a. Read: ‘s’installer’.

1. Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562 ). See letter 668, n. 2, for the number of flowers.

2. Quinces, lemons, pears and grapes (F 383 / JH 1339 ).

3. See letter 668, n. 5, for Manet’s Vase of peonies on a pedestal .

4. For the concept of ‘haloing’ see letter 668, n. 7. Van Gogh had used this technique in his painting Sunflowers in a vase (F 459 / JH 1560 ).

5. Georges Seurat, La Grande Jatte (Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte), 1884-1886. (The Art Institute of Chicago. Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection). Ill. 425 . Van Gogh probably saw the work at the VIIIe Exposition de peinture impressioniste (15 May - 15 June 1886), and in February 1888 in Seurat’s studio; see letter 589, n. 19.

6. Van Gogh could have seen Signac’s work in Paris at the VIIIe Exposition de peinture impressioniste (15 May - 15 June 1886), the second and third exhibitions of the Indépendants (21 August - 21 September 1886 and 26 March - 3 May 1887 respectively) and at La Revue Indépendante in the winter of 1887-1888. There is nothing to indicate that he had been to Signac’s studio.

7. Louis Anquetin, The boat at sunset, 1887 (present whereabouts unknown). It was exhibited at La Revue Indépendante in Paris during the winter of 1887-1888, where Van Gogh would have seen it. See exhib. cat. Toronto 1981, pp. 229-230.

8. Van Gogh had painted two portraits of Roulin the postman in late July and early August: Joseph Roulin (F 432 / JH 1522 ) and Joseph Roulin (F 433 / JH 1524 ).

9. Gustave Flaubert’s unfinished novel Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881), which was published posthumously, is a satire on human stupidity. Flaubert describes the adventures of two clerks, Bouvard and Pécuchet, who inherit enough to allow them to realize their dream of giving up their jobs and retiring to the country. However they are unable to manage their country estate efficiently and, seeking an explanation for their failure, throw themselves into the study of science, history, philosophy, religion and spiritualism. All their projects are doomed to failure because their book-learning does not outweigh their lack of common sense. In the end they decide to go back to their jobs as copy-clerks.

b. Read: ‘Vau’.

10. Joris-Karl Huysmans’ novel A vau-l’eau (1882) examines petit-bourgeois life in the suburbs of Paris. The central character, Folantin, dreams of the high life, but he is poor, eats in cheap cafés and seeks relief in brothels to satisfy his yearning for love. He is so bored that he is constantly looking for new challenges, yet all he finds is the misery of the everyday, ennui.

11. See letter 464, n. 2 ff. for Zola’s Au bonheur des dames.

12. See letter 568, n. 11, for Maupassant’s Bel-ami.

13. See letter 645, n. 2, for Don Quixote. By the two ‘ways of seeing things’ Van Gogh means the options he has outlined before: either furnish the Yellow House and make it habitable (an investment that will save money in the long run), or stay in cheap lodgings (the rash solution à la Don Quixote).

14. The gardener Patience Escalier had posed for the paintingPatience Escalier (‘The peasant’) (F 443 / JH 1548 ) some two weeks earlier; see letter 663. The second sitting resulted in Patience Escalier (‘The peasant’) (F 444 / JH 1563 ).

15. MacKnight left Fontvieille in late August 1888 for Moret-sur-Loing. He headed to Brittany in November. See Bailey 2007, pp. 33-34.

16. After he left Arles on 4 September, Boch went by way of Paris, where he stayed for a while, back to Belgium to paint in the Borinage. He remained there until 1891. See exhib. cat. Saarbrücken 1971, p. 51.