Notes

Context:
JLB 830, 12/22/1889: "The Sunflowers were on show at Tanguy's this week and made a very good effect. Your paintings cheer up Tanguy's shop, and père Tanguy likes them a lot, but he no longer sells anything but yours."

In an unpublished letter reported by Rewald, purportedly written by Bernard to Aurier "sometime in the second part of the year 1889" (ibid.), we see a telling clue about the way Bernard used Vincent's letters (and art) to promote his own career: "Enclosed is a short article on my friend Vincent. Should you consider it worth publishing in Le Moderniste, please do so. As far as possible I am anxious that something should be said about my good friend, since he is truly an artist and some mention should be made of him in our time; not that his work is something absolutely complete." (Bernard, quoted in Reward, p. 341; emphasis added.) Although we have serious doubts about the reliability (or at least the dating) of this letter and the "short article on my friend Vincent" that it accompanied, it still shows Bernard attempting to lure Aurier's interest by using both Vincent and Theo as bait. The passage concludes with this heavy hint to look beyond the works of any single artist (i.e., Vincent) to the broader movement and all its adherents: "It might be interesting to review in this manner a certain number of young and old impressionists in a series of articles written by them about one another" (ibid.).

After Vincent's death and subsequent celebrity, Bernard inevitably tried to claim that he had not only proposed the Aurier article, but was heavily responsible for its content -- a claim that the letter and draft article Rewald cites may have been devised to support after-the-fact. There are similar problems with Bernard's parallel claim to have pushed Aurier to review Gauguin's work. (The common thread of such claims, of course, was that Bernard saw the greatness of his fellow painters before anyone else and thus deserved to be considered the leader of the movement.) Mathews accepts Bernard's claim that, prior to Aurier's article on Vincent, "Bernard had already been after [Aurier] for some time to write on Gauguin" (Mathews, Patricia, p. 22). But the letter that Mathews cites is from July 1890, so it does not support the proposition that, as of January 1890, Bernard had been "after Aurier for some time to write on Gauguin." Mathews also cites Rewald, who quotes from a letter from Bernard to Aurier written in July 1890, around the time of Vincent's death -- long after the Mercure article (Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin, p. 416, n. 18). If nothing else, this flurry of spurious credit-grabbing suggests that the scramble for a share of Vincent's celebrity had already begun by the time of his death, thanks in no small part to Aurier's January article.

Context:
JLB 825, 12/8/1889: "That friend of Bernard's called Aurier also came to my place, the one who came to rue Lepic once. He's very interested in what you're doing and showed me a little journal he ran in which he talked about Tanguy's shop, and in which he also mentions your paintings."

              "All reached harbor in the midst of storms;
              All, all made Athena burst forth from their heads.
              But we, the bastard children of these giants, the new Gilberts,
              We struggle in vain against these evil spells:
              Our sublime foetuses perish in the womb:
              Our Glory will be to have suffered greatly!"

              "We are the Accursed, the Excommunicated,
              Dragging the ball and chain of our denied masterpieces!
              We disdained the honey of Purgatories
              And vomited our blasphemous cries towards Heaven!"

Poems such as this, Lövgren writes, "provided the artists at Pont-Aven with a suggestive iconographic alphabet, and with moods which they did not hesitate to exploit."

Theo tells a curious tale, and probably only a censored version of it. He was usually one to go along and get along and was eager for opportunities to show Vincent's work. In March of the previous year, he had written his sister Wil on this point: "At the end of the month an exhibition will be opened with three of Vincent's paintings on view. He does not attach much importance to this exhibition, but here where there are so many painters it is essential to become known and an exhibition is, after all the best thing for that." (b0915 V/1962, ''Gogh, Theo van'' to ''Gogh, Willemina van'', 3/14/1888.)

This report is uncharacteristically bitter and contemptuous ("it made one sick'), suggesting a more painful and open dispute not fully reported, and the final sigh of exasperation ("As always, there were exclusions") shows a weariness with the partisan bickering of the avant-garde world that drained his increasingly limited energy. Vincent responded with surprising equanimity to his brother's apparently unilateral decision to pull out of the Volpini show: "I think you did the right thing by not exhibiting paintings of mine at the exhibition by Gauguin and others. There's reason enough for me to abstain from doing so without offending them as long as I'm not cured myself." (JLB 782, 6/18/1889.) And, unlike his brother, he takes a more understanding view of Bernard and Gauguin's willingness to stretch the bounds of propriety in order to have their works seen: "It's still perfectly understandable, though, that for beings like them, really alive and young, who must live and try to carve out their path, it's impossible to turn all their canvases to the wall until it pleases people to admit them somewhere in the official pickle. One causes a stir by exhibiting in the cafés, which I don't say isn't in bad taste. But for myself, I have that crime on my conscience, and to the point of doing it twice, having exhibited at the Tambourin and at avenue de Clichy." (ibid.)

This benign attitude, however, has a bite, as Vincent echoes his brother's frustration with infighting among the avant-garde: "It's understandable that they couldn't keep silent. That the Impressionists' movement has had no unity is what proves that they're less skilled fighters than other artists like Eugène Delacroix and Gustave Courbet." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) A few months later, however, Vincent's attitude toward Gauguin and his insurgent show takes a turn toward outright disapproval: "The Impressionists are right a thousand times over. Yet even they must think about it for a long time and always. If it follows from that that they have the right or the duty to do themselves justice." (JLB 784, 7/2/1889.) Yet in a letter to his sister Wil around the same time, he feels the need to invent excuses for his failure to join in the Volpini show: "So my friend who was with me in Arles and a few others have thus organized an exhibition in which, in good health, I would have taken part." (JLB 785, 7/2/1889.) This, of course, was the excuse that he suggested that Theo should make to Gauguin et al. so as not to "offend them" (JLB 782, 6/18/1889). Now he seems to be using it to mask feelings of regret. In fact, Vincent must at some level have seen Gauguin's Volpini show as a tribute to, if not a direct imitation of, the show he had mounted at the Café du Chalet in Paris in 1886 (see Chapter 29). Like Vincent's show, the Volpini show was an embarrassing bust at the time (not a single painting sold) (see Thomson, in Homburg, ed., pp. 81-82), but has since been elevated to mythic significance by subsequent reputations and commentary. (See Ch. 29, n. 158.)

Context:
JLB 825, 12/8/1889: "That friend of Bernard's called Aurier also came to my place, the one who came to rue Lepic once. He's very interested in what you're doing and showed me a little journal he ran in which he talked about Tanguy's shop, and in which he also mentions your paintings."

              "The intoxicating monotony
              Of the metal, of marble and of water. …
              And everything, even the color black,
              Seemed furbished, bright, iridescent;
              The liquid encased its glory
              In the crystallized ray. …
              And waterfalls weighty
              As crystal curtains
              Hung, dazzling,
              On great metal walls."

Context:
BVG T26, 1/29/1890: "He has been so good to me, so good -- if things should not turn out well -- if I should have to leave him -- then you must tell him -- for there is nobody on earth he loves so much -- that he must never regret that he married me, for he has made me, oh, so happy."
JLB 845, 1/29/1890: "He's been so good to me; so good -- if things don't go well -- if I have to leave him -- you tell him -- for there's no one in the world whom he loves as much -- that he must never regret that we were married, because he's made me so happy."

Context:
JLB 847, 1/31/1890: "She has brought into the world a fine boy who cries a lot but who seems to be in good health."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "No need to tell you that I hope to keep thinking that I don't paint like that, but I do gather from it how I ought to be painting."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "… no need to tell you that I hope to go on thinking that I don't paint like that, but rather I do see from it how I ought to paint."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "Only it must be understood that my back is not broad enough to carry such an undertaking, and in concentrating the article on me, there's no need to tell you how immersed in flattery I feel, and in my opinion it is as exaggerated as what a certain article by Isaäcson said about you, namely that at present the artists had given up squabbling and that an important movement was silently being launched in the little shop on the Boulevard Montmartre."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "Only it must be understood that I don't have a strong enough back to carry out a job like that, and by concentrating the article on me, no need to tell you how I feel mired in flattery, and in my opinion it's as exaggerated as what a certain article by Isaacson said on your account about you, that at present artists declined to argue, and that a serious movement was silently being created in the little shop on boulevard Montmartre."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "For the article is very right as far as indicating the gap to be filled, and I think that the writer really wrote it more to guide, not only me, but the other impressionists as well, and even partly to make the breach at a good place."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "For the article is quite right in the sense that it indicates the gap to be filled, and I think that basically the writer writes it rather to guide not only me but also the other Impressionists, and even rather to make the breach in the right place."

Context:
JLB 701, 10/10/1888 or 10/11/1888: "Letter from Gauguin, to say that he pays me a heap of undeserved compliments ... I send you copy of my reply to his rather over-complimentary letter."

Context:
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "But gladly I'm very grateful for the article, or rather 'glad at heart', as the revue song has it, since one can need it as one can truly need a medal."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "I hope that M. [Auguste Marie] Lauzet will come, I very much wish to make his acquaintance. I have confidence in his opinion when he says it is Provence, there he touches on the difficulty, and like the other one he indicates a thing to be done rather than a thing already done."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "I hope that Mr. Lauzet will come, I very much want to make his acquaintance. I trust in his opinion when he says that it's Provence, there he touches on the difficulty, and like the other fellow he points out a thing to be done rather than one done."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "Landscapes with cypresses! Ah, it would not be easy. Aurier feels it too when he says that even black is a color, and as for their appearance -- I am thinking about it, but don't dare go further, and I say with the cautious Isaäcson -- I do not yet feel that we have got to that."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "The landscapes with the cypresses! Ah, that wouldn't be easy. Aurier feels it too when he says that even black is a colour, and about their flame-like aspect. I'm thinking of it but I don't dare do it either, and say like Isaäcson, who is cautious, that I don't yet feel that we've reached that point."

Context:
BVG 627, 2/20/1890: "But I must admit that afterward, when my surprise had passed off a little, I felt at times very much cheered by it; moreover, yesterday Theo wrote me that they had sold one of my pictures at Brussels for 400 francs."
JLB 855, 2/19/1890: "Now I must confess that later, when my surprise had abated somewhat, I felt very heartened by it at times; yesterday, what's more, Theo informed me that they'd sold one of my paintings in Brussels for 400 francs."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "Only it ought to be understood that my back is not broad enough to be saddled with that task, and I need not tell you that, in concentrating the article on me, he has made me feel steeped in flattery. In my opinion it is all as exaggerated as a certain article by Isaäcson about you which claimed that present-day artists had given up quarrelling, and that an important movement was silently taking shape in the little shop on the Boulevard Montmartre."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "Only it must be understood that I don't have a strong enough back to carry out a job like that, and by concentrating the article on me, no need to tell you how I feel mired in flattery, and in my opinion it's as exaggerated as what a certain article by Isaacson said on your account about you, that at present artists declined to argue, and that a serious movement was silently being created in the little shop on boulevard Montmartre."

