Van Gogh Museum Journal 2000

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[Van Gogh Studies]

fig. 1
Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Eugène Boch (Le poète) (F 462 JH 1574), 1888, Paris, Musée d'Orsay (photograph courtesty of the RMN)

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Crossed out: Vincent van Gogh to Paul Gauguin - a fragment
Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Wouter van der Veen

In the summer of 2000 the text research was completed for the new edition of Vincent van Gogh's correspondence. This means that there are now new reading texts for all the letters, over 900 in total, based on exact transcriptions of the original manuscripts, wherever these were available.¹ This brief article will publish and examine a recently deciphered fragment, placing it in its proper context.

Vincent van Gogh's correspondence includes a single letter to the Belgian painter Eugène Guillaume Boch. Boch is the sitter in Van Gogh's beautiful Portrait of Eugène Boch, also known as Le poète (fig. 1). Although the artists surely corresponded further, these other letters must be considered lost. Van Gogh and Boch met in Provence around July 1888. Van Gogh was working in Arles and its environs; the painter Dodge MacKnight, an acquaintance of his, was staying in nearby Fontvieille and introduced them. Van Gogh did not have a very high opinion of MacKnight: ‘C'est un yankee qui probablement fait beaucoup mieux que les yankees d'habitude_ Mais un yankee tout de même_ Est ce là assez dire? - Lorsque j'aurai vu ses tableaux ou dessins j'admettrai pour l'oeuvre’ [603/479].² Van Gogh's reserve towards MacKnight also made him initially sceptical of Boch, whom he believed was subject to the American's bad influence. But he soon developed an affinity for the Belgian. Following their initial introduction he wrote to Theo: ‘Ce Bock³ a un peu la tête d'un gentilhomme flamand du temps des compromis des nobles du temps du Taciturne et de Marnix_ Cela ne m'étonnerait pas du tout qu'il fusse bon’ [642/506].⁴ When MacKnight left the south of France a month later and Van Gogh began to associate with Boch on his own terms, he informed Theo around 27 August 1888: ‘Ah - Mac Knight a enfin décampé - je ne le regrette point/ Son copain le belge n'en paraissait pas fort attristé pas non plus lorsqu'il est venu hier me le raconter et que nous avons passé la soirée ensemble. Il est très raisonable dans ses ideas et sait au moins ce qu'il veut. Il fait maintenant de l'impressionisme timide mais très en règle/ très juste. Et je lui ai dit que c'était la meilleure chose qu'il pouvait faire quoiqu'il y perdrait 2 ans peutêtre retardant son originalité/ mais enfin lui ai je dit/ il est aussi necessaire de passer regulierement par l'impressionisme maintenant que cela l'était autrefois de passer par un atelier parisien. Cela il l'admettait absolument en plein justement puisqu'ainsi on ne choque personne et ne peut pas plus tard être accusé de ne pas être à la hauteur de la question. Il y songe sérieusement à aller peindre les charbonniers du Borinage et s'il est encore ici lorsque Gauguin viendra/ pas impossible alors qu'on lui demandera de faire pour nous dans le nord ce que nous ferions pour lui dans le midi/ faire tout notre possible pour le faire vivre à meilleur marché que seul’ [673/528]. Van Gogh was thus able to relate to Boch in his favourite manner, as a fatherly mentor.

The postmark on the envelope helps us date the surviving letter to Boch to 2 October 1888 [696/553b]. It is a reply to a missive from Boch himself, who had in fact gone to

1 The Van Gogh Letters Project is a joint venture of the Van Gogh Museum and the Constantijn Huygens Institute in The Hague. We expect to complete the research in 2004; additional time will then be required for translation and production.

2 The letter fragments from Van Gogh's correspondence cited in this article are drawn from the new reading texts. As Van Gogh used little punctuation we have occasionally added it in places; our full stops and commas are rendered as _ and / respectively.

3 Van Gogh always spelt Boch's name with a k. This is how the French pronounce it, which indicates that it was imparted to Van Gogh orally.

4 Van Gogh is here referring to William the Silent (William I of Orange, 1533-1584) and Philips van Marnix, lord of St Aldegonde (1538-1598).

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fig. 2
Sketch enclosed with letter 696/553b to Eugène Boch (recto), Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

fig. 3
Crossed-out text on the verso of fig. 2

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work in the Borinage after his stay in southern France. Van Gogh congratulated him on this move and - never shy of giving advice - mentioned a few interesting subjects that his friend might be able to paint there.⁵ Van Gogh also told Boch which paintings he himself was currently working on. He provided him with an impression of a few of these works, drawing a small sketch in the letter of a bulbous cypress in a park and appending a separate sheet with a sketch showing his famous night scene over the river Rhône, The starry night (F 474 JH 1592) (fig. 2).

