Notes

Context:
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "I've rented it for 15 francs a month."

Context:
JLB 738, 1/9/1889: "That worries me a little, for I'm not much inclined to have myself turned out of this house almost shamefully when it was I who had it repainted inside and out and had gas put in &c., in short who made habitable a house that had been locked up and uninhabited for quite a long time, and which I took on in very poor condition."

Context:
BVG 480, 5/1/1888: "I've taken the right wing of this complex, which contains 4 rooms, or rather two with two cabinets."
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: Ah, well -- today I rented the right-hand wing of this building, which contains 4 rooms, or more precisely, two, with two little rooms.

Context:
JLB 735, 1/9/1889: "That worries me a little, for I'm not much inclined to have myself turned out of this house almost shamefully when it was I who had it repainted inside and out and had gas put in &c., in short who made habitable a house that had been locked up and uninhabited for quite a long time, and which I took on in very poor condition."

Context:
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "It will seem funny to you that the water closet is at the neighbour's, in quite a large house that belongs to the same owner."

Context:
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "It will seem funny to you that the water closet is at the neighbour's, in quite a large house that belongs to the same owner. In a southern town I think you'd be wrong to complain about it, because these facilities are few and far between, and dirty, and you can't help thinking of them as nests of germs."

Context:
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "The night café that I painted isn't in the painting; it's to the left of the restaurant."

The garden scenes that Vincent painted in 1888 (e.g., The Poet's Garden [F 468 JH 1578], Entrance to the Public Park in Arles [F 566 JH1585], Public Garden with Couple and Blue Fir Tree: The Poet's Garden III [F 479 JH 1601]) may have been exaggerated, rhetorical images designed to bolster his case for Gauguin coming to Arles (see Chapter 31). Indeed, the few depictions of the public garden that date from 1889 -- after Gauguin's departure -- (e.g., Red Chestnuts in the Public Park at Arles [F 517 JH 1689] and The Park at Arles [F 1468 JH 1498]) show far sparer foliage. It is also possible that some of the garden scenes in Vincent's works depict spots in the public garden to the west of the place Lamartine, between the Place and the Rhône River -- an area not recorded in any early photographs.

Context:
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: "It's ordinary plane trees, pines in tall clumps, a weeping tree and green grass."

Context:
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: But this side of the garden is also, for the same reason of chastity or morality, destitute of any flowering bushes such as the oleanders."

Context:
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: "But what scenery! It's a public garden where I am, just near the street of the good little ladies."

Context:
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "I have one big worry fewer now that I've found the little white studio. I looked at a whole lot of apartments without success."

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "And inside, it's all whitewashed, and the floor's of red bricks."

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "Inside, I can live and breathe, and think and paint."

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "At present it reminds me of Bosboom's interiors, with the red tiles, the white walls, the furniture of white deal and walnut and the glimpses of an intense blue sky and greenery through the windows."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "At present it makes me think of Bosboom's interiors, with the red tiles, the white walls, the furniture in deal or walnut, the patches of intense blue sky and greenery visible through the windows."

Context:
BVG 482, 5/4/1888: "It is really quite possible that as far as the house goes. I might find something even better either in Martignes on the coast or some other place. Only what is so delightful in this studio is the garden opposite."
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "It's quite possible that as far as houses go I'll find an even better one, either at Martigues, beside the sea, or in some other place. But the delightful thing about this studio is the gardens opposite."

Context:
BVG W7, 9/9/1888-9/16/1888: "For upstairs there are two little rooms overlooking a very pretty public garden, and from which one can see the sun rise in the morning."
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "Because there are 2 small rooms upstairs, which look out on a very pretty public garden, and where you can see the sunrise in the morning."

Context:
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "The public garden, the night cafés, the grocer's shop, aren't Millet, of course, but failing that, it's pure Daumier, pure Zola."

Context:
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "[Paul Eugène] Milliet [a lieutenant of the Zouaves] finds it horrible, but I don't need to tell you that when he says he can't understand that someone can enjoy doing such an ordinary grocer's shop, and such stiff, square houses with no charm at all, I reflect that Zola did a certain boulevard at the beginning of L'assommoir and Flaubert a corner of quai de la Villette in the summer heat, at the beginning of Bouvard et Pécuchet, that aren't half bad."

Context:
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: "It's ordinary plane trees, pines in tall clumps, a weeping tree and green grass. But it has such intimacy! There are gardens like that by Monet."

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "Its surroundings, the public garden, the night cafés and the grocer's, are not Millet, but instead they are Daumier, absolute Zola."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "Now the surroundings, with the public garden, the night cafés, the grocer's shop, aren't Millet, of course, but failing that, it's pure Daumier, pure Zola."

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "Besides, I feel that I can make something lasting out of it, from which others can profit as well."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "Besides, I feel that I can make something of it that will last, and from which someone else will also be able to benefit."

Context:
BVG 480, 5/1/1888: "But many things have changed since then, and the ground feels firmer underfoot, so let's get on ahead."
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "But many things have changed since then, and as I feel I'm on firmer ground -- let's go ahead."

Context:
BVG W7, 9/9/1888-9/16/1888: "My house here is painted the yellow colour of fresh butter on the outside with glaringly green shutters; it stands in the full sunlight in a square which has a green garden with plane trees, oleanders and acacias."
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "My house here is painted outside in the yellow of fresh butter, with garish green shutters, and it's in the full sun on the square, where there's a green garden of plane trees, oleanders, acacias."

Context:
JLB 614, 5/27/1888: "I've got them to agree to repaint the house, the front, the doors and the windows outside and inside. Only I have to pay 10 francs for that myself. But I think it will be well worth the bother."

Context:
JLB 709, 10/21/1888: "I've had gas put in, in the studio and the kitchen, which is costing me 25 francs for installation"

Context:
JLB 735, 1/9/1889: "That worries me a little, for I'm not much inclined to have myself turned out of this house almost shamefully when it was I who had it repainted inside and out and had gas put in &c., in short who made habitable a house that had been locked up and uninhabited for quite a long time, and which I took on in very poor condition."

Context:
JLB 614, 5/27/1888: "I've got them to agree to repaint the house, the front, the doors and the windows outside and inside. Only I have to pay 10 francs for that myself. But I think it will be well worth the bother."

Context:
BVG 484, 5/7/1888: "I am writing you a second time today because when I tried to settle my bill at the hotel I stay at, I had still another proof of how I've been swindled."
JLB 606, 5/7/1888: "I'm writing to you again today because, when I wanted to pay my bill at the hotel where I'm staying, I realized once again that I was being fleeced there."

Vincent immediately took the matter to the magistrate, but in order to do that, he had to provisionally pay the 40 francs that he admitted owing Carrel and be prepared to pay (perhaps by depositing with the magistrate) the larger amount, 67.40 francs, that Carrel claimed he was owed (ibid.). This is Vincent's excuse for not buying a mattress and sleeping in the Yellow House: "That means I daren't buy my mattress and I'll also have to sleep at another hotel. So I wanted to ask you to put me in a position where I could buy my mattress anyway." It is not impossible that this controversy was either invented or inflated by Vincent to cover the considerable expenses that he must have been incurring in fixing up the Yellow House, expenses that he does not reveal to Theo until a year later. (See Ch. 31, n. 30.)

Context:
JLB 606, 5/7/1888: "I'm writing to you again today because, when I wanted to pay my bill at the hotel where I'm staying, I realized once again that I was being fleeced there. I offered to come to some arrangement with them, they weren't willing to, so when I wanted to take my things they prevented me."

Context:
JLB 601, 4/25/1888: "Because the people here, in order to make me pay pretty high rates for EVERYTHING, make too much of the fact that I take up a little more room with my paintings than their other customers who aren't painters. For my part, I'll make the point that I'm staying longer and spend more in the guest-house than labourers who just stay a short time. And they won't get a sou out of me so easily any more." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG R6, 11/23/1881: "So be it--thanks for your revelation, yes, thank God, at first I dared not believe it, but you have made it clear to me -- so I have a will, a conviction, I am going in a definite direction, and what is more, not being contented with this, I want others to go along with me!"
JLB 190, 11/23/1881: "I thank you for that revelation, yes, thank God, at first I didn't dare believe it myself but you've made it clear to me, so I have a will, an inclination, I'm going in a definite direction, and, what's more, not satisfied with that, I want others to go with me!" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 332, 3/21/1883: "The draughtsmen's models come to wish them a merry Xmas and no doubt receive a tip. Most of the models are disabled -- a man on crutches leads the way -- holding on to his coat-tail is a blind person with someone else on his back who can't walk at all -- his coat-tail is held by a second blind person who is followed by an injured person with a bandage round his head, behind whom yet more come trudging along. ... It would be wonderful if people joined forces and there was a place where models would rendezvous each day, as at The Graphic in the past."

Context:
BVG 316, 8/21/1883: "Once there, I think I would remain permanently in that country of heath and moorland, where more and more painters are settling down, so that perhaps, after a time, a kind of colony of painters might spring up."
JLB 378, 8/21/1883: "Once there, I believe I would stay for good in the heathland and the peat districts, where more and more painters are coming, and in time a kind of painters' colony might develop."

Context:
BVG R52, 6/1/1885: "On the contrary -- if any painter, no matter who, should come to this district, I should be glad to invite him to my house and show him the way. For the very reason that it is not always easy to find models who are willing to pose, and that it is not a matter of indifference to all of them to have a pied à terre somewhere.” 
JLB 514, 7/13/1885: “On the contrary -- were any painter, no matter who, to come to this district, I would be glad both to invite him home and to show him the way. Precisely because it's not always easy to find models who are willing to pose -- and having a pied-à-terre somewhere isn't a matter of indifference to everyone.”

Context:
BVG 449, 2/3/1886: "But for the rest, I am very sympathetic to founding a studio, inasmuch as one might combine with other painters to take models together."
JLB 558, 2/4/1886: "But otherwise I like the idea of setting up a studio a great deal, a very great deal. Even, if need be, such that one could combine with other painters to take models together."

Context:
BVG 459a, 8/1/1886-10/31/1886: "If ever you did come here, write to me before and I will, if you like, share my lodgings and studio with you so long as I have any."
JLB 569, 9/1886 or 10/1886: "If ever you did come here, write to me before and I will, if you like, share my lodgings and studio with you so long as I have any."

Context:
BVG 469, 3/14/1888: “For many reasons I should like to get some sort of little retreat, where the poor cab horses of Paris -- that is you and several of our friends, the poor impressionists -- could go out to pasture when they get too beat up.”
JLB 585, 3/16/1888: “For many reasons I'd like to be able to create a pied-à-terre which, when people were exhausted, could be used to provide a rest in the country for poor Paris cab-horses like yourself and several of our friends, the poor Impressionists.”

Context:
JLB 605, 5/7/1888: "I often took walks with Rappard in the place you mention. ... I recall a place called, I think, La Vallée de Josaphat, where there are poplars and where Hippolyte Boulenger, the landscape artist, did some fine things. I remember sunsets in the Botanical Garden, seen from the boulevard that runs alongside it."

Context:
BVG 480, 5/1/1888: "All the same, it cost me positive agony to decide on a definite step, for I reminded myself that in The Hague and Nuenen I had tried to take a studio, and how badly it turned out!"
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "All the same, it cost me a lot of agonizing to bring myself to make a decision, because I said to myself that in The Hague and in Nuenen I'd tried to take a studio and I said to myself that it had turned out badly."

Context:
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "I could live at the new studio with someone else, and I'd very much like to. Perhaps Gauguin will come to the south."

Context:
JLB 599, 4/19/1888: "If I have a piece of advice to give you, it's to build yourself up by eating healthy and simple things for a year beforehand, yes. Starting now. Because it's better not to come here with a ruined stomach or spoiled blood." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG B2, 3/18/1888: "There would be perhaps a real advantage as well for artists who love the sun and colour that exist in the Midi."
JLB 587, 3/18/1888: "Perhaps there'd be a real advantage in emigrating to the south for many artists in love with sunshine and colour."

Context:
JLB 578, 2/24/1888: "If you see Bernard tell him that so far I'm having to pay more than at Pont-Aven, but that I think if you live here in furnished rooms with middle-class people it must be possible to save money, which I'm trying to do, and as soon as I've found out I'll write and tell him what seem to me the average expenses."

Context:
BVG B4, 4/21/1888: "I certainly intend to go do seascapes at Marseilles too; I don't yearn for the grey sea of the North."
JLB 599, 4/19/1888: "I really intend to go and do seascapes too, in Marseille, and I don't pine here for the grey sea of the north."

Context:
BVG B2, 3/18/1888: "The water makes blotches of a beautiful emerald and a rich blue in the landscapes such as we see in crepons."
JLB 587, 3/18/1888: "The stretches of water make patches of a beautiful emerald and a rich blue in the landscapes, as we see it in the Japanese prints."

Context:
BVG B2, 3/18/1888: "The water makes blotches of a beautiful emerald and a rich blue in the landscapes such as we see in crepons."
JLB 587, 3/18/1888: "The stretches of water make patches of a beautiful emerald and a rich blue in the landscapes, as we see it in the Japanese prints."

Context:
BVG B2, 3/18/1888: "The pale orange setting sun making the land appear blue. Splendid yellow suns."
JLB 587, 3/18/1888: "Pale orange sunsets making the fields look blue -- glorious yellow suns."

Context:
BVG B2, 3/18/1888: "… having promised to write, I want to begin by telling you that the country struck me as being as beautiful as Japan for the limpidity of the atmosphere and gay color effects."
JLB 587, 3/18/1888: "Having promised to write to you, I want to begin by telling you that this part of the world seems to me as beautiful as Japan for the clearness of the atmosphere and the gay colour effects."

Context:
JLB 627, 6/17/1888: "My brother has an exhibition of 10 new pictures by Claude Monet, his latest works, for instance a landscape with red sun set and a group of dark fir trees by the seaside. ... I believe my brother has also another picture by Gauguin which is as I heard say very fine, two negro women talking. It is one of those he did at Martinique."

Context:
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "I intend to invite Bernard and some other people to send me canvases to show them here if the opportunity arises, and it will certainly arise in Marseille."

Context:
JLB 599, 4/19/1888: "It interested me enormously that you intend spending your time [as a soldier] in Algeria. That's perfect, and a hell of a long way from being a misfortune. Truly, I congratulate you on it."

Context:
BVG 474, 4/9/1888: ""He's an intelligent boy, and all right as far as fidelity and manners go, but his painting is still rather spineless.""
JLB 594, 4/9/1888: "He's an intelligent boy, and fine as far as loyalty and manners go, but his painting is still very poor."

Context:
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: "It's a public garden where I am, just near the street of the good little ladies, and [Christian] Mourier[-Petersen], for example, never went there, whereas we used to walk in these gardens almost every day."

Context:
BVG 539, 9/17/1888: "I am in a public garden, quite close to the street of the kind girls, and Mourier for instance hardly ever went there, although we took a walk in the gardens, practically every day -- but on the other side (there are 3)."
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: "It's a public garden where I am, just near the street of the good little ladies, and Mourier, for example, never went there, whereas we used to walk in these gardens almost every day, but on the other side (there are 3 of them)."

Context:
JLB 585, 3/16/1888: "I think he'd do well to put off returning home for a year, or to come back after a short visit to his compatriots."

Context:
JLB 601, 4/25/1888: "He's a Yankee who probably does much better than the ordinary run of Yankees. But a Yankee all the same."

Context:
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "I've seen [Dodge] MacKnight again, but still nothing of his work."

Context:
BVG 480, 5/1/1888: "I could quite well share the new studio with someone, and I should like to. Perhaps Gauguin will come south? Perhaps I could come to some arrangement with MacKnight."
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "I could live at the new studio with someone else, and I'd very much like to. Perhaps Gauguin will come to the south. Perhaps I'll come to an arrangement with MacKnight."

Context:
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "Then we could cook at home."

Context:
JLB 603, 5/4/1888: "Then we would benefit, I think, on both sides."

Context:
JLB 603, 5/4/1888: "He's at the stage when the new colour theories are tormenting him, and while they prevent him from doing things according to the old system, he hasn't sufficiently mastered his new palette to be able to succeed this way. He seemed very embarrassed to show them to me, so I had to go there specially and tell him I very much wanted to see his work." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 482, 5/4/1888: "That friend of Russell's, MacKnight, is a dry sort of person and not too sympathetic either -- so much the worse if I should have the two of them against me. Yet I have not said anything about MacKnight, though I suppose he has no more heart than [Alexander] Reid."
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "Russell's friend, MacKnight, is a cold and not very nice character, too bad if I have both of them against me. However, I've said nothing about MacKnight, although I imagine he has no more heart than Reid."

Context:
BVG 482, 5/4/1888: "That friend of Russell's, MacKnight, is a dry sort of person and not too sympathetic either -- so much the worse if I should have the two of them against me. Yet I have not said anything about MacKnight, though I suppose he has no more heart than Reid."
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "Russell's friend, MacKnight, is a cold and not very nice character, too bad if I have both of them against me. However, I've said nothing about MacKnight, although I imagine he has no more heart than Reid."

Context:
BVG 485, 5/10/1888: "MacKnight is getting very dull and has worked very little so far."
JLB 607, 5/10/1888: "Right out in the country like MacKnight you pay less, but MacKnight is very bored and is working very little so far" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 505, 7/8/1888: "MacKnight looks very common beside him."
JLB 637, 7/8/1888 or 7/9/1888: "MacKnight seems very coarse beside him."

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "Bock must get pretty well stultified in MacKnight's company."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "Boch must be getting pretty dull-witted with MacKnight."

Context:
BVG 531, 9/3/1888: "That, however, has I think one disadvantage, because living with a slacker makes one slack."
JLB 673, 9/3/1888: "That, though, has a disadvantage for him, I believe, because living with an idler makes you idle."

Context:
JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888: "It seems that MacKnight wasn't very pleased with me but that Russell indicated to him in reply that he should shut up."

Context:
BVG 502, 6/23/1888: "MacKnight has a friend with him now, I never see any of his work. Yesterday I showed four or five new studies to him and his friend; they looked at them in frosty silence."
JLB 630, 6/23/1888: "MacKnight has a friend with him now, I never see any of his work, yesterday I showed him and his friend four or five new studies, which they looked at in icy silence.

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "But can't you understand too that there are people who say, 'This makes too queer an impression,' not to mention those who think it a total abortion or utterly repulsive?"
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "Can't you understand that some people say 'it looks too strange,' not to mention the ones who find it nothing or abominable?"

