596 To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Thursday, 12 April 1888.

metadata

No. 596 (Brieven 1990 597, Complete Letters B3)
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Emile Bernard
Date: Arles, on or about Thursday, 12 April 1888

Source status

Original manuscript

Location

New York, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum

Date

See for our dating of on or about Thursday, 12 April 1888: letter 595, Date.

Sketch

Orchard bordered by cypresses (F - / JH 1390), letter sketch. Colour notations: at top left: ‘ciel gros bleu’ (Big blue sky); in the left-hand tree: ‘pecher rose’ (pink peach-tree); in the centre background, twice beside the treetops and once in the group of trees at the same height as the word ‘blanc’ (white): ‘cypres’ (cypress); in the right-hand tree: ‘poirier blanc’ (white pear-tree); in the trees in the centre: ‘verger en fleur’ (orchard in blossom); on the ground under the trees: ‘lilas’ (lilac), three times; on the path under the trees: ‘vert jaune’ (green yellow); on the fences at left and right, and on the roof on the right: ‘jaune’, three times; on the path: ‘chemin jaune’ (yellow path) and ‘jaune’; by the upper strip beside the path: ‘ail vert emeraude’ (emerald-green garlic); by the lower strip: ‘emeraude’; on the strip in the foreground, beside the path: ‘rigole d’eau bleu vert’ (ditch with blue green water); on the patch of land in the left foreground: ‘lilas’; and on the patch in the foreground: ‘vert jaune’ (green-yellow).

original text

1r:1

Mon cher copain Bernard

merci de ta bonne lettre et des croquis y-inclus de ta décoration que je trouve bien drôle.–1 Je regrette parfois de ne pas pouvoir me résoudre à travailler davantage chez moi et de fantaisie. Certainement – l’imagination est une capacité qu’il faut developper et elle seule peut nous faire arriver à créer une nature plus exaltante & plus consolatrice que ce que le clin d’oeil seul sur la realité (que nous apercevons changeante, passant vite comme l’éclair) nous fasse apercevoir.–

Un ciel étoilé par exemple, tiens – c’est une chôse que je voudrais essayer à faire de même que le jour j’essayerai à peindre une verte prairie etoilée de pissenlits.

Comment pourtant y arriver à moins de me résoudre à travailler chez moi et d’imagination.– Ceci donc à ma critique et à ta louange.

Actuellement je suis pris par les arbres fruitiers en fleur, pêchers roses, poiriers blancs-jaunes.2

1v:2

Ne suis aucun système de touche, je tape sur la toile à coups irréguliers que je laisse tels quels, des empâtements, des endroits de toile pas couvertes – par ci par là des coins laissés fatalement inachevés – des reprises, des brutalités, enfin le résultat est, je suis porté à le croire, assez inquietant et agaçant pour que ca ne fasse pas le bonheur des gens à idées arrêtées d’avance sur la technique.–

Voici d’ailleurs un croquis, l’entrée d’un verger de Provence avec ses clotures jaunes de roseaux, avec son abri (contre le mistral), des cypres noirs, avec ses legumes caracteristiques de verts variés, salades jaunes, oignons & ail & poireaux émeraudes.3

Tout en travaillant toujours directement sur place je cherche à saisir dans le dessin ce qui est essentiel – puis les espaces limitées par des contours (exprimés ou non) mais sentis dans tous les cas, je les remplis des tons simplifiés egalement, dans ce sens que tout 1v:3 [sketch A]

1r:4

ce qui sera terrain participera d’un même ton violacé, que tout le ciel aura une tonalité bleue, que les verdures seront ou bien des verts bleus ou bien des verts jaunes, exagérant à dessein les qualites jaunes ou bleues dans ce cas.4 Enfin mon cher copain – pas du trompe l’oeil en tout cas.– Pour ce qui est d’aller visiter Aix, Marseille, Tanger, pas de danger, si c’est que pourtant j’y aillea ce serait en quête de logement à meilleur compte &c. Sans cela, je suis persuadé que travaillant toute ma vie pourrais pas à moitié près faire tout ce qui est caractéristique de cette ville seule.–

