“In any case I am quite convinced that it would have been sheer foolery on my part to have continued to pursue these methods—although I am not by any means so sure that all my trouble has been in vain” (p. 30).
So far, then, Van Gogh’s sole excuse—and it is an adequate one—for having concerned himself wholly with such subordinate things as art-forms and nature transcripts, is that he was a learner. A time comes, however, when in the case of the mature artist, we must take technical competency for granted, and graybeards, as many of the impressionist sculptors and painters grew to be, who continue to concentrate upon technical questions and to regard them as ends in themselves, merely reveal the fact that they never were artists at all. In this respect I cannot help quoting some fine words of Gauguin’s. Writing to Charles Morice in April 1903, he said:
“Nous venons de subir, en art, une très grande période d’égarement causée par la physique, la chimie, la mécanique et l’étude de la nature. Les artistes, ayant perdu tout de leur sauvagerie, n’ayant plus d’instinct, on pourrait dire d’imagination, se sont égarés dans tous les sentiers pour trouver des éléments producteurs qu’ils n’avaient pas la force de créer.”[6]
The reader who is familiar with my aesthetic views, will understand that I do not regard “la physique, la chimie et la mécanique,” as sufficient causes of this state of affairs; nevertheless Gauguin adds that the painters of this “période d’égarement,” had lost their instincts, and here, of course, I am with him.
The fact, however, that a painter or a sculptor has not lost his instincts is not sufficient to reform the civilization or the culture in which he lives. A still greater and more powerful artist must set to work first, and he is the legislator. The most a painter or a sculptor of sound instinct can do, is to recognize the lack of the great legislator, and reveal by his work and by the things upon which he concentrates his mind, that he realizes where the fault lies.
Now I maintain that Van Gogh and Gauguin took up this position.—But I am anticipating.—Van Gogh passed through another stage before he reached this final one. It suddenly flashed across his mind that he had something to bestow, something to bequeath, and that an artist’s life was not all taking, robbing, or copying. He felt a richness in him which bade him dispense and no longer receive.
He writes: “One begins by plaguing oneself to no purpose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by working quietly from one’s own palette alone, and then nature is the result” ([page 30]).
And again: “I often feel sorry that I cannot induce myself to work more at home from imagination. Imagination is surely a faculty one should develop” ([page 44]).
And listen to this! “How glad I should be, one day to try to paint the starry heavens, as also a vast meadow studded with dandelions in the sunlight. But how can one ever hope to succeed in doing these things unless one resolves to stay at home and to work from imagination?”
He also begins to throw off the technique of transcript painting. He recognizes that chiaroscuro with its essential “study of values,” is part of the equipment of the mere slavish transcripist, and he writes: “It is impossible to attach the same importance both to values and to colours. Theodore Rousseau understood the mixing of colours better than anyone. But time has blackened his pictures, and now they are unrecognizable. One cannot be at the Pole and at the Equator at once. One must choose one’s way; at least this is what I hope to do, and my way will be the road to colour” ([page 137]).