Notes

Context:
JLB 674, 9/4/1888: "I write to you while waiting for Boch [Eugène Guillaume Boch, 1855-1941; Belgian artist], the Belgian, who's leaving early this morning."

Context:
JLB 698, 10/5/1888: "But I don't want to sign this study, because I never work from memory -- there will be colour in it, which will suit you, but to repeat, here I'm doing a study for you that I would prefer not to do."

Context:
JLB 674, 9/4/1888: "His [Boch's] sister [Anna Boch, 1848-1936; Belgian artist] will perhaps make a tour in Holland, and I've thought in a vague way that I'd really like it if our own sister and she were to meet. I always have hopes that through us, Wil may be able to marry an artist. Now to bring that about she'd have to be a little bit up to date. If Boch's sister actually goes to Holland, we'd only have to say to Boch that if she wants to study in Breda, she can stay with our mother and our sister. That'll put them to some very small expenses at home (they put up enough useless people), but after all, it would be an opportunity to become acquainted. But let's not press the point."

Context:
JLB 674, 9/4/1888: "I always have hopes that through us, Wil may be able to marry an artist."

Context:
JLB 695, 10/3/1888: "I received a letter from Boch yesterday (his sister is one of the Belgian Vingtistes), who writes that he's settled in the Borinage to paint miners and coal-mines there. He'll return, though, to what he has in mind in the south -- to vary his impressions, and in that case will certainly come to Arles."

Context:
BVG 544a, 10/3/1888: "He nevertheless intends to return to the south -- to vary his impressions -- and if he does he is certain to come to Arles."
JLB 695, 10/3/1888: "He'll return, though, to what he has in mind in the south -- to vary his impressions, and in that case will certainly come to Arles."

Context:
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "Last night I slept in the house, and although there are still things to be done, I feel very happy there."

Context:
BVG 530, 9/1/1888: " The isolation of this place is pretty serious, and all the time you have to hack each step in the ice as you go from one day's work to the next."
JLB 672, 9/1/1888: " Isolation here is quite considerable, and while paying, you have to hack each step out of the ice in order just to get from one day's work to the same the next day."

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 W8, 8/27/1888: "There is always some pretty annoying fatality in life. Well, painters die, or go mad with despair, or are paralyzed in their production, because nobody likes them personally."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "In life there's always a fate that's very annoying. And many painters die or go mad from despair, or become paralyzed in their production because nobody loves them personally."

Context:
BVG 539, 9/17/1888: "This afternoon I had a select public -- four or five hooligans and a dozen street arabs, who were especially interested in seeing the paint come out of the tubes. Well, that same public -- it meant fame, or rather I mean to laugh at ambition and fame, as I do at those street arabs, and at the loafers on the banks of the Rhône and in the Rue du Pont d'Arles."
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: "This afternoon I had a select audience. ... of 4 or 5 pimps and a dozen kids who found it particularly interesting to watch the colours come out of the tubes. Ah, well, that sort of audience -- that's fame, or rather, I have the firm intention of thumbing my nose at ambition and fame, like these kids and these ruffians from the banks of the Rhône and rue du Bout d'Arles."

Context:
BVG 539, 9/17/1888: "This afternoon I had a select public -- four or five hooligans and a dozen street arabs, who were especially interested in seeing the paint come out of the tubes. Well, that same public -- it meant fame, or rather I mean to laugh at ambition and fame, as I do at those street arabs, and at the loafers on the banks of the Rhône and in the Rue du Pont d'Arles."
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: "This afternoon I had a select audience. ... of 4 or 5 pimps and a dozen kids who found it particularly interesting to watch the colours come out of the tubes. Ah, well, that sort of audience -- that's fame, or rather, I have the firm intention of thumbing my nose at ambition and fame, like these kids and these ruffians from the banks of the Rhône and rue du Bout d'Arles."

Context:
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "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." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 657, 8/8/1888: "He promised to come, and then he said that he ought to have the painting for himself, and so I had to do two the same, one for him and one for me. I told him no. Perhaps he'll come back some day."

Context:
JLB 671, 8/29/1888 or 8/30/1888: "Unfortunately, I fear that the little Arlésienne will stand me up for the rest of the painting. The last time she came she had innocently asked for the money in advance that I'd promised her for all the sittings, and as I made no difficulty about that she scarpered without my seeing her again."

Context:
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "I'm also working on the portrait of Milliet, but he poses badly, ... he can't keep still. ... he has a nervous movement in his legs when he poses."

Context:
BVG 529, 8/29/1888: " Difficulties with models continue with exactly the same tenacity as the mistral here. It is not cheering."
JLB 671, 8/29/1888 or 8/30/1888: " Vexations with models continue all the same, and what with the tenacity of the mistral down here, that doesn't cheer me up."

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "But it is almost enough to make you lose heart when you think that you could do something if people had more good will. I cannot resign myself to saying – 'sour grapes' -- it does not console me for not having more models."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "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."

Context:
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "If we painted smoothly like [Adolphe William] 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." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "If I painted prettily like Bouguereau, people would not be ashamed to let themselves be painted, but I think that I have lost models because they thought that they were 'badly done,' because 'it was only pictures full of painting' that I did."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "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" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 524, 8/14/1888: "The poor little souls are afraid of being compromised and that people will laugh at their portraits."
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "So the good whores are afraid of being compromised, and that people will laugh at their portraits."

Context:
BVG 530, 9/1/1888: "And I often get downhearted."
JLB 672, 9/1/1888: "And so I very often feel despondent."

Context:
JLB 677, 9/9/1888: "I find absolutely nothing to object to what you speak of, to exhibit sometime at the Revue Indépendante, as long as I'm not a cause of obstruction for the others who usually exhibit there. Only we'd then have to tell them that I'd like to reserve a second exhibition for myself, after this first one of what are in fact studies. Then next year I'd give them the decoration of the house to exhibit, when there would be an ensemble. Not that I insist, but it's so that the studies shouldn't be confused with compositions, and to say beforehand that the first exhibition would be one of studies. Because there's still hardly more than the sower and the night café that are attempts at composed paintings." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 530, 9/1/1888: "But Gauguin and so many others are in exactly the same position, and above all we must seek the remedy within ourselves, in good will and patience, and at the same time struggle to be something more than mediocrities. Perhaps we shall be preparing a new road while we do this."
JLB 672, 9/1/1888: "But Gauguin and so many others are in exactly the same position, and we must above all look for the remedy within ourselves, in good will and patience. By being content to be no more than mediocrities. Acting like that, perhaps we'll open up a new path."

Context:
BVG 602, 9/3/1889-9/4/1889: "I think very often of the other fellows in Brittany, who are certainly busy doing better work than I.",br/>JLB 798, 9/2/1889: "I often think of our pals in Brittany, who are certainly doing better work than I am."

Context:
BVG 602, 9/3/1889-9/4/1889: "Were I free and independent, I should nevertheless have kept my enthusiasm, because there are some beautiful things to be done."
JLB 798, 9/2/1889: "Were I independent and free, I would nevertheless have retained my enthusiasm, for there are some really beautiful things to do."

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "Only one must make the most of it, as the fine days are short."
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "Only it'll be a matter of taking advantage of it because -- the fine days -- are short …"

Context:
BVG 530, 9/1/1888: "You see all the same this is rather a pity, for the simple reason that we may have the power to work today, but we do not know if it will hold out till tomorrow."
JLB 672, 9/1/1888: "Now, that's rather a pity, all the same, for this good reason, that perhaps we have the power to work today, but we don't know if it'll still be there tomorrow."

Context:
BVG 522, 8/13/1888: "Not I, who have hardly seen anything but the kind of women at 2 francs, originally intended for the Zouaves."
JLB 664, 8/19/1888: "Not I, on the other hand, who have hardly seen any but the sort of 2-franc women originally intended for the Zouaves."

Context:
BVG 506, 7/9/1888: "Do you remember in Guy de Maupassant the gentleman who hunted rabbits and other game, and who had hunted so hard for ten years, and was so exhausted by running after the game that when he wanted to get married he found he was impotent, which caused the greatest embarrassment and consternation. Without being in the same state as this gentleman as to its being either my duty or my desire to get married, I begin to resemble him in physique. … Now though it's pretty much all one to me whether I am impotent or not, …"
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "Do you remember in Guy de Maupassant the gentleman who hunted rabbits and other game and who had hunted so hard for 10 years and was so worn out with running after game that at the point when he wanted to get married he couldn't get a hard-on, which caused him the greatest anxieties and consternation. Without being in this gentleman's position as far as having or wishing to get married, in the physical sense I'm beginning to resemble him. ... Now, while it's more or less the same to me whether or not I can get a hard-on." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "And when I think that it is precisely this new style which would put women who are incapable of pernickety accuracy, who feel musically, on the right track, I regret now and then that I am getting older and uglier than my interest demands."
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: And when I think how the new manner could help to put the women who are incapable of precision, who feel musically, on the right track, then I sometimes regret getting older and uglier than is in my interest" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG B14, 8/4/1888: " If we want to be really potent males in our work, we must sometimes resign ourselves to not fuck much, and for the rest be monks or soldiers, according to the needs of our temperament."
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: " If we want, ourselves, to get a hard-on for our work, we must sometimes resign ourselves to fucking only a little, and for the rest to be, according as our temperament demands, soldiers or monks" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: " Rubens ah, there you have it, he was a handsome man and a good fucker, Courbet too; their health allowed them to drink, eat, fuck" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: "I know that the study of the Dutchmen could only do you good, their works being so virile and so spunky and so healthy. Personally, I find continence is quite good for me. It's enough for our weak, impressionable artists' brains to give their essence to the creation of our paintings."

Context:
BVG B14, 8/4/1888: "The Dutch, once more, had peaceful habits and a peaceful life, calm, well regulated."
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: "The Dutchmen, once again, had morals, and a quiet, calm, well-ordered life."

Context:
BVG B14, 8/4/1888: "He did not fuck much, and only had easy love affairs, so as not to curtail the time devoted to his work."
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: "He fucked only a little, and had only casual love affairs so as not to filch from the time devoted to his work."

Context:
BVG B14, 8/4/1888: "Why do you say Degas is impotently flabby? Degas lives like a small lawyer and does not like women, for he knows that if he loved them and fucked them often, he, intellectually diseased, would become insipid as a painter."
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: "Why do you say that Degas has trouble getting a hard-on? Degas lives like a little lawyer, and he doesn't like women, knowing that if he liked them and fucked them a lot he would become cerebrally ill and hopeless at painting."

Context:
BVG B14, 8/4/1888: "[Paul] Cézanne is a respectable married man just like the old Dutchmen; if there is plenty of male potency in his work it is because he does not let it evaporate in merrymaking."
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: "Cézanne is as much a respectably married man as the old Dutchmen were. If he has a good hard-on in his work it's because he's not overly dissipated through riotous living."

Context:
BVG B14, 8/4/1888: "Ah! Balzac, that great and powerful artist, has rightly told us that relative chastity fortifies the modern artist."
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: "Ah, Balzac, that great and powerful artist, already told us very well that for modern artists a certain chastity made them stronger."

Context:
BVG B7, 6/18/1888: " Painting and fucking a lot don't go together, it softens the brain. Which is a bloody nuisance."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: " Painting and fucking a lot aren't compatible; it weakens the brain, and that's what's really damned annoying."

Context:
JLB 632, 6/26/1888: "… better try to make your constitution as tough as old boots, a constitution to make old bones -- better live like a monk who goes to the brothel once a fortnight -- I do that."

Context:
BVG B14, 8/4/1888: "Why exert ourselves to pour out all our creative sap where the well-fed professional pimps and ordinary fools do better in the matter of satisfying the genital organs of the whore, who is in this case more submissive than we are ourselves?"
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: Why exert ourselves in spending all our creative juices when those who pimp for a living and even their simple, well-fed clients work more to the satisfaction of the genital organs of the registered whore in this case than we do?

