bathing establishment (Stedelijk Badhuis) called the 'Grand Hôtel des Bains,' because French was chic. It was a hotel at the same time. During the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century the entertainment factor gradually got the upper hand. The Municipal Bathing Establishment had expanded and there was now for instance a reading room, a theatre room and a 'salle à diner,' where people could dine at long tables. Other hotels had also been built, like the Hôtel des Galeries [which existed already in 1882] ... During the day, the guests enjoyed themselves by parading along the esplanade or by sitting in a deck chair." 5. Fighting to beach

Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 60: Because Scheveningen did not have a harbor, the fishing boats were designed with flat bottoms so that they could be "stranded" on the beach above the high water line. It is possible that the image depicts an effort to launch the boat before the storm comes ashore. Vincent depicted such a scene in another (lost) painting and letter sketch titled Beach and Boats (F 228 JH 227): "The subject of the sketch I made of it is a pink weighing anchor. The horses stand ready to be hitched to the pink before pulling it into the sea." (JLB 260, 9/3/1882.) However, the sea in the latter image is calm. Also, the women in View of the Sea at Scheveningen (F 4 JH 187) appear to be rushing to the scene. If the boat were being launched, they would likely be already congregated, as they are in Beach and Boats (F 228 JH 227).

6. flat-bottomed shrimpers Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 38: Because the boat depicted has only a single mast and is tied by only a single line, the authors propose that it is "merely a small shrimper," rather than the larger and more typical bomschuit ("bom"), which Vincent mistakenly refers to as a "pink," a medieval boat of similar design that had disappeared a century before. 7. fishermen probably never imagined The fishermen certainly knew about painters. They had long been a favorite subject of Dutch genre painters, especially Jozef Israëls (1824-1911; Dutch artist). (See De Leeuw, Sillevis, and Dumas, pp. 14, 60-62.) These painters, however, focused on interior scenes and exterior vignettes, and even these were mostly posed in the studio, using cues of costume and attribute to convey the local color. Later Hague School painters like Jacob Maris, Anthon Mauve, Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch often painted the Scheveningen fishing boats, but seem to have rarely visited the squalid fishing village itself and certainly would never have braved such harsh weather (ibid., p. 209). Vincent may have looked at first like other artists, but he did not act like any artist these fishermen would have previously encountered. 8. a pair of thick trousers BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "Another thing I've bought for myself is a tough, warm pair of trousers, and, since I bought a pair of sturdy shoes just before you came, I'm now fully prepared to face the elements."

9. coarse fish basket BVG 220, 7/26/1882: Presumably, the fish basket was more stable on the dunes than a folding chair whose legs would sink into the sand.

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "I'm so used to my working clothes, in which I can sit or lie in the sand or grass as I please (for in the dunes, for example, I hardly ever use a chair, except perhaps an old fish basket)."

10. knelt to paint BVG 307, 7/29/1883-7/30/1883: It is unclear to us exactly what Vincent is describing in this statement from the following year, 1883 (see context). One can read it to suggest that before this he had to put the canvas on the ground and work on his knees when he drew outdoors. This is consistent with his statement the previous July: "I'm so used to my working clothes, in which I can sit or lie in the sand or grass as I please (for in the dunes, for example, I hardly ever use a chair, except perhaps an old fish basket)" (JLB 251, 7/26/1882). Yet we know that Vincent was using an easel, and a perspective frame, when he worked outdoors prior to July 1883.

Context:
JLB 369, 7/29/1883-7/30/1883: "Today I bought a field easel and painting canvas. The first is nice, because one doesn't get as dirty as when one works on one's knees outdoors."

11. or sat BVG 220, 7/26/1882.

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "I'm so used to my working clothes, in which I can sit or lie in the sand or grass as I please (for in the dunes, for example, I hardly ever use a chair, except perhaps an old fish basket), that my outfit is rather too Robinson Crusoe-like for me to accompany you much on your rounds."

12. or even lay prone BVG 220, 7/26/1882. Earlier, Vincent wrote, "To put it out of my mind, I'm going to lie in the sand in front of the roots of an old tree and draw them" (JLB 228, 5/16/1882).

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "I'm so used to my working clothes, in which I can sit or lie in the sand or grass as I please."

13. brought sturdy shoes BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "I bought a pair of sturdy shoes just before you came, I'm now fully prepared to face the elements."

14. his linen smock BVG 193, 5/14/1882.

Context:
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "Wearing a linen smock and smoking my pipe and looking at the deep blue sky ... or at the moss or the grass."

15. "like Robinson Crusoe" BVG 220, 7/26/1882. (We have slightly altered the translation.) Why Vincent imagined that Robinson Crusoe wore a linen smock (his "working clothes") is not clear (JLB 116, 5/28/1877). This may have been the nineteenth century image of Daniel Defoe's eighteenth century mariner shipwrecked off the coast of South America, or it may have just been Vincent's vague identification with a fellow outcast. It may even have been a joke.

Context:
BVG 220, 7/26/1882: " I am so used to my working clothes, in which I can lie or sit on the sand or the grass, whichever is necessary (for in the dunes I never use a chair, only an old fish basket sometimes); so my dress is a little too Robinson Crusoe-like for paying calls with you."
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "I'm so used to my working clothes, in which I can sit or lie in the sand or grass as I please (for in the dunes, for example, I hardly ever use a chair, except perhaps an old fish basket), that my outfit is rather too Robinson Crusoe-like for me to accompany you much on your rounds."

16. couldn't fit on the tram

BVG 214, 7/7/1882: Vincent had taken the tram only the month before for a sketching trip to Scheveningen. (See Ch. 18, n. 17.) The steam tram, which left (conveniently for Vincent) from the Rijnspoor station, was inaugurated on July 1, 1879 (Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 41 and Wilkie, p. 107).

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "Now tomorrow I'd like to take a trip to Scheveningen by tram and do some drawing on the beach."

17. walking to the beach BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882: Vincent could be using the term "march" more loosely than literally. In the case previously cited, when he was only drawing, he says that he took the tram: "Now tomorrow I'd like to take a trip to Scheveningen by tram and do some drawing on the beach" (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882). The following summer, the burden of carrying his equipage to Scheveningen prompted him to make an arrangement with Théophile de Bock to store his materials in De Bock's attic near the beach, "so that I don't need to lug it around" (JLB 360, 7/7/1883).

Context:
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "Then I kept my letter back and marched off to the beach this morning, and have just got back with a fairly large painted study of sand, sea and sky, and a few fishing-boats and men on the beach."

18. dozens of tin tubes BVG 222, 8/5/1882. Vincent provides a long list of the colors that he considered "the essentials" (JLB 253, 8/5/1882). To reassure Theo about the expense, Vincent adds: "But I refrained from buying colours one ought to mix oneself" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "And a supply of paint -- big tubes (which work out much cheaper than small ones), but you will understand that I've limited myself to simple colours in both watercolour and oil: ochre (red, yellow, brown), cobalt and Prussian blue, Naples yellow, terra sienna, black and white, supplemented with some carmine, sepia, vermilion, ultramarine, gamboge in smaller tubes."

19. recently liberated painters White and White, p. 83: "The tinpaint tube, for example, invented in the 1830s and marketed by English firms in the early 1840s, had a whole chain of consequences. No longer was the artist constrained to stay indoors in studio light and paint from sketches and models. No longer was paint preparation a major chore. He could travel on the new railway system to paint the outdoors, as did the pioneer landscapists of the Barbizon School." 20. a new watercolor kit BVG 222, 8/5/1882. Vincent reports that the "moist colour box" was "large" with room for "12 pieces or tubes of watercolour with a folding lid that serves as a palette when open -- there's also room for 6 brushes" (JLB 253, 8/5/1882). He calls it "a fine thing to have, and … it will last you for a long time" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "The moist colour box fits into the painting box -- so that if need be I can carry everything required both for watercolour and for painting in one object" (emphasis in original).

21. the awkward saucers BVG 222, 8/5/1882.

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "I had postponed [buying] it until later, and until now worked with loose pieces on saucers, but they're awkward to carry, especially if you have other items as well."

22. his larger perspective frame

BVG 223, 8/5/1882 or 8/6/1882: Vincent reports that he received his new perspective frame, his third, immediately after Theo left in early August. This was the frame he specifically designed for "uneven ground like the dunes" (JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882). (For description, see Ch. 16, n. 362.) Given his enthusiasm for this new frame ("It's in fact especially good for painting"), he undoubtedly took it to the beach at least on the first day of painting in the storm, August 21 (ibid.; emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "This is why I'm having a new and, I hope, better perspective frame made, which will stand firmly on two legs in uneven ground like the dunes."

23. a stretched canvas BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882.

Context:
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "I don't work in the lid [of the painting box], but instead pin the painting paper for the study to a frame with canvas stretched across it, which is easy to carry."

24. paper affixed to it BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882.

Context:
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "I don't work in the lid [of the painting box], but instead pin the painting paper for the study to a frame with canvas stretched across it, which is easy to carry."

25. provisions of bread and coffee BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882. The coffee was mixed with hot water bought from 'a water and coals woman' in Scheveningen (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882).

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Sien and I camped in the dunes for it for days on end from morning till evening like true bohemians. We took bread and a small bag of coffee."

305 26. In the storm BVG 226, 8/19/1882. Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop confirm Vincent's report: "Weather reports indicate that this storm system swept over the Netherlands from 20-24 August 1882" (Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 36). Despite the common dating of BVG 226 to August 19, Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop indicate that the events Vincent describes in that letter (and the two paintings he made in the storm) date from August 21 and 22, and cites Dorn's suggested redating of letter BVG 226 to the next Saturday, August 26 (Vincent wrote at the top of the letter "Zaterdagavond" [Saturday]). This would put it after letter JLB 258, which is dated August 20. (See Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 39, n. 2.) Note that JLB have redated BVG 226 (8/19/1882) to JLB 259 (8/26/1882) and thus confirm Dorn's suggestion that the letter was in fact written six days later on August 26.

On the first of those days, according to Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, "the wind was blowing at force 8 but there was no rain" (ibid., p. 36). The reference is to the Beaufort Scale of Wind Force, developed in 1805. "Force 8" refers to wind speed of 39-46 mph (34-40 knots), described as "gale" conditions with the following characteristics: "Breaks twigs off trees; generally impedes progress" (ibid.). On August 22, the second day Vincent went to Scheveningen to paint in the storm, the winds gusted at "force 9-10" (ibid.). On the Beaufort Scale (from 1 to 12), force 9 refers to winds of 47-54 mph (41-47 knots), described as "Severe Gale" conditions: "Slight structural damage occurs (chimney pots and slates removed)." "Force 10" refers to winds of 55-63 mph (48-55 knots), described as "storm" conditions: "Seldom experienced inland, trees uprooted; considerable structural damage occurs." On the Beaufort Scale, force 11 is "violent storm" and force 12 is "Hurricane" (ibid.). Our descriptions are based on the Beaufort land-based specifications, not the sea-based specifications. The wind speeds and designations are the same for both.

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "All this week we've had gales, storms and rain here, and I've been to Scheveningen many times to see it."

27. The stretched canvas BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882. Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop confirm that the surviving painting from this expedition (View of the Sea at Scheveningen F 4 JH 187) was painted on paper (Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 41). Exactly how Vincent attached the paper to the canvas securely enough to survive the wind, rain, sand, and scraping he describes is a mystery as well as a miracle. The painting was later cut down to eliminate the edges that might have given some clue. Indeed, the entire paint surface was later transferred to canvas, leaving only a few traces of paper. Unfortunately, all of Vincent's and later conservators' efforts at preservation were dealt a serious setback when the painting was stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in December 2002. It has yet to be recovered.

Context:
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "I don't work in the lid, but instead pin the painting paper for the study to a frame with canvas stretched across it, which is easy to carry."

28. a little inn BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "I tried to get it down anyway by immediately painting it again in a small inn behind the dunes, after first scraping it all off, and then going out to take another look from there."

29. gripping his canvas BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882. Vincent writes that the stretched canvas on which he has tacked paper is of "medium size ... which is easy to carry" (JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882). The surviving painting (View of the Sea at Scheveningen F 4 JH 187) is 13½ by 20 in. (34.5 by 51.0 cm.), but it has been cropped (Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 41).

Context:
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "These studies are of medium size, though slightly larger than the lid of an ordinary painting box, because I don't work in the lid, but instead pin the painting paper for the study to a frame with canvas stretched across it, which is easy to carry."

30. "The wind blew" BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "The wind was so strong that I could barely stay on my feet and barely see through the clouds of sand."

31. the roiling gray clouds

See Ch. 18, n. 35.

32. murky, furrowed sea BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "The sea was the colour of dirty dishwater."

33. "thick and sticky" BVG 225, 8/14/1882: Vincent writes this about another painting done on the dunes a week earlier, in better weather. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 225, 8/14/1882: "Then I have painted a huge mass of dune ground -- thickly painted and sticky."
JLB 257, 8/14/1882: "I've also painted a big piece of dune ground -- impasted -- and densely painted."

34. "quick as lightning" BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 223, 8/5/1882 or 8/6/1882: "With long and continuous practice it enables one to draw quick as lightning, -- and once the drawing is established to paint quick as lightning also."
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "With CONSIDERABLE practice and with lengthy practice, it enables one to draw at lightning speed and, once the lines are fixed, to paint at lightning speed" (emphasis in original).

35. At least twice

BVG 226, 8/19/1882: Vincent reports doing two paintings, one on each of two consecutive days of storm activity, August 21 and 22 (See Ch. 18, n. 26). The painting executed on the first day was only "already a lot of sand," he reports (JLB 259, 8/26/1882). But the second one was "when there really was a storm and the sea came very close to the dunes, I had to scrape everything off twice because of the thick layer of sand completely covering it" (ibid.). Over the years, scholarly opinion has mostly equivocated over whether the surviving painting from this two-day expedition (View of the Sea at Scheveningen F 4 JH 187) is the first or the second one Vincent describes. (See Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 39, n. 5.)

Vincent's descriptions only compound the problem. He writes, for instance, that, on the second day, "the sea came very close to the dunes" whereas a good deal of beach is still visible in View of the Sea at Scheveningen (JLB 259, 8/26/1882). However, he also writes about the second day (apparently): "At that spot there was a fishing-boat, the last in the row, and several dark figures" -- exactly the image in View of the Sea at Scheveningen (ibid.). (See Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 39, n. 7.) Vincent says the sea was not as rough on the second day as the first so that there "was less the effect of furrows of ploughed land" (ibid.).

However, this does not mean either that his observation was correct (by his own admission, his visibility was limited on the second day because "the collision between these bodies of water produced a sort of foam like drifting sand that shrouded the foreground of the sea in a haze"), or that he did not paint (or repaint) the sea on the second day to conform to the more interesting "effect" he had seen the previous day (ibid.). Because of this continuing uncertainty, we have conflated the two paintings and Vincent's description of their creation in our account. In any event, we question Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop's inference that the figures on the beach in View of the Sea at Scheveningen were there merely "to admire the stormy sea" (ibid., p. 38). All of the five figures on the left are clearly fishermen's women (indicated by their white caps) who played an integral role in the outfitting of their men's boats (with special responsibility for the nets), and no doubt took an economic as well as an emotional interest in the securing of both in a storm. The cart on the right side of View of the Sea at Scheveningen, drawn by one black horse and one white one, may be a net cart (see photograph in Van Eekelen, ed., p. 76).

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "There's already a lot of sand in the one, but with the second, when there really was a storm and the sea came very close to the dunes, I had to scrape everything off twice because of the thick layer of sand completely covering it. The wind was so strong that I could barely stay on my feet and barely see through the clouds of sand. I tried to get it down anyway by immediately painting it again in a small inn behind the dunes, after first scraping it all off, and then going out to take another look from there."

36. "so covered with a thick" BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 226, 8/19/1882: "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."
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "There's already a lot of sand in the one, but with the second, when there really was a storm and the sea came very close to the dunes, I had to scrape everything off twice because of the thick layer of sand completely covering it."

37. repaint the image BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "I tried to get it down anyway by immediately painting it again in a small inn behind the dunes, after first scraping it all off, and then going out to take another look from there."

38. "to refresh the impression" BVG 226, 8/19/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 226, 8/19/1882: "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."
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "I tried to get it down anyway by immediately painting it again in a small inn behind the dunes, after first scraping it all off, and then going out to take another look from there."

39. "When I paint" BVG 225, 8/14/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 225, 8/14/1882: "But this much I want to tell you -- while painting, I feel a power of colour in me that I did not possess before, things of broadness and strength."
JLB 257, 8/14/1882: "I just wanted to tell you -- I feel that things with colour are becoming apparent in my painting that I didn't use to have, things to do with breadth and strengths."

40. After some initial hesitation Vincent's first comments about painting, immediately after Theo's visit in early August, are laced with a defensive insistence that drawing remains his first love and primary ambition. Torn between his repeated pledges of allegiance to drawing and his brother's demand that he create more "saleable" images in color, Vincent equivocates in plain sight: "to render them through drawing alone, it's necessary to know and feel how to work with the brush" (JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882). He consoles himself that painting will have a positive effect on his drawing (ibid.), and justifies his long, exclusive devotion to drawing as "the backbone of painting, the skeleton supporting everything else" (JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882). Similarly, he argues that by satisfying Theo's demand for landscape images, he will learn more about figures, his true love: "At the same time my aim is to learn a couple of things about technique through this landscape painting which I feel I'm in need of for my FIGURES, namely rendering different fabrics, and the tone and colour. In a word, the expression of the body -- the mass -- of things." (JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882; emphasis in original.)

We believe that after this initial period of ambivalence and face-saving, Vincent became genuinely enamored with oil painting. Thus, his early expressions of enthusiasm sound tepid ("It is my decided aim to learn from this painting of landscape a few things about technique which I feel I need for the figure" [JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882]) compared to his later ones ("I have a feeling for nature and the heart of a painter" [JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882]). The extent to which he exaggerates his passion (at first) to Theo is evident from a letter to Van Rappard on August 13: "For I don't find it [painting] in the least alien, and I'm very interested in it" (JLB 256, 8/13/1882). In fact, in this same letter, he draws the line directly between Theo's request and his new work: "As for me, as the result of a visit by my brother, who saw my watercolours, I too am busily painting" (ibid.). This is a far cry from his claim to Theo at the same time that painting was always part of his plan: "I'm very glad that I have the necessary equipment, because in the past I often had to restrain myself" (JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882).

41. "plunged headlong" BVG 228, 9/3/1882. Elsewhere, Bonger translates this as "throw [oneself] headlong" (see BVG letters 226, 265, and 268). The corresponding JLB translations are as follows: "threw themselves into it" (JLB 259, 8/26/1882), "throw oneself into it" (JLB 310, 2/8/1883), "thrown myself headlong into it" (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883).

Context:
BVG 228, 9/3/1882: "You can see that I am plunging full speed ahead into painting, I am plunging into colour."
JLB 260, 9/3/1882: "As you see, I'm immersing myself in painting with all my strength."

42. at least two dozen scenes Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop, p. 36: According to Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop only twenty painted studies that Vincent is known to have executed during his approximately two years in The Hague have survived. According to Hulsker (who claims that twenty-five Hague-period works survive, a claim that he repeats in The New Complete Van Gogh), a little over half of the surviving paintings date from August-September 1882 (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 56). However, Van Tilborgh and Vellekoop's count of paintings mentioned in the letters reaches eleven by letter JLB 259,8/26/1882. At least eight additional paintings are mentioned in subsequent letters through the first half of September. We assume Vincent created a few works that he did not mention in his letters. We are skeptical, however, of Vincent's claim a year later, after leaving The Hague, that he "[had] more than 70 painted studies lying in The Hague" (JLB 391, 9/28/1883). Our estimate reflects our belief that this is probably an inflated number. The circumstances that would lead to such an exaggeration will be discussed in the next chapter. 43. "painted from early" BVG 227, 8/20/1882.

Context:
BVG 227, 8/20/1882: "For two weeks I have painted from early in the morning until late at night, so to speak."
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "I've now painted for a fortnight from early morning to late in the evening, so to speak …"

44. "scarcely taking time" BVG 227, 8/20/1882.

Context:
BVG 227, 8/20/1882: "If I have now painted so many studies in a short time, it is because I work hard, literally working all day, scarcely taking time even to eat or drink."
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "If I've now painted quite a number of studies in a short time it's also because I keep on working on them, and literally work all day, barely taking the time even to eat or drink."

45. "adventures" BVG 227, 8/20/1882. After a particularly vivid description of an expedition on which he painted "a piece of ground dug over -- white, black and brown sand after a downpour," Vincent writes: "it's because of similar adventures, which happen very often in different ways, that it seems sensible to me to wear ordinary working clothes that aren't easily ruined" (JLB 258, 8/20/1882)."

Context:
BVG 227, 8/20/1882: "… it is because of such adventures, which often present themselves in different forms, that I think it is not superfluous to wear an ordinary workman's suit, which is less easily spoiled."
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "… it's because of similar adventures, which happen very often in different ways, that it seems sensible to me to wear ordinary working clothes that aren't easily ruined."

46. everything looked more beautiful BVG 227, 8/20/1882.

Context:
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "How beautiful it is outdoors when everything is wet with rain -- before -- during -- after the rain. I really ought not to miss a single shower."

47. covering himself in mud BVG 227, 8/20/1882: This entire expedition, described in loving detail by Vincent, turned into a wallowing mess -- suggesting strongly that Vincent brought from his childhood a mischievous delight in getting his clothes dirty.

Context:
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "After I'd been sitting in front of that piece of ground for a while drawing, there came a thunderstorm with torrential rain that lasted a good hour. I had become so gripped, however, that I stayed at my post and sheltered as best I could behind a thick tree. When it had finally passed and the crows took to the air again, I wasn't sorry I had waited, because of the wonderfully deep tone the ground of the wood had taken on after the rain. Because I had started before the storm on my knees with a low horizon, I now had to kneel down in the mud …"

48. In one painting

BVG 227, 8/20/1882: Girl in White in the Woods, F 8 JH 182, August, 1882, oil on canvas, 15.4 by 23.2 in., 39 by 59 cm, Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. Vincent describes the creation of this painting, which Hulsker refers to as "undoubtedly the best of the series" that Vincent painted in August and September (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 146).

Context:
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "The other study from the woods is of big green beech trunks on a ground with dead leaves, and the small figure of a girl in white. The great difficulty there was to keep it clear and bring in space between the tree-trunks, which stand at different distances -- and the place and relative thickness of the trunks altered by the perspective. To ensure, in short, that one can breathe and wander about in it -- and smell the woods."

49. "you [can] smell the fragrance" BVG 227, 8/20/1882.

Context:
BVG 227, 8/20/1882: "There was the great difficulty of keeping it clear, and of getting space between the trunks standing at different distances -- and the place and relative bulk of those trunks change with the perspective -- to make it so that one can breathe and walk around in it, and to make you smell the fragrance of the wood."
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "The great difficulty there was to keep it clear and bring in space between the tree-trunks, which stand at different distances -- and the place and relative thickness of the trunks altered by the perspective. To ensure, in short, that one can breathe and wander about in it -- and smell the woods."

306 50. without reserve BVG 226, 8/19/1882: Vincent started painting on August 7 after having bought a generous supply of paint. He wrote to Theo by August 19.

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "Please accept my sincere thanks for your letter and the enclosure. As soon as I received your letter I bought seven guilders' worth of paint in one go in order to have a supply in reserve and fill up the gaps."

51. "one must not spare" BVG 228, 9/3/1882: Even at this early time in his painting career, Vincent recognized that sometimes an image did not require excessive amounts of paint. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 228, 9/3/1882: "One doesn't paint well by using a lot of paint, but in order to do a ground effectively or to get a sky bright, one must sometimes not spare the tube. Sometimes the subject calls for less paint, sometimes the material, the nature of the subjects themselves demands impasto."
JLB 260, 9/3/1882: "Good painting doesn't consist in using a great deal of paint, but to give a ground true strength, to make a sky bright, sometimes one mustn't worry about a tube more or less. Sometimes the subject requires that one paints thinly, sometimes the material, the nature of the things, makes it self-evident that they must be impasted."

52. squeezed it from the tube BVG 228, 9/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 260, 9/3/1882: "I squeezed roots and trunks into it from the tube, and modelled them a little with the brush."

53. too much deliberation BVG 228, 9/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 260, 9/3/1882: "I was struck by how firmly the slender trunks stood in the ground -- I began them using a brush, but because of the ground, which was already impasted, one brushstroke simply disappeared."

54. "I am sure no one" BVG 225, 8/14/1882. Vincent repeats the boast to Van Rappard: "Actually, I don't believe that anyone seeing my first painted studies would say that they were my first" (JLB 256, 8/13/1882).

Context:
BVG 225, 8/14/1882: "And as for these two, the small marine and the potato field, I am sure no one could tell that they are my first painted studies. To tell you the truth, it surprises me a little. I had expected the first things to be a failure, though I supposed they would improve later on; but though I say so myself, they are not bad at all, and I repeat, it surprises me a little."
JLB 257, 8/14/1882: "In the case of these two, and of the small seascape and the potato field, I know for certain that people wouldn't say, all things considered, that these were my first painted studies. To tell you the truth, it surprises me a little. I thought that the first things would look like nothing at all, although they would improve later, I thought, though I say so myself, that they do look like something, and that rather amazes me."

55. "I don't know myself" BVG 228, 9/3/1882; emphasis in original.

Context:
JLB 260, 9/3/1882: " I don't know myself how I paint. I sit with a white board before the spot that strikes me -- I look at what's before my eyes." (Emphasis in original.)

56. his treasured figure drawings BVG 227, 8/20/1882.

Context:
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "One of the things I like about painting is that for the same effort as for a drawing one takes home something that conveys the impression much better and is much more pleasing to look at. And at the same time more accurate. In a word, it's more rewarding than drawing."

57. "something infinite" BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 226, 8/19/1882: "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."
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "There's something infinite about painting -- I can't quite explain -- but especially for expressing a mood, it's a joy."

58. "hidden harmonies" BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 226, 8/19/1882: "There are hidden harmonies or contrasts in colours which involuntarily combine to work together and which could not possibly be used in another way."
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "In the colours there are hidden harmonies or contrasts which contribute of their own accord, and which if left unused are of no benefit."

59. "tender things" BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882.

Context:
BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882: "And at the same time one can express tender things with it too, let a soft grey or green speak amid all the ruggedness."
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "And at the same time one can say delicate things with it too -- let a soft grey or green speak in the midst of roughness."

60. "[Painting] is more gratifying"

BVG 227, 8/20/1882. (See Ch. 18, n. 56)

Context:
BVG 227, 8/20/1882: "In a word it is more gratifying than drawing."
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "In a word, it's more rewarding than drawing."

61. "It is so delightful" BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 226, 8/19/1882: "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."
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "There's something infinite about painting -- I can't quite explain -- but especially for expressing a mood, it's a joy."

62. "[and] so sympathetic" BVG R11, 8/13/1882.

Context:
BVG R11, 8/13/1882: "Painting is so sympathetic to me that it will be very difficult for me not to go on painting forever."
JLB 256, 8/13/1882: "I find painting so appealing that I'll have to make a great effort not to paint all the time" (emphasis in original).

63. "I have a painter's heart" BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882.

Context:
BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882: "Of course the studies must get even better. I know they have many faults, but I believe that in these first ones you will already see something of the open air, which proves that I love nature and that I have a painter's heart."
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "It goes without saying that the studies must become more beautiful -- and that certainly they have their shortcomings too -- but I believe that even in these first ones you'll already see that there's something of the open air in them, something that proves I have a feeling for nature and the heart of a painter."

64. "Painting is in the very marrow" BVG 228, 9/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 228, 9/3/1882: "I know for certain that I have a feeling for colour and shall acquire more and more, that painting is in the very marrow of my bones."
JLB 260, 9/3/1882: "I know for sure that I have a feeling for colour that will develop more and more, that painting is in my very marrow."

65. After barely a month Theo visited before August 5. Immediately after his visit, Vincent went out and bought the necessary supplies for oil painting (JLB 253, 8/5/1882). In the next letter (dated August 5-6), he reports that his new perspective frame is completed. "On Monday I'll start doing large charcoal drawings with it, as well as painting small studies" (JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882). Presumably, "On Monday" refers to Monday August 7. He appears to have largely quit painting around mid-September. Letter JLB 261, 9/9/1882 includes several sketches of paintings he had done "this week"; while the next letter (JLB 262, 9/11/1882) reports mostly drawings and encloses several watercolors (one of which is "after a painted study") -- even though Theo has just sent him the 50-franc installment for the tenth of the month.

Vincent never explicitly renounces oil painting. In letter JLB 262, 9/11/1882, responding to Theo's news about a bad debt that has put him in financial jeopardy, Vincent says only that he plans "to vary the work a little, and try to make both ends meet." He indicates that he plans to "buy a new supply" of paint and jokes, "there's so much paint around that it has even got onto this letter" (ibid.). He closes by writing that autumn is "the finest season to work in," although this could refer to either watercolor or oil painting. The next letter (JLB 264, 9/17/1882) is preoccupied with watercolors and "sketches in watercolours." Vincent is still vowing to "vary" his work, but all painting with oils appears to have stopped by this time, and no surviving works in oil are attributed to the period between September 1882 and August 1883.

66. "full speed ahead" BVG 228, 9/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 228, 9/3/1882: "But now that I sense I have gained the open sea, painting must go full speed ahead as fast as we are able."
JLB 260, 9/3/1882: "But now, I feel I'm on the high seas -- painting must proceed with all the strength that we can muster."

67. "strike while the iron" BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882.

Context:
BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882: "Now that I am making some progress, I will try and strike while the iron is hot -- that means I shall go on painting."
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "Now that it's going well, I'll try to strike while the iron's hot and carry on painting for a little."

68. least convincing of these BVG 227, 8/20/1882: As soon as he starts painting in oils in early August, Vincent begins fretting ostentatiously over the cost of paint supplies, even as he consumes them at a furious rate. By the middle of the month, he reports that "the money is almost used up," and tugs at his forelock: "if I continued like this it would work out too expensive as long as I'm not selling" (JLB 258, 8/20/1882). However, all of these early protests appear to be nothing more than business as usual for Vincent: that is, leveraging Theo's new mandate for saleable color works to wangle more money from him.

Working with typical Van Gogh indirection, Vincent clearly hopes to steer Theo into authorizing a higher level of subsidy because of the higher expenditures on paint supplies -- but he wants the raise to be (or, at least, appear to be) Theo's idea, not his own. The best evidence for this reading is that even as Vincent vows to cut back on his consumption of art supplies because they are so expensive, he continues to consume them in prodigious quantities and talks in rapturous terms about the images that "demand" being rendered in color (e.g., "the effect of the yellow leaves" [JLB 258, 8/20/1882]). This letter, JLB 258, 8/20/1882, is another tour-de-force of surreptitious persuasion (like, most recently, JLB 222, 5/1/1882, the letter that preceded Vincent's revelation of the affair with Sien), in which Vincent uses the appearance of a quandary to solicit the desired "voluntary" response.

In JLB 258, 8/20/1882, he states the quandary this way: "And this is why I'm in doubt as to whether it's possible that, despite the higher costs, painting as absolutely the main pursuit might not work out cheaper." But this comes at the end of a letter filled with reasons why he should continue the oil studies (e.g., they "have a much more agreeable look than either the black-and-white drawings or the watercolours that you saw recently"). But Vincent also tries to avoid directly assuring Theo that the images actually are saleable. In other words, he tries to have it both ways -- suggesting that the painted studies are a promising route to salability (and therefore worth the additional expenditure) but also avoiding being held to the standard of salability, at least in the short term. It is crucial to this stratagem that Theo has not seen any of the oil studies in question; he has only Vincent's descriptions of them to go by, and Vincent takes great care with those descriptions to touch all the important talismans of salability: color, tone, subject, a feeling for nature ("through honest study of nature"), etc., aiming for Theo to put the pieces together to reach the desired conclusion. (Vincent's control over Theo's impression of his work will become important when Theo asks Vincent to send him some examples of that work.)

After making all these carefully crafted arguments, Vincent closes by dramatically placing the decision in Theo's hands: "I would rather that you make this decision" -- an act of deference that is wildly uncharacteristic for Vincent, and therefore of doubtful sincerity (ibid.). The irony, of course, is that this is exactly the exaggeratedly circumspect approach that Vincent's father and brother took with him, although they did not raise it to such an art as Vincent does. At the most fundamental level, Vincent's claim that he quit oil painting because of the expense defies the logic of his entire life: he never let cost, either financial or emotional, impede his obsessions. Even Hulsker admits, "it is difficult to believe that [the expense] was his only reason for giving up painting" (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 146).

69. "Though I myself" BVG 227, 8/20/1882.

Context:
JLB 258, 8/20/1882: "Although I enjoy it tremendously, and probably won't paint as much as my ambition and pleasure demand for the time being, because of the heavy costs …"

70. "consider me" BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
BVG 219, 7/23/1882: "Then I believe they will soon stop their gossip. The only thing they can do is exclude me from some circles where they consider me an outcast."
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "... then there will very soon be a stop to the gossip, and then only in certain circles will I be seen as a social pariah and be cast out."

71. "They look down upon me" BVG R16, 10/31/1882: We have changed this to an active from a passive construction.

Context:
BVG R16, 10/31/1882: "Although the number does not matter so much, I just mention it to show you that I am trying to push on energetically, and yet I am looked down upon, and considered a nonentity, by fellows who are certainly working less hard than I am -- which by the way leaves me pretty cold -- and nobody here pays the slightest attention to my work."
JLB 276, 10/29/1882: "Although the number isn't that important, I mention it to show that I try to put some effort into it, and yet I'm looked down upon as nothing by people who certainly work less than I do, which also leaves me fairly cold, and no one here takes the slightest notice of my work."

72. they jeered BVG 306, 7/27/1883: Vincent may have provoked the cold shoulder of friends and family by walking in town with Sien. That, at least, is the implication of this report from Bonger's "Memoir": "Acquaintances and relatives were shocked to see him walking about with such a slovenly woman; nobody cared to associate with him any longer, and his home life was such that nobody came to visit him" (Bonger-Van Gogh, p. xxxiii).

Context:
JLB 368, 7/27/1883: "If one follows one's conscience -- for me conscience is the very highest form of reason -- the reason within the reason -- one is tempted to think one has acted wrongly or foolishly, one gets particularly upset if more superficial people are amused by thinking they're so much wiser and are so much better at getting where they want."

73. he slunk away BVG 285, 5/20/1883: Vincent reveals this without meaning to. In this passage, he describes seeing acquaintances on the street and following them at an unseen distance long enough to create several detailed impressions. Arnoldus Petrus Eversteijn and Richard Howard Tripp were art dealers whom Vincent knew well enough that, had he not been ostracized, he would have been on speaking terms (see JLB 343, 5/20/1883; n. 6).

Context:
JLB 343, 5/20/1883: "I saw Arnold in town with someone else, perhaps Tripp -- they were walking with Mauve. But saw them in the far distance. Because Mauve was in the middle I thought of Christ between two thieves, or else the group, in dark silhouette against a sunlit wall, looked like someone being taken in by two gendarmes."

74. "I purposely avoided" BVG 312, 8/17/1883. Vincent admits this in August 1883 in a letter to Theo summarizing a conversation that he had with his father in late September 1882 when Dorus paid a surprise visit to the Schenkweg apartment (JLB 269, 9/25/1882). "About a year ago now, Pa came to The Hague for the first time since I'd left home in search of peace, which I didn't find there. Of course I was already with the woman then and said, 'Pa, since I don't blame anyone for finding something shocking in my behaviour, given the present conventions, I stay away of my own accord from those who I believe would be ashamed of me. And you understand that I won't make it difficult for you, and as long as I haven't yet got my affairs in order and am not back on my feet, wouldn't you think it better if I didn't visit you?'" (JLB 375, 8/18/1883.)

Vincent's memory has confused, conflated, or perhaps consciously altered some key details. Dorus's first visit after Vincent "left home in search of peace" was his visit to the hospital in June 1882, not the September visit. At the time of the earlier visit, Vincent had not yet told his father about Sien. Without that knowledge, the rest of the conversation, as Vincent relates it, makes no sense. Vincent's dating of "about a year ago" is of no help in confirming this reading because the mid-June hospital visit and the late-September surprise visit lie roughly equidistant from the mid-August date of this letter the following year. However, to read this passage as constituting a revelation that Vincent told his father about Sien during his visit to the hospital in June would impute to Vincent an extraordinarily thorough and effective charade in his dealings with his brother, who continued to believe that Vincent had not revealed the affair to their father for months after the June encounter in the hospital.

Context:
JLB 375, 8/18/1883: "I stay away of my own accord from those who I believe would be ashamed of me."

75. he pretended not to care BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "That you've left me free as regards my private life and affairs, and won't coerce or help to coerce me, and then there will very soon be a stop to the gossip, and then only in certain circles will I be seen as a social pariah and be cast out. Which leaves me pretty indifferent, and to which I'm already accustomed."

307 76. claimed not to understandBVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882. This disingenuousness is necessitated by Vincent's continuing reluctance to tell Van Rappard the truth about Sien. Eventually, he will try to wrap both revelations in an elaborate fiction: that his fellow artists have rejected him because he tried to save a destitute cleaning woman who worked for him (JLB 307, 2/4/1883). He never does acknowledge his relationship with Sien to Van Rappard. Indeed, in the effort to cover up the true nature of their relationship, he repeatedly demeans her in the starkest terms ("ugly??? wasted woman") and dismisses talk of a relationship as mere gossip (JLB 232, 5/28/1882). Apparently, Vincent's campaign of disinformation succeeded, because, according to a friend of his, Van Rappard went to his grave believing that the relationship with Sien involved only "a natural Platonic cohabitation" (Van Crimpen, p. 79).

Context:
JLB 267, 9/19/1882: "Contact with artists has, so to speak, completely ceased for me, without my being able to explain exactly how or why."

77. "good will"BVG 249, 12/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 249, 12/1/1882: "But others think it both wrong and foolish of you to have anything to do with me, and they think my own actions even more foolish; and many who at first were full of good will changed their opinion, and their courage and enthusiasm were as short-lived as a straw-fire."
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "Yet others think it both wrong of you and foolish that you took an interest in me, and they believe even more strongly that what I do is absurd, and many who were full of enthusiasm at first end up thinking that too, and are only briefly brave and fiery, like a straw fire" (emphasis in original).

78. "as short-lived" BVG 249, 12/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 249, 12/1/1882: "But others think it both wrong and foolish of you to have anything to do with me, and they think my own actions even more foolish; and many who at first were full of good will changed their opinion, and their courage and enthusiasm were as short-lived as a straw-fire."
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "Yet others think it both wrong of you and foolish that you took an interest in me, and they believe even more strongly that what I do is absurd, and many who were full of enthusiasm at first end up thinking that too, and are only briefly brave and fiery, like a straw fire" (emphasis in original).

79. his rough appearance BVG 220, 7/26/1882: Before Theo's visit in early August, Vincent notifies him that he will not be able to accompany Theo on his appointments, using his clothes as an excuse.

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "… for various reasons I believe it's better for both of us if I don't go with you to the Plaats, say, or to Mauve, for example. ... my outfit is rather too Robinson Crusoe-like for me to accompany you much on your rounds."

80. his social ineptitude BVG 212, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "I don't enjoy company, and dealing with people, talking to them, is often painful and difficult for me."

81. his sensitive nerves BVG 212, 7/6/1882. Vincent is vehemently and longwindedly defensive on this issue, attributing almost all of his problems in the first half of 1882 to this (blameless) problem: "Ask a doctor and he'll immediately understand entirely how it couldn't be otherwise than that nights spent on the cold street or out of doors, the anxiety about coming by bread, constant tension because I didn't really have a job, sorrow with friends and family were at least 3/4 of the cause of some of my peculiarities of temperament -- and whether the fact that I sometimes have disagreeable moods or periods of depression couldn't be attributable to this? But neither you nor anyone else who takes the trouble to think about it will, I hope, condemn me or find me unbearable because of that. I fight against it, but that doesn't alter my temperament. And even if I consequently have a bad side, well damn it, I have my good side as well, and can't they take that into consideration too?" (JLB 244, 7/6/1882.)

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "Simply from nervousness -- I who am terribly sensitive, both physically and morally, only really acquired it in the years when I was deeply miserable."

82. "eccentric and bad things" BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882. Once again, Vincent follows this gloomy thought with an unconvincing effort at optimism: "... but on the other hand it concentrates my attention on the things that aren't changeable, namely the eternal beauty of nature" (JLB 267, 9/19/1882).

Context:
BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882: "All kinds of eccentric and bad things are thought and said about me, which makes me feel somewhat forlorn now and then, but on the other hand it concentrates my attention on the things that never change -- that is to say, the eternal beauty of nature."
JLB 267, 9/19/1882: " I'm made out to be everything peculiar and bad. This means that I sometimes have a certain sense of being abandoned, but on the other hand it concentrates my attention on the things that aren't changeable, namely the eternal beauty of nature."

83. out of fraternal esprit BVG R20, 2/4/1883.

Context:
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "Envy drives many to malign others, systematically. And what is the result? -- instead of one large entity, a body of painters where unity is strength, everyone withdraws into his shell and works by himself. Those who are now cock of the walk create a kind of desert around them just because of their envy, and that's very unfortunate for themselves, it seems to me."

84. "They think my own" BVG 249, 12/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 249, 12/1/1882: "But others think it both wrong and foolish of you to have anything to do with me, and they think my own actions even more foolish; and many who at first were full of good will changed their opinion, and their courage and enthusiasm were as short-lived as a straw-fire."
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "Yet others think it both wrong of you and foolish that you took an interest in me, and they believe even more strongly that what I do is absurd, and many who were full of enthusiasm at first end up thinking that too, and are only briefly brave and fiery, like a straw fire" (emphasis in original).

85. He brooded endlessly BVG 234, 9/25/1882. As usual, Vincent followed this moment of weakness with a gesture of forced optimism: "Well, in many cases one can gradually find out things by looking for oneself as well, and I'm doing that as best I can" (JLB 269, 9/25/1882).

Context:
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "I would rather [Mauve] had spoken to me about the use of body-colour instead of saying: 'Above all, you mustn't use body-colour,' while he himself and all the others, so to speak, nearly always use it, and to the best effect."

86. "I often feel" BVG 234, 9/25/1882: The rest of the quote makes it clear that he is talking about Mauve. In an earlier letter (the source of the subsequent quote in the text), Vincent suggests just how much importance he has come to attach to Mauve's guidance now that he has been deprived of it: "Supposing I had remained on good terms with Mauve, I believe that if I had done a watercolour like the small bench or the present one with the orphans, he would have given me tips that would have made it saleable and changed its final appearance" (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882; emphasis added).

Context:
BVG 234, 9/25/1882: " I often feel the longing and need to ask someone's advice on different questions, but I do not give in to it after what happened with Mauve, and I do not talk to painters about my work."
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: " I often feel a desire and need to seek advice from someone on various questions, but after what happened with Mauve I don't give in to that, and I don't discuss my work with painters."

87. "It stabs me" BVG 208, 6/22/1882. (We have slightly altered the translation.) This poignant expression of regret dates from June, before Theo's visit, but after the relationship with Mauve had received its coup de grâce in the dunes of Scheveningen.

Context:
BVG 208, 6/22/1882: " It stabs me to the heart and depresses me whenever I think of it, though I try to throw the whole thought overboard like useless ballast."
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: " It gives me a stab of pain and an anxious feeling each time I think of it, even though I try to chuck the whole thought of it overboard as useless ballast."

88. watch other artists BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 267, 9/19/1882: "Now it's high time that I sent Karl Robert [Mathieu Meusnier (Georges Karl Robert); French writer], Le fusain, back to you. I've read it through more than once and tried, and yet I make no progress with charcoal, and I prefer to work with a carpenter's pencil. I would like to see someone make a charcoal drawing -- with me it so quickly becomes flat, and the cause is something that I believe would go if I saw it being done. If you come sometime, I have a few things to ask you about it."

89. "they would just" BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882: "I wish they would just take me as I am."
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "I wish they'd simply accept me as I am."

90. thoughts of genetic curses BVG 226, 8/19/1882. One can read Vincent's dark anxieties in his analysis of a character in Zola's La faute de l'abbé Mouret (The Sin of Father Mouret) (1875). Pascal Rougon was a doctor who cared for the poor without pay in the fictional town of Plassans. Zola presents him (somewhat sketchily; he was, like Madame François, a peripheral character) as a caricature of selfless kindness: "Although he was barely fifty, his huge beard and bountiful hair were already white as snow and emphasized the kindly delicacy of his handsome features" (Zola, p. 31).

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "Pascal Rougon, ... is proof that, however corrupt a lineage may be, it's always possible to overcome fate through willpower and principles. In his profession he found a strength that was greater than that of the nature he inherited from his family, and instead of giving in to his natural tendencies he followed a straight, clear path, and didn't slip into the murky waters in which all the other Rougons drowned. He and Mme François in Le ventre de Paris are the most sympathetic figures to me."