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "But can't you understand too that there are people who say, 'This makes too queer an impression,' not to mention those who think it a total abortion or utterly repulsive?"
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "Can't you understand that some people say 'it looks too strange,' not to mention the ones who find it nothing or abominable?"

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "But can't you understand too that there are people who say, 'This makes too queer an impression,' not to mention those who think it a total abortion or utterly repulsive?"
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "Can't you understand that some people say 'it looks too strange,' not to mention the ones who find it nothing or abominable?"

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "Probably MacKnight will soon be making little landscapes with sheep for chocolate boxes."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "It's likely that MacKnight will shortly do little landscapes with sheep, for boxes of sweets."

Context:
BVG 469, 3/14/1888: "I am deeply sorry for Gauguin's plight, especially because now his health is shaken: he hasn't the kind of temperament that profits from hardships -- on the contrary, this will only exhaust him from here on, and that will spoil him for his work."
JLB 585, 3/16/1888: "I'm really sorry about Gauguin's situation, especially since, now that his health has been undermined, he no longer has a constitution that could only benefit from being put to the test, on the contrary, it will just wear him out now, and that will surely make it difficult"

Context:
JLB 582, 3/2/1888: "I've had a letter here from Gauguin, who says he's been ill in bed for a fortnight. That he's broke, since he's had to pay off some pressing debts."

Context:
BVG 466, 3/3/1888: "That he is on the rocks, as he has had to pay some noisy creditors. He wants to know if you have sold anything for him, but he can't write to you for fear of bothering you."
JLB 582, 3/2/1888: "That he's broke, since he's had to pay off some pressing debts. That he'd like to know if you've sold anything for him but that he can't write to you for fear of bothering you."

Context:
BVG 469, 3/14/1888: "I am deeply sorry for Gauguin's plight, especially because now his health is shaken: he hasn't the kind of temperament that profits from hardships -- on the contrary, this will only exhaust him from here on, and that will spoil him for his work"
JLB 585, 3/16/1888: "I'm really sorry about Gauguin's situation, especially since, now that his health has been undermined, he no longer has a constitution that could only benefit from being put to the test, on the contrary, it will just wear him out now, and that will surely make it difficult for him to work."

Context:
JLB 582, 3/2/1888: "Would you risk buying the seascape from him [i.e., Gauguin's] for the firm? If that were possible he would be out of difficulties for the time being."

Context:
JLB 582, 3/2/1888: "I can do nothing about this business from my end except write to Russell, which I'll do this very day."

Context:
JLB 583, 3/9/1888: "For Christ's sake, when are we going to see a generation of artists with healthy bodies?"

The term Cloisonnism was coined during the height of the movement. In 1888, the French art critic Édouard Dujardin published an essay on Anquetin in La Revue Indépendante in which he was the first to apply the term "Cloisonnism" to the new art: "The painter traces his design with enclosing lines, within which he places his various tones juxtaposed in order to reproduce the desired sensation of general colouration. Drawing predicates coulour and coulour predicates drawing. And the work of the painter will be something like painting by compartments, analogous to cloisonné, and his technique consists in a sort of cloisonnisme." For an example of Cloisonnism, see Anquetin's Avenue de Clichy-Five-o-Clock in the Evening. (Grove Art Online, "Cloisonnism.")

Context:
JLB 582, 3/2/1888: "But what can we do, he must really be hard up. I'm sending you a few lines for him in case you have something to tell him, but open letters if any come for me, because you'll know sooner what's in them if you do that and that will save me the trouble of telling you what's in them."

Context:
JLB 588, 3/21/1888 or 3/22/1888: "I've had a line from Gauguin, who complains about the bad weather, is still unwell and says nothing vexes him more than lack of money among the variety of human ills, and yet he feels doomed to be broke for ever."

Context:
JLB 588, 3/21/1888 or 3/22/1888: "… Gauguin, who complains about the bad weather, is still unwell and says nothing vexes him more than lack of money among the variety of human ills, and yet he feels doomed to be broke for ever."

Context:
JLB 588, 3/21/1888 or 3/22/1888: "Included with the other letters the one from Gauguin, so that you can read them."

Context:
JLB 589, 3/25/1888: "I hope you'll send him [Tersteeg] Gauguin's fine seascape."

Context:
JLB 605, 5/7/1888: "I've just received your letter containing 100 francs, I really thank you for it -- and for the previous one (also dated Brussels) containing 50 francs. This to tell you that I received them safely."

Context:
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "Well then -- what I wish you as well as myself is to succeed in recovering our health, because we'll need it. That Hope of Puvis de Chavannes is such a reality. There's an art in the future and it will surely be so beautiful and so young that, really, if at present we leave it our own youth, we can only gain in tranquillity. Perhaps it's too silly to write all this, but it's what I felt; it seemed that like me, you suffered to see your youth going up in -- smoke -- but if it comes back and appears in what we do, there's nothing lost, and the power to work is a second youth. So be serious about getting better, because we'll need our health."

Context:
JLB 605, 5/7/1888: "You'll see beautiful things at Claude Monet's. And you'll think what I send you is pretty poor, in comparison."

Context:
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "I think the heat is still doing me good, in spite of the mosquitoes and flies."

Context:
JLB 658, 8/9/1888: "This restaurant where I am is very odd, it's grey all over, the floor is of grey bitumen, like a pavement, grey paper on the wall. Green blinds, always closed. A big green curtain in front of the ever-open door stops the dust coming in. It's altogether a Velázquez grey, as in women spinning. Not even the very narrow and very violent shaft of sunlight through a blind, like the one that falls across Vincent's painting, is missing. Of course, small tables with white cloths. Now behind this Velázquez-grey room you can see the old kitchen, clean as a Dutch kitchen ... Now there are two women who serve, also in grey ... In the kitchen, an old woman and a short, fat, serving-woman, also in grey, black, white. I don't know if I'm describing it clearly enough, but that's what I've seen here of real Velázquez."

Context:
JLB 605, 5/7/1888: "At present I'm unhappy with myself and unhappy with what I'm doing, but I can glimpse some possibility of doing better in future."

Context:
BVG 483, 5/7/1888: "Just now I am dissatisfied with myself and dissatisfied with what I do, but I have just a glimmer of hope that I'm going to do better in the end."
JLB 605, 5/7/1888: "At present I'm unhappy with myself and unhappy with what I'm doing, but I can glimpse some possibility of doing better in future."

Context:
BVG 488, 5/15/1888: "And at the end of several years' work we may be able to make up a bit for the past. And at the end of a year I shall have a quiet home of my own."
JLB 610, 5/14/1888: "And after a few years' work we could recoup the past to some extent. And after a year I'll have a quiet home of my own."

Context:
BVG 481, 5/3/1888: "And at the end of the year I should be a different man."
JLB 603, 5/4/1888: "And I would be a different man by the end of the year."

Context:
BVG 532, 9/4/1888: "But we'd have it at less than a thousand, so far as having a studio in the South where we could give someone a bed goes."
JLB 674, 9/4/1888: "Now we'd have it for less than a thousand, in that we'd have a studio in the south where we could put someone up."

Context:
BVG 493, 5/28/1888: "Take the thing as a plain matter of business, that is the best way for everyone, and let's treat it squarely as such."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888 or 5/29/1888: "Think of it as a simple business arrangement, that's best for everyone, and let's treat it straightforwardly that way."

Context:
JLB 616, 5/28/1888 or 5/29/1888: "And the two of us will live on the same money as I spend on myself alone."

Context:
BVG 516, 7/31/1888: "… since Gauguin will often be in want of money, it is in his interest that we do not keep it [one of Gauguin's paintings] until his prices have trebled or quadrupled, a thing which we believe will happen."
JLB 652, 7/31/1888: "As Gauguin will still very often be in need of money, in his interests should we not keep it [one of Gauguin's paintings] until his prices have tripled or quadrupled -- which will happen -- we believe?"

Context:
JLB 616, 5/28/1888 or 5/29/1888: "You may agree that we should share, and set a sum of, let's say, 250 a month if every month, in addition to and apart from my work, you were to have a Gauguin."

Context:
BVG 493, 5/28/1888: "Provided that we did not exceed this sum, wouldn't it even mean a profit?"
JLB 616, 5/28/1888 or 5/29/1888: "As long as we didn't exceed that amount, wouldn't there even be a benefit?"

Context:
BVG 521, 8/9/1888: "Besides that, provided we keep on good terms and are determined not to quarrel, we shall be in a stronger position as far as reputation goes."
JLB 658, 8/9/1888: "The fact remains that provided we lived in harmony and with an understanding not to quarrel, we'd gain a firmer position as far as reputation goes."

Context:
JLB 617, 5/29/1888 or 5/30/1888: "Then I say to myself that nevertheless we can begin to hope that soon I'll be selling one or two paintings a month -- BECAUSE THINGS WILL GET BETTER."

Context:
JLB 637, 7/8/1888 or 7/9/1888: "But I say to myself that if I manage to do 50 studies at 100 francs this year I shall in a certain sense not have done a great injustice by eating and drinking as if that was a right."

Context:
BVG 500, 6/5/1888: " So I tell myself that bit by bit expenses will be balanced by the work. I should like to earn a lot of money so as to get good artists down here, instead of leaving them shivering in the mud of the Petit Boulevard, as too many of them do."
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: " So I tell myself that gradually the expenses will be balanced by work. I'd like us to earn a lot of money to bring good artists here who too often get despondent in the mud on the Petit Boulevard."

Context:
JLB 617, 5/29/1888 or 5/30/1888: "It would be risking a lot to take on Gauguin, but that's the direction in which we have to work, and I have hopes that you'll get help from Tersteeg ... "

Context:
JLB 710, 10/22/1888: "With whom one can't go wrong, no matter what."

Context:
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: "My dear old Gauguin, ...Wanted to write now to tell you I've just rented a four-room house here in Arles. And that it seems to me that if I find another painter who feels like getting the most out of the south, and who like me was sufficiently absorbed in his work to be able to resign himself to living like a monk who'd go to the brothel once a fortnight ... the thing would be good ... if my brother were to send us 250 francs a month for both of us ...we would share ... And you would give my brother one painting a month ..."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: "However this may be, if my brother were to send 250 francs a month for both of us, we might share, should you care to come."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: "… if my brother were to send us 250 francs a month for both of us, would you like to come, and we would share ..."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: " And you would give my brother one picture a month; you could do what you like with the rest of your work."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: " And you would give my brother one painting a month, while you'd be free to do whatever you liked with the rest."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: " And you would give my brother one picture a month; you could do what you like with the rest of your work."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: " And you would give my brother one painting a month, while you'd be free to do whatever you liked with the rest."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: "You know that my brother and I greatly appreciate your painting, and that we are most anxious to see you quietly settled down."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: "You know that my brother and I have a high regard for your painting and that we'd very much wish to know you were a little at your ease."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: "I was ill when I came here, but now I am feeling better, and as a matter of fact, I am greatly attracted by the South, where working out-of-doors is possible nearly all the year round."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: "I was ill when I came, I'm better now and in fact, I feel rather attracted to the south, where outdoor work is possible almost all the year round."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: " I was ill when I came here, but now I am feeling better, and as a matter of fact, I am greatly attracted by the South, where working out-of-doors is possible nearly all the year round."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: " I was ill when I came, I'm better now and in fact, I feel rather attracted to the south, where outdoor work is possible almost all the year round."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: "I want to tell you a great many other things -- but business must come first."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: "There's plenty more I could tell you -- but here we are, business first."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: "Now the fact is that my brother cannot send you money in Brittany and at the same time send me money in Provence. But are you willing to share with me here? If we combine, there may be enough for both of us, I am sure of it, in fact."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: "But all the same, my brother can't send money to you in Brittany and at the same time money to me in Provence. But would you like to share with me here? Then by joining forces, there would perhaps be enough for two; I'm sure of it, even."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: "He will only assure you that up to the present the only means we have found of coming to your aid in a more practical way is this combining, if it should appeal to you. We have thought it over carefully."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: "He'll just assure you that the only means we've found up to now of helping you in a more practical way would be this arrangement, if it suits you. We've thought about it a good deal."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: "Of course you are free to exchange views with my brother about this business, however I must warn you that in all probability he will decline responsibility for it. He will only assure you that up to the present the only means we have found of coming to your aid in a more practical way is this combining, if it should appeal to you. We have thought it over carefully."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: "You are, of course, free to correspond with my brother about this matter, but I warn you that he'll most probably refuse to take responsibility for it. He'll just assure you that the only means we've found up to now of helping you in a more practical way would be this arrangement, if it suits you. We've thought about it a good deal."

This was a typical strategy for Vincent: to drop a hint and then wait until the plan was fully formed -- or sometimes until it had already been executed -- before informing Theo about it. The Yellow House is just the most recent example of a major initiative that Vincent launched and informed his brother about only after the fact (see Ch. 31, n. 48). In every case, his reason seems to be that he feared Theo would explicitly veto the project, risking a fraternal confrontation. Vincent clearly operated on the principle that it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission. There is reason to believe that the invitation to Gauguin may have followed the same strategy and that the letter Vincent drafted to Gauguin was, in fact, drafted before he discussed the idea with Theo (except for the casual mention in JLB 602, 5/1/1888, and probably with the intent of sending it and only then informing Theo about it. The invitation itself betrays signs of this, especially in this odd admonition to Gauguin: "You are, of course, free to correspond with my brother about this matter, but I warn you that he'll most probably refuse to take responsibility for it." (JLB 616, 5/28/1888 or 5/29/1888.)

Here Vincent appears to be preparing for the possibility that Gauguin will contact Theo directly before Vincent has had a chance to brief his brother on the proposal and secure his approval, at least in broad outline. Vincent apparently felt that he was more likely to secure that approval on the general idea of combining than on the exact financial terms that he proposes, so he adds: "[Theo will] just assure you that the only means we've found up to now of helping you in a more practical way would be this arrangement" (ibid.). Vincent appears to have re-thought this risky strategy at the last minute, but vestiges of the previous plan can be found in the letter to Theo that enclosed the draft invitation to Gauguin. "In order to prepare things, and to expand on this letter," he writes Theo, "I'm writing to Gauguin, but without saying anything about all this, just to talk about work" (JLB 616, 5/28/1888 or 5/29/1888; emphasis in original). Yet in the enclosed letter, Vincent apologizes to Gauguin for not having written (ibid.). It would seem, therefore, that either Vincent lied to Theo about having written Gauguin; or, after drafting his invitation letter to Gauguin, Vincent decided not to send it but to write a different letter that did not mention the invitation. This would confirm that Vincent was contemplating asking Gauguin to come without Theo's approval, taking for granted that he could secure Theo's acquiescence after the fact. Tangentially, this knot of contradictions also indicates clearly that Vincent and Gauguin had not been in contact for at least a month, adding support to the text's argument that they were not, at this point, more than peripherally acquainted. (See Ch. 29, n. 310.)

Context:
JLB 616, 5/28/1888 or 5/29/1888: "So herewith rough draft of a letter to Gauguin, which I'll write if you approve, with the changes that will doubtless have to be made to turns of phrase. But I wrote that way first."

Context:
JLB 621, 6/5/1888 or 6/6/1888: "So I've written [the letter], although I hardly had the time, having two canvases on the easel. If you think the letter's clear enough, send it, if not, it would be better for us, too, to abstain when in doubt."

Context:
BVG B17, 9/28/1888: "In the South one's senses get keener, one's hand becomes more agile, one's eye more alert, one's brain clearer, however on condition: that all this is not spoiled by dysentery or something else of a debilitating nature."
JLB 690, 9/27/1888-10/1/1888: In the south, the senses are elated, the hand becomes nimbler, the eye livelier, the brain clearer, on one condition, though: that dysentery or something else doesn't spoil all that by debilitating you too much.

Context:
BVG 525, 8/15/1888: "If I had the faith to do it, I'd be a notable madman; now I am an insignificant one, but you see I am not sufficiently ambitious for that fame to set a match to the powder."
JLB 662, 8/15/1888: "If I had faith in that, I'd be a famous madman -- now I'm not a famous one -- but you see I don't have enough ambition for that particular kind of fame to put the match to the powder."

Context:
BVG 525, 8/15/1888: "I would rather wait for the next generation, which will do in portraiture what Claude Monet does in landscape, the rich, daring landscape 146. artists who loved japonisme BVG 500, 6/5/1888.

Context:
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "About staying in the south, even if it's more expensive -- Look, we love Japanese painting, we've experienced its influence -- all the Impressionists have that in common -- and we wouldn't go to Japan, in other words, to what is the equivalent of Japan, the south?"

Context:
BVG 500, 6/5/1888: "About this staying on in the South, even if it is more expensive, consider: we like Japanese painting, we have felt its influence, all the impressionists have that in common; then why not go to Japan, that is to say to the equivalent of Japan, the South?"
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "About staying in the south, even if it's more expensive -- Look, we love Japanese painting, we've experienced its influence -- all the Impressionists have that in common -- and we wouldn't go to Japan, in other words, to what is the equivalent of Japan, the south?"

Context:
BVG 489, 5/20/1888: " There is an art of the future, and it is going to be so lovely and so young that even if we give up our youth for it, we must gain in serenity by it."
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: " There's an art in the future and it will surely be so beautiful and so young that, really, if at present we leave it our own youth, we can only gain in tranquillity."

Context:
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "It seems to me that I'm in the right when I feel it will come in a later generation and that in our case we have to do what our means allow us in that direction, without having doubts and without flinching."

Context:
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "There are things one senses in the future and that really come about. And we, who, I'm inclined to believe, are by no means so close to dying, nevertheless feel the thing is bigger than us and longer-lasting than our lives."

Context:
BVG 482, 5/4/1888: "I think that I am right when I feel that in a later generation it will come."
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "It seems to me that I'm in the right when I feel it will come in a later generation."

Context:
BVG 483, 5/7/1888: "And then I hope that later on other artists will rise up in this lovely country and do for it what the Japanese have done for theirs."
JLB 605, 5/7/1888: "And I hope that later on, other artists will emerge in this beautiful part of the country. To do here what the Japanese have done in their country."

Context:
BVG 494a, 5/28/1888: "Well, the two of us would immediately start exhibiting at Marseilles, thus clearing the way for other impressionists as much as for ourselves."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888-5/29/1888: "Now the two of us would start exhibiting in Marseille straightaway, thus opening the way for other Impressionists as well as for ourselves."

