My dear Theo,

Do you remember that not long ago I wrote to you ‘I’m sitting in front of two big blank stretching frames and don’t yet know how I’ll get anything onto them’?Well since then, you know, the dung-heap has come on one,2 and in the past few days I’ve made good progress with the second. It’s to be a coal-yard on the Rijnspoor site as I see it from the window of the studio. There are heaps of coal and fellows working in them, and people come with small wheelbarrows to buy a sack of coal; trade is very busy some days, and especially in the winter, with the snow it was a charming scene.

Had been thinking about it for a long time and recently I saw it looking so beautiful one evening and did my sketch in such a way that I’ve since changed little of what I put down then as regards the broad outlines of the composition. At the place itself I had a fellow who scrambled up the heaps and stood here and there so that I could see the proportion of the figure at various places. But I’ve since done various figure studies for it, although the figures come out small.

Just while I’m doing these studies, a plan for an even larger drawing, namely of the potato-digging, begins to take root in me. And the way I have it in my mind, you might perhaps see something in it.

I would like the landscape to be a flat area and a small line of dunes.  The figures just about one foot high, the composition breadthways, In a corner in the foreground kneeling figures of women gathering up the potatoes as a repoussoir. A row of diggers, men and women, in the background.

And take the perspective of the area so that in the other corner of the drawing from where the women are gathering up, I get the spot where the wheelbarrows come.

Now, apart from the figures of the kneeling women, I could already show you the other figures in large studies.

Yes, I want to start on these drawings in the next few days, I have the sites pretty well in my head, and shall seek out a fine potato field at my convenience and do studies of it for the lines of the landscape.

The drawing ought to be complete, as a worked-up sketch at any rate, towards the autumn, when the lifting takes place, and I’d only have the tone and the finishing to do.

I saw it here last year, and the year before last at Het Heike, where it was splendid, and the year before that in the Borinage, where it was done by miners. Anyway, this is how it has ripened in my mind. The figures ought to be such that it’s true everywhere, and more than a costume study. Well, that blank canvas preoccupies me in spite of everything else, and while making studies I’m always looking for new ones to add.

The row of diggers should be just a row of dark shapes at first sight or from a distance, but highly finished and varied in movement and type. 

For instance, a young, plain fellow opposite one of those really typical old Scheveningers in a white and brown patched suit with an old top hat, one of those matt black ones that they wear low in the neck. For instance, a short, stocky figure of a woman in sober black with a white cap opposite a tall grass-mower in white trousers, light blue smock and straw hat — a bald crown next to a young woman. These ideas come to me precisely by putting the studies I already have opposite each other. We’ll see. But be that as it may, I’ve bought a large stretching frame (an old painting frame) from Laarman and covered it.

And it’s becoming clearer to me day by day, but it’s devilishly difficult to find figures that look right as opposites and can still find a place in the same, very confined space. And one has to do each one perhaps 3 or more times before it works out. But I’ll make a start on it and do the same as with the dung-heap, that is, begin again later on another stretching frame if the first doesn’t come out as I want. But wanted to have it relatively finished towards the time for potato digging, even though I’ll then have to go over it again completely on another piece of paper.

It’s good that I went to Rappard that time, for it was actually there that I got the idea of starting on the larger drawings, and I’ve noticed that while one composes one feels more exactly what studies one must make. These days I’m working with a great deal of pleasure and without getting especially tired, because of the enjoyment I feel.

I had long restrained myself from composing, as you know, and in that respect a revolution has now come about in me because it was time it came,  and I breathe more freely now that I’ve slightly slackened the rein I had imposed on myself. But I still believe it was a good thing that I toiled away just at studies for such a long time, for it’s the same with everything, and particularly with the figure: one must study a great deal and not imagine that one can do it. I find Mauve’s words very fine: after all his work and experience he still says ‘sometimes I still don’t know where the knobbles are on a cow’. 

For my part, what I often do these days is that if I’m drawing a digger who has one leg in front of the other, or his one arm in front of the other, or his head leaning forwards, I first draw in detail the leg, the arm or the neck and back of the head that’s behind the one in front and hence out of view, and only afterwards on top of that what’s in sight, to get it as accurate as possible.

I hope I’ll succeed in getting down the shadow or the ghost of the potato drawing by the time you come. I long for you. Don’t you know anything more definite about when you’ll be coming?

Well, I must get back to my coal workers. All the cash I have at the moment is a money order for 1.23 1/2 guilders which is torn in two and has already been refused once. So I don’t need to tell you that I’ll be looking forward to your letter keenly. I’ve covered the big stretching frame so that I have a distraction and can still work in the days before receipt again if perhaps I can’t get a model. But perhaps I can get one after all.

My Scheveningen cape is a splendid possession, I have three detailed studies with it, a woman with a dustbinand two with wheelbarrows. When you send again I hope to take a fisherman’s jacket with a stand-up collar and short sleeves and a woman’s hat. The women’s hats are expensive and hard to obtain, it seems. Still, I have one if need be.

There must be Scheveningen Drawings as well, and soon. This time last year I was in the hospital— I think the painted studies from last summer are poor and wrong — I thought of this because I’ve just looked up an old painted study of that coal-yard to see how they were done last year. Now I consider them too carelessly and hastily done. In short, I’ve since concentrated on figure drawing again, and I think of painting only very indirectly. Well, adieu, write as soon as you can and good luck with everything. With a handshake.