91. "What am I" BVG 218, 7/21/1882. Usually within a short time after such confessions, Vincent would recover his defiant self-righteousness and protest unconvincingly: "I don't think it's entirely a misfortune to wrestle alone" (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882).

Context:
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: "What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person -- someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest."

92. story of Robinson Crusoe BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 267, 9/19/1882: "I often think of the old story of Robinson Crusoe, who didn't lose heart because of his solitariness but organized things so that he created work for himself and had a very active and very stimulating life through his own searching and toiling."

93. "who did not lose" BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882.

Context:
BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882: "Often I think of the old story of Robinson Crusoe, who did not lose courage in his isolation, but managed to create a round of activities for himself so that through his own seeking and toiling his life became very active and animated."
JLB 267, 9/19/1882: "I often think of the old story of Robinson Crusoe, who didn't lose heart because of his solitariness but organized things so that he created work for himself and had a very active and very stimulating life through his own searching and toiling."

94. With his shabby clothes BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "Then my ugly face and my weather-stained jacket are perfectly in keeping with my surroundings, and I'm myself and work with pleasure."

95. fearless street urchins BVG 202, 5/27/1882.

Context:
JLB 231, 5/27/1882: "I must tell you that these days I'm already out of doors by 4 o'clock in the morning, because during the day it's too difficult to be on the street on account of the passers-by and the urchins, and because that's the best time to see the broad outlines while things still have tone."

96. "That's a queer sort" BVG 230, 9/11/1882. Vincent goes on to say that he "rather enjoyed that comment," and he may have (JLB 262, 9/11/1882). But no doubt there were other comments that he didn't report to Theo that he didn't like.

Context:
BVG 230, 9/11/1882: "Yesterday, for instance, I heard someone behind me say, That's a queer sort of painter -- he draws the horse's ass instead of drawing it from the front."
JLB 262, 9/11/1882: "Yesterday I heard someone behind me say: well, what kind of a painter is that? -- he's drawing the horse's backside instead of doing him from the front."

97. "vehement scratching" Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 156. 98. asked to leave Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 156: "According to later stories of Breitner's, even there [in soup kitchens and railroad waiting rooms] Vincent managed to incur the people's wrath. Breitner discreetly made small sketches in a modest little sketchbook, but Vincent showed up with large sheets, and sat there vehemently scratching with a carpenter's pencil, through which he caused such a stir that he was chased away." Van der Mast and Dumas's construction does not make it clear whether Vincent was literally "chased" by others (official or otherwise) or whether, as in other recorded cases, the negative attention he attracted forced him to leave on his own. 99. "spat his quid" BVG 230, 9/11/1882: Vincent reports this incident with seemingly good cheer. But Vincent has already complained bitterly about harassment -- in the potato market especially. Of course he would like to think (and would like Theo to think) that all of his woes are the product of his unconventional art, not his increasingly bizarre public persona.

Context:
BVG 230, 9/11/1882: "… it may serve as an example of The Hague public's politeness towards painters that suddenly a fellow from behind me, or probably from a window, spat his quid of tobacco onto my paper."
JLB 262, 9/11/1882: "The politeness of the populace of The Hague towards painters is, however, demonstrated by the fact that a fellow behind me, or probably at a window, suddenly spat a wad of tobacco onto my paper …"

100. "You cannot imagine" BVG 234, 9/25/1882.

Context:
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "You can't imagine how wearying and irritating it is that people always gather round so close. It makes me so nervous sometimes that I have to give up."

101. very early morning hours BVG 234, 9/25/1882. After being harassed on an outing in September, Vincent reports getting up and going out to draw because "it was very early and I hoped to be spared" (JLB 269, 9/25/1882). Vincent's other strategy for avoiding crowds was to venture beyond heavily trafficked areas, both as destinations and as travel routes. This applied even to Scheveningen, which was increasingly crowded with tourists in summer. Vincent complains: "Scheveningen have lost much of what was real and, another thing, are taking on a more frivolous character, more so each year. Now, not just 10 but 30 or even 40 or 50 years ago was when the painting of the dunes &c. in their true character started. At that time things were more Ruisdael-like than now. If one wants to see something that evokes a Daubigny, a Corot atmosphere, one must go further along to where the ground is almost untouched by the footsteps of visitors, etc." (JLB 369, 7/29/1883-7/30/1883.)

Context:
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "Just yesterday morning, although it was very early and I hoped to be spared, a study of the chestnut trees on Bezuidenhout (which are so splendid now) was a failure because of it."

102. as early as four

BVG 202, 5/27/1882. (See Ch. 18, n. 95.) At this stage in his life, Vincent was clearly an early riser. He recounts stopping at the shop of a "water and coals woman" in Scheveningen "at five in the morning when the street-sweepers came to drink their coffee" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). And that would have been after a long trip from the Schenkweg, starting even earlier.

Context:
JLB 231, 5/27/1882: "I must tell you that these days I'm already out of doors by 4 o'clock in the morning, because during the day it's too difficult to be on the street on account of the passers-by and the urchins, and because that's the best time to see the broad outlines while things still have tone."

103. with the sweepers BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882. Vincent recounts seeing "street-sweepers" getting coffee at a "water and coals woman" shop in Scheveningen at five in the morning in late May. In June, in The Hague, he found "dustmen" on the street when he went out at four in the morning (JLB 350, 6/5/1883). In the winter, this might refer to the men who hauled away ashes from fireplaces, stoves, and furnaces. In the summer, it probably refers to garbage collectors.

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "I've already been to that shop at 5 in the morning when the street-sweepers came to drink their coffee."

308 104. "This is worse" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882. In a stunning lapse of self-awareness, Vincent chastises his father for being too "suspicious" and too "mistrustful" of him -- even as Vincent's deception of his parents grows deeper, longer, and more involved (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). He justifies his attitude by assuming that his father would not approve of Sien, thereby pre-empting Vincent's guilt in deceiving him: "if he was a little less mistrustful, if, instead of always seeing me as doing everything wrong, he had devoted a little more patience and good will to understanding my true intentions -- which he always completely misinterprets. In the first place he would have felt less sorrow on my account and more peace of mind about me, and in the second would have spared me a good deal of sorrow." (ibid.) By these gymnastics, Vincent has transferred the entire blame for their estrangement, past and present, to his father.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882: "For it is a great sorrow to think, This is worse than having no home at all, no father, no mother, no relations -- and I have often thought so, as I do now."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "For it's a great sorrow to think that it's even worse: as if I had no home, no father, no mother, no family, and I've often thought that -- do so now as well."

105. In August Stokvis, p. 22: Stokvis's search of the records indicates that the Van Gogh family moved from Etten to Nuenen on August 4, 1882. According to a later letter from Dorus to Theo, Dorus gave his "farewell sermon" in Etten on Sunday, August 6, 1882 (b2244 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van',' 8/2/1883). The move had been in preparation since at least April of that year, as Vincent wrote Theo in the second half of that month: "You've no doubt heard of Pa's calling" (JLB 220, 4/23/1882). In July, in his confrontation with Tersteeg in which the gérant asks him if he has written his parents about Sien, Vincent uses the preparations for moving as an excuse why he has waited to do so: "Do you question that?, I said [to Tersteeg], of course -- but now you must admit that this is hardly a suitable moment, just when they're in the middle of moving at home" (JLB 247, 7/18/1882). Note: JLB only add that it was early August when the family moved; they do not provide a specific date (JLB: Chronology 1882). 106. He tried to reopen BVG 222, 8/5/1882: The last clause, of course, refers to Sien. It is not clear when or if Vincent followed up on this commitment.

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "Give Pa and Ma my warmest regards, thank them for what they gave you for me, and tell them I'll write soon -- but as agreed not about special matters."

107. exchange of pleasantries BVG 312, 8/17/1883: A year later, Vincent described his relationship with his father in the fall of 1882. The exact time frame to which this description applies is not clear, although it follows immediately after a description of a difficult encounter when Dorus paid a surprise visit to the Schenkweg studio on September 25, 1882 (JLB 269, 9/25/1882).

Context:
JLB 375, 8/18/1883: "Well, thinking thus that they were more or less ashamed of me, which tallied with what you told me, I wasn't a busy correspondent and nor was Pa, and neither his letters nor mine were particularly confiding. This, between you and me, is only to explain, not to draw further conclusions."

108. "I am afraid"BVG 226, 8/19/1882. This is not the first time Vincent expresses the fear that his parents will not appreciate his art (nor the last). In early May, he wrote Theo in a more lighthearted vein: "Because Pa and Ma, whom I consider to be lay people in the circumstances, will think it very nice if it's more finished (Belgian merchants say more finessed, according to Mauve, but the rough sketch, which you'd understand if you'd been here, would make them dizzy at the very least" (JLB 222, 5/1/1882; emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 226, 8/19/1882: "Well, I dare not allow myself any illusions, and I am afraid that Father and Mother may never really appreciate my art."
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "In short, I dare not cherish any illusions and do fear that Pa and Ma will never take any real pleasure in it."

109. "it will always be a disappointment" BVG 226, 8/19/1882. (We have combined elements from both translations.) In what appears to be a serious attack of discouragement, Vincent goes on at some length imagining the many ways in which his art would disappoint his parents: "They'll never be able to grasp what painting is, never understand that a figure of a digger -- a few furrows of ploughed land -- a bit of sand, sea and sky, are serious subjects and so difficult, but so beautiful too that it's well worth the trouble of devoting one's life to depicting the poetry that's in them. Also, whenever in the future, even more than now, they should see me slogging and toiling away at my work -- scratching out and altering -- now making a close comparison with nature, and then introducing a change so that they can no longer exactly recognize the spot or the figure, that will always be a disappointment to them. They'll be unable to understand that painting isn't done at a stroke, and they'll always fall back on the idea 'that I can't really do it,' and that real painters work in a totally different way. In short, I dare not cherish any illusions and do fear that Pa and Ma will never take any real pleasure in it. This is hardly surprising and it's not their fault -- they haven't learned to see as you and I have learned. They look at different things from us, and we don't see the same things with the same eyes; they don't evoke the same thoughts. To wish that it could be different is permissible, to expect it is in my view unwise." (JLB 259, 8/26/1882.)

Not surprisingly, many of Vincent's direst insecurities can be detected in this passage. He has attributed to his parents the criticisms not just of people like Mauve and Tersteeg, but those of his harshest critic, himself. His worst fears are cruelly realized around the turn of the year (1882–83) when he gives his father a copy of his first lithograph (of the orphan man) (JLB 306, 2/3/1883). Dorus responds with criticisms. Vincent then re-draws the image to satisfy his father's critique ("now that I know how you would like it to be, I'll try and make it for you") and sends the drawing to his father for his birthday (ibid.). Dorus rejects that one as well ("Pa didn't write that he didn't like it, but that was what came across anyway") (ibid.). "Yet I fear I haven't succeeded," Vincent wrote, heartbroken. "One doesn't always manage to please people when one does one's best" (ibid.).

Context:
BVG 226, 8/19/1882: "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."
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "Also, whenever in the future, even more than now, they should see me slogging and toiling away at my work -- scratching out and altering -- now making a close comparison with nature, and then introducing a change so that they can no longer exactly recognize the spot or the figure, that will always be a disappointment to them."

110. a surprise visit BVG 234, 9/25/1882: Vincent writes about the visit on September 25, a Monday. The visit likely took place the previous weekend.

Context:
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "Now I must tell you that I had a very unexpected and very pleasing visit from Pa, who came to my house and to the studio, which I believe is infinitely better than his only hearing about me through reports from others."

111. Vincent pretended Sworn not to talk about Sien, Vincent could not reveal in his letters to Theo at the time whether the subject came up during his father's visit, which it surely did. At some level, Vincent must have enjoyed the pain of frustrated curiosity that this adherence to his promise inflicted on Theo, who had to be eager to hear what happened when their father walked in on the domestic scene at the Schenkweg. On the other hand, Theo was very much aware that Dorus had suspicions of Vincent's involvement with his model. He had expressed them to Theo as early as June, when he visited Vincent in the hospital (b2240 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882). We think Vincent is probably referring coyly to the "revelation" of Sien when he writes in his report of his father's visit: "If people visit me, then at least their impression is original, but I don't like opinions based on what people say" (JLB 269, 9/25/1882).

As for what Vincent told his father, we believe it closely tracked what he told Van Rappard under very similar circumstances when he visited the studio in May 1882 and found Vincent at work with his "model," Sien. In a letter immediately after the visit, Vincent marginalizes his relationship with her in the most patronizing terms, describes his "assistance" to her in strictly proper, Victorian phrases, and caustically dismisses any suggestion of emotional impropriety: "I hear gossip about how I'm always together with her, but why should I let that bother me? -- I've never had such a good assistant as this ugly??? wasted woman" (JLB 232, 5/28/1882).

Almost a year later, in another effort to "explain" Sien to Van Rappard, Vincent summarizes what he said the previous spring: "Do you recall that when you visited me last summer we met a woman and I told you that she was a model I'd found, and also told you how I discovered that she was pregnant and tried all the harder to help her because of that?" (JLB 307, 2/4/1883). In this letter, and the next one, Vincent fleshes out in much greater detail a version of his relationship with Sien that focuses on the Victorian myth of rescue and excludes any suggestion of emotional attachment (JLB 309, 2/8/1883).

We believe that this is the version of the story that Vincent probably gave his father when he visited unexpectedly in September 1882. "Soon after [I discovered that Sien was pregnant] I fell ill myself. She was then in the hospital in Leiden, and in hospital I got a letter from her saying how anxious she was. Before then -- during the winter when she suffered terribly -- I did what I could, and now I was deeply divided within myself as to what to do. Could, should I help? … And what should I do? I had much to think about at that moment. She'd had a very difficult birth, the poor creature of a mother. Aren't there moments in life when remaining inactive or saying, 'What's it to do with me?' is criminal?" (JLB 307, 2/4/1883.) "I am dealing with a woman who had one foot in the grave when I met her, and was shocked and disorientated in her mind and nervous system. Her only chance of surviving, according to the professor in Leiden, was to lead a well-ordered, domestic life. And even then it will take years before she's completely normal." (JLB 309, 2/8/1883; emphasis in original.) Van Rappard, apparently, went to his grave professing to believe this story; Dorus knew his son better than that (Van Crimpen, p. 79).

112. included a woman's coat BVG 236, 10/8/1882. Vincent reports that he "was very touched" (JLB 271, 10/8/1882), and subsequent commentators have followed his cue to suppose that his parents, implicitly at least, accepted Sien by their gift of the coat (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 134). Vincent further encourages this inference in a letter to Van Rappard in February of the following year in which he writes: "What I must also tell you is that when my father first heard about this, you will understand that he wasn't best pleased, or rather didn't know what to think, not having expected such a thing from me. Then we saw each other again nonetheless, which hadn't happened since I came here after leaving home because of the problems there. And when he heard more of the details, he looked at it differently from at first." (JLB 307, 2/4/1883.)

In addition to the obvious confusing or fudging of the chronology (Dorus did not know about Sien until long after their first reunion in The Hague in June), this passage should be read in the context of what Vincent was simultaneously withholding from Van Rappard at the time. Yes, Dorus knew Vincent's censored version of the Sien story -- the same version he told Van Rappard (see Ch. 18, n. 112) -- but neither one knew the true story. The gift of the coat constituted yet another vain hope for the best from Vincent's parents; they preferred clinging to Vincent's strained fiction rather than giving in to their worst fears about his fate.

Context:
JLB 271, 10/8/1882: "Imagine, this week to my great surprise I received a package from home -- with a winter coat, warm trousers, and a warm lady's coat. I was very touched."

113. show of support BVG 312, 8/17/1883: Vincent's view was that Dorus's offer was, at best, half-hearted; at worst, insincere. He faulted his father for not responding appropriately when Vincent said, "wouldn't you think it better if I didn't visit you?" (JLB 375, 8/18/1883). Nothing could show more clearly Vincent's hypersensitivity to his father's affections than this extraordinary nitpicking. Given that this account dates from almost a year after the event, it undoubtedly suffers from the effects of deep and recurrent obsessing. The finely parsed phrasings suggest an effort to avoid the real and very raw emotions of the encounter: Dorus did not want his son to come home and Vincent knew that. This overwrought reconstruction allows Vincent to cast himself as the spurner, not the spurned.

Context:
JLB 375, 8/18/1883: "'And you understand that I won't make it difficult for you, and as long as I haven't yet got my affairs in order and am not back on my feet, wouldn't you think it better if I didn't visit you?' If to that Pa had said something like 'No, that's going too far,' I would have been friendlier since, but Pa's reply was in between yes and no; it was, Oh, do what you think best."

114. father nor son was fooled BVG 234, 9/25/1882.

Context:
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "Now I must tell you that I had a very unexpected and very pleasing visit from Pa, who came to my house and to the studio, which I believe is infinitely better than his only hearing about me through reports from others."

115. "They were" BVG 312, 8/17/1883.

Context:
BVG 312, 8/17/1883: "So, presuming they were more or less ashamed of me, which fits in with what you said, I was not very keen on correspondence -- neither was Father, and neither his letters nor mine have been a very intimate."
JLB 375, 8/18/1883: "Well, thinking thus that they were more or less ashamed of me, which tallied with what you told me, I wasn't a busy correspondent and nor was Pa, and neither his letters nor mine were particularly confiding."

116. lapsed into superficiality

BVG 234, 9/25/1882. (See Ch. 18, n. 112.) When Theo writes Vincent about his acquaintance in Paris who is living in sin with a woman, Vincent launches his long response with this coy remark: "Such people exist there and here" (JLB 274, 10/22/1882).

117. coded references BVG 242, 11/5/1882. Vincent seems to derive some meager pleasure in smuggling forbidden references to his new family into his letters to Theo in defiance of their agreement. A more indirect strategy was to talk ostensibly about books: "Yet however wittily these things are put, I still don't like [a book by Gerard Bilders], and have more respect for the private difficulties of Millet, who says 'Nonetheless there must be soup for the children'" (JLB 258, 8/20/1882). Almost any mention of Zola's work could serve as an oblique reference to Sien. Speaking of the bounder character Octave Mouret in Pot-bouille (Pot Luck), Vincent comments pregnantly: "he appears to have no other aspirations, except for conquests of women, and yet he wasn't really fond of them, for Zola is right I believe when he says, 'where his contempt for the female was apparent'" (JLB 286, 11/24/1882).

Another strategy, of course, was to talk about his own art: "I have toiled and laboured, so that at the moment I'm dead tired, having done 7 painted studies. There's also one with a figure -- a mother with a child in the shadow of a big tree, in tone against a dune on which the summer sun is shining. An almost Italian effect." (JLB 257, 8/14/1882.) Even the reference to "Italian effect" may be code for the more sexually liberated Italian peasants often depicted in popular art. That Vincent was ever mindful of the restrictions on his letters to Theo is revealed when, in January 1883, the ban is lifted (see Chapter 19): "I conceded to you [i.e., during Theo's visit in August 1882] that the circumstances were such that there was good reason not to speak of that for the time being. And now you know that I haven't spoken further of that." (JLB 301, 1/13/1883.)

Context:
JLB 292, 12/10/1882: "I thought I saw something -- deeper, more infinite, more eternal than an ocean -- in the expression in the eyes of a baby -- when it wakes in the morning and crows -- or laughs because it sees the sun shine into its cradle."

118. unfathomable circumlocutions BVG 237, 10/22/1882. Letter JLB 274, 10/22/1882 is a tour-de-force of indirection, an epistolary form in which both Van Gogh brothers excelled even under normal circumstances. Theo has apparently written Vincent about an acquaintance in Paris who is living with a younger woman to whom he was not married, probably (judging from the extreme circumlocutions employed) a woman of low repute, like Sien. Not unreasonably, Vincent treats this as an invitation to report on his relationship with Sien, but only in airy abstractions that self-consciously observe the agreement not to discuss her and only in apparent response to Theo's example. Even for the Van Gogh brothers, this is an opaque exchange. Everything is cloaked in abstractions and progressions of faux logic.

Our best reading is this: In regard to the acquaintance in Paris, a desperate situation arose and, in an effort to be kind, the man moved the woman into his home -- a situation analogous to Vincent's. But Theo apparently used the example to make the point that the man did what he did for the wrong reason -- i.e., to reclaim his youth, or hang onto it. Thus, he did the right thing for the wrong reason: implying that Vincent, too, is doing the right thing for the wrong reason -- an emotionally tone-deaf argument that would be typical of Theo. In his murky reply, Vincent says that he is not concerned about someone's reasons for doing the right thing, i.e., about some overarching philosophy. He maintains that the important thing is the deed, not the idea. He also argues that a man who does the right thing for the wrong reason is better than the great majority of people who advocate the right thing but never actually follow through by doing the right thing. This could be a veiled criticism of Theo, who may have packed off a lower-class mistress to the coast of Brittany in 1877. (See Chapter 9, and Ch. 11, n. 223.) Vincent, of course, casts himself as the man trying to do the right thing -- one small act at a time.

Context:
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "Don't think that I look with contempt on people such as you describe because their life isn't founded on serious and well-considered principles. My view on this is as follows: the result must be an action, not an abstract idea. I think principles are good and worth the effort only when they develop into deeds, and I think it's good to reflect and to try to be conscientious, because that makes a person's will to work more resolute and turns the various actions into a whole. I think that people such as you describe would get more steadiness if they went about what they do more rationally, but otherwise I much prefer them to people who make a great show of their principles without making the slightest effort to put them into practice or even giving that a thought. For the latter have no use for the finest of principles, and the former are precisely the people who, if they ever get round to living with willpower and reflection, will do something great. For the great doesn't happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together." (Emphasis in original.)

119. simply wrote less often Silence was surely the most frustrating solution for a man who found so much validation in defiance. Vincent's letters definitely trail off from August through October. In August, he wrote seven letters, equal to about seventeen pages of single-spaced typescript; in September, he wrote seven or eight letters totaling about fifteen pages; in October, only four or five letters, totaling about ten pages. After months of relentless letter writing, there were two long hiatuses during this period: a fourteen-day period between JLB 258, 8/20/1882 and JLB 260, 9/3/1882 and, in the middle of October, a seven-day period between JLB 272, 10/15/1882 and JLB 274, 10/22/1882. The former was the longest hiatus in letters since soon after Vincent's arrival in The Hague, an eighteen-day period between JLB 203 (1/26/1882) and JLB 204 (2/13/1882). After Theo reports his own woman troubles in late October, the pace of letter-writing picks up dramatically again. In November, Vincent wrote nine letters totaling twenty-two pages; and in December, seven or eight letters totaling eighteen to twenty pages. Numbers are not precise because some letter dating is uncertain and the totals include only letters to Theo, not to Van Rappard. 120. Every unaccounted guilder The combination of a new family and a new medium soon overwhelmed his chronic budgetary indiscipline. Vincent begins his new project with the usual pledges to economize: "I'm enjoying it [painting] so much, Theo, that I'll have to restrain rather than push myself because of the costs. … It becomes too expensive a business if you're not sparing with the paint." (JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882.) In response to an inquiry about the status of his health, Vincent offers this reassuring non sequitur: "I believe that it's also beneficial that I live as frugally as possible" (JLB 260, 9/3/1882). The only specific proposal for economizing that he offers is that Theo find a source of cheaper painting materials in Paris: "I want to bring one thing to your attention as important. Wouldn't it be possible to get paint, panels, brushes, &c. for the net price? At present I have to pay the retail price. ... We could come to an arrangement as to the money. It would of course be cheaper. Think about it, if you will." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) Of course, it should be pointed out that the net effect of this arrangement would be to increase Theo's total subsidy (unless Theo deducted the cost of the materials bought in Paris from his monthly payments, something that he had never done when he was supplying Vincent with paper).

Like so much of Vincent's posturing toward his brother, this proposal reflects the contrary pull of guilt ("I wish you did not have to support me") and resentment ("Why don't you send me more?" and "Why do you make me ask for more?"). These conflicting imperatives can be seen also in Vincent's contradictory behavior after being informed of Theo's financial crisis (JLB 262, 9/11/1882). In the very same letter, he writes: "But remember that something extra will of course help me make extra progress -- more successfully than otherwise" (ibid.; emphasis added). And although he vows to "vary the work a little" (i.e., do more drawings rather than paintings to reduce his expenses), he simultaneously asserts his eagerness to do more painting: "I thank you for sending while you yourself are so hard pressed. I need it twice as badly, because the autumn goes so quickly and it's the finest season to work in." (ibid.)

In his next letter, he reports to Theo that he has fulfilled his promise to draw more, paint less (" I'm a little concerned about paint and a few other things, but ... there is and will continue to be an endless amount of things to draw" [JLB 264, 9/17/1882]), but in a letter to Van Rappard the next day, he reports enthusiastically on a shopping trip to buy more prints (JLB 267, 9/19/1882). Almost on the same day, he reports dolefully to Theo: "As I write to you, I'm already down to my last guilder. I hope to hear from you soon but, bearing in mind what you last wrote to me I think it very possible that you may not be able to spare the usual precisely on the twentieth." (JLB 266, 9/18/1882.) Nonetheless, he adds in apparent desperation: "I want to ask you to send whatever you can spare, be it more or less, even if it's only a small part" (ibid.). But the reason he gives for his desperation must have struck Theo as, at best, insensitive in a time of financial crisis: "A model is coming on Friday afternoon, a man from the almshouse, and I wouldn't like to send him away unpaid" (ibid.). Only a few days later, he admits to Van Rappard: "As you know, I have a particular liking for woodcuts. I usually buy them very cheaply, and yet by my standards I spend quite a lot on them and have never regretted that." (JLB 268, 9/23/1882; emphasis added.)

Needless to say, Theo hears nothing about the continuing purchases of prints at this time. Vincent offers only two additional expressions of concern about his brother's financial plight: a chipper remark ("Well, I sincerely hope your pockets aren't too empty" [JLB 271, 10/8/1882]); and a grave one ("don't need to tell you that I sincerely hope you'll receive the you know what" [JLB 272, 10/15/1882]) -- a contrast in mood that perfectly reflects his conflicting feelings. Within weeks of embarking on his new initiative, he was forced to ask plaintively for "a little extra this month."

When Theo responded with details of his own financial woes (a friend had defaulted on a loan), Vincent felt a fresh surge of guilt (JLB 262, 9/11/1882). The specter of a financial "calamity" befalling his brother on his account triggered pangs of self-reproach. "I'm so concerned that you yourself might perhaps be in serious difficulties," he wrote (JLB 264, 9/17/1882). For the first of many times, he pledged all his work to Theo (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882) and promised to do less painting, which was expensive, and more drawing, which was not (JLB 264, 9/17/1882). Vincent had stated the same intention in the previous letter: "But I'll vary the work a little and manage to get by" (JLB 262, 9/11/1882). This promise turned out to be hollow because as soon as he started drawing instead of painting, he returned to hiring models. Only a week after repeating this vow, he writes: "A model is coming on Friday afternoon, a man from the almshouse, and I wouldn't like to send him away unpaid" (JLB 266, 9/18/1882). A few weeks later, he acknowledged that turning from painting to drawing had not really saved money: "I'm varying it now by working a good deal with models, though that also mounts up" (JLB 272, 10/15/1882). This is the clearest indication that Vincent's primary reason for retreating from oil painting was not to reduce expenses.

121. the burden of guilt See Ch. 18, n. 121. 122. "Everything is" BVG 228, 9/3/1882. At first, Vincent tries to dismiss the new and unfamiliar expenses of oil painting as merely business as usual: "Well, these are drawbacks that all painters face -- we must see what's possible" (JLB 260, 9/3/1882).

Context:
BVG 228, 9/3/1882: "If I am going to paint on panel or canvas then the expenses will go up again, everything is so expensive, paint is expensive, too, and is so quickly used up."
JLB 260, 9/3/1882: "If I work on panel or canvas, the costs go up again -- everything is so expensive -- paint is expensive too, and is used up so quickly."

123. "So many things" BVG 234, 9/25/1882.

Context:
BVG 234, 9/25/1882: "This is partly because so many things that I start turn out wrong, and then one has to begin anew, and all the trouble has been in vain -- except that after all, this is the way to make progress, and one must persevere."
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "But that's also partly because many of the things that I begin don't come off, and then one has to start again and the effort comes to nothing, except that this is the way to make progress, and that one must persevere."

124. refused to send anything BVG 233, 9/19/1882: For obvious reasons, Vincent never outright refuses to send Theo the study he has requested. He opens his frantic arguments on the subject disarmingly. What follows is another example of Vincent's common strategy in such predicaments: to avoid the appearance of open defiance by posing a question, offering a storm of arguments on behalf of the desired answer, and then suggesting the final decision is Theo's. Vincent laces the arguments with statements that leave no doubt as to his strong preference: "And if I would really prefer to wait until things are riper before sending" (JLB 266, 9/18/1882); "But what I would like most of all would be for you to see everything together -- is there any possibility that you could come again in the winter sometime? If so, I certainly think it would be better if I don't send. Anyway." (ibid.) Another inevitable feature of these arguments is suggestion: "Well, I believe that you'll take the same view and will naturally take these things into consideration" (ibid.). And, of course, the concluding show of deference: "But write and tell me what you'd like me to do, and rest assured that as regards sending or not sending yet I'll do what seems best to you" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 266, 9/18/1882: "As regards sending you a painted study, I have nothing against that -- but before I do, we must agree on a couple of things."

125. tortured argument BVG 233, 9/19/1882. Elsewhere in the argument, Vincent says more directly what is only implied in this passage: that studies vary more in quality than finished works, another reason they are unrepresentative: "The greater their variety, the harder one labours at them, the easier one works later when it comes to actual paintings or drawings" (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882).

Context:
JLB 266, 9/18/1882: " Studies done out of doors are different from paintings intended to go out into the world. In my view the latter stem from the studies, but may, and indeed must, differ from them markedly. For in the painting the artist presents a more personal idea, and in a study his aim is simply to analyze a piece of nature. Either to give his thought or conception precision, or to arrive at a thought. Thus studies belong more in the studio than in the trade, and shouldn't be looked at from the same viewpoint as paintings." (Emphasis in original.)

126. "Making studies" BVG 233, 9/19/1882. Vincent does not explicitly draw out the lesson of this familiar metaphor as the text does, but that is the logical extension of the metaphor as he uses it to buttress his argument for not sending Theo a study. In a letter the day before this one, he writes: "In short, I think of the studies as seed, and the more one sows the more one may hope to reap" (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882).

Context:
BVG 233, 9/19/1882: "I consider making studies like sowing, and making pictures like reaping."
JLB 266, 9/18/1882: "I regard making studies as Sowing, and making paintings as reaping" (emphasis in original).

127. of tree roots BVG 234, 9/25/1882: Vincent's phrasing suggests that there was a subject in the background of the study, probably a figure, as in A Girl in a Wood (F 8 JH 182).

Context:
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "The only explanation I can offer about this is that the study was done as a study of the foreground, namely the tree roots."

128. apologies and self-criticism BVG 234, 9/25/1882.

Context:
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "But, as I said in my last letter, I would of course rather you could see them all together sometime, and it goes without saying that you mustn't judge the future by this one, since I haven't been working with the brush long enough for me not to change a great deal. … Make no mistake, old chap, I send you this because, since you said nothing about it, I didn't know what to do. Of course I intend something very different from this, and I'm sending it in the same way that I make a scratch sometimes, to give you an idea of what I'm working on. … Another thing, you understand that I could do some things differently, for example some branches &c., if I painted them again …"

129. "no one would guess" BVG R11, 8/13/1882. We have altered the translation.

Context:
BVG R11, 8/13/1882: "Speaking frankly, I do not think people would conclude from my first painted studies that they really are my first."
JLB 256, 8/13/1882: "Actually, I don't believe that anyone seeing my first painted studies would say that they were my first."

130. "I have been handling" BVG 234, 9/25/1882.

Context:
BVG 234, 9/25/1882: "… and of course you can't judge the future from the one, as I have been handling the brush for too short a time not to expect great changes. … I would rather have sent you something else, … Like myself, you will find much to criticize in the background. … If it is a disappointment to you, you must remember that it is such a short time since I began painting."
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "... you mustn't judge the future by this one ... I haven't been working with the brush long enough for me. I wanted to send you a different one ... Like me, you will no doubt have reservations about the background ... If you're disappointed, remember that I started only a short time ago."

309 131. "not to judge the future"

BVG 234, 9/25/1882. (See Ch. 18, n. 129.) We have altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 234, 9/25/1882: "But as I told you in my last letter, of course I would much rather that you saw them all together; and of course you can't judge the future from the one, as I have been handling the brush for too short a time not to expect great changes."
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "But, as I said in my last letter, I would of course rather you could see them all together sometime, and it goes without saying that you mustn't judge the future by this one, since I haven't been working with the brush long enough for me not to change a great deal."

132. "If when looking" BVG 234, 9/25/1882.

Context:
JLB 269, 9/25/1882: "… if it's the case that, on seeing it and knowing that I have many others as well as this one, you don't regret enabling me to make it, then I'll be content and shall carry on in good heart."

133. "I feel more and more" BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "I felt more and more a kind of emptiness which I can't fill with the things being made today."

134. "skepticism, indifference" BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883: "It seems to me that something of the fine spirit of that time which ought to have been preserved is disappearing -- in art especially. But also in life itself. Perhaps I express myself too vaguely, but I cannot say it differently -- I don't know exactly what it is, but it is not just the Black-and-White which changed its course and deviated from its healthy, noble beginning ... Rather, there is in general a kind of skepticism and indifference and coolness, notwithstanding all the activity."
JLB 305, 1/27/1883: "It seems to me that something from the past that was good and should have been kept is going, in art particularly, but also in life itself. Perhaps I'm expressing things too vaguely, but I can't put it another way -- I don't know myself what it is exactly, but it wasn't only the Black-and-White that changed direction and strayed from the healthy, noble beginnings. Rather, in general a kind of scepticism and indifference and coldness prevails, despite all the activity."

135. its decadence BVG 315, 8/20/1883-8/21/1883.

Context:
JLB 377, 8/20/1883: "For my part, I wrote to you before that it seemed to me that since Millet a sharp falling off was evident, as if the peak had already been reached and decline had set in."

136. its dullness BVG R24, 1/25/1883-1/30/1883.

Context:
JLB 304, 1/25/1883: "Don't you find something very dull about these times?"

137. its lack of passion BVG R24, 1/25/1883-1/30/1883.

Context:
JLB 304, 1/25/1883: "A certain lack of passion and warmth and open-heartedness. The 'dealers' and their cronies may claim that 'it's in the nature of things that the desired change will come' (isn't this explanation very satisfactory?), but for my part I don't see that 'in the nature of things' so clearly."

138. mourned his lost youth BVG 226, 8/19/1882: When both his brother and his father visited The Hague bearing reports of the family's new home in eastern Brabant, Vincent was overcome with homeward longing. "I've again heard a lot about Nuenen," he wrote Theo after his father's visit in September. "[It] won't leave me alone" (JLB 269, 9/25/1882). Clearly, Vincent meant this quite literally; two weeks later, he repeated it: "The churchyard with the wooden crosses is often on my mind" (JLB 271, 10/8/1882). So strong is Vincent's vision of this image of the (unseen) Nuenen church with its graveyard that he considers making studies of it before he goes there. He elaborates the image extensively in his imagination, fusing favorite imagery from his past: "I would like to do something like that in the snow -- a peasant funeral or the like. In short, an effect like the enclosed scratch of miners." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) The reference "a peasant funeral" is to Jacob Jan van der Maaten's Funeral Procession through the Cornfields.

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "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 ... 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."

139. Brabant countryside BVG R11, 8/13/1882. Elsewhere in the same letter, he writes: "The part of Brabant I know well has since changed enormously through land reclamation and industry. It isn't without a certain nostalgia that I now see a new tavern with a red tiled roof at many places where I remember seeing a wattle-and-daub hut with a moss-covered, thatched roof." (JLB 256, 8/13/1882.)

Context:
JLB 256, 8/13/1882: "Since then have come sugar-beet factories, railways, heath reclamations, &c., which are much less picturesque."

140. "stern poetry" BVG R11, 8/13/1882.

Context:
BVG R11, 8/13/1882: "It can't be helped -- but what is sure to remain is something of the stern poetry of the real heath."
JLB 256, 8/13/1882: "Well, what will remain in me is something of the austere poetry of the true heathland."

141. "My life" BVG 205, 6/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 205, 6/3/1882: " My life, and perhaps after all yours, too, is not as sunny now as it was then; but I would not go back, because through that very trouble and adversity I have seen some good arise, namely the ability to express that feeling."
JLB 235, 6/3/1882: " My life, and yours too perhaps, after all, is no longer as sunny as it was then, but I still wouldn't want to go back, because it's precisely through some trouble and adversity that I see something good emerging, namely the expression of those feelings."

142. re-read Andersen's BVG R16, 10/31/1882.

Context:
JLB 276, 10/29/1882: "Don't you find Andersen's fairy tales very beautiful? -- he must be another of those illustrators."

143. He put aside Zola BVG 247, 11/24/1882. Vincent's response to the book was characteristically idiosyncratic and autobiographical: "the most powerful passage was the kitchen maid Adele (scruffy Breton) giving birth in the dark attic room. Josserand is also portrayed with devilish skill and with sentiment. The rest of the characters too, but these two sombre ones, Josserand writing his addresses at night, and that tiny maid's room, made the most impression on me." (JLB 286, 11/24/1882.) Both Adèle and Josserand are minor characters and it is not hard to imagine that Vincent meant to convey a forbidden message about himself (Josserand) with his nocturnal activities, and Sien (Adèle) with her painful childbirth.

Vincent's reaction to the book was clearly colored by his failure to identify with the main character: "Octave Mouret -- actually the main character -- couldn't he be regarded as typical of the kind of people you wrote about recently, if you remember? He's far better than most people, in many respects, but you won't find him satisfactory any more than I do, and I sense an emptiness in him. Could he have done differently? Perhaps he couldn't, but you and I can and must in my view. After all, we have our roots in a family life of a different kind from Mouret's." (ibid.) Far from the romantic hero of the other books Vincent was reading at the time, Octave Mouret was a very modern anti-hero -- a fact that frustrated Vincent: "Anyway, I don't know what to think of him. He seems to me to be a product of the time, actually more passive than active -- despite his activity." (ibid.) This attitude will change a few years later in Nuenen (see Chapter 21).

Context:
JLB 286, 11/24/1882: "I've finished the book by Zola, Pot-bouille [Pot Luck]."

144. potboilers of Erkmann-Chatrian BVG 232, 9/18/1882. Vincent mentions two books by the French writing team of Émile Erckmann and Charles-Alexandre Chatrian -- often referred to hyphenated as Erckmann-Chatrian -- that he read in the fall-winter of 1882-83: Les deux frères (The Two Brothers) (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882), and Madame Thérèse (JLB 312, 2/11/1883).

Context:
JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882: "In the last few days I've been reading Les deux frères by Erckmann-Chatrian, which is quite beautiful."

145. Revolution had always loomed BVG R35, 5/21/1883: The French Revolution occupied a place at the very core of Vincent's imagination, the place where religion, art, history, and literature all came together. The best expression of this can be found in a letter to Van Rappard in May 1883 (see context). The final reference, of course, is to the birth of Christ.

Context:
JLB 516, 7/15/1885: "The French Revolution -- that is the centre -- the constitution of 1789 the modern gospel, no less sublime than that of Year 1."

146. "There was definitely" BVG 237, 10/22/1882.

Context:
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "… things were a little warmer then, and more good-humoured and livelier than now."

147. Victor Hugo's stirring account BVG 247, 11/24/1882.

Context:
JLB 286, 11/24/1882: "But after Zola's book I read Quatre vingt treize [1893] by V. Hugo at long last. That's entirely different territory. It's painted, I mean written, like [Alexandre-Gabriel] Decamps or Jules Dupré."

148. "the sentiment in which" BVG 247, 11/24/1882.

Context:
BVG 247, 11/24/1882: "I would strongly advise you to read it if you haven't already, for the sentiment in which this book is written becomes more and more rare, and among the new things, I really have not found anything nobler."
JLB 286, 11/24/1882: "I strongly recommend that you read it sometime if you haven't read it, for the sentiment in which this book is written is becoming ever more uncommon, and amid the new I see nothing more noble" (emphasis in original).

149. Henri Murger BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882. Vincent writes that Murger's Les buveurs d'eau (The Water Drinkers) "breathes that age of la bohème" (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882). Henri Murger, of course, is and was best known for his Scènes de la vie de Bohème (Scenes of the Bohemian Life), which had come to define the "Bohemian" lifestyle already by this time (fourteen years before Puccini's opera immortalized it). The question arises whether Vincent read the more famous book. Pabst and Van Uitert offer, "Theo van Gogh knew this book [Bohème], Vincent probably did not" (Pabst and Van Uitert, p. 80). At this point, Vincent says rather ambiguously: "The titles of those books sound very attractive, La bohème among others" (JLB 274, 10/22/1882). This suggests that he had heard of the book but not read it. An explanation may lie in his assessment of the Murger book he does report reading at this time, The Water Drinkers. After saying that the book "breathes that age of la bohème ... and that's why it interests me," he complains that "the reality of that period is papered over in the book," and therefore "in my view it lacks originality and honesty of sentiment" (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882). It is difficult to understand the distinction being made. If Vincent were not fundamentally apolitical, one would be tempted to assume that the "reality" being suppressed in the book is the radical politics that were, in fact, woven deeply into the Bohemian subculture but largely ignored by Murger. Typically, "fragrance" was the only thing that interested Vincent.

Context:
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "It [Murger's Les buveurs d'eau] breathes that age of la bohème (though the reality of that period is papered over in the book) and that's why it interests me, but in my view it lacks originality and honesty of sentiment."

150. Alphonse Daudet BVG 237, 10/22/1882. Either Vincent moved on quickly to other works by Daudet or he had already read some, for only a few weeks later he writes: "Still, old chap, read Le Nabab [1877] above all. It's splendid. One could call that character the good scoundrel. Are there such people? I'm sure there are. There's a lot of heart in those books by Daudet. For example, in Les rois en exil the character of the queen 'with eyes of aquamarine.'" (JLB 292, 12/10/1882; emphasis in original.) A few years hence, Daudet will become hugely important to Vincent for another of his books, Aventures prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon [The Amazing Adventures of Tartarin de Tarascon, 1872], which helped define Vincent's experience of Provence.

Context:
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "Did I write to you before that I read Daudet's Les rois en exil? I thought it rather beautiful."

151. read that winter

See Ch. 18, n. 151 and n. 150.

152. fading as fast BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882. See JLB 267, n. 26: "Van Gogh borrowed this line from Felix Holt, the radical; it is both the motto and the conclusion of Chapter 6. 'Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives, And feed my mind, that dies for want of her.'"

Context: JLB 267, 9/19/1882: "I once read in Eliot 'though it be dead, yet let me think it lives ...'"

153. Millet, Corot, Dupré, and Breton BVG R11, 8/13/1882: These names are a representative sample from a much longer and more discursive list that Vincent provides of artists whom he believes have been eclipsed by the newer generation of painters, elaborating his theme of great artists dying out through both attrition and neglect.

Context:
JLB 263, 9/12/1882-9/17/1882: "Some time ago there was also an exhibition of French art from private collections -- Daubigny, Corot, Jules Dupré, Jules Breton, Courbet, Diaz, Jacque, T. Rousseau -- which at once stimulated me and yet made me feel a little melancholy, when I thought of how the faithful veterans have vanished one by one. Corot is no more. T. Rousseau, Millet, Daubigny -- they're resting from their work. Jules Breton, Jules Dupré, Jacque, E. Frère, they're still with us, but how long will they still be going around in their smocks? They're all already old and have one foot in the grave. And their successors -- are they worthy of those first modern masters?" (Emphasis in original.)

154. taking special aim BVG R17, 11/1/1882: Because he is writing Theo, Vincent dares not level this accusation directly, but it is unmistakable. The ten-year period Vincent refers to is the ten years since the painters of the Hague School first made their appearance at Goupil, when he was an apprentice there. In that decade, they had gone from being marginal newcomers to mainstream successes.

Context:
JLB 279, 11/1/1882: "And believe me, those who saw the leading lights of today both as people and as artists 10 years ago -- when they were all much poorer -- they've earned a huge amount in those 10 years -- miss those days of 10 years ago."

155. "capriciousness" BVG 315, 8/20/1883-8/21/1883.

Context:
BVG 315, 8/20/1883 or 8/21/1883: "I think now there is a spirit of capriciousness and satiety; people are generally more lukewarm."
JLB 377, 8/20/1883: "Now I believe there's a spirit of caprice and satiety. People are generally more lukewarm."

156. "the honesty" BVG 251, 12/3/1882-12/5/1882.

Context:
BVG 251, 12/3/1882-12/5/1882: "Do I want them back or do I want people to imitate them? No, but I want the honesty, the naïveté, the truth, to remain."
JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882: "Do I want them back, or do I want them to be imitated? No, but I do want the honesty, the naivety, the faithfulness to remain."