Context:
BVG 626, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "But I think I must try to give him something good for this article, which is very much a work of art in itself; and it will do us a real service against the day when we, like everybody else, shall be obliged to try to recover what the pictures cost. Anything beyond that leaves me pretty cold, but recovering the money it costs to produce is the very condition of being able to go on."
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "But I consider that I must try to give him something good for that article, which is in itself a very artistic thing; and it really serves us well for the day when we, like everyone, will be obliged to try and recover what the paintings cost. Everything beyond that leaves me quite cold, but recovering the money it costs to produce, that's the very condition of being able to continue."

Context:
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "You know that I found the Virgin so dazzling that I didn't dare look. Immediately I felt a -- 'not yet'. Now the illness makes me very sensitive, and for the moment I don't feel capable of continuing these 'translations' when it would involve such masterpieces. I'm stopping with the sower, which is in progress and isn't coming along as would be desirable."

Context:
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "Would it not be a good idea to send Reid [Alexander Reid, 1854-1928; Scottish art dealer], and perhaps also Tersteeg, or rather C.M. [Uncle Cor], a copy of Aurier's article? The thing is that it seems to me that we ought to take advantage of it to try to place something in Scotland, either now or later."

Context:
BVG 626, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "Wouldn't it be a good idea to send Reid, and perhaps Tersteeg too, or rather C. M., a copy of Aurier's article? It seems to me that we ought to take advantage of it to dispose of something in Scotland, either now or later."
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "Would it not be a good idea to send Reid, and perhaps also Tersteeg, or rather C.M., a copy of Aurier's article? The thing is that it seems to me that we ought to take advantage of it to try to place something in Scotland, either now or later."

Context:
BVG 623a, 1/31/1890: "Today I am sending you a little roll of photographs of pictures by Millet, which you may not know. However this may be, the purpose is to remind you of myself and my brother."
JLB 849, 2/1/1890: "Today I'm sending you a little roll of photographs after Millet which perhaps you may not know. In any event, it's to recall us, my brother and myself, to your good memory."

Context:
JLB 849, 2/1/1890: "You will find article on canvases of mine at the Vingtistes, I assure you that I myself owe a lot to things that Gauguin told me as regards drawing, and hold his way of loving nature in high, very high esteem."

Context:
JLB 849, 2/1/1890: "If you ever come to Paris, take one of my canvases from my brother's place if you wish, if you still have the idea of making a collection for your native country one day. You'll remember that I've already spoken to you about it, that it was my great desire to give you one for this purpose."

Context:
JLB 849, 2/1/1890: "If you ever come to Paris, take one of my canvases from my brother's place if you wish, if you still have the idea of making a collection for your native country one day. You'll remember that I've already spoken to you about it, that it was my great desire to give you one for this purpose."

Context:
JLB 849, 2/1/1890: "If you ever come to Paris, take one of my canvases from my brother's place if you wish, if you still have the idea of making a collection for your native country one day. You'll remember that I've already spoken to you about it, that it was my great desire to give you one for this purpose."

Context:
JLB 851, 2/2/1890: "I've just written a line to Russell once again to remind him about Gauguin a little, for I know that Russell is very serious and strong as a man. And if I got back together with G., then we'd have need of Russell."

Context:
BVG 623a, 1/31/1890: "You will find article about some canvases I have at the exhibition of the Vingtistes. I assure you that I owe much to the things Gauguin told me on the subject of drawing, and I have the highest respect for the way he loves nature."
JLB 849, 2/1/1890: "You will find article on canvases of mine at the Vingtistes, I assure you that I myself owe a lot to things that Gauguin told me as regards drawing, and hold his way of loving nature in high, very high esteem."

Context:
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "Gauguin proposed, very vaguely it's true, founding a studio in his name, he, De Haan and I, but said that first he's pursuing his Tonkin project vigorously, and he appears to have cooled about continuing to paint, I don't know exactly why."

Context:
JLB 839, 1/13/1890: "I'll drop a line to Gauguin and De Haan to ask if they're planning to stay in Brittany and if they'd like me to send the furniture, and then if they want me to come too."

Context:
JLB 839, 1/13/1890: "I'll drop a line to Gauguin and De Haan to ask if they're planning to stay in Brittany and if they'd like me to send the furniture, and then if they want me to come too."

Context:
BVG 626, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "And don't you think that in Antwerp -- if we carried out Gauguin's plan -- it would be necessary to maintain a certain position, to furnish a studio, in fact to do as the greater part of the established Dutch painters do."
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "And don't you think that in Antwerp, if we put Gauguin's plan into practice, one would have to maintain a certain rank, furnish a studio, in short do as the majority of established Dutch painters do?"

Context:
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "Lately my health is quite good, however, and I'd dare to believe that if I were to spend a while with you that would have a lot of effect upon me to counteract the influence that the company I have here necessarily exerts. But it seems to me that there's no hurry about this, and that we must consider calmly if this is the moment to spend money on the journey. Perhaps by sacrificing the journey one could be useful to Gauguin or [Auguste Marie] Lauzet. … All things considered, life here isn't very expensive, I think that in the north one would spend rather more. And that's why -- even if I came to you for a while -- the best policy might still be to continue the work here. I don't know -- and either is good to me -- but we mustn't hurry to move"

Context:
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "To me it seems a shame that he didn't continue here a bit longer. The two of us together would have worked better than myself all alone this year. And at present we'd have a little cottage of our own to stay in and work, and could even accommodate others."

Context:
BVG 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: " Thank you very much for your article in the Mercure de France, which surprised me a good deal. I admire it very much as a work of art in itself, it seems to me that you paint with words; in fact, I encounter my canvases anew in your article, but better than they are in reality, richer, more meaningful."
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: " Thank you very much for your article in the Mercure de France, which greatly surprised me. I like it very much as a work of art in itself, I feel that you create colours with your words; anyway I rediscover my canvases in your article, but better than they really are -- richer, more significant."

Context:
BVG 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "Monticelli in particular is a case in point. Since you say that 'he is, so far as I know, the only painter who perceives the range of color of things with this intensity, with this metallic, gem-like quality,' please go to see, at my brother's, a certain bouquet by Monticelli -- a bouquet in white, forget-me-not blue & orange -- and then you will understand what I mean."
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "For example, to Monticelli above all. Speaking of 'he is -- as far as I know -- the only painter who perceives the coloration of things with such intensity, with such a metallic, gem-like quality' -- if you will please go and see a particular bouquet by Monticelli at my brother's place -- bouquet in white, forget-me-not blue and orange -- then you will feel what I mean."

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 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "Gauguin, that curious artist, that strange individual, whose demeanour and look vaguely recall Rembrandt's Portrait of a Man at the Galerie Lacaze -- that friend who likes to make one feel that a good picture should be equivalent to a good deed, not that he says so, but it is in fact difficult to be much in his company without being mindful of a certain moral responsibility."
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "Gauguin, that curious artist, that stranger whose bearing and gaze vaguely recall Rembrandt's Portrait of a man in the La Caze gallery, that friend who likes to make one feel that a good painting should be the equivalent of a good deed, not that he says so, but anyway it is difficult to spend time with him without thinking of a certain moral responsibility."

Throughout the letter to Aurier, Vincent quietly promotes positions he has long espoused, but takes care to avoid openly disputing the critic. In this instance, he appears to be reserving the privileged place for portraits and figure painting that he always envisioned as essential to the mandate of the Bel Ami of the Midi. This would also explain his strange defense of the Salon favorite Ernest Meissonier, whose paintings Aurier had dismissed as "little infamies": "And, in closing, I declare that I do not understand that you spoke of Meissonier's infamies. It is perhaps from that excellent fellow [Anton] Mauve that I have inherited a boundless admiration for Meissonier ... What Mauve often repeated was something like this, 'if you want to do colour you must also know how to draw a fireside or an interior like Meissonier.'" (JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890.) It may be a fillip on this counter-argument when Vincent says, at the end of his letter, that he is delaying sending the cypress painting for Aurier because he wanted "to put in a small figure" (ibid.).

Context:
BVG 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "Gauguin, that curious artist, that strange individual, whose demeanour and look vaguely recall Rembrandt's Portrait of a Man at the Galerie Lacaze -- that friend who likes to make one feel that a good picture should be equivalent to a good deed, not that he says so, but it is in fact difficult to be much in his company without being mindful of a certain moral responsibility."
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "Gauguin, that curious artist, that stranger whose bearing and gaze vaguely recall Rembrandt's Portrait of a man in the La Caze gallery, that friend who likes to make one feel that a good painting should be the equivalent of a good deed, not that he says so, but anyway it is difficult to spend time with him without thinking of a certain moral responsibility."

Context:
BVG 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "I also owe a great deal to Paul Gauguin, with whom I worked for several months in Arles, and whom, moreover, I already knew in Paris."
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "Next I owe a great deal to Paul Gauguin, with whom I worked for a few months in Arles, and whom, besides, I already knew in Paris."

Context:
BVG 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "A few days before we parted company, when my illness forced me to go into an asylum, I tried to paint 'his empty place.'"
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "A few days before we parted, when illness forced me to enter an asylum, I tried to paint 'his empty place.'"

Context:
BVG 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "You may realize now that your article would have been fairer and -- it seems to me -- consequently more powerful, if, when dealing with the question of the nature of 'tropical painting' and the question of colour, you had -- before speaking of me -- done justice to Gauguin and Monticelli."
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "You may perhaps then realize that your article would have been more accurate and -- it would seem to me -- thus more powerful -- if in dealing with the question of the future 'painting of the tropics' and the question of colour, you had done justice to Gauguin and Monticelli before talking about me."

Context:
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "For the share that falls or will fall to me will remain, I assure you, very secondary."

Context:
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 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "You see, I find it very difficult to make a distinction between impressionism and other things. I do not see any use for much of the sectarian thinking we have seen these last few years, but the absurdity of it frightens me."
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "You see, it seems to me so difficult to separate Impressionism from other things, I cannot see the point of so much sectarian thinking as we have seen these last few years, but I fear its absurdity."