Ever yours,

Vincent

To give an example, this week I did a few landscape studies as well, one yesterday at De Bock’s, a potato field in the dunes; the day before a spot under the chestnut trees; another, a yard with heaps of coal. Now it’s relatively rare for me to get round to drawing landscape, but when I get round to it I immediately have 3 very different subjects. Why doesn’t he, a specialized landscape painter, do that much, much more instead of it always being a dune with a tree and a bit of marram grass? All very fine in itself, but there’s so much that is just as fine and ought to attract him, one would imagine. Anyway, you know all about that, again my impression of him is that he has most certainly not gone downhill.  Well, I wrote to you recently that I had been thinking about moving, mainly in order to be closer to the sea. I talked to Bock about houses in Scheveningen, but I must stop saying the rent for my studio is high when I compare it with the costs that others have; for instance, the house where Blommers used to live is to let — the rent is 400 guilders and I pay 170 guilders a year. Moreover, the studio is no bigger than mine, and as for the suitability of the house I would stick to what I have now. De Bock himself pays the same as Blommers. And this is in line with what I heard last year about average rents. If it was a question of going to live by the sea, Scheveningen wouldn’t be possible and one would have to go further away, Hook of Holland, say, or Marken.

Now, though, I’m thinking of asking De Bock to let me have a corner of his attic as a pied-à-terre and then leaving my equipment there so that I don’t need to lug it around. If one arrives tired (if one didn’t need to work immediately that slight fatigue wouldn’t matter, of course), the work is sometimes weak and the hand is none too steady. One is just hot and tired enough to be bothered by it if one walks and has to lug everything around. So that pier-à-terre at De Bock’s and taking the tram more often might perhaps be enough to be able to do something with the sea and Scheveningen after all, more seriously than I’ve done so far. 

De Bock is to come to my place this week and we’re to discuss it further. He’s thinking of moving himself and has rented until May, and said that his house might stand empty for several months after all. We’ll see. He asked after you warmly, and I said you’d probably visit him this summer. His big painting in the Salon not sold of course. What did you think of that? The reviews were rather mixed. I think it will work out, to be at Scheveningen often this autumn with a pied-à-terre at his place. We’ll see — but I yearn very much to do something with the beach.

Did a study this week of a barge puller and a peat carrier and I’m still working on the potato grubbers. I hope that, taking a turn now with Bock, I’ll be able to get on with him; it could do both of us no harm, and perhaps we can learn from each other.He’s bought a lot of antiques and his place looks very attractive, but I imagine it must have cost him a great deal.Will you write soon? Now I’ve written to you about Bock as I did recently about Rappard, that way you hear something about our acquaintances. Rappard is travelling, still he wrote to me that he had got round after all to using printer’s ink as I told him, and that it worked much better that way, namely with turpentine.

You know that I’ve always said my present studio was good, especially after the alterations. Really, if I think now of changing — I would much rather arrange things so that I don’t need to move, because compared with others I’m very well off. Well, one is always attached to something one has furnished oneself and one feels at home there.

See that you send me something soon, old chap, for I need it badly. De Bock has also taken to reading Zola and had read Le Nabab by Daudet as well. Do you know Germinie Lacerteux by Jules and E. de Goncourt? That’s supposed to be very good, in the manner of Zola. I’m going to get hold of it.I’ve ordered an instrument that’s known as a fixer which enables one to fix a charcoal drawing out of doors while one works, then one can work it up. Am looking forward to it. With Bock I’ve found splendid potato fields in the dunes behind the lighthouse

Regards, old chap, I wish you well, and write soon. Adieu, with a handshake.

​

Ever yours,

Vincent

There are a couple of small seascapes at De Bock’s, one with a choppy, one with a calm sea, a genre I’d very much enjoy pursuing. Yesterday a peasant cottage with a red roof under tall trees. Well, I believe that painting figure studies would help me with many things, I made a start with one boy in the potato field and one in the garden by a cane fence.6 I ought to be able to put some effort into them.

I’d like to get to the point in knowledge of the nude and the structure of the figure where I can work from memory. I’d like to work either with Verlat or at another studio for a while, and for the rest also paint from models for myself as much as possible. At the moment I’ve left 5 paintings — 2 portraits, 2 landscapes, 1 still life — with Verlat’s painting class at the academy.9 I’ve just been there again, but each time I haven’t found him there. But I’ll soon be able to let you know how that turns out. And I hope to arrange it so that I can paint from the model at the academy all day, which would make it easier for me, since the models are so awfully expensive that I can’t keep it up.

My dear Theo,

Wanted to tell you that Verlat has seen my work at last, and when he saw the two landscapes and the still life that I brought with me from the country, he said — ‘yes, but that doesn’t concern me’ — when I showed him the two portraits he said — that’s different, if it’s the figure you can come. So I’m going to begin tomorrow by starting work in the painting class at the academy. While I’ve moreover arranged with Vinck (a pupil of Leys’s by whom I saw things in the manner of Leys, medieval) to draw some plaster casts in the evening.

My dear Theo,

Don’t be cross with me that I’ve come all of a sudden.1 I’ve thought about it so much and I think we’ll save time this way. Will be at the Louvre from midday, or earlier if you like. A reply, please, to let me know when you could come to the Salle Carrée.2 As for expenses, I repeat, it comes to the same thing. I have some money left, that goes without saying, and I want to talk to you before spending anything.3 We’ll sort things out, you’ll see. So get there as soon as possible. I shake your hand.

Yours truly,

Vincent

And now for what regards what I myself have been doing, I have lacked money for paying models, else I had entirely given myself to figure painting but I have made a series of colour studies in painting simply flowers, red poppies, blue corn flowers and myosotis. White and rose roses, yellow chrysanthemums – seeking oppositions of blue with orange, red and green, yellow and violet, seeking THE BROKEN AND NEUTRAL TONES to harmonise brutal extremes. 

Trying to render intense COLOUR and not a grey harmony