The Letters of a Post-Impressionist Part 2

Is the hotch-potch, democratic, democratized, hard-working, woman-ridden European a subject to inspire such an artist? True, he can turn to the peasant, as many artists, and even Van Gogh himself, did. At least the peasant is a more fragrant and n.o.bler type than the under-sized, hunted-rat type of town-man, with his wild eyes that can see only the main chance, with his moist finger-tips always feeling their way tremblingly into another?'s h.o.a.rd, and with his womenfolk all trying to drown their dissatisfaction with him by an endless round of pleasure and repletion; but, surely there is something higher than the peasant, something greater and n.o.bler than the h.o.r.n.y-handed son of toil?

Gauguin and Van Gogh knew that there was someone n.o.bler than the peasant. But the tragedy of their existence was that they did not know where to find him.

Fortunately for himself Van Gogh died on the very eve of this discovery.

Gauguin suffered a more bitter fate than death; he went searching the globe for a n.o.bler type than his fellow-continentals, at whose feet he might lay the wonderful powers that nature, study, and meditation had given him. But in doing this he was only doing what the whole of Europe will soon be doing. The parallel is an exact one. The prophecy of the artist will be seen to have been true. And Gauguin?'s search for a better type of humanity is only one proof the more, if such were needed, of the intimate relationship of art to life, and of the miraculous regularity with which art is always the first to indicate the direction life is taking.

I have shown how, from a negative and futile impressionist, Van Gogh became more and more positive and human in his content, and ever more positive, brave and masterly in his technique, and that this healthy development naturally led him to the only possible goal that lies at the end of the path he had trodden--Man himself.

In 1886 he writes to Bernard: "I want to paint humanity, humanity and again humanity. I love nothing better than this series of bipeds, from the smallest baby in long clothes to Socrates, from the woman with black hair and a white skin to the one with golden hair and a brick-red sunburnt face?" (page 85).

At about the same time he writes to his brother: "Oh, dear! It seems?

ever more and more clear to me that mankind is the root of all life"

(page 89); and "Men are more important than things, and the more I?

worry myself about pictures the colder they leave me" (page 131).

But the finest words in all these letters, words which at one stroke place Van Gogh far above his contemporaries and his predecessors, at least in aim, are the following: "I should like to prepare myself for ten years, by means of studies, for the task of painting one or two figure pictures ...?" (page 152).

In his heart of hearts, however, Van Gogh was desperate. There can be little doubt about that. Not only did he feel that his was not, perhaps, the hand to paint the man with the greatest promise of life; but he was also very doubtful about the very existence of that man. Not only did he ask: "But who is going to paint men as Claude Monet painted landscape??"

(page 103); he also shared Gauguin?'s profound contempt of the white man of modern times.

Indeed, what is his splendid tribute to Christ as a marvellous artist, a modeller and creator of men, who scorned to immortalize himself in statues, books, or pictures (pages 65 _et seq._) if it is not the half-realized longing that all true artists must feel nowadays for that sublime figure, the artist-legislator who is able to throw the sc.u.m and dross of decadent civilizations back into the crucible of life, in order to mould men afresh according to a more healthy and more vigorous measure? The actual merits of Christianity as a religion do not come into consideration here; for Van Gogh was not a philosopher. All he felt was simply that craving which all the world will soon be feeling--the craving for the artist-legislator, which is the direst need of modern times. For, in order that fresh life and a fresh type can be given to art, fresh vigour and a fresh type must first be given to life itself.

Personally, although I am prepared to do all honour to Van Gogh for having been profound enough and brave enough to come face to face with the tragic dilemma of modern art and modern times, I must say that I am almost inclined to share his own doubts as to whether his was precisely the hand to limn the man of great promise even if he could have found him.

Only fanatical disciples could praise and value his figure pictures to the extent to which they have been praised and valued; for in all but one or two cases, they are, in my opinion, the most incompetent and the most uninviting examples of his art.

