The Letters of a Post-Impressionist Part 1

The Letters of a Post-Impressionist.

by Vincent Van Gogh.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON VAN GOGH AND HIS ART.

Though the collection of letters contained in Ca.s.sirer?'s publication, "Vincent Van Gogh. Briefe,?" is not a complete one, from my knowledge of a very large number of the letters which are not included in this volume, I feel able to say that the present selection is in any case very representative and contains all that is essential in respect to Van Gogh?'s art-credo and general att.i.tude of mind.

For reasons into which it is unnecessary for me to enter here, it was found convenient to adopt the form of Ca.s.sirer?'s publication arranged by Margarete Mauthner, and my translation has therefore been made from the German (Fourth Edition, 1911). Still, with the view of avoiding the errors which were bound to creep into a double translation of this sort, I took care, when my version was complete, to compare it with as many of the original French letters as I was able to find, and I am glad to say that by this means I succeeded in satisfying myself as to the accuracy of every line from page 39 to the end.

The letters printed up to page 38, some of which I fancy must have been written in Dutch--a language which in any case I could not have read--have not been compared with the originals. But, seeing that the general quality of the German translation of the letters after page 39 was so good that I was able to discover only the small handful of inaccuracies referred to in the appendix, I think the reader may rest a.s.sured that the matter covering pages 1 to 38 is sufficiently trustworthy for all ordinary purposes.

I say that "I fancy?" some of the letters which occur between pages 1 and 38 were written in Dutch; for I am not by any means certain of this. In any case I can vouch for the fact that the originals of all the letters after page 38 were in French, as I have seen them. But in this respect Paul Gauguin?'s remark about his friend Van Gogh is not without interest: "Il oubliait meme,?" wrote the famous painter of negresses, "d?'ecrire le hollandais, et comme on a pu voir par la publication de ses lettres a son frere, il n?'ecrivait jamais qu?'en francais, et cela admirablement, avec des 'Tant qu?'a, Quant a,?' a n?'en plus finir.?"[1]

Rather than disfigure my pages with a quant.i.ty of notes, I preferred to put my remarks relative to the divergencies between the original French and the German in the form of an appendix (to which the Numbers 1 to 35 in the text refer), and have thus kept only those notes in the text which were indispensable for the proper understanding of the book. Be this as it may, the inaccuracies and doubts discussed in the appendix are, on the whole, of such slight import, that those readers who do not wish to be interrupted by pedantic quibbles will be well advised if they simply read straight on, without heeding the figures in the text. To protect myself against fault-finders, however, such readers will understand that it was necessary for me to prepare some sort of a list referring to those pa.s.sages which, in the German, differed even slightly from the French original.

In the letters not included in Ca.s.sirer?'s publication, there are, of course, a few pa.s.sages which, for obvious reasons, could never have been brought before the German or English reading public; as will be seen, however, the present letters in themselves are but more or less lengthy fragments, carefully edited by the friends of the deceased painter, while the almost complete omission of dates and other biographical information usually accompanying a volume of this sort, may also at first be felt as a rather disturbing blemish.

I would like, however, to seize this opportunity to defend Margarete Mauthner against the charge of having made a "fantastic arrangement?" of these letters; for, if the person who made this charge had only been acquainted with the facts of the case, he would have known that she had done no more (at least from page 39 onwards) than faithfully to follow Emile Bernard?'s original arrangement of his friend?'s correspondence in the "Mercure de France?"; and surely we must a.s.sume that Emile Bernard, Van Gogh?'s devoted admirer, was the best judge as to what should, or should not, appear of all that his friend had written.

With regard to dates, however, Emile Bernard does give a little more information than Margarete Mauthner; but it is very little, and it is as follows: the letters to E. Bernard from page 39 to page 73 were written during 1887; those from page 73 to page 86 were written during 1888; those from page 108 to page 112 were written during 1889, and the remainder, as Margarete Mauthner also tells us, were written during 1890. Of the letters to Van Gogh?'s brother, I am afraid I can say nothing more definite than that all those which occur after page 87 were written in Arles, and probably San Remy, between 1887 and 1890.

