Notes

Context:
JLB 452, 7/20/1884: "I was delighted to learn from your letter to Pa and Ma that you plan to go to London on 4 Aug. and then to come on here from there. I'm again looking forward very much to your arrival and to finding out what you'll think of the work that I've done since."

Vincent never specifically confirms that Theo made this second trip (which is itself indicative of their strained relationship), but a confirmation can be inferred from a letter Vincent wrote in December. Vincent is disagreeing with his brother about a conversation that they apparently had late the previous summer: " it's not true that 'when we were still good friends' &c. we agreed that I should pay 50 francs. I remember the conversation about it -- in the garden -- very well, and far from agreeing to something, I wasn't willing to agree to anything of that sort then, on that occasion, and it ended with my pointing out to you fairly forcefully that I needed money to get started on several larger canvases I was planning, and had other expenses enough. If anything was agreed, it was for later, when I would be more on top of things." (JLB 473, 12/6/1884; emphasis in original.)

This passage must refer to an argument that took place during the second visit to Nuenen in late August. If it had taken place at the first visit around June 1, surely Vincent would have mentioned it in his letters that summer, which he does not. He does mention it for the first time in a letter from the second half of September in which he appears to be (unhappily) confirming the terms of the new arrangement: "I began a letter to you ... to tell you that I only count on 100 francs, but actually find it hard to manage on it as long as things don't progress" (JLB 456, 9/16/1884; emphasis in original). Also, the subject of "larger canvases" does not come up in the letters until late July (JLB 452, 7/20/1884) and September (JLB 463, 9/30/1884). 

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "[Eugène] Fromentin says of [Salomon van] Ruysdael that at present they are much further advanced in technique than he was, also much more advanced than [Louis] Cabat, who sometimes greatly resembles Ruysdael in his stately simplicity, for instance in the picture at the Luxembourg."
JLB 450, June 1884: "Fromentin says of Ruisdael that people nowadays are much more advanced in technique than he was. They're also more advanced than Cabat -- who's sometimes very like R. because of his dignified simplicity, for instance in the painting in the Luxembourg."

Context:
JLB 450, June 1884: "Fromentin says of Ruisdael that people nowadays are much more advanced in technique than he was. They're also more advanced than Cabat -- who's sometimes very like R. because of his dignified simplicity, for instance in the painting in the Luxembourg."

Context:
JLB 450, June 1884: "Fromentin says of Ruisdael that people nowadays are much more advanced in technique than he was. They're also more advanced than Cabat -- who's sometimes very like R. because of his dignified simplicity, for instance in the painting in the Luxembourg. But does this mean that what R., what Cabat said has become untrue or superfluous? No. The same with Israëls, too -- with Degroux, too (Degroux was very simple)."

Context:
JLB 381, 7/5/1883: "My plan is to get a long way with painting in Drenthe so that I'll be eligible for the Drawing Society when I come back. That, in turn, is linked to a second plan, to go to England. I believe that it's permissible to speculate provided one doesn't do it in the air or on foundations that are all too shaky. As far as England is concerned, …"

At the heart of Vincent's demurral appears to be the fear that his work will be rejected by the Society: "as I already said to you in the summer, I wouldn't expect anything other than a rejection of my application for membership" (ibid.). Vincent gamely suggests putting off the application for another year, citing the possibility that, if he applied now, "it could involve all sorts of unpleasantnesses were I to apply again to the gentlemen in The Hague" -- namely Mauve and Tersteeg. Of course, the thrust of his earlier promise was precisely this: to reconcile with these "gentlemen." And only a few months after penning this resigned demurral, he will once again entertain delusions of re-establishing relations with his two greatest antagonists. 

Context:
BVG 372, 7/1/1884-7/15/1884: "As to the Society of Draughtsmen, firstly, I quite forgot it because I was busy painting those figures; secondly, now that your letter reminds me of it, I am not very keen on it, for, as I told you already last summer, I can only expect a refusal of my petition for membership, which refusal one can, however, consider as a kind of necessary evil that can be redressed next year and as such the request perhaps has its raison d'être."
JLB 451, 7/2/1884: "As to the drawing society: first, I'd utterly forgotten about it because I was painting those particular figures; secondly, now that your letter prompts me to think about it again, I have very little inclination for it since, as I already said to you in the summer, I wouldn't expect anything other than a rejection of my application for membership, which rejection one can, however, regard as a sort of necessary evil that would be redressed another year, and as such the step acquires a raison d'être if need be."

Context:
JLB 451, 7/2/1884: "And when I tell you that I'm just now absorbed in two new large studies of weavers' interiors, you'll understand that I'm not in the mood for it. Particularly since it could involve all sorts of unpleasantnesses were I to apply again to the gentlemen in The Hague. As to these two weavers -- one is a section of the loom with the figure and a little window. The other an interior with 3 little windows that look out on the yellowish foliage, which contrasts with the blue of the cloth that's being woven on the loom and the weaver's smock, which is another blue again."

Context:
JLB 371, 8/7/1883: "It has sometimes surprised me that I'm not more of a colourist, because my temperament would certainly lead one to expect that, and yet up to now that has hardly developed at all."

Context:
JLB 252, 7/31/1882: "But the whole chemistry of colours is no more complicated than those simple few fundamentals. And a good understanding of them is worth more than 70 different shades of paint -- given that more than 70 tones and strengths can be made with the 3 primary colours and white and black. The colourist is he who on seeing a colour in nature is able to analyze it coolly and say, for example, that green-grey is yellow with black and almost no blue, &c. In short, knowing how to make up the greys of nature on the palette. To make notes out of doors, however, or make a small scratch, a highly developed feeling for the outline is absolutely essential, as it is for working it up later."

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "That sky is grey -- but so iridescent that even our pure white would be unable to render this light and shimmer. Now, if one begins by painting this sky grey, thus remaining far below the intensity of nature, how much more necessary it is to tone down the browns and yellowish-greys of the soil to a lower key, in order to be consistent."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "That sky is grey -- however so luminous that even our pure white might perhaps not capture it in terms of light and brilliance. But if one starts by painting the sky grey, thus remaining far below the intensity of nature, then all the more, in order to remain consistent, will one have to set the browns and yellow-greys of the earth several tones lower."

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "That sky is grey -- but so iridescent that even our pure white would be unable to render this light and shimmer. Now, if one begins by painting this sky grey, thus remaining far below the intensity of nature, how much more necessary it is to tone down the browns and yellowish-greys of the soil to a lower key, in order to be consistent."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "That sky is grey -- however so luminous that even our pure white might perhaps not capture it in terms of light and brilliance. But if one starts by painting the sky grey, thus remaining far below the intensity of nature, then all the more, in order to remain consistent, will one have to set the browns and yellow-greys of the earth several tones lower."

Context:
BVG 238, 10/10/1882: "However greatly I may admire many pictures and drawings that are made especially with a view to the delicate grey harmonious colour, and the local tone, yet I believe that many artists, who aimed less at this, and are called old-fashioned now, will always remain green and fresh because their manner had, and will keep, its own raison d'être."
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "However strikingly beautiful I find many paintings and drawings clearly done with an eye to the subtly grey, harmonious colour and to the local tone, I believe nonetheless that many artists who worked less definitely to that end, and are now seen as old-fashioned, will always remain fresh and green because their approach had its raison d'être too and still does" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 332a, 10/14/1883: "Often the color of things reminds me of Michel; you know, he also has a gray sky (slate-coloured sometimes), a brown soil with yellowish-grays. It is absolutely true, and according to nature."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "As to colour, things often remind me of Michel too. You know, he also has a grey sky (slate-grey sometimes), a brown earth with yellow-greys. It's completely true and faithful to nature."

Context:
JLB 387, 9/16/1883: "I had already heard something about Liebermann, but your description of his brushwork, in particular, is more enlightening. His colour must be infinitely better than [Gerke] Henkes's (you put it very well, 'the colour of slate with transitions to grey-yellow and grey-brown')."

Context:
BVG 363a, 4/1/1884-4/15/1884: "Well, and as to the painted study, I said a few words in my previous letter to the effect that I felt discouraged about sending it, because you did not think the one from Drenthe any good, and I do not think this one would please you either."
JLB 442, 3/24/1884: "Well then, I've already dropped you a line about the painted study in a previous letter, that I was discouraged from sending it because if you don't see anything in the ones from Drenthe I don't think you'll like this one either."

Context:
BVG 370, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: " As to drab colour, in my opinion, one must not judge the colours of a painting separately; a drab colour, for instance, next to a strong brownish-red, a dark blue or olive-green may express the very delicate, fresh green of a meadow or a little cornfield."
JLB 449, 6/6/1884: " Speaking of 'snot colours', to my mind one shouldn't consider the colours in a painting in isolation -- if, for instance, a snot colour is placed against strong tones of brownish red, of dark blue or of olive green -- can express the very tender and fresh green of a meadow or a little wheatfield."

Context:
BVG 370, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "And yet I believe [Théophile] De Bock, who baptized certain colours 'drab colours,' certainly would not contradict this -- for I myself heard him say once that in some pictures by Corot, for instance in evening skies, there are colours which are very luminous in the picture and, considered separately, are in fact of a rather dark, greyish tone."
JLB 449, 6/6/1884: "And yet I believe that De Bock, who christened certain colours 'snot colours', certainly wouldn't contradict the above, actually -- for I myself once heard him say that in some paintings by Corot there are tones in evening skies, for instance, which are very luminous in the painting and are actually, regarded in themselves, a fairly dark, greyish tone."

Context:
BVG 370, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "Eugène Delacroix took two steps backwards, as was his habit, and blinking his eyes: 'That is perfectly true,' he said, 'there is a tone, for instance (he pointed his finger to a grey and dirty tone of the pavement), very well, if one said to Paul Veronese: paint me a beautiful blonde woman whose flesh has that tone, he would paint her, and the woman would be a blonde in his painting.'"
JLB 449, 6/6/1884: "Eugène Delacroix took two steps backward, winking as was his wont: 'That's perfectly true -- he said; look, there's a tone, for example (he pointed to the dirty grey tone of the cobblestone); well, if one were to say to Paolo Veronese: paint me a nice blonde woman whose flesh should be of that tone -- he'd paint her, and the woman would be a blonde in HIS painting.'" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 446, 5/12/1884-5/15/1884: "What you say about Puvis de Chavannes gives me very great pleasure that you see his work thus, and I'm in complete agreement with you in appreciating his talent. And as regards the colourists -- it's after all the same with me as with you -- I can immerse myself in a Puvis de Chavannes, and yet that doesn't alter the fact that I should feel the same for Mauve's landscape with cows and Israëls's paintings as you feel for them." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "And that book frequently deals with the same questions which have greatly preoccupied me of late, and which, in fact, I am continually thinking of, especially because when I was last in The Hague I heard things Israëls had said about starting with a deep colour scheme, thus making even relatively dark colours seem light."
JLB 450, June 1884: "And in different places in that book I again found the same questions dealt with that have preoccupied me very much recently, and about which I actually think continually, specifically since, at the end of my time in The Hague, I indirectly heard things that Israëls had said about starting in a low register and making colours that are still relatively dark appear light."

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "I found very interesting, for instance, what Ch. Blanc says about Velásquez' technique in Les Artistes de mon temps; his shadows and half-tones consist mostly of colourless, cool greys, the chief elements of which are black and a little white. In these neutral, colourless mediums, the least cloud or shade of red has an immediate effect." (Emphasis in original.)
JLB 450, June 1884: "Among other things I thought what C. Blanc says in Les artistes de mon temps about Velázquez's technique was very interesting -- that his shadows and half-tones usually consist of colourless cool greys of which black and a bit of white are the chief components -- in which neutral, colourless parts the least little dash or hint of red, say, is immediately apparent." (Emphasis in original.)

It is interesting that Vincent omits from this list the most obvious name: Georges Michel. Apparently, his defiance was not entirely unschooled. After Theo criticized his Drenthe work for being "too preoccupied with Michel" (JLB 432, 3/2/1884), Vincent rarely mentions "master Michel" again (ibid.).

However, a new disagreement soon emerges over another formerly shared favorite, the Barbizon painter Jules Dupré. Apparently in response to a criticism that Theo has leveled against Dupré, Vincent mounts a stout defense: "It does surprise me rather that you don't feel as much for Jules Dupré as I wish you did. I believe so firmly that if I were again to see what I've seen by him before, far from finding it less beautiful I would find it even more beautiful than I already did instinctively. Dupré is perhaps even more of a colourist than Corot and Daubigny, although they both are too, and Daubigny really is very daring in colours." (JLB 450, June 1884; emphasis in original.) Vincent goes on to compare Dupré's color to the music of Ludwig von Beethoven (1770-1827; German composer). 

Context:
JLB 450, June 1884: "I'm still not completely persuaded that, to mention just one thing, a grey sky always HAS to be painted in the local tone. Which Mauve does; but Ruisdael doesn't do it, Dupré doesn't do it. Corot and Daubigny???" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 368, 5/15/1884: "As to my own palette, you will not find the silvery tones in my work done here, but rather brown ones (bitumen for instance and bistre), which I do not doubt some people will disapprove of."
JLB 446, 5/12/1884-5/15/1884: "As regards my own colour, in the work I'm doing here you'll find not silvery but rather brown tones (Bitumen, for instance, and Bistre) -- which I don't doubt some people would take amiss of me" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "It has already annoyed me for a long time, Theo, that some of the present-day painters rob us of the bistre and the bitumen, with which surely so many splendid things have been painted, and which, well applied, make the colouring ripe and mellow and generous, and at the same time are so distinguished and possess such very remarkable and peculiar qualities."
JLB 450, June 1884: "It has bothered me FOR A LONG TIME, Theo, that some of the painters nowadays are taking from us the bistre and the bitumen with which, after all, so many magnificent things were painted, which -- properly used, make the coloration lush and tender and generous, and at the same time so dignified. And have such highly remarkable and individual qualities." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 446, 5/12/1884-5/15/1884: "As regards my own colour, in the work I'm doing here you'll find not silvery but rather brown tones (Bitumen, for instance, and Bistre) -- which I don't doubt some people would take amiss of me."