Of thirty-eight figure-pictures of his which I myself have seen, two only pleased me a little ("Old Man Weeping,?" probably in the possession of the family; and "An Asylum Warder,?" belonging to Frl. Gertrud Muller of Solothurn), and one ("Fair Girl?'s Head and Shoulders,?" probably in the possession of the family)[10] pleased me so exceedingly that I would willingly give all the rest for it. It is a most genial piece of work, mature and rich in conception, and full of a love which will come to expression. Nothing obtrudes in the technique. Indeed, the means seem to be so well mastered that one feels not the slightest inclination to consider them; while the content is so eloquent of the sleek, smooth bloom of youth, and of the half-frightened eager spirit of the young girl who is just beginning to see and to realize who she is and where she is, that this picture alone would make me hesitate to say definitely that Van Gogh could not have achieved his ideal if only he had lived, and if only he had found the type whose pictorial advocacy he might have undertaken.

Here in this picture, all the dramatic effect of budding womanhood, of which Schopenhauer spoke so scornfully, is concentrated into a head and a pair of shoulders. All the mystery and charm of mere potentialities, undefined and still untried, is told in a thrilling and fairy-like combination of lemon yellow, black, Prussian blue, and the most delicate of pinks. The freshness is that of an old Dutch master like Johannes Hannot, for instance, who could paint fruit to look cold and raw on a pitch-black ground.[11] This virgin, too, like all virgins, is cold and raw--and the effect is due to the masterly and almost devilish skill with which her qualities have been marshalled in her portrait, against a pitch-black ground.

It is a wonderful work.[12] Maybe it stands as the only justification of all Van Gogh?'s otherwise overweening aspirations. In any case it makes me feel that if he had lived, he would have learnt to regret even more than he already did, that no artist-legislator existed to inspire his brush and give his art some deeper meaning.

With regard to the rest of his figure work, I can only say I am unsympathetic. And to all those who may accuse me of Philistinism and the like for my refusal to agree with the extravagant encomiums they lavish upon his figure pictures, I can only reply by pointing to Van Gogh?'s own modest and very sensible words: "Any figure that I paint is generally dreadful, even in my own eyes. How much more hideous must it therefore be in the eyes of other people?" (page 69).

And now what did the admirable Gauguin have to do with all this? What part did he play in this final development of his friend?'s genius and in directing his brother artist?'s last thoughts and hopes?

We do not need to be told, we feel sure from our knowledge of the two men?'s work, that Gauguin played a great part in Van Gogh?'s life at this time. We also know that Gauguin was an older, more able, and more experienced painter than the Dutchman, with a personality whose influence is said to have been irresistible.

It was in vain that Van Gogh tried to hold him at arm?'s length. It was in vain that he pointed to the narrowness of Gauguin?'s forehead, which he held to be a proof of imbecility; in the end he had to yield, and was, as Gauguin declares: "force de me reconnaitre une grande?

intelligence."[13]

"Quand je suis arrive a Arles,?" says Gauguin, "Vincent se cherchait, tandis que moi, beaucoup plus vieux, j?'etais un homme fait.... Van Gogh sans perdre un pouce de son originalite, a trouve de moi un enseignement fecond.?"[14]

And Van Gogh was as ready to admit this as we are compelled to recognize its truth. Writing to Albert Aurier, he once said: "Je dois beaucoup a?

Paul Gauguin." But his latest and best work, as also the ideals and aims of his last years const.i.tute the most convincing evidence we have of the great influence Gauguin exercised over him, and although the older man was ready to acknowledge that the seeds he sowed in Van Gogh fell upon "un terrain riche et fecond,?" it is impossible to overlook the great value of these seeds.

For, who was this magician, the painter of those sublimely beautiful canvases "L?'esprit veille,?" "Portrait de M. X.?"[15] and "Enfants.?"[16]

He was a man who had felt more keenly than any other European painter of his day the impossibility of consecrating his powers to the exaltation and glory of the modern white man with whom he was "fatally?

contemporaneous." He was a deep and earnest thinker who was both clear and brave enough to confront even a tragic fact. And there can be no doubt that comparatively early in life he came face to face with the truth that the modern European and his like all over the globe, could not and _must not_, be the type of the future. Anything rather than that! Even black men and women were better than that--cannibals, idolators, savages, anything! And this parched thirst for a n.o.bler and more positive type drove him like a haunted explorer all over the world, until at last he thought he had found what he wanted. It was an illusion, of course, and he would probably have admitted this; but it was the love and not the hatred of man that drove him even to that error.

Charles Morice ascribes Gauguin?'s l.u.s.t of travel to the nature of his origin. He argues that inasmuch as Gauguin?'s father was a Breton and his mother a Peruvienne, the great painter was born with the desires of two continents already in his soul--a fact which somehow or other Morice links up with Gauguin?'s visit to the Marquesans and the Tahitans.

