Van Gogh In His Own Words
What do the great artist’s letters reveal about his life?
Three months after leaving Paris for the south of France, Vincent van Gogh – his mind awhirl with thoughts of art, the future, his new home in Arles – sat down to write to his brother. “My dear Theo,” he wrote on 4 May 1888, “I’m dropping you another line to tell you that on reflection it would be better for me just to take a rug & a mattress and make a bed on the floor in the studio.” So began one of Vincent’s most profound letters. Simple questions of domesticity and Vincent’s humble life soon gave way to the inevitable lines on art, and what began as a mundane letter quickly turned prophetic:
“The painter of the future will be a colourist the like of which has never yet been seen… I can’t imagine the painter of the future living in a small restaurant, setting to work with a lot of false teeth, and going to the Zouaves’ brothel as I do. But I’m sure I’m right to think that it will come in a later generation, and it is up to us to do what we can to encourage it, without question or complaint.” It would take just over two years for Vincent’s prophecy of the “painter of the future” to come true, and despite his assertions, it was Vincent who would be the artist to fulfil it. By that time, Vincent would also be dead.
In his youth, Vincent had never intended to become an artist. Born on 30 March 1853, Vincent was the first surviving child of Reverend Theodorus van Gogh and his wife, Anna Carbentus. Four years after Vincent’s birth, Theo was born. Among a brood of six, Theo and Vincent were especially close, and when his childhood came to an end and he began his first job, Vincent took up his pen to write to his brother, his first missive to Theo written in 1872 while Vincent worked in The Hague. Three years before, Vincent had taken up a position at Goupil & Cie, an international art dealer that opened up the world to the young man. He was dismissed in 1876, but in the years before Vincent had lived and worked in Brussels, London
and Paris, where he indulged his passion for art by collecting prints and visiting galleries.
With his career in the art world seemingly at an end, Vincent devoted himself to his latest emerging passion: God. He was determined to follow in his father’s footsteps, begging Theo in a letter dated 22 March 1877 to “cast your eye up on high and ask that it be granted to me”. Over the course of three years, Vincent’s determination turned to obsession, and his letters were soon filled with religious fervour, or lamenting at the long path ahead of him: “If only everything were already behind me, as it is behind Father, but it takes so much hard work to become a Christian labourer and a preacher of the Gospel.” After moving to England once more, Vincent’s quest to join the family trade led him to The Borinage in Belgium, where he became a preacher to coal miners. Living in squalid conditions in a bleak town, Vincent attempted to devote himself to his new congregation, but his methods attracted the ire of his superiors and he was quickly stripped of his position.
After just over two years, Vincent’s devotion to God began to cool, and by 1879 he had abandoned his aspirations to join the clergy. Instead, Vincent was resolved to become an artist. However, with no income and an expensive new profession, Vincent needed money. It was at this point that Theo became Vincent’s ‘patron’, a role that he would continue until his brother’s dying day. It was a blessing, but the debt hung over Vincent’s head like a storm cloud, as he explained in August 1879: “If I ever came to believe seriously that I was being a nuisance or a burden to you or to those at home… then I should be overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness and should have to wrestle with despair.”
In the time between Vincent’s career in the clergy stalling and taking up art full-time,
Vincent’s relationship with his family began to crumble too. “For the past five years or so …
I have been more or less without permanent employment, wandering from pillar to post,” Vincent wrote to Theo in July 1880.
Aware of his own failings and utterly convinced of his father’s disappointment in him, Vincent and his father quarrelled frequently, with
Theodorus even threatening to send his son to an institution. “To the family I have, willy-nilly, become a more or less objectionable and shady sort of character, at any rate a bad lot,” lamented Vincent. Things weren’t to improve in the coming months. Despite their clashes, Vincent moved back in with his parents in April 1881. Having fallen madly in love with his cousin, Kee Vosstricker, Vincent was rebuffed in three cutting words: ‘Never, no, never”. While Kee’s and Vincent’s parents were satisfied that this was the end of the matter, Vincent continued to pursue her. “Should I resign myself to that ‘never, no, never’, or consider the matter not yet settled & done with, keep in good heart and not give up. I chose the latter,” wrote Vincent on 3 November. With Vincent determined to win over Kee, his relationship with his parents continued to deteriorate until he was forced to leave, taking up residence once again in The Hague in January 1882.
Here, things went from bad to worse. Having started studying under celebrated watercolourist Anton Mauve the year before, Vincent’s mentor encouraged Vincent to devote himself to figure
“By 1879 Vincent had abandoned his aspirations to join the clergy”
studies. Mauve, however, had not anticipated Vincent taking up with one of his models, a pregnant prostitute called Sien Hoornik. “I met Mauve today and had a most regrettable conversation with him,” Vincent explained to
Theo in May 1882, eventually revealing that “in the end he said, ‘You have a vicious character’.” Mauve wasn’t the only person to condemn Vincent’s relationship with Sien, and Theo himself expressed dismay at his brother’s situation – particularly when it came out that Vincent planned to marry her. “I will not deceive or forsake a woman,” retorted Vincent to Theo later that month. Indeed, Vincent was willing to forego his brother’s monthly stipend to stay with Sien: “Were I to be told for certain that you are withdrawing your support, I should be rendered powerless… If this dreadful fate has to befall me – so be it. I can say nothing other than: I have pledged [Sien] my troth and she has pledged me hers.”