Now, postponing for a moment, the discussion of Van Gogh?'s actual place in the history of the art of the nineteenth century, and bearing in mind the amount of adverse criticism with which his work has met for many years, it does not seem irrelevant here to lay stress upon the fact that these letters are all _private, intimate_ communications, never intended to reach the public eye. And I feel all the more inclined to emphasize this point, seeing that, to the lay student of art, as also to the art-student himself, it is often a difficult task to take the sincerity of the art-innovator for granted. Confronted with a new technique and an apparently unprecedented conception of the outer-world--faced, in fact, by a patch of strange blood; for that is what it comes to after all--we are p.r.o.ne to doubt that our man is _bona fide_. Filled with the prejudices and prepossessions of centuries, and knowing from sad experience that the art-world is not without its arch-humbugs, we find it difficult to believe that such a strange and foreign grasp of reality could actually have been felt by the innovator in our midst. And, rather than question our own values and our own grasp of reality, we instinctively, and, as I think, very healthily, incline to doubt the sincerity of the representative of this new standpoint which is offensive to us.

In Van Gogh?'s case, however, we are particularly fortunate; for we possess these letters which are proof enough of the sincerity with which he pursued his calling. And, as I say, he did not write them for the press, nor did he compose them as a conscious teacher. They simply took shape quite naturally in his moments of respite, when he felt the need of unburdening his heart to some sympathetic listener; and in writing them he was as ingenuous and as unembarra.s.sed as a child. He wrote to his brother and to a bosom friend, Emile Bernard. As I have mentioned, a good deal in these letters had to be suppressed--and very naturally too. For if this correspondence had not contained much that was of too intimate a character for publication, it is obvious that the very parts that were considered publishable, would not have had a quarter of the value which we must now ascribe to them. It is precisely because these letters are, as it were, soliloquies which Van Gogh held in the presence of his own soul, that they seem to me to be of such incalculable value to all who think and work in the domain of art, and even in the domain of psychology and morality to-day.

For everyone who is acquainted with the literature of Aesthetic, must know how poor we are in human doc.u.ments of this nature, and how comparatively valueless the greater part even of our poor treasure is, when it is compared with the profound works which men who were not themselves painters or sculptors, have contributed to our literature on the subject.

Who has not been disappointed on reading Ghiberti?'s commentaries, Leonardo?'s note books, Vasari?'s discourses on "Technique,?" Antoine Raphael Mengs?'s treatises, Hogarth?'s a.n.a.lysis of Beauty, Reynolds'

Discourses, Alfred Stevens?' Aphorisms, etc.? But who has not felt that he was foredoomed to disappointment in each case? For an artist who could express the "why?" and the "how?" of his productions in words would scarcely require to wield the chisel or the brush with any special power. The way in which one chooses to express oneself is no accident; it is determined by the very source of one?'s artistic pa.s.sion. A true painter expresses himself best in paint.

With Van Gogh?'s letters, however, we are not concerned with a painter who is writing a text-book for posterity, or undertaking to teach anybody his art, or to reveal the secrets of it to his fellows. The communications to his brother and his friend, printed in this volume, partake much more of the nature of a running commentary to his life-work, a Sabbath?'s meditation upon and contemplation of his six days?' labour, than a series of technical discourses relating to his procedure and its merits. True, technical points arise, but they are merely the fleeting doubts or questionings of an expert chatting intimately with an intimate, and are quite free from any pedagogic or didactic spirit. On the other hand, however, that which he gives us, and which the others above-mentioned scarcely touch upon, is the record of his misgivings and fears concerning the pa.s.sion that animated him, the value of this pa.s.sion, and the meaning of his function as a painter in the midst of civilised Europe of the nineteenth century. These letters are not only a confession of the fact that he partic.i.p.ated heart and soul in the negative revolution of the latter half of that century, they are also a revelation of the truth that he himself was a bridge leading out of it, to better and more positive things.

He touches upon these questions lightly, as is only fitting in letters that bear other tidings of a more prosaic nature, but he never can conceal the earnestness with which he faced the problems that were present in his mind, and as a stenographic report of these problems these letters make the strongest claim upon our attention.

With regard to his ultimate dementia, I have little doubt myself as to how it was brought about. As in the case of Nietzsche and many another foreign or English poet or thinker, I cannot help suspecting it was the outcome of that protracted concentration of thought upon one or two themes (the chief characteristic of all mania, by-the-bye), which he and a few other unfortunate and whole-hearted men found it necessary to practise in the midst of a bustling, changing, and feverishly restless age, if anything of _lasting_ worth was to be accomplished.