157. especially the fraternité BVG 237, 10/22/1882. Vincent plays out this theme of lost solidarity with an example drawn from his extraordinarily encyclopedic knowledge: "It was certainly an interesting time when there were so many artists in Alsace: [Gustave] Brion, [Charles François] Marchal, [Gustave] Jundt, [Benjamin] Vautier, [Ludwig] Knaus, [Jules Théophile] Schuler, [Georg Eduard Otto] Saal, [Alfred] Van Muyden, and many others surely -- at the same time as a group of writers working in the same spirit like Chatrian and [Bertold] Auerbach" (JLB 265, 9/17/1882 or 9/18/1882).

Most of the artists Vincent names were from the Alsace-Lorraine area (Vautier and Van Muyden) and reached a modest prominence between 1850 and 1870, largely due to the promotion of Goupil, which is probably how Vincent encountered them. Mostly genre painters, they have little in common with Vincent's art or obsessions at this time except for the emphasis on figures. There is no suggestion that they shared any special tie other than their common area of origin. Otherwise, their "joining together" appears to be largely a function of Vincent's projection. (See also JLB 265, n. 15.)

Context:
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "How far we have strayed in our age from la bohème of Gavarni's day! It seems to me that things were a little warmer then, and more good-humoured and livelier than now. But I don't know, and there's also much that's good in the present, or would be more than is actually the case if there were rather more joining together."

158. "I had imagined" BVG 256, 12/31/1882-1/2/1883.

Context:
JLB 297, 12/31/1882 and 1/2/1883: "I imagined that the painters here would form a sort of circle or society in which warmth and open-heartedness and a certain unity would prevail."

159. "Higher than the top" BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 241, 11/2/1882 or 11/3/1882: "In that high range there is an equality of genius, but higher than the top of the mountain one cannot climb. … Now in the realm of art the summit has been reached."
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "If one reaches that high zone, one is amid an equality of geniuses, but one can't climb higher than the top of the mountain. … Now, though, the top has been reached in art."

310 160. "It is a great sorrow" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882: "For it is a great sorrow to think, This is worse than having no home at all, no father, no mother, no relations -- and I have often thought so, as I do now."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "For it's a great sorrow to think that it's even worse: as if I had no home, no father, no mother, no family, and I've often thought that -- do so now as well."

161. As early as the 1840s Bailey, p. 73: According to Bailey, "the Illustrated London News, founded in 1842, was the first of the weekly magazines to make extensive use of illustrations for news events." 162. weekly illustrated magazines The Illustrated London News, first published on May 14, 1842, is recognized as the first illustrated weekly newspaper. While illustrations occasionally appeared in other newspapers, The Illustrated London News was the first to carry images in every edition. Illustrated magazines however, were already in print by 1842. Punch (a popular illustrated weekly comic), for example, had been around for about a year by the time the Illustrated London News appeared. A more detailed history of the paper is available from the Illustrated London News Historical Archive (http: //gale.cengage.co.uk/images/PatrickLeary.pdf). 163. had become a rage BVG R20, 2/4/1883: Vincent evokes this image from his days in London nine years earlier (he overestimates the time elapsed). Because Vincent often enlisted his memory in the service of his obsessions, we believe recovered memories like this should be approached with some skepticism.

Context:
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "I do assure you that The Graphics I now have are amazingly interesting. More than 10 years ago I used to go every week to the display case of the printer of The Graphic and London News in London to see the weekly publications."

164. grew bigger Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, p. 41: Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis cite a statistic that obliquely suggests the popularity of these illustrated weeklies: "In America alone, the English weekly The Graphic, according to figures published in the Christmas issue, 1882, 'had a circulation of 50,000.'" In his memoir, the Graphic's founder, William Luson Thomas, boasts: "The success of the Graphic caused the most extraordinary movement. In nearly every country in the world illustrated papers and magazines, started up in all directions, many of them paying us the compliment of copying our illustrations every week." (Thomas, p. 86.) 165. onto boxwood boards Thomas, p. 80: In his memoir, Thomas, himself a wood engraver, recalled his apprentice days in Paris: "Forty years ago French publishers still looked to England for their best wood engravers, and then was I, as far back as the year 1846, a lad of sixteen, already living in Paris, occupied in spoiling good honest boxwood by chipping at it with my graver." 166. rejected them as art BVG 295, 6/22/1883. In his contemporaneous letters to Van Rappard, Vincent does not admit this early indifference to these images, claiming instead that "when I first saw them, and they made such an impression on me that I've gone on thinking of them ever since" -- a clear example of Vincent cutting his message to fit his correspondent (JLB 303, 1/20/1883).

Context:
JLB 356, 6/22/1883: "I did that with the English manner particularly. I didn't find it at all beautiful immediately and first thought, exactly like most people here, that the English were in fact completely wrong."

167. Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward The scene in Sir Luke Fildes's 1874 painting first appeared in a print under the title Houseless and Hungry in the Graphic on December 4, 1869, the magazine's inaugural issue. Bailey points out that Vincent had trouble with the name of this print, calling it "Houseless and Homeless" (JLB 199, 1/8/1882 or 1/9/1882), "Homeless and Hungry" (JLB 235, 6/3/1882; JLB 278, 11/1/1882; and JLB 293, 12/11/1882), and "Home and the Homeless" (JLB 304, 1/25/1883) (Bailey, p. 128). This fixation on the "homeless" aspect of the image may reflect Vincent's own obsessions at the time. Pickvance adds that Vincent mangled other titles and sometimes invented names for prints (Pickvance, p. 33). 168. "beautiful" BVG 017, 6/16/1874.

Context:
BVG 017, 6/16/1874: "There are beautiful things in the Royal Academy this year. [James] Tissot has three pictures there."
JLB 23, 6/16/1874: "There are beautiful things at the Royal Academy this year; among others Tissot has 3 paintings."

311 169. "For me the English" BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 267, 9/19/1882: "For me the English draughtsmen are what Dickens is in the sphere of literature. It's one and the same sentiment, noble and healthy …"

170. "artists of the people" BVG R12, 9/12/1882-9/14/1882.

Context:
BVG R12, 9/12/1882-9/14/1882: "And especially as I myself am working at trying to do things that interest me more and more -- scenes in the street, the third-class waiting room, on the beach, in a hospital -- my respect for those great black-and-white artists of the people, as for instance [Charles Paul] Renouard or Lançon or Doré or [Edward] Morin or Gavarni or [George Louis Palmella Busson] du Maurier or Ch. Keene or Howard Pyle or [Arthur] Hopkins or Herkomer Frank Hol, and countless others, is forever increasing."
JLB 263, 9/12/1882-9/17/1882: "And especially while I myself toil away to make something of the things that interest me more and more on the street, in the 3rd-class waiting room, on the beach, in a hospital, my respect grows for the great portrayers of the people such as, for example, Renouard or Lançon or Doré or Morin or Gavarni or Du Maurier or C. Keene or Howard Pyle or Hopkins or Herkomer and Frank Holl and countless others."

171. "solid and substantial" BVG 237, 10/22/1882.

Context:
BVG 237, 10/22/1882: "That is also why I always feel attracted to the figures of both the English draughtsmen and of the English writers, whose Monday-morning-like soberness and studied restraint and prose and analysis is something solid and substantial to which one can hang on in days when one feels weak."
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "And similarly the figures of either the English draughtsmen or the English writers, on account of their Monday morning-like sobriety and deliberate austerity and prose and analysis, continue to attract me as something solid and firm which gives one something to hold onto on days when one is feeling weak."

172. "rough and audacious" BVG 246, 11/22/1882.

Context:
BVG 246, 11/22/1882: "But I think there is something rough and audacious in these prints that I wanted there, and this partially reconciles me to losing things which were in the drawing."
JLB 285, 11/22/1882: "Yet what I think of these impressions is that there's something rough and unabashed in them that I indeed wanted them to have, which partly reconciles me to the loss of things that were in the drawing."

173. "full of feeling" BVG R20, 2/4/1883.

Context:
BVG R20, 2/4/1883: "I doubt whether, if the 'London Sketches' -- for instance, Herkomer's 'Low Lodginghouse St. Giles' or Fildes's 'Casual Ward' -- were to be painted, they would be quite as full of feeling and character as they are now in that unpolished Black-and-White."
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "I wonder whether the London sketches -- such as Low lodging house St Giles's by Herkomer , Casual ward by Fildes -- wouldn't be a little less compelling and full of character if painted than they are in the rough Black-and-White."

174. "unpolished" BVG R20, 2/4/1883.

Context:
BVG R20, 2/4/1883: "I doubt whether, if the 'London Sketches' -- for instance, Herkomer's 'Low Lodginghouse St. Giles' or Fildes's 'Casual Ward' -- were to be painted, they would be quite as full of feeling and character as they are now in that unpolished Black-and-White."
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "I wonder whether the London sketches -- such as Low lodging house St Giles's by Herkomer, Casual ward by Fildes -- wouldn't be a little less compelling and full of character if painted than they are in the rough Black-and-White."

175. "These are pictures" BVG 238, 10/10/1882. With this line, which Vincent writes in French ("Il y a des tableaux où il n'y a rien et pourtant tout y est"), Vincent is referring back to several prints he has described, the primary one being "Une greve de Charbonniers" (Miners' Strike) by the French painter Alfred Philippe Roll). But that image puts him in mind of another print he has just acquired "by an English draughtsman, Emslie, in which the subject is men going into the mine to help the casualties of an accident if possible, while the women stand and wait" (JLB 272, 10/15/1882). The latter reference is to Alfred Edward Emslie, who contributed to the London News in the late 1870s and 1880s but was primarily known as a painter/watercolorist, not a draftsman (see Pickvance, p. 51).

Context:
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "'There are paintings in which there is nothing and yet everything is there'" (emphasis in original).

176. considered them crass BVG R8, 5/28/1882: Vincent wrote this speaking of Hague artists in general. At one point, Vincent added a disagreement over English illustrations to his list of grievances against Mauve. The way in which he did so suggests they actually argued over it.

Context:
JLB 232, 5/28/1882: "It's a pity that the artists here know so little about the English. Mauve, for example, was enthusiastic when he saw that landscape by Millais [John Everett Millais, 1829-1896; English artist], Chill October, but they don't believe in English art, and judge it too superficially in my view. Mauve always says, 'That is literary art,' but doesn't realize that the English writers like Dickens and Eliot and Currer Bell [Charlotte Brontë], and among the French Balzac, are so astonishingly 'plastic,' if I may put it like that, that it's as powerful as, say, a drawing by Herkomer or Fildes or Israëls."

177. café divertissement BVG 240, 11/1/1882: Vincent wrote this apparently referring to some dismissive characterizations of his beloved wood engravings that he has heard from Hague artists. Vincent uses the same vivid image in a more upbeat, less self-denigrating way in a letter to Van Rappard around the same time: "[When one] thinks of the enormous productivity of most of the men who make those footling illustrations (you know, 'the things that lie in the Zuid-Hollandsch Koffiehuis'), then it sometimes occurs to one that there is indeed a remarkable amount of zeal and fire in them" (JLB 276, 10/29/1882; emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "And as for the painters, I believe they haven't yet made every effort to take the matter to heart. The definition that many a painter here in Holland gives in reply to the question 'What is a wood engraving?' is: 'it's those things lying in the Zuid-Hollandsch Koffiehuis [South Holland Café].' So they rank them among the drinks. And the makers of them among the drunks, perhaps." (Emphasis in original.)

178. Vincent began collecting

BVG 169, 1/5/1882-1/8/1882. Vincent wrote this less than two weeks after arriving in The Hague. The actual title of the famous Fildes image Vincent describes is Houseless and Hungry. The later painting based on this Graphic illustration was titled Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward (1874).

Context:
JLB 199, 1/8/1882 or 1/9/1882: "And I've also acquired another ornament for my studio, I got a great bargain on some splendid woodcuts from The Graphic, some of them prints not of the clichés but of the blocks themselves. Just what I've been wanting for years. The drawings by Herkomer, Frank Holl, [Frederick] Walker, and others. ... Some of them are superb, including the Houseless and Homeless by Fildes (poor people waiting outside a night shelter) and two large Herkomers and many small ones, and the Irish Emigrants by Frank Holl and the 'Old Gate' by Walker. And especially a Girls' School by Frank Holl and also that large Herkomer, the invalids."

179. years of ignoring them Only a few months after arriving in Brussels in late 1880, Vincent compares his drawings to "certain English wood engravings" (JLB 162, January 1881). And a month later he writes his parents that he is "collecting wood engravings again" (JLB 163, 2/16/1881). Yet there are only a handful of mentions of English illustrators in all the letters from 1881: an unannotated list of artists ("Boughton, [Henry Stacy] Marks, Millais, [George John] Pinwell, Du Maurier, Herkomer, Walker") whom Vincent compliments in April as "true masters as 'draughtsmen,'" and only two subsequent mentions of Boughton and Millais and one of Herkomer (JLB 164, 4/2/1881).

(For a thorough discussion, see Pickvance, p. 32. However, we find Pickvance overeager in his effort to find dots to connect between Vincent's time in London and his later obsession with English illustrators.) Vincent never mentions buying any works by English illustrators that year, despite frequent references to purchasing prints by other artists, almost exclusively French and Dutch. It is not until he arrives in The Hague that he mentions buying his first work by one of the English illustrators (JLB 197, 1/5/1882). In announcing the purchases, he writes Theo that they are "just what I've been wanting for years" (JLB 199, 1/8/1882 or 1/9/1882). It seems hard to imagine that, if he was indeed looking, he could not have found similar prints in Brussels, or on one of several visits to The Hague in 1881. This suggests that Vincent means to say that he didn't realize he had been looking for them until he found them -- in other words, the text's argument: that they struck him in a new way.

180. "clumsy and awkward" BVG 140, January 1881. This is Vincent's assessment: "I've just finished at least a dozen drawings, or rather, pencil and pen croquis, which are, it seems to me, already a little better. They vaguely resemble certain drawings by Lançon or certain English wood engravings, but even clumsier, more awkward."

Context:
BVG 140, January 1881: "They vaguely resemble certain drawings by [Auguste André] Lançon, or certain English wood engravings, but as yet they are more clumsy and awkward."
JLB 162, January 1881: "They vaguely resemble certain drawings by [Auguste André] Lançon or certain English wood engravings, but even clumsier, more awkward."

181. Jozef Blok BVG R12, 9/12/1882-9/14/1882. Vincent called him simply "the Jew": "I had to go to some trouble to get The Graphic. For example, I had to do two portraits (two of each!) of the father and mother of the Jew I bought them from." (JLB 302, 1/18/1883.) "The Jew had talked to me about them before the auction" (JLB 304, 1/25/1883). Blok manned a stand-up bookstall on the Binnenhof and Vincent drew a portrait of him in late 1882 (JLB 280, 11/5/1882). According to JLB, Blok was known as "the open-air librarian of the Binnenhof" (JLB 199, 1/8/1882 or 1/9/1882; n. 7). Vincent's mention of a "David Blok" indicates that there was more than one "Blok the Jewish bookseller," apparently related, as Vincent goes on to write in characteristic fashion: "I wish I had more from that family, for they are a true type" (JLB 280, 11/5/1882).

Eventually, at least according to Vincent's report to Van Rappard, he did do two more portraits in the family, although not willingly: "I had to go to some trouble to get The Graphic. For example, I had to do two portraits (two of each!) of the father and mother of the Jew I bought them from." (JLB 302, 1/18/1883.) We suspect that these additional portraits may be apocryphal. Vincent had lied to Van Rappard before about commissions in the ongoing effort to impress him. The slight against Blok's family may be Vincent's effort to get credit for the commission while acknowledging to the aristocrat Van Rappard that patrons like the Bloks were beneath his (and, more to the point, Van Rappard's) artistic dignity. This may seem at odds with Vincent's rhetoric about solidarity with the people, but Van Rappard was real, not rhetorical, as was Vincent's craving for his comradeship.

Context:
JLB 263, 9/12/1882-9/17/1882: "I may be able to add some more later, since the Jew told me he still had more of that jumble of magazines at home (from which I took these and my own) which he hadn't brought along because they were too tattered."

182. bottomless supply BVG 169, 1/5/1882-1/8/1882.

Context:
JLB 199, 1/8/1882 or 1/9/1882: "I bought them from Blok, the Jewish bookseller, and chose the best from an enormous pile of Graphics and London News for five guilders."

183. works by these artists The leaders among this very large group were Sir Luke Fildes, Frank Holl, and Frederick Walker. 184. full-scale obsession In July, after he shared his enthusiasm for English graphic artists with Van Rappard, he reported proudly: "I take enormous pleasure in the fact that that chap is so fascinated by his English woodcuts. ... He's almost as enthusiastic as I am." (JLB 251, 7/26/1882.) Although the English illustrators and the weeklies that featured them (Graphic, Punch, London News) clearly had priority in Vincent's collecting mania at this time, he continued to collect prints by other artists from other magazines as well. Among the latter were the British publications British Workman and Cottage and Artisan ("sometimes have very tame things but sometimes strong, beautiful things" [JLB 273, 10/22/1882]), the French magazine L'Illustration (JLB 268, 9/23/1882), and the Dutch equivalent, Illustration (JLB 267, 9/19/1882). Among the American publications he monitored were Scribner's Magazine ("there are very fine things more in [it]" [JLB 273, 10/22/1882]), Harper's Weekly (ibid.), and Harper's Monthly ("there are things in it I find astounding" [JLB 262, 9/11/1882]). To Van Rappard, not Theo, he gave several other indications of just how large his collection had grown by late September. "Thus, for example, I now have as many as 50 prints about Ireland" (JLB 267, 9/19/1882). He also reports having acquired "40 large and small prints" by the French illustrator Charles Paul Renouard (JLB 268, 9/23/1882). 185. "They are great" BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882.

Context:
BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882: "They have quite another way of feeling, conceiving, expressing themselves, to which one must get used to begin with -- but I assure you it is worth the trouble to study them, for they are great artists, these Englishmen."
JLB 267, 9/19/1882: "It's a different way of feeling, conceiving, expressing, which one has to get used to first. Studying them more than repays the effort, for they are great artists, the English."

186. "They have quite" BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882. We have altered the translation.

Context:
BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882: " They have quite another way of feeling, conceiving, expressing themselves, to which one must get used to begin with -- but I assure you it is worth the trouble to study them, for they are great artists, these Englishmen."
JLB 267, 9/19/1882: " It's a different way of feeling, conceiving, expressing, which one has to get used to first. Studying them more than repays the effort, for they are great artists, the English."

187. Eventually, Vincent bought BVG R22, 1/15/1883: Vincent does not report this purchase until January, but he apparently began negotiating it the previous September at the time he was retreating from painting. "I'm in negotiations with someone [Blok] who's selling a number of magazines that come from a subscription library" (JLB 268, 9/23/1882). Of course, at a time when he is using the expense of painting as an excuse to curtail it, he does not tell Theo about these negotiations.

Context:
JLB 302, 1/18/1883: "I recently bought 21 volumes of The Graphic, namely 1870-1880. What do you say about that? I'll receive them this week, I hope. I got them very cheaply, you understand, otherwise I couldn't have managed it. But I heard that they were for sale and got someone else interested who also appreciates them."

188. twenty-one volumes BVG R23, 1/20/1883. There was one hole in the set Vincent bought, but he vowed: "I'll find that first volume as well, sometime" (JLB 303, 1/20/1883).

Context:
JLB 303, 1/20/1883: "I'm missing part of volume 70, but apart from that 70-80 complete. Altogether 21 volumes."

189. "something solid" BVG 237, 10/22/1882. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG 237, 10/22/1882: "That is also why I always feel attracted to the figures of both the English draughtsmen and of the English writers, whose Monday-morning-like soberness and studied restraint and prose and analysis is something solid and substantial to which one can hang on in days when one feels weak."
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "And similarly the figures of either the English draughtsmen or the English writers, on account of their Monday morning-like sobriety and deliberate austerity and prose and analysis, continue to attract me as something solid and firm which gives one something to hold onto on days when one is feeling weak."

190. sketching expedition Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, pp. 36-37: Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis report that "From 1882 onwards, van Rappard began making frequent trips to Drenthe in the summertimes, an area very much in fashion among the painters of that day" (ibid., p. 75). Vincent mentions this trip in JLB 256, 8/13/1882. This precedent will become extremely influential on Vincent's decision to leave The Hague for Drenthe in the fall of 1883. Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis clarify that Vincent did not influence Van Rappard's choice of destination. "It appears likely that van Rappard's attention was drawn to Drenthe by his friend Willem Wenckebach" (Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, p 75). 191. long collected prints Vincent does not say much about the nature of Van Rappard's collecting prior to this except that it included "small Dürers and Holbeins and the [George] Du Mauriers and a few others," suggesting that Van Rappard was at least familiar with both traditional and current examples of the wood engraver's art (JLB 232, 5/28/1882). It is clear from subsequent letters that Van Rappard's knowledge of prints was deep; in some cases, apparently, deeper than Vincent's. Vincent's encyclopedic discussion of "woodcuts" in JLB 267 (9/19/1882) appears to have been sparked by a specific question from Van Rappard that suggests the latter's special area of knowledge, German engravings. "You ask: do you have many German things?" (JLB 267, 9/19/1882). This inference is supported by Vincent's response to the question, which includes only an extensive list of Alsatian and Swiss artists and the illustrations of German legends done by the illustrator Charles Rochussen -- apparently as close as Vincent can come to a detailed discussion of German illustrators (plus mentions of Gustave Brion and Adolph Menzel). "I don't have a great deal by the Germans," he admits (ibid.).

In addition, Van Rappard apparently asked Vincent about some artists who were not represented in Vincent's collection, suggesting either that Vincent was not as enthusiastic about their work as Van Rappard, or not as knowledgeable. Among these were Achille Jacquet and James Abbot McNeil Whistler (JLB 267, 9/19/1882). The fact that Van Rappard sent Vincent an Art Journal article on wood engravings by Von Herkomer in October 1882 suggests that Van Rappard was following at least some magazines more closely than Vincent (JLB 278, 11/1/1882). Van Rappard may also have kept more closely abreast of Von Herkomer than Vincent through his contacts with German artists and magazines. He had traveled in Germany for several months in the summer of 1876 (Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, p. 11). According to Edwards: "From 1879, Herkomer also exhibited in Germany where his work was consistently praised" (Edwards, p. 133).

192. " en froid" BVG 187, 4/15/1882.

Context:
BVG 187, 4/15/1882: "I have just received a letter from Rappard; I have been 'en froid' with him for some time, but now we are interested in each other's work again."
JLB 217, 4/14/1882: "I've just received a letter from Rappard; was at odds with him for a while, but now we're both interested in each other's work again."

193. precisely the right moment BVG 187, 4/15/1882: It is probably no coincidence that Vincent's first mention of Van Rappard after their long estrangement comes at precisely the time in mid-April when, it appears, he decided to tell Theo about Sien. Knowing Vincent, this ostensibly casual reconciliation could have been the result of an elaborate campaign to lure Van Rappard back into his life at a time when he desperately needed allies, although no letters between the two survive from the relevant period (January-May, 1882).

Context:
JLB 217, 4/14/1882: "I've just received a letter from Rappard; was at odds with him for a while, but now we're both interested in each other's work again. In all likelihood he'll come to see me soon."

312 194. the saints, illustrators

BVG 220, 7/26/1882: This report is sometimes used to support the more general proposition that Vincent's enthusiasm for engravings preceded Van Rappard's. Clearly this refers only to the English illustrators. Like Vincent -- like many of his generation (both artists and non-artists) -- Van Rappard had been collecting prints for some time. (See Ch. 18, n. 191.)

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "I take enormous pleasure in the fact that that chap [Van Rappard] is so fascinated by his English woodcuts. I got him going in the beginning, but now he needs no further encouragement; now he's almost as enthusiastic as I am."

195. begged Rappard BVG R28, 10/22/1882-10/29/1882: Vincent writes this apparently in response to Van Rappard's report on his collection.

Context:
JLB 275, 10/24/1882-10/27/1882: "I just received your letter and it's precisely as I intended. Now I have a rough idea about this and that, and when an opportunity arises I can try to find something to add."

196. astounding knowledge BVG R13, 9/18/1882-9/19/1882. A tour-de-force among many examples is JLB 267, 9/19/1882. It ranges over a variety of styles and periods and artists, talks about many with fluency, shows a deep knowledge both of the artists, their styles, and individual works. It was clearly designed to impress Van Rappard. As it must have. It also betrays some of the manic character of Vincent's learning, an attribute that no doubt led Vincent's fellow artists to question Vincent's mental and emotional stability when he "went off" on a subject like this. 197. games of identifying prints BVG R28, 10/22/1882-10/29/1882.

Context:
JLB 275, 10/24/1882-10/27/1882: "If the boat race by a draughtsman you don't know is one with, in the foreground, a part of a boat in which there are a lady in black, a lady in white and a dog, then it's by none other than Paul Renouard" (emphasis in original).

198. deciphering signatures BVG R28, 10/22/1882-10/29/1882. Many of the artists that Vincent and Van Rappard were collecting "signed" their prints with distinctive monograms, usually artful arrangements of their initials.

Context:
JLB 275, 10/24/1882-10/27/1882: "I would have to see the monogram FD or whatever it is to see whether I could decipher it from the way it was done. It wouldn't surprise me if it was F. [Frank] Dadd. Next, I can't decipher the monogram under the Arrival of the coach."

199. They exchanged books Van Rappard sent Vincent Le fusain (Charcoal Drawing) by Mathieu Meusnier (Georges Karl Robert) (JLB 267, 9/19/1882), and Vincent sent Van Rappard a book on Paul Gavarni (JLB 276, 10/29/1882), the same book that he gave Theo (JLB 260, 9/3/1882). It may be a sign of Vincent's blind enthusiasm for Van Rappard's friendship that he did not take the gift of the Karl Robert book as an insult. It was described in a contemporary review as "a complete practical treatise on landscape drawing in charcoal ... designed for persons who know nothing of the subject treated" (The Nation, Number 794, September 16, 1880, p. 205). 200. hoping to find more BVG R14, 9/22/1882-9/23/1882. Like a suitor trying to pretend there are competitors for his attentions, Vincent tries to inject some contingency into his eager generosity, but the effort is singularly unconvincing: "If they come from L'Illustration, for example, and if I know you already have L'Illustration, I'll give the duplicates, when there's an opportunity, to someone else who might enjoy them and collects them (though at the moment I don't know of anyone for them)" (JLB 268, 9/23/1882). When Van Rappard offered to pay Vincent for the "duplicates" he sent, Vincent invoked a lofty rationale for refusing: "And for my part I believe that you'll agree with me in regarding a friendship as having to be an act above all, not just a feeling. Consequently, it's entirely natural that, of my own accord, I reserved a few things for you that I had in duplicate and you didn't yet have." (JLB 275, 10/24/1882-10/27/1882; emphasis in original.) Given Vincent's financial precariousness, and Van Rappard's bourgeois security, this refusal can be read either as a principled stand or a desperate pretense. From the time they met in Brussels, Vincent was always worried that Van Rappard would think less of him because of his chronic money problems, especially as they revealed his estrangement from his prosperous relatives.

Context:
JLB 268, 9/23/1882: "This is because I'm in negotiations with someone who's selling a number of magazines that come from a subscription library. I've decided to take them in any case, but I already have one or two from the current year, so I'll probably get some duplicates again. ... But if I know you don't have them, then of course they're yours."

201. collections to match exactly BVG R8, 5/28/1882. This strikes us as a heavy hint for Van Rappard to reciprocate by sending Vincent his duplicates. In a subsequent letter, Vincent is more direct: "Now I'll be pleased to hear more about the batch that you bought, not just whether or not there are duplicates but also in general what interesting prints you find" (JLB 302, 1/18/1883).

Context:
JLB 232, 5/28/1882: "I've never seen all of yours together, only the small Dürers and Holbeins and the Du Mauriers and a few others. If you come across anything interesting in that line, let me know."

202. "He is a man" BVG 205, 6/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 235, 6/3/1882: "He is someone who understands what I want and appreciates how difficult it is."

203. When Rappard spoke kindly BVG 205, 6/3/1882. According to Vincent, Van Rappard not only "was pleased with" drawings like the ones he had done for Uncle Cor, but "also pleased by a few nude studies" (JLB 239, 6/22/1882). If true, this latter would have been even more significant to Vincent because of the approval of his relationship with Sien that Vincent would have inferred from it. However, because it comes in a report to Theo at a time when Vincent is desperately trying to win his brother's approval of marriage to Sien, its veracity is necessarily suspect. The approval of the aristocratic Van Rappard would have been a powerful argument in Sien's favor. Of course, in fact, Vincent had not yet told Van Rappard the truth about Sien -- and never would -- no doubt because his disapproval would have been commensurately devastating.

Context:
JLB 235, 6/3/1882: "Rappard was pleased with a similar drawing which C.M. has, and moreover with all the others C.M. has. Especially with the largest of the almshouse. And he is someone who understands what I want and appreciates how difficult it is."

204. "What I most want" BVG 208, 6/22/1882. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG 208, 6/22/1882: It does me so much good when people find some sympathy for my work. For it is so discouraging and dispiriting, and acts like a damper, when one never hears, This or that is right ... It is so cheering to realize that others feel something of what one has tried to express.
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "What I want most is for people to enjoy my work; that gives me such pleasure. For it's so disheartening and stifling and crushing if you don't even occasionally hear: this or that is right … It's so exhilarating when you see that someone really does feel something of what you've tried to express."

205. his astonishment BVG 239, 10/29/1882.

Context:
JLB 277, 10/29/1882: "This week I received a letter from Rappard, who's also surprised by the behaviour of many painters here."

206. Mauve and Tersteeg BVG R16, 10/31/1882. In an effort to console Van Rappard after a work of his was turned down for an exhibition at Arti et Amicitiae, an artists' society in Amsterdam, Vincent writes: "As for Arti, I think this is another of the usual tricks of those gentlemen, one of those things that do not change, that were and will remain what they are" (JLB 276, 10/29/1882). Vincent is not referring specifically to Mauve and Tersteeg in this passage, but he is clearly drawing a parallel between Van Rappard's rejection at Arti and his own rejection in The Hague, about which he told Van Rappard when he visited in May. 207. "play tricks" BVG R16, 10/31/1882: This is a slight variation on other translations.

Context:
BVG R16, 10/31/1882: "I think that these gentlemen are up to their usual tricks again."
JLB 276, 10/29/1882: "I think this is another of the usual tricks of those gentlemen."

208. martyrdom of thankless toil BVG RBVG R9, 6/4/1882-6/5/1882.

Context:
JLB 236, 6/6/1882: "... we poor devils who sit there drawing, whether out of doors, on the street, or in the studio, sometimes in the early morning, sometimes deep at night, sometimes in the heat of the sun, sometimes in the snow, we're the people without sensitivity, with no understanding of practical matters, without 'manners' above all. Fine by me!"

209. favorite martial cadences BVG R19, 11/16/1882. Elsewhere, Vincent invokes the fighting spirit of '93 by comparing himself and Van Rappard to the great French storytelling team of Émile Erckmann and Charles-Alexandre Chatrian whose romantic novels (L'ami Fritz, aistoire d'un conscrit de 1813, Madame Thérèse, etc.) had come to define the French Revolution for Vincent and his generation: "It's only when people combine seriously to work together on something that's too much for one person (such as Erckmann-Chatrian in their works or The Graphic draughtsmen for The Graphic) that I think it an excellent thing" (JLB 276, 10/29/1882).

Context:
JLB 284, 11/18/1882: "It's campaign time, at least a time in which there's a campaign to be waged."

210. "I believe it would" BVG R17, 11/1/1882. By "past," Vincent clarifies that he means "namely 20, 30 years ago" (JLB 279, 11/1/1882). Vincent's conception of this lost golden age is never precisely clear. Elsewhere, he seems to locate it in the heyday of the Graphic. But the Graphic did not start publishing until 1869, well past the window Vincent demarks in this passage.

Context:
BVG R17, 11/1/1882: " I believe it would be a good thing for us to focus our attention on the men and works of former days, say some twenty or thirty years ago, as otherwise it will be justly said of us afterward, 'Rappard and Vincent may also be reckoned among the decadent fellows.'"
JLB 279, 11/1/1882: " I believe we'll do well to keep our attention fixed on the work and on the men of the past, namely 20, 30 years ago, if we don't want it to be rightly said of us later: and Van Rappard and Vincent, too, can be counted among the decadent fellows" (emphasis in original).

211. "They look upon" BVG R17, 11/1/1882. Vincent reiterates this delusional argument to Theo, placing it in the context of the rejection of Van Rappard's picture for an exhibition: "This week I received a letter from Rappard, who's also surprised by the behaviour of many painters here, and had the experience, among other things, of having one of his paintings refused at Arti. I say only this: if the likes of he and I are rated as nothing, is that fair?" (JLB 277, 10/29/1882).

Context:
BVG R17, 11/1/1882: "You know yourself, and you yourself suffer under it, that they look upon you and me as unpleasant, quarrelsome nonentities, and that above all they consider us ponderous and boring in our work and in our persons."
JLB 279, 11/1/1882: "You know it yourself and experience it yourself: you and I are regarded by them as awkward customers and nonentities, and above all we're thought to be heavy going and tedious in our work and in our persons."

212. "Prepare to be misunderstood" BVG R17, 11/1/1882. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG R17, 11/1/1882: "We must not have any illusions about ourselves, but be prepared to be misunderstood, despised and slandered, and yet -- even if things become worse than they are now -- we shall have to keep up our courage and enthusiasm."
JLB 279, 11/1/1882: "We must have no illusions, but prepare ourselves for being misunderstood, despised and vilified, and under all that, even when it gets much worse than it is now, we'll have to hold on to courage and fervour."

213. his parents' home Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, pp. 19-20: Nothing highlights the different situations and dispositions of Vincent and Van Rappard better than the latter's continued close relationship with his family. He stayed with his parents, when not on a drawing trip or recuperating at a spa, until November 1886. 214. large circle of friends

Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, pp. 19-20.

313 215. array of artists' clubsBrouwer, Siesling, and Vis, pp. 19-20: In this period, Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis list three prestigious societies: L'Essor in Brussels, Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam, and Kunstliefde (Love of Art) in Utrecht. (Van Rappard's father was elected chairman of Kunstliefde in June 1882 [ibid.].) According to Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, "Rappard's parentage made him just as much at home among the honorary members as, thanks to his vocation, he felt among the working ones. He became a leading figure in the association and made many new friends there." In addition, in 1883, Van Rappard founded his own association, the Utrechtsche Kunstkring (Utrecht Art Circle) and later his own social club, the Shelfishclub (sic). 216. Vincent rallied himBVG R17, 11/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 279, 11/1/1882: "For ourselves, we must remain strict and put our shoulders to the wheel, but there's absolutely no reason to let oneself be discouraged or upset by what's said about our work by those who think they know a better direction than we who make."

217. "One feels weaker"BVG R16, 10/31/1882.

Context:
BVG R16, 10/31/1882: "In the same way I think one feels weaker as an artist (and rightly too) the more one associates with artists."
JLB 276, 10/29/1882: "Similarly, I think one feels weaker, and rightly so, as an artist the more one mixes with artists."

218. "I believe" BVG R16, 10/31/1882.

Context:
JLB 276, 10/29/1882: "I believe Thomas 219. did not stand a chance A variety of factors hastened the inevitable collapse of Vincent's first painting initiative, some of which he actually argued to Theo and others which he did not, out of pride or denial. The most obvious and fully argued was the escalating expense of oil paints and supplies. In a symbolic act worthy of Ethan Frome, Vincent broke his paint box at almost the exact moment that he abandoned painting: "I jumped from a high bank and, trying to grab my things as quickly as possible, had to get out of the way of a skittish horse in the Rijnspoor yards" (JLB 266, 9/18/1882).

Another argument Vincent made openly was the difficulty of working in the worsening weather. After his painting expedition in the storm on August 21-22, Vincent "caught a cold again" which forced him to "stay at home for a few days" (JLB 259, 8/26/1882). As early as mid-September, he was citing the weather as a reason to withdraw from painting: "We're having very beautiful bad weather at present -- rain, wind, thunderstorms -- but with splendid effects, that's why I find it beautiful, but it does feel raw, by the way. The time that one can sit outside is already getting decidedly shorter." (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882.) By early October, he reported, "Going out of doors to work is all over now" (JLB 272, 10/15/1882). He gave this rationale an added dimension by arguing that the bad weather not only made it more difficult to work outside, it also deprived him of interesting subject matter: "it's just that here one sees very little left of the new green leaves, although some time ago I noticed it too. But here they've been withered by the frequent gales." (JLB 264, 9/17/1882.)

It is interesting that Vincent never contemplated painting still-lifes or portraits at this time, even though he would soon launch into a long series of drawn portrait heads. (In July 1883, he articulated his disdain for still-lifes in general in a letter to Van Rappard: "Tell me, is it true that there's no distinction between, say, a red ochre dish with a cod on it and, say, the figure of a digger or a sower?" [JLB 359, 7/3/1883].) Also, the weather was playing into his disinclination to paint in another way: the coming of winter, with its black branches and white snow, was nature's annual change of medium.

Among the rationales for quitting painting that Vincent did not articulate to Theo was his disappointment in his work. Speaking of a study painted in early September, Vincent wrote, obviously dejected by the results: "It doesn't surprise me, though, that I can't do this straightaway, and that so far when I try I've often failed" (JLB 261, 9/9/1882). About another study, he lamented that he could not ask Mauve for pointers -- an indication of his disappointment in it (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882). About the same time, he admitted to Van Rappard: "As to watercolours, I have several that I've started, but they haven't yet worked out as I wished" (JLB 268, 9/23/1882).

Sometimes it is hard to tell if Vincent's expressions of frustration and dismay about his work relate to watercolor alone (which he always found agonizingly difficult), or to both watercolor and oil painting. At times, he seems to combine the two in his thinking (and despairing) about "painting." Some of his comments suggest that he quickly tried to turn his early enthusiasm for oil painting back toward figures, and, because of the expense of oils, attempted "preparatory" sketches in watercolor, only to run up against the same difficulties that figures always posed for him, in addition to the usual frustrations with watercolor. Because of such failures, it seems, he felt both the need and the inclination to return to basics: i.e., drawing figures. That is the implication of passages like these from September: "They require a general knowledge of the figure that I'm trying to gain by drawing large figure studies" (JLB 261, 9/9/1882). "I really believe that one must learn to draw in such a way that it's as easy as writing something down, and that one must master proportion" (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882).

Another objection to oil-painting was that it could not provide the all-important personal interaction that Vincent found with his studio models. "But the less I get on with people the more I learn to trust nature and to concentrate on it" (JLB 251, 7/26/1882). Partly because he was forced to work very early in the morning and avoid well-traveled routes, Vincent's landscapes are notably devoid of people, and one can assume that his experience of painting them was similarly solitary. Vincent's description of a marine study in September is notably desolate: "nothing but a bit of sand, sea, sky, grey and lonely -- sometime I feel a need for that silence -- where there's nothing but the grey sea -- with an occasional seabird. But otherwise, no other voice than the murmur of the waves." (JLB 264, 9/17/1882.) He sought permission to paint in an area near the train station that was "not [open to the] public" (JLB 266, 9/18/1882).

Finally, Vincent's efforts in oil painting were undoubtedly paralyzed by Theo's demand to see one of his studies -- a reckoning that he was not nearly prepared for, either artistically or emotionally. And Theo's flattering, anticipatory comments to their parents about his oil studies no doubt made Vincent's performance anxiety even worse. After hearing that Theo told his parents about his new oil initiative, Vincent wrote in what can only be described as a panic: "Now they may be waiting expectantly for 'painting in oils.' Now it will come at last, and oh how disappointed they'll be should they see it, I fear, seeing nothing but globs of paint in it. Besides, they regard drawing as a 'preparatory study,' a term I've detested for years and believe is as incorrect as possible. As you well know. And if they see me doing that just as much as in the past, they'll think I'm still engaged in preparatory study." (JLB 259, 8/26/1882.)

Overlaid on this anxiety, of course, was the larger apprehension about their reaction to Sien, as Vincent betrayed in the very same letter. In response to Theo's comment (probably responding to Vincent's resurgent nostalgia) that their parents are "people who are very rare in this day and age," and therefore Vincent should appreciate them more, Vincent wrote: "For my part I do indeed appreciate them, only I fear that what you have now reassured them about for the time being would come back, especially if they saw me again" (ibid.). This panic attack gives the lie to months of noisy defiance and vows of indifference as to what his parents thought of him or his art. 220. learned that Rappard BVG 225, 8/14/1882.

Context:
JLB 257, 8/14/1882: "I received a letter from Van Rappard yesterday. He has been to Drenthe, and judging by two sketches he sent me he hasn't been idle. He seems to be working very hard, and well too, both on figures and landscape."

221. Sien had recovered enough BVG 219, 7/23/1882. At the end of July 1882, Vincent writes: "I've become very caught up in landscapes. The reason is that Sien can't pose yet, but otherwise the figure must remain the chief concern." (JLB 251, 7/26/1882.) Because of his vow of silence about Sien only about a week later, Vincent does not subsequently give details on Sien's return to posing; but he has already made clear that he considers "Sorrow" (F 1655 JH 259) his best drawing so far and he attributes its success partly to Sien's modeling. As his ardor for figure drawing returns, this early success would have encouraged him to use Sien as a model as soon as possible.

Context:
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "She posed for my very best drawing, Sorrow, at least I think it's the best thing I've done."

222. "very little color" BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 226, 8/19/1882: "While writing this I have done another study, of a boy -- grey, charcoal, oil, and very little colour, just for the tone."
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "While writing this I've done another study of a boy, grisaille: charcoal, oil and very little colour, just for the tone."

223. "I want to make" BVG 231, 9/17/1882.

Context:
BVG 231, 9/17/1882: "You can see from the enclosed sketch what I want to make -- groups of people who are in action some way or another. ... As to composition, all possible scenes with figures -- either a market or the arrival of a boat, a group of people in line at the soup kitchen, in the waiting room of the station, the hospital, the pawnshop ... groups talking in the street or walking around -- are based on that same principle of the flock of sheep, from which the word moutonner is surely derived, and it all depends on the same problems of light and brown and perspective."
JLB 264, 9/17/1882: "You'll see from the accompanying scratch what I'm searching for. Groups of people doing something or other. ... As to composition, all possible scenes with figures, be it a market or the arrival of a boat, or a crowd of people at the soup kitchen -- in the waiting room, the hospital, the pawnshop, the groups on the street, talking or strolling, are based on that same principle of the flock of sheep from which the word moutonner certainly derives -- and everything comes down to the same questions of light and shade and perspective."

224. his own collection Vincent's collection was filled with images of le people:

(1) Lining up outside homeless shelters (as in Samuel Luke Fildes's famous painting [see Ch. 18, n. 167]);

(2) Rallying behind Revolutionary banners: Boyd Houghton, The Commune or Death -- Women of Montmartre [Graphic, June 10, 1871]; Godefroy Durand, A Parisian Street During the Reign of Terror [Graphic on April 25, 1874];

(3) Gathering around disaster sites: Alfred Edward Emslie, A Colliery Explosion: Volunteers to the Rescue [Illustrated London News, February 25, 1882]; Daniel Urrabieta Vierge, La Catastrophe de la Houillère de Framières (Disaster at the Framieres Coal-mine) [L'Illustration, May 3, 1879]; Jacques Victor Eugène Froment after Alfred Philippe Roll, Grève de Mineurs (Miner's Strike) [L'Illustration, October 19, 1881] [JLB 272, 10/15/1882]; and Charles Joseph Staniland, The Two Widows, [Graphic on July 31, 1880];

(4) Working together in fields: William Bazett Murray, Market Gardening -- A Winter's Journey to Covent Garden [Graphic, February 12, 1876]; Percy Macquoid, The Mackerel Fishery -- Sketches in a Devonshire Village [Graphic, May 9, 1874]; William Small, An English Ploughing Match [Graphic, March 13, 1875];

(5) In marketplaces: Boyd Houghton, Shaker Evans [Graphic, August 26, 1871]; James Dromgole Linton, London Sketches -- Curds and Whey in St. James's [Graphic, June 14, 1873]; Charles Green, A Sunday Afternoon in a Gin Palace [Graphic, February 8, 1879]; Small, A Festive Dinner at the Seaman's Hospital [Graphic, February 13, 1875]; the same artist's Sunday Afternoon in St. Giles -- Tea at the Working men's Christian Institute [Graphic, January 13, 1872];

(6) Working in mines: M. W. Ridley, Pitmen Hewing the Coal [Graphic, January 28, 1871]; The Night Shift, [Graphic, February 4, 1871]; Félix Elie Régamey, The Diamond Diggings, South Africa, (a double-page) [Illustrated London News, August 31, 1872] [JLB 359, 7/3/1883; JLB 360, 7/7/1883.

Factories and factory workers make a relatively late appearance in Vincent's print collection. By this time, he probably had William Bazett Murray's L'Industrie du Jute -- Le Tissage des Nattes en Angleterre (Illustrated London News, May 28, 1881); and Frank Holl's Shoemaking at the Philanthropic Society's Farm School at Redhill (Graphic, May 18, 1872), but other, similar images, such as Emslie's At Work in a Woolen Factory (Illustrated London News, August 25, 1883) and Charles Paul Renouard's La Crise Industrielle.