Context:
BVG B14, 8/4/1888: "As for you, my poor dear comrade Bernard, I already told you in the spring: eat a lot, do your military exercises well, don't fuck too much; when you do this your painting will be all the more spermatic."
JLB 655, 8/5/1888: "In your case, my poor dear old Bernard, I already told you last spring. Eat well, do your military drill well, don't fuck too hard; if you don't fuck too hard, your painting will be all the spunkier for it."

Context:
BVG 546, 10/8/1888: "But between now and the winter there will be another spell of magnificent weather and magnificent effects, and then the thing will be to make another headlong spurt. I am so much taken up with the work that I cannot come to a dead stop."
JLB 699, 10/8/1888: "But between this and the winter there'll be another spell of magnificent weather and effects, and then once again it will be a matter of making an all-out effort. I'm so immersed in work that I can't stop dead."

Context:
JLB 665, 8/21/1888: "Ah, my dear pals, we crazy ones, let's anyway enjoy with our eyes, shall we?"

Context:
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "If a painter ruins his character by working hard at painting, which makes him sterile for many things, for family life, &c. &c. If as a consequence he paints not only with paint but with self-denial and self-abnegation and a broken heart. Not only are you not paid for your own work either, but it costs you exactly the same as this effacement of personality, half deliberate, half accidental, costs a painter."

Context:
JLB 649, 7/29/1888: "And to enjoy such a thing is like coitus, the moment of the infinite."

Context:
BVG 531, 9/3/1888: "And if, defrauded of the power to create physically, a man tries to create thoughts in place of children, he is still very much part of humanity."
JLB 673, 9/3/1888: "And if frustrated in this power physically, we try to create thoughts instead of children; in that way, we're part of humanity all the same."

Nagera takes up this subject from a Freudian perspective: "Many artists, and certainly Van Gogh, have a very special relationship to their creations, perhaps particularly so while they are being created. The study of such relationships could prove very enlightening. In Vincent's case it is evident that the production of paintings is equated with procreation and the conception of children; it is in fact a sublimation of these wishes. Many times, as we have shown, he refers to producing pictures as 'giving birth' to a picture. In his case, the phantasy extends further to include his brother as an essential partner in the creation of these 'babies.' He is in his unconscious phantasies fecundated by Theo, on the basis of his passive-feminine phantasies. ... In this way painting was a most useful sublimatory outlet for his passive-feminine phantasies." (Nagera, pp. 148-149.)

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "At present I do not think my pictures worthy of the advantages I have received from you. But once they are worthy, I swear that you will have created them as much as I, and that we are making them together."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "At present I don't yet find my paintings good enough for the benefits I've had from you. But once they're good enough, I assure you that you will have created them just as much as I, and the fact is that we make them together."

Context:
BVG 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "Monticelli's artistic temperament seems to me exactly the same as that of the author of the Decameron -- Boccaccio -- a melancholy, rather resigned, unhappy man, watching the fashionable wedding party and the lovers of his time pass him by, painting them and analysing them -- he, the outsider."
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "It seems to me that his, Monticelli's, artistic temperament is exactly that of the author of the Decameron -- Boccaccio -- a melancholy man, an unhappy, rather resigned man, seeing high society's party pass by, the lovers of his day, painting them, analyzing them, he -- the outcast."

Context:
BVG 544a, 10/3/1888: "And I set out to paint that garden in such a way that one is put in mind of the old poet from these parts (or rather from Avignon), Petrarch, and of the new poet from these parts -- Paul Gauguin."
JLB 695, 10/3/1888: "And I'd have wished to paint this garden in such a way that one would think both of the old poet of this place (or rather, of Avignon), Petrarch, and of its new poet-- Paul Gauguin."

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "That is true in the first instance, but then the Greeks and the French and the old Dutchmen accepted art, and we see how art always comes to life again after inevitable periods of decadence, and I do not think that anyone is the better for abhorring artists and their art."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "That's true on the face of it, but after all, the Greeks and the French and the old Dutchmen accepted art, and we see art always recover after inevitable periods of decline -- and I don't believe that we'd be more virtuous for this reason, that we had a horror of artists and their art."

Context:
JLB 622, 6/7/1888: "You'll say that this whole argument is a banality. So be it -- but the thing itself -- the existence of a Renaissance -- that fact is certainly not a banality."

Cochin dutifully steps back from any carnal implication using the tropes typical of such intellectual "unions": "Admittedly, there is in these sentiments, as in the life of these charming thinkers, something factitious. But isn't it sincerity which gives force to these sentiments? In their friendships so particular, if excessive, they were, as in all things, deliciously sincere. Their friendship was unceasingly founded, as they wanted it, on the love of virtue, of science, on the common desire for the health of their souls. It is rare and marvelous spectacle, one of most beautiful that the fourteenth century can offer us. The feeling which binds two men so different, so absolutes each one in his own opinions and prejudices, so impassioned, is among noblest of which humanity can conceive. A courageous and even brutal frankness, a constant devotion, a marvelous delicacy and a touching reciprocal indulgence, raised Petrarch and Boccaccio above their time and themselves." Be that as it may, Cochin conspicuously includes in his account the curious detail that Petrarch, in his will, left 50 Florentine guilders to Boccaccio "to buy a nightshirt." (ibid.)

Context:
BVG 541, 9/27/1888: "But isn't it true that this garden has a fantastic character which makes you quite able to imagine the poets of the Renaissance, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, strolling among these bushes and over the flowery grass?"
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: "But isn't it true that this garden has a funny sort of style that means that you can very well imagine the Renaissance poets, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, strolling among these bushes on the flowery grass?"

Context:
JLB 695, 10/3/1888: "The unremarkable public garden contains plants and bushes that make one dream of landscapes in which one may readily picture to oneself Botticelli, Giotto, Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio. In the decoration I've tried to tease out the essence of what constitutes the changeless character of the region."

Context:
JLB 701, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "I've done a new no. 30 canvas, and I plan to start another one this evening when they light the gas" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 679, 9/10/1888: "And I say to myself that even if we must tumble into the inevitability of things, we should still do it that way. But increasingly I'm dismissing the idea of that tumble when I think of the serenity that we see on faces in Frans Halses and Rembrandts, as in the portrait of old Six, as in his own, as in those Frans Halses that we know so well in Haarlem, of old men and old women."

Context:
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "It would be a good move, like the one back then, when Corot, seeing Daumier at bay, gave him enough to live on, in such a way that the other was well pleased with everything. But it can already work now, just as it is."

Context:
JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888: "You were fortunate to meet Guy de Maupassant -- I've just read his first book, Des vers, poems dedicated to his master, Flaubert."

Context:
JLB 664, 8/19/1888: "I have two studies of thistles on a piece of waste ground, thistles white with the fine dust from the road" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 703, 10/13/1888: "I've just painted that red and green carriage in the yard of the inn. You'll see. This hasty croquis gives you its composition. Simple foreground of grey sand. Background very simple too, pink and yellow walls with windows with green louvred shutters, corner of blue sky. The two carriages very colourful: green, red, wheels yellow, black, blue, orange."

Context:
JLB 660, 8/13/1888: "At the moment I'm working on a study like this: boats seen from a quay, from above; the two boats are a purplish pink, the water is very green, no sky, a tricolour flag on the mast. A workman with a wheelbarrow is unloading sand. I have a drawing of it too."

Context:
JLB 671, 8/29/1888 or 8/30/1888: "I have a bouquet on the go as well, and also a still life of a pair of old shoes."

Context:
BVG W4, 6/22/1888: "These are fundamentals, which one may subdivide further, and elaborate, but quite enough to show you without the help of a picture that there are colours which cause each other to shine brilliantly, which form a couple, which complete each other like man and woman."
JLB 626, 6/16/1888-6/20/1888: "There you have basics that one can subdivide further, can elaborate, but enough to show you without a painting that there are colours that make each other shine, that make a couple, complete each other like man and wife" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 541, 9/27/1888: "Besides, he hardly has any time to spare, seeing that he must take a tender leave of all the grues et grenouilles de la grenouillère of Arles, now that he has to return to his f-- garrison, as he says."
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "On top of that, he hardly has any time, since he'll have to say his tender farewells to all the tarts and other pond-life in the Arles stewpond, now that his prick has gone back to the garrison, as he puts it."

Context:
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "On top of that, he hardly has any time, since he'll have to say his tender farewells to all the tarts and other pond-life in the Arles stewpond, now that his prick has gone back to the garrison, as he puts it."

Context:
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "… he can't keep still. ... he has a nervous movement in his legs when he poses."

Context:
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: "Milliet was pleased today that I'd done the ploughed field; usually he doesn't like what I do, but because the clods of earth were soft in colour, like a pair of clogs, it didn't offend him -- with the forget-me-not sky with its flecks of white cloud."

Context:
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: ""If he posed better he would please me greatly, and he would have a smarter portrait than I'll be able do now." "

Context:
JLB 684, 9/19/1888-9/25/1888: "Wait for that until you have your uniform, then; here and elsewhere, soldiers can do a whole lot of things in it for free."

Context:
BVG 501, 6/21/1888: "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: "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:
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "I shouldn't be surprised if deep down [Milliet] was annoyed at having to leave, and perhaps he's exceeding his budget and that's the reason he's forced to go back to Africa. I know only one serious fault in him, that's liking Mr. Georges Ohnet's L'abbé Constantin [sic; see Ch. 33, n. 92], and I've told him that he would do a thousand times better to read Guy de Maupassant's Bel-ami."

Context:
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "I know only one serious fault in him, that's liking Mr. Georges Ohnet's L'abbé Constantin."

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 541, 9/27/1888: "He is a good fellow, but he is only twenty-five, God damn it, ten years younger than I am -- and within ten years -- according to [Félix] Ziem -- I am afraid that, if he goes on like this, and not being able to caper about any longer, he may join the ambitious."
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "He's a good lad, but he's only 25 years old, 10 fewer than me for Christ's sake -- and in ten years -- according to Ziem, I'm afraid if he carries on like that, being unable to get a hard-on any more, he may join the ambitious."

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: " Milliet is lucky, he has as many Arlésiennes as he wants, but then, he can't paint them, and if he were a painter, he wouldn't have them. I shall just have to bide my time without rushing things."
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: " Milliet's lucky, he has all the Arlésiennes he wants, but there you are, he can't paint them, and if he was a painter he wouldn't have any. I must bide my time now, without rushing anything."

By the time Boch actually sits for him in early September, Vincent's conception has changed. The metaphor has been reified. The star "effect" has been elaborated into stars in the background ("His fine head, with its green gaze, stands out in my portrait against a starry, deep ultramarine sky" [JLB 673, 9/3/1888].) Simultaneously, and for the first time, Vincent refers to Boch as a "poet." (Earlier, in August, he had described Boch as "an artist friend who dreams great dreams, who works as the nightingale sings" [JLB 663, 8/18/1888], but in his accounts of Boch, Vincent does not mention his poetic affinities or any discussions with him about poetry.) In the later letter, at the time the portrait was completed, Vincent first uses the shorthand "my study of a poet" (JLB 673, 9/3/1888) to refer to the Boch portrait and describes the painted stars in the background (JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888). Thereafter, he always refers to the portrait this way (e.g. JLB 676, 9/8/1888). His new vision of the image is only reinforced by his reading of an article about the Renaissance poets (JLB 683, 9/18/1888; see Ch. 33, n. 55).

Eventually, he merges the portrait and the "study of a poet" into his vision of the artistic completion Gauguin will bring, explaining (to Boch) in early October how his series of "Poet's Garden" paintings "one would think both of the old poet of this place (or rather, of Avignon), Petrarch, and of its new poet -- Paul Gauguin" (JLB 695, 10/3/1888). By this time, the title and the image have become emblematic and acquired capitalization: "I have mercilessly destroyed one important canvas -- a "Christ with the Angel in Gethsemane" -- and another one representing the "poet with a starry sky" (JLB 698, 10/5/1888). We believe that Vincent first imagined the painting as a portrait and only gradually reconceived it as the more generic, iconic, symbolic "poet with a starry sky." This change probably occurred in front of the canvas and late in the creative process (thus the text's "completed").