Context:
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "A few days before we parted, when illness forced me to enter an asylum, I tried to paint 'his empty place'. It is a study of his armchair of dark, red-brown wood, the seat of greenish straw, and in the absent person's place a lighted candlestick and some modern novels. If you have the opportunity, as a memento of him, please go and look a little at this study again, which is entirely in broken tones of green and red."

Context:
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "I shall add a study of cypresses for you to the next consignment I send to my brother, if you will do me the pleasure of accepting it as a memento of your article."

Context:
BVG 626a, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "The cypress is so characteristic of the Provence landscape. You will feel it, and say, 'Even the color black.'"
JLB 853, 2/9/1890 or 2/10/1890: "The cypress is so characteristic of the landscape of Provence, and you sensed it when saying: 'even the colour black.'"

Context:
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "And so Gauguin has come back to Paris -- I'm going to copy my reply to Mr. Aurier to send it to him. ... I'll write to him one of these days, especially to send him the reply to Mr. Aurier's article."

Context:
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "Please send the enclosed letter to Mr. Aurier after you've read it."

Context:
BVG 626, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "But I foresee that for him the struggle might be very hard, I think that you must tell him the pros and cons exactly as I should. I will write him soon, mainly to send him my reply to M. Aurier's article, and I should think that, if he liked, we could work together again here if his attempts to find a shelter do not succeed."
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "But I foresee that for him the battle could be very tough. I think that you'll tell him the pros and cons of this absolutely as I would tell him, I'll write to him one of these days, especially to send him the reply to Mr. Aurier's article, and I'd think that if he wanted we could still work here together if his steps to find a position were to come to nothing."

Context:
BVG 626, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: " Aurier's article would encourage me if I dared to let myself go, and venture even further, dropping reality and making a kind of music of tones with colour, like some Monticellis."
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: " Aurier's article would encourage me, if I dared let myself go, to risk emerging from reality more and making a kind of tonal music with colour, as some Monticellis are."

Context:
BVG 626, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "Aurier's article would encourage me if I dared to let myself go, and venture even further, dropping reality and making a kind of music of tones with colour, like some Monticellis."
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "Aurier's article would encourage me, if I dared let myself go, to risk emerging from reality more and making a kind of tonal music with colour, as some Monticellis are."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "Anyway, the good news you have sent me and this article and lots of things have made me feel quite well personally today."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "Anyway, for me the good news you've told me and that article and a heap of things mean that I'm personally feeling completely well today."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "So if some sort or reputation comes to you and me, the thing is to try to keep some sort of calm and, if possible, clarity of mind."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "So if you or I were to gain some reputation or other, it's a matter of trying to retain a certain calm, and if possible presence of mind."

Context:
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "Bravo -- and how pleased Mother is going to be."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "Thinking of this, but far away, I feel the desire to renew myself, and to try to apologize for the fact that my pictures are after all almost a cry of anguish, although in the rustic sunflower they may symbolize gratitude."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "Thinking like this, but very far off, the desire comes over me to remake myself and try to have myself forgiven for the fact that my paintings are, however, almost a cry of anguish while symbolizing gratitude in the rustic sunflower."

Context:
BVG T28, 2/9/1890: "All goes well with us; Jo is nursing the baby, and has no lack of milk, and at times the little one lies with his eyes wide open and his fists pressed against his face."
JLB 852, 2/9/1890: "Things are going well at home with us, Jo is nursing the baby and has no lack of milk, and the little one sometimes lies down with his eyes wide open and his fists against his face."

Context:
JLB 846, 1/31/1890: "Your brother Vincent."

Context:
JLB 852, 2/9/1890: "He has blue eyes like the baby you painted, and fat cheeks."

Context:
BVG T27, 1/31/1890: "As we told you at the time, we are going to name him after you, and I devoutly hope that he will be able to be as persevering and as courageous as you."
JLB 847, 1/31/1890: "As we told you, we'll name him after you, and I'm making the wish that he may be as determined and as courageous as you."

Context:
BVG 624, 1/31/1890: "How happy Theo will be, and a new sun will rise inside him when he sees you recovering."
JLB 846, 1/31/1890: "How happy Theo will be, and a new sun will rise in him when he sees you recovering."

Context:
JLB 855, 2/19/1890: "Now I'm seriously thinking of profiting from that windfall of selling that painting to go to Paris -- to visit Theo. And thanks to the doctor here I feel I'll leave calmer and healthier than I came here. Just to see how it goes outside an asylum is perhaps only a matter of course. The work may possibly be more difficult for me, though, when I'm at liberty again."

Context:
BVG 627, 2/20/1890: "Now I am strongly inclined to take advantage of my good luck in selling this picture by going to Paris to visit Theo. And thanks to the physician here, I shall leave feeling calmer and healthier than when I came. Trying how it goes outside a hospital is perhaps only natural. Though work may perhaps be more difficult when I am free again."
JLB 855, 2/19/1890: "Now I'm seriously thinking of profiting from that windfall of selling that painting to go to Paris -- to visit Theo. And thanks to the doctor here I feel I'll leave calmer and healthier than I came here. Just to see how it goes outside an asylum is perhaps only a matter of course. The work may possibly be more difficult for me, though, when I'm at liberty again."

Context:
BVG 626b, 2/1/1890-2/15/1890: "So for myself I am quite glad that all goes well with me, especially as my work is not progressing too badly, and because there have been articles on my pictures published simultaneously in Belgium and in Paris, where I had them exhibited, in which they speak far better of them than I myself could have wished."
JLB 851, 2/2/1890: "So for myself I'm really pleased that this is going well, all the more so because work isn't going too badly either, having had articles on my paintings both in Belgium and in Paris where I exhibited them, and people are saying much more good things about them than I myself would wish."

In fact, not long after Vincent's boast to Joseph Ginoux, the visit by Lauzet fell through -- probably another victim of rumors about the latest attack in January and then February. In April, Theo puts the best face on the reversal: "Lauzet is back, he wasn't able to stop by and see you, because his mother and sister who lived in Marseille have come to stay with him here, and he had to help them move house and didn't have the money to go out of his way" (JLB 862, 4/23/1890).

Context:
JLB 851, 2/2/1890: "I'm expecting a visit from a Marseille painter any day now, so this is another reason why I don't know precisely which day I'll be able to come and see you."

Context:
BVG 626b, 2/1/1890-2/15/1890: "Only the other day I had a letter from Mr. Paul, and it is possible that I shall go and see him soon, for I am longing to make the acquaintance of my brother's little boy, who was born a short time ago, safe and sound fortunately."
JLB 851, 2/2/1890: "I had news of Mr. Paul again the other day, and it's possible I may soon go and see him, especially because I also have a great desire to go and make the acquaintance of my brother's little one, who has fortunately just been born safe and sound."

Context:
BVG 626b, 2/1/1890-2/15/1890: "Only the other day I had a letter from Mr. Paul, and it is possible that I shall go and see him soon, for I am longing to make the acquaintance of my brother's little boy, who was born a short time ago, safe and sound fortunately."
JLB 851, 2/2/1890: "I had news of Mr. Paul again the other day, and it's possible I may soon go and see him, especially because I also have a great desire to go and make the acquaintance of my brother's little one, who has fortunately just been born safe and sound."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "But when I had read that article I felt almost mournful, for I thought: I ought to be like that, and I feel so inferior."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "I found Mr. Aurier's article - leaving aside whether I deserve what he says of me -- in itself very artistic, very curious -- but it's rather like this that I ought to be than the sad reality of what I feel myself to be" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "And pride, like drink, is intoxicating, when one is praised, and has drunk the praise up. It makes one sad, or rather -- I don't know how to express it, I feel it -- but it seems to me that the best work one can do is what is done in the privacy of one's home without praise."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "And pride intoxicates like drink, when one is praised and has drunk one becomes sad, or anyway I don't know how to say how I feel it, but it seems to me that the best work one could do would be that carried out in the family home without self-praise."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "Soiled in the struggle for life ... 'Who will give back to the soul what the breath of revolutions has taken away' -- this is the cry of distress uttered by the poet of another generation, who seemed to have a presentiment of our present weaknesses, diseases, wanderings."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "Soiled in the struggle for life ... 'who will give back to the soul that which the breath of revolutions has taken away' -- that's the cry of a poet of the other generation who seemed to have a premonition of our present weaknesses, our sicknesses, our confusions."

Context:
BVG 629a, 4/30/1890: " As soon as I heard that my work was having some success, and read the article in question, I feared at once that I should be punished for it; this is how things nearly always go in a painter's life: success is about the worst thing that can happen."
JLB 864, 4/29/1890: " When I heard that my work was having some success and read that article I was immediately afraid that I'd regret it -- it's almost always the case that success is the worst thing that can happen in a painter's life."

Vincent dismissed his earlier copies (after Millet's Travaux [see Chapter 40]) as "gropings" (JLB 839, 1/13/1890) and protested various justifications for his continuing attempts in this direction: "It is rather translating into another language ... It took me a lot of time and a lot of trouble. ... They were done through a most profound and sincere admiration for Millet. ... It's justifiable to try to make Millet's work more accessible to the ordinary general public." (ibid.) Still, he imagined that one day these works would be "criticized ... or despised as copies" (ibid.). When Theo sent him a new batch of prints by Millet and others (see JLB 850, 2/1/1890), the effect was to redouble Vincent's insecurities rather than assuage them. In a pathetic reach for validation, he immediately forwarded some of the Millet images to John Peter Russell in the hopes of recruiting Russell to join him in his project of "translation": "In order to prevent people, not criticizing me, I couldn't care about that, but bothering or obstructing me under the pretext that I'm manufacturing copies -- then among the artists I need people like Russell or Gauguin to carry this task to a successful conclusion, to make something serious of it." (JLB 850, 2/1/1890.)