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "It has already annoyed me for a long time, Theo, that some of the present-day painters rob us of the bistre and the bitumen, with which surely so many splendid things have been painted, and which, well applied, make the colouring ripe and mellow and generous, and at the same time are so distinguished and possess such very remarkable and peculiar qualities. But at the same time they require some effort in learning to use them, for they must be used differently from the ordinary colours, and I think it quite possible that many are discouraged by the experiments one must make first and which, of course, do not succeed on the very first day one begins to use them. It is now just about a year ago that I began to use them, chiefly for interiors; at first I was awfully disappointed in them, but I could not forget the beautiful things I had seen made with them."
JLB 450, June 1884: "It has bothered me FOR A LONG TIME, Theo, that some of the painters nowadays are taking from us the bistre and the bitumen with which, after all, so many magnificent things were painted, which -- properly used, make the coloration lush and tender and generous, and at the same time so dignified. And have such highly remarkable and individual qualities. At the same time, though, they require that one take the trouble to learn to use them, for one has to deal with them differently from the ordinary types of paint, and I consider it perfectly possible that many people are frightened off by the experiments that one has to do first, and that naturally don't succeed on the first day that one starts to use them. It's now something like a year ago since I started using them, specifically for interiors, but at first they really disappointed me, and yet I always remembered the beautiful things I'd seen in them." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "When I hear you mention so many new names, it is not always easy for me to understand because I have seen absolutely nothing of them."
JLB 450, June 1884: "When I hear you talk about a lot of new names, it's not always possible for me to understand when I've seen absolutely nothing by them" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "But for my part, I find Israëls, for instance, so enormously great that I am little curious about or desirous for other or newer things."
JLB 450, June 1884: "But for my part, I find so tremendously much in Israëls, for instance, that I'm not particularly curious about or eager for something different or newer."

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "But if one says what one has to say clearly, strictly speaking, isn't that enough? And it may become more pleasant to hear if it is said with more charm, something I do not disdain, yet it does not add very much to the beauty of what is true, because truth has a beauty of its own."
JLB 450, June 1884: "If one says what one says clearly, though, this isn't enough, strictly speaking. And saying it with more charm might make it more pleasant to hear (which I don't disparage, however), but it doesn't make what is true very much more beautiful, since the truth is beautiful in itself."

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "But if one says what one has to say clearly, strictly speaking, isn't that enough? And it may become more pleasant to hear if it is said with more charm, something I do not disdain, yet it does not add very much to the beauty of what is true, because truth has a beauty of its own."
JLB 450, June 1884: "If one says what one says clearly, though, this isn't enough, strictly speaking. And saying it with more charm might make it more pleasant to hear (which I don't disparage, however), but it doesn't make what is true very much more beautiful, since the truth is beautiful in itself." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 450, June 1884: "I already know what you say about 'too black' ... What I sometimes think when I hear people saying 'there is no black in nature' is ... there doesn't have to be any black in paint either. Don't, whatever you do, get the mistaken idea that the colourists don't use black, because it goes without saying that as soon as an element of blue, red or yellow is added to black, it becomes a grey, that is a dark red, yellow or blue grey." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 450, June 1884: "Dupré is perhaps even more of a colourist than Corot and Daubigny, although they both are too, and Daubigny really is very daring in colours. But with Dupré there's something of a magnificent symphony in the colour, carried through, intended, manly. I imagine Beethoven must be something like that. This symphony is surprisingly CALCULATED and yet simple and infinitely deep, like nature itself. That's what I think about it -- about Dupré." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "The laws of the colours are unutterably beautiful, just because they are not accidental."
JLB 450, June 1884: "The laws of colour are inexpressibly splendid precisely because they are not coincidences" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "That symphony is enormously calculated, and yet simple, and infinitely deep as nature itself. That is what I think of [Jules] Dupré."
JLB 450, June 1884: "This symphony is surprisingly CALCULATED and yet simple and infinitely deep, like nature itself. That's what I think about it -- about Dupré." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 450, June 1884: "But with Dupré there's something of a magnificent symphony in the colour, carried through, intended, manly. I imagine Beethoven must be something like that. This symphony is surprisingly CALCULATED and yet simple and infinitely deep, like nature itself. That's what I think about it -- about Dupré." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 450, June 1884: "They're painted in a tone of bistre and bitumen which, it seems to me, lends itself to expressing the WARM chiaroscuro of an airless, dusty interior. Artz would certainly think it too dirty." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 371, 6/1/1884-6/15/1884: "With regard to black -- accidentally I did not use it in these studies, as I needed, among other things, some stronger effects than black; and indigo with terra sienna, Prussian blue with burnt sienna, really give much deeper tones than pure black itself."
JLB 450, June 1884: "As to black -- as it happened I didn't use it in these studies, since I needed a few stronger effects than black, among other things -- and indigo with terra sienna, Prussian blue with burnt sienna actually produce much deeper tones even than pure black" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 372, 7/1/1884-7/15/1884: "It would be a thing that gave a good impression of summer. I think summer is not easy to express; generally, at least often, a summer effect is either impossible or ugly, at least I think so, but then, as opposition, there is the twilight."
JLB 451, 7/2/1884: "It would be something that expresses Summer well -- in my view summer isn't easy to express. Usually, or often at least, a summery effect is either impossible or ugly that's my feeling, at least -- it's offset by the twilights, though." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 372, 7/1/1884-7/15/1884: "It would be a thing that gave a good impression of summer. I think summer is not easy to express; generally, at least often, a summer effect is either impossible or ugly, at least I think so, but then, as opposition, there is the twilight. But I mean to say that it is not easy to find a summer sun effect which is as rich and as simple, and as pleasant to look at as the characteristic effects of the other seasons."
JLB 451, 7/2/1884: "It would be something that expresses Summer well -- in my view summer isn't easy to express. Usually, or often at least, a summery effect is either impossible or ugly that's my feeling, at least -- it's offset by the twilights, though. But I mean it isn't easy to find the effect of a summer sun that's as lush and as simple and as pleasant to look at as the characteristic effects of the other seasons." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 451, 7/2/1884: "It would be something that expresses Summer well -- in my view summer isn't easy to express. Usually, or often at least, a summery effect is either impossible or ugly that's my feeling, at least -- it's offset by the twilights, though."

Context:
BVG 378, 10/1/1884: "'That's just acting in order to forget,' muttered the other. 'Well, I prefer such action -- if perish we must -- I would sooner perish of passion than die of boredom.'"
JLB 464, 10/2/1884: "Just a way of deadening oneself -- the other muttered. 'Ah, well! I prefer to deaden myself. To die for the sake of dying -- i prefer to die of passion than to die of boredom!'"

Context:
BVG 380, 9/15/1884-9/30/1884: " I, for my part, know well enough that the future will always remain very difficult for me, and I am almost sure that in the future I shall never be what people call prosperous."
JLB 463, 9/30/1884: "For my part I'm well aware that, come what may, the future will always be very difficult for me, and I know as good as for certain that things won't go what people describe as well for me in the future" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 465, 10/9/1884: "You know well enough that your criticism, at least over the last 1 1/2 years, appears to me to be just a sort of vitriol. Don't think that I don't know that against that vitriol one must furnish oneself with a sort of hide that it can't easily penetrate, and that if one is hardened to it, it doesn't trouble one much -- so -- what do I care?"

Context:
BVG 380, 9/15/1884-9/30/1884: "You must decide for yourself what you are going to do about it, but I myself cannot swallow everything."
JLB 463, 9/30/1884: "You must do exactly as you wish, but for my part I can't swallow everything whole."

Context:
BVG 380, 9/15/1884-9/30/1884: "Your apparent indication in your letter that Goupil & Co. are specialists in Millet and Daumier is really too outrageous."
JLB 463, 9/30/1884: "The fact that you say in your letter something about G&Cie as specialists in Millet and Daumier is really going too far."

Context:
BVG 378, 10/1/1884: "Up to now, at any rate -- but things can't go on like this."
JLB 464, 10/2/1884: "And up to now -- all right -- but to carry on -- impossible."

Context:
JLB 461, 9/22/1884-9/28/1884: "I wish that you could just imagine that you and I had lived in that year, 1848 -- or a similar period, for there was also something of the kind with Napoleon's coup d'état. I won't say anything nasty to you -- that's never been the aim -- I'm trying to make clear to you the extent to which the difference that has come between us is related to general tendencies in society, and as such is something very different from expressly intended nastiness."

Vincent draws elaborate parallels to the brothers' own situation: "Who were facing each other then [in 1848], whom one can take as prototypes of all the rest? Guizot -- Louis-Philippe's minister on one side, Michelet and Quinet with the students on the other side. I'll start with Guizot and Louis-Philippe. Were they bad or tyrannical? Not exactly -- they were people, as I see it, like, say, Pa and Grandfather, old Goupil (people in short who look almighty respectable -- profound -- serious -- yet if one looks at them a bit sharply and at close quarters, there's something lugubrious, dull, even feeble about them, to such a degree that they make one sick. Is this going too far???), aside from a difference in position, same mind, same character. Have I got this wrong???" (ibid.; emphasis added.)

Vincent then shifts the parallelism from Quinet to the brothers' longtime favorite, Jules Michelet, a "revolutionary" like Quinet -- a shift that puts Vincent even more firmly on the side of the angels. "Quinet now, say, or Michelet or V. Hugo (later), was the difference between them and their opponents almighty great? Yes -- but on the surface one wouldn't have said so. At the time I myself, at one and the same time, found a book by Guizot and a book by Michelet equally good. Yet in my case, as I got deeper into it, I saw a difference and, what's more, contradiction! In short, that the one peters out, disappears vaguely, while in contrast something infinite remains in the other. Much has happened since then." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) Vincent then comes to the crux of the matter. "But I believe that if you and I had lived then, you would have been on Guizot's side and I on Michelet's side. And both remaining consistent, could with a certain sadness have found ourselves directly opposed to each other as enemies, on just such a barricade, say; you in front of it as a soldier of the government, I behind it as a revolutionary or rebel." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) 

Context:
JLB 463, 9/30/1884: "I still deeply regret, Theo, that I'm on one side, you on the other, of a certain barricade that may no longer be visible in the form of paving-stones, but which still definitely exists and persists in society" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 463, 9/30/1884: "There were two brothers and they were on the same side and both fell, one a day after the other, for the same cause. That might have been so in our case, but now it's as good as certain that it will never happen. For my part I'm well aware that, come what may, the future will always be very difficult for me, and I know as good as for certain that things won't go what people describe as well for me in the future."

Context:
BVG 379, 9/15/1884-9/30/1884: "Well, then it was '48, now it is '84,' 'le moulin n'y est plus, mais le vent y est encore.' But try to know for yourself where you really belong, as I try to know that for myself."
JLB 461, 9/22/1884-9/28/1884: "Anyway, it was 48 then, it's 84 now. The mill is there no longer, the wind is still there. However, try to know for yourself where you actually are, as I try to know it for myself."

Context:
BVG 378, October 1884: "Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas."
JLB 464, 10/2/1884: "Life itself likewise always turns towards one an infinitely meaningless, discouraging, dispiriting blank side on which there is nothing, any more than on a blank canvas" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 465, 10/9/1884: "I wanted to let you know that in the winter, perhaps as early as next month, I'm going away from here for a while -- I've thought about Antwerp -- I've thought about The Hague."

BVG 380, 9/15/1884-9/30/1884. 

Context:
JLB 463, 9/30/1884: "Then, when I feel on rather firmer ground, I'd like to go back to the miners again."

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."

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."

Context:
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "Rappard is still here and will be staying for another week since the work is going extraordinarily well. He's making women spinning and various studies of heads, has already made 10 studies or so, all of which I consider fine."

This notion, as Vincent develops it in this letter and elsewhere, is sometimes cited as the core of Vincent's theory of "expressive" art (e.g., "[Vincent's intention is] to privilege expressive force and the 'idea' over accuracy and technical polish" [Druick and Zegers, p. 34]). But Vincent's need to placate was equal to his need to defend, and no theory could serve both simultaneously. Within a few sentences, he reassures his conventional friend of his dedication to conventional notions of "polish": "Do you think that I don't care about technique or am not searching for it?" (ibid.). The letter careers back and forth in the same way, between bold declarations of artistic integrity ("I don't give a damn whether my language squares with that of these orators" [ibid.]) and plaintive calls for patience and sympathy ("I work on it to improve myself" [ibid.]) as he struggles to satisfy the conventional standards of finish set by the artists that he continues to hold out as models (Millet, Breton, etc.).

No doubt because he has just embarked on a furious battle with Theo, and recognizes that he needs the connection with Van Rappard for emotional, artistic, and commercial reasons, Vincent is unusually accommodating of his friend's criticisms. He effusively compliments the works of Van Rappard that he saw during his visit to Utrecht in December 1883 ("they get to the heart of things" [ibid.]) -- despite their conventionality -- and emphasizes the similarity between his own work and Van Rappard's, both in subject matter and in seriousness. "If I didn't see more technique in your little peasant cemetery than in Corot's studies -- I'd liken it to them. In sentiment it's identical -- an endeavour to express only the intimate and the essential." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) In this way, Vincent tries to conflate issues of technique with issues of "intent," thereby affirming his and Van Rappard's solidarity: "I'm afraid that in the future, too -- and I congratulate you on it -- you will ALSO hear the same comments about technique, as well as about subject" (ibid.; emphasis in original). Relentlessly transforming necessity into virtue, Vincent proclaims the uniqueness of his artistic vision even as he follows Van Rappard in subject matter, metier, and style. Citing what he calls "Herkomer's doctrine" ("Lions do not ape one another" [emphasis in original]), he says he is looking for "an individual manner, more finished and even more concise than now" (ibid.).