Context:
BVG 525, 8/15/1888: "If I had the faith to do it, I'd be a notable madman; now I am an insignificant one, but you see I am not sufficiently ambitious for that fame to set a match to the powder."
JLB 662, 8/15/1888: "If I had faith in that, I'd be a famous madman -- now I'm not a famous one -- but you see I don't have enough ambition for that particular kind of fame to put the match to the powder."

Context:
BVG 482, 5/4/1888: "But I should be heartily glad if this Bel Ami of the Midi, which Monticelli was not -- but was by way of being--whom I feel to be coming, though I know it isn't myself -- I should be heartily glad, I say, if a kind of Guy de Maupassant in painting came along to paint the beautiful people and things here lightheartedly."
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "But I'd be mightily pleased if that Bel-ami of the south -- which Monticelli -- wasn't -- but was preparing the ground -- which I can feel in the air while at the same time feeling that it isn't me -- I'd be, I tell you -- mightily pleased if in painting a man like Guy de Maupassant came along and cheerfully painted the beautiful people and things in these parts."

Context:
BVG 482, 5/4/1888: "But I should be heartily glad if this Bel Ami of the Midi, which Monticelli was not -- but was by way of being -- whom I feel to be coming, though I know it isn't myself -- I should be heartily glad, I say, if a kind of Guy de Maupassant in painting came along to paint the beautiful people and things here lightheartedly."
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "But I'd be mightily pleased if that Bel-ami of the south -- which Monticelli -- wasn't -- but was preparing the ground -- which I can feel in the air while at the same time feeling that it isn't me -- I'd be, I tell you -- mightily pleased if in painting a man like Guy de Maupassant came along and cheerfully painted the beautiful people and things in these parts."

Context:
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "I'd be mightily pleased if that Bel-ami of the south -- which Monitcelli -- wasn't ... but what Claude Monet is in landscape ... Rodin? Rodin doesn't do colour -- it's not him."

Context:
BVG 482, 5/4/1888: "But the painter of the future will be a colourist such as has never yet existed."
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "But the painter of the future is a colourist such as there hasn't been before" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "I've just read Zola's Au bonheur des dames again and I find it more and more beautiful."

Context:
JLB 662, 8/15/1888: "I prefer to wait for the generation to come, which will do in portraits what Claude Monet is doing in landscape, the rich, bold landscape in the style of Guy de Maupassant. Now I know that I myself am not one of those people, but didn't the Flauberts and Balzacs make the Zolas and Maupassants? So here's to -- not us -- but the generation to come." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "This painter of the future, I can't imagine him living in small restaurants, working with several false teeth and going into Zouave brothels like me."

Interestingly, this paean comes during a similar campaign to recruit companionship -- namely, Van Rappard's. As part of his current recruitment drive for Gauguin, Vincent invokes another idealized fraternity of artists from the past, "the 12 English Pre-Raphaelites," and represents that these mid-nineteenth century artists (such as William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti) provided a model of mutual support ("the artists would guarantee their livelihood amongst themselves") that could be emulated by the Impressionists (JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888). In fact, the Pre-Raphaelites shared some artistic principles and even, briefly, a journal, but their cohesiveness went no deeper and quickly dissipated, as even Vincent admits ("The association is dissolved" [JLB 736, 1/17/1889].)

In his astoundingly erudite discussion of Vincent's self-portrait as a bonze, Kôdera cites other historical examples of fraternal brotherhoods of artists that Vincent might have known about but does not mention, especially the Nazarenes, a group that existed from roughly 1820 to 1850; and its predecessor, the Lukasbrüder in Vienna in the second decade of the nineteenth century (Kôdera, pp. 98 - 100). (Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Franz Pforr, and Peter Cornelius were leading figures in both groups.) The Nazarenes led a literally monastic life, wearing long frocks and occupying a monastery in Rome that dated from the same era, the sixteenth century, as the art they championed. As admiring as we are of Kôdera's research and originality, we think his analysis misses the point: Vincent was not engaged in a theoretical exploration of artist-priesthoods. Unlike Kôdera, he trafficked in neither thoroughness nor consistency. He was merely making arguments to support his yearning for Gauguin to give him the companionship he needed, to delay the increasingly inevitable and unthinkable failure of his venture in the South, and to fend off the increasingly irresistible forces of despair.

Context:
JLB 643, 7/17/1888-7/20/1888: "The material difficulties of the painter's life make collaboration, union among painters, desirable -- (just as much as in the days of the guilds of St. Luke). By safeguarding their material life, by liking each other as pals instead of getting at each others' throats, painters would be happier and anyway less ridiculous, less foolish and less guilty."

Context:
BVG B11, 7/17/1888: "If only they would ensure their material well-being, and love one another like friends instead of making one another's life hell, painters would be happier, and in any case less ridiculous, less foolish and less culpable."
JLB 643, 7/17/1888-7/20/1888: "By safeguarding their material life, by liking each other as pals instead of getting at each others' throats, painters would be happier and anyway less ridiculous, less foolish and less guilty."

Context:
BVG 519, 8/8/1888: "What's to be done? To include it all requires a whole school of men working together in the same country, complementing one another like the old Dutchmen, portrait painters, 'genre' painters, landscape, animal, still-life painters."
JLB 657, 8/8/1888: "What can you say, to encompass everything you'd need an entire school of people working together in the same area, complementing each other like the old Dutch: portrait painters, genre painters, landscape painters, painters of animals, still-life painters."

Context:
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "I'm now looking at that group of great artists and thinking of foggy London and the scurrying about in that small set-up. Deeper in my imagination I see the draughtsmen in their various studios setting to work with the best kind of enthusiasm. I see Millais going up to C. Dickens with the first No. of The Graphic. Dickens was then in the evening of his life, he had a paralyzed foot, walked with a kind of crutch. Millais says, while showing Him the drawing by Luke Fildes, Homeless and hungry -- the poor and vagabonds outside a night refuge -- Millais says to Dickens, give him your Edwin Drood to illustrate, and Dickens says, 'Very well.'" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 252, 12/11/1882: "I have full respect for this; here I feel something holy, something noble, something sublime. Then look at that group of great artists, and think of foggy London and the bustle in that small workshop."
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "I have every respect for this, I feel something holy here, something noble, something sublime. I'm now looking at that group of great artists and thinking of foggy London and the scurrying about in that small set-up."

Context:
JLB 286, 11/24/1882: "There was a body of painters, writers, artists in short, who were united despite their divisions, and formed one force. They did not walk in darkness but had this light, that they clearly knew what they wanted and did not doubt. ... One thing reinforced the other, it was powerful and noble. ... Those crammed studios, those smaller shop windows, collier's faith of the artists above all, their warmth, their fire, their enthusiasm -- what sublime things they were" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 247, 11/24/1882: "Those crammed studios, those smaller show windows, but above all, la foi de charbonnier of the artists -- their warmth, their fire, their enthusiasm -- how sublime they were."
JLB 286, 11/24/1882: "Those crammed studios, those smaller shop windows, collier's faith of the artists above all, their warmth, their fire, their enthusiasm -- what sublime things they were" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "These last few days I read Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysanthème; it provides interesting remarks about Japan."

Context:
JLB 696, 10/3/1888: "It seems ... that those Japanese earned very little money and lived like simple labourers."

Context:
BVG B18, 10/6/1888: "It certainly proves that they liked and upheld each other, and that there reigned a certain harmony among them; and that they were really living in some sort of fraternal community, quite naturally, and not in intrigues."
JLB 696, 10/3/1888: "It clearly proves that they liked one another and stuck together, and that there was a certain harmony among them and that they did indeed live a kind of brotherly life, in a natural way and not in the midst of intrigues."

Context:
BVG B18, 10/6/1888: "It certainly proves that they liked and upheld each other, and that there reigned a certain harmony among them; and that they were really living in some sort of fraternal community, quite naturally, and not in intrigues."
JLB 696, 10/3/1888: "It clearly proves that they liked one another and stuck together, and that there was a certain harmony among them and that they did indeed live a kind of brotherly life, in a natural way and not in the midst of intrigues."

Context:
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "If you're a painter, you're taken either for a madman or for a rich man. A cup of milk costs you one franc, a slice of bread and butter two, and paintings don't sell. That's why we have to join together as the old monks did, the Brethren of the Common Life of our Dutch heathlands."

Context:
BVG 481, 5/3/1888: " Cold water, fresh air, simple good food, decent clothes, a decent bed, and no women."
JLB 603, 5/4/1888: " Cold water, air, good simple food, wear the right clothes, sleep in a good bed and don't have worries."

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "And consequently, though some of those twenty painters or so who are called impressionists have become comparatively rich men, and rather big fellows in the world, yet the majority of them are poor devils, whose homes are cafes, who lodge in cheap inns and live from hand to mouth, from day to day."
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "And so those 20 or so painters whom people call Impressionists, although a few of them have become fairly rich and fairly big men in the world -- all the same, the majority of them are poor souls who live in coffee houses, lodge in cheap inns, live from one day to the next."

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "And yet it is a certain pleasure to paint a picture, and yet at this very moment there are some twenty painters here, all having more debts than money, etc., all leading lives approximately comparable to the lives of street dogs, who are going to be of perhaps more importance than the whole of the official exhibition as far as the future style of painting is concerned."
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "And yet it's something of a pleasure to make a painting, and yet there are 20 or so painters here right now, all of them having more debts than money &c., all of them with a way of life something like that of curs, who will perhaps mean more than the whole official exhibition in so far as the future manner of working is concerned."

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "But I neither care about success for myself nor about happiness; I do care about the permanence of this vigorous attempt by the impressionists, I do care about this question of shelter and daily bread for them."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "But I don't care about my success nor about my happiness, I care about the continuation of the energetic undertakings of the Impressionists, I care about this question of a refuge and of daily bread for them."

Context:
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "To be a link in the chain of artists we pay a steep price in health, youth, freedom, which we don't enjoy at all, any more than the cab-horse that pulls a carriage full of people who, unlike him, are going out to enjoy the springtime. ... We know we're cab-horses and that it'll be the same cab we're going to be harnessed to again. And so we don't feel like doing it and we'd prefer to live in a meadow with a sun, a river, the company of other horses who are also free, and the act of generation."

A few months later, Vincent mentions the idea to Van Rappard in the form of a complaint about his fellow artists: "Instead of one large entity, a body of painters where unity is strength, everyone withdraws into his shell and works by himself. Those who are now cock of the walk create a kind of desert around them just because of their envy, and that's very unfortunate for themselves, it seems to me." (JLB 307, 2/4/1883.) In addition to Vincent's report of discussions in Paris and other recollections that support that report (see Ch. 29, n. 139), the idea resurfaces soon after his arrival in Arles (JLB 580, 2/27/1888; see Chapter 30), although, in his mercenary frenzy, Vincent has scaled back his ambitions for it.

Rather than an association of artists who "join together, give their pictures to the association, and share the sale price in such a way that at least the society will be able to guarantee the possibility of existence and work for its members" (JLB 584, 3/10/1888), he conceives of it instead in the more modest terms of a business deal between "a few dealers and art lovers [who] agree to buy Impressionist paintings" (ibid.). Yet, he continues to entertain the delusion that he (or Theo) might persuade Tersteeg to spearhead this venture by convincing the artists of the Grand Boulevard "to take the initiative in an association by giving paintings that would become common property and cease to belong to them individually" (ibid.). At this time, as he would do again later in the spring, Vincent casts the artists and the dealers as "morally obliged" to support his dreamed-of association (ibid.). It should be noted that all during his first months in Arles, Vincent's vision for this association sits uneasily alongside his ambitions for the brothers' entresol enterprise and the stream of advice he sends Theo on how to best other dealers and establish precedence in various markets (see Chapter 30). This is but the latest manifestation of Vincent's deeply ambivalent relationship to financial success: one minute obsessing over strategies for achieving it, the next minute dreaming up visionary schemes to transcend it.

Context:
JLB 695, 10/3/1888: "In these discussions, it was often a matter of the thing that's so dear to our hearts, both my brother's and mine, the steps to be taken in order to preserve the financial existence of painters, and to preserve the means of production (colours, canvases), and to preserve directly to them their share in the price that their paintings at present fetch only when they have long ceased to be the property of the artists."

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "For now everybody is chained to the opportunity he has of earning his bread, which means that in fact one is far from free."
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "For now everyone is bound by his opportunity to earn his living, and one is far from free, exactly."

Context:
BVG 548, 10/9/1888: "Even if we have no fixed plan in business, everything we do will be based on our deep conviction of the injustice which the artists we know are now suffering under, and on the desire to change all this as much as we can."
JLB 700, 10/9/1888 or 10/10/1888: "In our business dealings, although we have no fixed plan, everything we do will nevertheless be based on that deep sense that we have of the present injustice suffered by the artists whom we know, and of the desire to change it as far as we can."

Context:
BVG 493, 5/28/1888: "And this would be the beginning of an association. Bernard, who is also coming South, will join us, and truly, I can see you at the head of an Impressionist Society in France yet."
JLB 616, 5/28/1888 or 5/29/1888: "This would be the beginnings of an association, then. Bernard, who's coming to the south too, will join us, and be sure of this, I still see you in France, at the head of an association of Impressionists" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 550, 10/10/1888: "And what will be done later to reform trade may be just this, that the dealer will join hands with the artist, the one for what one may call the housekeeping side, to provide the studio, food, paint, etc., the other to create."
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "And what we'll do later to revive the trade could well be precisely that dealers live with artists, the one for what one may call the housekeeping side, to supply studio, food, paint &c., the other to produce."

Context:
BVG 498a, 5/29/1888: "Tomorrow I am going to Saintes-Maries on the seacoast to have a look at the blue sea and the blue sky."
JLB 618, 5/29/1888-5/30/1888: "Tomorrow I'm going to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer just to see a blue sea and a blue sky."

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: " At last I have seen the Mediterranean, which you will probably cross sooner than I shall."
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: " I've finally seen the Mediterranean, which you'll probably cross before me."

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: "Furthermore imagine in that landscape which is so naïve, and a good thing too, a cottage whitewashed all over (the roof too) standing in an orange field -- certainly orange, for the southern sky and the blue Mediterranean provoke an orange tint that gets more intense as the scale of blue colours gets a more vigorous tone -- then the black note of the door, the windows and the little cross on the ridge of the roof produce a simultaneous contrast of black and white just as pleasing to the eye as that of blue and orange."
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "Again, in this very naive landscape, which is meant to show us a hut, whitewashed overall (the roof, too), situated in an orange field, of course, because the sky in the south and the blue Mediterranean produce an orange that is all the more intense the higher in tint the range of blues -- The black note of the door, of the window panes, of the little cross on the rooftop, creates a simultaneous contrast of white and black just as pleasing to the eye as that of the blue with the orange."

Context:
JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: "The beach here is sandy, no cliffs or rocks -- like Holland -- without the dunes and with more blue."

Context:
JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: "And what houses at that -- like those on our Drenthe heaths and peat bogs, you'll see some specimens in the drawings."

Context:
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "I'd watched it all the other mornings, but as they leave very early, hadn't had time to do it."

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: "On the perfectly flat, sandy beach little green, red, blue boats, so pretty in shape and colour that they made one think of flowers. A single man is their whole crew, for these boats hardly venture on the high seas. They are off when there is no wind, and make for the shore when there is too much of it."
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "On the completely flat, sandy beach, little green, red, blue boats, so pretty in shape and colour that one thought of flowers; one man boards them, these boats hardly go on the high sea -- they dash off when there's no wind and come back to land if there's a bit too much."

Context:
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "It was before the boats cleared off; I'd watched it all the other mornings, but as they leave very early, hadn't had time to do it."

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: "They are off when there is no wind, and make for the shore when there is too much of it."
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "… they dash off when there's no wind and come back to land if there's a bit too much."

Context:
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "I did the drawing of the boats as I was leaving, very early in the morning, and I'm working on the painting, a no. 30 canvas with more sea and sky on the right."

Context:
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "Tell me, in Paris would I have drawn in an hour the drawing of the boats? Not even with the frame. Now this was done without measuring, letting the pen go." (Emphasis in original.)

Given Vincent's history, it is not a stretch to conjecture that he approached people in Saintes-Maries, undoubtedly women, with the request to model for him. (In the same letter, he reports seeing girls in Saintes-Maries "who made one think of Cimabue and Giotto: slim, straight, a little sad and mystical.") These unwelcome approaches, as well as Vincent's strange manner, would have alarmed the deeply religious and superstitious locals, prompting the visit from the priest and the police and, perhaps, a pre-emptive request for Vincent to leave the town the next day. Such an incident would explain why Vincent announces his departure the day before leaving (JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888) -- unusual advance notice -- in the same letter in which he reports his encounter with the "gendarme" and the "priest too." It would also explain why he left the three canvases behind rather than waiting a day or two for them to dry sufficiently to be transported (ibid., see Ch. 31, n. 210). Finally, it would explain why Vincent does not return to Saintes-Maries in July, despite his own eager anticipation of the "open-air bathing" season when, presumably, bathers might be available as models (ibid.). The other possible explanation for the visit from the police, and for Vincent's abrupt departure, is another lodging dispute, hinted at in this boast to Theo: "I board and eat for 4 francs a day -- they started by asking 6" (ibid.). However, such a dispute would be less likely to involve the local priest than complaints about behavior of suspect morality.

Context:
JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: "A very handsome gendarme came to interview me here. And the priest too -- people can't be too bad here, because even the priest seemed almost like a decent fellow."

Context:
JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: "I've brought three canvases and I've covered them -- two seascapes -- a view of the village."

Context:
BVG 499, 6/4/1888: "I am forced to leave my three painted studies here, for of course they are not dry enough to be submitted with safety to five hours' jolting in the carriage."
JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: "I have to leave my three painted studies here, because of course they aren't dry enough to subject them to 5 hours' jolting in a carriage with impunity."

Context:
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "Apparently an article on Anquetin has appeared in the Revue Indépendante in which he seems to have been called the leader of a new movement in which Japonism was even more marked, &c. I haven't read it, but after all -- the leader of the Petit Boulevard is without any doubt Seurat, and young Bernard has perhaps gone further than Anquetin in the Japanese style. Tell them I have a painting of boats, that and the Langlois bridge could suit Anquetin."

