The Letters of a Post-Impressionist Part 9

In the event of these studies not meeting with any appreciation, and one or the other of our friends not being able to take a fancy to any of them, please keep those that are liked and return the others together with the pictures sent in exchange for those that are retained.

There is no hurry, and when business is done by barter, it is but right and proper for both sides to try and offer only good work.

If in the morning it is sufficiently dry to be rolled up, I shall also send you a landscape containing figures unloading sand, and in addition to that the rough sketch of a picture which is full of a mature will.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

What about the gentleman so diligently engaged in art whom I found in your last letter, and who looked so like me--was he supposed to be me or somebody else? As far as the face is concerned he looks very like me; but in the first place I always smoke a pipe, and then I positively dread sitting on a thin ledge of rock overlooking the sea, for I suffer from giddiness. In the name of these presents I therefore protest most solemnly against the other resemblances I have already mentioned.{S}

The decoration of my house is absorbing me entirely, and I hope and believe that it will be very tasteful even if it be very different from everything you do.

That reminds me that on one occasion some time ago you spoke to me of certain pictures which were to represent flowers, trees, and fields, respectively. Now I have the "Poet?'s Garden?" (two canvases), the "Starry Night,?" the "Vineyard,?" the "Furrows,?" the "View from my House,?" which might also be called "The? Street." As you see, without any intention on my part, a certain natural sequence seems to connect them together.

I should be very curious to see sketches of Pont-Aven; but you must send me a more finished study. You are, however, sure to do everything in the best possible way; for I am so fond of your talent that in time I shall make quite a little collection of your works. I have always been very much moved by the thought that j.a.panese artists often bartered their pictures among themselves. That does indeed show that they loved one another and were united, that a kind of harmony prevailed among them, and that they lived in brotherly concord instead of in intrigues. The more we resemble them in these things the more we shall prosper. It also appears that a few of these j.a.panese artists earned very little money and lived like simple workmen. I have the reproduction of a j.a.panese drawing (Bing?'s publication) representing a single blade of gra.s.s. What a paragon of conscientiousness it is! I shall show it to you when I get the chance.

What surprised me in your letter were your words: "Ah, as for painting Gauguin?'s portrait--that is impossible!?" Why impossible? That?'s all nonsense. But I will not press you further. And has not Gauguin, for his part, ever thought of painting your portrait? You are a funny pair of portrait painters, I must say! You live all day long shoulder to shoulder and cannot even agree so far as to act as each other?'s models.

The end of it will be that you will part without having painted each other?'s portraits. All right, I will not urge you any more. But I hope that one day I shall be able to paint both your portrait and Gauguin?'s.

I shall do it as soon as we all come together, which is sure to happen some day.

Whereas the finest plans and calculations so often come to naught, if only one work on the off chance and take advantage of the happy accidents the day brings with it, one can accomplish a host of good and astonishing things. Make a point of going to Africa for a while--you will be enraptured with the South, and it will make you a great artist.

Even Gauguin is greatly indebted to the South for his talent.{T}

For many months now I have been contemplating the strong sun of the South, and the result of this experiment is that, in my opinion, and chiefly from the standpoint of colour, Delacroix and Monticelli, who are now wrongly reckoned among the pure romanticists and the artists with fantastic imaginations, are entirely justified. Think of it, the South which Fromentin and Gerome have depicted so dryly, is even in these parts a land the intimate charm of which can be rendered only with the colours of the colourist.

In my sketch of "The? Garden," there may be something like _Des tapis velus--de fleurs et verdure tissus_. I wished to reply to all your quotations with the pen, even if I dispensed with words. My head does not feel very much like discussing to-day; I am head over ears in work.

I have just done two large pen-drawings, for instance, a bird?'s-eye view of an endless plain seen from the top of a hill: vineyards, and fields of stubble reaching to infinity, and extending like the surface of the sea to the horizon, which is bounded by the hills of _La Crau_. It does not look j.a.panese, and yet, truth to tell, I have never painted anything so essentially j.a.panese. A tiny figure of a labourer and a small train running through the cornfields, const.i.tute the only signs of life in the picture. Think of it! on one of my first days at this place, a painter friend of mine said to me: "It would be absurdly tedious to paint that!?"

I did not attempt to answer, but thought the spot so beautiful that I could not even summon the strength to upbraid the idiot. I returned to the locality again and again, and made two drawings of it--this flat stretch of country which contains nothing save infinity, eternity. And then, while I was drawing, a man walked up to me--not a painter this time, but a soldier. "Does it surprise you,?" I asked him, "that I should think this as beautiful as the sea??" "No, it does not surprise me in the?

least that you should think this as beautiful as the sea," came the reply (the fellow knew the sea, by-the-bye); "for I think it even more?

beautiful than the ocean, because it is inhabited."

Which of the two men understood the most about art, the painter or the soldier? According to my way of thinking, the soldier did; am I not right?

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 sun-burnt face.

Meanwhile I am painting other things.

But among my studies I have one of a figure which is a perfect continuation of my Dutch pictures. On one occasion I showed these to you, together with various other pictures of my Dutch days, the "Potato-Eaters,?" etc., and I should like you to see these as well. They are all studies in which colour plays such an important part that the black and white of a drawing could not give you any idea of them. I had actually thought of sending you a very large and careful drawing of the one in question. But, however accurate it might be, it would result in something totally different; for colour is the only thing that can suggest the effect of the hot parched air of a midsummer?'s day at noon, in the midst of harvest-making; and if this effect is lacking, the whole picture is altered. You and Gauguin know what a peasant is, and how much of the beast must lie in his const.i.tution if he belong to the right race.