He swore off doing any more copies after Millet or anybody else until he had heard back from Russell: "I don't want to do it before first having heard something of your opinion, then also that of certain others on those that you'll soon receive. Without that I'd have scruples of conscience, a fear that it might be plagiarism" (ibid.). (Note that Vincent does not say, "that it might be considered plagiarism" -- suggesting just how deep his reservations still ran.) Curiously, when Vincent did send the "roll" of Millets to Russell, the accompanying letter said nothing about his translation project nor did it make any overt effort to recruit Russell to it -- indicating, perhaps, that Vincent was too ashamed of the project even to mention it (presumably just hoping that Russell would take the bait). Instead, he spends most of the letter (JLB 849, 2/1/1890) trying to coax Russell into going to the entresol to buy a work by Gauguin (see Ch. 41, n. 139 and n. 142). As far as is known, Vincent did not have the courage to mention the copying project to Gauguin at all. Yet he continued to do copies himself (e.g., Prisoners Exercising [F 669 JH 1885], after Gustave Doré; and The Drinkers [F 667 JH 1884], after Honoré Daumier; see JLB 839, 1/13/1890), in a kind of self-mortification of inadequacy.

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "I have scruples of conscience about doing the things by Millet which you sent me, for instance, and which seemed to me perfectly chosen, and I took the pile of photographs and unhesitantly sent them to Russell, so that I shall not see them again until I have made up my mind."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "To do the things by Millet that you sent, for example, the choice of which I consider completely right -- I have scruples of conscience, and I took the pile of photographs and I sent them unhesitatingly to Russell so that I shouldn't see them again until I'd thought long and hard about it."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "My illness makes me very sensitive now, and for the moment I do not feel capable of continuing these 'translations' when it concerns such masterpieces."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "Now the illness makes me very sensitive, and for the moment I don't feel capable of continuing these 'translations' when it would involve such masterpieces."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "I am stopping at the 'Sower [F 690 JH 1837],' which I am working on, and which is not coming off as I should wish."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "I'm stopping with the sower [F 690 JH 1837], which is in progress and isn't coming along as would be desirable."

Context:
JLB 839, 1/13/1890: "Then, even if they're criticized one day or despised as copies, it will remain no less true that it's justifiable to try to make Millet's work more accessible to the ordinary general public."

Context:
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "To do the things by Millet that you sent, for example, the choice of which I consider completely right -- I have scruples of conscience, and I took the pile of photographs and I sent them unhesitatingly to Russell so that I shouldn't see them again until I'd thought long and hard about it."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "And you will foresee, as I do, that such praise must have its opposite, the other side of the medal."

JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "And you, like me, foresee that being praised must have its other side, its reverse of the coin."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "Now as for the little boy, why don't you call him Theo in memory of our father, it would certainly give a great deal of pleasure to me."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "Now as for the little one, why then don't you call him Theo in memory of our father, that would certainly give me so much pleasure."

Context:
BVG T32, 4/23/1890: "The little one particularly gives Jo a lot of work ... He is of a nervous disposition but very gentle."
JLB 862, 4/23/1890: "The little one gives Jo ... a great deal of work ... He's nervous by nature, but very sweet."

Context:
BVG T25, 1/22/1890: " It is necessary to get well known without obtruding oneself, and it will come of its own accord by reason of your beautiful pictures."
JLB 843, 1/22/1890: " One must make oneself known without wanting to impose oneself: this will come of its own accord through your fine works."

Context:
BVG T27, 1/31/1890: "This is the only cloud in the sky of our happiness, for, my dear brother, the bad moment for Jo is past."
JLB 847, 1/31/1890: "It's the only cloud in our happiness, for my dear brother, the bad moment for Jo is over."

Context:
BVG T32, 4/23/1890: "Your silence proves to us that you are still suffering, and I feel urgently impelled to tell you, my dear brother, that Jo and I suffer too because we know you are ill."
JLB 862, 4/23/1890: "Your silence proves to us that you're still suffering, and I need to tell you, my dear brother, that Jo and I are also suffering, knowing that you're still ill."

Context:
BVG 595, 6/17/1889-6/18/1889: "You cause a stir by exhibiting in cafés; I do not say it is not bad taste to do it, but I myself have this crime on my conscience twice over, as I exhibited at the Tambourin and at the Avenue de Clichy, without counting the upset caused to 81 worthy anthropophagi of the good town of Arles and their excellent mayor."
JLB 782, 6/18/1889: "One causes a stir by exhibiting in the cafés, which I don't say isn't in bad taste. But for myself, I have that crime on my conscience, and to the point of doing it twice, having exhibited at the Tambourin and at avenue de Clichy."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "Old Goupil managed his household pretty well even in the Parisian thorns and thistles, and I expect you will think of him many a time."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "Old Goupil ran his household well in the Paris undergrowth, and I think that you'll still think of him very often."

Context:
JLB 843, 1/22/1890: "Wil is much better, and she is looking extremely well. I should very much like her to get married, but to whom?"

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "But from the beginning you must beware of putting your young family too much into artistic surroundings."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "But right from the start we must think of not putting your young family too much into the artistic environment."

Context:
BVG 615, 11/21/1889: "We must work as much and with as few pretensions as a peasant if we want to last."
JLB 823, 11/26/1889: "One must work as hard and with as few pretensions as a peasant if one wants to last."

Gauguin's attitude can be gauged by his reaction after the article on Vincent appeared. He wrote the critic several letters in the following months, but when Aurier didn't respond immediately, he lashed out furiously to Bernard: "Aurier hasn't answered my two letters, just like dog shit along a wall" (Gauguin, quoted in Lövgren, p. 146; emphasis in original). Gauguin showed none of this anger or bitterness to the apologetic Vincent (see Ch. 41, n. 161). "My very dear Vincent," he opened his letter of January 28 inviting Vincent to jointly found a studio in Antwerp (Gauguin, Paul Gauguin: 45 Lettres à Vincent, Théo et Jo van Gogh, p. 297). (His inner turmoil can probably be inferred from his conspicuous failure to mention the article despite almost certainly having read it by this date.) Roskill offers one explanation for Gauguin's concealing his fury from Vincent: "When things went badly between himself and Theo, [Gauguin] used Vincent to pull his relationship with the dealer back into line" (Roskill, p. 204). In short, Gauguin, who was experiencing a "downward slide in his career [as] Van Gogh's was surging upward," could not afford to alienate his dealer (Mathews, Nancy, p. 148). After much further drama, Aurier did finally publish an article about Gauguin in the March 1891 issue of the Mercure entitled "Le Symbolisme en peinture" (“Symbolism in Painting”). The critic died prematurely the following year, at the age of twenty-seven, after contracting typhoid on a trip to the south of France. (See Rusic, p. 51.)

Context:
BVG 626, 2/10/1890-2/11/1890: "But it seems to me that there is no hurry about this, and we must consider coolly if this is the moment to spend money on the journey; perhaps we could do something for Gauguin or Lauzet by giving up the journey."
JLB 854, 2/12/1890: "But it seems to me that there's no hurry about this, and that we must consider calmly if this is the moment to spend money on the journey."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "… although I feel that I have become a rather degenerate child. Thinking of this, but far away, I feel the desire to renew myself, and to try to apologize for the fact that my pictures are after all almost a cry of anguish, although in the rustic sunflower they may symbolize gratitude.
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: " …while feeling myself become a most degenerate child. Thinking like this, but very far off, the desire comes over me to remake myself and try to have myself forgiven for the fact that my paintings are, however, almost a cry of anguish while symbolizing gratitude in the rustic sunflower."

Because of this, and because Vincent later characterized the painting as a gift for the baby (see below), the passage from the letter to Wil has been translated differently from the version in BVG (Bonger may have had special knowledge on the subject): "I started immediately to make a picture for him [the baby], to hang in their bedroom, big branches of white almond blossom against a blue sky." (Pickvance, p. 178; emphasis added.) JLB support the latter interpretation (JLB, 856, 2/1/1890). The original text, with its sexually-ambiguous reflexive pronoun "lui," supports either translation: "Mais enfin le résultat c'est que l'enfant y est -- et ainsi que je l'écris à sa grandmère je me suis mis à peindre de ces jours ci pour lui -- une grande toile bleu de ciel sur lequel se détachent des branches fleuries."

One does not have to look far in Vincent’s imaginative world to find a precedent for a painting of flowers as a gift for an infant. In Rod's Sens de la Vie, which Vincent read in 1889, a new father remarks on his bébé's fascination with flowers: "One of the aspects of the baby that ravishes me the most, this is its love for flowers. She takes joy in them from the first moment that she perceives them. She takes them in her little hand, and moves them with movements of ecstasy, an intelligent air, a fine smile." (Rod, p. 131.) But the ambiguity of the painting's inspiration is not so easily resolved. It was on Vincent’s easel the day before he left on the fateful visit to Arles in February (see Pickvance, pp. 178-179), which suggests to us a connection with his maternal Ginoux longing; and when Vincent sent it off to Arles in late April, he had not added a dedication to his nephew (ibid.) -- an odd omission if it was, indeed, intended for that purpose.

When Theo immediately admired the painting, he made no reference to its suitability as (or his gratitude for) a gift for the newborn (JLB 867, 5/3/1890). By the end of May, during which time Vincent visited Theo’s apartment in Paris, however, the painting had definitively acquired the identity of a gift for the baby. "I brought along a relatively large picture for Theo's and Jo's little boy," Vincent wrote Wil from Auvers in early June, "which they hung over the piano -- white almond blossoms -- big branches against a sky-blue background" (JLB 879, 6/5/1890). (Note that the painting was hung in the living room, not in the bedroom as Vincent had imagined. Also, the false claim that he had brought it with him casts a pall of suspicion over the entire account.) We prefer to embrace the ambiguity of Vincent’s intentions for the image. It was painted in the swoon of maternal longings that preceded his trip to Arles in late February, as described in the text, and that swoon included his own mother, Madame Ginoux, the newborn nephew, Theo and Jo, and himself -- all of whose images were summoned up when Vincent imagined the perfect mother-child relationship, so much missed and yearned for.

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "Well, the result is that after all that the child is there -- and also I shall write a letter to Mother telling her so; a day or two ago I started painting a picture for her of a blue sky with branches full of blossoms standing out against it."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "But anyway, the result is that the child's here -- and as I wrote to his grandmother, I've started painting for him these last few days -- a large sky-blue canvas against which branches covered in blossoms stand out."

Context:
BVG 627, 2/20/1890: " I should have greatly preferred him to call the boy after Father, of whom I have been thinking so much these days, instead of after me."
JLB 855, 2/19/1890: " I'd much rather that he'd called his boy after Pa, whom I've thought about so often these days, than after me, but anyway, as it's been done now I started right away to make a painting for him, to hang in their bedroom."

Context:
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "… when I read the article it made me almost sad as I thought: should be like this and I feel so inferior. And pride intoxicates like drink, when one is praised and has drunk one becomes sad, or anyway I don't know how to say how I feel it."