225. "innumerable" BVG 231, 9/17/1882.

Context:
BVG 231, 9/17/1882: "For the group of figures in the enclosed sketch varies infinitely and requires innumerable separate studies and sketches of each figure, which one must catch quickly in the street."
JLB 264, 9/17/1882: "Because the group of folk in the accompanying scratch has endless variations and requires countless separate studies and scratches of individual figures which one must catch on the street as if on the wing."

226. new initiativeSee Ch. 18, n. 590. 227. he found especially frustratingBVG 226, 8/19/1882. Vincent was clearly not happy with his first effort to combine figures and painting. After his first experiment, he writes to Theo and then immediately launches into an elaborate excuse for the inadequacies of the two studies (Fisherman on the Beach [F 5 JH 188] and Fisherman's Wife on the Beach [F 6 JH 189]): "Figure painting attracts me enormously, but it still has to ripen. I need to become better acquainted with the method -- what is sometimes called 'the cuisine of art.'" (JLB 259, 8/26/1882.) In the very same letter, he reports another figure study that appears to mark, already, a retreat from both paint and color: "While writing this I've done another study of a boy, grisaille: charcoal, oil and very little colour, just for the tone" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "I've painted some figure studies -- I'm sending you two scratches."

228. never explicitly renounced Conversely, Vincent never really gave up figure drawing, even during the six weeks of his most vigorous painting activity in August and September. In his first letter after Theo's visit in early August, he stated his intention to continue with drawing as an adjunct to his new painting mandate: "before the summer ends I hope to practise bigger sketches in charcoal with an eye to painting in a rather larger format later" (JLB 253, 8/5/1882). A week later, he notified Theo in even more definitive terms that painting would not supplant drawing as his primary mode of expression: "But I've put a lot of work into drawing and will continue to do so, because it's the backbone of painting, the skeleton supporting everything else" (JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882). As early as mid-August, his initial burst of enthusiasm for painting seems to abate (JLB 257, 8/14/1882). This may be the direct result of a letter from Van Rappard in which he reports on his sketching trip to Drenthe, which appears to send Vincent into a nostalgic reverie about his early days of drawing in the Borinage (ibid.). This may, in fact, be the turning point at which Vincent begins to retreat both from his commitment to Theo and from his early enthusiasm for painting -- or at least for painting anything other than figures, which he begins trying almost immediately thereafter, with disappointing results (JLB 259, 8/26/1882). 

By early September, Vincent seems to have launched a low-level campaign to convince Theo that he should retreat from both painting and color. The campaign features the book on the illustrator Gavarni (JLB 260, 9/3/1882) and passages like this, comparing the "tempered light" of color paintings with the dramatic light of black-and-white drawings: "Sometimes there's a gentle melancholy in the falling leaves, in the tempered light, in the haziness of things, in the elegance of the slender trunks. Then, I like the more robust, rougher side just as much -- the strong light effects, for example on a digger sweating in the midday sun." (JLB 261, 9/9/1882.) In the same letter, Vincent includes a catalogue of illustrators and draftsmen (Lançon, Renouard, [James] Mahoney) clearly designed to deflect Theo's pressure for color and landscape. He also argues that painting will improve his drawing -- shifting his ultimate ambition back to its roots. Another indication of his resurgent obsession with drawing is his extensive report on an exhibition of drawings at Gothic Hall in mid-September (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882). In a letter to Van Rappard almost on the same day, he is more direct in his re-embrace of drawing ("It's so silly that this lack of appreciation of drawing is so widespread these days"), and his repudiation of painting (at least watercolor): "I would rather be a waiter in a hotel, for example, than the sort of watercolour manufacturer some Italians are" (JLB 267, 9/19/1882).

229. a dozen a day

BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882. Vincent reports that "a study that's of some use requires at least half an hour, say" (JLB 280, 11/5/1882). He also reports working from sunrise to sundown. Undoubtedly, the number varied from day to day. At the end of October, he reports to Theo that he has counted "the studies from the model done since about the time of your visit [in August]," and found "about one hundred." (JLB 277, 10/29/1882.) This would suggest a much slower rate than a dozen a day. However, the count refers only to the drawings Vincent is prepared to show Theo on his next visit (ibid.). If one accepts Vincent's most conservative estimate of the percentage of his studies that were failures (ninety-percent) (See Ch. 18, n. 285), and assumes he is not including these in his "hundred," then the rate of a dozen a day is supportable.

Context:
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "I try to work quickly, because otherwise it just doesn't pan out, but a study that's of some use requires at least half an hour, say, so one always comes back to actual posing."

230. occasionally protested his love Vincent spices his letters with stirring expressions of enthusiasm: "I've been made deeply happy by painting these last few days" (JLB 259, 8/26/1882). "There's something infinite about painting -- I can't quite explain" (ibid.). "As you see, I'm immersing myself in painting with all my strength -- I'm immersing myself in colour ... I feel I'm on the high seas -- painting must proceed with all the strength that we can muster." (JLB 260, 9/3/1882.) "The studio has taken on a completely different appearance. ... there are a good number of painted studies on the walls." (JLB 266, 9/18/1882.)

Yet, in typical fashion, he begins laying the groundwork for a retreat from painting almost as soon as he begins painting. In mid-August, he offers an elaborate explanation for why he may not be able to satisfy Theo's expectations of progress in painting: "I know so many sad stories of people who threw themselves into it unprepared -- they concentrated on method and woke up disillusioned, without having made any progress, and got deep into debt because of the expensive things they botched. From the start I felt a fear and horror of that -- I regarded and still regard drawing as the only way of avoiding the same fate. And drawing has become dear to my heart, rather than being a burden." (JLB 259, 8/26/1882.)

Torn between managing Theo's expectations and reassuring him, Vincent follows this cautionary note with yet another expression of enthusiasm: "Now, though, almost unexpectedly, painting has given me lots of room, enables me to tackle effects that used to be out of reach, especially those I find, after all, most appealing, and it gives me so much more insight into many issues and new means of expressing effects, so that all this makes me deeply happy" (ibid.). Even as late as October 1, after the failure of his watercolor crowd scenes and his return to full-time drawing, he is still maintaining what has, by now, become an elaborate fiction. After listing a number of possible subjects, he insists, "And that's where painting or watercolouring comes in. Well, I'm toiling away at it." (JLB 270, 10/1/1882.)

231. returned almost exclusively

According to the best available dating of the surviving works, Vincent is thought to have done only two watercolors after the end of September, Woman Miners (F 994 JH 253) and Woman with Shawl, Umbrella and Basket (F 934 JH 255). Three other watercolors -- Miners in the Snow: Winter (F 1202 JH 229), Orchard in Bloosom with Two Figures: Spring (F 1245 JH 230), and Potato Market (F 1091 JH 252) -- may have been done in early October. However, these works, like almost all of Vincent's watercolors, use primarily opaque watercolor, not transparent watercolor, and therefore can hardly be taken as indications of a continuing commitment to master the medium. More likely, Vincent did them primarily to ward off Theo's pressure to make saleable, colorful images, even as he vigorously pursued his black-and-white ambitions. Vincent enclosed several of these images in letters to Theo. A similar motivation may lie behind Vincent's repeated assurances to Theo of continued work in watercolor, as when he writes in late October: "Still -- you remember that not long ago I wrote (when I sent you a small scratch of a potato market): 'I must have another go at tackling that bustle on the street.' The result is now some 12 watercolours that I'm working on at the moment." (JLB 277, 10/29/1882.)

232. used it to cover BVG 268, 2/20/1883-2/24/1883. Later that winter, when he persuades the landlord to allow him to put shutters on the windows, Vincent takes the canvas down. Interestingly, he does not consider using the newly liberated canvas for painting, but instead suggests "[it] will be highly desirable as backgrounds, with darker or lighter material stretched over them, when one wants to draw heads, for example" (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883).

Context:
JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883: "As you know, I already had something in front of the windows, namely canvas stretched on laths."

233. Vincent turned for inspiration Bailey, pp. 76, 79: Bailey very nicely cites as evidence for the relationship between Von Herkomer's Chelsea Hospital and the orphan-man drawings "Van Gogh's use of the distinctive Dutch word 'weesmannen' to describe both Von Herkomer's pensioners and the old men in his own drawings." Edwards comes right out and asserts that Vincent's orphan-man drawings and lithographs "[were] directly inspired by the previously mentioned examples by Herkomer," and cites several examples of specific works that "indicate how closely [Vincent] had absorbed the poignant mood as well as the individual poses of Herkomer's workhouse illustrations" (Edwards, p. 134). 234. not commented on BVG 17, 6/16/1874: This is Vincent's only observation on the 1874 show in which Von Herkomer's painting debuted.

Context: JLB 23, 6/16/1874: "There are beautiful things at the Royal Academy this year; among others Tissot has 3 paintings."

235. In September, Rappard began Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, p. 12: In their chronology and in their text, Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis specify only that Van Rappard began his series "in the fall of 1882" (ibid, 20). The series was complete by November, when Van Rappard fell ill with "brain fever" (JLB 377, 8/20/1883). 236. that promised many similar Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, pp. 46, 47: "Herkomer's print also may have inspired van Rappard's drawing of old people in the institute for the blind, probably dating from the end of 1882 or the beginning of 1883." 237. exactly the same moment Vincent had apparently already been working with Zuyderland when he wrote Van Rappard around September 18 or 19: "I'm drawing many figures from the model as well as scratches on the street. Lately I've quite often had a man from the Old Men's Home to pose." (JLB 267, 9/19/1882.) In his next letter to his friend around September 22, he makes another reference to a model who was almost certainly Zuyderland: "I'm very busy with drawings of an orphan man, as the almsmen are usually called here" (JLB 268, 9/23/1882; emphasis in original). He first mentions his model to Theo around this time: "A model is coming on Friday afternoon, a man from the almshouse, and I wouldn't like to send him away unpaid" (JLB 266, 9/18/1882). 314 238. almshouse in the Geest

BVG 235, 10/1/1882. The reference is to Church Pew with Worshippers (F 967 JH 225). It is our inference that, while at the church, Vincent recruited models.

Context:
JLB 270, 10/1/1882: "I'm also working on [a watercolor] of a church pew that I saw in a small church in the Geest district where the almsmen go (they're known here very expressively as ORPHAN men and orphan women)" (emphasis in original).

239. elderly pensioners The widows were, apparently, not allowed to visit Vincent's studio -- or they uniformly declined his invitation, for, in June 1883, Vincent writes: "I'm going to ask for permission to work in the old people's home. I already have many studies of orphan men, but I need to have the women too." (JLB 348, 6/3/1883.) 240. only one came back BVG 238, 10/10/1882. Vincent reports that he has drawn "orphan men." Soth counts "at least six different individuals from that institution [who] posed for him" (Soth, p. 67).

Context:
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "This week I've drawn some large heads and some figures of children as well as orphan men."

241. he was deaf BVG 235, 10/1/1882. It's possible that this was an exaggeration and that Zuyderland was merely hard of hearing.

Context:
JLB 270, 10/1/1882: "He has an interesting bald head -- big ears (NB. Deaf) and white sideboards" (emphasis in original).

242. his was 199 Van Heugten, p. 128. 243. tailcoat and top hat

The uniform can be seen in Old Man in a Tail-coat (F 960 JH 241), Old Man in a Tail-coat (F 977 JH 243), and Orphan Man, Standing (F None JH 271) (coat only). According to Soth, "the Home required them to wear" a top hat "and either a long overcoat with wide lapels and a double row of buttons or a similar, shorter jacket with tails" (Soth, p. 67). This is probably the uniform Vincent refers to when he writes Theo: "I believe you might perhaps enjoy this collection of orphan men in their Sunday and working clothes" (JLB 270, 10/1/1882).

244. charity case Van Heugten, p. 136: "Today we associate a top hat and a tailcoat (or the black formal topcoat that the residents of the old people's home had to wear) with stylishness and wealth. In this case, though, that would be an incorrect interpretation, for Van Gogh's contemporaries would have been in no doubt at all that the smartly turned-out old men ... were poor people dependent on charity." 245. pinned to his lapel

Van Heuten, quoting Visser, p. 131: Visser reports that the "metal cross" that Zuyderland is wearing in drawings like Orphan Man Holding Top Hat in His Hand (F 973 JH 236), Orphan Man with Top Hat and Umbrella Looking at his Watch (F 978 JH 238), Old Man in a Tail-coat (F 977 JH 243) and Old Man Drinking Coffee (F 1682 JH 263) was awarded to the veterans of the War of Belgian Independence in 1830–31.

246. seventy-two-year-old Van Heugten, p. 128: According to Van Heugten, Zuyderland was born in 1810 and died in 1897. 315 247. heavily-lidded eyes Van Heugten, p. 129. 248. " echt" Keyes, pp. 28-70. 249. Over the next yearHulsker appears to indicate that Vincent worked with Zuyderland only "five or six months" (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 147). We think this is probably an underestimate. In April 1883, Vincent writes: "I have the orphan man again today," (JLB 334, 4/2/1883) suggesting their sessions are still frequent. The old pensioner may be the figure in a top hat in a group of models that Vincent sketched in JLB 322, 3/2/1883 in March (People in the Studio [F 1060 JH 327]). But as late as mid-July, Vincent is still reporting: "Had the Orphan man again today" (JLB 362, 7/13/1883). This is only two months short of the one-year anniversary of his meeting Zuyderland (in September 1882), and there is no indication in the letters of any falling out between the two, although Vincent was apparently banned from drawing in the almshouse sometime in June 1883, which would have made further contact with Zuyderland more difficult (JLB 352, 6/11/1883). 250. Zuyderland came Hulsker counts "at least fifty or sixty drawings" that Vincent made of the orphan man over a period of "five or six months" (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 147). Given Vincent's fast, profligate way of working, there were undoubtedly many more that were abandoned, destroyed, or lost. 251. pensioners were only allowed out Van Heugten, p. 129: According to Van Heugten, the pensioners "were kept on a tight rein in the home. ... they were only allowed out from 9.30 to 5.30 on Sundays, Wednesdays and Christian feast days, with the men having an extra day out on Fridays." 252. return by sundown BVG 235, 10/1/1882: Vincent independently confirms the recorded rules of the almshouse.

Context:
JLB 270, 10/1/1882: "I worked with him until it got dark."

253. For fifty cents BVG 238, 10/10/1882.

Context:
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "I like to give them half a guilder for an afternoon or morning, because that's just what I need."

254. was obliged to surrender Van Heugten, p. 131: "These elderly people had to observe strict rules and were answerable in almost every respect to 'the Father and the Mother,' as the supervisors were cosily described in the regulations. Article 14 stipulated that paid work could only be undertaken with the approval of the Father or Mother, and if it was done outside the home the permission of the board of governors was also required. Any payment had to be handed over to the Father of the home, and 'provided the governors agree, part of it can be paid out to the resident.'" Van Heugten cites " Reglement van ordc en tucht voor de verpleegden in het Diakonie Oude Mannen- en Vrouwenhuis te 's-Gravenhage, preserved in the archives of the Diaconie der Nederlands Hervormde Gemeente 's-Gravenhage, archive no. 133, no. 1646 in the Hague City Archives." 255. frail and stooped Orphan Man with Cap and Walking Stick, F 963 JH 297, December 1882, black chalk, 18.9 by 10 in., 48 by 24.5 cm., Utrecht, Centraal Museum. 256. sometimes erect as a soldier Orphan Man, Standing, F None JH 271, 27 September 1882, sketch with letter, size unknown, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum. 257. with a cane Old Man in a Tail-coat, F 960 JH 241, September-December 1882, pencil, 18.7 by 10.2 in., 47.5 by 26 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum. 258. with a stick Old Man with a Stick, F 962 JH 212, September-November 1882, pencil, 19.7 by 12 in., 50 by 30.5 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum. 259. with an umbrella Orphan Man with Long Overcoat and Umbrella, Seen from the Back, F 968 JH 213, September 1882, pencil, 19.1 by 10.8 in., 48.5 by 27.5 cm., Private collection. 260. hat in hand Orphan Man Holding Top Hat in his Hand, F 973 JH 236, 1882, pencil, washed, 47 by 22cm, Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 261. a handkerchief Orphan Man with Long Overcoat, Glass and Handkerchief, F 959 JH 244, 1882, pencil, 18.5 by 9.8 in., 49 by 25 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 262. a glass Orphan Man with Long Overcoat, Glass and Handkerchief, F 959 JH 244, 1882, pencil, 18.5 by 9.8 in., 49 by 25 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 263. a cup Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee, F 996a JH 264, c. 15 November 1882, black chalk, washed, 19.5 by 11.8 in., 49.5 by 30 cm., Private collection. 264. a book Old Man Reading, F 966 JH 280, September-December 1882, pencil, washed, 19.3 by 11.2 in., 49 by 28.5 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum. 265. a pipe

Orphan Man, Wearing a Blouse, Sitting with Pipe, F 1046 JH 282, December 1882, pencil, 18.5 by 10.2 in., 47 by 26 cm., Private collection.

266. a broom Orphan Man, Wearing a Blouse, with Broom and Pipe, F 996 JH 283, December 1882, pencil, washed, 19.7 by 8.3 in., 50 by 21 cm., Location unknown. 267. a rake Man with Rake, F 979 JH 314, January-February 1883, pencil, 17.3 by 8.7 in., 44 by 22 cm., Private collection. 268. posed him eating

Orphan Man with Cap, Eating, F 956a JH 210, 1882, pencil, 20 by 10.8 in., 51 by 27.5 cm., Location unknown.

269. drinking Orphan Man with Long Overcoat, Glass and Handkerchief, F 959 JH 244, 1882, pencil, 19.3 by 9.9 in., 49 by 25 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 270. reading

Old Man Reading, F 966 JH 280, September-December 1882, pencil, washed, 19.3 by 11.2 in., 49 by 28.5 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum.

271. doing chores Orphan Man with Long Overcoat Cleaning Boots, F 969 JH 211, September 1882, pencil and black chalk, 11.2 by 11 in., 28.5 by 28 cm., Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art: This piece shows Zuyderland cleaning boots. 272. He joined with Sien Orphan Man Talking with Woman (Sien?), F 989 JH 315, January-February 1883, pencil, black chalk, 17.9 by 10.2 in., 45.5 by 26 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 273. her mother

Man and Woman Seen from the Back, F 991 JH 233, September-December 1882, pencil, 19.7 by 12.2 in., 50 by 31 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum.

274. her daughter Orphan Man, Sitting with a Girl, F 971 JH 250, 1882, pencil, chalk, 18.9 by 9.8 in., 48 by 25 cm., Private collection. 275. and her baby Orphan Man with a Baby in his Arms, F 981 JH 317, January-February 1883, pencil, 14.4 by 9.8 in., 36.5 by 25 cm., The Netherlands, Private collection. 276. "any outer clothing" Van Heugten, p. 131. 277. a peat basket Orphan Man, Sitting with a Girl, F 971 JH 250, 1882, pencil, chalk, 18.9 by 9.8 in., 48 by 25 cm., Private collection. 278. into a digger

Digger, F 908 JH 258, November, 1882, pencil, ink, 18.7 by 11.6 in., 47.5 by 29.5 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum: This identification is not recognized by Hulsker, but we believe Zuyderland's distinctive muttonchops can be just made out. And Vincent himself reports doing "a drawing of a digger -- I took as my model the orphan man you're familiar with -- a bald head bent forward over the black earth -- it seemed to me to have a certain significance, making one think of 'in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,' for instance" (JLB 333, 3/29/1883 and 4/1/1883). The model in Digger is not bareheaded, however.

279. into a fisherman Head of a Fisherman with a Fringe of Beard and a Sou'wester, F 1017 JH 302, December-January 1882-83, pencil, black lithographic chalk, pen, heightened with white, 18.7 by 11.4 in., 47.5 by 29 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum. 280. into a miner Orphan Man with Pickax on his Shoulder, F 987 JH 303, first half January 1883, black chalk, 17.9 by 8.5 in., 45.5 by 21.5 cm., Johannesburg, Collection E. Rogoff. 281. into an artist Orphan Man, Wearing a Blouse, Sitting with Pipe, F 1046 JH 282, December 1882, pencil, 18.5 by 10.2 in., 47 by 26 cm., Private collection. 282. saying the mealtime benediction

Prayer Before the Meal, F 1002 JH 281, c. 12-18 December 1882, pencil, black chalk, ink, heightened with white, 23.6 by 19.7 in., 60 by 50 cm., Private collection. Vincent describes this drawing as "a man saying his prayers before his midday meal, which is on the table" (JLB 294, 12/13/1882-12/18/1882). Referring to it as the "benedicité," he considers it "the best" of the drawings mentioned in the letter (ibid.).

283. The Sower

The Sower, The, F 852 JH 275, early December 1882, pencil, brush, China ink, 24 by 15.7 in., 61 by 40 cm., Amsterdam, P. and N. de Boer Foundation. Probably also Two Sowers (F 853 JH 274), Sower (F 1000 JH 276), and Sower (F 999 JH 277).

284. the correct outline BVG 185, 4/1/1882-4/15/1882.

Context:
JLB 215, 4/6/1882: "A little drawing like the enclosed is simple enough in line, but it's difficult enough to capture those simple, characteristic lines when one is sitting in front of the model. Those lines are now so simple that one can outline them with the pen, but I repeat, the problem is finding those broad outlines, so that one can say what's essential with a couple of strokes or scratches. Choosing the lines in such a way that it's obvious, as it were, that they must run thus, that's something that isn't obvious, however." (Emphasis in original.)

285. lottery-like BVG 178, 3/3/1882: Vincent expresses this notion often: that he just makes as many studies as possible, as quickly as possible, and hopes for a good one to emerge from the many failures. In various restatements, the odds change, but the paradigm remains the same: "with drawings you must count on 1 in 20 succeeding. That 1 in 20 is no longer an accident, though, I can count on that." (JLB 222, 5/1/1882.) "Things like this are difficult, though, and won't come off in one go. Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures." (JLB 270, 10/1/1882.) "I believe that later, with more drawings in stock, I may get a better result" (JLB 281, 11/7/1882). "I'll be prepared, for example, to do as I said above -- and do 10 of them to get one good one" (JLB 330, 3/18/1883).

Context:
JLB 207, 3/3/1882: " … for a drawing with 3 seamstresses, for example, one must draw at least 90 seamstresses. That's how it works." (Emphasis in original.)

286. to take more time BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "I try to work quickly, because otherwise it just doesn't pan out, but a study that's of some use requires at least half an hour, say, so one always comes back to actual posing. ... I've occasionally had a boy or a man stand still for a moment, as they say, on the beach. The outcome was always a great desire on my part for a longer pose, and standing still for a moment isn't enough for me, neither for a person nor for a horse." (Emphasis in original.)

287. still considered his best BVG 219, 7/23/1882. Vincent wrote this in effect arguing that Sien was crucial to his artistic project. One could discount the comment somewhat for the disputatious context, although to do so would be to separate Vincent from his arguments, a tricky proposition.

Context:
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "She posed for my very best drawing, Sorrow [F 1655 JH 259], at least I think it's the best thing I've done."

288. the vigorous hatching Boime, in Masheck, ed., p. 94: Boime attributes this marked stylistic shift in the orphan-man sketches specifically, if not exclusively, to Vincent's encounter with the cartoons of Thomas Nast (1840-1902; American artist) about this time. Given Vincent's ravenous appetite for wood engravings, it is probably presumptuous to single out individual influences on his style (as opposed to subject matter). And there are other, more direct explanations for the preponderance of views from behind in the orphan-man studies: especially the indisputable fact that Vincent had trouble with faces and hands, so that rear views were more likely to succeed and therefore less likely to be abandoned or thrown away. 316 289. "poor old fellows" BVG R14, 9/22/1882-9/23/1882.

Context:
BVG R14, 9/22/1882 or 9/23/1882: "I am very busy working on drawings of an orphan-man, as these poor old fellows from the workhouse are popularly called here."
JLB 268, 9/23/1882: "I'm very busy with drawings of an orphan man, as the almsmen are usually called here" (emphasis in original).

290. called him " weesman" Van Heugten, p. 128. Vincent referred to Zuyderland by other fond diminutives as well, "diakoniemantje" (little workhouse man), or "kereltje" (little man) (Soth, p. 70). Van Heugten points out that Vincent wrongly applies the term "weesman" to Zuyderland (Van Heugten, p. 129). The pensioners at the Dutch Reformed Old People's Home were not called "orphan men" and "orphan women." It was the pensioners at the Catholic Old People's Home on Warmoezierstraat who were known locally by those names. Vincent may have heard the terms from Sien, who was Catholic. The Catholic pensioners did not wear numbers or the distinctive black top hats of the Protestant pensioners. 291. contained a summary BVG 240, 11/1/1882: Vincent does not say that Van Rappard included the articles themselves, but rather a summary of uncertain authorship that apparently did not even clearly identify the source. It seems likely that if Van Rappard had been the summarizer, Vincent would have said as much.

Context:
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "In a letter from Van Rappard I received an extract from a lecture by Herkomer on the subject of the wood engravings of recent times. I can't tell you about the whole thing in detail, you may have read the article yourself (which was in an English art magazine, perhaps the Art Journal)" (emphasis in original).

292. an article by Hubert Herkomer "Drawing and Wood Engraving" appeared in The Art Journal in two parts: the first part appeared in the May 1882 issue, the second in the June issue. 293. himself includedBVG 240, 11/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: " Herkomer relates how he himself worked on them with great ambition and enthusiasm, and he particularly recalls the splendid prints in the first volumes" (emphasis in original).

317 294. "true and complete"Von Herkomer, pp. 135, 136: In English, Von Herkomer's prose was as convoluted as Vincent's: "I go further, and say there was as much of the truest and most complete Art realised in that collection of drawings as in the whole of the pictures that hung on the endless walls belonging to the different nations." 295. "energetic words"BVG 240, 11/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 240, 11/1/1882: "But then those energetic words of Herkomer's, urging the public not to flag and saying that it is more necessary than ever to keep the hand to the plough, comforted me so, and I thought I would give you a short summary of what he said."
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "... but then Herkomer's forceful words calling on people not to weaken and saying that it's more necessary than ever to keep the hand to the plough did me so much good and I thought I'd briefly tell you the substance of what he said."

296. artist's sincere heartVon Herkomer, p. 134: According to Herkomer, truth (the "tender and graceful") was the artist's ultimate subject ("His eye and hand are trained to look for truth") and realistic drawing ("the pursuit of fact") was better suited to reveal that truth than the academic drawing taught in art schools (ibid., 168). 297. "moral advantages"Von Herkomer, pp. 166-167. 298. praised tone over colorVon Herkomer, p. 165: Von Herkomer argues that "'wood drawing' teaches [the artist] to look for tone, so that he studies colour whilst he is drawing form." Elsewhere, he echoes Vincent's arguments on this subject even more precisely: "The one great truth about painting is, that it is only drawing with colour" (Von Herkomer, p. 134; emphasis in original). 299. vigor over care Von Herkomer, p. 135: "In such [drawings] there will be vigour, and spirit in execution." 300. dangers of "morbid conventionalism" Von Herkomer, pp. 166, 167. 301. bewailed the decadence BVG 240, 11/1/1882. Not surprisingly, Vincent reads into Von Herkomer's words a call to arms against this creeping decadence, what Vincent calls "a forceful plea to all to continue supporting the cause warmly, and not to allow any weakening" (JLB 278, 11/1/1882). He also detects in Von Herkomer's voice "something of a reproach" as well as "some melancholy that he speaks, and as one fighting against the indifference he finds intolerable." (ibid.) These doomsday rumblings are, in fact, more in Vincent's reading than in Von Herkomer's words, which are mildly chastising, but hardly apocalyptic.

Context:
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "I [meaning Herkomer] see a decadence if I think back to when The Graphic began."

302. even at the Graphic BVG 240, 11/1/1882: Vincent reports on the summary of the article that he read.

Context:
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "Then [Herkomer] talks about the present day, and that brings him to the real subject of his lecture. He says: the wood engravers are cleverer than ever, but nonetheless I [meaning Herkomer] see a decadence if I think back to when The Graphic began. And -- he goes on -- in my view the reason lies in two things against which I protest. One has to do with the publishers, the other with the artists. ... Both have their faults, which will ruin things if one doesn't combat them."

303. "foolish school" Von Herkomer, pp. 134, 135: Von Herkomer coyly refuses to name the art that he attacks ("Without naming this school, you will easily recognise their productions, and I can assure you with safety, that should one of their works meet the approbation of intelligent minds, it will be caused by the accident of its being a happily selected subject"), but there is no doubt about what he is referring to with the reference to "half-formed" and "everything they see in Nature." The metaphor he employs against them is carefully (mischievously) chosen to evoke the contemporary criticism that Impressionist paintings were sloppily painted. "In portraiture you would certainly not select the moment for representation when your sitter is blowing his nose, ... Not only is Nature frequently out of drawing, and badly designed from the artistic point of view, but she also has a nose, and blows it, and the school just described would not hesitate to represent her in this Unbecoming pose." (It should be noted that Impressionist images were singularly unsuited to the traditional woodcut technique that Von Herkomer champions in this article.)

Whether in lockstep with Von Herkomer or having formed his own opinion, Vincent echoes his hero's disdainful attitude toward Impressionism a few weeks later in commenting on the painter in Zola's Le ventre de Paris, Claude Lantier. "One would like to see Zola doing a kind of painter different from Lantier for once, who it seems to me is drawn from life by Zola after someone or other, and certainly not the worst, from the movement that was known as Impressionists, I believe. And they aren't the ones who make up the core of the body of artists." (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882; emphasis in original.)

304. "half-formed minds" Von Herkomer, pp. 134, 135. 305. painted "anything [and] everything" Von Herkomer, pp. 134, 135. 306. German-born, American-raised Von Herkomer, p. 165. 307. had experienced poverty Von Herkomer, p. 165: "Now, you must bear in mind that I had little money to pay for models. I had to trust to friends to sit to me without payment to follow." 308. unable to pay the rent Von Herkomer, p. 165: "I worked without proper resources from Nature, and that before my art was strong enough to bear it. How often this happens to young workers! My work did not, and could not progress, and the week's rent had to be met." 309. and suffered persecution Von Herkomer, p. 166: "… there was now no need to go to publishers, who would either show you the door, or their hard hearts, or to engravers, some of whom were as bad -- one telling me I had not yet eaten enough pudding, being a vulgar allusion to want of practice in Art: what a damper to an enthusiastic young mind!" Vincent writes with evident indignation that Von Herkomer's first sketch of Chelsea Hospital received so little respect because of its "rough look" that it "was almost rejected" (JLB 306, 2/3/1883). 310. overwrought English Von Herkomer, p. 133: This is one example of many: "And it has been nobly said that 'the highest of the Fine Arts' are appointed to relate to us the utmost ascertainable truth respecting visible things and moral feelings; and this pursuit of fact is the vital element of the Art power -- that in which alone it can develop 'itself to its utmost.'" Germanic compounds like "Art power" are common in Von Herkomer's writing, as are missing articles. According to Edwards, Von Herkomer trained himself to speak in the plummy accent of the British upper class to which he aspired, while he "had difficulty reading and writing" his native German (Edwards, p. 20). 311. "thoroughly sound" BVG 240, 11/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 240, 11/1/1882: "The whole thing is thoroughly sound, strong, honest."
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "The whole thing is thoroughly sound, firm, honest."

312. "To me it is an inspiration" BVG 240, 11/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 240, 11/1/1882: "To me it is an inspiration, and it does my heart good to hear someone talk this way."JLB 278, 11/1/1882: quot; It gives me encouragement, and it truly does me good to hear someone talk like that for once."

313. religious images reappeared Vincent referred to figures as "resurrections" (JLB 325, 3/5/1883) and claimed for them a "more beautiful outside Paradise" (JLB 344, 5/21/1883). He summoned Van Rappard to the new mission ("It's campaign time" [JLB 284, 11/18/1882]) using exhortations from a previous one: "whosoever shall lose his life for the sake of something higher shall find it" (JLB 372, 8/12/1883 or 8/13/1883). (In August 1883, Vincent recalls telling this to Van Rappard on an indeterminate previous occasion.) To Theo he sent outbursts of the new piety: "work -- as in the case of Millet, Dupré, Israëls &c. -- is something intended to bring peace, to say sursum corde or 'lift up your hearts' " and elaborate comparisons between artists and preachers (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882; emphasis in original). "I know a drawing by [John] Tenniel of 'two clergymen' (this isn't the English title, of course, but it's the subject). One is a city vicar, splendid and broad and imposing; the other is slightly 'shabby,' evidently a humble village curate, the father of a large and poor family. I often think that one finds these two types among painters as well, and many 'illustrators' belong to the village curates among the painters, while perhaps people like Bouguereau or [Hans] Makart and some others have something of the first type." (JLB 290, 12/3/1882.) The reference is to John Tenniel, who contributed cartoons and illustrations to Punch, the London News, and other publications that Vincent would have seen. Tenniel also illustrated the first edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1866). 314. and actual scripture BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "I repeat: by this shall ye know them, by their work, and it won't be the most eloquent who say the truest things. See Millet himself, see Von Herkomer, they're certainly not orators, and speak almost reluctantly."

315. "a kind of Bible" BVG R25, 2/9/1883.

Context:
BVG R25, 2/9/1883: "A collection of sheets like these becomes, in my opinion, a kind of Bible to an artist, in which he reads from time to time to get in a devotional mood."
JLB 311, 2/10/1883: "In my view prints like these together form a kind of Bible for an artist, in which he reads now and again to get into a mood."

316. a latter-day Savonarola Vincent warned of a coming apocalypse -- "an emptiness and silence, and indifference," he called it (JLB 293, 12/11/1882) -- "a periwig age in the future" when "people will be too drowsy to think." (JLB 312, 2/11/1883.) "It seems to me that everyone must reflect on that for himself, but the old comparison speaks of a broad way ending in desolation, and of a narrow one leading to a different result" (JLB 293, 12/11/1882; emphasis in original). Vincent appears to be following Von Herkomer in this doomsday prediction. Elsewhere, he cites approvingly Von Herkomer's criticism that "the credit for many a wood engraving goes largely to the engraver and not to the draughtsman. Thus, [Von Herkomer] points out the enfeebling of the draughtsmen, finds this intolerable and fatal. I consider this absolutely true." (JLB 279, 11/1/1882.) A few lines later, Vincent restates the argument even more graphically: "The old manner of engraving, that solid, honest, uncontrived drawing, is by far the best. Von Herkomer says: be careful, don't let that be lost, if art lacks that then art has meningitis or spinal consumption." (ibid.) As proof of this decline, Vincent cites The Graphic's decision to drop the "Heads of the People" series and replace it with "Types of Beauty" (ibid.). When he learned in December that The Graphic would print color reproductions ("Chromos!!!," he wailed), he said, "it truly grieves me, the whole thing is going wrong. ... And now, everything's gone" (JLB 293, 12/11/1882; emphasis in original). 317. railed against the decadence BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "That -- namely, talking -- isn't what one needs to do -- one must work, though with sorrow in the heart. Those who later cry out the loudest about decadence will themselves belong to it the most."

318. decay BVG 266, 2/11/1883.

Context:
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: "In 50 years from now people won't, I think, wish they were back in this period. For if it's followed by a 'periwig age,' people will be too drowsy to think about it at all." (Emphasis in original.)

319. "today's deteriorating society" BVG 319, 9/4/1883.

Context:
BVG 319, 9/4/1883: "The thought crossed my mind, how at moments when today's deteriorating society is society seen against the light of a renewal, it stands out as a large, gloomy silhouette."
JLB 381, 7/5/1883: "It made me think for a moment of society today, how as it founders it now often appears like a large, sombre silhouette viewed against the light of reform."

320. onrushing tide of superficiality BVG 252, 12/11/1882.

Context:
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "I begin to see ever more clearly that the illustrated magazines go along with the superficial stream, and I believe that they aren't concerned with being as good as their duty dictates."

321. conventionality BVG 266, 2/11/1883. In describing the "periwig age" that he expects, Vincent compares it to "'the periwig age in Dutch history" which, according to Vincent, "had its origins in the abandonment of principles and the replacement of the original by the conventional" (JLB 312, 2/11/1883). Elsewhere, Vincent criticizes more recent magazine illustrations because "a not entirely unconventional elegance threatens to replace that typical, truly rustic quality" (JLB 280, 11/5/1882; emphasis in original). This awkward phrase appears to echo Von Herkomer's charge that the newer images do not reflect the rough "cut" character of the earlier images, but rather the more refined ("conventional") character made possible by reproductive technologies like photogravure and chromolithography.

Context:
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: "I don't think it absurd to consider it possible that there may again be a kind of periwig age in the future, for after all what's known as the periwig age in Dutch history had its origins in the abandonment of principles and the replacement of the original by the conventional."

322. "material grandeur" BVG 252, 12/11/1882.

Context:
BVG 252, 12/11/1882: "But how hard-hearted they are, how mistaken they are, if they think they can make everybody believe that material grandeur outweighs moral grandeur, and that any good can be accomplished without the latter."
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "How hard-hearted they are, how mistaken, though, if they think they can fool everyone into believing that material greatness is of equal weight as moral greatness, and that without the latter anything good can be done."

323. "moral grandeur" BVG 252, 12/11/1882.

Context:
BVG 252, 12/11/1882: "But how hard-hearted they are, how mistaken they are, if they think they can make everybody believe that material grandeur outweighs moral grandeur, and that any good can be accomplished without the latter."
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "How hard-hearted they are, how mistaken, though, if they think they can fool everyone into believing that material greatness is of equal weight as moral greatness, and that without the latter anything good can be done."

324. a frenzy of drawing BVG 259, 1/11/1883.

Context:
JLB 300, 1/10/1883: "That kind of thing makes me so enthusiastic and thus cheers me up, because I imagine models from here as they'd appear if they were drawn in that way, and then naturally I say to myself, onward! and keep on working until we've got the hang of the Black-and-White" (emphasis in original).

325. and workmen

BVG 238, 10/10/1882: How many of these potential models showed up and stayed is unclear, since this is a prospective statement. But if Vincent followed through on his plan to "give them half a guilder for an afternoon or morning," then he probably had some takers (JLB 272, 10/15/1882). A few surviving drawings from the period show men, apparently not Zuyderland, carrying carpenter's tools (Carpenter [F 1043 JH 206), Carpenter, Seen from the Back, [F 1042 JH 207), and A Carpenter with Apron [F 1044 JH 208]). In addition, there are some drawings of younger men that do not show specific attributes (Boy with Cap and Clogs [F 1681 JH 202], Boy with Spade [F 986 JH 231], Young Man with a Broom [F 979a JH 257], Digger [F 1656 JH 262], Workman Sitting on a Basket, Cutting Bread [F 1663 JH 272], Young Man, Sitting with a Cup in his Hand, Half-Length [F 964b JH 345]).

Context:
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "The boss of the yard has promised to send me the labourers who come to ask for work, as regularly happens now and then in the slack time."

326. drawings of horses BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882: Vincent appears to spend an extraordinary amount of time, effort, and probably money on arranging this series of drawings, explaining to Theo why just making "scratches" in the street was insufficient. "I can get a horse much more easily here and there for a very short time, these people are sometimes willing to do that, but in a very short time one cannot do what really needs to be done" (JLB 280, 11/5/1882; emphasis in original). He had to have "a model." And not just any model. "I know of an old white horse, a real nag if ever there was one (at the gasworks), but the man, who makes the poor animal do all manner of heavy jobs and just wants to get what he can out of it, asked a lot for it, namely three guilders to come to me for a morning, a daalder at the very least at his place, provided I came on Sunday" (ibid.; emphasis in original).

We suspect these horse drawings were the thematic predecessor to Worn Out (F 997 JH 267), the drawing of an old man despairing with his head in his hands that Vincent did in November 1882. Vincent had expressed more than once how much the sight of these old work horses moved him. He found their resignation in the face of endless toil and certain death a perfect metaphor for the human condition. This was probably the deeper meaning, the "sentiment," that he hoped to capture in this unlikely series of horse drawings. Clearly, that ambition was beyond his limited technical abilities at the time, as the surviving image from the series (Old Nag [F 1032 JH 368]) shows. However, it was exactly the same deeper significance that he took up again in Worn Out (F 997 JH 267), only using a different, less metaphorical image.

Context:
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "One can't do everything at once, but it will be absolutely necessary for me to do a number of horse studies."

327. "I am working" BVG 236, 10/8/1882.

Context:
BVG 235, 10/1/1882: "What you would notice at once, as I do, is that I need a lot of figure studies; therefore I am working with all my strength and have a model almost every day."
JLB 270, 10/1/1882: "Like me, you would also see immediately that I need a mass of figure studies. I'm putting all my efforts into that, and working almost every day with a model." (Emphasis in original.)

318 328. "The more one" BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882: "… the more one makes the more one wants to make."JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "… the more one makes, the more one realizes one needs."

329. As an homage Much admirable scholarly effort has gone into identifying possible sources for Vincent's "heads of the people" drawings. Alpers points to the seventeenth-century Dutch tradition of "historiating" portraits in which sitters posed or were painted in the roles of characters from history or legend (Alpers, p. 14). Soth and De Winkel explore the relevance of the tradition of "tronics," of which many examples can be found in Rembrandt's oeuvre (Soth, p. 70, and De Winkel, in Christopher White and Quentin Buvelot, eds., p. 60). According to De Winkel, "these heads were intended for the open market and, although most were made from live models, the identity of the sitter appears to have been of secondary importance." Shackleford discusses the possible influence of the academic tradition of tête d'expression (expressive head) (Shackleford, p. 89). In his contemporary letters, Vincent himself provides other possible influences: drawings of "types" by Félicien Rops and Charles de Groux (JLB 273, 10/22/1882); the work of Jozef Israëls (ibid.); the caricatures of Gavarni and Honoré Daumier (JLB 277, 10/29/1882); even the portraits of Frans Hals (JLB 310, 2/8/1883).

However, to the extent that the sources for any artist's imagery can be identified or ranked, we believe there are two sources in this case, one of which has been generally overlooked and the other patently obvious. The overlooked one is the influence of Van Rappard, who, in August, returned from Drenthe with portrait heads of peasants (see Bouwer, cat. # 78 and 79, p. 77), then went on to draw the blank-eyed patients at the institute for the blind in Utrecht, likewise inspired by Von Herkomer. (See Bouwer, cat. # 83, 84, p. 79.) Van Rappard sent Vincent the article by Von Herkomer in late October (or a summary thereof), three months after it appeared in The Art Journal, and Vincent clearly had not seen it. This clearly indicates that Van Rappard's interest in Von Herkomer in particular, and even the English illustrators in general, whether or not it led Vincent's enthusiasm, certainly did not follow it. The other source is the obvious one: Von Herkomer's contributions to The Graphic's "Heads of the People" series. Not only did Vincent have these images in his collection (JLB 235, 6/3/1882) and expressed deep admiration for Von Herkomer's work, he also complimented Van Rappard's imitation of them (JLB 345, 5/21/1883). In December, he wrote Theo: " I will do my best for HEADS OF THE PEOPLE" (JLB 293, 12/11/1882; emphasis in original); and in January, he wrote Van Rappard: "What I've been toiling at in particular lately is heads -- Heads of the people" (JLB 302, 1/18/1883; emphasis in original). As Soth points out, Vincent even uses the English phrase "Heads of the People" when writing about his portrait heads (Soth, p. 67).

330. He had sent copies BVG 205, 6/3/1882: Even though Von Herkomer contributed only three images to the Heads of the People series in The Graphic, Vincent lists this in his inventory of prints sent to Theo. Whatever the facts, Vincent clearly associated the Graphic series directly and primarily with Von Herkomer.

Context:
JLB 235, 6/3/1882: " Heads of the people by Herkomer, supplemented with drawings by others and by portraits."

331. In mid-October BVG 238, 10/10/1882. Van Heugten puts the start date for Vincent's "Heads of the People" drawings in December 1882 (Van Heugten, p. 176). This would appear to be consistent with what Vincent writes the following February: "Now, since about the middle of December I've been slogging away without stopping, mainly on those heads," although this may be more a demarcation of mood than of subject matter (JLB 308, 2/5/1883). While most of the heads might have been done in the December-January window, Van Heugten proposes (including the ones in his catalogue), the reference to "heads" in October is clear enough and there is also another possible mention later that same month: "I've again been very busy with [my watercolors] in the last few weeks, and also with types from the common people" (JLB 273, 10/22/1882). The reference may be to figure drawings, not heads, but could be to either or both. Deductively, it is hard to imagine that Vincent, who was in close contact with Van Rappard throughout the fall and followed his lead in so many other ways, waited several months before responding artistically to his friend's Von Herkomer-inspired heads at the blind institute in Utrecht. In late October, Van Rappard informed Vincent that he had found a copy of M. W. Ridley's The Miner, another of The Graphic's "Heads of the People Series" (April 15, 1876), an image with which Vincent was already familiar (JLB 279, 11/1/1882). This suggests that such portraits were already a subject of discussion between the two artists in mid-October.

Context:
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "This week I've drawn some large heads and some figures of children as well as orphan men."