Context:
BVG 534, 9/9/1888: "For a visitor there will be the prettier room upstairs, which I shall try to make as much as possible like the boudoir of a really artistic woman. Then there will be my own bedroom, which I want extremely simple, but with large, solid furniture, the bed, chairs and table all in white deal."
JLB 677, 9/9/1888: "For putting somebody up, there'll be the prettiest room upstairs, which I'll try to make as nice as possible, like a woman's boudoir, really artistic. Then there'll be my own bedroom, which I'd like to be exceedingly simple, but the furniture square and broad."

Context:
BVG 534, 9/9/1888: "For a visitor there will be the prettier room upstairs, which I shall try to make as much as possible like the boudoir of a really artistic woman."
JLB 677, 9/9/1888: "For putting somebody up, there'll be the prettiest room upstairs, which I'll try to make as nice as possible, like a woman's boudoir, really artistic."

Context:
BVG 534, 9/9/1888: "But you will see these great pictures of the sunflowers, 12 or 14 to the bunch, crammed into this tiny boudoir with its pretty bed and everything else dainty."
JLB 677, 9/9/1888: "But you'll see these big paintings of bouquets of 12, 14 sunflowers stuffed into this tiny little boudoir with a pretty bed and everything else elegant."

Context:
BVG 534, 9/9/1888: "For putting somebody up, there'll be the prettiest room upstairs, which I'll try to make as nice as possible, like a woman's boudoir, really artistic."
JLB 677, 9/9/1888: "For a visitor there will be the prettier room upstairs, which I shall try to make as much as possible like the boudoir of a really artistic woman."

It is a certainty that Theo did not share Vincent's communalist vision, and Vincent's list of interlocutors is questionable, at least insofar as it implies that they agreed with Vincent's ideas. Bernard recalled such discussions in Paris (Thomson, in Homburg, p. 68), but in a mocking tone, not a supportive one. (Interestingly, Vincent does not include Bernard on his list.) Vincent did meet with Seurat briefly on his way out of Paris in February 1888, but it is extremely unlikely that he raised these notions at that time -- although he did often subsequently imagine Seurat as a potential candidate for his fantasy "combination," which required successful artists (like Seurat) to provide the capital to support less successful ones (like himself). Soon after the debacle surrounding Gauguin's hasty departure from Arles at Christmas (see Chapter 36), Vincent revived this plea for other artist-companions to keep his dream of a studio of the Midi alive. He even rented additional space in the Yellow House to accommodate the wave of destitute artists he expected (JLB 738, 1/9/1889).

Context:
BVG 555, 10/17/1888: "I believe that a new school of colorists will take root in the South, as I see more and more that those in the North rely on their ability with the brush, and the so-called 'picturesque,' rather than on the desire to express something by color itself."
JLB 707, 10/17/1888: "I believe that a new colourist school will take root in the south, seeing increasingly that those from the north rely more on skill with the brush and the so-called picturesque effect than on the desire to express something through colour itself" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 677, 9/9/1888: "With what was left, I bought 12 chairs, a mirror, and some small indispensable things. Which in short means that next week I'll be able to go and live there."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "So you will be one of the first, or the first dealer-apostle."
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "That way, you'll be one of the first apostle-dealers, or the first."

Context:
JLB 693, 10/2/1888: "I'd very much like to ask you to do an exchange with me of one of your studies of the coal-mines. Wait, I'll send you a study first then, which I'm sure will be one of those that will seem entirely unfamiliar to you. Because if you saw the night studies, you'd perhaps like them better than the studies of sunlight. Well, let me decide. Because I sincerely hope that our relationship, once embarked upon, will last for good."

Context:
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "But my idea would be that in the end we'd have set up and would leave to posterity a studio in which a successor could live."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: " Do you realize that if we get Gauguin, we are at the beginning of a very great thing, which will open a new era for us."
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: " Do you know that if we have Gauguin, there we'll be, at the start of a very important affair, which will open up a new era for us."

Context:
JLB 680, 9/11/1888: "So I say to myself that on my own I'm not capable of doing sufficiently important painting to justify your travelling to the south two or three times a year. But -- if Gauguin came and if it was fairly well known that we were living here and helping artists to live and work, I still don't see the impossibility of the south's becoming for you, as for me, a second native country in some sense."

Context:
JLB 710, 10/22/1888: "By the way, have you ever read Les frères Zemganno, by the De Goncourts? If not, read it. If I hadn't read it I would perhaps be more daring. And even after reading it, the ONLY fear that I have is of asking you for too much money." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 551, 10/22/1888: "By the way, have you ever read Les Frères Zemganno, by the de Goncourt brothers? If not, read it. I might be more daring perhaps if I had not read it, and even after reading it my only fear is of asking you for too much money."
JLB 710, 10/22/1888: "By the way, have you ever read Les frères Zemganno, by the De Goncourts? If not, read it. If I hadn't read it I would perhaps be more daring. And even after reading it, the ONLY fear that I have is of asking you for too much money." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 551, 10/22/1888: "I think that it may make a nice stir at the exhibition in '89. It might be more convenient if it didn't make a hit, but anyway we must really take things as they come."
JLB 710, 10/22/1888: "I believe it possible that things could get jolly lively at the '89 exhibition. It might be better if they didn't get lively, but after all, we'll just have to take things as they come."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "If I can get back the money already spent which you have been lending me for several years, we shall enlarge our enterprise, and try to found a studio for a renaissance and not for a decadence."
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "If I earn back the money already spent and that you've been lending me for years, we'll make the thing bigger and we'll try to found a studio of renaissance, not of decline."

Context:
JLB 707, 10/17/1888: "And what did they have to say about Dutch art, about Breitner, Rappard, about others, and lastly, what do they say about Tersteeg?"

Context:
JLB 672, 9/1/1888: "And so I very often feel despondent. But Gauguin and so many others are in exactly the same position, and we must above all look for the remedy within ourselves, in good will and patience. By being content to be no more than mediocrities. Acting like that, perhaps we'll open up a new path."

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 693, 10/2/1888: "And a view of my house and its surroundings under a sulphur sun, the sky hard, bright cobalt. That's a difficult one!"

Context:
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "It seems to me that that book must be very interesting. We'll eventually have enough of cynicism, scepticism, mockery, and we'll want to live -- more musically."

Context:
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "I've read an article on Wagner -- L'amour dans la musique, by the same author who wrote the book on Wagner, I believe. What a need we have of the same thing in painting!"

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "The book must be a very interesting one, it seems to me. In the end, we shall have had enough of cynicism, scepticism and humbug, and will want to live -- more musically. How will this come about, and what will we discover?"
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "It seems to me that that book must be very interesting. We'll eventually have enough of cynicism, scepticism, mockery, and we'll want to live -- more musically. How will that come about, and what will we find?"

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "The book must be a very interesting one, it seems to me. In the end, we shall have had enough of cynicism, scepticism and humbug, and will want to live -- more musically. How will this come about, and what will we discover?"
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "It seems to me that that book must be very interesting. We'll eventually have enough of cynicism, scepticism, mockery, and we'll want to live -- more musically. How will that come about, and what will we find?"

Context:
BVG 555, 10/17/1888: "This time it's just simply my bedroom, only here colour is to do everything, and giving by its simplification a grander style to things, is to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, looking at the picture ought to rest the brain, or rather the imagination."
JLB 707, 10/17/1888: "This time it's simply my bedroom, but the colour has to do the job here, and through its being simplified by giving a grander style to things, to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In short, looking at the painting should rest the mind, or rather, the imagination." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 555, 10/17/1888: "I shall work on it again all day, but you see how simple the conception is. The shadows and the cast shadows are suppressed; it is painted in free flat tints like the Japanese prints."
JLB 707, 10/17/1888: "I'll work on it again all day tomorrow, but you can see how simple the idea is. The shadows and cast shadows are removed; it's coloured in flat, plain tints like Japanese prints."

Context:
BVG 554, 10/16/1888: "In a word, looking at the picture ought to rest the brain, or rather the imagination."
JLB 705, 10/16/1888: "In short, looking at the painting should rest the mind, or rather, the imagination" (emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "I want nothing there but straw-bottomed chairs and a table and a deal bed."

Context:
JLB 693, 10/2/1888: "Your portrait is in my bedroom, with the one of Milliet the Zouave that I've just done."

Context:
BVG B19, 10/7/1888: "My house will seem to me more lived-in now that I am going to see the portraits in it."
JLB 698, 10/5/1888: "The house will seem more lived-in now that I'll see the portraits in it."

Context:
JLB 705, 10/16/1888: "This time it's simply my bedroom, but the colour has to do the job here … The sheet and the pillows very bright lemon green."

Context:
JLB 706, 10/17/1888: "With a simplicity à la Seurat. In flat tints, but coarsely brushed in full impasto, the walls pale lilac, the floor in a broken and faded red, the chairs and the bed chrome yellow, the pillows and the sheet very pale lemon green, the bedspread blood-red, the dressing-table orange, the washbasin blue, the window green.” (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 705, 10/16/1888: "This time it's simply my bedroom, but the colour has to do the job here … The doors lilac."

Context:
JLB 706, 10/17/1888: "With a simplicity à la Seurat. In flat tints, but coarsely brushed in full impasto, the walls pale lilac, the floor in a broken and faded red, the chairs and the bed chrome yellow, the pillows and the sheet very pale lemon green, the bedspread blood-red, the dressing-table orange, the washbasin blue, the window green.” (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 705, 10/16/1888: "This time it's simply my bedroom, but the colour has to do the job here … The bedspread scarlet red."

Context:
JLB 706, 10/17/1888: "I had wished to express utter repose with all these very different tones, you see, among which the only white is the little note given by the mirror with a black frame (to cram in the fourth pair of complementaries as well)" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 536, 9/11/1888: "But if over and above that he demands that you pay his journey, he is going a bit too far, and at least he ought to make you an ample offer of pictures, and address himself to you as well as me in terms less vague than, 'Every day I go deeper into debt, and the journey becomes more and more out of the question.'"
JLB 679, 9/10/1888: But if in addition to and apart from that, he demanded that you pay for his journey, he's going a bit far, and at least he should very openly offer you some of his paintings, and appeal to you as well as to me in terms less vague than ' my debt increasing from day to day, my journey is becoming more and more unlikely.'

Context:
BVG 535, 9/12/1888: "I think now is a good opportunity for you to ask Gauguin bluntly when he writes to you, ' Are you coming or not? If you have not made up your mind one way or the other, we shall not feel bound to carry out the scheme.' If the plan of a more serious combination cannot be carried out, all right, but then each should regain his freedom of action."
JLB 680, 9/11/1888: "I believe that now it's a good opportunity for you to ask Gauguin bluntly when he writes to you, are you coming or are you not coming? If you haven't made up your mind, on neither side will we be bound to do the thing envisaged. If the plan for a more serious association isn't to come about, no matter, but then each person must regain his freedom of action."

Context:
JLB 680, 9/11/1888: "I believe that now it's a good opportunity for you to ask Gauguin bluntly when he writes to you, are you coming or are you not coming? If you haven't made up your mind, on neither side will we be bound to do the thing envisaged. If the plan for a more serious association isn't to come about, no matter, but then each person must regain his freedom of action."

Context:
BVG 522, 8/13/1888: "With regard to Gauguin, however much we appreciate him, I think that we must behave like the mother of a family and calculate the actual expenses. If one listened to him, one would go on hoping for something vague in the future, and meantime stay on at the inn, and go on living in a hell with no way out."
JLB 664, 8/19/1888: "Lastly, vis-à-vis Gauguin, however much we appreciate him, I believe we'll have to behave like the mother of a family, and calculate the actual expenses. If we listened to him, we'd have hopes of something pretty vague for the future, and we'd stay at the guest-house and we'd live as if in a hell with no way out.”