Oh, how the gorgeous sunlight gets to one?'s head here in the country! I do not doubt but what it can drive a man a little crazy. As, however, I was already a little inclined that way, now I have only the enjoyment of it.

I am thinking of decorating my studio with half a dozen sunflowers. It will be a decorative effect in which the glaring or broken tones of chromes will stand out vividly against a background of variegated blue, ranging from the most delicate emerald green to royal blue, enclosed in narrow strips of golden yellow. It will produce the sort of effect that Gothic church-windows do.

Oh we crazy-pates! What joys our eyes give us--don?'t they? Nevertheless nature takes her revenge on the animal in us, and our bodies are pitiable, and often a terrible burden. This has been so ever since the time of Giotto, who was a sickly sort of man. But what a delightful sight and what amus.e.m.e.nt we get from the toothless laughter of that old lion, Rembrandt, with a cloth round his head and his palette in his hand.

FURTHER LETTERS TO HIS BROTHER

The city of Paris does not pay. It would break my heart to see Seurat?'s pictures buried in a provincial museum or in a cellar; they ought to remain in living hands. If T. were only willing!...

If the three permanent exhibitions are established an important work of Seurat?'s will be required for each of the following places--Paris, London and Ma.r.s.eilles.

How kind it is of you to promise G. and myself to make the realization of the projected union a possible thing! I have just received a letter from B., who for the last few days has been on a visit to G., L., and another man in Pont-Aven. In this letter, which, by-the-bye, is very friendly in tone, there is not a single word about G.'s having the intention of joining me here, nor is there any hint that they are expecting me there. Nevertheless the letter is a very friendly one. I have not received a line from G. himself for a month. I really believe that G. prefers to come to an understanding with his friends in the North, and if he have the good fortune to sell one or more pictures, he will probably no longer wish to join me here.

Whether G. comes or not is his affair; for, provided that we are ready to receive him, and that his bed and his quarters are prepared, we shall have kept our promise. I insist upon this, because, in so doing, my object is to release myself and a friend from the evil that thrives on our work, and that is the necessity of living in expensive hotels without our deriving any advantage from the arrangement--which is sheer madness. The hope of being able to live without money troubles, and of one day escaping from these eternal straits--what a foolish illusion this is! I should consider myself lucky 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.

Now it is definitely decided that I shall not go to Pont-Aven if I have to live in an hotel with these Englishmen and men of the _Ecole des Beaux Arts_, with whom one has to argue every evening--much ado about nothing!

This morning I was working at an orchard gay with plum-blossom, when suddenly there came a gust of wind and with it a peculiar effect which hitherto I had not observed in these parts, and which recurred from time to time. Now and again a shaft of sunlight would pierce the clouds and set all the little white blooms aglow--it was too beautiful for words!

My friend the Dane joined me, and, at the risk of seeing all my paraphernalia fall to the ground at every gust of wind, I continued to paint. In this white light, there is a good deal of yellow, blue and mauve; the sky is white and blue. But what will people say of the execution when one works in the open air in this way? Afterwards I thoroughly regretted not having ordered my colours at dear old Tanguy?'s; not that I should have gained anything, but he is such a comical little body! I often think of him. Do not forget to remember me to him when you see him, and tell him that if he would like some pictures for his shop-window, he can have some--and of the best.

Oh dear! It seems ever more and more clear to me that mankind is the root of all life. And even if the feeling that one has no share in real life remains a melancholy one (for it would surely be preferable to deal with living flesh and blood than with colour and clay, and one would sooner beget children than work at art or at the commerce of art), one feels notwithstanding that one does at least live, for among one?'s friends are there not numbers who also have no share in real life? We should try to do the same with business matters as with the human heart--that is to say, acquire or revive friendships{U}. As we no longer have anything to fear in regard to the ultimate fate of Impressionism, and as our victory is a.s.sured, we should behave decently and settle everything with calmness.

I cannot help thinking of Marat as the equivalent of Xanthippe in a moral sense (even though he be more powerful). That woman with the embittered heart remains, in spite of all, a stirring figure.

You were right to order from the colourman?'s the geranium lake which I have just received. All the colours that Impressionism has brought into fashion, are rather p.r.o.ne to lose some of their strength. That is why they should be laid on boldly and glaringly; for time will be sure to deaden them more than necessary.

Not one of the colours I have ordered: three chromes (deep, medium and pale), Prussian blue, veridian, emerald green etc.{V} is to be found on the palettes of the Dutch painters Maris, Mauve and Israels. On the other hand they were on Delacroix?' palette, as he had a pa.s.sion for the most prohibited colours--lemon yellow and Prussian blue; and with very good reason, for to my mind he created really magnificent things with this lemon yellow and blue.

Now I must tell you that I am working at two pictures of which I wished to make copies. The pink peach tree gives me most trouble.

You observe, from the four squares on the back, that the three orchards are more or less related. I am now painting an upright of a small pear-tree, which will be flanked by two landscape-shaped canvases.[29]

Altogether, then, that will make six pictures of orchards in blossom, and I hope that there will be three more to come, also related to each other in character. I should like to paint this series of nine pictures together. There is nothing to prevent us from regarding the nine pictures of this year, as the first rough plan of a final and much larger scheme of decoration which will have to be carried out at the same time next year, according to exactly the same themes.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

My drawings are done with a reed which is cut after the manner of a goose quill. I am thinking of doing a series of them, and hope the others will be better than the first two. That is my method. I had already tried it in Holland; but there I had not such good reeds as I have here.