332. hat, cap, bonnet, sou'wester BVG 261, 1/21/1883: Vincent rhapsodizes over this "attribute". After he purchases it, he is positively giddy over it: "Old chap, I've had so much pleasure drawing fishermen's heads with that sou'wester, which had fish scales still stuck to it when I got it" (JLB 316, 2/15/1883). This remarkable item of head gear can be seen in Fisherman with Sou'wester, Pipe and Coal-pan (F 1016 JH 304) through Head of a Fisherman with a Sou'wester (F 1014 JH 310), Fisherman in Jacket with Upturned Collar (F 1049 JH312) and Fisherman with Basket on his Back (F 1083 JH 313).

Context:
JLB 301, 1/13/1883: "Tomorrow I'll be getting a sou'wester for the heads. Heads of fishermen, old and young, that's what I've been thinking about for a long time and I had already done one, but then later I couldn't get hold of a sou'wester again. Now I'm going to have one of my own, an old one that many gales and seas have swept over." (Emphasis in original.)

333. "the type [is] distilled" BVG 257, 1/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 257, 1/3/1883: "There is something of life itself in the real studies, and the person who makes them will not think of himself, but of nature, and so prefer the study to what he may perhaps make of it later -- unless something quite different should finally result from the many studies, namely the type distilled from many individuals."
JLB 298, 1/3/1883: "True studies have something of life itself, and the person who makes them will respect not himself but nature in them, and hence prefer the study to what he may make of it later. Unless something entirely different arises from it as the final outcome of many studies, namely the type distilled from many individuals." (Emphasis in original.)

334. deeply-shadowed cartoons of character Keyes, pp. 28-29: Keyes, citing Pollock and Zemel, contends that these portraits are "among van Gogh's most penetrating studies of actual people." Pollock and Zemel's claims for these images are, in fact, somewhat less extravagant, but open to debate. With rare exceptions (and the drawing of Blok is one), Vincent's portraits rarely take any account of the psychology of his sitters. This is true even of depictions that he intended as portraits, unlike those in the Heads of the People series in which he aimed to strip away the specifics of individuality in order to achieve the iconic "truth" of a type. We would argue that Vincent lived almost entirely in his own head (seldom, in thousands of pages of letters, does he show true empathy for other individuals) and this limitation made it virtually impossible for him to register the fleeting nuances of character and internal life that a portraitist of psychological acuity might. Nor did he have the technical skill to portray such nuances if he did register them. Subtleties of facial feature and posture frustrated him up to the end. As a result, even those portraits that appear to convey a personality (a good example from this period is Woman with a Dark Cap (Sien's Mother?) [F 1057a JH 296]) may or may not be accurate records of what Vincent saw or didn't see. 335. Sien's ten-year-old sister Girl with a Shawl, F 1008 JH 301, December-January, 1882–83, pencil, black lithographic chalk, 19.9 by 12.2 in., 50.5 by 31 cm, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum. The sources disagree on whether the girl depicted is Sien's daughter, Maria Wilhelmina (1877-1940), who would have been five at the time, or her ten-year-old (in October 1882) sister, also named Maria Wilhelmina (1872-1931). After discussing the competing identifications, Van Heugten comes down on the side of the sister, and we agree (Van Heugten, p. 184). 336. the bookseller Blok BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882. The image is The Bookseller Blok, F 993 JH 254, early November, 1882, pencil, pen, china ink, watercolor, 15.2 by 10.2 in., 38.5 by 26 cm, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum.

Context:
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "Do you know who I drew this morning? Blok the Jewish bookseller, not David but the short one who's on the Binnenhof."

337. a drawing he had done

Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out") (F 863 JH 34), on which Vincent wrote the title "Worn out." Van Heugten proposes the existence of at least two versions of this image because of, inter alia, differences between this one and the color sketch that Vincent drew in JLB 172 (September 1881) (Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out") [F 150 JH 35]) (Van Heugten, p. 160). At this time, Vincent recalled that "once," a man named Cornelis "Schuitemaker" had posed for the drawing (JLB 286, 11/24/1882). Stokvis identifies this "old workman" as a Protestant resident of the town of 't Heike (Sint Willebrord), near Etten (Stokvis, p. 23). Van Heugten identifies the same sitter in a number of drawings from 1881 (Van Heugten, p. 33).

338. titled "Worn Out" BVG 242, 11/5/1882: Vincent apparently borrowed this title from a print in his collection by the British artist Thomas Faed (1826-1900). Since this was written at least a year after Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out") (F 864 JH 51), it is remotely possible that Vincent arrived at the title independently, at least for the 1881 image.

Context:
BVG 242, 11/5/1882: "By the way, it took a long time before I could admire Thomas Faed's work, but now I do not hesitate about it any more; for instance, "Sunday in the Backwoods of Canada, Home and the Homeless," "Worn Out, " "The Poor Man's Friend" -- in short, you know the series published by [Henry] Graves."
JLB 292, 12/10/1882: "By the way, it took a long time before I found Thomas Faed's work beautiful, but these days I don't hesitate about it any more, for instance, the Sunday in the backwoods of Canada -- Home and the homeless -- Worn out -- The poor, the poor man's friend, anyway, you know the series of aquatints published by Graves."

339. the same position

There are some minor differences between Worn Out (F 997 JH 267) and its predecessor, Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out" ) (F 863 JH 34). The figure has been rotated ninety degrees counterclockwise in relation to the back wall. The half-clenched hands have been moved from the sides of the head to front, which means that the face (which was completely hidden in the earlier side view of Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace ("Worn Out") [F 863 JH 34]) continues to be hidden from view. This may be because Vincent preferred this kind of broken, submissive posture as a general rule (see Chapter 15), or for the more practical reason that the position relieved him of the need to render the face. Or both.

340. his perspective frame Van Heugten notes the presence of the tell-tale grid of faint lines on the sheet "so that he could work with a perspective frame" (Van Heugten, p. 161). 341. "I have tried to express" BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "In this print I have tried to express ... what seems to me one of the strongest proofs of the existence of "quelque chose là-haut" [something on high] in which Millet believed, namely, the existence of God and eternity -- certainly in the infinitely touching expression of such a little old man, of which he himself is perhaps unconscious, when he is sitting quietly in his corner by the fire."
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: " I was trying to say this in this print -- but I can't say it as beautifully, as strikingly as reality, of which this is only a dim reflection seen in a dark mirror -- that it seems to me that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the existence of 'something on high' in which Millet believed, namely in the existence of a God and an eternity, is the unutterably moving quality that there can be in the expression of an old man like that, without his being aware of it perhaps, as he sits so quietly in the corner of his hearth."

342. lengthy sermon of commentary Burning with his new vision of salvation through art, Vincent layered onto this image (which he also called Worn out) the most compelling artistic depiction of sanctified suffering that he knew: "Perhaps the most wonderful passage in Uncle Tom's cabin is the one where the poor slave, sitting by his fire for the last time and knowing that he must die, remembers the words Let cares like a wild deluge come, / And storms of sorrow fall, / May I but safely reach my home, / My god, my Heaven, my All" (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882). Vincent disavows an overtly religious claim for Worn out, despite Stowe's direct invocation of the Christian deity and his own evangelistic rhetoric. "This is far from all theology -- simply the fact that the poorest woodcutter, heath farmer or miner can have moments of emotion and mood that give him a sense of an eternal home that he is close to" (ibid.). But his obsession over the image clearly draws from the same wellspring of fanaticism as his religious ardor. "You remember that drawing Worn out? In the last few days I've done it again no fewer than three times with two models, ... which thus depicts an old working man who sits and ponders with his elbows on his knees and his head (a bald crown this time) in his hands." (JLB 287, 11/24/1882.) Later in the same letter, he refers to it as "the new Worn out." He designates this image as "the subject of a fifth stone," but when it is finished gives it a different name, in English, At Eternity's Gate -- even further underscoring the theme of the burden of mortality (ibid.). 343. "In the infinitely" BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "In this print I have tried to express ... what seems to me one of the strongest proofs of the existence of "quelque chose là-haut" [something on high] in which Millet believed, namely, the existence of God and eternity -- certainly in the infinitely touching expression of such a little old man, of which he himself is perhaps unconscious, when he is sitting quietly in his corner by the fire. At the same time there is something noble, something great that cannot be destined for the worms."
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "I was trying to say this in this print -- but I can't say it as beautifully, as strikingly as reality, of which this is only a dim reflection seen in a dark mirror -- that it seems to me that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the existence of 'something on high' in which Millet believed, namely in the existence of a God and an eternity, is the unutterably moving quality that there can be in the expression of an old man like that, without his being aware of it perhaps, as he sits so quietly in the corner of his hearth. At the same time something precious, something noble, that can't be meant for the worms."

344. "age of quick recognition" Von Herkomer, p. 133. 345. earn a living Von Herkomer, p. 168: "For the artist's first efforts in this pursuit, wood drawing stands unrivalled ... It develops the powers of the most delicate draughtsmanship. It trains his powers of composition. It gains for him a reputation before he touches a brush. It obtains for him a livelihood, and he can paint pictures with an independent spirit that is free from the anxiety of sale." 346. "anxiety of sales"

Von Herkomer, p. 168. (See Ch. 18, n. 345.)

347. "utility and haste" Von Herkomer, p. 133. 319 348. "reasonably comprehensible" Von Herkomer, p. 133. 349. "pleasure and edification" Von Herkomer, p. 168. 350. "clamour loudly" Von Herkomer, p. 168. 351. zig-zagged between BVG R17, 11/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 279, 11/1/1882: " Pleasing, Saleable are horrible words to me. And I've never met a dealer who wasn't steeped in that, and it's a plague." (Emphasis in original.)

352. whiplash of ambivalence One of the most dramatic examples, not included in the text, comes in mid-November, when Vincent haughtily rejects popularity: "The fact that I consider it not unlikely that in time I'll make things that will come into the hands of the public is something that leaves me quite cold and that I don't in the least regard as pleasing" (JLB 282, 11/14/1882). In the very next letter, only two days later, he reverses himself: "I believe Herkomer speaks the truth when he says For you -- the public -- it is really done. Of course a drawing must have artistic value, but in my view this shouldn't rule out the possibility that ordinary passers-by may see something in it." (JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882; emphasis in original.) Such are the rapid oscillations of a very conflicted mind. 353. "poisonous influence" Von Herkomer, pp. 166, 167. 354. "produce a work" Von Herkomer, p. 166. 320 355. Theo inadvertently enabled BVG 249, 12/1/1882: Vincent writes this a month after he first broached the idea. To underscore this point, Vincent even purports to quote from Theo's letter in late October: "'I've spoken to [Félix Hilaire] Buhot, who knows of a certain way of lithographing, of which more later, you ought to try something on paper that he'll send you'" (JLB 289, 12/1/1882). We are usually skeptical when Vincent tries to assign "inspiration" for his artistic projects, like this one, to Theo. Usually, such assignments come after projects have begun to founder or failed altogether; or in the context of a request for increased funding (as here) -- all contexts in which assignment begins to look like blame, and Vincent's effort to escape same (i.e., "Theo, you got me into this mess"). In this case, however, Vincent makes the assignment adamantly, specifically, and relatively early in the life of the project ([JLB 281, 11/7/1882], written less than a week after Vincent first proposed the idea). Also, it is not hard to imagine that Theo, looking at Vincent's spare, stark drawings, thought perhaps they were better suited to the dramatic chiaroscuro of lithographs than to watercolor or oil.

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "This matter, which not long ago was no more than a few words from you, namely 'I've spoken to Buhot, who knows of a certain way of lithographing, of which more later, you ought to try something on paper that he'll send you,' has in a short time taken on the proportions of a more important matter for me from this initially rather insignificant start."

356. limited lithography's popularity BVG 191, 4/15/1882-4/30/1882. Vincent mentions a partnership of two engraver-lithographers at this time, Joseph Burn Smeeton (1840-1880; English artist) and Auguste Tilly (?-1898; French artist) who signed their prints as "Smeeton Tilly sc" (JLB 165, 4/12/1881; n. 3). Six months later, when the obsession for lithography hits him, he provides a far more detailed account of the job-search in Brussels the year before. "When I was in Brussels I tried to be taken on by the lithographers there, but all of them sent me away. I asked for different work from this there, and I just wanted to see, and above all to learn, something of lithography. But they didn't need anyone like that. [Gustave] Simonau, and [William] Toovey were the least dismissive, they said they'd had little benefit from young fellows they'd wanted to train, and things were so slack that they had enough staff." (JLB 281, 11/7/1882.)

Context:
JLB 221, 4/26/1882: "I was turned down by various lithographers in Brussels: there wasn't any work, there was nothing doing, that's what they said."

357. younger artists De Leeuw, Sillevis, and Dumas, p. 22: De Leeuw, Sillevis, and Dumas note that although the Hague School artists were not "unrepresented as print-makers," printmaking was "a somewhat neglected medium at that time," and only "one or two of them experimented with lithography." It was primarily in etching and primarily as a "by-product of their painting," that most the Hague artists experienced printmaking. Middag adds the instructive example of De Zwaluw (The Swallow), a short-lived Dutch magazine, published by Elsevier, that imitated English publications like The Graphic -- "a wafer-thin 'popular paper with plates'" (Middag, p. 3). Vincent saw its failure firsthand and strained mightily to explain its poor reception, arguing both that it was not good enough and, strangely, that it was being suppressed by booksellers. "[Albert] Neuhuys and a few others made drawings this year for 'De Zwaluw,' a magazine that appears monthly and costs 7 1/2 cents. There are some good ones, but one can see that most were done with a weak hand (not the original drawings but the way of popularizing them), and from what I hear the magazine is no more likely to keep going than its predecessors. Why doesn't it work? -- the booksellers say they earn nothing from it, and instead of circulating it they block it." (JLB 278, 11/1/1882.)

Obviously recognizing the extent to which the Swallow's failure undermined his argument for rallying Dutch artists to the cause of the English illustrators, Vincent took up the issue again only a few weeks later, this time in a more conciliatory, guiltier tone: "There's a popular magazine here called De Zwaluw which is published by Elsevier Rotterdam supported by the Society for General Welfare. I've sometimes wondered in recent days whether they could use a digger like that, for example. 1 print a month. But it would cost me a trip to Rotterdam, and I'm so afraid of coming back with the message: Things are too slack, we're not taking anything &c. Moreover, I would prefer not to do this, since I would much rather work longer until a substantial series is possible." (JLB 285, 11/22/1882.)

358. crayon on a special paper Middag, p. 4: Called "transfer paper." Middag describes the process with admirable clarity: "Transfer paper was used to apply an image to the lithographic stone. The surface was coated with gelatine, and once the drawing was made the paper was laid face down on the stone and moistened, which dissolved the gelatine. The stone and the sheet were then run through the press, transferring the scene to the stone with the image reversed. The stone was then prepared for printing in the usual way." Because the copies created from the stone were again reversed, they matched exactly the artist's original drawing. 359. "If this is true" BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 241, 11/2/1882 or 11/3/1882: " If this is so, be so kind then as to give me all information you can pick up about the way in which one has to work on this paper, and try to get me some of it, so that I can give it a trial."
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: " If this is the case, be so good as to give me all the information you can find about how one should work on this paper, and do your best to send me some of it on which I can do some trials."

360. failed to respond immediately Vincent writes requesting more information on transfer lithography on Thursday, November 2 or Friday, November 3 (JLB 280, 11/5/1882). By the beginning of the following week, he has already been to Jos. Smulders & Co., stationers and lithographers in The Hague (JLB 281, 11/7/1882; dated sometime between Monday, November 6 and Wednesday, November 8). In an intervening letter, written November 5, Vincent assures Theo that he will not "undertake anything else for the time being apart from the drawings themselves -- I must wait a little before doing trials with lithography until I have some money to get on with them" (JLB 292, 12/10/1882). This appears to be in response to a specific request from Theo to "hold off" on doing anything, presumably because of the cost, until he has more information and the sample paper that Theo will send. Clearly Vincent does not abide by this promise. In JLB 281, 11/7/1882, Vincent tells Theo that he has not waited for the information from Theo or the paper from Buhot, but gone ahead and done one lithographic print at Smulders. Vincent's reassurances to Theo in JLB 292, 12/10/1882, ("You needn't worry that I'll undertake anything else for the time being"; "If I first have [drawings], reproduction will be a second step") suggest a letter from Theo in which he scolds Vincent for having undertaken some lithographic work peremptorily. That could be the work (with Smulders) referred to in JLB 281, 11/7/1882. In their current order, the clear admonition from Theo, implied in Vincent's reassurances, comes out of nowhere. 361. supply store, Smulders BVG R30, 3/5/1883. According to JLB, Vincent was referring to "the renowned firm of J. Smulders & Co., 'Paper dealers and Lithographers, Publishers of Maps,' located at Spuistraat 55. The warehouse was at Laan 3 (both addresses are in the centre of The Hague; Laan then ran from Grote Markt to Assendelftstraat.)" (JLB 253, n. 9.) Smulders's full name was Casimir Josephus Hypolite Smulders. 362. on his own BVG 243, 11/6/1882-11/8/1882.

Context:
JLB 281, 11/7/1882: "While waiting for further information about the process, I've made a lithograph with the help of Smulders's printer, and I have the pleasure of sending you the very first impression herewith. I drew this lithograph on a piece of prepared paper, probably the same type that Buhot [a paper dealer in Paris] told you about. ... I wrote to you how I came to make this one, didn't I? -- it was after I told Smulders what you had written about that paper, and he said that he had some left."

363. one of his drawings Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee (F 1657 JH 266), which was apparently based on the drawing Old Man Drinking Coffee (F 1682 JH 263) and Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee (F 996a JH 264). 364. returned it to the astonished BVG 243, 11/6/1882-11/8/1882.

Context:
JLB 281, 11/7/1882: "He seemed rather surprised that I came back with the drawing a few hours after I had bought some from him."

365. within a few hours BVG 243, 11/6/1882-11/8/1882.

Context:
JLB 281, 11/7/1882: "He seemed rather surprised that I came back with the drawing a few hours after I had bought some from him."

366. so excited him BVG 243, 11/6/1882-11/8/1882: This is the reaction that Vincent prompts Theo to have when he sends him one of the first prints.

Context:
JLB 281, 11/7/1882: "As you see, I've scrawled this print as simply as possible -- I'll be content if there's anything in it that brings to mind the old lithographs from the time when there was more zest in this branch of art than now."

367. series of similar prints BVG 243, 11/6/1882-11/8/1882.

Context:
JLB 281, 11/7/1882: "I would dearly like to make more. For example, a series of some thirty figures."

368. "not too elaborate" BVG 243, 11/6/1882-11/8/1882.

Context:
BVG 243, 11/6/1882-11/8/1882: "But this is what I should like: if we could show, without a third party's intermediary, a series of about thirty pages, not too elaborate, but vigorously done, which we had got printed at our own expense."
JLB 281, 11/7/1882: "But I think it would be bold if, without involving anyone else, we could show a series of some thirty prints -- not laboured but vigorous -- that we'd had printed at our own expense" (emphasis in original).

369. reserved six stones BVG 245, 11/16/1882. Vincent did not actually take possession of the heavy stones ("the stones are in his [Smulder's] hands") (JLB 287, 11/24/1882). Since he was using the transfer method, actually having the stones would not have facilitated the process in any way, since he would have had to bring them back for both the transfer and the printing.

Context:
JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882: "I'm going to go and talk to Smulders tomorrow to get the stones from him. I must tell you that I would find it extremely pleasing if I could get around to making a large series sometime."

370. icons of redemptive toil

See Ch. 18, n. 372.

371. "a woman with a sack of coal" JLB 292, 12/10/1882.

Context:
JLB 292, 12/10/1882: "Thus in addition I've again made a few drawings for them, a woman with a sack of coal on her head with a yard in the background, a silhouette of roofs and chimneys, and a woman at the wash-tub."

372. a "small caravan" BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882. This was either Woman Miners (F 994 JH 253) or a related image. In his letter, Vincent does not mention that the women were miners, but this is an inevitable and defensible inference given the existence of Woman Miners as well as the reference to "a woman with a sack of coal on her head" in the next letter, JLB 292, 12/10/1882.

Context:
BVG 241, 11/2/1882 or 11/3/1882: "When I get the paper I shall anyhow have one of the figures to try out, but it must become a group of women, a small caravan."
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "If I get the paper, I already have one of the figures, for example, to do as a trial. But it must become a little troop of women, a small caravan."

373. give him "prestige" BVG 243, 11/6/1882-11/8/1882.

Context:
BVG 243, 11/6/1882-11/8/1882: "This would give us more prestige in the eyes of the people whom we shall need later, namely the editors of the magazines."
JLB 281, 11/7/1882: "... this would make us more credible to the people we'll have to approach later on, namely the managers of the magazines."

374. proposed going to England BVG 242, 11/5/1882. A few weeks later, he mentions the possibility of finding a job specifically: "If I can manage to assemble a number of good stones (one or two are bound to go wrong now and again!), this will enable me to apply for work, in England, for example, as well" (JLB 287, 11/24/1882).

Context:
JLB 292, 12/10/1882: "From time to time I have a great longing to be in London again. I'd so very much like to know more about printing and drawing on wood."

375. shortage of competent draftsmen BVG 240, 11/1/1882: Furthermore, Vincent believed this shortage would only grow more acute as the new, easier process lithography became more available. "I think it possible that within a relatively short time there may be a demand for employees for illustration, more so than at present" (JLB 280, 11/5/1882).

Context:
BVG 240, 11/1/1882: "The only excuse that can be accepted is 'a shortage of good draughtsmen.'"
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "The only excuse you may accept is 'dearth of good draughtsmen.'"

376. "I don't think" BVG 288, 6/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 288, 6/3/1883: "Now, I don't think it's every day that the managers of magazines find somebody who considers making illustrations his specialty."
JLB 348, 6/3/1883: "Now I believe that it isn't every day that the managers of illustrated magazines find someone who regards those magazines as his special goal."

377. two with English titles The two were Sorrow (F 1655 JH 259) and Old Man with his Head in his Hands ("At Eternity's Gate" ) (F 1662 JH 268), which was Vincent's new, English name for the same image as his drawing Worn Out (F 997 JH 267), with only some slight pictorial elaboration in the background added to the lithograph. Pickvance goes so far as to say that these first lithographic images "were to be [Vincent's] miniature Graphic" (Pickvance, p. 45). 321 378. planned for his friend BVG R16, 10/31/1882. At the end of October, a day before his letter to Theo broaching the topic, Vincent wrote suggestively to Van Rappard: "It's only when people combine seriously to work together on something that's too much for one person (such as Erckmann-Chatrian in their works or The Graphic draughtsmen for The Graphic) that I think it an excellent thing" (JLB 276, 10/29/1882). He adds the money-making dimension of the vaguely-proposed joint project a little later in the letter: "Precisely because you would be of value to me, I believe, and you would see the whole that the individual drawings are gradually beginning to form, and we could talk about them and discuss whether something could be got out of them" (ibid.).

The vagueness of these comments, combined with the revelation of the full plan only days later, is a typical pattern for Vincent. He follows the same defensive playbook with Theo: laying the conceptual groundwork for his ideas before exposing them specifically, no doubt in the hope of neutralizing concerns in advance and setting the stage for a positive response. Given his attitude toward Van Rappard and his resurgent need for affirmation, it is not hard to imagine that the entire lithography book project was specifically designed to wrap Van Rappard more tightly into his life. In the same letter, he floats (vaguely again) the need for them to see each other's work and share opinions more often -- basically, a plea for another visit by Van Rappard to The Hague combined with a request for an invitation to visit Van Rappard in Utrecht.

Context:
JLB 276, 10/29/1882: "Just as I said above that I long to see your work, so in turn I very often long for you to see mine again. Precisely because you would be of value to me, I believe, and you would see the whole that the individual drawings are gradually beginning to form, and we could talk about them and discuss whether something could be got out of them."

379. Rappard expressed reservations BVG 249, 12/1/1882. Vincent is vague with Theo on the nature and extent of Van Rappard's enthusiasm for the lithography project. He never explains what "questions of technique" refers to. It may simply refer to Van Rappard's criticism of the images Vincent shared with him. Van Rappard criticized the "drawing mistakes" in one of Vincent's images, and Vincent summarizes his friend's argument this way: "one should only send something into the world when that something meets strict technical standards" (JLB 284, 11/18/1882). "Technical" differences might also refer to Van Rappard's objections to the use of the new transfer paper -- an innovation that may not have appealed to a conventional artist like Van Rappard -- as it did not to most young Dutch artists -- who generally preferred traditional engraving over lithography. Vincent tells Theo that Van Rappard did offer to lend money to the project, even despite his differences on technique -- an offer that Vincent nobly rejects: "I refuse it for myself personally, because I would only pursue it alone if the kind of association I've described to you couldn't be established. At that point I would have to see what more I could do." (JLB 289, 12/1/1882.)

This muddled rationale strikes us as not entirely credible. Vincent may have seen refusing Van Rappard's offer as an opportunity to demonstrate that Vincent's family was as supportive of his artistic ambitions as Van Rappard's was of his, or that Vincent was already earning money from his work (and therefore did not need his friend's money to put his plan into effect). Elsewhere, Vincent seems to represent to Van Rappard that he has had more success in finding work with magazines than is, in fact, the case: "This new process enables me to work for a lithographic printer far away without having to send stones" (JLB 287, 11/24/1882). Vincent also heavily implies to Van Rappard that the lost 50 francs was, in fact, payment from a patron, not Theo, for lithographic work (JLB 284, 11/18/1882).

It is also possible that Van Rappard never offered to fund the project; that Vincent invented the story to encourage Theo's participation (for the same reason he misled Theo about Van Rappard's approval of Sien). Van Rappard apparently did offer to lend Vincent 50 francs when Vincent reported the lost payment, but there is no indication that this was intended specifically as support for the lithographic project (ibid.). Vincent may have intended the reference to Van Rappard's offer of support as a threat, just as he threatened to borrow money from Tersteeg when he first arrived in The Hague. In both cases, Vincent may have been banking on Theo's fear that his borrowing money would embarrass the family, and that to avoid embarrassment, Theo would lend him the money he needed.

In a letter to Theo in early December, Vincent appears to exaggerate and mischaracterize Van Rappard's involvement in the project in multiple ways. "I've long been in touch with Rappard on the question of prints for the people, since both he and I attach importance to it, so that he himself, as I wrote to you, said to me of his own accord, I want to give you a helping hand" (JLB 289, 12/1/1882). In fact, as far as his surviving letters to Van Rappard show, Vincent has not yet discussed the plan for an "association" with Van Rappard (he does not do so until March 1883), which is clearly what Vincent means to imply, although he (apparently with some care) does not directly say it (JLB 332, 3/21/1883). (They have only discussed Vincent's "keenness" for lithography [JLB 284, 11/18/1882].) The only "helping hand" Van Rappard has offered is the replacement of the lost 50 francs, which appears to have been just general assistance. Vincent goes on to imply that the amount of money Van Rappard is prepared to lend to support the project is significant (by suggesting that he would take his friend's money only if he could get none from elsewhere); and that Van Rappard's only problem with the plan is the one about technique. There is no support for the former; and the latter, although perhaps true in itself, Vincent uses in such a way as to make it appear that it is the only point of disagreement between him and Van Rappard on the many points in the combination plan, which is untrue.

It is relevant to this issue that in March of the following year (1883) Vincent writes: "I know that you don't look on the Black-and-White in the way that most of the Dutch do, and while I don't know for sure whether you have plans to make use of this means yourself to express what you feel, I do believe that at any rate you have no prejudice about it." (JLB 307, 2/4/1883; emphasis added). In a later letter, Vincent answers some very basic questions about the lithographic process from Van Rappard (JLB 325, 3/5/1883). Clearly, Vincent's friend had only just begun to explore the process himself, suggesting he was never the partner in the lithographic project that Vincent clearly implied to Theo in October and November of 1882.

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "Rappard doesn't, however, view the matter in the way that I would like him to: the thing is, he doesn't agree with me on questions of technique."

380. called it a "combination" BVG 249, 12/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 249, 12/1/1882: "This combination must try to operate as practically and well as possible, and should not disperse before the work is finished."
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "This association not to be dissolved before the venture is completed, and endeavouring to carry it out as practically and as well as possible."

381. working together BVG 240, 11/1/1882. There is an indication of this same plan in Vincent's letter to Van Rappard about the same time: "It's only when people combine seriously to work together on something that's too much for one person (such as Erckmann-Chatrian in their works or The Graphic draughtsmen for The Graphic) that I think it an excellent thing" (JLB 276, 10/29/1882). The latter mention is much more hedged than the former, probably because Vincent has been complaining more vehemently about his fellow artists to Van Rappard than to Theo.

Context:
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "If the painters were to close ranks to ensure that their work (which, after all, is made for the people, in my view -- at least I believe that is the highest, noblest vocation for any artist) could also come into the hands of the people and was put within everyone's reach, that would be something that would produce the same results as were produced in the first years of The Graphic."

382. a moral duty BVG 249, 12/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "Now such an undertaking like making and printing a series of 30 with Working types, say -- sower, digger, woodcutter, ploughman, washerwoman, plus on occasion a cradle or orphan man, in short, the whole vast field lies open, there's an abundance of fine material -- an enterprise like that -- may one undertake it or may one not? It goes even deeper: is it a duty and just, or is it wrong? That is the question."

383. rhetoric of 1793 BVG 249, 12/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "It has always been said: in Holland we can't make magazines for the people. I've never been entirely able to believe this. I see now: it CAN be done."

384. "act, not deliberate" BVG 249, 12/1/1882: For fluidity, we have simplified the translation. Our version: "The combination should act, not deliberate, act quickly and resolutely and without loss of time."

Context:
BVG 249, 12/1/1882: "It ought to be a combination which acts, not deliberates, acts quickly and resolutely and without loss of time."
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "It ought to be a combination which acts, not deliberates, acts quickly and resolutely and without loss of time."

385. "Great things" BVG 250, 12/2/1882-12/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 250, 12/2/1882 or 12/3/1882: "I again witnessed the transferring to the stone and the printing and I must tell you that I think great things can be done with this process."
JLB 290, 12/3/1882: "Again I watched the transfer to stone and the printing carefully, and I must say that I believe a great deal can be done with this process."

386. En avant BVG 249, 12/1/1882 and JLB 289, 12/1/1882: We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG 249, 12/1/1882: "If I were a man of means, I shouldn't hesitate to decide, I should say, 'En avant et plus vite que ça.' [Quick march, and hurry up.]"
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "If I were a man of means, I wouldn't hesitate to decide, I would say, Onward, and be quick about it."

387. a manifesto BVG 249, 12/1/1882: Vincent even provides a virtual constitution with a noble preamble.

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "Given that it's useful and needful for Dutch drawings to be made, printed and circulated, intended for workers' dwellings, farmhouses, in a word, for every working man, several parties undertake to do their utmost, to exert their best efforts for this goal."

388. not just the artistic program BVG 249, 12/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "The price of the prints is not to exceed 10 or at the most 15 cents. Publication shall begin when a series of 30 has been made and printed, and the costs involved (for stones, printing wages, paper) have been paid. These thirty prints will appear simultaneously, although available separately, together forming a set in linen cover with a short text, not to go with the prints -- which speak for themselves -- but to explain pithily how and for what purpose they were made &c."

389. subject matter, and price BVG 249, 12/1/1882: However, Vincent may have written a price of 75 cents on one of his lithographs, Old Man with his Head in his Hands ("At Eternity's Gate") (F 1662 JH 268).

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "… the price of the sheets should not exceed 10, or at the most, 15 cents."

390. but also profit shares BVG 249, 12/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "The amount raised by sales will be used first to reimburse those who advanced money, second to give everyone who has supplied a drawing an amount to be determined later that is the same for each draughtsman. When these payments have been made, what remains will be used for new publications to carry on the work."

391. voting rights BVG 249, 12/1/1882. The level of detail in Vincent's plans is truly stunning, and may have been partly intended to send a message to Theo that he is taking a very businesslike attitude toward a project that will inevitably cost Theo dearly: "also the names of those who committed themselves (but not to make them public; the matter must be an artistic, a private venture), together with what they are doing for the cause: A undertakes to make this or that, B gives this or that for it &c., nothing more" (JLB 289, 12/1/1882; emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "And for my part I would wish everyone in the association to be completely equal -- with no regulations or president or this or that -- just a memorandum laying down the venture which, after it had been finally drawn up and signed by the entrepreneurs."

392. shareholder duties BVG 249, 12/1/1882. Vincent is demanding of the artists in his combination, and appears to be especially concerned that they not withdraw before the project is completed.

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "Those who begin this venture regard it as a duty. Self-interest not being their aim, neither those who advance money nor draughtsmen nor those who participate in other ways may claim back what they have contributed in the event that the venture would founder before it was half way -- so the burden must be shared so that each gets the part that he can bear and so that the venture can be accomplished." (Emphasis in original.)

393. distribution of assets BVG 249, 12/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "In the latter case [success beyond all expectation] the surplus will be used to carry on the work."

394. never responded directly In response to Vincent's stirring oratory, Theo ventured only a few specific criticisms of his imagery. These, of course, were met with storms of rebuttal. Theo's primary criticism, which he apparently lodged with great care in late November, was that the drawings were too big. "You write about the question of making drawings in a smaller format. I think it good of you that you speak about this question in a calmer manner than others, who have sometimes said the same thing to me in a very different way." (JLB 290, 12/3/1882.) (Many months later [July 1883], Theo criticizes Vincent's lithographs as "rather meagre" [JLB 363, 7/22/1883].) The issue of the brothers' disputes over Vincent's art will be taken up in the next chapter. Suffice it to say that Vincent dismisses the former criticism not just out of hand ("I would be going against my convictions if I deviated from that"), but repeatedly, at obsessive length, as if stamping out a persistent fire (JLB 290, 12/3/1882).

In Theo's response to the book project, Vincent also seems to hear a deeper criticism that may have been just suggested (the brothers spoke in indirections) or may have lodged entirely in Vincent's guilty, defensive imagination: "In the illustrated magazines they undergo something like the small tower in the distance that looks very small and insignificant, and when one gets up close proves to be an imposing mass (I mean, only a small part of their work is made public)" (ibid.). Vincent appears to be rebutting an accusation that he doesn't have much to show for his two years as an artist. In responding to Vincent's prints, Theo may have implied that the paintings and watercolors that Vincent has abandoned were more substantial ("significant") than the drawings and lithographs. Such an implication would no doubt have inflamed Vincent. That appears to be the charge Vincent is responding to in this passage from the same letter: "Anyway, some paintings in their huge frames look very substantial, and later one is surprised when they actually leave behind such an empty and dissatisfied feeling. On the other hand, one overlooks many an unpretentious woodcut or lithograph or etching now and then, but comes back to it and becomes more and more attached to it with time, and senses something great in it." (ibid.)

Theo did give the project an initial nod of approval: "I'm really delighted that you took some pleasure in the first one I sent. Herewith you're receiving the very first impression of Sorrow." (JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882; emphasis in original.) The first lithograph Vincent sent was Orphan Man (F 1658 JH 256), based on a drawing of the orphan man, Zuyderland (Old Man with a Stick [F 962 JH 212]). Multiple sources are increasingly vague on the issue of order of these prints. Vincent sent a second set of prints to Theo on November 11 (JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882), and a third on November 22 with the obviously unanswered question: "I'd very much like to know as soon as possible what impression they make on you. I still plan to retouch them on the stone, and would like to have your opinion for that." (JLB 285, 11/22/1882.) A letter arrived from Theo sometime before November 24, but Vincent makes no mention of any comment -- which he would certainly have done if Theo had written something positive (JLB 286, 11/24/1882). On December 1, he asks again for a letter -- primarily because the next installment of money is due, but a good sign that Theo has not written any comment yet (JLB 289, 12/1/1882).

The money arrives within the next few days, along with a roll of transfer paper, and it is probably in the accompanying letter that Theo offers his only concrete criticism of the prints: that they are too big -- but still no discernible reaction to Vincent's on-again, off-again proposal for publishing them: "What I wrote to you in my last letter about a plan for making prints for the people is something to which I hope you'll give some thought one day" (ibid.). A few days after that, Vincent almost angrily reminds his brother of his failure to respond: "You've received my letter in which I wrote …" (JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882). The ominous silence forces Vincent into another round of argument and exhortation: "And that it's thus something that one can begin and pursue with serenity, something whose good outcome one also needn't doubt or despair of -- provided one doesn't weaken or lose heart" (ibid.). He even stoops to suggesting that both Van Rappard and Van Rappard's father support the project -- almost certainly a figment of his wishful imagination (JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882).

There appears to be no reaction to the project at all until January of the following year (the brothers did not see each other at Christmas) when, referring to a pleasant New Year's letter from Theo, Vincent writes: "You speak too highly of me in your letter, but the fact that you think highly of me is an added reason for me to try not to be entirely unworthy of it" (JLB 298, 1/3/1883). However, Vincent goes on to make clear that they have had virtually no interaction in the meantime regarding Vincent's art or his ambitious project: "you've seen so little of my work recently, ... And as for my saying I believed I had made some progress through those experiments, it may be that I can't see my own work properly." (ibid.) Later in the same letter, he appears to have seriously scaled back his ambitions, pushed the lithography project into the indefinite future, and returned to drawing (using lithographic crayon) in yet another round of preparation: "I'm more eager to put together a serious work for reproduction than to have the satisfaction of seeing one drawing printed some day" (ibid.).

About some enclosed drawings, he writes in a quiet voice that contrasts dramatically with the ringing revolutionary rhetoric of only a month before: "This is only a beginning -- later you'll get fine things from me, old chap! For the time being, let me know whether you think some of the objections to using pencil alone could be removed somewhat by using crayon as well. Don't you also agree that by making these drawings I may also indirectly learn things about lithography proper?" (ibid.) The incredible tentativeness of this last sentence suggests just how unresponsive Theo has been.

395. more harm than good

It is hard to imagine that Theo was not distressed by Vincent's apparently cavalier attitude toward the considerable expenses incurred by the lithographic project, even assuming that he believed Vincent's story about one of Theo's 50-franc payments being lost in the mail (See Ch. 18, n. 397). After explaining that if the project failed, he could still use the drawings to secure a paying job or sell illustrations to a magazine, Vincent then adds as a casual afterthought: "But nothing is lost if they're not immediately accepted," and proceeds to make the argument that all the expensive effort will be a learning experience -- an argument Theo already rejected during his visit the previous August (JLB 281, 11/7/1882).

A few weeks later, there is another exchange that must have soured Theo on Vincent's latest dream of moving to the front of the line. Apparently in response to a question from Theo about possible illustration work in Holland, Vincent rejects out of hand the idea of selling one of his illustrations to The Swallow, the Dutch equivalent of The Graphic. Vincent first offers the lame excuse, "But it would cost me a trip to Rotterdam [where The Swallow was published]," then gives a further explanation that must have horrified Theo with its seeming disinterest in selling his work (or reluctance to risk failure): "Moreover, I would prefer not to do this, since I would much rather work longer until a substantial series is possible." (JLB 285, 11/22/1882.) Perhaps realizing the impact this comment might have, Vincent quickly adds a vague and unconvincing reaffirmation of his determination to support himself: "Yet I do consider it, because I'm sometimes desperate to earn a little extra" (ibid.). Unable to leave well enough alone, Vincent returns to the subject of The Swallow in a subsequent letter in a discussion that must have further discouraged Theo. In analyzing why the magazine was not successful, Vincent takes the publisher, Elsevier, to task for "self-interest" (i.e., trying to turn a profit) (JLB 289, 12/1/1882).

396. Not even Vincent seemed persuaded Every suggestion that the book might "be successful beyond expectation" (JLB 289, 12/1/1882) and "bound to be profitable" (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882) was followed by defensive protests that "it would be for the sake of art and not firstly or chiefly for my own benefit," as expenses mounted and Vincent hedged reflexively against yet another failure (JLB 282, 11/14/1882). Vincent's hedging took a variety of forms.

In addition to repeatedly lowering the very expectations that he was responsible for building up, he employed the usual array of devices to distance himself from potential blame (JLB 289, 12/1/1882). He strongly suggested that the project was, in fact, Theo's idea ("This matter, which not long ago was no more than a few words from you"), and therefore any blame for its failure would be, at least, shared (ibid.). Vincent also deployed his rhetorical skills: everything from double negatives that effectively immunized themselves from criticism: "I see that with persistence and perseverance [the book project] could become something which I believe could be absolutely not superfluous but decidedly good and useful" (how could Theo argue that Vincent's efforts were "superfluous"?), to elaborate praeteritio (paraleipsis). "Before I go any further, though, this -- I personally don't want to have any more to do with the business of prints for the people beyond the making of them, in the event that some such venture is started. It must be a matter of charity, not of bookshops. And as it will be necessary to have some contact with the bookshops, if only as regards printing and so on, I mention it to you now, not to ask you, 'do you think it will succeed?' from the bookshop's point of view, but just with the question How to do it? from the point of view that it would be out of love for the cause." (JLB 289, 12/1/1882; emphasis in original.)

Like Marc Anthony claiming that he had come to bury Caesar not to praise him, Vincent ostentatiously left the business end of the proposed enterprise to others and protested that he would be satisfied with the simple task of making the prints. But, of course, he did no such thing, providing not only a detailed blueprint for the enterprise, but ongoing advocacy and direction. Sometimes the contradiction was glaringly obvious. In early December, Vincent wrote defensively, "Since I wrote that to you, I've naturally thought not so much 'Who will do this or that?' as 'What shall I do for it?' on the grounds that I'm not responsible for the one [commercial aspects of the project], but I am for the latter [artistic aspects]" (JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882). Then, in the very next sentence, he offered an earful of business advice: "But I can tell you this, ... there would be absolutely no need to resort to aping other popular publications, that on the contrary, the existence of similar magazines like British Workman, for instance, is a guide as to How to do it and How not to do it" (ibid.). Another example is this modest disavowal, which is either disingenuous or delusional, or some combination of the two: "Now it isn't at all my idea that what we might have printed should be exploited by me or you. I had and have not the slightest thought of that." (JLB 282, 11/14/1882.) (The reference to "exploited by me or you" is especially telling.) On other occasions, he made a show of putting control of the project in Theo's hands ("Is this worthwhile, do you think? I would dearly like to make more" or "But you see more clearly in business matters than I") -- but he neither expected nor awaited an answer before proceeding. (JLB 281, 11/7/1882.)

397. promises of commercial success In mid-November when Vincent was desperately trying to back-pedal from his early over-enthusiasm and rush to publish, he wrote about the project: "That would probably cost me rather than earn me money -- it would be for the sake of art and not firstly or chiefly for my own benefit. ... at least in my case and that of most people who do such a thing, would be purely artistic in character and has not the slightest relation to commercial publications." (JLB 282, 11/14/1882.) Only two weeks later, he sent Theo his wildly ambitious plan for an "association" of artists with its strong suggestions of commercial success (e.g., provision for division of profits) (JLB 289, 12/1/1882). But in the very same letter, he once again insists: "It must be a matter of charity, not of bookshops" (ibid.).

Vincent never shared the details of the expenses with Theo at the time, but his finances were in trouble even before he began "experimenting" with lithography. One week into November, he had apparently already spent the 50-franc payment Theo sent on October 30 and eagerly awaited the November 10 payment. "If at all possible, send no later than the tenth," he forewarned Theo, "for I've had extra expenses here for one thing and another" (JLB 281, 11/7/1882). He subsequently made several vague, despairing references to the cost of his experiments. When he reported on November 14 that the payment for November 10 was lost in the mail, he laments, "I have been literally without money for 5 or 6 days now, and so my work is stuck too, at least I can't work as I would like to" (JLB 282, 11/14/1882). Losing momentum on the lithography project continued to be his primary (expressed) concern: "I fear the 50 francs are down the drain, just when they're almost indispensable -- first, for making progress with the experiments in lithography" (JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882). A week later, he underscored the point: "When your last letter arrived I had to pay so much immediately, because I had waited for it for so long, that little was left. All the same, I again did these two lithographic trials, even though there were costs involved, because I think work offers the most hope, especially in difficult times, and intend to fight to pull through." (JLB 285, 11/22/1882.) When he told Van Rappard about the lost money (without telling him it was from Theo, leaving the implication that it was payment for his lithographs), he similarly complained: "So now it's hard that I can't get on as well as would have been the case if the money hadn't been lost" (JLB 284, 11/18/1882).

Even though Theo replaced the money immediately (JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882), Vincent reported being completely penniless again by the end of the month -- "I have nothing left" (JLB 289, 12/1/1882) -- and, as always, experienced terrible guilt over his humiliating dependence: "For many a painter this is something intolerable, or almost intolerable, at least. One wants to be an honest man, and one is, one works just as hard as a porter, and yet one falls short, one has to give the work up, one sees no chance of carrying it out without spending more on it than one will get back for it. One has a feeling of guilt, of falling short, of not keeping promises, one isn't honest as one would be if the work was paid for at its natural, fair price." (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.) Despite such pangs of guilt, Vincent resisted the pressure to get a job with increasing steadfastness -- even though he had adamantly argued for the lithography project on the basis that it will help him secure a job. "Not doing anything else and devoting all one's time to the work, that's still preferable in my view" (JLB 290, 12/3/1882).