Context:
BVG 543, 9/28/1888: "The weather here remains fine, and if it was always like this, it would be better than the painters' paradise, it would be absolute Japan."
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "The weather's still fine here, and if it was always like that it would be better than the painters' paradise, it would be Japan altogether.

Context:
BVG W7, 9/9/1888-9/16/1888: "For my part I don't need Japanese pictures here, for I am always telling myself that here I am in Japan. Which means that I have only to open my eyes and paint what is right in front of me, if I think it effective."
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "For myself, I don't need Japanese prints here, because I'm always saying to myself that I'm in Japan here. That as a result I only have to open my eyes and paint right in front of me what makes an impression on me." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: "Or let us take a more amusing motif: imagine a woman in a black and white checked dress in the same primitive landscape with a blue sky and an orange soil -- that would be a rather funny sight, I think."
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "To take a more entertaining subject, let's imagine a woman dressed in a black and white checked dress, in the same primitive landscape of a blue sky and an orange earth -- that would be quite amusing to see, I imagine."

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: "Furthermore imagine in that landscape which is so naïve, and a good thing too, a cottage whitewashed all over (the roof too) standing in an orange field -- certainly orange, for the southern sky and the blue Mediterranean provoke an orange tint that gets more intense as the scale of blue colours gets a more vigorous tone -- then the black note of the door, the windows and the little cross on the ridge of the roof produce a simultaneous contrast of black and white just as pleasing to the eye as that of blue and orange."
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "Again, in this very naive landscape, which is meant to show us a hut, whitewashed overall (the roof, too), situated in an orange field, of course, because the sky in the south and the blue Mediterranean produce an orange that is all the more intense the higher in tint the range of blues -- The black note of the door, of the window panes, of the little cross on the rooftop, creates a simultaneous contrast of white and black just as pleasing to the eye as that of the blue with the orange."

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: "Or let us take a more amusing motif: imagine a woman in a black and white checked dress in the same primitive landscape with a blue sky and an orange soil -- that would be a rather funny sight, I think."
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "To take a more entertaining subject, let's imagine a woman dressed in a black and white checked dress, in the same primitive landscape of a blue sky and an orange earth -- that would be quite amusing to see, I imagine."

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: "When -- and observe that I am speaking of the simplification of colour in the Japanese manner -- when in a green park with pink paths I see a gentleman dressed in black and a justice of the peace by trade (the Arab Jew in Daudet's Tartarin calls this honorable functionary zouge de paix) who is reading L'Intransigeant"
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "When -- and note that I'm talking about the simplification of colour in the Japanese manner -- when I see in a green park with pink paths a gentleman who's dressed in black, and a justice of the peace by profession (the Arab Jew in Daudet's Tartarin calls this honourable official shustish of the beace), who's reading L'Intransigeant."

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: "For the Japanese artist ignores reflected colours, and puts the flat tones side by side, with characteristic lines marking off the movements and the forms."
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "Because the Japanese disregards reflection, placing his solid tints one beside the other -- characteristic lines naively marking off movements or shapes."

Context:
BVG 512, 7/19/1888: "Nothing would help us to sell our canvases more than if they could gain general acceptance as decorations for middle-class houses."
JLB 644, 7/17/1888-7/20/1888: "Nothing would make it easier for us to place our canvases than to get them widely accepted as decorations in bourgeois homes."

Context:
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "At the moment my brother has an exhibition of Claude Monet, I'd very much like to see them."

Context:
BVG 500, 6/5/1888: "I wish you could spend some time here, you would feel it after a while, one's sight changes: you see things with an eye more Japanese, you feel colour differently."
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "I'd like you to spend some time here, you'd feel it -- after some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently."

Context:
JLB 703, 10/13/1888: "You used to have a very fine Claude Monet showing four colored boats on a beach."

Context:
JLB 617, 5/29/1888 or 5/30/1888: "I have to do things that could get someone like Thomas, for example, to join you in letting those who'll go here, work here. Then Gauguin would certainly come, I think."

Context:
BVG 495, 5/29/1888: "I must get some stuff done that might persuade somebody like Thomas, for instance, to join you in sending people who would go to work down here. In that case I think that Gauguin would be sure to come."
JLB 617, 5/29/1888 or 5/30/1888: "I have to do things that could get someone like Thomas, for example, to join you in letting those who'll go here, work here. Then Gauguin would certainly come, I think."

Context:
BVG 500, 6/5/1888: " I wish you could spend some time here, you would feel it after a while, one's sight changes: you see things with an eye more Japanese, you feel colour differently."
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: " I'd like you to spend some time here, you'd feel it -- after some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently."

Context:
BVG 492, 5/28/1888: "But I think that once again you must steep yourself more and more in nature and in the world of artists."
JLB 615, 5/28/1888: "Now I think you need to immerse yourself again even more, both in nature and among artists."

Context:
BVG 492, 5/28/1888: "It seems to me that what these people ask of you would be reasonable enough if they first agreed to give you a year's leave (on full pay) to regain your health. You would devote that year to going around and revisiting all the impressionists and the impressionist collectors. That would still be working in the interests of Boussod & Co. And after that you'd set off with a steadier health and nerves, and be able to start fresh business there."
JLB 615, 5/28/1888: "It seems to me that what those gentlemen are demanding of you could, however, be reasonable if they first agreed to give you a year's leave (on full salary) to regain your health. You'd devote that year to going to see all the Impressionists and connoisseurs of the Impressionists at their homes again. That would still be working in the interests of Boussod & Co. After that you'd go off with your blood and your nerves more settled, and fit to do new business over there."

Context:
JLB 615, 5/28/1888: "It seems to me that what those gentlemen are demanding of you could, however, be reasonable if they first agreed to give you a year's leave (on full salary) to regain your health. You'd devote that year to going to see all the Impressionists and connoisseurs of the Impressionists at their homes again."

Context:
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "How I think of you and of Gauguin and of Bernard, everywhere and at all times! It's so beautiful, and I'd so much like to see everyone over here."

Context:
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "Do you know that we've been very foolish, Gauguin, you and I, in not all going to the same place?"

Context:
BVG B11, 7/17/1888: "However, I shan't labour the point, because I realize that life carries us along so fast that we haven't the time to talk and to work as well. That is the reason why, with unity still a long way off, we are now sailing the trackless deep in our frail little boats, all alone on the high seas of our time."
JLB 643, 7/17/1888-7/20/1888: "However, I don't insist, knowing that life carries us along so fast that we don't have the time to discuss and act simultaneously. That's why, at present, while the union exists only very incompletely, we're sailing on the high seas in our small and wretched boats, isolated on the great waves of our time."

Context:
JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: "Next week I'd like to go to Tarascon to do two or three studies."

Context:
JLB 639, 7/13/1888: "But it must be 50 times that I've been to Montmajour to look at this flat view -- am I wrong?"

Context:
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "Listen -- I'll do all I can to send you some new drawings for Dordrecht."

Context:
BVG 500, 6/5/1888: "Anquetin and Lautrec [Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901; French artist] -- I think -- will not like what I am doing; there has been an article, it seems, in the Revue Independante on Anquetin, which called him the leader of a new trend, in which the Japanese influence is even more apparent. I have not read it but anyway the leader of the Petit Boulevard is undoubtedly Seurat, and young Bernard has perhaps gone further in the Japanese style than Anquetin."
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "Anquetin and Lautrec -- I think -- won't like what I'm doing. Apparently an article on Anquetin has appeared in the Revue Indépendante in which he seems to have been called the leader of a new movement in which Japonism was even more marked, &c. I haven't read it, but after all -- the leader of the Petit Boulevard is without any doubt Seurat, and young Bernard has perhaps gone further than Anquetin in the Japanese style."

See Chapter 27.

Anquetin was known to have developed his signature artistic ideas while visiting his parents' home at Etrepagny, a rural town outside Paris; and one of his earliest expressions of those ideas was a rural scene, variously titled as Summer or The Mower (see Ch. 29, n. 164), which was known to Vincent. However, the other foundational image of Cloisonnism, also known to Vincent, was Anquetin's Avenue de Clichy: Five o'Clock in the Evening, depicting the sidewalk in front of a gas-lit butcher shop, and this was a more typical subject. Welsh-Ovcharov and Cate report that about this time Anquetin "conceived a monumental composition" devoted to Le Mirliton, Aristide Bruant's infamous café-concert (Welsh-Ovcharov and Cate, Émile Bernard (1868-1941), p. 8). Bernard reports that Anquetin's contribution to the show Vincent mounted at the Du Chalet restaurant in late 1887 consisted of "Japanese abstractions" (see Ch. 29, n. 164). (For more, see Ch. 31, n. 52.)

Context:
JLB 641, 7/15/1888: "Thomas bought Anquetin's study in the end -- the peasant."

Context:
BVG 500, 6/5/1888: "Anquetin and Lautrec -- I think -- will not like what I am doing; there has been an article, it seems, in the Revue Independante on Anquetin, which called him the leader of a new trend, in which the Japanese influence is even more apparent. I have not read it but anyway the leader of the Petit Boulevard is undoubtedly Seurat, and young Bernard has perhaps gone further in the Japanese style than Anquetin."
JLB 620, 6/5/1888: "Anquetin and Lautrec -- I think -- won't like what I'm doing. Apparently an article on Anquetin has appeared in the Revue Indépendante in which he seems to have been called the leader of a new movement in which Japonism was even more marked, &c. I haven't read it, but after all -- the leader of the Petit Boulevard is without any doubt Seurat, and young Bernard has perhaps gone further than Anquetin in the Japanese style."

Context:
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "I've had a letter from Russell, who has bought a Guillaumin and 2 or 3 Bernards. I'm extremely pleased about that, he also writes that he'll exchange studies with me." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 664, 8/19/1888: "I've just received a letter from Bernard, who joined Gauguin, Laval and someone else at Pont-Aven several days ago."

Context:
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "I've just read [Gustave] Geffroy's article on Claude Monet. What he says is really very good. How I'd love to see that exhibition! If I console myself for not seeing it, it's because when I look around me there are many things in nature that hardly leave me time to think about anything else. Because it's harvest time just now."

Context:
BVG 497, 6/12/1888-6/13/1888: "I only mean that Cézanne like Zola is so absolutely part of the countryside, and knows it so intimately, that you must make the same calculations in your head to arrive at the same tones."
JLB 624, 6/12/1888 or 6/13/1888: "I only want to say this, that Cézanne, belonging absolutely to the region itself, like Zola, and therefore knows it so intimately, you have to do the same internal calculation to achieve the same tones."

Context:
BVG 497, 6/12/1888-6/13/1888: "It has become very different from what it was in spring, and yet I have certainly no less love for this countryside, scorched as it begins to be from now on."
JLB 624, 6/12/1888 or 6/13/1888: "It has become something quite different from in the spring, but I certainly have no less love for nature that is starting to get scorched as early as now."

To support his claim to unparalleled bona fides in this kind of art, Vincent reminds Theo how badly his previous peasant paintings, especially The Potato Eaters (F 82 JH 764), had been received in Paris only three years earlier: "The colour of this portrait of a peasant [Escalier] isn't as dark as the Nuenen potato eaters -- but the very civilized Parisian [dealer] Portier, probably so-called because he kicks paintings out of the door -- will find himself up against the same question again. You've now changed since then, but you'll see that he hasn't changed, and really it's a pity that there aren't more paintings in clogs in Paris." (JLB 663, 8/18/1888.) This passage indicates that Portier had been distinctly unsupportive of The Potato Eaters in 1885 (at a time when Theo was representing otherwise to Vincent [see Chapter 23]). It also indicates that since that time, Theo's opinion of peasant imagery (and, presumably, The Potato Eaters, in particular) had significantly improved. Or so Vincent thought. Thus, a hint of self-congratulation permeates his reaction to the success of Anquetin's image: "It's a pity that there aren't more paintings in clogs in Paris" (JLB 663, 8/18/1888).

Context:
JLB 663, 8/18/1888: "You'll shortly make the acquaintance of Mr. Patience Escalier -- a sort of man with a hoe, an old Camargue oxherd, who's now a gardener at a farmstead in the Crau."

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: "I have just read Geffray's article on Claude Monet. What he says is really very good. I should so like to see that exhibition! The only way I can console myself for not seeing it is to look round and see so many things in nature that I hardly have time to think of anything else, for just now it is harvesttime."
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "I've just read Geffroy's article on Claude Monet. What he says is really very good. How I'd love to see that exhibition! If I console myself for not seeing it, it's because when I look around me there are many things in nature that hardly leave me time to think about anything else. Because it's harvest time just now."

Context:
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "… the wheatfields have all the tones: old gold, copper, green gold, red gold, yellow gold, green, red and yellow bronze."

Context:
BVG 520, 8/11/1888: "Hence the flashing orange colours like a red-hot fire, hence the tones of old gold luminous in the gloom."
JLB 663, 8/18/1888: "Hence the oranges, blazing like red-hot iron, hence the old gold tones, glowing in the darkness.

Context:
BVG 520, 8/11/1888: "But imagine the terrible man that I have to do in the full furnace of the harvest at high noon. Hence the flashing orange colours like a red-hot fire, hence the tones of old gold luminous in the gloom."
JLB 663, 8/18/1888: But imagining the terrific man I had to do, in the very furnace of harvest time, deep in the south. Hence the oranges, blazing like red-hot iron, hence the old gold tones, glowing in the darkness.

Context:
BVG 520, 8/11/1888: "But imagine the terrible man that I have to do in the full furnace of the harvest at high noon. Hence the flashing orange colours like a red-hot fire, hence the tones of old gold luminous in the gloom."
JLB 663, 8/18/1888: But imagining the terrific man I had to do, in the very furnace of harvest time, deep in the south. Hence the oranges, blazing like red-hot iron, hence the old gold tones, glowing in the darkness.

Context:
BVG 543, 9/28/1888: "The weather here remains fine, and if it was always like this, it would be better than the painters' paradise, it would be absolute Japan."
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "The weather's still fine here, and if it was always like that it would be better than the painters' paradise, it would be Japan altogether."

Context:
BVG B9, 6/24/1888: " I have seven studies of wheat fields, all of them landscapes unfortunately, very much against my will. The landscapes yellow -- old gold -- done quickly, quickly, quickly and in a hurry, just like the harvester who is silent under the blazing sun, intent only on his reaping."
JLB 633, 6/27/1888: " I have seven studies of wheatfields, unfortunately all of them nothing but landscapes, much against my will. Old gold yellow landscapes -- done quick quick quick and in a hurry, like the reaper who is silent under the blazing sun, concentrating on getting the job done." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "I have a new subject on the go, green and yellow fields as far as the eye can see ..."

Context:
JLB 653, 7/31/1888: "I find it mightily beautiful here in summer, the green is very deep and lush, the air thin and amazingly clear."

Context:
JLB 641, 7/15/1888: "A microscopic figure of a ploughman, a little train passing through the wheatfields; that's the only life there is in it."

Context:
JLB 635, 7/1/1888: "As for landscapes, I'm beginning to find that some, done more quickly than ever, are among the best things I do."

Context:
BVG 497, 6/12/1888-6/13/1888: "I must manage to get the firmness of colouring that I got in the picture that kills the rest."
JLB 624, 6/12/1888: "I have to achieve the firmness of colour that I have in that painting that kills the rest."

Context:
BVG 497, 6/12/1888-6/13/1888: " If Gauguin were willing to join me, I think it would be a step forward for us. It would establish us squarely as the explorers of the South, and nobody could complain of that. … So perhaps, perhaps I am on the right track, and I am getting an eye for this kind of country. We must wait and make sure."
JLB 624, 6/12/1888 or 6/13/1888: " If Gauguin wished to join us, I believe we'd have taken a step forward. It would establish us squarely as miners of the south, and nobody could find fault with that. … So perhaps, perhaps, I'm on the right track and my eye's adapting to nature here. Let's wait a little longer to be sure."

Context:
BVG 507, 6/29/1888: "But during the harvest my work was not any easier than what the peasants who were actually harvesting were doing."
JLB 635, 7/1/1888: "But during the harvest my work has been no easier than that of the farmers themselves who do this harvesting."

Context:
BVG 519, 8/8/1888: "I am feeling very, very well these days. In the long run I think I shall come to belong to the country altogether."
JLB 657, 8/8/1888: "I've been very, very well these last few days; in the long run I believe that I'll belong to these parts in all respects."

Context:
JLB 657, 8/8/1888: "… you know that in the real Provence it's more often small peasant farming 293. "innocent and gentle beings" BVG 514, 7/25/1888.

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "And then this blessed Fontvieilles would be a gold mine for them; but the natives are like Zola's poor peasants, innocent and gentle beings, as we know."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "And then that bloody Fontvieille would be a treasure to them, but the natives are -- Zola's small peasants, innocent and gentle beings, as we know."

Context:
BVG B7, 6/18/1888: "I'd sooner do those naïve pictures out of old almanacs, old farmers' almanacs where hail, snow, rain or fine weather are depicted in a wholly primitive manner, like the one Anquetin used so successfully in his Moisson."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "Better to make naive almanac pictures -- old country almanacs, where hail, snow, rain, fine weather are represented in an utterly primitive way. The way Anquetin got his Harvest so well." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "Better to make naive almanac pictures -- old country almanacs, where hail, snow, rain, fine weather are represented in an utterly primitive way. The way Anquetin got his Harvest so well."

Context:
BVG 497, 6/12/1888-6/13/1888: "If coming home with my canvas, I say to myself, 'Look! I've got the very tones of old Cézanne!' I only mean that Cézanne like Zola is so absolutely part of the countryside, and knows it so intimately, one must be making the same mental calculation to arrive at the same tones."
JLB 624, 6/12/1888 or 6/13/1888: "If, coming home with my canvas, I say to myself: look, I've arrived precisely at père Cézanne's tones, I only want to say this, that Cézanne, belonging absolutely to the region itself, like Zola, and therefore knows it so intimately, you have to do the same internal calculation to achieve the same tones."

Context:
BVG 497, 6/12/1888-6/13/1888: "If coming home with my canvas, I say to myself, 'Look! I've got the very tones of old Cézanne!' I only mean that Cézanne like Zola is so absolutely part of the countryside, and knows it so intimately, one must be making the same mental calculation to arrive at the same tones."
JLB 624, 6/12/1888 or 6/13/1888: "If, coming home with my canvas, I say to myself: look, I've arrived precisely at père Cézanne's tones, I only want to say this, that Cézanne, belonging absolutely to the region itself, like Zola, and therefore knows it so intimately, you have to do the same internal calculation to achieve the same tones."