Context:
BVG 535, 9/12/1888: "But Gauguin must be loyal, and now that I see that his friend Laval's arrival has temporarily opened a new resource to him, I think that he is hesitating between Laval and us."
JLB 680, 9/11/1888: "But Gauguin will have to be loyal, but seeing that the arrival of his friend Laval has opened up another resource for him for the time being, I believe he's hesitating between Laval and us."

In a vintage Vincent touch, after spending an entire letter trying to discourage Bernard from coming to Arles, he ends on this false note of welcome: "I daren't take it upon myself to encourage just anyone to come here; if somebody comes of his own accord, well, that's his business, but as far as advising the thing, I'll never do it. For myself, I'm staying here, and naturally it would please me greatly if you were to spend the winter here." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) As the possibility that Gauguin will come grows less likely, Vincent's position on Bernard's coming shifts. By the end of September, he is trying to keep his options open, but still considers Bernard only as an alternate candidate (JLB 687, 9/25/1888). He also insists that, if Bernard comes, with or without Gauguin, he has to pay his own way, recommending summarily that he enlist his father's financial support (JLB 690, 9/27/1888-10/1/1888). "[B]e sure to tell your father that with a little more money you would make much better paintings" (JLB 696, 10/3/1888).

Context:
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "I don't believe that it's wise to offer Bernard 150 francs for one painting a month immediately, as we've offered Gauguin. And isn't Bernard, who has clearly talked at length with Gauguin about the whole business, rather counting on replacing Gauguin?"

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "As I was writing, a very kind letter arrived from Bernard; he is thinking of coming to Arles this winter, just a whim, but it is possible that Gauguin is sending him as a substitute, and would rather stay in the North himself."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "As I write, very kind letter from Bernard, who's thinking of coming to Arles this winter -- whim -- but then, perhaps it's also that Gauguin is sending him to me as a substitute, and would himself prefer to stay in the north."

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "But no arrangement of any sort with him, for he is too fickle."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "But no sort of contract with him, he's too changeable."

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "Whether Gauguin comes or not, he will remain friends with us, and if he does not come now, he will come another time. I feel instinctively that Gauguin is a schemer who, seeing himself at the bottom of the social ladder, wants to regain a position by means which will certainly be honest, but at the same time, very politic."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "Whether Gauguin comes or not, he'll still be one of our friends, and if he doesn't come now he'll come at another time. I instinctively feel that Gauguin is a calculating person, who, seeing himself at the bottom of the social ladder, wishes to regain a position by means that will be honest, to be sure, but which will be very shrewd."

Context:
BVG 535, 9/12/1888: "Well, I am sure that our friendship with him will endure whether he comes or not, but also that we on our part must show some firmness."
JLB 680, 9/11/1888: "There you have it, I'm sure that whether he comes or not, our friendship with him will endure, but that we must show a little firmness on our side."

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "If I myself save 50 francs during the month, and add the other 50 to that, I should have spent altogether 400 francs on furniture. My dear Theo, here we are on the right road at last."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "If I save 50 francs over the month myself, if I add to that the other 50, it means that in total I'll have spent 400 francs on furniture. My dear Theo, here we are, at last, more on the right road!"

Context:
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "I don't know if I'm expressing myself clearly enough, but in other words: we're working at an art, at matters that won't be of our times only but which may also be continued by others after us."

Context:
JLB 680, 9/11/1888: "… if he didn't wish to lose his paintings, he must confront his landlord quite directly. A case like that, where the merchandise is in any case worth considerably more than the debt, can be heard as a matter of urgency by the president of the district civil court. If the landlord claims the right to keep everything, which he has no right to." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 680, 9/11/1888: "Wouldn't the worst thing that could happen to him be that he'd be forced to leave his paintings with his landlord as security for his debt, and to take refuge either with you or with me, travelling one way?"

Context:
JBL 682, 9/18/1888: "I myself don't blame an artist of his merit for saying, you'll pay my journey and my debt if you wish me to come, because I don't have any -- any money. But on the other hand, in that case he'd have to be very generous with his paintings. Then -- but we'd still have to have the money -- I wouldn't see any harm in the thing. But these paintings, which will be sold one day, will tie up the interest on what they cost, perhaps for many years to come. And in fact, a painting for which we pay 400 francs today and which we sell for 1,000 francs ten years later is still sold at cost price, because it has sat there doing nothing. But you know this better than I do.

Context:
JBL 682, 9/18/1888: The letter that Gauguin will send you shortly will, I'm inclined to believe, clear the matter up. I myself don't blame an artist of his merit for saying, you'll pay my journey and my debt if you wish me to come, because I don't have any -- any money.

Context:
JLB 679, 9/10/1888: "Unless Gauguin, sharing absolutely everything, were to give you the whole of his work. In such a way that, ceasing to keep count, we'd share absolutely everything. If we shared expenses and made common cause, I myself believe that everyone would profit from it after some years' working in common."

Context:
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "And I always say to myself that with his collaboration, what you do in private would eventually be a more considerable thing than my work on my own; you would have more satisfaction without an increase in expenses."

Context:
BVG 538, 9/17/1888: "And all true colourists must come to this, must admit that there is another kind of colour than that of the North."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "And all true colourists will have to come to admit that there exists another coloration than that of the north."

Context:
BVG 540, 9/22/1888: "After all, we don't really know anything about our own personal future, but we nevertheless feel that impressionism will last."
JLB 685, 9/21/1888: "Ah well, as for our personal future, in fact we know nothing about it, but we nevertheless feel that Impressionism will last."

Context:
JLB 685, 9/21/1888: "At present I've also bought a dressing-table with all the necessaries, and my own little bedroom is furnished. In the other one -- Gauguin's or another lodger's -- we'll still need a dressing-table and a chest of drawers."

Context:
BVG 541, 9/27/1888: "For the time being solitude does not worry me, and later on we shall find someone to keep me company, and perhaps more than we want."
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: " Being alone won't bother me for the time being, and later on we'll find some company anyway, and perhaps more than we'll want."

Context:
BVG 541, 9/27/1888: "If he has joined forces with Laval, it is only fair, since Laval is his pupil, and they have already kept house together. As a matter of fact, they might really both come here, we could find some way of putting them up."
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: "Because if he joins up with Laval, that's only fair, since Laval's his pupil and they've already kept house together. If it came to it, well, they could both come here and we'd find a way of putting them up."

Vincent is forced to make a new argument, a second line of defense, against Theo's attack on the combination with Gauguin (and the implied criticism of Vincent's expenditures in getting the Yellow House "ready" for Gauguin's arrival): "And Durand-Ruel didn't earn from it either; at one point he had quantities of those paintings without being able to dispose of them. But after all, what he did will always remain well done, and today he can always say to himself that he won his case." (ibid.) In short, "Do it for art's sake." In the same letter, Vincent responds to what was apparently a gentle suggestion from Theo about moving out of the Yellow House and presumably out of Arles because otherwise the imagery there might become too stale and familiar to sustain his interest. Vincent disputes this on both counts: "As far as the house is concerned, the fact that it will be habitable continues to soothe me very much. Will my work be worse because by staying in the same place I'll see the seasons come and go on the same subjects? Seeing the same orchards again in spring, the same wheatfields in summer, I'll inevitably see my work regularly before me in advance, and can plan better." (ibid.)

When Theo sent the usual 50 franc installment for September 20, instead of the 100 Vincent had requested (JLB 682, 9/18/1888), Vincent no doubt took it as, at least, an attempt to reign in his spending, and probably a sign of his broader reservation about his project in Arles. By the last week of September, Vincent appears to be fending off a concerted and intense barrage of arguments from Theo in favor of moving on.

First, that Vincent will be lonely if Gauguin does not come. "I believe that eventually I'll stop feeling lonely in the house, and that on days of bad winter weather, for example, and in the long evenings, I'll find an occupation that will absorb me completely. ... Of course I'd like company, but if I don't have it I won't be unhappy on that account, and then, above all, the time will come when I'll have someone. I have little doubt about that." (JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888.)

Second, that Vincent needs to pay more attention to his primary job: making paintings that sell. "And for me, I believe that it's my absolute duty to try to earn money with my work, and so I see my work quite clearly ahead of me" (ibid.). Under assault, Vincent edges away from his earlier unbridled enthusiasm for the combination, especially the more extreme ambitions to help other artists: "And perhaps the day will come when we can expand our business and be more influential for others. But that's a long way off, and there's a great deal of work to be got through first." (ibid.)

Third, as Theo's campaign gathers force, Vincent fortifies himself behind a wall of defensiveness and pleas for patience -- exactly as he did in The Hague: "Even while working, I feel that I needn't rush. After all, what would it do to put into practice the old saying that one should study for ten years or so, and then produce a few figure paintings? That's what Monticelli did, though. ... I'm losing absolutely nothing by staying where I am, and contenting myself with watching things go by, the way a spider in its web waits for flies. I can't force anything, and as I'm settled now I can take advantage of all the fine days, all the opportunities to catch a real painting from time to time." (ibid.) Such strained arguments (the furiously productive and easily frustrated Vincent pleading to work "needn't rush," or "watching things go by," or not wanting to "force anything") show Vincent's exposed situation. They also begin to suggest the terrible panic that gripped Vincent three months later when Gauguin summarily abandoned the Yellow House.

Context:
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "But what makes those people stay where they are is precisely the feeling of the house, the reassuring, familiar look of things. Of course I'd like company, but if I don't have it I won't be unhappy on that account, and then, above all, the time will come when I'll have someone. I have little doubt about that." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "For my part I think that it is absolutely my duty to try to make money by my work, and so I see my work very clear before me."
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "And for me, I believe that it's my absolute duty to try to earn money with my work, and so I see my work quite clearly ahead of me."

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "It won't be easy doing the way I'm beginning to feel about them. But what I am sure of is that by staying here I shall make some progress."
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "But I'll have trouble before I'll be able to do them in the way I'm beginning to feel it. But what I'm certain of is making progress while staying here."

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "And in the same way we certainly have the right to wish for a state of things in which money would not be necessary in order to live."JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "And in the same way, we surely have the right to wish for a state of affairs in which money wouldn't be needed in order to live."

Context:
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "I believe that eventually I'll stop feeling lonely in the house, and that on days of bad winter weather, for example, and in the long evenings, I'll find an occupation that will absorb me completely."

Context:
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "Ah well, I feel more or less sure of succeeding in making a decoration that will be worth 10 thousand francs in time."

Context:
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: "I'm quite different from what I was when I came here, I have no more doubts, I no longer hesitate to tackle something, and that could increase still further."

Context:
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "I'd like to succeed in making you clearly feel this truth, that in giving money to artists you yourself are doing an artist's work ..." (emphasis added).

Context:
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: " I'm fearful of overburdening you, and yet I'd like to order a good two hundred francs worth of colours and canvases and brushes" (emphasis added).

Context:
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: "I'm fearful of overburdening you, and yet I'd like to order a good two hundred francs worth of colours and canvases and brushes" (emphasis added).

Context:
BVG 550, 10/10/1888: " Thinking and thinking these days how all these expenses of painting are weighing on you, you cannot imagine how disquieted I am. If I were not so horribly and continually tormented by this uneasiness, I should say that we were getting on, because my work will get better, and my health is much better than in Paris."
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: " When lately I very often think that all the costs of painting weigh on you, you couldn't imagine what anxiety I have about it. If I wasn't dreadfully, and always, tormented by that anxiety, I would say things were going well, because the work will improve and my health is much better than in Paris."