In his fervor, and perhaps in flustered response to a specific accusation from Van Rappard, he lapses into nonsense: "I care relatively little for technique, it's not because I'm saving myself trouble or trying to avoid difficulties." (ibid.) The argument becomes more rhetorical as he warms to it. He tries to tie the call for better technique in art to a bourgeois bête-noir that he and Van Rappard have obviously shared: organized religion: "I find something in dexterity and technical knowledge about art that reminds me of what, in religion, they'd call self-righteousness" (JLB 332, 3/21/1883). He belittles the concept of technique and questions the sincerity of those who sponsor it: "I believe that the more one has to do with nature itself -- the deeper one penetrates into it -- the less attraction one sees in all these studio tricks ... The fact that I write to you about some expressions you use is to ask you: are you sure that those who are praising technique to the skies are in good faith? I just ask it precisely because I know that your aim is to avoid studio chic." (JLB 439, 3/18/1884; emphasis in original.) He sums up with a faux syllogism disguised as a call to arms and yet another claim of solidarity: "let's try to get the hang of the secrets of technique so well that people are taken in and swear by all that's holy that we have no technique. Let the work be so skilful that it seems naive and doesn't stink of our cleverness. I don't believe that I have reached this desirable point yet, for I don't even believe that you, who are further on than I am, are already there." (ibid.; emphasis in original)

At the end of this exhaustive argument, he closes as he began: "I dislike writing or talking about technique in general" (JLB 332, 3/21/1883; emphasis in original). The insecurity and defensiveness that produced this monument of persuasion spill into subsequent letters. In late March, Vincent both defends and apologizes for some of his pen drawings before he has even heard Van Rappard's reaction: "As far as the execution is concerned, of course I would wish right heartily that the direction of the pen strokes had followed the forms more expressively, and the forces that establish the tone of the masses also expressed their shape better. I think you'll grant me that the way things fit together -- the shape of them -- hasn't been systematically or deliberately neglected -- but I had to make a rough stab at it." (JLB 441, 3/21/1884-3/28/1884.) In September, in criticizing one of Van Rappard's letter drawings, Vincent casts himself as the defender of traditional "fundamentals" of composition, and makes yet another opportunity to reaffirm the friends' solidarity: "I fear your foreground can't carry all the things that are in it, and will either become paint or else irresolute and woolly -- what they call weak. I had just the same thing this summer with a weaver's interior that I couldn't take any further because the whole thing came too far forward, that the painting began with what should have been the background -- the foreground, the solid basis, was missing." (JLB 460, 9/21/1884; emphasis in original.) (264)

Context:
JLB 439, 3/18/1884: "I won't go into generalities about technique, but I do foresee that, precisely when I become stronger in what I'll call power of expression than I am at this moment, people will say, not less but in fact even more than now, that I have no technique" (emphasis in original). 72. "beautiful" BVG 382, 10/22/1884. 

Context:
BVG 382, 10/22/1884: "He has made a very beautiful study of a girl's head, and one of a farmyard, and two small ones of ox wagons."
JLB 466, 10/22/1884: "He's made a very fine study of a girl's head and one of a farmyard, and two small ones of ox-carts."

Context:
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "Rappard is still here and will be staying for another week since the work is going extraordinarily well. He's making women spinning and various studies of heads, has already made 10 studies or so, all of which I consider fine."

Context:
BVG 383, 10/15/1884-10/31/1884: "The effect of the heads he paints at present remind one of certain studies of heads by Courbet, for instance. But it is damned well done, I can assure you."
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "The heads that he's painting at present are reminiscent in their effect of certain studies of heads by Courbet, say. But it's becoming devilish good, that I can assure you."

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "I do not know if I shall succeed, but I must have a freer scope, for having been without any intercourse with the world of art for a full year and longer, as I have, notwithstanding all good will, one comes to a dead end and must renew oneself."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "I don't know whether it will succeed -- however, I must have more scope, for with the best will in the world, if one has been, as I have now, A WHOLE YEAR AND MORE entirely outside the world of painting, one works oneself into the ground outside and has to refresh oneself" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "It's very true that I've spent more this year than last on firstly my work, secondly myself. I'm not sorry for it, though -- I've progressed in precisely what will rectify things in painting later and -- the only thing I do regret is that I haven't been able to spend a few hundred guilders more. What I've gained by it, for instance, is that I can now easily paint a head from the model in a morning, and that at last my colour is becoming sounder and more accurate, and more character is appearing in the technique." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: " I must strike while the iron is hot; but dear brother and friend, stir up the fire."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: " I must strike the iron now, it's hot, but -- my dear brother and friend -- STOKE UP THE FIRE" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "Then I shall be able to make both ends meet during those months, and need not stop for days when the work requires my not losing a moment."
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "Then I'm covered for the ends of those months and won't have to stop for days when the work demands that I don't lose a moment."

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "I hope you will feel that just because of my appeal to Mauve and Tersteeg and their refusing, directly or indirectly I must show very shortly that I have again accomplished something -- and that all energy must now be concentrated, and that work must be done at full speed, though it might turn out a little more expensive."
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "I hope that you'll feel that precisely because I approached Mauve and T. and they refuse, directly or indirectly I must show -- and that very soon -- that I've done something again -- and that all energy now has to remain concentrated and work has to proceed at full speed, even if it were to work out slightly dearer" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "I hope you will feel that just because of my appeal to Mauve and Tersteeg and their refusing, directly or indirectly I must show very shortly that I have again accomplished something."
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "I hope that you'll feel that precisely because I approached Mauve and T. and they refuse, directly or indirectly I must show -- and that very soon -- that I've done something again" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "Then, after that, I shall have gained some hints for correcting my work here and improving it, and I shall again have a pied-à-terre with a solid, serious painter, and then I warrant you, something will happen before long -- either I shall exhibit or I shall sell.”

JLB 468, 11/2/1884: “Then -- after that -- I'll again have a few tips for improving my work here and making progress with it. And again have a pied-à-terre with a good, sound painter. And then I guarantee that something will soon happen -- either I'll exhibit or I'll sell.”

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "So that for instance the money I get from you -- let's put it at 5000 francs -- might be looked upon as my working capital if necessary. The interest from this -- if through our combined energy we could raise it to 20% -- would be proof of the correctness of your judgement as well as mine, and of taking a sound view of business matters. As to this result -- getting 20% interest from 5000 francs -- I want your co-operation in order to reach it. These are facts and figures, and you must try to recover your confidence and energy to realize them."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "So that the money from you, say we call it 5,000 francs at a pinch, is my working capital. The interest on this -- if we could get it to 20% through the energy of both of us -- would be proof of the rightness of your insights and also of mine, and of a sound view of business. Now that result -- 20% interest a year on 5,000 francs -- I'd like you to help me get it. These are facts and figures, and you must see to it that you get your confidence and energy back in this matter." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "Now that result -- 20% interest a year on 5,000 francs -- I'd like you to help me get it."

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "The interest from this -- if through our combined energy we could raise it to 20% -- would be proof of the correctness of your judgement as well as mine, and of taking a sound view of business matters."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "The interest on this -- if we could get it to 20% through the energy of both of us -- would be proof of the rightness of your insights and also of mine, and of a sound view of business" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: " We must make progress. Get used to the idea that we must get a move on."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: " We must go onward. Get used to the idea that we must move."

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "I must work hard to attain this result, but in my opinion you for your part might do what you said you would do before: side with me -- not in a neutral way, but in an energetic, positive way."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "I'll have to work hard to achieve this result -- but -- as I see it -- for your part you can just do something you said you'd do before -- take my side -- not neutrally but energetically, positively."

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "I must strike while the iron is hot; but dear brother and friend, stir up the fire."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "I must strike the iron now, it's hot, but -- my dear brother and friend -- STOKE UP THE FIRE" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "Before I received your letter and enclosure, I had already done something that you probably won't approve of, but about which I don't really value your opinion much, I'm sorry to have to say. I have again set in train an attempt to get back on good terms with Mauve, with Tersteeg too, if possible."

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "Don't misunderstand me, though -- I haven't written to M. or to Tersteeg in a complaining tone. On the contrary, but I have said as forcefully as I could: give me another opportunity to make some studies with Mauve."

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "Don't misunderstand me, however, I have not written to Mauve or Tersteeg in a complaining tone. On the contrary, but I said as forcibly as I could, Give me another opportunity to make a few studies at Mauve's!"
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "Don't misunderstand me, though -- I haven't written to M. or to Tersteeg in a complaining tone. On the contrary, but I have said as forcefully as I could: give me another opportunity to make some studies with Mauve."

Context:
BVG 385, 11/1/1884: "I have owned myself to be in the wrong, not only to Mauve, but also to Tersteeg."
JLB 469, 11/14/1884: "I've admitted I was wrong, not just to Mauve but to T. as well."

Context:
BVG 385, 11/1/1884: "I sent both Tersteeg and Mauve a few words in answer to their refusal, to tell them that 'I perhaps agreed with Tersteeg, it was better for me to look for new friends than to try to renew old relations, that this was exactly my own idea too, but that except and besides that, I had enough confidence in the future not even to give up the renewal of old relations, perhaps even better than before.'"
JLB 469, 11/14/1884: "I've replied briefly to both Tersteeg and M. about their refusal, to tell them that 'I rather agree with Tersteeg that it would be better for me to seek out new people than to try to renew old relationships, that this really is my own idea, too, but above and beyond that, that I nonetheless have enough faith in the future that I will not lightly give up regaining even old relationships, even better than before'" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "Then, after that, I shall have gained some hints for correcting my work here and improving it, and I shall again have a pied-à-terre with a solid, serious painter, and then I warrant you, something will happen before long -- either I shall exhibit or I shall sell.”

JLB 468, 11/2/1884: “Then -- after that -- I'll again have a few tips for improving my work here and making progress with it. And again have a pied-à-terre with a good, sound painter. And then I guarantee that something will soon happen -- either I'll exhibit or I'll sell.”

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "Then -- after that -- I'll again have a few tips for improving my work here and making progress with it. And again have a pied-à-terre with a good, sound painter. And then I guarantee that something will soon happen -- either I'll exhibit or I'll sell.”

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "I have again set in train an attempt to get back on good terms with Mauve, with Tersteeg too, if possible. I don't know whether it will succeed -- however, I must have more scope, for with the best will in the world, if one has been, as I have now, A WHOLE YEAR AND MORE entirely outside the world of painting, one works oneself into the ground outside and has to refresh oneself." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "It is perfectly true what you say: 'that it is more likely that I shall achieve something by making good pictures than by discussing revolutionary questions.' I find this so true that, while you were writing it, I was just taking steps to promote the direct progress of my work by asking to be allowed to paint some studies in Mauve's studio again.
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "What you say is perfectly true: that if I make good paintings I'm more likely to achieve something than by discussing revolutionary questions. I actually find this so true that while you were writing it I was just taking a step directly aimed at the progress of my work, by asking once more to paint a few studies in Mauve's studio."

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "I'll hammer away at it until M. agrees."

Context:
JLB 469, 11/14/1884: "Now you know that I made an approach to Mauve and Tersteeg again, to put right what happened in the past. I don't regret that approach. But they've refused to have anything to do with it -- 'very definitely' refused."

Context:
BVG 385, 11/1/1884: "But they have refused to have anything to do with me, very 'definitely' refused. This does not discourage me."
JLB 469, 11/14/1884: "But they've refused to have anything to do with it -- 'very definitely' refused. This doesn't discourage me."

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "On the contrary, for the moment, for instance, I am almost more glad that Mauve and Tersteeg have refused me than if it had been the reverse. Understand me well! It is because I feel within me the power to win them over in the end, notwithstanding everything."
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "On the contrary, at this moment, for example, I'm almost more pleased that Mauve and Tersteeg refused me than if it had been the opposite. You must understand me! It's -- because I think I can feel the power in me to bring them round anyway, despite everything." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "They may be won over by colour, and by working hard. I see a chance of giving them convincing proof that I have a notion of, and sentiment for, colour."
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "They can be won over by colour and I see a chance, by taking pains, to demonstrate to them convincingly that I understand and have a feeling for colour" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 469, 11/14/1884: "Since I wrote to you I've also been working on other studies -- among them two heads of polder workers. I now have 3 people in Eindhoven who want to learn to paint and whom I'm teaching to paint still lifes."

Context:
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "But I'll be able to benefit more from Antwerp if I first paint another 30 heads here -- and I'm starting on those 30 heads now, or rather I've already started with a large bust of a shepherd."

Context:
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "I don't think I'm mistaken about Tersteeg and Mauve when I dare say that there really is a chance of getting at them and winning them over."

Context:
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "Rappard is still here and will be staying for another week since the work is going extraordinarily well. He's making women spinning and various studies of heads, has already made 10 studies or so, all of which I consider fine."

Context:
JLB 466, 10/22/1884: "Rappard is here at the moment and sends you his regards. He's made a very fine study of a girl's head and one of a farmyard, and two small ones of ox-carts. And various others that he's planning should follow."

Context:
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "Rappard is still here and will be staying for another week since the work is going extraordinarily well. He's making women spinning and various studies of heads, has already made 10 studies or so, all of which I consider fine. ... The heads that he's painting at present are reminiscent in their effect of certain studies of heads by Courbet, say. But it's becoming devilish good, that I can assure you."

Context:
BVG 383, 10/15/1884-10/31/1884: " His visit has given me new ideas for my own work again, and there are so many things in my mind which I should like to make that, after all, I can hardly put off starting work on them."
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: " As a result of his visit I've again got new ideas for my own work, and have so many things in my head which I'd like to make that, after all, I can't easily postpone getting on with them right away."

Context:
BVG 390, 12/15/1884-12/17/1884: "I am working very hard on the series of heads from the people, which I have set myself to make."
JLB 476, 12/16/1884: "I'm very busy working on the series of heads of the people that I've resolved to make."

Context:
BVG 423, 9/1/1885-9/15/1885: "Well, they will not easily get the better of me in this case, and this winter I hope to keep the very same models, who are thoroughly typical of the old Brabant race."
JLB 531, 9/2/1885: "Anyway -- they won't easily win in this case, and this winter I do hope to keep the very same models, who are of the old Brabant stock through and through."

Context:
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "And then -- there's more and more demand for portraits -- and there aren't so very many who can do that, and I want to try to learn to render a head with character. I've become particularly keen on this recently because my grasp of colour is becoming sounder. You don't have to involve yourself in the question with Tersteeg and Mauve right now -- don't bother, rather, but if, say, I have the 50 heads I'm going to get ready by the end of January, then for instance -- it might be good if you were unexpectedly just to say a word to them." (Emphasis in original.)

This may apply more to the drawings and paintings of peasants at work that Vincent did in the summer and fall of 1885 than to his portraits of the previous winter. The people Vincent refers to appear to be identifying characteristic postures and body shapes in Vincent's figures, rather than facial features in his portraits. Van Heugten observes that, in the drawings of heads done in the winter of 1884-85, Vincent "tak[es] considerable pains to be true to life. ... The faces of these peasants have generally been studied carefully, with quite close attention being paid to anatomical proportions and details." (Van Heugten, p. 114.) 