But, probable as it may be that Gauguin?'s double soul contributed greatly to his ability for making a clear-sighted a.n.a.lysis and condemnation of Europe, it can scarcely be regarded as the princ.i.p.al, or even as the partial cause of his visit to the Marquesas Isles and Tahiti. That his mission to these places was a supremely artistic one is proved by the manner in which he spent his time there, while the fact that it was discontent with, and scorn of, European conditions and people that drove him in search of better climes and n.o.bler types, is proved by his behaviour both in Tahiti and in the Marquesas Islands.

Although we do not forget that Gauguin had been a sailor, if it were merely a sort of restless "Wanderl.u.s.t?" a l?'Americaine that sent him to Oceania, why did he do all in his power to fight Occidental civilization in these parts? If in his heart of hearts he had not been utterly without hope and without trust where Europe was concerned, why did he start a paper at Papeete, in which he sought to convert the colonists and educated natives to his hostile att.i.tude towards the European? Why, too, did he jeopardize his peace of mind as well as his safety, by taking the side of the Marquesans when they implored him to defend them against their white oppressors? For we know that he was not only arrested but heavily fined for this action.

It is obvious that Gauguin was much more than a mere itinerant painter out for "new material.?" He was above the modern senseless mania for rugged landscape as an end in itself, or for "tropical sunsets?" and "dramatic dawns,?" in the South Pacific. And when we read Van Gogh?'s words on the natives of the Marquesas (page 42) we can no longer doubt, not only that Gauguin influenced him, but also that this influence was deep and lasting.

Personally, I feel not the slightest hesitation in accepting Gauguin?'s own words, quoted above, concerning his relationship to Van Gogh, and though I ascribe the latter?'s final positive and human att.i.tude in art very largely to the soundness of his own instincts, I cannot help feeling also that the spirit of that half-Breton and half-Peruvian magician was largely instrumental in determining the less-travelled and less-profound Dutchman to a.s.sume his final phase in art.

If Van Gogh had had more opportunities for figure painting, and if his hand and eye had grown more cunning in the art of depicting his fellows, I am of opinion that he might have surpa.s.sed even his master and inspirer. For that isolated event, that "sport,?" the portrait of the "Fair Girl,?" which was, alas, the one swallow that did not make a summer, remains stamped upon my memory as a solid guarantee of his exceptional potentialities. Unfortunately, however, he came to figure-painting all too late, and his opportunities for practising his hand were rare and more or less isolated. In these letters he says: "I?

suffer very much from having absolutely no models" (page 116); while in a letter to his brother, not included in this volume, he writes rather amusingly as follows: "Si on peignait lisse comme du Bouguereau les gens n?'auraient pas honte de se laisser peindre. Je crois que cette idee que c?'etait 'mal fait,?' que c?'etait que des tableaux pleins de peinture que je faisais, m?'a fait perdre des modeles. Les bonnes putains ont peur de se compromettre et qu?'on se moque de leur portrait.?"[17]

There is now only one more point to be discussed, and I shall draw this somewhat lengthy essay to a close. I feel, however, that it would be incomplete without some reference to Van Gogh?'s personal appearance.

Whatever democratic and over-Christianized people may say to the contrary, a man can be neither ugly nor good-looking with impunity.

Looks are everything. "Appearances are deceptive,?" is a proverb fit only for those who are either too corrupt or too blind to use with understanding and profit the precious sense that lies beneath their superciliary arches. Van Gogh?'s personal appearance is, therefore, in my opinion a most important matter, for I absolutely refuse to believe that beauty can proceed from ugliness or _vice versa_. I leave such beliefs to those who have ugly friends or relatives to comfort or console. Then the doctrine that a fine mind or a fine soul can sanctify or transfigure any body--however foul, ugly, or botched--is, I admit, an essential and very valuable sophism.