The possibility that Vincent deceived Theo about the loss of the 50 francs should at least be considered. Given Vincent's other deceptions of Theo, and the enormous demands on Vincent's limited funds from both the lithography project and (unmentioned in the letters) a large family ("one thing and another"), it is certainly not impossible (JLB 394, 10/12/1883). Starting in mid-November, phrases like "would that be dishonest, otherwise of course I wouldn't do it" (JLB 282, 11/14/1882), "One wants to be an honest man," (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882) and "one isn't honest" (ibid.) introduce a new vocabulary to Vincent's self-reproach and suggest a specific contrition. This, however, would have been crossing a line, which would account for this extraordinary outburst of guilt in JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882. (It should be noted, however, that in addition to painful honesty, there is not a little purblind self-pity in this "confession," and Vincent accepted no specific blame -- he presented his predicament as the inevitable fate of an artist ["For many a painter ..."], not the foreseeable consequence of the choices he had made.)

In March of the following year (1883), in response to a question from Van Rappard, Vincent showed a shockingly laissez-faire regard for the mounting costs of the lithography project: "So for the present I know next to nothing about the actual prices" (JLB 325, 3/5/1883). He offered a cloud of excuses for his ignorance ("The prices I paid provisionally don't count since we had come to an arrangement, because the printer himself didn't know at that point -- and there were failures &c."); he promised belatedly to "get a quotation from Smulders"; and he went on at length about why Smulders has been too busy to give him information (ibid.). The combination of disregard and evasion on financial matters would, no doubt, have horrified Theo. We suspect that Vincent has, in fact, been running up his bill at Smulders ("there were failures") and doesn't really want to do the final figuring because that would require him to pay it. A passage in a letter in late November (to Van Rappard, of course) suggests the debt began mounting up early: "[The printer has] been good enough not to press me about the costs of the stones" (JLB 287, 11/24/1882).

398. repeatedly made and retracted

So volatile was Vincent's confidence that he even went back and forth on the fundamental issue of whether or not there actually was a project, much less a commercially viable one. His desperate uncertainty is exposed early by the disappearance of the 50-franc payment from Theo that was due on November 10 (assuming that the payment was, indeed, lost, as Vincent reported to Theo on November 14 [See Ch. 18, n. 397]) (JLB 282, 11/14/1882). When the payment is only four days late, Vincent is overcome by a terror of anxiety that Theo has withheld the money because he disapproves of Vincent's idea for publishing his lithographs. In some of the most agitated prose of their entire correspondence, he frantically retreats from his original enthusiasm: "But on the other hand I'm always nervous when there's something like this, and can't help worrying, and am then afraid that perhaps I wrote or did something of which you disapprove. So last night I was fretting that perhaps you didn't approve of my having my lithograph printed, possibly drawing the conclusion from what I wrote that I intended to publish something, for instance." (JLB 282, 11/14/1882.)

The issue of "publication" becomes the idée fixe of Vincent's anxiety. In his previous letter, he wrote: "But I think it would be bold if, without involving anyone else, we could show a series of some thirty prints -- not laboured but vigorous -- that we'd had printed at our own expense, this would make us more credible to the people we'll have to approach later on, namely the managers of the magazines" (JLB 281, 11/7/1882; emphasis in original). Sitting in his apartment, penniless, imagining the possible offenses he might have given, Vincent focuses on this overreaching as the likeliest cause of Theo's presumed anger (JLB 282, 11/14/1882).

The result is an explosion of apology and back-pedaling "clarification." "Publications, are things I'd most certainly consult you about before undertaking them, and I have no thought of that for the present, and occupy myself, as you know incidentally, with my drawings and the artistic side of my work only. ... At one point Van Rappard experimented in the same way with etchings for instance, which he also had to have printed, but the printing an artist does isn't publishing something, and has nothing directly to do with trade, being strictly private. This seems to me as clear as daylight but, as I say, last night I was fretting that perhaps you might have seen it as a step of a very different nature, for I found it strange not to have a letter yet. ... Now it isn't at all my idea that what we might have printed should be exploited by me or you. I had and have not the slightest thought of that, ... be assured that there is nothing and for the present won't be anything more than the experiments that all those who etch or lithograph or reproduce their drawings in one way or another must carry out to learn about the processes and the strengths of black-and-white. ... a thing, would be purely artistic in character and has not the slightest relation to commercial publications. ... [That] would never have occurred to me." (JLB 282, 11/14/1882; emphasis added.) It is a sign of Vincent's resilience, or dissociation, or both, that less than a month after this abject, groveling retreat, he will rise like a phoenix from the ashes and present a grandly ambitious publication plan, backed by pages of details and argumentation (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882).

399. sometimes in the same letter BVG 249, 12/1/1882. Only a short space later, he dangles the possibility that "the venture [might] be successful beyond expectation" (JLB 289, 12/1/1882). In this letter, Vincent begins with an argument based on artistic principle (what he elsewhere calls "moral greatness") (JLB 293, 12/11/1882).

Context:
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "So when it comes down to daring and self-sacrifice and venturing on something that doesn't have to be done for gain but because it's useful and good."

322 400. "[it] leaves me" BVG R16, 10/31/1882: This could be seen as just Vincent consoling Van Rappard on the refusal of Arti, an artist's association in Amsterdam, to exhibit one of his (Van Rappard's) works -- except that Vincent repeats the same thing to Theo only a few days later. "The fact that I consider it not unlikely that in time I'll make things that will come into the hands of the public is something that leaves me quite cold and that I don't in the least regard as pleasing," he writes with unmistakable disdain (JLB 282, 11/14/1882). Both instances strike us as defensive.

Context:
JLB 276, 10/29/1882: "That sort of thing leaves me absolutely cold."

401. had asked to hang BVG 245, 11/16/1882: This would have been Vincent's first public "exhibition." His map of the Holy Land had hung in the basement of Zion's Chapel in Amsterdam in 1878, but neither the object nor the display of it had an artistic intent.

Context:
JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882: "Smulders's workmen from the other warehouse in the Laan saw the stone of the orphan man and asked the printer if they could have an impression to hang up. No result of my work would be more agreeable to me than that ordinary working men should hang such prints in their room or workplace."

402. "the man in the street" BVG 245, 11/16/1882.

Context:
BVG 245, 11/16/1882: "Of course a drawing must have artistic value, but in my opinion this doesn't prevent the man in the street from finding something in it."
JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882: "Of course a drawing must have artistic value, but in my view this shouldn't rule out the possibility that ordinary passers-by may see something in it."

403. "every workman's" BVG 249, 12/1/1882. We have reassembled the words from a sentence in the Bonger translation.

Context:
BVG 249, 12/1/1882: "As it is useful and necessary that Dutch drawings be made, printed and distributed which are destined for workmen's houses and for farms, in a word, for every working man, a number of persons should unite in order to use their full strength toward this end."
JLB 289, 12/1/1882: "Given that it's useful and needful for Dutch drawings to be made, printed and circulated, intended for workers' dwellings, farmhouses, in a word, for every working man, several parties undertake to do their utmost, to exert their best efforts for this goal."

404. contempt for the public taste BVG 252, 12/11/1882: Vincent never really sorts out this fundamental ambivalence about the public taste. At times he seems to convince himself that the public is being force-fed bad art by unscrupulous, money-hungry dealers and publishers; but if people were given something of more quality (i.e., his work), they would prefer it to the dross that was currently available. In his personal interaction, this combination of evangelism and profound elitism was clearly one of Vincent's insufferable traits: his absolute confidence that he knew best what another person truly preferred, no matter what that person thought he preferred. At times of despair and self-reproach (as after the failure of the lithographic book project), Vincent seems to renounce this arrogant sixth sense -- "I have too little idea of how things stand to be able to decide on their feasibility myself" (JLB 297, 12/31/1882 and 1/2/1883) -- although this might be a reference to his disconnection from intermediaries like dealers and publishers, rather than from "ordinary passers-by" (JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882).

Context:
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "Renewing themselves -- [the magazines] never give it a thought. Suppose that The Graphic, L'Illustration, Vie Moderne published an issue containing feeble, insipid things. Nonetheless, umpteen cartloads and shiploads would be sold, the managers rub their hands and say, 'It sells just as well like this, no questions asked, they swallow it anyway.'"

405. The loss of control BVG R18, 11/26/1882.

Context:
JLB 287, 11/24/1882: "Still, one has to be careful once something has been put on, and can't control everything."

406. spotting some images BVG 250, 12/2/1882-12/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 290, 12/3/1882: "This time the autographic ink ran badly and that had to be corrected later, but there were still black passages everywhere."

407. and blurring others BVG R20, 2/4/1883.

Context:
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "When it was being transferred to the stone, the upper half came out all blotted and I could only partly correct it with the scraper."

408. tried erasing the crayon BVG 256, 12/31/1882-1/2/1883.

Context:
JLB 297, 12/31/1882 and 1/2/1883: "When I made the lithographs, I was struck by the fact that the lithographic crayon was very pleasant to work with, and I thought of making drawings with it. It has one drawback, though, which you'll understand -- it's greasy, so one can't rub it out in the normal way. Working with it on paper, one mostly has to do without the only thing that one can use to erase on the stone itself, namely the scraper, which can't be used with enough force on the paper because it goes through it."

409. "touching up" BVG 246, 11/22/1882.

Context:
BVG 246, 11/22/1882: "The drawing was not done with lithographic crayon only, but was touched up with autographic ink."
JLB 285, 11/22/1882: "The drawing was done not only with lithographic crayon; the strengths were reinforced with autographic ink as well."

410. "treacherous" BVG R29, 2/27/1883.

Context:
BVG R29, 2/27/1883: "What can you see from it? -- (1) what kind of paper it is; (2) on which side you must draw; (3) what kinds of things one can do on it -- but the autographic ink is treacherous."
JLB 321, 2/23/1883-2/26/1883: "What can you see from this? First what kind of paper it is, second on which side you should draw, third that you can use all kinds of things on it -- but the autographic ink isn't to be trusted ..."

411. the ink dissolved BVG R29, 2/27/1883. Elsewhere, Vincent attributes the problem to his diluting of the ink before he uses it, and suggests mysteriously that he might get better results "by putting on a kind of wash during printing, and will try out various types of paper and different sorts of printing ink" (JLB 285, 11/22/1882). Surely Vincent's problems were compounded by the fact that no one at Smulders was familiar with the transfer process he was using: "the printer himself didn't know at that point" (JLB 325, 3/5/1883).

Context:
JLB 321, 2/23/1883-2/26/1883: "What can you see from this? First what kind of paper it is, second on which side you should draw, third that you can use all kinds of things on it -- but the autographic ink isn't to be trusted, sometimes it works very well in transferring, sometimes it runs (for the drawing is wetted when it's laid face down on the grained stone and then pulled through the press until it's transferred)."

412. "nothing but a black blot" BVG R29, 2/27/1883.

Context:
BVG R29, 2/27/1883: "So it may happen that the ink starts running, and in that case you get nothing but a black blot instead of your drawing."
JLB 321, 2/23/1883-2/26/1883: "So the ink can sometimes start to run again, and in that case you get a black cake instead of your drawing" (emphasis in original).

413. directly on the stone

BVG R29, 2/27/1883. Vincent tells Van Rappard: "Now I'm trying to find a way of combining the new process (transferring a drawing on paper) with the old (working directly on the stone itself)" (JLB 287, 11/24/1882). This may also be Vincent trying to stay connected with Van Rappard who apparently did not show much interest in the new transfer method Vincent was using. (See Ch. 18, n. 379.) Middag gives several examples of modifications Vincent made on the stone: Digger (F 1656 JH 262) spade, for instance, was added on the stone, and Van Gogh also scraped off some ink which had run on the stone of 'A workman's meal-break' [Workman Sitting on a Basket, Cutting Bread (F 1663 JH 272)] (Middag, p. 5).

Context:
JLB 321, 2/23/1883-2/26/1883: "Still, it can be done -- and, above all, you can retouch in ink on the stone itself."

414. using his pocketknife BVG R30, 3/5/1883.

Context:
JLB 325, 3/5/1883: "Needless to say, you can in fact use various things as a scraper. The shape doesn't matter much -- I did it with my pocket-knife as well."

415. treated them as drawings

BVG R18, 11/26/1882. In late November, Vincent sent early impressions of three images to Van Rappard, adding: "I'll retouch two of them, namely the digger [Digger (F 1656 JH 262)] and the coffee drinker [Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee (F 1657 JH 266)]" (JLB 287, 11/24/1882). Middag notes: "[Vincent] made additions and changes to the printed impressions themselves, treating them as if they were drawings" and gives as an example, the figure in the Digger (F 1656 JH 262) that Vincent transformed into a peat-cutter in one impression and a peasant digging in a field in another by the addition of details on the print (Middag, p. 3). Middag adds drolly that such changes "fall into the category of 'how not to do it' in the eyes of orthodox graphic artists and print collectors."

Context:
JLB 287, 11/24/1882: "First I wanted to tell you that I'm now on my fourth stone, and am sending you herewith impressions of the three you don't have; I'll retouch two of them, namely the digger and the coffee drinker."

416. add background BVG 246, 11/22/1882: Vincent's inability to reach closure on images, which was at the core of his dissatisfaction with lithography, is revealed in this passage.

Context:
JLB 285, 11/22/1882: "In the drawing of the Coffee drinker [Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee (F 1657 JH 266)] the black was much more broken by the direction of the hatching. It has now become dull, unfortunately, but this can probably be corrected."

417. "lost in transferring them" BVG 246, 11/22/1882.

Context:
BVG 246, 11/22/1882: "The drawings were better. I had worked hard on them, especially on the digger; now several things have been lost in transferring them to the stone and in the printing."
JLB 285, 11/22/1882: "The drawings were better, I put a lot of work into the Digger especially; now various things have been lost through the transfer and printing."

418. less striking

BVG R18, 11/26/1882. Referring to the lithograph, Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee (F 1657 JH 266), Vincent writes that it "worked much better as a drawing" (probably Old Man Drinking Coffee [F 1682 JH 263]) (JLB 287, 11/24/1882).

Context:
JLB 287, 11/24/1882: "The latter worked much better as a drawing. In the lithograph I used autographic ink that hasn't transferred well, and much of the briskness that was in the drawing has been lost."

419. drained of "animation"

BVG R18, 11/26/1882: Vincent writes this referring to the lithograph, Orphan Man with Top Hat, Drinking Coffee (F 1657 JH 266). We assume that "briskness" and "life" both refer to the same quality (JLB 287, 11/24/1882).

Context:
BVG R18, 11/26/1882: "I have used autographic ink, which did not transfer very well, and the 'quickness' of the drawing has to a great extent gone out of it. There was also more animation in the black parts, as the hatching expressed the direction and form of the folds much more strongly."
JLB 287, 11/24/1882: "In the lithograph I used autographic ink that hasn't transferred well, and much of the briskness that was in the drawing has been lost. There was also more life in the black, because the hatching conveyed the direction and form of the folds much better."

420. "diversity of tone" BVG R18, 11/26/1882.

Context:
BVG R18, 11/26/1882: "Well, the same is true of the 'Digger,' but this sheet has in general acquired a certain vigour and ruggedness which corresponds with the character of the figure, though I should have liked a greater diversity of tone."
JLB 287, 11/24/1882: "Now the same is true of the digger, but in this print there is in general a certain strength and roughness that corresponds with the character of the figure, though I would have liked to have more variety of tone."

421. turned out "spoiled" BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "Enclosed you will find the first print, not counting one spoiled proof."
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "Herewith the first impression, not counting one that went wrong."

422. "misprinted" BVG 250, 12/2/1882-12/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 250, 12/2/1882 or 12/3/1882: "Frankly, it was a misprint, but I sent it to you because a few parts were exactly the way I intended the whole to be."
JLB 290, 12/3/1882: "Actually it went wrong -- but I sent it anyway because there are some bits in it that have turned out as I had intended the whole thing to be."

423. he found unsatisfactory BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.

Context:
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "I myself am very far from satisfied with this but, well, getting better must come through doing it and through trying" (emphasis in original).

424. "failures" BVG R20, 2/4/1883: Vincent does try to argue to Van Rappard that some parts of these "failures" are, in fact, successes. "All the same you'll see that there are things in them that prove that with this technique one can work vigorously and render materials, for example the basket, the trousers and muddy boots" (JLB 307, 2/4/1883). It should be underscored that even this limited admission of "failure" is addressed to Van Rappard, not Theo.

Context:
BVG R20, 2/4/1883: "As for my lithographs -- the one of the fellow sitting on a basket cutting his bread [Workman Sitting on a Basket, Cutting Bread (F 1663 JH 272)] is a failure. When I transferred it to the stone the upper half got all blurred."
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "As to the lithographs, the one of the chap sitting on a basket slicing his bread [Workman Sitting on a Basket, Cutting Bread (F 1663 JH 272)] is a failure. When it was being transferred to the stone, the upper half came out all blotted."

425. "sorry abortions"

BVG R20, 2/4/1883: This also refers to Workman Sitting on a Basket, Cutting Bread (F 1663 JH 272), and it is a harsh judgment that Vincent partially retracts.

Context:
BVG R20, 2/4/1883: "And though at first I thought it a sorry abortion, I have become somewhat reconciled to it since then, and if I were to start over again, I should do it in the same vigorous way -- with a background."
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "And while I myself found this sheet very ugly in the first days, I've since become more reconciled to it, and if I began again I'd continue in the same, more vigorous way -- with a background behind."

426. hand-wringing apologies BVG 250, 12/2/1882-12/3/1882: The lithograph that Vincent refers to is Old Man with his Head in his Hands ("At Eternity's Gate"), F 1662 JH 268, 27 November 1882, lithograph, 21.7 by 14.4 in., 55 by 36.5 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum.

Context:
JLB 290, 12/3/1882: "Hands and head are poor, yet in the other old man they're the best part. ... Actually it went wrong -- but I sent it anyway because there are some bits in it that have turned out as I had intended the whole thing to be."

427. "I tell you that" BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.

Context:
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "Understand, however, that the dissatisfaction about poor work, the failure of things, the technical difficulties can make one terribly melancholy."

428. denied the charges BVG 252, 12/11/1882: This is Vincent's paraphrase of the Graphic editorial.

Context:
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "And still the publishers and dealers, not listening to a prophecy like H.H.'s, will go on assuring us in words like those in the enclosed folder that all is well and that we're making very good progress."

429. shortage of competent draftsmen BVG 252, 12/11/1882: This is Vincent quoting Von Herkomer.

Context:
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "HH speaks of a: 'DEARTH OF GOOD DRAUGHTSMEN.' And in general his words are the diametrical opposite of those of the publishers in this Xmas issue." (Emphasis in original.)

430. "Besides our" BVG 252, 12/11/1882. According to JLB, "The quotation -- slightly shortened by Van Gogh -- is on p. 1. The Christmas number says: 'actual professional artists,' 'good friends' and 'constantly sending' (p. 1)." (JLB 293, 12/11/1882; n. 3.) We have spelled out the number "2730" as JLB do in their translation.

Context:
BVG 252, 12/11/1882: "Checking our books, we find that besides our professional artists, we have no less than 2730 friends scattered all over the world, sending us sketches or elaborate drawings" (emphasis in original).
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "On referring to our books we find that besides our professional artists we have no less than Two thousand seven hundred and thirty friends scattered over the world, sending us sketches or elaborate drawings" (emphasis in original).

431. sent Theo a copy BVG 252, 12/11/1882.

Context:
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "Herewith a folder from the 1883 Xmas No. of The Graphic."

432. furious denunciation BVG 252, 12/11/1882.

Context:
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "The Graphic began on the narrow way and has now moved to the broad one. I saw the latest issue this morning. There was almost nothing good in it. I took an old, torn, dirty issue of 1873 from a pile of scrap paper at a Jewish bookseller's this morning and am keeping almost everything in it." (Emphasis in original.)

433. "It makes me sad" BVG 252, 12/11/1882.

Context:
BVG 252, 12/11/1882: "But it makes me sad, it takes away my pleasure, it upsets me, and personally I am absolutely at a loss about what to do. What sometimes makes me sad is this: formerly, when I started, I used to think, If only I make so or so much progress, I shall get a job somewhere, and I shall be on a straight road and find my way through life."
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: " It's just that it makes me sad, it takes away my pleasure, it upsets me, and I no longer know what I, for my part, should or should not do. What sometimes saddens me is this -- in the past, when I began, I thought when I've got this or that far I'll get a position here or there, and I'll be on a straight path and set for life."

323 434. to a bitter winter BVG 245, 11/16/1882. In November, Vincent continues: "It has been very cold here. Today very dark grey and dreary." (JLB 285, 11/22/1882.) In March: "If it was as cold in your part of the world as it was here last week ..." (JLB 327, 3/11/1883).

Context:
JLB 283, 11/16/1882 or 11/17/1882: "It's bitterly cold here. Snow and frost, but very beautiful for all that."

435. deep into the fall BVG 238, 10/10/1882: As late as mid-October, Vincent is still complaining about not being fully recovered from his bout with gonorrhea. The problems must be somewhat serious even now, judging by the urgency of his vows to ignore them: "But I no longer let it disturb me, for it annoys me too much and is too inconvenient, since there's too much to do" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "I sometimes have a day or half a day when I'm indescribably faint and weak, much more so than in the past."

436. "indescribably weak" BVG 238, 10/10/1882: This is a common complaint throughout the winter. In August: "I'm dead tired" (JLB 257, 8/14/1882). In September: "I have it too sometimes, more as a sense of unpleasant dullness than severe pain" (JLB 269, 9/25/1882). In October: "I feel normal again now, except when I'm very tired, then I sometimes have a day or half a day when I'm indescribably faint and weak" (JLB 272, 10/15/1882). In February 1883: "I've been feeling very weak of late" (JLB 306, 2/3/1883) and "I felt a kind of weakness or fatigue that I couldn't overcome (JLB 309, 2/8/1883).

Context:
BVG 238, 10/10/1882: "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."
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "I feel normal again now, except when I'm very tired, then I sometimes have a day or half a day when I'm indescribably faint and weak, much more so than in the past."

437. "faint" BVG 238, 10/10/1882.

Context:
BVG 238, 10/10/1882: "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."
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "I feel normal again now, except when I'm very tired, then I sometimes have a day or half a day when I'm indescribably faint and weak, much more so than in the past."

438. "thoroughly miserable" BVG 233, 9/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 233, 9/19/1882: "It is only at times when I am overtired that I feel thoroughly miserable, but for the rest I believe I shall regain my health."
JLB 266, 9/18/1882: "It's only at times when I'm overtired that I feel thoroughly wretched, yet as to my health, I believe I'll recover."

439. tired easily, caught cold BVG 226, 8/19/1882. He reports catching a cold in August 1882 and again in February 1883 (JLB 306, 2/3/1883). Just as he attributes his toothache to nerves (JLB 296, 12/27/1882), he attributes his colds to depression (JLB 306, 2/3/1883).

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "But another souvenir is that I've caught a cold again, with the results you know about, which now force me to stay at home for a few days."

440. slept fitfully BVG 229, 9/9/1882. Another indication: "It's so disagreeable when one must 'take a rest.' One cannot rest precisely because one must." (JLB 308, 2/5/1883; emphasis in original.) As with most of his afflictions, Vincent blames his art: "I won't sleep much tonight again because of the drawing" (JLB 355, 6/16/1883).

Context:
JLB 261, 9/9/1882: "If I can't sleep at night, which often happens, I always rummage among the woodcuts with new enjoyment."

441. tortured by toothaches BVG 255, 12/28/1882-12/30/1882.

Context:
JLB 296, 12/27/1882: "The past few days I've had a constant, troublesome toothache that sometimes affects my right eye and ear, and may perhaps involve the nerves too."

442. Sometimes his eyes hurt BVG 265, 2/8/1883. When Theo heard of this problem, he suggested that Vincent bathe his eyes in tea (!). Vincent responds: "I'll follow your advice to bathe my eyes with tea if it doesn't go away" (JLB 310, 2/8/1883). After this affliction subsides, Vincent admits that he "wasn't pleased" (JLB 312, 2/11/1883).

Context:
JLB 310, 2/8/1883: "I've rested my eyes a little since I last wrote to you and felt better for it, although they still sting."

443. "that even simply" BVG R21, 2/7/1883.

Context:
BVG R21, 2/7/1883: "The same thing happened to my eyes, so that even simply looking at things bothered me."
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "In my eyes, too, so that even looking was an effort."

444. probably too much alcohol The evidence that Vincent was medicating his depression with alcohol at this time is largely inferential, based on his history, the availability of liquor, and Sien's documented taste for it. This should not be confused with an accusation of alcoholism, for which there is little hard evidence, however likely it may seem. First, Vincent clearly thought of alcohol as having a medicinal function, and he was, after all, still recovering from a serious bout of gonorrhea (JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882). He also makes numerous references to cafés, drinking, and drunkards, in a way that suggests, if not a preoccupation, at least a personal familiarity; and he clearly had a special place in his collection for images of drinking ("Les 5 ages d'un buveur" [The five ages of a drinker] [JLB 277, 10/29/1882], "the drunkards" [JLB 310, 2/8/1883]), "Au rendezvous de la fraternité" [At the meeting place of brotherliness], "the sign of an estaminet where several drunken fellows are squabbling" [JLB 331, 3/21/1883], "Gavarni's drawings of London drunkards" [JLB 356, 6/22/1883]).

In early November 1882, Vincent makes a comment that certainly can be read as an indirect admission of excessive drinking: "The definition that many a painter here in Holland gives in reply to the question 'What is a wood engraving?' is: 'it's those things lying in the Zuid-Hollandsch Koffiehuis.' So they rank them among the drinks. And the makers of them among the drunks, perhaps." (JLB 278, 11/1/1882; emphasis in original.) Finally, Wagener reports that on his visits to Etten (presumably in 1881), Vincent "used to frequent an old pub" where he would exchange drawings for shots of liquor, a story that strikes us as partly, if not wholly, apocryphal -- except that Vincent no doubt did visit pubs in Etten, as he did everywhere he lived (Wagener, p. 203).

445. his blood-shot eyes

BVG 268a, 2/12/1883. This is clearly one of the aspects of his appearance that he is referring to when he suggests that somebody who saw him on the street might think he was a drunkard (JLB 308, 2/5/1883). (See Ch. 18, n. 446.)

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "Up to today my eyes were closed by fluid each night or morning when I awoke, but last night nothing in either for the first time. There's nothing to be seen other than that the white was a little cloudy and red, and what they call blue bags under the eyes."

446. "as if [he]" BVG 264, 2/5/1883: This is Vincent's own description of how he might appear to friends who encountered him on the street. This is a curious comment and we believe that it reveals much more than Vincent intended. We think he is preparing Theo to receive just such a negative report. Thus, he dismisses the conjectural accusation with exaggerated good cheer: "These things are sometimes so silly that I can't help laughing at them" (JLB 308, 2/5/1883). But, sure enough, less than a week later, he reports an encounter in the street with Théophile de Bock, a friend of Theo's (and erstwhile friend of Vincent's). "Judging by his fur coat, De Bock appears to be in especially flourishing circumstances. I hadn't seen him in months but ran into him a few days ago, in a magnificent fur coat &c., as mentioned." (JLB 312, 2/11/1883.) De Bock would have been quite likely to communicate with Theo about Vincent's sorry appearance. This, we think, prompted the earlier, pre-emptive defense.

Context:
BVG 264, 2/5/1883: "Right now my eyes and my face look as if I had been on a spree, which, of course, has not been the case -- on the contrary -- but who knows, maybe someone I meet on the street who hasn't seen me for a while will remark that I am obviously on the road to dissipation."
JLB 308, 2/5/1883: "In my eyes and my face I now look as if I've been having a high old time -- which of course is not the case -- on the contrary, but who knows if some time from now I don't even notice that someone I meet has remarked that I'm evidently going downhill?" (emphasis in original).

447. "light-heartedness" BVG 237, 10/22/1882. Vincent had apparently convinced himself that life with Sien, unfettered from bourgeois convention and ambition, would be "warm" and "good-humoured" like the life portrayed in Murger's Scènes de la vie de Bohème (Scenes of the Bohemian Life) -- which he probably had not read.

Context:
BVG 237, 10/22/1882: "How far we have strayed nowadays from la bohème of Gavarni's time! It seems to me that there was definitely something warmer and more light-hearted and alive about those days than there is today."
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "How far we have strayed in our age from la bohème of Gavarni's day! It seems to me that things were a little warmer then, and more good-humoured and livelier than now."

448. "preserve some freshness" BVG 237, 10/22/1882. When Theo writes about a friend in Paris who has taken a lower-class mistress into his house, Vincent seizes the opening to make some revealing comments about his own situation: "What you write about some characters in Paris, about artists who live with women, are less petty-minded than others perhaps, try desperately to stay young, seems well observed to me. Such people exist there and here. It's perhaps even more difficult there than here for a person to keep some freshness in domestic life, because that's almost more of an uphill struggle there." (JLB 274, 10/22/1882; emphasis added.)

Context:
BVG 237, 10/22/1882: "It may be even more difficult over there than it is here to preserve some freshness in one's daily life, because to do so there means swimming even more against the tide."
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "It's perhaps even more difficult there than here for a person to keep some freshness in domestic life, because that's almost more of an uphill struggle there."

449. "Even though things" BVG 237, 10/22/1882. That this is a veiled confession of second thoughts about Sien is supported by a similar circumspect comment less than two weeks later: "When someone has a meeting like that, it's to be expected that he'll experience conflict, especially conflict with himself, because one sometimes literally doesn't know what one should or should not do. Yet isn't this conflict, and even the mistakes into which one will sometimes fall, better, and doesn't it develop us more than systematically shutting out emotions?" (JLB 300, 1/10/1883; emphasis added.) Although the overall argument defends Vincent's decision to live with Sien, the suggestion of regret, albeit faint, represents an entirely new development.

Context:
BVG 237, 10/22/1882: "Even though one loses out here and there, and even though one sometimes feels a kind of exhaustion; one must rally and take courage again, even though things should turn out differently from what one originally intended."
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "... even if one loses here and there, and even if one sometimes feels a sort of decline, the point is nevertheless to revive and have courage, even though things don't turn out as one first thought."

450. "draw the little" BVG 218, 7/21/1882.

Context:
BVG 218, 7/21/1882: "I hope that by keeping hard at it I shall draw the little cradle another hundred times, besides what I did today."
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: "I'll draw the cradle, I hope, a hundred times apart from the one today."

451. vows to push on BVG 257, 1/3/1883. This was obviously a favorite expression at the time, as Vincent repeats it again in the next two letters: "I say to myself, onward! and keep on working until we've got the hang of the Black-and-White" (JLB 300, 1/10/1883). "See, then I may not hesitate and I say, onward in good heart" (JLB 301, 1/13/1883).

Context:
JLB 298, 1/3/1883: "Through working hard, old chap, I hope to make something good one day. I haven't got it yet, but I'm hunting it and fighting for it, I want something serious, something fresh -- something with soul in it! Onward, onward."

452. serious attacks of depression Lubin, p. 59: Lubin suggests that some (or all) of Vincent's physical afflictions were byproducts of his depression: "[Vincent] suffered from the physical reactions that often accompany depression -- stomach trouble, loss of appetite, dizziness, and headache." This appears to be an overzealous claim for a psychosomatic mechanism. There were plenty of direct causes for Vincent's afflictions. We would stress rather the compounding influence of depression on Vincent's physical ailments. 453. "life is the color" BVG 263, 2/3/1883. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 263, 2/3/1883: "Life is then the colour of dishwater; it becomes something like an ash heap."
JLB 306, 2/3/1883: "Then life has the colour of dirty water, it's like a rubbish dump."

454. "My heart" BVG 252, 12/11/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 252, 12/11/1882: "But my heart gets heavy at times when I think of the way things are going, it's not so much fun any more."
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "But my heart becomes heavy at times when I think of what's going on -- my pleasure vanishes."

455. the incessant drudgery BVG 264, 2/5/1883.

Context:
JLB 308, 2/5/1883: "Now, since about the middle of December I've been slogging away without stopping, mainly on those heads."

456. "They don't interest me" BVG 264, 2/5/1883.

Context:
BVG 264, 2/5/1883: "But one feels so miserable at such a time; I have a large pile of studies, but they don't interest me then, and I find them all bad."
JLB 308, 2/5/1883: "But at a time like this one feels so ill -- I have a big pile of studies, but they give me no pleasure and I think them all bad."

457. "a rather melancholy" BVG 240, 11/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 240, 11/1/1882: "I had collected and mounted my hundred studies, and when I had finished the job, a rather melancholy feeling of 'what's the use?' came over me."
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "I had gathered together and mounted my 100 or so studies and when I had finished the job a slightly melancholy sense of 'what's the good?' came over me ..."

458. void left by the old b2238 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/25/1882: On Christmas Day, Dorus writes Theo: "We get good letters from [Vincent], full of satisfaction with his work." Given the paroxysms of depression and self-doubt that Vincent is reporting to Theo at the time, and given the suspicions (at least) that Dorus has about his son's life in The Hague, the formality and superficiality of Vincent's correspondence with his parents must have been painfully obvious to all. We suspect that this passage, from a letter to Theo immediately after New Year's, is indicative of the tone of Vincent's letters to his parents: "I have in fact been slogging away lately, and am still wrapped up in various things in which I begin to see light as to how to do them, but which I haven't yet got the hang of as I would like" (JLB 298, 1/3/1883). Dorus apparently responds in kind. On New Year's Eve, Vincent reports to Theo: "I received a good letter from home" (JLB 297, 12/31/1882 and 1/2/1883). 459. matching series of sketches

Baby (F 912 JH 318) is a crayon drawing of the baby Willem; Baby (F 911r JH 319) is a letter sketch of that drawing (JLB 299, 1/5/1883 or 1/6/1883); Woman with Baby on her Lap, Half-Length (F 1066 JH 322) is a drawing of mother and child, undoubtedly Sien and Willem. Uniquely in the surviving drawings from this period, the mother figure in Woman with Baby on her Lap, Half-Length is caped and hooded, as if Vincent were attempting to evoke the dress of a previous era, or religious representations of the Virgin Mary, or both. The baby, however, wears his own clothes.

460. Zuyderland reading a Bible

BVG 253, 12/12/1882-12/18/1882: There are three surviving drawings of Zuyderland with a book: two sitting (Woman Mending Nets in the Dunes [F 7 JH 178] and Old Man Reading [F 966 JH 280]) and one standing (Man, Standing, Reading a Book [F 1683 JH 279]). The catalogue raisonné demurs on whether the book in his hands is a Bible, but Vincent is quite explicit.

Context:
JLB 294, 12/13/1882-12/18/1882: "I now have two more drawings -- one is a man reading the Bible."

461. saying grace BVG 253, 12/12/1882-12/18/1882.

Context:
JLB 294, 12/13/1882-12/18/1882: "The grace is the best, I believe, but they complement each other."

324 462. "to express the peculiar sentiment" BVG 253, 12/12/1882-12/18/1882.

Context:
BVG 253, 12/12/1882-12/18/1882: " My intention in these two, and in the first little old man, is one and the same, namely to express the peculiar sentiment of Christmas and New Years Eve."
JLB 294, 12/13/1882-12/18/1882: " My intention with these two and with the first old man is one and the same, namely to express the special mood of Christmas and New Year."

463. cozy Christmas fire BVG 254, 12/21/1882.

Context:
JLB 295, 12/22/1882: "This chap has the sort of old, lively face that one would wish for beside a cosy Christmas fire."

464. The Haunted Man BVG R21, 2/7/1883. Vincent does not say specifically that he re-read The Haunted Man or A Christmas Carol in the winter of 1882, but within a few months of the holiday, he tells Van Rappard that he has "re-read them almost every year since I was a boy" (JLB 325, 3/5/1883).

Context:
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "I find much that is true in The haunted man by Dickens. Do you know it?"

465. "sorrow, wrong, and trouble" The reference is to The Haunted Man by Charles Dickens. Vincent was intrigued by a similar figure at this time: Count Eberhard von Württemberg as depicted in Count Eberhard von Württemberg dividing the tablecloth between himself and his son Ulrich (1851) by Ary Scheffer. Vincent mentions the painting in JLB 286 (11/24/1882). The subject comes from a series of ballads by Ludwig Uhland, which was based on the lives of Eberhard II (d. 1392) and his son Ulrich. The cloth-cutting scene appears in Legend III: The Battle at Reutlingen, in which Ulrich's defeat in battle disgraces his father: "Just opposite his father sits Ulrich at the board, / Thereon, abased, he gazes; with wine and fish 'tis stored; / A knife the old man seizes, speaks not, but sad at heart, / He slowly cuts between them the table-cloth apart." (Uhland, p. 382.) The point of Uhland's story is that the cutting of the tablecloth was a symbolic act with which the father cut his son off from his past and his family. This is parallel to Redlaw in The Haunted Man, who wanted to escape from his painful memories of the past but regretted the wish. 466. "One has a feeling" BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "And then storms arise, things one had not foreseen, one doesn't know what to do, and one has a feeling that one may strike a rock at any moment."
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "And then come storms, things one hadn't foreseen; one doesn't know what to do, and one has a feeling that one may hit a rock at any moment."

467. in the mirror a "leper" BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "One is afraid of making friends, one is afraid of moving, like one of the old lepers, one would like to call from afar to the people: Don't come too near me, for intercourse with me brings you sorrow and loss."
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "One is afraid to make friends, one is afraid to stir, one would like to call out to people from a distance like one of the old lepers: Don't come too close, for contact with me will bring you sorrow and harm."

468. "One would like" BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "One is afraid of making friends, one is afraid of moving, like one of the old lepers, one would like to call from afar to the people: Don't come too near me, for intercourse with me brings you sorrow and loss."
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "One is afraid to make friends, one is afraid to stir, one would like to call out to people from a distance like one of the old lepers: Don't come too close, for contact with me will bring you sorrow and harm."

469. "I am sorry" BVG 255, 12/28/1882-12/30/1882: One cannot help but comment on the exculpatory turn at the end of this apology. Vincent offers the same guilt-free regret later in the same letter, this time blaming his ambitions for his failure: "I'm so afraid that you may think I'm not making progress. And although I can't show you a definitive result as yet, you would see that it's gradually developing. And you would see that I'm searching for a great thing." (JLB 296, 12/27/1882.) In the next letter, he returns to this issue that clearly weighed on him as the year ended. This time he lays the blame for his failure on his being too busy working to read the public taste: "I have so many plans -- not all of which will be implemented, but not all of which will fail either. And with respect to them, I really have so little time to think things through and I have too little idea of how things stand to be able to decide on their feasibility myself, so I greatly need to discuss them with you." (JLB 297, 12/31/1882 and 1/2/1883.) It is difficult, but necessary, to separate the genuine pathos of these confessions from their self-serving baggage. Later in the same letter, Vincent pointedly reminds Theo that he had once told Vincent not to worry about not making works that sell -- a reassurance that Theo no doubt intended to have a time limit. Vincent echoes that reassurance back wrapped in yet another forecast of imminent success: "Above all, don't be concerned that I haven't yet done anything saleable this year -- you've sometimes said that to me yourself, and if I now say it I do so because I see a few things being attainable in future which I didn't see before" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 296, 12/27/1882: "I'm sorry that I haven't managed to make a saleable drawing this year -- I really don't know why it is that I haven't managed this."

470. "To you and me" BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883.

Context:
BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883: "Generally speaking (apart from the difference between the two persons in question), to you and me there appeared on the cold cruel pavement a sad pitiful woman's figure, and neither you nor I passed it by -- we both stopped and followed the human impulse of our hearts."
JLB 305, 1/27/1883: "In broad outline (leaving aside the difference between the two people in question), on a cold, merciless pavement a sombre, sorrowful figure of a woman appeared before you and before me, and neither you nor I passed her by, but both of us stopped and followed the promptings of our human heart."

471. older-brother prerogatives BVG 261, 1/21/1883. Not surprisingly, Vincent, who represented himself as an expert on love long before the affair with Sien, is a font of advice on Theo's latest entanglement. Equally unsurprising, most of his advice is pointedly self-justifying. "And even though now, in the society in which we find ourselves, such actions [i.e., keeping a lower-class mistress] are regarded as ill-considered or reckless or foolish or I don't know what all -- what shall we say once the hidden forces of sympathy and love have been awakened deep inside us? And should we be unable to use other arguments entirely to refute those that society customarily invokes against letting oneself be led by feeling and against acting impulsively -- refuting isn't the point, and he who has retained a belief in a God sometimes hears the gentle voice of conscience, which he would then be well advised to follow with the naivety of a child. Without talking about it to the outside world more than one can help. When someone has a meeting like that, it's to be expected that he'll experience conflict, especially conflict with himself, because one sometimes literally doesn't know what one should or should not do. Yet isn't this conflict, and even the mistakes into which one will sometimes fall, better, and doesn't it develop us more than systematically shutting out emotions?" (JLB 300, 1/10/1883.)

Context:
JLB 301, 1/13/1883: "Now there isn't one in your case and so, above all when the crisis comes -- not now but later -- trust me then and talk to me. See, for that's where there are rocks where many a love has foundered alas and could have been saved." (Emphasis in original.)

472. he lectured Theo BVG 265, 2/8/1883.

Context:
JLB 310, 2/8/1883: "What a riddle life is, and love is a riddle within a riddle."

473. "withering and budding" BVG 266, 2/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 266, 2/11/1883: "I tell you this because you spoke of disenchantment; no, no, it is true there is a withering and budding in love as in nature, but nothing dies entirely."
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: "I write this in relation to disenchantment -- no, no, there's a wilting and a budding again in love as in the whole of nature, but not a dying for ever."

474. "ebbing and flowing" BVG 266, 2/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 266, 2/11/1883: "It is true there is an ebb and flow, but the sea remains the sea."
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: "There's ebb and flow, but the sea remains the sea."

475. "exhaustion and impotence" BVG 266, 2/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 266, 2/11/1883: "And in love, either for a woman or for art, there are times of exhaustion and impotence, but there is no permanent disenchantment."
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: "And in love, whether for a woman or for art, for instance, there are times of exhaustion and powerlessness, but not a lasting disenchantment."

476. reveal all the grievances Vincent still does not mention Sien's name and, except for a few references to "the woman," most of his complaints about life with her are still disguised in indirection. 477. "I have had"

BVG R21, 2/7/1883: This is written to Van Rappard. Vincent was not yet this direct with Theo (See Ch. 18, n. 476).

Context:
BVG R21, 2/7/1883: "Although in consequence of having taken the woman and her two children into my house I have had some unpleasant experiences -- some of them very nasty indeed -- still the encounter has given me a certain calm and serenity."
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "Although as a result of taking in the woman and her two children I experienced some unpleasantness, rather nasty in fact, I still found a certain calm and serenity through this meeting."

478. Little Willem's incessant wailing BVG R20, 2/4/1883. Note that Vincent, still concealing the true of nature of his relationship with Sien from Van Rappard, refers to the child as merely "the baby from the cradle in the hospital" -- a phrasing clearly intended to suggest the detachment of a charitable benefactor (JLB 307, 2/4/1883). To Theo, Vincent paints a very different picture: "The little child is as charming, healthy and cheerful a little fellow as you can imagine. He crows like a cockerel." (JLB 301, 1/13/1883.) We take this last to be a veiled complaint that Vincent, who complains elsewhere about fitful nights of sleep, was frequently woken up by the baby's crying.

Context:
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "And we're still there. But now the baby from the cradle in the hospital doesn't sleep as much as in those first few days."

479. anxious and suspicious BVG 260, 1/13/1883.

Context:
JLB 301, 1/13/1883: "And the poor little girl -- you can see from the drawing that the deep misery of the past hasn't been wiped away yet, and I often worry about that, but still, she's already very different from last year -- then it was very, very bad, and now there's already something truly childlike in her."

480. lightning rod BVG 261, 1/21/1883.

Context:
JLB 301, 1/13/1883: "But once again -- I consider it likely that a crisis will come sooner or later, consisting of a kind of mutual disappointment -- if there was a child, it would be like a lightning conductor for the two of you."

481. "an unbearable" BVG R21, 2/7/1883. Vincent does not lay this harsh judgment directly on Sien's sister, Maria Wilhelmina, who was ten in early 1883, and whom Vincent never describes in his letters. He does approvingly quote the illustrator Paul Gavarni for this bit of misogynist wisdom. He intends this to be a compliment to Sien: i.e., to suggest to Theo that motherhood has transformed her. This would be an odd argument -- she has been a mother for five years -- except for Vincent's belief in the extraordinary power of the mother-infant bond. Vincent did, however, recognize the pernicious embrace of the statement, as he quickly added a partial clarification: "This isn't intended, I believe, to brand all young women or girls absolutely (that goes without saying)" (JLB 309, 2/8/1883). This suggests that the statement was meant to stigmatize some young women and girls, and young Maria Wilhelmina was the only one in Vincent's direct experience at the time.