Context:
BVG 433, 11/10/1885-11/20/1885: "I know it is difficult to satisfy people as to the 'likeness,' and I dare not say beforehand that I feel sure of myself on that point. But I don't think it entirely impossible, for the people here are not much different from people elsewhere."
JLB 541, 11/14/1885: "I know it's difficult to please people with a 'likeness', and I dare not say beforehand that I feel sure of my case. I certainly don't consider it altogether impossible, though, because the people here will be much the same as people elsewhere."

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "And then portraits are more and more in demand, and there are not so very many who can do them, and I want to try to learn to paint a head with character …"
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "And then -- there's more and more demand for portraits -- and there aren't so very many who can do that, and I want to try to learn to render a head with character."

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "And then portraits are more and more in demand, and there are not so very many who can do them, and I want to try to learn to paint a head with character …"
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "And then -- there's more and more demand for portraits -- and there aren't so very many who can do that, and I want to try to learn to render a head with character."

Context:
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "But I'll be able to benefit more from Antwerp if I first paint another 30 heads here -- and I'm starting on those 30 heads now, or rather I've already started with a large bust of a shepherd."

Context:
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "But in general Rappard advises me not to do it right away, but after having painted here for another few months, and to try to get a pied-à-terre to make nude studies. But I'll be able to benefit more from Antwerp if I first paint another 30 heads here -- and I'm starting on those 30 heads now, or rather I've already started with a large bust of a shepherd. Rappard has done the same in Drenthe and on Terschelling this summer, and it has helped him to make a good deal of progress.”

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "Now look here -- to make progress, because I'm just getting into my stride, I have to paint 50 heads" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "Now look here -- to make progress, because I'm just getting into my stride, I have to paint 50 heads. As soon as possible and one after the other. I have calculated, but it won't be possible to work with the energy that I want to devote to it in terms of exertion and effort without extra." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "Look here now -- I must paint 50 heads just for experience, because right now I am hitting my stride. As soon as possible, and one after the other."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "Now look here -- to make progress, because I'm just getting into my stride, I have to paint 50 heads. As soon as possible and one after the other." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "Look here now -- I must paint 50 heads just for experience, because right now I am hitting my stride."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "Now look here -- to make progress, because I'm just getting into my stride, I have to paint 50 heads."

Context:
BVG 389, 12/10/1884-10/20/1884: "By working on steadily, those fifty heads will be finished this winter. But they require so much work and drudgery that I can't spare a day."
JLB 475, 12/14/1884: "With hard work, these 50 heads will be finished this coming winter. But they involve so much work and toil that I need every day."

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "In order to win over Tersteeg and Mauve, I must do something decidedly energetic now, having broached the matter" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 451, 7/2/1884: "The state of my paint bill is such, however, that I have to be a bit careful about starting new things in a larger size, and all the more so because it will cost me a fair amount in models if I could ever get suitable models of precisely the type I have in mind (coarse, flat faces with low foreheads and thick lips, not that sharp look, but full and Millet-like) and with those very clothes."

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "What I have gained by it is, that I can now easily brush a head from the model in one morning, for instance, and that at last my colour is becoming more solid, and more correct, and my technique is getting more character."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "What I've gained by it, for instance, is that I can now easily paint a head from the model in a morning, and that at last my colour is becoming sounder and more accurate, and more character is appearing in the technique."

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "They may be won over by colour, and by working hard. I see a chance of giving them convincing proof that I have a notion of, and sentiment for, colour."
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "They can be won over by colour and I see a chance, by taking pains, to demonstrate to them convincingly that I understand and have a feeling for colour" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 388b, 2/1/1885-2/15/1885: "And to me my work is valuable; I must paint a lot -- and therefore I am continually in want of models, which -- at a time when my work is difficult and exhausting -- is an additional reason for thinking it rather dismal to get suspicions in exchange."
JLB 482, 2/2/1885: "And for me the work is expensive; I have to paint a lot and I constantly need a model for it; just all the more reason why, at a time when the work is difficult and exacting, and at the same time thankless, it's quite wretched to get suspicion for it."

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "It's very true that I've spent more this year than last on firstly my work, secondly myself. I'm not sorry for it, though -- I've progressed in precisely what will rectify things in painting later and -- the only thing I do regret is that I haven't been able to spend a few hundred guilders more. What I've gained by it, for instance, is that I can now easily paint a head from the model in a morning, and that at last my colour is becoming sounder and more accurate, and more character is appearing in the technique." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 484, 3/2/1885: "Nonetheless, this very day I've started to make some that I'll send you. Because I think it possible that it might be of use, when you meet a good many people on the occasion of the Salon, if you had something you could show -- albeit only studies. So you'll receive heads of an old and a young woman, and probably more than one of these two models." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 490, 4/6/1885: "I think I'll start painting in watercolour regularly in the evenings -- as soon as I'm living in the studio -- it can't really be done in the living room here at home. Until then, I'll go on working from the model in the evenings too."

Context:
BVG 417, 7/10/1885-7/20/1885: "It is the same here as everywhere, people do not like to pose, and if it weren't for the money, nobody would."
JLB 513, 7/12/1885: "It's the same here as everywhere else; people are far from happy to pose and, if it weren't for the money, no one would" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 475, 12/14/1884: "I have to make 50 of these heads -- while I'm still here and can get models of all types relatively easily during the winter months. Now the winter months are passing, though, without my making as many as I want and as are necessary if I don't continue getting on with it."

Context:
JLB 472, 11/28/1884: "To business, though -- have you ever realized that I presently have more than two guilders in expenses daily -- reckon 1 for the model, 1 for canvas, paint -- it can't come out any cheaper. I still have bills to pay -- and -- I must go to Antwerp."

Context:
BVG 417, 7/10/1885-7/20/1885: "It is the same here as everywhere, people do not like to pose, and if it weren't for the money, nobody would. But as they are for the most part very poor, and especially many weavers are out of work, I can somehow manage to get them."
JLB 513, 7/12/1885: "It's the same here as everywhere else; people are far from happy to pose and, if it weren't for the money, no one would. However, as the people are mostly very poor, and many weavers, in particular, have no work, I can still get it done." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 392, 1/20/1885: "Goodbye, I hope you will be able to send money, I have not quite a guilder left, and must have a model for a few hours more today, so tomorrow I shall be at a dead end, but maybe your letter will come."
JLB 479, 1/23/1885: "Regards -- I hope you'll be able to send; I have less than a guilder left and must have a model for several more hours today. So tomorrow I'll be stuck again, but possibly your letter will come."

Context:
BVG 388b, 2/1/1885-2/15/1885: "And to me my work is valuable; I must paint a lot -- and therefore I am continually in want of models, which -- at a time when my work is difficult and exhausting -- is an additional reason for thinking it rather dismal to get suspicions in exchange."
JLB 482, 2/2/1885: "And for me the work is expensive; I have to paint a lot and I constantly need a model for it; just all the more reason why, at a time when the work is difficult and exacting, and at the same time thankless, it's quite wretched to get suspicion for it."

Context:
BVG 415, 8/15/1885-8/31/1885: "It is hard for you to keep it up all by yourself, and I cannot do anything to lessen the expenses; on the contrary, I wish I could take even more models."
JLB 519, 7/16/1885: "It's hard for you to keep going on your own, and I can't do anything to reduce the expenses -- on the contrary, I wish I could take more models" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 404, 4/30/1885: "A peasant girl, in her patched and dusty blue skirt and bodice which have acquired the most delicate shades from the weather, wind and sun, is better looking -- in my opinion -- than a lady."
JLB 497, 4/30/1885: "A peasant girl is more beautiful than a lady -- to my mind -- in her dusty and patched blue skirt and jacket, which have acquired the most delicate nuances from weather, wind and sun."

Context:
BVG 395, 3/1/1885: "I, for my part, however, am not the personality to have had much chance of getting on a sufficiently intimate footing with girls of that sort for them to be willing to pose for me."
JLB 484, 3/2/1885: "For my part, though, I'm not the sort of character who has much chance of getting on a sufficiently intimate footing with girls of that sort that they're willing to pose."

Context:
BVG 386a, 12/9/1884: "If a hussy won't have me, it's all right with me; I can hardly take it ill of her -- but nothing is more certain than that I shall try to find compensation elsewhere."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "If a girl won't have me, very well, I can hardly blame her -- but -- nothing is surer than that I'll try to find recompense elsewhere."

Context:
BVG 406, 5/4/1885-5/5/1885: "When I think of the Scheveningen girl who sits regularly for Artz, and whom I remember quite well, she is as fair and as clean as some whores."
JLB 500, 5/4/1885-5/5/1885: "When I think of the Scheveningen woman who regularly serves Artz as a model, whom I remember very well, well she's as fair, as light as -- some whores."

Context:
BVG 395, 3/1/1885: "To return for a moment to the subject of the women's heads, genre [Achille] Jacquet, not the earlier ones, but those of the present."
JLB 484, 3/2/1885: "To return for a moment to that question of the female heads in the Jacquet genre, not the earlier ones but of the present day."

Context:
BVG 395, 3/1/1885: "Or consider the people who paint heads of girls such as our sister, for instance; I can perfectly well understand there are painters who do so. Whistler did it well several times; Millais, Boughton -- only to mention people of whom I saw something of the kind at one time; I know but little of Fantin Latour, but what I saw I thought excellent, Chardin-like."
JLB 484, 3/2/1885: "The reaction against them -- certainly with a motive -- by people who paint heads of girls like our sisters, for instance -- I can well understand that there are painters who do such things -- Whistler did it well several times -- Millais, Boughton -- to mention only people by whom I saw something of the sort in the past."

Context:
BVG 404, 4/30/1885: "Millet, De Groux, so many others, have set an example of character by turning a deaf ear to such taunts as 'sale, grossier, boueux, puant' [nasty, crude, filthy, stinking], etc., etc., so it would be a disgrace should one so much as waver."
JLB 497, 4/30/1885: "Millet, Degroux, so many others, have set examples of character, of taking no notice of the reproaches of -- nasty, crude, muddy, stinking &c. &c., that it would be a disgrace if one were even to have misgivings" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 465, 10/9/1884: "Now look here -- Stracké the sculptor lives in Den Bosch, he's also the principal of a drawing academy there -- I saw a terracotta by a pupil of his, and heard on that occasion that Stracké is definitely not ill-disposed or indifferent to anyone in this area who does something in art. That he has various models for the academy in Den Bosch, and that there are people he gives the opportunity to draw the nude or to model in clay. One probably has to pay the model oneself, though, but that's not so very expensive, and moreover one has a good classroom for which one does not pay. I'll find out more about this, and then it's not impossible that I might go to Stracké in the way that Breitner went to Cormon, say. This would be in the area and would also work out the cheapest. I've bought a very fine work on anatomy, Anatomy for artists by John Marshall, which was expensive but which will also be of use to me all my life because it's very good. What's more, I also have what they use at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and what they use in Antwerp." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 404, 4/30/1885: "No, one must paint peasants as if one were one of them, as if one felt and thought as they do. Being unable to help what one actually is."
JLB 497, 4/30/1885: "No -- one must paint the peasants as if one were one of them, as feeling, thinking as they do themselves. As not being able to be other than one is."

But there is a catch. Theo will not send the additional 50 francs to Vincent, he will send it to their father to defray the costs of Vincent's board. The proposal -- yet another sign of the conspiracy between his brother and his father -- makes Vincent apoplectic: "This letter tells you explicitly that I flatly refuse to have anything to do with what you might want to agree with Pa about possible payment for board. ... I don't want to hear any more about this matter; you settle it with Pa. ... I tell you once more, it's not true I agreed to pay 50 francs for my board." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) Was Theo's offer to send an additional 50 francs to Dorus a well-intentioned gesture or an arch reminder to Vincent that his parents were bearing an unseen part of his living expenses? Was it Theo's indirect way of offering to raise Vincent's stipend back to 150 francs if he moved out of the house? In his hypersensitivity, Vincent appears to see Theo's stratagem but still disdainfully rejects his proposal: "I must most decidedly refuse this ... If I've been here at home this long without paying for my board and lodging, you may regard that if you will as arrogance or tactlessness on my part." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) 

Context:
JLB 476/480: "I object to that, it's not true that 'when we were still good friends' &c. we agreed that I should pay 50 francs. I remember the conversation about it -- in the garden -- very well, and far from agreeing to something, I wasn't willing to agree to anything of that sort then, on that occasion, and it ended with my pointing out to you fairly forcefully that I needed money to get started on several larger canvases I was planning, and had other expenses enough. If anything was agreed, it was for later, when I would be more on top of things." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "But in this way I run short of money for my work, and if I don't find something extra, I shall lose a month's work, and under the circumstances that must not be; do try your very utmost to obtain an extra 100 francs for me."
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "But this means that I haven't enough for my work and, if I don't have a stroke of luck, I'll lose a month's work -- and that may not happen in the circumstances. And try to make the utmost effort to let me have an extra 100 francs." (Emphasis in original.)

In a subsequent letter, Vincent challenges his brother's claim of economic hardship by arguing that he, Vincent, has it much harder. In response to Theo's report that, after deducting his expenses, he has only 100 francs remaining to live on, Vincent writes, "I have less than 25 francs left, and although I don't have to live on it at the moment, as you do, I still have to paint on it for a month, which, with models, with paints, is impossible this way" (JLB 473, 12/6/1884; emphasis in original). A few days later, he suggests that if Theo needs money, he can always borrow it ("if you have borrowed or can borrow, help me with this") -- another horrifying prospect for the fiscally conservative Theo (JLB 475, 12/14/1884). 

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "My dear Theo, I received your letter, and I thank you for it and for the enclosure. When you write that you're again facing your bad half year -- for it lasts a 1/2 year, I think -- it isn't exactly pleasant news for you to write nor for me to receive."

Context:
BVG 387, 11/10/1884-11/20/1884: "I know that it is a hard time for you, but we must push on, and sure enough there will be a change for the better."
JLB 471, 11/24/1884: "I know that it's a difficult time for you -- but we must progress and it will change a little for the good -- you'll see" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "What has to be found, can be."