Context:
JLB 699, 10/8/1888: "Throughout those 4 days I lived mainly on 23 coffees, with bread, and for which I still have to pay. ... Do you know what I have left today for my week, and this after 4 days of strict fasting? Just 6 francs. And Monday's the very day when I receive your letter. I ate at midday, but by this evening I'll have to sup on a crust of bread. ... I was so busy from Thursday on, that from Thursday to Monday I had only two meals; apart from that I had only bread and coffee." (Emphasis in original.)

Theo sees these blasé explanations and half-hearted solutions as an effort to obscure a deeper problem: "It pains me to learn that you're not well," he wrote on the eve of Gauguin's arrival (JLB 711, 10/23/1888). "You must have worked too much and that way forgotten to take care of your body as one should" (ibid.). Vincent, of course, expects an inevitable improvement in his health with Gauguin's arrival: "For a time I had the slight feeling that I was going to be ill, but Gauguin's arrival has so taken my mind off it that I'm sure it will pass" (JLB 712, 10/25/1888). But, he admits that "[m]y brain feels tired and dry again," and retroactively confesses to problems he had previously soft-pedaled: "I'm better this week than the previous fortnight" (JLB 714, 10/27/1888 or 10/28/1888).

Context:
JLB 693, 10/2/1888: "… it will be excellent to work with continuity in the coal-fields and then, in order to see something entirely different, to come to the region of oleanders and the sulphur sun."

Context:
BVG 553b, 10/2/1888: " I love that dismal country of the Borinage, which will always remain unforgettable to me, so much."
JLB 693, 10/2/1888: " I so much love that sad region of the Borinage, which will always be unforgettable to me."

Context:
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "I'm always frustrated in my best abilities by the lack of models, but I don't dwell on it -- I do landscape and colour without worrying where that will take me. I know this, that if I went to beg models: but please pose for me, I beseech you, I would be behaving like Zola's good painter in L'oeuvre. And certainly Manet, for example, didn't do that. And Zola doesn't say in his book what those people did who saw nothing supernatural in the painting."

Context:
BVG 556, 10/21/1888: "As a matter of fact, I am again pretty nearly reduced to the madness of Hugo van der Goes in Emil Wauter's picture."
JLB 709, 10/21/1888: "In fact, I'm once again nearly reduced to the state of madness of Hugo van der Goes in Emile Wauters's painting."

Context:
BVG 477a, 4/21/1888: "Surely Monticelli gives us not, neither pretends to give us, local colour or even local truth. But gives us something passionate and eternal -- the rich colour and rich sun of the glorious South in a true colourist way parallel with Delacroix' conception of the South …"
JLB 598, 4/19/1888: "Surely Monticelli gives us not, neither pretends to give us, local colour or even local truth. But gives us something passionate and eternal -- the rich coulour and rich sun of the glorious south in a true colourists way parralel with Delacroix' conception of the south."

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: ""We just spoke of the hour of fatality which seems sad to us. But isn't there another fatality which is charming? And what do we care whether there is a resurrection or not, as long as we see a living man arise immediately in the place of the dead man?""
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "We were talking just now about a fate that seemed sad to us. But isn't there another, delightful fate? And what is it to us if there is or isn't a resurrection, when we see a living man rise up immediately in a dead man's place?"

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "Now listen, for myself I am sure that I am continuing his work here, as if I were his son or his brother."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "Ah well, I myself am sure that I'll carry him on here as if I were his son or his brother."

Context:
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "Monticelli is a painter who did the south all in yellow, all in orange, all in sulphur. Most painters, because they're not colourists, properly speaking, don't see these colours there, and declare that a painter who sees with other eyes than theirs is mad. (In the Luxembourg you'll see [Frédéric] Montenards that aren't yellow, and I like them very much all the same. But it's likely that Montenard would find what I do totally contemptible.) All that is to be expected, of course. So I've already prepared especially a painting all in yellow of sunflowers (14 flowers) in a yellow vase and against a yellow background (it's yet another one, in addition to the previous one with 12 flowers against a blue-green background)." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "And there will be noise du bruit, on that occasion. Monticelli is a painter who did the South all in yellow, all in orange, all in sulphur."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "We'll make quite a noise on that occasion. Monticelli is a painter who did the south all in yellow, all in orange, all in sulphur."

Context:
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "I'll find Marseillais who knew him when he was alive, and if you've read in Tartarin what fên de brût is ... We'll make quite a noise on that occasion." According to JLB, the expression fên de brut, is a "Provençal battle-cry that appears several times in Alphonse Daudet's Tartarin sur les Alpes (1885)" (JLB 599, 4/19/1888; n. 6). It means "let's make a noise."

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "When my friend Gauguin is here, and we two go to Marseilles, it is my firm intention to go saunter in the Cannebière there, dressed exactly like him. Monticelli, as I have seen his portrait, with an enormous yellow hat, a black velvet jacket, white trousers, yellow gloves, a bamboo cane, and with a grand southern air."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "When friend Gauguin's here, and we go to Marseille, I firmly intend to walk there on the Canebière, dressed exactly like him, as I've seen his portrait, with an enormous yellow hat, a black velvet jacket, white trousers, yellow gloves and a reed cane and with a great southern air."

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "I think of Monticelli terribly often here. He was a strong man -- a little cracked or rather very much so -- dreaming of the sun and of love and gaiety, but always harassed by poverty -- of an extremely refined taste as a colourist, a thoroughbred man of a rare race, continuing the best traditions of the past."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "I myself think about Monticelli a great deal down here. He was a strong man -- a little, even very, cracked -- dreaming of sunshine and love and gaiety, but always frustrated by poverty, a colourist's extremely refined taste, a man of rare breeding, carrying on the best ancient traditions."

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "I think of Monticelli terribly often here. He was a strong man -- a little cracked or rather very much so -- dreaming of the sun and of love and gaiety, but always harassed by poverty -- of an extremely refined taste as a colourist, a thoroughbred man of a rare race, continuing the best traditions of the past."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "I myself think about Monticelli a great deal down here. He was a strong man -- a little, even very, cracked -- dreaming of sunshine and love and gaiety, but always frustrated by poverty, a colourist's extremely refined taste, a man of rare breeding, carrying on the best ancient traditions."

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "The great majority of the painters, because they aren't colourists in the true sense of the word, do not use these colours there, and they call a painter mad if he sees with eyes other than theirs."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "Most painters, because they're not colourists, properly speaking, don't see these colours there, and declare that a painter who sees with other eyes than theirs is mad" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 541, 9/27/1888: "The row of bushes in the background are all oleanders, raving mad; the blasted things are flowering so riotously they may well catch locomotor ataxia. They are loaded with fresh flowers, and quantities of faded flowers as well, and their green is continually renewing itself in fresh, strong shoots, apparently inexhaustibly."
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: "The line of bushes in the background are all raving mad oleanders. These bloody plants flower in such a way that they could surely catch locomotor ataxia! They're covered in fresh blooms, and then in masses of faded blooms; their foliage also keeps on putting out strong new shoots, apparently inexhaustibly."

Context:
BVG 541, 9/27/1888: "The row of bushes in the background are all oleanders, raving mad; the blasted things are flowering so riotously they may well catch locomotor ataxia. They are loaded with fresh flowers, and quantities of faded flowers as well, and their green is continually renewing itself in fresh, strong shoots, apparently inexhaustibly."
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: "The line of bushes in the background are all raving mad oleanders. These bloody plants flower in such a way that they could surely catch locomotor ataxia! They're covered in fresh blooms, and then in masses of faded blooms; their foliage also keeps on putting out strong new shoots, apparently inexhaustibly."

Context:
BVG 541, 9/27/1888: "The row of bushes in the background are all oleanders, raving mad; the blasted things are flowering so riotously they may well catch locomotor ataxia. They are loaded with fresh flowers, and quantities of faded flowers as well, and their green is continually renewing itself in fresh, strong shoots, apparently inexhaustibly."
JLB 689, 9/26/1888: "The line of bushes in the background are all raving mad oleanders. These bloody plants flower in such a way that they could surely catch locomotor ataxia! They're covered in fresh blooms, and then in masses of faded blooms; their foliage also keeps on putting out strong new shoots, apparently inexhaustibly."

Context:
BVG 550, 10/10/1888: "I so often think of Monticelli, and when my mind dwells on the stories going around about his death, it seems to me that not only must you exclude the idea of his dying a drunkard in the sense of being besotted by drink, but you must also realise that here as a matter of course one spends one's life in the open air and in cafés far more than in the North."
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "I so often think of Monticelli, and when I reflect on what they say about his death it seems to me that not only must we put aside the idea that he died a drinker in the sense of stupefied by drink, but we should also know that, even more than in the north, life is quite naturally spent in the open air and in cafés" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "What Gauguin will be doing, what I shall be doing as well, will be in keeping with Monticelli's fine work, and we shall try to prove to the good people that Monticelli did not die slumped across the café tables of the Cannebiére, but that the little fellow is still alive."
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "What Gauguin will do, what I'll also do myself, will be in keeping with that fine oeuvre by Monticelli, and we'll try to prove to the good folk that Monticelli didn't quite die, slumped over the tables of the cafés along La Canebière, but that the little old chap is still alive."

Context:
BVG 556, 10/21/1888: "Yet even then I do not think that my madness could take the form of persecution mania, since when in a state of excitement my feelings lead me rather to the contemplation of eternity, and eternal life."
JLB 709, 10/21/1888: "But even for all that, I don't believe that my madness would be of the persecution kind, since my feelings in a state of excitement have more to do with preoccupations about eternity and eternal life."

Context:
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "I'm reading an article on Tolstoy in the Revue des Deux Mondes."

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "In it he goes in search, or so I gather from the article, of what all religions have in common. It seems that he admits neither the resurrection of the body, nor even that of the soul, but says, like the nihilists, that after death there is nothing else. Though man dies, and dies completely, living humanity endures forever."
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "From what I gather from that article, in it he's searching for what will remain eternally true in the religion of Christ, and what all religions have in common; it appears that he admits of neither the resurrection of the body nor even that of the soul, but says like the nihilists that after death there's nothing more, but when a man's dead, and well and truly dead, living humanity remains for ever."

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "It seems that in the book, My Religion, Tolstoy implies that whatever happens in a violent revolution, there will also be an inner and hidden revolution in the people, out of which a new religion will be born, or rather, something completely new which will be nameless, but which will have the same effect of consoling, of making life possible, as the Christian religion used to."
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "It seems that in the book Ma religion, Tolstoy suggests that whatever may occur in the way of a violent revolution, there will also be a private, secret revolution in people, from which a new religion, or rather, something altogether new, will be reborn, which will have no name but which will have the same effect of consoling, of making life possible, that the Christian religion once had."

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "It seems that in the book, My Religion, Tolstoy implies that whatever happens in a violent revolution, there will also be an inner and hidden revolution in the people, out of which a new religion will be born, or rather, something completely new which will be nameless, but which will have the same effect of consoling, of making life possible, as the Christian religion used to."
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "It seems that in the book Ma religion, Tolstoy suggests that whatever may occur in the way of a violent revolution, there will also be a private, secret revolution in people, from which a new religion, or rather, something altogether new, will be reborn, which will have no name but which will have the same effect of consoling, of making life possible, that the Christian religion once had."

Context:
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "My only wish is that they could manage to prove something that would be calming to us, that would console us so that we'd cease to feel guilty or unhappy, and that just as we are we could proceed without getting lost in loneliness or nothingness, and without having at each step to fear or nervously calculate the harm which, without wishing to, we might cause others."

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "I think of Monticelli terribly often here. He was a strong man -- a little cracked or rather very much so -- dreaming of the sun and of love and gaiety, but always harassed by poverty -- of an extremely refined taste as a colourist, a thoroughbred man of a rare race, continuing the best traditions of the past. He died at Marseilles in rather sad circumstances, and probably after passing through a regular Gethsemane."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "I myself think about Monticelli a great deal down here. He was a strong man -- a little, even very, cracked -- dreaming of sunshine and love and gaiety, but always frustrated by poverty, a colourist's extremely refined taste, a man of rare breeding, carrying on the best ancient traditions. He died in Marseille, rather sadly and probably after going through a real Gethsemane."

