Van Gogh: Painted With Words Page #2

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and Dickens' writings about London's working class

living in squalid poverty,

left a lasting impression on Vincent.

"The mud lay thick upon the stones

"and a black mist hung over the streets.

"The hideous, old man seemed like some loathsome reptile,

"crawling forth by night,

"in search of some rich offal for a meal."

There's such a yearning for religion among the people in those big cities.

Many a worker in a factory or shop

has had a remarkably pious, pure youth.

George Eliot describes the life of factory workers

who hold religious services in a chapel in Lantern Yard.

"The pulpit

"where the minister delivered unquestioned doctrine, and swayed

"to and fro"

"..and handled the book in a long-accustomed manner.

"These had been the channel of divine influences

"for Silas Marner.

"They were the fostering home of his religious emotions,

"they were Christianity

"and God's kingdom upon Earth."

Reading George Eliot's novels about English evangelism

reminded Vincent of his own upbringing in a religious home.

Wanting now to follow in his father's footsteps,

he immersed himself in the study of the Bible.

But his preoccupation with religion

led him to neglect his duties in the art firm,

so he was fired.

He now tried to get a position as a teacher's assistant,

hoping this would help him reach his goal of entering the church.

'Dear Theo,

'I received a letter from a teacher in Ramsgate, who suggested that I come there for a month,

'without pay, in order to see whether he can use me at the end of that time.

'It's a beautiful route.

'The sky was a light blue, with grey and white clouds.'

'You can imagine, I was looking out of the window for Ramsgate

a long time before I got there.'

Herewith, a little drawing of the view from the school window.

Where the boys stand and watch their parents going back

to the station after a visit.

Determined to make himself useful to those he saw suffering around him,

Vincent taught Sunday school to children from the London markets and streets.

And on the 12th November 1876,

he delivered his first sermon.

We are pilgrims in the earth and strangers.

We come from afar and we are going far.

The journey of our life goes from the

loving breast of our Mother on Earth

to the arms of our Father in heaven.

Theo,

your brother spoke for the first time in God's house last Sunday.

When I stood up on the pulpit,

I felt like someone emerging out of a dark,

underground vault into the friendly daylight, and

it's a wonderful feeling

to think that from wherever I go from now on, I'll be preaching the gospel.

Religion came to dominate his letters to his family,

with his Biblical fanaticism seeping into the language.

My brother, let us take care.

Let us ask Him who is above,

who also maketh intercession for us, that He should keep us from the evil.

Yea, let us watch and be sober, let us trust in the Lord with all of our heart,

and lean not unto our own understanding.

Let us ask that He compel us to come in.

To be meek,

longsuffering and lowly,

sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

He writes many letters,

long ones too,

and when reading them,

one is inclined to say how can

a simple clergyman come out of this?

And then again there is

nevertheless something good in them as well.

When Vincent returned to Holland,

his father agreed to support his preparation to enter the ministry.

But he struggled with his studies,

and quit after a year.

The only option left to him was missionary work,

and in January 1879

he was appointed as a lay-preacher in the Borinage,

a coal-mining district in Belgium.

Going down in a mine is an unpleasant business,

in a kind of basket or cage like a bucket in a well,

so that down there looking upward,

the daylight appears to be about as big as a star in the sky.

The workers get used to it, but

even so, they never shake off an unconquerable feeling of horror and dread.

Vincent was truly sickened by the plight of the miners' lives.

Nursing the sick and injured

became just as important to him as preaching.

He gave away most of his possessions

in the hope of alleviating their suffering.

But once again, after his six month trial,

he failed to make the grade.

Vincent was jobless once more.

His father was so concerned about his state of mind

that he considered having him committed to a psychiatric hospital.

I, for one,

am a man of passions,

capable and liable to do rather foolish things

for which I sometimes feel rather sorry.

For example, you know well that I've neglected my appearance.

I admit it's rather shocking.

Must one consider oneself a dangerous man incapable of anything at all? I don't think so.

Money troubles - ha!

And poverty have something to do with it.

Now you say, from such and such a time you've been going downhill, you've faded away,

you've done nothing.

Now that being so, what's to be done?

Theo worried about his brother,

but recognising a talent in Vincent's sketches of the miners,

encouraged him to apply himself more seriously to art.

Vincent, being his own man, wasn't really interested in following any traditional art education.

Instead, he taught himself using this artist's manual

by Charles Bargue.

'Careful study and constant repeated drawing of Bargue's exercises

'has given me more insight into figure drawing.

'I've learned to measure and to see and to attempt the broad outlines, etc,

'so that what used to seem to me to be desperately impossible is now gradually

'becoming possible.

'Drawing is the root of everything.'

After years in the wilderness,

Vincent had finally found his vocation.

My plan is not to spare myself,

not to avoid a lot of difficulties and emotions.

It's of a relative indifference to me whether I live a long or short time.

I'm concerned with the world only

in that I have a certain...

obligation, or duty,

if you like, having walked the world for 30 years to leave

a souvenir of gratitude in the form

of paintings

or drawings.

Van Gogh was from the very beginning, and would remain,

a man of the people,

identifying with the peasants, the working class,

with the outcasts.

And all his letters from now on document his single-minded immersion in art

- his own and the work of those he most admired.

In particular the French artist Jean Francois Millet,

famous for his realistic scenes of peasant farmers' lives.

I feel the need to study figure drawing from masters like Millet.

"In art, one must give one's heart and soul," he says.

'I have already drawn The Sower five times, and I'm so completely

absorbed in that figure, I will take it up again.

'Nature...

'always begins by resisting the draughtsman.

'It sometimes resembles what Shakespeare calls taming the shrew,

'ie to conquer the opposition through perseverance,

willy-nilly.

'If I succeed in putting some warmth and love into the work,

'then it will find friends.'

Although Vincent was able to put love into his work,

it was proving difficult to find in his life.

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