Context:
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "Soiled in the struggle for life ... 'Who will give back to the soul what the breath of revolutions has taken away' -- this is the cry of distress uttered by the poet of another generation, who seemed to have a presentiment of our present weaknesses, diseases, wanderings."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "Millet set the example by living in a hovel, and holding intercourse only with people who did not know the bounds of pride and eccentricity."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "Millet set the example by living in a cottage, keeping in well with people without our lapses of pride and eccentricity. So rather a little wisdom than a lot of gusto. So, just like then."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: " Soiled in the struggle for life ... 'Who will give back to the soul what the breath of revolutions has taken away' -- this is the cry of distress uttered by the poet of another generation, who seemed to have a presentiment of our present weaknesses, diseases, wanderings."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: " Soiled in the struggle for life ... 'who will give back to the soul that which the breath of revolutions has taken away' -- that's the cry of a poet of the other generation who seemed to have a premonition of our present weaknesses, our sicknesses, our confusions."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "You see that I do not reason well yet -- it would be better to know how to calculate the price of a pound of bread or a quarter of a pound of coffee, as the peasants do."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "You can see that I'm not yet reasoning well -- it's better to know how to calculate what a pound of bread and a quarter of coffee are worth, the way the peasants know."

Context:
JLB 855, 2/19/1890: "The last few days we've had rather miserable weather here, but today it was a real spring day, and the fields of young wheat and the lilac hills in the distance so beautiful, and the almond trees are beginning to blossom everywhere."

Context:
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "But when I read the article it made me almost sad as I thought: should be like this and I feel so inferior. And pride intoxicates like drink, when one is praised and has drunk one becomes sad, or anyway I don't know how to say how I feel it, but it seems to me that the best work one could do would be that carried out in the family home without self-praise."

Context:
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "These days, to think that that fellow wept as he started painting, that Giotto, that Angelico painted on their knees."

Context:
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "These days, to think that that fellow wept as he started painting, that Giotto, that Angelico painted on their knees."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "… Delacroix so full of grief and feeling ... nearly smiling."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "Delacroix so utterly sad and moved ... almost smiling" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "'Ah, I was glad of the success at Brussels, because of that Campine of Antwerp, which I will seek to call to mind now and then when I see the quiet furrows of the fields, although I feel that I have become a rather degenerate child.'"
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "Ah, that's why I was pleased with the success in Brussels, because of that Kempen of Antwerp that I still try to recall from time to time in the calm furrows of the fields while feeling myself become a most degenerate child."

Context:
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "Ah Millet! Millet! How that fellow painted humanity and the 'something on high', familiar and yet solemn."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: "You need a certain dose of inspiration, a ray from on high, that is not in ourselves, in order to do beautiful things."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "It requires a certain dose of inspiration, a ray from on high which doesn't belong to us, to do beautiful things."

Three months later, reporting to Theo on his final correspondence with Russell before the effort at resuscitation in February 1890, Vincent still had the exchange for Russell's orchard paintings on his mind: " I told Russell that he was perfectly at liberty to take what he might want, and from the first consignment too. And that I was only waiting for a categorical answer to know whether he wanted to choose at his home or yours. That in the first case, if he wanted to see them at his home -- you'd send him some orchards too." (JLB 638, 7/9/1888 or 7/10/1888.) Thus, Blossoming Almond Tree (F 671 JH 1891) can be seen as a tribute, conscious or unconscious, to Russell, in much the same way that Vincent's Ravine (F 662 JH 1804), painted only a few months earlier (in October 1889), was a very conscious tribute to another former friend with whom Vincent wished to make amends, Émile Bernard. "I'm working on a large canvas of a ravine; it's a subject just like the study with a yellow tree that I still have from you, two bases of extremely solid rocks, between which a trickle of water flows, a third mountain that closes off the ravine. These motifs certainly have a beautiful melancholy, and it's enjoyable to work in really wild sites where you have to bury your easel in the stones so that the wind doesn't send everything flying to the ground." (JLB 809, 10/8/1889.) About a month later he tells Theo much the same, saying about his picture that "Bernard really has found perfect things in there" (JLB 816, 11/3/1889). That Vincent's Ravine owed a specific debt to Bernard's imagery, not just a general one, seems to be confirmed in December 1889 when he forcefully invokes the imagery in question to his sister Wil: "Now you think you remember having seen some rocks by him [Bernard], he's done a lot of them, and cliffs and beaches in Brittany" (JLB 827, 12/9/1889 or 12/10/1889). Galbally is no doubt correct in locating the common influence on both Vincent's and Russell's imagery, in 1887 and in 1890, of Japanese prints, as discussed by Chetham (Chetham, pp. 45-46).

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

Context:
BVG W22, 6/5/1890: "I brought along a relatively large picture for Theo's and Jo's little boy -- which they hung over the piano -- white almond blossoms -- big branches against a sky-blue background …"
JLB 879, 6/5/1890: "For Theo and Jo's little one I brought back a rather large painting -- which they've hung above the piano -- white almond blossoms -- big branches on a sky-blue background …"

Context:
JLB 855, 2/19/1890: "Yesterday ... Theo informed me that they'd sold one of my paintings in Brussels for 400 francs."

Context:
BVG 627, 2/20/1890: " Compared with other prices, also those in Holland, this is little, but therefore I try to be productive to be able to go on working at a reasonable cost."
JLB 855, 2/19/1890: " In comparison with other prices, including the Dutch ones, this isn't much, but that's why I try to be productive in order to be able to keep working at reasonable prices" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 628, 3/15/1890: " My work was going well, the last canvas of branches in blossom -- you will see that it was perhaps the best, the most patiently worked thing I had done, painted with calm and with a greater firmness of touch. And the next day, down like a brute."
JLB 857, 3/17/1890: " Work was going well, the last canvas of the branches in blossom, you'll see that it was perhaps the most patiently worked, best thing I had done, painted with calm and a greater sureness of touch. And the next day done for like a brute."

Context:
BVG 625, 2/2/1890: " My illness makes me very sensitive now, and for the moment I do not feel capable of continuing these "translations" when it concerns such masterpieces."
JLB 850, 2/1/1890: "Now the illness makes me very sensitive, and for the moment I don't feel capable of continuing these 'translations' when it would involve such masterpieces."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "Perhaps in my case it is necessary to fortify my resolution not to allow myself to have a weak head. Naturally, in consequence of continual brainwork, an artist's thoughts get somewhat exaggerated and eccentric at times."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "Perhaps in my case I must strengthen my resolve not to want to have a feeble mind. Naturally, through continual brain-work, the thoughts of an artist sometimes take on something of the exaggerated and eccentric."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "Perhaps in my case it is necessary to fortify my resolution not to allow myself to have a weak head. Naturally, in consequence of continual brainwork, an artist's thoughts get somewhat exaggerated and eccentric at times."
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "Perhaps in my case I must strengthen my resolve not to want to have a feeble mind. Naturally, through continual brain-work, the thoughts of an artist sometimes take on something of the exaggerated and eccentric."

Context:
JLB 856, 2/19/1890: "I'm going to try to go to Arles once more tomorrow or the day after tomorrow to see if I can bear the journey and ordinary life without the attacks recurring."

Context:
JLB 857, 3/17/1890: "Today I wanted to try and read the letters that had come for me, but I wasn't yet clear-headed enough to be able to understand them."

Context:
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "Today, as Mr. Peyron had come back, I read your kind letters, then the letters from home as well."

Context:
BVG 628, 3/15/1890: "I take up this letter again to try to write, it will come little by little, the thing is that my head is so bad, without pain it is true, but altogether stupefied."
JLB 857, 3/17/1890: "I'm picking up this letter again to try and write, it will come little by little, it's just that my mind has been so affected -- without pain, it's true -- but totally stupefied."

Context:
JLB 857, 3/17/1890: "I'm picking up this letter again to try and write, it will come little by little, it's just that my mind has been so affected -- without pain, it's true -- but totally stupefied."

Context:
BVG 628, 3/15/1890: " Don't worry about me, even if this should last a bit longer, and write the same thing to those at home and give them kindest regards from me."
JLB 857, 3/17/1890: " Don't worry about me, even if it should last a little longer, and write the same thing to those at home and give them my warm regards."

Context:
JLB 857, 3/17/1890: "So, my poor brother, take things as they are, don't grieve on my account, it will encourage me and support me more than you think to know that you're running your household well."

Context:
BVG 628, 3/15/1890: "Then after a time of affliction perhaps peaceful days will come again for me too."
JLB 857, 3/17/1890: "Then, after a time of trial, perhaps days of serenity will return for me too."

Context:
BVG 628, 3/15/1890: "Remember me to the Pissarros, very shortly I am going to read the letters more calmly, and I hope to write again tomorrow or the next day."
JLB 857, 3/17/1890: "Give my regards to the Pissarros, later I'm going to read your letters more calmly, and hope to write again tomorrow or the day after."

Context:
JLB 864, 4/29/1890: "While my illness was at its worst, I still painted, among other things a reminiscence of Brabant, cottages with mossy roofs and beech hedges on an autumn evening with a stormy sky, the sun setting red in reddish clouds [Cottages and Cypresses: Reminiscence of the North (F 675 JH 1921)]. And a turnip field with women lifting turnips in the snow [Two Peasant Women Digging in Field with Snow (F 695 JH 1923)]."

Context:
BVG 629, 4/30/1890: "While I was ill I nevertheless did some little canvases from memory which you will see later, memories of the North, and now I have just finished a corner of a sunny meadow, which I think is fairly vigorous."
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: "While I was ill I nevertheless still did a few small canvases from memory which you'll see later, reminiscences of the north, and now I've just finished a sunlit corner of a meadow which I think is fairly vigorous."

Context:
BVG 629, 4/30/1890: "Please send me what you can find of figure among my old drawings. I am thinking of doing the picture of the 'Peasants at Dinner' [F 82, JH 764] [The Potato Eaters], with the lamplight effect again."
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: "Please send me what you can find of figures among my old drawings, I'm thinking of redoing the painting of the peasants eating supper [F 82, JH 764], lamplight effect" (emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 629, 4/30/1890: "I think that if you still have them, I can make something better of them now from memory."
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: "I think that if you still have them I could now make something better of them from memory."

Context:
BVG 629, 4/30/1890: "At the same time I beg you to accept the various pictures I am sending you with my thanks for all the kindness you have shown me, for without you I should be very unhappy."
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: "At the same time, please accept the various paintings I'm sending you with my thanks for all the kindnesses you've shown me, for without you I would be most unhappy."