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "We just spoke of the hour of fatality which seems sad to us. But isn't there another fatality which is charming? And what do we care whether there is a resurrection or not, as long as we see a living man arise immediately in the place of the dead man? Let us take up the same cause again, continuing the same work, living the same life, dying the same death."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: We were talking just now about a fate that seemed sad to us. But isn't there another, delightful fate? And what is it to us if there is or isn't a resurrection, when we see a living man rise up immediately in a dead man's place? Taking up the same cause, carrying on the same work, living the same life, dying the same death.

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "We just spoke of the hour of fatality which seems sad to us. But isn't there another fatality which is charming? And what do we care whether there is a resurrection or not, as long as we see a living man arise immediately in the place of the dead man? Let us take up the same cause again, continuing the same work, living the same life, dying the same death."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: We were talking just now about a fate that seemed sad to us. But isn't there another, delightful fate? And what is it to us if there is or isn't a resurrection, when we see a living man rise up immediately in a dead man's place? Taking up the same cause, carrying on the same work, living the same life, dying the same death.

Context:
BVG 540, 9/22/1888: "For the second time I have scraped off a study of Christ with the angel in the Garden of Olives. You see, I can see real olives here, but I cannot or rather I will not paint any more without models; but I have the thing in my head with the colors, a starry night, the figure of Christ in blue, all the strongest blues, and the angel blended citron-yellow. And every shade of violet, from a blood-red purple to ashen, in the landscape."
JLB 685, 9/21/1888: "For the second time I've scraped off a study of a Christ with the angel in the Garden of Olives. Because here I see real olive trees. But I can't, or rather, I don't wish, to paint it without models. But I have it in my mind with colour -- the starry night, the figure of Christ blue, the strongest blues, and the angel broken lemon yellow. And all the purples from a blood-red purple to ash in the landscape."

Context:
BVG 540, 9/22/1888: "… but I have the thing in my head with the colours, a starry night, the figure of Christ in blue, all the strongest blues, and the angel blended citron-yellow."
JLB 685, 9/21/1888: "But I have it in my mind with colour -- the starry night, the figure of Christ blue, the strongest blues, and the angel broken lemon yellow."

Context:
BVG 587, 4/25/1889-4/28/1889: "It is like the pollard willows of our Dutch meadows or the oak bushes of our dunes, that is to say the rustle of an olive grove has something very secret in it, and immensely old. It is too beautiful for us to dare to paint it or be able to imagine it."
JLB 763, 4/28/1889: "It's like the lopped willows of our Dutch meadows or the oak bushes of our dunes, that's to say the murmur of an olive grove has something very intimate, immensely old about it. It's too beautiful for me to dare paint it or be able to form an idea of it."

Context:
BVG B19, 10/7/1888: "I have mercilessly destroyed one important canvas -- a 'Christ with the Angel in Gethsemane' -- and another one representing the 'Poet against a Starry Sky' -- in spite of the fact that the colour was right -- because the form had not been studied beforehand from the model, which is necessary in such cases."
JLB 698, 10/5/1888: "I mercilessly destroyed an important canvas -- a Christ with the angel in Gethsemane -- as well as another one depicting the poet with a starry sky -- because the form hadn't been studied from the model beforehand, necessary in such cases -- despite the fact that the colour was right."

Context:
BVG B19, 10/7/1888: "I have mercilessly destroyed one important canvas -- a 'Christ with the Angel in Gethsemane' -- and another one representing the 'Poet against a Starry Sky' -- in spite of the fact that the colour was right -- because the form had not been studied beforehand from the model, which is necessary in such cases."
JLB 698, 10/5/1888: "I mercilessly destroyed an important canvas -- a Christ with the angel in Gethsemane -- as well as another one depicting the poet with a starry sky -- because the form hadn't been studied from the model beforehand, necessary in such cases -- despite the fact that the colour was right."

             The night is come, but not too soon;
             And sinking silently,
             All silently, the little moon
             Drops down behind the sky.

             There is no light in earth or heaven
             But the cold light of stars;
             And the first watch of night is given
             To the red planet Mars.

             Is it the tender star of love?
             The star of love and dreams?
             O no ! from that blue tent above,
             A hero's armour gleams.

             And earnest thoughts within me rise,
             When I behold afar,
             Suspended in the evening skies,
             The shield of that red star.

             O star of strength! I see thee stand
             And smile upon my pain;
             Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
             And I am strong again.

             Within my breast there is no light
             But the cold light of stars;
             I give the first watch of the night
             To the red planet Mars.

             The star of the unconquered will,
             He rises in my breast,
             Serene, and resolute, and still,
             And calm, and self-possessed.

             And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,
             That readest this brief psalm,
             As one by one thy hopes depart,
             Be resolute and calm.

             O fear not in a world like this,
             And thou shalt know erelong,
             Know how sublime a thing it is
             To suffer and be strong.

Context:
BVG 86, 2/26/1877: "Is it the tender star of love? / The star of love and dreams? / O no ! from that blue tent above, / A hero's armour gleams."
JLB 103, 2/26/1877: "Is it the tender star of love? / The star of love and dreams? / O no ! from that blue tent above, / A hero's armour gleams."

Context:
BVG 67, 5/31/1876: "From the window of my room that same night I looked on the roofs of the houses that can be seen from there and on the tops of the elm trees, dark against the night sky. Over those roofs one single star, but a beautiful, large, friendly one. And I thought of you all and of my own past years and of our home, and in me arose the words and the emotion: 'Keep me from being a son that maketh ashamed; give me Thy blessing, not because I deserve it, but for my mother's sake. Thou art love, cover all things. Without Thy continued blessings we succeed in nothing.'"
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "That same night I looked out of the window of my room onto the roofs of the houses one sees from there and the tops of the elms, dark against the night sky. Above those roofs, one single star, but a nice, big friendly one. And I thought of us all, and I thought of the years of my life that had already passed, and of our home, and the words and feeling came to me, 'Keep me from being a son that causeth shame, give me Your blessing, not because I deserve it, but for my Mother's sake. Thou art Love, beareth all things. Without your constant blessing we can do nothing.'"

Context:
BVG 110, 9/18/1877: "From there you get such a superb view of the town and the towers, and here and there lights on one side, and on the other, the Ij and Bicker's Island. And that deep silence, 'e'en the withered leaf rustles not, the stars alone do speak.' [Quoted in English: 'When the sounds cease, God's voice is heard under the stars.']"
JLB 131, 9/18/1877: "From there it's such a wonderful sight across the city and towers, with lights here and there, on one side the IJ and on the other Bickerseiland. And everything was so deathly still, 'the withered leaf does not rustle, the stars alone speak. When all sounds cease, God's voice is heard under the stars.'"

Context:
BVG 110, 9/18/1877: "Twilight is falling, 'blessed twilight,' Dickens called it and indeed he was right. Blessed twilight, especially when two or three are together in harmony of mind and like scribes bring forth out of their treasure things old and new. Blessed twilight, when two or three are gathered together in His name and He is in the midst of them, and blessed is the man who knows these things and follows them too."
JLB 131, 9/18/1877: "Twilight is already falling, 'blessed twilight' Dickens called it, and indeed he was right. Blessed twilight especially when two or three are gathered together in harmony of mind, and like the scribes bring forth out of their treasure old and new things just like a householder. Blessed twilight when two or three are gathered together in His name and He himself is in the midst of them."

Context:
BVG 110, 9/18/1877: "From there you get such a superb view of the town and the towers, and here and there lights on one side, and on the other, the Ij and Bicker's Island. And that deep silence, 'e'en the withered leaf rustles not, the stars alone do speak.' [Quoted in English: 'When the sounds cease, God's voice is heard under the stars.']"
JLB 131, 9/18/1877: "From there it's such a wonderful sight across the city and towers, with lights here and there, on one side the IJ and on the other Bickerseiland. And everything was so deathly still, 'the withered leaf does not rustle, the stars alone speak. When all sounds cease, God's voice is heard under the stars.'"

Verne was on Vincent's mind again in the summer of 1888 when he unflatteringly compared his Danish friend Mourier-Petersen to "Doctor Ox" (JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888) -- a reference to Verne's 1874 story "Le docteur Ox" about a scientist who comes to a provincial town in an attempt to install mysterious "oxyhydric" gas lines and wrecks bizarre and sinister havoc on the normally docile natives. This unkind characterization was probably an expression of Vincent's feeling that the sophisticated Mourier-Petersen did not appreciate the simple Arlesians or the charm of their backward ways  -- a charge he leveled at others of his fellow painters in the area, especially the American Dodge MacKnight.

Context:
BVG 299, 7/11/1883: “What sort of wares are being sold in that market, where it may be -- I, for my part, doubt it is meant to be on this globe, and to the naive spectator it would seem rather to represent a scene on one of the planets that Jules Verne's miraculous travellers were in the habit of visiting (by projectile). It is impossible to be specific about the sort of wares actually being sold, though seen from afar it could be enormous quantities of candied fruit or sweetmeats.”
JLB 361, 7/11/1883: “Whatever merchandise is sold at the market (wherever it's located, I for one doubt whether it's meant to be on this earth; it's much more likely to strike the naive beholder as portraying a scene on one of those planets visited by Jules Verne's miraculous travellers (by projectile) -- whatever merchandise really is being traded is impossible to make out, but it's faintly reminiscent of a huge mass of preserves or sweets.”

Context:
BVG 550, 10/10/1888: "Paris will be very beautiful in autumn all the same. The town here is nothing, at night everything is black. I think that plenty of gas, which is after all yellow and orange, heightens the blue, because at night the sky here looks to me -- and it's very odd -- blacker than in Paris."
JLB 702, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "Paris will be very beautiful in the autumn, all the same. The town here is nothing at night, everything's dark. I believe that an abundance of gaslight, which, after all, is yellow and orange, intensifies blue, because at night the sky here seems to me, and it's very funny, darker than in Paris." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 474, 4/9/1888: " I must also have a starry night with cypresses, or perhaps above all, a field of ripe corn; there are some wonderful nights here. I am in a continual fever of work."
JLB 594, 4/9/1888: " I also need a starry night with Cypresses or -- perhaps above a field of ripe wheat, there are some really beautiful nights here. I have a constant fever for work." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 596, 4/12/1888: "A starry sky, for example, well -- it's a thing that I'd like to try to do, just as in the daytime I'll try to paint a green meadow studded with dandelions."

Context:
BVG 499, 6/4/1888: "One night I went for a walk by the sea along the empty shore. It was not gay, but neither was it sad -- it was -- beautiful. The deep blue sky was flecked with clouds of a blue deeper than the fundamental blue of intense cobalt, and others of a clearer blue, like the blue whiteness of the Milky Way. In the blue depth the stars were sparkling, greenish, yellow, white, pink, more brilliant, more emeralds, lapis lazuli, rubies, sapphires. The sea was very deep ultramarine -- the shore a sort of violet and faint russet as I saw it, and on the dunes (they are about seventeen feet high) some bushes Prussian blue."
JLB 619, 6/3/1888 or 6/4/1888: "I took a walk along the seashore one night, on the deserted beach. It wasn't cheerful, but not sad either, it was -- beautiful. The sky, a deep blue, was flecked with clouds of a deeper blue than primary blue, an intense cobalt, and with others that were a lighter blue -- like the blue whiteness of milky ways. Against the blue background stars twinkled, bright, greenish, white, light pink -- brighter, more glittering, more like precious stones than at home -- even in Paris. So it seems fair to talk about opals, emeralds, lapis, rubies, sapphires. The sea a very deep ultramarine -- the beach a mauvish and pale reddish shade, it seemed to me -- with bushes."