Imagine a man trying to study the laws governing a spinning top in the midst of the traffic of the city, and you have a fair image of the kind of task a sincere artist or thinker undertakes at the present day, if he resolve, in the midst of the rush and flurry of our age, to probe the deep mystery of that particular part of life to which he may happen to feel himself drawn by his individual tastes and abilities. Not only is he foredoomed to dementia by the circ.u.mstance of his occupation, but the very position he a.s.sumes--bent over his task amid the racket and thunder of the crowded thoroughfare of modern life--gives him at least the aspect of a madman from the start.

And Van Gogh himself was perfectly aware of this. For he realized that the claims which nowadays are put upon the energy of one individual concentrated seeker, are so enormous that even the complication of marriage may prove one strain too many for him. He admits that the Dutch artists married and begat children; but, he adds: "The Dutchmen led a?

peaceful, quiet, and well-ordered life" (page 61). "The trouble is, my?

dear old Bernard," he says, "that Giotto and Cimabue, like Holbein and Van Eyck, lived in an atmosphere of obelisks--if I may use such an expression--in which everything was arranged with architectural method, in which every individual was a stone or a brick in the general edifice, and all things were interdependent and const.i.tuted a monumental social structure.... But we, you know, live in the midst of complete _laisser aller_ and anarchy; we artists who love order and symmetry isolate ourselves and work at introducing a little style into some particular portion of the world?" (page 59).

And this is no empty lament; it is a plain statement of the fact that in the disorder and chaos of the present day, not only has the artist no place allotted to him, but also that the very position he tries to conquer for himself, is hedged round with so many petty obstacles and minor personalities, that his best and most valuable forces are often squandered in a mere unproductive attempt at "attaining his own.?" That he should need, therefore, to practise the most scrupulous economy with his strength--a precaution which in a well-ordered age, and in a healthier age, would not be necessary--follows as a matter of course.

"I should consider myself lucky,?" sighed Van Gogh, "to be able to work even for an annuity which would only just cover bare necessaries, and to be at peace in my own studio for the rest of my life?" (page 88).

Without his brother Theodor?'s devotion and material help it is impossible to think without alarm of what might have become of this undoubted genius. For it must be remembered that his brother practically kept him from his Hague days in 1881 until the very end in 1890, at Auvers-sur-Oise. It is only when we think of the irretrievable loss which we owe to the fact that Monet himself had to remain idle for six months for want of money, that we can possibly form any conception of what the result would have been if Theodor Van Gogh had ever lost faith in his elder brother, and had stopped or considerably reduced his supplies, or had ever accepted his offer to change his calling (see page 129).

On the other hand, we have evidence enough in these letters to show that Vincent took this self-sacrifice on his brother?'s part by no means lightly. We have only to see the solicitude with which he speaks of his brother?'s exhausting work (pages 127-30, 146) and of his health, in order to realize that it was no mean egoism that prompted him to accept this position of a dependent and of a protege. In fact, if we value his art at all, it is with bated breath that we read of the cheerful and stoical manner with which for his brother?'s sake Vincent stopped painting for a while (page 102). But the words will bear being repeated:

"I am not so very much attached to my pictures,?" he says, "and will drop them without a murmur; for, luckily, I do not belong to those who, in the matter of works of art, can appreciate only pictures. As I believe, on the contrary, that a work of art may be produced at much less expense, I have begun a series of drawings?" (see also page 50).

Again and again he complains of the cost of paint and canvas, and to have allowed him _carte blanche_ in the purchase of these materials, the brother must, considering his circ.u.mstances, have been capable not only of very exceptional generous feeling, but of very high artistic emotion as well. For it must have been no easy matter for this employee of Messrs. Boussod and Valadon to have worked year in and year out and, without any certain prospect of recovering his outlay, to have paid these monthly bills for Vincent?'s keep and Vincent?'s work. It is true that occasionally a picture of Vincent?'s would sell; but in those days prices were low, and even Vincent himself was often willing to accept a five-franc piece for a study. Besides, the expenses must have been made all the heavier thanks to Vincent?'s inveterate carelessness and lack of order in little things, and there can be no doubt that a fair portion of the materials purchased must have been literally wasted, if not lost.

Gauguin, speaking of his meeting with Van Gogh in Arles, writes as follows:

"Tout d?'abord je trouvai en tout et pour tout un desordre qui me choquait. La boite de couleurs suffisait a peine a contenir tous ces tubes presses, jamais refermes, et malgre tout ce desordre, tout ce gachis, un tout rutilait sur la toile.?"[2]

Still both Van Gogh and his brother had an indomitable faith in the former?'s work--a faith which touches upon the sublime--though neither of them lived to see their highest hopes realized.