It is this sheet that is of concern here. The successful little drawing gave Boch a good idea of Van Gogh's work; he would have been much less interested in the verso, which contains a few lines of text by Van Gogh, expressly rendered illegible with a thick pen (fig. 3). Following the publication of the facsimile edition of Van Gogh's correspondence in 1977, in which both the sketch and the crossed-out passage are shown, several scholars became curious about its content. However, anyone using this edition is soon forced to abandon the attempt to decipher the passage, for there is hardly any nuance in the reproduction of the ink layers and almost everything has the same intensity.⁶

During the research for the new edition of Van Gogh's correspondence these lines presented a downright challenge. Fortunately, the original document is in the Van Gogh Museum; this enabled us to subject the passage to close scrutiny, both literally and figuratively.⁷ After some patient analysis and trial and error virtually the entire text has been revealed:⁸

mon cher ami écrivez donc plutôt
à mon frère de garder vos tableaux a prix
au lieu de les offrir à bas prix
Il n'est pas plus commode de les vendre a
bas prix et plus difficile de les vendre plus
chers croyez m'en si on les vend du tout
J'ai évité de vous écrire à ce sujet
preferant que nous en causions
plus amplement -
Je suis dans ce moment en plein dans
la besogne j'ai une demi douzaine
de toiles de 30 carrées en train
qui serviront de décoration à la maison
Ce sont 3 toiles du jardin public
4 d[e[?]s terres labourees [à la nuit étoilée[?]

The fragment was thus the beginning of a letter; although the text continued it was lost when part of the paper was cut off. The works mentioned in the final lines are also referred to in Van Gogh's letter to Boch; the salutation also seems fitting, when we consider that Vincent wrote ‘Mon cher ami Boch’ in the definitive letter. Nevertheless, this fragment could not originally have been intended for the Belgian painter, for during this period there was no question of Theo (‘mon frère’) selling his work. We can therefore conclude that when Van Gogh decided to send the sketch to Boch he did not want him to read this passage, which had been addressed to someone else. This, in combination with the fact that the text concerns financial matters, helps explain why Van Gogh did his best to make it illegible.

It is not hard to imagine for whom these words were originally intended. Since it must have been someone whose work Theo sold and whose prices Van Gogh could presume to discuss, the only possible candidate is Gauguin. At this time Van Gogh and Theo were busy trying to induce Gauguin, who was then working in Brittany, to move to

5 In June 1890 Eugène Boch's painting The Crachet-Pecry mine, which he produced in the Borinage, would find a place in Theo and Vincent van Gogh's collection (now Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum); for the brothers' collection, see Sjraar van Heugten and Chris Stolwijk, ‘Theo van Gogh: the collector,’ in exhib. cat. Theo van Gogh: art dealer, collector and brother of Vincent, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) & Paris (Musée d'Orsay) 1999-2000, pp. 153-79. Theo exchanged Boch's painting for Van Gogh's The Alpilles with dark hut (Montagnes à Saint-Rémy) (F 622 JH 1766), assuming that his brother would like to own a memento of the Borinage. Theo judged the work as follows: ‘Je trouve que surtout le motif & l'intention de ce qu'il a voulu faire sont remarquables. Ce n'est pas très habile ni puissant, mais très sincère, comme le garçon lui-même’ [895/T38]. Shortly before this Boch's sister, the painter Anna Boch, had become the first person to buy a painting by Van Gogh, The red vineyard: Montmajour (F 495 JH 1626), at the Les XX exhibition in Brussels.

6 Letters of Vincent van Gogh 1886-1890. A facsimile edition, preface by Jean Leymarie, introduction by V.W. van Gogh, 2 vols., London & Amsterdam 1977. There is no pagination; the sketch and crossed-out text are reproduced in volume one, with letter 553b, which appears between letters 544 and 545.

7 The manuscript was acquired by V.W. van Gogh from Boch's descendants and entered the collection of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation in 1962. It is currently on permanent loan to the Van Gogh Museum (b 598 V/1962). J.B. de la Faille was the first to draw attention to the letter's existence; see idem, ‘Een onbekende brief van Vincent,’ Kroniek van kunst en kultuur 14 (March 1954), no. 3, pp. 52-54.

8 The text has been reproduced exactly. The sections between [ and [?] in the final line are doubtful readings.

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Arles, as they believed this would prove beneficial to both painters' work: ‘Sais tu que si nous aurons Gauguin nous voila devant une très importante affaire qui va nous ouvrir une ère nouvelle’ [698/544]. Although Gauguin had promised to join Vincent in Arles, he did not simply want to abandon the people who had been kind to him in Brittany and had supported him financially. Nor did he have the money required for the journey. Still, his arrival in Arles was imminent; hence Van Gogh's statement in the fragment that he preferred to wait until he could discuss prices ‘plus amplement’ (at greater length) with him.