Context:
BVG B7, 6/18/1888: "For my part, I'm getting on better here than I did in the north. I even work right in the middle of the day, in the full sun, with no shade at all, out in the wheat fields, and lo and behold, I am as happy as a cicada."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "For myself, I'm in better health here than in the north -- I even work in the wheatfields at midday, in the full heat of the sun, without any shade whatever, and there you are, I revel in it like a cicada."

Context:
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "I have a new subject on the go, green and yellow fields as far as the eye can see, which I've already drawn twice and am starting again as a painting, just like a Salomon Koninck, you know, Rembrandt's pupil who made the vast flat landscapes. Or it's like something by [Georges] Michel or like Jules Dupré, but it's really quite different from rose gardens."

Context:
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "I have a new subject on the go, green and yellow fields as far as the eye can see, which I've already drawn twice and am starting again as a painting, just like a Salomon Koninck, you know, Rembrandt's pupil who made the vast flat landscapes. Or it's like something by Michel or like Jules Dupré, but it's really quite different from rose gardens."

Context:
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "I have a new subject on the go, green and yellow fields as far as the eye can see, which I've already drawn twice and am starting again as a painting, just like a Salomon Koninck, you know, Rembrandt's pupil who made the vast flat landscapes. Or it's like something by Michel or like Jules Dupré, but it's really quite different from rose gardens."

Context:
JLB 610, 5/14/1888: "I imagined I would find similar subjects here, and that was indeed the case when the orchards were in blossom. Now the appearance of things has changed and nature has become much harsher. But what greenness and what a blue! I must say that the few landscapes by Cézanne that I know render it very, very well, and I regret not having seen more of them. The other day I saw a subject just like Monticelli's beautiful landscape with the poplars that we saw at Reid's."

Context:
BVG 492, 5/28/1888: "It was just the effect of that Claude Monet; it was superb."
JLB 615, 5/28/1888: "So it's the effect of that Claude Monet. It was superb."

Context:
BVG B10, 7/15/1888: "I have done some large pen-and-ink drawings. Two: an immense stretch of flat country, a bird's-eye view of it seen from the top of a hill -- vineyards and fields of newly reaped wheat. All this multiplied in endless repetitions, stretching away toward the horizon like the surface of a sea, bordered by the little hills of the Crau."
JLB 641, 7/15/1888: "Have made large pen drawings -- 2 -- an immense flat expanse of country -- seen in bird's-eye view from the top of a hill -- vineyards, harvested fields of wheat, all of it multiplied endlessly, streaming away like the surface of a sea towards the horizon bounded by the hillocks of La Crau" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG B10, 7/15/1888: "And I am still going there, over and over again. All right! I have done two drawings of it -- of that flat landscape, where there was nothing but ... infinity -- eternity."
JLB 641, 7/15/1888: "I go back there, go back, go back again -- well, I've done two drawings of it -- of that flat landscape in which there was nothing but … the infinite ... eternity."

Contest:
JLB 639, 7/13/1888: "I assure you that I'm tired out by these drawings; I've started a painting too -- but no means of doing it with the mistral, absolutely impossible."

Context:
BVG 509, 7/13/1888: "You will see, however, that there is no attempt at effect. At first sight it is like a map, a strategic plan as far as the execution goes. Besides, I walked there with a painter, and he said, 'There is something that would be boring to paint.' Yet I went fully fifty times to Mont Majour to look at this flat landscape, and was I wrong?"
JLB 639, 7/13/1888: "However, you see there's no effect, at first sight it's a map, a strategic plan as far as workmanship goes. Besides, I also went for a walk there with a painter, who said: now there's something that would be bothersome to paint. But it must be 50 times that I've been to Montmajour to look at this flat view -- am I wrong?" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 639, 7/13/1888: "Please write me a short line straightaway, to know if the drawings have arrived in good condition; they gave me a piece of their mind again at the post office because it was too big, and I'm afraid they'll perhaps make problems in Paris."

Context:
BVG 509, 7/13/1888: "They took them, however, I was glad of that, because after the celebrations of July 14 you may be pleased to refresh your eyes with the wide-open spaces of the Crau. … If I urge you to look at these two drawings in this way, it is because I so much want to give you a true idea of the simplicity of nature here."
JLB 639, 7/13/1888: "All the same, they took them, which pleased me, because after the 14 July holiday you'll perhaps not be unhappy about refreshing your eye on the expanses of this Crau. ... If I insist on your looking at these two drawings this way it's because I would like so much to give you A TRUE IDEA of the simplicity of nature in these parts." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "Furthermore -- something you've already suspected -- people are often good-looking here."
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "Further, as you already suspect, the people here are often handsome."

Context:
BVG 482, 5/4/1888: "There are women like a Fragonard and -- like Renoirs."
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "There are women like Fragonards and -- like Renoir."

Context:
BVG B6, 6/6/1888-6/11/1888: "There, at Saintes-Maries, were girls who reminded one of Cimabue and Giotto -- thin, straight, somewhat sad and mystic."
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "There, at Saintes-Maries, there were girls who made one think of Cimabue and Giotto: slim, straight, a little sad and mystical."

Context:
BVG 481, 5/3/1888: "I have seen figures here quite as beautiful as those of Goya or Velasquez. They will put a touch of pink on a black frock, or devise a garment of white, yellow and pink, or else green and pink, or else blue and yellow, in which there is nothing to be altered from the artistic point of view."
JLB 603, 5/4/1888: "I've seen figures here as lovely as those of Goya and Velázquez. They know how to stick a touch of pink on a black suit, or make a white, yellow, pink or green and pink, or blue and yellow outfit, in which nothing needs to be changed from the artistic point of view." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG B15, 8/18/1888: "I want to do figures, figures and more figures. I cannot resist that series of bipeds from the baby to Socrates, and from the woman with black hair and white skin to the woman with yellow hair and a sunburned brick-red face."
JLB 665, 8/21/1888: "I want to do figures, figures and more figures, it's stronger than me, this series of bipeds from the baby to Socrates and from the black-haired woman with white skin to the woman with yellow hair and a sunburnt face the colour of brick."

A hint of why Vincent thought he would find figures in Saintes-Maries might be found in his report to Theo: "Next month will be the public bathing season. Number of bathers varies from 20 to 50." (JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888.) Vincent may have come to the coast pursuing reports of bathers only to find that he had arrived too early. The passage indicates that he closely questioned the locals in Saintes-Maries in anticipation of a return trip after the bathing season had commenced.

Context:
BVG 498a, 5/29/1888: "Tomorrow I am going to Saintes-Maries on the seacoast to have a look at the blue sea and the blue sky. And to try to get an idea of the figures. For I suppose that all at once I shall make a furious onslaught on the figure, which I seem to be giving a wide berth at the moment, as if I were not interested in it, although it is really what I aim at."
JLB 618, 5/29/1888-5/30/1888: "Tomorrow I'm going to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer just to see a blue sea and a blue sky. And just to get an idea of the figures. Because I think that I'll suddenly make a furious attack on the figure, around which I'm currently circling as if I didn't care about it, but all the same that's actually exactly my goal." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 481, 5/3/1888: "Now, as for portraits, I am pretty sure they'd take the bait."
JLB 603, 5/4/1888: "Now I dare say these people here would jump at portraits."

Context:
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: " I still miss my models who were made for me and whom I still adore; if only I had them here now -- I'm sure my 50 paintings would hit the mark. Do you understand that I'm not angry with the human race because they think I'm this or that -- I freely admit in advance that they're absolutely right, but it saddens me that I don't have enough power to get what I want to pose for me, where I want and for as long or as short as I want." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "… I still feel the want of my models, who seemed to be made for me, and whom I still adore; if only I had them here -- I feel sure my fifty pictures would turn out to be hits."
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: " I still miss my models who were made for me and whom I still adore; if only I had them here now -- I'm sure my 50 paintings would hit the mark" (emphasis in original).

I didn't know when I left that it would be for good like this. Because the work wasn't going badly in Nuenen and it was only a matter of going on with it. I still miss my models who were made for me and whom I still adore; if only I had them here now -- I'm sure my 50 paintings would hit the mark. Do you understand that I'm not angry with the human race because they think I'm this or that -- I freely admit in advance that they're absolutely right, but it saddens me that I don't have enough power to get what I want to pose for me, where I want and for as long or as short as I want." (JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888; emphasis in original.) The request was probably prompted by news that Wil was planning to visit Theo in Paris. Not until a month later does Vincent broach the idea to Theo, however. In a letter in July, he proposes that Wil bring a motherload of prints and drawing books to Paris (including some of the same ones mentioned to Wil in June) so that Theo can mail them to Arles: "If our sisters could bring us some more wood engravings and things like Gavarni's La masquerade humaine, 100 lithographs, the Charles Keenes, of which there were a good 200, it wouldn't be bad. There's also a very fine book, Anatomy for artists." (JLB 642, 7/15/1888.) Within a week, Vincent reports to Bernard (not to Theo, presumably for budgetary reasons) that he has bought an etching after Rembrandt -- "a study of a nude man, realistic and simple" (JLB 649, 7/29/1888).

Context:
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "By the way, talking of junk. It might still be worth while salvaging anything any good from the junk of mine which, so Theo says, is still somewhere in an attic in Breda, but I daren't ask it of you and perhaps it's been lost, so don't worry about it. But this is the question. You know Theo brought a whole batch of woodcuts with him last year? Even so, a few of the best portfolios are missing and the rest isn't as good precisely because it's no longer complete. Obviously woodcuts from illustrated magazines get rarer and rarer as the volumes get older. Enough, this junk doesn't leave me completely indifferent; for instance, there's a copy of Gavarni's Mascarade humaine, a book Anatomy for artists, in short, a few things that are actually much too good to lose. I consider them as lost in advance, though; anything that still turns up is pure gain."

Context:
BVG 517, 8/3/1888: "And I always feel confident when I am doing portraits, knowing that this work has much more depth -- it isn't the right word perhaps, but it is what makes me cultivate whatever is best and deepest in me."
JLB 654, 8/3/1888: "Also, I always feel confidence when doing portraits, knowing that that work is much more serious -- that's perhaps not the word -- but rather is the thing that enables me to cultivate what's best and most serious in me."

Context:
BVG 482, 5/4/1888: "But I should be heartily glad if this Bel Ami of the Midi, … came along to paint the beautiful people and things here lightheartedly. As for me, I shall go on working and here and there among my work there will be things which will last, but who will be in figure painting what Claude Monet is in landscape?"
JLB 604, 5/4/1888: "But I'd be mightily pleased if that Bel-ami of the south … came along and cheerfully painted the beautiful people and things in these parts. As for me, I'll work, and here and there some of my work will last -- but what Claude Monet is in landscape, the same thing in figure painting -- who's going to do that?"

Context:
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "But how I'd like to see the study you did at the brothel. I reproach myself endlessly for not having done figures here yet."

Context:
JLB 630, 6/23/1888: "Bernard's in the same position. Today he sends me a croquis of a brothel that I'm sending you enclosed herewith to pin up next to the acrobats by him that you have."

The passage also appears to indicate that the painting followed the drawing, but that seems unlikely. It was more in keeping with Vincent's practice to make drawings of his paintings for friends like Russell. Pickvance identifies the girl as the same one described by Vincent in a letter to Bernard as "the woman with yellow hair and a sunburnt face the colour of brick" (Pickvance, p. 105 and JLB 665, 8/21/1888). This is possible, even likely, as is Pickvance's further speculation that the "painting of a view of the river," which Vincent mentions as his first encounter with the women, is The Trinquetaille Bridge (F 426 JH 1468) in which an indistinct but droopy-haired girl occupies the foreground. Less persuasive is Pickvance's conjecture that the same girl modeled for the "blonde girl seen with hat" in The Dance Hall (F 547 JH 1652) that Vincent painted in December when Gauguin was staying with him in Arles (ibid.). If Pickvance were correct in this, Vincent's relationship with his "mudlark" would have extended over at least six months -- a Sien-like relationship that is impossible to support in Vincent's letters or in Gauguin's recollections, where it was more likely to have shown up.

Context:
BVG 501a, 6/17/1888: "Well, instead of continuing the letter I began to draw on the very paper the head of the dirty little girl I saw this afternoon whilst I was painting a view of the river with a greenish yellow sky."
JLB 627, 6/17/1888: "Well, instead of continuing the letter I began to draw on the very paper the head of a dirty little girl I saw this afternoon whilst I was painting a view of the river with a greenish yellow sky."

Context:
BVG 501a, 6/17/1888: "The dirty 'mudlark' I thought yet had a vague Florentine sort of figure like the heads in the Monticelli pictures, and reasoning and drawing this wise I worked on the letter I was writing to you."
JLB 627, 6/17/1888: "This dirty 'mudlark' I thought yet had a vague florentine sort of figure like the heads in the Monticelli pictures, and reasoning and drawing this wise I worked on the letter I was writing to you."

Context:
BVG 480, 5/1/1888: "In any case, the studio is too public for me to think it might tempt any little woman, and a petticoat crisis couldn't easily end in a liaison."
JLB 602, 5/1/1888: "In any case, the studio is too open to view for me to think it could tempt any woman, and it would be hard for a petticoat episode to lead to a cohabitation."

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: " I have a model at last -- a Zouave -- a boy with a small face, a bull neck, and the eye of a tiger, and I began with one portrait, and began again with another; …"
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: " I have a model at last -- a Zouave -- he's a lad with a small face, the neck of a bull, the eye of a tiger, and I started doing one portrait and started again on another."

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: "I have a model at last -- a Zouave -- a boy with a small face, a bull neck, and the eye of a tiger, and I began with one portrait, and began again with another; …"
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "I have a model at last -- a Zouave -- he's a lad with a small face, the neck of a bull, the eye of a tiger, and I started doing one portrait and started again on another."

Context:
JLB 662, 8/15/1888: "If, my dear brother, I let myself get more carried away, I'd always do that, I'd drink with the first person to come along and I'd paint him -- and not in watercolours but in oils, on the spot, like Daumier."

Context:
JLB 657, 8/8/1888: "I've worked on another figure of a Zouave, sitting on a bench against a white wall, which makes the fifth figure."

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: " That bronzed, feline head of his with the reddish cap, against a green door and the orange bricks of a wall. So it's a savage combination of incongruous tones, not easy to manage. The study I made of it seems to me very harsh, but all the same I'd like always to be working on vulgar, even loud portraits like this."
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "I've stuck his very tanned, feline head, wearing a bright red cap, in front of a door painted green and the orange bricks of a wall. So it's a coarse combination of disparate tones that isn't easy to handle -- the study I did of it seems very hard to me, and yet I'd always like to work on portraits that are vulgar, even garish like that one."

Context:
BVG B8, 6/23/1888: "What I've been doing looks very ugly -- a drawing of a seated Zouave, a painted sketch of the Zouave against a completely white wall, and finally his portrait against a green door and some orange bricks in a wall. It is harsh, and taking it all in all, ugly and unsuccessful."
JLB 632, 6/26/1888: "What I've done is very ugly: a drawing of the Zouave, seated, a painted sketch of the Zouave against an all-white wall and lastly his portrait against a green door and some orange bricks of a wall. It's harsh and, well, ugly and badly done." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: "The study I made of it seems to me very harsh, but all the same I'd like always to be working on vulgar, even loud portraits like this. It teaches me something, and above all that is what I want of my work."
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "… the study I did of it seems very hard to me, and yet I'd always like to work on portraits that are vulgar, even garish like that one. It teaches me, and that's what I ask of my work above all."

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: "The study I made of it seems to me very harsh, but all the same I'd like always to be working on vulgar, even loud portraits like this. It teaches me something, and above all that is what I want of my work."
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "…the study I did of it seems very hard to me, and yet I'd always like to work on portraits that are vulgar, even garish like that one. It teaches me, and that's what I ask of my work above all."

Context:
JLB 632, 6/26/1888: "Ah -- E. Delacroix's beautiful painting ... [Christ] with his pale lemon halo -- sleeping, luminous -- within the dramatic violet, dark blue, blood-red patch of the group of stunned disciples. On the terrifying emerald sea, rising, rising all the way up to the top of the frame. Ah -- the brilliant sketch. I would make you some croquis were it not that having drawn and painted for three or four days with a model -- a Zouave -- I'm exhausted." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG B8, 6/23/1888: "Yet, because I was tackling a real difficulty with it, it may pave the way for the future."
JLB 632, 6/26/1888: "However, since that's the real difficulty attacked, it may smooth the way in the future."

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: " Now if you know what a "mousmé" is (you will find out when you read Loti's Madame Chrysanthème), I have just painted one."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: " Now, if you know what a 'mousmé' is (you'll know when you've read Loti's Madame Chrysanthème), I've just painted one."

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "Now if you know what a "mousmé" is (you will find out when you read Loti's Madame Chrysanthème), I have just painted one. It took me a whole week, and I haven't been able to do anything else, because I still haven't been too well."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "Now, if you know what a 'mousmé' is (you'll know when you've read Loti's Madame Chrysanthème), I've just painted one. It took me my whole week, I wasn't able to do anything else, having been not too well again."

Context:
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "The matt areas of flesh are yellow grey, the hair purplish, the eyebrows black, and the eyelashes, the eyes orange and Prussian blue; a sprig of oleander between the fingers, because the 2 hands are included."

Context:
JLB 653, 7/31/1888: "She sits in a cane chair, a blood-red and violet striped jacket, a deep blue skirt with orange dots, a branch of oleander in her hand."

Context:
JLB 653, 7/31/1888: "She sits in a cane chair, a blood-red and violet striped jacket, a deep blue skirt with orange dots, a branch of oleander in her hand."

Context:
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "The portrait of a young girl is on a white background strongly tinted with Veronese green, the bodice is striped blood-red and purple."

Context:
BVG 521, 8/9/1888: "I saw another very quiet and lovely thing the other day, a girl with a coffee-tinted skin, if I remember correctly, ash-blonde hair, gray eyes, a print bodice of pale pink under which you could see the breasts, shapely, firm and small. This against the emerald leaves of some fig trees. A woman as simple as the herds, every line of her virgin."
JLB 658, 8/9/1888: "I saw another very tranquil and quite beautiful thing the other day, a young girl with a café au lait complexion -- if I remember rightly -- ash-blonde hair, grey eyes. Bodice of pale printed calico, under which you could see her high, firm little breasts. This against the emerald foliage of the fig trees. A real countrywoman, a great virginal look."