Context:
BVG 629, 4/30/1890: "Until now I have not been able to write you, but being a bit better just now, I did not wish to delay wishing you a happy year, since it's your birthday … "
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: "I haven't been able to write to you until now, but as I'm feeling a little better these days I didn't want to delay wishing a happy year to you, your wife and your child, since it's your birthday."

Context:
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: "What can I tell you of these two last months, things aren't going well at all, I'm more sad and bored than I could tell you, and I no longer know what point I'm at."

Context:
BVG 629, 4/30/1890: "Now the trees in blossom are almost over, really I have no luck."
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: "Now the trees in blossom are almost finished, really I have no luck."

Context:
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: "The rest of the canvases are meagre, I'm very much behind, not having been able to work for two months."

Context:
JLB 864, 4/29/1890: "I've been unable to work just at the best time in the spring, and so things aren't going too well. But what is a body to do about it?"

Context:
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: "I don't believe one can be more shut up and imprisoned in the places where they don't pretend to leave you free, such as at Charenton or Montevergues."

Context:
BVG 629, 4/30/189: " I do not think I could be more shut up and more of a prisoner in the homes where they do not pretend to leave you free, such as at Charenton or Montevergues."
JLB 863, 4/29/1890: " I don't believe one can be more shut up and imprisoned in the places where they don't pretend to leave you free, such as at Charenton or Montevergues."

Context:
BVG 629a, 4/30/1890: "Every change is not a change for the better, but I am longing to get away from here; what one has to endure here is hardly bearable."
JLB 864, 4/29/1890: "Not every change is for the better, but I'm really longing to get away from here; it's hard to bear what one endures here."

Context:
JLB 866, 5/2/1890: "You remember that 6 months ago I told you after a crisis that if it happened again I would ask you to let me move? We're at that point ..."

Context:
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "I'm almost sure that I'll soon get better in the north, at least for quite a long time, while still apprehensive of a relapse in a few years' time -- but not immediately. That's what I imagine after having observed the other patients here, some of whom are considerably older than I am or, among the young ones, were more or less idlers -- students. Anyway, what do we know about it?"

Context:
BVG 630, 5/2/1890: "That is what I imagine after having observed the other patients here, some of whom are considerably older than I, or else in their young days were more or less idlers -- students."
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "That's what I imagine after having observed the other patients here, some of whom are considerably older than I am or, among the young ones, were more or less idlers -- students."

Context:
JLB 820, 11/19/1889: "Perhaps by waiting a little we won't even have need of the doctor at Auvers or the Pissarros."

Context:
BVG T31, 3/29/1890: " He gives the impression of being a man of understanding. Physically he is a little like you. As soon as you come here we are going to see him; he comes to Paris several times a week for consultations. When I told him how your crisis came about, he said to me that he didn't believe it had anything to do with madness, and that if it was what he thought he could guarantee your recovery, but that it was necessary for him to see you and to speak with you in order to be able to make a more definite statement."
JLB 860, 3/29/1890: " He looks like a man who understands things well. He resembles you a little. When you come here we'll go and see him, he comes to give consultations in Paris several times a week. He said to me when I told him how your crises occurred that he didn't believe that this had anything to do with madness and that if it was what he thought, he replied that he would cure you, but he needed to see you and talk to you to be able to give his opinion with greater certainty."

Context:
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "Today I wanted to try and read the letters that had come for me, but I wasn't yet clear-headed enough to be able to understand them."

Context:
BVG 630, 5/2/1890: " I am almost certain that in the North I shall get well quickly, at least for a fairly long time, even while still apprehensive of a relapse in some years' time but not at once."
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: " I'm almost sure that I'll soon get better in the north, at least for quite a long time, while still apprehensive of a relapse in a few years' time -- but not immediately."

Context:
BVG 630, 5/2/1890: "So relying on that, I dare think that I shall find my balance in the North, once delivered from surroundings and circumstances which I do not understand or wish to understand."
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "So based on that I dare believe that in the north I would rediscover my confidence once freed from surroundings and circumstances which I neither understand nor wish to understand."

Context:
BVG 631, 5/4/1890: "Right, so now I'm saying that it seems to me that a fortnight at most (although I'd be happier with a week) should be enough to prepare the move."
JLB 868, 5/4/1890: "Right, so I'm going to tell you that it seems to me that a fortnight at the most (a week, though, would please me more) should be enough to take the necessary steps to move."

Context:
BVG T18, 10/4/1889: "If you can stand these tests, he sees no objection to your leaving them."
JLB 807, 10/4/1889: If you bear these ordeals well, he sees nothing against your leaving him.

Context:
BVG T17, 9/18/1889: "According to Rivet, and also according to what I conclude from Mr. Peyron's letters, there is a possibility, which you would rather not believe, but it is absolutely necessary that you do nothing imprudent, and that you stay under the supervision of a doctor."
JLB 802, 9/18/1889: "According to Rivet, and also from what I have understood of Mr. Peyron's letters, it's possible that you won't have a crisis, but it's absolutely essential that you do nothing imprudent and that you're under the supervision of a doctor."

Context:
BVG T31, 3/29/1890: "Be of good heart and cling to the hope that things will soon take a turn for the better."
JLB 860, 3/29/1890: "Be of good heart, and remain hopeful that things will get better soon."

Context:
BVG T29, 3/29/1890: "I was there with Jo; your pictures are very well placed and make a good effect."
JLB 858, 3/19/1890: "I was there with Jo. Your paintings are well placed and look very well."

Context:
BVG T29, 3/29/1890: "Gauguin said that your pictures were the chief attraction of the exhibition -- the 'clou,' he said."
JLB 858, 3/19/1890: "Gauguin said that your paintings are the key to the exhibition."

Context:
JLB 858, 3/19/1890: "Seurat exhibited a most curious painting there, searching to express things through the direction of the line. Certainly he expresses movement, but it has a most curious appearance and not very generous as regards ideas."

Context:
BVG T31, 3/29/1890: "There were also art lovers who discussed your pictures with me without my drawing their attention to them."
JLB 860, 3/29/1890: "There are also art lovers who spoke to me about it before I'd pointed them out to them."

Context:
JLB 860, 3/29/1890: "Pissarro who went there every day tells me that you have a real success among the artists."

Context:
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "So Gauguin and Guillaumin, the two of them, want to do an exchange for the landscape of the Alpilles."

Context:
JLB 862, 4/23/1890: "Your paintings at the exhibition are very successful. The other day Duez stopped me in the street and said, give my compliments to your brother and tell him that his paintings are quite remarkable. ... Many other artists have spoken to me about them."

Context:
BVG T32, 4/23/1890: "The other day Diaz stopped me in the street and said, Give your brother my compliments and tell him that his pictures are highly remarkable."
JLB 862, 4/23/1890: "Duez stopped me in the street and said, give my compliments to your brother and tell him that his paintings are quite remarkable."

Context:
BVG T32, 4/23/1890: "Serret came to our house to see the other pictures, and he was enraptured."
JLB 862, 4/23/1890: "Serret came to the house to see the other canvases and was delighted."

Context:
BVG T32, 4/23/1890: " He said that if he had no style of his own in which he could still express some things, he would change his course and go seek what you are seeking."
JLB 862, 4/23/1890: " He says that if he didn't have a genre in which he still had things to say he would change and search along the path where you're searching."

Context:
BVG T32, 4/23/1890: "Monet said that your pictures were the best of all in the exhibition."
JLB 862, 4/23/1890: "Monet said that your paintings were the best in the exhibition."

Context:
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "Today, as Mr. Peyron had come back, I read your kind letters, then the letters from home as well, and that did me an enormous amount of good in giving me back a little energy, or rather the desire to climb back up again from the dejected state I'm in."

Context:
JLB 866, 5/2/1890: "I would move anyway, preferring to be in an asylum where the patients worked to this awful idleness here, which really seems to me quite simply a crime."

Context:
BVG T33, 5/3/1890: "Please understand that I should like you to feel better, and your fits of sadness to disappear."
JLB 867, 5/3/1890: "Of course I'd like you to feel better still, and above all that your sadnesses might be dispelled."

Context:
JLB 867, 5/3/1890: "I'm very happy that you feel the strength to undertake a change, and I absolutely agree that you should come as soon as possible, but you say that I myself must fix the time when you're to come. I daren't take a decision, and only you, with Dr. Peyron's advice, can take this responsibility upon yourself. Your journey to Arles was absolutely disastrous for you, will the travelling not do you harm this time? If I were you I'd act entirely in accordance with Mr. Peyron's view." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "Now, rather, you propose coming back to the north, and I accept."

Context:
BVG T33, 5/3/1890: "Please don't have too many illusions about life in the North; after all, every country has its advantages and disadvantages."
JLB 867, 5/3/1890: "However, don't have too many illusions about life in the north, after all every part of the world has its pros and cons."

Context:
BVG T33, 5/3/1890: "If I were in your place I should only act in conformity with Dr. Peyron's views … "
JLB 867, 5/3/1890: "If I were you I'd act entirely in accordance with Mr. Peyron's view …"

Within days, however, Theo wrote both Vincent and Peyron. "I wrote them both," he reported in the letter to his mother, "to Vincent that he had to talk with Dr. Peyron before doing anything and to the doctor that I would like to comply with Vincent's desire but would not want to do anything rash" (b0929 V/1962, "Gogh, Theo van" to "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van", 5/3/1890). Vincent took his letter (JLB 867, 5/3/1890) as discouraging: "You're giving yourself worries here that weigh on me so heavily that it might directly discourage me. I've just said the same thing to Mr. Peyron." (JLB 868, 5/4/1890.)

Theo's resistance requires Vincent to make a more forceful argument to Peyron in order to enlist him against his recalcitrant brother: "I pointed out to him that crises like the one I've just had have always been followed by three or four months of complete calm. I wish to take advantage of this period to move -- I want to move in any event, my desire to leave here is now absolute." (ibid.) But Peyron's continued negativity can be inferred from Vincent's subsequent virulent attack on the asylum, only days after saying he regretted having to leave: "I don't feel competent to judge the way they treat patients here, I don't feel any desire to enter into the details -- but please remember that I warned you around 6 months ago that if I was seized by a crisis of the same nature I'd wish to change asylums" (ibid.).

