In 1990, one hundred years after the painter’s death, I saw a retrospective of much of Vincent van Gogh’s (1853-1890) work. The Kröller-Müller Museum showed his etchings and drawings, the Van Gogh museum displayed the paintings. Seeing the oeuvre of the Dutch painter develop from day tot day I had the idea of understanding him a little bit. At this moment the Van Gogh Museum exhibits some of the artist’s letters to his brother. These letters are displayed rarely, because of their vulnarability. In the slipstream of this exhibition the book Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters saw the light of day.
Letter (1888)
Van Gogh’s letters could be consulted before, both online and in comprehensive books that combine his written words and his works of art. This latest book is a useful addition: the complete work contains 820 letters, which is a lot even for an admirer. This anthology selected the most important, the most beautiful and the most enlightening letters and adds insightful background information. Vincent not only wrote letters to Theo, but also to some colleagues, his mother and his sister. On Thursday 2 May 1889 he wrote his sister Willemien about his bohemian lifestyle: “A rolling stone gathers no moss”. Van Gogh was a Rolling Stone avant-la-lettre.
Seeing these letters in the same room as the works they describe, is both impressive and compelling. Vincent loved Theo, but he depended on his brother as well. Theo believed in the creative genius of the rolling stone avant-la-lettre until the end, although it must have been an agony for both of them that the rest of the world did not recognise the beauty of Vincent’s colour explosions.
The fact that Vincent van Gogh created all his work in only ten years seemed extraordinary. But these letters learn me that he found his artistic form only in 1888 (when he was 35-years-old) inspired by the abundant sunlight and the bright colours in Arles, France. From that moment the artist’s personal life went downhill. He was very able to express his feelings in letters, but he simply couldn’t cope with most people he met. Even the painter Paul Gauguin, whom he admired highly, fled from him. When Van Gogh was admitted to a psychiatric hospital his neighbours tried to evict him from his home. During his life Van Gogh sold only one work: The Red Vineyard (1888). Six months after Vincent van Gogh took his own life, his brother Theo also he died from the effects of a siphyllus disease. The two are buried together in Auvers-sur-Oise.
Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters Nienke Bakker, 2020, Thames & Hudson LTD
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam: ‘Your Loving Vincent’: Van Gogh’s Greatest Letters 9 October 2020 – 10 January 2021