Context:
JLB 658, 8/9/1888: "A real countrywoman, a great virginal look."

Context:
JLB 635, 7/1/1888: "Far from my complaining about it, it's precisely at these moments in artistic life, even if it's not the real one, that I feel almost as happy as I could be in the ideal, the real life."

Context:
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "I regret that he has a nervous movement in his legs when he poses."

Context:
BVG 506, 7/9/1888: "I have come back from a day at Montmajour, and my friend the second lieutenant was with me. We explored the old garden together and stole some excellent figs."
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "I've just come back from a day at Montmajour, and my friend the second lieutenant kept me company. So the two of us explored the old garden and we stole some excellent figs there."

Context:
BVG 506, 7/9/1888: "If it had been bigger it would have made me think of Zola's Paradou, great reeds, vines, ivy, fig trees, olives, pomegranates with lusty flowers of the brightest orange, hundred-year-old cypresses, ash trees and willows, rock oaks, half-broken flights of steps, ogive windows in ruins, blocks of white rock covered with lichen, and scattered fragments of crumbling walls here and there among the greenery. I brought back another big drawing, but not of the garden."
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "If it had been bigger it would have made you think of Zola's Paradou, tall reeds, grape vines, ivy, fig trees, olive trees, pomegranate trees with fat flowers of the brightest orange, hundred-year-old cypresses, ash trees and willows, rock oaks. Half-demolished staircases, ruined Gothic windows, clumps of white rock covered in lichen, and pieces of collapsed wall scattered here and there in the undergrowth; I brought back another large drawing of it. Not of the garden, though."

Context:
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "If it had been bigger it would have made you think of Zola's Paradou, tall reeds, grape vines, ivy, fig trees, olive trees, pomegranate trees with fat flowers of the brightest orange, hundred-year-old cypresses, ash trees and willows, rock oaks."

Context:
BVG 541a, 9/26/1888: "I am also working on a portrait of Milliet, but he poses badly, or I may be at fault myself, which, however, I do not believe, as I am sorely in want of some studies of him, for he is a good-looking boy, very unconcerned and easy-going in his behaviour, and he would suit me damned well for the picture of a lover."
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "I'm also working on the portrait of Milliet, but he poses badly, or else it's my fault, which I don't believe, however, because I badly need some studies of him because he's good-looking, very jaunty, very easy-going in his appearance, and he'd suit me down to the ground for a painting of lovers."

Context:
BVG 525, 8/15/1888: "He has been very nice to me, particularly these last few days."
JLB 662, 8/15/1888: "He has been very kind to me, particularly these past few days."

Context:
JLB 658, 8/9/1888: "I think it's likely that we're going to have great heat now, with no wind, the wind having blown for 6 weeks."

Context:
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "I brought back another large drawing of it. Not of the garden, though. That makes 3 drawings; when I have half dozen, will send them."

The second garden was a " small farmhouse garden" that Vincent painted (Garden Behind a House [F 578 JH 1538]) and drew (A Garden with Flowers [F 1456 JH 1537]) in late July and early August (JLB 657, 8/8/1888). Vincent thought highly of the latter drawing and took great pains to describe it to his brother, filling in with words the colors missing from the pen drawing: "This vertical small farmhouse garden is superbly coloured in reality. The dahlias are a rich and dark purple, the double row of flowers is pink and green on one side and orange almost without greenery on the other. In the middle a low, white dahlia and a little pomegranate tree, with flowers of the most brilliant orange red, yellow-green fruit, the ground grey, the tall reeds -- 'canes' -- of a blue green, the fig trees emerald, the sky blue, the houses white with green windows, red roofs. In full sun in the morning, in the evening entirely bathed in shadow cast by the fig trees and reeds." (JLB 657, 8/8/1888; emphasis in original; see also JLB 658, 8/9/1888.)

The third garden was the little island of flowers surrounded by a sandy path outside a "bathing establishment" that is featured in one of the most spectacular drawings from Arles, Garden with Sunflowers (F 1457 JH 1539) (see Ch. 31, n. 398). A drawing of the first of these gardens (Garden with Flowers [F 1455 JH 1512]), is sometimes attributed to the earlier, mid-July period, but it appears to be the third of the "big drawings" that Vincent sent to Theo in early August and thus it represents a return to the garden that was the subject of Flowering Garden (F 430 JH 1510) and Flowering Garden with Path (F 429 JH 1513) ("the one of which I've also done some painted studies" [JLB 657, 8/8/1888]).

Context:
JLB 657, 8/8/1888: "The vertical small farmhouse garden is, it seems to me, the best of the three large ones. The one with the sunflowers is the little garden of a bathhouse. The third, horizontal, garden is the one of which I've also done some painted studies."

Context:
BVG 506, 7/9/1888: "If it had been bigger it would have made me think of Zola's Paradou, great reeds, vines, ivy, fig trees, olives, pomegranates with lusty flowers of the brightest orange, hundred-year-old cypresses, ash trees and willows, rock oaks ..."
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "If it had been bigger it would have made you think of Zola's Paradou, tall reeds, grape vines, ivy, fig trees, olive trees, pomegranate trees with fat flowers of the brightest orange, hundred-year-old cypresses, ash trees and willows, rock oaks."

Context:
JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888: "And it's true I didn't know he had so large a family; he'll more likely wish to stay in the north for that reason."

Context:
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "He says that when sailors have to move a heavy load or raise an anchor, in order to be able to lift a greater weight, to be able to make an enormous effort, they all sing together to support each other and to give each other energy. That it's just what artists lack."

Context:
BVG 496, 6/12/1888: "He speaks of some hopes he has of finding a capital of 600,000 francs to set up as a dealer in impressionist pictures, and that he will explain his plan, and would like you to head the enterprise."
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "He talks about a hope he has of finding capital of six hundred thousand francs to set up a dealer in Impressionist paintings, and that he would explain his plan and that he'd like you to be at the head of this business."

Context:
JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888: "I don't wish to discuss Gauguin's plan ..."

Context:
BVG 496, 6/12/1888: "I should not be surprised if this hope is a fata morgana, a mirage of destitution, the more destitute you are -- especially if you are ill -- the more you think of such possibilities."
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "I shouldn't be surprised if that hope is a fata Morgana, a mirage that goes with being broke. The more broke you are -- especially when you're ill -- the more you think of such possibilities."

Context:
BVG 496, 6/12/1888: "I should not be surprised if this hope is a fata morgana, a mirage of destitution, the more destitute you are -- especially if you are ill -- the more you think of such possibilities."
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "I shouldn't be surprised if that hope is a fata Morgana, a mirage that goes with being broke. The more broke you are -- especially when you're ill -- the more you think of such possibilities."

This last comment is a curious one. Is Vincent pleased by the prospect that Thomas would buy a Gauguin if he knew about the combination or does he think that Thomas would be more likely to buy Vincent's drawings if he did not know about the planned combination? If Vincent is, in fact, suggesting that sales are a zero-sum game and that Gauguin's good fortune might come at his expense, wouldn't competitiveness inevitably follow? The answer becomes clear only a week later. When Gauguin resists leaving Pont-Aven with the haughty declaration: "I'm alive and well and my talent's in full flow," Vincent responds with an acid combination of mockery and rivalry: "If he says 'I'm alive and well and my talent's in full flow' -- why should I not say the same thing myself?" (JLB 645, 7/22/1888). Rivalry, of course, leads to suspicion.

In August, Vincent wonders why Gauguin has left him " absolutely in the dark" in response to Vincent's generous offer to come to Pont-Aven: "by his silence toward my letters he accepts my offer to go to him if need be, but he writes me nothing about ways of finding a studio of our own there, or the price that furniture would cost. And that does seem strange to me." (JLB 664, 8/19/1888.) Queer, indeed. Even before Gauguin arrives in Arles, Vincent is already suspicious of his motivations. "I instinctively feel that Gauguin is a calculating person," Vincent writes in September. "[S]eeing himself at the bottom of the social ladder, [he] wishes to regain a position by means that will be honest, to be sure, but which will be very shrewd. " (JLB 682, 9/18/1888.) This is the same viscosity and hypersensitivity that Vincent has directed toward Theo in the past, to such corrosive effect. It is also an early sign of the dangerous brother-surrogate dynamic that shipwrecked all of Vincent's previous friendships.

Context:
BVG 504, 7/7/1888: "I am very curious to know what Gauguin will do. The great thing is not to discourage him, but I think all the same that his whole plan is nothing but a freak."
JLB 631, 6/25/1888: "I'm quite curious to know what Gauguin will do -- the main thing is not to discourage him -- I still think his whole plan was just a whim."

Context:
JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888: "I'm well aware that in his there is this passage 'I ask (underlined) if, the capital having been raised for the most part, your brother would use his efforts to make a success of the business and to be its director.' I'm well aware that he also writes, 'I accept your proposal in principle.'" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888: "When in doubt, it's better to abstain -- that, I believe, is what I said in the letter to Gauguin, and that's what I believe now, having read his reply. If he, for his part, returns to the proposal -- he's perfectly free to return to it -- but we'd look I'm not quite sure what, if for the moment we pressed the point, to make him say yes."

Context:
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "If Gauguin would prefer to take the risk of throwing himself back into business at this point -- if he really has hopes of doing something in Paris -- for Heaven's sake let him go there."

Context:
BVG 496, 6/12/1888: " it is so wretched when your health begins to bother you. I think myself that the most solid asset Gauguin has now is his painting, and the best business he could do -- his own pictures."
JLB 623, 6/12/1888: "But it's so bad, when you start having trouble with your health you can no longer risk sudden impulses, and I think Gauguin's most solid asset is now his painting, and the best business he could do, his own paintings."

Context:
BVG 498, 6/15/1888: "But if Gauguin and his Jewish bankers came tomorrow and asked me for no more than 10 pictures for a society of dealers, and not a society of artists, on my word I do not know if I'd have confidence in it, though I would willingly give 50 to a society of artists."
JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888: "But if tomorrow Gauguin and his banker Jews come and ask me for nothing but 10 paintings for a society of dealers and not a society of artists, well, I don't know if I'd trust them -- I who would be glad, on the other hand, to give 50 to a society of artists."

Context:
JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888: "And I categorically withdraw from it, and the only question for me remains quite simply this: If I looked for a pal to work with, would I be doing the right thing, would this be more beneficial to my brother and me, would the pal lose or would he gain by it?"

Context:
JLB 635, 7/1/1888: "… your letter brings me a big piece of news -- that Gauguin accepts the proposal. Indeed, the best thing would be for him to dash straight over here …"

Context:
JLB 636, 7/5/1888: "I'd have liked to write to Gauguin again, because I fear he may be iller than he says -- his last letter in pencil looked so much that way."

Context:
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: "It seems really strange to me that at present you should have had no news from Gauguin either -- and I presume he's both ill and discouraged."

As it turns out, MacKnight and Boch had gone to Switzerland when Vincent went to see them (JLB 638, 7/10/1888; see Ch. 31, n. 457). Vincent did mail the drawings to Russell and offered to let him pick any one of the paintings illustrated for an elaborately choreographed exchange through Theo (ibid.). He made still more drawings in mid-July and wrote a letter to Russell asking "how it was going with his health and his work" (JLB 644, 7/17/1888-7/20/1888), but heard nothing until the end of the month when he received a less-than-enthusiastic response to his campaign: "[Russell's] not refusing to buy one [of Gauguin's paintings], but is making it understood that he wouldn't want poorer quality than ours. You see that this is in any case better than nothing at all. ... We shouldn't push this business and give up on R[ussell] for the time being, but consider the thing as an ongoing piece of business that will come off." (JLB 650, 7/29/1888.)

Context:
JLB 637, 7/8/1888 or 7/9/1888: "I'll write to Russell again, while at the same time thinking I'd do better to wait for his reply."

Context:
JLB 652, 7/31/1888: "I'm working hard for Russell. I thought I'd do a series of drawings after my painted studies for him; I have a conviction that he'll look favourably on them, and that, I hope at least, will further prompt him to do a deal." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "I've sent you a roll of drawings. If you went to see Thomas with these, and added the (I believe there are 4 of them) other drawings in the same format, perhaps we'd pick up a few sous from père Thomas if you explain to him the rather exceptional reasons there are at this moment for our wanting to do a deal."

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "For the 2nd exhibition at the showroom on boul. de Clichy [i.e., the Restaurant du Chalet], I have fewer regrets about the time and effort. Bernard having sold his first painting there, Anquetin having sold a study there, and I having made the exchange with Gauguin, we all got something. If Gauguin were willing we could do a Marseille exhibition all the same. But better not rely any more on the people of Marseille than on Paris."

In his terror of Theo's abandonment, Vincent even offers to accompany Theo to America if he decides to go: "Would you like me to go to America with you? It would be only right that those gentlemen paid my fare. There are many things that wouldn't matter to me one way or the other, but not that -- that you didn't first build up your health properly." (ibid.) And he displays an astonishing, and not entirely credible, willingness to abandon his plans for the Yellow House: "Think carefully before you agree to everything the Goupils demand, and if that brought a change for me, really, now my health's improving I could work anywhere, and don't have an idée fixe about work. ... I'd rather give up my painting than see you wear yourself out to earn money. We need it of course, but have we reached the point where we have to go and look for it so far away?" (ibid.) The very next day, however, Vincent writes again begging his brother in the most pathetic terms not to leave: "Travelling wears you out, and most of all, it unsettles the brain more than can be good for you. In any case, I'd feel it was my fault, telling myself that it's my needs for money that are driving you to it. No -- it's not good." (JLB 617, 5/29/1888 or 5/30/1888.)

Context:
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: "If I was younger I'd certainly feel like suggesting to père Boussod to send us, you and me, to London, without any salary other than 200 francs credit a month, but half of the profit on Impressionist paintings, for which they could deduct this salary of 200."

Context:
JLB 640, 7/15/1888: "I hadn't counted on a 100-franc note among the 50-franc ones this month, knowing that you're grappling with the Gauguin business and the arrival of our sisters. So I'll get by somehow this month."

But only about a week later, he added this pragmatic caveat: "Of course -- it would be better in my opinion too if Gauguin came here -- for that reason of the coming winter" (JLB 637, 7/8/1888 or 7/9/1888). Vincent is still wrestling with his conflicted feelings on this subject in August. He writes with obvious resignation at the beginning of the month: "At times it nevertheless seems likely to me that I'll have to make the journey myself if Gauguin doesn't manage to sort out the mess he's in, if we want to put the plan into practice. And then so be it, I'm still among peasants anyway, it's the same." (JLB 657, 8/8/1888.) And then again only a few days later: "I think about Gauguin a lot, and I assure you that one way or another, whether it's he who comes here, or I who go to him, he and I will both like more or less the same subjects. I've no doubts about being able to work at Pont-Aven, and on the other hand, am convinced that he'll like this scenery here enormously." (JLB 658, 8/9/1888.) In the very next letter, however, after receiving Bernard's report on his visit to Gauguin in Pont-Aven which conspicuously omitted any reference to a trip either by Gauguin to Arles or Vincent to Pont-Aven, Vincent angrily withdraws his offer to travel north unless a demanding set of conditions is met: "I'm therefore quite resolved not to go to Pont-Aven, unless there too we were to find a house at the low end of prices (15 francs a month is the price of mine), and unless we were to set ourselves up in it so as to be able to sleep there" (JLB 664, 8/19/1888).

Context:
BVG 513, 7/22/1888: " If Gauguin cannot pay his debts nor his fare, if he can guarantee me a cheaper life in Brittany -- why shouldn't I go to him if we want to help him?"
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: " If G. can't pay his debt nor pay for his journey -- If he guarantees me a cheaper life in Brittany -- Why should I not, for my part, go and live with him, if we want to help him?"

Context:
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "Gauguin's bored too in Pont-Aven; complains about isolation, like you."

Context:
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "… for ourselves let's keep a total indifference regarding success or failure."

Context:
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "It's so true what he says: You believe, unfortunate souls, that when the artist has mastered his talent and gained his reputation, that then he's home and dry? On the contrary, from that moment on he isn't allowed to produce a thing that isn't good in every way. His very reputation obliges him to take all the more care over his work as chances of sales diminish."

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "At the least sign of weakness, the whole jealous pack will fall on him and destroy that very reputation and the faith that the changeable and treacherous public has temporarily had in him."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "At the least sign of weakness the whole jealous pack falls on him and destroys precisely that reputation and that faith that a fickle and treacherous public briefly had in him."

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "I already told Gauguin in my last letter that if we painted like Bouguereau we could hope to make money by it, but that the public will never change, and it likes only easy, pretty things. With a more austere talent, you cannot count on profit from your work; most of the people intelligent enough to like and understand impressionist pictures are and will remain too poor to buy them. Will Gauguin or I work the less for that? -- no -- but we shall be forced to submit deliberately to poverty and social isolation."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "I also told Gauguin that in my last letter. That if we painted like Bouguereau, that we could then hope to earn -- but that the public will never change and only likes soft and smooth things. With a more austere talent, you can't depend on the product of your labours; most of the people intelligent enough to understand and love Impressionist paintings are and will remain too poor to buy. Will Gauguin or I work less for that -- no -- but we'll be obliged to accept poverty and social isolation as a prior condition."

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "I can already see that Gauguin is hoping for success, he cannot do without Paris, he does not realize the eternity of poverty."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "I realize already that Gauguin hopes for success -- he couldn't do without Paris, he doesn't foresee the infinity of poverty" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "Will Gauguin or I work the less for that? – no -- but we shall be forced to submit deliberately to poverty and social isolation."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "Will Gauguin or I work less for that -- no -- but we'll be obliged to accept poverty and social isolation as a prior condition."

"Gauguin will never give up the battle of Paris; he has that too much at heart, and believes in a lasting success more than I do. That won't do me any harm; on the contrary, perhaps I despair too much. So let's leave him this illusion, but let's be aware that what he'll always need is lodgings, and his daily bread, and paint. That's where the chink in his armour is, and it's because he's getting into debt now that he'll be done for beforehand. By coming to his aid, the two of us make his victory in Paris possible, in fact. ... I realize already that Gauguin hopes for success -- he couldn't do without Paris, he doesn't foresee the infinity of poverty. You understand how far in these circumstances it's absolutely one and the same to me to stay here or to leave. We have to allow him to fight his battle. He'll win it, what's more. Too far from Paris, he would think himself idle. But for ourselves let's keep a total indifference regarding success or failure." (JLB 660, 8/13/1888; emphasis in original.)