"As to the market value of my pictures,?" Vincent wrote (pages 8 and 9), "I should be very much surprised if, in time, they did not sell as well as other people?'s. Whether this happens directly or later on does not matter to me?"[3] (see also page 17, line 20).

The finest words concerning this ideal brotherly relationship, however, have been written by Vincent?'s great friend, Emile Bernard.

"Mais ce que je veux dire, avant tout,?" says Bernard, "c?'est que ces deux freres ne faisaient pour ainsi dire qu?'une idee, que l?'un s?'alimentait et vivait de la vie et de la pensee de l?'autre, et que quand ce dernier, le peintre, mourut, l?'autre le suivit dans la tombe, seulement de quelques mois, sous l?'effet d?'un chagrin rare et edifiant.?"[4]

Thus Theodor and Vincent died, perhaps hoping, but little believing that Van Gogh?'s present triumph would ever be realized. And, indeed, even to the calm and reflecting student of art to-day, there must be something surprising, something not altogether sound and convincing, in this stupendous leap into fame which the work of this poor, enthusiastic, and thoughtful recluse, has made within recent years. If the means or the measure for placing him had been to hand, if all this posthumous success had been based upon a definite art-doctrine which knew what to select and what to leave aside, nothing could have been more imposing than this sudden exaltation of one whom a former generation had spurned. But who would dare to maintain for a moment that Van Gogh?'s present position is in itself a proof of his value as an artist?

It is an empty illusion to suppose that history _necessarily_ "places?" a man, or even a whole age, and gives to both their proper level. What history has shown and probably will continue to show is, that whereas time very often elevates true geniuses to the dignity which is their due, and confers upon them the rank that they deserve, it also certainly raises vast numbers to the position of cla.s.sics, who never had a t.i.ttle of a right to that honour, and frequently pa.s.ses over others in silence who ought to have had a lasting claim upon the respect and appreciation of their fellows. Such things have happened so often, and sometimes with such a disastrous effect, that one can but feel surprised at the almost universal support that the doctrine of the infallibility of posterity enjoys.

All posthumous fame, however, should be weighed in relation to the quality of the period that concedes it, and before we concur too heartily with the verdict of an age subsequent to the man it lionises, we ought, at least, to a.n.a.lyze that age and test its health, its virtues, and its values.

The fact that Van Gogh?'s pictures are now selling for twice as many sovereigns as he, in his most hopeful and sanguine moments thought that they would realize in francs, is the most deceptive and the most misleading feature about his work. In any case it should neither prepossess us in his favour, nor prejudice us against him. In a world governed largely by the commercial principle which places quant.i.ty before quality, at a period in history when journalism with all its insidious power can, like the famous Earl of Warwick, make and unmake kings at will--finally, on a continent in which all canons in respect of right living, religion, art, morality, and politics, have been blasted to the four winds, what does it signify that a work of art which thirty years ago was not thought to be worth 25 francs, now sells for 200 sterling? It signifies simply nothing whatsoever. Would anybody venture to a.s.sert that everything which to-day is selling at 200 times the price at which it was selling thirty years ago, is on that account worthy of particular admiration and respect--I mean, of course, from people of taste, not from hawkers, pedlars, and chapmen?

A vast and unprecedented revolution has been convulsing the art-world for almost a century now, a revolution in which men like Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Rodin, and others, have fought like t.i.tans. Who has ever heard of a revolution enduring for almost a century? Even the Grand Rebellion lasted only for six years. And this revolution of art has seen its heroes and its traitors, its kings, and its usurpers, its romance and its squalor--all beneath the very nose of the layman, all beneath the very walls of his fool?'s paradise, without his ever having suspected that something even significant was brewing.

For art is always the expression of the most sensitive men of an age.

They, the artists, are the first, by their movements and by the manner in which they garner their treasure, to prophesy meteorological changes of a nature vast enough to shake even the layman into a state of gasping wonder. But, as a rule, it is only when these highly sensitive men have manifested their signs, and have more or less depicted the first lightning flash of the tempest that is imminent, that the sky really does become dark and overcast--patently overcast even to the layman?'s eyes--and that the storm which they felt was coming actually begins to rage in the concrete world of politics and of national life. And then the pictures, poems, and parables already stored away, cla.s.sified and catalogued in public museums, are but the crystallized harbingers of a fact that has become patent to all.