It was a blessing that Theo continued to finance his brother’s career; after being released from hospital for gonorrhoea treatment in July 1882, Vincent began to dabble with oil paints. This was a decidedly different medium to the sketches and watercolours that Vincent was used to, and while he felt that he was achieving a more pleasing, saleable result, his expenditure began to soar: “Though I myself enjoy doing it immensely, the heavy expenses will probably prevent me for the time being from doing as much painting as my ambition and inclination demand” (August 1882).
“Vincent painted many self-portraits to make up for the shortage of affordable models”
As the year rolled over, Vincent found his domestic life with Sien limiting his artistic output. He longed to leave The Hague, and by autumn he travelled to Drenthe, but he was plagued by guilt for abandoning her, as he described to his brother in early October: “I know that she is no good, that I have every right to do as I am doing, that I could not stay with her there, that I really could not take her with me… but that doesn’t alter the fact that it cuts right through me.”
After several months in Drenthe, Vincent returned to live with his parents, taking up his own studio. Despite the death of his father in
1885, Vincent continued to work diligently, and by spring he was on the brink of completing his first ‘masterpiece’, The Potato Eaters. In a letter dated 30 April 1885, his excitement was palpable: “It might just turn out to be a genuine peasant painting. I know that it is. But anyone who prefers to have his peasants looking namby-pamby had best suit himself.”
In March 1886, Vincent travelled to Paris to live with Theo, where he not only became acquainted with new artistic trends, but where he became close to several artists, including Émile Bernard, Henri de Toulouse-lautrec and Paul Gauguin.
Few letters exist from the period, but Vincent continued to struggle financially, painting dozens of self-portraits to make up for the shortage of affordable models. Despite the hardships of Parisian life, Vincent and Theo’s relationship was rejuvenated, as Vincent admitted in a letter to his sister, Wilhelmina, in the summer of 1887: “If I didn’t have Theo, I should not be able to do justice to my work, but having him for a friend, I’m sure I shall make progress and things will fall into place.” He went on to admit, “As soon as possible, I plan to spend some time in the south, where there is even more colour and even more sun.”
“When I left Paris I was in a sorry state, quite ill and almost an alcoholic,” Vincent revealed in a letter to Gauguin on 3 October 1888. Indeed, in February Vincent had moved south, where he spent his first weeks recuperating during unseasonably bad weather. Once the weather cleared, however, Vincent fell in love with the climate and countryside. “I have never had such luck before, nature here is extraordinarily beautiful. Everything and everywhere,” he wrote in September. It was here that Vincent acquired the Yellow House, where he envisioned an artists’ commune with himself and “a first-rate painter” – Gauguin – as permanent residents.
Vincent began to paint in earnest, determined to plaster the walls of the Yellow House with paintings of people and sunflowers. To Vincent’s elation, Gauguin arrived in Arles in October. At first the pair seemed to work well together, but cracks quickly began to appear. By December the situation was tense, with the artists frequently bickering. By this point, Vincent’s mood was low, and on 23 December 1888, Vincent penned a quick note to his brother, stating, “I think that Gauguin was a little disenchanted with the good
town of Arles, the little yellow house where we work, and above all with me.” That fateful evening, Vincent allegedly attempted to attack Gauguin with a razor. Gauguin stormed away and, in a fit of rage, Vincent cut off his own ear, wrapped it in newspaper and gave it to a prostitute at his local brothel. The next day, he remembered little of what had happened.
In the wake of Vincent’s mental breakdown, he was placed in a hospital, where he remained until early January. He attempted to return to the Yellow House but, frightened by the events of 23 December, the locals had petitioned to keep him away, and Vincent’s home was sealed and guarded by police. Despite this, Vincent continued to paint, explaining to Theo in February 1889 that “The work takes my mind off things, or rather keeps me in order.”
In May 1889, fearing another major relapse, Vincent voluntarily entered the asylum in Saintrémy, where he continued to paint in an unused room. “I am struggling with all my might to keep my work under control by telling myself that success would be the best lightning conductor for my illness,” Vincent wrote to Theo at the start of September 1889. Indeed, it was here in Saint-rémy where Vincent painted some of his most poignant works, including The Starry Night and Irises.
By early 1890, Vincent’s status as an artist was finally taking off, and an article about Vincent’s art by Albert Aurier in Le Mercure de France propelled Vincent into the public eye. From Saint-rémy, Vincent wrote to Aurier in February, claiming “I encounter my canvases anew in your article, but better than they are in reality, richer, more meaningful.” The following month, ten of Vincent’s paintings starred in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris.
Almost a year after entering the asylum, Vincent left. On 16 May he travelled to Paris and then on to Auvers-sur-oise, where he’d been recommended to seek out Doctor Gachet. “I have found a perfect friend in Dr Gachet, something like another brother – so alike are we physically, and mentally, too. He is very nervous and most odd himself,” Vincent explained to Wilhelmina in June.
But with the fear of more breakdowns hanging over his head, and the worry of being a financial burden on his brother and his growing family, Vincent’s mood remained bleak. In his last letter to Theo, dated 24 July 1890, Vincent wrote “I should try, perhaps, to write to you about a great many things, but in the first place I have completely lost the inclination, and then, it seems useless to me.” Three days later Vincent shot himself. Though he survived the initial shot and managed to stumble back to his room at the Ravoux Inn, he eventually succumbed to his injury, dying in the arms of Theo, his closest companion to the very end.
On 30 July 1890, Vincent van Gogh was buried in the cemetery in Auvers-sur-oise in a ceremony attended by friends and family. In an account of it, Émile Bernard wrote, “Theodorus van Gogh is broken by grief”. Theo never truly recovered after Vincent’s death and, plagued by health problems, he died less than six months later.