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "I had to buy an overcoat because I am more particular about my clothes than before, and some other things; the bills for colours also take much out of what I get, so that in order to carry out my plans in a short time, working at full speed (instead of half speed for economy's sake, which never can be real economy), I must manage to get an extra 100 francs."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "I needed an overcoat -- because I'm taking more trouble over my clothes than before -- and other things, including the paint bills, take a lot of what I get. So that in order to carry out my plan quickly, working at full speed (instead of half speed for the sake of economy -- and yet, that can actually save nothing), I must manage to get an extra 100 francs." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "But those things I mentioned to you -- I must insist, decidedly insist on."
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "What I wrote to you, though, I must definitely, definitely insist upon."

Context:
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "I had thought that you attached enough to our not drifting all too far apart ... In such a way, for instance, that I could have got, I won't say on good terms, but at least back in touch with Tersteeg and Mauve again -- so that I too -- like almost all other painters do -- could have come to Paris once again for a while &c." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "And also very certainly think to keep on my studio here -- like [Alphonse] Stengelin does, for instance, who has one on the Drenthe heaths -- even if he happens to live somewhere else. I've rented it as a refuge and it will continue to serve me as such. So -- taking rooms in Eindhoven would be sheer nonsense -- and I can't even think about it. A room in Antwerp later on, all right -- that is indeed my intention -- but firstly I don't have any money for it now, and secondly I still want to paint a fairly large number of heads first -- with which I'll make progress -- to the extent that it's at all possible for me to pay the models."

Context:
JLB 472, 11/28/1884: "Assuming that what you say is true, that you started to write to me repeatedly but didn't get round to finishing the letter before -- I'm in the same position, since I've already thrown what I wrote to you into the stove twice -- because I found it either too bitter or too tame. What shall I say to you? -- your letter sounds very correct to me, and has a tone like that of a good Minister for Fine Arts, say. But -- that doesn't alter the fact that it isn't much good to me and it doesn't satisfy me -- and above all your 'perhaps later, once you have expressed yourself more clearly, we'll perhaps also find something in your present work -- and then not act as we do now' .... fine promise -- but -- a ministerial fata Morgana -- in the eyes of someone like me, who would rather find an outlet at a lower level provided it was in the present." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 386a, 12/9/1884: "I shall not obtrude myself upon you, neither shall I force you to be affectionate toward me – but -- as a friend -- let alone as a brother -- you are too cool for my taste. Not as to money, old fellow; I am not speaking of that. But personally you aren't of the slightest use to me, nor am I to you."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "I won't foist myself on you nor try to force your affection -- but -- as a friend -- let alone as a brother -- you're too cool to me. Not where the money's concerned, old chap, I say nothing about that. But personally you're of no use whatsoever to me, nor I to you." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "Listen -- Pa -- has been very often and very seriously -- mistrustful -- of me. You know your side of that anyway, and I for my part perhaps know even more about it." (Emphasis in original.)

At this time, Vincent repeatedly refers to his relationship to Theo in terms that evoke, both explicitly and implicitly, a spurned lover. In the same letter as the instant passage, he writes, "We won't quarrel now, though -- things have their seasons, that of quarrelling has passed -- then follows -- I believe -- the break-up. Remember, though, that there are people who really do love you and towards whom you shouldn't be mistrustful, who become powerless in their sympathy because you're too suspicious." (JLB 474, 12/10/1884; emphasis in original.) That Vincent intends this parallel is confirmed later in the same letter when he compares himself to Theo's former mistress, Marie: "I don't consider it impossible that -- Marie -- you know, the one you helped when she was ill -- with all her appreciation of your character and help -- must have felt something of what I feel -- I dare assume something of the kind instinctively" (ibid.).

This curious comparison may represent the final death throes of the plea from Drenthe and Vincent's elaborate effort to "woo" Theo to join him there. Finally, a year later, he admits failure; admits that Theo has rejected him -- just as he rejected Marie: "I couldn't help thinking about why Marie and you parted. I don't know any details, do I? and you thought she wasn't good. Perhaps you're right, but perhaps, too, you didn't understand her. And as to me, quite possibly I'm not -- maybe -- good in the same way -- but also as to me -- do you understand and feel the right way?" (ibid.; emphasis in original.) Still later in the same letter, Vincent underscores the equivalence even more explicitly by syllogizing one of the brothers' favorite mottos about women (from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon), "la femme est la desolation du juste" (woman is the desolation of the righteous man): "Similarly one could perhaps say: 'the artist is the desolation of the financier' and conversely, 'the financier is the desolation of the artist.' You see -- I don't know the conclusion myself -- but -- I see two sides to the same question." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) 

Context:
BVG 386a, 12/9/1884: "If a hussy won't have me, it's all right with me; I can hardly take it ill of her -- but nothing is more certain than that I shall try to find compensation elsewhere. And the same is true of other relations. I shall not obtrude myself upon you, neither shall I force you to be affectionate toward me -- but -- as a friend -- let alone as a brother -- you are too cool for my taste."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "If a girl won't have me, very well, I can hardly blame her -- but -- nothing is surer than that I'll try to find recompense elsewhere. So, too, with other relationships. I won't foist myself on you nor try to force your affection -- but -- as a friend -- let alone as a brother -- you're too cool to me." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 386a, 12/9/1884: "I shall not obtrude myself upon you, neither shall I force you to be affectionate toward me -- but -- as a friend -- let alone as a brother -- you are too cool for my taste."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: " I won't foist myself on you nor try to force your affection -- but -- as a friend -- let alone as a brother -- you're too cool to me" (emphasis in original).

In the next letter, perhaps in response to an intervening letter from Theo, Vincent's tone has turned bitter and definitive: "It seems to me that we must split up -- in both our interests. Your position doesn't -- does it? -- admit of our associating with each other very intimately and actively and cordially. ... For -- you, like so many others, have things to say about my person, manners, clothes, words, important enough and evidently without redress -- that have gradually caused personal, brotherly relations to die and weaken over the years. ... Enough -- this is how things are -- aren't they? ... But personally you're of no use whatsoever to me, nor I to you." (JLB 474, 12/10/1884; emphasis in original.) But even in this embittered letter, Vincent foresees a friendly financial separation: " We will part -- this is a difficult transition for me -- and is coupled with financial difficulties that will certainly be thorny enough for me. ... I know you will agree that we should part -- precisely because it will be in peace. ... And -- if it's not asking too much -- help me to get on -- financially the obstacles are worse for me at this very time of the end of the year than at other times." (ibid; emphasis in original.)

In subsequent letters in December, Vincent continues to send contradictory signals. At first, he asks Theo only to "cover me for the end of this month," but also appears to envision a continuing subsidy -- yet another iteration of their financial relationship -- "[one] that is better for both sides than the present one" (JLB 475, 12/14/1884). Anger alternates with need as Vincent careers between frustration with Theo's poor brothering and efforts to ensure that Theo doesn't interpret anything he says -- no matter how harsh -- to mean that Theo should stop sending money any time soon: "And to seek to be rid of you -- I've never done that, but where you have only too plainly let me see how little chance there was that we'd actually do business together -- I accept it for the future, that's true" (JLB 476, 12/16/1884; emphasis in original). 

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "But this cannot be done all at once -- and as for me, I am trying to do it for the one and only reason that you have shown me far too clearly and unmistakably that I should not presume to suppose that you are going to take notice of me personally or of my work, except by way of protection."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "But this can't be done all at once -- and for my part it's simply and solely because you've shown me all too clearly and unmistakably that I mustn't imagine that you intend to involve yourself with me personally or with my work other than by way of patronage."

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "But this cannot be done all at once -- and as for me, I am trying to do it for the one and only reason that you have shown me far too clearly and unmistakably that I should not presume to suppose that you are going to take notice of me personally or of my work, except by way of protection. Well, this I utterly refuse to put up with. "
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "But this can't be done all at once -- and for my part it's simply and solely because you've shown me all too clearly and unmistakably that I mustn't imagine that you intend to involve yourself with me personally or with my work other than by way of patronage. Well, you can count me out."

Context:
JLB 464, 10/2/1884: "Now listen here. What you write is all very well and good, and as far as fuss is concerned I'm beginning to be a bit better prepared to forestall it than before. No fear that Pa and Ma will leave, for instance. Although a call came just now. On the contrary, if they set about it the right way, Pa and Ma will be able to consolidate their position here." (Emphasis in original.)

Despite Vincent's problems, Cor got on well in his first year in the Begemanns' employ and was still on good terms with Willem at Christmastime 1884. Dorus wrote at the end of the year that Cor had gone skating with his fellow apprentices and would participate in a "comedy for the New Year in the warehouse of Begemann" (b2264 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 12/30/1884). A month later, he reports happily: "This week I heard as an aside from Mr. Begemann that he had developed such a good opinion about Cor, he is so punctual. We saw him depart with pleasure, so happy, cheerful with Willem Begemann." (b2266 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 1/24/1885.) Anna liked Willem Begemann because he took confession ("that is nice for everyone"), and, of course, because he was a Begemann (b2268 V/1982, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van en Gogh, Willemina van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 3/25/1885). 

In the Netherlands, a pastor's pay came in two parts: one part supplied by the local congregation, the other by the government. The amount of government pay was especially important to Dorus because it determined the amount of retirement pay (b2257 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/2/1884). Anna, not Dorus, kept Theo informed about the negotiations with the deacons in Helvoirt: "If they can improve their finances [i.e., their offer], we can think about it; if everything remains as it was, we cannot consider it" (b2262 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 11/11/1884). Anna leaves no doubt where her heart lies, but she is typically resigned to disappointment: "If it can't be our share, we'll stay here with heart and soul" (ibid.).

She says she is concerned for her son Cor, who has made a circle of prominent young friends in Helmond and, she is convinced, would make even better connections in Helvoirt -- "We would be sorry about it for Cor" -- but it was clearly Anna who longed to reestablish the social ties with Helvoirt's aristocracy that she enjoyed briefly in the 1870s. Strangely, Anna seems to assume that Vincent will join the family on the move to Helvoirt, if it happens -- "For Vincent, it would also give him a change" (ibid.) -- although this could be a reference to the "change" in Vincent's life if he were living in Nuenen without his family. Vincent leaves no doubt, however, that he never intended to accompany his parents to Helvoirt: "I wouldn't have gone with them to H. in any case, and would either have stayed here in my studio -- or would have left for Antwerp" (JLB 471, 11/24/1884).

In the end, the congregation in Helvoirt did not sweeten its offer enough to satisfy Dorus. On Sunday, November 16, he announced to his Nuenen congregation that he was declining the Helvoirt call (De Brouwer, p. 54). He was rewarded with a bonus of 210 florins (more than 420 francs) for staying (b2263 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/9/1884). Vincent writes in mid-November: "I suppose you already know that Pa has turned down Helvoirt" (JLB 471, 11/24/1884). The next mention of the subject in Dorus's surviving letters to Theo does not occur until late January the next year: "A little while ago I also had such a difficulty, when I had to make a decision in that business about Helvoirt," he writes, obviously disappointed. "We are making our peace with the fact that we stayed here" (b2266 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/24/1885). (318)

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "Taking rooms in Eindhoven would be downright nonsense, I cannot even think of it."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "So -- taking rooms in Eindhoven would be sheer nonsense -- and I can't even think about it."

Context:
JLB 472, 11/28/1884: "And yet I can't leave -- either altogether -- or partly (partly if I keep my studio on, which is my plan) unless I make a whole lot more studies and -- find something new to settle me in Antwerp."

Context:
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "But in general Rappard advises me not to do it right away, but after having painted here for another few months, and to try to get a pied-à-terre to make nude studies. But I'll be able to benefit more from Antwerp if I first paint another 30 heads here -- and I'm starting on those 30 heads now, or rather I've already started with a large bust of a shepherd."

Context:
JLB 471, 11/24/1884: "I suppose you already know that Pa has turned down Helvoirt."

Context:
BVG 390, 12/15/1884-12/17/1884: "For pity's sake, how is it possible that you do not seem able or willing to understand that by having fixed my studio here, and by keeping it here for the present, I have made it possible to have money enough for painting, and if I had done otherwise it would have been a failure for myself as well as for others. If I had not done so I would have had to drudge at least three years more, before I had definitely overcome the difficulties of colour and tone, just because of the expenses."
JLB 476, 12/16/1884: "How, for God's sake, is it possible that you don't seem to be able or willing to understand that, by setting up my studio here and keeping it on for the time being, I've made it possible for me to have enough money for painting -- and that if I had acted differently, no good would have come of it either for me or for others? Had I not done that, I would have had to muddle along for perhaps another 3 years before I had finally swallowed the bitter pill of colour and tone, also simply because of the expense." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 390, 12/15/1884-12/17/1884: " It is certainly not for my pleasure that I live here at home, but for my painting, and this being so I think it a great mistake of yours if you were to rob me of an opportunity, if I had to leave here now, before I had found something else."
JLB 476, 12/16/1884: " I'm certainly not at home for my pleasure -- but for my painting -- and, this being so, I think it very wrong of you that you should deprive me of an opportunity if I were to leave here now -- before ever I have something new" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 476, 12/16/1884: "I'm certainly not at home for my pleasure -- but for my painting -- and, this being so, I think it very wrong of you that you should deprive me of an opportunity if I were to leave here now -- before ever I have something new" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 390, 12/15/1884-12/17/1884: "It is certainly not for my pleasure that I live here at home, but for my painting, and this being so I think it a great mistake of yours if you were to rob me of an opportunity, if I had to leave here now, before I had found something else."
JLB 476, 12/16/1884: "I'm certainly not at home for my pleasure -- but for my painting -- and, this being so, I think it very wrong of you that you should deprive me of an opportunity if I were to leave here now -- before ever I have something new" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 390, 12/15/1884-12/17/1884: " For my painting I must stay here somewhat longer still, then as soon as I have made more definite progress, I am willing to go anywhere where I shall earn the same money that I have here."
JLB 476, 12/16/1884: " I have to be here for a time for my painting -- then -- as soon as I've conquered that more definitely, I'll be happy to go anywhere I can earn the same as I now have here" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 390, 12/15/1884-12/17/1884: "For my painting I must stay here somewhat longer still, then as soon as I have made more definite progress, I am willing to go anywhere where I shall earn the same money that I have here."
JLB 476, 12/16/1884: " I have to be here for a time for my painting -- then -- as soon as I've conquered that more definitely, I'll be happy to go anywhere I can earn the same as I now have here" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "I want to start by telling you that your letter really amazed me -- because there has been no difference of any significance between Pa and Ma and myself, and that as regards the Begemann ladies, they've just very recently been to see Pa and Ma in considerable numbers -- not just once but several times. Whether they come as often as or less often than before is something I can't see that I have anything to do with, nor take the least or slightest interest in."