Vincent writes nothing more about the dispute with Peyron until after Theo has sent the money for the journey, at which point Peyron is still, apparently, demanding Theo's explicit acquiescence -- a final requirement that Vincent accepts through gritted teeth: "I'll leave as soon as you've written to Mr. Peyron, I feel calm enough, and I don't think that a mental upset could easily happen to me in the state I'm in." (JLB 872, 5/13/1890.) Only a week later, after he has left Saint-Rémy, does Vincent report that at some point in these discussions, he and the directeur had a fight: "I wrote this to Dr. Peyron today; we had words over it, but we separated on good terms." Perry (p. 157), based on a letter from the often-unreliable Bernard, maintains that, "Against the doctor's advice [Vincent] wheedled a request for release from Theo. Dr. Peyron told him that if he left he would sink himself in his work and destroy himself." It would hardly be surprising that Peyron had qualms about releasing Vincent only a month after writing about the length, ferocity, and unpredictability of his attacks and the increasing difficulty of knowing when, or even if, he had recovered from an attack (b1063 V/1962, ''Peyron, Th.'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 4/1/1890; quoted in Hulsker, "Vincent's Stay in the Hospitals at Arles and St.-Rémy," pp. 43-44).

Context:
JLB 872, 5/13/1890: "After a last discussion with Mr. Peyron I obtained permission to pack my trunk, which I've sent by goods train. ... I'll leave as soon as you've written to Mr. Peyron."

Finally, Vincent seizes the authority that his brother was so eager to thrust on him: "I wish to take advantage of this period to move -- I want to move in any event, my desire to leave here is now absolute. ... Consider ... that it's pointless [to provide an escort] and that I do have the right to change asylums if I please, it isn't my absolute freedom that I'm demanding. I've tried to be patient up to this point, I haven't done any harm to anyone, is it fair to have me accompanied like a dangerous animal? No thank you, I protest. If a crisis occurs, they know what to do in every station, and then I'd let them do it. ... As for me, my patience is at an end, at an end, my dear brother, I can't go on, I must move, even if as a stopgap." (ibid.)

Once Vincent took a stand, Theo backed down somewhat meekly -- another suggestion of his own ambivalence and denial: "It would give me great pleasure if you could make the journey, without danger. ... Since you find it such an annoyance to travel with someone from the asylum, for heaven's sake, you must risk it, although I'm not like you and wouldn't do it, to avoid, should the crisis seize hold of you again, all the miseries that would emerge should you, at an unknown station, have to deal with people you don't know and who would treat you who knows how." (JLB 869, 5/10/1890.)

Context:
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "I would have someone from here accompany me part of the way, as far as Tarascon or Lyon."

Context:
JLB 867, 5/3/1890: "Your journey to Arles was absolutely disastrous for you, will the travelling not do you harm this time?"

Context:
BVG 631, 5/4/1890: "I have just said the same thing to M. Peyron, and I pointed out to him that attacks like the one I have just had have invariably been followed by three or four months of complete calm."
JLB 868, 5/4/1890: "I've just said the same thing to Mr. Peyron, and I pointed out to him that crises like the one I've just had have always been followed by three or four months of complete calm."

Context:
BVG 631, 5/4/1890: "I have just said the same thing to M. Peyron, and I pointed out to him that attacks like the one I have just had have invariably been followed by three or four months of complete calm."
JLB 868, 5/4/1890: "I've just said the same thing to Mr. Peyron, and I pointed out to him that crises like the one I've just had have always been followed by three or four months of complete calm."

Context:
JLB 868, 5/4/1890: "Mr. Peyron says vague things, to free himself from responsibility he says, but that way we'd never, never get to the end of it, the thing would drag on and on, and in the end we'd get angry with each other. As for me, my patience is at an end, at an end, my dear brother, I can't go on, I must move, even if as a stopgap."

Context:
BVG 630, 5/2/1890: "As soon as I got out into the park, I got back all my lucidity for work; I have more ideas in my head than I could ever carry out, but without it clouding my mind. The brush strokes come like clockwork."
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "Once I got out a little into the park I recovered all my clarity for work, I have more ideas in my head than I could ever put into action, but without it dazzling me. The brushstrokes go like a machine."

Context:
BVG 632, 5/3/1890: "I have done another one of a nook of greenery, which I think has some freshness."
JLB 866, 5/2/1890: "I've done another one of a nook of greenery which seems to me to have some freshness."

Context:
JLB 870, 5/11/1890: "I'm planning to leave as soon as possible this week, and I'm starting to pack my trunk today."

Context:
BVG W20, 2/20/1890: "But during the last weeks at St. Rémy I worked like a man in a frenzy, especially on bunches of flowers, roses and violet irises."
JLB 879, 6/5/1890: "But in the last few days at St-Rémy I worked like a man in a frenzy, especially on bouquets of flowers. Roses and violet Irises."

Context:
JLB 819, 11/16/1889: "However bad the Independents' exhibition was, The Irises [Irises (F 608 JH 1691)] were seen by a lot of people who talk to me about them."

Context:
JLB 799, 9/5/1889: "Now I must also tell you that the Independents' exhibition is open and that in it there are your two paintings, 'The irises' and the Starry night. The latter is badly placed, for one can't position oneself far enough away, as the room is very narrow, but the other one looks extremely well. They've placed it on the narrow side of the room and it strikes you from a long way off. It's a fine study, full of air and life."

Context:
JLB 866, 5/2/1890: "I think from a note in Le Figaro that père Quost must have a darned good painting in the Salon."

Context:
BVG 633, 5/11/1890-5/12/1890: "The day of my departure depends on when I'm packed and have finished my canvases; I am working on the latter with such enthusiasm that packing seems to me more difficult than painting."
JLB 870, 5/11/1890: "The day I leave depends on my having packed my trunk and finished my canvases, I'm working on the latter with so much enthusiasm that packing my trunk seems more difficult to me than doing the paintings."

Context:
BVG 633, 5/11/1890-5/12/1890: "On the other hand, the other violet bunch (ranging from carmine to pure Prussian blue) stands out against a startling citron background, with other yellow tones in the vase and the stand on which it rests, so it is an effect of tremendously disparate complementaries, which strengthen each other by their juxtaposition."
JLB 870, 5/11/1890: "On the contrary, the other violet bouquet (ranging up to pure carmine and Prussian blue) standing out against a striking lemon yellow background with other yellow tones in the vase and the base on which it rests is an effect of terribly disparate complementaries that reinforce each other by their opposition."

There is no evidence for Vincent's claim that he came to Arles in February "to take my leave of you all" (ibid.). Indeed, at the time, he protested again and again a very different reason for visiting the Ginoux -- namely, Madame Ginoux's illness (JLB 850, 2/1/1890; see Ch. 40, n. 577). At least according to his correspondence, he had no specific plans for an imminent departure and he continued to speak of the café proprietress in rapturous terms (JLB 866, 5/2/1890; see Ch. 40, n. 488). In his farewell letter in May, however, Vincent downgrades her illness considerably from the desperate straights he had earlier portrayed, referring to it only as "her indisposition" (JLB 841, 1/20/1890; note the use of the third person). This, combined with his failure to include her in the salutation, suggests the deep estrangement that followed the unknown events in Arles in February that led to his worst attacks and his letter probably represents an effort to reframe those events as a "good-bye" rather than a banishment (see Ch. 41, n. 276). Vincent closes his farewell with the greeting-card motto that he had assigned to his alluring matron: "I'll still think of you all often, for it's true, as Mrs. Ginoux says, that when people are friends they are so for a long time" (ibid.). Interestingly, perhaps tellingly, the Ginoux never returned any of Vincent's furniture.

Context:
JLB 872, 5/13/1890: "The 30 kilos of luggage one is allowed to take will allow me to take a few frames, easel and some stretching frames &c."

Context:
JLB 870, 5/11/1890: "These canvases will take a good month to dry, but the man who works here will take care of sending them after my departure."

Context:
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "I thank you very much for the etchings -- you've chosen some of the very ones that I've already liked for a long time, the David, the Lazarus, the Samaritan, and the large etching of the wounded man, and you've added the blind man and the other very small etching, the last one so mysterious that I'm afraid of it and dare not wish to know what it is. I didn't know it, the little goldsmith."

Vincent's version crops the image radically, eliminating Christ altogether and focusing tightly on Lazarus and the two women kneeling over his opened grave. He also edits out another prominent figure standing behind one of the women at the graveside and replaces it with an element that both underscores the theme of rebirth and connects deeply with his own art: a giant yellow sun. In a further act of self-portraiture, he gives the re-awakened Lazarus his own red-orange beard and hair (Rembrandt's figure has no discernible facial hair and is, of course, colorless). Here is Vincent's description of his colorizing of the Rembrandt image: "The cave and the corpse are violet, yellow, white. The woman who is taking the handkerchief from the resurrected man's face has a green dress and orange hair, the other has black hair and a striped garment. Green and pink. Behind a countryside, blue hills, a yellow rising sun" (ibid.).

Druick and Zegers and Sund follow Hulsker identifying the "models" for the Lazarus's two sisters as Madame Roulin and Madame Ginoux (Druick and Zegers, p. 323; Sund, p. 198; Hulsker, Vincent and Theo: A Dual Biography, p. 412). In fact, Vincent seems to have taken few liberties with the forms or faces of Rembrandt's two mourning women; and casting the stout, reserved Madame Roulin as the wildly gesticulating (and slender) blonde sister is a stretch of the imagination even by Vincent's flexible standards, which is not to say that this unusual, aggressive cropping did not have its origins somewhere deep in the recesses of Vincent's metaphorical mind, but the omission of the Christ figure was inevitable, given his complaints about the provocative influence of religious imagery on his illness, and the exclusion of the standing figure was necessitated by his focusing closely on Lazarus and the two kneeling sisters. The insertion of the sun was an obvious solution: it both filled the void left by eliminating the figure and accounted for Rembrandt's dramatic lighting.

Context:
BVG 632, 5/3/1890: "On the back of this page I have scribbled a sketch after a painting I have done of three figures which are in the background of the etching of "Lazarus": the dead man and his two sisters."
JLB 866, 5/2/1890: "Opposite this I've scribbled a croquis after a painting I've done of three figures which are in the background of the Lazarus etching."

Context:
JLB 872, 5/13/1890: "Spending days doing nothing, here or elsewhere, that's what would make me miserable in my current state of mind."