The fragment in question is probably a response to a remark made by Gauguin in his letter to Van Gogh of circa 28 September 1888: ‘J'ai peur que votre frère qui aime mon talent ne le cote trop haut_ - S'il trouvait un amateur ou un spéculateur qui soit tenté par les bas prix, qu'il le fasse_ - Je suis l'homme des sacrifices et je voudrais bien qu'il comprenne que ce qu'il fera je le trouverai bien fait_ -’ [694/GAC32]. Referring to this passage Van Gogh wrote in his next letter to Theo: ‘Maintenant j'ai une lettre de Gauguin qui parait bien triste et dit que dès qu'il a fait une vente certes il viendra mais ne se prononce toujours pas si en cas qu'il aurait son voyage payé tout simplement il consentirait à se debrouiller là-bas. Il dit que les gens où il loge sont et ont été parfaits pour lui et que les quitter comme cela serait une mauvaise action_ Mais que je lui retourne un poignard dans le coeur si je croirais qu'il ne viendrait pas tout de suite s'il pouvait. Que d'ailleurs si tu pouvais vendre ses toiles à bas prix il serait lui content. Je t'enverrai sa lettre avec la réponse_’ [695/543]. Evidently the crossed-out text is a (discarded) version of that ‘réponse.’ No evidence remains of the reply Van Gogh actually sent to Gauguin via Theo.

The threesome - Gauguin and the Van Gogh brothers - formed a quasi business. Theo gave financial support to both painters and had been trying to sell Gauguin's work since the end of 1887. Vincent was busy setting up the ‘atelier du Midi,’ where he hoped to fulfil the artistic ideals of the painters of the petit boulevard, preferably in collaboration with Gauguin. Moreover, through exchanges of work and (modest) purchases, the brothers were jointly building up an art collection that would prove of lasting value.

In 1888 Gauguin found himself in impecunious circumstances in Pont-Aven, for the income from his work was not very high. He had therefore considered allowing Theo to sell his work at a lower price than usual. The standard price for his pictures in this period still fluctuated around 400, or sometimes 500, francs. Vincent believed there was no point in lowering their prices. Putting a typically Van Gogh spin on his first ‘reason’ for taking this line, he maintained that if one wasn't selling anything anyway, the price made no difference, there was no point in lowering it. His second reason, based more on principal, was that painters should uphold their value and not create the impression that their work was only worth, for example, 100 francs: ‘Il n'est pas plus facile/ je suis convaincu/ de faire un bon tableau que de trouver un diamant ou une perle/ cela demande de la peine et on y risque sa vie comme marchand ou comme artiste. Alors une fois qu'on a des bonnes pierres il ne faut pas non plus douter de soi et hardiment tenir la chôse à un certain prix’ [695/543]. Although Gauguin and Theo basically agreed with Vincent, they had a better idea of how to do business and understood that it was sometimes necessary to make a compromise. A short time before Theo had evidently sold several of Gauguin's ceramics at less than the asking price. The latter wrote to the dealer in connection with this transaction around 29 September 1888: ‘Vous avez bien fait d'accepter les prix proposés. Je suis aussi d'avis (ayant été dans les affaires) que à certains moments il faut tenir les prix. Et cependant il y en a d'autres qui sont amenées par le bas prix mais pas pour 1 tableau (pour plusieurs) C'est à dire que l'amateur spéculateur une espèce à part est tenté pour une affaire en block.’⁹

The three men therefore held to the same theory, but Theo and Gauguin were prepared to deviate from it in practice if necessary. The crossed-out fragment shows that Van Gogh was the only one to hold firm to the principle - not for the first time - and that he intended to use Gauguin to exert pressure on his brother not to capitulate. As noted above, the version of the letter Van Gogh ultimately sent has not survived; we will thus never know if he actually defended his unilateral position there as well. Since Theo was to be allowed to read the letter it seems most likely Van Gogh swallowed his criticism in order to avoid misunder-

9 See Paul Gauguin: 45 lettres à Vincent, Theo et Jo van Gogh, ed. Douglas Cooper, The Hague & Lausanne 1983, no. 6, p. 53.

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standings. This supposition is also supported by the fact that in the crossed-out fragment he states that he would prefer to discuss the issue with Gauguin in person. There are several passages in Van Gogh's letters in which sensitive subjects are only briefly touched upon; the artist frequently sought to defer a discussion until the opportunity arose for a personal exchange. Words on paper are dangerous. From this point of view, it would have been wiser if Van Gogh had destroyed the rejected text and used a new sheet of paper for Boch's sketch.