Context:
BVG 355a, 1/1/1885-1/15/1885: " I cannot give up the studio, I must have some fixed place to work in, and in no event can they demand that I leave the village."
JLB 473, 12/6/1884: " I cannot give up the studio yet -- I have to have something fixed, and they can't in any event demand of me that I leave the village" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "Taking rooms in Eindhoven would be downright nonsense, I cannot even think of it. Later on, taking a room in Antwerp, all right, that's my intention, but in the first place I have no money for it now, and in the second, I want to paint a rather large number of heads first, which will go more smoothly the better I can pay the models."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "So -- taking rooms in Eindhoven would be sheer nonsense -- and I can't even think about it. A room in Antwerp later on, all right -- that is indeed my intention -- but firstly I don't have any money for it now, and secondly I still want to paint a fairly large number of heads first -- with which I'll make progress -- to the extent that it's at all possible for me to pay the models."

Context:
JLB 480, 1/26/1885: "I also believe this -- if the critics or connoisseurs were more familiar with nature, their judgement would be better than now, when it's the routine to live only among paintings and to compare them with one another. Which, of course, is right in its context as one side of the question, but lacks a solid basis if one forgets nature and doesn't look deeply into it. Can't you understand that I may not be wrong in this -- and to say even more clearly what I mean by it, isn't it a pity, for instance, that you seldom -- or hardly ever now -- go into those interiors, or associate with those people, or see those moods in the landscape that are painted in the paintings you find most beautiful?" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 386b, 11/15/1884-11/30/1884: " My situation here is a bit too tense, right now my life is not pleasant, and I do not find it easy to possess my soul in patience, as they say."
JLB 472, 11/28/1884: " My position here is rather too strained, I'm not comfortable at the moment and I have enough trouble sticking it out and 'possessing my soul in patience', as they say."

Context:
JLB 472, 11/28/1884: "Will you please bear this in mind? And if you'd do your best to make it rather easier for me financially, I believe that then there would be a real chance of keeping the peace later, albeit it far from concord." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "Now, as to what you say, probably for my special information, namely that you 'are suspicious' -- well, I won't influence this. Most certainly you have shown me this -- and it is one of the 'symptoms' that I told you I don't think particularly fine, nor can I complement you on it."
JLB 473, 12/6/1884: "Now -- as to what you say about yourself, probably also for my guidance, 'that you are mistrustful' -- very well -- I don't want to influence that. You've most certainly shown me this -- and it's one of those 'symptoms' which I told you I didn't find very attractive nor congratulated you on." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 386a, 12/9/1884: "One cannot always find the right words to speak absolutely straightforwardly -- but I am so firmly resolved to speak my mind to you without reserve -- I don't give a damn whether you are suspicious or not -- that after some consideration I have now perhaps found clearer words for the feelings I want to express."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "One doesn't always have the words to lay all one's cards on the table, but -- towards you -- I'm so determined -- (I don't care whether you're mistrustful or not) -- to speak out completely frankly -- that with some reflection I've perhaps found clearer words for what I already made you feel."

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "Something which you know yourself -- I say this to clarify things, and not to cause you grief -- I repeat, something which you know yourself; as, expressly to show you that I said what I said in all tranquility, I sent you a short note in which I told you that I thought your opinions vicious (you will have to decide for yourself whether it is vicious, but I thought and think it vicious)."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "What you also know yourself -- I say this for clarity, not to cause you sorrow -- what you also know yourself, that in order to show you how I said what I said with composure I deliberately dropped you a brief line that I thought your own opinion wrong -- (whether it is wrong is for you to decide, but I thought and think it wrong)" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "Unless the fact is that you purposely act this way in order to get rid of me, and by heaven, you are well on the way to reaching this goal."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "Except to the extent that if you're doing it deliberately to get rid of me, you're truly well on the way to achieving that goal."

Context:
BVG 355a, 1/1/1885-1/15/1885: "Just because you are in an elevated position, but this is no reason for being suspicious of those who are standing on low ground -- where I stand -- and where I intend to stay."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: " You're in an elevated position, that's no reason to be mistrustful of someone who's in a lowly position, as I am -- where I also intend to stay."

Context:
BVG 388a, 1/31/1885: "I have explained to you at great length that the painting of the 50 studies of heads which I intend to do leads to my incurring more expense than usual. And as, by your writing that you are suspicious of me, you yourself are the cause of this, I feel vexed when I think that my being embarrassed every now and then is to be attributed more to this than to anything else."
JLB 481, 1/30/1885: "I've written to you at length about how my intention of painting 50 or so heads means that I have to incur even more expenses than usual. And since you yourself gave cause by writing that you were suspicious of me, I'm put out when I think that it's probably more due to this than to anything else that I'm sometimes embarrassed."

Context:
JLB 481, 1/30/1885: "You'll also have to take back what you write to me about your suspiciousness."

Context:
BVG 388a, 1/31/1885: "When this will be, you will have to decide for yourself -- but I only want to say by way of caution that the ugliest misunderstandings are caused by suspicion."
JLB 481, 1/30/1885: "When -- you'll have to decide that for yourself -- but I just warn you that the very worst misunderstandings come about because of suspicion."

Context:
BVG 388a, 1/31/1885: "Now, however, you commit an error if on your part you are unable to understand that your being suspicious of me is positively improper. Most certainly I think differently, I feel differently, I act differently."
JLB 481, 1/30/1885: "Now, though, you're making a mistake if for your part you can't understand that your suspicion of me is downright inappropriate. Most certainly I think differently, I feel differently, I act differently."

Context:
BVG 388b, 2/1/1885-2/15/1885: "But your additional remark about your suspiciousness was a bit too much me, and I have repeatedly begged you to withdraw the word or to explain it, for I will not tolerate such a thing being said to me without my asking for an explanation."
JLB 482, 2/2/1885: "That addition of your suspicion, though, that was a bit too much for me, and I repeatedly asked you to take it back or to explain it, because I don't allow something like that to be said without asking for enlightenment."

Just how provocative Vincent's statements on religion could be is suggested in a letter to Theo around the same time: "Oh -- I'm no friend of present-day Christianity, even though the founder was sublime -- I've seen through present-day Christianity only too well" (JLB 464, 10/2/1884). Hermans also no doubt heard the ugly rumors about Vincent and Margot Begemann. Dorus implies as much when he moves directly from the subject of Vincent's difficult relationship with Hermans to the following: "Because of Vincent's suit of Margot our relationship with people has changed somewhat" (b2258 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 10/27/1884). Hermans apparently never followed through on the promise he made to pay for Vincent's trip to Antwerp (JLB 470, 11/17/1884).

In early January, Vincent wrote to his student Anton Kerssemakers, whom he had met in November 1884: "I do foresee, though, that the better you do and the more you progress with your painting, the less pleasure you may experience from it because of certain Eindhoven folk. But at the same time it seems to me that the pleasure of being able to make something amply outweighs certain spiteful criticism." (JLB 478, 1/1/1885-1/8/1885; emphasis in original.) Another of Vincent's associates at the time, Dimmen Gestel, recalled to Stokvis: "If you did not agree with [Vincent's opinions], this provoked lengthy, exhaustive, and sometimes very scientific arguments on his part, but if you obstinately continued to doubt, then the friendship was quickly over" (Stokvis, p. 38). This, too, may be a reference to the break-up with Hermans. 

This convoluted comment prefaces Van Rappard's devastating critique of a print of Vincent's painting The Potato Eaters (F 1661 JH 737, April, 1885, lithograph, 10.4 x 12.6 in., 26.5 x 32 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum) (see Chapter 24). In his furious response to this attack, Vincent also alludes to multiple missing letters: "you hadn't replied to a letter from me. ... What you didn't write in your last, but did repeatedly and ad nauseam in previous letters, and was the reason for the letter to which you didn't reply, is about 'technique'. What I replied to you then and reply once more is -- the conventional meaning that people increasingly give to the word technique, and the actual meaning, knowledge." (JLB 514, 7/13/1885; emphasis in original.) Vincent refers repeatedly to these reproachful letters that appear to be missing from the winter of 1884-1885: "Whatever my faults may be ... I have too much heart to be as frivolous in my work as you always accuse me of being" (JLB 516, 7/15/1885).

Although there is undoubtedly some overlap with the previous argument over the issue of "technique" earlier in 1884, it appears there was another flare-up on this subject following Van Rappard's visit to Nuenen in October 1884, and that this dispute brought yet another temporary halt to their correspondence sometime in February or March 1885, prior to Dorus's death. That would explain Vincent's failure to notify Van Rappard about his father's death -- a slight that becomes another source of bitter disagreement when the correspondence resumes in May (JLB 514, 7/13/1885). Thus, a recent and sturdy foundation of acrimony was already in place when Van Rappard wrote his scathing critique of The Potato Eaters image. (See Chapter 24.) 

Context:
BVG 389, 12/10/1884-10/20/1884: "Those last days of the month when I sometimes must stop working on things I want to finish -- I can't tell you how impatient and wretched it makes me."
JLB 475, 12/14/1884: "I can't tell you how impatient and how distressed I become about these last days of the month, when I sometimes have to leave things that actually demand that I go on with them" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 390, 12/15/1884-12/17/1884: "I am wretched that I shall again be handicapped for ten or twelve days this month."
JLB 476, 12/16/1884: "I'm wretched because I'll be stuck again for 10 days, or 12, this month" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 476, 12/16/1884: "And in the utmost seriousness, once again -- can't you find some way of helping me with 20 francs, say, to cover that little end? It's my time that will otherwise not be sufficiently occupied that really pains me."

Context:
JLB 479, 1/23/1885: "I've hardly ever begun a year that had a gloomier aspect in a gloomier mood, and so I don't expect a future of success, but -- a future of struggle."

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "I have learned new things, but I need Mauve or somebody else who is very clever, not to make me think a great deal of myself, but to give me some courage, which oozes away if things drag too long."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "I've learned some new things, but I need Mauve again, or someone else who's very clever -- not to make me swollen-headed -- but to give me some courage, which fails me if things drag on too long."

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "But never think I desire to quarrel with you or with the people at home -- for this is not in character -- although you suppose it is, and so do others, for that matter. Quite the opposite is true of my character -- the fact is that I cannot endure life without more peace and cordiality."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "But please don't think that I want to quarrel with you or with them at home -- because this is not in my character -- although you imagine it is -- and for that matter several others think as you do -- actually the opposite is in me -- the fact is I can't endure it without more peace and cordiality" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 391, 12/15/1884-12/31/1884: "And perhaps it will be wise to concentrate more exclusively on the figure. But the figure always stands in some surroundings, and one can't help doing those surroundings too, because one can't dispense with them."
JLB 477, 12/30/1884: "And it might perhaps be wise for me to concentrate even more exclusively on the figure. Only, the figure always stands somewhere, and one sometimes can't help putting in the surroundings, their being indispensable."

Context:
JLB 477, 12/30/1884: "I feel most at home when I work on a figure. And it also seems to me that there's more character in, say, those heads I made back in The Hague and some other figures than in the other things I did."

Context:
BVG 393, 1/24/1885: "Though the month is not quite over, my purse is quite empty. I work on as hard as I can, and I for my part think that by constantly studying the model, I shall keep a straight course."
JLB 480, 1/26/1885: "The month isn't yet wholly over but my purse is wholly empty -- I keep working as hard as I can, and I believe for my part that I'll stay on course just by constantly studying the model."

Context:
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "You don't have to involve yourself in the question with Tersteeg and Mauve right now -- don't bother, rather, but if, say, I have the 50 heads I'm going to get ready by the end of January, then for instance -- it might be good if you were unexpectedly just to say a word to them."

Context:
BVG 394, 2/1/1885: "I am very busy painting those heads. I paint in the daytime and draw in the evening. In this way I have already painted at least some thirty and drawn as many. With the result that I see a chance of doing it even better before long, I hope. I think that it will help me for the figure in general."
JLB 483, 2/5/1885-2/26/1885: "I'm hard at work on painting those heads. I paint during the day and draw in the evening. I've already painted at least 30 or so this way, and drawn as many. With the result that I see a chance, before long I hope, of doing it very differently. I think that it will help me with the figure in general."

Context:
JLB 477, 12/30/1884: "And it might perhaps be wise for me to concentrate even more exclusively on the figure. Only, the figure always stands somewhere, and one sometimes can't help putting in the surroundings, their being indispensable." (Emphasis added.)

Context:
JLB 477, 12/30/1884: "In 3 days or so you'll receive 12 little pen drawings after studies of heads."

Context:
JLB 467, 10/25/1884: "I think that in a year's time -- having spent that year once again painting a great deal and constantly -- I'll change my manner of painting and my colour a great deal, and that I'm likely to become slightly more sombre rather than lighter."

Context:
BVG 386, 11/10/1884-11/30/1884: "A change has come into my colour since you were here; I already had a presentiment of it when you were here, and you will see that -- with some more studies, those which I am writing about now, which must be finished within a couple of months -- it will be proved beyond a doubt that, exactly in the matter of colour, I have achieved something."
JLB 470, 11/17/1884: "There has been a change in my colour since you were here -- which I already had a presentiment about when you were here -- and you'll see that with some more studies, those I'm writing to you about now should be finished in a few months, my studies will irrefutably prove that I really do know something about colour" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 388a, 1/31/1885: " I always have the impression that at Zundert, and a few years earlier than that, there was a generally better atmosphere in the house. Since then, I feel it has not changed for the better. At present ... But what I don't know is whether the former -- the feeling that things were better in Zundert -- is only my imagination; this may easily be the case."
JLB 481, 1/30/1885: " I always imagine that in Zundert and for a few years afterwards there was generally a better atmosphere at home. Since then, I don't feel it's got any better. These days -- But what I don't know is whether that former -- that it was better in Zundert -- is just my imagination -- it could well be."