In the same letter, he dictated detailed arrangements for his arrival in Paris and agreed to send a wire from en route with a last-minute update: "If your work prevented you from coming to get me at the station, or if it was at a difficult time or if the weather was too bad, don't worry, I'd certainly find my way ... It's likely that I'll arrive in Paris around 5 o'clock in the morning. But anyway, the telegram will tell you precisely." (ibid.) Vincent sent most of his luggage by goods train on May 13 (JLB 872, 5/13/1890), but kept back the legal limit for "carry-on" baggage on the train: "The 30 kilos of luggage one is allowed to take will allow me to take a few frames, easel and some stretching frames &c." (JLB 872, 5/13/1890). He may have kept back the painting equipment partly because of the difficulty of packing it securely for the goods train, or because he wanted to continue painting until the last minute (see Ch. 41, n. 396).

Even with all these warm words and preparations, however, securing final permission to leave dragged on. Vincent addended this last argument to the letter reporting the departure of his luggage on May 13: "If you haven't yet replied to Mr. Peyron's letter, please send him a telegram, in such a way that I may make the journey on Friday or Saturday [May 16 or 17] at the latest to spend Sunday with you ... Probably the answer to Mr. Peyron will already have left, which I hope. I was a little vexed that there were a few days' delay, because that seems to me to be of no use for anything." (JLB 872, 5/13/1890.) Theo must have sent the requested approval already or soon after, as Vincent left Saint-Rémy on May 16, arriving in Paris the next day (see Chapter 42).

We see various problems with this earlier dating, as well as strong arguments for a dating to late April or May 1890, which is where Homburg places it (Homburg, pp. 88-89). First, the painting is significantly bigger (32 x 25.5 in. [81 x 65 cm]) than Vincent's paintings after Millet (typically, 17 x 13 in. [43 x 33 cm.]). Second, Vincent expressed an ambition to paint a copy after Delacroix's The Good Samaritan in September 1889 but did not get around to doing so until late April, early May 1890. We find it impossible to imagine that Vincent put one of his own works in line for "translation" ahead of the beloved Delacroix image. Third, the sentiment of Eternity (F 702 JH 1967) is one of hopelessness and despair -- at the opposite pole from Millet's toiling peasants (and later, in Millet's Quatre Heures, happy country life). The purpose of the Millet copies, as Vincent himself says, was "consolation" (JLB 805, 9/20/1889), and no image could be less consoling than this reminder of the failure of his studio on the Schenkweg and his imaginary marriage to Sien Hoornik (see Chapter 18). 

It is true, as Hulsker argues that Vincent did a series of copies of his Arles paintings for his mother and sister in the September-October 1889 time frame, but these were paintings after paintings, not drawings; confined to the just-passed Arles period; and always in a smaller scale than the originals (Hulsker, The New Complete Van Gogh, p. 412). These paintings (Wheat Field with Cypresses [F 473 JH 1790], Olive Orchard [F 711 JH1791], Reaper at Sunrise [F 619 JH 1792], and The Bedroom [F 483 JH 1793]) were designed more as mementos than as fully-realized works, and Vincent carefully selected them for their likely appeal to his family based on Theo's approval.

Even Hulsker recognizes that Eternity (F 702 JH 1967) was "not intended for his mother and sister" due to its depressing theme and inevitable dark reflection on Vincent's own situation (ibid.). Indeed, this may have been why Vincent never revealed its existence to Theo. Such an image could only have worried his brother -- the opposite of what his letters were generally intended to do. By May 1890, however, Vincent had emerged from two months of the terrible attacks determined to leave Saint-Rémy; he had completed the twice-delayed Delacroix (as well as a copy after Rembrandt's The Raising of Lazarus, and Theo had blessed such projects with a strong vote of approval for Vincent's copies after Millet ("perhaps the finest thing you've done" [JLB 867, 5/3/1890]). But something even more important had changed the landscape of Vincent's imagination in a way that licensed an image like At Eternity's Gate. After repeatedly painting reveries of his Brabant past in the interstices of his attacks, he had emerged in late April with a grand new ambition to "translate" his own earlier work into the new language of color: "Please send me what you can find of figures among my old drawings," he wrote Theo on April 29. "I'm thinking of redoing the painting of the peasants eating supper, lamplight effect. … Then if you like I'll redo the old tower at Nuenen and the cottage. I think that if you still have them I could now make something better of them from memory." (JLB 863, 4/29/1890; emphasis in original.)

He wrote a similar request for old drawings to his mother and sister in Leyden: "Do you still happen to have any of my old studies and drawings? Even if they're no good in themselves, they can refresh my memory and provide information for new work, but I don't, for instance, need the ones you have hanging up. They're much more likely to be scratches of peasant figures." (JLB 864, 4/29/1890.) It's possible that either his brother or his mother and sister sent him the lithograph of At Eternity's Gate (although the latter is doubtful since his mother had left the box containing his earlier drawings in Breda when she moved [see ibid., n. 6]). It is more likely (as Hulsker agrees) that Vincent had "kept a copy for himself" (Hulsker, The New Complete Van Gogh, p. 412). Thus, the only earlier figure "drawing" that Vincent had on hand to launch his vast new artistic renovation of the past was the little lithograph from The Hague. And no image from his past better expressed his mood as he prepared for the future, leaving behind the wreckage of his dream for a studio in the Midi.

As for Hulsker's argument about the primary color scheme: the same obsessions filled Vincent's letters in early May 1890 when he undertook the copies after Delacroix and Rembrandt: "But the Lazarus! Early this morning I looked at it and I remembered not only what Charles Blanc [Charles Blanc, 1813-1882; French writer] says of it, but indeed even that he doesn't say everything about it." (JLB 865, 5/1/1890.) Vincent considered doing a Rembrandt copy "in the scale of color from light yellow to violet," and his Samaritan is a textbook of simultaneous color contrast, with orange and blue taking center stage, just as they do in Eternity (not the yellow and blue of the Millet copies from the previous year) (ibid.). Finally, studies of fireplaces and chairs are among Vincent's last surviving drawings in Saint-Rémy (Mantelpiece with Chair [F 1511 JH 1963], Chair near the Stove [F 1510 JH 1964], Chair and Sketch of a Hand [F 1549r JH 1965], Chair [F 1512r JH 1966]) and some of the details from those drawings (black mantel, three-slatted chair-back) appear in the painting but not in the earlier lithograph. (See Homburg, p. 99.)

For the earlier images, Vincent had used the title Worn Out, which he wrote on Peasant Sitting by the Fireplace (F 863 JH 034) (see Ch. 18, n. 338). This name stayed with the image through many iterations. He wrote Van Rappard in November 1882 as the drawing of Zuyderland was being transferred to the lithographic stone: "You remember that drawing Worn out? In the last few days I've done it again no fewer than three times with two models, and will labour on it some more. For the present I have one that will be the subject of a fifth stone, which thus depicts an old working man who sits and ponders with his elbows on his knees and his head (a bald crown this time) in his hands." (JLB 287, 11/24/1882.) Later in the same letter, he referred to it as "the new Worn out" (ibid.). Only at the very end of the process did he add the new English name "At Eternity's Gate" to the stone -- underscoring the theme of mortality's burden and religion's ultimate reward for thankless toil. By May 1890, of course, the image's meaning to Vincent had changed.

Context:
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: " I consider this as a shipwreck, this journey …"

One of the principal justifications for dating At Eternity's Gate to the very end of Vincent's stay in Saint-Rémy is biographical: i.e., that the painting perfectly reflects the mood of dejection and futility that Vincent felt as his departure from the asylum (and from the Midi) approached -- a departure that marked yet another failure in a lifetime of such failures. Not until May 1890, convinced that he had finally escaped the months of attacks and entered a period of "clarity", did Vincent allow his brother glimpses of the depths of remorse, self-reproach, and despair that lay just beneath the surface even as he made new plans for Auvers: "This is what one could always observe, that you and I made an effort here in the same direction as some others who weren't understood either, and were bitterly saddened by circumstances. ... I consider this as a shipwreck, this journey." (JLB 865, 5/1/1890). "The surroundings here are starting to weigh on me more than I could express -- my word, I've waited patiently for over a year -- I need air, I feel damaged by boredom and grief" (JLB 868, 5/4/1890).

In the same letter, Vincent bewails the burdens and frustrations of asylum life and how they have prematurely aged him -- bringing both his posture and his self-image more into alignment with the old man of At Eternity's Gate: "it's beginning to weigh too heavily upon me here. ... it's already something to resign oneself to living under guard, even in the event of it being sympathetic, and to sacrifice one's freedom, to stand outside society and to have only one's work, without distraction. That has carved out wrinkles that won't be rubbed off in a hurry." (ibid., emphasis in original.) It is true that the image of the old man bowed in frustration and futility had a very different meaning for Vincent when he created it in 1882. "I was trying to say this ... it seems to me that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the existence of 'something on high' ... is the unutterably moving quality that there can be in the expression of an old man ... something precious, something noble, that can't be meant for the worms" (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882; see Ch. 18, n. 370).

To reinforce this image of redemptive suffering, Vincent invoked two of his secular gospelists, Jozef Israëls and Stowe: "Perhaps the most wonderful passage in Uncle Tom's Cabin is the one where the poor slave, sitting by his fire for the last time and knowing that he must die, remembers the words: Let cares like a wild deluge come, And storms of sorrow fall, May I but safely reach my home, My god, my Heaven, my All" (ibid.). By May 1890, however, Vincent could no longer find consolation in this quasi-religious reassurance of ultimate redemption. His renunciation of this comfort can be seen in his painting after Rembrandt's The Raising of Lazarus (see Ch. 41, n. 400), in which the prominent figure of Christ has been completely eliminated; the body of Lazarus looks still quite dead; and his sister's ambiguous gesture could well be grief and disappointment rather than surprise and joy. With the spark of "something on high" extinguished from it, At Eternity's Gate had become an image of hopelessness, not consolation.

Context:
BVG 633, 5/11/1890-5/12/1890: "As for my work, my dear brother, I feel more confidence than when I left, and it would be ungrateful on my part to curse the Midi, and I confess to you that I leave it with great grief."
JLB 870, 5/11/1890: "My dear brother, I feel I have more confidence in my work than when I left, and it would be ungrateful of me to speak ill of the south, and I confess that it's with great sorrow that I turn my back on it."

Context:
BVG 630, 5/2/1890: " Oh, if I could have worked without this accursed disease -- what things I might have done, isolated from others, following what the country said to me."
JLB 865, 5/1/1890: "Ah, if I'd been able to work without this bloody illness! How many things I could have done, isolated from the others, according to what the land would tell me."