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 à’ Paul Gauguin.” But his latest and best work, as also the ideals and aims of his last years constitute 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 fécond,” 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 nobler 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 lust of travel to the nature of his origin. He argues that inasmuch as Gauguin’s father was a Breton and his mother a Péruvienne, 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 analysis and condemnation of Europe, it can scarcely be regarded as the principal, 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 nobler 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 “Wanderlust” à 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 attitude 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 attitude 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 assume 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 surpassed 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 idée que c’était ‘mal fait,’ que c’était que des tableaux pleins de peinture que je faisais, m’a fait perdre des modèles. 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 versâ. 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.