Now, I am in the unfortunate position of one who has only portraits to judge from. But although I have seen only portraits, perhaps the number of these is sufficiently great to justify my forming an opinion. In all I have seen seven portraits of Van Gogh painted by himself, and one painted by Gauguin. The best and by far the most beautiful of all these is Van Gogh?'s portrait of himself now in the possession of Leonhard Tietz of Cologne. If we take this as a trustworthy record of Van Gogh?'s features, he certainly must have been what I would call a good-looking man. His brow was thoughtful, his eyes were deep, large, and intelligent, his nose was not too prominent and it was shapely, while his lips, both full and red, gave his face that air of positiveness towards life and humanity, which we find both in ancient Egyptian and present Chinese countenances. The only faults I find with his features and general colouring are, first, that they are inclined to be a little too northern and too Teutonic in type--a fact which suggests that his positive att.i.tude to life was more intellectual than physiological--and, secondly, that his furtive eye suggests more timidity than mastery. This portrait is, however, a remarkable piece of work, and taking all its other qualities into consideration, I see no reason to doubt precisely the accuracy of the likeness. A genial work of this sort is not genial only in particulars.

If, however, we are to judge from the other portraits, especially from the one in the possession of H. Tutein Nolthenius (of Delft), then we must certainly agree with Meier Graefe, that Van Gogh was "by no means engaging in appearance.?"[18] I mean by the expression "unengaging?" that a face is negative, chaotic, misanthropic, resentful. And in two or three of the portraits by himself, Van Gogh certainly does give the impression of being all these things. I should only like to remind the reader that in each of the "ugly?" portraits, the technique and general treatment is so inferior to the work in the picture belonging to Tietz of Cologne, that one is justified in suspecting that the likeness has also suffered from inadequate expression.

If we now turn to Gauguin?'s portrait of his friend, in the possession of Frau Gosschalk-Bonger, we do indeed find an interesting, if not a good-looking face, though the northern and barbarian features are perhaps a little marked. The question is, was Gauguin able to seize a likeness? I have every reason to believe that he could, and I am even prepared to accept his uncorroborated testimony on this point.

Speaking of his first arrival in Arles, on a visit to his friend Van Gogh, he says:

"J?'arrivai a Arles fin de nuit et j?'attendais le pet.i.t jour dans un cafe de nuit. Le patron me regarde et s?'ecria: 'C?'est vous le copain! Je vous reconnais!'

"Un portrait de moi que j?'avais envoye a Vincent est suffisant pour expliquer l?'exclamation du patron. Lui faisant voir mon portrait, Vincent lui avait explique que c?'etait un copain qui devait venir prochainement."[19]

Thus I have attempted to make clear what I personally have learnt from Van Gogh, and what I believe to have been the course of his development and of his aspirations. In the process of my exposition I have spoken about stages and periods in his development and life, as if they were well-defined and plainly to be detected in his work, and I have even instanced particular pictures which I regard as more or less characteristic of his four manners or styles. I should like to warn the reader, however, that he must not expect to find these stages and periods as clearly defined in the ma.s.s of Van Gogh?'s life-work, as this essay may have led him to suppose he would. For the purpose of tracing this Dutch artist?'s career it was necessary to speak of these periods and stages as if they had been more or less definite. But, as a matter of fact, not only do they overlap each other to such an extent as completely to invalidate any claim to the effect that Van Gogh?'s progress was regular and gradual, but often his pictures as well as his thoughts of the first and second period, after the manner of harbingers, tell so plainly what will be the aim and the triumph of the next or even ultimate period, that it is impossible to fix or even to find exact boundaries.

All that there now remains for me to do is, in the first place, to offer an explanation as to the inordinate length of this introductory essay, by pointing to the fact that nothing of the kind has previously been done for the English-reading public, and that I therefore felt my task of introducing Van Gogh might be done both conscientiously and exhaustively without my running the risk wearying the reader; and, secondly, to express the hope of that this introduction may prove as helpful to the student interested in Van Gogh?'s works, as I feel it would have been to me at the time when I first set out to study the life, the aims and the works of this remarkable and much misunderstood Dutch painter.

ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

PREFACE

Vincent Van Gogh was born in 1853, at Groot-Zundert, a village in the province of North Brabant in Holland, and was the son of a clergyman.

Like his two uncles, he was destined to be an art dealer, and from the time when he finished his education, until his twenty-third year, he worked for the firm of Goupil at The Hague, in London, and in Paris. He left Paris to return to England, where for a short time he was engaged as a schoolmaster in the country. But this did not satisfy him either; and he now wished to study theology at Amsterdam. When, however, he discovered that these studies also failed to give him precisely what he was seeking he left for Belgium, where he went among the miners as an evangelist.