Context:
BVG 212, 7/6/1882: "I do not like to be in company, and often find it painful and difficult to mingle with people, to speak to them. But do you know what the cause is -- if not at all, of a great deal of this? Simply nervousness; I am terribly sensitive, physically as well as morally, the nervousness having developed during those miserable years which drained my health."
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "I don't enjoy company, and dealing with people, talking to them, is often painful and difficult for me. But do you know where a great deal if not all of this comes from? Simply from nervousness -- I who am terribly sensitive, both physically and morally, only really acquired it in the years when I was deeply miserable."

Context:
BVG 212, 7/6/1882: "I do not like to be in company, and often find it painful and difficult to mingle with people, to speak to them. But do you know what the cause is -- if not at all, of a great deal of this? Simply nervousness; I am terribly sensitive, physically as well as morally, the nervousness having developed during those miserable years which drained my health."
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "I don't enjoy company, and dealing with people, talking to them, is often painful and difficult for me. But do you know where a great deal if not all of this comes from? Simply from nervousness -- I who am terribly sensitive, both physically and morally, only really acquired it in the years when I was deeply miserable."

Context:
BVG 212, 7/6/1882: "I do not like to be in company, and often find it painful and difficult to mingle with people, to speak to them. But do you know what the cause is -- if not at all, of a great deal of this? Simply nervousness; I am terribly sensitive, physically as well as morally, the nervousness having developed during those miserable years which drained my health."
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "I don't enjoy company, and dealing with people, talking to them, is often painful and difficult for me. But do you know where a great deal if not all of this comes from? Simply from nervousness -- I who am terribly sensitive, both physically and morally, only really acquired it in the years when I was deeply miserable."

In one of the strangest moments in Drenthe, Vincent blurts out what appears to be a recollection from his time at Goupil: "People said that I was going mad" (JLB 394, 10/12/1883). This is the first and only time this information escapes from Vincent's guarded pen. It may have been triggered by the locals calling him a "madman." He gives no real context to the confession, so it is impossible to know at what point in his career at Goupil -- in The Hague, in London, or in Paris -- the accusation was leveled (or he thought he heard it).

There are hints in the immediately preceding and following passages. The train of thought begins: "I now have to look back into my own past to see what the matter was, spending years in that stony, barren state of mind and trying to emerge from it, and yet it got worse and worse instead of better. Not only did I feel indifferent instead of responsive to nature but also, which was much worse, I felt exactly the same about people." (ibid., emphasis added.) And it concludes with a reference to his dismissal from the firm in 1876: "I don't see that, given my circumstances, I could be other than I have been. Here is the ground that sank beneath my feet -- here is the ground which, if it sinks, must make a person miserable, whoever he may be. I was with G&Cie for 6 years -- I had put down roots in G&Cie." (ibid., emphasis added.) The italicized passages seem to point toward the latter part of Vincent's tenure at Goupil -- especially Paris. (The "emergence" may refer to religion.) They may also shed light on the otherwise obscured circumstances of his departure from the London branch of the firm in 1875. (See Chapter 6.) 

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "It is a question of self-knowledge, of serenity notwithstanding all the tricks nerves must play."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "It's a question here of self-knowledge, of serenity, despite all the tricks that the nerves must play" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "It is a question of self-knowledge, of serenity notwithstanding all the tricks nerves must play."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "It's a question here of self-knowledge, of serenity, despite all the tricks that the nerves must play" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "They said I was out of my mind, but I knew myself that it was not true, for the very reason that I felt my own disease deep within me, and tried to remedy it. I exhausted myself with hopeless, unsuccessful efforts, it is true, but because of that fixed idea of reaching a normal point of view again, I never mistook my own desperate doings, worryings and drudgings for my real innermost self. At least I always felt, 'Just let me do something, be somewhere, and it must redress itself. I will rise above it, let me keep hold of patience to redress things.'"
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "I myself felt that I wasn't, if only because I felt my own malady very deep inside myself and tried to get over it again. I made all sorts of forlorn attempts that led to nothing, so be it, but because of that idée fixe of getting back to a normal position I never confused my own desperate doings, scrambling and squirmings with I myself. At least I always felt 'let me just do something, be somewhere, it must get better, I'll get over it, let me have the patience to recover.'" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 378, 10/1/1884: "Mouret did not seem to understand immediately, but when he remembered their earlier conversation about the empty stupidity and the pointless torture of life, he replied, 'Of course -- I have never lived so intensely ... Ah! old fellow, don't scoff! The hours when one dies of suffering are shortest.'"
JLB 464, 10/2/1884: "Mouret seemed not to understand immediately. But, when he recalled their old conversations about empty foolishness and the pointless torment of life, he replied: 'No doubt -- never have I lived so much ... Ah! old chap -- don't mock! Those are the shortest hours in which one dies of suffering!'" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 463, 9/30/1884: "I sometimes think now and again that painting can in any event forestall many disasters, and that otherwise it would be even worse."

Context:
BVG 388a, 1/31/1885: "As for me, at times I feel wretched because it seems that your character has congealed in this mould, which I believe will cause you trouble later on. But what's the use of talking? What I mean is a family failing, as far as I can see."
JLB 481, 1/30/1885: "For my part, I'm sometimes upset that your character seems to have set fast in a form which I believe could cause you disquiet later. But what's the use of talking about it? What I mean is a family ailment, it seems to me."

Context:
BVG 386a, 12/9/1884: "To this must be added my past, and that at Goupil & Co.'s you are quite the plush gentleman, and I am a black sheep and an ill-natured fellow."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "Added to that is my past, and the fact that you feel quite the little gentleman at G&Cie, and I'm insufferable and an awkward customer."

Context:
BVG 391, 12/15/1884-12/31/1884: "Surely these two things can hardly go together, for the sober, severe figure of Dante, full of indignation and protest against what he had seen happening, protesting against the terrible medieval abuses and prejudices, is certainly one of the most sincere, honest, noble ones imaginable."
JLB 477, 12/30/1884: "Surely the two can hardly go together, since the sober, austere figure of Dante, entirely filled with indignation and protest at what he had seen happen -- in protest at the atrocious medieval abuses and prejudices -- is certainly one of the most upright, most honest, most noble that are conceivable."

Context:
JLB 477, 12/30/1884: "I'm curious to see that painting you got, sooner or later. I don't exactly understand the legend itself -- what it's getting at."

Context:
BVG 391, 12/15/1884-12/31/1884: "I don't understand it because you say the figure is Dante-esque, but it is the symbol of an evil spirit luring people into the abyss."
JLB 477, 12/30/1884: "Why I don't is because you say: the figure is Dantean -- yet -- it's the symbol of an evil spirit that lures people into the abyss."

Context:
JLB 477, 12/30/1884: "In short -- people said of Dante, 'there is the one who went into hell and who returned' -- something very different to go in oneself and come out again than to lure others in satanically" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 473, 12/6/1884: "I cannot give up the studio yet -- I have to have something fixed, and they can't in any event demand of me that I leave the village. The fact that it can be foreseen that I have to prepare myself for this, though, is precisely the point that makes me regret that I didn't already realize last year that our arrangement was unsustainable for both of us." (Emphasis in original.)

Still, Vincent is unwilling to forego his brother's money completely. He compromises between his fury and his pocketbook by telling Theo that, under no circumstances, will he accept more than 100 francs a month. If Theo were to defy him and send more, Vincent promises to send it back. This is, indeed, an odd threat and an even odder conception of a break-up. (This latest "parting" lasts for two months. In April, however, Vincent tries to pry extra money out of Theo by claiming credit for not having demanded extra in February or March: "But -- it's very necessary for me to pay off my paint bill as soon as possible. You know I didn't say another word to you about it either in February or in March. But I didn't have it easy in those months, I can tell you that" [JLB 489, 4/4/1885].) 

Context:
JLB 482, 2/2/1885: "And when I insist on pressing on with it, it's in order to put an end to the possibility of quarrelling. Because even the possibility of quarrelling ceases to exist as soon as I find a means of covering myself financially. Then my work will no longer be at issue, and at present it still is. And therefore don't despair. But now it's wretched for both of us." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 473, 12/6/1884: "It's too much for me all at once, losing you in this respect, and having to pay for my keep again as well. Gradually, though, I'll see to it that I find another resource of my own accord."

Context:
JLB 473, 12/6/1884: "If it can give you any satisfaction that what you call 'my plans for the future' are also lying pretty much in ruins, good luck to you."

Context:
BVG 355a, 1/1/1885-1/15/1885: " If I should drop dead -- which I should not try to evade if it happened, but which I should not seek expressly -- you would be standing on a skeleton, and this would be a damned insecure standpoint."
JLB 473, 12/6/1884: " If I were to drop dead -- which I shan't refuse if it comes but won't expressly seek -- you'd be standing on a skeleton -- and -- that would be a mightily insecure standpoint" (emphasis in original).

But Dorus is leery of anything that smacks of easy money or that would take Theo away from his birthright at Goupil. This is a caution that Theo obviously shares: "my dear son, it is your old father who perhaps is a bit afraid. ... I think you are wise enough to look at this with a clear eye. It sounded so good to us in your last [letter], when you said that you enjoyed the security of your current position." (ibid.) Finally, Theo asks his father not to share this prospect with Vincent, and Dorus agrees: "We will not talk with Vincent about that business of yours, do as you please with it" (ibid.). 

Context:
JLB 479, 1/23/1885: "I heard at home that you'd had a good year -- and an offer of 1,000 francs a month -- which you had refused."

Context:
JLB 479, 1/23/1885: "I heard at home that you'd had a good year -- and an offer of 1,000 francs a month -- which you had refused."

Context:
JLB 479, 1/23/1885: "Regards -- I hope you'll be able to send; I have less than a guilder left and must have a model for several more hours today. So tomorrow I'll be stuck again, but possibly your letter will come."

Context:
BVG 386a, 12/9/1884: "For -- against my person, my manners, clothes, words, you, like so many others, seem to think it necessary to raise so many objections -- weighty enough and at the same time obviously without redress -- that they have caused our personal, brotherly intercourse to wither and die off gradually in the course of the years. To this must be added my past, and that at Goupil & Co.'s you are quite the plush gentleman, and I am a black sheep and an ill-natured fellow."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "For -- you, like so many others, have things to say about my person, manners, clothes, words, important enough and evidently without redress -- that have gradually caused personal, brotherly relations to die and weaken over the years. Added to that is my past, and the fact that you feel quite the little gentleman at G&Cie, and I'm insufferable and an awkward customer."

Context:
BVG 388a, 1/31/1885: "Since last summer I cannot help seeing you in my mind's eye wearing a pince-nez with black glasses. This does not change a man so much, you will say. Maybe not -- but my impression is that, in a sense other than the literal one, in your actions and thoughts, you have procured such black eyeglasses. Suspiciousness for instance."
JLB 481, 1/30/1885: "Since this summer I can't help always visualizing you with your lorgnette with dark lenses. This doesn't change a person very much, you'll say. Maybe so -- but my impression is that you have perhaps, in a sense other than the literal one, acquired dark glasses in what you think and do. Suspicion, for instance."

Context:
BVG 388a, 1/31/1885: "So give up your suspicions, for they are simply improper. And the means must be found in the good progress my work is making -- leaving the matter of more or less mutual sympathy out of the question -- to be at least inoffensive to each other, however much our ways may run in opposite directions."
JLB 481, 1/30/1885: "So keep your suspicion to yourself, because it's simply inappropriate. And it's precisely in the good progress of my work that the means lie, whatever may happen about being more or less in sympathy with each other, of being at least harmless to each other, even where the ways lie in quite opposite directions." (Emphasis in original.)

Vincent refers to Theo's message of perseverance and forecast of future success as "a ministerial fata Morgana," a reference to the legendary mirage that appeared in the straits of Messina to entice sailors. It was named in Italian after Morgan le Fay, King Arthur's enchantress half-sister ("fata" and "fey" both mean "fairy"). Vincent probably knew of the legend from the poem, "Fata Morgana," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and he uses it here to apply to any dangerously illusory prospect. In this way, fata morgana relates to Vincent's later use of the Waternix.

              As the weary traveller sees
              In desert or prairie vast,
              Blue lakes, overhung with trees,
              That a pleasant shadow cast;

              So I wander and wander along,
              And forever before me gleams
              The shining city of song,
              In the beautiful land of dreams.

              But when I would enter the gate
              Of that golden atmosphere,
              It is gone, and I wonder and wait
              For the vision to reappear.

              [H.W. Longfellow, "Fata Morgana," stanzas 3, 5, 6.] 

Context:
BVG 384, 11/1/1884: "This is a thing you never feel or understand. You say 'go on painting,' but for the rest you know nothing. I do not take this in bad part, but on the other hand I do not think it intelligent of you, which please note."
JLB 468, 11/2/1884: "You never feel or understand that and say 'just keep on painting', and that's all you can say. I don't blame you for it, but I don't find it intelligent of you either -- be aware of that." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 393, 1/24/1885: " If I do better work later on, I certainly shall not work differently than now, I mean it will be the same apple, though riper; I shall not change my mind about what I have thought from the beginning. And that is the reason why I say for my part: if I am no good now, I shall be no good later on either, but if later on, then now too. For corn is corn, though people from the city may take it for grass at first, and also the other way round."
JLB 480, 1/26/1885: " If I make better work later, I still won't work otherwise than now; I mean it will be the same apple only riper -- I myself won't turn from what I've thought from the start. And this is why I say for my part, if I'm no good now, I won't be any good later either -- but if later, then now too. For wheat is wheat, even if it looks like grass at first to townsfolk -- and the other way round too." (Emphasis in original.)

Even Vincent, in the midst of his own internal and external struggles against conventional notions of success, cannot escape this defining mandate. In September 1884, when seventeen-year-old Cor graduated from HBS and needed to find a vocation, Vincent wrote this astonishing and apparently un-ironic analysis of his young brother's situation: "Cor himself, as far as I know, has no particular idea about wanting to enter this profession or that -- because he's probably seen little else at close quarters but books, the main road &c. He's a nice boy now, it seems to me, but it's time that he did something practical, it seems to me, otherwise they go to seed, ... go to seed in pedantry and nonentity." (JLB 443, 3/28/1884, emphasis added.) Vincent concludes, even more astonishingly: "But it does surprise me greatly that I've simply never heard any talk about Goupil in regard to Cor. Why not? Particularly if you stay there, it seems to me, it's obvious that Cor should go there too." (ibid.)