The general truth that nearly all the princ.i.p.al figures in this Grand-Rebellion Drama were themselves innovators, renovators, and subverters, does not in itself justify us in summarily disposing of them as noisy revolutionaries and nothing more. One can revolt against sickness in an age of sickness, and a.s.sume the t.i.tle of a revolutionary or a rebel with both pride and dignity. On the other hand, a resentful valetudinarian, who feels rebellious at the sight of sleek, fragrant and rosy healthiness, may also claim the t.i.tle "revolutionary?"; but woe then to the age that allows itself to be lured over to his side by his intellect and his art.

It is important, therefore, that we should know with whom we are dealing.

We are aware that in the majority of cases all the noise of this art-revolution has been concentrated around questions of technique. The purpose of art was tacitly a.s.sumed to be to obtain as faithful a transcript as possible of nature and of reality, pure and simple--not nature linked up with a higher idea, or reality bathed in the atmosphere of a love that transcended mere actualities--but simply nature and reality as they were felt by anybody and everybody. And the milestones along the highway covered by this revolutionary band, do not mark the acquisition of new pa.s.sions or new loves, but rather the adoption of new technical methods and mannerisms for accomplishing this transcript in ever more perfect and more _scientific_ ways. Nature with its light and its atmospheric effects roused men like Manet and his friends to heroic deeds of determination. Peasants, "innocent?" and "unsophisticated,?"

seemingly belonging to nature and not to town or "artificial?" life, were included in the category nature, from which it was legitimate to make a transcript. Cafe scenes, scenes of town life, glimpses "behind the?

scenes," were included in the category reality, provided their "artificiality?" and "unnaturalness?" were mitigated by a certain "character?" of which it was also legitimate to make a transcript. And all this was done, not because the peasant or the scenes from town life were linked up with any higher purpose or any definite scheme of life which happened to fire the hearts of the painters of last century; but because, as a matter of fact, all life-pa.s.sions, all life-schemes were at an end, and anything was good enough, picturesque enough, trivial enough, for these artists (whose general scepticism drove them to technique as the only refuge), to tackle and to try their new technique, their new method, or new watchword upon. Light, the play of complementaries, the breaking up of light, the study of values!--little things please little minds!

It was these preoccupations that usurped the place of the rapidly vanishing "subject?" in pictures. But what was the subject? What part had it played? It is true that the subject picture in Manet?'s time was rapidly becoming a mere farce, an empty page filled arbitrarily with any sentiment or mood that happened to be sufficiently puerile, or at least sufficiently popular. But it had had a n.o.ble past. It had had a royal youth. The subject picture was merely the survival of an age when men had painted with a deep faith. It was the last vestige of an historical period in which men had been inspired to express their relationship to life by something higher and greater than both themselves and their art.

In fact, it had always flourished in periods when humanity had known of a general direction, a general purpose in life, and of a scheme of life which gave their heart-beats and their breath some deeper meaning than they have at present.

The degeneration of the subject picture, then, into a mere ill.u.s.tration of some pa.s.sing event or ephemeral sentiment, had a deeper significance than even its bitterest enemies recognized. For while they, as new technicians seeking light and complementaries and values, deplored the spiritless and uninspired "oliographs?" of their academical contemporaries, they completely overlooked the deeper truth; their artistic instincts were not strong enough to make them see that the spiritless and uninspired subject picture was the most poignant proof that could be found of the fact that mankind no longer possessed, to any pa.s.sionate or intense degree, that which made the subject picture possible--that is to say, a profound faith in something greater and more vital either than the artists themselves or their art, something which gave not only art but also life a meaning and a purpose.

This, as I have pointed out elsewhere, was the great oversight of the revolutionary movement in Art of the second half of the nineteenth century. In abusing the degenerate "subject?" picture, these innovators were simply inveighing against a pathological symptom. In saying the subject did not matter, they deliberately scouted the responsibility of eradicating or even of confronting the evil; while in concentrating upon technique and in finding their inspiration in such secondary matters as the treatment of light, values, and complementaries, besides revealing the poverty of their artistic instincts they merely delayed the awakening which was bound to come and which already to-day is not so very far distant--the awakening to the fact that the artist, the architect, the painter, the poet, and the preacher, are bankrupt unless some higher purpose and direction, some universal aim and aspiration, animate their age, inspire them in their work, and kindle in them that necessary pa.s.sion for a particular type of man, on which they may lavish their eloquence, their chromatic, musical, architectural, or religious rhetoric with conviction, power, and faith.

Where does Van Gogh stand in this revolutionary drama which I have attempted briefly to sketch in the above lines?