Context:
BVG R21, 2/7/1883: " Il y a une creature, insupportable, bête, méchante, c'est la jeune fille; il y a une créature sublime et dévouée c'est cette fille devenue mère (A young girl is an unbearable, stupid, vicious creature: a sublime and devoted creature is that same girl as a mother)."
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "There is an insupportable, silly and ill-natured creature -- that is the young girl; there is a sublime and devoted creature -- that is that girl when she has become a mother."

482. "stupid, vicious creature"

BVG R21, 2/7/1883. (See Ch. 18, n. 481.)

Context:
BVG R21, 2/7/1883: "As for the woman herself, do you remember what Gavarni said? -- 'Il y a une creature, insupportable, bête, méchante, c'est la jeune fille; il y a une créature sublime et dévouée c'est cette fille devenue mère' [A young girl is an unbearable, stupid, vicious creature: a sublime and devoted creature is that same girl as a mother]."
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "And as for the woman herself, do you remember what Gavarni said? 'There is an insupportable, silly and ill-natured creature -- that is the young girl; there is a sublime and devoted creature -- that is that girl when she has become a mother.'"

483. "eat me out of house" BVG 259, 1/11/1883. Vincent says only that "the models" eat him out of house and home, but we think, by process of elimination (see Ch. 18, n. 841), this is clearly a reference to Sien and her family members. At a time when he is trying mightily to persuade Theo to agree to increase his monthly stipend, Vincent is especially loath to admit any additional expenditure incurred by his "family." In describing the baby Willem as "fat and plump," Vincent goes out of his way to explain that he is getting "nothing but the breast" (JLB 301, 1/13/1883).

Context:
BVG 259, 1/11/1883: "I am working very hard at present, and I must not stop, but really the models eat me out of house and home."
JLB 300, 1/10/1883: "I'm working very hard at present and I mustn't stop, but the models are literally eating me out of house and home."

484. herself had grown fatter BVG 260, 1/13/1883: Vincent uses the word steviger which is typically translated "stouter."

Context:
JLB 301, 1/13/1883: "The woman is stronger and sturdier, has lost a great, a very great deal of that harried look. The little child is as charming, healthy and cheerful a little fellow as you can imagine. He crows like a cockerel -- has nothing but the breast yet is fat and plump."

485. lazier

(See Ch. 18, n. 486.) We think laziness may be the implication of this rose-colored observation in early January, before the truth comes out: "The woman [Sien] is stronger and sturdier, has lost a great, a very great deal of that harried look" (JLB 301, 1/13/1883; emphasis added). Months later, Vincent appears to refer to this laziness again, relating it to her "weakness" and the "exhaustion" of breast-feeding, but no longer hiding or really excusing it: "On top of that she's weak, and nursing the child has exhausted her, which in my view is a reason for forgiving her great lack of activity" (JLB 379, 8/23/1883-8/29/1883; emphasis added). Sien's unwillingness to jump to Vincent's commands must have come as something of a shock to Vincent if he believed what he read in Michelet's L'amour: "What pleases [wives] most is that act of yours which puts everything in the hands of the mistress of the house, permits her to arrange, take care of, and keep things in that order and cleanliness that woman so loves" (Michelet, p. 100).

486. only for short periods BVG 274, 3/11/1883. Vincent does not lodge this complaint about Sien directly, presumably because it would too directly contradict one of the pillars of his justification for having her in the house. But there is little doubt that he is referring to her, not his other regular model, the cooperative Zuyderland. The fact that Vincent attributes this lax work ethic to "my models" -- that is, a single, unified group -- supports our inference that he is referring to Sien, who, with her daughter, sister, and mother, made up the only "bloc" of models in Vincent's studio.

Context:
JLB 327, 3/11/1883: "But often I have to work in quite a hurry. I daren't ask too much of my models. If I paid them more elaborately I could ask for more elaborate poses, that's to say longer and more." (Emphasis in original.)

487. being paid in cash BVG 274, 3/11/1883. As discussed, we believe by "my models," Vincent is referring to Sien and her family members. If that inference is correct, this passage suggests that he was still paying them with cash over and above providing them with food and, in some cases, lodging. If he, indeed, used Michelet's L'amour as his guidebook, he may have given Sien all the extra money. "A happy moment is it for her when you put the keys in her hand. To let her have all the money, and the power to spend it, is a certain means to make her economical, if she is alone, and left to her natural discretion." (Michelet, p. 100.)

Context:
JLB 327, 3/11/1883: "I daren't ask too much of my models. If I paid them more elaborately I could ask for more elaborate poses, that's to say longer and more." (Emphasis in original.)

488. still left the choresEarlier in their relationship, Vincent bragged about doing the chores for Sien because of her weak constitution. His complaints about her subsequent laxity, even after she recovered, suggest that this allocation of duties continued. 489. other wifely duties As the text indicates, this is speculative. In addition to the increasing general negativity about Sien, there is specific, inferential evidence. In his extended discussion of the "metamorphoses" of love (JLB 308, 2/5/1883), Vincent twice mentions "powerlessness" as the result of one of those transformations (JLB 312, 2/11/1883). There are also frequent references to the "manliness" of his work -- a new compensatory vocabulary for Vincent (JLB 256, 8/13/1882; JLB 258, 8/20/1882; JLB 260, 9/3/1882). 490. no longer felt "passion" BVG 259, 1/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 259, 1/11/1883: "Such a feeling is not 'passion,' for a deep, fathomless pity is at the root of it."
JLB 300, 1/10/1883: "Such a thing isn't 'passion,' because an unfathomably deep compassion is involved."

491. "fathomless pity" BVG 259, 1/11/1883. This comment comes in Vincent's immediate response to the news that Theo has taken up a mistress who, if not a professional prostitute, has apparently prostituted herself in order to get out from under debt. Vincent uses the phrase "unfathomably deep compassion" twice in the letter: the first time to describe the brothers' common feeling toward "fallen women" such as Sien and Marie (Theo's mistress). "The world sometimes says, 'Why should he get involved?,' and yet it isn't so much our own act as the circumstances that compel us to do so. And once we've grasped the situation, a compassion can be awakened that is so unfathomably deep that we no longer hesitate." (ibid.) The second use of the phrase is not so directly autobiographical, but is couched in one of those opaque constructions that Vincent often uses to conceal confessions. It begins: "When someone has a meeting like that, it's to be expected that he'll experience conflict, especially conflict with himself ..." (ibid.). It concludes with the comforting message that all will turn out well: "when I think it over I'm fairly at ease about the outcome. Such a thing isn't 'passion,' because an unfathomably deep compassion is involved." (ibid.)

Although ostensibly directed at Theo's situation, the relentless parallelism of the preceding discussion (i.e., "I have a fallen woman; you have a fallen woman") clearly suggests that Vincent is speaking from knowledge acquired in his own situation, not merely commenting on Theo's. The last-minute mention of a lack of "passion" (not, apparently, in Theo's account) is almost surely Vincent's confessional projection. Vincent confirms this reading in September when he finally accedes to Theo's demand that he separate from Sien: "I'll certainly not take her into my house again [emphasis added], but I didn't want to lose touch with her, because I love her and the children too much. That is also possible, precisely because it was and still is something different from a passion." (JLB 381, 7/5/1883; emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 259, 1/11/1883: "Such a feeling is not 'passion,' for a deep, fathomless pity is at the root of it."
JLB 300, 1/10/1883: "Such a thing isn't 'passion,' because an unfathomably deep compassion is involved."

492. "humorlessness" BVG 264, 2/5/1883.

Context:
BVG 264, 2/5/1883: "Perhaps I express myself too vaguely, but women do not always understand delicacy, any more than they do humour; and though one must certainly act with delicacy, it often gives rise to misunderstandings (though, in my opinion, one isn't responsible for them) which, in short, make life more difficult."
JLB 308, 2/5/1883: "This may be putting it too vaguely, but women by no means always understand delicacy, any more than humour, and while one certainly ought to act with delicacy, this sometimes leads to misunderstandings (although in my view one can't be held responsible for that) which make life more difficult."

493. indelicacy of manners BVG 264, 2/5/1883.

Context:
JLB 308, 2/5/1883: "This may be putting it too vaguely, but women by no means always understand delicacy, any more than humour, and while one certainly ought to act with delicacy, this sometimes leads to misunderstandings (although in my view one can't be held responsible for that) which make life more difficult."

494. narrow-mindedness BVG 267, 2/15/1883. The criticism of Sien is implied in a compliment to Theo's mistress: "she has known not only misery and straitened circumstances, but also other things, so I believe that she'll appreciate you fully, also as regards civilization and broader views, much more so than a woman who has been hurt by misery from an early age and knows no better" (JLB 316, 2/15/1883; emphasis added). The italicized reference is clearly to Sien.

Context:
JLB 316, 2/15/1883: "Namely that she has known not only misery and straitened circumstances, but also other things, so I believe that she'll appreciate you fully, also as regards civilization and broader views, much more so than a woman who has been hurt by misery from an early age and knows no better than to think that normal."

495. for books or art BVG 266, 2/11/1883.

Context:
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: "I sometimes regret that the woman I'm with can understand as little of books as of art."

325 496. "If I did not look" BVG 266, 2/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 266, 2/11/1883: " If I did not look for art in reality, I should probably find her stupid; as it is I only wish it were otherwise, but after all I am contented with things as they are."
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: " If I didn't seek art in the real, I'd probably find her stupid or something. Now I wish it were otherwise, but I'm still content with the way it is."

497. something he had learned BVG R21, 2/7/1883: With Van Rappard, Vincent is especially opaque. At first glance, this might seem an oblique reference to the episode with Kee Vos, about which Vincent has, apparently, never fully informed his friend Van Rappard. But the last two sentences point much more clearly to the relationship with Sien (especially the reference to "'charity'") -- about which Van Rappard is also still mostly in the dark. It is possible that Vincent is merely preparing his friend for a fuller revelation, but we think it most likely that this represents a level of honesty about the state of his relationship with Sien that Vincent cannot share with Theo because he knows too much of the truth; but can share with Van Rappard because he knows so little. It is our conjecture that the "wound" that Vincent speaks of relates to Sien's past, which was, in fact, full of potentially injurious secrets.

Context:
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "My words about disappointment in the past are based on something that I don't speak of -- at any rate not now. However -- it's only fair I should tell you this much -- suppose someone experiences a disappointment through wounded love ... And if this sympathy or love or tie, arising from chance as it were, were nonetheless strong and remained so? If 'love' is dead, couldn't 'charity' then be alive and well?"

498. "cruel injury" BVG R21, 2/7/1883.

Context:
BVG R21, 2/7/1883: "Suppose a man experiences a disappointment through a cruel injury to his love, a disappointment so deep that he is calmly desperate and desolate -- such a condition is possible, for there is something like the white heat of steel or iron" (emphasis in original).
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "... suppose someone experiences a disappointment through wounded love so deep that he's calmly desperate and desolate -- such a condition is possible and is something like white-hot steel or iron" (emphasis in original).

499. "When Love" BVG R21, 2/7/1883.

Context:
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "If 'love' is dead, couldn't 'charity' then be alive and well?"

500. "There is not a soul here" BVG 266, 2/11/1883. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG 266, 2/11/1883: "How I should love to talk with you -- for I am not discouraged about the work, nor listless nor disheartened, but I am at a standstill, and that is, perhaps, because I ought to have some intercourse with someone who is sympathetic to me and whom I could talk to about it; right now there is not a soul here whom I can confide in."
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: "How I'd like to talk to you -- for I'm not despondent about the work, not apathetic or powerless, but I am rather stuck and that may be because I need to have some friction with people one can discuss it with; and with whom could I discuss it here in the present circumstances? At the moment there isn't a single person in whom I can confide ... "

501. yet another squabble BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883.

Context:
JLB 305, 1/27/1883: "He's getting better and we're again dealing in woodcuts together."

502. "faulty drawing" BVG R19, 11/16/1882. The uncharacteristic openness of this response to criticism is often taken literally by commentators. In fact, it is followed hard upon by a long, spirited, and even snide rebuttal (" Think about this, that will save my having to write about it") (JLB 284, 11/18/1882; emphasis in original). In a tactic typical of letters to Theo, Vincent fights to take back every inch of ground conceded. First, he argues that (1) faulty drawing should not preclude a work from being shown; (2) drawings that are faulty have their own strengths; and (3) faulty drawings appeal to the public and the public is the audience that matters. Then he mounts an aggressive counterattack, criticizing Van Rappard for not keeping the faith of true art, not adhering to Von Herkomer's guidance, and thus trivializing his own gifts.

Even for the accommodating Van Rappard, arguments like this must have sounded exaggerated and off-putting: "ask yourself whether it isn't equally permissible to send a drawing like this one, just as it is, done from the model, without later retouchings, into the world (though I admit there are drawing mistakes in it), equally permissible as my going onto the street in my working clothes if that suits me, and not being obliged to stand before the mirror before I leave the house to see if everything in my toilet is in order. Suppose you conceded that these things are of a fairly similar nature and would yourself do neither the one nor the other, the question still remains whether in the midst of a campaign it isn't much more advisable to march quickly than to make one's toilet." (ibid.)

Even by Vincent's hyperbolic standards, this analogy -- a faulty drawing is like a person leaving the house without giving excess attention to his appearance -- is nonsense on several levels: (1) a person in the street does not put himself out as being an artistic expression; (2) a person in the street can rearrange himself at will, and arrange himself differently for different occasions, while a work of art is a permanent thing; (3) the point of artistic expression is for the artist to give shape and meaning, through thought and creativity, to everyday experience (or, in Vincent's analogy, everyday clothing). If the artist doesn't bring that to his art, then what's the difference between art and life? There's no question that Vincent was at least as interested in justifying himself with this faulty analogy as he was in justifying his art. His poor dressing habits must have been a source of renewed apprehensiveness in his effort to win the respect of the properly bourgeois Van Rappard.

Context:
BVG R19, 11/16/1882: "I have little time to write, but all the same I want to tell you that I think your remarks on the faulty drawing in the lithograph in question are correct in principle -- and that I now notice it myself."
JLB 284, 11/18/1882: "I have little time for writing, but nevertheless want to say first that I believe your comments about drawing mistakes in that lithograph are correct, and now I noticed them too."

503. held his fire BVG 250, 12/2/1882-12/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 290, 12/3/1882: "Yesterday I received a letter, not from Rappard but from his father, telling me that R[appard] is ill."

504. He sent Rappard books BVG R36, 5/25/1883.

Context:
JLB 346, 5/25/1889: "I wish you had read Les misérables, then I would be better able to discuss it with you, for you might perhaps be struck by the same things that keep coming into my mind. That wouldn't surprise me. I knew that book long ago, but many things from it keep coming to mind now that I've read it again."

505. poetry BVG 279, 4/11/1883.

Context:
JLB 336, 4/11/1883: "Don't you find this nicely put? -- it's from Les misérables: If Caesar had given me, Glory and war, And if I was forced to forgo, My mother's love, To great Caesar would I say, Take back your sceptre and your chariot, I love my mother more, hey!"

506. drawing tips BVG R33, 4/2/1883-4/4/1883.

Context:
JLB 335, 4/3/1883: "Naturally you could do an experiment with just printer's ink and turpentine to make it simpler. I don't mean autographic ink this time, but ordinary printer's ink. You may already have it, but otherwise you can get it at any book printer's. In my experience this printer's ink takes remarkably well to the rough grain of a certain paper which they call torchon here (but it's absolutely not Whatman torchon), and which Smulders has recently had delivered in two formats. The large one at 3.75 guilders a quire."

507. effusive flattery Some examples: "I believe you have a certain eye for my work, and in some cases your judgment could be of great use to me ... Precisely because I value your opinion, it's necessary for you to know something of my thoughts too. And I believe you probably have enough power of contemplation to understand my vision even when you don't agree with me about everything." (JLB 341, 4/9/1883.) "If I were you I'd do even more of those fine heads like the blind men" (JLB 345, 5/21/1883). "I'm pleased you've made progress with your drawing, I didn't doubt that you would, by the way, for you'd made a manly start. ... And as you say, one then has the feeling 'that's how I'd always have wanted to do it if I'd always gone my own way' &c. That's well said, old chap, and spoken like a man." (JLB 354, 6/15/1883.) "Be assured, if you believe I have eyes to see, that there is certainly sentiment in your figures; what you make is healthy and manly, do not doubt yourself in that respect and, precisely because you do not doubt, dash it on without hesitating" (ibid.). Note the emphasis on "manliness."

In addition, Vincent goes to elaborate effort to indicate to Van Rappard that no one looks at his work as sensitively as Vincent does: "As for your Tile painters -- I was interested to hear that you're working on it again -- I'm especially interested in what it's like and what it will become. I take an interest in everything to do with this painting or with your other paintings, and see something of them and hear about them with sympathy." (JLB 332, 3/21/1883.) Vincent transcribes for his friend a long passage from Dickens's Little Dorrit which pointedly includes the line: "I may have held its various threads with a more continuous attention than any one else can have given to them ..." (JLB 345, 5/21/1883; emphasis in original). Vincent also compliments Van Rappard by denigrating others, as when he says cattily of Herman Van der Weele, an acquaintance in The Hague: "between you and me, [he] badly needs to see some foreign compositions in my view, and is I think somewhat weighed down by Dutch prejudices" (ibid.).

508. pledges of brotherhood BVG R25, 2/9/1883.

Context:
BVG R25, 2/9/1883: "There are so few who have a feeling for them; and it is certainly true that since you have an eye and a heart for them, I have become so attached to your friendship that it would be hard for me to do without it."
JLB 311, 2/10/1883: "There are few who are in sympathy with them, and the fact is that I've come to value your friendship precisely because you have an eye and a heart for them, and would find it difficult to do without it."

509. proposed reciprocal studio visits Starting in January, while Van Rappard is still laid up with "brain fever" (JLB 295, 12/22/1882), Vincent begins the drumbeat, both for Van Rappard to visit him and for Van Rappard to invite him to his studio in Utrecht (JLB 303, 1/20/1883). Vincent uses their shared mania for collecting prints as the primary lure: "I don't doubt for a moment that you'll have no complaints if you come to see them one day" (JLB 307, 2/4/1883). In the same letter, we read the following as an indirect invitation and request for invitation: "In short, contact with painters here has been a severe disappointment to me. Will it get any better???" (ibid.) When Vincent secures the mother load of back issues of the Graphic, the possibility of many duplicates for Van Rappard is dangled: "Anyway, if this kind of thing is no obstacle for you, think about coming to see those Graphics, for they're splendid, and I'd like to have a word with you about what to do with the duplicates. For there are many." (ibid.)

To Theo, Vincent sounds quite confident of a visit: "[Van Rappard will] come one day when he's better" (JLB 308, 2/5/1883). "He's coming to visit me soon, he's promised" (JLB 323, 3/3/1883). And his tone to Van Rappard changes from plaintive request to wishful certainty: "If you come here sometime I'll show you on what that's done, and I think this will rather surprise you" (JLB 311, 2/10/1883; emphasis in original). By March, after Van Rappard's preliminary recovery, Vincent becomes quite brazen in his request for an invitation to Utrecht (which, apparently, has not yet been issued): "Do you know what I sometimes long for so much? -- it's to see your studio. And not just that, but also the area where you normally stroll and potter about in search of subjects. I'm sure there are beautiful courtyards and alleys in Utrecht too." (JLB 325, 3/5/1883.) The reciprocal visits do not take place until May 1883.

510. even to the Borinage BVG R12, 9/12/1882-9/14/1882. Vincent began floating the idea of this trip as early as September, soon after Van Rappard returned from Drenthe. To Van Rappard, of course, Vincent says nothing about his hard times in the black country, but instead portrays a sketching trip there as a rough but rewarding adventure, in terms that probably echo Van Rappard's descriptions of his trip to Drenthe: "It's quite a difficult part of the world -- the journey is no pleasure trip -- but it's one of the things I would love to undertake ... knowing that there are such beautiful things to do there, which as yet have rarely been painted by others, if at all" (JLB 263, 9/12/1882-9/17/1882). Saying that the prospect of such a trip "is an idea that's deeply rooted in me," Vincent reiterates the invitation in a way that distinguishes it from idle pleasantries: "Write to me if you would, Rappard, in earnest whether -- supposing I were to go for 2 months, say, to the mining region in the Borinage -- you would like to go with me" (ibid.). Since the trip is not mentioned again, Van Rappard must have declined the invitation, either explicitly or by his silence.

Context:
JLB 263, 9/12/1882-9/17/1882: "Write to me if you would, Rappard, in earnest whether -- supposing I were to go for 2 months, say, to the mining region in the Borinage -- you would like to go with me."

511. "I regard love" JLB 312, 2/11/1883. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: " I regard love -- as I do friendship -- not only as a feeling but chiefly as an action -- and particularly when it involves working and is an effort, it has another side of fatigue and powerlessness" (emphasis in original).

512. "spiritual unity" BVG R32, 3/21/1883.

Context:
BVG R32/R43, 3/21/1883: "I consider this latter exigency -- whether it is to be or not to be -- so important that very little else can be counted important except in connection with achieving spiritual unity, and however important some other things may be considered by themselves, no substitute can ever make up for the lack of this unity; and the lack of it means the lack of sure ground to stand on."
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: "I regard this last point -- the existence or non-existence of these things -- as being of such great weight that little else qualifies as possibly being important, other than in connection with this spiritual unity, and whatever other matters, important in themselves, there may be apart from that, no surrogate can make up for the lack of that unity, and the lack of that is a lack of firm ground under one's feet."

513. "Whenever different people" BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883.

Context:
BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883: "The truth is that whenever different people love the same thing and work at it together, their union makes strength; combined, they can do more than if their separate energies were each striving in a different direction."
JLB 305, 1/27/1883: "The pity of it is partly that when several people care for the same cause and work on it together, unity is strength, and united they can do more than their separate energies can, each striving in a different direction."

514. "a whole is formed" BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883.

Context:
BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883: "By working together one becomes stronger and a whole is formed, though the personality of each need not be blotted out by working together."
JLB 305, 1/27/1883: "People strengthen each other when they work together, and an entity is formed without personality having to be blotted out by the collaboration."

515. "bound up in one" (See Chapter 5.) The quote is taken from JLB 414, 12/16/1883: "two poor brothers, artists -- bound up in the same feeling".

Context:
BVG 347, 12/18/1883: " Feeling, thinking and believing the same to such an extent … two poor brother artists -- bound up in one and the same feeling, for one and the same nature and art -- will it ever come to that?" (emphasis in original).
JLB 414, 12/16/1883: "FEELING so MUCH THE SAME, THINKING AND BELIEVING SO MUCH THE SAME … two poor brothers, artists -- bound up in the same feeling for the same nature and art -- will it ever come to that?" (emphasis in original).

516. " two good people" BVG 275, 3/21/1883.

Context:
BVG 275, 3/21/1883: " Two good people -- man and woman combined -- with the same intentions and object in life, actuated by the same serious purpose, what couldn't they accomplish!"
JLB 331, 3/21/1883: " Two good people -- man and woman united -- wanting and intending the same, steeped in the same earnestness, what couldn't they achieve!" (emphasis in original).

517. Listed famous examples Vincent had already compared himself and Van Rappard to Gavarni and Dickens, and to Thackeray and Balzac. Now he casts himself as Von Herkomer and Van Rappard as his protège, Edward John Gregory. According to Vincent's reading of Von Herkomer's biography, "[Herkomer] did his best to find some among the artists of that time who also wanted to do figures from the people. He then found Gregory, ... And Gregory and Herkomer have remained friends ever since." (JLB 307, 2/4/1883.) Vincent invokes the famous French writing duo Émile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian a number of times in ways that are clearly meant to suggest that he and Van Rappard could serve the cause of '93 in a similar way by their championing of Black-and-White (JLB 354, 6/15/1883). He even invokes the Régamey brothers, Félix Régamey and Guillaume Régamey, both illustrators. (There was a third brother, Frédéric, also an artist, to whom Vincent could have been referring, as he uses only the initial "F.") "Read a short biography of both brothers" (JLB 325, 3/5/1883). Tellingly, Vincent appears to see himself in the sickly and neglected Guillaume, who "was only 38 years old. ... [He] seems to have had an illness that made life difficult for him. Yet worked throughout it all -- for years -- when he was dead -- a host of superb studies were found -- which were then exhibited -- while during his lifetime almost no one knew about them. Isn't that beautiful?" (ibid.) 518. "human hearts" BVG 292, 6/10/1883.

Context:
BVG 292, 6/10/1883: "One cannot always live away from one's native land, and one's native land is not nature alone -- there must also be human hearts who search for and feel the same things. And only then is the native land perfect, only then does one feel at home."
JLB 352, 6/11/1883: "One can't always live outside the fatherland, and the fatherland isn't just nature; to that must be added human hearts that seek and feel the same. It's only then that the fatherland is complete and one feels at home."

519. "What couldn't" BVG 275, 3/21/1883.

Context:
BVG 275, 3/21/1883: "Two good people -- man and woman combined -- with the same intentions and object in life, actuated by the same serious purpose, what couldn't they accomplish!"
JLB 331, 3/21/1883: " Two good people -- man and woman united -- wanting and intending the same, steeped in the same earnestness, what couldn't they achieve!" (emphasis in original).

520. could not differ from If Vincent liked a print, Van Rappard had to too. Vincent even tells Van Rappard that he will be "in raptures over it" (JLB 359, 7/3/1883). If Vincent admired the books of Victor Hugo, Van Rappard had to, too. "I wish you had read Les misérables, then I would be better able to discuss it with you, for you might perhaps be struck by the same things that keep coming into my mind. That wouldn't surprise me. ... I'd like to see what impression Quatre-vingt-treize and Les misérables made on you. I don't doubt for a moment that you'd find them beautiful." (JLB 346, 5/25/1889.) If Vincent used a special ink, Van Rappard had to use it, too. "Naturally you could do an experiment with just printer's ink and turpentine to make it simpler. I don't mean autographic ink this time, but ordinary printer's ink. You may already have it, but otherwise you can get it at any book printer's." (JLB 335, 4/3/1883.) If Van Rappard had a new studio device, Vincent had to have it, too. "I've had a wooden passe-partout made like yours but no frame. I'm thinking of giving the passe-partout, unpainted as yet, the colour of walnut. Like your frame. ... as soon as I saw your drawings I decided to have a similar passe-partout." (JLB 346, 5/25/1889; emphasis in original.) "We have similar ideas about many questions," Vincent wrote (JLB 305, 1/27/1883), "felt and thought about art in the same way" (JLB 311, 2/10/1883), the same "eye and a heart" (ibid.), and "[we] go on in the same direction" (JLB 323, 3/3/1883). 521. "We are both" BVG 271, 3/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 271, 3/3/1883: "He has painted much more than I, and has drawn longer, but we are both on just about the same level."
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "He has painted far more than I and drawn for longer, but there's still a similarity in the level we're at."

522. called for healthy "competition" BVG 275, 3/21/1883.

Context:
BVG 275, 3/21/1883: " Competition, when it proceeds from jealousy, is quite a different thing from trying one's best to make the work as good as possible, out of mutual respect."
JLB 331, 3/21/1883: " Rivalry stemming from envy is completely different from trying to do one's best to make the work as good as possible precisely out of respect for each other" (emphasis in original).

523. "I would despise" BVG 275, 3/21/1883.

Context:
BVG 275, 3/21/1883: "I do not see any good in jealousy, but I would despise a friendship which did not call for some exertion on both sides to maintain the same level."
JLB 331, 3/21/1883: "Extremes meet -- I don't see the slightest value at all in envy, but I would despise a friendship that didn't entail making an effort to keep up with one another."

524. "I want to keep up" BVG 271, 3/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 271, 3/3/1883: "There is another thing spurring me on, namely that Rappard is also working at top speed, more than he used to, and I want to keep up with him, because then we'll get on better together, and can profit more from each other's experience."
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "There's also another stimulus, namely that Rappard is making an effort too, more than in the past, and I want to keep up with him so that we can get on better and probably be of more help to each other."

525. when Rappard announced BVG 275, 3/21/1883. According to Brouwer, the painting referred to is Peintres en Brique (Tile Painters), which was exhibited at the International Exhibition that opened in Amsterdam on May 1, 1883 (Brouwer, p. 82). This is either cat. n. 93 (which is dated 1884) or another very similar work.

Context:
JLB 331, 3/21/1883: "Rappard wants to send a large painting to the Amsterdam exhibition. It shows 4 tile painters around a table."

326 526. He lashed out BVG R32, 3/21/1883.

Context:
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: "I myself am decidedly not at all fond of exhibitions."

527. Claiming an insider's knowledge BVG R32, 3/21/1883.

Context:
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: "I used to be fonder of them in the past than I am now -- I don't know why this is -- in the past I viewed exhibitions from a different angle -- perhaps in the past I had ample occasion to see behind the scenes of certain affairs connected to exhibitions &c. -- and perhaps it isn't just nonchalance on my part that I believe that many are mistaken regarding the results of an exhibition."

528. he denounced exhibitions BVG R32, 3/21/1883. According to Vincent, Van Rappard has written him to the effect that "[Van Rappard] work[s] for exhibitions" -- meaning that his primary objective is to show his work (JLB 332, 3/21/1883). It would be like Vincent to exaggerate this statement of his opponent's position in order to make his target larger and to invite back-pedaling, thus it is likely that Van Rappard's original statement was more equivocal than this. Vincent leads up to his counterattack with calculated indirection, introducing it with generic criticism of the tyranny of dealers -- "I still believe that in this way better seed would be scattered in the field of public opinion than the seeds the dealers and their associates are in the habit of sowing according to a conventional formula that's always the same" -- an approach designed, we suspect, to disguise the letter's true destination (ibid.). He transitions in a way that suggests the diatribe against exhibitions just happened to occur to him -- "These thoughts naturally bring me to the field of exhibitions" -- but the length of the paragraphs and the absence of marginal notes indicate that this may be one of the letters that Vincent drafted, or at least outlined, in advance -- something he apparently did for important arguments to Theo (ibid.).

In fact, the entire letter clearly is intended to persuade Van Rappard to reverse his decision to exhibit. "I myself am decidedly not at all fond of exhibitions. I used to be fonder of them in the past than I am now -- I don't know why this is -- in the past I viewed exhibitions from a different angle -- perhaps in the past I had ample occasion to see behind the scenes of certain affairs connected to exhibitions &c. -- and perhaps it isn't just nonchalance on my part that I believe that many are mistaken regarding the results of an exhibition. I don't want to discuss it further now, other than to say that I myself would have more faith in a coming together of painters through mutual sympathy and similarity of purpose and warm friendship and loyalty than in a coming together of their works by means of exhibitions. This is why, when I see paintings hung together in the same room, I don't yet venture to conclude that a spirit of unity and a respect for each other and a certain healthy collaboration exists among those who made the aforementioned paintings &c. I regard this last point -- the existence or non-existence of these things -- as being of such great weight that little else qualifies as possibly being important, other than in connection with this spiritual unity, and whatever other matters, important in themselves, there may be apart from that, no surrogate can make up for the lack of that unity, and the lack of that is a lack of firm ground under one's feet. I don't have the least desire for exhibitions &c. to stop, but I do desire a reform or rather renewal and strengthening of the associations and the collaboration between painters, which would certainly have the kind of influence that would make even exhibitions beneficial." (ibid.)

As so often in his arguments to Theo, after vehemently making his case, Vincent tries to retreat to a posture of above-the-fray neutrality: "whether or not [your paintings] go to an exhibition matters as little to me as what kind of frame you have them in" (ibid.). Presumably, this is the posture that Vincent assumed two months later when he visited Van Rappard's studio and Van Rappard visited his.

Context:
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: "These thoughts naturally bring me to the field of exhibitions. You work for exhibitions -- fine -- I myself am decidedly not at all fond of exhibitions."

529. "mutual sympathy" BVG R32, 3/21/1883.

Context:
BVG R32, 3/21/1883: "I don't want to expatiate on this theme at present, I only want to say this, Speaking for myself, I expect more good from a uniting of painters actuated by mutual sympathy and singleness of purpose and warm friendship and loyalty than from a uniting of their works by means of exhibitions."
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: " I don't want to discuss it further now, other than to say that I myself would have more faith in a coming together of painters through mutual sympathy and similarity of purpose and warm friendship and loyalty than in a coming together of their works by means of exhibitions."

530. he ignored it BVG R33, 4/2/1883-4/4/1883: Vincent waited for a response to his arguments, but Van Rappard did not write. He did send a group of prints (whether they were gifts or returns is unclear), but pointedly without commentary. Vincent ventures one probing inquiry -- "I imagine you're very busy with your painting for the exhibition" -- but after that assumes a posture of chastened (but still sulking) resignation to the inevitable (JLB 335, 4/3/1883). "When everything to do with [the exhibition] is over and done with, I very much look forward to a vigorous resumption of our correspondence on lithography and black-and-white in general, and no less -- if possible -- to a meeting with you. I write only briefly this time, because I understand you're busy." (ibid.)

Context:
JLB 335, 4/3/1883: "I received the package of woodcuts on 30 March. Because there was no letter with them, I waited a few days to see if you would write. Now, though, I'm writing a few words to say many thanks for this consignment."

531. Tile Painters Peintres en Brique, 1883-1884. (See Ch. 18, n. 922.) 532. more pliable companions The possibility that Vincent had another friend in The Hague, not discussed in the text, has been raised. J. A. Visser has advanced the name of Lodewijk Cornelis Enthoven, a "rich and generous" man, as a regular intimate of Vincent's during this period: "He paid for Vincent's shoes and gave him a bicycle, clothes as well as underclothes" (Visser, p. 9). "[He] helped Vincent by word as well as deed, a fact of which Theo was fully aware." The story is supported not just by Enthoven family legend but by the fact that, by the time of his death in 1920, Enthoven had acquired a number of Vincent's works from the Hague period, and some subsequent works from his Nuenen and Paris periods (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 31).

It is curious, however, that Enthoven's name is mentioned nowhere in any of the hundreds of pages of letters Vincent wrote while living in The Hague, nor in Theo's letters, nor in Theo's address book. If the wealthy Enthoven had indeed been a "friend," it is almost certain that Vincent would have eagerly advertised such an advantageous relationship to his brother and parents. It may be significant that Enthoven lived in the fashionable Voorburg neighborhood where Vincent's landlord, Pieter de Zwart and his son Michiel, who managed his father's rental affairs, also lived (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883). Vincent records several trips to Voorburg, including a visit to De Zwart at his home there as part of Vincent's campaign to secure improvements to his studio (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883; JLB 381, 7/5/1883). Vincent also made several trips to sketch in an almshouse in Voorburg (JLB 352, 6/11/1883). Despite Vincent's "attacks" on him, De Zwart appears to have remained friendly with his troublesome tenant right up until Vincent's departure for Drenthe in September 1883. Only the month before, Vincent was considering renting a house from De Zwart -- in Voorburg (JLB 378, 8/21/1883). And only a week or two before leaving The Hague, Vincent contemplated taking a "room or rather an annexe" on the grounds of De Zwart's own house in Voorburg (JLB 382, 7/6/1883). (It should be noted that neither De Zwart père nor fils is ever mentioned by name in Vincent's letters.)

Since Enthoven was a prominent landowner, it is quite possible that he met or knew of Vincent through one of the De Zwarts. Further, it is not just possible, but likely, that when Vincent did not have rent money, he tried to placate his landlord with offers of drawings as either payment on account or collateral on debt. Thus, Enthoven may have come into possession of some of Vincent's Hague-period work through the De Zwarts. The later work he could have collected subsequently.

We find some of the Enthoven account less persuasive. The claim that he gave Vincent "clothes and underclothes" sounds like a borrowing from the colorful Borinage stories of sartorial self-abuse. The image of Vincent on a bicycle seems like it should have found its way into his letters or friends' accounts. (The bicycle was still a modern device, and Vincent both hated modernity and loved to walk.) The story about a cache of drawings and letters from Vincent to Enthoven being burned as trash is of a piece with many such apocryphal stories that floated around the communities where Vincent lived in the first quarter of the twentieth century when his celebrity was widely disseminated and stories of fortunes inadvertently lost -- or still to be found -- infested the Van Gogh literature.

533. Herman van der Weele Herman Johannes van der Weele (born January 13, 1852 in Middelburg) was one year older than Vincent. He died in 1930. In 1889, he won a bronze medal at the International Exposition in Paris. 534. son-in-law Van der Mast and Dumas, p. 164: According to Van der Mast and Dumas, Van der Weele's mother-in-law was "the widow [Allegonda Johanna] Stam-Liernur, who managed a painting necessities store on the Papestraat." When the two met, they already shared passions for the same medium (black-and-white) and subject matter (toiling peasants). They probably met at [Willem Hendrik] Stam's, another artist's supply store, where Van der Weele's mother-in-law was the manager and Vincent often ran up debts.

In his competition with Van Rappard, Vincent used Van der Weele as both foil and object lesson, praising his use of models (JLB 332, 3/21/1883), his "manliness", and his "seriousness" (in contrast to the dilettante Van Rappard) (JLB 327, 3/11/1883). By "serious," of course, Vincent meant strict adherence to Von Herkomer's (and Vincent's) nostalgic prescriptions: "If I have something against a new movement, it isn't at all that of Israëls, Mauve and Maris. No, that's simply the best in my view, but something has since arisen from it which, while resembling it, is in fact directly opposed to those masters -- and that's what I'm against. Van der Weele, for instance, is more serious and sticks to a straight line." (JLB 341, 4/9/1883.) (This comment was aimed at the arguments with Van Rappard about "decorative" works.) Vincent also advertised Van der Weele's contacts with prominent Hague artists like Israëls: "I asked Van der Weele -- Tell me, do we take models often ENOUGH??? Van der W. replied: When Israëls was at my studio lately and saw my big painting of the sand-carts, he said: 'Now above all take plenty of models.'" (JLB 332, 3/21/1883; emphasis in original.) In March, Vincent started a collection of prints for Van der Weele, diverting duplicates from the back-sliding Van Rappard (JLB 321, 2/23/1883-2/26/1883). In an act of open reproval, he wrote Van Rappard asking him to return some of the prints Vincent had sent him in order to help establish Van der Weele's collection: "With him in mind, I'd also like to ask you for other prints that you may have available in duplicate" (ibid.).

Vincent clearly intended to position Van der Weele both as a jealousy object for Van Rappard and as an object lesson in how a true friend should behave. That is the subtext of passages like this: "As I wrote, Van der Weele came by this week -- I was just working with a model -- and we held a viewing from The Graphic on a wheelbarrow that I had drawn with the model" (JLB 332, 3/21/1883). How successful Vincent was in planting this seed is debatable. A month later, he wrote Theo: "Van der Weele came by, we held a viewing of woodcuts, ... He's also going to start collecting them, and is to take steps to get some from the estate of Stam the wood engraver that he collected." (JLB 331, 3/21/1883.) In his letters to Van Rappard, Vincent pointedly called Van der Weele "someone who'll become enthusiastic" for his collection (JLB 321, 2/23/1883-2/26/1883), and labeled him one of the "rising men" in the Hague art world -- a self-justifying fiction (JLB 329, 3/16/1883).

In support of this baseless claim, Vincent proposed an elaborate scheme for putting Van Rappard and Van der Weele together, using some duplicate engravings that Van Rappard might otherwise give to Vincent. "And I wish you knew [Van der Weele] personally; now the woodcuts may provide an opportunity for getting acquainted, it seems to me. Either through you bringing him those prints sooner or later ... or through them becoming his with me as intermediary, I may name you as the donor and tell him that you've seen something of his work and would like to make his acquaintance, or something like that" (ibid.). One purpose of this scheme surely was to underscore what an important person Van der Weele was and, especially, would become. Vincent made that explicit: "In short, I just mean that if you're put in touch with him one way or another I believe you'll find in him someone with whom you'll want to keep in touch and probably become real friends" (ibid.; emphasis in original).

535. often ran up debts Vincent first mentions purchasing paper at Stam's in July 1882 (JLB 251, 7/26/1882). After Theo visited in August that year, according to Vincent's later account, Vincent used some of the money Theo gave him "to pay Stam and [Wilhemus Johannes] Leurs [another art supplies store]" (JLB 366, 7/24/1883). By October, he had apparently run up another bill: "I'm desperately short of money, though. So many things are needed, I still even owe Stam a little." (JLB 271, 10/8/1882.) The following summer, Vincent is either still in debt or again in debt to the accommodating merchant: "because I still owe Leurs and Stam some money I can't run up a bill" (JLB 363, 7/22/1883). 536. encouraging without approving BVG R37, 6/14/1883-6/15/1883. The clearest expression of this trait comes in June when Van der Weele responds to Vincent's drawing of multiple figures working in a sandpit: "I would like it immensely if you saw them sometime, for I can make no sense of what Van der Weele said about them, the only one to have seen them. ... Van der Weele's judgement was rather sympathetic, but he said of the Sand quarry that there were too many figures in it. The composition wasn't simple. He said, look, draw that one little fellow with his wheelbarrow on a dyke in the evening set against the light sky, how beautiful that would be, for instance, and now it lacked cohesion. ... but, he added, I'm speaking personally and can only speak personally. And that's not what I like or what I look at. Well, I thought that was rather well said, but you understand that I didn't find in him that awareness of the question that I sought. But for the rest he's a solid fellow, and I had some very pleasant excursions with him and he showed me some devilishly beautiful things." (JLB 354, 6/15/1883.)

There are hints of this diplomatic skill in Vincent's earlier recorded contacts with Van der Weele. For example, Vincent reports in March that, when Van der Weele visited his studio in November, he had shown no interest in Vincent's drawings of diggers (JLB 331, 3/21/1883). Yet Vincent's report of the earlier visit is entirely positive (JLB 285, 11/22/1882). This suggests Van der Weele's skill at keeping his comments constructive rather than critical. During the November visit, he encouraged Vincent to do more complicated compositions -- a comment that Vincent understandably took as a sign of confidence in his ability (JLB 287, 11/24/1882). The mere fact that Vincent and Van der Weele could remain in relatively close proximity and on good terms for ten months, through multiple visits to each other's studio, is the most eloquent possible testimony to Van der Weele's diplomatic acuity.

Context:
JLB 354, 6/15/1883: "Van der Weele's judgment was rather sympathetic, but he said of the Sand quarry that there were too many figures in it. The composition wasn't simple. He said, look, draw that one little fellow with his wheelbarrow on a dyke in the evening set against the light sky, how beautiful that would be, for instance, and now it lacked cohesion."

537. "In looking over" BVG 275, 3/21/1883.

Context:
BVG 275, 3/21/1883: "Now, in looking over my studies, when we came to the diggers, he spoke quite differently of them than he did last winter; at least, he wasn't so quick to say, 'This or that isn't right.'"
JLB 331, 3/21/1883: "When we came to those diggers while looking through my studies, the way he spoke about them was very different from what it was this winter -- at least he didn't say so readily 'this or that is different.'"

538. after months of encouragement BVG 246, 11/22/1882. Van der Weele pushed Vincent in this direction as early as November of the previous year (1882): "He wanted me to compose something from my numerous studies of orphan men, but I don't feel ready yet" (JLB 285, 11/22/1882). He reported what must have been the same exchange to Van Rappard: "Last Sunday I had Van der Weele ... and he saw the various drawings of orphan men and urged me to make a large composition with them, although I would consider that premature as yet, I need to have even more studies" (JLB 287, 11/24/1882). Even if one does not infer explicit "encouragements" from Vincent's encounters with Van der Weele's similar images, such encounters, like this one in March, undoubtedly had a persuasive effect on Vincent. "This morning I was with Van der Weele, who was working on a very beautiful painting of diggers, horses and sand-carts. Big. It was beautiful in tone and colour -- a grey morning mist -- it was manly in drawing and composition, it had style and character -- in short, it was by far the most beautiful and most vigorous work of his I've ever seen." (JLB 327, 3/11/1883.)

We believe there is no doubt that the following encounter in late March had a direct impact on Vincent's decision to undertake more complicated compositions, in particular the series of drawings of peat diggers (Peat Diggers in the Dunes [F 1031 JH 363] and Peat Diggers in the Dunes [F 1030 JH 364]) and sand diggers (Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin Near The Hague [F 1029 JH 366] and Sand Diggers in Dekkersduin Near The Hague [F 1028 JH 367]) that he undertook in May and June of 1883. "Van der W. also came by one time this winter -- it's months ago now -- I was working on studies of Diggers at the time -- one of which I tried to lithograph. He saw them but they didn't seem to interest him, far from it. Now he has evidently had diggers pose recently for the painting he's working on, or observed them at work somewhere -- anyway, he has taken a close look at diggers in nature." (JLB 331, 3/21/1883; emphasis added.)

Context:
JLB 285, 11/22/1882: "He wanted me to compose something from my numerous studies of orphan men, but I don't feel ready yet."

539. another paint-store owner BVG 307, 7/29/1883-7/30/1883. Van Tilborgh supplies the information that Antoine Philippe Furnée's father, Hendrik Jan Furnée, was "a druggist in The Hague's Korte Poten who sold artists' materials" (Van Tilborgh, p. 20).