Context:
BVG 506, 7/9/1888: "For my own part, I declare I know nothing whatever about it, but to look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages."
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "For myself, I declare I don't know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "But when will I do the starry sky, then, that painting that's always on my mind?"

Context:
BVG 511, 7/15/1888: "I have just read Victor Hugo's L'Année Terrible. There is hope there, but . . . that hope is in the stars. I think it is true, and well told, and beautiful, and indeed I should be glad to believe it myself. But don't lets forget that this earth is a planet too, and consequently a star, or celestial orb. And if all the other stars were the same!!!"
JLB 642, 7/15/1888: "I've just read Victor Hugo's L'année terrible. There's hope there, but -- ... that hope's in the stars. I find that true, and well said, and beautiful; and what's more, I readily believe it myself, too. But let's not forget that the earth's a planet too, therefore a star or celestial globe. And what if all these other stars were the same!!!!!!"

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "I should have gone back to Saintes-Maries already, now that there are people on the beach."

Context:
BVG W7, 9/9/1888-9/16/1888: "At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens."
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: " I definitely want to paint a starry sky now. It often seems to me that the night is even more richly coloured than the day, coloured in the most intense violets, blues and greens."

Context:
BVG W7, 9/9/1888-9/16/1888: "At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens."
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "I definitely want to paint a starry sky now. It often seems to me that the night is even more richly coloured than the day, coloured in the most intense violets, blues and greens."

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "If you look carefully you'll see that some stars are lemony, others have a pink, green, forget-me-not blue glow."

Context:
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "He sees in the future, and even in the present, a world of health, of generous, frank carnal love -- of friendship -- of work, with the great starry firmament, something, in short, that one could only call God and eternity, put back in place above this world."

Context:
BVG W8, 8/27/1888: "He sees in the future, and even in the present, a world of healthy, carnal love, strong and frank -- of friendship -- of work -- under the great starlit vault of heaven a something which after all one can only call God -- and eternity in its place above this world."
JLB 670, 8/26/1888: "He sees in the future, and even in the present, a world of health, of generous, frank carnal love -- of friendship -- of work, with the great starry firmament, something, in short, that one could only call God and eternity, put back in place above this world."

Context:
BVG W7, 9/9/1888-9/16/1888: "I have painted him a little like a poet, the fine nervous head standing out against a background of a deep ultramarine night sky with sparkling stars."
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "I've painted him as something of a poet, his refined and nervous head standing out against a deep ultramarine background of the night sky, with the twinkling of the stars."

Context:
JLB 681, 9/16/1888: "The question of painting night scenes or effects, on the spot and actually at night, interests me enormously."

Context:
BVG W7, 9/9/1888-9/16/1888: "The gabled-topped fronts of the houses in the street stretching away under a blue sky spangled with stars are dark blue or violet and there is a green tree."
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "The gables of the houses on a street that leads away under the blue sky studded with stars are dark blue or violet, with a green tree."

Context:
JLB 681, 9/16/1888: "The second shows the outside of a café, lit on the terrace outside by a large gas-lamp in the blue night, with a patch of starry blue sky."

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "Now there's a painting of night without black. With nothing but beautiful blue, violet and green, and in these surroundings the lighted square is coloured pale sulphur, lemon green."

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "You never told me if you had read Guy de Maupassant's Bel-ami, and what you now think of his talent in general. I say this because the beginning of Bel-ami is precisely the description of a starry night in Paris, with the lighted cafés of the boulevard, and it's something like the same subject that I've painted just now."

Context:
BVG 543, 9/28/1888: "But this year we will produce, and I am struggling to make the new series ['Decoration'] better than the first two lots. ... And among the studies there will be some, I hope, which might be pictures [tableaux]. As for the 'Starry Sky,' I'd still like very much to paint it, and perhaps one of these nights I shall be in the same plowed field if the sky is sparkling."
JLB 687, 9/25/1888: "But this year we'll be productive, and I'm doing all I can to make sure that the new series is better than the first two consignments. And among the studies there'll be some, I hope, that may be paintings, that is, ... For the starry sky, I still very much hope to paint it, and perhaps one of these evenings I'll be in the same ploughed field, if the sky is twinkling brightly."

Context:
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "Perhaps one of these evenings I'll be in the same ploughed field, if the sky is twinkling brightly."

Context:
JLB 677, 9/9/1888: "One of these days you'll see a painting of the little house itself, in full sunshine or else with the window lit and the starry sky."

Clébert and Richard just as vigorously dispute the story: "This is an appropriate point to dismiss entirely the legend which says that Vincent supposedly fashioned that bizarre accoutrement which allowed him to see his canvas at night and which consisted of a straw hat (or a bowler, depending on your source!) surrounded by lighted candles. It is a grotesque and almost indecorous image." (Clébert and Richard, p. 74.) Clébert and Richard also cite the impossibility of keeping a match or a candle lit along the windy riverbank and, perhaps most persuasively, note the absence of any boasting about (or diagram of) this extraordinary "accoutrement" in Vincent's letters to his brother (ibid.). Tralbaut cites as support the legend that the hat -- surely a nightmare of inconvenience and combustibility, if it existed -- was among the belongings that Vincent left with Madame Ginoux, "and long after [Vincent] died her niece and other Arles children used to play with it, without realizing the purpose that it had once served" (Tralbaut, p. 250). But, of course, Madame Marie Ginoux is the same person who told Vincent that her husband could not return his furniture because he had been gored by a bull -- a fabrication, like the hat, worthy of Daudet.

Context:
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "Included herewith little croquis of a square no. 30 canvas -- the starry sky at last, actually painted at night, under a gas-lamp."

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "I may take a blue for a green in the dark, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, since you can't make out the nature of the tone clearly."

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "I enormously enjoy painting on the spot at night. In the past they used to draw, and paint the picture from the drawing in the daytime. But I find that it suits me to paint the thing straightaway."

Context:
BVG W7, 9/9/1888-9/16/1888: "But it is the only way to get rid of the conventional night scenes with their poor sallow whitish light, whereas a simple candle already gives us the richest yellows and orange tints."
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "But it's the only way of getting away from the conventional black night with a poor, pallid and whitish light, while in fact a mere candle by itself gives us the richest yellows and oranges."

Context:
JLB 588, 3/21/1888 or 3/22/1888: "There's a Gothic porch here that I'm beginning to think is admirable, the porch of St Trophime, but it's so cruel, so monstrous, like a Chinese nightmare, that even this beautiful monument in so grand a style seems to me to belong to another world, to which I'm as glad not to belong as to the glorious world of Nero the Roman."

Context:
BVG 543, 9/28/1888: "It does me good to do difficult things. That does not prevent me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word? -- of religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars, and I am always dreaming of a picture like this with a group of living figures of our comrades."
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "And it does me good to do what's difficult. That doesn't stop me having a tremendous need for, shall I say the word -- for religion -- so I go outside at night to paint the stars, and I always dream a painting like that, with a group of lively figures of the pals." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 673, 9/3/1888: "The portrait conceived in this way doesn't become an Ary Scheffer, because there's a blue sky behind it, as in the Saint Augustine. Because Ary Scheffer is so little of a colourist."

Context:
BVG 539, 9/17/1888: "I have tried to put something of that into one of the pictures painted in a very thick impasto, citron yellow and lime green. Giotto moved me most -- always in pain, and always full of kindness and enthusiasm, as though he were already living in a different world from ours."
JLB 683, 9/18/1888: "I've tried to put something of that into one of the gardens, painted with thick impasto, lemon yellow and lemon green. Giotto touched me the most -- always suffering and always full of kindness and ardour as if he were already living in a world other than this." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 543, 9/28/1888: "On the blue-green expanse of sky the Great Bear sparkles green and pink, its discreet pallor contrasts with the harsh gold of the gas."
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "Against the green-blue field of the sky the Great Bear has a green and pink sparkle whose discreet paleness contrasts with the harsh gold of the gaslight."

Context:
BVG 553b, 10/2/1888: "Over it the starry sky with the Great Bear -- a sparkling of pink and green on the cobalt blue field of the night sky, whereas the lights of the town and its ruthless reflections are red gold and bronzed green."
JLB 693, 10/2/1888: "With the starry sky above -- with the Great Bear -- with a pink and green sparkle on the cobalt blue field of the night sky, while the light of the town and its harsh reflections are of a red gold and a green tinged with bronze."

Context:
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "The sky is green-blue, the water is royal blue, the fields are mauve."

Context:
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "Against the green-blue field of the sky the Great Bear has a green and pink sparkle whose discreet paleness contrasts with the harsh gold of the gaslight."

Context:
BVG 543, 9/28/1888: "On the blue-green expanse of sky the Great Bear sparkles green and pink, its discreet pallor contrasts with the harsh gold of the gas."
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "Against the green-blue field of the sky the Great Bear has a green and pink sparkle whose discreet paleness contrasts with the harsh gold of the gaslight."

Context:
BVG W7, 9/9/1888-9/16/1888: "Jewellers too get old and ugly before they learn how to arrange precious stones properly. And arranging the colours in a painting in order to make them vibrate and to enhance their value by their contrasts is something like arranging jewels properly or designing costumes."
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "Jewellers are old and ugly too, before they know how to arrange precious stones well. And arranging colours in a painting to make them shimmer and stand out through their contrasts, that's something like arranging jewels or -- designing costumes."

Context:
JLB 693, 10/2/1888: "With the starry sky above -- with the Great Bear -- with a pink and green sparkle on the cobalt blue field of the night sky, while the light of the town and its harsh reflections are of a red gold and a green tinged with bronze."

Context:
BVG 543, 9/28/1888: "But this blasted mistral makes it very hard to get one's brushwork firm and interwoven with feeling, like a piece of music played with emotion."
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "But this bloody mistral is a real nuisance for doing brushstrokes that hold together and intertwine well, with feeling, like a piece of music played with emotion."

Context:
BVG 543, 9/28/1888: "If the work always went on like that, I should be less worried about money, for it would be easier for people to take to them, if the technique kept on growing more harmonious."
JLB 691, 9/29/1888: "If the work always went like that I'd have fewer worries about money, because people would come to it more easily if the technique continued to be more harmonious."

Context:
BVG 520, 8/11/1888: "And all the same to feel the stars and the infinite high and clear above you. Then life is almost enchanted after all. Oh! those who don't believe in this sun here are real infidels."
JLB 663, 8/18/1888: "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:
BVG 518, 8/6/1888: "All those things -- family, native land -- are perhaps more attractive in the imaginations of such people as us, who pretty well do without native land or family either, than they are in reality. I always feel I am a traveller, going somewhere and to some destination."
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "All these things, family, native country, are perhaps more appealing in the imagination of such as us -- who do fairly well without a native country, as well as a family -- than in any reality. It always seems to me that I'm a traveller who's going somewhere and to a destination."

Context:
BVG 518, 8/6/1888: "The brothel keeper, when he kicks anyone out, has similar logic, argues as well, and is always right, I know. So at the end of my career I shall find my mistake. So be it. I shall find then that not only the Arts, but everything else as well, were only dreams, that one's self was nothing at all. If we are as flimsy as that, so much the better for us, for then there is nothing against the unlimited possibility of future existence."
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "When he kicks somebody out, the brothel-keeper has a logic of the same kind, argues well, too, and is always right. I know that. And at the end of my career 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 the original.)

Context:
JLB 638, 7/10/1888 or 7/10/1888: "Is that all, or is there more, even?"