In fact, Cor took an engineering apprenticeship at a factory in Helmond. Three years later, when Cor began his first paying job, Theo sent him a congratulatory note that shows his own single-minded allegiance to the practical and moral imperative of self-sufficiency, and also suggests how deep and damning his disapproval of Vincent's dependence was: " I heard from Wil that tomorrow is you first payday and I didn't want to let that pass without congratulating you on the occasion. It will be a happy day brother, and a stimulation to proceed as you have been doing. You have shown that you don't lack the energy, and if you succeeded at your age to earn your own living it has been through your own effort and strength. Keep it up and make sure that you can be independent, for being dependent is a misery for yourself and for others." (b0907 V/1962, ''Gogh, Theo van'' to ''Gogh, Cor van'', 3/11/1887; emphasis added.) 

Context:
JLB 458, 9/21/1884: "It's true that for my part I've now experienced great sadness in two cases, sadness of a very different character. So be it -- but you'll see that your own theory in this respect doesn't always produce the results that one would say it promises to produce. Once you've attained a position and can maintain a certain status, then you'll find wife and children and domestic happiness. This is a fine promise that society makes, but does it also keep that promise? Society leaves everyone and all ways of doing things relatively disappointed." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 388b, 2/1/1885-2/15/1885: "I've a good deal to say about your calling my last letter 'particularly unpleasant.'"
JLB 482, 2/2/1885: "I have a great deal to say about your calling my last letter 'particularly unpleasant.'"

Context:
BVG 388b, 2/1/1885-2/15/1885: "If you on your part turn this inside out now, and write me, 'You make me think of old people who are always saying that in their young days everything was better, meanwhile forgetting that they themselves have changed,' this does not stagger me in the least."
JLB 482, 2/2/1885: "When you now turn this round and write to me, 'you remind me of the old people who say that things were better in their young days than now, forgetting meanwhile that they themselves have changed', this doesn't upset me" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "Father has felt suspicious of me very often and to a high degree. For that matter, you know something about it, and I for my part know perhaps even more about it. But -- for all that -- he always called himself 'my friend' -- for all that -- the man really thought he was in the right, and he was unable to take any other view of things, and -- after all is said and done -- he meant well, that is to say, if you want to take it that way ..."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "Pa -- has been very often and very seriously -- mistrustful -- of me. You know your side of that anyway, and I for my part perhaps know even more about it. But -- nonetheless -- he always called himself 'my friend' nonetheless -- the man thought that he was right and simply couldn't see any differently -- and -- so, after all -- meant well if you will -- namely." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 388, 12/7/1884: "... but one fine day I told him flatly: Don't call yourself my friend as long as you think such and such things of me. People who think that way about me are not my friends but my enemies, and as sure as 2 x 2 = 4, they are my worst enemies."
JLB 474, 12/10/1884: "But for my part, one day I spoke out foursquare and said, don't call yourself my friend if you think this or that of me -- people who think of me like that, they're not friends but enemies, the worst enemies as sure as 2 x 2 = 4" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 482, 2/2/1885: "If I'd kept on top of things with Pa from the start and not simply stayed silent, a great deal wouldn't have happened."

On the day before his fatal stroke, Dorus wrote about the situation in Geldrop with apparent optimism: "Last Sunday [March 22], for the occasion of the confirmation of three young people in Geldrop, I received Frithiofs Saga as a present, a magnificent edition with photographs. Very beautiful." (b2268 V/1982, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van en Gogh, Willemina van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 3/25/1885.) The reference is to the 1825 lyric poem by Esaias Tegner based on a fourteenth-century Icelandic (or perhaps Norwegian) saga. Tegner's poem did for the "Vikings" what Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson did for King Arthur and Camelot, sparking the cultural "revival" of a heavily mythologized Nordic past that, especially in Britain, provided an alternative model of manhood to the heavily homoeroticized Greco-Roman (i.e., French) model. 

In her "Memoir," Jo Bonger, probably relying on what she had been told by Vincent's mother and sisters, as well as Theo's contemporaneous letters from his father, writes that Dorus "became more and more melancholy, as if he was not equal to the difficulties of living with his gifted, unmanageable son, and felt helpless against Vincent's unbridled violence" (Van Gogh-Bonger, in Van Gogh, p. xxxviii). 

After the New Year, Vincent, in his typical fashion, returns again and again to this bond of suspiciousness that unites his father and brother against him: "your character seems to have set fast in a form which I believe could cause you disquiet later. But what's the use of talking about it? What I mean is a family ailment, it seems to me." (JLB 481, 1/30/1885.) "Since you repeatedly say that you know me better than anyone else and yet it still all ends in suspicion, though, this is serious enough for me to decidedly object to it, and to that 'know so well', and to the other thing, that suspicion. I've a history like that behind me with Pa -- I'm not starting on a Pa II." (JLB 482, 2/2/1885, emphasis in original.) 

Context:
JLB 484, 3/2/1885: "Now as to when you write that if I had something ready that I thought was good, you would try to enter it for the Salon -- I appreciate your wanting to do this."

Context:
JLB 489, 4/4/1885: "If I thought that C.M. meant it when he asked for heads of children, I could send him this one I did today, but ... I can't say I feel much inclined to enter into correspondence (unless he asks for something more specifically). It can do no harm, though, that he's been to the studio."

Unlike many commentators, we see in this bitter epitaph a continuation of Vincent's hostility toward his father. The comment echoes closely an argument Vincent made to Theo almost exactly one year previously: "And you'll say that it's also pretty sad when a painter dies miserably in a hospital and is buried with the whores in the common grave -- where a lot of them lie, after all -- particularly when one considers that dying may not be as difficult as living" (JLB 432, 3/2/1884). This comes in the middle of a long and extremely bitter letter in which Vincent accuses Theo of ignoring his art and betraying their brotherhood. In the heat of his fury, he labels Theo as "Pa II" (JLB 474, 12/10/1884).

In the later use at his father's deathbed, Vincent clearly means to express the same bitter resentment, which he has always felt against his father, and often against his brother. If they had supported him as they should have, Vincent is arguing, living would not be so difficult for him; he would not be fated to die miserably alongside whores in a fosse commune. Also, we find no evidence to support De Brouwer's report that "Vincent made a drawing representing [Dorus] lying in the coffin" (De Brouwer, p. 118). This would have been completely contrary to Vincent's lifelong avoidance of the subject of his father's death and denial of his role in it. 

Hulsker goes to great lengths to explain and excuse Vincent's silence on the momentous events of late March 1885. "Vincent's letters do not contain any sentimental meditations about their father and his death, not only because in the last few years the relationship with his father had left much to be desired (he was not used to writing in a sentimental way in any case!), but also because the brothers had ample opportunity to talk about their father in the days around the funeral" (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 132). The suggestion that Vincent had exhausted the subject in his brief (and, no doubt, fraught) encounter with Theo in Nuenen is unsustainable. Vincent could explore repeatedly, over years, a simple walk along the Rijswijk canal, if it had emotional significance for him. (And he frequently wrote in a highly sentimental way.) The same was true whether the event had positive or negative significance, as witness his recent obsessive references to Theo's "suspicion." According to Stolwijk and Thomson, Theo did not believe that he and Vincent had exhausted the subject of their father's death in Nuenen: "It must have been painful for Theo to realise that Vincent could be so unmoved by their father's passing. He was chillingly rational, reminding Theo simply that life was short and then proceeding to discuss at great length various artistic matters that were currently occupying his thoughts. Theo did not reply for two whole weeks; his silence spoke volumes." (Stolwijk and Thomson, p. 37.) 

Context:
BVG 169, 1/5/1882-1/8/1882: "Whenever one says something to Father to which he has no reply, he comes out with a reproach of that sort and says, for example, 'You will be the death of me,' while he sits there perfectly calmly reading his newspaper and smoking his pipe. So I take such reproaches for what they are. But as to such expressions as 'I cannot bear it', 'it's killing me,' 'my life is embittered,' I no longer attach any importance to them, for that's only their little way."
JLB 197, 1/5/1882: "Pa regularly comes up with some such saying if someone says something to him that he doesn't know how to answer, and says, among other things, 'you'll be the death of me', while calmly reading the newspaper and smoking his pipe. So I take such expressions at their face value. But as to those expressions, 'I can't stand it', 'this will be the death of me', 'my life is a misery', I no longer take any notice, because it's only a mannerism."

Context:
BVG 169, 1/5/1882-1/8/1882: "Whenever one says something to Father to which he has no reply, he comes out with a reproach of that sort and says, for example, 'You will be the death of me,' while he sits there perfectly calmly reading his newspaper and smoking his pipe. So I take such reproaches for what they are. But as to such expressions as 'I cannot bear it', 'it's killing me,' 'my life is embittered,' I no longer attach any importance to them, for that's only their little way."
JLB 197, 1/5/1882: "Pa regularly comes up with some such saying if someone says something to him that he doesn't know how to answer, and says, among other things, 'you'll be the death of me', while calmly reading the newspaper and smoking his pipe. So I take such expressions at their face value. But as to those expressions, 'I can't stand it', 'this will be the death of me', 'my life is a misery', I no longer take any notice, because it's only a mannerism."

Context:
BVG 169, 1/5/1882-1/8/1882: "Whenever one says something to Father to which he has no reply, he comes out with a reproach of that sort and says, for example, 'You will be the death of me,' while he sits there perfectly calmly reading his newspaper and smoking his pipe."
JLB 197, 1/5/1882: "Pa regularly comes up with some such saying if someone says something to him that he doesn't know how to answer, and says, among other things, 'you'll be the death of me', while calmly reading the newspaper and smoking his pipe."

Context:
BVG 347, 12/18/1883: "You say you think it cowardly of me to rebel against Father. In the first place this is a verbal rebellion -- no violence is involved. On the other hand it might be argued that I am all the sadder and more disappointed and I speak all the more gravely and resolutely precisely because Father's gray hairs make it evident to me that the time left to us for reconciliation is perhaps, in truth, not very long. I do not much care for deathbed reconciliations, I prefer to see them during life."
JLB 413, 12/15/1883: "You say that you think it cowardly of me to rebel against Pa -- in the first place this rebellion is in words -- there's no violence here. It can be seen from another side, that is, that I'm all the sadder and more disappointed and speak all the more earnestly and resolutely precisely because Pa's grey hair tells me that the time that we have for reconciliation is verily perhaps not very long. I don't think much of deathbed reconciliations, I'd rather see them during life." (Emphasis in original.)

Most Van Gogh biographers (see, e.g., Tralbaut, p. 156), eager to see some glimmer of reconciliation between Vincent and his father at the end, focus on a brief, formulaic expression of hope in Dorus's last letter to Theo, written the night before he died: "May [Vincent] just succeed, in whatever way; that is to be wished" (b2269 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 3/25/1885). Often neglected is the immediately preceding sentence in which Dorus reports that he saw a portrait of Anton Mauve in a journal and was reminded once again of his son's many mistakes in life: "What a shame that Vincent cut off the connection with him. How much [Mauve] could have taught him." (ibid.) Nothing in the letter suggests another major conversation between father and son since the blow-up a week earlier. 

Van Geertruy reports a similar reaction in another former parsonage: "he was also remembered in Etten. Clergyman Mijs recorded in the minute book of the church council: 'Since he had gained the esteem and love of many through his loyalty and diligence, it is no wonder that this news was received with profound emotion.'" (Van Geertruy, p. 62.) Jansen and Robert cite a poem written by Gijsbertus Jan van Lakerveld, a preacher in Helmond, that was read at the parsonage in Nuenen after the funeral, referring to his "esteemed confrère and friend Theodorus van Gogh" (Jansen and Robert, p. 96, n. 10). It is quite possible that in one of the family gatherings around the time of the funeral, somebody had the strength to read a letter that Dorus had written almost twenty years earlier in Zundert, specifically for this occasion: "Zundert August 19 1866 in the morning at 5 o'clock. Thinking about the possibility of my death, I want to write down the following":

1. I thank my wife for what she has been in my life since I was with her, She made my path more clear, She built my home. She refreshed me with her love. She has given me much that is good through her religious devotion and wisdom. I bless her for what she has done for me and my lovely children.

2. From my children I expect that they will reciprocate their mother the love that they have received from her and from me. They will be their mother's support when she is a widow.

3. Love each other dearly forgive each other often be humble and modest, follow Jesus, do all that is good out of love for, and gratefulness to, God.

4. I thank all who were good to me I pray for forgiveness for all that was not good in me. I recommend to God my wife and children and relatives and community.

5. I count on my children that they will honor, support, and love their mother. God bless her and them, with the best of his blessings.

Goodbye!
Your husband and Father who loves you so very much.

Ths van Gogh.'

It was later noted that "A large number of people attended the funeral four days later and the ceremony was 'filled with the respect and love for a man who took the interests of those entrusted to his care to heart with great concern and devotion, who did everything in his power to fulfill such tasks as presented themselves to him and whose piety, fairness, love and tolerance had won the hearts of all who knew him.'" (Van Crimpen, p. 86.)

In Wil's account to a friend, this family explosion is rendered without the ugly details: "after my father's death Anna thought it would be more peaceful for Mum if he no longer lived at home and she made sure he left us" (Van Tilborgh, "Letter from Willemien van Gogh," p. 21). Tralbaut attributes Anna's accusation generally to "the people of Nuenen [who] thought that Vincent, the 'schildermenneke' whose work they did not begin to understand, was in some way to blame for his father's death" (Tralbaut, p. 154). 

Context:
JLB 490, 4/6/1885: "I still very much regret the incident with Anna that decided me in this respect. What she said to you changed nothing of what she reproached me for, and however absurd those reproaches were and her unfounded presumptions about things that are still in the future -- she hasn't told me she takes them back. Well -- you understand how I simply shrug my shoulders at such things -- and anyway, I increasingly let people think of me just exactly what they will, and say and do too, if need be."