This all sounds suspiciously rhetorical. It is hard to believe that Vincent's ambitions for commercial success suffered such a sudden and complete collapse. Did he really give up the idea of selling paintings for good prices and accept the " infinity of poverty"? Why would Vincent strike this posture with Theo? Is he just trying to convince him that he, Vincent, is reformed in his ambitions and accepting of a life of penury? Does he expect Theo to believe that, as a monk, he will no longer place demands on Theo's purse or pressure him to sell Vincent's work? He understands that this will not be an attractive picture to Gauguin, so he goes on to characterize this picture as a kind of "insider understanding" with Theo: i.e., the brothers both understand that there is not much chance of success in this enterprise, but they won't talk to Gauguin that way. They'll let him keep his "illusions" of success -- and by doing so, paradoxically, they will improve his chances of success. (Note that the effect of this insider understanding is to prevent Theo from emphasizing to Gauguin the bleak picture that Vincent knows will discourage him from coming.)

This argument may be a convoluted attempt to reconcile two different agendas: Vincent knows that Gauguin is not attracted to his vision of two monks withstanding a "siege by failure" and the " infinity of poverty" but he also knows that Theo does not want to raise either Vincent's or Gauguin's hopes too high. So Vincent formulates this argument to give both Theo and Gauguin what they want: Gauguin gets to keep his delusions of grandeur and Theo is protected from the backlash of Vincent's dashed hopes.

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "Well, Gauguin and I must look ahead, we must contrive to have a roof over our heads, beds, in short, the absolute necessities, to stand the siege of failure which will last all our lives and we must settle down in the cheapest place. Then we shall get the quiet which is necessary if we are to produce much, even if we sell little or nothing."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "Well, Gauguin and I must look ahead, we must work at getting a roof over our heads, beds; the essentials, in short, to endure the siege by failure that will last the whole of our life. And we must settle down in the least expensive place. Then we'll have the peace of mind needed to produce a large amount, even if we sell little or nothing." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "According to the excellent master Ziem, a man becomes ambitious the moment he can't get a hard-on. Now, while it's more or less the same to me whether or not I can get a hard-on, I protest when it must inevitably lead me to ambition." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: " But I neither care about success for myself nor about happiness; I do care about the permanence of this vigorous attempt by the impressionists, I do care about this question of shelter and daily bread for them."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "But I don't care about my success nor about my happiness, I care about the continuation of the energetic undertakings of the Impressionists, I care about this question of a refuge and of daily bread for them."

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "I can already see that Gauguin is hoping for success, he cannot do without Paris, he does not realize the eternity of poverty."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "I realize already that Gauguin hopes for success -- he couldn't do without Paris, he doesn't foresee the infinity of poverty" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 664, 8/19/1888: "I've just received a letter from Bernard, who joined Gauguin, Laval and someone else at Pont-Aven several days ago. In this letter, which is very kind by the way, there isn't, however, a syllable about whether Gauguin intends joining me, nor another syllable, moreover, asking me to go there. All the same, the letter was very friendly."

Context:
BVG 523+522a, 8/18/1888: "It was a very decent letter, but not one syllable in it about Gauguin intending to join me, and not a syllable either about wanting me to come there."
JLB 664, 8/19/1888: "In this letter, which is very kind by the way, there isn't, however, a syllable about whether Gauguin intends joining me, nor another syllable, moreover, asking me to go there."

Context:
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "Remember that with Gauguin we should in no way change the idea of coming to his aid if the proposal is acceptable as it stands, but we don't need him. So, as far as working alone goes, don't believe that it bothers me, and don't press the matter for me, be fully assured of that." (Emphasis in original.)

About the same time, he began difficult negotiations to paint a portrait of the peasant Patience Escalier -- like Roulin, a far cry from his preferred female models (JLB 657, 8/8/1888). He goes to the local washing place and watches enviously the "figures of women as broad as Gauguin's negresses ... a good thirty of them, young and old," go about their work (ibid.). He contents himself with his old, male models but not without bitter complaints about lack of funds to buy betters models, replaying previous episodes in The Hague and Nuenen: "If I have models, then I suffer considerably as a result. ... if by chance you sometimes sent me a little more money, that would benefit the paintings, but not me." (JLB 663, 8/18/1888.) In another letter in August, it becomes clear that he continued to try to recruit female models, whatever the cost, and continued to fail: "I fear that I won't have a very fine female model. She had promised, then as it appears, she earned a few sous with some riotous living and has better things to do. She was extraordinary; her expression was like that of Delacroix. And a strange, primitive bearing. I take things with patience, for want of seeing other ways of enduring them, but it's annoying, this constant aggravation with models." (JLB 660, 8/13/1888; emphasis in original.)

He also reveals that it isn't just money that prevents models from posing, it is his unlikeable art: "If we painted smoothly like Bouguereau people wouldn't be ashamed to let themselves be painted, but I believe it's made me lose models, that people found that it was 'badly done,' it was only pictures full of painting that I was doing. So the good whores are afraid of being compromised, and that people will laugh at their portraits. But it's enough to make you almost lose heart when you feel that you could do things if people had more good will. I can't resign myself to saying, 'grapes are sour,' I can't get over the fact that I don't have more models." (ibid.; emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "I'm not angry with the human race because they think I'm this or that -- I freely admit in advance that they're absolutely right, but it saddens me that I don't have enough power to get what I want to pose for me, where I want and for as long or as short as I want."

At the end of every month, when Vincent had to pay the rent, cries of pain inevitably arrived in Paris: "The week will be pretty hard, having to pay the rent and having a model" (JLB 650, 7/29/1888; emphasis in original). Theo's reaction to Vincent's out-of-control expenditures appears to have been a combination of skepticism and pragmatism. Because Vincent repeatedly blamed his empty purse on the costs of paint and canvas, which he consumed in copious quantities, Theo recommended that Vincent not paint so fast, pointing out that producing so many works not only consumed more material, it made selling them harder. Vincent, of course, vigorously and elaborately rejects this argument: "Certainly neither [Louis Gustave] Ricards nor Leonardo da Vincis are less beautiful because there are few of them -- on the other hand, Monticellis, Daumiers, Corots, Daubignys and Millets aren't ugly because in many cases they were done at great speed and there are relatively many of them. As for landscapes, I'm beginning to find that some, done more quickly than ever, are among the best things I do." (JLB 635, 7/1/1888.)

At the same time, Vincent mounts a somewhat contrary defense that a tremendous number of "complicated calculations" go into his hasty images (ibid.; see Chapter 31). For this argument, Vincent recruited such disparate figures as Monticelli ("the logical colourist"), Delacroix, and the composer Richard Wagner (ibid.). (Vincent was reading a biography of Wagner around this time [JLB 621, 6/5/1888 or 6/6/1888].) Rather snidely, Vincent tells Theo that if anyone suggests one of his paintings was done too quickly, "you'll be able to reply that they looked at them too quickly" -- a riposte that could not have been reassuring to his dealer brother (JLB 635, 7/1/1888). Soon thereafter, however, in July, Vincent appears to take Theo's cautions to heart and switches to working more with paper and pen. He tells Theo that he does so in order to have "colours and canvas in reserve for the time when Gauguin comes," but he also seems to admit that his speed of execution produces a lot of mistakes, and therefore wastes paint and canvas: "I believe that at this moment I'm doing the right thing by working chiefly on drawings, ... I very much wish we could rein ourselves in as little with paint as with pen and paper. Because I'm afraid of wasting paint, I often spoil a painted study. With paper -- if it's not a letter I'm writing but a drawing I'm doing -- it hardly ever goes wrong: so many sheets of Whatman [paper], so many drawings. I think if I were rich I'd spend less than now." (JLB 638, 7/10/1888.)

In another place, he blames the Mistral for his high rate of "going wrong" (and consequent expense of materials) (JLB 639, 7/13/1888). In still another argument, which also harks back to previous campaigns of justification for his art and his expenses, Vincent insists that quantity is the surest route to quality: "You'll see that when there's a large number of them [studies], and we make a choice among them, it will come to the same thing as if I'd studied them more and worked on them longer. Because to do a subject over and over again on the same canvas or on several canvases comes, in short, to the same degree of seriousness." (JLB 648, 7/24/1888 or 7/25/1888.)

"So Japanese art, properly speaking, already with its place in collections, already impossible to find in Japan itself, is becoming of secondary interest. But this doesn't mean that if I had a single day in which I could see Paris again I wouldn't call at Bing's precisely to go and see the Hokusais and other drawings from the true period. What Bing himself, by the way, also said to me when I so much admired the run-of-the-mill Japanese prints, that later I'd see that there's also something else. Loti's book, Mme Chrysanthème, taught me this: the apartments are bare, without decorations or ornaments. And it was that that awakened my curiosity about the excessively synthetic drawings of another period. Which are probably to our Japanese prints what a sober Millet is to a Monticelli." (JLB 642, 7/15/1888.) Vincent responds with horror to Theo's plan to close the account with Bing: " But to break off our relations with Bing -- oh no, never that. Japanese art is something like the primitives, like the Greeks, like our old Dutchmen, Rembrandt, [Paulus] Potter, Hals, Vermeer, [Van] Ostade, Ruisdael. It doesn't end." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) These passages say as much about Vincent's defensiveness over his financial errancy in Paris as they do about his art.

Context:
JLB 642, 7/15/1888: "I've just read Victor Hugo's L'année terrible."

Context:
JLB 639, 7/13/1888: "… not everyone would have the patience to let themselves be eaten up by the mosquitoes, and to struggle against this infuriating nuisance of the constant mistral, not to mention that I've spent whole days out of doors with a bit of bread and some milk, it being too far to be going back to town all the time."

Context:
JLB 663, 8/18/1888: "Yes, I'm as well now as other men, which I have only been briefly -- in Nuenen, for example -- and that's not disagreeable. By 'other men' I mean a bit like the road-menders on strike, père Tanguy, père Millet, the peasants. If you're well, you should be able to live on a piece of bread, while working the whole day long, and still having the strength to smoke and to drink your glass; you need that in these conditions. And still to feel the stars and the infinite, clearly, up there. Then life is almost magical, after all." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 513, 7/22/1888: " If I were to think of and dwell on disastrous possibilities, I could do nothing. I throw myself headlong into my work, and come up again with my studies; if the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass too much to stun myself."
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: " If I thought about, if I dwelled on the disastrous possibilities, I could do nothing -- I throw myself into work with abandon, I re-emerge from it with my studies; if the storm within roars too loudly, I drink a glass too many to stun myself."

Context:
JLB 639, 7/13/1888: "And not everyone would have the patience to let themselves be eaten up by the mosquitoes, and to struggle against this infuriating nuisance of the constant mistral, not to mention that I've spent whole days out of doors with a bit of bread and some milk, it being too far to be going back to town all the time."

Context:
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "I look different nowadays, in so far as I no longer have either hair or beard, both being always shaved off close; further, my complexion has changed from green-grey pink to grey-orange, and I have a white suit instead of a blue one, and am always dusty, always more laden like a porcupine with sticks, easel, canvas, and other merchandise."

Context:
BVG 513, 7/22/1888: "All it has cost me is a carcass pretty well destroyed and wits pretty well crazed, and only to lead the same life I might lead if I were a philanthropist."
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: " It's only cost me my broken-down carcass -- my mind pretty well cracked as far as living as I could and should goes -- living like a philanthropist."

Context:
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "Everything one hopes for in terms of independence through one's work, of influence on others, absolutely nothing comes of it."

Context:
BVG 513, 7/22/1888: "All it has cost you is, say, 15,000 francs, which you have advanced to me."
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: "It's only cost you, let's say, around fifteen thousand francs that you've advanced me."

Context:
JLB 630, 6/23/1888: "It quite often makes me feel sad that painting's like a bad mistress one might have, who's always spending, spending and it's never enough, and to say to myself that even if there happens to be a passable study from time to time, it would be much less expensive to buy them from others."

Context:
BVG B8, 6/23/1888: "Yet our own life is a modest one indeed, our life as painters, languishing under the back-breaking yoke of the problems of a calling that is almost too hard to practise on this ungrateful planet, where 'love of art drives out true love.'"
JLB 632, 6/26/1888: "Nevertheless -- our own real life -- is humble indeed -- our life as painters. Stagnating under the stupefying yoke of the difficulties of a craft almost impossible to practise on this so hostile planet, on the surface of which 'love of art makes one lose real love.'"

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "Considering, if you like, the time in which we live a great and true renaissance of art, the worm-eaten official tradition still alive but really impotent and inactive, the new painters isolated, poor, treated like madmen, and because of this treatment actually becoming so, at least as far as their social life is concerned."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "Considering, if you will, the times in which we live as a true and great revival of art, the moth-eaten and official tradition, which is still on its feet, but which is at bottom powerless and bone-idle, the new painters, alone, poor, treated like madmen and as a result of this treatment becoming so in fact, at least as far as their social life is concerned."

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "Considering, if you like, the time in which we live a great and true renaissance of art, the worm-eaten official tradition still alive but really impotent and inactive, the new painters isolated, poor, treated like madmen, and because of this treatment actually becoming so, at least as far as their social life is concerned."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "Considering, if you will, the times in which we live as a true and great revival of art, the moth-eaten and official tradition, which is still on its feet, but which is at bottom powerless and bone-idle, the new painters, alone, poor, treated like madmen and as a result of this treatment becoming so in fact, at least as far as their social life is concerned."

Context:
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: "I've just taken thirty or so painted studies off their stretching frames."

Context:
JLB 648, 7/24/1888 or 7/25/1888: "At the moment I have something like an exhibition at my place, in the sense that I've taken all the studies off the stretching frames and have nailed them to the wall to finish drying."

Context:
BVG 513, 7/22/1888: "If I reminded you just now of what painting costs us, it is only to emphasize what we ought to tell ourselves -- that we have gone too far to turn back, that's all I harp on."
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: "If I was reminding you just now what painting costs us, it was only to emphasize what it is that we have to say to ourselves, that we've gone too far to turn back -- and for the rest, I don't put the emphasis on anything."

Context:
BVG 513, 7/22/1888: "That is why I almost dare to swear to you that my painting will improve. Because I have nothing left but that."
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: "And that's why I dare almost give you an assurance that my painting will become better. Because that's all I have left."

Context:
BVG 502, 6/23/1888: "The other thing, the hope of doing better, is rather a fata morgana too. But there is no quick remedy for all this, unless sometime or another you can join hands with a good worker, and produce more together."
JLB 630, 6/23/1888: "The rest, the hope of doing better, is also a bit of a fata Morgana. Well, there's not much remedy for all that, unless some day or other one could enter into an association with a good worker and produce more together."

Context:
BVG 523+522a, 8/18/1888: "Under the present conditions, though I am spending money, I haven't even what is necessary, and I do not feel I have strength enough left to go on like this for long. If Gauguin can find the same opportunity at Pont-Aven, it's all right; but I'll tell you this, once here and this expense over, the work would be done. The sun here counts for a good deal. As it is, I am going to pieces and killing myself."
JLB 664, 8/19/1888: "Under the present circumstances, even while spending, I don't have what's barely essential, and I no longer feel in myself the strength to go on very long like that. If Gauguin can find the same opportunity at Pont-Aven, that's fine, but I tell you the costs here, for which, once this expenditure has been made, plenty of hard work will have been done. The sun down here means a good deal, all the same. As things are, I'm ruining myself and I'm wearing myself out."

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: " You see what I have found -- my work; and you see too what I have not found -- all the rest that belongs to life. And the future? Either I shall become wholly indifferent to all that does not belong to the work of painting, or ... I dare not expatiate on the theme, seeing that this becoming exclusively a painting machine, unfit for and uninterested in anything else, may be so much better or worse than the average."
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: " You see what I've found, my work, and you also see what I haven't found, everything else that's part of life. And the future? Either become wholly abstracted from whatever isn't the work or ... I dare not elaborate on that 'or' because becoming nothing but a work machine, unfit for and indifferent to all the rest, could be either better or worse than that average"

Context:
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "I daren't give way to my desire to write to you often or to encourage this on your part. All this correspondence doesn't always help to keep us, who are of a nervous disposition, strong in cases of possible immersions in melancholy of the kind you refer to in your letter and which I myself have too every now and then."

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "Considering, if you like, the time in which we live a great and true renaissance of art, the worm-eaten official tradition still alive but really impotent and inactive, the new painters isolated, poor, treated like madmen, and because of this treatment actually becoming so, at least as far as their social life is concerned."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "Considering, if you will, the times in which we live as a true and great revival of art, the moth-eaten and official tradition, which is still on its feet, but which is at bottom powerless and bone-idle, the new painters, alone, poor, treated like madmen and as a result of this treatment becoming so in fact, at least as far as their social life is concerned."

This image, like the Émile Wauters painting of the "mad painter" Hugo Van der Goes, has roots in Vincent's imagination that go back to his earliest intimations of insanity. In 1877, driving himself to become a parson, he expatiated on an Old Testament passage foretelling the Apocalypse: "[When]ever the silver bowl be loosed, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall turn unto God Who gave it." (JLB 131, 9/18/1877.) Around the same time, Vincent's father gave a sermon on the same biblical passage (Ecclesiastes, 11:9) (b2561 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 10/6/1877).

Context:
BVG 513, 7/22/1888: " Cracked, of course; when you look at what one ought to be."
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: "It's being crazy, compared with what one ought to be" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 513, 7/22/1888: "My dear brother, if I were not broke and crazy with this blasted painting, what a dealer I'd make just for the impressionists."
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: "My dear brother, if I wasn't all washed up, and driven crazy by this bloody painting, what a dealer I'd still make, with the Impressionists."

Context:
JLB 645, 7/22/1888: "My dear brother, if I wasn't all washed up, and driven crazy by this bloody painting, what a dealer I'd still make, with the Impressionists, I mean."

Context:
JLB 658, 8/9/1888: "Each of us living alone, we live like madmen or criminals, in appearance at least, and to some extent in reality, too."

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "Considering, if you like, the time in which we live a great and true renaissance of art, the worm-eaten official tradition still alive but really impotent and inactive, the new painters isolated, poor, treated like madmen, and because of this treatment actually becoming so, at least as far as their social life is concerned."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "Considering, if you will, the times in which we live as a true and great revival of art, the moth-eaten and official tradition, which is still on its feet, but which is at bottom powerless and bone-idle, the new painters, alone, poor, treated like madmen and as a result of this treatment becoming so in fact, at least as far as their social life is concerned."

