The Letters of a Post-Impressionist / Being the Familiar Correspondence of Vincent Van Gogh

by Vincent van Gogh

And again: “Tell him (Seurat) it is my most fervent desire to know how to achieve such deviations from reality, such inaccuracies and such transfigurations, that come about by chance. Well yes, if you like, they are lies; but they are more valuable than real values” ([page 23]).

These are the thoughts of his most prolific period—the period during which he produced perhaps all his most striking pictures—the last three years of his life. Such pages of beauty as the “Orchard in Provence,” belonging to Madame Cohen Gosschalk-Bonger, “A Street in Arles,” in the possession of the Municipal Museum at Stettin, “A Street in Auvers,” belonging to A. von Jawlensky, Munich, hail from this period, as also “The Lawn,” probably in the possession of the family—a finished masterpiece of beauty; “The Sunset” belonging to Frau Tilla Durieux-Cassirer—excellent; and a number of other landscapes belonging to Frau Kröller, Frau Mauthner, Frau Cohen Gosschalk-Bonger, etc.—all of great splendour and mastery.

The fact that he was never able to work successfully from imagination alone, proves nothing against the art of working from imagination. I have heard some artists argue as if their individual incapacity to produce great work from imagination were a sufficient proof of the fallacy of the principle. Such argumentation is, of course, beneath contempt. On such lines any incompetence, impotence, ignorance, or incapacity, could be glorified and exalted. Van Gogh, however, is more honest. He says working from imagination is an “enchanted land” (page 112). Although he recognizes the desirability, the superiority, of such methods, he feels that he is not good enough for them. He says: “Others may be more gifted for the painting of abstract studies, and you [Bernard] are certainly one of these, as is also Gauguin.” And he concludes by saying that when he is older he too may do the same.

All his imagination could do, therefore, was to introduce something into his landscapes and studies that made them more than mere transcripts, that constituted them new gifts rather than repetitions, placed in the hand of the grateful public. And this “something” which he introduced, was the step to higher things, which I believe to be the chief characteristic of his final period—the period at the very threshold of which he unfortunately met with his tragic end.

But before I proceed let me explain why I use the adjectives “beautiful, excellent, splendid, masterful” in regard to these pictures. I am not in the habit of lavishing epithets of this vague description indiscriminately upon works of art. A vague adjective is a wonderful thing to help lame arguments over stiles. It is an indispensable helpmeet when one is not quite clear concerning any particular thing: but in regard to Van Gogh, this is not precisely my position. Not so much for my own sake, then, as for the sake of clarity in these questions, in which difficulties are so often smoothed over with empty phrases, it would seem desirable to explain why I speak of “beauty,” “mastery,” “excellence,” in regard to these pictures of what, in my opinion, may be called Van Gogh’s penultimate period, and which all critics, save myself, regard as belonging to his ultimate or post-impressionist period.

In the first place, then, let me pronounce this fundamental principle, as far as I personally am concerned—that there is no beauty, no mastery, and no excellence, which cannot in the end be interpreted in the terms of humanity. There is no such thing as beauty per se, mastery per se, and excellence per se. All these qualities can ultimately be traced to man and to man’s emotion; and without man I maintain that such qualities would cease to exist on earth.

A beautiful poem is one that can be linked up rapidly or by degrees, consciously or unconsciously, with things which are desirable in humanity, or in a certain kind or part of humanity. The poem that praises Pity in rhythmic cadence, for instance, will charm the Christian of the twentieth century; for him, Pity is a desirable attribute of the modern human creature, and rhythm is a convincing and commanding art-form in which to cast a desirable thought. On the other hand, it would either revolt the pagan or leave him indifferent, while he might regard it as a sacrilegious act to squander such a precious art-form as rhyming verses upon so futile a subject.

All beauty, then, in the end, is human beauty, all ugliness is human ugliness. No healthy people of the world have ever considered youth (I do not mean infancy) in any manifestation of nature, as ugly; because youth is the sure promise of human life and of a multiplication of human life. On the other hand, no healthy people have ever considered ulcers, gangrenous limbs, or decay in any form, as beautiful; because ulceration, gangrene, and decay, are the end of human life and the reduction of it. It is true that the “beautiful consumptive,” the “love of consumptives,” the “captivating cripple,” are notions which can be found in Bulwer Lytton and George Eliot, not to speak of a host of minor English writers. But then, let us remember from what part of the world they hail—from the most absurdly sentimental, over-Christianized, and over-Puritanized country on earth—England. But the whole of North-Western Europe is now quite able to vie with England in this sort of nonsense, otherwise the Eugenic Society, which ought to be superfluous, would not require to be so active.

But all this by the way. The beauty, mastery, and excellence of Van Gogh’s penultimate period, then, in my opinion, is twofold. Its content is beautiful and its form is beautiful. Its content is only just beginning to be beautiful, because we must remember that this is the work of a man who started in a school that scorned content. But is it not written that “there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety-nine just persons which need no repentance”? And the beauty of his content is, that it is turning ever more and more definitely towards humanity. It is true that the importance of the content in general is only creeping into his works; but the little of it that there is, is human. No longer negative to man, he begins to introduce human moods into his landscapes, and with human virtues he anthropomorphizes the ground, the trees, the sky, and the distance. There is as much difference between his work now and the work of his impressionistic days as there is between these two descriptions of the rising sun: (1) “The yellow sun ascends into a pink and pale yellow sky which fades away into watery green and finally into a pure azure,” and (2), “Rosy-fingered dawn stands tip-toe on yonder hill.”

He himself writes concerning a certain study: “My desire was to paint it in such a way that the spectator must read and sympathize with the thoughts of the signalman ... who seems to say: ‘Oh, what a gloomy day it is!’” ([page 8]).