I, for my part, am always glad that I have read the Bible more carefully than many people do nowadays, just because it gives me some peace of mind to know that there used to be such lofty ideals.
Accustoming oneself to poverty, seeing how a soldier or a labourer lives and thrives in wind and weather, with ordinary people’s fare and dwelling, is just as practical as earning a few guilders more a week. After all, one is not in the world for one’s own comfort, and one does not need to be better off than one’s neighbour.
So now, when anyone says that such and such is done too quickly, you can reply that they have looked at it too quickly.
As to this region here, I know the country and the people too well and love them too much to be positively leaving them for good. I shall try to rent a room where I can put my things, and shall be safe then, in case I want to leave Antwerp for a time or if I get homesick for the country.
Quero fazer desenhos que impressionem certas pessoas.
Is the Bible enough for us? These days I think Jesus himself would say again to those who sit down in melancholy, “It is not here, it is risen. Why seek ye the living among the dead?
When I came here I hoped it would be possible to make some connection with art lovers here, but up to the present I haven’t made the least progress in people’s affection. And Marseilles? I don’t know, but that may very well be nothing but an illusion. In any case I have quite given up gambling much on it. Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone, except to ask for dinner or coffee. And it has been like that from the beginning.
Em suma, quero chegar ao ponto em que digam de minha obra: este homem sente profundamente, e este homem sente delicadamente.
The desire for women that you catch in Paris, isn’t it rather the effect of that very enervation which Gruby is the sworn enemy of than a sign of vigour? So you feel this desire disappearing at the very moment you are yourself again. The root of the evil lies in the constitution itself, in the fatal weakening of families from generation to generation, and besides that, in one’s unwholesome job and the dreary life in Paris. The root of the evil certainly lies there, and there’s no cure for it.
People who do nothing but fall in love are perhaps more serious and saintly than those who sacrifice their love and their hearts to an idea.
Still, I went with Vincent a few times to listen to a Wagner concert before he left, and we both liked it very much. It still seems strange that he has gone, he has lately meant so much to me.
But since then I’ve had no chance of getting models, though on the other hand I did have the chance to study the colour question. And if I should find models again for my figures later, then I would hope to be able to show that I am after something other than little green landscapes or flowers.
I believe that if we knew everything we should attain some serenity. Now, having as much of that serenity as possible, even when one knows little or nothing for certain, is perhaps a better remedy for all ills than what is sold in the pharmacy. Much of it comes by itself, one grows and develops of one’s own accord.
Did I tell you that I had sent the drawings to friend Russell? At the moment I am doing practically the same ones again for you, there will be twelve likewise. You will then see better what there is in the painted studies in the way of drawing. I have already told you that I always have to fight against the mistral, which makes it absolutely impossible to be master of your stroke. That accounts for the “haggard” look of the studies.
If I were living near you, I should try to make you understand that it might perhaps be more practical for you to paint with me than to write, and that you might be able to express your feelings more easily that way. In any case I can do something personally about your painting, but I am not in the writing profession.
The rest certainly must seem damn bad.” And the days when I bring home a study I say to myself – If it was like this every day, we might be able to get on; but the days when you come back empty-handed, and eat and sleep and spend money all the same, you don’t think much of yourself, and you feel like a fool and a shirker and a good-for-nothing.
You must not go there in too anemic or enervated a condition, if you set a value on coming out of it stronger. I do not consider it a great misfortune for you to be obliged to be a soldier, but rather as a very serious trial from which you will emerge – if you emerge at all – a very great artist.
I am not writing to Gauguin direct, but will send the letter to you, because in any case we had better sit tight. If we say nothing more, if the reply shows that we have made such and such a proposal but that there must be some initiative on his side too, then we can see if he is keen on it. If he is not keen on it, if it’s all the same to him, if he has something else in mind, let him remain independent and me too.
Love is the best and the noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire.
One night I went for a walk by the sea along the empty shore. It was not gay, but neither was it sad; it was- beautiful. The deep blue sky was flicked with clouds of a blue deeper than the fundamental blue of intense cobalt, and others of a clearer blue, like the blue whiteness of the Milky Way. On the blue depth the stars were sparkling, greenish, yellow, white, rose, brighter, flashing more like jewels than they do even in Paris. The sea was a very deep ultramarine.