Context:
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "After constant effort on your part and mine until now, it's beginning to appear on the horizon: Hope."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "I mean his description of himself, which moves me to the depths of my soul."
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "I'm speaking of his description of himself, which touches me in my heart of hearts."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "I hope I shall get your next letter on Wednesday. Bernard's letter is once more full of his conviction that Gauguin is a very great master, and a man absolutely superior in character and intellect."
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "I hope that on Friday I'll have your next letter. Bernard's letter is once again full of the conviction that Gauguin is a truly great master, and an absolutely superior man in terms of character and intelligence."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "As for me, I want two things, I want to earn back the money which I have already spent, so as to give it to you, and I want Gauguin to have peace and quiet in which to produce, and to be able to breathe freely as an artist."
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "For my part, I wish for two things: I wish to earn back the money that I've already spent, to return it to you, and I wish Gauguin to have his peace and quiet to produce and to breathe as a truly free artist."

Context:
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "It [Gauguin's letter] reached me with a letter from Bernard, which Gauguin will probably have read and of which he perhaps approves, in which Bernard again says that he wishes to come here, and proposes to me, in the names of Laval, Moret, another new one [Ernest de Chamaillard] and himself, an exchange with the four of them."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "Only by associating thus, each of us will be more himself, and union is strength."
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "But by joining together in this way, we'll each of us be more ourselves, and unity will bring strength."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "He also says that Laval will come too, and that the other two want to come. I should not ask anything better, but when it is a question of several painters living a community life, I stipulate at the outset that there must be an abbot to keep order, and that would naturally be Gauguin."
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "He also says that Laval will come too, and that those two others have a wish to come. I couldn't ask for more, but when it's a matter of several painters living communally, I stipulate first and foremost that there would have to be a father superior to impose order, and that naturally that would be Gauguin."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "Well, what will be, will be. Only I say now, to prevent future discussions, if it catches on so that Laval and Bernard will really come, Gauguin and not I will be the head of the studio."
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "Ah, well, it'll turn out as it'll turn out. I only say that from now, in order to avoid future arguments, if it works in such a way that Laval, Bernard do in fact come, it won't be me but it will be Gauguin who'll be the head of the studio."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "So you will be one of the first, or the first dealer-apostle."
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "That way, you'll be one of the first apostle-dealers, or the first."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: "It does not matter if you stay with the Goupils or not, you have committed yourself to Gauguin body and soul."
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "It doesn't make any difference whether you stay with the Goupils or not, you'll stand solidly behind Gauguin and his crowd."

Context:
BVG 544, 10/3/1888: " I can see my own painting coming to life, and likewise a work among the artists. For if you try to get money for us, I shall urge every man who comes within my reach to produce, and I will set them an example myself."
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "For myself, I can see my painting ahead, and also a labour among artists. Because if you, now, will try to obtain money for us -- I myself will put everything that comes within my grasp towards production, and I'll set an example of that myself."

Context:
JLB 694, 10/3/1888: "Now all that, if we hold firm, will go to build something more durable than ourselves."

Context:
JLB 710, 10/22/1888: "Ah well, the money that you give me and which, besides, I'm asking from you more than ever, I'll return it to you in work, and not only the present but the past as well."

Context:
JLB 678, 9/9/1888 and 9/14/1888: "I'll be very happy to have the photograph of our mother that you mention, so don't forget to send it to me."

Context:
JLB 685, 9/21/1888: "The portrait of our mother gave me great pleasure because you can see that she's well and that she still has a very lively expression. Only I don't like it at all as a real likeness; I've just painted my own portrait, and I have the same ashy coloration, and unless they do us in colour they'll give an idea of us that's not very lifelike. Precisely because I'd gone to terrible trouble to find the combination of ashy tones and grey pink, I cannot enjoy the likeness in black."

Context:
BVG 540, 9/22/1888: "I have just painted my own portrait, in my own ashen colouring, and unless we are painted in colour, the result is nowhere near a speaking likeness."
JLB 685, 9/21/1888: "Only I don't like it at all as a real likeness; I've just painted my own portrait, and I have the same ashy coloration, and unless they do us in colour they'll give an idea of us that's not very lifelike."

Context:
BVG 538a, 9/17/1888: "If Gauguin should come, I think we might try to make our colours at home; I dare not do it alone, for I am afraid of getting discouraged if I do not succeed at once."
JLB 682, 9/18/1888: "If Gauguin came, I'm inclined to believe that we'd make our colours at home ourselves; I daren't do it on my own, because I fear that it would discourage me if it didn't work straightaway."

Context:
JLB 699, 10/8/1888: "He needs to eat, to walk with me in some beautiful countryside -- to have a screw once in a while -- see the house as it is and as we'll make it, and in a word, thoroughly enjoy himself."

Context:
BVG 556, 10/21/1888: "I am not ill, but without the slightest doubt I'd get ill if I did not eat plenty of food and if I did not stop painting for a few days. As a matter of fact, I am again pretty nearly reduced to the madness of Hugo van der Goes in Emil Wauter's picture."
JLB 709, 10/21/1888: "I'm not ill, but I'd become so without any doubt if I didn't take hearty food and if I didn't stop painting for a few days. In fact, I'm once again nearly reduced to the state of madness of Hugo van der Goes in Emile Wauters's painting."

Context:
BVG 556, 10/21/1888: "Yet even then I do not think that my madness could take the form of persecution mania, since when in a state of excitement my feelings lead me rather to the contemplation of eternity, and eternal life. But in any case I must beware of my nerves, etc."
JLB 709, 10/21/1888: "But even for all that, I don't believe that my madness would be of the persecution kind, since my feelings in a state of excitement have more to do with preoccupations about eternity and eternal life. But even so, I must be wary of my nerves, &c."

Context:
BVG 547, 10/8/1888: "Herewith yesterday's letter which I am sending you, such as it is. From it you will see what I think of Gauguin's portrait. Too dark, too sad. I do not say that I do not like it as it is, but he will change, and he must come."
JLB 699, 10/8/1888: "Included herewith a letter from yesterday that I'm sending as it is. You'll see in it what I think of Gauguin's portrait. Too dark, too sad. I'm not saying I don't like it as such, but he'll change, and must come."

Context:
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "Not a hint of cheerfulness."

Context:
BVG 545, 10/7/1888: "And when I put Gauguin's conception and my own side by side, mine is as grave, but less despairing."
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "And when I put Gauguin's conception and mine side by side, my portrait is equally serious but less desperate."

Context:
BVG 545, 10/7/1888: "Absolutely nothing of the flesh, but one can confidently put that down to his determination to make a melancholy effect, the flesh in the shadows has gone a dismal blue."
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "It's not flesh in the very least, but we can boldly put that down to his intention to make something melancholy; the flesh in the shadows is lugubriously tinged with blue."

Context:
BVG 545, 10/7/1888: "What Gauguin's portrait says to me before all things is that he must not go on like this, he must become again the richer Gauguin of the 'Negresses.'"
JLB 697, 10/4/1888 or 10/5/1888: "What Gauguin's portrait says to me, first and foremost, is that he mustn't go on that way, he must console himself, he must become the richer Gauguin of the negresses again."

Context:
BVG 546, 10/8/1888: "You will see the two portraits of Gauguin and Bernard someday, and compare them with the 'Negresses.' And you will see that he absolutely must cheer up. Or else …"
JLB 699, 10/8/1888: "One day you'll see the two portraits of G. and of Bernard. And you'll compare with the negresses. And you'll see that it's vital that he cheers up now. Or otherwise …"

Context:
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "I feel that I needn't rush. After all, what would it do to put into practice the old saying that one should study for ten years or so, and then produce a few figure paintings? That's what Monticelli did, though."

Context:
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "If we study Japanese art, then we see a man, undoubtedly wise and a philosopher and intelligent, who spends his time -- on what? -- studying the distance from the earth to the moon? -- no; studying Bismarck's politics? -- no, he studies a single blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw all the plants -- then the seasons, the broad features of landscapes, finally animals, and then the human figure. He spends his life like that, and life is too short to do everything.""

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "If we study Japanese art, we discover a man who is undeniably wise, philosophical and intelligent, who spends his time -- doing what? Studying the distance from the earth and the moon? No! Studying the politics of Bismarck? No! He studies ... a single blade of grass."
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "If we study Japanese art, then we see a man, undoubtedly wise and a philosopher and intelligent, who spends his time -- on what? -- studying the distance from the earth to the moon? -- no; studying Bismarck's politics? -- no, he studies a single blade of grass."

Context:
BVG 542, 9/24/1888: "But this blade of grass leads him to draw all the plants -- then the seasons, the grand spectacle of landscapes, finally animals, then the human figure. That is how he spends his life, and life is too short to do everything."
JLB 686, 9/23/1888 or 9/24/1888: "But this blade of grass leads him to draw all the plants -- then the seasons, the broad features of landscapes, finally animals, and then the human figure. He spends his life like that, and life is too short to do everything."

Context:
BVG 514, 7/25/1888: "Now you talk of the emptiness you feel everywhere, it is just the very thing I feel myself."
JLB 650, 7/29/1888: "Now you talk about the emptiness you sometimes feel; that's just the same thing that I have, too."

Context:
BVG 530, 9/1/1888: "I am not surprised at what you say, that after our sister went away you felt a void."
JLB 672, 9/1/1888: "It doesn't surprise me that you say that after our sister's departure you'll feel an empty gap."

In September, parallel with his campaign for a final push to fix up the Yellow House, Vincent launches a campaign to convince Theo that his business (as Vincent conceives it) will provide comfort and fecundity enough in his old age. "I should not be surprised if little by little you regained your love for business, or at least if you got reconciled to your present situation, as soon as you feel that the inventors of new things in commerce do not know how to produce a great revolution in it. You are good to the artists, you are in the very center of the trade, you do what you can, you are damned right." (BVG 538a, 9/17/1888.) Theo, however, continues to bemoan his lack of "productivity" -- Vincent's portmanteau term that conflates artistic creativity and paternal potency. This only prompts Vincent to argue more vehemently that the success of the combination with Gauguin will satisfy Theo's longing for a living legacy: "In any event, my dear brother, look, if you complain of having nothing in your noodle as far as of being able to produce good things goes, just look, so much the more must I myself also feel the same melancholy. I could do nothing whatsoever without you, and there you are, let's not get worked up over what the two of us produce together this way, but on the contrary, let's smoke our pipes in peace without tormenting ourselves too much to the point of melancholy for not producing separately and with less pain." (JLB 707, 10/17/1888.)

In a particularly unconvincing stretch of the conceit, Vincent compares Theo's desire to produce a family with his own frustrated desire to be a dealer: "Certainly, from time to time I'd like to be able to do a little business for a change, and by doing so earn some money on my own account" (ibid.). He comes round to a most un-Vincent-like counsel of serenity and a reaffirmation of his role as producer of Theo's truest "progeny": "But since we can change nothing about it for the moment, let's accept this inevitable fact, that you'll always be condemned to trade, without rest or variation, and I that mine is also without rest, constant work that's really tiring and absorbing for the mind. I hope that in a year you'll feel that the two of us have created an artistic thing." (ibid.) Another strategy Vincent uses to quell Theo's resurgent desire for family is to remind him, through references to quarrelsome (even murderous) parental relations in books like Jean Richepin's Césarine (1888) and Maupassant's Monsieur Parent (1886), that families and especially children are not always the consolation they might seem (ibid.).

Probably without realizing it, Vincent reveals to Theo the real fear that lies behind these various efforts to blunt his brother's new urge to marry. In a September letter, he frets openly that Gauguin might not come to Arles because of his family. "Gauguin is married, and it's very important to be aware beforehand that in the long run it's not certain that different interests will be compatible. Now that's why, in the case of some sort of association, we have to have the conditions settled well and clearly, precisely so that we don't fall out later. If all goes well for Gauguin, you'll see at this point that he'll go back to his wife [Mette Sophie Gauguin-Gad] and children." (JLB 679, 9/10/1888.) It would follow, especially in Vincent's fevered imaginings, that the same thing would happen if Theo had a wife and child: he would abandon the Yellow House project and leave Vincent to fend for himself.

Context:
JLB 685, 9/21/1888: "I'm also thinking of planting two oleanders outside the door, in tubs."