Context:
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "Not just my paintings, but I myself most of all, I had recently become wild-eyed, a bit like Hugo van der Goes in the painting by Émile Wauters. But having had all my beard carefully shaved off, I believe that I have as much of the very placid abbot in the same painting as of the mad painter so intelligently depicted in it."

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "Only, having got my whole beard carefully shaved off I think that I am as much like the very placid priest in the same picture as like the mad painter so intelligently portrayed therein."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "But having had all my beard carefully shaved off, I believe that I have as much of the very placid abbot in the same painting as of the mad painter so intelligently depicted in it."

Context:
JLB 11, 7/20/1873: "Be sure, when you get the chance, to write and tell me whether there are photographs after Wauters, besides Hugo van der Goes and Mary of Burgundy, and whether you also know photographs of paintings by [Victor] Lagye and [Ferdinand] De Braekeleer."

Context:
JLB 652, 7/31/1888: "So at last our uncle's no longer suffering -- I received the news from our sister this morning. It seems that they're more or less expecting you for the funeral, and perhaps you'll be there now, in fact. How short life is, and how like smoke. Which isn't a reason to despise the living -- on the contrary."

After his uncle's death at the end of July, however, Vincent's tone changes radically. In his letter of condolence to Wil (intended, undoubtedly, to be read by his mother and sister Lies, as well) he uses the language of consolation to express his resentment against his rich uncle for years of estrangement: "The impression [of his death] on me is very strange because of course I picture the man from memories of so long ago, of much earlier times, and it seems to me so peculiar that someone one has known at such close quarters has become such a stranger" (JLB 653, 7/31/1888). And he musters no warmer an appreciation than this: "it's certain that I feel about it very much as you do" (ibid.). To Theo, he irreverently compares Cent's death to being kicked out of a brothel (JLB 656, 8/6/1888) and coldly summarizes his reaction by citing the most unsentimental of all writers, Voltaire: "The best way of dying otherwise is to esteem the illustrious departed just as he is, as being the best man in the best of possible worlds, where everything is always for the best" (ibid.). The change in attitude (and/or posture) may be an artifact of his growing despair over the setbacks in his quest to bring Gauguin to Arles.

Context:
JLB 644, 7/17/1888-7/20/1888: "What you say about Princenhage, it's true that it's the same story all over again -- but when at long last the fellow isn't there any more, then for his little circle it will be one more emptiness and desolation. And even the rest of us would feel it, because there's something heartbreaking in the fact that when we were younger we saw so much of him, and we were even influenced by him. So, seeing someone whom one has known as very active reduced to that state of suspicious helplessness and constant suffering, it certainly doesn't give you an appealing or cheerful notion of human life, and doesn't add to the joy of living."

Context:
BVG 518, 8/6/1888: "Whence comes it that, in the present instance of our uncle's death, the face of the dead was calm, peaceful, and grave, while it is a fact that while living he was scarcely like that, either in youth or age."
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "Which is why in the present case of our uncle's death, the dead man's face was tranquil, serene and grave."

Context:
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "It's rather odd that our uncle, like our father, believed in the future life. Not to mention our father, I've heard our uncle debating it several times."

Context:
BVG 518, 8/6/1888: "Enough. What is the good of worrying about it? But living in the full tide of civilization, of Paris, of the Arts, why should not one keep this "Ego" of the old women, if women themselves without their instinctive belief that "so it is," would not find strength to create or to act?"
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "That's enough, what's the use of worrying about it? But living in the heart of civilization, in the heart of Paris and the heart of the fine arts, why shouldn't one keep this self of an old woman? If women themselves, without their instinctive belief in an 'it's there,' wouldn't find the strength to create and to act?" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "That's enough, what's the use of worrying about it? But living in the heart of civilization, in the heart of Paris and the heart of the fine arts, why shouldn't one keep this self of an old woman? If women themselves, without their instinctive belief in an 'it's there', wouldn't find the strength to create and to act?" (Emphasis in original.)

About the same time, Vincent wrote Theo with a very different proposition on the possibility of eternity in other worlds, citing the eternal optimist Pangloss of Voltaire's Candide: "The best way of dying otherwise is to esteem the illustrious departed just as he is, as being the best man in the best of possible worlds, where everything is always for the best" (JLB 656, 8/6/1888). It is a signal of his confused state, however, that in the same letter, he appears to deliver his equivalent of Macbeth's famous "Out, out, brief candle" paean to nihilism: "And at the end of my career [perhaps] I'll be wrong. So be it. Then I'll find that not only the fine arts but the rest as well were nothing but dreams, that we were nothing at all ourselves. If we're as lightweight as that, so much the better for us, as nothing would then stand in the way of the limitless possibility of future existence" (emphasis in original). The non sequitur that concludes this passage reveals Vincent's furiously mixed mind on the issue of mortality. To preserve his slipping grip on sanity, he cannot let go of the belief that there is another life in which he will get another chance, and that all the suffering and setbacks of this life will prove "lightweight" and "nothing at all."

Context:
BVG 516, 7/31/1888: "It would be so simple and would account so much for the terrible things in life, which now amaze and wound us so, if life had yet another hemisphere, invisible it is true, but where one lands when one dies."
JLB 652, 7/31/1888: "It would be so simple and would explain so well the horrors of life that now amaze us and distress us so if life had another, second hemisphere, invisible, it's true, but where we arrive when we breathe our last."

This concluding equivocation leads him into a rambling, disjointed argument on the relationship between a belief in the afterlife and madness -- a discussion with distinctly personal overtones: "If a kind old mother of a family, with pretty limited ideas that are tormented in the Christian system, were immortal, just as she believes -- and this seriously. And I for one in no way deny it. Why should a consumptive or nervous cab-horse, like Delacroix or De Goncourt, with broad ideas though, be any less so? Seeing that it appears that it is precisely the most worn-out people who feel the germ of this indefinable hope. That's enough, what's the use of worrying about it? But living in the heart of civilization, in the heart of Paris and the heart of the fine arts, why shouldn't one keep this self of an old woman? If women themselves, without their instinctive belief in an 'it's there', wouldn't find the strength to create and to act? Then the doctors will tell us that not only Moses, Mohammed, Christ, Luther, [John] Bunyan and others were mad, but also Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Delacroix and all the good, narrow-minded old ladies like our mother as well. Ah -- that's serious, that is. We could ask these doctors, where, then, are the sensible people?" Basically, the argument is paper-thin: i.e., "If Ma is immortal, then surely Delacroix is. And that means I must be, too."

Vincent wants desperately to believe this, but cannot bring himself to. He is too much the modern, post-Zola realist, and too much invested in the rejection of his parents' conventions, and religion, not to see the manifest self-delusion in their argument for immortality. He recognizes that the ardency of this hope for another life springs partly from his dire circumstances -- it is more wishful thinking that persuasive reasoning -- but he still cannot let go of it. So even as he dismisses the idea of an afterlife in the most demeaning terms (the vanity of old women), he continues to cling to it. His concluding argument is basically an unconvincing shrug: i.e., "What's the harm of believing it as long as it gives one the strength to create." In the very next letter, he again takes up the subject of the evanescence of life, again conflating his own fate and art's: "At the moment there are still plenty of fine lithographs to be had, Daumiers, reproductions of Delacroix, [Alexandre-Gabriel] Decamps, [Narcisse] Diaz [de la Peña], Rousseau, Dupré, &c. Soon, though, it'll be over, and what a great pity that this art tends to disappear. Why is it that we don't hold on to what we have, the way doctors and mechanics do? Once something has been discovered and found, they keep the knowledge of it; in these wretched fine arts we forget everything, we hold on to nothing." (JLB 657, 8/8/1888.) In searching to explain the injustice of mortality, Vincent finds the same villain for both his own sad fate and that of his favorite art: "Isn't it partly the fault of Paris and the Parisians, fickle and disloyal like the sea?" (ibid.). (Also see Ch. 31, n. 511.)

Context:
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "I don't see much of the future life of artists through their works. Yes, artists perpetuate themselves, passing on the torch, Delacroix to the Impressionists, &c. But is that all?" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 516, 7/31/1888: "It would be so simple and would account so much for the terrible things in life, which now amaze and wound us so, if life had yet another hemisphere, invisible it is true, but where one lands when one dies."
JLB 652, 7/31/1888: "It would be so simple and would explain so well the horrors of life that now amaze us and distress us so if life had another, second hemisphere, invisible, it's true, but where we arrive when we breathe our last."

Context:
BVG 516, 7/31/1888: " It would be so simple and would account so much for the terrible things in life, which now amaze and wound us so, if life had yet another hemisphere, invisible it is true, but where one lands when one dies."
JLB 652, 7/31/1888: " It would be so simple and would explain so well the horrors of life that now amaze us and distress us so if life had another, second hemisphere, invisible, it's true, but where we arrive when we breathe our last."

Context:
JLB 663, 8/18/1888: "Yes, I'm as well now as other men, which I have only been briefly -- in Nuenen, for example -- and that's not disagreeable. ... If you're well, you should be able to live on a piece of bread, while working the whole day long, and still having the strength to smoke and to drink your glass; you need that in these conditions. And still to feel the stars and the infinite, clearly, up there. Then life is almost magical, after all. Ah, those who don't believe in the sun down here are truly blasphemous."

Context:
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "It always seems to me that I'm a traveller who's going somewhere and to a destination. If I say to myself, the somewhere, the destination don't exist at all, that seems well argued and truthful to me."

Context:
BVG 518, 8/6/1888: "In short, I know nothing about it, but it is just this feeling of not knowing that makes the real life we are actually living now like a one-way journey in a train. You go fast, but cannot distinguish any object very close up, and above all you do not see the engine."
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "In fact, I know nothing about it, but precisely this feeling of not knowing makes the real life that we're living at present comparable to a simple journey by train. You go fast, but you can't distinguish any object very close up, and above all, you can't see the locomotive." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France. Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star. What's certainly true in this argument is that while alive, we cannot go to a star, any more than once dead we'd be able to take the train." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG B7, 6/18/1888: "To he honest with you, I have absolutely no objection to the countryside, since I grew up in it -- I am still enchanted by snatches of the past, have a hankering after the eternal, of which the sower and the sheaf of corn are the symbols."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "I don't hide from you that I don't detest the countryside -- having been brought up there, snatches of memories from past times, yearnings for that infinite of which the Sower, the sheaf, are the symbols, still enchant me as before."

Context:
JLB 157, 9/7/1880: "As for The sower, I've drawn it 5 times now, twice small, 3 times large, and yet I'll go back to it again, that figure haunts me so."

Context:
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "For such a long time it's been my great desire to do a sower, but the desires I've had for a long time aren't always achieved. So I'm almost afraid of them."

Context:
BVG B7, 6/18/1888: "Here is a sketch of a sower: a large piece of land with clods of ploughed earth, for the most part a definite purple. A field of ripe wheat, in yellow ochre with a little carmine. The sky chrome yellow, almost as bright as the sun itself, which is chrome yellow 1 with a little white, while the rest of the sky is chrome yellow 1 and 2 mixed. Thus very yellow. The Sower's smock is blue and his trousers white."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "Large field with clods of ploughed earth, mostly downright violet. Field of ripe wheat in a yellow ochre tone with a little crimson. The chrome yellow 1 sky almost as bright as the sun itself, which is chrome yellow 1 with a little white, while the rest of the sky is chrome yellow 1 and 2 mixed, very yellow, then. The sower's smock is blue, and his trousers white."

Context:
BVG 503, 6/28/1888: "Yesterday and today I worked on the sower, which is done completely differently."
JLB 634, 6/28/1888: "Yesterday and today I worked on the sower, which has been completely reworked."

Context:
JLB 634, 6/28/1888: "The question remains this -- Christ's boat by Eugène Delacroix and Millet's sower are of entirely different workmanship. Christ's boat -- I'm talking about the blue and green sketch with touches of purple and red and a little lemon yellow for the halo, the aureole -- speaks a symbolic language through colour itself. Millet's sower is colourless grey -- as are Israëls's paintings too."

Context:
BVG 503, 6/28/1888: "Another very crude effort, and yet I am trying to get at something utterly heartbroken and therefore utterly heartbreaking."
JLB 634, 6/28/1888: "One more effort that's far from finished -- but one at least where I'm attempting something more heartbroken and therefore more heartbreaking."

Context:
BVG B8, 6/23/1888: "This great artist -- Christ -- although he did not concern himself with writing books on ideas (sensations), felt considerably less disdain for the spoken word, and for parables in particular (what a sower, what a harvest, what a fig tree! etc.)."
JLB 632, 6/26/1888: "This great artist -- Christ -- although he disdained writing books on ideas and feelings -- was certainly much less disdainful of the spoken word -- the parable above all. (What a sower, what a harvest, what a fig tree, &c.)"

Context:
JLB 632, 6/26/1888: "This great artist -- Christ -- although he disdained writing books on ideas and feelings -- was certainly much less disdainful of the spoken word -- THE PARABLE above all. (What a sower, what a harvest, what a fig tree, &c.)"

Context:
BVG B8, 6/23/1888: "This great artist -- Christ -- although he did not concern himself with writing books on ideas (sensations), felt considerably less disdain for the spoken word, and for parables in particular (what a sower, what a harvest, what a fig tree! etc.)."
JLB 632, 6/26/1888: "This great artist -- Christ -- although he disdained writing books on ideas and feelings -- was certainly much less disdainful of the spoken word -- THE PARABLE above all. (What a sower, what a harvest, what a fig tree, &c.)"

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "For instance, there is a rough sketch I made of myself laden with boxes, props, and canvas on the sunny road to Tarascon."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "For example, there's a quick sketch I made of myself laden with boxes, sticks, a canvas, on the sunny Tarascon road; …"

Context:
BVG 233, 9/19/1882: "" I consider making studies like sowing, and making pictures like reaping. ... Sometimes I long for harvest time, that is, for the time when I shall be so imbued with the study of nature that I myself can create something in a picture."
JLB 266, 9/18/1882: " I regard making studies as Sowing, and making paintings as reaping. ... Sometimes I can yearn for harvest time, that is, the time when I'll be so permeated by the study of nature that I myself will create something in a painting." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 611, 5/20/1888: "When good père Corot said a few days before he died: last night I saw in my dreams landscapes with entirely pink skies, well, didn't they come, those pink skies, and yellow and green into the bargain, in Impressionist landscapes? All this is to say there are things one senses in the future and that really come about."

Context:
BVG B7, 6/18/1888: "There are many touches of yellow in the soil, neutral tones produced by mixing purple with the yellow, but I couldn't care less what the colours are in reality."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "There are many repetitions of yellow in the earth, neutral tones, resulting from the mixing of violet with yellow, but I could hardly give a damn about the veracity of the colour."

Context:
BVG B7, 6/18/1888: "To he honest with you, I have absolutely no objection to the countryside, since I grew up in it -- I am still enchanted by snatches of the past, have a hankering after the eternal, of which the sower and the sheaf of corn are the symbols."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "I don't hide from you that I don't detest the countryside -- having been brought up there, snatches of memories from past times, yearnings for that infinite of which the Sower, the sheaf, are the symbols, still enchant me as before."

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: "Such as it is, I am putting the sketch to one side, hardly daring to think about it. I have been longing to do a sower for such a long time, but the things I've wanted for a long time never come off. And so I am almost afraid of it. And yet, after Millet and Lhermitte, what still remains to be done is -- a sower, in colour and large size."
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "I'm putting the sketch aside just as it is, hardly daring to think about it. For such a long time it's been my great desire to do a sower, but the desires I've had for a long time aren't always achieved. So I'm almost afraid of them. And yet, after Millet and [Léon] Lhermitte what remains to be done is ... the sower, with colour and in a large format."

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: "And the sketch, such as it is -- a size 25 canvas -- torments me, making me wonder if I shouldn't attack it seriously and make a tremendous picture of it."
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "And the sketch as such -- a no. 25 canvas -- also worries me a lot, in the sense that I wonder whether I shouldn't take it seriously and make a tremendous painting out of it."

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: "And the sketch, such as it is -- a size 25 canvas -- torments me, making me wonder if I shouldn't attack it seriously and make a tremendous picture of it. My Lord I want to. But I keep asking myself if I have vigor enough to carry it out."
JLB 629, 6/21/1888: "And the sketch as such -- a no. 25 canvas -- also worries me a lot, in the sense that I wonder whether I shouldn't take it seriously and make a tremendous painting out of it. My God, how I'd love to do that. But I just wonder whether I'll have the necessary power of execution."

Context:
BVG 503, 6/28/1888: "Now, could you paint the Sower in colour, with a simultaneous contrast of, for instance, yellow and violet (like the Apollo ceiling of Delacroix's which is just that, yellow and violet), yes or no? Why, yes. Well, do it then."
JLB 634, 6/28/1888: " Can we now paint the sower with colour, with simultaneous contrast between yellow and purple for example (like Delacroix's Apollo ceiling, which is precisely yellow and purple), yes or no? Yes -- definitely. So do it then! -- yes -- that's what père Martin says too, 'you must make the masterpiece.'" (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 503, 6/28/1888: "Yesterday and today I worked on the sower, which is done completely differently. The sky is yellow and green, the ground violet and orange. There is certainly a picture of this kind to be painted of this splendid subject, and I hope it will be done someday, either by me or by someone else."
JLB 634, 6/28/1888: "Yesterday and today I worked on the sower, which has been completely reworked. The sky is yellow and green, the earth purple and orange. There's definitely a painting like that to be made of this splendid subject, and I hope it will be done one day, either by someone else or by me."

Context:
BVG 523+522a, 8/18/1888: "And it's very good of you to promise the two of us, Gauguin and me, that you'll put us in the way to carrying out our combination."
JLB 664, 8/19/1888: "And you're very kind to promise Gauguin and me to put us in a position to carry out the partnership project."

Context:
BVG 526, 8/21/1888: "I write in great haste to tell you that I have had a note from Gauguin, saying that he has not written much, but that he is quite ready to come South as soon as the opportunity arises."
JLB 666, 8/21/1888 or 8/22/1888: "I'm writing to you in great haste, but to tell you that I've just received a line from Gauguin, who says that he hasn't written because he was doing a great deal of work, but says he's still ready to come to the south as soon as chance permits."