Context:
JLB 369, 7/29/1883-7/30/1883: "Well, his father is a chemist and deals in paints; he's a stockist for Paillard, and supplies Mauve among others."

540. probably to work off BVG 307, 7/29/1883-7/30/1883: Vincent specifically denies that he received any consideration for the drawing lessons he gave Furnée. But, under the circumstances, this is hardly credible. What is credible is that Vincent would not have wanted to inform Theo about any outside income or benefits he received as that would inevitably raise the question of his rate of expenditure and undercut his pleas for Theo's continued, or increased, support. Vincent does inform Theo about an elaborate arrangement he apparently made with Furnée's father about "a fair number of tubes [of paint] ... no longer in demand" (JLB 369, 7/29/1883-7/30/1883). According to Vincent, the elder Furnée agreed "that I would take them from him for Paillard's net price, on condition that in future he also supplied me with the saleable tubes on the same terms" (ibid.). This convoluted description of a relatively straightforward discount arrangement represents yet another example of Vincent trying to convince his brother that he is, in fact, a shrewd businessman, a careful and deserving steward of Theo's money. To us, the opaqueness of the discussion also suggests there is more to the deal than Vincent wants Theo to know. Several years later, in Nuenen, Vincent admitted asking students for tubes of paint as payment for lessons (JLB 470, 11/17/1884).

Context:
JLB 369, 7/29/1883-7/30/1883: "I've never had anything for teaching the son, but the father has often expressed his readiness to help. I took him up on this and said the following to him. That I had no doubt that there must be a fair number of tubes in his stock that were no longer in demand."

541. Antoine Furnée Furnée's relations with Vincent were no doubt both helped and hindered by the fact that he reminded Vincent of Van Rappard "when we first met him" (JLB 343, 5/20/1883). In July, Vincent reported that Furnée and his younger (nineteen-year-old) brother gave him "a highly authentic Scheveningen jacket with a standing collar, picturesquely faded and patched" (JLB 362, 7/13/1883). The present "gave me enormous pleasure," he wrote with evident affection (ibid.). "Don't you think that was kind of the surveyors? They're kind, cheerful fellows who've given me a lot of companionship." (ibid.) Earlier, Vincent referred to his student as "very pleasant company" (JLB 343, 5/20/1883).

This story is hard to square with the universal rejection that Vincent suffered elsewhere in The Hague because of his odd looks and rebarbative manner. There are several possibilities. One is that Vincent fabricated the story -- either wholly or in part. Another is that the Furnée brothers were exceptionally warm-hearted and open-minded. The more ominous (and likely) reading is that the boys were, in fact, mocking Vincent; but he mistook their attentions (or is misrepresenting them to Theo) as affectionate. For the clothes-conscious Dutch, the gift of the "faded and patched" jacket could easily have been intended as ridicule of Vincent's tendency to dress poorly. In fact, one of the Furnée brothers' few (distinctly un-fond) memories of Vincent was that he wore "a brown 'peat-carrier's suit' with a cap to match" -- not a positive image in light of another of their recollections, that his studio was "very disorderly and untidy" (Bonger-Van Gogh, p. 137). Nor is it likely that Theo received the news of this "gift" in the positive spirit in which Vincent related it. Undoubtedly, it would have raised all the ancient family concerns about Vincent's strange habits and the potential for public embarrassment.

It probably sheds significant light on Vincent's relationship with the Furnée brothers that he had similar relationships with teenage boys in Nuenen and again in Auvers. In the latter case, at least, it is well known that the Secrétan brothers played tricks on him and mocked him mercilessly. (See Chapter 37.) In any event, the relationship with Furnée was brief. Vincent apparently began giving him lessons in early May 1883 (JLB 343, 5/20/1883). They may have continued until Vincent left for Drenthe in September, although Vincent is not specific on the frequency of their lessons and even suggests that they may have trailed off before his departure because of objections from Furnée's father: "[Furnée] has to take an examination in October, however, and his father doesn't want him to spend so much time on it. But in my view he can easily combine his profession of surveyor with drawing." (ibid.) Apparently, teacher and student parted on amicable terms. According to Vincent, Furnée came to say goodbye to him at the train station when he left on September 11 (JLB 385, 9/11/1883-9/12/1883), and there is no doubt that Furnée wrote Vincent a letter the following January announcing his departure for the East Indies (JLB 421, 1/6/1884-1/18/1884). Vincent responded warmly: "Well, my dear friend, I will always think back with great pleasure on many a walk that we took together last summer" (ibid.).

542. "inveterate liars" BVG 251, 12/3/1882-12/5/1882.

Context:
BVG 251, 12/3/1882-12/5/1882: "I do not mean to say that there are none, but you feel what I mean, and know as well as I how many painters are inveterate liars."
JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882: "I'm not saying that there are none, but you yourself feel what I mean, and know as well as I how a host of people who paint are enormous liars."

543. watercolors as "hideous" BVG 285, 5/20/1883. Vincent apparently felt the same way about Furnée's drawings -- and told him so: "He showed me drawings which I thought poor, and I told him why I thought they were poor" (JLB 343, 5/20/1883).

Context:
BVG 285, 5/20/1883: "The things he made before I knew him were horrible daubs, most of them hideous."
JLB 343, 5/20/1883: "What he did before I knew him were horribly botched paintings, generally atrocious."

544. "horrible daubs" BVG 285, 5/20/1883.

Context:
BVG 285, 5/20/1883: "The things he made before I knew him were horrible daubs, most of them hideous."
JLB 343, 5/20/1883: "What he did before I knew him were horribly botched paintings, generally atrocious."

545. "never stopped talking" Van Gogh, p. 137. A. L. C. Furnée, brother of Antoine Philippe Furnée, subsequently made available some letters that Vincent had written to his brother and apparently related some of his brother's recollections of his time with Vincent: "He told us that he had known Vincent in The Hague as a youth of nineteen; at the time Vincent was a friend of his elder brother, the surveyor, ... The latter went out painting with Vincent. Vincent always wore a brown 'peat-carrier's suit' with a cap to match. He used to talk incessantly while working. Dr. Furnée also visited Vincent's studio: it was very disorderly and untidy." (JLB 421, 1/6/1884-1/18/1884; JLB 523, 8/5/1885.) 546. occasional contacts BVG 291, 6/5/1883-6/6/1883.

Context:
JLB 351, 6/7/1883: "From the window I sketched an old gardener by a crooked apple tree, and the workshop of the home's carpenter, where I drank tea with two orphan men. I can go into the men's ward as a visitor. It was very real, inexpressibly real."

547. "I should like to find" BVG 266, 2/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 266, 2/11/1883: "Just because I should like to find and keep up a real friendship, it is difficult for me to conform to a conventional friendship."
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: "It's hard for me to be content with conventional friendship, precisely because I seek and persevere in sincere friendship."

548. "it is difficult" BVG 266, 2/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 266, 2/11/1883: "Just because I should like to find and keep up a real friendship, it is difficult for me to conform to a conventional friendship. ... Where it is conventional, bitterness is almost unavoidable, just because one does not feel free, and even though one doesn't express one's real feelings, they are sufficiently apparent to leave a continuing disagreeable impression on both sides and to make it hopeless for one to profit from the other's society."
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: " It's hard for me to be content with conventional friendship, precisely because I seek and persevere in sincere friendship. ... Where there is convention it's almost inevitable that bitterness arises, precisely because one doesn't feel free, and even if one doesn't express one's true feelings they're still enough to leave a lasting, unpleasant impression on both sides and to remove any hope that one might be able to be of help to each other."

549. " sentinelle perdue" BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "That there is a great chance of going under in the struggle, that a painter is something like a 'lost sentinel,' these and other things need no saying."
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "That one runs a high risk of going under oneself, that being a painter is like being a forward sentry, this and other things -- that goes without saying" (emphasis in original).

550. "a poor struggler" BVG R20, 2/4/1883.

Context:
BVG R20, 2/4/1883: "At least a poor struggler of a sick painter like myself knows a few things that a tiny baby like that doesn't know."
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "At any rate, a sick painter like me struggling to get by knows things about it a child like that doesn't know."

551. compared himself BVG R24, 1/25/1883-1/30/1883: Vincent writes this referring to his successful low bid (sole bid) for the twenty-one volumes of the Graphic.

Context:
JLB 304, 1/25/1883: "But actually isn't it ridiculous that here in an artistic city like The Hague someone like me should be the highest bidder at a public book auction? One would expect other bidders to come forward, but no. I myself didn't think I would get them." (Emphasis in original.)

552. he pulled from trash BVG R12, 9/12/1882-9/14/1882: Vincent refers several times to the unpleasantness of searching through old magazines that have been either used extensively, as at the public library, or stored carelessly, as were some of those in the bookseller Blok's extensive stock. "I may be able to add some more [prints] later," he writes Van Rappard in September 1882, "since the Jew told me he still had more of that jumble of magazines at home ... which he hadn't brought along because they were too tattered. When I have time I'm going to look through his jumble -- which isn't a pleasant task, by the way." (JLB 263, 9/12/1882-9/17/1882.)

Context:
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "You'll see, though, that these too are rather tattered at the folds."

553. "ignored and looked" BVG R24, 1/25/1883-1/30/1883. Vincent does not directly draw this parallel, but the description is charged with an emotion that is unmistakably autobiographical. After purchasing the volumes of the Graphic at auction for a low price, Vincent sees a metaphor in the absence of other buyers' interest: "Pleased as I am to have them, at the same time I feel sad that there's so little demand for them. ... Oh Rappard -- it's the same as with other things -- much that is of great value is paid no attention nowadays, and looked down upon as ballast, rubbish or scrap paper." (JLB 304, 1/25/1883.)

Context:
BVG R24, 1/25/1883-1/30/1883: "Oh, Rappard -- in many respect it's like this -- much that has great value nowadays is ignored and looked down upon as worthless rubbish, garbage, wastepaper."
JLB 304, 1/25/1883: "Oh Rappard -- it's the same as with other things -- much that is of great value is paid no attention nowadays, and looked down upon as ballast, rubbish or scrap paper."

554. a martyrdom for art BVG 274, 3/11/1883. Vincent sees himself not just as a martyr for art but especially for the "despised" -- martyred -- art he has chosen to champion, black-and-white. Later, in a delusion of self-righteousness, he proclaims his innocence: "those who could be friends have become hostile, and appear to want to stay like that. Consider the fact that, after all, I've done nothing that could justify this." (JLB 363, 7/22/1883.) And he claims a righteous anger at the persecution that he suffers: "Mauve, say, or Tersteeg or C.M. are so cool as not to want to see anything or say a word. I find it human that a coolness may arise over one thing or another, but to maintain the coolness now that more than a year has passed, and after repeated attempts at reconciliation, is not kind." (ibid.)

Context:
JLB 327, 3/11/1883: "Yet we all face this -- but precisely because anyone who paints or draws is faced with this, and is nearly overwhelmed by it if alone, why don't more painters join hands to work together like soldiers forming ranks? And, above all, why are those branches of art that are the least expensive so despised?"

327 555. images of lonely martyrs In addition to those mentioned in the text, Vincent finds a number of other martyr-heroes. Of Socrates, Vincent says he was "born a real satyr," quoting Michelet: "Socrates was born a real satyr, but through devotion, work, renunciation of frivolous things, he changed himself so completely that on his last day, before his judges and facing death, there was in him something of a god, a ray from on high, with which the Parthenon was illuminated" (JLB 368, 7/27/1883). Vincent goes on to connect the image of the martyred Socrates to Jesus: "Well, one sees the same thing in Jesus too, who began as an ordinary labourer and worked his way up to be something else, whatever it may have been, a personality so full of compassion, love, goodness, seriousness, that one is still drawn to it" (ibid.). He says of Aeschylus that he was unjustly "banished," citing a passage from Hugo's introduction to Shakespeare: "They killed the man and then they say: 'let us put up a bronze statue of Aeschylus'; something of that is always in my mind when I hear of an exhibition of someone's work. So I don't look much at 'the bronze statue.' Not because I disapprove of something being publicly honoured, but because of the association, they killed the man. Aeschylus was simply banished, but here too banishment was a death sentence, as it often is." (JLB 358, 7/2/1883.)

According to JLB: "Victor Hugo wrote in William Shakespeare: 'He was exiled. He died in exile. Then the orator Lycurgus declared: We must put up a bronze statue to Aeschylus. Athens, which had driven out the man, put up the statue' (Il fut exile. Il mourut en exil. Alors l'orateur Lycurgue s'écria: Il faut élever à Eschyle une statue de bronze. Athènes, qui avait chasse l'homme, éleva la statue)." (JLB 358, n. 3.) Vincent says of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881; English writer and philosopher), "Many regard Carlyle as a monster" (JLB 325, 3/5/1883).

Finally, he invokes the outcast Dutch painter Matthijs Maris (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883), who, like Vincent, "met with fierce opposition" (JLB 476, 12/16/1884). He connects Maris, who led a long, unhappy life, to Quasimodo: "Just last week I read Notre-Dame by Hugo, ... Do you know who I recognized in it, or at least was so convinced I recognized that I don't doubt that Victor Hugo intended some such thing? I recognized Thijs Maris in Quasimodo." (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883.) What they have in common -- and, of course, what they have in common with Vincent -- is a passionate and emotionally costly battle in defense of a repudiated art. In Quasimodo's case, it is Gothic architecture as symbolized by the medieval cathedral of Notre Dame. (Hugo's book is, in fact, a ringing denunciation of Paris's "démolisseurs" [demolishers] who were systematically destroying the city's medieval architectural heritage.) Vincent connects this theme of Hugo's book with the work of Belgian history painters like Henri Leys, Victor Lagye, Charles Henri Pille, and Vriendt (either Albert or Juliaan; Vincent does not specify which) (ibid.).

In Maris's case, Vincent is less specific. Although he may be referring to some of the Romantic, evocative medieval images that Maris painted around Lausanne in the early 1860s, Vincent does not group him with other painters and the "persecution" Vincent decries appears to be based more on Maris's non-conforming personal behavior than the nostalgia of his imagery -- a social ostracism that, of course, always sealed Vincent to Maris in a unique way, even before Vincent became an artist. It is interesting that Vincent appears to talk of Maris as if he were dead, even though he lived another thirty-five years -- twenty-seven more than Vincent. "Anyway, Thijs Maris still exists but not in his full prime and vigour -- not unhurt and disenchanted to the extent that there can be disenchantment with him" (ibid.; emphasis in original). Vincent also raises the issue of suicide in an odd way -- a way that suggests that Maris may have attempted suicide and that the attempt was, in fact, one of the reasons for his ostracism. "One of the enormities committed by the painters here is, I believe, that even now they still laugh at Thijs Maris. I think there's something as dismal as suicide in that. Why suicide? Because Thijs Maris is such an embodiment of something high and noble that in my view a painter can't mock that without lowering himself. Those who don't understand Maris, so much the worse for them, those who do understand him grieve for him, and grieve that such a person has snapped." (ibid.; emphasis in original.)

556. Andersen's "Ugly Duckling" BVG 251, 12/3/1882-12/5/1882.

Context:
JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882: " Do you realize that it's so very, very necessary that honest people should remain in art? I'm not saying that there are none, but you yourself feel what I mean, and know as well as I how a host of people who paint are enormous liars. Honesty is the best policy applies here too, as does the fable of the hare and the tortoise, and the ugly duckling by Andersen." (Emphasis in original.)

557. Jesus in the Garden BVG 248, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: Vincent does not draw this parallel specifically but it infuses a number of the images he uses, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly. In describing himself as a "forward sentry," he evokes the image of the sleeping apostles. (See, e.g., Mark 26:40f; also 1 Corinthians 11:30, 1Thessalonians 4:13 and 5:6.) Elsewhere, after identifying his plight with Carlyle's, he compares Carlyle to Christ: "He -- Carlyle -- learned much from Goethe, but even more I believe from a certain man who wrote no books but whose words have survived nonetheless, although he didn't write them down himself, i.e. Jesus" (JLB 325, 3/5/1883). He also compares Socrates, another of his pantheon of martyrs, to Jesus (JLB 368, 7/27/1883). 

Context:
JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882: "Or is it rather that, given that many have fallen asleep and don't wish to be woken up, one must try to confine oneself to things that one can finish alone, which one faces alone and has sole responsibility for? So that those who sleep can go on sleeping and rest."

558. Prometheus BVG 242, 11/5/1882.

Context:
JLB 292, 12/10/1882: "In some situations it's better to be the vanquished than the victor, for example, better Prometheus than Jupiter. Anyway, it's an old saying, 'what will be will be.'"

559. "Most people" BVG 268, 2/20/1883-2/24/1883.

Context:
JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883: "Most people who read N. Dame probably have an impression of Quasimodo as a sort of clown. But you wouldn't think Quasimodo ridiculous any more than I would …"

560. thirtieth birthday alone BVG 278, 4/2/1883. The only activity on his birthday that Vincent reports is a visit from "an excellent model" who posed for one of his digger drawings (JLB 334, 4/2/1883). We assume that, if there had been any birthday visits or other greetings, Vincent would have mentioned them in this letter, from three days later. By now, the subject of Sien was no longer forbidden, so if he had wanted to mention anything Sien had done to mark his thirtieth birthday, he could have -- and, indeed, probably would have, as part of his ongoing effort to convince Theo that he had done the right thing by taking her in.

Context:
JLB 334, 4/2/1883: "Thank you for your good wishes on my birthday. As it happened, I had a very pleasant day, because just then I had an excellent model for a digger."

561. re-reading Hugo's tale BVG 277, 3/30/1883-4/1/1883. In characteristic fashion, Vincent is drawn to a single minor character in Hugo's vast tale: Monseigneur Myriel. "That Mgr Myriel reminds me of Corot or Millet -- although he was a priest and the other two painters" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 333, 3/29/1883 and 4/1/1883: "I'm reading Les misérables by V. Hugo. A book of which I have old memories, but at the same time I felt a need to read it again. ... A book like that warms one up, just like paintings by Dupré and old Millets -- or several Decamps' -- it's written with what's called verve." (Emphasis in original.)

562. "Sometimes I cannot" BVG 265, 2/8/1883.

Context:
JLB 310, 2/8/1883: "Sometimes I can't understand all the same that I'm only 30 and feel so much older."

563. To escape such thoughts BVG 302, 7/22/1883.

Context:
JLB 364, 7/22/1883: "I can't help it if it has no cause, but I've suddenly fallen ill; ... I'm going for a walk to see if it clears up."

564. familiar alleyways BVG 266, 2/11/1883. Another indirect indication that Vincent has been walking frequently in the Geest is this passage in a letter to Van Rappard trying to explain Sien as nothing more than a charity project: "My dear friend, at present I recall no less than 4 women here in town (including my own) who have fallen or been deceived and have illegitimate children, and their fate is so sad that it's difficult to imagine. Especially because for 3 of them, at least, the chance of pulling through is almost non-existent." (JLB 309, 2/8/1883; emphasis in original.) Because Vincent's information about these women appears to be current, we read this to indicate that Vincent has been back to some favored spots in the Geest district (without Sien).

Context:
JLB 312, 2/11/1883: "Lately I've walked a good deal in the Geest district and in the streets and alleys where I often walked with the woman last year in the beginning."

565. to the distant sea BVG 238, 10/10/1882.

Context:
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "But I no longer let it disturb me, for it annoys me too much and is too inconvenient, since there's too much to do. It often helps, for example, if I take a brisk walk to Scheveningen, or something like that."

566. "for a man who is downcast" BVG 242, 11/5/1882.

Context:
BVG 242, 11/5/1882: "How much good walking out to the desolate seashore and gazing out at the grey-green sea with the long white crests on its waves can do for a man who is downcast and dejected!"
JLB 292, 12/10/1882: "How much good it does a person if one is in a gloomy mood to walk on the empty beach and look into the grey-green sea with the long white lines of the waves."

567. He walked in storm BVG 205, 6/3/1882: Vincent can only be talking about himself. Elsewhere, he writes: "many people these days prepared to go for a long walk in grey weather" (JLB 280, 11/5/1882).

Context:
JLB 235, 6/3/1882: "But there are also people who, just as it is sometimes pleasant and invigorating for a healthy constitution to go for a walk when a strong wind is blowing, so there are also art lovers, I say, who aren't afraid of the harsh."

568. past the lavish house BVG 280, 4/21/1883-4/22/1883. According to JLB, "Jozef Israëls had lived since 1873 in an elegant building with a studio on Koninginnegracht 2 in The Hague" (JLB 337, n. 12).

Context:
JLB 337, 4/21/1883: "I passed by Israëls's house lately -- I've never been inside it -- the front door stood open because the hall was being scrubbed -- I saw things hanging in the hall and do you know what they were?"

569. still the paragon BVG 273, 3/6/1883. Vincent reaffirmed this status as recently as March 1883, about a month before he saw inside the fifty-nine-year-old Israëls's front door. "By Jove, if the others had done the same, what beautiful Dutch etchings would have come into the world" (JLB 326, 3/6/1883).

Context:
JLB 326, 3/6/1883: "Have I already written to you about those two large etchings by Israëls, a man lighting his pipe and an interior of a labourer's dwelling? How beautiful they are. I think it mightily good of Israëls that he carries on etching, the more so since all the others, so to speak, have given it up, despite the enthusiasm with which the etching club was started at the time. At any rate, most haven't made any progress in etching, and when they make one now it's no better or more complete than what they made years ago. Yet old Israëls is still young enough to make progress despite his grey hairs, and huge progress at that -- and I think that is true youth and evergreen energy." (Emphasis in original.)

570. in the open door BVG 280, 4/21/1883-4/22/1883.

Context:
JLB 337, 4/21/1883: "I passed by Israëls's house lately -- I've never been inside it -- the front door stood open because the hall was being scrubbed -- I saw things hanging in the hall and do you know what they were?"

571. "I have never" BVG 280, 4/21/1883-4/22/1883.

Context:
BVG 280, 4/21/1883-4/22/1883: "Recently I passed Israëls's house -- I have never been inside -- the front door was open, as the servant was scrubbing the hall."
JLB 337, 4/21/1883: "I passed by Israëls's house lately -- I've never been inside it -- the front door stood open because the hall was being scrubbed ..."

572. for the country BVG 226, 8/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 259, 8/26/1882: "I always have in mind the idea of moving to the country if an opportunity arises, if circumstances suggest it."

573. especially Tersteeg BVG 282, 5/2/1883: Vincent writes this in May 1883.

Context:
JLB 339, 5/2/1883 or 5/3/1883: "It's now almost a year since I had the unpleasantness with him (i.e. with H.G.T. [Tersteeg]). I shan't cross his path again, I believe he realizes that too, ... It seems to me, should H.G.T. say anything to you about me, that you should cut him off more or less in this manner: Has V. obstructed you since then or bothered you? -- given that he hasn't, you shouldn't make things difficult for him. It's rather disagreeable to me that I always have to avoid the house of G.&C. out of discretion, on account of that difficulty with H.G.T." (Emphasis added.)

574. walked the cobblestone streets BVG 282, 5/2/1883.

Context:
JLB 339, 5/2/1883 or 5/3/1883: "It goes without saying that as long as [Tersteeg] holds that opinion of me I won't set foot inside the premises on the Plaats. Not, however, that I'm afraid of meeting H. G. T[ersteeg], not because I want to hide from him or anything like that, but because I don't want to give him offence. If someone wants to have nothing to do with me, well I'll help and try to avoid the few places where we might unintentionally bump into each other."

575. he often stopped In addition to the Dupré seascape that Vincent returns to the window to see again and again, there are other references to similar sightings in the Goupil gallery window (JLB 334, 4/2/1883). "This week it pleased me very much indeed to see (in the window at G&C) a painting by De Bock" (JLB 286, 11/24/1882). "In the window at G&Cie I saw a large etching by [Mariano] Fortuny, An anchorite, as well as his two beautiful The dead Kabyle and Watching over the dead man" (JLB 298, 1/3/1883). 576. gazing at a small seascape BVG 279, 4/11/1883. According to JLB, "On 9 March 1883 Goupil's branch in The Hague received a seascape by Jules Dupré from Paris. The painting -- measuring 54 by 45 cm -- was bought for 6000 francs. It was to be sold on to Goupil's in London for £ 250 on 27 November 1883." (JLB 336, n. 11.) The seascape by Dupré illustrated in the text is 55 by 66 cm. If the information in the Goupil Ledgers is accurate, and no other Dupré seascape was owned by Goupil during this period, it is unlikely that the illustrated painting is the one Vincent saw. Nevertheless, the composition in the illustrated painting is identical to the one Vincent describes. There are many similar seascapes in Dupré's oeuvre, but no other known painting by the Barbizon artist has a composition that fits Vincent's description. Moreover, given the predominance of horizontal formats in Dupré's seascapes, it is odd that the one in the Goupil Ledgers is taller than it is wide. If the Goupil painting was 65 cm wide instead of 45 cm wide, then the illustrated painting could indeed be the one sold by Goupil in London and the one described by Vincent. It is worth noting that the illustrated seascape was sold in The Hague by Van Wisselingh during the nineteenth century.

Context:
JLB 336, 4/11/1883: "In the window at G&C. I saw a small seascape which you no doubt know, and which I've been going to have a look at almost every evening ..."

577. given a print b2234 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/17/1876. Vincent apparently gave some prints to his father that served as both Christmas and birthday presents, of which a picture of a boat was one. In February 1876, Dorus wrote Theo, who had served as intermediary for the gift: "He has remembered us so nicely again. What a beautiful image is the one of the gasping deer. And that ship by Dupré." (Emphasis added.) This is undoubtedly the same Dupré that Vincent mentions in a letter the previous month, January: "In the small roll addressed to you you'll find 3 etchings after Jules Dupré, one for you, one for Uncle Jan van Gogh, with my regards, and one for Pa. ... That etching after Jules Dupré is beautiful." (JLB 66, 1/17/1876.) The same image may be among the etchings that Vincent mentions in December 1882: "I know old lithographs by Jules Dupré, either by himself or facsimiles of his croquis. But what spirit and what love is in them, and yet how freely and gaily they are done." (JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882.) 578. "What an almightily beautiful" JLB 336, 4/11/1883.

Context:
JLB 336, 4/11/1883: "... but as regards Dupré and similar art -- of which one sees so much more in Paris than here -- you may be rather spoiled -- and not know what an almightily beautiful impression it makes here, where one sees so precious little of it."

579. "When my worries" BVG R20, 2/4/1883.

Context:
BVG R20, 2/4/1883: "I have lost some friends through it, all the same, but on the other hand I have more light and shade in my own house, although at times, when my worries become too great, I feel as if I were on a ship during a hurricane."
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "Nonetheless, I've lost some friends because of it, but I've gained more light and shade in my own house and more of a Home, even though sometimes when cares weigh heavily on me it's as if I were on a ship in a storm" (emphasis in original).

580. "something like an ash heap" BVG 263, 2/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 263, 2/3/1883: "Life is then the colour of dishwater; it becomes something like an ash heap."
JLB 306, 2/3/1883: "Then life has the colour of dirty water, it's like a rubbish dump."

581. "staring into the unfathomable" BVG R21, 2/7/1883. Vincent expresses a similar thought -- the perils of contemplating his position -- in a later letter: "In fact I don't think much about the difficulties, precisely because if one were to fret about them one would get dizzy or become confused" (JLB 327, 3/11/1883; emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG R21, 2/7/1883: "The daily work is something that does not change, and it is less dangerous to be absorbed in it than to stare into the unfathomable."
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "The daily work is a thing that doesn't change, and becoming absorbed in that isn't as dangerous as looking into the unfathomable."

582. "some things will never return" BVG 265, 2/8/1883. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 265, 2/8/1883: "But, at the same time, a phase of life is past. This makes one melancholy, thinking some things will never come back."
JLB 310, 2/8/1883: "Yet at the same time a period of life is over, which makes one sad that this or that will never come back."

583. obliquely of suicide BVG 268, 2/20/1883-2/24/1883. Vincent raises the issue of suicide in his defense of Matthijs Maris, a Hague painter who had been virtually driven out of his native country by the scorn of fellow artists.  Maris did not commit suicide (he lived until 1917), but suicide must have been an assumed part of the shared "conversation" about his fate (suggesting, perhaps, that he had attempted it or someone close to him had committed it), or Vincent would never have written: "One of the enormities committed by the painters here is, I believe, that even now they still laugh at Thijs Maris. I think there's something as dismal as suicide in that." (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883; emphasis in original.) Vincent goes on to make a tortured argument that artists were committing a kind of artistic or moral "suicide" by rejecting Maris. The argument makes no sense unless it is anchored to some commonly-held association between Maris and suicide. According to Braakhuis and Van der Vliet, Maris only "threatened to commit suicide" (Braakhuis and Van der Vliet, p. 144, n. 15; see also p. 146). For a full psychological profile of Maris, see Braakhuis and Van der Vliet, pp. 142-181. 584. "One begins to see" BVG 265, 2/8/1883.

Context:
BVG 265, 2/8/1883: "But one doesn't expect out of life what one has already learned that it cannot give, but rather one begins to see more and more clearly that life is only a kind of sowing time, and the harvest is not here."
JLB 310, 2/8/1883: "But one doesn't expect from life what one already knows from experience that it cannot give. Rather, one begins to see much more clearly that life is only a time of fertilization and that the harvest is not here." (Emphasis in original.)

585. his competitive eye BVG 271, 3/3/1883. On the eve of starting his soup kitchen works, Vincent lays out his competitive motivations with surprising frankness. Vincent's report to Theo two weeks later about Van Rappard exhibiting his Tile Painters in Amsterdam is accompanied by another explosion of competitiveness: "Rivalry stemming from envy is completely different from trying to do one's best to make the work as good as possible precisely out of respect for each other. Extremes meet -- I don't see the slightest value at all in envy, but I would despise a friendship that didn't entail making an effort to keep up with one another." (JLB 331, 3/21/1883; emphasis in original.)

Les extrêmes se touchent (extremes meet) is a French expression that echoes Pascal's philosophical defense of Christianity in Pensees: "The visible extent of the world visibly exceeds us; but as we exceed little things, we think ourselves more capable of knowing them. And yet we need no less capacity for attaining the Nothing and the All. Infinite capacity is required for both, and it seems to me that whoever shall have understood the ultimate principles of being might also attain to the knowledge of the Infinite. The one depends on the other, and one leads to the other. These extremes meet and reunite by force of distance and find each other in God, and in God alone." (Pascal, p. 19; emphasis added.)

Context:
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "There's also another stimulus, namely that Van Rappard is making an effort too, more than in the past, and I want to keep up with him so that we can get on better and probably be of more help to each other. ... I concede to him as to painting, but I don't want to lag behind him in drawing. What I would like to see happen is that he and I go on in the same direction, namely the figures from the people, scenes in a soup kitchen, Hospital &c." (Emphasis added.)

328 586. Rappard's paintings BVG 275, 3/21/1883: Vincent writes Theo sometime around March 21. Although Vincent would not have had an opportunity to see Van Rappard's Tile Painters by the time he began work on his soup kitchen drawings in early March, he certainly had heard about it in his friend's letters. He adds immediately: "Although it isn't part of my plan at present to do large paintings for exhibitions, I wouldn't like to work less than Rappard, say" (JLB 331, 3/21/1883).

Context:
JLB 331, 3/21/1883: "Rappard wants to send a large painting to the Amsterdam exhibition. It shows 4 tile painters around a table. I've heard good things about it indirectly." (Emphasis added.)

587. établissements de bouillon BVG R28, 10/22/1882-10/29/1882.

Context:
JLB 275, 10/24/1882-10/27/1882: "Do you remember the soup kitchens [établissements de bouillon] in Brussels? I remembered that lately, and this is the drawing I'm working on at the moment."

588. municipal kitchen Van Heugten, p. 211: Van Heugten makes the point that there were both municipal soup kitchens, volksgaarkeuken, and church-run kitchens, called soepkeukens or spijskokerijen. Vincent usually used the term volksgaarkeuken. There were two such facilities in The Hague, one on Torenstraat and one on Stationstraat. It is not known exactly which one of these Vincent visited with Breitner or which one he used as a model for his replica. Visser argues that Vincent must have based his drawings on the soepkeuken run by the Catholic charity of St. Vincent de Paul because it was located in the parish where Sien Hoornik lived and because it had a "hatch" like the one Vincent describes and is shown in his works (Van Heugten, quoting Visser, pp. 73-76). This seems possible, but not persuasive. 589. subject had lingered Vincent mentions images of soup kitchens in September (JLB 263, 9/12/1882-9/17/1882), October (JLB 275, 10/24/1882-10/27/1882), and December (JLB 296, 12/27/1882) of 1882. 590. sustained by numerous prints BVG R12, 9/12/1882-9/14/1882. According to Van Heugten, the Lançon engraving in Vincent's collection was inscribed by Vincent, "Distributionde soupe" (soup distribution) (Van Heugten, pp. 211-212). Van Heugten also lists the other related images in Vincent's collection: "a wood engraving of the subject by William Jenkins, 'The distress in Paris: giving soup to the poor at the charity kitchen,' which he took from The Illustrated London News 64 (28 March 1874). ... [and] Edwin Buckman's 'People waiting for ration tickets in Paris' from The Graphic 2 (19 November 1870)." In a letter to Van Rappard in October, Vincent refers to another Buckman work: "Whether a free soup place is in Brussels, in London or in The Hague, its character is always rather like what Buckman certainly has in In front of the shelter" -- his title for "People waiting for ration tickets in Paris" (JLB 275, 10/24/1882-10/27/1882).

Context:
JLB 263, 9/12/1882-9/17/1882: "I've recently found some things by Lançon -- a soup distribution, a gathering of rag-pickers, gang of snow-shovellers -- which made me get up at night to take another look at them, that's how strong an impression they made on me."

591. install multi-part shutters The subject of these shutters spills over several letters. No doubt because of the considerable expense involved, Vincent goes to manic lengths to justify them, explain them, and then exult over them. First, he lays a firm foundation of complaints: the light "not enough comes from above" (JLB 310, 2/8/1883); there is "too much" (ibid.); the windows "give much too much light" (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883); effects were "neutralized by reflections or different lights" (ibid.); "the effect of harsh light ... an enormous reflection in the past that neutralized all effects" (JLB 319, 2/23/1883); "I was often desperate ... this was most regrettable." (ibid.) Then he provides an exhaustive account of his battles with the landlord De Zwart about who should pay for the shutters -- the point of which, no doubt, was to emphasize to Theo that he was making every effort to minimize expenses. He speaks of "tackling" the landlord, taking the dispute to De Zwart's house in the Voorburg, and boldly threatening to find another apartment (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883). As usual, he bolsters the image of boldness and cleverness he hopes to convey with a reference to literature: Fritz Reuter's "Ut mine Festungstid" (1862) about a clever prison inmate who cadges special privileges from his jailers.

In the end, of course, De Zwart provides nothing but some old shutters and boards (if Vincent's story is to be believed), leaving Vincent to pay the bulk of the costs. Once the changes are made, Vincent returns again and again to praise their transformative effect. "Imagine the difference from the effect of harsh light that the three windows would give at present without blinds and you'll well understand how one can work infinitely better now" (JLB 319, 2/23/1883). "I now have the light in the studio pretty well under control ... and adjust my light accordingly" (ibid.). He sends Theo elaborate explanations of how they work, complete with numbered drawings and excited testimonials: "one can now obtain nice effects and vary them greatly. ... But the studio is 10 times better." (ibid.) "I saw how the studio is now infinitely more suitable for colour" (JLB 324, 3/4/1883). "I believe you'll see in [a sketch] what I gain by the change in the light in the studio" (JLB 331, 3/21/1883). Eventually, of course, the other shoe drops: "It's going to cost me more now than I had thought, though, because so many changes had to be made to the old blinds. So I wanted to ask you, since I've promised to pay something on 1 March, send a day earlier rather than a day later, if you can. I wager you can understand that the studio is utterly transformed as a result -- Oh, I find it such a delight." (JLB 319, 2/23/1883.) "Ut mine Festungstid" (1862; "During the Time of My Incarceration") is an autobiographical account of Reuter's years in prison, and part of the series Olle Kamellen. In JLB 318 (2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883), Vincent refers to the book as 'Uit mijn gevangenistijd.' According to JLB: "Van Gogh would have read a Dutch translation which appeared under the general title Gedroogde kruiden. In this Ut mine Festungstid became Herinneringen uit mijne gevangenissen (printed in 1867, 1868, 1879 and 1883)." (JLB 306, n. 6.)

592. "so that the light falls" BVG 271, 3/3/1883. The project to redo the windows in order to "[shut] out the light in the studio or [let] it in as desired" began in early February, about a month before Vincent began the soup kitchen drawings (JLB 310, 2/8/1883). We believe that the two projects were related: that Vincent decided to undertake a group image and that that decision necessitated the studio improvements. (Vincent was never satisfied with his studio conditions for long; the inadequacy of such conditions offered an easy scapegoat for his inability to create a saleable image.) It would be very much consistent with Vincent's modus operandi to unfold his intentions over time, not to reveal to Theo his overall plan at the start -- especially where, as here, considerable expenditures were involved. It may betray Vincent's underlying plan that he uses the window project as a cover to build a large closet in the living room alcove for all the clothes and attributes that he will need for group images like the soup kitchen drawings: "for various smocks, jackets, old coats, shawls and hats, not forgetting the sou'wester, which I need for the models" (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883). He may not have settled on the soup kitchen subject specifically when he began the window-closet project, but he clearly foresaw something similar.

Context:
BVG 271, 3/3/1883: "In the background I put a white screen, and on that I drew the hatch, according to its real position and measurements; I closed the farthest window entirely, and the middle window at the bottom, so that the light falls from P, exactly as in the place itself."
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "I put a white screen in the background and on it I drew the hatch in the proportions and dimensions it has in reality, with the furthest window covered and the lower part of the middle window covered. So that the light falls from P. Just as in the place itself." (Emphasis in original.)

593. Using the canvas

BVG 268, 2/20/1883-2/24/1883: Vincent does not directly make this connection. He mentions his intention to use the canvas for other things (not paintings). Subsequently, he mentions putting "a white screen" at one end of the studio and "drew" on it the hatch and "painted" the lower portion with a gray wainscoting (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883). The latter especially suggests that the discarded canvas was the material for the screen. The possibility cannot be dismissed that Vincent is underplaying the extent of his exertions (and expenses). At least one of the surviving soup kitchen drawings (Soup Distribution in a Public Soup Kitchen [F 1020a JH 330]) shows a figure in the opening, passing out soup. Given his passion for verisimilitude, and his acquaintance with a local carpenter, it is not at all unlikely that Vincent had a substantial screen wall built with an actual opening, not a drawn one.

Context:
JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883: "As you know, I already had something in front of the windows, namely canvas stretched on laths. They're no longer needed now, but will be highly desirable as backgrounds, with darker or lighter material stretched over them."

594. gray wainscoting BVG 271, 3/3/1883. Although some drawings show the wainscoting all around the room (The Public Soup Kitchen [F 1020 JH 333]), it is possible that Vincent just painted it on the "screen" wall.

Context:
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "In the case overleaf the wall is white with panelling painted grey, the floor darker."

595. "By paying attention" BVG 271, 3/3/1883.

Context:
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "One can re-create the locality much more accurately by paying attention to things like that."

596. hired a crowd of models

The identification of the models in Vincent's soup kitchen drawings is a subject of surprising deference in the literature. Van Heugten's discussion is the most complete and the most cautious (Van Heugten, pp. 214-215). Sien, her mother, her daughter, her young sister, and her baby, are (to our eyes) clearly visible in one or more of the scenes. Vincent also mentions "a lad from the neighbourhood" (JLB 323, 3/3/1883). For those seeking a mystery, there is always the barely visible figure shown in the darkness on the other side of the serving window in Soup Distribution in a Public Soup Kitchen (F 1020a JH 330). This would have been a figment of Vincent's imagination if, as he claimed, the wall was merely a screen with a window painted on it. If it was not, then there is a possibility that the orphan man Zuyderland posed for it. Vincent was still working with him at this time, and he appears to be shown in the revamped studio in a letter sketch (People in the Studio [F 1060 JH 327]) from two days before the big event (JLB 322, 3/2/1883).

597. bought " real clothes" BVG 271, 3/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 271, 3/3/1883: "I have a few of these things already, and also many real clothes."
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "I already have several things for it, and also have various REAL clothes" (emphasis in original).

598. "picturesque" BVG 271, 3/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 271, 3/3/1883: "Yesterday, for instance, I bought a very picturesque patched smock of coarse linen."
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "Yesterday, for example, bought a remarkably picturesque patched smock of coarse linen."

599. "Tomorrow" BVG 271, 3/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 271, 3/3/1883: "At all events, one thing I can promise you now, tomorrow I'll have the house full of people, that is, the woman's mother, and her younger sister, and a boy from the neighbourhood, and all these persons, together with my own people, will pose for the drawing of which this is the first rough sketch."
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: " Tomorrow I'll have a house full of people, namely the woman's mother and the woman's youngest sister and a lad from the neighbourhood, and these people will pose with the rest of my household for the drawing for which this is the first scratch."

600. The next day BVG 271, 3/3/1883.

Context:
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "Tomorrow I'll have a house full of people …"

601. from dawn until dusk BVG 272, 3/4/1883. Vincent finished the day of drawing with his models on the soup kitchen "set" and immediately sat down and wrote Theo.

Context:
JLB 324, 3/4/1883: " Darkness has just fallen and wanted to send you today's drawing for the fun of it because I wrote to you about it. This morning I began a watercolour of a boy and a girl at a similar soup distribution with another female figure in the corner."

602. highlights on the heads BVG 270, 3/2/1883.

Context:
JLB 322, 3/2/1883: "I can position them like this in the studio, and then get the glancing lights, say, on the figures from above."

603. "render the character" BVG 275, 3/21/1883.

Context:
BVG 275, 3/21/1883: "From this conception results first, the difficulty of rendering what one has before one's eyes, and second, something else which is rather difficult -- that is, the problem of posing a figure and letting the light fall so that it renders the character most completely and strongly."
JLB 331, 3/21/1883: "And in the first place this approach entails the difficulties of depicting what one has before one's eyes, but in addition something else that requires a lot of hard work, namely the question of how to position a figure and to have the light fall such that the character comes out at its best and most perfect."

604. delighted with the results BVG R30, 3/5/1883.

Context:
JLB 325, 3/5/1883: "And I must tell you that this experiment pleased me very much indeed."

605. immediately planned more alterations BVG 271, 3/3/1883. One of these alterations, apparently, was to create an additional room in the attic -- "[a] highly picturesque and distinctive thing" -- perhaps as a hideaway in an apartment filled with invalids and vagabonds (JLB 319, 2/23/1883). Vincent may also have been considering re-re-doing the windows along the lines he drew in an earlier letter: a more complex shutter system involving a smaller, separate shutter for each of the window panes (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883). In the same drawing, he changed the window panes from large squares to small diamonds and gave the window a window seat.

Context:
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "But the road would have fewer obstacles if you could send me something extra soon. Otherwise I foresee that I'll come up against various things, whether drawing materials or taking a model or making some more changes."

606. more expenses BVG 271, 3/3/1883.

Context:
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "The changes to the studio present me with more indirect costs than direct ones. For I won't consider it finished before I have various things that I need to make it practical."

607. more models BVG R32, 3/21/1883. Mindful of Theo's concerns about his use of models, Vincent lays the impetus for more models jointly at the feet of Van der Weele and Jozef Israëls.

Context:
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: "I asked Van der Weele -- Tell me, do we take models often ENOUGH??? Van der W. replied: When Israëls was at my studio lately and saw my big painting of the sand-carts, he said: 'Now above all take plenty of models.'" (Emphasis in original.)

608. "I just go on drawing" BVG R32, 3/21/1883.

Context:
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: "I just carry on drawing."

609. "at home and content" BVG 272, 3/4/1883.

Context:
BVG 272, 3/4/1883: "As a painter I not only feel perfectly at home and contented with them, but I find in them a quality that sometimes reminds me of gypsies, at least of something as picturesque."
JLB 324, 3/4/1883: "As a painter I feel completely at home with them and not just content, yet I find a character in them that sometimes makes me think of gypsies -- at any rate something as picturesque."

610. offer their Yuletide greetings BVG R32, 3/21/1883.

Context:
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: "The draughtsmen's models come to wish them a merry Xmas and no doubt receive a tip."

329 611. soup kitchen drawings BVG 272, 3/4/1883.

Context:
JLB 324, 3/4/1883: "And you'll get completely different compositions of soup distributions, of which this is now the first."

612. "place where the models" BVG R32, 3/21/1883.

Context:
BVG R32, 3/21/1883: "It would be wonderful if the artists combined, and there was some place where the models could meet every day, as in the old days of the Graphic."
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: "It would be wonderful if people joined forces and there was a place where models would rendezvous each day, as at The Graphic in the past."

613. "My ideal is to work" BVG 278, 4/2/1883. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
JLB 334, 4/2/1883: "My ideal is to work with ever more models, a whole flock of poor folk for whom the studio could be a kind of harbour of refuge on cold days, or when they're out of work or in need. Where they know that there are fire, food, drink and a few quarters to be earned. At present that's only on a very small scale ..."