à propos ai vu des combats de taureaux dans les arênes ou plutôt des simulacres de combats vu que les taureaux étaient nombreux mais que personne ne les combattait.– Seulement la foule etait magnifique, les grandes foules bariolées. Superposées à 2, 3 étages de gradins avec l’effet de soleil et d’ombre et d’ombre portée de l’immense cercle.– Te souhaite bon voyage5 – poignee de main en pensée, ton ami

Vincent

translation

1r:1

My dear old Bernard,

Thanks for your kind letter and the croquis of your decoration included with it, which I find really amusing.1 I sometimes regret that I can’t decide to work more at home and from the imagination. Certainly — imagination is a capacity that must be developed, and only that enables us to create a more exalting and consoling nature than what just a glance at reality (which we perceive changing, passing quickly like lightning) allows us to perceive.

A starry sky, for example, well — it’s a thing that I’d like to try to do, just as in the daytime I’ll try to paint a green meadow studded with dandelions.

But how to arrive at that unless I decide to work at home and from the imagination? This, then, to criticize myself and to praise you.

At present I’m busy with the fruit trees in blossom: pink peach trees, yellow-white pear trees.2 1v:2

I follow no system of brushwork at all; I hit the canvas with irregular strokes which I leave as they are, impastos, uncovered spots of canvas — corners here and there left inevitably unfinished — reworkings, roughnesses; well, I’m inclined to think that the result is sufficiently worrying and annoying not to please people with preconceived ideas about technique.

Here’s a croquis, by the way, the entrance to a Provençal orchard with its yellow reed fences, with its shelter (against the mistral), black cypresses, with its typical vegetables of various greens, yellow lettuces, onions and garlic and emerald leeks.3

While always working directly on the spot, I try to capture the essence in the drawing — then I fill the spaces demarcated by the outlines (expressed or not) but felt in every case, likewise with simplified tints, in the sense that everything 1v:3

[sketch A]

1r:4

that will be earth will share the same purplish tint, that the whole sky will have a blue tonality, that the greenery will either be blue greens or yellow greens, deliberately exaggerating the yellow or blue values in that case.4 Anyway, my dear pal, no trompe l’oeil in any case. As for going to visit Aix, Marseille, Tangier, no fear; if I were to go there, though, it would be in search of cheaper lodgings, &c. Otherwise, I’m convinced that if I worked my whole life, couldn’t do as much as half of all that is characteristic of this town alone.

By the way, have seen bullfights in the arenas, or rather, simulated fights, seeing that the bulls were numerous but nobody was fighting them. But the crowd was magnificent, great multicoloured crowds. One on top of the other on 2, 3 tiers, with the effect of sun and shade and the shadow cast by the immense circle. Wish you bon voyage5 — handshake in thought, your friend

Vincent

notes

1. No such sketches are known. They would have been for the decoration of the wooden studio that had been built for Bernard in his parents’ garden in Asnières. There may be a connection with the paintings of ‘flowers ... trees ... fields’ mentioned by Van Gogh in letter 696. With thanks to Fred Leeman.

2. Van Gogh was working on two paintings of a peach and pear orchard: Orchard bordered by cypresses (F 513 / JH 1389 ) and Orchard with peach trees in blossom (F 551 / JH 1396 ). See letter 597.

3. The altered ductus at this point on the page indicates that Van Gogh first made the sketch, Orchard bordered by cypresses (F - / JH 1390), on the facing page before returning to the letter. He made two paintings of the subject: Orchard bordered by cypresses (F 554 / JH 1388 ) and Orchard surrounded by cypresses (F 513 / JH 1389 ), the first, smaller work probably preceding the second. Judging by the composition and the colour notations on the sketch, the latter was probably made after the first painting.

4. Van Gogh is suggesting that his style is in line with the Cloisonnism of Bernard and Anquetin. The object of this tactical remark was to stress that they were all following the same path, whereas in fact he worked differently in several important respects; out of doors, and employing a coarse, visible brushstroke. Bernard painted in the studio and avoided impasto. See for Cloisonnism: letter 575, n. 7 and letter 620, nn. 11 and 12.

a. Read: ‘si j’y vais tout de même’.

5. Bernard had spent the summers of 1886 and 1887 in Brittany, mainly in Saint-Briac, and was now preparing to go there again. He left for Saint-Briac on 23 April 1888. See Harscoët-Maire 1997, p. 162.